Chapter II: Preface (2)

“Try it again, Ma’am, only try!”
Was still the voluble Pedlar’s cry;
“It’s a great privation, there’s no dispute,
To live like the dumb unsociable brute,
And to hear no more of the _pro_ and _con_,
And how Society’s going on,
Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John,
And all for want of this _sine quâ non_;
Whereas, with a horn that never offends,
You may join the genteelest party that is,
And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz,
And be certain to hear of your absent friends;--
Not that elegant ladies, in fact,
In genteel society ever detract,
Or lend a brush when a friend is black’d,--
At least as a mere malicious act,--
But only talk scandal for fear some fool
Should think they were bred at _charity_ school.
Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation,
Which even the most Don Juanish rake
Would surely object to undertake
At the same high pitch as an altercation.
It’s not for me, of course, to judge
How much a Deaf Lady ought to begrudge;
But half-a-guinea seems no great matter--
Letting alone more rational patter--
Only to hear a parrot chatter:
Not to mention that feather’d wit,
The Starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit;
The Pies and Jays that utter words,
And other Dicky Gossips of birds,
That talk with as much good sense and decorum,
As many _Beaks_ who belong to the quorum.

“‘Try it--buy it--say ten and six,
The lowest price a miser could fix:
I don’t pretend with horns of mine,
Like some in the advertising line,
To ‘_magnify sounds_’ on such marvellous scales
That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale’s;
But popular rumours, right or wrong,--
Charity sermons, short or long,--
Lecture, speech, concerto, or song,
All noises and voices, feeble or strong,
From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong,
This tube will deliver distinct and clear;
Or, supposing by chance
You wish to dance,
Why, it’s putting a _Horn-pipe_ into your ear!
Try it--buy it!
Buy it--try it!
The last New Patent, and nothing comes nigh it,
For guiding sounds to their proper tunnel:
Only try till the end of June,
And if you and the Trumpet are out of tune
I’ll turn it gratis into a funnel!”

In short, the pedlar so beset her,--
Lord Bacon couldn’t have gammon’d her better,--
With flatteries plump and indirect,
And plied his tongue with such effect,--
A tongue that could almost have butter’d a crumpet,--
The deaf old woman bought the Trumpet.

* * * * *

* * * * *

The pedlar was gone. With the horn’s assistance,
She heard his steps die away in the distance;
And then she heard the tick of the clock,
The purring of puss and the snoring of Shock;
And she purposely dropp’d a pin that was little,
And heard it fall as plain as a skittle!

’Twas a wonderful horn, to be but just!
Nor meant to gather dust, must and rust;
So in half a jiffy, or less than that,
In her scarlet cloak and her steeple-hat,
Like old Dame Trot, but without her cat,
The gossip was hunting all Tringham through,
As if she meant to canvass the borough,
Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity;--
And, sure, had the horn been one of those
The wild Rhinoceros wears on his nose,
It couldn’t have ripp’d up more depravity!

Depravity! mercy shield her ears!
’Twas plain enough that her village peers
In the ways of vice were no raw beginners;
For whenever she raised the tube to her drum
Such sounds were transmitted as only come
From the very Brass Band of human sinners!
Ribald jest and blasphemous curse
(Bunyan never vented worse),
With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech
Which the Seven Dialecticians teach;
Filthy Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns,
And Particles pick’d from the kennels of towns,
With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs,
Chiefly active in rows and mobs,
Picking possessive Pronouns’ fobs,
And Interjections as bad as a blight,
Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight;
Fanciful phrases for crime and sin,
And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin,
Garlic, Tobacco, and offals go in--
A jargon so truly adapted, in fact,
To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act,
So fit for the brute with the human shape,
Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape,
From their ugly mouths it will certainly come
Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb!

Alas! for the Voice of Virtue and Truth,
And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth!
The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang,
Shock’d the Dame with a volley of slang,
Fit for Fagin’s juvenile gang;
While the charity chap,
With his muffin cap,
His crimson coat, and his badge so garish,
Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole,
Cursed his eyes, limbs, body and soul,
As if they didn’t belong to the Parish!

’Twas awful to hear, as she went along,
The wicked words of the popular song;
Or supposing she listen’d--as gossips will--
At a door ajar, or a window agape,
To catch the sounds they allow’d to escape,
Those sounds belong’d to Depravity still!
The dark allusion, or bolder brag
Of the dexterous “dodge,” and the lots of “swag,”
The plunder’d house--or the stolen nag--
The blazing rick, or the darker crime,
That quench’d the spark before its time--
The wanton speech of the wife immoral--
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel,
With savage menace, which threaten’d the life,
Till the heart seem’d merely a strop “for the knife;”
The human liver, no better than that,
Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman’s cat;
And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding,
To be punch’d into holes, like “a shocking bad hat,”
That is only fit to be punch’d into wadding!

In short, wherever she turn’d the horn,
To the highly bred, or the lowly born,
The working man, who look’d over the hedge,
Or the mother nursing her infant pledge,
The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels,
Or the Governess pacing the village through,
With her twelve Young Ladies, two and two,
Looking, as such young ladies do,
Truss’d by Decorum and stuff’d with morals--
Whether she listen’d to Hob or Bob,
Nob or Snob,
The Squire on his cob,
Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job,
To the “Saint” who expounded at “Little Zion”--
Or the “Sinner” who kept “the Golden Lion”--
The man teetotally wean’d from liquor--
The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Reverend Vicar--
Nay, the very Pie in its cage of wicker--
She gather’d such meanings, double or single,
That like the bell,
With muffins to sell,
Her ear was kept in a constant tingle!

