Chapter X (1)

My heart is full--my trunks as well;
My mind and caps made up,
My corsets shap’d by Mrs. Bell,
Are promised ere I sup;
With boots and shoes, Rivarta’s best,
And dresses by Ducé,
And a special license in my chest--
I’m going to Bombay!

JOHN JONES.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“I saw the iron enter into his soul.”--STERNE.

John Jones he was a builder’s clerk,
On ninety pounds a year,
Before his head was engine-turn’d
To be an engineer!

For, finding that the iron roads
Were quite the public tale,
Like Robin Redbreast, all his heart
Was set upon a rail.

But oh! his schemes all ended ill,
As schemes must come to nought,
With men who try to make short cuts,
When cut with something short.

His altitudes he did not take,
Like any other elf;
But first a spirit-level took,
That levelled him, himself.

Then getting up, from left to right
So many tacks he made,
The ground he meant to go upon
Got very well survey’d.

How crows may fly he did not care
A single fig to know;--
He wish’d to make an iron road,
And not an iron crow.

So, going to the Rose and Crown,
To cut his studies short,
The nearest way from _pint_ to _pint_,
He found was through a quart.

According to this rule he plann’d
His railroad o’er a cup;
But when he came to lay it down,
No soul would take it up!

Alas! not his the wily arts
Of men as shrewd as rats,
Who out of one sole _level_ make
A precious lot of _flats_!

In vain from Z to crooked S,
His devious line he show’d;
Directors even seemed to wish
For some directer road.

The writers of the public press
All sneered at his design;
And penny-a-liners wouldn’t give
A penny for his line.

Yet still he urged his darling scheme,
In spite of all the fates;
Until at last his zigzag ways
Quite brought him into _straits_.

His money gone, of course he sank
In debt from day to day,--
His way would not pay _him_--and so
He could not pay his way.

Said he, “All parties run me down--
How bitter is my cup!
My landlord is the only man
That ever runs me up!

“And he begins to talk of scores,
And will not draw a cork;”--
And then he rail’d at Fortune, since
He could not rail at York!

The morrow, in a fatal noose
They found him hanging fast;
This sentence scribbled on the wall,--
“I’ve got my line at last!”

Twelve men upon the body sate,
And thus, on oath, did say,
“We find he got his _gruel_, ‘cause
He couldn’t have his _way_!”

POMPEY’S GHOST.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”--COWPER.

’Twas twelve o’clock, not twelve at night,
But twelve o’clock at noon,
Because the sun was shining bright,
And not the silver moon:
A proper time for friends to call,
Or Pots, or Penny Post;
When, lo! as Phœbe sat at work,
She saw her Pompey’s Ghost!

Now when a female has a call
From people that are dead,
Like Paris ladies, she receives
Her visitors in bed:
But Pompey’s Spirit could not come
Like spirits that are white,
Because he was a Blackamoor,
And wouldn’t show at night!

But of all unexpected things
That happen to us here,
The most unpleasant is a rise
In what is very dear:
So Phœbe scream’d an awful scream,
To prove the seaman’s text,
That after black appearances,
White squalls will follow next.

“Oh, Phœbe dear! oh, Phœbe dear!
Don’t go to scream or faint;
You think because I’m black I am
The Devil, but I ain’t!
Behind the heels of Lady Lambe
I walk’d whilst I had breath;
But that is past, and I am now
A-walking after Death!

“No murder, though, I come to tell,
By base and bloody crime;
So, Phœbe dear, put off your fits
Till some more fitting time;
No Crowner, like a boatswain’s mate,
My body need attack,
With his round dozen to find out
Why I have died so black.

“One Sunday, shortly after tea,
My skin began to burn,
As if I had in my inside
A heater, like the urn.
Delirious in the night I grew,
And as I lay in bed,
They say I gather’d all the wool
You see upon my head.

“His Lordship for his doctor sent,
My treatment to begin--
I wish that he had call’d him out,
Before he call’d him in!
For though to physic he was bred,
And pass’d at Surgeons’ Hall,
To make his post a sinecure
He never cured at all!

“The doctor look’d about my breast,
And then about my back,
And then he shook his head and said,
‘Your case looks very black.’
And first he sent me hot cayenne,
And then gamboge to swallow,--
But still my fever would not turn
To Scarlet or to Yellow!

“With madder and with turmeric
He made his next attack;
But neither he nor all his drugs
Could stop my dying black.
At last I got so sick of life,
And sick of being dosed,
One Monday morning I gave up
My physic and the ghost!

“Oh, Phœbe dear, what pain it was
To sever every tie!
You know black beetles feel as much
As giants when they die--
And if there is a bridal bed,
Or bride of little worth,
It’s lying in a bed of mould,
Along with Mother Earth.

“Alas! some happy, happy day
In church I hoped to stand,
And like a muff of sable skin
Receive your lily hand;
But sternly with that piebald match
My fate untimely clashes--
For now, like Pompe-double-i,
I’m sleeping in my ashes!

“And now farewell!--a last farewell!
I’m wanted down below,
And have but time enough to add
One word before I go,--
In mourning crape and bombazine
Ne’er spend your precious pelf--
Don’t go in black for me,--for I
Can do it for myself.

“Henceforth within my grave I rest,
But Death who there inherits,
Allow’d my spirit leave to come,
You seem’d so out of spirits;
But do not sigh, and do not cry,
By grief too much engross’d--
Nor, for a ghost of colour, turn
The colour of a ghost!

“Again farewell, my Phœbe dear!
Once more a last adieu!
For I must make myself as scarce
As swans of sable hue.”
From black to grey, from grey to nought,
The shape began to fade,
And, like an egg, though not so white,
The Ghost was newly laid!

TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.[14]

Oh very pleasant Mr. Wrench,--
The first, upon the pit’s first bench,
I’ve scrambled to my place,
To hail thee on these summer boards
With joy, even critic-craft affords,
And watch thy welcome face!

Ere thou art come, how I rejoice
To hear thy free and easy voice,
Lounging about the slips;
And then thy figure comes and owns
The voice as careless as the tones
That saunter from thy lips.

Oh come and cast a quiet glance,
To glad a nameless friend, askance
The lamps’ ascending glare;
Better it is than bended knees,
Heart-squeezing, and profound congés--
That old familiar air.

Even in the street, in that apt face,
Full of gay gravity, I trace
The soul of native whim;
A constant, never-failing store
Of quiet mirth, that ne’er runs o’er,
But aye is near the brim.

Quoth I, “There goes a happy wight,
Inimical to spleen and spite,
And careless of all care;
Who oils the ruffled waves of strife,
And makes the work-day suit of life
Of very easy wear.

Lord! if he had some people’s ills
To cope--their hungry bonds and bills,
How faintly they would tease;
Things that have cost both tears and sighs--
Their foes, as motelings in his eyes--
Their duns, his summer fleas!

The stage, I guess, is not thy school--
Thou dost not antic like the fool
That wept behind his mask;
Thy playing is thy play--a sport--
A revel, as perform’d at Court,
And not a trade--a task!

Gay _Freeman_, art thou hired for _him_?
No--‘tis thy humour and thy whim
To be that easy guest;
Whereas whoever plays for pelf,
(Like Bennett) only gives _him_-self,
Or _her_--like Mrs. West!

Nay, thou--to look beyond the stage,
Thy life is but another page
Continued of the play;
The same companionable sprite--
Thy whim and pleasantry by night
Are with thee in the day!

LOVE, WITH A WITNESS.

He has shav’d off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows,
Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,--
But it’s him--Oh it’s him!--we exchanged lovers’ vows,
When I lived up in Cavendish Square.

He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,
And his voice was as soft as a flute--
Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d when he came,
To make love in his master’s best suit.

If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,
I shall never forget what he told;
How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth,
With their jewels and silver and gold?

When he kiss’d me and bade me adieu with a sigh,
By the light of the sweetest of moons,
Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye
To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!

LINES BY A SCHOOL-BOY.

When I was first a scholar, I went to Dr. Monk,
And elephant-like I had, sir, a cake put in my trunk;
The Rev. Doctor Monk, sir, was very grave and prim,
He stood full six foot high, sir, and we all looked up to him.

They didn’t pinch and starve us, as here they do at York,
For every boy was ask’d, sir, to bring a knife and fork.
And then I had a chum too, to fag and all of that,
I made him sum up my sums too, and eat up all my fat.

For goodness we had prizes, and birch for doing ill,
But none of the Birch that visits the bottom of Cornhill.
And we’d half a dozen ushers to teach us Latin and Greek,
And all we’d got in our heads, sir, was combed out once a week.

And then we had a shop, too, for lollipops and squibs,
Where I often had a lick, sir, at Buonaparty’s ribs!
Oh! if I was at Clapham, at my old school again,
In the rod I could fancy honey, and sugar in the cane.

ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON

ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE.

“It was Maria!--
And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid--
She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round
St. Peter’s once--and returned back--.”

_See the whole story in Sterne and the newspapers._

Thou art come back again to the stage
Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave it;
And ’tis well for this fortunate age
That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it!
It is pleasant to see thee again--
Right pleasant to see thee, by Herclé,
Unmolested by pea-colour’d Hayne!
And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley!

Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light
(Not _my_ Foote--I speak by correction)
As the snow on some mountain at night,
Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone.
The Pit is in raptures to free thee,
The Boxes impatient to greet thee,
The Galleries quite clam’rous to see thee,
And thy scenic relations to meet thee!

