Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I
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Title: Bentley's Miscellany, Volume I
Author: Various
Editor: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Richard Bentley
Release date: January 4, 2014 [eBook #44578]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44578
Credits: Produced by Paul Marshall, Jason Isbell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY, VOLUME I ***
[** Transcriber's Note:
The [oe] ligature has been replaced with simply "oe".
The cross symbols have been replaced by [cross].
Greek words have been transliterated, and enclosed in square
brackets, e.g. [Greek: kala reethra]
In the original, the Signs of the Zodiac song on page 397 contains
astrological symbols after each mention of the signs of the
zodiac. The symbols have been omitted in this text version. ]
[Illustration: GEORGE COLMAN, The Younger]
BENTLEY'S
MISCELLANY
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1837.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,
Dormet Street, Fleet Street.
EDITOR'S ADDRESS
ON THE COMPLETION OF THE
FIRST VOLUME.
At the end of a theatrical season it is customary for the manager to
step forward, and, in as few words as may be, to say how very much
obliged he feels for all past favours, and how very ready he is to incur
fresh obligations.
With a degree of candour which few managers would display, we cheerfully
confess that we have been fairly inundated with _orders_ during our six
months' campaign; but so liberal are we, notwithstanding, that we place
many of the very first authors of the day on our free list, and invite
them to write for our establishment just as much paper as they think
proper.
We have produced a great variety of novelties, some of which we humbly
hope may become stock pieces, and all of which we may venture to say
have been must successful; and, although we are not subject to the
control of a licenser, we have eschewed everything political, personal,
or ill-natured, with perhaps as much care as we could possibly have
shown, even had we been under the watchful eye of the Lord Chamberlain
himself.
We shall open our Second Volume, ladies and gentlemen, on the first
day of July, One thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven, when we
shall have the pleasure of submitting a great variety of entirely new
pieces for your judgment and approval. The company will be numerous,
first-rate, and complete. The scenery will continue to be supplied by
the creative pencil of Mr. George Cruikshank; the whole of the extensive
and beautiful machinery will be, as heretofore, under the immediate
superintendence of Mr. Samuel Bentley, of Dorset-street, Fleet-street;
and Mr. Richard Bentley, of New Burlington-street, has kindly consented
to preside over the Treasury department, where he has already conducted
himself with uncommon ability.
The stage management will again be confided, ladies and gentlemen, to
the humble individual with the short name, who has now the honour to
address you, and who hopes, for very many years to come, to appear
before you in the same capacity. Permit him to add in sober seriousness,
that it has been the constant and unremitting endeavour of himself and
the proprietor to render this undertaking worthy of your patronage. That
they have not altogether failed in their attempt, its splendid success
sufficiently demonstrates; that they have no intention of relaxing in
their efforts, its future Volumes we trust will abundantly testify.
"BOZ."
_London,_
_June, 1837._
CONTENTS
OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
Page
Songs of the Month--January, by "Father Prout;" 1
February, by Dr. Maginn; 105
March, by Samuel Lover; 325
April, by W. H. Ainsworth; 429
May and June, by J. A. Wade 533
Prologue, by Dr. Maginn 2
Opening Chaunt 6
Recollections of the late George Colman, by Theodore Hook 7
The "Monstre" Balloon 17
Handy Andy, by Samuel Lover 20,169,373
Legend of Manor Hall, by the Author of "Headlong Hall" 29
Terence O'Shaughnessy, by the Author of "Stories of Waterloo" 33
The Sabine Farmer's Serenade, by Father Prout 45
Public Life of Mr. Tulrumble, by Boz 49
The Hot Wells of Clifton, by Father Prout 63
The Marine Ghost, by the Author of "Rattlin the Reefer" 65
Old Age and Youth, by T. Haynes Bayly 79
An Evening of Visits, by the Author of "The Pilot" 80
Who are you?--Metastasio, Fontenelle, and Samuel Lover 88
Metropolitan Men of Science 89
Kyan's Patent--the Nine Muses and the Dry-rot 93
The Original of "Not a Drum was heard," by Father Prout 96
A Gossip with some old English Poets, by C. Ollier 98
The Rising Periodical; Mr. Verdant's Account of the last
aërial ascent, by T. Haynes Bayly 101
An Italian Anecdote, by the Author of "Hajji Baba" 103
Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress, by Boz 105,218,326,430
Richie Barter 116
Plunder Creek, by the Author of "Tales of an Antiquary" 121
The Spectre 131
Authors and Actors, a dramatic sketch 132
A Gossip with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, by Hamilton Reynolds 138
A Lament over the Bannister 151
Theatrical Advertisement Extraordinary 152
The Abbess and Duchess, by T. Haynes Bayly 153
Edward Saville, by C. Whitehead 155
A Fragment of Romance 165
Lines on John Bannister, by Sir George Rose 168
Lines to a Lyric and Artist 177
Biographical Sketch of Richardson, by W. Jerdan 178
Paddy Blake's Echo, by J. A. Wade 186
Recollections of Childhood, by the author of "Headlong Hall" 187
Epigrams 190,409,493,508
540,564,583,590
Family Stories, by Thomas Ingoldsby:
No. I. Spectre of Tappington 191
II. Legend of Hamilton Tighe 266
III. Grey Dolphin 341
IV. The Squire's Story 529
V. The Execution, a Sporting Anecdote 561
The Wide-awake Club 208
A Remnant of the Time of Izaak Walton 230
The "Original" Dragon, by C. J. Davids 231
A Passage in the Life of Beaumarchais, by George Hogarth 233
Mars and Venus, by C. F. Le Gros 247
An Evening Meditation 250
The Devil and Johnny Dixon,
by the Author of "Stories of Waterloo" 251
A Merry Christmas, by T. Haynes Bayly 260
Nights at Sea, by the Old Sailor:
No. I. The Captain's Cabin 269
II. The White Squall 474
III. The Chase and the Forecastle Yarn 621
Remains of Hajji Baba, by the Author of "Zohrab" 280,364,487
The Portrait Gallery, by the Author of "The Bee Hive" 286,442
The Sorrows of Life 290
Stray Chapters, by Boz:
No. I. The Pantomime of Life 291
II. Particulars concerning a Lion 515
Memoirs of Samuel Foote 298
The Two Butlers of Kilkenny 306
The Little Bit of Tape, by Richard Johns 313
Hippothanasia, or the last of Tails,
a lamentable Tale, by W. Jerdan 319
The Grand Cham of Tartary, by C. J. Davids 339
The Dumb Waiter 340
Friar Laurence and Juliet, by T. Haynes Bayly 354
Unpublished Letters of Addison 356
Sonnet to a Fog, by Egerton Webbe 371
Biography of Aunt Jemima, by F. H. Rankin 382
Scenes in the Life of a Gambler, by Captain Medwin 387
Les Poissons d'Avril; a Gastronomical Chaunt, by Father Prout 397
The Anatomy of Courage, by Prince Puckler Muskau 398
Song of the Cover 402
The Cobbler of Dort 403
Hero and Leander, by T. Chapman 410
The Admirable Crichton 416
Memoirs of Sheridan 419
Summer Night's Reverie, by J. A. Wade 428
Peter Plumbago's Correspondence 448
The Blue Wonder 450
The Youth's Vade Mecum, by C. Whitehead 461
A Visit to the Madrigal Society 465
Love and Poverty 469
Reflections in a Horse-pond 470
Inscription for a Cemetery 473
The Useful Young Man, by W. Collier 485
A London Fog 492
Shakspeare Papers, by Dr. Maginn:
No. I. Sir John Falstaff 495
II. Jaques 550
Steam Trip to Hamburgh 509
Legend of Bohis Head 519
Bob Burns and Beranger; Sam Lover and Ovidius Naso;
by "Father Prout" 525
Periodical Literature of the North American Indians 534
An Epitaph 540
Darby the Swift, by J. A. Wade 541
The Romance of a Day, by "The Bashful Irishman" 565
The Man with the Tuft, by T. Haynes Bayly 576
The Minister's Fate; from "Recollections of H. T." 577
Love in the City, by the Author of "Stories of Waterloo" 584
Mrs. Jennings 591
Hints for an Historical Play, by Thomas Ingoldsby 597
John Pooledoune, the Victim of Improvements, by W. Jerdan 599
The Legend of Mount Pilate, by G. Dance 608
Glorvina, the Maid of Meath, by J. Sheridan Knowles 614
Ode upon the Birth-day of the Princess Victoria, by J. A. Wade 620
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Portrait of George Colman _Frontispiece_
Handy Andy, No. I. by S. Lover Page 20
Procession at the Inauguration of Mr. Tulrumble
as Mayor of Mudfog, by George Cruikshank 49
Who are you? by S. Lover 88
Oliver Twist, by George Cruikshank 105
Handy Andy, No. II. by S. Lover 169
Spectre of Tappington, by Buss 191
Oliver Twist, No. II. by George Cruikshank 218
Portrait of Samuel Foote, by Sir Joshua Reynolds 298
The Little Bit of Tape, by Phiz 313
Oliver Twist, No. III. by George Cruikshank 326
Portrait of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, by Ozias Humphreys 419
Oliver Twist, No. IV. by George Cruikshank 430
Nights at Sea, by George Cruikshank 474
The Romance of a Day, by George Cruikshank 565
Nights at Sea, by George Cruikshank 621
BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.
OUR SONG OF THE MONTH.
No. I. January, 1837.
THE BOTTLE OF ST. JANUARIUS.
I.
In the land of the citron and myrtle, we're told
That the blood of a MARTYR is kept in a phial,
Which, though all the year round, it lie torpid and cold,
Yet grasp but the crystal, 'twill _warm_ the first trial ...
Be it fiction or truth, with your favourite FACT,
O, profound LAZZARONI! I seek not to quarrel;
But indulge an old priest who would simply extract
From your legend, a lay--from your martyr, a moral.
II.
Lo! with icicled beard JANUARIUS comes!
And the blood in his veins is all frozen and gelid,
And he beareth a bottle; but TORPOR benumbs
Every limb of the saint:--Would ye wish to dispel it?
With the hand of good-fellowship grasp the hoar sage--
Soon his joints will relax and his pulse will beat quicker;
Grasp the _bottle_ he brings--'twill grow warm. I'll engage,
Till the frost of each heart lies dissolved in the LIQUOR!
_Probatum est._ P. PROUT.
WATER-GRASS-HILL, _Kal. Januarii_.
PROLOGUE.
For us, and our Miscellany,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
SHAKSPEARE, _with a difference_.
"Doctor," said a young gentleman to Dean Swift, "I intend to set up for
a wit."
"Then," said the Doctor, "I advise you to sit down again."
The anecdote is unratified by a name, for the young gentleman continues
to the present day to be anonymous, as he will, in all probability,
continue to future time; and as for Dean Swift, his name, being merely
that of a wit by profession, goes for nothing. We apprehend that the
tale is not much better than what is to be read in the pages of
Joe Miller.
But, supposing it true,--and the joke is quite bad enough to be
authentic,--we must put in our plea that it is not to apply to us. The
fact is absolutely undeniable that we originally advertised ourselves or
rather our work as, the "Wits' Miscellany,"--thereby indicating, beyond
all doubt, that we of the Miscellany were WITS. It is our firm hope that
the public, which is in general a most tender-hearted individual, will
not give us a rebuff similar to that which the unnamed young gentleman
experienced at the hands, or the tongue, of the implacable
Dean of St. Patrick.
It has been frequently remarked,--and indeed we have more than
fifty times experienced the fact ourselves,--that of all the stupid
dinner-parties, by far the stupidest is that at which the cleverest men
in all the world do congregate. A single lion is a pleasant show: he
wags his tail in proper order; his teeth are displayed in due course;
his hide is systematically admired, and his mane fitly appreciated.
If he roars, good!--if he aggravates his voice to the note of a
sucking-dove, better! All look on in the appropriate mood of delight,
as Theseus and Hippolita, enraptured at the dramatic performance of
Snug the Joiner. But when there comes a menagerie of lions, the case
is altered. Too much familiarity, as the lawyers say in their peculiar
jargon, begets contempt. We recollect, many years ago, when some
ingenious artist in Paris proposed to make Brussels lace or blonde by
machinery at the rate of a _sou_ per ell, to have congratulated a lady
of our acquaintance on this important saving in the main expenditure
of the fair sex. "You will have," said we, "a cap which now costs four
hundred francs for less than fifty. Think of that!"
"Think of that!" said the countess, casting upon us the darkest
expression of indignation that her glowing eyes [and what eyes they
were!--but no matter] could let loose,--"think of that, indeed! Do you
think that I should ever wear such rags as are to be bought for fifty
francs?"
There was no arguing the matter: it was useless to say that the
fifty-franc article, if the plan had succeeded, (which, however, it did
not,) would have been precisely and in every thread the same as that set
down at five hundred. The crowd of fine things generated by cheapness,
in general, was quite enough to dim the finery of any portion of them
in particular.
We are much afraid that we run somewhat loose of our original design
in these rambling remarks. But it is always easy to come back to the
starting-post. Abandoning metaphor and figure of all kinds, we were
endeavouring to express our conviction, drawn from experience, that
a company of professed wits might be justly suspected to be a dull
concern. Every man is on the alert to guard against surprise.
Through all the seven courses laid down,
Each jester looks sour on his brother;
The wit dreads the punster's renown,
The buffoon tries the mimic to smother:
He who shines in the sharp repartee
Envies him who can yarn a droll story;
And the jolly bass voice in a glee
Will think your adagio but snory.
This is, we admit at once, and in anticipation of the reader's already
expressed opinion, a very poor imitation of the opening song of the
Beggar's Opera.
If this melancholy fact of the stupidity of congregated wits be
admitted to be true, the question comes irresistibly, thrown in our
faces in the very language of the street, "Who are _you_? Have not you
advertised yourselves as wits, and can you escape from the soft-headed
impeachment?" We reply nothing; we stand mute. It will be our time
this day twelvemonths to offer to the pensive public a satisfactory
replication to that somewhat personal interrogatory. Yet--
Having in our minds, and the interior _sensoria_ of our consciences,
some portion of modesty yet lingering behind--how small that portion
may be is best known to those who have campaigned for a few years upon
the press, and thence learned the diffident mildness which naturally
adheres to the pursuit of enlightening the public mind, and advancing
the march of general intellect;--possessed, we say, of that quantity of
retiring bashfulness, it is undeniable that, like one of the Passions
in Collins's Ode,--we forget which, but we fear it is Fear,--we, after
showing forth in the best public instructors as the Wits' Miscellany,
Back recoiled,
Scared at the sound ourselves had made.
To this resolution we were also led by the fact, that such a title would
altogether exclude from our pages contributions of great merit--which,
although exhibiting comic faculty, would also deal with the shadows of
human life, and sound the deep wells of the heart.
We agreed that the work should not be called "The Wits'" any longer. We
massacred the title as ruthlessly as ever were massacred its namesakes
in Holland: and, agreeing to an _emendatio_, we now sail under the title
of our worthy publisher, which happens to be the same as that of him who
is by all _viri clarissimi_ adopted as _criticorum longè doctissimus_,
RICARDUS BENTLEIUS; or, to drop Latin lore--Richard Bentley.
Here then, ladies and gentlemen, we introduce to your special and
particular notice
BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY.
What may be in the Miscellany it is your business to find out. Here lie
the goods, warehoused, bonded, ticketed, and labelled, at your service.
You have only, with the Genius in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments,
to cry, "Fish, fish, do your duty;" and if they are under-cooked or
over-cooked, if the seasoning is too high or the fire too low, if they
be burnt on one side and raw on the other,--why, gentle readers, it is
your business to complain. All we have to say here, is, that we have
made our haul in the best fishing-grounds, and, if we were ambitious of
pun-making, we might add, that we had well baited our _hooks_--caught
some choice _souls_--flung our lines into right _places_--and so forth,
as might easily he expanded by the students of Mr. Commissioner Dubois's
art of punning made easy.
What we propose is simply this:--We do not envy the fame or glory of
other monthly publications. Let them all have their room. We do not
desire to jostle them in their course to fame or profit, even if it
was in our power to do so. One may revel in the unmastered fun and
the soul-touching feeling of Wilson, the humour of Hamilton, the dry
jocularity and the ornamented poetry of Moir, the pathos of Warren, the
tender sentiment of Caroline Bowles, the eloquence of Croly, and the
Tory brilliancy of half a hundred contributors zealous in the cause of
Conservatism. Another may shake our sides with the drolleries of Gilbert
Gurney and his fellows, poured forth from the inexhaustible reservoir
of the wit of our contributor Theodore Hook,--captivate or agitate us by
the Hibernian Tales of Mrs. Hall,--or rouse the gentlest emotions by the
fascinating prose or delicious verse of our fairest of _collaborateuses_
Miss Landon. In a third we must admire the polyglot facetiæ of our
own Father Prout, and the delicate appreciation of the classical and
elegant which pervades the writings of the Greek-thoughted Chapman;
while its rough drollery, its bold bearing, its mirth, its learning, its
courage, and its caricatures, (when, confined to the harmless and the
mirth-provoking, they abstain from invading the sanctuary of private
life,) are all deserving of the highest applause, though we should
be somewhat sorry to stand in the way of receiving the consequences
which they occasionally entail. Elsewhere, what can be better than
Marryat, Peter Simple, Jacob Faithful, Midshipman Easy, or whatever
other title pleases his ear; A Smollett of the sea revived, equal to
the Doctor in wit, and somewhat purged of his grossness. In short, to
all our periodical contemporaries we wish every happiness and success;
and for those among their contributors whose writings tend to amuse or
instruct,--and many among them there are to whom such praise may be
justly applied,--we feel the highest honour and respect. We wish that
we could catch them all, to illuminate our pages, without any desire
whatever that their rays should be withdrawn from those in which they
are at present shining.
Our path is single and distinct. In the first place, we have nothing
to do with politics. We are so far Conservatives as to wish that all
things which are good and honourable for our native country should be
preserved with jealous hand. We are so far Reformers as to desire that
every weed which defaces our conservatory should be unsparingly plucked
up and cast away. But is it a matter of absolute necessity that people's
political opinions should be perpetually obtruded upon public notice? Is
there not something more in the world to be talked about than Whig and
Tory? We do not quarrel with those who find or make it their vocation to
show us annually, or quarterly, or hebdomadally, or diurnally, how we
are incontestably saved or ruined; they have chosen their line of walk,
and a pleasant one no doubt it is; but, for our softer feet may it not
be permitted to pick out a smoother and a greener promenade,--a path of
springy turf and odorous sward, in which no rough pebble will lacerate
the ancle, no briery thorn penetrate the wandering sole?
Truce, however, to prefacing. We well know that speechmaking never yet
won an election, because something more tangible than speechifying
is requisite. So it is with books; and, indeed, so is it with every
thing else in the world. We must be judged by our works. We have only
one petition to make, which is put in with all due humility,--it is
this--that we are not to be pre-judged by this our first attempt.
Nothing is more probable than that many of our readers, and they
fair-going people too, will think this number a matter not at all to be
commended; and we, with perfect modesty, suggest, on the other side, the
propriety of their suspending their opinion as to our demerits until
they see the next. And then----And then! Well!--what then? Why, we do
not know: and, as it is generally ruled, that, when a man cannot speak,
he is bound to sing, we knock ourselves down for a song.
Our Opening Chaunt.
I.
Come round and hear, my public dear,
Come hear, and judge it gently,--
The prose so terse, and flowing verse,
Of us, the wits of Bentley.
II.
We offer not intricate plot
To muse upon intently;
No tragic word, no bloody sword,
Shall stain the page of Bentley.
III.
The tender song which all day long
Resounds so sentimént'ly,
Through wood and grove all full of love,
Will find no place in Bentley.
IV.
Nor yet the speech which fain would teach
All nations eloquéntly;--
'Tis quite too grand for us the bland
And modest men of Bentley.
V.
For science deep no line we keep,
We speak it reveréntly;--
From sign to sign the sun may shine,
Untelescoped by Bentley.
VI.