But this was nought to the tales of shame,
The constant runnings of evil fame,
Foul, and dirty, and black as ink,
That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink,
Pour’d in her horn like slops in a sink:
While sitting in conclave, as gossips do,
With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green,
And not a little of feline spleen
Lapp’d up in “Catty packages,” too,
To give a zest to the sipping and supping;
For still by some invisible tether,
Scandal and Tea are link’d together,
As surely as Scarification and Cupping;
Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea--
Or sloe, or whatever it happen’d to be,
For some grocerly thieves
Turn over new leaves,
Without much amending their lives or their tea--
No, never since cup was fill’d or stirr’d
Were such wild and horrible anecdotes heard,
As blacken’d their neighbours of either gender,
Especially that, which is called the Tender,
But, instead of the softness we fancy therewith,
Was harden’d in vice as the vice of a smith.

Women! the wretches! had soil’d and marr’d
Whatever to womanly nature belongs;
For the marriage tie they had no regard,
Nay, sped their mates to the sexton’s yard,
(Like Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches
Kept cutting off her L by inches)--
And as for drinking, they drank so hard
That they drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs!
The men--they fought and gambled at fairs;
And poach’d--and didn’t respect grey hairs--
Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses;
And broke in houses as well as horses;
Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton,--
And would their own mothers and wives for a button;
But not to repeat the deeds they did,
Backsliding in spite of all moral skid,
If all were true that fell from the tongue,
There was not a villager, old or young,
But deserved to be whipp’d, imprison’d, or hung,
Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries,
To publish at Colburn’s, or Longman’s, or Murray’s.

Meanwhile the Trumpet, _con amore_,
Transmitted each vile diabolical story;
And gave the least whisper of slips and falls,
As that Gallery does in the Dome of St. Paul’s,
Which, as all the world knows, by practice or print,
Is famous for making the most of a hint.
Not a murmur of shame,
Or buzz of blame,
Not a flying report that flew at a name,
Not a plausible gloss, or significant note,
Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat,
Of a beam in the eye, or diminutive note,
But vortex-like that tube of tin
Suck’d the censorious particle in;
And, truth to tell, for as willing an organ
As ever listen’d to serpent’s hiss,
Nor took the viperous sound amiss,
On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon!

The Dame, it is true, would mutter “shocking!”
And give her head a sorrowful rocking,
And make a clucking with palate and tongue,
Like the call of Partlett to gather her young,
A sound, when human, that always proclaims
At least a thousand pities and shames;
But still the darker the tale of sin,
Like certain folks, when calamities burst,
Who find a comfort in “hearing the worst,”
The farther she poked the Trumpet in.
Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread
East and West, and North and South,
Like the ball which, according to Captain Z.,
Went in at his ear, and came out at his mouth.

What wonder between the Horn and the Dame,
Such mischief was made wherever they came,
That the parish of Tringham was all in a flame!
For although it required such loud discharges,
Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear,
To turn the smallest of table-beer,
A little whisper breathed into the ear
Will sour a temper “as sour as varges.”
In fact such very ill blood there grew,
From this private circulation of stories,
That the nearest neighbours the village through,
Look’d at each other as yellow and blue,
As any electioneering crew
Wearing the colours of Whigs and Tories.

Ah! well the Poet said, in sooth,
That “whispering tongues can poison Truth,”--
Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid,
Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid,
And rack dear Love with internal fuel,
Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel,
Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel,--
At least such torments began to ring ’em
From the very morn
When that mischievous Horn
Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham.

The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs,
And the Sons of Harmony came to cuffs,
While feuds arose and family quarrels,
That discomposed the mechanics of morals,
For screws were loose between brother and brother,
While sisters fasten’d their nails on each other;
Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff,
And spar, and jar--and breezes as stiff
As ever upset a friendship--or skiff!
The plighted lovers, who used to walk,
Refused to meet, and declined to talk;
And wish’d for _two_ moons to reflect the sun,
That they mightn’t look together on one;
While wedded affection ran so low,
That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo--
And instead of the toddle adown the hill,
Hand in hand,
As the song has plann’d,
Scratch’d her, penniless, out of his will!

In short, to describe what came to pass
In a true, though somewhat theatrical way,
Instead of “Love in a Village”--alas!
The piece they perform’d was “The Devil to Pay!”

However, as secrets are brought to light,
And mischief comes home like chickens at night;
And rivers are track’d throughout their course,
And forgeries traced to their proper source;--
And the sow that ought
By the ear is caught,--
And the sin to the sinful door is brought;
And the cat at last escapes from the bag--
And the saddle is placed on the proper nag--
And the fog blows off, and the key is found--
And the faulty scent is pick’d out by the hound--
And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground--
And the matter gets wind to waft it about;
And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out--
And the riddle is guess’d--and the puzzle is known--
So the truth was sniff’d, and the Trumpet was _blown_!

* * * * *

’Tis a day in November--a day of fog--
But the Tringham people are all agog;
Fathers, Mothers, and Mothers’ Sons,--
With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns,--
As if in pursuit of a rabid dog;
But their voices--raised to the highest pitch--
Declare that the game is “a Witch!--a Witch!”

