Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Mrs. Carnaby was one of those characters emphatically called fidgets; she never rested till each individual came back, and she never rested when they did. Mr. C. was the first to return, and not in the first of tempers. He had been done out of his long-anticipated rural walk by setting his foot, before he had gone a hundred yards, on a yard of snake, and it had frightened him so that Mrs. Carnaby expected “it would turn his whole mash of blood, and give him the yellow jaundice.” Mr. Hodges came in second, but to the impatient eye of Miss C. certainly did not proceed from the Green Man with the straightness of a bullet from a rifle. Master Carnaby was a good third, for he had been well horse-whipped, just as he had got three little red blackberries and five thorns in his fingers, by a gentleman who did not approve of his trespassing upon his grounds. Boxer the bull-dog was fourth; he came back on three-legs, with his brindle well peppered with number six by the gamekeeper, to cure him of worrying park rabbits. In fact, poor Boxer, as Mrs. C. exclaimed, “was bleeding like a pig,” and the grateful animal acknowledged her compassionate notice by going and rubbing his shot hide against her shot silk, in return for which he got a blow quite hard enough to shiver the stick of something between a parasol and an umbrella. As for the nurse-maid and the twins they did not return for an hour, to the infinite horror of the mother; but just as they were all sitting down to dinner Betsey appeared with her charge, walked off their feet, with their “pretty mouths all besmeared” with blue and red juice; but no one of the party was botanist enough to tell whether the berries they were munching were hips and haws, or bilberries, or deadly nightshade, but maternal anxiety made sure it was the “rank pison.” Accordingly dinner was postponed, and they set to get up an extempore fire to make the kettle hot, and as soon as the water was warm enough, these “two pretty babes” were well drenched, and were soon as perfectly uncomfortable as they had been two months before in a rough steam trip to Margate. As soon as peace was restored it transpired, from an examination of the children, and a very cross examination of the nurse-maid, that they had met with a _real_ gipsy woman in the forest who had told Betty’s fortune, but had omitted to prognosticate that her mistress would give her warning on the spot, and that _her_ gipsying would end, as it actually did, in finding herself suddenly out of place in the middle of a forest. Like other servants, when they lose a comfortable situation, “some natural tears she shed,” but did not wipe them soon, as did “our general mother,” for the very excellent reason that she had spread her pocket handkerchief on the ground to sit upon, somewhere between Wanstead and Walthamstow, and had left it as a waif to the lord of the manor.

Dinner time then came again, to the especial delight of the two empty children, though, thanks to the horse and dog, it was principally broken victuals. But on sitting down and counting heads Master C. had a second time absconded during the last bustle; and, as his mother could not touch a morsel for anxiety, Mr. Carnaby was obliged to set out fasting to look for him, and had soon the satisfaction of finding him sitting hatless crying in a wet ditch, and scraping a suit of brown off a suit of blue with an old oyster shell. His father, in the first transport of anger and hunger, gave him what boys call “a regular larruping,” then a good rubbing down with a bunch of fern, and then brought him back to the cold collation, with the comfortable threat that he should go without his dinner. As soon as the culprit could explain for sobbing, he told them that “he had gone for a little walk, like, and saw the most capital donkey with a saddle and bridle feeding wild about the forest as if he belonged to nobody, and he just got on him like, like they used to do at Margate; and then the donkey set off full tear, and never stopped till he came to a tent of gipsies in the middle of the wood; and they all set upon him, and swore at him like anything for running away with their donkey; and then all of a sudden he lost his hat and his handkerchief, and his money out of his pockets like conjuring; then they told him to run for his life, and so he did, and as for the mud it was all along of jumping over a hedge that had no other side to it.” This intelligence threw Mrs. Carnaby into an agony of horror which could only be pacified by their immediately packing up and removing, eatables and all, to a less lonesome place by the side of the road, an operation that was performed by their all pulling and pushing at the cart, as the horse had taken French leave of absence.

