Chapter VII: Preface (5)

By station I am only a plain, family man in the farming line, but to my misfortune, as turns out, I am locally situated in the county of York, and what’s worse, a great deal too nigh Elland, and where the women got up the spouting meeting again the Poor Laws that made such a noise in the country. I’m not a political character myself, and as such have nothing to object for or against public meetings and speechifyings, so long as it’s confined to the male kind; but with as good nerves as most men that can ride to hounds, nothing since incendiarism has given them such a shook as the breaking out of female elocution, for in course like the rick burnings and the influenzy, or any other new kick, it will go through the whole country. My own house has catched for one, and I will inform you the symptoms it begins with. The Elland Meeting, you see, was on a Tuesday, and between you and me and the post, it’s my belief that my mistress was present, though she do say, it were a visit to her mother. Otherwise I cannot think what could put her teeth into her head on the Wednesday for the first time, by which I mean to say her spelling for a new set, if it was not to assist her parts of speech. Agricultural distress has made gold much more scarce among farmers than formerly, and I don’t mind saying it’s more than I could afford comfortably at most times to lay out twenty guineas in ivory for the sake of a correct pronouncing. However I made no remark, except to myself, namely, that they wasn’t wanted to keep her tongue between. For my own part I have always found she could speak plain enough, and particularly when I couldn’t--by reason of dining at the ordinary on market days and the like. Any way she always contrived to speak her mind, but ever since the meeting she seems to have had more mind to speak; for instance, a long confabbing with every beggar at the gate, instead of sending off as formerly with nothing but a flea in their ear, as the saying is. In short, many more things struck me as suspicious, and amongst the rest, her making an errand again to Eland for a piece of stuff and a little fustian--in pint of fact, that visit seemed to set her more agog than before, so as to start a new notion of going up to London about Betsy’s impediment, and says she, I can kill two birds, and get my new teeth at the same time. If that don’t look oratorical, thinks I to myself, then I don’t know what does. However, last Sunday was a week lets the whole cat out of the bag, as the saying is as near as may be as follow. It was just after dinner, and only our two selves quite domestically, Betsy being gone to grandmother’s, and me going to take my first glass of wine, and so as usual, I nodded to my good woman, with a “Here’s to ye, Kate!” according to custom--when lo! and behold, up jumps Madam regularly on her legs opening like a hound that has just hit the scent, and begins a return thanks, and delivery of sentiments and so forth, before I knew where I was. Where she got the knack of it without practice, Lord knows, for it’s more than ever I was competent to, as for instance, when I’ve been publicly drunk at our Coursing Club, and the like. However she was five good minutes long afore she broke down, or recollected herself, I don’t know which, and I’m free to say, left me so dumbfounded in a mizmaze that I hadn’t presence of mind to argue the point. However, before going to bed, I thought best to open gently on the subject, but as might be expected, the more we differed, the more we debated, which in course was just what Madam wanted, till at long and at last, seeing that I was only being practised upon, like Betsy’s piano, I thought proper to adjourn myself off to roost, but from the nature of my dreams, have reason to think she continued the argument in her sleep.

And now, honoured Sir, what is to be done to stop such a national calamity as hangs over us like a thundercloud, unless it’s put down by the powerful voice of the public press? Not wishing to connect myself with politics, which all newspapers are more or less inclined to, and your periodical being mentioned to me by our doctor as an impartial vehicle, am induced to the liberty of this communication, to be made use of at your discretion. My own sentiments are very strong on the subject, but more than I can express by penmanship. We have a saying here in the north about a crowing hen that seems quite pat to the case. And if you keep live stock, what can cut a foolisher figure than a great gawksome hen, leaving her eggs to addle in the neat, or her chicks, if so be, to the care of the kite, to go a spurring and sparring about the yard with her hackle up, and trying to crow like a cock of the walk? So it is with the mistress of a house leaving her helpless babes, or what is worse, her grown-up girls, to their own cares and looking after, to go ranting and itineranting all over the country, henpecking at the heads of the nation, and cackling up on tables, or in waggons, or on the hustings. It’s my opinion nature intended the whole sex to be more backward in coming forward, let alone tattle at tea-drinkings, or gossiping at christenings, or laying-in, but to be totally unaccustomed to public speaking. As to state affairs, some do think there’s more talking than doing already, and in course it will be no cure for it, to match the House of Lords with a House of Ladies. In the mean time, I don’t mean to come down the money for the new teeth or the impediment, and hoping that the speeches at Elland may prove the last dying speeches of female elocution,

I remain, Honoured Sir,
Your very humble Servant to command,
RICHARD PAYNE PILGRIM.

POEM,--FROM THE POLISH.

Some months since a young lady was much surprised at receiving,
from the Captain of a Whaler, a blank sheet of paper, folded in the
form of a letter, and duly sealed. At last, recollecting the nature
of sympathetic ink, she placed the missive on a toasting fork, and
after holding it to the fire for a minute or two, succeeded in
thawing out the following verses.

From seventy-two North latitude,
Dear Kitty, I indite;
But first I’d have you understand
How hard it is to write.

Of thoughts that breathe and words that burn,
My Kitty, do not think,--
Before I wrote these very lines,
I had to melt my ink.

Of mutual flames and lover’s warmth,
You must not be too nice;
The sheet that I am writing on
Was once a sheet of ice!

