The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook

by Theodore Edward Hook

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. Many passages have deliberate misspelling for humorous effect.

More detail can be found at the [end of the book.]

Yours faithfully
Theodore E. Hook

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THE CHOICE
HUMOROUS WORKS
Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes
OF
THEODORE HOOK

THEODORE HOOK'S HOUSE, NEAR PUTNEY.

A NEW EDITION

WITH

LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, PORTRAITS BY MACLISE AND D'ORSAY, CARICATURES, AND FACSIMILES

London

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1883

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[CONTENTS.]

		PAGE
Memoir of Theodore Hook		[3]
The Ramsbottom Papers:—
I.	Mrs. Ramsbottom's Party	[41]
II.	Miss Lavinia Ramsbottom	[43]
III.	Miss Lavinia's Letter from Paris, forwarding her Mother's Journal in England and France	[44]
IV.	Higginbottom and Ramsbottom	[52]
V.	Miss Lavinia Ramsbottom forwards the Continuation of her Mother's Diary	[53]
VI.	Adventures at Paris	[60]
VII.	Further Adventures at Paris	[62]
VIII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom back in London	[66]
IX.	Mrs. Ramsbottom at Rome	[69]
X.	Mrs. Ramsbottom objects to be Dramatised	[72]
XI.	Mrs. Ramsbottom writes from Dieppe	[73]
XII.	Hastings	[75]
XIII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on the House of Commons	[78]
XIV.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on the Canning Administration	[81]
XV.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on Smoking	[84]
XVI.	Mrs. Ramsbottom's Conundrums	[85]
XVII.	A Letter from Cheltenham	[87]
XVIII.	Hastings again	[90]
XIX.	News from Hastings	[94]
XX.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on the relative merits of Margate and Brighton	[96]
XXI.	Mrs. Ramsbottom contemplates the Collection of her Letters into a volume	[102]
XXII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on Popery	[105]
XXIII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom at the Royal Academy	[108]
XXIV.	Mrs. Ramsbottom at the "Chiswick Fête"	[111]
XXV.	A Letter from Walmer	[117]
XXVI.	A Peck of Troubles	[118]
XXVII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on Public Events	[120]
XXVIII.	Mrs. Ramsbottom declares herself a Convert to "Reform"	[123]
XXIX.	Mrs. Ramsbottom on the House of Lords	[128]

Political Songs and Squibs:—
Carmen Æstuale	[133]
Ass-ass-ination	[135]
Michael's Dinner	[138]
Mrs. Muggins's Visit to the Queen	[140]
Hunting the Hare	[147]
The City Concert	[152]
Invitations to Dinner	[156]
Vacation Reminiscences	[159]
Reminiscences Continued	[162]
Gaffer Grey	[166]
The Idle Apprentice turned Informer	[170]
The Queen's Subscription	[174]
Opposition	[178]
The Invitation	[184]
The Beggars—A New Song	[188]
Bubbles of 1825	[194]
The Grand Revolution	[197]
Imitation of Bunbury's "Little Grey Man"	[200]
Humpty-Dumpty	[203]
Parody—"While Johnny Gale Jones"	[204]
Parody—"The young May Moon"	[205]
Disappointment	[206]
Tentamen; or, an Essay towards the History of Whittington, some time Lord Mayor of London	[207]
Miscellanies, in Verse and Prose:—
Mr. Ward's Allegorical Picture of Waterloo	[249]
Letter from a Goose	[259]
The Hum-Fum Gamboogee Society	[262]
Moral Theatricals	[269]
Private Correspondence of Public Men	[275]
The Cockney's Letter	[280]
Byroniana	[284]
Lord Wenables	[288]
Lord Wenables Again	[304]
Modern Improvements (Two Letters)	[309]
Punning, with Cautionary Verses to Youth of both Sexes	[316]
Fashionable Parties	[322]
A Day's Proceedings of a Reformed Parliament	[325]
Clubs	[333]
Rachel Stubbs' Letter to Richard Turner	[336]
Mr. Minus the Poet	[338]
National Distress	[339]
Hints for the Levee	[347]
The Inconsistencies of Cant	[350]
Prince Puckler-Muskau's Tour	[355]
Prospectus for a General Burying Company	[388]
Letter from John Trot to John Bull	[392]
The March of Intellect	[395]
Sunday Bills	[400]
The Spinster's Progress	[405]
Errors of the Press	[409]
The Visit to Wrigglesworth	[413]
A Visit to the Old Bailey	[440]
The Toothpick-makers' Company	[453]
The Man-servant's Letter	[464]
The Bibliomaniac	[468]
Absence of Mind	[469]
A Distinguished Traveller	[470]
Daly's Practical Jokes	[471]
The Ballet	[492]
Toll-gates and their Keepers	[496]
Tom Sheridan's Adventure	[499]
Polly Higginbottom	[503]
Song—"Mary once had Lovers two"	[504]
Philip and Donna Louisa	[505]
The Blacksmith	[506]
"My Father did so before me"	[507]
"Throughout my Life the Girls I've pleased"	[508]
The Chambermaid	[509]
Song, "When I was a very little Fellow"	[509]
Sir Tilbury Tott	[511]
"Venice Preserved"	[513]
Daylight Dinners	[515]
Clubs!	[516]
Visitings	[518]
The Quill Manufacturer	[522]
Epigram on Twining's Tea	[522]
On the Latin Gerunds	[522]
The Splendid Annual	[523]
Anecdotes, Hoaxes, and Jests:—
The Berners-street Hoax	[539]
Romeo Coates	[541]
Hook, Mathews, and the Alderman	[542]
A Strange Dinner	[544]
Ludicrous Adventure at Sunbury	[547]
Charles Mathews and Hook	[552]
Hook's "First Appearance"	[553]
Hook and Dowton the Actor	[554]
Letter from Mauritius	[555]
Evading a Coach Fare	[557]
Unsuccessful Hunt for a Dinner	[559]
Hook at Lord Melville's Trial	[560]
The Thirty-nine Articles	[562]
"Chaffing" a Proctor	[562]
Summary Proceedings of Winter	[563]
"Something Wrong in the Chest"	[564]
Warren's Blacking	[564]
The Wine-cellar and the Book-seller	[565]
Sir Robert Peel's Anecdote of Theodore Hook	[565]
A Receipt against Night Air	[566]
Punting	[566]
"List" Shoes	[567]
"The Abattoir"	[568]
Putney Bridge	[568]
"Mr. Thompson is Tired"	[568]
The Original "Paul Pry"	[569]
Hook and Tom Hill	[570]
Hook's Politeness	[570]
A Biscuit and a Glass of Sherry	[571]
Much Alike	[572]
Private Medical Practice	[572]
Hook's Street Fun	[572]
A Misnomer	[572]
"Contingencies"	[573]
"The Widow's Mite"	[573]
Hook's Extempore Verses	[573]
Hook Extemporises a Melodrama	[575]
"Ass-ass-ination"	[578]
"Weather or No"	[578]
Diamond Cut Diamond	[579]
Tom Moore—Losing a Hat	[579]
"Good Night"	[579]

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PUTNEY, AS SEEN FROM THE SITTING-ROOM WINDOW OF HOOK'S COTTAGE.

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SPECIMEN OF THEODORE HOOK'S AUTOGRAPH.

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[MEMOIR OF THEODORE HOOK.]

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MEMOIR OF THEODORE HOOK.

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The life of the distinguished humourist whose opera minora we now present to the world, was so chequered and diversified by remarkable incidents and adventures, and passed so much in the broad eye of the world and of society, as to be more than ordinarily interesting. The biography of a man of letters in modern times seldom affords so entertaining a narrative, or so instructive and pathetic a lesson, exhibiting how useless and futile are the most brilliant powers and talents, both original and transmitted, without a due admixture of that moral principle and wisdom in daily life necessary to temper and control them.

Theodore Edward Hook—one of the most brilliant wits, and one of the most successful novelists of this century—was born in London, at Charlotte Street, Bedford Square, on the 22nd of September, 1788, in the same year as Lord Byron, whose contemporary he afterwards was at Harrow. The first school that Theodore attended was an "academy," in the Vauxhall districts. The master, a Mr. Allen, had also other pupils in his charge who afterwards rose to eminence. Here he remained till his tenth year, when he was sent to a kind of seminary for young gentlemen, a green-doored, brass-plated establishment, in Soho Square. While at this school, he appears systematically to have played truant, to have employed his time in wandering about the streets, and to have invented ingenious excuses to explain his absence to the authorities. On the day of the illumination for the Peace of Amiens, he preferred to spend the morning at home, and informed his parents that a whole holiday had been given on account of the general rejoicings. Unfortunately, his elder brother, James, happened to pass through the Square, and observing signs of business going on as usual at the academy, he went in, made inquiries, and found that the young scape-grace had not made his appearance there for three weeks. Theodore, instead of witnessing the fireworks, was duly punished, and locked up in the garret for the rest of the afternoon.

Theodore was the second son of Mr. James Hook, the popular musical composer, whose pleasing strains had delighted the preceding generation, when Vauxhall Garden was a fashionable resort. His mother (a Miss Madden) is described as a woman of singular beauty, talents,[1] accomplishments, and worth. To the fact that he lost her gentle guidance at the early age of fourteen, may be attributed many of the misfortunes and irregularities of his after-life.

There was but one other child of Mr. James Hook's first marriage, the late Dr. James Hook, Dean of Worcester; and he being Theodore's senior by eighteen years, had left the paternal roof long before the latter was sent to school.

The Dean, with a great deal of the wit and humour that made his brother famous,[2] and with perhaps much the same original cast of disposition and temper generally, had possessed one great advantage over him at the start of life. His excellent mother watched over him all through the years of youth and early manhood. Theodore could only remember her, and fondly and tenderly he did so to the last, as the gentle parent of a happy child. He had just approached the first era of peril when this considerate and firm-minded woman was lost to her family. The composer soon afterwards married again; but Theodore found not, what, in spite of a thousand proverbs, many men have found under such circumstances—a second mother. But for that deprivation we can hardly doubt that he might, like his more fortunate brother, have learned to regulate his passions and control his spirits, and risen to fill with grace some high position in an honourable profession. The calamitous loss of his mother is shadowed very distinctly in one of his novels, and the unlucky hero (Gilbert Gurney) is represented as having a single prosperous brother, exactly eighteen years older than himself. But, indeed, that novel is very largely autobiographical: when his diary alludes to it as in progress, the usual phrase is, "Working at my Life."

Born in the same year with Lord Byron and Sir Robert Peel, he was their schoolfellow at Harrow, but not in the same memorable form, though he often alluded to the coincidence of dates with an obvious mixture of pride and regret—perhaps we ought to say, remorse.

We have met with no account of him whatever by any one who knew him familiarly at that period. That he was as careless and inattentive to the proper studies of the place, as he represents his Gurney to have been, will not be thought improbable by most of his readers. But his early performances, now forgotten, display many otiose quotations from the classics, and even from the modern Latin poets; and these specimens of juvenile pedantry must be allowed to indicate a vein of ambition which could hardly have failed, with a mind of such alacrity, to produce some not inconsiderable measure of attainment.

His entrance at Harrow was signalized by the perpetration of a practical joke, which might have been attended with serious consequences. On the night of his arrival, he was instigated by young Byron, whose contemporary he was, to throw a stone at a window where an elderly lady, Mrs. Drury, was undressing. Hook instantly complied; but, though the window was broken, the lady happily escaped unhurt. Whatever degree of boyish intimacy he might at this time have contracted with his lordship, it was not sufficient to preserve him from an ill-natured and uncalled-for sneer in the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," an aggression amply repaid by the severe strictures which appeared in the John Bull on certain of the noble bard's effusions, and on the "Satanic school of poetry" in general. The acquaintance, such as it was, was broken off by Hook's premature withdrawal from Harrow, and does not appear to have been resumed.

In 1802, his excellent mother died, and with her perished the only hope of restraining the youthful Theodore within those bounds most essential to be preserved at his age, and of maintaining him in that course of study, which, if persevered in for a few years more, might have enabled him to reach a position not less honourable than that enjoyed by his more prosperous brother. Mrs. Hook appears, indeed, to have been one of those best of wives and women, who, by the unobtrusive and almost unconscious exercise of a superior judgment, effect much towards preserving the position and respectability of a family constantly imperilled by the indiscretion of its head—one who, like a sweet air wedded to indifferent words, serves to disguise and compensate for the inferiority of her helpmate.

Theodore's father, a clever but weak man, was easily persuaded not to send him back to Harrow. He was proud already of his boy, found his company at home a great solace at first, and even before the house received its new mistress, had begun to discover that one of his precocious talents might be turned to some account financially. Theodore had an exquisite ear, and was already, living from the cradle in a musical atmosphere, an expert player on the pianoforte; his voice was rich, sweet, and powerful; he could sing a pathetic song well, a comic one charmingly. One evening he enchanted his father especially by his singing, to his own accompaniment, two new ballads, one grave and one gay. Whence the airs—whence the words? It turned out that verse and music were alike his own: in the music the composer perceived much that might be remedied, but the verses were to him faultless—meaning probably not much, but nothing more soft than the liquid flow of the vocables, nothing more easy than the balance of the lines. Here was a mine for the veteran artist; hitherto he had been forced to import his words; now the whole manufacture might go on at home. Snug, comfortable, amiable domestic arrangement! The boy was delighted with the prospect—and at sixteen his fate was fixed.

In the course of the following six years Theodore Hook produced at least a dozen vaudevilles, comic operas, and dramatic pieces for the stage, which all enjoyed a considerable run of popularity in their time, but are now entirely, and perhaps deservedly, forgotten. His coup-d'essai in this line appeared in 1805, under the title of "The Soldier's Return; or, What can Beauty do? a comic opera in two acts, as performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane."

It would be as absurd to criticise such a piece as last year's pantomime—like that, it answered its purpose and its author's, and no more is to be said. At the same time, amidst all its mad, impudent nonsense, there are here and there jokes which, if unborrowed, deserved the applause of the pit. A traveller coming up to an inn-door, says, "Pray, friend, are you the master of this house?" "Yes, sir," answers Boniface, "my wife has been dead these three weeks." We might quote one or two more apparently genuine Theodores. The dialogue, such as it is, dances along, and the songs read themselves into singing.

His modus operandi in producing this earliest piece, was ingenious. He bought three or four French vaudevilles, filched an incident from each, and thus made up his drama.

The production of this little piece brought the young author into contact with Mathews and Liston. These distinguished comedians were both considerably his seniors. Both had their own peculiar style, and yet both seemed at their best when treading the boards together. With the view of providing an opportunity for their joint appearance, Theodore Hook planned his second afterpiece, "Catch Him who Can" (1806), in which abundant opportunity was contrived for exhibiting the grave irresistible drollery of Liston in contrast with the equally matchless vivacity and versatility of the prince of mimics and ventriloquists. In the course of the farce Mathews figured in, we think, seven different disguises. Such acting would have insured the triumph of even a worse thing than the "Soldier's Return,"—but this was better than that in every respect. One of Liston's songs was long in vogue, perhaps still survives—

"I sing the loves, the smiling loves,

Of Clutterbuck and Higginbottom."

There are three other readable songs, "Mary," "Donna Louisa Isabella," and the "Blacksmith," and not a few meritorious points in the dialogue. It is impossible, however, as we have already hinted, to be sure of the originality of anything either in the plot or the dialogue of these early pieces. Hook pilfers with as much audacity as any of his valets, and uses the plunder occasionally with a wonderful want of thought. Liston's sweetheart, for instance, a tricky chambermaid, knocks him down with Pope's famous saying, "Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding."

"The Invisible Girl" next followed (1806). The idea appears to have been taken from a newspaper account of a new French vaudeville;[3] but it was worked out by the adapter with very great cleverness.

The fun is, that with a crowd of dramatis personæ, a rapid succession of situations, and even considerable complication of intrigue, no character ever gets out more than yes, no, a but, a hem, or a still—except the indefatigable hero Captain Allclack—for whose part it is difficult to believe that any English powers but Jack Bannister's in his heyday could ever have been adequate. This affair had a great run; and no wonder. If anybody could play the Captain now, it would fill the house for a season. Under a somewhat altered form, and with the title of "Patter versus Clatter," it has indeed been reproduced by Mr. Charles Mathews, with great success.

In the following year (1807) a drama, by Hook, in three acts, entitled "The Fortress," and also taken from the French, was produced at the Haymarket. As a fair specimen of the easy jingle with which these pieces abounded, we select a song sung by Mathews, in the character of Vincent, a gardener, much in vogue in its day:—

"When I was a chicken I went to school,

My master would call me an obstinate fool,

For I ruled the roast, and I roasted all rule,

And he wondered however he bore me;

I fired his wig, and I laughed at the smoke,

And always replied, if he rowed at the joke,

Why—my father did so before me!

I met a young girl, and I prayed to the miss,

I fell on my knee, and I asked for a kiss,

She twice said no, but she once said yes,

And in marriage declared she'd restore me.

We loved and we quarrell'd, like April our strife,

I guzzled my stoup, and I buried my wife,

But the thing that consoled me at this time of life

Was—my father did so before me!

Then, now I'm resolved all sorrows to blink,

Since winkin's the tippy, I'll tip them the wink,

I'll never get drunk when I cannot get drink,

Nor ever let misery bore me.

I sneer at the Fates, and I laugh at their spite,

I sit down contented to sit up all night,

And when the time comes, from the world take my flight,

For—my father did so before me!"

"Tekeli, or the Siege of Mongratz," produced about the same time, is now chiefly remembered as having occasioned some caustic lines in the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers:"—

"Gods! o'er those boards shall Folly rear her head

Where Garrick trod, and Kemble lives to tread?

On those shall Farce display Buffoonery's mask,

And Hook conceal his heroes in a cask?"

"The Siege of St. Quentin," a drama of a similar description, quickly followed. The plot was founded on the famous battle of that name fought in 1557, when the French, endeavouring to raise the siege, were signally defeated. The object of the piece, which was to excite enthusiasm in favour of the Spanish nation, together with the magnificence of the mise en scène, won for it considerable success. It sleeps now with sundry others, such as "The Trial by Jury" (1811), "Darkness Visible" (1811), "Safe and Sound" (1809), "Music Mad" (1808). They all ran their course, and have perished—

"Unwept, unhonour'd, and unknown."

The last-named, however ("Music Mad"), perhaps deserves a word of notice, if only on account of its transcendent absurdity. The principal character, stolen bodily from Il Fanatico per la Musica (which had been considered the masterpiece of the celebrated Naldi), and rendered infinitely more ridiculous by being metamorphosed into a native of our most unmusical isle, is, as the title indicates, an amateur, and so passionately devoted to his favourite science as to insist upon his servant's wearing a waistcoat scored all over with crotchets and semiquavers.

In 1809, the destruction by fire of the two patent houses having compelled the rival companies to coalesce and repair to the Lyceum, principally for the purpose of providing employment for the humbler members of the profession, Theodore Hook contributed the well-known after-piece of "Killing no Murder." Apart from the intrinsic merit of the piece itself, the admirable acting of Liston as Apollo Belvi, and of Mathews as Buskin, for whom it was especially written (though, by the way, it is but justice to add, on the authority of Mrs. Mathews, that the latter character was but "a sketch, which Mr. Mathews filled up ad libitum"),—there were circumstances attending its representation which invested it with peculiar interest, and enlisted all the sympathies of the audience in favour of the author. It appears that on the MS. being submitted to the deputy-licenser, Mr. Larpent, certain passages reflecting on the Methodist preachers induced that gentleman, in the first instance, to place a veto on the performance. A compromise, however, was effected, the objectionable scene remodelled, and the play allowed to proceed. Whether it would have been wiser, upon the whole, to have suffered it to go forth with its imperfections on its head, and to have trusted to the good taste of the public to demand the suppression of any incidental improprieties, may be a question, the more so, as the licenser's authority, extending only to the acted drama, could offer no hindrance to its publication. Some half-dozen editions, containing the passages omitted in the performance, were struck off and circulated like wildfire, together with a preface, from which, as the author has thus an opportunity of stating his own case, it may be as well to present our readers with a few extracts:—

"I should have suffered my gratitude to the public to have been felt, not told, had not some very singular circumstances compelled me to explain part of my conduct, which, if I remained silent, might be liable to misconstruction. On the evening previous to the performance of 'Killing no Murder,' I was much surprised to hear that it could not be produced, because Mr. Larpent, the reader of plays (as he is termed), had refused to grant his license for it. The cause of the refusal was, I heard, political. I revolted at the idea; and, as a young man entering life, felt naturally anxious to clear my character from the imputation of disloyalty. Then I heard it rumoured that the ground of the refusal was its immorality. Here again I was wounded; for though I confess I have no pretension to sanctity, yet I hope I shall never prostitute my time in the production of that for which even wit itself is no excuse.

"Thus situated, I set off in search of the gentleman who had strangled my literary infant in its birth; and to find him I referred to the 'Red-book,' where I discovered that John Larpent, Esq., was clerk at the Privy Seal Office, that John Larpent, Esq., was deputy to John Larpent, Esq., and that the deputy's secretary was John Larpent, Esq. This proved to me that a man could be in three places at once; but on inquiry, I found he was even in a fourth and a fifth, for it was by virtue of none of these offices he licensed plays, and his place, i.e., his villa, was at Putney. Thither I proceeded in a post-chaise, in chase of this ubiquitarian deputy, and there I found him. After a seasonable delay to beget an awful attention on my part, he appeared, and told me with a chilling look, that the second act of my farce was a most 'indecent and shameful attack on a very religious and harmless set of people' (he meant the Methodists), 'and that my farce altogether was an infamous persecution of the sectaries.' Out came the murder. The character of a Methodist preacher, written for Liston's incomparable talents, with the hope of turning into ridicule the ignorance and impudence of the self-elected pastors, who infest every part of the kingdom, met with the reprehension of the licenser.

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"It was in vain I adduced Mother Cole in the 'Minor,' Mawworm in the 'Hypocrite,' Barebones in the 'London Hermit,' and half-a-dozen other parts. The great licenser shook his head 'as if there was something in it,' and told me that Lord Dartmouth had the piece; if he did not object, it might yet be played; but if his lordship concurred with him, not a line should be performed. I took my leave, fully convinced how proper a person Mr. Larpent was to receive, in addition to his other salaries, four hundred pounds per annum, besides perquisites, for reading plays, the pure and simple performance of which, by his creed, is the acme of sin and unrighteousness. His even looking at them is contamination—but four hundred a-year—a sop for Cerberus—what will it not make a man do?

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"Now, in defence of the part of 'Apollo Belvi,' as originally written, I consider it necessary to speak. It is a notorious fact that the Methodists are not contented with following their own fashions in religion, but they endeavor hourly to overturn the Established Church by all means, open and covert; and I know, as a positive fact, that it is considered the first duty of Methodist parents to irritate their children against the regular clergy, before the poor wretches are able to think or consider for themselves. Nay, they are so ingenious in their efforts for this purpose, that they inculcate the aversion by nick-naming whatever object the children hate most after some characteristic of the Episcopal religion; and I have known a whole swarm of sucking Methodists frightened to bed by being told that the bishop was coming—the impression resulting from this alarm grows into an antipathy, and from having been, as children, accustomed to consider a bishop as a bugbear, it became no part of their study to discover why—the very mention of lawn sleeves throws them into agonies ever after. Seeing, then, with what zeal these sectaries attack us, and with what ardour they endeavour to widen the breach between us by persecution and falsehood, I did conceive that the lash of ridicule might be well applied to their backs, particularly as I prefer this open mode of attack to the assassin-like stab of the dagger, to which the cowardly Methodist would, for our destruction, have no objection to resort.

"But my ridicule went to one point only. Mr. L. Hunt, in his admirable Essays on Methodism, justly observes, that a strong feature in the Methodists' character is a love of preaching. If it be possible that these self-elected guardians and ministers have an ascendency over the minds of their flocks, and have the power to guide and direct them, it becomes surely the duty of every thinking being to consider their qualifications for such a task.

"The wilful misleadings of the clever Methodists, from the small proportion of talent that exists among them, are more harmless in their tendency than the blasphemous doctrines of ignorance. The more illiterate the preacher, the more infatuated the flock; and there is less danger in the specious insinuation of a refined mind than the open and violent expressions of inspired tailors and illuminated cobblers. It was to ridicule such monstrous incongruities, that, without any claim to originality, I sketched the part of 'Belvi,' in the following farce. I conceived, by blending the most flippant and ridiculous of all callings, except a man-milliner's (I mean a dancing-master's), with the grave and important character of a preacher, I should, without touching indelicately on the subject, have raised a laugh against the absurd union of spiritual and secular avocations, which so decidedly marks the character of the Methodist. Of the hypocrisy introduced into the character, I am only sorry that the lightness of the farce prevented my displaying a greater depth of deception. All I can say is, that, whatever was written in 'Killing no Murder,' against the Methodists, was written from a conviction of their fallacy, their deception, their meanness, and their profaneness."

