UC-NRLF iilliiliiliilliiililliiiliiiiiil'^l'liii^^^ B 3 335 fibT University of California. j^ ^ G-IFT OF • i HENRY DOUGLASS BACON. 1877. Aeeessiom No. ../^.^_.C.^... Shelf No. SgJKL^ i:2:^x:o .j:>'' >a5)v 3:1 5^>Xi> -I^^^i":; 3» ^>^^ :>-^^;7_ ;a ^J^ ^3 ^ ^^ :^-^:>_ ' t^^ 13» ^ St }2> ^5> > - > 1 y _ )~3j>J>^ |^ak% ^^ THE COMIC ANNUAL FOR 1846. A REPUBLICATION OF HOOD'S " ^VHIMSICALITIES." WITH FOKTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS, iFtom iicgigng bg ILteci) HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1846. PRICE V2s. BOUNn. IIP BV «1I,IIAM WII.COCKSOK.mi CONTENTS. PART I. ^7 AXACREOiNTIC. FOR THE ^EW YEAR . THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD A 3I0RNING THOUGHT . no! THE TOWER OF LAHNECK TO 3IY DAUGHTER, ON HER BIRTHOAY . A SEA-TOTALLER EPIGRAM. ON MRS. I-ARKEs's PAMPHLET THE forge; A ROMANCE OF THE IRON AGE HOWQUA . . . . THE DEFAULTER. " AN OWRE THUE TALE ' SONNET ..... AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION . THE EARTH-QUAKERS . THE FLOWER : . . . THE GRIMSBY GHOST EPIGRAM. ON THE ART-UNIONS A BLACK JCB .... 3 72 73 75 93 i/i 10(i 107 1^7 I'jiS 159 16i) lb3 184 lh5 21 !• 215 CONTENTS. iMRS. GARJ>IXER ; A HOKTICl I.TL'RAL KOMANCK EPIGRAM, ON THE DISASTERS AT CABLL THE REPEAL OF THE UNION EPIGRAM. ON A LATE CATTLE-SHOW IN SMITH HELD MORE HILLAKBALOO .... A TALE OF TERROR .... ON A CERTAIN LOCALITY A SKETCH ON THE ROAD "laying DCMN THE LAW " HYDROPATHY, OR THE COLD WATER CURE . pa(;k 225 'i()3 2ti4- 26 y 270 279 278 2BI 235 290 TAUT 11. MR. CIILBB: a PISCATORY ROMANCE . EPIGRAM. ON THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE A VERY SO-SO CHARACTER NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE PARTY' SPIRIT .... NEWS FROM CHINA .... NEW HARMONY .... ETCHING MORALIZED .... A REFLECTION ON NEW YEAB's EVE THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND spring: A NEW VERSION . THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE PIROUETTES .... 1 28 29 :3l 31 33 34, 77 bO yo 91 105 107 135 CONTENTS. AN UNWEKTAKER . . . . .136 A FIRST ATTEWPT IN RHYME . . , . 141 HORSE AND FOOT . . . . .115 EPIGRAM. ON THE CHINESE TREATY . . . 153 THE SEASON . . . . .154 31R. WITUERINg's CONSUMPTION AND ITS CUKE . 15.3 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD . . . . 1 74 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS . . . . 188 A HARD CASE . . . . . .214 ON THE PORTRAIT OF A I.ADY TAKEN BY THE DAGUERREOTYPE . . . . . 2 1 7 THE LEE SHORE . . . . .218 ENGLISH RETROGRESSION . . . . . 219 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY .... 222 EPIGRAM. ON THE DEPRECIATED MONEY . . . 24i) THE LITTLE BROWNS ..... 250 THE TURTLES . . . ' . . . 255 EPIGRAM . . . . . .261 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PIKENIX . . . . 262 [HE O.MNIBUS . . .... 303 MR. WAKLEY' AND THE POETS . . . . 309 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. TIME MISS CRANE THE GIRL WOMAN . A PIECE OF FANCY WORK THE PASTE-RY COOK BAD FRENCH NOVEMBER THE SHORT PLEDGE THE SEA-TOTALLER TEA-TOTALLERS MR. PRYME VOCAL POLICE A PRY'ME BABY' AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION JAMES HOCKIN THE REVEREND MR. CRUMPLER A DEAD LETTER . THE GRIMSBY' GHOST MRS. GARDINER A FASHIONABLE SPECULATION A GARDEN ROLLER IF AND BUTT THE COLD WATER CURE . MY EYES : THERE'S A MOUSE : DEAR GUS . HULLAH-BALOO "DOES Y'OUR MOTHER KNOW Y'OU 'RE OUT A CAPITAL PUMP . THE OLD GENTLEMAN CAPITAL T . AN UNDERTAKER . A FULL HABIT MRS. BUTTON A DISCOVERY "CHAIR. CHAIR!" . THE GREAT NAPOLEON OF THE REALMS OF EK TEMPTATION AT HAND DOCTORS DIFFER . CAPITAL B THE TETE A TETE THE BOUDOIR A BROWN STUDY . THE PHCENIX SORROW AND HEAVY WET THE LITERARY LION DESIGXEU T. H. J. LEECH. J. LEECH. ANACREONTIC. FOR THE NEW YEAR. Come, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass Found a proper excuse or fit season, For toasts to be honour'cl, or pledges to pass, Sm-e, this hour brings an exquisite reason ; 2 ANACREONTIC. For hark ! the last chime of the dial has ceased, And Old Time, who his leisure to cozen^ Had finish'd the Months, like the flasks at a feast, Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen ! Hip ! Hip ! and Hurrah ! Then fill, all ye Happy and Free, unto whom The past Year has been pleasant and sunny : Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom Of the thyme whence the bee gathers honey — Days usher'd by dew-drops, instead of the tears, Maybe, wrung from some wretcheder cousin — Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen ! Hip ! Hip I and Hurrah ! And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast. And been bov/'d to the earth by its fury ; To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd, Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury, — Slill, fill to the Future ! and join in our chime. The regrets of remembrance to cozen. And having obtained a New Trial of Time, Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen ! Hip ! Hip I and Hurrah ! THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. AN EXTRAVAGANZA. CH. AFTER I. She tawght 'hem to sew and marke, All manner of sylkyn weike, Of her they were ful fayr.e. Romance of Emare. A Schoolmistress ought not to travel — No, sir ! No, madam — except on the map. There, in- deed, 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 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 prac- tical travelHng, — real journeying and voyaging, — oh, never, never, never I How, sir! Would you deny to a Preceptress all the excursive pleasures of locomotion ? B 2 4 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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 — provided always Well, sir? That she goes by a special train, and in a first- class carriage. Ridiculous ! Nay, madam — consider her pretensions. She is little short of a Divinity ! — Diana, without the hunting ! — a modernized Minerva ! — the Repre- sentative of Womanhood in all its purity ! — Eve, in full dress, with a finished education ! — a Model of Morality ! — a Pattern of Propriety ! — the Fugle- woman 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 — wall suffice for the character. She must be as correct as a prize chronometer. She must be her own Prospectus personified. Spotless in reputa- tion, 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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. O — a pure crystal fountain, sipped by little doves of alabaster. A sweet pretty comparison ! Well, go on, sir ! Now, look at travelling. At the best, it is a rambling, scrambling, shift- making, strange- bedding, irregular-mealing, foreign-habiting, hel- ter-skelter, higgledy-piggledy sort of process. At the very least, a female must expect to be rmnpled 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, disturbed in her temper, disordered in her dress, and deranged in her decorum. But you shall hear the sentiments of a Schoolmistress on the subject. Oh ! a made-up letter. No, miss, — a genuine epistle, upon my literary b THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. honour. Just look at the writing — the real copy- book running-hand — not a t uncrossed — not an z undotted — not an illegitmate flourish of a letter, l)ut 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 troublesome 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 w^orn a backboard, and even her S is hardly allowed to be crooked ! CHAPTER II. '•' Phoo ! phoo ! it's all banter," exclaims the Courteous Reader. Banter be hanged ! replies the Courteous Writer. But possibl}^, my good sir, you have never seen that incomparable schoolmistress, 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 morning the same identical face and figure, the same cor- THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. / rect, ceremonious creature, and in the same cos- tume 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 Knowledge to have been a poplar, she was the very Dryad to have fitted it! Otherwise, remember- ing that unique image, all fancy and frost work — so incrusted with crisp and brittle particularities — so bedecked allegorically with the primrose of prudence, the daisy of decorum, the violet of modesty, and the lily of purity, you would confess at once that such a Schoolmistress was as unfit to travel — unpacked — as a Dresden China figure I Excuse me, sir, but is there actually such a real personage ? Real ! Are there real Natives — Real Blessings to Mothers — Real Del Monte shares, and Real 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 wnll instantly recoo-nise their old Governess in the form with o which, mixing up Grace and Gracefulness, she daily prefaced their rice-milk, batter-puddings, or raspberry-bolsters. As thus : 8 TIIH SCIIOOI.MISTRRSS AIJROAD. " For what wc are goino; to receive — elbows, elbows ! — the Lord make us — backs in and shoulders down — truly thankful — and no chatter- ing — amen." MISS CRANE. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. » 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 gover- ness writes home ! " " The professional epistle," adds a tall, thin Instructress, genteelly in at the elbows, but shab- b5 10 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. bily 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 coachworaan, 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 forgotten my promise as utterly as if it had never been made. If any one had furnished the matter with a file and a rope-ladder it could not have escaped more clearly from my remem- brance. 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 inven- tion — namely, a note of interrogation (?) with the appropriate motto of " an answer required." And in token of its authenticity, pray observe THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 1 1 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 sivea?' that the missive has come from Holland; yes, as certainly as if it smelt of Dutch cheese, pickle- herring-s and Schie * * * ! But hark to Governess ! " My dear Miss Parfitt, " Under the protection of a superintending Providence we have arrived safely at this place, which as you know is a seaport 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 inca- pacitated 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 feel- ings 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 and perpetual blush. Such shocking scenes and positions, that make one ask 12 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. twenty times a day, is this decorum ? — can this be morals ? But I must not anticipate. Suffice it, that as regards foreign traveUing it is my painful conviction, founded on personal 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 car- riage. In that particular I quite coincide with Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Hannah More, and other wi'iters on the subject. But how — let me ask — how is a dignified deportment to be maintained when one has to skip and straddle over cables, ropes, and other nautical hors d'oeuvres — to scram- ble up and down impracticable stairs, and to clamber into inaccessible beds ? Not to name the sudden losing one's centre of gravity, and falUno- in all sorts of unstudied attitudes on a o sloppy and slippery deck. An accident that I may say reduces the elegant and the awkward female to the same level. You will be concerned, therefore, to learn that poor Miss Ruth had a fall, THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD, 13 and in an unbecoming posture particularly dis- tressing — 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 remembrance to make a false step, or to miss a stair : there is a certain guarded carriage that preserves one from such sprawling denouemens — ^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 copybook-board, and what really is awful, with the sensation of groping about with your feet and legs for a floor that seems to have no earthly existence. 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 14 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. little girls who had too evidently enjoyed a bad bringing up. " To tell the truth, your poor Governess was shockingly indisposed. Not that I had indulged my appetite at dinner, being too much disgusted with a public meal in promiscuous society, and as might be expected, elbows on table, eating with knives, and even picking teeth with forks ! And then no grace, which assuredly ought to be said both before and after, whether we are to retain the blessings or not. But a dinner at sea and a school dinner, where we have even our regular beef and batter days, are two very different things. Then to allude to indiscriminate con- versation, 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 and atheistical senti- ments, 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 endeavour, in one instance, to rebuke indelicacy; but unfortu- nately from standing near the funnel, was smutty all the while I was talking, and as school expe- rience confirms, it is impossible to command respect with a black on one's nose. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 15 " Another of our Cardinal Virtues, personal cleanliness, is totally impracticable on ship-board : but without particularizing, I will only name a general sense of grubbiness ; and as to dress, a rumpled and tumbled tout ensemble, strongly indi- cative of the low and vulgar pastime of rolling down Greenwich-hill ! And then, in such a costume to land in Holland, 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 all the little secrets of the toilette, and all the mysteries of a female wardrobe exposed to the searching gaze of a male official — Oh, 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 hoyden, or a girl accustomed to those new-fangled pulley-hauley exercises, 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, 16 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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 Reverend Parent and my Sister are still inclined to prosecute a Continental Tour. I forgot to tell you that during the voyage. Miss Ruth endeavoured to parlez fran^ois 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 care, 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 Reverend T. C. desires his compliments to you, and Miss Ruth adds her kind regards with which believe me, " My dear Miss Pai-fitt, " Your affectionate Friend and Preceptress, " Priscilla Crane. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 17 " P. S. I have just overheard a lady describing, with strange levity, an adventure that befell her at Cologne. A foreign postman invading her sleep- ing-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 ! Fi done ! Fidonc!" CHAPTER 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- colom'ed curls. " A proper letter ! — what, with all that fuss about delicacy and decorum ! " Yes, miss. At least proper for the character. A Schoolmistress is a prude by profession. She is bound on her reputation 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 18 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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-mushrooms 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 / 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 unques- tionably very a la mode, and very dashing, and very pretty, and may be very useful — but to have a youth about one, so beautifully 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 sou in disguise.'''' THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 19 CHAPTER 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 disaffected Merthyr Tydvil miners or underminers were scuttling the Island, so many of the natives scuttled out of it. The outlandish secretaries who sign passports, had hardly leisure to take snuff. It was good, however, for trade. Cai'pet-bags and portmanteaus rose one hundred per cent. All sorts of Guide-books and Journey Works went off like Avildfire, and even Sir Humphrey 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. 20 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. It resembled a geographical panic — and of all the Country and Branch Banks in Christendom, never was there such a run as on the Banks of the Rhine. You would have thought that they were ffoino: to break all to smash — of course making away beforehand with their splendid furniture, unrivalled pictures, and capital cellar of wines ! However, off flew our countrymen and country- women, like migrating swallows, but at the wrong time of year; or rather like shoals of salmon, striving up, up, up against the stream, except to spawn Tours and Reminiscences, 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 patient Grizels ! how they did bore and Germanize us, hke so many flutes. It was impossible to go into society without meeting units, tens, hundreds, thousands of Rhe- nish 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, deafened them with Dorfs, THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. t? I 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 in its own countr}', and drunk seltzer- water at the foun- tain-head ! What a donkey they deemed him who had not been to Assmanshauser — 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 Geo- graphy, 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 had always to mark his new shirts, in cross-stitch, with the Reverend T. C. and the number — " the Reverend" at full lenolh. 2'2 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. Accordingly, as soon as the Midsummer holi- days 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 recollections 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. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. *23 CHAPTER VI. " Now of all 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 any one — for no doubt it would have been a pattern for the whole sex. All I know is, that she once worked a hearth-rug, 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 realh' not so very unlike a carroty-cat in a bed of spinach. But the face was a dead failure. It was not in the gentlewomanly nature, nor indeed consistent with the professional principles of Miss Crane, to let a wild, rude, ungovernable creature go out of her hands; and accordingly the feline physiog- nomy 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 Babv still — and though she put a circle of fiei-y 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 respect- able parent — a pretty, ornithological design — so '24 TlIK SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. that when the Reverend T. C wanted to sit, there was ready for him a little bird's-nest, with a bateh of speekled eggs. And moreover, besides the chair-bottom but, in short, between ourselves, there was so much Fancy work done at licbanon House, that there was no time for any real. , \'-:-\.v>\\-.> ' \sx\\s\.- .\ sxVvw.o \-\\\v;ii^ A PIECE OF I'ANCY WOUIC. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD, ZO CHAPTER VII. There arc 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 comfortable old Elizabethan livery, maroon-colour, picked out with white. It was anciently the residence of a noble famil}^, whose crest, 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 Terres- trial Globes. The house, nevertheless, would still seem venerable enough, but that over the old panelled door, as if taking advantage of the fan- light, there sit, night and da}'', two very modern plaster of Paris Httle 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 Young 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, VOL. I. c 26 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD, that the name Avas bestowed in allusion to a remark- ably fine Cedar, which traditionally 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 any one 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. " Sally, are the ladies at home ?" " Lawk ! sir ! — why haven't you heard ? Miss Crane and Miss Ruth are a pleasuring on a Tower up the Rind — and the Reverend Mr. C. is enjoy- ing hisself in Germany along with them." * * * * . Alas ! poor Sally ! Alas ! 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 Omni- presence and Omniscience. As for mere mortals, they must daily vent falsehoods in spite of them- THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. '21 selves. Thus, at the very moment, while Sally was telling us — but let Truth herself correct the Errata. For — " The Reverend Mr. C. enjoying himself in Germany — " Read — " Writhing ivith spasms in a miserable Prussian inn.'' For — " Miss Crane and Miss Ruth a-pleasiu^ing on a Tour up the Rhine — "' Read — " Wishing themselves home again icith all their hearts and souls."' 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 Nime- guen — with the Douane at Arnheim — and wnth the Speise-Karte at Cologne To be taken ill, poor gentleman, with his old spasms, in such a place as the road between Tod- berg 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 I c 2 28 THE SCHOOLTHISTRESS ABROAD. The groans of the sufferer were pitiable — but what could be done for his rehef? on a blank desolate common without a house in sight — no, not a hut ! His afflicted daughters could only try to sooth him with words, vain words— assua- sive perhaps of mental pains, but as to any dis- course arresting a physical ache, — you might as THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. "29 well take a pin to pin a bull with. Besides, the poor women wanted eomforting themselves. Gra- cious Heaven ! Think of two single females, v^rith a sick, perhaps 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 sym- pathy 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 syllables. If they had only possessed a cordial — a flask of eau de vie ! Such a thing had indeed been pro- posed 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 sigh and moan — his two girls could feel him twisting about between them. "Oh, my poor dear papa!" murmiured 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 ! 30 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " Oh — 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 coach- man, but with the same result as before ; namely, two words in the unknown tongue. " Ruth, what is yar vole ?" Ruth shook her head in the dark. " If he would only drive faster ! " exclaimed Miss (]rane, and again she talked through the front window. " My good man—" {Gefallig ?) " Ruth, what's gefallish ? " But Miss Ruth 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 Ruth ! Poor Reverend 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 every horse in Germany as soon as uttered — "Burr-r-r-r-r !" 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 black fowl painted on it, and a word underneath TUE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. ol that to her English eyes suggests a difficulty in procuring fi'esh 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 Royal 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 Kutch 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 ! Ruth ! ) What a wTetched Gracious powers ! Priscilla ! ) hole ! CHAPTER IX. I take it for granted that no English traveller would willingly lay up — unless particularly inn- disposed — 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 iU, 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 an 32 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. outlandish Hostelrie, and take a peep at its " Entertainment for Man and Horse." Bur-r-r-r-r-rrrr ! The 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 luiir — Now then, for a shout; and remember that in Kleinewinkel, it will serve just as well to cry " Boxkecper ! " 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 pleasant she looks ! and how kindly she smiles at every body, including 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 the mass. Nor is she content to merely give it to her THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 33 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 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 Traveller's 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 Pytha- gorean soup — and that drowned beef — and the rotten pickle-cabbage — and those terrible Hog- Cartridges — and that lump of white soap, flavoured wuth 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 Nurseiy ? So much for the " Enter- tainment for Man and Horse" — a clear proof, ay, as clear as the Author's own proof, with the date under his own hand c 5 34 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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 GuUiver, — 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 homfied 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 " " '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 French w^ore shoes a la Dryade I " '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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. OJ up the Wye, or up the Thames. I hate the Rhine. What business had they in Prussia ? And of coui'se they went through Holland. I hate flats ! " " 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." " Possibly, madam, you have never been abroad ?" " Oh, yes ! I once went over to Calais — and have hated myself ever since. I hate the Con- tinent !" " For what reason, madam ?" " Pshaw ! I hate to give reasons. I hate the Continent — because it's 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 Reverend sick father with his ridiculous spasms — I hate Dissenters — They're not High Church." " Nay, my dear madam, you are getting a little uncharitable." 36 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " 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're 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 discern- ment 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 than another, it's Jonathan. But to go back to Germany, and those THE SCHOOL AlISTRESS ABROAD. 37 that go there. Talk of Pilgrims of the Rhine ! — I hate that Bulwer. Yes, they set out, indeed, like Pilsrim's Progress, and see Lions and Beauti- fill Houses, and want Interpreters, and spy at Delectable Mountains — but there it ends ; for what with queer caps and outlandish blowses — 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 beard, 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 Frow — and to be spun round and round till I am as sick as a dog — for I hate waltz- ins;. Then don't he stink the whole house with decayed cabbage for his sour crout — I hate Ger- man cookery — and will have oiled melted butter because 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 38 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. least if I don't call it Hock, or Rude-something, 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 rambUng;. But that's not half so hateful as his Monomanium." " His what, madam ? " " Why his hankering so after suicide (I do hate Charlotte and Werter), that one can't indulge in the least tiff but he threatens to blow out his brains ! " " Seriously?" " Seriously, sir. I hate joking. And then there are his horrid noises ; for since he was in Germany he fancies that every body must be musical — T hate such wholesale notions — and so sings all day long, without a good note in his voice. So much for Foreign Touring ! But pray go on, sir, with the story of your Schoolmistress Abroad. I hate suspense." THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 39 CHAPTER XI. Now the exclamation of Miss Crane — " Gra- cious 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 geographical distance on the map, she was morally two hundred and thirty-seven thousand miles fi-om 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 element. 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 Ruth, was somewhat less disconcerted. She had by her position the srreater 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 or relief of her parent. But in every 40 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. direction in which her instinct 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 firiend to consult — no Miss Parfitt — no Cook — no John to send for the Doctor. No English — no French — nothine; but that dreadful " Gefallie;" or " Ja Wohl" — and the equally incomprehensible " Gna- dige Fran ! " As for the Reverend 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 sometimes plainly levelled his grimaces at the simple Ger- mans 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 mean time, his bewildered daughters held him one by the right hand, the other by the left, and earnestly watched his changing counte- nance, 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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 41 on a shutter was carried into his Floor-cloth Manufactory by mistake for the Hospital. The only thing that occurred to either of the females was to oppose every motion he made, — for fear it should he 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 recoil 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 significance. "Ruth, what is krank?" " How should I know,'" retorted Ruth, ^vith an asperity apt to accompany intense excitement and perplexity. " In English, it's a thing that helps to pull the bell. But look at papa — do help to sup- port him — you're good for nothing." "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 42 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. instance, she could have embroidered him a night- cap — Or netted him a silk purse — Or jjhiited liim 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 conforting or salutary — have rough-casted him with shell-work — Or coated him with red or black seals — Or enciusted him with blue alum — Or stuck him all over with coloured wafers — Or festooned him But alas ! alas ! alas I 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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 43 chicks of her oath, and six adopted ones from 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. Fancj^-work him^ indeed! I've no patience — as if with all her Berlin wools and patterns, she could fancy-work him into a picture of health. Why didn't she 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 nut- meg 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 unspasmed him in no time. I'd have whipped off his shoes and stockings, 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 your humanity."' " Warmth ! it's every thing. I'd have just given him a touch of the warming-pan, and then smothered him in blankets. Stick him all over with little roses ! stuff and nonsense — stick him into his grave at once ! Miss Crane ? Miss Goose, 44 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. rather. A poor helpless Sawney ! 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, Fd have had him on his legs again in a jiffy — and then he might have got crusty with blue alum or whatever else he preferred." " But madam — " " Such perfect apathy ! Needlework and em- broidery, forsooth!" " But madam — " " To have a dying parent before her eyes — and think of nothing 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?" " Or as to Chronology. Could you have supplied the Patient with a few prominent dates?" " Dates ! what those stony things — for a spas- modic stomach !" " Are you really at home in Arrowsmith ?" " You mean Arrow-root," THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 45 " Are you an adept in Butler's Exercises ?" "What, drawing o' corks?" " Could you critically examine him in his parts of speech — the rudiments of his native tongue?" " To be sure I could. And if it was white and furry, there's fever." " Are you acquainted, madam, with Lindley Mm-ray?" " 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 usual branches of knowledg-e and female accomplishments " "Me! What me keep a 'Cademy! Why, I've hardly had any edecation myself, but was accomphshed 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 powerless as you would be in a school-room, even so helpless, useless, and powerless was Miss 46 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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 ! 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 gutterals, as if asking her approval 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, 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. " I think," said Miss Priscilla, holding the THE SCHOOl^MISTRESS ABROAD. 47 Aviue-glass at a discreet distance from her nose, and rather prudishly sniffing the li(por, " it appears to me that it is some sort of foreign G." So saying, she prepared to retm-n the di-am 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 jxo of the glass a second or two before he got hold of it, and the Schnaps fell, with a crash, to the ground. The introduction of the cordial had, however, served to direct the mind of Miss Ruth to the propriety of procuring some refreshment for the sufferer. He certainly ought to have something, she said, for he was getting c^uite 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 horc- hound tea?" " Well, ask for it," repHed Miss 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 any thing else. And truly, when Miss Crane made the experiment, the Germans, one and all, man and woman, shook their heads at the remedy, but seemed unani- mously to recommend a certain something else. 48 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " Ruth — what is forstend nix ? " But Ruth was silent. " They all appear to think very highly of it, however," continued 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 tantalizing nature of the discussion — gave a low groan. " My poor dear papa ! He will sink — he will perish from exhaustion!" exclaimed the terrified Miss Priscilla; and with a desperate resolution, quite foreign to her nature, she volunteered on the forlorn hope, and snatching up a candle, made her way without thinking of the impropriety into the strange kitchen. The House-wife and her maid slowly followed the Schoolmistress, and whether from national phlegm or intense curiosity, or both together, offered neither help nor hin- derance to the foreign lady, but stood by, and looked on at her operations. And here be it noted, in order to properly estimate the difficulties which lay in her path, that the Governess had no distinct recollection of having; ever been in a kitchen in the course of her life. It was a Terra Incognita — a place of which she literally knew less than of Japan. Indeed, the laws, customs, ceremonies, mysteries, and THE SCH00L3IISTRESS ABROAD. 49 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 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 fu'e, might have sur- mounted her rawness. But Miss Crane was none of those natural geniuses in the art who can extemporize Flint 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 undertaken a pancake — or have got up even a hasty-pudding without 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 returned. 50 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. cup in hand, to the sick room, and proffered to her poor dear papa the resuU of her first maiden effort in cookery. "What is it?" asked Ruth, 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 !" THK PASTE-KY COUK. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 51 CHAPTER XIV. Poor Miss Crane ! The failure of her first little culinary experi- ment reduced her again to despair. If there be not already a Statue of Disappointment, she would have served for its model. It would have melted an Iron Master to have seen her with her eyes fixed intently on the unfortunate cup of paste, as if asking herself, mentally, was it possible that what she had prepared with such pains for the refi'eshment of a sick parent, was only fit for what? — Why, for the false tin stomach of a healthy bill sticker ! Dearly as she rated her professional accomplish- ments and acquirements, I verily believe that at that cruel moment she woidd 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 cunnino; 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 ? — d2 52 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. for example, in History, Geography, Botany, Con- chology, 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 I " exclaimed Miss Ruth, ajler 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 dimi- nish his own sufferings by inflicting pain on those about him. Accordingly, he no sooner overheard the wish for a Doctor, than with renewed moan- inffs and contortions he muttered the name of a drug; that he felt sure would relieve him. But the physic was as difficult to procure as the phy- sician. 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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 58 Hostess, the Maid, the Waiter, and Hans the Coachman, only shook their heads in concert, and uttered in chorus the old " forstend nicht." " Oh, I do wish," exclaimed Miss Crane, with a tone and a gesture of the keenest self-reproach, " how I do wish that I had brought Buchan's Domestic Medicine abroad with me, instead of Thomson's Seasons ! " " And of what use would that have been with- out the medicine-chest ? " asked Miss Ruth ; " for I don't pretend to write prescriptions 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 even the phleg- matic Germans. " My papa ! — my poor dear papa I " 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 ! 54 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. CHAPTER XV. " And serve him right too ! " cries the little smart bantamlike woman already introduced to the Courteous Reader. " An old good-for-nothing ! to sham worse than he was, and play on the tender feelings of two affectionate daughters ! I'd have pasted him myself if he 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 schoolmistress, and of the ancien regime, in whose code all face-making, posturing, and gesti- culations, 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 fingers ; and is it likely that she would per- sonally have had recourse to signs and signals for THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. OO which she had punished her pupils with such severity? Do you think that with her rigid notions of propriety, 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 picture she is starched and frumpish enough, and only fit "for a place among the wax-work ! " And besides, supposing physiognomical expres- sion as well as gesticulation to be included in sign-making, this Silent Art requires study and practice, and a peculiar talent ! Pray did you ever see Grimaldi ? " What, Joey ? Did I ever see Lonnon I Did I ever go to the Wells I " O rare Joe Grimaldi I Great as was my ad- miration 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 his grotesque dancing, I perhaps 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 appreciate his extraordinary power of making himself understood without being on 56 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. speaking terms with his company. His perform- ance was never, like mine, an Acted Riddle. A living Telegraph, he never failed in conveying his intelligence, but signalled it with such distinct- ness, 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 Eng- lishman 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, with- out knowing the language, ought to be prepared beforehand either to act like a Clown, or to look like a Fool. CHAPTER XVI. It was a good-natured act of honest Hans the coachman — and especially after the treatment of his Schnapps — but seeing the Enghshers at a dead lock, and partly guessing at the cause of their distress — he quietly went to the stable, saddled one of his own horses, and rode off in quest of a medical man. Luckilv he soon met with the THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 57 personage he wanted, whom with great satisfac- tion 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 correctness of costume and pro- fessional formality was scarcely inferior to the immaculate lady who presided over that establish- ment. There was no mistaking him, hke some modern practitioners, for a merchant or a man about town. He was as carefully made up as a prescription — and between the customary sables, and a Chesterfieldian comrtesy, appeared as a Doctor of the old school always used to do — hke a piece of sticking-plaster — black, poUshed, and healing. Judge then, of the horror and amazement of the Schoolmistress, when she saw before her a great clumsy-built M.D. 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 little nods ; and then he added the professional grade of the party, which happened 58 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. to be one of a most uncouth sound to an English ear. " Ruth, what's a medicine rat !" " Lord knows," answered Miss Ruth, " 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 under- taker 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 favo- rite 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 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 per- fectly unintelligible to the German, he again ad- dressed himself to his patient, and proceeded to feel his pulse. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 59 " Papa is subject to spasms in his chest," explained Miss Crane. " Pshaw — nonsense !" whined the Reverend T. C, " they're in my stomach." " They're in his stomach," repeated Miss Crane, dehcately laying her own hand, by way of expla- nation, 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 under- stand it, " Oui — c'est une indigestion, sans doute," said the Doctor. CHAPTER 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 ' me, sir ! I consider myself personally insulted, " Manger un petty boof ! As if a governess couldn't speak better French than that ! Why, it means eating a little bullock ! " fiO THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " Precisely. Bceuf, singular, masculine, a bul- lock 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 — sliai*p, grave, and circumbendibus — I should have said circum- flex, but you have put me in a fluster. French ! why it's the corner-stone of female education. It's universal, sir, from her ladyship down to her cook. We could neither dress ourselves nor our dinners without it ! 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 cogniac and the British Brandy." " I know nothing about ardent spirits, sir. And as to the French language, I am acquainted THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 61 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 little 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 Wednesdays — Telemaque on Fridays, and the French mark every day in the week." " Madam, I have no doubt of the excellence of vour system. Nevertheless it is quite true that the 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 lan- guage. For example, when he inquired after her papa — " II est tres mauvais," replied Miss Ruth wdth a desponding shake of her head. " II a avale son medecin, — et il n'est pas mieux." CHAPTER XVIII. To return to the sick chamber. Imagine the Rev. T. C. still sitting and moan- ing in his uneasy chair, the disconsolate Miss 62 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. Crane helplessly watching the parental grimaces, and the perplexed Miss Ruth standing in a brown stud}', with her eyes intently fixed on a sort of overgrown child's crib, which occupied one dark corner of the dingy apartment. " 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 his poor legs to the spasms in his poor stomach I 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 manceuvre 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. More- over, her thoughts were fully occupied by a question infallibly associated with a strange bed, namely, whether it had been aired. A specula- tion 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 SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 63 the utensil in the inn kitchen, and quite as vainly might she have hunted for it throughout the village, seeino; that no such article 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 pantomimicaUy to imitate a chambermaid in the act of warming a bed. But alas ! she " took nothing by her motion " — the Germans only turned towards each other, and shrugging their shoulders and grinning, remarked in their own tongue, " What droll people they were those Englishers !" 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 undress him?" But from this per- plexity she was unexpectedly delivered by that humble fi-iend in need, honest Hans, who no sooner 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 nilly, in the nest that had been prepared for him. The females, during the first of these opera- 64 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. tions, 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 waistcoat, and the hostess and the maid with the smallclothes and the shoes and stockings. And when, after a due and decent interval, the two governesses returned to the sick chamber, — for both had resolved on sitting up with the invalid — lo ! there lay the Reverend T. C, regu- larly 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!" 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 ab- sorbed in some active process. "Do it with your eye." The idea of winking at a strange gentleman THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 65 was however so obnoxious to all the school- mistress'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 pas dormi un morceau toute la nuit longue," ■^e-e^ BAD FRENCH. 66 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 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, to 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. Proceed, Mon- sieur. " Sare, I shall tell you my impressions when 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 Faux- bourgs, and what do I see all round myself? 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 THE SCilOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 67 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 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 oldest 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 honour ? O 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. Notmg but Lady Schools ! — 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 nobody born'd in London except leetle girls!" 68 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. CHAPTER XX. There is a certain poor word in the Enghsh 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 signifi- cance 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 community? Just ima- gine, for instance, a plain, dov^Tiright Englishman who calls a spade a spade, — induced perhaps by the facilities of the railroads — making a summer holiday, and repairing to Cambridge or Oxford, may be with his whole family, to see he does not exactly know what — whether a Collection of Pic- tures, Wax- Work, Wild Beasts, Wild Indians, a Fat Ox, or a Fat Child — but at any rate an " Exhibition r More recently the members of the faculty have taken it into their heads to misuse the unfortu- nate word, and by help of its misapplication, are continually promising to the ear what the druggists really perform to the eye — namely, to " exhibit " < THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 69 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. Rhei — Magnes. sulphat. — or tinct. jalapae, 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 signi- ficance; for it is certain that in many diseases, and especially of the hypocondriac class — it is cer- tain, I say, that if the practitioner actually made " a show" of his materiel, the patient would recover at the mere sight of the " Exhibition." This was precisely the case with the Rev. T. C. Had he fallen into the hands of a Homoeopathist with his infinitesimal doses, only fit to be exhibited like the infinitesimal insects through a solar micros- cope, his recovery would have been hopeless. But his better fortune provided otherwise. The German Medecin Rath, who prescribed for him, was in theory diametrically opposed to Hahne- mann, and in his tactics he followed Napoleon, whose leading principle was to bring masses of all arms, horse, foot, and artillery, to bear on a given point. In accordance with this system, he therefore prescribed so liberally that the following articles were in a very short time comprised in his " Exhibition :" 70 THE SCHOOLjnSTRESS ABROAD. 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 shoul- ders. Twenty leeches, to be applied to the stomach. As Macheath sings, "a terrible show!" — but the doctor, in common with his countrymen, enter- tained some rather exaggerated notions as to English habits, and our general addiction to high feeding and fast hving — an impression that mate- rially aggravated the treatment. " He must be a horse-doctor ! " thought Miss Crane, as she looked over the above articles — at any rate she resolved — as if governed by the pro- portion 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 Rev. T. C. The first instalment he swal- lowed — the second he smelt, and the third he merely looked at. To tell the truth, he was fast transforming fi-om 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 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. 71 energy of his measures, at the same time resolving that the next Enghsh patient he might catch should be subjected to the same decisive treatment. Heaven keep the half, three quarters, and whole lengths of my dear countrymen and countryw^omen 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 Medecin 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 Avas quite as extraordinary. Never was there such a realization of the " large reckoning in a little room." " Well, I must say," murmured the Schoolmis- tress, 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 they returned shorn." 72 THE SCHOOLMISTRESS ABROAD. " 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 gravit3\ " For my own part I have met with a lesson that has taught me my own unfitness for a Governess. For 1 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 here- after to become wives and mothers, a truth that every hour has impressed on me since I have been a Schoolmistress Abroad." A MORNING THOUGHT. No more, no more will I resign My couch so warm and soft. To trouble trout with hook and line. That will not spring aloft. With larks appointments one may fix To greet the dawning skies. But hang the getting up at six. For fish that will not rise ! 73 NO! No sun — no moon ! No morn — no noon — No dawn — no dusk — no proper time of day — No sky — no earthly view — No distance looking blue — No road — no street — no " t'other side the way "- No end to any Row — 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 Ring — no afternoon gentility — No company — no nobihty — 74 NO 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 ! 75 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK : A ROMANCE. Amongst the many castled crags on the banks of the Rhine, 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 charac- teristic featm-e of a feudal stronghold — being; in fact the Obsen-atory 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 a broad blaze behind the heights of Capellen, and the fine ruin of Stolzenfels on the opposite banks of the Rhine, its last rays always linger on the lofty tower of e2 76 THE TOWER OF LAUNECK. Lahneck. Many a time, while standing rod in hand on one or other of the brown rocks which, narrowing the channel of the river, form a small rapid, very favourable to the fisherman — many a time have I watched the rich warm light burning l)eaconlike 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 corruscations 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 clustre 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 personal reminis- cences. It was on a fine afternoon, towards the close of May, 1830, that two ladies began slowly to chmb THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 77 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 unpro- tected 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 cheerfid 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 fre- quently to gather the wild flowers, and especially the sweet valley hlies, there so abundant— to look up at the time-stained Ruin from a new point, or to comment on the beauties of the scenery. The elder of the ladies spoke in English, to which her 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 accom- plished ; but the Fraulein Von B. was unmarried : 78 THE TOWER OF LAUNECK. whilst Mrs. was a wife and a mother, and with her husband and her two children had occu- pied for some weeks a temporary home within the Avails of Coblenz. It was in this city that a friend- ship had been formed between the German Girl and the fair Islander — the gentle pair who were now treading so freely and fearlessly under the walls of a Castle where womanly beauty might formerly have ventured as safely as 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 elevations 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 magnificent prospect, the brightest of sunshine, and the THE TOWER OF LAIINECK. 79 balmiest air. Her companion, in the meantime, was almost as taciturn, merely uttering the names of the places — Ober-Lahnstein — Capellen — Stol- zenfels — 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 w'as too near to see the ruin to advantage, and her neck ached as she strained it to look up at the lofty tower which 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 in- terior, 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. 80 THE TOWER OF LAIINECK. 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, wdienever through an occasional loophole she caught a sample of the bright blue sky, and which like samples in general appeared of a far more intense and beautiful colour than any she had ever seen in the whole piece. No, never had heaven seemed 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 pictures, of 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, tran- scended them all ! Nevertheless it cost her a sigh to reflect how many forlorn captives, languishing perhaps within those very walls, had been con- fined 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 THE TOWER OF LAHJ;ECK. 81 pass away from the minds of the young, the healthy, and the happy, and the next moment the fair moraUst 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 MTong note, as a fragment of mortar rattled down to the basement, or a disturbed bat rustled from its lurking-place, or the air breathed 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 accom- plished, and the two friends stood together on the top of the tower, drawing 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 un- accustomed 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 rivers, was revealed to the delighted sense. As the Englishwoman had anticipated, her eye could now travel unimpeded round the entire horizon, which it did again and again and again, e5 82 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 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 here, by little bits, and little bits, instead of a stop at Horcheim?" " You did indeed, my dear Amanda. Such a noble prospect would well repay a much longer walk." " Look ! — see — dere is Rhense — and de Marx- berg" — 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 English- woman, "to see Coblenz?" 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 tre- mendous peal, as of the nearest thunder, shook the tower to its very foundation. The German shrieked, and the ever ready " Ach Gott ! " burst THE TOWER OF LAHXECK. 