Chapter II (2)

This, however, was only at the commencement of the performance, while the spectators were being coaxed to contribute, and while several among them, not knowing exactly what they were doing, were giving a half-penny. But when the ladder was deliberately hoisted up, and fixed on the chin, then came the utter hopelessness of presenting a true resemblance of the ass's face--the boy's we mean;--of the conscious pride in its own blankness, of its self-complacency, tinged with a slight touch of fear, amounting only to a pleasurable excitement! He was a boy picked out of the crowd around,--yet he was matchless. You saw at once that he was not _employed_ by the mountebank--that he was not _paid_ for being balanced. There was something in his look that distinguished him at a glance from the hired professor. It might be supposed that, the boy not being hired, there would be a little difficulty in procuring a substitute for the ass: not so; only blow a trumpet or beat a drum in the street, and you are surrounded in less than no time with able and willing volunteers. This boy entered into the soul of the ass's part; he did not hug, and hang on the ladder mechanically, or like one who had done the same thing a dozen times before, that very day. There was the freshness of the young aspiration, the delicious novelty of the first grand step in life--in the attempt. It was young Ambition (as Brutus says) just mounting his ladder. He was animated by the glorious intoxication of getting up in the world. He looked direct forward; not at, but through, the brick wall opposite, into futurity. If one of his schoolfellows had called out, "Master's a coming;" or, "Here's your father with the cartwhip;" or, "Bill, I'm blessed if here arn't the woman what we stole the apples on;"--no, even these notes of alarm would have failed to disturb his equanimity--or his equilibrium. "Have a slice o' cold pudden, Bill?" might have communicated perhaps to some part of his frame a momentary touch of human weakness--we can't say positively--boys are but men;--but nothing short of such an appeal to the weak side of his nature could have disturbed his rapt and lofty musings.

Since the days of the Hebrew with which we set out, when the Ass on the Ladder was but a fiction, history has recorded the doings--we had almost said the sayings--of scores of wonderful quadrupeds. We have had gifted horses, who should have been elected F.R.S.'s; learned pigs, who should have been chosen LL.D.'s; humane dogs, who merit statues like Howard's; and industrious fleas, who do the work of hot water in putting lobsters to the blush. But such an ass as the Lad on the Ladder eye never beheld but that once. His face spread before our curious and inquiring gaze, like a map of the world, and we traced in recollection an infinite variety of character. What it more immediately suggested was the expression in the face of a successful candidate at the moment of "chairing," elevated in some fantastic car, surrounded with banners bearing patriotic mottoes and devices, and accompanied by roaring raggamuffins. It also conjured up a vision of a youthful aspirant, fresh from the office or the shop, strutting in Richard, or fretting in Hamlet, before eight long sixes, and a full bench of aunts, in a private theatre.

The ass on the ladder brings to memory a thousand other spectacles. When we behold an orator (to listen is impossible) flourishing his arms on the hustings, and ever and anon placing his hand upon his crimson waistcoat, or declaiming for an hour together before a private company to the exclusion of conversation, in full force of lungs, but in virtue of no mental superiority, we are forcibly reminded of the ass on the ladder.

When we see a sprig of fashion, who only obtained his nobility yesterday, and whose worth, if put up to auction, would be dear at the price of a mushroom, insolently claiming precedence of the untitled bearer of an ancient and honourable name; or when we observe the high-born, starched up to the eyes, sneering at humble birth, however associated with merit, and cutting modest respectability for a parvenu; in these cases we cannot help thinking of the ass on the ladder.

When we see a vulgar jack, in virtue of his office raised to the rank of gentleman, treating a poor suitor, who asks for his own, as if he were a beggar asking alms; or a sleek-headed, rosy-gilled idiot, who lives only in his own breeches-pocket, pretending to patronise talent because he doles out, for its exercise, what scarcely keeps its possessor from starving, we are very apt to call to recollection the ass on the ladder.

When a connoisseur, influential by position, sits down to decide, in just ten minutes, upon the merits of a work of art or science, which has cost the producer years of anxious study and ceaseless labour; or when a military despot lives but to harass, irritate, and torture the sensitive and honourable minds of those ill-fated officers, who, superior perhaps in everything else, happen to be below him in rank and fortune,--we immediately recur for a parallel to the ass on the ladder.

When we see a millionnaire, who has crawled along the road to riches until he can't stand upright, grasping with usurious hands at the little still retained by those who helped him to rise; or when a sudden puff of fortune has blown an adventurer into power and affluence, and we see him so giddy that he doesn't know his own poor relations, and actually can't recognise in broad daylight the struggling friend who lent him five pounds three months before,--then, and under all similar circumstances, we are sure to think of the ass on the ladder.

When we behold a gentleman turning jockey or stage-coachman, quitting the legislature for the stable or the cockpit, winking at the worst vices until he becomes himself tainted, and devoting his time and money to the destruction of his own health and the demoralisation of his hangers-on; or when we see a barrister, bullying with conscious impunity a trembling, blushing, inexperienced witness (perhaps a woman) until common sense becomes confused, truth begins to contradict herself, and honesty steps out of the witness-box, looking very much like a rogue,--why, who can fail to associate with spectacles like these, the ass on the ladder?