Another farce, "Exchange no Robbery," produced at a somewhat later period, under the pseudonym of "Richard Jones," deserves honourable mention. Terry, another intimate associate from that time forth, had in Cranberry a character excellently adapted to his saturnine aspect and dry humour; and Liston was not less happily provided for in Lamotte.

Almost all these pieces were written before Hook was twenty years of age. Had he gone on in this successful dramatic career, and devoted to such productions the experience of manhood and that marvellous improvisatore power which was to make him the facile princeps of the satirists and humourists of his time, there can be no doubt he must have rivalled any farce-writer that ever wrote in any language.

It was in his twentieth year that Theodore Hook made his first appearance as a novelist, under the pseudonym of Alfred Allendale.[4] Lockhart characterizes the work as "a mere farce, though in a narrative shape and as flimsy as any he had given to the stage. As if the set object," he says, "had been to satirize the Minerva Press School, everything, every individual turn in the fortunes of his 'Musgrave' is brought about purely and entirely by accident." The sentimental hero elopes with his mistress. A hundred miles down the North road they stop for a quarter of an hour—order dinner, and stroll into the garden. Behold, the dreaded rival happens to be lodging here—he is lounging in the garden at this moment. The whole plan is baulked. Some time afterwards they elope again—and reach Gretna Green in safety.

"Cruel mothers, chattering friends, and flattering rivals all were distanced—the game was run down, he was in at the death, and the brush was his own. False delicacy at Gretna is exploded; a woman when she goes into Lanchester's is known to want millinery (people say something more), when she lounges at Gray's she is understood to stand in need of trinkets, when she stops at Gattie's she wants complexion, and when she goes to Gretna she wants a husband.

"That being the case, not to talk of marriage is as absurdly outré as not to call for supper, and therefore Musgrave with a sly look at his blushing bride, ordered a couple of roasted fowls and a parson to be ready immediately; the waiter, perfect in his part, stepped over to the chandler's shop, hired the divine, and at half-past ten the hymeneal rites were to be solemnized."—Vol. i., p. 84.

The fowls are put to the fire—the blacksmith appears—the ceremony has just reached the essential point, when a chaise dashes up to the door—out spring the heroine's mother and the rival again. Farther on, the hero comes late at night to an inn, and is put into a double-bedded room, in which the rival happens to be deposited, fast asleep. The rival gets up in the morning before the hero awakes, cuts his thumb in shaving, walks out, sees a creditor, jumps on the top of a passing stage-coach, and vanishes. The hero is supposed to have murdered him—the towel is bloody—he must have contrived to bury the body; he is tried, convicted, condemned;—he escapes—an accident brings a constable to the cottage where he is sheltered—he is recaptured—pinioned—mounts the drop; he is in the act of speaking his last speech, when up dashes another post-chaise containing the rival, who had happened to see the trial just the morning before in an old newspaper. And so on through three volumes.

It abounds, as a matter of course, in play upon words: for example, a rejected suitor's taking to drinking, is accounted for on the plea that "it is natural an unsuccessful lover should be given to whine,"—a pun, by the way, better conveyed in the name "Negus," which he is said to have bestowed upon a favourite, but offending, dog. There are also introduced a couple of tolerably well-sketched portraits, Mr. Minns, the poet (T. Moore), and Sir Joseph Jonquil (Banks). An epigram, referring to the celebrated duel of the former with Jeffrey, in consequence of an article in No. 16 of the Edinburgh Review, is worth repeating,—the more so, as its paternity has been subject of dispute, the majority attributing it to one of the authors of "Rejected Addresses!"—

"When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said,

A reverse he displayed in his vapour,

For while all his poems were loaded with lead,

His pistols were loaded with paper;

For excuses Anacreon old custom may thank,

Such a salvo he should not abuse,

For the cartridge, by rule, is always made blank,

Which is fired away at Reviews."

But the oddest part of the whole is that Hook himself, sixteen years afterwards, thought it worth while to re-cast precisely the same absurd fable, even using a great deal of the language, in his "Sayings and Doings." (Series first, vol. iii. Merton.) Of course the general execution of that tale is vastly superior to the original edition; but some of, all things considered, its most remarkable passages are transcribed almost literatim.

Mr. Allendale's novel excited little or no attention, and remained unacknowledged. It is worthless, except that in the early filling up occasionally we have glimpses of the author's early habits and associations, such as he was in no danger of recalling from oblivion in the days of "Sayings and Doings." When the hero fell in love, for example, "Bond-street lounges became a bore to him—he sickened at the notion of a jollification under the Piazza—the charms of the pretty pastry-cooks at Spring Gardens had lost their piquancy." A Viscountess's fête at Wimbledon has all the appearance of having been sketched after a lark at Vauxhall with a bevy of singing women. In the re-cast, it is right to say, he omitted various gross indecencies, some rude personalities, and a very irreverent motto.[5]

Of such an ephemeral character were the earlier writings of a man whose later works have charmed and delighted thousands wherever the English language is spoken. But his brilliancy in the social circle and the fame of his marvellous hoaxes had already spread far and wide, when an unexpected event occurred which changed the whole tenor of his life, and removed him from English society and from English literature for nearly seven years.

Up to 1812, Theodore Hook had been almost, if not entirely, dependent upon his pen for pecuniary supplies; his father was in no condition to assist him; and at the rate of two or three farces a year, which seems to have been about the average of his productions, an income could scarcely have been realized by any means commensurate with the expenses of a fashionable young gentleman "upon town;" debts began to accumulate, and he had already resorted to the pernicious expedient of raising money upon his "promise to write," (a draught upon the brain, honoured, on at least one occasion, by Mr. Harris, the manager of Covent Garden,) when he was presented with an appointment which promised to place him in easy circumstances for the remainder of his life—that of Accountant-General and Treasurer at the Mauritius, worth about £2,000 per annum. It was not, however, till October, 1813, that after a long but agreeable voyage he entered upon his duties at the Mauritius.

It so happened that the island, which had been captured from the French in 1811, had been since that time under the control of Mr. (afterwards Sir R. J.) Farquhar, who, as Governor, united in his own person all the executive and legislative powers. Nothing could have been more favourable to the young official than this circumstance, Mr. Farquhar being not only esteemed throughout the colony, on account of his judgment, moderation, and affability, but being also connected with Dr. James Hook, by the latter's marriage with his sister. The reception which met Theodore on his arrival was as encouraging as could have been wished, and his own convivial qualities and agreeable manners soon made him as popular among the élite of Port Louis as he had been in the fashionable and literary circles of London. In a letter addressed to his old friend, Mathews, about a couple of years after his establishment in what he terms "this paradise, and not without angels," he gives a most spirited and joyous account of his general mode of life, and of the social resources of the island:—

"We have," says he, "operas in the winter, which sets in about July; and the races, too, begin in July. We have an excellent beef-steak club, and the best Freemasons' lodge in the world. We have subscription concerts and balls, and the parties in private houses here are seldom less than from two to three hundred. At the last ball given at the Government House, upwards of seven hundred and fifty ladies were present, which, considering that the greater proportion of the female population are not admissible, proves the number of inhabitants, and the extent of the society."

It may be supposed, that if he was delighted with the Mauritius, its society was enchanted with him. He was but twenty-five when he arrived; and the sudden advancement of his position and enlargement of his resources, must have had rather an exciting than a sobering influence on such a temperament as his at that buoyant age. He was of course the life and soul of the hospitalities of the place and all its amusements and diversions—the phœnix of his Thule. He became, among other things, a leading man on the turf, and repeatedly mentions himself as having been extremely successful in the pecuniary results of that dangerous pursuit. His own hospitality was most liberal; many an Indian veteran yet delights to recall the cordial welcome he found at La Reduite during a brief sojourn at the Mauritius; and not a few such persons were unconsciously sitting for their pictures in crayon then, and in pen and ink afterwards, while they displayed their Oriental airs before the juvenile Treasurer, their profuse Amphitryon. His journal would make it easy enough to identify not a few of the Quihis in his "Sayings and Doings," and other novels of later life—but perhaps their spectres still haunt the long walk at Cheltenham—requiescant!

Towards the end of 1817, General Farquhar found it necessary, from the state of his health, to repair for a time to England, and Major-General Gage John Hall was sworn in as deputy-governor during his absence. On this occasion the Governor appointed a commission consisting of five of the principal men in the colony, to examine the accounts and contents of the Treasury, in order that the finance department might be handed over to his successor in a condition of ascertained correctness. The commissioners signed a report that they had examined the whole accordingly, and that books and chest were all in the proper state. Their report was dated November 19th, and Sir R. Farquhar sailed.

On the 15th of January, 1818, Lieutenant-Governor Hall received a letter from William Allan, a clerk in the Treasury-office, announcing to him, that, notwithstanding the above report, a grave error existed, and had been passed over in the Treasurer's accounts. No credit had been given for a sum of 37,000 dollars, which sum he, Allan, knew to have been paid in at the Treasury some fifteen months before.

General Hall instantly communicated this information to Mr. Hook, and appointed another commission to re-examine the condition of the public chest and accounts. The commission began their work on the 11th of February: Allan was examined vivâ-voce before them on that and on several successive days. He addressed, while his examination was in progress, letters upon letters to the deputy-governor and also to the commissioners, in which he reiterated his assertions that a large deficiency existed, that its existence had been known to himself during many succeeding quarters, and that he had so long concealed it from reluctance to bring himself into collision with his superior, the Treasurer. His letters, from the first very strangely written, became wilder at every step; and on the morning of the 27th, before the commissioners met, he shot himself. His last letter alleged that he had been tampered with by Hook, who offered to pay him thenceforth an allowance of twenty-five dollars per month if he would instantly make his escape from the Mauritius, and never re-appear there; but the person whom he named as having brought Hook's message instantly contradicted the statement in toto on oath before the commissioners. There were many other witnesses; and the result was the detection of not a few irregularities, omissions, and discrepancies in the books of the Treasury.

The inquiry proceeded till the 9th of March; at eleven that night Hook was arrested at a friend's house, where he was supping, and dragged, by torchlight, through crowded streets to the common prison. The town having shortly before been the scene of a terrible conflagration, the prison had been almost entirely destroyed. There was only one cell in which the Treasurer could be placed, and that was in so wretched a condition that at three in the morning he was admitted to bail, escorted to the house of his bail-man, and left there under his surveillance by the police. After a few days he was handed over to the care of a millitary detachment, and embarked with them for England as a culprit, to be tried for crimes. Before he sailed, his property in the island was disposed of, and the whole amount placed to the public credit in the Treasury. Even the minutest articles belonging to him were seized. After he was on board ship, a negro slave came alongside to beg his acceptance of his writing-desk, which the poor fellow had bought at the auction for ten shillings.

He had a protracted and most unhappy voyage of nine months. For one whole month they were tossed in a hurricane off the Cape of Good Hope, and for six weeks reduced to the allowance of half a pound of mouldy buiscuit and half a pint of water by the day. While refitting at the Cape, however, Hook, who had by that time conciliated the regard of his keepers by his unshaken fortitude and good-humoured submission, was made their companion on shore, on parole; and how completely he could, under such calamitous circumstances, exert his faculties of observation, we may judge from the most picturesque sketches of the Cape, the capital, and its inhabitants, which occur in one of his subsequent stories—Maxwell. The ship also stopped for a day or two at St. Helena; and by the kindness of the officers, Hook accompanied them when they went to Longwood to be presented to Napoleon.

The ship reached Portsmouth in January, 1819, and the warrant of arrest and other documents were transmitted to London, and referred to the law officers. The Attorney-General reported, that however irregular Mr. Hook's official conduct might have been, and however justly he might be prosecuted for a civil debt, there was no apparent ground for a criminal procedure. He was therefore liberated; and reaching London with two gold mohurs in his pocket, was immediately subjected to the scrutiny of the Audit Board—a scrutiny which did not terminate until after the lapse of nearly five years.

During this long suspense, eternal commissions and cross-examinations before the auditors of public accounts, and a very voluminous series of correspondence with them and others on the subject of the defalcation, had not occupied the whole of Hook's attention. If they had, he must have starved; for though his successor was not appointed till late in the inquiry, he never received a farthing in his official capacity, from the time of his original arrest.

By the end of 1819, Hook had established himself in a very humble cottage at Somers Town, where his household consisted of a single maid-servant; and formed connections with newspapers or magazines, which supplied the small necessities of the passing day. He seems at first to have felt his position far too painfully to think of reclaiming any but a few of his older and, comparatively speaking, humble allies—such as Mathews, Terry, and good little Hill; the last of whom had encountered sad reverses during his absence, and was now, perhaps, except himself, the poorest of the set. On their kindness he might rely implicitly—as well as upon the cordial friendship and sound professional advice of Messrs. Powell and Broderip.

It was shortly after his location at Somers Town that Hook renewed his acquaintance with Mr. Wilson Croker, in whose society no small portion of his time was spent, both at the Admiralty and at the latter's villa at Molesey. He was also occasionally a visitor at General Phipps's (a relation of his mother's), in Harley-street, where he met and speedily became intimate with the late Speaker, Lord Canterbury. They were afterwards seen a great deal together, and the pair strolling arm-in-arm down St. James's-street, forms the subject of one—not the most happy—of the HB sketches.[6] With these exceptions, for a long period his position as a public defaulter, together with the res angustæ domi, confined him to the narrow and comparatively inexpensive circle of his old literary and theatrical associates.

During the summer of 1820, Theodore Hook opened his campaign against the Queen by a thin octavo, which at the time made considerable noise. It was entitled "Tentamen; or an Essay towards the History of Whittington and his Cat," by Dr. Vicesimus Blenkinsop. The Whittington, of course, was no other than Alderman Wood, and Caroline was the cat. "Throughout the whole libellus," says Lockhart, "there was a prodigious rattle of puns and conundrums—but the strong points of the case against Whittington and Co. were skilfully brought out, nevertheless. Hook being as yet quite in obscuro, nobody suspected him. It was pretty generally ascribed to the manufacturers of the 'New Whig Guide.'"

"Tentamen" was followed by several similar pamphlets, chiefly in verse, all directed against Alderman Wood and the other supporters of the Queen, and all published in the same year (1820) by Wright, of Fleet-street. They are also to be distinguished by a caricature likeness of the celebrated Alderman, the same portrait appearing on the title-page both of "Tentamen" and the others. One of these we recollect is entitled Solomon Logwood.[7]

In the spring of this year (1820), Hook, with the assistance of his old friend, Daniel Terry, started a small periodical. It was published, and we believe suggested, by Mr. Miller, who had recently engaged extensive premises in—what was then expected to prove a great mart for the lighter description of literature—a sort of occidental "Row,"—the Burlington Arcade. Hence the name of the first-born, "The Arcadian," but which, to say the truth, had little of the pastoral in its composition, if we except a certain long ballad of melodious rhythm and provoking pungency, addressed to Lady Holland, and commencing,—

"Listen, lady, to my measures,

While they softly, gently flow,

While I sing the harmless pleasures

Of the classic, silver Po," etc.

The war-cry of "The Arcadian" was of course "King and Constitution," for its editor was Conservative, or rather Tory (the former euphuism was not then in vogue) to the heart's core. Much, too, of that personality was introduced in its pages, which rendered its more fortunate successor, the John Bull, so formidable. The same contemptuous tone, in treating of theatricals, is observable both in the John Bull and its tiny predecessor. "The Arcadian" contains a most exquisite critique, a perfect masterpiece of irony, upon the "first appearance" of a certain young lady, and some caustic remarks on the stage and its attractions, curious as coming from a popular dramatist, writing in the thirty-second year of his age.

Full of fun and spirit as the little magazine was, it nevertheless came to an untimely end: only two numbers ever made their appearance. Such was the difficulty which the publisher experienced in making up the second, owing to Hook's listlessness, or more probably preoccupation, that he declined venturing on a third.

This was the prelude of John Bull. The most important event with which the name of Theodore Hook stands connected, is unquestionably the establishment of the John Bull newspaper, at the close of 1820. The universal, instantaneous, and appreciable effect produced on the great political movements of the day by its appearance, is perhaps unparalleled in the history of periodical literature.

The Queen's affair had gone on all the summer and autumn; the madness of popular exacerbation gaining new intenseness with every week that passed. None who remember the feelings and aspects of the time will think it possible to exaggerate either in description: but we shall make no such attempt. The explosion scattered brilliant terror far and wide. No first appearance of any periodical work of any class whatever has, in our time at least, produced such a startling sensation—it told at once from the convulsed centre to every extremity of the kingdom. There was talent of every sort, apparently, that could have been desired or devised for such a purpose. It seemed as if a legion of sarcastic devils had brooded in synod over the elements of withering derision. But, as far as Hook's MSS. allowed his biographers to judge, he was really and truly alone; and, at all events, they exonerate most completely certain other persons who were at first saddled with a large share of the merit and the obloquy of the Bull. Of the famous songs during the winter of 1820-21, only one, he used to say, was an extraneous contribution.

The paper set out with one specific object: the extinction of the Brandenburgh House party; and, to accomplish this, Hook's varied talents—his wit and humour, his sarcasm and bitterness, his keenness of argument, fiery zeal, and unscrupulous daring—were all brought to bear with concentrated energy upon the ranks of the Opposition. Any man reckless of legal consequences, or beyond their reach, familiar with the current scandal of the day, and having so powerful an engine as a public paper at his disposal, may inflict a vast amount of injury upon his adversaries; but to these conditions, in the present case, may be added powers, if not of the very highest order, doubtless the best adapted to the purpose, sources of information peculiar and inexplicable, a singleness of purpose, and firm conviction of its justice, that combined to render Bull the most formidable antagonist that had as yet entered the lists against the Queen.

Many of Bull's songs, in construction, and even in execution, were very little different from those which Hook used to improvise in the course of a festive evening. It has been said by one who knew him, that a person who never witnessed that marvellous performance could not take a better notion of what it was than from such a piece as the "Visit of Mrs. Muggins," in thirty-one stanzas.

Here also Hook commenced and continued from time to time, for ten years, that famous series of Ramsbottom Papers, which were the precursors of all the Mrs. Malaprops, Mrs. Partingtons, and Mrs. Browns of a later generation, and which, like nearly all originals, greatly surpassed in genuine humour and excellence the cleverest imitations that have since appeared.

By his flagellations of the Whigs, meantime, Hook had shut against himself the gates of forbearance at Whitehall. He might have thought himself well off, if he had not tempted harshness into play against him. He thought he had: he always persisted that the auditor's final report on him was an unjust deliverance; and he maintained equally the opinion that the measures of the Government consequent on that report were unusually severe. The award was at last given in the autumn of 1823, and it pronounced him a debtor to the Crown of over £12,000.

On his arrest under the Exchequer writ (August, 1823), he was taken to the dwelling and spunging-house of the sheriff's officer, his captor, by name Mr. Hemp, and still hoping that a protracted imprisonment was not seriously intended, he chose to remain there week after week, and month after month, until Easter. The expense of board and lodging at a house of that class is always heavy; his accommodations were mean, and the situation about the worst in London—Shire Lane, so named as separating part of the City from Middlesex—a vile, squalid place, noisy and noxious, apparently almost inaccessible either to air or light, swarming with a population of thief-catchers, gin-sellers, and worse. But his spirit was not yet to be broken. He endured the unwholesome confinement with patience—no sooner was hope knocked down in one quarter than it sprung up again in another—he kept himself steadily at work in the mornings, and his few intimates commonly gathered round him in the evening.

In April, 1824, Hook at last took his leave of Shire Lane. He had, as usual, made himself a great favourite with Hemp and his family, and such a guest could not be allowed to depart without a farewell banquet. The company exhibited in harmonious contrast Mr. Hook's theatrical and literary confidants of the time, and sundry distinguished ornaments of his hospitable landlord's own order. The sederunt did not close without a specimen of the improvisatore; and his ballad "showed up" Mr. Hemp and his brethren, as intrusted with the final offices of the law in the case of the grand culprit before them:—

Chorus—

"Let him hang with a curse,—this atrocious, pernicious

Scoundrel that emptied the till at Mauritius!"[8]

The close confinement in the bad air of Shire Lane had affected his health, and indeed his personal appearance was permanently damaged in consequence of the total disuse of exercise for so many months, and the worry of mind which even he must have been enduring. He came out pale and flabby in the face, and with a figure fast tending to corpulence. He was transferred to the Rules of the King's Bench, within which he hired a small separate lodging, in an airy enough situation—Temple Place.

In 1824 Theodore Hook published the first series of that collection of tales which, under the title of "Sayings and Doings,"[9] placed him at once in the highest rank of the novelists of his generation; above all his contemporaries, with the one exception, of course, of the Author of "Waverley." The first idea and plan of the work was struck out during the sitting of a sort of John Bull conclave held at Fulham, and had origin in the suggestion of a friend, who, delighted with the anecdotes of Colonial life which Hook was pouring forth, conceived that they might be turned to better account than the mere entertainment of a dinner-party, and hit upon a title, at which Hook caught with eagerness. So convinced was the latter that his first tale, "The Man of Sorrow," had not been fairly appreciated, that he actually embodied in his new essay the rejected attempt of Mr. Alfred Allendale, condensed, indeed, and purged from its impurities, but not materially altered from the original. Much better in every respect is the story of "Danvers, the Parvenu."

The more prominent characters in Hook's novels are, in spite of his disclaimer, unquestionably portraits. To many of the Anglo-Indian sketches, the journal kept during the author's sojourn at the Mauritius would doubtless supply a key.

Hook, indeed, always denied the possession of inventive faculties. There was doubtless truth as well as modesty in his assertion: "Give me a story to tell, and I can tell it, but I cannot create."

The popularity of the first series of "Sayings and Doings" (three vols.) may be estimated from his diary, which records the profit to the author as £2,000. There were, we believe, three considerable impressions before the Second Series, also in three vols., was ready in the spring of 1825. And shortly after that publication he was at length released from custody—with an intimation, however, that the Crown abandoned nothing of its claim for the Mauritius debt.

The first series of "Sayings and Doings" were soon followed (1825-1829) by a second and third, which are generally considered in every way superior to the former ones. The author was of this opinion himself, and the public as certainly ratified his verdict.

In the meantime Theodore Hook, released from his temporary confinement, had taken a cottage at Putney, of which neighbourhood he had always been fond, and may be said to have re-entered society, though his circle of acquaintance continued limited for a couple of years more.

While at Putney, in 1826, he from motives of pure kindness re-wrote, that is to say, composed from rough illiterate materials, the very entertaining "Reminiscences" of an old theatrical and musical friend of his—Michael Kelly. The book was received with astonishment, for he generously kept his own secret.

In 1827 he took a higher flight, and became the tenant of a house in Cleveland Row—on the edge of what, in one of his novels, he describes as "the real London—the space between Pall Mall on the south, and Piccadilly on the north, St. James's-street on the west, and the Opera House to the east." The residence was handsome, and indeed appeared extravagantly too large for his purpose. He was admitted a member of several clubs; became the first attraction of their house-dinners; and in those where play was allowed, might usually be seen in the course of his protracted evening. Soon he began to receive invitations to great houses in the country, and from week after week, often travelled from one to another, to all outward appearance, in the style of an idler of high condition. He had soon entangled himself with habits and connections which implied considerable curtailment of his labour at the desk, and entailed a course of expenditure more than sufficient to swallow all the profits of what remained.

His next novel, "Maxwell," published in 1830, is, in point of plot, by far the most perfect of his productions; the interest which is at once excited, never for an instant flags, and the mystery, so far from being of the flimsy transparent texture, common to romances, is such as to baffle the most practised and quick-witted discoverer of dénoûments, and to defy all attempts at elucidation.

New debts began to accumulate on him so rapidly, that about 1831, he found it necessary to get rid of the house at St. James's, and to remove to one of more modest dimensions close to Fulham Bridge, with a small garden looking towards the river. Here in the locality which had long been a favourite one with him, he remained till his death; but though he took advantage of the change to drop the custom of giving regular dinners, and probably to strike off some other sources of expense, he not only continued his habits of visiting, but extended them as new temptations offered.

