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*
WILEY AND^UTNAM'S
LIBRARY OF
CHOICE READING.
PROSE AdTd verse.
PART I.
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o
PROSE AND. VERSE.
BY
THOMAS HOOD.
PART I.
^ NEW- YORK:
WILEY AND PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY.
X ^«*^-
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it5i/s^^,l2.o
. Ca^ancAs's Power rr6M. Stereotyped by T. B. Smxts.
lis Fulton Street. 916 WiUlun Street
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CONTENTS
or
THE FIRST PART.
TAMM,
Editor's P&xrACs vii.
I. P&KFACB TO Hood's Own. 1839 1
n. Th« PU08I.BT Papx&s 7
m. Tbs D&sam or Euosme Akax ... . . .21
IV. BI.ACX, Whits akd B&own 28
y. I RXMBMBBR, I RXMSMBBK . . ^ . . • . 34
VI. Thb Po&tratt; bkiitg ak APoXiOOT ro& not making
AN ATTBXrr ON MT OWN UFB .36
VII. LiTBRA&T RxMiNiscxNCBs.-— Introducto&t. 1839 . 41
VIII. Mt Apoloot 49
IX. liiTX&AJiT Rbminugbncxs, NO. I. .... 51
X. « " NO. n. . . .59
XL " " NO. Ill 64
XII. " «« NO. IT 68
XIII. Thb Lost Hbib ' . .101
XrV. An Undx&takbr ....... 106
y XV, Miss Kiulicansboo and bxb Pbbcious Lxo . 109
■CK nmsEBC . , . . . ib.
■BKBIBTH Ill
HSm CBIIABOOB • . 190
HCK CDUCAtlOll • 132
BCRAC0I9S1IT . • 120
« . lao
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?i CONTENTS.
PA6B.
HKRPAMK ..••••••. 133
mRnRSTBTBP . . • • • • • • 135
HBRPAXCTBALL .••'••••• 137
BIRDRBAK • • . 145
HRROOVRTSmP • • ' . 190
BRRMARRIAOR . • . • • • • . 154
SIR BONKTMOOX • • • •• ... 108
HRRMURRT • •••... 108
« HRR LAST WILL . . . • • • • . 173
HBRDBATB . . • 175
BCR MORAL 179
/ XVI. Fair lie es 180
^ XVII. Ballad . 182
/ XVIII. Ruth . 183
/ XIX. AuTUMw 184
XX. SoHG 185
XXI. Odz to Melaiccholt 186
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EDITOR'S PREFACE.
It is designed to embrace in the present collection of the
writings of Thomas Hood» a miscellany which shall include
his more serious and earnest writings — those which were
written most directly from the heart, which reflect most
faithfully his life and opinions, which may be emphatically
called (as he himself gave name to a book which has con-
tributed largely to these pages) Hood's Own, and not the
bookseller's own, the magazine's own, or the newspaper's
own. If a pension had been given to Hood earlier in his
life, it would have probably added much to his fame/ He
would have had the opportunity of writing only when his
better genius prompted him ; he would not have been com-
pelled for ever to^lean a scanty crop from the surface ; he
might oftener with time and labor have penetrated to the
ore beneath. He might have been less of a Punster, but
he would have been more of a Wit. The Poet — the
higher title — ^might have been better known than the prose
writer.
With the exception of a few of his later poems — Aie
Bridge of Sighs, the Song of a Shirt, and his earlier Eu-
gene Aram — ^the writings of Hood which have been circu-
lated in America have been his puns and jests, comic verses
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▼iii PREFACE.
from his annuals, farcical letters of servants and others,
after the manner of Winifred Jenkins — clever extrava-
( gances, seldom deficient in literary merit, but which oftei^r
conceal the man from the reader than lead the latter to
suspect the tender heart, the delicate fancy, hidden be-
neath.
There are whole volumes of Hood's writings which ap-
pear mere whimsicality and grotesqueness ; there are pages
which indicate the genius of the man, and will be worth
more to posterity than the volumes. Frequently since his
recent death Hood has been called a great author, a phrase
used not inconsiderately or in vain. He will take his place
among the English classics. How he was great is a ques-
tion which will not be fully answered till his Life, his Cor-
respondence, his Complete Writings — his Poetical work«
especially — ^have been given to the world. Many good me^;^
and great men among his friends will add their tribute of
recollections ; and the next generation will see the man, twin
brother in heart and mind to Elia whom he loved. That this
volume, undertaken in a spirit of reverence for the author,
in admiration of his genius, with the desire that he should be
wisely known, will be cordially received, cannot be doubt-
ed ; but it is sent forth accompanied by a sigh of regret.
The task of the editor and critic seems an impertinence, a
piece of bitter hypocrisy, while the rights of the author (in
his representatives) to the profits of his own labor are de-
nied. Hood died poor, and his widow was anticipating the
small pittance of her next quarter's government pension to
pay the undertaker while the American public was laugh-
ing over his latest jest. No man "^th a soul capablfe of
enjoying the honest, heartfelt appeals of this truly humoron*
waiter can deny the injustice of a system by which Hood
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PREFACE.
Wfts idepriv^d^f the least participation in the profits of his
own works in America. In the seccmd part of this Miscel-
l«py will be found his own views of this matter, simply,
loanfoUy stated, as it is incumbent upon every man to as-
sert, in whatever case may come under his experience or
observati^Hi, the laws of Justice. Self^respectt self-inte-
rest no less than a sense of justice, require the recognition,
on our statute book> of the rights of the foreign author.
The present system has reached that point in tlie develop-
ment of evil where a wrong being committed, every one
suffers, no one is benefited. It is the nature of wrong to
end in precisely this predicament. The foreign author con-
fessedly is injured ; the American author (where the sys-
tem allows such a person to exist at all) is at a disadvan-
tage at every turn ; the bookselling interest is deprived of
that security of property, based upon righl, which is essen-
tial to give honor and dignity to trade ; and the public are
not the gainers. In what respect is the nation better or
wiser for the floods of reprints of every kind and quality
which have been poured over the land ? In every respect
the people are worse for this deluge — ^less beneficial, more
destructive than the natural rain. In the physical world
there are laws, which, if violated, would destroy the har-
vest. If it were all rain or all sunshine, the crops would
cease. A similar law governs our intellectual and moral
well-being. Property is a blessing, but it is only so when
acquired righteously and honestly. Riches are valuable
by the stamp which virtue and privation set upon them.
The grand law of morality which protects the rights of
the author, and distributes his works .to the world in ac-
cordance with those rights, will be found to be the just
measure by which his writings can be received with any
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X PREFACE.
advantage. A complicated system of checks and' counter-
checks — all of them necessary — depends upon the recogni-
tion of that primary right. The due responsibility of the
author, the force of his character depend upon it A just
competition, the sacred right to be ^ free and equal " be-
tween the native and the foreign author, depend upon it.
A proper Nationality in our case depends upon it. Follow
out the system where you will, it will be found here as
elsewhere, that only the just and right are profitable.
July 1, 1845.
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PROSE AND VERSE.
. PREFACE TO HOOD'S OWN.
BEING
AN INAUGURAL DISCOURSE ON A CERTAIN SYSTEM OF
PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Courteous Reader !
Presuming that you have known something of the
Comic Annual from its Child-Hood, when it was first put into
half binding and began to run alone, I make bold to consider you
as an old friend of the family, and shall accordingly treat you
with all the freedom and confidence that pertain to such ripe
connexions.
How many years is it, think you, ^' since we were first
acquent ?"
" By the deep nine /" sings out the old bald Cotmt Fathom
with the lead-line : no great lapse in the world's chronology, but
a space of infinite importance in individual history. For in-
stance, it has wrought a serious change on the body, if not on the
mind, of your very humble servant ; — it is not, however, to be-
speak your sympathy, or to indulge in what Lord Byi>on calls
" the gloomy vanity of drawing from self," that I allude to my
personal experience. The Soot and lot character of the dis-
pensation forbids me to think that the world in general can he
particularly interested in the state of my Household Sufferage,
or that the public ear will be as open to my Maladies as to my
Melodies. The simple truth is, that, being a wiser but not sad-
der maiif I propose to admit you to my Private View of a sys^
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PROSE AND VERSE.
tern of Practical Cheerful Philosophy, thanks to which, perchance,
the cranium of your Humorist is still secure from such a lec-
ture as was delivered over the skull of Poor Yorick.
In the absence of a certain thin " blue-and-yellow '* visage,
and attenuated figure, — whose effigies may one day be affixed
to the present work, — ^you will not be prepared to learn that
some of the merriest effusions in the forthcoming numbers have
been the relaxations of a gentleman literally enjoying bad health
— ^the carnival, so to speak, of a personified Jour Maigre. The
very fingers so aristocratically slender, that now hold the pen,
hint plainly of the " ills that fiesh is heir to :" — my coats have
become great coats, my pantaloons are turned into trowsers, and,
by a worse bargain than Peter Schlemihl!s, I seem to have
retained my shadow and sold my substance. In short, as hap-
pens to prematurely old port wine, I am of a bad color with very
little body. But what then ? That emaciated hand still lends
a hand to embody in words and sketches the creations or recre-
ations of a Merry Fancy : those gaunt sides yet shake heartily
as ever at the Grotesques and Arabesques and droll Picturesques
that my Good Genius (a Pantagruelian Familiar) charitably
conjures up to divert me from more sombre realities. It was
the whim of a late pleasant Comedian, to suppose a set of spiteful
imps sitting up alofl, to aggravate all his petty mundane annoy-
ances ; whereas I prefer to believe in the ministry of kindlier
Elves that " nod to me and do me courtesies." Instead of scar-
ing away these motes in the sunbeam, I earnestly invoke them,
and bid them welcome ; for the tricksy spirits make friends with
the animal spirits, and do not I, like a father romping with his
own urchins, — do not I forget half my cares whilst partaking in
their airy gambols ? Such sports are as wholesome for the mind
as the other frolics for the body. For on our own treatment of
that excellent Friend or terrible Enemy the Imagination, it de-
pends whether we are to be scared and haunted by a Scratching
Fanny, or tended by an affectionate Invisible Girl — like an un-
known Love, blessing us with " favors secret, sweet, and pre-
cious," and fondly stealing us from this worky-day world to a
sunny sphere of her own.
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PREFACE TO H00l!)'S OWN.
This is a novel version, Reader, of " Paradise and the Peri,"
but it is as true as it is new. How else could I have converted
a serious illness into a comic wellness — by what other agency
could I have transported myself, as a Cockney would say,- from
Dull&ge to Gnnnage ? It was far from a practical joke to be
laid up in ordinary in a foreign land, under the care of Physi*
clans quite as much abroad as myself with the case ; indeed
the shades of the gloaming were stealing over my prospect ; but
I resolved that, like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I would
look on the bright side of everything. The raven croaked, but
I persuaded myself that it was the nightingale : there was the
smell of the mould, but I remembered that it nourished the vio-
lets. However my body might cry craven, my mind luckily
had no mind to give in. So, instead of mounting on the black
long-tailed coach horse, she vaulted on her old Hobby that had
capered in the Morris-Dance, and began to exhort from his back.
To be sure, said she, matters look darkly enough ; but the more
need for the lights. Aliens ! Courage ! Things may take a /.
turn, as the pig said on the spit. Never throw down your cards,
but play out the game. The more certain to lose, the wiser to
get all the play you can for your money. Come — ^give us a *
song ! chirp away like that best of cricket-players, the cricket
himself. Be bowled out or taught out, but never throw down
the bat. As to Health, it 's the weather of the body — it hails, it
rains, it blows, it snows, at present, but it may clear up by-and-by.
You cannot eat, you say, and you must not drink ; but laugh
and make believe, like the Barber's wise brother at the Barme.
cide's feast. Then, as to thinness, not to flatter, you look like a
lath that has had a split with the carpenter and a fall out with
the plaster ; but so much the better : remember how the smug,
glers trim the sails of the lugger to escape the notice of the
cutter. Turn your edge to the old enemy, and mayhap he won't
see you ! Come — be alive ! You have no more right to slight
your life than to neglect your wife — they are the two better
halves that make a man of you ! Is not life your means of
living ? so stick to thy business and thy business will stick to
thee. Of course, continued my mind, I am quite disinterested
in this advice — for I am aware of my own immortality — but for
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i
PROSE AND VERSE.
that very reason, take care of the mortal body, poor body, and
give it as long a day as you can !
Now, my mind seeming to treat the matter very pleasantly as
well as profitably, 1 followed her counsel, and instead of calling
out for relief according to the fable, I kept along on my journey,
with my bundle of sticks, — i. e. my arms and legs. Between
ourselves it would have been " extremely inconvenient," as I
once heard the opium-eater declare, to pay the debt of nature at
that particular juncture ; nor do I quite know, to be candid,
when it would altogether suit me to settle it, so, like other parties
in narrow circumstances, 1 laughed, and gossipped, and played
the agreeable with all my might, and as such pleasant behavior
sometimes obtains a respite from a human creditor, who knows
but that it may prove successful with the Universal Mortgagee ?
At all events, here I am, humming " Jack's Alive !" and my
own dear skilful native physician gives me hopes of a longer
lease than appeared from the foreign reading of the covenants.
He declares indeed, that, anatomically, my heart is lower hung
than usual — but what of that ? The more need to keep it up !
So huzza ! my boys ! Comus and Momus for ever ! No Herai
p clitus ! Nine times nine for Democritus ! And here goes my
last bottle of Elixir at the heads of the Blue Devils — be they
Prussian blue or indigo, powder-blue or ultramarine !
Gentle reader, how do you like this Laughing Philosophy 1
The joyous cheers you have just heard, come from a crazy vessel
that has clawed, by miracle, off a lee-shore, and I, the skipper,
am sitting down to my grog, and re-counting to you the tale of
the past danger, with the manoeuvres that were used to escape
the perilous Point. Or rather, consider me as the Director of a
Life Assurance, pointing out to you a most beneficial policy,
whereby you may eke out your natural term. And, firstly, take
precious care of your precious health, — but how, as the house-
wives say, to make it keep ? Why then, don't cure and smoke-
dry it — or pickle it in everlasting acids — ^like the Germans.
Don't bury it in a potato-pit, like the Irish. Don't preserve it in
spirits, like the Barbadians. Don't salt it down, like the New-
foundlanders. Don't pack it in ice, like Captain Back. Don't
parboil it in Hot Baths. Don't bottle it, like gooseberries. Don't
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PREFACE TO HOOD»S OWN.
pot it — and don't hang it. A rope is a bad Cordon Sanitaire.
Above all, don't despond about it. Let not anxiety " have thee
on the hyp." CJonsider your health as your best friend, and
think as well of it, in spite of all its foibles, as you can. For
instance, never dxeam, though you may have a " clever hack,"
of galloping consumption, or indulge in the Mehonian belief, that
you are going the pace. Never fancy every time you cough,
that you are going to coiighypot. Hold up, as the shooter says,
over the heaviest ground. Despondency in a nice case is the
over-weight that may make you kick the beam and the bucket
both at once. In short, as with other cases, never meet trouble
half-way, but let him have the whole walk for his pains ;
though it should be a Scotch mile and a bittock. I have even
known him to give up his visit in sight of the house. Besides,
the best fence jigainst care is a_h.aj„ ha i — wherefore take care
to have one "au round you wherever you can. Let your " lungs
crow like Chanticleer," and as like a Game cock as possible.
It expands the chest, enlarges the heart, quickens the circula-
tion, and " like a trumpet makes the spirits dance."
A fico then for the Chesterfieldian canon, that laughter is an
ungenteel emotion. Smiles are tolerated by the very pinks of
politeness ; and a laugh is but the full-blown flower of which a
smile is the bud. It is a sort of vocal music — a glee in which
everybody can take a part : — and " he who hath not laughter in
his soul, let no such man be trusted." Indeed, there are two
classes of Querists particularly to be shunned ; thus when you
hear a Cui Bono ? be sure to leave the room ; but if it be Quid
Rides ? make a point to quit the house, and forget to take its
number. None but your dull dogs would give tongue in such
a style ; — for, as Nimrod says in his " Hunt after Happiness,"
" A single hurst with Mirth is worth a whole season of full cries
with Melancholy."
Such, dear reader, is the cheerful Philosophy which I practise
as well as preach. It teaches to " make a sunshine in a shady
place," to render the mind independent of external foul weather,
by compelling it, as old Absolute says, to get a sun and moon
of its own. As the system has worked so well in my own case,
it is a duty to recommend it to others : and like certain practi-
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PROSE AND VERSE.
tioners, who not only prescribe but dispense their own medicines,
I have prepared a regular course of light reading, whereol I
now present the first packet, in the humble hope that your dull
hours may be amused, and your cares diverted, by the laughing
lucubrations which have enlivened Hood's Own.
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THE PUGSLEY PAPERS.
THE PUGSLEY PAPERS.
How the following correspondence came into my hands must
remain a Waverley mystery. The Pugsley Papers were neither
resc«ed from a garret, like Evelyn,— collected from cartridges
like the Culloden, — ^nor saved, like the Garrick, from being
shredded into a snow storm at a Winter Theatre. They were
not snatched from a tailor's shears, like the original parchment
of Magna Charta. They were neither the Legacy of a Dominie,
nor the communications of My Landlord, — a consignment, like
the Clinker Letters, from some Rev. Jonathan Dustwich, — nor
the waifs and strays of a Twopenny Post Bag. They were not
unrolled from ancient papyri. They were none of those that
'* line trunks, clothe spices," or paper the walls of old attics.
The)' were neither given to me nor sold to me, — nor stolen, —
nor borrowed and surreptitiously copied, — nor left in a hackney
coach, like Sheridan's play, — nor misdelivered by a carrier
pigeon, — nor dreamt of, like Coleridge's Kubla Khan, — nor
turned up in the Tower, like Milton's Foundling MS., — nor dug
up, — ^nor trumped up, like eastern tales of Horam harum
Horam the son of Asmar, — ^nor brought over by RammoLuii
Roy, — nor translated by Doctor Bowring from the Scandinavian,
Batavian, Pomeranian, Spanish, or Danish, or Russian, or Prus-
sian, or any other language dead or living. They were not
picked from the Dead Letter Office, nor purloined from the
British Museum. In short, I cannot, dare not, will not, hint
tven at the mode of their acquisition : the reader must be con-
tent to know, that, in point of authenticity, the Pugsley Papers
are the t xtreme reverse of Lady L.'s celebrated Autographs,
which were all written by the proprietor.
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PROSE AND VERSE.
No- I. — From Master Richard Pugsley, io Master Robert
Rogers, a< Number 132> Barbican*
Dear Bob,
Huzza ! — Here I am in Lincolnshire ! It's good-bye to Wel-
lingtons and Cossacks, Ladies' double channels, Gentlemen's
stout calf, and ditto ditto. They've all been sold off under
prime cost, and the old Shoe Mart is disposed of, goodwill and
fixtures, for ever and ever. Father has been made a rich
Squire of by will, and we've got a house and fields, and trees
of our own. Such a garden. Bob ! — It beats White Conduit.
Now, Bob, rU tell you what I want. I want you to come
down here for the holidays. Don't be afraid. Ask your Sister
to ask your Mother to ask your Father to let you come. It^s
only ninety miles. If you're out of pocket money, you can walk,
and beg a lifl now and then, or swing by the dickeys. Put on
cordroys, and don't care for cut behind. The two prentices,
George and Will, are here to be made farmers of, and brother
Nick is took home from school to help in agriculture. We like
farming very much, it's capital fun. Us four have got a gun,
and go out shooting : it's a famous good un, and sure to go off
if you don't full cock it. Tiger is to be our shooting dog as
soon as he has left off killing the sheep* He's a real savage,
and worries cats beautiful. Before Father comes down, we
mean to bait our bull with him.
There's plenty of New Rivers about, and we're going a
fishing as soon as we have mended our top joint. We've
killed one of our sheep on the sly to get gentles. We've a pony
too, to ride upon when we can catch him, but he's loose in the
paddock, and has neither mane nor tail to signify to lay hold of.
Isn't it prime. Bob ? You must come. If your Mother won't
give your Father leave to allow you, — run away. Remember,
you turn up Gvoswell Street to go to Lincolnshire, and ask for
Middlefen Hall. There's a pond full of frogs, but we won't
pelt them till you come, but let it be before Sunday, as there's
our own orchard to rob, and the fruit's to be gathered on Men
day.
If you like sucking raw eggs, we know where the hens lay,
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THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 9
and molher dont ; and I'm bound there's lots of birds' nests.
Do come, Bob, and I'll show you the wasps* nest, and every-
thing that can make you comfortable. I dare say you could
borrow your father's volunteer musket of him without his know-
ing of it ; but be sure anyhow to bring the ramrod, as we have
mislaid ours by firing it off. Don't forget some bird-lime, Bob-^
and sonoe fish-hooks — and some different sorts of shot — ^and some
gut and some gunpowder — and a gentle-box, and some flints,—
some May flies, — and a powder horn, — and a landing net and ay
dog-whistle — and some porcupine quills, and a bullet mould —
and a trolling- winch, and a shot-belt and a tin can. You pay
for 'em. Bob, and I'll owe it you.
Your old friend and schoolfellow,
Richard Pugsley.
No. 11. — From the Same to the Same.
Dear Bob,
When you come, bring us a 'bacco-pipe to load the gun with.
If you don't come, it can come by the wagon. Our Public
House is three mile off, and when you've walked there it's out
of everything. Yours, &c..
Rich. Pugsley.
No. III. — Prom Miss An astasia Pugsley, to Miss Jemima
MoGGRiDGB, at Gregory House Establishment for Young
Ladiesy Mile End.
My dear Jemima,
Deeply solicitous to gratify sensibility, by sympathizing with
our fortuitous elevation, I seize the epistolary implements to
inform you, that, by the testamentary disposition of a remote
branch of consanguinity, our tutelary residence is removed
from the metropolitan horizon to a pastoral district and its con-
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30 PROSE AND VERSE.
genial pursuits. In futurity I shall be more pertinaciously
superstitious in the astrological revelations of human destiny.
You remember the mysterious gipsy at Hornsey Wood? — Well,
the eventful fortune she obscurely intimated^ though couched in
vague terms, has come to pass in the minutest particulars ;
§dr I perceive perspicuously, that it predicted that papa should
sell o^ his boot and shoe business at 133, Barbican, to Clack
&& Son, of 144, Hatton Garden, and that we should retire, in a
station of affluence, to Middlefen Hall, in Lincolnshire, by be-
quest of our great-great maternal uncle, Pollexfen Groldsworthy
Wrigglesworth, Esq., who deceased suddenly of apoplexy at
Wisbeach Market, in the ninety-third year of his venerable and
lamented age.
At the risk of tedium, I will attempt a cursory delineation of
our rural paradise, altho* I feel it would be morally arduous, to
give any idea of the romantic scenery of the Lincolnshire Fens.
Conceive, as far as the visual organ expands, an immense seques-
tered level, abundantly irrigated with minute rivulets, and stud-
ded with tufted oaks, whilst more than a hundred wind-mills
diversify the prospect and give sl revolving animation to the scene.
As for our own gardens and grounds they are a perfect Vauxhall
— excepting of course the rotunda, the orchestra, the company,
the variegated lamps, the fire- works, and those very lofly trees.
But I trust my dear Jemima will supersede topography by
ocular inspection ; and in the interim I send for acceptance a
graphical view of the locality, shaded in Indian ink, which will
suffice to convey an idea of the terrestrial verdure and celestial
azure we enjoy, in lieu of the sable exhalations and architectural
nigritude of the metropolis.
You who know my pastoral aspirings, and have been the
indulgent confidant of my votive tributes to the Muses, will con-
ceive the refined nature of my enjoyment when I mention the
intellectual repast of this morning. I never could enjoy Bloom-
fiel(l in Barbican, — but to-day he read beautifully u^idet our
pear-tree. I look forward to the felicity of reading Thomson's
Summer with you on the green seat, and if engagements at Christ-
mas permit your participation in the bard, there is a bower of
evergreens that will be delightful for the perusal of his Winter.
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THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 11
I enclose, by request, an epistolary elusion from sister Dorothy,
which I know will provoke your risible powers, by the domes-
ticity of its details. You know she was always in the homely
characteristics a perfect Cinderella, though I doubt whether even
supernatural agency could adapt her foot to a diminutive vitri-
fied slipper, or her hand for a prince of regal primogeniture.
But I am summoned to receive, with family members, the felici-
tations of Lincolnshire aristocracy ; though whatever necessary
distinctions may prospectively occur between respective grades
in life, they will only superficially afiect the sentiments of
eternal friendship between my dear Jemima and her affectionate
friend,
Anastasia Pvgsley.
No. IV. — From Miss Dorothy Pugsley to the Same.
My dear Miss Jemima,
Providence having been pleased to remove my domestic duties
from Barbican to Lincolnshire, I trust that I shall have strength
of constitution to fulfil them as becomes my new allotted line of
life. As we are not sent into this world to be idle, and Anas-
tasia has declined housewifery, I have undertaken the Dairy,
and the Brewery, and the Baking, and the Poultry, the Pigs and
the Pastry, — ^and though I feel fatigued at first, use reconciles
to labors and trials, more severe than I at present enjoy. Altho'
things may not turn out to wish at present, yet all well-directed
efforts are sure to meet reward in the end, and altho' I have
chumped and churned two days running, and it's nothing yet
but curds and whey, I should be wrong to despair of eating but-
ter of my own making before I die. Considering the adultera-
tion committed by every article in London, I was never happier
in any prospect, than of drinking my own milk, fattening my
own calves, and laying my own eggs. We caclcle so much I
am sure we new-lay somewhere, tho' I cannot find out our nests ;
and I am looking every day to have chickens, as one pepper-and-
salt-colored hen has been sitting these two months. When a
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12 PROSE AND VERSE. •
poor ignorant bird sets me such an example of patience, how
can I repine at the hardest domestic drudgery ! Mother and I
have worked like horses to be sure, ever since we came to the
estate ; but if we die in it, we know it's for the good of the
family, and to agreeably surprise my Father, who is still in town
winding up his books. For my own part, if it was right to look
at things so selfishly, I should say I never was so happy in my
life ; though I own I have cried more since coming here than I
ever remember before. You will confess my crosses and losses
have been unusual trials, when I tell you, out of all my makings,
and bakings, and brewings, and preservings, there has been
nothing either eatable or drinkable ; and what is more painful
to. an affectionate mind, — have half poisoned the whole family
with hotae-made ketchup of toadstools, by mistake for mush-
rooms. When I reflect that they are preserved, I ought not to
grieve about my damsons and bullaces, done by Mrs. Maria
Dover's receipt.
Among other things we came into a beautiful closet of old
China, which, I am shocked to say, is all destroyed by my pre-
serving. The bullaces and damsons fomented, and blew up a
great jar with a violent shock that smashed all the tea and coflee
cups, and lefl nothing but the handles hanging in rows on the
tenter- hooks. But to a resigned spirit there's always sonfie com-
fort in calamities, and if the preserves work and foment so, there's
some hope that my beer will, as it has boftn a month next Mon-
day in the mash tub. As for the loss of the elder wine, candor
compels me to say it was my own fault for letting the poor blind
little animals crawl into the copper ; but experience dictates next
year not to boil the berries and kittens at the same time.
I mean to attempt cream cheese as soon as we can get cream, —
but as yet we can't drive the Cows home to be milked for the
Bull — ^he has twice hunted Grage and me into fits, and kept my
poor Mother a whole morning in the pigstye. As I know you
like country delicacies, you will receive a pound of my fresh
butter when it comes, and I mean to add a cheese as soon as I
can get one to stick together. I shall send also some family
pork for Governess, of our own killing, as we wring a pig's neck
on Saturday. I did hope to give you the unexpected treat of a
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THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 13
home-made loaf, but it was forgot in the oven from ten to six, and
so too black to offer. However, I hope to surprise you with one
by Monday's carrier. Anastasia bids me add she will send a
nosegay for respected Mrs. Tombleson, if the plants don't die off
before, which I am sorry to say is not improbable.
It's really shocking to see the failure of her cultivated taste,
and one in particular, that must be owned a very pretty idea.
When we came, there was a vast number of flower roots, but
jumbled without any regular order, till Anastasia trowelled
them all up, and set them in again, in the quadrille figures. It
must have looked sweetly elegant, if it had agreed with them,
but they have all dwindled and drooped like deep declines and
consumptions. Her dahlias and tulips too have turned out
nothing but onions and kidney potatoes, and her ten- week stocks
have not come up in twenty. But as Shakspeare says, Adver-
sity is a precious toad — ^that teaches us Patience is a jewel.
Considering the unsettled state of coming in, I must conclude,
but could not resist giving your friendliness a short account of
the happy change that has occurred, and our increase of com-
forts. I would write more, but I know you will excuse my
listening to the calls of dumb animals. It's the time I always scald
the little pigs' bread and milks, and put saucers of clean water
for the ducks and geese. There are the fowls' beds to make
with fresh straw, and a hundred similar things that country pec- .
pie are obliged to think^of.
The children, I am happy to say, are all well, only baby is a
little fractious, we think from Grace setting him down in the net-
tles, and he was short-coated last week. Grace is poorly with a
cold, and Anastasia has got a sore throat, from sitting up fruit-
lessly in the orchard to hear the nightingale ; perhaps there may
not be any in the Fens. I seem to have a trifling ague and
rheumatism myself, but it may be only a stiffness from so much
churning- and the great family wash-up of everything we had
directly we came down, for the sake of grass bleaching on the
lawn. With these exceptions, we are all in perfect health and
happiness, and unite in love, with
Dear Miss Jemima's affectionate friend,
DOHOTHY rueSIrEY.
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14 PROSE AND VERSE.
No. V. — From Mrs. PuGSLEr to Mrs. Mumford, Bucklershury.
My dear Martha,
In my ultimatum I informed of old Wrigglesworth paying his
natural debts, and of the whole Middlefen estate coming from
Lincolnshire to Barbican. I charged Mr. P. to send bulletings
into you with progressive reports, but between sisters, as I know
you are very curious, I am going to make myself more particu-
lar. I take the opportunity of the family being all restive in
bed, and the house all still, to give an account of our moving.
The things all got here safe, with the exception of the Crockery
and Glass, which came down with the dresser, about an hour
af^er its arrival. Perhaps if we hadn't overloaded it with the
whole of our breakables, it wouldn't have given way, — as it is,
we have only one plate left, and that's chipt, and a mug without
a spout to keep it in countenance. Our furniture, &c., came by
the wagon, and I am sorr^ to^ay a poor family at the same time,
and the little idle boys with their knives have carved and scari-
fied my rosewood legs, and, what is worse, not of the same pat-
terns : but as people say, two Lincolnshire removes are as bad
as a fire of London.
The first thing I did on coming down, waste see to the sweeps
going up, — but I wish I had been less precipitous, for the sooty
wretches stole four good flitches of bacon, as was up the kitchen
chimbly, quite unbeknown to me. We have filled up the vacan-
cy with more, which smoke us dreadfully, but what is to be cured
must be endured. My next thing was to have all holes and
corners cleared out, and washed, and scrubbed, being lefl, like
bachelor's places, in a sad state by old single W. ; for a rich
man, I never saw one that wanted so much cleaning out. There
were heaps of dung about, as high as haystacks, and it cost
me five shillings a load X6 have it all carted off the premises ;
besides heaps of good-for-nothing littering straw, that I gave to
the boys for bonfires. We are not all to rights yet, but Rome
wasn't built in St. Thomas's day.
It was providential I hampered myself with cold provisions,
for except the bacon there were no eatables in the house. Wfatit
old W. liv<td upon is a mystery, except salads, for we found a
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THE PUGSLEY PAPERS. 15
whole field of beet-root, which, all but a few plants for Dorothy
to pickle, I had chucked away. As the ground was then clear
for sowing up a crop, I directed George to plough it up, but he
met with agricultural distress. He says as soon as he whipped
his horses, the plough stuck its nose in the earth, and tumbled over
head and heels. It seems very odd when ploughing is so easy
to look at, but I trust he will do better in time. Experience
makes a King Solomon of a Tom.noddy.
I expect we shall have bushels upon bushels of com, tho'
sadly pecked by the birds, as I have had all the scarecrows taken
down for fear of the children dreaming of them for Bogies. For
the same dear little sakes I have had the well filled up, and the
nasty sharp iron spikes drawn out of all the rakes and harrow^.
Nobody shall say to my teeth, I am not a good Mother. With
these precautions I trust the young ones will enjoy the country
when the gipsies have lefl, but till then, I confine them to round
the house, as it's no use shutting the^stable door af\er you've had
a child stole.
We have a good many fine fields of hay, which I mean to have
reaped directly, wet or shine ; for delays are as dangerous as
pickles in glazed pans. Perhaps St. Swithin's is in our &vor,
for if the stacks are put up dampish they won't catch fire so
easily, if Swing should come into these parts. The poor boys
have made themselves very industrious in shooting off the birds,
and hunting away all the vermin, besides cutting down trees.
As I knew it was profitable to fell timber, I directed them to
begin with a very ugly straggling old hollow tree next the pre-
mises, but it fell the wrong way, and knocked down the cow-
house. Luckily the poor animals were all in the clover-field at
the time. George says it wouldn't have happened but for a vio-
lent sow, or rather sow- west, — and it's likely enough, but it's an
ill wind that blows nothing to nobody.
Having writ last post to Mr. P., I have no occasion to make
you a country commissioner. Anastasia, indeed, wants to have
books about everjrthing, but for my part and Dorothy's we don't
put much faith in authorized receipts and directions, but trust
more to nature and common sense. For instance, in fatting a
goose, reason points to sage and onions, — ^why our own don't
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16 PROSE AND VERSE.
thrive on it, is very mysterious. We have a beautiful poultry
yard, only infested with rats, — but I have made up a poison, that
I know by the poor ducks, will kill them if they eat it.
I expected to send you a quantity of wall-fruit, for preserving,
and am sorry you bought the brandy beforehand, as it has all
vanished in one night by picking and stealing, notwithstanding I
had ten dozen of bottles broke on purpose to slick a top of the
wall. But I rather think they came over the pales, as George,
who is very thoughtless, had driven in all the new tenter-hooks
with the points downwards. Our apples and pears would have
gone too, but luckily we heard a noise in the dark, and threw
brickbats out of window, that alarmed the thieves by smashing
the cowcumber frames. However, I mean on Monday to make
sure of the orchard, by gathering the trees, — a pheasant in one's
hand is worth two cock-sparrows in a bush. One comfort is, the
house-dog is very vicious, and won't let any of us stir in or out
after dark — ^indeed, nothing can be more furious, except the bull,
and at me in particular. You would think he knew my inward
thoughts, and that I intend to have him roasted whole when we
give our grand house-warming regalia.
With these particulars, I remain, with love, my dear Dorcas,
your affectionate sister,
Belinda Pugslsy.
P. S. — I have only one anxiety here, and that is, the likelihood
of being taken violently ill, nine miles off from any physical
powers, with nobody that can ride in the house, and nothing but an
insurmountable hunting horse in the stable. I should like, there-
fore, to be well doctor-stuff 'd from Apothecaries' Hall, by the
wagon or any oljier vehicle. A stitch in the side taken in time
saves nine spasms. DoroUiy's tincture of the rhubarb stalks in
the garden doesn't answer, and it's a pity now they were not
saved for pies.
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THE PUOSLEY PAPERS. a
No. VL — From Mr». Pugsley to Mr$. RoasBS.
Madam,
Although warmth has made a cooliiess« and our having words
has caused a silence — ^yet as mere writing is not being on speak-
ing terms, and disconsolate parents in the case ; I waive venting
of animosities till a more agreeable moment. . Having perused
the afflicted advertisement in the Times^ with interesting descrip-
tion of person, and ineffectual dragging of New River, — beg
leave to say that Master Robert is safe and well, — having arrived
here on Saturday night last, with almost not a shoe to his foot,
and no coat at all, as was supposed to be with the approbation of
parents. It appears, that not supposing the distance between the
families extended to him, he walked the whole way down on the
footing of a friend, to visit my son Richard, but hearing the news-
papers read, quitted suddenly, the same day with the gipsies, and
we haven't an idea what is become of him« Trusting this state-
ment will relieve of all anxiety, remain. Madam, your humble
servant, Behkda Pugsley.
No. NIL— To Mr. Silas Pu^slby, Parisian Depdt, Shoreditch.
Dear Brotheb,
My favor of the present date is to advise of my safe arrival
on Wednesday night, per opposition coach, after ninety miles of
discomfort, absolutely unrivalled for cheapness, and a walk of five
miles more, through lanes and roads, that for dirt and sludge may
confidently, defy competition, not to mention turnings and wind-
ings, too numerous to particularise, but morally impossible to
pursue on Undeviating principles. The night was of so dark a
quality as forbade finding the gate, but for the house-dog flying
upon me by mistake for the late respectable proprietor, and almost
tearing my olothes off my back by his strenuous exertions to
obtain the favor of my patronage.
Conscientiously averse to the fallacious statements, so much
indulged in by various competitors, truth urges to acknowladge
that on arrival, I did not jEmd things on such a Noting as to euistre
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18 PROSE AND VERSE.
universal satisfaction. Mrs. P., indeed, differs in her statement,
but you know her success always surpassed the most sanguine
expectations. Ever emulous to merit commendation by the strict-
est regard to principles of economy, I found her laid up with lum-
bago, through her studious efforts to please, and Doctor Clarke of
Wisbeach in the house prescribing for it, but I am sorry to add —
no abatement. Dorothy is also confined to her bed, by her unre-
mitting assiduity and attention in the housekeeping line, and
Anastasia the same, from listening for nightingales, on a fine July
evening, but which is an article not always to be warranted to
keep its virtue in any climate, — ^the other children, large and
small sizes, ditto, ditto, with Grace too ill to serve in the nurse-
ry, — and the rest of the servants totally unable to execute such
extensive demands. Such an unprecedented depreciation in
health makes me doubt the quality of country air, so much
recommended for family use, and whether constitutions have not
more eligibility to offer that have been regularly town-made.
Our new residence is a large lonely Mansion, with no connex-
ion with any other House, but standing in the heart of Lincoln-
shire fens, over which it looks through an advantageous opening :
comprising a great variety of windmills, and drains, and willow-
pollards, and an extensive assortment of similar articles, that are
not much calculated to invite inspection. In warehouses for corn,
&c., it probably presents unusual advantages to the occupier, but
candor compels to state that agriculture in this part of Lincoln-
shire is very flat. To supply language on the most moderate
terms, unexampled distress in Spitalfields is nothing to the dis-
tress in ours. The com has been deluged with rain of remarka-
ble durability, without being able to wash the smut out of its ears ;
and with regard to the expected great rise in hay, our stacks
have been ^bumt down to the ground, instead of goii% to the con-
sumer. If the hounds hadn't been out, we might 'have fetch'd
the engines, but the hunter threw George on his head, and he only
revived to be sensible that the entire stock had been disposed of
at an immense sacrifice. The whole amount I fear will be out
of book, — as the Norwich Union refuses to liquidate the hay, on
the ground that the policy was voided by the impolicy of putting
if up wet. In other articles I am sorry I must write no altera-
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PROSE AND VERSE. 19
tion. Our bull, afler killing the house-dog, and tossing William,
has gone wild and had the madness to run away from his liveli-
hood, and, what . is worse, all the cows after him — except those
that had burst themselves in the clover field, and a small divi-
dend, as I may say, of one in the pound. Another item, the pigs,
to save bread and milk, have been turned into the woods for
acorns, and is an article producing no returns — as not one has
yet come back. Poultry ditto. Sedulously cultivating an enlarged
connexion in the Turkey line, such the antipathy to gypsies, the
whole breed, geese and ducks inclusive, removed themselves
from the premises by night, directly a strolling camp came and
set up in the neighborhood. To avoid prolixity, when I came to
take stock, there was no stock to take — namely, no eggs, no
butter, no cheese, no com, no hay, no bread, no beer — ^no water
even— nothing but the mere commodious premises, and fixtures,
and good will — and candor compels to add, a very small quantity
on hand of the last-named particular.
To add to stagnation, neither of my two sons in the business
nor the two apprentices have been so diligently punctual in exe-
cuting country orders with despatch and fidelity, as laudable
ambition desires, but have gone about fishing and shooting — and
William has suffered a loss of three fingers, by his unvarying
system of high charges. He and Richard are likewise both
threatened with prosecution for trespassing on the Hares in the
adjoining landed interest, and Nick is obliged to decline any
active share, by dislocating his shoulder in climbing a tall tree
for a tom-tit. As for George, tho' for the first time beyond the
circumscribed limits of town custom, he indulges vanity in such
unqualified pretensions to superiority of knowledge in farming,
on the strength of his grandfather having belonged to the agricul-
tural line of trade, as renders a wholesale stock of patience barely
adequate to meet its demands. Thus stimulated to injudicious
performance he fs as injurious to the best interests of the country,
as blight and mildew, and smut and rot, and glanders, and pip,
all combined in one texture. Between ourselves, the objects of
unceasing endeavors, united with uncompromising integrity, have
been assailed with so much deterioration, as makes me humbly
desirous of abridging sufferings, by resuming business as a Shoe
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20 PROSE AND VERSE.
Mailer at the old established House. If Clack & Son^ therefore,
have not already taken possession and respectfully informed the
vicinity, will thankfully pay reasonable compensation for loss of
time and expense incurred by the bargain being off. In caae
parties agree, I beg you will authorize Mr. Robins to have the
honor to dispose of the whole Lincolnshire concern, tho' the
knocking down of Middlefen Hall will be a severe blow on Mrs.
P. and Family. Deprecating the deceitful stimulus of advertis-
ing arts, interest commands to mention,— desirable freehold
estate and eligible investment — and sole reason for disposal, the
proprietor going to the continent, fixample suggests likewise, a
good country for hunting for foy-hounds — and a prospect too
extensive to put in a newspaper. Circumstances being rendered
awkward by the untoward event of the running away of the
cattle, &c., it will be best to say — " The Stock to be taken as it
stands ;" — ^and an additional favor will be politely conferred, and
the same thankfully acknowledged, if the auctioneer will be so
kind as bring the next market town ten miles nearer, and carry
the coach and the wagon once a day past the door. Earnestly
requesting early attention to the above, and with sentiments of^
R. PuGSLEY, Sen.
P. S. Richard is just come to hand dripping and half dead out
of the Nene, and the two apprentices all but drowned each other
in saving him. Hence occurs to add, fishing opportimities among
the desirable items.
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THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 21
THE DREAM OF EUGENE AKAM.*
*TwAS in the prime of summer time.
An evening calm and cool,
When four-and-twenty happy boys
Came bounding out of school ;
There were some that ran,^ and some that leapt,
Like troutlets in a pool.
Away they sped, with gamesome minds
And souls untouch 'd by sin ;
To a level mead they came, and there
They drave the wickets in :
Pleasantly shone the setting sun
Over the town of Lynn.
Like sportive deer they coursed about,
And- shouted as they ran —
Turning to mirth all things of earth.
As only boyhood can :
But the usher sat remote from all,
A melancholy man I
* The late Admiral Barney went to school at an establishment where the
unhappy Eugene Aram was usher, subsequent to his crime. The Admiral
stated that Aram was generally liked by the boys ; and that he used to dis-
course to them about murder, in somewhat of the spirit which is attributed
to him in this poem.
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22 PROSE AND VERSE.
His hat was off, his vest apart,
To catch Heaven's blessed breeze ;
For a burning thought was on his brow,
And his bosom ill at ease :
So he leaned his head on his hands, and read
The book between his knees.
Leaf after leaf he tum'd it o'er,
Nor ever glanced aside ;
For the peace of his soul he read that book,
In the golden eventide :
Much study had made him very lean
And pale and leaden -eyed.
At last he shut the ponderous tome ;
With a fast and fervid grasp-
He strained the dusky covers close.
And fixed the brazen hasp ;
" Grod ! could I so close my mind,
And clasp it with a clasp."
Then leaping on his feet upright.
Some moody turns he took —
Now up the mead, then down the mead.
And past a shady nook —
And, lo ! he saw a little boy
That pored upon a book.
" My gentle lad, what is 't you read —
Romance, or fairy fable !
Or is it some historic page,
Of kings and crowns unstable V
The young boy gave an upward glance —
" It is the Death of Abel."
The usher took six hasty strides,
As smit with sudden pain —
Six hasty strides beyond the place,
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THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 23
Then slowly back again ;
And down he sat beside the lad,
And talked with him of Cain.
And long since then, of bloody men.
Whose deeds tradition saves ;
Of lonely folk, cut off unseen,
And hid in sudden graves ;
Of horrid stabs in groves forlorn,
And murders done in caves !
And how the sprites of injured men
Shriek up ward, from the sod —
And how the ghostly hand will point
To show the burial clod ;
And unknown facts of guilty acts
Are seen in dreams from God ! «
He told how murderers walked the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain —
With crimson clouds before their eyes.
And flames about their brain ;
For blood had left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain !
" And well," quoth he, " I know, for truth,
Their pangs must be extreme —
Wo, wo, unutterable wo—
^ ..^ho spill life's sacred stream !
£oxij^h^ ? Methought, last night, I wrought
A murder in a dream !
" One that had never done me wrong —
A feeble man and old ;
I led him to a lonely field.
The moon shone clear and cold ;
Now here, said I, this man shall die,
And 1 will have his gold !
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^ Two sodden blows with a Tagged stick.
And one with a heavy stone.
One horrid gash with a hasty knife—
And then the deed was done ;
There waa nothing lying at my iee/t.
But lifeless flesh and bone !
" Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone,
That could not do me ill ;
And yet I feared him all the more.
For lying there so still ;
There was a manhood in his look.
That murder could not kill I
•< And lo! the uniyersal air
Seemed 1ft with ghastly flam© —
Ten thousand thousand dreadful eyes
Were looking down in blame ;
I took the dead man by the hand.
And called upon his name f
" Oh God ! it made me quake to see
Such sense within the slain ! .
But when I touched the lifeless clay>
The blood gushed out amain 1
For every clot, a burning spot
Was scorching in my brain ?
My head was like an ardent coal.
My heart was solid ice ;
My wretched, wretched soul, I knew.
Was at the Devil's price ;
A dozen times I groan'd ; the dead
Had never groan'd but twice !
^ And now f?pm forth the frowning sky.
From the haven's topmost heigbi
I heard a voice— the awful voice
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THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 35
Of the blcxHtavenging sprite ;
* Thou guilty iSbi^n ! take up thy dead.
And hide it &ota my sight V
" I took tl^e dre»ry body up.
And ca^ it ill a stream —
A sluggish I'^^r, black as ink, ^ . )J
The death was so extreme J /vovo-'^-^O / *'' ^
(My gentle boy^ remember thia . . / ^
Was nothing but a dream). I \\ ( i. ^ ** ^ "'
" Down went the corse with a hollow plunge
And vanish'd in a pool ;
Anon I cleaned my bloody hands.
And wash'd my forehead cool.
And sat among the urchins young
That evening in the school. •
*' Oh heaven ! to think of their white souls.
And mine so black and grim !
I could not share in childish prayer.
Nor join in evening hymn ;
Like a devil of the pit I seem'd
^Mid holy cherubim.
.** Ai|d peace went with them one and all.
And each calm pillow spread ;
But Guilt was my grim chamberlain
That lighted, me to bed,
And drew my midj^ight curtains round.
With fingers Woodv red ! »
*' All n%ht i lay in agony,
From weary chime to chimei
With one besetting horrid hint,
That racked me all the time,
A mighty yearning, like the first.
Fierce impulse unto crime !
. W^
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36 PROSE AND VERSE.
" One stem, tyrannic thought, that made
All other thoughts its slave j
Stronger and stronger every pulse
Did that temptation crave —
Still urging roe to go and see
The dead man in his grave !
" Heavily I rose up — as soon
As light was in the sky —
And sought the black, accursed pool.
With a wild misgiving eye,
And I saw the dead in the river bed,
For the faithless stream was dry !
<< Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing ;
* But I never marked its morning flight,
I never heard it sing :
For I was stooping onoe again
Under the horrid thing*
*^ With breathless speed, like a soul in chase,
I took him up and ran —
There was no time to dig a grave
Before the day began ! X
In a Jonesome wood with heaps of leaves, ^
I hid the murdered man !
" And all that day I read in school.
But my thought was otherwhere ;
As soon 8fll the mid-day task was done.
In secret I was there :
And a mighty wind had swept the leaves,
And still the corse was bare !
^< Then down I cast me on my face,
And first began to weep,
For I knew my secret then was one
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THE DREAM OF EUGENE ARAM. 27
That Earth refused to keep ;
Or land or sea, though he should be
Ten thousand fathoms deep ! -^^
" So wills the fierce avenging sprite
Till blood for blood atones !
Ay, though he 's buried in a cave,
. And trodden down with stones,
And years have rotted off his flesh —
The world shall see his bones ! \
" Oh God, that horrid, horrid dream ^
Besets me now awake !
Again — again, with a dizzy brain,
The human life I take ;
And my red right hand grows raging hot.
Like Cranmer's at the stake.
^' AncHitill no peace for the restless clay
Will wave or mould allow ;
The horrid thing that pursues my soul —
It stands before me now !"
The fearful boy looked up and saw
Huge drops upon his brow !
' That\very night, while gentle sleep
The\urchin's eyelids kissed.
Two st^n-faced men set out from L3mn,
Through the cold and heavy mist ;
And Eugeii^ Aram walked between,
With gyv^ upon his wrist.
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38 PROSE AND VERSE.
BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN.
All at once Miss Morbid left off sugar.
She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage,
the full-bodied family coach dwindling into a chariot, next into
a fly, and then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off
artistically, like certain household economists, from white to
whitey brown, brown, dark-brown, and so on, to none at all.
She left it off, as one might leave off walking on the top of a
house, or on a slide, or on a plank with a further end to it, that
is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a moment's warning.
She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lum^. She dropped
it, — as. Corporal Trim let fall his hat, — dab. It vanished, as the
French say, toot sweet. From the 30th of November, 1830, not
an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid's own expression, ever
" darkened her doors."
The truth was she had been present the day before at an Anti-
Slavery Meeting ; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist,
who had drawn her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head.
Thenceforth sugar, or as she called it " shugger," was no longer
white, or brown, in her eyes, but red, blood- red — an abomination,
to indulge in which would convert a professing Christian into a
practical Cannibal. Accordingly, she made a vow, under the
influence of moist eyes and refined feelings, that the sanguinary
article should never more enter her lips or her house ; and this
pretty parody of the famous Berlin decree against our Colonial
produce was rigidly enforced. However others might counte-
nance the practice of the Slave Owners by ccmsuming "shugger,"
she was resolved for her own part, that << no suflering sable son
of Africa should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea !"
In the mean time, the cook and house-maid grumbled in concert
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BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. 29
at the prohibition : they naturally thought it very hard to be
deprived of a luxury which they enjoyed at their own proper
cost ; and at last only consented to remain in the service, on
condition that the privation should be handsomely considered in
their wages. With a hope of being similarly remembered in
her will, the poor relations of Miss Morbid continued to drink
the " warm without," which she administered to them every
-Sunday, under the name of Tea: and Hogarth would have
desired no better subject for a picture than was presented by
their physiognomies. Some pursed up their lips, as if resolved
that the nauseous beverage should never enter them ; others
compressed their mouths, as if to prevent it from rushing out
again« One took it mincingly, in sips, — another gulped it down
in desperation, — a third, in a iit of absence, continued to stir
very superfluously with his spoon ; and there was one shrewd
old gentleman, who, by a little dexterous by-play, used to bestow
the favor of his small souchong on a sick geranium. Now and
then an astonished Stranger would retain a half cupful of th^
black dose in hi^mouth, and stare round at his fellow guests, a^
if tacitly putting to them the very question of Matthews's Ygrk-
shireman, in the mail-coach — " Coompany !— oop or doon V
The greatest sufferers, however, were Miss Morbid's two
nephews, still in the morning of their youth, and boy-lTke, far
more inclined to "sip the sweets" than tq- ^fatil the dawn."
They had formerly looked on their Aunt's house*as peculiarly a
Dulce Domum. Prior to her sudden conversiftn, she had been
famous for the manufacture of a sort of hard bake, commonly
called Toffy or Taffy, — ^but now, alas! "Tafiy was not at
home," and there was nothing else to invite a call. Currant
tart 13 tart indeed without sugar ; and as for the green goose- ^
berries, they always tasted, as the young gentlemen affirmed,
"like a quart of berries sharpened to a pint." In short, it
always required six pennyworth of lollipops and bulls'-eyes, a
lick of honey, a dip of treacle, and a pick at a grocer's hogs-
head, to sweeten a visit at Aunt Morbid's.
To tell the truth, her own temper soured a little under the
prohibition. She could not persuade, the Sugar-eaters that they
were Vampyres -, — ^instead of practising, or even admiring her
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30 PROSE AND VERSE.
self-denial, they laughed at it ; and one wicked wag even com-
pared her, in allusion to her acerbity and her privation, to a
crab, without the nippers. She persevered notwithstanding in
her system ; and to the constancy of a martyr added something
of the wilfulness of a bigot : — indeed, it was hinted by patrons
and patronesses of white charities, that European objects had
not their fair share in her benevolence. She was pre-eminently
the friend of the blacks. Howbeit, for all her sacrifices, not a
lash was averted from their sable backs. She had raised dis-
content in the kitchen, she had disgusted her acquaintance, sick-
ened her friends, and given her own dear little nephews the
stomach-ache, without saving Quashy from one cut of the driver's
whip, or diverting a single kick from the shins of Sambo. Her
grocer complained loudly of being caUed a dealer in human
gore, yet not one hogshead the less was imported from the Plant-
ations. By an .error common to all her class she mistook a
negative for a positive principle ; and persuaded herself that by
not preserving damsons, she preserved the Niggers ; that by not
sweetening her own cup, she was dulcifying the lot of all her sable
brethren in bondage. She persevered accordihgly in setting her
face against sugar instead of slavery ; against the plant, instead
of the planter ; and ' had actually abstained for six months from
the fojFbldden article, when a circumstance occurred that roused
her sympathies into more active exertions. It pleased an Amer-
ican lady to ilQport with her a black female servant, whom she
rather abruptly dismissed, on her arrival in England. The case
was considered^by the Hampshire Telegraph of that day, as one
of GREAT HARDSHIP ; the paragraph went the round of the papers
— and in due time attracted the notice of Miss Morbid. It was
precisely addressed to her sensibilities, and there was a " Try
Warren " tone about it, that proved irresistible. She read — and
wrote, — and in the course of one little week, her domestic es-
tablishment was maliciously but truly described as consisting of
" two white Slaves and a black Companion."
The adopted protegee was, in reality, a strapping clumsy
Negress, as ugly as sin, and with no other merit than that of
being of the same color as Jhe crow. She was artful, sullen,
gluttonous, and, above all, so intolerably indolent, that if she
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BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. 31
had been literally " carved in ebony," as old Fuller says, she
could scarcely have been of less service to her protectress. Her
notion of Free Labor seemed to translate it into laziness, and
taking liberties; and, as she seriously added to the work of her
fellow-servants, without at all contributing to their comfort, they
soon looked upon her as a complete nuisance. The house-maid
dubbed her " a Divil," — the cook roundly compared her to "a
mischivus beast, as runs out on a herd o' black cattle ;''^ — and
both concurred in the policy of laying all household sins upon
the sooty shoulders — just as slatterns select a color that hides
the dirt. It is certain that shortly after the instalment of the
negress in the family, a moral disease broke out with considerable
violence, and justly or not, the odium was attributed to the
new comer. . Its name was theft. First, there was a shilling
short in some loose change — ^next, a missing half-crown from the
mantel-piece— then there was a stir with a tea-spoon — anon, a
piece of work about a thimble. Things went, nobody knew how
— ^the " Divil " of course excepted. The Cook could, the House-
maid wauldy and Diana should, and ougJU to take an oath, de-
claratory of innocence, before the mayor ; but as Diana did not
volunteer an affidavit, like the others, there was no doubt of her
guilt, in the kitchen.
Miss Morbid, however, came to a very different conclusion.
She thought that whites who could eat sugar, were capable of
any atrocity, and had not forgotten the stan^ which had been
made by the " pale faces," in favor of the obnoxious article.
The cook especially incurred suspicion ; for she had been noto-
rious aforetime for a lavish hand in sweetening, and wais accor-
dingly quite equal to the double turpitude of stealing and bearing
false witness. In fact, thq mistress had arrived at the determi-
nation of giving both her white hussies their month's warning,
when unexpectedly the thief was taken, as the lawyers say, " in
the manner," and with the goods upon the person. In a word,
the ungrateful black was detected in the very act of levying
what might be called her " Black Mail."
The horror of Emilia, on discovering that the Moor had mttr-
dered her mistress, was scarcely greater than that of Miss
- Morbid ! She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You
t
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32 PROSE AND VERSE.
might have knocked her down with a feather ! She did not know
whether she stood on her head or her heels. She was rooted to
the spot ! and her hair, if it had been her own, would have
stood upright upon her head ! There was no doubt in the case.
She saw the transfer of a portion of her own bank-stock, from
her escritoire into the right-hand pocket of her protegee — she
heard it chink as it dropped downwards, — she was petrified ! —
dumb-founded ! — thunder- bolted ! — ^' annilliated f" She was as
white as a sheet, but she felt as if all the blacks in the world
had just blown in her face.
rier first impulse was to rush upon the robber, and insist on
restitution — ^her second was to sit down and weep, — ^and her third
was to talk. The opening, as usual, was a mere torrent of
ejaculations intermixed with vituperation — but she gradually
fell into a lecture with many heads. First, she described all
she had done for the Blacks, and then, alas ! all that th' Blacks
had done for her. Next she insisted on the enormity of the
crime, and, anon, she enlarged on the nature of its punishment.
It was here that she was most eloquent. She traced the course
of human justice, from detection to conviction, and thence to
execution, liberally throwing dissection into the bargain : and
then descending with Dante into the unmentionable regions, she
painted its terrors and tortures with all the circumstantial fidelity
that certain very Old Masters have displayed on the same
subject.
"And now, you black wretch," she concluded, having just
given a finishing touch to a portrait of Satan himself; " and
now, you black wretch, I insist on knowing what I was robbed
for. Come, tell me what tempted you ! I'm determined to hear
it ! I inast, 1 say, on knowing what was to be done with the
wages of iniquity ! "
She insisted, however, in vain. The black wretch had seri-
ously inclined her ear to the whole lecture, grinning and blub-
bering by turns. The Judge with his black cap, the Counsel
and their wigs, the twelve men in a box, and Jack Ketch himself
— whom she associated with that pleasant West Indian personage,
John Canoe — had amused, nay, tickled her fancy ; the press-
^X>omi the irons, the rope, and tiie Ordinary, whom she mistook
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BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN. at
for an overseer, had raised her curiosity, and excited her fears ;
but the spiritualities, without any reference to Obeah, had simply
mystified and disgusted her, and she was now in a fit of the
sulks. Her mistress, however, persisted in her question ; and
not the less pertinaciously, perhaps, from expecting a new peg
whereon to hang a fresh lecture. She was determined to leam
the destination of the stolen money ; and by dint of insistingi
cajoling, and, above all, threatening — for instance, with the whole
Posse Comitatus — she finally carried her point.
** Cuss him money ! Here's a fiiss !" exclaimed the culprit,
quite worn out at last by the persecution. " Cuss him money !
here's a fuss ! What me 'teal him for ? What me do wid him ?
What anybody 'teal him for ? Why, for sure, to buy sugar .'"
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34 PROSE AND VERSE.
I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.
I EEMBMBER, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at mom :
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day ;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember,
The roses — red and white ;
The violets and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light I
The lilacs where the robin built.
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birth-day, —
The tree is living yet !
r
I remember, I remember.
Where I was used to swing ;
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing :
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
\ The fever on my brow ?
I remember, I remember.
The fir trees dark and high ;
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I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER. 95
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky :
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know Vm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
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35 PROSE AND VERSE.
THE PORTRAIT:
BEINC A3r AFOIiOCir FDR KOT MA^lSll A^ ATTEMPT OX >1V OWJT itTE
The late inimitable Charles Mathews, in one of his amusing en-
tertaininentSj used to tell a story of a certain innkeeper, who
made it a rule of his house, to allow a candle to a guest, only oa
condition of his ordering a piui of wine. Whereupon die guest
contendsj on the reciprocity sy.stem, for a li^^ht for every half-
bottle, and finally drinks himself into a general ill u nil nation.
Something of the ahove principle seems to have obtained in the
case of a S^ortrait and a Memoir, which in literary practice have
been usually dependent on each other — a likeness and a life, —
a candle and a pint of wine. The mere act of sitting probably
suggests the idea of hatching ■ at least an anthor has seldom
nested in a painter's chair, without coming out afterwards with
a brood of Reminiscences, and accordingly, no sooner was my
ei^gy about to be prespnted to the Public, than I found myself
called upon bjimy Publisher, with a finished proof of the en-
graving in one hand, and a request for an account of myself ia
the other. He evidently supposed, as a matter of coursCj that I
had my auto-biograpliy in the bottle, and that the time waacome,
to un-cork and potir it out with a Head.
To be candid, no portrait, perhaps, ever stood more in need
of such an accompaniment. The figure has certainly the
look of one of those practical jokes whereof the original is
often er suspected than really culpable* It might pass for the
sign of f^The Grave Maurice.^* The author of Elia has de*
clared that he once sat as substitute for a whole serii^s of Britrsb
Admiralsj* and a physiognomist might reasonably suspect that
* He perhaps took the hint from Dibdin, who lays down the rule ia hia
Sea Songs » thiLt a Naval Hara ought to be a Lion in battle, but after wsiris
a Lamb.
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THE PORTRAIT. 37
in wantonness or weariness, instead of giving my head I had pro-
cured myself to be painted by proxy. For who, that calls him-
self stranger, could ever suppose that such a pale, pensive, peak-
ing, sentimental, sonneteering countenance — with a wry mouth
as if it always laughed on its wrong side — belonged bona fide
to the Editor of the Comic — a Professor of the Pantagruelian Phi-
losophy, hinted at in the preface of the present work ? What
unknown who reckons himself decidedly serious, would recog-
nize the head and front of my ** offending," in a visage not at all
too hilarious for a frontispiece to the Evangelical Magazine !
In point of fact the owner has been taken sundry times, ere now,
for a Methodist Minister, and a pious turn has been attributed to
his hair — lucus a non lucendo — from its having no turn in it at
all.* In like manner my literary contemporaries who have
cared to remark on my personals, have agreed in ascribing to me
a melancholy bias ; thus an authority in the New Monthly Maga-
zine has described me as '^ a grave anti-pun-like-looking per-
son," whilst another — ^in the Book of Gems— -declares that " n^
countenance is more grave than merry," and insists, therefore,
that I am of a pensive habit, and *^ have never laughed heartily
in company or in rhyme." Against such an inference, however,
I solemnly protest, and if it be the fault of my features, I do not
mind telling my face to its face that it insinuates a false Hood,
and grossly misrepresents a person notorious amongst friends for
laughing at strange times and odd places, and in particular when
he has the worst of the rubber. For it is no comfort for the loss
of points, by his theory, to be upon thorns. And truly what can
be more unphilosophical, than to sit ruefully as well as whist-
fully, with your face inconsistently playing at longs and your
hand at shorts, — getting hypped as well as pipped, — ** talking of
Hoyle," as the city lady said, " but looking like winegar," and
betraying as keen a sense of the profit and loss, as if the pack
had turned you into a pedlar.
But I am digressing ; and turning my back, as Lord Castle-
reagh would have said, on my face. The portrait, then, is gen-
uine — " an ill-favored thing, Sir," as Touchstone says, " but
* On a march to Berlin, with the 19th Prussian Infantry, I could never
succeed in passing myself off as anything but the Regimental Chaplain.
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38 PROSE AND VERSE.
mine own." For its quarrel with the rules of Lavater there is
precedent. I remember seeing on Sir Thomas Lawrence's
easel, an unfinished head of Mr. Wilberforce, so very merry, so
rosy, so good- fello wish, that nothing less than the Life and Cor-
respondence recently published could have persuaded me that he
was really a serious character. A memoir, therefore, would be
the likeliest thing to convince the world that the physiognomy
alluded to, is actually Hood's own : — ^indeed a few of the earlier
chapters would suffice to clear up the mystery, by proving that
my face is only answering in the affirmative, the friendly in-
quiry of the Poet of all circles — " Has sorrow thy young days
shaded ?" — and telling the honest truth of one of those rickety
constitutions which, according to Hudibras, seem
I if intended
For nothing else but to be mended.**
To confess the truth, my vanity pricked up its ears a little at
the proposition of my publisher. There is something vastly flat-
tering in the idea of appropriating the half of a quarter of a
century, mixing it up with your personal experience, and then
serving it out as your own Life and Times. On casting a retro-
spective glance however across Memory's waste, it appeared so
literally a waste, that vanity herself shrank from the enclosure
act, as an unpromising speculation. Had I foreseen indeed,
some five-and-thirty years ago, that such a demand would be
made upon me, I might have laid myself out on purpose, as Dr.
Watts recommends, so as " to give of every day some good ac-
count at last." I would have lived like a Frenchman, for effect,
and made my life a long dress rehearsal of the future biography.
I would have cultivated incidents " pour servir," laid traps for
adventures, and illustrated my memory like Rogers's, by a bril-
liant series of Tableaux. The earlier of my Seven Stages should
have been more Wonder Phenomenon Comet and Balloon-like,
and have been timed to a more Quicksilver pace than they have
travelled ; in short, my Life, according to the tradesman's pro-
mise, should have been " fully equal to bespoke." But, alas !
in the absence of such a Scottish second-sight, my whole course
of existence up to the present moment would hardly furnish ma-
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THE PORTRAIT. 39
terials for one of those " bald biographies " that content the old
gentlemanly pages of Sylvanus Urban. Lamb, on being applied
to for a Memoir of himself, made answer that it would go into
an epigram ; and I really believe that I could compress my own
into that baker's dozen of lines called a sonnet. Montgomery,
indeed, has forestalled the greater part of it, in his striking poem
on the "Common. Lot," but in prose, nobody could ever make
anything of it, except Mr. George Robins. The lives of litera-
ry men are proverbially barren of interest, and mine, instead of
forming an exception to the general rule, would bear the appli-
cation of the following words of Sir Walter Scott, much better
than the career of their illustrious author. " There is no man
known at all in literature, who may not have more to tell of his
private life than I have. I have surmounted no difficulties either
of birth or education, nor have I been favored by any particular
advantages, and my life has been as void of incidents of impor-
tance as that of the weary knife-grinder — * Story ! bless you,
I have none to tell, sir.' "
Thus my birth was neither so humble that, like John Jones, I
have been obliged amongst my lays to lay the cloth, and to court
the cook and the muses at the same time ; nor yet so lofly, that,
with a certain lady of title, I could not write without letting
myself down. Then, for education, though on the one hand I
have not taken my degree, with Blucher ; yet, on the other, I
have not been rusticated, at the Open Air School, like the Poet
of Helpstone. As for incidents of importance, I remember
none, except being drawn for a soldier, which was a hoax, and
having the opportunity of giving a casting vote on a great paro-
chial question, only I didn't attend. I have never been even
third in a duel, or crossed in love. The stream of time has
flowed on with me very like that of the New River, which
everybody knows has so little romance about it, that its Head
has never troubled us with a Tale. My own story then, to pos-
sess any interest, must be a fib.
Truly given, with its egotism and its barrenness, it would look
too like the chalked advertiaements on a dead wall. Moreover,
Pope has read a lesson to self-importance in the Memoirs of
P. P., the parish Clerk, who was only notable after all amongst
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40 PROSE AND VERSE.
his neighbors as a swallower of loaches. Even in such prac-
tical whims and oddities I am deficient, — for instance, eschewing
razors, or bolting clasp-knives, riding on painted ponies, sleeping
for weeks, fasting for months, devouring raw tripe, and similar
eccentricities, which have entitled sundry knaves, quacks,
boobies, and brutes, to a brief biography in the Wonderful Maga-
zine. And, in the absence of these distinctions, I am equally
deficient in any spiritual pretensions. I have had none of those
experiences which render the lives of saintlings, not yet in their
teens, worth their own weight in paper and print, and conse-
quently my personal history, as a Tract, would read as flat as
^e Pilgrim's Progress without the Giants, the Lions, and the
grand single combat with the Devil.
To conclude, my life, — " upon my life," — ^is not worth giving,
or taking. The principal just suffices for me to live upon ; and
of course, would afford little interest to any one else. Besides,
1 have a bad memory ; and a personal history would assuredly
be but a middling one, of which I have forgotten the beginning
and cannot foresee the end. I must, therefore, respectfully de-
cline giving my life to the world — ^at least till I have done with
it— ^but to soflen the refusal, I am willing, instead of a written
character of myself, to set down all that I can recall of other
authors, and, accordingly, the next number will contain the first
instalment of
M7 LITESART REMINISCENCES.
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 41
LITEBABY BEMINISCENCES.
** Commen^ons par le commencement."
The very earliest of one's literary recollections must be the ac-
quisition of the alphabet ; and in the knowledge of the first rudi-
ments I was placed on a par with the Learned Pig, by two
maiden ladies that were called Hogsflesh. The circumstance
would be scarcely worth mentioning, but that being a day-
boarder, and taking my dinner with the family, I became aware
of a Baconian brother, who was never mentioned except by his
Initial, and was probably the prototype of the sensitive ** Mr. H.,'*
in Lamb's unfortunate farce. The school in question was situ-
ated in Token-house Yard, a convenient distance for a native of
the Poultry, or Birchin-lane, I forget which, and in truth am not
particularly anxious to be more certainly acquainted with my
parish. It was a metropolitan one, however, which is recorded
without the slightest repugnance ; firstly, for that, practically, I
had no choice in the matter ; and secondly, because, theoreti-
cally, I would as lief have been a native of London as of Stoke
Pogis or Little Pedlington. If such local prejudices be of any
Worth, the balance ought to be in favor of the capital. The
Dragon of Bow Church, or Gresham's Grasshopper, is as good
a terrestrial sign to be born under as the dunghill cock on a
villag© steeple. Next to being a citizen of the world, it must
be the best thing to be bom a citizen of the world's greatest city.
To a lover of his kind, it should be a welcome dispensation that
cast his nativity amidst the greatest congregation of the species ;
but a literary man should exult rather than otherwise that he
first saw the light — or perhaps the fog — in the same metropolis
as Milton, Gray, De Foe, Pope, Byron, Lamb, and other town-
^rn authors, whose fame has nevertheless triumphed over the
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42 PROSE AND VERSE.
Bills of Mortality. In such a goodly company I cheerfully take
up my livery ; and especially as CJockneyism, properly so called,
appears to be confined to no particular locality or station in life.
Sir Walter Scott has given a splendid instance of it in an Orca-
dian, who prayed to the Lord to bless his own tiny ait, " not
forgetting the neighboring island of Great Britain;" and the
most recent example of the style I have met with, was in the
Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, being an account of sea perils
and sufferings during a passage across the Irish Channel by " the
First Gentleman in Europe."
Having alluded to my first steps on the ladder of learning, it
may not be amiss in this place to correct an assertion of my
biographer in the Book of Gems, who states, that my education
was finished at a certain suburban academy. In this ignorant
world, where we proverbially live and learn, we may indeed
leave off school, but our education only terminates with life
itself. But even in a more limited sense, instead of my educa-
tion being finished, my own impression is, that it never so much
as progressed towards so desirable a consummation at any such
establishment, although much invaluable time was spent at some
of those institutions where young gentlemen are literally boarded,
lodged, and done for. My very first essay was at one of those
places improperly called ^ewi-naries, because they do not half
teach anything ; the principals being probably aware that the
little boys are as often consigned to them to be " out of a mother's
way," as for anything else. Accordingly, my memory presents
but a very dim image of a pedagogical powdered head, amidst
a more vivid group of females of a composite charter-part dry-
nurse, part housemaid, and part governess, — with a matronly
figure in the back-ground, very like Mrs. S., allegorically repre-
senting, as Milton says, " our universal mother." But there is
no glimpse of Minerva. Of those pleasant associations with
early school days, of which so much has been said and sung,
there is little amongst my retrospections, excepting, perhaps,
some sports which, like charity, might have been enjoyed at
home, without the drawbacks of sundry strokes, neither apoplectic
nor paralytic, periodical physic, and other unwelcome extras.
I am not sure whether an invincible repugnance to early rising
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may not be attributable to our precocious wintry summonses,
from a warm bed into a dim damp scbool-room, to play at filling
our heads on an empty stomach ; and perhaps I owe my decided
sedentary habits to the disgust at our monotonous walks, or rather
processions, or maybe to the sufferings of those longer excur*
sions of big and little, where a pair of compasses had to pace as
far and as fast as a pair of tongs. Nevertheless, I yet recall,
with wonder, the occasional visits of grown-up ex-scholars to
their old school, all in a flutter of gratitude and sensibility at
recognizing the spot where they had been caned, and horsed,
and flogged, and fagged, and brimstone-and-treacled, and blacks
dosed, and stick-jawed, and kibed, and fined, — ^where they had
caught the measles and the mumps, and been overtasked, and
undertaught — and then, by way of climax, sentimentally offer*
ing a presentation snuff-box to their fevered preceptor, with an
inscription, ten to one, in dog Latin on the lid !
For my own part, were I to revisit such a haunt of my youth, /
it would give me the greatest pleasure, out of mere regard to^
the rising generation, to find Prospect House turned into a Floor
Cloth Manufactory, and the playground converted to a bleach-
field. The tabatiere is out of the question. In the way of learn-
ing, I carried off nothing in exchange for my knife and fork, and
spoon, but a prize for Latin without knowing the Latin for prize,
and a belief which I had afterwards to unbelieve again, that a
block of marble could be cut in two with a razor.
To be classical, as Ducrow would say, the Athenians, the
day before the Festival of Theseus, their Founder, gratefully
sacrificed a ram, in memory of Corridas the schoolmaster, who
had been his instructor ; but in the present day, were such offer-
ings in fashion, how frequently would the appropriate animal be
a donkey, and especially too big a donkey to get over the Pons
Asinorum !
From the preparatory school, I was transplanted in due time
to what is called by courtesy, a finishing one, where I was im-
mediately set to begin everything again at the beginning. As
this was but a backward way of coming forward, there seemed
little chance of my ever becoming what Mrs. Malaprop calls " a
progeny of learning;" indeed my education was pursued very
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much after the plan laid down by that feminine authority. I
had nothing to do with Hebrew, or Algebra, or Simony, or Flux-
ions, or Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches; but I ob-
tained a supercilious knowledge of accounts, with enough of
geometry to make me acquainted with the contagious countries.
Moreover, I became fluent enough in some unknown tongue to
protect me from the French Mark; and I was sufficiently at
home (during the vacations) in the quibbles of English gram-
mar, to bore all my parents, relations, friends, and acquaintance,
by a pedantical mending of their " cakeology." Such was the
sum total of my acquirements ; being, probably^ quite as much
as I should have learned at a Charity School, with the exception
of the parochial accomplishment of hallooing and singing of an-
thems.
I have entered into these personal details, though pertaining
rather to illiterate than to literary reminiscences, partly because
the important subject of Education has become of prominent in-
terest, and partly to hint that a writer may often mean in earnest
what he says in jest. One of my readers at least has given me
credit for a serious purpose. A schoolmaster called, during the
vacation, on the father of one of his pupils, and in answer to his
announcement of the re-opening of his establishment, was in-
formed that the young gentleman was not to return to the aca-
demy. The worthy parent declared that he had read the "Car-
naby Correspondence," in the Comic Annual, and had made up
his mind. "But, my dear Sir, "expostulated the pedagogue, " you
cannot be serious ; why the Comic Annual is nothing but a book
full of jokes !" " Yes, yes," returned the father, " but it has let me
into a few of your tricks. I believe Mr. Hood. James is not
coming again !"
And now, it may be reasonably asked, where I did learn any-
thing if not at these establishments, which promise Universal
Knowledge — extras included-^-and yet unaccountably produce
80 very few Admirable Crichtons?* It may plausibly be
objected, that I did not duly avail myself of such overflowing
* In spite of hundreds of associates, it has never happened to me, amongit
the very many distinguished names connected with science or literature, to
recognize one as belonging to a school-fellow.
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 45
opportunities to dabble, dip, duck in, and drink deeply of, the
Pierian spring, that I was an Idler, Lounger, Tatler, Rambler,
Spectator, anything rather than a student. To which my reply
must be, first, that the severest punishment ever inflicted on my
shoulders was for a scholar-like oflence, the being " fond of my
book," only it happened to be Robinson Crusoe ; and secondly,
that I did go ahead at another guess sort of academy, a reference
to which will be a little flattering to those Houses which claim
Socrates, Aristotle, Alfred, and other Leamedissimi WorihUy as
their Sponsors and Patron Saints. The school that really
schooled me being comparatively of a very humble order —
without sign — without prospectus — without ushers — without am-
ple and commodious premises — ^in short, without pretension, and,
consequently, almost without custom.
The autumn of the year 1811, along with a most portentous
comet, "with fear of change perplexing monarchs," brought,
alas ! a melancholy revolution in my own position and prospects,
by the untimely death of my father ; and my elder brother
shortly following him to the grave, my bereaved mother naturally
drew the fragments of the family more closely around her, so
that thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her " only son,
myself, at home." She did not, however, neglect my future
interest, or persuade herself by any maternal vanity that a boy
of twelve years old could have precociously finished his educa-
tion ; and, accordingly, the next spring found me at what might
have been literally called a High School, in reference to its dis-
tance from the ground.
In a house, formerly a suburban seat of the unfortunate Earl
of Essex — over a grocer's shop— up two pair of stairs, there was
a very select day-school, kept by a decayed Dominie, as he
would have been called in his native land. In his better days,
when my brother was his pupil, he had been master of one of
those wholesale concerns in which so many ignorant men have
made fortunes, by favor of high terms, low ushers, gullible
parents, and victimized little boys. As our worthy Dominie, on
the contrary, had failed to realize even a competence, it may be
inferred logically, that he had done better by his pupils than by
himself ; and my own experience certainly went to prove that
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46 PROSE AND VERSE.
he attended to the interests of his scholars, however he might
have neglected his own. ^ Indeed, he less resembled, even in
externals, the modem worldly trading Schoolmaster than the
good, honest, earnest, olden Pedagogue — ^a pedant, perchance,
but a learned one, with whom teaching was " a labor of love,"
who had a proper sense of the dignity and importance of his call-
ing, and was content to find a main portion of his reward in the
honorable proficiency of his disciples. Small as was our Col-
lege, its Principal maintained his state, and walked gowned and
covered. His cap was of faded velvet, of black, or blue, or
purple, or sad green, or as it seemed, of all together, with a
nuance of brown. His robe, of crimson damask, lined with the
national tartan. A quaint, carved, high-backed, elbowed article,
looking like an emigre, from a set that had been at home in an
aristocratical drawing-room, under the ancien regime^ was his
Professional Chair, which, with his desk, was appropriately ele-
vated on a dais, some inches above the common floor. From this
moral and material eminence, he cast a vigilant yet kindly eye
over some dozen of youngsters ; for adversity, sharpened by
habits of authority, had not soured him, or mingled a single tinge
of bile with the peculiar red-streak complexion, so common to
the healthier natives of the North. On one solitary occasion,
within my memory, was he seriously, yet characteristically dis-
composed, and that was by his own daughter, whom he accused
of " forgetting all regard for common decorum ," because, for-
getting that he was a Dominie as well as a Parent, she had heed-
lessly addressed him in public as " Father," instead of " Papa."
The mere provoking contrariety of a dunce never stirred his
spleen, but rather spurred his endeavor, in spite of the axiom, to
make Nihil fit for anything. He loved teaching for teaching's
sake ; his kill-horse happened to be his hobby : and doubtless,
if he had met with a penniless boy on the road to learning, he
would have given him a lift, like the charitable Waggoner to
Dick Whittington — for love. I recall, therefore, with pleasure,
the cheerful alacrity with which I used to step up to recite my
lesson, constantly forewarned — for every true schoolmaster has
his stock joke — not to " stand in my own light." It was im-
possible not to take an interest in learning what he seemed
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 47
80 interested in teaching ; and in a few months my education
progressed infinitely farther than it had done in as many years
under the listless superintendance of B. A., and LL. D. and
Assistants. I picked up some Latin, was a tolerahle English
Grammarian, and so good a French scholar, that I earned a few
guineas — ^my first literary fee — ^by revising a new edition of
" Paul et Yirginie" for the press. Moreover, as an accountant,
I could work a summum honum — i. e., a good sum.
In the meantime, — so generally unfortunate is the courtship of
that bashful undertoned wooer. Modest Merit, to that loud, hrazen
masculine, worldly heiress. Success — ^the school did not prosper.
The number of scholars diminished rather than increased. At
least no new boys came — but one fine morning, about nine
o'clock, a great " she gal," of fifteen or sixteen, but so repnarka-
bly well grown that she might have been " any of our mothers,**
made her unexpected appearance with bag and books. The
sensation that she excited is not to be described ! The apparitioh
of a Governess, with a Proclamation of a Gynecocracy, could not
have been more astounding ! Of course SHE instantly formed
a class ; and had any form SHE might prefer to herself : — ^the
most of us being just old enough to resent what was considered
as an affront on the corduroy sex, and just young enough to be
beneath any gallantry to the silken one. The truth was, sub
rosa, that there was a plan for translating us, and turning the
unsuccessful Boys' School into a Ladies' Academy, to be con-
ducted by the Dominie's eldest daughter — but it had been thought
prudent to be well on with the new set before being off with the
old. A brief period only had elapsed, when, lo! a leash of
female school Fellows — three sisters, like the Degrees of Com-
parison personified. Big, Bigger, and Biggest — made their un-
welcome appearance, and threatened to push us from our stools.
They were greeted, accordingly, with all the annoyances that
juvenile malice could suggest. It is amusing, yet humiliating,
to remember the nuisances the sex endured at the hands of those
who were thereafter to honor the shadow of its shoe-tie — to
groan, moan, sigh, and sicken for its smiles, — ^to become poetical,
prosaical, nonsensical, lack-a-daisical, and perhaps even melo-
dramatical for its sake. Numberless were the desk-quakes, the
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48 PROSE AND VERSE.
ink-spouts, the book-bolts, the pea-showers, and other unregis-
tered phenomena, which likened the studies of those four unlucky
maidens to the " Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties,"— hso
that it glads me to reflect, that I was in a very small minority
against the persecution ; having already begun to read poetry,
and even to write something which was egregiously mistaken
for something of the same nature. The final result of the strug-
gle in the academic nest — whether the hen-cuckoos succeeded in
ousting the cock-sparrows, or vice versa — ^is beyond my record ;
seeing that I was just then removed from the scene of contest, to
be introduced into that Universal School, where, as in the pre-
paratory one, we have very unequal shares in the flogging, the
fagging, the task- work, and the pocket-money ; but the same
breaking up to expect, and the same eternity of happy holidays
to hope for in the Grand Recess.