But it is not merely in the army and on the stage, at the bar and in literature, in the walks of commerce and in the world of fashion, that we daily detect some living prototype of the long-eared animal in the ascendant. If public meetings exhibit them, public schools do so no less abundantly. There is a great deal of ladder-climbing going on at the universities; and not a proctor in the precincts of learning but could tell many tales of asinine ambition. Who more irresistibly calls to mind the ass on the ladder than the noble knocker-wrencher, or the gentlemanly bell-destroyer, when brought up--many staves up the ladder now--before a magistrate, and indulgently allowed to take his choice--a fine of forty shillings, _or_ a month at the treadwheel? When the noble and gentlemanly sport extends to the pummelling of police-officers, only stopping within an ace of manslaughter, then the animal may be said to have reached the topmost stave--an elevation where every kick with which he indulges himself in his playful humour adds incalculably to his own imminent danger. The higher the ascent, the greater the ass. We have seen many instances, more melancholy than ludicrous, of asses falling from the very top.

For ourselves, we must candidly confess to a painful consciousness of having been--occasionally, and for not many days together--yet of having been, ere now, beyond all mistake, upon the ladder adverted to. Nay, emboldened by the virtuous frankness of this self-criminating admission, we even venture to put it to our (male) readers, whether they cannot recollect having had their own feet, at some time of their lives, on the first round of the ladder; whether they do not feel sensible of having placed just one foot on that lowest step of the ascent--one only--for we would not dare to insinuate that they ever got farther, lest they should turn upon us with the mortifying, and perhaps not altogether mistaken discovery, that we ourselves, even in this moment of moralising, have reached the top of it!

OMNIBUS CHAT.

The "Omnibus" had hardly started off, on the first of the month, from the door of Messrs. Tilt and Bogue, and taken a westerly direction up Fleet Street, commencing without the loss of an hour its monthly tour in search of the picturesque, when it was stopped for the purpose of taking in a passenger. This was at the corner of Bolt Court, out of which classical and celebrated avenue tumbled rather than walked a gentleman stout and elderly, with a bluff good-humoured countenance, all the pleasanter for an air of sternness which was evidently affectation. Having got in, he seated himself immediately opposite to us, that is to say, at the left-hand corner of the vehicle next the door, and at once began, as though he had been the ghost of Dr. Johnson, and possessed the unquestionable right in that neighbourhood to take the lead in conversation.

"Sir," he said, "you have made a fair start, but a start is not a journey. Now there's a fact for you--and it's a fact which the producers of Number-ones are deplorably prone to forget. With me, Sir, first numbers go for nothing. Some people will tell you that your No. 1. is _a proof as far as it goes_ of what you mean to do in this new vehicle of yours. Sir, some people are very fond of a 'proof as far as it goes.' But how far does it go? If you see a man in a black coat to-day, and you meet the same man in a blue coat to-morrow, it's 'a proof as far as it goes,' that he is the possessor of three hundred and sixty-five coats, or one for every day in the year. But still, sir, you have made a fair start. Let me warn you against stoppages; never stop but when you have to take up or set down. Don't overload your vehicle. No racing, but go quietly. All of which means, don't cut knotted oaks with razors, and when you have a 'wee crimson-tipped flower' to paint, don't make a great red flare of it. Above all, sir, never follow advice, however excellent, when it is offered to you in a long speech; for the man who would presume to take up two minutes and a half of your valuable time at one sitting, deserves to be put into a Mile-end omnibus by mistake, when he's bound for Turnham Green direct."

We had scarcely time to thank our gruff but good-humoured adviser--whom we at once set down for a chip of that respectable old block, the Public in General, and identified as a specimen of Middle-aged People in Town and Country--we had barely time to assure him that his last important suggestion at all events should be especially remembered, when a voice burst forth from the further end of the vehicle, where in the dim light the speaker was only just visible. He was a very young man, evidently of the last new school, and in a tone of jocular familiarity he called out, "I wish that gentleman from Bolt Court would explain the phenomenon of a new work being started with a preface so totally unlike the prefaces of all new works published during the last half-century, which invariably begin with 'Dr. Johnson has observed.'"

The elderly passenger appealed to, frowned; but in less than a minute the frown gave way to a smile, and without further noticing the challenge, he said, "Dr. Johnson is not responsible for a ten-thousandth part of what during the last half-century has been observed in his name. His mimics are calumniators, and they have distorted his sentiments as remorselessly as they have disfigured his style. Since subjects of caricature are not prescribed in the present company, I may safely put it to the vote whether any exaggeration is more gross than that which commonly passes in the world for exact imitation. There are people who can trace resemblances in the most opposite and unlikely forms. Old ladies, stirring the fire, and tumbling the bright cinders into new combinations, will often hit upon a favourite coal and cry, 'Well, I declare if that isn't like Mrs. Jenkinson.' And no doubt the resemblance is quite as perfect as that between the ridiculed manner of Johnson, and the rumblings of his sneering mimics. He, with a full measure of language but not an overflow, with nice inflexions, a studied balance, yet with a simple elegance not destroyed by his formality, opens a story--stay, I can give you a graceful passage of the Doctor's, and in the same breath you shall hear how it would come spluttering forth from the clumsy pen of his imitators.

"'DR. JOHNSON HIMSELF.

"'Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and
pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age
will perform the promise of youth, and that the deficiencies of
the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the
History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.'

"'DR. JOHNSON IMITATED.