Probably few of his admirers ever knew exactly where Hook lived. His letters and cards were left for him at one or other of his clubs, but it is doubtful if the interior of his Fulham cottage was ever seen by half a dozen people besides his old intimate friends and familiars. To the upper world he was visible only as the jocund convivialist of the club—the brilliant wit of the lordly banquet, the lion of the crowded assembly, the star of a Christmas or Easter party in a rural palace, the unfailing stage-manager, prompter, author, and occasionally excellent comic actor of private theatricals.

But, notwithstanding the round of gaiety and pleasure in which the greater number of his evenings were spent, the time so employed cannot be said to have been altogether wasted; for, to a writer who has to draw from life, whose books are men and women, and to whom the gossip and on dits of the day are the rough material of his manufacture, a constant mixing in society of every accessible rank is absolutely necessary—to one of his taste and discrimination, the higher the grade the better. Whithersoever he went he carried with him not only an unfailing fund of entertainment, but also unslumbering powers of observation, that served to redeem what otherwise would have appeared mere weakness and self-indulgence. And that he was not slow to avail himself of the advantages that fell to his share, no one will deny, who casts a glance over the list of productions he gave to the world, during a period when the intellectual exertion of his convivial hours alone would have exhausted the energies, physical and mental, of well-nigh any other man.

In 1832 he published the "Life of Sir David Baird," a standard biographical work, and one spoken of in the highest terms by the best reviews of the day. So satisfied were the family with the manner in which he executed his task, that they presented him with a magnificent gold snuff-box set with brilliants, the gift of the Pasha of Egypt to the subject of the memoir. Hook seems to have tossed the trinket aside as an unconsidered trifle into a drawer, from which it was happily rescued on the accidental discovery of its value and importance.

In 1833 he sent forth no fewer than six volumes, full of originality and wit; a novel called the "Parson's Daughter," and a couple of stories under the title of "Love and Pride." In one of the latter, the supposed resemblance of Liston to a certain noble lord is happily turned to account; the being mistaken for Mr. Buggins, principal low comedian of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, forming a light and pointed climax to the congeries of ridiculous miseries heaped on the unfortunate Marquis.

In 1836, Theodore Hook undertook the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, at a salary of four hundred pounds a year, irrespective of the sums to be paid for original contributions. Here he commenced his "Gilbert Gurney," accommodating himself to the exceedingly uncomfortable practice, now all but universal among popular and prolific novelists, of delivering his tale by monthly instalments. To this plan, though obliged to succumb to it, he always took exception, as not only wearisome to the reader, but fatal to fair development of plot.

Of all his works, "Gilbert Gurney" is by far the most mirth-provoking and remarkable. His own adventures form the groundwork of the comedy; himself and his friends figure as the dramatis personæ, and throughout the whole there appear an unrestrained expression of private feelings, and a frequency of personal allusion, that give it the semblance and almost the interest of true history.

In his next novel, "Jack Brag," Hook again hit upon a character with which he could go to work con amore. Vulgar, vain, and impudent, a cross between a tallow-chandler, and what, in the cant phrase of the day, is termed a sporting gent, a hanger-on upon the loose branches of the aristocracy, and occasionally thrown into society more respectable, Mr. Brag's gaucheries convulse the reader; while those who scorn not to read a warning, even on the page of a novel, may be led to devote more than a passing thought to the folly (to say the least of it) of indulging in the very silly and very common habit of perpetual though petty misrepresentation, as regards their means and position in life, and the nature and degree of their acquaintance with individuals of a rank higher than their own. There is no lower depth of drawing-room degradation than is involved in the exposure of one of these pretenders; unrecognised, perhaps, by his "most intimate friend" Lord A——, cut by his "old crony" Sir John B——, or never "heard of" by his "college chum," the Bishop of C——.

"Jack Brag" was followed, in 1839, by "Births, Marriages, and Deaths," which, notwithstanding its infelicitous title,—as far as fitness goes, it might as well have been called "Law Notices," or "Fashionable Intelligence," or by any other newspaper "heading,"—was a novel of a higher class than any he had before attempted: the humour is scantier and more subdued than heretofore, and though the magnificent Colonel Magnus, and his rascally attorney Brassey, here and there afford admirable sport, the latter, with his economical wardrobe, to wit:—"one tooth-brush twisted up in a piece of whitey-brown paper; a razor by itself tied with a piece of red tape to a round pewter shaving-box (enclosing a bit of soap), with the tip of its handle peeping from the bottom of a leathern case, like the feet of a long-legged Lilliputian sticking out of his coffin; a remarkably dirty flannel under-waistcoat, edged with light blue silk and silver; one pair of black silk socks, brown in the bottoms," &c.—yet the general effect is heavy,—heavier, that is, than the public were inclined to accept from the pen of Theodore Hook.

This, in point of fact, may be considered his last finished work. "Precepts and Practice" appeared in 1840,—the name an obvious plagiarism, and from himself, being merely a collection of short papers and tales, published during the preceding year or two, in the New Monthly, of which he was the editor. As for "Fathers and Sons," portions of which appeared in the same magazine, and "Peregrine Bunce," we believe neither of them to have been completed by his own hand; of the latter, about one hundred pages of the last of the three volumes were certainly supplied by another writer.

The production of thirty-eight volumes, within sixteen years, Hook being all the while editor, and almost sole writer, of a newspaper, affords sufficient proof that he never sank into idleness; but in other respects there had been great changes within that period. Two unhappy errors into which he had fallen marred the happiness of the remainder of his life. Before his arrest in 1823, he had formed a liaison, which, though perhaps excusable in his position at Somers Town, was persisted in afterwards under less adverse circumstances, until the righteous consequences of guilt could not be averted. This connection soon became such as, in his position, and with the kind and manly feelings which adhered to him, made it impossible for him to marry in his proper condition; and though he often thought of atoning to his partner, and in some sort to the children she had borne him, by making her his wife, he never took courage to satisfy his conscience by carrying that purpose into effect. The second error regarded his debt to the Crown, which, though during the last twenty years of life he was in receipt of an affluent income from his writings, he made no real or adequate effort to repay by instalments. Hook never denied that he was in justice responsible for a deficit of £9,000; and those who had the sole authority to judge of the matter, pronounced the rightful claim to be £12,000. When he was released from the King's Bench, he was told distinctly that the debt must hang over him until every farthing was paid. We know that he had, in his great and various talents, left from that hour at his free command, means of earning far more than enough for his own decent maintenance, and that of his unfortunate family; and most clearly every shilling that he could make beyond that ought to have been, from time to time, paid into the Exchequer towards the liquidation of his debt. In neglecting this, he threw away the only chance before him of effectually vindicating his character, together with all reasonable chance of ever again profiting by the open patronage of either the Crown or its Ministers. In every page of his works we trace the disastrous influence of both these grand original errors, perpetually crossing and blackening the picture of superficial gaiety—indications, not to be mistaken, of a conscience ill at ease; of painful recollections and dark anticipations rising irrepressibly, and not to be stifled; of good, gentle, and generous feelings converted by the stings of remorse into elements of torture.

His pecuniary embarrassments became deeper and darker every year. Even in the midst of his abundant dissipation he worked hard in the mornings—certainly he covered with his MS. more paper than would have proved, in almost any other man's case, the energetic exertion of every hour in every day that passed over his head; and little did his fine friends understand or reflect at what an expense of tear and wear he was devoting his evenings to their amusement.

About a month before his decease he wrote to Mr. Barham, whom he requested to run down to Fulham and see him, as he was too ill to leave home himself; and of the interview which ensued we are enabled to give a somewhat full account, committed to paper shortly afterwards, and evidently with the view of fixing the impression, yet fresh, in the writer's mind:—

"It was on the 29th of July, 1841, that I last saw poor Hook. I had received a note from him requesting me to come down and see him, as he wished much to talk over some matters of importance, and could not, from the state of his health, drive into town. I went accordingly, and after a long conversation, which related principally to * * * and to his novel, 'Peregrine Bunce,' then going through the press, but which he never lived to complete, a roast fowl was put on the table for luncheon. He helped me and took a piece himself, but laid down his knife and fork after the first mouthful, which, indeed, he made an unsuccessful attempt to swallow. On my observing his unusual want of appetite—for his luncheon was in general his dinner—he said: 'It is of no use, old fellow; the fact is I have not tasted a morsel of solid food these five days!' 'Then what on earth have you lived upon?' to which he replied, 'Effervescing draughts;' adding afterwards, that he was allowed to take occasionally a tumbler of rum and milk, or a pint of Guinness's bottled porter.

At the age of 51 from a Portrait by Count D'Orsay

"On hearing this, I strongly pressed on him the necessity of having further advice, which he at length promised he would do, if he were not better in a day or two. I told him that my wife and myself were going down to the Isle of Thanet, and pressed him very much to throw work overboard for a while, and accompany us and be nursed. He said, however, 'he was completely tied to his desk till he had concluded what he was then writing for Colburn and Bentley; but that he should get quite clear of his trammels in about a month, and then, if we were still there, he would make an effort to pay us a visit.'"

In truth, he was soon past writing; death was advancing upon him with rapid strides, while earthly prospects were growing, daily, darker and more threatening. It is painful to reflect that his last hours, ere the struggling mind had sunk into insensibility, were disturbed by the apprehension of inability to meet a couple of bills of comparatively trifling amount, on the point, as he believed, of becoming due. On Friday, the 13th of August, he took finally to his bed, the stream hurried on with increasing velocity as it approached the fall—a brief agitated interval, happily not neglected, was left for the first, last work of erring man, and on the evening of the 24th he expired.

The disorder under which he had been labouring for years, arose from a diseased state of the liver and stomach, brought on partly by mental anxiety, but principally, it is to be feared, by that habit of over-indulgence at table, the curse of Colonial life, which he had early acquired, and to which he held with fatal perseverance to the end. It needed no ordinary powers to enable him to sustain the contest so long; but his frame was robust and his constitution vigorous; and he seems to have possessed in a remarkable degree that power of maintaining the supremacy of mind over matter, which rendered him indifferent to, or unconscious of, the first slow approaches of decay. He was buried with extreme privacy at Fulham; a simple stone bearing his name and age marks the spot, which is immediately opposite the chancel window, and within a few paces of his former home.

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[THE RAMSBOTTOM PAPERS.]

1822-1831.

NOW FIRST COLLECTED.

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[The Letters of Mrs. Ramsbottom, complete and unabridged, are here published in a collected form for the first time. They originally appeared in the pages of the John Bull newspaper, where their publication extended over a period of ten years. A complete set of the John Bull is now very rare, and, in proof of this, we may state that when a London publisher recently issued a cheap edition of the "Ramsbottom Letters," thirteen were all that he could give, whereas the whole of the twenty-nine are here given, and genuine—just as they left the pen of the witty author.]

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THE RAMSBOTTOM PAPERS.

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I.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM'S PARTY.

April, 1822.

On Thursday last, Mrs. Ramsbottom, of Pudding-lane, opened her house to a numerous party of her friends. The drawing-room over the compting-house, and the small closet upon the stairs, were illuminated in a most tasteful manner, and Mr. Ramsbottom's own room was appropriated to card-tables, where all-fours and cribbage were the order of the night. Several pounds were won and lost.

The shop was handsomely fitted up for quadrilles, which began as soon as it was dark; the rooms being lighted with an abundance of patent lamps, and decorated with artificial flowers. The first quadrille was danced by—

Mr. Simpson, Jun.	and	Miss Ramsbottom
Mr. Botibol		Miss E. A. Ramsbottom
Mr. Green		Miss Rosalie Ramsbottom
Mr. Mugliston		Miss Charlotte Ramsbottom
Mr. Higginbotham		Miss Lilla Ramsbottom
Mr. Arthur Stubbs		Miss Lavinia Ramsbottom
Mr. O'Reilly		Miss Frances Hogsflesh
A French Count (name unknown)		Miss Rachel Solomons.

At half-past ten the supper-room was thrown open, and presented to the admiring eyes of the company a most elegant and substantial hot repast. The mackerel and fennel-sauce were particularly noticed, as were the boiled legs of lamb and spinach; and we cannot sufficiently praise the celerity with which the ham and sausages were removed, as the respectable families of the Jewish persuasion entered the room. The port and sherry were of the first quality. Supper lasted till about a quarter past two, when dancing was resumed, and continued till Sol warned the festive party to disperse.

The dresses of the company were remarkably elegant. Mrs. Ramsbottom was simply attired in a pea-green satin dress, looped up with crimson cord and tassels, with a bright yellow silk turban and hair to match; a magnificent French watch, chain, and seals were suspended from her left side, and her neck was adorned with a very elegant row of full-sized sky-blue beads, pendant to which was a handsome miniature of Mr. Ramsbottom, in the costume of a corporal in the Limehouse Volunteers, of which corps he was justly considered the brightest ornament.

The Misses Ramsbottom were dressed alike, in sky-blue dresses, trimmed with white bugles, blue bead necklaces, and ear-rings en suite. We never saw a more pleasing exhibition of female beauty, the sylph-like forms of the three youngest, contrasted with the high-conditioned elegance of the two eldest, formed a pleasing variety; while the uniform appearance of the family red hair, set off by the cerulean glow of the drapery, gave a sympathetic sameness to the group, which could not fail to be interesting to the admirers of domestic happiness.

The Misses Solomons attracted particular notice, as did the fascinating Miss Louisa Doddell, and the lovely Miss Hogsflesh, delighted the company after supper with the plaintive air of "Nobody coming to marry me;" Mr. Stubbs and Mr. J. Stubbs sang "All's well" with great effect, and Mr. Doddell and his accomplished sister were rapturously encored in the duet of "Oh Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?"

Among the company we noticed—

The French Count (name unknown, but introduced by Mr. J. Stubbs).

Mistresses Dawes, Bumstead, Gordon, Green, five Smiths, Jones, Hall, Ball, Small, Wall, Groves, Taylor, Dixon, Figgins, Stubbs, Lightfoot, Hogsflesh, Muggins, Higginbottom, Cruikshanks, Barnet, Levi, Solomons, Ricardo, Hume, Hone, Parker, Wilde, Cummins, Farthing, Thompson, Anderson, Tod, Smallpiece, Flint, Doddell, Peppercorn, Adcock and Pyman.

Misses Stubbs, 2 Grubbs, 11 Smiths, Lightfoot, Simmons, 3 Halfpennys, Hall, Ball, Small, Wall, Barton, 3 Jones's, Hogsflesh, Eglantine Hogsflesh, 2 Greens, 4 Hones, Ricardo, Williams, 2 Doddells, Peppercorn, Holman, Figgins, Garbett, Burton, Morgan, Ellis, Levi, Flint, 3 Farthings, Eversfield and Parkinson.

Doctor Dixon, Lieut. Cox, R.N., Ensign Ellmore, H.P.

Messrs. Green, Halfpenny, Butterfield, Dabbs, Harmer, Griffiths, Grubb, Hogsflesh, Hall, Ball, Small, Wall, Taylor, Tod, Adcock, Flint, Doddell, J. Doddle, A. Doddell, T. Doddell, Farrell, O'Reilly, Yardley, Muscatt, Dabbs, Giblett, Barber, Sniggs, Cocker, Hume, Bernelle, Moses, Levi, Hone, Ellice, Higginbottom, White, Brown, Stubbs, J. Stubbs, S. Rogers, Hicks, Moore, Morgan, Luttrell, etc.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, Lady Morgan, Mr. Ex-Sheriff Parkins, Sir Robert Wilson, and General Pepe were expected, but did not come.

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II.
MISS LAVINIA RAMSBOTTOM.

April 27, 1823.

The following is from no less a personage than our fair favourite, Miss Lavinia Ramsbottom:—

"Ma' desires me to write to you, to say that you are quite out in your reckoning as to dry-salters and citizens going to the Opera in hackney-coaches, and she hopes you will correct your calumny about our being in the straw. A friend of Pa's, who lives in the Minories, who is a great friend of Mr. Broom's, the Queen's lawyer, says that you are very malicious, and that, after all your pretended kindness last year, in putting in Ma's account of our party gratis for nothing, you only did it to quiz us; and Ma' says she shall continue to go to the Opera as long as she pleases, and she does not care whether the people have any clothes on, or none, so long as her betters countenances it.

"P.S.—Pa's young men play at Cardinal Puff, with table-beer, after supper every night,—so you see we have got that from the West End."

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III.
MISS LAVINIA'S LETTER FROM PARIS, FORWARDING HER MOTHER'S JOURNAL IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

To John Bull.

Paris, Dec. 10, 1823.

My dear Mr. B.,—The kindness with which you put in the account of our party last year, induces my Mamma to desire me to write to you again, to know if you would like to insert a journal of her travels.

My Papa has retired from business; he has left the shop in the Minories, and has taken a house in Montague Place—a beautiful street very far west, and near the British Museum—and my two younger sisters have been sent over here, to improve their education and their morals, and Mamma and I came over last week to see them, and if they had got polish enough, to take them home again. Papa would not come with us, because, when he was quite a youth, he got a very great alarm in Chelsea Reach, because the waterman would put up a sail, and from that time to this he never can be prevailed upon to go to sea; so we came over under the care of Mr. Fulmer, the banker's son, who was coming to his family.

Mamma has not devoted much of her time to the study of English, and does not understand French at all, and therefore perhaps her journal will here and there appear incorrect, but she is a great etymologist, and so fond of you, that although I believe Mr. Murray, the great bookseller in Albemarle Street, would give her, I do not know how many thousand pounds for her book, if she published it "all in the lump," as Papa says, she prefers sending it to you piecemeal, and so you will have it every now and then, as a portion of it is done. I have seen Mr. Fulmer laugh sometimes when she has been reading it; but I see nothing to laugh at, except the hard words she uses, and the pains she takes to find out meanings for things. She says if you do not like to print it, you may let Murray have it—but that, of course, she would prefer your doing it.

I enclose a portion—more shall come soon. Papa, I believe, means to ask you to dinner when we get back to town; he says you are a terrible body, and as he has two or three weak points in his character, he thinks it better to be friends with you than foes. I know of but one fault he has—yes, perhaps two—but I will not tell you what they are till I see whether you publish Mamma's journal.

Adieu! I was very angry with you for praising little Miss M. at the Lord Mayor's Dinner; I know her only by sight: we are not quite in those circles yet, but I think when we get into Montague Place we may see something of life. She is a very pretty girl, and very amiable, and that is the truth of it, but you had no business to say so, you fickle monster.

Yours truly,

Lavinia Higginbottom.

We proceeded, after reading this letter, to open the enclosure, and found what follows. We do not presume to alter one word, but when any trifling difficulty occurs, arising from the depth of Mrs. Higginbottom's research, we have ventured to insert a note. The title of the manuscript is

ENGLAND AND FRANCE,

By Dorothea Julia Higginbottom.

And thus, gentle reader, it ran:—

"Having often heard travellers lament not having put down what they call the memorybillious of their journies, I was determined while I was on my tower, to keep a dairy (so called from containing the cream of one's information), and record everything which recurred to me—therefore I begin with my departure from London.

"Resolving to take time by the firelock, we left Mountague Place at seven o'clock by Mr. Fulmer's pocket thermometer, and proceeded over Westminster-bridge to explode the European continent.

"I never pass Whitehall without dropping a tear to the memory of Charles the Second, who was decimated after the rebellion of 1745 opposite the Horse-Guards—his memorable speech to Archbishop Caxon rings in my ears whenever I pass the spot—I reverted my head, and affected to look to see what o'clock it was by the dial, on the opposite side of the way.

"It is quite impossible not to notice the improvements in this part of the town; the beautiful view which one gets of Westminster Hall, and its curious roof, after which, as everybody knows, its builder was called William Roofus.

"Amongst the lighter specimens of modern architecture, is Ashley's Ampletheatre, on your right, as you cross the bridge, (which was built, Mr. Fulmer told me, by the Court of Arches and the House of Peers). In this ampletheatre there are equestrian performances, so called because they are exhibeted nightly—during the season.

"It is quite impossible to quit this 'mighty maze,' as Lady Hopkins emphatically calls London, in her erudite 'Essay upon Granite,' without feeling a thousand powerful sensations—so much wealth, so much virtue, so much vice, such business as is carried on, within its precincts, such influence as its inhabitants possess in every part of the civilized world—it really exalts the mind from meaner things, and casts all minor considerations far behind one.

"The toll at the Marsh-gate is ris since we last come through—it was here we were to have taken up Lavinia's friend, Mr. Smith, who had promised to go with us to Dover, but we found his servant instead of himself, with a billy, to say he was sorry he could not come, because his friend, Sir John somebody, wished him to stay and go down to Poll at Lincoln. I have no doubt this Poll, whoever she may be, is a very respectable young woman, but mentioning her, by her Christian name only, in so abrupt a manner, had a very unpleasant appearance at any rate.

"Nothing remarkable occurred till we reached the Obstacle in St. George's Fields, where our attention was arrested by those great institutions, the 'School for the Indignant Blind,' and the 'Misanthropic Society' for making shoes, both of which claim the gratitude of the nation.

"At the corner of the lane leading to Peckham, I saw that they had removed the Dollygraph which used to stand up on the declivity to the right of the road—the dollygraphs are all to be superseded by Serampores.

"When we came to the Green Man at Blackheath we had an opportunity of noticing the errors of former travellers, for the heath is green, and the man is black; Mr. Fulmer endeavoured to account for this, by saying that Mr. Colman has discovered that Moors being black, and Heaths being a kind of Moor, he looks upon the confusion of words as the cause of the mistake.

"N.B. Colman is the eminent Itinerary Surgeon, who constantly resides at St. Pancras.

"As we went near Woolwich we saw at a distance the artillery officers on a common, a firing away with their bombs in mortars like any thing.

"At Dartford they make gunpowder; here we changed horses, at the inn we saw a most beautiful Rhoderick Random in a pot, covered with flowers, it is the finest I ever saw, except those at Dropmore. [Note (Rhododendron).]

"When we got to Rochester we went to the Crown Inn and had a cold collection: the charge was absorbent—I had often heard my poor dear husband talk of the influence of the Crown, and a Bill of Wrights, but I had no idea what it really meant till we had to pay one.

"As we passed near Chatham I saw several Pitts, and Mr. Fulmer showed me a great many buildings—I believe he said they were fortyfications, but I think there must have been near fifty of them—he also shewed us the Lines at Chatham, which I saw quite distinctly, with the clothes drying on them. Rochester was remarkable in King Charles's time, for being a very witty and dissolute place, as I have read in books.

"At Canterbury we stopped ten minutes to visit all the remarkable buildings and curiosities in it, and about its neighbourhood; the church is beautiful: when Oliver Cromwell conquered William the Third, he perverted it into a stable—the stalls are still standing—the old Virgin who shewed us the church, wore buckskin breeches and powder—he said it was an archypiscopal sea, but I saw no sea, nor do I think it possible he could see it either, for it is at least seventeen miles off—we saw Mr. Thomas à Beckett's tomb—my poor husband was extremely intimate with the old gentleman, and one of his nephews, a very nice man, who lives near Golden-square, dined with us twice, I think, in London—in Trinity Chapel is the monument of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrea in the Regent's Park.

"It was late when we got to Dover: we walked about while our dinner was preparing, looking forward to our snug tête-à-tête of three—we went to look at the sea, so called, perhaps, from the uninterrupted view one has, when upon it—it was very curious to see the locks to keep in the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them, all ready, I suppose, to open them if they were wanted.

"Mr. Fulmer looked at a high place, and talked of Shakspeare, and said out of his own head, these beautiful lines.—

"Half way down

Hangs one that gathers camphire, dreadful trade."

"This, I think it but right to say, I did not myself see.—

"Methinks he seems no bigger than his head,

The fishermen that walk upon the beach

Appear like mice."

"This, again, I cannot quite agree to, for where we stood, they looked exactly like men, only smaller, which I attribute to the effect of distance—and then Mr. Fulmer said this—

"And yon tall anchoring bark

Diminished to her cock—her cock a boy!"

"This latter part I do not in the least understand, nor what Mr. Fulmer meant by cock a boy—however, Lavinia seemed to comprehend it all, for she turned up her eyes and said something about the immortal bird of heaven—so I suppose they were alluding to the eagles, which doubtless build their aviaries in that white mountain—(immortal bard of Avon, the lady means).

"After dinner we read the Paris Guide, and looked over the list of all the people who had been incontinent during the season, whose names are all put down in a book at the inn, for the purpose—we went to rest, much fatigued, knowing that we should be obliged to get up early, to be ready for embrocation in the packet in the morning.

