THE WATER-FIENDS.
On a wild Moor, all brown and bleak,
Where broods the heath-frequenting grouse,
There stood a tenement antique;
Lord Hoppergollop’s country house.
Here Silence reign’d, with lips of glue,
And undisturb’d maintain’d her law;
Save when the Owl cry’d “whoo! whoo! whoo!”
Or the hoarse Crow croak’d “caw! caw! caw!”
Neglected mansion!—for, ’tis said,
Whene’er the snow came feathering down,
Four barbed steeds,—from the Bull’s head,
Carried thy master up to town.
Weak Hoppergollop!—Lords may moan,
Who stake, in London, their estate,
On two, small, rattling, bits of bone;
On little figure, or on great.
Swift whirl the wheels.—He’s gone.—A Rose
Remains behind, whose virgin look,
Unseen, must blush in wintry snows,
Sweet, beauteous blossom!——’twas the Cook!
A bolder far than my weak note,
Maid of the Moor! thy charms demand:
Eels might be proud to lose their coat,
If skinn’d by Molly Dumpling’s hand.
Long had the fair one sat alone,
Had none remain’d save only she;—
She by herself had been—if one
Had not been left, for company.
’Twas a tall youth, whose cheek’s clear hue,
Was tinge’d with health and manly toil;—
Cabbage he sow’d; and, when it grew,
He always cut it off, to boil.
Oft would he cry, “Delve, Delve the hole!
And prune the tree, and trim the root!
And stick the wig upon the pole,
To scare the sparrows from the fruit!”
A small, mute favourite, by day,
Follow’d his step; where’er he wheels
His barrow round the garden gay,
A bob-tail cur is at his heels.
Ah, man! the brute creation see!
Thy constancy oft needs the spur!
While lessons of fidelity
Are found in every bob-tail cur.
Hard toil’d the youth, so fresh and strong,
While Bobtail in his face would look,
And mark’d his master troll the song,—
“Sweet Molly Dumpling! Oh, thou Cook!”
For thus he sung:—while Cupid smile’d;—
Please’d that the Gard’ner own’d his dart,
Which prune’d his passions, running wild,
And grafted true-love on his heart.
Maid of the Moor! his love return!
True love ne’er tints the cheek with shame:
When Gard’ners’ hearts, like hot-beds, burn,
A Cook may surely feed the flame.
Ah! not averse from love was she;
Tho’ pure as Heaven’s snowy flake;
Both love’d: and tho’ a Gard’ner he,
He knew not what it was to rake.
Cold blows the blast:—the night’s obscure:
The mansion’s crazy wainscots crack:
No star appear’d:—and all the Moor,
Like ev’ry other Moor,—was black.
Alone, pale, trembling, near the fire,
The lovely Molly Dumpling sat;
Much did she fear, and much admire
What Thomas Gard’ner could be at.
List’ning, her hand supports her chin;
But, ah! no foot is heard to stir:
He comes not, from the garden, in;
Nor he, nor little bobtail cur.
They cannot come, sweet maid! to thee;
Flesh, both of cur and man, is grass!
And what’s impossible can’t be;
And never, never, comes to pass!
She paces thro’ the hall antique,
To call her Thomas from his toil;
Opes the huge door;—the hinges creak;
Because the hinges wanted oil.
Thrice, on the threshold of the hall,
She “Thomas!” cried, with many a sob;
And thrice on Bobtail did she call,
Exclaiming, sweetly,—“Bob! Bob! Bob!”
Vain maid! a Gard’ner’s corpse, ’tis said,
In answers can but ill succeed;
And dogs that hear when they are dead,
Are very cunning Dogs indeed!
Back thro’ the hall she bent her way;
All, all was solitude around!
The candle shed a feeble ray,——
Tho’ a large mould of four to th’ pound.
Full closely to the fire she drew;
Adown her cheek a salt tear stole;
When, lo! a coffin out there flew,
And in her apron burnt a hole!
Spiders their busy death-watch tick’d;
A certain sign that Fate will frown;
The clumsy kitchen clock, too, click’d,
A certain sign it was not down.
More strong and strong her terrors rose;—
Her shadow did the maid appal;—
She tremble’d at her lovely nose,—
It look’d so long against the wall.
Up to her chamber, damp and cold,
She climb’d Lord Hoppergollop’s stair;—
Three stories high—long, dull, and old,—
As great Lords’ stories often are.
All Nature now appear’d to pause:
And “o’er the one half world seem’d dead;”
No “curtain’d sleep” had she;——because
She had no curtains to her bed.
List’ning she lay;—with iron din,
The clock struck Twelve; the door flew wide;
When Thomas, grimly, glided in,
With little Bobtail by his side.
