Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

[pg 31] PUNCH'S PENCILLINGS.--No. III. Scenes of a matron and a young woman preparing for a party. THE EVENING PARTY.

PREPARATION. DECORATION.

REALIZATION. TERMINATION.

[pg 33] A FAIR OFFER In compliance with my usual practice, I send you this letter, containing a trifling biographical sketch, and an offer of my literary services. I dont suppose you will accept them, treating me as for forty-three years past all the journals of this empire have done; for I have offered my contributions to them allall. It was in the year 1798, that escaping from a French prison (that of Toulon, where I had been condemned to the hulks for forgery)I say, from a French prison, but to find myself incarcerated in an English dungeon (fraudulent bankruptcy, implicated in swindling transactions, falsification of accounts, and contempt of court), I began to amuse my hours of imprisonment by literary composition.

I sent in that year my Apology for the Corsican, relative to die murder of Captain Wright, to the late Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle, preparing an answer to the same in the Times journal; but as the apology was not accepted (though the argument of it was quite clear, and much to my credit), so neither was the answer receiveda sublime piece, Mr. PUNCH, an unanswerable answer.

In the year 1799, I made an attempt on the journal of the late Reverend Mr. Thomas Hill, then fast sinking in years; but he had ill-treated my father, pursuing him before Mr. Justice Fielding for robbing him of a snuff-box, in the year 1740; and he continued his resentment towards my fathers unoffending son. I was cruelly rebuffed by Mr. Hill, as indeed I have been by every other newspaper proprietor.

No; there is not a single periodical print which has appeared for forty- three years since, to which I did not make some application. I have by me essays and fugitive pieces in fourteen trunks, seven carpet bags of trifles in verse, and a portmanteau with best part of an epic poem, which it does not become me to praise. I have no less than four hundred and ninety-five acts of dramatic composition, which have been rejected even by the Syncretic Association.

Such is the set that for forty-three years has been made against a man of genius by an envious literary world! Are you going to follow in its wake? Ha, ha, ha! no less than seven thousand three hundred times (the exact number of my applications) have I asked that question. Think well before you reject me, Mr. PUNCHthink well, and at least listen to what I have to say.

It is this: I am not wishing any longer to come forward with tragedies, epics, essays, or original compositions. I am old nowmorose in temper, troubled with poverty, jaundice, imprisonment, and habitual indigestion. I hate everybody, and, with the exception of gin-and-water, everything. I know every language, both in the known and unknown worlds; I am profoundly ignorant of history, or indeed of any other useful science, but have a smattering of all. I am excellently qualified to judge and lash the vices of the age, having experienced, I may almost say, every one of them in my own person. The immortal and immoral Goethe, that celebrated sage of Germany, has made exactly the same confession.

I have a few and curious collection of Latin and Greek quotations.

And what is the result I draw from this? This simple onethat, of all men living, I am the most qualified to be a CRITIC, and hereby offer myself to your notice in that capacity.

Recollect, I am always at HomeFleet Prison, Letter L, fourth staircase, paupers-wardfor a guinea, and a bottle of Hodges Cordial, I will do anything. I will, for that sum, cheerfully abuse my own father or mother. I can smash Shakspeare; I can prove Milton to be a driveller, or the contrary: but, for preference, take, as I have said, the abusive line.

Send me over then, Mr. P., any persons works whose sacrifice you may require. I will cut him up, sir; I will flay himflagellate himfinish him! You had better not send me (unless you have a private grudge against the authors, when I am of course at your service)you had better not send me any works of real merit; for I am infallibly prepared to show that there is not any merit in them. I have not been one of the great unread for forty-three years, without turning my misfortunes to some account. Sir, I know how to make use of my adversity. I have been accused, and rightfully too, of swindling, forgery, and slander. I have been many times kicked down stairs. I am totally deficient in personal courage; but, though I cant fight, I can rail, ay, and well. Send me somebodys works, and youll see how I will treat them.

Will you have personal scandal? I am your man. I will swear away the character, not only of an author, but of his whole familythe female members of it especially. Do you suppose I care for being beaten? Bah! I no more care for a flogging than a boy does at Eton: and only let the flogger bewareI will be a match for him, I warrant you. The man who beats me is a coward; for he knows I wont resist. Let the dastard strike me then, or leave me, as he likes; but, for a choice, I prefer abusing women, who have no brothers or guardians; for, regarding a thrashing with indifference, I am not such a ninny as to prefer it. And here you have an accurate account of my habits, history, and disposition.