In brief, a friend of the family having taken a fancy to me,
proposed to initiate me in those profitable mercantile mysteries
which enabled Sir Thomas Gresham to gild his grasshopper ;
and like another Frank Osbaldestone, I found myself planted on
a counting-house stool, which nevertheless served occasionally
for a Pegasus, on three legs, every foot, of course, being a dactyl
or a spondee. In commercial matters, the only lesson imprinted
on my memory is the rule, that when a ship's crew from Arch,
angel come to receive their L. S. D., you must lock up your
P. Y. C.
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MY APOLOGY. 49
MY APOLOGY.
Gentle Readess,
For the present month, there must be what Dr. John-
son called a solution of continuity in my " Literary Reminiscen-
ces.^' Confined to my chamber by what ought to be termed
roomatism — ^then attacked by my old livery complaint — and
finally, by a minor, but troublesome malady, the Present has too
much prevailed over the Past, to let me indulge in any retrospec-
tive reviews. In such cases, on the stage, when a Performer is
unable to support his character, a substitute is usually found to
read the part; but unfortunately, in the present case there is no
part written, and consequently it cannot be read. But apropos of
theatricals — ^there is an anecdote in point.
In the Olympic days of the great Elliston, there was one
evening a tremendous tumult at his Theatre, in consequence of
the absence of a fevorite performer. One man in the pit — a
Butcher — was especially vociferous in his cry for " Carl ! Carl !
Carl!" Others called for the Manager, who duly made his
appearance, and black as the weather looked, he was the very
sort of pilot to weather the storm. With one of his princely bows
he proceeded to address the House. " Ladies and Gentlemen —
but by your leave I will address myself to a single individual. I
will ask that gentleman (pointing to the vociferous Butcher) what
right he has to demand the appearance of Mr. Carl ?" " 'Cos,"
said the Butcher, " 'cos he's down in the Bill." Such an unde-
niable answer would have staggered any other Manager than
Elliston, but he was not easily to be disconcerted. " Because
he is down in the bill !" he echoed, in a tone of the loftiest indig-
nation : << Ladies and Gentlemen, the Mr. Carl, so unseasonablyi
so vociferously, and so unfeelingly called for, is at this very
5
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moment laboring under severe illness — he is in bed. And let
me ask, is a man, a fellow-creature, a human being, to be torn
from his couch, from his home, on a cold night, from the affec-
tionate attention of his wife and family, at the risk of his valua-
ble life perhaps, to go through a fatiguing part because he happens
to be DOWN IN THE BILL ?" [Cries of « Shame ! shame !"
from all parts of the house.] << And yet, ladies and gentlemen,
there stands a man — if I may call him so— a Butcher, that for
his own selfish gratification — ^the amusement of a few short
hours — ^would risk the very existence of a deserving member of
society, a good husband, father, friend, and one of your favorite
actors', and all, forsooth, because he is DOWN IN THE BILL !"
[Universal hooting, with cries of "Turn him out.*'] "By all
means," acquiesced the Manager, with one of his best bows— and
the indignant pittites actually hooted and kicked their own cham-
pion out of the theatre, as something more than a Butcher, and
less than a Christian.
Now I am myself, gentle readers, in the same predicament
with Mr. Carl. Like him I am an invalid — and like him I am
unfortunately down in the Bill. It would not become me to set
forth my own domestic or social virtues, or to hint what sort of
gap my loss would make in society — still less would it consist
with modesty to compare myself with a favorite actor — ^but as a
mere human being I throw myself on your mercy, and ask, in
common charity, would you have had me leave my warm bed,
to shiver in a printer's damp sheets, at the risk of my reputation
perhaps, and for the mere amusement of some half hour, or more
probably for no amusement at all — simply because I was " doum
in the Bilir
But there is no such Butcher, or Butcheress, or little Butcher-
ling, amongst you ; and by your good leave and patience, the
instalment of my Reminiscences that is over due, shall be paid
with interest in the next number.
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 91
LITERARY REMINISCENCES.
No. I.
Time was, I sat upon a lofty stool,
At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen
Began each morning, at the stroke of ten.
To write in Bell and Co.'s commercial school ;
In Warnford Court, a shady nook and cool.
The favorite retreat of merchant men ;
Yet would my quill turn vagrant even then.
And take stray dips in the Castalian pool.
Now double entry-— now a flowery trope —
Mingling poetic honey with trade wax —
Blogg, Brothers — Milton — Grote and Prescott— Pope-
Bristles — and Hogg--61yn Mills and Halifax —
Rogers — and Towgood— Hemp — ^the Bard of Hope —
Barilla— Byron — ^Tallow— Burns— and Flax !
My commercial career was a brief one, and deserved only a
sonnet in commemoration. The fault, however, lay not with the
muses. To commit poetry indeed is a crime ranking next to
forgery in the counting-house code ; and an Ode or a song dated
Copthall Court, would be as certainly noted and protested as a
dishonored bill. I have even heard of an unfortunate ^lerk, who
lost his situation through being tempted by the jingle to subscribe
under an account current
** Excepted all errors
Made by John Ferrers,"
his employer emphatically declaring that Poetry and Logwood
could never coexist in the same head. The principal of our firm
on the contrary had a turn for the Belles Lettres, and would have
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winked with both eyes at verses which did not intrude into an
invoice or confuse their figures with those of the Ledger. The
true cause of my retirement from Commercial afiairs was more
prosaic. My constitution, though far from venerable, had begun
to show symptoms of decay : my appetite failed, and its princi-
pal creditor, the stomach, received only an ounce in the pound.
My spirits daily became a shade lower — ^my flesh was held less
and less firmly — ^in short, in the language of the price current, it
was expected that I must " submit to a decline." The Doctors
who were called in, .declared imperatively that a mercantile life
would be the death of me — ^that by so much sitting, I was hatch-
ing a whole brood of complaints, and that no Physician would
insure me as a merchantman from the Port of London to the next
Spring. The Exchange, they said, was against me, and as the
Exchange itself used to ring with " Life let us Cherish," there
was no resisting the advice. I was ordered to abstain from
Ashes, Bristles, and Petersburg yellow candle, and to indulge in
a more generous diet — to take regular country exercise instead
of the Russia Walk, and to go to bed early even on Foreign Post
nights* Above all I was recommended change of air, and in
particular the bracing breezes of the North. Accordingly I was
soon shipped^ as per advice, in a Scotch Smack, which <' smacked
through the breeze," as Dibdin sings, so merrily, that on the
fourth morning we were in sight of the prominent old Steeple of
" Bonny Dundee.'*
My Biographer, in the Book of Gems, alludes to this voyage,
and infers from some verses — '^ Gadzooks ! must one swear to
the truth of a song ?" — ^that it sickened me of the sea. Nothing
can be more unfounded. The marine terrors and disagreeables
enumerated in the poem, belong to a Miss Oliver, and not to me,
who regard the ocean with a natural and national partiality.
Constitutionally proof against that nausea which extorts so many
wave-offerings from the afflicted, I am as constant as Captain
Basil Hall himself, in my regard " for the element that never
tires." Some washy fellows, it is true. Fresh-men from Cam-
bridge and the like, aflfect to prefer river or even pond water for
their aquatics — ^the tame ripple to the wild wave, the prose to
" the poetry of motion." But give me " the multitudinous sea,"
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resting or rampant, with all its variable moods and changeable
coloring. Methought, when pining under the maladie du pays, on
a hopeless, sick bed, inland, in Germany, it would have relieved
those yearnings but to look across an element so instinct with
English associations, that it would seem rather to unite me to
than sever me from my native island. And, truly, when I did
at last stand on the brink of the dark blue sea, my home^sick
wishes seemed already half fulfilled, and it was not till many
months afterwards that I actually crossed the Channel. But I
am, besides, personally under deep obligations to the great deep.
Twice, indeed, in a calm and in a storm, has my life been threat,
ened with a salt-water catastrophe ; but that quarrel has long
been made up, and forgiven, in gratitude for the blessing and
bracing influence of the breezes that smack of the ocean brine.
Dislike the sea ! — With what delight aforetime used I to swim in
it, to dive ift it, to sail on it ! Ask honest Tom Woodgate, of
Hastings, who made of me, for a landsman, a tolerable boatsman.
Even now, when do I feel so easy in body, and so cheerful in
spirit, as when walking hard by the surge, listening, as if expect-
ing some whispering of friendly but distant voices, in its eternal
murmuring. Sick of the sea ! If ever I have a water-drinking
fancy, it is a wish that the ocean brine had been sweet, or sour
instead of salt, so as to be potable ; for what can be more tempt-
ing to the eye as a draught, than the pure fluid, almost invisible
with clearness, as it lies in some sandy scoop, or rocky hollow, a
true " Diamond of the Desert," to say nothing of the same living
liquid in its effervescing state, when it sparkles up, hissing and
bubbling in the ship's wake — ^the very Champaigne of water !
Above al], what intellectual solar and soothing syrup have I not
derived from the mere contemplation of the boundless main, —
the most effectual and innocent of mental sedatives, and oflen
called in aid of that practical philosophy it has been my wont
to recommend in the present work. For whenever, owing to
physical depression, or a discordant state of the nerves, my per-
sonal vexations and cares, real or imaginary, become importu-
nate in my thoughts, and acquire, by morbid exaggeration, an
undue prominence and importance, what remedy then so infalli-
ble as to mount to my solitary seat in the look-out, and thence
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gaze awhile across the broad expanse, till in the presence of that
vast horizon, my proper troubles shrink to their true proportions,
and I look on the whole race of men, with their insignificant pur-
suits, as so many shrimpers ! But this is a digression — we have
made the harbor of Dundee, and it is lime to step ashore in
" stout and original Scotland," as it is called by Doctor Adol-
phus Wagner, in his German edition of Bums.*
Like other shipments, I had been regularly addressed to the
care of a consignee ; — but the latter, not anxious, probably, to
take charge of a hobbledehoy, yet at the same time unwilling
to incur the reproach of having a relative in the same town and
not under the same roof, peremptorily declined the office. Nay,
more, she pronounced against me a capital sentence, so far as
returning to the place from whence I came, and even proceeded
to bespeak my passage and reship my luggage. Judging from
such vigorous measures the temper of my customed, instead of
remonstrating, I affected resignation, and went with a grave face
through the farce of a formal leave-taking ; I even went on
board, but it was in company with a stout fellow who relanded
* The Baron Dupotet de Sennevoy and Doctor Elliotson will doubtless be
glad to be informed, that the inspired Scottish Poet was a believer in their
magnetismal mysteries— at least in the article of reading a book behind the
back. In a letter to Mr. Robert Ainslie, is the following passage in proof.
« I have no doubt but scholarcrafl may be caught, as a Scotchman catches
the itch— by friction. How else can you account for it that born blockheads,
by mere dint of handling books, grow so wise that even they themselves are
equally convinced of, and surprised at their own parts ? I once carried that
philosophy to that degree, that in a knot of country folks, who had a library
amongst them, and who, to the honor of their good sense, made me facto-
tum in the business ; one of our members, a little w^selook, squat, upright,
jabbering body of a tailor, I advised him instead of turning over the leaves,
to bind the book on hia back. Johnnie took the hint, and as our meetings
were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to
walk in coming, and of course another in returning. Bodkin was sure to lay
his hand on some heavy quarto or ponderous folio ; with and under which,
wrapt up in his grey plaid, he grew wise as he grew weary all the way home.
He carried this so far, that an old musty Hebrew Concordance, which we
had in a present from a neighboring priest, by mere dint of applying it as
doctors do a blistering plaster, between his shoulders. Stitch, in a dozen
pilgrimages, acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done
by forty years' perusal of its pages.'*
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my baggage ; and thus, whilst my transporter imagined, good
easy soul ! that the rejected article was sailing round St. Abb's
Head, or rolling off the Bass, he was actually safe and snug in
Dundee, quietly laughing in his sleeve with the Law at his
back. I have a confused recollection of meeting, some three
or four days afterwards, a female cousin on her road to school,
who at sight of me turned suddenly round, and galloped off to-
wards home with the speed of a scared heifer.
My first concern was now to look out for some comfortable
roof, under which " for a consideration " one would be treated as
one of the family. I entered accordingly into a treaty with a
respectable widower, who had no sons of his own, but in spite of
the most undeniable references, and a general accordance as to
terms, there occurred a mysterious hitch in the arrangement,
arising from a whimsical prepossession which only came after-
wards to my knowledge — ^namely, that an English laddie, in-
stead of supping parritch, would inevitably require a rump-
steak to his breakfast ! My next essay was more successful ;
and ended in my being regularly installed in a boarding-house,
kept by a Scotchwoman, who was not so sure of my being a
beefeater. She was a sort of widow, with a seafaring husband
" as good as dead," and in her appearance not unlike a personi-
fication of rouge et noiry with her red eyes, her red face, her yel-
low teeth, and her black velvet cap. The first day of my term
happened to be also the first day of the new year, and on step-
ping from my bed- room, I encountered our Hostess — like a witch
and her familiar spirit — with a huge bottle of whiskey in one
hand, and a glass in the other. It was impossible to decline the
dram she pressed upon me, and very good it proved, and un-
doubtedly strong, seeing that for some time I could only muse
its praise in expressive silence, and indeed, I was only able to
speak with " a small still voice " for several minutes afterwards.
Such was my characteristic introduction to the Land of Cakes,
where I was destined to spend the greater part of two years,
under circumstances likely to materially influence the coloring
and filling up of my future life.
To properly estimate the dangers of ray position, imagine a
boy of fifteen; at the Nore, as it were, of life, thus left depend-
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56 PROSE AND VERSE.
ent on his own pilotage for a safe voyage to the Isle of Man ; or
conceive a juvenile Telemachus, without a Mentor, brought sud-
denly into the perildlis neighborhood of Calypso and her en-
chantments. It will hardly be expected, that from some half-
dozen of young bachelors, there came forth any solemn voice
didactically warning me in the strain of the sage Imlac to the
Prince of Abyssinia. In fact, I recollect receiving but one soli-
tary serious admonition, and that was from a she cousin of ten
years old, that the Spectator I was reading on a Sunday morn-
ing, '< was not the Bible." For there was still much of this pious
rigor extant in Scotland, though a gentleman was no longer
committed to Tolboothia Infelix, for an unseasonable promenade
during church time. It was once, however, my fortune to wit-
ness a sample of the ancien regime at an evening party com-
posed chiefly of young and rather fashionable persons,' when
lo ! like an Anachronism confounding times past with times
present, there came out of some corner an antique figure, with
quaintly cut blue suit and three-cornered hat, not unlike a very
old Greenwich Pensioner, who taking his stand in front of the
circle, deliberately asked a blessing of formidable length on
the thin bread and butter, the short cake, the marmalade, and
the Pekoe tea. And here, en passant, it may be worth while
to remark, for the benefit of our Agnews and Plumtres, as illus-
trating the intrinsic value of such sanctimonious pretension, that
the elder Scotland, so renowned for armlong graces, and redun-
dant preachments, and abundant psalm-singing, has yet be-
queathed to posterity a singularly liberal collection of songs,
the reverse of Divine and Moral, such as '' can only be sung
when the punch-bowl has done its work and the wild wit is set
free."*
To return to my boarding-house, which, with all its chairs,
had none appropriated to a Professor of Moral Philosophy. In
the absence of such a itionitor, nature, fortunately for myself,
had gifted me with a taste for reading, which the languor of ill-
health, inclining me to sedentary habits, helped materially to
encourage. Whatever books, good, bad, or indifierent, happen-
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 91
ed to come within my reach, were perused with the greatest
avidity, and however indiscriminate the course, the balance of
the impressions thence derived was decidedly in &vor of the
allegorical lady, so wisely preferred by Hercules when he had
to make his election between Virtue and Vice. Of the mate-
rial that ministered to this appetite, I shall always regret that I
did not secure, as a literary curiosity — a collection of halfpenny
Ballads, the property of a Grocer's apprentice, and which con-
tained, amongst other matters, a new version of Chevy Chase,
wherein the victory was transferred to the Scots. In the mean
time, this bookishness acquired for me a sort of reputation for
scholarship amongst my comrades, and in consequence my pen
was sometimes called into requisition, in divers and sometimes
delicate cases. Thus for one party, whom the Gods had not
made poetical, I composed a love-letter in verse ; for another,
whose education had been neglected, I carried on a correspon-
dence with reference to a tobacco manufactory in which he was
a sleeping-partner ; whilst, on a graver occasion, the hand now
peacefully setting down these reminiscences, was employed in
oenning a most horrible peremptory invitation to pistols and
twelve paces, till one was nicked. The facts were briefly these.
A spicy-tempered captain of Artillery, in a dispute with a su-
perior officer, had rashly cashiered himself by either throwing
up or tearing up his commission. In this dilemma he arrived
at Dundee, to assume a post in the Customs, which had been pro-
cured for him by the interest of his friends. To his infinite in-
dignation, however, he found that instead of a lucrative survey-
orship, he had been appointed a simple tide-waiter ! and magni-
ficent was the rage with which he tore, trampled, and danced on
the little ofiicial paper book wherein he had been set to tick off,
bale by bale, a cargo of " infernal hemp.*' Unluckily, on the
very day of this revelation, a forgery was, perpetrated on the
local Bank, and those sapient Dogberries, the town officers, saw
fit to take up our persecuted ex-captain, on the simple ground
that he was the last stranger who had entered the town. Ren-
dered almost frantic by this second insult, nothing would serve
him in his paroxysm but calling somebody out, and he pitched
at once on the cashier of the defirauded Bank. As the state of
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58 PROSE AND VERSE.
his nerves would not permit him to write, he entreated me earn-
estly to draw up a defiance, which I performed, at the expense
of an agony of suppressed laughter, merely to imagine the ef-
fect of such a missive on the man of business — a respectable
powdered, bald, pudgy, pacific little body, with no more idea of
" going out " than a cow in a field of clover. I forget the pre-
cise result — but certainly there was no duel.
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES,
No. a
To do jasdce to the climate of ^' stout and original Scotland," it
promised to act kindly by the constiimion committed to its care-
The air evidently agreed with the natives; and auld Robin
Grays and John Andersong were plenty aa blackberriesj and
Auld Lang Syne himself seemed to walk honneied amongst
these patriarchal figurea in the likeness of an old man covered
with a mantle. The effect on myself was rather curious — far I
aeemed to have come amongst a generation that scarcely belonged
to tny era ; mature spinsters^ waning bachelors, very motherly
matrons, and experienced fathers, that I should have set down
as uncles and atints, called themselves my cousins i reverend
personages, apparently grandfathers and grandmothers, were
simply gieat uncles and aunts i and finally I cnjbyed an inter-
view with a relative oftener heard of traditionally, than encoun-
tered in the body — a great-great*grandmother — still a tall
woman and a tolerable pedestrian, going indeed down the hillj
but with the wheel wol! locked. It was like coming amongst
the Struldhrugs ; and truly, for any knowledge to the contrary,
many of these Old Mortalities arc still living, enjoying their
sneeshing, tlieir toddy, their cracks, and particular reminiscen-
ces* The very phrase of being *' Scotched, but not killed," seems
to refer to this Caledonian tenacity of life, of which the well-
known Walking Stewart was an example ; he was an annuitant
in the County ^office, and as the actuaries would say, died very
hard* It must be difficult for the teatotallera to reconcile this
longevity with the imputed enormous consumption of ardent
spirits beyoEd the Tweed* Scotia, according to the evidence of
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Mr. Buckingham's committee, is an especially drouthie bodie,
who drinks whiskey at christenings, and at buryings, and on all
possible occasions besides. Her sons drink not by the hour or
by the day, but by the week, — witness Souter Johnny : —
«* Tarn lo*ed him like a vera brither,
They had been fou for weeks tfaegither.'*
Swallowing no thin washy potation, but a strong oyerproof spirit,
with a smack of smoke — and " where there is smoke there is
fire,'' yet without flashing off, according to temperance theories,
by spontaneous combustion. On the contrary^ the canny north-
ems are noted for soundness of constitution and clearness of
head, with such a strong principle of vitality as to justify the
poetical prediction of C***, that the world's longest liver, or
Last Man, will be a Scotchman.
All these favorable signs I duly noted ; and prophetically
refrained from delivering the letter of introduction to Doctor
C , which was to place me under his medical care. As the
sick man said, when he went into the gin-shop instead of the hos-
pital, " I trusted to natur." Whenever the weather permitted,
therefore, which was generaHy when there were no new books
to the fore, I haunted the banks and braes, or paid flying visits
to the bums, with a rod intended to punish that rising genera-
tion amongst fii^es called trout. But I whipped in vain, l^rout
there were in plenty, but like obstinate double teeth, with a bad
operator, they would neither be pulled out nor come out of
themselves. Still the sport, if so it might be called, had its own
attractions, as, the catching excepted, the whole of the Walton-
ish enjoyments were at my command, the contemplative quiet,
the sweet wholesome country air, and the picturesque scenery —
not to forget the relishing the homely repast at the shealing or
the mill ; sometimes I went alone, but often we were a company,
and then we had for our attendant a journeyman tobacco-spin-
ner, an original, and literary withal, for he had a reel in his
head, whence ever and anon he unwound a line of Allan Ram-
say, or Beattie, or Bums. Methinks I still listen, tmdging
homeward in the gloaming, to the recitation of that appropriate
stanza, beginning —
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" At the close of the day when the hamlet was still,"
delivered with a gusto, perhaps only to be felt by a day-laboring
mechanic, who had " nothing but his evenings to himself."
Methinks I still sympathize with the zest with which he dwelt
on the pastoral images and dreams so rarely realized, when a
chance holiday gave him the fresh-breathing fragrance of the
living flower in lieu of the stale odor of the Indian weed : and
philosophically I can now understand why poetry, with its lofty
aspirations and sublime feelings, seemed to sound so gratefully
to the ear from the lips of a " squire of low degree." There is
something painful and humiliating to humanity in the abjectness
of mind, that too often accompanies the sordid condition of the
working classes ; whereas it is soothing and consolatory to find
the mind of the poor man rising superior to his estate, and com-
pensating by intellectual enjoyment for the physical pains and
privation that belong to hb humble lot. Whatever raises him
above the level of the ox in the gamer, or the horse in the mill,
ought to be acceptable to the pride, if not to the charity, of the
fellow creature that calls him brother ; for instance music and
dancing, but against which innocent unben4ings some of our
magistracy persist in setting their faces, as if resolved that a low
neighborhood should enjoy no dance but St. Yitus's, and no fid-
dle but the Scotch.
To these open-air pursuits, sailing was afterwards added,
bringing me acquainted with the boatmen and fishermen of The
Craig, a hardy race, rough and ready-witted, from whom per-
chance was first derived my partiality for all marine bipeds and
sea-craft, from Flag Admirals down to Jack Junk, the proud
first-rate to the humble boatie that '< wins the bairns' bread."
The Tay at Dundee is a broad noble river, with a raging
tide, which, when it differs with a contrary wind, will get up
'^jars " (Anglice waves) quite equal to those of a family manu-
facture. It was at least a good preparatory school for learning
the rudiments of boat craft ; whereof I acquired enough to be
able at need to take the helm without either going too near the
wind or too distant from the port. Not without some boyish
pride I occasionally found myself intrusted with the guidance of
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the Coach-Boat, — so called from its carrying the passengers by
the Edinburgh Mail — ^particularly in a calm, when the utmost
exertions of the crew, four old man-of-war's-men, were required
at the oars. It not unfrequently happened, however, that " the
laddie " was unceremoniously ousted by the unanimous vote,
and sometimes by the united strength, of the ladies, who invari-
ably pitched upon the oldest old gentleman in the vessel to
Steer her up and baud her gaun."
The consequence being the landing lyith all the baggage, some
mile above or below the town — and a too late conviction, that
the Elder Brethren of our Trinity House were not the best
Pilots.
It was during one of these brief voyages, that I witnessed a
serio-comic accident, at which the reader will smile or sigh ac-
cording to his connexion with the Corporation of London. I
forget on what unconscious pilgrimage it was bound, but amongst
the other passengers one day, there was that stock-dove of a
gourmand's affection, a fine lively turtle. Rich and rare as it
was, it did not travel unprotected like Moore's heroine, but was
under the care of a vigilant guardian, who seemed as jealous of
the eyes that looked amorously at his charge, as if the latter had
been a ward in Chancery. So far — ^namely, as far as the mid-
die of the Tay — so good ; when the spirit of miscl^ief, or curi-
osity, or humanity, suggested the convenience of a sea-bath, and
the refreshment the creature might derive from a taste of its
native element. Accordingly, Testudo was lifted over the side,
and indulged with a dip and a wallop in the wave, which actu-
ally revived it so powerfully, that from a playful flapping with
its fore-fins it soon began to struggle most vigorously, like a giant
refreshed with brine. In fact, it paddled with a power which,
added to its weight, left no alternative to its guardian but to go
with it, or without it. The event soon came off. The man
tumbled backward into the boat, and the turtle plunged forward
into the deep. There was a splash — a momentary glimpse of
the broad back-shell — ^the waters closed, and all was over— -or
at least under ! In vain one of the boatmen aimed a lunge with
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 63
his boat-hook, at the fatal spot in particular — ^in vain another
made a blow with his oar at the Tay in general — ^whilst a third,
in his confusion, heaved a coil of rope, as he would, could,
should, might, or ought to have done to a drowning Christian.
The Amphibious was beyond their reach, and no doubt, making
westward and homeward with all its might, with an instinctiye
feeling that
<* The world was all before it where to choose
Its place of rest, and Providence its guide."
Never shall I forget, whilst capable of reminiscences, the face
of that mourning mate thus suddenly bereaved of his turtle !
The unfortunate shepherd. Ding-dong, in Rabelais, could hardly
have looked more utterly and unutterably dozed, crazed, miz-
mazed, and flabbergasted, when his whole flock and stock of
golden-fleeced sheep suicidally sheepwashed themselves to death,
by wilfully leaping overboard! He said little in words, but
more eloquently clapped his hands to his waistcoat, as if the loss,
as the nurses say, had literally " flown to his stomach." And
truly, after promising it both callipash and callipee, with the
delicious green fat to boot, what cold comfort could well be
colder than the miserable chilling reflection that there was
" Cauld kail in Aberdeen ?'
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64 PROSE AND VERSE.
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No. III.
My first acquaintance with the press — a memorable event in an
author's experience — ^took place in Scotland. Amongst the tem-
porary sojourners at our boarding-house, there came a legal
antiquarian who had been sent for from Edinburgh, expressly to
make some unprofitable researches amongst the mustiest of the
civic records. It was my humor to think, that in Political as
well as Domestic Economy, it must be better to sweep the Present
than to dust the Past ; and certain new brooms were recom-
mended to the Town Council in a quizzing letter, which the then
editor of the Dundee Advertiser or Chronicle thought fit to favor
with a promipent place in his columns. " 'Tis pleasant sure,"
sings Lord Byron, " to see one's self in print," and according to
the popular notion I ought to have been quite up in my stirrups,
if not standing on the saddle, at thus seeing myself, for the first
strange time, set up in type. Memory recalls, however, but a
very moderate share of exaltation, which was totally eclipsed,
moreover, by the exuberant transports of an accessary before
the fact, whom, methinks, I still see in my mind's eye, rushing
out of the printing-ofiice with the wet sheet steaming in his hand,
and fluttering all along the High Street, to announce breath-
lessly that " we were in." But G. was an indifferent scholar,
even in English, and therefore thought the more highly of this
literary feat. It was this defective education, and the want of
a proper vent for his abundant love of nonsense in prose or verse,
that probably led to the wound he subsequently inflicted on his
own throat, but which was luckily remedied by " a stitch in
time." The fiulure of a tragedy is very apt to produce some.
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 65
thing like a comedy, and few afterpieces have amused me more
than the behavior of this Amicus Redivivus, when, thus drama-
tising the saying of " cut and come again," he made what ought
to have been a posthumous appearance amongst his friends. In
fact, and he was ludicrously alive to it, he had placed himself
for all his supplementary days in a false position. Like the old
man in the fable, afler formally calling upon Death to execute
a general release, he had quietly resumed his fardel, which he
bore about with exactly the uneasy ridiculous air of a would-be
fine gentleman, who is sensitively conscious that he is carrying
a bundle. For the sake of our native sentimentalists who pro-
fess dying for love, as well as the foreign romanticists who affect
a love for dying, it may not be amiss to give a slight sketch of
the bearing of a traveller who had gone through half the jour-
ney. I had been absent some months, and was consequently
ignorant of the affair, when lo ! on my return to the town, the
very first person who accosted me in the market-place was our
felo-de-se ; and truly, no Bashful Man, '< with all his blushing
honors thick upon him," in the presence of a damp stranger,
could have been more divertingly sheepish, and awkwardly
backward in coming forward as to manner and address. Indeed,
something of the embarrassment of a fresh introduction might
naturally be felt by an individual, thus beginning again, as the
lawyers say, de novo, and renewing ties he had virtually cast
off. The guilty hand was as dubiously extended to me as if it
had been a dyer's, — ^its fellow meanwhile perfoiming sundry
involuntary motions and manipulations about his cravat, as if
nervously mistrusting the correctness of the ties or the stability
of a buckle. As for his face, there was a foolish, deprecatory
smile upon it that would have puzzled the pencil of Wilkie ;
and even Listen himself could scarcely have parodied the inde-
scribable croak with which, conscious of an unlucky notoriety,
he inquired " if I had heard " — here, a short husky cough — " of
anything particular ?"
" Not a word," was the answer.
"Then you don't know" — (more fidgetting about the neck,
the smile rather sillier, the voice more guttural, and the cough
worse than ever) — " then you don't know" — but, like Macbeth'a
6
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66 PROSE AND VERSE.
^
amen, the confession literally stuck in the culprit's throat ; and
I was left to learn, an hour afterwards, and from another source,
that <^ Jemmy G * * * he^d fought a duel with Mmselfy and cut
his own weazand, ahout a lady."
For my own part, with the aboYe figure, and all its foolish
features vividly imprinted on my memory, I do not think that I
could ever seriously attempt '< what Cato did, and Addison ap-
proved," in my own person. On the contrary, it seems to me
that the English moralist gave but an Irish illustration of " a
brave man struggling with the storms of fate," by represent-
ing him as wilfully scuttling his own hold, and going at once
to the bottom. As for the Censor, he plainly laid himself open
to censure, when he used a naked sword as a stomachic — a very
sorry way, by the way, when weary of^conjectures, of enjoying
the benefit of the doubt, and for which, were I tasked to select
an inscription for his cenotaph, it should be the exclamation of
Thisby, in the Midsummer Night's Dream —
" This is old Ninny's tomb."
Mais revenons a nos moutonSf as the wolf said to her cubs.
The reception of my letter in the Dublin Newspaper encouraged
me to forward a contribution to the Dundee Magazine, the Edi-
tor of which was kind enough, as Winifred Jenkins says, to
" wrap my bit of nonsense under his Honor's Kiver," without -
charging anything for its insertion. Here was success sufficient
to turn a young author at once into " a scribbling miller," and
make him sell himself, body and soul, after the German fashion,
to that minor Mephistophiles, the Printer's Devil ! Neverthe-
less, it was not till years afterwards, and the lapse of term equal
to an ordinary apprenticeship, that the Imp in question became
really my Familiar. In the meantime, I continued to compose
occasionally, and, like the literary performances of Mr. Weller
Senior, my lucubrations were generally committed to paper,
not in what is commonly called written hand, but an imitation
of print. Such a course hints suspiciously of type and ante-
type, and a longing eye to the Row, whereas, it was adopted
simply to make the reading more easy, and thus enable me the
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LITERART REMINISCENCES. 87
more readily to form a judgment of the effect of my little efibrts.
It is more difficult than may be supposed to decide on the value
I of a work in MS., and especially when the handwriting pre-
sents only a swell mob of bad characters, that must be severally
examined and re-examined to arrive at the merits or demerits
of the case. Print settles it, as Coleridge used to say : and to
be candid, I have more than once reversed, or greatly modified
a previous verdict, on seeing a rough proof from the press. But,
as Editors too well know, it is next to impossible to retain the
\ t<une of a jstanza, or the drift of an argument, whilst the mind
j has to scramble through a patch of scribble scrabble, as stiff as
la^rse cover. The beauties of the piece will as naturally ap-
^pear to disadvantage through such a medium, as the features
of a pretty woman through a bad pane of glass ; and without
doubt, many a tolerable article has been consigned hand over
head to the Balaam Box for want of a fair copy. Wherefore,
O ye Poets and Prosers, who aspire to write in Miscellanies, and
above all, O ye palpitating Untried, who meditate the offer of
your maiden essays to established periodicals, take care, pray
ye take care, to cultivate a good, plain, bold, round text. Set
up Tomkins as well as Pope or Dryden for a model, and have
aa eye to your pothoc^s. Some persons hold that the best
writers are those who write the best hands, and I have known
the conductor of a magazine to be converted by a crabbed MS.
to the same opinion. Of all things, therefore, be legible ; and
to that end, practise in penmanship. If you have never learned,
take six lessons of Mr. Carstairs. Be sure to buy the best pa-
per, the best ink, the best pens, and then sit down and do the
best you can ; as the schoolboys do — put out your tongue, and
take pains. So shall ye haply escape the rash rejection of a
jaded editor ; so, having got in your hand, it is possible that
your head may ^Uow ; and so, last not least, ye may fortu-
nately avert those awful mistakes of the press which sometimes
ruin a poet's sublimest effusion, by pantomimically transforming
his roses into noses, his angels into angles, and all his happi-
ness into pappiness.
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08 PROSE AND VERSE.
LITERAEI KEMINISCENCE8.
^ No. rv.
'* And are ye siire tie news is true ^
And are ye smrii he's well f* — Ouj Sc^jtch Soj^c.
The great Doctor Johc son — hiinself a suflTerer— -has patheticalljr
described, in an essay on the miseTiea of an infi.rin constitution^
the melancholy case of an Invalid, with a willing mind in a
Weak body. ** The time of such a man," he Bays, "is spent m
forming schemes which a change of wind prevents hfm from
executing ; his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and
the day of action never arnves* He lies down delighted with
the thoughts of to-morrow ; but in the night the skies are over-
cast ; the temper of the air ia changed ; he wakes in languor,
impatiencet and distraction ; and has no longer any wish but for
ease, nor any attention byt for misery/* In short the Rambler
describes the whole race of Valetudinarians as a sort of great
Bitumen Company, paving a certain nameless place, as some of
the Aspbalticals have paved Oxford Street, with not very dura.
ble good intentions. In a word, your Invalid promises like a
Hogmy, and performs like a Pigmy,
To a hale hearty man, a perfect picture of health in an oakea
frame, such abortions seem sufficiently unaccountable. A great
hulkiug fellow, revelling, as De Quincey used emphatically to
say, " in rude bovine health," — a voracious human animal,
camel- stomached and iron- built, who could all but devour and
digest himself like a Kilkenny cat, — caa neither sympathize with
nor understand ihose frequent failures and down- breakings which
Iiappen to beings not so fortunately gii\ed with indelicate codsU-
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 60
tutioDS. Such a half-horse half-alligator monster cannot judge,
like a Puny Judge, of a case of feebleness. The broad-chested
cannot allow for the narrow-breasted ; the robust for the no-bust.
Nevertheless, even the stalwart may sometimes &11 egregiously
short of their own designs — as witness a case in point.
Amongst my fellow passengers, on a late sea voyage, there
was one who attracted my especial attention. A glance at his
face, another at his figure, a third at his costume,, and a fourth
at his paraphernalia, sufficed to detect his country : by his light
hair, nubbly features, heavy frame, odd-colored dressing-gown,
and the national meerschaum and gaudy tobacco-bag, he was
undeniably a German. But, besides the everlasting pipe, he
was provided with a sketching apparatus, an ample note-book, a
gun, and a telescope ; the whole being placed ready for imme-
diate use. He had predetermined, no doubt, to record his Ger-
man sentiments on first making acquaintance with the German
Ocean ; to sketch the picturesque craft he might encounter on
its surface ; to shoot his first sea-gull ; and to catch a first
glimpse of the shores of Albion, beyond the reach of the naked
eye. But alas ! all these intentions fell — if one may cor-
rectly say so with only sky and water — ^to the ground. He ate
nothing — drank nothing — smoked nothing— drew nothing^! — wrote
nothing — shot nothing — spied nothing — ^nay he merely stared,
but replied nothing to my friendly inquiry (I am ill at the Ger-
man tongue and its pronunciation), << Wie befinden sea sick ?"
Now, my own case, gentle reader, has been precisely akin to
that of our unfortunate Cousin German. Like him I have pro-
mised much, projected still more, and done little. Like him,
too, I have been a sick man, though not at sea, but on shore —
and in excuse of all that has been left undone, or delayed, with
other Performers, when they do not perform, I must proffer the
old theatrical plea of indisposition. As the Rambler describes,
I have erected schemes which have been blown down by an
ill wind ; I have formed plans and been weather-beaten, like
another Murphy, by a change in the weather. For instance, the
Comic Annual for 1639 ought properly to have been published
some forty days earlier ; but was obliged, as it were, to perform
quarantine, for want of a clean Bill of Health. Thus, too, the
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patron of t lie present Work, who h^s taken the trouble to pertise
certain chapters under the title of Literary Remitiisoeuces, will
doubtless have compared the tone of them with an Apology in
Number Six, wherein, declining any attempt at an Auto-biogra-
phy, a promise was made of giving such anecdotes as a bad
rnemory and a bad hearing might have retained of my literary
friends and acquaintance. Hitherto, however, the fragments in
<][Uestion have only presented desultory glimpses of a goose-quill
sttU in itsgreen-gosHng-hood, instead of any Tocollcctions of *'cele-
brated pens.'' The truth is that my malady forced me to tempo-
rise :— wherefore the kind reader will be pleased to consider the
aforesaid chapters but as so many ** false starts,^' and that
Memory has only now got away, to make play as well as she can.
Whilst 1 am thus deleted in the Confessionalj it may be as
wellj as the Pelican said, to make a elean breast of it, and at
once plead guilty to all those counts — and some, from long-stand-
ing, have become very Old Baily counts^thal haunt my con-
science. The most numerous of these crimes relate to letters
that would not, could not, or at least did not answer. Others
refer to the receipt of books, and, as an example of their hein^
ousneasy it misgives me that I was favored with a little volume
by W. and M, Howitt, without ever telling them how-il pleased
me. A few offencos concern engagements which it was impos-
sible to fulfil, although doubly bound by principle and interest.
Seriously I have perforce been guilty of many, many, and still
many sins of omission ; but Hope, reviving with my strength,
promises, granting me life, to redeem all such pledges. In the
meantime, in extenuation, I can only plead particularly that
deprecation which is olTered up, in behalf of all Christian default-
ers every Sunday,—^* We have left undone tliose things which
l^ we ought to have done, — And ihers is no Health in njs.^^
It is pleasant after a match at Chess, particularly if we have
won, to try back, and reconsider those important moves which
have had a decisive influence on the result. It h still more
interesting, in the game of Life, to recal the critical positions
which have occurred during its progress, and review the false or
judicious steps that have led to our subsequent good or ill for-
tune- There is, however, this difference, that chess is a matter
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 71
of pure skill and calculation, whereas the chequered board of
human life is subject to the caprice of Chance — ^the event being
sometimes determined by combinations which never entered into
the mind of the player.* To such an accident it is, perhaps,
attributable, that the hand now tracing these reminiscences is
holding a pen instead of an etching-point : jotting down these
prose pleasures of memory, in lieu of furnishing articles " plated
on steel,'' for the pictorial periodicals.
It will be remembered that my mental constitution, tiowever
weak my physical one, was proof against that type-us fever
which parches most scribblers till they are set up, done up,
and may be, cut up, in print and boards. Perhaps I had read,
and trembled at the melancholy annals of those unfortunates,
who, rashly undertaking to write for bread, had poisoned them-
selves, like Chatterton, for want of it, or choked themselves, like
Otway, on obtaining it. Possibly, having learned to think hum-
bly of myself— -there is nothing like early sickness and sorrow
for " taking the conceit '' out of one — my vanity did not pre-
sume to think, with certain juvenile Tracticians, that I " had a
call " to hold forth in print for the edification of mankind. Per-
chance, the very deep reverence my reading had led me to
entertain for our Bards and Sages, deterred me from thrusting
myself into the fellowship of Beings that seemed only a little
lower than the angels. However, in spite of that very common
excuse for publication, <' the advice of a friend," who seriously
recommended the submitting of my MSS. to a literary authority,
with a view to his imprimatur, my slight acquaintance with the
press was pushed no farther. On the contrary, I had selected a
branch of the Fine Arts for my serious pursuit. Prudence, the
daughter of Wisdom, whispering, perhaps, that the engraver,
Pye, had a better chance of beef-steak inside, than Pye the
Laureate; not that the verse -spinning was quite given up.
* To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of circumstances,
Oliver Twist. There are few authors whom one would care to see running
two heats with the same horse. It is intended, therefore, as a compliment,
that I wish Boz would re-write the history in question from page 122, sup-
posing his hero kot to have met with the Artful Dodger on his road to seek
his fortune.
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72 PROSE AND VERSE.
Though working in aqua fartisy I still played with Castalj,
now writing — all monkeys are imitators, and all young
authors are monkeys — now writing a Bandit, to match the
Corsair, and anon, hatching a Lalla Crow, by way of com-
panion to Lalla Rookh. Moreover, about this time, I became
a member of a private select Literary Society that "waited
on Ladies and Gentlemen at their own houses." Our Miner-
va, allegorically speaking, was a motley personage, in blue
stockings, a flounced gown, quaker cap and kerchief, French
flowers, and a man's hat. She held a fan in one hand and a
blowpipe in the other. Her votaries were of both sexes, old and
young, married and single, assenters, dissenters. High Church,
Low Church, No Church ; Doctors in Physics, and Apotheca-
ries in Metaphysics ; dabblers in Logic, Chemistry, Casuistry,
Sophistry, natural and unnatural History, Phrenology, Geology,
Conchology, Demonology; in short, all kinds of CoUedgy-Know-
ledgy-Ology, including " Cakeology," and tea and coffee. Like
other Societies, we had our President — a sort of Speaker who
never spoke ; at least within my experience he never unbosomed
himself of anything but a portentous shirt frill. According to
the usual order of the entertainment, there was, first — ^Tea and
Small Talk ; secondly, an original essay, which should have
been followed, thirdly, by a Discussion, or Great Talk; but
nine times in ten, it chanced, or rather mumchanced, that, be-
tween those who did not know what to think, and others, who did
not knowTiow to deliver what they thought, there ensued a dead
silence, so " very dead indeed," as Apollo Belvi says, that it
seemed buried into the bargain. To make this awkward pause
more awkward, some misgiving voice, between a whisper and a
croak, would stammer out some allusion to a Quaker's Meeting,
answered from right to left by a running titter, the speaker
having innocently, or perhaps wilfully forgotten, that one or two
friends in drab coats, and as many in slate-colored gowns, were
sitting, thumb-twiddling, in the circle. Not that the Friendi
contented themselves with playing duniby at our discussions.
They often spoke, and very characteristically, to the matter in
hand. For instance, their favorite doctrine of non-resistance
was once pushed — if Quakers ever push — a little " beyond be-
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yond." By way of clencher, one fair, meek, sleek Quakeress,
in dove color, gravely told a melo-dramatic story of a conscien-
tious Friend, who, rather than lift even his finger against a Foe,
passively, yea, lamb-like, suffered himself to be butchered in
bed by an assassin, and died consistently, as he thought, with
Fox principles, very like a Goose. As regards my own share
in the Essays and Arguments, it misgives me, that they no more
satisfied our decidedly serious members, than they now propitiate
Mr. Rae Wilson. At least, one Society night, in escorting a
female Fellow towards her home, she suddenly stopped me,
taking advantage, perhaps, of the awful locality, and its associa-
tions, just in front of our chief criminal prison, and looking
earnestly in my face, by the light of a Newgate lamp, inquired
somewhat abruptly, " Mr. Hood ! are you not an Infidel ?"*
In the meantime, whilst thus playing at Literature, an event
was ripening which was to introduce me to Authorship in ear-
nest, and make the Muse, with whom I had only flirted, my
companion for life. It had often occurred to me, that a striking,
romantical, necromantical, metaphysical, melo-dramatical, Ger-
manish story, might be composed, the interest of which should
turn on the mysterious influences of the fate of A over the des-
tiny of 6, the said parties having no more natural or apparent
connection with each other than Tenterden Steeple and the
Goodwin Sands. An instance of this occult contingency occur,
red in my own case ; for I did not even know by sight the unfor-
tunate gentleman on whose untimely exit depended my entrance
on the literary stage. In the beginning of the year 1821, a
memorable duel, originating in a pen-and-ink quarrel, took place
at Chalk Farm, and terminated in the death of Mr. John Scott,
the able Editor of the London Magazine. The melancholy
result excited great interest, in which I fully pa^rticipated, little
dreaming that his catastrophe involved any consequences of
importance to myself. But, on the loss of its conductor, the
Periodical passed into other hands. The new Proprietors were
my friends; they sent for me, and after some preliminaries,
* In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two of its mem-
bers have since distinguished themselves in print : the authoress of " Lon-
don in the Olden Time," and the author of a «« History of Moral Science,"
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I was duly installed as a sort of sub-Editor of the London
Magazine.
It would be afiectation to say, that engraving was resigned with
regret. There is always something mechanical about the art —
moreover, it is as unwholesome as wearisome to sit copper-fas-
tened to a board, with a cantle scooped out to accommodate your
stomach, if you have one, painfully ruling, ruling, and still
ruling lines straight or crooked, by the long hundred to the
square inch, at the doubly-hazardous risk which Wordsworth so
deprecates, of "growing double." So farewell Woollett !
Strange ! Bartolozzi ! I have said, my vanity did not rashly
plunge me into authorship ; but no sooner was there a legitimate
opening than I jumped at it, k la Grimaldi, head foremost, and
was speedily behind the scenes.
To judge by my zeal and delight in my new pursuit, the bowl
had at last found its natural bias.* Not content with taking
articles, like candidates for holy orders — with rejecting articles
like the Belgians — I dreamt articles, thought articles, wrote
articles, which were all inserted by the editor, of course with
the concurrence of his deputy. The more irksome parts of
authorship, such as the correction of the press, were to me
labors of love. I received a revise from Mr. Baldwin's Mr.
Parker, as if it had been a proof of his regard ; forgave him
all his slips, and really thought that printers' devils were not so
black as they are painted. But my top-gallant glory was in
" our Contributors !" How I used to look forward to Elia ! and
backward for Hazlitt, and all round for Edward Herbert, and
how I used to look up to Allan Cunningham ! for at that time
the London had a goodly list of writers — a rare company. It
is now defunct, and perhaps no ex-periodical might so appropri-
ately be apostrophized with the Irish funereal question — "Arrab,
• There was a dash of ink in my blood. My father wrote two novels,
and my brother was decidedly of a literary turn, to the great disquietude
for a time of an anxious parent. She suspected him, on the strength of
several amatory poems of a very desponding cAt, of being the victim of a
hopeless attachment ; so he was caught, closeted, and catechised, and after
a deal of delicate and tender sounding, he confessed, not with the antici-
pated sighs and tears, but a very unexpected burst of laughter, that he had
been guilty of translating some fragments of Petrarch.
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honey, why did you die 1" Had not you an editor, and elegant
prose writers, and beautiful poets, ^d broths of boys for oriti*
cism and classics, and wits and humorists. — ^Elia, Gary, Procter,
Cunningham, Bowring, Barton, Hazlitt, Elton, Hartley Cole-
ridge, Talfourd, Soane, Horace Smith, Reynolds, Poole, Clare,
and Thomas Benyon, with a power besides. Hadn't you Lions'
Heads with Traditional Tales ? Hadn't you an Opium Eater,
and a Dwarf, and a Giant, and a Learned Lamb, and a Green
Man ? Had not you a regular Drama, and a Musical Report,
and a Report of Agriculture, and an Obituary and a Price Cur-
rent, and a current price, of only half-a-crown ? Arrah, why
did you die ? Why, somehow the contributors fell away — ^the
concern went into other hands — worst of all, a new editor tried
to put the Belles Lettres in Utilitarian envelopes ; whereupon,
the circulation of the Miscellany, like that of poor Le Fevre,
got slower, slower, slower, — and slower still — and then stopped
for ever I It was a sorry scattering of those old Londoners !
Some went out of the country : one (Clare) went into it. Lamb
retreated to Colebrooke. Mr. Cary presented himself to the
British Museum. Reynolds and Barry took to engrossing when
they should pen a stanza, and Thomas Benyon gave up litera-
ture.
It is with mingled feelings of pride, pleasure, and pain, that
I revert to those old times, when the writers I had long known
and admired in spirit were present to me in the flesh — ^when I
had the delight of listening to their wit and wisdom from their
own lips, of gazing on their faces, and grasping their right
hands. Familiar figures rise before me, familiar voices ring in
my ears, and, alas! amongst them are shapes that I must never
see, sounds that I can never hear, again. Before my departure
from England, I was one of the few who saw the grave close
over the remains of one whom to know as a friend was to love
as a relation. Never did a better soul go to a better world !
Never perhaps (giving the lie direct to the common imputation
of envy, malice, and hatred, amongst the brotherhood), never
did an author descend — to quote his favorite Sir T. Browne—
into " the land of the mole and the pismire " so hung with golden
opinions, and honored and regretted with such sincere eulogies
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and elegies, by his contemporaries. To him, the first of these,
my reminiscences, is eminently due, for I lost in him not only
a dear and kind friend, but an invaluable critic ; one whom,
were such literary adoptions in modern use, I might well name,
as Cotton called Walton, my " father." To borrow the earnest
language of old Jean Bertaut, as Englished by Mr. Gary —
" Thou, chiefly, noble spirit, for whose loss
Just grief and mourning all our hearts engross.
Who seeing me devoted to the Nine,
Did'st hope some fruitage from those buds of mine ;
Thou did'st excite me after^thee t'ascend
The Muses' sacred hill ; nor only lend
Example, but inspirit me to reach
The far-off summit by thy friendly speech.
May gracious Heaven, honor of our age !
Make the conclusion answer thy presage.
Nor let it only for vain fortune stand.
That I have seen thy visage— totieh'd thy hand !"
I was sitting one morning beside our Editor, busily correcting
proofs, when a visitor was announced, whose name, grumbled
by a low ventriloquial voice, like Tom Pipes calling from the
hold through the hatchway, did not resound distmctly on my
tympanujn. However, the door opened, and in came a stranger,
a figure remarkable at a glance, with a fine head, on a small
spare body, supported by two almost immaterial legs. He was
clothed in sables, of a by-gone fashion, but there was something
wanting, or something present about him, that certified he was
neither a divine, nor a physician, nor a schoolmaster : from a
certain neatness and sobriety in his dress, coupled with his sedate
bearing, he might have been taken, but that such a costume
would be anomalous, for a Quaker in black. He looked still
more like (what he really was) a literary Modern Antique,^ a
New-Old Author, a living Anachronism, contemporary at once
with Burton the Elder, and Colman the Younger. Meanwhile
he advanced with rather a peculiar gait, his walk was planti-
grade, and with a cheerful " How d'ye," and one of the bland-
est, sweetest smiles that ever brightened a manly countenance,
held out two fingers to the Editor. The two genUemen in black
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 77
soon fell into discourse ; and whilst they conferred, the Lavater
principle within me set to work upon the interesting specimen
thus presented to its speculations. It was a striking intellectual
face, full of wiry lines, physiognomical quips and cranks, that
gave it great character. There was much earnestness about
the brows, and a deal of speculation in the eyes, which were
brown and bright, and " quick in turning ;" the nose, a decided
one, though of no established order ; and there was a handsome
smartness about the mouth. Altogether it was no common face
— ^none of those willow-pattern ones, which nature turns out by
thousands at her potteries ; — ^but more like a chance specimen
of the Chinese ware, one to the set — unique, antique, quaint.
No one who had once seen it, could pretend not to know it again
It was no face to lend its countenance to any confusion of per-
sons in a Comedy of Errors. You might have sworn to it piece-
meal, — a separate affidavit for every feature. In short, his face
was as original as his figure ; his figure as his character ; his
character as his writings ; his writings the most original of the
age. After the literary business had been settled, the Editor
invited his contributor to dinner, adding " we shall have a
hare—"
" And— and— and— and many Friends !" «
The hesitation in the speech, and the readiness of the allusion,
were alike characteristic of the individual, whom his familiars
will perchance have recognized already as the delightful Essay-
ist, the capital Critic, the pleasant Wit and Humorist, the deli-
cate-minded and large-hearted Charles Lamb ! He was shy
like myself with strangers, so, that despite my yearnings, our
first meeting scarcely amounted to an introduction. We were
both at dinner, amongst the hare's many friends, but our ac-
quaintance got no farther, in spite of a desperate attempt on my
part to attract his notice. His complaint of the Decay of Beg-
gars presented another chance : I wrote on coarse paper, and
in ragged English, a letter of thanks to him as if from one of
his mendicant clients, but it produced no effect. I had given up
all hope, when one night, sitting sick and sad, in my bed -room,
racked with the rheumatism, the door was suddenly opened, the
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well-known quaint figure in black walked in without any for-
mality, and with a cheerful " Well, boy, how are you ? " aild
the bland, sweet smile, extended the two fingers. They were
eagerly clutched of course, and from that hour we were firm
friends.
Thus characteristically commenced my intimacy with C.
Lamb. He had recently become my neighbor, and in a few
days called again, to ask me to tea, " to meet Wordsworth."
In spite of any idle jests to the contrary, the name had a spell
in it that drew me to Colebrooke Cottage* with more alacrity j*
than consisted with prudence, stifi* joints, and a North wind.
But I was willing to run, at least hobble, some risk, to be of a
party in a parlor with the Author of Laodamia and Hartleap
Well. As for his Betty Foy-bles, he is not the first man by
many, "^ho has met with a simple fracture through riding his
theory-hack so far and so fast, that it broke down with him. If
he has now and then put on a nightcap, so have his own next-
door mountains. If he has babbled, sometimes, like an infant
of two years old ; he has also thought, and felt, and spoken, the
beautiful fancies, and tender afiections, and artless language, of
the children who can say " We are sevenJ* Along with food for
babes, he has furnished strong meat for men. So I put on my
great-coat, and in a few minutes found myself, for the first time,
at a door, that opened to me as frankly as its master's heart ;
* A cottage of Ungentility, for it had neither double coach-house nor
wings. Like its tenant, it stood alone. He said, glancing at the Paternos-
ter one, that he did not like " the Row." There was a bit of a garden, in
which, being, as he professed, " more fond of Men Sects than of Insect^,"
he made probably his first and last observation in Entomology. He had
been watching a spider on a gooseberry bush, entrapping a fly. "I
never saw such a thing," he said. " Directly he was caught in her
fatal spinning, she darted down upon him, and in a minute turned him
out, completely lapped in a shroud ! It reminded me of the Fatal Sis-
ters in Gray."
t A sort of rheumatic celerity, of which Sir W. Scotf s favorite drama-
tiser seemed to have a very accurate notion. Those who remember ** poor
Terry's" deliberate delivery, will be able to account for the shout of laugh-
ter which once rang throughout the Adelphi green-room, at his emphatic
manner of giving, from a manuscript play, the stage direction of " Enter ,
with — a— lack— ri— ty !"
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 79
for, without any preliminaries of hall, passage, or parlor, one
single step across the threshold brought me into the sitting-room,
and in sight of the domestic hearth. The room looked brown
with " old bokes," and beside the fire sate Wordsworth, and his
sister, the hospitable £lia, and the excellent Bridget. As for
the bard of Rydal, his outward man did not, perhaps, disappoint
one ; but the palaver, as the Indians say, fell short of my an-
ticipations. Perhaps my memory is in fault ; 't was many years
ago, and, unlike the biographer of Johnson, I have never made
Bozziness my business. However, excepting a discussion on
the value of the promissory notes issued by our younger poets^
wherein Wordsworth named Shelley, and Lamb took John Keats
for choice, there was nothing of literary interest brought upon
the carpet. But a book man cannot always be bookish. A poet,
even a Rydal one, must be glad at times to descend from Saddle-
back, and feel his legs. He cannot, like the Girl in the Fairy
Tale, be always talking diamonds and pearls. It is a << Vulgar
Error " to suppose that an author must be always authoring,
even with his feet on the fender. Nevertheless, it is not an im-
common impression, that a writer sonnetizes his wife, sings odes
to his children, talks essays and epigrams to his friends, and re-
views his servants. It was in something of this spirit that an
official gentleman to whom I mentioned the pleasant literary
meetings at Lamb's, associated them instantly with his parochial
mutual instruction evening schools, and remarked, " Yes, yes,
all very proper and praiseworthy— of course, you go there to
improve your minds, ^'
And very pleasant and improving, though not of set purpose,
to both mind and heart, were those extempore assemblages at
Colebrooke Cottage. It was wholesome for the soul but to
breathe its atmosphere. It was a House of Call for All Denom-
inations. Sides were lost in that circle. Men of all parties post-
poned their partizanship, and met as on a neutral ground. There
were but two persons whom L. avowedly did not wish to en-
counter beneath his roof, and those two, merely on account of
private and family differences. For the rest, they left all their
hostilities at the door, with their sticks. This forbearance was
due to the truly tolerant spirit of the Host, which influenced all
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80 PROSE AND VERSE.
within its sphere. Lamb, whilst he willingly lent a crutch to
halting Humility, took delight in tripping up the stilts of Pre-
tension, Anybody might trot out his Hobby ; but he allowed
nobody to ride the High Horse. If it was a High German one,
like those ridden by the Devil and Doctor Fauslusj he would
chaunt
" Giuty, Geuty,
la a great Beauty,"
fill the rider moderated his gallop. He hated anything like
Cock-of-the- Walk -ism ; and set his face and his wit against all
Uhraism, Transcendental ism j Sentimentalism, Conventional
Mannerism, and above all. Separatism, In opposition to the
Exclusives, he was emphatically an Inclusive.
As he once owned to me, he was fond of antagonising. In-
deed in the sketch of himself, prefacing the Last Essays of
Elia — a sketch for its truth to have delighted Mason the Self-
Knowledge man — ^he says, " with the Religionist I pass for a
Free- Thinker, while the other faction set me down for a Bigot."
la fact, no politician ever labored more to preserve the Balance
of Power in Europe, than he did to correct any temporary pre-
ponderances* He was always trimming in the nautical, not in
the political, sense. Thus in his " magnanimous letter," as
HazHtt called it, to Higb Church Southey, he professed himself
a Unitarian.* With a Catholic he would probably have called
hinfiself a Jew ; as amongst Quakers, by way of a set-off against
their own formality^ he would indulge in a little extra levity* I
well remember his chuckling at having spirited on his corres-
pondent Bernard Barton, to commit some little enormities, such
as addressing him as C. Lamb, Esquire.
My visits at Lamb's were shortly interrupted by a sojouro to
unrheumatize myself at Hastings ; but in default of other inter-
course, I received a letter in a well-known hand, quaint as the
sentences it conveyed.
• Aa regards fais Unitarianism, it strikea me m more probable that he was
what the unco guid people call " Nothing nl aO," which means that he waa
everything but a Bigot. Am he was in spirit an Old Author, so he was in
faith ao Alio ie at Chriatian, too ancient to belong to any of the modem silb-
hubbub'dlTiBions of— lets,— Arians, and — Iniana,
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 81
^< And what dost thou at the Priory ? Cucullus non facit
Monachum. English me that, and challenge old Lignum Janua
to make a better.
'^ My old New River has presented no extraordinary novelties
lately. But there Hope sits every day speculating upon tradi-
tionary gudgeons. I think she has taken the fisheries. I now
know the reason why our forefathers were denominated Ekut
and West Angles. Yet is there no lack of spawn, for I wash
my hands in fishets that come through the pump every mornings
thick as motelings — little things that perish untimely, and never
taste the brook. You do not tell me of those romantic Land
Bays that be as thou goest to Lover's Seat, neither of that little
Churchling in the midst of a wood (in the opposite direction
nine furlongs from the town), that seems dropt by the Angel that
was tired of carrying two packages: marry, with the other he
made shifl to pick his flight to Loretto. Inquire out and see my
little Protestant Loretto. It stands apart from trace of human
habitation, yet hath it pulpit, reading-desk, and trim front of
massiest marble, as if Robinson Crusoe had reared it to soothe
himself with old church-going images. I forget its Xtian name,
and what She Saint was its gossip.
'^ You -should also go to No. 13, Standgate Street, a Baker, who
has the finest collection of marine monsters in ten sea counties ;
sea-dragons, polypi, mer-people, most fantastic. You have only
to name the old Gentleman in black (not the Devil), that lodged
with him 9, week (he'll remember) last July, and he will show
courtesy. He is by fkr the foremost of the Savans. His wife
is the funniest thwarting little animal ! They are decidedly the
Lions of green Hastings. Well, I have made an end of my say ;
— ^my epistolary time is gone by when I could have scribbled as
long (I will not say as agreeable) as thine was to both of us. I
am dwindled to notes and letterets. But in good earnest I shall
be most happy to hail thy return to the waters of old Sir Hugh.
There is nothing like inland murmurs, fresh ripples, and our
native minnows.
He sang in meads, how sweet the brooklets ran,
To the rough ocean and red restless sands.
1 ^^->'^
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82 PROSE AND VERSE.
I design to give up smoking ; but J have not yet fixed upon the
equivalent vice. I must have quid pro quo, or quo pro qmd^ as
Tom Woodgate would correct me. My service to liim.
The letter came to hand too late for me to hunt the " Liodb ;"
but on a subsequent visit to the same Cinque Port with my wife,
though we verified the little Loretto^ we could not find the Baker,
or even his man, howbeit we tried at every shop that had the
least sign of bakery or eakery in its window. The whole was a
batch of fancy hreh^ \ one of those fictions which the writer was
apt to pass oW upon his friends.
The evening meetings at Colebrooke Cottage — where some-
body, who was somebody, or a literary friend, was sure to drop
in — were the more grateful to me, as the London Magazine was
now in a rapid decline ; some of its crack contributors had left
it off, and the gatherings of the clan to eat, drink, and bo nierryj
were few and far between. There was indeed one Venison
Feast whereat, I have heard ^ the scent lay more than breast
high, and the sport was of as rich a quality ; but it was my
chance to be absent from the pack* At tbrmer dinners, how-
ever, I had been a guest, and a sketch of one of them may serve
to introduce some of the principal characters of our "London in
the Olden Time,"
On the right hand, then, of the Editor sits Eliaj of the pleasant
smile, and the quick eyes — Piocter said of them that ^' they
looked as if they could pick up pins and needles" — and a wit as
quick as hie eyes, and sure, as Hazlitt described, to stammer out
the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening.
Next to him, shining verdantly out from the grave- colored suits
of the literati, like a patch of tnmipa amidst stubble and fallow,
behold our Jack i' the Green — John Clare f In his bright,
grass-colored coat, and yellow waistcoat (there are greenish
stalks, too, under the table), he looks a very Cowslip j and blooms
amongst us as Goldsmith must have done in his peach- blossom.
No wonder the door-keeper of the Soho Bazaar, seeing that «ery
countrified suit, linked arm-in-arm with the Editorial sables, made
a boggle at admittii^ them into his repository, having seea»
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 83
perchance, such a made-up Peasant *' playing at playing '' at
thimble-rig about the Square. No wonder the gentleman's gen-
tleman, in the drab-coat and sealing-wax smalls, at W %
was for cutting off our Green Man, who was modestly the last
in ascending the stairs, as an interloper, though he made amends
afterwards by waiting almost exclusively on the Peasant, per-
fectly convinced that he was some eccentric Notable of the
Corinthian order, disguised in Rustic. Little wonder, either,
that in wending homewards on the same occasion through the
Strand, the Peasant and Elia, Sylvanus et Urban, linked com-
Ibrtably together ; there arose the frequent cry of *<XiOok at
Tom and Jerry — ^there goes Tom and Jerry !" for truly, Clare
in his square-cut green coat, and Lamb, in his black, were not a
little suggestive of Hawthorn and Logic, in the plates to << Life
in London."
But to return to the table. Elia — ^much more of House Lamb
than of Grass Lamb— avowedly caring little or nothing for
Pastoral ; cottons, nevertheless, very kindly to the Northamp-
tonshire Poet, and still more to his ale, pledging him again and
again as " Clarissimus," and " Princely Clare," and sometimes
80 lustily, as to make the latter cast an anxious glance into his
tankard. By his bright happy look, the Helpstone Visitor is
inwardly contrasting the unlettered country company of Clod,
and Hodge and Podge, with the delights of " London " society —
Elia, and Barry, and Herbert, and Mr. Table-Talk, cum muUis
aUU — ^i. e. a multiplicity of all. But besides the tankard, the
two "drouthie neebors" discuss Poetry in general,* and Mont-
gomery's " Common Lot" in particular, Lamb insisting on the
beauty of the tangental sharp turn at " O ! she was fair !" think-
ing, mayhftP) of his own Alice W , and Clare swearing
« Dal r (a clarified oath) "Dal ! if it isn't like a Dead Man
preaching out of his coffin !" Anon, the Humorist begins to
banter the Peasant on certain '^Clare-obscurities" in his own
* Talking of Poetry, Lamb told me one day that be had juat met with the
most vigorous line he had ever read. *' Where P " Out of the Camden's
Heady all in one line—
*' To One Hundred PatMqf Porter £2 1 a**
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verses, originating in a oonloiupt for the rules of Prisciaiij where-
upon the accused, thinking with Bumsj
" What ser'es their gramm^ra ?
* Thej'd better la'en up spaded aiidahools,
Or knappin hammerfl,"
vehemently denounces all Philology as nothing but a sort of
man-trap for authors, and heartily dais Lindley Murray for
" inventing it.'*
It must have been at such a timej that Hilton conceived his
clever portrait of C > vvheti ho was ** 0- in alt." He was
hardy, rough, and clumsy enough to look truly rustic^ — like an
Ingram's rustic chair. There was a slightneas aUout his frame,
^ith a delicacy of features and complexion, that associated him
more with the Garden than with the Field, and made him look the
Peasant of a Ferme Ornee. In this respect he was as much
beneath the genuine stalwart bronzed Plough-Poet, Burns, as
above the Farmer^s Boy, whom I remember to have seen in ntiy
childhood, when he lived in a miniature house^ near the Shepherd
and Shepherdess, now the Eagle tavern, in the City Road, and
manufactured .^lian harps, and kept ducks. The Suffolk
Giles had very little of the agricultural in his appearance ; he
looked infinitely more like a liandicraftaman, Lown^madG.
Poor Clare I — It would greatly please me to hear that he was
happy and well, and thriving ; but the transplanting of Peasants
and Fanners' Boys from the nattiral into an artificial soil, does
not always conduce to their happioe&a, or health, or ultimate
well -doing, I trust the true Friends, who, with a natural han-
kering after poetry, because it is forbidden them, have ventured
to pluck and eat of the pastoral sorts ^ as most dallying with the
innocence of nature , — and who on that account patronised Capt*
Lofll's protege— I do trust and hope they took otf whole editions
of the Northamptonshire Bard. There was much about Clare
for a Quaker to like| he was tender-hearted, and averse to
violence. How he recoiled once, bodily-taking his chair along
with hinit — from a young surgeon, or surgeon's friend, who let
drop, somewhat abruptly, that he was just come "from seeing a
child skinned [" — Clare, from his look of horror, evidently
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 85
thought that the poor infant, like Marsyas, had been flayed
alive f He was both gentle and simple. I have heard that on
his first visit to London, his publishers considerately sent their
porter to meet him at the inn ; but when Thomas necessarily
inquired of the gentleman in green, " Are you Mr. Clare* ?" the
latter, willing to foil the traditionary tricks of London sharpers,
replied to the suspicious query with " a positive negative." *
The Brobdignagdian next to Clare, overtopping him by the
whole head and shoulders — a physical " Colossus of Literature,"
the grenadier of our corps — is Allan, not Allan Ramsay, " no,
nor Barbara Allan neither," but Allan Cunningham, — " a credit,"
quoth Sir Walter Scott (he might have said a long credit) " to
Caledonia." He is often called " honest Allan," to distinguish
him, perhaps, from one Allan-a-Dale, who was apt to mistake
his neighbors' goods for his own — sometimes, between ourselves,
yclept the " C. of Solway," in allusion to that favorite " Allan
Water," the Solway Sea. There is something of the true
moody poetical weather observable in the barometer of his face,
alternating from Variable to Showery, from Stormy to Set Fair.
At times he looks gloomy and earnest and traditional — a little
like a Covenanter — but he suddenly clears up and laughs a
hearty laugh that lifts him an inch or two from his chair, for he
rises at a joke when he sees one, like a trout at a fly, and finishes
with a smart rubbing of his ample palms. He has store, too,
of broad Scotch stories, and shrewd sayings ; and he writes —
no, he wrote rare old-new or new-old ballads. Why not now ?
Has his Pegasus, as he once related of his pony, run from under
him ? Has the Mermaid of Galloway left no little ones ? Is
Bonnie Lady Ann married, or May Morison dead ? * Thou wast
formed for a poet, Allan, by nature, and by stature too, accord-
ing to Pope — *-
" To snatch a grace beyond the reach of Art.'*
And are there not Longman, or Tallboys, for thy Publishers ?
• Somebody happened to say that the Peasant ought to figure in the Percy
Anecdotes, as an example of uncultivated genius. " And where will they
stick me," asked Clare ; " will they stick me in the instinct ?"
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86 PROSE AND VERSE.
But, alas ! we are fallen on evil days for Bards and Barding, and
nine tailors do more for a man than the Nine Muses. The only-
Lay likely to answer now-a-days would be an Ode (with the
proper testimonials) to the Literary Fund !
The Reverend personage on the Editor's right, with the stu-
dious brow, deep-set eyes, and bald crown, is the mild and
modest Gary — ^the same who turned Dante into Miltonic English
blank verse. He is sending his plate towards the partridges,
which he will relish and digest as though they were the Birds of
Aristophanes. He has his eye, too, on the French made-dishes.*
Pity, shame and pity, such a Translator found no better trans-
lation in the Church ! Is it possible that, in some no-popery
panic, it was thought by merely being Dragoman to Purgatory
he had Romed from the true faith ?
A very pleasant day we " Londoners " once spent at a Chis-
wick parsonage, formerly tenanted by Hogarth, along with the
hospitable Gary, and, as Elia called them, his Garyatidesif
The last time my eyes rested on the Interpreter (of the House
Beautiful as well as of the Inferno) he was on the Library steps
of the British Museum. Ere this, I trust he hath reached the
tiptop— nay, hath perhaps attained being a Literary Worthy,
even unto a Trusteeship^ and had to buy, at Ellis's, a few yards
of the Blue Ribbon of Literature !
Procter, — alias Barry Gornwall, formerly of the Marcian
Colonnade, now of some prosaical Ijin of Court — ^the kindly
Procter, one of the foremost to welcome me into the Brotherhood,
with a too-flattering Dedication (another instance against the
jealousy of authors), is my own left-hand file. But what he
says shall be kept as strictly confidential ; for he is whispering
it into my Martineau ear. On my other side, when I turn that
way, I see a profile, a shadow of which ever confronts me on
opening my writing-desk, — a sketch taken from memory, the
* I once cut out from a country newspaper what seemed to me a very
good old English poem. It proved to be a naturalization, by Gary, of a
French Song to April, by Remy Belleau.
t The father expressing an uncertainty to what profession he should de-
vote a younger Cary» Lamb said, " Make him an Apothe-Cary. '
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES.
day afler seeiDg the original.* In opposition to the << extra
man's size " of Cunningham, the party in question looks almost
boyish, partly from being in bulk somewhat beneath Monsieur
Quetelet's " Average Man," but still more so from a peculiar
delicacy of complexion and smallness of features, which look
all the smaller from his wearing, in compliment, probably, to the
Sampsons of Teutonic Literature, his locks unshorn. Neverthe*
less whoever looks again,
Sees more than marks the crowd of common men.
There is speculation in the eyes, a curl of the lip, and a general
character in the outline, that reminds one of some portraits of
Voltaire. And a Philosopher he is every inch. He looks, thinks,
writes, talks and walks, eats and drinks, and no doubt sleeps
philosophically — i. e. deliberately. There is nothing abrupt
about his motions, — ^he goes and comes calmly and quickly — ^like
the phantom of Hamlet, he is here — ^he is there— he is gone.
So it is with his discourse. He speaks slowly, clearly, and
with very marked emphasis, — the tide of talk flows like Den-
ham's river, "strong without rage, without overflowing, full."
When it was my frequent and agreeable duty to call on Mr. De
Quincey (being an uncommon name to remember, the servant
associated it, on the Memoria Technica principle, with a sore
throat, and always pronounced it Quinsy), and I have found him
at home, quite at home, in the midst of a German Ocean of
Literature, in a storm, — flooding all the floor, the table and the
chairs, — ^billows of books tossing, tumbling, surging open, — on
such occasions I have willingly listened by the hour whilst the
Philosopher, standing, with his eyes fixed on one side of the room,
seemed to be less speaking than reading from a " handwriting
on the wall.'* Now and then he would diverge, for a Scotch
* Unable to make anything " like a likeness," of a sitter for the purpose,
I have a sort of Irish faculty for taking faces behind their backs. But my
pencil has not been guilty of half the personalities attributed to it ; amongst
others *' a formidable likeness of a Lombard Street Banker." Besides that
one would rather draw on a Banker than at him, I have never seen the God-
deman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life.
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88 PROSE AND VERSE.
mile or two, to the right or left, till I was tempted to inquire with
Peregrine in John Bull (Colman's not Hook's), " Do you neyer
deviate ?" — but he always came safely back to the point where
he had left, not lost the scent, and thence hunted his topic to the
end. But look! — ^we are in the small hours, and a change
comes o'er the spirit of that " old familiar face." A faint hec-
tic tint leaves the cheek, the eyes are a degree dimmer, and each
is surrounded by a growing shadow — signs of the waning influ-
ence of that Potent Drug whose stupendous Pleasures and enor-
mous Pains have been so eloquently described by the English
Opium Eater. Marry, I have one of his Confessions with his
own name and mark to it : — an apology for a certain stain on
his MS., the said stain being a large purplish ring. " Within
that circle none durst drink but he," — in fact the impression,
colored, of << a tumbler of laudanum negus, warm, without su-
gar."*
That smart active person opposite with a game-cock-looking ^
head, and the hair combed smooth, fighter fashion, oveFTiisTore-
head — with one finger hooked round a glass of champaigne, not
TKaflie requires it to inspirit him, for his wit bubbles up of itself
— ^is our Edward Herbert, the Author of that true piece of Bio-
graphy, the life of Peter Corcoran. He is "good with both
hands," like that Nonpareil Randall, at a comic verse or a seri-
ous stanza — smart at a repartee — sharp at a retort, — and not
averse to a bit of mischief. 'Twas he who gave the runaway
ring at Wordsworth's Peter Bell. Generally, his jests, set off
by a happy manner, are only ticklesome, but now and then they
are sharp-flavored,^-like the sharpness of the pine^apple.
Would I could give a sample. Alas ! What a pity it is that
so many good things uttered by Poets, and Wits, and Humorists,
* On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium, or Opie,
as it was vulgarly called, was quite in common use in the form of pills
amongst the lower classes, in the vicinity of the Fena, It is not probable
that persons in such a rank of life had read the Confessions, — or, might not
one suspect that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the stale, flat
and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the Fen-People in the
dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, had flown
to the Drug for the sake of the magnificent scenery that filled the splendid
visions of its Historian ?
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 89
at chance times — and they are always the best and brightest,
like sparks struck out by Pegasus' own hoof, in a curvet amongst
the flints — ^should be daily and hourly lost to the world for want
of a recorder ! But in this Century of Inventions, when a self-
acting drawing-paper has been discovered for copying visible
objects, who knows but tliat a future Niepce, or Daguerre, or
Herschel, or Fox Talbot, may find out some sort of Boswellish
writing-paper to repeat whatever it hears !
There are other Contributors — poor Hazlitt for instance —
whose shades rise up before me : but I never met with them at
the Entertainments just described. Shall we ever meet any-
where again ? Alas ! some are dead ; and the rest dispersed ;
and days of Social Clubs are over and gone, when the Professors
and Patrons of Literature assembled round the same steaming
bowl, and Johnson, always best out of print, exclaimed, " Lads !
who's for Poonch !"
Amongst other notable men who came to Colebrooke Cottage,
I had twice the good fortune of meeting with S. T. Coleridge.
The first time he came from Highgate with Mrs. Oilman, to dine
with " Charles and Mary." What a contrast to Lamb was the
full-bodied Poet, with his waving white hair, and his face round,
ruddy, and unfurrowed as a holy Friar's ! Apropos to which
face he gave us a humorous description of an unfinished por-
trait, that served him for a sort of barometer, to indicate the
state of his popularity. So sure as his name made any tempo-
rary stir, out came the canvas on the easel, and a request from
the artist for another sitting : down sank the Original in the
public notice, and back went the copy into a comer, till some
fresh publication or accident again brought forward the Poet ;
and then forth came the picture for a few more touches. I
sincerely hope it has been finished ! What a benign, smiling
face it was I What a comfortable, respectable figure ! What
a model, methought, as I watched and admired the *' Old Man
eloquent," for a Christian bishop I But he was, perhaps, scarcely
orthodox enough to be trusted with a mitre. At least, some of
his voluntaries would have frightened a common everyday con-
gregation from their propriety. Amongst other matters of dis-
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course, he came to speak of the strange notions some literal,
minded persons form of the joys of Heaven ; joys they asso-
ciated with mere temporal things, in which, for his own part,
finding no delight in this world, he could find no bliss hereafter,
without a change in his nature, tantamount to the loss of his per-
sonal identity. For instance, he said, there are persons who
place the whole angelical beatitude in the possession of a pair of
V wings to flap about with, like " a sort of celestial poultry J' Af-
ter dinner he got up, and began pacing to and fro, with his
hands behind his back, talking and walking, as Lamb laughingly
hinted, as if qualifying for an itinerant preacher ; now fetching
a simile from Loddiges' garden, at Hackney ; and then flying
off for an illustration to the sugar-making in Jamaica. With
his fine, flowing voice, it was glorious music, of the ^^ never-
ending, still-beginning " kind ; and you did not wish it to end.
It was rare flying, as in the Nassau Balloon ; you knew not
whither, nor did you care. Like his own bright-eyed Marinere,
he had a spell in his voice that would not let you go. To at-
tempt to describe my own feeling afterward, I had been carried,
spiralling, up to heaven by a whirlwind intertwisted with sun-
beams, giddy and dazzled, but not displeased, and had then
been rained down again with a shower of mundane stocks and
stones that battered out of me all recollection of what I had
heard, and what I had seen !
On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was accom-
panied by one of his sons. The Poet, talking and walking as
usual, chanced to pursue some argument, which drew from the
son, who had not been introduced to me, the remark, "Ah, that's
just like your crying up those foolish Odes and Addresses !"
Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-iipropos, and, with-
out explaining, looked slily round at me, with the sort of sup-
pressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the Bey of TiUery.
The truth was, he felt naturally partial to a book he had attri-
buted in the first instance to the dearest of his friends.
" My dear Charles, — This afternoon, a little, thin, mean-
looking sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on very
dingy outsides, lay on the table, which the cover informed me
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 91
was circulating in our book-club, so very Grub Streetish in all
its appearance, internal as well as external, that I cannot ex-
plain by what accident of impulse (assuredly there was no mo^
tive in play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the title, Odes
and Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my head
with Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook
squad. But, my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you,
or under you, or una cum you. I know none of your frequent
visitors capacious and assimilative enough of your converse to
have reproduced you so honestly, supposing you had lefl your-
self in pledge in his lock-up house. Gillman, to whom I read
the spirited parody on the introduction to Peter Bell, the Ode to
the Great Unknown, and to Mrs. Fry ; he speaks doubtfully of
Reynolds and Hood. But here come Irving and Basil Montagu.
*^ Thursday Night, 10 6*clock. — No ! Charles, it is you. I have
read them over again, and I understand why you have anon^d
the book. The puns are nine in ten good — ^many excellent —
the Newgafory transcendant. And then the exemplum sine exetn-
plo of a volume 6f personalities and contemporaneities, without
a single line that could inflict the infinitesimal of an unpleasance
on any man in his senses ; saving and except perhaps in the
envy-addled brain of the despiser of your Lays. If not a tri-
umph over him, it is at least an ovation. Then, moreover, and
besides, to speak with becoming modesty, excepting my own self,
who is there but you who could write the musical lines and
stanzas that are intermixed ?
" Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and driven back by the
guardian spirits of four huge flower- holders of omnigenous roses
and honeysuckles — (Lord have mercy on his hysterical olfacto-
ries ! what will he do in Paradise ? I must have a pair or two
of nostril plugs, or nose-goggles laid in his coffin) — ^stands at the
door, reading that to M'Adam, and the washerwoman's letter,
and he admits the facts. You are found in the manner , as the
lawyens say ! so, Mr. Charles ! hang yourself up, and send me
a line, %y way of token and acknowledgment. My dear love to
Mary. God bless you and your Unshamabramizer,
"S. T. COLEEIDQE."
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92 PROSE AND VERSE.
It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling " the infini-
tesimal of an unpleasance " at being Addressed in the Odes,
the once celebrated Mr. Hunt presented to the Authors, a bottle
of his best *' Permanent Ink/^ and the eccentric Doctor Kitchmer
sent an invitation to dinner,
From Colebrooke, Lamb removed to Enfield Chasej — a pain-
ful operation at all times, for, as he feelingly misapplied Words*
worthj ^^ the inoving accident was not his trade." As soon as he
was settled, I called upon him, and fouod him in a bald-looking
yellowish house, with a bit of a garden, and a wasp's nest con*
Tan lent, as the Irish say, for one stung my pony as he stood at
the dooT. Lamb laughed at the fun ; but, as the clown says,
the whirligig of time brought round its revenges. He was one
day bantering my wife on her dread of wasps, when all at once
he uttered a horrible shout, — a wounded specimen of the species
had slily crawled up the leg of the table, and stung him in the
thumb. I told him it was a refutation well put In, like Smollet's
timely snowball. '* Yes," said he, *^ and a stineing commentary
on Macbeth —
" Bif the pricking of viy thumkit
SoTneihing toieked thiA v>ay t^mnes,^'
There were no pastoral yearnings concerned in this Enfield
femovah There is no doubt which of Captain Morris's Town
and Country Songs would have been most to Lamb's taste,
^^The sweet shady side of Pall-Mall'^ w^ould have earned it all
hollow. In courtesy to a friend, he would select a green lane
for a ramble, but left to himself, he took the turnpike road as
often as otherwise, ** Scott,^^ says Cunningham, " was a stout
walker," Lamb was a porter one. He calculated Distances,
not by Long Measure, but by Ale and Beer Measure* '^ Now
I have w^alked a pint.'' Many a time I have accompanied him
in these matches against Meux, i^ot without sharing in the stake,
and then, what cheerful and profitable talk I For instance^ he
once delivered to me orally the substance of the Essay on the
Defect of Imagination in Modern Artists, subsequently printed
in the Athenseum. But besides the criticism, there were snatches
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 03
of old poems, golden lines and sentences culled from rare books,
and anecdotes of men of note. Marry, it was like going a ram-
ble with gentle Izaak Walton, minus the fishing.