It was now Miss Carnaby’s turn to be discomfited: her retiring disposition made her wince under the idea of dining in public; for being market day at Romford, they were over-looked by plenty of farmers and pig butchers: consequently, after a very miffy dialogue with her mother, the young lady took herself off, as she was desired, with “her romantical notions,” to a place of more solitude, and Mr. Hodges, as in gallantry bound, postponed his dinner till his tea to keep her company. In the mean time, Betsey, who had been sent up to the Green Man for the porter, returned with the empty tankard, and a terrified tale of being “cotch’d hold on by a ruffian in the wood, that had drunk up all the beer to all their very good healths.” The first impulse of Mr. Carnaby was to jump up to do justice on the vagabond, but Mrs. C---- had the presence of mind to catch hold of his coat-flaps so abruptly, that before he could well feel his legs, he found himself sitting in a large plum pie, which the children had just set their hearts upon; of course it did not mend his temper to hear the shout from a dozen ragged boys who were looking on; and in the crisis of his vexation, he vented such a fervent devil’s blessing on gipsy parties, and all that proposed them, that Mrs. Carnaby was obliged to take it up, and to tell him sharply, what in reality was true enough, that “if people did have gipsy parties, it didn’t follow that their stupid husbands was to sit down on plum pies.” Heaven knows to what size and shape this little quarrel might have ripened, but for the appearance of Miss Carnaby, who, with a terrified exclamation sat herself down, and after a vain attempt to recover, went off into a strong fit of what her mother called “kicking hysterics.” The cause was soon explained by the appearance of Mr. Hodges, with one eye poached black, and a dog-bite in the calf of his leg, because “he had only stood looking on at two men setting wires for rabbits, thinking to himself if he watched them well he could learn how to do it.” Fortunately, Miss Carnaby came to just in time to concur with her father and Mr. Hodges in the opinion, that the best thing they could all do was to pack up and go home, but which was stoutly combated by Mrs. Carnaby, who insisted that she was resolved to take tea in a wood for once in her life, and she was seconded by the children and Master C----, who said they hadn’t had any pleasure yet. It was an unanswerable argument; sticks were collected, a fire was made, the kettle boiled, the tea-things were set in order, the bread and butter was cut, and pleasure began to smile on the gipsy party so placidly that Mr. Hodges was encouraged to begin playing “In my Cottage near a Wood,” on the key bugle, but was obliged to break off in the middle, on finding that it acted as a bugle call to a corps of observation, who came and stood round to see “Rural Felicity.” Mrs. Carnaby, however, was happy; but “there is many a slip between the tea-cup and the lip.” She was in the triumphant fact of pouring the hot water on her best souchong, in her best china tea-pot, when a very well-charged gun went off just on the other side of the park palings, and Mrs. Carnaby had not been born like her Grace, old Sarah of Marlborough, “before nerves came in fashion.” The tea-kettle dropped from her hand upon the tea-pot, which it dashed to atoms, and then lay on its side, hot watering the daisies and the dandelions that had the luck to grow near it. “Misfortunes never come single,” and the gun, therefore, acted like a double one in its inflictions; for no sooner did Boxer recognise its sound than he jumped up, and with an alarming howl dashed through the rest of the tea service, as if he had absorbed another ounce of number six: a fresh shout from the bystanders welcomed this new disaster, and with the true spirit of “biting a bitten cur,” they began to heap embarrassments on the disconcerted gipsyers. They kept pitching sticks into the fire till it grew a bonfire, and made cockshies of the remaining crockery; some audacious boys even helped themselves to bread and butter, as if on the principle that the open air ought to keep open house. As there were too many assailants to chastise, the only remedy was to pack up and take to the road as fast as they could, with a horse which they found with two broken knees, the consequence of his being too curious in the construction of a gravel-pit. “You may say what you like,” said Mr. Carnaby, in his summing up, “but for my part I must say of gipsying, that it’s impossible to take to it without being regularly ‘done brown.’”

COCKLE _v._ CACKLE.

THOSE who much read advertisements and bills,
Must have seen puffs of Cockle’s Pills,
Call’d Anti-bilious--
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these--
Viz.--Quacks and Pills--save Ducks and Pease.

Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,
And friends portended was preparing for
A human Pâté Périgord;
She was, indeed, so very far from well,
Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box
Of those said pellets to resist Bile’s shocks,
And--tho’ upon the ear it strangely knocks--
To save her by a Cockle from a shell!

But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,
Who very vehemently bids us “throw
Bark to the Bow-wows,” hated physic so,
It seem’d to share “the bitterness of Death:”
Rhubarb--Magnesia--Jalap, and the kind--
Senna--Steel--Assa-fœtida, and Squills--
Powder or Draught--but least her throat inclined
To give a course to Boluses or Pills:
No--not to save her life, in lung or lobe,
For all her lights or all her liver’s sake,
Would her convulsive thorax undertake,
Only one little uncelestial globe!

’Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,
If she put by the pill-box in a place
For linen rather than for drugs intended--
Yet for the credit of the pills let’s say
After they thus were stow’d away,
Some of the linen mended;
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint,
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother--
Who took them--in her cupboard--like the other.

“Deeper and deeper, still,” of course,
The fatal colour daily grew in force;
Till daughter W. newly come from Rome,
Acting the self-same filial, pillial, part,
To cure Mamma, another dose brought home
Of Cockles;--not the Cockles of her heart!
These going where the others went before,
Of course she had a very pretty store;
And then--some hue of health her cheek adorning,
The Medicine so good must be,
They brought her dose on dose, which she
Gave to the upstairs cupboard, “night and morning.”
Till wanting room at last, for other stocks,
Out of the window one fine day she pitch’d
The pillage of each box, and quite enrich’d
The feed of Mister Burrell’s hens and cocks,--
A little Barber of a by-gone day,
Over the way
Whose stock in trade, to keep the least of shops,
Was one great head of Kemble,--that is, John,
Staring in plaster, with a _Brutus_ on,
And twenty little Bantam fowls--with _crops_.
Little Dame W. thought when through the sash
She gave the physic wings,
To find the very things
So good for bile, so bad for chicken rash,
For thoughtless cock, and unreflecting pullet!
But while they gathered up the nauseous nubbles,
Each peck’d itself into a peck of troubles,
And brought the hand of Death upon its gullet.

They might as well have addled been, or ratted,
For long before the night--ah woe betide
The Pills! each suicidal Bantam died
Unfatted!

Think of poor Burrell’s shock,
Of Nature’s debt to see his hens all payers,
And laid in death as Everlasting Layers,
With Bantam’s small Ex-Emperor, the Cock,
In ruffled plumage and funereal hackle,
Giving, undone by Cockle, a last Cackle!
To see as stiff as stone, his unlive stock,
It really was enough to move his block.
Down on the floor he dash’d, with horror big,
Mr. Bell’s third wife’s mother’s coachman’s wig;
And with a tragic stare like his own Kemble,
Burst out with natural emphasis enough,
And voice that grief made tremble,
Into that very speech of sad Macduff--
“What!--all my pretty chickens and their dam,
At one fell swoop!--
Just when I’d bought a coop
To see the poor lamented creatures cram!”