83 from her quivering lips; but the Englishwoman 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 fi'om cause to consequence with the rapidity of the voltaic spark. Ere the sound had done rumbling, she knew the natui'e of the calamit}^ as distinctly as if an evil spirit had whispered it in her ear. Nevertheless, an irresistible impulse, that dreadful attraction which draws us in 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 prophetically painted, where the reality presented itself with a startling resemblance to the ideal picture. Yes, there yawned that dark chasm, unfathom- able 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 staircase stiU remained in their place, and even these as she gazed at them suddenly plunged into the 84 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. ' dreary void ; and after an interval which indicated the frightful depth they had to phimb, 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? Perhaps but a more lin- ti-crins: 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 to-svards 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 ])resent — for out of the very sweetness of 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 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 85 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 thi'own 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 amons: 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 com- panion 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 would a far louder alarm, for that figure was little Kranz, the deaf and dumb boy of Lahnstein, 86 THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. who was gathering bunches of the valley-UlHes for sale to the company at the inn. Accordingly, after a desultory ramble round the ruins, he descended to the road, and slowly proceeded along the water side 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 handkerchief 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 cha- racteristic uniformity 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 human help could avail us at tliis dreadful height?" The truth of this reflection was awfully appa- rent ; but who when life is at stake can i-esign hope, or its last tearful contingency though frail as a spider's thread encumbered with dewdrops ? THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 87 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 step- ping 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 Casde. 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 disappeared. " 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 telescope was pointed to the romantic ruin of Lahneck. But the dis- tance was great, and even had it been less, the waving of a white handkerchief would have been taken for a merry or a fi^iendly salute. In the meantime the steamboat passed out of sight behind the high ground ; but the long streamer of smoke was still visible, like a day- meteor, swiftly flying along, and in a direction 8!^ THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. that made the Englishwoman stretch out her arms after the fleeting vapom* 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 TYiy blame," continued the other, in an agony of self-reproach ; " it was my blame to come so wade — not one can tell where. Nobody shall seek at Lahneck — dey will think w^e are dropped into de Rhine. Yes — we must die both ! We must die of famishment — 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 asrain and again without frui- tion — 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 difficult 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 cows from THE TOWER OF LAHNECK. 89 the pasture — the truant children returned to the village, and the fisherman drifting down the stream, again landed, and after hanging his nets up to dry between the trees on the opposite mea- dows, re-entered his hut. But none saw the signal, none 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 win- dows 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 firiend," sobbed the German, " not one thinks but for themselves." " It is unjust," might have retorted the wife and mother, " for / think of my husband and children, and they think of me." Why else did her sobs so disturb the tranquil air, or wherefore 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. " 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, 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 impos- sible, though he might have an outside resem- blance, like the apes and monkeys, to the human species. But I was premature again ; for, after roUing 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,' cries Jack; 102 A SEA-TOTALLER. ' that's his voice, I'll take my davit, hov^somever he's got transmogrified.' " And with that he stooped down and helped the creature, whatever it was, out of the net, and then popped him up on his two tails against the mast. " * And now,' says he, ' if you're a Cock Mer- maid, as master thinks, you may hold your tongue ; A SEA-TOTALLER. 103 but if SO be you're Bob Bunce, as I suspects,' (and if Jack always used the solemn tone he did at that minute he'd make a first-rate popular preacher,) 'why then don't renounce your godfathers and godmothers in your baptism, and your christian religion, but say so at once like a man.' " ' I ham Bob Bunce, then,' said the creature, with a very strong emphasis, ' or rayther I loere,^ and along with the last word two great tears as big as swanshot sprang out of his pale 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.' "'That's true any how,' said Jack; 'cause why? You were so 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 me, but quite the reverse; for you see, sir,' addressing me, 'one day after a drunken fit a she-teatotaller 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.' 104 A SEA-TOTALLER. " ' 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. For 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, thovigh 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 myself into the river. But instead of drownding as I ex- pected, the water that came into my mouth seemed to go out agin at my ears, and 1 found I could swim about and rise to the top or dive to the bottom as nat'ral as a fish. That gave me time to repent A SEA-TOT ALLER. 105 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 Medwaj^, 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 Fair— but I'U die first !' " And rising upright on his double tail, before we could lay hands on him, he threw a summerset over the bulwark, and disappeared." " And was that the last of him ?" said the Vice. "It was, gentlemen," replied the President. " For Bunce, or Bounce, or Tea-totaller, or Sea- totaller, we never set eyes on him again." " Well, that's a warning anyhow," said the Vice. F 106 A SEA-TOTALLER. again helping himself from the bottle, " I've heard ])olitical 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, " Tem- perance is a very praise-worthy object to a proper extent ; but a thing may be carried too far, as Sinbadsaid to the Old Man of the Sea. No doubt water-drinking is very Avholesome while it's in- dulged 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 keep your legs.'''' EPIGRAM ON MRS. PARKES'S PAMPHLET. Such strictures as these Could a learned Chinese Only read on some fine afternoon. He would cry with pale lips, " We shall have an Eclipse, For a Dragon has seized on the Moon I 107 THE FORGE: A ROMANCE OF THE IRON AGE. Who 's here, beside foul weather ? King Lear. Mine enemy's dog, though he had bit me, Should have stood that night against my fire. Cordelia. 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 w^ere spoken. It 's an ugly night for anywhere. But an awful one for the Brocken ! 108 THE FORGE. For oh ! to stop On that mountain top, After the dews of evening drop, Is always a dreary frohc — Then what must it be when nature groans. And the very mountain murmurs and moans. As if it writhed with the choHc — With other strange supernatural tones. From wood, and water, and echoing stones. Not to forget unburied bones — In a region so diabolic ! 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 ! THE FORGE. 109 Madly, sadly, the Tempest raves Through the narrow gullies and hollow caves. And bursts on the rocks in windy waves, 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. Rank and rich. As from Stygian ditch. Rises a fonl sulphm'cous fog. Hinting that Satan himself is agog, — 110 THE FORGE. But leaving at once this heroical pitch, The night is a very bad night in which 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 ; 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 ! 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, THE FORGE. Ill 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 Uke the weed on the face of the cliff 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 blindmo; sleet and the freezing sale. And the horrid abyss. If his foot should miss. Instead of tending at all to pale. Like cheeks that feel the chill of aflPright — 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 swer\^e, 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 Woirs horrid eyes : 112 THE FORGE. 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 that spat. Nor glimmering candles of dead men's fat. Nor even the flap of the Vampire Bat, No anserine skin would rise thereat. It 's the cold that makes Him shiver ! 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. 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 ! THE FORGE. 113 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 — And a little gold lace you may introduce — Very showy, but as for use. Not worth so many buttons ! Young Fridolin ; young Fridolin ! Of his duty so true a fulfiller — But here we need no farther go For whoever desires the Tale to know, May read it all in Schiller. Faster now the Traveller speeds, Whither his guiding beacon leads. For by yonder glare In the murky air. 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 114 THE FORGE. 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 spark, 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 ! THE FORGE. 113 PART II. 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, Retsch 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 bellows ! 116 THE FORGE. Oh, what a scene That Forge had been For Salvator Rosa's study ! With wall, and beam, and post, and pin. 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 has flung Some cumbrous sort Of sledge-hammer retort At Red Beard, the crew's commander. I THE FORGE. 1 1 7 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 smiled — 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 Hyaenas that prowl the earth Had clubb'd their laua;hs together ! And lo I 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 Cyclops 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 frozen fingers and toes — While each succeeding minute. Hotter and hotter the Smithy grows. 118 THE FORGE. And seems to declare, By a fiercer glare, On wall, roof, floor, and everywhere. It knows the Devil is in it ! Still not a word Is utter'd or heard, But the beetle-brow'd Foreman nods and winks, Much as a shaggy old Lyon 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 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 Ja'ger 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 ! THE FORGE. 1 1 9 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 I 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 from crawling out, Who making one fierce attempt, but vain, Receives such a blow From Red-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 again. 120 THE FORGE. « 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 — J But scarcely the jolly echoes they wake, I Have well begun To take up the fun. Ere the shaggy Felons have cause to quake, I And begin to feel that the deed they have done, Instead of being a pleasant one, g Was a very great error — and no mistake. 7 For why ? — in lieu Of its former hue, So natural, warm, and florid, The Furnace burns of a brimstone blue. And instead of the coleur de rose it threw. With a cooler reflection, — justly due — Exhibits each of the Pagan crew. Livid, ghastly, and horrid ! But vainly they close their guilty eyes Against prophetic fears ; Or with hard and horny palms devise To dam their enormous ears — THE FORGE. 121 There ai'e 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 blots ; But farther off, in the shades of night. Clothed with their own phosphoric light. 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 chatter Scraps of cabalistical matter — Owls that screech, and dogs that yell — Skeleton hounds that will never be fatter — All the domestic tribes of Hell, Shrieking for flesh to tear and tatter, J 22 THE FORGE. 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 mishorn 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 like a spell The unearthly smell That fumes from the Furnace, chimney and mouth 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. 1 THE FORGE. 123 Never, never was such a sight ! It beats the very Walpurgis Night, Display'd in the story of Doctor Faustus, For the scene to describe, Of the awful tribe, If we were tioo Gothe's would quite exhaust us ! Suffice it, amid that dreary swarm, 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 demons, filthy and foul, Gorgon, Chimera, Harpy, and Ghoul, Are not contented to jibber and howl As a dirge for their late commander ; 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, 124 THE FORGE. 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 miu-derers looking so blue, And for him above all, Red-bearded and tall. With whom, at that very particular nick, There is such an unlucky crow to pick. As the one of iron that did the trick In a recent bloody affair — No wonder feeling a little sick. With pulses beating uncommonly quick. And breath he never found so thick. He longs for the open air ! Three paces, or four. And he gains the door ; But ere he accomplishes 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 Red gash on the forehead — THE FORGE. 125 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 heavyish job remains to do ! For yonder, sledge and shovel in hand, Like elder Sons of Giant Despair, A couple of Cyclops make a stand. And fiercely hammering here and there. 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 smk, they gasp, they smother, One for a moment survives his brother. Then rolls a corpse across the other ! Hulloo I 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. 1-26 THE FORGE. The four huge Bodies are haul'd and shoven Each after each in the roaring oven ! 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 ! Ay, half a mile from the mountain gorge. There it is, the famous Forge, With its Furnace, — the same thatblaz'd 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- Is all as black as the Devil I 127 H O W Q U A Is of three different sorts ; although they are not generally particularized by the tea-dealers or brokers: viz., SoMEHOW-QUA, which includes Hyson, Sou- chong, 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. 1-28 THE DEFAULTER. " AN OWRE TRUE TALE," CHAPTER I. 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 vA'ell 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 lifting up his eyebrows towards the organs of wonder, and shrugging his shoulders. THE DEFAULTER. 1*29 " 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," interposed 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. Grimble, " and he first gave me nine- teen, and then twenty-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 took 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 hps as if to bloAv an imaginary flageolet, another frowning, as with a distracting headacli, and the third drawing down the corners 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 130 THE DEFAULTER. liot and touchy he is. I once ventured to cut a joke on him, and he has never thoroughly for- given it to this day." " What vv^as it about ?" 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 Uttle Prymes, — but the joke caused so many rows and quan'els, that we have given it up." " Where is he ? " 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 ap- parent diligence ; yet vigilantly watching every movement of the nervous and fidgety Mr. Pryme, who entered the room with an uneven step, look- ing 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 suspiciously from one clerk to the other; but each face preserved a demure gravity, and the httle, stout, bald, florid gentle- man repaired to his own place. The Morning Post, damp and still unfolded, was lying on his THE DEFAULTER. 131 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 news- paper 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 document, "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 beg-un to write, and for some minutes was oc- cupied 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. Pry me 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 132 THE DEFAULTER. 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 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 re- quest for his signature. The little bald, florid man, without removing his glove, attempted to write his name, but his hand trembled so that he could hardly guide the pen. However, he tried to carry off the matter as a joke — but his laugh was forced, and his voice had the quavering huskiness of internal agitation. THE DEFAULTER. 133 " Ha ! ha ! — rather shaky — too much wine last night— eh, Mr. Grimble?" 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 scrib- bled on his blotting-paper, in at least a score of places, the word e^ibezzlement. CHAPTER II. " And do you really mean to say, Mr. Author, that so respectable a bald man had actually appro- priated the public money ? " Heaven forbid, madam. My health is far too infirm, and my modesty much too delicate to allow me to undertake, offhand, the work of twelve men; and who sometimes are not strong enough, the whole team, to draw a correct in- ference. As yet, Mr. Pryme only labours under suspicion, and a very hard labour it is to be sen- 134 THE DEFAUl/FER. tenced to before conviction. But permit me to ask, do you really associate baldness with respect- ability ? " 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 propi- tiate 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 prepossession, that we should connect guilt with a fell of hair, and inno- cence with a bare sconce ! Why, madam, why THE DEFAULTER. 135 should we conceive a bald man to be less delin- quent than another? " I suppose, sir, because he has less for a catch- pole to lay hold of?" Thank you, ma'am ! The best reason I have heard for a prejudice in all my hfe ! CHAPTER in. The little bald, florid man, in the meantime, continued his nervous and fidgety evolutions — worrying the fire, trying on his hat and gloves, snuffing vehemently, coughing huskily, and wink- ing perpetually — now scurrying through foUos — 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 fi'esh sum- mons to the Secretary's room. 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 pro- found cogitation ensued : the Junior intensely surveying his bright boots — Mr. Phipps indus- triously nibbhng the top of his pen — while Mr. 136 THE DEFAULTER. 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 fhre, 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 ? " 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 liis 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 scruti- nized with the studious interest of a Lavater. " Why you surely don't mean to say " " I do." " What that he has " THE DEFAULTER. 137 "Yes." " Is it possible ! " Mr. Grimble gave three distinct and 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 lis- tening 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 tran- sported, 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 ! " ex- claimed 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 connexion with the turf? To be sure he may have dabbled a little in the Alley — or perhaps in the Discounting line." 138 THE DEFAULTER. 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?" asked Mr. Phipps. " None 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 good-natm-ed Mr. Phipps. " And really Mr. Pryme has always seemed so respec- table, so regular, and so correct in business " " So did Fauntlero}'^, 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 pun- ishment for such offences has been abolished." "I can hardly believe it!" 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, THE DEFAULTER. 139 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 appre- ciate 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 Baily — in a hulk — in a convict-ship, with the common herd of the ruf- fianly 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 un- hinged: his own nerves began to quiver, whilst his muscles sympathizing with the mental excite- ment, prompted him to such restless activity, that he was soon almost as fidgety and perturbed as the object of his commiseration. Oh ! that the guilty man, forewarned of danger by some providential inspiration, might have left 140 THE DEFAULTER. the office never to return ! But the hope was futile : the door opened — the doomed Mr. Pry me 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 per- ceiving that the book was upside down. " Was there ever," thought Phipps, " such an infatuation ! He has evidently cause for alarm, and yet lingers about the fatal spot." How he yearned to give him a hint that his secret w^as known — to say to him, " Go ! — Fly I ere it be too late ! 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 stern figure of inexo- rable Duty rose up before him, and melting the wax of Silence at the flaming sword of Justice, imposed a seal upon his lips. CHAPTER IV. " Gracious Goodness ! " exclaims Female Sen- sibility, "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 THE DEFAULTER. 141 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, 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 subscrip- tion, 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 re- lations, 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- 142 THE DEFAULTER. 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 per- haps, 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 affec- tions withered in the bud, and all blissful hopes annihilated except those beyond the grave "What! by that horrid, red-faced, bald-pated, undersized little monster !" No Miss — but by a breach of trust on the part of a banker 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 ?" Quite. THE DEFAULTER. 143 "What, to Botany?" No, Miss. To the loveUest part of Sussex, where he is condemned to Hve in a commodious Cottage Residence, with pleasure-ground and kitchen-garden annexed — capital shooting and fishing, and within reach of two packs of hounds ! " Shameful I Scandalous ! — why it's no punish- ment at all." No, Miss. And then to think of the hundreds and thousands of emigrants — English, Scotch, and Irish — who for no crime but poverty are com- pelled 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 house- less woods and wildernesses of a foreign clime. " Oh, shocking I 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 obUged to settle in foreign parts?" Ah ! why, indeed. Miss — except — " Except what, sir ? " Why, that Embezzlers and Swindlers, hy all accounts, are such very bad Settlers. 144 THE DEFAULTER. CHAPTER V. But Mr. Pry me? — That little bald, florid, fidgety personage was still sitting on his high stool at his desk, snuffing, coughing, winking, and pretending to examine a topsyturvy account-book — sometimes, by way of variation, hashing up a new pen, or drumming a fi'esh march with his fingers — Mr. Grimble was making some private calcula- tions, 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 Baily— And Mr. Phipps was fretting over the pre- destined 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 in- voluntary motions, had upset his leaden inkstand — in trying to save the inkstand 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 THE DEFAULTER. 145 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 snatch- ing his hat, and clapping it "skow-wow any- how" on his head, rushed desperately out of the office. "Thank God!" ejaculated Mr. Phipps, draw- ing a long breath, like a swimmer after a dive. " I say, Grimble," exclaimed the Junior Clerk —"it's a true bill!" But Mr. Grimble was already outside the door, and running 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 him out of your sight — but watch where he goes to — and let me know." CHAPTER VI. Now according to the practice of the regular drama, which professes to represent the greater stage of the world, whenever 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 146 THE DEFAULTER. act in concert — that is to say, by singing in chorus that the villain has bolted, and musically exhort- ing 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, THE DEFAULTER. 147 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 behaviour 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? Yes — no — yes. In short, he did not seem to know what he was saying." " Or doing," put in Mn Trent. " He threw a shovel of coals into the iron safe." "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 soiTy, 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 sorry, deeply sorry and concerned to h2 148 THE DEFAULTER. say," repeated 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 impos- sible ! " 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 un- derstand you, there is no distinct evidence of fraud?" " 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 appearance we shall know how to act." THE DEFAULTER. 149 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 mes- senger, 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. Pry me was known throughout the several offices, where, ac- cording 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?" "Well, Mr. Grimble, sir;" The three clerks on returnino; to their office. IjO the defaulter. had found the messenger at the door, and took him with them into the room. " Well, I followed up Mr. Pryme, sir, and the first thing he did were to hail a cab." "And where did he drive to?" " To nowheres at all — coz why, afore the cab could pull round off the stand, away he goes — that's Mr. Pryme — 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, like, to collect his {lorterble 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 split without busting, and me arter him, but being stiflfish with the rheumatiz, where- by I soon found I was getting nowheres at all in the race, and in consekence pulled up." " And which way did he run ? " " Why then, he seemed to me to be a-making for the bridge." TUE DEFAULTER. 151 " Ah, to get on board a steamer," said Mr. Grimble. " Or into the river," suggested Mr. Trent. Mr. Phipps groaned and wrung his hands. " You're right, you are, Mr. Trent, sir," said the Messenger ^-ith 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 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 on em's a suckin babby." " Thank God ! " exclaimed Mr. Phipps, " that Mr, Pryme is not a family man." CHAPTER VIII. 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 152 THE DEFAULTER. he went : it seemed to glance over his slioulder in the looking-o-hAss : and when he Avent 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 neutral- ized the sugar on his palate. He took but one bite out of his crumpet, and then I'esigned it to the cat. Supper was out of the question. His mental agitation, acting on the nerves of the sto- mach, had brought on a sick headach, 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 vnicomfortably conscious of his loneliness in the world. The 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 vains of the marble mantelpiece — and anon in the chiaro- oscuro of the fire. To get rid of these haunting illusions, he caught up a book which happened to THE DEFAULTER. 153 be the second volume of " Lamb's Letters,*' and stumbled on the following ommous passage : " JVho that standeth, knoioeth hut lie viay yet fall t Your hands, as yet, I am most icilliny to believe, have never deviated into other^s property. You think it impossible that you could ever commit so heinous an offence; hut so thought Fauntleruy once; so have thought many hesides him, who at last have expiated as he hath done." The words read like 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 tranquiUty ; but with night and sleep all his horrors returned. The face of Mr. Pryme, no longer florid but pale as a plaster-cast, was con- tinually 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 different ages, including one or two infants, — a family he understood, by the intuition of dreams, to be illegitimate, and that H 5 151 THE DEFAULTER. they were solemnly consigned by the Suicide to his care and maintenance. 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. Pry me, and whom by some mysterious but imperative obligation he felt that he must espouse. The next moment this phan- tom was swept away by a mighty rush of black waters, like those in Martin's 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 im- mense whirlpool, with the white corpse-like figure, but magnified to a colossal size, rapidly whirling in the centre of the vortex, whilst obscm'e 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 born ! THE DEFAULTER. 155 CHAPTER IX. " And did Mr. Pry me really drown himself?" My dear Felicia, if Female Curiosity had always access, as you have, to an author's sanc- torum, — if she could stand or sit, as you can, at his elbow whilst 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 Colburn, Saunders and Otley, Bentley, Churton, and Newby — not forget- ting A. K. Newman — might retire for good to their country boxes at Ponder's End, Leatherhead, 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 evei" into the Literary Almshouses, if there are any such places — for there would be no more articles of sixteen pages — and " to be con- tinued" — in the magazines. All would be over with us, as with the Bom'bons, 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 156 THE DEFAULTER. 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 I — and you shall hear. CHAPTER X. The morrow came, and the Hour — but not the Man. Messrs. Grimble, Phipps, and Trent were as- sembled round the office-fire — poor Phipps look- ing 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. "Not here yet?" THE DEFAULTER. 157 " Nor won't be," muttered Mr. Grimble. "What odds will you lay about it?" whispered the giddy Mr. Trent. " The offic;e-clock is rather fast," stammered out Mr. Phipps. " No — it is exact by ray time," said the Secre- tary, 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 ridicvilous behaviour yesterday has caused you some — some — uneasiness — on my account." No answer. 158 THE DEFAULTER. " The truth is — I was excessively anxious and nervous — and agitated — very agitated indeed !" " Very," from Mr. Trent. The Uttle 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 aifair — till it was quite certain — till it was all over — for fear — for fear of being quizzed. The truth is — the truth is " " Take time, Mr. Pryme," said the Secretary. " Why, then, sir — the truth is — after fifteen years— I'm a Father— a happy Father, sir — a fine chopping boy, gentlemen — and Mrs. P. is as charming — that's to say, as well — as can be expected!" 159 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 date ! 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 place." 160 AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION. We'll find a way to remove all that. — M.D. On the 26th of December, 1842, according to the official record, 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 immediately 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. The fracture was immediately reduced ; and as the patient was not habitually a drunkard, but had only been casually 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 incu- rable, by discharge or death — and the arrivals of fresh sufferers — the visits of the surgeons and medical students, and the operations of the hos- AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION. 161 pital 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 consequently attractive to our tar. Every proceeding, therefore, was carefully watched and logged in his memory — rare mate- rials 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 ! At last, one day arousing from a nap, and sit- ting up as usual to take an observation, he espied in the next bed a fat man with a particularly big red nose, large staring black eyes, and an uncom- monly wide mouth — in fact, very like somebody he had seen dancing during the carnival in the streets of an Italian port. This coi-pulent 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- looking place between his shoulders. 16*2 AN EXTRAORDINARY OPERATION. " My eyes ! " exclaimed the sailor, letting him- self drop backward 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?" " TVfty, he's Punch, isn't he ? and they've cut his hump off!!!'' 163 THE EARTH-QUx\KERS. Now's the time and now's the hour ! To be worried, toss'd, and shaken, Down — down — down, derry down — Let us take to the road ! Amanda, let us quit tlie town — Together let us range the field? — 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 pre- served several anecdotes of the persuasion, and especially records that the female members, to guard against even a shock to their constitutions, made "earthquake gowns" of a warm stuff, to sit up in at night, in the open air ! Nor was the alarm altogether unfounded, for the earth, he says, actually shook twice at regular inter\'als, so that fearing the terrestrial ague fit w^ould become 164 THE EAUTH-QUAKERS. periodical, the noble wit proposed to treat it by a course of bark. However, there were some slight vibrations of the soil, and supposing 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 1812, when nothing has fallen to the ground but a fiddle-de-Dee prediction. Still, if the metropolis has not exhibited an}^ extraordinary physical convulsion, its inhabitants have presented an astounding 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 Jete champetre. The coaches, public and private, which have passed Hyde -Park-Corner have not })erhaps 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 jjeut I 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 hundreds of respectable Londoners, who never halted till they had gone beyond the Lord Mayor's jurisdiction, a flight unworthy even THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 165 of Cockneyism, which impHes at least a devoted attachment to London, and an unshaken con- fidence in the stabihty 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 rehgion, and appealed to some of their strongest prejudices. They had perhaps even felt some precursory agitation not perceptible to us English — whilst the rebuilding of the ruined city pro- mised a famous job for the Hibernian bricklayers and hodmen. Nay, after all, they only exhibited a truly national aptitude to become April fools in March. But for British backbone Protestants, who have shouted " No Popery," and burnt Guy Fauxes, to adopt a Roman Catholic legend — for free and independent householders who 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 Nincom Tax would be very productive ! As a subject for a comic picture, there could be no richer scene for a modem Hogarth than the return of a party of Earth-quakers to the me- tropolis — that very metropolis which was to have been knocked down, as Robins would say, in one lot — that devoted City M-hich Creduhty had lately painted as lying prostrate on its Corporation ! 166 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. In the meantime, good luck enables me to illus- trate the great eartlK|uake of 1 842 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 F. and myself, business and duties will forbid our leaving London, but Robert 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 them at the cottage ? — I am, dear Brother, Yours affectionately, Margaret Faddy. 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 Robert and James in town, and send me down the Earthquake. Your loving brother, Peter Crisp. THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 167 NO. II. TO MESSRS. H. STALEY AND CO. Camomile-Street, City. Gentlemen, — As a retired tradesman of Lon- don to rural life, but unremittingly 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 depres- sion in the Custom-house, St. Paul's, and other fabrics, stands on the undeniable basis of fact. An early answer will oblige, Your very obedient sen^ant, John Siokes. Postscriptum. — My barber tells me the Monu- ment has been done at Lloyd's. THE ANSWER. Sir, — In reply to your favour of the 14th inst., I beg to subjoin for your guidance the following quotations from a supplement to this day's " Price Current :" "March 16. — Li Earthquakes— nothing stir- ring. Strong Caracca shocks partially inquired 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 168 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. them. In Columns and Obelisks no alteration. Cathedrals as before. Steeples keep up, and articles generally not so flat as anticipated by the speculators for a fall," — I am, sir, for Staley and Co., your most obedient servant, Charles Stuckey. NO. III. TO DOCTOR DODGE F. A. S. LONDON. Dear Doctor, — As you are an Antiquarian, and as such well acquainted, 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. TIIK KARTH-QUAKERS. ir)}> JAMES HOCKIN, NO. IV. TO MR, BENJAMIN HOCKIN. Barbican. Dear Ben, — About this here hearthquack. Acording to advice I rit to Addams who have bean to forin Parts, and partickly sow Amerikej, witch is a shockin country, and as to wat is dun 170 THE EARTII-QUAKEIIS. 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 mis- rable for want of making up. One minit it's go and the next minit stay, till betwixt town and country, I allmost wish I was no wheres 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 tother — for I make a pint of xtracting my customers sentiments 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 annother sus- pends it till the Day of Jugment. And then he's upset by a new cummur in with the news that half St. Giles is cast down, and the inhabbitants all Irish howling, quite dredful, and belabbering their own buzzurns and crossing themselves all over as if it saved the Good Friday buns from bein 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 Mekanical Innstitushuns THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 171 but he wont gammon me that theres anny sich remmedy for a Hearth Quack as a basun of chork — no nor a basun of gruel na^'ther. Well wat next. Why Podraore swares wen he past the Duck of York he see his hiness anoddin at the Athenium Club as if he ment to drop in pervided he didnt pitch in to the Unitid Servis. So there we are agin. For my own share I own to sum misgivins and croakins, and says you, not without caws wen six fammilis in our street has gone off alreddy and three more packin up in case. Be- sides witch Radley the Bilder have nocked off wurk at his new Howsis for fear of their gettin floored and missis Sims have declined her baml of tabel beer till arter the shakin. Wen things cum to sich aspects 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 appear 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 losino- its ballance. 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 I 2 172 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. by the Maid and the Prentis both axin a hole holHday for the sixtenth and in sich a stile as con- vinced 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 inte- rium theres my Wife who keeps wibratin between hopes and fears like the pendulum of a Dutch Clock and no 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 dont know the hearth's agi- tatings from her own. Being squeemish besides, as is reckoned by her a verry bad sign, becos why theres a hearthquack in Robbinson Cruso who describe the motion to have made his Stomich as sick as anny one as is tost at See. Well in course her flutters agrivates mine till between our selves 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 hattums indoors or else THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 1 73 rannin 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 prefferable to an everlastin sleep in the great shake dovai that nater is preparing. Thats to say if the profesy keeps its word — for if it dont we are better in our own beds then fleaing elsewhere. And praps ketch our deths besides. Witch reminds me our Medi- cal Doctor wont hear of hearthquackery and says theres no simtoms of erupshun. So there we are agin. But St. Pauls, 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 didn't expect more brick and bilding materals then we can carry on our beds and shol- ders. Witch sartinly wood strongly argy to the pint, if so be their being Roman Cathliks didn't religusly bind one watever they beleave, to beleave quite the reverse. And talking of religion, if one listened to it like a Christian, instid of dispondin it wood praps say trust in Providence and shore up the premisis. And witch may be the piusest and cheapest plan arter all. But bisness in- terrups 174 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. Its the Gibbenses maid for an Am. Ive pumpt out on her that the fammily is goin to Windser for Change of air. And Widder StradUn is goin 'o to Richmond for change of Scene. Yes as much as I am goin to the Lands end for change of a shinina;. And now I think on it there were a suspishus mark this morning on the Pubhc House paper, namely Edgingtons advertisment about Tents. So arter all the open Air course of con- duct — but annother cum in — 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 chancy woman all to smash. But wats the use of her cummin to me to be advised wen I carnt advize myself ? Howsomever a word or two from your Ben wood go fur to convict me — Only beggin you to considder that Self Presevashun is the fust law of Nater, and the more binding as its a law a man is allowd to take into his own hands. As the crisus aproach, a speedy answer will releave the mind of Your loving Brother, James Hockin. P.S. — Since riting the abuv the Reverend Mister Grumpier, as my wife sits under, have TIJK EARTII-QUAKEKS. 175 THE REV. MR. CilUMPLER. dropt in and confirmed the wust. He say its a Judgment on the Citty and by way of Col^ber- robberation has named several partis in our naber- hood as is to be ingulped. That settles us, and in course will excuse cuttin short. 176 THE EAF5TH-QUAKERS. NO. V. TO Mils. * * * No. 9, Street. Madam, — It may seem stooping to take up a dropped correspondence, 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 re- paired by a shaking of hands. I am. Madam, Yours, &c., Belinda Huffin. TIIR ANSWKR. Madaini, — I trust I have as much Christian charity as my neighbours —-praps more — and hope I have too much true religion to believe in judi- cious 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. THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 177 KO. VI. FOR REBECCA 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 Sui-pintine but the Erthquake. John is the same as ever but Ive allmost 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. How- sumaver if the bel ring agen of its own Hed I'm off quake or no quake to my muther at Srews- berry Srops. One may trust to drunken yung gentilmen 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 til the 20. But wats wagis ? Their no object wen yure an Objec ym-self 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 dis- tinguishes resoning Beings from Damsuns and Bullises. I 5 178 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. Mister Butler is of my own fritefiil way of thinkin and quite retcbid about tbe sbakin up of bis port wine for be all ways calls it bisn and dredful low his Hart being in his celler. But Cook choose to set her Face agin tbe finomunon. Dont tell me says she of tbe earth quakin — its crust isnt made so lite and shivvery. So weve cum to Wurds on tbe subjec and even been warm l)ut its impossible to talk with sang fraw of wat freeses ones Bind. But wat can one expec as Mister Butler says but Convulsbuns of Nater wen we go boring into tbe Erths bowils witch as all the wurld nose is chock full of Cumbustibuls as ketching as Congrevs and Lucefirs. We mite have tuck wamin by tbe Frentch be says witch driv irun pipes and toobs down and drew them up agin all twisted by tbe stratums into Cork skrews with the Ends red hot or meltid off. So much for pry in into tbe 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 the roof come down atop of me like a sparrer in a brick Trap. And then sich borribel Dreams ! Ony last nite I dremt the bole supperstructer was on my chest and stomack but luckly it were ony the Nite Mare THE EARTH-QUAKERS. I /^ and cold Pork. And in the day time its nothin but takin in visitters cards with Poor Prender Congy witch you know means Frentch leave and not a bit too erly if correct that Saint Pauls have sunk down to its Doom. To be shure I over heerd Master say that even Saint Faith don't beleave in it; But she is no rule for Me. Why shudn't we be overwelmd 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 Mister Green have the best chance by assenting on the day in his Voxall baloon but gud gratious as Mister Butler says supose the wurld was to anniliate itself wile he was up in the Air. One had better trust to the most aggitatid Terry Firmer. 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 Master has inshured his-self agin the erth quake and got the Globe to kiver him, Theres Missus bel so adew in haste. Mary Sawkins. Poscrip. — Wile I was up in the drawdn room 180 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. master talkt very misterus about St. Pauls. Its all a report says he from one of the Miner Cannons. NO. VII. TO SIR W FLIMSY, BAKT., AND CO. Jjombard-stieet, City. Gentlemen, — I beg respectfully to inform you that placing implicit confidence in the calamity which will come due on the 16 th 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 Earth- quake ; 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 Premisis all sound. The THE EARTH-QUAKERS. 181 wus luck to have let Meself be Shay carted off on a April Fool's arrand, as bad as piggins milk. For wat remanes in futer but to become a laffing stock to our 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 ex- cept with my wife Lord nose. There misery in prospect at once. Has for servin in the shop I couldnt feel more sheapish and shamfaced 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 as silent contempt is wus than even alittel lilaggard 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 wimmin with their confoundid simperthisin as agrivates sich as hoping no cold was cotchd from the nite dues and lammenting 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 wood be no harm. There's that Missis Mummery wood comfort a man into a brain Fever. And indeed well ni soothd me 182 THE EARTH-QUAKERS. into a fury wat with condoling on our bamboozil- ment and her sham abrani concern for our un- lucky step. She cum for Pickels and its lucky for both there was no Pison handy. But I ort to take an assiduous draft meself for swallering such stuff. As praps I shall if I dont fly to hard drink- ing insted. Becos why, I know I've sunk meself in public opinnion and indeed feel as if all Lonnon was takin a sight at me. Many 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 and from wat I know of her cute feeUngs 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 com-se its more nor I dares to tell her of the nonimus 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 EAr.TH- QUAKERS. 183 The sum totle on it is Ime uv.se t for Life. I harnt 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 cumfit is I arnt a citty Maggystrut and oblcegd to sit in Gild all arter bein throwd into sich a botomless panikin. How his Washup Mister Bowlbee can sit in Publick I dont know for he was one of the verry fust to cut away. Ketch me says he astayin in Crippelgit. I know it's my ward but it won't ward off a shock. So much for Hearth Quacks. The end will be I shall turn to a Universal Septic and then I supose watever I dont beleave will come to pass. Indeed I am almost of the same mind alreddy with 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 Hoc kin. P.S. — The Reverind Mister Grumpier have just bean, and explamed to Me the odds betwixt Old and New stiles, whereby the real Day for the Hearth Quack is still to cum, namely Monday the 28th Instant. So there we are agin I •284 THE FLOWER. Alone, across a foreign plain, The Exile slowly wanders. And on his Isle beyond the main With sadden'd spirit ponders : This lovely Isle beyond the sea. With all its household treasures ; Its cottage homes, its merry birds. And all its rural pleasures : Its leafy woods, its shady vales, Its moors, and purple heather ; Its verdant fields bedeck'd with stars His childhood loved to gather: When lo ! he starts, with glad surprise. Home-joys come rushing o'er him. For " modest, wee, and crimson- tipp'd," He spies the flower before him ! With eager haste he stoops him down. His eyes with moisture hazy, And as he plucks the simple bloom, He murmurs, " Lawk-a-daisy ! " 185 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. CHAPTER I. ^ the town of Grimsby "But stop," says the Cour- teous and Prudent Reader, "are there any such things as Ghosts?" "Any Ghostesses !" cries Su- perstition, who settled long since in the country, near a church- yard, on a rising ground, "any Ghostesses ! 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 squentched hisself wanishes into waper. Then 186 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. there's the ghost of old Beales, as goes o' nights and sows tears 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 infant — only the poor babby hadn't larned to walk, and so can't appear agin her." But not to refer only to the ignorant and illite- rate vulgar, there are units, tens, hundreds, thou- sands of wellbred and educated 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 visiting terms with the living — nay, the great Doctor Johnson himself 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 man- ner — only affect 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 recognition of the immortality of the soul. The presence of spirits — visible or invisible — is an innate idea, as exemplified by the THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 187 instinctive night terrors of infancy, and recently so touchingly illustrated by the evidence of the poor little collierj^-girl, who declared that "she sang, whiles, at her subterranean task, but never when she was alone in the dark." It is from this cause that the Poems and Ballads on spectral subjects have derived their popularity : 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 thousand pound." "x\nd then the Spectre in 'Don Giovanni?' " No. That Marble Walker, with his audible tramp, tramp, tramp on the staircase, is too sub- stantial for my theory. It was a Ghost invented expressly for the Materialists ; but is as inadmis- sible 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 off Cape Cod. « Well — after that — iro on," 188 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. CHAPTER II. In the town of Grimsby, at the comer of Swivel- street, there is a httle chandler's-shop, which was kept for many years by a widow of the name of Mullins. 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 mea- sure, that her customers invariably manoeuvred to be sei'ved by her daughter, who was supposed to be more liberal at the scale, by a full ounce in the pound. The man and maid servants, it is true, who bought on commission, did not care much about the matter ; but the poor hungry father, 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 huml)le requests for ounces or half-ounces of tea, brown sugar, or single Gloster, towards " Miss Mullins," who was supposed to better their dealings, — if dealings they might be called, where no deal of any thing was purchased. She was a tall, bony female, of about thirty years of age, but apparently forty, with a very homely set of features, and the staid, sedate carriage of a spinster who feels herself THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 189 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, v^'ere all like her occupation, of the most plain, prosaic character — the retail- ing of soap, starch, sandpaper, red-herrings, and Fianders 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 summoned, every few minutes, by the importunities of a little bell that rang every customer in, hke the new year, and then rang him out again like the old one. It was her province, moreover, to set down all unready money orders on a slate, but the widow took charge of the books, or rather the book, in which every item of account was entered, with a rigid punctu- ality that would have done honour to a regular counting-house clerk. 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 190 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. Mullins -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 w^orld, 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 articu- late a single word. She tried nevertheless 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 con- vulsively, and her tongue actually writhed till she foamed at the lips, but wdthout producing more than such an unintelligible sound as is sometimes heard from the deaf and dumb. It was evident from the fi'equency and vehemence of these efforts that she had something of the utmost importance to communicate, and which her weeping daughter at last implored her to make known by means of signs. " Had she any thing weighing heavy on her mind?" TUE GRIMSBY GHOST. 191 The sick woman nodded her head. " Did she want any one to be sent for ? " The head was shaken. *' Was it about making her will ?" Another mute negative. " Did she wish to have further medical advice ?" A gesture of great impatience. " Would she tr}^ to write down her meaning?" The head nodded, and the writing-materials were immediately 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 Mullins was a corpse ! CHAPTER III. " Gracious ! how shocking !" cries Morbid Curi- osity. " And to die, too, without telling her secret ! What could the poor creature have on her mind to 192 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. lay so heavy ! I'd give the world to know what it was ! A shocking murder, perhaps, and the remains of her poor husband buried Lord knows where — so that nobody can enjoy the horrid dis- covery — 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 mys- teries confined to their own bosom. But perhaps it was only a hoard of money that she had saved up in private ? " Very possibly, madam. In fact, Mrs. Humph- reys, the carpenter's wife, who was present at the death, was so firmly of that persuasion, that before the body was cold, although not the searcher, she had exercised 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. THE GRIilSBY GHOST. 193 CHAPTER IV. Well, the corpse of the deceased Widow received the usual rites. It Avas washed — laid out — and according to old provincial custom, strewed with rosemary and other sweet herbs. A plate full of salt was placed on the chest — one lighted candle was set near the head, and another at the feet, whilst the Mrs. Humphreys, before mentioned, undertook to sit up through the night and " watch the body." A half-dozen of female neighbours 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 handkerchief. In the discourse of the gossips she took no part or interest, 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 194 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. attempts 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 ambitious nature would perhaps have fancied that the undivulged 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 incapable of such speculations. Instead of dreaming, therefore, of an airy coronet, or ideal bundles of bank-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 had caused a considerable influx of extra custom, so that thanks to another precaution in suppressing noises, the little chand- ler's shop presented the strange anomaly of a roaring trade carried on in a whisper. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 195 Owing to this circumstance it was nearly midnight before the shop-shutters were closed, the street-door was locked, the gas turned off, and the sympathizing 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 sufficed to arouse Miss MuUins 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 band began to grope for a bunch of long sixes, which she knew hung from a particular shelf Indeed, she could blindfolded have laid her hand 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 ever so awakened — she sank down on the sandy floor in a strong fit ! " La ! how ridiculous ! What from only feeling a tallow-candle ? " No, ma'am ; but from only seeing her mother, in her habit as she lived, standing at her old K 2 196 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. favourite post in the shop ; that is to say, at the Uttle 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 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 rise, and the sea may rise, and the rising generation may rise, and all to some good or bad purpose ; but that the dead and buried should rise, only to make one's hair rise, is more than I can credit." They may have some messages or errands to the living. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 197 " 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 argu- ment. 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 you can't pitch into him." Why, at least it is showing your Spirit " Humph ! that's true. Well, proceed." CHAPTER VI. There is nothing more startling to the human nen'es 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 thrilling effect, except the railway whistle ; which, indeed, seems only to come from the throat of a giantess, instead of that of an ordinary woman. The sudden outcry from the little shop had therefore an appalling effect on the company in the little back parlour, who for the moment were struck as dizzy and stupified by that flash of sound, 198 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. as if it had been one of lightnino;. 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 experienced in all kinds of swoons, hysterics, and faintings, and used each restorative process so vigorously, burning, choking, pinching, 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 give 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 endeavour- ing to speak to her — a communication which took such effect on the hearers that, with one excep- tion, they immediately put on their bonnets and departed ; leaving old Mrs. Dadley, who was stone deaf, and had only imperfectly heard the story, to sleep with Miss Mullins in what was doomed thenceforward to be a Haunted House. The night, nevertheless, passed over in quiet; but towards morning the ghostly Mother appeared again to the THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 199 daughter in a dream, and with the same contor- tions of her mouth attempted to speak her mind, but with the same ill success. The secret, what- ever 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 comer 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. Few 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 200 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. peace : but at any rate, her mind was made up, not to leave the house- no, not till she was carried out of it Hke her })oor 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 of fiction in her whole life. Ag;ain, the vision might have been imputed to some peculiar nervous derangement of the system, like the famous spectral illusions that haunted the Berlin Book- seller, — 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 offspring of an excited imagina- tion, 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 re- THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 201 marked as being particularly prosaic and insipid : the wildest of them having only painted a swarm of overgrown 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 westerly air blows in at the open window, and sets the Colum- bines a-dancing 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 whistUngs and whisperings wafted on the fitful gust. «WeU, sir?— " Why, then, madam, instead of disbelieving in K 5 202 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. Gliosis, you would be ready, between sheer fright and the chill of the night air — " To do what, sir ? — " To swallow the first spirits that offered. CHAPTER VIII. The second night, at the same hour, the same Melodrama of "domestic interest" was repeated, except that this time the maternal Phantom con- fronted her daughter on the landing-place at the top of the stairs. Another fainting-fit was the consequence ; 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 MuUins on the ground in a state of insensibility. The fit, 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 pint of aquafortis, or something like it, was THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 203 going down her throat the wrong way — that her Httle-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 consciousness, 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 second 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 ended in a convulsive gasp, had suddenly clasped its sha- dowy hands round its throat, and then clapped and pressed them on its palpitating bosom, as if actually choking or bursting with the sup- pressed communication. Of the nature of the secret she did not offer the slightest conjecture ; for the simple reason that she had formed none. In all her days she had never attempted success- fully 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 Passive, but of the Active kind, which goes under the alias of Curiosity. Accordingly, they 204 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 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 illegitimate child, to adulterated articles, to a forged will, to a favourite spot for burial ; nay, that it concerned matters of public interest, and the highest affairs of the state, one old crone expressing 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 conduct of the Next of Kin afforded a striking contrast : instead of joining in the conjec- tural 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 gibberish as unintelligible as the chatter of a monkey, or an Irvingite sentence of the Unknown Tongue. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. '205 CHAPTER IX. The third night came — the third midnia;ht — 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 jumble of inarticulate sounds was wanting — the jaws gaped, and the tongue visibly struggled, but there was a dead, yes, literally a dead silence. 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, indeed, declared afterwards that she had seen widow Mullins, " as like as a likeness cut out in white paper, but so transpa- rent that she could look right through her body at the chaney Jemmy Jessamy on the mantel- piece." 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 206 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 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 circumstantialities, till in process of time she affirmed that she had not only seen the Ghost, but that she knew its secret ; namely, that the under- taker and his man had plotted between them to embezzle the body, and to send it up in a crate, marked " Chancy — 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 parlour-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. On the seventh 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 mid- night, it re-appeared, as aforesaid, in the room THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 207 behind the shop, between the table and the window. On the eighth night, it became visible again at the old desk, between the great black coifee-mill and the herring-barrel. In the opinion of Miss Midlins, 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 fi-amed print of " the Witch of Endor caUing up Samuel," in the back room. On all these occasions the Phantom had exhibited the same urgent impulse to speak, with the same spasmodic action of the features, and if possible, a still more intense expres- sion of anxiety and anguish. The despairing ges- tures 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 ! Even the duU phlegmatic nature of Miss Mullins at last began to be stirred and excited by the reiteration of so awful a spectacle : and her curi- osity, slowly but surel}^, became interested in the undivulged secret which could thus keep a disem- bodied spirit from its appointed resting-place, the weighty necessity which could alone recal a 208 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. departed soul to earth, after it had once experi- enced the deep cahn, and quiet of the grave. The sober sorrow of the mourner was changed into a feverish fretting — she could no longer eat, drink, or sleep, or sit still, — the patchwork quilt was thi'ust 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 cannister, — to serve 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 un- trained 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 Httle Sniggers home with a bar of soap instead of a stick of brim- stone. In fact, between her own absence of mind, and the presence of mind of her customers, she sold so many good bargains, that the purchasers began to wish that a Deaf and Dumb Ghost would haunt every shop in the town ! THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 209 CHAPTER XI. According to the confession of our first and last practitioners, 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 ke}' 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 treatment, which, according to tradition, has generally proved suc- cessful in overcoming the peculiar Trismus to which all Apparitions are subject, and which has thus enabled them to break that melancholy silence, which must otherwise have prevailed in their inter- course with the Uving. The modus operandi is extremely 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 210 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. necessary, therefore, if you wish to draw out a dumb Spirit, to utter the first w^ord. Strange to say, this easy and ancient prescription never occurred to either Miss MuUins or her gos- sips 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 cause of the silence of the " Mysterious Mother." It was immediately determined that the same night, or at least the very first time the Spirit re-appeared, it should be spoken to; the very terms of the filial address, like those of a Royal Speech, being agreed on beforehand, at the same council. Whether the orator, the appointed hour and the expected auditor considered, would remem- ber so long a sentence, admitted of some doubt : however it was learned by rote, and having forti- fied herself with a glass of cordial, and her backers having fortified themselves with two, the trembling Mary awaited the a\^'ful interview, conning over to herself the concerted formula, which to assist her memoiy 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." THE GRIMSBY GHOST. 211 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 212 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. figure projected from a magic lantern, on the cur- tain at the foot of the bed — for, through certain private reasons of her own. Miss MulHns had resolved not only to be alone, but to receive her visiter — as the French ladies do — in her chamhre a coucher. 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, that might perchance aifect 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 Phan- tom, M^hich had assumed a listening expression, and an expectant attitude, as if it had been invisibly present at the recent debate, and had overheard 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, hke 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. THE GRIMSBY GHOST. "213 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. 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 imitating the contortions, and even that hideous grin, the risus sardonicus, 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 mysteri- ous thraldom, instantly spoke. But the words are worthy of a separate chapter. CHAPTER XIII. " Mary ! it arnt hooked — but there's tuppence for sandpaper at number nine ! " Note. — " It is much to the Discredit of Ghosts," — says Johannes Lanternus, in his " Treatise of Apparitions," — " that they doe so commonly revisit the Earth on such trivial Errands 214 THE GRIMSBY GHOST. as would hardly justify a Journey from London to York, much less from one World to another. Grave and weighty ouj^ht 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 disquited 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 Message, 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 bad their rise in the Self- Conceit of vain ignorant People, or the Arrogance of great Fami- lies, who take Pride in the Belief, that their mundane Aifairs are of so important a Pitch, as to perturb departed Souls, even amidst the Pains of Purgatory, or the Pleasures of Paradise." EPIGRAM ON THE ART-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 ! 215 A BLACK JOB. No doubt the pleasure is as great. Of being cheated as to cheat. HUDIBRAS. The history of human-kind to trace Since Eve— the first of dupes— our doom un- riddled, 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 — The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes. For rolling in Pactolian streams, That cost our modern rogues so Httle 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! 216 A BLACK JOB. 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 ermine. 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 chink, And quite an army of Collectors ! Not merely male, but female duns, Toung, old, and middle-aged — of all degrees- With many of those persevering ones. Who mite by mite Avould beg a cheese ! A BLACK JOB. 217 And what might be their aim ? 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 — Reading 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 ! 218 A BLACK JOB. 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 And 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 ! The brooms and mops. The tubs and slops. The baths and brushes in full operation ! To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, Go in a raven and come out a swan ! While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels, 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 ! A BLACK JOB. 219 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 ; A thing to make all christians sad and shivery, To think of miUions 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 I how happy ought the rich to feel. Whose means enabled 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. Presents from " Friends to blacks," or foes to whites, " Trifles," and " offerings," and " widow's mites," l2 220 A BLACK JOB. Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions. With other gifts And charitable lifts. Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. As thus — Ehsha Brettel, An iron kettle. The Dowager Lady Scannel, A piece of flannel. Rebecca Pope, A bar of soap. The Misses Howels, Half-a-dozen towels. The Master Rush's, Two scrubbing-brushes. 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. A BLACK JOB. 221 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 bleach, As he had hoped. From being washed and soaped, A circumstance he named with grief and pity : But still he had the happiness to say, For self and the Committee, By persevering in the present way. 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 ! Lull'd by this vague assm*ance. 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 — 222 A BLACK JOB, 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 abash'd. 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 ; 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, A BLACK JOB. 223 Who willingly receiving chaff for corn, 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 court. To hear once more addresses from the Chair, And regular Report. Alas ! concluding in the usual strain. That what with everlasting wear and tear, The scrubbing-brushes hadn't got a hair — The brooms — mere stumps — would never serve again — The soap was gone, the flannels all in shi'eds, 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 Blackamoors 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 — " 224 A BLACK JOB. But ere the prospect could be made more sunny — Up jump'd a little, lemon-coloured man. 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 I They won't come white ! then why — why — why — why— w^hy. More money?" " 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, JVe mean to gild 'em ! " 225 MRS. GARDINER: A HORTICULTURAL ROMANCE. CHAPTER I. What sweet thoughts she thinks Of violets and pinks. L. Hl'nt. 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. Milton. 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 aussi," chimes in the Shade of Delillc. " And I/' says the Spectre of Sir William Temple, L 5 226 MRS. GARDINER. echoed by Pope, and Darwin, and a host of the English Poets, the sonorous voice of Milton re- sounding 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 Covent Garden. *' And I," says Mr. Simpson — formerly of Vaux- hall. **And I," sing ten thousand female voices, all in unison, as if drilled by Hullah, — but really, thinking in concert of the Gardens of Gul. [What a string I have touched !] " 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 thimder 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 wiU at once introduce to you my Heroine — a woman after your o^vn hearts — for she is a Gardiner by name and a Gardener by nature. MRS. GARDINER. 227 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 -...'- * ^^sf ^ V .If^ '4 ^fj'lp^ w H '^- f /^ j^ * / ^ kM^^ \ -w mll^B^'''-' r-^ M^^ ^mbSel VI* 228 MRS. GARDINER. 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 pur- suits. Perhaps, as a neighbour, or acquaintance, 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 blossoms as symbols of her own passions and sentiments, ac- cording to the Greek fashion, but lending words to the wants and affections of her plants. Thus, v>'hen 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 con- fesses 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. MRS. GARDINER. 229 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 wald, 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 extraordinary notions of personal beauty. " Well," she said one day, " what do you think of Mrs. Mapleson?" meaning that lady's hydrangea. " Her head's the biggest— but I look the bluest." In a similar style she dehvered 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 had lost so many of her teeth — she told the carpenter •230 MRS. GARDINER. the bo3^s 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 I " Quite 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 Gardener's 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 iii a tea-cbest, A Guelder Rose in a wasliing-tub, A Lauriistimis in a butter-tub, A Monthly Rose in a Portugal grape-jiir, MRS. GARDINER. 231 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 sallads of " mustard and crest" in a brown pan; and in sundry crockery vessels that would hold earth, but not water, she reared some half dozen of Scarlet Runners, which in the proper season you might see c..;„bing up a series of string ladders, against the back of the house, as if to elope with the Mignion*. Lte from its box in the second-floor window. Then indoors, on her mantelshelf, she had hyacinths and other bulbs in glasses — and fi'om a hook in the ceiling, in lieu of a chandeUer, there was suspended a wicker-basket, containing a white biscuitware garden-pot, with one of those pendent plants, which, as she described their habits and suste- nance, are " fond of hanging themselves, and living on hare." But these experiments rather tantalized than satisfied her passion. Warehouse- leads, she confessed, made but indiffierent gardens or shrubberies, whilst the London smoke was fatal to the complexion of her mop rose and the fra- grance of her southernwood, or in her own words, " I blow dingy — and my old man smells sutty." Once, indeed, she pictured to me her beau ideal of " a little Paradise," the main features of which 282 MRS. GARDINER. I forget, except that with reference to a cottage ornee, 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, lie did not care how small, in Bunhill Fields. The widow, selling off the town house, imme- diately retired to a villa in the country, and I had lost sight of her for some months, when one May morning taking a walk in the sviburbs, whilst passing in front of Number Nine, Paradise Place, I overheard a rather harsh voice exclaiming, as if in expostulation with a refractory donkey — " Come up ! Why don't you come up?" It was Mrs. Gardiner, reproaching the tardiness of her seeds. I immediately accosted her, but as she did not MRS. GARDINER. 233 recognise me, determined to preserve my incog- nito, till I had drawn her out a little to exhibit her hobby. " Rather a late spring ma'am !" "Wery, sir, — werry much so indeed. Lord knows when 1 shall be out of the earth, I almost think I'm rotted in the gromid." " The flowers are backward indeed, ma'am. I have hardly seen any except some wall-flowers fmther 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 tm-ned off to a rosebush, remarking that there w^as 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 your wishy washy pale 284 MRS. GARDENER. 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 ! " And she was right, for after all that hearty, glowing, fi'agrant 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 Poly- anthus, from which, by a natural transition, we come to discourse of Auriculas. This was deUcate ground, for it appeared there was a rivalry between Number Nine and Number Four, as to that meali- ness 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 " Any- monies," 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 flower- ing 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 MRS. GARDIMER. 235 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 Hving so near the road," she added, rec\u*ring to the late invasion. " Yesterday I was bullocked, 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 ! " I sympathised again ; but before the condole- ment was well finished there was another " whist ! " and another cast of the missile. " That's a dog ! They're always rampaging at my fi'ont, and there goes the cat to my back, and she'll claw aU my bark off in scrambling out of reach! Howsomever that's a fine lupin, ain't it?" I assured her that it deserved to be exhibited to the Horticultural Society. " What, to the flower show ? No thankee. Miss Shai-p did, and made sure of a Bankside 236 MRS. GARDINER. Medal, and what do you think they gave her? 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 it's owner's hand, than with a third "whist!" off it flew again like a rocket, with a descriptive an- nouncement of the enemy. "Them horrid poultry! Will you believe it, sir, that 'ere cock flew over, and gobbled up my Hen-and-Chickens ! " *' What ! * all your -pretty chickens and their dam ?' " " Yes, all my Daisy." [Reader ! — if ever there was a verbal step from the Sublime to the Ridiculous — that was it.] CHAPTER IV. My mask fell off". That destructive cock was as fatal to my incognitio as to the widow's flowers: for coming after the cat and the dog, and the pos- sible pigs, and the positive bullock, and the men, and the boys, and the horse, and the ass, I could not help observing that my quondam acquaintance would have been better off in Bucklersbury. " Lord ! and is it you," she exclaimed with almost a scream ; " well, I had a misgiving as to MRS. GARDINER. 237 your woice," and with a rapid volley of semiarticu- late sounds the Widow seized my right hand in one of her own, whilst \^dth the other she groped hurriedly in her pocket. It was to search for her handkerchief, but the'cambric was absent, and she was obliged to wipe off the gushing tears with her gardening glove. The rich loam on the fingers, thus irrigated, ran off in muddy rivulets down her furrowed cheeks, but in spite of her ludicrous appearance I could not help sympathizing with her natural feelings, however oddly expressed. "She could not help it," she sobbed — "the sight of me overcame her. When she last saw me, — He was alive —who had always been a kind and devoted husband — as never grudged her nothing — and had given her that beautiful butter-tub for her laurustiny. She often thought of him — ^yes, often and often— while she was gardening — as if she saw his poor dear bones under the mould — and then to think that she came up, year after year — " flourishing in all her beauty and flagrance" — and he didn't. — "But look there" — and smiling through her tears, she pointed towards the house, and told me a tale, that vividly reminded me of her old contrivances in Bucklersbury. "It's a table-beer barrel. I had it sawed in half, and there it is, holding them two hallows, on 238 MRS. GARDINER. each side of the door. But I shan't blow, you know, for a sentry ! " Veiy handsome indeed ! "Ain't they? And there's my American Creeper. Miss Sharp pretends to creep, but Lor bless ye, afore ever she gets up to her first floor window, I shall be running all over the roof of the willa. You see I'm over the portico aheady." A compliment to her climbing powers was due of course, and I paid it on the spot ; but we were not yet done with creepers. All at once the Widow plucked off her garden bonnet, and dash- ing it on the gravel began dancing on it like a mad woman, or hke a Scotch lassie tramping her dirty linen. At last when it was quite flat, she picked the bonnet up again, and carefully opening it, explained the matter in two words. " A near-wig ! " And then she went on to declare to me that they were the plagues of her hfe — and there was no destroying them. "It's unknown the crabs and lobsters I've eaten on pui'pose, but the nasty insects won't creep into my claws. And in course you know what enemies they are to carnations. Last year they ruined my Prince Albert, and this year I suppose they'll spoil the Prince of Wales ! " MRS. GARDINER. 239 CHAPTER V. A propos of names. I do wish that our Botanists, Concologists, and Entomologists, and the rest of om' scientifical God- fathers and Godmothers would sit soberly down, a little below the clouds, and revise their classical, scholastical, and polyglottical nomenclatures. Yea, that our Gardeners and Florists especially would take their wateringpots and rebaptize all those pretty plants, whose bombastical and pedantical titles are enough to make them blush, and droop their modest heads for shame. The Fly-flapper is bad enough, with his Aga- memnon butterfly and Cassandra moth — What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba ? but it is abominable to label our Flowers with antiquated, outlandish, and barbarous flowers of speech. Let the Horticulturits hunt through their Dictionaries, Greek and Latin, and Lem- priere's Mythology to boot, and they wUl never invent such apt and pleasant names as the old English ones, to be found in Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakspeare. Oh, how sweetly they sound, look, and smell in verse — charming the eye and the nose, according 240 MRS, GARDINER. to the Rosicrucian theory, through the ear ! But what is a Scutellaria Macrantha to either sense? Day's Eyes, Oxeyes, and Lippcs of Cowes have a pastoral relish and a poetical significance — but what song or sonnet would be the sweeter for a Brunsvigia ? There is a meaning in Windflowers, and Cuckoo-buds, and Shepherd's Clocks, whilst the Hare-bell is at once associated with the breezy heath and the leporine animal that frequents it. When it is named. Puss and the blue-bell spring up in the mind's eye together — but what image is suggested by hearing of a Schizanthus retusus ? Then, again, Forget-me-Not sounds hke a short quotation from Rogers' " Pleasures of Memory," Love-lies-Bleeding contains a whole tragedy in its title — and even Pick-your-Mother's-heart-out involves a tale for the novelist. But what story, with or without a moral, can be picked out of a Dendrobium, even if it were surnamed Clutter- buckii, after the egotistical or sycophantical fashion of the present day ? There was a jockey once who complained bitterly of the sale of a race-horse, just when he had learned to pronounce its name properly — Roncesvalles ; but what was that hardship, to the misfortune of a petty nm-seryman, perhaps, losing MRS. GARDINER. 241 his Passion-Flower, when he had just got by heart Tacksonia Pinnatistipula ? " Reform it altogether !" It looks selfish, in the learned, to invent such difficult nomenclatures, as if they wished to keep the character, habits, origin, and properties of new plants to themselves. Nay, more, it implies a want of affection for their professed favoiurites— the very objects of their attentions. "How — a want of affection, sir?" Yes — even so, my worthy Adam ! For mark me — if you really loved your plants and flowers — "Well, sir?" Why, then, you wouldn't call them such hard names. CHAPTER VI. To return to Mrs. Gardiner. The widow having described the ravages of the earwigs, beckoned me towards her wall, and was apparently about to introduce me to a peach-tree, when abruptly turning round to me, she inquired if I knew any thing of chemicals ; and without giving time to reply, added her reason to the question. " Cos I want you to pison my Hants." 242 MiJS. GARDINER. Your aunts ! " Yes, the hemmets. As to Dr. Watts, he don't know nothing about 'em. They won't collect into troops to be trod into dust, they know better. So I was thinking if you could mix up summut luscious and dillyterious — " She stopped, for a man's head suddenly appeared above the dwarf wall, and after a nod and a smile at the widow, saluted her with a good morning. He was her neighbour — the little old bachelor at Number Eight. As he was rather hard of hear- ing, my companion was obliged to raise her voice in addressing him, and indeed aggravated it so much that it might have been heard at the end of the row. " Well, and how are you, Mr. Burrel, after them East winds ? " *' Very bad, very bad indeed," replied Mr. Burrel, thinking only of his rheumatics. " And so am I," said Mrs. Gardiner, remem- bering nothing but her blight : " I'm thinking of trying tobacco-water and a squiringe." " Is that good for it?" asked Mr. B., with a tone of doubt and surprise. " So they say : but you must mix it strong, and squirt it as hard as ever you can over your affected parts." MRS. GARDINER. 243 " What, my lower limbs ?" " Yes, and your upper ones too. Wherever you're maggotty." " Oh !" grunted the old gentleman, " you mean vermin." " As for me," bawled Mrs. G., " I'm swarming ! And Miss Sharp is wus than I am." " The more's the pity," said the old gentleman, " we shall have no apples and pears." " No, not to signify. How's your peaches ?" "Why, they set kindly enough, ma'am, but they all dropped off in the last frosty nights." " Ah, it ain't the frost," roared Mrs. G. " You've got down to the gravel — I know you have — you look so rusty and scrubby!" " I wish you good morning, ma'am," said the little old bachelor, turning very red in the face, and making rather a precipitate retreat from the dwarf wall — as who wouldn't, thus attacked at once in his person and his peach-trees. "To be sure, he was dreadful unproductive,'' the Widow said; "but a good sort of body, and ten times pleasanter than her next-door neighbour at Number Ten, who would keep coming over her wall, till she cut off his pumpkin." She now led me round the house to her "back," where she showed me her grassplot, wishing she m2 *244 MRS. GARDINER. was greener, and asking if she ought not to have a roll. I longed to say, on Greenwich authority, that about Easter Monday was the proper season for the operation, but the joke might have led to a check in her horticultural confidences. In the centre of the lawn there was an oval bed, with a stunted shrub in the middle, showing some three or four clusters of purple blossoms, which the Widow regarded vdth intense admiration. " You have heard, I suppose, of a mashy soil for roddydandums ? Well, look at my bloom, — quite as luxurus as if I'd been stuck in a bog !" There was no disputing this assertion ; and so she led me off to her vegetables, halting at last, at her peas, some few rows of Blue Prussians, which she had probably obtained from Waterloo, they were so long in coming up. "Backard, an't I?" Yes, rather. " Wery — but Miss Sharp is backarder than me. She's hardly out of the ground yet — and please God, in another fortnight I shall want sticking." There was something so comic in the last equivoque, that I was forced to slur over a laugh as a sneeze, and then contrived to ask her if she had no assistance in her labours. " What, a gardener ? Never ! I did once MRS. GARDINER. 245 have a daily jobber, and he jobbed away all my dahlias. I declare I could have cried ! But it's very hard to think you're a valuable bulb, and when summer comes, you're nothing but a stick and a label." Very provoking indeed ! " Talk of transplanting, they do nothing else but transplant you from one house to another, till you don't know where you are. There was I, thinking I was safe and sound in my own bed, and all the while I was in Mr. Jones's." It's scandalous ! " It is. And then in winter when they're friz out, they come round to one a beggin' for money. But they don't freeze any charity out of me." All ladies, however, are not so obdurate to the poor Gardeners in winter — or even in summer, in witness whereof here follows a story. CHAPTER VII. An elderly gentlewoman of my acquaintance, on a visit at a country house in Northamptonshire, chanced one fine morning to look from her bed- chamber, on the second story, into the pleasure- ground, where Adam, the Gardener, was at work 246 MRS. GARDINER. at a flower-border, directly under her window. It was a cloudless day in July, and the sun shone fervidly on the old man's bald, glossy pate, from which it reflected again in a number of rays, as shining and pointed as so many new pins and needles. "Bless me!" ejaculated the old lady, "it's enough to broil all the brains in his head ; " and unable to bear the sight, she withdrew from the casement. But her concern and her curiosity were too much excited to allow her to remain in peace. Again and again she took a peep, and whenever she looked, there, two stories below, shone the same bare round cranium, supematurally red, and almost intolerably bright, as if it had been in the very focus of a burning glass. It made her head ache to think of it ! Nevertheless she could not long remove her eyes, she was facinated towards that glowing sconce, as larks are said to be by the dazzling of a mirror. In the mean time, to her overheated fancy, the bald pate appeared to grow redder and redder, till it actually seemed red hot. It would hardly have surprised her if the blood, boiling a gallop, had gushed out of the two ears, or if the head, after smoking a little, had burst into a flame by MRS. GARDINER. 247 spontaneous combustion. It would never have astonished her had he danced off in a frenzy of brain fever, or suddenly dropped down dead from a stroke of the sun. However he did neither, but still kept work, work, working on in the blazing heat, like a salamander. " It don't signify," muttered the old lady, " if he can stand it I can't," and again she withdrew from the spectacle. But it was only for a minute. She returned to the window, and fixing her eyes on the bald, shining, glowing object, considerately pitched on it a cool pot of beer — not literally, indeed, but in the shape of five penny pieces, screwed up tight in brown paper. Moral. — There is nothing like well-directed benevolence ! CHAPTER VIII. " Yes, all gardeners is thieves !" As I could not dispute the truth of this sweep- ing proposition from practical experience, I passed it over in silence, and contented myself with asking the Widow whence she acquired all her horticultural knowledge, which she informed me came " out of her Mawe." " It was 1dm as give me that, too," she whim- '248 MRS. GARDINER. })ered, "for he always humoured my flowering; and if ever a grave deserved a strewing over it's his'n — There's a noble old helm ? " Very, indeed. " Yes, quite an old antique, and would be beautiful if I could only hang a few parachutes from its branches." I presume you allude to the parasites? " Well, I suppose I do. And look there's my harbour. By and by, when I'm more honey- suckled I shall be waterproof, but I ain't quite growed over enough yet to sit in without an umbrella." As I had now pretty well inspected her back, including one warm corner, in which she told me she had a good mind to cow-cumber — we turned toward the house, the Widow leading the way, when wheeling sharply round, she popped a new question. " What do you think of my walk ?" Why that it is kept very clean and neat. " Ah, I don't mean my gravel, but my walk. At present you see I go in a pretty straight line, but suppose I went a little more serpentiny — more zigzaggy — and praps deviating about among the clumps — don't you think I might look more picturesque ? " MRS. GARDINER. 249 I ventured to tell her, at the risk of sending her ideas to her front, that if she meant her gait, it was best as it was ; but that if she alluded to her path, a straight one was still the best, considering the size of her grounds. " Well, I dare say you're right," she replied, " for I'm only a quarter of a haker if you measure me all round." By this time we were close to the house, where the appearance of a vine suggested to me the query whether the proprietor ever gathered any grapes. " Ah my wine, my wine," replied the Widow, with as grave a shake of the head, and as melan choly a tone as if she had really drunk to fatal excess of the ruby juice. " That wine Avill be the death of me, if somebody don't nail me up. My poor head won't bear ladder work ; and so all training or pruning myself is out of the question. Howsomever, Miss Sharp is just as bad, and so I'm not the only one whose wine goes Avhere it shouldn't." Not by hundreds of dozens, thought I, but there was no time allowed for musing over my own loss by waste and leakage : I was roused by a " now come here," and lugged round the corner of the house to an adjacent building, which bore about M 5 250 MRS. GARDINER. the same proportion to the villa as a calf to a cow. " This here's the washus." So I should have conjectured. "Yes, it's the washus now — ^but it's to be a greenus. I intend to have a glazed roof let into it for a conservatory, in the winter, when I can't be stood out in the open air. They've a greenus at Number Five, and a hottus besides — and thinks I, if so be I do want to force a little, I can force myself in the copper ! " The Copper ! "Yes. I'm uncommon partial to foreign out- landish plants — and if I'm an African, you know, or any of them tropicals, I shall almost want baking." These schemes and contrivances were so whim- sical, and at the same time so Bucklersburyish, that in spite of myself, my risible muscles began to twitch, and I felt that peculiar internal quiver about the diaphragm which results from suppressed laughter. Accordingly, not to offend the Widow, I hurried to take my leave, but she was not dis- posed to part with me so easily. " Now come, be candid, and tell me before you go, what you think of me altogether. Am I shrubby enough ? I fancy sometimes that I ought to be more deciduous." MRS. GARDINER. 251 Not at all. You are just what 3'ou ought to be — shrubby and flowery, and gravelly and grassy — and in summer you must be a perfect nosegay. " Well — so I ham. But in winter, now, — do you really think I am green enough to go through the winter?" Quite. Plenty of yews, hollies, box, and lots of horticultural laurels. [I thought now that I was off — but it was a mistake.] " Well, but — if you really must go — only one more question — and it's to beg a favour. You know last autumn we went steaming up to Twit- nam?" Yes — ^well ? "Well, and we went all over Mr. What's-his- name's Willa." Pope's — well ? " Well then, somebody told us as how Mr. Pope was very famous for his Quincunx. Could you get one a slip of it?" '252 MRS. GARDINER. CHAPTER IX. " Well, for my part," exclaims Fashion, " those who please may garden ; but I shall be quite satis- fied with what I get from my Fruiterer, and my Greengrocer, and my bouquets. For it seems to me. Sir, according to your description of that Widow, and her operations, that gardening must MRS. GARDINER. 25.3 be more of a trouble than a pleasure. To think of toiling in a most unfashionable bonnet and filthy gloves, for the sake of a few flowers, that one may buy as good or better, and made artifi- cially by the fu-st hands in Paris ! Not to name the vulgarity of their breeding. Why I should faint if I thought my orange flowers came out of a grocer's tea-chest, or my camellia out of the buttertub!" No doubt of it. Madam, and that you would never come to if sprinked with common water instead of Eau de Cologne. " Of course not. I loathe pure water — ever since I have heard that all London bathes in it — the lower classes and all. If tliat is what one waters with, I could never garden. And then those nasty creeping things, and the earwigs ! I really believe that one of them crawling into my head, would be enough to drive out all my intel- lects!" Beyond question, Madam. " I did once see a Lady gardening, and it struck me with horror ! How she endured that odious caterpillar on her clothes without screaming, sur- passes my comprehension. No, no — it is not Lady's work, and I should say not even Gentle- man's, though some profess to be very fond of it." 254 MRS. GARDINER. Why as to that, Madam, there is a style of gar- dening that might even be called aristocratical, and might be indulged in by the very first Exqui- site in your own circle. "Indeed, Sir?" Yes, in the mode. Madam, that was practised in his own garden by the Poet Thomson, the Author of the " Seasons.'' " And pray how was that. Sir ? " Why by eating the peaches off the wall, with his hands in his pockets; or in other words, gobbling up the fruits of industry, without sharing in the labour of production. " Oh, fie ! that's Radical ! What do you say, my Lord?" "Why, 'pon honour, your ladyship, it doesn't touch me — for I only eat other people's peaches — and without putting my hands in my pockets at all." CHAPTER X. " But do you really think. Sir," asks Chronic Hypochondriasis, " that gardening is such a healthy occupation?" "I do. But better than my own opinion, I will give you the sentiments of a celebrated but eccentric Physician on the subject, when he was MRS. GARDINER. 255 consulted by a Patient afflicted with jour own disease. "Well, Sir, what's the matter with you?" said the bluff Doctor, " Why nothing particular, Doctor, if you mean any decided complaint. Only I can't eat, and I can't drink, and I can't sleep, and I can't walk — in short, I can't enjoy any thing except being completely miserable." It was a clear case of Hypochondriasis, and so the Physician merely laid down the ordinary sanitory rules. "But you haven't prescribed, Doctor," objected the Patient. " You haven't told me what I am to take." " Take exercise." "Well, but in what shape. Doctor?" " In the shape of a spade." "What — dig like a horse ?" " No — hke a man." "And no physic?" "No. You don't want draughts, or pills, or powders. Take a garden — and a Sabine farm after it — if you like." " But it is such hard work ? " " Phoo, phoo. Begin with crushing your catter- pillars — that's soft work enough. After that vou 256 MRS. GARDINER, can kill snails, they're harder — and mind, before breakfast." " I shall never eat any ! " " Yes you will, when you have earned your grub. Or hoe, and rake, and make yourself useful on the face of the earth." " But I get so soon fatigued." " Yes, because you are never tired of being tired. Mere indolence. Commit yourself to hard labour. It's pleasanter than having it done by a Magistrate, and better in private grounds than on public ones." " Then you seriously suppose. Doctor, that gar- dening is good for the constitution ?" " I do. For King, Lords, and Commons. Grow your own cabbages. Sow your own turnips, — and if you wish for a gray head, cultivate carrots." "Well, Doctor, if I thought—" " Don't think, but do it. Take a garden, and dig away as if you were going to bury all your care in it. When you're tired of diging, you can roll — or go to 3'our walls, and set to work at your fi'uit- trees, like the Devil and the Bag of IN ails." *' Well, at all events, it is worth trying ; but I am sadly afraid that so much stooping — " " Phoo, phoo ! The more pain in your back, the more you'll forget your hyps. Sow a bed with thistles, and then weed it. And don't forget cucumbers/' MRS. GARDINER. 257 " Cucumbers !" "Yes, unwholesome to eat, but healthy to grow, for then you can have yom- frame as strong as you please, and regulate your own lights. Melons still better. Only give your melon to the melon-bed, and yoiur colly to the collyflowers, and your Melan- choly's at an end." "Ah ! you're joking. Doctor !" " No matter. Many a true word is said in jest. I'm the only physician, I know, who prescribes it, but take a garden — the first remedy in the world — for when Adam Avas put into one he was quite a new man ! " But Mrs. Gardiner. I had taken leave of her, as I thought, by the washhouse door, and was hurrying towards the wicket gate, when her voice apprized me that she was still following me. "There is one thing that you ought to see at any rate, if nobody else does." And with gentle violence she drew me into a nook behind a privet hedge, and with some emo- tion asked me if I knew where I was. My answer of course was in the negative. " It's Bucklersbury." The words operated like a spell on my memory, and I immediately recognised the old civic shrub- 258 MRS. GARDINER. bery. Yes, there they were, The Persian Lilac, the Guelder Rose, the Monthly Rose, and the Laurustinus, but looking so fresh and flourishing, that it was no wonder I had not known them ; and besides the chests and tubs were either gone, or plunged in the earth. " Not quite so grubby as I were in town," said the Widow, "but the same plants. Old friends like, with new faces. Just take a sniff of my laylock — it's the same smell as I had when in London, except the smoke. And there's my monthly rose — look at my complexion now. You remember how smudgy I was afore. Perhaps you'd like a little of me for old acquaintance," and plucking from each, she thrust into my hand a bouquet big enough for the Lord Mayor's coach- man on the Ninth of November. *' Yes, we've all grown and blown together," she continued, looking fi-om shrub to shrub, with great affection. " We've withered and budded, and withered and budded, and blossomed and sweetened the air. We're interesting, ain't we?" O very — there's a sentiment in every leaf. "Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I often come here to enjoy *em, and have a cry — for you know he smelt 'em and admired 'em as well as us," and the mouldy glove might again have had to MRS. GARDINER. 259 wipe a moistened eye, but for an alarm familiar to her ear, though not to mine, except through her interpretation. " My peas ! my peas ! old Jones's pigeons !" And rushing off to the defence of her Blue Prussians, she gave me an opportunity of which I availed myself by retreating in the opposite direc- tion, and through the wicket. It troubles me to this day that I cannot remember the shutting it : my mind misgives me that in my haste to escape it was most probably left open, like Abon Hassan's door, and with as unlucky consequences. <:<^^-:X^ 260 MRS. GARDINER. Even as I write, distressing images of a ruined Eden rise up before my fancy — cocks and hens scratching in flower borders — pigs routing up stocks or roUing in tuUps — a horse cropping rose-buds, and a bullock in Bucklersbury ! and all this perhaps not a mere vision ! That woeful Figure, with starting tears and clasped hands contemplat- ing the scene of havoc, not altogether a fiction ! Under this doubt, it will be no wonder that I have never revisited the Widow, or that when I stroll in the suburbs my steps invariably lead me in any other direction than towards Paradise Place. CHAPTER XII. I have told a lie ! I have written the thing that is not, and the truth came not from my pen. There was deceit in my ink, and my paper is stained with a false- hood. Nevertheless, it was in ignorance that I erred, and consequently the lie is white. When I told you. Gentle Reader, that any day you pleased you might behold my heroine, Mrs. Gardiner, I was not aware that Mrs. Gardiner was no more. " No more !" MRS. GARDINER. 261 No — for by advices just received, she is now Mrs. Burrel, the wife of the quondam little old Bachelor at Number Eight. "What! — married! Why then she did go over the wall to him as she promised." No, miss — he came over to her. " What! — By a rope ladder?" No — there was no need for so romantic an ap- paratus. The wall, as already described, was a dwarf one, about breast high, over which an active man, putting one hand on the top, might have vaulted with ease. How Mr. Burrel, unused to such gymnastics, contrived to scramble over it, he did not know himself; but as he had scraped the square toes of each shoe — damaged each drab knee — fi-ayed the fi-ont of his satin waistcoat — and scratched his face, the probability is, that after clambering to the summit, he rolled over, and pitched headlong into the scrubby holly bush on the other side. For a long time it appears, without giving utterance to the slightest sentiment of an amorous nature, he had made himself particular, by con- stantly haunting the dwarf wall that divided him from the widow, — overlooking her indeed more than was proper or pleasant. For once, however, he happened to look at the right moment, for casting his eyes towards Number Nine, he saw 262 MRS. GARDINER. that his fair neighbour was in a very disagreeable and dangerous predicament — in short, that she was in her own water-butt, heels upwards. He immediately jumped over the brick partition, and bellowing for help, succeeded, he knew not MRS. GARDINER. '263 how, in hauling the unfortunate lady from her involuntary bath. *' Then it was not a suicide ?" By no means, madam. It was simply from taking her hobby to water. In plainer phrase, whilst endeavouring to establish an aquatic Uly in her waterbutt, she overbalanced herself and fell in. The rest may be guessed. Before the Widow was dry, Mr. Burrel had declared his passion — Gratitude whispered that without him she would have been "no better than a dead lignum vitae" — and she gave him her hand. The marriage day, however, was not fixed. At the desire of the bride, it was left to a contin- gency, which was resolved by her " orange- flowering " last Wednesday — and so ended the " Horticultural Romance " of Mrs. Gardiner. EPIGRAM, ON LIEUTENANT EYRE'S NARRATIVE OF THE DISASTERS AT CABUL. A sorry tale, of sorry plans, Which this conclusion grants. That Affghan clans had all the Khans And we had all the cant's. 264 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION^. It was a fine, clear, moonlight night, and Mike Mahoney was strolling on the beach of the Bay of Bealcreagh — who knows why? perhaps to gather dhoolamaun, or to look for a crab, but thinking intensely of nothing at all, because of the tune he was whistling, — when looking seaward, he saw, at about a stone's cast from the shore, a dark object which appeared like a human head. Or was it a seal ? Or a keg of whiskey ? Alas ! no such good luck ! The dark object moved like a living thing, and approaching nearer and nearer, into shallower water, revealed successively the neck and the shoulders of a man. Mike wondered extremely. It was a late hour for a gentleman to be bathing, and there was no boat or vessel within Leandering distance, from which the unknown might have swum. Mean- while, the stranger approached, the gliding motion of the figure suddenly changing into a floundering, as if having got w^ithin his depth, he was wading through the deep mud. Hitherto, the object, amid the broad path of silver light, had been a dark one; but diverging THE REPEAL OF THE UXION. 265 a little out of the glittering water, it now became a bright one, and Mike could make out the features at least as plainly as those of the Man in the Moon. At last the creature stopped a few fathoms off, and in a sort of " forrin voice," such as the Irishman had never heard before, called to Mike Mahoney. Mike crossed himself, and answered to his name. " What do you take me for?" asked the stranger. " Divil knows," thought Mike, taking a terrible scratch at his red head, but he said nothing. " Look here then," said the stranger ; and plunging head downwards, as for a dive, he raised and flom'ished in the air a fish's tail, like a salmon's, but a great deal bigger. i\.fter this exhibition had lasted for about a minute, the tail went down, and the head came up again. " Now you know, of course, what I am ?" " Why, thin," said Mike, with a broad grin, " axing your pardon, I take it you're a kind of Half-Sir." " True for you," said the Merman, for such he was, in a very melancholy tone. " I (ini only half a gentleman, and it's what troubles me, day and night. But I'll come more convenient to you." VOL. I. ' N 266 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. And by dint of great exertion, partly crawling, and partly shooting himself forward with his tail, shrimp fashion, he contrived to reach the beach, when he rolled himself close to Mike's feet, which instinctively made a step apiece in retreat. " Never fear, Mike," said the Merman, " it's not in my heart to hurt one of the finest peasantry in the world" " Why, thin, you'd not object maybe," inquired Mike, not quite re-assured, " to cry O'Connell for ever?" " By no means," replied the Merman ; " or Success to the Rent." " Faix, where did he lam that ? " muttered Mike to himself. " Water is a good conductor of sound," said the Merman, with a wink of one of his round, skyblue eyes. " It can carry a voice a long way — if you think of Father Mathew's." " Bedad, that's true," exclaimed Mike. " And in course you'll have heard of the Repale ? " " Ah, that's it," said the Merman, with a long- drawn sigh, and a forlorn shake of the head. " That's just it. It's in your power, Mike, to do me the biggest favour in the world." " With all the pleasure in life," replied Mike, " provided there's neither sin nor shame in it." THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. 267 " Not the least taste of either," returned the Merman. " It is only that you will help me to repeal this cursed Union, that has joined the best part of an Irish gentleman to the worst end of a fish." " Murther alive!" shouted Mike, jumping a step backward, " what ! cut off you honour's tail !" " That very same," said the Merman. " ' Here- ditary bondsmen, know ye not who would be fi*ee themselves must strike the blow.' But you see, Mike, it's impossible in my case to strike the blow myself." *' Shure, and so it is," said Mike, reflectively, " and if I thought you would not be kilt entirely — which would be half a murder anyhow — " " Never fear, Mike. Only cut exactly through the first row of scales, between the fish and the flesh, and I shall feel no pain, nor will you even spill a drop of blood." Mike shook his head doubtfully — very doubt- fully indeed, and then muttered to himself, " Divil a bit of a Repale without that ! " " Not a drop, I tell you," said the Merman, *' there's my hand on it," and he held out a sort of flesh-coloured paw, with webs between the fingers. N'2 268 THE REPEAL OF THE UNION. " It's a bargain," said Mike, " but after all," and he grinned knowingly at the Merman, " supposing your tail cut off from you, it's small walking ye'll get, onless I could lend you the loan of a pair o' legs." "True for you, Mike," replied the Merman, " but it's not the walking that I care for. It's the sitting, Mike," and he winked again with his round, sky-blue eye, "it's the sitting, and which you see is mighty unconvenient, so long as I am linked to this scaly Saxon appendage." " Saxon is it ! " bellowed Mike, " hurrah then for the Repaid" and whipping out a huge clasp knife from his pocket, he performed the operation exactly as the Merman had directed, — and, strange to say, of an Irish operation, without shedding a drop of blood. " There," said Mike, having first kicked the so dissevered tail into the sea, and then setting up the Half-Sir like a ninepin on the broad end, "there you are, free and indepindint, and fit to sit where you plase." "MiUia Beachus, Mike," replied the Merman, "and as to the sitting where I please," here he nodded three times very significantly, " the only seat that will please me will be in College Green." EPIGRAM. '269 " Och ! that will be a proud day for Ireland ! " said Mike, attempting to shout, and intending to cut a caper and to throw up his hat. But his limbs were powerless, and his mouth only gaped in a prodigious yawn. As his mouth closed again his eyes opened, but he could see nothing that he could make head or tail of — the Merman was gone. " Bedad ! " exclaimed Mike, shutting his eyes again, and rubbing the lids lustily with his knuckles, " what a dhrame I've had of the Repale of the Union!" EPIGRAM. ON A LATE CATTLK-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 ! 