The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood / A New and Complete Edition

by Thomas Hood

FAITHLESS SALLY BROWN.

AN OLD BALLAD.

I.

OUNG BEN he was a nice young man,
A carpenter by trade;
And he fell in love with Sally Brown,
That was a lady’s maid.

II.

But as they fetch’d a walk one day,
They met a press-gang crew;
And Sally she did faint away,
While Ben he was brought to.

III.

The Boatswain swore with wicked words,
Enough to shock a saint,
That though she did seem in a fit,
’Twas nothing but a feint.

IV.

“Come, girl,” said he, “hold up your head,
He’ll be as good as me;
For when your swain is in our boat,
A boatswain he will be.”

V.

So when they’d made their game of her,
And taken off her elf,
She rous’d, and found she only was
A coming to herself.

VI.

“And is he gone, and is he gone?”
She cried, and wept outright:
“Then I will to the water side,
And see him out of sight.”

VII.

A waterman came up to her,—
“Now, young woman,” said he,
“If you weep on so, you will make
Eye-water in the sea.”

VIII.

“Alas! they’ve taken my beau Ben
To sail with old Benbow;”
And her woe began to run afresh,
As if she’d said, Gee woe!

IX.

Says he, “They’ve only taken him
To the Tender-ship, you see;”
“The Tender-ship,” cried Sally Brown,
“What a hard-ship that must be!

X.

“Oh! would I were a mermaid now,
For then I’d follow him;
But oh!—I’m not a fish-woman,
And so I cannot swim.

XI.

“Alas! I was not born beneath
The virgin and the scales,
So I must curse my cruel stars,
And walk about in Wales.”

XII.

Now Ben had sail’d to many a place
That’s underneath the world;
But in two years the ship came home
And all her sails were furl’d.

XIII.

But when he call’d on Sally Brown,
To see how she got on,
He found she’d got another Ben,
Whose Christian-name was John.

XIV.

“O Sally Brown, O Sally Brown,
How could you serve me so?
I’ve met with many a breeze before,
But never such a blow!”

XV.

Then reading on his ‘bacco box,
He heav’d a bitter sigh,
And then began to eye his pipe,
And then to pipe his eye.

XVI.

And then he tried to sing “All’s Well,”
But could not though he tried;
His head was turn’d and so he chew’d
His pigtail till he died.

XVII.

His death, which happen’d in his birth,
At forty-odd befell:
They went and told the sexton, and
The sexton toll’d the bell.

---

LOVE.

LOVE! what art thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Trumping earth’s kings and queens, and all its suits;
A player, masquerading many parts
In life’s odd carnival;—a boy that shoots,
From ladies’ eyes, such mortal woundy darts;
A gardener pulling heart’s-ease up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion—partly false—part real—
A marriageable maiden’s “beau ideal.”

O Love! what art thou, Love? a wicked thing,
Making green misses spoil their work at school;
A melancholy man, cross-gartering?
Grave ripe-fac’d wisdom made an April fool?
A youngster, tilting at a wedding ring?
A sinner, sitting on a cuttie stool?
A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel,
Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel?

O Love! what art thou, Love? one that is bad
With palpitations of the heart—like mine—
A poor bewilder’d maid, making so sad
A necklace of her garters—fell design!
A poet, gone unreasonably mad,
Ending his sonnets with a hempen line?
O Love!—but whither, now? forgive me, pray;
I’m not the first that Love hath led astray.

---

AS IT FELL UPON A DAY.

H! what’s befallen Bessy Brown,
She stands so squalling in the street;
She’s let her pitcher tumble down,
And all the water’s at her feet!

The little school-boys stood about,
And laughed to see her pumping, pumping;
Now with a curtsey to the spout,
And then upon her tiptoes jumping.

Long time she waited for her neighbours,
To have their turns:—but she must lose
The watery wages of her labours,—
Except a little in her shoes!

Without a voice to tell her tale,
And ugly transport in her face;
All like a jugless nightingale,
She thinks of her bereaved case.

At last she sobs—she cries—she screams!—
And pours her flood of sorrows out,
From eyes and mouth, in mingled streams,
Just like the lion on the spout.

For well poor Bessy knows her mother
Must lose her tea, for water’s lack,
That Sukey burns—and baby-brother
Must be dry-rubb’d with huck-a-back!

---

A FAIRY TALE.

N Hounslow heath—and close beside the road,
As western travellers may oft have seen,—
A little house some years ago there stood,
A minikin abode;
And built like Mr. Birkbeck’s, all of wood:
The walls of white, the window shutters green;—
Four wheels it had at North, South, East, and West.
(Tho’ now at rest)
On which it used to wander to and fro’,
Because its master ne’er maintain’d a rider,
Like those who trade in Paternoster Row;
But made his business travel for itself,
Till he had made his pelf,
And then retired—if one may call it so,
Of a roadsider.

Perchance, the very race and constant riot
Of stages, long and short, which thereby ran,
Made him more relish the repose and quiet
Of his now sedentary caravan;
Perchance, he lov’d the ground because ’twas common,
And so he might impale a strip of soil,
That furnish’d, by his toil,
Some dusty greens, for him and his old woman;—
And five tall hollyhocks, in dingy flower:
Howbeit, the thoroughfare did no ways spoil
His peace, unless, in some unlucky hour,
A stray horse came and gobbled up his bow’r!

But tired of always looking at the coaches,
The same to come,—when they had seen them one day!
And, used to brisker life, both man and wife
Began to suffer N U E’s approaches,
And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday:—
So, having had some quarters of school breeding,
They turn’d themselves, like other folks, to reading;
But setting out where others nigh have done,
And being ripen’d in the seventh stage,
The childhood of old age,
Began, as other children have begun,—
Not with the pastorals of Mr. Pope,
Or Bard of Hope,
Or Paley ethical, or learned Porson,—
But spelt, on Sabbaths, in St. Mark, or John,
And then relax’d themselves with Whittington,
Or Valentine and Orson—
But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con,
And being easily melted in their dotage,
Slobber’d,—and kept
Reading,—and wept
Over the white Cat, in their wooden cottage.

Thus reading on—the longer
They read, of course, their childish faith grew stronger
In Gnomes, and Hags, and Elves, and Giants grim,—
If talking Trees and Birds reveal’d to him,
She saw the flight of Fairyland’s fly-waggons,
And magic-fishes swim
In puddle ponds, and took old crows for dragons.—
Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons;
When, as it fell upon a summer’s day,
As the old man sat a feeding
On the old babe-reading,
Beside his open street-and-parlour door,
A hideous roar
Proclaim’d a drove of beasts was coming by the way.

Long-horn’d, and short, of many a different breed,
Tall, tawny brutes, from famous Lincoln-levels
Or Durham feed;
With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils
From neither side of Tweed,
Or Firth of Forth;
Looking half wild with joy to leave the North,—
With dusty hides, all mobbing on together,—
When,—whether from a fly’s malicious comment
Upon his tender flank, from which he shrank;
Or whether
Only in some enthusiastic moment,—
However, one brown monster, in a frisk,
Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk,
Kick’d out a passage thro’ the beastly rabble;
And after a pas seul,—or, if you will, a
Hornpipe before the Basket-maker’s villa,
Leapt o’er the tiny pale,—
Back’d his beef-steaks against the wooden gable,
And thrust his brawny bell-rope of a tail
Right o’er the page,
Wherein the sage
Just then was spelling some romantic fable.

The old man, half a scholar, half a dunce,
Could not peruse,—who could?—two tales at once;
And being huff’d
At what he knew was none of Riquet’s Tuft,
Bang’d-to the door,
But most unluckily enclosed a morsel
Of the intruding tail, and all the tassel:—
The monster gave a roar,
And bolting off with speed, increased by pain,
The little house became a coach once more,
And, like Macheath, “took to the road” again!

Just then, by fortune’s whimsical decree,
The ancient woman stooping with her crupper
Towards sweet home, or where sweet home should be,
Was getting up some household herbs for supper;
Thoughtful of Cinderella, in the tale,
And quaintly wondering if magic shifts
Could o’er a common pumpkin so prevail,
To turn it to a coach;—what pretty gifts
Might come of cabbages, and curly kale;
Meanwhile she never heard her old man’s wail,
Nor turn’d, till home had turn’d a corner, quite
Gone out of sight!

At last, conceive her, rising from the ground,
Weary of sitting on her russet clothing;
And looking round
Where rest was to be found,
There was no house—no villa there—no nothing!
No house!
The change was quite amazing;
It made her senses stagger for a minute,
The riddle’s explication seem’d to harden;
But soon her superannuated nous
Explained the horrid mystery;—and raising
Her hand to heaven, with the cabbage in it,
On which she meant to sup,—
“Well! this is Fairy Work! I’ll bet a farden,
Little Prince Silverwings has ketch’d me up,
And set me down in some one else’s garden!”

---

THE FALL OF THE DEER.
[FROM AN OLD MS.]

OW the loud Crye is up, and harke!
The barkye Trees give back the Bark;
The House Wife heares the merrie rout,
And runnes,—and lets the beere run out,
Leaving her Babes to weepe,—for why?
She likes to heare the Deer Dogges crye,
And see the wild Stag how he stretches
The naturall Buck-skin of his Breeches,
Running like one of Human kind
Dogged by fleet Bailiffes close behind—
As if he had not payde his Bill
For Ven’son, or was owing still
For his two Hornes, and soe did get
Over his Head and Ears in Debt;—
Wherefore he strives to paye his Waye
With his long Legges the while he maye:—
But he is chased, like Silver Dish,
As well as anye Hart may wish
Except that one whose Heart doth beat
So faste it hasteneth his feet;—
And runninge soe, he holdeth Death
Four Feet from him,—till his Breath
Faileth, and slacking Pace at last,
From runninge slow he standeth faste,
With hornie Bayonettes at baye,
To Baying Dogges around, and they
Pushing him sore, he pusheth sore,
And goreth them that seeke his Gore,
Whatever Dogge his Horne doth rive
Is dead—as sure as he’s alive!
Soe that courageous Hart doth fight
With Fate, and calleth up his might,
And standeth stout that he maye fall
Bravelye, and be avenged of all,
Nor like a craven yeeld his Breath
Under the Jawes of Dogges and Death!

---

TIM TURPIN,
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

I.

IM TURPIN he was gravel blind,
And ne’er had seen the skies:
For Nature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes.

II.

So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forced to do—
Look out for pupils, for he had
A vacancy for two.

III.

There’s some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small:
But Tim had specs within his eyes,
And could not see at all.

IV.

Now Tim he woo’d a servant maid,
And took her to his arms;
For he, like Pyramus, had cast
A wall-eye on her charms.

V.

By day she led him up and down
Where’er he wish’d to jog,
A happy wife, altho’ she led
The life of any dog.

VI.

But just when Tim had liv’d a month
In honey with his wife,
A surgeon ope’d his Milton eyes,
Like oysters, with a knife.

VII.

But when his eyes were open’d thus,
He wish’d them dark again:
For when he look’d upon his wife,
He saw her very plain.

VIII.

Her face was bad, her figure worse,
He couldn’t bear to eat:
For she was any thing but like
A Grace before his meat.

IX.

Now Tim he was a feeling man:
For when his sight was thick,
It made him feel for everything—
But that was with a stick.

X.

So with a cudgel in his hand—
It was not light or slim—
He knock’d at his wife’s head until
It open’d unto him.

XI.

And when the corpse was stiff and cold
He took his slaughter’d spouse,
And laid her in a heap with all
The ashes of her house.

XII.

But like a wicked murderer,
He liv’d in constant fear
From day to day, and so he cut
His throat from ear to ear.

XIII.

The neighbours fetch’d a doctor in:
Said he, this wound I dread
Can hardly be sew’d up—his life
Is hanging on a thread.

XIV.

But when another week was gone,
He gave him stronger hope—
Instead of hanging on a thread,
Of hanging on a rope.

XV.

Ah! when he hid his bloody work,
In ashes round about,
How little he supposed the truth
Would soon be sifted out.

XVI.

But when the parish dustman came,
His rubbish to withdraw,
He found more dust within the heap,
Than he contracted for!

XVII.

A dozen men to try the fact,
Were sworn that very day;
But tho’ they all were jurors, yet
No conjurors were they.

XVIII.

Said Tim unto those jurymen,
You need not waste your breath,
For I confess myself at once,
The author of her death.

XIX.

And oh! when I reflect upon
The blood that I have spilt,
Just like a button is my soul,
Inscrib’d with double guilt!

XX.

Then turning round his head again,
He saw before his eyes,
A great judge, and a little judge,
The judges of a-size!

XXI.

The great judge took his judgment cap,
And put it on his head,
And sentenc’d Tim by law to hang,
Till he was three times dead.

XXII.

So he was tried, and he was hung
(Fit punishment for such)
On Horsham-drop, and none can say
It was a drop too much.

---

THE MONKEY-MARTYR.
A FABLE.

“God help thee, said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will: so I turned about the cage to get to the door.”—Sterne.

’Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers
Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers;
But there are many shallow politicians,
Who take their bias from bewilder’d journals,—
Turn state physicians,
And make themselves fools’-caps of the diurnals.
One of this kind, not human, but a monkey,
Had read himself at last to this sour creed—
That he was nothing but Oppression’s flunkey,
And man a tyrant over all his breed.
He could not read
Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers,
But he applied their wrongs to his own seed,
And nourish’d thoughts that threw him into fevers;
His very dreams were full of martial beavers,
And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious,
To sever chains vexatious:
In fact, he thought that all his injur’d line
Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop ’em
Till they had cleared a road to Freedom’s shrine,—
Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop ’em.

Full of this rancour,
Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes,
It came into his brains
To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor;
Where certain solemn sages of the nation
Were at that moment in deliberation
How to relieve the wide world of its chains,
Pluck despots down,
And thereby crown
Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation.
Pug heard the speeches with great approbation,
And gaz’d with pride upon the Liberators;
To see mere coal-heavers
Such perfect Bolivars—
Waiters of inns sublim’d to innovators,
And slaters dignified as legislators—
Small publicans demanding (such their high sense
Of liberty) an universal license—
And pattern-makers easing Freedom’s clogs—
The whole thing seem’d
So fine, he deem’d
The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle,
Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand,
To the left hand,
Conning some portions of the previous twaddle,
And striding with a step that seem’d design’d
To represent the mighty March of Mind,
Instead of that slow waddle
Of thought, to which our ancestors inclin’d—
No wonder, then, that he should quickly find
He stood in front of that intrusive pile,
Where Cross keeps many a kind
Of bird confin’d,
And free-born animal, in durance vile—
A thought that stirr’d up all the monkey-bile!
The window stood ajar—
It was not far,
Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb—
The hour was verging on the supper-time,
And many a growl was sent through many a bar.
Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar,
And soon crept in,
Unnotic’d in the din
Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring
With all the harshest notes that they could bring;
For like the Jews,
Wild beasts refuse,
In midst of their captivity—to sing.

Lord! how it made him chafe,
Full of his new emancipating zeal,
To look around upon this brute-bastille,
And see the king of creatures in—a safe!
The desert’s denizen in one small den,
Swallowing slavery’s most bitter pills—
A bear in bars unbearable. And then
The fretful porcupine, with all its quills
Imprison’d in a pen!
A tiger limited to four feet ten;
And, still worse lot,
A leopard to one spot!
An elephant enlarg’d,
But not discharg’d;
(It was before the elephant was shot;)
A doleful wanderoo, that wander’d not;
An ounce much disproportion’d to his pound.
Pug’s wrath wax’d hot
To gaze upon these captive creature’s round;
Whose claws—all scratching—gave him full assurance
They found their durance vile of vile endurance.

He went above—a solitary mounter
Up gloomy stairs—and saw a pensive group
Of hapless fowls—
Cranes, vultures, owls,
In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter,
Where feather’d prisoners were doom’d to droop:
Here sat an eagle, forc’d to make a stoop,
Not from the skies, but his impending roof;
And there aloof,
A pining ostrich, moping in a coop;
With other samples of the bird creation,
All cag’d against their powers and their wills,
And cramp’d in such a space, the longest bills
Were plainly bills of least accommodation.
In truth, it was a very ugly scene
To fall to any liberator’s share,
To see those winged fowls, that once had been
Free as the wind, no freer than fixed air.

His temper little mended,
Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descended
Unto the lion and the elephant,
His bosom in a pant
To see all nature’s Free List thus suspended,
And beasts depriv’d of what she had intended.
They could not even prey
In their own way;
A hardship always reckon’d quite prodigious.
Thus he revolv’d—
And soon resolv’d
To give them freedom, civil and religious.

That night there was no country cousins, raw
From Wales, to view the lion and his kin;
The keeper’s eyes were fix’d upon a saw;
The saw was fix’d upon a bullock’s shin:
Meanwhile with stealthy paw,
Pug hastened to withdraw
The bolt that kept the king of brutes within.
Now, monarch of the forest! thou shalt win
Precious enfranchisement—thy bolts are undone;
Thou art no longer a degraded creature,
But loose to roam with liberty and nature;
And free of all the jungles about London—
All Hampstead’s heathy desert lies before thee!
Methinks I see thee bound from Cross’s ark,
Full of the native instinct that comes o’er thee,
And turn a ranger
Of Hounslow Forest, and the Regent’s Park—
Thin Rhodes’s cows—the mail-coach steeds endanger,
And gobble parish watchmen after dark:—
Methinks I see thee, with the early lark,
Stealing to Merlin’s cave—(thy cave.)—Alas,
That such bright visions should not come to pass!
Alas, for freedom, and for freedom’s hero!
Alas, for liberty of life and limb!
For Pug had only half unbolted Nero,
When Nero bolted him!

---

CRANIOLOGY.

’Tis strange how like a very dunce,
Man—with his bumps upon his sconce,
Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he
Has had, till lately, of Phrenology—
A science that by simple dint of
Head-combing he should find a hint of,
When scratching o’er those little pole-hills,
The faculties throw up like mole-hills;
A science that, in very spite
Of all his teeth, ne’er came to light,
For though he knew his skull had grinders,
Still there turn’d up no organ finders,
Still sages wrote, and ages fled,
And no man’s head came in his head—
Not even the pate of Erra Pater,
Knew aught about its pia mater.
At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him—
I don’t know but it might be Spurzheim—
Tho’ native of a dull and slow land,
And makes partition of our Poll-land,
At our Acquisitiveness guesses,
And all those necessary nesses

VIOLINIST.

A PLASTER CAST.

Indicative of human habits,
All burrowing in the head like rabbits.
Thus Veneration, he made known,
Had got a lodging at the Crown:
And Music (see Deville’s example),
A set of chambers in the Temple:
That Language taught the tongues close by,
And took in pupils thro’ the eye,
Close by his neighbour Computation,
Who taught the eyebrows numeration.

The science thus—to speak in fit
Terms—having struggled from its nit,
Was seiz’d on by a swarm of Scotchmen,
Those scientifical hotch-potch men,
Who have at least a penny dip
And wallop in all doctorship,
Just as in making broth they smatter
By bobbing twenty things in water:
These men, I say, make quick appliance
And close, to phrenologic science;
For of all learned themes whatever,
That schools and colleges deliver,
There’s none they love so near the bodles,
As analyzing their own noddles;
Thus in a trice each northern blockhead
Had got his fingers in his shock head,
And of his bumps was babbling yet worse
Than poor Miss Capulet’s dry wet-nurse;
Till having been sufficient rangers
Of their own heads, they took to strangers’,
And found in Presbyterians’ polls
The things they hated in their souls;
For Presbyterians hear with passion
Of organs join’d with veneration.
No kind there was of human pumpkin,
But at its bumps it had a bumpkin;
Down to the very lowest gullion,
And oiliest scull of oily scullion.
No great man died but this they did do,
They begg’d his cranium of his widow;
No murderer died by law disaster,
But they took off his sconce in plaster;
For thereon they could show depending,
“The head and front of his offending,”
How that his philanthropic bump
Was master’d by a baser lump;
For every bump (these wags insist)
Has its direct antagonist,
Each striving stoutly to prevail,
Like horses knotted tail to tail;
And many a stiff and sturdy battle
Occurs between these adverse cattle,
The secret cause, beyond all question,
Of aches ascribed to indigestion,—
Whereas ’tis but two knobby rivals
Tugging together like sheer devils,
Till one gets mastery good or sinister,
And comes in like a new prime-minister.

Each bias in some master node is:—
What takes M‘Adam where a road is,
To hammer little pebbles less?
His organ of destructiveness:
What makes great Joseph so encumber
Debate? a lumping lump of Number:
Or Malthus rail at babies so?
The smallness of his Philopro—
What severs man and wife? a simple
Defect of the Adhesive pimple:
Or makes weak women go astray?
Their bumps are more in fault than they.

These facts being found and set in order
By grave M.D.’s beyond the Border,
To make them for some months eternal,
Were enter’d monthly in a journal,
That many a northern sage still writes in,
And throws his little Northern Lights in,
And proves and proves about the phrenos,
A great deal more than I or he knows.
How Music suffers, par exemple,
By wearing tight hats round the temple;
What ills great boxers have to fear
From blisters put behind the ear:
And how a porter’s Veneration
Is hurt by porter’s occupation:
Whether shillelaghs in reality
May deaden Individuality:
Or tongs and poker be creative
Of alterations in the Amative:
If falls from scaffolds make us less
Inclin’d to all Constructiveness:
With more such matters, all applying
To heads—and therefore headifying.

---

A SAILOR’S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

HERE’S some is born with their straight legs by natur—
And some is born with bow-legs from the first—
And some that should have grow’d a good deal straighter,
But they were badly nurs’d,
And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs
Astride of casks and kegs:
I’ve got myself a sort of bow to larboard,
And starboard,
And this is what it was that warp’d my legs.—

’Twas all along of Poll, as I may say,
That foul’d my cable when I ought to slip;
But on the tenth of May,
When I gets under weigh,
Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship,
I sees the mail
Get under sail,
The only one there was to make the trip.
Well—I gives chase,
But as she run
Two knots to one,
There warn’t no use in keeping on the race!
Well—casting round about, what next to try on,
And how to spin,
I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion,
And bears away to leeward for the inn,
Beats round the gable,
And fetches up before the coach-horse stable:
Well—there they stand, four kickers in a row,
And so
I just makes free to cut a brown ‘un’s cable.
But riding isn’t in a seaman’s natur—
So I whips out a toughish end of yarn,
And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter
To splice me, heel to heel,
Under the she-mare’s keel,
And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!

My eyes! how she did pitch!
And wouldn’t keep her own to go in no line,
Tho’ I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line
But always making leeway to the ditch,
And yaw’d her head about all sorts of ways;
The devil sink the craft!
And wasn’t she trimendus slack in stays!
We couldn’t, no how, keep the inn abaft!
Well—I suppose
We hadn’t run a knot—or much beyond—
(What will you have on it?)—but off she goes,
Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond!
There I am!—all a-back!
So I looks forward for her bridle-gears,
To heave her head round on the t’other track;
But when I starts,
The leather parts,
And goes away right over by the ears!

What could a fellow do,
Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes,
But trim myself upright for bringing-to,
And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows,
In rig all snug and clever,
Just while his craft was taking in her water?
I didn’t like my burth tho’, howsomdever,
Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter,—
Says I—I wish this job was rayther shorter!
The chase had gain’d a mile
A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking:
Now, all the while
Her body didn’t take of course to shrinking.
Says I, she’s letting out her reefs, I’m thinking,—
And so she swell’d, and swell’d,
And yet the tackle held,
’Till both my legs began to bend like winkin.
My eyes! but she took in enough to founder!
And there’s my timbers straining every bit,
Ready to split,
And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!

Well, there—off Hartford Ness,
We lay both lash’d and water-logg’d together,
And can’t contrive a signal of distress;
Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather,
Tho’ sick of riding out—and nothing less;
When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn:—
Hollo! says I, come underneath her quarter!—
And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn.
So I gets off, and lands upon the road,
And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn,
A-standing by the water.
If I get on another, I’ll be blowed!—
And that’s the way, you see, my legs got bow’d!

---

THE STAG-EYED LADY.
A MOORISH TALE.

Scheherazade immediately began the following story.

LI BEN ALI (did you never read
His wond’rous acts that chronicles relate,—
How there was one in pity might exceed
The sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate
Upon the throne of greatness—great indeed,
For those that he had under him were great—
The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails,
Was a Bashaw—Bashaws have horses’ tails.

Ali was cruel—a most cruel one!
’Tis rumour’d he had strangled his own mother—
Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done,
’Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother
And sister too—but happily that none
Did live within harm’s length of one another,
Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze
To endless night, and shorten’d the Moon’s days.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man’s wit,
And makes a bad man—absolutely bad,
Made Ali wicked—to a fault:—’tis fit
Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had
No curb upon his will—no not a bit—
Wherefore he did not reign well—and full glad
His slaves had been to hang him—but they falter’d,
And let him live unhang’d—and still unalter’d,

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,
Wherein an Attic owl might roost—a trail
Of bristly hair—that, honour’d and unshear’d,
Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail:
Being a sign of age—some gray appear’d,
Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale;
But yet not so poetic as when Time
Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex
His royal bosom that he had no son,
No living child of the more noble sex,
To stand in his Morocco shoes—not one
To make a negro-pollard—or tread necks
When he was gone—doom’d, when his days were done,
To leave the very city of his fame
Without an Ali to keep up his name.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love,
Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear
So call’d, because her lustrous eyes, above
All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;
Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,
And drumm’d with proxy-prayers Mohammed’s ear,
Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,
Or else he was not praying to his Profit.

Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair
Will grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:
Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir,
Boy’d up his hopes, and even chose a name
Of mighty hero that his child should bear;
He made so certain ere his chicken came:
But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,
Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow’s sun
A little daughter to this world of sins;—
Miss-fortunes never come alone—so one
Brought on another, like a pair of twins:
Twins! female twins!—it was enough to stun
Their little wits and scare them from their skins
To hear their father stamp, and curse and swear,
Pulling his beard because he had no heir.

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down
This his paternal rage, and thus addrest—
“O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,
And box the compass of the royal chest?
Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own
I love to gaze on!—Pr’ythee, thou hadst best
Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin
Your beard, you’ll want a wig upon your chin!”

But not her words, nor e’en her tears, could slack
The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew:
He called his slaves to bring an ample sack
Wherein a woman might be poked—a few
Dark grimly men felt pity and look’d black
At this sad order; but their slaveships knew
When any dared demur, his sword so bending
Cut off the “head and front of their offending.”

For Ali had a sword, much like himself,
A crooked blade, guilty of human gore—
The trophies it had lopp’d from many an elf
Were stuck at his head-quarters by the score—
Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf,
But jested with it, and his wit cut sore;
So that (as they of Public Houses speak)
He often did his dozen butts a week.

Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears,
Came with the sack the lady to enclose;
In vain from her stag-eyes “the big round tears
Coursed one another down her innocent nose;”
In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears;
Though there were some felt willing to oppose,
Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute,
Though ’twas a piteous case, they put her in it

And when the sack was tied, some two or three
Of these black undertakers slowly brought her
To a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for she
Was doom’d to have a winding sheet of water.
Then farewell, earth—farewell to the green tree—
Farewell, the sun—the moon—each little daughter!
She’s shot from off the shoulders of a black,
Like a bag of Wall’s-End from a coalman’s back.

The waters oped, and the wide sack full-fill’d
All that the waters oped, as down it fell;
Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill’d
A ring above her, like a water-knell;
A moment more, and all its face was still’d,
And not a guilty heave was left to tell
That underneath its calm and blue transparence
A dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence.

But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore,
The moon in black eclipse deceased that night,
Like Desdemona smother’d by the Moor—
The lady’s natal star with pale affright
Fainted and fell—and what were stars before,
Turn’d comets as the tale was brought to light,
And all look’d downward on the fatal wave,
And made their own reflections on her grave.

Next night, a head—a little lady head,
Push’d through the waters a most glassy face,
With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread,
Comb’d by ‘live ivory, to show the space
Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed
A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace
Over their sleepy lids—and so she rais’d
Her aqualine nose above the stream, and gazed.

She oped her lips—lips of a gentle blush,
So pale it seem’d near drowned to a white,—
She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush
Of music bubbling through the surface light;
The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush
To listen to the air—and through the night
There come these words of a most plaintive ditty,
Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity:

THE WATER PERI’S SONG.

Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter,
The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave;
The Mussul-man coming to fish in this water,
Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.

This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier,
This greyish bath cloak is her funeral pall;
And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear
Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!

Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,
My mother’s own daughter—the last of her race—
She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin,
And sleeps in the water that washes her face.

---

FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

I.

EN BATTLE was a soldier bold,
And used to war’s alarms:
But a cannon-ball took off his legs,
So he laid down his arms!

II.

Now as they bore him off the field,
Said he, “Let others shoot,
For here I leave my second leg,
And the Forty-second Foot!”

III.

The army-surgeons made him limbs:
Said he,—“They’re only pegs:
But there’s as wooden members quite,
As represent my legs!”

IV.

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid,
Her name was Nelly Gray;
So he went to pay her his devours,
When he’d devoured his pay!

V.

But when he called on Nelly Gray,
She made him quite a scoff;
And when she saw his wooden legs,
Began to take them off!

VI.

“O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray!
Is this your love so warm?
The love that loves a scarlet coat,
Should be more uniform!”

VII.

Said she, “I loved a soldier once,
For he was blythe and brave;
But I will never have a man
With both legs in the grave!

VIII.

“Before you had those timber toes,
Your love I did allow,
But then, you know, you stand upon
Another footing now!”

IX.

“O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray!
For all your jeering speeches,
At duty’s call, I left my legs
In Badajos’s breaches!”

X.

“Why, then,” said she, “you’ve lost the feet
Of legs in war’s alarms,
And now you cannot wear your shoes
Upon your feats of arms!”

XI.

“O, false and fickle Nelly Gray!
I know why you refuse:
Though I’ve no feet—some other man
Is standing in my shoes!

XII.

“I wish I ne’er had seen your face;
But, now, a long farewell!
For you will be my death;—alas!
You will not be my Nell!”

XIII.

Now when he went from Nelly Gray,
His heart so heavy got—
And life was such a burthen grown,
It made him take a knot!

XIV.

So round his melancholy neck,
A rope he did entwine,
And, for his second time in life,
Enlisted in the Line!

XV.

One end he tied around a beam,
And then removed his pegs,
And, as his legs were off,—of course,
He soon was off his legs!

XVI.

And there he hung, till he was dead
As any nail in town,—
For though distress had cut him up,
It could not cut him down!

XVII.

A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died—
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads,
With a stake in his inside!

---

THE SEA-SPELL.

“Cauld, cauld, he lies beneath the deep.”
Old Scotch Ballad.

I.

T was a jolly mariner!
The tallest man of three,—
He loosed his sail against the wind,
And turned his boat to sea:
The ink-black sky told every eye,
A storm was soon to be!

II.

But still that jolly mariner
Took in no reef at all,
For, in his pouch, confidingly,
He wore a baby’s caul;
A thing, as gossip-nurses know,
That always brings a squall!

III.

His hat was new, or, newly glazed,
Shone brightly in the sun;
His jacket, like a mariner’s,
True blue as e’er was spun;
His ample trowsers, like Saint Paul,
Bore forty stripes save one.

IV.

And now the fretting foaming tide
He steer’d away to cross;
The bounding pinnace play’d a game
Of dreary pitch and toss;
A game that, on the good dry land,
Is apt to bring a loss!

V.

Good Heaven befriend that little boat,
And guide her on her way!
A boat, they say, has canvas wings,
But cannot fly away!
Though, like a merry singing-bird,
She sits upon the spray!

VI.

Still east by south the little boat,
With tawny sail, kept beating:
Now out of sight, between two waves,
Now o’er th’ horizon fleeting:
Like greedy swine that feed on mast,—
The waves her mast seem’d eating!

VII.

The sullen sky grew black above,
The wave as black beneath;
Each roaring billow show’d full soon
A white and foamy wreath;
Like angry dogs that snarl at first,
And then display their teeth.

VIII.

The boatman looked against the wind,
The mast began to creak,
The wave, per saltum, came and dried,
In salt, upon his cheek!
The pointed wave against him rear’d,
As if it own’d a pique!

IX.

Nor rushing wind, nor gushing wave,
That boatman could alarm,
But still he stood away to sea,
And trusted in his charm;
He thought by purchase he was safe,
And arm’d against all harm!

X.

Now thick and fast and far aslant,
The stormy rain came pouring,
He heard, upon the sandy bank,
The distant breakers roaring,—
A groaning intermitting sound,
Like Gog and Magog snoring!

XI.

The sea-fowl shriek’d around the mast,
Ahead the grampus tumbled,
And far off, from a copper cloud,
The hollow thunder rumbled;
It would have quail’d another heart,
But his was never humbled.

XII.

For why? he had that infant’s caul;
And wherefore should he dread?
Alas! alas! he little thought,
Before the ebb-tide sped,—
That like that infant, he should die,
And with a watery head!

XIII.

The rushing brine flow’d in apace;
His boat had ne’er a deck;
Fate seem’d to call him on, and he
Attended to her beck;
And so he went, still trusting on,
Though reckless—to his wreck!

XIV.

For as he left his helm, to heave
The ballast-bags a-weather,
Three monstrous seas came roaring on,
Like lions leagued together.
The two first waves the little boat
Swam over like a feather.—

XV.

The two first waves were past and gone,
And sinking in her wake;
The hugest still came leaping on,
And hissing like a snake;
Now helm a-lee! for through the midst,
The monster he must take!

XVI.

Ah, me! it was a dreary mount!
Its base as black as night,
Its top of pale and livid green,
Its crest of awful white,
Like Neptune with a leprosy,—
And so it rear’d upright!

XVII.

With quaking sails, the little boat
Climb’d up the foaming heap;
With quaking sails it paused awhile;
At balance on the steep;
Then rushing down the nether slope,
Plunged with a dizzy sweep!

XVIII.

Look, how a horse, made mad with fear,
Disdains his careful guide;
So now the headlong headstrong boat,
Unmanaged, turns aside,
And straight presents her reeling flank
Against the swelling tide!

XIX.

The gusty wind assaults the sail;
Her ballast lies a-lee!
The sheet’s to windward taught and stiff!
Oh! the Lively—where is she?
Her capsiz’d keel is in the foam,
Her pennon’s in the sea!

XX.

The wild gull, sailing overhead,
Three times beheld emerge
The head of that bold mariner,
And then she screamed his dirge!
For he had sunk within his grave,
Lapp’d in a shroud of surge!

XXI.

The ensuing wave, with horrid foam,
Rush’d o’er and cover’d all,—
The jolly boatman’s drowning scream
Was smother’d by the squall,—
Heaven never heard his cry, nor did
The ocean heed his caul.

---

THE DEMON-SHIP.

’Twas off the Wash—the sun went down—the sea looked black and grim,
For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim;
Titanic shades! enormous gloom!—as if the solid night
Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light!
It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye,
With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!

Down went my helm—close reef’d—the tack held freely in my hand—
With ballast snug—I put about, and scudded for the land.
Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee—my little boat flew fast,
But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast.
Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail!
What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail!
What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind!
Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind.
Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase,
But where it sank another rose and gallop’d in its place;
As black as night—they turned to white, and cast against the cloud
A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn’d a sailor’s shroud:—
Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run!
Behold yon fatal billow rise—ten billows heap’d in one!
With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast,
As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last!
Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave;
It seem’d as though some cloud had turned its hugeness to a wave!
Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face—
I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base!
I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine!
Another pulse—and down it rush’d—an avalanche of brine!
Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home;
The waters closed—and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d below the
foam!
Beyond that rush I have no hint of any after deed—
For I was tossing on the waste, as senseless as a weed.
* * * * * *
“Where am I? in the breathing world, or in the world of death?”
With sharp and sudden pang I drew another birth of breath;
My eyes drank in a doubtful light, my ears a doubtful sound—
And was that ship a real ship whose tackle seem’d around?
A moon, as if the earthly moor, was shining up aloft;
But were those beams the very beams that I had seen so oft?
A face, that mock’d the human face, before me watch’d alone;
But were those eyes the eyes of man that look’d against my own?

Oh! never may the moon again disclose me such a sight
As met my gaze, when first I look’d, on that accursed night!
I’ve seen a thousand horrid shapes begot of fierce extremes
Of fever; and most frightful things have haunted in my dreams—
Hyenas—cats—blood-loving bats and apes with hateful stare—
Pernicious snakes, and shaggy bulls—the lion, and she-bear—
Strong enemies, with Judas looks, of treachery and spite—
Detested features, hardly dimm’d and banish’d by the light!
Pale-sheeted ghosts, with gory locks, upstarting from their tombs—
All phantasies and images that flit in midnight glooms—
Hags, goblins, demons, lemures, have made me all aghast,—
But nothing like that Grimly One who stood beside the mast!

His cheek was black—his brow was black—his eyes and hair as dark:
His hand was black, and where it touch’d, it left a sable mark;
His throat was black, his vest the same, and when I look’d beneath,
His breast was black—all, all was black, except his grinning teeth.
His sooty crew were like in hue, as black as Afric slaves!
Oh, horror! e’en the ship was black that plough’d the inky waves!

“Alas!” I cried, “for love of truth and blessed mercy’s sake,
Where am I? in what dreadful ship? upon what dreadful lake?
What shape is that, so very grim, and black as any coal?
It is Mahound, the Evil One, and he has gained my soul!
Oh, mother dear! my tender nurse! dear meadows that beguil’d
My happy days, when I was yet a little sinless child,—
My mother dear—my native fields, I never more shall see:
I’m sailing in the Devil’s Ship, upon the Devil’s Sea!”

Loud laugh’d that Sable Mariner, and loudly in return
His sooty crew sent forth a laugh that rang from stem to stern—
A dozen pair of grimly cheeks were crumpled on the nonce—
As many sets of grinning teeth came shining out at once:
A dozen gloomy shapes at once enjoy’d the merry fit,
With shriek and yell, and oaths as well, like Demons of the Pit.
They crow’d their fill, and then the Chief made answer for the whole;—
“Our skins,” said he, “are black ye see, because we carry coal;
You’ll find your mother sure enough, and see your native fields—
For this here ship has pick’d you up—the Mary Ann of Shields!”

---

MARY’S GHOST.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

I.

’Twas in the middle of the night,
To sleep young William tried,—
When Mary’s ghost came stealing in,
And stood at his bed-side.

II.

O William dear! O William dear!
My rest eternal ceases;
Alas! my everlasting peace
Is broken into pieces.

III.

I thought the last of all my cares
Would end with my last minute;
But tho’ I went to my long home,
I didn’t stay long in it.

IV.

The body-snatchers they have come,
And made a snatch at me;
It’s very hard them kind of men
Won’t let a body be!

V.

You thought that I was buried deep,
Quite decent like and chary,
But from her grave in Mary-bone
They’ve come and bon’d your Mary.

VI.

The arm that used to take your arm
Is took to Dr. Vyse;
And both my legs are gone to walk
The hospital at Guy’s.

VII.

I vow’d that you should have my hand,
But fate gives us denial;
You’ll find it there, at Doctor Bell’s,
In spirits and a phial.

VIII.

As for my feet, the little feet
You used to call so pretty,
There’s one, I know, in Bedford Row,
The t’other’s in the city.

IX.

I can’t tell where my head is gone,
But Dr. Carpuc can:
As for my trunk, it’s all pack’d up
To go by Pickford’s van.

X.

I wish you’d go to Mr. P.
And save me such a ride;
I don’t half like the outside place,
They’ve took for my inside.

XI.

The cock it crows—I must be gone!
My William, we must part!
But I’ll be your’s in death, altho’
Sir Astley has my heart.

XII.

Don’t go to weep upon my grave,
And think that there I be;
They haven’t left an atom there
Of my anatomie.

---

ODE TO MR. BRUNEL.

“Well said, old Mole! canst work i’ the dark so fast? a worthy pioneer!”
Hamlet.

ELL!—--Monsieur Brunel,
How prospers now thy mighty undertaking,
To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends
Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,—
Never be stopping,
But poking, groping, in the dark keep making
An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons,
For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons,
To cross the water in inverse proportion,
Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge,
To keep down all extortion,
And without sculls to diddle London Bridge!
In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry,
Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow,
Hopeful at last from Middlesex to Surrey,
To give us the “View hollow.”
In short it was thy aim, right north and south,
To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth;
Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when
Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof,
Came, like “a tide in the affairs of men;”
And with a mighty stormy kind of roar,
Reproachful of thy wrong,
Burst out in that old song
Of Incledon’s, beginning “Cease, rude Bore”—
Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears,
Just when one seems the most successful,
To find one’s self o’er head and ears
In difficulties most distressful!
Other great speculations have been nursed,
Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf;
But thy concern was at the worst,
When it began to liquidate itself!
But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden,
And languishes thy Tunnel,—so to paint,
Under a slow incurable complaint,
Bed-ridden!

Why, when thus Thames—bed-bother’d—why repine!
Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine!
Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid;
And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft;
Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid
Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft!
I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do;
Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two,
The wine does better than such water trades:
Stick up a sign—the sign of the Bore’s Head;
I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead,
And make thy cellar subterrane,—Thy Shades?

---

ANACREONTIC.
FOR THE NEW YEAR.

OME, fill up the Bowl, for if ever the glass
Found a proper excuse or fit season,
For toasts to be honour’d, or pledges to pass,
Sure, this hour brings an exquisite reason:
For hark! the last chime of the dial has ceased,
And Old Time, who his leisure to cozen,
Had finish’d the Months, like the flasks at a feast,
Is preparing to tap a fresh dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

Then fill, all ye Happy and Free, unto whom
The past Year has been pleasant and sunny;
Its months each as sweet as if made of the bloom
Of the thyme whence the bee gathers honey—
Days usher’d by dew-drops, instead of the tears,
May be wrung from some wretcheder cousin—
Then fill, and with gratitude join in the cheers
That triumphantly hail a fresh dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

And ye, who have met with Adversity’s blast,
And been bow’d to the earth by its fury;

THE BOTTLE IMP.

“THE IDES OF MARCH ARE COME!”

O whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass’d,
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury,—
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen!
Hip! Hip! and Hurrah!

---

A WATERLOO BALLAD.

O Waterloo, with sad ado,
And many a sigh and groan,
Amongst the dead, came Patty Head,
To look for Peter Stone.

“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If I shall find him here?
I’m come to weep upon his corse,
My Ninety-Second dear!

“Into our town a sergeant came
With ribands all so fine,
A-flaunting in his cap—alas,
His bow enlisted mine!

“They taught him how to turn his toes,
And stand as stiff as starch;
I thought that it was love and May,
But it was love and March!

“A sorry March indeed to leave
The friends he might have kep’,—
No March of Intellect it was,
But quite a foolish step.

“O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabout he lies?
I want a corpse with reddish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes.”

Her sorrow on the sentinel
Appear’d to deeply strike:—
“Walk in,” he said, “among the dead,
And pick out which you like.”

And soon she pick’d out Peter Stone,
Half turn’d into a corse;
A cannon was his bolster, and
His mattrass was a horse.

“O Peter Stone, O Peter Stone,
Lord, here has been a skrimmage!
What have they done to your poor breast,
That used to hold my image?”

“O Patty Head, O Patty Head,
You’re come to my last kissing,
Before I’m set in the Gazette
As wounded, dead, and missing!

“Alas! a splinter of a shell
Right in my stomach sticks;
French mortars don’t agree so well
With stomachs as French bricks.

“This very night a merry dance
At Brussels was to be;—
Instead of opening a ball,
A ball has opened me.

“Its billet every bullet has,
And well it does fulfil it;—
I wish mine hadn’t come so straight,
But been a ‘crooked billet.’

“And then there came a cuirassier
And cut me on the chest;—
He had no pity in his heart,
For he had steel’d his breast.

“Next thing a lancer, with his lance,
Began to thrust away;
I call’d for quarter, but, alas!
It was not Quarter-day.

“He ran his spear right through my arm,
Just here above the joint:—
O Patty dear, it was no joke,
Although it had a point.

“With loss of blood I fainted off,
As dead as women do—
But soon by charging over me,
The Coldstream brought me to.

With kicks and cuts, and batts and blows,
I throb and ache all over;
I’m quite convinc’d the field of Mars
Is not a field of clover!

“O why did I a soldier turn
For any royal Guelph?
I might have been a butcher, and
In business for myself!

“O why did I the bounty take
(And here he gasp’d for breath)
My shillingsworth of ‘list is nail’d
Upon the door of death!

“Without a coffin I shall lie
And sleep my sleep eternal:
Not ev’n a shell—my only chance
Of being made a Kernel!

“O Patty dear, our wedding bells
Will never ring at Chester!
Here I must lie in Honour’s bed,
That isn’t worth a tester!

“Farewell, my regimental mates,
With whom I used to dress!
My corps is changed, and I am now
In quite another mess.

“Farewell, my Patty dear, I have
No dying consolations,
Except, when I am dead, you’ll go
And see th’ Illuminations.”

---

COCKLE v. CACKLE.

HOSE who much read advertisements and bills
Must have seen puffs of Cockle’s Pills,
Call’d Anti-bilious—
Which some Physicians sneer at, supercilious,
But which we are assured, if timely taken,
May save your liver and bacon;
Whether or not they really give one ease,
I, who have never tried,
Will not decide;
But no two things in union go like these—
Viz.—Quacks and Pills—save Ducks and Pease.
Now Mrs. W. was getting sallow,
Her lilies not of the white kind, but yellow,
And friends portended was preparing for
A human Pâté Périgord;
She was, indeed, so very far from well,
Her Son, in filial fear, procured a box
Of those said pellets to resist Bile’s shocks,
And—tho’ upon the ear it strangely knocks—
To save her by a Cockle from a shell!
But Mrs. W., just like Macbeth,
Who very vehemently bids us “throw
Bark to the Bow-wows,” hated physic so,
It seem’d to share “the bitterness of Death:”
Rhubarb—Magnesia—Jalap, and the kind—
Senna—Steel—Assa-fœtida, and Squills—
Powder or Draught—but least her throat inclined
To give a course to Boluses or Pills;
No—not to save her life, in lung or lobe,
For all her lights’ or all her liver’s sake,
Would her convulsive thorax undertake,
Only one little uncelestial globe!
’Tis not to wonder at, in such a case,
If she put by the pill-box in a place
For linen rather than for drugs intended—
Yet for the credit of the pills let’s say
After they thus were stow’d away,
Some of the linen mended;
But Mrs. W. by disease’s dint.
Kept getting still more yellow in her tint,
When lo! her second son, like elder brother,
Marking the hue on the parental gills,
Brought a new charge of Anti-tumeric Pills,
To bleach the jaundiced visage of his Mother—
Who took them—in her cupboard—like the other.

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

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

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

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

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

---

PLAYING AT SOLDIERS.
“WHO’LL SERVE THE KING?”

AN ILLUSTRATION.

HAT little urchin is there never
Hath had that early scarlet fever,
Of martial trappings caught?
Trappings well call’d—because they trap
And catch full many a country chap
To go where fields are fought!

What little urchin with a rag
Hath never made a little flag,
(Our plate will show the manner,)
And wooed each tiny neighbour still,
Tommy or Harry, Dick or Will,
To come beneath the banner!

Just like that ancient shape of mist,
In Hamlet, crying, “’List, O ‘list!”
Come, who will serve the king,
And strike frog-eating Frenchmen dead,
And cut off Boneyparty’s head?—
And all that sort of thing.

So used I, when I was a boy,
To march with military toy,
And ape the soldier’s life;—
And with a whistle or a hum,
I thought myself a Duke of Drum
At least, or Earl of Fife.

With gun of tin and sword of lath,
Lord! how I walk’d in glory’s path
With regimental mates,
By sound of trump and rub-a-dubs—
To ‘siege the washhouse—charge the tubs—
Or storm the garden gates.

Ah me! my retrospective soul!
As over memory’s muster-roll
I cast my eyes anew,
My former comrades all the while
Rise up before me, rank and file,
And form in dim review.

Ay, there they stand, and dress in line,
Lubbock, and Fenn, and David Vine,
And dark “Jamaeky Forde!”
And limping Wood, and “Cockey Hawes,”
Our captain always made, because
He had a real sword!

Long Lawrence, Natty Smart, and Soame,
Who said he had a gun at home,
But that was all a brag;
Ned Ryder, too, that used to sham
A prancing horse, and big Sam Lamb
That would hold up the flag!

Tom Anderson, and “Dunny White,”
Who never right-abouted right,
For he was deaf and dumb;
Jack Pike, Jem Crack, and Sandy Gray,
And Dickey Bird, that wouldn’t play
Unless he had the drum.

And Peter Holt, and Charley Jepp,
A chap that never kept the step—
No more did “Surly Hugh;”
Bob Harrington, and “Fighting Jim”—
We often had to halt for him,
To let him tie his shoe.

“Quarrelsome Scott,” and Martin Dick,
That kill’d the bantam cock, to stick
The plumes within his hat;
Bill Hook, and little Tommy Grout
That got so thump’d for calling out
“Eyes right!” to “Squinting Matt.”

Dan Simpson, that, with Peter Dodd,
Was always in the awkward squad,
And those two greedy Blakes,
That took our money to the fair
To buy the corps a trumpet there,
And laid it out in cakes.

Where are they now?—an open war
With open mouth declaring for?—
Or fall’n in bloody fray?
Compell’d to tell the truth I am,
Their fights all ended with the sham,—
Their soldiership in play.

Brave Soame sends cheeses out in trucks,
And Martin sells the cock he plucks,
And Jepp now deals in wine;
Harrington bears a lawyer’s bag,
And warlike Lamb retains his flag,
But on a tavern sign.

They tell me Cocky Hawes’s sword
Is seen upon a broker’s board:
And as for “Fighting Jim,”
In Bishopgate, last Whitsuntide,
His unresisting cheek I spied
Beneath a quaker brim!

Quarrelsome Scott is in the church,
For Ryder now your eye must search
The marts of silk and lace—
Bird’s drums are filled with figs, and mute,
And I—I’ve got a substitute
To Soldier in my place!

---

“NAPOLEON’S MIDNIGHT REVIEW.”
A NEW VERSION.

N his bed, bolt upright,
In the dead of the night,
The French Emperor starts like a ghost!

FANCY PORTRAIT: THE DUKE OF WELL—— AND PRINCE OF WATER—.

WETHER WISE.

By a dream held in charm,
He uplifts his right arm,
For he dreams of reviewing his host.

To the stable he glides,
For the charger he rides;
And he mounts him, still under the spell;
Then, with echoing tramp,
They proceed through the camp,
All intent on a task he loves well.

Such a sight soon alarms,
And the guards present arms,
As he glides to the posts that they keep;
Then he gives the brief word,
And the bugle is heard,
Like a hound giving tongue in its sleep.

Next the drums they arouse,
But with dull row-de-dows,
And they give but a somnolent sound;
Whilst the foot and horse, both,
Very slowly and loth,
Begin drowsily mustering round.

To the right and left hand,
They fall in, by command,
In a line that might better be dress’d;
Whilst the steeds blink and nod,
And the lancers think odd
To be rous’d like the spears from their rest.

With their mouths of wide shape,
Mortars seem all agape,
Heavy guns look more heavy with sleep;
And, whatever their bore,
Seem to think it one more
In the night such a field day to keep.

Then the arms, christened small
Fire no volley at all,
But go off, like the rest, in a doze;
And the eagles, poor things,
Tuck their heads ‘neath their wings,
And the band ends in tunes through the nose.

Till each pupil of Mars
Takes a wink like the stars—
Open order no eye can obey!
If the plumes in their heads
Were the feathers of beds,
Never top could be sounder than they!

So, just wishing good night,
Bows Napoleon, polite;
But instead of a loyal endeavour
To reply with a cheer;
Not a sound met his ear,
Though each face seem’d to say, “Nap for ever!”

---

ODE TO DR. KITCHENER.

E Muses nine inspire
And stir up my poetic fire;
Teach my burning soul to speak
With a bubble and a squeak!
Of Dr. Kitchener I fain would sing,
Till pots, and pans, and mighty kettles ring.

O culinary sage!
(I do not mean the herb in use,
That always goes along with goose)
How have I feasted on thy page:
“When like a lobster boil’d the morn
From black to red began to turn,”
Till midnight, when I went to bed,
And clapt my tewah-diddle on my head.

Who is there cannot tell,
Thou leadest a life of living well?
“What baron, or squire, or knight of the shire
Lives half so well as a holy Fry—er?”
In doing well thou must be reckon’d
The first,—and Mrs. Fry the second;
And twice a Job,—for, in thy fev’rish toils,
Thou wast all over roasts—as well as boils.

Thou wast indeed no dunce,
To treat thy subjects and thyself at once:
Many a hungry poet eats
His brains like thee,
But few there be
Could live so long on their receipts.
What living soul or sinner
Would slight thy invitation to a dinner,
Ought with the Danaides to dwell,
Draw gravy in a cullender, and hear
For ever in his ear
The pleasant tinkling of thy dinner bell.

Immortal Kitchener! thy fame
Shall keep itself when Time makes game
Of other men’s—yea, it shall keep, all weathers,
And thou shalt be upheld by thy pen feathers.
Yea, by the sauce of Michael Kelly!
Thy name shall perish never,
But be magnified for ever—
—By all whose eyes are bigger than their belly.
Yea, till the world is done—
—To a turn—and Time puts out the sun,
Shall live the endless echo of thy name.
But, as for thy more fleshy frame,
Ah! Death’s carnivorous teeth will tittle
Thee out of breath, and eat it for cold victual;
But still thy fame shall be among the nations
Preserved to the last course of generations.

Ah me, my soul is touch’d with sorrow!
To think how flesh must pass away—
So mutton, that is warm to-day,
Is cold, and turn’d to hashes, on the morrow!
Farewell! I would say more, but I
Have other fish to fry.

---

THE CIGAR.

OME sigh for this and that;
My wishes don’t go far;
The world may wag at will,
So I have my cigar.

Some fret themselves to death
With Whig and Tory jar,
I don’t care which is in,
So I have my cigar.

Sir John requests my vote,
And so does Mr. Marr;
I don’t care how it goes,
So I have my cigar.

Some want a German row,
Some wish a Russian war;
I care not—I’m at peace,
So I have my cigar.

I never see the Post,
I seldom read the Star;
The Globe I scarcely heed,
So I have my cigar.

They tell me that Bank Stock
Is sunk much under par;
It’s all the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

Honours have come to men
My juniors at the Bar;
No matter—I can wait,
So I have my cigar.

Ambition frets me not;
A cab or glory’s car
Are just the same to me,
So I have my cigar.

I worship no vain gods,
But serve the household Lar;
I’m sure to be at home,
So I have my cigar.

I do not seek for fame,
A General with a scar;
A private let me be,
So I have my cigar.

To have my choice among
The toys of life’s bazaar,
The deuce may take them all
So I have my cigar.

Some minds are often tost
By tempests like a tar;
I always seem in port,
So I have my cigar.

The ardent flame of love
My bosom cannot char,
I smoke, but do not burn,
So I have my cigar.

They tell me Nancy Low
Has married Mr. R.;
The jilt! but I can live,
So I have my cigar.

---

AN ANCIENT CONCERT.
BY A VENERABLE DIRECTOR.

“Give me old music—let me hear
The songs of days gone by!”—H. F. Chorley.

H! come, all ye who love to hear
An ancient song in ancient taste,
To whom all by-gone Music’s dear
As verdant spots in Memory’s waste!
Its name “The Ancient Concert” wrongs,
And has not hit the proper clef,
To wit, Old Folks, to sing Old Songs,
To Old Subscribers rather deaf.

Away, then, Hawes! with all your band;
Ye beardless boys, this room desert!
One youthful voice, or youthful hand,
Our concert-pitch would disconcert!
No bird must join our “vocal throng,”
The present age beheld at font:
Away, then, all ye “Sons of Song,”
Your Fathers are the men we want!

Away, Miss Birch, you’re in your prime!
Miss Romer, seek some other door!
Go, Mrs. Shaw! till, counting time,
You count you’re nearly fifty-four!
Go, Miss Novello, sadly young!
Go, thou composing Chevalier,
And roam the county towns among,
No Newcome will be welcome here!

Our Concert aims to give at night
The music that has had its day!
So, Rooke, for us you cannot write
Till time has made you Raven gray.
Your score may charm a modern ear,
Nay, ours, when three or fourscore old,
But in this Ancient atmosphere,
Fresh airs like yours would give us cold!

Go, Hawes, and Cawse, and Woodyat, go!
Hence, Shirreff, with those native curls;
And Master Coward ought to know
This is no place for boys and girls!
No Massons here we wish to see;
Nor is it Mrs. Seguin’s sphere,
And Mrs. B——! Oh! Mrs. B——,
Such Bishops are not reverend here!

What! Grisi, bright and beaming thus!
To sing the songs gone gray with age!
No, Grisi, no,—but come to us
And welcome, when you leave the stage!
Off, Ivanhoff!—till weak and harsh!—
Rubini, hence! with all the clan!
But come, Lablache, years hence, Lablache,
A little shrivell’d thin old man.

Go, Mr. Phillips, where you please!
Away, Tom Cooke, and all your batch;
You’d run us out of breath with Glees,
And Catches that we could not catch.
Away, ye Leaders all, who lead
With violins, quite modern things;
To guide our Ancient band we need
Old fiddles out of leading strings!

But come, ye Songsters, over ripe,
That into “childish trebles break!”
And bring, Miss Winter, bring the pipe
That cannot sing without a shake!
Nay, come, ye Spinsters all, that spin
A slender thread of ancient voice,
Old notes that almost seem call’d in;
At such as you we shall rejoice!

No thund’ring Thalbergs here shall balk,
Or ride your pet D-cadence o’er,
But fingers with a little chalk
Shall, moderato, keep the score!
No Broadwoods here, so full of tone,
But Harpsichords assist the strain:
No Lincoln’s pipes, we have our own
Bird-Organ, built by Tubal-Cain.

And welcome! St. Cecilians, now
Ye willy-nilly, ex-good fellows,
Who will strike up, no matter how,
With organs that survive their bellows!
And bring, oh bring, your ancient styles
In which our elders lov’d to roam,
Those flourishes that strayed for miles,
Till some good fiddle led them home!
Oh come, ye ancient London Cries,
When Christmas Carols erst were sung!
Come, Nurse, who dron’d the lullabies,
“When Music, heavenly Maid, was young!”
No matter how the critics treat,
What modern sins and faults detect,
The Copy-Book shall still repeat,
These Concerts must “Command respect!”

---

A REPORT FROM BELOW.

“Blow high, blow low.”—Sea Song.

S Mister B. and Mistress B.
One night were sitting down to tea,
With toast and muffins hot—
They heard a loud and sudden bounce,
That made the very china flounce,
They could not for a time pronounce
If they were safe or shot—
For Memory brought a deed to match,
At Deptford done by night—
Before one eye appeared a Patch,
In t’other eye a Blight!

To be belabour’d out of life,
Without some small attempt at strife,
Our nature will not grovel;
One impulse mov’d both man and dame,
He seized the tongs—she did the same,
Leaving the ruffian, if he came,
The poker and the shovel.
Suppose the couple standing so,
When rushing footsteps from below
Made pulses fast and fervent;
And first burst in the frantic cat,
All steaming like a brewer’s vat,
And then—as white as my cravat—
Poor Mary May, the servant!

Lord, how the couple’s teeth did chatter;
Master and Mistress both flew at her,
“Speak! Fire? or Murder? What’s the matter?”
Till Mary, getting breath,
Upon her tale began to touch
With rapid tongue, full trotting, such
As if she thought she had too much
To tell before her death:—

“We was both, Ma’am, in the wash-house, Ma’am, a-standing at our tubs,
And Mrs. Round was seconding what little things I rubs;
‘Mary,’ says she to me, ‘I say’—and there she stops for coughin’,
‘That dratted copper flue has took to smokin’ very often,
But please the pigs,’—for that’s her way of swearing in a passion,
‘I’ll blow it up, and not be set a-coughin’ in this fashion!’
Well, down she takes my master’s horn—I mean his horn for loading,
And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding.
Lawk, Mrs. Round! says I, and stares, that quantum is unproper.
I’m sartin sure it can’t not take a pound to sky a copper;
You’ll powder both our heads off, so I tells you, with its puff,
But she only dried her fingers, and she takes a pinch of snuff.
Well, when the pinch is over—‘Teach your grandmother to suck
A powder horn,’ says she—Well, says I, I wish you luck.
Them words sets up her back, so with her hands upon her hips,
‘Come,’ says she, quite in a huff, ‘come, keep your tongue inside your lips;
Afore ever you was born, I was well used to things like these
I shall put it in the grate, and let it burn up by degrees.
So in it goes, and Bounce—O Lord! it gives us such a rattle,
I thought we both were canonised, like Sogers in a battle!
Up goes the copper like a squib, and us on both our backs,
And bless the tubs, they bundled off, and split all into cracks.
Well, there I fainted dead away, and might have been cut shorter,
But Providence was kind, and brought me to with scalding water.
I first looks round for Mrs. Round, and sees her at a distance,
As stiff as starch, and looked as dead as any thing in existence;
All scorched and grimed, and more than that, I sees the copper slap
Right on her head, for all the world like a percussion copper cap.
Well, I crooks her little fingers, and crumps them well up together,
As humanity pints out, and burnt her nostrums with a feather;
But for all as I can do, to restore her to her mortality,
She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality,
Thinks I, well there she lies, as dead as my own late departed mother.
Well, she’ll wash no more in this world, whatever she does in t’other.
So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute,
Lawk, sich a shirt! thinks I, it’s well my master wasn’t in it;
Oh! I never, never, never, never, never see a sight so shockin’;
Here lays a leg, and there a leg—I mean, you know, a stocking—
Bodies all slit and torn to rags, and many a tattered skirt,
And arms burnt off, and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt;
But as nobody was in ’em—none but—nobody was hurt!
Well, there I am, a-scrambling up the things, all in a lump,
When, mercy on us! such a groan as makes my heart to jump.
And there she is, a-lying with a crazy sort of eye,
A-staring at the wash-house roof, laid open to the sky:
Then she beckons with her finger, and so down to her I reaches,
And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches,
For, poor soul! she has a husband and young orphans, as I knew;
Well, Ma’am, you won’t believe it, but it’s Gospel fact and true,
But these words is all she whispered—‘Why, where is the powder blew!’”

---

THE LAST WISH.

HEN I resign this world so briary,
To have across the Styx my ferrying,
Oh, may I die without a DIARY!
And be interr’d without a Bury-ing!
——
The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain,
Turn’d into cash, they are laid out again!

---

THE DEVIL’S ALBUM.

T will seem an odd whim
For a spirit so grim
As the Devil to take a delight in;
But by common renown
He has come up to town,
With an Album for people to write in!

On a handsomer book
Mortal never did look;
Of a flame-colour silk is the binding!
With a border superb,
Where through flow’ret and herb,
The old serpent goes brilliantly winding!

By gilded grotesques,
And emboss’d arabesques,
The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded;
But, alas! in a taste
That betrays they were traced
At the will of a Spirit degraded!

As for paper—the best,
But extremely hot-pressed,
Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it,
And against ev’ry blank
There’s a note on the Bank,
As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet.

Who will care to appear
In the Fiend’s Souvenir,
Is a question to mortals most vital;
But the very first leaf,
It’s the public belief,
Will be filled by a Lady of Title!

---

A VALENTINE.
THE WEATHER. TO P. MURPHY, ESQ., M.N.S.

These, properly speaking, being esteemed the three arms of Meteoric action.

EAR Murphy, to improve her charms,
Your servant humbly begs;
She thanks you for her leash of arms,
But wants a brace of legs.

Moreover, as you promise folks
On certain days a drizzle;
She thinks, in case she cannot rain,
She should have means to mizzle.

Some lightning too may just fall due,
When woods begin to moult;
And if she cannot “fork it out,”
She’ll wish to make a bolt!

---

CONVEYANCING.

H, London is the place for all
In love with loco-motion!
Still to and fro the people go
Like billows of the ocean;
Machine or man, or caravan,
Can all be had for paying,
When great estates, or heavy weights,
Or bodies want conveying.

There’s always hacks about in packs,
Wherein you may be shaken,
And Jarvis is not always drunk,
Tho’ always overtaken;
In racing tricks he’ll never mix,
His nags are in their last days,
And slow to go, altho’ they show
As if they had their fast days!

Then if you like a single horse,
This age is quite a cab-age,
A car not quite so small and light
As those of our Queen Mab age;
The horses have been broken well,
All danger is rescinded,
For some have broken both their knees,
And some are broken winded.

If you’ve a friend at Chelsea end,
The stages are worth knowing—
There is a sort, we call ’em short,
Although the longest going—
For some will stop at Hatchett’s shop
Till you grow faint and sicky,
Perched up behind, at last to find
Your dinner is all dickey!

Long stages run from every yard;
But if you’re wise and frugal,
You’ll never go with any Guard
That plays upon the bugle,
“Ye banks and braes,” and other lays,
And ditties everlasting,
Like miners going all your way,
With boring and with blasting.

Instead of journeys, people now
May go upon a Gurney,
With steam to do the horses’ work,
By powers of attorney;
Tho’ with a load it may explode,
And you may all be un-done!
And find you’re going up to Heav’n
Instead of up to London!

To speak of every kind of coach,
It is not my intention;
But there is still one vehicle
Deserves a little mention;
The world a sage has call’d a stage,
With all its living lumber,
And Malthus swears it always bears
Above the proper number.

The law will transfer house or land
For ever and a day hence,
For lighter things, watch, brooches, rings,
You’ll never want conveyance:
Ho! stop the thief! my handkerchief!
It is no sight for laughter—
Away it goes, and leaves my nose
To join in running after.

---

THE ANGLER’S FAREWELL.

“Resign’d, I kissed the rod.”

ELL! I think it is time to put up!
For it does not accord with my notions,
Wrist, elbow, and chine,
Stiff from throwing the line,
To take nothing at last by my motions!

I ground-bait my way as I go,
And dip in at each watery dimple;
But however I wish
To inveigle the fish,
To my gentle they will not play simple!

Though my float goes so swimmingly on,
My bad luck never seems to diminish;
It would seem that the Bream
Must be scarce in the stream,
And the Chub, tho’ it’s chubby, be thinnish!

Not a Trout there can be in the place,
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention,
And although at my hook
With attention I look,
I can ne’er see my hook with a Tench on!

At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape,
But they seem upon different terms now;
Have they taken advice
Of the “Council of Nice,”
And rejected their “Diet of Worms,” now?

In vain my live minnow I spin,
Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching;
For the gut I have brought,
I had better have bought
A good rope that was used to Jack-ketching!

Not a nibble has ruffled my cork,
It is vain in this river to search then;
I may wait till it’s night,
Without any bite,
And at roost-time have never a Perch then.

No Roach can I meet with—no Bleak,
Save what in the air is so sharp now;
Not a Dace have I got,
And I fear it is not
“Carpe diem,” a day for the Carp now!

Oh! there is not a one pound prize
To be got in this fresh-water lottery!
What then can I deem
Of so fishless a stream
But that ’tis—like St. Mary’s—Ottery!

For an Eel I have learned how to try,
By a method of Walton’s own showing,—
But a fisherman feels
Little prospect of Eels,
In a path that’s devoted to towing!

I have tried all the water for miles,
Till I’m weary of dipping and casting!
And hungry and faint,—
Let the Fancy just paint
What it is without Fish, to be Fasting!

And the rain drizzles down very fast,
While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell,—
So, wet to the skin,
I’ll e’en back to my Inn,
Where at least I am sure of a Bar-bell!

---

A BLOW UP.

“Here we go up, up, up.”—The Lay of the First Minstrel.

EAR Battle, Mr. Peter Baker
Was Powder-maker,
Not Alderman Flower’s flour,—the white that puffs
And primes and loads heads bald, or gray, or chowder,
Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filby,—Crowder,
Not vile apothecary’s pounded stuffs,
But something blacker, bloodier, and louder,
Gun-powder!
This stuff, as people know, is semper
Eadem; very hasty in its temper—
Like Honour that resents the gentlest taps,
Mere semblances of blows, however slight;
So powder fires, although you only p’rhaps
Strike light.
To make it therefore, is a ticklish business,
And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness,
For as all human flash and fancy minders,
Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know,
There seldom is a mill without a blow
Sometimes upon the grinders.
But then—the melancholy phrase to soften,
Mr. B.’s mill transpir’d so very often!
And advertised—than all Price Currents louder,
“Fragments look up—there is a rise in Powder,”
So frequently, it caused the neighbours’ wonder,—
And certain people had the inhumanity
To lay it all to Mr. Baker’s vanity,
That he might have to say—“That was my thunder!”
One day—so goes the tale,
Whether, with iron hoof,
Not sparkle-proof
Some ninny-hammer struck upon a nail,—
Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp,
Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp—
One day this mill that had by water ground,
Became a sort of windmill and blew round.
With bounce that went in sound as far as Dover, it
Sent half the workmen sprawling to the sky;
Besides some visitors who gained thereby,
What they had asked—permission “to go over it!”
Of course it was a very hard and high blow,
And somewhat differed from what’s called a flyblow.
At Cowes’ Regatta as I once observed,
A pistol-shot made twenty vessels start;
If such a sound could terrify oak’s heart,
Think how this crash the human nerve unnerved.
In fact, it was a very awful thing,—
As people know that have been used to battle,
In springing either mine or mill, you spring
A precious rattle!
The dunniest heard it—poor old Mr. F.
Doubted for once if he was ever deaf;
Through Tunbridge town it caused most strange alarms;
Mr. and Mrs. Fogg,
Who lived like cat and dog,
Were shocked for once into each other’s arms.
Miss M. the milliner—her fright so strong,
Made a great gobble-stitch six inches long;
The veriest quakers quaked against their wish;
The “Best of Sons” was taken unawares,
And kick’d the “Best of Parents” down the stairs;
The steadiest servant dropped the China dish;
A thousand started, though there was but one
Fated to win, and that was Mister Dunn,
Who struck convulsively, and hooked a fish!

Miss Wigings, with some grass upon her fork,
Toss’d it just like a hay-maker at work;
Her sister not in any better case,
For taking wine,
With nervous Mr. Pyne,
He jerked his glass of Sherry in her face.
Poor Mistress Davy,
Bobb’d off her bran-new turban in the gravy;
While Mr. Davy at the lower end,
Preparing for a Goose a carver’s labour,
Darted his two-pronged weapon in his neighbour,
As if for once he meant to help a friend.

The nurse-maid telling little “Jack-a-Norey,”
“Bo-peep” and “Blue-cap” at the house’s top,
Scream’d, and let Master Jeremiah drop
From a fourth story!
Nor yet did matters any better go
With Cook and Housemaid in the realms below;
As for the Laundress, timid Martha Gunning,
Expressing faintness and her fear by fits
And starts,—she came at last but to her wits,
By falling in the ale that John left running.

Grave Mr. Miles, the meekest of mankind,
Struck all at once deaf, stupid, dumb, and blind,
Sat in his chaise some moments like a corse,
Then coming to his mind,
Was shocked to find,
Only a pair of shafts without a horse.
Out scrambled all the Misses from Miss Joy’s!
From Prospect House, for urchins small and big,
Hearing the awful noise,
Out rushed a flood of boys,
Floating a man in black, without a wig;—
Some carried out one treasure, some another,—
Some caught their tops and taws up in a hurry,
Some saved Chambaud, some rescued Lindley Murray,
But little Tiddy carried his big brother!

Sick of such terrors,
The Tunbridge folks resolv’d that truth should dwell
No longer secret in a Tunbridge Well,
But to warn Baker of his dangerous errors;
Accordingly to bring the point to pass,
They call’d a meeting of the broken glass,
The shatter’d chimney pots, and scatter’d tiles,
The damage of each part,
And packed it in a cart,
Drawn by the horse that ran from Mr. Miles;
While Doctor Babblethorpe, the worthy Rector,
And Mr. Gammage, cutler to George Rex,
And some few more, whose names would only vex,
Went as a deputation to the Ex-
Powder-proprietor and Mill-director.
Now Mr. Baker’s dwelling-house had pleased
Along with mill-materials to roam,
And for a time the deputies were teased,
To find the noisy gentleman at home;
At last they found him with undamaged skin,
Safe at the Tunbridge Arms—not out—but Inn.

The worthy Rector, with uncommon zeal,
Soon put his spoke in for the common weal—
A grave old gentlemanly kind of Urban,—
The piteous tale of Jeremiah moulded,
And then unfolded,
By way of climax, Mrs. Davy’s turban;
He told how auctioneering Mr. Pidding
Knock’d down a lot without a bidding,—
How Mr. Miles, in fright, had giv’n his mare
The whip she wouldn’t bear,—
At Prospect House, how Doctor Oates, not Titus,
Danc’d like Saint Vitus,—
And Mr. Beak, thro’ Powder’s misbehaving,
Cut off his nose whilst shaving;—
When suddenly, with words that seem’d like swearing,
Beyond a Licenser’s belief or bearing—
Broke in the stuttering, sputtering Mr. Gammage—
“Who is to pay us, Sir,”—he argued thus,
“For loss of cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus-cus—
Cus-custom, and the dam-dam-dam-damage?

Now many a person had been fairly puzzled
By such assailants, and completely muzzled;
Baker, however, was not dash’d with ease—
But proved he practised after their own system,
And with small ceremony soon dismiss’d ’em,
Putting these words into their ears like fleas;
“If I do have a blow, well, where’s the oddity?
I merely do as other tradesmen do,
You, Sir,—and you—and you!
I’m only puffing off my own commodity!”

---

THE SCHOOLMASTER’S MOTTO.

“The Admiral compelled them all to strike.”—Life of Nelson.

USH! silence in School—not a noise!
You shall soon see there’s nothing to jeer at,
Master Marsh, most audacious of boys!
Come!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

So this morn in the midst of the Psalm,
The Miss Siffkin’s school you must leer at,
You’re complained of—Sir! hold out your palm,—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You wilful young rebel, and dunce!
This offence all your sins shall appear at,
You shall have a good caning at once—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You are backward, you know, in each verb,
And your pronouns you are not more clear at,
But you’re forward enough to disturb,—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You said Master Twigg stole the plums,
When the orchard he never was near at,
I’ll not punish wrong fingers or thumbs,—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You make Master Taylor your butt,
And this morning his face you threw beer at,
And you struck him—do you like a cut?
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Little Biddle you likewise distress,
You are always his hair, or his ear at,—
He’s my Opt, Sir, and you are my Pess:
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then you had a pitcht fight with young Rous,
An offence I am always severe at!
You discredit to Cicero-House!
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have made too a plot in the night,
To run off from the school that you rear at!
Come, your other hand, now, Sir,—the right,
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

I’ll teach you to draw, you young dog!
Such pictures as I’m looking here at!
“Old Mounseer making soup of a frog,”
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

You have run up a bill at a shop,
That in paying you’ll be a whole year at,—
You’ve but twopence a week, Sir, to stop!
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Then at dinner you’re quite cock-a-hoop,
And the soup you are certain to sneer at—
I have sipped it—it’s very good soup,—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

T’other day when I fell o’er the form,
Was my tumble a thing, Sir, to cheer at?
Well for you that my temper’s not warm,—
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

Why, you rascal! you insolent brat!
All my talking you don’t shed a tear at,
There—take that, Sir! and that! that! and that!
There!—“Palmam qui meruit ferat!”

---

THE KANGAROOS.
A FABLE.

PAIR of married kangaroos
(The case is oft a human one too)
Were greatly puzzled once to choose
A trade to put their eldest son to:
A little brisk and busy chap,
As all the little K.’s just then are—
About some two months off the lap,—
They’re not so long in arms as men are.

A twist in each parental muzzle
Betray’d the hardship of the puzzle—
So much the flavour of life’s cup
Is framed by early wrong or right,
And Kangaroos we know are quite
Dependent on their “rearing up.”
The question, with its ins and outs,
Was intricate and full of doubts;
And yet they had no squeamish carings
For trades unfit or fit for gentry,
Such notion never had an entry,
For they had no armorial bearings.
Howbeit they’re not the last on earth
That might indulge in pride of birth;
Whoe’er has seen their infant young
Bob in and out their mother’s pokes,
Would own, with very ready tongue,
They are not born like common folks.
Well, thus the serious subject stood,
It kept the old pair watchful nightly,
Debating for young hopeful’s good,
That he might earn his livelihood,
And go through life (like them) uprightly.
Arms would not do at all; no, marry,
In that line all his race miscarry;
And agriculture was not proper,
Unless they meant the lad to tarry
For ever as a mere clod-hopper.
He was not well cut out for preaching
At least in any striking style;
And as for being mercantile—
He was not form’d for over-reaching.
The law—why there still fate ill-starr’d him,
And plainly from the bar debarr’d him:
A doctor—who would ever fee him?
In music he could scarce engage,
And as for going on the stage
In tragic socks I think I see him.

He would not make a rigging-mounter;
A haberdasher had some merit,
But there the counter still ran counter,
For just suppose
A lady chose
To ask him for a yard of ferret!

A gardener digging up his beds,
The puzzled parents shook their heads.

“A tailor would not do because—”
They paused and glanced upon his paws.

Some parish post, though fate should place it
Before him, how could he embrace it?

In short each anxious Kangaroo
Discuss’d the matter through and through
By day they seem’d to get no nearer,
’Twas posing quite—
And in the night
Of course they saw their way no clearer!
At last thus musing on their knees—
Or hinder elbows if you please—
It came—no thought was ever brighter!
In weighing every why and whether,
They jump’d upon it both together—
“Let’s make the imp a short-hand writer!”

MORAL.

I wish all human parents so
Would argue what their sons are fit for;
Some would-be critics that I know
Would be in trades they have more wit for.

---

I CANNOT BEAR A GUN.

“Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts than a race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at wasps, sauve qui peut at sight of a gun. Surely, when the military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies’ academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month’s practice, of making the most timid British female fond of small-arms.”—Hints by a Corporal.

T can’t be minced, I’m quite convinced
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine and feminine
Are nothing else but sham.
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I’ll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

There’s cousin Bell can’t ‘bide the smell
Of powder—horrid stuff!
A single pop will make her drop,
She shudders at a puff.
My Manton near, with aspen fear
Will make her scream and run:
“It’s always so, you brute, you know
I cannot bear a gun!”

About my flask I must not ask,
I must not wear a belt,
I must not take a punch to make
My pellets, card or felt;
And if I just allude to dust,
Or speak of number one,
“I beg you’ll not—don’t talk of shot,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Percussion cap I dare not snap,
I may not mention Hall,

A MINOR CANNON.

“JAMES’S POWDER.”

Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce,
His wadding to recall;
At Hawker’s book I must not look,
All shooting I must shun,
Or else—“It’s hard, you’ve no regard,
I cannot bear a gun!”

The very dress I wear no less
Must suit her timid mind,
A blue or black must clothe my back,
With swallow-tails behind;
By fustian, jean, or velveteen,
Her nerves are overdone:
“Oh do not, John, put gaiters on,
I cannot bear a gun!”

E’en little James she snubs, and blames
His Liliputian train,
Two inches each from mouth to breach,
And charged with half a grain—
His crackers stopp’d, his squibbing dropp’d,
He has no fiery fun,
And all thro’ her “How dare you, Sir?
I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet Major Flint,—the Devil’s in’t!
May talk from morn to night,
Of springing mines, and twelves and nines,
And volleys left and right,
Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs,
And bullets by the ton:
She never dies of fright, or cries
“I cannot bear a gun!”

It stirs my bile to see her smile
At all his bang and whiz,
But if I talk of morning walk,
And shots as good as his,
I must not name the fallen game:
As soon as I’ve begun,
She’s in her pout, and crying out,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth
Are false, to match her tongue:
Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares,
Or pheasants, old or young—
On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal,
And yet objects to none:
“What have I got, it’s full of shot!
I cannot bear a gun!”

At pigeon-pie she is not shy,
Her taste it never shocks,
Though they should be from Battersea,
So famous for blue rocks;
Yet when I bring the very thing
My marksmanship has won,
She cries “Lock up that horrid cup,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Like fool and dunce I got her once
A box at Drury Lane,
And by her side I felt a pride
I ne’er shall feel again:
To read the bill it made her ill,
And this excuse she spun,
“Der Freyschütz, oh, seven shots; you know,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet at a hint from Major Flint,
Her very hands she rubs,
And quickly drest in all her best,
Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs.
The whole review she sits it through,
With noise enough to stun,
And never winks, or even thinks,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

She thus may blind the Major’s mind
In mock-heroic strife,
But let a bout at war break out,
And where’s the soldier’s wife,
To take his kit and march a bit
Beneath a broiling sun?
Or will she cry, “My dear, good-bye,
I cannot bear a gun?”

If thus she doats on army coats,
And regimental cuffs,
The yeomanry might surely be
Secure from her rebuffs;
But when I don my trappings on,
To follow Captain Dunn,
My carbine’s gleam provokes a scream,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

It can’t be minced, I’m quite convinced,
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine, and feminine,
Are nothing else but sham;
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I’ll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

---

TRIMMER’S EXERCISE,
FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN.

ERE, come, Master Timothy Todd,
Before we have done you’ll look grimmer,
You’ve been spelling some time for the rod,
And your jacket shall know I’m a Trimmer.

You don’t know your A from your B,
So backward you are in your Primer;
Don’t kneel—you shall go on my knee,
For I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

This morning you hinder’d the cook,
By melting your dumps in the skimmer;
Instead of attending your book,—
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

To-day, too, you went to the pond,
And bathed, though you are not a swimmer:
And with parents so doting and fond—
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

After dinner you went to the wine,
And help’d yourself—yes, to a brimmer;
You couldn’t walk straight in a line,
But I’ll make you to know I’m a Trimmer.

You kick little Tomkins about,
Because he is slighter and slimmer;
Are the weak to be thump’d by the stout?
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Then you have a sly pilfering trick,
Your school-fellows call you the nimmer,—
I will cut to the bone if you kick!
For I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

To-day you made game at my back:
You think that my eyes are grown dimmer,
But I watch’d you, I’ve got a sly nack!
And I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Don’t think that my temper is hot,
It’s never beyond a slow simmer;
I’ll teach you to call me Dame Trot
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone,
Might melt to behold your tears glimmer;
Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone,
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

---

AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.

“Archer. How many are there, Scrub?
Scrub. Five-and-forty, sir.”—Beaux Stratagem.

“For shame—let the linen alone!”—Merry Wives of Windsor.

R. SCRUB—Mr. Slop—or whoever you be!
The Cock of Steam Laundries,—the head Patentee
Of Associate Cleansers,—Chief founder and prime

FANCY PORTRAIT—MRS. TRIMMER.

PALMAM QUI MERUIT FERAT.

Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime—
Co-partners and dealers, in linen’s propriety—
That make washing public—and wash in society—
O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego
For a moment the music that bubbles below,—
From your new Surrey Geysers[11] all foaming and hot,—
That soft “simmer’s sang” so endear’d to the Scot—
If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger—
If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,
Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,—
O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,—
And lend me your ear,—Let me modestly plead
For a race that your labours may soon supersede—
For a race that, now washing no living affords—
Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,
Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,
Not with bread in the funds—or investments of cheese,
But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream,
Which the sun has suck’d up into vapour and steam.
All, look at the laundress, before you begrudge
Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge—
When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins,
She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens,
And beginneth her toil while the morn is still grey,
As if she was washing the night into day—
Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora
Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her;
Not Venus that rose from the billow so early,
Look’d down on the foam with a forehead more pearly[12]—
Her head is involved in an aërial mist,
And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;
Her visage glows warm with the ardour of duty;
She’s Industry’s moral—she’s all moral beauty!
Growing brighter and brighter at every rub—
Would any man ruin her?—No, Mr. Scrub!
No man that is manly would work her mishap—
No man that is manly would covet her cap—
Nor her apron—her hose—nor her gown made of stuff—
Nor her gin—nor her tea—nor her wet pinch of snuff!
Alas! so she thought—but that slippery hope
Has betray’d her—as though she had trod on her soap!
And she,—whose support,—like the fishes that fly,
Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky—
She whose living it was, and a part of her fare,
To be damp’d once a day, like the great white sea bear,
With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop—
Quite a living absorbent that revell’d in slop—
She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand,
And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land!

Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands,
Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands!
All haggard and pinch’d, going down in life’s vale,
With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-Dale!
No smoke from her flue—and no steam from her pane,
Where once she watch’d heaven, fearing God and the rain—
Or gazed o’er her bleach-field so fairly engross’d,
Till the lines wander’d idle from pillar to post!
Ah, where are the playful young pinners—ah, where
The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air—
The brisk waltzing stockings—the white and the black,
That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack—
The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn’d,
That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!
There was white on the grass—there was white on the spray—
Her garden—it look’d like a garden of May!
But now all is dark—not a shirt’s on a shrub—
You’ve ruined her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!
You’ve ruin’d her custom—now families drop her—
From her silver reduced—nay, reduced from her copper!
The last of her washing is done at her eye,
One poor little kerchief that never gets dry!
From mere lack of linen she can’t lay a cloth,
And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth,—
But her children come round her as victuals grow scant,
And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want—
When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,
And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,
And even its pearlashes laid in the grave—
Whilst her tub is a-dry-rotting, stave after stave,
And the greatest of Coopers, ev’n he that they dub
Sir Astley, can’t bind up her heart or her tub,—
Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!
Need you wonder, when steam has deprived her of bread,
If she prays that the evil may visit your head—
Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee,
If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the City—
In short, not to mention all plagues without number,
If she wishes you all in the Wash at the Humber!

Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,
When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare—
When the sum of her suds might be summ’d in a bowl,
And the rusty cold iron quite enter’d her soul—
When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye
Had caught “the Cock Laundresses’ Coach” going by,
Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,
And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,
In a lather of passion that froth’d as it rose,
Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,
On her sheet—if a sheet were still left her—to write,
Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light—

---

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE
FROM BRIDGET JONES TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE.

It’s a shame, so it is—men can’t Let alone
Jobs as is Woman’s right to do—and go about there Own—
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools
For washing to sit Up,—and push the Old Tubs from their stools!
But your just like the Raddicals,—for upsetting of the Sudds
When the world wagg’d well enuff—and Wommen wash’d your old dirty duds,
I’m Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no steam Indins, that’s Flat,—
But I Warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentlemanny for all that—
I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle
I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable period back when I were little,
And they Said it went with Steem,—But that was a joke!
For I never see none come of it,—that’s out of it—but only sum Smoak—
And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you never had but Two
In my time to draw you About to Fairs—and hang you, you know that’s true!
And for All your fine Perspectuses,—howsomever you bewhich ’em,
Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at Mitchum,
Thof I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with one another to Do—
It ant as if a Bird’seye Hankicher can take a Birds-high view!
But Thats your look-out—I’ve not much to do with that—But pleas God to hold up fine,
Id show you caps and pinners and small things as lillywhit as Ever crosst the Line
Without going any Father off than Little Parodies Place,
And Thats more than you Can—and Ill say it behind your face—
But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you too Speak,—
As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak!
Thinks I, when I heard it—Well thear’s a Pretty go!
That comes o’ not marking of things or washing out the marks, and Huddling ’em up so!
Till Their frends comes and owns them, like drownded corpeses in a Vault,
But may Hap you havint Larn’d to spel—and That ant your Fault,
Only you ought to leafe the Linnins to them as has Larn’d,—
For if it warnt for Washing,—and whare Bills is concarnd,
What’s the Yuse, of all the world, for a Wommans Headication,
And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays—fit for any Cityation?

Well, what I says is this—when every Kittle has its spout,
Theirs no nead for Companys to puff steam about!
To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind
For blowing up Boats with,—but not to hurt human kind,
Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that’s loaded with hot water,
Thof a xSherrif might know Better, than make things for slaughtter,
As if War warnt Cruel enuff—wherever it befalls,
Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot washing[13] balls,—
But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs
As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Steam rubbing Clubs,
For washing Dirt Cheap,—and eating other Peple’s grubs!
Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea,
But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Beau-He!
They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there will be!)
And their Little drop of Somethings as they takes for their Goods,
When you and your Steam has ruined (G—d forgive mee) their lively Hoods,
Poor Women as was born to Washing in their youth!
And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth!
But if so be They leave their Lines what are they to go at—
They won’t do for Angell’s—nor any Trade like That,
Nor we cant Sow Babby Work,—for that’s all Bespoke,—
For the Queakers in Bridle! and a vast of the confind Folk
Do their own of Themselves—even the bettermost of em—aye, and evn them of middling degrees—
Why—Lauk help you—Babby Linen and Bread ant Cheese!
Nor we can’t go a hammering the roads into Dust,
But we must all go and be Bankers, Like Mr. Marshes and Mr. Chamber, and that’s what we must!
God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects,
When you nose you have suck’d us and hanged round our Mutherly necks,
And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides washing—
You ant, blame you, like Men to go a slushing and sloshing
In mob caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labers
And prettily jear’d At, you great Horse God-meril things, ant you now by your next door nayhbours—
Lawk, I thinks I see you with your Sleaves tuckt up
No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp—
And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round
They’ll scruntch your Bones some day—I’ll be bound
And no more nor be a gudgement,—for it cant come to good
To sit up agin Providence, which your a doing,—nor not fit It should,
For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation,
Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of Creation—
And cant be dun without in any Country But a naked Hottinpot Nation.
Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs
And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs—
But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) nyther Bybills or Good Tracks,
Or youd no better than Taking the Close off one’s Backs—
And let your neighbours Oxin an Asses alone,—
And every Thing thats hern,—and give every one their Hone!

Well, its God for us All, and every Washer Wommen for herself,
And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf,
But if you warnt Noddis youd Let wommen a-be
And pull off your Pattins,—and leave the washing to we
That nose what’s what—Or mark what I say,
Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day—
When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their ant nun at all,
And Crismass cum—and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall,
Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare
Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite to do good in his Harm Chare—
Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for you not to wash (for you dont wash) but to stew
And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew,
With a vast more like That,—and all along of Steem
Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam—
But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good,
And I cant say I’m sorry, afore God, if you shoud,
For men mought Get their Bread a great many ways
Without taking ourn,—aye, and Moor to your Prays,
You might go and skim the creme off Mr. Mack-Adam’s milky ways—that’s what you might,
Or bete Carpets—or get into Parleamint,—or drive crabrolays from morning to night,
Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchemen, and slepe upon a poste!
(Which is an od way of sleping I must say,—and a very hard pillow at most,)
Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I’m awares,
Or be Watermen now, (not Water wommen) and roe people up and down Hungerford stares.
If You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting Dirt,
But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt!
Yourn with Anymocity,
Bridget Jones.

---

THE BLUE BOAR.

’Tis known to man, ’tis known to woman,
’Tis known to all the world in common,
How politics and party strife
Vex public, even private, life;
But, till some days ago, at least
They never worried brutal beast.

I wish you could have seen the creature,
A tame domestic boar by nature,
Gone wild as boar that ever grunted,
By Baron Hoggerhausen hunted.
His back was up, and on its ledge
The bristles rose like quickset hedge;
His eye was fierce and red as coal,
Like furnace, shining through a hole,
And restless turn’d for mischief seeking;
His very hide with rage was reeking;
And oft he gnash’d his crooked tusks,
Chewing his tongue instead of husks,
Till all his jaw was white and yesty,
Showing him savage, fierce, and resty.

And what had caused this mighty vapour?
A dirty fragment of a paper,
That in his rambles he had found,
Lying neglected on the ground;
A relic of the Morning Post,
Two tattered columns at the most,
But which our irritated swine
(Derived from Learned Toby’s line)
Digested easy as his meals,
Like any quidnunc Cit at Peel’s.

He read, and mused, and pored and read,
His shoulders shrugg’d, and shook his head;
Now at a line he gave a grunt,
Now at a phrase took sudden stunt,
And snorting turn’d his back upon it,
But always came again to con it;
In short he petted up his passion,
After a very human fashion,
When Temper’s worried with a bone
She’ll neither like nor let alone.
At last his fury reach’d the pitch
Of that most irritating itch,
When mind and will, in fever’d faction,
Prompt blood and body into action;
No matter what, so bone and muscle
May vent the frenzy in a bustle;
But whether by a fight or dance
Is left to impulse and to chance.
So stood the Boar, in furious mood
Made up for any thing but good;
He gave his tail a tighter twist,
As men in anger clench the fist,
And threw fresh sparkles in his eye
From the volcano in his fry—
Ready to raze the parish pound,
To pull the pigsty to the ground,
To lay Squire Giles, his master, level,
Ready, indeed, to play the devil.

So, stirr’d by raving demagogues,
I’ve seen men rush, like rabid dogs,
Stark staring from the Pig and Whistle,
And like his Boarship, in a bristle,
Resolved unanimous on rumpus
From any quarter of the compass;
But whether to duck Aldgate Pump,
(For wits in madness never jump)
To liberate the beasts from Cross’s;
Or hiss at all the Wigs in Ross’s;
On Waithman’s column hang a weeper;
Or tar and feather the old sweeper;
Or break the panes of landlord scurvy,
And turn the King’s Head topsy-turvy;
Rebuild, or pull down, London Wall;
Or take his cross from old Saint Paul;
Or burn those wooden Highland fellows,
The snuff-men’s idols, ‘neath the gallows!
None fix’d or cared—but all were loyal
To one design—a battle royal.

Thus stood the Boar, athirst for blood,
Trampling the Morning Post to mud,
With tusks prepared to run a muck;—
And sorrow for the mortal’s luck
That came across him Whig or Tory,
It would have been a tragic story—
But fortune interposing now,
Brought Bessy into play—a Sow;—
A fat, sleek, philosophic beast
That never fretted in the least,
Whether her grains were sour or sweet,
For grains are grains, and she could eat.
Absorb’d in two great schemes capacious,
The farrow and the farinaceous,
If cares she had, they could not stay,
She drank, and wash’d them all away.
In fact this philosophic sow
Was very like a German frow;
In brief—as wit should be and fun,—
If sows turn Quakers, she was one;
Clad from the duckpond, thick and slab,
In bran-new muddy suit of drab.
To still the storm of such a lubber,
She came like oil—at least like blubber—
Her pigtail of as passive shape
As ever droop’d o’er powder’d nape;
Her snout, scarce turning up—her deep
Small eyes half settled into sleep;
Her ample ears, dependent, meek,
Like fig-leaves shading either cheek;
Whilst, from the corner of her jaw,
A sprout of cabbage, green and raw,
Protruded,—as the Dove, so stanch
For Peace, supports an olive branch,—
Her very grunt, so low and mild,
Like the soft snoring of a child,
Inquiring into his disquiets,
Served like the Riot Act, at riots,—
He laid his restive bristles flatter,
And took to arguefy the matter.

“O Bess, O Bess, here’s heavy news!
They mean to ‘mancipate the Jews!
Just as they turn’d the blacks to whites,
They want to give them equal rights,
And, in the twinkling of a steeple,
Make Hebrews quite like other people.
Here, read—but I forget your fetters,
You’ve studied litters more than letters.”

“Well,” quoth the Sow, “and no great miss,
I’m sure my ignorance is bliss;
Contentedly I bite and sup,
And never let my flare flare-up;
Whilst you get wild and fuming hot—
What matters Jews be Jews or not?
Whether they go with beards like Moses,
Or barbers take them by the noses,
Whether they live, permitted dwellers,
In Cheapside shops, or Rag Fair cellars,
Or climb their way to civic perches,
Or go to synagogues or churches?”
“Churches!—ay, there the question grapples,
No, Bess, the Jews will go to Chappell’s!”

“To chapel—well—what’s that to you?
A Berkshire Boar, and not a Jew?
We pigs,—remember the remark
Of our old drover Samuel Slark,
When trying, but he tried in vain,
To coax me into Sermon Lane,
Or Paternoster’s pious Row,—
But still I stood and grunted No!
Of Lane of Creed an equal scorner,
Till bolting off, at Amen Corner,
He cried, provoked at my evasion,
‘Pigs, blow ’em! ar’n’t of no persuasion!’”

“The more’s the pity, Bess—the more—”
Said, with sardonic grin, the Boar;
“If Pigs were Methodists and Bunyans,
They’d make a sin of sage and onions;
The curse of endless flames endorse
On every boat of apple-sauce;
Give brine to Satan, and assess
Blackpuddings with bloodguiltiness;
Yea, call down heavenly fire and smoke
To burn all Epping into coke!”

“Ay,” cried the Sow, extremely placid,
In utter contrast to his acid,
“Ay, that would be a Sect indeed!
And every swine would like the creed,
The sausage-making curse and all;
And should some brother have a call,
To thump a cushion to that measure,
I would sit under him with pleasure;
Nay, put down half my private fortune
T’ endow a chapel at Hog’s Norton.—
But what has this to do, my deary,
With their new Hebrew whigmaleery?”

“Sow that you are! this Bill, if current,
Would be as good as our death-warrant;—
And, with its legislative friskings,
Loose twelve new tribes upon our griskins!
Unjew the Jews, what follows then?
Why, they’ll eat pork like other men,
And you shall see a Rabbi dish up
A chine as freely as a Bishop!
Thousands of years have pass’d, and pork
Was never stuck on Hebrew fork;
But now, suppose that relish rare
Fresh added to their bill of fare,
Fry, harslet, pettitoes, and chine,
Leg, choppers, bacon, ham, and loin,
And then, beyond all goose or duckling”—

“Yes, yes—a little tender suckling!
It must be held the aptest savour
To make the eager mouth to slaver!
Merely to look on such a gruntling,
A plump, white, sleek and sappy runtling,
It makes one—ah! remembrance bitter!
It made me eat my own dear litter!”

“Think, then, with this new waken’d fury,
How we should fare if tried by Jewry!
A pest upon the meddling Whigs!
There’ll be a pretty run on pigs!
This very morn a Hebrew brother
With three hats stuck on one another,
And o’er his arm a bag, or poke,
A thing pigs never find a joke,
Stopp’d—rip the fellow!—though he knew
I’ve neither coat to sell nor shoe,
And cock’d his nose—right at me, lovey!
Just like a pointer at a covey!

To set our only friends agin us!
That neither care to fat nor thin us!
To boil, to broil, to roast, or fry us,
But act like real Christians by us!—
A murrain on all legislators!
Thin wash, sour grains, and rotten ’taters!
A bulldog at their ears and tails!
The curse of empty troughs and pails
Famish their flanks as thin as weasels!
May all their children have the measles;
Or in the straw untimely smother,
Or make a dinner for the mother!
A cartwhip for all law inventors!
And rubbing-posts stuck full of tenters!
Yokes, rusty rings, and gates, to hitch in
And parish pounds to pine the flitch in,
Cold, and high winds, the Devil send ’em—
And then may Sam the Sticker end ’em!”

’Twas strange to hear him how he swore!
A Boar will curse, though like a boar,
While Bess, like Pity, at his side
Her swine-subduing voice supplied!
She bade him such a rage discard;
That anger is a foe to lard;
’Tis bad for sugar to get wet,
And quite as bad for fat to fret;
“Besides,”—she argued thus at last—
“The Bill you fume at has not pass’d,
For why, the Commons and the Peers
Have come together by the ears:
Or rather, as we pigs repose,
One’s tail beside the other’s nose,
And thus, of course, take adverse views
Whether of Gentiles or of Jews.
Who knows? They say the Lords’ ill-will
Has thrown out many a wholesome Bill,
And p’rhaps some Peer to Pigs propitious
May swamp a measure so Jew-dish-us!”

The Boar was conquer’d: at a glance,
He saw there really was a chance—
That as the Hebrew nose is hooked,
The Bill was equally as crooked;
And might outlast, thank party embers,
A dozen tribes of Christian members;—
So down he settled in the mud,
With smoother back, and cooler blood,
As mild, as quiet, a Blue Boar,
As any over tavern-door.

MORAL.

The chance is small that any measure
Will give all classes equal pleasure;
Since Tory Ministers or Whigs,
Sometimes can’t even “please the Pigs.”

---

A FLYING VISIT.

“A Calendar! a Calendar! look in the Almanac, find out moonshine—find out moonshine!”—Midsummer Night’s Dream.

HE by-gone September,
As folks may remember,
At least if their memory saves but an ember,
One fine afternoon,
There went up a Balloon,
Which did not return to the Earth very soon.

For, nearing the sky,
At about a mile high,
The Aëronaut bold had resolved on a fly;
So cutting his string,
In a Parasol thing,
Down he came in a field like a lark from the wing.

Meanwhile, thus adrift,
The Balloon made a shift
To rise very fast, with no burden to lift;
It got very small,
Then to nothing at all;
And then rose the question of where it would fall?

Some thought that, for lack
Of the man and his pack,
’Twould rise to the Cherub that watches Poor Jack;
Some held, but in vain,
With the first heavy rain,
’Twould surely come down to the Gardens again!

But still not a word
For a month could be heard
Of what had become of the Wonderful Bird:
The firm Gye and Hughes,
Wore their boots out and shoes,
In running about and inquiring for news.

Some thought it must be
Tumbled into the Sea;
Some thought it had gone off to High Germanie:
For Germans, as shown
By their writings, ’tis known
Are always delighted with what is high-flown.

Some hinted a bilk,
And that maidens who milk,
In far distant Shires would be walking in silk:
Some swore that it must,
“As they said at the fust,
Have gone again’ flashes of lightning and bust!”

However, at last,
When six weeks had gone past,
Intelligence came of a plausible cast;
A wondering clown,
At a hamlet near town,
Had seen “like a moon of green cheese” coming down.

Soon spread the alarm,
And from cottage and farm,
The natives buzz’d out like the bees when they swarm;
And off ran the folk,—
It is such a good joke
To see the descent of a bagful of smoke.

And lo! the machine,
Dappled yellow and green,
Was plainly enough in the clouds to be seen:
“Yes, yes,” was the cry,
“It’s the old one, surely,
Where can it have been such a time in the sky?

“Lord! where will it fall?
It can’t find out Vauxhall,
Without any pilot to guide it at all!”
Some wager’d that Kent
Would behold the event,
Debrett had been posed to predict its “descent.”

Some thought it would pitch
In the old Tower Ditch,
Some swore on the Cross of St. Paul’s it would hitch,
And Farmers cried “Zounds!
If it drops on our grounds,
We’ll try if Balloons can’t be put into pounds!”

But still to and fro
It continued to go,
As if looking out for soft places below—
No difficult job,
It had only to bob
Slap-dash down at once on the heads of the mob:

Who, too apt to stare
At some castle in air,
Forget that the earth is their proper affair;
Till, watching the fall
Of some soap-bubble ball,
They tumble themselves with a terrible sprawl.

Meanwhile, from its height
Stooping downward in flight,
The Phenomenon came more distinctly in sight:
Still bigger and bigger,
And strike me a nigger
Unfreed, if there was not a live human figure!

Yes, plain to be seen,
Underneath the machine,
There dangled a mortal—some swore it was Green;
Some Mason could spy;
Others named Mr. Gye;
Or Hollond, compell’d by the Belgians to fly.

’Twas Graham the flighty,
Whom the Duke high and mighty,
Resign’d to take care of his own lignum-vitæ;
’Twas Hampton, whose whim
Was in Cloudland to swim,
Till e’en Little Hampton look’d little to him!

But all were at fault;
From the heavenly vault
The falling balloon came at last to a halt;
And bounce! with the jar
Of descending so far,
An outlandish Creature was thrown from the car!

At first with the jolt
All his wits made a bolt,
As if he’d been flung by a mettlesome colt;
And while in his faint,
To avoid all complaint,
The Muse shall endeavour his portrait to paint.

The face of this elf,
Round as platter of delf,
Was pale as if only a cast of itself:
His head had a rare
Fleece of silvery hair,
Just like the Albino at Bartlemy Fair.

His eyes they were odd,
Like the eyes of a cod,
And gave him the look of a watery God.
His nose was a snub;
Under which for his grub,
Was a round open mouth like to that of a chub.

His person was small,
Without figure at all,
A plump little body as round as a ball:
With two little fins,
And a couple of pins,
With what has been christen’d a bow in the shins.

His dress it was new,
A full suit of sky-blue—
With bright silver buckles in each little shoe—
Thus painted complete,
From his head to his feet,
Conceive him laid flat in Squire Hopkins’s wheat.

Fine text for the crowd!
Who disputed aloud
What sort of a creature had dropp’d from the cloud—
“He’s come from o’er seas,
He’s a Cochin Chinese—
By jingo! he’s one of the wild Cherookees!”

“Don’t nobody know?”
“He’s a young Esquimaux,
Turn’d white like the hares by the Arctical snow.”
“Some angel, my dear,
Sent from some upper spear
For Plumtree or Agnew, too good for this-here!”

Meanwhile, with a sigh,
Having open’d one eye,
The Stranger rose up on his seat by and by;
And finding his tongue,
Thus he said, or he sung,
“Mi criky bo biggamy kickery bung!”

“Lord! what does he speak?”
“It’s Dog-Latin—it’s Greek!”
“It’s some sort of slang for to puzzle a Beak!”
“It’s no like the Scotch,”
Said a Scot on the watch,
“Phoo! it’s nothing at all but a kind of hotch-potch!”

“It’s not parly voo,”
Cried a schoolboy or two,
“Nor Hebrew at all,” said a wandering Jew.
Some held it was sprung
From the Irvingite tongue,
The same that is used by a child very young.

Some guess’d it high Dutch,
Others thought it had much
In sound of the true Hoky-poky-ish touch;
But none could be poz,
What the Dickens (not Boz),
No mortal could tell what the Dickens it was!

When who should come pat,
In a moment like that,
But Bowring, to see what the people were at—
A Doctor well able,
Without any fable,
To talk and translate all the babble of Babel.

So just drawing near,
With a vigilant ear,
That took ev’ry syllable in, very clear,
Before one could sip
Up a tumbler of flip,
He knew the whole tongue from the root to the tip!

Then stretching his hand,
As you see Daniel stand,
In the Feast of Belshazzar, that picture so grand!
Without more delay,
In the Hamilton way
He English’d whatever the Elf had to say.

“Krak kraziboo ban,
I’m the Lunatic Man,
Confined in the Moon since creation began—
Sit muggy bigog,
Whom, except in a fog,
You see with a Lantern, a Bush, and a Dog.

“Lang sinery lear,
For this many a year,
I’ve long’d to drop in at your own little sphere,—
Och, pad-mad aroon,
Till one fine afternoon,
I found that Wind-Coach on the horns of the Moon.

“Cush quackery go,
But, besides you must know,
I’d heard of a profiting Prophet below;
Big botherum blether,
Who pretended to gather
The tricks that the Moon meant to play with the weather.

“So Crismus an crash,
Being shortish of cash,
I thought I’d a right to partake of the hash—
Slik mizzle an smak,
So I’m come with a pack,
To sell to the trade, of my own Almanack.

“Fiz, bobbery pershal,
Besides aims commercial,
Much wishing to honour my friend Sir John Herschel,
Cum puddin and tame,
It’s inscribed to his name,
Which is now at the full in celestial fame.

“Wept wepton wish wept,
Pray this Copy accept”—
But here on the Stranger some Kidnappers leapt:
For why? a shrewd man
Had devis’d a sly plan
The Wonder to grab for a show Caravan.

So plotted, so done—
With a fight as in fun,
While mock pugilistical rounds were begun,
A knave who could box,
And give right and left knocks,
Caught hold of the Prize by his silvery locks.

And hard he had fared,
But the people were scared
By what the Interpreter roundly declared:
“You ignorant Turks!
You will be your own Burkes—
He holds all the keys of the lunary works!

“You’d best let him go—
If you keep him below,
The Moon will not change, and the tides will not flow;
He left her at full,
And with such a long pull,
Zounds! ev’ry man Jack will run mad like a bull!”

So awful a threat
Took effect on the set;
The fright, tho’, was more than their Guest could forget;
So taking a jump,
In the car he came plump,
And threw all the ballast right out in a lump.

Up soar’d the machine,
With its yellow and green;
But still the pale face of the Creature was seen,
Who cried from the car,
“Dam in yooman bi gar!”
That is,—“What a sad set of villains you are!”

Howbeit, at some height,
He threw down quite a flight
Of Almanacks, wishing to set us all right—
And, thanks to the boon,
We shall see very soon
If Murphy knows most, or the Man in the Moon!

---

A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS.

“Glorious Apollo, from on high behold us.”—Old Song.

S latterly I chanced to pass
A Public House, from which, alas!
The Arms of Oxford dangle!
My ear was startled by a din,
That made me tremble in my skin,
A dreadful hubbub from within,
Of voices in a wrangle—

Voices loud, and voices high,
With now and then a party-cry,
Such as used in times gone by
To scare the British border;
When foes from North and South of Tweed—
Neighbours—and of Christian creed—
Met in hate to fight and bleed,
Upsetting Social Order.

Surprised, I turn’d me to the crowd,
Attracted by that tumult loud,
And ask’d a gazer, beetle-brow’d,
The cause of such disquiet.
When lo! the solemn-looking man,
First shook his head on Burleigh’s plan,
And then, with fluent tongue, began
His version of the riot:

A row!—why yes,—a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany,
And what is worse, it’s all got up among the Sons of Harmony,
The more’s the shame for them as used to be in time and tune,
And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June!
Ah! many a pleasant chant I’ve heard in passing here along,
When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song;
But Dick’s resign’d the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers
Is ‘cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars,
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
Lord knows their names, I’m sure I don’t, no more than any yokel,
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal;
Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies,
They’ve no more warble in ’em than a pair of hen canaries,
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t’other sort of thing,
For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing;
But lork! it’s many folk’s belief they’re only good at prosing,
For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing;
And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials,
If pop’lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials,
And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey,
It’s chanted like the “Dog’s Meat Man,” or “If I had a Donkey.”
Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither,
No ballad—worth a ha’penny—has ever come from either,
And him as writ “Jim Crow,” he says, and got such lots of dollars,
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Howsomever that’s the meaning of the squabble that arouses,
This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses,
Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason
In Christian peace and charity according to the season.
But from Number Thirty-Nine—since this electioneering job,
Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there’s an everlasting mob;
Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by,
But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye;
And a pretty noise there is!—what with canvassers and spouters,
For in course each side is furnish’d with its backers and its touters;
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried,
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married;
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms,
If you’re dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the “Arms;”
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars,
To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same;
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,—
But they’ll be the House’s ruin, or the shutting of it up,
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they’ve damaged many articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing Morning Heralds, Times, and Standards at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn’t to repeat,
And the names they call each other—for I’ve heard ’em in the street—
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not,
For Pasley and his divers ain’t so blowing-up a lot.
And then such awful swearing!—for there’s one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition ‘busses;
For he cusses every member that’s agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn’t cuss a donkey, tho’ it hasn’t got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don’t agree with him.
Whereby, altho’ as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I’m bound there’ll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call—
And as if there wasn’t Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about,—
Why, a Cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows—
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws;
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres,—
But it’s not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach,
And I’ve had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford’s famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can’t just call to mind—
But it’s not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It’s the best among the vocalists I’d honour with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics—
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec’s.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, as far as they can compass,
Have turn’d a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns—altho’ I can’t see how it follers—
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

Well, that’s the row—and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the “Arms” her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing—as some longish heads foretel it,
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it.
Howsomever, for the present, there’s no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the New Police;—
But if I was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man,
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I’d settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I’d have another candidate—and that’s the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy,
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby—if folks was wise—instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers,
They’ll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely—Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

---

A TABLE OF ERRATA.
(HOSTESS LOQUITUR.)

ELL! thanks be to heaven,
The summons is given;
It’s only gone seven
And should have been six;
There’s fine overdoing
In roasting and stewing,
And victuals past chewing
To rags and to sticks!

How dreadfully chilly!
I shake, willy-nilly;
That John is so silly
And never will learn!
This plate is a cold one,
That cloth is an old one,
I wish they had told one
The lamp wouldn’t burn.

Now then for some blunder,
For nerves to sink under;
I never shall wonder
Whatever goes ill.
That fish is a riddle!
It’s broke in the middle,
A Turbot! a fiddle!
It’s only a Brill!

It’s quite over-boil’d too,
The butter is oil’d too,
The soup is all spoil’d too,
It’s nothing but slop.
The smelts looking flabby,
The soles are as dabby,
It all is so shabby
That Cook shall not stop!

As sure as the morning,
She gets a month’s warning,
My orders for scorning—
There’s nothing to eat!
I hear such a rushing,
I feel such a flushing,
I know I am blushing
As red as a beet!

Friends flatter and flatter,
I wish they would chatter;
What can be the matter
That nothing comes next?
How very unpleasant!
Lord! there is the pheasant!
Not wanted at present,
I’m born to be vext!

The pudding brought on too
And aiming at ton too!
And where is that John too,
The plague that he is?
He’s off on some ramble:
And there is Miss Campbell,
Enjoying the scramble,
Detestable Quiz!

The veal they all eye it,
But no one will try it,
An Ogre would shy it
So ruddy as that!
And as for the mutton,
The cold dish it’s put on,
Converts to a button
Each drop of the fat.

The beef without mustard!
My fate’s to be fluster’d,
And there comes the custard
To eat with the hare!
Such flesh, fowl, and fishing,
Such waiting and dishing,
I cannot help wishing
A woman might swear!

Oh dear! did I ever—
But no, I did never—
Well, come, that is clever,
To send up the brawn!
That cook, I could scold her,
Gets worse as she’s older;
I wonder who told her
That woodcocks are drawn!

It’s really audacious!
I cannot look gracious,
Lord help the voracious
That came for a cram!
There’s Alderman Fuller
Gets duller and duller.
Those fowls, by the colour,
Were boil’d with the ham!

Well, where is the curry?
I’m all in a flurry,
No, cook’s in no hurry—
A stoppage again!
And John makes it wider,
A pretty provider!
By bringing up cider
Instead of champagne!

My troubles come faster!
There’s my lord and master
Detects each disaster,
And hardly can sit:
He cannot help seeing,
All things disagreeing;
If he begins d—ing
I’m off in a fit!

This cooking?—it’s messing!
The spinach wants pressing,
And salads in dressing
Are best with good eggs.
And John—yes, already—
Has had something heady,
That makes him unsteady
In keeping his legs.

How shall I get through it!
I never can do it,
I’m quite looking to it,
To sink by and by.
Oh! would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now
And have a good cry!

---

THE GREEN MAN.

OM SIMPSON was as nice a kind of man
As ever lived—at least at number Four,
In Austin Friars, in Mrs. Brown’s first floor,
At fifty pounds,—or thereabouts,—per ann.
The Lady reckon’d him her best of lodgers,
His rent so punctually paid each quarter,—
He did not smoke like nasty foreign codgers—
Nor play French horns like Mr. Rogers—
Or talk his flirting nonsense to her daughter—
Not that the girl was light behaved or courtable—
Still on one failing tenderly to touch,
The Gentleman did like a drop too much,
(Tho’ there are many such)
And took more Port than was exactly portable.
In fact,—to put the cap upon the nipple,
And try the charge,—Tom certainly did tipple.
He thought the motto was but sorry stuff
On Cribb’s Prize Cup—Yes, wrong in ev’ry letter—
That “D——d be he who first cries Hold Enough!”
The more cups hold, and if enough, the better.
And so to set example in the eyes
Of Fancy’s lads, and give a broadish hint to them,
All his cups were of such ample size
That he got into them.
Once in the company of merry mates,
In spite of Temperance’s ifs and buts,
So sure as Eating is set off with plates,
His Drinking always was bound up with cuts!

Howbeit, such Bacchanalian revels
Bring very sad catastrophes about;
Palsy, Dyspepsy, Dropsy, and Blue Devils,
Not to forget the Gout.
Sometimes the liver takes a spleenful whim
To grow to Strasbourg’s regulation size,
As if for those hepatical goose pies—
Or out of depth the head begins to swim—
Poor Simpson! what a thing occurred to him!
’Twas Christmas—he had drunk the night before,—
Like Baxter, who “so went beyond his last”—
One bottle more, and then one bottle more,
Till, oh! the red-wine Ruby-con was pass’d!
And homeward, by the short small chimes of day,
With many a circumbendibus to spare,
For instance, twice round Finsbury Square,
To use a fitting phrase, he wound his way.

Then comes the rising, with repentance bitter,
And all the nerves—(and sparrows)—in a twitter,
Till settled by the sober Chinese cup:
The hands, o’er all, are members that make motions,
A sort of wavering just like the ocean’s,
Which has its swell, too, when it’s getting up—
An awkward circumstance enough for elves
Who shave themselves;
And Simpson just was ready to go thro’ it
When lo! the first short glimpse within the glass—
He jump’d—and who alive would fail to do it?—
To see, however it had come to pass,
One section of his face as green as grass!
In vain each eager wipe,
With soap—without—wet—hot or cold—or dry,
Still, still, and still, to his astonished eye
One cheek was green, the other cherry ripe!
Plump in the nearest chair he sat him down,
Quaking, and quite absorb’d in a deep study,—
But verdant and not brown,
What could have happened to a tint so ruddy?
Indeed it was a very novel case,
By way of penalty for being jolly,
To have that evergreen stuck in his face,
Just like the windows with their Christmas holly.

“All claret marks,”—thought he—Tom knew his forte—
“Are red—this colour CANNOT come from Port!”

One thing was plain; with such a face as his,
’Twas quite impossible to ever greet
Good Mrs. Brown; nay, any party meet,
Altho’ ’twas such a parti-coloured phiz!
As for the public, fancy Sarcy Ned,
The coachman, flying, dog-like, at his head,
With “Ax your pardon, Sir, but if you please—
Unless it comes too high—
Vere ought a fellow, now, to go to buy
The t’other half, Sir, of that ‘ere green cheese?”
His mind recoil’d—so he tied up his head,
As with a raging tooth, and took to bed;
Of course with feelings far from the serene,
For all his future prospects seemed to be,
To match his customary tea,
Black mixt with green.
Meanwhile, good Mrs. Brown
Wondered at Mr. S. not coming down,
And sent the maid up-stairs to learn the why;
To whom poor Simpson, half delirious,
Returned an answer so mysterious
That curiosity began to fry;
The more, as Betty, who had caught a snatch
By peeping in upon the patient’s bed,
Reported a most bloody, tied-up head,
Got over-night of course—“Harm watch, harm catch,”
From Watchmen in a boxing-match.

So, liberty or not,—
Good lodgers are too scarce to let them off in
A suicidal coffin—
The dame ran up as fast as she could trot;
“Appearance,—fiddlesticks!” should not deter
From going to the bed,
And looking at the head:
“La! Mister S——, he need not care for her!
A married woman that had had
Nine boys and gals, and none had turned out bad—
Her own dear late would come home late at night,
And liquor always got him in a fight,
She’d been in Hospitals—she wouldn’t faint
At gores and gashes fingers wide and deep;
She knew what’s good for bruises and what ain’t—
Turlington’s Drops she made a p’int to keep.
Cases she’d seen beneath the surgent’s hand—
Such skulls japann’d—she meant to say trepann’d!
Poor wretches! you would think they’d been in battle,
And hadn’t hours to live,
From tearing horses’ kicks or Smithfield cattle,
Shamefully over-driv!—
Heads forced to have a silver plate atop,
To get the brains to stop.
At imputations of the legs she’d been,
And neither screech’d nor cried—
Hereat she pluck’d the white cravat aside,
And lo! the whole phenomenon was seen—
“Preserve us all! He’s going to gangrene!”

Alas! through Simpson’s brain
Shot the remark, like ball, with mortal pain;
It tallied truly with his own misgiving,
And brought a groan,
To move a heart of stone—
A sort of farewell to the land of living!
And as the case was imminent and urgent,
He did not make a shadow of objection
To Mrs. B.’s proposal for a “surgent,”
But merely gave a sight of deep dejection,
While down the verdant cheek a tear of grief
Stole, like a dew-drop on a cabbage-leaf.
Swift flew the summons,—it was life or death!
And in as short a time as he could race it,
Came Doctor Puddicome as short of breath,
To try his Latin charms against Hic Jacet.
He took a seat beside the patient’s bed,
Saw tongue—felt pulse—examined the bad cheek,—
Poked, stroked, pinch’d, kneaded it—hemm’d—shook his head—
Took a long solemn pause the cause to seek,
(Thinking, it seem’d, in Greek,)
Then ask’d—‘twas Christmas—“Had he eaten grass,
Or greens—and if the cook was so improper
To boil them up with copper,
Or farthings made of brass;
Or if he drank his Hock from dark green glass,
Or dined at City Festivals, whereat
There’s turtle, and green fat?”
To all of which, with serious tone of woe,
Poor Simpson answered “No.”
Indeed he might have said in form auricular,
Supposing Puddicome had been a monk—
He had not eaten (he had only drunk)
Of any thing “Particular.”
The Doctor was at fault;
A thing so new quite brought him to a halt.
Cases of other colours came in crowds,
He could have found their remedy, and soon;
But green—it sent him up among the clouds,
As if he had gone up with Green’s balloon!
Black with Black Jaundice he had seen the skin;
From Yellow Jaundice yellow,
From saffron tints to sallow;—
Then retrospective memory lugg’d in
Old Purple Face, the Host at Kentish Town—
East Indians, without number,
He knew familiarly, by heat done Brown,
From tan to a burnt umber,
Ev’n those eruptions he had never seen
Of which the Caledonian Poet spoke,
As “rashes growing green!”
“Pooh! pooh! a rash grow green!
Nothing of course but a broad Scottish joke!”
Then as to flaming visages, for those
The Scarlet Fever answer’d, or the Rose—
But verdant that was quite a novel stroke!
Men turn’d to blue, by Cholera’s last stage,
In common practice he had really seen;
But green—he was too old, and grave, and sage,
To think of the last stage to Turnham Green!

So matters stood in-doors—meanwhile without,
Growing in going like all other rumours,
The modern miracle was buzz’d about,
By People of all humours,
Native or foreign in their dialecticals;
Till all the neighbourhood, as if their noses
Had taken the odd gross from little Moses,
Seem’d looking thro’ green spectacles.
“Green faces!” so they all began to comment—
“Yes—opposite to Druggist’s lighted shops,
But that’s a flying colour—never stops—
A bottle-green that’s vanished in a moment.
Green! nothing of the sort occurs to mind,
Nothing at all to match the present piece;
Jack in the Green has nothing of the kind—
Green-grocers are not green—nor yet green geese!”
The oldest Supercargoes of Old Sailors
Of such a case had never heard,
From Emerald Isle to Cape de Verd;
“Or Greenland!” cried the whalers.
All tongues were full of the Green man, and still
They could not make him out, with all their skill;
No soul could shape the matter, head or tail—
But truth steps in where all conjectures fail.

A long half-hour, in needless puzzle,
Our Galen’s cane had rubbed against his muzzle:
He thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought—
And still it came to nought,
When up rush’d Betty, loudest of Town Criers,
“Lord, Ma’am, the new Police is at the door!
It’s B, ma’am, Twenty-four,—
As brought home Mr. S. to Austin Friars,
And says there’s nothing but a simple case—
He got that ‘ere green face
By sleeping in the kennel near the Dyer’s!”

---

BEN BLUFF.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“Pshaw, you are not on a whaling voyage, where everything that offers is game.”—The Pilot.

EN BLUFF was a whaler, and many a day
Had chased the huge fish about Baffin’s old Bay,
But time brought a change his diversion to spoil,
And that was when Gas took the shine out of Oil.

He turn’d up his nose at the fumes of the Coke,
And swore the whole scheme was a bottle of smoke:
As to London he briefly delivered his mind,
“Sparma-city,” said he—but the City declined.

So Ben cut his line in a sort of a huff,
As soon as his whales had brought profits enough,
And hard by the Docks settled down for his life,
But, true to his text, went to Wales for a wife.

A big one she was, without figure or waist,
More bulky than lovely, but that was his taste;
In fat she was lapp’d from her sole to her crown,
And, turn’d into oil, would have lighted a town.

But Ben like a Whaler was charm’d with the match,
And thought, very truly, his spouse a great catch;
A flesh-and-blood emblem of Plenty and Peace,
And would not have changed her for Helen of Greece.

For Greenland was green in his memory still;
He’d quitted his trade, but retain’d the good-will;
And often, when soften’d by bumbo and flip,
Would cry—till he blubber’d—about his old ship.

No craft like the Grampus could work through a floe,
What knots she could run, and what tons she could stow.
And then that rich smell he preferr’d to the rose,
By just nosing the whole without holding his nose!

Now Ben he resolved, one fine Saturday night,
A snug Arctic Circle of friends to invite,
Old Tars in the trade, who related old tales,
And drank, and blew clouds that were “very like whales.”

Of course with their grog there was plenty of chat,
Of canting, and flinching, and cutting up fat;
And how Gun Harpoons into fashion had got,
And if they were meant for the Gun-whale or not?

At last they retired, and left Ben to his rest,
By fancies cetaceous, and drink, well possess’d,
When, lo! as he lay by his partner in bed,
He heard something blow through two holes in its head.

“A start!” mutter’d Ben, in the Grampus afloat,
And made but one jump from the deck to the boat!
“Huzza! pull away for the blubber and bone—
I look on that whale as already my own!”

Then groping about by the light of the moon,
He soon laid his hand on his trusty harpoon;
A moment he poised it, to send it more pat,
And then made a plunge to imbed it in fat!

“Starn all!” he sang out, “as you care for your lives—
Starn all, as you hope to return to your wives—
Stand by for the flurry! she throws up the foam!
Well done, my old iron, I’ve sent you right home!”

And scarce had he spoken, when lo! bolt upright
The Leviathan rose in a great sheet of white,
And swiftly advanced for a fathom or two,
As only a fish out of water could do.

“Starn all!” echoed Ben, with a movement aback,
But too slow to escape from the creature’s attack;
If flippers it had, they were furnish’d with nails,—
“You willin, I’ll teach you that Women an’t Whales!”

“Avast!” shouted Ben, with a sort of a screech,
“I’ve heard a Whale spouting, but here is a speech!”
“A-spouting, indeed!—very pretty,” said she;
“But it’s you I’ll blow up, not the froth of the sea!

“To go to pretend to take me for a fish!
You great Polar Bear—but I know what you wish—
You’re sick of a wife, that your hankering baulks,—
You want to go back to some young Esquimax!”

“O dearest,” cried Ben, frighten’d out of his life,
“Don’t think I would go for to murder a wife
I must long have bewailed”—“But she only cried Stuff!
Don’t name it, you brute, you’ve be-whaled me enough!”

“Lord, Polly!” said Ben, “such a deed could I do?
I’d rather have murder’d all Wapping than you!
Come, forgive what is passed.” “O you monster!” she cried,
“It was none of your fault that it passed of one side!”

However, at last she inclined to forgive;
“But, Ben, take this warning as long as you live—
If the love of harpooning so strong must prevail,
Take a whale for a wife, not a wife for a whale.”

---

SALLY SIMPKIN’S LAMENT;
OR, JOHN JONES’S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE.

“He left his body to the sea,
And made a shark his legatee.”
Bryan and Perenne.

“Oh! what is that comes gliding in,
And quite in middling haste?
It is the picture of my Jones,
And painted to the waist.

“It is not painted to the life,
For where’s the trowsers blue?
Oh Jones, my dear!—oh dear! my Jones,
What is become of you?”

“Oh! Sally dear, it is too true,—
The half that you remark
Is come to say my other half
Is bit off by a shark!

“Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,
Yet most completely do!
A bite in one place seems enough,
But I’ve been bit in two.

“You know I once was all your own,
But now a shark must share!
But let that pass—for now to you
I’m neither here nor there.

“Alas! death has a strange divorce
Effected in the sea,
It has divided me from you,
And even me from me!

“Don’t fear my ghost will walk o’nights
To haunt, as people say;
My ghost can’t walk, for, oh! my legs
Are many leagues away!

“Lord! think, when I am swimming round,
And looking where the boat is,
A shark just snaps away a half,
Without ‘a quarter’s notice.’

“One half is here, the other half
Is near Columbia placed;
Oh! Sally, I have got the whole
Atlantic for my waist.

“But now, adieu—a long adieu!
I’ve solved death’s awful riddle,
And would say more, but I am doomed
To break off in the middle!”

---

I’M GOING TO BOMBAY.

“Nothing venture, nothing have.”—Old Proverb.

“Every Indiaman has at least two mates.”—Falconer’s
Marine Guide.

I.

Y hair is brown, my eyes are blue,
And reckon’d rather bright;
I’m shapely, if they tell me true,
And just the proper height;
My skin has been admired in verse,
And called as fair as day—
If I am fair, so much the worse,
I’m going to Bombay!

II.

At school I passed with some éclât;
I learned my French in France;
De Wint gave lessons how to draw,
And D’Egville how to dance;—
Crevelli taught me how to sing,
And Cramer how to play—
It really is the strangest thing—
I’m going to Bombay!

III.

I’ve been to Bath and Cheltenham Wells,
But not their springs to sip—
To Ramsgate—not to pick up shells,—
To Brighton—not to dip.
I’ve tour’d the Lakes, and scour’d the coast
From Scarboro’ to Torquay—
But tho’ of time I’ve made the most,
I’m going to Bombay!

IV.

By Pa and Ma I’m daily told
To marry now’s my time,
For though I’m very far from old,
I’m rather in my prime.
They say while we have any sun,
We ought to make our hay—
And India has so hot an one,
I’m going to Bombay!

V.

My cousin writes from Hyderapot
My only chance to snatch,
And says the climate is so hot,
It’s sure to light a match.—
She’s married to a son of Mars,
With very handsome pay,
And swears I ought to thank my stars
I’m going to Bombay!

VI.

She says that I shall much delight
To taste their Indian treats,
But what she likes may turn me quite,
Their strange outlandish meats.—
If I can eat rupees, who knows?
Or dine, the Indian way,
On doolies and on bungalows—
I’m going to Bombay!

VII.

She says that I shall much enjoy,—
I don’t know what she means,—
To take the air and buy some toy,
In my own palankeens,—
I like to drive my pony-chair,
Or ride our dapple gray—
But elephants are horses there—
I’m going to Bombay!

VIII.

Farewell, farewell, my parents dear,
My friends, farewell to them!
And oh, what costs a sadder tear,
Good-bye to Mr. M.!—
If I should find an Indian vault,
Or fall a tiger’s prey,
Or steep in salt, it’s all his fault,
I’m going to Bombay!

IX.

That fine new teak-built ship, the Fox
A. 1—Commander Bird,
Now lying in the London Docks,
Will sail on May the Third;
Apply for passage or for freight,
To Nichol, Scott, and Gray—
Pa has applied and seal’d my fate—
I’m going to Bombay!

X.

My heart is full—my trunks as well;
My mind and caps made up,
My corsets shap’d by Mrs. Bell,
Are promised ere I sup;
With boots and shoes, Rivarta’s best,
And dresses by Ducé,
And a special license in my chest—
I’m going to Bombay!

---

JOHN JONES.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“I saw the iron enter into his soul.”—Sterne.

OHN JONES he was a builder’s clerk,
On ninety pounds a year,
Before his head was engine-turn’d
To be an engineer!

For, finding that the iron roads
Were quite the public tale,
Like Robin Redbreast, all his heart
Was set upon a rail.

But oh! his schemes all ended ill,
As schemes must come to nought,
With men who try to make short cuts,
When cut with something short.

His altitudes he did not take,
Like any other elf;
But first a spirit-level took,
That levelled him, himself.

Then getting up, from left to right
So many tacks he made,
The ground he meant to go upon
Got very well survey’d.

How crows may fly he did not care
A single fig to know;—
He wish’d to make an iron road,
And not an iron crow.

So, going to the Rose and Crown,
To cut his studies short,
The nearest way from pint to pint,
He found was through a quart.

According to this rule he plann’d
His railroad o’er a cup;
But when he came to lay it down,
No soul would take it up!

Alas! not his the wily arts
Of men as shrewd as rats,
Who out of one sole level make
A precious lot of flats!

In vain from Z to crooked S,
His devious line he show’d;
Directors even seemed to wish
For some directer road.

The writers of the public press
All sneered at his design;
And penny-a-liners wouldn’t give
A penny for his line.

OVERTAKER AND UNDERTAKER.

THE BATH GUIDE.

Yet still he urged his darling scheme,
In spite of all the fates;
Until at last his zigzag ways
Quite brought him into straits.

His money gone, of course he sank
In debt from day to day,—
His way would not pay him—and so
He could not pay his way.

Said he, “All parties run me down—
How bitter is my cup!
My landlord is the only man
That ever runs me up!

“And he begins to talk of scores,
And will not draw a cork;”—
And then he rail’d at Fortune, since
He could not rail at York!

The morrow, in a fatal noose
They found him hanging fast;
This sentence scribbled on the wall,—
“I’ve got my line at last!”

Twelve men upon the body sate,
And thus, on oath, did say,
“We find he got his gruel, ‘cause
He couldn’t have his way!”

---

POMPEY’S GHOST.
A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in white and black the same.”—Cowper.

’Twas twelve o’clock, not twelve at night,
But twelve o’clock at noon,
Because the sun was shining bright,
And not the silver moon:
A proper time for friends to call,
Or Pots, or Penny Post;
When, lo! as Phœbe sat at work,
She saw her Pompey’s Ghost!

Now when a female has a call
From people that are dead,
Like Paris ladies, she receives
Her visitors in bed:
But Pompey’s Spirit could not come
Like spirits that are white,
Because he was a Blackamoor,
And wouldn’t show at night!

But of all unexpected things
That happen to us here,
The most unpleasant is a rise
In what is very dear:
So Phœbe scream’d an awful scream,
To prove the seaman’s text,
That after black appearances,
White squalls will follow next.

“Oh, Phœbe dear! oh, Phœbe dear!
Don’t go to scream or faint;
You think because I’m black I am
The Devil, but I ain’t!
Behind the heels of Lady Lambe
I walk’d whilst I had breath;
But that is past, and I am now
A-walking after Death!

“No murder, though, I come to tell,
By base and bloody crime;
So, Phœbe dear, put off your fits
Till some more fitting time;
No Crowner, like a boatswain’s mate,
My body need attack,
With his round dozen to find out
Why I have died so black.

“One Sunday, shortly after tea,
My skin began to burn,
As if I had in my inside
A heater, like the urn.
Delirious in the night I grew,
And as I lay in bed,
They say I gather’d all the wool
You see upon my head.

“His Lordship for his doctor sent,
My treatment to begin—
I wish that he had call’d him out,
Before he call’d him in!
For though to physic he was bred,
And pass’d at Surgeons’ Hall,
To make his post a sinecure
He never cured at all!

“The doctor look’d about my breast,
And then about my back,
And then he shook his head and said,
‘Your case looks very black.’
And first he sent me hot cayenne,
And then gamboge to swallow,—
But still my fever would not turn
To Scarlet or to Yellow!

“With madder and with turmeric
He made his next attack;
But neither he nor all his drugs
Could stop my dying black.
At last I got so sick of life,
And sick of being dosed,
One Monday morning I gave up
My physic and the ghost!

“Oh, Phœbe dear, what pain it was
To sever every tie!
You know black beetles feel as much
As giants when they die—
And if there is a bridal bed,
Or bride of little worth,
It’s lying in a bed of mould,
Along with Mother Earth.

“Alas! some happy, happy day
In church I hoped to stand,
And like a muff of sable skin
Receive your lily hand;
But sternly with that piebald match
My fate untimely clashes—
For now, like Pompe-double-i,
I’m sleeping in my ashes!

“And now farewell!—a last farewell!
I’m wanted down below,
And have but time enough to add
One word before I go,—
In mourning crape and bombazine
Ne’er spend your precious pelf—
Don’t go in black for me,—for I
Can do it for myself.

“Henceforth within my grave I rest,
But Death who there inherits,
Allow’d my spirit leave to come,
You seem’d so out of spirits;
But do not sigh, and do not cry,
By grief too much engross’d—
Nor, for a ghost of colour, turn
The colour of a ghost!

“Again farewell, my Phœbe dear!
Once more a last adieu!
For I must make myself as scarce
As swans of sable hue.”
From black to grey, from grey to nought,
The shape began to fade,
And, like an egg, though not so white,
The Ghost was newly laid!

---

TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.[14]

H very pleasant Mr. Wrench,—
The first, upon the pit’s first bench,
I’ve scrambled to my place,
To hail thee on these summer boards
With joy, even critic-craft affords,
And watch thy welcome face!

Ere thou art come, how I rejoice
To hear thy free and easy voice,
Lounging about the slips;
And then thy figure comes and owns
The voice as careless as the tones
That saunter from thy lips.

Oh come and cast a quiet glance,
To glad a nameless friend, askance
The lamps’ ascending glare;
Better it is than bended knees,
Heart-squeezing, and profound congés—
That old familiar air.

Even in the street, in that apt face,
Full of gay gravity, I trace
The soul of native whim;
A constant, never-failing store
Of quiet mirth, that ne’er runs o’er,
But aye is near the brim.

Quoth I, “There goes a happy wight,
Inimical to spleen and spite,
And careless of all care;
Who oils the ruffled waves of strife,
And makes the work-day suit of life
Of very easy wear.

Lord! if he had some people’s ills
To cope—their hungry bonds and bills,
How faintly they would tease;
Things that have cost both tears and sighs—
Their foes, as motelings in his eyes—
Their duns, his summer fleas!

The stage, I guess, is not thy school—
Thou dost not antic like the fool
That wept behind his mask;
Thy playing is thy play—a sport—
A revel, as perform’d at Court,
And not a trade—a task!

Gay Freeman, art thou hired for him?
No—‘tis thy humour and thy whim
To be that easy guest;
Whereas whoever plays for pelf,
(Like Bennett) only gives him-self,
Or her—like Mrs. West!

Nay, thou—to look beyond the stage,
Thy life is but another page
Continued of the play;
The same companionable sprite—
Thy whim and pleasantry by night
Are with thee in the day!

---

LOVE, WITH A WITNESS.

E has shav’d off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows,
Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,—
But it’s him—Oh it’s him!—we exchanged lovers’ vows,
When I lived up in Cavendish Square.

He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,
And his voice was as soft as a flute—
Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d when he came,
To make love in his master’s best suit.

If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,
I shall never forget what he told;
How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth,
With their jewels and silver and gold?

When he kiss’d me and bade me adieu with a sigh,
By the light of the sweetest of moons,
Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye
To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!

---

LINES BY A SCHOOL-BOY.

HEN I was first a scholar, I went to Dr. Monk,
And elephant-like I had, sir, a cake put in my trunk;
The Rev. Doctor Monk, sir, was very grave and prim,
He stood full six foot high, sir, and we all looked up to him.

They didn’t pinch and starve us, as here they do at York,
For every boy was ask’d, sir, to bring a knife and fork.
And then I had a chum too, to fag and all of that,
I made him sum up my sums too, and eat up all my fat.

For goodness we had prizes, and birch for doing ill,
But none of the Birch that visits the bottom of Cornhill.
And we’d half a dozen ushers to teach us Latin and Greek,
And all we’d got in our heads, sir, was combed out once a week.

And then we had a shop, too, for lollipops and squibs,
Where I often had a lick, sir, at Buonaparty’s ribs!
Oh! if I was at Clapham, at my old school again,
In the rod I could fancy honey, and sugar in the cane.

---

ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON
ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE.

“It was Maria!—
And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid—
She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round
St. Peter’s once—and returned back—.”
See the whole story in Sterne and the newspapers.

HOU art come back again to the stage
Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave it;
And ’tis well for this fortunate age
That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it!
It is pleasant to see thee again—
Right pleasant to see thee, by Herclé,
Unmolested by pea-colour’d Hayne!
And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley!

Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light
(Not my Foote—I speak by correction)
As the snow on some mountain at night,
Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone.
The Pit is in raptures to free thee,
The Boxes impatient to greet thee,
The Galleries quite clam’rous to see thee,
And thy scenic relations to meet thee!

Ah, where was thy sacred retreat?
Maria! ah, where hast thou been,
With thy two little wandering Feet,
Far away from all peace and pea-green!
Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold,
Far away from himself and his lot!
I envy the place thou hast stroll’d,
If a stroller thou art—which thou’rt not!

Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing,
Methinks, at the close of the day—
When thy Billy had just slipp’d his string,
And thy little dog quite gone astray—
He bade thee to sorrow no more—
He wish’d thee to lull thy distress
In his bosom—he couldn’t do more,
And a Christian could hardly do less!

Ah, me! for thy small plaintive pipe
I fear we must look at thine eye—
That eye—forced so often to wipe
That the handkerchief never got dry!
Oh sure ’tis a barbarous deed
To give pain to the feminine mind—
But the wooer that left thee to bleed
Was a creature more killing than kind!

The man that could tread on a worm
Is a brute—and inhuman to boot;
But he merits a much harsher term
That can wantonly tread on a Foote!
Soft mercy and gentleness blend
To make up a Quaker—but he
That spurn’d thee could scarce be a Friend,
Though he dealt in that Thou-ing of thee!

They that loved thee, Maria, have flown!
The friends of the midsummer hour!
But those friends now in anguish atone,
And mourn o’er thy desolate bow’r.
Friend Hayne, the Green Man, is quite out,
Yea, utterly out of his bias;
And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt,
Is counting his Ave Marias!

Ah, where wast thou driven away
To feast on thy desolate woe?
We have witness’d thy weeping in play,
But none saw the earnest tears flow—
Perchance thou wert truly forlorn,—
Though none but the fairies could mark
Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn,
Or the thistle in Burderop Park!

Ah, perhaps, when old age’s white snow
Has silver’d the crown of Hayne’s nob—
For even the greenest will grow
As hoary as “White-headed Bob—”
He’ll wish, in the days of his prime,
He had been rather kinder to one
He hath left to the malice of Time—
A woman—so weak and undone!

---

ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ.,
THE GREAT LESSEE!

“Rover. Do you know, you villain, that I am this moment the greatest man living?”—Wild Oats.

H! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan
Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!
Macready’s master! Westminster’s high Dane
(As Galway Martin, in the House’s walls,
Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls)
Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!
Magician of the lamp and prompter’s ring!
Drury’s Aladdin! Whipper-in of actors!
Kicker of rebel preface-malefactors!
Glass-blowers’ corrector! King of the cheque-taker!
At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!
Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and cakes!
In silken hose the most reform’d of Rakes!
Oh, Lord High Elliston! lend me an ear!
(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear)
While I, in little slips of prose, not verse,
Thy splendid course, as pattern-work, rehearse!

Bright was thy youth—thy manhood brighter still—
The greatest Romeo upon Holburn Hill—
Lightest comedian of the pleasant day,
When Jordan threw her sunshine o’er a play!
But these, though happy, were but subject-times,
And no man cares for bottom-steps, that climbs—
Far from my wish it is to stifle down
The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown!
Though now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields,
Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George’s Fields.
Dibdin was Premier—and a Golden Age
For a short time enrich’d the subject stage.
Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty;
Ours but one Bench could boast, but thou hadst twenty;
But the times changed—and Booth-acting no more
Drew Rulers’ shillings to the gallery door.
Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence,
Repentant, like thy neighbour Magdalens!

Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat
Practised the most bewitching in Wych Street.
Charles had his royal ribaldry restored,
And in a downright neighbourhood drank and whored;
Rochester there in dirty ways again
Revell’d—and lived once more in Drury Lane:
But thou, R. W., kept thy moral ways,
Pit-lecturing ’twixt the farces and the plays,
A lamplight Irving to the butcher-boys
That soil’d the benches and that made a noise:—
“You,—in the back!—can scarcely hear a line!
Down from those benches—butchers—they are Mine!”

Lastly—and thou wert built for it by nature!—
Crown’d was thy head in Drury Lane Theätre!
Gentle George Robins saw that it was good,
And renters cluck’d around thee in a brood.
King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean!
Of many a lady and of many a Queen!
With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun—
But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun,
Hook’s in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt,
And Colman lives to cut the damnlets out!

Oh, worthy of the house! the King’s commission!
Isn’t thy condition “a most bless’d condition?”
Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all
The very lofty and the very small—
Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick—
Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick—
Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments,
Without the danger of newspaper comments—
Tellest Macready, as none dared before,
Thine open mind from the half-open door!—
(Alas! I fear he has left Melpomene’s crown,
To be a Boniface in Buxton town!)—
Thou holdst the watch, as half-price people know,
And callest to them, to a moment,—“Go!”
Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing—
Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing—”
Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot—and kiss’d
The pearly whiteness of a Stephen’s wrist—
Kissing and pitying—tender and humane!
“By heaven she loves me! Oh, it is too plain!”
A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips,
Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips!

Go on, Lessee! Go on, and prosper well!
Fear not, though forty glass-blowers should rebel—
Show them how thou hast long befriended them,
And teach Dubois their treason to condemn!
Go on! addressing pits in prose—and worse!
Be long, be slow, be anything but terse—
Kiss to the gallery the hand that’s gloved—
Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved,
Go on—and but in this reverse the thing,
Walk backward with wax lights before the King—
Go on! Spring ever in thine eye! Go on!
Hope’s favourite child! ethereal Elliston!

---

SHOOTING PAINS.

“The charge is prepared.”—Macheath.

F I shoot any more I’ll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march’d the whole day
With a gun—for no pay—
Zounds, I’d better have been in the army!

What matters Sir Christopher’s leave?
To his manor I’m sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught,
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!

And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!”

Not Hawker could find out a flaw,—
My appointments are modern and Mantony,
And I’ve brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can’t find a mark for my Antony!

The partridges,—where can they lie?
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me,—I’m getting quite nervous!

To the pheasants—how well they’re preserved!
My sport’s not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy;—
And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”

I have tried ev’ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax’d,
Till my patience is tax’d,
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.

I’ve been roaming for hours in three flats
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for “setting my cap at!”

A woodcock,—this month is the time,—
Right and left I’ve made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!

A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day’s the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.

For a mallard I’ve waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake—oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!

For a field-fare I’ve fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a blackbird!

I am angry, I’m hungry, I’m dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number One seem overloaded.

As well one might beat round St. Paul’s,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search’d round and round
All the Baronet’s ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn’t a wren there!

Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it’s really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall’s Powder, renown’d for “quick firing.”

If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can’t have a high sense,
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun—
“Fined for shooting without any license.”

---

THE DUEL.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.

“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”

N Brentford town, of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.

To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow’d,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.

Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
“You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.

“Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.

“So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,—
I’ll pop it into you.”

Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
“Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer
Knows how to prime and load.

“And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep’s.”

Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.

But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give—
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.

To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step
They took a dozen more.

They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.

Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.

Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
“Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now,
Be doom’d to have a ball.

“I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?”

Said Mr. B., “I do agree—
But think of Honour’s Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.

“But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can’t we aim above, as if
We had call’d out the sun?”

So up into the harmless air,
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!

---

DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND.

“Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming...”—Old Ballad.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The next that I had was from Cross,
And once was a favourite spaniel
With Nero,[15] now dead,
And so I was led
Right up to his den like a Daniel.

A mongrel I tried, and he did,
As far as the profit and lossing,
Except that the kind
Endangers the blind,
The breed is so fond of a crossing.

A setter was quite to my taste,
In alleys or streets broad or narrow,
Till one day I met
A very dead set,
At a very dead horse in a barrow.

I once had a dog that went mad,
And sorry I was that I got him;
I came to a run,
And a man with a gun
Pepper’d me when he ought to have shot him.

My profits have gone to the dogs,
My trade has been such a deceiver,
I fear that my aim
Is a mere losing game,
Unless I can find a Retriever.

---

“UP THE RHINE.”

HY, Tourist, why
With Passports have to do?
Pr’ythee stay at home and pass
The Port and Sherry too.

Why, Tourist, why
Embark for Rotterdam?
Pr’ythee stay at home and take
Thy Hollands in a dram.

Why, Tourist, why
To foreign climes repair?
Pr’ythee take thy German Flute,
And breathe a German air.

Why, Tourist, why
The Seven Mountains view?
Any one at home can tint
A hill with Prussian Blue.

Why, Tourist, why
To old Colonia’s walls?
Sure, to see a Wrenish Dome,
One needn’t leave St. Paul’s.

---

THE COMET.
AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE.

“I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this self-same Starling.”—Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.

MONGST professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,
The name of H******l’s very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev’ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted
In his observatory thus coquetting
With Venus—or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy—it might be upon Mars—
A new André;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping:
Or ogling thro’ his glass
Some heavenly lass
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or Looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr’s:—
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,
When lo! a something with a tail of flame
Made him exclaim,
“My stars!”—he always puts that stress on my—
“My stars and garters!”

“A comet, sure as I’m alive!
A noble one as I should wish to view;
It can’t be Halley’s though, that is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent!—how fine his fiery trail!
Zounds! ’tis a pity, though he comes unsought—
Unask’d—unreckon’d,—in no human thought—
He ought—he ought—he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail!”

“I look’d no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really enter’d in my head
No more than Berenice’s Hair!”
Thus musing, Heaven’s Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with “Please your Honour, come to supper.”

“Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon—look up!”
“Not sup!” cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a star must be starvation,
Or ev’n to batten
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten.
His visage seem’d to say, “that very odd is,”
But still his master the same tune ran on,
“I can’t come down,—go to the parlour, John,
And say I’m supping with the heavenly bodies.”

“The heavenly bodies!” echoed John, “Ahem!”
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
“’Zooks, if your Honour sups with them,
In helping, somebody must make long arms!”
He thought his master’s stomach was in danger,
But still in the same tone replied the Knight,
“Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,
Say I’m engaged with a celestial stranger.”—
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,
“Wouldn’t the stranger take a bit down stairs?”

“No,” said the master, smiling and no wonder,
At such a blunder,
“The stranger is not quite the thing you think,
He wants no meat or drink,
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are join’d together,
Behold him,—there he is, John, in the South.”

John look’d up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket.
At last the fiery tad-pole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscences, cries,
“A rare good rocket!”

“A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet,
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frighten’d kings;
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range”—
“Do he?” cried John;
“Well, let him flare on,
I haven’t got no sovereigns to change!”

---

MORE HULLAH-BALOO.

“Loud as from numbers without number.”—Milton.

“You may do it extempore, for it’s nothing but roaring.”—Quince.

MONGST the great inventions of this age,
Which every other century surpasses,
Is one,—just now the rage,—
Called “Singing for all Classes —
That is, for all the British millions,
And billions,
And quadrillions,
Not to name Quintilians,
That now, alas! have no more ear than asses,
To learn to warble like the birds in June,
In time and tune,
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses!

In fact, a sort of plan,
Including gentleman as well as yokel,
Public or private man,
To call out a Militia,—only Vocal
Instead of Local,
And not designed for military follies,
But keeping still within the civil border,
To form with mouths in open order,
And sing in volleys.

Whether this grand harmonic scheme
Will ever get beyond a dream,
And tend to British happiness and glory,
Maybe no, and maybe yes,
Is more than I pretend to guess—
However, here’s my story.

In one of those small, quiet streets,
Where business retreats,
To shun the daily bustle and the noise
The shoppy Strand enjoys,
But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance
Find past endurance—
In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear,
The other day, a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”

The place was lonely; not a creature stirred
Except some little dingy bird;
Or vagrant cur that sniffed along,
Indifferent to the Son of Song;
No truant errand-boy, or Doctor’s lad,
No idle filch or lounging cad,
No Pots encumbered with diurnal beer,
No printer’s devil with an author’s proof,
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof,
Lingered the tattered Melodist to hear—
Who yet, confound him! bawled as loud
As if he had to charm a London crowd,
Singing beside the public way,
Accompanied—instead of violin,
Flute, or piano, chiming in—
By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray,
A van with iron bars to play staccato,
Or engine obligato—
In short, without one instrument vehicular
(Not even a truck, to be particular),
There stood the rogue and roared,
Unasked and unencored,
Enough to split the organs called auricular!

Heard in that quiet place,
Devoted to a still and studious race,
The noise was quite appalling!
To seek a fitting simile and spin it,
Appropriate to his calling,
His voice had all Lablache’s body in it;
But oh! the scientific tone it lacked,
And was, in fact,
Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling!

’Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal nous,
The stage had banished him when he attempted it,
For tho’ his voice completely filled the house,
It also emptied it.
However, there he stood
Vociferous—a ragged don!
And with his iron pipes laid on
A row to all the neighbourhood.

In vain were sashes closed
And doors against the persevering Stentor,
Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed,
Th’ intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum;
Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attended schools,
Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before ’em—
How it did bore ’em!

Louder, and louder still,
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill,
Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewildered making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities—
Stunned by that voice, so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No in-voice stood a chance, of course!

The Actuary pshawed and pished,
And knit his calculating brows, and wished
The singer “a bad life”—a mental murther!
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder
Wished the musician further,
Poles distant—and no wonder!
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder—
The Lady could not keep her temper calm,
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm—
The Fiddler in the very same position
As Hogarth’s chafed musician
(Such prints require but cursory reminders)
Came and made faces at the wretch beneath,
And wishing for his foe between his teeth,
(Like all impatient elves
That spite themselves)
Ground his own grinders.

But still with unrelenting note,
Though not a copper came of it, in verity,
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat,
And iron throat,
Heedless of present honour and prosperity,
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity,
In penniless reliance—
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme
Never set Time
More thoroughly at defiance!

From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-four
The Nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door—
“Peace, monster, peace!
Where is the New Police!
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don’t stand there bawling, fellow, don’t!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do—there’s a dear good man—do go away.”
Says he, “I won’t!”

The spinster pulled her door to with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden d—n,
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath—
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than in a given face
A very bad expression.

However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones’s Clerk at Number Ten;
Who, throwing up the sash,
With accents rash,
Thus hailed the most vociferous of men:
“Come, come, I say, old feller, stop your chant!
I cannot write a sentence—no one can’t!
So just pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps—”
Says he, “I shan’t!”

Down went the sash
As if devoted to “eternal smash,”
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation),
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roared out again the everlasting song,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”

The thing was hard to stand!
The Music-master could not stand it—
But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tattered man,
And thus in broken sentences began—
But playing first a prelude of grimace,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes,
So that to guess his subject from his face,
He meant to give a lecture upon apes—

“Com—com—I say!
You go away!
Into two parts my head you split—
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
When I do play—
You have no bis’ness in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?”
Says he—“I will.”

“No—no—you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
You have no rights, by rights, to beg—
You have not one off-leg—
You ought to work—you have not some complaint—
You are not cripple in your back or bones—
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones”—
Says he—“It ain’t!”

“I say you ought to labour!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbour,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys—
Look what a street it is for quiet!
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postilion,
If you will sing, I say, it is not just,
To sing so loud.”—Says he, “I must!
I’m singing for the million!”

---

THERE’S NO ROMANCE IN THAT.

DAYS of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balk’d and valour stalk’d
On high heroic stilts—
Where are ye gone?—adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,—
We’ve nothing now but New Police—
There’s no Romance in that!

I wish I ne’er had learn’d to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write!
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister’d quite!
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter’s vat;
I only turn to life, and weep—
There’s no Romance in that!

No Bandits lurk—no turban’d Turk
To Tunis bears me off—
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother’s cough,—
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house,
No shape,—but owl or bat,
Come flitting after moth or mouse,—
There’s no Romance in that!

I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman’s press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I’m growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale—
There’s no Romance in that!

It’s very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That’s worth a pen’s report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow’d, and rail’d, and came home safe,—
There’s no Romance in that!

The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,—
There’s no Romance in that!

Love—even love—goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track—
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore—
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more—
There’s no Romance in that!

He is not dark, he is not tall,
His forehead’s rather low,
He is not pensive—not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
Is really but a sprat;
With sandy hair and greyish eyes—
There’s no Romance in that!

He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks,
Or long sword hanging down;
He dresses much like other folks,
And commonly in brown;
His collar he will not discard,
Or give up his cravat,
Lord Byron-like—he’s not a Bard—
There’s no Romance in that!

He’s rather bald, his sight is weak,
He’s deaf in either drum;
Without a lisp he cannot speak,
But then—he’s worth a plum.
He talks of stocks and three per cents.
By way of private chat,
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents,—
There’s no Romance in that!

I sing—no matter what I sing,
Di Tanti—or Crudel,
Tom Bowling, or God save the King,
Di piacer—All’s Well;
He knows no more about a voice
For singing than a gnat—
And as to Music “has no choice,”
There’s no Romance in that!

Of light guitar I cannot boast,
He never serenades;
He writes, and sends it by the post,
He doesn’t bribe the maids:
No stealth, no hempen ladder—no!
He comes with loud rat-tat,
That startles half of Bedford Row—
There’s no Romance in that!

He comes at nine in time to choose
His coffee—just two cups,
And talks with Pa about the news,
Repeats debates, and sups.
John helps him with his coat aright,
And Jenkins hands his hat;
My lover bows, and says good-night—
There’s no Romance in that!

I’ve long had Pa’s and Ma’s consent,
My aunt she quite approves,
My Brother wishes joy from Kent,
None try to thwart our loves;
On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace
Will make me Mrs. Pratt,
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place—
There’s no Romance in that!

---

THE PAINTER PUZZLED.

“Draw, Sir!”—Old Play.

ELL, something must be done for May,
The time is drawing nigh,
To figure in the catalogue
And woo the public eye.

Something I must invent and paint;
But, oh! my wit is not
Like one of those kind substantives
The answer Who and What?

Oh, for some happy hit! to throw
The gazer in a trance;
But posé là—there I am posed,
As people say in France.

In vain I sit and strive to think,
I find my head, alack!
Painfully empty, still, just like
A bottle “on the rack.”

In vain I task my barren brain
Some new idea to catch,
And tease my hair—ideas are shy
Of “coming to the scratch.”

In vain I stare upon the air,
No mental visions dawn;
A blank my canvas still remains,
And worse—a blank undrawn:

An “aching void” that mars my rest
With one eternal hint,
For, like the little goblin page,
It still keeps crying “Tint!”

But what to tint? ay, there’s the rub,
That plagues me all the while,
As, Selkirk-like, I sit without
A subject for my i’le.

“Invention’s seventh heaven” the bard
Has written—but my case
Persuades me that the creature dwells
In quite another place.

Sniffing the lamp, the ancients thought,
Demosthenes must toil;
But works of art are works indeed,
And always “smell of oil.”

Yet painting pictures some folks think,
Is merely play and fun;
That what is on an easel set
Must easily be done.

But, zounds! if they could sit in this
Uneasy easy-chair,
They’d very soon be glad enough
To cut the camel’s hair.

Oh! who can tell the pang it is
To sit as I this day—
With all my canvas spread, and yet
Without an inch of way.

Till, mad at last to find I am
Amongst such empty skullers,
I feel that I could strike myself,
But no—I’ll “strike my colours.”

---

A TRUE STORY.

F all our pains, since man was curst,
I mean of body, not the mental,
To name the worst, among the worst,
The dental sure is transcendental;
Some bit of masticating bone,
That ought to help to clear a shelf,
But let its proper work alone,
And only seems to gnaw itself;
In fact, of any grave attack
On victual there is little danger,
’Tis so like coming to the rack,
As well as going to the manger.

Old Hunks—it seemed a fit retort
Of justice on his grinding ways—
Possessed a grinder of the sort,
That troubled all his latter days.
The best of friends fall out, and so
His teeth had done some years ago,
Save some old stumps with ragged root,
And they took turn about to shoot;
If he drank any chilly liquor,
They made it quite a point to throb;
But if he warmed it on the hob,
Why then they only twitched the quicker.

One tooth—I wonder such a tooth
Had never killed him in his youth—
One tooth he had with many fangs,
That shot at once as many pangs,
It had an universal sting;
One touch of that ecstatic stump
Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump,
Just like a puppet on a string;
And what was worse than all, it had
A way of making others bad.
There is, as many know, a knack,
With certain farming undertakers,
And this same tooth pursued their track,
By adding achers still to achers!

One way there is, that has been judged
A certain cure, but Hunks was loth
To pay the fee, and quite begrudged
To lose his tooth and money both;
In fact, a dentist and the wheel
Of Fortune are a kindred cast,
For after all is drawn, you feel
It’s paying for a blank at last;
So Hunks went on from week to week,
And kept his torment in his cheek.
Oh! how it sometimes set him rocking,
With that perpetual gnaw—gnaw—gnaw,
His moans and groans were truly shocking
And loud,—altho’ he held his jaw.
Many a tug he gave his gum,
And tooth, but still it would not come;
Tho’ tied by string to some firm thing,
He could not draw it, do his best,
By draw’rs, although he tried a chest.

At last, but after much debating,
He joined a score of mouths in waiting,
Like his, to have their troubles out.
Sad sight it was to look about
At twenty faces making faces,
With many a rampant trick and antic,
For all were very horrid cases,
And made their owners nearly frantic.
A little wicket now and then
Took one of these unhappy men,
And out again the victim rushed,
While eyes and mouth together gushed;
At last arrived our hero’s turn,
Who plunged his hands in both his pockets,
And down he sat, prepared to learn
How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets.

Those who have felt such operations,
Alone can guess the sort of ache,
When his old tooth began to break
The thread of old associations;
It touched a string in every part,
It had so many tender ties;
One chord seemed wrenching at his heart,
And two were tugging at his eyes;
“Bone of his bone,” he felt of course,
As husbands do in such divorce;
At last the fangs gave way a little
Hunks gave his head a backward jerk,
And to! the cause of all this work,
Went—where it used to send his victual!

The monstrous pain of this proceeding
Had not so numbed his miser wit,
But in this slip he saw a hit
To save, at least, his purse from bleeding;
So when the dentist sought his fees,
Quoth Hunks, “Let’s finish, if you please.”
“How, finish! why it’s out!”—“Oh! no—
I’m none of your before-hand tippers,
’Tis you are out, to argue so;
My tooth is in my head no doubt,
But as you say you pulled it out,
Of course it’s there—between your nippers.”
“Zounds! sir, d’ye think I’d sell the truth
To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it.”
But Hunks still asked to see the tooth,
And swore by gum! he had not drawn it.

His end obtained, he took his leave,
A secret chuckle in his sleeve;
The joke was worthy to produce one,
To think, by favour of his wit,
How well a dentist had been bit
By one old stump, and that a loose one!
The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth
Is still the frailest thing on earth:
Alas! how often when a joke
Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough,
There comes some unexpected stroke,
And hangs a weeper on the cuff!

Hunks had not whistled half a mile,
When, planted right against the stile,
There stood his foeman, Mike Maloney,
A vagrant reaper, Irish-born,
That helped to reap our miser’s corn,
But had not helped to reap his money,
A fact that Hunks remembered quickly;
His whistle all at once was quelled,
And when he saw how Michael held
His sickle, he felt rather sickly.

Nine souls in ten, with half his fright,
Would soon have paid the bill at sight,
But misers (let observers watch it)
Will never part with their delight
Till well demanded by a hatchet—
They live hard—and they die to match it.
Thus Hunks, prepared for Mike’s attacking,
Resolved not yet to pay the debt,
But let him take it out in hacking;
However, Mike began to stickle
In word before he used the sickle;
But mercy was not long attendant:
From words at last he took to blows,
And aimed a cut at Hunks’s nose;
That made it what some folks are not—
A Member very independent.

Heaven knows how far this cruel trick
Might still have led, but for a tramper
That came in danger’s very nick,
To put Maloney to the scamper.
But still compassion met a damper;
There lay the severed nose, alas!
Beside the daisies on the grass,
“Wee, crimson-tipt” as well as they,
According to the poet’s lay:
And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter!
Away ran Hodge to get assistance,
With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after,
But somewhat at unusual distance.
In many a little country place
It is a very common case
To have but one residing doctor,
Whose practice rather seems to be
No practice, but a rule of three,
Physician—surgeon—drug-decocter;
Thus Hunks was forced to go once more
Where he had ta’en his tooth before.
His mere name made the learnëd man hot—
“What! Hunks again within my door!
I’ll pull his nose;” quoth Hunks, “you cannot.”

The doctor looked and saw the case
Plain as the nose not on his face.
“O! hum—ha—yes—I understand.”
But then arose a long demur,
For not a finger would he stir
Till he was paid his fee in hand;
That matter settled, there they were,
With Hunks well strapped upon his chair.

The opening of a surgeon’s job—
His tools, a chestful or a drawful—
Are always something very awful,
And give the heart the strangest throb;
But never patient in his funks
Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks,
Or surgeon half so like a devil
Prepared for some infernal revel:
His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling,
Just like a bolus in a box:
His fury seemed above controlling,
He bellowed like a hunted ox:
“Now, swindling wretch, I’ll show thee how
We treat such cheating knaves as thou;
Oh! sweet is this revenge to sup;
I have thee by the nose—it’s now
My turn—and I will turn it up.”

Guess how the miser liked the scurvy
And cruel way of venting passion;
The snubbing folks in this new fashion
Seemed quite to turn him topsy turvy;
He uttered prayers, and groans, and curses,
For things had often gone amiss
And wrong with him before, but this
Would be the worst of all reverses!
In fancy he beheld his snout
Turned upward like a pitcher’s spout;
There was another grievance yet,
And fancy did not fail to show it,
That he must throw a summerset,
Or stand upon his head to blow it.

And was there then no argument
To change the doctor’s vile intent,
And move his pity?—yes, in truth,
And that was—paying for the tooth.
“Zounds! pay for such a stump! I’d rather—”
But here the menace went no farther,
For with his other ways of pinching,
Hunks had a miser’s love of snuff,
A recollection strong enough
To cause a very serious flinching;
In short he paid and had the feature
Replaced as it was meant by nature;
For tho’ by this ’twas cold to handle,
(No corpse’s could have felt more horrid,)
And white just like an end of candle,
The doctor deemed and proved it too,
That noses from the nose will do
As well as noses from the forehead;
So, fixed by dint of rag and lint,
The part was bandaged up and muffled.
The chair unfastened, Hunks arose,
And shuffled out, for once unshuffled;
And as he went, these words he snuffled—
“Well, this is ