Chapter XII

Don’t go to weep upon my grave,
And think that there I be;
They haven’t left an atom there
Of my anatomie.

ODE TO MR. BRUNEL.

“Well said, old Mole! canst work i’ the dark so fast? a worthy pioneer!”

HAMLET.

Well!----Monsieur Brunel,
How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,--
Never be stopping,
But poking, groping, in the dark keep making
An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,
Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge,
To keep down all extortion,
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the “View hollow.”
In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof,
Came, like “a tide in the affairs of men;”
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song
Of Incledon’s, beginning “Cease, rude Bore”--
Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears,
Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one’s self o’er head and ears
In difficulties most distressful!
Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,
When it began to _liquidate_ itself!
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden,
And languishes thy Tunnel,--so to paint,
Under a slow incurable complaint,
Bed-ridden!

Why, when thus Thames--bed-bother’d--why repine!
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine!
Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid;
And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft;
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft!
I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades:
Stick up a sign--the sign of the Bore’s Head;
I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane,--Thy Shades?

ANACREONTIC.

FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Come, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass
Found a proper excuse or fit season,
For toasts to be honour’d, or pledges to pass,
Sure, this hour brings an exquisite reason:
For hark! the last chime of the dial has ceased,
And Old Time, who his leisure to cozen,
Had finish’d the Months, like the flasks at a feast,
Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

Then fill, all ye Happy and Free, unto whom
The past Year has been pleasant and sunny;
Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom
Of the _thyme_ whence the bee gathers honey--
Days usher’d by dew-drops, instead of the tears,
May be wrung from some wretcheder cousin--
Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers
That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;

To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d,
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury,--
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

A WATERLOO BALLAD.

To Waterloo, with sad ado,
And many a sigh and groan,
Amongst the dead, came Patty Head,
To look for Peter Stone.

“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If I shall find him here?
I’m come to weep upon his corse,
My Ninety-Second dear!

“Into our town a sergeant came
With ribands all so fine,
A-flaunting in his cap--alas,
His bow enlisted mine!

“They taught him how to turn his toes,
And stand as stiff as starch;
I thought that it was love and May,
But it was love and March!

“A sorry March indeed to leave
The friends he might have kep’,--
No March of Intellect it was,
But quite a foolish step.

“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabout he lies?
I want a corpse with reddish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes.”

Her sorrow on the sentinel
Appear’d to deeply strike:--
“Walk in,” he said, “among the dead,
And pick out which you like.”

And soon she pick’d out Peter Stone,
Half turn’d into a corse;
A cannon was his bolster, and
His mattrass was a horse.

“O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone,
Lord, here has been a skrimmage!
What have they done to your poor breast,
That used to hold my image?”

“O Patty Head, O Patty Head,
You’re come to my last kissing,
Before I’m set in the Gazette
As wounded, dead, and missing!

“Alas! a splinter of a shell
Right in my stomach sticks;
French mortars don’t agree so well
With stomachs as French bricks.

“This very night a merry dance
At Brussels was to be;--
Instead of opening a ball,
A ball has opened me.

“Its billet every bullet has,
And well it does fulfil it;--
I wish mine hadn’t come so straight,
But been a ‘crooked billet.’

“And then there came a cuirassier
And cut me on the chest;--
He had no pity in his heart,
For he had _steel’d his breast_.

“Next thing a lancer, with his lance,
Began to thrust away;
I call’d for quarter, but, alas!
It was not Quarter-day.

“He ran his spear right through my arm,
Just here above the joint:--
O Patty dear, it was no joke,
Although it had a point.

“With loss of blood I fainted off,
As dead as women do--
But soon by charging over me,
The _Coldstream_ brought me to.

With kicks and cuts, and batts and blows,
I throb and ache all over;
I’m quite convinc’d the field of Mars
Is not a field of clover!

“O why did I a soldier turn
For any royal Guelph?
I might have been a butcher, and
In business for myself!

“O why did I the bounty take
(And here he gasp’d for breath)
My shillingsworth of ‘list is nail’d
Upon the door of death!

“Without a coffin I shall lie
And sleep my sleep eternal:
Not ev’n a _shell_--my only chance
Of being made a _Kernel_!

“O Patty dear, our wedding bells
Will never ring at Chester!
Here I must lie in Honour’s bed,
That isn’t worth a _tester_!

“Farewell, my regimental mates,
With whom I used to dress!
My corps is changed, and I am now
In quite another mess.

“Farewell, my Patty dear, I have
No dying consolations,
Except, when I am dead, you’ll go
And see th’ Illuminations.”

COCKLE _v._ CACKLE.