270 MORE HULLAHBALOO. Loud as from numbers without number. IMrLTON. You may do it extempore, for it's nothing but roaring. Quince. Amongst the great inventions of this age. Which ev'ry other century surpasses. Is one, — just now the rage, — Call'd « Singing for all Classes"— That is, for all the British millions. And biUions, And quadrillions. Not to name Quintilians, That now, alas ! have no more ear than asses. To learn to warble like the birds in June, In time and tune. Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses ! In fact, a sort of plan. Including gentleman as well as yokel. Public or private man. To call out a Militia, — only Vocal Instead of Local, MORE HULLAHBALOO. 271 And not design'd for military follies, But keeping still within the civil border. To form with mouths in open order, And sing in volleys. Whether this grand harmonic scheme Will ever get beyond a dream, And tend to British happiness and glory, Maybe no, and maybe yes. Is more than I pretend to guess — However, here's my story. In one of those small, quiet streets, Where Business retreats. To shun the daily bustle and the noise The shoppy Strand enjoys, But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance Find past endm-ance — In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear. The other day, a ragged wight Began to sing with all his might, " 1 have a silent sorrow here ! " The place was lonely ; not a creature stirr'd Except some little dingy bird ; Or vagrant cur that sniflPd along. Indifferent to the Son of Song ; INo truant errand-boy, or Doctor's lad, No idle Filch or lounging cad, 272 MORE HULLAIIBALOO. No Pots encumbcr'd with diurnal beer, No printer's devil with an author's proof, Or housemaid on an errand far aloof, Linger'd the tatter'd Melodist to hear — Who yet, confound him ! bawl'd as loud As if he had to charm a London crowd, Singing beside the public way. Accompanied — instead of violin. Flute, or piano, chiming in — By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray. A van with iron bars to play staccato. Or engine ohligato — In short, without one instrument vehicular (Not ev'n a truck, to be particular). There stood the rogue and roar'd, Unasked and unencored, Enough to split the organs call'd auricular ! Heard in that quiet place. Devoted to a still and studious race, The noise was quite appalling ! To seek a fitting simile and spin it. Appropriate to his calling. His voice had all Lablache's body in it ; But oh ! the scientific tone it lack'd, And was, in fact. Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling ! MORE HULLAHBALOO. 'iT-S ' Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal nous. The stage had banish'd him when he attempted it, For tho' his voice completely fill'd the house, It also emptied it. However, there he stood Vociferous — a rao-o-ed don ! And with his iron pipes laid on A row to all the neig-hbourhood. In vain were sashes closed And doors against the persevering Stentor, Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed, Th' intruding voice would enter, Heedless of ceremonial or decorum. Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum ; Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools. Ladies, and masters who attended schools, Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools, Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools. With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before 'em — How it did bore ' em ! Louder, and louder still. The fellow sang with horrible goodwill. Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities. From scribes bewilder'd making many a flaw >• 5 274 MORE IIULLAHBALOO. In deeds of law They had to draw ; With dreadful incongruities In posting ledgers, making up accounts To large amounts, Or casting u^ annuities — Stunn'd by that voice, so loud and hoarse. Against whose overwhelming force No invoice stood a chance, of course ! The Actuary pshaw'd and " pish'd," And knit his calculating brows, and wish'd The singer " a bad life" — a mental murther ! The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder, Wish'd the musician further, Poles distant — and no wonder ! For Law and Harmony tend far asunder — The lady could not keep her temper calm. Because the sinner did not sing a psalm — The Fiddler in the very same position As Hogarth's chafed musician (Such prints require but cursory reminders) Came and made faces at the wTctch beneath, And wishing for his foe between his teeth, (Like all impatient elves That spite themselves) Ground his own q-rinders. MORE HULLAHBALOO. *275 But Still with unrelenting note. Though not a copper came of it, in verity, The horrid fellow with the ragged coat, And iron throat. Heedless of present honour and posterity, Sang like a Poet singing for prosperity. In penniless reliance — And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme Never set Time More thoroughly at defiance ! From room to room, from floor to floor. From Number One to Twenty-four The Nuisance bellow'd, till all patience lost, Down came Miss Frost, Expostulating at her open door — "Peace, monster, peace! Where is the New Police ! I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray. Don't stand there bawling, fellow, don't ! You really send my serious thoughts astray. Do — there's a dear good man — do, go away." Says he, « I won't!" The spinster pull'd her door to with a slam. That sounded like a wooden d — n, 276 MORE IIULLAHBALOO. For so some moral people, strictly loth To swear in words, however up, Will crash a curse in setting down a cup, Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath- In fact, this sort of physical transgression Is really no more difficult to trace Than in a given face A very had expression. However, in she went. Leaving the subject of her discontent To Mr. Jones's Clerk at Number Ten ; Who, throwing up the sash. With accents rash. Thus hail'd the most vociferous of men : " Come, come, I say old fellor, stop your chant ! I cannot write a sentence — no one can't ! So just pack up your trumps, And stir your stumps — " Says he, "I shan't!" Down went the sash As if devoted to " eternal smash " (Another illustration Of acted imprecation), MORE HULLAHBALOO. '2 / / While close at hand, uncomfortably near, The independent voice, so loud and strong. And clanging like a gong, Roar'd out again the everlasting song, *' I have a silent sorrow here ! " The thing was hard to stand ! The Music-master could not stand it — But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand, As savage as a bandit. Made up directly to the tatter'd man. And thus in broken sentences began — But playing first a prelude of grimaces. Twisting his features to the strangest shapes, So that to guess his subject from his faces. He meant to give a lecture upon apes — " Com — com — I say ! You go away ! Into two parts my head you split — My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit, When I do play — You have no bis'ness in a place so still ! Can you not come another day?" Says he—" I will." " No — no — you scream and bawl I You must not come at all ! 278 MORE HULLAHBALOO. You have no rights, by rights, to beg — You have not one off leg — You ought to work — you have not some complaint- You are not cripple in your back or bones — Your voice is strong enough to break some stones"- Says he — "It aint!" " I say you ought to labour ! You are in a young case. You have not sixty years upon your face, To come and beg your neighbour, And discompose his music with a noise More worse than twenty boys — Look what a street it is for quiet ! No cart to make a riot. No coach, no horses, no postilion. If you will sing, I say, it is not just To sing so loud." — Says he, " I must ! I'm SINGING FOR THE MILLION ! " 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 ! 279 A TALE OF TERROR. The following story I had from the lips of a well-kno^Ti Aeronaut, and nearly in the same words. It was on one of my ascents from Vauxhall, and a gentleman of the name of Mavor had engaged himself as a companion in my aerial excm^sion. But when the time came his nerves failed him, and I looked vainly around for the person who was to occupy the vacant seat in the car. Having waited for him till the last possible moment, and the crowd in the gardens becoming impatient, I prepared to ascend alone ; and the last cord that attached me to the earth was about to be cast off, when suddenly a strange gentleman pushed for- ward and volunteered to go up with me into the clouds. He pressed the request with so much earnestness, that having satisfied myself by a few questions of his respectability, and received his promise to submit in every point to my directions, I consented to receive him in Heu of the absentee ; whereupon he stepped with evident eagerness and alacrity into the machine. In another minute we 280 A TALE OF TERROR. were rising above the trees ; and in justice to my companion, I must say, that in all my experience, no person at a first ascent had ever shown such perfect coolness and self-possession. The sudden rise of the machine, the novelty of the situation, the real and exaggerated dangers of the voyage, and the cheering of the spectators, are apt to cause some trepidation, or at any rate excitement in the boldest individuals ; whereas the stranger was as composed and comfortable as if he had been sitting quite at home in his own library chair. A bird could not have seemed more at ease, or more in its element, and yet he solemnly assured me upon his honour, that he had never been up before in his life. Instead of exhibiting any alarm at our great height from the earth, he evinced the liveHest pleasure whenever I emptied one of my bags of sand, and even once or twice urged me to part with more of the ballast. In the meantime, the wind, which was very light, carried us gently along in a north-east direction, and the day being particularly bright and clear, we enjoyed a delight- ful birdseye view of the great metropolis, and the surrounding country. My companion listened with great interest, while I pointed out to him the various objects over which we passed, till I happened casually to observe that the balloon A TALE OF TERROR. 281 must be directly over Hoxton. My fellow-traveller then for the first time betrayed some uneasiness, and anxiously inquired vrhether I thought he could be recognised by any one at our then distance from the earth. It was, I told him, quite impossible. Nevertheless he continued very uneasy, fi'equently repeating " I hope they don't see me," and entreating me earnestly to discharge more ballast. It then flashed upon me for the first time that his offer to ascend with me had been a whim of the moment, and that he feared the being seen at that perilous elevation by any member of his own family. I therefore asked him if he resided at Hoxton, to which he replied in the affirmative ; urging again, and with great vehemence, the emptying of the remaining sand- bags. This, however, was out of the question, con- sidering the altitude of the balloon, the course of the wind, and the proximity of the sea-coast. But my comrade was deaf to these reasons — he insisted on going higher ; and on my refusal to discharge more ballast, deliberately pulled off and threw his hat, coat, and waistcoat overboard. " Hurrah, that lightened her ! " he shouted ; " but it's not enough yet," and he began unloosen- ing his cravat. 282 A TALE OF TERROR. " Nonsense," said I, " my good fellow, nobody can recognise you at this distance, even with a telescope." " Don't be too sure of that," he retorted rather simply ; " they have sharp eyes at Miles's." "At where?" "At Miles's Madhouse!" Gracious Heaven ! — the truth flashed upon me in an instant. I was sitting in the frail car of a balloon, at least a mile above the earth, with a Lunatic. The horrors of the situation, for a minute, seemed to deprive me of my own senses. A sudden freak of a distempered fancy — a tran- sient fury — the slightest struggle, might send us both, at a moment's notice, into eternity ! In the meantime, the Maniac, still repeating his insane cry of " higher, higher, higher," divested himself, successively, of every remaining article of clothing, throwing each portion, as soon as taken off, to the winds. The inutility of remonstrance, or rather the probability of its producing a fatal irritation, kept me silent during these operations : but judge of my terror, when having thrown his stockings overboard, I heard him say, " We are not yet high enough by ten thousand miles — one of us must throw out the other." To describe my feelings at this speech is A TALE OF TERROR. 283 impossible. Not only the awfulness of my position, but its novelty, conspired to bewilder me — for certainly no flight of imagination — no, not the wildest nightmare dream had ever placed me in so desperate and forlorn a situation. It was horrible ! — horrible ! Words, pleadings, remon- strances were useless, and resistance would be certain destruction. I had better have been unarmed, in an American wilderness, at the mercy of a savage Indian ! And now, without daring to stir a hand in opposition, I saw the Lunatic deUberately heave first one, and then the other bag of ballast from the car, the balloon of course rising with proportionate rapidity. Up, up, up it soared — to an altitude I had never even dared to contemplate — the earth was lost to my eyes, and nothing but the huge clouds roUed beneath us ! The world was gone I felt for ever ! The Maniac, however, was still dissatisfied with our ascent, and again began to mutter. "Have you a wife and children?" he asked abruptly. Prompted by a natural instinct, and with a pardonable deviation from truth, I replied that I was married, and had fourteen young ones who depended on me for their bread. " Ha ! ha ! ha ! " laughed the Maniac, with a sparkling of his eyes that chilled my very marrow. 284 A SKETCH ON THE ROAD. " I have three hundred wives, and five thousand children ; and if the balloon had not been so heavy by carrying double, I should have been home to them by this time." " And where do they live ? " I asked, anxious to gain time by any question that first occurred to me. " In the moon," replied the Maniac ; " and when I have lightened the car I shall be there in no time." I heard no more, for suddenly approaching me, and throwing his arms around my body * * * * * * * w % % % % ^ A SKETCH ON THE ROAD. " 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 inno- cent little girl and an old woman. In the mean time 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. 285 "LAYING DOWN THE LAW. C ox THE CELEBRATED PICTURE SO CALLED. ) " I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark." Merchant of Venice. " If thou wert born a Dog, remain so ; but if thou wert born a Man, resume thy former shape." — Arabian Nights. A Poodle, Judge like, with emphatic paw. Dogmatically laying down the law, — A batch of canine Counsel round the table, Keen-eyed, and sharp of nose, and long of jaw, At sight, at scent, at giving tongue right able : O Edwin Landseer, Esquire, and R.A., Thou great Pictorial Esop, say. What is the moral of this painted fable ? O say, accomplished Artist ! Was it thv pui'pose, by a scene so quizzical, To read a wholesome lesson to the Chartist, So over-partial to the means called Physical, 286 LAYING DOWN THE LAW. Sticks, Staves, and swords, and guns, the tools of treason ? — To show, illustrathig the better course. The very Brutes abandoning Brute Force, The worry and the fight, The bark and bite. In which, says Doctor Watts, the dogs delight, And lending shaggy ears to Law and Reason, As utter'd in that court of high antiquity Where sits the Chancellor, supreme as Pope, But works — so let us hope — In equity, not iniquity ? Or was it but a speculation On transmigration. How certain of our most distinguish'd Daniels, Interpreters of Law's bewildering book. Would look Transform'd to mastiffs, setters, hounds, and spaniels, (As Bramins in their Hindoo code advance). With that great lawyer of the Upper House Who rules all suits by equitable nous. Become — hke vile Amina's spouse — A Dog, call'd Chance ? * * See the story of Sidi Nonmaii in the " Arabian Nights." LAYING DOWN THE LAW. 287 Metbinks, indeed, I recognise In those deep- set and meditative eyes Engaged in mental puzzle. And that portentous muzzle, A celebrated Judge too prone to tarry, To hesitate on devious inns and outs. And on preceding doubts to build redoubts That regiments could not carry — Prolonging even Law's delays, and still Putting a skid upon the wheel up-hill, Meanwhile the weary and desponding cHent Seem'd — in the agonies of indecision — In Doubting Castle, with that dreadful Giant Described in Bunyan's Vision ! So slow, indeed, was justice in its ways. Beset by more than customary clogs. Going to law in those expensive days Was much the same as going to the Dc^s ! But, possibly, I err. And that sagacious and judicial Creature, So Chancellor-hke in feature. With ears so wig-hke, and a cape of fur, Looking as grave, responsible and sage, As if he had the guardianship in fact Of all poor dogs, or crackt, And puppies under age — 288 LAYING DOAVN THE LAW. It may be that the Creature was not meant Any especial Lord to represent, Eldon or Erskine, Cottenham or Thurlow, Or Brougham, (more like him whose potent jaw Is holding forth the letter of the law,) Or Lyndhurst, after the vacation's furlough, Presently sitting in the House of Peers, On wool he sometimes wishes in his ears, When touching Corn Laws,Taxes, or Tithe-pinery, He hears a fierce attack. And, sitting on his sack. Listens in his great wig to greater whiggery ! So, possibly, those others. In coats so various, or sleek or rough, Aim not at any of the legal brothers Who wear the silken robe or gown of stuff. Yet who that ever heard or saw The counsel sitting in that solemn Court, Who, having passed the Bar, are safe in port, Or those great Serjeants, learned in the Law, — Who but must trace a feature now and then Of those forensic men. As good at finding heirs as any harriers, Renown'd like greyhounds for long tales — indeed. The Common Chancery reports to read, At worrying the ear as apt as terriers, — Good at conveyance as the hairy carriers LAYING DOWN THE LAW. 289 That bear our gloves, umbrellas, hats, and sticks, Books, baskets, bones, or bricks. In Deeds of Trust as sure as Tray the trusty, — Acute at sniffing flaws on legal grounds, And lastly — well the catalogue it closes ! — Still following their predecessors' noses, Through ways however dull or dusty. As fond of hunting precedents, as hounds Of runnino; after foxes more than musty ? However, slow or fast. Full of urbanity, or supercilious, In temper mild, serene, or atrabiUous, Fluent of tongue, or prone to legal saw, The Dogs have sot a Chancellor at last. For Laying down the Law ! And never may the canine race regret it, With whinings and repinings loud or deep, — Ragged in coat, and shortened in their keep, Worried by day, and troubled in their, sleep, With cares that prey upon the heart and fret it — As human suitors have had cause to weep — For what is Law, unless poor Dogs can get it Dog-cheap ? 290 HYDROPATHY, OR THE COLD WATER CURE, AS PRACTISKD BY VIN'CENT PRIKSSMT/, AT GRAFKNBKKG, BY n. T. CLAHIDGE, ESQ. The element that never tires. Bash. Hai.i.. The greatest danger to the health or life in Foreign Travelling, at least in Germany, is noto- riously from damp linen. A German-Ofen is not adapted for the process vulgarly called " airing," and the " Galloping Horse," alluded to by Words- worth in his poem on a Hanoverian Stove, is any thing but a clothes-horse. If you send your linen to be washed, therefore, you must expect in return a shirt as damp as a Dampschiff — stockings as dripping as the hose of a fire-engine, and a hand- kerchief with which you cannot dry your eyes. As a matter of course, you must look, now and then, for a wet blanket, or a moist sheet; and should that be the case, there is only one warming-pan to our knowledge in the Rhenish Provinces — and that one is at Coblence. OR THE COLD WATER CURE. 291 Now this drawback would alone prove a damper to many an English Tourist, who would otherwise go up the Rhine : for of what avail are all his Patent Waterproof articles — his umbrella, his Mac- intosh, his galoshes, India-rubber shoes, and Per- rinff's beaver, whilst he is thus liable to wet next his skin. In fact, we believe this danger, more than any sea risk or land peril, has deterred thou- sands of Valetudinarians from repairing to Ger- many to drink the waters — accompanied by the unwholesome probability of chilling the skin, closing the pores, and checking the insensible, invisible perspiration by putting on humid garments ; than which nodiing can be more injurious to even the strongest constitution, — witness the fatal shirt that clung so to Hercules, and which, allowing for mythological embellishment, was no doubt simply a clean one — sent to him wringing wet by that jade Dejanira. The catastrophe of the great Alcides rests, how- ever, on the very doubtful testimony of Greek his- torians. It is true, that by our English sanatory notions he ought to have died — say of inflamma- tion on the lungs — but according to die Hydro- pathists, the Strong Man ought to have been only the stronger for a " Cold Wet Bandaging." In- stead of cutting his sdck — or rather club — he ought 292 HYDROPATHY, merely to have broken out in salutary boils, which would have removed all his complaints, if he had any — for example, one Mr. Rausse names all chro- nic diseases of the lungs, all organic defects, and all diseases in penple whose muscles and sineios are past all power of action, and from whom the vital principle has passed beyond recovery — which said people, if we know any thing of plain English, must be neither more nor less than '<■ Stiff-uns !" And to confirm this cadaverous view of them, p. 74 declares that these assertions of Mr. Rausse are supported by a Mr. Raven ! Professor Mundc, however, who was cured of a painful complaint during his residence at Grafen- berg, stops short of the cure of Death by light or heavy wet, but enumerates Gout, Rheumatism, Tic Doloureux, Hernia, Hypochondria, Piles, Fevers of all kinds, Inflammations, Cholera, &c. &c. &c., to which Mr. Claridge adds a list, by the Reverend John Wesley, of some hundred of dis- eases, in man, woman, and child, to be cured by " Primitive Physic," alias Aqua Pumpy. Nay, we have cases of Illustrious Patients — Baron Blank, Count Dash, General Asterisk, the Mar- quis de Anonymous, and others, who were all well washed, and all washed well, — and so ftxr from suffering from wet linen, were actually swaddled OR THE COLD WATER CURE. 293 ill it ; and instead of being chilled, actually heated from being put up damp, like haystacks. It fol- lows that Hercules could not be carried off in the way supposed, — and especially if he enjoyed such indelicate health as he exhibits in his pictures and statues. The common dread of water and wetting seems certainly to be rather overstrained, We think litde, indeed, of the instance of Thomas Cam, aged 207, of whose burial registry Mr. Claridge furnishes an extract from the parish books; first, because there is no evidence that this very " Old Tom" was in the habit of soaking his clay with water; and secondly, because 207 was very probably the way with an ignorant Clerk of setting doion 27. Neither do we attach much weight to the opinions of the Travellers, who "assure us that amongst the Arabs this age is not unfrequently attained, and that men are frequendy married at a hundred years of age ; first, because the Desert is not parti- cularly well supplied with water ; and secondly, that consequently the Arabs must be of rather dry habits. But looking at another animal which lives in the wet, and is one of the greatest of water- drinkers, namely, the whale, we are quite ready to allow, as to its longevity, that it is " the longest creature as lives." •294 HYDROPATHY, Take courage, then, ye Valetudinarians, and apply for your passports. Go fearlessly up the Rhine, into swampy Holland, or Belgium, or wherever you will. Your old bugbears are actually benefits — real reforms to the constitution. Write on yourselves if you choose, " This side uppermost," but omit the fellow direction, " To be kept dry." You will thrive like the hydrangeas the more you are watered. Ride outside, and forget your um- brella. Prefer soaked coachboxes and sloppy boats — and if you even go overboard, remember that the mother of Achilles, to make him invulnerable, ducked him in a river. Ask for damp sheets, and pay extra for a wet blanket — nay, never say die, though after a jolly night you find the next morning that you have slept in a dewy meadow, with the moon for a warming-pan. If, in walking on St. Swithin's day, you happen to get under a spout, stay there — it's a Douch-Bad — vide Frontispiece, figure 4, and you are lucky in getting it gratis. Should you chance to trip and throw yourself a fair back- fall, with your head in a puddle, don't rise, but lie there as contentedly as a drunkard, for that — see figure 2 — is a Kopf-Bad. Instead of striding over a kennel, step into it, — for it is as good as a Fuss- Bad. And when a tub of cold water comes in your way, squat down in it like Parson Adams, OR THE COLD WATER CURE. '295 when he played at " the Ambassador," lor that is a Sitz-Bad — as you may see in figure 3, where a gentleman is sitting, as happy as a Merman, with his tail in a tub, and reading Claridge on the " Cold Water Cure ! " And should you experience, though you ough not, any aguish chills, or rheumatic pains from this mode of conduct — push on at once to Grafenberg, where \'incent Priessnitz will soak all complaints out of you, like the salt from a ling. As the preface says, it is " only eight or ten days' journey from London," and you may go either by Ostend or Hamburg; but the first route is the best, because you can wet your thirst by the way at the springs of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Brunnens of Nassau. For our own parts we prefer our washing done at home ; but never mind us. Push on for the great Fountain Tavern in Silesia, for depend upon it whatever you feel, whether flushes, shudderings, gnawings, cravings, creepings, shootings, throb- bings, dartings and prickings— it is only nature boring for water. Never stop, then, except perhaps for a minute or so to look at the votive fountain the Wallachian and Moldavian patients have erected, dedicated " Au Genie de I'Eau Froide,"— never halt till you iiave reached the famous House of Call for ^\\iter- 296 HYDROPATHY, men, and pledged the great Aquarius himself in a goblet of his own Adam's ale. If you are faint it will revive you, if thirsty it will refresh you, and if you have broken a bone or two by the upsetting of a diligence, the very man for a fracture stands before you. Tn fact his first exploit in Hydropathy was with cold water and wet bandages, and some little assistance from a table, to set and mend two of his own broken ribs ! After that if you are so unreasonable as still to require any evidence of the peculiar virtues of the fluid, know that by drinking and dispensing it, ice cold though it be, Vincent Precissnitz has made himself so warm that he is word) 50,000/. The above advice, it must be remembered, is not ours, but drawn from the book before us. We should be loth to be responsible personally for any lady or gentleman going so far off as Silesia to drown themselves, and by the awfully premeditated process of taking " twenty glasses of water a day." Neither should we like to have to answer to a visiter to Grafenberg for the discomfort of a room like "a soldier's chamber in a barrack," so low that Mr. Gross could not stand upright in it — with no better furniture than a bedstead with a straw mat- tress — a chest of deal drawers, a table, two chairs, a decanter and glass (for water only) and an OR THE COLD AVATER CURE. 297 " enormous washhand-basin." It would vex us to have commended any one to a table where it is generally complained that the food " though plen- tiful is coarse." He might not be pleased either with the remedy of drinking so much water, that there was little room for the solids. And, above all, he would naturally cry out against the heart- burnings incurred by Mr. Claridge himself, and which were relieved by a cure certainly worse than the disease. " The burning liquid which rises from the stomach to the throat is often caused at Grafenberg by the abundance of the greasy food with which the table is supplied. At the period of the crisis it frequently makes its appearance at the termination of humours, of which part is discharged by the first courses. I was sharply attacked by it at this period of the treatment, and ' a diarrohcea ivhich I brought on in gorging myself icith cold icater during two days com- pletely cured me.' " — p. 237. Now, it may l)e very well for Priessnitz, who boards and lodges his patients, to prescribe water by the pailful to prevent gluttony ; or to give them such beds and rooms as must necessarily promote early rising and encourage exercise out of doors. It may be quite consistent with his theory to neither light nor pave his neighbourhood, so that 298 HYDROPATHY, his clients are sure on a rainy day of a Mud-bath in addition to their other ones. But, as we said before, we should not like to advise any one we love or like to put themselves under his wet hands, unless inordinately fond of duck and cold pig. Moreover, many points of his treatment are prac- tised, if not openly at least secretly, in our own country; and at a consequent saving of all the trouble and expense to the patients of a journey to Silesia. The damp sheet system is no secret to the chambermaids at our provincial inns, and the metropolitan publicans and milkmen are far from blind to the virtues of cold water as a beverage. A fact that probably accounts for the peculiar healthiness of London compared with other capitals. To be candid, we have besides a private pre- judice against anything like a Grand Catholicon — not the Pope, but an universal remedy for all dis- eases, from elephantiasis down to pip. And we become particularly sceptical when we meet with a specific backed by such a testimonial as that of the Rev. John Wesley in favour of Water versus Hydrophobia. " And this, I apprehend accounts for its fre- qaently curing the bite of a mad-dog, especially if it be repeated for twenty-five or thirty days suc- cessively." — p. 81. OR THE COLD ^VATER CURE. 299 Of which we can only say, that on the produc- tion of certificates of three such cures, signed by a respectable turncock, we will let whoever likes it be worried by a mad pack of hounds, and then cure him by only showing him Aldgate-pump. Moreover, we are aware of the aptitude of our cousins the Germans to go the whole way " and a bittock " in their theories. As Mr. Puff says of the theatrical people, " Give those fellows a good thing and they never know when to have done with it." Thus allowing the element to be wholesome, for ablution or as a beverage, they order you not only to swig, sit, stand, lie, and soak in it, but actually to snuff it up your nose — what is a brido-e without water ? — for a cold in the head ! — p. 2*28. It was our intention to have quoted a case of fever which was got under much as Mr. Braid- wood would have quenched an inflammation in a house. But our limits forbid. In the mean time it has been our good fortune, since reading Clarido-e on Hydropathy, to see a sick drake avail himself of the " Cold Water Cure" at the dispensary in St. James's-park. First in waddling in, he took a Fuss-Bad; then he took a Sitzbad, and then, turn- ing his curly tail up into the air, he took a Kopf- Bad. Lastly, he rose almost upright on his latter end, and made such a triumphant flapping with his 300 HYDROPATHY, OR THE COLD WATER CURE. wings, that we really expected he was going to shout " Priessnitz for ever!" But no such tiling. He only cried, " Quack ! quack ! quack ! " v-i. I PART II. MR. CHUBB A PISCATORY ROMANCE. CHAPTER I. " Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling place, Where I may see my quill or cork down sink With eager bite of Perch, or Bleak, or Dace." J. Davors. " I care not, I, to fish in seas, Fresh rivers best my mind do please, Whose sweet calm course I contemplate, And seek in life to imitate." PiscATOR's Song. " The ladies, angling in the chrystal lake, Feast on the waters witli the prey they take. At once victorious with their lines and eyes, They make the fishes and the men their prize." AV^ALLEfl. Mr. Chubb was not, by habit and repute, a fisherman. Angling had never been practically his hobby. He was none of those enthusiasts in the gentle craft, who as soon as close time comes to an end, are sure to be seen in a punt at Hampton Deeps, under the arches of Kew Bridge, or on the '2. MR. CHUBB. banks of the New River, or the Lea, trolling for jack, ledi>ering for barbel, spinning for trout, roving for perch, dapping for chub, angUng for gudgeon, or whipping for bleak. He had never fished but once in his life, on a chance holiday, and then caught but one bream, but that once sufficed to attach him to the pastime ; it was so still, so quiet, so lonely ; the very thing for a shy, bashful, nervous man, as taciturn as a post, as formal as a yew hedge, and as sedate as a quaker. Nevertheless he did not fall in love with fishing, as some do, rashly and madly, but as became his character, discreetly and with deliberation. It was not a hasty passion, but a sober preference founded on esteem, and accord- ingly instead of plunging at once into the connexion, he merely resolved, in his heart., that at some future time he would retire from the hosiery line, and take to one of gut, horsehair, or silk. In pursuance of this scheme, whilst he steadily amassed the necessary competence, he quietly accu- mulated the other requisites ; from time to time investing a few more hundreds in the funds, and occasionally adding a fresh article to his tackle, or a new guide, or treatise to his books on the art. Into these volumes, at his leisure, he dipped, gradually storing his mind with the piscatory rules, "line upon line, and precept upon precept," till in theory MR. CHUBB. 3 he was a respectable proficient. And in his Sunday walks, he commonly sought the banks of one or other of our Middlesex rivers, where, glancing at sky and water, with a speculative eye, he would whisper to himself — " a fine day for the perch," or "a likely hole for a chub;" but from all actual practise he religiously abstained, carefully hoarding it up, like his money, at compound interest, for that delicious Otium-and- Water, which, sooner or later, Hope promised he should enjoy In the mean time, during one of these suburban rambles, he observed, near Enfield Chase, a certain row of snug little villas, each with its own garden, and its own share of the New River, which flowed between the said pleasure grounds on one side, and a series of private meadows on the other. The houses, indeed, were in pairs, two under one roof, but each garden was divided from the next one by an evergreen fence, tall and thick enough to screen the proprietor from neighbourly observation ; whilst the absence of any public footpath along the fields equally secured the residents from popular curi- osity. A great consideration with an angler, who, near the metropolis, is too liable to be accosted by some confounded hulking fellow with " What sport, — how do they bite?" — or annoyed by some pesti- lent little boy, who will intrude in his swim. b2 4 MR. CHUBB. " Yes, thut''s the place for me," thought Mr. Chubb, especially alluduig to a green lawn which extended to the water's edge — not forgetting a tall lignum vita3 tree, against which, seated in an ideal arm chair, he beheld his own Eidolon, in the very act of pulling out an imaginary fish, as big and bright as a fresh herring. " Yes, that is the place for me ! " muttered Mr. Chubb : " so snug — so retired — so all to one's self! Nobody to overlook, nothing to interrupt one ! — No towing-path — no barges — no thoroughfare — Bless my soul ! it's a perfect little Paradise ! " And it was the place for him indeed — for some ten years afterwards the occupant died suddenly of apoplexy — whereupon Mr. Chubb bought the property, sold off his business, and retiring to the villa, which he christened " Walton Cottage," pre- pared to realize the long water-souchyish dream of his middle age. " And did he catch any thing?" My dear Miss Hastie — do, pray, allow the poor gentleman a few moments to remove, and settle himself in his new abode, and in the mean while, let me recommend you to the care of that allego- rical Job in petticoats, who is popularly supposed to recreate herself, when she is not smiling on a monument, by fishing in a punt. MR. CHUBB. a CHAPTER II. Eureka ! The day, the happy day is come at last, and no bride, in her pearl silk and orange flowers, after a protracted courtship, ever felt a more blissful flutter of spirits than Mr. Chubb, as in a bran new white hat, fustian jacket, and drab leggings, he stands on the margin of the New River, about to become an angler for better or worse. The morning is propitious. The sky is slightly clouded, and a gentle southerly zephyr just breathes, here and there, on the grey water, which is thickly studded with little dimples that dilate into rings, — signs, as sure as those in the zodiac, of Aquarius and Pisces. A comfortable arm-chair is planted in the shadow of the tall lignum vitag — to the right, on the grass, lies a landing net, and on the left, a basket big enough to receive a Salmon. Mr. Chubb, himself, stands in front of the chair; and ha^^ng satisfied his mind, by a panoramic glance, of his complete solitude, begins precipitately to pre- pare his tackle, by drawing the strings of a long brown holland case into a hard double knot. But he is too happy to swear, so he only blesses his soul, patiently unravels the knot, and complacently allows the rod to glide out of the linen cover. 6 MR. CnUBB. With deliberate care he fits each joint in its socket, — from the butt glittering with bright brass, to the tapering top — and then with supple wrist, proves the beautiful pliancy of the " complete thing." Next from the black leather pocket book he selects a line of exquisite fineness, and attaches it by the loop to the small brazen wire ring at the point of the whalebone. The fine gut, still retaining its angles from the reel, like a long zigzag of gossa- mer, vibrates to the elastic rod, which in turn quivers to the agitated hand, tremulous with excite- ment. But what ails Mr. Chubb? All at once he starts off into the strangest and wildest vagaries, — now clutching like Macbeth at the air (h'awn dagger, and then suddenly wheeling round like a dog trying to catch his own tail — now snatching at some invisible blue bottle buzzing about his nose, — next flea-hunting about his clothes, and then staring skywards with goggle eyes, and i-ound open mouth, as if he would take a minnow ! A few bars rest — and off he goes again, — jumping, — spinning, — skipping right and left — no urchin striving to apprehend Jack O'Lantern ever cut more capers. He is endeavouring to catch his line that he may bait the hook ; but the breeze carries it far a-field, and the spring of the rod jerks it to and fro, here and there and everywhere but into his eager hand. MR. CHUBB. 7 Sometimes the shot swing into his eye, sometimes the float bounces into his mouth or bobs against his nose, and then, half caught, they spring up per- pendicularly, and fall down again, ^^^th the clatter of hail, on the crown of his white beaver. At last he succeeds — at least the hook anchors in the skirts of his jacket. But he is in too good humour to curse. Propping the rod upright against the tall lignum vitse, he applies both hands to the rescue, and has just released the hook from the fustian, when down drops the rod, with a terrible lash of its top-joint in the startled stream, — whilst the barbed steel, escaping from his right finger and thumb, flies off like a living insect, and fastens its sting in the cufF of his left sleeve with such good will, that it must be cut out with a penknife. Still he does not blaspheme. At some damage to the cloth, the Kirby is set free — and the line is safe in hand. A little more cautiously he picks up the dripping rod, and proceeds to bait the hook — not without great difficulty and delay, for a worm is a wriggling slippery thing, with a natural aversion to being lined with wire, and when the fingers are tremulous besides — the job is a stiflp one. Never- theless he contrives, ill or well, to impale a small brandling ; but remembering that he ought first to have plumbed the depth of the water, removes the 8 MR. CHUBB. worm and substitutes a roll of thin lead. After- wards he adjusts the float to the proper soundings, and then there is all the wriggling slippery nervous process to be gone through over again. But Pa- tience, the angler's virtue, still supports him. The hook is baited once more, — he draws a long deep sigh of satisfaction, and warily poising his rod, lets the virgin line drop gently into the rippling stream ! Now then all is right ! Alas, no ! The float instead of swimming erect, sinks down on its side for want of sufficient ballast; a trying dilemma, for the cure requires a rather delicate operation. In fact, six split shot successively escape from his trembling fingers — a seventh he succeeds in adjust- ing to the line, on which he rashly attempts to close the gaping lead with his teeth ; but unluckily his incisors slip beside the leaden pellet, and with a horrid cranch go clean through the crisp gut ! Still he does not blaspheme ; but blessing his body, this time, as well as his soul, carefully fits a new bottom on the line, and closes the cleft shot with the proper instrument, a pair of pliers. Then he baits again, and tries the float, which swims with the correct cock — and all is right at last ! The dreams, the schemes, the hopes, the wishes of a dozen long years are realized : and if there be a MR. CHUBB. 9 little pain at one end of the line, what enormous pleasure at the other ! ■Merrily the float trips, again and again, from end to end of the swim, and is once more gliding down with the current, when suddenly the quill stops — slowly revolves — bobs — bobs again — and dives under the water. The Angler strikes convulsively— extravagantly — insanely; and something swift and silvery as a shooting star, flies over his head. It should, by rights, be a fish— yet there is none on his hook ; but searching farther and farther, all up the lawn, to the back door, there certainly lies something bright and quivering on the stone step— something living, scaly, and about an inch long — in short, Mr. Chubb's first bleak ! CHAPTER III. Happy Mr. Chubb ! Happy on Thursday, happier on Friday, and happiest on Saturday ! For three delightful days he had angled, each time with better success, and increasing love for the art, when Sunday intervened— the longest dry Sunday he had ever spent in his life, This short fast, however, only served to whet his appetite for the sport, and to send him the earlier on Monday to b5 10 MR. CHUBB. the river's edge, not without some dim superstitious notion of catching the fine hog-backed perch he had hooked in a dream over night. By this time practice had made him perfect in his manipulations. His rod was put together in a crack — the line attached to it in a jiffy, the hook baited in a twinkling, and all ready to begin. But first he took his customary survey, to assure him that his solitude was inviolate — that there was no eye to startle his mmivaise honte, for he was as sensitive to observation, as some skins to new flannel : but all was safe. There was not a horse or cow even to stare at him from the opposite meadow — no human creature within ken, to cen- sure his performance or criticise his appearance. He might have fished, if he had pleased, in his night-cap, dressing-gown, and slippers. 'J'he ineffable value of such a privacy is only appreciable by shy, sensitive men, who ride hobbies. But Toby Shandy knew it when he gave a peep over the horn-heain hedge before he took a first whiff' of the ivory pipe attached to his smoking artillery. And so did Mr. Chubb, as after a preliminary pinch of snuff, and an extatic rub of his hands, he gently swung the varnished float, shotted line, and baited hook, from his own freehold lawn, into the exclusive water. MR. CHUBB. H The weather was lovely, the sky of an unclouded blue, and the whole landscape flooded with sun- shine, which would have been too bright but that a westerly breeze swept the gloss off the river, and allowed the Angler to watch, undazzled, his neat tip- capped float. Thrice the buoyant quill had travelled from end to end of the property, and was midway on its fourth voyage, when — without the least hint of bite or nibble— it was violently twitched up, and left to dangle in the air, whilst Mr. Chubb dis- tractedly stared on a new object in the stream. A strange float had come into his swim ! And such a float ! — A great green and white pear-shaped thing— of an extra size, expressly manufactured for the most turbulent waters; but magnified, by the enormity of the trespass, into a ship's buoy ! Yes— there it was in his own private fishing- place, down which it drifted five or six good yards before it brought up, on its side, when the force of the current driving the lower part of the line towards the surface, disclosed a perfect necklace of large swanshot, and the shank of a No. 1 hook, baited, as it seemed, with a small hard dumpling ! Mr. Chubb was petrified — Gorgonized—basi- lisked ! His heart and his legs gave way together, and he sank into the elbow-chair ; his jaw locked. 12 MR. CHUBB. his eyes protruding in a fixed stare, and altogether in physiognomy extremely like the fish called a Pope or RufF, which, on being hooked, is said to go into a sort of spasmodic fit, through surprise and alarm. However, disappointment and vexation gradually gave way to indignation, and planting the chair against the evergreen hedge, he mounted on the seat, with a brace of objurgations on his lips— the one adapted to a great hulking fellow, the other for an infernal little boy; but before either found vent, down he scrambled again, with breakneck precipitation, and dropped into the seat. To swear was impossible — to threaten or vituperate quite out of the question, or even to remonstrate. He who had not the courage to be polite to a lady, to be rude or harsh to one ? — never ! What then could he do ? Nothing, but sit staring at the great green and white float, as it lay on its side, making a fussy ripple in the water, till she chose to withdraw it. At last, after a very tedious interval, the obnoxious object suddenly began to scud up the stream, and then rising, with almost as much splutter as a wild duck, flew into the neighbouring garden. The swanshot and the hook flew after it, but the little dumpling, parting asunder, had escaped from the steel, and the halves separately MR. CHUBB. 13 drifted down with the current, each nibbled at by its own circle of New River bleak. Mr. Chubb waited a minute, and then fell to angling again; but as silently, stealthily, and sneakingly, as if instead of fishing in his own waters he had been poaching in those of Cashio- buiy — " Because Lord Essex wouldn't give him leave." But even this faint enjoyment was shortlived. All at once he heard, to the left, a plash as if a bull-frog or water-rat had plumped into the river, and down came the great green and white nuisance, again dancing past the private hedge, and waltzing with every little eddy that came in its way. Of course it would stop at the old spot — but no, its tether had been indefinitely prolonged, and on it came, bobbing and becking, till within a foot of the little slim tipcapped quill of our Fisherman. He instantly pulled up, but too late — the bottoms of the two lines had already grappled. There was a hitch and then a jerk — the swanshot with a centri- fugal impulse went spinning round and round the other tackle, till silk and gut were complicated in an inveterate tangle. The Unknown, feeling the resistance, immediately struck, and began to haul in. The pei-plexed Bachelor, incapable of a 14 MR. CHUBB. "Hallo !" only blessed his own soul in a whisper, and opposed a faint resistance. The strain in- creased ; and he held more firmly, desperately hoping that his own line would give way: but, instead of any such breakage, as if instinct with the very spirit of mischief, the top joint of his rod suddenly sprang out of its socket, and went flying, as the other lithe top seemed to beckon it — into HER garden ! It was gone, of course, for ever. As to applying for it, little Smith w^ould as soon have asked for the ball that he had pitched through a pane of plate glass into Mrs. Jones's drawing-room. All fishing was over for the day; and the dis- comfited Angler was about to unscrew his rod and pack up, when a loud "hem!" made him start and look towards the sound — and lo ! the unknown Lady, having mounted a chair of her own, was looking over the evergreen hedge and holding out the truant top joint to its ow'ner. The little shy bashful Bachelor, still in a nervous agony, would fain have been blind to this civility ; but the cough became too importunate to be shirked, and blush- ing till his very hair and whiskers seemed to redden into carotty, he contrived to stumble up to the fence and stammer out a jumble of thanks and apologies. MR. CHUBB. 15 " Really ma'am — I'm extremely sorry — you're too good— so very awkward — quite distressing— I'm exceedingly obliged I'm sure — very warm indeed," — and seizing the top-joint he attempted to retreat with it, but he was not to escape so easily. " Stop, sir !" cried one of the sweetest voices in the world, " the lines are entangled." '•' Pray don't mention it," said the agitated Mr. Chubb, vainly fumbling in the wrong waistcoat pocket for his penknife. " I'll cut it ma'am — I'll bite it off." '•' Oh, pray don't I " exclaimed the lady ; " it would be a sin and a shame to spoil such a beau- tiful line. Pray what do you call it?" What an unlucky question. For the w^hole world Mr. Chubb would not have named the material — which he at last contrived to describe as " a very fine sort of fiddle-string." " Oh, I understand," said the Lady. " How fine it is— and yet how strong. What a pity it is in such a tangle ! But I think with a little time and patience I can unravel it !" " Really, ma'am, I'm quite ashamed — so much trouble — allow me, ma'am." And the little Bachelor climbed up into his elbow-chair, where he stood tottering with agitation, and as red in the face, and as hot all over, as a boiling lobster. 16 MR. cnuBB. " I think, sir," suggested the Lady, " if you would just have the goodness to hold these loops open while I pass the other line through them — " " Yes, ma'am, yes — exactly — by all means — " and he endeavoured to follow her instructions, by plunging the short thick fingers of each hand into the hank ; the Lady meanwhile poking her float, like a shuttle, up and down, to and fro, through the intricacies of the tangled lines. " Bless my soul !" thought Mr. Chubb, " what a singular situation ! A lady I never saw before — a perfect stranger ! — and here I am face to face with her — across a hedge — with our fingers twisting in and out of the same line, as if we were playing at cat's-cradle ! " CHAPTER IV. " Heyday! It is a long job!" exclaimed the Lady, with a gentle sigh. " It is indeed, ma'am," said j\Ir. Chubb, with a puff of breath as if he had been holding it the whole time of the operation. " My fingers quite ache," said the Lady. " I'm sure — I'm very sorry — I beg them a thousand pardons," said Mr. Chubb, with a bow to the hand before him. And what a hand it was ! MR. CHUBB. 17 So white and so plump, with little dimples on the knuckles, — and then such long taper fingers, and filbert-like nails ! " Are you fond of fishing, sir?" asked the Lady, with a full look in his face for the answer. " O, very, ma'am — very partial indeed ! " " So am I, sir. It's a taste derived, I believe, from my reading." " Then mayhap, ma'am," said Mr. Chubb, his voice quavering at his own boldness, " if it isn't too great a liberty — you have read the ' Complete Angler?'" "What, Izaak Walton's? O, I dote on it! The nice, dear old man ! So pious, and so senti- mental !" " Certainly, ma'am — as you observe — and so uncommonly skilful." " O ! and so natural ! and so rural ! Such sweet green meadows, with honeysuckle hedges; and the birds, and the innocent lambs, and the cows, and that pretty song of the milk-maid's ! " " Yes, ma'am, yes," said Mr. Chubb, rather hastily, as if afraid she would quote it; and blush- ing up to his crown, as though she had actually invited him to " live with her and be her love." " There was an answer written to it, I believe, by Sir Walter Raleigh?" 18 MR. CHUBB. " There was, ma'am — or Sir Walter Scott — I really forget which," stammered the bewildered Bachelor, with whom the present tense had com- pletely obliterated the past. As to the future, nothing it might produce would surprise him. " Now, then, sir, we will try again !" And the Lady resumed her task, in which Mr. Chubb assisted her so effectually, that at length one line obtained its liberty, and by a spring so sudden, as to excite a faint scream. "Gracious powers!" exclaimed the horrified little man, almost falling from his chair, and clasping his hands. " I thought the hook was in my eye," said the Lady; "but it is only in my hair." From which she forthwith endeavoured to disentangle it, but with so little success, that in common politeness Mr. Chubb felt bound to tender his assistance. It was gratefully accepted ; and in a moment the most bashful of bachelors found himself in a more singular position than ever — namely, with his short thick fingers entwined with a braid of the glossiest, finest, softest auburn hair that ever grew on a female head. " Bless my soul and body ! " said Mr. Chubb to himself; " the job with the gut and silk lines was nothing to this ! " MR. CHUBB. 19 CHAPTER V. That wearisome hook ! It clung to the tress in which it had fastened itself with lover-like perti- nacity ! In the mean time the Lady, to favour the operation, necessarily inclined her head a little downwards and sideways, so that when she looked at Mr. Chubb, she was obliged to glance at him from the corners of her eyes — as coquettish a position as female artifice, instead of accident, could have produced. Nothing, indeed, could be more bewitching ! Nothing so disconcerting ! It was a wonder the short thick fingers ever brought their task to an end, they fumbled so abominably — the poor man forgot what he was about so frequently ! At last the soft glossy braid, sadly disarranged, dropped again on the fair smooth cheek. " Is the hook out?" asked the Lady. " It is, ma'am — thank God !" replied the little Bachelor, with extraordinary emphasis and fervour ; but the next moment making a grimace widely at variance with the implied pleasure. " Why it's in your own thumb ! " screamed the Lady, forgetting in her fright that it was a strange gentleman's hand she caught hold of so uncere- moniouslv. 20 MR. CHUBB. "It's nothing, ma'am — don't be alarmed; — nothing at all — only — bless my soul, — how very ridiculous !" " But it must hurt you, sir." " Not at all, ma'am — quite the reverse. I don't feel it — I don't, indeed! — Merely through the skin, ma'am, — and if I could only get a{ my pen- knife " " Where is it, sir?" " Stop, ma'am— here — I've got it," said Mr. Chubb, his heart beating violently at the mere idea of the long taper fingers in his left waistcoat-pocket — " But unluckily it's my right hand !" "How very distressing!" exclaimed the lady; "and all through extricating me !" " Don't mention it, ma'am, pray don't — you're perfectly welcome." " If I thought," said the lady, " that it icas only through the skin — I had once to cut one out for poor dear Mr. Hooker," and she averted her head as if to hide a tear. " She's a widow, then !" thought Mr. Chubb to himself. " But what does that signify to me — and as to her cutting out the hook, it's a mere act of common charity." And so, no doubt, it was ; for no sooner was the operation performed, than dropping his hand as if MR. CHUBB. 