Chapter IV: Preface (2)

The drawback I speak of is this: although I have never seen any one of the creatures, it is too certain that the mountains are inhabited by a race of Monkeys, whose cunning and mischievous talents exceed even the most incredible stories of their tribe. No human art or vigilance seems of avail; we have planned ambuscades, and watched night after night, but no attempt has been made; yet the moment the guard was relaxed, we were stripped without mercy. I am convinced they must have had spies night and day on our motions, yet so secretly and cautiously, that no glimpse of one has yet been seen by any of our people. Our last crop was cut and carried off, with the precision of an English Harvesting. Our spirit stores--(you will be amazed to hear that these creatures pick locks with the dexterity of London burglars)--have been broken open and ransacked, though half the establishment were on the watch; and the brutes have been off to their mountains, five miles distant, without even the dogs giving an alarm. I could almost persuade myself at times, such are their supernatural knowledge, swiftness, and invisibility, that we have to contend with evil spirits. I long for your advice, to refer to on this subject, and am,

Dear Philip, Your loving brother,
AMBROSE MAWE.

P.S. Since writing the above, you will be concerned to hear the body of poor Diggory has been found, horribly mangled by wild beasts. The fate of Chippendale, Gregory, and Mudge, is no longer doubtful. The old Lion has brought the Lioness, and the sheep being all gone, they have made a joint attack upon the Bullock-house. The Mudiboo has overflowed, and Squampash Flatts are a swamp. I have just discovered that the Monkeys are my own rascals, that I brought out from England. We are coming back as fast as we can.

SONNET ON STEAM.

BY AN UNDER-OSTLER.

I wish I livd a Thowsen year Ago
Wurking for Sober six and Seven milers
And dubble Stages runnen safe and slo
The Orsis cum in Them days to the Bilers
But Now by means of Powers of Steam forces
A-turning Coches into Smoakey Kettels
The Bilers seam a Cumming to the Orses
And Helps and naggs Will sune be out of Vittels
Poor Bruits I wunder How we bee to Liv
When sutch a change of Orses is our Faits
No nothink need Be sifted in a Siv
May them Blowd ingins all Blow up their Grates
And Theaves of Oslers crib the Coles and Giv
Their blackgard Hannimuls a Feed of Slaits!

A REPORT FROM BELOW!

“Blow high, blow low.”--SEA SONG.

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

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

Lord, how the couple’s teeth did chatter!
Master and Mistress both flew at her,
“Speak! Fire? or Murder? What’s the matter?”
Till Mary, getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:--

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

THE LAST SHILLING.

He was evidently a foreigner, and poor. As I sat at the opposite corner of the Southgate stage, I took a mental inventory of his wardrobe. A military cloak much the worse for wear,--a blue coat, the worse for tear,--a napless hat--a shirt neither white nor brown--a pair of mud-colour gloves, open at each thumb--gray trousers too short for his legs--and brown boots too long for his feet.

From some words he dropt, I found that he had come direct from Paris, to undertake the duties of French teacher, at an English academy; and his companion, the English classical usher, had been sent to London, to meet and conduct him to his suburban destination.

Poor devil, thought I, thou art going into a bitter bad line of business; and the hundredth share which I had taken in the boyish persecutions of my own French master--an emigré of the old noblesse--smote violently on my conscience. At Edmonton the coach stopped. The coachman alighted, pulled the bell of a mansion inscribed in large letters, Vespasian House; and deposited the foreigner’s trunks and boxes on the footpath. The English classical usher stepped briskly out, and deposited a shilling in the coachman’s anticipatory hand. Monsieur followed the example, and with some precipitation prepared to enter the gate of the fore-garden, but the driver stood in the way.

“I want another shilling,” said the coachman.

“You agreed to take a shilling a-head,” said the English master.

“You said you would take one shilling for my head,” said the French master.

“It’s for the luggage,” said the coachman.

The Frenchman seemed thunderstruck; but there was no help for it. He pulled out a small weasel-bellied, brown silk purse, but there was nothing in it save a medal of Napoleon. Then he felt his breast-pockets, then his side-pockets, and then his waistcoat-pockets; but they were all empty, excepting a metal snuff-box, and that was empty too. Lastly he felt the pockets in the flaps of his coat, taking out a meagre would-be white handkerchief, and shaking it; but not a dump. I rather suspect he anticipated the result--but he went thro’ the operations _seriatim_, with the true French gravity. At last he turned to his companion, with a “Mistare Barbiere, be as good to lend me one shilling.”