"'Ye who listen with ignorant credulity to the whispering
blandishments of fancy, and pursue with inconsiderate eagerness
the enchanting and seductive phantoms of hope; who idly expect
that grudging age will perform the rash but generous promise
of thoughtless youth, and that the glaring deficiencies of the
present day will be providentially supplied by the inexhaustible
profusion of the morrow; attend to the moral history of Rasselas,
Crown Prince of Abyssinia.'"

"There is much truth in what you observe," said a quiet modest-looking passenger on our left to the talkative Johnsonite, who deprecated long speeches; "much truth; and perhaps as you dislike exaggeration in whatever professes to imitate, you might be entertained with one of my 'Photographic Pictures,' warranted accurate. I am, sir, yours respectfully, H. G. A. Now as there happens to be one of these pictures distinctly present to my eye at this moment, though the scene is far from Fleet Street, I think I can copy it to the life, and if you please we'll call it--

"A SCENE NEAR HOGSNORTON.

"A ditch frequented much by water-rats,
With velvet-headed rushes borderèd;
Two little boys who fish for tittlebats
With sticks, and crooked pins, and bits of thread;
Three willow trees that stand with drooping boughs
Upon the banks, and look disconsolate;
A bull that flings his tail up as he lows--
He's coming at those boys, as sure as fate!
A church spire peeping from amid the trees,
With vane in semblance of a fiery cock;
And Farmer Stubbles lolling at his ease,
Across a gate to view his fleecy flock;
A barn that seems just ready to fall down,
And _would_, but for the shores that stay its falling;
And, where yon row of elms the green slopes crown,
Is Thomas Noakes, with hand to mouth, outcalling
To Simon Simpson in the fields below,
And telling him to mind that precious bull--
He's fresh from town, poor lad, and does not know
What danger lurks amid the beautiful;
Here a tall oak its branches flingeth out,
As if it said--"I am of trees the king!"
And there an aged hawthorn spreads about
Its crooked arms--a queer misshapen thing;
Far off you see a mill--more trees--some houses--
Look at this frisking colt, why what a kicker!--
_Feathers and parasols!_ here come the spouses
Of Dr. Dobbs, and Mr. Trench, the vicar,
The Smiths, the Joneses, and Jemimah Prescot--
I'm off, before they nail me for their escort!"

The reciter, who wore an air that bespoke him of the country, was here addressed by a metropolitan gentleman seated in his vicinity, who announced himself as a brother initialist, A. G. K. "Well, sir, Simon Simpson, 'fresh from town,' was not more awkwardly situated than I once was, in this very lane here, when fresh from the country. You see the vehicle has just turned out of Fleet Street, and is making for Holborn; so if you like to listen, I'll give you my impressions on first finding myself in

"CHANCERY LANE.

"I meditated the desperate design of hastening to Holborn by the first street which led thither; a desperate design, indeed, as I knew not the street through which I should have to pass. As ill-luck would have it, "Chancery Lane" was the first that offered, and well does it deserve the name; dark, narrow, crooked, long, and tedious is this Elysium of the Law! On every side I beheld long and careworn faces, and, as is generally the case with legal suits, I might easily have got through it alone, had I not been prevented by the many passengers, like the numerous little cases put into causes to protract and swell the client's difficulties. Perhaps it may be thought that I could have stepped into the middle of the street, and so have managed to walk on; not so--the vehicles were as numerous nearly as the passengers, and there was no resource but to wait. On this, I began to look around me, to see if I could discover anything that could take away the tedium of stoppage. I gazed on the persons nearest to me; from the youngest to the oldest--from the poorest to the richest, there was the same invariable careworn look.

"First there came the young office-boy, groaning under a large bag of parchment and what not; then the unfortunate articled clerk, desponding at the idea of five years in so gloomy a place, wherein his youth's best years were to be spent. The needy clerks, who received a stipend, came next; their little all had, with the characteristic theatrical mania of lawyers' clerks, vanished the night previous at the Adelphi, or adjacent tavern. But not alone did these wear a look of gloom: the fishermen, the snarers, even the attorneys themselves, looked vexed; the stoppage of the way teased them sadly. It was five minutes past the time when that little bony wretch, the office boy, should have been screwed down to his comfortless stool, far from the apparition of a fire, from the phantom of heat! Last of all came the client: it will easily be surmised why he looked gloomy.

"The sun never shines there--the houses take care of that; in fact, the very 'fretwork' of the heavens seemed of a parchment yellow; the air breathed of briefs! No merry laugh is heard in Chancery Lane; no girl trips gaily along! No! the moaning of the dupe is heard there; the decrepit, grief-worn widow totters there, to find that her hope of subsistence is faded in useless expense. I have spoken of the numerous conveyances in the street. The horses were half-starved, the people within seemed bailiffs; and the omnibus proprietors (unlike our '_Omnibus_') looked anxiously for in-comers.

"Chancery Lane is, indeed, a fit place for the law: the houses overhang the street--the smoky windows, ay even the few shops seem impregnated with it. I turned to a book-stall to relieve my aching gaze, when a massive row of calf-bound volumes frowned upon me; I looked in a fruiterer's stall,--dry musty raisins, bitter almonds, olives and sour apples met my view. I then cast my eyes at a perfumery-shop; the wax dummies were arrayed in judge's wigs and black legal drapery. In despair I turned to a tailor's: a figure arrayed in black, on a wooden mould, appeared; but it was swathed in a barrister's gown. There was another figure with finely-cut clothes certainly; but allegorically, I suppose, it had no head. Such is Chancery Lane. My associations with it are none of the pleasantest. What are yours?"