21 it had been a stone, or a brick, or a lump of clay, she restored the penknife, and cutting short his acknowledgments with a grave " Good morning, sir," skipped down from her chair, and walked off, rod in hand, to her house. Mr. Chubb watched her till she disappeared, and then getting down from his own chair, took a seat in it, and fell into a revex'ie, from which he was only roused by putting his thumb and finger into the wrong box, and feeling a pinch of gentles, instead of snuff. CHAPTER YI. The next day Mr. Chubb angled as usual; but with abated pleasure. His fishery had been dis- turbed; his solitude invaded — he was no longer Walton and Zimmerman rolled into one. From certain prophetic misgivings he had even aban- doned the costume of the craft, — and appeared in a dress more suited to a public dinner than his private recreation — a blue coat and black kersey- mere trowsers— instead of the fustian jacket, shorts, and leathern gaiters. The weather was still propitious, but he could neither confine his eye to his quill nor his thoughts to the pastime. Every- moment he expected to hear the splash of the great green and white float, 22 MR. CHUBB. — and to see it come sailing into his swim. But he watched and listened in vain. Nothing drifted down with the current but small sticks and straws or a stray weed, — nothing disturbed the calm sur- face of the river, except the bleak, occasionally rising at a fly. A furtive glance assured him that nobody was looking at him over the evergreen fence — for that day, at least, he had the fishery all to himself, and he was beginning, 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 swam, 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 clairvoyance he saw her distinctly looking 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-like through the air, and narrowly missing his rod, dashed — saluting him with a fresh sprinkle — into the river ! MR. CHUBB. 23 " Bless my soul," thought Mr. Chubb, carefully laying Tiis 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 remark- able," stammered Mr, Chubb, bowing as he spoke, plucking off his hat, and taking two or three un- steady 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 over- whelmed by the kindness, and wiping his face with his silk handkerchief, as if it had just received the favour of another sprinkle. " Charming weather, ma'am I " " 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?" " Ever what?" asked the 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." " O, she means trolling" thought Mr. Chubb, his blood as rapidly cooling down to temperate. " Why, no, ma'am— no. The truth is,— asking 24 MR. CUUBB. your pardon, — there are no jack or pike, I believe, in this water." " Indeed ! That's a pity. And yet, after all, 1 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, with 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 artifi- cial fly." « An artificial one ! — O, of all things in the MR. CHUBB. 25 world !" exclairred 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 cackles (she meant hackles), and whipping your shanks (she meant the hook's), and then drubbing your fur (she meant dubbing with fur), O, 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 abomi- nable great green and white float I — Yes, he would make the offer 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 swanshot, the No. 1 hook and its little hard dumpling. 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 flv," she said, 26 MR. CHUBB. " 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 instruction." 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 appara- tus, and began to angle for perch, roach, dace, gudgeons, — or anything else. But his gratitude was premature — his float had barely completed 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 awk- ward, 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 !" MR. CHUBB. 27 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 which he found himself involved ! 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 an 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 — sometimes to take off a fish — now to rectify her float — and now to screw or uncrew 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 that he was pouching the bait ! But so it was : — for exactly six weeks from the day when c2 28 Mli. CHUBB. Mr. Chubb caught his first Bleak — Mrs. Hooker beheld at her feet her first Chubb ! 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 ; or baste him, as Piscator recommends, with vinegar or verjuice. The pro- bability is that she blushed, smiled, and gave him her hand; for if you walk, Gentle Reader, to Enfield, and inquire 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- thoy fish together, sir, after their marriage ?" Never ! Mr. Chubb, indeed, often angled from morning till night, but Mrs. C. never wetted a line from one year's end to another. EPIGRAM. THE SUPERIORITY OF MACHINERY. A Mechanic his labour will often discard If the rate of his pay he dislikes ; But a clock — and its case is imcommonly hard- Will continue to work though it strikes. 29 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. One day — no matter for the month or year, A Calais packet, just come over, And safely moor'd within the pier, Began to land her passengers at Dover ; All glad to end a voyage long and rough, And during which, Through roll and pitch, The Ocean-King had sicAophants enough ! Away, as fast as they could walk or run. Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals, With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels. Away the passengers all went, but one, A female, who from some mysterious check. Still linger'd on the steamer's deck, As if she did not care for land a tittle. For horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual — Or nervously afraid to put Her foot Into an Isle described as " tight and little." In vain commissioner and touter, Porter and waiter throng'd about her ; 30 A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE. Boring, as such officials only bore — In spite of rope and barrow, knot, and truck, Of plank and ladder, there she stuck, She couldn't, no, she wouldn't go on shore. " But, ma'am," the steward interfered, " The wessel must be cleared. You musn't stay aboard, ma'am, no one don't ! It's quite agin the orders so to do — And all the passengers is gone but you." Says she, " I cannot go ashore and won't ! " "You ought to !" "But I can't!" « You must !" " I shan't !" At last, attracted by the racket, 'Twixt gown and jacket, The captain came himself, and cap in hand, Begg'd very civilly to understand Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet. " Why then," the lady whispered with a shiver. That made the accents quiver, " I've got some foreign silks about me pinn'd, In short so many things, all contraband, To tell the truth I am afraid to land, In such a searching wind I" 31 A VERY SO-SO CHARACTER. " I TAKE it for granted," said Mrs. Wiggins, in- quiring as to the character of a certain humble companion, "that she is temperate, conversible, and willing to make herself agreeable ? " " Quite," replied Mrs. Figgins, " Indeed, I never knew a young person so sober, so sociable, and so solicitous to please." NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. It is singular that none of the commentators on " The Merry Wives of Windsor" have hitherto attributed to Sir John Falstaffa. tampering with the Black Art of Magic. There are at least as plau- sible 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 ex- pressly hints to us that he himself was a Wizard, and popularly known as " Jack with his Familico's." 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 32 NOTES ON SIIAKSPEAUE. might serve for a bill in a modern window — namely, " Chambers let off" NOTE ON " KING JOHN." Prince Arthur. — Must you with hot irons bum out both my eyes? Hubert. — Young boy, I must In the barbarous cruelty proposed to be prac- tised 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 w^ould seem as if John, shrinking from the guilt of actual murder, had subsequently contented himself with ordering that the young "serpent on his path" should be rendered incapa- ble 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 sim- ply to blind the victim, to disable him from the throne, not to inflict unnecessary torture, or endan- ger life, it is humbly suggested to future painters and stage-managers, that the inhuman deed would NOTES ON SHAKSPEARE. 33 not have been performed with great dumsy instru- ments like plumbers' irons, but more probably with heated metal skewers or bodkins, as the eyes of singing birds have been destroyed by fanciers — though for a different reason — with red-hot knit- ting-needles. jj^ l\ . ^ ^^ T.H. MY EYES ! THERE'S A MOUSE ! " PARTY SPIRIT. '• Why did you not dine," said a Lord to a Wit, " With the Whigs, you political sinner?" " Why, really I meant, but had doubts how the Pit Of my stomach would bear a Fox Dinner." c5 34 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 hand- writing. But the internal evidence will satisfy any competent judge who knows any thing, by books or travel, of the Celestial Empire. No corrections have been attempted, whether in style or in the orthography (for example, Morphius for Morpheus, and Romus for Remus, in No. II.) ; and the only suppressions are of real names, and a few domestic particulars too private for the public. — Ed. NO. I. 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 prog- NEWS FR03I CHIXA. 35 nostifications are proved to be in the wrong. But I am not going to triumph over any one, tho' if I 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 repays for all. Nobody knows the sacrifices I have gone through for his sake, indeed, such as nothing would recon- cile to, except the reflection, it was all for his dear welfare, whatever others might think to the con- trary. 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. For of course his outfitting came very heavy, and I had to part with the Japan buffet and all my beautiful old chiney to make him fit for the Celes- tial Empire. Not to name all his little desidera- tums, which at such a time I could not grudge or refuse any thing he set his heart on to an only departing son for a foreign land. As is more than some people perhaps will simpathise 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 36 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 re})aid for all my efforts and ])rivatioiis, and only my due 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 kvxrv thought other- wise, 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 for- tune-telling gipsy. So much for cultivating genius, and which you'll excuse my saying, the mother it springs from must naturally know miore about than even the best of uncles. Indeed, you know your- self, to be candid, I always said he w-as 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 every thing, and the consequence is, instead of his being a plodding tradesman, or a low mechanick, my Augustus has distinguished himself as a shining character, and for what we know may be at this very moment a Colonel, a General, or a Plenipeni- tenliary. Every bodies nevies do not get up to NEWS FROM CHINA. 37 that I 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 1 seem to see the house turned into a perfect British INIuseum, what with great porcelain jars, and little tiny shoes, and bows and arrows, and the fricrhtfuUest 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 instead of going shabby genteel, who knows but I may some day go to routs .nd 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 appearances according to her rank in life, and handsomely dressed and set off as if she had just 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 38 NEWS FROM CHINA. will take religious care of, and not file it into holes like a common trumpery business letter, as some in trade are too apt. Some sentences 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 cleverness and a good heart. 1 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 civilized 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 NEWS FROM CHINA. 39 "land, not forgetting the barbarous inhabitants of China and Tartarus ! With which I remain, dear Brother, Your affectionate sister, Jeahma Budge. Wisbech, 13 October. NO. II. Dear 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 — enquiring at every Tea Ware- house and Crockery shop whether they have heard any thing 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 Circu- lating Library. 1 think 1 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 * This letter never reached its destination. 40 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 Pidding'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 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. Well, after soup, fish — and what 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 before, all floating on the surface belly upwards, just like old Parking- ton's carp when somebody had hocussed them with Cockulus Indicus. NEWS FROM CHINA. 41 However, this time it was that old buflFer Com- missioner Lin who had poisoned all the finny and scaly tribes by throwing such lots of opium into the river at Canton. Even the gulls were affected by it, from feeding on the small fry, and sat rocking 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 tops, and as hard to be waked up as Dr. Watts's sluggard. 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 arms of Morfius. We got some capital yams out of them, telling their 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 into the power of the pigtails instead 42 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 surrounded with floating spars and timbers, some being black and charred, from which we concluded either that some ship had been acci- dentally burnt and blown up, or else that hostilities 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 Foundling Hospital ? However it's fact: and here's the way of it, up and down. The Chinese towns are very populous, so much so that there isn't room for half the inha- bitants on dry land, and accordingly hundreds 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 NEWS FROM CHINA. 43 does about the streets, so they play about the deck instead, which being wet and slipperj' it often hap- pens 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 dear little ducklings afloat, till 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 of security are far from particular about their footing, but drop in 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 proprie- tors considered it as a notice to quit, and away they went helter skelter — sove qui peu, which is the French for devil take the hindmost, some up the river and some into the canals, — whole Waaler Lanes and River Terraces moving off in double quick, with such screaming and howling, they say, as never was heard. In such a skurry the juveniles 44 NEWS FROM CHINA. got knocked overboard like fun, some of the un- pleasant or snubbed children in large families 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 regu- lar 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 do^\Ti by the ebb tide, all floating about with their life-preservers, 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 reverse, the cap- tain 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, vi'hich they did so unmercifully that the officers in 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 NEWS FROM CHINA, 45 picked up in tbeir passage. Well, when Captain saw theiii all come back on his hands, he looked at them, they say, like an ogre, for he thought the barbarians 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 eveiy 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 gunbrig 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 3 and 4 in a hammock, and the rest sprawling about the decks, each looked after by a strapping he-nursemaid six foot high, — the carpenter's nui'seling 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 Romus, 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 46 NEWS FROM CHINA. biscuit ! And then the noise ! — for at least half of the children were screeching 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 infarnal jealous of our nussin and fondlin the Chinee babbies, that he's crept round on the sly and give 'em all a bite apiece ! " What became of the interesting Foundlings after- wards, 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 captain exchanged the whole boiling for the Newfoundland dog, which had somehow been inveigled on shore by the Chinese. As yet our ship had never fired a gun except by way of salute. In going up the river, a few shot had been aimed at us which our commander wouldn't condescend to answer. Our fellows have indeed NEAVS FROM CHINA. 47 the greatest contempt for the Chinese batteries, which they call their piany forts. At last we got liberty to return their compliments, and I deter- mined 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 cockshying 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, 48 NEWS FROM CHINA. in which case unless he gets knocked into the Tiger's Mouth, or is chopped in two by a two- handed sword, or has a wriggle like an eel, on an ugly 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 ! 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 chevv 'backy instead of opium, and therefore 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 NEWS FROM CHINA. 49 my duty to him, he may cut off his queue as soon as he Hkes, 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 R ouzel may depend on a Tung-lo to charm his 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-toiv 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 ! With love and duty to yourself, and remembrances to all friends 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 cormorant, and the amethyst brooch for a regular game cricket. 50 NEWS FROM CHINA. NO. 111. TO MRS. BUDGE, WISBECH. Dear Sister, — This is to acnollige your faver of the 13th currant includin 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 W's, — namely When Where and What. As for you and me difering its what we always did and always shall do like the 2 sides of an Account. Becos why whatever you place to Credit on one Side I set down Per Contra. For exampel what you call propper spirit I call impudence and what you considder generosity I consider extravi- gance. Thats how we don't ballance. Time will show whose Itums was the correctest, yours or Some Peoples, a Firm 1 Know as well as if their Names & Addresses was in the Directry & not many doors off 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 & narrowin your Incum, partickly as it was under 150 afore, & so no savin as to the Tax, NEWS FROM CHESTA. 61 Also your pinchin Yourself in Your vittles, & in course narrowin your Figger in that way too, which is more then I would for any dear Gus in the world. But as you say I cant feel like a Muther, & am glad I cant. I 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 my 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 my thirty Pound have gone it appears for Dux and Drakes instead of buying his Sextons and Squad rons 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 snuffbox 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 d2 52 NEWS FROM CHIXA. boot, as no man with a grate Toe could get his foot into. He's the very imraage ! Now in mij yunger days a respectabel yuth was content with a decent coat and hatj 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 an 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 herd of one fashonable religius 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 my 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 Kickin, and not unclever at backin, and an uncommon quickness at running away. But I dont NEWS FROM CHINA. 53 give him his Hed for all that. He would soon be distributing orders at rong doors if I did. But says you dear Gus isn't ment for a plodding tradesman. He's to be a shining 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 Corrispondance, not having your advantige of a hording Skool edication, I am no judge of stiles, how genuses ort to rite or not, but it do seem to me, from my own pickings up about the streets that he have much the same flashes of Fancy as the littel 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 Femal 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 54 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 oflF praps I may, to leave, as a legacy. 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. I 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 every where, which I mention in case that you or my Nevymay 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, wheras the Unna- teral ones always gets something or other if its ony a flat irun for their advances. With which I remane Dear Sister Your loving Bruther, Abel Dottin. Manchester, October the 26th, 1842. NEWS FROM CHINA. 55 NO. IV. TO MR. ABEL DOTTIN, GROCER, MANCHESTER. Dear Brother, — A violent cold having flown to my chest, I am too ill to enjoy retorting and reta- liating, 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 thoroughly ashamed of yourself and your unnatural sentiments. I allude particularly to your taking refuge as an Uncle in the character of a Pawnbroker, and declining 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 ingredients, and to weigh the just claims of consanguity in scales that are any thing 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 ! O, brother, consider your nevy's propinquity ! Your sister's own son — and if ever a youth exhibited a decided propensity to get elevated, its him. I do 56 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 opu- lence, rank, title, and dignity, to cut one's own flesh and blood must be perfect infatuation ! And suppose a little pecunery assistance teas necessary to his exaltation, 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 J may say, to pay the gates ? What's a paltry 50/. for such a figure in China ! And that dear Gus has turned out a phenomena, is plain from his own account. So great a rise in life of course demands a corresponding study of appear- ances, — but as transpires, poor fellow, from his letter, he has lost all his linnen and clothes. Such a misfortune must and shall be remedied, whatso- ever shifts I may have to make, or if I strip myself to my last dividend. For I presume even ?/ou NEWS FROM CHIXA. J/ would not wish your nevy to be a General without a shirt, or a Colonel without inexpressibles, and especially when he has attracted, as 1 may say, the Eyes of Europe. A nevy who may some day have to be sculptured, collossially, and set up on a prancing charging horse, over a triumphant arch. But some people may treat such a picture as chimerical, though quite as wonderful metamor- phoses have come down to us. Look at Boney- parte, who at first was only an engineer officer, like ?>Ir. 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 ihe whole republic I For my own part I will say for mv son, it as been my constant aim to 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 wisiies, for besides the safety of a pulpit, a soldier or a sailor when peace comes is a moral non- entity, 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 under- stand, the clerg)- is to go back to their ancient, antiquated costume, and put on their old-fashioned rubrics. As to the law he never could abide a chan- 0» NEWS FROM CHINA. cellor'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 pos- terity with his family arms. In the mean time 1 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 ex- pectations, 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-noddin mandarins, or any other articles you might fancy. In which NEWS FROM CHINA. 59 case you can be no loser, but will enjoy the satis- faction of putting forward a shining branch that will greatly add to our family lustre. How he escaped from such awful Waterloo work as he describes 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 I'ocketted besides. Indeed war seems from his picture, to be a combination of storm, total eclipse, the great earthquake that should have been, and the fifth 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 measures. I do beg and hope, therefore, to hear from you w'ith the needful, by return of post, in which case 1 remain, dear Brother, Your affectionate sister, Jemima Budge. Wisbech, 17 th November, 1842. NO. V. Dear Mother, — As I expected in my last, I have at length set foot in the Chinese empire, and am at this moment wi'iting from Chew-shew, a regular Celestial village, though not to be found 60 NEWS FROM CHINA. perhaps on the Celestial globe. However, it is a pleasant place enough, and would be pleasanter if our quartermaster had not quartered me with a wholesale breeder of black beetles, for a great Soy manufactury 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. First fatten your beetles on as much pounded rice as they will eat. Then mash the insects to a paste, which must be slowly boiled in a strong decoction of Spanish liquorice. Strain the liquor carefully, and bottle it, well corked, for English use. Since my last we have had several brushes with the natives, whose first attempt was to make a bon- fire 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 them- selves, 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-up of combustibles and destruc- tibles, might have played old gooseberry with our ship. But the Chinese are famous for their piro- technics, in which they take the shine out of ^-E^VS FROM CHINA. 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, wifh a length of slow-match proportioned to the distance, we were warned of it two miles off by a shower of outlandish squibbs and crackers and serpents, cut- ting away in all directions, and then forming them- selves into Chinese characters, one of them stand- ing, as the pilot told us, for a certain veiT hot place. Of course we soon shifted our birth, and let the fire-raft drive clear of us, which soon after blew up in the shape of a great firey dragon, with a blazing tail twisting to a point like a red-hot cork- screw, and spitting a volley of blue zigzaggy light- ning darting out of its mouth. It was a splendid sight, beating the grand Vauxhall finales, or the Surrey Zoological, all to sticks — and except in one little accident a very satisfactory performance. In the hurry of shifting the ship, the Chinese wash-boats that were fastened astern of her were all cut adrift, and getting entangled 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, every thing — so that what I am to do for a change I know not, unless I 62 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 Imperial Family at Pekin. To be sure I 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 forward a dozen shirts (fine ones mind) to her dear Gus. For trowsers, the climate being warm, I can perhaps make shift, d la High- lander, but the shirts are indispensable, and may be sent to the care of John Shearing. Esquire, Star Coffee-house, Drury-lane, who is coming out with the first reinforcements and supplies. Having mentioned my laurels, you will naturally wish to know where they were picked. After the fire- raft business, our commanders resolved in a coun- cil of war, to waste no more time in chaffing, but to commence uncivil operations, and do the offen- sive. So w'e 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 matchlocks and field artillery, which are small swivels fas- tened on camel's backs, but are frequently so NEWS FROM CHINA. 63 overloaded, that the recoil tears off the poor ani- mal's hmnp. On our side 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 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 mean time Captain Pidding got possession of a tea-grove towards How- qua, 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 Teatollers. My own post was with a cloud of skirmishers that was pushed forward to enfilade our artillery, while it made a reconnoi- sance — 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 64 NEWS FllO-M CHINA. 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 Robinson. 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 dis- mounted cannon, with a crash that makes you see all the gaslights in London in one focus. Of course, you're insensible for a bit, till your refreshed with a kick or a stab, and then you revive again, about as cool and collected as a gentleman waking sud- denly, at midnight, to a storm of thunder and lightning, 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 NEWS FROM CHINA. 65 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. However, 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 cheering 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 66 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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, and which, if you do not read of in the dispatches, must be laid to the envy and jealousy of our Top Saw}'ers and the Commander-in-chief. The pigtails, to do the handsome, behaved with 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 expense of the Chi- nese, and turned a great many of their flanks. The swag is immense : including the enemy's mili- tary chest, and the key of their position, which is of solid gold, and first-rate w'orkmanship, and is to be sent home to England for presentation to the Queen. NEWS FROM CHINA. 67 The loss on the English side was trifling; only one man belonging to our ship being killed, — a London Billsticker who had volunteered with the Expedition, 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 good many of the natives were also chevied after, and humanely hunted back to their homes, though some of our fellows, 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 fid- dhng little Ye-Yin, alias a Kit. The truth is, I was too much interested in going after a poor little stray Chinese. From the marks, it was evidently very young, and unaccompanied, 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, while fancy painted the delightful scene of restoring 68 NEWS FROM CHINA. it uninjured to its distracted parents. But fear had lent wings to the httle 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-year-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 gunpowder, as ragged as a beggar with slashing and fencing, and jabbering all his compliments and consolations in an unknown tongue. So as chaff- ing 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 anns NEWS FROM CHINA. 69 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 politelv 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 intended on his part to do the handsome and the grateful in return for my services — but which, as virtue is its own reward, I declined. Our victory at Kow-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 satis- fied with the terms, but they were 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 in^ated our Commander- in-chief, with such officers as he mav name ; and 70 NEWS FROM CHINA. I am proud and happy to say I am set down rather high in the Hst. So to say nothing of promotion at home, which may be booked, I am sure of some- thing 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 mean time, 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 remember that the money must 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 Facts which being unanser- able will save you the troubble of a Reply. — 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, NEWS FROM CHINA. 71 altho he is a grocer, may be a fare dealer and have as nice senses of honners in his trade, as a Lord or a Duke who has no Bisness what- ever 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. Concerning 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 rollin 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 your gen- teel 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 mth narrer incums had no sich capital choices, or my own Muther would certanely have pre- 72 NEWS FROM CHrNA. ferred me in a silk apon to a dowliis, 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 with- out a shurt. But its the prevailing fashion now- adays for every Boddy to aspire above their stashuns, or at any rate to pass otF their humble- ness under some high flown name. For exampel John Burril of our place, who I overheard the other day calling 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 metro- pulis. So I had only time to put your letter in my pockit-book, which will explane my anser- NEWS FROM CHINA. 73 ing it from this place, namely the Gorge and Vultm'e, High Holborn — N.B. and prepaid before- hand. 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 play, which was Theatre Royal Drury Lane, at three shillings ahead to the pit, the front row next the iNIusick. The peace was King John, another exampel you will say of a hard harted Uncle and a neglected Nevy, and as such a theatricle slap in somebody's face. But beggin pardon it seems to me that the account between such relashunships 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 responsibel as I may say for his own Accept- ance — 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 simperthisin with King John, with a plaguy Nevy of a prince Arthur, and an unreasonable Muther, always harping like somebody 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 I How- VOL. II. E 74 NEWS FROM CHINA. ever the second act being over, 1 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 Gallery, bust out in a loud roar of horse lauffing which to my humble capacity was anything but a propper display of feelin at such juvenile depravity. However I scrambled over the Benshes without eeremunny 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 Fool, who insistid on detainin me to know my particklers of my Loss. \^ hy then says I it's 30 pound, a new hat and a nevy, but as he had seen none of them took he declined to interfere. I mite have added to my minuses the best part of the Play, which of course I could not set out but returned 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 NEWS FROM CHINA. 75 referring to which put me in mind to inquire of his frend sum Reprobate of course at the Coffee- shop 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 were — not his frend but himself, 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 e2 76 NEWS FROM CHINA. 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 Chinees Exibition and where he pickt up his confounded Long Tungs and Slang Wangs and Swan Pans and every attum he knows of them infurnal Celestials. 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 bul- locks 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 to lern 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. 77 NEW HARMONY. " 1 'U have five hundred voices of that sound." — Cqriolani'S. A few days since, while passing along the Strand, near Exeter Hall, ray ear was suddenly startled by a burst of sound from the interior of that building : — a noise which, according to a bystander, pro- ceeded from the " calling out of the Vocal Militia." HULLAH-BALOO. This explanation rather exciting than allaying my curiosity, induced me to make further inquiries info the matter; when it appeared that the Edu- cational Committee had built a plan, on a German /H NEW HARMONY. foundation, for the instruction of the middle and lower orders in Music, and that a Mr. Hullah was then engaged 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 imperfect blending of a number of unpractised voices 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 sweet- ness in the music that fully atoned for any vocal irregularities, and would have reconciled me even to an orchestra of Dutch Nightingales. To explain this feeling, it must be remembered that no Admi- nistration 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 con- cert, for want of which, and through discordances amongst themselves, their political choruses have hitherto been so ineffective. It was evident, there- fore, 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 NEW HARMONY. 79 course, hoped to lend their own ministerial ears to songs and ballads very dilFerent 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 Millenium ! This idea so transported me, that like a gratefu canary 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 occur- rence 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. ;^rS. " DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW YOU'RE OUT ?" 80 ETCHING MORALIZED. TO A NOBLE LADY. " 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 iMilton, 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 wins, 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 ! For the first of all things in beginning to etch Are — good grounds for our representations. ETCHING MORALIZED. 81 Those protective and delicate coatings of wax, Which are meant to resist the corrosive attacks That would ruin the copper completely ; Thin cerements which whoso remembers the Bee 80 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. Your 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 vet suffer the butler to clean it. E .5 82 ETCHING MORALIZED. 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 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 betweenj 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 Countiy marsh, with a Cow after Cuyp, And a Goat skipping over a steeple. ETCHING MORALIZED. 83 A wild Deer at a rivulet taking a sup, With a couple of Pillars put in to fill up, Like the columns of certain diurnals ; 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 doves," A sweet family cluster of plump little Loves, Like the Children by Reynolds or Lawrence. But whatever the subject, your exquisite taste Will ensure a design very charming and chaste, Like yourself, full of nature and beauty — Yet besides the good points 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 %ceak lengths 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. 84 ETCHING MORALIZED. 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 tombs, 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 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 touchy As if done by a penny-a-liner. ETCHING MORALIZED. 85 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 rejlection. 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, designed by a hand unaccustom'd to etch, With a luckless result may be branded; Wherefore add this particular rule to your code, Let all vehicles take the rcrong side of the road, And man, woman, and child, be left-handed. S6 ETCHING MORALIZED. 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, the' 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 attain'd an artistical station. And it's, oh ! 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 — Like the polecat, the weasel, and things of that kith — They keep bithig the backs of their neighbours ! * The Deserted Village. Illustrated by the Etching Club. ETCHING MORALIZED. 87 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 ^roth on its face. Like a wretch in articulo mortis. Like a wretch in the pangs that too many endure From the use of strong loaters^ 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 cheerfullest smile, And the wit is in bright ebullition. 88 ETCHING MORALIZED. But Still stealthily feeding, the treacherous stuff Has corroded and deepened some portions enough — 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 cau 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. It is true, none the less, that a dark-looking scrap, With a sort of Blackheath, and Black Forest, mayhap, Is considered 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. ETCHING MORALIZED. 89 So with certain designers, one needs not to name, All this Hfe is a dark scene of sorrow and shame, Froni 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 ! But before 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 heaU 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 a rather 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 off of a storm — The fair Landscape shines out in a lustre as warm As the glow of the sun in its setting ! 90 A REFLECTION. 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 beset Lady Sale — With n Jim India Proof of your Metal, A REFLECTION ON NEW YEARS EVE. " Those Evening Bells — those Evening Bells !' How sweet they used to be, and dear ! When full of all that Hope foretels. Their voice proclaim'd the new-born Year ! But, ah ! much sadder now I feel, To hear that old melodious chime, Recalling only how a Peel Has tax'd the comings-in of Time ! 91 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. A SKKTCII 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." Craebe. " 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 of 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. " Quite an Italian Sky," added the Stranger, looking up at a sort of French grey 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 invigo- rating breeze from the Surrey Hills." To atone for this objection, however, I agreed 92 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. that the coach was the best, easiest, safest, and fastest in England, and the road the most pictu- resque out of London. Complaisance apart, we were passing between two vegetable screens, of a colour converted by dust to a really " invisible green," and so high, that they excluded any pros- pect 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 inclosures of our highly cultivated island. You may travel from Calais to Constan- tinople without the eye reposing on a similar spec- tacle." " 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 multi- plicity 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 every appearance of a THE HAPPIKST MAN IN ENGLAND. 93 man well to do in the world. He was more pro- bably a gentleman farmer, an admirer of fine grazing- land, and perhaps delighted in a well- dressed paddock and genteel haystack of his 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 different 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, uncul- tivated nature — and studded with rooks ! " The stranger had now furnished me with a clue to his character ; which he afterwards more amu- singly 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 philosophers who make the best of everything; imaginative painters, who draw each object en hcan, and deal plentifully in cauleur 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 Riches ; from the single state or a double one, or even from good 94 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. health or a clean conscience. The source of feli- city, 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 gra- phically he has described, in his " Lover's Journey," the different aspects of the same landscape to the same individual, under different moods — on his out- ward road, an Optimist, like my fellow-traveller, but on his return a malcontent like myself. In the mean time, the coach stopped — and oppo- site 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 barns, with a dwarf wall, and a gate, for a fore- ground to the picture. In fact, a strawyard, 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 win- dow, and with equal celerity discovered " a capital THE HAPPIF-ST MAN IN ENGLAND. 95 Pump ! with oceans of excellent Spring Water, and a commodious handle within reach of the smallest Child!" I wondered to myself how he would have de- scribed the foreign Fountains, where the sparkling fluid gushes from groupes of Sculpture into marble basins, and without the trouble of pumping 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, 96 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. and certainly without a syllable of notice ! It is such Headless Tourists, by the way, who throng to the German Baths and consider themselves Bub- bled, 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 Brun- nens. 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 inwardly grumbling at the weather, and yawning at the road, my fellow-traveller had been revelling in Italian skies, salubrious breezes, verdant enclosures, pastoral pictures, sympathising 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-a-tete from Leipzig to Berlin. The road, it is true, was none of the most interesting, but even the tame and flat scenery of the Lincoln- shire 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 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 97 — too critical to be contented. Whereas my present coach-fellow was not afraid to admire a common- place inn — I forget its exact locality — but he described it as " superior to any oriental Caravan- sery — and with a Sign that, in the Infancy of The Art, might have passed for a Chef cTCEuvre." Happy Man ! How he must have enjoyed the Exhibitions of the Royal Academy, whereas to judge by our periodical critiques on such Works of Modem 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 crin- ciple that a matchless collection of Titianshas been condemned for the want of a good Teniers. But my fellow traveller was none of that breed : he had nothing in common with a certain I^ady, who with half London, or at least its Londoners, had in- spected Wanstead House, prior to its demolition, and on being asked for her opinion of that princely mansion, replied that it was '" short of cupboards." In fact, he soon had an opportunity of pronounc- ing on a Country Seat — far, very, very far inferior to the House just mentioned, and declared it to be one which " Adam himself would have chosen for a Family Residence, if Domestic Architecture had flourished in the primeval Ages." 98 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 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 knowledge, the Proprietor was one of the most miserable of his species, simply because 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 disparagements, it is far wiser and happier, like the florid gentleman in one corner 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. From these reflections I was suddenly roused by the Optimist, who earnestly begged me to look out of the Window at a prospect which, though pleasing, was far from a fine one, for either variety or extent. " There, sir, — there's a Panorama ! A perfect circle of enchantment ! realizing the Arabia Felix of Fairy Land in the County of Kent ! " " Very pretty, indeed." " It's a gem, sir, even in our Land of Oaks — and may challenge a comparison with the most luxuriant Specimens of what the Great Gilpin calls Forest Scenerv !" THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 99 " I 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 Geography ! 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 Fernandez ! ' " " 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 Nature, — a perfect Eden, sir,— and the very spot, if there be one on the Terrestrial Globe, for the famous Milton to have realized his own ' Para- dise 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 f 2 100 THE HAPPIEST MAN IX ENGLAND. 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 cannot 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 some- thing of his own spirit, and I began to look out for and detect unrivalled forest scenery, and perfect panoramas, and little Edens, and might in time have picked out a romantic pump, or a picturesque post, — but, alas I 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 another minute was driving down the lane between two of those hedges that are only to be seen in England. " Well, go where thou -vilt," thought I, as he disappeared behind the fence, " thou art certainly the Happiest Man in England !" Yes — he was 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 HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. 101 the road more heavy. The scenery appeared to become tamer and tamer, the inns more unde- sirable, and their signs were mere daubs. At the first opportunity I obtained a glass of sherry, but its taste was vapid ; every thing 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 Opti- mist had raised my spirits considerably above par ; but now his operations had ceased, and 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 tra- velling that memorable long stage between Dan and Beersheba where " all v/as barren." 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 enjoying a boundless prospect over a country proverbial for Fertility, and resembling that Tra- ditional Land of Promise described metaphorically in Holy Writ as overflowing with Milk and Honey." Making all due allowance, however, for such 102 THE HAPPIEST MAN IN ENGLAND. professional flourishes, this very Desirable Invest- ment 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 Opti- mist could hardly have discovered a single merit on the estate ; but he did ; for whilst I was gazing in blank disappointment at the uncultivated nature before me, not even studded with rooks, I heard his familiar voice at my elbow — " Rather a small property, sir — but amply secured by ten solid miles of Terra Firma from the encroach- ments of the German Ocean." " 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 with an II Penseroso cast of feelings than the laughing beauties of a Villa in the Regent's Park, the Cynosure of Fashion and Gaiety, enlivened by an infinity of equipages. But excuse me, sir, I THE HAPPIEST MAN FN ENGLAND. 103 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 Fancy Wilderness, a sort of Shenstonian Soli- tude 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, during a sub- sequent 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 afforded " a capital opportunity for a spirited proprietor to establish a Splendid Mud Bath, like the ones so much in vogue at the German Spaws !" " If that gentleman takes a fancy to the place," 1 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 104 THE HAPPIEST 3IAN IN ENGLAND. would have remarked that iti 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- knocking down of somehody^s little Paradise" 105 SPRING. A NEW V E R S 1 O N. Ham, — The air bites shrewdly — it is very cold. Hor It is a nipping and an eager air. Hamlet. " Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness come ! " Oh ! Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum ? There's no such season. The Spring ! I shrink and shudder at her name ! For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter ! And suffer from her blows as if they came From Spring the Fighter. 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 eulogize 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 ! 106 SPRING. 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 Sprhig 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 oiF My Respirator. What 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 ! \ 107 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. AN EXTRAVAGANZA. CHAPTER I. I M E," says Rosalind, in that delicious syl- van comedy called « As You Like It," — " Time travels in divers paces with di- vers persons." And thence she prettily and wittily proceeds to enume- rate the parties with whom he gallops, trots, ambles, or comes to a stand-still. And no- thing can be truer than her theory^ Old Chronos has indeed infinite rates of per- formance — from railway to snail-way. As the butcher's boy said of his horse, " He can go all sorts of paces — as fast as you like, or as slow as you don't."' 108 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 Regulator ! The remark is as correct as striking, time is time, and the horological divi- sions are or should be synchronous from Knights- bridge to Whitechapel. But the old Mower is, like ourselves, a compound being — body and spirit. Hence he hath, as the Watchmakers say, "a du- plex movement:" namely, Mechanical and Meta- physical ; — 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 Ubifum, the other exact as the tempo ohligtito 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 Mor- THE LONGEST HOUR IN 31 Y LIFE. 109 tality," where Morton and the stern 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 the clock thrilled on his ear with such loud painful distinctness, as if each sound were the prick of a bodkin inflicted on the naked nerve of the organ." Here then was one of those persons whom Time gallops withal, w^hereas 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 res- pectable witnesses. For example : there was once a murder commit- ted at Tottenham ; and on the trial of the assassin, it became a point of judicial importance to deter- mine the exact interval between two distant pistol- shots. 110 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. " Five minutes !" deposed Miss White, who had passed the evening in question tete-u-tete with her affianced sweetheart. " Fifteen," swore Mrs. Black, who had spent the same hours in vainly expecting a husband addicted to the alehouse. " 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 !" 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 recti- fication, 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 punctu- ality, 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 regula- rity of the pendulum. Accordingly, five Quakers who had heard the shots, were examined as wit- nesses; and, on their several affirmations, gave the interval between the tw'O reports with little more variation than so many Admiralty Chronometers. As thus : THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 1 1 1 ilin. Sec. Obadiah 9 59 Jacob 9 58 Ephraim 9 39 Joseph 9 59 Samuel 9 58 Being actually the juste milieu, or a drab average, between the extreme statements of Black and White. CHAPTER II. But to my personal experiences. Like my fellow-mortals in fair Rosalindas cata- logue, I have 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. j\Iany 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 112 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 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. 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,* 1 obtained quite a friendly footing. Even Nero looked kindly on me, and the rest of the creatures did not eye * This same elephant once nearly killed an Irishman, for an insult offered to his trLink. The act was rash in the extreme ; " but it was impossible," the Hibernian said, " to resist a nose that you could pull with both hands." THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 11(3 me with the glances half shy and half savage which they threw at less familiar visiters. 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 taise 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 human 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 fiendish malignity. By the by, madam, did you ever hear of the doctrine of Instinctive Antipathies ? " 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 a peculiar pleasure in my presence 114 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 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 grin, he 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 in 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 canni- balish, that 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 Mon- ster, capable of appalling the heart of the bravest man, failed 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. 115 CHAPTER III. Apropos of Time and his divers paces, he noto- riously goes very slowly — as Sterne vouches — with a solitary captive, and of all solitary captives me- thinks 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 specula- tions, or mathematical calculations. He may even indulge in poetical composition. But a beast, a stupid, ignorant beast, has no such mental re- sources. If he struck a lyre it would be to immor- tal smash. Neither would it be of any avail to supply him with materials for those various handi- crafts by the exercise of which the Philadelphian Solitaries, described by Dickens, contrived to lose and neglect the creeping foot of time in their con- finement. 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 confine- 116 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. ment must experience great weariness — in fact, they obviously do suffer from ennui in no common degree. " How, sir? A vulgar, ill-bred wild beast, afflicted with the peculiar complaint of a woman of ton — of a lady of quality ? " Precisely, madam. There is a case on record of a Lioness with all the symptoms of the com- plaint, and of her adoption of that fashionable antidote, a lapdog. " 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." THE LONGEST HOUR IN MX LIFE. 117 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 Mariana at the Moated Grange. The panthers, leopards, ounces, jaguars, and the smaller cats, from constitutional irrita- bility, 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 vita so intensely that it is a wonder they have never dis- covered self-murder ! In fact Chuny, the elephant who was shot for attempting to break out of his prison, is said, after receiving 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. 