Ah, where was thy sacred retreat?
Maria! ah, where hast thou been,
With thy two little wandering Feet,
Far away from all peace and pea-green!
Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold,
Far away from himself and his lot!
I envy the place thou hast stroll’d,
If a stroller thou art--which thou’rt not!

Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing,
Methinks, at the close of the day--
When thy Billy had just slipp’d his string,
And thy little dog quite gone astray--
He bade thee to sorrow no more--
He wish’d thee to lull thy distress
In his bosom--he couldn’t do more,
And a Christian could hardly do less!

Ah, me! for thy small plaintive pipe
I fear we must look at thine eye--
That eye--forced so often to wipe
That the handkerchief never got dry!
Oh sure ’tis a barbarous deed
To give pain to the feminine mind--
But the wooer that left thee to bleed
Was a creature more killing than kind!

The man that could tread on a worm
Is a brute--and inhuman to boot;
But he merits a much harsher term
That can wantonly tread on a Foote!
Soft mercy and gentleness blend
To make up a Quaker--but he
That spurn’d thee could scarce be a _Friend_,
Though he dealt in that Thou-ing of thee!

They that loved thee, Maria, have flown!
The friends of the midsummer hour!
But those friends now in anguish atone,
And mourn o’er thy desolate bow’r.
Friend Hayne, the Green Man, is quite out,
Yea, utterly out of his bias;
And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt,
Is counting his Ave Marias!

Ah, where wast thou driven away
To feast on thy desolate woe?
We have witness’d thy weeping in play,
But none saw the earnest tears flow--
Perchance thou wert truly forlorn,--
Though none but the fairies could mark
Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn,
Or the thistle in Burderop Park!

Ah, perhaps, when old age’s white snow
Has silver’d the crown of Hayne’s nob--
For even the greenest will grow
As hoary as “White-headed Bob--”
He’ll wish, in the days of his prime,
He had been rather kinder to one
He hath left to the malice of Time--
A woman--so weak and undone!

ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ.,

THE GREAT LESSEE!

“_Rover._ Do you know, you villain, that I am this moment the
greatest man living?”--WILD OATS.

Oh! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan
Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!
Macready’s master! Westminster’s high _Dane_
(As Galway Martin, in the House’s walls,
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls)
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!
Magician of the lamp and prompter’s ring!
Drury’s Aladdin! Whipper-in of actors!
Kicker of rebel preface-malefactors!
Glass-blowers’ corrector! King of the cheque-taker!
At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!
Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and cakes!
In silken _hose_ the most reform’d of _Rakes_!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! lend me an ear!
(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear)
While I, in little slips of prose, not verse,
Thy splendid course, as pattern-work, rehearse!

Bright was thy youth--thy manhood brighter still--
The greatest Romeo upon Holburn Hill--
Lightest comedian of the pleasant day,
When Jordan threw her sunshine o’er a play!
But these, though happy, were but subject-times,
And no man cares for bottom-steps, that climbs--
Far from my wish it is to stifle down
The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown!
Though now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields,
Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George’s Fields.
Dibdin was _Premier_--and a Golden _Age_
For a short time enrich’d the subject stage.
Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty;
Ours but one Bench could boast, but thou hadst twenty;
But the times changed--and Booth-acting no more
Drew Rulers’ shillings to the gallery door.
Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence,
Repentant, like thy neighbour Magdalens!

Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat
Practised the most bewitching in Wych Street.
Charles had his royal ribaldry restored,
And in a downright neighbourhood drank and whored;
Rochester there in dirty ways again
Revell’d--and lived once more in Drury Lane:
But thou, R. W., kept thy moral ways,
Pit-lecturing ’twixt the farces and the plays,
A lamplight Irving to the butcher-boys
That soil’d the benches and that made a noise:--
“YOU,--in the back!--can scarcely hear a line!
Down from those benches--butchers--they are MINE!”

Lastly--and thou wert built for it by nature!--
Crown’d was thy head in Drury Lane Th_eä_tre!
Gentle George Robins saw that it was good,
And renters cluck’d around thee in a brood.
King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean!
Of many a lady and of many a Queen!
With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun--
But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun,
Hook’s in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt,
And Colman lives to cut the damnlets out!

Oh, worthy of the house! the King’s commission!
Isn’t thy condition “a most bless’d condition?”
Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all
The very lofty and the very small--
Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick--
Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick--
Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments,
Without the danger of newspaper comments--
Tellest Macready, as none dared before,
Thine open mind from the half-open door!--
(Alas! I fear he has left Melpomene’s crown,
To be a Boniface in Buxton town!)--
Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know,
And callest to them, to a moment,--“Go!”
Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing--
Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing--”
Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot--and kiss’d
The pearly whiteness of a Stephen’s wrist--
Kissing and pitying--tender and humane!
“By heaven she loves me! Oh, it is too plain!”
A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips,
Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips!

