Chapter X (2)

Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame;
With many a bang the public ear it courts;
And yet thy arrogance we never blame,
But take thy merits from thy own reports.
Thou hast indeed the most indulgent backers,
We make no doubting, misbelieving comments,
Even in thy most bounceable of moments;
But lend our ears implicit to thy crackers!--
Strange helps to thy applause too are not missing,
Thy Rockets raise thee,
And Serpents praise thee,
As none beside are ever praised--by hissing!

Mistress of Hydropyrics,
Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics,
Professor of a Fiery Necromancy,
Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts
With midnight sports,
Partaking very much of _flash_ and _fancy_!
What thoughts had shaken all
In olden time at thy nocturnal revels,--
Each brimstone ball,
They would have deem’d an eyeball of the Devil’s,
But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright;
A modern Hubert to the royal ear,
Might whisper without fear,
“My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night!”
Nor would it raise one superstitious notion
To hear the whole description fairly out:--
“One fixed--which t’other four whirl’d round about
With wond’rous motion.”

Such are the very sights
Thou workest, Queen of Fire, on earth and heaven,
Between the hours of midnight and eleven,
Turning our English to Arabian Nights,
With blazing mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons,
Blue stars and white,
And blood-red light,
And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters’ waggons.
Thrice lucky woman! doing things that be
With other folks past benefit of parson;
For burning, no Burn’s Justice falls on thee,
Altho’ night after night the public see
Thy Vauxhall palaces all end in Arson!
Sure thou wast never born
Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head,
Nor lectur’d night and morn
Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread,
Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire
To play with fire.
O didst thou never, in those days gone by
Go carrying about--no schoolboy prouder--
Instead of waxen doll a little Guy;
Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein,
Up the parental pigtail lay a train,
To let off all his powder?

Full of the wildfire of thy youth,
Did’st never in plain truth,
Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother’s pots,
Turning the garden into powder plots?
Or give the cook, to fright her,
Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre?
Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping
A lighted cracker by thy sister’s Dear,
So that she could not hear
The question he was popping?

Go on, Madame! Go on--be bright and busy
While hoax’d Astronomers look up and stare
From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy,
To see a Squib in Cassiopeia’s Chair!
A serpent wriggling into Charles’ Wain!
A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear!
A rocket tangled in Diana’s train,
And Cracker’s stuck in Berenice’s Hair!

There is a King of Fire--Thou shouldst be Queen!
Methinks a good connexion might come from it;
Could’st thou not make him, in the garden scene,
Set out per Rocket and return per comet;
Then give him a hot treat
Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup,
Lord! how the world would throng to see him eat.
He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up.

One solitary night--true is the story,
Watching those forms that Fancy will create
Within the bright confusion of the grate,
I saw a dazzling countenance of glory!
Oh Dei gratias!
That fiery facias
’Twas thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove;
And ever since that night,
In dark and bright,
Thy face is _registered_ within my _stove_!

Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays;
May no untimely _blow_ its doom forestall;
But when old age prepares the friendly pall,
When the last spark of all thy sparks decays,
Then die lamented by good people all,
Like Goldsmith’s _Madam Blaize_!

RHYME AND REASON.

_To the Editor of the Comic Annual._

SIR,

In one of your Annuals you have given insertion to “A Plan for
Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme;” but as I have seen no regular long
poem constructed on its principles, I suppose the scheme did not
take with the literary world. Under these circumstances I feel
encouraged to bring forward a novelty of my own, and I can only
regret that such poets as Chaucer and Cottle, Spenser and Hayley,
Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, Byron and Batterbee, should have
died before it was invented.

The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. Dean
Swift says somewhere in his letters, “that a rhyme is as hard
to find with him as a guinea,”--and we all know that guineas
are proverbially scarce among poets. The merest versifier that
ever attempted a Valentine must have met with this Orson, some
untameable savage syllable that refused to chime in with society.
For instance, what poetical Foxhunter--a contributor to the
Sporting Magazine--has not drawn all the covers of Beynard Ceynard,
Deynard, Feynard, Geynard, Heynard, Keynard, Leynard, Meynard,
Neynard, Peynard, Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard? The spirit
of the times is decidedly against Tithe; and I know of no tithe
more oppressive than that poetical one, in heroic measure, which
requires that every tenth syllable shall pay a sound in kind. How
often the Poet goes up a line, only to be stopped at the end by
an impracticable rhyme, like a bull in a blind alley! I have an
ingenious medical friend, who might have been an eminent poet by
this time, but the first line he wrote ended in ipecacuanha, and
with all his physical and mental power, he has never yet been able
to find a rhyme for it.

The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My system is, to
take the bull by the horns; in short, to try at first what words
will chime, before you go farther, and fare worse. To say nothing
of other advantages, it will at least have one good effect,--and
that is, to correct the erroneous notion of the would-be poets and
poetesses of the present day, that the great _end_ of poetry is
rhyme. I beg leave to present a specimen of worse, which proves
quite the reverse, and am, Sir,

Your most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN GRUBB.