The Polar cold is sharp enough
To freeze with icy gloss
The genial current of the soul,
E’en in a “Man of Ross.”

Pope says that letters waft a sigh
From Indus to the Pole;
But here I really wish the post
Would only “post the _coal_.”

So chilly is the Northern blast,
It blows me through and through.
A ton of Wallsend in a note
Would be a billet-doux!

In such a frigid latitude
It scarce can be a sin,
Should Passion cool a little, where
A Fury was iced in.

I’m rather tired of endless snow,
And long for coals again;
And would give up a Sea of Ice,
For some of Lambton’s Main.

I’m sick of dazzling ice and snow,
The sun itself I hate;
So very bright, so very cold,
Just like a summer grate.

For opodeldoc I would kneel,
My chilblains to anoint;
Oh Kate, the needle of the north
Has got a freezing point.

Our food _is_ solids,--ere we put
Our meat into our crops,
We take sledge-hammers to our steaks
And hatchets to our chops.

So very bitter is the blast,
So cutting is the air,
I never have been warm but once
When hugging with a bear.

One thing I know you’ll like to hear,
Th’ effect of Polar snows,
I’ve left off snuff--one pinching day--
From leaving off my nose.

I have no ear for music now;
My ears both left together;
And as for dancing, I have cut
My toes--it’s cutting weather.

I’ve said that you should have my hand
Some happy day to come;
But, Kate, you only now can wed
A finger and a thumb.

Don’t fear that any Esquimaux
Can wean me from my own;
The Girdle of the Queen of Love
Is not the Frozen Zone.

At wives with large estates of snow
My fancy does not bite;
I like to see a Bride--but not
In such a deal of white.

Give me for home a house of brick,
The Kate I love at Kew!
A hand unchopped--a merry eye,
And not a nose of blue!

To think upon the Bridge of Kew,
To me a bridge of sighs;
Oh, Kate, a pair of icicles
Are standing in my eyes!

God knows if I shall e’er return,
In comfort to be lulled;
But if I do get back to port,
Pray let me have it mulled.

A STEP-FATHER.

“Follow, follow, follow, follow,
Follow, follow, follow me.”--OLD SONG.

I know not what friend, or fiend, or both together, put such a folly into the head of my maternal parent; but, like Hamlet’s mother, she set her widow’s cap at the sex, and re-married. A second marriage is seldom a favourable alteration of state; it is like changing a sovereign twice over; first into silver, and then into copper. My mother’s step was of this description! My first father was a plump, short, and rather Dutch-built little person; but the most merry, good-humoured, and kind-hearted, yet withal the slowest goer of the human race. His successor was saturnine in spirit, and stern in temper, a tall bony figure, remarkable for the length of his nether limbs; he was, to adopt a school-boy phrase, a Walker by name, and a walker by nature; and the exercise of this propensity taught me painfully to appreciate the difference between my dear first Daddy and my Daddy-Long-legs.

My father Heavy-sides was what is called slow and sure: which means sure to be left behind. He had a solemn creak in his shoes, that declared how deliberately his toes turned on their hinges; his movement through life was a minuet de la cour. My Step-father Walker’s was a galopade. Considered as Foot Soldiers, or adverse parties of infantry, before one had well marched into his position, the other would have turned his right flank, cut off his left wing, charged his centre, harassed his rear, and surrounded his whole body. They were, alas! literally the quick and the dead, causing between them a race of my toes against my tears, and, if anything, my toes ran the fastest and farthest.

There has been lately a good deal of speculation as to the ownership of a certain poem; but I feel assured that my Step-father was the practical author of the “Devil’s Walk.” The March of Mind might possibly have kept up with him, but no March of body could do it; least of all, such a body as mine, naturally heavy, and furnished with a pair of lower limbs, very different from those of the son of Scriblerus, who made his legs his compasses for measuring islands and continents. Strain them as I would in pursuit of my Step-father, I seemed to take nothing by my motion; those hopeless coat-flaps were always in front; like Doctor Johnson’s great Shakspeare, with little Time at his heels, I panted after him in vain. The pace, as the jockeys say, was severe. It was literally a flight of steps, for he seemed to fly; if any gentleman could be in two places at once, like a bird, that man was my Step-father, or rather Fore-father, for he was always in front. His stride was that of the Colossus of Rhodes; like Robinson Crusoe, you could discern one foot-print in the sand, but the other was beyond discovery. My infatuated mother was nevertheless continually holding him out to me as an example, and recommending me to “tread in his steps!”--I wish I had been able! When his friends, or creditors, have been informed at the door, that he “had just stept out,” how little did they dream that it meant he was a mile off!

It was his pleasure, whenever my Step-father walked, that I should accompany him; such accompaniment as flute adagio is sometimes heard to give to piano prestissimo. He seemed to pride himself, like some pompous people, in constantly having a poor foot-boy trotting it his heels: often did I beg to be left at home; often, but vainly, address him in the language of old Capulet’s domestic--“Good thou, save me a piece of _march-pane_.” The descriptive phrase of “rocky fastnesses,” was but too typical of his speed and temper; he had no more pity for me, than the great striding Ogre, in the Seven-leagued Boots, for little Hop-o’-my-Thumb.