Go on, Lessee! Go on, and prosper well!
Fear not, though forty glass-blowers should rebel--
Show them how thou hast long befriended them,
And teach Dubois _their_ treason to condemn!
Go on! addressing pits in prose--and worse!
Be long, be slow, be anything but terse--
Kiss to the gallery the hand that’s gloved--
Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved,
Go on--and but in this reverse the thing,
Walk backward with wax lights before the King--
Go on! Spring ever in thine eye! Go on!
Hope’s favourite child! ethereal Elliston!

SHOOTING PAINS.

“The charge is prepared.”--MACHEATH.

If I shoot any more I’ll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march’d the whole day
With a gun--for no pay--
Zounds, I’d better have been in the army!

What matters Sir Christopher’s leave?
To his manor I’m sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught,
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!

And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!”

Not Hawker could find out a flaw,--
My appointments are modern and Mantony,
And I’ve brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can’t find a mark for my Antony!

The partridges,--where can they lie?
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me,--I’m getting quite nervous!

To the pheasants--how well they’re preserved!
My sport’s not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy;--
And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”

I have tried ev’ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax’d,
Till my patience is tax’d,
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.

I’ve been roaming for hours in three flats
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for “setting my cap at!”

A woodcock,--this month is the time,--
Right and left I’ve made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!

A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day’s the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.

For a mallard I’ve waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake--oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!

For a field-fare I’ve fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a blackbird!

I am angry, I’m hungry, I’m dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number One seem overloaded.

As well one might beat round St. Paul’s,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search’d round and round
All the Baronet’s ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn’t a wren there!

Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it’s really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall’s Powder, renown’d for “quick firing.”

If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can’t have a high sense,
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun--
“Fined for shooting without any license.”

THE DUEL.

A SERIOUS BALLAD.

“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”

In Brentford town, of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.

To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow’d,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.

Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
“You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.

“Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.

“So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,--
I’ll pop it into you.”

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
“Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer
Knows how to prime and load.

“And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep’s.”

Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.

But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give--
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.

To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step
They took a dozen more.

They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.

Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
“Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now,
Be doom’d to have a ball.

“I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?”

Said Mr. B., “I do agree--
But think of Honour’s Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.

“But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can’t we aim above, as if
We had call’d out the sun?”

So up into the harmless air,
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!

DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND.

“Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming...”--OLD BALLAD.

Oh what shall I do for a dog?
Of sight I have not got a particle,
Globe, Standard, or Sun,
Times, Chronicle--none
Can give _me_ a good leading article.

A Mastiff once led me about,
But people appeared so to fear him--
I might have got pence
Without his defence,
But Charity would not come near him.

A Blood-hound was not much amiss,
But instinct at last got the upper;
And tracking Bill Soames,
And thieves to their homes,
I never could get home to supper.

A Fox-hound once served me as guide,
A good one at hill and at valley;
But day after day
He led me astray,
To follow a milk-woman’s tally.

A turnspit once did me good turns
At going and crossing, and stopping;
Till one day his breed
Went off at full speed,
To spit at a great fire in Wapping.

A Pointer once pointed my way,
But did not turn out quite so pleasant,
Each hour I’d a stop
At a Poulterer’s shop
To point at a very high pheasant.

A Pug did not suit me at all,
The feature unluckily rose up;
And folks took offence
When offering pence,
Because of his turning his nose up.

A Butcher once gave me a dog,
That turn’d out the worst one of any;
A Bull dog’s own pup,
I got a toss up,
Before he had brought me a penny.

My next was a Westminster Dog,
From Aistrop the regular cadger;
But, sightless, I saw
He never would draw
A blind man so well as a badger.

A greyhound I got by a swop,
But, Lord! we soon came to divorces:
He treated my strip
Of cord like a slip,
And left me to go my own courses.

A poodle once tow’d me along,
But always we came to one harbour,
To keep his curls smart,
And shave his hind part,
He constantly call’d on a barber.

My next was a Newfoundland brute,
As big as a calf fit for slaughter;
But my old cataract
So truly he back’d
I always fell into the water.

I once had a sheep-dog for guide,
His worth did not value a button;
I found it no go,
A Smithfield Ducrow,
To stand on four saddles of mutton.

My next was an Esquimaux dog,
A dog that my bones ache to talk on,
For picking his ways
On cold frosty days
He pick’d out the slides for a walk on.

Bijou was a lady-like dog,
But vex’d me at night not a little,
When tea-time was come
She would not go home,
Her tail had once trail’d a tin kettle.

I once had a sort of a Shock,
And kiss’d a street post like a brother,
And lost every tooth
In learning this truth--
One blind cannot well lead another.

A terrier was far from a trump,
He had one defect, and a thorough,
I never could stir,
‘Od rabbit the cur!
Without going into the Borough.

My next was Dalmatian, the dog!
And led me in danger, oh crikey!
By chasing horse heels,
Between carriage wheels,
Till I came upon boards that were spiky.