Farewell, sir; if I can be useful to you, command me. If you insert this letter, you will, of course, pay for it, upon my order to that effect. I say this, lest an unprincipled wife and children should apply to you for money. They are in a state of starvation, and will scruple at no dastardly stratagem to procure money. I spent every shilling of Mrs. Jenkinsons property forty-five years ago.

I am, sir, your humble servant, DIOGENES JENKINSON,

Son of the late Ephraim Jenkinson, well known to Dr. O. Goldsmith; the Rev. Primrose, D.D., Vicar of Wakefield; Doctor Johnson, of Dictionary celebrity; and other literary gentlemen of the last century.

[We gratefully accept the offer of Mr. Diogenes Jenkinson, whose qualifications render him admirably adapted to fill a situation which Mr. John Ketch has most unhandsomely resigned, doubtlessly stimulated thereto by the probable accession to power of his old friends the Tories. We like a man who dares to own himselfa Jenkinson.ED.] FINE ARTS. His Royal Highness Prince Albert, who has occasionally displayed a knowledge and much liking for the Fine Arts, some time since expressed an intimation to display his ability in sketching landscape from nature. The Royal Academicians immediately assembled en masse; and as they wisely imagined that it would be impolitic in them to let an opportunity slip of not being the very foremost in the direction of matters connected with royalty and their profession, offered, or rather thrust forward, their services to arrange the landscape according to the established rules of art laid down by this self-elected body of the professors of the beauties of nature. St. Jamess-park, within the enclosure, having been hinted as the nearest and most suitable spot for the royal essay, the Academicians were in active service at an early hour of the appointed day: some busied themselves in making foreground objects, by pulling down trees and heaping stones together from the neighbouring macadamized stores; others were most fancifully spotting the trees with whitewash and other mixtures, in imitation of moss and lichens. The classical Howard was awfully industrious in grouping some swans, together with several kind-hearted ladies from the adjoining purlieus of Tothill-street, who had been most willingly secured as models for water-nymphs. The most rabidly-engaged gentleman was Turner, who, despite the remonstrances of his colleagues upon the expense attendant upon his whimsical notions, would persist in making the grass more natural by emptying large buckets of treacle and mustard about the ground. Another old gentleman, whose name we cannot at this moment call to recollection, spent the whole of his time in placing a little man a- fishing, that having been for many years his fixed belief as the only illustration of the pastoral and picturesque. In the meantime, to their utter disappointment, however, his Royal Highness quietly strolled with his sketch-book into another quarter.

A BARRISTERS CARD. Mr. Briefless begs to inform the public and his friends in general, that he has opened chambers in Pump-court.N.B. Please to go down the area steps.

In consequence of the general pressure for money, Mr. Briefless has determined to do business at the following very reduced scale of prices; and flatters himself, that having been very long a member of a celebrated debating society, he will be found to possess the qualities so essential to a legal advocate.

Motions of cause, 6s. 6d.Usual charge, 10s. 5d. Undefended actions, (from) 15s.Usually (from) 2l. 2s. Actions for breach of promise (from) 1l. 1s.Usually (from) 5l. 5s. to 500l. Ditto, with appeals to the feelings, (from) 3l. 3s. Ditto, ditto, very superior, 5l. 5s. Ditto, with tirades against the law (a highly approved mixture), 3l. 3s.

N.B. To the three last items there is an addition of five shillings for a reply, should one be rendered requisite. Mr. Briefless begs to call attention to the fact, that feeling the injustice that is done to the public by the system of refreshers, he will in all cases, where he is retained, take out his refreshers in brandy, rum, gin, ale, or porter.

Injured innocence carefully defended. Oppression and injustice punctually persecuted. A liberal allowance to attorneys and solicitors.

A few old briefs wanted as dummies. Any one having a second-hand coachmans wig to dispose of may hear of a purchaser.

[pg 34] THE WIFE CATCHERS. A LEGEND OF MY UNCLES BOOTS. Ah! sure a pair was never seen,

More justly formd