Chapter VI: Introduction (5)

“Lord Erskine, at woman presuming to rail,
Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one’s tail;
And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on,
Seems hurt at his lordship’s degrading comparison.
But wherefore degrading? Considered aright,
A canister’s polished and useful and bright;
And should dirt its original purity hide,
That’s the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied.”

Sheridan met two sprigs of nobility one day in St. James’s Street, and one of them said to him, “I say, Sherry, we have just been discussing which you were, a knave or a fool. What is your opinion on the subject?” Sheridan took each of them by the arm, and replied, “Why, faith, I believe I am between the two.”

Of his parliamentary opponent, Mr. Dundas, he once said, “The honourable gentleman is indebted to his imagination for his facts, and to his memory for his jests.”

When he was found intoxicated in the gutter by a night-watchman and was asked his name, he replied, “Wilberforce,” meaning the eminent teetotal advocate.

Once at a parliamentary committee he found every seat occupied, and looking round, asked, “Will any gentleman _move_ that I may _take the chair_?”

Michael Kelly, the singer and composer, kept a shop at the bottom of the Haymarket, where he sold wine and music. He asked Sheridan for a sign, and Sheridan gave him the following:--“Michael Kelly, composer of wine and importer of music.”

_MY AMBITION._

_Ease_ often visits shepherd-swains,
Nor in the lowly cot disdains
To take a bit of dinner;
But would not for a turtle-treat,
Sit with a miser or a cheat,
Or cankered party sinner.

_Ease_ makes the sons of labour glad,
_Ease_ travels with the merry lad
Who whistles by his waggon;
With me she prattles all day long,
And choruses my simple song,
And shares my foaming flagon.

The lamp of life is soon burnt out;
Then who’d for riches make a rout,
Except a doating blockhead?
When Charon takes ’em both aboard,
Of equal worth’s the miser’s hoard
And spendthrift’s empty pocket.

In such a scurvy world as this
We must not hope for perfect bliss,
And length of life together;
We have no moral liberty
At will to live, at will to die,
In fair or stormy weather.

Many, I see, have riches plenty--
Fine coaches, livery, servants twenty;--
Yet envy never pains me;
My appetite’s as good as theirs,
I sleep as sound, as free from fears;
I’ve only what maintains me!

And while the precious joys I prove
Of Tom’s true friendship--and the love
Of bonny black-ey’d Jenny,--
Ye gods! my wishes are confin’d
To--health of body, peace of mind,
Clean linen, and a guinea!

_Edward Lysaght_ (1763–1810).

_A WAREHOUSE FOR WIT._

It is with men of their wit, as with women of their beauty. Tell a woman she is fair, and she will not be offended that you tell her she is cruel. Tell a man that he is a wit, and if you lay to his charge ill-nature or blasphemy, he will take it as a compliment rather than a reproach. Thus, too, there is no woman but lays some claim to beauty; and no man will give up his pretensions to wit. In cases of this kind, therefore, where so much depends upon opinion, and where every man thinks himself qualified to be his own judge, there is nothing so useless to a reader as illustrations; and nothing to an author so dangerous as definition. Any attempt therefore to decide what true WIT is must be ineffectual, as not one in a hundred would be content to abide by the decision; it is impossible to rank all mankind under the name of wits, and there is scarce one in a hundred who does not think that he merits the appellation.

