Chapter VIII (7)

I humbly beg a thousand pardons and apologies for so great a liberty, and taking up time so valuable to the nation with the present application. Nothing short of absolute necessity could compel to such a course; but I make bold to say, a case of greater hardship never had the honour to be laid before official eyes. My poor husband, however, is totally unaware of my writing; as he would certainly forbid any such epistolary step, whether on my part or his own; though in point of fact the shattered state of his nerves is such as to preclude putting pen to paper if ever so inclined. But as a wife and a mother, it would not become me to preserve silence, with my husband perishing by inches before my eyes; and particularly when a nobleman of your Lordship’s rank would be sure to sympathise for an unfortunate gentleman, of birth and breeding, that after waiting above forty odd years for his rights, has only come at last into a public post that must, and will be his death!

To favour with the particulars, my husband has the honour to be related very distantly to the Peerage; and as Your Lordship knows, it is the privilege of Aristocracy to provide for all their connexions by comfortable public situations, which are sometimes enjoyed very early in life. To such Mr. D. had a hereditary right from his cradle, for his noble relative the Duke of----, was so condescending as to stand sponsor by proxy; and instead of the usual spoons, or a silver mug, made a promise to the Infant of some office suited to its tender age; for instance a superannuation, or the like, where there is nothing to do, but the salary to receive. In point of fact, the making the Baby a retired King’s Messenger was verbally undertaken at the font: but before the child could come into office His Grace unfortunately went out of power, by dying of apoplexy, leaving nothing but a promise, which a new ministry was unjust and ungrateful enough not to make good. In this shocking manner, Your Lordship, was my husband thrown upon the world, without proper provision according to his station and prospects, and was degraded to the necessity of his own exertions for support, till his fortieth year, when the new Duke thought proper to stir in his behalf. The truth is, a severe illness had left Mr. D.’s mind and nerves in such a pitiful shattered state, as to make him unfit for any business whatever, except public affairs; and accordingly it became the duty of his friends to procure him some post under government. So a proper application was made to his Grace, and through his influence and the fortunate circumstance of an election at the time, Mr. D. was appointed to the dreadful situation he at present enjoys. Of course we entirely acquit His Grace, who never set eyes on my husband in his life, and therefore could not be expected to know the precise state of his constitution; but I appeal to Your Lordship, whether it was proper patronage for a man shattered in mind and nerves, and subject to tremors, and palpitations, and bodily shocks of all sorts, to be made a Superintendent of Powder-Mills, with the condition of living attached to the works?