Mr. Barber, thus appealed to, went through something of the same ceremony. Like a blue-bottle cleaning itself, he passed his hands over his breast--round his hips, and down the outside of his thighs,--but the sense of feeling could detect nothing like a coin.

“You agreed for a shilling, and you shall have no more,” said the man with empty pockets.

“No--no--no--you shall have no more,” said the moneyless Frenchman.

By this time the housemaid of Vespasian House, tired of standing with the door in her hand, had come down to the garden-gate, and, willing to make herself generally useful, laid her hand on one of the Foreigner’s trunks.

“It shan’t go till I’m paid my shilling,” said the coachman, taking hold of the handle at the other end.

The good-natured housemaid instantly let go of the trunk, and seemed suddenly to be bent double by a violent cramp, or stitch, in her right side,--while her hand groped busily under her gown. But it was in vain. There was nothing in that pocket but some curl-papers, and a brass thimble.

The stitch or cramp then seemed to attack her other side; again she stooped and fumbled, while Hope and Doubt struggled together on her rosy face. At last Hope triumphed,--from the extremest corner of the huge dimity pouch she fished up a solitary coin, and thrust it exultingly into the obdurate palm.

“It won’t do,” said the coachman, casting a wary eye on the metal, and holding out for the inspection of the trio a silver-washed coronation medal, which had been purchased of a Jew for twopence the year before.

The poor girl quietly set down the trunk which she had again taken up, and restored the deceitful medal to her pocket. In the meantime the arithmetical usher had arrived at the gate in his way out, but was stopped by the embargo on the luggage. “What’s the matter now?” asked the man of figures.

“If you please, Sir,” said the housemaid, dropping a low courtesy, “it’s this impudent fellow of a coachman will stand here for his rights.”

“He wants a shilling more than his fare,” said Mr. Barber.

“He does want more than his fare shilling,” reiterated the Frenchman.

“Coachman! what the devil are we waiting here for?” shouted a stentorian voice from the rear of the stage.

“Bless me, John, are we to stay here all day?” cried a shrill voice from the stage’s interior.

“If you don’t get up shortly I shall get down,” bellowed a voice from the box.

At this crisis the English usher drew his fellow-tutor aside, and whispered something in his ear that made him go through the old manual exercise. He slapped his pantaloons--flapped his coat tails--and felt about his bosom--“I haven’t got one,” said he, and with a shake of the head and a hurried bow, he set off at the pace of a twopenny postman.

“I a’n’t going to stand here all day,” said the coachman, getting out of all reasonable patience.

“You’re an infernal scoundrelly villain,” said Mr. Barber, getting out of all classical English.

“You are a--what Mr. Barber says,” said the Foreigner.

“Thank God and his goodness,” ejaculated the housemaid, “here comes the Doctor;” and the portly figure of the pedagogue himself came striding pompously down the gravel-walk. He had two thick lips and a double chin, which all began wagging together.

“Well, well; what’s all this argumentative elocution? I command taciturnity!”

“I’m a shilling short,” said the coachman.

“He says he has got one short shilling,” said the Foreigner.

“Poo--poo--poo,” said the thick-lips and double-chin. “Pay the fellow his superfluous claim, and appeal to magisterial authority.”

“It’s what we mean to do, Sir,” said the English usher, “but”--and he laid his lips mysteriously to the Doctor’s ear.

“A pecuniary bagatelle,” said the Doctor. “It’s palpable extortion,--but I’ll disburse it,--and you have a legislatorial remedy for his avaricious demands.” As the man of pomp said this, he thrust his fore finger into an empty waistcoat-pocket--then into its fellow--and then into every pocket he had--but without any other product than a bunch of keys, two ginger lozenges, and the French mark.

“It’s very peculiar,” said the Doctor. “I had a prepossession of having currency to that amount. The coachman must call to-morrow for it at Vespasian House--or stay--I perceive my housekeeper. Mrs. Plummer! pray just step hither and liquidate this little commercial obligation.”

Now, whether Mrs. Plummer had or had not a shilling, Mrs. Plummer only knows; for she did not condescend to make any search for it,--and if she had none, she was right not to take the trouble. However, she attempted to carry the point by a _coup de main_. Snatching up one of the boxes, she motioned the housemaid to do the like, exclaiming in a shrill treble key,--“Here’s a pretty work indeed, about a paltry shilling! If it’s worth having, it’s worth calling again for,--and I suppose Vespasian House is not going to run away!”