Tory and Whig, in accents big,
May wrangle violéntly:
Their party rage shan't stain the page--
The neutral page of Bentley.
VII.
The scribe whose pen is mangling men
And women pestiléntly,
May take elsewhere his wicked ware,--
He finds no mart in Bentley.
VIII.
It pains us not to mark the spot
Where Dan may find his rént lie;
The Glasgow chiel may shout for Peel,
We know them not in Bentley.
IX.
Those who admire a merry lyre,--
Those who would hear attent'ly
A tale of wit, or flashing hit,--
Are ask'd to come to Bentley.
X.
Our hunt will be for grace and glee,
Where thickest may the scent lie;
At slashing pace begins the chase--
Now for the burst of Bentley.
GEORGE COLMAN.
That a life of this eminent and much regretted man will be written
by some competent author, there can be little doubt. That he himself
extended his "_Random Records_" no further than two volumes, containing
the history and anecdotes of the early part of his career, is greatly
to be lamented. What is here collected is merely worthy of being called
"Recollections," and does not assume to itself the character of a piece
of biography.
Mr. Colman was the grandson of Francis Colman, Esq. British Resident
at the Court of Tuscany at Pisa, who married a sister of the Countess
of Bath. George Colman the elder, father of him of whom we write, was
born about the year 1733, at Florence, and was placed at an early age
at Westminster School, where he very soon distinguished himself by the
rapidity of his attainments. In 1748 he went to Christchurch College,
Oxford, where he took his Master's degree; and shortly became the friend
and associate of Churchill, Bonnell Thornton, Lloyd, and the other
principal wits and writers of the day.
Lord Bath was greatly struck by his merit and accomplishments, and
induced him to adopt the law as his profession. He accordingly entered
at Lincoln's Inn, and was eventually called to the bar. It appears--as
it happened afterwards to his son--that the drier pursuits of his
vocation were neglected or abandoned in favour of literature and the
drama. His first poetical performance was a copy of verses addressed to
his cousin, Lord Pulteney. But it was not till 1760 that he produced any
dramatic work: in that year he brought out "Polly Honeycombe," which met
with considerable success.
It is remarkable that, previous to that season, no new comedy had been
produced at either theatre for nine years; and equally remarkable
that the year 1761 should have brought before the public "The Jealous
Wife," by Colman, "The way to Keep Him," by Murphy, and "The Married
Libertine," by Macklin.
In the following year Lord Bath died, and left Mr. Colman a very
comfortable annuity, but less in value than he had anticipated. In
1767, General Pulteney, Lord Bath's successor, died, and left him a
second annuity, which secured him in independence for life. And here it
may be proper to notice a subject which George Colman the younger has
touched before in his "Random Records," in which he corrects a hasty and
incautious error of the late Margravine of Anspach, committed by her, in
her "Memoirs." Speaking of George Colman the elder, she says,
"He was a natural son of Lord Bath, Sir James Pulteney; and his father,
perceiving in the son a passion for plays, asked him fairly if he never
intended to turn his thoughts to politics, as it was his desire to see
him a minister, which, with his natural endowments, and the expense and
pains he had bestowed on his education, he had reason to imagine, with
his interest, he might become. His _father_ desired to know if he would
give up the Muses for diplomacy, and plays for politics; as, in that
case, he meant to give him his whole fortune. Colman thanked Lord Bath
for his kind communication, but candidly said, that he preferred Thalia
and Melpomene to ambition of any kind, for the height of his wishes was
to become, at some future time, the manager of a theatre. Lord Bath left
him fifteen hundred pounds a-year, instead of all his immense wealth."
Mr. Colman, after exposing the strange mistake of calling _the_
Sir William Pulteney, James, goes on to state, that, being the son
of his wife's sister, Lord Bath, on the death of Francis Colman
(his brother-in-law), which occurred when the elder George was but
one year old, took him entirely under his protection, and placed
him progressively at Westminster, Oxford, and Lincoln's Inn. In
corroboration of the else unquestioned truth of this statement, he
refers to the posthumous pamphlets of his highly-gifted parent, and
justly takes credit for saving him from imputed illegitimacy, by
explaining that his grandmother was exempt from the conjugal frailty of
Venus, and his grandfather from the fate of Vulcan.
George Colman the elder suffered severely from the effects of a
paralytic affection, which, in the year 1790, produced mental
derangement; and, after living in seclusion for four years, he died on
the 14th of April 1794, having been during his life a joint proprietor
of Covent Garden Theatre, and sole proprietor of the little theatre in
the Haymarket.
George Colman the younger became, at Westminster, the schoolfellow and
associate of the present Archbishop of York, the Marquess of Anglesea,
the late Earl of Buckinghamshire, Doctor Robert Willis, Mr. Reynolds,
his brother dramatist, the present Earl Somers, and many other persons,
who have since, like himself, become distinguished members of society.
The account which Mr. Colman gives of his introduction by his father to
Johnson, Goldsmith, and Foote, when a child, is so highly graphic, and
so strongly characteristic of the man, that we give an abridgement
of it here:
"On the day of my introduction," says Colman, "Dr. Johnson was asked to
dinner at my father's house in Soho-square, and the erudite savage came
a full hour before his time. My father, having dressed himself hastily,
took me with him into the drawing-room.
"On our entrance, we found Johnson sitting in a _fauteuil_ of
rose-coloured satin. He was dressed in a rusty suit of brown, cloth
_dittos_, with black worsted stockings; his old yellow wig was of
formidable dimensions; and the learned head which sustained it rolled
about in a seemingly paralytic motion; but, in the performance of its
orbit, it inclined chiefly to one shoulder.
"He deigned not to rise on our entrance; and we stood before him while
he and my father talked. There was soon a pause in the colloquy;
and my father, making his advantage of it, took me by the hand, and
said,--'Dr. Johnson, this is a little Colman.' The doctor bestowed a
slight ungracious glance upon me, and, continuing the rotary motion
of his head, renewed the previous conversation. Again there was a
pause;--again the anxious father, who had failed in his first effort,
seized the opportunity for pushing his progeny, with--'This is my son,
Dr. Johnson.' The great man's contempt for me was now roused to wrath;
and, knitting his brows, he exclaimed in a voice of thunder, 'I _see_
him, sir!' He then fell back in his rose-coloured satin _fauteuil_,
as if giving himself up to meditation; implying that he would not be
further plagued, either with an old fool or a young one.
"After this rude rebuff from the doctor, I had the additional felicity
to be placed next to him at dinner: he was silent over his meal; but
I observed that he was, as Shylock says of Lancelot Gobbo, 'a huge
feeder;' and during the display of his voracity, (which was worthy of
_Bolt_ Court,) the perspiration fell in copious drops from his visage
upon the table-cloth."
"Oliver Goldsmith, several years before my luckless presentation to
Johnson, proved how 'doctors differ.' I was only five years old when
Goldsmith took me on his knee, while he was drinking coffee, one
evening, with my father, and began to play with me; which amiable act I
returned with the ingratitude of a peevish brat, by giving him a very
smart slap in the face; it must have been a tingler, for it left the
marks of my little spiteful paw upon his cheek. This infantile outrage
was followed by summary justice; and I was locked up by my indignant
father in an adjoining room, to undergo solitary imprisonment in the
dark. Here I began to howl and scream most abominably; which was no bad
step towards liberation, since those who were not inclined to pity me
might be likely to set me free, for the purpose of abating a nuisance.
"At length a generous friend appeared to extricate me from jeopardy,
and that generous friend was no other than the man I had so wantonly
molested by assault and battery; it was the tender-hearted doctor
himself, with a lighted candle in his hand, and a smile upon his
countenance, which was still partially red from the effects of my
petulance. I sulked and sobbed, and he fondled and soothed; till I began
to brighten. Goldsmith, who, in regard to children, was like the village
preacher he has so beautifully described,--for
'Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed,'--
seized the propitious moment of returning good-humour; so he put down
the candle, and began to conjure. He placed three hats, which happened
to be in the room, upon the carpet, and a shilling under each: the
shillings he told me, were England, France, and Spain. 'Hey, presto,
cockolorum!' cried the doctor,--and, lo! on uncovering the shillings
which had been dispersed, each beneath a separate hat, they were all
found congregated under one. I was no politician at five years old,
and, therefore, might not have wondered at the sudden revolution which
brought England, France, and Spain all under one crown; but, as I was
also no conjuror, it amazed me beyond measure. Astonishment might have
amounted to awe for one who appeared to me gifted with the power of
performing miracles, if the good-nature of the man had not obviated my
dread of the magician; but, from that time, whenever the doctor came to
visit my father,
'I pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile;
a game at romps constantly ensued, and we were always cordial friends,
and merry play-fellows.
"Foote's earliest notices of me were far from flattering; but, though
they had none of Goldsmith's tenderness, they had none of Johnson's
ferocity; and when he accosted me with his usual salutation of 'Blow
your nose, child!' there was a whimsical manner, and a broad grin upon
his features, which always made me laugh.
"His own nose was generally begrimed with snuff; and, if he had never
been more facetious than upon the subject of my _emunctories_, which,
by the bye, did not went cleansing, I need not tell the reader, that he
would not have been distinguished as a wit;--he afterwards condescended
to pass better jokes upon me.
"The paradoxical celebrity which he maintained upon the stage was very
singular; his satirical sketches were scarcely dramas, and he could not
be called a good legitimate performer. Yet there is no Shakspeare or
Roscius upon record who, like Foote, supported a theatre for a series of
years by his own acting, in his own writings, and, for ten years of the
time, upon a _wooden leg_!"
The reader, if he have not seen these passages before, will, we are
sure, sympathise with us in our regrets that the work from which we
extract them, carries us only in its two volumes to the year 1785,--a
period at which Colman's fame and reputation had yet to be made.
His first decidedly successful drama was "Inkle and Yarico:" this at
once established his character as an author. "Ways and Means," "The
Mountaineers," and "The Iron Chest" followed; and in 1798 he published
those admirable poems known as "My Night-gown and Slippers." His
greatest literary triumphs were, however, yet to come. "The Heir at Law"
was his first regular comedy; and we doubt very much whether he ever
excelled it, or, indeed, if it has been excelled by more than a very few
plays in the English language. We know that the theatrical world, and
we believe the author himself, gave a decided preference to "John Bull;"
but we admit that as we are unfashionable enough to prefer Sheridan's
"Rivals" to his "School for Scandal," so are we prepared unhesitatingly
to declare our opinion that "The Heir at Law" is Colman's
_chef d'oeuvre_.
"The Poor Gentleman" is an excellent play; and "Who wants a Guinea?"
although not so decidedly successful as its predecessors, teems
with that rich humour and quaintness of thought which so strongly
characterise the writing of its author. His farces of "The Review,"
"Love laughs at Locksmiths," "We fly by Night," and several others,
are all admirable in their way. These were given to the town as the
reductions of Arthur Griffinhoofe, a _nom de guerre_, however, which
proved quite inefficient in making the public mistake the source whence
their amusement was derived.
In 1819, Mr. Colman finally retired from the proprietorship and
management of the Haymarket Theatre. Upon the escape and flight from
England of Captain Davis, the lieutenant of the Yeoman Guard, his
Majesty George the Fourth appointed Mr. Colman to succeed him; and on
the death of Mr. Larpent he also received the appointment of Examiner
of Plays. The former office he relinquished in favour of Sir John Gete,
some three or four years since; and in the latter he has, as our readers
know, been succeeded by Mr. Charles Kemble.
It would be unjust and unfair to the memory of Mr. Colman were we to
let slip this opportunity of saying a few words upon the subject of his
conduct in the execution of the duties of this situation; because it
has been made the object of attack even by men of the highest talent
and reputation, as well as the low ribald abuse of their literary
inferiors,--which, however, considering the source whence it came, is
not worth noticing.
It has been alleged that Mr. Colman was unnecessarily rigid in his
exclusion of oaths and profane sayings from the dramatic works submitted
to his inspection; and the gist of the arguments against him touching
this rigour went to show that he ought not to expunge such expressions
as examiner, because he had used such expressions himself as an author.
This reasoning is absurd, the conclusion inconsequential. When Mr.
Colman wrote plays, he was not bound by oath to regulate their language
by any fixed standard; and, as all other dramatists of the day had done,
in a dialogue or depicting a character he used in some--perhaps all
his dramas--occasional expletives. But Mr. Colman's plays then had to
be submitted to an examiner, who, conscientiously, did his duty; and,
from the high moral character of the late licenser, there can be little
lesson for doubting that _he_, like his successor, drew his pen across
any expression which he might have considered objectionable; but no one
ever complained of this, because Mr. Larpent had never written a play,
or used an oath in its dialogues.
When Mr. Colman assumed the legal and necessary power of correction,
he had but one course to pursue: he was sworn to perform a certain
duty assigned to him to the best of his judgment, and to correct any
expressions which he might consider injurious to the state or to
morality. What had _he_ to do, as licenser, with what he had himself
done as author? The _tu quoque_ principle in this use is even more than
usually absurd; it is as if a schoolmaster were to be prevented from
flogging a boy for breaking windows, because, when he was a boy, he had
broken windows himself.
As we have already stated that it is not our intention to make these
few pages a piece of biography, we shall leave to some better qualified
person to give the more minute details of Mr. Colman's life. The
following lines, written by himself, now many years since, and when
he himself was under fifty, give as good an epitome of his career up
to that period as fifty pages of matter-of-fact; and from that time
until the occurrence of the sad event to which the last stanza, so
pathetically--as it _now_ reads--refers, he lived on in happiness
and comfort.
A RECKONING WITH TIME.
I.
Come on, old Time!--Nay, that is stuff;
Gaffer! thou comest fast enough;
Wing'd foe to feather'd Cupid!--
But tell me, Sand-man, ere thy grains
Have multiplied upon my brains,
So thick to make me stupid;--
II.
Tell me, Death's journeyman!--But no!
Hear thou my speech: I will not grow
Irreverent while I try it;
For, though I mock thy flight, 'tis said
The forelock fills me with such dread,
I never take thee by it.
III.
List, then, old Is, Was, and To-be;
I'll state accounts 'twixt thee and me.
Thou gav'st me, first, the measles;
With teething would'st have ta'en me off;
Then mad'st me, with the hooping-cough,
Thinner than fifty weasels;
IV.
Thou gav'st small-pox, (the dragon now
That Jenner combats on a cow,)
And then some seeds of knowledge,--
Grains of Grammar, which the flails
Of pedants thresh upon our tails,
To fit us for a college.
V.
And, when at Christ-Church, 'twas thy sport
To rack my brains with sloe-juice port,
And lectures out of number!
There Freshman Folly quaffs and sings,
While Graduate Dullness clogs thy wings
With mathematic lumber.
VI.
Thy pinions next,--which, while they wave,
Fan all our birth-days to the grave,--
I think, ere it was prudent,
Balloon'd me from the schools to town,
Where I was parachuted down,
A dapper Temple student.
VII.
Then, much in dramas did I look,--
Much slighted thee and great Lord Coke:
Congreve beat Blackstone hollow;
Shakspeare made all the statues stale,
And in my crown no pleas had Hale
To supersede Apollo.
VIII.
Ah! Time, those raging heats, I find,
Were the mere dog-star of my mind;
How cool is retrospection!
Youth's gaudy summer solstice o'er,
Experience yields a mellow store,--
An autumn of reflection!
IX.
Why did I let the God of song
Lure me from law to join his throng,
Gull'd by some slight applauses?
What's verse to A. when versus B.?
Or what John Bull, a comedy,
To pleading John Bull's causes!
X.
Yet, though my childhood felt disease,--
Though my lank purse, unswoll'n by fees,
Some ragged Muse has netted,--
Still, honest Chronos! 'tis most true,
To thee (and, 'faith! to others too,)
I'm very much indebted.
XI.
For thou hast made me gaily tough,
Inured me to each day that's rough,
In hopes of calm to-morrow.
And when, old mower of us all,
Beneath thy sweeping scythe I fall,
Some few dear friends will sorrow.
XII.
Then, though my idle prose or rhyme
Should, half an hour, outlive me, Time,
Pray bid the stone-engravers,
Where'er my bones find church-yard room,
Simply to chisel on my tomb,--
"Thank Time for all his favours!"
It is a curious coincidence--although considering the proximity of
their ages there may be nothing really strange in it--that Mr. Colman
and his intimate friend Bannister should have quitted this mortal world
so nearly at the same time. The circumstance, however, gives us an
opportunity of bringing their names together in a manner honourable to
both. We derive the anecdote from the "Random Records;" and we think
it will be at this juncture favourably received by those who admire
dramatic authors and actors, and who rejoice to see traits of private
worth the concomitants of public excellence.
After recounting the circumstances of his first acquaintance with
Bannister, Mr. Colman says,
"In the year of my return from Aberdeen, 1784, unconscious of fear
through ignorance of danger, I rushed into early publicity as an avowed
dramatist. My father's illness in 1789 obliged me to undertake the
management of his theatre; which, having purchased at his demise, I
continued to manage as my own. During such progression, up to the year
1796 inclusive, I scribbled many dramas for the Haymarket, and one for
Drury-lane; in almost all of which the younger Bannister (being engaged
at both theatres) performed a prominent character; so that, for most of
the thirteen years I have enumerated, he was of the greatest importance
to my theatrical prosperity in my double capacity of author and manager;
while I was of some service to him by supplying him with new characters.
These reciprocal interests made us, of course, such close colleagues,
that our almost daily consultations promoted amity, while they forwarded
business.
"From this last-mentioned period, (1796,) we were led by our
speculations, one after the other, into different tracks. He had
arrived at that height of London popularity when his visits to various
provincial theatres in the summer were productive of much more money
than my scale of expense in the Haymarket could afford to give him. As
he wintered it, however, in Drury-lane, I profited for two years more by
his acting in the pieces which I produced there. I then began to write
for the rival house in Covent Garden, and this parted us as author and
actor: but separating, as we did, through accident, and with the kindest
sentiments for each other, it was not likely that we should forget or
neglect further to cultivate our mutual regard: that regard is now so
mellowed by time that it will never cease till Time himself,--who, in
ripening our friendship, has been all the while whetting his scythe for
the friends,--shall have mowed down the men, and gathered in his harvest.
"One trait of Bannister, in our worldly dealings with each other, will
nearly bring me to the close of this chapter.
"In the year 1807, after having slaved at some dramatic composition,--I
forget what,--I had resolved to pass one entire week in luxurious sloth.
"At this crisis,--just as I was beginning the first morning's sacrifice
upon the altar of my darling goddess, Indolence,--enter Jack Bannister,
with a huge manuscript under his left arm!--This, he told me, consisted
of loose materials for an entertainment, with which he meant to "skirr
the country," under the title of BANNISTER'S BUDGET; but, unless I
reduced the chaos into some order for him, and that _instantly_,--he
should lose his tide, and with it his emoluments for the season. In such
a case there was no balancing between two alternatives, so I deserted my
darling goddess to drudge through the week for my old companion.
"To concoct the crudities he had brought me, by polishing, expunging,
adding,--in short, almost re-writing them,--was, it must be confessed,
labouring under the "horrors of digestion;" but the toil was completed
at the week's end, and away went Jack Bannister into the country with
his BUDGET.
"Several months afterwards he returned to town; and I inquired, of
course, what success?--So great, he answered, that in consequence of the
gain which had accrued to him through my means, and which he was certain
would still accrue, (as he now considered the Budget to be an annual
income for some years to come,) he must insist upon cancelling a bond
which I had given him, for money he had lent to me. I was astounded; for
I had never dreamt of fee or reward.
"To prove that he was in earnest, I extract a paragraph from a latter
which he wrote to me from Shrewsbury.
"'For fear of accidents, I think it necessary to inform you that
Fladgate, your attorney, is in possession of your bond to me of £700; as
I consider it _fully discharged_, it is but proper you should have this
acknowledgment under my hand. J.B.'