For my own part, Your Lordship, I looked on the Duke’s letter of congratulations as neither more nor less than my poor husband’s death-warrant. Indeed he was so dreadfully alarmed himself, as to be quite distressing to witness. He did nothing, the whole afternoon, but walk up and down the room, shaking his head at himself in the looking-glass, or looking up at the ceiling, and muttering, as if he was already exploding sky high along with the Mills. But a refusal was out of the question, as it would have afforded his Grace too good an excuse for neglecting our interests for the future. To aggravate the case, the very day after our taking possession, there was what is called a blow at the works, and though so trifling as only to carry a roof off a shed, it struck a cord on Mr. D.’s nerves that has never done vibrating ever since. I do not exaggerate to say, that if he had been struck with the palsy and St. Vitus, both at once, he could not have showed more corporeal agitation. He trembled in every limb like an aspen tree; while his eyes rolled, and his head went from side to side, like the China Mandarin’s; besides scouring up and down stairs, and rushing out of doors and in again, and trying all the chairs but could not sit any where, and stamping, and muttering, and dancing about, till I really expected he would scramble up the walls of the room, and fly across the ceiling, like our tortoiseshell cat in her fits. If I lived to Methusalem, Your Lordship, I should never forget it! Unluckily, being new to his office, a mistaken notion of duty possessed him that he ought not to quit the spot; indeed he solemnly declared, that if a blow was to take place in his absence, he would rather commit his own suicide than face the report of it in the newspapers, which had already indulged in some seditious sneers at his appointment. All that could be done, therefore, was to pack off Lucy, and Emily and Eliza, on week’s visits among friends; myself remaining behind, as a wife’s proper post, near my poor husband; but on the discomfortable condition of keeping under ground in the cellar, because gunpowder in convulsions always blasts upwards. What my feelings were, as we are troubled with rats, Your Lordship may suppose; particularly when Mr. D. was officially called upon to inspect the damage; and never shall I forget his gashly appearance when he returned from his awful task! He was literally as white as a sheet; and totally incapable to get out a word, till he had swallowed three whole glasses of brandy! That settled his reason,--but it was only to tell me that lie had scraped and grazed the skin off every nubble of his back-bone, by a bad fall from a ladder, which he had attempted to come down in wooden safety shoes. Such, Your Lordship, was our miserable day; and it brought as wretched a night. Bed would not be heard of--and we set up in two easy chairs, shuddering with fright and cold, being December, and every door and window thrown wide open, to give a thorough vent through the house, in case of another shock. For Mr. D. was unfortunately possessed that one blow always leads to another; and what with fancying flying sparks, for it was starlight, and sniffing fire, he had worked himself up, before morning, into a high fever and a light head. The nearest medical man was obliged to be called in--and he had to give frightful doses of laudanum before Mr. D.’s nerves could be lulled into a startlish sort of doze;--and at waking, he was ordered to drink the strongest stimuluses; as indeed are in use to the present time. But this continual brandy, brandy, brandy, as Your Lordship knows, is a dreadful remedy; though, as my poor husband says, he cannot fill up his place without its help. At times I could almost believe, tho’ I would not breathe such a thing except to Your Lordship, that between the stimuluses, and the delirium, and the whole shock to the system, Mr. D. is a little beside his senses. The mad Doctors do say, that we are all, every one of us, crazy on a certain subject; and if such is the case, there can be no doubt that my husband’s weak point is explosions, the extravagance of his precautions making him an everlasting torment to himself as well as to all about him. Of course it is to his disadvantage, and magnifies his terrors, not to have been brought regularly up to the business; not that he receives much comfort from those who have, for he says custom and habit have made them so daring and hardened, that they would not mind playing at snap-dragon in the Magazine, or grinding their knives on the millstone that crushes the gunpowder into grains.

Since the above accident we have had, thank goodness, no more blows; but, as Your Lordship is aware, a first impression will stick by us for all our lives to come. At the best of times, let my husband be reading, or writing, or eating his dinner, or in bed, or what not, the exploding notion will come across him like a flash of lightning; as for instance last Friday was a week. Mr. and Mrs. Trotter had dropped in to tea; after which we had a rubber; and were all very comfortable, my husband and me just in the nine holes, when all of a sudden there was a fall of something and a scream. Up jumps Mr. D. of course, chucking his cards here, there, and every where, and calling a blow! a blow!--and as usual Emily and Lucy and Eliza and me rushed off to the coal-cellar, while Mrs. T. went into a fit. It is true, by the blessing of Providence, it was only the Housemaid letting her pail fall to screech at a bat; but what is very disagreeable, the Trotters are old friends, and have declined to set another foot within our doors. As for servants, it is next to impossible to keep one about me; and as Your Lordship’s own Lady will confirm, there is nothing more unpleasant to a Mistress of a House than to be continually changing. But nine out of ten prefer giving warning, to attending to so many punctiliums as are laid down; and those that are willing to stay, break through so many of the rules, that I am obliged to discharge them, to prevent Mr. D. being ruffled by doing it himself. Besides it adds considerably to servants’ work, to have chimneys swept so often as once a week,--and moreover, Mr. D. insists on keeping all flints and steels, and tinder, and matches, in his own bed-room, so that the housemaid has to go to him every morning for her lights. He is just as particular about extinguishing at night; and I lost the best cook I ever had, through her sitting up in her bed-room to mend her stays, though she might have known Mr. D. would come in to put her out--all of which is extremely unpleasant, and to me in particular.