"We were, however, awake with the owl, and a walking a way before eight, we went to see the castle—which was built, the man told us, by Seizer, so called, I conclude, from seizing whatever he could lay his hands on—the man said moreover that he had invaded Britain and conquered it, upon which I told him that if he repeated such a thing in my presence again, I should write to Mr. Peel about him.

"We saw the inn where Alexander, the Autograph of all the Russias, lived when he was here, and as we were going along, we met twenty or thirty dragons mounted on horses, the ensign who commanded them was a friend of Mr. Fulmer's—he looked at Lavinia, and seemed pleased with her Tooting assembly—he was quite a sine qua non of a man, and wore tips on his lips, like Lady Hopkins's poodle.

"I heard Mr. Fulmer say he was a son of Marr's; he spoke it as if every body knew his father, so I suppose he must be the son of the poor gentleman, who was so barbarously murdered some years ago, near Ratcliffe Highway: if he is, he is uncommon genteel.

"At twelve o'clock we got into a boat and rowed to the packet; it was very fine and clear for the season, and Mr. Fulmer said he should not dislike pulling Lavinia about, all the morning: this I believe was a naughtycal phrase, which I did not rightly comprehend, because Mr. F. never offered to talk in that way on shore, to either of us.

"The packet is not a parcel as I imagined, in which we were to be made up for exportation, but a boat of considerable size; it is called a cutter—why, I do not know, and did not like to ask. It was very curious to see how it rolled about—however I felt quite mal-apropos, and instead of exciting any of the soft sensibilities of the other sex, a great unruly man, who held the handle of the ship, bid me lay hold of a companion, and when I sought his arm for protection, he introduced me to a ladder, down which I ascended into the cabin, one of the most curious places I ever beheld, where ladies and gentlemen are put upon shelves like books in a library, and where tall men are doubled up like boot-jacks, before they can be put away at all.

"A gentleman in a hairy cap without his coat, laid me perpendicularly on a mattress, with a basin by my side, and said that was my birth; I thought it would have been my death, for I never was so indisposed in all my life. I behaved extremely ill to a very amiable middle-aged gentleman with a bald head, who had the misfortune to be attending upon his wife, in the little hole under me.

"There was no symphony to be found among the tars, (so called from their smell) for just before we went off I heard them throw a painter overboard, and directly after, they called out to one another to hoist up an ensign. I was too ill to enquire what the poor young gentleman had done, but after I came up stairs I did not see his body hanging anywhere, so I conclude they had cut him down; I hope it was not young Mr. Marr a venturing after my Lavy.

"I was quite shocked to find what democrats the sailors are—they seem to hate the nobility, and especially the law lords: the way I discovered this apathy of theirs to the nobility, was this—the very moment we lost sight of England and were close to France, they began, one and all, to swear first at the peer, and then at the bar, in such gross terms as made my very blood run cold.

"I was quite pleased to see Lavinia sitting with Mr. Fulmer in the travelling carriage on the outside of the packet. But Lavinia afforded great proofs of her good bringing up, by commanding her feelings—it is curious what could have agitated the billiary ducks of my stomach, because I took every precaution which is recommended in different books to prevent ill-disposition. I had some mutton chops at breakfast, some Scotch marmalade on bread and butter, two eggs, two cups of coffee and three of tea, besides toast, a little fried whiting, some potted charr, and a few shrimps, and after breakfast I took a glass of warm white wine negus, and a few oysters, which lasted me till we got into the boat, when I began eating gingerbread nuts, all the way to the packet, and then was persuaded to take a glass of bottled porter to keep every thing snug and comfortable."

And here ends our present communication. We are mightily obliged to Miss Higginbottom, and shall with great pleasure continue the journal, whenever we are presented with it.

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IV.
HIGGINBOTTOM AND RAMSBOTTOM.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Dec. 24, 1823.

Sir,—I never wished either my wife or daughter to turn authoresses, as I think ladies which write books are called, and I should have set my face against the publication of my wife's Journal of her Tour if I had been consulted; but the truth is, they seldom ask me anything as to what is to be done, until they have first done it themselves.

Now I like you, because you have done the West Indians a good turn, and also because you try to put down the papishes; but there is a thing which under all the circumstances vexes me, because, as you may remember, Mr. Burke said, "anything which is worth doing is worth doing well." What I quarrel with you for is, that you put my wife's name and my daughter's name as Mrs. and Miss Higginbottom, whereas our name is Ramsbottom, and whether it be the stupidity of your printers, or that my daughter, who has been three years at an uncommon fine school at Hackney, cannot write plain, I do not pretend to say; but I do not like it, because, since every tub should stand on its own bottom, I think the Higginbottoms should not have the credit of doing what the Ramsbottoms actually do.

Perhaps you will correct this little error: it hurts me, because, as I said before, I like you very much, and I have got a few cases of particular champagne, a wine which my friend Rogers tells me, you are extremely fond of, and which he says is better than all the "real pain" in the world—(nobody ever said it before); and when the women return from over the horrid sea, I hope you will come and drink some of it; so pray just make an erratum, as the booksellers say, and put our right names in your paper, by doing which you will really oblige, your's,

Humphrey Ramsbottom.

P.S.—My second daughter is a very fine girl, and I think as clever as Lavy, and writes a much clearer hand—you shall see her when you come to M—— Place.

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V.
MISS LAVINIA RAMSBOTTOM FORWARDS THE CONTINUATION OF HER MOTHER'S DIARY.

To John Bull.

Paris, Dec. 28, 1823.

Dear Mr. B.,—I never was so surprised in my life as when we got your paper here, to see that your printing people had called Ma' and me Higginbottom—I was sure, and I told Ma' so, that it could not be your fault, because you could not have made such a mistake in my handwriting, nor could you have forgotten me so much as to have done such a thing; but I suppose you were so happy and comfortable with your friends (for judging by the number of your enemies you must have a host of them) at this merry season, that you did not pay so much attention to your correspondents as usual. I forgive you, my dear Mr. B.—Christmas comes but once a-year, and I assure you we had a small lump of roast beef (portion pour deux) from M. Godeau's, over the way, to keep up our national custom—the man actually asked Ma' whether she would have a rost-bif de mouton; so little do they know anything about it. I send another portion of Ma's diary—you spelt it "dairy" in the paper—I don't know whether Ma' put it so herself—she is quite pleased at seeing it published, and Mr. Fulmer called and said it was capital.

We have just come from the Ambassador's chapel, and are going to see St. Cloud directly, so I cannot write much myself, but must say adieu.—Always believe me, dear Mr. B., yours truly,

Lavinia Ramsbottom.

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ENGLAND AND FRANCE,

By Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom.

(Continued.)

"When we came near the French shore, a batto (which is much the same as a boat in England) came off to us, and, to my agreeable surprise, an Englishman came into our ship; and I believe he was a man of great consequence, for I overheard him explaining some dreadful quarrel which had taken place in our Royal Family.

"He said to the master of our ship, that owing to the Prince Leopold having run foul of the Duchess of Kent while she was in stays, the Duchess had missed Deal. By which I conclude it was a dispute at cards—however, I want to know nothing of state secrets, or I might have heard a great deal more, because it appeared that the Duchess's head was considerably injured in the scuffle.

"I was very much distressed to see that a fat gentleman who was in the ship, had fallen into a fit of perplexity by over-reaching himself—he lay prostituted upon the floor, and if it had not been that we had a doctor in the ship, who immediately opened his temporary artery and his jocular vein, with a lancelot which he had in his pocket, I think we should have seen his end.

"It was altogether a most moving spectacle—he thought himself dying, and all his anxiety in the midst of his distress was to be able to add a crocodile to his will, in favour of his niece, about whom he appeared very sanguinary.

"It was quite curious to see the doctor fleabottomize the patient, which he did without any accident, although it blew a perfect harrico at the time. I noticed two little children, who came out of the boat, with hardly any clothes on them, speaking French like anything—a proof of the superior education given to the poor in France, to that which they get in England from Dr. Bell of Lancaster.

"When we landed at Callous, we were extremely well received, and I should have enjoyed the sight very much, but Mr. Fulmer, and another gentleman in the batto, kept talking of nothing but how turkey and grease disagreed with each other, which, in the then state of my stomach, was far from agreeable.

"We saw the print of the foot of Louis Desweet, the French King, where he first stopped when he returned to his country—he must be a prodigious heavy man to have left such a deep mark in the stone—we were surrounded by Commissioners, who were so hospitable as to press us to go to their houses without any ceremony. Mr. Fulmer showed our pass-ports to a poor old man, with a bit of red ribband tied to his button-hole, and we went before the Mayor, who is no more like a Mayor than my foot-boy.

"Here they took a subscription of our persons, and one of the men said that Lavinia had a jolly manton, at which the clerks laughed, and several of them said she was a jolly feel, which I afterwards understood meant a pretty girl—I misunderstood it for fee, which, being in a public office, was a very natural mistake.

"We went then to a place they call the Do-Anne, where they took away the pole of my baruch—I was very angry at this, but they told me we were to travel in Lemonade with a biddy, which I did not understand, but Mr. Fulmer was kind enough to explain it to me as we went to the hotel, which is in a narrow street, and contains a garden and court-yard.

"I left it to Mr. Fulmer to order dinner, for I felt extremely piquant, as the French call it, and a very nice dinner it was—we had a purey, which tasted very like soup—one of the men said it was made from leather, at least so I understood, but it had quite the flavour of hare; I think it right here to caution travellers against the fish at this place, which looks very good, but which I have reason to believe is very unwholesome, for one of the waiters called it poison while speaking to the other—the fish was called marine salmon, but it looked like veal cutlets.

"They are so fond of Buonaparte still that they call the table-cloths Naps, in compliment to him—this I remarked to myself, but said nothing about it to anybody else, for fear of consequences.

"One of the waiters, who spoke English, asked me if I would have a little Bergami, which surprised me, till Mr. Fulmer said it was the wine he was handing about, when I refused it, preferring to take a glass of Bucephalus.

"When we had dined we had some coffee, which is here called cabriolet; after which Mr. Fulmer asked if we would have a chasse, which I thought meant a hunting party, and said I was afraid of going out into the fields at that time of night—but I found chasse was a lickure called cure a sore (from its healing qualities, I suppose), and very nice it was—after we had taken this, Mr. Fulmer went out to look at the jolly feels in the shops of Callous, which I thought indiscreet in the cold air; however, I am one as always overlooks the little piccadillies of youth.

"When we went to accoucher at night, I was quite surprised in not having a man for a chambermaid; and if it had not been for the entire difference of the style of furniture, the appearance of the place, and the language and dress of the attendants, I never should have discovered that we had changed our country in the course of the day.

"In the morning early we left Callous with the Lemonade, which is Shafts, with a very tall post-boy, in a violet-coloured jacket, trimmed with silver; he rode a little horse, which is called a biddy, and wore a nobbed tail, which thumped against his back like a patent self-acting knocker. We saw, near Bullion, Buonaparte's conservatory, out of which he used to look at England in former days.

"Nothing remarkable occurred till we met a courier a travelling, Mr. Fulmer said, with despatches; these men were called couriers immediately after the return of the Bonbons, in compliment to the London newspaper, which always wrote in their favour. At Montrule, Mr. Fulmer shewed me Sterne's Inn, and there I saw Mr. Sterne himself, a standing at the door, with a French cocked hat upon his head, over a white night-cap. Mr. Fulmer asked if he had any becauses in his house; but he said no: what they were I do not know to this moment.

"It is no use describing the different places on our rout, because Paris is the great object of all travellers, and therefore I shall come to it at once—it is reproached by a revenue of trees; on the right of which you see a dome, like that of St. Paul's, but not so large. Mr. Fulmer told me it was an invalid, and it did certainly look very yellow in the distance; on the left you perceive Mont Martyr, so called from the number of windmills upon it.

"I was very much surprised at the height of the houses, and the noise of the carriages in Paris: and was delighted when we got to our hotel, which is Wag Ram; why I did not like to enquire; it is just opposite the Royal Timber-yard, which is a fine building, the name of which is cut in stone.—Timbre Royal.

"The hotel which I have mentioned is in the Rue de la Pay, so called from its being the dearest part of the town. At one end of it is the place Fumdum, where there is a pillow as high as the Trojan's Pillow at Rome, or the pompous pillow in Egypt; this is a beautiful object, and is made of all the guns, coats, waistcoats, hats, boots and belts, which belonged to the French who were killed by the cold in Prussia at the fire of Moscow.

"At the top of the pillow is a small apartment, which they call a pavillion, and over that a white flag, which I concluded to be hoisted as a remembrance of Buonaparte, being very like the table-cloths I noticed at Callous.

"We lost no time in going into the gardens of the Tooleries, where we saw the statutes at large in marvel—here we saw Mr. Backhouse and Harry Edney, whoever they might be, and a beautiful grope of Cupid and Physic, together with several of the busks which Lavy has copied, the original of which is in the Vacuum at Rome, which was formerly an office for government thunder, but is now reduced to a stable where the Pope keeps his bulls.

"Travellers like us, who are mere birds of prey, have no time to waste, and therefore we determined to see all we could in each day, so we went to the great church, which is called Naughty Dam, where we saw a priest doing something at an altar. Mr. Fulmer begged me to observe the knave of the church, but I thought it too hard to call the man names in his own country, although Mr. Fulmer said he believed he was exercising the evil spirits in an old lady in a black cloak.

"It was a great day at this church, and we staid for mass, so called from the crowd of people who attend it—the priest was very much incensed—we waited out the whole ceremony, and heard Tedium sung, which occupied three hours.

"We returned over the Pont Neuf, so called from being the north bridge in Paris, and here we saw a beautiful image of Henry Carter; it is extremely handsome, and quite green—I fancied I saw a likeness to the Carters of Portsmouth, but if it is one of his family, his posteriors are very much diminished in size and figure.

"Mr. Fulmer proposed that we should go and dine at a tavern called Very—because every thing is very good there; and accordingly we went, and I never was so malapropos in my life—there were two or three ladies quite in nubibus; but when I came to look at the bill of fare, I was quite anileated, for I perceived that Charlotte de Pommes might be sent for for one shilling and twopence, and Patty de Veau for half-a-crown. I desired Mr. Fulmer to let us go; but he convinced me there was no harm in the place, by shewing me a dignified clergyman of the Church of England and his wife, a eating away like any thing.

"We had a voulez vous of fowl, and some sailor's eels, which were very nice, and some pieces of crape, so disguised by the sauce that nobody who had not been told what it was would have distinguished them from pancakes—after the sailor's eels we had some pantaloon cutlets, which were savoury—but I did not like the writing paper—however, as it was a French custom, I eat every bit of it—they call sparrow-grass here asperge, I could not find out why.

"If I had not seen what wonderful men the French cooks are, who actually stew up shoes with partridges, and make very nice dishes too, I never could have believed the influence they have in the politics of the country—everything is now decided by the cooks, who make no secret of their feelings, and the party who are still for Buonaparte call themselves traitors, while those who are partizans of the Bonbons are termed Restaurateurs, or friends of the Restoration.

"After dinner a French monsheur, who I thought was a waiter, for he had a bit of red ribbon at his button-hole, just the same as one of the waiters had, began to talk to Mr. Fulmer, and it was agreed we should go to the play—they talked of Racing and Cornhill, which made me think the mounsheur had been in England—however, it was arranged that we were to go and see Andrew Mackay at the Francay, or Jem Narse, or the Bullvards; but at last it was decided unanimously, crim. con. that we should go to see Jem Narse, and so we went—but I never saw the man himself after all.

"A very droll person, with long legs and a queer face, sung a song which pleased me very much, because I understood the end of it perfectly—it was 'tal de lal de lal de lal,' and sounded quite like English—after he had done, although every body laughed, the whole house called out 'beast, beast,' and the man, notwithstanding, was foolish enough to sing it over again."

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VI.
ADVENTURES AT PARIS.

To Mr. Bull.

Paris, January 28, 1824.

Sir,—As my daughter Lavy, who acts as my amaranthus, is ill-disposed with a cold and guittar, contracted by visiting the Hecatombs last week, I send this without her little billy which she usually sends; my second daughter has sprained her tender hercules in crossing one of the roues, and my third daughter has got a military fever, which, however, I hope, by putting her through a regiment, and giving her a few subterfuges, will soon abate. I am, however, a good deal embracée, as the French say, with so many invalids.

Since I wrote last, I have visited the Hullaballoo, or cornmarket, so called from the noise made in it; Mr. Fulmer told me I should see the flower of the French nation there, but I only saw a crowd of old men and old women; here is a pillow made for judicious astronomy, but which looks like a sun-dial.

We went, on Tuesday, to the symetery of the Chaise-and-pair, as they call it, where the French and English are miscellaneously interred, and I amused myself by copying the epigrams on the tombstones—one of them, which looked like a large bath, Mr. Fulmer told me was a sark of a goose, which I had previously heard my friend Mr. Rogers call Mr. Hume's shirt.

In the afternoon we went to dine at Beau Villiers's—not the Mr. Villiers who owes our Government so much money—but the smell of the postillions which were burning in the rooms quite overpowered me. I got better in the evening, and as the girls were not with us, Mr. Fulmer took me round the Palais Royal, which is a curious place indeed. We saw several Russian war houses, and went into the "Caffee de Milk alone," so called because, when Bonypart confisticated the cargoes from the West Indies, and propagated the use of coffee, the lady who kept this place made a mixture with milk alone, which answered all the purpose of coffee. The room is surrounded by looking-glasses, so that the people are always multiplying who go there: the lady herself was very beautiful, but Mr. Fulmer told me she was constantly reflected upon. Mr. F. took some melted glass, upon which I did not like to venture, but contented myself with a tumbler of caterpillar and water.

Wednesday we went to the Shampdemars (which is opposite to the Pere Elisée), and saw a review of the Queerasses of the Royal Guard. The sister of the late Dolphin was present—the Dolphin of France is the same as the Prince of Whales in England. The Duke of Anglehome came by, from hunting, just at the time; I am told he is quite a Ramrod in the chace. The troops performed their revolutions with decision, and having manured all over the ground, fired a fille de joy, and returned to their quarters.

We went yesterday to what is their Parliament House, and while were a waiting in the antic-room, I saw a picture of Lewes de Sweet himself, in a large purple robe, lined with vermin and covered with fleur de lice. Being a stranger, I was allowed to look into the chamber; it is not quite what I expected: there seemed to be a man in a bar, with a bell before him, and the men who were speaking spoke all in French, and looked very shabby and mean; to be sure, they were only the deputies—it would have been more lucky if we had seen the members themselves.

Lavy, I think, has got a puncheon for Mr. Fulmer, and I am afraid is a fretting about it, but this is quite cet a dire between us, Mr. B. He says her figure is like the Venus de Medicine, which is no doubt owing to the pulling down she has had of late. We are going next week to Sanclew again, but we travel in such an odd carriage, that I cannot prevail upon myself to mention its name.

You must excuse a short letter to-day. I was determined to write, else I thought our friends in Westminster might be disappointed. You shall hear more at large by the next opportunity.

Always yours,

D. J. Ramsbottom.

If you see Mr. R., tell him Mr. Fulmer has bought him two pictures; one of Ten Years, the other of Old Beans; I am no judge, but they are very black, and shine beautifully—they are considered shift doovers in these parts.

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VII.
FURTHER ADVENTURES AT PARIS.

Paris, March 15, 1824.

My dear Bull,—I believe I shall soon have to announce that Mr. Fulmer has led my Lavy to the halter—but I am unwilling to be too sanguinary; should that happen, however, we shall extend our tower, and proceed to the Pay de Veau and finally to Room, where Mr. Fulmer is to explain all the antics, what you so well know are collected there.

We have been to-day to see the Hotel de Veal, so called, I believe, from being situated in the Calf-market; it is now styled the Place de Grave, because all the malefactors who are decimated by the gulleting (an instrument so called from its cutting the sufferer's throat) are buried there. We crossed over the Pont Neuf, in order to go again to see the Mass. As we went along, I purchased two beautiful sieve jars, with covers, on purpose to keep Popery in.

I believe I forgot to say that we went one morning to an expedition of pictures at the Looksombre palace, so called from its dull situation. It was very fine: one particularly struck my fancy. It was Phœbe offering Hector to the Gods. There was another of Morpheus charming the Beasts, which was extremely moving; there was also a beautiful portrait of a lady, and Mr. Fulmer said she was in excellent keeping. I did not, of course, ask who she was, and I wonder how they can admit likenesses of that class of people into such a place. Mr. Fulmer shewed me a large picture, painted by David, which is wonderfully fresh, considering its vast age. I knew David was the greatest musician of his time, but I did not know that he was a painter into the bargain. These genuses are always gifted creturs.

We have been to the Jardin des Plantes, or place for wild beasts, where we saw some lepers and tygers—and two birds called carraways, from India; there is also an oliphant, which contradicts the absurd story that these animals carry their trunks about with them—this great creature had nothing but a long snout, which made him look to me as if his tail had been misplaced—it was intended by Bonypart to put the statute of one of these animals up, for a fountain on the Bullwards, indeed the impediment is already constructed.

I was very much delighted with the place Louis Quinzy—so called from his having died of a sore throat—the Admiralty is situated here, with a dollygraph on the top—Mr. Fulmer introduced me to one of the officers in the naval department, who was a very favourable specimen of the French moreen.

We went to the Odium, a favourite playhouse of Bonypart's, on purpose to see the Civil Barber, a play written by one Beau Marchy—but we were disappointed, for the house was not open, so by way of a pease-alley, as Mr. Fulmer calls it, we went to the Fait d'Eau, a kind of French uproar, where we paid very dear for tickets, and got no places after all. I was quite sick and tired of the affair altogether, and if Mr. Fulmer had not got me a caffé au lait to carry me home, I think I should have perspired from fatigue.

I had almost forgot to tell you that we went to the palace at Marselles, distant from this about ten miles—it is indeed a beautiful place. There we saw the great Owes playing, which is water-works, and represents water coming out of the tails of Lions, and out of the ears and noses of frogs and goddesses, as natural as the life. Here is a wonderful fine chapel, all of marvel, and a strait canal which has no end—I forget how much it cost the nation to make all this water, but I am sure it is cheap at the money whatever it may be—though by the name it seems to be still owing. Mr. Fulmer called such an expense an easy mode of liquidating a national debt—but really I don't know why.

I have little time for more at present, because two of the doctors from the Sore-bone are coming to see my daughter's sprained ancle to-night; but it is curious to remark how foolish the people are, when one has not a gentleman with one, for Mr. Fulmer being out to-day, I sent to the Traitors for the bill of fare, and the man talked of sending the dinner in a cart, which I thought was useless, it being only just over the way. So they sent the bill, and I not being particular, and not understanding the names of the things, ordered the first four dishes in the list, and they sent me four different sorts of soup, and when I complained of the cook, the garkon or waiter talked of quizzing and quizzing her, (doubtlessly meaning me) as if I had been a person of no consequence—indeed he once or twice went so far as to swear at me, and say dam when he spoke to me, but I had nobody at home to take my part, and therefore I eat the four soups and said nothing about it.

The daughter of Mr. Ratschild is going to be married—they call him Creases, but he is a Jew. He gives her a dot the day of her wedding, of five millions of franks; but for all he is so rich, they say he is quite circumsized in his affairs compared with his brother in London—his daughter will be made a barrenness when she is married.

Mr. Cambray Serres is more—which here means no more. I suppose, by his name, that he is related to our royal family at home.

Do you know, Mr. Bull, that I have found out one very surprising thing, the French ridicule the English in everything; they have got a farce which they call "Anglase poor rear," which is quite scandalous, and every thing they have, they nick-name after us; they call a note Billy, and a book Tom; a pie they have christened Patty; they call the mob a fool; any thing that is very shameful they call Hunt, but whether they mean John, Henry, Joseph, or Leigh, I cannot discover—they call the winter a heaver—the autumn Old Tom, and the summer they call Letty.

I think the French must have been originally Irish, for they say crame for cream, and suprame for supreme, and so on: but I will endeavour to find out more about this.

I went to see a vealyard (that is, an old man), who had been a sort of anchor-wright or hermit many years ago; he had been put into the dungeons of the Inquisition in furs, and suffered what they call the piano-forte and door of that terrible place—if we go to Room we shall see the buildings in which he was confined, and I dare say we shall go there, and from that to Naples, and into the Gulp of Venus, and so to Cecily, which I shall very much like whoever she may be, because I knew a namesake of her's down in Dorsetshire.

I must, however, conclude my letter, for I am hurried for Tim—Lavy begs her best love, and says in case she is married you must write her epitaph. Why do you not call upon Mr. R.? he will be very glad to see you, and now that he is alone he lives, in compliment to me, entirely upon turtle.

