Chapter I: The Author Dedicates His Work to the Fairer Half of the (1)

CREATION. A Renaissance man stands next to a letter G. entle woman!Beautiful enigma!whose magnetic glances and countless charms subdue mans sterner natureto you I dedicate the following pages. The subject on which I am about to treat is the gravest, the lightest, the most decided, the most undefined, the most earthly, the most spiritual, the saddest, and the gayest, the most individual, and at the same time the most universal you can imagine. To you, ladies, I address myself. You who form the keys on which the eternal and infinite gamut of love has been run from creations first hour till the present momenttell me how I may best touch the chords of your hearts? Come around me, ye earthly divinities of every age, rank, and imaginable variety! Buds of blushing sixteen, full-blown roses of thirty, haughty court dames, and smiling city beauties, come like delicious phantoms, and fill my mind with images graceful as your own forms, and melting as your own hearts! Thanks, gentle spirits! ye have heard my call, and now, inspired by you, I seize my pen, and give to my paper the thoughts which crowd upon my mind.

WHAT IS LOVE? It is easier to answer this question by a thousand instances, than by one definition, which can comprehend them all. What is Love? It is anything you please. It is a prism, through which the eye beholds the same object in various colours; it is a heaven of bliss, or a hell of torture; a thirst of the heartan appetite which we spiritualize; a pure expansion of the soul, but which sooner or later becomes metamorphosed into an animal passiona diamond statue with feet of clay. It is a dreama delirium, a desire for danger, and a hope of conquest; it is that which everyone abjures, and everyone covets; it is the end, the great end, and the only end of life. Love, in short, is a tyrannical influence which none can escape; and however metaphysicians may define the passion, it appears to me that it is wholly dependent on the mysterious

A pair of lovers cuddle in front of a tree. LAWS OF ATTRACTION.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT YOUNG LADIES. A young lady, I mean one who has but recently thrown aside her dolls, is a bashful blushing little puppet, who only acts, speaks, and moves as mama directs. She is a statue of flesh and blood, not yet animated by the Promethean firea chrysalis, which may one day become a beautiful butterfly, fluttering on silken wing amidst a crowd of adorers; but she is yet only a chrysalis, pale and cold, and wrapped up in a thousand conventional restrictions, like a mummy in its swathes.

The very young lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self: she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!This absurdity is the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love: she must obey the imperious law of her being, and will love the moment her inspirations for the belle passion become stronger than her reason. I may add, also, that when a young lady discovers a tendency this way, it may be safely conjectured the object on which she will bestow her favour is not very distant.

THE AUTHORS DIVISION OF HIS SYSTEM. It has been a long-established axiom that there is but one great principle [pg 263] of love; but then it assumes various phases, according to the thousands of circumstances under which it is exhibited, and which, to speak in the language of philosophy, it would be impossible to synthetise. Time, place, age, the very season of the year, the ruling passion, peace or war, education, the instincts of the heart, the health of the body and the mind (if it be possible for the latter to be in a sane state when we fall in love), the buoyancy of youth or the decrepitude of old age,these, and numerous other causes which I cannot at present enumerate, serve to modify to infinity the form and character of the sentiment. Thus we do not love at eighteen as we do at forty, nor in the city as we do in the country, nor in spring as we do in autumn, nor in the camp as we do in the court; nor does the ignorant man love like a learned one; the merchant does not love like the lawyer; nor does the latter love like the doctor. It is upon these different phases in the character of love that I have founded my system. Next week I shall endeavour to describe some of the traits which distinguish The Lover. Till then, fair readers,I remain your devoted slave.

WITNESS MY

A man kisses a woman's hand HAND AND SEAL.

A signature of Alph. Lecourt. GRANTS MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS. We had long considered ourselves the funniest dogs in Christendee; and, in the plenitude of our vanity, imagined that we monopolised the attention and admiration of the present and the future. We expected to be deified, and thus become the founders of a new mythology. PUNCH must be immortal! But how shorn of his pristine splendourhow denuded of his fancied glories! for the John Bull has discovered

GRANTS LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LONDON LIFE. Wretched as we must be at this reflection, we generously resort toour scissors, and publish our own discomfiture.

In alluding to the authors description of the London dining-room, the John Bull remarks:

It will bring comfort to the savage bosoms of the late Ministry, for whose especial information we must make a few more extracts, concerning coffee-houses, or shops, as they are mostly termed.

COFFEE SHOPS. The second class of coffee-houses, and those I have particularly in my eye, are altogether different from those I have just mentioned. The prices are remarkably moderate in most of these places; the charge is no more than three-halfpence for half a pint of coffee, or threepence for a whole pint. The price of half a pint of tea is twopence, of a whole pint fourpence. If you simply ask bread to your tea or coffee, two large slices, well buttered, are brought you, for which you are charged twopence. Or should you prefer having a penny roll, or any other sort of bread, you can have it at the same price as at the bakers.

In most coffee-houses, you may also have chops or steaks for dinner. If the party be a rigid economist(!) he may, as regards some of these establishments, purchase his steak or chop himself, and it will be prepared gratuitously for him; but if that be too much trouble for him to take, and he prefers ordering it at once, he will get, in many houses, his chop with bread and potatoes with it for sixpence, and his steak for ninepence or tenpence.