To make these excursions more delightful to one of my tem-
perament. Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither
did he ever act the Grand Senior, He did not exact that com-
mon copy-book respect, which some asinine persons would fain
oonmiand on account of the mere length of their years. As if,
forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the better for keeping ;
as if intellects already mothery, got anything but grandmothery
by lapse of time ! In this particular, he was opposed to Southey,
or rather (for Southey has been opposed to himself), to his Poem
on the Holly Tree.
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng ;
So would I seem among the young and gay
More grave than they.
There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the con-
trary, at sight of a solemn visage that '' creamed and mantled
like a standing pool,'' he was the first to pitch a mischievous
stone to disturb the duck- weed. '' He was a boy-man," as he
truly said of Elia ; " and his manners lagged behind his years."
tie liked to herd with people younger than himself. Perhaps, in
his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation to Eter-
nity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckoning
birthdays, it was always " Hail fellow, well met ;" and although
he was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never made me
feel, in our excursions, that I was '< taking a walk with the
schoolmaster." I remember, in one of our strolls, being called
to account, very pompously, by the proprietor of an Enfield
Villa, who asserted that my dog Dash, who never hunted any-
thing in his dog-(}ays, had chased the sheep ; whereupon, Elia
taking the dog's part, said very emphatically, << Hunt Lambs,
sir ? Why he has never hunted me /" But he was always ready
for fun, intellectual or practical — now helping to pelt D * * * * *,
a. modern Dennis, with puns; and then to persuade his sister,
God bless her ! by a vox et preterea nihil, that she was as deaf
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94 PROSE AND VERSE.
as an adder. In the same spirit, being requested by a young
Schoolmaster to take charge of his flock for a day, " during the
unavoidable absence of the Principal," he wittingly undertook
the charge, but made no other use of his " brief authority^' than
to give the boys a whole holiday.
As Elia supplied the place of the Pedagoguej so once I was
substitute for Lamb himself, A prose article in the Gem was
not from his hand) though it bore his name. He had promised
a contribution, but being unwellj his sister suggested that T
should write something for himj and the result was the ** Widow**
in imitation of his manner. It will be seen that the forgery was
taken in good part*
"Dear Lamb, — ^You are an impudent Tarlet, but I will keep
your secret. We dine at Ayr ton's on Thursday, and shall try
to £nd Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss
M* and her Tragedy may be dished, so may Twt you and your
lib* Health attend you. Yours,
Enjkld, T, Hoon^ Esq.
Miss Bridget Hood sends love."
How many of such pleasant reminiacencea revive in my
memory, whilst thinking of him, like secret writing brought out
by the kindly warmth of the fire ! But they must be deferred to
leave me time and space for other attributes — for e,x ample, his
charity, in its wide^ sense, the moderation in judgment which,
as Miller saysj is " the Silken String running through the Pearl
Chain of all Virtues." If he was intolerant of anything, it was
of Intolerance. He would have been (if the foundation had ex-
istedj save in the fiction of Rabelais) of the Utopian order of
ThelemiteSj where each man under scriptural warrant did what
seemed good in his own eyes. He hated eviK speaking, carping,
and petty scandal. On one occasion having slipped out an anec-
dote, to the discredit of a literary man, during a very confiden-
tial conversation J the next moment, with an expression of r emerge j
for having impaired eten my opinion of the party, he bound ma
solemnly to bury the story in my own bosom. In another case
he characterljjticaily rabuked the backbiting spirit of a censorU
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 95
008 neighbor. Some Mrs. Candor telling him, in expectation
of an ill-natured comment, that Miss * * *, the teacher at the
Ladies' School, had married a publican. ** Has she so ?" said
Lamb, ** then I'll have my beer there !"
''As to his liberality, in a pecuniary sense, he passed (says
Lamb of Blia) with some people, through having a settled but
moderate income, for a great miser. And in tru^ he knew the
▼alue of money, its power, its usefulness. One January night
he told me with great glee that at the end of the late year he had
been able to lay by — and then proceeded to read me a serio-
comic lecture <m the text, of '' Keep your hand out of your
Pocket." The truth is. Lamb, like Shakspeare, in the univer-
sality of his S3rmpathies, could feel, pro tempore, what belonged
to the character of a Gripe-all. The reader will remember his
capital note in the ''Dramatic Specimens," on "the decline of
Biisers, in consequence of the Platonic nature of an affection for
Money," since Money was represented by '^fiimsies " instead of
substantial coin, the good old solid sonorous dollars and doub-
locms, and pieces of eight, that might be handled, and hugged,
and rattled, and perhaps kissed. But to this passion for hoard-
ing he one day attributed a new origin. " A Miser," he said,
" is sometimes a grand personification of Fear. He has a fine
horror of Poverty. And he is not content to keep Want from
the door, or at arm's length, — ^but he places it, by heaping wealth
upon wealth, at a sublime dittance r Such was his theory : now
for his practice. Amongst his other guests, you occasionally
saw an elderly lady, formal, fair, and flaxen-wigged, looking re-
markably like an animated wax doll, — and she did visit some
friends, or relations, at a toyshop near St. Dunstan's. When
she spoke, it. was as if by an artificial apparatus, through some
defect in her palate, and she had a slight limp and a twist in her
figure, occasioned — ^what would Hannah More have said ! — by
running down Greenwich Hill ! This antiquated per8(»iage had
been Lamb's Schoolmistress — and on this retrospective. conside-
ration, though she could hardly have taught him more than to
read his native tongue — ^he allowed her in her decline, a yearly
sum, equal to — ^what shall I say? — ^to the stipend which some
persons of fortune deem sufiicient for the active services of aa
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96 PROSE AND VERSE.
ftll-accomplished gentlewoman in the education of their children.
Say, thirty pounds per annum !
Such was Charles Lamb. To sum up his character, on his
own principle of antagonising, he was, in his views of human
nature, the opposite of Crabbe ; in Criticism, of Gifford ; in
Poetry, of Lord Byron ; in Prose, of the last new Novelist ; in
Philosophy, of Kant ; and in Religion, of Sir Andrew Agnew.
Of his wit I have endeavored to give such samples as occurred
to me ; but the spirit of his sayings, was too subtle and too much
married to the circumstances of the time to survive tfc occasion.
They had the brevity without the levity of wit — some of his puns
contained the germs of whole essays. Moreover, like Falstaff^
he seemed not only witty himself but the occasion of it by exam*
pie in others. " There isM******" said he, " who goes
about dropping his good things as an ostrich lays her eggs with*
out caring what becomes of them." It was once my good for-
tune to pick up one of Mr. M.'s foundlings, and it struck me as
particularly in Lamb's own style, containing at once a pun and
a criticism. " What do you think," asked somebody, '^ of the
book called < A Day m Stowe Gardens ?' " Answer : " A Day
ill be-stowed."
It is now some five years ago, since I stood with other mourn-
ers in Edmonton Church Yard, beside a grave in which all that
was mortal of Elia was deposited. It may be a dangerous con-
fession to make, but I sh^d no tear ; and scarcely did a sigh
escape from my bosom. There were many sources of comfort.
He had not died young. He had happily gone before that noble
sister, who not in selfishness, but the devotion of a unique afiec-
tiouj would have prayed to survive him but for a day, lest he
should miss that tender care which had watched over him up-
wards from a little child. Finally he had left behind him his
works, a rare legapy ! — and above- all, however much of him
had departed, there was still more of him that could not die—
for as long as Humanity endures, and man owns fellowship with
man, the spirit of Charles Lamb will still be extant !
♦ « * « * 4^
On the publication of the Odes and Addresses, presentation
copies were sent, at the suggestion of a friend, to Mr. Canning
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LITERARY REMINIfiCENCES. 97
and Sir Walter Scott. The minister took no notice of the little
volume ; but the novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An
eccentric friend in writing to me, once made a number of colons^
semicoloos, dec, at the bottom of the paper, adding
'''And these are ray points that I place at the foot
That you may put stops thai; I cant stop to put'
It will surprise no one to observe that the author of Waverley
had as little leisure for punctuation.
** Sol WjLLTfiR Scott has to make tluinkful acknowledgments
for the copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was
favored and more particularly for the amusement he has re-
ceived from the perusal. He wishes the unknown author good
health good fortune and whatever other good things can best
support and encourage his lively vein of inoffensive and humor-
ous satiite
^Abb(d^wd MelroBt 4ih May ^
The first time I ever saw the Great Unknown, was at the private
view of Martin's Picture of " Nineveh," — ^when, by a striking
coincidence, one of our most celebrated womai, and one of our
greatest men, Mrs. Siddons and Sir Walter Scott walked simul-
taneousAy up opposite sides of the room, and met and shook hand*
in front of ihe painting. As Editor of the Gem, I had afterwards
occasion %o write to Sir Walter, from whom I received the fol-
lowing letter, which contains an allusion to some oi his charac-
teristic partialities : —
" Mr DEAR Me. Hood, — It was very ungracious in me to
leave you in a day's doubt whether I was gratified or otherwise
with the honor you did me to inscribe your whims and oddities
to me I received with giesX pleasure this new mark of your
kmdness and it was t>nly my leaving your volume and letter in
the country which delayed my answer as I forgot the address
" I was favoved with Mr. OoopeAs beautifid sketch of the heart-
piercing incident of the dead greyhound which 'is executed with
a force and fancy which I flatter myself that I who was in mj
8
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younger days and in part still am a great lover of dogs and
horses and an accurate observer of their habits can appreciate,
1 intend the instant our term enda to send a few verses if I can
make Einy at my years in acknowledgment. I will get a day's
leisure for this purpose next week when F expect to be in the
country Pray inform Mr* Cooper of my ictention though I fear
I will be unable to do anything deserving of the subject, I am
very truly your obliged humble servant
*^ Edinhurgh 4 March Waxtee Scott /^
At last, during one of his visits to London, 1 had the honor of
a personal interview with Sir Walter Scott at Mr. Lock hart's.
In Sussex Place. The number of the house had escaped my
memory ; but seeing a fine dog down an area, I knocked w ithout
hesitation at the door. It happened, however, to he the wrong
one, I afterwards mentioned the circumstance to Sir Walter,
It was not a had point, he saidj for he was very fond of dogs ;
but he did not care to have his own animals with him, about
London, *^ for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons*^' I
then told him I had lately been reading the Fair Maid of Perth,
which had reminded me of a very pleasant day spent many
years before, beside the Linn of Campsie, the scene of Cooa-
charts catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what had really occur-
red to me, — ^ihat the Linn, as a cataract, had greatly disap-
pointed me ; for he smiled, and shook his head archly, and said
he had since seen it himself, and was rather ashamed of it,
"But I fear J Mr. Hood^ I have done worse tliantbat before now,
in finding a Monastery where there was none to be found ;
though there was plenty (here he smiled again) of Cardcus
Benedictus, or Holy Thistle/'
In the mean time he was finishing his toilet, in order to dine
at the Duchess of Kent's ; and before he put on his cravat I had
an opportunity of noticing the fine massive proportions of his
bust. It served to confirm me in my theory that such mighty
men are, and must be, physically, as well as intellectually,
giJled beyond ordinary mortals ; that their strong minds must he
backed by strong bodies* Eemembering all that Sir Walter
Scott had done, and all that he had suffered, methought he had
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LITERARY REMINISCENCES. 99
■■ -■ ■ ■ ' ■ ■' ■ ' — *
been in more than one sense ^< a Giant in the Land." After
some more conversation, in the course of which he asked me if
I ever came to Scotland, and kindly said he should be glad to
see me at Abbotsford, I took my leave, with flattering dreams in
my head that never were, and now, alas ! never can be, realized !
* « )i( « «
And now, not to conclude in too melancholy a tone, allow me,
gentle reader, to present to you the following genuine letter, the
names, merely, for obvious reasons, being disguised.
To T. Hood, Esq.
<< Thou'rt a comical chap— so am I ; but thou possessest brains
competent to write what I mean ; — I don't — ^therefore Brother
Comic wilt thou oblige me (if 'twas in my power I would you) —
I'll tell you just what I want, and no more. Of late. Lord * * *
has been endeavoring to raise a body of yeomanry in this coun-
ty. Now there's a man at Bedfont — a compounder of nauseous
drugs — and against whom I owe a grudge, who wishes to enter,
but who's no more fit for a fighter than I for a punster. Now if
you will just give him a palpable hit or two in verse, and trans-
mit them to me by post, directed to A. B., Post Office, Bedfont,
your kindness shall ever be remembered with feelings of the
deepest sincerity and gratitude. His name is ' James Booker,
Chemist,' Bedfont of course. If you disapprove of the above, I
trust you will not abuse the confidence placed in you, by < split-
ting.' You'll say, how can I ? — by showing this letter to him.
He knows the hand-writing full well — but you'll not do so, I
hope. Perhaps^ if you feel a disposition to oblige me, you will .
do so at your first convenience, ere the matter will be getting
stale.
Yours truly,
' A.B.
" Perhaps you will be kind enough to let me have an answer
from you, even if you will not condescend to accede to my wish.
" Perhaps you've not sufficient particulars. He's a little fel-
low, flushed face, long nose, precious ugly, housekeeper as ugly,
lives between the two Peacock Inns, is a single man, very anx-
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100 ■ PROSE AND VERSE-
ious to get possession of Miss Boltbee, a ward in Chancery with
something like 9000/. (wish he tuay get it), is famous for his
Gout Medicine, sells jalap (should like to make him swallow an
ounce), always kiK»ws other people ^s business better than his
own, used to go to church, now goes to chapel, and in the whole
13 a great rascal.
" Bedfont is tlurteen milea from London/*
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THE LOST HEIR. 101
THK LOST HEIR.
* Oh where f and oh where.
Is my honny lt4<lie gone ?^ — Qux Sdro.
One day, as 1 was going by
That part of Hoi bom chrLitened High,
I heard a loud and sudden cry
Thai chiird my very blood ;
And lo ? from out a dirty alley?
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,
I saw a crazy woman sally j
Bedaub'd with grease and mud<
She tuni'd her East, she tum'd her West,
Staring like Pythoness poasest.
With streaming hair and heaving breast.
As one stark mad with grief.
This way and that she wildly ran,
Jostling with woman and with man —
Her right hand held a frying-pan,
The left a lump of beef.
At last her frenzy seem'd lo reach
A point just capable of speech.
And with a tone almost a screech.
As wild as ocean birds.
Or female Ranter mov'd to preach,
She gave her *' sorrow words/'
*' LfOftJ J dear, mv heart will break, 1 shall so stiok stark
staring wild !
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102 PROSE AND VERSE.
Has ever a one seen aimhing about the streets like a crying
lost-looking child 1
Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if 1 only
knew which way —
A Child as is lost ahout London streets, and especially Seven
Dials, is a needle in a hottle of hay.
I am all IP a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you
little Kitty M'Nab!
You promised to have half an eye to hinij you know you did,
you dirty deceitful young drab.
The last time as ever 1 see hiui, poor thing, was with my own
blessed Motherly eyes.
Silting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little
dirt pies,
I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the
other young boys.
With two brblis, an old shoe, nine oyster- shells, and a dead kitten
by w^ay of toys.
When his Father comes homcj and he always comes home as
sure as ever the clock strikes one,
He^ll be rampant, he will, at liis child being lost ; and the beef
and the in guns not done !
La bless you, good folks, mind your own consams, and don't be
making a mob in the sti-eet ;
O Serjeant MTarlane ! you have not come across my poor little
boy, have you, in your heat ?
Do, good people, move on J don^t stand staring at me like a
parcel of stupid stuck pigs;
Saints forbid ! but he 's p' r* aps been inviggled away up a court
for the sake of his clothes by the prigs ■
He'd a very good jacket, for certain, for 1 bought it myself for
a shilling one day in Rag Fair ;
And his trowsera considering not very much patch'd, and red
plush, they was once his Father's best pair.
His shirt, it 's very lucky I M got washing in the tub, or thai
might have gone with the rest ;
But he M got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a
burn on the breast.
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THE LOST HEIR.
He ^d a goodisii sort of bat ^ if tha crown was ^ewM in, and not
quite so much jagg'd at the brinir
With one shoe on, aod the other sho^ is a l>ootj and not a fit,
and you 'U know by that if it 's him.
Except being so well dress'd, my mind would misgive, some old
beggar woman in want of an orphan j
Had borrow' d the child to go a begging withj but Pd rather see
him laid out ia his coihn !
Do, good people, move odi auch a rabble of boys! Til break
every bone of 'em 1 come near.
Go home — you ^re spill Lug the porter — ^go home — Tommy Jones,
go along home with your beer.
This day ia the sorrow full est day of my life, ever since my
name was Betty Morgan,
Them vile Savoyards ! they lost him once before all along of
following a Monkey S-nd an Orgao :
O my Billy — my head will turn rig I it round — if he's got kid-
dy uapp'd with them ItaHans,
They '11 make him a plaster parish image boy^ they will, the
outlandish tatterdemalions,
Billy — where are you^ BiUy ?-*rm as hoarse as a crow, with
screaming for ye, you young sorrow I
And shan't have half a voicej no more 1 shan't, for crying fre^
herrings to-morrow.
Billy, you 're bursting my heart in two, and my life won't be
of no more vally,
If Tra to see other folks' darlins, and none of mine, playing
like aDgels in oar alley.
And what shall I do but cry out i^iy eyes, when I looks at the
old three-legged chair
As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and there a^n't no
Billy there I
1 would run all the wide world over to find him, if 1 only know'd
where to run,
Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month
through stealing a petiny bun, —
The Lorti forbid of any child of mine I 1 thiak it would kill me
rally,
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104 PROSE AND VERSE.
To find my Bill boldia' up hia little innocent hand at the Old
Baily.
For though I say it as oughtn't, yet I will say» you may search
for miles and mileses
And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved,
from one end to t'other of St, Giles's*
And i£ I called lilm a beauty , it's no lie^ but only as a Moiher
ought to speak ;
You never set eyes on a more liaisdaomer r^^ce,, only it haaa'l
been washed for a week ;
As for hair, tho' ifs redj if ^ the most niceit hair when Vyb timd
to just sliow it the comb;
ril owe ^em fivo pound s^ and a blessing besides, as will only
bring hitn safe and sound home,
He's blue eye^ and not to be calFd a squint^ though a little cast
he's certainly got;
And his noae is still a good un, tho^ the bridge is broke^ by his
faliing on a pewter pint pot ;
He's got the most elegant w ide mouth in the world, and \ery
large teeth for his age ;
And quite as iit as Mrs^ Murdockson's child to play Ctipid on the
Drury Lane Stage.
And then he haid got such dear winning ways — but O 1 never,
never shall see him no more !
O dear ? to think of losing him just af^er nussing him bat;k ^m
death's door !
Only the very last month when the windfailsr hang 'em, was at
twenty a penny !
And the threepence he'd got by grotlolng was spent in plum^
and sixty for a child is tt» many.
And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all and, drat
him J made a seize of our hog,—
It's no use to send the Cryer to cry him about, he's such a
blundem' drunken old dog ;
The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he wa^ guzzling
with his bell at the Crown,
And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted
Mother and Father about Town,
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J
THE LOST HEIR. 105
Billy — where are you, Billy, I say ? come Billy, come home, to
your best of Mothers I
Vm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they'd
run over their own Sisters and Brothers.
Or may be he's stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to stick
fast in narrow flues and what not,
And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the
soot has ketch'd, and the chimbly's red hot.
Oh I'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap
my two loDgin' eyes on his face,
For he's my darlin of darlins, and if he don't sooa come back,
you'll see me drop stone dead on the place.
I only wish I'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and
wouldn't I hug him and kiss him !
Lauk ! I never knew what a precious he was — ^but a child dont
not feel like a child till you miss him.
Why there he is ! Punch and Judy hunting, the yoong wretch,
it's that Billy as sartin as sin !
But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and I'm
blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin I
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J06 PROSE AND VEHSE,
AN UNDERTAKER,
Is an ill wilier to the Human Race, He is by Profession an
Enemy to his Species^ and can no more look kindly at his Fel-
lows than the SherifT'a Officer ; for wliy, his Profit begins with
an arrest for tho Debt of Nature, As the Bailifi" looks on a
failing Man, so doth he, and with the same Hope, namely, to
take the Body.
Hence hath he little Synipathy with his Kind, small Pity for
the Poor, and least of all for the widow and the orphans, whom
he regards Planter like, but as so many Blacks on his Estate,
If he have any Community of Feeling, it is with the Sexton,
who has likewise a Per Centage on the Bills of Mortality, and
never sees a Pieturc of Healtli but he longs to iograve it. Both
have the same quick Ear for a Churchyard Cough, and both
the same Relish for the same Music^ to wit, the Toll of Saint
Sepulchre, Moreover both go constantly in black — howbcit 'tis
no Mourning Suit but a Livery— for he grieves no more for the
Defunct than the Bird of the same Plumage, that is the Under-
taker to a dead Horse-
As a Neighbor he is to be shunned. To live opposite to him
is to fall under the Evil Eye, Like tlie Witch that fbrespeaks
other Cattle, he would rot you as soon as look at you, if it could
be done at a Glance ; but that Magic being out of Date, he
contents himself with choosing the very Spot on the House
Front that shall serve for a Hatchment, Thenceforward he
watches your going out and your coming In : your rising up
and your lying down, and all your Domestic Impor|s of Drink
and Yictual, so that the veriest She Gossip in the Parish is not
more familiar with your Modes and Means of Living, nor knows
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AN UNDERTAKER. 107
so certainly whether the Visitor, that calls daily in his Chariot,
is a mere Friend or a Physician. Also he knows your Age to
a Year, and your Height to an Inch, for he hath measured you
with his Eye for a Coffin, and your Ponderosity to a Pound, for
he hath an Interest in the Dead Weight, and hath so far inquired
into your Fortune as to guess with what Equipage you shall
travel on your last Journey. For, in professional Curiosity, he
is truly a Fall Pry. Wherefore to dwell near him is as melan-
choly as to live in view of a Churchyard ; to he within Sound
of his Hammering is to hear the Knocking at Death's Door.
To he friends with an Undertaker is as impossible as to be
the Crony of a Crocodile. He is by Trade a Hypocrite, and
deals of Necessity in Mental Reservations and Equivoques.
Thus he drinks to your good Health, but hopes, secretly, it will
not endure. He is glad to find you so hearty — as to be Apoplec-
tic ; and rejoices to see you so stout — ^with a short Neck. He
bids you beware of your old Grout — and recommends a Quack
Doctor. He laments the malignant Fever so prevalent — and
wishes you ipay get it. He compliments your Complexion—
when it is Blue or Yellow : admires your upright Carriage,—*
and hopes it will break down. Wishes you good Day, but
means everlasting Night ; and commends his Respects to your
Father and Mother — but hopes you do not honor them. In short,
his good Wishes are treacherous ; his Inquiries are suspicipus ;
and his Civilities are dangerous ; as when he profiereth the Use
of his Coach-— or to see you Home.
For the rest, he is still at odds with Humanity ; at constant
issue with its Naturalists, and its Philanthropists, its Sages, its
Counsellors, and its Legislators. For example, he praises the
Weather — with the Wind at East ; and rejoices in a wet Spring
and Fall, for Death and he reap with one Sickle, and have a
good or a bad Harvest in common. He objects not to Bones in
Bread (being as it were his own Diet), nor to ill Drugs in Beer,
nor to Sugar of Lead or arsenical Finings in Wine, nor to
ardent Spirits, nor to interment in Churches. Neither doth
he discountenance the Sitting on Infants ; nor the Swallowing
of Plum Stones; nor of cold Ices at Hot balls, — ^nor the
drinking of Embrocations, nay he hath been known to contend
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106 PROSE A^D VERSE.
that the wrong Doee was the right one. He approves, contra
the Physicians, of a damp Bed, and wet Feet,— of a hot Head
and cold Eztrenuties, and lends his own Countenance to the
Natural Small Pox, rather than encourage Vaccination— 4irhich
he calls flying in the Face of Providence. Add to these, a free
Trade in Poisons^ whereby the Oxalic Crystals may currently
become Proxy for the Epsom ones ; and the corrosive Sublimate
as common as Salt in Porridge. To the .same End he would
give unto every Cockney a Privilege to shoot, within ten miles
round London, without a Taxed License, and would never
concur in a Fine or Deodand for Fast Driving, except the
Vehicle were a Hearse. Thus, whatever the popular Cry,
he runs counter: a Heretic in Opinion, and a Hypocrite in
Practice, as when he pretends to be sorrowful at a Funeral ;
or, what is worse, affects to pity the ill-paid Pocmt, and yet
helpeth to screw them down.
To conclude, he is a Personage of ill presage to the House
of Life : a Raven on the Chimney Pot — a Dead- watch in the
Wainscot, — a Winding Sheet in the Candle. To meet with him
is ominous. His looks are sinister ; his Dress is lugubrious ;
his Speech is prophetic ; and his Touch is mortal. Neverthe-
less he hath one Merit, and in this our World, and in these our
Times, it is a main one ; namely, that whatever he Undertakes
he Peffarms.
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MISS KILMANSEGO AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 109
MISS HLMANSEGG AJ^D HER PRECIOUS LEG.
A GOLDEN LEGEND,
" What is liere ?
Gtild ! yellow, glittering, preciona galA ?'*
To tTaoe the Kilmansegg pedigree,
To the very root of the family tree.
Were a task as rash as ridiculoug :
Through antediluvian mists as thick
As London fog such a line to piek
Were enoughj m truihj to puzzle Old Nick,
Not to name Sir Harris Nicholas,
It wouldn't require much verbal strain
To trace the Kill-man^ perchance, to Cain ;
But waving all such digressions,
Suffice it, according to family lore,
A Patriarch Kilmansf^gg lived of yorej
Who was famed for his great possessions.
Tradition said he fcotherM his nest
Through an Agricultural Interest
In the Golden Age of Farming ;
When golden eggs were laid by the geese,
And Colcliian sheep wore a golden fleece,
And golden pippins — the sterling kind c
Of Hesperus — now so hard to find — _^,^ I
Made Horticulture quite charming ! " ' ■ *
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i)0 PROSE AND VEESE.
A Lord of Land, on liia own estaiej
lie lived at a very lively ratCj
But his income would bear carousing ;
Such acr^s he had of pasture and heath.
With herbage so rich from the ore beneath.
The very ewe's and lambkin's teeth
Were tiirn'd into gold by browsing.
He gave, without any extra thrifty
A dock of sheep for a birthday gift
To each son of his loins^ or daughter :
And his debts — if debts he had — at will
He liquidated by givijig each bill
A dip in Pactolian water.
^Twas said that even his pigs of lead,
By crossing with some by Midas bred.
Made a perfect mine of his piggery.
And aa for cattle, one yearling bull
Was worth all Smithfield-market full
Of the Golden Bulla of Pope Gregory.
The high-bred horses within his stud,
Like human creatures of binh and blood,
Had their Golden Cups and flagons :
And as for the common husbandry nags,
Their noses were tied in money- bags^
When they stopped with the carts and wagons.
Moreover, he had a Golden Ass,
Sometimes at stalls and sometimes at grass,
That was worth his own weight in money —
And a golden hive^ on a Golden Bank,
Where golden bee^, by alchemical prank,
Gather 'd gold instead of honey.
Gold ! and gold ? and gold without end I
He had gold to lay by, and gold to spend,
Gold to give* and gold to lend,
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRCCIOUS LEG,
lU
And reversions of gold infuiuro.
la wealth riie family reveird and roll'd,
Himself and wife and sons so bold ; —
And his daughters sang to their harps of gold
" bella eta deF oro 1"
Such was the tale of the Kilmansegg Kin,
In golden text on a vellum skin.
Though certain people would wink and griiij
And declare the whole story a parable —
That the ancestor rich was one Jacob Ghrimes,
Who held a long lease, in prosperous times,
Of acreSf pasture and arable*
That as money makes money, his golden bees
Were the five per eents, or which you please,
When his cash was more than plenty —
That the golden cups were racing affairs ;
And his daughters, who sang Italian airs.
Had their golden harps of Clementi,
That the Golden Ass, or Golden Bull,
Was English John, with his pockets full.
Then at war by land and water :
While beef, and mutton, and other meat.
Were almost as dear as money to eat,
And Farmers reaped Golden Harvests of wheat
At the Lord knows what per quarter !
H£R BIHTH.
What different dooms our birthdays bring !
For instance J one little manikin thing
Survives to wear many a wrinkle ;
While Death forbids another to wake,
And a son that it took nine moons to make
Expires without even a twinkle !
Into this world we come like ships,
LaunchM from the docks, and stocks, and slips^
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112 PROSE AND VERSE.
For fortune fair or fatal ;
And one little craft is cast away
lo its very first trip to Babbiconie Bay,
While another rides safe u Port Natal.
What different lots our stars accord !
This babe to be hail'd and wooM aa a Lord !
And that to be shunned like a leper !
One to the world's wine, honey and coriij
Another, like Colchester native, bora
To its vinegarj only, and pepper.
One k litterM under a roof
Neither wind nor water proof, —
That's the prose of Love in a Cottage —
A puny, naked, shivering wretch,
The whole of whose birthright wo^jltj not fetch,
Though Robins himself drew up the sketch,
The bid of *" a raeas of pottage.'^
Born of Fortunattis's kin^
Another comes tenderly usher 'd in
To a prospect all bright and burnish 'd :
No tenant he for lifers back slums —
He comes lo the world as a gentleman comes
To a lodging ready furnished*
And the other sex — the tender — the fair —
What wide reverses of fate are there
Whilst Margaret, charm* by the Bulbul rare.
In a garden of Gul reposes —
Poor Peggy hawks nosegays from street to street.
Till — think of llmi, who find life ao sweet I —
. She hates the smell of roses !
Not so with the infant Kilmansegg !
She was not born to steal or beg,
Or gather cresses in ditches ;
To plait the straw, or hind the shoej
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MISS KILMANSB6G AND HER PR£)CIOUS LEG. 113
Or sit all day to hem and «ew,
As females must, and not a few —
To fill their inndes with stitches ;
She was sot doom'd, for bread to eat.
To be put to her hands as well as her feet —
To carry home linen from mangles —
Or heavy-hearted, and w^ary-limb'd.
To dance on a rope in a jacket trimmM
With as many blow« as spangle&
She was one of those who by Fortune's booB
Are bom, as they say, with a silver spoon
In her moutli, not a wooden ladle :
To 4Speak according to poet's wont,
Plutus as sponsor stood at her font,
And Midas rock'd the cradle.
At her first d^htU she found her head
On a pillow of down, in a downy bed.
With a damask canopy oven
For although by the vulgar popular s&w
All mothers are said to be " in the ^straw^^
Some children are born in clover.
fier very iugt draught of vital air
It was not the eommon chamelion fare
Of plebeian lungs and noses, —
No— her earliest sniff
Of this world was a whiff
Of llie genuine Otto of Roses j
When she saw the light it was no mere ray
Of that light so common — ^so everyday —
That the sua each morning launches —
But six wax tapers dazzled hex eyes.
From a thing — a gooseberry bush for^ize—
With a golden stem .and branches.
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114 PROSE AND VERSE.
She was bom exaatly at half>past two,
As witnessed a timepiece in oT-molu
That stood on a marble table —
Showing at once the time of day.
And a team of Gildings running away
As fast as they were able,
With a golden Godj with a golden Star,
And a golden Spear, in a golden Car,
According to Grecian fable.
Like other babes, at her birth she cried j
Which made a sensation far and wide.
Ay, for twenty miles around her ;
For though to the ear 'twas nothing more
Than an infant's squall, it was really the roar
Of a Fifty-thousand Pounder I
It shook the next heir
In his library chair.
And made him cry, " Confound her P*
Of signs and omens there was no dearth,
Any more than at Owen Glendower*s birth,
Or the advent of other great people :
Two bullocks dropp'd dead,
As if knockM on the head^
And barrels of stout
And ale ran about,
And the village -bells such a peal rang out,
That they crack 'd the village-steeple.
In no time at all, like mushroom spawn,
Tables sprang up all over the lawn ;
Not furnish'd scantly or shabbily,
But on scale as vast
As that huge repast.
With its loads and cargoes
Of drink and botargoes,
At the Birth of the Babe in Rabelais.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AKD HER PRECIOUS LEG. 115
Hundreds of men were tum'd into beasts.
Like the guests at Circe's horrible feasts,
By the magic of ale and cider ;
And each country lass, and each country lad.
Began to caper and dance like mad,
And even some old ones appear'd to have had
A bite from the Naples Spider.
Then as night came on,
It had scared King John,
Who considered such signs not risible,
To have seen the maroons.
And the whirling moons,
And the serpents of flame.
And wheels of the same.
That according to some were " whizzable.'^
Oh, happy Hope of the Kilmanseggs ?
Thrice happy in head, and body, and legs,
That her parents had such full pockets !
For had she been bom of Want and Thrift,
For care and nursing all adrift.
It's ten to one she had had to make shift
With rickets instead of rockets !
And how was the precious Baby drest ?
In a robe of the Bast, with lace of the West,
Like one of GrcBsus's issue—
Her best bibs were made
Of rich gold brocade.
And the others of silver tissue.
And when the Baby inclined to nap
She was luU'd oaa Gros de Naples laf
By a nurse in a modish Paris cap.
Of notions so exalted.
She drank nothing lower than Cura^
Maraschino, or pink Noyau,
And on principle never malted.
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lie PROSE AND VERSE.
FrOHi a golden boat, with a golden spoon.
The babe was fed night, mornings and noon ;
And altho' the tale seems fabulous^
*Tis said her tops and holtonia were giltj
Like the oats in thaJ: Stable-yard Palace built
Forthe horaea ofHeliogabalus.
And when she took to squall and kick —
For paina will wriiig and pins wUl prick
E'en the wealthiest nabob's daughter —
They gave her no vulgar Dalby or gin,
But liquor with leaf of gold therein,
Videlicet, — Dantzic Water.
lu short J she was born, and bred*, and nurst,
And drest in the best from the very first,
To please the genteel est censor —
And then, as soon as strength would allow,
Was vaccinated, as babes are now,
With virus ta'en from the best- bred cow
Of Lord Althorp's — now Earl Spencer.
Though Shakspeare asks us, ^* What's in a name ? *
(As if cognomens were much the same),
There's really a very great scope in it,
A name ?— why, wasn't there Doctor Dodd,
That servant at once of Mammon and God>
Who found four thousand pounds and odd,
A prison — a cart — and a rope in it ?
A name ? — if the party had a voice^
What mortal would be a Bugg by choice I
As a Hogg, a Grubb, or a Chubb rejoice ?
Or any such na;jseous blazon?
Not to mention many a vulgar name,
f That would make a door-plate blush for shame,
If door-plates were not so brazen !
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 117
A name ? — ^it has mcHre than nomina) worth,
And belongs to good or bad lock at birth —
As dames of a certain degree know,
In spite of his Page's hat and hose.
His Page's jacket, and buttons in rows.
Bob only sounds like a page of prose
Till tum'd into Rupertino.
Now to christen the infant Kilmaiuegg,
For days and days it was quite a plague.
To hunt the list in the Lexicon :
And scores were tried, like cwn, by the ring.
Ere names were found just the proper thing
For a minor rich as a Mexican.
Then cards were sent, the presence to beg
Of all the kin of Balmansegg,
White, yellow, and brown relations:
Brothers, Wardens of City Halls,
And Uncles — ^rich as three Golden Balls
From taking pledges of nations.
Nephews, whom Fortune seem'd to bewitch,
Rising in life like rockets —
Nieces whose dowries knew no hitch —
Aunts as certain of dying rich
As candles in golden sockets —
Cousins German, and cousins' sons.
All thriving and opulent — some had tons
Of Kentish hops in their pockets !
For money had stuck to the race through life
(As it did to the bushel when cash so rife
Pozed Ali Baba's brother's wife) —
And down to the Cousins and Coz-lings,
The fortunate brood of the Kilmanseggs,
As if they had come out of golden eggs.
Were all as wealthy as " Goslrogs.'*
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118 PROSE AND VERSE,
It would fill B. Court GarZelte to Dama
What East and West End people came
To I lie rite of Christiauity :
The lofty Lord, and the titled Damcj
All drmonds, plumes, and urbanity ;
His Lordship the MayV with his golden chain
And two Gold Sticks, and the SherifFtg twain,
Nine foreign Counts^ an<i other great men
With their orders and stars, to help M or N
To renounce all ponip and vanity* '
To paint the maternal Kilmansegg
The pen of an Eastern Poet would beg,
And need an elaborate sonnet;
How she sparkled witli gems whenever she stirred,
And her head ziiddle-noddled at every word.
And seem'd so happy, a Paradise Bird
Had nidificated upon it-
And Sir Jacob the Father strutted and bow'd,
And smiled to himself, and laugh 'd aloud,
To think of his heiress and daughter^ —
And then in his pockets he made a grope,
And theo, in the fulness of joy and hope,
t^ Scem'd washing his hands with invisible soap,
i^ In imperceptible water.
He had mWd in racney like pigs in mud,
Till it seemed to have entered into his blood
By some occult projectfon :
And his cheeksj instead of a healthy hue,
As yellow as any guinea grew,
Making the common phrase seem true
About a rich complexion.
And now came the nurse, and during a pauBP,
Her dead- leaf satin would fitly cause
A very autumnal rustle —
So full of figure, so full of fuss.
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MISS KILMANSEG6 AND HER PRECIOUS LEO. 119
_H
As she carried about the babe to buas^
She seemed to be nothiog but bustle.
A wealthy Nabob was God-papa,
And an Indian Begum was God-mamma,
Whose jewels a Queen might covet —
And the Priest was a Vicar, and Dean withal
Of that Temple we see with a Golden Ball,
And a Golden Cross aboTe it.
The Font was a bowl of American Gold,
Won by Raleigh in days of old.
In spite of Spanish bravado ;
And the Book of Prayer was so overrun
With gilt devices, it shone in the sun
Like a copy — ^a presentation one —
Of Humboldt's " El Dorado."
Gold ! and gold ! and nothing but gold !
The same auriferous shrine behold
Wherever the eye could settle !
On the walls — the sideboard — ^the ceiling-sky—
On the gorgeous footmen standing by.
In coats to delight a miner's eye
With seams of the precious metal.
GoM ! and gold ! and besides the gold.
The very robe of the infant told
A tale of wealth in every fold.
It lappM her like a vapor !
So fine ! so thin ! the mind at a loss
Could compare it to nothing except a cross
Of cobweb with bank-note paper.
Then her pearls — 'twas a perfect sight, forsooth.
To see them, like " the dew of her youth,"
In such a plentiful sprinkle.
Meanwhile, the Vicar read through the form,
And gave her another, not over- warm.
That made her little eyes twinkle.
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ISO PROSE Am? VERSE,
Then the babe was crossM artd blesa^t amain;
But instead of the Kate, or Ann, or Jane,
Which the humhler female endorses—
Instead of one name^ as so mo people prfifix,
Kilmansegg went at the tails of sis,
Like a carriage of state with its horses^
Oh J then the kisses she got and hngs I
The golden mugs and the golden jugs
That lent fresli rays tjo the midges I
The golden knivesj and the golden spoons j
The gDins that sparkled like fairy b*XJns,
It was one of tlie Kilrnansegg^s own salcxjns^
But looked like Eundell and Oridge'sl
Gold I and gold f the now and the old T
The company ate and drank from gold,
They revelVdj they sangj and were merry j
And one of tlie Gold Sticks ro^^e from bis chair.
And toasted " the Lass with the golden haJr/^
Jn a bumper of golden Sherry.
Gold I strll gold r it rain'd on Ihe Qurse,
WhOj tinlike Danae, was none the worse ;
There was nothing hot guineas glistening \
Fifty were given to Doctor JameSr
For calling the little Baby namesj
And for saying, Amen !
The Clerk had ten,
And that was the end of the ChristeniiiiV.
HEH CHriaJHOOtJL
■ Our youth, r our childhood! that spring of apringsf
^Tis surely one of the bles^dest things
That nature ever invented !
When the rich are wealthy heyond their wealth,
And the poor are rich in spirits and heal'h,
And all with their lots contented I
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 121
There's little Phelim, he sings like a thrush.
In the selfsame pair of patchwork plash.
With the selfsame empty pockets,
That tempted his daddy so often to cut
His throat, or jump m the water-butt —
But what cares Phelim ? an empty nut
Would sooner bring tears to their socketa*
Give him a collar without a skirt.
That's the Irish linen for shirt,
And a slice of bread, with a taste of dirt,
Thai's Poverty's Irish butter.
And what does he lack to make hiin Uest ?
Some oyster-shells, or a sparrow's nest,
A candle-end and a gutter.
But to leave the happy Phelim alone.
Gnawing, perchance, a marrowless bone^
For which no dog would quarrel —
Turn we to little Miss Kilmansegg,
Cutting her first little toothy-peg
With a fifty guinea coral —
A peg upon which
About poor and rich
Reflection might hang a moraL
Bom in wealth, and wealthily nursed,
Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd and lapp'd from the first
On the knees of Prodigality,
Her childhood was one eternal round
Of the game of going on Tickler's ground
Picking up gold — in reality.
With extempore carts she never play'd,
Or the odds and ends of a Tinker's trade.
Or little dirt pies and puddings made.
Like children happy and squalid ;
The very puppet she had to pet.
Like a bait for the " Nix my Dolly " set.
Was a Dolly of gold — and solid I
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12S PROSE AND VERSE.
Gold [ and gold i 'twaa the burden still !
To gain the Heiress's early goodwill
There was much corruption and bribery^
The yearly cost of her golden toy^
Would have given to half London's Charity Boys
And Charity Girls the annual joya
Of a holiday dinner at Highbury.
Bon-bons she ate from the gilt cornet ;
And gilded queens on St. Rartlemy's day ;
Till her fancy was tinged by her presents —
And first a goldfinch excited her wisbj
Then a spherical bowl with a Golden fish,
And then two Golden Pheaeants.
Nay, once she squallM and scream 'd like wild —
And it shows how the bias we give to a child
Is a thing most w^eighty and solemn : —
But whence wag wonder or blame to spring
If little Miss K., — after such a swing —
Made a dust for the flaming gilded thing
On tile top of the Fish Street column f
According to metaphysical creed,
To the earliest books that children read
For much good or much bad they are debtors —
But before with their A B C they start,
There are things in roorab, hr well as art,
That play a very important part —
** Impr^sions before the letters*"
Dame Education begins the pile^
Mayhap in the graceful Corinthian style,
But alas for the elevation !
If the Lady's maid or gossip the Nurse
With a load of rybbish, or something worse.
Have made a rotten foundation.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 1113
Even thus with Little Miss Kilmaiiseggy
Before she learnt her £ for egg,
Ere her Governess came, or her Master»-»
Teachers of quite a different kind
Had ^* cramm'd'* her beforehand, and put her mind
In a go-cart on golden^stors.
Long before her A B and C,
They had taught her by heart her L. S. D.,
And as how she was bom a great Heiress ;
And as sure as London was built of bricks.
My Lord would ask her the day to fix,
To ride in her fine gilt coach and six,
Like her Worship the Lady MayVess.
Instead of stories from Edgeworth's page,
The true golden lore £}r our golden age.
Or lessons from Barbauld and Trimmer,
Teaching the worth of Virtue and Health,
All that she knew was the Virtue of Wealth,
Provided by vulgar nursery stealth,
With a Book of Leaf Gold for a Primer.
The very metal of merit they told.
And praised her for being as " good as gold P'
Till she grew as a peacock haughty :
Of money they talk'd the whole day round.
And weigh'd desert like grapes by the pound.
Till she had an idea from the very sound
That people with naught were naughty.
They praised — poor children with nothing at all !
Lord ! how you twaddle and waddle and squall
Like common -bred geese and ganders !
What sad little bad little figures you make
To the rich' Miss E., whose plainest seed-cake
Was stufTd with corianders !
They praised her falls, as well as her walk,
Flatterers make cream cheese of chalk,
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It4 PROSE AND VEHSE.
They praised — how ihey praised — her very small talk.
As if it fell from a Solon ;
Or the girl who at each pretty phrase let drop
A ruby camma, or pearl full- stop.
Or an emerald ^mi -colon.
They praised her spirit, and now and thenj.
The Nurse brovigh£ her own little " nevy '^ Ben,
To play with the future Mayoress,
And when he got raps^ and taps^ aod slaps.
Scratches, and pinch as, snips, and snaps,
As if from a Tigress or Bearesa,
They told him how Lords would court that haml.
And always gave him to understand.
While he rubh'd, poor soul.
His carroty poll.
That his hair had been pulPd by *^ a HairessJ^
Such were the lessons from maid and nurse j
A Governess helpM to make still worsen
Giving an appetite so perverse
Fresh diet whereon to batten —
Beginning with A, B. C to hold
Like a royal playbill printed in gold
Oil a square of pearl-white satin.
The books to teach the verbs and nouns.
And those about countries, cities, and towns,
Instead of their sober drabs and browns.
Were in crimson silk^ with gilt edges : —
Her Buder, and Endeld, and Entick — in shon
Her " Early Lessons " of every sort,
Look'd like Souvenirs, Keepsakes j aod Pledges.
Old Johnson shone out in as fine array
As he did one night when he went to the play ;
Chambaud like a beau of King Charleses day —
Lindley Murray in like conditions —
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 13$
Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task, .
Appear'd in a fancy dress and a mask^
If you wish for similar copies ask
For Howell and James's Editions.
Novels she read to amuse her mind,
But always the affluent match-making kind
That ends with Promessi Sposi,
And a father-in-law so wealthy and grand,
He could give cheque-mate to Coutts in the Strand ;
So, along with a ring and posy,
He endows the Bride with Golconda off-hand.
And gives the Groom Potosi.
Plays she perused — but she liked the best
Those comedy gentlefolks always poesess'd
Of fortunes «o truly romantic —
Of money so ready that right or wrong
It always is ready to go for a song,
Throwing it, going it, pitching it strong-—
They ought to have purses as green and long
As the cucumber called the Gigantic.
Hien Eastern Tales she loved ibr the sake
Of the Purse of Oriental make,
And the thousand pieces they put in it —
But Pastoral scenes on her heart fell cold.
For Nature with her had lost its hold,
No field but the field of the Cloth of Gold
Would ever have caught her foot in it.
What more ? She learnt to sing, and dance,
To sit on a horse, although he should prance,
yy And to speak a French not spoken in France
Any more than at Babel's building —
And she painted shells, and flowers, and Turks,
But her great delight was in Fancy Works
That are done with gold or gilding.
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126
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PROSE AND VERSE..
Gold ! still gold S— the bright and the dead,
With golden beads, and gold lace, and gold thread.
She worked in gold^ as if for her bread ^
The fueial had so undermined her.
Gold ran in her thoughts a ad filPd her brain,
She was golden- headed as Peter's cane
With which he walked behind heri
HEW ACCIDBITT,
The horse that carried Miss Kilmanseggj
And a better never lifted leg,
Was a very rich bay, called Banker —
A horse of a breed and a mettle so rare, —
By Bullion out of an Inget mare, —
That for action , the best of figures, and air^
It made many good judges hanker.
And when she took a ride in the Park,
Equestrian Lord, or pedestrian Clerk,
Was thrown in an amorous fever,
To see the Heiress how well she sat.
With her groom behind her, Boh or Nat,
In green, half smother'd with gold, and a hat
With more gold lace than beaver.
And then when Banker obtain'd a pat,
To see how he arched his neck at that \
He snorted with pride and pleasure I
Like the Steed in the fable so lofty and grand,
Who gave the poor Ass to understand,
That he didn't carry a bag of sand.
But a burden of golden treasure.
A load of treasure 1 — alas ! alas !
Had her horse been fed upon English grass^
And sheltered in Yorkshire spinneys.
Had he scour M the sand with the Desert Ass,
Or where the American whinnies —
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MISS KILMANSEOO AND HER PRECIOUS 1^6. IVJ
But a hunter fiom Erin's turf and gois^
A Tegular thorough-bred Irish horse.
Why, he ran awaj, as a matter of oourse.
With a girl worth her weight in guineas !
Majrhap 'tis the trick of such pamper'd nags
To shy at the sight of a beggar in rag8»
But away, like the bolt of a rabbit,
Away went the horse in the madness of firigfat.
And away went the horsewoman mocking the sight-
Was yonder blue flash a flash of blue light.
Or only the skirt of her habit ?
Away she flies, with the groom behind,-—
It looks like a race of the Calmuck kind.
When Hymen himself is the starter :
And the Maid rides first in the fourfooted strife,
Riding, striding, as if for her life.
While the lover rides after to catch him a wife,
Although it's catching a Tartar.
But the Groom has lost his glittering hat !
Though he does not sigh and pull up for that—
Alas ! his horse is a tit for Tat
To sell to a very low bidder —
His wind is ruin'd, his shoulder is sprung.
Things, though a horse be handsome and young,
A purchaser wiU consider.
But still flies the Heiress through stones and dust,
. Oh, fi>r a fall, if fall she must,
9n the gentle lap of Flora !
But still, thank Heaven ! she clings to her sea'
Away ! away ! she could ride a dead heat
With the dead who ride so fast and fleet,
In the Ballad of Leonora !
Away she gallops ! — ^it's awful work !
It's faster than Turpin's ride to York
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128 PROSE AND VERSEL
On Bess that itotaliie clipper !
Bhe has circled the Riag ! — she crossas the P&rk !
Mazeppa, although he was a tripped so stark,
Mazeppa couldn't outstrip her I
The fields seem running away with the folks ?
The Elms are haviDg a race for the OaJis \
At a pace that all Jockeys disparageB I
All, all is racing ! the Serpentine
Seems rusliiiig past like the " arrowy Rhinea**
The houses have got on a railway line.
And are oW like the ^rsUclaas carriages !
She'll lose her life ! she h losing her breath!
A cruel chase, she is chasing Death^
As female shrie kings ib re warn her:
And now — as gratis as blood of Giielph —
She clears that gate, which has clear'd itself
Since then, at Hyde Park Corner j
Alas ! for the hope of the KLlmans^ggs !
For her head, her hrains, her body, and Icgi,
Her life's not worth a copper!
Willy-nilly,
In Piccadilly^
A hundred liearta turn sick and chilly,
A hundred voices cry, " Stop her !^'
And one old gentleman stares and siands>
Shakes his head and lifts his hands.
And says, ** How Tery improper f
On and on ! — what a perilous rim 1
The iron rails seem ail mingling in one.
To shut out the Greeji Park scenery \
And now the Cellar its dangers reveals^
She shudders — she shriek&-*she's doomed, she feels,
To be torn by powers of horses and wheels,
Like a spinner by steam machinery!
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 129
Sick with horror she shuts her eyes,
But the very stones seem uttering cries,
As they did to that Persian daughter,
When she climh'd up the steep vociferous hill,
Her little silver flagon to fill
With the magical Golden Water !
*' Batter her ! shatter her ?
Throw and scatter her !"
Shouts each stony-hearted clatterer —
" Dash at the heavy Dover I
Spill her ! kill her ! tear and tatter her !
Smash her ! crash her !'' (the stones didn't flatter her !)
*^ Kick her hrains out ! let her hlood spatter her !
Roll on her over and over !"
For 80 she gatherM the awful sense
Of the street in its past unmacadamized tense,
As the wild horse overran it, —
His four heels making the clatter of six.
Like a Devil's tattoo, played with iron sticks
On a kettle-drum of granite !
On ! still on ! she's dazzled with hints
Of oranges, ribhons, and color'd prints,
A Kaleidoscope jumble of shapes and tints,
And human faces all flashing,
Bright and brief as the sparks from the flints,
That the desperate hoofs keep dashing !
On and on ! still frightfully fast !
Dover-street, Bond-street, all are past !
But — ^yes — ^no — ^yes ! — they're down at last !
The Furies and Fates have found them I
Down they go with a sparkle and crash.
Like a Bark that's struck by the lightning flash^*
There's a shriek — and a sob— -
And the dense dark mob
Like a billow close around them!
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PROSE AND VERSE.
i^ !ie 4t * «
¥ th m ^
*< She breathes !"
**Shedoa'tr
"She'll recover!"
** She won't !"
** She's stirring f she's living, by Nemesis !"
Gold, still gold I on counter and shelf!
Golden dishes as plenty as delf !
Miss Kilmansegg'e coming again to herself
(hi an opulent Goldsmith's premises !
Gold I fine gold ! — ^both yellow and red,
Beaten, and molten— polish 'dj and dead —
To see the gold with profusion spread
In all forms of its manufacture !
But what avails gold to Miss Ealmansegg,
When the femoral bone of her dexter leg
Has met with a compound iraclure ?
Gold may soothe Adversity's smart ;
Nay, help to bind up a broken heart ;
But to try it on any other part
Were as certain a disappointment,
As if one should rub the dish and plate,
Taken out of a Staffordshire crate —
In the hope of a Golden Service of State —
With Singleton's '' Gulden Ointment*"
<< As the twig is bentj the tree 's inclined,"
Is an adage often recalled to mind.
Referring to juvenile bias :
And never so well is the verity seen.
As when to the weak, warp'd side we lean,
While Life's tempests and hurricanes try us.
Even thus with Miss K, and her bmfcen limb.
By a very, very rBmarkable whim,
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 131
She show'd her early tuition :
While the buds of character came into blow
With a certain tinge that served to show
The nursery culture long ago,
As the grail is known by fruition !
For the KiDg's Physician, who nursed the case,
His verdict gave with an awful face.
And threes others concurrM to egg it ;
That the Patient to give old Death the slipj
Like the Pope, instead of a personal irip,
Must send her Leg as a Legate.
The limb was doomed — it couldn't be saved!
And like other people the patient behaved,
Nay, bravely tliat cruel parting braved,
Which makes some persons so falter,
They rather would part, without a gtoan,
With the flesh of their fleshy and bone of their bom
They obtained at St* George's altar.
But when it came to fitting the stump
With a proxy limb — then flatly and plump
She spoke, in the spirit olden ;
She couldnH — she shouldn't— she wouldn't have wood '
Nor a leg of cork, if she never stood.
And she swore an oath, or something as good,
The proicy limb should be golden !
A wooden leg ! what, a sort of a peg,
For your common Jockeys and Jennies !
No, no J her mother might worry and plague —
Weep, go down on her knees, and beg.
But nothing would move Miss Kilmansegg t
She could-^she would have a Golden Leg,
If it cost ten thousand guineas I
Wood indeedj in Forest or Park,
With its sylvan honors and feudal bark,
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^ PROSE AND VERSE.
Is an aristocraiical article :
But split and sawn, and hackM about town,
Serving all needs of pauper or clown.
Trad on i si agger' d on ! Wood cut down
Is vulgar — fibre and panicle !
And Coi'k !— wben tlie noble Cork Tree shades
A lovely group of CastiUaii maids,
^TIs a thing for a song or sonnet I —
But J cork 3 as it stops the bottle of gin,
Or bungs the beer — ^ibe small beer — in,
It pierced her heart like a corking pin.
To think of standing upon it I
A Leg of Gold — solid gold throughout,
Nothing else, whether slim or stout.
Should ever support her, God willing !
She tnust — she could— she Mfould have her whinij
Her father, she lurn'd a deaf ear to him —
He might kill her — she didn't mind killing t
He was w^elcomo to cut off her other limb —
He might cut her off with a shilling !
All other promised gifts were in vainj
Golden Girdle, or Golden Chain,
She writhed with impatience more than pain,
And ntter*d *^ pshaws!" and ^^ pishes I"
But a Leg of Gold ! as she lay in bed,
It danced before her— it ran in her head I
It jumpM with her dearest wishes !
" Gold— gold— gold r Oh, let it be gold !*'
Asleep or awake that tale she told,
And when she grow delirious ;
Till her parents resolved to grant her wish.
If they melted down plate, and goblet, and dish.
The case was getting so serious.
So a Leg was made in a comely mould,
Of Gold, fine virgin glittering gold.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 133
As solid as man could make it —
Solid in foot, and calf, and shank,
A prodigious sum of money it sank ,
In fact ^twaa a Branc4i of the family Bank,
And no easy matter to break it.
All sterling metal — not lialf-and-half,
The Goldsmith's mark was stamp'd on the ualf-
'Twas pure as from Mexican barter !
And to make it more costly, just over the kiie€,
Where another ligature used to be,
Was a circle of jewels, worth shillings to see,
A new-fangled Badge of the Garter I
^Twag a splendid, brilliant, beautiful Leg,
Fit for the Court of Scander-Beg,
That Precious Leg of Miss Kilmansegg !
For, thanks to parental bounty,
Secure from Mortification's touch,
She stood on a member that cost as much
As a Member for all the County ?
HER TAMXr
To gratify stern ambition's whims,
What hundreds and thousands of precious limbs
On a field of battle we scatter !
Severed by sword, or bullet, or saw^,
OIT they go^ all bleeding and raw.
But the public seems to get the lock-jaw^
So little is said on the matter !
Legs, the tightest that ever were seen,
The tightest, the lightest, that danced on the green,
Cutting capers to sweet Kilty Clover i
Shattered, scattered, cut, and bowl'd down,
OfT they go, worse off for renown,
A line in the Times, or a talk about town,
Than the leg that a fly runs over I
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134 PROSE AND VERSE.
But the Precious Leg of Miss Kilmanseggj
That gowJeiij gooidenj golden leg,
Was the theme of all conversation !
Had it been ft Pillar of Church and State,
Or a prop to support the whole Dead Weight,
It ccHjld not have furnish *d more debate
To the heads and tail a of the nation !
Ea^ and west, and north and south,
ThcHigh useless for either hunger or drouth, —
The Leg was in everybody's mouth.
To use a poetical figure,
Rumor, in taking her ravenous swim.
Saw, and seized on the tempting limb,
Like a shark on the leg of a nigger.
Wilful mnrder fell very dead ;
Debates in th« House were hardly read ;
In vain the Police Reports were fed
With Irish riots and rumpuses —
The Leg ! the Leg ? was the great event,
Through every circle in life it went,
Like the leg of a pair of compasses.
The last new Novel aeem'd lame and Hal,
The Leg^ a novelty newer than thatj
Had tripp'd up the heels of Fiction !
It Burked the yery essays of Burke,
And, alas ! how Wealth over Wit plays the Turk !
Aa a regular piece of goldsmith's work.
Got the better of Gold smithes diction*
" A leg of gold [ what of solid gold ?"
Cried rich and poor, and young acd old, —
And Master and Miss and Madam —
'Twas the talk of 'Change— the Alley — the Bank—
And with men of scientific rank
It made as much stir as the fossil shank
Of a Lizard coeval with Adam f
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miss KILMANSEGG AKD HEE PRECIOUS LEG. 135
Of course with Greenwich and Chelsea elves,
Men who had lost a limb themselves,
Its interest did not dwindle —
But Bill, and Ben, and Jack, and Tom,
Could hardly have spun more yams therefrom,
If the leg had been a spindle.
Meanwhile the story went to and fro,
Tillj gathering lilie tlie hall of snow,
By the time it got to Stratford-le-Bow,
Through Exaggeration's touches,
The Heiress and Hope of the Kilmanseggs
Was proppM on turn fine Golden Legs,
And a pair of Golden Crutches !
Never had Leg so great a run J
'Twas the *' go " and the " Kick " thrown into one !
The mod© — ^the new thing under the axin,
The rage — the fancy — the pasaion !
Bonnets were named, and hats were wornj
A la Golden Leg instead of Leghorn,
And stockings and shoes
Of golden hues,
Took the lead in the walks of fashion !
The Grolden Leg had a vast career,
It was sung and danced — and to show how near
Low Folly to lofty approaches,
Down to society's very dregs,
The Belles of Wapping wore " Kilmanseggs,"
And St- Giles's Beaux sported Golden Legs
In their pinchbeck pins and brooches !
HER riRBT BTE|T»,
V
r^upposing the Trunk and Limbs of Man
h^hared on the allegorical plan,
By the Passions that mark humanity,
Whichever might claim the head, or heart.
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136 PROSE AND YERSE.
The sloniach, or any other part,
The Legs would he seized hy vanity.
There's Bard us, a six-foot column of fop,
A lighthouse without any light atop,
Whc^e height would attract beholders.
If he had not lost some inches clear
By looking down at his kerseymere.
Ogling the limbs lie hold;* so dear,
Till he got a stoop in his shoulders.
Talk of Artj of Science^ or Books^
And down go the everlasting looks.
To his cruel beauties so wedded !
Try him, wherever you will, you fmd
His mind in hi a legs, and his legs in his mind,
All proDgs and folly — in short a kind
Of Fork — that is Fiddle-headed,
What wonder, then, if Miss Kilmansegg,
With a splendid, brilliant, beautiful leg.
Fit for the court of Scander Beg,
Disdain*d to hide it like Joan or Meg,
In petticoats slufTd or quilted ?
Not she I 'twas her convalescent whim
To dazzle the world with her precious limbj—
Nay, to go a little high-kilted.
So cards were sent for that sort of mob
Where Tartars a«d Africans hob^and-nob,
And the Cherokee talks of his cab and csob
To Polish or Lapland lovers^
Cards like that hieroglyphical call
To a geographical Fancy Ball
On the recent Post-Office covers.
For if Lion-hunters — and great ones toc^^
Would mob a savage from Latakoo,
i Or squeeze for a glimpse of Prince Le Boa,
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 137
That unfortunate Sandwich scion-^
Hundreds of first-rate people, no doubt,
Would gladly, madly, rush to a rout,
That promised a Golden Lion !
HEB FANCY BAIiLi.
Of all the spirits of evil fame,
That hurt the soul, or injure the frame.
And poison what's honest and hearty.
There's none more needs a Mathew to preach
A cooling, antiphlogistic speech.
To praise and enforce
A temperate course.
Than the Evil Spirit of Party.
60 to the House of Commons, or Lords,
And they seem to be busy with simple words
In their popular sense or pedantic —
But, alas ! with their cheers, and sneers, an4Jeers,
They're really busy, whatever appears,
Putting peas in each other's ears.
To drive their enemies frantic !
Thus Tories love to worry the Whigs,
Who treat them in turn like Schwalbach pigs,
Giving them lashes, thrashes, and digs.
With their writhing and pain delighted —
But after all that's said, and more,
^The malice and spite of Party are poor
To the malice and spite of a party next door.
To a party not invited.
On with the cap and out with the light,
Weariness bids the world good-night.
At least for the usual season ;
But hark ! a clatter of horses' heels ;
And Sleep and Silence are broken on wheels.
Like Wilful Murder and Treason !
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nn PROSE AND VERSE.
Another crash — ^aiid the Qurimge goes —
Again poor Weariness seeks the repose
That Nature demands imperious ;
But Eeha takes up the' burden now,
With a rattling chorus of row-de-dovir-dow,
Till Silence herself seems making a row.
Like a Quaker gone delirious !
^Tis night— a winter night — and the stars
Are shining like win kin '—Venus and Mara
Are rolling along in their golden cars
Through the sky's serene expansion —
But vainly the stars dispense their rays,
Venus and Mars are lost in the blaze
Of the Kilmanseggs' luminous mansion !
Up jumps Fear in a terrible fright !
His bedchamber windows look so bright,
With light all the Square is glutted !
^p he jumps, like a sole from the pan,
And a tremor sickens his inward man,
For he feels as only a gentleman can,
WI^o thinks he's being *' gutted,"
Again Fear settles, all snug and warm ;
But only to dream of a dreadful storm
From Autumn's sulphurous locker ;
.But the only electric body that falls.
Wears a negative coat, and [jositive smalls,
And draws the peal that so appals
From the Kilmanseggs' brazen knocker?
^Tis Curiosity's Benefit night —
And perchance 'tis the English Second-Sight,
But whatever it be, so be it —
As the friends and guests of Miss Kilmansegg
Cn>wd in to look at her Golden Leg,
As many more
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER FRECIODS LEG. 139
Mob round the door
To see them goiog to see it !
In they go — in jackets, and cloaks^
Plumes, and bonnets, turbans, and toques,
As if to a Congress of Nations :
Greeks and Malays, with daggers and dirks,
Spaniards, Jews, Chinesej and Turks —
Some like origitial foreign works.
But mostly like bad translations.
In they go, and to work like a pack,
Juan, Moses J and Shacabac,
Tom, and Jerry, and Spring-heelM Jaek,
For some of low Fancy are lovers —
Skirting, zigzagging, casting about.
Here and there, and in and out.
With a crush, and a rush, for a full-bodied rout
Is one of the stiffest of covers-
In they went, and hunted about,
Open -mouthed J like chub and trout,
And some with the upper Up thrust out,
Like that fish for routing, a barbel—
While Sir Jacob stood to welcome the crowd,
And rubbed his hands, and smiled aloud,
And bow'd, and bow'd, and bow^d, and bow*d,
Like a man who is sawing marble.
For Princea were there, and Noble Peers ;
Dukes descending from Norman spears ;
Earls that dated from early years ;
And Lords in vast variety —
Besides the Gentry, both new and old —
For people who stand on legs of gold.
Arc sure to stand well with society.
** But where — where — where 1" with one accord
Cried Moses and Mufti, Jack and my Lord,
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140 PKOSE AND VERSE.
Wang-FoDg and II Bondocani —
When slow, and heavy, and dead as a dump,
They heard a foot begin to stumpj
Thump ! lump I
Lump [ thump f
Like the Spectre in *' Don Giovanni P
And lo ! the Heiresa, Miss Kilmansegg,
With her splendid, brilliantj beautiful leg.
In the garb of aGodde&s olden —
Like chaste Diana going to hunt.
With a golden spear — ^which of course was blunt,
And a tunic loopM up to a gem in front.
To show the Leg that was Golden I
Gold ! still gold [ her Crescent behold,
That should be silver, hut would he gold ;
And her robe^s auriferous spangles !
Her golden stomacher — how siie would melt ?
Her golden quiverj and golden belt.
Where a golden bugle dangles [
And her jewell'd Garter? Oh, Sin I Oh, Shame!
Let Pride and Vanity bear the blame,
That bring such blots on female fame I
Bat lo be a true recorder,
Besidcg its thin transparent aluflT,
The tunic was loop'd quite high enough
To give a glimpse of the Order f
But what have sin or shame to do
With a Golden Leg — and a stout one too ?
Away with all Prudery's panics I
That the precious metal, by thick and thm>
Will cover square acres of land or sin,
Is a fact made plain
Again and again,
I In morals as well as Mechanics.
L
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 141
A few, indeed, of her proper sex,
Who seem'd to feel her foot on their necks,
And fear'd their charms would meet with checks
From so rare and splendid a blazon —
A few cried « fie !"— and " forward "—and " bold !"
And said of the Leg it might be gold,
But to them it looked like brazen !
'Twas hard they hinted for flesh and blood.
Virtue, and Beauty, and all that's good.
To strike to mere dross their topgallants —
But what were Beauty, or Virtue, or Worth,
Gentle manners, or gentle birth.
Nay, what the most talented head on earth
To a Leg worth fifty Talents !
But the men sang quite another hymn
Of glory and praise to the precious Limb —
Age, sordid Age, admired the whim.
And its indecorum pardon'd —
While half of the young — ay, more than half —
Bow'd down and worshipped the Grolden Calf,
Like the Jews when their hearts were harden'd,
A Grolden Leg ! what fancies it fired !
What golden wishes and hopes inspired !
To give but a mere abridgment —
What a leg to leg-bail Embarrassment's serf!
What a leg for a Leg to take on the turf!
What a leg for a marching regiment !
A Golden Leg ! — ^whatever Love sings,
'Twas worth a bushel of « Plain Gold Rings "
With which the Romantic wheedles.
'Twas worth all the legs in stockings and socks —
'Twas a leg that might be put in the Stocks,
N.B. — ^Not the parish beadle's !
And Lady K. nid-nodded her head,
Lapp'd in a turban fancy-bred,
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142 PROSE AND YEESB.
Just like a love-apple, huge and red|
Some MuasuU womanish mystery ;
But whatever she meant
To represent,
She talked like the Muse of History,
She told how the filial leg was lost ;
And then how much the gold one coat ;
"With its weight to a Trojan fraction ;
And how it took off, and haw it put oa ;
And caird on Devil, Duke^ and DoOj
Mahomet, Moses^ and Prester John,
To notice its beautiful action.
And then of the Leg she went in quest ;
And led it whore the light was heat ;
And made it lay itself up to rest
In postures ior painters' studies;
It cost more tricks and trouble by half.
Than it takes to exhibit a Six-Legg'd Calf
To a boothful of country Cuddiea*
Nor yet did the Heiress herself omit
The arts that help to make a hit, ^
And preserve a prominent station.
She talked and laugh'd far more than her share ;
And took a part in " Rich and Rare
Were the gems she wore '" — and the gems were there,
Like a Song with an Illustration*
She even stood up with a Count of France
To dance — ^alas ! the measures we dance
When Vanity play a the Piper !
Vanity, Vanity, apt to betray,
And lead all sorts of legs astray,
"Wood, or metal, or human clay, —
Since Satan first playM the Viper I
But first she doiF'd her hunting gear.
And favor'd Tnm Tug with her golden
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MISS KTLMANSEGG AKD HER PEECIOUS LEG. 143
To row with down the river —
A Bonze had her golden bow to hold,
A Hermh her belt and bugle of gold ;
And an Abbot her golden quiver.
And then a space was clear'd on the floor,
And she walk'd the Minuet de la Coitr,
With all the pomp of a Pompadour ;
But although ahe began andante j
Conceive the faces of all the Rout,
When she finished off with a whirligig bout.
And the Precioua Leg stuck stiffly out
Like the leg of a Figurante /
So the courtly dance was goldenly donej
And golden opinioQs, of course, it won
From all different sorts of people —
Chiming, ding-doDg, with ilattering phrase,
In one vociferous peal of praise,
Like the peal that rings on Royal days
From Loyalty's parish-steeple.
And yet, had the leg been one of those
That dance for bread in flesh-color'd hoee,
With Rosina's pastoral bevy,
The jeers it had met,^£he shouts ! the scoff!
The cutting advice to " lake itself off,"
For sounding but half so heavy.
Had it been a leg like those, perchauee,
That teach little girls and boys to dance,
To set, poussette, recede^ and advance.
With the steps and figures most proper, —
Had it hoppM for a weekly or quarterly sum,
How little of praise or grist would have come
To a mill with such a hopper !
But the Leg was none of those limbs forlorn —
Bartcniig capers and hops for com —
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144 PROSE AND VERSE.
That meet mth public hissea and scorn.
Or the morning journal denounces —
Had it pleas'd to caper from mom till dusk,
There was all the music of ** Money Must "
In its ponderoii;^ bangs at^d bounces.
But hark ! — ^as slow as the strokes of a pump,
Lump, thump !
Thump^ lump I
As the Giant of Castle Otranto might stump
To a lower room from an upper —
Down she goes with a noisy dint,
For taking the crimson turban's hint,
A noble Lord at the Head of the Miat
Is leading the Leg to supper !
But the supper, alas ! must rest untold,
With its bla^e of light and its gUtter of gold,
For to paint that scene of glamor.
It would need the Great En chanter '^s charm.
Who weaves over Palace, and Cot, and Farm,
An arm like the Goldbeater's Golden Arm
That wields a Golden Hannner,
He — only HE — could fitly state
THE MASSIVE SERVICE OF GOLDEN PLATE,
With the profHsr phrase and expansion —
The Rare Selection of FOREIGN WINES—
The ALPS OF ICE and MOUNTAINS OF PINES,
The punch in OCEANS and sugary shrines,
The TEMPLE OF TASTE from GUNTER'S DE-
SIGNS—
In short, all that WEALTH with A FEAST GOra-
^ bines,
In a SPLENDID FAMILY MANSION.
Suffice it each maskM outlandish guest
Ate and drank of the very best,
Acoordiog to critical conaers—
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 14$
And then they pledged the Hostess and Host,
But the Golden Leg was the standing toast.
And as somebody swore,
Walk'd off with more
Than its share of the <' Hips V* and honors !
rf
Full glasses I beg ! —
Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg !"
And away went the bottle careering !
Wine in bumpers ! and shouts in peals !
Till the Clown didn't know his head from his heels,
The Mussulman's eyes danced two-some reels.
And the Quaker was hoarse with cheering !
HEB DREAM.
Miss Kilmansegg took off her leg,
And laid it down like a cribbage-peg.
For the Rout was done and the riot :
The Square was hush'd ; not a sound was heard ;
The sky was grey, and no creature stirrM,
Except one little precocious bird.
That chirp'd — and then was quiet.
So still without, — so still within ; —
It had been a sin
To drop a pin —
So intense is silence after a din,
It seem'd like Death's rehearsal !
To stir the air no eddy came ;
And the taper burnt with as still a flame.
As to flicker had been a burning shame.
In a calm so universal. ^
The time for sleep had come at last ;
And there was the bed, so soft, so vast.
Quite a field of Bedfordshire clover ;
Softer, cooler, and calmer, no doubt,
11
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146 PROSE AND YERSE.
From the piece of work just ravelled out,
I For one of the pleasures of having a rout
* Is the pleasure of having it oven
No sordid pallet, or truckle mean,
Of straw, and rug, and tatters unclean ;
But a splendid, gilded, carved machincj
That waa fit for a Royal Chamher,
On the top was a gorgeous golden wreath ;
And the damask curtains hung beneath,
Like clouds of crimson and amber.
* Curtainsj held up by two little plump things.
With golden bodies and golden wings, —
Mere fins for such solidities —
Two Cupids, in short,
Of the regular sort.
But the housemaid called them " CupiditieSi"
No patchwork quilt, all seams and scars,
But velvet, powdered witli golden stars, ,
A fit mantle for iVi^Af-Commandera !
And the pillow, as white as snow undimmM,
And as cool as the pool that the breeze has skimm'd,
Was cased in the fmes^t cambric, and trimm'd
With the costliest lace of Flanders.
And the bed— Of the Eider's softest down,
Twas a place to revel, to smother, to drown
In a bliss inferred by the Poet }
For if ignorance he indeed a blissj
What blessed ignorance equals this,
To sleep— and not to know it ?
1 Oh, bed ? oh, bed ! delicious bed !
1 That heaven upon earth to the weary head ;
But a place that to name would be ill-bredj
To the head with a wakeful trouble —
'Tis held by such a different lease I
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MISS KILMANSECiG AND HER PKECIOUS LEG.
U7
To one, a place of ft m fort and peace,
All stuffy with the down of stubble geese,
To another with only the stubble I
To one J a perfect Halcyon nest,
All calm, and balm, and quiet, and rest.
And soft as the fur of the eouy —
To another^ so restless far body and head,
That the bed seems borrowed from Nettlebed,
And the pillow from Stratford the Stony !
To the happy, a firat- class carriage of ease,
To the Land of Nod, or where you please ;
But, alas ! for the watchers and weepers,
Who turn, and turoj and turn again.
But turn, and turUj and turn in vain, ^
With an anxious brain,
And thoughts in a train
That does not run upon sleepers i
Wide awake as the mousing owl,
Night-hawk, or other nocturnal fowl, —
But more profitless vigils keeping, —
Wide awake in the dark they stare.
Filling with phantoms the vacant air,
*As if that Crook'Back*d Tyrant Care
Had plotted to kill them sleeping.
And oh! when the blessed diurnal light
Is quench'd by the providential night,
To render our slumber more certain,
Pity, pity the wretches that weep.
For they must be wretched who cannot sleep
When God himself draws the curtain!
The careful Betty the pillow beats,
And airs the blankets, and smoothes the sheets.
And gives the mattress a shaking—
But vainly Betty performs her part,
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If a ruffled head and a rumpled heart
As well as the couch want making.
There's Morbid, all hil^, and verjuice^ and nerves.
Where other piriopio would make preserves,
He turns hia fruits into piekles :
Jealousj envious, and fretful hy day,
At night, to hia own sharp fancies a prey,
He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way,
Tormenting himself with his prickles.
But a chiy — that bids the world good night
In downright earnest and cuts h quite^ —
A Cherub no Art can eopyj —
I *Tis a perfect picture to see Inrn lie
J As if he had supp'd on dormouse pie
I (An ancient classical dish by the by)
\ With a sauce of syrup of poppy.
Oh, bed ! hod ! bed I delieioMS bed !
Tliat hcav'n upon earth to the weary head,
Whether lofty or low its condition !
Bat instead of putting our plagues on shelves^
In our blankets how often we toss ourselves,
Or are tossM by such allegorical elves
As Fridej IlatOj Greed, and Ambition I
The independent Miss Kilmansegg
Took ofl* her independent Leg
And laid it beneath her pillow,
And then on the bed her frame she cast.
The time for repse had come at last^
But long, long, after the storm is past
Rolls the turbid, turbulent billow.
No part she had in vulgar cares
That belong to common household afFairs —
Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs
Who lie with a shrewd surmising
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 149
That while they are couchant (a bitter cup !)
Their bread and butter are getting up,
And the coals— confound them ! — are rising.
No fear she had her sleep to postpone,
Like the crippltd Widuvv' who weeps alone,
Aod caunot make a doze her own,
For the dread that mayhap on tlie morrow.
The true and Chrigtian reading to balk,
A broker will take up her bed and walk,
By way of curing her sorrow*
No cause like these she had to bewail t
For the breath of applause had blovirn a galcj
And winds from that quarter seldom fail
To cause some human commotion ;
But whene%'er such breezes coincide
With the very spring-tide
Of human pride,
There's no such swell on the ocean \
Peace, and ease, and slumber lost^
She turnM, and roU'dj and tumbled, and toesM,
Whh a tutntilt that would not settle:
A common case, indeed, with such
As have too Uttlej or think too much.
Of the precious and glittering metal.
Gold ! — she saw at her golden foot
Tlie Peer whose tree had an olden root.
The Proud, the Great, the Learned to boot.
The handsome, the gay, and the witty —
The Man of Science — of Arms — of Art,
The man w^ho deals but at Pleasure's^ mart,
And the man who deals in the City.
Gold, still gold — and true to the mould I
In the very scheme of her dream it told ;
For, by magical transmutation,
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150. PROSE AND VERSE.
From her Leg through her body it seem'd to go,
Till, gold above, and gold below,
She was gold, all gold, from her little gold toe
To her organ of Veneration !
And still she retain'd, through Fancy's art,
The Golden Bow, and the Golden Dart,
With which she had played a Goddei^'s part
In her recent glorification.
And still, like one of the self-same brood.
On a Plinth of the self-same metal she stood
For the whole world's adoration.
And hymns and incense around her rollM,
From Golden Harps and Censers of Gold, —
For Fancy in dreams is as uncontroll'd
As a horse without a bridle :
What wonder, then, from all checks exempt,
If, inspired by the Golden Leg, she dreamt
She was turn'd to a Golden Idol ?
HER COURTSHIP.
When leaving Eden's happy land
The grieving Angel led by the hand
Our banish'd Father and Mother,
Forgotten amid their awful doom.
The tears, the fears, and the future's gloom.
On each brow was a wreath of Paradise bloom.
That our Parents had twined for each other.
It was only while sitting like figures of stone.
For the grieving Angel had skyward fiown.
As they sat, those Two, in the world alone.
With disconsolate hearts nigh cloven,
That scenting the gust of happier hours.
They look'd around for the precious flow'rs,
And lo ! — a last relic of Eden's dear bow
The chaplet that Love had woven !
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 151
And still, when a pair of Lovers meet,
There's a sweetness in air, unearthly sweet,
That savors still of that happy retreat
Where Eve by Adam was courted :
Whilst the joyous thrush, and the gentle Dove,
Woo'd their mates in the boughs above,
And the Serpent, as yet, only sported.
Who hath not felt that breath in the air,
A perfume and freshness strange and rare,
A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere.
When young hearts yearn together ?
All sweets below, and all sunny above,
Oh ! there's nothing in life like making love,
Save making hay in fine weather ! '
Who hath not found amongst his flow'rs
A blossom too bright for this world of ours.
Like a rose among snows of Sweden ?
But to turn again to Miss Balmansegg,
Where must love have gone to beg, •
If such a thing as a Golden Leg
Had put its foot in Eden !
And yet— to tell the rigid truth —
Her favor was sought by Age and Youth —
For the prey will find a prowler !
She was followed, flatter'd, courted, address'd,
Woo'd, and coo'd, and wheedled, and press'd.
By suitors from North, South, East, and West,
Like that Heiress, in Song, Tibbie Fowler !
But, alas ! alas ! for the Woman's fate,
Who has from a mob to choose a mate !
'T is a strange and painful mystery !
But the more the eggs, the worse the hatch ;
The more the fish, the worse the catch ;
The more the sparks, the worse the match ;
Is a fact in Woman's history.
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152 PROSE AND VERSE.
Give her between a brace to pick,
And, mayhap, with luck to help the trick.
She will take the Faustus, and leave the Old Nick —
But her future bliss to baffle.
Amongst a score let her have a voice.
And she'll have as little cause to rejoice,
Aa if she had won the '' Man of her choice "
In a matrimonial raffle !
Thus, even thus, with the Heiress and Hope,
Fulfilling the adage of too much rope.
With so ample a competition.
She chose the least wortiiy of all the group.
Just as the vulture makes a stoop,
And singles out from the herd or troop
The beast of the worst condition.
A Foreign Count — who came incog..
Not under a cloud, but under a fog,
In a Calais packet's fore-cabin,
To charm some lady British-born, /
With his eyes as black as the fruit of the thorn.
And his hooky nose, and his beard half-shom.
Like a half-converted Rabbin.
And because the Sex confess a charm
In the man who has slash'd a head or arm,
Or has been a throat's undoing,
He was dress'd like one of the glorious trade.
At least when Glory is off parade,
With a stock, and a frock, well trimm'd with braid.
And frogs — that went a- wooing.
Moreover, as Counts are apt to do.
On the left-hand side of his dark surtout.
At one of those holes that buttons go through
(To be a precise recorder),
A ribbon he wore, or rather a scrap.
About an inch of ribbon mayhap.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 133
That one of his rivals, a whimsical chap,
Described as his " Retail Order."