Over the Green, and along by The George--
Past the Stocks, and the Church, and the Forge,
And round the Pound, and skirting the Pond,
Till they come to the whitewash’d cottage beyond,
And there at the door they muster and cluster,
And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster--
Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster!
A noise, indeed, so loud and long,
And mix’d with expressions so very strong,
That supposing, according to popular fame,
“Wise Woman” and Witch to be the same,
No hag with a broom would unwisely stop,
But up and away through the chimney-top;
Whereas, the moment they burst the door,
Planted fast on her sanded floor,
With her Trumpet up to her organ of hearing,
Lo and behold! Dame Eleanor Spearing!

Oh! then arises the fearful shout--
Bawl’d and scream’d, and bandied about--
“Seize her!--Drag the old Jezebel out!”
While the Beadle--the foremost of all the band,
Snatches the Horn from her trembling hand--
And after a pause of doubt and fear,
Puts it up to his sharpest ear.

“Now silence--silence--one and all!”
For the Clerk is quoting from Holy Paul!
But before he rehearses
A couple of verses,
The Beadle lets the Trumpet fall:
For instead of the words so pious and humble,
He hears a supernatural grumble.

Enough, enough! and more than enough;--
Twenty impatient hands and rough,
By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff,
Apron, ‘kerchief, gown of stuff--
Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff--
Are clutching the Witch wherever they can,
With the spite of Woman and fury of Man;
And then--but first they kill her cat,
And murder her dog on the very mat--
And crush the infernal Trumpet flat;--
And then they hurry her through the door
She never, never will enter more!

Away! away! down the dusty lane
They pull her, and haul her, with might and main;
And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry,
Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry,
Who happens to get “a leg to carry!”
And happy the foot that can give her a kick,
And happy the hand that can find a brick--
And happy the fingers that hold a stick--
Knife to cut, or pin to prick--
And happy the Boy who can lend her a lick;--
Nay, happy the urchin--Charity-bred,
Who can shy very nigh to her wicked old head!

Alas! to think how people’s creeds
Are contradicted by people’s deeds!
But though the wishes that Witches utter
Can play the most diabolical rigs--
Send styes in the eye--and measle the pigs--
Grease horses’ heels--and spoil the butter;
Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk--
And turn new milk to water and chalk,--
Blight apples--and give the chickens the pip--
And cramp the stomach--and cripple the hip--
And waste the body--and addle the eggs--
And give a baby bandy legs;
Though in common belief a Witch’s curse
Involves all these horrible things, and worse--
As ignorant bumpkins all profess,
No bumpkin makes a poke the less
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S.!
As if she were only a sack of barley!
Or gives her credit for greater might
Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night
On that other old woman, the parish Charley!

Ay, now’s the time for a Witch to call
On her Imps and Sucklings one and all--
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown,
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down)
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,
Vinegar Tom, and the rest of the pack--
Ay, now’s the nick for her friend Old Harry
To come “with his tail” like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job
As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob:--
But no such matter is down in the bond;
And spite of her cries that never cease,
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
The Dame is dragg’d to the fatal pond!

And now they come to the water’s brim--
And in they bundle her--sink or swim;
Though it’s twenty to one that the wretch must drown,
With twenty sticks to hold her down;
Including the help to the self-same end,
Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend.
A Pedlar!--Yes!--The same!--the same!
Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame!
And now is foremost amid the stir,
With a token only reveal’d to her;
A token that makes her shudder and shriek,
And point with her finger, and strive to speak--
But before she can utter the name of the Devil,
Her head is under the water level!

MORAL.

There are folks about town--to name no names--
Who much resemble that deafest of Dames!
And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets,
Circulate many a scandalous word,
And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such Diabolical Trumpets!

AN OPEN QUESTION.

“It is the king’s highway, that we are in, and in this way it is
that thou hast placed the lions.”--BUNYAN.

What! shut the gardens! lock the latticed gate!
Refuse the shilling and the fellow’s ticket!
And hang a wooden notice up to state,
“On Sundays no admittance at this wicket!”
The birds, the beasts, and all the reptile race
Denied to friends and visitors till Monday!
Now, really, this appears the common case
Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

The Gardens,--so unlike the ones we dub
Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses,--
Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub,--
Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses?
No ale is vended at the wild Deer’s Head,--
Nor rum--nor gin--not even of a Monday--
The Lion is not carved--or gilt--or red,
And does not send out porter of a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

The bear denied! the leopard under locks!
As if his spots would give contagious fevers;
The beaver close as hat within its box;
So different from other Sunday beavers!
The birds invisible--the gnaw-way rats--
The seal hermetically seal’d till Monday--
The monkey tribe--the family of cats,--
We visit other families on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

What is the brute profanity that shocks
The super-sensitively serious feeling?
The kangaroo--is he not orthodox
To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling?
Was strict Sir Andrew, in his sabbath coat,
Struck all a heap to see a _Coati Mundi_?
Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note
The pelicans presenting bills on Sunday?--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

What feature has repulsed the serious set?
What error in the bestial birth or breeding,
To put their tender fancies on the fret?
One thing is plain--it is not in the feeding!
Some stiffish people think that smoking joints
Are carnal sins ’twixt Saturday and Monday--
But then the beasts are pious on these points,
For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

What change comes o’er the spirit of the place,
As if transmuted by some spell organic?
Turns fell hyæna of the ghoulish race?
The snake, _pro tempore_, the true Satanic?
Do Irish minds,--(whose theory allows
That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday)--
Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows
Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

There are some moody fellows, not a few,
Who, turn’d by Nature with a gloomy bias,
Renounce black devils to adopt the blue,
And think when they are dismal they are pious:
Is’t possible that Pug’s untimely fun
Has sent the brutes to Coventry till Monday--
Or p’rhaps some animal, no serious one,
Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