These coffee-houses have many advantages over hotels, besides the great difference in the prices charged. In the first place, there is not so much formality or affected dignity about them, and they are far better provided with means of rational amusement; and the promptitude with which a customer is served is really surprising.

Are not these passages declarations of the individual? Winding himself up with twopenny-worth of cheese! Pleading for the additional penny for the waitress, whose personal charms and obliging disposition must be considered to extort the amount! And above all, unable to conceive any motive, except aversion to trouble, for disliking to carry his chop upon a skewer through the streets of London. How every line revels in the recollection of having dined, and speaks how seldom! while the well- buttered bread infers the usual fare. Still it is not meanly written. There are a glorying and exultation in every word that redeem it, and show the author is more to be envied than compassionated; though a little further on we perceive the shifts to which his homeless state has reduced him.

MEDITATION IN LONDON. You can order, if you please, a cup of coffee without anything to it; and, for so doing, you may sit if you wish for five or six hours in succession.

I have said that coffee-houses are excellent places for reading; I might have added, for meditation also. For unlike public-houses, there are no noisy discussions and disputes in them. All is calm, tranquil, and comfortable. The beverage, too, which is drank as a beverage, as I before remarked in a previous chapter, cheers, but not inebriates.

The remarks are generally equally original, and the facts, no doubt in some degree truths, are all alike humorous; the more so when the aspect of the book and the names of the respectable publishers suggest the higher class of readers to whom it is addressed. Little anecdotes are interspersed, concerning Harriet, of Coventry-street, who didnt mind her stops; and James, behind the Mansion-house, who knew everybodys appetite, that enliven the descriptive portions of the work, which is in its very inappropriateness the more amusing, and cannot be read without reaping both information and instruction on topics which no other author would have had the temerity to discuss.

But these are only words. Let PUNCH, the rival of this Caledonian Asmodeus, do justice to the man whose character is stamped on every page (of his own), who yet is above pity; poor, yet full of enjoyment; humble, yet glorious; ignorant, yet confident.

A man stands among coffee pots and cups that have faces. GRANTS MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.

THE MONEY MARKET. Tin is 14 per cwt. in London, and this, allowing a fraction for wear and tear, gives an exchange of 94 36-27ths in favour of Hamburgh.

The money market is much easier this week, and bills (play-bills) were to be had in large quantities. A large capitalist who holds turnpike tickets to a large amount, caused much confusion by letting some pass from his hands, when they flew about with alarming rapidity. Several persons seemed desirous of taking them up, but a rush of bulls (from Smithfield) rendered this quite impossible.

Whitechapel scrip was done at 000 premium; but in the course of the day 00000 discount was freely offered.

This was settling day, when many parties paid the scores they had been running at the cook-shop opposite. There was only one defaulter, and as it was not anticipated he would come up to the mark; for he had been chalking up rather largely of late: nothing was said about it.

[pg 264] A DICTIONARY FOR THE LADIES. PUNCH, Solicitous to maintain and enhance that reputation for gallantry towards his fair readers which it has ever been his pride to have merited, has much pleasure, not unmixed with self-congratulation, in thus announcing to the loveliest portion of the creation the immediate appearance of

A DICTIONARY ENTIRELY AND EXCLUSIVELY FOR THEIR USE; in which the signification of every word will he given in a strictly feminine sense, and the orthography, as a point of which ladies like to be properly independent, will be studiously suppressed. The whole to be compiled and edited by

MADAME PUNCH. To which will be appended a little Manual addressed confidentially by PUNCH himself to the Ladies, and entitled

TEN MINUTES ADVICE ON THE CARE AND USE OF A HUSBAND; or what to ask, and how to insist upon it, so that the obstreperous bridegroom may become a meek and humble husband.

SPECIMEN OF THE WORK. Husband.A person who writes cheques, and dresses as his wife directs.

Duck, in ornithology.A trussed bridegroom, with his giblets under his arm.

Brute.A domestic endearment for a husband.

Marriage.The only habit to which women are constant.

Lover.Any young man but a brother-in-law.

Clergyman.One alternative of a lover.

Brother.The other alternative.

Honeymoon.A wifes opportunity.

Horrid; Hideous.Terms of admiration elicited by the sight of a lovely face anywhere but in the looking-glass.

Nice; Dear.Expressions of delight at anything, from a baby to a barrel- organ.

Appetite.A monstrous abortion, which is stifled in the kitchen, that it may not exist during dinner.

Wrinkle.The first thing one lady sees in anothers face.

Time.What any lady remarks in a watch, but what none detect in the gross.

SOUP, A LA JULIEN. A correspondent of the Sunday Times proposes to raise ten thousand for the benefit of the labouring classes, in the following manner:

Upon a prima facie view, my suggestion may appear impracticable, but I am sure the above amount could be raised for the benefit of the labouring classes by one effort of royaltyan effort that would make our valued Queen invaluable, and, at the same time, afford the Ministry an opportunity of making themselves popular in the cause of their countrys good. Westminster Hall is acknowledged to be the largest room in the empire, and, with very little expense, might be fitted up with a temporary throne, &c., for promenade concerts, for one, two, or three, days. All the vocal and instrumental talent of the day would be obtained gratis, and Her Most Gracious Majestys presence, for only two hours on each day, with the admission tickets at one guinea, would produce more money than I have mentioned. Would the above amiable philanthropist favour us with his likeness? We imagine it would be a splendid

A silhouette of a man with a top hat. FANCY PORTRAIT OF HOOKEY WALKER.