Those who much read advertisements and bills
Must have seen puffs of Cockle’s Pills,
Call’d Anti-bilious--
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these--
Viz.--Quacks and Pills--save Ducks and Pease.
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,
And friends portended was preparing for
A human Pâté Périgord;
She was, indeed, so very far from well,
Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box
Of those said pellets to resist Bile’s shocks,
And--tho’ upon the ear it strangely knocks--
To save her by a Cockle from a shell!
But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,
Who very vehemently bids us “throw
Bark to the Bow-wows,” hated physic so,
It seem’d to share “the bitterness of Death:”
Rhubarb--Magnesia--Jalap, and the kind--
Senna--Steel--Assa-fœtida, and Squills--
Powder or Draught--but least her throat inclined
To give a course to Boluses or Pills;
No--not to save her life, in lung or lobe,
For all her lights’ or all her liver’s sake,
Would her convulsive thorax undertake,
Only one little uncelestial globe!
’Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,
If she put by the pill-box in a place
For linen rather than for drugs intended--
Yet for the credit of the pills let’s say
After they thus were stow’d away,
Some of the linen mended;
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint.
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother--
Who took them--in her cupboard--like the other.

“Deeper and deeper, still,” of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W. newly come from Rome,
Acting the self-same filial, pillial, part,
To cure Mamma, another dose brought home
Of Cockle’s;--not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store;
And then--some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The Medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, when she
Gave to the up-stairs cupboard, “night and morning.”
Till wanting room at last, for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d
The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks,--
A little Barber of a by-gone day,
Over the way,
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble,--that is, John,
Staring in plaster, with a _Brutus_ on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls--with _crops_.
Little Dame W. thought when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gather’d up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.
They might as well have addled been, or ratted,
For long before the night--ah woe betide
The Pills! each suicidal Bantam died
Unfatted!

Think of poor Burrell’s shock,
Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam’s small Ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle!
To see as stiff as stone, his un’live stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,
Mr. Beh’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff--
“What!--all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!--
Just when I’d bought a coop
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!

After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw--
“Pison’d by goles!”

To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fixed the guilt upon his adverse neighbour;--
Lord! how he rail’d at her: declaring now,
He’d bring an action ere next Term of Hilary,
Then, in another moment, swore a vow,
He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream--
“Here’s Mr. Burrell, ma’am, with all his farm-yard!”
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very _hard_, for ev’ry feather,
Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking;
Nothing could move him, nothing made him supple,
So the sad dame unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry “going down ten couple.”

Now birds by poison slain,
As venom’d dart from Indian’s hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.’s thrift,--
She had a thrifty vein--
Destined one pair for supper to make shift,--
Supper as usual at the hour of ten:
But ten o’clock arrived and quickly pass’d,
Eleven--twelve--and one o’clock at last,
Without a sign of supper even then!
At length the speed of cookery to quicken,
Betty was call’d, and with reluctant feet,
Came up at a white heat--
“Well, never I see chicken like them chickens!
My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in ’em!
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that,
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat
Those Anti-biling Pills! there is no bile in ’em!”

PLAYING AT SOLDIERS.

“WHO’LL SERVE THE KING?”

AN ILLUSTRATION.

What little urchin is there never
Hath had that early scarlet fever,
Of martial trappings caught?
Trappings well call’d--because they trap
And catch full many a country chap
To go where fields are fought!

What little urchin with a rag
Hath never made a little flag,
(Our plate will show the manner,)
And wooed each tiny neighbour still,
Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will,
To come beneath the banner!

Just like that ancient shape of mist,
In Hamlet, crying, “‘List, O ‘list!”
Come, who will serve the king,
And strike frog-eating Frenchmen dead,
And cut off Boneyparty’s head?--
And all that sort of thing.

So used I, when I was a boy,
To march with military toy,
And ape the soldier’s life;--
And with a whistle or a hum,
I thought myself a Duke of Drum
At least, or Earl of Fife.

With gun of tin and sword of lath,
Lord! how I walk’d in glory’s path
With regimental mates,
By sound of trump and rub-a-dubs--
To ‘siege the washhouse--charge the tubs--
Or storm the garden gates.

Ah me! my retrospective soul!
As over memory’s muster-roll
I cast my eyes anew,
My former comrades all the while
Rise up before me, rank and file,
And form in dim review.

Ay, there they stand, and dress in line,
Lubbock, and Fenn, and David Vine,
And dark “Jamaeky Forde!”
And limping Wood, and “Cockey Hawes,”
Our captain always made, because
He had a _real_ sword!