"Should my unostentatious friend think me indelicate in publishing this
anecdote, I can only say, that it naturally appertains to the sketch
I have given of our co-operations in life; and that the insertion of
it here seems almost indispensable, in order to elucidate my previous
statement of our having blended so much _sentiment_ with so much
_traffic_. I feel, too, that it would be downright injustice to him
if I suppressed it; and would betoken in myself the pride of those
narrow-minded persons who are ashamed of acknowledging how greatly they
have profited by the liberal spirit of others.
"The bond above mentioned was given, be it observed, on a private
account; not for money due to an actor for his professional assistance.
Gilliland, in his 'Dramatic Mirror,' says that my admission of partners
'enabled the proprietors to completely liquidate all the demands which
had for some time past involved the house in temporary embarrassments.'
This is a gross mistake; the Haymarket Theatre was _never_ embarrassed
(on the contrary, it was a prosperous speculation) while under my
direction. My own difficulties during part of this time are another
matter: I may touch _slightly_ on this hereafter; but shall not bore my
readers by dwelling long on matters which (however they may have
annoyed _me_) cannot entertain or interest _them_.
"I regret following up one instance of Mr. Gilliland's inaccuracy
immediately with another; but he asserts, in his 'Dramatic Mirror,' that
J. Bannister, 'in the season 1778, made his appearance for the benefit
of his father, _on the boards of Old Drury_.' In contradiction to the
foregoing statement a document now lies before me,--I transcribe it
verbatim:
"'First appearance, _at the Haymarket_, for my father's benefit,
1778, in The Apprentice. First appearance at Drury-lane, 1779, in
Zaphna, in Mahomet. Took leave of the stage at Drury-lane, Thursday,
June 1st, 1815. Garrick instructed me in the four first parts I
played,--the Apprentice; Zaphna (Mahomet); Dorilas (Merope); and Achmet
(Barbarossa).--Jack Bannister, to his dear friend George Colman. June
30th, 1828.'"
These memoranda, under the circumstances, are curious and
affecting.--Death _has_ gathered in his harvest, and both the
men _are_ gone.
Of Mr. Colman's delightful manners and conversational powers no words
can give any adequate idea: with all the advantages of extensive
reading, a general knowledge of mankind, and an inexhaustible fund of
wit and humour, he blended a joyousness of expression, a kindness of
feeling, and a warmth of manner, which rendered him the much-sought
companion of every circle of society in which he chose to mix. Of his
literary talents all the world can judge; but it is only those who have
known him in private life who can appreciate the qualities which we
despair of being able justly to describe.
IMPROMPTU BY THE LATE GEORGE COLMAN.
About a year since, a young lady begged this celebrated wit to write
some verses in her album: he shook his head; but, good-naturedly
promising to try, at once extemporised the following,--most probably his
last written and poetical jest.
My muse and I, ere youth and spirits fled,
Sat up together many a night, no doubt;
But now, I've sent the poor old lass to bed,
Simply because _my fire is going out_.
THE "MONSTRE" BALLOON.
Oh! the balloon, the great balloon!
It left Vauxhall one Monday at noon,
And every one said we should hear of it soon
With news from Aleppo or Scanderoon.
But very soon after, folks changed their tune:
"The netting had burst--the silk--the shalloon;
It had met with a trade-wind--a deuced monsoon--
It was blown out to sea--it was blown to the moon--
They ought to have put off their journey till June;
Sure none but a donkey, a goose, or baboon,
Would go up, in November, in any balloon!"
Then they talk'd about Green--"Oh! where's Mister Green?
And where's Mister Hollond who hired the machine?
And where is Monk Mason, the man that has been
Up so often before--twelve times or thirteen--
And who writes such nice letters describing the scene?
And where's the cold fowl, and the ham, and poteen?
The press'd beef with the fat cut off,--nothing but lean?
And the portable soup in the patent tureen?
Have they got to Grand Cairo? or reached Aberdeen?
Or Jerusalem--Hamburgh--or Ballyporeen?--
No! they have not been seen! Oh! they haven't been seen!"
Stay! here's Mister Gye--Mr. Frederick Gye.
"At Paris," says he, "I've been up very high,
A couple of hundred of toises, or nigh,
A cockstride the Tuilleries' pantiles, to spy,
With Dollond's best telescope stuck at my eye,
And my umbrella under my arm like Paul Pry,
But I could see nothing at all but the sky;
So I thought with myself 'twas of no use to try
Any longer; and feeling remarkably dry
From sitting all day stuck up there, like a Guy,
I came down again and--you see--here am I!"
But here's Mister Hughes!--What says young Mr. Hughes?
"Why, I'm sorry to say, we've not got any news
Since the letter they threw down in one of their shoes,
Which gave the Mayor's nose such a deuce of a bruise,
As he popp'd up his eye-glass to look at their cruise
Over Dover; and which the folks flock'd to peruse
At Squier's bazaar, the same evening, in crews,
Politicians, newsmongers, town council, and blues,
Turks, heretics, infidels, jumpers, and Jews,
Scorning Bachelor's papers, and Warren's reviews;
But the wind was then blowing towards Helvoetsluys,
And my father and I are in terrible stews,
For so large a balloon is a sad thing to lose!"
Here's news come at last! Here's news come at last!
A vessel's arrived, which has sail'd very fast;
And a gentleman serving before the mast,
Mister Nokes, has declared that "the party has past
Safe across to the Hague, where their grapnel they cast
As a fat burgomaster was staring aghast
To see such a monster come home on the blast,
And it caught in his breeches, and there it stuck fast!"
Oh! fie! Mister Nokes,--for shame, Mister Nokes!
To be poking your fun at us plain-dealing folks--
Sir, this isn't a time to be cracking your jokes,
And such jesting, your malice but scurvily cloaks;
Such a trumpery tale every one of us smokes,
And we know very well your whole story's a hoax!
"Oh! what shall we do? oh! where will it end?
Can nobody go? Can nobody send
To Calais--or Bergen-op-zoom--or Ostend?
Can't you go there yourself? Can't you write to a friend,
For news upon which we may safely depend?"
Huzzah! huzzah! one and eight-pence to pay
For a letter from Hamborough, just come to say
They descended at Weilburg about break of day;
And they've lent them the palace there, during their stay,
And the town is becoming uncommonly gay,
And they're feasting the party, and soaking their clay
With Johannisberg, Rudesheim, Moselle, and Tokay;
And the landgraves, and margraves, and counts beg and prey
That they won't think as yet, about going away;
Notwithstanding, they don't mean to make much delay,
But pack up the balloon in a waggon or dray,
And pop themselves into a German "_po-shay_,"
And get on to Paris by Lisle and Tournay;
Where they boldly declare, any wager they'll lay,
If the gas people there do not ask them to pay
Such a sum as must force them at once to say "Nay,"
They'll inflate the balloon in the Champs Elysées,
And be back again here, the beginning of May.
Dear me! what a treat for a juvenile _féte_!
What thousands will flock their arrival to greet!
There'll be hardly a soul to be seen in the street,
For at Vauxhall the whole population will meet,
And you'll scarcely get standing-room, much less a seat,
For this all preceding attraction must beat:--
Since, there they'll unfold, what we want to be told,
How they cough'd, how they sneez'd, how they shiver'd with cold,
How they tippled the "cordial," as racy and old
As Hodges, or Deady, or Smith ever sold,
And how they all then felt remarkably bold;
How they thought the boil'd beef worth its own weight in gold;
And how Mister Green was beginning to scold
Because Mister Hollond would try to lay hold
Of the moon, and had very near overboard roll'd.
And there they'll be seen--they'll be all to be seen!
The great-coats, the coffee-pot, mugs, and tureen!
With the tight-rope, and fire-works, and dancing between,
If the weather should only prove fair and serene.
And there, on a beautiful transparent screen,
In the middle you'll see a large picture of Green,
With Holland on one side, who hired the machine,
And Monk Mason on t'other, describing the scene;
And Fame on one leg in the air, like a queen,
With three wreaths and a trumpet, will over them lean;
While Envy, in serpents and black bombazine,
Looks on from below with an air of chagrin.
Then they'll play up a tune in the Royal Saloon,
And the people will dance by the light of the moon,
And keep up the ball till the next day at noon;
And the peer and the peasant, the lord and the loon,
The haughty grandee, and the low picaroon,
The six-foot life-guardsman, and little gossoon,
Will all join in three cheers for the "monstre" balloon.
HANDY ANDY.
Andy Rooney was a fellow who had the most singularly ingenious knack of
doing every thing the wrong way; disappointment awaited on all affairs
in which he bore a part, and destruction was at his fingers' ends: so
the nick-name the neighbours stuck upon him was Handy Andy, and the
jeering jingle pleased them.
Andy's entrance into this world was quite in character with his after
achievements, for he was nearly the death of his mother. She survived,
however, to have herself clawed almost to death while her darling babby
was in arms, for he would not take his nourishment from the parent fount
unless he had one of his little red fists twisted into his mother's
hair, which he dragged till he made her roar; while he diverted the pain
by scratching her till the blood came, with the other. Nevertheless she
swore he was "the loveliest and sweetest craythur the sun ever shined
upon;" and when he was able to run about and wield a little stick, and
smash every thing breakable belonging to her, she only praised his
precocious powers, and used to ask, "Did ever any one see a darlin' of
his age handle a stick so bowld as he did?"
Andy grew up in mischief and the admiration of his mammy; but, to do him
justice, he never meant harm in the course of his life, and was most
anxious to offer his services on all occasions to any one who would
accept them; but they were only those who had not already proved Andy's
peculiar powers.
There was a farmer hard by in this happy state of ignorance, named Owen
Doyle, or, as he was familiarly called, _Owny na Coppal_, or, "Owen of
the Horses," because he bred many of these animals, and sold them at
the neighbouring fairs; and Andy one day offered his services to Owny
when he was in want of some one to drive up a horse to his house from a
distant "bottom," as low grounds by a river side are always called in
Ireland.
"Oh, he's wild, Andy, and you'd never be able to ketch him," said
Owny.--"Throth, an' I'll engage I'll ketch him if you'll let me go. I
never seen the horse I couldn't ketch, sir," said Andy.
"Why, you little spridhogue, if he took to runnin' over the long bottom,
it 'ud be more than a day's work for you to folly him."--"Oh, but he
won't run."
"Why won't he run?"--"Bekase I won't make him run."
"How can you help it?"--"I'll soother him."
"Well, you're a willin' brat, any how; and so go, and God speed you!"
said Owny.
"Just gi' me a wisp o' hay an' a han'ful iv oats," said Andy, "if I
should have to coax him."--"Sartinly," said Owny, who entered the stable
and came forth with the articles required by Andy, and a halter for the
horse also.
[Illustration: Handy Andy]
"Now, take care," said Owny, "that you're able to ride that horse if you
get on him."--"Oh, never fear, sir. I can ride owld Lanty Gubbin's mule
betther nor any o' the other boys on the common, and he couldn't throw
me th' other day, though he kicked the shoes av him."
"After that you may ride any thing," said Owny: and indeed it was true;
for Lanty's mule, which fed on the common, being ridden slily by all the
young vagabonds in the neighbourhood, had become such an adept in the
art of getting rid of his troublesome customers, that it might be well
considered a feat to stick on him.
"Now, take grate care of him, Andy, my boy," said the farmer.--"Don't be
afeard sir," said Andy, who started on his errand in that peculiar pace
which is elegantly called a "sweep's trot;" and as the river lay between
Owny Doyle's and the bottom, and was too deep for Andy to ford at that
season, he went round by Dinny Dowling's mill, where a small wooden
bridge crossed the stream.
Here he thought he might as well secure the assistance of Paudeen, the
miller's son, to help him in catching the horse; an he looked about the
place until he found him, and, telling him the errand on which he was
going, said, "If you like to come wid me, we can both have a ride." This
was temptation sufficient for Paudeen, and the boys proceeded together
to the bottom, and they were not long in securing the horse. When they
had got the halter over his head, "Now," said Andy, "give me a lift on
him;" and accordingly by Paudeen's catching Andy's left foot in both
his hands clasped together in the fashion of a stirrup, he hoisted
his friend on the horse's back; and, as soon as he was secure there,
Master Paudeen, by the aid of Andy's hand contrived to scramble up after
him; upon which Andy applied his heels into the horse's side with many
vigorous kicks, and crying "Hurrup!" at the same time, endeavoured to
stimulate Owny's steed into something of a pace as he turned his head
towards the mill.
"Sure aren't you going to crass the river?" said Paudeen.--"No, I'm
going to lave you at home."
"Oh, I'd rather go up to Owny's, and it's the shortest way acrass the
river."--"Yes but I don't like--"
"Is it afeard you are?" said Paudeen.--"Not I, indeed," said Andy;
though it was really the fact, for the width of the stream startled him;
"but Owny towld me to take grate care o' the baste and I'm loath to wet
his feet."
"Go 'long wid you, you fool! what harm would it do him? Sure he's
neither sugar nor salt that he'd melt."
"Well, I won't, any how," said Andy, who by this time had got the
horse into a good high trot, that shook every word of argument out of
Paudeen's body; besides, it was as much as the boys could do to keep
their seats on Owny's Bucephalus, who was not long in reaching the
miller's bridge. Here voice and rein were employed to pull him in, that
he might cross the narrow wooden structure at a quiet pace. But whether
his double load had given him the idea of double exertion, or that the
pair of legs on each side sticking into his flanks (and perhaps the
horse was ticklish) made him go the faster, we know not: but the horse
charged the bridge as if an Enniskilliner were on his back, and an enemy
before him; and in two minutes his hoofs cluttered like thunder on the
bridge, that did not bend beneath him. No, it did _not_ bend, but it
broke: proving the falsehood of the boast, "I may break, but I won't
bend:" for, after all, the really strong may bend, and be as strong as
ever: it is the unsound, that has only the seeming of strength, that
breaks at last when it resists too long.
Surprising was the spin the young equestrians took over the ears of the
horse, enough to make all the artists of Astley's envious; and plump
they went into the river, where each formed his own ring, and executed
some comical "scenes in the circle," which were suddenly changed to
evolutions on the "flying cord" that Dinny Dowling threw the performers,
which became suddenly converted into a "tight rope" as he dragged
the _voltigeurs_ out of the water; and, for fear their blood might
be chilled by the accident, he gave them both an enormous thrashing
with the _dry_ end of the rope, just to restore circulation; and his
exertions, had they been witnessed, would have charmed the Humane
Society.
As for the horse, his legs stuck through the bridge, as though he had
been put in a _chiroplast_, and he went playing away on the water with
considerable execution, as if he were accompanying himself in the song
which he was squealing at the top of his voice. Half the saws, hatchets,
ropes, and poles in the parish were put in requisition immediately; and
the horse's first lesson in _chiroplastic_ exercise was performed with
no other loss than some skin and a good deal of hair. Of course Andy did
not venture on taking Owny's horse home; so the miller sent him to his
owner with an account of the accident. Andy for years kept out of Owny
na Coppal's way; and at any time that his presence was troublesome, the
inconvenienced party had only to say, "Isn't that Owny na Coppal coming
this way?" and Andy fled for his life,
When Andy grew up to what in country parlance is called "a brave lump
of a boy," his mother thought he was old enough to do something for
himself; so she took him one day along with her to the squire's, and
waited outside the door, loitering up and down the yard behind the
house, among a crowd of beggars and great lazy dogs that were thrusting
their herds into every iron pot that stood outside the kitchen door,
until chance might give her "a sight o' the squire afore he wint out
or afore he wint in;" and, after spending her entire day in this idle
way, at last the squire made his appearance, and Judy presented her son,
who kept scraping his foot, and pulling his forelock, that stuck out
like a piece of ragged thatch from his forehead, making his obeisance
to the squire, while his mother was sounding his praises for being the
"handiest craythur alive--and so willin'--nothing comes wrong to him."
"I suppose the English of all this is, you want me to take him?" said
the squire.--"Throth, an' your honour, that's just it--if your honour
would be plazed."
"What can he do?"--"Anything, your honour."
"That means _nothing_, I suppose," said the squire.--"Oh, no, sir.
Everything, I mane, that you would desire him to do."
To every one of these assurances on his mother's part Andy made a bow
and a scrape.
"Can he take care of horses?"--"The best of care, sir," said the mother,
while the miller, who was standing behind the squire waiting for orders,
made a grimace at Andy, who was obliged to cram his face to his hat to
hide the laugh, which he could hardly smother from being heard, as well
as seen.
"Let him come, then, and help in the stables, and we'll see what he can
do."--"May the Lord--"
"That'll do--there, now go."--"Oh, sure, but I'll pray for you, and--"
"Will you go?"--"And may angels make your honour's bed this blessed
night, I pray!"
"If you don't go, your son shan't come."
Judy and her hopeful boy turned to the right-about in double-quick time,
and hurried down the avenue.
The next day Andy was duly installed into his office of stable-helper;
and, as he was a good rider, he was soon made whipper-in to the hounds,
as there was a want of such a functionary in the establishment; and
Andy's boldness in this capacity made him soon a favourite with the
squire, who was one of those rollicking boys on the pattern of the old
school, who scorned the attentions of a regular valet, and let any one
that chance threw in his way bring him his boots, or his hot water for
shaving, or his coat, whenever it _was_ brushed. One morning, Andy, who
was very often the attendant on such occasions, came to his room with
hot water. He tapped at the door.
"Who's that?" said the squire, who was but just risen, and did not know
but it might be one of the women servants.--"It's me, sir."
"Oh--Andy! Come in."--"Here's the hot wather, sir," said Andy, bearing
an enormous tin can.
"Why, what the d--l brings that tin can here? You might as well bring
the stable-bucket."--"I beg your pardon, sir," said Andy retreating. In
two minutes more Andy came back, and, tapping at the door, put in his
head cautiously, and said, "The maids in the kitchen, your honour, says
there's not so much hot wather ready."
"Did I not see it a moment since in your hands?"--"Yes, sir, but that's
not nigh the full o' the stable-bucket."
"Go along, you stupid thief! and get me some hot water directly."--"Will
the can do, sir?"
"Ay, anything, so you make haste."
Off posted Andy, and back he came with the can.
"Where'll I put it, sir?"--"Throw this out," said the squire, handing
Andy a jug containing some cold water, meaning the jug to be replenished
with the hot.
Andy took the jug, and, the window of the room being open, he very
deliberately threw the jug out. The squire stared with wonder, and at
last said,
"What did you do that for?"--"Sure you _towld_ me to throw it out, sir."
"Go out of this, you thick-headed villain!" said the squire, throwing
his boots at Andy's head, along with some very neat curses. Andy
retreated, and thought himself a very ill-used person.
Though Andy's regular business was "whipper-in," yet he was liable to
be called on for the performance of various other duties: he sometimes
attended at table when the number of guests required that all the subs
should be put in requisition, or rode on some distant errand for "the
mistress," or drove out the nurse and children on the jaunting-car; and
many were the mistakes, delays, or accidents arising from Handy Andy's
interference in such matters; but, as they were never serious, and
generally laughable, they never cost him the loss of his place or the
squire's favour, who rather enjoyed Andy's blunders.
The first time Andy was admitted into the mysteries of the dining-room,
great was his wonder. The butler took him in to give him some previous
instructions, and Andy was so lost in admiration at the sight of the
assembled glass and plate, that he stood with his mouth and eyes wide
open, and scarcely heard a word that was said to him. After the head-man
had been dinning his instructions into him for some time, he said he
might go until his attendance was required. But Andy moved not; he stood
with his eyes fixed by a sort of fascination on some object that seemed
to rivet them with the same unaccountable influence that the snake
exercises over its victim.
"What are you looking at?" said the butler.--"Them things, sir," said
Andy, pointing to some silver forks.
"Is it the forks?" said the butler.--"Oh no, sir! I know what forks is
very well; but I never seen them things afore."
"What things do you mean?"--"These things, sir," said Andy, taking up
one of the silver forks, and turning it round and round in his hand
in utter astonishment, while the butler grinned at his ignorance, and
enjoyed his own superior knowledge.
"Well!" said Andy, after a long pause, "the divil be from me if ever I
seen a silver spoon split that way before."