The next that I had was from Cross,
And once was a favourite spaniel
With Nero,[15] now dead,
And so I was led
Right up to his den like a Daniel.

A mongrel I tried, and he did,
As far as the profit and lossing,
Except that the kind
Endangers the blind,
The breed is so fond of a crossing.

A setter was quite to my taste,
In alleys or streets broad or narrow,
Till one day I met
A very dead set,
At a very dead horse in a barrow.

I once had a dog that went mad,
And sorry I was that I got him;
I came to a run,
And a man with a gun
Pepper’d _me_ when he ought to have shot him.

My profits have gone to the dogs,
My trade has been such a deceiver,
I fear that my aim
Is a mere losing game,
Unless I can find a Retriever.

“UP THE RHINE.”

Why, Tourist, why
With Passports have to do?
Pr’ythee stay at home and pass
The Port and Sherry too.

Why, Tourist, why
Embark for Rotterdam?
Pr’ythee stay at home and take
Thy Hollands in a dram.

Why, Tourist, why
To foreign climes repair?
Pr’ythee take thy German Flute,
And breathe a German air.

Why, Tourist, why
The Seven Mountains view?
Any one at home can tint
A hill with Prussian Blue.

Why, Tourist, why
To old Colonia’s walls?
Sure, to see a _Wrenish_ Dome,
One needn’t leave St. Paul’s.

THE COMET.

AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE.

“I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this
self-same _Star_ling.”--STERNE’S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

Amongst professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,
The name of H******l’s very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev’ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted
In his observatory thus coquetting
With Venus--or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy--it might be upon Mars--
A new André;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping:
Or ogling thro’ his glass
Some heavenly lass
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or Looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr’s:--
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,
When lo! a something with a tail of flame
Made him exclaim,
“_My_ stars!”--he always puts that stress on _my_--
“_My_ stars and garters!”

“A comet, sure as I’m alive!
A noble one as I should wish to view;
It can’t be Halley’s though, _that_ is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent!--how fine his fiery trail!
Zounds! ’tis a pity, though he comes unsought--
Unask’d--unreckon’d,--in no human thought--
He ought--he ought--he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail!”

“I look’d no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really enter’d in my head
No more than Berenice’s Hair!”
Thus musing, Heaven’s Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with “Please your Honour, come to supper.”

“Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon--look up!”
“Not sup!” cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a _star_ must be _star_vation,
Or ev’n to batten
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten.
His visage seem’d to say, “that very odd is,”
But still his master the same tune ran on,
“I can’t come down,--go to the parlour, John,
And say I’m supping with the heavenly bodies.”

“The heavenly bodies!” echoed John, “Ahem!”
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
“‘Zooks, if your Honour sups with _them_,
In helping, somebody must make long arms!”
He thought his master’s stomach was in danger,
But still in the same tone replied the Knight,
“Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,
Say I’m engaged with a celestial stranger.”--
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,
“Wouldn’t the stranger take a bit down stairs?”

“No,” said the master, smiling and no wonder,
At such a blunder,
“The stranger is not quite the thing you think,
He wants no meat or drink,
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are join’d together,
Behold him,--there he is, John, in the South.”

John look’d up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket.
At last the fiery tad-pole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscences, cries,
“A rare good rocket!”

“A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet,
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frighten’d kings;
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range”--
“Do he?” cried John;
“Well, let him flare on,
_I_ haven’t got no sovereigns to change!”

MORE HULLAH-BALOO.

“Loud as from numbers without number.”--MILTON.

“You may do it extempore, for it’s nothing but roaring.”--QUINCE.

Amongst the great inventions of this age,
Which every other century surpasses,
Is one,--just now the rage,--
Called “Singing for all Classes --
That is, for all the British millions,
And billions,
And quadrillions,
Not to name _Quintilians_,
That now, alas! have no more ear than asses,
To learn to warble like the birds in June,
In time and tune,
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses!

In fact, a sort of plan,
Including gentleman as well as yokel,
Public or private man,
To call out a Militia,--only Vocal
Instead of Local,
And not designed for military follies,
But keeping still within the civil border,
To form with mouths in open order,
And sing in volleys.

Whether this grand harmonic scheme
Will ever get beyond a dream,
And tend to British happiness and glory,
Maybe no, and maybe yes,
Is more than I pretend to guess--
However, here’s my story.