After a little of this mood,
And brooding over the departed brood,
With razor he began to ope each craw,
Already turning black, as black as coals;
When lo! the undigested cause he saw--
“Pison’d by goles!”

To Mrs. W.’s luck a contradiction,
Her window still stood open to conviction;
And by short course of circumstantial labour,
He fix’d the guilt upon his adverse neighbour;--
Lord! how he rail’d at her: declaring now,
He’d bring an action ere next Term of Hilary,
Then, in another moment, swore a vow,
He’d make her do pill-penance in the pillory!
She, meanwhile distant from the dimmest dream
Of combating with guilt, yard-arm or arm-yard,
Lapp’d in a paradise of tea and cream;
When up ran Betty with a dismal scream--
“Here’s Mr. Burrell, Ma’am, with all his farm-yard!”
Straight in he came, unbowing and unbending,
With all the warmth that iron and a barber
Can harbour;
To dress the head and front of her offending,
The fuming phial of his wrath uncorking;
In short, he made her pay him altogether,
In hard cash, very _hard_, for ev’ry feather,
Charging of course, each Bantam as a Dorking;
Nothing could move him, nothing make him supple,
So the sad dame unpocketing her loss,
Had nothing left but to sit hands across,
And see her poultry, “going down ten couple.”

Now birds by poison slain,
As venom’d dart from Indian’s hollow cane,
Are edible; and Mrs. W.’s thrift,--
She had a thrifty vein,--
Destined one pair for supper to make shift,--
Supper as usual at the hour of ten:
But ten o’clock arrived and quickly pass’d,
Eleven--twelve--and one o’clock at last,
Without a sign of supper even then!
At length, the speed of cookery to quicken,
Betty was called, and with reluctant feet,
Came up at a white heat--
“Well, never I see chicken like them chicken!
My saucepans, they have been a pretty while in ’em!
Enough to stew them, if it comes to that,
To flesh and bones, and perfect rags; but drat
Those Anti-biting Pills! there is no bile in ’em!”

A LAWYER’S LETTER.

_To Mr. Richard Walton, 32, Lincoln’s Inn._

DEAR DICK,

IN re Pedro--Pike, Row, Badgery, and Crump, Mr. Theodore Hook’s attorneys, offered three years ago, and continued the allowance up to last Easter Term, to give me, with unexampled liberality, eighteen shillings per week as copying clerk, and to undertake the management of the Common Law--attend to the Chancery Department--do the out-door business--make out Bills of Costs--and make myself generally useful--which I have been doing as long as my health permitted. Not being strong, though with an attachment to the profession, I have been compelled to withdraw my record, and to sue out a Writ of Certiorari to carry my line of life into another court. Hearing that Don Pedro was about to bring an action against Don Miguel and Company, and that lots of John Does and Richard Roes were wanted, I took a retainer from an agent of the great Portuguese professional gentleman, and have really embarked in the cause. Being out here on the circuit, as one might call it (Mr. Chief Justice Sartorius goes it), and knowing the interest you take in my verdicts, I shall write at intervals the particulars of plaintiff’s demand, and account of set-off on the part of the enemy’s fleet, or Defendant. Pray call on Mr. Wilson, the Common Law Clerk at Pike, Row, and Co., and tell him I have four hours to myself and a chance of being paid, but do this if possible without the knowledge of the Principals. White of the same office, when I enlisted, was to have taken the benefit of the act, but on mustering at Gravesend, he did not attend the roll call, and was struck off the Rolls. I can’t but say, putting Truth on her oath in the Admiralty Court, that when the Blue Peter gave legal notice to quit, I felt some regret at leaving a land where I might have been, so to speak, a tenant at will. Nor was it much better when I came to the Nore. I heartily wished, with Mr. Matthews, that if Britannia does rule the waves, she would rule them evener! but it was “rule refused.” The sea ran very rough, and you will understand me when I say I took nothing by my motion. There was the thought of my mother, besides, and the numberless feelings for which, though matters of everyday practice, it is difficult to show cause.

You remember Sugden with Hart & Co., and will not be surprised to hear that he volunteered to convince Don Miguel of his defective title. A few hours, however, sufficed to disgust him with conveyancing, as it is practised in the Marine Courts; and I heard him, by a verbal instrument, assign over with technical formality, the whole ship to the Devil, his Heirs, Executors, Administrators, and Assigns.

As for Butterworth, the Captain gave instructions with regard to the stays, and Butterworth in going aloft fell overboard. We thought for some time that he was dead, but after rubbing, and other means of revival, we had the satisfaction of seeing him moving for a new trial, and that he was beginning _de novo_.

You may conceive, professionally, our joy at entering the Douro with a prospect of being invited within the Bar,--but the anchors were instructed to stay proceedings, and we stayed the same. As I took notes of what happened afterwards, I will give you a rough draft.

_Michaelmas Term, Oct. 31._ Admiral took Counsel’s opinion with
regard to the Fort of St. Michael. Held that an action would lie.
Judgment affirmed.

_Nov. 2._ Action of assault and battery. Admiral’s ship opened the
case, and the others followed on the same side. Hills crowded with
witnesses. Enemy’s damages laid at a hundred and fifty men. Tax off
a hundred.