The butler laughed a horse-laugh, and made a standing joke of Andy's
split spoon; but time and experience made Andy less impressed with
wonder at the show of plate and glass, and the split spoons became
familiar as 'household words' to him; yet still there were things in
the duties of table attendance beyond Andy's comprehension,--he used to
hand cold plates for fish, and hot plates for jelly, &c. But 'one day,'
as Zanga says,--'one day' he was thrown off his centre in a remarkable
degree by a bottle of soda water.
It was when that combustible was first introduced into Ireland as a
dinner beverage that the occurrence took place, and Andy had the luck to
be the person to whom a gentlemen applied for some soda-water.
"Sir?" said Andy.--"Soda-water," said the guest, in that subdued tone in
which people are apt to name their wants at a dinner-table.
Andy went to the butler. "Mr. Morgan, there's a gintleman----"--"Let me
alone, will you?" said Mr. Morgan.
Andy manoeuvred round him a little longer, and again essayed to be
heard.
"Mr. Morgan!"--"Don't you see I'm as busy as I can be! Can't you do it
yourself?"
"I dunna what he wants."--"Well, go and ax him," said Mr. Morgan.
Andy went off as he was bidden, and came behind the thirsty gentleman's
chair, with "I beg your pardon sir."
"Well!" said the gentleman.
"I beg your pardon, sir; but what's this you ax'd me for?"--"Soda-water."
"What, sir?"--"Soda-water; but, perhaps, you have not any."
"Oh, there's plenty in the house, sir! Would you like it hot, sir."
The gentleman laughed, and, supposing the new fashion was not understood
in the present company, said "Never mind."
But Andy was too anxious to please, to be so satisfied, and again
applied to Mr. Morgan.
"Sir!" said he.--"Bad luck to you! can't you let me alone?"
"There's a gintleman wants some soap and wather."
"Some what?"--"Soap and wather, sir."
"Divil sweep you!--Soda-wather you mane. You'll get it under the
sideboard."
"Is it in the can, sir?"--"The curse o' Crum'll on you--in the bottles."
"Is this it, sir?" said Andy, producing a bottle of ale.--"No, bad cess
to you!--the little bottles."
"Is it the little bottles with no bottoms, sir?"--"I wish _you_ wor in
the bottom o' the say!" said Mr. Morgan, who was fuming and puffing,
and rubbing down his face with his napkin, as he was hurrying to all
quarters of the room, or, as Andy said, in praising his activity, that
he was "like bad luck,--everywhere."
"There they are!" said Morgan, at last.
"Oh! them bottles that won't stand," said Andy; "sure, them's what I
said, with no bottoms to them. How'll I open it--it's tied down?"--"Cut
the cord, you fool!"
Andy did as he was desired; and he happened at the time to hold the
bottle of soda-water on a level with the candles that shed light over
the festive board from a large silver branch, and the moment he made the
incision, bang went the bottle of soda, knocking out two of the lights
with the projected cork, which, performing its parabola the length of
the room, struck the squire himself in the eye at the foot of the table,
while the hostess at the head had a cold-bath down her back. Andy, when
he saw the soda-water jumping out of the bottle, held it from him at
arm's length; every fizz it made, exclaiming, "Ow!--ow!--ow!" and, at
last, when the bottle was empty, he roared out, "Oh, Lord!--it's all
gone!"
Great was the commotion;--few could resist laughter except the ladies,
who all looked at their gowns, not liking the mixture of satin and
soda-water. The extinguished candles were relighted,--the squire got his
eye open again,--and, the next time he perceived the butler sufficiently
near to speak to him, he said, in a low and hurried tone of deep anger,
while he knit his brow, "Send that fellow out of the room!" but, within
the same instant, resumed the former smile, that beamed on all around as
if nothing had happened.
Andy was expelled the _salle à manger_ in disgrace, and for days kept
out of his master's and mistress's way: in the mean time the butler
made a good story of the thing in the servants' hall; and, when he held
up Andy's ignorance to ridicule, by telling how he asked for "soap and
water," Andy was given the name of "Suds," and was called by no other,
for months after.
But, though Andy's function in the interior were suspended, his services
in out-of-door affairs were occasionally put in requisition. But here
his evil genius still haunted him, and he put his foot in a piece of
business his master sent him upon one day, which was so simple as to
defy almost the chance of Andy making any mistake about it; but Andy was
very ingenious in his own particular line.
"Ride into the town, and see if there's a letter for me," said the
squire, one day, to our hero.--"Yis, sir."
"You know where to go?"--"To the town, sir."
"But do you know where to go in the town?"--"No, sir."
"And why don't you ask, you stupid thief?"--"Sure, I'd find out, sir."
"Didn't I often tell you to ask what you're to do, when you don't
know?"--"Yis, sir."
"And why don't you?"--"I don't like to be throublesome, sir."
"Confound you!" said the squire; though he could not help laughing at
Andy's excuse for remaining in ignorance.
"Well," continued he, "go to the post-office. You know the post-office,
I suppose?"--"Yis, sir; where they sell gunpowdher."
"You're right for once," said the squire; for his Majesty's postmaster
was the person who had the privilege of dealing in the aforesaid
combustible. "Go then to the post-office, and ask for a letter for me.
Remember,--not gunpowder, but a letter."
"Yis, sir," said Andy, who got astride of his hack, and trotted away to
the post-office. On arriving at the shop of the postmaster, (for that
person carried on a brisk trade in groceries, gimlets, broad-cloth, and
linen-drapery,) Andy presented himself at the counter, and said,
"I want a letther, sir, if you plase."
"Who do you want it for?" said the postmaster, in a tone which Andy
considered an aggression upon the sacredness of private life: so Andy
thought the coolest contempt he could throw upon the prying impertinence
of the postmaster was to repeat his question.
"I want a letther, sir, if you plase."
"And who do you want it for?" repeated the postmaster.
"What's that to you?" said Andy.
The postmaster, laughing at his simplicity, told him he could not tell
what letter to give him unless he told him the direction.
"The directions I got was to get a letther here,--that's the directions."
"Who gave you those directions?"--"The masther."
"And who's your master?"--"What consarn is that o' yours?"
"Why, you stupid rascal! if you don't tell me his name, how can I give
you a letter?"--"You could give it if you liked; but you're fond of
axin' impidint questions, bekase you think I'm simple."
"Go along out o' this. Your master must be as great a goose as yourself
to send such a messenger."--"Bad luck to your impidince!" said Andy; "is
it Squire Egan you dar to say goose to?"
"Oh, Squire Egan's your master, then?"--"Yis; have you anything to say
agin it?"
"Only that I never saw you before."--"Faith, then you'll never see me
agin if I have my own consint."
"I won't give you any letter for the squire, unless I know you're his
servant. Is there any one in the town knows you?"--"Plenty," said Andy;
"it's not every one is as ignorant as you."
Just at this moment a person entered the house to get a letter, to
whom Andy was known; and he vouched to the postmaster that the account
he gave of himself was true.--"You may give him the squire's letter.
Have you one for me?"--"Yes, sir," said the postmaster, producing one:
"fourpence."
The new-comer paid the fourpence postage, and left the shop with his
letter.
"Here's a letter for the squire," said the postmaster. "You've to pay me
elevenpence postage."
"What 'ud I pay elevenpence for?"--"For postage."
"To the divil wid you! Didn't I see you give Mr. Delany a letther for
fourpence this minit, and a bigger letther than this; and now you want
me to pay elevenpence for this scrap of a thing. Do you think I'm a
fool?"
"No; but I'm sure of it," said the postmaster.--"Well, you're welkim to
think what you plase; but don't be delayin' me now; here's fourpence for
you, and gi' me the letther."
"Go along, you stupid thief!" said the postmaster, taking up the letter,
and going to serve a customer with a mousetrap.
While this person and many others were served, Andy lounged up and down
the shop, every now and then putting in his head in the middle of the
customers, and saying, "Will you gi' me the letther?"
He waited for above half an hour, in defiance of the anathemas of the
postmaster, and at last left, when he found it impossible to get the
common justice for his master which he thought he deserved as well as
another man; for, under this impression, Andy determined to give no more
than the fourpence.
The squire in the mean time was getting impatient for his return,
and, when Andy made his appearance, asked if there was a letter for
him.--"There is, sir," said Andy.
"Then give it to me."--"I haven't it, sir."
"What do you mean?"--"He wouldn't give it to me, sir."
"Who wouldn't give it to you?"--"That owld chate beyant in the
town,--wanting to charge double for it."
"Maybe it's a double letter. Why the devil didn't you pay what he asked,
sir?"--"Arrah, sir, why would I let you be chated. It's not a double
letther at all: not above half the size o' one Mr. Delany got before my
face for fourpence."
"You'll provoke me to break your neck some day, you vagabond! Ride back
for your life, you omadhaun! and pay whatever he asks, and get me the
letter."--"Why, sir, I tell you he was sellin' them before my face for
fourpence a-piece."
"Go back, you scoundrel! or I'll horsewhip you; and if you're longer
than an hour, I'll have you ducked in the horse-pond!"
Andy vanished, and made a second visit to the post-office. When he
arrived, two other persons were getting letters, and the postmaster was
selecting the epistles for each, from a parcel of them that lay before
him on the counter; at the same time many shop customers were waiting to
be served.
"I'm for that letther," said Andy.--"I'll attend to you by-and-by."
"The masther's in a hurry."--"Let him wait till his hurry's over."
"He'll murther me if I'm not back soon."--"I'm glad to hear it."
While the postmaster went on with such provoking answers to these
appeals for despatch, Andy's eye caught the heap of letters that lay on
the counter; so, while certain weighing of soap and tobacco was going
forward, he contrived to become possessed of two letters from the heap;
and, having effected that, waited patiently enough until it was the
great man's pleasure to give him the missive directed to his master.
Then did Andy bestride his hack, and, in triumph at his trick on the
postmaster, rattle along the road homeward as fast as his hack could
carry him. He came into the squire's presence, his face beaming with
delight, and an air of self-satisfied superiority in his manner, quite
unaccountable to his master, until he pulled forth his hand, which had
been grubbing up his prizes from the bottom of his pocket; and holding
three letters over his head, while he said "Look at that!" he next
slapped them down under his broad fist on the table before the squire,
saying,
"Well! if he did make me pay elevenpence, by gor, I brought your honour
the worth o' your money, any how!"
THE LEGEND OF MANOR HALL
BY THE AUTHOR OF "HEADLONG HALL."
Old Farmer Wall, of Manor Hall,
To market drove his wain:
Along the road it went well stowed
With sacks of golden grain.
His station he took, but in vain did he look
For a customer all the morn;
Though the farmers all, save Farmer Wall,
They sold off all their corn.
Then home he went sore discontent,
And many an oath he swore,
And he kicked up rows with his children and spouse,
When they met him at the door.
Next market-day, he drove away
To the town his loaded wain:
The farmers all, save Farmer Wall,
They sold off all their grain.
No bidder he found, and he stood astound
At the close of the market-day,
When the market was done, and the chapmen were gone
Each man his several way.
He stalked by his load along the road;
His face with wrath was red:
His arms he tossed, like a goodman crossed
In seeking his daily bread.
His face was red, and fierce was his tread,
And with lusty voice cried he:
"My corn I'll sell to the devil of hell,
If he'll my chapman be."
These words he spoke just under an oak
Seven hundred winters old;
And he straight was aware of a man sitting there
On the roots and grassy mould.
The roots rose high o'er the green-sward dry,
And the grass around was green,
Save just the space of the stranger's place,
Where it seemed as fire had been.
All scorched was the spot, as gipsy-pot
Had swung and bubbled there:
The grass was marred, the roots were charred,
And the ivy stems were bare.
The stranger up-sprung: to the farmer he flung
A loud and friendly hail,
And he said, "I see well, thou hast corn to sell,
And I'll buy it on the nail."
The twain in a trice agreed on the price;
The stranger his earnest paid,
And with horses and wain to come for the grain
His own appointment made.
The farmer cracked his whip, and tracked
His way right merrily on:
He struck up a song, as he trudged along,
For joy that his job was done.
His children fair he danced in the air;
His heart with joy was big;
He kissed his wife; he seized a knife,
He slew a suckling pig.
The faggots burned, the porkling turned
And crackled before the fire;
And an odour arose, that was sweet in the nose
Of a passing ghostly friar.
He twirled at the pin, he entered in,
He sate down at the board;
The pig he blessed, when he saw it well dressed,
And the humming ale out-poured.
The friar laughed, the friar quaffed,
He chirped like a bird in May;
The farmer told how his corn he had sold
As he journeyed home that day.
The friar he quaffed, but no longer he laughed,
He changed from red to pale:
"Oh, helpless elf! 'tis the fiend himself
To whom thou hast made thy sale!"
The friar he quaffed, he took a deep draught;
He crossed himself amain:
"Oh, slave of pelf! 'tis the devil himself
To whom thou hast sold thy grain!"
"And sure as the day, he'll fetch thee away,
With the corn which thou hast sold,
If thou let him pay o'er one tester more
Than thy settled price in gold."
The farmer gave vent to a loud lament,
The wife to a long outcry;
Their relish for pig and ale was flown;
The friar alone picked every bone,
And drained the flagon dry.
The friar was gone: the morning dawn
Appeared, and the stranger's wain
Come to the hour, with six-horse power,
To fetch the purchased grain.
The horses were black: on their dewy track
Light steam from the ground up-curled;
Long wreaths of smoke from their nostrils broke,
And their tails like torches whirled.
More dark and grim, in face and limb,
Seemed the stranger than before,
As his empty wain, with steeds thrice twain,
Drew up to the farmer's door.
On the stranger's face was a sly grimace,
As he seized the sacks of grain;
And, one by one, till left were none,
He tossed them on the wain.
And slily he leered, as his hand up-reared
A purse of costly mould,
Where, bright and fresh, through a silver mesh,
Shone forth the glistering gold.
The farmer held out his right hand stout,
And drew it back with dread;
For in fancy he heard each warning word
The supping friar had said.
His eye was set on the silver net;
His thoughts were in fearful strife;
When, sudden as fate, the glittering bait
Was snatched by his loving wife.
And, swift as thought, the stranger caught
The farmer his waist around,
And at once the twain and the loaded wain
Sank through the rifted ground.
The gable-end wall of Manor Hall
Fell in ruins on the place:
That stone-heap old the tale has told
To each succeeding race.
The wife gave a cry that rent the sky
At her goodman's downward flight;
But she held the purse fast, and a glance she cast
To see that all was right.
'Twas the fiend's full pay for her goodman grey,
And the gold was good and true;
Which made her declare, that "his dealings were fair,
To give the devil his due."
She wore the black pall for Farmer Wall,
From her fond embraces riven:
But she won the vows of a younger spouse
With the gold which the fiend had given.
Now, farmers, beware what oaths you swear
When you cannot sell your corn;
Lest, to bid and buy, a stranger be nigh,
With hidden tail and horn.
And, with good heed, the moral a-read,
Which is of this tale the pith,
If your corn you sell to the fiend of hell,
You may sell yourself therewith.
And if by mishap you fall in the trap,--
Would you bring the fiend to shame,
Lest the tempting prize should dazzle her eyes,
Lock up your frugal dame.
TERENCE O'SHAUGHNESSY'S FIRST ATTEMPT TO GET MARRIED.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "STORIES OF WATERLOO."
Yes--here I am, Terence O'Shaughnessy, an honest major of foot, five
feet eleven and a half, and forty-one, if I only live till Michaelmas.
Kicked upon the world before the down had blackened on my chin, Fortune
and I have been wrestling from the cradle;--and yet I had little
to tempt the jade's malevolence. The youngest son of an excellent
gentleman, who, with an ill-paid rental of twelve hundred pounds, kept
his wife in Bath, and his hounds in Tipperary, my patrimony would
have scarcely purchased tools for a highwayman, when in my tenth year
my father's sister sent for me to Roundwood; for, hearing that I was
regularly going to the devil, she had determined to redeem me, if she
could.
My aunt Honor was the widow of a captain of dragoons, who got his
quietus in the Low Countries some years before I saw the light. His
relict had, in compliment to the memory of her departed lord, eschewed
matrimony, and, like a Christian woman, devoted her few and evil days
to cards and religion. She was a true specimen of an Irish dowager. Her
means were small, her temper short. She was stiff as a ramrod, and proud
as a field-marshal. To her, my education and future settlement in life
were entirely confided, as one brief month deprived me of both parents.
My mother died in a state of insolvency, greatly regretted by every body
in Bath to whom she was indebted; and before her disconsolate husband
had time to overlook a moiety of the card claims transmitted for his
liquidation, he broke his neck in attempting to leap the pound-wall of
Oranmore, for a bet of a rump and dozen. Of course he was waked, and
buried like a gentleman,--every thing sold off by the creditors--my
brothers sent to school--and I left to the tender mercy and sole
management of the widow of Captain O'Finn.
My aunt's guardianship continued seven years, and at the expiration of
that time I was weary of her thrall, and she tired of my tutelage. I
was now at an age when some walk of life must be selected and pursued.
For any honest avocation I had, as it was universally admitted, neither
abilities nor inclination. What was to be done? and how was I to be
disposed of? A short deliberation showed that there was but one path
for me to follow, and I was handed over to that _refugium peccatorum_,
the army, and placed as a volunteer in a regiment just raised, with a
promise from the colonel that I should be promoted to the first ensigncy
that became vacant.
Great was our mutual joy when Mrs. O'Finn and I were about to
part company. I took an affectionate leave of all my kindred and
acquaintances, and even, in the fulness of my heart, shook hands with
the schoolmaster, though in boyhood I had devoted him to the infernal
gods for his wanton barbarity. But my tenderest parting was reserved
for my next-door neighbour, the belle among the village beauties, and
presumptive heiress to the virtues and estates of Quartermaster MacGawly.
Biddy MacGawly was a year younger than myself; and, to do her justice,
a picture of health and comeliness. Lord! what an eye she had!--and her
leg! nothing but the gout would prevent a man from following it, to the
very end of Oxford-street. Biddy and I were next neighbours--our houses
joined--the gardens were only separated by a low hedge, and by standing
on an inverted flower-pot one could accomplish a kiss across it easily.
There was no harm in the thing--it was merely for the fun of trying an
experiment--and when a geranium was damaged, we left the blame upon the
cats.
Although there was a visiting acquaintance between the retired
quartermaster and the relict of the defunct dragoon, never had any
cordiality existed between the houses. My aunt O'Finn was so lofty in
all things appertaining to her consequence, as if she had been the widow
of a common-councilman; and Roger MacGawly, having scraped together a
good round sum, by the means quartermasters have made money since the
days of Julius Cæsar, was not inclined to admit any inferiority on his
part. Mrs. O'Finn could never imagine that any circumstances could
remove the barrier in dignity which stood between the non-commissioned
officer and the captain. While arguing on the saw, that "a living ass
is better than a dead lion," Roger contended that he was as good a
man as Captain O'Finn; he, Roger, being alive and merry in the town
of Ballinamore, while the departed commander had been laid under a
"counterpane of daisies" in some counterscarp in the Low Countries.
Biddy and I laughed at the feuds of our superiors; and on the evening
of a desperate blow-up, we met at sunset in the garden--agreed that the
old people were fools--and resolved that nothing should interrupt our
friendly relations. Of course the treaty was ratified with a kiss, for I
recollect that next morning the cats were heavily censured for capsizing
a box of mignonette.
No wonder then, that I parted from Biddy with regret. I sat with her
till we heard the quartermaster scrape his feet at the hall-door on his
return from his club, and kissing poor Biddy tenderly, as Roger entered
by the front, I levanted by the back-door. I fancied myself desperately
in love, and was actually dreaming of my dulcinea when my aunt's maid
called me before day, to prepare for the stage-couch that was to convey
me to my regiment in Dublin.
In a few weeks an ensigncy dropped in, and I got it. Time slipped
insensibly away--months became years--and three passed before I
revisited Ballinamore. I heard, at stated periods, from Mrs. O'Finn.