Dorothea J. Ramsbottom.

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VIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM BACK IN LONDON.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Friday, April 23, 1824.

My dear Mr. Bull,—I think you will be surprized at the prescription of this letter with the P.P. mark of the two-penny post; but poor Mr. Ramsbottom being seriously ill-disposed, we were off from Paris at a moment's notice, for as good fortune would have it, my embargo which I wrote about was quite removed by the use of Steers's hopalittledog and bang shows every night.

Mr. R. is a little better, and has lost a good deal of what the French call song; indeed our medical man relies very much on the use of his lancaulet. The fact is, that the turtles is come over from the West Hinges, and Mr. R. committed a fox paw at the King's Head, in the Poultry, which caused our doctor (who lives in this neighbourhood, and is lively as he is kind) to say that as Mr. Ramsbottom nearly died by Bleaden, so bleeding must restore him. Bleaden is the name of the gentleman who keeps the King's Head, and bleeding, as you know, is the vulgar term for flea-bottomizing.

I fear you have not received my journal regular, nor do I think I have told you of our seeing the Louver, which we did the very day before we left Paris. I own, amongst the statutes, the Fighting Alligator pleased me most. As for Rubens's pictures, I could not look at them; for though Mr. Fulmer kept talking of the drapery, I saw no drapery at all; and in one, which is of Adonass preventing Venice from being chaste, the lady is sitting on a gold striped jacket. Mr. Fulmer said she had got an enormous anacreonism, at which Lavy laughed; so I suppose it had some allusion to her favourite writer, Mr. Moore, who is called Anacreon—why, I never could understand, unless it refers to the fashionable Maladies which he has introduced into the best society.

A beautiful statute of Apollo with the Hypocrite pleased me very much, and a Fawn which looks like a woman done by Mons. Praxytail, a French stone-mason, is really curious.

A picture of The Bicknells is I suppose a family grope, but the young women appeared tipsy, which is an odd state to be drawn in—the statute of Manylaws is very fine, and so is Cupid and Physic, different from the one which I noticed before.

Mr. Fulmer shewed us some small old black pictures, which I did not look at much, because he told us they were Remnants, and of course very inferior. A fine painting by Carlo my Hearty pleased me, and we saw also something by Sall Vataraso, a lady who was somehow concerned with the little woman I have seen at Peckham Fair in former days, called Lady Morgan.

We had one dinner at Riches, a coffee-house on the Bullwards, and curious enough, it was the very day that poor Mr. Ram overeat himself in the City—we had some stewed Angles, and a couple of Pulls done up in a dish of Shoe; which is much of a muchness with English fowl and cabbage—we had afterwards an amulet of sulphur and some things done in crumbs of bread, which they wanted to pass off upon me as wheat-ears—but I had not lived at Brighton two seasons for nothing, and do happen to know the difference between wheat-ears and oysters; and so I told them.

Mr. Fulmer ordered a bottle of Oil of Purdry, which tasted a good deal like Champaigne, but he said it was mouse; the girls liked it, and Lavy laughed so loud that she quite astonished an officer of Chindammery who was drinking cafe at the next table.

I have left my third and fourth daughters in Paris, to finish their education—they will be taught every thing that girls can be taught, and are to be regularly boarded every day (without regard to its being Lent) for less than seventy pounds per ann.; and they learn so many more things in France than girls do in England, that when they return they might set up for mistresses themselves—what an advantage there must be to a young woman, who is likely to have occasion for it in her latter end, in a continent education—they call these schools puncheons.

I desired, of course, that the Popish Prater, or priest, might have no communication with my girls—I don't approve of what they call the horal confession—to be sure it is a mere matter of feeling—but I saw one young lady in Saint Surplice one day a confessing away to a fine handsome Prater, and I thought it would have been much better done in some more private place than a church. I understood afterwards she was a lady who had been long married, but her husband had no hair to his property, and she used to come every day and confess to the Prater, and pray for a child—poor thing, she seemed very much in earnest.

The onion of Lavy with Mr. Fulmer is postponed; his ant is dead, and it would not be respectful to be married while the dool (as the French call it) continues; I am driven to the last moment, as Lavy and her sister are analyzing themselves to go to see the great picture of Pompey, in the Strand—Lavy means to write to you next week herself. —Your's truly,

Dorothea J. Ramsbottom.

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IX.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ANNOUNCES THE DEATH OF HER HUSBAND AND DESCRIBES HER VISIT TO ROME.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Jan. 6, 1825.

Dear Mr. Bull,—Why don't you write to us—or call? We are all of us well, and none of us no more, as perhaps you may suppose, except poor Mr. Ram.—of course you know of his disease, it was quite unexpected, with a spoonful of turtle in his mouth—the real gallipot as they call it. However, I have no doubt he is gone to heaven, and my daughters are gone to Bath, except Lavy, who is my pet, and never quits me.

The physicians paid great attention to poor Mr. Ram., and he suffered nothing—at least that I know of. It was a very comfortable thing that I was at home shay new, as the French say, when he went, because it is a great pleasure to see the last of one's relations and friends.

You know we have been to Room since you heard from us—the infernal city as it is called—the seat of Poopery, and where the Poop himself lives. He was one of the Carnals, and was elected just before we was there: he has changed his name, not choosing to disgrace his family. He was formerly Doctor Dallyganger, but he now calls himself Leo, which the Papists reverse, and call him Ole or Oleness. He is a fine cretur, and was never married, but he has published a Bull in Room, which is to let people commit all kind of sin without impunity, which is different from your Bull, which shoes up them as does any crime. He is not Poop this year, for he has proclaimed Jew Billy in his place, which is very good, considering the latter gentleman is a general, and not of his way of thinking.

Oh, Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place.—We entered it by the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point and Sally at Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which is not known in Room. The Tiber is not a nice river, it looks yellow; but it does the same there as the Tames does here. We hired a carry-letty and a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is prodigious big:—in the center of the pizarro there is a basilisk very high—on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral statutes of some of the Apostates.

There is a great statute of Salt Peter himself, but Mr. Fulmer thinks it to be Jew Peter, which I think likely too—there were three brothers of the same name, as of course you know—Jew Peter the fortuitous, the capillary, and toenails; and it is curos that it must be him, for his toes are kissed away by the piety of the religious debauchees who visit his shin and shrine—Besides, I think it is Jew Peter, because why should not he be worshipped as well as Jew Billy?—Mr. Fulmer made a pun, Lavy told me, and said the difference between the two Jew Billies was, that one drew all the people to the sinagog, and the other set all the people agog to sin—I don't conceive his meaning, which I am afraid is a Dublin tender.

There was a large quire of singers, but they squeaked too much to please me—and played on fiddles, so I suppose they have no organs;—the priests pass all their time in dissolving sinners by oracular confusion, which, like transmogrification, is part of their doctoring—the mittens in the morning, and whispers at night, is just equally the same as at Paris.

Next to Salt Peter's Church is the Church of Saint John the Latter end, where the Poop always goes when he is first made—there is another basilisk here covered with highro-griffins.

I assure you the Colocynth is a beautiful ruin—it was built for fights, and Mr. Fulmer said that Hell of a gabbler, an Emperor, filled his theatre with wine—what a sight of marvels Mr. B. oh, so superb!—the carraway, and paring, and the jelly and tea-cup, which are all very fine indeed.

The Veteran[10] (which I used foolishly to call the Vacuum till I had been there), is also filled with statutes—one is the body of the angel Michael, which has been ripped to pieces, and is therefore said to be Tore-so—but I believe this to be a poetical fixture:—the statute of the Racoon is very moving, its tail is prodigious long, and goes round three on 'em—the Antipodes is also a fine piece of execution.

As for paintings there is no end to them in Room—Mr. Raffles's Transmigration is I think the finest—much better than his Harpoons:—there are several done by Hannah Bell Scratchy,[11] which are beautiful; I dare say she must be related to Lady Bell, who is a very clever painter, you know, in London. The Delapidation of St. John by George Honey[12] is very fine, besides several categorical paintings, which pleased me very much.

The shops abound with Cammyhoes and Tallyhoes—which last always reminded me of the sports of the field at home, and the cunning of sly Reynolds a getting away from the dogs. They also make Scally holies at Rome, and what they call obscure chairs—but, oh Mr. B. what a cemetry there is in the figure of Venus of Medicine, which belongs to the Duke of Tusk and eye—her contortions are perfect.

We walked about in the Viccissitude, and hired a maccaroni, or as the French, alluding to the difficulty of satisfying the English, call them, a "lucky to please," and, of course, exploded the Arch of Tightas and the Baths of Diapason. Every day exposes something new there, to the lovers of what they call the belly arty, who have made a great many evacuations in the Forum. Poor Lavy, whom I told you was fond of silly quizzing, fell down on the Tarpaulin Rock, in one of her revelries—Mr. Fulmer said it would make a capital story when she got home, but I never heard another syllabub about it.

One thing surprised me, the Poop (who wears three crowns together, which are so heavy that they call his cap, a tirer) is always talked of as Paw-paw, which seems very improper, his Oleness was ill the last day we went to the Chapel at the Choir and all, having taken something delirious the day before at dinner; he was afterwards confined with romantic gout; but we saw enough of him after, and it was curious to observe the Carnals prostituting themselves successfully before him—he is like the German corn plaster which Mr. Ram used to use—quite unavailable.

However, Mr. B., the best part of all, I think, was our coming home—I was so afraid of the pandittis, who were all in trimbush with arquebasades and Bagnets that I had no peace all the time we were on root—but I must say I liked Friskhearty; and Tiffaly pleased me, and so did Miss Senis's Villa and the Casket Alley; however home is home, be it never so homely, and here we are, thank our stars.

We have a great deal to tell you, if you will but call upon us—Lavy has not been at the halter yet, nor do I know when she will, because of the mourning for poor Mr. Ram—indeed I have suffered a great deal of shag green on account of his disease, and above all have not been able to have a party on Twelfth Night.

Yours truly,

Dorothea Ramsbottom.

Pray write, dear Mr. B.

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X.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM OBJECTS TO BEING PUT IN A PLAY.

Elysium Row, Fulham, July 8, 1825.

My dear B.,—I am in a dreadful state—I see by the play ills, that a Play about our family at Rhymes is in preparation at Common Garden. When I saw the divertisement in the Currier, I thought I should have perspired. I never was at Rhymes. I saw my own King, God bless him, crowned—but I neither saw Lues de Sweet nor Charles Deece done anything to, nor never meant to go. What is the Santampoole to me—I don't like Poopery, nor ever did. Pray do you know Mr. Coleman (him as I spoke of before) the itinerary surgeon at Pancras? I am told he cuts out what he likes, of whatever appears at Common Garden, ever since the horses was introduced—if you could contrive to get us emitted, I should be much obligated. Lavy is in a perfect favour about it; and if dear Mr. Ram was not diseased and in his grave, I think he would have gone mad to see our names blackguarded against the walls—besides, there's our cousins—them is more angry than we. In short, I have no doubt but the Play has been caused by some little peake against our family, and I trust to your goodness to get it anniliated beforehand.—Your's, ever, dear B.,

Dorothea Julia Ramsbottom.

P.S. If any of your friends wants a house in a rural situation, our house in Montague-place is still to let.

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XI.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM WRITES FROM DIEPPE.

Dippe, January 1, 1826.

Dear Mr. B.,—You have not heard from any on us for a long time—indeed I have no spirts to write to any body, for Lavy has been very mal indeed—we are stopping at Dippe, so called as you know, from being a bathing-place, for I am worried to death.

Our house in Montague-place, which since dear Mr. Ram's disease I cannot think of stopping in, is still to let, which is so much waste of money—it is a nice house, open behind to the Mewseum Jordans, and in front all the way to Highgate; but I cannot get it off my hands. As for Mr. Ram's little property in Gloucestershire, I never can go there, for my lawyer tells me, although we might live there if we like, that one of Mr. Ram's creditors has got a lion on the estate, and I cannot think of going to expose myself to the mercy of a wild cretur like that a running about—however, as the French says, "jamais esprit,"—never mind—I cannot help it.

My son Tom, who is a groin up, is to be in the law himself, indeed I have put him out to Grazing,[13] under a specious pleader—I should like him to be apprenticed to the Lord Chancellor at once, and brought up to the business regular, but I don't know how to get it managed—do you think Mr. Harmer could put me in the way of it?

I only write to wish you the full complement of the season—we are a good deal troubled with wind here, but otherwise we are very snug, and there are several high-burning gentlemen of very large property living in Dippe, who are kind enough to dine with us almost every day. I like them—they have no pride at all about them, and, to look at them, you would not think they was worth a Lewy.

I take the advantage of a currier, who is in the Bureau here, and is going over with despatches, just to tell you we are alive—if you know anybody as wants an agreeable Rusin-hurby, do recommend our house in M. P. I have no noose, but am your's unhalterably,

L. D. Ramsbottom.

If you would like to see my dairy continued, I will send you some sheets, which you may print or not, as you choose. Write and say we oo nong—wooley woo?

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XII.
HASTINGS.

To John Bull.

Eastey's Hotel, Common Garden, Oct., 1826.

Dear B.,—It will no doubt be a surprise to you to hear that we are back in London; we landed from a French batow at Hastings the day before yesterday, after a long stay upon the continent. We were very much impeded on landing by some sailors belonging to what I think is very properly called the Blockhead service, who would not let my daughters pass without looking all over them. Two men said they were the customs there, which I thought very odd—one of them told us he was Count Roller, but I did not believe him.

My second daughter Amelrosa has at last got a swan of her own, to whom she is about to be united in the silken banns of Highman. I have but one objection—he is a French Mounsheer, and do what I can they talk so fast I cannot understand them: however, she will have him, nolus bolus, as the man says; and when once her mind is made up, she is as resolute as the laws of the Maids and Parsons.

Mr. Rogers, the banker, (I know you know him,) came over with us in the batow, and made many very odd remarks—one thing he said, at which every body laughed, I could not tell why. My French footer son-in-law asked him what the shore was called, which was close to Hastings. "Close to Hastings," said Mr. Rogers, "why, Jane Shore, I suppose." He is a very old-looking genus for a whig wag—Mr. Fulmer said he put him in mind of Confusion, the old Chinee philosopher, who was a Mandolin in them parts a year or two ago.

Hastings is a beautiful place to my mind; there is a long parade close to the water, where you may see all the company bathing in the morning like so many dukes. At one end is the place for the ladies, and at the other you see all the gentlemen's machines a standing, which are very properly kept at a great distance from the female parts. The houses by the side of this are very nice, and reminded me very much of French houses, with shops under them, only there are no portes cochons.

We met an old friend of ours at Hastings, who wanted us to stop a few days, but she was very conspicious, for she wore a black whale, by way of petticoat, and she and her two daughters was all painted both red and white in the morning, which had a very bad look; so we said we was engaged, and came on as fast as we could—for I was glad enough to get away from all the scurf and billies, which was a roaring upon the bitch.

Where we are living now is in Southampton-street, and was the house of Mr. Garrick, the author of "The School for Scandal," and all Shakspeare's plays. The waiter tells us that Mr. Johnston, of Covent-garden, and an old Goldsmith, of the name of Oliver, used very often to dine with him in the very room in which I write this, and that that excellent and amiable man, Sir George Beaumont, who, as you know, wrote half Mr. Fletcher's works, and who is alive and merry at this moment, used to dine here too—but that, I think, is a little trow four,[14] for Garrick, I believe, has been dead more than two hundred and fifty years.

I cannot let my house in Montague Place, because of the new Universality in Gore Street—however, if I go and live there, they say there will be a great many Bachelors in the College, and perhaps I may get off one or two of my girls. I write this while my French footer son-in-law is playing Macarty with his Dulcimer Amelrosa—Macarty is, to my mind, little better than a bad translation of all-fours into French; but above all, I cannot bare to hear Mounsheer while he is a playing, for whenever he has got the ace of spades in his hand, he talks of a part of Derbyshire which is never mentioned in decent society not by no means whatsoever.

In Paris we saw Mr. Cannon, the Secretary of State, but without any state at all—he was just like any other man—and as for his foreign affairs, I saw none that he had—he was quite without pride—not at all like Count Potto o' de Boggo, who is a great Plenipo there, and struts about just as grand as the Roman Consols did, when they used to have their Feces tied up in bundles and carried before them by their Lickturs. I have no notion of paying such reverence to officers of humane institution for my part, and I quite love Mr. Cannon for his want of ostensibility.

We met with an uncommon unpleasant accident coming to town—one of the horses, which was seized with the staggers, a disorder very like St. Witulus's dance in men, broke his breeches in going down an ill, which very nearly overturned the carriage, which we had hired at Hastings; for of course we had no coach in the batow, and were glad enough to catch a couple of flies even in this cold season, to convey us to Tunbridge Wells, a place I had never seen before, and which is like Cranburn Alley put out to grass—there are various ills about the neighbourhood, which are named after Scripture, why I cannot tell—we did not drink any of the waters, none of us being in any way deceased.

I think I have now taken leave of old Ossian for this season, at all events; and as far as that goes, if I never see the briny dip again I shall not fret, for though it is a very good thing to breed fish in, I never want to be upon its billies any more. I hope to leave this after Amelrosa is married, which will be soon, I suppose, and the moment I do I will write again; meanwhile, if you like to drop in to a tête-à-tête of six, we shall always be glad to see you; and so believe me, dear B., yours very truly,

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

P.S.—I have some notion of taking a country house near London, but am divided at present between Acteon and Corydon.

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XIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Russell Square, Feb. 1, 1827.

Dear B.,—You will be surprized at finding me back at the old house—but we have not been able to get rid of it, so we have resolved upon living in it till we can.

My second daughter, which married Monsheer Delcroy, is on saint, which pleases him very much—he is quite a gentleman, and has travailed all over Europe, and has seen all our allies (which means the friendly Courts) upon the Continent—he knows Lord Burgos, which is one of the Henvoys of England, and was chosen to make overtures to some foreign king—I think it was a very good choice, if I may judge; for I heard one of his overtures the other night at a consort in town, which was beautiful. My son-in-law also knows the Admirable Sir Sidney Smith, what made such a disturbance in Long Acre many years since, of which I cannot say I know the rights.

I met your friend, Mr. Rogers, last week at a party, and he made what the French call a tambourine (I think)—there was a supper, and the lady of the house, whose husband is a See captain, had some of the veal on table which had been preserved in a pot, and carried out on a pole by Captain Parry in his last voyage to Ireland, and when Mr. Rogers heard what it was, he congratulated the lady that her husband was appointed to a ship, for, says he, "I see, ma'am, he has got the Veal de Parry!"—at which every body laughed—but I don't know why, because the Veal de Parry is a French word, and means the Mephistopholis of France.

My son-in-law (number one, as I call him) Fulmer, which married Lavy, is a Member of Parliament—he is put in by a great man, whose name I cannot mention; he tells us a good deal of what they do in the house—he says there are two sets on 'em in there, one is called the Eyes and the other the Nose—the Eyes is the government side, because they watch over the people; and the Nose is them as tries to smell out something wrong—Mr. Calcraft, Mr. Broom, and Mr. Denman, and them belongs to the Nose party.

But what I never knew before is, that there is a coffee-house and a bar there—the gentleman which keeps the coffee-house is called Belly-me, and he gives them their dinner. Fulmer says you may see many a man who has a stake in the country taking his chop there; and, because sobriety is considered a pint of decency, they never drink more than a pint of wine with their vitals, which is very proper indeed. This place has been famous for its beef-steaks ever since the rump Parliament. I believe the House of Lords pays for the dinners of the House of Commons, for I see they very often carry up their bills to them.

There is another strange thing, which is, that the Speaker has no voice, which I think very droll indeed—but what is more curious still, is, that ladies are never admitted to see the representation, as it is called; but sometimes they come and peep through the venterlater, which is a hole in the top to let out the smell, and so hears the speeches that way.

Talking of Mr. Broom; only think! our famous Hay-Tea Company being resolved after all—I got some shares, because I saw Mr. Broom's name to it, and because it was to do away with slavery in China, where the present tea comes from. I have lost a lump of money by that, and have been very unfortunate all through with these Joint Company peculations. Lavy has got three Real del Monte shares worth 110 premiums—those I had, I believe, were not real ones at all, for I never got anything whatsoever by them.

Only think, Sir, of poor Mr. Prince Tollyrang being knocked down while he was attending as chambermaid to the King, at Sandennie. They have got a joke now in France, my son-in-law (Number too, as I calls him) told me yesterday—They say, "il a reprit ses Culottes"—Culottes are things which the Popish Priests wear upon their heads; and the joke turns upon the difference between the culottes and soufflets, which are amulets of eggs, of which I once before wrote to you, from the other side of Old Ossian.

I should tell you that my Bowfeeze (as he calls himself) Delcroy, is learning English very fast, but he will not do it the wriggler way, but gets his Dicks and Harries, and so puzzells out every word. We had a great laugh against him the other day—

He was a coming home through St. Giles's (which is the only way to this), and there was two women a fighting in the street, and Delcroy he stood listening to hear what it was all about; but doose a word could he make out, till at last one of the women gave the other, what the fighters call a Flora, and she tumbled down, and then the friends of her agonist called out "Well done Peg," which Delcroy got into his head, and come home all the way, a saying to himself, "Well—done—Peg;" quite dissolved to find out what it meant, in he comes—up stairs he goes—down comes his Dicks and Harries, and out he finds the words—

First, he finds "Well"—an evacuation made in the earth to find water;

Next he finds "Dun"—a colour betwixt black and brown;

And last he finds "Peg"—a wooden nail.

Oh! then to hear him rave and swear about our Lang Anglay—it was quite orrible—for he knew well enough, with all his poking and groping, that that could not be the meaning; so now, whenever he begins to try his fine scheme, my girls (little toads) run after him and cry out "Well done Peg!"

I wish you would drop in and see us—we are all in the family way here; but my two youngest daughters play very pretty—one they say has as much execution as Muscles on the piano-forte, or Key-sweater on the fiddle; they play the late Mr. Weaver's overture to Obrien uncommon well as a do-it; the Roundo is very difficult they tell me—indeed I know it must be a beautiful piece of music, because they have printed FINE in large letters at the end of it.

But I waist too much of your time—do come and take your tea with us—we live a good deal out of the way, but when you get down to the bottom of Oxford-street, ask anybody, and they will tell you which road to take—it is all lighted at night here, and watched just like London—do come.

Adoo, yours, truly,

Lavinia D. Ramsbottom.

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XIV.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON THE CANNING ADMINISTRATION.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Bedford Square,
May 18, 1827.

Dear B.,—I am quite in a consternation—you are no longer a supporter of Government, and I am—indeed several ladies of my standing down in these parts have determined to stick to the Canine Administration, which you oppose. Mr. Fulmer takes in the Currier, and the Currier supports them—besides, he knows the Duke of Deafonshire, and so we cannot help being on their side.

You did not, perhaps, expect so soon to see Lord Doodley in place, nor fancy Mr. Turney would be Master of the Mint, or else you would not have been again Mr. Canine—for I know you like Lord Doodley, and you always praise Mr. Turney.

Between you and me, I do not quite understand why they should have so much Mint in the Cabinet as to want a man to look after it, when they have no Sage there, nor do I see how our Statesmen can get into a Cabinet to sit—to be sure, the French Minister sits in a bureau, and one is quite as easy to get into as the other. I see by Mr. Canine's speeches, that the King (God bless him!) sits in a closet, which is much more comfortable, I think.

Fulmer tells me that Mr. Broom's brother is the Devil, and gets six or seven hundred a year by it—I always understood he was related to the family, but never knew how, till Mr. Canine's people got him a place at Court, which I think very wrong, only I must not say so.

I was very near in a scrape on Monday. I went down to Common Garden to buy some buckets for my Popery jars, out of which I empty the Popery in summer, and put in fresh nosegays, being a great votery of Floorar—when who should be there but Mr. Hunt, and Mr. Cobbett, and Mr. Pitt, the last of which gentlemen I thought had been dead many years; indeed I should not have believed it was him, still alive, only I heard Mr. Hunt call for his Old Van, which I knew meant the President of our Anti-Comfortable Society in Tattenham-court-road, who is a Lord now, and was a friend of Mr. Pitt's before he retired from public life into the Haddlefy.

Mr. Hunt told us a thing which I never knew before, which is, that the pavement of Common-garden is made of blood and prespiration, which is so curious that my two little girls and I are going down Toosday to look at it—after hearing him say that, I got away, but had my pocket picked of some nice young inions, which I had just before bought.