In one of those small, quiet streets,
Where business retreats,
To shun the daily bustle and the noise
The shoppy Strand enjoys,
But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance
Find past endurance--
In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear,
The other day, a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,
“_I have a silent sorrow here!_”

The place was lonely; not a creature stirred
Except some little dingy bird;
Or vagrant cur that sniffed along,
Indifferent to the Son of Song;
No truant errand-boy, or Doctor’s lad,
No idle filch or lounging cad,
No Pots encumbered with diurnal beer,
No printer’s devil with an author’s proof,
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof,
Lingered the tattered Melodist to hear--
Who yet, confound him! bawled as loud
As if he had to charm a London crowd,
Singing beside the public way,
Accompanied--instead of violin,
Flute, or piano, chiming in--
By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray,
A van with iron bars to play _staccato_,
Or engine _obligato_--
In short, without one instrument vehicular
(Not even a truck, to be particular),
There stood the rogue and roared,
Unasked and unencored,
Enough to split the organs called auricular!

Heard in that quiet place,
Devoted to a still and studious race,
The noise was quite appalling!
To seek a fitting simile and spin it,
Appropriate to his calling,
His voice had all Lablache’s _body_ in it;
But oh! the scientific tone it lacked,
And was, in fact,
Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling!

’Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal _nous_,
The stage had banished him when he attempted it,
For tho’ his voice completely filled the house,
It also emptied it.
However, there he stood
Vociferous--a ragged don!
And with his iron pipes laid on
A row to all the neighbourhood.

In vain were sashes closed
And doors against the persevering Stentor,
Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed,
Th’ intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum;
Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attended schools,
Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before ’em--
How it did bore ’em!

Louder, and louder still,
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill,
Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewildered making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities--
Stunned by that voice, so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No in-voice stood a chance, of course!

The Actuary pshawed and pished,
And knit his calculating brows, and wished
The singer “a bad life”--a mental murther!
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder
Wished the musician further,
Poles distant--and no wonder!
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder--
The Lady could not keep her temper calm,
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm--
The Fiddler in the very same position
As Hogarth’s chafed musician
(Such prints require but cursory reminders)
Came and made faces at the wretch beneath,
And wishing for his foe between his teeth,
(Like all impatient elves
That spite themselves)
Ground his own grinders.

But still with unrelenting note,
Though not a copper came of it, in verity,
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat,
And iron throat,
Heedless of present honour and prosperity,
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity,
In penniless reliance--
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme
Never set Time
More thoroughly at defiance!

From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-four
The Nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door--
“Peace, monster, peace!
Where _is_ the New Police!
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don’t stand there bawling, fellow, don’t!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do--there’s a dear good man--do go away.”
Says he, “I won’t!”

The spinster pulled her door to with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden d--n,
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath--
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than in a given face
_A very bad expression_.

However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones’s Clerk at Number Ten;
Who, throwing up the sash,
With accents rash,
Thus hailed the most vociferous of men:
“Come, come, I say, old feller, stop your chant!
I cannot write a sentence--no one can’t!
So just pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps--”
Says he, “I shan’t!”

Down went the sash
As if devoted to “eternal smash,”
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation),
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roared out again the everlasting song,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”

The thing was hard to stand!
The Music-master could not stand it--
But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tattered man,
And thus in broken sentences began--
But playing first a prelude of grimace,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes,
So that to guess his subject from his face,
He meant to give a lecture upon apes--

“Com--com--I say!
You go away!
Into two parts my head you split--
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
When I do play--
You have no bis’ness in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?”
Says he--“I will.”

“No--no--you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
You have no rights, by rights, to beg--
You have not one off-leg--
You ought to work--you have not some complaint--
You are not cripple in your back or bones--
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones”--
Says he--“It ain’t!”

“I say you ought to labour!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbour,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys--
Look what a street it is for quiet!
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postilion,
If you will sing, I say, it is not just,
To sing so loud.”--Says he, “I MUST!
I’M SINGING FOR THE MILLION!”

THERE’S NO ROMANCE IN THAT.

O days of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balk’d and valour stalk’d
On high heroic stilts--
Where are ye gone?--adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,--
We’ve nothing now but New Police--
There’s no Romance in that!

I wish I ne’er had learn’d to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write!
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister’d quite!
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter’s vat;
I only turn to life, and weep--
There’s no Romance in that!

No Bandits lurk--no turban’d Turk
To Tunis bears me off--
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother’s cough,--
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house,
No shape,--but owl or bat,
Come flitting after moth or mouse,--
There’s no Romance in that!

I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman’s press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I’m growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale--
There’s no Romance in that!

It’s very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That’s worth a pen’s report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow’d, and rail’d, and came home safe,--
There’s no Romance in that!

The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,--
There’s no Romance in that!

Love--even love--goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track--
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore--
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more--
There’s no Romance in that!

He is not dark, he is not tall,
His forehead’s rather low,
He is not pensive--not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
Is really but a sprat;
With sandy hair and greyish eyes--
There’s no Romance in that!

He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks,
Or long sword hanging down;
He dresses much like other folks,
And commonly in brown;
His collar he will not discard,
Or give up his cravat,
Lord Byron-like--he’s not a Bard--
There’s no Romance in that!