The letters were generally a detail of bad luck or bad health. For the
last quarter she had never marked honours--or for the last week closed
an eye with rheumatism and lumbago. Still, as these _jérémiades_ covered
my small allowance, they were welcome as a lover's billet. Of course, in
these despatches the neighbours were duly mentioned, and every calamity
occurring since her "last," was faithfully chronicled. The MacGawlys
held a conspicuous place in my aunt's quarterly notices. Biddy had got a
new gown--or Biddy had got a new piano--but since the dragoons had come
to town there was no bearing her. Young Hastings was never out of the
house--she hoped it would end well--but every body knew a light dragoon
could have little respect for the daughter of a quartermaster; and Mrs.
O'Finn ended her observations by hinting that if Roger went seldomer to
his club, and Biddy more frequently to mass, why probably in the end it
would be better for both of them.
I re-entered the well-remembered street of Ballinamore late in the
evening, after an absence of three years. My aunt was on a visit, and
she had taken that as a convenient season for having her domicile newly
painted. I halted at the inn, and after dinner strolled over the any to
visit my quondam acquaintances, the MacGawlys.
If I had intended a surprise, my design would have been a failure.
The quartermaster's establishment were on the _qui vive_. The fact
was, that since the removal of the dragoons, Ballinamore had been
dull as ditch-water; the arrival of a stranger in a post-chaise, of
course had created a sensation in the place, and, before the driver
had unharnessed, the return of Lieutenant O'Shaughnessy was regularly
gazetted, and the MacGawlys, in anticipation of a visit, were ready to
receive me.
I knocked at the door, and a servant with a beefsteak collar opened it.
Had Roger mounted a livery? Ay--faith--there it was; and I began to
recollect that my aunt O'Finn had omened badly from the first moment a
squadron of the 18th lights had entered Ballinamore.
I found Roger in the hall. He shook my hand, swore it was an agreeable
surprise, ushered me into the dining-room, and called for hot water and
tumblers. We sat down. Deeply did he interest himself in all that had
befallen me--deeply regret the absence of my honoured aunt--but I must
not stay at the inn, I should be his guest; and, to my astonishment,
it was announced that the gentleman in the red collar had been already
despatched to transport my luggage to the house. Excuses were idle.
Roger's domicile was to be head-quarters; and when I remembered my old
flame, Biddy, I concluded that I might for the short time I had to stay,
be in a less agreeable establishment than the honest quartermaster's.
I was mortified to hear that Biddy had been indisposed. It was a bad
cold, she had not been out for a month; but she would muffle herself and
meet me in the drawing-room. This, too, was unluckily a night of great
importance in the club. The new curate was to be balloted for; Roger had
proposed him; and, _ergo_, Roger, as a true man, was bound to be present
at the ceremony. The thing was readily arranged. We finished a second
tumbler, the quartermaster betook himself to the King's Arms, and the
lieutenant, meaning myself; to the drawing-room of my old inamorata.
There was a visible change in Roger's domicile. The house was newly
papered; and, leaving the livery aside, there was a greet increase of
gentility throughout the whole establishment. Instead of bounding to
the presence by three stairs at a time, as I used to do in lang syne, I
was ceremoniously paraded to the lady's chamber by him of the beefsteak
collar; and there, reclining languidly on a sofa, and wrapped in a
voluminous shawl, Biddy MacGawly held out her hand to welcome her old
confederate.
"My darling Biddy!"--"My dear Terence!" and the usual preliminaries
were got over. I looked at my old flame--she was greatly changed, and
three years had wrought a marvellous alteration. I left her a sprightly
girl--she was now a woman--and decidedly a very pretty one; although the
rosiness of seventeen was gone, and a delicacy that almost indicated
bad health had succeeded; "but," thought I, "it's all owing to the cold."
There was a guarded propriety in Biddy's bearing, that appeared almost
unnatural. The warm advances of old friendship were repressed; and
one who had mounted a flower-pot to kiss me across a hedge, recoiled
from any exhibition of our former tenderness. Well, it was all as it
should be. Then I was a boy, and now a man. Young women cannot be too
particular, and Biddy MacGawly rose higher in my estimation.
Biddy was stouter than she promised to be, when we parted, but the
eye was as dark and lustrous, and the ankle as taper as when it last
had demolished a geranium. Gradually her reserve abated; old feelings
removed a constrained formality--we laughed and talked--ay--and kissed
as we had done formerly; and when the old quartermaster's latch-key was
heard unclosing the street-door, I found myself admitting in confidence
and a whisper, that "I would marry if I could." What reply Biddy would
have returned, I cannot tell, for Roger summoned me to the parlour;
and as her cold prevented her from venturing down, she bade me an
affectionate good-night. Of course she kissed me at parting--and it was
done as ardently and innocently as if the hawthorn hedge divided us.
Roger had left his companions earlier than he usually did, in order
to honour me, his guest. The new butler paraded oysters, and down we
sat _tête-à-tête_. When supper was removed, and each had fabricated a
red-hot tumbler from the tea-kettle, the quartermaster stretched his
long legs across the hearth-rug, and with great apparent solicitude
inquired into all that had befallen me since I had assumed the
shoulder-knot and taken to the trade of war.
"Humph!"--he observed--"two steps in three years; not bad considering
there was neither money nor interest. D--it! I often wish that Biddy
was a boy. Never was such a time to purchase on. More regiments to be
raised, and promotion will be at a discount. Sir Hugh Haughton married
a stockbroker's widow with half a plum, and paid in the two thousand I
had lent him. Zounds! if Biddy were a boy, and that money well applied,
I would have her a regiment in a twelvemonth."
"Phew!" I thought to myself. "I see what the old fellow is driving at."
"There never would be such another opportunity," Roger continued. "An
increased force will produce an increased difficulty in effecting it.
Men will be worth their own weight in money; and d--me, a fellow who
could raise a few, might have any thing he asked for."
I remarked that, with some influence and a good round sum, recruits
might still be found.
"Ay, easy enough, and not much money either, if one knew how to go
about the thing. Get two or three smart chaps; let them watch fairs and
patterns, mind their hits when the bumpkins got drunk, and find out when
fellows were hiding from a warrant. D--me, I would raise a hundred,
while you would say Jack Robinson. Pay a friendly magistrate; attest the
scoundrels before they were sober enough to cry off, bundle them to the
regiment next morning; and if a rascal ran away after the commanding
officer passed a receipt for him, why all the better, for you could
relist him when he came home again."
I listened attentively, though in all this the cloven foot appeared. The
whole was the plan of a crimp; and, if Roger was not belied, trafficking
in "food for powder," had realized more of his wealth than slop-shoes
and short measure.
During the developement of his project for promotion, the quartermaster
and I had found it necessary to replenish frequently, and with the third
tumbler Roger came nearer to business.
"Often thought it a pity, and often said so in the club, that a fine
smashing fellow like you, Terence, had not the stuff to push you on.
What the devil signifies family, and blood, and all that balderdash.
There's your aunt, worthy woman; but sky-high about a dead captain.
D--me, all folly. Were I a young man, I'd get hold of some girl with
the wherewithal, and I would double-distance half the highfliers for a
colonelcy."
This was pretty significant--Roger had come to the scratch, and there
was no mistaking him. We separated for the night. I dreamed, and in
fancy was blessed with a wife, and honoured with a command. Nothing
could be more entrancing than my visions; and when the quartermaster's
_maître d'hôtel_ roused me in the morning, I was engaged in a friendly
argument with my beloved Biddy, as to which of his grandfathers our heir
should be called after, and whether the lovely babe should be christened
Roderick or Roger.
Biddy was not at breakfast; the confounded cold still confined her to
her apartment; but she hoped to meet me at dinner, and I must endure
her absence until then, as I best could. Having engaged to return at
five, I walked out to visit my former acquaintances. From all of them
I received a warm welcome, and all exhibited some surprise at hearing
that I was domesticated with the quartermaster. I comprehended the
cause immediately. My aunt and Roger had probably a fresh quarrel; but
his delicacy had prevented him from communicating it. This certainly
increased my respect for the worthy man, and made me estimate his
hospitality the more highly. Still there was an evident reserve touching
the MacGawlys; and once or twice, when dragoons were mentioned, I
fancied I could detect a significant look pass between the persons with
whom I was conversing.
It was late when I had finished my calls; Roger had requested me to
be regular to time, and five was fast approaching. I turned my steps
towards his dwelling-place, when, at a corner of a street, I suddenly
encountered an old schoolfellow on horseback, and great was our mutual
delight at meeting so unexpectedly. We were both hurried, however, and
consequently our greeting was a short one. After a few general questions
and replies, we were on the point of separating, when my friend pulled
up.
"But where are you hanging out?" said Frederick Maunsell. "I know your
aunt is absent."--"I am at old MacGawly's."
"The devil you are! Of course you heard all about Biddy and young
Hastings!"--"Not a syllable. Tell it to me."
"I have not time--it's a long story; but come to breakfast, and I'll
give you all the particulars in the morning. Adieu!" He struck the spurs
to his horse, and cantered off, singing--
"Oh! she loved a bold dragoon,
With his long sword, saddle, bridle."
I was thunderstruck. "Confound the dragoon!" thought I, "and his long
sword, saddle, and bridle, into the bargain. Gad! I wish Maunsell had
told me what it was. Well--what, suppose I ask Biddy herself?" I had
half resolved that evening to have asked her a very different question;
but, 'faith! I determined now to make some inquiries touching Cornet
Hastings of the 13th, before Miss Biddy MacGawly should be invited to
become Mrs. O'Shaughnessy.
My host announced that dinner was quite ready, and I found Biddy in
the eating-room. She was prettily dressed, as an invalid should be;
and, notwithstanding her cold, looked remarkably handsome. I should to
a certainty have been over head and ears in love, had not Maunsell's
innuendo respecting the young dragoon operated as a damper.
Dinner proceeded as dinners always do, and Roger was bent on
hospitality. I fancied that Biddy regarded me with some interest, while
momentarily I felt an increasing tenderness that would have ended, I
suppose, in a direct declaration, but for the monitory hint which I had
received from my old schoolfellow. I was dying to know what Maunsell's
allusion pointed at, and I casually threw out a feeler.
"And you are so dull, you say? Yes, Biddy, you must miss the dragoons
sadly. By the way, there was a friend of mine here. Did you know Tom
Hastings?"
I never saw an elderly gentleman and his daughter more confused. Biddy
blushed like a peony, and Roger seemed desperately bothered. At last the
quartermaster responded,
"Fact is--as a military man, showed the cavalry some
attention--constantly at the house--anxious to be civil--helped them
to make out forage--but d--d wild--obliged to cut, and keep them at a
distance."
"Ay, Maunsell hinted something of that."
I thought Biddy would have fainted, and Roger grew red as the footman's
collar.
"Pshaw! d--d gossiping chap that Maunsell. Young Hastings--infernal
hemp--used to ride with Biddy. Persuaded her to get on a horse of
his--ran away--threw her--confined at this inn for a week--never
admitted him to my house afterwards."
Oh! here was the whole mystery unravelled! No wonder Roger was
indignant, and that Biddy would redden at the recollection. It was
devilish unhandsome of Mr. Hastings; and I expressed my opinion in a way
that evidently pleased my host and his heiress, and showed how much I
disapproved of the conduct of that _roué_ the dragoon.
My fair friend rose to leave us. Her shawl caught in the chair, and I
was struck with the striking change a few years had effected in my old
playfellow. She was grown absolutely stout. I involuntarily noticed it.
"Lord! Biddy, how fat you are grown!"
A deeper blush than even when I named that luckless dragoon, flushed
to her very brows at the observation, while the quartermaster rather
testily exclaimed,
"Ay, she puts on her clothes as if they were tossed on with a pitchfork,
since she got this cold. D--it! Biddy. I say, tighten yourself, woman!
Tighten yourself, or I won't be plased!"
Well, here was a load of anxiety removed, and Maunsell's mischievous
innuendo satisfactorily explained away. Biddy was right in resenting
the carelessness that exposed her to ridicule and danger; and it was a
proper feeling in the old quartermaster to cut the man who would mount
his heiress on a break-neck horse. Gradually we resumed the conversation
of last night--there was the regiment, if I chose to have it--and when
Roger departed for the club, I made up my mind, while ascending the
stairs, to make a splice with Biddy, and become Colonel O'Shaughnessy.
Thus determined, I need not particularise what passed upon the sofa.
My wooing was short, sharp, and decisive; and no affected delicacy
restrained Biddy from confessing that the flame was mutual. My fears
had been moonshine; my suspicions groundless. Biddy had not valued
the dragoon a brass button; and--poor soul!--she hid her head upon my
shoulder, and, in a soft whisper, acknowledged that she never had cared
a _traneeine_[1] for any body in the wide world but myself!
It was a moment of exquisite delight. I told her of my prospects, and
mentioned the quartermaster's conversation. Biddy listened with deep
attention. She blushed--strove to speak--stopped--was embarrassed. I
pressed her to be courageous: and at last she deposited her head upon my
breast, and bashfully hinted that Roger was old--avarice was the vice
of age--he was fond of money--he was hoarding it certainly for her; but
still, it would be better that my promotion should be secured. Roger had
now the cash in his own possession. If we were married without delay,
it would be transferred at once; whereas something that might appear
to him advantageous, might offer, and induce her father to invest it.
But she was really shocked at herself--such a proposition would appear
so indelicate; but still, a husband's interests were too dear to be
sacrificed to maiden timidity.
I never estimated Biddy's worth till now. She united the foresight of a
sage with the devotion of a woman. I would have been insensible indeed,
had I not testified my regard and admiration; and Biddy was still
resting on my shoulder, when the quartermaster's latch-key announced his
return from the club.
After supper I apprised Roger of my passion for his daughter, and
modestly admitted that I had found favour in her sight. He heard my
communication, and frankly confessed that I was a son-in-law he most
approved of. Emboldened by the favourable reception of my suit, I
ventured to hint at an early day, and pleaded "a short leave between
returns," for precipitancy. The quartermaster met me like a man.
"When people wished to marry, why, delay was balderdash. Matters
could be quickly and quietly managed. His money was ready--no bonds
or post-obits--a clean thousand in hand, and another the moment an
opening to purchase a step should occur. No use in mincing matters among
friends. Mrs. O'Finn was an excellent woman: she was a true friend,
and a good Catholic; but, d---- it, she had old-world notions about
family, and in pride the devil was a fool to her. If she came home
before the ceremony, there would be an endless fuss; and Roger concluded
by suggesting that we should be married the next evening, and give my
honoured aunt an agreeable surprise."
That was precisely what I wanted; and a happier man never pressed a
pillow than I, after my interesting colloquy with the quartermaster.
The last morning of my celibacy dawned. I met Roger only at the
breakfast table; for my beloved Biddy, between cold and virgin
trepidation, was _hors de combat_, and signified in a tender billet her
intention to keep her chamber, until the happy hour arrived that should
unite us in the silken bonds of Hymen. The quartermaster undertook to
conduct the nuptial preparations; a friend of his would perform the
ceremony, and the quieter the thing was done the better. After breakfast
he set out to complete all matrimonial arrangements, and I strolled into
the garden to ruminate on my approaching happiness, and bless Heaven for
the treasure I was destined to possess in Biddy MacGawly.
No place could have been more appropriately selected for tender
meditation. _There_ was the conscious hedge, that had witnessed the
first kiss of love; ay, and for naught I knew to the contrary, the
identical flower-pot on which her sylphic form had rested; sylphic it
was no longer, for the slender girl had ripened into a stout and comely
gentlewoman; and she would be mine--mine that very evening.
"Ah! Terence," I said in an undertone, "few men at twenty-one have
drawn such a prize. A thousand pounds! ready cash--a regiment in
perspective--a wife in hand; and such a wife--young, artless, tender,
and attached. By everything matrimonial, you have the luck of thousands!"
My soliloquy was interrupted by a noise on the other side of the
fence. I looked over. It was my aunt's maid; and great was our mutual
astonishment. Judy blessed herself; as she ejaculated--"Holy Virgin!
Master Terence, is that you?"
I satisfied her of my identity, and learned to my unspeakable surprise
that my aunt had returned unexpectedly, and that she had not the
remotest suspicion that her affectionate nephew, myself, was cantoned
within pistol-shot. Without consideration I hopped over the hedge, and
next minute was in the presence of my honoured protectress, the relict
of the departed captain.
"Blessed angels!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Finn, as she took me to her arms,
and favoured me with a kiss, in which there was more blackguard[2] than
ambrosia. "Arrah! Terence, jewel; what the devil drove ye here? Lord
pardon me for mentioning him!"
"My duty, dear aunt. I am but a week landed from Jersey, and could not
rest till I got leave from the colonel to run down between returns, and
pay you a hurried visit. Lord! how well you look!"
"Ah! then, Terence, jewel, it's hard for me to look well, considering
the way I have been fretted by the tenants, and afflicted with the
lumbago. Denis Clark--may the widow's curse follow him wherever he
goes!--bundled off to America with a neighbour's wife, and a year and a
half's rent along with her, the thief! And then, since Holland tide, I
have not had a day's health."
"Well, from your looks I should never have supposed it. But you were
visiting at Meldrum Castle?"
"Yes, faith, and a dear visit it was. Nothing but half-crown whist,
and unlimited brag. Lost seventeen points last Saturday night. It was
Sunday morning, Lord pardon us for playing! But what was that to my luck
yesterday evening! Bragged twice for large pools, with red nines and
black knaves; and Mrs. Cooney, both times, showed natural aces! If ever
woman sold herself, she has. The Lord stand between us and evil! Well,
Terence, you'll be expecting your quarter's allowance. We'll make it out
somehow--Heigh-ho! Between bad cards and runaway tenants, I can't attend
to my soul as I ought, and Holy Week coming!"
I expressed due sympathy for her losses, and regretted that her health,
bodily and spiritual, was so indifferent.
"I have no good news for you, Terence," continued Mrs. O'Finn. "Your
brother Arthur is following your poor father's example, and ruining
himself with hounds and horses. He's a weak and wilful man, and nothing
can save him, I fear. Though he never treated me with proper respect, I
strove to patch up match between him and Miss MacTeggart. Five thousand
down upon the nail, and three hundred a year, failing her mother. I
asked her here on a visit, and, though he had ridden past without
calling on me, wrote him my plan, and invited him to meet her. What do
you think, Terence, was his reply? Why, that Miss MacTeggart might go to
Bath, for he would have no call to my swivel-eyed customers. There was
a return for my kindness! as if a woman with five thousand _down_, and
three hundred a year in expectation, was required to look straight. Ah!
Terence, I wish you had been here. She went to Dublin, and was picked up
in a fortnight."
Egad! here was an excellent opportunity to broach my own success. There
could be no harm in making the commander's widow a _confidante_; and,
after all, she had a claim upon me as my early protectress.
"My dear aunt, I cannot be surprised at your indignation. Arthur was a
fool, and lost an opportunity that never may occur again. In fact, my
dear madam, I intended to have given you an agreeable surprise. I--I--I
am on--the very brink of matrimony!"
"Holy Bridget!" exclaimed Mrs. O'Finn, as she crossed herself devoutly.
"Yes, ma'am. I am engaged to a lady with two thousand pounds."
"Is it _ready_, Terence?" said my aunt.--"Down on the table, before the
priest puts on his vestment."
"Arrah--my blessing attend ye, Terence. I knew you would come to good.
Is she young?"--"Just twenty."
"Is she good-looking?"--"More than that; extremely pretty, innocent, and
artless."
"Arrah--give me another kiss, for I'm proud of ye;" and Captain O'Finn's
representative clasped me in her arms.
"But the family, Terence; remember the old stock. Is she one of
us?"--"She is highly respectable. An only daughter, with excellent
expectations."
"What is her father, Terence?"--"A soldier, ma'am."
"Lord!--quite enough. He's by profession a gentleman; and we can't
expect to find every day, descendants from the kings of Connaught,
like the O'Shaughnessys and the O'Finns. But when is it to take place,
Terence?"--"Why, faith, ma'am, it was a bit of a secret; but I can keep
nothing from you."