What dire offence have serious fellows found
To raise their spleen against the Regent’s spinney?
Were charitable boxes handed round,
And would not guinea pigs subscribe their guinea?
Perchance the Demoiselle refused to moult
The feathers in her head--at least till Monday;
Or did the elephant unseemly, bolt
A tract presented to be read on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

At whom did Leo struggle to get loose?
Who mourns through monkey tricks his damaged clothing?
Who has been hiss’d by the Canadian goose?
On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing?
Some Smithfield saint did jealous feelings tell
To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday,
Because he played extempore as well
As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

To me it seems that in the oddest way
(Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius)
Our would-be keepers of the Sabbath-day
Are like the keepers of the brutes ferocious--
As soon the tiger might expect to stalk
About the grounds from Saturday till Monday
As any harmless man to take a walk,
If saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

In spite of all hypocrisy can spin,
As surely as I am a Christian scion,
I cannot think it is a mortal sin--
(Unless he’s loose) to look upon a lion.
I really think that one may go, perchance,
To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday--
(That is, provided that he did not dance)
Bruin’s no worse than baking on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

In spite of all the fanatic compiles,
I cannot think the day a bit diviner,
Because no children, with forestalling smiles,
Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor--
It is not plain, to my poor faith at least,
That what we christen “Natural” on Monday,
The wondrous History of bird and beast,
Can be unnatural because it’s Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Whereon is sinful fantasy to work?
The dove, the wing’d Columbus of man’s haven?
The tender love-bird--or the filial stork?
The punctual crane--the providential raven?
The pelican whose bosom feeds her young?
Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday
That feather’d marvel with a human tongue,
Because she does not preach upon a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

The busy beaver--that sagacious beast!
The sheep that owned an Oriental Shepherd--
That desert-ship the camel of the East,
The horn’d rhinoceros--the spotted leopard--
The creatures of the Great Creator’s hand
Are surely sights for better days than Monday--
The elephant, although he wears no band,
Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil,
Weary of frame, and worn and wan in feature,
Seek once a week their spirits to assoil,
And snatch a glimpse of “Animated Nature?”
Better it were if, in his best of suits,
The artisan, who goes to work on Monday,
Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes,
Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Why, zounds! what raised so Protestant a fuss
(Omit the zounds! for which I make apology)
But that the Papists, like some fellows, thus
Had somehow mixed up _Dens_ with their theology?
Is Brahma’s bull--a Hindoo god at home--
A papal bull to be tied up till Monday--
Or Leo, like his namesake, Pope of Rome,
That there is such a dread of them on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Spirit of Kant! have we not had enough
To make religion sad, and sour, and snubbish
But saints zoological must cant their stuff,
As vessels cant their ballast--rattling rubbish!
Once let the sect, triumphant to their text,
Shut Nero[2] up from Saturday till Monday,
And sure as fate they will deny us next
To see the dandelions on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

NOTE.--There is an anecdote of a Scotch Professor who happened
during a Sunday walk to be hammering at a geological specimen which
he had picked up, when a peasant gravely accosted him, and said,
very seriously, “Eh! Sir, you think you are only breaking a stone,
but you are breaking the Sabbath.”

In a similar spirit, some of our over-righteous sectarians are fond
of attributing all breakage to the same cause--from the smashing of
a parish lamp, up to the fracture of a human skull;--the “breaking
into the bloody house of life,” or the breaking into a brick-built
dwelling. They all originate in the breaking of the Sabbath. It is
the source of every crime in the country--the parent of every
illegitimate child in the parish. The picking of a pocket is
ascribed to the picking of a daisy--the robbery on the highway to a
stroll in the fields--the incendiary fire to a hot dinner--on
Sunday. All other causes--the want of education--the want of moral
culture--the want of bread itself, are totally repudiated. The
criminal himself is made to confess at the gallows that he owes his
appearance on the scaffold to a walk with “Sally in our alley” on
the “day that comes between a Saturday and Monday.”

Supposing this theory to be correct, and made like the law “for
every degree,” the wonder of Captain Macheath that we haven’t
“better company at Tyburn tree” (now the New Drop) must be fully
shared by everybody who has visited the Ring in Hyde Park on the
day in question. But how much greater must be the wonder of any
person who has happened to reside, like myself, for a year or two
in a continental city, inhabited, according to the strict
construction of our Mawworms, by some fifteen or twenty thousand of
habitual Sabbath-breakers, and yet, without hearing of murder and
robbery as often as of blood-sausages and dollars! A city where the
Burgomaster himself must have come to a bad end, if a dance upon
Sunday led so inevitably to a dance upon nothing!

The “saints” having set up this absolute dependence of crime on
Sabbath-breaking, their relative proportions become a fair
statistical question; and, as such, the inquiry is seriously
recommended to the rigid legislator, who acknowledges, indeed, that
the Sabbath was “made for man,” but, by a singular interpretation,
conceives that the man for whom it was made is himself!

THE TURTLES.

A FABLE.

“The rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle.”--BYRON.