118 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. " Their lives, poor things, must indeed be very monotonous !" Miserably so, madam, and their hours like ages ! No amusement, no employment to shorten them ! One can fancy Time hiiTiself 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 asleep. THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 119 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 ? " The Baron for ever !" Eh? " The Doctor for ever ! " Whom ? " The thing with a hard name for ever !" What Baron? — what Doctor? — what thing with a hard name ? " What thing? Why, Som-nam-bam-boozle- fusilism, to be sure. The animal sent the painter to sleep, didn't he?" Yes. " And ain't that Animal Magnetism?" Yes, yes — certainly, yes — as clear a case of Mesmerism as ever I met xoith ! 120 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. CHAPTER 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 appropriated to the larger animals. There was no person visible, keeper or visiter, about the place — like Alexander Selkirk, " I was Lord of the Fowl and the Brute." I had the lions all to myself. As I stepped through the door 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 a 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 froiTi 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 THE LOXGEST HOUR LN 3IY LIFE. 1*21 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 and 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 expos- tulate. " What ! — sorry for a nasty, vicious, wild beast, as owed you a grudge for nothing at all, and only wanted an opportunity to spit his spite ?" Exactly so, madam. The case is far from un- common. Nay, I once knew a foreign gentleman in a very similar 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, Yampires, Were Wolves, Incubi, and other devilries, that for years he never 122 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. passed a night without 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 complain of it, and in a broken voice and broken English informed me of his case. " O, my goot fellow, I am miserable quite. Dere is someting 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? Had he gone to perform in the legiti- mate drama — or taken French leave ? I was look- ing round for somebody to answer these queries, when all at once I descried an object that made me feel like a man suddenly blasted with a thun- derbolt. " Mercy on us ! You don't mean to say that it was the Tiger?" THE LONGEST HOLR IN MY LIFE. 123 I do. Huddled up in a dark comer of the room he had been overlooked by me on my entrance, and cunningly suppressing his usual snarl of recog- nition, the treacherous beast had proceeded to in- tercept my retreat. At my first glimpse of him he was skulking along, close to the wall, in the 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, and 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 g2 1'21 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 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 losing its solidity, and with an inexpressible sense of its imbe- cility, 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 sculling him on. In another moment this movement ceased, the tail straightened itself out, except the tip, which turned up, and became nervously agitated, a warn- ing 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 hea- ven, reminded me of the empty cage, and suggested, with lightning rapidity, that the same massive bars THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 125 which had formerly kept the Man Eater within, might now keep him out. In another instant 1 was within the den, had pulled to the door, and shot the heavy bolt. The Tiger foiled by the sudden- ness 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, 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 anomalous position : and in these days of dulness, and a dearth of dramatic novelties. 126 THE LONGEST HOUR IX MY LIFE. having furnished so very original and striking a situation, the Reader ought to be allowed a little time to enjoy it. CHAPTER VI. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " Zounds ! — pshaw ! — phoo ! — pish !" ejaculates a Courteous Reader, " it's all a hoax, the author is laughing at us." Not at all. Tile 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 instinctively 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?" It is difficult to say, madam, for they never utter, THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 1*27 much less publish, their speculations. That some do reason and even moralize " Moralize ! what, a brute beast — for instance, a great bear — a moralist like Dr. Johnson ?" 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 Sardonic grin, and his cynical ha ! ha ! ha ! from a too intimate acquaintance with the dusty, mouldy, rubbishing, unsavoury relics of the pride, power, pomps and vanities of the so-called Lord of the Creation ? " Who indeed, sir? 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 diverg 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 dura- tion of minims and seconds, and possible "last 128 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. Tnoments" 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 pre- paring me for Eternity ! CHAPTER 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. THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 129 that whenever he might feel incUned to lunch, he had me ready for it, as it were, in his safe. Thus the beast continued with intolerable perse- verance to stare in upon me, who, crouched up at the further corner 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 sym- pathy, 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 was approaching. If he had no hunger for food the savage had an appetite for revenge, and soon showed himself disposed, cat- like, to sport with his victim, and torment him a little by exciting his terror. I have said cat-like, but there seemed something more supernaturally ingenious in the cruelty of his proceedings. He certainly made faces at me, twisting his grim fea- tures 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 occasion- ally 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 G 5 130 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. me, not a mere feline blink at excess of light, but a significant, knowing wink, and then inflating his cheeks, puffed into my face a long, hot breath, smelling, most ominously, of raivjlesh I The horrid wretch ! why he seemed to know what he was about like a Christian ! " Yes, madam — or, at any rate like an inhuman human 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 semi- circular svveep, whether any part of me was within his reach. He took nothing, however, by his mo- tion, but his talons so nearly brushed my knees, that a change of posture became imperative. The den was too low to allow of my standing up, so that the only way was to lie down on my side, with my back against that of the cage— of course making myself as much like a has-relief di?> 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 THE LONGEST HOUR IX MY LIFE. 131 person. Foiled in this fishing for me, he then struck ttie bars, seriatim, but they were too mas- sive, and too well inbedded 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 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 Keepsake I — or 13'2 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 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 localities ? 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, 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, until loashed 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 THE LONGEST HOUR IN MY LIFE. 133 efforts to get at me, as well as 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 eveiy bite he simulated, and the consequent agonies. Oh, horrible — horrible — . horrible ! " Horrible, indeed ! I wonder you did not faint!" Madam, I dared not. All my vigilance was too necessary to preserve me from those 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 excitement, 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 134 THE LONGEST UOUR IN MY LIFE. protracted — the joints and sinews must relax, and then 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 — turning 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 off through the door into the next chamber, whence growls, roars, and shrieks of brutal rage soon announced that som.e 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 — for slojcness — as he had done with me. On con- PIROUETTES. 135 suiting 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 ! 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, espe- cially a male one, shows by his face, at the conclu- sion, what a physical exertion it has been. The best dancers are sparing of such manoeuvres ; for they know that any appeai-ance 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 — they toil not, neither do they SPIN. 136 AN UNDERTAKER Is an lllwiller to the Human Race. He is by Profession an Enemy to his Species, and can no more look kindly at his Fellows than the Sheriff's Officer ; for why, his Profit begins with an Arrest for the Debt of Nature. As the Bailiff looks on a failing Man so doth he, and with the same Hope, namely, to take the Body. Hence hath he little Sympathy with his Kind, small Pity for the Poor, and least of all for the Widow and the Orphan, whom he regards, Planter like, but as so many Blacks on his Estate. If he have any Community of Feeling, it is with the Sexton, who has likewise a Per Centage on the Bills of Mortality, and never sees a Picture of Health but he longs to ingrave it. Both have the same quick Ear for a Churchyard Cough, and both the same Relish for the same Music, to wit, the Toll of Saint Sepulchre. Moreover both go con- stantly in black — howbeit 'tis no Mourning Suit but a Livery — for he grieves no more for the Defunct than the Bird of the same Plumage, that is the Undertaker to a dead Horse. As a Neighbour he is to be shunned. To live AN UNDERTAKER. 137 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 your Domestic Imports of Drink and Vic- tual, so that the veriest She Gossip in the Parish is not more familiar with your Modes and Means of Living, nor knows so certainly whether the Visiter, that calls daily in his Chariot, is a mere Friend or a Physician. Also he knows your Age to a Year, and your Height to an Inch, for he hath measured you with his Eye for a Coffin, and your Ponderosity to a Pound, for he hath an Interest in the Dead Weight, and hath so far inquired into your Fortune as to guess with what Equipage you shall travel on your last Journey. For, in professional Curiosity, he is truly a Pall Pry. Wherefore to dwell near him is as 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 impos- sible as to be the Crony of a Crocodile. He is by Trade a Hypocrite, and deals of Necessity in 138 AN UNDERTAKER. Mental Reservations and Equivoques. Thus he drinks to your good Health, but hopes, secretly, it will not endure. He is glad to find you so hearty — as to be Apoplectic ; and rejoices to see you so stout — with a short Neck. He bids you beware of your old Gout — and recommends a Quack Doctor. He laments the malignant Fever so prevalent — and wishes you may get it. He compliments your Complexion — when it is Blue or Yellow : admires your upright Carriage, — and hopes it will break down. Wishes you good Day, but means everlasting Night; and commends his Respects to your Father and Mother — but hopes you do not honour them. In short, his good Wishes are treacherous ; his Inquiries are sus- picious ; and his Civilities are dangerous ; as when he proffereth the Use of his Coach — or to see you Home. For the rest, he is still at odds with Humanity ; at constant Issue with its Naturalists, and its Phi- lanthropists, its Sages, its Counsellors, and its Legis- lators. For example, he praises the Weather — with the W^ind at East ; and rejoices in a wet Spring and Fall, for Death and he reap with one Sickle, and have a good or a bad Harvest in common. He objects not to Bones in Bread (being as it were his own Diet), nor to ill Drugs in Beer, nor to AN UNDERTAKER. 139 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 ap- proves, contra the Physicians, of a damp Bed, and wet Feet, — of a hot Head and cold Extremities, and lends his own Countenance to the Natural Small Pox, rather than encourage Vaccination — which he calls flying in the Face of Providence. Add to these, a free Trade in Poisons, whereby the Oxalic Crystals may currently become Proxy for the Epsom ones ; and the corrosive SubUmate as common as Salt in Porridge. To the same End he would give unto every Cockney a Privilege to shoot, within ten miles round London, without a Taxed Licence, and would never concur in a Fine or Deodand for Fast Driving, except the Vehicle were a Hearse. Thus, whatever the popular Cry, he runs counter: a Heretic in Opinion, and a Hypocrite in Practice, as when he pretends to be sorrowful at a Funeral ; or, what is worse, affects to pity the ill-paid Poor, and yet helpeth to screw them down. To conclude, he is a Personage of ill presage to the House of Life : a Raven on the Chimnev Pot 140 AN UNDERTAKER. — a Deathwatch in the Wainscot, — a Winding Sheet in the Candle. To meet with him is omi- nous. His Looks are sinister ; his Dress is lugu- brious ; 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. 141 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME. 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 Taxgatherer's Sche- dules, with a blank or two for the victim 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: — bait- ing, one might fancy, with a bluish tinge for Lady Chatterton, with a light green for Mrs. Hall, or Miss INIitford, and with a French white for Miss Costello— for Moore with a flesh colour, with gray for the Bard of Memory, and with rose colour for the Poet of Hope — with stone colour for Allan Cunningham, with straw colour for the Corn Law Rhymer, 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 pencils 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 14'2 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYME. the Frontispiece, and a water-coloured 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 the 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 ordinaiy charac- ter: Extracts from Byron, Wordsworth, and Mrs. Hemans ; a Parody of an Irish Melody, an Unpub- lished Ballad, attributed to Sir Walter Scott, and sundry original effusions, including a Sonnet of sixteen 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 " eter- nity !" 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 singularity in their construction, the nature of which it required a second perusal to determine. Indeed, the peculiarity was so unobtrusive, that it A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHY3IE. 143 had escaped the notice of the owner of the Album, who had even 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 expressions, with respect to her maiden essay, had certainly not been aware of any thing extraor- dinary in her performance. On the contrary, she had apologized for the homely and common-place character of the lines, and had promised, if she ever improved 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. Instead of a mere com- monplace composition, the careful Reader 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 Rhyme, 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 spring And carol like a bird in Spring; 144 A FIRST ATTEMPT IN RHYMH 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 Reader or amuse, And breathe the true poetic vein, This page should not be fill'd in vain ! But ah ! the pow'r was never mine To dig for gems in Fancy's mine ; Or wander over land and main To seek the Fairies' old domain — To watch Apollo while he climbs His throne in oriental climes; Or mark the "gradual dusky veil" Drawn over Tempe's tuneful vale, In classic lays remembered long — Such flights to bolder 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 Burns, ' Who sang his native braes and burns. ) 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 poor lines 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 ! 1st of April, 1840. E. 145 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, foi; a horse-laugh will assuredly take place at my expense, but I never could sit on any thing 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 my education was in fault, for of course I was put to my feet like other children, but I do not remember being ever pro- perly taken off them in the riding-school. It is not unlikely that my passion for sailing has been inimical to the accomplishment; 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 any 146 HORSE AXD FOOT. thing else. Finall}', the Turk's principle, Pre- destination, may be accountable for my inaptitude. One man is evidently born under what Milton calls a " mounted sign," whilst another comes into the world under the influence of Aries, predoomed 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 turn and wind a fiery Pegasus, or 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 realized for- tunes or not, deserved to do so, besides obtaining 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 wdth 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 — HORSE AND FOOT. 147 indeed, the feat of Widdrington, who " fouglit upon his stumps," and so far, on his own legs, has always appeared to me comparatively easy, w^hereas for a charge of cavalry, Charge, Chester, charge. Off, Stanley, off, has always seemed to me the most natural read- ing. The chase of course excites my admiration and wonder, and like Lord Chesterfield I unfeignedly man-el — but for a different reason — that any gen- tleman ever goes to it a second time. A chapter of Nimrod'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, if, as I suppose, it means one's being tied on — but no, my evil genius would evade even that security. 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 he h2 148 HORSE AND FOOT. attained to — or that Day sliould have had so long a day — are to my mind " remarkable instances of longevity " far more wonderful than any recorded in the newspapers. How a jockey can bestride, and what is more, start with one of those thorough- bred steeds, is to me a standing, or rather running, or rather flying miracle. Were I a Robinson or a Rogers, I 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 Footscray, and thus by necessity, eques- trians or pedestrians. In fact, to corroborate this theor}^, 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 retrograding 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 re- marked elsewhere as to riding, that "sedentary HORSE AND FOOT. 149 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. Cole- ridge, for a similar or a still greater incapacity, was discharged 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 indiiferent performer — and Sir Walter Scott, as we read in his Ufe, tumbled from his galloway, and Sir Hum- phry Davy jumped over him. Even Shakspeare, as far as we have any account of his knowledge of horses, never got beyond holding them. Lord Chesterfield has described Doctor Johnson's ap- pearance 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. To affirm, however, that I never ventured on the quadruped in question w^ould 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 A Cockney's RuraJ Sports. 150 HORSE AND FOOT. any distance, is in blank, having Ijcen picked up insensible within twenty yai-ds of the door. I have a distinct recollection however of mounting a full-grown mahogany-coloured animal of the same genus, after coming to man's estate, which I may be pardoned for relating, as it was my only per- formance 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 pro- gress, I flattered myself, in the affections of his " eldest daughter," when alas ! a letter arrived from London, which summoned me on urgent business to the metropolis. There was no neat postchaise to be procured in the neighbourhood, nor indeed 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. She evidently felt the parting — we might not meet again for an age, or even two or three ages, alias weeks, and to be candid, I fully participated HORSE AXD FOOT. 151 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 I was unable to direct it, safe to the house, or rather to the door 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 beheve that the change which afterwards took place in the yoimg lady's sentiments towards me, was greatly attributable to my equestrian failure. The popular novel of " Rob Roy " made its appearance soon afterwards, and along with a certainly over-fervent admiration of its heroine, Di Vernon, a notable horsewoman, it is not improbable that Honoria imbibed some- thing of an opposite feeling towards 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 till a reign when the example of the Sovereign has made riding so fashionable an exercise with the fair sex. Indeed, I have invariably found that every female but one, 152 HORSE AND FOOT. whom I might have liked or lovedj was a capital horsewoman. How other timid or inapt gentlemen arc to procure matrimonial partners, is a problem that remains to be solved. They must seek com- panions, as W. says, in the humbler xvalks of life. Poor W. ! He was deeply devotedly attached to a young lady of family and fortune, to whom he was not altogether mdifferent, but he 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 warj:) 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 writting the above, word has been brought to me that poor W. is no more. He deceased HORSE AND FOOT. 153 suddenly, and the report says, of apoplexy ; but 1 know better. His death was caused, indeed, by a full hahit — but it was a blue one. EPIGRAM, ox THE CHINESE TREATY. Our wars are ended — foreign battles cease, — Great Britain owns an universal peace ; And Queen Victoria triumphs over all, Still " Mistress of herself though China fall! h5 154 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 ! 155 MR. WITHERING'S CONSUMPTION AND ITS CURE. A DOMESTIC EXTUAVAGANZA. Come away, come away, death And in sad cypress let rae be laid ; V\y away, fly away, breath ; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, all stuck with yew, Ob, prepare it ! Twelfth Night. CHAPTER I. "And who was Mr. Withering?" Mr. Withering, Gentle Reader, was a drysalter of Dowgate-hill. Not that he dealt in salt, dry or wet — or, as you might dream, in dry salt stockfish, ling, and Findon haddies, like the salesmen in Thames- street. The commodities in which he trafficked, wholesale, were chiefly drugs, and dye woods, a business whereby he had managed to accumulate a moderate fortune. His character was unble- mished, — his habits regular and domestic, — but although advanced in years beyond the middle age, he was still a bachelor. 156 MR. withering's consumption " And consumptive ? Why then according to Dr. I m ray's book, he had hair of a light colour, large blue eyes, long eyelashes, white and regular teeth, Jong fingers, with the nails contracted or curved, a slender figure, and a fair and blooming countenance." Not exactly, miss. Mr. Withering was rather dark — " Oh yes — as the doctor says, the tuberculous constitution is not confined to persons of sangui- neous temperaments and fair complexion. It also belongs to those of a very different appearance. The subjects of this affection are often of a swarthy and dark complexion, with coarse skin, dark hair, long dark eyelashes, black eyes, thick upper lip, short fingers, broad nails, and a more robust habit of body, with duller intellect, and a careless or less active disposition." Nay, that is still not Mr. Withering. To tell the truth, he was not at all like a consumptive subject: — not pigeon-breasted, but broad chested — not emaciated, but plump as a partridge — not hectic in colour, but as healthily ruddy as a redstreak apple — not languid, but as brisk as a bee, — in short, a comfortable little gentleman, of the Pickwick class, with something, perhaps, quizzical, but nothing phthisical in his appearance. AND ITS CURE. 157 Why, then, what was the matter with the man : ■)" A decUne, madam. Not the rapid decay of nature, so called, but one of those declines which an unfortunate lover has sometimes to endure from the lips of a cruel beauty ; for Mr. Withering, though a steady, plodding man of business, in his warehouse or counting-house, was, in his parlour or study, a rather romantic and sensitive creature, with a strong turn for the sentimental, which had been nourished by his course of reading — chiefly in the poets, and especially such as dealt in Love Elegies, like his favourite Hammond. Not to forget Shen- stone, whom, in common with many readers of his standing, he regarded as a very nightingale of sweetness and pathos in expressing the tender passion. Nay, he even ventured occasionally to clothe his own amatory sentiments in verse, and in sundry poems painted his torments by flames and darts, and other instruments of cruelty, so shock- ingly, that, but for certain allegorical touches, he might have been thought to be describing the ingenious torture of some poor white captive by a red Indian squaw. But, alas ! his poetry, original or borrowed, was of no more avail than his plain prose against that petrifaction which he addressed as a heart, in the 158 MR. withering's consumption bosom of Miss Puckle. He might as well have tried to move all Flintshire by a geological essay ; or to have picked his way with a toothpick into a Fossil Saurian. The obdurate lady had a soul above trade, and the offer of the drysalter and lover, with his dying materials in either line, was met by what is called a jiat refusal, though it sounded, rather, as if set in a sharp. Now in such cases it is usual for the Rejected One to go into something or other, the nature of which depends on the temperament and circum- stances of the individual, and I will give you six guesses, Gentle Reader, as to what it was that Mr. Withering went into when he was refused by Miss Puckle. " Into mourning?" No. " Into a tantrum ?" No. " Into the Serpentine ?" No — nor into the Thames, to sleep in peace in Bugsby's Hole. " Into the Army or Navy ? " No. " Into a madhouse ? " No. " Into a Hermitage?" AND ITS CURE. 159 No — nor into a Monastery. The truth is, he opportunely remembered that his father's great aunt, Dinah, after a disappointment in love, was carried off by Phthisis Pulmonalis ; and as the disease is hereditary, he felt, morally as well as physically and grammatically, that he must, would, could, should, and onght to go like a true Withering into a Consumption. « And did he, sir?" He did, miss ; — and so resolutely, that he sold off his business, at a sacrifice, and retired, in order to devote the rest of his life to dying for Amanda — alias Miss Susan Puckle. And a long job it pro- mised to be, for he gloried in dying very hard, and in pining for her, which of course is not to be done in a day. And truly, instead of a lover's going off, at a pop, like Werter, it must be much more satis- factory to a cruel Beauty, to see her victim deli- berately expiring by inches, like a Dolphin, and dying of as many hues, — now crimson with indig- nation, then looking blue with despondence, anon yellow with jaundice, or green with jealousy — at last fading into a melancholy mud-colour, and thence darkening into the black tinge of despair and death. It is said, indeed, that when the cruel Miss Puckle was informed of his dying for her, she exclaimed, " Oh ! I hope he w ill let me crimp him first, — like a skate !" 160 3IR. withering's consumption CHAPTER II. " But did Mr. Withering actually go into a consumption ?" As certainly, miss, as a passenger steps of his own accord into an omnibus that is going to Gravesend. He had been refused, and had a strong sentimental impression that all the Rejected and Forsaken Martyrs of true love were carried off, sooner or later, by the same insidious disease. Accordingly his first step was to remove from the too keen air of Pentonville, to the milder climate of Brompton, where he took a small detached house, adapted to the state of single unblessedness, to which he was condemned. For with all his con- viction of the propriety, or necessity of the catas- trophe, his dying for love did not involve a love for dying ; he might soon have to breathe his last, but it should be of a fine air. His establishment consisted but of two female servants; namely, a housemaid, and a middle- aged woman, at once cook, housekeepei", and nurse, who professedly belonged to a consumptive family, and therefore knew what was good or bad, or neither, for all pulmonary complaints. Her name was Button. AM) ns d HE. 161 She was tall, large-boned, and hard-featured : with a loud voice, a stern eye, and the decided manner of a military sergeant — a personage adapted, and in fact accustomed, to rule much more refractory patients than her master. It did not indeed require much persuasion to induce him to take to wear 162 MR. withering's consumption " flannin next his skin," or woollen comforters round his throat and wrists, or even a hareskin on his chest in an east wind. He was easily led to adopt cork soles and clogs against wet, and a great-coat in cold weather — nay, he was even out-talked into putting his jaw into one of ihose hideous contri- vances called Respirators. But this was nothing. He was absolutely compelled to give up all animal food and fermented liquors — to renounce succes- sively his joint, his steak, his chop, his chicken, his calves' feet, his drop of brandy, his gin-and-water, his glass of wine, his bottled porter, his draught ditto, and his ale, down to that bitter pale sort, that he used to call his Bass relief. No, he was not even allowed to taste the table-beer. He had pro- mised to be consumptive, and ]Mrs. Button took him at his word. As much light pudding, sago, arrow-root, tapioca — or gruel — with toast-and-water, barley-water, whey, or apple-tea, as often as he pleased — but as to meat or " stimuluses," she would as soon give him " Alick's Acid, or Corrosive Sup- plement." To this dietary dictation, the patient first de- murred, but soon submitted. Nothing is more fascinating or dangerous to a man just rejected by a female, than the show of kindness by another of the sex. It restores him to his self-love — nay, to AND ITS CURE. 163 his very self, — reverses the sentence of social ex- communication just pronounced against him, and contradicts the moral annihilation implied in the phrase of being "nothing to nobody." A secret well known to the sex, and which explains how so many unfortunate gentlemen, crossed in love, happen to marry the housemaid, the cook, or any kind creature in petticoats — the first Sister of Cha- rity, black, brown, or carroty, who cares a cus — « Oh !— " — a custard for their appetite, or a comforter for their health. Even so with Mr. Withering. He had offered himself from the top of his Brutus to the sole of his shoe to Miss Puckle, who had plumply told him that he was not worth having as a gift. And yet, here — in the very depth of his humiliation, when he would hardly have ventured to bequeath his rejected body to an anatomical lecturer — here was a female, not merely caring for his person in general, but for parts of it in particular — his poor throat and his precious chest, his delicate trachea, his irritable bronchial tubes, and his tender lungs. Nevertheless, no onerous tax was imposed on his gratitude ; the only return required — and how could he refuse it ! — was his taking a Temperance, or rather Total Abstinence Pledge for his own benefit. So he supped his semi- solids and swallowed his slops ; merely re- 164 MR. withering's consumption marking on one occasion, after a rather rigorous course of barley-water, that if his consumption increased he thought he should "try Madnra" but whether the island, or the wine, he left in doubt. CHAPTER III. In the meantime Mr. Withering continued as plump as a partridge, and as rosy as a redstreak apple. No symptoms of the imputed disease made their appearance. He slept well, ate well of sago, &c., drank well of barley-water and the like, and shook hands with a palm not quite so hard and dry as a dead Palm of the Desert. He had neither hectic flushes nor shortness of breath — nor yet pain in the chest, to which three several physicians in consultation applied their stethoscopes. Doctor A. — hearing nothing at all. Doctor B. — Nothing particular. Dr, C. — Nothing wrong. And Doctor E. distinctly hearing a cad- like voice, proclaiming ' all right." Mr. Withering, nevertheless, was dying — if not of consumption, of ennui — the mental weariness of which he mistook for the physical lassitude so cha- racteristic of the other disease. In spite, therefore, of the faculty, he clung to the poetical theory that he was a blighted drysalter, withering prematurely AND ITS CURE. 165 Oil liis Stem ; another victim of unrequited love, whom the utmost care could retain but a few short months from his cold grave. A conviction he expressed to posterity in a series of Petrarchian sonnets, and in plain prose to his housekeeper, who only insisted the more rigidly on what she called her " regimental rules" for his regimen, with the appropriate addition of Iceland INIoss. A recipe to which he quietly submitted, though obstinately rejecting another prescription of provincial origin — namely, snails beaten up with milk. In vain she told him from her own experience in Flariders, that they were reckoned not only nourishing but relishing by the Belgians, who after chopping them up with bread crumbs and sweet herbs, broiled them in the shells, in each of which a small hole was made, to enable the Flemish epicure to blow out the contents.* Her master decisively set his face against the experiment, alleging plausibly enough, that the operation of snails must be too slow for any galloping complaint. There was, however, one experiment, of which on his own recommendation Mr. Withering resolved to make a trial — change of air, of course involving change of scene. Accordingly, packing his best * The origin perhaps of the vulgar phrase, " a good blow out." 166 MR. withering's consumption suit and a few changes of linen in his carpet-bag, he took an inside place in the Hastings coach, and was whirled down ere night to that favourite Cinque Port. And for the first fortnight, thanks to the bracing yet mild air of the place, which gave tone to his nerves, without injury to his chest, the result exceeded his most sanguine expectations. But alas ! he was doomed to a relapse, a revulsion so severe, that, in a more advanced stage of his com- plaint he ought to have " gone out like a snuflP." " What, from wet feet, or a damp bed ?" No, madam — but from a promenade, with dry soles, on a bright day in June, and in a balmy air that would not have injured a lung of lawn-paper. CHAPTER IV. Poor Mr. Withering ! Happy for him had he but walked in any other direction — up to the Castle, or down to the beach — had he only bent his steps westward to Harling- ton, or Bexhill, or eastward to Fairlight,— or to the Fish-ponds— but his sentimental bias would carry him towards Lover's Seat,— and there— on the seat itself— he beheld his lost Amanda, or rather Miss Puckle, or still more properly, Mrs. Scrimgeour, who, with her bridegroom, had come to spend the AND ITS CURE. 167 honeymoon at green Hastings. The astounded Drysalter stood aghast and agape at the unex- pected encounter; but the lady, cold and cutting as the East wind, vouchsafed no sign of recognition. The effect of this meeting was a new shock to his system. He felt, at the very moment, that he had a hectic flush, hot and cold fits, with palpita- tion of the heart, — and his disease set in again with increased severity. Yes, he was a doomed man, and might at once betake himiself to the last re- source of the consumptive. " Not," he said, " not that all the ass's milk in England would ever lengthen his years." Impressed with this conviction, and heartily dis- gusted with Hastings, he repacked his carpet-bag, and returned by the first coach to London, fully convinced, whatever the pace of the Rocket, or the nature of the road, that he was going very fast, and all down hill. CHAPTER V. It was about ten o'clock at night when Mr. Withering arrived at his own residence in Bromp- ton : but although there was a light in the parlour, a considerable time elapsed before he could obtain admittance. At last, after repeated knockings and ringings, 168 MR. WITHERINGS CONSUMPTION the street-door opened, and disclosed Mrs. Butlon, who welcomed her master with an agitation which he attributed at once to his unexpected return, and the marked change for the worse, which of course was visible in his face, " Yes, you may well be shocked — but here, pay the coachman and shut the door, for I'm in a draught. You may well be shocked and alarmed, for I'm looking. I know, like death, — but bless me, ?>Irs Button, the house smells very savoury !" " It's the drains as you sniff, sir," said the Housekeeper : " they always do smell strongish afore rain." " Yes, we shall have wet weather, I believe — and it may be the drains — though I never smelt anything in my life so like fried beef-steaks and onions ! " « Why, then, to tell the truth," said Mrs. But- ton, " it i.i beef and inguns ; it's a favourite dish of mine, and as you're forbid animal food, I thought I'd jest treat myself, in your absence, so as not to tantalize you with the smell." " Very good, Mrs. Button, and very considerate. Though with your lungs, I hardly approve of hot suppers. But there seems to me another smell about the house, — yes — most decidedly — the smell of tobacco." AND ITS CURE. 169 " Oh, that's the plants !" exclaimed the House- keeper — " the geranums that I've been smoking, — they were eaten up alive with green animalculuses." " Humph ! " said Mr. Withering, who, snuffing about like a spaniel, at last made a point at the Housekeeper herself. " It's very odd — very odd, indeed — but there is a sort of perfume about you, Mrs. Button — not exactly lavender or Eau de Cologne — but more like the smell of liquor." " Law, sir !" exclaimed the Housekeeper, with a rather hysterical chuckle, " the sharp nose that you have sure/y/ ^yell, sure enough the tobacco-smoke did make me squeamish, and I sent out for a small quantity of arduous spirits just to settle my sto- mach. But never mind the luggage, sir, I'll see to that, while you go up to the drawing-room and the sofy, for you do look like death, and that's the truth.'' And suiting her actions to her words, she tried to hustle her master towards the staircase ; but his suspicions were now excited, and making a piglike dodge round his driver, he bolted into the parlour, where he beheld a spectacle that fully justified his misgivings. " Lord ! what did he see, sir?" Nothing horrible, madam; only a cloth laid for supper, with plates, knives, and forks, and tumblers for two. At one end of the table stood a foaming 170 MR. WITHERING S CONSUMPTION quart-pot of porter ; at the other a black bottle, labelled " Cream of the Valley," while in the middle was a large dish of smoking hot beefsteaks and onions. For a minute he wondered who was to be the second party at the feast, till, guided by a reflection in the looking-glass, he turned towards the parlour-door, behind which, bolt upright and motionless as waxwork, he saw a man, as the old song says, ^yj^^,.g ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^_ AND ITS CURE. 171 " Heyday ! Mrs. Button, whom have we here ?" <' If you please, sir," replied the abashed House- keeper, " it's only a consumptious brother of mine, as is come up to London for physical advice." "Humph!" said Mr. Withering, with a signifi- cant glance towards the table, " and I trust that in the mean time you have advised him to abstain, like your master, from animal food and stimu- lants." « Why you see, sir, begging your pardon," stam- mered Mrs. Button, " there's differences in con- stitutions. Some people requires more nourishing than others. Besides, there's two sorts of consump- tion." « Yes, so I see," retorted Mr. Withering ; " the one preys on your vitals and the other on your victuals." Just at this moment a scrap of paper on the carpet attracted his eye, and at the same time catching that of Mrs. Button, and both parties making an attempt together to pick it up, their heads came into violent collision. « It's only the last week's butcher's bill," said the Housekeeper, rubbing her forehead. " I see it is," said the master, rubbing the top of his head with one hand, whilst with the bill in the other, he ran through the items, from beef to veal, i2 172 MR. withering's consumption and from veal to mutton, boggling especially at the joints. " Why, zounds ! ma'am, your legs run very large!" « My legs, sir?" " Well, then, mine, as I pay for them. Here's one I see of eleven pounds, and another of ten and a half. I really think my two legs, cold one day and hashed the next, might have dined you through the week, without four pounds of my chop? !" "Your chops, sir?" " Yes, my chops, woman, — and if I had not dropped in, you and your consumptive brother there would be supping on my steaks. You would eat me up alive?*' " You forget, sir," muttered the Housekeeper, " there's a nousemaid." " Forget the devil ! " bellowed Mr. Withering, fairly driven beyond his patience, and out of his temper, by different provocatives ; for all this time the fried beef and onions, — one of the most savoury of dishes,— had been steaming under his nose, sug- gesting rather annoying comparisons between the fare before him and his own diet. " Yes, here have I been starving these two months on spoon victuals and slops, while my ser- vants, my precious servants, — confound them ! were AND ITS CURE. 173 feasting on the fat of the land ! Yes, you, woman ! you— with your favourite dishes, — my fried steaks, and my boiled legs, and my broiled chops, but for- bidding me — me your master, — to dine even on my own kidneys, or my own sweetbread ! But if I'll be consumptive any longer I'll be " The last word of the sentence, innocent or pro- fane, was lost in the loud slam of the street-door — for Mrs. Button's consumptive brother, disliking the turn of affairs, had quietly stolen out of the parlour, and made his escape from the house. " And did Mr. Withering observe his vow ? " Most religiously, madam. Indeed, after dis- missing Mrs. Button with her " regimental rules," he went rather to the opposite extreme, and dined and supped so heartily on his legs and shoulders, his breast and ribs, his loins, his heart, and liver, and his calf's head, and moreover washed them down so freely with wine, beer, and strong waters, that there was far more danger of his going out with an Apoplexy than of his going into a Con- sumption. 174 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. " A plague of both your Houses." — Mercutio. The Contest for the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford ought hardly to be passed over in silence. Indeed it was our original intention to have gone into the subject, whilst it might have been treated as a cause pertaining solely to the Belles Lettres, and equally unconnected with the great bells that ring in Protestant steeples, or the little bells that tinkle before papistical altars. There was a clas- sical seat to be filled; and it would never have occurred to us to examine into the opinions of either candidate on abstruse questions of divinity, any more than at the new-bottoming of an old THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 175 chair, we should have inquired whether the rushes were to be supphed by the Lincolnshire Fens, or the Pontine Marshes. That any but poetical qua- lifications were to be considered would never have entered into our mind — we should as soon have dreamt of the Judge at a Cattle Show awarding the Premium, not to the fattest and best fed beast, but to an ox of a favourite colour. No — in our simplicity we should have summoned the rival Poets before us, in black and white, and made them give alternate specimens of their ability in the tuneful art, like Daphnis and Strephon in the Pastoral — Then sing by turns, by turns the Muses sing : and to the best of our humble judgment we should have awarded the Prize Chair, squabs, castors and all, to the melodious victor. As to demanding of either of the competitors what he thought of the Viaticum, or Extreme Unction, it would have seemed to us a far less pertinent question than to ask the would-be Chairman of a Temperance Society whether he preferred gin or rum. We should have considered the candidates, in fact, as Architects professing to " build the lofty rhyme," without supposing its possible connexion with the building of churches or chapels. In that character only should we have reviewed the parties before 176 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. us; and their several merits would have been dis- cussed in an appropriate manner. Thus we might perhaps have pointed out that Mr. Garbett pos- sessed the finer ear, but Mr. Williams the keener eye for the picturesque ;— that the fellow of Brazen Nose had the greater command of language, but the Trinity man displayed a better assortment of images : and we might have particularized by quo- tations where the first reminded us of a Glover or a Butler, and the last of a Prior or a Pope. — We might also have deemed it our duty to ex- amine into the acquaintance of the parties with the works of the Fathers, not of theology but of poetry ; and it might have happened for us to inquire how certain probationary verses stood upon their feet — but certainly not the when, where, or wherefore, the author went down upon his knees. We should as soon have thought of examining a professed cook in circumnavigation, or a theatrical star in astronomy ; or of proposing to an Irish chairman, of sedan tary habits, to fill the disputed seat. The truth is, that unlike a certain class of per- sons who would go to the pole for polemics, and seek an altercation at the altar, we have neither a turn nor a taste for religious disputation, and there- fore never expected nor wished to find a theolo- gical controversy in a question of prosyversy. We THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 177 never conceived the suspicion that the Pere La Chaise of Poetry might become a Confessor as well as a Professor, and initiate his classes in the mys- teries of Rome, any more than we should have feared his converting them to the Polytheism of the heathen Ovid, or that very blind Pagan old Homer. On the contrary, our first inkling of a division at Oxford concerning the Muses suggested to us simply that it must be the old literary quarrel of the Classicists and the Romanticists, or a dis- pute perhaps on the claims of Blank Verses to get prizes. At any rate we should never have com- mitted such an anachronism as to associate Poetry, which is older by some ages than Christianity, with either Protestantism or Popery. It would have been like jumbling up Noah of Ark with Joan of Arc, as man and wife ! Our first intentions, however, have been frus- trated ; for even while preparing for the task, as if by one of those magical transformations peculiar to the season, the Chair has turned into a Pulpit, and the rival collegians are transfigured — pantomime fashion — into Martin Luther and the Pope of Rome ! Such a metamorphosis places the per- formance beyond our critical pale ; but we will venture in a few sentences to deprecate religious dissension, and to forewarn such as call themselves i5 178 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. friends of the church against the probable inter- ference of those hot-headed and warm-tempered individuals who seem, as the Irish gentleman said, to have been vaccinated from mad bulls. Such persons, may, doubtless, mean well ; but the best- intentioned people have sometimes far more zeal than discretion, even as the medalsome Mathewite, who thinks that he must drink water usque ad nau- seam in lieu of usque ad haugh ; or like that over- humane lady, who feels so strongly against Capital Punishments and the gallows, that she would like to " hang Jack Ketch with her own hands." Let the breach then be stopped in time. The fate of a house divided against itself has been foretold ; and surely there cannot be a more dangerous and destructive practice than where a crack presents itself to insert a wedge. It is by a parallel process that many a magnificent Sea- Palace has been broken up at Deptford — timber after timber, plank after plank, till nothing was left entire, perhaps, but the Figure-Head, staring, as only a figure-head can stare, at the conversion of a noble Ship, by continual split, split, splitting, into firewood, chips, and matches. Seriously, then, we cannot discuss the University Feud in these pages : but our rules do not pre- clude us from giving some account of a Little Go THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 179 that seems to have been modelled on the great one, and which aptly serves to exemplify the evil influence of bad example in high places. A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS. Glorious Apollo from on high beheld us. Old Song. As latterly I chanced to pass A Public House, from which, alas ! The Arms of Oxford dangle ! My ear was startled by a din, That made me tremble in my skin, A dreadful hubbub from within, Of voices in a wrangle — Voices loud, and voices high, With now and then a party-cry, Such as used in times gone by To scare the British border ; When foes from North and South of Tweed- Neighbours — and of Christian creed — Met in hate to fight and bleed, Upsetting Social Order. Surpris'd, I turn'd me to the crowd. Attracted by that tumult loud. And ask'd a gazer, beetle-brow'd, The cause of such disquiet. 180 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. When lo ! the solemn- looking man, First shook his head on Burleigh's plan, And then, with fluent tongue, began His version of the riot : A row ! — why yes, — a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany, And what is worse, it's all got up among the Sons of Harmony, The more's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune. And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June ! Ah ! many a pleasant chant I've heard in passing here along. When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song ; But Dick's resign'd the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers Is 'cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars. Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious A pollers ! Lord knows their names, I'm sure I don't, no more than any yokel. But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal ; THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 181 Nay, some do say, although of course the pubhc rumour varies. They've no more warble in 'em than a pair of hen canaries ; Though that might pass if they were dabs at t'other sort of thing. For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing ; But lork ! it's many folk's belief they're only good at prosing. For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing ; And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials. If pop'lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials, And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey. It's chanted like the " Dog's Meat Man," or « If I had a Donkey." Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither. No ballad worth a ha'penny has ever come from either. And him as writ " Jim Crow," he says, and got such lots of dollars. Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers. 182 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. Howsomever that's the meaning of the squabble that arouses This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses, Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason, In Christian peace and charity according to the season. But from Number Thirty-Nine — since this election- eering job. Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there's an everlasting mob; Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by, But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye; And a pretty noise there is ! — what with canvassers and spouters. For in course each side is furnish'd with its backers and its touters ; And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried. You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married ; Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms, If you're dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the " Arms:" THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 183 While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars, To write about a Chairman for the Glorious ApoUers. Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same; Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,— But they'll be the House's ruin, or the shutting of it up, — With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears, While they've damaged many articles and broken lots of squares, And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother. By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other ; Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn't to repeat. And the names they call each other — for I've heard 'em in the street — Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not, For Pasley and his divers an't so blowing-up a lot. 184 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. And then such awful swearing! — for there's one of them that cusses Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses ; For he cusses every member that's agin him at the poll, As I wouldn't cuss a donkey, tho' it hasn't got a soul ; And he cusses all their families. Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim, To the babby in the cradle, if they don't agree with him. Whereby, altho' as yet they have not took to use their fives. Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives, I'm bound there'll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars, Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers ! To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall. Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call — And as if there wasn't Whigs enough and Tories to fall out. Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about, — Why, a cornfield is suflicient, sir, as anybody knows. For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows — THE rXITERSITY FEUD. 185 Not to name the IMayiiooth Catholics, and other Irish stews, To agitate society and loosen all its screws ; And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres, — But it's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears. And as to College laming, my opinion for to broach, And I've had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach. And so knows the University, and all as there belongs. And he says that Oxford's famouser for sausages than songs, And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant. As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want. Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to mind — But it's not the classic system for to propagate the kind, Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers ! For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice. It's the best among the vocalists I'd honour with the choice ; Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch ; Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch ; 186 THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 'Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful froUcs — And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec's. But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud, And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd, Have brought their jangling voices, and as far as they can compass, Have tum'd a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus, And him as knows most hymns — altho' I can't see how it follers — They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers! Well, that's the row — and who can guess the upshot after all ? Whether Harmony will ever make the " Arms " her House of call, Or whether this here mobbing— as some longish heads foretel it, Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it. Howsomever, for the present, there's no sign of any peace, For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the New Police ; — But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man, Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan, THE UNIVERSITY FEUD. 187 WTiy, I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle, For I'd have another candidate — and that's the Parish Beadle, Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy, And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy ; Whereby — if folks was wise — instead of either of them Scholars, And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers, They'll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as folic rs. Namely — Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers ! 