Hence it is that every one, how little qualified soever, is fond of making a display of his fancied abilities; and generally at the expense of some one to whom he supposes himself infinitely superior. And from this supposition many mistakes arise to those who commence wags, with a very small share of wit, and a still smaller of judgment; whose imaginations are by nature unprolific, and whose minds are uncultivated by education. These persons, while they are ringing their rounds on a few dull jests, are apt to mistake the rude and noisy merriment of illiterate jocularity for genuine humour. They often unhappily conceive that those laugh _with_ them who laugh _at_ them. The sarcasms which every one disdains to answer, they vainly flatter themselves are unanswerable; forgetting, no doubt, that their _good things_ are unworthy the notice of a retort, and below the condescension of criticism. They know not perhaps that the Ass, whom the fable represents assuming the playfulness of the lap-dog, is a perfect picture of jocular stupidity; and that, in like manner, that awkward absurdity of waggishness which they expect should delight, cannot but disgust; and instead of laying claim to admiration, must ensure contempt. But, alas! I am aware that mine will prove a success-less undertaking; and that though knight-errant-like I sally forth to engage with the monsters of witticism and waggery, all my prowess will be inadequate to the achievement of the enterprise. The world will continue as facetious as ever in spite of all I can do; and people will be just as fond of their “little jokes and old stories” as if I had never combated their inclination.

Since then I cannot utterly extirpate this unchristian practice, my next endeavour must be to direct it properly, and improve it by some wholesome regulations. I propose, if I meet with proper encouragement, making application to Parliament for permission to open “_A Licensed Warehouse for Wit_,” and for a patent, entitling me to the sole vending and uttering ware of this kind, for a certain term of years. For this purpose I have already laid in _Jokes_, _Jests_, _Witticisms_, _Morceaus_, and _Bon-Mots_ of every kind, to a very considerable amount, well worthy the attention of the public. I have _Epigrams_ that want nothing but the sting; _Conundrums_ that need nothing but an explanation; _Rebuses_ and _Acrostics_ that will be complete with the addition of the name only. These being in great request, may be had at an hour’s warning. _Impromptus_ will be got ready at a week’s notice. For common and vernacular use, I have a long list of the most palpable _Puns_ in the language, digested in alphabetical order; for these I expect good sale at both the universities. _Jokes_ of all kinds, ready _cut_ and _dry_.

N.B.--Proper allowance made to gentlemen of the law going on circuit; and to all second-hand vendors of wit and retailers of repartee, who take large quantities.

N.B.--_Attic Salt_ in any quantity.

N.B.--Most money for old _Jokes_.

_George Canning_ (1770–1827).

_CONJUGAL AFFECTION._

When Elliott (called the Salamander)
Was famed Gibraltar’s stout commander,
A soldier there went to a well
To fetch home water to his Nell;
But fate decreed the youth to fall
A victim to a cannon ball.
One brought the tidings to his spouse,
Which drove her frantic from the house;
On wings of love the creature fled
To seek her dear--she found him dead!
Her husband killed--the water spilt--
Judge, ye fond females, what she felt!
She looked--she sighed--and melting, spoke--
“Thank God, the pitcher is not broke!”

_Thomas Cannings_ (_fl._ 1790–1800).

_WHISKY, DRINK DIVINE!_

Whisky, drink divine!
Why should drivellers bore us
With the praise of wine
While we’ve thee before us?
Were it not a shame,
Whilst we gaily fling thee
To our lips of flame,
If we could not sing thee?
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

Greek and Roman sung
Chian and Falernian--
Shall no harp be strung
To thy praise, Hibernian?
Yes! let Erin’s sons--
Generous, brave, and frisky--
Tell the world at once
They owe it to their whisky--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

If Anacreon--who
Was the grape’s best poet--
Drank our _mountain-dew_,
How his verse would show it!
As the best then known,
He to wine was civil;
Had he _Inishowen_,
He’d pitch wine to the divil--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

Bright as beauty’s eye,
When no sorrow veils it:
Sweet as beauty’s sigh,
When young love inhales it:
Come, then, to my lips--
Come, thou rich in blisses!
Every drop I sip
Seems a shower of kisses--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

Could my feeble lays
Half thy virtues number,
A whole _grove_ of bays
Should my brows encumber.
Be his name adored,
Who summed up thy merits
In one little word,
When he called thee _spirits_--
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

Send it gaily round--
Life would be no pleasure,
If we had not found
This enchanting treasure:
And when tyrant death’s
Arrow shall transfix ye,
Let your latest breaths
Be whisky! whisky! whisky!
Whisky, drink divine, etc.