And then — and much it help'd his chance-—
He could sing, and play first fiddle, and dance,
Perform charades, and Proverbs of France —
Act the tender, and do the cruel ;
For amongst his other killing parts.
He had broken a brace of female hearts,
And murder'd three men in a duel ?
Savage at heart, and false of tongue.
Subtle with age, and smooth to the young,
Like a snake in his coiling and curling —
Such was the Count — to give him a niche —
Who came to court that Heiress rich.
And knelt at her foot— one needn't say which —
Besieging her castle of Sterling,
With pray'rs and vows he open'd his trench.
And plied her with English, Spanish, and French,
In phrases the most sentimental :
And quoted poems in High and Low Dutch,
With now and then an Italian touch.
Till she yielded, without resisting much,
To homage so continental.
And then the sordid bargain to close,
With a miniature sketch of his hooky nose.
And his dear dark eyes, as black as sloes.
And his beard and whiskers as black as those.
The lady's consent he requited —
And instead of the lock that lovers beg.
The count received from Miss Balmansegg
A model, in small, of her Precious Leg —
And so the couple were plighted !
', But, oh ! the love that gold must crown !
Better — better, the love of the clown,
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154 PROSE AND VERSE.
Who admires his lass in her Sunday gown,
As if all the fairies had dress'd her !
Whose brain to no crooked thought gives birth,
Except that he never will part on earth
^} With his true love's crooked tester !
{
Alas ! for the love that's link'd with gold !
/ Better — better, a thousand times told —
More honest, happy and laudable,
■ The downright loving of pretty Cis,
V Who wipes her lips, though there's nothing amiss,
} And takes a kiss, and gives a kiss,
V In which her heart is audible !
Pretty Cis, so smiling and bright,
Who loves as she labors, with all her might,
And without any sordid leaven !
Who blushes as red as haws and hips,
Down to her very finger-tips,
For Roger's blue ribbons — ^to her, like strips
Cut out of the azure of Heaven !
HER MARRIAGE.
'T was morn — ^a most auspicious one !
From the Golden East, the Golden Sun
Came forth his glorious race to run.
Through clouds of most splendid tinges ;
Clouds that lately slept in shade.
But now seem'd made
Of gold brocade,
With magnificent golden fringes.
Grold above, and gold below,
The earth reflected ihe golden glow.
From river, and hill, and valley :
Gilt by the golden light of mom.
The Thames — it look'd like the Golden Horn,
And the Barge, that carried coal or com.
Like Cleopatra's Gallev !
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 155
Bright as clusters of Golden- rod j
Suburban poplar^s began to nod,
With extempore splendor furnish'd ;
While Loudon was bright with glittering clocks.
Golden dragons, and Golden cocks^
And above them a 11^
The dome of St, Paul,
With its Golden Cross and its Golden Ball^
ShoBe out as if newly burnisVd I
And lo I for Golden Hours and Joys,
Troops of glittering Golden Boys
Danced along with a jocund noise^
And their gilded emblems carried I
In short, 't was the year's most Golden Day^
By mortals caird the First of May,
When Miss Kilmanseggj
Of the Golden Legj
With a Golden Ring was married !
And thousands of children , women j and nielli
Counted the clock from eight till ten.
From St. James's sonorous steeple ;
For nest to that interesting jobj
The hanging of Jack, or Bill, or Bob,
There's nothing so draws a London mob
As the noosing of very rich people.
And a treat it was for a mob to behold
The Bridal Carriage that blazed with gold I
And the Footmen tall, and the Coachman bold,
In liveries so resplendent^
Coats you wonderM to see in place,
They seem'd so rich with golden lace,
That they might have been independent,
Coats that made those menials proud
Gaze with scorn on the diogy crowd,
From their gilded elevations j
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Not to forget that saucy lad
(Ostentation's favorite cad),
The Page, who look'd, so splendidly clad,
Like a Page of the "Wealth of Nations."
But the Coachman carried off the state,
With what was a Lancashire body of late
Tum'd into a Dresden Figure ;
With a bridal Nosegay of early bloona,
About the size of a birchen broom,
And so huge a White Favor, had Gog been Groom
He would not have worn a bigger.
And then to see the Groom ! the Count !
With Foreign Orders to such an amount,
And whiskers so wild — nay, bestial ;
He seem'd to have borrow M the shaggy hair
As well as the Stars of the Polar Bear,
To make him look celestial !
And then — Great Jove ! — the struggle, the crush,
The screams, the heaving, the awful rush,
The swearing, the tearing, and fighting,
The hats and bonnets smash'd like an egg —
To catch a glimpse of the Golden Leg,
Which, between the steps and Miss Kilmansegg,
Was fully displayed in alighting !
From the Golden Ankle up to the Knee
There it was for the mob to see !
A shocking act had it chanced to be
A crooked leg or a skinny :
But although a magnificent veil she wore,
Such as never was seen before,
In case of blushes she blush'd no more
Than George the First on a guinea !
Another step, and lo ! she was launchM !
All in white, as Brides are hianch'dy
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MISS EILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG, 157
With a wreath of most wonderful splendor —
Diamonds, and pearls, so rich in device,
Thatj accoriiing to calculation nice,
Her Jiead was worth as royal a price
As the head of the Young Pretender,
Bravely she shone — ^aad shone the more
Ab she saird through the crowd of squalid and poor.
Thief, beggar, and tatterdemalion —
Led by t lie Count, with sloe ^ black eyes
Bright with triumph, and same surprise.
Like Anson t»n making sure of his prize
The famous Mexican Galleon f
*
Anon came Lady K,, with her face
Quite made up to act with grace,
But she cut the performance shorter;
For instead of pacing stately and stiff,
At the stare of the vulgar she took a miff.
And ran, full speed j into Churchy as if
To get married before her daughter*
But Sir Jacob walk'd more slowly, and bow'd
Right and left to the gaping crowd.
Wherever a glance was seizable \
For Sir Jacob thought he bowd like a Guelph,
And therefore bowM to imp and elf.
And would gladly have made a bow to himself,
, Had such a bow bee:3 feasible.
And last — and not the least of the sight.
Six ^' Handsome Fortunes,^^ all in white
Came to help in the marriage rite, —
And rehearse their own hymeneal a ;
And then the bright procession to close,
They were followed by just as many Beaux,
Quite iine enough for Ideals*
Glittering men and splendid dames.
Thus they entered the porch of St, James',
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158 PROSE AND VERSE.
Pursued by a thunder of laughter:
For the Beadle was forced to intervene,
For Jim the Crow, and his Mayday Queen,
With her gilded ladle, and Jack i' the Green,
Would fain have foUow'd after !
Beadle-like he hush'd the shout ;
But the temple was full " inside and out,"
And a buzz kept buzzing all round about.
Like bees when the day is sunny —
A buzz universal that interfered
With the rite that ought to have been revered,
As if the couple already were smear'd
With Wedlock's treacle and honey !
Yet wedlock's a very awful thing !
'Tis something like that feat in the ring
Which requires good nerve to do it —
When one of a " Grand Equestrian Troop "
Makes a jump at a gilded hoop,
Not certain at all
Of what may befall
After his getting through it !
But the Count he felt the nervous work
No more than any polygamous Turk,
Or bold piratical schipper,
Who, during his buccaneering search.
Would as soon engage " a hand " in church
As a hand on board his clipper !
And how did the bride perform her part ?
Like any Bride who is cold at heart.
Mere snow with the ice's glitter ;
What but a life of winter for her !
Bright but chilly, alive without stir.
So splendidly comfortless, — just like a Fir
When the frost is severe and bitter.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. ISA
Such were th^ future maa and wife !
Whose bale or bliss to the end of life
A few short words were to settle —
Wilt thou have thia woman?
I will — and then.
Wilt thou have this man ?
I will, and Amen—
And those Two were one Flesh, in the Angels' keoj
Except one Leg — that was metal.
Then the names were signed — and kissM the kiss:
And the Bride, who came from her coach a Miss^
As a Countess walkM to her carriage —
Whilst Hymen preen'd his plumes like a dove,
And Cupid fluttered his wings above;
In the shape of a fly — as little a Love
As ever loak'd in at a marriage I
Another crash — and away they dash'd,
And the gilded carriage and footmen flashed
From the eyes of the gaping people —
Who turnM to gaze at the too-and-heel
Of the Golden Boys beginning a reel,
To the merry sound of a weddiog peal
From St. James's musical steeple.
Those wedding-bells ! those wedding. bells \
How sweetly they sound in pastoral dells
From a towV in an ivy-green jai:ket I
But town-made joys how dearly they cost;
And after all are tumbled and tost,
Like a peal from a London steeple, and lost
In town- made riot and racket.
The wedding-peal, how sweetly it peals
With grass or heather beneath our heels, —
For bells are Mosie's laughter!—
But a London peal, well mingled, be sure.
With vulgar noises and voices impure*
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What a harah and discordant overture,
To the Harmony meant to oome after !
But hence with Discord — perchance, too soon
To cloud the face of the honeymoon
With a dismal occultation !
Whatever Fate's concerted trick,
The Countess and Count, at the present nick,
Have a chicken and not a crow to pick
At a sumptuous Cold Collation.
A Breakfast — no unsubstantial mess,
But one in the style of Grood Queen Bess,
Who, — hearty as hippocampus,—
Broke her fast with ale and beef.
Instead of toast and the Chinese leaf,
And in lieu of anchovy — ^grampus !
A breakfast of fowl, and fish, and flesh,
Whatever was sweet, or salt, or fresh ;
With wines the most rare and curious —
Wines, of the richest flavor and hue ;
With fruits from the worlds both Old and New ;
And fruits obtained before they were due
At a discount most usurious.
For wealthy palates there be that scout
What is in season, for what is out,
And prefer all precocious savor :
For instance, early green peas, of the sort
That costs some four or five guineas a quart :
Where the Mint is the principal flavor.
And many a wealthy man was there.
Such as the wealthy City could spare,
To put in a portly appearance —
Men whom their fathers had helpM to gild :
And men who had had their fortunes to build,
And — ^much to their credit — ^had richly fill'd
Their purses by pursy-verance.
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEC 161
Men, hy popular wimor at least,
Not the last to enjoy a feast \
And truly they were not idle f
Luckier far than the chestnut tits.
Which, down at the doorj stood champing their bitts.
At a different sort of bridle*
For the time was come^ — and the whiskered Count
HelpM his Bride in the carriage to mount.
And fain would the Muse deny itj
But the crowd, including two butchers in blue
(The regular killing Whitechapel hue),
Of her Precious Calf had as ample a view,
As if they had come to buy it t
Then away f away ! with all the speed
That golden spurs can give to the steedj —
Both Yellow Boys and Guineas Lodeedj
Concurr'd to urge the cattle —
Away they went, with favors white,
Yellow jackets, and pannels bright.
And left the mob, like a mob at night.
Agape at the sound of a rattle.
Away? away! they rattled and rolVd,
The Count, and Ins Bride, and her Leg of Gold —
That faded charm to the charmer !
Away, — through Old Brentford rang the din.
Of wheels and heel a, on their way to win
That hill, named after one of her kin.
The Hill of the Golden Farmer f
Gold, still Gold— it flew like dust f
It tippM the post-boy, and paid the trust ;
In each open palm it was freely thrust ;
There was nothing but givirfg and taking!
And if gola could ensure the future hour*
What hopes attended that Bride to her bow^r,
But alas I even hearts with a four-horse pow'r
Of opulence end in breaking I
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HJCH BOMETMpOPT-
The moon— the moon, so ailver and cold,
Her fickle temper has oft been told,
Now shady ^now bright and sunny- —
But of all the lunar things that cliange.
The one that shows most fickle and strange,
And takes the most eccentric range
Is the moon — so called — of honey !
To some a fulKgrown orb reveaPd,
As big and as round as Nerval's shield,
And as bright as a burner Bude -lighted ;
To others as dull, and dingy, and damp,
As any oleaginous lamp,
Of the regular old parochial stamp,
In a London fog benighted.
To the loving, a bright and constant sphere.
That makes earth's commonest scenes appear
All poetic, romantic and lender :
Hanging with jewels a cabbage -stump.
And investing a common poat^ or a pump,
A currant-bush, or a gooseberry clump,
With a halo of dreamlike splendor.
A sphere such as shone from Italian skies^
In Juliet's dear, dark, liquid eyes.
Tipping trees with its argent braveries —
And to couples not favor'd with Fortune's boons,
One of the most delightful of moons,
For it brightens their pewter platters and spoons
Like a silver service of Savory's I
For all is bright, and beauteous, and clear.
And the meanest thing most precious and dear.
When the magic of love is present :
Love, that lends a sweetness and grace
To the hunfjblest spot and the plainest fac&—
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MISS K[LMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 1*53
Love that sweetens sugarless lea,
Aijd makes conioQiment and joy agree
With the coarsest boarding and bedding r
Love thai no golden ties can attach.
But nestles under the humblest thatch.
And will fly away from an Emperor's match
To dance at a Penny Wedding \
Oh, happy, happy, thrice happy state,
When such a brig lit Planet governs the fate
Of a pair of united lovers f
''Tis tbeirs, In spite of the Serpent's hiss.
To enjoy the pure primeval kiss.
With as much of the old original bliss
As mortality ever recovers I
There's strength in double joints, no doubtj
In double X Ale, and Dublin Stautj
That the single sorts know nothing about —
And a fist is strongest when doubled —
And double aquafortis, of course,
And double soda- water, perforce,
Are the strongest that ever bubbled !
There^s double beauty whenever a Swan
Swims on a Lake, with her double thereon r
And ask the gardener, Luke or John,
Of the beauty of double-blowing —
A double dahlia delights the eye i
And it^s far the loveliest sight in the sky
When a double rainbow is glowing I
There's warmth in a pair of double soles j
As well as a double allowance of coals —
In a coat that is doubl e- breasted—
In double windows and double doors ;
And a double U wind is blest by scores
For its warmth to the tender- chested.
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There's a two- fold sweetness in double pipes,
And a double barrel and double enipes
Give the sportsman a duplicate pleasure :
There's doable safety in double locks ;
And double letters bring cash for the box ;
And all the world knows that double Jun>aka
Are gentility's double measure.
There's a double sweetness in double rhymes.
And a double at Whist and a double Times
III profit are certainly double —
By doubling, the Hare contrives to escape :
And all seamen delight in a doubled Cape,
And a doublc^reefd topsail in trouble.
There's a double chuck at a double chin,
And of course there's a double pleasure therein^
If the parties were brought to telling :
And however our Dennises take offence,
A double meaning shows double sense:
And if proverbs tell truth,
A double tooth
Ja Wisdom's adopted dwelling !
But double wisdom, and pleasure, and sense,
Beauty, respect, strength, comfort, and thence
Through whatever the list discovers,
They are all in the double blessedness summ'dj
Of what was formerly double -drummed,
The Marriage of two true Lovers !
Now the Kilniansegg Moon — it must be told —
Though instead of silver it tipp'd with gold —
Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold
And before its days were at thirty,
Such gloomy clouds began to collect,
With an ominons ring of ill effect,
As gave but too much cause to expect
Such weather as seamen call dirty I
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MISS EILMANSEGO AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. HSI
And yet the moon was the " Young May Moon/ '
And the scented hawthorn had blos^m'd soon,
And the thrush and the black hird were singing —
The snow -while lambs were skippujg in play,
And the bee was humming a tune all day
To flowers as welcome as flowers in May^
And the trout in the stream was springing!
But what were the hues of the blooming earthy
It3 scents — it!3 sounds — or the music and mirth
Of its furr'd or its fealher'd creature.s
To a Pair in the world ^a last sordid stage,
Who had never look'd into Nature's page.
And had strange ideas of a Golden Age,
Without any Areadiau features ?
And what were joys of the pastoral kind
To a Bride — town-made — with a heart and mind
With simplicity ever at battle 1 '
A bride of an ostentatious raccj
Whoj thrown in the Golden Farmer's place,
Would have trimm'd her shepherds with golden lace,
And gill the horns of her cattle.
She could not please the pigs with her whim.
And the sheep wouldn't cast their eyes at a limb
For which she had been aueh a martyr :
The deer in the park, amj the colta at grass,
And the cows unheeded let it pass;
And the ass on the common was such an ass.
That he wouldn't have swapped
The thistle he cropped
For her Leg, including the Garter !
She hated lanes, and she hated fields —
She hated all that the countr}^ yields —
And barely knew turnips from clover ;
She hated walking in any shape.
And a country stile was an awkward acrape,
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la* PROSE AND VERSE.
Without the bribe of a mob to gape
At the Leg in clambering over !
O blessed nature, '^O ruij ! O fus !'*
Who cannot sigb for the country thus,
Absorbed In a worldly torpor —
Who does not yearn for its meadow-aweet braath
Untainted by care, and criniej and death,
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath^^
That soul J spite of goldj is a pauper I
But to hail the pearly advent of morn,
x\nd relish the odor fresh from the thorn,
She was far too pampered a madam —
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,
Whilej after ages of sorrovv and wrongs
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,
And all the woes that to man belong,
The lark still carols the self-same song
That he did to the uncnrst Adam !
The Lark ! she had given all Leipsic's flocka
For a Vauxhall tune in a musical box ;
And us for the birds in the thicket,
Tlirush or ousel in leafy nichcj
The linnet or finchj she was far too nch
To care for a Morning Concert to which
8he was welcome without any ticket*
Gold, still gold, hej standard of old.
All pastoral joys were tried by goldj
Or hy fancies golden and crural —
Till ere she had passed one week unblest.
As her agricuhural Uncle's guest,
Her mind was made up and fully imprest
That felicity could not be rural I
And the Count ? — to the snow- while lambs al play,
And all the scents and the sights of May,
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 167
And die birds that warbled their passion,
His earSj and dark eyes^ aiid decided nos(?}
Ware as deaf and as blind and as dull as tbose
That overlook the Bouquet de Rose^ ^
The Huile Antique,
And Parfum Unique,
In a Barber's Temple of Fashion.
To telij indeed, the true extent
Of his rural bias so far it went
As to eovel estates in ring fences—
And for rural lore he had barnM in town
That the count r_v was green, tarn'd up with brown,
And garnished with trees that a man might cut down
Instead of hi& own expenses.
And yet had that fault been his only one,
The Pair might have had few quarrels or none,
For their lust^^s thus far were in common ;
But faults he had that a haughty bride
With a Golden Leg could hardly abide —
Faults that would even have roused the pride
Of a far less melalsome woman I
It was early days indeed for a wife.
In the very spring of her married life,
To be chilled by its wintry weather —
But instead of sitting as Love-Birda do,
Or Hymen's turtles that bill and coo-—
[^njoylog their " moon and honey for two "
They were scarcely seen together !
In vain she sat with her Precious Leg
A little exposed, a la Kilmansegg^
And roird her eyes in their sockets !
: Te left her in spite of her tender regards,
And those loving murmurs described by bards,
For ihe rattling of dice and the ahuifling of cards.
And the poking of balls into pockets I
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198 PROSE AND VERSE.
Moreover he lovtnl tlie deepest stake
And the heavio.st bets the players would make ;
And he drank — the reverse of sparely, —
And he uf^cd .strange cunses that made her fret ■
And when he playM with herself at piqnet.
She foundj to her eo.st,
For she always lost,
Tha t iJii^ C u n t d id n o t eo u n t q u i Ui fa i rl y .
And then ea^ne dark mist rust and doubt,
(tather'd by worming his secrets out j
And slips in his couversatiouii —
FearSj whicli all lier peace destroyed,
That his title was rudl — his cofrers were voin —
And his Fretieli Chateau was in Spain, or emoy'fl
The most airy [>f situations.
But still his hearts] f lie had such a part —
SfiG — only slie — might possess his heart,
And hold his alTcctiorjs in fetters —
Alas! that ]u)p(.», like a crazy ship,
Was forced its anchor and cable to slip
When, seduced by her fcurs, she took a dip
In his private papers and Inters.
Letters that fold of dangerous leagues ;
And notes that hinted as many intrigues
As the Count's in the " Barber of Seville '* —
In short such mysteries came to lights
Tiiat the Counte.s-S-Bride, on the thlrfieth nighu
Woke and started up in alFfi^rht,
And kickM and screaniM ^\ ilh all her mii^dil,
And finally fainted iiw ny outright,
For she dreamt she had rnarrie<l the Devil !
HER MISF.RV.
Who hath not met with iiomemade breads
A heavy conipoujul of putty and lead —
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MISS KILMAKSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. im
Aod home-made wines that rack the head,
^ And home- m ade 1 iq ue u rs and wa te rs ?
Home-made pop that will not foam,
And home-made dishes that drive one from home,
Not to name each mess,
For the face or dress.
Home-made by the homely daughters ?
Home-made physic, tbat sickens the sick ;
Thick for thin and thin for thick ; —
In short each homogeneous trick
For poisoning domesticity ?
And since oar Parents, called the First,
A little family squabhle nnrst,
Of all our evils the worst of the worst
Is home-made infelicity.
There's a Golden Bird that claps its wings,
And dances for joy on its perch, and sings
With a Persian exultation :
For the Snn is shining into the room,
And hrightens up the carpel- bloom j
As if it were new, bran new from the loom.
Or the lone Nun's fabrication.
And thence the glorious radiance flames
On pictures in massy gilded frames —
Enshrining, however, no painted Dames,
But portraits of colts and hi lies —
Pictures hanging on walls which shine.
In spite of the bard*s familiar line,
With clusters of "gilded lilies/*
And still the flooding sunlight shares
Ita lustre with gilded sofas and chairs,
That shine as if freshly burnish'd —
And gilded tables, with glittering stocks
Of gilded china, and golden clocks,
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tW PROSE AND VERSE.
\
Toy, a ad trinket, and musioal box,
That Peace and Paris have fumifih'd.
Aad lo ! with the brlgiitest gleam of all
The glowing sunbeam is seen lo fall
On an object ns rare as splendid —
The golden foot of the Golden Leg
Of the CoLotess — once Misa Kilmansegg —
But there all sunshine is ended.
Her cheek is pale, and her eye is dimj
And downward cast, yet not at the limb,
Once the centre of all speculation ;
But downward drooping in com fortes dearth,
As gloomy thoughta are drawn to the earth —
Whence human sorrows derive their birth —
By a moral gravitation*
Her golden hair is out of its braids.
And her sighs betray the gloomy shades
That her evil plaaet revolves in —
And tears are falling that catch a gleam
So bright aa they drop in the sunny beam,
That tears of aqua^rcgia they seem.
The water thai gold dissolves in I
Yet, not in filial grief were shed
Those tears for a nio therms insanity j
Nor yet because her father was dead,
For the bowing Sir Jacob had bow'd his head
To Death— With his usual urbaoity ;
The waters that down her visage rill'd
Were drops of unrectiiied spirit distill'd
Froaa the limbeck of Pride and Vanity.
Tears that fell alone and uachccktj
Without reliefs and without respect,
Like the fabled pearls that the pigs neglect.
When pigs have that opportunity —
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 171
And of all the griefs that mortals share,
The one that seems tJ:ke hardest to hear
, Is the grief without community.
How blesa'd the heart that has a Mend
A syinpatbiziDg ear to lend
To trouhlee too great to smother ?
For as ale and porter, when fiat, are restored
Till a sparkling bubbling head they aflbrd.
So sorrow is cheered by heing pour'd
Fmm one vessel into another.
But friend or gossip she had not one
To hear I he Vile deeds that the Count had done.
How night after night he rambled ;
And how she had learn'd by sad degrees
That he draokj and smoked, and worse than these,
That he "swindled^ intrigued, and gambled.*'
How he kiss'd the matds^ and sparr'd with John ;
And came to bed with his garments on ,
With other offences as heinous —
And brought strange gentlemen home to dine.
That he said were in the Fancy Line,
And ihey fancied spiriLs instead of wine.
And called her lap-dog " Wenus,*'
Of '* making a book '' how he made a stir,
But never had written a line to herj
Once his idol and Cara Sposa ;
And how he had storm 'd, and treated her ill.
Because she refused lo go down to a mill,
8he didn^t know where, hut remembered still
That the Miller's name wasMendoza.
How often he waked her up at night,
And oftener still by the morning light.
Reeling home from his haunts unlawful ;
Singing songs that shouldn't be aung^
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170 PROSE AND VERSE.
Except by beggars and thieves unhung —
Or volleying oaths, that a foreign tongue
Made still more horrid and awful I
How oft, instead of otto of rose,
With vulgar smells he offended her nose,
From gin J tobacco, and onion f
And then hew wildly he used to stare !
And shake his fist at nothingj and swear, —
And pluck by the handful his shaggy hair,
, Till he look'd like a study of Giant Despair
For a new Edition of fiunyan !
0'
For dice will run the contrary way,
As well is known to all who play,
And cards will conspire as in treason:
And what whh keeping a hunting-box.
Following fox —
Friends iri Oocks,
Burgundies, Hocks,
From London Docks ;
SiuUz's frocks,
Manton aod Nock^s
Barrels and locks.
Shooting blue rocksj
Trainers and jocks,
Buskins and socks,
Pugilistical knocks,
And fighting- cocks,
Tf be found himself short in funds and stocks*
These rhymes will furnish the reason \
His friends, indeed, were falling away— *
Friends who insist on play or pay —
And be fear'd at no very distant day
To be cut by Lord and by cadger.
As one who was gone or going to smash,
For his checks no longer drew the cash,
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MISS KILMAJHSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 178
Because, aa his comrades explained In ilash,
" He had overdrawn bis badger."
Gold, gold — alas ! for the gold
Spent where soul a are bought and sold
Id Vice's Walpurgia revel !
Alas I for muifles, and bulldogs^ and guns.
The leg that walks, and the leg that runs,
All real evils, though Faocy ones,
When they lead to debt, dishoaorj and duns,
Nay, to death, and perchance the devil !
Alas r for the last of a Golden race !
Had she cried her wrongs in the market-place,
She had warrant for all her clamor —
For the worst of rogues, and brutes, and rakes^
Was breaking her heart by constant aches,
With as little remorse as the Paoper who breaks
A flint with a parish hammer I
HER LA^T WIX^.
Now the Precious Leg while cash was flush.
Or the Count's acceptance worth a rush.
Had never excited dissension ;
But no sooaer the stocks begao to fall^
Than, without any ossification at all.
The limb became what people caU
A perfect bone of contention »
For allerM days brought altered ways,
And instead of the complimentary phrase.
So current before her bridal —
The Countess heard, in language low.
That her Precious Leg was precious sloWj
A good 'nn to look at but bad to go,
And kept quite a sum lying idle.
That instead of playing musical airs.
Like Golin's foot in going up- stairs —
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J*'* PROSE AND TERSE,
As the wife in the Scottish ballad declares
It made aa infernal stumping,
Whereas a member of cork, or woodj
Would be lighter and cheaper and quite as good,
Without the unbearable thumping.
Perhaps she thought it a decent thing
To show her calf to cobbler and king,
But Doihing could be absurder —
While none but the crazjr would advertlsa
Their gold before their servants' eyes,
Who of course some night would make it a prize,
By a Shocking and Barbarous Murder.
But spite of hint, and threat, and scoff,
The Leg kept its situation :
For legs are not to he taken off
By a verbal amputation.
And mortals when they take a whim,
The greater the folly the siiffer the limb
That stands upon it or by it — -
So the Countess, then Miss Kilmansegg,
At her marriago refused to stir a peg,
Tili the Lawyers had fastened on her Leg,
As fast as the Law could tie it*
Firmly then— and more firmly yet —
With scorn for scoru, and with threat for thieat,
The Proud One confronted the Cruel :
And loud and bitter the quarrel arose,
Fierce and merciless — one of thost%
With spoken daggers, and looks like blows.
In all but the bloodshed a duel !
Rash, and wild, and wretched, and wrong,
Were the words that came from Weak and Strong,
Till maddened for desperate matters,
Fierce as tigress escaped from her den,
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MISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOITS LEG, 175
She flew to her desk — 'twas open'd — and then,
In the lime it takes to try a pen,
Or the clerk to utter his slow Amen,
Her Will was in fifty tatters I
But the CouDtj instead of curses wild^
Only nodded his head and smiled^
As if at the spleen of an angry child ;
But the calm was deceitful and sinister !
A lull like the lull of the treacherous sea —
For Hate in that moment had sworn to he
The Golden Leg's sole Legatee,
And that very night to adminlfiter I
HER DEATH*
'Tis a stern and startling thing to think
How often mortality stands on the brink
Of its grave without any misgiving :
And yet in this slippery world of strife.
In the stir of human bustle so rife.
There are daily sounds to tell us that Life
Is dying, and Death is living !
Ayj Beauty the Girlj and Love the Boy,
Bright as they are with hope and joy,
How their souls would j^adden inatanterj
To remember that one of those wedding t>ells,
Which ring so merrily through the dells,
Is the same that knells
Our last farewells,
Only broken into a canter I
But breath and blood set doom at naught —
How little the wretched Countess thought,
When at night she unloosed her sandal,
That the Fates had woven her burial -cloth,
And that Death, in the shape of a Death's Head Moth,
Was fluttering round her candle !
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1T« PROSE AND VERSE.
As she look'd at her clock of or-molu,
For the hours she had gone so wearily through
At the end of a day of trial —
How little she saw in her pride of prime
The dart of Death in the Hand of Time-
That hand which moved on the dial !
As she went with her taper up the stair.
How little her swollen eye was aware
That the Shadow which foUow'd was double!
Or when she closed her chamber door,
It was shutting out, and for evermore.
The world — and its worldly trouble.
Little she dreamt, as she laid aside
Her jewels — after one glance of pride —
They were solemn bequests to Vanity —
Or when her robes she began to doff,
That she stood so near to the putting off
Of the flesh that clothes humanity.
And when she quench'd the taper's light.
How little she thought as the smoke took flight
That her day was done — and merged in a night
Of dreams and duration uncertain —
Or, along with her own,
That a Hand of Bone
Was closing mortality's curtain !
But life is sweet, and mortality's blind,
And youth is hopeful, and Fate is kind
In concealing the day of sorrow ;
And enough is the present tense of toil —
For this world is, to all, a stiffish soil —
And the mind flies back with a glad recoil
From the debts not due till to-nx>rrow.
Wherefore else does the Spirit fly
And bid its daily cares good-bye,
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HISS KILMANSEQG AND HER PRECIOUS L£0. m
Along with its daily clothiJig 1
Juat as the felon condemned lo die —
With a very natural loathing—*
Leiiirixig the Sheriff to dream of ropes,
From liis gloomy cell in a vision elopes,
To caper on sunny greens and alopes^
Instead of the dance upon nothing >
Thus, even thus, the Countess sleptj
While Death still nearer and nearer crept.
Like the Thane "^ho smote the sleeping^ —
But her mind was busy with early joysj
Her golden treasures and golden toys,
That flashed a hright
And golden light
Under lids still red with weeping.
The golden doll that she used to hug !
Her ooral of gold, and the golden mug I
Her godfather's golden presenta !
The golden service she had at her meals,
The golden watch j and chain, and seals,
Her golden scissorsj and thread, and reels,
And her golden Hshes and pheasants !
The golden guineas in silken purse —
And the Golden Legends she heard from her nurse.
Of the Mayor in his gilded carriage^-^
And London streets that were paved with gold —
And the Golden Eggs that were laid of old —
With each golden thing
To the golden ring
At her own auriferous Marnage !
And still the golden light of the sun
Through her golden dream appear'd to run
Though the night that roar'd without was one
To terriiy seamen or gipsies — ^
While the moon, as if in maliaious mirths
13
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178 PROSS AND VERSE.
Kept peeping down at the ruffled earth,
As though she enjoyed the tempest's birth,
In revenge of her old eclipses.
But vainly, vainly, the thunder fell,
For the soul of the Sleeper was under a spell
That time had lately embitter'd —
The Count, as once at her foot he knelt-^>-
That Foot which now he wanted to melt !
But — ^hush ! — 'twas a stir at her pillow she felt —
And some object before her glitter'd.
'Twas the Golden Leg f-Hshe knew its gleam !
And up she started, and tried to scream, —
But ev'n in the moment she started-—
Down came the limb with a frightful smash.
And, lost in the universal flash
That her eyeballs made at so mortal a crash.
The Spark, called Vital, departed !
Gold, still gold ! hard, yellow, and cold.
For gold she had lived, and she died for gold — '
By a golden weapon — ^not oaken ;
In the morning they found her all alone—
Stiff, and bloody, and cold as a stone-
But her Leg, the Golden Leg was gone,
And the " Golden Bowl was broken !"
Gold — still gold ! it haunted her yet —
At the Golden Lion the Inquest met —
Its fpreman, a carver and gilder —
And the Jury debated from twelve till three
What the Verdict ought to be,
And they brought it in as Felo de Se,
<< Because her own Leg had killed her!''
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MISS KILMANSEGG AND HER PRECIOUS LEG. 179
HKR MORA!..
Goldr Gold! Gold! Goldf
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten J graven, hammerMj and roU*d;
Heavy to getj and light to hold ;
Hoardedj harter'd^ bought, and sold,
Stolen J borrowed 3 squandered, doled ;
SpuraM by the young, but hugg'd by the c4d
To the very verge of the churchyard raould;
Price of many a crime untold ;
Gold! Goldf Gold! Gold:
Good or bad a thous^d-fold !
How widely its agencies vary —
To save — to ruin — to curse — ^to bless —
As even its minted coins expressj
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary I
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4
ISO PROSE AND VERSE.
FAIR INES.
I.
O SAW ye not feir Iqes ?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest :
She took our daylight with her.
The smiles that we love best,
"With morning blushes on her eheekj
And pearls upon her breast„
II.
turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars un rivalled bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
1 dare not even write I
Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier.
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whispered thee so near !
Were there no bonny dames at homcj
Or no true lovers here.
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear ?
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FAIR INES,
191
I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore.
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners wav'd before ;
And gentle youth and maidens g^jt
And snowy plumes they wore ;
It would have been a beauteous dream,
— If it had been no more I
Alas, alasj fair Ines,
She went away with sungp
With Music waiting on her steps,
And shoutings of the throng ;
But some were sad and felt no mirth,
But only Music^s wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
To her yoti've loved so long.
Farewell, farewell, fair Inea,
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,^
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shore !
The smile that blest one lover's heart
Has broken many more !
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Ua PROSE AND VERSE.
BALLAD.
SpRiKG it is cheery,
Winter is dreary^
Green leaves haog^, but the brown must 0y j
When be'g forsaken,
Witber'd and shaken,
What cao sd old man do but die ?
Love will not clip hinrij
Maids will not lip hinrij
Maud and Marian pass hi eh by ;
Youth it is sunnyj
Age has no honey, —
What can an old man do but die ?
June it wag jolly,
O for its folly I
A dancing leg and a laughing eye ;
Youth may be silly.
Wisdom is chilly, — —
What can an old man do but die ?
Friends they are scanty.
Beggars arc plenty.
If he has followers, 1 know why;
Gold's in his clutches
(Buying him crutches f) —
What can an old man do but die t
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RUTH. ' 183
RUTH.
Sme stood breast high amid tae conij
Clasp'd by the golden light of mom,
Like the sweetheart of the aun^
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn Hush
Deeply ripened ; — such a blush
In the midst of brown was born.
Like red poppies grown with corn,
ILound her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none couTd tell.
But long lashes veil'd a Hght,
That had else been all too bright* ,
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim j —
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks ; —
Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean.
Where I reap thou should st but glean j
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home*
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184 PROSE AND VERSE.
AUTUMN.
The Autumn is old,
The sere leaves are flying : —
He hath gather^ up gold,
And now he is dying ;
Old age, begin sighing !
The vintage is ripe,
The harvest is heaping ;
But some that have sow'd
Have no riches for reaping; —
Poor wretch J fall a weeping!
The year's in the wane,
There is nothing adorning ; —
The night has no eve,
And the day haa no morning ;—
Cold winter gives warning.
The rivers run chill.
The red sun is sinking,
And 1 am grown old.
And life is fast shrinking ;
Here's enow for sad thinking !
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SONG. 185
SONG.
Li\innAiVWW>^>'^
lady, leave thy all ken thread
And flowery tapestrie i
There's living roses on the bush,
And blossoma on the tree ;
Stoop where ihou will, thy careless hand
Some random bud will meet ;
Thou canst not tread, but thou wilt find
The daisy at thy feet.
'Tis like the birthday of the world.
When earth was born in bloom ;
The light is made of many dyes,
The air is all perfume ;
There's crimson huds, and white and hhie-
The very rainbow showers
Have turned to blossoms where they fell,
And sown the eanh with flowers.
There's fairy tulips in the East,
The garden of tjie sun ;
The very streams reflect the hues.
And blossom as they run :
While Morn opes like a crimson rose,
Still wet witli pearly showers ;
Then, lady, leave the silken thread
Thou twinest into flowers I
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I6C PHOSE AND VERSE.
ODE TO MELANCHOLY.
Coi^K, kt us set our careful breasts,
Like FhOomolj against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief.
That makes her accents so forlorn ;
The world has many cruel points,
Wherehy our hosoms have been tornj
And there are dainty themes of grief,
In sadness to outlast the morn, —
True honoris dearth, affection's death,
Neglectful pride> and cankeritig scorn,
With all the piteous tales that tcara
Have water 'd since the world was bora*
The world ! — it is a wildernessj^
Where tears are hung on every tree ;
For thus my gloomy phantasy
Makes all things weep with me!
Come let us sit and watch the sky,
And fancy clouds, where no cloudfj be ;
Grief is enough to blof the eye,
And make heaven black with misery*
Why should birds sing such merry notes.
Unless they were more blest than we ?
No sorrow ever chokes their throats.
Except sweet nightingale ; for she
Was born to pain our hearts the more
With her sad melody.
Why shines the sun, eaccept that he
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ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 187
Makes gloomy nooks for Grief to hide.
And pensive shades for Melancholy,
When all tho earth is bright beside ?
Let clay wear smilesj and green grass wave.
Mirth shall not win us back again.
Whilst inan is made of hia own grave,
And fairest clouds but gilded rain I
1 saw my mother in her shroud,
Her cheek was cold and y^ry pale j
And ever since Tve lookM on all
As creatures doomM to fail [
Why do buds ope, except to die ?
Ay, let us waich the roses wither,
And think of our loves- cheeks ;
And oh ! how quickly time doth fly
To bring death's winter hither !
Minutes, hours, days, and weeks,
Months, yearsj aad agcSj shrink to naught ;
An age past is but a thought J ^
«
Ay, let us think of Him a wliilej
That, with a cofEn for a boatj
Rows daily o'er the Stygian moat,
And for our table choose a tomb:
There's dark enough in any skull
To charge with black a raven plume j
And for the saddest funeral thoughts
A winding sheet hath ample room.
Where Death, with his keen*pointed style.
Hath writ the coirimoa doom.
How wido the yew tree spreads its gloom,
And o'er the J fad lets fall its deWj
As if in tears it wept for them,
The many human families
That sleep around its stem !
How could the dead have made these stones,
With natural drops kept ever wet !
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188 PROSE AND VERSE.
Lo ! here the best, the worst, the world
Doth now remember of forget,
Are in one common ruin hurl'd.
And love and hate are calmly met ;
The loveliest eyes that ever shone,
The fairest hands, and locks of jet.
Is 't not enough to vex our souls,
And fill our eyes, that we have set
Our bve upon a rose's leaf.
Our hearts upon a violet ?
Blue eyes, red cheeks, are frailer yet ;
And sometimes at their swifl decay
Beforehand we must fret :
The roses bud and bloom again ;
But love may haunt the grave of love.
And watch the mould in vain.
O clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine.
And do not take my tears amiss ;
For tears must flow to wash away
A thought that Ihows so stern as this :
Forgive, if somewhile I forget.
In wo to come, the present bliss.
As frighted Proserpine let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis,
Ev'n so the dark and bright will kiss.
The sunniest things throw sternest shade.
And there is ev'n a happiness
• That makes the heart afraid !
Now let us with a spell invoke
The full-orb'd moon to grieve our eyes ;
Not bright, not bright, but, with a cloud
Lapp'd all about her, let her rise
All pale and dim, as if from rest
The ghost of the late buried sun
Had crept into the skies.
The Moon ! she is the source of sighs,
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ODE TO MELANCHOLY. 189
The very face to make us sad ;
If but to think in other ttmes
The same calm quiet look she had,
As if the world held nothing base.
Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad ;
The same fair light that shone in streams,
The fairy lamp that charm'd the lad;
For so it is, with spent delights
She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad*
All thiogs are touch'd with Melancholy,
Born of the secret soqI's mistrust,
To feel her fair ethereal wings
Weigh'd down with vile de^rraded dust ;
Even the bright extremes of joy
Bring on conclusions of disgust,
Like the sweet blossoms of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must.
O give her, then, her tribute just.
Her Sighs and tears, and musings holy !
There is no music in the life
That sounds with idiot laughter solely ;
There's not a string attuned to mirth,
Bui has its chords of Melaocholy,
THE EWD OF PART I.
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WUET& PUTNAM'S
LIBRASy OF
CHOICE READING.
HOOD'S PROSE AND VERSE.
PART U
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PEOSE AND YEESE.
BT
THOMAS HOOD.
PART II.
NEW-YORE;
mLEY AND PUTNAM. IQl BROADWAY
184&
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Ektskid nccordluf lo Act o£ Congreee, tn Uie yviar 1S45, ^y
WILEY &L PUTNAM,
Hi thfl Oerk'fl O^ca of ihv Districl Coun for the Sauth«m DIiitiicL oflfew-Tork.
R, nauLioHAj^'o Powar Prniw T- B. Smith, Btefsotyper^
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CONTENTS
THE SECOND PART.
XXI L The Great CoffrLAGRA.Tioif .
XXIIL A Tale of a T^ompet
2GCIV, Eoz iir America . . . , .
XXV. CoPYJtlGMT Alfl^D CofTWROWG, LeTTER I,
XXVL LKTTsra ii»
XXVII. Letter in.
XXVII L Letter iv.
XXIX. LETTER V.
XXX. PRDBPECTtrs TO Hood'b Magazine
XXXT, The Haunted House . m ♦
XXX IL Li***! in the Siok E^d^ * , i
XXXIII. As Autograph . - j - -,
XXXIV, Domestic MEsMJiaiaM
XXXV. The Eua Tree
XXXVI. Lay or the Laborer
XXXVI L The Bridge of Sigh»
XXXV III. The Laut^« D»1!Am
XXXIX. Sons or the Shirt
1
33
57
73
S3
93
IC^
HZ
123
im
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140
153
167
183
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206
310
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PROSE AND VERSE.
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
DREADFUL FIRE— -DEITRU^CTIOir OF 90TH H01TBS9 OF FAILUAMENT — THE
BPEAE^CR'fS HOUtE QUTTED m^POR^B OF nfCEHDlARlSM.
It is our une:cpected lot to announce that the Rouse a of Lords
and Commons, so often threatened with combustion, are in a state
of actual ignition. At this mom e tit, both fabrics are furiously
burning. We are writing this paragraph without the aid of lamp
Of candles ; by the mere reflection of the flames. Nothing is
known of the origin of the fire, although it is throwing a light
upon everything else. — Evening Star*
The devouring element which destroyed Co vent Garden and
Drury Lane, the Royalty and the Pantheon, has made its appear-
ance on a new stage, equally devoted to declamatory elocution*
St. Stephen's Chapel is in flames ! The floor which was trodden
by the eloquent legs of a Fox, a Burke, a Pitt, and a Sheridan,
is reduced to a heap of ashes; and the benches which sustained
the Demostheuic weight of a Wyndham, a Whithread, end a
Wilborforce, are a mere mass of charcoal. The very roof that
re-echoed the classicalrties of Canning is nodding to its fall. In
Parliamentary language. Fire is in possession of the House : the
Destructive spirit is on its legs, and the Conservative principle
can ofler but a feeble opposition. -^Daz7_^ FosL
The blow is struck. What we have long foreseen has come to
pass. Incendiarism triumphs ! The whole British Empire, as
represented by the three estates, is in a blaze ? The Throne, the
Lords, and the Commons, are now burning- The cycle is com-
plete. The spirit of Guy Fawkes revives in 1634 !
Part ii. 2
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PROSE AND VERSE.
England seems to have changed places with Italy ; London
with Naples. We stand hourly on the brink of a crater ; every
step we take is on a solfaterra — ^not a land of Sol Fa, as some
musical people would translate it; but a frail crust, with a
treacherous subsoil of ardent brimstone f At length the eyes of
our rulers are opened ; but we must ask, could nothing short of
such an eruption awaken them to a sense of the perilous state
of thfe country ? For weeks, nay, months past, at the risk of
being considered alarmists, we have called the attention of the
legislature and ' magistracy to a variety of suspicious symptoms
and signs of the times, and in particular to the multiplied chemi-
cal inventions, for the purpose of obtaining instantaneous lights.
Well are certain matches or fire-boxes called Lucifers, for they
may be applied to the most diabolical purposes ! The origin of
the fire cannot raise the shadow of a doubt in any reasonable
•mind. Accident is out of the question. Tell us not of tallies.
We have just tried our milk- woman's, and it contained so much
water, that nothing could make it ignite. — Britannic Guardian,
The Houses of Parliament are in flames. We shall stop the
press to give full particulars. Our reporters are at the spot, and
Mons, C , the celebrated Salamander, is engaged to give a
description of the blazing interiors, exclusively for this journal. —
Daily Times.
FEOM A CORRESPONDENT.
On Thursday evening, towards seven o'clock, I was struck by
the singular appearance of the moon silvering the opposite ohim-
neys with a blood-red light, a lunar phenomenon, which I con-
ceived belonged only to our theatres. It speedily occurred to me
that there must be a conflagration in my vicinity, and after a
little hunting by scent as well as sight, I found myself in front
of the Houses of Lords and Commons, which were burning with
a rapidity and brilliancy that I make bold to say did not always
characterize their proceedings. By favor of my natural assur-
ance, which seemed to identify me with the firemen, I was
allowed to pass through the lines of guards and policemen, who
surrounded the blazing pile, and was thus enabled . to deject a
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&yorable position for overlooking the whole scene. It was an
imposing sight. The flames rose from the Peers' in a volume,
as red as the Extraordinary Red Book, and the House of Com-
mons was not at all behind-hand in voting supplies of timber and
other combustibles. Westminster Hall reminded me vividly of a
London cry, " Hall hot, Hall hot," that was familiar in our child-
hood — and the Gothic architecture of the Abbey seemed unusu-
ally j2oru2. Instead of dingy stone, the venerable pile appeared
to be built of the well-baked brick of the Elizabethan age.
Indeed, so red-hot was its aspect, that it led to a ludicrous mis-
apprehension on the part of the populace. A procession, bearing
several male and female figures in a state of insensibility, natu-
rally gave rise to the most painful conjectures, inferring loss of
human life by the devouring element, but I have reason to believe
it was only the Dean and Chapter saving the Wax- Work. As
far as my own observation went, the first object carried out cer-
tainly bore a strong resemblance to General Monk.
In the mean time a select party had effected an entrance into
the Hall, but not without some serious delay, occasioned, I
believe, by somebody within bringing the wrong key, that
belonged to a tea-caddy. However, at last they entered, and I
followed their example. The first person I beheld was the vete-
>ran Higginbottom, so unfairly, but facetiously, put to death by
the authors of the Rejected Addresses ; for no man is more alive
to his duty. But he was sadly hampered. First came one Hon.
Gent, said to be Mr. Morrison, and insisted on directing the Hose
department ; and next arrived a noble Lord from Crockford's,
who wouldn't sit out, but persisted in taking a hand, and play-
ing, though everybody agreed that he played too high. I men-
tion this, because some of the journals have imputed mismanage-
ment to the engines, and have insinuated that the pipes wanted
organizing ; indeed, I myself overheard a noble director of the
Academy of Music lamenting that the firemen did not '' play in
concert."
The same remark applies with greater force to the House of
Commons. Here all was confusion worse confounded, and Hig-
ginbottom's station was jenviable, compared with that of some of
the poor fellows in St. Stephen's Chapel. A considerable num-
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ber of members had arrived, and without any attention to their
usual parliamentary rules, were all making motions at once,
which nobody seconded. The most prominent, I was informed,
were Mr. Hume, Mr. O'Connell, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Bucking-
ham, Mr. Pease, Sir Andrew and Mr. Buxton — ^the latter almost
covered with blacks. The clamor was terrific, and I really
expected that the poor foremen who held the pipes would be torn
in pieces. Everybody wanted to command the Coldstream.
Nothing but shouts of " Here ! here ! here !" answered like an
Irish echo by cries of " There ! there ! there !" " Oh, save my
savings !" — " My poor, poor Bill !" " More water — more water
for my Drunkenness !" " Work awa, lads, work awa — it's no
the Sabbath, and ye may just play at what ye like !"
In pleasing contrast to this tumult, was the unusual and cor-
dial unanimity of the members of both Houses, in rescuing what-
ever was portable from the flames. It was a delightful novelty
to see the Lords helping the Commons in whatever they moved
or carried. No party spirit — ^no Whig, pulling at one leg of the
table, whilst a Tory tugged at another in the opposite direction.
They seemed to belong to the Hand-in-Hand. Peers and Com-
moners were alike seen burthened with loads of papers or furni-
ture. Mr. Calvert, in particular, worked like any porter. Of
course, in rescuing the papers and parchments, there was no time
for inspecting their contents, and some curious results were the
consequence. Everybody remembers the pathetic story in the
Tatler, of the lover who saved a strange lady from a burning
theatre, under the idea that he was preserving the mistress of his
affections, and some similar mistakes are currently reported to
have occurred at the late conflagration — and equally to the
chagrin of the parties. I go by hearsay, and cannot vouch for
the facts, but it is said that the unpopular Six Acts, including
what I believe is called the Gragging Act, were actually preserved
by Mr. Cobbett. Mr. O'Connell saved the Irish Coercion Bill,
whilst the Reform Bill was snatched like << a brand out of the
fire," by a certain noble Duke, who resolutely set his face against
it in all its stages ! Amongst others, Mr. Ricardo saved an old^
tattered flag, which he thought was ^'the standard of value."
However deficient in general combination, and concentration
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
of energies, individual efforts were beyond all praise. The
instances of personal exertion and daring were numerous. Mr.
Rice worked amidst the flames till he was nearly baked ; and
everybody expected that Mr. Pease would be parched. The
greatest danger was from the melted metal pouring down from
the windows and roof. The heads of some of the Hon. Gentle-
men were literally nothing but lead. Great apprehensions were
entertained of the falling in of one of the walls, which eventually
gave way, but fortunately everybody had retreated on the timely
warning of a gentleman, Mr. O'Connell I believe, who declared
that he saw a Rent in it.
I did not enter the House of Lords, which was now one mass
of glowing fire, but directed my attention towards the Speaker's
mansion, which was partially burning. The garden behind was
nearly filled with miscellaneous property-— and numbers of well-
dressed gentlemen were every moment rushing into the house,
from which they issued again, laden with spits, saucepans, and
other culinary implements. I, myself, saw one zealous individual
thus encumbered — with a stew. pan on his head, the meat-screen
under one arm, the dripping-pan under the other, the frying-pan
in his right hand, the gridiron in his lefl, and the rolling-pin in
his mouth. Indeed, it is said that every article in the kitchen
was saved down to the salt-box ; and the cook declares that such
was the anxiety to save her she was " cotched up in twelve gen-
tlemen's arms, and never felt her feet till the comer of Abingdon
Street."
The whole of the Foot Guards were in attendance, as well as
a great number of the police, but the thieves had mustered in
great force, and there was a good deal of plundering, which was
however checked temporarily by a gentleman said to be one of
the members and magistrates for Essex, who jumped up on a
railing and addressed the populace to the following effect, " How
do you hall dare !"
The origin of the fire is involved in much mystery ; nor is it
<;orrectly ascertained by whom it was first discovered. Some
say that one of the Serjeants, in taking up the insignia, was
astonished to find the mace as hot as ginger. Others relate
that a Mr. Spell, or^ Shell, or Snell, whilst viewing the House^>
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although no dancer, began suddenly, and in his boots, to the
utter amazement of his companions and Mrs. Wright, the house-
keeper, to jump and caper like a bear upon a hotted floor. This
story certainly seems to countenance a report that the mischief
originated in the warming apparatus, an opinion that is very
current, but, for my own part, I cannot conceive that the Col-
lective Wisdom, which knows how to lay down laws for us all,
should not know how to lay down flues. Rumors of Incendia-
rism are also very generally prevalent, and stories are in circu-
lation of the finding of half-burnt matches and other combusti-
bles. But these facts rest on very frail foundations. The links
said to have been found in the Speaker's garden have turned
out to be nothing but German sausages ; and another cock-and-
a-buU that has got abroad will probably come to no better end.
A Mr. Dudley affirms that he smelt the fire before it broke out,
at Cooper's Hill ; but such ol&ctories are too much like manu-
factories to be believed.
I ami Sir, your most obedient servant,
X. Y. Z.
ANOTHER ACCOUNT.
The writer of these lines, who resides in Lambeth, was first
awakened to a sense of conflagration by a cry of " Fire " from a
number of persons who were running in the direction of West-
minster Bridge. Owning myself a warm enthusiast on the sub-
ject of ignition, and indeed not having missed a fire for the last
iifly years, except one, and that was only a chimney, it may be
supposed the exclamation in question had an electric efiect.
We are all the slaves of some physical bias, strange as it may
appear to others with opposite tendencies. It is recorded of some
great marshal that he disliked music, but testified the liveliest
pleasure at a salvo of artillery or a roll of thunder, and the
rumble of an engine has the same efiect on the author of these
lines. To say I am a guebre, or fire-worshipper, is only to
confess the truth. I have a sort of observatory erected on the
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roof of my house, from which, if there be a break-out within the
circuit of the metropolis, it may be discovered, and before going
to bed I invariably visit this look-out.
Every man has his hobby-horse, and, figuratively speaking,
mine was always kept harnessed and ready to run to a fire with
the first engine. Many a time I have arrived before the turn-
cocks, though I perhaps had to traverse half London, and I
scarcely remember an instance that I did not appear long be-
fore the water. Habit is second nature — I verily believe I
could snifif a conflagration by instinct ; and if I was not, I ought
to have been, the trainer of the firemen's dog, which at present
attracts so much of the public attention, by his eager running
along with the Sun, the Globe, the British and the Hand -in-
Hand.
Of course I have seen a great many fires in my time — Ro-
therhithe, the theatres, the Custom-house, &c., &c. I remember
in the days of Thistlewood and Co., when the metropolis was
expected to be set on fire, I slept for three weeks in my clothes
in order to be ready for the^first alarm ; for I had the good for-
tune to witness the great riots of 1780, when no less than eight
fires were blazing at once, and a lamentable sight it was. I
say lamentable, because it was impossible to be present at them
all at the same time ; but my good genius directed me to Lang-
dale's the Distiller, which made (excuse the vulgar popular
phrase) a very satisfactory fiare-up.
The Rotherhithe fire, not the recent little job, but some fifteen
or twenty years ago, was also on a grand scale, and very last-
ing. The engine-pipes were wilfully cut; and I remember
some of my friends rallying me on my well-known propensity,
jocularly accusing me of lending my knife and my assistance.
The Custom-house was a disappointment ; it certainly cleared
itself effectually, but it was done by day-light, and consequently
the long- room fell short of my anticipations. Drury-lane and
Covent-garden were better ; but I have observed generally that
theatres burn with tnore attention to stage efiect. They avoid
the noon : a dark night to a fire is like the black letters in a
benefit-bill, settmg off the red ones.
The destruction of the Kent Indiaman I should like to have
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witnessed, but contrary to the opinion of many experienced ama-
teurs I conceive the Dartford Mills must have been a failure.
Powder magazines make very indifferent conflagrations ; they
are no sooner on fire than they are off, — all is over before you
know where you are, and there is no getting under, which quite
puts you out. But fires, generally, are not what they used to
be. What with gas, and new police, steam, and one cause or
other, they have become what one might call slow explosions.
A body of flame bursts from all the windows at once, and be-
fore B 25 can call fi-er in two syllables, the roof falls in, and
all is over. It was not so in my time. First a little smoke
would issue from a window-shutter, like the puff of a cigar,
and after a long spring of his rattle, the rheumatic watchman
had time to knock double and treble knocks, from No. 9 to No.
d«5, before a spark made its appearance, out of the chimney-pot.
The Volunteers had time to assemble under arms, and muffle
thpir drums, and the bell-ringers to collect in the belfry, and
pull an alarm peal backwards. The parish engines even, al-
though pulled along by the pursy churchwardens, and the para-
lytic paupers, contrived to arrive before the fire fairly broke out
in the shape of a little squib-like eruption from the garret-win-
dow. The affrighted family, fourteen in number, all elaborately
<lrest in their best Sunday clothes, saved themselves by the
street-door, according to seniority, the furniture was carefully
removed, and afler an hour's pumping, the fire was extinguished
without extending beyond the room where it originated, namely
a bedroom on the second floor. Such was the progress in my
Ume of a fire, but it is the fashion now to sacrifice everything to
pace. Look at our race-horses, and look at our fox-hounds, —
and I will add look at our conflagrations. All that is cared for
is a burst — no matter how short, if it be but rapid. The de-
vouring element never sits down now to a regular meal — ^it
pitches on a house and hoUs it.
But I am wandering from the point. The announcement of
both Houses of Parliament being in flames thrilled through every
fibre. It seemed to promise what I may call a crowning^vent
to the Conflagrationary Reminiscences of an Octogenarian. I
snatched up my hat, and rushed into the street, at eighty years
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION.
of age, with the alacrity of eighteen, when I ran from Highgate
to Horsleydown, to be present at the gutting of a ship chan-
dler's. As the bard says—
** Ev^n in our ashea live their wonted Jlres,**
and I could almost have supposed myself a iireman belonging
to the PhcEDix. My first step into the street discouraged me,
the moonlight was so brilliant, and in such cases the most splen-
did blaze is somewhat ^' shorn of its beams- ^' But a few steps
re-assured me. Even at the Su rrey side of the river the sparks
and burning particles were falling like flakes of snow — I mean
of course the red snow formerly discovered by Captain Ross, and
the light was so great that 1 could have read the small print
of the Police Gazette with the greatest case, only I don^t take it
in- I of course made the best of my way towards the scene,
but the crowd was already so dense that I could only attain a
situation on the strand opposite Cotton Gardens, up to my knees
in mud. Both Houses of Parliament were at this time in a blazej
and no doubt presented as striking objects of conflagration as
the metropolis could otTer. I say, ^* no doubt,'' — for getting
jammed against a barge with my back towards the fire, I am
unable to state anything on my own authority as an eyewitness,
excepting that the buildings on the Surrey side exhibited a glow-
ing reflection for some hours* At last the flowing of the tide
caused the multitude to retreat, and releasing me from my re-
trospective position allowed me to gaze upon the ruins. By
what I hear, it was a most imposing sight — but in spile of my
Lord Althorp, I cannot help thinking that Westminster I Jail,
with its long range, would have made up an admirable fire*
Neither can I agree with the many that it was an Incendiary
Act, that passed through both houses so rapidly* To enjoy the
thing, a later hour and a darker night would certainly have been
chosen. Firelight and moonlight do not mix well : — they are
best neat. I am, Sir, Yoursj &c.,
Senex.
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10 PROSE AND VERSE.
VAKIOtrS ACCOITNTS.
We are concerned to state that Sir Jacob Jubb the new memo
ber for Shrops was severely burnt, by taking his seat in the
House, on a bench that was burning under him. The danger
of his situation was several times pointed out to him, but he re-
plied that his seat had cost him ten thousand pounds, and he
wouldn't quit. He was at length removed by force. — rMoming
Ledger*
A great many foolish anecdotes of the fire are in circulation.
One of our contemporaries gravely asserts that the Marquis of
Culpepper was the last person who lefl the South Turret, a
fact we beg leave to question, for the exquisite reason that the
noble Lord alluded to is at present at Constantinople. — The Real
Sun.
We are enabled to state that the individual who displayed so
much coolness in the South Turret was Captain Back. — The
Public JoumaL
It is said that considerable interest was evinced by the mem-
bers of the House of Commons who were present at the fire, as
to the fate of their respective Bills. One honorable gentleman,
in particular, was observed anxiously watching the last scintil-
lations of some burnt paper. <' Oh, my Sabbath Observance !"
he exclaimed, " There 's an end of religion ! There go the
Parson and Clerk !" — Public Diary,
The Earl of M. had a very narrow escape. His Lordship
was on the point of kicking a bucket when a laborer rushed
forward and snatched it out of the way. The individual's name
is M'Farrel. We understand he is a sober, honest, hard-work-
ing man, and has two wives, and a numerous family ; the eldest
not above a year old. — Daily Chronicle, . -
The exclamation of a noble Lord, high in office, who was
very active at the fire, has been very incorrectly given. The
words were as follows : — " Blow the Commons ! let 'em flare up
— but oh; — for a save-all ! a save-all." — Morning News.
The public attention has been greatly excited by the extraor-
dinary statement of a commercial gentleman, that he smelt the
fire at the Cock and Bottle, in Coventry. He asserts that he
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. IJ
mentioned the fact in the commercial room to a deaf gentleman,
and likewise to a dumh waiter, hut neither have any recollection
of the circumstance. He has been examined before the Comnum
Ck)uncil, who have elicited that he actually arrived at Coventry
on the night in question, by the Tally-ho ! and the near leader of
that coach has been sent for by express. — New Monitor.
We were in error in stating that the Atlas was the first engine
at the scene of action. So early as five o'clock Mr. Alderman
A. arrived with his own garden engine, and began immediately
to play upon the Thames. — British Guardian.
It must have struck every one who witnessed the operations
in the House of Commons, that there was a lamentable want of
''order! order! order!" A great many gentlemen succeeded
in making pumps of themselves, without producing any check on
the flames. The conduct of the military also was far from
unexceptionable. lOn the arrival of the Coldstream at the fire,
they actually refused to fall in. Many declined to stand at ease
on the burning rafters — but what is the public interest to a pri«
vate ? — PuhUc Advertiser.
MONSIETTR C.'S ACCOXTNT. (eXCLUSHTE.)
When I am come first to the fire, it was not long burnt up ; and
I was oblige to walk up and down the floor to keep myself warm.
At last, I take my seat on the stove quite convenient to look about.
In the House of Commons there was nobody, and I am all alone.
The first thing I observe was a great many rats, ratting about —
but they did not know which way to turn. So they were all
burnt dead. The flames grew very fast : and I am interested
very much with the seats, how they burned, quite different from
one another. Some seats made what you call a great splutter,
and popped and bounced, and some other seats made no noise at
all, Mr. Bulwer's place burned of a blue color ; Mr. Buck-
stone's turned quite black ; and there was one made a flame the
color of a drab. I observe one green flame and one orange, side
by side, and they hiss aind roar at one another very furious*
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12 PROSE AND VERSE.
The gallery cleared itself quite quickly, and the seat of Mes-
sieurs the reporters exploded itself like a cannon of forty-eight
pounds. The speaking chair hurnt without any sound at all.
When everything is quite done in the Commons I leave them
off, and go to the House of Lords, where the fire was all in one
sheet, and almost the whole of its inside hurnt out. I was ahle
in this room to take off my greatcoat. I could find nothing to
be saved except one great ink-stand that was red hot, and which
I carry away in my two hands. Likewise here, as well as in
the Commons, I bottled up several bottles of smoke, to distribute
afterwards, at five guineas a piece, and may be more; for I
know the English people admire such things, and are fond after
reliques, like a madness almost. I did not make a long stop,
for whenever I was visible, the pompiers was so foolish as play
water upon me, and I was afraid of a catch-cold. In fact, when
I arrive at home, I find myself stuffed in my head, and fast in
my chest, and my throat was a little horse. I am going for it
into a bath of boiling water, and cannot write any more at full
length.
A LETTER TO A LABOBmG MAN.
BUSHELL,
When you made a holiday last Whitsuntide to see the
Sights of London, in your way to the Waxwork and Westmin-
ster Abbey, you probably noticed a vast pile of buildings in
Palace Yard, and you stood and scratched that shock head of
yours, and wondered whose fine houses they were. Seeing you
to be a country clodpole, no doubt some well-dressed vagabond,
by way of putting a hoax upon the hawbuck, told you that in
those buildings congregated all the talent, all the integrity and
public spirit of the country — that beneath those roofs the best and
wisest, and the most honest men to be found in three kingdoms,
met to deliberate and enact the most wholesome and just and
judicious laws for the good of the nation. He called them the
oracles of our constitution, the guardians of our rights, and the
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 13
assertors of our liberties. Of course, Bushell, you were told all
this; but nobody told you, I dare say, that within those walls
your master had lifted up his voice, and delivered the only sound,
rational, and wholesome, upright, and able speeches, that were
ever uttered in St. Stephen's Chapel. No, nobody told you that.
But when I come dome, Bushell,' I will lend you all my printed
speeches, and when you have spelt them, and read them, and
studied them, and got them by heart, bumpkin as you are,
Bushell, you will know as much of legislation as all our precious
members together.
Well, Bushell, the fine houses you stood gaping at are burnt
down, gutted, as the vulgar call it, and nothing is lefl but the
bare walls. You saw Farmer Gubbins' house, or, at least, the
shell of it, afler the fire there ; well, the Parliament Houses are
exactly in the same state. There is news for you ! and now
Bushell, how do you feel ? Why, if the well-dressed vagabond
told you the truth, you feel as if you had had a stroke — for all
the British Constitution is affected, and you are a fraction of it,
that is to say, a British subject. Your baqon grows rusty in your
mouth, and your table-beer turns to vinegar on your palate.
You cannot sleep at night, or work by day. You have no heart
for anything. You can hardly drag one clouted shoe afler
another. And how do you look ? Why, as pale as a parsnip,
and as thin as a hurdle, and your carrotty locks stand bolt up-
right, as if you had just met old Lawson's ghost with his head
under his arm. I say thus you must feel and look, Bushell, if
what the well-dressed vagabond told you is the truth. But is
that the case ? No. You drink your small beer with a sigh
and smack of delight ; and you bolt your bacon with a relish, as
if, as the virtuous Americans say, you could " go the whole hog.'*
Your clouted shoes clatter about as if you were counting hob-
nails with the Lord Mayor, and you work like a young horse, or
an old ass, and at night you snore like an oratorio of jews' harps.
Your face is as bold and ruddy as the Red Lion's. Your car-
rotty locks lie sleek upon your poll, and as for poor old Lawson's
ghost, you could lend him flesh and blood enough to set him up
again in life. But what, say you, does all this tend to ? I will
tell you, Bushell. There are a great many well-dressed vaga-
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bonds, besides the one you met in Palace Yard, who would per-
suade a poor man that a House of Lords or Commons is as good
to him as his bread, beer, beef, baoon, bed, and breeches ; and
therefore I address this to you, Bushell, to set such notions to
rights by an appeal to your own back and belly. And now I
will tell you what you shall do. You shall go three nights a
week to the Red Lion (when your work is done), and you may
score by a pint of beer, at my cost, each time. And when the
parson, or the exciseman, or the tax-gatherer, or any such gen-
try, begin to talk of the deplorable great burning, and the
national calamity, and such-like trash, you shall pull out my
letter and read to them — I say, Bushell, you shall read this letter
to them, twice over, loudly and distinctly, and tell them from me,
that the burning of twenty Parliament Houses wouldn't be such
a national calamity as a fire at No. 1, Bolt Court.
PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE.
To Mary Price, Fenny HaU, Lincolnshire.
O Mart, — I am writing in such a quiver, with my art in my
mouth, and my tung sticking to it. For too hole hours Pve bean
Doin nothink but taking on and going off, I mean into fits, or cry-
ing and blessing goodness for my miraclus escape. This day
week I wear inwallopped in flams, and thinkin of roth to cum,
and fire evverlasting. But thenks to Diving Providings, hear 1
am, althowgh with loss of wan high brew scotched off, a noo cap
and my rite shew. But I hav bean terrifid to deth. Wen I was
ate, or it might be nine, I fell on the stow, and hav had a grate
dred of fire ewer since. Gudge then how low I felt at the idear
of burning along with the Lords and Communer's. It as bean a
Warnin, and never, no never never never agin will I go to Clan-
destiny parties behind Missisis backs. I now see my errer, but
temtashun prevaled, tho the clovin fut of the Wicked Wan had a
hand in it all : Oh Mary, down on yure marrybones, and bless
yure stars for sitiating you in a loanly stooped poky place, wear
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 16
you can't be lead into liteness and gayty, if you was ever so
inclind. Fore wipping willies and a windmill is a dullish luck
out, shure enuff, but its better then moor ambishus prospex, and
stainng at a grate fire, like a suckin pig, till yure eyes is reddy
to drop out of yure hed !
You no wen Lady Manners is absent, a certin person always
gives a good rowt : — ^and I had a card in Coarse. I went very
ginteel, my Cloke cost I wont say Wot, and a hat and fethers to
match. But it wamt to be*. After takin off my things, I had
barely set down, wen at the front dore there cums a dubble nock
without any end to it, and a ring of the bell at the saim time, like
a triangle keepin cumpany with a big drum. As soon as the door
were opened, a man with a pail face asked for the buckits, and that
was the fust news we had of the fire. Oh Mary, never trust to the
mail sects ! They are all Alick from the Botcher and Backer
that flurts at the front dore, down to the deer dissevers you throw
away yure arts upon. For all their fine purfessions, they are only
filling yure ears with picrust, they make trifles of yure afection^
and destroy your comfits for life. They think no more of perjur-
ing themselves then I do of sweeping the earth. If yure wise you
will sit yure face agin all menkind and luv nonsense, as I meen to
in futer, or may be, wen you are dreeming of brid cake and wite
fevers, you may find yureself left with nothink but breeches of
prommis. John Futman is a proof in pint. Menny tims Ive give
him a hiding at number fore, and he always had the best of
the lardur at our stolin meatings, and God nose Ive ofTun alloud
him to idelize me when I ort to have bean at my wurks, besides
laming to rite for his sack. Twenty housis afire ort not to have
a baited his warmth, insted of witch to jump up at the first allurm
and run away, leaving me to make my hone shifts. A treu luver
wood have staid to shear my fat. O Mary, if ever there was a
terryfickle spectikle that was won ! Flams before and flams
behind, and flams over-head. Sich axing and hollowing out, and
mo'bbing and pumpin, and cussing and swaring, and the peple's
rushes into the Hous purvented all gitting out. For my hone
parts, I climed up the dresser, and skreeked, but nobbody was
man enufif to purtect. Men ant what they was. I am sick of
the retches ! It used to be femails fust, but now its^fumiter. I
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16 PROSE AND VERSE.
fully thort one gintleman was comin to cotch xne up in arms, but
he preferred the fish kettle. As for the sogers they marcht off
to the wind seller, and the pantry, ware they maid beleave to
preserve the gusberry gam. How I was reskewd at last Lord
nose, for my hed was unsensible tell I found meself setten on the
pickid pinted ralings of St. Margaret's Church, with my fethers
all frizzild, and a shew off. But of all lossis, my ridicule was
most serius, for it had my puss in it.
How and ware it broke out is a mistery. Sum say both
Howses was under minded. Sum say the Common members
got over heatid in their fluency. A grate dealof property was
burned, in spit of Lord AUthorp, who ingaged every cotch, cab,
and gobbing porter as conveyancers. Westmunster may thenk
his Lordship it did not lose its All. ' They say the Lords and
Communs was connectid with a grate menny historicle asso-
ciashuns, wich of coarse will hav to make good all dammage.
Fortnately, the Speker's mornin, noon, and evning services of
plait was not at hom, or it mite hav suflerd, for they say goold
and silver as stud the fire verry well, melted down when it got
furthur off, Tauking of plait a gentilman, who giv his card,
Mr. William Soames, were verry kind and partickler in his
inquerries efler Mr. Speker's vallybles. I hope he will hav a
place givn him for his indevvers.
Ware the poor burnt-out creturs will go noboddy nose. Sum
say Exter Hall, sum say the Refudge for the Destitut, and sum
say the King will lend them his Bensh to set upon ! All I no is,
I've had a frite that will go with me to my grave. I am all ways
snifing fire by day and dreeming on it by nite. Ony last Fryday
I allarmd the hole naberhood by screaching out of winder for
the warter to be plugged u^. Liting fires, or striking lite, or
making tindur, throes me into fits.
I shall newer be the womman I was ; but that is no excus for.
John's unconstancy. I don't dare to take my close off to go to
bed, and I practice clambering up and down by a rop in case,
and I giv Police M 25 a shillin now and than to keep a specious
eye to number fore, and be reddy to ketch ani\y won in his
harms. But it cums to munny, and particly given the ingin
keeper a pint of bear from time to time, and drams to the turn-
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 17
cox ; where there's nabers fires will happen, howevver cere full
and precocius you may be youreself. 1 dred our two nex dores;
number three is a Gurmin famraily, and them orrid fornncra
think DOtbmk of smocking siggars in bed, witch will keteh sum
day to a certainty. Number fiv is wus; since his wiTt* death
Mr* Sanders baa betuck himself to cornicle studis, aod offia has
a littel bio up amung his pistlea and morters. ! Mary, Iiow
happy is them as liva lltik you, as the song saySy " Fur from the
huzzy aunts of men,'^ If you're infiamd its nob body's folt but
yure hone* Pray take the greatest car. Have yure eyes about
youj and luck out for sparks- walever the men may say, don't _
allow backer pips or long snufs, and let evvery beeWy be thor- '^^ Vf
rowly put ont. Don^t neglect to rake out evvery nite, see that
evvery sole in the bo^vs is turned down xtinguishcd, and all ways
bio yureself out befour yon go to yure piller. Thenk gudness
you newer larnd to reed, and therefor will not lake anny bucks
to bed with you. All ways ware stuff or woollin, insled of lite
cottons and gingumSj in case of the coles thro win out coffens or
pusses, by witch menny persons gains their ends. In case of
yure petty cots catchin don't forgit standin on yure head, as re-
commended by the Human Society, becoz fire burns upparda,
but its a posishnn as requiers practis. Have yure chimbly
swept reglar wonce a munth, and wen visiters cum newer put
hot coles in the warmin pan, for fear you forgit and leave it in
the spair bed. Remember fire is a good sar vent but a bad mas-
ter, and sure enuiT wen it is master it never gives a sarvent a
munth's nolis. To be shnre we have won marsy in town that
is unbenone in the country, and that there is Swingeing^ is
no corngax or heyrix in St. Jims's Square. That is yure week
pint, an^ trembil for the barns; a rockite or a roaming candel
mite set you in a blaze. But I hop and trust wat 1 say will
newer pruve the truth. Oppydlldock is good for bums, and I
am, dear Mary,
Yure old and afexionate feller sarvent,
Ann Galb.
Part n, #
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18 PROSE AND VERSE.
THE JUBB LETTERS.
From Lady Jubb to Mrs. Peipps, Housekeeper at the Skruh^er^j
Shrezcshuryf Shrops*
Mss. Phifps :
You Will prepare the liouse directly for the family's return,
not that our coming back is abt^olutdy certain, but events have
happened to render our stay in Portland-Place very precarious.
All depends upon Sir Jacob. In Parliament or out of Parlia-
iDont his motions must guide ours. By this time what has hap*
pened will be known in Shropshire^ but I forbid your talking.
Politics belong to people of property, and those who have no
voice in the country ought not to speak. In your inferior situa-
tions it*a a duty to be ignorant of what you know. The nation
is out of your sphere^ and besides, people out of town cannot
know the state of the country. ! nant to put you on your
guard J thanks to the press, as Sir Jacob says, public affairs
cannot be kept private, and the consequence isj tlie ignorant are
as well intbrmed as their betters. The burning of both Houses
of Parliament I am afraid cannot be hushed up — but it is not a
subject for servants, that have neither upper nor lower memliers
amongst them, and represent nobody. I trust to you^ Mrs, Phipps,
to discourage all discussions in the kitchen, which isn't the place
for parliamentary canvassing. The most ridiculous notions are
abroad. 1 should not be surprised even to hear that Sir Jacob
had lost bis seat, because the benches were burnt, but w© have
been depnvod of none of our dignities or privileges. You will
observe this letter ib franked ; the fire made no d^rence to
vour nnaster, he is not dissolved, whatever the Blues nmy wish^ —
he is still Sir Jacob Jubb, Barouetj M. P.
The election of Sir Jacob at such a crisis was an act of Provi-
dence. His firmness at the fire affords an example to posterity ;
although the bench was burning under him he refused to retreat,
replying emphatically, " I will sit by my order." As far as this
goes you may mention, and no more. I enjoin upon all else a
diplomatic silence. Sir Jacob hinnself will write to the bailiff,
and whatever may be the nature of his directions, I desire that
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 19
no curioaity may be indulged in^ and above all, that you enter-
tain no opiuiona of your own. You cannot square with the
upper circles* I would write more, but I am going to a meet-
ing, I need not say where, or upon what subject. J rely, Mrs-
Fhipps, on your discretiouj and am, &c.,
AeAESLLA ANniSTASLA JuBB.
To T, CeawptthDj junior^ Esquire ^ the Beeches ^ near Shrewsaur^,
Shrimps ^
Deae Tom:
Throw up your cap and huzza. There^s glorious news,
and so youll say when 1 tell you. I could almost jump out of
my skin for joy I Father's tiismembered ! The House of Com-
mons caught fire, and he was dissolved along with the rest.
I've never been happy since we came up to London* and all
through Parliament. The election was good sport enough. I
liked the riding up and down^ and carrying a flag ; and the bat-
tle, >vith sticks, betiveen the Blues and the Yellows^ was famous
fun; and I huzzaed myself hoarse at our getting the day at last-
But af\er that came the jollup, as we used to say at Old Busby's,
Theme writing was a fool to it. If father composed one maiden
speech he composed a hundred, and he made me knuckle down
and copy them all out, and precious stupid stuff it was. A regular
physicker, says you, and Vd worse to take ailer it. He made us
all sit down and hear him spout them, and a poor stick he made.
— Dick Willis, that we used to call Hand post, was a dab at it
compared to him. He's no better hand at figures, so much the
worse for me. Did you ever have a fag, Tom, at the national
debt ? I don't know who owes it, but I wish heM pay it, or be
made bankrupt at once. IVe worked more sums last month
than ever I did at school in the half year, — -geography the
same. I had to hunt out Don Carlos and Don Pedro, all over
the maps. 1 came in for a regular wigging one day, for wish-
ing both the Dons were well peppered, as Tom Tough says,
Tve seen noue of the sights I wanted to see* He wouldn't let
me go to the play, because he says the theatres are bad schoolsj
and would give me a viciotts style of elocution. The only
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20 PROSE AND VERSE.
pleasure he promised me was to sit in the gallery at the Com-
mons and see him present his petitions. Short-hand would have
come next, that I might take down his speechifying — for he says
the reporters all garble. An't I well out of it al( — and a place
he was to get for me besides, from the Prime Minister ? I sup-
pose the Navy Pay, to sit on a high stool and give Jack Junk one
pound two and nine pence twice a year. I'd rather be Jack
himself, wouldn't you, Tom ? But father's lost his wicket, and
huzza for Shropshire ! In hopes of our soon meeting, I remain,
my dear Tom,
Your old chum and schoolfellow,
Frederick Jubb.
P. S. — A court gentleman has just come in, with a knock-me-
down-again. He says there's to be a new election. I wish
you'd do something ; it would be a real favor, and I will do as
much for you another time. What I want of you is, to get your
father to set up against mine. Do try, Tom — there's a good
fellow. I will ask every body I know to give your side a
plumper.
To Mr. Roger Davis, Bailiff, the Shrubbery , near Shrewsbury,
Davis,
I hope to Grod this will find you at home — ^I am writing in a
state of mind bordering on madness. I can't collect myself to
give particulars — you will have a newspaper along with this-^
read that, and your hair will stand on end. Incendiarism has
reached its height like the flaming thing on the top of the Monu-
ment. Our crisis is come. To my mind — political suicide — ^is
as bad as felo de se. Oh Whigs, Whigs, Whigs — what have
you brought us to! As the Britannic Guardian well says —
England is gone to Italy — London is at Naples — and we are all
standing on the top of Vesuvius. I have heard and I believe
it— that an attempt has been made to choke Aldgate Pump. A
Waltham Abbey paper says positively that the mills were
recently robbed of 513 barrels of powder, the exact number of
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 21
the members for England and Wales. What a dmbolical re*
finemenl — -to blow up a government with its own powder? (
can hardly persuade myself I am in England. God knows
where h will spread to — I mean the incendiary spirit. The dry
season is frightful^ — 1 suppose the springs are all dry. Keep the
engine locked in the stable, for f<.^ar of a cut at the pipes. Vl\
send you down two more. Let all the laborers take a turn at
them* by way of practice. Vm persuaded the Parliament houses
were burnt on purpose. The flue story is ridiculous. Mr.
Cooper's is a great deal more to the point. 1 believe everything
I hear, A bunch of matches was found in the Speaker's
kitchen. 1 saw something suspicions rnyself-— some said treacle,
but ] say tar. Have your eyes about you — lo<Jk all the gates,
day as well as night — and above all, watch the stacks One
Tig*^r is not enough — get three or four more^ I should have said
Cffisar, but von know [ mean the house-dog. Good mastifls^ — -
the bifjgest and savagest you can get. The gentry will be at-
tempted first — -beginning with fhe M. P.^s. Yon and Barnes and
Sam must sit up by turns — and let the maids sit up too — women
have sharp ears and sliarp tongues,— -If a mouse stirs I would
have them squall — danger or no danger. It's the only way to
sleep in security^and comfort. 1 have read that the common
goose is a vigilant creature — and saved Rome. Get a score of
them— at the next market^don't stand about price — but choose
them with good cackles. Alarm them now and then to keep
them watchful. Fire the blunderbuss oflT every night, aud both
fowling-pieces and the pistols. If all the gentry did as much,
it might keep the country quiet. If you were to ring liie alarm-
bell once or twice in the middle of the night, it would ba as
well — you would know then what help to depend upon. Search
the house often from the garret to the cellar, tor combustibles —
if you could manage to go without candles, or any sort of llghtj
it would be better, YouM find your way about in the dark after
a little practice.
Pray don^ allow any sweethearts ] they may be Swings and
Captain Rocks in disguise, and their pretended flames turn out
real, I've misgivings about the maids. Tie them up, and taste
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22 PROSE AND VERSE.
their liver, before they eat it themselves — I mean the housedogs ;
but my agitation makes me unconnected. The scoundrels often
poison them, before they attempt robbery and arson. Keep the
cattle in the cowhouse for fear of their being houghed and
hamstrung. Surely there were great defects somewhere. The
Houses could not have been properly protected — if they had
been watched as well as they were lighted — but it is too late to
cast any blame on individuals. A paltry spirit of economy has
been our bane. A few shillings would have purchased a watch-
dog ; and one or two geese in each house might have saved the
capitol of the constitution ! But the incendiary knew how to
choose his time — an adjournment when there were none sitting.