The day of retribution at last came, for, according to the clown’s doctrine, the whirligig of time always brings round its revenges. My poor mother died, and had a walking funeral, and my Step-father felt more for her than I had expected; but he suffered most in his legs and feet: the measured pace of the procession afflicted him beyond measure; he longed to give sorrow strides, but was forbidden; and he walked and grieved like a fiery horse upon the fret. The slow pace seemed as a slow poison: it has been affirmed that he caught cold upon the occasion; but whether he did or not,--from that day he took ill, went off rapidly, as he always did, in a galloping consumption, and died, leaving me, as usual, behind him. In compliance with his last wish, he was furnished with a walking funeral, and, as decency dictated, I followed him to the grave; though in truth it was sacrificing the only opportunity I ever had in the world, of getting before him.

I have been told that, the evening of his decease, his apparition appeared to a first cousin at Penryn, and the same night to his brother at Appleby. I have no particular faith in Ghosts, but this I do most firmly believe, that if any Body had the Spirit to do the distance, in the time, it was the very Spirit of my Step-father Walker.

CONVEYANCING.

Oh, London is the place for all
In love with loco-motion!
Still to and fro the people go
Like billows of the ocean;
Machine or man, or caravan,
Can all be had for paying,
When great estates, or heavy weights,
Or bodies want conveying.

There’s always hacks about in packs,
Wherein you may be shaken,
And Jarvis is not always _drunk_,
Tho’ always _overtaken_;
In racing tricks he’ll never mix,
His nags are in their last days,
And _slow_ to go, altho’ they show
As if they had their _fast days_!

Then if you like a single horse,
This age is quite a _cab-age_,
A car not quite so small and light
As those of our Queen _Mab_ age;
The horses have been _broken well_,
All danger is rescinded,
For some have _broken both their knees_,
And some are _broken winded_.

If you’ve a friend at Chelsea end,
The stages are worth knowing--
There is a sort, we call ’em short,
Although the longest going--
For some will stop at Hatchett’s shop
Till you grow faint and sicky,
Perched up behind, at last to find
Your dinner is all _dickey_!

Long stages run from every yard;
But if you’re wise and frugal,
You’ll never go with any Guard
That plays upon the bugle,
“Ye banks and braes,” and other lays,
And ditties everlasting,
Like miners going all your way,
With _boring_ and with _blasting_.

Instead of _journeys_, people now
May go upon a _Gurney_,
With steam to do the horses’ work,
By _powers of attorney_;
Tho’ with a load it may explode,
And you may all be _un_-done!
And find you’re going _up to Heav’n_,
Instead of _up to London_!

To speak of every kind of coach,
It is not my intention;
But there is still one vehicle
Deserves a little mention;
The world a sage has called a stage,
With all its living lumber,
And Malthus swears it always bears
Above the proper number.

The law will transfer house or land
For ever and a day hence,
For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings,
You’ll never want conveyance:
Ho! stop the thief! my handkerchief!
It is no sight for laughter--
Away it goes, and leaves my nose
To join in running after.

A LETTER FROM A SETTLER FOR LIFE IN VAN DIEMEN’S LAND.

_To Mary, at No 45 Mount Street Grosvenor Square._

DEAR MARY

Littel did I Think wen I advertisd in the Tims for annother Plaice
of taking wan in Vandemin’s land. But so it his and Hear I am
amung Kangerooses and Savidges and other Forriners. But goverment
offering to Yung Wimmin to Find them in Vittles and Drink and
Close and Husbands was turms not to be sneazed at, so I rit to the
Outlandish Seckertary and he was so Kind as Grant.