This question, addressed to everybody, was answered by nobody. We had now advanced to the upper end of Chancery Lane; and, passing those buildings on the left, in which Equity presides over the affairs of suitors, a passenger, who introduced himself under the designation of Sam Sly, and in whose eye there was a pleasant twinkle not ill associated with the appellation, observed in an inward tone, as if he were speaking to himself, "A poor devil who has once got into that court, must soon feel himself in the position of the letter _r_." As Mr. Sly's remark was not intended to be heard at all--so at least it seemed--it of course attracted general notice; and as there was a disposition manifested to know "why," Mr. Sly politely explained, "Because, though far advanced in Chancery, he can never get quite to the end of it. By the way," he proceeded, "all law is but an enigma; and talking of enigmas, I happen to have one--yes, here it is. Rather an old-fashioned sort of thing, an enigma, eh? True, but so are epics, you know. Am I to read? oh! very well, since you're all so pressing;"--and then to the following tune Mr. Sly trolled out his

ENIGMA.

"A delinquent there is, and we ever shall scout him,
For roguery never would flourish without him.
We're lovers of peace; but regardless of quiet,
This knave is the first in a row or a riot;
A strange, paradoxical elf, we declare,
That shies at a couple but clings to a pair.
Though at first in the right, still he's found in the wrong;
And though harmony wakes him, yet dies in the song.
Three fifths of the error that poisons our youth,
Yet boasts of a formal acquaintance with truth.
Though not fond of boasting, yet given to brag;
And though proud of a dress, still content with a rag.
He sticks to our ribs, and he hangs by our hair,
And brings with him trouble, and torment and care;
Stands thick in our sorrows and floats in our tears,
Never leads us to Hope, but returns with our Fears;
To the worst of our passions is ever allied,
Grief, Anger, and Hatred, Rage, Terror, and Pride.
Yet still, notwithstanding, the rogue we might spare
If he kept back his old ugly phiz from the Fair."

We had by this time stopped at the end of Drury Lane to take up a passenger, who now appeared, emerging from that very dirty avenue, with an exceedingly small roll of MS. under his arm. The new-comer's eye was evidently in a fine frenzy rolling, and it was at once suspected from one end of the vehicle to the other, that he had just been writing a German Opera for Drury-lane Theatre. "Gentlemen," said he, the instant he had taken his seat, "you're all mistaken. Through that miserable cranny I have been picking a path to the theatre for the sole purpose of taking off my hat to the statue of Shakspeare, over the portico, in celebration of the event which renders its presence there no longer a libel and a mockery. You guess what I allude to. Mr. Macready has become the lessee of Drury; and the noble task which he assigned to himself in the management of Covent Garden, he purposes here to complete. The whole public will rejoice in the renewal of his experiment, which should be hailed in golden verse. I wish I could write sonnets like Milton or Wordsworth. Here are two, such as they are, addressed to the regenerator of the stage."

TO WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY,

ON HIS BECOMING THE LESSEE OF OLD DRURY.

I.

MACREADY, master of the Art supreme.
That shows to dazzled and else guideless eyes
(As doth Astronomy the starry skies)
The airy wonders of our Shakspeare's dream;
Com'st thou again to shed a wakening gleam
Of morals, taste, and learning, where the gloom
Most darkens, as around the Drama's tomb!
Oh, come, and show us yet the true Extreme;
Transcendent art, for coarse and low desire;
The generous purpose, for the sordid aim;
For noise and smoke, the music and the fire
Of time-crown'd poets; for librettos tame,
The emulous flashings of the modern lyre--
Come, and put scowling Calumny to shame!

II.

What though with thee come Lear, himself a storm
Of wilder'd passion, and the musing Dane,
The gallant Harry and his warrior-train,
Brutus, Macbeth, and truth in many a form
Towering! not therefore only that we warm
With hope and praise; but that thy glorious part
Is now to raise the Actor's trampled Art,
And drive from out its temple a loose swarm
Of things vice-nurtured--from the Porch and Shrine!
And know, Macready, midst the desert there,
That soon shall bloom a garden, swells a mine
Of wealth no less than honour--both most bare
To meaner enterprise. Let that be thine--
Who knowest how to risk, and how to share!

L. B.

Hereupon, a bard started up in the very remotest corner, and interposed in favour of the epigram, seeing that such oddities as sonnets and enigmas were allowed to pass current. Immediately, and by unanimous invitation, he produced some lines written in the album of a fair damsel, whose sire has but one leg, and complains of torture in the toes that he has not.

"The heart that has been spurn'd by you
Can never dream of love again,
Save as old soldiers do of pain
In limbs they left at Waterloo."

We expressed our acknowledgments, and then heaved a sigh to the memory of an old friend, who, having suffered from the gout before his limb was amputated, felt all the pain, just as usual, at the extremity of his wooden leg, which was regularly flannelled up and rubbed as its living predecessor used to be. But here our reflections were broken off by a stoppage, as if instinctively, at a chemist's shop, the door of which, standing open, afforded a fair view of the scene which follows. On the subject of hom[oe]opathy we profess to hold no opinion; but, considering that it prescribes next to nothing to its patients, it must be an excellent system for a man who has next to nothing the matter with him. It is comical, at all events, to think of a doctor of that school literally carrying his "shop" in his pocket, and compressing the whole science of medicine into the smallest Lilliputian nut-shell. Imagine a little customer going with

A LARGE ORDER

TO A HOMOEOPATHIC APOTHECARY.