THE DOUBLE KNOCK.

Rat-tat it went upon the lion’s chin
“That hat, I know it!” cried the joyful girl:
“Summer’s it is, I know him by his knock,
Comers like him are welcome as the day!
Lizzy! go down and open the street-door,
Busy I am to anyone but _him_
Know him you must--he has been often here;
Show him up stairs, and tell him I’m alone.”

Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair;
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat;
“Sure he has brought me tickets for the play--
Drury or Covent Garden--darling man!--
Kemble will play--or Kean who makes the soul
Tremble; in Richard or the frienzied Moor--
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce
Barren beside--or Liston, Laughter’s Child--
Kelly the natural, to witness whom
Jelly is nothing to the public’s jam--
Cooper, the sensible--and Walter Knowles
Super, in William Tell--now rightly told.
Better--perchance, from Andrews, brings a box,
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage--
Brocard! Donzelli! Taglioni! Paul!
No card--thank Heaven--engages me to-night!
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque--
Weather’s against it, but I’ll go in curls.
Dearly I dote on white--my satin dress,
Merely one night--it won’t be much the worse--
Cupid the New Ballet I long to see--
Stupid! why don’t she go and ope the door!”
Glisten’d her eye as the impatient girl
Listen’d, low bending o’er the topmost stair.
Vainly, alas! she listens and she bends,
Plainly she hears this question and reply:
“Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d’ye want?”
“Taxes,” says he, “and shall not call again!”

A FOXHUNTER

Is a jumble of paradoxes. He sets forth clean though he comes out of a kennel, and returns home dirty. He cares not for cards, yet strives to be always with the pack. He loves fencing, but without carte or tierce, and delights in a steeplechase, though he does not follow the Church. He is anything but litigious, yet is fond of a certain suit, and retains Scarlet. He keeps a running account with Horse, Dog, Fox, and Co., but objects to a check. As to cards, in choosing a pack he prefers Hunt’s. In Theatricals, he favours Miss Somerville, because her namesake wrote the Chase, though he never read it. He is no great dancer, though he is fond of casting off twenty couple; and no great Painter, though he draws covers, and seeks for a brush. He is no Musician, and yet is fond of five bars. He despises Doctors, yet follows a course of bark. He professes to love his country, but is perpetually crossing it. He is fond of strong ale and beer, yet dislikes any purl. He is good-tempered, yet so far a Tartar as to prefer a saddle of Horse to a saddle of Mutton. He is somewhat rough and bearish himself, but insists on good breeding in horses and dogs. He professes the Church Catechism, and countenances heathen dogmas, by naming his hounds after Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Diana. He cares not for violets, but he doats on a good scent. He says his wife is a shrew, but objects to destroying a Vixen. In Politics he inclines to Pitt, and runs after Fox. He is no milksop, but he loves to Tally. He protects Poultry, and preserves Foxes. He follows but one business, and yet has many pursuits. He pretends to be knowing, but a dog leads him by the nose. He is as honest a fellow as need be, yet his neck is oftener in danger than a thief’s. He swears he can clear anything, but is beaten by a fog. He is no landlord of houses, but is particular about fixtures. He studies “Summering the Hunter,” but goes Huntering in the Winter. He esteems himself prosperous, and is always going to the dogs. He delights in the Hunter’s Stakes, but takes care not to stake his hunter. He praises discretion, but would rather let the cat out of the bag than a fox. He does not shine at a human conversazione, but is great among dogs giving tongue. To conclude, he runs as long as he can, and then goes to earth, and his Heir is in at his death. But his Heir does not stand in his shoes, for he never wore anything but boots.

BAILEY BALLADS.

To anticipate mistake, the above title refers not to Thomas Haynes--or F. W. N.--or even any Publishers--but the original old Bailey. It belongs to a set of Songs composed during the courtly leisure of what is technically called a Juryman in Waiting--that is, one of a _corps de reserve_, held in readiness to fill up the gaps which extraordinary mental exertion--or sedentary habits--or starvation, may make in the Council of Twelve. This wrong box it was once my fortune to get into. On the 5th of November, at the 6th hour, leaving my bed, and the luxurious perusal of Taylor on Early Rising--I walked from a yellow fog into a black one, in my unwilling way to the New Court, which sweet herbs even could not sweeten, for the sole purpose of making criminals uncomfortable. A neighbour, a retired sea Captain with a wooden leg, now literally a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the same hanging errand--a personified Halter. Our legal drill Corporal was Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster roll without butter was over, before breakfast, the uninitiated can form no idea of the ludicrousness of the excuses of the would-be Nonjurors,--aggravated by the solemnity of a previous oath, the delivery from a witness-box like a pulpit, and the professional gravity of the Court. One weakly old gentleman had been ordered by his physician to eat little, but often, and apprehended even fatal consequences from being locked up with an obstinate eleven; another conscientious demurrer desired time to make himself master of his duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, and Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men who objected the hardness of their hearing criminal cases was beyond belief. The Publishers of “Curtis on the Ear” and “Wright on the Ear”--(two popular surgical works, though rather suggestive of Pugilism)--ought to have stentorian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, I was literally ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus of muffled double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a Judge’s charge--an arraignment and evidence to match, with great dexterity, but failing to catch the defence from the left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I was only half deaf, only half discharged me,--committing me to the relay-box, as a juror in Waiting,--and from which I was relieved only by his successor, Sir Thomas Denman, and to justify my dulness, I made even his stupendous voice to repeat my dismissal twice over!