3. Discovering flaws and amending same. At intervals term reports.
Pollock died of his wounds, and was struck off the paper. Gave him
an undertaking.

4. _A dies non._ Poor Horne seized with lockjaw, and preparing for
the long vacation.

5. Notice of action. Enemy’s Fleet put in an appearance, but _non
pros_. Horne demised.

6. Joined issue with enemy’s flag ship. Wetherell killed by a ball
lodging in the Inner Temple, and Denman subpœnaed by a bullet out
of the main-top. Enemy attempted to put an officer and fifty men in
possession--but we served them with an ejectment. Night coming on,
agreed to withdraw a juror.

7. A violent storm, and a sail under a distress. Taken in execution
by a wave,--levied on longboat and three men, and all the hen-coops.

8. Fell in with a Portuguese brig, and lodged a detainer. Have not
received my share of prize, but have got a cognovit.

9. Enemy moved for a new trial. Bore up and fired a broadside;
replied to same. Admiral endeavoured, by intercepting the rear-most
ships, to cut off the entail. Boarding again,--obliged to fight
with all my Power of Attorney. Gave quarter to one man, he was such
a special pleader. Verdict--drawn battle.

10. Chitty fell overboard from the mizen chains. Action of trover
failed. Filed a bill of him in Ocean’s Chancery, and sent an office
copy to his Widow.

11. Enemy brought a fresh action. Boarding again, and obliged to
defend in person. Enemy nonsuited with costs.

To abbreviate pleadings, you will see that our time has been Term time. Plenty of work at overhours, and I am sorry to say no extra charge. But I am not going to take a bill of exceptions. I comfort myself for the loss of my arm--I have lost that limb of the law, Dick--by reflecting that I am now like Nelson, except the blind eye, and that I do not follow the Hamiltonian system. Sometimes, however, as I look homeward, and remember “dear Morton,” I sigh to join you by a _Surrey-joinder_, and to taste your _Surrey-butter_. I think that is the legal mode of expressing it.

Nothing can behave better than our men--from the principals down to the juniors. They fight as if they belonged to Lyon’s Inn. However, a good many have been ticked off,--including Tyndale, Thessiger, Phillips, Spankie, Scarlett, Gurney, Wilde, Burney, and some others of our acquaintance, who have received a general release. For my own part----

[LETTER ENCLOSING THE ABOVE.]

SIR.

Am sorry to Say the man as writ the Inclosed letter, with a bit of
a log, fell Down the Main Hatchway on the 16th instant at 2 P. M.
Was carried down to Cockpit. But the Doctor pronounced it a Bad
Job, and after saying O Law three times was a Corps. He left no
Will nor no property, and was Sowed up and heaved overboard, same
day in lat. 41, 5 N., long. 8, 50 W.

I take the Liberty of writing This that you may inform Parents,
provided there’s father or mother, as well as to his widow and
children, if so be. Should you be encouraged to come out to us in
your friend’s Place, you will be heartily welcome, and lots of as
jolly good fighting as hearts can wish. So no more at present from

Your Humble Servant

THOMAS BENYON.

N.B. Go to the Duncan’s Head in Wapping, and Captain Bligh will tell you all about the Bounty. That’s if you mean to ’list.

THE SWEEP’S COMPLAINT.

“I like to meet a sweep--such as come forth with the dawn, or
somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes, sounding
like the peep, peep, of a young sparrow.”--ESSAYS OF ELIA.

----“A voice cried Sweep no more!
Macbeth hath murdered sweep.”--SHAKSPEARE.

ONE morning ere my usual time
I rose, about the seventh chime,
When little stunted boys that climb
Still linger in the street:
And as I walked, I saw indeed
A sample of the sooty breed,
Though he was rather run to seed,
In height above five feet.
A mongrel tint he seem’d to take,
Poetic simile to make,
DAY through his MARTIN ’gan to break,
White overcoming jet.
From side to side he cross’d oblique,
Like Frenchman who has friends to seek,
And yet no English word can speak,
He walk’d upon the fret:
And while he sought the dingy job,
His lab’ring breast appear’d to throb
And half a hiccup half a sob
Betray’d internal woe.
To cry the cry he had by rote
He yearn’d, but law forbade the note,
Like Chanticleer with roupy throat,
He gaped--but not a crow!
I watch’d him, and the glimpse I snatch’d
Disclosed his sorry eyelids patch’d
With red, as if the soot had catch’d
That hung about the lid;
And soon I saw the tear-drop stray,
He did not care to brush away;
Thought I the cause he will betray--
And thus at last he did.