Long Lawrence, Natty Smart, and Soame,
Who said he had a gun at home,
But that was all a brag;
Ned Ryder, too, that used to sham
A prancing horse, and big Sam Lamb
That _would_ hold up the flag!

Tom Anderson, and “Dunny White,”
Who never right-abouted right,
For he was deaf and dumb;
Jack Pike, Jem Crack, and Sandy Gray,
And Dickey Bird, that wouldn’t play
Unless he had the drum.

And Peter Holt, and Charley Jepp,
A chap that never kept the step--
No more did “Surly Hugh;”
Bob Harrington, and “Fighting Jim”--
We often had to halt for him,
To let him tie his shoe.

“Quarrelsome Scott,” and Martin Dick,
That kill’d the bantam cock, to stick
The plumes within his hat;
Bill Hook, and little Tommy Grout
That got so thump’d for calling out
“Eyes right!” to “Squinting Matt.”

Dan Simpson, that, with Peter Dodd,
Was always in the awkward squad,
And those two greedy Blakes,
That took our money to the fair
To buy the corps a trumpet there,
And laid it out in cakes.

Where are they now?--an open war
With open mouth declaring for?--
Or fall’n in bloody fray?
Compell’d to tell the truth I am,
Their fights all ended with the sham,--
Their soldiership in play.

Brave Soame sends cheeses out in trucks,
And Martin sells the cock he plucks,
And Jepp now deals in wine;
Harrington bears a lawyer’s bag,
And warlike Lamb retains his flag,
But on a tavern sign.

They tell me Cocky Hawes’s sword
Is seen upon a broker’s board:
And as for “Fighting Jim,”
In Bishopgate, last Whitsuntide,
His unresisting cheek I spied
Beneath a quaker brim!

Quarrelsome Scott is in the church,
For Ryder now your eye must search
The marts of silk and lace--
Bird’s drums are filled with figs, and mute,
And I--I’ve got a substitute
To Soldier in my place!

“NAPOLEON’S MIDNIGHT REVIEW.”

A NEW VERSION.

In his bed, bolt upright,
In the dead of the night,
The French Emperor starts like a ghost!

By a dream held in charm,
He uplifts his right arm,
For he dreams of reviewing his host.

To the stable he glides,
For the charger he rides;
And he mounts him, still under the spell;
Then, with echoing tramp,
They proceed through the camp,
All intent on a task he loves well.

Such a sight soon alarms,
And the guards present arms,
As he glides to the posts that they keep;
Then he gives the brief word,
And the bugle is heard,
Like a hound giving tongue in its sleep.

Next the drums they arouse,
But with dull row-de-dows,
And they give but a somnolent sound;
Whilst the foot and horse, both,
Very slowly and loth,
Begin drowsily mustering round.

To the right and left hand,
They fall in, by command,
In a line that might better be dress’d;
Whilst the steeds blink and nod,
And the lancers think odd
To be rous’d like the spears from their rest.

With their mouths of wide shape,
Mortars seem all agape,
Heavy guns look more heavy with sleep;
And, whatever their bore,
Seem to think it one more
In the night such a field day to keep.

Then the arms, christened small
Fire no volley at all,
But go off, like the rest, in a doze;
And the eagles, poor things,
Tuck their heads ‘neath their wings,
And the band ends in tunes through the nose.

Till each pupil of Mars
Takes a wink like the stars--
Open order no eye can obey!
If the plumes in their heads
Were the feathers of beds,
Never top could be sounder than they!

So, just wishing good night,
Bows Napoleon, polite;
But instead of a loyal endeavour
To reply with a cheer;
Not a sound met his ear,
Though each face seem’d to say, “_Nap_ for ever!”

ODE TO DR. KITCHENER.

Ye Muses nine inspire
And stir up my poetic fire;
Teach my burning soul to speak
With a bubble and a squeak!
Of Dr. Kitchener I fain would sing,
Till pots, and pans, and mighty kettles ring.

O culinary sage!
(I do not mean the herb in use,
That always goes along with goose)
How have I feasted on thy page:
“When like a lobster boil’d the morn
From black to red began to turn,”
Till midnight, when I went to bed,
And clapt my tewah-diddle on my head.

Who is there cannot tell,
Thou leadest a life of living well?
“What baron, or squire, or knight of the shire
Lives half so well as a holy Fry--er?”
In doing well thou must be reckon’d
The first,--and Mrs. Fry the second;
And twice a Job,--for, in thy fev’rish toils,
Thou wast all over roasts--as well as boils.