It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that melo-dramatic mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid sensibility of the present age and stage. The following are merely specimens, but a hint from the Powers that be--in the Strand,--will promptly produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grateful Dedication to the learned Serjeant.

LINES TO MARY.

(AT NO. 1, NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER.)

O Mary, I believ’d you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew--
That you were taken up for thieving!

Oh! When I snatch’d a tender kiss
Or some such trifle when I courted,
You said, indeed, that love was bliss,
But never owned you were transported!

But then to gaze on that fair face--
It would have been an unfair feeling,
To dream that you had pilfered lace--
And Flints had suffered from your stealing!

Or when my suit I first preferr’d,
To bring your coldness to repentance,
Before I hammered out a word,
How could I dream you’d heard a sentence,

Or when with all the warmth of youth
I strove to prove my love no fiction,
How could I guess I urged a truth
On one already past conviction!

How could I dream that ivory part,
Your hand--where I have look’d and linger’d,
Altho’ it stole away my heart,
Had been held up as one light-finger’d!

In melting verse your charms I drew,
The charms in which my muse delighted--
Alas! the lay I thought was new,
Spoke only what had been _indicted_!

Oh! when that form, a lovely one,
Hung on the neck its arms had flown to,
I little thought that you had run
A chance of hanging on your own too.

You said you pick’d me from the world,
My vanity it now must shock it--
And down at once my pride is hurl’d,
You’ve pick’d me--and you’ve pick’d a pocket.

Oh! when our love had got so far,
The bans were read by Dr. Daly,
Who asked if there was any _bar_--
Why did not some one shout “Old Bailey?”

But when you rob’d your flesh and bones
In that pure white that angel garb is,
Who could have thought you, Mary Jones,
Among the Joans that link with _Darbies_?

And when the parson came to say,
My goods were yours, if I had got any,
And you should honour and obey,
Who could have thought--“O Bay of Botany.”

But, oh,--the worst of all your slips
I did not till this day discover--
That down in Deptford’s prison ships,
Oh, Mary! you’ve a hulking lover!

No. II.

“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 kissed 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!

No. III.

“I’d be a Parody.”--BAILEY.

We met--’twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me--
I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me;
He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unalter’d,
I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs falter’d.
I wore my bran new boots--and unrivall’d their brightness,
They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness!
I call’d, but no one came, and my stride had a tether;
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!

And once again we met--and an old pal was near him,
He swore a something low--but ’twas no use to fear him;
I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,
And stept--as he deserv’d--to cells wretched and lonely:
And there he will be tried--but I shall ne’er receive her,
The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;
The world may think me gay--heart and feet ache together,
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather.

LETTER

FROM A PARISH CLERK IN BARBADOES TO ONE IN HAMPSHIRE, WITH AN ENCLOSURE.

“Thou mayest conceive, O reader, with what concern I perceived the eyes of the congregation fixed upon me.”--MEMOIRS OF P. P.

MY DEAR JEDIDIAH,

Here I am safe and sound--well in body, and in fine voice for my
calling--though thousands and thousands of miles, I may say, from
the old living Threap-Cum-Toddle. Little did I think to be ever
giving out the Psalms across the Atlantic, or to be walking in the
streets of Barbadoes, surrounded by Blackamoors, big and little;
some crying after me, “There him go--look at Massa Amen!” Poor
African wretches! I do hope, by my Lord Bishop’s assistance, to
instruct many of them, and to teach them to have more respect for
ecclesiastic dignitaries.