'THE GREAT NAPOLEON OF THE REALMS OF RHYME." 188 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. " I cannot but advise all considering men whose lives are attended with such extraordinary incidents as mine, or even though not so extraordinary, not to slight such secret intimations of Providence, let them come from what invisible intelligence they will. That, I shall not discuss: but certainly they are a proof of the converse of spirits, and a secret communication between those embodied and those unembodied, and such a proof as can never be withstood." " That such hints and notices are given us I believe few that have made any observations of things can deny : that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits we cannot doubt ; and if the tendency of them be to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent (whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not the question!, and that they are given for our good ? " — Robinson Crusoe. " And the Devil is still ready at hand with his e\ il suggestions, to tempt our depraved will to some ill-disposed action." "He begins first with the phantasie, and moves thai so strongly, that no reason is able to resist." — Burton. It has been a favourite notion with enthusiasts and visionaries of various denominations, and in all ages, that we have an intimate intercourse with the invisible world : that we are guided in wholesome or prejudicial courses, and urged to virtuous or sinful actions by the promptings of good and evil spirits. Defoe, from whom I have taken my mottoes, evidently inclined to this belief: his earnest repeti- tion of the argument shows that he personally entertained the sentiments on the subject which he has attributed to his hero. It is true that the DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 189 quotations have reference only to benevolent niinisterings ; but the author does not therefore repudiate an infernal agency. On the contrary, Crusoe readily ascribes to the Devil the mysterious foot-print on the sand, howbeit the impression is of a man's naked sole, instead of the old tradi- tional hoof. In fact, to judge from the writings and preachings of certain sectarians, the satanical interference in human affairs is much more direct and constant than the providential : the Devil in propria persona (for his likeness is as well known as if it had been calotyped by Collen — or daguerreo- typed by Beard), having an audible voice and a visible finger in the most humble of their domestic concerns. Moreover, this theory of an infernal intercourse is especially maintained by the weak and the wicked, to whom it affords a convenient plea in mitigation, if not an absolute transfer of their guilt, just as a little boy lays his fault on a bigger and older instigator. Thus when such a sinner breaks some divine commandment, or violates some human law, — if he marries one woman too few, or two women too many — if be mistakes his neighbour's horse for his own ass — or swears to the wrong fact in an affidavit — or sticks his knife in a forbidden sheath,— or absently sets fire to his house instead of light to his fire— what- 190 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. ever error the misguided creature may commit, the blame attaches not to him, but to a certain per- sonage, who has appropriately been represented like a sort of black Scape Goat, with horns and a tail. In a word — the poor sinner has been the victim of " a Diabolical Suggestion." This popular belief received some thirty years ago a striking confirmation in the dreadful murder of an elderly couple, who were killed in bed by their footman. There was no robbery committed, and the motive of the assassin was enveloped in the deepest mystery. The ordinary temptations to such crimes were all absent — there was no injury to revenge, no hatred to gratify, no cupidity to indulge, no delinquency to conceal. According to his own account, and in which the criminal persisted at the gibbet, the deed originated in a sudden and unac- countable inspiration. He had been asleep, and on waking the thought came into his head — he could not tell how — to go and kill his master and mistress. In vain he strove to banish the diabolical suggestion — the horrible idea still haunted him with increasing importunity, till the struggle becoming intolerable and the impulse irresistible — the murder was consummated ! And was there really in this case any positive Satanical prompting — an actual whisper from the DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 191 Prince of Darkness? It is impossible for mortal man to reply in the negative : but one may at least show that no such cause was necessary to the effect — that a direct infernal instigation was not indispensable to the bloody consequence. It is quite possible that the first fearful hint was the offspring of a dream, — either a sleeping or waking one — for the opening of the outward organ does not simultaneously close that other eye, which gazes inwardly at another theatre, with its own stage, its own scenery, its own actors, and its own dramas. From the fragments of some visionary tragedy, just abruptly terminated, it was quite possible for the imagination to com- pound a new plot, incoherently mixed up with the dawning actualities of the house and its inmates. And hence the catastrophe. The mere entrance and entertainment of an unlawful speculation in an ignorant, vicious, and ill-governed mind seems to involve the final working out of the scheme. The more atrocious the proposal, the more vividly it presents itself, — the more horrible its features, the more frequently they recur; as a bad dream is oftener remembered than a good one. The man becomes in reality the slave of his own depraved imagination — its persecutions wear out what remains of his better nature, and submitting at last to its goadings, he performs the abominable task. Thus 192 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. the Killing in Thought begets the Killing in Act : for which reason, pei'haps, the first Murderer was branded, not in the hand, but on the forehead. " The wise only," says Coleridge, " possess ideas : the greater part of mankind are possessed by them" — i. e. as a person is said to be possessrd by an evil spirit or demon. A saying so true, that we have only to look round us to discover hundreds of men and women, gentle and simple, in this state of mental thraldom ; and, in consequence, daily committing acts so mischievous to themselves or to others, as to seem the plausible results of Diabo- lical Suggestions. In this category one may perhaps include such malefactors as Oxford and Francis, for whose traitorous attempts there has hitherto appeared no adequate motive. It is not necessary, however, to suppose any treasonable conspiracy — a political purpose, a popular disloyalty, or private enmity. The original sin needs not be of so deep a dye. The empty vapourings of a conceited, shallow-witted potboy, the melodramatic plottings of the son of a stage carpenter, would suffice, on the principle laid down, to induce the criminal result. The frequent repetitions of noto- rious offences — and in the case of Francis, the servility of the copy — the use of the same kind of weapon and the choice of the identical spot — are DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 193 favourable to this hypothesis. An atrocious idea, wantonly entertained in the first instance, is pam- pered and indulged, till like a spoilt child it tyrannizes over its parent ; and vociferously over- whelming the still small voice of conscience and reason — perhaps stiller and smaller than usual in the individual — compels him to submit to the growing imperiousness of its dictates. The mind — the sober, honest, and industrious servant of the wise and good — is the lord and master of the weak and wicked. And this is especially true of the Imagination — lovely and beneficent as the delicate Ariel, under the command of a gifted Prospero — but headstrong, brutish and devilish as Caliban turned out — according to a later history — when the wand that held him in subjection was broken ! A delinquency from this cause — though immea- surably distant in turpitude from the offences just mentioned — was committed, no matter when, nor where, nor by whom ; but he was a medical student in our metropolis. Amongst his other destructive or dangerous instruments he possessed a rifle ; and along with it a diploma which entitled him to prac- tise, on certain days, with other members of a shooting society at a club-target. At these meet- ings, the student was a constant attendant and competitor — never dreaming, however, of hitting VOL. II. K 194 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. any thing but bull's-eyes — till one unlucky day it suddenly came into his head — he could not tell by what orifice — to wonder if he could kill a deer. From that hour the notion haunted him like a ghost — in his bed, at his meals, at his prayers even, or during a walk — which, in fancy, was only a Deer-stalking. It occurred to him, whilst he listened to his patients — he knew that he could bring down a sick man, but could he kill a fat buck ? He could operate fatally, as he was aware, on the human body — but could he do the same by a stag ? The tormenting problem interfered with his professional studies — and at the Hospital, while the lecturer was explaining the functions of auricle and ven- tricle, the disciple was taking aim along an imagi- nary gun-barrel at an ideal Hart. At length — the cacoethes, as he called it, be- came so unbearable, that obeying what Lord E' and his keeper would certainly have consi- dered a Diabolical Suggestion, the rifleman posted down to C Park, and unceremoniously put a ball at 1'20 paces into the cranium of a monarch of the forest. The creature, as usual in such cases, sprang wildly aloft, and then fell dead, and the mental craving expired along with it. From that moment, the student declared he would not have DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 195 given a light farthing to kill another deer, even though he had held his rifle in his hand, and the Earl's permission in his pocket. It appears, then, that an unpruned imagination, backed by an inveterate memory, may produce evil consequences in the physical world, without any supernatural instigations. But by way of illustra- tion let me adduce two more instances, the first being of a ludicrous character — the second more serious in its tone and tragical in its termination. Amongst my intimates of ten years ago, there was one named Horace , a young man of a speculative turn of mind, and as often happens with such a character, of rather eccentric habits. When I first knew him he was professedly studying for the Bar : but his reading had little to do with the dusty tomes of the law. What he did read might be gathered from his conversation, from which it appeared that his favourite authors were those who put forward the greatest number of ingenious paradoxes, or the most fantastical theo- ries. There was, in fact, a Shandean twist in his mind that inclined him to all kinds of whimsical speculations, and that favourite pastime with such philosophers, the flying of metaphysical kites. He lived — a bachelor, in a small house in * * * street, with a limited establishment of domestics, k2 196 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. amongst whom he possessed, I verily believe, the plainest maid-servant in all England. Ugliness vv'as out of the question ; that has its expression and its interest, which may become even painful or fearful ; whereas, the longer you looked at Sally's countenance, the more ordinary it appeared. La- vater himself would have been puzzled to find in it any physiognomical character. It was as plain as a hard dumpling, and as insipid as gruel without sugar or salt. There was not a single line or marking in the whole visage to redeem it from the vacancy of a blank commonplace-book — it was universally flat and barren of meaning — as plain as Salisbury Plain — without a Stonehenge. Her figure was made to match. Her body would have done for a quadruped as well as for a biped, for it had no waist in the middle, and was furnished with limbs so unshapely, that her arms would have served for legs, and her legs for arms. Her feet were peculiar, and the pattern they would have stamped on a soft sand would have deserved a patent for originality. As to the other extremities I am not naturalist enough to know whether there be amongst animals any physical gradation of hands into paws ; but if there be, her hands were of that intermediate order, with five fingers apiece which seemed to have degenerated, or rather to have been DL\BOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 197 aggravated into thumbs, and moreover each mem- ber was enveloped in a skin red as beet and of a texture to have rasped away the stoutest towelling. In short, she seemed to have been created expressly for a maid of all-work to some utilitarian — not for show, but use — not very sightly, but very service- able — like the ancient turnspits. To her master she was invaluable : being not only sober, honest, and industrious, but frugal, steady, and above all, accustomed to his odd ways and whims, which she had learned to suit during a five years' semce. Judge, then, of my astonishment, when on dining, tete-a-tete, with my friend Horace, the " old familiar face," whose plainiiess had invariably been attend- ant on the plain dinner, was deficient ! Such a domestic phenomenon it was impossible to observe without comment; and when the cloth had been removed I ascertained that Sally had been parted with : but for some mysterious reason which her master did not seem inclined to communicate. " Had she robbed him?" « No." " Or been saucy ?" « No." " Or taken to drinking?" " No." 198 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. " Become idle or dirty?" « No." There was another contingency, though it seemed idle to mention it. " Was she married?" " Married ! my dear fellow did you ever look at her face ? Why it was as plain as the plain Staf- fordshire-ware — the dirty yellow sort without a sprig of pattern ! " And his eyes became fixed, as if he really saw that homely face before him, while he went on talking, or rather thinking aloud. " Marry her ? No, no — Nature has forbidden the banns. No man with eyes in his head would have dreamt of it — so thoroughly homely ! And then that coarse, clumsy, red, rough, huckaback hand!" " Yes — it was coarse, red, and clumsy enough. 1 have often noticed it as she waited at table." "You have?" said he, rather eagerly. "And did you ever think of kissing it?" " No — most certainly." " / have,'' said he ; " and what is more, have been within an ace of doing it. Though it must have been " And he again relapsed into his abstraction, and looked as if he saw that "red, right hand" before him. DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 199 " — Though it must have been like kissing a grater." I looked steadily at the speaker; but he was perfectly serious, indeed he was little given to jokes practical or verbal. He was quite in earnest, therefore, about the salute, though what it had to do with poor Sally's dismissal was beyond conjecture. However, by dint of pressing, I extracted the truth. He had dis- charged her for no fault on her side — it was all owing to a propensity of his own — which he bitterly anathematized, " His confounded habit of specula- ting and theorizing even on matters of moonshine." " Poor Sally !" said he, " you know how homely she was. I need not describe her face — you must have looked and wondered at it often and often — for there could not be such another in Nature. For my own part, she attracted me as much, or more than any of your professed beauties. And why not ? she was as much a paragon in her own way as Marie Antoinette, or the Duchess of Devonshire. Well, from looking at her, I must needs begin speculating, like a dreaming fool as I am, if she could ever have found an admirer — whether, with all the diversity of human tastes, her form and fea- tures could ever have met with liking. Could a face of such vapid homeliness inspire a partiality ? 200 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. Was it possible, that it could find favour in the eyes even of the most coarse, vulgar, and unre- fined of her own species — a Yorkshire ostler or a Paddington bargeman ? Was it within probability that she had ever heard the slightest expression of admiration — the remotest approach to a personal compliment? — even from the potboy? Never — never ! And then her figure — that strange clumsy shape, — " if shape it could be called that shape had none" — equally devoid of lines of beauty and lines of deformity, a mere bundle of human flesh, could it ever have attracted a ticket-porter or a ware- houseman, accustomed to unsymmetrical bags, bales, baggage, and packages of goods in bulk — could her model and proportions have interested even a lighterman, or ballast-heaver, used to the contemplation of the rudest craft, the most ungainly hulks, expressly built for the coarsest drudgery? Never ! And as to an offer, as it is called, the mere idea of suing for that red, stumpy, rough hand — but confound her hand ! I'll tell you what, my dear fellow, I am convinced that some of our thoughts are neither more nor less than Diabolical Suggestions !" " It is a rather general opinion." " I am certain, at least, that only some demon of malice or mischief could have put into my head DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 201 to inquire, ' JV/iat if I icere suddenly to seize and imprint a kiss on that red, scrubtnj hand?' She who probably had never received a salute since her childhood — not even from a tipsy hawbuck in K 5 202 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. fair-time — to receive such a love-token from a gentleman ? She, who from her teens, had never been addressed with love-nonsense, even by the baker or his journeyman, to receive a tacit declara- tion of the passion from her own master ! The flutter there would be of new-born Vanity — the tumult of awakened Hope ! In short, I went on in my own dreamy way, speculating on the revolu- tion in poor Sally's mind, the sudden change that might be wrought in all her old sentiments and feelings by such an extraordinary occurrence. And with any other man the foolish whim would have passed away, harmless, with the hour that gave rise to it; but it is my misfortune to be cursed with a memory which Daguerreotypes every image, and stereotypes every hypothesis, however crude, vague, or idle, that it has once entertained. From that day forward the unlucky girl was associated with that confounded speculation, and the idea of that ridiculous manual experiment came up as regularly as my dinner. There she was, before me, with her plain unloveable face — and if she placed a dish, or changed my plate — there was the red, scrubby hand — suppose I were to kiss it?" ^'Ha! ha! ha!" " Yes, you may laugh ; but you do not know the misery of such a besetting fancy. To be teased for DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 203 hours by a haunting tune, or a nonsense verse is bad enough ; but to be bored by your own thoughts for days, weeks, and months is intolerable. In fact, by the constant recurrence of the kissing notion, the mere sight of the coarse red hand begot a mechanical impulse that had to be resisted like a temptation. I have felt my lips, as it were, making themselves up for the act — and the wonder is, that I have never done it involuntarily ; as, to a cer- tainty, I must some day have done it deliberately to get rid of the torment of the suggestion. There was no alternative, therefore, but to banish the object; and accordingly under the pretence of reducing my establishment, poor Sally, with an excellent character for moral beauty, has been transferred to my sister in the country." " Yes. and as a provision against any such temp- tations in future, you have wisely engaged a new- maid, as lovely and loveable as Perdita, and as 'neat-handed' as Phillis." Shortly after this conversation, I went to the Continent, where I remained for some years ; and on my return, one of my first visits was to my friend Horace. He was at home, and as usual of a morning, in his little study, whence, after a short conversation, he proposed an adjournment to the drawing-room in the first-floor. Accordingly, still 204 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. chattering, he led the way to the foot of the stair- case, which I was about to ascend, when suddenly, in the very midst of a sentence, he hastily rushed past me, and ran, or rather flew, up the carpeted steps, three stairs at a time. Eccentric as he had always been, his character had hardly prepared me for this flight, and I hesitated to follow, till his voice came down from the top landing-place, ear- nestly begging me to excuse his rudeness, and promising an explanation. This, however, I had already forestalled, and so confidently, that on entering the drawing-room, I seemed to see the figure of an alarmed female, in a morning wrapper and curl-papers, escaping by an opposite door. But there was neither opposite door nor disconcerted lady of the house : the only living figure in the room was Horace himself looking rather flustered and foolish after his recent per- formance. As soon as he saw me he renewed his apologies, but in spite of the query in my face, the explanation was not forthcoming: he was evi- dently vexed and mortified, and when I directly applied for the promised elucidation, it was post- poned till after our lunch, in the hope, perhaps, that the matter would escape my memory. But I was not to be so defrauded : the remembrance of former odd freaks, and the wild and whimsical DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 205 theories in which they had originated, determined me to pkick out the heart of his mystery, — to obtain the solution of his acted riddle. I began, there- fore, bv congratulating him on his agility, of which" he had furnished me with such a singular illus- tration ; but this hint not taking effect, 1 fairly reminded him, that with all thanks for his hospi- table refreshments, he had excited another appe- tite, which he was bound in honour to pacify, that the cravings of my curiosity remained to be ap- peased, and to forestal any wilful misapprehension of my meaning, I hummed a few bars of the popu- lar melody — " Sich a gettin' up Stairs I" " Ah — it may be a joke to y(ni" said Horace, looking very serious and frog-like ; " but it is death to me ! My health, as you know, is none of the strongest, and these violent exercises are not adapted to improve it !" "Then why indulge in them? There can be no necessity for a gentleman's running up his own staircase as you did — unless, like the Poor Gentle- man in the comedy, he mistakes his friend for a bailiff." « No ! — My dear fellow, you are quite mistaken — but that is your happiness. You have not my cursed speculative imagination — nor my tenacious, inveterate memory — and you will never die a mar- tyr, as 1 shall, to a Diabolical Suggestion." 206 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. " A what^" " A prompting from the Devil." a Why — I hope not. 1 am no methodist, to have the Old Gentleman at my ear and my elbow. But I beg pardon— you have perhaps joined the sect — or may be the Swedenborgians, who believe in an intercourse with good and evil spirits " " Neither. It is not necessary to be a follower of the Count or of Whitfield, to be subject to such infernal influence. You remember the study I had engaged in just before you went abroad .'"' « Yes— of the German language. And you were learning it with your accustomed gluttony, as if you wanted to get from the tip to the root of the tongue in a single week." " Ah, I had better have taken to the Chinese ! My mastery of the Teutonic language was the source of my misfortune. You are familiar, of course, with the German Romances?" " Only in the translations." " Y^ou know, then, the prominent part which is played by the Devil in their most popular stories. More prominent even than in Paradise Lost, where Satan figures, not in the ascendant, but as the rebeUious antagonist of a still mightier Power, and the divine scheme of Human Redemption moves parallel with the diabolical plot for Human Per- dition. In the German Romances, on the con- DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 207 trary, the Fiend possesses the earth, and reigns as absolutely as any Lord Paramount of the feudal ages. Nay, his sway extends beyond this world to the world to come, and he has power over life and death, not only the temporary, but the eternal. The legitimate Governor of the Universe has been deposed, and there is a frightful interregnum — Anarchy succeeds to Order— and the blind random decrees of Chance supersede the oi'dinances of a sciential Providence. Immortal souls are lost by the turn of a die or a card, or saved by some prac- tical subterfuge or verbal evasion. Fraud and Violence alone are triumphant. Justice is blind and Mercy is deaf — the innocent bosom receives the bullet that was moulded with unholy rites ; and the maiden, whose studies never extended beyond her prayer-book, is involved in the fate of the ambi- tious student who bartered his salvation for inter- dicted knowledge. In short, you seem to recog- nise that dreary fiction of the atheist— a World without a God. Such is the German Diablerie !" " You are too severe." " Not at all. Look even at the Faust. Youth and Innocence personified in poor Margaret- have no chance. She has no fair field ; and assuredly no favour. The fight is too unequal. She has to contend single-handed against Man and Mephisto- 208 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. philes, the witchcraft of human love and the sorcery of Satanic hatred. The Prince of Hell in person acts supernaturally against her — but Heaven is passive, and works no miracle in her behalf. There is no help on earth — no pity in the skies — the guardian spirits and ministers of grace supposed to hover round, and to succour oppressed innocence, keep far aloof — the weak is abandoned to the strong — and the too tender and trusting nature is burdened, through a sheer diabohcal juggle, with the unnatural murder of a Mother. The trial is beyond Humanity. The seductions of Faust are backed by the artifices of the subtle Spirit that overcame Eve; and Margaret falls as she needs must under such fearful odds— and seemingly un- watched by that providential eye which marks the fall of a sparrow. There is indeed the final chorus from Heaven, that ' She is saved ! ' but was any mind ever satisfied — were you ever satisfied with that tardy exhibition of the Divine Justice — just as Poetical Justice is propitiated at the end of some wretched melo-dramatic novel, wherein at the twelfth hour the long-persecuted heroine is unex- pectedly promoted to a state of happiness ever after?" « Well— there is some show of truth and reason in your criticism— but, revenir a nos moutons — what DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 209 has either Faust or the Freyschutz to do with your scampering up stairs ? " " Every thing. After learning German, my first use of the acquisition was to go through all their Romances, and consequently a regular course of Diablerie — from the Arch Demon who inhabited Pandemonium, to the Imp that lived in a bottle — from the scholar who bartered his soul, to the fellow who sold his own shadow. The consequence I might have foreseen. My head became stuffed with men in black and black dogs — with unholy compacts, and games of chance. I dreamt of Wal- purgis Revels and the Wolf's Glen — Zamiel glared on me with his fiery eyes by night ; and the smooth voice of Mephistophiles kept whispering in my ear by day. Wherever my thoughts wandered, there was the foul Fiend straddling across their path, like Bunyan's ApoUyon, — ready to play with me for my immortal soul at cards or dice — to strike infernal bargains, and to execute unholy contracts to be signed with blood and sealed with sulphur. In a word, I was completely be-Devilled." " But the stairs — the running up stairs ? " " The result of my too intimate acquaintance with so much folly and profanity — a kind of bet. S'death ! I'm ashamed to mention it ! — a sort of wager that came into my head one day — a diabo- 210 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. lical suggestion of course — that the Fiend might have me body and soul, in default of my reaching the top of the stairs before counting a certain number ! " " What ! a wager with the Devil ! " « Yes— the infernal suggestion — for it was an infernal suggestion — was whispered to me at the stair-foot; and as if my salvation had really de- pended on the issue, I was up the whole flight in an instant. The next moment sufficed to convince me of the absurdity, not to say sinfulness, of the act ; but what defence is our deliberate reason against such sudden impulses? Before reflection could come into play, the thing was done and over. Nor was that the end. You remember my irresis- tible prompting to kiss the red, rugged hand of poor Sally ? " " Perfectly." " Well, there was the same mental process. You know how much our ideas are the slaves of association — and especially they are so in a tena- cious mind like mine, in which the most trivial fancies obtain a permanent record. To find myself near any stairs was enough therefore to revive the diabolical hint — the mere sight of a banister set me off" — in fact, before the month was out I had raced again, again, and again, not only up my own DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 211 flight, but up those of half my friends and acquaint- ances." It was impossible to help laughing at this de- scription. The picture of a gentleman scampering up people's stairs, with the agility of a lamplighter, was, as I said in my apology, so very comical. " Humph ! Not if you knock down your own servant with the tray, or frighten an old rich aunt into hysterics — both of which I have performed within the last week." " But you might perhaps break yourself — " " Never ! it's impossible ! As I said before, the mere sight of the banisters is enough. Besides, from practice, the thing has become a habit, and the mental prompting is backed by a bodily im- pulse. No;" and he shook his head very gravely, " I shall never leave it off — except by death. And with my state of health, to run full speed up a long flight, — there are six-and-twenty stairs, and two sharp turns — under penalty of eternal perdition, before one could count a score — " " Why, surely you do not believe in the validity of such a wager ! " " Heaven alone knows," replied Horace, very solemnly, who, if he had not been made positively superstitious by his German reading, and his fami- liarity with the supernatural, had at least learned 212 DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. to regard the abstract evil principle as a real and active personage. " I have tried over and over again to argue myself into your opinion. But all my reasoning and casuistry are of no avail against a sort of vague misgiving ; and, as the forfeit is too awful to be risked on a doubt, I always take care, as far as in me lies, to secure the stake by winning the wager — that is to say, by getting to the top before I can count twenty." " You might secure it by slow counting." " As if that would retard his ! No, my dear fel- low, there is no cheating him! To tell the truth, I shudder at times to think what may happen to me — a fall — a sprain — the encounter of other peo- ple on the stairs — a loose rod — the cat or dog — wliichj by the bye, shall be sent away " I looked again, full in Horace's face ; but he was as grave as a Judge, and evidently in sad, sober earnest : as indeed appeared the next minute, when he went off into one of his fits of abstraction, but continued to talk to himself. From what he mut- tered it was plain that he was in the predicament of the people described by Coleridge as "possessed" by their own ideas. Some of his expressions even impressed me with a doubt of his perfect sanity — whether he was not under the influence of a kind of monomania. However, I tried to laugh and DIABOLICAL SUGGESTIONS. 213 reason him out of his " wager," but the attempt was futile, and I took my leave. " God bless you, my dear fellow ! " and the tears filled his eyes as he energetically squeezed my hand, " it is the last time you will see me — mark my words. However it may affect me liereafter, that Diabolical Suggestion has done for me here — and will hurry me to my grave !" Poor Horace ! His prediction was too true. On calling upon him a month afterwards, I found that he had let and removed from his old residence : but one of his servants had remained with the new tenants, and was able to give me some particulars of her ex-master. His health had suddenly broken — his complaint declaring itself to be a decided organic affection of the heart, and he had suffered from violent palpitations and spasms in the chest. The doctors had ordered change of air and scene — and about a fortnight before he had gone into the country, somewhere in Sussex, where he was living in a cottage, that, as she significantly added, was "all on one floor " But alas ! she was incor- rect in her statement. He was living nowhere ; for that very morning he had gone to call on the cler- gyman of the parish, and after a flight — which made the footman believe that he had admitted a madman, dropped dead on the last top step of the drawing-room stairs ! '214 A HARD CASE. " Who shall decide ^vhen doctors disagree?" 'Tis with their judgments as their watches, none Go just alike, but each believes his own Pope. That Doctors differ, has become a common proverb ; and truly, considering the peculiar disad- vantages under which they labour, their variances are less wonders than matters of course. If any man works in the dark, like a mole, it is the Physi- cian. He has continually, as it were, to divine the colour of a pig in a poke — or a cat in the bag. He is called in to a suspected trunk without the police- man's privilege of a search. He is expected to pass judgment on a physical tragedy going on in the house of life, without the critic's free admission to the performance. He is tasked to set to rights a disordered economy, without, as the Scotch say, going " Je^z," and must guess at riddles hard as Sampson's as to an animal with a honey- combed inside. In fact, every malady is an Enig- ma, and when the doctor gives you over, he '• gives it up." A HARD CASE. 215 A few weeks ago one of these puzzles, and a very intricate one, was proposed to the faculty at a metropolitan hospital. The disorder was desperate: the patient writhed and groaned in agony — but his lifflifs as usual threw none on the subject. In the meantime the case made a noise, and medical men of all degrees and descriptions, magnetizers, •216 A HARD CASE. homoiopathists, hydropathists, mad doctors, sane doctors, quack doctors, and even horse doctors, flocked to the ward, inspected the symptoms, and then debated and disputed on the nature of the disease. It was in the brain, the heart, the liver, the nerves, the muscles, the skin, the blood, the kidneys, the " globes of the lungs," " the momen- tum," " the pancras," " the capilaire vessels," and the " gutty sereny." Then for its nature : it was chronic, and acute, and intermittent, and non-con- tagious, and " ketching," and " inflammable," and " heredittary," and " eclectic," and Lord knows what besides. However, the discussion ended in a complete wrangle, and every doctor being mounted on his own theory, never was there such a scene since the Grand Combat of Hobby Horses at the end of Mr. Bayes's Rehearsal ! " It's in his stomach ! " finally shouted the House- Surgeon, — after the departing disputants, — " j7's iVt his stomach !" The poor patient, who in the interval had been listening between his groans, no sooner heard this decision, than his head seemed twitched by a spasm, that also produced a violent wink of the left eye. At the same time he beckoned to the surgeon. " You're all right, doctor — as right as a trivet." A HARD CASE. 217 "I know I am," said the surgeon, — "it's in your stomach." " It is in my stomach, sure enough." « Yes— flying gout"— "Flying what!" exclaimed the patient. "No, no sich luck, Doctor," and he made a sign for the surgeon to put his ear near his lips, " it's six Hogs and a Bull, as I've swaller'd." ON THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY, TAKEN BY THE DAGUEBREOTYPE. Yes, there are her features ! her brow, and her hair. And her eyes, with a look so seraphic, Her nose, and her mouth, with the smile that is there, Truly caught by the Art Photographic ! Yet why should she borrow such aid of the skies, When by many a bosom's confession. Her own lovely face, and the light of her eyes, Are sufficient to make an impressioii ? •218 THE LEE SHORE. Sleet ! and Hail ! and Thunder ! And ye Winds that rave, Till the sands thereunder Tinge the sullen wave — Winds, that like a Demon, Howl with horrid note Round the toiling Seaman, In his tossing boat — From his humble dwelling. On the shingly shore. Where the billows swelling. Keep such hollow roar — From that weeping Woman, Seeking with her cries. Succour superhuman From the frowning skies — From the Urchin pining For his Father's knee — From the lattice shining, Drive him out to sea ! Let broad leagues dissever Him from yonder foam — Oh, God ! to think Man ever Comes too near his Home ! 219 ENGLISH RETROGRESSION, " Up one-pair backwards." ACKher!'' shouted the Captain, from the paddle-box of the Live- ly to the cabin-boy on the deck, who repeat- ed the com- mand to the engineer in the hold — and the paddles being reversed to order, the packet, with a retrograde motion, began to approach the pier, to which she was soon secured by a hawser. Her passage across the Channel had been a rough one : but as all passages come to an end at last, she had arrived in a French harbour and smooth water. l2 220 ENGLISH RETROGRESSION. There is this advantage in a stormy voyage by sea, that it makes one land on a foreign soil as cor- dially as if it were native ; and accordingly with the most perfect satisfaction I found myself standing, high and dry, in that seaport, the name of which Queen Mary of England, surnamed the Bloody, declared would be found engraven on her heart — the earliest instance, by the by, of lithography. For my own part, my heart was also deeply inte- rested in the locality, which, to an Englishman is classical ground, and associated with literary fic- tions as well as historical facts. Not to name a certain slender figure of a Traveller in black, with a clerical wig and hat, my mind's eye was filled with the familiar phantoms of personages almost as real to me as the place itself; and the very scenery in which they had played their parts, was shortly to be before me. With the help of a Calais touter, I had found my way to the wrong Hotel, the master of which stood bowing to me, as only a Frenchman can bow, and congratulating me — or rather all France — if not all Europe— on my safe arrival. In compliment to my nation, he pretended to use our native language, but of course it was a strange jargon — for it seems to be the pleasure of "our Sweet Enemy France" — as Sir Philip Sidney called her — since she cannot break our ranks, or ENGLISH RETROGRESSION. 2'21 our banks, or our hearts, heads, winds, or spirits, to break our English. But my head and heart were too full of Monsieur Dessein, the Mendicant Monk, the Desobligeant, the Remise, the Fair Fleming, and the Snuff-Box to notice or resent the liberties that were taken with our insular tongue. " And now, Monsieur," said I, after bandying civilities which employed us to the top of the firs'- flight of stairs — " and now, Monsieur, be pleased to show me the chamber which was occupied by the Author of the ' Sentimental Journey.' " " La journee?" " Yes, the apartment of our Tristara Shandy." *' L'apartement — triste — " " Exactly : the room where he had that memo- rable interview with the Monk of the Franciscan order." " Order ? — ah ! — oui — yes — you shall order, sare, what you will please — " "All in good time, Monsieur, — but I must first see the room that was tenanted by our immortal Sterne." "Sterne!" ejaculated my host— "eh? — Sterne? — Diable I'emporte! — it is de oder Hotel. Mon Dieu ! c'est une drole de chose — but de English pepels when dey come to Calais, dey always come Sterne foremost ! " 222 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. A CITY ROMANCE. She entered his shop, which was very neat and spacious, and he received her with all the marks of the most profound respect, entreating her to sit down, and showing her with his hand the most honourable place Arabian Nights. CHAPTER I. Mr. Booby was in his shop, his back to the fire and his face to the Times, when happening to look above the upper edge of the newspaper, tow^ards the street, he caught sight of an equipage that seemed familiar to him. Could it be ! Yes, it was the same dark brown chariot, with the drab liveries, — the same gray horses, with the same crest on the harness, and above all the same lady-face w^as looking through the carriage- window ! In a moment Mr. Booby was at his glass-door, obsequiously ushering the fair customer into his shop, where with his profoundest bow and his THE CA3IBERWELL BEAUTY. •223 sunniest smile he invited her to a seat at the counter. Her commands were eagerly solicited and promptly executed. The two small volumes she asked for were speedily produced, neatly packed up, and delivered to the footman in drab, to be deposited in the dark-brown chariot. But the lady still lingered. Thrice within a fortnight she had occupied the same seat, on each occasion making a longer visit than the last, and becoming more and more friendly and familiar. Perhaps, being past the prime of life, she was flattered by the extremely deferential attentions of the young tradesman ; perhaps she was pleased with the knowledge he possessed, or seemed to possess, of a particular subject, and was gratified by the interest which he took, or appeared to take, in her favourite science. However, she still lingered, smiling very pleasantly, and chatting very agreeably in her low, sweet voice, while she turned over the pretty illus- trated volumes that were successively offered to her notice. In the mean time the delighted Booby did his utmost in the conversational way to maintain his ground, which was no easy task, seeing that he was not well read in her favourite science, nor indeed in any other. In fact, he did not read at all; and although a butcher gets beefish, a bookseller does 2*24 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. not become bookish, from the mere smell of his commodity. Nevertheless he managed to get on, in his own mind, very tolerably, adding a few words about Egypt and the Pyramids to the lady's men- tion of the Sphinx, and at the name of Memnon, edging in a sentence or two about the British Museum. Sometimes, indeed, she alluded to clas- sical proper names altogether beyond his acquaint- ance ; but in such cases, he escaped by flying off at a tangent to the new ballet, or the last new novel, of which he had derived an opinion from the adver- tisements—nay, even digressing at need, like Sir Peter Laurie, on the Omnibus nuisance, and the Wooden Pavements. To tell the truth, the lady, as sometimes happens, was so intent on her own share of the discourse, that she paid little attention to his topics or their treatment, and so far from noticing any incongruity would have allowed him to talk unheeded of the dullness of the pubHshing trade, and the tightness of money in the City. Thanks to this circumstance he lost nothing in her opinion, whilst his silent homage and assiduities recommended him so much to her good graces, that at parting he received an especial token of her favour. " Mr. Booby," said the lady, and she drew an embossed card from an elegant silver case, and pre- THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. '2'2') sented it to the young publisher, " you must come and see me." Mr. Booby was of course highly delighted and deeply honoured ; not merely verbally, but actually and physically ; for as he took the embossed card, his blood thrilled with delight to the very tips of his fingers. Not that he was in love with the donor ; though still handsome, she was past the middle-age, and, indeed, old enough, according to the popular phrase, to have been his mother. But then she was so ladylike and well-bred, and had such a carriage — the dark brown one — and so affable —with a foot- man and a gold-headed cane — quite a first-rate connexion — with a silver crest on the harness — and oh ! such a capital pair of well-matched grays ! These considerations were all very gratifying to his ambition; but above all, his vanity was flattered by a condescension which confirmed him in an opinion he had long indulged in secret — namely, that in personal appearance, manners, and fashion, he was a compound of the Apollo Belvidere and Lord Chesterfield, with a touch of Count D'Orsay. But the lady speaks. " Any morning, Mr. Booby, except Wednesday and Friday. I shall be at home all the rest of the week, and shall leave orders for your admit- tance." L 5 226 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. Mr. Booby bowed, as far as he could, after the fashion of George IV.— escorted the lady into the street, as nearly as possible in the style of the Master of the Ceremonies at Brighton, and then handed her into her carriage with the air, as well as he could imitate it, of a French Marquis of the ancien regime. " I shall expect you, Mr. Booby," said the lady, through the carriage- window. " And as an induce- ment" — here she smiled mysteriously, and nodded significantly — " you shall have a peep at my Cam- berwell Beauty." CHAPTER II. " And did he go?" Why, as to his figure, it had been three times cut out, at full length, in black paper — once on the Chain Pier at Brighton — once in Regent-street, and once — "But did he go?" Then, for his face, he had twice had it done in oil, thrice in crayons, and once in pencil by Wage- man. Moreover, he had had it minatured by Lover — and he had been in treaty with Behnes for his bust, but the marbling came so expensive — "But did he go, I say?" THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 2*27 So expensive that he gave up the design, and contented himself with a niask in plaster of Paris. "But did he go?" Yes — to both. To Collen for a half-length, and to Beard for a whole one. I think that w'as all — but no — he went to What's-his-name, the modeller, and had a cast taken of his leg. " Hang his leg ! Did he go or not ?" To be sure he was a tradesman ; but his line was a genteel one; and his shop was double-fronted, in a first-rate thoroughfare, and lighted with gas. Then as to his business, with strict assiduity and attention, and a little more punctuality and de- spatch — " Confound his business ! — Did — he— go?" To the Opera? Yes, often. And had his clothes made at the West End— and gave cham- pagne — and backed a horse or two for the Darby — and smoked cigars — and was altogether, for a tradesman, very much of a gentleman. " But, for the last time, did he go?" Where? " Why to see the Beauty !" He did. « What to Camberwell?" No; but to the looking-glass, over the mantel- shelf in his own dining-room, and where. Narcissus 228 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. like, he gazed at his reflected image till he actually persuaded himself that he was as unique as the Valdarfer Boccaccio, and as elegantly got up as Lockhart's Spanish Ballads. CHAPTER III. The dark brown chariot was gone. As it rattled away, and just as the drab back of the footman disappeared, Mr. Booby turned his attention to the embossed card, and deliberately read the address thrice over. "Mrs. E. G. Heathcote, Grove Terrace, Camberwell." To what wild dreams, to what extravagant specu- lations did it give birth ! He had evidently made a favourable impression on the mature lady, and might not his merits do him as good service with her daughter, or niece, or ward, or whatever she was, the young lovely creature to whom she had alluded by so charming a title. The Camberwell Beauty ! The acknowledged Venus of that large and populous parish ! The Beauty of all the Grove, and Grove Lane— of the Old road and the New— of all the Green — of Church-row and the Terrace, of all Champion and Denmark Hills — of all Cold Harbour Lane ! The loveliest of the lovely, from the Red Cap on the north to the THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 229 Greyhound on the south — from the Holland Anns in the east to the Blue Anchor in the west ! " Here, Perry, reach me the Book of Beauty." The shopman handed the volume to his master, who began earnestly to look through the illustra- tions, wondering which of those bewitching coun- tesses, or mistresses, or misses, the fair mcocjnita might resemble. But such speculations were futile, so the book was closed and thrown aside ; and then his thoughts reverting to his own personal preten- sions, he passed his fingers through his hair, adjusted his collar, and drawing himself up to his full height, took a long look at his legs. But this survey was partial and unsatisfactory, and accord- ingly striding up the stairs, three at once, he appealed to the looking-glass in the dining-room, as stated in the preceding chapter. The verdict of the mirror has been told, and the result was a conviction in the mind of Mr. Booby, that sometime, and somewhere, the Beauty must have been smitten with his elegant appearance — perhaps in an open carriage at Epsom — perhaps in the street — but most probably as he was standing up, the observed of all observers, in the pit of Her Majesty's Theatre. For the rest of the day ]Mr. Booby retired from business; indeed, he was in a state of exaltation •230 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. that unfitted him for mercantile affairs, or any of the commonplace operations of life. The cloth was laid, and the dinner was served up, but he could not eat; and as usual in such cases, he laid the blame on the cook and the butcher. The soles were smoked, the melted butter was oiled, the potatoes were over-boiled, the steak was fresh killed, the tart was execrable, and the cheese had been kept too dry. In short he relished nothing except the bumper of sherry, which he filled and drank off, dedicating it mentally to the Camberwell Beauty. The second glass was poured out and quaffed to his own honour, and the third was allotted to an extempore sentiment, which rolled the two former toasts into one. These ceremonies performed, he again consulted the mirror over the mantelshelf, carefully pocket-combing his hair, and plucking up his collar as before. But these were mere commonplace manoeuvres compared with those in which he afterwards indulged. Now of all absurd animals, a man in love is the most ridiculous, and of course doubly so if he should be in love with two at once, himself and a lady. This being precisely the case with Mr. Booby, he gave a loose to his two-fold passion, and committed follies enough for a brace of love- THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 281 lunatics. It would have cured a quinsey to have seen and heard how he strutted, and chuckled, and smiled, and talked to himself — how he prac- tised bowing, and sliding, and kneeling, and sighing — how he threw himself into attitudes and ecsta- cies, and then how he twisted and wriggled to look at his calves, and as far as he could all round his waist, and up his back ! Never, never was there a man in such a fever of vanity and love- delirium, since the conceited Steward, who walked in yellow-stockings and cross-gartered, and dreamt that he was a fitting mate for the Beauty of Illyria ! CHAPTER IV. All lovers are dreamers — " In real earnest ! " Perfectly, miss. They are notorious visionaries, whether asleep or awake. '• Why, then, of all things, let us have the dream of Mr. Booby about the Camberwell Beauty. It must have been sucii a very curious one, consider- inor that he had never seen the ladv ! " It was, and, remembering his business, rather characteristic to boot. I have hinted before, how vainly he had tried, during the day, to paint an ideal portrait of the Fair Unknown, and no sooner 232 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. were his eyes closed at night, than a similar series of vairue fijjures and faces began to tantalize him in his sleep. Dim feminine shapes, of every style of beauty, flitted before him, and vanished like Daguerreotype images, which there was not light enough to fix. Before he could examine, or choose, and say " this must be the Idol," the transitory phantom was gone, or transfigured. The blonde ripened into a brunette, the brunette bleached into a blonde before he could decide on either com- plexion. Flaxen tresses darkened into jet — raven locks brightened into golden ringlets, and yellow curls into auburn, before he could prefer one colour to another. Black eyes changed at a wink into gray ; blue in a twinkling to hazel, — but no, they were green ! The commanding figure dwin- dled into a sylph, the fairy swelled into the fine woman, the majestic Juno melted into a Venus, the rosy Hebe became a pale Minerva — who in turn looked for a moment like the lady in the fron- tispiece to the " Book of Beauty ; " and then, one after another, like all the Beauties at Hampton Court! Alas ! amid such a bewildering galaxy, how could he fix on the Beauty of Camberwell ! One angelic figure, which retained its shape and features somewhat longer than the rest, informed THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 233 him, by the mysterious correspondence of dreams, that she was the Beauty of Buttermere. Another lovely phantom, who presented herself rather vividly, by signs understood only in visions, let him know that she was the Beauty who had es- poused the gentle Beast. And, finally, a whole bevy of Nymphs and Graces suddenly appeared at once, but as suddenly changed — " Into what — pray what ? " Why, into a row of books, and which signified to him by their lettered backs that they were " the Beauties of England and Wales ! " CHAPTER V. Thursday morning ! — It was the first day on which ]Mrs. E. G. Heath- cote, of Grove Terrace, Camberwell, was to be " at home ; " and the eager Mr. Booby had re- solved to avail himself of the very earliest oppor- tunity for a visit. A determination not formed so much on his own account, as for the sake of the enamoured love-sick creature, whom his vanity painted as sitting on pins, needles, thorns, tenter- hooks, and all the other picked pointed articles which are popularly supposed to stuff the seats, cushions, pillows, and bolsters of the chairs. 