“But may be I am,” said the inflexible coachman, seizing a trunk with each hand.

“John, I insist on being let out,” screamed the lady in the coach. “I shall be too late for dinner,” roared the Thunderer in the dickey. As for the passenger on the box, he had made off during the latter part of the altercation.

“What shall we do?” said the English Classical Usher.

“God and his goodness only knows!” said the housemaid.

“I am a stranger in this country,” said the Frenchman.

“You must pay the money,” said the coachman.

“And here it is, you brute,” said Mrs. Plummer, who had made a trip to the house in the meantime; but whether she had coined it, or raised it by a subscription among the pupils, I know no more than

ODE TO M. BRUNEL.

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

Well!----Monsieur Brunel,
How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,--
Never be stopping,
But poking, groping, in the dark deep making
An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,
Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge,
To keep down all extortion,
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last, from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the “View hollow.”
In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof,
Came, like “a tide in the affairs of men;”
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song
Of Incledon’s, beginning “Cease, rude Bore”--
Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears,
Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one’s self o’er head and ears
In difficulties most distressful!
Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,
When it began to liquidate itself!
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden,
And languishes Thy Tunnel,--so to paint,
Under a slow incurable complaint,
Bed-ridden!
Why, when thus Thames--bed-bother’d--why repine!
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine!
Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid;
And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft;
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft!
I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades;
Stick up a sign--the sign of the Bore’s Head;
I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane,--Thy Shades!

THE DEATH OF THE DOMINIE.

“Take him up, says the master.”--OLD SPELLING BOOK.

My old Schoolmaster is dead. He “died of a stroke;” and I wonder none of his pupils have ever done the same. I have been flogged by many masters, but his rod, like Aaron’s, swallowed up all the rest. We have often wished that he whipped on the principle of Italian penmanship,--up strokes heavy and down strokes light; but he did it in English round hand, and we used to think with a very hard pen. Such was his love of flogging, that for some failure in English composition, after having been well corrected I have been ordered to be revised. I have heard of a road to learning, and he did justice to it; we certainly never went a stage in education without being well horsed. The mantle of Dr. Busby descended on his shoulders, and on ours. There was but one tree in the play-ground--a birch, but it never had a twig or leaf upon it. Spring or summer it always looked as bare as if the weather had been cutting at the latter end of the year. Pictures they say are incentives to learning, and certainly we never got through a page without cuts; for instance, I do not recollect a Latin article without a tail-piece. All the Latin at that school might be comprised in one line--

“Arma virumque cano.”

An arm, a man, and a cane. It was Englished to me one day in school hours, when I was studying Robinson Crusoe instead of Virgil, by a storm of bamboo that really carried on the illusion, and made me think for the time that I was assaulted by a set of savages. He seemed to consider a boy as a bear’s cub, and set himself literally to lick him into shape. He was so particularly fond of striking us with a leather strap on the flats of our hands that he never allowed them a day’s rest. There was no such thing as a Palm Sunday in our calendar. In one word, he was disinterestedly cruel, and used as industriously to strike for nothing as other workmen strike for wages. Some of the elder boys, who had read Smollett, christened him Roderick, from his often hitting like Random, and being so partial to Strap.

His death was characteristic. After making his will he sent for Mr. Taddy, the head usher, and addressed him as follows: “It is all over, Mr. Taddy--I am sinking fast--I am going from the terrestrial globe--to the celestial--and have promised Tomkins a flogging--mind he has it--and don’t let him pick off the buds--I have asked Aristotle”--(here his head wandered)--“and he says I cannot live an hour--I don’t like that black horse grinning at me--cane him soundly for not knowing his verbs--Castigo te, non quod odio habeam--Oh, Mr. Taddy, it’s breaking up with me--the vacation’s coming--There is that black horse again--Dulcis moriens reminiscitur--we are short of canes--Mr. Taddy, don’t let the school get into disorder when I am gone--I’m afraid, through my illness--the boys have gone back in their flogging--I feel a strange feeling all over me--Is the new pupil come?--I trust I have done my duty--and have made my will--and left all”--(here his head wandered again)--“to Mr. Souter, the school bookseller--Mr. Taddy, I invite you to my funeral--make the boys walk in good order--and take care of the crossings.--My sight is getting dim--write to Mrs. B. at Margate--and inform her--we break up on the 21st.--The school-door is left open--- I am very cold--where is my ruler gone--I will make him feel--John, light the school lamps--I cannot see a line--Oh Mr. Taddy--venit hora--my hour is come--I am dying--thou art dying--he--is dying.--We--are--dying--you--are--dy”----The voice ceased. He made a feeble motion with his hands, as if in the act of ruling a copy-book--“the _ruling_ passion strong in death”--and expired.