Mr. Fulmer does not know I am riting to you, but I do rite because I think it rite to do so, to warn you not to say that Mr. Canine has gone away from what he was formerly—for I know as a fact that it was he which christened his present friends "all the talons," and rote a pome in praise of them, which he would not have done had he not thought eyely of them.

It is not true that he is going to make any new Pears, although his anymes says so. Mr. Russell, of Branspan, I have known all my life—he smokes more than his coles, and don't want to be a Lord at all; and as for Mr. Bearing, he is a transit land take man, and cannot be a Lord here—at least so F. tells me. However, I think Sir George Warrener will be a Barren something, let what will happen elsewhere. I see, however, Mr. Canine has made both Plunkett and Carlile Lords, and given all the woods and forests to the latter.

You see I begin to pick up the noose—awnter noo, as the French say, have you seen our village clock in St. Giles's—it is lited up by itself every heavening, at hate o'clock; and on account of its bright colour, may be red at any hour of the nite: it is, indeed, a striking object; if you should be able to get out of town, do drive down this way and look at it.

Only think of these Mr. Wakefields being put into gaol for three years for marrying a young woman—I suppose there is no chance of her being confined in consequence of her going with them. Have you heard Madame Toeso? is she any relation to Miss Foote? My papa is full, and so'il hold no more, so adeu.

Yours truly,

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

P.S.—Have you read Sir Ruffian Donkey's Pumpflet about Lord Somersetshire?

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XV.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON SMOKING.

To John Bull.

August, 1827.

Dear B.,—I wish you would please to say something about them nasty men what smokes about. I took my daughter to Market last week in the Columbine packet, and there not only did the ship smoke, but almost every man had either a pipe or a seagar in his mouth.

I made a little fox pos on board, for I was so sick of the smoking that one of the men said I had better go and sit with the engineers, for let it be ever so hot they were used to it and never smoked. Now when we was living on Blackheath, poor Mr. Ram used to ask several of the engineers to dine with us, which always come in a pretty uniform of scarlet, with blue velvet facings, and which I knowed to be a genteel corpse, because there were not no men in it, but all officers. So I asked the gentlemen who talked of the engineers to show me the way to them, thinking perhaps I might see some of my old friends down there, but when I got into the place, which was like a firnest, what should I see but two or three men without their coats, with airy caps on their heads and dirty faces, a shovelling in coles like anything—and when I come down they laughed at me and asked if I wanted to be roasted. I soon found out they was different people from what I thought, and a gentleman who helped me up out of the hole were they was a grubbing, told me the difference was that the dirty men were civil engineers, which I could by no means agree to—for I thought them uncommon rude.

When I got up stairs again, I was sick of the smoking, and so I went into the cabin, where there were more smokers—in short, dear B., whether I travels by land or by water, still I am smoked to death—it is a most horrid custom, and, perhaps, if you notice it, some on 'em will leave it off. I will rite again when we are settled.—Yours truly,

L. D. Ramsbottom.

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XVI.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM'S CONUNDRUMS.

To John Bull.

Montague Place, Dec. 28, 1827.

Dear B.,—I never like to fail writing to you at this season, but I don't like puttin you to the expense of postage; and yet, when I hear of any thing peakant, I wish to send it you.

You must know that me and all the gulls have taken to making knundrums, as they call them, and what we can't make, we collex. We got the idear from having purchased some of the hannual perodicals. I boght the Omelet, and Lavinia boght the Bougie, and they set us upon putting knundrums into our Albions.

It being Christmas, and it coming but once a year, I have sent you some of ours, which perhaps you won't print, but may serve to make you laugh.

What three letters spell Archipelago—(what that is I don't know; but this is the answer)—E. G. and C.

Why is a man about to put his father in a sack like a traveller on his way to a city in Asia?—Because he is going to Bag Dad.

Why is a child with a cold in its head like a winter's night?—Because "it blows, it snows."—(nose, you know.)

Why is the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland like a man inquiring what o'clock it is?—Because he is as King for the time.

If a pair of spectacles could speak, what author would they name?—Eusebius—(You see by us.)

Why is a flourishing landlord sure to have plenty of relatives?—Because he must have Ten-ants.

What are the best shoes for wet weather?—Pumps.

Why is a sermon on board ship like Sir Edward Codrington's red ribband?—Because it is a deck oration.

Why is a very little devil sitting on the top of a cow-house like a man who has squandered all his property?—Because he is Imp over a shed.

What sea would one wish to be in on a rainy night?—A dry attic.

Why is a libeller in Newgate like a traveller who has caught a rheumatism at a bad inn?—Because he suffers for lying in damp sheets!

Why is a gentleman in a Calais packet on a stormy day, like a gentleman sailing in part of the Mediterranean?—Because he is amongst the Cyclades.

Why are glass coaches so plentiful in London?—Because they are without number.

When is a door not a door?—When it is a-jar.

When is it more than a door?—When 'tis to!

Why is the root of the tongue like a dejected man?—Because it is down in the mouth!

Why is a hired landau not a landau?—Because it is a landau let!

Why is a lean Monarch constantly worrying himself?—Because he is always a thin king!

Why is a Tragedy a more natural performance in a theatre than a Comedy?—Because the boxes are always in Tiers!

Why is Parliament-street like a compendium?—Because it goes to a bridge!

If all the alphabet were invited to dinner, why could they not all accept the invitation?—Because six of them come after T.

Why is a boy doing his first sums like a serpent erect?—Because he is an adder-up!

And last, dear Mr. B. (which I will not tell you),

Why am I like a sheep's tail?

Yours always,

Dorothea R.

Note.—Several of the above, with all respect to our dear friend Dorothea, are extracted from that excellent paper the Berkshire Chronicle, and others from a small book called "D'ye give it up?" sold at a Charitable Bazaar, established at Kensington.

J. B.

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XVII.
A LETTER FROM CHELTENHAM.

To John Bull.

Cheltenham, April 11, 1828.

My dear B.,—I have been prevented writing you of late; two of my youngest daughters have had the mizzles, which has been succeeded by a cough and considerable expectation, but I have changed my doctor, and shall do uncommon well now. The last person, who fancies himself a second Hippocrite, had the impotence to say my girls had a low fever—girls brought up as they have been, like duchesses—so I said nothing; but when he called again, I was denied to him and sent for his arrival; and we are all going on well, and keep up our spirits accordingly.

A regiment is I believe the best thing after all; for I have just discovered that Shakspeare, the mortal bird, as my son calls him, died of indisgestion, which I did not know till my new doctor told me so; he said, that poor Shakspeare was quite destroyed by common tato's, which must have been some coarse sort of the root in use in his time; and the doctor also told me, that he was attended by a Doctor Johnson and a Mr. Stevens; but I thought to myself, too many cooks spoil the broth; and even my medical said he thought he would have done better if they had left him alone. What made us talk about the great swain of Avon was my saying I thought She Stoops to Conquer a very droll play.

My son-in-law has bought a beautiful picture, a Remnant undoubted; it is as black as your hat, and shines like a tea tray, and is considered, as indeed it is, what the French call, a shade over of that great master; he has also bought a jem of considerable vallew; he says it is an antic of a dancing fawn, but it looks to me like a man with a tail, a jumping. He has got several very curious things at shops here; but he goes poking his nose into all the oles and corners for curiosities, and sometimes gets into sad scrapes; he is a French Mounsheer, you recollect; and at one of the sails he scraped acquaintance with a young dandy-looking man with dark musquitos on his lips, which we had seen every morning a drinking the waters regularly, and so we let him walk and talk with us; and at last we was told that he was no better than he should be, and had been convicted of purgery, which I did not think so great a crime, considering where we was; however, he is gone away, which I am glad of.

I told you my son-in-law was a French Mounsheer, but I did not know till the other day that he was in the army, for he has been so sly as never to mention it; but I saw one of his letters from his elder brother, and in the direction he called him Cadet, which after all is no very high rank, you know. I should, however, have very much liked to have seen the boys from the Miliary Asslum march to the Surrey Theatre; it must have been a beautiful site; I suppose they got leave through the Egerton General's office.

Have you read Lord Normandy's Yes or No, or Mr. Liston's Herbert Lacy? I should think it must be very droll, he is such a droll cretur himself; and pray tell me if you have heard any news from Portingal of the Don. Major Macpherson calls him Don M'Gill, and Captain O'Dogherty calls him Don My jewel—how do you pronounce it? I am told Lord Doodley used to call him, while he was in London, My gull.

There is not much stirring here; the good effect of the waters is quite aperient in our family; we are all mending, and exorcise ourselves for four hours at a time on what is called the well walk, which is a different place from the sick walk, which is entirely for the innphaleeds. Lavinia has got hold of a book called Bookarchy, containing the lives of a hundred Knights, she says; but she won't shew it to her sisters as is not yet marred; it is translated out of a foren tongue by a Mr. D. Cameron; all the Scotch is very clever.

Mr. Fulmer is going to Hauksvut next term, to be made a Doctor of Laws. He says he shall be away only two days, but I doubt its being over so soon, because he told me himself it must be done by degrees. After he is made a Doctor, he says he means to practise; but I told him I thought he had better practise first, in order to understand what he has to do afterwards. A friend of his came here to see him from Hauksvut College, who I thought was a clergyman by his dress; but I found out, by what Mr. Fulmer told me, that it was an old lady in disguise, for he said she was Margaret Professor, and he even went so far as to call her a Divinity, which to me did seem uncommon strange. However, there is no understanding these scholars; for it is not more than a fortnight since, that Fulmer told me he expected a brazen-nosed man to dinner, and when the gentleman came, his nose was just like other people's: so I suppose it was to surprise Lavinia, who was reading a work on Nosology at the very time.

You will be pleased to hear that I have let my house in Montague Place, unfurnished with conveniences, for three hundred and twenty pounds a-year, besides taxis; and I have skewered a very nice residence in the Regent's Park, within ten doors of the Call-and-see-um where the portrait of St. Paul is to be exhibited, and where I hope you will visit us; my two youngest, which is a-shooten up, is uncommon anxious to know you, now they have made their debutt into saucyity. The young one is a feline cretur as ever trod shoe leather. The other is more of an orty crackter, with very high spirts. They are indeed quite Theliar and Molpomona of the Ramsbottoms.

If you should run down here before we leave for town, pray come and take pot-luck, which is all we can offer you at Cheltenham. You must take us as you find us: we are all in the family way, and, as you know, delighted to see our friends, without any ceremony.

Do right, dear B., and send us the noose; for really the old Engines who are here for their health look so billyus, that without something to enliven us, we should get worse instead of better.

Ajew, ever yours,

D. L. Ramsbottom.

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XVIII.
HASTINGS AGAIN.

To John Bull.

Hastings, July 8, 1828.

Dear B.,—Here we are, after a short tower to Dip in France, in the esteem packet the Tarbut—my fourth has been mylad, as the French say, and was recommended a little voyage, and she picked up an old bow, which talked to her in French, and called her a belley spree, which I thought was impotence, but Lavinia said no, and reminded me of judy spree, which is another gallowsism, as they style them—but why they call this place green and young Hastings, which is old and brown, I don't know—they are going, however, to move it about a mile nearer Bexhill, to the stone where William the Third landed when he had conquered the Normans—our old bow said it was a capital sight for a town; but as yet I couldn't see much, although everybody is taking the houses before they are built.

We was a-staying with a couzen of mine near Lewis, before we crossed the sea—he is married, and has a firm hornee, which his wife calls a Russen hurby, it is so close to the town, and yet so uncommon rural—the sheep he has, is called marinos, because it is near the sea; and their wool is so fine that they fold them up every night, which I had no notion of—they have two sorts of them, one, which they call the fine weather mutton, stays out all night, I believe, and the other doesn't. But the march of intellect is agoing on, for the dirty boys about the farm-yard, they told me, are sent to Harrow, and the sheep themselves have their pens found them every night; what to do I don't know, and I never like to ask—at Battle, where there is an old abbé living—we did not see him—they have built a large chapel for the Unicorns; I scarcely know what sex they are—I know the Whistling Methodists, because when Mr. Ram and I was young we used to go to the meetin, and hear them preach like anything—there's a great deal of religion in Sussex of one sort and another.

My eldest, Mrs. Fulmer, has come here for her a-coach-man—Fulmer wishes it may be a mail, because what they have already is all gurls; if it hadn't been for that, I should have gone to Mrs. Grimsditch's soreye at Hackney last week, when I was to have been done out as Alderman Wenables, but I was obliged to be stationary here. I was so sorry to see in the noosepapers that when the Lord High Admiral exhibited his feet on the 18th of June, Maria Wood was dressed up so strange; they said that after she had been painted, and some part of her scraped clean from duck weed, they tied flags to her stays, and put a Jack into her head, which I think quite wrong, because them Jacks is uncommon insinuating.

I see that in Portingal Don Myjewel has got three estates, but they cannot be very grand ones, if they produces only a crown; however, I don't know what they mean in that country, only as they call him real, I suppose he is the rightful king—I don't henvy him, Mr. B.—there's many happier than them as sets upon thorns, though they be gilded ones.

We met one of the Engines here from Cheltenham—he talks of returning to some friend of his in Hingy, I think he called him Ben Gall. I know he spoke very familiar of him. He has been at Stinkomalee, in Sealong, and at the Island of Malicious, where a gentleman of the name of Paul killed himself with Virginia. Our Engine said he was at Malicious and at Bonbon at the time of the Conquest, which my Trusler's Crononhotonthologos tells me was in the year 1072, which makes his old appearance not surprising—he is very antick indeed—he says he shall go out in a China ship, which sounds to me very venturesome, but I suppose he knows what he is about—he is going to Bombay, he tells us, to buy cotton, but that, between you and me, is nonsense, because if that was all, why could he not go to Flint's, in Newport-market, where they sells every sort of cotton, all done up in nice boxes ready for use?

One thing I heard about hunting while I was at the Firm Hornee which I thought shocking. There is a Squire Somebody which keeps a pack of beadles, and there is ever so many of them—and they sleep in the kennell every night, and a man is paid to whip them into it—but that is not the worst—they feed them upon humane flesh. You would not scarce credit this, but I heard my cousin say that he wondered this hot weather did not hurt the dogs, for that they had nothing to feed on but the Graves.—Do just touch them up for this—I am sure they deserve it.

That selection for member of Parliament in Clare is very strange, isn't it? Our old bow tells us that O'Connell can't take his place because he won't swear against transportation, for he says it is one thing for a Papist to stand and another for him to sit, which enter noo I could have told him—however, he says he thinks O'Connell will go to the Pigeon House strait from the selection. Of course I did not like to ask what he wanted to do in such a place as a Pigeon House, and so the conversation dropped; indeed, the bow (as we call him) told us such a strange story about Mr. O'Connell's getting to the top of a pole the first day, and keeping up there for four days afterwards, that I begin to think he tells tarrydiddles sometimes. He is very agreeable though, and I believe he is rich, which is the mane point when one has gurls to settle. He is always a making French puns, which he calls cannon balls,[15] but I never shall be much of a parley vous, I did not take to it early enough.

We expect the Duke of Clarence to review the Blockhead service on this coast, which will make us uncommon gay. He will visit the Ramlees, which Captain Piggut commands, at Deal, and the Epergne, Captain Maingay's ship, at New Haven. I should like to go to Brighton, but Fulmer is afraid of movin his better half while she is so illdisposed, and expectin every minute; however, when that is over we shall, I dare say, go to London, and hope to see you in our new house. If you come here we shall delight in seeing you; but I believe you like London, and never leaves the bills of morality, if you can help it. Adoo, dear B. They all sends their loves.

Yours,

Lavinia D. Ramsbottom.

P.S.—You write sometimes about the Niggers, and abuse them—depend upon it they are uncommon mischievous even here; for my couzen told me that the Blacks had got all his beans—I only gives this as an int.

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XIX.
NEWS FROM HASTINGS.

To John Bull.

Hastings, Aug. 4, 1828.

Dear B.,—It is all over—Lavy is as well as can be expected—she was put to bed with a gull, which sadly disappointed Fulmer, who was very desirous of having a sun and air. We have had another burth in our family, of which I says nothing—the dennymang of that fox paw[16] has been uncommon unpleasant; however, when such things happen to females, they must grin and bear them, as the saying goes.

We have found out who our old bow is: he is the Count Narly, a French mounsheer of high rank, and acquainted with Prince Pickle and Mustard, the gentleman who was at the haughtycultural breakfast with Mrs. Wise, the day she was so silly as to try to drown herself in a bason—if it had not been that one of the Human Society had picked her up, she must have been a lost cretur—Fulmer calls her a diving bell, but I'm sure I don't know why.

Count Narly is very conversible, only he talks all in French—Fulmer says that he is too much of a hegoatist, and that all his nannygoats are about himself. He is acquainted with Mr. Brunel, who has put his toenail under the river Thames, who has asked him to visit him in London.

I was very glad to see some partitions in Parlyment against sutties—the sooner they does away with the poor little climbing boys the better—no wonder they burn themselves sometimes—and I see it is just the same in Hingy, although one wouldn't think they wanted fires there.

As soon as ever Lavy gets about we are going to Brighton to drink the water, which some gentlemen there makes for the use of inphalids—it is uncommon curious how they do it; but I'm told that you may get there the Side-shoots and the Side-lights, and the Carls bad water, (I don't know if they have any of that sort, good,) and the Spawn water, and the Arrowgate, and Matchlock, and Hems, and Gentleman salts; indeed, any sort you like to ask for—however, I don't think I shall like Brighton much in this summer wether, they tell me there are so many flies about. The 10th Huzzas are also there, which I want very much to see—the foot regimen is moved from there, in consequence, I suppose, of the quarrel between our King and Don M'cgill, and, from all I can make out of it, a very silly quarrel it is. Last year or so we were all going to loggerheads because one man liked Turkey better than Grease, and now we are to have a blow up because they cannot decide whether Port or Madeira should be opened first—I have no patience with such stuff. I think if folks are to quarrell, women is a better thing to quarrell about than wine, and so the Autograph of Russia and the Grand Senior think, for they, I see, are fighting about two of the fair secks, Bess Harabia, and Moll Davy.

There has been some dreadful wether here; the other evening, as I was sitting at my twilight, preparing to go to bed, the eclectic fluid looked quite awful, and the winds blowd tremendous; indeed the raging of the elephants was terrific; two gentlemen were upset in a boat, and obleeged to swim ashore in their He-meeses; at least that is what I supposes French for shirts, because what the ladies wear they call She-meeses; however, such has been the reign that it has come down in Torrens, and if our Bows had not provided themselves with Duck Trousers and Pumps, I don't know what they would have done.

The Secretairer of the Treasury is down here; he lives by Fire-light in this nayborhood—I suppose he come from the West Hinges, for they tell me he is a Planter as well as a Hempee, which Fulmer says he is.

I have heard a new comehumdrum, which is a very fashionable amusement here—"Why is the gravy of a leg of pork the best gravy in the world?"—"Because there's no Jews like it." I do not know where the joke is, only I spose there is one. I have hardly any thing to say, only I thought you would like to hear of Lavy's acoachman, and our prospect of removal from this place, which is not at all to my gout.

Yours always, dear B.,

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

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XX.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM GIVES HER OPINION OF THE RELATIVE MERITS OF MARGATE AND BRIGHTON.

To John Bull.

Oct. 1828.

My dear B.,—We are at length arrived in the subbubs of London. Since crowds of people have been collected at the Traitor's and Restorers in Regent-street, I am afraid to date this, lest the folks should come to look at us—but you can easily find out the redress at Fulmer's hothell.

We came last from Margate, which to my mind is far prefferible to Briton. At Briton you have always the great bright sparkling Ossian surfeiting the jingle from morning till night, enough to put one's eyes out, and drive one deaf—at Margate there is a beautiful arbour, in which there is no water whatsomever for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, which affords the curos observer a full view of Ossian's bottom: besides, instead of nasty hard jingle and stones, it is all beautiful blue mud, the sight of which, added to the smell of the juice from the gash works above, reminds one of the dear Mephistopholis, to the neighbourhood of which we have returned.

Then the Peer at Margate is quite a different thing from the jigumaree, swing swang, jinkum linkum thing at Briton. At Margate it is all fixed—built of white stone, and painted pee-green on the inside, which makes it look quite beautiful; besides, at Briton you see nothing partiklur on the Chain-peer but the sea, and the company, and the clifts, and the vessels; but at Margate, besides all the predestinarians a walking, you have stage coaches, flies, waggons, cars, and sociables, ready to take you all over the country, not to speak of carts a fetching coals out of the arbour, and men at the Jetty a bringing in fish alive out of the sea.

The Marine Libray, at Margate, is a beautiful building, with two windows in front, and a wooden gallery at the back of the shop, over the mud—there's nothing in Briton to equal that—and as to the King's statute, by Shantry, what is it to the beautiful image of Nipchune, the great sea god, in black, nailed up again the gable end of the marine, just a going to spear an eel as natural as life. Then the streets—snug and comfortable—none of your great straggling prades or esplanades—no—pleasant retreats, where opposite neighbours can shake hands without leaving their rooms—this is quite agreeable; it is always shady, and besides, it creates an intrust, as Mr. Fulmer says, when strolling along a street not to know on which side of the way one is walking.

The church here is beautiful—not like Briton, stuck down in a vally; it is up on the top of the hil, so that one is half way to heaven before one is a quarter of the way to the church; howsumever, the Galls can see it from Callous if they look sharp, that's one thing. The stone it is made of, is got out of the bath.

The great hotel at Margate is called House, and is situated in Chisel-square—a most splendid hairy, something like Salsbury-square in Fleet-street, only not quite so munificent; here they have luckily succeeded in getting rid of the sea altogether; indeed they have been very fortunate in their attempts in many other places. One of my neices is agoing to open a semenary here, in which I hope she will suckseed; at present she has several pupils in her eye—at least she tells me so, but Mr. Fulmer says she can have but one—so I suppose she phibbs.

The baths here are uncommon agreeable; they are not like the baths at Briton, great staring houses, but nice little low rooms, like the cabins of packets, with a railed place behind where you wait till the water comes in to the arbour, of which I spoke before; but it is not there always punctual at the same time, which is a grate boar; to be sure the ships does lie nice and easy with their bottoms in the mud, and the sailors quite quiet aboard, with all their cabals on the shore. Some very spirted gentleman has dug some baths out of the cliff, with a music room under ground quite subtraining, with a way for the donkies to go down to it, without stares; the view of Ossian from a hole cut in the chork is very rheumatic: Fulmer says the digging them holes is a very wise way of sinking a capital. I hope it will anser.

At Briton the grate libray used to be kept by Donald's son, whoever he was; the grate libray at Margate is kept by Betty's son, whoever she is, for they dont tell us their sirnames; it is a large room, quite snug and away from the sea, in a square called Horley—very different from Hawley on the way to Briton. At that Hawley Mr. Pickhisnails keeps the hin, has a fine booshy head of air, sleeps in top boots, and paints the stems of his trees sky blew for huniformity's sake. In the Horley-square at Margate, there are, besides Betty's sons, some uncommon nice boring houses, where a lady can live genteel and comfortable, without washing, for a jenny and a half a week.

Onion Crescent is near this, and is reckoned very pleasant, and so it is. There is no glare in Margate, to hurt the eyes. The houses look always upon the bax of others, which keeps away the son in summer, and the wind in winter. I know at Briton we was very much troubled with the wind when we lived on the Marrying Prade—at Margate it is quite different.

Fulmer, who is what is called a geehologist, says there is much amusement to be found amongst the Clifts. He talks of finding his sisters and taking his quarts, of which I never heard him speak afore, and he told us the other day that he had dug up some bedlamites. What he has done with them I dont know. The things he shewed me were, I believe, only their finger nails—they looked just like it.

With respect to the bathing, it is much more descent than at Briton, for the machines here have yawnings over them, by which means nobody can see one, however much they looks. We went to visit Dandelion, once a public garden. They say the place took its name from a lion's tooth; I'm sure I have heard something very unlike that, if it is what I mean.

We came away from this trestial parodice in the Harlequin steamer, and a large party we was: it was uncommon agreeable, only there was what is called a swell, which did not agree with the buttered toast, red herrings, honey, eggs, and tea, which we tuck as a remedy agin sickness. Mr. Fulmer said we had rolls as well as tost for breakfast, which made a thin gentleman in a white hat, which sot oposite us, laugh very much.