"And why should ye? Haven't I been to you more than a mother, Terence?"
"I am to be married this evening."
"This evening! Holy Saint Patrick! and you're sure of the money? It's
not a rent-charge--nothing of bills or bonds?"
"Nothing but bank-notes; nothing but the _aragudh-sheese_."[3]
"Ogh! my blessing be about ye night and day. Arrah, Terence, what's her
name?"
"You'll not mention it. We want the thing done quietly."
"Augh, Terence; and do you think I would let any thing ye told me slip?
By this cross,"--and Mrs. O'Finn bisected the forefinger of her left
hand with the corresponding digit of the right one; "the face of clay
shall never be the wiser of any thing ye mention!"
After this desperate adjuration there was no refusing my aunt's request.
"You know her well,"--and I looked extremely cunning.
"Do I, Terence? Let me see--I have it. It's Ellen Robinson. No--though
her money's safe, there's but five hundred ready."
"Guess again, aunt."
"Is it Bessie Lloyd? No--though the old miller is rich as a Jew, he
would not part a guinea to save the whole human race, or make his
daughter a duchess."--"Far from the mark as ever, aunt."
"Well," returned Mrs. O'Finn, with sigh, "I'm fairly puzzled."
"Whisper!" and I playfully took her hand, and put my lips close to her
cheek. "It's--"
"Who?--who, for the sake of Heaven?"--"Biddy MacGawly!"
"Oh, Jasus!" ejaculated the captain's relict, as she sank upon a chair.
"I'm murdered! Give me my salts, there. Terence O'Shaughnessy, don't
touch me. I put the cross between us," and she made a crucial flourish
with her hand. "You have finished me, ye villain. Holy Virgin! what sins
have I committed, that I should be disgraced in my old age? Meat never
crossed my lips of a Friday; I was regular at mass, and never missed
confession; and, when the company were honest, played as fair as every
body else. I wish I was at peace with poor dear Pat O'Finn. Oh! murder!
murder!"
I stared in amazement. If Roger MacGawly had been a highwayman, his
daughter could not have been an object of greater horror to Mrs O'Finn.
At last I mustered words to attempt to reason with her, but to my
desultory appeals she returned abuse fit only for a pickpocket to
receive.
"Hear me, madam."--"Oh, you common _ommadawn_!"[4]
"For Heaven's sake, listen!"--"Oh! that the O'Finns and the
O'Shaughnessys should be disgraced by a mean-spirited _gommouge_[5] of
your kind!"
"You won't hear me."--"Biddy MacGawly!" she exclaimed. "Why, bad as
my poor brother, your father, was--and though he too married a devil
that has helped to ruin him, she was at all events a lady in her own
right, and cousin-german to Lord Lowestoffe. But--you--you unfortunate
disciple."
I began to wax warm, for my aunt complimented me with all the abuse she
could muster, and there never was a cessation but when her breath failed.
"Why, what have I done? What am I about doing?" I demanded.--"Just
going," returned Mrs. O'Finn, "to make a Judy Fitzsimmons mother of
yourself?"
"And is it," said I, "because Miss MacGawly can't count her pedigree
from Fin Macoul that she should not discharge the duties of a wife?"
My aunt broke in upon me.
"There's one thing certain, that she'll discharge the duties of a
mother. Heavens! if you had married a girl with only a _blast_,[6]
your connexions might brazen it out. But a woman in such a barefaced
condition!--as if her staying in the house these three months could
blind the neighbours, and close their mouths."
"Well, in the devil's name, will you say what objection exists to Biddy
MacGawly making me a husband to-night?"--"And a papa in three months
afterwards!" rejoined my loving aunt.
If a shell had burst in the bivouac, I could not have been more
electrified. Dark suspicions flashed across my mind--a host of
circumstances confirmed my doubts; and I implored the widow of the
defunct dragoon to tell me all she knew.
It was a simple, although, as far as I was concerned, not a flattering
narrative. Biddy had commenced an equestrian novitiate under the
tutelage of Lieutenant Hastings. Her progress in the art of horsemanship
was, no doubt, very satisfactory, and the pupil and the professor
frequently rode out _tête-à-tête_. Biddy, poor soul! was fearful of
exhibiting any _mal-addresse_, and of course, roads less frequented
than the king's highway were generally chosen for her riding lessons.
Gradually these excursions became more extensive; twilight, and in
summer too, often fell, before the quartermaster's heiress had returned;
and on one unfortunate occasion she was absent for a week. This caused
as desperate commotion in the town; the dowagers and old maids sat
in judgment on the case, and declared Biddy no longer visitable. In
vain her absence was ascribed to accident--a horse had run away--she
was thrown--her ankle sprained--and she was detained unavoidably at a
country inn until the injury was abated.
In this state of things the dragoons were ordered off; and it was
whispered that there had been a desperate blow-up between the young
lady's preceptor the lieutenant, and her papa the quartermaster. Once
only had Biddy ventured out upon the mall; but she was cut dead by
her quondam acquaintances. From that day she seldom appeared abroad;
and when she did, it was always in the evening, and even then closely
muffled up. No wonder scandal was rife touching the causes of her
seclusion. A few charitably ascribed it to bad health--others to
disappointment--but the greater proportion of the fair sex attributed
her confinement to the true cause, and whispered that Miss MacGawly was
"as ladies wished to be who love their lords."
Here was a solution to the mystery! It was now pretty easy to comprehend
why Biddy was swathed like a mummy, and Roger so ready with his cash. No
wonder the _demoiselle_ was anxious to abridge delay, and the old crimp
so obliging in procuring a priest and preparing all requisite matters or
immediate hymeneals. What was to be done? What, but denounce the frail
fair one, and annihilate that villain her father. Without a word or
explanation I caught up my hat, and left the house in a hurry, and Mrs.
O'Finn in a state of nervousness that threatened to become hysterical.
When I reached the quartermaster's habitation, I hastened to my own
apartment, and got my traps together in double-quick. I intended to have
abdicated quietly, and favoured the intended Mrs. O'Shaughnessy with an
epistle communicating the reasons that induced me to decline the honour
of her hand; but on the landing my worthy father-in-law cut off my
retreat, and a parting _tête-a-tête_ became unavoidable. He appeared in
great spirits at the success of his interview with the parson.
"Well, Terence, I have done the business. The old chap made a parcel of
objections; but he's poor as Lazarus--slily slipped him ten pounds, and
that quieted his scruples. He's ready at a moment's warning."--"He's a
useful person," I replied drily; "and all you want is a son-in-law."
"A what?" exclaimed the father of Miss Biddy.--"A son-in-law!"
"Why, what the devil do you mean?"--"Not a jot more or less than what I
say. You have procured the priest, but I suspect the bridegroom will not
be forthcoming."
"Zounds, sir! do you mean to treat my daughter with disrespect?"--"Upon
consideration, it would be hardly fair to deprive my old friend Hastings
of his pupil. Why, with another week's private tuition Biddy might offer
her services to Astley."
"Sir,--if you mean to be impertinent,--" and Roger began to bluster,
while the noise brought the footman to the hall, and Miss Biddy to the
banisters 'shawled to the nose.' I began to lose temper.
"Why, you infernal old crimp!"--"You audacious young scoundrel!"
"Oh, Jasus! gentlemen! Pace, for the sake of the blessed Mother!" cried
the butler from below.
"Father, jewel! Terence, my only love!" screamed Miss Biddy, over the
staircase. "What is the matter?"--"He wants to be off!" roared the
quartermaster.
"Stop, Terence, or you'll have my life to answer for."--"Lord, Biddy,
how fat you are grown!"
"You shall fulfil your promise," cried Roger, "or I'll write to the
Horse Guards, and memorial the commander-in-chief."--"You may memorial
your best friend, the devil, you old crimp!" and I forced my way to the
hall.
"Come back, you deceiver!" exclaimed Miss MacGawly.--"Arrah, Biddy, go
tighten yourself," said I.
"Oh, I'm fainting!" screamed Roger's heiress.
"Don't let him out!" roared her sire.
The gentleman with the beefsteak collar made a demonstration to
interrupt my retreat, and in return received a box on the ear that sent
him halfway down the kitchen stairs.
"There," I said, "give that to the old rogue, your master, with my best
compliments,"--and bounding from the hall-door, Biddy MacGawly, like
Lord Ullin's daughter, "was left lamenting!"
Well, there is no describing the _rookawn_[7] a blow-up like this,
occasioned in a country town. I was unmercifully quizzed; but the
quartermaster and his heiress found it advisable to abdicate. Roger
removed his household goods to the metropolis--Miss Biddy favoured him
in due time with a grandson; and when I returned from South America, I
learned that "this lost love of mine" had accompanied a Welsh lieutenant
to the hymeneal altar, who, not being "over-particular" about trifles,
had obtained on the same morning a wife, an heir, and an estate--with
Roger's blessing into the bargain.
[1] _Anglicè_, a jackstraw.
[2] Coarse Irish snuff.
[3] _Anglicè_, cash down.
[4] _Anglicè_, a fool.
[5] A simpleton.
[6] _Anglicè_, a flaw of the reputation.
[7] _Anglicè_, confusion
REDDY O'DRYSCULL,
SCHOOLMASTER AT WATER-GRASS-HILL,
TO MR. BENTLEY, PUBLISHER.
SIR,--I write to you concerning the late P.P. of this parish--his soul
to glory! for, as Virgil says,--and devil a doubt of it,--
_Candidus insuetum miratur limen Olympi,
Sub pedibusque videt nubes et sidera pastor._
His RELIQUES, sir, in two volumes, have been sent down here from Dublin,
for the use of my boys, by order of the National _Education_ Board,
with directions to cram the spalpeens all at once with such a power of
knowledge that they may forget the hunger: which plan, between you and
me, (though I say it that oughtn't) is all sheer _bladderum-skate_:
for, as Juvenal maintains, _jejunus stomachus_, &c. &c.--an empty bag
won't stand; you must first fill it with praties. Give us a poor-law,
sir, and, trust me, you will hear no more about Rock and repeal; no, nor
of the _rint_, against which latter humbug the man of God set his face
outright during his honest and honourable lifetime; for, sir, though
he differed with Mr. Moore about Irish round towers, and a few French
roundelays, in _this_ they fully agreed.
As I understand, sir, that you are Publisher in ordinary to his Majesty,
I intend from time to time conveying through you to the ear of royalty
some _desiderata curiosa Hyberniæ_ from the pen of the deceased; matters
which remain _penès me, in scriniis_, to use the style of your great
namesake. For the present, I merely send you a few classic scraps
collected by Dr. Prout in some convent abroad; and, wishing every
success to your Miscellany, am your humble servant,
R. O'D.
SCRAP, No. 1. _Water-grass-hill._
There flourishes, I hear, in London, a Mr. HUDSON, whose reputation
as a comic lyrist, it would seem, has firmly taken root in the great
metropolis. Many are the laughter-compelling productions of his merry
genius; but "_Barney Brallaghan's Courtship_" may be termed his
_opus magnum_. It has been my lot to pick a few dry leaves from the
laurel-wreath of Mr. Moore, who could well afford the loss: I know not
whether I can meddle rightly after a similar fashion with _Hudson's_
bay. Yet is there a strange coincidence of thought and expression,
and even metre, between the following remnant of antiquity, and his
never-sufficiently-to-be-encored song.
The original may be seen at Bobbio in the Apennines,--a Benedictine
settlement, well known as the earliest asylum opened to learning after
the fall of the Roman Empire. The Irish monk Colombanus had the merit
of founding it, and it long remained tenanted by natives of Ireland.
Among them it has been ascertained that DANTE lived for some time, and
composed Latin verses; but I cannot recognise any trace of _his_ stern
phraseology in the ballad. It appears rather the production of some
rustic of the Augustan age; perhaps one of Horace's ploughmen. It is
addressed to a certain Julia Callapygé, ([Greek: Kallipygê],) a name
which (for shortness I suppose) the rural poet contracts into Julia
"CALLAGÉ." I have diligently compared it with the vulgate version, as
sung by Fitzwilliam at the Freemasons' Tavern; and little doubt can
remain of its identity and authenticity.
P. P.
THE SABINE FARMER'S SERENADE;
BEING A NEWLY RECOVERED FRAGMENT OF A LATIN OPERA.
I. 1.
Erat turbida nox 'Twas on a windy night,
Horâ secundâ mané At two o'clock in the morning,
Quando proruit vox An Irish lad so tight,
Carmen in hoc inané; All wind and weather scorning,
Viri misera mens At Judy Callaghan's door,
Meditabatur hymen, Sitting upon the palings,
Hinc puellæ flens His love-tale he did pour,
Stabat obsidens limen; And this was part of his wailings:--
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
II. 2.
Planctibus aurem fer, Oh! list to what I say,
Venere tu formosior; Charms you've got like Venus;
Dic, hos muros per, Own your love you may,
Tuo favore potior! There's but the wall between us.
Voce beatum fac; You lie fast asleep,
En, dum dormis, vigilo, Snug in bed and snoring;
Nocte obambulans hâc Round the house I creep,
Domum planctu stridulo. Your hard heart imploring.
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll have Mr. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
III. 3.
Est mihi prægnans sus, I've got a pig and a sow,
Et porcellis stabulum; I've got a sty to sleep 'em;
Villula, grex, et rus[8] A calf and a brindled cow,
Ad vaccarum pabulum; And a cabin too, to keep 'em;
Feriis cerneres me Sunday hat and coat,
Splendido vestimento, An old grey mare to ride on;
Tunc, heus! quàm benè te Saddle and bridle to boot,
Veherem in jumento![9] Which you may ride astride on.
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
IV. 4.
Vis poma terræ? sum I've got an acre of ground,
Uno dives jugere; I've got it set with praties;
Vis lac et mella,[10] cùm I've got of 'baccy a pound,
Bacchi succo,[11] sugere? I've got some tea for the ladies;
Vis aquæ-vitæ vim?[12] I've got the ring to wed,
Plumoso somnum sacculo?[13] Some whisky to make us gaily;
Vis ut paratus sim I've got a feather-bed
Vel annulo vel baculo?[14] And a handsome new shilelagh.
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
V. 5.
Litteris operam das; You've got a charming eye,
Lucido fulges oculo; You've got some spelling and reading;
Dotes insuper quas You've got, and so have I,
Nummi sunt in loculo. A taste for genteel breeding;
Novi quad apta sis[15] You're rich, and fair, and young,
Ad procreandam sobolem! As everybody's knowing;
Possides (nesciat quis?) You've got a decent tongue
Linguam satis mobilem.[16] Whene'er 'tis set a-going.
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
VI. 6.
Conjux utinam tu For a wife till death
Fieres, lepidum cor, mî! I am willing to take ye;
Halitum perdimus, heu, But, och! I waste my breath,
Te sopor urget. Dormi! The devil himself can't wake ye.
Ingruit imber trux-- 'Tis just beginning to rain,
Jam sub tecto pellitur So I'll get under cover;
Is quem crastina lux[17] Tomorrow I'll come again,
Referet hùc fidelitèr. And be your constant lover.
_Semel tantum dic_ _Only say_
_Eris nostra_ LALAGÉ; _You'll be Mrs. Brallaghan;_
_Ne recuses sic,_ _Don't say nay,_
_Dulcis Julia_ CALLAGÉ. _Charming Judy Callaghan._
NOTULÆ.
[8] NOTUL. 1.
1º in _voce rus_. Nonne potiùs legendum _jus_, scilicet, _ad vaccarum
pabulum_? De hoc _jure_ apud Nabinos agricolas consule _Scriptores de re
rustied_ passim. Ita _Beatleius_.
Jus imo antiquissimum, at displicet vox æquivoca; jus etenim a _mess of
pottage_ aliquande audit, ex. gr.
Omne suum fratri Jacob _jus_ vendidit Esau,
Et Jacob fratri jus dedit omne suum. Itaque, pace Bentleii, stet lectio
prior.--_Prout._
[9] NOTUL. 2.
_Veherem in jumento._ Curriculo-ne? an ponè sedentem in equi dorso?
dorsaliter planè. Quid enim dicit Horatius de uxore sic vectà? Nonne
"_Post equitem sedet atra cura_"?--_Parson._
[10] NOTUL. 3.
_Lac et mella._ Metaphoricè pro _tea_: muliebris est compotatio Græcis
non ignota, teste Anacreonte,--
[Greek: ThEÊN, thian thiainên,] [Greek: Thilô ligein etairai, k. t. l.]
_Brougham._
[11] NOTUL. 4.
_Bacchi succo._ Duplex apud poetas antiquiores habebatur hujusce nominis
numen. Vineam regebat prius: posterius cuidam herbæ exoticæ pracerat quæ
_tobacco_ audit. Succus utrique optimus.--_Coleridge._
[12] NOTUL. 5.
_Aquæ-vitæ vim_, Anglo-Hybernicè, "_a power of whisky_," [Greek:
ischys], scilicet, vox pergracca. _Parr._
[13] NOTUL. 6.
_Plumoso sacco._ Plumarum congeriea certè ad somnos invitandos satis
apta; at mihi per multos annos laneus iste saccus, Ang. _woolsack_,
fuit apprimè ad dormiendum idoneus. Lites etlam _de iand ut aiunt
caprind_, soporiferas per annos xxx, exercui. Quot et quam præclara
somnia!--_Eldon._
[14] NOTUL. 7.
Investitura "_per annulum et baculum_" satis nota. Vide P. Marca de
Concord. Sacerdotii et Imperii: et Hildebrandi Pont. Max. bullarium.
_Prout._ Baculo certè dignissim. pontif.--_Maginn._
[15] NOTUL. 8.
_Apta sis._ Quemodo noverit? Vide Proverb. Solomonis cap. xxx. v. 19.
Nisi forsan tales fuerint puellæ Sabinorum quales impudens iste balatro
Connelius mentitur esse nostrates. _Blomfield._
[16] NOTUL. 9.
_Linguam mobilem._ Prius enumerat futuræ conjugis bona _immobilis_,
postea transit ad _mobilia_, Anglicè, _chattel property_. Præclares
orde sententiarum!--_Car. Wetherell._
[17] NOTUL. 10.
Allusio ad distichon Maronianum, "Nocte pluit totâ, _redeunt spectacula
manè_." _Prout._ [Greek: k. t. l.]
* * * * *
* * Our Water-grass-hill correspondent will find scattered throughout
* our pages the other fragments of the defunct _Padre_ which he has
placed at our disposal. Every chip from so brilliant an old block may
be said to possess a lustre peculiarly its own; hence we have not
feared to disperse them up and down our miscellany. They are
"gems of the purest whiskey."--_Edit._
[Illustration: Mr. Tulrumble as Mayor of Mudfog]
PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE,
ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG.
Mudfog is a pleasant town--a remarkably pleasant town--situated in
a charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog
derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, a
roving population in oil-skin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken
bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good
deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town
for a watering-place, either. Water is a perverse sort of element at
the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so. In winter,
it comes oozing down the streets and tumbling over the fields,--nay,
rushes into the very cellars and kitchens of the houses, with a lavish
prodigality that might well be dispensed with; but in the hot summer
weather it _will_ dry up, and turn green: and, although green is a very
good colour in its way, especially in grass, still it certainly is not
becoming to water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is
rather impaired, even by this trifling circumstance. Mudfog is a healthy
place--very healthy;--damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that. It's
quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome: plants thrive best
in damp situations, and why shouldn't men? The inhabitants of Mudfog
are unanimous in asserting that there exists not a finer race of people
on the face of the earth; here we have an indisputable and veracious
contradiction of the vulgar error at once. So, admitting Mudfog to be
damp, we distinctly state that it is salubrious.
The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse and Ratcliffe
Highway are both something like it, but they give you a very faint idea
of Mudfog. There are a great many more public-houses in Mudfog,--more
than in Ratcliffe Highway and Limehouse put together. The public
buildings, too, are very imposing. We consider the Town-hall one of the
finest specimens of shed architecture, extant: it is a combination of
the pig-sty and tea-garden-box, orders; and the simplicity of its design
is of surpassing beauty. The idea of placing a large window on one side
of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy. There
is a fine bold Doric beauty, too, about the padlock and scraper, which
is strictly in keeping with the general effect.