I say, incendiary, because no doubt can exist in any cool mind,
that enters into the conflagration. I transcribe conclusive ex-
ttacts from several papers, the editors of which I know to be
upright men, and they all write on one side.
" We are confidently informed," says the Beacon, " that a
quantity of tar-barrels was purchased at No. 2, High-street,
Shad well, about ten o'clock on the morning of the fire. There
was abundant time before six a. m., for removing the combusti-
bles to Westminster. The purchaser was a short, squat, down-
looking man, and the name on his cart was I. Burns.''
" Trifling circumstances," says the Sentinel, " sometimes
point to great results. Our own opinion is formed. We have
made it our business to examine the Guys in preparation for the
impending anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, and we afiirm,
that every one of the effigies bore a striking resemblance to some
member or other of assemblies we need not name. These are
signs of the times."
" We should be loth," says the Detector, " to impute the late
calamity to any particular party : but we may reasonably inquire
what relative stake in the country is possessed by the Whigs and
the Tories. The English language may be taken as a fair
standard. The first may lay claim to pen-wigy scratch-w^,
tie-wig, bob-w^, in short, the whole family of peruques, with
lo^^maleery. The latter, not to mention other good things,
have a vested right in oratory, history, territory, and victory.
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 23
Can a man of common patriotism have a doubt which side it is
his interest to adhere to V
That last paragraph, Davis, is what I call sound argument.
Indeed I don't see how it is to be answered. You see they are
all nem. con. as to our danger, and decidedly reckon fire an
inflammatory agent. Take care what you read. Very per-
nicious doctrines are abroad, and especially across the Western
Channel. The Irish are really frightful. I'm told they tie the
cows' tails together, and then saw off their horns for insurrec-
tionary bugles. The foundations of society are shaken all over
the world — ^the Whiteboys in Ireland, and the Blacks in the West
Indies, all seem to fight under the same colors. It's time for
honest men to rally round themselves — but I'm sorry to say
public spirit and love of one's country are at a low ebb. There's
too much Americanism. One writer wants us to turn all our
English wheat to Indian com, and to grow no sort of apples but
Franklin pippins. We want strong measures against associa-
tions and unions. There's demagogues abroad — and they wear
white hats. By-the-bye, I more than half suspect that fellow
Johnson is a delegate. Take him to the ale-house, and treat
him freely — it may warm him to blab something. Besides,
you will see what sort of papers the public-houses take in.
You may drop a hint about their licenses. Give my compliments
to Dr. Garratt, and tell him I hope he will preach to the times,
and take strong texts. I wish I could be down amongst you, but
I cannot desert my post. You may tell the tenantry, and elec-
tors — I'm burnt out and gutted — but my heart's in the right
place — and devoted to constituents. Come what may, I will be
an unshaken pillar on the basis of my circular letter. Don't
forget any of my precautions. I am sorry I did not bring all
the plate up to town — but at the first alarm bury it. Take in
no letters or notices ; for what you know they may be threaten-
ings. If any Irishman applies for work, discharge him instantly.
All the old spring-guns had better be set again, they are not now
legal, but I am ministerial, and if they did go off, the higher
powers would perhaps wink at them. But it's the fire that I'm
afraid of, fire that destroyed my political roof, and may now
assail my paternal one. Walk, as I may say, bucket in hand.
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24 PROSE AND VERSE.
and be ready every moment for a break out. You may set fire
to the small faggot-stack, and try your hands at getting it under
— ^there's nothing worse than being taken by surprise. Read
this letter frequently, and impress these charges on your mind.
It is a sad change for England to have become, I may say, this
fiery furnace. I have not the least doubt, if properly traced,
the. burning cliff at Weymouth would be found to be connected
with Incendiarism, and the Earthquakes at Chichester with our
political convulsions. Thank Providence in your prayers, Davis,
that your own station forbids your being an M.P., for a place
in parliament is little better than sitting on a barrel of gun-
powder. -Honor forbids to resign, or I should wish I was nothing
but a simple country gentleman. Remember, and be vigilant.
Once more I cry Watch, Watch, Watch ! By adopting the
motions I propose, a conflagration may be adjourned sine die,
which is a petition perpetually presented by
Your anxious
but uncompromising Master,
Jacob Jubb, M.P.
To Lady Jttbb, at 45, Portland Place,
Respected Madam,
I received your Ladyship's obliging commands, and have used
my best endeavors to conform to the wishes condescended
therein. In respect to political controversy, I beg to say I have
imposed a tacit silence on the domestic capacities as far as within
the sphere of my control, but lament to say the Bailiff, Mr.
Davis, is a party unamenable to my authority, and as such has
taken liberties with decorum quite unconsistent with propriety
and the decency due. However reluctant to censoriousness,
duty compels to communicate subversive conduct quite uncon-
formable to decency's rules and order in a well-regulated estab-
lishment. I allude to Mr. Davis's terrifically jumping out from
behind doors and in obscure dark corners, on the female domes-
tics, for no reasonable purpose I can discover, except to make
them exert their voices in a very alarming manner. The house-
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 29
maid, indeed, confirms me by saying in her own words, '< he con-
sidered her skreek the best skreek in the family." If impropriety
had proceeded no further, I should have hesitated to trouble your
Ladyship with particulars; but Mr. Davis, not satisfied with
thus working on the unsophisticated terrors of ignorant females,
thought proper to horrify with inflammatory reports. One night,
as a prominent instance, about twelve o'clock, he rang the alarm
bell so violently, at the same time proclaiming conflagration,
that the law of preservation became our paramount duty, and,
as a consequence, we all escaped in a state of dishabille only to
be ambiguously hinted at, by saying that time did not allow to
put on my best lutestring to meet the neighboring gentry — and
must add, with indignation, in the full blaze of a heap of straw,
thought proper to be set on fire by Mr. Davis in the fore-court.
I trust your Ladyship will excuse a little warmth of language,
in saying it was highly reprehensible ; but I have not depictured
the worst. I, one evening, lighted up what 1 conceived to be a
mould candle, and your Ladyship will imagine my undescriba-
ble fright when it exploded itself like a missile of the squib des-
cription, an unwarrantable mode, I must say, of convincing me,
as Mr. Davis had the audaciousness to own to, that we may be
made to be actors in our own combustion. To suppose at my
years and experience, I can be unsensible of the danger of fire,
must be a preposterous notion ; but all his subsequent acts par-
take an agreeable character. For fear of being consumed in
our beds, as he insidiously professed, he exerted all his influen-
tial arguments to persuade the females to sit up nocturnally all
night, a precaution of course declined, as well as his following
scheme being almost too much broached with absurdity to enu-
merate. I mean every retiring female reposing her confidence
on a live goose in her chamber, as were purchased for the ex-
press purpose, but need not add were dispensed with by rational
beings. I trust your Ladyship will acquit of uncharitableness
if I suspect it was out of vindictive feelings at their opposition to
the geese, that Mr. Davis insinuated a strict inquiry into every
individual that came into the house, as far even as requiring to
be personally '^present at all that' passed between the dairymaid
and her cousin. It escaped memory to say that when the femi-
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9$ PROSE AND VERSE.
nine department refused to be deprived of rest, the male servants
were equally adverse to go to bed, being spirited up by Mr.
Davis to spend the night together, and likewise being furnished
with the best strong ale in the cellar, by his imperious directions^
which, by way of climax to assurance, was alleged to be by
order of Sir Jacob himself. I say nothing reflectively on his
repeatedly discharging his artillery at unseasonable hours, the
shock principally concerning my own nervous constitution,
which was so vibrated as to require calling in physical powers ;
and Doctor Tudor, considering advanced age and infirmity, is
of opinion I may require to be under his professional hands for an
ensuing twelvemonth. Of startling effects upon other parties I
may make comments more unreserved, and without harsh ex-
tenuation must say, his letting off reports without due notice,
frequently when the females had valuable cut glass and china
in their hands, or on their trays, was blameable in the extreme,
to express the least of it. Another feature which caused much
unpleasantness, was Mr. Davis persisting to scrutinize and rum.
mage the entire premises from top to bottom, but on this charac-
teristic tediousness forbids to dwell, and more particularly as
mainly affecting himself, such as the flow of blood from his nose,
and two coagulated eyes, from the cellar door, through a pecu-
liar whim of looking for everything in a state of absolute obscu-
rity. I may add, by way of incident, that Mr. Davis walks
lame from a canine injury in the calf of his leg, which I hope
will not prove rabid in the end, — but the animals he has on his
own responsibility introduced on the premises, really resemble,
begging your Ladyship's pardon for the expression, what are
denominated D.'s incarnate.
Such, your Ladyship, is the unpropitious posture of domestic
affairs at the Shrubbery, originating, I must say, exclusively
from the unprecedented deviations of Mr. Davis. A mild con-
struction would infer, from such extraordinary extravagance of
conduct, a flightiness, or aberration of mind in the individual,
but I deeply lament to say a more obvious cause exists to put a
negative on such a surmise. For the last week Mr. Davis has
betrayed an unusual propensity to pass his evenings at the George
Tavern, and in consequence has several times exhibited himself
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. OT
in a Bacchanalian character to our extreme discomforture, and
on one occasion actually trespassed so far beyond the bounds of
modesty, as to offer me the rudeness of a salute. I blush to im-
part such details to your Ladyship ; but justice demands an ex-
plicit statement, however repulsive to violated reserve and the
rules of virtueir Amongst less immoral actionsj I must advert to
the arrival of two new engines with a vast number of leathern
buckets, I fear ordered by Mr. Davis at my honored master's ex^
pense, and which are periodically exercised in pumpinj^ every
day, by the gardeners and the hinds, being induced thereto by
extra beverages of strong beer- By such means the aquatic
supply of tho well is frequently exhausted by playing upon
nothiag, — and at this present moment I am justified iu stating
we have not safficient water to fulfil culinary purposes j or the
demands of cleanliness, I feel ashamed to say there is not ft
strictly clean cap in the whole household.
In short, Madam, we labor under an aggravated complication
of insubordination, deprivation, discomfort, and alarm, daily and
nightly, such as to shock my eyes whilst it grieves my heart,
and 1 may almost say tarns my head to be present at, without suifi*
cienl authority to dictate or power to enforce a course more con-
sistent with the line of rectitude^ As my sw^ay does not extend to
Mr. Davis, I humbly beseech your Ladyship's interference and
influence in the proper quarter, in behalf, 1 may say, of a body
of persecuted females, some of whom possess cultivated minds
and sensitive feelings beyond their sphere,
1 remain, respected Madam
Your Ladyship's most obliged and very humble Servant,
Amelia Pnirps*
P. S. — One of Mr, Davis's savage, bull-baiting dogs has just
rushed with a frightful crash into the china-closet, in pursuit of
the poor cat
To Sm Jacob Jitbb, Barmei^ M^ F~
HONNEED StrHj
Yure faver enclDsin the Ruings of the Parlimint bousei
cam dully to hand, and did indeed put up all the hares on my
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28 PROSE AND VERSE.
hed. It cam like the bust of a thunder bolt. You mite hav
nockt me down with the fether of a ginny ren. My bran swum.
I seamed rooted to the hearth — and did not no weather I was a
slip or a wack, on my hed or my heals. I was perfecly uncon-
shunable, and could no more kollect meselfuhan the Hirish tiths.
I was a long Tim be for I cud perswade meself that the trooth
was trew. But sich a dredful fire is enuff to unsettil wons resin.
A thowsend ears mite role over our beds, and not prodeuce sich
a bio to the constitushun. I was barley sensible. The Currier
dropt from my hands wen I cam to the perrygraft witch says
"Our hops are at an end. The Hous of Communs is a boddy
of Flams, and so is the Hous of Pears! The Lords will be dun !"
Honnerd Sur, I beg to kondole as becums on yure missin yure
seat. It must have bean the suddinest of shox, & jest wen goin to
sit after standin for the hole county, on yure hone futting, at your
sole expens. But I do hop and trust it will not be yure dissolu-
shun, as sum report ; I do hop it is onely an emty rummer pict
up at sum publick Hous. At such an encindery crisus our wust
frend wood be General Elixion, by stirrin up inflametory
peple, particly if there was a long pole. You see, Sir Jacob, I
konker in evvery sentashus sentemint in yure respected Letter.
The Volkano you menshun I can enter into. Tfieres a great
deal of combustibul sperits in the country that onely wants a
spark to convart them into catarax : — and I greave to say evvery
inflametory jittle demy Grog is nust, and has the caudle support
of certin pappers. Im alludin to the Press. From this sort of
countenins the nashunal aspec gits moor friteful evvery day. I
see no prospex for the next generashun but rocking and swinging.
I hav had a grate menny low thorts, for wat can be moor dis-
piritin then the loss of our two gratest Public Housis ! There is
nothin cumfortable. There is a Vesuvus under our feat, and
evvery step brings us nearer to its brinks. Evvery reflective
man must say we are a virgin on a precipus.
Honnerd Sur ! In the mean tim I hav pade attenshuns to yure
letter, and studid its epistlery direcshuns, witch I hav made
meself very particlar in fulfil ing to the utmost xtent. If the
most zellus effuts have not sucksedid to wish I humbly beg no
blame but wat is dew may fall on me, and hope other peples
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 29
shears will visit their hone heds. The axident with the spring
gun was no neglex of mine. After Barnes settin it hinnself, his
tumblin over the wier nnust be lade to his hone dore along with his
shot legs. I sent for two surgings to sea to him, and they cauld
in too moor, so tHat he is certin of a good dressin, but he was
very down-harted about gittin a livin, till I tolled him yure
honner wood settle on him for the rest of his days. I may say the
lik of the other axident to Sanders and Sam, who got badly
woundid wile wotchin the stax, by apprehendin won another after
a sanguine conflic by mistake for incinderies. I have promist in
yure honners nam to reword them boath hansumly for their vigi-
lings, but they stedfistly refus to padrol anny moor after dusk,
tho they ar agreble by day lit, which leaves me at my whits ends
i^T Fi regards, as strange men would not be trussworthy.
Honnerd Sur — I am sorry 1 cood not git the mad ser vents to
set up for theaves, even for wun nite runnin. I tried the Currier
on them, but it didn't wurk on there minds ; they tuck lites in
their hands and waukd to there pillers as if they hadn't a car on
there heds, and wen I insistid on their allarmin me they all give
me warnin. As for the swetharts there's a duzzen domesticat-
ted luvers in the kitchen, and I'm sorry to say I can't give them
all a rowt. 1 ketchd the cook's bo gettin in at a winder, and
sercht his pockets for feer of fosfrus, but he contaned nothin
xcept a cruckid sixpens, a taler's thimbel, and a tin backy-box,
with a lock of hare witch did not match with cook's. It is dan-
gerus wurk. Becos I luck after the mades candels they tie
strings to the banesters to ketch my fut, and I have twice pitcht
from the hed to the fut of the stars. I am riting with my forrid
brandid and brown pepperd, and my rite hand in a poltus from
gropping in the dark for cumbustibils in the cole seller, and dis-
kivering nothin but the torturous kat and her kittings.
Honnerd Sur — I got six capitol gees a bargin, but am verry
dubbius weather they possess the property that ort to make them
wakful and weary of nites. The old specious may be lost. The
Roman gees you menshun wood certinly hav newer sufferd
themselvs to be stolen without a cakeling as our hone did too
nites ago. As for the wotch dogs, to be candied, they were all
errers in gudgment. There was to much Bui in the bread. The
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30 PROSE AND VERSE.
veriy fust nite they were let lose they flew in a rag, and began
to vent their caning propensites on each other's curcases. I re-
gret to say too was wurried to deth before the next mournings
and the rest were so full of bad bits and ingeries in there vittles
they were obligated to be kild. In shutting Seazer with the
blunderbush, I lament to ad it hung fire, and in liflin it went oflT
of its hone bed and shot the bucher's horse at the gait, and he
has thretind to tak the law if he isn't made good, as he was
verry vallyble.
Honnerd Sur — Accordin to orders I tuck Johnson the suspishus
man evvery nite to the Gorge, and told him to caul for wat he
likt, witch was all ways an ot suppir and Punch. As yet he as
diskivered nothin but sum lov nonsins about a deary-made, so
that its uncertin weather he is a dillygate or not ; but I shood
say a desinin won, for by sum artful meens he allways manniged
to make me drunk fust, and gennerally lent a hand to carry me
home. I told the landlord to let him have aney thing he wantid
and yure Honner wood pay the skore, but I think it was unpru-
dent of Mr. Tapper to let him run up to ten pound. But it isn't
all drink, but eating as well — ^Johnson has a very glutinous ap-
petit, and always stix to the tabel as long as there is meet.
Honnerd Sur — Last fridy morning there was grate riotism
and sines of the populus risin, and accordin I lost no time in
berryin the plait as derected by yure ordirs. I am gratifld to
say the disturbans turned out onely a puggleistical fit; but
owen to our hurry and allarm, the spot ware the plait was berrid
went out of our heads. We have since dug up the hole srub-
bery, but without turnin up anny thing in its shape. But it
cant be lost, tho' it isnt to be found. The gardner swares the
srubs will all di from being transplanted at unproper sesin — ^but
I trust it is onely his old grumblin stile witch he cannot git over.
Honnerd Sur — The wust is to cum. In casis of Fire the
trooth is shure to brake out sunner or latter, so I may as well
cum to the catstrophy without any varnish on my tail. This
morning, according to yure order, I hignitted the littel faggit stak,
fust takin the precawshuny meshure of drawin up a line of men
with buckits, from the dux-pond to the sene of combusting.
Nothing can lay therefor on my sholders : it all riz from the
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THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION. 31
men striking for bear, wen they ort to hav bean handin warter
to won another. I felt my deuty to argy the pint, which I trust
will be apruved, and wile we were cussin and discussin the fire
got a bed that defide all our unitted pours to subdo. To con-
fess the fax, the fire inguns ware all lokt up in a stabble with a
shy key that had lost itself the day before,* and was not to be
had wen we wantid to lay hands on it. Not that we could have
wurked the inguns if they had faverd with their presens, for
want of hands. Evvery boddy had run so ofien at the allarm
bell that they got noboddy to go in there steed. It was an haw-
ful site ; the devowring eHemint swallerd won thing after ano-
ther as sune as cotched, and rushed along roring with friteful
violins. Were the finger of Providins is the hand as does we
must not arrange it, but as the him says, " we must submit and
humbel Bee." Heavin direx the winds, and not us. As it blue
towards the sow the piggry sune cotchd, and that cotchd the
foul housis, and then the barn cotchd with all the straw, and
the granery cotched next, witch it wood not have dun if we had
puld down the Cow Hous that stud between. That was all the
cotching, excep the hay-stax, from Jenkins runnin about with a
flamin tale to his smoak-frock. At last, by a blessin, when there
was no moor to burn it was got under and squentched itself,
prays be given without loss of lif or lim. Another comfit is all
bein inshured in the Sun, enuff* to kiver it ; and I shud hop they
will not refus to make gud on the ground that it was dun wilful
by our hone ax and deeds. But fire ofiicis are sumtimes verry
unlibberal, and will ketch hold of a burning straw, and if fax
were put on their oths I couldn't deni a bundil of rags, matchis,
candel ends, and other combustibils pokt into the faggits, and
then litin up with my hone hand. Tim will sho. In the meen-
while I am consienshusly easy, it was dun for the best, though
turned out for the wust, and am gratifid to reflect that I hav
omitted nothin, but have scruppleusly fulfild evvery particler of
yure honner's instruxions, and in hap of approval of the saim,
await the faver of furthir commands, and am,
Honnerd Sur Jacob,
Your humbel, faithful, and obedient Servint,
Roger Davis.
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32 PROSE AND VERSE.
A TALE OF A TRUMPET.
" Old woman, old woman, wiU jctM go ft-aliejirbg ?
Spe&k a little louder , for Vm very hard cjf h^nnng?*
Old B ALLAH.
Of all old women hard of hearing,
The deafest J siiie, was Dame Eleaiior Spearing f
On her head it is true,
Two 6aps tliere grew,
Tliat served for a pair of £^old rings to go thraugli,
But for any purpose of ears in a parley.
They heard no more than ears of ha r ley.
No hint waa needed from D. E, F,
You saw in her face that the woman was deaf:
From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery
Each queer feature askM a query ^
A look that said in a silent way,
" Who ? and What ? aod How ? and Eh ?
Vd give my eara to know what you say!"
And well she might I for each auricular
Was deaf as a post— and that post m particular
That stands at the corner of Dyott Street now.
And never hears a word of a row [
Ears that might serve her now and then
As extempore racks for an idle pen ;
Or to harg with hoops from jewellers' shops
With corals ruby, or garnet drops;
Ofj provided the owner so inclined,
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET. ^
Ears to stick a blister behuid }
But as for hearing wisdom, or wit,
Falsehood, or foUy^ or tell-tale^itj
f Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt,
Sermon, lecture, or musical bit,
Harp J pia no j fiddle j or kit.
They might as well, for any such wish,
Have been butter *dj done brown, and laid in a dish !
She was deaf as a post, — as said before —
And as deaf as twenty similes more,
Including the adder, that deafest of snakes,
Which never hears the coil it makes.
She was deaf as a house — which modern tricks
Of language would call as deaf as bricks —
For her all human kind were dumb.
Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum, '
That none could get a sound to comcp
Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks ?
She was deaf as a stone — say one of the atonea
Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones ;
And surely deafness no further could reach
Than to be in his jmouth without bearing his speech I
She was deaf as a nut — for nuts, no doubt,
Are deaf to llie gruh that's hollowing out —
As deaf) alas ? as the dead and forgotten —
{Gray has noticed the waste of breath.
In addressing the *' dull, cold ear of death "),
Or the Felon's ear that was stuff'd with Cotton —
Or Charles the First, in statue qUo ;
Or the stilKborn %ures of Madame Tussaud,
With their eyes of glass, and iheir hair of flax.
That only stare whatever you " ax,"
For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax-
She was deaf as the ducks that swara in the pond.
And wouldn't listen to Mrs* Bond,^-
Pabt ij» 4 n \
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34 PROSE AND VERSE.
As deaf as any Frenchman appears.
When he' puts his shoulders into his ears ;
And — ^whatever the citizen tells his son— -
As deaf as Gog and Magog at one !
Or, still to be a simile-seeker,
As deaf as dogs'-ears to Enfield's Speaker !
She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy,
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy ;
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics^
Were plugg'd with gums and antiseptics.
She was deaf as a nail — ^that you cannot hammer
A meaning into, for all your clamor —
There never was such a deaf old Crammer f
So formed to worry
Both Lindley and Murray,
By having no ear for Music or Grammar !
«
Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings,
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings,
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle,
Deaf to even the definite article —
No verbal message was worth a pin.
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in !
In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke,
Or all the Deafiiess in Yearsley's Work,
Who in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing,
Boring, blasting, and pioneering.
To give the dunny organ a clearing,
Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing.
Of course the loss was a great privaticm,
For one of her sex — ^whatever her station —
And none the less that the Dame had a turn
For making all families one concern.
And learning whatever there was to learn
In the prattling, tattling Village of Tringham —
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A TALE OF A TRUUPCT.
As who wore silk ? and who wore gingham ?
And what the Atkins's shop might hiing ^em ?
How the Smiths contrived to live 1 and whether
The fourteen Murphye all pigg'd together ?
The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners,
And what they boilM for their Sunday dinnera ?
What plates the Bugsbys had on the ahelf^
Crockeryj china, woodenj or delf ? •
Atid if the parlor of Mrs* O'Grady •
Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady I
Did Snip and his wife contiaue to jangle ?
Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle 1 »
What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown ? .
And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown ?
If the Cobbler could readj and believed in the Pope f
And how the Grubbs were off for goap 1
If the Snohbs had furnished their room up -stairs,
And how they managed for tables and chairs^
Bedsj and other household affairs,
Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares ;
And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows ?
In feet, she had much of the spirit that lies #
Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys,
By courtesy called Statistical Fellows —
A prying, spying^ inquisitive clan,
Who have gone upon much of the self-same plan»
Jotting tbe Laboring Class's riches ;
And after poking in pot and pan,
And routing garments la want of stitches,
Have ascertained that a working man
Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches !
But this, alas ? from her loss of hearing,
Was all a sealed book to Dame Eleanor Spearing ;
And often her tears would rise to their founts — *x
Supposing a little scandal at plaj 4
'Twixt Mra, OTie and Mrs. Au Fait— t
That she couldn't audit the Gossips' accountflw
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PROSE AND VERSE.
Tis true, to her cottage still they came.
And ate her muffins just the same,
And drank the tea of the widow 'd Dame,
And never swallowed a thimble the less
Of something the reader is left to guess,
For all the deafness of Mrs. S.,
WIjo saw them talk, and chuckle, and cough,
But to see and not share in the social flow,
She might as well have lived, you know.
In one of the houses in Owen's Row,
Near the New River Head, with its water cut off!
And yet the almond-oil she had tried,
And fifty infallible things beside,
Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin,
Dabb'd, and dribbled, and squirted in :
But all remedies fail'd ; and though some it was clear
(Like the brandy and salt
We now exalt)
Had made a noise in the public ear,
Bhe was just as deaf as ever, poor dear!
At last— one very fine day in June —
Suppose her sitting.
Busily knitting,
And humming she did n't quite know what tune ;
For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz.
Which, unless the sound of the circulation.
Or of Thoughts in the Process of fabrication.
By a Spinning- Jennyish operation.
It *s hard to say what buzzing it is,
However, except that ghost of a sound,
She sat in a silence most profound —
The cat was purring about the ? at.
But her Mistress heard no more of that
Than if it had been a boatswain's cat,
And as for the clock the moments' nicking.
The Dame only gave it credit for ticking.
The bark of her dog she did not catch ;
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 37
Nor yet the click of the lifted latch ;
I^or yet the creak of t!ic opening door ;
Nor yet the fall of a foot on the floor —
Bui she saw the shadow that c rept on her gown
And turn'd its skirt of a darker brown.
Andlo! a man! a Pedlar? ay, marry,
With the little hack-shop that such tradesmen carry*
Stock'd with brooches, ribbons, and ringSj
Spectacles, razors, and other odd things,
For lad and lass, as Autolycus sings ',
A chapman for goodness and cheapness of ware,
Held a fair dealer enough at a fair,
But deem'd a piratical sort of invader
By him we dub the *' re^Lilar trader,"
Who luring the passengers in as they pass
By lamps, gay panneis, and mouldings of brass,
And windows with only one huge pane of glass.
And hia name in gilt characters, German or Roman,
If he is n't a Pedlar, at least is a Showman 1
However, in the stranger camCj
And J the moment he met the eyes of IheDamej
Threw her as knowinf^ a nod as though
He had known her fifty long years ago ;
And presto! before she could utter ^^ Jack " —
Much less ** Robinson "^ — open'd his pack —
And then from amongst his portable gear,
With even more than a Pedlar*s tact, —
(Slick himself might have envied the act) —
Before she had time to be deaf, in fact —
Popped a Trumpet into her ear.
'* There, Ma'am ! try it I
You needn't buy it —
The last New Patent — and nothing comes nigh it
For affording the Deaf, at little expense,
The sense of hearing, and hearing of sense f
A Real Blessing — and no mistake,
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PROSE AND VERSE.
Invented for poor Humanity's sake ;
For what can be a greater privation
Than playing Dumby to all creation.
And only looking at oonversation —
Great Philosophers talking like Platos,
And members of Parliament moral as Catos,
And your ears as dull as waxy potatoes !
Not to name the mischievous quizzers.
Sharp as knives, but double as scissors,
Who get you to answer quite by guess
Yes for No, and No for Yes."
(" That's very true," says Dame Eleanor S.)
« Tiy it again ! No harm in trying —
Fm sure you'll find it worth your buying,
A little practice — ^that is all —
And you '11 hear a whisper, however small,
Through an Act of Parliament party-wall, —
Every syllable clear as day.
And even what people are going to say-—
I would n't tell a lie, I would n't.
But my Trumpets have heard what Solomon's could nt ;
And as for Scott he promises fine.
But can he warrant his horns like mine
Never to hear what a Lady should n't—
Only a guinea — and can't take less."
(<< That 's very dear," says Dame Eleanor S.) ^
<< Dear !— Oh dear, to call it dear !
Why it is n't a horn you buy, but an ear ;
Only think, and you'll find on reflection
You 're bargaining, Ma'am, for the Voice of Affection ;
For the language of Wisdom, and Virtue, and Truth,
And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth ;
Not to mention the striking of docki^—
Cackle of hens—crowing of cocks —
Lowing of cow, and bull, and ox-
Bleating of pretty pastoral flocks-
Murmur of waterfall over the rocks-
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET.
Every sound that Echo mocks —
Vocals, fiddles, and musical-box—
And zounds ! to call such a concert dear !
But I must n't swear with my horn in your ear.
Why in buying that trumpet you buy all those
That Harper, or any trumpeter, blows
At the Queen's Levees or the Lord Mayor's Shows,
At least as far as the music goes.
Including the wonderful lively sound
Of the Guards' key-bugles all the year round
€k>me — suppose we call it a pound !
Come," said the talkative Man of the Pack,
" Before I put my box on my back.
For this elegant, useful Conductor of Sound,
Come — suppose we call it a pound !
" Only a pound ! it's only the price
Of hearing a Concert once or twice.
It 's only the fee
You might give Mr. C,
And after all not hear his advice,
But common prudence would bid you stump it ;
For, not to enlarge,
It 's the regular charge
At a Fancy Fair for a penny trumpet.
Lord ! what 's a pound to the blessing of hearing !"
(" A pound 's a pound," said Dame Eleanor Spearing.)
** Try it again ? no harm in trying !
A pound 's a pound there 's no denying ;
But think what thousands and thousands of pounds
We pay for nothing but hearing sounds:
Sounds of Equity, Justice and Law,
Parl&mentary jabber and jaw.
Pious cant and moral saw,
Hocus-pocus, and Nong-tong-paw,
And empty sounds not worth a straw ;
Why it costs a guinea, as I'm a sinneri
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PROSE AND VERSE.
To hear the sounds at a Public Dinner !
One pound one thrown into the puddle,
To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and Fuddle !
Not to foi^et the sounds we buy
Prom those who sell their sounds so high.
That, unless the Managers pitch it strong,
To get a Signora to warble a song
You must fork out the blunt with a haymaker's prong !
" It 's not the thing for me — I know it,
To crack my own Trumpet up and blow it ;
But it is the best, and time will show it.
There was Mrs. F.
So very deaf,
That she might have worn a percussion cap,
And been knock'd on the head without hearing it snap.
Well, I sold her a horn, and the very next day
\^She heard from her husband at Botany Bay !
Come — eighteen shillings — that 's very low,
You '11 save the money as shillings go,
And I never knew so bad a lot,
By hearing whether they ring or not !
Eighteen shillings ! it 's worth the price,
Supposing you 're delicate-minded and nice.
To have the medical man of your choice.
Instead of the one with the strongest voice—-
Who comes and asks you how 's your liver,
And where you ache, and whether you shiver,
And as to your nerves so apt to quiver.
As if he was hailing a boat on the river !
And then, with a shout, like Pat in a riot.
Tells you to keep yourself perfectly quiet !*
" Or a tradesman comes — as tradesmen will —
Short and crusty about his bill,
Of patience, indeed, a perfect scorner.
And because you 're deaf and unable to pay.
Shouts whatever he has to say.
In a vulgar voice that goes over the way,
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 41
Down the street and round the corner,
Come — speak your mind — ^it 's * No or Yes' "
(*4Ve half a mind," said Dame Eleanor S.)
'* Try it again — no liarm in trying,
Of course you hear me, as easy as lying ;
No pain ai all^ like a surgical trick,
To make you squall, and struggle, and kick.
Like Juno, or Rose,
Whose ear undergoea
Such horrid tugs at membrane and gristle,
For being as deaf as yourself to a whistle I
" You may go to surgical chaps if you choose j
Who will blow up your tubes like copper flues,
Or cut your tonsils right away,
As you *d shell out your almonds for Christmas-day |
And after all a matter of doubt^
Whether you ever would hear the shout
Of the little blackguards that bawl about j
' There you go with your tonsils out I*
Why i knew a deaf Welshman who came from Glamorgan
On purpose to try a surgical spell,
And paid a guinea, and might as well
Have called a monkey ioto his organ !
For the Aurist only took a mug,
And pour'd in his ear some acoustical drugj
That instead of curing deafenM him rather,
As Hamlet ^a uncle served Hamlet's father!
That 's the way with your surgical gentry !
And happy your luck
If you don't get stuck
Through your liver and lights at a royal entry.
Because you never answered the sentry !
Try it again, dear Madam, try it 1
Many would sell their beds to buy it.
I warrant you often wake up in the night,
Heady to shake to a jelly with fright,
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4% PROSE AND VERSE.
And up you muit get to strike a light,
And down you go, in you know what,
Whether the weather is chilly or not, —
That 's the way a cold is got, —
To see if you heard a noise or not !
" Why, bless you, a woman with organs like yours
Is hardly safe to step out of doors !
Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt.
But as quiet as if he was ' shod with felt,'
Till he rushes against you with all his force,
And then I needn't describe of course,
While he kicks you about without remorse.
How awkward it is to be groomed by a horse,
Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear,
And you never dream that the brute is near.
Till he pokes his horn right into your ear,
Whether you like the thing or lump it, —
And all for want of buying a trumpet !
<< I 'm not a female to fret and vex,
But if I belonged to the sensitive sex,
Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds,
I wouldn't be deaf for a thousand pounds.
Lord ! only think of chuckmg a copper
To Jack or Bob with a timber limb,
Who looks as if he was singing a hymn,
Instead of a song that 's very improper !
Or just suppose in a public place
You see a great fellow a-puiling a face.
With his staring eyes and his mouth like an O, —
And how is a poor deaf lady to know, —
The lower orders are up to such games —
If he 's calling < Green Peas,' or calling her names ?"
(" They 're tenpence a peck !" said the deafest of Dames.)
<< ^Tis strange what very strong advising,
By word of mouth, or advertising,
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET.
By chalking on walls, or placarding on yaoA,
With fifty other different plans,
The very high pressure, in &ct, of pressing,
It needs to persuade one to purchase a hlessing !
Whether the Soothing American Syrup,
A safety Hat, or a Safety Stirrup, —
Infallible Pills for the human frame.
Or Rowland's O-dont-o (an ominous name) !
A Doudney's suit which the shape so hits
That it beats all others into^ ;
A Mechi's razor for beards unshorn,
Or a Ghost-of-a- Whisper-Catching Horn !
" Try it again, Ma'am, only try !"
Was still the voluble Pedlar's cry ;
<' It's a great privation, there's no dispute.
To live like the dumb unsociable brute,
And to hear no more of the pro and cony
And how Society's going on.
Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John,
And all for want of this sine qud non ;
Whereas, with a horn that never ofiends,
You may join the genteelest party that is.
And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz,
And be certain to hear of your abisent friends ; —
Not that elegant ladies, in fact,
In genteel society ever detract.
Or lend a brush when a friend is black'd,-*-
At least as a mere malicious act, —
But only talk scandal for fear some fool
Should think they were bred at charity school. V-^
Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation,
Which even the most Don Juanish rake
Would surely object to undertake
At the same high pitch as an altercation.
It 's not for me, of course, to judge
How much a Deaf Lady ought to begrudge ;
But half-a-guinea seems no great matter-
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PROSE AND VERSE.
Letting alone more rational patter —
Only to hear a parrot chatter :
Not to mention that feather'd wit,
The Starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit ;
The Pies and Jays that utter words,
And other Dicky Gossips of birds.
That talk with as much good sense and decorum
As many Beaks who belong to the quorum.
" Try it — buy it — say ten and six,
The lowest price a miser could fix :
I don't pretend with horns of mine.
Like some in the advertising line.
To ' magnify sounds ' on such marvellous scales,
That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale's ;
But popular rumors, right or wrong, —
Charity Sermons, short or long, —
Lecture, speech, concerto, or song.
All noises and voices, feeble and strong,
From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong,
This tube will deliver distinct and clear ;
Or, supposing by chance
You wish to dance.
Why, it 's putting a Horn-pipe into your ear !
Try it— buy it I
Buy it — ^try it !
The last New Patent, and nothing comes nigh it,
For guiding sounds to proper tunnel :
Only try till the end of June,
And if you and the Trumpet are out of tune,
I '11 turn it gratis into a Funnel !"
In short, the pedlar so beset her, —
Lord Bacon couldn't have gammon 'd her better,—
With flatteries plump and indirect.
And plied his tongue with such effect, —
A tongue that could almost have butter*d a crumpety-
The deaf Old Woman bought the Trumpet.
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A TALE OP A TRUMPET. 45
The Pedlar was gone. With the Horn's assistance,
She heard his steps die away in the distance ;
And then she heard the tick of the clock,
The purring of puss, and the snoring of Shock ;
And she purposely dropped a pin that was little,
And heard it fall as plain as a skittle !
'Twas a wonderful Horn, to be but just !
Nor meant to gather dust, must, and rust ;
So in half a jifiy, or less than that.
In her scarlet cloak |ind her steeple-hat.
Like old Dame Trot, but without her Cat,
The Gossip was hunting all Tringham thorough.
As if she meant to canvass the borough,
Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity ; —
And, sure, had the horn been one of those
The wild Rhinoceros wears on his nose.
It couldn't have ripp'd up more depravity I
Depravity ! mercy shield her ears !
'Twas plain enough that her village peers
In the ways of vice were no raw beginners ;
For whenever she raised the tube to her drum,
Such sounds were transmitted as only come
From the very Brass Band of human sinners !
Ribald jest and blasphemous curse
(Bunyan never vented worse).
With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech
Which the Seven Dialecticians teach ;
Filthy (^Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns,
And Particles pick'd from the kennels of towns.
With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs,
Chiefly active in rows and mobs,
Picking Possessive Pronouns' fobs,
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PROSE AND VERSE.
And Interjections as bad as a blight,
Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight ;
Fanciful phrases for crime and sin,
And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin,
Garlic, Tobacco, and ofials go in-^
A jargon so truly adapted, in fact.
To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act,
So fit for the brute with the human shape,
Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape,
From their ugly mouths it will certainly come
Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb !
Alas ! for the voice of Virtue and Truth,
And the sweet little innocent prattle of youth !
The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang,
Shock'd the Dame with a volley of slang.
Fit for Fagin's juvenile gang ;
While the charity chap.
With his muffin-cap,
His crimson coat, and his badge so garish,
Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole,
/ Cursed his eyes, limbs, body, and soul.
As if they didn't belong to the Parish !
V
'Twas awful to hear, as she went along.
The wicked w6rds of the popular song ;
Or supposing she listened — as gossips will —
At a door ajar, or a window agape,
To catch the sounds they allow'd to escape.
Those sounds belonged to Depravity still !
The dark allusion, or bolder brag
Of the dexterous " dodge," and the lots of " swag,"
The plundered house — or the stolen nag —
The blazing rick, or the darker crime
That quenchM the spark before its time—
The wanton speech of the wife immoral —
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel, —
With savage menaces, which direaten'd the lifey
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A TALE OP A TRUMPET. m
Till the heart seem'd merely a strop « for the knife :'*
The human liver, no better than that
Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman's cat ;
And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding,
To be punchM into holes, like '' a shocking bad hat "
That is only fit to be punchM into wadding !
In short, wherever she tum'd the horn,
To the highly bred, or the lowly bom.
The working man who look'd over the hedge,
Or the mother nursing her infant pledge,
The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels,
Or the Governess pacing the village through.
With her twelve Young Ladiesj two and two,
Looking, as such young ladies do,
Truss'd by Decorum and stuiPd with moraI»—
Whether she listened to Hob or Bob,
Nob or Snob,
The Squire on his cob,
Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job,
To the Saint who expounded at " Little Zion *' —
Or the " Sinner who kept the Golden Lion " —
The man tefetotally wean'd from liquor —
The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Reverend Vicar-
Nay, the very Pie in its cage of wicker —
She gathered such meanings, double or single^
That like the bell
With muffins to sell,
Her ear was kept in a constant tingle !
But this was naught to the tales of shame.
The ccHistant runnings of evil fame.
Foul, and dirty, and black as ink.
That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink,
Pour'd in her horn like slops in a sink :
While sitting in conclave, as gossips do.
With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green,
And not a little of feline spleen
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PROSE AND VERSE.
Lapp'd up in " Catty packages," too,
To give a zest to the sipping and supping ;
For still by some invisible tether,
Scandal and Tea are link'd together,
As surely as Scarification and Cupping ;
Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea —
Or sloe, or whatever it happened to be, *
For some grocerly thieves
Turn over new leaves
Without much amending their lives or their tea —
No, never since cup was fiU'd or stirr'd
Were such vile and horrible anecdotes heard.
As blacken'd their neighbors, of either gender,
Especially that which is call'd the^ Tender,
But instead of the softness we fancy therewith,
As hardened in vice as the vice of a smith.
Women ! the wretches ! had soil'd and marr'd
Whatever to womanly nature belongs ;
For the marriage tie they had no regard,
Nay, sped their mates to the sexton's yard
(Like Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches
Kept cutting off her L by inches).
And as for drinking, they drank so hard
That they drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs !
'The men — they fought and gambled at fairs;
And poach'd — and didn't respect grey hairs —
Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses ;
And broke in houses as well as horses ;
Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton.
And would their own mothers and wives for a button-
But not to repeat the deeds they did.
Backsliding in spite of all moral skid.
If all were true that fell from the tongue,
There was not a villager, old or young.
But deserved to be whipp'd, imprison'd, or hung,
Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries
To publish at Colbum's, or Longman's, or Murray's.
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A TALE OP A TRUMPET.
Meanwhile the Trumpet, can amotBf
Transmitted each vile diabolioal story ;
And gave the leai^ whisper of slips and fidls.
As that Gallery does in the Dome of St, Paul's,
Which, as all the world knows, by praotioe or priaty
Is famous for maiuBg the most of a hint.
Not a murmur of shame,
Or buzz of blame,
Not a flying report that flew at a name,
Not a plausible gloss, or significant note.
Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat
Of a beam in the eye or diminutive nx>te.
But vortex-like that tube of tin
Suck'd the censorious particle in ;
And, truth to tell, for as willing an oigan.
As ever listened to serpent's hiss.
Nor took the viperous sound amiss.
On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon !'
The Dame, it is true, would mutter " shocking !"
And give her head a sorrowful rocking,
And make a clucking with palate and tongue,
Like the call of Partlett to gather her young,
A sound, wlien human, that always proclaims
At least a thousand pities and shames.
But still the darker the tale of sin,
Like certain folks when calamitiea burst.
Who find a comfott in " hearing the worsts"
The farther she pcdted the Trumpet in.
Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread
East and West,, and North and South,
Like the ball which, aeeording to Captain. Z,
Went in at his ear,- and came out at his mouth.
What wonder between the hom> and the Dame,
Such mischief waa made wherever they came,
That the Parish of Tringham was all in a flame !
For idthough it requires such loud disdiargesi
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90 PROSE AND VERSE.
Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear,
To turn the smallest of table-beer,
A little whisper breathed into the ear
Will sour a temper ^' as sour as varges."
In fact such very ill blood there grew.
From this private circulation of stories,
That the nearest neighbors the village through,
Looked at each other as yellow and blue
As any electioneering crew
Wearing the colors of Whigs and Tories.
Ah ! well the Poet said, in sooth,
That whispering tongues can poison Truth, —
Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid.
Wrench and convuke poor Peace, the placid.
And rack dear Love with internal fuel,
Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel.
Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel.
At least such torments began to wring 'em
From the very mom
When that mischievous Horn
Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham.
The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs.
And the Sons of Harmony came to cuffi.
While feuds arose, and family quarrels,
That discomposed th^ mechanics of morals.
For screws were. loose between brother and brother,
While sisters fastened their nails on each other.
Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff.
And spar, and jar — ^and breezes as stiff
As ever upset a friendship or skiff!
The plighted Lovers, who used to walk.
Refused to meet, and declined to talk ;
And wish'd for two moons to reflect the sun.
That they mightn't look together on one ;
While wedded affection ran so low,
That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo —
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A TALE OP A TRUMPET. , 51
-" — ■ ' ■-^■— ^"^
And instead of the toddle adown the hilly
Hand in hand,
As the song has planned,
Scratched her, penniless, out of his will !
In short, to describe what came to pass
In a true, though somewhat theatrical way,
Instead of " Loye in a Village " — alas !
The piece they perform'd was " The Devil to Pay P
However, as secrets are brought to light.
And mischief comes home like chickens at night ;. ^
And rivers are tracked throughout their oouxse,
And forgeries traced to their proper source ;•*-
And the sow that ought
By the ear is caught, —
And the sin to the sinful door is brought ;
And the cat at last escapes from the bag-^
And the saddle is placed on the proper nag ;
And the fog blows off, and the key is found— -.
And the faulty scent is pickM out by the hound —
And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground—
And the matter gets wind to waft it about ;
And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out-—
And the riddle is guess'd — and the puzzle is known—
So the truth was sniff 'd, and the Trumpet was hhwn f
Tis a day in November — a day of fog —
But the Tringham people are all agog ;
Fathers, Mothers, and Mothers' Sons, —
With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns,—
As if in pursuit of a rabid dog ;
But their voices — raised to the highest pitch-
Declare that the game is " a Witch !— a Witch P*
Over the Green, and along by the George —
Past the Stocks, and the Church, and the Forge^
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PROSE AND VERSE.
And round the Pound, and sikirting the Pond,
TUl they come to the whitewashed cottage beyond,
And there at the door they rouster and cluster.
And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster-
Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster !
A noise, indeed, so loud and long,
And mix'd vifith expressions so very strong.
That "supposing, according to pppular fame,
<^ Wise Woman" and Witch to be the same.
No Hag with a broom would unwisely stop.
But up and away through the chimney-top ;
Whereas, the moment they burst the door,
Planted iast on her sanded floor.
With her Trumpet up to her organ of hearing,
Lo and behold ! — ^Dame Eleanor Spearing !
Oh ! then arises the fearful shout —
Bawl'd and scream'd, and bandied about-*
'< Seize her ! — ^Drag the old Jezebel out !"
While the Beadle — ^the foremost of all the band.
Snatches the Horn from her trembling hand-*
And after a pause of doubt and fear,
Puts it up to his sharpest ear.
''.Now silence— silence— one and all !"
For the Clerk is quoting from Holy Paul I
But before he rehearses
A couple of verses
The Beadle lets the Trumpet fall ;
For instead of the words so pious and humble.
He hears a supernatural grumble.
Enough, enough ! and more than enough ;
Twenty impatient hands and rough,
By arni, i^nd leg, and neck, and ^cru^
Apron, 'kerchief, gown of stuffs
Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff-
Are clutching the Witch wherever they can,
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A TALE OP A TRUMPET.
With the spite of Woittan and itiry of Man ;
And then — ^but first they kill her cat,
And murder her dog on the very mat —
And crush the Infernal Trumpet flat ; —
And then they hurry her through the door
She never, never, will enter more !
Away ! away ! down the dusty lane
They pull her, and haul her, with might and main ;
And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry,
Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry,
Who happens to get '< a leg to carry !"
And happy the foot that can give her a kick,
And happy the hand that can find a brick—-
And happy the fingers that hold a stick-
Knife to cut, or pin to prick —
And happy the Boy who can lend her a lick ; —
Nay, happy the Urchin — Charity-bred,
Who can shy very nigh to her wicked old head !
^
Alas ! to think how people's creeds
Are contradicted by people's deeds !
But though the wishes that Witches utter
Can play the most diabolical rigs —
Send styes in the eye-Hind measle the pigs-
Grease horses' heels — and spoil the butter ;
Smut and mildew the com on the stalk —
And turn new milk to water and chalky-
Blight apples — and give the chickens the pij>-—
And cramp the stomach — and cripple the hip-*-
And waste the body — and addle the eggs—
And give a baby bandy legs ;
Though in common belief a Witch's curse
Involves all these horrible things, and worse—
As ignorant bumpkins all profess.
No Bumpkin makes a poke the less
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S. !
As if she were only a sack of bariey ;
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U PROSE AND VERSE.
Or ^ves her credit for greater might
Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night
On that other old woman, the parish Charley !
Ay, now's the time for a Witch to call
On her Imps and Sucklings one and all —
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down),
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,
Vinegar Tom and the rest of the pack —
Ay, now's the nick for her friend Old Harry
To come " with his tail " like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job
As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob :—
But no such matter is down in the bond ;
And spite of her cries that never cease.
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
Th^ Dame is dragg'd to the fatal pond !
And now they come to the water's brim —
And in they bundle her — sink or swim ;
Though it 's twenty to one that the wretch must drown.
With twenty sticks toxoid her down ;
Including the help to the self-same end.
Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend.
A Pedlar ! — Yes !— The same I — ^the same !
Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame !
And now is foremost amid the stir.
With a token only reveal'd to her ;
A token that makes her shudder and shriek,
And point with her finger, and strive to speak —
But before she can utter the name of the Devil,
Her head is under the water-level !
There are folks about town — ^to name no names —
Who much resemble that deafest of Dames ;
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A TALE OF A TRUMPET. 55
And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets.
Circulate many a scandalous word,
And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such Diabolical Trumpets !
NOTB.
The following curious passage is quoted for the benefit of
such Readers as are afflicted, like Dame Spearing, with Deaf-
ness, and one of its concomitants, a singing or ringing in the
head. The extract is taken from '< Quid Pro Quo ; or, A The-
ory of Compensations. By P. S." (perhaps Peter Shard), folio
edition.
** See tenderly kind and gratious is Nature, our Mother, that
She seldom or never puts upon us any Grievaunce without
making Us some Amends, which, if not a full and perfect
Equivalent, is yet a great Solace or Salve to the Sore. As is
notably displaid in the Case of such of our Fellow Creatures as
undergoe the Loss of Heering, and are thereby deprived of the
Comfort and Entertainment of Natural Sounds. In lew where-
of the Deaf Man, as testified hy mine own Experience, is re-
galed with an inward Musick that is not vouchsafed unto a
Person who hath the compleet Usage of his Ears. For note,
that the selfsame Condition of Boddy which is most apt to bring
on a Surdity, — namely, a general Relaxing of the delicate and
subtile Fibres of the Human Nerves, and mainly such as be-
long and propinque to the Auricular Organ, this very Unbracing
which silences the Tympanum, or drum, is the most instrumental
Cause in producing a Consort in the Head. And, in particular,
that afiection which the Physitians have called Tinnitus, by
reason of its Resemblance to a Ring of Bells. The Absence
of which, as a National Musick, would be a sore Loss and Dis-
comfort to any Native of the Low Countryes, where the Steeples
and Church-Towers with their Carillons maintain an allmost
endlesse Tingle ; seeing that before one quarterly Chime of the
Cloke hatli well ended, another must by Time's Command strike
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up its Tune. On which Account, together with its manye
waterish Swamps and Marshes, the Land of Flandres is said by
the Wits to be Ringing. Wet. Such campanulary Noises would
alsoe be heavily mist and lamented by Uie Inhabitants of that
Ringing Island described in Rabelais his Works, as a Place con-
stantly filled with a Corybantick Jingle Jangle of great, middle-
sized, and little Bells : wherewith the People seem to be as much
charmed as a Swarm of Bees with the Clanking of brazen Ket-
tles and Pans. And which Ringing Island cannot of a surety
be Barbadoes, as certain Authors have supposed, but rather our
own tintinnabulary Island of Brittain, where formerly a Saxon
could not soe much as quench a Fire or a Candle but to the
tune of a Bell. And even to this day, next to the Mother
Tongue, the one mostly used is in a Mouth of Mettal, and withal
so loosely bung, that it must needs wag at all Times and on all
Tq>icks. For your English Man is a mighty Ringer, and be-
sides furnishing Bells to a Bellfry, doth hang them at the Head
of his Horse, and at the Neck of his Sheep — on the Cap of his
Fool, and on the Heels of his Hawk. And truly I have known
more than one amongst my Country Men, who would undertake
more Travel, and Cost besides, to hear a Peal of Grandsires^
than they would bestow to look upon a Generation of Grandchild*
ren. But alack ! all these Bells with the huge Muscovite, and
Great Tom of Lincoln to boot, be but as Dumb Bells to the
Deaf Man : wherefore, as I sMd, Nature kindly steps in with a
Compensation, to wit a Tinnitus, and converts his own Head
into a Bellfry, whence he hath Peals enow, and what is more
without having to pay the Ringers."
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BOZ IN AMERICA. 91
BOZ IN AMERICA.
SmcE the voyages of Columbus in search of the New World,
and of Raleigh in quest of El Dorado, no visit to America has
excited so much interest and conjecture as that of the author of
" Oliver Twist." The enterprise was understood to be a sort of
Literary Expedition, for profit as well as pleasure: and many and
strange were the speculations of the reading public as to the
nature and value of the treasures which would be brought home
by Dickens on his return. Some persons expected a philosophi-
cal comparison of Washington's Republic with that of Plato ;
others anticipated a Report on the Banking System and Com.
mercial Statistics of the United States ; and some few, perhaps,
looked for a Pamphlet on International Copyright. The general
notion, however, was that the Transatlantic acquisitions of Boz
would transpire in the shape of a Tale of American Life and
Manners — and moreover that it would appear by monthly instal-
ments in green covers, and illustrated by some artist with the
name of Phiz, or Whiz, or Quiz.
So strong indeed was this impression, that certain blue-stock,
inged prophetesses even predicted a new Avatar of the celebrated
Mr. Pickwick in slippers and loose trousers, a nankeen jacket,
and a straw-hat, as large as an umbrella. Sam Weller was to
re-appear as his help, instead of a footman, still full of droll
sayings, but in a slang more akin to that of his namesake, the
Clock.maker : while Weller, senior, was to revive on the box of
a Boston long stage, — only calling himself Jonathan, instead of
Tony, and spelling it with a G. A Virginian widow Bardell
was a matter of course — and some visionaries even foresaw a
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slave-owning Mr. Snodgrass, a coon- hunting Mr* Winkle, a wide-
awake Joe, and a forest-clearing Bob Sawyer.*
The fallacy of these guesses and calculations was first proved
by the announcement of " American Notes for General Circu-
lation/' a title that at. once dissipated every dream of a Clock-
case, or a Club, and cut off all chance of a tale. Encouraged by
the technical terms which seemingly had some reference to their
own speculations, the money-mongers still held on faintly by their
former opinions: — but the Romanticists were in despair, and
reluctantly abandoned all hopes of a Pennsylvanian Nicholas
Nickleby affectionately darning Ms mother — a new Yorkshire
Mr. Squeers flogging creation — a black Smike — a brown Kate,
and a Bostonian Newman Noggs, alternately swallowing a cock-
tail and a cobbler.'f
Still there remained enougb in the announcement of American
Notes, by C. Dickens, to strop the public curiosity to a keen
edge. Numerous had been the writers on the land of the stars
and stripes — a host of travelled ladies and gentlemen, liberals and
illiberals, utilitarians and in utilitarians — ^human bowls of every
bias had trundled over the United States without hitting, or in
the opinion of the natives, even coming near the jack. The
Royalist, missing the accustomed honors of Kings and Queens,
saw nothing but a republican pack of knaves ; the High Church-
man, finding no established church, declared that there was no
religion — the aristocrat swore that all was low and vulgar, be-
cause there were no servants in drab turned u^ with blue, or in
green turned down with crimson — ^the radical was shocked by the
caucus, the enthralment of public opinion, and the timidity of the
preachers — the metaphysical philosopher was disgusted with the
preponderance of the real over the ideal — ^the adventurer took
fright at Lynch law, and the saintly abolitionist saw nothing but
black angels and white devils. An impartial account of America
and the Americans was still to seek, and accordingly the reading
public on both sides of the Atlantic looked forward with anxiety
* With the wishes of these admirers of Boz we can in some degree sym-
pathize : for what could be a greater treat, in the reading way than the
perplexities of a squatting Mr. Pickwick, or a settling Mrs. Nickleby ?
t Not a horse and shoe-maker, bat two sorts of Americaa drink.
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BOZ IN AMERICA. 59
and eagerness for the opinions of a writer who had proved hy a
series of wholesome fictions that his heart was in the right place,
that his head was not in the wrong one, and that his hand was a
good hand at description. One thing at least was certain, that
nothing would be set down in malice ; fer, compared with modem
authors in general, Boz is remarkably free from sectarian or anti-
social prejudices, and as to politics he seems to have taken the
long pledge against party spirit. And doubtless one of the causes
of his vast popularity has been the social and genial tone of his
works, — showing that he feels and acts on the true principle of
the " homo sum " — a sum too generally worked as one in long
Division instead of Addition.
In the mean time the book, after long budding in advertise-
ment, has burst into a full leaf, and however disconcerting to
those persons who had looked for something quite different, will
bring no disappointment to such as can be luxuriously content
with good sense, good feeling, good fun, and good writing. In
the very first half-dozen of pages the reader will find an example
of that cheerful practical philosophy which makes the best of
the worst — ^that happy healthy spirit which, instead of morbidly
resenting the deception of a too flattering artist, who had litho-
graphed theu ship's accommodations, joined with him in converting
a floating cup-board into a st^tte-room, and a cabin " like a hearse
with windows in it," into a handsome saloon. But we must skip
the voyage, though pleasantly and graphically described, and at
once land Boz in Boston, where, suflfering from that true ground
swell which annoys the newly landed, he goes rolling along the
pitching passages of the Tremont hotel "with an involuntary
imitation of the gait of Mr. T. P. Cooke in a new nautical melo-
drama."
Now, Boston is the modern Athens of America. Its inhabit-
ants, many of them educated in the neighboring university of
Cambridge, are decidedly of a literary turn, and of course were
not indifierent to the arrival of so distinguished an author iu
their city. Modesty, however, prevents him from recording in
print the popular effervescence — the only fact which transpires
is, that the first day being Sunday he was offered pews and
sittings in churches and chapels, << enough for a score or two of
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grcwh up families." These courtesies, one and all, the travelleir
is obliged to decline for want of a change of dress, — a fortunate
circumstance so far, that whilst the curious but serious Boston*
ians were congregated elsewhere, he was enabled, accompanied
by only a score or so of little boys and girls of no particular
persuasion, to take a survey and a clever sketch (p. 59) of the
city. On Monday, the case was evidently altered ; for, after a
visit to the State-House (p. 61), he was compelled to take refuge
from the mob, in a place where he could not be made a sight or
a show of— the Massachusetts Asy4um for the Blind. Here he
saw the interesting Laura Bridgman, a poor little girl, blind,
deaf^ dumb, destitute of the sense of smell, and almost of that
of taste, yet, thanks to a judicious and humane education, not
altogether dark within, nor hapless without. The following
picture is deeply touching ; a mist comes over the clear eye in
reading it.
*'Like other inmates of the house she had a green ribbon bound over her
eyelids. A doll she had dressed lay near upon the ground. I took it up
and saw that she had made a green fillet such as she wore herself, and
fastened it about its mimic eyes."
But the mob has dispersed ; at least the bulk of it, for not
counting the children, there remain but fourteen autograph-
hunters, six phrenologists, four portrait-painters, seven book-
sellers, five editors, and nineteen ladies, with handsomely-bound
books in their hands or under their arms, on the steps and about
the door of the Blind Asylum. And there they may be still, for
somehow Boz has given them the slip, and in the turning of a
leaf is at SotOh Boston, in the state hospital for the insane — ^not
however as a patient^-for he was once deranged by proxy in
some other person's intellects,— but witnessing and admiring the
rational and humane mode of treatment which, as at our own
Hanwell Asylum, has replaced the brutal, brainless practice of
the good old times when insanity was treated as a criminal
o^nce, — ^the tortures abolished for felons were retained for
lunatics, and their poor over-heated brains had as much chance
of cooling as under the Plombi^res of the Inquisition. Let the
reader who has a mother turn to page 176 for'a peep at a whim-
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fflcal old lady, in the Hartford establishment, and then let him
think that some My years ago the poor dear old soul would have
been fettered, perhaps scourged, for only fancying herself an
antediluvian ! But to lighten a sad subject, let us smile at m
characteristic interview between Boz and an Ophelia, in the
sapie house,
** As we were passing through a gallery on onr way out, a well-dressed
lady, of quiet and composed manners, came up, and proflering a slip of
paf>er and a pen, begged that I would oblige her wi^ an autograph. I
complied, and we parted. I hope $he is not mad (quoth the visitor) lor I
Uiink I remember having had a few interviews like that with ladies *
out of doors.'*
Huzza ! whoo-oop ! A mob has gathered again, and before
he has gone a page, Boz is obliged to get into the Boston House
of Industry, thence into the adjoining Orphan Institution, and
from that, but not mortally crushed, into the Hospital, all highly
creditable establishments, except in one iron feature, '^the eternal,
accursed, suffocating, redhot demon of a stove, whose breath
w«uld blight the purest air under heaven :" and so it does-*
parching the lungs with baked air. We have had some expe-
rience of the nuisance in Grermany ; and never saw it lighted
without wishing for a washerwoman, exorbitant in her chargesi
to blow it up. But we must push on, or the observed of all
observers will be divided from us by a square mile of the Lowell
Factory Millicents, "all dressed out with parasols and silk-
stockings,'* not white or flesh-color, but blue, for these young
women are decidedly literary, and besides subscribing to the cir-
culating libraries, actually get up a periodical of their own !
« The large class of readers, startled by these facts, will exclaim with
one voice, * How very preposterous !' On my deferentially inquiring why,
they will answer, * These things are above their station.* In reply to that
observation I would beg leave to ask what that station is."
What ? — why, according to some of our moral stationers, the
proper station for such people is the station-house, to which actors,
singers, and dancers have so often been consigned in this country
for acting, singing, and dancing upon too moderate terms. But
better times seem to dawn — ^tfae licensinjg Justices begin to out-
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vote atte Injustices, and perhaps some day we shall have Playing
and Dancing as well as Singing for the Milli4n. Why not ?
Why should not the cheerful, amusing tr.eatment which has proved
so beneficial to the poor mad people, be equally advantageous to
the poor sane ones ?
But to return to the Lowell lasses. — Pshaw ! cries a literary
fine gentleman, carelessly penning a sonnet, like Sir Roger de
Coverly^s ancestor, with his glove on, " they are only a set of
fcribbUng millers.'* No such thing. In the opinion of a very
competent judge they write as well as most of our gifted crea-
*tures and talented pens, and their "Offering" may compare
advantageously with a great many of the English Annuals. An
opinion not hastily formed, be it noted, but after the reading of
"400 solid pages from the beginning to the end." No wonder
the gratified Authoresses escorted the Critic — as of course they
did, to the Worcester railway, which on the 5th of February,
1842, was beset of course by an unusual cro^d, behaving, of
course, as another mob did afterwards at Baltimore, but which
Boz evidently mistook for only an every-day ebullition of na-
tional curiosity.
" Being rather early, those men and boys who happened to have nothing
particular to do, and were curious in foreigners, came (according to custom)
round the carriage in which I sat, let down all the windows ; thrust in their
heads and shoulders ; hooked themselves on conveniently by their elbows ;
and fell to comparing notes on the subject of my personal appearance, with
as much indifference as if I were a stuffed figure. I never gained so much
uncompromising information with reference to my own nose and eyes, the
yarkfus impressions wrought by my mouth and chin on different minds,
and how my head looks when if s viewed from behind, as on these occasions.
Stoma gentlemen were only satisfied by exercising their sense of touch ;
and the boys (who are surprisingly precociouB in America) were seldom
satisfied, even by that, but would return to the charge over and over again.
Manytt budding President has walked into my room with his cap on hit
head and his hands in his pockets, and stared at me for two whole hours :
occasionally refreshing himself with a tweak at his nose, or a draught ftom
the water-jug, or by walking to the windows and inviting other boys in the
street below, to come up and do likewise : crying, * Here he is ! — Come
on! — Bring all your brothers !' with other hospitable entreaties of that
natare."
Here is another speculator on the Phenomenon, who evidently
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BOZ IN AMERICA. 03
could not make up his nrfind whether the hairy covering of Boz
was that of a real, or of a metaphorical Lion, p. 56.
** Finding that nothing would satisfy him, I evaded his questions after the
first score or two, and in particular pleaded ignorance respecting the fur
whereof mj coat was made. I am unable to say whether this was the
reason, but that coat &scinated him ever afterwards ; he usually kept close
behind me when I walked, and moved as I moved, that he might look at it
the better ; and he frequently dived into narrow places after me, at the risk
of his life, that he might have the satisfaction of passing his hand up the
back and rubbing it the vnrong way."
From Worcester, still travelling like a Highland chieftain
with his tail on, or a fugitive with a tribe of Indians on his trail,
the illustrious stranger railed on to Springfield ; but there his
voluntary followers were fixed. The Connecticut river being
luckily unfrozen, Boz embarked, designedly, as it appears, in a
steam-boat of about <' half-a-pony power," and altogether so
diminutive, that the few passengers the craft would carry '< all
kept in the middle of the deck, lest the boat should unexpectedly
tip over." But some buzz about Boz had certainly got before
him, for at a small town on the way, the tiny steamer, or rather
one of its passengers, was saluted by a gun considerably bigger
than the funnel ! (p. 174.) At Hartford, however, thanks to the
Deaf and Dumb School, the common Gaol, the State Prison, and
the Lunatic Asylum, the Dickens enjoyed four quiet days, and
then embarked for New York in the New York, —
** Infinitely less like a steam-boat than a huge floating bath. I could
hardly persuade myself indeed, but that the bathing establishment off
Westminster Bridge, which I had left a baby, had suddenly grown to an
enormous size; run away from home; and set up in foreign parts for a
steamer."
At New York, in the Broadway, an ordinary man may find
elbow-room ; but Boz is no ordinary man, and accordingly for a
little seclusion is glad to pay a visit to the famous Prison called
the Tombs. But the mob, the miale part at least, again separates,
and the gaol visitor ventures forth, as it appears, a little pre-
maturely.
« Once more m Broadway ! Here are the s^me ladies in bright colors.
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walking to and fro, in pairs and singly ; yonder the very eame light hlue
parasol which passed and repassed the hotel unndow twenty tunes while
we were sitting there.'*
Heavens ! what a prospect for a modest and a married man !
Popularity is no doubt pleasant, and Boz is extremely popular,
but popularity in America is no joke. It is not down in the book,
but we happen to know, that between 8 and 10 a« m., it was as
much as Dickens could do, with Mrs. Dickens's assistance, to
write the required autographs. It was more than he could do,
between ten and twelve, to even look at the hospitable albums
that were willing to take the stranger in. And now, not to forget
the blue ladies in the Broadway, and the sulphur-colored parasol,
if he should happen to be recognized by yonder group of admi-
rers and well-wishers, he will have, before one could spell tem^
perance, to swallow sangaree, ginsling, a mint julep, a cocktail,
a sherry cobbler, and a timber doodle ! In such a case the
only resource is in flight, and like a hunted lion, rushing into a
difficult and dangerous jungle, Boz plunges at once into the most
inaccessible back-slums of New York.
" This is the place : these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left,
and reeking everjrwhere with dirt and lilth. Such lives as are led here,
bear the same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the
doors, have counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery
has made the very houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are
tumbling down, and how the patched and broken windows seem to scowl
. dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in drunken frays. Many of these pigs
live here. Do they ever wonder why their masters walk upright in lieu of
going on all fours ? and why they talk instead of grunting ?*
But what are " these pigs ?" Why, the very swine whence,
under the New Tariff, we are to derive American pork and
bacon ; and accordingly Boz considerately furnishes his country.
men with a sketch of the breed*
<* They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are ; having
for the most part, scanty, brown backs, like the lids of old horse-hair trunks;
spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have long gaunt legs, too,
and such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for
his portrait, nobody would recognize it for a pig*s likeness."
No-— for they have no choppers. We know the animals well,
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or at least their German cousins and Belgian brothers-in-law ;
and moreover, have tasted the bacon, which only wants fat to be
streaky. But here is a livelier sample of a pig, who seems to
have had a notion of Lynch Law.
^ As we w^e riding along this morning, I observed a little incident be-
tween two youthful pigs, which were so very human as to be inexpressibly
comical and grotesque at the time, though I dare say in telling, it is tame
" One young gentleman (a very delicate porker with several straws sticking
about his nose, betokening recent investigations in a dunghill) was walking
deliberately on, profoundly thinking, when suddenly his brother, who was
lying in a miry hole unseen by him, rose up immediately before his startled
eyes, ghostly with damp mud. Never was a pig's whole mass of blood sa
turned. He started back at least three feet, gazed for a moment, and then
shot off as hard as ever he could go : his excessively little tail vibrating
with speed and terror like a distracted pendulum. But before he had gone
very far, he began to reason with himself as to the nature of this frightful
appearance ; and as he reasoned, he relaxed his speed by gradual degrees^,
until at last he stopped, and faced about. There was his brother with the
mud upon him glazing in the sun, yet staring out of the very same hole, per--
fectly amazed at his proceedings. He was no sooner assured of this, and.
he assured himself so carefully, that one may almost say he shaded his eyes^
with his hand to see the better, than he came back at a round trot, pounced
upon him, and summarily took off a piece of his tail, as a caution to him Id
be careful what he was about for the future, and never to play tricks witt
his family any more."
But as usual, Boz was not allowed exclusively to please the
pigs ; and being hunted all along shore, he was obliged, like a.
deer fort couru, to take to the water, and was carried to the
Long Island Jail, by a boat belonging to the establishment, and
rowed by a crew of prisoners *' dressed in a striped uniform of
black and buff, in which they looked like faded tigers." Not a
bad retinue, by the way, for a black and white Lion. In the
Gaol, the Madhouse, and the Refuge for the Destitute, he again
found a temporary repose, but even these retreats becoming at
last uncomfortably crowded, he set off by railway for Philadelphia,
with a longing eye, of course, to its Solitary Prison. But that he
did not enjoy much unpopularity on this journey, we may guess,
when the travelling in the same carriage with Boz was too much
Paet II. 6
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66 PROSE AND VERSE.
for even' Foxite taciturnity, and a Friend made such a desperate
e^rt, as follows, to become an Acquaintance :
" A mild and modest young Quaker, who opened the discourse by in-
forming me, in a grave whisper, that his grandfather was the inventor <tf
cold-drawn castor-oil. I mention the circumstance here, thinking it pro-
bable that this is the first occasion on which the valuable medicine in
question was ever used as a conversational aperient."
The genuine drab color of this anecdote is as true in tone as
the tints of Claude, and gives a renewed faith in the artist. The
following picture seems equally faithful, though reminding us of
some of the Author's fancy pieces. Look at it, gentle reader,
and then cry with us, " God forgive the inventor of the system
(Of burying criminals alive in stone coffins !"
*< The first man I saw was seated at his loom at work. He had been
^there six years, and was to remain, I think, three more. He had been
'Convicted as a receiver of stolen goods, but denied his guilt, and said he had
vbeen hardly dealt by. It was his second ofience.
" He stopped bis work when we went in, took ofi* his spectacles, and an-
swered freely to everything that was said to him, but always with a strange
tkind of pause first, and in a low thoughtful voice. He wore a paper hat of
bis own making, and was pleased to have it noticed and commended. He
had very ingeniously manufactured a sort of Dutch clock from some disre-
garded odds and ends ; and his vinegar-bottle served for the pendulum.
Seeing me interested in this contrivance, he looked up at it with a good
deal of pride, and said that he had been thinking of improving it, and that
he hoped the hammer and a little piece of broken glass beside it ' would
play music ere long.'
"He smiled as I looked at these contrivances to while away the time;
but when I looked from them to him, I saw that his lip trembled, and could
have counted the beating of his heart. 1 forgot how it came about, but
some allusion was made to his having a wife. He shook his head at the
word, turned aside, and covered his face with his hands.
" * But you are resigned now !' said one 6i the gentlemen, after a short
pause, during which he had resumed his former manner.
" * Oh yes, oh yes ! I am resigned to it'
" * And are a better man, you think ?'
" * Well, I hope so: I'm sure I may be.'
" • And time goes pretty quickly .^
*• * Time is very long, gentlemen, between these four walls !'
" He gazed about him — Heaven only knows how wearily ! as he said
these words; and in the act of doing so, fell into a strange stare, as if he
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BOZ IN AMERICA. VI
had forgotten sometfaing. A moment afterwards he sighed heavily, put on
his spectacles, and resumed his work."
" On the haggard face of erery man among these prisoners the same
expression sat I know not what to Uken it to. It had something of that
strained attention which we see upon the &ces of the blind and deaf, mingled
with a kind of horror, as though they had all been secretly terrified. In
every little chamber that I entered, and at every grate through which I
looked, I seemed to see the same appalling countenance. It lives in my
memory with the fascination of a remarkable picture. Parade before my
eyes a hundred men, with one of them newly released from this solitary
suffering, and I would point him out."
** That it makes the senses dull, and by degrees impairs the bodily hcvl-
ties, I am quite sure. I remarked to those who were with me in this very
establishment at Philadelphia, that the criminals who had been there long
were deaf." •
Of course they were ; and all more or lesa advanced towards
a state (to adapt a new word) of idiosyncrasy. Again we say,
Heaven forgive the inventors of such a course of slow mental
torture ! who could reduce a fellow-creature to become such a
dock-maker ! The truth is, no Solitary System is consonant
with humanity or Christianity. Whenever there shall be persons
too good for this world, they may have a right to thus excom-
municate those who are too bad for it — but as Person said, not
till then !
Nevertheless to a gentleman mobbed, elbowed, jammed^ stared
at, and shouted after, a few hours in such a quiet hermitage
would be a relief: nay, Boz tells us that it was once found en-
durable for a much longer term, by a voluntary prisoner, who,
unable to resist the bottle, applied, as a favor, for a solitary cell.
The Board refused, and recommended total abstinence and the
long pledge, but the toper, to make sure of temperanpe, en-
treated to be put in the sUme jug,
" He came again, and again, and again, and was so very earnest and im-
portunate, that at last they took counsel together, and said, * He will cer-
tainly qualify himself for admission, if we reject him any more. Let us
shut him up. He will soon be glad to go away, and then we shall get rid
of him.' So they made him sign a statement, which would prevent his
ever sustaining an action for false imprisonment, to the effect that his in-
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carceration was voluntary, and of his own seeking ; they requested him to
take notice that the officer in attendance had orders to release him at any
hour of the day or night, when he might knock upon his door for that
purpose ; but desired him to Understand that, once going out, he would not
be admitted any more. These conditions agreed upon, and he still remain-
ing in the same mind, he was conducted to the prison, and shut up in one
of the cells.
" In this cell, the man who had not the firmness to leave a glass of liquor
.•tanding untasted on a table before him — in this cell, in solitary confine-
ment, and working every day at his trade of shoe-making, this man remained
nearly two years. His health beginning to fail at the expiration of that
time, the surgeon recommended that he should work occasionally in the
garden ; and as he liked the notion very much, he went about this new oc-
cupation with groat cheerfulness.
"He was digging here one summer-day very industriously, when the
wicket in the outer gate chanced to be left open : showing, beyond, the well-
remembered dusty road and sun-burnt fields. The way was as free to him
as to any man living, but he no sooner raisad his head and caught sight
of it, all shining in the sun, than, with the involuntary instinct of a pris-
oner, he cast away his spade, scampered off as fast as his legs would cany
him, and never once looked back."
At Washington Boz had an interview with the American
President, and, as might be expected, the great drawing-room,
and the other chambers on the ground-jfloor, were " crowded to
excess." No wonder that as soon as released from the throng,
our traveller turned his thoughts towards the wilds and forests
of the Far West ; with a vague hankering after the vast soli-
tude and quiet of a Prairie ! But such delights are to be reached
by a course no smoother than that of true love, — as witness the
coaching on a Virginian road, with an American Mr. Weller.
** He is a negro— very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse pepper-
a&d-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the knees),
grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very short trousers.
He has two odd gloves : one of parti -colored worsted, and one of leather. He
has a very short whip, broken in the middle, and bandaged up with string.
And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, black hat : faintly shad-
owing forth a kind of insane imitation of an English coachman ! But
•omebody in authority cries * Go ahead !* as I am making these observa-
tions. The mail takes the lead, in a four-horse wagon, and all the coaches
^low in procession headed by No. 1.
** By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry * All right !* an Amer*
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icftn cries * 60 ahead!' which ia somewhat expreasiye of the national
character of the two countries.
<* The first half mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks laid
across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over them, and
IN the river. The river has a clayey bottom, and is full of holes, so that
half a horse is coastantly disappearing unexpectedly, and can't be found
again for some time.
" But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a series
of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close before
us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and
looks straight between the two leader^, as if he were saying to himself,
« We have done this before, but now I think we shall have a crash.' He
takes a rein in each hand ; jerks and pulls at both ; and dances on the splash-
board with both feet (keeping his seat of course), like the late lamented
Pucrow on two of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in
the mire nearly to the coach-window, tilt on one side at an angle of forty-
five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally ; the coach
stops ; the horses flounder ; all the other six coaches stop ; and their four
and twenty horses flounder likewise ; but merely for company, and in sym-
pathy with ours. Then the following circumstances occur.
** Black Driver (to the horses). — * Hi !'
" Nothing happens. Insides scream again.
" Black Driver (to the horses). — * Ho !'
** Horses plunge, aiid splash the black driver.
" Gentleman inside (looking out). — * Why, what on airth— *
** Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his bead in aganiy
without finishing his question, or waiting for an answer.
** Black Driver (still to the horses). — * Jiddy ! Jiddy I*
" Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a
b^nk; so steep, that the black driver's legs fly up into the air, and he goes
back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers himself,
and cries (still to the horses),
« * Pill !'
" No effect On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2,
which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on until
No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile behind.
" Black Driver (louder than before). — • Pill !'
<* Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach
rolls backward.
" Black Driver (louder than before). — * Pe-e-e-ill !*
" Horses make a desperate struggle.
" Black Driver (recovering spirits). — * Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy, pill."
** Horses make another effort
«* Black Driver (with great vigor).—* Ally Loo ! Hi, Jiddy, Jiddy.
PiU. Ally Loo!'
** Horses almost do it
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70 PROSE AND VERSE.
** BztACK Dritbr (with his eyes starting out of his head).— < Lee, den.
Lee, dere. Hi. Jiddj, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e*e-e-e !'
** They ran up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful
paca It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep
hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream.
The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman.
Suddenly, we are all right, by some extraordinary means, and stop to
breathe.
<* A black friend of the driver is sitting on a fence. The black driver
recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a harlequin,
rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from ear to ear. He
stops short, turns to me, and says :
" * We shall get you through, sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when
we get you trough, sa. Old 'ooman at home, sir/ chuckling very much.
< Outside gentleman, sa, he often remember old 'ooman at home, sa,' grinning
again.
<< * Ay, ay, we'll take care of the old woman. Don't be afraid.'
*< The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond that
another bank, close before us. So he stops short : cries (to the horses
again), * Easy — easy den — ease — steady — hi — ^Jiddy — ^pill — ^AUy — Loo," but
never ' Lee !' until we are reduced to the very last extremity, and are in the
midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to be all but impos-
sible.
** And so we do the t^n miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half,
breaking no bones, though bruising a great many ; and in short, getting
through the distance * like a fiddle.' "
The next conveyance was by the Harrisburg Canal, on which
there are two passage-boats, the Express and the Pioneer. For
some reason, however, the Pioneers would come into the other
boat, in which Boz was a passenger — an addition that drew out
a certain thin-faced, spare-figured man, of middle age and
stature, dressed in a dusty, drabbish-colored suit, and up to that
moment as quiet as a lamb.
** * This may suit ycu, this may, but it don't suit me. This may be all
very well with Down Easters, and men of JBoston raising, but it won't suit
my figure, no how; and no two ways about that; and so I tell you. Now,
I'm from the brown forests of the Mississippi, I am ; and when the sun
shines on me, it does shine — a little. It don't glimmer where I live, the
sun don't No. I'm a brown forester, I am. I an't a Johnny Cake. There
are no smooth skins where I live. We*re rough men, there. Rather. If
Down Easters and men of Boston raising are like this, I'm glad of it, but
Fm none of that raising or of that breed. No. This company wants a
little fixing—^ does. I'm the wrong sort of a man for 'em, / am. They
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won't like me, they won't This is piling of it up a little too mountain«iu»
this is.'
** At the end of e7ery one of these short sentences he turned upon his
heel, and walked the other way ; checking himself abruptly when he had
finished another short sentence, and turning back again. It is impossible
for me to say what terrific meaning was hidden in the words of this brown
forester, but I know that the other passengers looked on in a sort of admir-
ing horror, and fiiat presently the boat was put back to the wharf, and as
many of the Pioneers as could be coaxed or bullied into going away were
got rid of."
It was perfectly natural, afler this '* touch of the earthquake/'
to desire to see the Shakers, whose peculiar delirium tremens
had been reported a^ unspeakably absurd : but the elders had
clearly received a hint of a chield coming, like Captain Grose,
to make Notes and print them.
** Presently we came to the beginning of the village, and alighting at the
door of a house where the Shaker manufactures are sold, and which is the
head-quarters of the elders, requested permission to see the Shaker
worship.
*< Pending the conveyance of this request to some person in authority, we
walked into a grim room, where several grim hats were hanging on grim
pegs, and the time was grimly told by a grim clock, which uttered every
tick with a kind of struggle, as if it broke the grim silence reluctantly and
under protest. Ranged against the wall were six or eight stiff, high-backed
chairs, and they partook so strongly of the general grimness that one would
much rather have sat on the floor than incurred the smallest obligation to
any of them.
" Presently there stalked into this apartment a grim old Shaker, with eyes
as hard, and dull, and cold, as the great round metal buttons on his coat and
waistcoat: a sort of calm goblin. Being informed of our desire, he pro-
duced a newspaper wherein the body of elders, whereof he was a member,
had advertised but a few days before, that, in consequence of certain un-
seemly interruptions which their worship had received firom strangers, the
chapel was closed for the space of one year."
The chapel will now be opened : for the chield is in England,
and his Notes are not only printed but published, and by this
time have been abundantly circulated, read, quoted, and criti- '
cised. Many of them, that will be canvassed elsewhere, are
here lefl untouched, for obvious reasons ; and various desirable
extracts are omitted through want of space ; for example, a
pretty episode of a little woman with a little baby at St. Louisi
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ftnd sundry sketches of scenery, character, and manners, as
superior as " chicken fixings " to *' common doings." We have
nevertheless worked out our original intention. The political
will discuss the author's notions of the republican institutions ;
the analytical will scruticiize his philosophy; the critical his
style, and the hypocritical his denunciations of cant. Our only
aim has been, according to the' heading of this article, to give
the reader a glimpse of Boz in America.
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COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG.
COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG.
LETTER I.
To THE Editor of the Athen^um :
My dear Sir, — I have read with much satisfaction the occa-
sional exposures in your Journal of the glorious uncertainty of
the Law of Copyright, and your repeated calls for its revision.
It is high time, indeed, that some better system should be esta-
blished ; and I cannot but regret that the legislature of our own
country, which patronizes the great cause of liberty all over
the world, has not taken the lead in protecting the common rights
of Literature. We have a national interest in each ; and their
lots ought not to be cast asunder. The French, Prussian, and
American governments, however, have already got the start of
us, and are concerting measures for suppressing those piracies,
which have become, like the influenza, so alarmingly prevalent.
It would appear, from the facts established, that an English book
merely transpires in London, but is published in Paris, Bri^ssels,
or New York.
•Ti8 but to sail, and with to-morrow's sun
The pirates will be bound,
Mr. Bulwer tells us of a literary gentleman, who felt himself
under the necessity of occasionally going abroad to preserve his
self-respect ; and without some change, an author will equally
be obliged to repair to another country to enjoy his circulation.
As to the American reprints, I can personally corroborate your
assertion, that heretofore a transatlantic bookseller " has taken
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five hundred copies of a single work/' whereas he now orders
none, or merely a solitary one, to set up from. This, I hope,
is a matter as important as the little question of etiquette, which,
according to Mr. Cooper, the fifty millions will have to adjust.
Before, however, any international arrangements be entered into,
it seems only consistent with common sense that we should begin
at home, and first establish what copyright is in Britain, and
provide for its protection from native pirates or Book-aneers. I
have learned, therefore, with pleasure, that the state of the
law is to be brought under the notice of Parliament by Mr. Ser-
jeant Talfourd, who, from his legal experience and literary
tastes, is so well qualified for the task. The grievances of au-
thors have neither been loudly nor often urged on Lords or Com-
mons; but their claims have long been lying on the library
table, if not on the table of the House, — and methinks their
wrongs have only to be properly stated to obtain redress. I
augur for them at least a good hearing, for such seldom and
low-toned appeals ought to find their way to organs as " deaf to
clamor " as the old citizen of Cheapside, who said that ^^ the
more noise there was in the street, the more he didn't hear it."
In the meantime, as an author myself, as well as proprietor of
copyrights in " a small way," I make bold to offer my own feel-
ings and opinions on the subject, with some illustrations from
what, although not a decidedly serious writer, I will call my
experiences. And here I may appropriately plead my apology
for taking on myself the cause of a fraternity of which I am so
humble a member ; but, in truth, this very position, which for-
bids vanity on my own account, favors my pride on that of
others, and thus enables me to speak more becomingly of the
deserts of my brethren, and the dignity of the craft. Like P.
P. the Clerk of the Parish, who with a proper reverence for his
calling, confessed an elevation of mind in only considering him-
self as " a shred of the linen vestment of Aaron," I own to an
inward exultation at being but a Precentor, as it were, in that
worship, which numbers Shakspeare and Milton amongst its
priests. Moreover, now that the rank of authors, and the nature
and value of literary property, are about to be discussed, and I
hope established for ever, it becomes the duty of every literary
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man — as much as of a Peer when his Order is in question — ^to
assert his station, and stand up manfully for the rights, honors,
and privileges of the Profession to which he belongs. The ques«
tion is not a mere sordid one — ^it is not a simple inquiry in what
way the emoluments of literature may be best secured to the
author or proprietors of a work ; on the contrary, it involves a prin-
ciple of grave importance, not only to literary men, but to those
who love letters, — and, I will presume to say, to society at large.
It has a moral as well as commercial bearing ; for the Legislature
will not only have to decide directly^ by a formal act, whether the
literary interest is worthy of a place beside the shipping interest,
the landed interest, the funded interest, the manufacturing, and
other public interests, but also it will have indirectly to deter-
mine whether literary men belong to the privileged class, — the
higher, lower, or middle class, — the working class, — ^productive
or unproductive class, — or, in short, to any class at all,* " Lite-
rary men," says Mr. Bulwer, " have not with us any fixed and
settled position as men of letters." We have, like Mr. Cooper's
American lady, no precedence. We are, in fact, nobodies. Our
place, in turf language, is nowhere. Like certain birds and
beasts of difficult classification, we go without any at all. We
have no more caste than the Pariahs. We are on a par — ac-
cording as we are scientific, theologic, imaginative, dramatic,
poetic, historic, instructive, or amusing — with quack doctors,
street-preachers, strollers, ball ad- singers, hawkers of last dying
speeches, Punch-and-Judies, conjorers, tumblers, and other "di-
varting vagabonds." We are as the Jews in the East, the
Africans in the West, or the gipsies anywhere. ^ We belong to
those to whom nothing can belong. I have even misgivings —
heaven help us — if an author have a parish ! I have serious
doubts if a work be a qualification for the workhouse ! The
law apparently cannot forget, or forgive, that Homer was a va-
grant, Shakspeare a deer-stealer, Milton a rebel. Our very
cracks tell against us in the statute ; Poor Stoneblind, Bill the
Poacher, and Radical Jack have been the ruin of our gang.
We have neither character to lose nor pjoperty to protect. We
* At a guess, I should say. we were classed, in opposition to a certain
literary sect, as Inutilitariaos.
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are by law— outlaws, undeserving of civil rights. We may be
robbed, libelled, outraged with impunity, being at the same time
liable, for such offences, to all the rigor of the code. I will not
adduce, as I could do, a long catalogue of the victims of this
system which seems to have been drawn up by the " Lord of
Misrule," and sanctioned by the '* Abbot of Unreason." I will
select, as Sterne took his captive, a single author. To add to
the parallel, behold him in a prison ! He is sentenced to remain
there during the monarch's pleasure, to stand three times in
the pillory, and to be amerced besides in the heavy sura of two
hundred marks. The sufferer of this threefold punishment is
one rather deserving of a triple crown, as a man^ as an author,
and as an example of that rare commercial integrity whicli
does not feel discharged of its debts, though creditors have ac-
eepted a composition, till it has paid them in full. It is a literary
o£^nce — a libel, or presumed libel, which has incurred the se-
verity of the law ; but the same power that oppresses him,
refuses or neglects to support him in the protection of his literary
character and his literary rights. His just fame is depreciated
by public slanderers, and his honest, honorable earnings are
forestalled by pirates. Of one of his performances no less than
twelve surreptitious editions are printed, and 80,000 copies are
disposed of at a cheap rate in the streets of London. I am writ*
ing no fiction, though of one of fiction's greatest masters. That
captive is — for he can never die — that captive author is Scott's,
Johnson's, Blair's, Marmontel's, Lamb's, Chalmers's, Beattie's —
good witnesses to character these !— every Englishman's, Bri*
tain's, America's, Germany's, France's, Spain's, Italy's, Ara-
bia's ; all the world's Daniel De Foe !
Since the age of the author of Robinson Crusoe, the law has
doubtless altered in complexion, but not in character, towards
his race. It no longer pillories an author who writes to the dis-
taste, or like poor Daniel, above the comprehension of the Pow-
ers that be, because it no longer pillories any one ; but the
imprisonment and the fines remain in force. The title of a
book is, in legal phrase, the worst title there is. Literary pro-
perty is the lowest in the market. It is declared by law worth
only so many years' purchase, after which the private right be.
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comes common ; and in the meantime, the estate being notori-
ously infested witii poachers, is as remarkably unprotected by
game laws. An author's winged thoughts, though laid, hatched,
bred,«nd fed within his own domain, are less his property than
is the bird of passage that of the lord of the manor, on whose
soil it may happen to alight. An author cannot employ an
armed keeper to protect his preserves ; he cannot apply to a
pindar to arrest the animals that trespass on his grounds; —
nay, he cannot even call in a common constable to protect his
purse on the King's highway I 1 have had thoughts myself of
seeking the aid of a policeman, but counsel, learned in the
law, have dissuaded me from such a course ; there was no
way of defending myself from the petty thief but by picking
my own pocket! Thus I have been compelled to see my own
name attached to catchpenny works, none of mine, hawked
about by placard -men in the street ; I, who detest the puffing
system, have apparently been guilty of the gross forwardness
of walking the pavement by proxy for admirers, like the dog
Bashaw ! I have been made, nominally, to ply at stage-coaoh
windows with my wares, like Isaac Jacobs with his cheap pen-
cils, and Jacob Isaacs with his cheap p^n-knives, to cut them
with : — and without redress, for, whether I had placed myself
in the hands of the law, or taken the law in my own hands,
as any bumpkin in a barn knows, there is nothing to be thrashed
out of a man of straw. Now, with all humility, if my poor
name be any recommendation of a book, I conceive I am en-
titled to rrserve it for my own benefit. What says the pro-
verb ? — " When your name is up you may lie abed ;" but what
says the law ? — ^at least, if the owner of the name be an au-
thor. Why, that any one may steal his bed from under him
and sell it; that is to say, his reputation, and the revenue
which it may bring. In the meantime, for other street frauds
there is a summary process : the vender of a flash watch, or a
razor made to sell, though he appropriates no maker's name, is
seized without ceremony by A 1, carried before B % and com-
mitted to C 3, as regularly as a child goes through its alphabet
and numeration. They have defrauded the public, forsooth,
and the public has its prompt remedy ; but for the literary
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man, thus doubly robbed, of his money and his reputation, what
is his redress but by injunction, or action against walking sha-
dows, — a truly homodopalhic remedy, which pretends to cure by
aggravating the disease. I have thus shown how an author
may be robbed ; for if the works thus offered at an unusually
low price be genuine, they must have been dishonestly ob-
tained — ^the brooms were stolen ready made ; if, on the con-
trary, they be counterfeit, I apprehend there will be little diffi-
culty in showing how an author may be practically libelled
with equal impunity. For anything I know, the Peripatetic
Philosophy ascribed to me by the above itinerants, might be he-
retical, damnable, libellous, vicious, or obscene ; whilst, for any-
thing they knew to the contrary, the purchasers must have held
me responsible for the contents of the volumes which went
abroad so very publicly under my name. I know, indeed, that
parties thus deceived have expressed their regret and aston-
ishment that I could be guilty of such prose, verse, and worse,
as they had met with under my signature. I believe I may cite
the well-known Mr. George Robins as a purchaser of one of
the counterfeits; and if he, perhaps, eventually knocked me
down as a street-preacher of infidelity, sedition, or immorality, it
was neither his fault nor mine. I may here refer, en passant —
for illustrations are plenty as blackberries — ^to a former corres-
pondence in the Athenaum, in which I had, in common with Mr.
Poole and the late Mr. Colman, to disclaim any connexion with
a periodical in which I was advertised as a contributor. There
was more recently, and probably still is, one Marshall, of Hoi-
bom Bars, who publicly claims me as a writer in his pay, with
as much right to the imprint of my name, as a print collector
has to the engravings in another man's portfolio ; but against this'
man I have taken no rash steps, otherwise called legal, knowing
that I might as well appear to Martial Law versus Marshall, as
to any other. As a somewhat whimsical case, I may add the
following: — Mr. Chappell, the music- seller, agreed to give me a
liberal sum for the use of any ballad I might publish ; and an-
other party, well known in the same line, applied to me for a
forma) permission to publish a little song of mine, which a lady
had done me the honor of setting to an original melody. Here
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seemed to be a natural recognition of copyright, and the moral
sense of justice standing instead of law ; but in the meantime
a foreign composer — ^I forget his name, but it was set in G ,
took a fancy to some of my verses, and without the semiquaver
of a right, or the demisemiquaver of an apology, converted
them to his own use. I remonstrated, of course ; and the re-
ply, based on the assurance of impunity, not only admitted
the fact, but informed me that Monsieur, not finding my lines
agree with his score, had taken the liberty of altering them at
my risk. Now, I would confidently appeal to the highest poets
in the land, whether they do not feel it quite responsibility
enough to be accountable for their own lays in the mother
tongue; but to be answerable also for the attempts in Eng.
lish verse by a foreigner — and, above all, a Frenchman — ^is
really too much of a bad thing !
Would it be too much to request of the learned Serjeant who
has undertaken our cause, that he would lay these cases before
Parliament? Noble Lords and Honorable Gentlemen come
down to their respective Houses, in a fever of nervous excite-
ment, and shout of " Privilege ! Breach of Privilege !'* because
their speeches have been erroneously reported, or their meaning
garbled in perhaps a single sentence ; but how would they relish
to see whole speeches, — nay, pamphlets, — ^they had never uttered
or written, paraded, with their names, styles, and titles at full
length, by those placarding walkers, who, like fathers of lies, or
rather mothers of them, carry one staring falsehood pickaback,
and another at the bosom ? How would those gentlemen like to
see extempore versions of their orations done into English by a
native of Paris, and published, as the pig ran, down all sorts of
streets ? Yet to similar nuisances are authors exposed without
adequate means of abating them. It is often better, I have been
told, to abandon one's rights than to defend them at law, — a sen*
tence that will bear a particular application to literary grievan-
ces. For instance, the law would have something to say to a
man who claimed his neighbor's umbrella as his own parasol,
because he had cut off a bit round the rim : yet, by something of
a similar process, the better part of a book may be appropriated —
and this is so civil an ofience, that any satisfaction at law is only
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to be obtained by a very costly and doubtful course. There was
even a piratical work, which, — ^to adopt Burke's paradoxical
style,— disingenuously ingenuous and dishonestly honest, assumed
the plain title of " The Thief," professing, with the connivance of
the law, to steal all its nnaterials. How this Thief died I know
not ; but as it was a literary thief, I would lay long odds that the
law was not its finisher.
Tnese piracies are naturally most injurious to those authors
whose works are of a fugitive nature, or on topics of temporary
interest ; but there are writers of a more solid stamp — of a higher
order of mind, or nobler ambition, who devote themselves to the
production of works of permanent value and utility. Such works
often creep but slowly into circulation and repute, but then
become classics for ever. And what encouragement or reward
does the law hold forth to such contributors to our Standard
National Literature ? Why, that afler a certain lapse of years,
coinciding probably with the term requisite to establish the ster-
ling character of the work, or, at least, to procure its general
recognition — then, aye, just then, when the literary property is
realized, when it becomes exchangeable against the precious
metals which are considered by some political and more practi-
cal economists as the standard of value — ^the law decrees that
then all right or interest in the book shall expire in the author,
and by some strange process, akin to the Hindoo transmigrations,
revive in the great body of the booksellers. And here arises a
curious question. After the copyright has so lapsed, suppose
that some speculative publisher, himself an amateur writer,
should think fit to abridge or expand the author's matter — exten-
uate or aggravate his arguments — French polish his style — ^John-
sonize his phraseology-^r even, like Winifred Jenkins, wrap
his own " bit of nonsense under his Honor's kiver," — is there
any legal provision extant to which the injured party could
appeal for redress of such an outrage on all that is lefl to him, his
reputation ? I suspect there is none whatever. There is yet
another singular result from this state of the law, which I beg
leave to illustrate by my own case. If I may modestly appropriate
a merit, it is that, whatever my faults, I have at least been a decent
writer. In a species of composition, where, like the ignis fatuus
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that guides into a bog, a glimmer of the ludicrous is apt to lead
the fancy into an indelicacy, I feel some honest pride in remem-
bering that the reproach of impurity has never been cast upon
me by my judges. It has not been my delight to exhibit the
Muse, as it has tenderly been called, << high-kilted/' I have had
the gratification, therefore, of seeing my little volumes placed in
the hands of boys and girls ; and as I have children of my own,
to, I hope, survive me, I have the inexpressible comfort of think-
ing that hereafter they will be able to cast their eyes over the
pages inscribed with my name, without a burning blush on their
young cheeks to reflect that the author was their father. So
whispers Hope, with the dulcet voice and the golden hair ; but
what thunders Law, of the iron tone and the frizzled wig?
" Decent as thy Muse may be now — a delicate Ariel — she shall
be indecent and indelicate hereafter! She shall class with the
bats and the fowls obscene ! The slow reward of thy virtue shall
be the same as the prompt punishment of vice. Thy copyright
shall depart from thee— it shall be everybody's and anybody's,,
and * no man shall call it his own !' "
Verily, if such be the proper rule of copyright, for the saker
of consistency two very old copywriters should be altered to^
match, and run thus : — " Virtue is its own puniskment.*' — " Age^
commands disrespect /"
To return to the author, whose fame is slow and sure— to be
its own reward, — should he be dependent, as is often the case, oa
the black and white bread of literature — should it be the profes*
sion by which he lives, it is evident that under such a system he
must beg, run into debt, or starve. And many have been beg.
gars — many have got into debt ; it is hardly possible to call up
the ghost of a literary hero, without the apparition of a catchpole
at his elbow, for, like Jack the Giant-killer, our elder worthies,
who had the Cap of Knowledge, found it equally convenient to
be occasionally invisible, as well as to possess the Shoes of Swifl.
ness, — and some have starved ! Could the '^ Illustrious Dead "
aris^, after some Anniversary Dinner of the Literary Fund, and
walk in procession round the table, like the resuscitated objects
of the Royal Humane Society, what a melancholy exhibition
they would make ! I will not marshal them forth in order, but
Paet II. 8
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83 PROSE AND VERSE.
leave the show to the imagination of the reader. I doubt whether
the Illustrious Living would make a much brighter muster. Sup-
posing a general summons, how many day-rules — how many
incognitos from abroad — how many visits to Monmouth Street
would be necessary to enable the members to put in an appear-
ance ! I fear, heaven forgive me ! some of our nobles even would
show only Three Golden Balls in their coronets ! If we do not
actually starve or die by poison in this century, it is, perhaps,
owing partly to the foundation of the Literary Fund, and partly
to the invention of the Stomach Pump ; but the truly abject state
of Literature may be gathered from the fact, that, with a more
accurate sense of the destitution of the Professors, than of the
•dignity of the Profession, a proposal has lately been brought for.
ward for the erection of alms-houses for paupers of " learning
•^nd genius," who have fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, under
the specious name of Literary Retreats, or, as a military man
would technically and justly read such a record of our failures.
Literary Defeats. Nor is this the climax : the proposal names
half a dozen of these humble abodes to " make a beginning "
with — a mere brick of the building — as if the projector, in his
mind's eye, saw a whole Mile End Road of one-storied tenements
in the shell, stretching from Number Six — and " to be continued !"
Visions of paupers, spare my aching sight.
Ye unbuilt houses, crowd not on my soul !
1 do hope, before we are put into yellow-leather very small-
clothes, mufiin-caps, green- baize coats and badges, — and made
St. Minerva's charity- boys at once, — for that must be the first
«tep, — ^that the Legislature will interfere, and endeavor to pro-
vide better for our sere and yellow leaves, by protecting our
black and white ones. Let the law secure to us a fair chance of
getting our own, and perhaps, with proper industry, we may be
able — who knows ? — ^to build little snuggeries for ourselves.
Under the present system, the chances are decidedly against a
literary man's even laying a good foundation of French bricks.
To further illustrate the nature of a copyright, we will suppose
that an author retains it, or publishes, as it is called, on his own
account. He will then have to divide amongst the trade, in the
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shape of commission, allowances, &g., from 40 to 45 per cent, of
the gross proceeds, leaving the Stationer, Printer, Binder, Adyer-
tising, and all other expenses to be paid out of the remainder.
And here arise two important contingencies. 1st. In order that
the author may know the true number of the impression, and,
consequently, the correct amount of the sale, it is necessary that
his publisher should be honest. 2dly. For the author to duly
receive his profits, his publisher must be solvent. I intend no
disrespect to the trade in general by naming these conditions ;
but I am bound to mention them, as risks adding to the insecurity
of the property : as two hurdles which the rider of Pegasus may
have to clear in his course to be a winner. If I felt inclined to
reflect on the trade, it would be to censure those dishonest mem-
hers of it, who set aside a principle in which the interests of
authors and booksellers are identical — ^the inviolability of copy-
right. I need not point out the notorious examples of direct piracy
at home, which have made the foreign oflences comparatively
venial ; nor yet those more oblique plagiarisms, and close paro-
dies, which are alike hurtful in their degree. Of the evil of these
latter practices I fear our bibliopoles are not sufficiently aware ;
but that man deserves to have his head published in foolscap, who
does not see that whatever temporary advantages a system of
fHracy may hold out, the consequent swamping of Literature will
be ruinous to the trade, till eventually it may dwindle down to
Four-and-Twenty Booksellers all in a Row, — and all in "the
old book line," pushing off back-stock and bartering remainders.
But my letter is exceeding all reasonable length, and I will
rAserve what else I have to say till next post.
LETTER II.
To THE Editor of thb Athenaum:
My Dear Sir, — ^I have, perhaps, sufficiently illustrated the
state of copyright, bad as it is, without the help of Foreign in-
tervention : not^ however, without misgivings that I shall be sus-
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pected of quoting from some burlesque code, drawn up by ft
Rabelais in ridicule of the legislative efforts of a community of
ourang-outangfr— <nr a sample by Swift, of the Constitution of the
Sages of Laputa. I have proved that literary property might
almost be defined, reversing the common advertisement, as some-
thing of use to everybody but the owner. To guard this preca-
rious possession I have shown how the law provides, 1st, That
if a work be of temporary interest it shall virtually be free for
any Bookaneer to avail himself of its pages and its popularity
with impunity. 2dly. That when time has stamped a work as
of permanent value, the copyright shall belong to anybody or
nobody. I may now add, — aa if to '* huddle jest upon jest,"—
that the mere registry of a work, to entitle it to this precious
protection, incurs a fee of eleven copies — ^in value, it might hap-
pen, some hundreds of pounds ! Then to protect the author, —
** aye, such protection as vultures give to lambs," — ^I have in-
stanced how he is responsible for all he writes — and subject, for
libel and so forth, to fines and imprisonments — how he may libel
by proxy — and how he may practically be libelled himself with-
out redress. I . have evidenced how the law, that protects his
brass-plate on the door, will wink at the stealing of his name by
a brazen pirate ; howbeit the author, for only accommodating
himself by a forgery, might be transported beyond seas. 1 have
set forth how, though he may not commit any breach of privi-
lege, he may have his own words garbled, Frenchified, trans-
mogrified, garnished, taken in or let out, like old clothes, turned,
dyed and altered. I have proved, in short, according to my first
position, that in the evil eye of the law, << we have neither charac-
ter to lose nor property to protect," — ^that there is " one law for
the rich and another for the poor " (alias authors) — and that the
weights and scales which Justice uses in literary matters ought
to be broken before her face by the petty jury.
And now let me ask, is this forlorn state — its professors thus
degradingly appreciated, its products thus shabbily appraised —
the proper condition of literature ? The liberty of the press is
boasted of as a part of the British constitution : but might it not
be supposed that, in default of a censorship, some cunning
Ifaohiavel had devised a sly underplot for the discouragement
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of letters — an occult conspiracy to present '< men of learning and
genius " to the world's eye in the pitift^l plight of poor devils,
starvelings, mumpers, paupers, vagrants, loose fish, jobbers^
needy and seedy ones, nobodies, ne'er-do-weels, shy coves, strol-
lers, creatures, wretches, objects, small debtors, borrowers, de-
pendents, lackpennies, half-sirs, clapper-dudgeons, scamps, in-
solvents, maunderers, blue-gowns, bedesmen, scarecrows, fellows
about town, sneaks, scrubs, shabbies, rascal deer of the herd,
animals " wi' letter'd braw brass collars " — ^but poor dogs for all
that ? Our family tree is ancient enough, for it is coeval with
knowledge ; and Mythology, the original Herald's Cilolle^e, has
assigned us a glorious blazonry. But would not one believe that
some sneering Mephistopeles, willing to pull down <^ God Al-
mighty's gentlemen," had sought to supply the images of their
heraldry with a scurvier gloss ; e. g. a Lady Patroness with an
ffigis, that gives more stones than bread : a Patron who dispenses
sunshine in lieu of coal and candle : nine elderly spinsters, who
have never married for want of fortune : a horse with wings,
that failing oats he may fly after the chaff* that is driven before
the wind : a forked mount, and no knife to it : a lot of bay-
leaves — and no custards : a spring of Adam's ale ! In fact, all
the standing jests and taunts at authors and authorship, have
their point in poverty : such as Grub-street — ^first floors down
the chimney — sixpenny ordinaries — second hand suits — shabby
blacks, holes at the elbow — ^and true as epaulette to the shoulder
the hand of the bumbailiflf!
Unfortunately, as if to countenance such a plot as I have by-
pothetically assumed above, there is a marked disproportion, as
compared with other professions, in the number of literary men
who are selected for public honors and employments. So far in-
deed from their having, as a body, any voice in the senate, they
have scarcely a vote at the hustings ; for the system under which
they suflfer is hardly adapted to make them forty, shilling free-
holders, much less to enable them to qualify for seats in the
House. A jealous-minded person might take occasion to say,
that this was but a covert mode of effecting the exclusion of
men whom the gods have made poetical, and whose voices might
sound more melodious and quite as pregnant with meaning as
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many a vox et praterea nihil that is lifted up to Mr. Speaker. A
literary man, indeed, — Sheridan, — is affirmed by Lord Byron to
have delivered the best speech that was ever listened to in Par.
liament, — and it would even add force to the insinuation that the
rotten boroughs, averred to be the only gaps by which men
merely rich in learning and genius could creep into the Com*
mons, have been recently stopped up. Of course such a plot
cannot be entertained; but in the meantime the effect is the
same, and whilst an apparent slight is cast upon literature, the
senate has probably been deprived of the musical wisdom of
many wonderful Talking Birds, through the want of the Golden
Waters. For instance, it might not only be profitable to hear
such a man as Southey, who has both read history and written
history, speak to the matter in hand, when the affairs of nations
are discussed, and the beacon lights of the past may be made to
reflect a guiding ray into the London-like fogs of the future. I
am quite aware that literary genius per se is not reckoned a suffi-
cient qualification for a legislator : — perhaps not — but why is not
a poet as competent to discuss questions concerning the public
welfare, the national honor, the maintenance of morals and re-
ligion, or the education of the people, as a gentleman, without a
touch of poetry about him, who had been schooling his intellects
for the evening's debate by a course of morning whist ? Into
some of these honorary memberships, so to speak, a few distin-
guished men of letters might be safely franked — and if they did
not exactly turn up trumps — I mean as statesmen, — ^they would
serve to do away with an awkward impression that literature,
which as a sort of Natural religion is the best ally of the Re-
vealed one, has been kindly denied any share in that affectionate
relationship which obtains between Church and State. As for
the Upper House, I will not presume to say whether the dignity
of that illustrious assembly would have been impaired or other,
wise by the presence of a Baron with the motto of Poeia nascitur,
nan fa; supposing Literature to have taken a seat in the person
of Sir Walter Scott beside the Lords of law and war. It is not
for me to decide whether the brain-bewitching art be worthy
of such high distinction as the brain-bewildering art, or that
other one described by a bard, himself a Peer ; but in the ab-
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sence of such creations it seems a peculiar hardship that men
of letters should not have been selected for distinctions ; the
" Blue Ribbon of Literature " for instance, most legitimately
their due. Finally, as if to aggravate these neglects, literary
men have not been consoled, as is usual, for the loss of more
airy gratifications by a share in what Justice Greedy would call
" the substantial, Sir Giles, the substantials." They have been
treated as if they were unworthy of public employments, at least
with two exceptions — Burns, who held a post very much under
Government, and Wordsworth, who shares the reproach of " the
loaves and fishes " for penny rolls and sprats. The want of
business-like habits, it is true, has been alleged against the fra-
temity ; but even granting such deficiency, might not the most
practical Idlers, Loungers and Ramblers of them all fill their
posts quite as efficiently as those personages who are paid for
having nothing to do, and never neglect their duty ? Not that I
am an admirer of sinecures, except in the Irishman's accepta.
tion of the word ;* but may not such bonuses to gentlemen who
write as little as they well can, viz., their names to the receipts,
appear a little like a wish to discountenance those other gentle-
men who write as much as they well can, and are at the expense
of printing it besides ?
I had better here enter a little protest against these remarks
being mistaken for the splenetic and wrathful ebullitions of a
morbid or addled egotism. I have not " deviated into the gloomy
vanity of drawing from self;" I charge the State, it is true,
with backing literature as the champion backed Cato^-that is to
say, tail foremost — but I am far from therefore considering my-
self as an overlooked, underkept, wet-blanketed, hid-under-a-
bushel, or lapped-in-a-napkin individual. I have never, to my
knowledge, displayed any remarkable aptitude for business, any
decided predilection for politics, or unusual mastery in political
economy — any striking talent at " a multiplicity of talk," — and
^ One Patrick Maguire. He had been appointed to a situation the re-
verse of a place of aU work ; and his friends, who called to congratulate
him, were very much astonished to see his face lengthen on receipt of the
news. " A sinecure is it !" exclaimed Pat " The divil thank them for that
same. Sure I know what a sinecure is. It's a place where there's nothing
to doy and they pay ye by the piece."
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withal, I am a very indifferent hand at a rubber. I have never,
like Bubb Doddington, expressed a determined ambition <'to
make a public figure — I had not decided what, but a public
figure I was resolved to make." Nay, more, in a general view,
I am not anxious to see literary men " giving up to a party what
was meant for mankind," or hanging like sloths on the " branches
of the revenue," or even engrossing working situations, such as
gauger-ships, to the exclusion of humbler individuals, who, like
Dogberry, have the natural gifts of reading and writing, and
nothing else. Neither am I eager to claim for them those other
distinctions, titles and decorations, the dignity of which requires
a certain affluence of income for its support. A few orders in-
deed, domestic or foreign, conferred through a bookseller, hang
not ungracefully on an author, at the same time that they help
to support his slender revenue ; but there would be something
too ludicrous even for my humor, in a star — and no coat ; a
Garter — and no stocking ; a coronet — and no nightcap ; a col-
lar — and no shirt ! Besides, the creatures have, like the glow,
worm and the firefly (but at the head instead of the tail), a sort
of splendor of their own, which makes them less in need of any
adventitious lustre. If I have dwelt on the dearth of state
patronage, public employments, honors and emoluments, it was
principally to correct a Vulgar Error, not noticed by Sir Thomas
Browne ; namely, that poets and their kind are << marigolds in
the sun's eye," — ^the world's favorite and pet children ; whereas
they are in reality its snubbed ones. It was to show that Litera.
ture, neglected by the government, and unprotected by the law,
was placed in a false position ; whereby its professors present
such anomalous phenomena as high priests of knowledge — ^with-
out a surplus ; enlarged minds in the King's Bench ; schoolmas-
ters obliged to be abroad ; great scholars without a knife and
fork and spoon ; master minds at journey work ; moral magis-
trates greatly unpaid ; immortals without a living ; menders of
the human heart breaking their own; mighty intellects be-
grudged their mite ; great wits jumping into nothing good ; or-
naments to their country put on the shelf; constellations of ge-
nius under a cloud; eminent pens quite stumped up; great
lights of the age with a thief in them ; prophets to booksellers ; —
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my ink almost blushes from black to red whilst marking such
associations of the divine ore with the earthly^ — but, methinks,
'tis the metal of one of the scales in which we are weighed and
found wanting. Poverty is the badge of all our tribe, and its
reproach. There is, for instance, a well. known taunt against
a humble class of men, who live by their pens, which, girding
not at the quality of their work, but the rate of its remunera.
tion, twits them as penny-a-liners ! Can the world be aware of
the range of the shaft ? What pray, was glorious Joh» Milton,
upon whom rested an after-glow of the holy inspiration of the
sacred writers, like the twilight bequeathed by a mid-summer sun ?
Why he was, as you may reckon any time in his divine Para-
dise Lost, not even a ha'penny-a-liner ! We have no proof that
Shakspeare, the high priest of humanity, was even a farlhing-a-
liner, and we know that Homer not only sold his lines << gratis
for nothing," but gave credit to all eternity ! If I wrong the
world I beg pardon — but I really believe it invented the phrase
of the republic of letters, to insinuate that taking the whole lot
of authors together, they have not got a sovereign amongst them !
I have now reduced Literature, as an arithmetician would
say, to its lowest terms. I have shown her like Misery, —
For Misery is trodden on by many,
And, being low, never relieved by any, —
fairly ragged, beggar 'd, and down in the dust, having been
robbed of her last farthing by a pickpocket (that's a pirate).
There she sits, like Diggon Davie — " Her was her while it was
daylight, but now her is a most wretched wight," or rather like
a crazy Kate ; a laughing-stock for the mob (that's the world),
unprotected by the constable (that's the law), threatened by the
beadle (that's the law too), repulsed from the workhouse by the
overseer (that's the government), and denied any claim on the
parish funds. Agricultural distress is a fool to it ! One of those
counterfeit cranks, to quote from " The English Rogue," " such
as pretend to have the falling sickness, and by putting a piece
of white soap into the corner of their mouths will make the froth
come boiling forth, to cause pity in the beholders."
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90 PROS£ AND VERSE.
If we inquire into the causes of this depression, some must un-
doubtedly be laid at the doors of literary men themselves ; but
perhaps the greater proportion may be traced to the want ojf any
definite ideas amongst people in general, on the following par-
ticulars : — 1. How an author writes. 2. Why an author writes.
8. What an author writes. And firstly, as to how he writes,
upon which head there is a wonderful diversity of opinions ; one
thinks that writing is '^ as easy as lying," and pictures the au-
thor sitting carefully at his desk << with his glove on," like Sir
Roger de Coverley's poetical ancestor. A second holds that
" the easiest reading is d — d hard writing," and imagines Time
himself beating his brains over an extempore. A third believes
in inspiration, i. e., that metaphors, quotations, classical allusions,
historical illustrations, and even dramatic plots — all come to the
waking author by intuition; whilst ready-made poems, like
Coleridge's Kubla Khan, are dictated to him in his sleep. Of
course the estimate of his desert will rise or fall according to the
degree of learned labor attributed to the composition : he who
sees in his mind's eye a genius of the lamp, consuming gallons
on gallons of midnight oil — will assign a rate of reward, regu-
lated probably by the success of the Hull whalers ; whilst the
believer in inspiration will doubtless conceive that the author
ought to be fed as well as prompted by miracle, and accordingly
bid him look up, like the apostle on the old Dutch tiles, for a
bullock coming down from heaven in a bundle. 2dly. Why an
author writes ; and there is as wide a patchwork of opinions on
this head as on the former. Some think that he writes for the
present — others, that he writes for posterity — and a few, that he
writes for antiquity. One believes that he writes for the benefit
of the world in general — his own excepted — which is the opinion
of the law. A second conceives that he writes for the benefit of
booksellers in particular — and this is the trade's opinion. A
third takes it for granted that he writes for nobody's benefit but
his own — which is the opinion of the green-room. He is sup-
posed to write for fame — for money — for amusement — for politi-
cal ends — and, by certain schoolmasters, " to improve his mind."
Need it be wondered at, that in this uncertainty as to his mo-
tives, the world sometimes perversely gives him anything but
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the thing he wants. Thus the rich author, who yearns for fame,
gets a pension ; the poor one, who hungers for bread, receives a
diploma from Aberdeen ; the writer for amusement has the plea-
sure of a mohawking review in a periodical ; and the gentleman
in search of a place has an offer from a sentimental milliner !
3dly. What an author writes. The world is so much of a
Champollion, that it can understand hieroglyphics, if nothing
else ; it can comprehend outward visible signs, and grapple with
a tangible emblem. It knows that a man on a table stands for
patriotism, a man in the pulpit for religion, and so on, but it is a
little obtuse as to what it reads in King Cadmus's types. A
book hangs out no sign. Thus persons will go through a chap-
ter, enforcing some principal duty of man towards his Maker or
his neighbor, without discovering that, in all but the name, they
have been reading a sermon. A solid mahogany pulpit is want-
ing to such a perception. They will con over an essay, glowing
with the most ardent love of liberty, instinct with the noblest
patriotism, and replete with the soundest maxims of polity, with-
out the remotest notion that, except its being delivered upon pa-
per instead of viva voce^ they have been attending to a speech.
As for dreaming of the author as a being who could sit in Par-
liament, and uphold the same sentiments, they would as soon
think of chairing an abstract idea. They must see a band fde
wagon, with its true blue orange or green flag, to arrive at such
a conclusion. The material keeps the upperhand. Hence the
sight of a substantial Vicar may suggest the necessity of a par-
sonage and a glebe ; but the author is, according to the proverb,
*' out of sight, out of mind " — a spirituality not to be associated
with such tangible temporalities as bread and cheese. He is
condemned par contumacBy to dine, iete-d-Uie, with the Barme-
cide or Duke Humphrey, whilst, for want of a visible hustings,
or velvet cushion, the small still voice of his pages is never con-
ceived of as coming from a patriot, a statesman, a priest, or a
prophet. As a case in point : there is a short poem by Southey,
called the '< Battle of Blenheim," which from the text of some
poor fellow's skull who fell in the great victory —
For many a thousand bodies there
Lay rotting in the sun-
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takes occasion to ask what they killed each other for? and what
good came of it in the end ? These few quaint verses contain
the very essence of a primary Quaker doctrine ; yet lacking the
tangible sign — a drab coat or a broad-brimmed hat — ^no member
of the sect ever yet discovered that, in ail but the garb, the
peace-loving author was a Friend, moved by the spirit, and hold-
ing forth in verse in a strain worthy of the great Fox himself!
Is such poetry, then, a vanity y or something worthy of all qua-
kerly patronage ? Verily, if the copyright had been valued at
a thousand pounds the Society ought to have purchased it —
printed the poem as a tract — and distributed it by tens of thou-
sands, yea, hundreds of thousands, till every fighting man in the
army and navy had a copy, including the marines. The So-
ciety, however, has done nothing of the kind ; and it has only
acted like society in general towards literature, by regarding it
as a vanity or a luxury rather than as a grand moral engine, ca-
pable of advancing the spiritual as well as the temporal interests
of mankind. It has looked upon poets and their kind as com-
mon men, and not as spirits that, like the ascending and descend-
ing angels in Jacob's vision, hold commerce with the sky itself,
and help to maintain the intercourse between earth and heaven.
I have yet a few comments to ofier on the charges usually pre-
ferred against literary men, but shall reserve them for another
and concluding letter.
LETTER III.
To THE Editor of the Athenjeitm :
My dear Sir, — Now to the sins which have been laid at the
doors, or tied to the knockers, of literary men : those offences
which are to palliate or excuse such public slights and neglects
as I have set forth ; or may be, such private ones as selling 8
presentation copy, perhaps a dedicatory one, as a booksellei
would sell the Keepsake, with the author's autograph letters—
without the delicacy of waiting for his death, or the policy ; for,
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as Crabbe says, one's writings then fetch a better price, because
there can be no more of them — at a sale of Evans's. Literary
men, then, have been charged with being eccentric — and so are
comets. They were not created to belong to that mob of undi»-
tinguishable--caU them not stars, but sparks — constituting the
Milky Way. It is a taunt, as old as Chesterfield's Letters, that
they are not polished — no more was that Chesterfield's son.
They do not dress fashionably, for, if they could afford it, they
know better, in a race for immortal fame, than to be outsiders.
Some, it has been alleged, have run through their estaf«s, which
might have been easily traversed at a walk ; and one and all
have neglected to save halfa-crown out of sixpence a day.
Their disinterestedness has been called imprudence, and their
generosity extravagance, by parties who bestow their charity like
miser Mould.* The only charge, — ^not a blank charge, — ^that
has been discharged against them, their poverty, has been made
a crime, and, what is worse, a crime of their own seeking.
They have not, it is true, been notorious for hoarding or fund-
ing — ^the last would, in fact, require the creation of a stock on
purpose for them — the Shott Annuities. They have never any
weight in the city, or anywhere else ; in cash temperature their
pockets are always at Zero. They are not the " warm with,"
but the " cold without ;" but it is to their credit, — ^if they have
any credit, — ^that they have not worshipped Plutus. The Muse
and Mammon never were in partnership ; and it would be a
desperate speculation indeed to take to literature as the means
of amassing money. He would be a simple Dick Whittington
indeed who expected to find its ways paved with philosopher's
stones ; he must have Dantzic water, with its gold leaf in his
head, who thinks to find Castaly a Pactolus ; ass indeed must he
be who dreams of browsing on Parnassus, like those asses which
feed on an herb — (a sort of mint !) — that turns their very teeth
to gold. A line-maker, gifted with brains the gods have made
• An illiterate personage, who always volunteered to go round with the
hat, but was suspected of sparing his own pocket. Overhearing, one day,
a hint to that effect, he made the following speech : — " Other gentlemen
puts do'vn what they thinks proper, and so do I. Charity's a private con-
cern, and what I gives is nothing to nobody**
a
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poetical, has no chance of making an independence — like Cogia
Hassan Alhahbal, the rope-maker, gifted only with a lump of
lead. Look into any palm, and if it contain the lines of poetry,
the owner's fortune may be foretold at once — viz., a hill very
hard to climb, and no prospect in life from the top. It is not
always even a Mutton Hill, Garlic Hill, or Comhill (remember
Otway), for meat, vegetable, or bread. Let the would-be Croe-
sus then take up a Bank pen, and address himself to the Old
Lady in Threadneedle Street, but not to the Muse : she may
give him some " pinch- back," and pinch- front too, but little of
the precious metals. Authorship has been pronounced, by a
judge on the bench, as but a hand-to-mouth business ; and I
believe few have ever set up in it as anything else : in fact, did
not Crabbe, though a reverend, throw a series of summersets, at
least mentally, on the receipt of a liberal sum from a liberal
publisher, as if he had just won the capital prize in the grand
lottery ? Need it be wondered at, then, if men who embrace
literature more for love than for lucre, should grasp the adven-
titious coins somewhat loosely ; nay, purposely scatter abroad,
like Boaz, a liberal portion of their harvest for those gleaners,
with whom they have, perhaps, had a hand-and-glove acquaint-
ance — Poverty and Want? If there be the lively sympathy of
the brain with the stomach that physiologists have averred, it is
more than likely that there is a similar responsive sensibility
between the head and the heart ; it would be inconsistent, there-
fore it would be unnatural, if the same fingers that help to trace
the woes of human life were but as so many feelers of the poly-
pus Avarice, grasping everything within reach, and retaining it
when got. We, know, on the contrary, that the hand of the
author of the " Village Poor House " was " open as day to melt-
ing charity ;" so was the house of Johnson munificent in pro-
portion to his means ; and as for Goldsmith, he gave more like
a rich citizen of the world than one who had not always his own
freedom.
But graver charges than improvidence have been, brought
against the literary character — want of principle, and offences
against morality and religion. It might be answered, pleading
guilty, that in that case authors have only topped the parts
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allotted to thetn in the great drama of life — ^that they have sim-
ply acted like vagabonds by law, and scamps by repute, " who
have no character to lose, or property to protect ;" but I prefer
asserting, which I do fearlessly, that literary men, as a body,
will bear comparison in point of conduct with any other class.
It must not be forgotten that they are subjected to an ordeal
quite peculiar, and scarcely milder than the Inquisition. The
lives of literary men are proverbially barren of incident, and
consequently, the most trivial particulars, the most private
affairs, are unceremoniously worked up, to furnish matter for
their bald biographies. Accordingly, as soon as an author is
defunct, his character is submitted to a sort of Egyptian post-
mortem trial ; or rather, a moral inquest, with Paul Pry for the
coroner, and a Judge of Assize, a Commissioner of Bankrupts, a
Jew broker, a Methodist parson, a dramatic licenser, a dancing,
master, a master of the ceremonies, a rat-catcher, a bone collec-
tor, a parish clerk, a schoolmaster, and a reviewer, for a jury.
It is the province of these personages to rummage, ransack,
scrape together, rake up, ferret out, sniff, detect, analyze, and
appraise, all particulars of the birth, parentage, and education,
life, character and behavior, breeding, accomplishments, opi-
nions, and literary performances, of the departed. Secret draw-
ers are searched, private and confidential letters published, manu-
scripts, intended for the fire, are set up in type, tavern bills and
washing bills are compared with their receipts, copies of writs
re-copied, inventories taken of effects, wardrobe ticked off by the
tailor's account, by-gone toys of youth — billets-doux, snuff-boxes,
canes — exhibited, discarded hobby-horses are trotted out, — per-
haps even a dissecting surgeon is called in to draw up a minute
report of the state of the corpse and its viscera : in short, nothing
is spared that can make an item for the clerk to insert in his
memoir. Outrageous as it may seem, this is scarcely an exag-
geration — for example: who will dare to say that we do not
know, at this very hbur, more of Goldsmith's affairs than he
ever did himself? It is rather wonderful, than otherwise, that
the literary character should shine out as it does after such a
severe scrutiny. Moreover, it remains yet to be proved that the
follies and failings attributed to men of learning and genius are
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any more their private property than their copyrights after they
have expired. There are certain well-educated ignorant people
who contend that a little learning is a dangerous thing — for the
poor ; and as authors are poor, as a class, these hom-book mo-
nopolists may feel bound, in consistency, to see that the common
errors of humanity are set down in the bill to letters. ,It is, of
course, the black and white schoolmaster's dogs in a manger
that bark and growl at the slips and backslidings of literary men ;
but to decant such cant, and see through it clearly, it is only
necessary to remember that a fellow will commit half the sins
in the Decalogue, and all the crimes in the Calendar — forgery
excepted — without ever having composed even a valentine in
verse, or the description of a lost gelding in prose. Finally, if
the misdeeds of authors are to be pleaded in excuse of the neg-
lect of literaiure and literary men, it would be natural to expect
to see these practical slights and snubbings falling heaviest on
those who have made themselves most obnoxious to rebuke.
But the contrary is the case. I will not invidiously point out
examples, but let the reader search the record, and he will find,
that the lines which have fallen in pleasant places have belonged
to men distinguished for anything rather than morality or piety.
The idea, then, of merit having anything to do with the medals,
must be abandoned, or we must be prepared to admit a very
extraordinary result. It is notorious, that a foreign bird, for a
night's warbling, will obtain as much as a native bard — not a
second-rate one either— can realize in a whole year : an actor
will be paid a sum per night equal to the annual stipend of many
a curate ; and the twelvemonth's income of an opera-dancer will
exceed the revenue of a dignitary of the church. But will any
one be bold enough to say, except satirically, that these dispro-
portionate emoluments are due to the superior morality and piety
of the concert-room, the opera, and the theatre? They are, in
a great measure, the acknowledgments of physical gifts — a well
tuned larynx — a well-turned figure, or light fantastic toes, not
at all discountenanced in their vocation for being associated with
light fantastic behavior. Saving, then, an imputed infirmity of
temper — and has it not peculiar trials ?— the only well-grounded
failing the world has to resent, as a characteristic of literary
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men, is their poyerty, whether the necessary result of their po-
sition, or of a wilfiU neglect of their present interests, and im-
providence for the future. But what is an author's future, as
regards his worldly prosperity? The law, as if judgii^ him
incapable of having heirs, absolutely prevents his creating a
property, in copyrights, that jnight be valuable to his descen-
dants. It declares, that the interest of the literary man and
literature are not identical, and commends him to the compost-
tiott of catch- penny works — ^things of the day and hour ; or, so
to speak, encourages him to discount his fame. Should he, let-
ting the present shift for itself, and contemning personal piiva-
tions, devote himself, heart and soul, to some great work or
series of works, he may live to see his right and temporal inte-
rest in his books pass away from himself to strangers, and his-
children deprived of what, as well as his fame, is their just
inheritance. At the best he must forego the superintendance of
the publication and any foretaste of his success, and like Cum-
berland, when he contemplated a legacy " for the eventual use-
and advantage of a beloved daughter," defer the printing of his-
MSS. till after his decease. As for the present tense of his
prosperity, I have shown that his possession is as open to inroad'
as any estate on the Border Land in days of yore ; such is the
legal providence that watches over his imputed improvidence !
The law, which takes upon itself to guard the interest of lunatics,
idiots, minors, and other parties incapable of managing their
own affairs, not merely neglects to commonly protect, but con-
nives at the dilapidation of the property of a class popularly sup-
posed to have a touch of that same incompetence. It is, per-
haps, rather the indifference of a generous spirit, which remem-
bers to forget its own profit ; but even in that case, if the author,,
like the girl in the fairy tale, drops diamonds and pearls from
his lips, without stooping to pick up any for himself, the world
he enriches is bound to see that he does not suffer from such a
noble disinterestedness. Suppose even that he be a man wide
awake to the value of money, the power it confers, the luxuries
it may purchase, the consideration it commands — that he is
anxious to make the utmost of his literary industry — and literaiy
labor is as worthy of its hire as any other — ^there is no just prin-
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ciple on which he can be denied the same protection as any other
trader. It may happen, also, that his " poverty, and not his
will," consents to such a course. In this imperfect world there
is nothing without its earthly alloy ; and, whilst the mind of the
poet is married to a body, he must perform the divine service of
the muses without banishing his dinner-service to the roof of the
house, as in that Brazilian cathedral, which, for want of lead, is
tiled with plates and dishes from the Staffordshire potteries. He
cannot dwell even in the temple of Parnassus, but must lodge
sometimes in an humbler abode, like the old Scotch songsters,
With bread and cheese for its door-cheeks,
And pancakes the rigging o't
Moreover, as authors — Protestant ones, at least — are not vowed
to celibacy, however devoted to poverty, fasting and mortifica-
tion, there may chance to exist other little corporealities, sprouts,
-off-sets, or suckers, which the nature of the law, as well as the
law of nature, refers for sustenance to the parent trunk.
Should our bards, jealous of these evidences of their mortality,
offer to make a present of them to the parish, under the plea of
the mens divinior, would not the overseer, or may be the Poor
Law Commissioners, shut the workhouse wicket in their faces,
and tell them that '^ the mens divinior must provide for the
men's wives artd children ?" Pure fame is a glorious draught
enough, and the striving for it is a poble ambition ; but, alas !
few can afford to drink it neat. Across the loftiest visions of
the poet earthly faces will flit ; and even whilst he is gazing on
Castaly little familiar voices will murmur in his ear, inquiring
if there are no fishes that can be eaten to be caught in its waters !
It has happened, according tq some inscrutable dispensation,
that the mantle of inspiration has commonly descended on shoul-
ders clad in cloth of the humblest texture. Our poets have been
Scotch ploughmen, farmers' boys, Northamptonshire peasants,
shoe-makers, old servants, milk-women, basket-makers, steel-
workers, charity-boys, and the like. Pope's protege, Dodsley,
was a footman, and wrote " The Muse in Livery " — ^you may
trace a hint of the double vocation in his " Economy of Human
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Life."* Our men of learning and genius have generally been
born, not with silver spoons in their mouths, but wooden ladles.
Poetry, Goldsmith says, not only foiihd him poor, but kept him
so ; but has not the law been hitherto lending a hand in the
same uncharitable task ? Has it not favored the << Cormorants
by the Tree of Knowledge " — the native Bookaneer ? — ^and " a
plague the Devil hath added," as Sir J. Overbury calls the for-
eign pirate.
To give a final illustration of the working of the Law of Copy-
right, Sir Walter Scott, besides being a mighty master of fiction,
resembles Defoe in holding himself bound to pay in full all the
liabilities he had incurred. But the amount was immense, and
he died, no doubt prematurely, from the magnitude of the efi^rt.
A genius so illustrious, united with so noble a spirit of integrity,
doubly deserved a national monument, and a subscription, was
opened for the purpose of preserving Abbotsford to his posterity,
instead of a public grant to make it a literary Blenheim. I will
not stop to inquire whether there was more joy in France when
Malbrook was dead than sorrow in Britain, or rather through"
out the world, when Scott was no more ; but I. must point out
the striking contrast between two advertisements in a periodical
paper which courted my notice on the same page. One was a
statement of the amount of the Abbotsford subscription, the other
an announcement of a rival edition of one of Sir Walter's works,
the copyright of which had expired. Every one may not feel
with me the force of this juxtaposition, but I could not help
thinking that the interest of any of his immortal productions
ought to have belonged either to the creditors or to the heritage.
Can there be heir-looms, I asked myself, and not head-looms ? —
and looms, too, that have woven such rich tissues of romance ?
Why is a mental estate, any more than a landed one, made sub-
ject to such an Agrarian law ?
In spite of all my knowledge of ethics, and all my ignorance
of law, I have never yet been able to answer these questions to
my own satisfaction. Perchance Mr, Serjeant Talfourd will be
• The man of emulation, who panteth afler fame. " The example of
eminent men are in his visions by night-— ^anc? his delight is to follow them
(query, with a gold-headed cane ?) all the day long."
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prepared with a solution, but, if not, I trust he will give us
** the benefit of the doubt," and make an author's copyright
heritable property, only subject to alienation by his own act, or
in satisfaction of the claims of creditors. Such a measure will
tend to retrieve our worldly respectability: instead of being
nobodys with nothing, we shall be, if not freeholders, a sort of
copyholders, with something between the sky and the centre,
that we can call our own. It may be but a nominal possession,
-but if it were of any value, why should it be made common for
tbe benefit of the Company of Stationers ? They drink enough
out of our living heads, without quaffing out of our skulls, like
the kings of Dahomey. As to the probability of their revivals of
authors who were adored, but have fallen into neglect and ob-
livion, — remembering how the trade boggled at Robinson Crusoe,
and tbe Vicar of Wakefield — there would be as much chance of
a speculative lawyer reviving such dormant titles. For my own
part, I am far from expecting, personally, any pecuniary advan-
tages from such an arrangement ; but I have some regard for
the abstract right. There is always a certain sense of humilia-
tion, attendant on finding that we are made exceptions, as if in-
capable or undeserving of the enjoyment of equal justice. And
can there be a more glaring anomaly than that, whilst our pri-
vate property is thrown open and made common, we daily see
other commons enclosed, and made private property ? One
thing is certain, that, by taking this high ground at once, and
making copyright analogous in tenure to the soil itself — and it
pays its land tax in the shape of a tax upon paper — its defence
may be undertaken with a better grace, against trespass at
home, or invasion from abroad. For, afler all, what does the
pirate or Bookaneer commit at present, but a sort of practical
anachronism, by anticipating a period when the right of printing
will belong to everybody in the world, including the man in the
moon!
Such, it appears to me, is the grand principle upon which the
future law of copyright ought to be based. I am aware that I
have treated the matter somewhat commercially : but I have
done 80, partly because in that light principally the legislature
will have to deal with it ; and still more, because it is desirabley
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for the sake of literature and literary men, that they should have
every chanoe of independence, rather than be compelled to look
to extraneous sources for their support. Learning and genius,
worthily directed and united to common industry, surely deserve^
at least, a competence ; and that their possessors should be some-
thing better than a Jarkman ; that is to say, '* one who can write
and read, yea, some of them have a smattering in the Latin
tongue, which learning of theirs advances them in office amongst
the heggara^ The more moderate in proportion the rate of their
usual reward, the more scrupulously ought every particle of
their interests to be promoted and protected, so as to spare, if
possible, the necessity of private benefactions or public collec- .
tions for the present distress, and " Literary Retreats " for the
future. Let the weight and worth of literature in the state be
formally recognized by the legislature : — let the property of
authors be protected, and the upholding of the literary character
will rest on their heads. They will, perhaps, recollect that their
highest office is to make the world wiser and better ; their low-
est, to entertain and amuse it without making it worse. For
the rest, bestow on literary men their fair share of public honors
and employments, — concede to them, as they deserve, a distin-
guished rank in the social system, and they will set about effacing
such blots as now tarnish their scutcheons. The surest way to
make a class indifferent to reputation is to give it a bad name.
Hence Literature having been publicly underrated, and its pro-
fessors having been treated as vagabonds, scamps, fellows " with-
out character to lose or property to protect," we have seen con-
duct to match, — reviewers, forgetful of common courtesy, com-
mon honesty, and common charity, misquoting, misrepresenting,
and indulging in the grossest personalities, even to the extent of
ridiculing bodily defects and infirmities — political partizans ban-
dying scurrilous names, and scolding like Billingsgate mermaids
— and authors so far trampling orf the laws of morals, and the
rights of private life, as to write works capable of being puffed
off as club books got up amongst the Snakes, Sneerwells, Can-
dors, and Backbites, of the School for Scandal.
And now, before I close, I will here place on record my own
obligations to Literature : a debt so immense, as not to be can-
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celled, like that of nature, by death itself. I owe to it something
more than my earthly welfare. Adrift early in life upon the
great waters — as pilotless as Wordsworth's blind boy afloat in
the turtle-shell — if I did not come to shipwreck, it was, that, in
default of paternal or fraternal guidance, I was rescued, like the
ancient mariner, by guardian spirits, *^ each one a lovely light,"
who stood as beacons to my course. Infirm health, and a natu-
ral love of reading, happily threw me, instead of worse society,
into the company of poets, philosophers, and sages — ^to me good
angels and ministers of grace. From these silent instructors —
who oflen do more than fathers, and always more than godfath-
ers, for our temporal and spiritual interests, — from these mild
monitors — no importunate tutors, teazing Mentors, moral task-
masters, obtrusive advisers, harsh censors, or wearisome lectur-
ers — ^But, delightful associates, — I learned something of the di-
vine, and more of the human religion. They were my interpre-
ters in the House Beautiful of God, and my guides among the
Delectable Mountains of Nature. They reformed my prejudi-
ces, chastened my passions, tempered my heart, purified my
tastes, elevated my mind, and directed my aspirations. 1 was
lost in a chaos of undigested problems, false theories, crude
fiincies, obscure impulses, and bewildering doubts — when these
bright intelligences called my mental world oiit of darkness like
a new creation, and gave it " two great lights," Hope and
Memory — ^the past for a moon, and the future for a sun.
Hence have I genial seasons — hence have I
Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thoughts ;
And thus from day to day my little boat
Rocks in its harbor, lodging peaceably.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise.
Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares.
The poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays !
Oh ! might my name be number'd among theirs.
How gladly would I end my mortal days.
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LETTER IV.
To THE Editor of the Athen^um :
Five years ago I ventured in your popular journal to publish
my private thoughts on the nature and laws of Literary Property.
In those letters, without underrating the International Question,
it was recommended that we should begin at home, and first
establish what Copyright is in Britain, and provide for its pro-
tection against Native Pirates or Bookaneers. It was contended,
therefore, ttiat the author's perpetual property in his works
should be formally recognized, and that '^ by taking this high
ground at once, and making Copyright analogous in tenure to
the soil itself, its defence might be undertaken with a better
grace against trespass at home or invasion from abroad."
The fate of the Bill subsequently framed by Serjeant Talfourd
is well known. An opposition was set up by publishers, sta-
tioners, binders, printers, journeymen, devils, and hawkers ; and
Mr. Tegg even so far discomposed himself as to compose a
pamphlet, in which the earnings and emoluments of Scott, Byron,
Moore, Southey, Hook, <Scc., were summed up as if they had been
so many great sinecurists fattening in idleness at the cost of our
dear public. Messrs. Wakley and Warburton chimed in with
the pamphleteer, and even one or two country gentlemen, who
had set their ridge and furrow faces against cheap food for the
body, were all in favor of cheap food for the mind, as if it were '
desirable to see the public like a huge ricketty child with its
head a great deal bigger than its belly. Nevertheless, even
this opposition might have failed if the tone of the House had
remained at its original pitch. The eloquent speech of the
learned Serjeant, on introducing his Bill, had a thrilling eifectv
And when he ceased, ** those airy tongues that syllable men's ^
names " filled up the pause, till the very walls seemed whisper-
ing " Chaucer !" " Spenser !" " Shakspeare !" " Milton !" whilst
sadder echoes responded with Chatterton, Otway, and Barns !
Every head with a heart to it, and every heart with a head to
it, answered to the appeal. The accomplished nobleman, the
gentleman of cultivated mind, the man of taste, the well-educat-
ed commoners, at once acknowledged, as debts of honor, their
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deep obligations to literature. They recalled with affectionate
interest and honorable respect the poets of their youth and the
philosophers of their manhood — ^their intimates of the closet —
their familiars of the fields* and forests — ^the intellectual minis-
ters from whom they had derived amusement in leisure, wisdom
in action, society in solitude, and consolation in travel. They
remembered the friends of their souls. Even the opponents of
the measure confessed the national importance and value of lite*
rature, and its beneficial influence on the community, by their
very struggles to make it cheap for the public at the expense of
all liberal feeling and common justice. Moreover, the question
involved, more or less, nearly the hereditary principle — ^the law
of property — the nature of freehold and copyhold — ^the protec-
tion of a native interest — and, in some opinions, the national
honor. But, alas ! the argument had fallen on evil days ! The
question did not suit the temper of the times or the ordinary tone
of the place. It contained no political Ode to the Passions.
There was no ardent overproof unrectified party spirit in it to
excite a parliamentary delirium tremens* There was no side-
bone of (*)ntention for Whig or Tory. It was a subject whereon
political Montagues and Capulets might shake hands. Faction
overcame Fiction. The accomplished nobleman, the gentleman
of cultivated mind, the man of taste, the well educated commo-
ners had other fish to fry — hotter broils and stews to arrange —
and their gratitude and good will to literature chilled as rapidly
as mutton gravy on a cold plate !
Since then, the reprinting of English works in America has
progressed with steam celerity : whilst the King of the Belgians
has openly recommended this literary piracy to his subjects, as
a profitable branch of the national industry : — a speech, by the
way, for which his Majesty deserves an especial address from our
literati, whenever he thinks proper to revisit this country. The
importation of the foreign reprints has also increased, and to an
extent that has made our publishers quite as alarmed as the
farmers and graziers, when they recently fancied themselves sur-
rounded by outlandish bulls of Bashan, and bellowed out for
prbtection against foreign oxen, all ready to invade Smithfield,
and drive our own beasts, without drovers, clean out of the mar-
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ket. But our author feeders have more cause for alarm than
the cattle breeders, inasmuch as it appears that the foreign bul-
locks, though invited, will not come in, whereas the foreign books
will enter in spite of being forbidden.
In this extremity, Lord Mahon has opportunely brought for-
ward a new bill, which has been supported by authors and book-
sellers with a harmony as strange as pleasant — a harmony not
so attributable, I fear, to Wilhem's system, or Mr. Hullah's vo-
cal exercises for singing in tune, as to the fact that the voices
of the literati form a powerful and welcome addition to the cry
set up for protection against foreign piracy. On the extension
of the term of Copyright, the trade is now liberally indifferent,
but extremely anxious for some very stringent enactment to stop
the smuggling of piratical reprints— and, of course, with d re-
trospective clause, which shall prohibit Flemish, French, or
American impressions of Sbakspeare and Milton, as well as of
Harry Lorrequer or Zanoni. And why not a retrospective clause
— ^for how is a man to protect his property if he may not shoot
into the back garden as well as into the forecourt ? Provided
always, that the grounds in the rear be really the property, or
at least in the legal occupation of the man with the blunderbuss.
Of which more hereafter.
In the meantime, the new bill has not been discussed, in either
House, without some opposition to its provisions, and, as usual,
especially directed against the section intended for the benefit
of the author. In the Commons, up jumped Mr. Wakley — per-
haps a Coroner accustomed to violent and sudden deaths could
not relish anything expiring so deliberately as with forty-two
years* notice — however, up jumped Mr. Wakley, as vicious with
poetry and poets as if he had just been kicked by Pegasus, or
rejected in turn by all the Nine Sisters, — and afler a flagrant
assault on the Bard of Rydal, behind the back of Mr. Words-
worth, protested vehemently against any further protection of
good-for-nothing books. As if, forsooth, our dear public could
be injured by even a perpetual copyright in works which no-
body but the author would ever think of reprinting ! These
good-for-nothing writers, it has been fashionable to estimate as
ninety-nine out of one hundred, and, admitting the proportioUi
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what is to become of the rara avis, the phoenix, the one of a
hundred ? Is he to receive no reward or encouragement which
may stimulate others to go and do likewise ? Let us suppose a
school kept by Doctor Posterity, and which offers, as usual, a
prize for the best scholar. The term is at an end, the reward
is to be conferred, and the best boy of a hundred is desired to
step forward. " Master Scott," says the Doctor, " it is my pleas-
ing task to inform you that you have won the highest prize in
this Classical Establishment. The talents bestowed on you
have not been abused or neglected. Your genius has been
equalled by your industry, and your performances have given
universal satisfaction. Your themes and essays in original com-
position have particularly excited my admiration and approba-
tion f I have read them with interest and delight. Master Scott,
I have had few boys like you. You are an honor to the school,
as you will be an ornament to your age and country. I have
no difficulty in awarding the first prize intended for the en-
couragement of genius and learning. Behold this large gold
medal ! It is eminently your due. You have richly earned it
— but, mind, I'm not going to give it you, and for this reason,
that all your ninety-nine school-fellows, put together, are not
worth a dump !"
Is this the way to encourage the production of standard works,
and to improve the breed of authors ? Is it on Xhis system that
we have sought to improve the breed of horses, horned cattle,
and pigs? Is a prize ox ever denied the prize because there
are so many lean beasts in the market ? Would Boz, Ivanhoe,
or Satirist be refused the gold cup at Ascot, because Dunce,
Tony Lumkin, or King Log had been distanced in the race ?
Is it thus that merit is rewarded in other countries ? My tra-
velled readers have doubtless seen what is called, in France, a
Mat de Cocagne — a tall well-greased pole — " Ah, who can tell
how hard it is to climb !" with some public prize at the top.
Many are the candidates, particularly sweeps and sailors, who
attempt to swarm up the slippery mast ; some heavy-sterned fel-
lows only mounting half way ; others scrambling almost within
arm's length of the reward : but, alas ! down, down, down they
slide again like greased lightning, and cursing Sir Isaac New.
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ton fi>r inventing gravitation. At last some more fortunate or
clever aspirant attempts the task — up he go— up he go — ^like the
'possum, till he actually reaches the tiptop, and clutches the
tempting article. Lucky dog that he is, not to be an English
author, and rewarded by English authorities ! No one grudges
him his success — no one objects that the nineteen other candi-
dates have gone to the bottom of the pole. He has not only
won the prize, but wears it, and perhaps literally in the shape
of a new pair of breeches.
It has been said, indeed, that a writer would derive no ad-
vantage from an extended property in his works ; but why should
not long copyrights be as beneficial as long leases, long purses,
long annuities, long legs, long heads, long lives, and other long
things that are longed for ? Much stress has been laid on the
declarations of publishers, that they would give no more for
forty-two years than for twenty-eight, or fourteen. And no doubt
the parties were perfectly sincere in the declaration. There
are persons who would not plant trees, however profitable ulti-
mately, because the return would be distant and not immediate :
and even so some publishers might not care to invest their cap-
ital in standard works for a sure, but slow, remuneration. But
that money is to be made of books, even after twenty-eight years,
is certain, or what becomes of Lord Brougham's statement, that
publishers have been making large preparations, and incurring
great expense for the purpose of bringing out works of which
the copyrights were just expiring ? Nay, is there not one book-
seller in Cheapside, who is understood to have made hundreds
and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, by this sort of
author-snatching ? But to bring the question to issue, let us
take a batch of writers who are all as dead as if they had been
boiled, and yet at whose head and brains there is better sucking
than in a quart of shrimps. For example, there is one Fielding,
whose last novel was published a century ago, and, consequently,
has been common spoil for some fourscore years. Will any
one be bold enough to say, that a revived copyright of " Tom
Jones " would be valueless in the market ? Then we have one
Hmollett, and one Sterne, and one Goldsmith, all defunct fifly
years since, — would an exclusive right in their works obtain
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108 • PROSE AND VERSE.
DO bidders ? Not to name Shakspeare or Milton ; would John-
son's Dictionary, as copyright, fetch nothing in the Row ? or
would the shade of Defoe again go a-begging from publisher to
publisher, with his " Robinson Crusoe ?" Why, in the Literary
Stocks, there could hardly be a safer investment.
In the Upper House, the opposition to the Bill was led by Lord
Brougham, not without expressions of great respect and ^' sincere
affection " for literary men, whom he represented as claimants,
not only on the justice, but on the benevolence of the house.
To this last character, however, I for one must demur. There
has been too much of this almsgiving tone used towards authors,
so that an uninformed reader of the speeches would imagine
that the poor dogs were on their hind legs begging for a bone, or
a boon, as some pronounce it, instead of standing up like the
kangaroo for their natural rights. For, be it remembered, by
Tories, Conservatives, and Royal Oak Boys, that we have only
been agitating to regain our usurped possessions — ^to effect not a
Revolution, but a Restoration !
Apart from the above vile phrase, the compliments of Lord
Brougham were highly flattering, and his sincere affection would
no doubt be a valuable possession, but, alas ! when it came to
be tested, the tie, though showy, was no more binding than the
flimsy gilt book-covers of the present day. His Lordship soon
repented of his attachment to authors, and refused to ** be led
away, as many had been led away (and oh ! that our state
wheelera had never any other leaders !) by a generous, natural,
and praise- worthy feeling." The Peers had listened too much
to kind feelings, and he felt compelled to remind them of '^ the
strict duties of the legislative office." A very superfluous in-
junction — for what has the legislature done for literature ^
How have our legislators " leaned towards the side towards which
they must all wish to lean, and towards which all their prejudi.
ces and partialities must bear them ?" Why, they found the
authors in possession of a common law right, so called from be-
ing founded on common sense and common justice — and how
did they show their amiable weakness, their partial warp and
bias, their over-indulgent fondness for that spoiled child — a son
of the Muses. To borrow a comparison, one of the most ill-
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used members of creation is that forlorn animal, a street dog.
Every idle hand has a stone, every idle foot has a kick for him
— «very driver a whip, and every carpenter a clefl stick. He
has only to look at a butcher's shop— merely to point at a sheep
— to be snatched up instanter. Bang ! goes the chopper ! and
off fly a few inches of his tail. He has only to be looked at by
a bevy of young blackguards, and in a jiffy away he scours,
encumbered with an old kettle. Even so it fared with the au-
thor. He was ragged in his coat, bare on bis ribs, and tucked
up in the flank — in short, he looked a very peltable, kickable,
whipable, and curtailable dog, indeed. Accordingly, no sooner
had Law caught sight of him, than it caught hold of him, docked
his entail at a blow, and tied Stationers' Hall to the stump.
So much for the strict duties of the legislative office, to which
we owe that we have only a lease of our own premises — a tem-
porary usufruct in our own orchards — ^that we have been en-
couraged by a sequestration, and protected from retail privateer,
ing, on the condition of wholesale piracy hereafter !
To be sure it has been urged, that an extendied copyright (an
author's. monopoly instead of a bookseller's) would damage the
public interest — that it would enhance the price of book»— at
any rate, that it would prevent their re-issue at a reduced rate.
But this speculation remains to be tested by experiment. The
higher and wealthy classes do not compose, as formerly, the great
mass of readers — the numbers have increased by millions, and
our writers are quite as well aware as the trade of the superior
advantage of a cheap and large circulation. They have the
double temptation of popularity and profit. One can even fancy
an author publishing without hope of pecuniary Inward, nay,
at a certain loss, provided it would insure his numbers a Bozzian
diffusion ; whereas it is difficult to imagine a writer setting so
high a price on his own book as would necessarily confine its
perusal to a very select circle. On these points I am competent
to speak, having re-issued the majority of my own humble
works, at a price quite in accordance with the demand for cheap
literature — and most certainly not enhanced by the time my
copyrights had been in existence. It is true that the cost of a
volume has occasionally been purposely hoisted up, for instancei
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by wilfully destroying the wood-blocks and copper plates, as in
the case of Dr. Dibdin's " Bibliographical Decameron,'^ but such
dog-in-the-mangery acts have been committed at or before pub-
lication : for even the maddest Bibliomaniac would hardly dream
of making a work " scarce," after a sale of forty-two years. It
follows, then, that the shorter the copyright the longer the price
of the book ! for supposing the term cut down to one year for the
writer to sow, reap, and gather in his harvest, what so likely to
set him Dibdinizing as the brevity of his lease ? <' Odds books
and buyers !" says he, ** only twelve months market before me,
less fifty-two Sundays ! As my time is so scant, I must make
the most of it !" So he stirs up the coals to a bonfire, pitches
into it all his costly wood-cuts, as if they were so many logs,
and enhances the price of his volume to ten guineas a c6py I
Apropos of cheapness, it seems never to have occurred to the
sticklers for it, that an article may become unreasonably reason-
able — ^that the consumer may be benefited overmuch. For ex-
ample, there have been certain staring shop announcements to
be seen about London, in which the low price of the commodities
was vouched for by the ruin of the manufacturer — broad pro-
clamations that the " Great Bargains in Cotton " had shut up the
mills, and that the " Wonderfully Reduced Silks " had exhausted
not only the bowels of the worm but those of the weaver. But
is such a consummation a favorable one, and devoutly to be
wished, whatever the fabric ? Is it really desirable to see our
authors publicly advertised as "Unprecedented Sacrifices?"
Or would anybody, except Mr. Wakley, or some tiseless Utili-
tarian, be actually gratified by reading such a placard as the
following :•
UNEXAMPLED DISTRESS IN GRUB STREET!
GREAT REDUCTION IX LITERATURE ! !
PROSE UNDER PRIME COST ! ! ! POETRY FOR NOTHING ! ! ! !
It is certain, nevertheless, that new works, and especially pe-
riodical ones, have been projected and started, during the Rage
for Cheap Literature, at rates so ruinously low, that they might
afford brown bread and single Gloster to the Publishers or to
the Writers, but certainly not for both. Thus, a few months
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since, I was applied to, myself, to contribute to a new journal,
not exactly gratuitously, but at a very small advance upon noth-
ing — ^and avowedly because the work had been planned accord-
ing to that estimate. However, I accepted the terms condition-
ally ; that is to say, provided the principle could be properly
carried out. Accordingly, I wrote to my butcher, baker, and
other tradesmen, informing them that it was necessary, for the
sake of cheap literature and the interest of the reading public,
that they should furnish me with their several commodities at a
very trifling per-centage above cost price. It will be sufficient
to quote the answer of the butcher : —
" Sir, — Respectin your note. Cheap literater be blowed.
Butchers must live as well as other pepel — and if so be you or
the readin publick wants to have meat at prime cost, you must
buy your own beastesses, and kill yourselves. I remane, &c.,
John Stokes."
And, truly, why not cheap anything, or everything, as well
as cheap literature ? Cheap beef, cheap beer, cheap butter, and
cheap bread? As to books, the probability is, that distant re-
issues would be at reduced rates ; but, even supposing them to
remain at their original prices, why should Mr. Thomson of
1843 have his " Waverley " any cheaper than Mr. Thomson of
1814?
At any rate, the interests of both parties ought to be fairly
considered. Nay, Consistency goes still farther, and hints that
tlie literary interest should be especially favored. For, hark to
Consistency ! " Let the public," she says, " be cared for — let
the public be well cared for, — and let the Authors be particu-
larly well cared for, as the most public part of the public !"
" But if we give an extended term to the authors," cries Lord
Brougham, *' we must also give a longer day to the patentees."
And why not, if they deserve and need it ? But it is as easy
to show cause against a patent being perpetual, as it is difficult
to prove why a copyright should be limited. In the abstract,
the absolute rights of both parties may be equal — but as the
monopoly of a mechanical invention might be an enormous evil.
Expediency, with propriety, steps in to protect the public inte-
rest when the private one has been amply gratified. In fact,
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the patentees of great and useful inventioos have generally re-
alized large fortunes within a few years ; whereas the best and
greatest of our writers have commonly made such little ones,
during their whole lives, that the Next-of-Kin never heard of
anything to his advantage. And the reason was ably explained
by the Bishop of London.
The merits of a mechanical invention can at once be tested :
and are immediately recognized. The merest loggerhead can
understand at a glance the advantage of a mactune which im-
pels a ship without wind and a coach without horses — howbeit
the same dunderpate in twenty long years had never found out
the use of " book larning.'' There is a gentleman of my ac-
quaintance who derives a yearly sum for a patent clothes brush,
the superiority of which, in brushing his master's coat, John
Footman would detect ere he had whistled through *^ Nancy
Dawson." But suppose instead of a machine of bristles, wire,
and wood, my friend had composed a work, intended to brush
off the dirt and dust of the human intellect, he might have been
months in catching a publisher, and years upon years in getting
hold of the public. But why talk of steam-engines, clothes
brushes, and such utilities ? There was one trifling instrument,
for which, had the inventor secured a patent, the sale of the
article, merely as a toy, would have certainly enriched the pro-
prietor — for the dullest unit of humanity had but to put the tube
to his or her eye to enjoy all the beautiful and varied patterns
of the kaleidoscope. But suppose, instead of a tin machine
with reflectors and bits of colored glass, the novelty had been a
" Novum Organon," how many of those peeping thousands and
millions might have looked through it and through it, by sun-
light and lamplight, without discovering that it was rare food
for the mind — prime intellectual Bacon. The truth is, we so
far resemble the brutes, that we understand our physical wants
and comforts, much more quickly than our mental or moral
ones, — just as a turnspit would find out the value of a bottlejack
long before that of a Bridgewater Treatise. Hence, the prompt
recognition and remuneration of mechanical inventions and in-
ventors. Nor must it be forgotten that government, as wide
awake to the Physical^ and as fast asleep to the Intellectual, as
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tiie loggerheaded dunce, John Footman, the kaleidoscopers, and
the turnspit, — ^it ought not to he forgotten that government has
flometimes bought his invention of a patentee, but has never pur-
chased a copyright since the invention of printing. It will be
time enough, then, when Sir Robert Peel begins to bargain with
us for our works, on behalf of the nation, to say that we are
on the same footing as the patentees.
The International Question — and Pirates Foreign and Do-
mestic — in my next. — ^Yours, &c..
LETTER V.
To THE Editor of the Athenjeum :
Pboblematical as some persons may consider the
benefit of an extended copyright to authors, there can be no doubt
of the immediate injury they must sustain, in common with
publishers, from the piratical reprinting of the works in foreign
countries — to wit, France, Belgium, and the United States. I
am not aware whether Germany partakes in this disgraceful
traffic : but there is a word for it in the language, and nothing
is more favorable to Nachdruckerie than the contiguity of several
petty principalities.
Of the character of the system, the very name that is applied
to it is significant—^ term which associates this over- free-trade
with the buccaneering practices of the old robbers on the high
seas. The literary pirate does not, mdeed, dabble in blood, but
in ink ; but the object is the same, and pursued by the same
.means — ^the indiscriminate pillage of friend or foe. And here
be it said, that if anything can palliate the foreign marauder,
and render his offence comparatively venial, it is the example
of English publishers pirating English works. It has always
been reckoned unnatural for dog to eat dog, or for hawks to pick
out hawks' eyes ; and the Highland veteran, who stole droves
of cattle without scruple, would have held it a heinous offence to
lift a sucking calf belonging to any one of his own dan.
Part ii. 9
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114 PROSE AND VERSE.
Nevertheless, of this heinous and unnatural conduct there have
been too many instances, including a couple within the last few
months. In the first case, a piracy was committed by a Firm
not the least active in the opposition to the Bill of Sergeant Tal-
fourd, and who, of course, held the poacher-like principle that
the proper time for a copyright to expire was whenever they
chose to kill it. The other party alluded to, once went so far
as to assert to me that an author would not receive more, but
less, for a longer term in his works — a declaration attributed at
the time to mere natural blockheadism ; but his theory of literary
rights has since been illustrated by an injunction obtained against
him by a brother bookseller, for pirating some popular metrical
legends. Now in what but the pseudo-respectability of a double-
fronted shop in Cornhill does this publisher rank above a man
whom he would no doubt have designated as a little, low, dirty,
shabby library-keeper in the suburbs, to whom I one day hap-
pened to mention a placard in a neighboring shop- window an-
nouncing a spurious " Master Humphrey's Clock."
" Sir," said the little, low, dirty, shabby library-keeper, " if
you had observed the name, it was by Bos, not Boz-^-S, Sir, not
Z ; and, besides, it would have been no piracy. Sir, even with
the Z, because Master Humphrey's Clock, you see. Sir, was not
published as by Boz, but by Charles Dickens."*
These lax principles of our domestic pirates are not at all
braced by a passage across the Atlantic. In America the sys-
tem has reached its climax, and the types, used on a new work
here, are only the antetypes of a reprint in Boston, Philadel-
phia, or New York. Of this, a flagrant example has recently
occurred in the republication of Sir £. Bulwer's last new novel,
" Zanoni," in a newspaper form, at the rate of ten copies for a
dollar ! In fact, as to natural rights, in the States there appear
to be two classes very much on a par— -our read men and the
Indians.
It may be as well for me, before commenting on such trans-
actions, to disown any prejudice, personal or political, against
America or the Americans. I am none of the " Mr, H's" who
have drawn, sketched, or caricatured them. The stars and
♦ Fact.
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stripes do not affect me like a blight in the eye ; nor doee
" Yankee Doodle " give me the ear-aohe. I have no wish to
repeal the Union of the United States ; or to alter the phrase
in the Testament into " Republicans and Sinners^^' In reality,
I have rather a Davidish feeling towards Jonathan, remembering
whence he comes, and what language he speaks ; and holding
it better in such cases to have the wit that traces resemblances,
than the judgment that detects differences,— and perhaps foments
them.
It is, therefore, to gratify no private spleen, spite, or jealousy,
that my voice is raised against a system which has been con-
demned by some of the wisest and most distinguished of her own
sons as prejudicial to the dignity and best interests of America
-*men, who do not care, perhaps, to see their Gog of a country
indebted for all its prose and poetry to little Great Britain, just
as the jolterheaded Giant at tiie gate of Kenilworth Castle was
dependent for his literature on the dwarfish imp Flibbertigibbet.
And truly gigantic is Jonathan in his material works, and
extra-fast in his physical progress ; but will he really be satisfied
with going ahead in everything but that in which the head is so
distinguished an agent ? He is first chop with the hatchet, and
a crack with the rifle, — grand at a 'coon, mighty at a 'possum,
and awful at a squirrel, — ^he can drive a nail with a bullet, or a
bargain with a Jew pedlar, — ^whip his weight in wild cats,* grin
Jesuit's bark into quinine, and, as some say, wring off the tail
of a comet, — ^but where will be his exploits with the pen ? Will
he resemble or not the big Ben of the school, a dab at marbles,
a first-rater at cricket, a top-sawyer at fives, and a good-'un at
fisticufis, but obliged to be obliged for his English themes and
exercises to the least boy on the form ? The picture is a morti-
fying one ; but in some such character must Jonathan necessa-
rily figure, if he consents to be a mere interloper — a Squatter,
instead of a settler, in the Field of Letters.
That America, in-the absence of an International Copyright,
can never possess a native literature, has been foretold by the
second-sighted on either side of the Atlantic. Indeed, accord-
* ** Phoo ! phoo !*' said an old Anglo-Indian, in reference to this boast |
" I can whip my own weight in elephants.'*
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iDg to Mr. Cornelius Mathews, in his speech at the public dinner
given to Dickens at New York, the barren time is already come,
and the field of letters, in the States, scarcely produces a prose
thistle or a poetical dandelion. It would hardly feed a Learned
Pig, Such must be the inevitable result of the republication of
English works on a scale that totally precludes any native com-
petition ; and whatever may be the feeling of the trading part*
ners, I can imagine nothing more mortifying to the spirit of a
liberal, accomplished, and patriotic American, than to sit in his
study, under a framed and glazed <' Declaration of Independ-
ence," and to look at a Family Library, well stored indeed with
books, but of which nothing save the paper and the covers are
of home manu&cture.