Thou wast indeed no dunce,
To treat thy subjects and thyself at once:
Many a hungry poet eats
His brains like thee,
But few there be
Could live so long on their receipts.
What living soul or sinner
Would slight thy invitation to a dinner,
Ought with the Danaides to dwell,
Draw gravy in a cullender, and hear
For ever in his ear
The pleasant tinkling of thy dinner bell.

Immortal Kitchener! thy fame
Shall keep itself when Time makes game
Of other men’s--yea, it shall keep, all weathers,
And thou shalt be upheld by thy pen feathers.
Yea, by the sauce of Michael Kelly!
Thy name shall perish never,
But be magnified for ever--
--By all whose eyes are bigger than their belly.
Yea, till the world is done--
--To a turn--and Time puts out the sun,
Shall live the endless echo of thy name.
But, as for thy more fleshy frame,
Ah! Death’s carnivorous teeth will tittle
Thee out of breath, and eat it for cold victual;
But still thy fame shall be among the nations
Preserved to the last course of generations.

Ah me, my soul is touch’d with sorrow!
To think how flesh must pass away--
So mutton, that is warm to-day,
Is cold, and turn’d to hashes, on the morrow!
Farewell! I would say more, but I
Have other fish to fry.

THE CIGAR.

Some sigh for this and that;
My wishes don’t go far;
The world may wag at will,
So I have my cigar.

Some fret themselves to death
With Whig and Tory jar,
I don’t care which is in,
So I have my cigar.

Sir John requests my vote,
And so does Mr. Marr;
I don’t care how it goes,
So I have my cigar.

Some want a German row,
Some wish a Russian war;
I care not--I’m at peace,
So I have my cigar.

I never see the Post,
I seldom read the Star;
The Globe I scarcely heed,
So I have my cigar.

They tell me that Bank Stock
Is sunk much under par;
It’s all the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

Honours have come to men
My juniors at the Bar;
No matter--I can wait,
So I have my cigar.

Ambition frets me not;
A cab or glory’s car
Are just the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

I worship no vain gods,
But serve the household Lar;
I’m sure to be at home,
So I have my cigar.

I do not seek for fame,
A General with a scar;
A private let me be,
So I have my cigar.

To have my choice among
The toys of life’s bazaar,
The deuce may take them all
So I have my cigar.

Some minds are often tost
By tempests like a tar;
I always seem in port,
So I have my cigar.

The ardent flame of love
My bosom cannot char,
I smoke, but do not burn,
So I have my cigar.

They tell me Nancy Low
Has married Mr. R.;
The jilt! but I can live,
So I have my cigar.

AN ANCIENT CONCERT.

BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR.

“Give me _old_ music--let me hear
The songs of _days_ gone by!”--H. F. CHORLEY.

Oh! come, all ye who love to hear
An ancient song in ancient taste,
To whom all by-gone Music’s dear
As verdant spots in Memory’s waste!
Its name “The Ancient Concert” wrongs,
And has not hit the proper clef,
To wit, Old Folks, to sing Old Songs,
To Old Subscribers rather deaf.

Away, then, Hawes! with all your band;
Ye beardless boys, this room desert!
One youthful voice, or youthful hand,
Our concert-pitch would disconcert!
No bird must join our “vocal throng,”
The present age beheld at font:
Away, then, all ye “Sons of Song,”
Your Fathers are the men we want!

Away, Miss Birch, you’re in your prime!
Miss Romer, seek some other door!
Go, Mrs. Shaw! till, counting time,
You count you’re nearly fifty-four!
Go, Miss Novello, sadly young!
Go, thou composing Chevalier,
And roam the county towns among,
No Newcome will be welcome here!

Our Concert aims to give at _night_
The music that has had its _day_!
So, Rooke, for us you cannot write
Till time has made you Raven gray.
Your score may charm a modern ear,
Nay, ours, when three or fourscore old,
But in this Ancient atmosphere,
Fresh airs like yours would give us cold!

Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat, go!
Hence, Shirreff, with those native curls;
And Master Coward ought to know
This is no place for boys and girls!
No Massons here we wish to see;
Nor is it Mrs. Seguin’s sphere,
And Mrs. B----! Oh! Mrs. B----,
Such Bishops are not reverend here!

What! Grisi, bright and beaming thus!
To sing the songs gone gray with age!
No, Grisi, no,--but come to us
And welcome, when you leave the stage!
Off, Ivanhoff!--till weak and harsh!--
Rubini, hence! with all the clan!
But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache,
A little shrivell’d thin old man.

Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please!
Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch;
You’d run us out of breath with Glees,
And Catches that we could not catch.
Away, ye Leaders all, who lead
With violins, quite modern things;
To guide our Ancient band we need
Old fiddles out of leading strings!