In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together
in solemn council for the public weal. Seated on the massive wooden
benches, which, with the table in the centre, form the only furniture of
the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of Mudfog spend hour after hour
in grave deliberation. Here they settle at what hour of the night the
public-houses shall be closed, at what hour of the morning they shall
be permitted to open, how soon it shall be lawful for people to eat
their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions; and
sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the distant
lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like far-off
stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the illumination in
the two unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns the inhabitants
of Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a larger and
better-known body of the same genus, a great deal more noisy, and not a
whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in company, far into
the night, for their country's good.
Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently
distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his
appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known
coal-dealer. However exciting the subject of discussion, however
animated the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalities
exchanged, (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas
Tulrumble was always the same. To say truth, Nicholas, being an
industrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a
debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when he would wake
up very much refreshed, and give his vote with the greatest complacency.
The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble, knowing that everybody there, had
made up his mind beforehand, considered the talking as just a long hot
botheration about nothing at all; and to the present hour it remains a
question, whether, on this point at all events, Nicholas Tulrumble was
not pretty near right.
Time, which strews a man's head with silver, sometimes fills his pockets
with gold. As he gradually performed one good office for Nicholas
Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other. Nicholas began
life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with a capital of two and
ninepence, and a stock in trade of three bushels and a-half of coals,
exclusive of the large lump which hung, by way of sign-board, outside.
Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a truck; then he left the shed, and
the truck too, and started a donkey and a Mrs. Tulrumble; then he moved
again and set up a cart; the cart was soon afterwards exchanged for a
waggon; and so he went on, like his great predecessor Whittington--only
without a cat for a partner--increasing in wealth and fame, until at
last he gave up business altogether, and retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and
family to Mudfog Hall, which he had himself erected, on something which
he endeavoured to delude himself into the belief was a hill, about a
quarter of a mile distant from the town of Mudfog.
About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas
Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success
had corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the natural
goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for a public
character, and a great gentleman, and affected to look down upon his
old companions with compassion and contempt. Whether these reports were
at the time well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. Tulrumble
very shortly afterwards started a four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall
postilion in a yellow cap,--that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking
cigars, and calling the footman a "feller,"--and that Mr. Tulrumble from
that time forth, was no more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner
of the Lighterman's Arms at night. This looked bad; but, more than
this, it began to be observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the
corporation meetings more frequently than heretofore; that he no longer
went to sleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelids
open with his two fore-fingers; that he read the newspapers by himself
at home; and that he was in the habit of indulging abroad in distant
and mysterious allusions to "masses of people," and "the property of
the country," and "productive power," and "the monied interest:" all
of which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad, or
worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog amazingly.
At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble and
family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs. Tulrumble
informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height of the fashionable
season.
Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving
air of Mudfog, the Mayor died. It was a most extraordinary circumstance;
he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five years. The corporation didn't
understand it at all; indeed it was with great difficulty that one
old gentleman, who was a great stickler for forms, was dissuaded from
proposing a vote of censure on such unaccountable conduct. Strange as
it was, however, die he did, without taking the slightest notice of
the corporation; and the corporation were imperatively called upon to
elect his successor. So, they met for the purpose; and being very full
of Nicholas Tulrumble just then, and Nicholas Tulrumble being a very
important man, they elected him, and wrote off to London by the very
next post to acquaint Nicholas Tulrumble with his new elevation.
Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in the
capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor's show and
dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he, Mr. Tulrumble,
was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflection would force itself
on his mind, that, had he been born in London instead of in Mudfog, he
might have been a Lord Mayor too, and have patronised the judges, and
been affable to the Lord Chancellor, and friendly with the Premier,
and coldly condescending to the Secretary to the Treasury, and have
dined with a flag behind his back, and done a great many other acts
and deeds which unto Lord Mayors of London peculiarly appertain. The
more he thought of the Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he
seemed. To be a King was all very well; but what was the King to the
Lord Mayor? When the King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody
else's writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor talking away for half
an hour--all out of his own head--amidst the enthusiastic applause of
the whole company, while it was notorious that the King might talk to
his parliament till he was black in the face without getting so much
as a single cheer. As all these reflections passed through the mind of
Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble, the Lord Mayor of London appeared to him the
greatest sovereign on the face of the earth, beating the Emperor of
Russia all to nothing, and leaving the Great Mogul immeasurably behind.
Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering over these things, and inwardly
cursing the fate which had pitched his coal-shed in Mudfog, when the
letter of the corporation was put into his hand. A crimson flush mantled
over his face as he read it, for visions of brightness were already
dancing before his imagination.
"My dear," said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, "they have elected me, Mayor
of Mudfog."
"Lor-a-mussy!" said Mrs. Tulrumble: "why, what's become of old Sniggs?"
"The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble," said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for
he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously designating a
gentleman who had filled the high office of Mayor as "old Sniggs,"--"The
late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead."
The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only
ejaculated "Lor-a-mussy!" once again, as if a Mayor were a mere ordinary
Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily.
"What a pity 'tan't in London, ain't it?" said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a
short pause; "what a pity 'tan't in London, where you might have had a
show."
"I _might_ have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper, I apprehend,"
said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously.
"Lor! so you might, I declare," replied Mrs. Tulrumble.
"And a good one, too," said Mr. Tulrumble.
"Delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble.
"One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there," said
Mr. Tulrumble.
"It would kill them with envy," said Mrs. Tulrumble.
So it was agreed that his Majesty's lieges in Mudfog should be
astonished with splendour, and slaughtered with envy, and that such a
show should take place as had never been seen in that town, or in any
other town before,--no, not even in London itself.
On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the
tall postilion in a post-chaise,--not upon one of the horses, but
inside--actually inside the chaise,--and, driving up to the very door
of the town-hall, where the corporation were assembled, delivered a
letter, written by the Lord knows who, and signed by Nicholas Tulrumble,
in which Nicholas said, all through four sides of closely-written,
gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath post letter-paper, that he responded to
the call of his fellow-townsmen with feelings of heartfelt delight;
that he accepted the arduous office which their confidence had imposed
upon him; that they would never find him shrinking from the discharge
of his duty; that he would endeavour to execute his functions with
all that dignity which their magnitude and importance demanded; and
a great deal more to the same effect. But even this was not all. The
tall postilion produced from his right-hand top-boot, a damp copy of
that afternoon's number of the county paper; and there, in large type,
running the whole length of the very first column, was a long address
from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants of Mudfog, in which he said
that he cheerfully complied with their requisition, and, in short, as
if to prevent any mistake about the matter, told them over again what
a grand fellow he meant to be, in very much the same terms as those in
which he had already told them all about the matter in his letter.
The corporation stared at one another very hard at all this, and then
looked as if for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the tall
postilion was intently contemplating the gold tassel on the top of his
yellow cap, and could have afforded no explanation whatever, even if
his thoughts had been entirely disengaged, they contented themselves
with coughing very dubiously, and looking very grave. The tall postilion
then delivered another letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble informed the
corporation, that he intended repairing to the town-hall, in grand state
and gorgeous procession, on the Monday afternoon then next ensuing. At
this, the corporation looked still more solemn; but, as the epistle
wound up with a formal invitation to the whole body to dine with the
Mayor on that day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, they began to
see the fun of the thing directly, and sent back their compliments, and
they'd be sure to come.
Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does
happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and perhaps
in foreign dominions too--we think it very likely, but, being no great
traveller, cannot distinctly say--there happened to be, in Mudfog a
merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond,
with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable
attachment to strong beer and spirits whom everybody knew, and nobody,
except his wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from
his ancestors the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the
_sobriquet_ of Bottle-nosed Ned. He was drunk upon the average once
a day, and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month;
and when he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of
maudlin intoxication. He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow,
with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his
hand to anything when he chose to do it. He was by no means opposed to
hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by
the day together,--running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and
revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. He would have been
invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a natural taste
for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing furniture out of
two-pair-of-stairs' windows: nor was this the only element in which he
was at home; he was a humane society in himself, a portable drag, an
animated life-preserver, and had saved more people, in his time, from
drowning, than the Plymouth life-boat, or Captain Manby's apparatus.
With all these qualifications, notwithstanding his dissipation,
Bottle-nosed Ned was a general favourite; and the authorities of Mudfog,
remembering his numerous services to the population, allowed him in
return to get drunk in his own way, without the fear of stocks, fine, or
imprisonment. He had a general licence, and he showed his sense of the
compliment by making the most of it.
We have been thus particular in describing the character and avocations
of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introduce a fact politely,
without hauling it into the reader's presence with indecent haste by the
head and shoulders, and brings us very naturally to relate, that on the
very same evening on which Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble and family returned to
Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble's new secretary, just imported from London, with
a pale face and light whiskers, thrust his head down to the very bottom
of his neckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room door of the Lighterman's Arms,
and enquiring whether one Ned Twigger was luxuriating within, announced
himself as the bearer of a message from Nicholas Tulrumble, Esquire,
requiring Mr. Twigger's immediate attendance at the hall, on private
and particular business. It being by no means Mr. Twigger's interest
to affront the Mayor, he rose from the fire-place with a slight sigh,
and followed the light-whiskered secretary through the dirt and wet of
Mudfog streets, up to Mudfog Hall, without further ado.
Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a skylight,
which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the procession on
a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the secretary ushered Ned
Twigger.
"Well, Twigger!" said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly.
There was a time when Twigger would have replied, "Well, Nick!" but that
was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the donkey;
so, he only bowed.
"I want you to go into training, Twigger," said Mr. Tulrumble.
"What for, sir?" enquired Ned, with a stare.
"Hush, hush, Twigger!" said the Mayor. "Shut the door, Mr. Jennings.
Look here, Twigger."
As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a
complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions.
"I want you to wear this, next Monday, Twigger," said the Mayor.
"Bless your heart and soul, sir!" replied Ned, "you might as well ask me
to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler."
"Nonsense, Twigger! nonsense!" said the Mayor.
"I couldn't stand under it, sir," said Twigger; "it would make mashed
potatoes of me, if I attempted it."
"Pooh, pooh, Twigger!" returned the Mayor. "I tell you I have seen it
done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn't half such a man as
you are, either."
"I should as soon have thought of a man's wearing the case of an
eight-day clock to save his linen," said Twigger, casting a look of
apprehension at the brass suit.
"It's the easiest thing in the world," rejoined the Mayor.
"It's nothing," said Mr. Jennings.
"When you're used to it," added Ned.
"You do it by degrees," said the Mayor. "You would begin with one piece
to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got it all on.
Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum. Just try the breast-plate,
Twigger. Stay; take another glass of rum first. Help me to lift it, Mr.
Jennings. Stand firm, Twigger! There!--it isn't half as heavy as it
looks, is it?"
Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of
staggering he managed to keep himself up, under the breast-plate, and
even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about in
it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. He made a trial of the helmet,
but was not equally successful, inasmuch he tipped over instantly,--an
accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be occasioned by
his not having a counteracting weight of brass on his legs.
"Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next," said
Tulrumble, "and I'll make your fortune."
"I'll try what I can do, sir," said Twigger.
"It must be kept a profound secret," said Tulrumble.
"Of course, sir," replied Twigger.
"And you must be sober," said Tulrumble; "perfectly sober."
Mr. Twigger at once solemnly pledged himself to be as sober as a judge,
and Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, had we been Nicholas, we
should certainly have exacted some promise of a more specific nature;
inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes in the evening more than
once, we can solemnly testify to having seen judges with very strong
symptoms of dinner under their wigs. However, that's neither here nor
there.
The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned Twigger
was securely locked up in the small cavern with the skylight, hard at
work at the armour. With every additional piece he could manage to
stand upright in, he had on additional glass of rum; and at last, after
many partial suffocations, he contrived to get on the whole suit, and
to stagger up and down the room in it, like an intoxicated effigy from
Westminster Abbey.
Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so
charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble's wife. Here was a sight for the common
people of Mudfog! A live man in brass armour! Why, they would go wild
with wonder!
The day--_the_ Monday--arrived.
If the morning had been made to order, it couldn't have been better
adapted to the purpose. They never showed a better fog in London on
Lord Mayor's day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that eventful
occasion. It had risen slowly and surely from the green and stagnant
water with the first light of morning, until it reached a little
above the lamp-post tops; and there it had stopped, with a sleepy,
sluggish obstinacy, which bade defiance to the sun, who had got up very
blood-shot about the eyes, as if he had been at a drinking-party over
night, and was doing his day's work with the worst possible grace. The
thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze curtain. All was
dim and dismal. The church-steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to
the world below; and every object of lesser importance--houses, barns,
hedges, trees, and barges--had all taken the veil.
The church-clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front-garden
of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic person
had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out came a
gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, intended to represent
a herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court-card on
horseback. This was one of the Circus people, who always came down to
Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas
Tulrumble expressly for the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his
tail about, balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away
with his fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and
souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a reasonable
one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of scattering the
very fog with their shouts, as they ought most indubitably to have
done, and were fully intended to do, by Nicholas Tulrumble, they no
sooner recognised the herald, than they began to growl forth the most
unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding like any
other man. If he had come out on his head indeed, or jumping through a
hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with
his other foot in his mouth, they might have had something to say to
him; but for a professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with
his feet in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. So, the herald was
a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he pranced
ingloriously away.
On the procession came. We were afraid to say how many supernumeraries
there were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, to imitate the
London watermen, or how many base imitations of running-footmen, or how
many banners, which, owing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, could by
no means be prevailed on to display their inscriptions: still less do
we feel disposed to relate how the men who played the wind instruments,
looking up into the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour,
walked through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered
the powdered heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes,
that looked curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ
performer put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band
played another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not
to the streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and
prancing;--all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to great
advantage, but which we have not the least intention of dilating upon,
notwithstanding.
Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold the corporation
in glass coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas
Tulrumble, coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning, and
to watch the attempts the corporation made to look great and solemn,
when Nicholas Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise, with the
tall postilion, rolled out after them, with Mr. Jennings on one side
to look like the chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an
old life-guardsman's sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the
tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with merriment.
This was beautiful! and so was the appearance of Mrs. Tulrumble and son,
as they bowed with grave dignity out of their coach-window to all the
dirty faces that were laughing around them: but it is not even with this
that we have to do, but with the sudden stopping of the procession at
another blast of the trumpet, whereat, and whereupon, a profound silence
ensued, and all eyes were turned towards Mudfog Hull, in the confident
anticipation of some new wonder.
"They won't laugh now, Mr. Jennings," said Nicholas Tulrumble.
"I think not, sir," said Mr. Jennings.
"See how eager they look," said Nicholas Tulrumble. "Aha! the laugh will
be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?"
"No doubt of that, sir," replied Mr. Jennings; and Nicholas Tulrumble,
in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four-wheel chaise,
and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress behind.
While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into the
kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants with
a private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town; and,
somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid
so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer
of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something--just to drink
success to master in.
So, down Ned Trigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of
the kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for by the
unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable
footman, drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned laid
by his helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable footman
put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable delight of
the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was very facetious
to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by turns.
They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something strong went
briskly round.
At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people:
and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by
the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly
cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude.
The crowd roared--it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it
was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.
"What!" said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise.
"Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they'd laugh
when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn't he go into his place, Mr.
Jennings? What's he rolling down towards us for?--he has no business
here!"
"I am afraid, sir----" faltered Mr. Jennings.
"Afraid of what, sir?" said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the
secretary's face.
"I am afraid he's drunk, sir;" replied Mr. Jennings.
Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that was
bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the arm,
uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.
It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to demand
a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour,
got, by some means or other, rather out in his calculation in the
hurry and confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a
piece instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went
on the top of it. Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow
of perspiration, and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we
are not scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr.
Twigger no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than
he also found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication;
and hence his extraordinary style of progressing. This was bad enough,
but, as if fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble,
Mr. Twigger, not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took
it into his head to be most especially and particularly sentimental,
just when his repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed
with. Immense tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly
endeavouring to conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue
cotton pocket-handkerchief with white spots,--an article not strictly
in keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or
thereabouts.
"Twigger, you villain!" said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his
dignity, "go back!"
"Never," said Ned. "I'm a miserable wretch. I'll never leave you."
The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations of
"That's right, Ned; don't!"
"I don't intend it," said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy
man. "I'm very unhappy. I'm the wretched father of an unfortunate
family; but I am very faithful, sir. I'll never leave you." Having
reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to
harangue the crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the
excessive respectability of his character, and other topics of the like
nature.
"Here! will anybody lead him away?" said Nicholas: "if they'll call on
me afterwards, I'll reward them well."
Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off, when
the secretary interposed.
"Take care! take care!" said Mr. Jennings. "I beg your pardon, sir; but
they'd better not go too near him, because, if he falls over, he'll
certainly crush somebody."
At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful
distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle
of his own.
"But, Mr. Jennings," said Nicholas Tulrumble, "he'll be suffocated."
"I'm very sorry for it, sir," replied Mr. Jennings; "but nobody can get
that armour off, without his own assistance. I'm quite certain of it,
from the way he put it on."
Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner that
might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts of
stone, and they laughed heartily.
"Dear me, Mr. Jennings," said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility
of Ned's being smothered in his antique costume--"Dear me, Mr. Jennings,
can nothing be done with him?"
"Nothing at all," replied Ned, "nothing at all. Gentlemen, I'm an
unhappy wretch. I'm a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin." At this
poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the people
began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble meant by
putting a man into such a machine as that; and one individual in a hairy
waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who had previously expressed his
opinion that if Ned hadn't been a poor man, Nicholas wouldn't have dared
to do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the four-wheel chaise,
or Nicholas's head, or both, which last compound proposition the crowd
seemed to consider a very good notion.
It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached, when
Ned Twigger's wife made her appearance abruptly in the little circle
before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face and form,
than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home just as
fast as his legs would carry him; and that was not very quick in the
present instance either, for, however ready they might have been to
carry _him_, they couldn't get on very well under the brass armour.
So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty of time to denounce Nicholas Tulrumble to
his face: to express her opinion that he was a decided monster; and to
intimate that, if her ill-used husband sustained any personal damage
from the brass armour, she would have the law of Nicholas Tulrumble
for manslaughter. When she had said all this with due vehemence, she
posted after Ned, who was dragging himself along as best he could, and
deploring his unhappiness in most dismal tones.
What a wailing and screaming Ned's children raised when he got home at
last! Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one place, and
then in another, but she couldn't manage it; so she tumbled Ned into
bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all. Such a creaking as the bedstead
made, under Ned's weight in his new suit! It didn't break down though;
and there Ned lay, like the anonymous vessel in the Bay of Biscay, till
next day, drinking barley-water, and looking miserable: and every time
he groaned, his good lady said it served him right, which was all the
consolation Ned Twigger got.
Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to
the town-hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators, who
had suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr.
Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in acknowledgment
of which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech, composed by the
secretary, which was very long and no doubt very good, only the noise
of the people outside prevented anybody from hearing it, but Nicholas
Tulrumble himself. After which, the procession got back to Mudfog Hall
any how it could; and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to dinner.
But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed. They were such
dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation. Nicholas made quite as long
speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay, he said the very
same things that the Lord Mayor of London had said, and the deuce a
cheer the corporation gave him. There was only one man in the party who
was thoroughly awake; and he was insolent, and called him Nick. Nick!
What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming to
call the Lord Mayor of London "Nick!" He should like to know what the
sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the toast-master, or
any other of the great officers of the city. They'd nick him.
But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble's doings; If they
had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have talked
till he lost his voice. He contracted a relish for statistics, and got
philosophical; and the statistics and the philosophy together, led him
into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his downfall.