Wen this cums to Hand go to Number 22 Pimpernel Plaice And mind
and go betwixt Six and sevin For your own Sake cos then the
fammilys Having Diner give my kind love to betty Housmad and Say
I am safe of my Jurney to Forrin parts And I hope master as never
Mist the wine and brought Them into trubble on My accounts. But I
did not Like to leav for Ever And Ever without treeting my Frends
and feller servents and Drinking to all their fairwells. In my
Flury wen the Bell rung I forgot to take My own Key out of missis
Tekaddy but I hope sum wan had the thought And it is in Good hands
but shall Be obleeged to no. Lickwise thro my Loness of Sperrits
my lox of Hares quite went out of My Hed as was prommist to Be
giv to Gorge and Willum and the too Futmen at the too Next dores
But I hop and Trust betty pacifid them with lox of Her hone as I
begd to Be dun wen I rit Her from dover. O Mary wen I furst see
the dover Wite clifts out of site wat with squemishnes and Felings
I all most repentid givin Ingland warning And had douts if I was
goin to better my self. But the stewerd was verry kind tho I could
make Him no returns xcept by Dustin the ship for Him And helpin
to wash up his dishes. Their was 50 moor Young Wimmin of us and
By way of passing tim We agread to tell our Histris of our selves
taken by Turns But they all turned out Alick we had All left on
acount of Testacious masters And crustacious Mississis and becos
the Wurks was too much For our Strenths but betwixt yew and Me the
reel truths was beeing Flirted with and unprommist by Perfidus
yung men. With sich exampils befour there Minds I wunder sum of
them was unprudent enuff to Lissen to the Salers whom are coverd
with Pitch but famus for Not stiking to there Wurds. has for Me
the Mate chose to be verry Partickler wan nite Setting on a Skane
of Rops but I giv him is Anser and lucky I did for Am infourmd he
as Got too more Marred Wives in a sate of Biggamy thank Goodness
wan can marry in new Wurlds without mates. Since I have bean in My
pressent Sitiation I have had between too and three offers for My
Hands and expex them Evry day to go to fistcufs about Me this is
sum thing lick treeting Wimmin as Wimmin ought to be treetid Nun of
your sarsy Buchers and Backers as brakes there Prommissis the sam
as Pi Crust wen its maid Lite and shivvry And then laffs in Your
face and say they can hav anny Gal they lick round the Square. I
dont menshun nams but Eddard as drives the Fancy bred will no Wat
I mean. As soon as ever the Botes rode to Land I dont agrivate the
Truth to say their was haf a duzzin Bows apeace to Hand us out to
shoar and sum go so Far as say they was offered to thro Specking
Trumpits afore they left the Shipside. Be that as it May or may
Not I am tould We maid a Verry pritty site all Wauking too and
too in our bridle wite Gownds with the Union Jacks afore Us to
pay humbel Respex to kernel Arther who behaived verry Gentlemanny
and Complementid us on our Hansom apearances and Purlitely sed
he Wisht us All in the United States. The Salers was so gallaunt
as giv three chears wen We left there Ship and sed if so be they
had not Bean without Canons they Wood have salutid us all round.
Servents mite live Long enuff in Lonnon without Being sich persons
of Distinkshun. For my hone Part, cumming amung strangers and Pig
in Pokes, prudence Dicktatid not to be askt out At the verry furst
cumming in howsumever All is setteld And the match is aproved
off by Kernel Arther and the Brightish goverment, who as agread
to giv me away. thems wat I call Honners as we used to Say at
wist. Wan thing in My favers was my voice and my noing the song
of the Plane Gould Ring witch the Van Demons had never Herd afore
I wood recummend all as meens curnming to Bring as menny of the
fashingable Songs and Ballets as they Can--and to get sum nolliges
of music as fortnately for me I was Abel to by meens of praxtising
on Missis Piney Forty wen the fammily Was at ramsgit. of Coarse
you and betty Will xpect Me to indulge in Pearsonallitis about my
intendid to tell Yew wat he is lick he is Not at All lick Eddard
as driv the Faney bred and Noboddy else yew No. I wood send yew His
picter Dun by himself only its no more lick Him then Chork is to
Cheas. In spit of the Short Tim for Luv to take Roots I am convinst
he is verry Passionet of coarse As to his temper I cant Speek As
yet as I hav not Tride it. O mary littel did I think too Munth ago
of sending yew Brid Cake and Weddin favers wen I say this I am only
Figgering in speach for Yew must Not look for sich Things from this
Part of the Wurld I dont mean this by Way of discurridgement Wat I
meen to say is this If so be Yung Wimmin prefers a state of Silly
Bessy they Had better remane ware they was Born but as far as Reel
down rite Coarting and no nonsens is concarnd This is the Plaice
for my Munny a Gal has only to cum out hear And theirs duzzens
will jump at her like Cox at Gusberris. it will be a reel kindnes
to say as Much to Hannah at 48 and Hester Brown and Peggy Oldfield
and partickler poor Charlotte they needent Fear about being Plane
for Yew may tell Them in this land Faces dont make stumblin Blox
and if the Hole cargo was as uggly As sin Lots wood git marrid.
Deer Mary if so Be you feel disposed to cum Out of Your self I will
aford evry Falicity towards your hapiness. I dont want to hurt your
Felines but since the Cotchman as giv yew up I dont think Yew have
annother String to your Bo to say nothink of Not being so young As
yew was Ten Yeer ago and faces Will ware out as well as scrubbin
brushes. theirs a verry nice yung man is quit a Willin to offer to
Yew providid you cum the verry Next vessle for He has Maid up his
mind not to Wait beyond the Kupid and Sikey. as the ship is on the
Pint of Saling I cant rite Moor at pressent xcept for them has as
shily shalying sweat harts to Thretten with cumming to Vandemins
And witch will soon sho wether its Cubbard love or true Love I hay
seen Enuff of Bows droping in at supertime and falling out the next
morning after borrowin Wans wags. Wen yew see anny Frends giv my
Distant love to Them and say My being Gone to annother wurld dont
impear my Memmery but I often Thinks of Number 22 and the two Next
Dores. yew may Disclose my matterymonial Prospex to betty as we
hav always had a Deal of Confidens. And I remane with the Gratest
asurance

Your affexionat Frend
Susan Gale--as his to be Simco.

P.S. Deer mary my Furst Match beeing broke off short hope Yew will
not take it Ill but I have Marrid the yung Man as was to Hav waited
for Yew but As yew hav never seen one Annother trusts yew will Not
take Him to hart or abrade by Return of Postesses he has behaved
Perfickly honnerable And has got a verry United frend of his Hone
to be atacht to Yew in lew of Him. adew.

SONNET.

Allegory--A moral vehicle.--DICTIONARY.