_Little Girl._ "Please, sir, I want the hundred-thousandth part of a grain of magnesia."

_Young Chemist_ (Whose hair would certainly stand on end, were it not so tightly pommaded down, at the simplicity of the little innocent in asking for as much medicine as would kill or cure a whole regiment of soldiers). "Very sorry, miss, but we don't sell anything in such large quantities; you had better apply at Apothecaries' Hall." And he follows her to the shop-door to see whether she had brought with her a hackney-coach or a van to carry away the commodity she had inquired for!

* * * * *

_Driver._ I say, Tom, here's that there elderly lady a coming, as wanted to go with us at our first start.

_Cad._ Ay, well, it's no use, Bill--she's too late _agen_--ve're full--ALL RIGHT--GO ON!

"MY VOTE AND INTEREST."

A COMMUNICATION FROM MR. SIMPLETON SCHEMER, OF DOLTFORD-LODGE, CROOKSLEY.

Crooksley doesn't return members to Parliament--I wish it did. I'm sure I took pains enough ten years ago to procure for it--all my property being situate there--the privilege which was at that time accorded to other towns of consideration and respectability; for although the population doesn't much exceed three hundred and sixty, I took upon myself to make a return of our numbers to the then Secretary of State, which _ought_ to have prevailed in our favour; for I proved that the population amounted to within a dozen of seven thousand, merely by including the churchyard, which I well might do, as part and parcel of Crooksley itself, and adding the affectionate wives, virtuous husbands, and filial prodigies, now no more, to the estimate of the living inhabitants; also, by anticipating the returns of christenings for a few succeeding years; which was easily done by guessing, on the authority of Blandish (our medical man, with whom I was at that time friendly), what number of children extra the various increasing families within the boundaries of Crooksley were likely to be blessed with.

Not the smallest notice, however, was taken of my memorial; and Crooksley to this hour does not return a single representative. I read an advertisement the other day in our county paper, of some new patent strait-waistcoats; which advertisement was headed thus:--"Worthy the attention of the Insane!" Now, if Crooksley had been enfranchised, that is the very heading which might have been affixed to an advertisement for an independent candidate to represent it at the present crisis--"_Candidate wanted--worthy the attention of the Insane!_" for a place more unlucky in its elections, more ill-omened and perverse in all its contests, more predestined to choose the wrong candidate, or more wilfully bent on self-destruction by scorning the advice of its best friends and patrons, I never lived in, since the day I sold my stock and good-will, and retired from the Old Jewry for ever.

To every other place with which I am acquainted entrance is obtained by regular roads; to Crooksley, I verily believe, there is no egress whatever but by _cross_-roads. I'm thinking of selling Doltford-lodge--cheap.

The first contest that ever took place in Crooksley--for it is odd enough, but they never could get up a contested election until I, having retired from business, went to settle there in the enjoyment of concord, harmony, and peace,--the first contest occurred several years ago. It was a struggle--and well do I remember it--for the office of organist. No sooner was the place vacant--almost, I might say, before the bellows of the departed holder had lost their last breath of wind--than up started half-a-dozen of the nobs of Crooksley, with Dr. Blandish at their head, and down they came to me at the lodge with a flourishing testimonial to sign--a testimonial in favour of Miss Cramper, as a fit and proper person to fill the post of organist.

Miss Cramper! And who was Miss Cramper, I internally asked myself. But I couldn't answer the question. I knew, in fact, little about her, except that she had lived long in the place, had decent connexions, not over rich, and happened to be a capital musician; the best organ-player, I must admit, that anybody ever heard in or out of our village. But with this exception she hadn't a single claim, not a pretension that I know of, to the post of organist. She was not asthmatic--she had not nine children, seven of them solely depending upon her for support--nor did she even pretend to have lost her eyesight, "or any part thereof," as Knix the lawyer says; for she was ogling Blandish all throughout the interview, as if she looked upon _him_ to be the first-fiddle in Crooksley--Humph!

Well! I confess I didn't like the proceeding; and so, after assuring the requisitionists, in the friendliest manner, that Miss Cramper should certainly have my vote and interest--in the event, I added, more to myself, perhaps, than to them--in the event of no candidate coming forward to oppose her,--what did I do but I brought forward a candidate of my own!

It so happened that I had taken down there with me from the Old Jewry an elderly warehouseman, whom I couldn't well send adrift, and who was of no earthly use to me, either in the house or in the grounds. Now, poor Joggins, besides being bent double, chanced, very luckily, to have eyes like an owl, and there were the strongest hopes of their becoming speedily weaker; so that here at once was a qualification. In addition to that, he had had two sons: one, a waterman, drowned by the usual means, collision with a steamer, was easily elevated into a British seaman dying in defence of his country; and the other, for whom I had obtained a situation in the new police, was, of course, one of the brave devoted guardians of his native land. To crown our good-luck, Joggins had been very fond of playing the flute before wind got so very valuable to him, and really did know something practically of that enchanting instrument, so that his qualifications as an organist were more than indisputable.