Tall, like the poplar, was his size,
Green, green his waistcoat was, as leeks;
Red, red as beet-root, were his eyes;
Pale, pale as turnips, were his cheeks!
Soon as the Spectre she espied,
The fear-struck damsel faintly said,
“What wou’d my Thomas?”—he replied,
“Oh! Molly Dumpling! I am dead.
“All in the flower of youth I fell,
Cut off with health’s full blossom crown’d;
I tumble’d backwards, and was drown’d.
“Four fathom deep thy love doth lie:
His faithful dog his fate doth share;
We’re Fiends;—this is not he and I;
We are not here,—for we are there.
“Yes;—two foul Water-Fiends are we;
Maid of the Moor!—attend us now!
Thy hour’s at hand;—we come for thee!”
The little Fiend-Cur said “bow wow!”
“To wind her in her cold, cold grave,
A Holland sheet a maiden likes;
A sheet of water thou shalt have;
Such sheets there are in Holland Dykes.”
The Fiends approach; the Maid did shrink;
Swift thro’ the night’s foul air they spin;
They took her to the green well’s brink,
And, with a souse, they plump’d her in.
So true the fair, so true the youth,
Maids, to this day, their story tell:
And hence the proverb rose, that Truth
Lies in the bottom of a well.
Dick ended:—Tom and Will approve’d his strains;
And thought his Legend made as good a figure
As naturalizing a dull German’s brains,
Which beget issues in the Heliconian stews,
Upon a profligate Tenth Muse,
In all the gloomy impotence of vigour.[1]
“’Twas now the very witching time of night,
When Prosers yawn.”—Discussion grew diffuse:
Argument’s carte and tierce were lost, outright:
And they fought loose.
Says Will, quite carelessly,—“the other day,
As I was lying on my back,
In bed,
I took a fancy in my head;—
Some writings aren’t so difficult as people say;—
They are a knack.”
“What writings? whose?” says Tom—raking the cinders.
“Many,” cried Will:—“For instance,—Peter Pindar’s.”
“What! call you his a knack?”—“Yes;—mind his measure,
In that lies half the point that gives us pleasure.”
“Pooh!—’tisn’t that,” Dick cried—
“That has been tried,
Over and over:—Bless your souls!
’Tis seen in Crazy Tales, and twenty things beside:
His measure is as old as Poles.”
“Granted,” cries Will: “I know I’m speaking treason:
For Peter,
With many a joke, and queer conceit, doth season
His metre:
“And this I’ll say of Peter, to his face,
As ’twas, time past, of Vanbrugh writ—
Peter has often wanted grace,
But he has never wanted wit.
“Yet I will tell you a plain tale,
And see how far quaint measure will prevail:”
THE
NEWCASTLE APOTHECARY.
A man, in many a country town, we know,
Professes openly with death to wrestle;
Ent’ring the field against the grimly foe,
Arm’d with a mortar and a pestle.
Yet, some affirm, no enemies they are;
But meet just like prize-fighters, in a Fair,
Who first shake hands before they box,
Then give each other plaguy knocks,
With all the love and kindness of a brother:
So (many a suff’ring Patient saith)
Tho’ the Apothecary fights with Death,
Still they’re sworn friends to one another.
A member of this Æsculapian line,
Lived at Newcastle upon Tyne:
No man could better gild a pill:
Or make a bill;
Or mix a draught, or bleed, or blister;
Or draw a tooth out of your head;
Or chatter scandal by your bed;
Or give a clyster.
Of occupations these were quantum suff.:
Yet, still, he thought the list not long enough;
And therefore Midwifery he chose to pin to’t.
This balance’d things:—for if he hurl’d
A few score mortals from the world,
He made amends by bringing others into’t.
His fame full six miles round the country ran;
In short, in reputation he was solus:
All the old women call’d him “a fine man!”
His name was Bolus.
Benjamin Bolus, tho’ in trade,
(Which oftentimes will Genius fetter)
Read works of fancy, it is said;
And cultivated the Belles Lettres.
And why should this be thought so odd?
Can’t men have taste who cure a phthysic;
Of Poetry tho’ Patron-God,
Apollo patronises physick.
Bolus love’d verse;—and took so much delight in’t,
That his prescriptions he resolve’d to write in’t.
No opportunity he e’er let pass
Of writing the directions, on his labels,
In dapper couplets,—like Gay’s Fables;
Or, rather, like the lines in Hudibras.
Apothecary’s verse!—and where’s the treason?
’Tis simply honest dealing:—not a crime;—
When patients swallow physick without reason,
It is but fair to give a little rhyme.