Of the character of the traffic there can be no doubt. No
honorable man would wish to obtain mental food, any more than
his bodily victual, without fairly paying for it. It makes no
difference that the supply comes from another country ; for who
would object to pay his tradesman's bills on the plea that his
American apples, his Ostend butter, and his French eggs, were
of foreign production ? Nor does it matter that the acquisition
is not exactly so tangible as upholstery ; it is as irregular to
have your head furnished as your house at the expense of your
neighbor.
But these are the consumers. As to the purveyors, they are
precisely on a par with the remarkable cheap traders, who stole
ready-made brooms. They are not liable, it is true, to any
legal penalty ; but a severe punishment is awarded to a very
similar offence. According to the comity of civilized ooun.
tries, the national flag virtually protects not only the aggregate
people, but every native individual — ^the British subject at Balti-
more or Boston as much as the cockney in Gheapside. Even
se the copyright of an English work attaches to the solitary
copy that finds its way to New York as much as to the 1499
which remain in the dominions of Queen Victoria. It is a
single bank note, but of a large issue ; and its multiplication by
spurious copies, particularly for circulation in our empire or its
colonies, is surely as nefarious as the forgery of our " flimsies."
The analogy is undeniable : and as the wholesale counterfeiting
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of a paper currency has only been practised heretofore between
nations at war, it is incumbent on the Congress of a country with
which we are at amity to put a stop to such hostilities.
And here, pray note, how a Perpetual Copyright, as I formerly
stated, might be defended with a better grace from invasion from
abroad. Indeed, if foreign piracy have any plea in extenuation,
it is the evil example of the statute of 1709, which first put a
boundary line to our possession. Jonathan is a great calculator,
and may calculate that space as well as time may nullify a
copyright ; and to be candid, there is no very clear reason why
it should not. To me it appears that 26 degrees of latitude
might as justly and rationally alienate a property as 28 years of
longitude ; that my right may as consistently depart from me in
a steamboat as in a calendar ; and of the two, the Great West-
em seems the most tangible conveyancer. As to any work
above 23 years old, its reprinting by Americans or New Zea-
landers can be no transgression. On No Man's Land there can
be no trespass ; where there is no right there can be no infringe-
ment ; there can be no piracy, for there is no copyright, that
which was called so being dead and gone ; not transferred like
other property, but annihilated ; not a dormant title, but extinct.
As a consequence, in a couple of months, every printer in the
United States will have, legally, as much right and interest in
Waverley as the son and heir of the immortal Novelist.
There is another injury, however, with which our authors are
threatened besides reprinting, namely, translation, — not from
English into American, for there is no such tongue, but from the
language of a Monarchy into that of a Republic. Yes ; our
writers are actually to be done into Locofocos, NuUifiers, Fede-
ralists, Democrats, Sympathisers, — nay, perhaps, into Horse
Alligators and Yellow Flowers of the Forest, according to the
taste of the province in which they may be reprinted, or the
predilections of the republisher ! In fact, American editions
are to represent in spirit, as well as in form, American wipreS"
sums !
This transmogrification is plainly alluded to in the following
paragraph of a Memorial to Congress got up at a meeting of
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118 PROSE AND VERSE.
publishers, printers, &c., at Boston, in April last, Mr. Goodrich,
alias Peter Parley, in the chair :
<< We would also suggest another point of vital import. If
English authors obtain copyrights upon their works here, and
our markets are supplied with them, it is apparent that having
no power to adapt diem to our wants, our institutions, and our
state of society, we must permit their circulation as they are.
We shall thus have a London literature forced upon us, at once
driving our own out of the field, and subjecting the community
to its influence. So long as we have power over it — so long as
we can shape it as may suit our taste and condition, we have
nothing to fear ; but when this privilege is taken away, and the
vast preponderance of British capital has driven our own out of
the trade, shall we not have in our bosom a power at war with
our institutions, and dangerous to our prosperity ? Is it not
safer and better to let in this literature freely, but subject to the
moulding of our wants and wishes, rather than to give it an
ascendency, and entrench it behind the inviolable privilege of
copyright ?"
And that there may be no doubt about the meaning of the
memorialists, hear Mr. Cornelius Mathews :
^^ I have said nothing — and I might have said much— of the
mutilation of books by our American republishers — that out-
rageous wrong by which a noble English writer, speaking truths
in London, dear to him as life, is made to say in New York that
which his soul abhors P'
I am not aware of the exact tinge of the Boston complexion ;
but, whether pallid or rubicund, golden or brazen, was there
no cheek capable of a blush at the reading of such a precious
document ! Did Mr. Goodrich — ^himself a writer — and a moral-
ist for children— did Peter Parley feel no misgivings as to the
propriety or fairness of casting Uie brains of English authors
into American moulds and shapes, with as little ceremony as
so much jelly ? Is there no turpitude in the falsification of
writings because they happen to be not in manuscript, but in
print? On the contrary, the most dishonorable of misrepre-
sentations is to make a man misrepresent himself, by attributing
to him expressions he had never uttered, or principles he
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had never entertained — a proceeding quite as dirty as that of
the Brobdignaggian baboon, when it crammed into the mouth
of Gulliver the filth it had hoarded in its own pouches !
For my own part, I think that a man has quite as good a right
to attach a sum, as a sentiment, to my signature — ^to use my
name for the supply of his wants, as for the support of his prin-
ciples — ^to turn me into cash, as to turn me into a republican.
But there may be more novel notions on these matters on the
opposite side of the Atlantic ; where " another and better
world" is supposed to be the new one.
As to the picture of '< London literature " — ^guarded by inter,
national copyright — "driving their own out of the field" — it
comes with peculiar grace from the advocates of an unrestrained
reissue of English books at little more than the cost of paper
and print. The very men who are scuttling the ship called au-
thorship, to express fears of its being swamped by a sea ! For
it is obvious that the American, who thinks of literature as a
profession, under such circumstances, might as well swarm up
a lamp-post for a bee-tree — ^that if he hopes to enlighten his
countrymen and be paid for his pains, he had better turn bea-
ver, at once, and thrash mud with his tail.
And now farewell to Jonathan ! It can be no unfriendly as-
piration to wish that he may have Shakspeares and Miltons
of his own — ^that he may breed Scotts, Wordsworths, Moores,
Byrons, and Bulwers, as well as Washingtons, Jefiersons, Madi-
sons, Clays, and General Jacksons. But if he desires to own
any eternally everlasting, immortal names in literature, we must
put down a traffic, particularly adapted to make a great country
look little.
Turning eastward, and looking across another ocean, there
is a little kingdom, wherein the Journeymen Minds of the capi-
tal have also greatly profited by the Master Minds of England
— at least in the way of mammon. I allude to the Belgians,
the most sordid, illiberal, and huckstering tradespeople in Eu-
rope, to whom Napoleon might justly have applied the epithet
of " boutiquiere," seeing that a " Banker" soipetimes keeps his
office in a back parlor, whilst his wife and daughters retail ha.
berdashery in the front shop. A people whose revolution ori-
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120 PROSE AND VERSE.
ginated not in love of liberty, but love of money-^not a reli-
gious repeal of an union of Catholic and Protestant — but a mere
breeches-pocket change, from a desire to get rid of Dutch debt,
and a Dutch-copartnership in commercial profits. A people, in
short, who in'spite of their getting rid of the Spaniards have re-
tained their affection for " the Spanish " — and instead of com-
bining opulence with a liberal expenditure, store up their wealth
in miserly hiding places — just as a jackdaw deposits silver
spoons, dz;c., in his rubbish saving banks, from a mere object-
less propensity to hoarding.
Now, as regards literary piracy, the Americans may plead
in mitigation, their common origin with the English, and their
use — saving some uncommon odd phrases — of a common lan-
guage. Jonathan can read and relish Hamlet or Paradise
Lost, as well as John ; and at any rate a large proportion of his
reprints are for his own consumption. But there is no such
excuse for the Belgians. Shakspeare and Milton ! why, if they
were translated expressly into Flemish, I should be sorry to
guarantee the sale of fifty copies. There would be as much
demand for them by the Flanders horses and mares that trot
upon four legs, as by those that walk upon two. If they ever
transplant from our Literature into their own Belles Lettres, it
will be " Tate's Universal Cambist," or Somebody on Assurance.
For, sharpwitted as the Flemish may be at a bargain, in intel-
lectual matters they are as Boeotian as if they had taken mud
baths in their own bogs, and, as the old Bubble Man recom-
mends, had given their heads the full benefit of the immersion.
It follows that the Brussels Printers cannot set up the pretence
of the Boston ones — ^that they patriotically rob our great literary
lamps, for the enlightenment of their own citizens. In Belgium
there is a smoking, beer-drinking, estaminet- haunting, but no
Reading Public. The books they consult are filled with " Fle-
mish accounts " — the leaves they love are rolled up into cigars.
In short, in the great March of Mind, the Flemish are as far
behind as the baggage, or along with the suttlers, selling sau-
sages and schnapps. It is a fair conclusion, then, that a great
part of the English reprints must be intended for the London
market, into which they can only be surreptitiously introduced.
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COPYRIGHT AND COPYWRONG. Itl
andy consequently, the Bruasels publisher is not only a Pirate^ but
a smuggler — a Dick Hatteraick engrafted on Paul Jones. But I
do injustice to the brave Buccaneer and the bold Freetrader by
the comparison; there may be the same greed for gain, but
there is no risk of life or limb to ennoble a traffic as paltry and
fraudulent as the '< sweating" of our Sovereigns.
Against these new << Brussels Sprouts," the vigilance of our
customs ought to be particularly directed ; and their confiscation
should be strictly enforced. Of an International Copyright,
there is no hope — locking at the sordid and unlettered character
of the Belgians, the speech of the King, a commercial jealousy
of England, and a general ill-will towards us. France and
America may accede to our claims, and agree to protect our
literary rights ; but Belgium will be the last, the very last, to do
justice even to the English."'
In the meantime let us hope that our own Legislature will
extend all the protection it can afford to our Literature ; as much
security as it can give to the Publisher ; and as much encour*
agement as it can bestow on the Author : Heaven knows he is
in need of it ! Hitherto he has only been robbed by the Statute
of Anne, nor has the legal unkindness been atoned for by pro-
portionate favor in other quarters. Where are his Honorary
Distinctions ? The highest honor ever conferred on an author —
a peerage — ^was granted to Bubb Doddington — and then not for
writing his life. Where are the lucrative Tellerships, Warden-
ships, ComptroUerships, Secretaryships, and Governorships dedi-
cated as rewards to this species of Civil Merit ?
" And Echo answers, where ?"
Even the very few appointments heretofore allotted for its
portion are going or gone. The examinership of Plays has
passed from an Author to an Actor ; and a prophetic soul augurs
that the Laureateship, at the next vacancy, may go to a Painter.
So much for the distinctions bestowed on a Literary man dur-
ing his life. Now for the honors paid to him at his death. We
* « We must be just even towards the English ''—from the Messager de
Gand, June 9, 1842.
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all know how he lives. He writes for hread, and gets it short
weight; — ^for money, and gets the wnmg change^ — for the
Present) and he is pirated ; — ^for the Future, and his children
are disinherited for his pains. At last, he sickens, as he well
may, and can write no more. He makes his will, but, for any
literary property, might as well die intestate. His eldest son is
his heir, but the Row administers. And so he dies, a beg-
gar, with the world in his debt. Being poor, he is buried
with less ceremony than Cock Robin. Had he been rich
enough, he might have bought a " snug lying in the Abbey "
of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, who even then, true
to the same style of treatment, would put him, were he the
greatest and best of our Poets — as the mother puts the least and
worst of her brats — ^into a Comer !
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PROSPECTUS OF HOOD^S MAGAZINE. 19S
PROSPECTUS OF HOOD'S MAGAZINE.
Whatever may be thought of Dr. Dickson's theory, that the
t3rpe of disease in general is periodical, there can be no doubt of
its applicability to modem literature, which is essentially peri-
odical, whether the type be long primer, brevier, or bourgeois*
It appears, moreover, by the rapid consumption of monthlies,
compared with the decline of the annuals, that frequent fits of
publication are more prevalent and popular than yearly par*
oxysms*
Under these circumstances, no apology is necessary ibr the
present undertaking ; but custom, which exacts an overture to a
• new opera, and a prologue to a new play, requires a few words
of introduction to a new monthly magazine.
One prominent object, then, of the projected publication, as
implied by the sub-title of <' Comic Miscellany," will be the sup-
ply of harmless << Mirth for the Million," and light thoughts, to
a public sorely oppressed — ^if its word be worth a rush, or its
complaints of an ounce weight — ^by hard times, heavy taxes, and
those ^' eating cares " which attend on the securing of food for
the day, as well as a provision for the future. For the relief
of such afflicted classes, the editor, assisted by able humorists^
will dispense a series of papers and woodcuts, which, it is hoped,
will cheer the gloom of Willow Walk, and the loneliness of
Wilderness Row — sweeten the bitterness of Camomile street and
Wormwood street — smoothe the ruffled temper of Cross street,
and enable even Crooked Lane to unbend itself! It is hardly
necessary to promise that this end will be pursued without raising
a maiden blush, much less a damask, in the nursery grounds of
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194 PROSE AND VERSB.
modesty — or trespassing, by wanton personalities, on the parks
and lawns of private life. In a word, it will aim at being merry
and wise, instead of merry and otherwise.
For the sedate, there will be papers of a becoming gravity ;
and the lover of poetry will be supplied with numbers in each
number.
As to politics, the reader of Hood's Magazine will vainly
search in its pages for a panacea for agricultural distress, or a
grand Catholicon for Irish agitation ; he will uselessly seek to
know whether we ought to depend for our bread on foreign far-
mers, or merely on foreign sea-fowl ; or, if the repeal of the
Union would produce low rents and only three quarter days.
Neither must he hope to learn the proper terminus of reform,
nor even whether a finality man means Campbell's last man, or
an undertaker.
A total abstinence fh)m such stimulating topics and fermented
questions is, indeed, ensured by the established character of the
editor, and his notorious aversion to party spirit. To borrow his
own words, from a letter to the proprietors, — " I am no politician,
and far from instructed on those topics which, to parody a com-
mon phrase, no gentleman's newspaper should be without. Thus,
for any knowledge of mine, the Irish prosecutions may be for
pirating the Irish melodies ;• the Pennsylvanians may have repu-
diated their wives ; Duff Green may be a place, like Goose
Green ; Prince Polignac a dahlia or a carnation, and the Due
de Bordeaux a tulip. The Spanish affairs I could never mas-
ter, even with a Pratiauncing Dictionary at my elbow ; it would
puzzle me to see whether Queen Isabella's majority is or is not
equal to Sir Robert Peel's ; or, if the shelling the Baroelonese
was done with bombs and mortars, or the nutcrackers. Prim
may be a quaker, and the whole civil war about the Seville
Oranges. Nay, even on domestic matters, nearer home, my
profound political ignorance leaves me in doubt on questions
concerning which the newsmen's boys and printers' devils have
formed very decided opinions ; for example, whether the com
law league ought to extend beyond three miles from Mark Lane
—or the sliding scale should regulate the charges at the glaoia-
tiiim — ^what share the Welsh whigs have had in the Welsh
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PROSPECTUS OF HOOiyS MAGAZINE. 136
riots, and how far the Ryots Id India were excited by the
slaughter of the Brahmin Bull. On all such public subjects I
am less au fait than that Publicist the Potboy, at the public-
house, with the insolvent sign. The Hog in the Pound."
Polemics will be excluded with the same rigor ; and especially
the Tractarian schism. The reader of Hood's Magazine must
not hope, therefore, to be told whether an old Protestant church
ought to be plastered with Roman cement ; or if a design for ft
new one should be washed in with Newman's colors. And most
egregiously will he be disappointed, should he look for contro-
versial theology in our Poets' Comer. He might as well expect
to see queens of Sheba, and divided babies, from wearing Solo-
mon's spectacles !
For the rest, a critical eye will be kept on our current litera-
ture, a regretful one on the drama, and a kind one for the fine
arts, from whose artesian well there will be an occasional
dramng.
With this brief explanatory announcement, Hood's Magazine
AND Comic Miscellany is left to recommend itself, by its own
merits, to those enlightened judges, the reviewers ; and to that
impartial jury — ^too vast to pack in any case — ^the British public.
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THE HAUNTED HOUSE;
A ROMANCE.
** A jolly place, said he, in days of old.
But something ails it now : the spot is curst'*
Hartleap Wei^l, bt Wordsworth.
Some dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural and full of contradictions ;
Yet others of our most romantic schemes
Are something more than fictions.
It might be only on enchanted ground ;
It might be merely by a thought's expansion ;
But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found
An old deserted mansion.
A residence for woman, child, and man,
A dwelling-place — and yet no habitation ;
A house — ^but under some prodigious ban
Of excommunication.
Unhinged the iron gates half open hung,
Jarr'd by the gusty gales of many winters,
That from its crumbled pedestal had flung
One marble globe in splinters.
No dog was at the threshold, great or small ;
No pigeon on the roof— no household creature —
No cat demurely dozing on the wall —
Not one domestic feature.
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rm HAUNTED HOUSE. 137
r
No human figure stirred, to' go or comoy
No face looked forth from shut or open casement ;
No chimney smoked — ^there was no sign of home
From parapet to basement.
With shatter'd panes the grassy court was starrM ;
The time-worn coping-stone had tumbled after ;
\ And thro' the ragged roof the.sky shone, barr'd
With naked beam and rafter.
O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear.
The place is haunted !
The flow'r grew wild and rankly as the weed,
Roses with thistles struggled for espial,
And vagrant plants of parasitic breed
Had overgrown the dial.
But gay or gloomy, steadfast or infirm,
No heart was there to heed the hour's duration ;
All times and tides were lost in one long term
Of stagnant desolation.
The wren had built within the porch, she found
Its quiet loneliness so sure and thorough ;
And on the lawn — ^within its turfy mound —
The rabbit made his burrow.
The rabbit wild and grey, that flitted thro'
The shrubby clumps, and frisk'd, and sat, and vanish'd.
But leisurely and bold, as if he knew
His enemy was banish'd.
The wary crow — ^the pheasant from the woods —
Lull'd by the still and everlasting sameness,
Close to the mansion, like domestic broods.
Fed with a " shocking tameness."
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tW PRCM3E AND VERSE.
The coot was swimming in the reedy pond,
Beside the water-hen, so soon affrighted ;
And in the weedy moat the heron, fond
Of solitude, alighted.
The moping heron, motionless and stiff.
That on a stone, as silently and stilly,
Stood, an apparent sentinel, as if
To guard the water-lily.
No sound was heard except, from far away.
The ringing of the Whitwall's- shrilly laughter,
Or, now and then, the chatter of the jay.
That Echo murmur'd afler«
But Ech6 never mockM the human tongue ;
Some weigHty crime, that Heaven could not pardon,
A secret curse on that old building hung.
And its deserted garden.
The beds were all untouched by hand or tool ;
No footstep marked the damp and mossy graveL
Each walk as green as is the mantled pool,
For want of human travel.
The vine unprun'd, and the neglected peach,
Droop'd from the wall with which they used to grapple ;
And on the canker'd tree, in easy reach,
Rotted the golden apple.
But awfully the truant shunn'd the ground,
The vagrant kept aloof, and daring poacher ;
In spite of gaps that thro' the fences round
Invited the encroacher.
For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted.
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted !
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THE HAUNTED HOUSE. ' 129
The pear and quince lay squander'd on the grass ;
The mould was purple with unheeded showers
Of bloomy plums — a wilderness it was
Of fruits, and weeds, and flowers !
The marigold amidst the nettles blew,
The gourd embraced the rose-bush in its ramble.
The thistle and the stock together grew.
The holly-hock and bramble.
The bear-bine with the lilac interlac'd,
The sturdy burdock choked its slender neighbor.
The spicy pink. All tokens were efiac'd
Of human care and labor.
The very yew formality had train'd
To such a rigid pyramidal stature.
For want of trinmiing had almost regain'd
The raggedness of nature.
The fountain was a-dry — ^neglect and time
Had ^arr'd the work of artisan and mason.
And ells and croaking frogs begot of slime,
Sprawl'd in the ruin'd bason.
The statue, fallen from its marble base,
Amidst the refuse leaves, and herbage rotten.
Lay like the idol of some by-gone race.
Its name and rites forgotten.
On ev'ry side the aspect was the same.
All ruin'd, desolate, forlorn, and lavage : '•
No hand or foot within the precinct came
To rectify or ravage.
I For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
j A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear
' The place is haunted !
Paet n. 10 ^ I
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130 PROSE AND VERSE.
O, very gloomy is the House of Wo,
Where tears are falling while the bell is knelling,
With all the dark solemnities which show
That Death is in the dwelling !
O very, very dreary is the room
Where Love, domestic Love, no longer nestles,
But smitten by the common stroke of doom,
The corpse lies on the trestles !
But House of Wo, and hearse, and sable pall,
The narrow home of the departed mortal.
Ne'er looked so gloomy as that ghostly hall,
With its deserted portal !
The centipede along the threshold crept,
The cobweb hung across in mazy tangle.
And in its winding-sheet the maggot slept,
At every nook and angle.
The keyhole lodged the earwig and her brood.
The emmets of the steps had old possession,
And marched in search of their diurnal food
In undisturbed procession.
As undisturbed as the prehensile cell
Of moth or maggot, or the spider's tissue,
For never foot upon that threshold fell,
To enter or to issue.
O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of hiystery the spirit daunted.
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear.
The place is haunted.
Howbeit, the door I pushed — or so I dreamed —
Which slowly, slowly gaped — the hinges creaking
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THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 131
With such a rusty eloquence, it seem'd
That time himself was speaking.
But Time was dumb within that mansion old.
Or left his tale to the heraldic banners
That hung from the corroded walls, and told
Of former men and manners.
Those tattered flags, that with the opened door.
Seemed the old wave of battle to remember,
While fallen fragments danced upon the floor
Like dead leaves in December.
j| The startled bats flew out — bird after bird —
^ , J The screech-owl overhead began to flutter,
11 And seemed to mock the cry that she had heard
Some dying victim utter !
A shriek that echoed from the joisted roof.
And up the stair, and further still and further.
Till in some ringing chamber far aloof
It ceased its tale of murther !
Meanwhile the rusty armor rattled round,
The banner shuddered, and the ragged streamer ;
All things the horrid tenor of the sound
Acknowledged with a tremor.
The antlers, where the helmet hung apd belt.
Stirred as the tempest stirs the forest branches.
Or as the stag had trembled when he felt
The blood-hound at his haunches.
The window jingled in its crumbled frame.
And through its many gaps of destitution
Dolorous moans and hollow sighings came.
Like those of dissolution.
The wood-louse dropped, and rolled into a ball.
Touched by some impulse occult or mechanic ;
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And nameless beetles ran along the wall
«ln universal panic.
, /■
^ / The subtle spider, that from overhead
I Hung like a spy on human guilt and error,
I Suddenly turned, and up its slender thread
Ran with a nimble terror.
The very stains and fractures on the wall,
Assuming features solemn and terrific,
Hinted some tragedy of that old hall.
Locked up in hieroglyphic.
Some tale that might, perchance, have solved the doubt.
Wherefore amongst those flags so dull and livid.
The banner of the Bloody Hand shone out
So ominously vivid.
Some key to that inscrutable appeal,
Which made the very frame of nature quiver ;
And every thrilling nerve and fibre feel
So ague-like a shiver.
For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted !
If but a rat had lingered in the house.
To lure the thought into a social channel !
But not a rat remained, or tiny mouse.
To speak behind the pannel.
Huge drops rolled down the walls, as if they wept ;
I , And where the cricket used to chirp so shrilly,
' I The toad was squatting, and the lizard crept
[ On that damp h^rth and chilly.
For years no cheerful blaze had sparkled there,
Or glanced on coat of buff or knightly metal ;
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THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 109
The slug was crawling on the vacant chair,^
The snail upon the settle.
The floor was redolent of mould and must.
The fungus in the rotten seams had quickened ;
While on the oaken table coats of dust
Perennially had thickened.
No mark of leathern jack or metal can,
No cup — no horn — ^no hospitable token, —
All social ties between that board and man
Had long ago been broken.
There was so foul a rumor in the air,
The shadow of a presence so atrocious ;
No human creature could have feasted there,
Even the most ferocious !
For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
IA sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
^And said, as plain as whisper in the ear.
The place is haunted !
Tis hard for human actions to account.
Whether from reason or from impulse only—
But some internal prompting bade me mount
The gloomy stairs and lonely.
Those gloomy stairs, so dark, and damp, and cold.
With odors as from bones and relics carnal,
Deprived of rite, and consecrated mould.
The chapel vault, or chamel.
Those dreary stairs, where with the sounding stress
Of ev'ry step so many echoes blended,
The mind, with dark misgivings, feared to guess
How many feet ascended.
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IM PROSE AND VERSE.
The tempest with its spoils had drifted in,
Till each unwholesome stone was darkly spotted,
As thickly as the leopard's dappled skin,
With leaves that rankly rotted.
The air was thick — and in the upper gloom
The bat — or something in its shape — was winging ;
And on the wall, as chilly as a tomb,
The Death's-head moth was clinging.
That mystic moth, which, with a sense profound
Of all unholy presence, augurs truly ;
And with a grim significance flits round
The taper burning bluely.
Such omens in the place there seemed to be.
At every crooked turn, or on the landing.
The straining eyeball was prepared to see
Some apparition standing.
For over all there hung a cloud of fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear.
The place is haunted !
Yet no portentous shape the sight amazed ;
Each object plain, and tangible, and valid ;
But from their tarnished frames dark figures gazed,
And faces spectre-pallid.
Not merely with the mimic life that lies
Within the compass of Art's simulation :
Their souls were looking through their painted eyes
With awful speculation.
On every lip a speechless horror dwelt ;
On every brow the burthen of affliction ;
The old ancestral spirits knew and felt
The house's malediction.
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THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 136
Such earnest wo their features overcast,
They might have stirred, or sighed^ or wept, or spoken ;
But, save the hollow moaning of the blast,
The stillness was unbroken.
No o^er sound or stir of life was there,
Bxcept my steps in solitary clamber.
From flight to flight, from humid stair to stair.
From chamber into chamber.
Deserted rooms of luxury and state,
That old magnificence had richly furnished
With pictures, cabinets of ancient date.
And carvings gilt and burnished.
Rich hangings, storied by the needle's art.
With scripture history, or classic fable ;
But all had faded, save one ragged part.
Where Cain was slaying Abel.
The silent waste of mildew and the moth
Had marred the tis^e with a partial ravage ;
But undecaying frowned upon the cloth
Bach feature stem and savage.
The sky was pale ; the cloud a thing of doubt ;
Some hues were fresh, and some decayed and duller ;
But still the Bloody Hand shone strangely out
With vehemence of color !
The Bloody Hand that with a lurid stain
Shone on the dusty floor, a dismal token,
Projected from the casement's painted pane^
Where all beside was broken.
The Bloody Hand significant of crime,
That glaring on the old heraldic banner,
Had kept its crimson unimpaired by time,
In such a wondrous manner !
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O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of my*stery the spirit daunted.
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted !
The death-watch ticked behind the panneled oak,
Inexplicable tremors shook the arras,
And echoes strange and mystical awoke.
The fancy to embarrass.
Prophetic hints that filled the soul with dread.
But through one gloomy entrance pointing mostly,
The while some secret inspiration said,
That chamber is the ghostly !
Across the door no gossamer festoon
Swung pendulous — ^no web— no dusty fringes.
No silky chrysalis or white cocoon,
About its nooks and hinges.
The spider shunned the interdicted room,
The moth, the beetle, and the fly were banished,
And where the sunbeam fell athwart the gloom
The very midge had vanished.
One lonely ray that glanced upon a Bed,
As if with awful aim direct and certain.
To show the Bloody Hand in burning red
Embroidered on the curtain.
And yet no gory stain was on the quilt —
The pillow in its place had slowly rotted :
The floor alone retained the trace of guilt,
Those boards obscurely spotted.
Obscurely spotted to the door, and thence
With mazy doubles to the grated casement —
Oh what a tale they told of fear intense.
Of horror and amazement I
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What human creature in the dead of night
Had coursed like hunted hare that cruel distance ?
Had sought the door, the window in his flight.
Striving for dear existence ?
What shrieking spirit in that bloody room
Its mortal frame had violently quitted? —
Across the sunbeam, with a sudden gloom,
A ghostly shadow flitted.
Across the sunbeam; and along the wall.
But painted on the air so very dimly.
It hardly veiled the tapestry at all,
Or portrait frowning grimly.
O'er all there hung the shadow of a fear,
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted.
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted ?
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188 PROSE AND VERSE.
LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM.*
Of all the know-nothing persons in this world, commend us to
the man who has '< never known a day's illness." He is a moral
dunce ; one who has lost the greatest lesson in life ; who has
skipped the jfinest lecture in that great school of humanity, the
Sick Chamber. Let him be versed in mathematics, profound
in metaphysics, a ripe scholar in the classics, a bachelor of arts,
<or even a doctor in divinity, yet is he as one of those gentlemen
-whose education has been neglected. For all his college ac-
<quirements, how inferior is he in wholesome knowledge to the
mortal who has had but a quarter's gout, or a half-year of ague
— how infinitely below the fellow-creature who has been soundly
taught his tic-douloureux, thoroughly grounded in the rheuma-
tics, and deeply red in the scarlet fever ! And yet, what is more
common than to hear a great hulking, florid fellow, bragging of
an ignorance, a brutal ignorance, that he shares in common
with the pig and the bullock, the generality of which die, proba-
bly, without ever having experienced a day's indisposition ?
To such a monster of health the volume before us will be a
sealed book ; for how can he appreciate its allusions to physical
suffering, whose bodily annoyance has never reached beyond a
slight tickling of the epidermis, or the tingling of a foot gone
to sleep ? How should he, who has sailed through life with a
clean bill of health, be able to sympathize with the feelings, or
the quiet sayings and doings, of an invalid condemned to a life-
long quarantine in his chamber ? What should he know of
Life in the Sick Room ? As little as our poor paralytic grand-
mother knows of Life in London.
* Life in the Sick Room. By an Invalid. Moxon.
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LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. 139
With ourselves it is otherwise. Afflicted for twenty yeanr
with a complication of disorders^ the least of which is elephan-
tiasis — bedridden on the broad of our back till it became nar^
row — and then confined to our chamber as rigidly as if it had
been a cell in the Pentonville Penitentiary — we are in a fit statei
body and mind, to appreciate such a production as Mr. Moxon
— ^not the Efiervescing Magnesian, but the worthy publisher —
has forwarded with so much sagacity, or instinct, to our own
sick ward. The very book for us ! if, indeed, we are not actu-
ally the Anonymous of its dedication — ^the very fellow-sufierer
on whose sympathy — "confidently reckoned on though un-
asked," the Invalid author so implicitly relies. We certainly
do sympathize most profoundly ; and as certainly we are a
great sufierer, — ^the greatest, perhaps, in England, except the
poor incurable man who is always being cured by HoUoway's
Ointment.
Enough of ourselves: — and now for the book. The first
thing that struck us, on the perusal, was a very judicious omis-
sion. Most writers on such a topic as the sick-room would have
begun by recommending some pet doctor, or favorite remedy
for all diseases ; whereas the author has preferred to advise on
the selection of an eligible retreat for laying up for life, and
especially of a window towards that good aspect, the face of
Nature. And truly, a long term of infirm health is such a
very bad look out, as to require some better prospect elsewhere.
For, not to mention a church-yard, or a dead wall, what can be
worse for a sick prisoner, than to pass year after year in some
dull street, contemplating some dull house, never new- fronted, or
even insured in a new fire-office, to add a new plate to the two
old ones under the middle window ? What more dreadful than
to be driven by the monotony outside to the sameness within, till
the very figures of the chintz curtain are daguerreotyped on the
brain, or the head seems lined with a paper of the same pattern
as the one on the wall ? How much better, for soul and body,
for the invalid to gaze on such a picture as this : —
" Between my window and the sea is a green down, as green as any field
in Ireland ; and on the nearer half of this down, haymaking goes forward
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140 PROSE AND VERSE.
in its aeaaon. It slopes down to a hoUow, where the prior of old preserved
his fish, there being skucea formerly at either end, the one opening upon
the river, and the other upon the little haven below the priory, whose ruins
still crown the rock. From the prior's fish-pond^ the green down slopes
upwards again to a ridge ; and on the slope are cows grazing all summer^
and half way into the winter. Over the ridge, I survey the harbor and all
its traffic, the view extending from the light-houses far to the right, to a
horizon of sea to the left Beyond the harbor lies another county, with,
first, its sandy beach, where there are frequent wrecks — too interesting to
an invalid— and a fine stretch of rocky shore to the left ; and above the
rocks, a spreading heath, where I watch troops of boys flying their kites ;
lovers f nd friends taking their breezy walk on Sundays ; the sportsman
with his gun and dog ; and the washerwomen converging from the farm-
houses on Saturday evenings, to carry their loads, in company, to the village
on the yet further height I see them, now talking in a cluster, as they
walk each with her white burden on her head, and now in file, as they
pass through the narrow lane ; and finally they part ofi" on the village
green, each to some neighboring house of the gentry. Behind the village
and the heath, stretches the railroad ; and I watch the train triumphantly
careering along the level road, and puffing forth its steam above hedges and
groups of trees, and then laboring and panting up the ascent, till it is lost
between two heights, which at last bound my view. But on these heights
are more objects ; a windmill now in motion and now at rest ; a lime-kiln,
in a picturesque rocky field; an ancient church tower, barely visible in
the morning, but conspicuous when the setting sun shines upon it; a col-
liery, with its lofty wagon- way, and the self-moving wagons running hither
and thither, as if in pure wilfulness ; and three or four farms, at various
degrees of ascent, whose yards, paddocks, and dairies, I am better acquainted
with than their inhabitants would believe possible. I know every stack
of the one on the heights. Against the sky I see the stacking of corn and hay
in the season, and can detect the slicing away of the provender, with an
accurate eye, at the distance of several miles. I can follow the sociable
fiurmer in his summer-evening ride, pricking on in the lanes where he is
alone, in order to have more time for the unconscionable gossip at the gate
of the next farm-house, and for the second talk over the paddock-fence of
the next, or for the third or fourth before the porch, or over the wall, when
the resident farmer comes out, pipe in mouth, and puffs away amidst
his chat till the wife appears, with a shawl over her cap, to see what can
detain him so long ; and the daughter follows, with her gown turned over
head (for it is now chill evening), and at last the social horseman finds he
must be going, looks at his watch, and, with a gesture of surprise, turns
his steed down a steep broken way to the beach, and canters home over the
sands, left hard and wet by the ebbing tide, the white horse making his pro-
giess visible to me through the dusk. Then if the question arises which
hae most of the gossip spirit, he or I, there is no shame in the answer. Any
inch «mall amusement is better than harmless— is salutary — ^which carries
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LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. 141
tiie spirit of the sick prisoner abroad into the open air, and among country
people. When I shut down my window, I feel that my mind has had an
airing."
Here is another :—
" The sun, resting on the edge of the sea, was hidden from me by the
walls of the old Priory : but a flood of rays poured through the windows
of the ruin, and gushed over the waters, strewing them with diamonds, and
then across the green down before my windows, gilding its furrows, and
then lighting up the yellow sands on the opposite shore of the harbor,
while the market-garden below was glittering with dew and busy with early
bees and butterflies. Besides these bees and butterflies, nothing seemed
stirring, except the earliest riser of the neighborhood, to whom the garden
belongs. At the moment, she was passing down to feed her pigs, and let
out her cows ; and her easy pace, arms a-kimbo, and complacent survey of
her early greens, presented me with a picture of ease so opposite to my
own state, as to impress me ineifaceabiy. I was suffering too much to enjoy
this picture at the moment : but how was it at the end of the year .' The
pains of all those hours were annihilated— as completely vanished as if
they had never been ; while the momentary peep behind the window-cur-
tain made me possessor of this radiant picture for evermore."
The mention of pictures reminds us of certain ones, and a
commentary whence the reader may derive either a recipe^ or
a warning, as he desires to be, or not to be, an invalid for the
remainder of his life. O ! those beautiful pictures by ouf ^,
favorite Cuyp, with their rich atmosphere as of golden sherry /"
and water ! That gorgeous light flooding the widb level pa»
tare, — clinging to tree and stone, and trickling over into their
shadows — a liquid radiance, we used to fancy we could wring
out of the glowing herbage, and catch dripping from the sleek
side of the dappled cow ! Sad experience has made us per-
sonally acquainted with the original soil and climate of those
scenes, and has painfully taught us that the rich glowing atmo*
sphere was no such wholesome aerial negus as we supposed, but
a mixture of sunshine and humid exhalations, lovely but noi^.
ious — a gilded ague, an illuminated fever, a glorified pestilence,
— ^which poisons the springs of life at their source. Breathe it^
in bad health, and your fugitive complaints will become chronio,
— regular standards, entwined in all their branches by the para-
sitic low slow fever of the swamp. In short, you will probably
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143 PROSE AND VERSE.
be set in for a'long season of foul bodily weather, and may at
once consult our invalid how to play the part in a becoming
manner, and " enjoy bad health " with something of the cheer-
ful philosophic spirit of the family man, who on beiag asked if
he had not a " sick-house," replied, *' Yes — ^but Pve a well stair-
case."
The first grand step towards laying up in ordinary is to get
rid of the superb egotism and splendid selfishness of the con-
dition. Lamb, in one of his essays, has vividly described the
gloomy absolutism of the sick man, obsequiously waited on by
his household slaves, eager to anticipate his every want and
wish, and to administer to his merest whims and caprices. And,
for a short reign, such a tyranny may pass, but the confirmed
invalid must prepare for a more moderate rule; a limited
monarchy instead of a despotism. It requires some self-sacri-
fice to renounce such autocratical power, and will need much
vigilance to prevent a relapse. But who, save a domestic Nero,
would wish to indulge in such iU behavior as the following, for
a permanence ?
** I have known the most devoted and benevolent of women call up her
young nurse from a snatch of sleep at two in the morning, to read sdoud,
when she had been reading aloud for six or seven hours of the preceding
day. I have known a kind-hearted and self-denying man require of two
or three members of his family to sit and talk and be merry in his cham-
ber, two or three hours after midnight : and both for want of a mere intima-
tion that it was night, and time for the nurse's rest. How it makes one
shudder to think of this being one's own case !"
It is rather difiicult to believe in the habitual benevolence or
considerateness of the parties who needed a broad hint on such
matters ; and yet real illness may make even a self-denying
nature somewhat exigiant, when mere fanciful ailment renders
selfishness so intensely selfish. Ask the physician, surgeon,
and apothecary, and they will tell you, that for every hard-
hearted medical man, who refuses or delays to attend on the
urgent seizures and accidents of the poor, there are thousands
of practitioners dragged from their warm beds at night, through
wind, rain, snow, sleet, hail, and thunder and lightning—- over
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LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. 143
heaths and through marshes, and along country cross-roads —
at the risk of catarrh, rheumatism, ague, bronchitis, and in-
flammation^-of falls, fractures, and footpads — on the most frivo-
lous pretences^that wealth and the vapors can invent. There
is even a perversity in some natures that would find a dirty
comfort in the muddy discomfort of an Esculapius soused in
provincial muck, like Doctor Slop, by an encounter with a coach-
horse — for what right has the physician to enjoy more bodily
ease than his patient ? For such a spirit we imperatively'pre-
scribe a chapter of " Life in the Sick-room," night and morn-
ing, until he learns that the very worst excuse a man can ofier
for selfishness is, that he is " not quite himself."
There is, however, another peril of invalidism, akin to the
'^ damning of sins we have no mind to," described in Hudibras ; —
" We are in ever-growing danger of becoming too abstract,— of losing
our sympathy with passing emotions, — and particularly with those shared
by numbers. There was a time we went to public worship with others,—
to the theatre,— to public meetings ; when we were present at picnic par-
ties and other festivals, and heard general conversation every day of our
lives. Now, we are too apt to forget those times. The danger is, lest we
should get to despise them, and to fancy ourselves superior to our former
selves, because now we feel no social transports."
True. We have ourselves felt a touch of that peril in our
weaker moments— on some dull, cold, wet day, when our pores,
acting inversely, instead of throwing off moisture, take in as
much as they can collect from the damp atmosphere, well
chilled by an easterly wind. At such times a sort of Zim-
mermannishness has crept over us, like a moral gooseskin,
inducing a low estimate enough of all gregarious enjoyments,
public meetings, and public dinners ; and, above all, those pub-
lic choruses on Wilhem's method, at Exeter Hall. What
sympathy can We-by-ourselves-We have with Music for a
Million ? But the fit soon evaporates, when, looking into the
garden, we see Theophilus Junior, that second edition of our
boyhood, in default of brothers or playmates, making a whole
mob of himself, or at the least a troop of cavalry, commanding
for the captain, huzzaing for the soldiers, blowing flourishes for
the trumpeter, and even prancing, neighing, and snorting for all
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144 PROSE AND VERSE.
the horses ! One dose of that joyous Socialism is a cure for
our worst attack of the mopes. The truth is, an invalid's mis-
anthropy is no more in earnest than the piety of the sick demon
who wanted to be a monk, or the sentence about bemg weary
of existence, to which Hypochondriasis puts a period with a
Parr's Life Pill !
A more serious peril, from illness, concerns the temper. When
the nerves are irritable, and the skin is irritable, and the stomach is
irritable — ^not to be irritable altogether is a moral miracle ; and
especially in England, where, by one of the anomalies of the consti-
tution, whilst a man cannot be tried twice for the same offence,
his temper may be tried over and over again for no offence at all.
Indeed, as our author says, '< there are cases, and not a few,
where an invalid's freedom from irritability is a merit of the
highest order." For example, after soot in your gruel, tallow-
grease in your barley-water, and snuff over your light pudding,
to have " the draught as before " poured into your wakeful eyes,
instead of your open mouthy by a drunken Mrs. Gamp, or one
of her stamp. To check at such a moment the explosive speech,
is at least equal to spiking a cannon in the heat of battle.
There is beyond denial an ease to the chest, or somewhere, in a
passionate objurgation — (" Swear, my dear," said Fuseli to his
wife, " it will relieve you ") — so much so, that a certain invalid
of our acquaintance, doubly afflicted with a painful complaint,
and an unmanageable hard-mouthed temper, regularly retains,
as helper to the sick-nurse, a stone-deaf old woman, whom he
can abuse without violence to her feelings.
How much better to have emulated the heavenly patience in
sickness, of which woman — ^in spite. of Job — has given the
brightest examples ; — Woman, who endures the severest trials,
with a meekness and submission, unheard of amongst men, the
quaker excepted, who merely said, when his throat was being
cut rather roughly — " Friend, thee dost haggle."
It must not be concealed, however, as regards irritability of
temper in the sick-room — ^there are faults on both sides — cap-
tious nurses as well as querulous nurselings. Cross-patches
themselves, they willingly mistake the tones and accents of in-
tolerable anguish, naturally sharp and hurried, for those of
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. LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. 145
auger and impatience — ^and even accuse pain, in its contor-
tions, of making faces, and set up their backs at the random
speeches of poor delirium! Then there are your lecturers,
who preach patience in the very climax of a paroxysm, when
the sermon can scarcely be heard, certainly not understood — as
if a martyr, leaping mad with the toothache, could be calmed
by reading to him the advertisement of the. American Soothing
Syrup! And then there js the she-dragon, who bullies the
sufferer into comparative quiet ! Not that the best of attendants
is the smooth-tongued. Our invalid objects wisely to the sick
being flattered, in season or out, with false hopes and views.
As much panada, sago, or arrowroot as you please, but no flum-
mery.
*' Let the nurse avow that the medicine is nauseous. Let the physician
declare that the treatment will be painful. Let sister, or brother, or friend,
tell me that I must never look to be well. When the time approaches that
I am to die, let me be told that I am to die, and when. If I encroach
thoughtlessly on the time or strength of those about me, let me be reminded ;
if selfishly, let me be remonstrated with. Thus to speak the truth with
love is in the power of us all."
And so say we. There is nothing worse for soul or body
than the feverish agitation kept up by the struggle between ex-
ternal assurances and the internal conviction; for the mind
will cling with forlorn pertinacity to the most desperate chance,
like the sailor, who, when the ship was in danger of sinking,
lashed himself to the sheet-anchor because it was the emblem
of Hope. Till the truth is known there can be no calm of
mind. It is only after he has abandoned all prospects of par-
don or reprieve, that the capital convict sleeps soundly and
dreams of green fields. So with ourselves, once satisfied that
our case was beyond remedy, we gave up without reserve all
dreams of future health and strength, and prepared, instead,
to compete with that very able invalid who was able to be
knocked down with a feather. Thenceforward, free of those
jarring vibrations between hope and fear, relieved from all
tantalizing speculations on the weather's clearing up, our state
has been one of comparative peace and ease. We would not
Part II. 11
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146 PROSE AND VERSE.
give one of our Pectoral Lozenges to be told, we are looking
better than a month ago-*not a splinter of our broken crutch
to be promised a new lease of life — a renewal of our youth like
the eagle's ! Such flatteries go in at one ear, the deaf one, and
out at the other. We never shall be well again, till broken
bones are mended with " soft-sawder."
Are we, therefore, miserable, hypped, disconsolate ? Answer,
ye book-shelves, whence we draw tbe consolations of Philoso- "
phy, the dreams of Poetry and Romance — ^the retrospections of
History ; and glimpses of society from the better novels ; mirth,
comfort, and entertainment even for those small hours become so
long from an unhealthy vigilance. Answer, ye pictures and
prints, a Portrait Gallery of Nature ! — and reply in your own
tones, dear old fiddle, so often tuned to one favorite sadly-sweet
air, and the words of Curran :
'* But since in wailing
There's naught availing,
But Death unfailing
Must strike the blow.
Then for this reason.
And for a season,
. Let us be merry before we go !"
It is melancholy, doubtless, to retire, in the prime of life, from
the whole wide world, into the narrow prison of a sick-room.
How much worse if that room be a wretched garret, with the
naked tiles above and the bare boards below — no swinging
bookshelf — ^not a penny colored print on the blank wall ! And
yet that forlorn attic is but the type of a more dreadful destitu-
tion, an unfurnished mind ! The mother of Bloomfield used to
say, that to encounter Old Age, Winter, and Poverty, was like
meeting three giants ; she might have added two more as huge
and terrible, Sickness, and Ignorance — the last not the least of
the Monster Evils ; for it is he who affects pauperism with a
deeper poverty — ^the beggary of the mind and soul.
** I have said how unavailing is luxury when the body is distressed and
the spirit faint At such times, and at all times, we cannot but be deeply
grieved at the conceptioi) of the converse of our own state, at the thought
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LIFE IN THE SICK ROOM. 147
of the multitude of the poor suffering under privation, without the support
and solace of great ideas. It is sad enough to think of them on a winter^i
night, aching with cold in every limb, and sunk as low as we in nerve and
spirits, from their want of sufficient food. But this thought is supportable
in cases where we may fairly hope that the greatest ideas are cheering them
as we are cheered ; that there is a mere set-off of their cold and hunger
against our disease ; and that we are alike inspired by spiritual vigor in the
belief that our Father is with us— that we are only encountering the proba*
tions of our pilgrimage — that we have a divine work given us to carry out,
now in pain and now in joy. There is comfort in the midst of the sadness
and shame when we are thinking of the poor who can reflect and pray— of
the old woman who was once a punctual and eager attendant at church— of
the wasting child who was formerly a Sunday-scholar^f the reduced gen-
tleman or destitute student who retain the privilege of their humanity— of
* looking before and after.' But there is no mitigation of the horror when
we think of the savage poor, who form so large a proportion of the hun-
gerers— when we conceive of them suffering the privation of all good things
at once— suffering under the aching cold, the sinking hunger, the shivering
nakedness— without the respite or solace afforded by one inspiring or beguil-
ing idea. ^
*' I will not dwell on the reflection. A glimpse into this hell ought to
suffice (though we to whom imagery comes unbidden, and cannot be ban-
ished at will, have to bear much more than occasional glimpses) ; a glimpse
ought to suffice to set all to work to procure for every one of these sufferers,
bread and warmth, if possible, and as soon as possible ; but above every*
thing, and without the loss of an hour, an entrance upon their spiritual
birthright. Every man, and every woman, however wise and tender, ap-
pearing and designing to be, who for an hour helps to keep closed the en-
trance to the region of ideas— who stands between sufferers and great
thoughts (which are (he angels of consolation sent by God to all to whom
he has given souls), are, in so far, ministers of hell, not themselves inflict-
ing torment, but intercepting the influences which would assuage or over-
power it. Let the plea be heard of us sufferers who know well the power
of ideas — our plea for the poor— that, while we are contriving for all to be
fed and cherished by food and fire, we may meanwhile kindle the immortal
vitality within them, and give them that ethereal solace and sustenance
which was meant to be shared by all, * without money and without price.' '»
Never, then, tell a man, permanently sick, that he will again
be a perfect picture of health when he has not the frame for it —
nor hftit to' a sick woman, incurably smitten, that the seeds of
her disease will flourish and flower into lilies and roses. Why
detQr them from providing suitable pleasures and enjoyments
to replace those delights of health and strength of which they
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J4S PROSE AND VERSE.
must take leave for ever ? Why not rather forewarn them of
the Lapland Winter to which they are destined, and to trim their
lamps spiritual, for the darkness of a long seclusion? Tell
them their doom ; and let them prepare themselves for it, ac-
cording to the Essays before us> so healthy in tone, though from
a confirmed invalid — so wholesome and salutary, though fur-
nished from a Sick Room.
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AN AUTOGRAPH. 149
AN AUTOGRAPH.
To D. A. A., Esq., Edinburgh.
I AM much flattered by your request, and quite willing to
accede to it 5 but, unluckily, you have omitted to inform me of
the sort of thing you want.
Autographs are of many kinds. Some persons chalk them on
walls : others inscribe what may be called auto-lithographs, in
sundry colors, on the flag stones. Gentlemen in love delight in
carving their autographs on the bark of trees ; as other idle fel-
lows are apt to hack and hew them on tavern-benches and rustic
seats. Amongst various modes, I have seen a shop-boy dribble
his autograph from a tin of water on a dry pavement.
The autographs of the Charity Boys are written on large
i^eets of paper, illuminated with engravings, and are technically
called " pieces." The celebrated Miss Biflin used to distribute
autographs amongst her visitors, which she wrote with a pen
grasped between her teeth. Another, a German Phenomenon^
held the implement with his toes.
The Man in the Iron Mask scratched an autograph with his
fork on a silver plate, and threw it out of the window. Baron
Trenck smudged one with a charred stick : and Silvio Peilioo,
with his fore-finger dipped in a mixture of soot-and- water.
Lord Chesterfield wrote autographs on windows with a dia.
mond pencil. So did Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth.
Draco, when Themis requested a few sentences for her album,
dipped his stylus in human blood. Faust used the same fluid in
the autograph he bartered with Mephistophiles.
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ISO PROSE AND TERSE.
The Hebrews write their Shpargotua backwards ; and some
of the Orientals used to clothe them in hieroglyphics. An ancient
Egyptian, if asked for his autograph, would probably have sent
to the collector a picture of what Mrs. Malaprop calls *' An Al-
legory on the Banks of the Nile."
Aster, the Archer, volunteered an aut<^raph and sent it bang
into Phillip's right eye.
Some individuals are so chary of their hand- writing as to
bestow, when requested, only a mark or cross :— others more
liberally adorn a specimen of their penmanship with such ex-
traneous flourishes as a corkscrew, a serpent, or a circumbendi-
bus, not to mention such caligraphic fancies as eagles, ships,
and swans.
Then again, there are what may be called Mosaic Autographs
-— i. e. inlaid with cockle-shells, blue and white pebbles^ and the
like, in a little gravel walk. Our grandmothers worked their
autographs in canvass samplers ; and I have seen one wrought
out with pins' heads on a huge white pincushion — as thus :
WELCOME SWEET BABBY.
MARY JONES.
When the sweetheart of Mr. John Junk requested his auto-
graph, and explained what it was, namely, " a couple of lines
or so, with his name to it," he replied, that he would leave it to
her in his Will, seeing as how it was " done with gunpowder on
his left arm."
There have even been autographs written by proxy. For
example. Dr. Dodd penned one for Lord Chesterfield ; but to
oblige a stranger in this way is very dangerous, considering how
easily a few lines may be twisted into a rope.
According to Lord Byron, the Greek giris compound auto-
graphs as apothecaries make up prescriptions, — ^with such mate-
rials as flowers, herbs, ashes, pebbles, and bits of coal. Lord
Byron himself, if asked for a specimen of his hand, would pro-
bably have sent a plaster cast of it.
King George* the Fourth and the Duke of York, when their
autographs were requested for a Keepsake, — royally favored the
applicant with some of their old Latin-English exercises.
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AN AUTOGRAPH. 151
With regard to my owa particular practice, I have often traced
an autograph with my walking-stick on the sea-sand. I also
seem to remember writing one with my fore-finger on a dusty
table, and am pretty sure I could do it with the smoke of a
candle on the ceiling. I have seen something like a very badly
scribbled autograph made by children with a thread of treacle
on a slice of suet dumpling. Then it may be done with vege-
tables. My little girl grew her autograph the other day in mus-
tard and cress.
Domestic servants, I have observed, are fond of scrawling
autographs on a teaboard with the slopped milk. Also of scratch-
ing them on a soft deal dresser, the lead of the sink, and, above
all, the quicksilver side of a looking-glass^— a surface, by the
bye, quite irresistible to any one who ' can write, and does not
bite his nails. ,
A friend of mine possesses an autograph — " Remember Jim
HosKiNS "-—done with a red-hot poker on the back-kitchen door.
This, however, is awkward to bind up.
Another — but a young lady — possesses a book of autographs,
filled just like a tailor's pattern-book — with samples of stuff and
fustian.
The foregoing, sir, are but a few of the varieties ; and the
questions that have occurred to me in consequence of your only
naming the genus, and not the species, have been innume-
rable. Would the gentleman like it short or long ? for Doppel-
dickius, the learned Dutchman, wrote an autograph for a friend,
which the latter published in a quarto volume. Would he prefer
it in red ink, or black,-— or suppose he had it in Sympathetic, so
that he could draw me out when he pleased ? Would he choose
it on white paper, or tinted, or embossed, or on common brown
paper, like Maroncelli's ? Would he like it without my name
to it — as somebody favored me lately with his autograph in an
anonymous letter ? Would he rather it were like Guy Faux's
tf> Lord Mounteagle (not Spring Rice), in a feigned hand?
Would he relish it in the aristocratical style, i. e., partially or
totally illegible ? Would he like it — in case he shouldn't like
i1>— on a slate ?
With such a maze to wander in, if I should not take the exact
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course yoa wish, you must blame the short and insuffioieat clue
you bare afl&rded me. In the mean time, as you have not for-
warded to me a tree or a table, — a paving-stone or a brick wall,
— ^a looking-glass or a window, — a teaboard or a silver plate, —
a bill-stamp or a back-kitchen door, — ^I presume, to conclude,
that you want only a common pen-ink-and-paper autograph ; and
in the absence of any particular direction for its transmission, —
for instance, by a carrier-pigeon— or in a fire-balloon— or set
adrifl in a bottle— or per wagon — or favored by Mr. Waghom —
or by telegraph, I think the best way will be to send it to you in
print.
I am, Sir,
Your most obedient Servant,
Thomas Hood.
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. 1S3
DOMESTIC MESMERISM.
** Gape, sinner, and swallow." — Meg Merrilies.
It is now just a year since we reviewed Miss Martineau's " Life
in the Sick Room," and left the authoress set in for a house-rid-
den invalid, alternating between her bed and the sofa ; unable to
walk out of doors, but enjoying through her window and a tele-
scope the prospect of green downs and heath, an old priory, a
lime-kiln, a colliery railway, an ancient church, a windmill, a
farm, with hay and corn stacks, a market-garden, gossipping
farmers, sportsmen, boys flying kites, washerwomen, a dairy-
maid feeding pigs, the lighthouses, harbor, and shipping of New-
castle-on-Tyne, and a large assortment of objects, pastoral,
marine, and picturesque. There we left the " sick prisoner,"
as we supposed, quite aware of a condition beyond remedy, and
cheerfully made up for her fate by the help of philosophy, lauda-
Dum, and Christian resignation.
There never was a greater mistake. Instead of the pnresumed
calm submission in a hopeless case, the invalid was intently
watching the progress of a new curative legerdemain, sympathiz-
ing with its repudiated professors, and secretly intending to try
whether her own chronic complaint could not be conjured away
with a " Hey, presto ! pass and repass f" like a pea from under
the thimble. The experiment, it seems, has been made, and lo !
like one of the patients of th& old quacksalvers, forth comes Miss
Martineau on the public stage, proclaiming to the gaping crowd
how her long-standing, inveterate complaint, that baffled all the
doctors, has been charmed away like a wart, and that, from being
a helpless cripple, she has thrown away her crutches, literal or
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metaphorical, and can walk a mile as well as any Milesian.
And this miraculous cure, not due to Holloway, Parr, Morison,
or any of the rest of the faculty, not to any marvellous ointment,
infallible pills, or new discovery in medicine, but solely to cer-
tain magical gesticulations, as safe, pleasant, and .easy as play-
ing at cat's cradle — ^in short by mesmerism !
Now we are, as we have said before, the greatest invalid in
England ; with a complication of complaints requiring quite a
staff of physicians, each to watch and treat the particular disease
which he has made his peculiar study : as, one for the heart,
another for the lungs, a third for the stomach, a fourth for the
liver, and so on.. Above all, we are incapable of pedestrian
locomotion ; lamer than Crutched Friars, and, between gout in
our ankles and* rheumatism in our knees, could as easily walk
on our head, like ^ilp's boy, as on our legs. It would delight
us, therefore, to believe that by no paitiful operation, but only a
little posture-making behind our back or to our face, we could be
restored to the use of our precious limbs, to walk like a leaguer,
and run again like a renewed bill. But, alas! an anxious
examination of Miss Martineau's statements has satisfied us that
there is no chance of such a desirable consummation ; that, to
use a common phrase, " the news is too good to be true." We
have carefully waded through the Newcastle letters, occupying
some two dozen mortal columns of the " Athenaeum," and with
something of the mystified feeling of having been reading by
turns and snatclies in Moore's Almanac, Zadkiel's Astrology, a
dream -book, and a treatise on metaphysics, have come to the
sorrowful conclusion that we have as much chance of a cure by
mesmerism, as of walking a thousand miles in a thousand hours
through merely reading the constant advertisements of the Patent
Pedometer. A conviction not at all removed by an actual
encounter with a professor, who, afler experimenting on the palms
of our hands without exciting any peculiar sensation, except
that quivering of the diaphragm which results from suppressed
laughter, gravely informed us — slipping through a pleasant loop-
hole of retreat from all difficulties — ^that " we were not in a
fit state."
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. 155
The precise nature of Miss Martineau's complaint is not
stated ; nor is it mccterial to be known except to the professional
man ; the great fact, that after five years' confinement to the
house she can walk as many miles without fatigue, thanks to the
mysterious Ism, " that sadly wants a new name," is a sufficient
subject for wonder, curiosity, and common sense, to discuss. A
result obtained, it appears, after two months passed under the
hands of three several persons — a performance that must be
reckoned rather slow for a miracle, seeing that if we read certain
passages aright, a mesmerizer, << with a white hat and an illumi-
nated profile, like a saint or an angel," is gifted with powers
little, if at all, inferior to those of the old apostles. The delay,
moreover, throws a doubt on the source of relief, for there are
many diseases to which such an interval would allow of a
natural remission.
In the curative process, the two most remarkable phenomena
were-T~lst, That the patient, with a weasel-like vigilance, did
not go as usual into the magnetic sleep, or trance ; and, 2dly,
That every glorified object before her was invested with a pecu-
liar light, so that a bust of Isis burnt with a phosphoric splendor,
and a black, dirty, Newcastle steam-tug shone with heavenly
radiance. Appearances, for which we at once take the lady's
word, but must decline her inference, that they had any influ-
ence in setting her on her legs again. The nerves, and the
optic ones especially, were, no doubt, in a highly excited state ;
but that a five-year-old lameness derived any relaxation from
the efiulgence we will believe, when the broken heart of a
soldier's widow is bound up by a general illumination. Indeed,
we remember once to have been personally visited with such
lights, that we saw two candles instead of one — but we decidedly
walked the worse for it.
On the subject of other visionary appearances Miss Martineau
is less explicit, or rather tantalizingly obscure ; for, after hinting
that she has seen wonders above wonders, instead of favoring us
with her revelations or mysteries, like Ainsworth or Eugene Sue,
she plumply says that she means to keep them to herself.
** Between this condition and the mesmeric sleep there is a state, transient
and rare, of which I have had experience, but of which I intend to give no
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aecouBt A somnunbule calls it ft glimmering of the lights of somnambu-
lisn and clairvoyftnce. To me there appean nothing like glimmering in it.
The ideas that I have snatched from it, and now retain, are, of all ideas
which ever visited me, the most lucid and impressive. It may be well that
they are incommunicable — ^partly from their nature and relations, and partly
from their unfitness for translation into mere words. I will only say that
the condition is one of no ' nervous excitement,' as far as experience and
out%vard indications can be taken as a test Such a state of repose, of calm
translucent intellectuality, I had never conceived of; and no reaction fol-
lowed, no excitement but that which is natural to every one who finds him-
self in possession of a great new idea.**
So that whether she obt&ined a glimpse of the New Jerusalem,
or a peep into the World of Spirits, or saw the old gentleman
himself, is left to wide Qpnjecture. Our own guess, in the
absefnce of all direction, is, that she enjoyed a mesmeric transla-
tion into another planet, and derived her great idea from the
Man in the Moon !
This, however, is not the only suppression. For instance, it
is said that one of the strongest powers of the girl J., the somnam-
bulist, was the discernment of disease, its condition and remedies ;
that she cleared up her own case first, prescribing for herself
very fluently, and then medically advised Miss Martineau, and
that the treatment in both cases succeeded. Surely, in common
charity to the afflicted, these infallible remedies ought to have
been published ; their nature ought to have been indicated, if
only to enable one to judge of supernatural prescribing com-
pared with professional practice ; but so profound a silence is
preserved on these points as to lead to the inevitable conclusion,
that the mesmeric remedies, like the quack medicines, are to be
secured by patent, and to be sold at so much a family bottle,
stamp included. One recipe only transpires, of so common-place
and popular a character, and so little requiring inspiration for
its invention — so ludicrously familiar to wide-awake advisers,
that our sides shake to record how Miss Martineau, restless and
sleepless for want of her abandoned opiates, was ordered ale at
dinner, and brandy and water for a nightcap. Oh J. J. ! well
does thy initial stand also for Joker !
In addition to these suppressions, one unaccountable omission
has certainly staggered us, as much as if we had considered it
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through a couple of bottles of wine. In common with ourselves,
our clever friend T. L., and many other persons — who all hear
the music of the spheres, dumb bells, and other mute melodies
as distinctly as the rest of the world, but of gross mundane sounds
and noises are unconscious as the adder — Miss Martineau is very-
deaf indeed. Here then was an obvious subject for experiment,
and having been so easily cured of one infirmity it seems only
natural that it should have occurred to the patient to apply
instanter to the same agency for relief from another disability —
that she should have requested her mesmerizer to quicken her
hearing as well as her pace. But on the contrary, her ears
seem quite to have slipped out of her head ; and at an advanced
stage of the proceedings we find her awaiting J.'s revelations,
" with an American friend repeating to her on the instant, on
account of her deafness, every word as it fell." And to make
the omission more glaring, it is in the midst of speculations on the
mesmeric sharpening of another sense, till it can see through
deal-boards, millstones, and " barricadoes as lustrous as ebony,"
that she neglects to ascertain whether her hearing might not be
so improved as to perceive sounds through no denser medium
than the common air ! Such an interesting experiment in her
own person ought surely to have preceded the trials whether " J."
could see, and draw ships and churches with her eyes shut ; and
the still more remote inquiry whether at the day of judgment we
are to rise with or without our bodies, including the auricular
organs. If dull people can be cured of stone deafness by a few
magnetic passes, so pleasant a fact ought not to be concealed ;
whatever the consequence to the proprietors of registered Voice
Conductors and. Cornets.
Along with the experiment, we should have been glad of more
circumstantial references to many successful ones merely assumed
and asserted. There is, indeed, nothing throughout the Letters
more singular than the complacency with which we are expected
to take disputed matters for granted ; as if all her readers were
in magnetic rapport with the authoress, thinking as she thinks,
seeing as she sees, and believing as she believes. Thus the
theory, that the mind of the somnambulist mirrors that of the
mesmerizer, is declared pretty clearly proved, " when an igno-
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rant child, ignorant especially of the Bible, discourses of the
Scriptures and divinity with a clergyman, and of the nebulae
with an astronomer;" a when perfectly satisfactory to the
writer, but which sticks in our throat like its namesake for
goitre. We should be delighted to know the whereabouts of that
Wonderful Child, and its caravan. And here are more whens : —
** What becomes of really dirine inspintioii tohen the commonest people
find they can elicit marvels of prevision and insight ? What becomes of the
veneration for religious contemplation when ecstacies are found to be at the
command of very unhallowed— wholly unauthorized hands ? What becomes
of the respect in which the medical profession ought to be held, when the
friends of the sick and suffering, with their feelings all alive, see the doc-
tor's skill and science overborne and set aside by means at the command of
an ignorant neighbor— means which are all ease and pleasantness ? How
can the profession hold its dominion over minds, however backed by law and
the opinion of the educated, when the vulgar see and know that limbs are
removed without pain, in opposition to the will of doctors, and in spite of
their denial of the facts ? What avails the decision of a whole college of
surgeons, that such a thing could not be, when a whole town full of people
know that it was ? What becomes of the transmission of fluid wTien the mes-
merist acts, without concert, on a patient a hundred miles off?*
To all of which Echo answers " When ?" — whilst another
memorable one adds " Where ?" In fact, had the letters been
delivered as speeches, the orator would continually have been
interrupted with such cries, and for <' name ! name V*
In the same style we are told that we need not quarrel about
the name to be given to a power " that can make the deaf and
dumb hear and speak ; disperse dropsies, banish fevers, asthmas
and paralysis, absorb tumors, and cause the severance of nerve,
bone, and muscle to be unfelt." Certainly not — nor about the
name to be bestowed on certain newly-invented magnetic rings,
that have appeared simultaneously with the Newcastle letters,
and are said to cure a great variety of diseases. We only object
— as we should in passing a tradesman's accounts — ^to take mere
items for facts that are imsupported by vouchers. But it is
obvious throughout that Miss Martineau forgets she is not ad-
dressing magnetizers ; instead of considering herself as telling
a ghost story to people who did not believe in apparitions, and
consequently fortifying her narrative with all possible evidence^
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. 159
corroborative and circumstantial. This is evident, from the trust-
ing simplicity with which she relates all the freaks and fancies
of the somnambulist J., in spite of their glaring absurdities and
inconsistencies. For instance, her vocabulary is complained of
with its odd and vulgar phrases, so inferior to the high tone of
her ideas, and the subjects of her discourse: whereas, like the
child that talked of nebulse, and was up to astronomical techni-
cals, she ought to have used as refined language as her mes-
merizer, the well-educated widow of a clergyman. So when a
glass of proper magnetic water was willed to be porter on her
palate, she called it obliquely " a nasty sort of beer," when,
reflecting the knowledge of her mesmerizer, she should have
recognized it by name as well as by taste ; and again, in the
fellow experiment, when the water was willed to be sherry, she
described it as wine, " white wine ;" and moreover, on drinking
half a tumbler, became so tipsy, that she was afraid to rise from
the chair or walk, or go down stairs, " for fear of falling and
spoiling her face." The thing, however, was not original. Miss
Martineau insinuates that mesmerism is much older than Mes-
mer ; and in reality the reader will remember a sham-Abram
feast of the same kind in the Arabian Nights, where the Barme-
cide willed ideal mutton, barley-broth, and a fat goose with sweet
sauce — and how Shacabac, to humor his entertainer, got drunk
on imaginary wine.
The whole interlude, indeed, in which. J. figures, if not very
satisfactory to the skeptical, is rather amusing. She is evidently
an acute, brisk girl of nineteen, with a turn for fun — " very fond
of imitating the bagpipes " in her merry moods — and ready to go
the whole Magnetic Animal, even to the " mesmerizing herself,"
— an operation as difficult, one would imagine, as self-tickling.
She exhibits, in fact, a will of her own, and an independence
quite at variance with the usual subjection to a superior influ-
ence. She wakes at her own pleasure from her trances — is not
so abstracted in .them as to forget her household errands, that she
has to go to the shop over the way — and without any mesmeric
introduction gets into rapport with the music next door, which
sets her mocking all the instruments of an orchestra, dancing,
and describing the company in a ball-room. Another day, when
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one of the phrenological organs was affected, she was thrown
into a paroxysm of order, and was '' almost in a frenzy of trou-
hie because she could not make two pocket-handkerchiefs lie flat
and measure the same size" — all very good fun, and better than
stitching or darning. But she preferred higher game. " I like
to look up and see spiritual things. I can see diseases, and I like
to see visions !" And accordingly she did see a vision — by what
must be called clairvoyance's long range — of a shipwreck, with
all its details, between Gottenburg and Elsinore.
This " inexplicable anecdote " Miss Martineau gives with the
usual amiable reliance on the reader's implicit credence, declar-
ing that she cannot discover any chink by which deception could
creep in ; whereas there is a gaping gap as practicable as any
breach ever made by battery. To give any weight whatever to
such a tale, two conditions are absolutely essential; that the
intelligence should not have been received in the town ; and
that if it had, the girl should have had no opportunity of hearing
the news. And was this the case ? By no means. On the con-
trary, J. had been out on an errand, and immediately on her return
she was mesmerized, and related her vision ; the news arriving
by natural means, so simultaueously with the revelation, that she
presently observed, " my aunt is below, telling them all about it,
and I shall hear all about it when I go down." To be expected
to look on a maid of Newcastle as a she-Ezekiel, on such terms,
really confirms us in an opinion we have gradually been form-
ing, that Miss Martineau never in her life looked at a human
gullet by the help of a table-spoon.
In justice, however, it must be said, that the letter- writer gives
credit as freely as she requires it ; witness the vision just referred
to, which it is confidently said was impossible to be known by
ordinary means, coupled with an equally rash assertion, that the
girl had not seen her aunt, ^' the only person (in all Newcastle !)
from whom tidings of the shipwreck could be obtained." The
truth is, with a too easy faith, Miss Martineau greatly underrates
the mischievous propensities and wicked capabilities of human
nature. She says,
** I am certain that it is not in human nature to keep up for seven weeks,
without slip or trip, a series of deceptions so multifarious ; and I should
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. lei
8ij sa of a p^ect stranger, as confidently as I say it of .this girl, whom I
know to be incapable of deception, as much from the character of her intel-
lect as of her morale.^*
It is certain, nevertheless, that Mary Tofts, the Rabhit-
breeder, Ann Moore, the Fasting Woman of Tutbury, Scratch-
ing Fanny, and other impostors, young and old, exhibited extra-
ordinary patience and painful perseverance in their deceptions
combined with an art and cunning that deluded doctors medi-
cal, spiritual, and lexicographical, with many people of quality
of both sexes. These, it is true, were all superstitious or credu-
lous persons, who believed all they could get to believe; and
what else are those individuals now-a-days, who hold that
mesmerism is as ancient as the Delphian Oracle, and that witch-
craft was one of its forms ? In common consistency such a faith
ought to go all lengths with the American sea-serpent, the whole
breadth of the Kraken, and not believe by halves in the mermaa
and mermaid. ^
In one thing we cordially agree with Miss Martineau, namely,
in repudiating the cant about prying into the mysteries of Provi-
dence, perfectly convinced that what is intended to be hidden
from us will remain as hermetically sealed as the secrets of the
grave. The Creator himself has implanted in man an inquisitive
spirit, with faculties for research, which he obviously intended
to be exercised, by leaving for its discovery so many important
powers— -for instance, the properties of the loadstone — essential
to human comfort and progress, instead of making them subjects
of special revelation. Let man, then, divinely supplied with
intellectual deep sea-lines, industriously fathom all mysteries
within their reach. What we object to is, that so many charts
are empirically laid down without his taking proper soundings,
and to his pronouncing off-hand, without examination by the
plummet, that the bottom off a strange coast is ro6k, mud, stone,
sand, or shells. Thus it is that in mesmerism we have so much
rash assertion on one hand, and point blank contradiction on the
other. To pass over such subtleties as the existence of an in-
visible magnetic fluid, and the mode of magnetic action, there is
the broad problem, whether a man's leg can be lo|>ped oS as
unconsciously as the limb of a tree! That sueh ft quastioa
Part n. 12
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should remain ia dispute or doubt, in spite of our numerous hos-
pitals and their frequent operations, is disgraceful to all parties.
But speculation seems to be preferred to proof. Thus Miss
Martineau talks confidently of such painless amputations ; yet,
with a somnambulist at her fingers' ends, never assures herself
by the prick of a pin of the probability of the fact. Nay, she is
very angry with an experimentalist, who tried to satisfy himself
of the reality of J.'s insensibility by a sudden alarm, without
giving notice that he was going to surprise her ; a violation, it
seems, of the first rule of mesmeric practice, but certainly
according to the rules of common sense.
** Another incident is noteworthy in this connexion. A gentleman was
here one evening, who was invited in all good faith on his declaration that
he had read all that had been written on mesmerism, knew all about it, and
was philosophically curious to witness the phenomena. He is the only wit-
ness we have had who abused the privilege. I was rather surprised to see
how, being put in communication with J., he wrenched her arm, and em-
ployed usage which would have been cruelly rough in her ordinary state :
but I suppose it was because he ' knew all about it,' and found that she was
insensible to his rudeness ; and her insensibility was so obvious, that I
hardly regretted it. At length, however, it became clear, that his sole idea
was (that which is the sole idea of so many who cannot conceive of what
they cannot explain) of detecting shamming ; and, in pursuance of this aim,
this gentleman, who * knew all about it,' violated the first rule of mesmeric
practice, by suddenly and violently sei2dng the sleeper's arm, without the
intervention of the mesmerist J. was convulsed, and writhed in her chair.
At that moment, and while supposing himself en rapport with her, he
shouted out to me that the house was on fire. Happily, this brutal assault
on her nerves failed entirely. There was certainly nothing congenial in the
rapport She made no attempt to rise from her seat, and said nothing —
clearly heard nothing ; and when asked what had frightened her, said some-
thing cold had got hold of her. Cold, indeed ! and very hard too !"
In the mean time, how many sufferers there are, probably,
male and female, afflicted with cancers and diseased limbs, who
are looking towards mesmerism for relief, and anxiously asking,
is it true that a breast can be removed as painlessly as its bod-
dice ; or a leg cut off, and perhaps put on again — why not, by
such a miraculous agency ? — ^without the knowledge of its great
or little toe ? Such inquirers ought at once to have their doubts
resolved, for, as we all know, there is nothing more cruel, when
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. 163
such issues are at stake, than to be kept dangling in a state of
uncertainty.
On the subject of itinerant mesmerists, Miss Martineau is very
earnest, and roundly denounce* the profane fellows, who make
no scruple of "playing upon the nerves and brains of human
beings, exhibiting for money on a stage, states of mind and soul
held too sacred in olden times to be elicited elsewhere than in
temples by the hands of the priests of the gods ! "
** While the wise,' in whose hands this power should be, as the priest-
hood to whom scientific mysteries are consigned by Providence, scornfully
decline their high function, who are they that snatch at it, in sport or mis-
chief—and always in ignorance ? School-children, apprentices, thoughtless
women who mean no harm, aud base men who do mean harm. Wherever
itinerant mesmerists have been, are there such as these, throwing each
other into trances, trying funny experiments, getting fortunes told, or rashly
treating diseases.
* * « « •
« Thus are human passions and human destinies committed to reckless
hands for sport or abuse. No wonder if somnambules are made into for-
tune tellers — ^no wonder if they are made into prophets of fear, malice, and
revenge, by reflecting in their somnambulism the fear, malice, and revenge
of their questioners ;— no wonder if they are made even ministers of death,
by being led from sick-bed to sick-bed in the dim and dreary alleys of our
towns, to declare which of the sick will recover, and which wiU die !
* * « « «
<< If I were to speak as a moralist on the responsibility of the iooans of
society to the multitude — if I were to unveil the scenes which are going for-
ward in every town in England, from the wanton, sportive, curious, or
mischievous use of this awful agency by the ignorant, we should hear no
more levity in high places about mesmerism."
A statement strangely at variance with the following dictum,
which as strangely makes Morality still moral, whatever her
thoughts o> her postures — ^and whether controlled by the volition
of " thoughtless women who mean no harm," or " base men who
do mean harm.''
« The volitions of the mesmerist may actuate the movements of the
patient's limbs, and suggest the material of his ideas ; but they seem unable
to touch his morale. In this state the morale appears supreme, as it is
rarely found in the ordinary condition."
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We can well understand the " social oalamity " apprehended
from a promiscuous use of the ulterior powers of mesmerism.
But what daas, we must ask, is to arrogate to itself and monopo-
tii;e the exercise of miraculous powers, allied to, if not identical
with, those bestowed aforetime on certain itinerant apostles?
4is\ inspired fisherman will prescribe as safel}^ prophesy as cor-
rectly, and see visions as clearly, as an inspired doctor of medi-
cine or divinity. There seems to be, in the dispensation of the
marvellous gift, no distinction of persons. Miss Martineau's
i9»aid. mesmerizes her as effectually as Mr. Hall ; and J. owes
kMT first magnetic sleep, and all its beneficial results on her
health and inflamed eyes, to the passes of the maid of the clei^y-
man's widow. A domestic concatenation that suggests to us a
OUrious kitchen picture — and an illustrative letter,
To Mary Smash, at No. 1 Chaney Walk, Chehea.
Dear Mary,
This cums hoping yure well, and to advice you to larn Mis-
W/erising, Its'done with yure Hands, and is as easy as taking
sites at Pepel, or talkii^ on yure fingers. If I was nigh you,
Pd lam you in no time to make Passes, witch is only pawing,
like, without touchin, at sumboddys face or back, which gives
them a tittevating feeling on the galvanic nerves, And then off
^y go into a Trance in a giffy, and talk in their sleep like
Orators, I should say Oracles, and anser whatever you ax»
Whereby you may get your Fortin told, and find out other folkes
sweatharts & luve secrets. And diskiver Theaves better than by-
Bible and Key, And have yure inward Disorders told, & wats
good for them. Sukey's was the indigestibles, and to take as
much rubbub as would hide a shillin. All which is done by
means of the sombulist, thats the sleeper, seeing through every
tiunk quite transparent, in their Trance, as is called Clare Voy-
ing, so that they can pint out munny hid under the Brth &:, hur-
ried bones, & springs of water, and vanes of mettle, & menny
things besides*
Yesterday I was mismerized meself into a Trance, & dare
yoyed the chork Gout in John's stomack as plane as Margit Clifls.
So I prescribed him to take Collyflower, witch by rites should
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DOMESTIC MESMERISM. 165
have been Collycinth, but I forgot the proper word. Howsum«
ever, he did eat two large ones, and promises to cum round.
It would make you split your sides with laffing to see me mis-
merize our Thomas, & make him go into all sorts of odd pos.
tures & anticks & capers Like a Dotterel, for whatever I do h(s
must coppy to the snapping of a finger, and cant object to nuth*
ing, for, as the song says, I've got his Will and his Power. Like*
wise you can make the Sombulist taste watever you think pre{>.
per, so I give him mesmerized Warter, witch at my Command in
transmoggriiied on his pallet to Shampain, & makes him as drunk
«s Old Gooseberry, and then he will jump Jim Crow, or go down
on his bended knees and confess all his peckaddillos, Witch is as
diverten as reading the Misteries of Parris.
The wust to mesmerize is Reuben the Cotchman, not that he^l
too wakeful, for he's generally beery. And goes off like a shot,
but he wont talk in his sleep, only snores.
The Page is more passable and very clarevoying. He have
twice seed a pot of goold in the middle flower-bed. But the gar-
dner wont have it dug up. And he says there is a skelliton
bricked into the staircase wall, so that we never dares at nite to
go up alone. Also he sees Visions, and can profesy and have
foretold two Earthquacks and a great Pleg.
Cook wants to mismerize too, but wat with her being so much
at the fire, and her full babbit, she always goes off to sleep afore
the Sombulist. But Sukey can do it very well. Tho in great dis-
tress about Mrs. Hardin's babby witch Sukey offered to mismer-
ize in lieu of syrrup of Poppies or Godfrey's Cordial, but the
pore Innocent wont wake up agin, nor havent for two hole days.
As would be a real blessin to Muthers and Nusses in a moderate
way, but mite be carried too far, and require a Crowners Quest.
As yet that's the only Trial we have made out of the House, But
we mean to mismerize the Baker, and get out of him who he
really does mean to offer to, for he is quite a General Lover.
Sum pepel is very dubious about Mismerizing, and some wont
have it at any price ; but Missis is for it, very strong, and says
she means to belive every attorn about it till sumboddy proves
quite the reverse. She practises making passes every day, and
is studyin Frenology besides, for she says, between the two you
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166 PROSE AND VERSE.
may play oa pepel's pennycraniums like a Piany, and put them
into any Key you like. And of course her fust performance
will be a Master-piece on the Head of the Fammily.
To be shure it seems a wonderful power to be give to one over
ones Fellow Creturs, and as mite be turned to Divilish purposes,
But witch I cant stop to pint out, for makin the beds. To tell
tbe truth, with so much Mismerizing going on, our Wurks has
got terrible behind hand. And the carpits has not been swep for
a week. So no more at present in haste from
Your luving Friend,
Eliza Passmore.
P. S. A most remarkable Profesy ! The Page have foretold
that the Monkey some day would bite Missis, dz; lo ! and behold
he have flone at her, and made his teeth meet in her left ear. If
that ant profesying I don't know what is.
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THE ELM TREE. t«7
THE ELM TREE:
A BBEAIIC IN THE WOODS.
And this our life, exempt jfrom public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees.
As TOU liIKE IT.
TwAS in a shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound —
And from a Tree
There came to me
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground.