One day, it was before a civic dinner,
Two London Aldermen, no matter which,
Cordwainer, Girdler, Patten-maker, Skinner--
But both were florid, corpulent, and rich,
And both right fond of festive demolition,
Set forth upon a secret expedition.
Yet not, as might be fancied from the token,
To Pudding Lane, Pie Corner, or the Street
Of Bread, or Grub, or anything to eat,
Or drink, as Milk, or Vintry, or Portsoken,
But eastward to that more aquatic quarter,
Where folks take water,
Or bound on voyages, secure a berth
For Antwerp or Ostend, Dundee or Perth,
Calais, Boulogne, or any Port on earth!
Jostled and jostling, through the mud,
Peculiar to the Town of Lud,
Down narrow streets and crooked lanes they dived,
Past many a gusty avenue, through which
Came yellow fog, and smell of pitch,
From barge, and boat, and dusky wharf derived;
With darker fumes, brought eddying by the draught,
From loco-smoko-motive craft;
Mingling with scents of butter, cheese, and gammons,
Tea, coffee, sugar, pickles, rosin, wax,
Hides, tallow, Russia-matting, hemp and flax,
Salt-cod, red-herrings, sprats, and kipper’d salmons,
Nuts, oranges, and lemons,
Each pungent spice, and aromatic gum,
Gas, pepper, soaplees, brandy, gin, and rum;
Alamode-beef and greens--the London soil--
Glue, coal, tobacco, turpentine and oil,
Bark, assafœtida, squills, vitriol, hops,
In short, all whiffs, and sniffs, and puffs and snuffs,
From metals, minerals, and dyewood stuffs,
Fruits, victual, drink, solidities, or slops--
In flasks, casks, bales, trucks, waggons, taverns, shops,
Boats, lighters, cellars, wharfs, and warehouse-tops,
That, as we walk upon the river’s ridge,
Assault the nose--below the bridge.

A walk, however, as tradition tells,
That once a poor blind Tobit used to choose,
Because, incapable of other views,
He met with “such a sight of smells.”

But on, and on, and on,
In spite of all unsavoury shocks,
Progress the stout Sir Peter and Sir John,
Steadily steering ship-like for the docks--
And now they reach a place the Muse, unwilling,
Recalls for female slang and vulgar doing,
The famous Gate of Billing,
That does not lead to cooing--
And now they pass that House that is so ugly
A Customer to people looking “smuggley”--
And now along that fatal Hill they pass
Where centuries ago an Oxford bled,
And proved--too late to save his life, alas!--
That _he_ was “off his head.”

At last before a lofty brick-built pile
Sir Peter stopp’d, and with mysterious smile
Tingled a bell that served to bring
The wire-drawn genius of the ring,
A species of commercial Samuel Weller--
To whom Sir Peter--tipping him a wink,
And something else to drink--
“Show us the cellar.”

Obsequious bow’d the man, and led the way
Down sundry flights of stairs, where windows small,
Dappled with mud, let in a dingy ray--
A dirty tax, if they were tax’d at all.

At length they came into a cellar damp,
With venerable cobwebs fringed around,
A cellar of that stamp
Which often harbours vintages renown’d,
The feudal Hock, or Burgundy the courtly,
With sherry, brown or golden,
Or port, so olden,
Bereft of body ’tis no longer portly--
But old or otherwise--to be veracious--
That cobwebb’d cellar, damp, and dim, and spacious,
Held nothing crusty--but crustaceous.

Prone, on the chilly floor,
Five splendid Turtles--such a five!
Natives of some West Indian shore,
Were flapping all alive,
Late landed from the Jolly Planter’s yawl--
A sight whereon the dignitaries fix’d
Their eager eyes, with ecstacy unmix’d,
Like fathers that behold their infants crawl,
Enjoying every little kick and sprawl.
Nay--far from fatherly the thoughts they bred
Poor loggerheads from far Ascension ferried!
The Aldermen too plainly wish’d them dead
And Aldermanbury’d!

“There!” cried Sir Peter, with an air
Triumphant as an ancient victor’s,
And pointing to the creatures rich and rare,
“There’s picters!”

“Talk of Olympic Games! They’re not worth mention;
The real prize for wrestling is when Jack,
In Providence or Ascension,
Can throw a lively turtle on its back!”

“Aye!” cried Sir John, and with a score of nods,
Thoughtful of classical symposium,
“There’s food for Gods!
There’s nectar! there’s ambrosium!
There’s food for Roman Emperors to eat--
Oh, there had been a treat
(Those ancient names will sometimes hobble us)
For Helio-gobble-us!”

“There were a feast for Alexander’s Feast!
The real sort--none of your mock or spurious!”
And then he mention’d Aldermen deceased,
And “Epicurius,”
And how Tertullian had enjoy’d such foison;
And speculated on that _verdigrease_
That isn’t poison.

“Talk of your Spring, and verdure, and all that!
Give _me_ green fat!
As for your Poets with their groves of myrtles
And billing turtles,
Give me, for poetry, them Turtles there,
A-billing in a bill of fare!”

“Of all the things I ever swallow--
Good, well-dressed turtle beats them hollow--
It almost makes me wish, I vow,
To have _two_ stomachs, like a cow!”
And lo! as with the cud, an inward thrill
Upheaved his waistcoat and disturb’d his frill,
His mouth was oozing and he work’d his jaw--
“I almost think that I could eat one raw!”

And thus, as “inward love breeds outward talk,”
The portly pair continued to discourse;
And then--as Gray describes of life’s divorce--
With “longing lingering look” prepared to walk,--
Having thro’ one delighted sense, at least,
Enjoy’d a sort of Barmecidal feast,
And with prophetic gestures, strange to see,
Forestall’d the civic Banquet yet to be,
Its callipash and callipee!

A pleasant prospect--but alack!
Scarcely each Alderman had turn’d his back,
When seizing on the moment so propitious,
And having learn’d that they were so delicious
To bite and sup,
From praises so high flown and injudicious,--
And nothing could be more pernicious!
The turtles fell to work, and ate each other up!