An epitaph, composed by himself, was discovered in his desk,--with an unpublished pamphlet against Tom Paine. The Epitaph was so stuffed with quotations from Homer and Virgil, and almost every Greek or Latin author beside, that the mason who was consulted by the Widow declined to lithograph it under a Hundred Pounds. The Dominie consequently reposes under no more Latin than HIC JACET;--and without a single particle of Greek, though he is himself a Long Homer.

OVER THE WAY.

“I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very
pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden
the window opened and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck
me.”--ARABIAN NIGHTS.

Alas! the flames of an unhappy lover
About my heart and on my vitals prey;
I’ve caught a fever that I can’t get over,
Over the way!

Oh! why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian!
I’ve lost my rest by night, my peace by day,
For want of some brown Holland or Venetian
Over the way!

I’ve gazed too often, till my heart’s as lost
As any needle in a stack of hay:
Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed
Over the way!

I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax--
Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey?
They cannot ease me of _my_ window-tax
Over the way!

Even on Sunday my devotions vary,
And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray
To dear St. Mary Overy--the Mary
Over the way!

Oh! if my godmother were but a fairy,
With magic wand, how I would beg and pray
That she would change me into that canary
Over the way!

I envy everything that’s near Miss Lindo,
A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay--
Blest blue-bottles! that buzz about the window
Over the way!

Even at even, for there be no shutters,
I see her reading on from grave to gay,
Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters
Over the way!

And then--oh! then--while the clear waxen taper
Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray,
I see twelve auburn curls put into paper
Over the way!

But how breathe unto her my deep regards,
Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay,--
Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards
Over the way!

Cold as the pole she is to my adoring;--
Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse’s Bay,
I meet an icy end to my exploring
Over the way!

Each dirty little Savoyard that dances
She looks on--Punch--chimney sweeps in May.
Zounds! wherefore cannot I attract her glances
Over the way?

Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat,
Or yelping cur, run over by a dray;
But I’m in love--she never pities that!
Over the way!

I go to the same church--a love-lost labour;
Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play;
She does not seem to know she has a neighbour
Over the way!

At private theatres she never acts;
No Crown-and-Anchor balls her fancy sway;
She never visits gentlemen with tracts
Over the way!

To billets-doux by post she shows no favour--
In short, there is no plot that I can lay
To break my window-pains to my enslaver
Over the way!

I play the flute--she heeds not my chromatics--
No friend an introduction can purvey;
I wish a fire would break out in the attics
Over the way!

My wasted form ought of itself to touch her;
My baker feels my appetite decay;
And as for butchers’ meat--oh! she’s my butcher
Over the way!

At beef I turn; at lamb or veal I pout;
I never ring now to bring up the tray;
My stomach grumbles at my dining out
Over the way!

I’m weary of my life; without regret
I could resign this miserable clay
To lie within that box of mignonette
Over the way!

I’ve fitted bullets to my pistol-bore;
I’ve vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray,
Quite sick of number one--and number four
Over the way!

Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy,
Sometimes it only paints a ferme orneé,
A horse--a cow--six fowls--a pig--and Mary
Over the way!

Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white,
Standing before the altar, like a fay;
Sometimes of balls, and neighbourly invite
Over the way!

I’ve coo’d with her in dreams, like any turtle,
I’ve snatch’d her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay;
Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle
Over the way!

Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop,
Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat “poshay,”
And showered crowns to make the horses gallop
Over the way!

And thrice I’ve started up from dreams appalling
Of killing rivals in a bloody fray--
There is a young man very fond of calling
Over the way!

Oh! happy man--above all kings in glory,
Whoever in her ear may say his say,
And add a tale of love to that one story
Over the way!

Nabob of Arcot--Despot of Japan--
Sultan of Persia--Emperor of Cathay--
Much rather would I be the happy man
Over the way!

With such a lot my heart would be in clover--
But what--oh horror!--what do I survey!
Postillions and white favours!--all is over
Over the way!

A PLAN FOR

WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME,

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

RESPECTED SIR,

In a morning paper justly celebrated for the acuteness of its reporters, and their almost prophetic insight into character and motives--the Rhodian length of their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their inferences, beyond the drawing of Moux’s dray horses,--there appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph.

“Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall emaciated being, in a brown coat, indicating his age to be about forty-five, and the raggedness of which gave a great air of mental ingenuity and intelligence to his countenance, was introduced by the officers to the Lord Mayor. It was evident from his preliminary bow that he had made some discoveries in the art of poetry, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but the Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had already submitted his project to several of the leading Publishers, referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the unfortunate Votary of the Muses withdrew, declaring by another bow, that he should offer his plan to the Editor of the Comic Annual.”

The unfortunate above referred to, Sir, is myself, and with regard to the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a £10 one, if the qualification depends on my pocket--but for the idea of addressing myself to the Editor of the Comic Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gentlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true, in common with Hervey, and Herschell, and Galileo, and Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus,--my invention concerning a whole hemisphere, as it were, in the world of poetry--in short, the whole continent of blank verse. To an immense number of readers this literary land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from one sole reason,--the want of that harmony which makes the close of one line chime with the end of another. They have no relish for numbers that turn up blank, and wonder accordingly at the epithet of “Prize,” prefixed to Poems of the kind which emanate in--I was going to say from--the University of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members of society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, the Chase, or the Seasons,--the Winter especially,--without rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in question, but with a limited enjoyment; as certain persons can admire the architectural beauties of Salisbury steeple, but would like it better with a ring of bells. For either of these tastes my discovery will provide, without affronting the palate of any other; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank verse will not suffer in the least, but each line will “do as it likes with its own,” and sound as independently of the next as “milkmaid,” and “water-carrier.” I have the honour to subjoin a specimen--and if, through your publicity, Mr. Murray should be induced to make me an offer for an Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family Library, it will be an eternal obligation on,

Respected Sir, your most obliged, and humble servant,
* * * * * * *

A NOCTURNAL SKETCH.

Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark,
The signal of the setting sun--one gun!
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain,--
Or hear Othello’s jealous doubt spout out,--
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade,
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch;--
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Four horses as no other man can span;
Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split
Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz.

Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things
Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung;
The gas up-blazes with its bright white light,
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl,
About the streets and take up Pall-Mal Sal,
Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs.
Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash.
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep creep,
But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee,
And while they’re going, whisper low, “No go!”

Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads,
And sleepers waking, grumble--“Drat that cat!”
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.

Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise
In childish dreams and with a roar gore poor
Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly;--
But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-press’d,
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games,
And that she hears--what faith is man’s--Ann’s bans
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice:
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out,
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows’ woes!

A LETTER FROM A MARKET GARDENER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

SIR,

The Satiety having Bean pleasd to Complement Me before I beg Leaf to Lie before Them agin as follow in particullers witch I hop They will luck upon with a Sowth Aspic.

Sir--last year I paid my Atentions to a Tater, & the Satiety was pleasd to be gratifid at the Innlargement of my Kidnis. This ear I have turnd my Eyes to Gozberris.--I am happy to Say I have allmost sucksidid in Making them too Big for Bottlin. I beg to Present sum of itch kind--Pleas obsarve a Green Goose is larger in Siz then a Red Goosebry. Sir as to Cherris my atention has Bean cheafly occupid by the Black Arts. Sum of them are as big as Crickt Balls as will be seen I send a Sample tyed on a Wauking-stick. I send lickwise a Potle of strayberris witch I hop will reach. They air so large as to object to lay more nor too in a Bed. Also a Potle of Hobbies and one of my new Pins, of a remarkably sharp flaviour. I hop they will cum to Hand in Time to be at your Feat. Respective Black red & White Currency I have growd equely Large, so as one Bunch is not to be Put into a Galley Pot without jamming. My Pitches has not ben Strong, and their is no Show on My Walls of the Plumb line. Damsins will Be moor Plentifle & their is no Want of common Bullies about Lunnon. Please inform if propper to classify the Slow with the creepers.

Concerning Graps I have bin recommanded by mixing Wines with Warter Mellons, the later is improved in its juice--but have douts of the fack. Of the Patgonian Pickleing Coucumber, I hav maid Trial of, and have hops of Growing one up to Markit by sitting one End agin my front dore. On account of its Proggressiveness I propos calling it Pickleus Perriginatus if Approved of.