I did not go upon dick after heaten, but I heard them talk of seeing a great many boys about in the water; one was a boy with a horse, and another a boy with the bacon on his head. One of the first they saw, they said was the last, which seemed nonsense to me. However, they said there was several Spaniards a swimming near the pacquet, so I would not let my young ones go up.

To be sure, what phibbs travellers do tell—we was a talking of the great exhibition of the gurney to London by steam, when a gentleman told us, looking as grave as a gudge, that he and his father had made the Rickulvers in an hour and a quarter, after leaving the Noah light that day week: of course I said nothing—but I was certain as I was of being alive and living, that neither the gentleman nor his father had anything to do with making the Rickulvers, which I myself saw three and twenty years ago—and to make them in an hour and a quarter! However, everybody seemed to believe him—I only asked what profession he was of, and they told me he was imminent in the Tayloring line. That settled it—"Two tailors," as the French says—the very highdea of their talking of making the Rickulvers just as they would a pair of pantaloons—and them they could not make in an hour and a quarter, binding, button-holes and all, I'm sure.

When we got into smooth water, I went upstairs to see Noah's light, and there I saw the ark, with the lantern, and I believe Noah himself a walking up and down the dick. I asked one of the sailors if the men which was walking was never changed, and he said, every four hours; but that the man we saw, had been there ever since the flood—which convinced me. We saw from this, Sheerness with a river, which is Midway between Margate and town, and is called so.

I was very glad when the water was smooth, for I hate the big bellows a rolin, and so I told the gentleman in the airy cap which turns the wheel about—and he said we should have found it much ruffer if we had not come overland. This puzzled me, because I thought we was coming by sea all the time I was below, it bumped me about so—but he persisted in what he said, and moreover said something very disrespectful of the people of the place we had left, which he called the Margate flats. Everything seemed to clear up as we proceeded; we had Lee church on our wether bow, as the gentleman told me—the waters were called Hopes, and the sands were blithe—and we was all golly and uncommon hungary—so down we went to wait till the dinner came, which was some nice bile mutton and turnips with caper sauce, which occupied me all the way from a little above Tilbury Furt to Erin, which looks just as green as Mr. More, the pote, says it is.

At Gravesend we took in a gentleman, who gave us an account of the Grand Signior having sent out a fireman against the Roosians, which was a gettin beat by the Turkeys—however, as we was to go ashore at Grinnage, we had no time for pollyticks, having in course to look up the bundles and ban-boxes. Lavy went by land, on account of her child, and her misfortunes was greater than ores, for she left her black silk riddykel in the coch, containing the best part of a bottle of O de Goalong, a salmon-coloured neck handkycher, and a pair of nice yellow tan gloves—her brother went all the way to the Bare coach office in Pickadilly the next morning, but could hear no tidings on 'em.

When we come opposite the Horsespittle at Grinnage, we got into a boat and landed just by the Ship, which smelt of frying fish as ousel. I think if I had not committed an indiscretion with the bile leg of mutton, we should have been tempted to stop and have some stoodells and whatasujet—as it was, we got into our domstic, a carriage so called, and proceeded by Peckham and Cammerwell home.

I shall write again soon.—I am to be presented to the Quin of Portingal—the Countess of Itabagpipes was known to some of Fulmer's cousins in the brass heel country, which is the reason she wishes me to lend her my counting-house and purtection; so, one day next week I shall go in by the Stockwell stage, and visit the Court in Arlington-street. As for Jennyfluxion, I hope her Majesty will excuse me, for though poor Chunee, I remember, used to do it at Exeter Change, if I was once to get down upon my kneeses I am quite sure I never could git up again—but I shall communicate in a private billy with Lady Bagpipes on the subject.

Lavy desires her best love—Fulmer is as proud as a Pig-hog of his little gull, and my unmarried ones quite as unspohastickated as ever—there was a gentleman at Margate did give the youngest a sort of tittilation of the heart, and she had only two helps of beef and one plate of soup at dinner for three days in consequence of her tinder felings, but he went off in the Ramona the morning it carried passengers greatass, and so did my girl's infection for him, and the next day she sung "I've been roaming," and took to her vitals just as if nothing had happened.—Adjou.

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

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XXI.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM CONTEMPLATES THE COLLECTION OF HER LETTERS INTO A VOLUME.

To John Bull.

January 25, 1829.

Dear B.,—I write to you on a bizziness of some consequence to me—I have been applied to by some of the first jenny asses of the day to colic my lettuce into one volume, and publish them: so I spoke to my sun in law Fulmer, who has offered to hedit them, and put notes to them, which I at first thought meant setting them to mewsick, which I by no means wanted, although he offered to do it grateass. He has now explained his meanun, and I am going to get Mr. Golburn to print them in a doodecimus book, with a prefass and portrait, to be done from a Minotaur by Causeway, which is reckoned the himmige of me when I was a gull, and for wich Mr. Ram. paid Mr. Causeway, (quite a Minotaur of a man himself,) fifty jinnies.

You know I never rot to anybody but you, although some impotent parsons have dared to call themselves the hawthurs of my lettus. There is one of them squarecap fellows belonging to the Magdalen at Hauksfut—which they say lives upon Ices—he says he rot some of them, and one at Eating College says he helped me, and another, a bare blockhead whose name I never heard afore, goes about and says he rot 'em for me. He had better mind his tye pigs, and adjustments, and dews and surplices, I can tell him, for all his tong runs so glebe; for I never sot eye on him, nor he on me, as I nose of—however, I am dissolved upon publishing them out and out. Mr. Golburn wants them to come out in sheets, but I dont think that quite come ill fo.

There is a moneyment of two old gentlemen who were my Aunt's sisters, in a church in Lincumshire, done by Mr. Ruebellyache the great Sculpture, which was admired by the late Mr. Noddlecums, whose life has been published by his Taylor, and which cuts him up, sure enough—I should like to have the view of this family Muzzleheum in the book, if I could get it done in the new fashioned style of Lithotomy, because it shoes all the harms of our family, Lions sergeants, and the Lions parsons, and the Lions ramping, with the shiverings and mullets, and argents, and oars, and sables, and gulls, and all that, which we bore ever since William the Conqueror came over with Quin Mary, of hoom, no doubt, you have read.

My Mr. Ramsbottom's family, although very good, is not connected with that of the Hempee for Winsor, which family is eyely respectable in their whey, and quite sillybratted for bruin the bear, wich is so patternized in the neighbrood. Mr. Fulmer says, my dear Mr. Ram is quite a different ramification, but he thinks if you would just reckumend us to the Biblepole (I think he calls Mr. Goulburn) he could make three volums out of my letters, what letters I have received, his own notes, and all the notes the gals has got by way of orthographs, and a dairy, which my dear Mr. Ram kept till the day before he did.

I took my two eldest unmarried, the other day, to Mr. Devil's in the Strand, to be felt—they call him Mr. De Feel, but he spells it Deville, and calls himself Mr. De Huile—he is a Hoyl-man and a great proffessor of what is called Free-knowledgey[17]—he shewed us the head of Sterne, which wrote many books, and also that of Sir Eyes-ache Newton, the great astrologer—he says I have the largest number one he ever saw, and when I cum away he sneered, and bid me take care of number one, as if everybody didn't do that without his telling.—He wanted to put a plaster on my head, and smear my face with some of his lampile, and stick squills up my nose, and take what he called a cast of my Hosfrontis—but I would not have none of his manoovers with me, and I was very well pleased when I found myself out of the shop.

Only think, Mr. B., of Lord Angelseye coming home—he is left tenant of the castle no longer. Mr. Fulmer says he is like a hair which gives up doubling when it takes to turning. I am quite sorry to think what a state he must be in. Miss Biffin, or Billy Bowldish, the corpulent gentleman who used to bump himself along the streets in a band-box, an't nothing to compare with him. His Lordship told the people of Ireland that he had left his heart with them. Fulmer says, before he said that, he must have lost his head, and I seed one of his legs buried at Whataloo—of course, after that, the only thing left for him was to pack up his trunk, and come home; but pollyticks I seldom tuches, only I does like plain dealing.

Will you please to let me here from you, for you are a sad idol corryspondent—you promises to rite, and never dus, which is very disapinting. However, you must rite to give us leaf to print the Ramsbottom Papers, which has been redressed to you—give me your opinion about the minotaur and the muzzleum, and believe me, dear B.,

Your's, truly and sincere,

Lavinia D. Ramsbottom.

All our curcle join in kind regards—we have all got colds, and guittars, and quinces, and roomatez—but we can expectorate nothing less this cold wether.

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XXII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM'S OPINIONS ON POPERY.

To John Bull.

Gravesend, April 2, 1829.

My dear B.,—I have taken a trumpery residence hear for the seeson for the health of my therd gull, which is frequently effected with a goose. I send you up a copy of the Gravesend Guide, which will explain all the booty of the place, and all its convenences; the passage in the steemboat is cheap and agreble, and we run up and down every two or three tims in the weak.

Oh, B. B., I have got a krow to plock with you—I cannot make out what makes you such a stench Protestant; poor dear Mr. Ram never could bear Poppery, but I am afraid he was a biggoat at bottom, for the mounsheer which marred my second, tells me that it is a sweat religion, and that you can always get ablution for paying for it—which is very pleasant.

I remember the riots of Hayti, when they burnt old Newgate and got to all the goals; they raised several houses to the groand, and burned Lord Mansfield's house in Bloomsbury-square, which was of brick and stone; what would they have done with his Willy up at Highgate, which is all made of Cane-wood; yet after all these I see he goes on in the Hose of Pears a speeking agin the Roming Catlicks just as if nothin had happened to him; he must be very antickated now I shoud think.

You have heard, in course, that the new Pop is erected. Mounsheer tells me that Ginger was a very good Pop as ever was—he died notwithstanding his infallowbility—all Pops go off—and that's as it should be, for as they lives infallowbill so they infallowbelly dies. Mounsheer told me that it was thought that either Carnal Fetch or Carnal Comealongo would have been erected Pop, but that Charles Deece would have put his Feeto upon Fetch, so they have erected Castellioneye—they put poor Ginger after his deth into a cistern, with his holy toes a protruding out of a grating for the people to kiss.

I should have liked to be in Room when the concave was held. Oh Mr. B. you very much mistake the Catlick Priesthood. All the stories you hear of the Carnals keeping columbines is entirely calomel—they nose better than to do such things as those—for my part, I hop to see the day when all extinction of religion is forgot, and we shall see all our halters occupied by Popish Priests. What does Mr. More, the allmyknack maker, say on this toepick—

"Shall I ask the brave soger what fites by my side,

In the kaws of mankind if our creeds agree?

Shall I give up the friend I have vallied and tried,

If he kneel not afore the same halter with me?

From the hairytick gull of my sole shall I fly,

To seek somewhere's else a more authordox kiss?

No—perish the harts and the laws as try,

Truth, walour, and love, by a standurd like this."

I says ditto, ditto, to Mister More; why should we Hairyticks stick up for our authordoxies, or any other sich, or despise the Roming Catlicks—why, we are decanters from the holy church ourselves, just as much as the Sauceinions and the Hairyuns,[18] and the Whistlings, or any others, are from hours—can't we wusship, every one after his own fashion—look at the Quackers—there's a sex, so pyehouse, and demure, and desunt, in everything good and propper.

Why, do you know, Mr. B., the Quacker ladies goes down to Grinnage, and Woolidge, and Popular, and the Isle of Docks, and all them parts, to phissit the poor feemale convix, which is about to be transpirted to Von Demons Land and Bottomy bay, where the illustrus Cook first found out the Cangarews—poor gulls, I think it a pitty to send out the pretty Lassenies, they are some on 'em so juvenal. Oh, Muster B., what must their Rum and essences be when they reclects Tim past—some on 'em if they are hard working meretricious gulls, get marred as soon as they gets to the Coloony, and when they does, Mr. Fulmer tells me they play the very dooce with the Malt house system, which I spose means that they drink too much hail, and bear in proporshun.

A navel sergeant goes to take care on 'em, and see as they wants for no thing—he locks them up every night, and never suffers no Foxes paws, but keeps them quite creckt, and they are in sich order that he has only just to talk of the lock and the key to subdoo e'm in a minuet—poor creturs, them as I seed where chairful, and not one of them was wiping, they had plenty of vitals, and spoke of the Coloony as a nice place, and called the Guvenor a Darling—but it seems wretched work—to hope for happiness there, is to follow an English Fattyus, which you know is a Will of the Whips, which is seed in the mashes.

But anuff of this—rite me word what you think of the Hopra—I think Pisarowneye is a bootiful singer—I dont much like Specky, and as for Mountijelly she harn't got no vice—not what I call a sweet vice—Miss Blazes is harmonias, but I see by the bills that they have denounced an Angel and a Devil to act, which I do not think come il pho. I have not seen Suck Kelly, nor Bellygreeny, but I recleck Mollybrown Garshia quite well. The new ballad of Mass and Kneelo is quite splendead—there is a him to the Vergin, sung just like Tedium in a church, and Wesuewius in the rear is quite tremendos. Colonel O'Conner said he never saw a more beautiful crater in all his born days, and he is quite a jug of those matters.

Haprowpow dee Botts—Why do you satyreyes my friends Lethbridge and Fillpott—you give a whole chapter to the Dean every Sunday which is too much, and as for calling Sir Tomass a rat, I deny the fack—at least if he is a rat, the day I saw him at dinner with Lord Wenerables he must have twisted his tail into the bag behind him, for I saw none of it.

I have no noose, except that we all wish you would come and explode these parts—perhaps you will, after you have red the guide. The passage is short and iconumical, only two shillings by the steam bot, or as the French call it, the pack bot avec peur. Do come—we all unite in best regards.

Yours, truly,

Lavinia Dorothea Ramsbottom.

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XXIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.

May, 1829.

Dear B.,—As you haven't given any count of the Summerset House expedition, which opened as weasal, the fust Monday in May, I thoght perhaps a few loose remarks of mine and Lavy's would be exceptable, therefore I rite to give you an int of what we think.

Oh, that Precedent, Sir Tummas Larrence—I never seed such pitchers as his—but I need not talk of those, because you nose his merits—what I want is, to bring to your notice some of the young uns.

Well, B., away we went Wensday, and paid our munney at the dore, and the man gave us a chick, and we bought our catlog, and then another man tuck away my parisot, which never happened to me before, the many ears I have seen in that place—he told me if I gave him my one, he would give me a number—which deseived me, so I let him have it, and he gave me a curd—this was just at the bottom of the great Achilles with the fir knees wich is kept in a bird cage, to prevent the people hurting his back—well, up we went—such a stare case—so hot was I—however, at last up we got.

The fust pitcher I seed was Adam and Heve expulsed from Paradise, by Debuffe. In buff I think—I never seed such a thing in all my days, and no reason for it, because it was after the date of the fig leaves—no matter—I turned away my eyes to Doctor Gobbleston, the Bishop of Llandaff, and a plainer creatur I never set my eyes on—his face looks for all the world as if he had been a rat hunting up a chimley. I couldn't look at him long. The next I saw was "I. Strutt, Esqueer, and his sister." I'm sure that is a likeness; and the next is called "a Gentleman," which I am sure cannot be a likeness.

Lord Caravan, with a sword on, is a fine work, and so is a big picture of a Hero going to Philander in the Tower; and near that is one of a Gull with a Guttar, with sich funny pudsy fingers, which made Lavy laugh so as I was quite ashammed of her. Then there is one by Mr. Willes of a Dream, where "Puck takes away an asses head from bottom,"—it is so in the catlog, and I wonder at it—but no matter—I'm sure I felt quite in jeffery when I read such a thing in a book—and Mr. Newton, my favourite, what drawed the Disconsolate Lady in white satan, which hided her head in her hankycher, at the British Gallary, has got the pitcher of a Lady in a Coach-horse Dress, uncommon pretty; and Mr. Picksgill has got Sir Jeffery Dunstan with his gray locks a dangling just as I remember him when he was Mare of Garret, only bigger.

An artist of the name of Bedstead has a picture of two whole Snips, and also of two Jack Snips—which is meant for birds, but I never heard of sich afore. There is also Sir Roger de Coverlee and the Gypsums, and a picture of Lord Drum, (Lampton as was,) by Larrence, like as to phechurs, but not his compleckshun. I wish my Lord had sot to Turner, he would have done him betterer.

Mr. Barraud has a pitcher of his own painting, which he calls the Study of an Ass—how funny!—and there is Miss Phillips of Drury-lane, with a long waste, and no more like her pretty face than I am like her—instead of Dawe after this pitcher they should have put Dawb. Mr. Landseer has got a picture of a dead oh dear, and there is a pitcher of Colonel Johnson, who is called the Cove of Mustcat.

No. 241 is a pitcher of Zebuses and Quaggas, so like you cannot think; and another of the Bishop of Rochester—such a dandy—smirking and smooth faced, with a fancy wig—not a bit of the regelation cut about it—but no matter—he was only the Bishop of Soda the other day—Family made the Mann, and ratting made the Bishop.

There is a french pitcher of crowning a dead body, and a gentleman what is a King, with white stays and a blue walking-stick, a watching on it; and there is a Mr. Luck, secretairer to the London Institution, which is either a piece of bad luck or a bad likeness. In the Antick Acadamme there are two pitchers which are worth looking at—one, Baron Carl Ashating von Triggum, and the other Major Von de Roggery Sue Peppercorn. I loves 'em for their names. Mr. Smith exhibits some specie of Cactus from natur, which of course I did not look at—and No. 576 is the portrait of a Colonel, so like a horse, that if you was not told it was a military officer you never would find it out.

I cannot go all through the catlog—in the model-room, there is the head of a Rabbit, so like an old closeman that I never should have taken it for the little hannimal what hops about; and a buteful busk of Lady Elizabeth Gower, which was the only thing I saw I should like to have had—unless, indeed, it was the great Chanticleer which hangs in the top room, which the King gave the Acadammee; however, I should have staid longer, but a poor gentleman, a stout lustful man, slipped down the stares just as we was looking about, and broke his leg, so bad that we heard he suffered an imputation the same night—this quite shocked Lavy, who has a feline disposition, and can't bear to see any thing hurt—so we came home; but I shall go again, and perhaps rite you some more of my observashuns.—Yours ever,

D. L. Ramsbottom.

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XXIV.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM AT THE "CHISWICK FÊTE."

To John Bull.

July, 1829.

My dear B.,—We was all at the wet feet at Chissick on Saturday; Lavy and Fulmer, and Mounsheer, my second, and the two "june dimiselles," as Mounsheer calls them; and sich a site as that for a breakfast, never did I clap my too eyes on—furst of all, we went off in Fulmer's broach and Mounsheer's brisket—all in the poring rein—two cargoes of us, and we was literally socked through and through afore we got there, and there was a great poodle under the place where I sot; however, we had paid our jennies, and we was determined to have a reseat in fool.

But now I must tell you before I begin, that when we got home, Fulmer sot down just like Swalter Scott, or Milton, or Pop, or any one of the potes, and rot a whole account of it in verse, every bit of it as true as if it warn't pottery at all, and then he sung it to us, Lavy playing the Pein forte accompaniment; and when I asked him to give it me for you, he tore it all to hattams. But I matched him there, as I had done afore. As soon as he was gone out of the room I picked up the pieces (which, if I had not a watched him, I think he would have gone and done himself); and so I stuck the paper together as well as I cood, but some of the virses is still missing: however, wherever there is a ole in the ballad I will supply the place with my pros, so as to make it a jint produxion just like Bowman and Flesher, or Merton and Reinholds, or Mathews and Yates.

Fulmer begins thus, to your favourite toon of "Hunting the Hair:"—

"Go tell Jenkins to order the horses,

The clouds are all breaking, the sky's looking blue;

At half after one let us muster our forces,

And order the carriage at half after two.

Tell Emma and Susan

To put their thick shoes on,

And get Parabous on,

And send up for Kate;

Put the Halls in the rumble,

(I'm sure they can't grumble,)

With Bob and your humble,

They'll just make us eight.

"'Where are ye going to?' cries Mrs. Dickenson,

'What can you do such a very damp day?'

'Comfort ourselves with champagne and cold chickens soon,

See the big cherries, and hear Littolf play,

Iceing or prawning,

(It's all under awning)

Or lounging the lawn in,

The crowd will be great;

So come, Mrs. Dickenson,

Folks will drop thick in soon,

Mud you shan't stick in soon,

Come to the Fete.

"'The people are clever who get up this festival,

Men who sit toiling in science for weeks,

Hold councils on cabbages, and (which is best of all)

Speak upon salads and lecture on leeks;

Who sit (without raillery),

Vote upon celery,

Clear out their gallery

After debate—

Men who can grapple

With onion or apple,

And tell if the sap will

Rise early or late.'

"Off we started, the rain was just mizzling,

Crack went the whips, and we rattled through Town;

At Kensington coach-stand it faster was drizzling,

At Kensington church, it began to come down;

The post-boys were whipping,

The post-horses slipping,

The Halls were quite dripping

At Hammersmith Gate;

On we went dashing,

And squashing and splashing,

Till after this fashion

We got to the Fete."

Then there's a verse wanton, which of course I can't remember; but the Bow-street officers were all round the dore, and they looked to me as little like Bows as they did like officers; however, there was a large poodle to get over, and I heard them bid me wait till they sent for a Plank, which turned out to be a humane cretur, the head of the Pelisse. We had no umberellars, only our parisoles; but we got into a long tent, and there Fulmer told me I had better make my election to stay, because I was favoured both by the canvas and the pole; which I do not understand, but he put it all in rhyme about a "hujus encampment," something you know, I don't quite remember, to "keep off the damp meant;" and then he praised the bootiful cretures what was a setting in the mud under the yawning, which cood not get out, and called them the most elegant flowers and fruits of the day.

It was no good a stopping ther however, for we was a mile a'most from the feeding place which Mr. Grunter had prepared for his fellow-creturs; so I determined wet or dry, nolus bolus, over I would go—it was uncommon squashy, and poor Lavy had a touch of the Room attics in her head before we come out, however it warnt no use complaining, so the two Hauls, which was phissitors of ours, and I, ondertook to cross over the plot—of that, Fulmer says—

"Cross the green ocean amongst the carousers there,

Oh! what a squabble, what pushing, what thumps;

Dandies appropriately drest in duck trowsers, were

Making their way through the water in pumps.

To see them a tripping,

And sliding and slipping,

With cold meat and dripping"——

Here there is another ole, and I think it must be a herror of the arthurs, because "cold meat and dripping" is nonsense; however, no matter, we got over, and there, if you'll believe me, was a matter of a kipple of thousand humane creturs, just like pigs with their noses in the troffs, agin the wall, a heating and a heating, and a grunting and a grumbling, over their uncles in gravelly mud.

I heard one man ask for a kennel of chicken, and another wanted a blanket of veel; but the master cock pot his head out of a French marqui, and said there warnt nothing shew (which, as you know, means hot, in the language of the Galls); so I squeedged out three young youths and two gulls which was a making themselves sick with eating isis, and made rheum for myself, and sot too to make up my jennys worth; but if you'll believe me, dear B. (I didn't care for the muck I was a standing in, for I had a cork soul,) but presently I felt drip, drip, drip, something a dripping into my neck behind, which I was so ot a crossing the grace plot I didn't feel at first, but which was the rein a coming through the callyko top of the yawning; and what was uncommon surprising to me, although the clouts above were so black, yet the rein which fell, cum down quite blue. I had a glass of Bucephalus, three big glasses of celery Shimpain (which shews the advantage of the garden, for it was just as good as any made from grapes) and a small glass of O. D. V., which the master cock in his white nite cap sent out to me. Fulmer called the people who got under cover, the con-tents, and them as could not, the non con-tents.

But if you had seen the way in which the genteelmen run about to fetch vitals for the ladies—it was quite charming. "I want a wing for a lady," says one—"I want a couple of legs for my ant, who can't walk," says another—"A thick slice of beef for Miss Angelina," and so on. Oh! it was quite delightful, only I don't think so double refined as I expected for a jenny. Fulmer says, in a verse about the company—

"There were the Thompsons, the Greens, and the Nevensons,

Two Miss Barkers, and twelve Mr. Smiths;

Three Miss Wilsons, Miss White, and the Stephensons,

Pretty Miss Hawkins, and four of the Friths,

The Walkers and Bartons,

The Simpsons and Martins,

The Stubbs's and Parton's,

And old Mrs. Tate.

With Hopkins and Higgins,

And thin Mrs. Figgins,

And fat Mr. Wiggins,

The Elite of the Fete."