Yet, strange to say, his nomination was the signal for violent opposition; and a tremendous conflict ensued. I was determined that Blandish, though backed by the vicar, should not carry everything before him with a high hand, nor become, what, ever since the part I had taken relative to the enfranchisement question, he was striving to be, the dictator of Crooksley. My own influence was not slight, and a powerful party rose up, notwithstanding our adversaries were earliest in the field. The walls were everywhere placarded, families were everywhere divided by circulars. "Vote for Joggins," "Vote for Cramper;" "Joggins and grey hairs," "Cramper and Musical Accomplishments;" "Joggins the veteran parent of our brave defenders," "Cramper and Female Virtue;" "Joggins and the failure of eyesight." "Cramper and Organic changes:" these were among the changes rung throughout the village, and a mile or two round it, for upwards of three weeks. I called public meetings, at which I took the chair, and personally carried the resolutions; and I started a Crooksley Chronicle, of which I was at once the editor and all the correspondents. In both capacities I defied our antagonists to prove that their candidate had any one of the qualifications by which ours was so abundantly distinguished. I dared them to prove that there were any brave defenders on the other side; that there existed any ocular weakness; that there was a single grey hair or any symptom of decrepitude: while, on the other hand, I showed triumphantly that the legitimate candidate for the office of organist was a veteran flute-player, utterly and hopelessly incapable of any exertion whatever, and unobjectionable by the excess of his infirmity.

Blandish was so alarmed at the progress we made, that he began to give out in reply that Miss Cramper was considerably more advanced in years than had been insidiously suggested; that her eyesight was anything but vivid; that what seemed to be her own hair might not bear examination; and possibly he would have proceeded to other intimations tending to balance her claims with those of Joggins, had she not stopped him with the declaration that she would rather lose her election, rather retire from the contest, than sanction such gross misrepresentations of fact. Truth, she said, was everything, and it must prevail; her hair was her own, and her eyes piercers, she thanked Heaven.

But notwithstanding this electioneering attack upon his own nominee, I saw that Blandish was on the very best terms with Miss C.; and as the interest he took in her success could not solely be attributed to gratitude for her attendance at all his evening parties, to play his guests into patients, by provoking headaches that demanded draughts and powders in the morning, I issued, the day previously to the poll, a placard containing surely a very inoffensive query, thus--"WHY is Blandish the patron of Miss Cramper?" The "why" was in very large capitals. Now will it be believed that this, though it asserted nothing disrespectful, and merely put an innocent question, immediately created a very strong sympathy throughout Crooksley in favour of our adversaries, and that the popular feeling was instantly shown in tumultuous cries of "Cramper for ever!" So it happened, however. The result was, that the venerable Joggins had virtually lost his election before the expiration of the first hour of polling. I then, feeling that every vote was wanted, went forward to record my own; when perceiving Blandish (he had a horsewhip in his hand), I turned back with the view of bringing up a batch of electors from a distant part of the village; and on my return all was at an end, and so my vote wasn't wanted; for Joggins, the old idiot, had resigned. I had a disagreeable encounter afterwards with that Blandish, who is, I really think, fonder of carrying a horsewhip than any man I know; but gloriously was I at a subsequent period revenged; for I shammed a long illness, sent off to a neighbouring town for an apothecary, and paid him thirty-seven pounds odd for attendance which I never required, and medicine which I never tasted! Poor Blandish was so irritated, that he fell really ill himself, and took his own mixtures for three weeks.

About a year after this we had another election in Crooksley. The gravediggership became vacant. The Blandish party, who had the churchwardens with them, wanted to get in young Digdum, the son of the late official; and he would have walked the course sure enough, if I hadn't brought forward little Spick the cross-sweeper to oppose him. Party feeling never ran so high, I think, as on this memorable occasion. Everybody felt the cause to be his own, and put forth his energies as though the issue of the struggle depended upon his exertions. It was like a life-and-death contest; and you would have thought that the consequence of being beaten was the being buried alive by the victorious candidate. I'm sure that if it had been to keep ourselves out of "apartments furnished" in the churchyard, we Spickites could not have toiled harder. Nor were the Digdumites idle.

On our side we had ranged, besides myself, who acted as chairman of the committee, Lawyer Knix (who handsomely volunteered his gratuitous services at two guineas a day); Fobbs, the landlord of the Crumpet and Spade; Tipson, of the Vicar's Head; (both of them very fond of an opposition, and always ready to further my views in bringing forward a candidate, and in keeping the poll open to the latest moment allowed by law;) then we had the crack printer of our town, whose charges were very moderate; several of the neighbouring gentry, friends of my own; and one Swarthy Sam, a character who had no fixed abode in Crooksley, nor indeed anywhere else, and had not, therefore, a vote to give--but who kindly took an interest in the contest, and who proved a most valuable agent, for he particularly knew what he was about in a row, could drown by his own unaided lungs the voice of the most stentorian speaker on the other side, and would tear down, I do think, more of the enemy's placards in an hour than they could stick up in a day. On their side, they had the fat churchwarden, and the stately master of the workhouse; the skeleton of a schoolmaster, the parish-lawyer (Knix was independent), and various other paid functionaries or hirelings.