He had a Patient lying at death’s door,
Some three miles from the town,—it might be four;
To whom, one evening, Bolus sent an article,
In Pharmacy, that’s call’d cathartical.
And, on the label of the stuff,
He wrote this verse;
Which, one would think, was clear enough,
And terse:—
“When taken,
To be well shaken.”
Next morning, early, Bolus rose;
And to the Patient’s house he goes;—
Upon his pad,
Who a vile trick of stumbling had:
It was, indeed, a very sorry hack;
But that’s of course:
For what’s expected from a horse
With an Apothecary on his back?
Bolus arrive’d; and gave a doubtful tap;—
Between a single and a double rap.—
Knocks of this kind
Are given by Gentlemen who teach to dance:
By Fiddlers, and by Opera-singers:
One loud, and then a little one behind;
As if the knocker fell, by chance,
Out of their fingers.
The Servant lets him in, with dismal face,
Long as a courtier’s out of place—
Portending some disaster;
John’s countenance as rueful look’d, and grim,
As if th’ Apothecary had physick’d him,—
And not his master.
“Well, how’s the Patient?” Bolus said:—
John shook his head.
“Indeed!—hum! ha!—that’s very odd!
He took the draught?”—John gave a nod.
“Well,—how?—what then?—speak out, you dunce!”
“Why then”—says John—“we shook him once.”
“Shook him!—how?”—Bolus stammer’d out:
“We jolted him about.”
“Zounds! Shake a Patient, man!—a shake won’t do.”
“No, Sir,—and so we gave him two.”
“Two shakes! od’s curse!
’Twould make the Patient worse.”
“It did so, Sir!—and so a third we tried.”
“Well, and what then?”—“then, Sir, my master died.”
Ere Will had done ’twas waxing wond’rous late;
And reeling Bucks the streets began to scour;
While guardian Watchmen, with a tottering gait,
Cried every thing, quite clear, except the hour.
“Another pot,” says Tom, “and then,
A Song;—and so good night, good Gentlemen!
“I’ve Lyricks, such as Bons Vivants indite,
In which your bibbers of Champagne delight,—
The Poetaster, bawling them in clubs,
Obtains a miserably noted name;
And every noisy Bacchanalian dubs
The Singing-Writer with a bastard Fame.”
LODGINGS
FOR
SINGLE GENTLEMEN.
Who has e’er been in London, that overgrown place,
Has seen “Lodgings to Let” stare him full in the face:
Some are good, and let dearly; while some, ’tis well known,
Are so dear, and so bad, they are best let alone.
WILL WADDLE, whose temper was studious and lonely,
Hire’d lodgings that took Single Gentlemen only;
But Will was so fat he appear’d like a ton;—
Or like Two Single Gentlemen roll’d into One.
He enter’d his rooms, and to bed he retreated;
But, all the night long, he felt fever’d, and heated;
And, tho’ heavy to weigh, as a score of fat sheep,
He was not, by any means, heavy to sleep.
Next night ’twas the same!—and the next;—and the next;
He perspire’d like an ox; he was nervous, and vex’d;
Week past after week; till, by weekly succession,
His weakly condition was past all expression.
In six months, his acquaintance began much to doubt him:
For his skin, “like a lady’s loose gown,” hung about him.
He sent for a Doctor; and cried, like a ninny,
“I have lost many pounds—make me well—there’s a guinea.”
The Doctor look’d wise:—“a slow fever,” he said:
Prescribe’d sudorificks,—and going to bed.
“Sudorificks in bed,” exclaim’d Will, “are humbugs!
I’ve enough of them there, without paying for drugs!”
Will kick’d out the Doctor:—but, when ill indeed,
E’en dismissing the Doctor don’t always succeed;
So, calling his host—he said—“Sir, do you know,
I’m the fat Single Gentleman, six months ago?
“Look’e, landlord, I think,” argued Will, with a grin,
“That with honest intentions you first took me in:
But from the first night—and to say it I’m bold—
I have been so damn’d hot, that I’m sure I caught cold.”
Quoth the landlord—“till now, I ne’er had a dispute;
I’ve let lodgings ten years;—I’m a Baker, to boot;
In airing your sheets, Sir, my wife is no sloven;
And your bed is immediately over my Oven.”
“The Oven!!!” says Will;—says the host, “why this passion?
In that excellent bed died three people of fashion.
Why so crusty, good Sir?”—“Zounds!” cries Will, in a taking,
“Who wouldn’t be crusty, with half a year’s baking?”
Will paid for his rooms;—cried the host, with a sneer,
“Well, I see you’ve been going away half a year:”
“Friend, we can’t well agree,—yet no quarrel”—Will said;—
“But I’d rather not perish, while you make your bread.”[2]