MORAL.

Never, from folly or urbanity,
Praise people thus profusely to their faces,
Till quite in love with their own graces,
They’re eaten up by vanity!

TOWN AND COUNTRY.

AN ODE.

O! Well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh “_O rus!_”
Of London pleasures sick:
My heart is all at pant to rest
In greenwood shades--my eyes detest
This endless meal of brick!

What joy have I in June’s return?
My feet are parch’d, my eyeballs burn,
I scent no flowery gust:
But faint the flagging zephyr springs,
With dry Macadam on its wings,
And turns me “dust to dust.”

My sun his daily course renews
Due east, but with no Eastern dews;
The path is dry and hot!
His setting shows more tamely still,
He sinks behind no purple hill,
But down a chimney’s pot!

O! but to hear the milkmaid blithe,
Or early mower wet his scythe
The dewy meads among!--
My grass is of that sort, alas!
That makes no hay--called sparrow-grass
By folks of vulgar tongue!

O! but to smell the woodbines sweet!
I think of cowslip cups--but meet
With very vile rebuffs!
For meadow-buds I get a whiff
Of Cheshire cheese,--or only sniff
The turtle made at Cuft’s.

How tenderly Rousseau reviewed
His periwinkles!--mine are stewed!
My rose blooms on a gown!--
I hunt in vain for eglantine,
And find my blue-bell on the sign
That marks the Bell and Crown:

Where are ye, birds! that blithely wing
From tree to tree, and gaily sing
Or mourn in thickets deep?
My cuckoo has some ware to sell,
The watchman is my Philomel,
My blackbird is a sweep!

Where are ye, linnet, lark, and thrush!
That perch on leafy bough and bush,
And tune the various song?
Two hurdigurdists, and a poor
Street-Handel grinding at my door,
Are all my “tuneful throng.”

Where are ye, early-purling streams,
Whose waves reflect the morning beams,
And colours of the skies?
My rills are only puddle-drains
From shambles, or reflect the stains
Of calimanco-dyes!

Sweet are the little brooks that run
O’er pebbles glancing in the sun,
Singing in soothing tones:--
Not thus the city streamlets flow;
They make no music as they go,
Though never “off the stones.”

Where are ye, pastoral pretty sheep,
That wont to bleat, and frisk, and leap
Beside your woolly dams?
Alas! instead of harmless crooks,
My Corydons use iron hooks,
And skin--not shear--the lambs.

The pipe whereon, in olden day,
The Arcadian herdsman used to play
Sweetly, here soundeth not;
But merely breathes unwholesome fumes,
Meanwhile the city boor consumes
The rank weed--“piping hot.”

All rural things are vilely mock’d,
On every hand the sense is shock’d,
With objects hard to bear:
Shades--vernal shades!--where wine is sold!
And, for a turfy bank, behold
An Ingram’s rustic chair!

Where are ye, London meads and bowers,
And gardens redolent of flowers
Wherein the zephyr wons?
Alas! Moor Fields are fields no more.
See Hatton’s Gardens bricked all o’er,
And that bare wood--St. John’s.

No pastoral scenes procure me peace;
I hold no Leasowes in my lease,
No cot set round with trees:
No sheep-white hill my dwelling flanks;
And Omnium furnishes my banks
With brokers--not with bees.

O! well may poets make a fuss
In summer time, and sigh “_O rus!_”
Of city pleasures sick:
My heart is all at pant to rest
In greenwood shades--my eyes detest
That endless meal of brick!

NO!

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon--
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--no “t’other side the way”--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--
No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing ’em--
No knowing ’em!--
No travelling at all--no locomotion,
No inkling of the way--no notion--
“No go”--by land or ocean--
No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No Park--no Ring--no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,--
November!

THE LOST HEIR.

“Oh, where, and oh where
Is my bonny laddie gone?”--OLD SONG

One day, as I was going by
That part of Holborn christened High,
I heard a loud and sudden cry
That chill’d my very blood;
And lo! from out a dirty alley,
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally,
I saw a crazy woman sally,
Bedaub’d with grease and mud.
She turn’d her East, she turn’d her West,
Staring like Pythoness possest,
With streaming hair and heaving breast
As one stark mad with grief.
This way and that she wildly ran,
Jostling with woman and with man--
Her right hand held a frying pan,
The left a lump of beef.
At last her frenzy seem’d to reach
A point just capable of speech,
And with a tone almost a screech,
As wild as ocean birds,
Or female Ranter mov’d to preach,
She gave her “sorrow words.”