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE. SIR ROBERT PEEL was observed to put a penny into the hands of the man at the crossing in Downing-street. It is anticipated, from this trifling circumstance, that sweeping measures will be introduced on the assembling of Parliament.

A deputation from the marrow-bones and cleavers waited on Lord Stanley at the Treasury. His lordship listened attentively for some minutes, and then abruptly left the apartment in which he had been sitting.

We understand that Colonel Sibthorp intends proposing an economical plan of church extension, that is to cost nothing to the public; for it suggests that churches should be built of Indian rubber, by which their extension would become a matter of the greatest facility.

It is rumoured that the deficiency in the revenue is to be made up by a tax on the incomes of literary men; and a per-centage on the profits of Martinuzzi will first be levied by way of experiment. Should it succeed, a duty will be laid on the produce of The Cloak and the Bonnet.

THE LATE PROMOTIONS. The whole of the police force take one step forward, on account of the late very liberal brevet.

Sergeant Snooks, of the Royal Heavy Highlows, to be raised to the Light Wellingtons.

Policemen K 482,611, to be restored to the staff by having his staff restored to him, which had been taken from him for misconduct.

Corporal Smuggins, 16th Foot, to be Sergeant by purchase, vice Buggins, arrested for debt.

All the post captains, who were formerly Twopennies, will take the rank of Generals.

In the Thames Navy, 2d mate Simpkins, of the Bachelor, to be 1st mate, vice Phunker, fallen overboard and resigned.

All the men who are above the age of 100, and are in the actual discharge of duty as policemen, are to be immediately superannuated on half-paya liberal arrangement, prompted, it is believed, by the birth of the Prince of Wales.

PUNCHS THEATRE. NORMA, OSSIAN, AND PAUL BEDFORD. A vestal virgin with a husband and two children, a Roman Lothario, with an Irish friend, a Druidical temple, a gong, and an auto-da-fé, mix up charmingly with Bellinis quadrille-like music to form a pathetic opera; and sympathetic dilettanti weep over the woes of Norma, because they are so exquisitely portrayed by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this ladys geniuswhich is shed like a halo over the whole operathat nobody laughs at the broad Irish in which Flavius delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of Pollio:than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to Covent- Garden to grin, return delighted.

But Apollo himself could not charm away the rich fun that pervades the English adaptation; nor the modest humour of its preface. It has been, hitherto, one characteristic of the lyric drama to consist of verse; rhyme has been thought not wholly dispensable. Those, however, who are familiar with the writings of Ossian, (and the works of the Covent- Garden adapter), will, according to the preface, at once see the fallacy of this. Rhyme is mere jingle,rhythm, rhodomontade,metre, monstrous,versification, villanous,in short, Ossian did not write poetry, neither does this learned prefacierso its all nonsense!

To burlesque such a work as Norma, then, is to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH. Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint having been dropped in one of our Pencillings, an Adelphi scribe has acted upon it. An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had at half-price. A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out her wood-notes (being a Druidess she worships the oak) wild, with a volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide sound asthmatic. In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford. The children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. Pollio is made a most killing Roman roué by Mrs. Grattan; but Normas attendant does not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent- Garden Flavius.

But, above all, commend we Mr. Wrights Adelgeisa. It is a masterpiece; all the airs and graces of the prima donna he imitates with a true spirit of burlesque. As to his singing, it astonished everybody, and so did the introduction of All round my Hat,a most unnecessary interpolation, for the original music is quite as droll.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1. DECEMBER 18, 1841. [pg 265] THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT. 12.OF THE COLLEGE, AND THE CONCLUSION. A dog jumps through a hoop (Letter O). ur hero once more undergoes the process of grinding before he presents himself in Lincolns-inn Fields for examination at the College of Surgeons. Almost the last affair which our hero troubles himself about is the Examination at the College of Surgeons; and as his anatomical knowledge requires a little polishing before he presents himself in Lincolns-inn Fields, he once more undergoes the process of grinding.

The grinder for the College conducts his tuition in the same style as the grinder for the Halloften they are united in the same individual, who perpetually has a vacancy for a resident pupil, although his house is already quite full; somewhat resembling a carpet-bag, which was never yet known to be so crammed with articles, but you might put something in besides. The class is carried on similar to the one we have already quoted; but the knowledge required does not embrace the same multiformity of subjects; anatomy and surgery being the principal points.

Our old friends are assembled to prepare for their last examination, in a room fragrant with the amalgamated odours of stale tobacco-smoke, varnished bones, leaky preparations, and gin-and-water. Large anatomical prints depend from the walls, and a few vertebræ, a lower jaw, and a sphenoid bone, are scattered upon the table.

To return to the eye, gentlemen, says the grinder; recollect the Petitian Canal surrounds the Cornea. Mr. Rapp, what am I talking about?

Mr. Rapp, who is drawing a little man out of dots and lines upon the margin of his Quains Anatomy, starts up, and observesSomething about the Paddington Canal running round a corner, sir.

Now, Mr. Rapp, you must pay me a little more attention, expostulates the teacher. What does the operation for cataract resemble in a familiar point of view?

Pushing a boat-hook through the wall of a house to pull back the drawing-room blinds, answers Mr. Rapp.

You are incorrigible, says the teacher, smiling at the simile, which altogether is an apt one. Did you ever see a case of bad cataract?

Yes, sir, ever-so-long agothe Cataract of the Ganges at Astleys. I went to the gallery, and had a mill with

There, we dont want particulars, interrupts the grinder; but I would recommend you to mind your eyes, especially if you get under Guthrie. Mr. Muff, how do you define an ulcer?

The establishment of a raw, replies Mr. Muff.

Tit! tit! tit! continues the teacher, with an expression of pity. Mr. Simpson, perhaps you can tell Mr. Muff what an ulcer is?

An abrasion of the cuticle produced by its own absorption, answers Mr. Simpson, all in a breath.

Well. I maintain its easier to say a raw than all that, observes Mr. Muff.

Pray, silence. Mr. Manhug, have you ever been sent for to a bad incised wound?

Yes, sir, when I was an apprentice: a man using a chopper cut off his hand.

And what did you do?

Cut off myself for the governor, like a two-year old.

But now you have no governor, what plan would you pursue in a similar case?

Send for the nearest doctorcall him in.

Yes, yes, but suppose he wouldnt come?

Call him out, sir.

Pshaw! you are all quite children, exclaims the teacher. Mr. Simpson, of what is bone chemically composed?

Of earthy matter, or phosphate of lime, and animal matter, or gelatine.

Very good, Mr. Simpson. I suppose you dont know a great deal a bout bones, Mr. Rapp?

Not much, sir. I havent been a great deal in that line. They give a penny for three pounds in Clare Market. Thats what I call popular osteology.

Gelatine enters largely into the animal fibres, says the leader, gravely. Parchment, or skin, contains an important quantity, and is used by cheap pastry-cooks to make jellies.

Well, Ive heard of eating your words, says Mr. Rapp, but never your deeds.

Oh! oh! oh! groan the pupils at this gross appropriation, and the class getting very unruly is broken up.

The examination at the College is altogether a more respectable ordeal than the jalap and rhubarb botheration at Apothecaries Hall, and par conséquence, Mr. Muff goes up one evening with little misgivings as to his success. After undergoing four different sets of examiners, he is told he may retire, and is conducted by Mr Belfour into Paradise, the room appropriated to the fortunate ones, which the curious stranger may see lighted up every Friday evening as he passes through Lincolns-inn Fields. The inquisitors are altogether a gentlemanly set of men, who are willing to help a student out of a scrape, rather than catch question him into one: nay, more than once the candidate has attributed his success to a whisper prompted by the kind heart of the venerable and highly-gifted individualnow, alas! no morewho until last year assisted at the examinations.

Of course, the same kind of scene takes place that was enacted after going up to the Hall, and with the same results, except the police- office, which they manage to avoid. The next day, as usual, they are again at the school, standing innumerable pots, telling incalculable lies, and singing uncounted choruses, until the Scotch pupil who is still grinding in the museum, is forced to give over study, after having been squirted at through the keyhole five distinct times, with a reversed stomach-pump full of beer, and finally unkennelled. The lecturer upon chemistry, who has a private pupil in his laboratory learning how to discover arsenic in poisoned peoples stomachs, where there is none, and make red, blue, and green fires, finds himself locked in, and is obliged to get out at the window; whilst the professor of medicine, who is holding forth, as usual, to a select very few, has his lecture upon intermittent fever so strangely interrupted by distant harmony and convivial hullaballoo, that he finishes abruptly in a pet, to the great joy of his class. But Mr. Muff and his friends care not. They have passed all their troublesthey are regular medical men, and for aught they care the whole establishment may blow up, tumble down, go to blazes, or anything else in a small way that may completely obliterate it. In another twelve hours they have departed to their homes, and are only spoken of in the reverence with which we regard the ruins of a by-gone edifice, as bricks who were.

Our task is finished. We have traced Mr. Muff from the new man through the almost entomological stages of his being to his perfect state; and we take our farewell of him as the general practitioner. In our Physiology we have endeavoured to show the medical student as he actually existshis reckless gaiety, his wild frolics, his open disposition. That he is careless and dissipated we admit, but these attributes end with his pupilage; did they not do so spontaneously, the up-hill struggles and hardly-earned income of his laborious future career would, to use his own terms, soon knock it all out of him; although, in the after-waste of years, he looks back upon his students revelries with an occasional return of old feelings, not unmixed, however, with a passing reflection upon the lamentable inefficacy of the present course of medical education pursued at our schools and hospitals, to fit a man for future practice.

We have endeavoured in our sketches so to frame them, that the general reader might not be perplexed by technical or local allusions, whilst the students of London saw they were the work of one who had lived amongst them. And if in some places we have strayed from the strict boundaries of perfect refinement, yet we trust the delicacy of our most sensitive reader has received no wound. We have discarded our joke rather than lose our propriety; and we have been pleased at knowing that in more than one family circle our Physiology has, now and then, raised a smile on the lips of the fair girls, whose brothers were following the same path we have travelled over at the hospitals.

We hope with the new year to have once more the gratification of meeting our friends. Until then, with a hand offered in warm fellowship,not only to those composing the class he once belonged to, but to all who have been pleased to bestow a few minutes weekly upon his chapters,the Medical Student takes his leave.