But come, ye Songsters, over ripe,
That into “childish trebles break!”
And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe
That cannot sing without a shake!
Nay, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin
A slender thread of ancient voice,
Old notes that almost seem call’d in;
At such as you we _shall_ rejoice!

No thund’ring Thalbergs here shall balk,
Or ride your pet _D-cadence_ o’er,
But fingers with a little chalk
Shall, moderato, keep the score!
No Broadwoods here, so full of tone,
But Harpsichords assist the strain:
No Lincoln’s pipes, we have our own
Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain.

And welcome! St. Cecilians, now
Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows,
Who will strike up, no matter how,
With organs that survive their bellows!
And bring, oh bring, your ancient styles
In which our elders lov’d to roam,
Those flourishes that strayed for miles,
Till some good fiddle led them home!
Oh come, ye ancient London Cries,
When Christmas Carols erst were sung!
Come, Nurse, who dron’d the lullabies,
“When Music, heavenly Maid, was young!”
No matter how the critics treat,
What modern sins and faults detect,
The Copy-Book shall still repeat,
These Concerts must “Command respect!”

A REPORT FROM BELOW.

“Blow high, blow low.”--SEA SONG.

As Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot--
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,
That made the very china flounce,
They could not for a time pronounce
If they were safe or shot--
For Memory brought a deed to match,
At Deptford done by night--
Before one eye appeared a Patch,
In t’other eye a Blight!

To be belabour’d out of life,
Without some small attempt at strife,
Our nature will not grovel;
One impulse mov’d both man and dame,
He seized the tongs--she did the same,
Leaving the ruffian, if he came,
The poker and the shovel.
Suppose the couple standing so,
When rushing footsteps from below
Made pulses fast and fervent;
And first burst in the frantic cat,
All steaming like a brewer’s vat,
And then--as white as my cravat--
Poor Mary May, the servant!

Lord, how the couple’s teeth did chatter;
Master and Mistress both flew at her,

“Speak! Fire? or Murder? What’s the matter?”
Till Mary, getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:--

“We was both, Ma’am, in the wash-house, Ma’am, a-standing at our tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
‘Mary,’ says she to me, ‘I say’--and there she stops for coughin’,
‘That dratted copper flue has took to smokin’ very often,
But please the pigs,’--for that’s her way of swearing in a passion,
‘I’ll blow it up, and not be set a-coughin’ in this fashion!’
Well, down she takes my master’s horn--I mean his horn for loading,
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding.
Lawk, Mrs. Round! says I, and stares, that quantum is unproper.
I’m sartin sure it can’t not take a pound to sky a copper;
You’ll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff.
Well, when the pinch is over--‘Teach your grandmother to suck
A powder horn,’ says she--Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
‘Come,’ says she, quite in a huff, ‘come, keep your tongue inside your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.
So in it goes, and Bounce--O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were canonised, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality,
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother.
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never see a sight so shockin’;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg--I mean, you know, a stocking--
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;
But as nobody was in ’em--none but--nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with her finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you won’t believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered--‘Why, where _is_ the powder blew!’”

THE LAST WISH.

When I resign this world so briary,
To have across the Styx my ferrying,
Oh, may I die without a DIARY!
And be interr’d without a Bury-ing!

* * * * *

The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain,
Turn’d into cash, they are laid out again!

THE DEVIL’S ALBUM.

It will seem an odd whim
For a spirit so grim
As the Devil to take a delight in;
But by common renown
He has come up to town,
With an Album for people to write in!

On a handsomer book
Mortal never did look;
Of a flame-colour silk is the binding!
With a border superb,
Where through flow’ret and herb,
The old serpent goes brilliantly winding!

By gilded grotesques,
And emboss’d arabesques,
The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded;
But, alas! in a taste
That betrays they were traced
At the will of a Spirit degraded!

As for paper--the best,
But extremely hot-pressed,
Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it,
And against ev’ry blank
There’s a note on the Bank,
As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet.

Who will care to appear
In the Fiend’s Souvenir,
Is a question to mortals most vital;
But the very first leaf,
It’s the public belief,
Will be filled by a Lady of Title!

A VALENTINE.

THE WEATHER. TO P. MURPHY, ESQ., M.N.S.

These, properly speaking, being esteemed the three arms of Meteoric action.

Dear Murphy, to improve her charms,
Your servant humbly begs;
She thanks you for her leash of arms,
But wants a brace of legs.

Moreover, as you promise folks
On certain days a drizzle;
She thinks, in case she cannot rain,
She should have means to _mizzle_.