_Joseph O’Leary_ (17-- -1845?).

_TO A YOUNG LADY BLOWING A TURF FIRE
WITH HER PETTICOAT._

Cease, cease, Amira, peerless maid!
Though we delighted gaze,
While artless you excite the flame,
We perish in the blaze.
Haply you too provoke your harm--
Forgive the bold remark--
Your petticoat may fan the fire,
But, O! beware a _spark_!

_Anonymous_ (1772).

_EPIGRAMS, ETC._

_On Lord Dudley, who was noted for learning all his
speeches by heart._

In vain my affections the ladies are seeking:
If I give up my heart, there’s an end to my speaking.

_On Miss Ellen Tree, the singer._

On this _Tree_ if a nightingale settles and sings,
The _tree_ will return her as good as she brings.

_On Moore the poet’s excuse to his guests that his servant was
ill from the effects of a carousal._

Come, come, for trifles never stick,
Most servants have a failing,
Yours, it is true, are sometimes sick,
But mine are always _aleing_.

On being asked what “on the contrary” meant, when that phrase was used by a person charged with eating three eggs every morning, Luttrell’s ready retort was, “Laying them, I daresay.”

I hate the sight of monkeys, they remind one so of poor relations.

_On a man run over by an omnibus._

Killed by an omnibus--why not?
So quick a death a boon is.
Let not his friends lament his lot--
_Mors omnibus communis_.

At one of the crowded receptions at Holland House, Lady Holland was requested by the guests to “make room.” “It must certainly be _made_, for it does not exist,” said Luttrell.

_On Samuel Rogers’ poem, “Italy,” which was illustrated by
Turner._

Of Rogers’ “Italy” Luttrell relates
That ’twould have been _dished_, if ’twere not for the _plates_!

_Henry Luttrell_ (1766?-1851.)

_LETTER FROM MISS BETTY FUDGE, IN
PARIS, TO MISS DOROTHY----._

What a time since I wrote!--I’m a sad naughty girl--
For though, like a tee-totum, I’m all in a twirl;--
Yet ev’n (as you wittily say) a tee-totum
Between all its twirls gives a letter to note ’em.
But, Lord, such a place! and then, Dolly, my dresses,
My gowns, so divine!--there’s no language expresses,
Except just the words “superbe,” “magnifique,”
The trimmings of that which I had home last week!
It is call’d--I forget--_à la_--something which sounded
Like _alicampane_--but, in truth, I’m confounded
And bother’d, my dear, ’twixt that troublesome boy’s
(Bob’s) cookery language, and Madame Le Roi’s:
What with fillets of roses and fillets of veal,
Things _garni_ with lace, and things _garni_ with eel,
One’s hair and one’s cutlets both _en popillote_,
And a thousand more things I shall ne’er have by rote,
I can scarce tell the diff’rence, at least as to phrase,
Between beef _à la Psyche_ and curls _à la braise_.--
But, in short, dear, I’m trick’d out quite _à la Française_,
With my bonnet--so beautiful!--high up and poking,
Like things that are put to keep chimneys from smoking.

Where shall I begin with the endless delights
Of this Eden of milliners, monkeys, and sights--
This dear busy place, where there’s nothing transacting
But dressing and dinnering, dancing and acting?
_Imprimis_, the opera--mercy, my ears!
Brother Bobby’s remark, t’other night, was a true one;--
“This must be the music,” said he, “of the spears,
For I’m curst if each note of it doesn’t run through one!”
Pa says (and you know, love, his Book’s to make out,
’Twas the Jacobins brought ev’ry mischief about)
That this passion for roaring has come in of late,
Since the rabble all tried for a _voice_ in the State.--
What a frightful idea, one’s mind to o’erwhelm!
What a chorus, dear Dolly, would soon be let loose of it,
If, when of age, every man in the realm
Had a voice like old Laïs,[5] and chose to make use of it;
No--never was known in this riotous sphere
Such a breach of the peace as their singing, my dear.
So bad, too, you’d swear that the God of both arts,
Of Music and Physic, had taken a frolic
For setting a loud fit of asthma in parts,
And composing a fine rumbling base in a cholic!