A CON. THAT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THE COLONELS. When does a school-boys writing-book resemble the Hero of Waterloo?When its a Well inkdun (Wellington).

[pg 266] THE PUFF PAPERS. CHAPTER III. On my next visit I found Mr. Bayles in full force, and loud in praise of some eleemosynary entertainment to which he had been invited. Having exhausted his subject and a tumbler of toddy at the same time, Mr. Arden availed himself of the opportunity to call attention to the next tale, which was found to be

A FATAL REMEMBRANCE. I was subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, and manager of the amateur theatre of the station.

Gahagan was a rattling, care-for-nothing Irishman, whose chief characteristic was a strong propensity for theatricals and practical jokes, but withal a generous, warm-hearted fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever buckled sword-belt. In his capacity of manager, he was at present in a state of considerable perplexity, the occasion whereof was this.

There chanced then to be on a visit at Bangalore a particular ally of Freds, who was leading tragedian of the Chowringhee theatre in Calcutta; and it was in contemplation to get up Macbeth, in order that the aforesaid star might exhibit in his crack part as the hero of that great tragedy. Fred was to play Macduff; and the blood-boltered Banquo was consigned to my charge. The other parts were tolerably well cast, with the exception of that of Lady Macbeth, which indeed was not cast at all, seeing that no representative could be found for it. It must be stated that, as we had no actresses amongst us, all our female characters, as in the times of the primitive drama, were necessarily performed by gentlemen. Now in general it was not difficult to command a supply of smooth-faced young ensigns to personate the heroines, waiting- maids, and old women, of the comedies and farces to which our performances had been hitherto restricted. But Lady Macbeth was a very different sort of person to Caroline Dormer and Mrs. Hardcastle; and our ladies accordingly, one and all, struck work, refusing point blank to have anything to say to her.

The unfortunate manager, who had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen Trichinopoly cheroots, with a proportionate quantum of brandy pani, he departed for his quarters. disgusted, as he said, with the ingratitude of mankind, whilst I set forth to go my grand rounds.

Next morning, having been relieved from guard, I had returned home, and was taking my ease in my camp chair, luxuriously whiffing away at my after-breakfast cheroot, when who should step gingerly into the room but Manager Fred Gahagan. The clouds of the previous evening had entirely disappeared from his ingenuous countenance, which was puckered up in the most insinuating manner, with what I was wont to call his borrowing smile; for Fred was oftentimes afflicted with impecuniositya complaint common enough amongst us subs;and when the fit was on him, in the spirit of true friendship, he generally contrived to disburthen me of the few remaining rupees that constituted the balance of my last months pay.

Fred brought himself to an anchor upon a bullock trunk, and, after my boy had handed him a cheroot, and he had disgorged a few puffs of smoke, thus delivered himself

This is a capital weed, Wilmot. I dont know how it is, but you always manage to have the best tobacco in the cantonment.

Hem, said I, drily. Glad you like it.

I say, Peter, my dear fellow, quoth he, Fitzgerald, Grimes, and I, have just been talking over what we were discussing last night, about Lady Macbeth you know.

Yes, said I, somewhat relieved to find the conversation was not taking the turn I dreaded.

Well, sir, continued Fred, plunging at once in medias res,and speaking very fast, and we have come to the conclusion that you are the only person to relieve us from all difficulty on the subject; Fitzgerald will take your part of Banquo; and you shall have Lady Macbeth, a character for which every one agrees you are admirably fitted.

I play Lady Macbeth! cried I, with my scrubbing-brush of a beard, and whiskers like a prickly-pear hedge; why, you mast be all mad to think of such a thing.

My dear friend, remarked Gahagan mildly, you know I have always said that you had the Kemble eye and nose, and Im sure you wont hesitate about cutting off your whiskers when so much depends upon it; theyll soon grow again you know, Peter; as for your dark chin that dont matter a rush, as Lady Macbeth is a dark woman.

The reader will agree with me in thinking that friendship can sometimes be as blind as love, when I say with respect to my Kemble eye and nose, that the former has been from childhood affected with a decided tendency to strabismus, and the latter bears a considerably stronger resemblance to a pump-handle than it does to the classic profile of John Kemble or any of his family.

Lieutenant Gahagan, said I, solemnly, do you remember how, some six years ago at Hydrabad, when yet beardless and whiskerless, the only hair upon my face being eyebrows and eyelashes, at your instigation and suadente diabolo, I attempted to perform Lydia Languish in The Rivals? and hast thou yet forgotten, O son of an unsainted father, how my grenadier stride, the fixed tea-pot position of my arms, to say nothing of the numerous other solecisms in the code of female manners which I perpetrated on that occasion, made me a laughing-stock and a by- word for many a long day afterwards! All this, I say, must be fresh in your recollection, and yet you have the audacity to ask me to expose myself again in a similar manner.

Pooh, pooh! laughed Gahagan, you were only a boy then, now you have more experience in these matters; besides, Lydia Languish was a part quite unworthy of your powers; Lady Macbeth is a horse of another colour.

Why, man, with what face could I aver that

I have given suck, and know

How tender tis to love the babe that milks me.