Amongst the leaves it seem'd to sigh.
Amid the boughs to moan ;
It mutter'd in the stem and then
The roots took up the tone ;
As if beneath the dewy grass
The Dead began to groan.
No breeze there was to stir the leaves ;
No bolts that tempests launch,
To rend the trunk or rugged bark ;
No gale to bend the branch ;
No quake of earth to heave the roots,
That stood so stiff and staunch.
No bird was preening up aloft,
To rustle with its wing ;
No squirrel, in its sport or fear,
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From bough to bough to spring ;
The solid bole
Had ne'er a hole
To hide a living thing !
No scooping hollow cell to lodge
A furtive beast or fowl,
The martin, bat,
Or forest cat
That nightly loves to prowl.
Nor ivy nook so apt to shroud
The moping, snoring owL
But still the sound was in my ear,
A sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmur'd overhead,
And sometimes underground —
'Twas in a shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound.
O hath the Dryad still a tongue
In this ungenial clime ?
Have Sylvan Spirits still a voice
As in the classic prime —
To make the forest voluble,
As in the olden time ?
•
The olden time is dead and gone ;
Its years have fill'd their sum —
And e'en in Greece — ^her native Greece—
The Sylvan Nymph is dumb—
From ash, and beech, and aged oak,
No classic whispers come.
From Poplar, Pine, and drooping Birch,
And fragrant Linden Trees ;
No living sound
E'er horers round,
Unless the vagrant breeze.
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THE ELM TREE. H90
The music of the merry bird,
Or hum of busy bees.
But busy bees forsake the Elm
That bears no bloom aloft —
The Finch was in the hawthom-bush,
The Blackbird in the croft ;
And among the firs the brooding Dove,
That else might murmur soft.
Yet still I heard that solemn sound,
And sad it was to boot,
From ev'ry overhanging bough,
And each minuter shoot ;
From the rugged .trunk and mossy rind.
And from the twisted root.
From these, — a melancholy moan ;
From those, — a dreary sigh ;
As if the boughs were wintry bare.
And wild winds sweeping by —
Whereas the smallest fleecy cloud
Was steadfast in the sky.
No sign or touch of stirring air
Could either sense observe —
The zephyr had not breath enough
The thistle-down to swerve.
Or force the filmy gossamers
To take another curve.
In still and silent slumber hush'd
All Nature seem'd to be ;
From heaven above, or earth beneatl^
No whisper came to me —
Except the solemn sound and sad
From that Mysterious Tree ?
A hollow, hollow, hollow sound.
As is that dreamy roar
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When distant billows boil and bound
Along a shingly shore —
But the ocean brim was far aloof,
A hundred miles or more.
No murmur of the gusty sea.
No tumult of the beach,
However they might foam and fret,
The bounded sense could reach —
Methought the trees in mystic tongue
Were talking each to each ! —
Mayhap, rehearsing ancient tales
Of greenwood love or guilt,
Of whisper'd vows
Beneath their boughs ;
Or blood obscurely spilt ;
Or of that near-hand Mansion House
A Royal Tudor built.
Perchance, of booty won or shared
Beneath the starry cope—
Or where the suicidal wretch
Hung up the fatal rope ;
Or Beauty kept an evil tryste,
Insnared by Love and Hope.
Of graves, perchance, untimely scoop'd
At midnight dark and dank —
And what is underneath the sod
Whereon the grass is rank —
Of old intrigues.
And privy leagues.
Tradition leaves in blank.
Of traitor lips that mutter'd plots —
Of Kin who fought and fell —
Grod knows the undiscovered schemes,
The arts and acts of Hell,
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THE ELM TREE. 171
Perform'd long generations since.
If trees had tongues to tell !
With wary eyes, and ears alert,
As one who walks afraid,
I wander'd down the dappled path
Of mingled light and shade —
How sweetly gleamed that arch of blue
Beyond the green arcade !
How clearly shone the glimpse of Heav'n
Beyond that verdant aisle !
All overarched with lofty elms.
That quench'd the light the while,
As dim and chill
As serves to fill
Some old Cathedral pile !
And many a gnarled trunk was there,
That ages long had stood,
Till Time had wrought them into shapes
Like Pan's fantastic brood ;
3r still more foul and hideous forms
That Pagans carve in wood !
A crouching Satyr lurking here—
And there a Goblin grim —
As staring full of demon life
As Gothic sculptor's whim —
A marvel it had scarcely been
To hear a voice from him !
Some whisper from that horrid mouth
Of strange, unearthly tone ;
Or wild infernal laugh, to chill
One's marrow in the bone.
But no i t grins like rigid Death,
And silent as a stone !
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As silent as its fellows be,
For all is mute with them —
The branch that climbs the leafy roof—
The rough and mossy stem —
The crooked root,
And tender shoot,
Where hangs the dewy gem.
One mystic Tree alone there is,
Of sad and solemn sound —
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
And sometimes underground —
In all thai sh&dy A venue,
Where lofty Elms abound.
Pakt II.
The Scene is change4 ! No green Arcades-
No Trees all ranged a-row —
But scattered like a beaten host.
Dispersing to and fro ;
With here and there a sylvan corse,
That fell before the foe.
The Foe that down in yonder dell
Pursues his daily toil ;
As witness many a prostrate trunk,
Bereft of leafy spoil.
Hard by its wooden stump, whereon
The adder loves to coil.
Alone he works — his ringing blows
Have banish'd bird and beast ;
The Hind and Fawn have canter'd oft
A hundred yards at least ;
And on the maple's lofty top.
The linnet's song has ceased.
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THE ELM TREE. ^
No eye his labor overlooks,
Or when he takes his rest ;
£Ucept the timid thrush that peeps
Above her secret nest,
Forbid by love to leave the young
Beneath her speckled breast.
The Woodman's heart is in his work,
. His axe is sharp and good :
With sturdy arm and steady aim
He smites the gaping wood ;
From distant rocks
His lusty knocks
Re-echo many a rood.
His axe is keen, his arm is strong ;
The muscles serve him well ;
His years have reached an extra span,
The number none can tell ;
But still his lifelong task has been
The Timber Tree to fell.
Through Summer's parching sultriness,
And Winter's freezing cold.
From sapling youth
To virile growth,
And Age's rigid mould,
His energetic axe hath rung
Within that Forest old.
Aloft, upon his poising steel
The vivid sunbeams glance-
About his head and round his feet
The forest shadows dance ;
And bounding from his russet coat
The acorn drops askance.
His face is like a Druid's face.
With wrinkles furrow'd deep,
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174 PROSE AND VERSE.
And tann'd hj scorching suns as brown
As com that's ripe to reap ;
But the hair on brow, on cheek, and ohin,
Is white as wool of sheep.
His frame is like a giant's frame ;
His legs are long and stark ;
His arms like limbs of knotted yew ;
His hands like rugged bark.
So he felleth still
With right good will,
As if to build an Ark !
Oh ! well within His fatal path
The fearful Tree might quake
Through every fibre, twig, and leaf.
With aspen tremor shake ;
Through trunk and root,
And branch and shoot,
A low complaining make !
Oh ! well to Him the Tree might breathe
A sad and solemn sound,
A sigh that murmur'd overhead,
And groans from underground ;
As in that shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound !
But calm and mute the Maple stands,
The Plane, the Ash, the Fir,
The Elm, the Beech, the drooping Birch,
Without the least demur ;
And e'en the Aspen's hoary leaf
Makes no unusual stir.
The Pines — those old gigantic Pines,
That writhe— recalling soon
The famous Human Group that writhes
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THE ELM TREE. 175
With Snakes in wild festoon —
In ramous wrestlings interlaced
A Forest L&ocoon —
Like Titans of primeval girth
By tortures overcome,
Their brown enormous limbs they twine
Bedew'd with tears of gum —
Fierce agonies that ought to yell,
But, like the marble, dumb.
Nay, yonder blasted Elm that stands
So like a man of sin,
Who, frantic, flings his arms abroad
, To feel the Worm within —
For all that gesture, so intense,
It makes no sort of din !
An universal silence reigns
In rugged bark or peel,
Except that very trunk which rings
Beneath the biting steel —
Meanwhile the Woodman plies his axe
With unrelenting zeal !
No rustic song is on his tongue,
No whistle on his lips ;
But with a quiet thoughtfulness
His trusty tool he grips,
And, stroke on stroke, keeps hacking out
The bright and flying chips.
Stroke after stroke, with frequent dint
He spreads the fatal gash ;
Till lo ! the remnant fibres rend,
With harsh and sudden crash.
And on the dull resounding turf
The jarring branches lash !
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Iff PROSE AND VERSE.
Oh ! now the Forest Trees may sigh.
The Ash, the Poplar tall,
The Elm, the Birch, the drooping Beech,
The Aspens— one and all,
With solemn groan
And hollow moan
Lament a comrade's fall !
A goodly Elm, of noble girth.
That, thrice the human span —
While on their variegated course
The constant Seasons ran —
Through gale, and hail, and fiery bolt,
Had stood erect as Man.
But now, like mortal Man himself,
Struck down by hand of God,
Or heathen Idol tumbled prone
Beneath th' Eternal's nod.
In all its giant bulk and length
It lies along the sod ! —
Ay, now the Forest Trees may grieye
And make a common moan
Around that patriarchal trunk
So newly overthrown ;
And with a murmur recognize
A doom to be their own !
The Echo sleeps : the idle axe,
A disregarded tool.
Lies crushing with its passive weight
The toad's reputed stool —
The Woodman wipes his dewy brow
Within the shadows cool.
No Zephyr stirs : the ear may catch
The smallest insect-hum ;
But on the disappointed sense
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THE ELM TREE. in
No mystic whispers oome ;
No tone of sylvan sympathy,
The Forest Trees are dumb.
No leafy noise, nor inward voice,
No sad and solemn sound,
That sometimes murmurs overhead,
And sometimes underground ;
As in that shady Avenue,
Where lofty Elms abound !
Part III.
The deed is done : the Tree is low
That stood so long and firm ;
The Woodman and his axe are gone,
His toil has found its term ;
And where he wrought the speckled Thrush
Securely hunts the wormv
The Cony from the sandy bank
Has run a rapid race,
Through thistle, bent, and tangled fern.
To seek the open space ;
And on its haunches sits erect
To clean its furry face.
The dappled Fawn is dose at hand,
The Hind is browsing near, —
And on the Larch's lowest bough
The Ousel whistles clear ;
But checks the note
Within his throat.
As choked with sudden fear !
With sudden fear her wormy quest
The Thrush abruptly quits —
Through thistle, bent,, and tangled fern
Part n. 13
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HP PROSE AND VERSE.
The startled Cony flits ;
\nd on the Larch's lowest bough
No more the Ousel sits.
With sudden fear
The dappled Deer
Eflect a swift escape ;
But well might bolder creatures start.
And fly, or stand agape,
With rising hair, and curdled bloody
To see so grim a Shape !
The very sky turns pale above ;
The earth grows dark beneath ;
The human Terror thrills with cold,
And draws a shorter breath-*
An universal panic owns
The dread approach of DEATH!
With silent pace, as shadows come,
And dark< as shadows be,
The grisly Phantom takes his stand
Beside the fallen Tree,
And scans it with his gloomy eyes.
And laughs with horrid gle
A dreary laugh and desolate,
Where mirth is void and null,
As hollow as its echo sounds
Within the hollow skull —
" Whoever laid this tree along
His hatchet was not dull !
" The human arm and human tool
Have done their duty well !
But after sound of ringing axe
Must sound the ringing knell ;
When Elm or Oak
Have felt the stroke
My turn it is to fell !
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THK ELM TREE. vm
<^ No passive unregarded tree,
A senseless thing of wood,
Wherein the sluggish sap ascends
To swell the vernal bud —
But conscious, moving, breathing trunks
That throb with living blood !
'' No forest Monarch yearly clad
In mantle green or brown ;
That unrecorded lives, and fiills
By hand of rustic clown —
But Kings who don the purple robe.
And wear the jewell'd crown.
<< Ah ! little recks the Royal mind,
Within his Banquet Hall,
While tapers shine and Music breathes
And Beauty leads the Ball,— -
He little recks the oaken plank
Shall be his palace wall !
<' Ah ! little dreams the haughty Peer,
The while his Falcon flies—
Or on the blood-bedabbled turf
The antler'd quarry die»—
That in his own ancestral Park
The narrow dwelling lies !
'< But haughty Peer and mighty Ejng
One doom shall overwhelm !
The oaken cell
Shall lodge him well
Whose sceptre ruled a realm-
While he who never knew a home^
Shall fijid it in the Elm !
"The tatter'd, lean, dejected wretck.
Who begs from door to door.
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180 PROSE AND VERSE.
And dies within the creasy ditcbi
Or on the barren moor.
The friendly Elm shall lodge and clothe
That houseless man, and poor I
** Tea, this recumbent rugged trunk,
That lies so long and prone,
With many a fallen acorn-cup.
And mast, and firry cone-^
This rugged trunk shall hold its share
Of mortal flesh and bone !
" A Miser hoarding heaps of gold.
But pale with ague-fears —
A Wife lamenting love's decay,
With secret cruel tears,
Distilling bitter, bitter drops
From sweets of former year^^
'< A Man within whose gloomy mind.
Offence had darkly sunk.
Who out of fierce Revengers cup
Hath madly, darkly drunk —
Grief, Avarice, and Hate shall sleep
Within this very trunk !
" This massy trunk that lies along,
And many more must fall —
For the very knave
Who digs the grave, .
The man who spreads the pall,
And he who tolls the funeral bell.
The Elm shall have them all !
" The tall abounding Elm that grows
In hedgerows up and down ;
In field and forest, copse and park,
And in the peopled town,
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THE ELM TREE. lU
With colonies of noisy rooks
That nestle on its crown.
" And well th' abounding Elm may grow
In field and hedge so rife.
In forest, copse, and wooded park,
And 'mid the city's strife,
For, every hour that passes by,
Shall end a human life !"
The Phantom ends : the shade is gone ;
The sky is clear and bright ;
On turf, and moss, and fallen Tree,
There glows a ruddy light ;
And bounding through the golden fern
The Rabbit comes to bite.
The Thrush's mate beside her sits
And pipes a merry lay ;
The Dove is in the evergreens ;
And on the Larch's spray
The Fly-bird flutters up and down.
To catch its tiny prey.
The gentle Hind and dappled Fawn
Are coming up the glade ;
Each harmless furr'd and feather'd thing
Is glad, and not afraid —
But on my sadden'd spirit still
The Shadow leitves a shade.
A secret, vague, prophetic gloom,
As though by certain mark
I knew the fore-appointed Tree,
Within whose rugged bark
This warm and living frame shall find
Its narrow bouse and dark.
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PROSE AND VERSE.
That mystic Tree which breathed to me
A sad and solemn sound.
That sometimes murinur'd overhead
And sometimes underground ;
Within that shady Avenue
Where lofty Elms abound.
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 183
THE LAY OF THE LABORER.
It was a gloomy evening. The sun had set, angry and threat-
ening, lighting up the horizon with lurid flame and flakes of
blood-red — slowly quenched by slants of distant rain, dense and
dark as segments of the old deluge. At last the whole sky was
black, except the low-driving grey scud, amidst which faint
streaks of lightning wandered capriciously towards their ap-
pointed aim, like young fire-fiends playing on their errands.
" There will be a storm !" whispered nature herself, as the
crisp fallen leaves of autumn started up with a hollow rustle, and
began dancing a wild round, with a whirlwind of dust, like
some frantic orgy ushering in a revolution.
"There will be a storm!" I echoed, instinctively looking
round for the nearest shelter, and making towards it at my best
pace. At such times the proudest heads will bow to very low
lintels ; and setting dignity against a ducking, I very willingly
condescended to stoop into " The Plough."
It was a small hedge alehouse, too humble for the refinement
of a separate parlor. One large tap- room served for all comers,
gentle or simple, if gentlefolks, except from stress of weather,
ever sought such a place of entertainment. Its scanty accommo-
dations were even meaner than usual : the Plough had suffered
from the hardness of the times, and exhibited the bareness of a
house recently unfurnished by the broker. The aspect of the pub.
lie room was cold and cheerless. There n^'as a mere glimmer of
fire in the grate, and a single unsnuffed candle stood guttering
over the neck of the stone bottle in which it was stuck, in the mid-
dle of the plain deal table. The low ceiling, blackened by smoke,
hung overhead like a canopy of gloomy clouds ; the walls were
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stained with damp, and patches of the plaster had peeled off
from the naked laths. Ornament there was none, except a soli-
tary print, gaudily daubed in body-colors, and formerly glazed,
as hinted by a small triangle of glass in one comer of the black
frame. The subject, " the Shipwrecked Mariner," whose corpse,
jacketed in bright sky-blue, rolled on a still brighter strip of yel-
low shingle, between two grass-green wheat-sheaves with white
ears — ^but intended for foaming billows. Above all, the custom.
ary odors were wantmg ; the faint smell of beer and ale, the
strong scent of spirits, the fumes of tobacco ; none of them
agreeable to a nice sense, but decidedly missed with a feeling
ijdn to disappointment. Rank or vapid, they belonged to the
place, representing, though in an infinitely lower key, the bou-
quet of Burgundy, the aroma of choice liqueurs — ^the breath of
social enjoyment.
Yet there was no lack of company. Ten or twelve men,
some young, but the majority of the middle age, and o^e or two
advanced in years, were seated at the sordid board. As many
glasses and jugs of various pattens stood before them ; but
mostly empty, as was the tin tankard from which they had been
replenished. Only a few of the party in the neighborhood of a
brown earthenware pitcher had full cups ; but of the very small
ale called Adam's. Their coin and credit exhausted, they were
keeping up the forms of drinking and good fellowship with plain
water. From the same cause, a bundle of new clay pipes lay
idle on the table, unsoiled by the Indian weed.
A glance sufficed to show that the company were of the labor-
ing class — men with tanned, furrowed faces, and hairy, freckled
hands — ^who smelt " of the earth, earthy," and were clad in
fustian and leather, in velveteen and corduroy, glossy with wear
or wet, soiled by brown clay and green moss, scratched and torn
by brambles, wrinkled, warped, and threadbare with age, and
variously patched — garments for need and decency, not show ; —
for if, amidst the prevailing russets, drabs, and olives, there was
a gayer scrap of green, blue, or red, it was a tribute not to van-
ity but expediency — some fragment of military broadcloth or
livery plush.
As I entered, the whole party turned their eyes upon me, and
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 185
having satisfied themselves hy a brief scrutiny that my face and
person were unknown to them, thenceforward took no more notice
of me than their own shadows on the wall. I could have fancied
myself invisible, they resumed their conversation with so little
reserve. The topics, such as poor men discuss amongst them-
selves : — ^the deamess of bread, the shortness of work, the long
hours of labor, the lowness of wages, the badness of the weather,
the sickliness of the season, the signs of a hard winter, the gene-
ral evils of want, poverty, and disease ; but accompanied by
such particular revelations, such minute details, and frank dis-
closures, as should only have come from persons talking in their
sleep! The vulgar indelicacy, methought, with which they
gossipped before me of family matters — ^the brutal callousness
with which they exposed their private af&irs, the whole history
Itnd mystery of bed, board, and hearth, the secrets of home !
But a little more listening and reflection converted my disgust
into pity and concern. Alas ! I had forgotten that the lives of
certain classes of our species have been laid almost as bare and
open as those of the beasts of the field \ The poor men had no
domestic secrets — ^no private affairs ! All were public — matters
of notoriety — ^friend and foe concurring in the , advertisement.
The law had ferreted their huts, and scheduled fheir three-leg-
ged tables and bottomless chairs. Statistical Groses had taken
notes, and printed them, of every hole in their coats. Political
reporters had calculated their incomings and outgoings doWn to
fractions of pence and half ounces of tea ; and had supplied
the minutiee of their domestic economy for paragraphs and lead-
ing articles. Charity, arm in arm with curiosity, and clerical
philanthropy, linked perhaps with a religious inquisitor, had
taken an inventory of their defects moral and spiritual ; whilst
medical visitors had inspected and recorded their physical sores,
cancerous and scrofulous, their humors, and their tumors.
Society, like a policeman, had turned upon them the full blaze
of its bull's eye— exploring the shadiest recesses of their priva-
cy, till their means, food, habits, and modes of existence were
as minutely familiar as those of the animalculse exhibited in
Regent street by the solar microscope. They had no longer any
decent appearances to keep up— any shabby ones to mask with
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186 PROSE AND VERSE.
a better face — any petty shifts to slur over — any household strug-
gles to conceal. Their circumstances were known intimately,
not merely to next-door neighbors, and kith and kin, but to the
whole parish, the whole county, the whole country. It was one
of their last few privileges to discuss in common with the parlia-
ment, the press, and the public, the deplorable details of their
own affairs. Their destitution was a naked great fact, and they
talked of it like proclaimed bankrupts, as they were, in the wide
world's Gazette.
" What matters ?" said a grey-headed man, in fustian, in an-
swer to a warning nudge and whisper from his neighbor.. " If
walls has ears, they are welcome to what they can ketch — ay,
and the stranger to boot — ^if so be he don't know all about us
already — for it's all in print. What we yarn, and what we
spend — ^what we eat, and what we drink — what we wear, and
the cost on it from top to toe — where we sleep, and how many
on us lie in a bed— our consarns are as comnK>n as waste land."
" And as many geese and donkeys turned on to them, I do
think !" cried a young fellow in velveteens — " to hear how folk
cackle and bray about our states. And then the queer remedies
as is prescribed, like, for a starving man ! A Bible says one —
a reading madTe easy says another — a temperance medal says
another — or maybe a hagricultural prize. But what is he to eat^
I ax? Why, says one, a Corkassian Jew — says another, a
cricket ball — says another, a may.pole— and says another, the
Wenus bound for Horsetrailye."
" As if idle hands and empty pockets," said the grey-headed
man, " did not make signs, of themselves, for work and wages
•*— and a hungry belly for bread and cheese."
" That's true any how," said one of the water-drinkers. " I
only wish that a doctor would come at this minute, and listen
with his telescope on my stomach, and he would hear it a-talking
as plain as our magpie, and saying, I wants wittles."
There was a general peal of mirth at this speech, but brief,
and ending abruptly, as laughter does, when extorted by the odd
treatment of a serious subject — a flash followed by deeper
gloom. The conversation then assumed a graver tone ; each
man m turn recounting the trials, privations, and visitations, of
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 187
himself, his wife, and children, or his neighbor's — ^not mentioned
with fierceness, intermingling oaths and threats, not with bitter*
ness — some few allusions excepted to harsh overseers or miserly
masters — ^but as soldiers or sailors describe the hardships and
sufferings they have had to encounter in their rough vocation,
and evidently endured in their own persons with a manly forti-
tude. If the speaker's voice faltered, or his eyes moistened, it
was only when he painted the sharp bones showing through the
skin, the skin through the rags, of the wife of his bosom ; or
how the traditional wolf, no longer to be kept from the door, had
rushed in and fastened on his young ones. What a revelation
it was ! Fathers, with more children than shillings per week*—
mothers travailing literally in the straw — infants starving before
the parents' eyes, with cold, and famishing for food ! Human
creatures, male and female, old and young, not gnawed and torn
by single woes, but worried at once by winter, disease, and want,
as by that triple-headed dog, whelped in the realm of torments !
My ears tingled, and my cheeks flushed with self-reproach, re-
membering my fretful impatience under my own inflictions, no
light ones either, till compared with the heavy complications of
anguish, moral and physical, experienced by those poor men.
My heart swelled with indignation, my soul sickened with dis-
gust, to recall the sobs, sighs, tears, and hystericks — ^the lamen-
tations and imprecations bestowed by pampered selfishness on a
sick bird or beast, a sore finger, a swelled toe, a lost rubber, a
missing luxury, an ill-made garment, a culinary failure! — to
think of the cold looks and harsh words cast by the same eyes
and lips, eloquent in self-indulgence, on nakedness, starvation^
and poverty. Wealth, with his own million of money, pointing
to the new half-farthings as fitting money to the million — ^glutto-
ny, gorged with dainties, washed down by iced champagne, com-
placently commending his humble brethren to the brook of Elisha
and the salads of Nebuchadnezzar ; and fashion, in furs and vel-
vet, comfortably beholding her squalid sisters ^ivering in robes
de zephyr, woven by winter itself, with the warp of a north, and
the woof of an east wind !
" The job up at Bosely is finished," said one of the middle-aged
men. *' I have enjoyed but three days' work in the last fortnights
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188 PROSE AND VERSE.
and God above knows when I shall get another, even at a shilling
a day. And nine mouths to feed, big and little — and nine backs
to clothe — with the winter a-setting in — and the rent behind-hand
— and never a bed to He on, and my good woman, poor soul,
ready to " — a choking sound and a hasty gulp of water
smothered the rest of the sentence. " There must be something
done for us — there must," he added, with an emphatic slap of his
broad, brown, barky hand, that made the glasses jingle and the
idle pipes clatter on the board. And every voice in the room
echoed '< there must,'' my own involuntarily swelling the chorus.
'^ Ay, there must, and that full soon," said the grey-headed
man in fustian, with an upward appealing look, as if through the
smoky clouds of the ceiling to God himself for confirmation of
the necessity. <' But come, lads, time's up, so let's have our
chant, and then squander.
The company immediately stood up ; and one of the elders
with a deep bass voice, and to a slow sad air, began a rude song,
the composition, probably, of some provincial poet of his own
class, the rest of the party joining occasionally in a verse that
served fi>r the burden.
A spade ! a rake ! a hoe !
A pickaxe, or a bill !
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what you will—
And here's a ready hand
To ply the needful tool.
And skilled enough by lessons rough
In labor's rugged school.
To hedge, or dig the ditch.
To lop or fell the tree.
To lay the swarth on the sultry field,
Or plough the stubborn lea,
The harvest stack to bind,
The wheaten rick to thatch ;
And never fear in my pouch to find
The tinder or the match.
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 189
To a flaming barn or farm
My fancies never roam ;
The fire I yearn to kindle and burn
Is on the hearth of home ;
Where children huddle and crouch'
Through dark long winter days,
Where starving children huddle and crouch
To see the cheerful rays,
A-glowing on the haggard cheek,
And not in the haggard's blaze !
To Him who sends a drought
To parch the fields forlorn,
The rain to flood the meadows with mud,
The blight to blast the com —
To Him I leave to guide
The bolt in its crooked path,
To strike the miser's rick, and show
The skies blood-red with wrath.
A spade ! a rake ! a hoe !
A pickaxe, or a bill !
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow,
A flail, or what ye will —
The corn to thrash, or the hedge to plash.
The market team to drive, '
Or mend the fenge by the cover side,
And leave the game alive.
Ay, only give me work.
And then you need not fear
That I shall snare his worship's hare,
Or kill his grace's deer-
Break into his lordship's house,
To steal the plate so rich,
Or leave the yeoman that had a purae
To welter in the ditch.
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100 PROSE AND VERSE.
Wherever nature needs,
Wherever labor calls.
No job ril shirk of the hardest work.
To shun the workhouse walls ;
Where savage laws begrudge
The pauper babe its breath.
And doom a wife to a widow's life
Before her partner's death.
My only claim is this,
With labor stiff and stark,
By lawful turn my living to earn,
Between the light and dark —
My daily bread and nightly bed,
My bacon and drop of beer —
But all from the hand that holds the land
And none from the overseer !
No parish money or loaf,
No pauper badges for me,
A son of the soil, by right of toil.
Entitled to my fee.
No alms I ask, give me my task :
Here are the arm, the leg,
The strength, the sinews of a man.
To work, and not to beg.
Still one of Adam's heirs,
Though doomed by chance of birth
To dress so mean, and eat the lean
Instead of the fat of the earth ;
To make such humble meals
As honest labor can,
A bone and a crust, with a grace to God,
And little thanks to man !
A spade ! a rake ! a hoe !
A pickaxe, or a bill !
A hook to reap, or a scythe to mow.
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 191
J — ■ — — — _^— ^__^
A flail, or what ye will —
Whatever the tool to ply,
Here is a willing drudge,
With muscle and limb— and wo to him
Who does their pay begrudge.
Who every weekly score
Docks labor's little mite,
Bestows^ on the poor at the temple-door,
But robbed them over-night.
. The very shilling he hoped to save,
As health and morals fail,
Shall visit me in the New Bastile,
The spital or the gaol !
As the last ominous word ceased ringing, the candle-wick sud-
denly dropped into the neck of the stone bottle, and all was dark-
ness and silence.
The vision is dispelled — ^the fiction is gone — but a fact and a
figure remain.
Some time since a strong inward impulse moved me to paint
the destitution of an overtasked class of females, who work, work,
work, for wages almost nominal. But deplorable as -is their
condition, in the low deep, there is, it seems, a lower still — below
that gloomy gulf a darker region of human misery — beneath
that purgatory a hell — resounding with more doleful wailings
and a sharper outcry — the voice of famishing wretches, pleading
vainly for work ! work ! work ! — imploring as a blessing, what
was laid upon man as a curse — the labor that wrings sweat from
the brow, and bread from the soil !
As a matter of conscience, that wail touches me not. As my
works testify, I am of the working class myself, and in my hum*
ble sphere furnish employment for many hands, including paper-
makers, draughtsmen, engravers, compositors, pressmen, binders,
folders, and stitchers — and critics — all receiving a fair day's wa-
ges for a fair day's work. My gains consequently are limited —
Dot nearly so enormous as have been realized upon shirts, slops,
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102 PROSE AND VERSE.
shawls, &c. — curiously illustrating how a man or woman might
he " clothed with curses as with a garment." My fortune may
he expressed without a long row of those ciphers — ^those O's at
once significant of hundreds of thousands of pounds, and as many
ejaculations of .pain and sorrow from dependent slaves. My
wealth might all he hoarded, if I were miserly, in a gallipot or a
tin snuff-box. My guineas, placed edge to edge, instead of ex-
tending from the Minories to Golden Square, would barely reach
from home to Bread Street. My riches would hardly allow me
a roll in them, even if turned into the new copper mites. But
then, thank God ! no reproach clings to my coin. No tears or
blood clog the meshes, no hair, plucked in desperation, is knitted
with the silk of my lean purse. No consumptive sempstress can
point at me her bony forefinger, and say, " For thee, sevnng in
farmd pauperis, I am become this living skeleton !" or hold up
to me her fatal needle, as one through the eye of which the
scriptural camel must pass ere I may hope to enter heaven. No
withered work- woman, shaking at me her dripping suicidal locks,
can cry, in a piercing voice, " For thee, and for six poor pence,
I embroidered eighty flowers on this veil " — literally a veil of
tears. No famishing laborer, his joints racked with toil, holds
out to me in the palm of his broad hard hand seven miserable
shillings, and mutters, *' For these, and a parish loaf, for six
long days, from dawn till dusk, through hot and cold, through wet
and dry, I tilled thy land !" My short sleeps are peaceful ; my
dreams untroubled. No ghastly phantoms with reproachful
faces, and silence more terrible than speech, haunt my quiet pil-
low. No victims of slow murder, ushered by the avenging
fiends, beset my couch, and make awful appointments with me
to meet at the Divine bar on the day of judgment. No deformed
human creatures — men, women, and children, smirched black
as negroes, transfigured suddenly, as demons of the pit, clutch
at my heels to drag me down, down, down, an unfathomable
shaft, into a gaping Tartarus. And if sometimes in waking
visions I see throngs of little faces, with features pretematurally
sharp, and wrinkled brows, and dull, seared orbs — ^grouped with
pitying clusters of the young-eyed cherubim — ^not for me, thank
Heaven ! did those crippled children become prematurely old ;
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 193
and precociously evaporate, like so much steam power, the
«*dew of their youth."
For me, then, that doleful cry from the starving unemployed,
has no extrinsic horror ; no peculiar pang, heyond that sympa-
thetic on.e which must affect the species in general. Neverthe-
less, amidst the dismal chorus, one complaining voice rings dis-
tinctly on my inward ear ; one melancholy figure flits promi-
nently before my mind's eye— rvague of feature, indeed, and in
form with only the common outlines of humanity — ^but the Eido-
lon of a real person, a living, breathing man, with a known
name. One whom I have never seen in the flesh, never spoken
with ; yet whose very words a still small voice is, even now,
whispering to me, I know not whence, like the wind from a
cloud.
For months past, that indistinct figure, associated, as in a
dream, with other dim images, but all mournful — stranger faces,
male and female, convulsed with grief — huge hard hands, and
smaller and tenderer ones, wrung in speechless anguish, and
everlasting farewells — involved with obscure ocean waves, and
momentary glimpses of outlandish scenery — for months past,
amidst trials of my own, in the intervals of acute pain, perchance
even in my delirium, and through the variegated tissue of my
own interests and affairs, that sorrowful vision has recurred to
me, more or less vividly, with the intense sense of suffering,
Cruelty, and injustice, and the strong emotions of pity and indig-
nation, which originated with its birth.
It may be, that some peculiar condition of the body, inducing
a morbid stale of mind — some extreme excitability of the nerves,
and through them, of the moral sensibility, concurred to induce
so deep an impression, to make so warm a sympathy attach it-
self to a mere phantom, the representative of an obscure indi-
vidual, an utter stranger. The reader must judge : and, when
the case of my unknown, unconscious, invisible client shall be
laid before him, will be able to say, whether it required any un-
natural sensitiveness of the system, any extraordinary softening
of the heart or brain, to feel a strong human interest in the fate
of Gifford White.
In the spring of the present year, this very un^rtunate and'
Pakt II. 14
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194 PROSE AND VERSE.
▼eiy young man was indicted, at the Huntingdon Assizes, for
throwing the following letter, addressed, externally, and inter-
nally, to the farmers of Bluntisham, Hunts, into a strawyard : —
" We are determined to set fire to the whole of this place, if you don't
set us to work, and burn you in your beds if there is not alteration. What
do you think the young men are to do, if you don't set them to work ?
They must do something. The fact is, we cannot go on any longer. We
must commit robbery, and everything that is contrary to your wish.
«* I am,
«Ak Enemy."
For this ofience, admitted by his plea, the prisoner, aged
eighteen, was sentenced by a judge since deceased, to transpor-
tation for life !
Far be it from me to palliate incendiarism. Least of all,
when so many conflagrations have recently illuminated the hori-
zon ; and so near the time when the memory of that arch incen-
diary, Guy Faux, will be revived by elSigies and bonfires. I
am fully aware of the risk of even this appeal, at such a season,
but with that pleading shade before me, dare the reddest reflec-
tions that may be cast on this paper.
Only catch a real incendiary, bring his guilt clearly home to
him, and let him suffer the extreme penalty of the law. Hang
him. Or, if absolutely opposed to capital punishment, and in-
clined towards the philanthropy of a very French philosophy^
adopt the Christianly substitute recommended in the " Mysteries
of Paris," and blind the criminal. Let Are avenge fire, and,
according to the prescription for Prince Arthur, with irons hot
bum out both his eyes. Cruel and extreme as such tortures
may seem, they would scarcely expiate one of the most dastardly
and atrocious of human crimes, inasmuch as the perpetrator can
neither control its extent, nor calculate the results.
The truth is, my faith stops far short of the popular belief in
the prevalence of wilful and malignant fire-raising — ^that an epi-
demic of that inflammatory character is so rife and raging as
represented in the provinces. I am too jealous of the national
character, too chary of the good name of my humble country-
men, and think too well of " a bold peasantry, our country's
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 195
pride," to look on them, willingly, as a mere pack of Samson's
fo^es, running from farm to farm, with fire-brands tied to their
tails. If there be any notable increase in the number of fires,
some portion of the excess may be fairly attributable to causes
which have converted simple risks into doubly hazardous ; for
example, the prevalence of cigar smoking, and especially, the
substitution for the old tinder-box, of dangerous chemical contri-
vances, facile of ignition, and distributed by myriads throughout
the country. Talismans that, like the Arabian ones, on a slight
rubbing, place a demon at the command of the possessor — spells
which have subjected the fire spirit to the instant invocation not
merely of the wicked; but of the weak and the witless, the infant
and the idiot. Generally, we work and play with the element
more profusely than formerly : witness the glowing flames,
flakes, sparks, and cinders, that sweep across streets, over seas
and rivers, and along railroads, from the chimneys, funnels, and
Aimaces, of the factories, and floating and flying conveyances
of Pluto, Vulcan, and Company. Another cause, spontaneous
combustion, has lately been convicted of the destruction of the
railway station at New Cross ; and there is no reason to suppose
that conflagrations from carelessness, and excessive house-warm,
ings from inebriety, are less common than of old. Children will
still play with fire ; servants, town and country, persist in snuflT-
ing long wicks, as well as noses, with finger and thumb ; and
agricultural distress has not so annihilated the breed of jolly
farmers, but that one, here and there, is still capable of blowing
himself out, and putting his candle to bed.
In the meantime, vulgar exaggeration ascribes every " rapid
consumption " of property, not clearly traceable to accident, to
a malicious design. The English public, according to Gold-
smith, are prone to panics, and he instances them as arming
themselves with thick gloves and stout cudgels against certain
popular bugbears in tlie shapes of mad dogs. And a fatal thing
it is, proverbially, for the canine race to get an ill name. But
a panic becomes a far more tragical aflair, when it arms one
class of society against another ; and, instead of mere brutes
and curs of low degree, animals of our own species are hunted
down and hung, or, at best, all but banished to another world.
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196 PROSE AND VERSE.
by transportation for life. It is difficult to belieTe that some
snch local panic did not influence the very serere sentence
passed on GifTord White. Indeed, the existence of something of
the kind seems intimated by the Judge himself^ along with the
extraordinary dictum that a verbal bum is wane than the actual
cautery. Lord Abinger said : —
*' The offence was of a most atrocious c^racter ; and it
might almost be said, that the sending of letters threatening to
bum the property of the parties to whom they were addressed
was worse than putting the threat, in ezeeution ; fi>r when a man
lost his property by fire, he at least knew the worst of it ; but
he to whom such threats were made, was made to live in a state
of continual terror and alarm."
Very troe — and very harshly applied. The farmers of Blunt*
isham are not of my acquaintance ; but presuming them to be
not more nervous and timorsome than farmers in gen^td, might
not their terror and alarm have been pacified on rather easier
terms ? Would not the banishment of the culprit lor seven, <mp
at most fourteen years, have allowed time, ample time, for the
yeomanly nerves to have recovered their tone ; for their alighted
hair, erect as stubble, to have subsided prone as rolled grass ;
nay, for the very name of Gifibrd White to have evaporaj^
from their agricultural heads ? Were I a Bluntisham fiirmer, I
could not eat with relish another rasher of bacon, or swallow
with satisfaction another glass of strong ale, without protesting
publicly against such a sacrifice to my supposed aspen-fits, and
setting on foot a petition amongst- my neighbors for a mitigation
of that severe and satirical sentence which condemned a fellow
parishioner to expiate my fears by fifty-two years of penance*—
according to the scriptural calculation of human life — ^iathe
land of the kangaroo. I could not sleep soundly, and know that
for my sake a son of the same soil had been rooted out like a
common weed — severed from kith 'and kin ; firom hearth mid
home, if he had one ; from his mother-country, hard step-mother
though she had proved ; from a familiar land and native air, to
a foreign one and a new climate, with strange faces around him,
and strange stars above him, — a banished man, not for a little
while, or for a long while, but for ever !
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 197
But, methinks I hear a voice say, it was necessary to make as
example — a proceeding always accompanied by a certain degree
of hardship, if not injustice, as regards the party selected to be
punished in terrorem ; unless the choice be made of a criminal
especially deserving such a painful preference — as for robbery
with personal violence : whereas there appear to be no aggrava-
tions of the offence for which Gifibrd White was sentenced to a
murderer's atonement. On the contrary, he pleaded guilty : a
course generally admitted* as an extenuation of guilt: his youth
ought to have been a circumstance in his favor ; and above all,
the consideration that a threat does not necessarily involve the
intent, much less the deed. All who have been led, by word or
writing, to hope or fear for good or evil, have had reason to know
how far is promise from performance, — as far as England from
New South Wales. Expectants never die the sooner for golden
prospects held out to them ; and threatened folks are long-lived,
to a proverb. And why ? Because the enemy who announces
his designs is the least dangerous ; as the Scotch say, '^ his bark »
is waur than his bite." The truth is, menaces are about the
most abundant, idle, and empty of human vaporings ; the mere
puffings, blowings, gruntings, and growlings from the safety-
valves and waste-pipes of high-pressure engines. The promis-
sory notes of threateners to large amounts are ludicrously asso-
ciated, instead of payment, with " no effects." Who of us has
not heard a good mother, a fond mother, a doting mother, but
sharp-tempered, promise her own dear but troublesome offspring,
her very pets, such savage inflictions, such breaking of bones
and knocking off plaguy little heads, as ought, sincerely uttered,
to have consigned her to the custody of the police ? There, as
my Uncle Toby says, she found vent. Who has never known
a friend, a worthy man, but a passionate one, to indulge in such
murderous threats against the life, body, and limbs of a tight
boot-maker, or a loose tailor ; a blunt creditor, or a sharp critic ;
as ought, if in earnest, to have placed him in handcuffs and a
strait waistcoat ? But nobody mistakes these blazes of temper
for the burnings of settled malignity — ^these harmless flashes of
sheet lightning for the destructive gleam of the forked. It is
quite oossible, therefore, that the incendiary letter of Gifford
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198 PROSE AND VERSE.
White, though breathing CongreTes and Lucifers, was purely
theoretical ; albeit read by the judge as if in serious earnest,
like the fulminating prospectuses of the Due de Normandie or
Captain Warner.
I confess to have searched, in vain, through the epistle for
any animus of peculiar atrocity. Its address, generally to the
farmers, shows it not to have been the inspiration of personal
malice or private revenge. The threat is not a direct and posi-
tive one, as in resolved retaliation for some by-gone wrong ; but
put hypothetically, and rather in the nature of a warning of
probable consequences, dependent on future contingencies. The
wish of the writer is obviously not father to the menace : on the
contrary, he expostulates, appeals, methinks most touchingly, to
the reason, the justice, even the compassion, of the very parties
— ^to be burnt in their beds. So clear a proof, to me, of the ab-
sence of any serious intent, or malice prepense, that the only
agitation from the fall of such a missive in my farm-yard, if I
had one, would be the flutter amongst the poultry. At least
theirs would be the only personal terror and alarm, — for, with
other feelings, who could fail to be moved by a momentous ques-
tion and declaration reechoed by hundreds and thousands of able
and willing but starving laborers ? " What are we to do if you
don't set us to work ? We must do something. The fact is, we
cannot go on any longer !"
Can the wholesale emigration, so often proposed, be only
transportation in disguise for using such language in common
with Gifford White.
To me — speaking from my heart, and recording my delibe-
rate opinions on a material that, frail as it is, will long outlast
my own fabric, — ^there is something deeply affecting in the spec-
tacle of a young man, in the prime of health and vigor, offering
himself, a voluntary slave, in the labor-market without a pur-
chaser — eagerly proffering to barter the use of his body, the
day-long exertion of his strength, the wear and tear of flesh and
blood, bone and muscle, for the common necessaries of life—
earnestly craving for bread on the penal conditions prescribed
by his Creator — and in vain — in vain ! Well for those who en-
joy each blessing of earth that there are volunteers to work out
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 199
the curse ! Well for the drones of the social hive that there are
Dees of so industrious a turn, willing for an infinitesimal share
of the honey to undertake the labor of its fabrication !
Let these considerations avail an unfortunate man, or rather
youth, perhaps an oppressed one, subject to the tyranny of some
such ticket system as lately required the interference of the home
secretary, in behalf of the laborers of another county.
Methinks I see him, poor phantom ! an impertinent unit of a
surplus population, humbly pleading for bread, and offered an
acre of stones — ^to be cleared at five farthings a rood. Work .
and wages for the asking ! — with the double alternative of the
Union-house, or a free passage — the North- West one — ^to the
still undiscovered coast of Bohemia !
Is a rash youth, so wrought on, to be eternally £x-Isled from
this sweet little one of our own, for only throwing a few intem-
perate " thoughts that breathe and words that burn " into an
anonymous letter ?
Let these things plead for a fellow-creature, goaded, perhaps,
by the sense of wrong, as well as the physical pangs of hunger,
and driven by the neglect of all milder applications to appeal to
the selfish fears of men who will neither read the signs of the
times, nor heed warnings, unless written, like Belshazzar's, in
letters of fire !
One thing is certain. These are not times for visiting with
severity the offences of the laboring poor ; a class who, it is ad-
mitted by all parties, have borne the severest trials that can af-
flict the soul and body of man, with an es^emplary fortitude, and
a patience almost superhuman. A great fact at which every
true Englishman should exult, as at a national victory, as in
moral heroism it is. I, for one, am proud of my poor country-
men, and naturally loth to believe that a character which so
reluctantly combines with disaffection, and indulges so sparely
In outbreak, will freely absorb so vile a spirit as that of incen-
diarism. At any rate, before rashly adopting such a conclusion,
common justice and common sense bid me look elsewhere for
the causes of any unusual number of fires in the rural districts.
As a mere matter of patriotism, one would rather ascribe such
unfilial outrages to an alien than to a son of the soil. We have
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900 PROSE AND VERSE.
lately seen a foreign prince, an ally, in a time of peace specu*
lating with much playful naivete on the best modes for squib-
bing our shipping and rocketing our harbors — the fiicility with
which he could ignite the Thames and mull the Medway — sink
the Cinque Ports — ^blow off Beachy's head, shiver Deal into
splinters, apd knock the two Reculver steeples mto one. His
Highness, it is true, contemplated a bellicose state, ceremoniously
proclaimed according to the usage of polite nations ; but suppose
some outlandish savage, as uncivilized as unshorn, say from
Terra del Fuego, animated with an insane hostility to England,
and burning to test his skill in Pyrotechnics — ^might not such a
barbarian be tempted to dispense with a formal declaration of
war, and make a few experimental essays how to introduce hi^
treacherous combustibles into our perfidious towns and hamlats ?
Foreign incendiaries for me, rather than native ; and accident
or spontaneous combustion before either ! But if we must be«
lieve in it home-made — ^surely, in preference to the industrious
laborer, suspicion should fall on those sturdy trampers that infest
the country, the foremost to crave for food and money, the last
to ask for work, and one of whom might light up a dozen par-
ishes. If it be otherwise, if a class eminently loyal, patieni,
peaceable, and rational, have really become such madmen thrown
ing about fire, it is high time, methinks, with universal Artesian
borings, to begin to scuttle our island for fear of its being burnt.
But no— that Shadow of an incendiary, with uplifted hands, and
streaming repentant eyes, disavows with earnest gesture the foul
intent ; and shadow as he is, my belief acquits him, and makes
me echo the imaginary sigh with which he fades again into the
foggy distance between me and Port Sydney.
It is in your power, Sir James Graham ! to lay the ghost that
is haunting me. But that is a trifle. By a due intercession
with the earthly fountain of mercy, you may convert a melan«
choly shadow into a happier reality — a righted man — a much
pleasanter image to mingle in our waking visions, as well as in
those dreams which, as Hamlet conjectures, may soothe or dis-
turb us in our coffins. Think, sir, of poor Gi^rd ^hite — ^in-
quire into his hard case^ and give it your humane consideration,
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THE LAY OF THE LABORER. 201
as that of a fellow.man with an immortal soul — a '' possible an-
gel " — to be met hereafter face to face.
To me, should this appeal meet with any success, it will be
one of the dearest deeds of my pen. I shall not repent a wide
deviation from my usual course ; or begrudge the pain and
trouble caused me by the providential visitings of an importunate
phantom. In any case, my own responsibility is at an end. I
have relieved my^ heart, appeased my conscience, and absolved
my soul.
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903 PROSE AND VERSE.
THE BEIDGE OF SIGHS,
" Drowned ! drowned !"— Hamlet.
One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death !
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care ;-
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair !
Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements ;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing ;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing. —
Touch her not scornfully ;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly ;
Not of the stains of her.
All that remains of her
Now, is pure womanly.
Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful ;
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THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 203
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.
Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family —
Wipe those poor lips of hers ^
Oozing so clammily.
Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb.
Her fair auburn tresses ;
Whilst wonderment guesses
Where was her home ?
. Who was her father ? V^v t ^X « -/
Who was her mother ? "• -> •/
Had she a sister ? , ^ '.
Had she a brother ?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other ?
Alas ! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun !
Oh ! it was pitiful !
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly,
Feelings had changed :
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence ;
Even Grod's providence
Seeming estranged.
Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
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VH PROSE AND VERSE.
With many a light
From window and casement.
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver ;
But not the dark arch.
Or the black flowing river :
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd—
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world !
In she plunged boldly.
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran, —
Over the brink of it,
Kcture it, — think of it.
Dissolute Man !
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can !
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care ;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair !
Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly.
Decently, — kindly, —
Smoothe, and compose them ;
And her eyesj close them^
Staring so blindly !
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity.
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THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS. 205
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Bvriun^ insanity^
Into her rest. —
Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast !
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behavior.
And leaving, with meekness,
^er sins to her Saviour !
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30e PBOSE AND VERSE.
THE LADY'S DREAM.
The lady lay in her bed,
Her couch so warm and soft,
But her sleep was restless and broken still ;
For turning often and oft
From side to side, she muttered and moan'd
And toss'd her arms aloft.
At last she started up,
And gazed on the vacant air,
With a look of awe, as if she saw
Some dreadful phantom there —
And then in the pillow she buried her face
From visions ill to bear.
The very curtain shook,
Her terror was so extreme,
And the light that fell on the broidered quilt
Kept a tremulous gleam ;
And her voice was hollow, and shook as she criedi
" Oh me ! that awful dream !
" That weary, weary walk.
In the churchyard's dismal ground !
And those horrible things, with shady wings,
That came and flitted round, —
Death, death, and nothing but death,
In every sight and sound !
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THE LADY'S DREAM. 907
" And oh ! those maidens young,
Who wrought in that dreary room,
With figures drooping and spectres thin,
And cheeks without a hloom ; —
And the voice that cried^ < For the pomp of pride
We haste to an early tomb !'
'' For the pomp and pleasures of pride ;
We toil like the African slaves,
And only to earn a home at last,
Where yonder cypress waves ; —
And then it pointed — I never saw
A ground so full of graves !
" And still the coffins came.
With their sorrowful trains and slow ;
Coffin after coffin still,
A sad and sickening show ;
From grief exempt, I never had dreamt
Of such a world of Wo !
'' Of the hearts that daily break,
Of the tears that hourly fall,
Of the many, many troubles of life.
That grieve this earthly ball —
Disease, and Hunger, Pain, and Want,
But now I dream of them all !
" For the blind and the cripple were there,
And the babe that pined for bread.
And the houseless man, and the widow poor
Who begged — ^to bury the dead !
The naked, alas, that I might have clad,
The famished I might have fed !
" The sorrow I might have soothed.
And the unregarded tears ;
For many a thronging shape was there,
From long forgotten years,
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106 FROSE AND VERSE.
Ay, even the poor rejected Moor,
Who raised my childish fears !
'< Each pleading look, that long ago
I scanned with a heedless eye ;
Each face was gazing as plainly there>
As when I passed it by ;
Wo, wo for me if the past should be
Thus present when I die !
*' No need of sulphurous lake^
No need of fiery coal,
But only that crowd of human kind
Who wanted pity and dole —
In everlasting retrospect —
Will wring my sinful soul !
Alas ! I have walked through life
Too heedless where I trod ;
Nay, helping to trample my fellow worm,
And fill the burial sod —
Forgetting that even the sparrow falls
Not unmarked of God !
" I drank the richest draughts ;
And ate whatever is good —
Fish, and flesh, and fowl, and fruit,
» Supplied ray hungry mood ;
But I never remembered the wretched ones
That starve for want of food !
" I dressed as the noble dress,
In cloth of silver and gold.
With silk, and satin, and costly furs,
In many an ample fold ;
But I never remembered the naked limbs
That froze with winter's cold.
*' The wounds I might have healed !
The human sorrow and smart !
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THE LADY'S DREAM. 209
And yet it never was in my soul
To play so ill a part :
But evil is wrought by want of Thought,
As well as want of Heart !"
She clasped her fervent hands,
And the tears began to stream ; «
Large, and bitter, and fast they fell,
Remorse was so extreme ;
And yet, oh yet, that many a Dame
Would dream the Lady's Dream !
Part ii. 15
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no PROSE AND VERSK.
THE SONG OP THE SHIRT.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread-
Stitch ! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,
She sang the '' song of the Shirt !"
" Work ! work ! work !
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work — ^work — work !
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh ! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,-
Where woman has never a soul to save
If THIS is Christian work !
*• Work — work — ^work !
Till the brain begins to swim ;
Work — ^work — work !
Till the eyes are heavy and dim !
Seam, and gusset, and band.
Band, and gusset, and seam.
Till over the buttons I fall asleep.
And sew them on in my dream !
" Oh ! men with sisters dear !
Oh ! men with mothers and wives !
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THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. 211
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives !
Stitch— stitch — stitch !
In poverty, hunger, and dirt.
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A SHBOUD as well as a shirt !
" But why do I talk of death.
That phantom of grisly bone ;
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own —
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fast I keep :
Oh God ! that bread should be so dear,
, And flesh and blood so cheap !
" Work — work — work !
My labor never flags ;
And what are its wages ? A bed of stf aw,
A crust of bread — and rags :
A shattered roof — and this naked floor —
A table — a broken chair —
And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there !
" Work — work — work !
From weary chime to chime ;
Work — work — work !
As prisoners work, for crime !
Band, and gusset, and seam.
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick and the brain benumbed.
As well as the weary hand !
" Work — work — work.
In the dull December light ;
And work — work — ^work !
When the weather is warm and bright :
While underneath the eaves
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212 PROSE AND VERSE.
The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs.
And twit me with the Spring,
« Oh ! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet ;
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet :
For only one short hour
* To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want,
And the walk that costs a meal !
" Oh ! but for one short hour !
A respite, however brief!
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart —
But in their briny bed '
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread !"
With fingers weary and worn.
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread ;
Stitch— stitch— stitch !
In poverty, hunger and dirt ;
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch —
Would that its tone could reach the rich !-
She sung this << Song of the shirt !"
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ri»><WVMM»«WMMW»<»<
QLIMP8E8 OF THE WONDERFUL.
i Glimpses of the Wonderfal. A book of interest and instruc-
tion for the youthful mind. 1 neat yol. 13mo., with 34 en-
gramgs yery handsomely printed, and neatly bound. 75c.
CoNTBNTS : — Ship.buildin{r — The Steam-ship — Eddyttone light- \
house — Comparative size of Public Buildings — The Churches of ^
St Peter and St. Paul— The Cave of Elephanta— Alnwick Cas.
tie— Ancient Punishment — ^Tbe Chinese— Tiger Hunting — ^The
Speim-whale Fishery — ^The Narwhal — Crocodile Hunting — Pearl
Diving— The Eagle— The Bat— The Flying-fish— The Lion and
the Giraffe — ^The Boa Constrictor — Skeletons of the Boa and Ele-
phant—The Rhinoceros— The Whale attacked by Fishes— The
Greenland Whale — The Blood and Hair — ^The Porcupine — ^The
Peter Botte Mountain — Icebergs — Astronomy — ^The Moon — Con-
clusion.
''The author has moolded his work into that popular form which combines,
in due proportion, amusement with instruction. The engravings are original
and s^lAtedJ"— Albany Argut.
" There is so much sound sense and good advice in this pretty volume that
we cannot be too earnest in recommending it. The engravings are remarkably
clever.**— CAriflum Remembrancer.
"This is a most entertaining as well as instructive work. We strongly re-
commend it to parents and teachers as an excellent book for their Juvenile
fklends."— JV*«i0 Haven Cowrier,
''An excellent little work, which mutt soon become a fltvorite with our
young friends. It has been tastefully got up, and the engravinfi an excellent." ,
^ — Al r. Cemriar,
"The style of the author is remarkably forcible, chaste, and elegant"—
If. T. True Sun.
TALE8 OF THE KINQ8 OF ENGLAND.
Tales of the ElingB of England : Stories of Camps and Battle- '
Fields, Wan and Victories ; from the Old Historians. By
Stephen Percy. 2 yery neat volumes, 18mo., with engrar-
ings. Each, 50 cents.
"These works are constructed on a plan which is novel, and we think well
chosen ; and we are glad to find that they are deservedly popular, for they
cannot be too strongly recoDomended, as adapted for the penual of youth.'*—
Jonmal of Education,
" The design of these pretty volumes is exceHent**— ^tfos.
" We know of no other books which so charmingly blend amusement with
Instruction. No Juvenile books have been published in our time more entitled
to praise."— JEMMMMr.
"These pleasing and simple stories are well adapted to the capacity of chil-
dren.**— C»rM& Mag.
** As amusing as they are instructive.*'— A*. T Poet.
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^I W MWWMM' l
HYDROPATHY; OR THE WATER-CURE.
Its Principles, Modes of Treatment, &c, Dlostrated with
many cases. Compiled chiefly from the most eminent
European authors on the subject. By Joel Shew, M. D.
Second edition, reyised and enlarged. In one thick toI
15hno. Price $1.
" since the lint edition of this work was pfablished, (he compiler has had nn-
mraons opportanities of testing the efficacy of the new system ; and his fonner
confidence in it is not the least diminished. That confidence is, if possible,
trowing more and more strong. The system, consisting as it does of an end-
less variety of applications of water, internal and external, warm, hot, or cold,
as the case may leqoiie. Is incomparably m<Nre efifoctual than any othor, tan
speedily Mlievlng pain, subduing inflammations and fevers <^ every Und,
strengthening the body to the greatest possible extent ; thus enabling it in the
most eflbctnal manner to resist disease. The new system is entirely without
parallel— a significant fiu:t to be pondered by the * scientific' objectors who de-
cry it"— dSattor.
"The excellent and able volume before us, which relates marvellous cues,
cannot fldl to be acceptable to our conmiunity. Dr. Shew has ccnfenred a great
bocm upon the public, in introducing this system."— JV*. T, EacprtM.
" This work must have found friends, and we think deservedly so, for it has
soon reached a second edition, which has been improved and enlarged. We
can safely recommemi it as a safe guide to health."— U. S. Oaietu.
"The water-treatment finds many disciples in Europe and this country.
This' work of Dr. Show's Is very lucidly drawn up, and is by far the most
complete view of the practice under this method that has been given."—
JV. r. Po9U
"This system will cure most curable complaints, and Dr. Show's valuable
work claims for the water-cure great inherent efficacy. The book gives sound
general views of health and of the treatment of disease, and we can salely
recommend it to our num^mis circle of readers."— Evmtiy Mirror,
UEBIQ'8 ANIMAL CHEMI8TRY.
Animal Chemistry ; or Organic Chemistry in its Applications
to Physiology and Pathology. By Justus Liebig, M. D.,
Ph. D., &c. Edited from the author's manuscript by
W. Gregory, M. D. 1 vol. 12mo., printed in fine large
t]rpe, and with a complete index. $1 00.
" While we have given but a very imperfect sketch of this wiginal and pro-
found work, we have endeavored to convey to the reader some notion of the
rich store of interesting matter which it contains. The chemist, the physiolo-
gist, the medical man, and the agriculturist, will all find in this volume many
new ideas and many useful practical remarks. It is the first specimen of what
modem Organic Chemistry is capable of doing for Physiology ; and we have ;
no doubt that fix>m its appearance physiology will date a new era in her ad- '
yance."— Qiuir(«r/y Review.
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— X
i
LETTERS AND DESPATCHES OF CORTE8. |
The Despatches of Fernando Cortes, the Conqueror of Mexi- \
CO, addressed to the Emperor Charles V. ; written during
tlie Conquest, and containing a narrative of its events.
Translated by George Folsom, Secretary of the N. Y.
Historical Society. In 1 vol. Med. 8vo. $1 25. Large
Paper copies, $2 00.
" We venmre to pronounco this one of the most curious and most Interesting
books that have made their appearance for some time. These deqiatches have
never before been seen in the English language, and one of them at least has
never been printed even in Spain. The very title is enough to arouse a deep
intisrest The Conquest of Mexico, written by the Conqueror himself, on the
▼eiy field of battle! We can scarcely think of a rarer desideratum."— JV*. Y.
Courier,
"'Vhese very interesting records of a National Military Romance, which
created a new worid, and produced most marvellous changes by its influence on
the old. The translation is ably performed.**— Z.tt«rary Oazette.
"This is a volume which ought to find a niche in every well-furnished libra-
ry. It presents a most extraordinary autograph picture by one of the most extrar
ordinary characters of our modem history."- Otote.
" This book Ib a credit to the American press. The Despatches of Cortes are
among the most interesting and singular documents ever penned. They give a
minute and vivid account of his conquest, and of the wonderful scenes presented
to his view on his first entiy into the Kingdom of Mexico."— Brttoniuo.
" This book has all the interest of a novel, and all the value of a history.
What hieher praise can we bestow upon such a work ? This marveUous, this
unpaicUeled Stary."— Tablet
" He preserves an Interest in his narrative read even at this distance, when
the mysterious novelties of the country, the importance of the facts, and the
uncertainty of the result, have long ceased to impart an interest."— S^totor.
"This is one of the most curious publications of the day. A valuable histori-
cal document, containii^; an exact and picturesque representation of the habits
and manners of a people long since exHacV*— Belize fFeekly Meeeenger,
THE YOUNG AMERICAN'S LIBRARY, NO. 1.
THE PRIMER:
With oyer 200 neat engrayings, most beautifully printed, in
quite a new and noyel style. Price 25 cents.
** As pretty a little book for little people as we ever saw. It is Aill of beautl-
Ail pictures, which convey some usrful lessons to the child while he is thinking
of nothing but pleasure. It strikes the sreat secret of education. The getting
up of tliis book is unusually fine, and we learn It is the first number of a ledei
corresponding to the name.*'— A*. F. TrikwM.
K y
I v«»^/vs^^^sA/v%^\^^wN*>^/wv% \r\\-\ n I'll or nnr>i">nnr "iirir>norinri i^n^^ni m ku >^'\i\% \%\4\i mw^n^M^MW^wv^^^^^^I i
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)
DR. CHEEVER'8 LECTURES ON BUNYAN.
Lectures on the Pilgrim^s Progress, and on the Life and
Times of John Bunyan. By the Rev. George B. Cheever,
D. D. 1 thick vol. 8to., printed in large type, with fine
steel-plate engravings. $3 50; or in 15 numbers at 25
cents each.
CoMTENTs. — 1. Bunyan and his Times ; 2. Bunyan's Tempta-
tions ; 3. Banyan's Examination ; 4. Banyan in Prison ; 5. Provi-
dence, Grace, and Genius of Bunyan ; 6. City of Destruction and
Slough of D^pond ; 7. Christian in the house of the Interpreter ;
8. Christian on the Hill of Difficulty; 9. Christian's fight with
ApoUyon ; 10. Christian in the Valley of the Shadow of Death ; '.
11. Christian and Faithful in Vanity Fair; 12. Doubtmg Castle
and Giant Despair; 13. The Delectable Mountains and En-
chanted Ground ; 14. Land Beulah and the River of Death ; 15.
Christiana, Mercy, and the Children.
"We know of nothing in American literatare more likely to be interesting ;
and useful than these lectures. The beauty and force of their imagery, the ;
poetic brilliancy of their descriptions, the xwrrectness of their sentiments, and ,
the excellent spirit which pervades them, must make their perusal a feast to aA ;
of the religious ccMomunity ."— Tribune.
DOWNING'8 COTTAGE RESIDENCES.
Designs for Cottage Residences, adapted to North America,
including Elevations and Plans of the Buildings, and De-
signs for Laying out Grounds. By A. J. Downing, Esq.
1 vol. 8vo. with very neat illnstrations. Second edition,
revised. $2 00.
A second edition of the " Cottage Reoidenoes** is Just published, as Part I. ;
and it is announced by the Author that Part n., which is in preparation, will
e<mtain hints and deslms for the interiars and furniture of cottages, as well as ;
additional designs for farm buildings.
One of the leading reviews remarked that ** the publication of these works ;
may be considered an era in the literature of this country.'* It is certainly true
that no works were erer issued from the American press which at once exerted
a more distinct and extended influence on any subject than have these upon the
taste of our country. Since the publication of the first edition of the " Land-
scape Gardening," the taste for rural embellishments has increased to a surpris-
ing extent, and In almost every instance this volume ]b the text- book of the
Improver, and the exponent of the more refined style of arrangement and keeping :
introduced into our country residences.
The "Cottage Residences" seems to have been equally welMimed and hap- ;
pily done. Country gentlemen, no longer limited to the meager designs of un-
•ducated carpenters, are erecting agreeable cottages in a variety of s^les milted :
to the kwation or scenery. Even in the West and South there are already ;
many striking cottages and villaa built wholly, or in part, from Mr. Downlng's ;
designs ; and in the suburbs of some of the cities, most of tne new residences are ;
■Modified or moulded after (he hints thrown out in this work.
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DOWNING, ON LANDSCAPE GARDENING.
A Treatise .on Landscape Gardening; adapted to North
America, with a view to the improvement of Country Re-
sidences. Comprising historical notices, and geiieral prin-
ciples of the art ; directions for laying out grounds, and >
arranging plantations ; description and cultivation of hardy \
trees ; decorative accompaniments to the house and grounds ; \
formation of pieces of artificial water, flower-gardens, etc. ; \
with remarks on Rural Architecture. New edition, with |
large additions and improvements, and many new and
beautiful illustrations. By A. J. Downing. 1 large vol. \
8vo. $3 50. * I
(^This volume, the Aral American treatise on this subject, will at once take {
the ranli of tAe standard worlc."— St//tinan*« Journal. \
" Downing's Landscape Gardening is a masterly work of its kind,— more \
especially considering that the art is yet iu its*infancy in America."— Z.<md4m'« |
" Nothing has been omitted that can in the least contribute to a full and ana- \
lytical development of the subiect ; and he treats of all in the most lucid order, \
and with much perspicuity and grace of dictitmJ'^—Democratie Review. <
<
't We dismiss this work with much respect for the taste and Judgment of the \
author, and with full confidence that it will exert a commanding influence. \
They are valuable and itwtruciive, and every man of taste, though he may not \
weed, will do well to possess it."— JW»rtA J3\neriean Review. ^
\
DOWNING'S FRUITS OF AMERICA.
The Fruits and Fruit Trees of America ; or. the culture^ pro-
pagation, and management, in the garden and orchard, of
fruit trees generally; wifli descriptions of all the finest
varieties of fruit, native or foreign, cultivated in the gardens
of this country. Illustrated with numerous engravings and
outlines of fruit. By A. J. Downing. 1 vol. 12mo., (and
aloo 8vo.
*^* This will be the moat complete work on the subject ever published, and
wni, it la hoped, supply a desideratum long felt by amateura and cultivators.
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GARDENING FOR LADIE8.
Gardening for Ladies ; and Companion to the Flower-Gardcn.
Being an Alphabetical arrangement of all the ornamental \
Plants usnally grown in gardens and shrubberies; with
full directions for their culture. By Mrs. Loudon. First I
American, from the second London edition. Revised and
edited by A. J. Downing. 1 thick vol. 12mo., with en- I
gravings representing the processes of grafting, budding, |
layering, &c., &c. $1 50. i
I' A tnily chftnninf work, written with sfmpllciry and cleamnH. It ta deci- |
dedly the best work on the subject, and we Btrun^ly recommend it to all our |
fair countrywomen, as a work they ought not to be without*'— A*. Y. Courier, t
(* Mr. Downing is entldod to the thanks of the fair florists of our country for I
introducing to their acquaintance this comprehensive and excellent manual, i
which must become very popular. Besides an instructive treatment on the best <
modes of culture, transplanting, bedding, training, destroying insects, &c., and I
the management of plants m imts and green-houses, illustrated with numerous I
plates; the work comprises a Dictionary of the English and Botanic names of I
the most popular flowens, with directions for their culture. Altogether we I
shoukl Judge it to be the most valuable work in the department to which it 1
belongs.** — Newark .Advertiser,
^This is a full and complete manual of instruction upon the subject of which
it treats. Being intended for those who have liule or no previous knowledge of I
gardening, it presents, in a very precise and detailed manner, all that is neces- I
sary to be known upon it, and cannot fail lo awaken a more general taste for :
these healthful and pleasant pursuits among the ladies of our country.**— JV*. V.
Tribune,
*<Tbis truly delightful work cannot be too highly commended to our fair coun-
trywomen.'*— JV. y. Journal of Commerce.
•* We cordially welcome, and heartily commend to all our fair friends, whether i
llvhig in town or country, this very excellent work."— JV. T. Tribune.
THE BIRDS OF LONQ ISLAND-
Containing a description of the habits, plumage, &c., of all
the species now known to visit that section, comprising the :
larger number of birds found throaghout the State of New
York, and the neighboring States. By T. P. Giraud, jr.
1 vol. 8to. Price $2 00.
This work, though dedgned chiefly for the use of the gunnen and sportsmen j
residing on Long Island, will still serve as a book of reference for amateurs and \
others coUectfaig ornithological specimens in varknis seedoiia of the United i
States, particularly for those persons residing m the ■ea-«oaBt> of New Jeney (
and the Easteni States. >
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NEW WORK ON THE EAST. |
I Eothen ; or, Traces of Travel brought IJ^ome from the East.
1 neat Tolume, very handsomely printed on fine paper.
50 cents.
Contents. — ^Preface — Over the border — Journey from Belgrade
!to Constantinople — Constantinople — The Troad — Infidel Smyrna :
—Greek mariners — Cyprus — Lady Hester Stanhope^ — ^The Sane-
. tuary — The monks of the Holy Land — From Nazareth to Tiberias
I — ]Viy first bivouac — The Dead Sea — The black tents — Passage
of the Jordan — ^Terra Sancta — The desert — Cairo and the plague
— The Pyramids — The Sphynx — Cairo to Suez — Suez — Suez to
Gaza — Gaza to Nablous — Mariam — The prophet Damoor — Da-
mascus — Pass of the Lebanon — Surprise of Satalieh.
" Graphic in delineation, animated in style, firanic in manner, and artistieal in
the choice and treatment of the subjects selected forgresentation."— iS^eetotor.
^ He has wit and hamor that shed an illustrative gleam en every object
which he describes, placing it in the happiest teiieV^—^thenaum^ (fiist notice.)
" The book Is as * light as light,' and as lively as life, yet are there In it pas-
sages and scenes which would make most men grave and solemn."— wdliUiunMR,
(second notice.)
**Thi8 book with a had title is wonderflilly clever.**— JEJzamtiMr.
''We have seldom, in a word, perused a volume which so irresistibly claims
the attention, from the first page of the preface to the finale of the wander-
ings."— ./Jt/o*.
**If these be not poetry, and of a pure and striking kind too, we an no
ciAtics."— Literary OazOte.
**Ii\B novel in all its detaiU."— Bn'towia.
**Hls account is brief, but were volumes written it could cot bring the actual
scene more to our mind*s eye. We are frequently startled in the midst of mirth
': by some groat touch of nature— flome terrible display of truth."— JVewf of tA$
» mrld,
**The scenes through which ke passed are exhibited with a clearness, and
stamped upon the mind with a strength, which Is absolutely fascinating. The
whole is accompanied with the strong commanding evidence of truth, and em-
bellished with all the beauty of poetry."— O/ofte.
** This is the sort of writing for a travellers-sketchy, vigorous, and original.**
•^Monung PmL
** A book which exerts a very fascinating effect on its readers."— Jferniiy
Ckroniele,
** We have rarely met with a work of the kind, blending «o successively
curious and instrucUve Information with light and amusing reading." — IVMt-
I mimUr Review.
\ "Nothing so sparklfng, so graphic, so truthftil in sentiment, so poetic in
\ vein, has Issued fVom the press for many a day."— 7%0 Critie.
\ ** This Ls a real book— not a sham. It displays a varied and eomprehanave
I power of mind, and a genuine mastery over the first and strongest of modem
I langniges. The author has caught the character and humor of the eastern
j mind as completely as Anastnsins, while In his gorgeous d^jcriptions and
I powoT of sarcasm he rivals Vathek. His terseness, vigor, and bold imagery
} remind us of the bmve old style of Puller and of South, to which he adds a
^ spirit, fteshness, and delicacy all his own."— Qiuire«W|r Review,
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I ROME IN 104»-4. T
Rome ; as seen by a New-Yorker in 1843-4. One toI. 12ino. i
with map, and very handsomely printed. Price 75 cents. I
CoNTKim. — Saint Peter's— the Forum and Coliaeom — ^the Capi- s
tol — Cburches, images, reliques, and miracles — A day among the \
tombs of Rome — ^I'he Vatican— -Christmas at Rome — The palaces |
of Rome — Ancient baths and modem fountains — A Roman dining- 1
house and caf6 — ^The Velabram, Ghetto, and Trastevere — ^Car- \
dinals, monks, beggars, and robbers — A promenade on the Pincian \
Hill— Sculptors and painters — The modern Romans — Appendix^
—How to see Rome — ^The Duomo of Milan. \
** Thb Is one of the most admirable books of the kind we have ever read. \
Its most marked eharecleristic is perfut taste, and this is conspicnons in every i
part of It, preface and contents, style and typography. The descriptions of the i
varioas objects of interest are clear, accurate, and In the highest degree pic- i
torasqae and pleasing. The book mast commend itself to every cultivated l
mind ; less, perhaps, \m any strikingly new information which it contains, than ;
by the chaste and refined spirit which pervades it"— A*. Y. Courier and £»- >
piirer. \
"■ The present work is so unlike any of its predecessors that we have met <
with, that no one need hesitate to purchase it, on the ground of its being a \
repetition of what is already familiar, [ts style is simple and graceful ; its \
descriptions exceedingly graphic and striking ; and every thing is brought out \
with such life and freshness, that the reader, by a slight effort of imagination, \
becomes the author*s companion, during hb scgoum amidst the desolations and \
glories of Rome. It is altogether a delightful book."— jf/iany Jirgus.
*'Thi8 elegantly-printed volume cannot fail to be read by thousands, and
read with delight Our authoi has vividly and succinctly portrayed whatever
people usually go to Rome to see, or read travels thither to learn. His letters
may be read with pleasure by the thorough scholar, as well as by the eager
devourer of all that is new."— JV. Y. Tribune.
** Whoever wishes to obtain a close and familiar view of Rome, will get it
nowhere better than in this work. Mr. Gillespie has looked upon the city
with the eye and heart of a scholar. He enjoys Rome, and this very enjoy-
ment of his communicates itself to his writings, and he involuntarily puts his
readers in a state of feeling to eqjoy it with him.'^— Democratic Review.
"We know so well the mental qualities by which the book is guided— the
elegance of taste, purity, and good judgment— that we are scarce prepared to
oriucise It as a new book. Mr. Gillespie has gone to work like a tranquil
scholar and lover of art, and has toned his book from the second stage of his
impressions rather than the first. His views, of course, are more reliable, and,
without further comment on the quality of the book, which is in all respects
admirable, we extract," fcc.— JV*. Y. Evening Mirror.
**Thi8 Is a very agreeable book, written with an ease and fluency that make
it quite delightful. The author states what came under his observation and
his hnpressions with an earnest fteedom, which assures the reader that what
he is perusing to characterized by truth. Every subject apparently, ol' interest
has been touched upon, in a manner sufficiently fUU ; and yet the description is
: marked by a conciseness which gives the work an advantage over many others
ofa similar nature."— A*. Y.Mbion.
*' We are exceedingly pleased with this book, because the author is above,
the conventional mode of thinking and describing. He thinks for himself, and
he speaks frankly ; moreover, he is a close observer, and is evidently possessed
of taste and discrimination."— JV. Y. Anglo-Anurican.
"llie writer describes and relates with a vivacity which gives his sul^t,
Mte though it be, an aspect of novelty."->JV. Y. Eveiung Pott.
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VE8TIGE8 OF THE CREATION. |
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. By Sir Richard I
Yyyyan, Bart., M. P., F. R. S., &c. One vol. 13mo. well |
printed. Price 75 cents.
Contents. — 1. The bodies of space, their amngements and
formation — ^2. Constituent materials of the earth and other bodies
of space — 3. The earth formed ; era of the primary rocks— 4. Com-
mencement of organic life ; sea plants, corals, &c. — 5. Era of the
old red sand-stone ; terrestrial zoology commences with reptiles ;
first traces of birds--^. Era of the oolite ; commencement of mam-
malia — 6. Era of the cretaceous formations— 7. Era of the ter-
tiary formation ; mammalia abundant — 8. Era of the superficial
formations; commencement of the present spesies — 9. General
considerations respecting the origin of the animated tribes — 10.
Particular considerations respecting the origin of the animated
tribes — 11. Hypothesis of the deyelopment of the vegetable and
animal kingdom — 12. Maclay system of animated nature; this
system considered in connexion with the progress of organic crea-
tion, and as indicating the natural status of man — 13. Early his-
tory of mankind — 14. Mental constitution of animals— 15. Pur-
pose and general condition of the animated creation — 16. Note
condusory.
**Thls Is a lemaAable volimie^Himall in compasa— bat embracing a wide
nmge of inquiry, from worlds beyond the visible starry firmament, to the
minutest structures of man and animals. The work is written with peculiar
and classical terseness, reminding us very much of the style of Celsus
We have dedicated a large space to this remarkable work, tliat may induce
many of our readers to peruse the original. The author is, decidedly, a man
of great Information and reflection.**— JMMtco-Cfccmr/iM/ Review.
*' This is a very beautifhl and a very interesting book. Its theme is one of
the grandest Uiat can occupy human thought— no less than the creation of the
universe. It is fhll of interest and grai^ur, and must claim our readers*
special notice, as possessing, in an eminent decree, matter for their contempla-
Uon, which cannot &il at once to elevate, to gratify, and enrich their minds."
— jn^fiss* Review.
** A neat littie volume of much interest Judging flom a brief glance at the
contents of the volume, the author has produced a work of great interest, and
one which, while it affords the reader useAil instruction, cannot iUl to ton
his mind to a very profitable channel of reflection.*'— Graimer. Jtdv,
** A small but remarkable work. It is a bold attempt to connect the natoral
sdenoes into a history of creation. It eontains much to interest and instrart,
; ead the book is ingenums, logical, and learned.*'— jyTMperifc Adv.
''This work discovers great ingenuity and neat research into the mysteries
ef nature. It is a noble work, and one which no intelligent person can read
without finding a fkesh impulse communicated to his thoughts, and gainhig
some higher impressions of the Greator*8 power, wisdom, and goodness.**—
JOmtg Jtrgne.
** A novel and remaiksble work, which will speedily attract the attention of
all inquisitive readers. There is much that Is new and Incenioua in the book.
The author, whoever he Is, is a man of varied philosopb3cal and literary at>
tainments, and roaster of a style in conveying his thoughts, so pure, simple,. !
and modest, that his treatise wiU be everywhere widely roML*'— JV. F. JUnt^
ii^lfem.
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V.
*MWWMMMWMMMSAA«SA«MMWMWkMMAA<
«^^«A/W»«WSMA«VWW«AA«^^^M jl
THE MEMENTO! A GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP.
The Memento : a Gift of Friendship. Edited by C. W.
fiyerest. This interesting volome consists of original Tales
and Sketches, in prose and verse, by forty-six eminent
contributors. 1 vol. 12mo., with engrayings. $1 50.
**TbiB book» had It been pabltahed a few mmiths earlier, would have passed
for one of the more attractive aannaU of the season ; bat it posse s ses such in-
herent attractions, that it need not borrow favor tnm «»y season, in order to
meet with a high appreciation fW>m intelligent readers. It is made np of con-
tribotkMks both in prose and poetry, from many of the most gifted pens in the
land ; and while the articles are not generally of a strictiy religtoos character,
they are nevertheless of a moral and useful tendency. The work is withai
handsomely got np.** — Mbanjf Jtrgut,
'* This is a beantiftil gift-book. It is rather late in its appearance, but better
late than never ; for it Is a work which, having once had, we would unwil
ling^y give up. Four good pftctnies adorn the volume, and the literary matter
of the volume Is very good. We have seldom seen a prettier gift-book.**--
SmtmHag Ew^^rhtm.
** This is a very neatly printed volume, filled with excellent literary eontri- ;
buttons fhim well-known writers, and commended to tastefhl readers by the
reputation of its editor. It is admirably fitted to be a gift-book for all seasons,
and cannot fkU to be popular.**— Ae/v^oiw Speetatmr.
**Tbe usual taste exhibited by this gentleman In vaifous literary compila-
tions, charaeteilMs in an eminent degiee this beautlfU volume. In material
and typography its pages are as pleasing to the eve, as the effusions with
which they are graced are agreeable to the reader. Two exquisite engravings
adorn the opening of the wori^ one a vignette of a female figure, fhm a draw-
ing by J. B. Flagg— the other a portrait of Master Howard, firom a figure bv
Chapman— and several others are interspersed in the body of the book, which
Is handsomeiy bound in cloth and gilt We predict that this will be a taking
work, and fhun the array of contributions which enrich its leaves, we believe
Justly ■writs a rapid saleJ**— JVsw Haven Onrur.
M The sight of a book which is published under the auspices of Mr. Everest
Is always welcome; for he is known^to a large circle of readers, as an oM
The present volume comes at a late day
New Tears* and the Christmas holidays, and St Valen-
and valued flriend in tbesematters.
for an annual-
tine*s, and the other seasons when we remember each other in a firiendly in-
tershange of mementoes, have passed. Still, as the editor says, the present
collection is not designed merely as an annual, or holiday gift
** It contains a variety of articles, both prose and poetry, selected firom a very
large number of eminent contributors, some of whom are ranked among the
omaments of our literature. As choice selecticms, these contributions will be
cheiiahad, and the offering which Mr. Everest hers makes to his ikiends, must
be mmly appreciated.**— ITor^tfrd Orarwat.
**Tlie 'Memento* Is Intended for a gift-book. Tt is exceedingly neat and
tastefU in its outward appearance, and we can find no fiiult with it, except
for being a littie behind its time. It ought to have been nubUshed at Chrls^
mas, when all the wcnrid and his wifii were out shopping, alter Just such books. :
Yet, after all, though it came to us like a swallow out of season, we learn firom
the editor's prefatory note, that this Is not so much its fault as its misfortxne ;
and surely we cannot blame it for its misfortunes. It is made up of selections
fltom some of our most popular writers.**— ProoMtracs JoutmI.
''This is a very chrysantheum among the annuals, and should be reeeiTed
aecordingly— the more welcome for flowing out of season. The Memento Is a
very neat, unpretending volume, and contains much agreeable reading.*'— JIT.
F. JWffTsr.
" W» advke aU our fUends t» ptaee ttin their llbnries, whore its gnat mer-
I Its wlU entitle U to a plafie.**—C3M«lieii JWssMm.
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