But the dancing--ah! _parlez-moi_, Dolly, _de ça_--
There, _indeed_, is a treat that charms all but Papa.
Such beauty--such grace--oh, ye sylphs of romance!
Fly, fly to Titania, and ask her if _she_ has
One light-footed nymph in her train, that can dance
Like divine Bigottini and sweet Fanny Bias!
Fanny Bias in _Flora_--dear creature!--you’d swear,
When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round,
That her steps are of light, that her home is the air,
And she only _par complaisance_ touches the ground.
And when Bigottini in Psyche dishevels
Her black flowing hair, and by demons is driven,
Oh! who does not envy those rude little devils,
That hold her and hug her, and keep her from Heaven?
Then, the music--so softly its cadences die,
So divinely--oh, Dolly! between you and I,
It’s as well for my peace that there’s nobody nigh
To make love to me then--_you’ve_ a soul, and can judge
What a crisis ’twould be for your friend, Betty Fudge!

The next place (which Bobby has near lost his heart in)
They call it the Play-house--I think--of St. Martin;
Quite charming--and _very_ religious--what folly
To say that the French are not pious, dear Dolly,
When here one beholds, so correctly and rightly,
The Testament turned into _melodrames_ nightly;
And, doubtless, so fond they’re of scriptural facts,
They will soon get the Pentateuch up in five acts.
Here Daniel, in pantomime, bids bold defiance
To Nebuchadnezzar and all his stuff’d lions,
While pretty young Israelites dance round the Prophet,
In very thin clothing, and _but_ little of it;--
Here Bégrand,[6] who shines in the scriptural path,
As the lovely Suzanna, without ev’n a relic
Of drapery round her, comes out of the bath
In a manner that, Bob says, is quite _Eve-angelic_!
But, in short, dear, ’twould take me a month to recite
All the exquisite places we’re at, day and night.

_Thomas Moore_ (1779–1852).

_MONTMORENCI AND CHERUBINA._

[The two extracts which follow are taken from a burlesque novel
which had a great success early in the century. Its ridicule of
the Radcliffian type of romance, full of accumulated horrors and
grotesque affectation, probably did much to extirpate the worst
examples of that unrealistic school.]

This morning, soon after breakfast, I heard a gentle knocking at my door, and, to my great astonishment, a figure, cased in shining armour, entered. Oh! ye conscious blushes; it was my Montmorenci! A plume of white feathers nodded on his helmet, and neither spear nor shield were wanting. “I come,” cried he, bending on one knee, and pressing my hand to his lips, “I come in the ancient armour of my family to perform my promise of recounting to you the melancholy memoirs of my life.” “My lord,” said I, “rise and be seated. Cherubina knows how to appreciate the honour that Montmorenci confers.” He bowed; and having laid by his spear, shield, and helmet, he placed himself beside me on the sofa, and began his heart-rending history.