These, Your Lordship, are serious domestic evils; and I wish I could say they were confined to the house. But the workmen at the Mills are so ungrateful as to hate my husband for the over care he obliges them to take of their own lives; and make no secret of wanting his removal, by trying to torment him into resignation. Not a day passes without squabbles about smoking, for Mr. D. is apt to sniff tobacco, and insists on searching pockets for pipes, which the labourers one and all decline; and besides scuffles, there have been several pay offs on the spot. The consequence is ill will and bad blood to their superior, and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the family feelings and fears. I have twice suffered all the disagreeables of escaping from nothing at all in my night dress, exposed to rheumatism, and the natives of a low neighbourhood; indeed only last Sunday the fire bell was rung by nobody, and no wind at all to speak of. Another party at enmity is Doctor Worral and all his establishment; because Mr. D. felt it his public duty to have the Doctor up before a Justice, for allowing his Young Gentlemen to send up fire-balloons. We had one day of dreadful excitement on my husband’s part, through a wicked little wretch of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the Mill with a bit of looking-glass; and of course we are indebted for the Swing letters we receive to the same juvenile quarters. To make bad worse, Mr. D. takes them all for Gospel, and the extra watchings, and patrollings, and precautions, after getting a threatening notice, are enough to wear out all our hearts. As regards the School, I am ready to agree that it is too near the Works; and to tell the truth, I shake in my shoes as much as Mr. D., every fifth of November, at each squib and cracker that goes off. On the same score our own sons are an everlasting misery to us when they are at home; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that account. But if there is one thing above another that boys delight to play with, it is gunpowder; and being at the very fountainhead, Your Lordship may conceive the constant care it is to prevent their getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned with success. Indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged to be guarded against; for as their father says, “a little brat, just breeched, may strike light enough to blow up a whole neighbourhood, through only spinning a peg-tog in a paved yard.”

Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have not dwelt, as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in the coal-cellar; the paying months’ wages instead of warnings; nor the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes from my husband’s false alarms. Sometimes it’s a chair falls overhead; or the wind slams the back door; or a smell of burnt wood from the kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or a candle-snuff; or a smoky coal; or, as I have known before now, only the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought not to forget thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, “in Franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks,--and a birch rod as likely to frighten away lightning as an iron one.” In the meantime, through the constant frights and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since Captain Gower was so inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in his mouth. In fact he quite sets his face against the male sex: for, if they do not smoke cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on their iron heels and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks and umbrellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard on myself and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gaiety; but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes.

I humbly trust to Your Lordship’s liberality, and goodness of heart, to view the particulars of the above melancholy statement with attentive consideration. As it may occur to inquire how we have suffered so long without complaining, I beg to inform Your Lordship, that, being such a time of profound peace, we have lived on from year to year in the hope that no more ammunition would be required; and consequently the place would become a comfortable sinecure. But it appears that Spain and Portugal, and other countries, have gone to war on condition of being supplied with gunpowder; and accordingly, to our bitter disappointment, the works are as vigorous as ever. Your Lordship will admit the hardship of such a cruel position to a man of Mr. D.’s very peculiar constitution; and I do hope and trust will also regard his interests with a favourable eye, in consideration of his long-standing claims upon the country. What his friends most desire for him is, some official situation,--of course with a sufficient income to support his consequence, and a numerous family,--but without any business attached to it, or only as much as might help to amuse his mind for one or two hours in the day. Such a removal, considering my husband’s unfitness for anything else, could occasion no sort of injury to the public service; particularly as his vacancy would be so easy to fill up. There are hundreds and thousands of land and sea officers on half pay, who have been used to popping, and banging, and blowing up rockets and bomb-shells, all their lives; and would, therefore, not object to the Powder Mills; especially as the salary is handsome, with a rent-free house and garden, coal and candles, and all the other little perquisites that belong to public posts. As regards ourselves on the contrary, any interest is preferable to the gunpowder interest; and I take upon myself to say, that Mr. D. would be most proud and happy to receive any favour from Your Lordship’s administration; as well as answering for his pursuing any line of political principles, conservative or unconservative, that might be chalked out. Any such act of patronage would command the eternal gratitude of Mr. D., self, and family; and, repeating a thousand apologies for thus addressing, I beg leave to remain

Your Lordship’s most humble, obedient, and devoted servant,

LUCY EMILY DEXTER.