That would certainly draw tears from the audience, but they would be tears of laughter, not sympathy, I warrant you. No, no, good master Fred, it wont do, I tell you; and in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, I say

What beast wast, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?

And now oblige me by walking your body off, for I have got my yesterdays guard report to fill up and send in, in default of which I shall be sure to catch an official from the Brigade-Major.

But Fred not only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the importunate chink of the fellows discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious usurper King Cawdor Glamis!

Fred marched himself away, elated at having carried his point; and I, after sundry dubious misgivings anent the rash promise I had made, ended by casting all compunctious visitings to the winds, and doughtily resolved, as I was in for the business, to screw my courage to the sticking-place, and go through with it as boldly as I might.

By dint of continually studying my rôle, my dislike to it gradually diminished, nay, at length was converted into positive enthusiasm. I became convinced that I should make a decided hit, and cover my temples with unfading laurel. I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea. Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance. One morning my English pointer Spot ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, Out damned spot, out, I say! and with the full conviction, which the animal probably entertained to the day of his death, that the said anathema had personal reference to himself.

The evening big with my fate at last arrived. The house was crammed, expectation on tiptoe, and the play commenced. The first four acts went off swimmingly, my performance especially was applauded to the echo, and there only wanted the celebrated sleeping scene, in which I flattered myself to be particularly strong, to complete my triumph. Triumph, did I say!

[pg 267] I must here explain, for the benefit of those who have never rounded the Cape, that the extreme heat of an Indian climate is so favourable to the growth of hair as to put those wights who are afflicted with dark chevelures, which was my case, to the inconvenient necessity of chin-scraping twice on the game day, when they wish to appear particularly spruce of an evening. Now I intended to have shaved before the play began, but in the hurry of dressing had forgotten all about it; and upon inspecting my visage in a glass, after I had donned Lady Macbeths night-gear, the lower part of it appeared so swart in contrast with the white dress, that I found it would be absolutely necessary to pass a razor over it before going on with my part.

The night was excessively warm, even for India; and as the place allotted to us for dressing was very small and confined, the bright thought struck me that I should have more air and room on the stage, whither I accordingly directed my servant to follow me with the shaving apparatus.

I ensconced myself behind the drop-scene, which was down, and was in the act of commencing the tonsorial operation, when, horresco referens, the prompters bell rang sharply, whether by accident or design I was never able to ascertain, but have grievous suspicions that Fred Gahagan knew something about itup flew the drop-scene like a shot, and discovered the following tableau vivant to the astounded audience:

Myself Lady Macbeth, with legs nearly a yard asunderface and throat outstretched, and covered with a plentiful white latherright arm brandishing aloft one of Pagets best razors, and left thumb and forefinger grasping my nose. In front of me stood my faithful Hindoo valet, Verasawmy by name, with a soap-box in one hand, while his other held up to his masters gaze a small looking-glass, over the top of which his black face, surmounted by a red turban, was peering at me with grave and earnest attention.

A wondering pause of a few seconds prevailed, and then one loud, rending, and continuous peal of laughter and screams shook the universal house.

As if smitten with sudden catalepsy, I was without power to move a single muscle of my body, and for the space of two minutes remained in a stupor in the same attitudeimmovable, rooted, frozen to the spot where I stood. At length recovering at once my senses and power of motion, I bounded like a maniac from the stage, pursued by the convulsive roars of the spectators, and upsetting in my retreat the unlucky Verasawmy, who rolled down to the footlights, doubled up, and in a paroxysm of terror and dismay.

Lieutenant Frederick Gahagan had good reason to bless his stars that in that moment of frenzy I did not encounter him, the detestable origin of the abomination that had just been heaped upon my head. I am no two- legged creature if I should not have sacrificed him on the spot with my razor, and so merited the gratitude of his regimental juniors by giving them a step.

I have never since, either in public or private life, appeared in petticoats again.

SONGS FOR THE SENTIMENTAL.No. 14. Oft have I fondly heard thee pour

Loves incense in mine ear!

Oft bade thy lips repeat once more

The words I deemed sincere!

Butthough the truth this heart may break

I know thee false and no mistake!

My fancy pictured to my heart

Thy boasted passion, pure;

Dreamed thy affection, void of art,

For ever would endure.

Alas! in vain my woe I smother!

I find thee very much more tother!

Twas sweet to hear you sing of love,

But, when you talk of gold,

Your sordid, base design you prove,

Andfor it must be told

Since from my soul the truth you drag

You let the cat out of the bag!

STARVATION STATISTICS FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL That the people of this country are grossly pampered there can be no doubt, for the following facts have been ascertained from which it will be seen that there have been instances of persons living on much coarser fare than the working classes in England.

In 1804, a shipwrecked mariner, who was thrown on to the celebrated mud- island of Coromandel, lived for three weeks upon his own wearing apparel. He first sucked all the goodness out of his jacket, and the following day dashed his buttons violently against the rock in order to soften them. He next cut pieces from his trousers, as tailors do when they want cabbage, and found them an excellent substitute for that salubrious vegetable. He was in the act of munching his boots for breakfast one morning, when he was fortunately picked up by his Majestys schooner Cutaway.

In the year 95, the crew of the brig Terrible lost all their provisions, except a quantity of candles. After these were gone, they took a plank out of the side of the vessel and sliced it, which was their board for a whole fortnight.