“All was dark. The hurricane howled, the hail rattled, and the thunder rolled. Nature was convulsed, and the traveller inconvenienced. In the province of Languedoc stood the Gothic castle of Montmorenci. Before it ran the Garonne, and behind it rose the Pyrenees, whose summits exhibiting awful forms, seen and lost again, as the partial vapours rolled along, were sometimes barren, and gleamed through the blue tinge of air, and sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy fir, that swept downward to their base. ‘My lads, are your carbines charged, and your daggers sharpened?’ whispered Rinaldo, with his plume of black feathers, to the banditti, in their long cloaks. ‘If they an’t,’ said Bernardo, ‘by St. Jago, we might load our carbines with the hail, and sharpen our daggers against this confounded north-wind.’ ‘The wind is east-south-east,’ said Ugo. At this moment the bell of Montmorenci Castle tolled one. The sound vibrated through the long corridors, the spiral staircases, the suites of tapestried apartments, and the ears of the personage who has the honour to address you. Much alarmed, I started from my couch, which was of exquisite workmanship; the coverlet of flowered gold, and the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies by Michael Angelo. But conceive my horror when I beheld my chamber filled with banditti! Snatching my faulchion, I flew to the armoury for my coat of mail; the bravos rushed after me, but I fought and dressed and dressed and fought, till I had perfectly completed my unpleasing toilet. I then stood alone, firm, dignified, collected, and only fifteen years of age.”

“‘Alack! there lies more peril in thine eye,
Than twenty of their swords----’

To describe the horror of the contest that followed were beyond the pen of an Anacreon. In short, I fought till my silver skin was laced with my golden blood; while the bullets flew round me, thick as hail,

“‘And whistled as they went for want of thought.’

At length I murdered my way down to my little skiff, embarked in it, and arrived at this island. As I first touched foot on its chalky beach, ‘Hail! happy land,’ cried I, ‘hail, thrice hail!’ ‘There is no hail here, sir,’ said a child running by.... Nine days and nights I wandered through the country, the rivulet my beverage, and the berry my repast; the turf my couch, and the sky my canopy.” “Ah!” interrupted I, “how much you must have missed the canopy of white velvet painted over with jonquils and butterflies!” “Extremely,” said he, “for during sixteen long years I had not a roof over my head--I was an itinerant beggar! One summer’s day, the cattle lay panting under the broad umbrage, the sun had burst into an immoderate fit of splendour, and the struggling brook chided the matted grass for obstructing it. I sat under a hedge, and began eating wild strawberries; when lo! a form, flexile as the flame ascending from a censer, and undulating with the sighs of a dying vestal, flitted inaudible by me, nor crushed the daisies as it trod. What a divinity! she was fresh as the Anadyomene of Apelles, and beautiful as the Gnidus of Praxiteles, or the Helen of Zeuxis. Her eyes dipt in heaven’s own hue----” “Sir,” said I, “you need not mind her eyes; I dare say they were blue enough. But pray, who was this immortal doll of yours?” “Who?” cried he, “why, who but--shall I speak it? who but--the LADY CHERUBINA DE WILLOUGHBY!!!” “I!” “You!” “Ah! Montmorenci!” “Ah! Cherubina! I followed you with cautious steps,” continued he, “till I traced you into your--you had a garden, had you not?” “Yes.” “Into your garden. I thought ten thousand flowerets would have leapt from their beds to offer you a nosegay. But the age of gallantry is past, that of merchants, placemen, and fortune-hunters has succeeded, and the glory of Cupid is extinguished for ever!... But wherefore,” cried he, starting from his seat, “wherefore talk of the past? Oh! let me tell you of the present and of the future. Oh! let me tell you how dearly, how deeply, how devotedly I love you!” “Love me!” cried I, giving such a start as the nature of the case required. “My Lord, this is so--really now, so----” “Pardon this abrupt avowal of my unhappy passion,” said he, flinging himself at my feet; “fain would I have let concealment, like a worm in the bud, feed on my damask cheek; but, oh! who could resist the maddening sight of so much beauty?” I remained silent, and, with the elegant embarrassment of modesty, cast my blue eyes to the ground. I never looked so lovely.... “I declare,” said I, “I would say anything on earth to relieve you--only tell me what.” “Angel of light!” exclaimed he, springing upon his feet, and beaming on me a smile that might liquefy marble. “Have I then hope? Dare I say it? Dare I pronounce the divine words, ‘she loves me’?” “I am thine and thou art mine,” murmured I, while the room swam before me.

_Eaton Stannard Barrett_ (1786–1820).

_MODERN MEDIÆVALISM._