Some lightning too may just fall due,
When woods begin to moult;
And if she cannot “fork it out,”
She’ll wish to make a _bolt_!

CONVEYANCING.

Oh, London is the place for all
In love with loco-motion!
Still to and fro the people go
Like billows of the ocean;
Machine or man, or caravan,
Can all be had for paying,
When great estates, or heavy weights,
Or bodies want conveying.

There’s always hacks about in packs,
Wherein you may be shaken,
And Jarvis is not always _drunk_,
Tho’ always _overtaken_;
In racing tricks he’ll never mix,
His nags are in their last days,
And _slow_ to go, altho’ they show
As if they had their _fast days_!

Then if you like a single horse,
This age is quite a _cab-age_,
A car not quite so small and light
As those of our Queen _Mab_ age;
The horses have been _broken well_,
All danger is rescinded,
For some have _broken both their knees_,
And some are _broken winded_.

If you’ve a friend at Chelsea end,
The stages are worth knowing--
There is a sort, we call ’em short,
Although the longest going--
For some will stop at Hatchett’s shop
Till you grow faint and sicky,
Perched up behind, at last to find
Your dinner is all _dickey_!

Long stages run from every yard;
But if you’re wise and frugal,
You’ll never go with any Guard
That plays upon the bugle,
“Ye banks and braes,” and other lays,
And ditties everlasting,
Like miners going all your way,
With _boring_ and with _blasting_.

Instead of _journeys_, people now
May go upon a _Gurney_,
With steam to do the horses’ work,
By _powers of attorney_;
Tho’ with a load it may explode,
And you may all be _un_-done!
And find you’re going _up to Heav’n_
Instead of _up to London_!

To speak of every kind of coach,
It is not my intention;
But there is still one vehicle
Deserves a little mention;
The world a sage has call’d a stage,
With all its living lumber,
And Malthus swears it always bears
Above the proper number.

The law will transfer house or land
For ever and a day hence,
For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings,
You’ll never want conveyance:
Ho! stop the thief! my handkerchief!
It is no sight for laughter--
Away it goes, and leaves my nose
To join in running after.

THE ANGLER’S FAREWELL.

“Resign’d, I kissed the rod.”

Well! I think it is time to put up!
For it does not accord with my notions,
Wrist, elbow, and chine,
Stiff from throwing the line,
To take nothing at last by my motions!

I ground-bait my way as I go,
And dip in at each watery dimple;
But however I wish
To inveigle the fish,
To my _gentle_ they will not play _simple_!

Though my float goes so swimmingly on,
My bad luck never seems to diminish;
It would seem that the Bream
Must be scarce in the stream,
And the _Chub_, tho’ it’s chubby, be _thinnish_!

Not a Trout there can be in the place,
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention,
And although at my hook
With _attention_ I look,
I can ne’er see my hook with _a Tench on_!

At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape,
But they seem upon different terms now;
Have they taken advice
Of the “_Council of Nice_,”
And rejected their “_Diet of Worms_,” now?

In vain my live minnow I spin,
Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching;
For the gut I have brought,
I had better have bought
A good _rope_ that was used to _Jack-ketching_!

Not a nibble has ruffled my cork,
It is vain in this river to search then;
I may wait till it’s night,
Without any bite,
And at _roost-time_ have never a _Perch_ then.

No Roach can I meet with--no Bleak,
Save what in the air is so sharp now;
Not a Dace have I got,
And I fear it is not
“Carpe diem,” a day for the Carp now!

Oh! there is not a one pound prize
To be got in this fresh-water lottery!
What then can I deem
Of so fishless a stream
But that ’tis--like St. Mary’s--_Ottery_!

For an Eel I have learned how to try,
By a method of Walton’s own showing,--
But a fisherman feels
Little prospect of Eels,
In a path that’s devoted to towing!

I have tried all the water for miles,
Till I’m weary of dipping and casting!
And hungry and faint,--
Let the Fancy just paint
What it is _without Fish_, to be _Fasting_!

And the rain drizzles down very fast,
While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell,--
So, wet to the skin,
I’ll e’en back to my Inn,
Where at least I am sure of a _Bar-bell_!

A BLOW UP.

“Here we go up, up, up.”--THE LAY OF THE FIRST MINSTREL.

Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker
Was Powder-maker,
Not Alderman Flower’s flour,--the white that puffs
And primes and loads heads bald, or gray, or chowder,
Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filby,--Crowder,
Not vile apothecary’s pounded stuffs,
But something blacker, bloodier, and louder,
Gun-powder!
This stuff, as people know, is _semper_
_Eadem_; very hasty in its temper--
Like Honour that resents the gentlest taps,
Mere semblances of blows, however slight;
So powder fires, although you only p’rhaps
Strike light.
To make it therefore, is a ticklish business,
And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness,
For as all human flash and fancy minders,
Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know,
There seldom is a mill without a blow
Sometimes upon the grinders.
But then--the melancholy phrase to soften,
Mr. B.’s mill _transpir’d_ so very often!
And advertised--than all Price Currents louder,
“Fragments look up--there is a rise in Powder,”
So frequently, it caused the neighbours’ wonder,--
And certain people had the inhumanity
To lay it all to Mr. Baker’s vanity,
That he might have to say--“That was _my_ thunder!”
One day--so goes the tale,
Whether, with iron hoof,
Not sparkle-proof
Some ninny-hammer struck upon a nail,--
Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp,
Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp--
One day this mill that had by water ground,
Became a sort of windmill and blew round.
With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it
Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky;
Besides some visitors who gained thereby,
What they had asked--permission “to go over it!”
Of course it was a very hard and high blow,
And somewhat differed from what’s called a flyblow.
At Cowes’ Regatta as I once observed,
A pistol-shot made twenty vessels start;
If such a sound could terrify oak’s heart,
Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved.
In fact, it was a very awful thing,--
As people know that have been used to battle,
In springing either mine or mill, you spring
A precious rattle!
The dunniest heard it--poor old Mr. F.
Doubted for once if he was ever deaf;
Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms;
Mr. and Mrs. Fogg,
Who lived like cat and dog,
Were shocked for once into each other’s arms.
Miss M. the milliner--her fright so strong,
Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long;
The veriest quakers quaked against their wish;
The “Best of Sons” was taken unawares,
And kick’d the “Best of Parents” down the stairs;
The steadiest servant dropped the China dish;
A thousand started, though there was but one
Fated to win, and that was Mister Dunn,
Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish!

Miss Wigings, with some grass upon her fork,
Toss’d it just like a hay-maker at work;
Her sister not in any better case,
For taking wine,
With nervous Mr. Pyne,
He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face.
Poor Mistress Davy,
Bobb’d off her bran-new turban in the gravy;
While Mr. Davy at the lower end,
Preparing for a Goose a carver’s labour,
Darted his two-pronged weapon in his neighbour,
As if for once he meant to help a friend.

The nurse-maid telling little “Jack-a-Norey,”
“Bo-peep” and “Blue-cap” at the house’s top,
Scream’d, and let Master Jeremiah drop
From a fourth story!
Nor yet did matters any better go
With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below;
As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning,
Expressing faintness and her fear by fits
And starts,--she came at last but to her wits,
By falling in the ale that John left running.

Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind,
Struck all at once deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind,
Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse,
Then coming to his mind,
Was shocked to find,
Only a pair of shafts without a horse.
Out scrambled all the Misses from Miss Joy’s!
From Prospect House, for urchins small and big,
Hearing the awful noise,
Out rushed a flood of boys,
Floating a man in black, without a wig;--
Some carried out one treasure, some another,--
Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry,
Some saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Murray,
But little Tiddy carried his big brother!

Sick of such terrors,
The Tunbridge folks resolv’d that truth should dwell
No longer secret in a Tunbridge Well,
But to warn Baker of his dangerous errors;
Accordingly to bring the point to pass,
They call’d a meeting of the broken glass,
The shatter’d chimney pots, and scatter’d tiles,
The damage of each part,
And packed it in a cart,
Drawn by the horse that ran from Mr. Miles;
While Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector,
And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex,
And some few more, whose names would only vex,
Went as a deputation to the Ex-
Powder-proprietor and Mill-director.
Now Mr. Baker’s dwelling-house had pleased
Along with mill-materials to roam,
And for a time the deputies were teased,
To find the noisy gentleman at home;
At last they found him with undamaged skin,
Safe at the Tunbridge Arms--not out--but Inn.

The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal,
Soon put his spoke in for the common weal--
A grave old gentlemanly kind of Urban,--
The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded,
And then unfolded,
By way of climax, Mrs. Davy’s turban;
He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding
Knock’d down a lot without a bidding,--
How Mr. Miles, in fright, had giv’n his mare
The whip she wouldn’t bear,--
At Prospect House, how Doctor Oates, not Titus,
Danc’d like Saint Vitus,--
And Mr. Beak, thro’ Powder’s misbehaving,
Cut off his nose whilst shaving;--
When suddenly, with words that seem’d like swearing,
Beyond a Licenser’s belief or bearing--
Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage--
“Who is to pay us, Sir,”--he argued thus,
“For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus--
Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-damage?