Sir, about Improving the common Stocks.--Of Haws I have some hops but am disponding about my Hyps. I have quite faled in cultuvating them into Cramberris. I have allso atempted to Mull Blackberis, but am satisfid them & the Mulberris is of diferent Genius. Pleas observe of Aples I have found a Grafft of the common Crab from its Straglin sideways of use to Hispalliers. I should lick to be infourmd weather Scotch Granite is a variety of the Pom Granite & weather as sum say so pore a frute, and nothing but Stone Sir,--My Engine Corn has been all eat up by the Burds namely Rocks and Ravines. In like manner I had a full Shew of Pees but was distroyd by the Sparers. There as bean grate Mischef dun beside by Entymollogy--in some parts a complet Patch of Blight. Their has bean a grate Deal too of Robin by boys and men picking and stealing but their has bean so many axidents by Steel Traps I don’t like setting on ’em.

Sir I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to considder the Case what follows, as I think mite be maid Transaxtionable in the next Reports:--

My Wif had a Tomb cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell and as Grate feverit, we had Him berrid in the Guardian, and for the sake of inrichment of the Mould I had the carks deposeted under the roots of a Gosberry Bush. The Frute being up till then of the Smooth kind. But the next Seson’s Frute after the Cat was berrid, the Gozberris was all hairy,--& moor Remarkable the Catpilers of the same bush, was All of the same hairy Discription. I am Sir Your humble servant,

THOMAS FROST.

DOMESTIC ASIDES; OR, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES

“I really take it very kind,
This visit, Mrs. Skinner!
I have not seen you such an age--
(The wretch has come to dinner!)

“Your daughters, too, what loves of girls--
What heads for painters’ easels!
Come here and kiss the infant, dears,--
(And give it p’rhaps the measles!)

“Your charming boys I see are home
From Reverend Mr. Russel’s;
’Twas very kind to bring them both,--
(What boots for my new Brussels!)

“What! little Clara left at home?
Well, now, I call that shabby:
I should have loved to kiss her so,--
(A flabby, dabby babby!)

“And Mr. S., I hope he’s well;
Ah! though he lives so handy,
He never now drops in to sup,--
(The better for our brandy!)

“Come, take a seat--I long to hear
About Matilda’s marriage;
You’re come of course to spend the day!--
(Thank Heav’n I hear the carriage!)

“What, must you go? next time I hope
You’ll give me longer measure;
Nay--I shall see you down the stairs--
(With most uncommon pleasure!)

“Good-bye! good-bye! remember all,
Next time you’ll take your dinners!
(Now, David, mind, I’m not at home
In future to the Skinners!”)

BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN.

All at once Miss Morbid left off sugar.

She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage, the full-bodied family-coach dwindling into a chariot, next into a fly, and then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off artistically, like certain household economists, from white to white-brown, brown, dark brown, and so on, to none at all.--She left it off, as one might leave off walking on the top of a house, or on a slide, or on a plank with a further end to it, that is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a moment’s warning. She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lump. She dropped it--as Corporal Trim let fall his hat,--dab. It vanished, as the French say, _toot sweet_. From the 30th of November, 1830, not an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid’s own expression, ever “darkened her doors.”

The truth was she had been present the day before at an Anti-Slavery Meeting; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist, who had drawn her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head. Thenceforth sugar, or as she called it “shugger,” was no longer white, or brown, in her eyes, but red, blood-red--an abomination, to indulge in which would convert a professing Christian into a practical Cannibal. Accordingly she made a vow, under the influence of moist eyes and refined feelings, that the sanguinary article should never more enter her lips or her house; and this petty parody of the famous Berlin Decree against our Colonial produce was rigidly enforced. However others might countenance the practice of the Slave Owners by consuming “shugger,” she was resolved, for her own part, that “no suffering sable son of Africa should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea!”

In the mean time, the cook and housemaid grumbled in concert at the prohibition: they naturally thought it very hard to be deprived of a luxury which they enjoyed at their own proper cost; and at last only consented to remain in the service, on condition that the privation should be handsomely considered in their wages.

With a hope of being similarly remembered in her will, the poor relations of Miss Morbid continued to drink the “warm without,” which she administered to them every Sunday, under the name of Tea: and Hogarth would have desired no better subject for a picture than was presented by their physiognomies. Some pursed up their lips, as if resolved that the nauseous beverage should never enter them; others compressed their mouths, as if to prevent it from rushing out again. One took it mincingly, in sips,--another gulped it down in desperation,--a third, in a fit of absence, continued to stir very superfluously with his spoon; and there was one shrewd old gentleman, who by a little dexterous by-play, used to bestow the favour of his small souchong on a sick geranium. Now and then an astonished Stranger would retain a half cupful of the black dose in his mouth, and stare round at his fellow guests, as if tacitly putting to them the very question of Mathews’s Yorkshireman in the mail coach--“Coompany!--oop or doon?”