P.S.--Since writing the above, I am sorry to inform your Lordship, that we have had another little blow, and Mr. D.’s state is indescribable. He is more shaken than ever, and particularly through going all down the stairs in three jumps. He was sitting reading at the time, and, as he thinks, in his spectacles; but as they are not to be found, he is possessed that they have been driven into his head.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

“Charlatan is rising in public favour, and has many _backers_ who
_book_ him to win.”--_Sporting Intelligence._

OF all the signs of the times--considering them literally as _signs_, and the public literally as “a _public_”--there are none more remarkable than the Hahnemann’s Head,--the Crown and Compasses, devoted to Gall and Spurzheim’s entire,--and the Cock and Bull, that hangs out at the House of Call for Animal Magnetizers. The last concern, especially--a daring, glaring, flaring, gin-palace-like establishment--is a moral phenomenon. That a tap dispensing a raw, heady, very unrectified article, should obtain any custom whatever, in a reputed genteel and well-lighted neighbourhood, seems quite impossible; yet such is the incomprehensible fact;--respectable parties, scientific men, and even physicians, in good practice in all other respects, have notoriously frequented the bar, from which they have issued again, walking all sorts of ways at once, or more frequently falling asleep on the steps, but still talking such “rambling skimble-skamble stuff” as would naturally be suggested by the incoherent visions of a drunken man. Such exhibitions, however are comparatively rare in London to their occurrence in Paris, which city has always taken the lead of our own capital in matters of novelty. It is asserted by a good authority, that at a French concern, in the same line, no less than seventy-eight “medical men, and sixty-three other very intelligent individuals,” became thoroughly muzzy and mystified, and so completely lost all “_clairvoyance_” of their own, that they applied to an individual to read a book and a letter to them; to tell them the hour on their own watches; to mention the pips on the cards; and by way of putting the state of their “intuitive foresight” beyond question, they actually appealed to the _back_sight of a man who was sound asleep! A bout on so large a scale has not been attempted, hitherto, in the English metropolis; but as all fashions transplanted from Paris flourish vigorously in our soil, it is not improbable that we may yet see a Meeting of the College of Physicians rendered very how-come-you-so indeed by an excess of Mesmer’s “particular.” The influence of such an example could not fail to have a powerful influence on all classes; and a pernicious narcotic would come into general use; the notorious effect of which is to undermine the reason of its votaries, and rob them of their common senses. To avert such a national evil, surely demands the timely efforts of our philanthropists; and above all, of those persons who have set their faces against the Old Tom--not of Lincoln, but of London--and in their zeal for the public sobriety, aim at even converting the brewers’ kilderkins into pumpkins.--Seriously, might not the Temperance Societies extend the sphere of their operations by a whole hemisphere, and perhaps with equal advantage to mankind, by attacking mental dram-drinking, as well as the bodily tippling of ardent spirits? The bewildered rollings, reelings, and idiotic effusions of mere animal drunkenness can hardly be more degrading to rational human beings, than the crazy toddlings and twaddlings of a bemused mind, whether only maudlin with infinitesimal doses of quackery, or rampant to mad staggers with the _lush_ious compounds and Devil’s Elixirs of the Mesmerian Distillery. Take the wildest freaks of the most fuddled, muddled, bepuddled soaker,--such as “trying to light his pipe at a pump,”--attempting to wind up a plug with his watch-key,--or requesting, from a damp bed in the gutter, to be tucked in,--and are they a bit, or a whit, or a jot, or a what-not, more absurd, more extravagant, or more indicative of imbecility of reason, than the vagary of a somnambulist, gravely going through the back-gammon of reading Back’s Journal, or a back-number of the Retrospective Review, through the back of his head?

In case the Great Water Companies alluded to should think proper to adopt the foregoing suggestions, the following genuine letters are placed very much at their service, as materials to be worked up into Tracts:--

(COPY.)

_To Mr. Robert_ HOLLAND, _Linen-Draper, No. 194, Tottenham Court Road, London._

DEAR BOB,

Hoping you are well, and well-doing, we have heard such wonderful accounts in our parts lately about animal magnetizing, without any clear notion what it is.