Well, here’s a pretty go! here’s a Gagging Act, if ever there was a
gagging!
But I’m bound the members as silenced us, in doing it had plenty of
magging.
They had better send us all off, they had, to the School for the
Deaf and Dumb,
To unlarn us our mother tongues, and to make signs and be regularly
mum.
But they can’t undo natur--as sure as ever the morning begins to
peep,
Directly I open my eyes, I can’t help calling out Sweep
As natural as the sparrows among the chimbley-pots that say Cheep!
For my own part I find my suppress’d voice very uneasy,
And comparable to nothing but having your tissue stopt when you are
sneezy.
Well, it’s all up with us! tho’ I suppose we mustn’t cry all up.
Here’s a precious merry Christmas, I’m blest if I can earn either
bit or sup!
If crying Sweep, of mornings, is going beyond quietness’s border,
Them as pretends to be fond of silence oughtn’t to cry hear, hear,
and order, order.
I wonder Mr. Sutton, as we’ve sut-on too, don’t sympathise with us
As a Speaker what don’t speak, and that’s exactly our own cus.
God help us if we don’t not cry, how are we to pursue our callings?
I’m sure we’re not half so bad as other businesses with their
bawlings.
For instance, the general postmen, that at six o’clock go about
ringing,
And wake up all the babbies that their mothers have just got to
sleep with singing.
Greens oughtn’t to be cried no more than blacks--to do the unpartial
job,
If they bring in a Sooty Bill, they ought to have brought in a Dusty
Bob.
Is a dustman’s voice more sweet than ourn, when he comes a seeking
arter the cinders,
Instead of a little boy like a blackbird in spring, singing merrily
under your windows?
There’s the omnibus cads as plies in Cheapside, and keeps calling
out Bank and City;
Let his Worship, the Mayor, decide if our call of Sweep is not just
as pretty.
I can’t see why the Jews should be let go about crying Old Close
thro their hooky noses,
And Christian laws should be ten times more hard than the old stone
laws of Moses.
Why isn’t the mouths of the muffin-men compell’d to be equally shut?
Why, because Parliament members eat muffins, but they never eat no
sut.
Next year there won’t be any May-day at all, we shan’t have no heart
to dance,
And Jack in the Green will go in black like mourning for our
mischance;
If we live as long as May, that’s to say, through the hard winter
and pinching weather,
For I don’t see how we’re to earn enough to keep body and soul
together.
I only wish Mr. Wilberforce or some of them that pities the niggers,
Would take a peep down in our cellars, and look at our miserable
starving figures,
A-sitting idle on our empty sacks, and all ready to eat each other,
And a brood of little ones crying for bread to a heart-breaking
Father and Mother.
They haven’t a rag of clothes to mend, if their mothers had thread
and needles,
But crawl naked about the cellars, poor things, like a swarm of
common black beadles.
If they’d only inquired before passing the Act and taken a few such
peeps,
I don’t think that any real gentleman would have set his face
against sweeps.
Climbin’s an ancient respectable art, and if History’s of any vally,
Was recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the great Sir Walter Raleigh,
When he wrote on a pane of glass how I’d climb, if the way I only
knew,
And she writ beneath, if your heart’s afeard, don’t venture up the
flue.
As for me I was always loyal, and respected all powers that are
higher,
But how can I now say God save the King, if I an’t to be a Cryer?
There’s London milk, that’s one of the cries, even on Sunday the law
allows,
But ought black sweeps, that are human beasts, to be worser off than
black cows?
Do _we_ go calling about, when it’s church time, like the noisy
Billingsgate vermin,
And disturb the parson with “All alive O!” in the middle of a
funeral sermon?
But the fish won’t keep, not the mackarel won’t, is the cry of the
Parliament elves,
Every thing, except the sweeps I think, is to be allowed to keep
themselves!
Lord help us! what’s to become of us if we mustn’t cry no more?
We shan’t do for black mutes to go a standing at a death’s door.
And we shan’t do to emigrate, no not even to the Hottentot nations,
For as time wears on, our black will wear off, and then think of our
situations!
And we should not do, in lieu of black-a-moor footmen, to serve
ladies of quality nimbly,
For when we we’re drest in our sky-blue and silver, and large
frills, all clean and neat, and white silk stockings, if they
pleased to desire us to sweep the hearth, we couldn’t resist the
chimbley.

LETTER FROM AN OLD SPORTSMAN.

DEAR SIR,

I RECEAVED your’s of the first last, wich I should have anser’d it sooner, only I have ad the Roomatiz in my fingers, so you must Pleas to excus my crampd hand.

As to my Sporting Reminis-cences, as you are pleasd to say, I have look’d them out in the dixenary, and kno verry well what it is. I beg leaf to Say, I have forgot all my recolections, and can not bring to mind any of my old Rememberances.

As for Hunting, I shall never take a fence at it agen, altho I sumtims Ride to cover on the old Gray, wich is now be come quite Wite. The last tim I went out, we dru Hazelmere copses down to Broxley wood; then we dru Broxley wood over to Fox thorp; then we dru Fox thorp over to Middle ford, and then we dru Middle ford, in short, it was all drawing and no painting for want of a brush.

Sir William Chase coming to be his father’s hare, he set up a coarsing club, but being short of long dogs, and there hairs falling of, it was obleged to discourse, and is now turned into a conversasiony.

In regard to shuting, I have never dun anny thing Since percussion Captiousness cum up, wich I am Told they are sharper then Flints. The last hare I kild was 2 long ears ago, and the Last fezzant, But there’s a long tail belonging to that, wich you shall have when you cum over, as I hop you wil, with your Horse’s; I have good entertainment for boath, as the french Say, at my table D’ oats. The lads go out after Burds now and then, but I seldum cum at the rites of there shuting--you kno

Wat is Hits is Histery,
But what is mist is mistery.

Talking of shuting, hav you seen Ubbard’s new guns like wauking sticks--there a cappital defence agin cappital offences; as you may ether stick a feller or Shute him; or boath together. I wish farmer Gale had carrid one last friday, for he was Rob’d cuming from markit by a foot paddy Irish man, that knockd him down to make him Stand. Luckly he had nothing on him when Stopd but sum notes of the Barnsby bank that had bin stopd the weak afore.