He’s rather bald, his sight is weak,
He’s deaf in either drum;
Without a lisp he cannot speak,
But then--he’s worth a plum.
He talks of stocks and three per cents.
By way of private chat,
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents,--
There’s no Romance in that!

I sing--no matter what I sing,
Di Tanti--or Crudel,
Tom Bowling, or God save the King,
Di piacer--All’s Well;
He knows no more about a voice
For singing than a gnat--
And as to Music “has no choice,”
There’s no Romance in that!

Of light guitar I cannot boast,
He never serenades;
He writes, and sends it by the post,
He doesn’t bribe the maids:
No stealth, no hempen ladder--no!
He comes with loud rat-tat,
That startles half of Bedford Row--
There’s no Romance in that!

He comes at nine in time to choose
His coffee--just two cups,
And talks with Pa about the news,
Repeats debates, and sups.
John helps him with his coat aright,
And Jenkins hands his hat;
My lover bows, and says good-night--
There’s no Romance in that!

I’ve long had Pa’s and Ma’s consent,
My aunt she quite approves,
My Brother wishes joy from Kent,
None try to thwart our loves;
On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace
Will make me Mrs. Pratt,
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place--
There’s no Romance in that!

THE PAINTER PUZZLED.

“Draw, Sir!”--_Old Play._

Well, something must be done for May,
The time is drawing nigh,
To figure in the catalogue
And woo the public eye.

Something I must invent and paint;
But, oh! my wit is not
Like one of those kind substantives
The answer Who and What?

Oh, for some happy hit! to throw
The gazer in a trance;
But _posé là_--there I am posed,
As people say in France.

In vain I sit and strive to think,
I find my head, alack!
Painfully empty, still, just like
A bottle “on the rack.”

In vain I task my barren brain
Some new idea to catch,
And tease my hair--ideas are shy
Of “coming to the scratch.”

In vain I stare upon the air,
No mental visions dawn;
A blank my canvas still remains,
And worse--a blank undrawn:

An “aching void” that mars my rest
With one eternal hint,
For, like the little goblin page,
It still keeps crying “Tint!”

But what to tint? ay, there’s the rub,
That plagues me all the while,
As, Selkirk-like, I sit without
A subject for my _i’le_.

“Invention’s seventh heaven” the bard
Has written--but my case
Persuades me that the creature dwells
In quite another place.

Sniffing the lamp, the ancients thought,
Demosthenes _must_ toil;
But works of art are works indeed,
And always “smell of oil.”

Yet painting pictures some folks think,
Is merely play and fun;
That what is on an easel set
Must easily be done.

But, zounds! if they could sit in this
Uneasy easy-chair,
They’d very soon be glad enough
To cut the camel’s hair.

Oh! who can tell the pang it is
To sit as I this day--
With all my canvas spread, and yet
Without an inch of way.

Till, mad at last to find I am
Amongst such empty skullers,
I feel that I could strike myself,
But no--I’ll “strike my colours.”

A TRUE STORY.

Of all our pains, since man was curst,
I mean of body, not the mental,
To name the worst, among the worst,
The dental sure is transcendental;
Some bit of masticating bone,
That ought to help to clear a shelf,
But let its proper work alone,
And only seems to gnaw itself;
In fact, of any grave attack
On victual there is little danger,
’Tis so like coming to the _rack_,
As well as going to the manger.

Old Hunks--it seemed a fit retort
Of justice on his grinding ways--
Possessed a grinder of the sort,
That troubled all his latter days.
The best of friends fall out, and so
His teeth had done some years ago,
Save some old stumps with ragged root,
And they took turn about to shoot;
If he drank any chilly liquor,
They made it quite a point to throb;
But if he warmed it on the hob,
Why then they only twitched the quicker.

One tooth--I wonder such a tooth
Had never killed him in his youth--
One tooth he had with many fangs,
That shot at once as many pangs,
It had an universal sting;
One touch of that ecstatic stump
Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump,
Just like a puppet on a string;
And what was worse than all, it had
A way of making others bad.
There is, as many know, a knack,
With certain farming undertakers,
And this same tooth pursued their track,
By adding _achers_ still to _achers_!

One way there is, that has been judged
A certain cure, but Hunks was loth
To pay the fee, and quite begrudged
To lose his tooth and money both;
In fact, a dentist and the wheel
Of Fortune are a kindred cast,
For after all is drawn, you feel
It’s paying for a blank at last;
So Hunks went on from week to week,
And kept his torment in his cheek.
Oh! how it sometimes set him rocking,
With that perpetual gnaw--gnaw--gnaw,
His moans and groans were truly shocking
And loud,--altho’ he held his jaw.
Many a tug he gave his gum,
And tooth, but still it would not come;
Tho’ tied by string to some firm thing,
He could not draw it, do his best,
By draw’rs, although he tried a chest.