My own notion is, it must be something new of my Lord Spenser’s--Althorp as was--who was always very curious about his beasts.

Others do say the Duke of Bedford, with a fresh cattle show--nobody knows.

Now you are just at the fountain-head to learn, and as most of us down here is more or less engaged in breeding stock, it would be a main thing to be put up to the secret at its first start.

Also whether it is expensive to buy--and who found it out--and if likely to do away with oilcake and mangel-wurzel, and such like particulars.

Praise be blest, we are all stout and hearty, except your poor aunt, who died three year ago. Which is all the news at present from,

Dear Bob,
Your loving Uncle,
REUBEN OXENHAM.

(COPY.)

_To Mr. Reuben_ OXENHAM, _Grazier, Grasslands, near Lincolnshire._

DEAR UNCLE,

I was agreeably surprised by your breaking silence; for I had made up my mind you was a distrest farmer gone off swan hopping (excuse the joke) to Swan River, or to get settled among the Dutch boars and lions at the Cape of Good Hope. Thank heaven such is not the case; though damped with my dear aunt’s going off. I little thought, poor soul! the why and wherefore my goose three Christmases ago was the last! But we must all be cut off some day or other, which is a religious consolation for the remnants that are left behind.

I have examined, as you desired, a sample of animal magnetism; which turns out to be the reverse of every thing you expect. Indeed such might have been anticipated by a little forethought on the subject. There is nothing to describe about animals to such as you, that deal in them of all qualities; but it is quite likely that you have forgot all about magnets, since the days of your youth. But perhaps, when they are named to you, your memory may serve to recollect little bone boxes, at sixpence a piece, with a blackamoor’s head atop, and a little bar of philosopher’s steel inside, that points out the north, and sets a needle dancing like mad. It likewise picks up emery, and sticks fast to the blade of a knife. But that is all its powers are competent to--and of course on too small a scale to have any dancing, or lifting, or sticking effect on objects so big as bullocks, or even a pig, or a sheep. Accordingly, you will not be surprised to hear that animal magnetism has nothing at all to do with beasts or load-stones either, but is all of a piece with juggling, quacksalving, and mountebanking, such as universal physic, spitting Coventry ribbons, tumbling, and posturing, thimble-rig, and the like fabrics. One of the principal tricks is sending people off to sleep against their wills; not so new a trick though, but it has been heard of years and years ago at Bow Street; and easy enough to perform any day, with a pint of porter,--provided one was rogue enough to want to hocus-pocus the money out of other people’s pockets into one’s own. To come to the point, there’s an outlandish Count set up in it at the west end; and no doubt will realise a fortune. He has his carriage-people for customers, as well as Howel and James; indeed, I have heard of the Somebodies as well as Nobodies running after common fortune-tellers’ tales, and not too high to be above going up into their back garrets. Some say he is a Frenchman, others say a German; but the last for choice, for he smokes enough to drive all the rats out of the neighbourhood. Besides, the Germans, I’m told, will believe anything, provided it’s impossible; which is some excuse for their wanting other people to give the same long credits; and besides, Germans as well as French, and indeed all other foreigners, for that matter, though ever such honest people in the main; yet when they _do_ turn rogues at English expense, they invariably go more than the whole hog, namely, boar, sow, sucking pigs and all. So I determined to go wide awake, and to keep my eyes open, too, by not taking bit or sup in the house, if offered ever so politely. It is surely not showing disrespect to hospitality, to object to hocussed victuals and drinks. I might have spared my fears, however; for there was nothing provided but the ledgerdemain, &c., and that was charged a guinea for, which you can repay at convenience. I preferred to see somebody else conjured before me; so another patient was taken first. She was a fine strapping young woman enough, dressed half and half between a fine lady and a servantmaid; but as sly-looking a baggage as you could select from an assortment of gypseys; and unless her face belied her, quite capable of scratching a Cock Lane ghost. Indeed something came across me that I had seen her before; and if memory don’t deceive, it was at some private theatricals contrary to law. For certain she could keep her countenance; for if the outlandish figure of a doctor, with his queer faces, had postured, and pawed, and poked towards _me_, with his fingers, for all the world like the old game of “My grandmother sends you a staff, and you’re neither to smile nor to laugh,” as he did to her, I should have bursted, to a dead certainty; instead of going off, as she did, into an easy sleep. As soon as she was sound, the Count turned round to me and the company with his broken English--“Ladies and gentlemens,” says he, “look here at dis yoong maidens, Mizz Charlot Ann Elizabet Martin”--for that is his way of talking. “Wid my magnetismuses I tro her into von state of sombamboozleism”--or something to that effect. “Mizz Charlot Ann, dou art a slip.” “As fast as a church, Mister Count,” says she, talking and hearing as easy as broad awake. “Ferry goot,” says he. “Now I take dis boke,--Missis Glasse Cokery,--and I shall make de maidens read som little of him wid her back. Dere he is bytween her sholders. Mizz Charlot Ann, what you see now mit your eyes turned de wrong way for to look?” “Why, then,” says she, “Mr. Count, I see quite plain a T, and an O. Then comes R, and O, and S, and T--and the next word is H, and A, and I, and R.” “Ferry goot,” tries the Count over again. “Dat is to rost de hare. Ladies and gentlemens, you all here? As Gott is my shudge, so is here in de boke. Now den, Mizz Charlot Ann, vons more. Vot you taste in your mouse?” “Why, then, Master,” says Charlotte Ann, “as sure as fate, I taste sweet herbs chopped up small!” “Ferry goot indeed!--bot what mor by sides de sweet herrubs?” “Why,” says she, “it’s a relish of salt, and pepper, and mace,--and, let me see--there’s a flavour of currant jelly.” “Besser and besser!” cries the Count. “Ladies and gentlemens, are not dese voonderfools? You shall see every wart of it in de print. Mizz Charlot Ann, vot you feel now?” “Lawk a mercy, Mister Count,” says she, “there’s a sort of stuffy feel, so there is, in my inside!” “Yaw! like van fool belly! Ferry goot! Now you feel vot?” “Feel! Mister Count?” says she--“why I don’t feel nothing at all--the stuffiness is gone clean away!” “Yaw, my shild!” says he. “Dat is by cause I take avay de cokery boke from your two sholders. Ladies and gentlemens, dese is grand powers of magnetismus! Ach himmel! As Hamlet say, dere is more in our philosofies dan dere is in de heaven or de earth! Our mutter Nature is so fond to hide her face! Bot von adept, so as me, can lift up a whale!”