After these startling and particularly well-authenticated facts, it would be absurd to deny that there is no reason for taking into consideration the comparatively trifling distress that is now prevalent.

THE FASTEST MAN. A person named Meara, says the Galway Advertiser, confined for debt some time since in our town jail, fasted sixteen days!

Sibthorp says this is an excellent illustration of hard and fast, and entitles the gentleman to be placed at

A man sits on a high stool with a feathered pen in his hand. THE SUMMIT OF HIS PROFESSION.

SIBTHORPS CON. CORNER. Dear PUNCH,Have you seen the con. I made the other day? I transcribe it for you:

Though Wealths neglect and Follys taunt

Conspire to distress the poor,

Pray can you tell me why sharp want

Can neer approach the paupers door

DOrsay has rhymed the following answer:

The merest child might wonder how

The pauper eer sharp wants can know,

When, spite of cruel Fortunes taunts,

Blunt is the sharpest of his wants.

Yours sincerely and comically, SIBTHORP.

P.S.Let BRYANT call for his Christmas-box.

THE COPPER CAPTAIN. At the public meeting at Hammersmith for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of lighting the roads, in the midst of a most animated discussion, Captain Atcherly proposed an adjournment of the said meeting; which proposition being strongly negatived by a small individual, Captain Atcherly quietly pointed to an open window, made a slight allusion to the hardness of the pavement, and finally achieved the exit of the dissentient by whistling

A dog looks on as a heron puts its beak into a pitcher. MY FRIEND AND PITCHER.

[pg 268] TAKE CARE OF HIM. Take care of him! That sentence has been my ruin; from my cradle upwards it has dogged my steps and proved my bane! Fatal injunction! Little did my parents think of the miseries those four small monosyllables have entailed upon their hapless son!

My first assertion of infantine existence, that innocent and feeble wail that claimed the name of life, was met by the command, Take care of him! take care of him! said my mother to the doctor; Take care of him! said the doctor to the nurse; and Take care of him! added my delighted father to every individual of the rejoicing household.

The doctors care manifested itself in an over-dose of castor oil; the nurse, in the plenitude of her bounty, nearly parboiled me in an over- heated bath; my mother drugged me with a villanous decoction of soothing syrup, which brought on a slumber so sound that the first had very nearly proved my last; and the entire household dandled me with such uncommon vigour that I was literally tossed and Catchee-catcheed into a fit of most violent convulsions. As I persisted in surviving, so did I become the heir to fresh torments from the ceaseless care of those by whom I was surrounded. My future symmetry was superinduced by bandaging my infant limbs until I looked like a miniature mummy. The summers sun was too hot and the winters blast too cold; wet was death, and dry weather was attended with easterly winds. I was taken care of. I never breathed the fresh air of Heaven, but lived in an artificial nursery atmosphere of sea-coal and logs.

Young limbs are soon broken, and young children will fall, if not taken care of; consequently upon any instinctive attempt at a pedestrian performance I was tied round the middle with a broad ribbon, my unhappy little feet see-sawing in the air, and barely brushing the ruffled surface of the Persian carpet, while I appeared like a tempting bait, with which my nurse, after the manner of an experienced angler, was bobbing for some of the strange monsters worked into the gorgeous pattern.

Crooked legs were taken care of by a brace of symmetrical iron shackles, and Brobdignag walnut-shells, decorated with flaming bows of crimson ribbon, were attached to each side of my small face, to prevent me from squinting. When old enough to mount a pony, I was taken such care of, by being secured to the saddle, that the restive little brute, feeling inclined for a tumble, deliberately rolled over me some half- dozen times before the astonished stable-boy could effect my deliverance! while the corks with which I was provided to learn to swim in some three feet square of water, slipped accidentally down to my toes, and left me submerged so long that the total consumption of all the salt, and wetting in boiling water of all the blankets, in the house was found absolutely necessary to effect my resuscitation.

At school I was once more to be taken care of; consequently I pined to death in a wretched single-bedded room, shuddering with inconceivable horror at the slightest sound, and conjuring up legions of imaginary sprites to haunt my couch during my waking hours of dread and misery. O how I envied the reckless laughter of the gleeful urchins whose unmindful parents left them to the happy utterance of their own and participation in their young companions thoughts!

As a parlour boarder, which I was of course, to be taken care of, I was not looked upon as one of the fellows, but merely as a little upstartone who most likely was pumped by the master and mistress, and peached upon the healthy rebels of the little world.

Christmas brought me no joys. Taking care of my health prevented me from skating and snow-balling; while perspective surfeits deprived me of the enjoyments of the turkeys, beef, and glorious pudding.

At eighteen I entered as a gentleman commoner at College, Cambridge; and at nineteen a suit of solemn black, and the possession of five thousand a year, bespoke me heir to all my father left; and from that hour have I had cause to curse the title of this paper. Young and inexperienced, I entered wildly into all the follies wealth can purchase or fashion justify; but I was still to be the victim of the phrase. Well take care of him, said a knot of the most determined play-men upon town; and they did. Two years saw my five thousand per annum reduced to one, but left me with somewhat more knowledge of the world. Even that was turned against me; and prudent fathers shook their heads, and sagely cautioned their own young scapegraces to take care of me.