I had a Gig-Horse, and I called him Pleasure,
Because on Sundays, for a little jaunt,
He was so fast and showy, quite a treasure;
Although he sometimes kicked, and spied aslant.
I had a Chaise, and christened it Enjoyment,
With yellow body, and the wheels of red,
Because ’twas only used for one employment,
Namely, to go wherever Pleasure led.
I had a wife, her nickname was Delight;
A son called Frolic, who was never still:
Alas! how often dark succeeds to bright!
Delight was thrown, and Frolic had a spill,
Enjoyment was upset and shattered quite,
And Pleasure fell a splitter on _Paine’s Hill_!

A SERIO-COMIC REMINISCENCE.

It seems but the other day--instead of nearly ten years ago--that my drawing-room door opened, and the female servant, with a very peculiar expression of countenance, announced a memorable visitor. Shakspeare has enquired “What is there in a name?” But most assuredly he would have withdrawn the question could he have seen the effect of a patronymic on our Sarah’s risible muscles. To render the phenomenon more striking, she was a maiden little addicted to the merry mood: on the contrary, she was rather more sedate than her age warranted. Her face was of a cast decidedly serious--quiet brow--steady eyes--sober nose--precise mouth, and solemn chin, which she doubled by drawing it in demurely against her neck. The habitual expression of her physiognomy was as grave, short of actual sadness, as human face could assume, reminding you of those set, solid, composed, very decorous visages, that indifferent persons put on for the day at a funeral: her very complexion was uniformly colourless--pale yet not clear--that _slack-baked_ look which forbids the idea of levity. When she smiled, which was rarely, and in cases where most females of her years would have indulged in a titter, or excusable laugh, it was the faintest possible approach to hilarity--the corners of her mouth curving, if anything a little downwards. Nothing, in fact, less than galvanism, which “sets corpses a-grinning,” seemed likely to shock her features into any broad demonstration of jocularity, and yet, lo! there she was, her face shortened by half its length--her mouth stretching from ear to ear, and hardly able, for a suppressed giggle, to articulate its brief announcement.

I have always considered the above physiognomical miracle--the lighting up of that seemingly impracticable countenance--as the best criticism I have ever _seem_ of the performances of the great Pan of Pantomime:--a most eloquent retrospective review of the triumphs of his genius. It was a glorious illustration of the Pleasures of Memory, to behold that face so like the stain a dead calm on a dull day burst suddenly into ripples and radiance, like the brook that laughs in the sun. What recollections of exquisite fooling must have rushed into her fancy to convert that Quakerly maiden, as by a stage metamorphosis, into a perfect figure of fun! What grotesque fantastic shapes must have come tumbling, rolling, crawling, dangling, dancing, prancing, floundering, flopping, striding, sliding, ambling, shambling, scrambling, stumbling, bundling, and trundling into her mind’s eye, to so startle her features from their propriety! What face-making faces, with telegraphic brows--rolling, reeling, goggling, ogling, hard-winking, and soft-blinking eyes--and grinning, gaping, pinching, puckering mouths must have grimaced at her to put her steady countenance so out of countenance! What is there in a name? Why magic! A serious, quiet, decrepid man had but to announce himself, and Presto! Prestissimo! before an engineer could cry “Ease her! stop her! back her!” our Sarah had retraced her course up the stream of time to the bright wintry gallery nights at the Lane, or the Garden, or the Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Wells. Talk of magnetisers! when did Baron Dupotet, or any of his sect, without pass or manipulation, thus throw a sedate, orderly maiden, into an ecstasy, and set her looking through the back of her head at the pantomimical experiences of the past? Talk of Laughing Gas! when was there a facetious fluid so potent that the mere sight of the empty bottle--(for such, alas! the ex-clown was become)--could throw the ticklesome muscles into merry convulsions?

I have often speculated since on Sarah’s deportment, when, having ushered “Mr. Grimaldi, alias Joe,” into the drawing-room, she returned to her kitchen. Of course, in the first flutter and frisk of her animal spirits, she postponed all domestic duties; or, at best, obliviously broke the eggs into the flower tub, popped the lump of butter into the oven, and secured the rolling-pin in the safe. More probably she dropped herself into the first chair that offered; and throwing her apron over her head to shut out the daylight, indulged in a lamplight vision of the drolleries of Mother Goose, or the Sleeping Beauty; when the frolics of funny Joe had cheated her for awhile of the sorrows of servitude, low wages, a crustaceous mistress, a _perfidus_ young man, and a hard place, with perhaps the bodily pains of a recent scald, a bad bruise, and tight shoes. No doubt it had been one of her wishes, born of wonder and curiosity, to see the popular Motley off the stage “in his habit as he lived;” and lo! beyond her hope, she had met him face to face without his paint, and been on speaking terms with that marvellous voice, so sparingly heard, even on the stage.

For my own part, I confess to have been somewhat unsettled as well as the bewildered maid by pantomimical associations. Slowly and seriously as my visitor advanced, and with a decided stoop, I could not forget that I had seen the same personage come in with two odd eyebrows, a pair of right-and-left eyes, a wry nose, a crooked mouth, two wrong arms, two left legs, and a free and easy body without a bone in it, or apparently any centre of gravity. I was half prepared to hear that rare voice break forth smart as the smack of a waggoner’s whip, or richly stick and chuckling, like the utterance of a boy laughing, talking, and eating custard, all at once, but a short interval sufficed to dispel the pleasant illusion, and convinced me that the Grimaldi was a total wreck.

“Alas! how changed from him,
The life of humour, and the soul of whim.”