The greatest sufferers, however, were Miss Morbid’s two nephews, still in the morning of their youth, and boy-like, far more inclined to “sip the sweets” than to “hail the dawn.” They had formerly looked on their Aunt’s house as peculiarly a Dulce Domum. Prior to her sudden conversion she had been famous for the manufacture of a sort of hard bake, commonly called Toffy or Taffy,--but now, alas! “Taffy was not at home,” and there was nothing else to invite a call. Currant tart is tart indeed without sugar; and as for the green gooseberries, they always tasted, as the young gentlemen affirmed, “like a quart of berries sharpened to a pint.” In short it always required six pennyworth of lollipops and bullseyes, a lick of honey, a dip of treacle, and a pick at a grocer’s hogshead, to sweeten a visit at Aunt Morbid’s.

To tell the truth, her own temper soured a little under the prohibition. She could not persuade the sugar-eaters that they were Vampyres;--instead of practising, or even admiring her self-denial, they laughed at it; and one wicked wag even compared her, in allusion to her acerbity and her privation, to a crab without _the nippers_. She persevered notwithstanding in her system; and to the constancy of a martyr added something of the wilfulness of a bigot:--indeed, it was hinted by patrons and patronesses of white charities, that European objects had not their _fair_ share in her benevolence. She was pre-eminently the friend of the blacks. Howbeit, for all her sacrifices, not a lash was averted from their sable backs. She had raised discontent in the kitchen, she had disgusted her acquaintance, sickened her friends, and given her own dear little nephews the stomach-ache, without saving Quashy from one cut of the driver’s whip, or diverting a single kick from the shins of Sambo. Her grocer complained loudly of being called a dealer in human gore, yet not one hogshead the less was imported from the Plantations. By an error common to all her class she mistook a negative for a positive principle; and persuaded herself that by _not_ preserving damsons, she preserved the Niggers; that by _not_ sweetening her own cup, she was dulcifying the lot of all her sable brethren in bondage. She persevered accordingly in setting her face against sugar instead of slavery; against the plant instead of the planter; and had actually abstained for six months from the forbidden article, when a circumstance occurred that roused her sympathies into more active exertions. It pleased an American lady to import with her a black female servant, whom she rather abruptly dismissed, on her arrival in England. The case was considered by the Hampshire Telegraph of that day, as one of GREAT HARDSHIP; the paragraph went the round of the papers and in due time attracted the notice of Miss Morbid. It was precisely addressed to her sensibilities, and there was a “Try Warren” tone about it that proved irresistible. She read--and wrote--and in the course of one little week, her domestic establishment was maliciously but truly described as consisting of “two white Slaves and a black Companion.”

The adopted protégé was, in reality, a strapping clumsy Negress, as ugly as sin, and with no other merit than that of being of the same colour as the crow. She was artful, sullen, gluttonous, and above all so intolerably indolent, that if she had been literally “carved in ebony,” as old Fuller says, she could scarcely have been of less service to her protectress. Her notion of Free Labour seemed to translate it into laziness, and taking liberties; and, as she seriously added to the work of her fellow-servants, without at all contributing to their comfort, they soon looked upon her as a complete nuisance. The housemaid dubbed her “a Divil,”--the cook roundly compared her to “a mischivus beast, as runs out on a herd o’ black cattle;”--and both concurred in the policy of laying all household sins upon the sooty shoulders--just as slatterns select a colour that hides the dirt. It is certain that shortly after the instalment of the negress in the family a moral disease broke out with considerable violence, and justly or not, the odium was attributed to the new comer. Its name was theft. First, there was a shilling short in some loose change--next, a missing half-crown from the mantelpiece--then there was a stir with a tea-spoon--anon, a piece of work about a thimble. Things went, nobody knew how--the “Divil” of course excepted. The Cook _could_, the Housemaid _would_, and Dinah _should_, and _ought_ to take an oath, declaratory of innocence, before the mayor; but as Dinah did not volunteer an affidavit like the others, there was no doubt of her guilt in the kitchen.