Through a ludicrous clerical mischance, not fit for me to mention,
we have preached but once since our arrival. Oh! Jedidiah, how
different from the row of comely, sleek, and ruddy plain English
faces, that used to confront me in the Churchwarden’s pew, at the
old service in Hants,--Mr. Perryman’s clean, shining, bald head;
Mr. Truman’s respectable powdered, and Mr. Cutlet’s comely and
well-combed caxon!--Here, such a set of grinning sooty faces, that
if I had been in any other place, I might have fancied myself at a
meeting of Master Chimney-sweeps on May-Day. You know, Jedidiah,
how strange thoughts and things will haunt the mind, in spite of
one’s self, at times the least appropriate:--the line that follows
“The rose is red, the violet’s blue,” in the old Valentine, I am
ashamed to say, came across me I know not how often. Then after
service, no sitting on a tombstone for a cheerful bit of chat
with a neighbour--no invitation to dinner from the worshipful
Churchwardens. The jabber of these Niggers is so outlandish or
unintelligible, I can hardly say I am on speaking terms with any
of our parishioners, except Mr. Pompey, the Governor’s black,
whose trips to England have made his English not quite so full of
Greek as the others. There is one thing, however, that is so great
a disappointment of my hopes and enjoyments, that I think, if I
had foreseen it, I should not have come out even at the Bishop’s
request. The song in the play-book says, you know, “While all
Barbadoes bells do ring!”--but alas, Jedidiah, there is not a
ring of bells in the whole island!--You who remember my fondness
for that melodious pastime, indeed I may say my passion, for a
Grandsire Peel of Triple Bob-Majors truly pulled, and the changes
called by myself, as when I belonged to the Great Tom Society of
Hampshire Youths,--may conceive my regret that, instead of coming
here, I did not go out to Swan River--I am told they have a Peel
there.

I shall write a longer letter by the Nestor, Bird, which is the
next ship. This comes by the Lively, Kidd,--only to inform you that
I arrived here safe and well. Pray communicate the same, with my
love and duty, to my dear parents and relations, not forgetting
Deborah and Darius at Porkington, and Uriah at Pigstead. The same
to Mrs. Pugh, the opener,--Mr. Sexton, and the rest of my clerical
friends. I have no commissions at present, except to beg that you
will deliver the enclosed, which I have written at Mr. Pompey’s
dictation, to his old black fellow servant, at Number 45, Portland
Place. Ask for Agamemnon down the area. If an opportunity should
likewise offer of mentioning in any quarter that might reach
administration, the destitute state of our Barbarian steeples,
and belfries, pray don’t omit; and if, in the mean time, you could
send out even a set of small handbells, it might prove a parochial
acquisition as well as to me,

Dear Jedidiah,
Your faithful Friend and fellow Clerk,
HABAKKUK CRUMPE.

P.S.--I send Pompey’s letter open, for you to read--You will see
what a strange herd of black cattle I am among

[THE ENCLOSURE.]

I say, Aggy!--

You remember me?--Very well.--Runaway Pompey, somebody else.
Me Governor’s Pompey. You remember? Me carry out Governor’s
piccaninny a walk. Very well. Massa Amen and me write this to say
the news. Barbadoes all bustle. Nigger-mans do nothing but talkee
talkee. [_Pompey’s right, Jedidiah._] The Bishop is come. Missis
Bishop. Miss Bishop--all the Bishops. Very well. The Bishop come
in one ship, and him wigs come out in other ship. Bishop come one,
two, three, weeks first. [_It’s too true, Jedidiah._] Him say no
wig, no Bishop. Massa Amen, you remember, say so too. Very well.
Massa Amen ask me everything about nigger-man, where him baptises
in a water. [_So I did._] Me tell him in the sea, in the river,
any wheres abouts. You remember. Massa Amen ask at me again, who
’ficiates. Me tell him de Cayman. [_What man, Jedidiah, could
he mean?_] Very well. The day before the other day Bishop come
to dinner with Governor and Governess, up at the Big House. You
remember,--Missis Bishop too. Missis Bishop set him turban afire at
a candle, and me put him out. [_With a kettle of scalding water,
Jedidiah._] Pompey get nothing for that. Very well.

I say, Aggy,--You know your Catechism? Massa Amen ask him at me
and my wife, Black Juno, sometimes You remember. Massa Amen say,
you give up a Devil? very well. Then him say, you give up all
work? very well. Then him say again, Black Juno, you give up your
_Pompeys_ and vanities? Black Juno shake her head, and say no.
Massa Amen say you must, and then my wife cry ever so much. [_It’s
a fact, Jedidiah, the black female made this ridiculous mistake._]

Very well. Governor come to you in three months to see the King.
Pompey too. You remember. Come for me to Blackwall. Me bring you
some of Governor’s rum. Black Juno say, tell Massa Agamemnon, he
must send some fashions, sometimes. You remember? Black Juno very
smart. Him wish for a Bell Assembly. [_Jedidiah, so do I._] You
send him out, you remember? Very well.

Massa Amen say write no more now. I say, O pray one little word
more for Agamemnon’s wife. Give him good kiss from Pompey.
[_Jedidiah, what a heathenish message!_] Black Diana a kiss too.
You remember? Very well. No more.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH.

“Good Heaven! Why even the little children in France speak French!”--ADDISON.