The lustre of his bright eye was gone--his eloquent face was passive and looked thrown out of work--and his frame was bowed down by no feigned decrepitude. His melancholy errand to me related to a Farewell Address, which at the invitation of his staunch friend Miss Kelly--for it did not require a request--I had undertaken to indite. He pleaded earnestly that it might be brief, being, he said, “a bad study,” as well as distrustful of his bodily strength. Of his sufferings he spoke with a sad but resigned tone, expressed deep regret at quitting a profession he delighted in, and partly attributed the sudden breaking down of his health to the superior size of one particular stage, which required of him a jump extra in getting off. That additional bound, like the bittock at the end of a Scotch mile, had, he thought, overtasked his strength. His whole deportment and conversation impressed me with the opinion that he was a simple, sensible, warm-hearted being, such indeed as he appears in his Memoirs--a Joseph after Parson Adams’s own heart. We shook hands heartily, parted, and I never saw him again. He was a rare practical humorist, and I never look into Rabelais, with its huge-mouthed Gargantua and his enormous appetite for “plenty of links, chitterlings, and puddings,” in their season, without thinking that in Grimaldi and _his_ pantomime I have lost my best set of illustrations of that literary extravaganza.

EPICUREAN REMINISCENCES OF A SENTIMENTALIST.

“My _Tables_! _Meat_ it is, _I set it_ down!”--HAMLET

I think it was Spring but--not certain I am--
When my passion began first to work;
But I know we were certainly looking for lamb,
And the season was over for pork.

’Twas at Christmas, I think, when I met with Miss Chase,
Yes,--for Morris had asked me to dine,--
And I thought I had never beheld such a face,
Or so noble a turkey and chine.

Placed close by her side, it made others quite wild,
With sheer envy to witness my luck;
How she blushed as I gave her some turtle, and smiled
As I afterwards offered some duck.

I looked and I languished, alas, to my cost,
Through three courses of dishes and meats;
Getting deeper in love--but my heart was quite lost,
When it came to the trifle and sweets!

With a rent-roll that told of my houses and land,
To her parents I told my designs--
And then to herself I presented my hand,
With a very fine pottle of pines!

I asked her to have me for weal or for woe,
And she did not object in the least;--
I can’t tell the date--but we married, I know,
Just in time to have game at the feast.

We went to ----, it certainly was the sea-side;
For the next, the most blessed of morns,
I remember how fondly I gazed at my bride,
Sitting down to a plateful of prawns.

Oh! never may mem’ry lose sight of that year,
But still hallow the time as it ought;
That season the “grass” was remarkably dear,
And the peas at a guinea a quart.

So happy, like hours all our days seemed to haste,
A fond pair, such as poets have drawn,
So united in heart--so congenial in taste,
We were both of us partial to brawn!

A long life I looked for of bliss with my bride,
But then Death--I ne’er dreamt about that!
Oh! there’s nothing is certain in life, as I cried
When my turbot eloped with the cat!

My dearest took ill at the turn of the year,
But the cause no physician could nab;
But something it seemed like consumption, I fear;
It was just after supping on crab.

In vain she was doctored, in vain she was dosed,
Still her strength and her appetite pined;
She lost relish for what she had relished the most.
Even salmon she deeply declined!

For months still I lingered in hope and in doubt,
While her form it grew wasted and thin!
But the last dying spark of existence went out,
As the oysters were just coming in!

She died, and she left me the saddest of men
To indulge in a widower’s moan;
Oh! I felt all the power of solitude then,
As I ate my first natives alone!

But when I beheld Virtue’s friends in their cloaks,
And with sorrowful crape on their hats,
Oh! my grief poured a flood; and the out-of-door folks
Were all crying--I think it was sprats!

SAINT MARK’S EVE.

A TALE OF THE OLDEN TIME.

“The Devil choke thee with un!”--as Master Giles, the Yeoman, said this, he banged down a hand in size and colour like a ham, on the old-fashioned oak table;--“I do say the Devil choke thee with un!”

The Dame made no reply: she was choking with passion and a fowl’s liver--the original cause of the dispute. A great deal has been said and sung of the advantage of congenial tastes amongst married people, but true it is, the variances of our Kentish couple arose from this very coincidence in gusto. They were both fond of the little delicacy in question, but the Dame had managed to secure the morsel for herself, and this was sufficient to cause a storm of very high words--which properly understood, signifies very low language. Their mealtimes seldom passed over without some contention of the sort,--as sure as the knives and forks clashed, so did they--being in fact equally greedy and disagreedy--and when they did pick a quarrel--they picked it to the bone.

It was reported, that on some occasions they had not even contented themselves with hard speeches, but they had come to scuffling--he taking to boxing, and she to pinching--though in a far less amicable manner than is practised by the takers of snuff. On the present difference, however, they were satisfied with “wishing each other dead with all their hearts”--and there seemed little doubt of the sincerity of the aspiration, on looking at their malignant faces,--for they made a horrible picture in this frame of mind.