“Oh Lord! oh dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick stark staring wild!
Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child?
Lawk help me, I don’t know where to look, or to run, if I only knew which way--
A child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven Dials, is a
needle in a bottle of hay.
I am all in a quiver--get out of my sight, do, you wretch, you little Kitty
M’Nab!
You promised to have half an eye on him, you know you did, you dirty deceitful young drab.
The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my own blessed Motherly eyes,
Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making little dirt pies.
I wonder he left the court where he was better off than all the other young boys,
With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead kitten by way of toys.
When his father comes home, and he always comes home as sure as ever the clock
strikes one,
He’ll be rampant, he will, at his child being lost; and the beef and the inguns
not done!
La bless you, good folks, mind your own consarns, and don’t be making a mob
in the street;
Oh Serjeant M’Farlane! you have not come across my poor little boy, have you.
in your beat?
Do, good people, move on! don’t stand staring at me like a parcel of stupid
stuck pigs;
Saints forbid! but he’s p’r’aps been inviggled away up a court for the sake
of his clothes by the prigs;
He’d a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself for a shilling one
day in Rag Fair;
And his trousers considering not very much patch’d, and red plush, they was
once his Father’s best pair.
His shirt, it’s very lucky I’d got washing in the tub, or that might have gone
with the rest;
But he’d got on a very good pinafore with only two slits and a burn on the breast.
He’d a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sew’d in, and not quite so much
jagg’d at the brim.
With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a fit, and you’ll know by that
if it’s him.
Except being so well dress’d my mind would misgive, some old beggar woman in want
of an orphan,
Had borrow’d the child to go a begging with, but I’d rather see him laid out in
his coffin!
Do, good people, move on, such a rabble of boys! I’ll break every bone of ’em I
come near,
Go home--you’re spilling the porter--go home--Tommy Jones, go along home with
your beer.
This day is the sorrowfullest day of my life, ever since my name was Betty Morgan,
Them vile Savoyards! they lost him once before all along of following a Monkey
and an Organ.
Oh my Billy--my head will turn right round--if he’s got kiddynapp’d with them
Italians,
They’ll make him a plaster parish image boy, they will, the outlandish
tatterdemalions.
Billy--where are you, Billy?--I’m as hoarse as a crow, with screaming for ye,
you young sorrow!
And shan’t have half a voice, no more I shan’t, for crying fresh herrings to-morrow.
Oh Billy, you’re bursting my heart in two, and my life won’t be of no more vally,
If I’m to see other folks’ darlins, and none of mine, playing like angels in our alley.
And what shall I do but cry out my eyes, when I looks at the old three-legged chair
As Billy used to make coach and horses of, and there an’t no Billy there!
I would run all the wide world over to find him, if I only know’d where to run,
Little Murphy, now I remember, was once lost for a month through stealing a penny
bun,--
The Lord forbid of any child of mine! I think it would kill me raily
To find my Bill holdin’ up his little innocent hand at the Old Bailey.
For though I say it as oughtn’t, yet I will say, you may search for miles and
mileses
And not find one better brought up, and more pretty behaved, from one end to t’other
of St. Giles’s.
And if I call’d him a beauty, it’s no lie, but only as a Mother ought to
speak;
You never set eyes on a more handsomer face, only it hasn’t been wash’d for a
week;
As for hair, tho’ it’s red, it’s the most nicest hair when I’ve time to just show
it the comb;
I’ll owe ’em five pounds, and a blessing besides, as will only bring him safe
and sound home.
He’s blue eyes, and not to be call’d a squint, though a little cast he’s certainly
got;
And his nose is still a good un, tho’ the bridge is broke, by his falling on a
pewter pint pot;
He’s got the most elegant wide mouth in the world, and very large teeth for his
age;
And quite as fit as Mrs. Murdockson’s child to play Cupid on the Drury Lane Stage.
And then he has got such dear winning ways--but oh I never never shall see him no more!
O dear! to think of losing him just after nursing him back from death’s door!
Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang ’em, was at twenty a penny!
And the threepence he’d got by grottoing was spent in plums, and sixty for a child
is too many.
And the Cholera man came and whitewash’d us all and, drat him, made a seize of
our hog.
It’s no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he’s such a blunderin’ drunken
old dog;
The last time he was fetch’d to find a lost child, he was guzzling with his bell
at the Crown,
And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted Mother and Father
about Town.
Billy--where are you, Billy, I say? come Billy, come home, to your best of Mothers!
I’m scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, they’d run over their own
Sisters and Brothers.
Or may be he’s stole by some chimbly sweeping wretch, to stick fast in narrow flues
and what not,
And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when the soot has ketch’d, and
the chimbly’s red hot.
Oh I’d give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, to clap my two longin’ eyes
on his face.
For he’s my darlin of darlins, and if he don’t soon come back, you’ll see me drop
stone dead on the place.
I only wish I’d got him safe in these two Motherly arms, and wouldn’t I hug him
and kiss him!
Lauk! I never knew what a precious he was--but a child don’t not feel like a child till
you miss him.
Why there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young wretch, it’s that Billy as
sartin as sin!
But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and I’m blest if he shall
have a whole bone in his skin!”

SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND.

Cables entangling her,
Shipspars for mangling her,
Ropes, sure of strangling her;
Blocks over-dangling her;
Tiller to batter her,
Topmast to shatter her,
Tobacco to spatter her;
Boreas blustering,
Boatswain quite flustering,
Thunder clouds mustering
To blast her with sulphur--
If the deep don’t engulph her;
Sometimes fear’s scrutiny
Pries out a mutiny,
Sniffs conflagration,
Or hints at starvation:--
All the sea-dangers,
Buccaneers, rangers,
Pirates, and Sallee-men,
Algerine galleymen,
Tornadoes and typhons,
And horrible syphons,
And submarine travels
Thro’ roaring sea-navels;
Every thing wrong enough,
Long boat not long enough,
Vessel not strong enough;
Pitch marring frippery,
The deck very slippery,
And the cabin--built sloping,
The Captain a-toping,
And the Mate a blasphemer,
That names his Redeemer,--
With inward uneasiness;
The cook, known by greasiness,
The victuals beslubber’d,
Her bed--in a cupboard;
Things of strange christening,
Snatch’d in her listening,
Blue lights and red lights
And mention of dead lights,
And shrouds made a theme of,
Things horrid to dream of,--
And _buoys_ in the water
To fear all exhort her;
Her friend no Leander,
Herself no sea gander,
And ne’er a cork jacket
On board of the packet;
The breeze still a stiffening,
The trumpet quite deafening;
Thoughts of repentance,
And doomsday and sentence;
Everything sinister,
Not a church minister,--
Pilot a blunderer,
Coral reefs under her,
Ready to sunder her;
Trunks tipsy-topsy,
The ship in a dropsy;
Waves oversurging her,
Syrens a-dirgeing her;
Sharks all expecting her,
Sword-fish dissecting her,
Crabs with their hand-vices
Punishing land vices;
Sea-dogs and unicorns,
Things with no puny horns,
Mermen carnivorous--
“Good Lord deliver us!”