Miss Morbid, however, came to a very different conclusion. She thought that whites who could eat sugar, were capable of any atrocity, and had not forgotten the stand which had been made by the “pale faces,” in favour of the obnoxious article. The cook especially incurred suspicion; for she had been notorious aforetime for a lavish hand in sweetening, and was accordingly quite equal to the double turpitude of stealing and bearing false witness. In fact the mistress had arrived at the determination of giving both her white hussies their month’s warning, when unexpectedly the thief was taken, as the lawyers say, “in the manner,” and with the goods upon the person. In a word the ungrateful black was detected, in the very act of levying what might be called her “Black Mail.”

The horror of Emilia, on discovering that the Moor had murdered her mistress, was scarcely greater than that of Miss Morbid! She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked her down with a feather! She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels. She was rooted to the spot; and her hair, if it had been her own, would have stood upright upon her head! There was no doubt in the case. She saw the transfer of a portion of her own bank stock, from her escritoire into the right-hand pocket of her protégé--she heard it chink as it dropped downwards--she was petrified!--dumbfounded!--thunderbolted!--“annilliated!” She was as white as a sheet, but she felt as if all the blacks in the world had just blown in her face.

Her first impulse was to rush upon the robber, and insist on restitution--her second was to sit down and weep,--and her third was to talk. The opening as usual was a mere torrent of ejaculations intermixed with vituperation--but she gradually fell into a lecture with many heads. First, she described all that she had done for the Blacks, and then, alas! all that the Blacks had done for her. Next she insisted on the enormity of the crime, and, anon, she enlarged on the nature of its punishment. It was here that she was most eloquent. She traced the course of human justice, from detection to conviction, and thence to execution, liberally throwing dissection into the bargain: and then descending with Dante into the unmentionable regions, she painted its terrors and tortures with all the circumstantial fidelity that certain very Old Masters have displayed on the same subject.

“And now, you black wretch,” she concluded, having just given the finishing touch to a portrait of Satan himself; “and now, you black wretch, I insist on knowing what I was robbed for. Come, tell me what tempted you! I’m determined to hear it! I insist, I say, on knowing what was to be done with the wages of iniquity!”

She insisted, however, in vain. The black wretch had seriously inclined her ear to the whole lecture, grinning and blubbering by turns. The Judge with his black cap, the Counsel and their wigs, the twelve men in a box, and Jack Ketch himself--whom she associated with that pleasant West Indian personage, John Canoe--had amused, nay, tickled her fancy; the press-room, the irons, the rope, and the Ordinary, whom she mistook for an overseer, had raised her curiosity, and excited her fears; but the spiritualities, without any reference to Obeah, had simply mystified and disgusted her, and she was now in a fit of the sulks. Her mistress, however, persisted in her question; and not the less pertinaciously, perhaps, from expecting a new peg whereon to hang a fresh lecture. She was determined to learn the destination of the stolen money; and by dint of insisting, cajoling, and, above all, threatening--for instance, with the whole Posse Comitatis--she finally carried her point.

“Cuss him money! Here’s a fuss!” exclaimed the culprit, quite worn out at last by the persecution. “Cuss him money! here’s a fuss! What me ’teal him for? What me do wid him? What anybody ’teal him for? Why, for sure, _to buy sugar_!”

EPIGRAMS.

COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED.

That flesh is grass is now as clear as day,
To any but the merest purblind pup;
Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay,
My Lady B---- comes and rakes it up.

THE LAST WISH.

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

* * * * *

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

THE DEVIL’S ALBUM.

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

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

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

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

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

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD.

I once, for a very short time indeed, had the honour of being a schoolmaster, and was invested with the important office of “rearing the tender thought,” and “teaching the young idea how to shoot;” of educating in the principles of the Established Church, and bestowing the strictest attention to morals. The case was this; my young friend G----, a graduate of Oxford, and an ingenious and worthy man, thought proper, some months back, to establish, or endeavour to establish, an academy for young gentlemen, in my immediate vicinity. He had already procured nine day-pupils to begin with, whom he himself taught,--prudence as yet prohibiting the employment of ushers,--when he was summoned hastily to attend upon a dying relative in Hampshire, from whom he had some expectations. This was a dilemma to poor G----, who had no one to leave in charge of his three classes; and he could not bear the idea of playing truant himself so soon after commencing business. In his extremity he applied to me as his forlorn hope, and one forlorn enough; for it is well-known among my friends that I have little Latin, and less Greek, and am, on every account, a worse accountant. I urged these objections to G----, but in vain, for he had no “friend in need,” learned or unlearned, within any reasonable distance, and, as he said to comfort me, “in three or four days merely the boys could not _unlearn_ much of anything.”