All was not yet complete. A walk down Bond Street was interrupted by a sudden cry, Thats himtake care of him! I turned by instinct, and was arrested at the suit of a scoundrel whose fortune I had made, and who in gratitude had thus pointed me out to the myrmidon of the Middlesex sheriff. I was located in a lock-up house, and thence conveyed to jail. In both instances the last words I heard in reference to myself were Take care of him. I sacrificed almost my all, and once more regained my liberty. Fate seemed to turn! A friend lent me fifty pounds. I pledged my honour for its repayment. He promised to use his interest for my future welfare. I kept my word gratefully; returned the money on the day appointed. I did so before one who knew me by report only, and looked upon me as a ruined, dissipated, worthless Extravagant. I returned to an adjoining room to wait my friends coming. While there, I could not avoid hearing the following colloquy

Good Heaven! has that fellow actually returned your fifty?

Yes. Didnt you see him?

Of course I did; but I can scarcely believe my eyes. Oh! hes a deep one.

Hes a most honourable young man.

How can you be so green? He has a motive in it.

What motive?

I dont know that. But, old fellow, listen to me. Im a man of the world, and have seen something of life; and Ill stake my honour and experience that that fellow means to do you; so be advised, andTake care of him!

This was too much. I rushed out almost mad, and demanded an apology, or satisfactionthe latter alternative was chosen. Oh, how my blood boiled! I should either fall, or, at length, by thus chastising the impertinent, put an end to the many meaning and hateful words.

We met; the ground was measured. I thought for a moment of the sin of shedding human blood, and compressed my lips. A moment I wavered; but the voice of my opponents second whispering, Take care of him, once more nerved my heart and arm. My adversarys bullet whistled past my ear: he fellhit through the shoulder. He was carried to his carriage. I left the ground, glad that I had chastised him, but released to find the wound was not mortal. I felt as if in Heaven this act would free me from the worldly ban. A week after, I met one of my old friends; he introduced me by name to his father. The old gentleman started for a moment, then exclaimedYou know my feeling, Siryou are a duellist! Tom, Take care of him!

PUNCHLIED. SONG FOR PUNCH DRINKERS. (VON SCHILLER.)

(FROM SCHILLER.)

Vier Elemente

Innig gesellt,

Bilden das Leben

Bauen die Welt.

Presst der Citrone

Saftigen Stern!

Herb ist des Lebens

Innerster Kern.

Jetzt mit des Zuckers

Linderndem Saft

Zæhmet die herbe

Brennende Kraft!

Gieszet des Wassers

Sprudelnden Schwall!

Wasser umfænget

Ruhig das All!

Tropfen des Geistes

Gieszet hinein!

Leben dem Leben

Gibt er allein.

Eh es verdueftet

Schoepfet es schnell!

Nur wann er gluehet

Labet der Quell.

Four be the elements,

Here we assemble em,

Each of mans world

And existence an emblem.

Press from the lemon

The slow flowing juices.

Bitter is life

In its lessons and uses.

Bruise the fair sugar lumps,

Nature intended

Her sweet and severe

To be everywhere blended.

Pour the still water

Unwarning by sound,

Eternitys ocean

Is hemming us round!

Mingle the spirit,

The life of the bowl;

Man is an earth-clod

Unwarmed by a soul!

Drink of the stream

Ere its potency goes!

No bath is refreshing

Except while it glows!

[pg 269] THE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AT HOOKAM-CUM-SNIVERY. Wednesday last was the day fixed for the distribution of the prizes at this institution, and every arrangement had been made to receive the numerous visitors. The boards had undergone their annual scrubbing, and some beautiful devices in chalk added life to the floor, which was enriched with a scroll-work of whiting, while the arms of Hookham-cum-Snivery (a nose, rampant, with a hand, couchant, extending a thumb, gules, to the nostril, argent) formed an appropriate centre-piece.

Seven oclock was fixed upon for the opening of the doors, at which hour the committee went in procession, headed by their chairman, to withdraw the bolts, that the public might be admitted, when a rush took place of the most frightful and disastrous character. A drove of bullocks that were being alternately enticed and marling-spiked into a butchers exactly opposite, took advantage of the courtesy of the committee, and poured in with great rapidity to the building, carrying everythingincluding the committeemost triumphantly before them. In spite of their unceremonious entry, some of the animals evinced a disposition to stand upon forms, by leaping on to the benches, while the committee, who had expected a deputation of savans from the Hampton- super-Horsepond Institution, for the enlightenment of ignorant octagenarians, and who being prepared to see a party of donkeys, were not inclined to take the bull by the horns, made a precipitate retreat into the anteroom.

Order having been at length restored, the intruders ejected, and their places supplied by a select circle of subscribers, the following prizes were distributed:

To Horatio Smith Smith, the large copper medal, bearing on one side the portrait of George the Third, on the reverse a figure of Britannia, sitting on a beer barrel, and holding in her hand a toasting fork. This medal was given for the best drawing of the cork of a ginger-beer bottle.

To Ferdinand Fitz-Figgins, the smaller copper medal, with the head of William the Fourth, and a reverse similar to that of the superior prize. This was awarded for the best drawing of a decayed tooth after Teniers.

To Sigismond Septimus Snobb, the large willow pattern plate, for the best model of a national water-butt, to be erected in the Teetotalers Hall of Temperance in the Water-loo Road.