In the fishing line I am quite Dead bait, tho I have had manny a Good run in my tim, Partickler when the keeper spide me out were I hadent got Leaf. The last tim I went I could hardly un do my rod for roomatiz in my joints, and I got the Lumbago verry bad wen I cum back, and its atax I doant like. Beside wich I found very Little big fish on a count of the pochers, who Kil em al in colde blood. I used sumtims to float and sumtims to fli, but our waters is so over fished theres no fish to be had, and as I am very musicle, I dont like trolling without a catch, the last jack I caut was with my boot, and was only a foot long.

As for raceing, I never cared much a bout it, and in regard of betting, I am Better with out it, tho I al ways take the feeld wen I am Able, and suport the Farmer’s Plate with al my Mite.

Our Wist club is going of, Some of the members go on so; two of em are perpetuly quareling like anny thing but double dummies, for one plays like Hoyle and the other like Vinegar. The young men hav interduced Shorts, but I doant think theyle Last long. They are al so verry Sharp at the Pints, and as for drinking, I never se sich Liquorish Chaps in my life. They are al ways laying ods, even at Super, when theyle Bet about the age of a Roosted foul, with they cal Chicken hazzard, or about the Wait of a Curran py, with they cal the Currancy question. They al so smoke a grate manny seagars, but they cant Put the old men’s pips out, wich it Wood be a Burning shame if they did. I am sorry to say politicks has Crept in; Sum is al for reform, and some is al for none at al, and the only thing they agre in is, that the Land lord shant bring in no Bil. There is be sides grate dis-cushins as to the new game laws, sum entertaning douts wen sum peple go out a shuting, wether even acts of Parliament will inable them to shute anny game.

The crickit Club is going on uncomon wel. They are 36 members with out rekoning the byes; our best man at Wickit is Captin Batty--he often gets four notches running; and our best boler is Use Ball, tho we sumtims get Dr. Pilby to bolus. As for the crickit Bal, it is quit wore out, wich the gals say they are verry Sory for it, as they took a grate intrest in our matches.

My lads are boath of em marred, wich mayhap you have Herd,--and if the gals are not, I Believe its no falt of theres. They hope youle cum to the Wake, wich is next Sunday weak, for they Say there will be High fun, al tho I think it is Rather Low. The only use of waking that I can See, is to pervent folkes Sleeping, and as for there jumping and throwing up their Heals, I see no Pleasur in it. If they had the Roomatiz as Bad as I have, they woudent be for Dancing there fandangoes at that rat, and Kicking for partners.

Our county Member, Sir William Wiseacre, is going to bring in a bil “for the supression of the Barbarus past-time of bul beating, and for the better incorigement of the nobul art of Cockin,” by wich al buls, wether inglish or irish, are to be Made game of no longer, and al such as are found at anny ring or stake are libel to be find. They cal it here the Cock and Bul Act, wich I think is a very good name. It has causd grate diversion in manny peple’s opinions, but most of us Think the cocks is quite as Bad as the buls. The same Barrownet as tried to interduce Forkenry, but the first atempts as been verry Hawkward. The forkens flu at a herin, who tried to be above there atax, for the more they pecked him the more they maid him sore, but a boy flying a Kite skared em al away togither.

Last week was our grand archery Meetin, and the first prize was won by Little Master Tomkins, of grove House. I supose his fondnes for lolli pops made him ame best at bulls Eyes. The Miss Courtenays were there as usul, and in comparison of arch Angles look ralyarcher.--The wags propposed miss Emilyshood have the second prize for shuting in too a cows Eye that came to nere the target; she says she wos so nervus, it put her arrow into a quiver. In the middle of the meeting we herd a Bad playd Key buggle, and out of the shrubbery, were they had bin hiding, Jumpd Revd. Mister Crumpe and assistants; he is Rector of Bow and Curat of Harrow, and was disgised in every thing green, as Robin Hood and his mery Men; after geting Little John to string his bow for him, I am sorry to say, Robin Hood shot Worst of every Body, for he did not even hit the target, and we should have never Seen wear his arrow went, but by hereing it smash in to the conservatorry. When we came to look for the prize, a silver Arrow, every Body had lost it, for it had dropt out of the case, and would never have been found, but for Revd. mister Crumpe sittin downe on the lawne, and wich made Him jump up agen, as miss Courtenay said out of Byron, like “a warrior bounding from its Barb.” The Toxophilus Club is very flurrishing, but talk of expeling sum members for persisting in wereing peagreen insted of lincon, and puttin on there spanish Hats and fethers the rong side before.

Thank you for the Hoisters, wich was verry good. Mary has took the shels to make her a groto, of wich I think is very shameful, as I wanted them to Friten the Burds. Old Mark Lane, the man as Cheated you out of them oats, has bean sent to jail for Stealing barly. I am sadly Afearde old Marks corn will give Him 14 ears of Bottany.

Pleas to Remember me to al inquiring friends, if they should think it woth wile to Ask after me.

From your Humbel servant,
ANDREW AXELTREE.

P.S. I forgot to menshun the subskripshon Stag hounds kep by the same members as the wist club, and its there wim to have fifty too dogs to the pack. If old Bil, the huntsman, was drest like Pam, theyd be complet. They have had sum cappital runs dooring the season. As you write for the sporting Maggazins, you may like to notice an apereance rather noo in the felde, I mean the Grate Creol Curnel Brown, who is very pompus, and hunts with Pompey, his black servant, after him. I have got a Deal more to Say, but carnt for want of Room. Mary says I should Cros it, wich I wood, but I doant Wish to put you to the expense of a Dubble leter.