Now it happened that this quarrel took place on the morning of St. Mark,--a Saint who was supposed on that Festival to favour his Votaries with a peep into the Book of Fate. For it was the popular belief in those days, that if a person should keep watch towards midnight, beside the church, the apparitions of all those of the parish who were to be taken by Death before the next anniversary, would be seen entering the porch. The Yeoman, like his neighbours, believed most devoutly in this superstition--and in the very moment that he breathed the unseemly aspiration aforesaid, it occurred to him, that the Even was at hand, when by observing the rite of St. Mark, he might know to a certainty whether this unchristian wish was to be one of those that bear fruit. Accordingly, a little before midnight he stole quietly out of the house, and in something of a Sexton-like spirit set forth on his way to the Church.

In the mean time the Dame called to mind the same ceremonial; and having the like motive for curiosity with her husband, she also put on her cloak and calash, and set out, though by a different path, on the same errand.

The night of the Saint was as dark and chill as the mysteries he was supposed to reveal, the moon throwing but a short occasional glance, as the sluggish masses of cloud were driven slowly across her face. Thus it fell out that our two adventurers were quite unconscious of being in company, till a sudden glimpse of moonlight showed them to each other, only a few yards apart; both, through a natural panic, as pale as Ghosts, and both making eagerly towards the church porch. Much as they had just wished for this vision, they could not help quaking and stopping on the spot, as if turned to a pair of tombstones, and in this position the dark again threw a sudden curtain over them, and they disappeared from each other.

It will be supposed the two came only to one conclusion, each conceiving that St. Mark had marked the other to himself. With this comfortable knowledge, the widow and widower elect hied home again by the roads they came; and as their custom was to sit apart after a quarrel, they repaired, each ignorant of the other’s excursion, to separate chambers.

By-and-by, being called to supper, instead of sulking as aforetime, they came down together, each being secretly in the best humour, though mutually suspected of the worst: and amongst other things on the table, there was a calf’s sweetbread, being one of those very dainties that had often set them together by the ears. The Dame looked and longed, but she refrained from its appropriation, thinking within herself that she could give up sweetbreads _for one year_: and the Farmer made a similar reflection. After pushing the dish to and fro several times, by a common impulse they divided the treat; and then having supped, they retired amicably to rest, whereas until then, they had never gone to bed without falling out. The truth was, each looked upon the other as being already in the church-yard mould, or quite “moulded to their wish.”

On the morrow, which happened to be the Dame’s birthday, the Farmer was the first to wake, and _knowing what he knew_, and having besides but just roused himself out of a dream strictly confirmatory of the late vigil, he did not scruple to salute his wife, and wish her many happy returns of the day. The wife, _who knew as much as he_, very readily wished him the same, having in truth but just rubbed out of her eyes the pattern of a widow’s bonnet that had been submitted to her in her sleep. She took care, however, to give the fowl’s liver at dinner to the doomed man, considering that when he was dead and gone, she could have them, if she pleased, seven days in the week; and the Farmer, on his part, took care to help her to many tid-bits. Their feeling towards each other was that of an impatient host with regard to an unwelcome guest, showing scarcely a bare civility while in expectation of his stay, but overloading him with hospitality when made certain of his departure.

In this manner they went on for some six months, and though without any addition of love between them, and as much selfishness as ever, yet living in a subservience to the comforts and inclinations of each other, sometimes not to be found even amongst couples of sincerer affections. There were as many causes for quarrel as ever, but every day it became less worth while to quarrel; so letting by-gones be by-gones, they were indifferent to the present, and thought only of the future, considering each other (to adopt a common phrase) “as _good_ as dead.”

Ten months wore away, and the Farmer’s birthday arrived in its turn. The Dame, who had passed an uncomfortable night, having dreamt, in truth, that she did not much like herself in mourning, saluted him as soon as the day dawned, and with a sigh wished him many years to come. The Farmer repaid her in kind, the sigh included; his own visions having been of the painful sort for he had dreamt of having a headache from wearing a black hatband, and the malady still clung to him when awake. The whole morning was spent in silent meditation and melancholy on both sides, and when dinner came, although the most favourite dishes were upon the table, they could not eat. The Farmer, resting his elbows upon the board, with his face between his hands, gazed wistfully on his wife,--scooping her eyes, as it were, out of their sockets, stripping the flesh off her cheeks, and in fancy converting her whole head into a mere Caput Mortuum. The Dame, leaning back in her high arm-chair, regarded the Yeoman quite as ruefully,--by the same process of imagination picking his sturdy bones, and bleaching his ruddy visage to the complexion of a plaster cast. Their minds travelling in the same direction, and at an equal rate, arrived together at the same reflection; but the Farmer was the first to give it utterance:

“Thee’d be missed, Dame, if thee were to die!”

The Dame started. Although she had nothing but Death at that moment before her eyes, she was far from dreaming of her own exit, and at this rebound of her thoughts against herself, she felt as if an extra cold coffin-plate had been suddenly nailed on her chest; recovering, however, from the first shock, her thoughts flowed into their old channel, and she retorted in the same spirit.--“I wish, Master, thee may live so long as I!”

The Farmer, in his own mind, wished to live rather longer; for, at the utmost, he considered that his wife’s bill of mortality had but two months to run. The calculation made him sorrowful; during the last few months she had consulted his appetite, bent to his humour, and dove-tailed her own inclinations into his, in a manner that could never be supplied; and he thought of her, if not in the language, at least in the spirit of the Lady in Lalla Rookh--

“I never taught a bright Gazelle
To watch me with its dark black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die!”