At last, but after much debating,
He joined a score of mouths in waiting,
Like his, to have their troubles out.
Sad sight it was to look about
At twenty faces making faces,
With many a rampant trick and antic,
For all were very horrid cases,
And made their owners nearly frantic.
A little wicket now and then
Took one of these unhappy men,
And out again the victim rushed,
While eyes and mouth together gushed;
At last arrived our hero’s turn,
Who plunged his hands in both his pockets,
And down he sat, prepared to learn
How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets.

Those who have felt such operations,
Alone can guess the sort of ache,
When his old tooth began to break
The thread of old associations;
It touched a string in every part,
It had so many tender ties;
One chord seemed wrenching at his heart,
And two were tugging at his eyes;
“Bone of his bone,” he felt of course,
As husbands do in such divorce;
At last the fangs gave way a little
Hunks gave his head a backward jerk,
And to! the cause of all this work,
Went--where it used to send his victual!

The monstrous pain of this proceeding
Had not so numbed his miser wit,
But in this slip he saw a hit
To save, at least, his purse from bleeding;
So when the dentist sought his fees,
Quoth Hunks, “Let’s finish, if you please.”
“How, finish! why it’s out!”--“Oh! no--
I’m none of your before-hand tippers,
’Tis you are out, to argue so;
My tooth is in my head no doubt,
But as you say you pulled it out,
Of course it’s there--between your nippers.”
“Zounds! sir, d’ye think I’d sell the truth
To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it.”
But Hunks still asked to see the tooth,
And swore by gum! he had not drawn it.

His end obtained, he took his leave,
A secret chuckle in his sleeve;
The joke was worthy to produce one,
To think, by favour of his wit,
How well a dentist had been bit
By one old stump, and that a loose one!
The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth
Is still the frailest thing on earth:
Alas! how often when a joke
Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough,
There comes some unexpected stroke,
And hangs a weeper on the cuff!

Hunks had not whistled half a mile,
When, planted right against the stile,
There stood his foeman, Mike Maloney,
A vagrant reaper, Irish-born,
That helped to reap our miser’s corn,
But had not helped to reap his money,
A fact that Hunks remembered quickly;
His whistle all at once was quelled,
And when he saw how Michael held
His sickle, he felt rather sickly.

Nine souls in ten, with half his fright,
Would soon have paid the bill at sight,
But misers (let observers watch it)
Will never part with their delight
Till well demanded by a hatchet--
They live hard--and they die to match it.
Thus Hunks, prepared for Mike’s attacking,
Resolved not yet to pay the debt,
But let him take it out in hacking;
However, Mike began to stickle
In word before he used the sickle;
But mercy was not long attendant:
From words at last he took to blows,
And aimed a cut at Hunks’s nose;
That made it what some folks are not--
A Member very independent.

Heaven knows how far this cruel trick
Might still have led, but for a tramper
That came in danger’s very nick,
To put Maloney to the scamper.
But still compassion met a damper;
There lay the severed nose, alas!
Beside the daisies on the grass,
“Wee, crimson-tipt” as well as they,
According to the poet’s lay:
And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter!
Away ran Hodge to get assistance,
With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after,
But somewhat at unusual distance.
In many a little country place
It is a very common case
To have but one residing doctor,
Whose practice rather seems to be
No practice, but a rule of three,
Physician--surgeon--drug-decocter;
Thus Hunks was forced to go once more
Where he had ta’en his tooth before.
His mere name made the learnëd man hot--
“What! Hunks again within my door!
I’ll pull his nose;” quoth Hunks, “you cannot.”

The doctor looked and saw the case
Plain as the nose _not_ on his face.
“O! hum--ha--yes--I understand.”
But then arose a long demur,
For not a finger would he stir
Till he was paid his fee in hand;
That matter settled, there they were,
With Hunks well strapped upon his chair.

The opening of a surgeon’s job--
His tools, a chestful or a drawful--
Are always something very awful,
And give the heart the strangest throb;
But never patient in his funks
Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks,
Or surgeon half so like a devil
Prepared for some infernal revel:
His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling,
Just like a bolus in a box:
His fury seemed above controlling,
He bellowed like a hunted ox:
“Now, swindling wretch, I’ll show thee how
We treat such cheating knaves as thou;
Oh! sweet is this revenge to sup;
I have thee by the nose--it’s now
My turn--and I will turn it up.”

Guess how the miser liked the scurvy
And cruel way of venting passion;
The snubbing folks in this new fashion
Seemed quite to turn him topsy turvy;
He uttered prayers, and groans, and curses,
For things had often gone amiss
And wrong with him before, but this
Would be the worst of all _reverses_!
In fancy he beheld his snout
Turned upward like a pitcher’s spout;
There was another grievance yet,
And fancy did not fail to show it,
That he must throw a summerset,
Or stand upon his head to blow it.