Well, there wasn't one of them that didn't wish himself well out of Crooksley before the contest was over; for we left nothing of their private history unraked, I can tell you. The "Crooksley Chronicle" came again into play, and I wrote letters--in Junius's style--only under the various signatures of Vindex, Justitia, A Spickite, Philo-Spickite, Veritas, An Admirer of Crooksley, Anti-Digdum, &c. &c. We also raised with remarkable success, a cry of "No brickdust, no pigs' bristles!" in conjunction with the cry of "No Digdum." It did not in point of fact mean anything in particular, as far as we were aware, but it vexed the Digdum party amazingly, and made Spick surprisingly popular[4].

The best of the fun was that we had forestalled them in taking possession of _both_ public-houses--the Crumpet and Spade, and the Vicar's Head--for our committee-rooms; so that they had only a little bit of a beer-shop to assemble in. This drove the Digdum party to distraction. They made incredible exertions to get us out of the Vicar's Head; and a deputation came privately to our worthy host's good dame, and offered, if Digdum were returned, to bury her husband for nothing--for poor Tipson was sadly apoplectic! Such were the too-powerful temptations (for so in some instances they proved), such the demoralising practices, to which our depraved and desperate opponents had resort. They went to Clank the blacksmith, and promised, if he would but vote for Digdum, they would see him and all his family buried with pleasure free of charge; but Clank was not to be seduced, for having once had a turn-up with Swarthy Sam in the skittle-ground, he preferred being on the same side _with_ Sam, you see--not caring to fall out--and to say the truth, they were not a few that had similar feelings. Sam was a capital canvasser, and it wasn't everybody that would like to say "No" to him.

At last dawn'd the day, the important day,
"Big with the fate of Digdum or of Spick."

Every soul in Crooksley was out of doors; the excitement was intense; seventeen pots of beer and best part of a round of beef were consumed at the Crumpet and Spade alone before ten in the morning. Every chaise, fly, and hack in old Wheeler's yard was in requisition. Both parties were particularly well satisfied with the result of the canvass, and assembled at the place of nomination with equal confidence. Our flags bore the several inscriptions of "Spick the opponent of Corruption," "Spick and Span," "Spades are trumps," &c.; theirs had, "No Cross-sweeper," "No Sweeping Changes," "Digdum and the Rites of the Departed," &c. &c. Blandish nominated Digdum, and then I proposed Spick in a neat and appropriate speech.

Well we gained our election--that is, we gained it by a show of hands; but the other party took the mean advantage of demanding a poll. There was instantly a rush of upwards of a dozen on their side, and very near a score on ours. To keep up the advantage we had gained was the thing. Unfortunately some of our safest voters were now drunk, having received eighteen-pence a piece to attend the nomination of candidates; and instead of flocking to the poll, off they went to the Vicar's Head, or the Crumpet and Spade, swearing they wouldn't vote at all unless supplied with pots round; which Fobbs and Tipson very readily drew for them: I having desired those disinterested persons in the morning not to stand very nice about a measure or two of ale, and they promised me they would not, as I was to pay. And this, in fact, I shouldn't have minded; but, unluckily, the worthy electors got so drunk that they absolutely forgot what colours they fought under, and went and voted for the wrong candidate.

This turned the scale against us. What was to be done? I had already got some of the Digdumites away; a tenant of mine, seven miles off, having engaged to "coop" them, that is, to make them "fuddled," and to prevent their return in time. A few more must be pounced upon. Swarthy Sam (that invaluable election-agent) undertook to inveigle them and manage the business. We got a vehicle or two; and partly by cajolery, partly by intimidation, and a display of the enemy's colours, off we carried in an opposite direction to the poll a batch of Digdum's supporters. Away we drove, Sam conducting us, through by-lanes and across ploughed-fields, I may say, so that I hardly knew where I was. Deaf to all remonstrances, on we went, till, feeling pretty secure, I pretended it was time to turn back or we should all be too late for the poll, and jumped down to consult privately with Sam as to the expediency of further stratagems; when--to my inexpressible astonishment and confusion, as you may well imagine--my swarthy vagabond of an agent, whom I trusted on account of his bad character, and because nobody else would, indulged his lungs with the most vociferous roar of laughter I ever heard, to which the entire party added a chorus. In one instant the whole line of vehicles wheeled round and galloped off towards Crooksley, leaving me staggering helplessly into a deep ditch on my left, overcome with rage, mortification, and dismay.

They all arrived in time to vote for Digdum, Sam and all, who went up arm in arm with Clank, the blacksmith. As for me, I never found my way back until hours after the poll had closed; and as I approached the scene with a foreboding heart, the first person I encountered was the defeated Spick--Spick the rejected of Crooksley--who bitterly assailed me as the sole cause of his total "ruination," having spoiled his trade of cross-sweeping by exciting everybody against him, and reduced him to a condition that promised his successful rival immediate employment in his new profession. "I shouldn't ha' minded," he said, with a sneer, "your not guving on me your wote, but what I complains on is, you would guv me your hintrest!"

After this, as you may well suppose, I grew rather disgusted, and a little sick of exercising one's public spirit and disinterested philanthropy to no purpose; so I permitted Dr. Blandish to triumph on one or two occasions, rather than subject the town to the inconvenience of a contested election. I allowed the boy Bratts, whom he patronised, to get elected into our Juvenile Asylum without opposition; and when Soppy put up for the situation of turncock, full in the teeth of Blandish's pet candidate, though he came to me and implored the favour of my vote and interest, I gave him neither. I did not poll for him, nor did I solicit a soul in his behalf; yet Soppy won the election by a considerable majority. Indeed Blandish has been disgracefully beaten on more than one occasion when I had disdained to interfere at all; though whenever I _have_ interfered--when I have canvassed my very heart out, and talked the teeth out of my head--bribing here, treating there--threatening this man with the loss of my custom, and tempting the other with all sorts of seductive promises--hang me (for it puts me in a passion!) if he hasn't been triumphantly successful.