His wife, from being at first useful to him, had become agreeable, and at last dear; and as he contemplated her approaching fate, he could not help thinking out audibly, “that he should be a lonesome man when she was gone.” The Dame, this time, heard the survivorship foreboded without starting; but she marveled much at what she thought the infatuation of a doomed man. So perfect was her faith in the infallibility of St. Mark, that she had even seen the symptoms of mortal disease, as palpable as plague spots, on the devoted Yeoman. Giving his body up, therefore, for lost, a strong sense of duty persuaded her, that it was imperative on her, as a Christian, to warn the unsuspecting Farmer of his dissolution. Accordingly, with a solemnity adapted to the subject, a tenderness of recent growth, and a Memento Mori face, she broached the matter in the following question--“Master, how bee’st?”

“As hearty, Dame, as a buck,”--the Dame shook her head,--“and I wish thee the like,”--at which he shook his head himself.

A dead silence ensued: the Farmer was as unprepared as ever. There is a great fancy for breaking the truth by dropping it gently,--an experiment which has never answered any more than with Ironstone China. The Dame felt this, and thinking it better to throw the news at her husband at once, she told him in as many words, that he was a dead man.

It was now the Yeoman’s turn to be staggered. By a parallel course of reasoning, he had just wrought himself up to a similar disclosure, and the Dame’s death-warrant was just ready upon his tongue, when he met with his own despatch, signed, sealed and delivered. Conscience instantly pointed out the oracle from which she had derived the omen, and he turned as pale as “the pale of society”--the colourless complexion of late hours.

St. Martin had numbered his years; and the remainder days seemed discounted by St. Thomas. Like a criminal cast to die, he doubted if the die was cast, and appealed to his wife:--

“Thee hast watched, Dame, at the church porch, then?”

“Ay, Master.”

“And thee didst see me spirituously?”

“In the brown wrap, with the boot hose. Thee were coming to the church, by Fairthorn Gap; in the while I were coming by the Holly Hedge”--For a minute the Farmer paused--but the next, he burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter; peal after peal--and each higher than the last,--according to the hysterical gamut of the hyæna. The poor woman had but one explanation for this phenomenon--she thought it a delirium--a lightening before death, and was beginning to wring her hands, and lament, when she was checked by the merry Yeoman:--

“Dame, thee bee’st a fool. It was I myself thee seed at the church porch. I seed thee too,--with a notice to quit upon thy face--but, thanks to God, thee bee’st a-living, and that is more than I cared to say of thee this day ten-month!”

The Dame made no answer. Her heart was too full to speak, but throwing her arms round her husband, she showed that she shared in his sentiment. And from that hour, by practising a careful abstinence from offence, or a temperate sufferance of its appearance, they became the most united couple in the county,--but it must be said, that their comfort was not complete till they had seen each other, in safety, over the perilous anniversary of St. Mark’s Eve.

I’M NOT A SINGLE MAN.

“Double, single, and the rub.”--HOYLE.

“This, this is Solitude.”--BYRON.

I.

Well, I confess, I did not guess
A simple marriage vow
Would make me find all womenkind
Such unkind women now!
They need not, sure, as _distant_ be
As Java or Japan,--
Yet every Miss reminds me this--
I’m not a single man!

II.

Once they made choice of my bass voice
To share in each duett;
So well I danced, I somehow chanced
To stand in every set:
They now declare I cannot sing,
And dance on Bruin’s plan;
Me draw!--me paint!--me anything!--
I’m not a single man!

III.

Once I was asked advice, and tasked
What works to buy or not,
And “would I read that passage out
I so admired in Scott?”
They then could bear to hear one read;
But if I now began,
How they would snub “My pretty page!”
I’m not a single man!

IV.

One used to stitch a collar then,
Another hemmed a frill;
I had more purses netted then
Than I could hope to fill.
I once could get a button on,
But now I never can--
My buttons then were Bachelor’s,--
I’m not a single man!

V.

Oh how they hated politics
Thrust on me by papa:
But now my chat--they all leave that
To entertain mamma.
Mamma, who praises her own self,
Instead of Jane or Ann,
And lays “her girls” upon the shelf--
I’m not a single man!

VI.

Ah me, how strange it is the change,
In parlour and in hall!
They treat me so, if I but go
To make a morning call.
If they had hair in papers once,
Bolt up the stairs they ran;
They now sit still in dishabille--
I’m not a single man!

VII.

Miss Mary Bond was once so fond
Of Romans and of Greeks,
She daily sought my cabinet,
To study my antiques.
Well, now she doesn’t care a dump
For ancient pot or pan,
Her taste at once is modernised--
I’m not a single man!

VIII.

My spouse is fond of homely life,
And all that sort of thing;
I go to balls without my wife,
And never wear a ring:
And yet each Miss to whom I come,
As strange as Genghis Khan,
Knows by some sign, I can’t divine,--
I’m not a single man!

IX.

Go where I will, I but intrude;
I’m left in crowded rooms,
Like Zimmerman on Solitude,
Or Hervey at his Tombs.
From head to heel, they make me feel
Of quite another clan;
Compelled to own, though left alone,
I’m not a single man!

X.

Miss Towne the toast, though she can boast
A nose of Roman line,
Will turn up even that in scorn
Of compliments of mine:
She should have seen that I have been
Her sex’s partisan,
And really married all I could--
I’m not a single man!