ANACREONTIC.

BY A FOOTMAN.

It’s wery well to talk in praise
Of Tea and Water-drinking ways,
In proper time and place;
Of sober draughts, so clear and cool,
Dipp’d out of a transparent pool
Reflecting heaven’s face.

Of babbling brooks, and purling rills,
And streams as gushes from the hills,
It’s wery well to talk;--
But what becomes of all sich schemes,
With ponds of ice, and running streams
As doesn’t even walk?

When Winter comes with piercing cold,
And all the rivers, new or old,
Is frozen far and wide;
And limpid springs is solid stuff,
And crystal pools is hard enough
To skate upon and slide;--

What then are thirsty men to do,
But drink of ale, and porter too,
Champagne as makes a fizz;
Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort,
And p’rhaps a drop of summut short--
The water-pipes is friz!

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SYDNEY.

“Well! Here I am--no Matter how it suits,
A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,
Old Park vos no bad Judge--confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!

“The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!

“To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!

“I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Years of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!

“If I’d fore-seed how Transports vood turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pool,
And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!

“Von only happy moment I have had
Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad,
And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze,
And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos!

“Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill?
Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;
And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,
I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye!

“If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,
And find a fence to turn it into Swag,
I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand,
And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand!

“But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,
To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,
I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place,
I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face.

“It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box
Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks,
‘Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,
They’ve nayther got a Poker nor a Pus.

“But Folks may tell their Troubles till they’re sick
To dumb brute Beasts,--and so I’ll cut my Stick!
And vot’s the Use a Feller’s Eyes to pipe
Vere von can’t borrow any Gemman’s Vipe?’

HUGGINS AND DUGGINS.

A PASTORAL AFTER POPE.

Two swains or clowns--but call them swains--
While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers,
Are turned to songsters, or to lovers,
Each of the lass he called his dear,
Began to carol loud and clear.

First Huggins sang, and Duggins then,
In the way of ancient shepherd men;
Who thus alternate hitch’d in song,
“All things by turns, and nothing long.”

HUGGINS.

Of all the girls about our place,
There’s one beats all in form and face,
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead,
You’ll only find one Peggy Plumpstead.

DUGGINS.

To groves and streams I tell my flame,
I make the cliffs repeat her name:
When I’m inspired by gills and noggins,
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins!

HUGGINS.

When I am walking in the grove,
I think of Peggy as I rove.
I’d carve her name on every tree,
But I don’t know my A, B, C.

DUGGINS.

Whether I walk in hill or valley,
I think of nothing else but Sally.
I’d sing her praise, but I can sing
No song, except “God save the King.

HUGGINS.

My Peggy does all nymphs excel,
And all confess she bears the bell,--
Where’er she goes swains flock together,
Like sheep that follow the bellwether.

DUGGINS.

Sally is tall and not too straight,--
Those very poplar shapes I hate;
But something twisted like an S,--
A crook becomes a shepherdess.

HUGGINS.

When Peggy’s dog her arms imprison,
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.

DUGGINS.

I tell Sall’s lambs how blest they be,
To stand about and stare at she;
But when I look, she turns and shies,
And won’t bear none but their sheep’s-eyes?

HUGGINS.

Love goes with Peggy where she goes,--
Beneath her smile the garden grows;
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts,
’Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts!

HUGGINS.

Where Sally goes it’s always spring,
Her presence brightens every thing;
The sun smiles bright, but where her grin is,
It makes brass farthings look like guineas.

HUGGINS.

For Peggy I can have no joy,
She’s sometimes kind, and sometimes coy,
And keeps me, by her wayward tricks,
As comfortless as sheep with ticks.

DUGGINS.

Sally is ripe as June or May,
And yet as cold as Christmas day;
For when she’s asked to change her lot,
Lamb’s wool,--but Sally, she wool not.

HUGGINS.

Only with Peggy and with health,
I’d never wish for state or wealth;
Talking of having health and more pence,
I’d drink her health if I had fourpence.

DUGGINS.

Oh, how that day would seem to shine,
If Sally’s banns were read with mine;
She cries, when such a wish I carry,
“Marry come up!” but will not marry.

PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT.

A SEA ECLOCUE.

“I apprehend you!”--SCHOOL OF REFORM.

BOATMAN.

Shove off there!--ship the rudder, Bill--cast off! she’s under way!

MRS. F.

She’s under what?--I hope she’s not! good gracious, what a spray!

BOATMAN.

Run out the jib, and rig the boom! keep clear of those two brigs!

MRS. F.

I hope they don’t intend some joke by running of their rigs!

BOATMAN.

Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft--she’s rather out of trim!

MRS. F.

Great bags of stones! they’re pretty things to help a boat to swim!

BOATMAN.

The wind is fresh--if she don’t scud, it’s not the breeze’s fault!

MRS. F.

Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt!

BOATMAN.