THE SUB-MARINE.

IT was a brave and jolly wight,
His cheek was baked and brown,
For he had been in many climes
With captains of renown,
And fought with those who fought so well
At Nile and Camperdown.

His coat it was a soldier coat,
Of red with yellow faced,
But (merman-like) he look’d marine
All downward from the waist;
His trousers were so wide and blue,
And quite in sailor taste!

He put the rummer to his lips,
And drank a jolly draught;
He raised the rummer many times--
And ever as he quaff’d,
The more he drank the more the ship
Seem’d pitching fore and aft!

The ship seemed pitching fore and aft,
As in a heavy squall;
It gave a lurch and down he went,
Head-foremost in his fall!
Three times he did not rise, alas!
He never rose at all!

But down he went right down at once,
Like any stone he dived,
He could not see, or hear, or feel--
Of senses all deprived!
At last he gave a look around
To see where he arrived!

And all that he could see was green,
Sea-green on every hand!
And then he tried to sound beneath,
And all he felt was sand!
There he was fain to lie, for he
Could neither sit nor stand!

And lo! above his head there bent
A strange and staring lass;
One hand was in her yellow hair,
The other held a glass;
A mermaid she must surely be
If ever mermaid was!

Her fish-like mouth was opened wide,
Her eyes were blue and pale,
Her dress was of the ocean green,
When ruffled by a gale;
Thought he “beneath that petticoat
She hides a salmon-tail!”

She look’d as siren ought to look,
A sharp and bitter shrew,
To sing deceiving lullabies
For mariners to rue,--
But when he saw her lips apart,
It chill’d him through and through!

With either hand he stopp’d his ears
Against her evil cry;
Alas, alas, for all his care,
His doom it seem’d to die,
Her voice went ringing through his head
It was so sharp and high!

He thrust his fingers farther in
At each unwilling ear,
But still in very spite of all
The words were plain and clear;
“I can’t stand here the whole day long,
To hold your glass of beer!”

With open’d mouth and open’d eyes,
Up rose the sub-marine,
And gave a stare to find the sands
And deeps where he had been:
There was no siren with her glass!
No waters ocean-green!

The wet deception from his eyes
Kept fading more and more,
He only saw the bar-maid stand
With pouting lip before--
The small green parlour of the Ship,
And little sanded floor.

THE ISLAND.

“Oh had I some sweet little Isle of my own!”--MOORE.

IF the author of the Irish Melodies had ever had a little Isle so much his own as I have possessed, he might not have found it so sweet as the song anticipates. It has been my fortune, like Robinson Crusoe, and Alexander Selkirk, to be thrown on such a desolate spot, and I felt so lonely, though I had a follower, that I wish Moore had been there. I had the honour of being in that tremendous action off Finisterre, which proved an end of the earth to many a brave fellow. I was ordered with a boarding party to forcibly enter the Santissima Trinidada, but in the act of climbing into the quarter-gallery, which, however, gave no quarter, was rebutted by the butt-end of a marine’s gun, who remained the quarter-master of the place. I fell senseless into the sea, and should no doubt have perished in the waters of oblivion, but for the kindness of John Monday, who picked me up to go adrift with him in one of the ship’s boats. All our oars were carried away, that is to say we did not carry away any oars, and while shot was raining, our feeble hailing was unheeded. In short, as Shakspeare says, we were drifting off by “the current of a heady fight.” As may be supposed, our boat was anything but the jolly-boat, for we had no provisions to spare in the middle of an immense waste. We were, in fact, adrift in the cutter with nothing to cut. We had not even junk for junketing, and nothing but salt-water, even if the wind should blow fresh. Famine indeed seemed to stare each of us in the ace; that is we stared at one another; but if men turn cannibals, a great allowance must be made for a short ditto. We were truly in a very disagreeable pickle, with oceans of brine and no beef, and, like Shylock, I fancy we would have exchanged a pound of gold for a pound of flesh. The more we drifted Nor, the more sharply we inclined to gnaw,--but when we drifted Sow, we found nothing like pork. No bread rose in the east, and in the opposite point we were equally disappointed. We could not compass a meal anyhow, but got mealy-mouth’d notwithstanding. We could see the Sea mews to the eastward, flying over what Byron calls the Gardens of Gull. We saw plenty of Grampus, but they were useless to all intents and porpusses, and we had no bait for catching a bottle-nose.