234 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. beds, sofas, and settees, of anxious and impatient people. Accordingly, no sooner was breakfast over, than snatching up his hat, he set out — " Ah, to Gracious Street for the homnibus !" No ma'am — to the Poultry for a pair of exqui- sitely-made French gloves, that fitted better than his skin, and were of the most delicate lemon- colour that you ever, or never, saw. Thence he went to Cheapside, where he treated himself to a superfine thirty-shilling beaver, of a fashionable shape, that admirably suited the character of his physiognomy; after which he bought, I forget where, a bottle of genuine Eau de Cologne — the sort that is manufactured by Jean Marie Farina, and by nobody else — and finally, looking in at a certain noted shop near the Mansion-house, he purchased a bouquet of the choicest and rarest flowers of the season. " Well, and then he went to the bus." ;No — he returned home to dress — namely, in his best blue coat with the brass buttons, a fancy waistcoat, black trousers, and patent leather boots. His shirt was frilled — with an ample allowance of white cuff — and his silken cravat was of a pale sky-blue. Of course, he did not fail to consult the looking-glass in the dining-room, which assured THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 235 him that his costume was complete. The shop- men, however, to whom he afterwards submitted the question, were more inclined to demur. The clerk thought that an Union pin would have been an improvement to the cravat, and the porter would have preferred a few Mosaic studs in the shirt-front. In answer to which, the master, who had consulted them, declared that they knew nothing about the matter. In the mean time the hour struck which he had appointed in his own mind for the start, so hastily striding up Cornhill and turning into Grace- church-street, he luckily obtained the last vacant place in an omnibus, which was already on the move. As usual, the number of the passengers was considerably reduced ere the vehicle reached the Red Cap, at the Green — in fact, there re- mained but three gentlemen besides Mr. Booby, who after some preliminary conversation, con- trived to turn the discourse on the subject that lay nearest his heart. But he took nothing by his motion. A little cross-looking old fellow, in the corner-seat, looked knowing but said nothing : the other two passengers declared that they had never heard of the Camberwell Beauty. " I am going to see her, however," said Mr. Booby. 236 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. " Are you, sir?" retorted the little crabbed- looking old gentleman in the corner-seat. " Well, I hope you may get her ! " " 1 hope, in fact I have reason to believe, that I shall," replied the self-confident Mr. Booby, and twitching the Mackintosh of the conductor, he desired to be set down at the bottom of the Grove. " It is rather strange," he thought, as he walked slowly up the hill, " that they have not heard of her. The little old chap in the corner though, seemed to know her, and to be rather jealous of me. But, no — it's impossible that he can be a rival;" and as he said this, there occurred a corresponding alteration in his gait — " perhaps he's her father or her uncle." CHAPTER VI. Bravo, Vanity ! Of all friends in need, seconds, backers, con- fidents, helpers, and comforters, there is none like Self-Conceit ! Of all the Life Assurances in Eng- land, from the Mutual to the Equitable, there is none like Self- Assurance ! It defies the cold water of timidity and the wet blankets of diffidence THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 237 — and against the aguisli, chilly, and hot fits of modesty it is as sovereign as Quinine ! How many men, for instance, on a similar errand to that of the young bookseller, would have felt nerve-quakes and tremor cordis^ and have scarcely mustered courage enough to pull the bell at the gate ! How many would have remained in the front garden shilly-shallying like Master Slender, till the Cambervvell Beauty herself came forth, as sweet Anne Page did, to entreat her basliful wooer to enter the premises ! Not so with Mr. Booby ; as soon as he had ascertained the right house, he walked resolutely up to the door, and played on the knocker some- thing very analogous to a flourish of trumpets. The well-known footman in the drab livery ap- peared to the summons and admitted the visiter, who contrived during his progress through the hall to smooth his coat-tails, pluck up his collar, pull down his white cuflFs, and pass his pocket-comb through his hair. He was going, moreover, to hang up his hat; but luckily remembered the present mode, and that the beaver was bran new, wherefore he carried it with him into the drawing- room — a very indifferent fashion, be it said, and particularlv in the case of an invitation to dinner, for what can be more ridiculous than to see a guest 238 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. sitting hat in Iiand, as if he had dropped in un- asked, and was far from certain of a welcome. *' And did he see the Beauty ?" No, madam. Mrs. Heathcote was alone : but obviously prepared for the visit. A number of handsomely bound books almost covered the round table, some of them open, and exhibiting coloured plates illustrative of Conchology, Geology, and Botany ; others were devoted to Ornithology and Entomology — hinting, by the way, that the lady was rather multifarious in her studies. In manner she was as condescending, affable, and agreeable as ever, and as chatty as usual, in THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. '239 her low, sweet voice. Nevertheless, her visiter did not feel quite so much at iiis ease as he had anticipated. After the first compliments, and commonplace remarks on the weather, the lady's conversation became perplexingly scientific, her allusions distressingly obscure, while technical terms, and classical proper names, fell in quick succession from her lips. Some of the names seemed familiar to the ear of the listener, but before he could determine whether he had heard them at school, or in his business, or at the opera, he was obliged to " give them up," and direct his guesses to a fresh set of riddles. Every moment he was getting more mystified ; — he knew no more than a dog whether she was talking mythology, or metaphysics, or natural history, or algebra, or alchemy, or astrology, or all six of them at once. This ignorance was sufficiently irksome; but it soon became alarming, for she began to make more direct appeals to him, and occasionally seemed surprised and dissatisfied with his answers. His old shifts, besides, were no longer of any avail — she turned a deaf ear to his quotations from the Times and Herald — the theatrical movements, the odds at Tattersall's, and the progress of the New Royal Exchange. Above all, he trembled to find that the extraordinary mental efforts he was com- 240 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. pelled to make in order to keep pace with her, were fast driving out of his head all the pretty speeches which he had prepared for a more interest- ing conference. In a word, he was thoroughly flabbergasted — as completely topsyturvied in his ideas as the fly that walks on the ceiling, with its head downwards. What course to take he knew no more than that vainly enlightened man, the man in the moon. He fidgeted in his seat, coughed, sighed, blew his nose, sniffed at the bouquet, looked " all round his hat," then into it, and then on the crown of it, but without making any discovery. The lady meanwhile talking on, in a full stream, for all he knew, like Coleridge on the Samo-Thracian Mysteries ! " Well, well, never mind her nonsense." Poor Booby ! His conceit was fast being taken out of him. His vanity was oozing out at every pore of his body — his assurance seemed peeling off" his face, like the skin after a fever. He was dying to see the Beauty — but alas ! there was that eternal tongue, inexhaustible as an Artesian spring, still pouring, pouring, — by the way, ma'am, did you ever read the " Arabian Nights ?" " Of course, sir." Well, then, you will remember the story of the tailor who, burning, broiling, and frying to see his THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 241 beauty of Bagdad by appointment, was detained, half-shaved, hour after hour, by Es-Samit, the sarrulous barber. Now, call the tailor Mr. Boobv, and put the babbling tonsor into petticoats, and you will have an exact notion of the case — how the lady gossipped, and how the perplexed lover fretted and fumed, till, like the oriental, he felt " as if his gall-bladder had burst," and was ready to cry out with him, " For the sake of heaven be silent, for thou hast crumbled my liver !" " Dear me, how shocking ! " Very ! In spite of the rudeness of the act he could not refrain from looking at his watch — an hour had passed, and yet there had been no more mention of the Beauty than if she had been doomed, like the Sleeping one, to lie dormant for a hundred years. The most distressing doubts and misgivings began to creep over him. For example, that the talkative lady was not precisely of sound mind — she was certamly rather flighty and rambling in her discourse — and consequently that the lovely being she had promised to intro- duce to him might be altogether a fiction ! His spirits sank at the idea, like the quicksilver before a hurricane, and he heartily wished himself back in his own shop, or his warehouse, — anywhere but alone in the same room with a crazy woman, who talked Encyclopedias, till he was as heavy at heart, VOL II. M 242 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. as confused in his head, and as uneasy all over as if he had just feasted with a geogolist on pudding- stone and conglomerate. Never had he been so mystified and confounded in all his life ! Accustomed to revolve in the circle of his own perfections, his thoughts were utterly at fault when called to the consideration of circum- stances and combinations at all complex or extra- ordinary ; whilst his superficial knowledge, limited to the covers of books, failed to furnish him with any hint towards the unravelment of a mystery quite equal, in his estimation, to the intricacies of a romance. What would he not have given for a few minutes' private consultation with his C^, with his Clerk, or even widi his Porter ! A dozen times he was on the point of rising, determined to plead a sudden headach, a bleeding at the nose, or a forgotten engagement; and cer- tainly ere long he would have said or done some- thing desperate if the eccentric lady had not, of her own accord, put a period to his suspense by saying abruptly, " But we have gossipped enough, Mr. Booby, and I must now introduce you to my Camberwell Beauty." The crisis was come ! The important inter- view was at hand ! Mr. Booby sprang to his feet, twitched his collar, plucked his cuffs, set THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 243 up his hair, clapped his bran new hat under his left arm, and smelling and smiling at his bouquet, walked jauntily on his tiptoes, at the invitation of the lady, into a sort of boudoir. 244 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. CHAPTER VII. " And was the Beauty in the little room?" Yes. There was also a couch in it, and a most luxurious library chair. One side of the wall was covered with cases of stuffed birds of the smaller species, the opposite side was occupied by cases of shells, and specimens of minerals, and metallic ores, and the third side was taken up with cases of beetles, moths and butterflies. « But the Beauty?" On the sofa-table lay a Hortus Siccus for bota- nical specimens, and a Scrap-book, — both open. "But the Beauty?" In one corner of the room, on a kind of a pedes- tal, was a bust of Cuvier; in the opposite corner, on a similar stand, a head of Werner ; in the thii'd nook was that of Rossini : and in the fourth stood a handsome perch for a parrot, but the bird was dead or absent. Over the door — " " No, no— the iBeauty?" Over the door was a half-length of the lady herself, in a fancy dress; and from the centre of the ceiling hung a small Chinese lantern. "The Beauty?" In the recess of the solitary window, on a stand, stood a compound birdcage, d, la Bechstein, en- THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. 245 closing a globe of gold fish, and surmounted by a basket of flowers. The floor, — which was Tur- key carpeted — "The Beauty? the Beauty?" The floor was littered with various articles, including a guitar, —a large porcelain jar, — and a little wicker-work kennel for a lapdog, — but the dog like the parrot was deficient. « The Beauty ? the Beauty ? the Beauty ?" " My dear madam, pray have a little patience, and read "Blue Beard ;" how nearly his last wife was destroyed by her curiosity. My mystery is not yet ripe, and you have even less right to the key of my Romance than Fatima had to the key of the Bloody Chamber. CHAPTER VIII. Every person of common observation must have remarked the vast contrast between the carriage of a man going ?//>, and the bearing of the same man sroins doicn in the world ! In the first case how he trips, how he brightens, how he jokes, how he laughs, how he dances, how he sings, how he whistles, how he admires, how he loves ; in the second predicament — how he stumps, how he glumps, how he sneers, how he satirizes. '246 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. how he grumbles, how he frowns, how he vihfies, how he liates — in short, how he behaves with a difference, Hke Mr. Booby. As he ascended Grove-hill his step was brisk and elastic, he simpered complacently, held his bouquet mincingly in his lemon-coloured glove, and had his new hat stuck jauntily a little on one side of his head. As he descended the steep, his tread was heavy, sometimes amounting to a stamp, the flowers had been thrashed into a bundle of stalks, the delicate kid o-love was being gnawed into a mitten, and the bran new beaver was sullenly thrust down over his eyebrows. As he mounted, his eyes were cast upward towards the elm-tree tops, as if looking for birds' nests. As he descended, his eyes were turned to the gravel-path, as if in search of Brazilian pebbles. As he went up, he hummed " La ^i darem." As he went down, he muttered curses between his teeth. In going up, he had carefully picked his way, avoiding every dirty spot. In going down, he tramped recklessly through the mud, and stepped into the very middle of the puddles. THE CA3tBERWELL BEAUTY. 247 " And had the Beauty slighted him?" Why, those persons who saw him come out of the house-door, remarked as he stumbled down the steps, that his face was as red and hot as a fiery furnace : others, who did not notice him till he had cleared the front garden-gate, observed that his complexion was as pale as ashes. And both re- ports were true, for like the Factions of the Red and White Roses, did Anger and Vexation alter- nately domineer and hoist their colours by turns in his countenance. " But had the Beauty really behaved ill to him?" Why, in going to the house he had conducted himself towards men, women, and children, with a studied and almost affected courtesy; whereas in going from the premises he jostled the gentlemen, took the wall of ladies, punched each little boy who came wiihin reach of his arm, and kicked every dog that ran within range of his foot. " Then she had been scornful to him !" Every body in the street looked after him. Some thought that he was mad ; some, that he was in liquor — others, that he was walking for a wager, and, from his ill temper, that hs was losing it. " Poor man !" However, on lie went, striding, frowning, mut- •248 THE CAMBERWELL BEAUTY. tering, and swearing, gnawing one kid glove, and shaking the other like a muffin-bell. On he went — like an overdriven beast — on through Church- street, and away across the Green, kicking hoops, tops, and marbles ; thumping little boys, and poking little girls, snubbing nursemaids, making faces at their babies, and grinning viciously at everything in nature that came within liis scope. He was out of humour with heaven and earth. It pleased him to know, by a sudden yell in the road, that a cur was run over ; and he was rather glad than otherwise to see a horse in the pound. " Poor fellow ! how cruelly he must have been treated !" Well, on he went to the Red Cap, where an omnibus was just on the point of starting. It was invitingly empty, so without asking whe- ther it went to the East or West End, in jumped Mr. Booby, and threw himself on the centre seat at the further end of the vehicle. And now, for the first time, he had leisure to feel that he had been worked and walked, morally as well as physi- cally, into a violent heat. He let down all the windows that would go down, tugged out his hand- kerchief, wiped the dew from his face, and then fanned himself with his hat. The process some- what cooled the outer man, but his temper EPIGRAM. 249 remained as warm as ever, and at last found vent. "Confound the old fool!" he exclaimed, with an angry stamp on the floor of the omnibus — " Confound the old fool with her Camberwell Beauty ! Why didn't she tell me it was a Butterfly!"* EPIGRAM ON THE DEPRECIATED MONEY. They may talk of the plugging and sweating Of our coinage that's minted of gold, But to me it produces no fretting Of its shortness of weight to be told: All the sov'reigns I'm able to levy As to lightness can never be wrong, But must surely be some of the heavy, For I never can carry them long. * Vanessa Aniiopa — deri\-ing its English name from having been first observed at the suburban village in Surrey. The famous clown, Grimaldi, who was a butterfly-fancier, described the Camberwell Beauty as " very ugly." M 5 '250 THE LITTLE BROWNS. Taking into account the peculiar circumstances of the country, and the particular juncture, coinci- dent with the depreciation of our gold money, there is something strange and puzzling about the pro- posed issue of a new coinage of Half- Farthings. In a cheap country one can understand the utility and convenience of such small monies : — for example, in France or Belgium with their centimes — or in Germany with its pfennings, ten of which are equivalent to one of our pence. For in any of these lands it is still possible to procure some article or other in exchange for a coin of the lowest deno- mination : but in England, dear England, what is there that one can purchase for such a mite as one of the new fractions? Nothing. The tradi- tionary farthing rushlight has risen to four times the price, and the old ha'penny roll has rolled into a penny one. And half a farthing ? The only commodity I know of to be obtained for such a trifle is — kicks ! I'd kick him for half a farthing. It is barely possible, however, that at the street stalls, or in hawkers' baskets, there may be some- THE LITTLE BROWNS. 251 thing in the lozenge or lollipop line to be bought for one of these new doits. But the issue of a new- coinage, of a novel value, expressly for the conve- nience of little children with limited incomes, is a thing not to be supposed. It is not likely, either, that the penny has thus been split into eighths, because the oranges have been eight for sixpence ; neither is it probable that our copper currency has been chopped so small only to make it more like mint sauce. Is it possible that, alarmed by the depreciation of our sovereigns, our rulers have thought of pro- ducing a coin not valuable enough for plugging — and too little and light for sweating — even in the present warm weather ? Is it plausible that to meet the haggling which hard times will produce, these copper minims have been invented so that two merchants or Brokers who have boggled about a farthing, may split the difference and effect a bargain ? Such a supposi- tion were too derogatory to our modern Greshams. A certain Journal, indeed, has hinted that the measure will benefit the poor, by their receiving fractions which hitherto have never been given to the petty purchaser; but surely this argument is untenable, for will not the same coinage enable the seller to impose a fraction hitherto impracticable 252 THE LITTLE BROWNS. on his article — for example, a penny and one-eighth on his bun or roll ? The new denomination can hardly be intended — against an universal Income Tax — to enable a man with fourpence-farthing a year to pay three per cent on his annuity. The Victoria D. G. on the new coin, would never lend her royal counte- nance to any such speculation. Is it possible, in consideration of the dearness of bread, that the Lilliputian currency has been invented for the purchase of such tiny little loaves as Gulliver used to devour by the dozen ? Alas ! the people who make money are not so considerate for those who don't ! With none of these views is it likely that the Demi Farthings have been minted — nor yet to encourage low play, by furnishing almost nominal stakes for short whist and games of chance. To what purpose, then, have the dwarf coppers been introduced ? There still remains one use for them, and really it appears on plausible grounds to have been the very use intended by the authors of the measure— namely, to be given away. The universal distress of the working classes — the rapid increase of pauperism, and the broad hint which has been thrown out, that the wants of the starving population must be provided for by THE LITTLE BROWNS. 253 voluntary contribution, tend strongly to favour this hypothesis. The man and woman with a spare penny — the lady and gentleman with a spare shilling, will be enabled, by this very small change, to enlarge the sphere of their benevolence; and the noble philanthropist, whose generosity amounts to a guinea, may have a thousand beggars beset his gate, and " none go unrelieved * away ! " Yes — thanks to our mint-masters, we shall be indulged with cheap charity, if nothing else ! But besides the mendicants, the minute coin will be serviceable to give to children, — to crossing sweepers, watermen, Jacks-in-the-water, and other humble officials, who look to ladies and gentlemen for fees. Whether the Half- Farthings will do to tip servants, guards, chamber-maids, stage-coach- men, waiters, or box-keepers, is more problematical : how it might answer to slip such a gratuity into the itching palm of a powdered portly Footman, or Hall Porter, in crimson and gold, or sky blue and silver — one of those pampered menials who lounge about the doors of Portland Place, and vainly ask each other the meaning of " Destitution in the Metropolis" — how it might do, to present such a tipping to such a topping personage, to offer such tribute money to such a Cassar, is very, very questionable : but in these hard times, when 254 THE LITTLE BROWNS. every retrenchment is desirable, the experiment at least ought to be made — nay, should even a young lady call with her subscription-book to beg for something for the little Blacks, it might not be amiss to introduce her to the little Browns. 255 THE TURTLES A FABLE. The rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle. — Byron. One day, it was before a civic dinner, Two London Aldermen, no matter which, Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, Skinner — But both were florid, corpulent, and rich, And both right fond of festive demolition, Set forth upon a secret expedition. Yet not, as might be fancied from the token, To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat, Or drink, as Milk, or Vintry, or Portsoken, But eastward to that more aquatic quarter, Where folks take water, Or bound on voyages, secure a berth For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or Perth, Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth ! Jostled and jostling, through the mud, Peculiar to the Town of Lud, Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they div'd. 256 THE TURTLES. Past many a gusty avenue, through which Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch, From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf deriv'd ; With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught. From loco-smoko- motive craft; Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons. Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax, Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax. Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kipper'd salmons, Nuts, oranges, and lemons, Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum, Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum ; Alamode- beef and greens — the London soil — Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine, and oil, Bark, asafoetida, squills, vitriol, hops, In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and puffs, and snuffs, From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs, Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops — In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, waggons, taverns, shops. Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops. That, as we walk upon the river's ridge. Assault the nose — below the bridge. A walk, however, as tradition tells. That once a poor blind Tobit used to choose, Because, incapable of other views, He met with " such a sight of smells." THE TURTLES. 257 But on, and on, and on, In spite of all unsavoury shocks. Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir John, Steadily steering ship-like for the docks — And now they reach a place the Muse, unwilling, Recals for female slang and vulgar doing. The famous Gate of Billing That does not lead to cooing — And now they pass that House that is so ugly A Customer to people looking smuggl'y — And now along that fatal Hill they pass Where centuries ago an Oxford bled, f And prov'd — too late to save his life, alas ! — That he was " off his head." At last before a lofty brick-built pile Sir Peter stopped, and with mysterious smile Tinsled a bell that served to bring The wire-drawn genius of the ring, A species of commercial Samuel Weller — To whom Sir Peter, tipping him a wink. And something else to drink, " Show us the cellar." Obsequious bowed the man, and led the way Down sundry flights of stairs, where windows small, Dappled with mud, let in a dingy ray — A dirty tax, if they were tax'd at all. 258 THE TURTLES. At length they came into a cellar damp, With venerable cobwebs fringed around, A cellar of that stamp Which often harbours vintages renown'd. The feudal Hock, or Burgundy the courtly, With sherry, brown or golden. Or port, so olden. Bereft of body 'tis no longer portly — But old or otherwise — to be veracious — That cobwebb'd cellar, damp, and dim, and spacious, Held nothing crusty — but crustaceous. Prone, on the chilly floor. Five splendid Turtles — such a five ! Natives of some West Indian shore Were flapping all alive. Late landed from the Jolly Planter's yawl — A sight whereon the dignitaries fix'd Their eager eyes, with extasy unmix'd. Like fathers that behold their infants crawl, Enjoying every little kick and sprawl. Nay — far from fatherly the thoughts they bred, Poor loggerheads from far Ascension ferried ! The Aldermen too plainly wish'd them dead And Aldermanbury'd ! THE TURTLES. 259 " There !" cried Sir Peter, with an air Triumphant as an ancient victor's, And pointing to the creatures rich and rare, " There's picters !" " Talk of Olympic Games ! They're not worth mention ; The real prize for wrestling is when Jack, In Providence or Ascension, Can throw a lively turtle on its back ! " " Aye ! " cried Sir John, and with a score of nods, Thoughtful of classical symposium, " There's food for Gods ! There's nectar ! there's ambrosium ! There's food for Roman Emperors to eat — Oh, there had been a treat (Those ancient names will sometimes hobble us) For Helio-gobble-us ! " " There were a feast for Alexander's Feast ! The real sort — none of your mock or spurious !" And then he mentioned Aldermen deceased. And " Epicurius," And how Tertullian had enjoyed such foison ; And speculated on that verdigrease That isn't poison. 260 THE TURTLES. " Talk of your Spring, and verdure, and all that ! Give me green fat ! As for your Poets with their groves of myrtles And billing turtles, Give me, for poetry, them Turtles there, A-billing in a bill of fare ! " " Of all the things I ever swallow — Good, well-dressed turtle beats them hollow — It almost makes me wish, I vow, To have two stomachs, like a cow !" And lo ! as with the cud, an inward thrill Upheaved his waistcoat and disturb'd his frill, His mouth was oozing and he work'd his jaw — " I almost think that I could eat one raw ! " And thus, as " inward love breeds outward talk," The portly pair continued to discourse ; And then — as Gray describes of life's divorce, — With " longing lingering look" prepared to walk,- Having thro' one delighted sense, at least, Enjoy'd a sort of Barmecidal feast, And with prophetic gestures, strange to see, Forestall'd the civic Banquet yet to be, Its callipash and callipee ! A pleasant prospect — but alack ! Scarcely each Alderman had turn'd his back, EPIGRAM. 261 When seizing on the moment so propitious, And having learn'd that they were so dehcious To bite and sup, From praises so high flown and injudicious, — And nothing could be more pernicious ! Tiie Turtles fell to work, and ate each other up ! MORAL. Never, from folly or urbanity, Praise people thus profusely to their faces, Till quite in love with their own graces, They're eaten up by vanity ! EPIGRAM. Three traitors, Oxford— Francis— Bean, Have miss'd their wicked aim ; And may all shots against the Queen, In future do the same : For why, I mean no turn of wit, But seriously insist. That if Her Majesty were hit^ No one would be so miss'd. 262 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. How ! dead ! How dead ? Why very dead indeed ! Killing no Murder. CHAPTER I. I WAS once dead. " Eh ! how ! what ! " interrupts the Courteous Reader, naturally startled by such a posthumous announcement. " What ! dead, dead, dead ! " inquires a Crimi- nal Judge, unconsciously using the legal formula. " What ! food for worms ? " exclaims a sreat Tragedian. " What! gone to another and a better world?" says a sentimental spinster. " Or to a wus," snuffles a sanctified shoemaker. " What, to that bourne," says a Bagman, " to which no traveller makes more than one journey ?" " What, — unriddled that great enigma !" cries a metaphysician, "of which we obtain no solution but by dissolution ?" "Or, in plain English, Hie Jacet?^^ puts in an Undertaker. " What, hopped the twig? — kicked the bucket? THE CONFESSIONS OF A PH(ENIX. 263 — bowled out? — gone to pot? — mizzled? — ticked off? — struck off the roster! — slipped your cable? — lost the number of your mess?" ask as many professional querists. " Oh ! a case of suspended animation — hung and cut down ! " " Or a cut throat, and sewed up?" " Poisoned and pumped out?" hints a Medical Student. " Drowned, and 'unsuffocated gratis ?'" quotes a reader of " Don Juan." "Or buried in a trance?" guesses a Transcen- dental speculator. " Poo, poo ! he means dead-beat," cries a Sportsman. " Or dead lame," prompts a Veterinarian. " Or dead asleep," proposes a Mesmerizer. " Or dead drunk," mutters a Tea-totaller. " Or only metaphorically," suggests a Poet. But begging the pardon of the Poet, the Tea- totaller, the Mesmerizer, the Horse-Doctor, and the Student, I had no such meaning : but that I was departed, deceased, demised, deftmct, or whatever term may denote the grand Terminus. " What ! as dead as a house — as a herring — as a door-nail — as dumps — as ditch-water — as mutton " 264 THE COXFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. Yes — or as Cheops, or Julius Caesar, or Giles Scroggins, or Miss Bailey. In short, as declared before, I was once dead — a regular subject for the Necrologist — an entry for the Registrar — an item for the Obituary as thus : On the 3d instant, suddenly. Peregrine Phoenix, Esq., of Clapham Rise. CHAPTER II. " To be sure," murmurs Memory, applying her right forefinger to her forehead, and pressing on her own organ, " to be sure there have been many persons who, though seemingly dead, and even interred, have afterwards returned to life. For example : the wife of Reichmuth Adolch, the Councillor of Cologne, who died of the plague, and was buried with a diamond ring on her finger, and was revived by the violence of the thievish sexton in wrenching off the ornament. Then there was Monsieur Francois de Civille, thrice coffined and thrice restored ; not to forget the romantic tale of the lady of Nicholas Chasse- nemi, who was rescued from the grave by her old lover Cariscendi. Also, the Honourable Mrs. Godfrey, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne, and sister of the great Duke of Marlborough, who THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHOENIX. 265 lay in a trance for a week. Then there was Isabella Wilson, who, after eleven days of rigid insensibility, would have been entombed but for the interference of the Doctor, who felt some warmth about the heart ; and Mr. Cowherd, of Cartmell, Lancashire, who revived after being laid out; and Isciac Rooke, who revived after a coroner had been summoned ; and Walter Wynkbourne, executed on the gallows at Leicester in 1350 — but jolted to life in a cart. Above all, there was Anne Green, who, after being hung and pulled by the legs, and struck on the chest by the butt-end of a musket, yet recovered, and married and bore three children." " Hout aye," chimes in a Scottish Mnemosyne. " And there was yon lU-hangit Maggie, as they ca'd her." " Yaw, yaw," adds a Teutonic Remembrancer. " Also dere vas de Yarman, Martin Grab, vvho comed to himself quite lively, after he was a copse." And so he did. And thereby hangs a tale of the Dead- Alive, which will serve for a fresh chapter. 266 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. CHAPTER III. In the Free City of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, the bodies of the dead are not kept for several days, as with us, in the house of mourning, but are promptly removed to a pubhc cemetery. In order to guard, however, against premature inter- ment, the remains are always retained above ground till certain signs of decomposition are apparent; and besides this precaution, in case of suspended animation, the fingers of the corpse are fastened to a bell- rope, communicating with an alarum, so that on the slightest movement the body rings for the help which it requires for its resuscitation — a watcher and a medical attendant being constantly at hand. Now the duty of answering the Life-bell had devolved on one Peter Klopp — no very onerous service, considering that for thirty years since he had been the official " Death Watch," the metallic tongue of the alarum had never sounded a single note. The defunct Frankforters committed to his charge had remained, one and all, man, woman, and child, as stiff, as still, and as silent, as so many stocks and stones. Not that in every case the vital principle was necessarily extinct : in some bodies out of so many thousands it doubtless lin- THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. 267 gered, like a spark amongst the ashes — but disin- dined by the national phlegm to any active assertion of its existence. For a German, indeed, there is a charm in a certain vaporous dreamy state, between life and death, between sleeping and waking, which a Tran- scendental Spirit would not willingly dissolve. Be that as it might, the deceased Frankforters all lay in their turns in the Corpse-Chamber, as passive as statues in marble. Not a limb stirred — not a muscle twitched — not a finger contracted, and con- sequently not a note sounded to startle the ear or try the nerves of Peter Klopp. In fine, he became a confirmed sceptic as to such resuscitations. The bell had never rung, and he felt certain that it never would ring — unless from the vibrations of an earthquake. No, no — Death and the Doctors did their work too surely for their patients to relapse into life in any such manner. And truly, it is curious to observe that in proportion to the multiplication of Physicians, and the progress of Medical science, the number of Revivals has decreased. The Exanimate no longer rally as they used to do some centuries since — when Aloys Schneider was restored by the jolting of his own coffin, and Margaret Schoning, leaving her death-bed, walked down to supper in her last linen. n 2 268 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PIICENIX. So reasoned Peter Klopp, who, long past the first tremors and fancies of his noviciate, had come, by dint of custom, to look at the bodies in his care but as so many logs or bales of goods committed to the temporary custody of a Plutonian ware- houseman, or Lethean wharfinger. But he was doomed to be signally undeceived. In the month of September, just after the autumnal Frankfort Fair, Martin Grab, a middle aged man, of plethoric habit, after dining heartily on soup, sour krout, veal-cutlets with bullace sauce, carp in wine-jelly, blood sausage, wild boar brawn, herring salad, sweet pudding, Leipsic larks, sour cream with cinnamon, and a bowlfull of plums, by way of dessert — suddenly dropped down insensible. As he was pronounced to be dead by the Doctor, the body was conveyed, as usual, within twelve hours, to the public cemetery, w-here being deposited in the Corpse- Chamber, the rest was left to the care and vigilance of the Death-Watch, Peter Klopp. Accordingly, having taken a last look at his old acquaintance, he carefully twisted the rope of the Life- Bell round the dead man's fingers, and then retiring into his own sanctorum, lighted his pipe, and was soon in that foggy Paradise, which a true German would not exchange for all the odour of Araby the Blessed, and the society of the Houris. " And did the fat man come to life again ?" THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHfENIX. 269 Patience, my dear madam, patience, and you shall hear. It was past midnight, and in the Corpse- Cham- ber, hung with dismal black, the lifeless body of Martin Grab was lying in its shroud as still as a marble statue. At his head, the solitary funeral lamp burned without a flicker — there was no breath of air to disturb the flame, or to curve the long spider-lines that hung perpendicularly from the ceiling. The silence was intense. You might have heard the ghost of a whisper or the whisper of a ghost, if there had been one present to utter it— but the very air seemed dead and stagnant — not elastic enough for a sigh even from a spirit. In the adjoining room reposed the Death- Watch, Peter Klopp. He had thrown himself, in his clothes, on his litde bed, with his pipe still between his lips. Here, too, all was silent and still. Not a cricket chirped — nor a mouse stirred — nor a draught of air. The light smoke of the pipe mounted directly upward, and mingled with its cloudlike shadows on the ceiling. The eye would have detected the flitting of a mote, the ear would have caught the rustling of a straw, but all was quiet as the grave, still as its steadfast tombs — when suddenly the shrill hurried peal of the alarm- bell — the very same sound which for fifteen long 270 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. years he had nightly listened for — the very same sound that for as many long years he had utterly ceased to expect — abruptly startled the slumbering senses of Peter Klopp ! In an instant he was out of bed and on his feet, but without the power of further progress. His terror was extreme. To be waked suddenly in a fright is sufficiently dreadful; but to be roused in the dead of the night by so awful a summons — by a call, as it were, from beyond the grave, to help the invisible spirit — perhaps a Demon's — to reani- mate a cold, clammy Corpse, — what wonder that the poor wretch stood shuddering, choking, gasp- ing for breath, with his hair standing upright on his head, his eyes starting out of their orbits, his teeth chattering, his hands clutched, his limbs paralyzed, and a cold sweat oozing out from every pore of his body ! In the first spasm of horror his jaws had collapsed with such force, that he had bitten through the stem of his pipe, the bowl and stalk falling to the floor, whilst the mouthpiece passed into his throat, and agitated him with new convulsions. In the very crisis of this struggle, a loud crash resounded from the Corpse-Chamber — then came a rattling noise, as of loose boards, followed by a stifled cry — then a strange, unearthly shout, which the Death- Watch answered with as THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCEXIX. 271 unnatural a shriek, and instantly fell headlong, on his face, to the stone-floor ! " Poor fellow ! Why, it was enough to kill him." It did, madam. The noise alarmed the resident doctor and the military patrole, who rushed into the building, and lo ! a strange and horrid sight ! There lay on the ground the unfortunate Death- Watch, stiff and insensible ; whilst the late Corpse, in its grave clothes, bent over him, eagerly ad- ministering the stimulants, and applying the res- toratives that had been prepared against its own revival. But all human help was in vain. Peter Klopp was no more — whereas Martin Grab was alive, and actually stepping into the dead man's shoes, became, and is at this day, the official Death- Watch at Frankfort-on-the- Maine. CHAPTER IV. " And do you really mean to say, sir," ex- claims a vulgar-looking personage, in a black rusty suit, with black-silk gloves, black-cotton stockings, and a hat of two colours, black and sleek at bottom, aud brown and shabby at top ; a figure, a good deal like a decayed apothecary of the old school — " Do you really mean to say. 272 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. sir, that you hactually obiited and resurgam'd like the apoplectic German gemman as ate such a wery hearty last meal ?" Well, and what then ? " Why, then, sir, it's the beer, that's all." The bier ? " Yes, the double X. You see, sir, the truth is, I've laid myself three quarterns of rum to a pot of ale, as how it was not a reglar requiescat, not a boney fide Celo quies, but only a weekly dis- patch." A Weekly Dispatch, ? " Yes, or a Morning Post Mortum. Not a natural hexit, you know. Not a true Bill of Mortality, — but that you was only killed by the perodical press, like Lord Brougham !" Humph ! That such a rusty raven should pluck out the heart of my mystery ! That such a walking shadow should throw a light on my enigma ! But the fellow's guess is correct. I died only in print. The great Composer had no haml in it : my everlasting rest was set up by a com- positor of the Morning Herald! " On the Sd instant, suddenly, Pei^egrine Phoenix, Esq., ofClapham Rise" THE CONFESSIONS OF A PH(ENIX. 273 CHAPTER V. What a strange sensation it caused, the reading of that mortal paragraph ! A feeling only to be understood by those who have been put out of the world by the Globe, had their days ended by the Sun, been posted to eternity by the Post, or sent on their last journey by the Evening Mail ! The newspaper that morning came late ; and when the fatal sentence met my glance, I was, like Hamlet's father, " full of bread." I had already finished my morning's repast, but by an instinctive impulse, I took another egg, and began breakfasting over again. A sort of practical asser- tion of the animal functions — and I never enjoyed a meal so much in my life. What a zest it hail ! Each separate morsel by its peculiar substance, flavour, or aroma, giving the lie, backed by the three senses of Touch, Taste, and Smell, to that abominable announcement ! The noble Athel- stane, when he escaped in his grave-clothes from the funeral vault of St. Edmond's Abbey, did not attack the venison-pasty and the wine-bottle with more relish ! There was a certain pleasure even in a crumb's going the wrong way ! " What ! " exclaims Civic Apoplexy, his face n5 274 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PIICENIX. as crimson as the wattles of an enraged turkev- cock, his tongue struggling for utterance, and his eyes protruding, like pupils about to be expelled by the head master, " a comfort in choking !" Yes, my dear Alderman, as an evidence of active existence. Unlike the race-horse, every cough is in your favour. For my own part, oh, how vividly I delighted in the grating in the throat, the soreness of the lungs, the watering of the eyes, which told, how histead of being dead, 1 had merely lost my breath ! How deliciously I enjoyed every symptom, other- wise disagreeable, of vitality ! The imputed ab- sence of my life made me intensely sensible of its presence. I felt, methought, the warm blood coursing through my veins and arteries, and tin- gling in the very nails of my fingers and toes. Every movement of the machine, beforetime with- drawn from notice, had become decidedly per- ceptible. I had a distinct notion of the peristaltic motion, and seemed absolutely conscious of the growth of my hair ! " What, without Macassar! Impossible !" Perhaps so, Mr. Rowland, but it seemed pro- bable. And then how delightedly I strutted about, and boxed vvitli Nobody, and fenced with my own shadow, and spouted like a 'Bartlemy Tragedian. THE CONFESSIONS OF A PH(ENIX. 275 No, no — I was not dead. A gentleman who eats two breakfasts And lightly draws his breath, And feels his life in ev'ry limb, What should he know of Death ? My next act was to ring for my servant, who entered, and found me grimacing before the look- ing-glass — dead men don't make faces. "• John, where was I, and what did I do on Friday last, the 3d instant?" " Let me see — you rowed on the river, sir, in the wherry." «' What, with Charon ? " " No, sir, with Mr. Emery," " Very good, that will do, Jolm." And joyous as a blackbird in Spring, I began to whistle Dibdin's air of " Jack's Alive." By an association of ideas, Dibdin's verses put me in mind of Sterne, and darting off at a tangent to my library I pulled down the first volume of Tris- tram Shandy, and began to read aloud the extem- pore lecture of Corporal Trim on the text of " Are we not here now^ and are we not gone in a moment?" with his cocked hat illustration of sudden death. " But I am alive," said the foolish, fat scullion. Oh, how I admired that fat scullion ! I could 276 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. have hugged her in spite of her grease — our feel- ings, our sympathies were in such perfect unison ! Trim's Funeral Sermon had been to her the same in effect as my obituary paragraph in the Herald. In the mean time, the ten o'clock Clapham omnibus called for me as usual; I put on my hat and gloves, took my walking-stick (the dead don't walk with sticks), got into the vehicle, seated my- self, and remarked with a smile all round, " Well this is better than a hearse." A speech natural and significant enough under my peculiar circumstances, but to the rest of the company, who wanted the key, a mere impertinent truism. One gentleman in particular seemed personally disgusted and offended by the observation, and on glancing at his beaver, I perceived he wore a hat- band. Somebody dead of course — but it was not Peregrine Phoenix, Esquire, of Clapham Rise, a reflection which made that vivacious personage as merry as the music after a soldier's funeral. The confinement of the omnibus, and the re- serve of its passengers, ere long became intole- rable ; the first cramped the physical activity, and the last checked the flow of animal spirits of a man more alive than common. So taking a hearty tug at the conductor's dreadnought, I was set down. THE CONFESSIONS OF A PH(ENIX. 277 and walked off at the rate of four miles an hour, and humming, Life let us cherish, along the London-road. But I was soon arrested by a spectacle of uncommon interest — an under- taker's shop, with all the grim and glittering em- blems of the craft in the window. I had passed them a hundred times before without notice, but now the establishment had for me all the interest of an exhibition. I examined every painted scutcheon, as if for an aesthetic critique — scrutinized the mottoes and inscriptions as for an archaeological essay — ex- amined each crest and blazonry with heraldic relish, and inspected the shining coffin-plates and handles witii the zest of an antiquary poring over rusty pieces of antique armour. A device of a fly- ing cherub was gazed at like a design of Raffaele's, and the notification of " Funerals Performed," was read over and over again like a love posy. But above all, I was smitten with an emblem whicii had formerly seemed rather a repulsive one — a Death's head and cross-bones — especially the dreary skull with its vacant eyelet holes, and that sardonic grin — whereas now, a laughing eye within the dark cavity seemed to tip me a knowing wink, and the ghastly grin was become a smile so contagious, that I felt myself smiling from ear to ear. 278 TUE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. All this time the hammer had sounded merrily — yes, merrily from the interior of the shop, and looking in at the door, I saw the master, with his journeyman, busied in the last decoration of a handsome black coffin, lined with white-satin — to some, perhaps, a dismal object, but to me a poeti- cal one, like — A sable cloud That turns its silver lining on the night. I read the name engraved on the silver plate thrice over, and with a novel but pleasant curiosity, informed myself minutely of all the particulars of the age, business, and circumstances of the deceased. And when, pray, did the poor gentleman die? « On the 3d instant, sir, rather suddenly." The very day that / did not ! — Oh ! the electric thrill of life that ran through every fibre of my frame at that coincidence of dates ! The vivid revelation of a stirring, vital principle, that glowed from head to heel ! I am convinced that for a man to know, to feel, to enjoy his existence, to be pro- perly conscious of his being, he must be put into the Obituary ! Till then, he is like the flounders that didn't flounder. " But the fish are dead," objected the Cook. " Not them," said the Fishwoman, tossing the last flounder into the blue and white dish. " Just THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. 279 see how they'll kick when they comes to the hot lard. Why, bless ye, they're as alive as you are, only they don't know it till they're put in the pan." CHAPTER VI. " Then after all," says Mrs. Grundy, a lively, loquacious old lady, familiarly known to a very wide circle of friends and acquaintance, " it is not so very disagreeable to be killed by the press?" By no means, madam — rather reviving than otherwise — as good as a sniff of hartshorn, sal vola- tile, or aromatic vinesiai-, and much more anfree- able than burnt-feathers — a bunch of black ostrich- plumes always excepted. " Well, I should have thought that such a broad hint in black and white would be a memento mori, — a sort of ' Philip, remember thou art mortal.' " " Quite the reverse, ma'am. A memento vitae — a fillip to the animal spirits — a " remember thou art alive." Dead men, you know, don't read their own obituaries. " True. Nevertheless, the sudden shock of such a frigid announcement — " Like the shock of a shower-bath, ma'am. Cold, but bracing; and for a phlegmatic temperament, 280 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHGENIX. the finest and safest stimulus in the world ! Gives a glow to the skin — a healthy tone to the nerves — improves the appetite, corrects the spleen, and tickles the cockles of the heart and the risible muscles. You have heard, ma'am, of a lightening before death ? " Yes — Romeo alludes to it." Well, it's nothing to the lightening after it ! I mean in print. T^alk of Parr's Life Pills, or the Elixir Vitae ! — a kill by the press is the Grand Catholicon — a specific for ennui or tedium vitae, a sovereign remedy for Hypochondriasis, and infal- lible for Suicidal Monomania ! Only let a news- paper hint that you are a corpse, and it makes you quite another thincj — a Harlequin, a Rope-dancer, a Tumbler, a Dancing Fakir, a Springheel'd Jack. But not to advertise a remedy without a case, — there was Lord Cowdenknows, who was killed by the Times. *•' Ah, by an upset of his carriage." Yes — with one horse's hoof on his sternum, another on his os frontis, a wheel on his epigas- trium, and the broken axletree through his abdomen. No mortal was ever pressed to death more completely — and what is the result? Why, an intense consciousness of his existence, and the continual assertion of his vitality by a vivacious volubility and volatility amounting almost to a THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. 281 nuisance. He reminds us that Lord Cowdenknows is alive with a vengeance! — his enemies by astounding pats on the head and confounding slaps on the back ; and his friends by disconcerting digs in the ribs, or staggering punches in the stomach. No practical joker in the exuberance of his animal spirits ever played more pranks. On one head he pours melted-butter, on a second cold water, on a third vinegar, smears a fourth with honey, a fifth with cantharides, a sixth with treacle, a seventh with tar, an eighth with bear's-grease, a ninth with mustard, a tenth with cold-cream, an eleventh with paste, a twelfth with cowage, and then daubs an unlucky Quaker with ink. One he trips up, and astonishes another with a coup de pied. In short, he is all alive and kicking — ' all manner of wavs.' " 282 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. CHAPTER VII. " Now 1 think of it," says Mnemosyne, again pressing the organ of memory with her right fore- finger, and gently smiling as if some pleasant image rose up before the mental eye, " there was Squire Foxall, a martyr to that melancholy humour called Hypochondriasis, and who was cured by the Press. Many a serio-comic scene there was between the master and his man Roger, a confi- dential servant of the old school, shrewd, trusty, and as blunt as a spade." " Well, Roger, the master would say, after a very long and solemn shaking of his head, " I am going at last." " Glad on it — to SwafFham, in course?" " No, Roger, no — to another world." " What, to Amerikey ?" " No, to another and a better one, Roger — to the world of spirits." '*Ah, that's along o' missing your brandy — you be low, you be." " Not so low as I shall be, Roger. I'm at death's door — I have double knocked, and am scraping my shoes, and it will soon be, walk in. Now, Roger, remember when I'm gone that Mr. Bewlay " THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. 283 " Yes, yes — I know. He have got the last o' your last wills. Your nevy will come into tiie land, and your neice is to have your personal bulk." " No, Rofirer — that was the will before. I've made another since then — but no matter. I've done with money and land. All I require now is a little turf." " Well — there's a whole stack on it i' the rick- yard, and when you've burnt out that " " Never, Roger, never ! I'm burnt out myself — quite down in the socket, and shall go off like a snuff, I am ready, Roger, for the garner." " Yes, yes, and corn for the sickle, and grass for the scythe, and a ripe plum for the basket, and a brown leaf for hopping the twig. I know all that by heart." " I'm a dying man, Roger, and you know it. I haven't twelve hours to live — no, not six, before I pay the debt of nature." " Dang the debt o' nature ! I wish you had none to settle but hern. But it arn't do yet it arn't." " Due, and overdue, Roger. The receipt's made out, and before to-morrow you will have another master." '• No, I shan't. I harn't had no vvarnin." 284 THE CONFESSIONS OF A PH(ENIX. " But / have, Roger. Here, feel my pulse. It stopped just now for two minutes and a half. The circulation is at a stand-still — the heart cannot perform its functions." " All moonshine, master. It's performing its funkings at this minit. It's going as regular as the eight-day clock — I can a' most hear un tick." " No, no, Roger — that's impossible." " Is it ? Then why do Dr. Darby try to hear it with his telescope ?" " Stethoscope, Roger — ste-thos-cope. There may be hypertrophy for all that. But you know I can't argue with you. My lungs are quite gone — quite ! " " No wonder — you've been blowin 'em up this ten year." " They're destroyed, Roger. Pulmonary con- sumption has set in — " " Yes, yes, I know — and they're full of tuber- roses." " Tubercles, man — and my liver is in no better state." " No — they're schismatic. And you've got an absence in your inside — " "An abscess." " Well, an abscess in your stomach, and can't disgest properly for want of gas- water." THE CONFESSIONS OF A PHfENIX. 285 "A deficiency of the gastric juice. It is all too true, Roger. Every organ I have is out of order." "Then I would'nt play on 'em. Well, what next ? Why, you've got a gatherin in your lum- bering progresses." *' Lumbar processes — " " Which in course affects the head, and so you've sot a confusion of water on the brain. Then you've had an eclectic fit, and three parallel strokes — and there's your stertian ague, and the interme- diate fever — " " Intermitting." " Then, thei'e's the inflammation of your mucus members — " " Membrane, membrane." " Well, membrane. Next there's your vertical headach — " « Vertigo." " And lord knows what in your intestates and viceruses. Then there's your legs with their vari- ous veins — " " Varicose." " And as to your feet, what with hoppin gout in them — and flying gout in your stomach — and swimming gout in your head — you're gout all over." 286 TUE CONFESSIONS OF A PHCENIX. " Yes, Roger, yes — it has got hold of my whole system, sure enough. But it's apoplexy I'm afraid of — apoplexy, Roger. I have gidduiess, tinni- tus, congestion, lethargy — every symptom in the book!" 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