However one accident happened—somethink always does happen wherever we go. My second was beautifully dressed—all after one of the Magaseens, and quite unlike any body else—and somehow or other—I dont know whether it was the whet or what—but part of her close tumbled off; however the Bows which was about thought it was one of her sleeves, and nobody cared except her husband Mounsheer, who was quite in a bustle at loosing anything, and would make her tell him all about it, because he was terrified at seeing her so very much reduced in figger in so short a space of time—Mounsheer got it back from one of the Artillery Bumbardeers which was in the garden to watch the river for fear it should get dry—howsoever there was plenty of water this time.

Well, B., after we had eat in four places, and tried for the fifth, but could get nothing but the bottoms of Hams, which Fulmer twisted into "Hamsbottoms," and made it rhyme to my name, we went out just for a minuet, thinking the rein had sopsided; but we had scarce got out of the heating place when down it come agin, and we was obliged to run for it—(I don't run very expedishus at any time, much less after what I had eat)—and got into what is called the committee-room, a place as dark as pitch, and smelling like a seed shop; indeed I never seed such a place in my life; and there was the Tyrrelease Pheasants, and sich a silly gull a asking them all manner of foolish questions about their singeing their Tyrrellease kitches or whatever they are. This warn't lost upon Fulmer—and I have preserved that virse—

"God save the King was the best of the shew for us,

And it was greeted with loyalty's roar;

But when they sang the words 'Long to rain over us,'

Nature herself seemed to call an encore.

'Twas in the committee room,

Dark as a city room,

By no means a pretty room,

Close to the gate;

Amongst the complainers,

Thus warbled the Rainers,

Most apt entertainers,

For Saturday's Fete."

Well, B., and after that, I am sorry to say when it got to hold up for a minuet again, the Bows, which I thought had been a carrion the Shimpain and the vitals to the ladies, shewed by their conduct that they had only got the things in the names of the fair sects, and as Fulmer said had added to the frauds of the neutral flags, by taking to themselves, under false pretences, what was shipped for other people—they was quite inhebriated, and played very improper pranks—Fulmer said, that he himself saw one lady play Merry tricks, but if so, I dare say she'll try new tricks before she comes there again—however, the conduct of the men was quite obstropolous, and one of them spoke to my seckond as if he had been introdeuced, and when he asked her name, and she said Ramsbottom, he behaved more imperently than he had done before, and said that he had noed us all long ago. I'm sure he never noed me, nor none of my daughters, and so I told him, and I begged Mr. Fulmer to find out the Secrethairy, Mr. Sabine, to come and speak to the imperent poppy; but Fulmer told me that we had better go away as fast as we could, for that when men were in that state none of the Sabines would be safe; so of course I would not go to hinger a respectable family, and we got over our uncles to the gate, where we found our servant Jenkins in the custardy of the offisers, for nocking down a beetle belonging to the gardner, which would not let him poke his knows in to look for us. So Fulmer did, (what, considering the weather, was quite necessary,) gave his curd to the pelisseman, and baled out the footman.

But I must say a Jew, and I cannot help thinkin how surprized Fulmer will be when he sees your pepper in the mornun. Lavy has been in bed ever since the Feet; our cousin Kate has got a swelled face; the Hauls have both got bad coughs, and Mounsheer and his wife have been takin teasannes every nite and morning; however, I hope we shall soon get about, and if what I have saved out of the phier is of any use, you are welkum.—Yours, dear B., always,

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

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XXV.
A LETTER FROM WALMER

To John Bull.

Warmer, near Deal, Oct. 13, 1829.

My dear B.,—I only right you a short Billy do, to tell you we are all combing to the Mephistophiles on Twosday. Some of us travails by the Dover onion, an uncommon good stag, and Lavy and her spouse in their broach.

What I have cheefly to say is, that I have been purveiled upon to publish my Original Letters to you in a serious—Fulmer is kind enuff to say he will do notes to them, and write a biggraphical scratch of my life, and have my head in a plate for a fruntispece—I beleive I am to be lithotomized, which is cheaper than copper.

You have my premishon to hannounce my work, which I should like to call the Book of the Breakfast Parlor, but Fulmer thinks the "Ramsbottom Papers" better.

Yours ever,

D. L. Ramsbottom.

L.S.—What do you think of poor Mam Hood, the Great Signior of the Turkies—he is humbled—and to an Irish usurper; for so I conclood Nicholas the Autograph of the Rushes to be, seeing that his name of Nick is only a nick name, and that he calls himself Paddy Shaw—surely he ought to know beast.

L.S. (2)—I comb to town with an Aikin art; the wotchmen are beat off their beats, and we shall never see their lantarns nor heer their "agreable rattles," as the play-book says, henny more. I wish Muster Peel had not ordered his new blue pelisse till the Spring, for in the dark nights, when the Fox of Lunnun is in the streets, I do love to lisson to the our a bean cried, while we are all coucheying in our lees.

Adoo, wunsmore.

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We submit this letter as we have received it; and our readers will, like ourselves, gather from it, that our esteemed correspondent, like other great ladies, has resolved to appear in print. We have since ascertained that the work will appear shortly, in one volume, with the promised notes and illustrations.

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XXVI.
A PECK OF TROUBLES.

To John Bull.

March, 1830.

Dear B.,—It is a long while since I wrote to you, but I have been in a pick of trubbles about my famlie. Lavv's youngest has been vascillated, and the various matter did not take a feckt—so that she tuck the small pock natrally, and I fear will be very much pitied when she comes to grow up—however, I must right you a short letter.

You remember my lemontations about the removal of the Wochmen—I have quite changed my mind, and am all for the new blue Pelesse. More specially since what I see they are going to do, to keep them always ready to put out fires—they rehearsed their revolutions one day last week, and, according to the noosepapers, beat Mounsheer Shabby out and out—but they does it by wearing Ass-beastos jackets,—by which means they minds fires no more than that young woman we read of, who lived a hundred years in a Fir-nest—I mean Sally Mander.

What a nice man Mr. Main must be, who is one of the heads of the Pelisse, to take such care to distinguish the fires—I have often seen his name up agin the walls, and never knew what it meant, with F. P. before it—where it says "Westminster Main—always charged." I am sure we hoe a grate deal to Mr. Peal—Sir Richard Burney never put out no fires that I ever heard of, nor any body, except the Fire Indians, who do it with a wetness to it.

My poor grand-child has been so bad, that I have not been able to see our new Moll Pomona at Common Garden, but I hear she overflows the house with people and with tiers—I could not stir out and leave little Jacinta, she has had nothing to eat or drink for these three weeks, but some tappyochre and a glass of white wine delighted with water.

Only think of the Argand Rooms being burned down, and the English Uproar House in the Strand—I hope this last will be bult up agin, for I think English talons should be encurridged, and I do love our native wobblers, they are so much more tuching than the Hightalians—as for the French hactors, Potter and Clup and those, they are very funey in their whey, but not to compare with our hone Thisbeans in Common Garden or Dreary Lane.

Oh, Law! what do you think of Lady Edinborough? is not her's a curous tail, to think of leaving such a handsome man as her husband for a foraying prince? I suppose my Lord will get marred again, to keep the title in the right line—he has no hair apparent now, I believe.

I can add no moor at present, for the Physicking is come; and as I must give him his phee, I may as well insult him, and get all I can out of him, for now that Jacinta is better, I pomps him for the noose off the Bo mond, which these Dogturs know more off than most peepil. I will wright soon agen, and give you a hysterical account of all our proceeduns. Adoo, chair B.,

Yours, D. Ramsbottom.

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XXVII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM'S OPINIONS ON PUBLIC EVENTS.

To John Bull.

Kaduggan Place, Sloane Street, Nov. 20, 1830.

Dear B.,—Here we are, once more in the capitol—Fulmer has hops in the Wigs to give him a plaice—he has been a fishing a long time, and has cocht nothing yet; and I fear now they have got in, the old tale of more pigs than tits will be new revived.

What do you think of Hairy Broom as Chancesellor?—Lord Crows-nest on the Wulsack—or a half-pay Captun (brevet Lefttenant Kernel) as Master of the Ordinance—or my friend Lord Drum, the coal-merchant, as Lord Privy; not to speak of Nero Denman as Attorny-General, or Newark Wilde as Solissiter—Why is all this?—Just because a parsel of lazy fellers did not like to go out in a wet night to vote for the Civil List—I'm sure the names of them as did not go to support the King, should be published, and called the uncivil list, as a disttinkshun.

Well, never was I more surprized. Here, says I, after the Revelation in France is ended, after settling the affairs of the Ditch and the Belchians, to think of a two do in London. Poor Charles Deece is almost forgotten. It is true his fort was firing his ordnance among the people, and my French sun-in-law cries "Baa les Tyriens" whenever we spike of him. He says, says he, "I don't mean nobody in party-colour, but (he rot this bit himself) Qui capit ille facit," to which my other sun-in-law, Fulmer, says, "that Charles Deece might have overcome the danger, but that he was the Capet who would not face it."

Fulmer has sent a long pistol to the Primer to ask for something; but he says of course the Greys will be beset by the Duns, and that all the hungry ones can't expect to be felled at once; besides, he doesn't expect this set to last. I'm sure such a parcel of things never was put into a Cabinet before, except to be looked at, as curosittes.

We was a rustycatting at Warmer, near Deel, on Lord Mayor's Day, but the weather has grown so much colder, I was glad to git away from old Ossian; they was all on the Key weave, in the City, that day. Sir Clod is a great genus, and always was—he was much above his calling when he was a Hatturney—he was made to ride on a wite oss afore the King.

I see somebody has sent his Majesty a pair of boots, and somebody else has sent the King and Queen a cake, which, the Lord Chambermaid rites word, was uncommon nice—is it because the Wigs won't let the Royal Family have enuff munny to live upon, that their subjex send them such things?

I wonder that Lord Angelseye should go to Hireland agin; he was a Poplar ruler when he was last there, but the case is haltered now; if he should be hill when he is out at Doubling, with the Tig Dollyroo, I suppose Sir Francis Birdhit will go to Mr. Singeing Long, and be robbed for him. Only think of that Long; I'm sewer if the New Jewry find such a Furdickt as the Old Jewry did, the Gudge ought not to suffer him to be Long in this country. I think it would be better to let him be tried by the Old Bayley, rather than by either of the Parks—only he is all for the west end of the Mephistophiles, and is supported by the Hairystockcrazy.

Your friend Fillpot is maid a Bishop, although you said he never woud be. What do you say to that? The dear Duck of Wellington thought as Fillypotty had ratified his part of the agreement he would ratify his—Filly will be near Cardinal Weld at Exeter, and his Imminence perhaps will bring Toby quite round, and get him made Pop of Rheum one of these days. It is quite rite, however, that when he gets his mitered coach he shoud give up his Stanhope—he can't want both, and at such a distance, too, from itch other.

Do you think Sir Scarlet will be Lord Chief Jester in the room of Lord Tenderdone? Fulmer tells me that Hairy Broom says he won't be Lord Chancesellor, which makes me think the thing is quite curtain that he will; he wants to be Master of the Roles he says, so has to have his fling in the House of Cummons; but the Master wont go—he likes a quiet life and no nonsense—no cabnets and wulsack wurk, but soshability and a leetel haycarty in the evenings. I honner his honner for his taste and his furmness; a good Leach always sticks fastest—besides, it spits Broom, and that is just "cum il fot," as the French says.

I dont see that Mr. A. B. C.-rombie has got anything in this scrimble-scramble. I am glad Lord Goodyrich is cum back, for a kinder-arted, more hamiable man there is not in all the whirld. Sir James Graham, as Fust Lord of the Admirability is curous, but Mr. Spring Tide as the Secretairer seems an uncommon proper apintment.

Fulmer tells me that Lord Hill has got the Blues—I am sorry his Lordship takes the change of Minsters so much to heart. I hope he will keep up his spirts, for every body has nose him, loves him.

There is a very scandallous report going about, that Lord Holland is going to keep the Duchess of Lancaster—I dont believe it for many reasons—one is, I never heard of the Lady before, unless it is your friend the Princess of Olive Serres, who has got her rites at last; but then Lord Holland would not do sich a thing as that; at least I conseeve not.

Perhaps, dear B., you will send me a billey in the coarse of the weak, and if anything good should turnip for Fulmer I will let you no—he is by no means partycolour—any place, from a Lord Precedents down to a porters, would suit him—he is equally fit for all; besides, in a squabble like this, nobody sticks at fitness.

Yours ever, dear B.,

D. L. Ramsbottom.

P.S. You never tells us nothing about the Theaters now; is your cricket dead? if he is, why don't you git anuther? Adoo! B.

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XXVIII.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM DECLARES HERSELF A CONVERT TO "REFORM."

To John Bull.

Turnham Green, April 4, 1831.

Dear B.,—It is a long time since you have heard from me,—and now I do write, you will find me somewhat haltered in my principles. I have been one over by my sun-in-law to the great caws of Reform. He talks of not stopping till we have got the Ballad and General Sufferance—as to the first, I am all for the song; but with regard to the General, I cannot say I ever heard of him before; but if he is a friend of Lord John Rustles, that is efficient—the very site of Lord John is enuff—his name is a corjil, and his figger is comefort.

I recklect the day when I satanized Lord Drum, the Lord Privy, and so did you, B.—you now you did—chiefly, as I think, because he was yellow. Did you ever read Foot, B.?—Muster Foot says, in one of his Farcies, that a good candidate, like a good oss, cannot be of a bad culler—so I say—besides, what's yellower than a jinny? I think I see you, when you read my lines, and find me alturd as I am—but I am enlightened—the peeple must have refurm—my shoemaker says so, and I know it must be so; and as Lord Drum is at the bottom of the Refurm Bile, I love him—he looks as if he had been making the bile for some time. Oh, B., he is an intersting crechur, and so good natured, it is quite unpossible to void having a puncheon for him.

I admit at first the Cabnet was in a quandary—that Polly Thomson isn't poplar amongst them. I think they are jellies of Polly, for he most certainly has talons—Fulmer says he nose he has—he is a great ventriloquist (I think they call it), which speaks many forin tongs—indeed, Fulmer sometimes calls him Pollyglot as well as Polly Thomson, and he told me the other day that the King was going to create him Barren Barilla, and sent him out Protector of Grease, instead of Prince Loophole, who, as they call it, bagged out.

Then Lord Althrop—what a deal of good he has dun since he has bein in Hoffys. Look at his entrenchments—he has cut down the odd eater of the Civil List, and tuck off the dooty on koles—and wot a deal more he would have dun if the axe of parlymen of hother dace had not perwented him. And as for Lord Grey himself, I do say sich a kind-arted man as not been seen for ears and ears—not a sun, nor a cussin, nor a nevy, nor a sun-in-law, nor a wife's cussin, nor one hingyvigyal belonging to him, but wot he has perwided for, somehow or another. Shew me a Prim Minster as hever hacted in sich a generous way afore—Why the Duck of Wellington, with all his fine toe doos, when he was in place, never guv nothing vhatsoever to any of his relations as ever I heard of—ard-arted Duck.

And then that sweet Muster Cullcraft—a dear gentleman, full of Janus, and as neat and as nice as a nine-pin—he is the Ugh!-nit which guv the majority, and all by thinking twice, which is a wise thing in a man—I was not at all surprized when I heard that the nice crechur voted with the eyes—for, says I to my Lavy, he has very little to say to the nose, anyhow. But he was always a favourite with the ladies—a regalar Feel-hander amongst them. And then his pore sun Granny too, to have lost his Love—more's the petty, for they are a nice fam'ly take 'em all to gather—

"From grave to gay, from lively to Sevier."

I hope Lord Bruffham and Fox comes up with your expectorations—he certainly does with his hone—I went, the other night, into "Tommy's box;" I don't know why they called the place so—it was like a vaper bath, with certains all round it; and there I seed the Chanceseller lying full-length on the Wulsack—(which I thought a hod thing to have in sich a place)—and I am told he may be seen lying there every night—when I say lying, I mean stretching,—and poor nobleman, no wonder, for he must be a most tired out—wot with the intrests of the nayshun, and the cawses in his Court, and the trouble he is at to keep silence there—and carrion the bag—and riting leaden articles in the noos-peppers, and his repeals, and one thing and the other. Have you seen his pitcher in the Suffocating gallery of Artists?—there he is, as like as like can be, but only carycachurd, which is not to be wundered at, for the pitcher is panted by Lord Lonsdale—(so the cattle-hog says)—and as his Lordship always made him look blue on the pole, its no wunder he has made him look yellow on the canvas—for blue and yellow is Bruffham's cullers. The pictcher, however, is in the best place in the room, in complement to the Lord Chanceseller—so that them as was ordered to hang his Lordship, have done him only justass.

Then there is Lord Pummicestone—he is another of my feverits— where did you ivir see such a Foraying Minster as he—so genteel—so haymable—and with sich nice wiskers and white linen—never interfeering the least with any nonsense about polyticks—never sayin a word about his hoffice, either in Parlyment or out of it, as I hears on; he troubles his head no more about the Belchians and the Ditch, or the Roosians, or the Proossians, or hany of the oosians, than I do. I'm told (by Parr and Tess) that there are no hops for the Poles—their caws is desprut—at least so the Old Engine we met last season at the sea side told me the day before yesterday, as I seed him cumming out of the Horizontal Club in Handover-square;—nevertheless, I think Lord Pummicestone is quite wyse for not talkin—when one nose littel, it is the safest way to say nothink. However, I may be preggudiced in his fever, for his Lordship has promised to do the jalap wuth me, at an opp wich a frend of ours in Taffystalk-square is to give next munth—I thoft my duncing days was gun, but woo can resist Lord Pummicestone—that would be a task.

Pursenal felines, however, shud not halways way with us, but since Fulmer as taken this turn towards refurm, all the Minsters have been so servile to us, that we are quite churmed. Lord Hockland, though no grate things in the Guvment, is sich a haffable, warm arted cretur—sich an insinivating Pier—and Sir Jims Graham, so hunassuming, and at the same time such a fine man—how he turrified that Ogreman Mahoon—did you see how the pore fellur was put to a nonplush; and how he croed over O'Konnell like a kok—Grame kim out of that, splendid—there is'nt nothink but that to be sed about it; so did Lord Althrop with Mr. Plummet Wad—a very hominous name for a querrel—he that he cocht in his entrenchment at St. Jimses—Oh! it makes one prowd to see such Neros as these.

But nothink will do—everybody wich wares shurts and has munney in their pokets abuses this bill of Lord Drums; they say the bill may parse, but nobody can conster it; and they tells us that the honly claws they can understand in the bill is the Divil's claws, which has set his foot in it. To be sure, B., I must say, looking at things as they stand, cutting off sixty-two members at a blow is a serous hopperation—I hone it is very like a Revelation. Old Tim with the firelock, however, will shoe the effex; and (as I says to Lavy, whenever I have a fit of coffin) wen we are in our graves, what will it signify to hus?

I am for Reform—and I hone it. The King, they say, is for it—at wich I wunder; and the Queen is agin it—at wich I do not wunder. But Mr. Christopher Stubbs, our hopposite neighbore, is for it; and that has decided me—for he hadmires Lord Pummicestone, and Mister Cullcraft, and Mr. Singeing Long—so I think he has had some new lights lately. Singeing Long, after having stood twice at the Hold Bayley, and having been only returned once, is going to hoffer himself for the parish of Marrowbone, as what Fulmer calls the "knee plus ultra."

And now, B., let us snitch a minuet from Pollyticks, and Pollygots, and Polly Thomsons, for a moral inflexion or two; here is Hester come agin—Puck, as the Galls call it—the trees is begining to shoot, just as the bows is ceesing to unt; the sweet Buds (I ope you like Hornithology) are commencing their wobblings on the branches, and are hable to do wot is wise as well as pleasant—turn over a new leaf every day of their lives. Hadam and Heve did so before them, wich is a good President.

Wot a splundid site it is to behold the wurks of natur—the great Halps—Strumbolli—Hetna—the sparrowgrass piping out of the beds at Battersea—Burnells funnell under the Thames—and the Cosmorammy in Regent Street—but one has no time for these thinks at present. I ham absobbed with the grate question, and I culd not rest till I opened myself to yew—you will call me a rat—but I'll trust you, even though I begun our corryspundence; for we are safe from your Harrows, if we don't expose ourselves, and however I may cry out for refurm, enter noo; I shall never be hass enough to be a bartizan of it before the public.

Yours truly, dear B.,

Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

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XXIX.
MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

To John Bull.

Clappem Kommon, Hoct. 14, 1831.

Dear B.,—What will you Aunty-reformers say now. The parlyment is to be berogued, and your hopes are all blyted—now my expectorations are answerd—this is a nice two do—Fulmer, who is on your side, sings what he calls his High Ho Pea hens, but I cant agree with him, because Mr. Ram was a wriggler radical, and so am I, because I do not know no better, and theerfor I redes the Tims, and am quite agreable to the pinions of the Head-eater of that pepper.

I have bin to hear the debretts of the peerage—we had seets in the House of Lauds. What a man that Hairy Broom is—what a spich he made, and how thrusty he got—I askd what it was he was a drinking, and they told me a Bishop—he seemd as if he could have swallowed the See. He had the tumblers hin, ot and ot, like the stakes at his Club—but when he went down upon his Marybones, I was quite resolved into tiers, for feer he never coud git up agin.

Lord Grey is a fine cretur, but very grey indeed; I remember him as Lord Howweak many years ago. I saw Lord Monster too, and the Kernel which has the Kopper minds, who is called Lord Dinnerbell, because of his feedin a great Duck at his ouse in Whales.

I had a not from Lord Pummicestone, to tell me he was not gone to resign—he poots hup with a grate deal from Lord Grey and Broom, and even from Lord Drum, when he is well enough to go to the Cabinet—that was a purty scrap he got into about Ninnyveal, the Ditchman; and now I heer he is another two do about the Emperor of the Brass-heels—Lewey Flip does not like given up the Portingal ships, and as we does everything Tallyrong thinks right, why we must not grumble—this is Pummicestone's noose to me. If the King of Spain helps Don M'Gill they say he will suckseed in keeping his hone—the Spanish is all he wants to put him to rites. As for Rooshy and Prooshy, P. says he can't say much about them, only I see that Leaving has not left, and that Bowlow is halso here—but else foraying affairs seems below pa.

The Bishop of Lundun did not vote agin the Bile—I herd why—his first start in life was hoeing to a translation—he wants to try another—this is Greek to me, Mr. B.

I think the people are just shewing their spirt—Honly think of Lord Lunnunderry pooling out a pistole, and fritening such a manny men as he did. They are rong to set phire to houses, and as for the Hayfair at Knottingham Castle, it was absird hin the hextream, for to my mind the surest way of raising the New Castles, is burning down the old ones.

Our friend P. applyed to me to see and ask Fulmer to be made a pier this time; and Lavy would like to be a Vice-countess she says—a Barreness she would not listen to; but I did not like to say anything to F., because Lord P. said "He was wanted to carry the Bill through the House of Lords;"—these are P.'s hone words out of his leather to me, and I do think Fulmer was born and bred to better things than to do porter's work at his time of life—Hif they wants "the Bill carried through the House," why dont they imploy survunts of their hone, without trying to disgrace onest people witch is as good as themselves?

Pray what do they mean by sayin "whipster of a fraction," wenever they talk of Lord John Rustle? I think it is in allusion to some of his impotence in the Ouse of Kommons. Fulmer says that his Ludship can't bear ironing—he sims to me to have been mangled last Wensday—however, I'm all for Refurm, and Lord Grey, and Universal Suffering, and Vote by Ballad. And now the Bill has been rejected, I am ready for another hole Bill, and nothing but the Bill—and you mark my words, Mr. B., you will be hobliged to pool in your orns afore you have dun.

The King must be a good deal wurried, wot with wun thing and hanuther. If I was he, I never would let Minsters hoverrule me—I would have my own whey, and hif I could not master them piecably, I wood do as Fulmer says, "cut the Jordan knot at once, and resolve the Parlyment."

Say somethink in your pepper, that may show me you have got this.—Yours, still in frenchship,

D. L. Ramsbottom.

P.S.—I forgot to tell you my fourth gull, Addlehead, is going to be marred next week to Dr. Pillycooshy, of Peckham.

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[POLITICAL SONGS AND SQUIBS.]

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THEODORE HOOK.

FROM A DRAWING MADE BY MR. EDDIS
For the collection of Mr. Magrath, long the respected Secretary of the Athenæum Club.

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POLITICAL SONGS AND SQUIBS.

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[The following is from The Arcadian, a magazine which Hook edited and principally wrote in 1820, and which only reached two numbers.]