Time hung heavily on our hands, for our fast days seemed to pass very slowly, and our strength was rapidly sinking from being so much afloat. Still we nourished Hope, though we had nothing to give her. But at last we lost all prospect of land, if one may so say when no land was in sight. The weather got thicker as we were getting thinner; and though we kept a sharp watch, it was a very bad look-out. We could see nothing before us but nothing to eat and drink. At last the fog cleared off, and we saw something like land right a-head, but alas, the wind was in our teeth as well as in our stomachs. We could do nothing but keep her near, and as we could not keep ourselves full, we luckily suited the course of the boat; so that after a tedious beating about--for the wind not only gives blows, but takes a great deal of beating--we came incontinently to an island. Here we landed, and our first impulse on coming to dry land was to drink. There was a little brook at hand to which we applied ourselves till it seemed actually to murmur at our inordinate thirst. Our next care was to look for some food, for though our hearts were full at our escape, the neighbouring region was dreadfully empty. We succeeded in getting some natives out of their bed, and ate them, poor things, as fast as they got up, but with some difficulty in getting them open; a common oyster-knife would have been worth the price of a sceptre. Our next concern was to look out for a lodging, and at last we discovered an empty cave, reminding me of an old inscription at Portsmouth, “The whole of this place to let.” We took the precaution of rolling some great stones to the entrance, for fear of last lodgers,--that some bear might come home from business, or a tiger to tea. Here, under the rock, we slept without rocking, and when, through the night’s failing, the day broke, we saw with the first instalment of light that we were upon a small desert isle, now for the first time an Isle of Man. Accordingly, the birds in this wild solitude were so little wild, that a number of boobies and noddies allowed themselves to be taken by hand, though the asses were not such asses as to be caught. There was an abundance of rabbits, which we chased unremittingly, as Hunt runs Warren; and when coats and trousers fell short, we clothed our skins with theirs, till, as Monday said, we each represented a burrow. In this work Monday was the tailor, for like the maker of shadowy rabbits and cocks upon the wall, he could turn his hand to anything. He became a potter, a carpenter, a butcher, and a baker--that is to say, a master butcher and a master baker, for I became merely his journeyman. Reduced to a state of nature, Monday’s favourite phrase for our condition, I found my being an officer fulfilled no office; to confess the truth, I made a very poor sort of savage, whereas Monday, I am persuaded, would have been made a chief by any tribe whatever. Our situations in life were completely reversed; he became the leader and I the follower, or rather, to do justice to his attachment and ability, he became like a strong big brother to a helpless little one.

We remained in a state of nature five years, when at last a whaler of Hull--though the hull was not visible--showed her masts on the horizon, an event which was telegraphed by Monday, who began saying his prayers and dancing the College Hornpipe at the same time with equal fervour. We contrived by lighting a fire, literally a _feu-de-joie_, to make a sign of distress, and a boat came to our signal deliverance. We had a prosperous passage home, where the reader may anticipate the happiness that awaited us; but not the trouble that was in store for me and Monday. Our parting was out of the question; we would both rather have parted from our sheet anchor. We attempted to return to our relative rank, but we had lived so long in a kind of liberty and equality, that we could never resume our grades. The state of nature remained uppermost with us both, and Monday still watched over and tended me like Dominie Sampson with the boy Harry Bertram; go where I would, he followed with the dogged pertinacity of Tom Pipes; and do what I might, he interfered with the resolute vigour of John Dory in Wild Oats. This disposition involved us daily, nay, hourly, in the most embarrassing circumstances; and how the connexion might have terminated I know not, if it had not been speedily dissolved in a very unexpected manner. One morning poor Monday was found on his bed in a sort of convulsion, which barely enabled him to grasp my hand, and to falter out, “Good-bye, I am go--going--back--to a state of nature.”

DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND.

“Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming....”--OLD BALLAD.

OH what shall I do for a dog?
Of sight I have not got a particle,
Globe, Standard, or Sun,
Times, Chronicle--none
Can give _me_ a good leading article.

A Mastiff once led me about,
But people appeared so to fear him--
I might have got pence
Without his defence,
But Charity would not come near him.

A Blood-hound was not much amiss,
But instinct at last got the upper;
And tracking Bill Soames,
And thieves to their homes,
I never could get home to supper.

A Fox-hound once served me as guide,
A good one at hill and at valley;
But day after day
He led me astray,
To follow a milk-woman’s tally.

A turnspit once did me good turns
At going and crossing, and stopping;
Till one day his breed
Went off at full speed,
To spit at a great fire in Wapping.

A Pointer once pointed my way,
But did not turn out quite so pleasant,
Each hour I’d a stop
At a Poulterer’s shop
To point at a very high pheasant.

A Pug did not suit me at all,
The feature unluckily rose up;
And folks took offence
When offering pence,
Because of his turning his nose up.

A Butcher once gave me a dog,
That turn’d out the worst one of any;
A Bull dog’s own pup,
I got a toss up,
Before he had brought me a penny.

My next was a Westminster Dog,
From Aistrop the regular cadger;
But sightless, I saw
He never would draw
A blind man so well as a badger.

A greyhound I got by a swop,
But, Lord! we soon came to divorces:
He treated my strip
Of cord like a slip,
And left me to go my own courses.

A poodle once tow’d me along,
But always we came to one harbour
To keep his curls smart,
And shave his hind part,
He constantly call’d on a barber.

My next was a Newfoundland brute,
As big as a calf fit for slaughter;
But my old cataract
So truly he back’d
I always fell into the water.

I once had a sheep-dog for guide,
His worth did not value a button;
I found it no go,
A Smithfield Ducrow,
To stand on four saddles of mutton.

My next was an Esquimaux dog,
A dog that my bones ache to talk on,
For picking his ways
On cold frosty days
He pick’d out the slides for a walk on.

Bijou was a lady-like dog,
But vex’d me at night not a little,
When tea-time was come
She would not go home,
Her tail had once trail’d a tin kettle.

I once had a sort of a Shock,
And kiss’d a street post like a brother,
And lost every tooth
In learning this truth--
One blind cannot well lead another.

A terrier was far from a trump,
He had one defect, and a thorough,
I never could stir,
’Od rabbit the cur!
Without going into the Borough.

My next was Dalmatian, the dog!
And led me in danger, oh crikey!
By chasing horse heels,
Between carriage wheels,
Till I came upon boards that were spiky.