There was the election of a contractor to supply leather-shorts to the charity school. I decided to take no part in it; but when I perceived which way the election was sure to go, when I saw which man would beat to a dead certainty, I changed my mind, threw all my influence into the scale of the popular candidate, gave him my entire support, and would have given him my vote--only he resigned on the morning of the election not having a chance of winning; for directly I took up his cause, he began to lose ground:--odd enough, you will say, but it so happened; although I set a barrel flowing at Tipson's, promised old coats at Christmas to two dozen ragged but independent electors, and gave at least half that number of the better class permission to shoot on my property.

The last great battle that I fought was on behalf of widow Bricks, candidate for the office of housekeeper to our Infirmary. Here Dr. B. was "top-sawyer," as they say; this was carrying the war into the enemy's country. All Crooksley was astonished, petrified almost, at my boldness; but I was lucky in my choice of a candidate, the Bricks having been resident in the place as long as Crooksley itself had been in existence, and the widow being left with eleven small children; while the Doctor's candidate hadn't the smallest scrap of offspring to go to the poll with. So to the work of philanthropy I went; and notwithstanding a hint from the Blandish faction, that if beaten the Doctor would certainly resign his office in the institution, I was successful beyond my hopes.

We elected the eleven little Bricks upon our committee, and took them about with us upon our canvas--a procession singularly imposing and irresistible. Nothing could equal the popular enthusiasm; and the greatest possible effect was created wherever they appeared, for we kept them all without their dinners up till bed-time, to make them cry; which is the only method of melting the public heart, since a constant drop, we are told, will wear away a stone. The eldest of the Bricks, a boy, had a turn for spouting; and we made him address the people from the window of the Vicar's Head, by reciting "My name is Norval," which he had heard done by some strolling-players. This was amazingly successful; but unfortunately the mob consisted chiefly of non-electors, for it was only the subscribers to the institution who had the privilege of voting. Voters, therefore, I made in scores, simply by paying their subscriptions for them. As fast as Blandish could extract promises from the old subscribers, I produced new ones; the list of qualified electors exceeded anything ever heard of in the annals of benevolence.

I spare you the speech I made at the nomination of candidates; merely remarking, that I wasn't aware there was so much virtue in woman as I discovered in the widow, and that I never knew there were half so many charms and graces in infancy, as I detected in her eleven little angels--who all stood in a heartrending row upon the hustings, crying lustily, for they had not been allowed a bit of breakfast on that important occasion. The effect was seen as the voting proceeded; the compassionate rushed to the poll and voted for Bricks, I may say, _like_ bricks. Still our opponents mustered strongly, and I was compelled to make a good many people benevolent that morning who had never spent a shilling in charity in their lives.

The numbers for a considerable time were pretty nearly balanced; the excitement grew more intense, the shouts of "Vote for Bricks and Babbies," grew more vehement as the day advanced; till towards the close of the poll, the Blandish faction appeared a little a-head of us, but at last they were exhausted; they had polled their last Samaritan--the Doctor himself had given his vote--while I had purposely reserved mine. Now, mine alone was sufficient to win; mine alone would decide the contest in the widow's favour; for, having trebled my usual subscription, I had a right to six votes, and six would give us just a majority of one. With a heart swelling with conscious triumph, exulting in the cause of charity and the defeat of our factious adversaries, I walked up to the ballot-box (we voted by ballot), and there what do you think occurred? Directing a haughty look to the Doctor's generally red face, now pale with rage, I was not sufficiently cautious in distinguishing between the Y for "Yes," and the N for "No," painted on the front of the balloting-machine; and inconsiderately turning my hand to the left instead of the right, I dropped the six cork marbles into the enemy's box--hang me, if I didn't vote against Widow Bricks. Dr. Blandish danced for joy, and I really thought he never would stand still again. Not another shilling will his infirmary get from me.

If Crooksley were to return four members to Parliament, _I_ wouldn't be one of them.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 4: Our respectable correspondent must have visited the English Opera in his younger days, or else Charles Mathews must have paid a visit to Crooksley. He must also have seen the printed addresses circulated lately in Deptford during a contest for the office of gravedigger, where the proceedings were as outrageous as these that he describes.]

THE CENSUS.

Important days to all householders in the United Kingdom, were Sunday and Monday, the 6th and 7th ult., and especially perplexing to those whose ideas of reading and writing were at all circumscribed. Nor was the discomfort confined to the said illuminated members of society. Ladies of a very certain age bridled up at being obliged to tell the number of summers that had passed over their heads: notwithstanding the loop-hole of the "five years" which the gallantry of the commissioners allowed them. Elderly gentlemen also, who wore dark wigs that hid those auricular tell-tales of the _ci-devant jeune homme_, the ears, inwardly execrated the system of exposure to which the census paper gave rise, and willingly ran the risk of a fine "not more than five pounds, nor less than forty shillings," rather than be classed as old bachelors.