At the very end of the Mudfog High-street, and abutting on the
river-side, stands the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned, low-roofed,
bay-windowed house, with a bar, kitchen, and tap-room all in one, and a
large fire-place with a kettle to correspond, round which the working
men have congregated time out of mind on a winter's night, refreshed by
draughts of good strong beer, and cheered by the sounds of a fiddle and
tambourine: the Jolly Boatmen having been duly licensed by the Mayor
and corporation, to scrape the fiddle and thumb the tambourine from
time, whereof the memory of the oldest inhabitants goeth not to the
contrary. Now Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime,
and parliamentary reports,--or had made the secretary read them to him,
which is the same thing in effect,--and he at once perceived that this
fiddle and tambourine must have done more to demoralise Mudfog, than any
other operating causes that ingenuity could imagine. So he read up for
the subject, and determined to come out on the corporation with a burst,
the very next time the licence was applied for.
The licensing day came, and the red-faced landlord of the Jolly Boatmen,
walked into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need be, having actually
put on an extra fiddle for that night, to commemorate the anniversary
of the Jolly Boatmen's music licence. It was applied for in due form,
and was just about to be granted as a matter of course, when up rose
Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned the astonished corporation in a torrent
of eloquence. He descanted in glowing terms upon the increasing
depravity of his native town of Mudfog, and the excesses committed by
its population. Then, he related how shocked he had been, to see barrels
of beer sliding down into the cellar of the Jolly Boatmen week after
week; and how he had sat at a window opposite the Jolly Boatmen for two
days together, to count the people who went in for beer between the
hours of twelve and one o'clock alone--which, by-the-bye, was the time
at which the great majority of the Mudfog people dined. Then, he went on
to state, how the number of people who came out with beer-jugs, averaged
twenty-one in five minutes, which, being multiplied by twelve, gave two
hundred and fifty-two people with beer-jugs in an hour, and multiplied
again by fifteen (the number of hours during which the house was open
daily) yielded three thousand seven hundred and eighty people with
beer-jugs per day, or twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty people
with beer-jugs, per week. Then he proceeded to show that a tambourine
and moral degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle and vicious
propensities wholly inseparable. All these arguments he strengthened
and demonstrated by frequent references to a large book with a blue
cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex magistrates; and in the
end, the corporation, who were posed with the figures, and sleepy with
the speech, and sadly in want of dinner into the bargain, yielded the
palm to Nicholas Tulrumble, and refused the music licence to the Jolly
Boatmen.
But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short. He carried on
the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time when he
was glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other, till the
people hated, and his old friends shunned him. He grew tired of the
lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned towards the
Lighterman's Arms. He wished he had never set up as a public man, and
sighed for the good old times of the coal-shop, and the chimney-corner.
At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of grace,
paid the secretary a quarter's wages in advance, and packed him off to
London by the next coach. Having taken this step, he put his hat on his
head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked down to the old room at
the Lighterman's Arms. There were only two of the old fellows there, and
they looked coldly on Nicholas as he proffered his hand.
"Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?" said one.
"Or trace the progress of crime to 'baccer?" growled the other.
"Neither," replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands with them both,
whether they would or not. "I've come down to say that I'm very sorry
for having made a fool of myself, and that I hope you'll give me up the
old chair, again."
The old fellows opened their eyes, and three or four more old fellows
opened the door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, thrust out
his hand too, and told the same story. They raised a shout of joy, that
made the bells in the ancient church-tower vibrate again, and wheeling
the old chair into the warm corner, thrust old Nicholas down into it,
and ordered in the very largest-sized bowl of hot punch, with an
unlimited number of pipes, directly.
The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next night,
old Nicholas and Ned Twigger's wife led off a dance to the music of
the fiddle and tambourine, the tone of which seemed mightily improved
by a little rest, for they never had played so merrily before. Ned
Twigger was in the very height of his glory, and he danced hornpipes,
and balanced chairs on his chin, and straws on his nose, till the whole
company, including the corporation, were in raptures of admiration at
the brilliancy of his acquirements.
Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn't make up his mind to be anything but
magnificent, so he went up to London and drew bills on his father; and
when he had overdrawn, and got into debt, he grew penitent and came home
again.
As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of public
life, never tried it any more. He went to sleep in the town-hall at the
very next meeting; and, in full proof of his sincerity, has requested us
to write this faithful narrative. We wish it could have the effect of
reminding the Tulrumbles of another sphere, that puffed-up conceit is
not dignity, and that snarling at the little pleasures they were once
glad to enjoy, because they would rather forget the times when they were
of lower station, renders them objects of contempt and ridicule.
This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this
particular source. Perhaps, at some future period, we may venture to
open the chronicles of Mudfog.
BOZ.
THE HOT WELLS OF CLIFTON.
SCRAP, No. II. _Water-grass-hill._
The "poems of Ossian," a celtic bard, and the "rhymes of Rowley," a
Bristol priest, burst on the public at one and the same period; when the
attention of literary men was for a time totally absorbed in discussing
the respective discoveries of Macpherson and of Chatterton. "The fashion
of this world passeth away;" and what once engaged so much notice is now
sadly neglected. Indeed, had not Bonaparte taken a fancy to the ravings
of the mad highlander, and had not Chatterton swallowed oxalic acid,
probably far more brief had been the space both would have occupied
in the memory of mankind. In the garret of Holborn, where the latter
expired, the following _morceau_ was picked up by an Irish housemaid
(a native of this parish), who, in writing home to a sweetheart,
converted it into an envelope for her letter. It thus came into
my possession.
P. PROUT.
TO THE HOT WELLS OF CLIFTON,
IN PRAISE OF RUM-PUNCH.
A Triglot Ode, viz.
1º [Greek: Pindarou peri reumatos ôdê.]
2º Horatii in fontem Bristolii carmen.
3º A Relick (unpublished) of "the unfortunate Chatterton."
PINDAR. HORACE. CHATTERTON.
[Greek: Pêgê Bristolias O fons Bristolii I ken your worth
Mallon en ualô Hoc magis in vitro "Hot wells" of Bristol,
Lampous' anthesi syn Dulci digne mero That bubble forth
Nektaros axiê Non sine floribus As clear as crystal;...
S' antlô Vas impleveris In parlour snug
Reumati pollô Undâ I'd wish no hotter
Misgôn Mel solvente To mix a jug
Kai melitos poly.] Caloribus. Of Rum and Water.
[Greek: b.] II. 2.
[Greek: Anêr kan tis eran Si quis vel venerem Doth Love, young chiel,
Bouletai ê machan Aut prælia cogitat, One's bosom ruffle?
Soi Bakchou patharon Is Bacchi calidos Would any feel
Soi diachrônnysei Inficiet tibi Ripe for a scuffle?
Phoinô Rubro sanguine The simplest plan
Th' aimati nama Rivos, Is just to take a
Prothymos te Fiet protinus Well stiffened can
Tach' essetai.] Impiger! Of old Jamaica.
[Greek: g.] III. 3.
[Greek: Se phlegm' aithaloen Te flagrante bibax Beneath the zone
Seiriou asteros Ore caniculâ Grog in a pail or
Armozei plôtori Sugit navita: tu Rum--best alone--
Sy kryos êdyn en Frigus amabile Delights the sailor.
Nêsois Fessis vomere The can he swills
Antilesaisi Mauris Alone gives vigour
Poieis Præbes ac In the Antilles
K' aithiopôn phylô.] Homini nigro. To white or nigger.
[Greek: d.] IV. 4.
[Greek:Krênais en te kalais Fies nobilium Thy claims, O fount,
Esseai aglaê Tu quoque fontium Deserve attention:
S' en koilô kylaki Me dicente; cavum Henceforward count
Enthemenên eôs Dum calicem reples On classic mention.
Umnêsô, Urnamque Right pleasant stuff
Lalon ex ou Unde loquaces Thine to the lip is ...
Son de reuma kathalletai.] Lymphæ We've had enough
Desiliunt tuæ. Of Aganippe's.
"WHO MILKED MY COW?" OR, THE MARINE GHOST.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "RATTLIN THE REEFER."
Captain the Honourable Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban, of that beautiful
ship his Majesty's frigate Nænia, loved many things. He loved his ship
truly, and with a perdurable affection; yet he loved something still
more, his very aristocratic self. He had also vowed to love and cherish
another person; but what gallant spirit would yield love, even if it
were as plenty as blackberries, upon compulsion? The less you give away,
the more must remain to be employed in the service of the possessor.
Captain Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban had a great deal of unoccupied love
at his disposal. Considering duly these premises, there can be nothing
surprising in the fact if he had a surplus affection or two to dispose
of, and that he most ardently loved new milk every morning for
breakfast.
Now Captain the Honourable Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban--(how delightful
it is to give the whole title when it is either high-sounding or
euphonous!)--had large estates and wide pasture-lands populous with
lowing kine. But all these availed him not; for, though he was sovereign
lord and master _pro tempore_ over all as far as the eye could reach,
on the morning of the 6th of June 1826, he could not command so much of
the sky-blueish composition that is sold for milk in London, as could
be bought for one halfpenny in that sovereign city of many pumps. The
fields spread around the honourable captain were wide and green enough,
but, alas! they were not pastured with mammiferous animals. Neptune has
never been known to take cream to his chocolate and coffee. He would
scorn to be called a milk-and-water gentlemen. There is the sea-cow
certainly, but we never heard much respecting the quality of her butter.
We are careful. We will not lay ourselves open to animadversion. We have
read books. We have seen things. Therefore we cannot suffer the little
triumph to the little critics who were just going to tell us that all
the cetaceous tribes suckle their young. We can tell these critics more
than they know themselves. Whale's milk _is_ good for the _genus homo_.
We know two brawny fellows, maintop-men, who, being cast overboard when
infants, were, like Romulus and Remus with their she-bear, suckled by
a sperm-whale; and, when their huge wet-nurse wished to wean them, she
cast them ashore on one of the Friendly Islands. We think that we hear
the incredulous exclaim, "Very like a whale!" Why, so it was.
But to return to another matter of history. On the memorable morning
before indicated, the honourable captain, the first lieutenant, the
doctor, the marine officer, the officer and the midshipman of the
morning watch, had all assembled to breakfast in the cabin. They had
not forgotten their appetites, particularly the gentlemen of the
morning watch. They were barbarous and irate in their hunger, as their
eyes wandered over cold fowl and ham, hot rolls, grilled kidneys, and
devilled legs of turkey.
"By all the stars in heaven," said the honourable commander, "no milk
again this morning! Give me, you rascally steward," continued the
captain, "a plain, straightforward, categorical answer. Why does this
infernal cow, for which I gave such a heap of dollars, give me no
milk?"--"Well, sir," said the trembling servitor; "if, sir, you must
have a plain answer, I really--believe--it is--because--I don't know."
"A dry answer," said the doctor, who was in most senses a dry fellow.
"You son of a shotten herring!" said the captain, "can you milk
her?"--"Yes, sir."
"Then why, in the name of all that is good, don't you?"--"I do, sir,
but it won't come."
"Then let us go," said the captain, quite resignedly, "let us go,
gentlemen, and see what ails this infernal cow; I can't eat my breakfast
without milk, and breakfast is the meal that I generally enjoy most."
So he, leading the way, was followed by his company, who cast many a
longing, lingering look behind.
Forward they went to where the cow was _stalled_ by capstan-bars, as
comfortably as a prebendary, between two of the guns on the main-deck.
She seemed in excellent condition; ate her nutritious food with much
appetite; and, from her appearance, the captain might have very
reasonably expected, not only an ample supply of milk and cream for
breakfast and tea, but also a sufficient quantity to afford him custards
for dinner.
Well, there stood the seven officers of his Majesty's naval service
round the arid cow, looking very like seven wise men just put to sea in
a bowl.
"Try again," said the captain to his servant. If the attempt had been
only fruitless, there had been no matter for wonder; it was milkless.
"The fool can't milk," said the captain; then turning round to his
officers despondingly, he exclaimed, "gentlemen, can any of you?"
Having all protested that they had left off, some thirty, some forty,
and some fifty years, according to their respective ages, and the marine
officer saying that he never had had any practice at all, having been
brought up by hand, the gallant and disappointed hero was obliged to
order the boatswain's mates to pass the word fore and aft, to send every
one to him who knew how to milk a cow.
Seventeen Welshmen, sixty-five Irishmen, (all on board,) and four lads
from Somersetshire made their appearance, moistened their fingers, and
set to work, one after the other; yet there was no milk.
"What do you think of this, doctor?" said the captain to him, taking him
aside.--"That the animal has been milked a few hours before."
"Hah! If I was sure of that. And the cow could have been milked only by
some one who _could_ milk?"--"The inference seems indisputable."
The captain turned upon the numerous aspirants for lacteal honours with
no friendly eye, exclaiming sorrowfully, "Too many to flog, too many to
flog. Let us return to our breakfast; though I shall not be able to eat
a morsel or drink a drop. Here, boatswain's-mate, pass the word round
the ship that I'll give five guineas reward to any one who will tell me
who milked the captain's cow."
The gentleman then all retired to the cabin, and, with the exception
of the captain, incontinently fell upon the good things. Now, the
midshipman of that morning's watch was a certain Mr. Littlejohn, usually
abbreviated into Jack Small. When Jack Small had disposed of three hot
rolls, half a fowl, and a pound of ham, and was handing in his plate for
a well devilled turkey's thigh, his eye fell compassionately upon his
fasting captain, and his heart opening to the softer emotions as his
stomach filled with his host's delicacies, the latter's want of the milk
of the cow stirred up within him his own milk of human kindness.
"I am very sorry that you have no appetite," said Jack Small, with his
mouth very full, and quite protectingly, to his skipper; "very sorry,
indeed, sir: and, as you cannot make your breakfast without any milk,
I think, sir, that the midshipmen's berth could lend you a bottle."
"The devil they can, younker. Oh, oh! It's good and fresh, hey?"
"Very good and fresh, sir," said the midshipman, ramming down the words
with a large wadding of hot roll.
"We must borrow some of it, by all means," said the captain; "but let
the midshipmen's servant bring it here himself."
The necessary orders having been issued, the bottle of milk and the boy
appeared.
"Did you know," said Captain Fitzalban, turning to his first lieutenant,
"that the midshipmen's berth was provided with milk, and that too after
being at sea a month?"--"Indeed I did not; they are better provided than
we are, at least in this respect, in the ward-room."
"Do you think,--do you think," said the captain, trembling with rage,
"that any of the young blackguards dare milk my cow?"--"It is not easy
to say what they dare not do."
However, the cork was drawn, and the milk found not only to be very
fresh indeed, but most suspiciously new. In the latitude of the
Caribbean Islands liquids in general are sufficiently warm, so the
captain could not lay much stress upon that.
"As fine milk as ever I tasted," said the captain.
"Very good indeed, sir," said the midshipman, overflowing his cup and
saucer with the delicious liquid.
"Where do the young gentlemen procure it?" resumed the captain, pouring
very carefully what remained after the exactions of John Small into the
cream-jug, and moving it close to his own plate.--"It stands us rather
dear, sir," said Mr. Littlejohn,--"a dollar a bottle. We buy it of Joe
Grummet, the captain of the waisters."
The captain and first lieutenant looked at each other unutterable things.
Joe Grummet was in the cabin in an instant, and the captain bending upon
him his sharp and angry glances. Joseph was a sly old file, a seaman to
the backbone; and let the breeze blow from what quarter of the compass
it would, he had always an eye to windward. Fifty years had a little
grizzled his strong black hair, and, though innovation had deprived
him of the massive tail that whilome hung behind, there were still
some fancy curls that corkscrewed themselves down his weather-stained
temples; and, when he stood before the captain, in one of these he
hitched the first bend of the immense fore-finger of his right hand. He
hobbled a little in his gait, owing to an unextracted musket-ball that
had lodged in his thigh; consequently he never went aloft; and had been,
for his merits and long services, appointed captain of the waist.
The Honorable Augustus Fitzroy Fitzalban said to the veteran mariner
quickly, and pointing at the same time to the empty bottle, "Grummet,
you have milked my cow."--"Unpossible, sir," said Grummet, bashing at a
bow; "downright unpossible, your honour."
"Then, pray, whence comes the fresh milk you sell every morning to the
young gentlemen?"--"Please your honour, I took two or three dozen of
bottles to sea with me on a kind o' speculation."
"Grummet, my man, I am afraid this will turn out a bad one for you. Go
and show your hands to the doctor, and he'll ask you a few questions."
So Joseph Grummet went and expanded his flippers before the eyes of
the surgeon. They were nearly as large and as shapely as the fins of a
porpoise, and quite of the colour. They had been tanned and tarred till
their skin had become more durable than bootleather, and they were quite
rough enough to have rasped close-grained wood.
"I don't think our friend could have milked your cow, Captain
Fitzalban," said the doctor; "at least, not with his hands: they are
rather calculated to draw blood than milk."
Joseph rolled his eyes about and looked his innocence most pathetically.
He was not yet quite out of danger.
Now there was every reason in the world why this cow should give the
captain at least a gallon of milk per diem--but one, and that he was
most anxious to discover. The cow was in the best condition; since she
had been embarked, the weather had been fine enough to have pleased
Europa herself; she had plenty of provender, both dry and fresh. There
were fragrant clover closely packed in bags, delicious oat-cakes--meal
and water, and fine junks of juicy plantain.--The cow throve, but gave
no milk!
"So you brought a few dozen bottles of milk to sea with you as a
venture?" continued the man of medicine in his examination.--"I did,
sir."
"And where did you procure them?"--"At English Harbour, sir."
"May I ask of whom?"--"Madame Juliana, the fat free Negro woman."
"Now, my man," said the doctor, looking a volume and a half of Galen,
and holding up a cautionary fore-finger--"now, my man, do not hope to
deceive _me_. How did you prevent the acetous fermentation from taking
place in these bottles of milk?"
The question certainly was a puzzler. Joe routed with his fingers among
his hair for an answer. At length he fancied he perceived a glimmering
of the doctor's meaning; so he hummed and ha-ed, until, the doctor's
patience being exhausted, he repeated more peremptorily, "How did you
prevent acetous fermentation taking place in these bottles of milk?"
"By paying ready money for them, sir," said the badgered seaman boldly.
"An excellent preventative against fermentation certainly," said the
captain half smiling. "But you answer the doctor like a fool."
"I was never accused of such a thing, please your honour, before, sir,"
said tarrybrecks, with all his sheets and tacks abroad.
"Very likely, my man, very likely," answered the captain, with a look
that would have been invaluable in a vinegar manufactory. "How did you
prevent this milk from turning sour?"
"Ah, sir!" said Grummet, now wide awake to his danger: "if you please,
sir, I humbly axes your pardon, but that's my secret."
"Then by all that's glorious I'll flog it out of you!"
"I humbly hopes not, sir. I am sure your honour won't flog an old seaman
who has fought with Howe and Nelson, and who was wounded in the sarvice
before your honour was born; you won't flog him, sir, only because he
can't break his oath."
"So you have sworn not to divulge it, hey?"
"Ah, sir: if I might be so bold as to say so, your honour's a witch!"
"Take care of yourself, Joseph Grummet; I do advise you to take care of
yourself. Folly is a great betrayer of secrets, Joseph. Cunning may milk
cows without discovery: however, I will never punish without proof. How
many bottles of this excellent milk have you yet left?"--"Eight or ten,
sir, more or less, according to sarcumstances."
"Well! I will give you a dollar a-piece for all you have."
At this proposition Joseph Grummet shuffled about, not at all at his
ease, now looking very sagacious, now very foolish, till, at last, he
brought down his features to express the most deprecating humility of
which their iron texture was capable, and he then whined forth, "I would
not insult you, sir, by treating you all as one as a midshipman. No,
your honour: I knows the respect that's due to you,--I couldn't think of
letting you, sir, have a bottle under three dollars--it wouldn't be at
all respectful like."
"Grummet," said Captain Fitzalban, "you are not only a thorough seaman,
but a thorough knave. Now, have you the conscience to make me pay three
dollars a bottle for my own milk?"--"Ah, sir, you don't know how much
the secret has cost me."
"Nor do you
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