Now many a person had been fairly puzzled
By such assailants, and completely muzzled;
Baker, however, was not dash’d with ease--
But proved he practised after their own system,
And with small ceremony soon dismiss’d ’em,
Putting these words into their ears like fleas;
“If I do have a blow, well, where’s the oddity?
I merely do as other tradesmen do,
You, Sir,--and you--and you!
I’m only puffing off my own commodity!”

THE SCHOOLMASTER’S MOTTO.

“The Admiral compelled them all to strike.”--LIFE OF NELSON.

Hush! silence in School--not a noise!
You shall soon see there’s nothing to jeer at,
Master Marsh, most audacious of boys!
Come!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

So this morn in the midst of the Psalm,
The Miss Siffkin’s school you must leer at,
You’re complained of--Sir! hold out your palm,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You wilful young rebel, and dunce!
This offence all your sins shall appear at,
You shall have a good caning at once--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You are backward, you know, in each verb,
And your pronouns you are not more clear at,
But you’re forward enough to disturb,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You said Master Twigg stole the plums,
When the orchard he never was near at,
I’ll not punish wrong fingers or thumbs,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You make Master Taylor your butt,
And this morning his face you threw beer at,
And you struck him--do you like a cut?
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Little Biddle you likewise distress,
You are always his hair, or his ear at,--
He’s my _Opt_, Sir, and you are my _Pess_:
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous,
An offence I am always severe at!
You discredit to Cicero-House!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have made too a plot in the night,
To run off from the school that you rear at!
Come, your other hand, now, Sir,--the right,
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

I’ll teach you to draw, you young dog!
Such pictures as I’m looking here at!
“Old Mounseer making soup of a frog,”
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have run up a bill at a shop,
That in paying you’ll be a whole year at,--
You’ve but twopence a week, Sir, to stop!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then at dinner you’re quite cock-a-hoop,
And the soup you are certain to sneer at--
I have sipped it--it’s very good soup,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

T’other day when I fell o’er the form,
Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at?
Well for you that my temper’s not warm,--
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Why, you rascal! you insolent brat!
All my talking you don’t shed a tear at,
There--take that, Sir! and that! that! and that!
There!--“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

THE KANGAROOS.

A FABLE.

A pair of married kangaroos
(The case is oft a human one too)
Were greatly puzzled once to choose
A trade to put their eldest son to:
A little brisk and busy chap,
As all the little K.’s just then are--
About some two months off the lap,--
They’re not so long in arms as men are.

A twist in each parental muzzle
Betray’d the hardship of the puzzle--
So much the flavour of life’s cup
Is framed by early wrong or right,
And Kangaroos we know are quite
Dependent on their “rearing up.”
The question, with its ins and outs,
Was intricate and full of doubts;
And yet they had no squeamish carings
For trades unfit or fit for gentry,
Such notion never had an entry,
For they had no armorial bearings.
Howbeit they’re not the last on earth
That might indulge in pride of birth;
Whoe’er has seen their infant young
Bob in and out their mother’s pokes,
Would own, with very ready tongue,
They are not born like common folks.
Well, thus the serious subject stood,
It kept the old pair watchful nightly,
Debating for young hopeful’s good,
That he might earn his livelihood,
And go through life (like them) uprightly.
Arms would not do at all; no, marry,
In that line all his race miscarry;
And agriculture was not proper,
Unless they meant the lad to tarry
For ever as a mere clod-hopper.
He was not well cut out for preaching
At least in any striking style;
And as for being mercantile--
He was not form’d for over-reaching.
The law--why there still fate ill-starr’d him,
And plainly from the bar debarr’d him:
A doctor--who would ever fee him?
In music he could scarce engage,
And as for going on the stage
In tragic socks I think I see him.

He would not make a rigging-mounter;
A haberdasher had some merit,
But there the counter still ran counter,
For just suppose
A lady chose
To ask him for a yard of ferret!

A gardener digging up his beds,
The puzzled parents shook their heads.

“A tailor would not do because--”
They paused and glanced upon his paws.

Some parish post, though fate should place it
Before him, how could he embrace it?

In short each anxious Kangaroo
Discuss’d the matter through and through
By day they seem’d to get no nearer,
’Twas posing quite--
And in the night
Of course they saw their way no clearer!
At last thus musing on their knees--
Or hinder elbows if you please--
It came--no thought was ever brighter!
In weighing every why and whether,
They jump’d upon it both together--
“Let’s make the imp a _short-hand writer_!”

MORAL.

I wish all human parents so
Would argue what their sons are fit for;
Some would-be critics that I know
Would be in trades they have more wit for.