To shorten a long story, the sombamboosleism lasted for two hours; while Miss Charlot Ann told fortunes in her sleep, and named people’s inward complaints, and prescribed for them with her eyes shut. Mine was dropsy; and I was to take antimonious wine three times a-day, to throw the water off my stomach. So, if you like to ask your apothecary, or the parish doctor, they will be able to tell you whether it looks like proper practice or the reverse. For my own part, I mean to suspend myself till I feel more symptoms; and in the meantime I have experimented on myself so far as to try behind my back with the Ready Reckoner. But I could not even see the book, much less make out a figure. To be sure I was broad awake, but it stands to reason that the circumstance only gave the better chance in its favour--at least it has always been reckoned so with a book held the proper natural way. I was the more particular with the book-work, because it looked like the master-key to let you into the whole house:--for no doubt, if you can do _that_ trick, you can do all the rest, and have a hare dressed between your shoulders as easily as a blister. But to my mind it is all sham Abraham; or the little boys that go every day with whole satchels full of books at their backs would know rather more about them than they do generally at leaving off school.

And now, Uncle, I have explained to you all about Animal Magnetism; and, says you, there are many things that come by names they have no right to, without going to Scotland, where you know they call a pitcher a pig. So it is very lucky on the whole, that you wrote to me, instead of posting up to London on a fool’s errand,--as did a respectable Lancashire grazing gentleman, the other day, in the newspapers, who was hoaxed all the way up to town, by a false notion that Animal Magnifying, as he called it, was some new, cheap, and quick way of fatting cattle. It will maybe turn out quite as deceitful an article as to its other qualities; and in that case, if I had the luck to be a magistrate, I would cold pig the sleeping partners with Cold Bath Fields and send off the active ones, to take a walk at a cart’s tail, with something they could feel, if they could not read it, on their backs and shoulders. That’s how I would measure out the law, if I was Lord Chief Justice. In which sentiments I conclude, with love to yourself, and all my cousins, if I have any living--with my best condolences for my poor late Aunt. As to business, I have only broken twice as yet; which is doing pretty well, considering the hard times and the state of trade. Wishing you the like prosperity, with health, and every other blessing, I remain, dear Uncle,

Your affectionate nephew,
ROBERT HOLLAND.

P.S. Since the foregoing, I have discussed the subject with a neighbour, a Veterany Surgeon; and he says it is all very well for the old men and women Physicians, but won’t go down with the Horse Doctors. “However,” says he, “if you are bent on trying it, I will give you a receipt. Take a two-year old full blood colt, half broke, or not broke at all--if vicious, so much the better. Shoe him behind with a couple of stout horse-shoe loadstones, and then stand convenient, and take a tug or two at his tail, till you feel him begin to operate. That’s Animal Magnetism, and will do you quite as much good or harm as the other new kick, and save you all the fees besides.”

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SIDNEY.

IT may be necessary to bespeak the indulgent consideration of the reader, for the appearance of the following Curiosity in such a work. The truth is, the pages of the Comic Annual naturally present to me the most obvious means of making the Poem known; betides, as it were, offering personal security for my own belief in its authenticity. And, considering my literary credit as so pledged, I do not hesitate to affirm that I think the effusion in question may confidently be referred to Sidney: and even--on the internal evidence of its pastoral character--to the Arcadia. The verses have never till now appeared in print. The lover of Old English Poetry would vainly hunt for it in any edition extant of the works of Sir Philip; and, probably, the family records and remains at Penshurst might be searched to as little purpose for a copy in MS. From the extreme quaintness of the original, which would have required the help of a glossary to render it generally intelligible, I have thought it advisable to translate many of the phrases into more current language; but scrupulously preserving the _sense_ of the text. Enough of the peculiar style, however, still remains, to aid in forming a judgment of the author’s æra. As for the apparent incongruity of the double vocation ascribed to the tuneful Swain in the Poem, besides abundant classical evidence that the Corydons of ancient times were often, also, heroes, or warriors, or adventurers, we have the positive contemporary testimony of modern travellers, that in those very pastures where the scene is laid, it is at this day the practice to entrust the charge of the flocks to personages who have formerly been engaged in the same perilous career as the “Forlorn Shepherd.” His lament, it will be seen, is full of regrets and stealing tears for the stirring times of Auld Lang Syne.

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

“Vell! Here I am--no Matter how it suits,
A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,
Old Park vos no bad Judge--confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!

“The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!

“To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!”

“I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!

“If I’d fore-seed how Transports would turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,
I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pull,
And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!

“Von only happy moment I have had
Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad,
And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze,
And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos!

“Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill?
Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;
And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,
I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye!

“If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,
And find a Fence to turn it into Swag,
I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand,
And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand!

“But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,
To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,
I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place,
I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face.

“It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box
Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks,
’Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,
They’ve nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus.

“But Folks may tell their Troubles till they’re sick
To dumb brute Beasts,--and so I’ll cut my Stick!
And vot’s the Use a Feller’s Eyes to pipe
Vere von can’t borrow any Gemman’s Vipe?”

ANACREONTIC.

BY A FOOTMAN.

It’s wery well to talk in praise
Of Tea and Water-drinking ways,
In proper time and place;
Of sober draughts, so clear and cool,
Dipp’d out of a transparent pool
Reflecting heaven’s face.

Of babbling brooks, and purling rills,
And streams as gushes from the hills,
It’s wery well to talk;--
But what becomes of all sich schemes,
With ponds of ice, and running streams,
As doesn’t even walk?

When Winter comes with piercing cold,
And all the rivers, new or old,
Is frozen far and wide;
And limpid springs is solid stuff,
And crystal pools is hard enough
To skate upon and slide;--

What then are thirsty men to do,
But drink of ale, and porter too,
Champagne as makes a fizz;
Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort,
And p’rhaps a drop of summut short--
The water-pipes is friz!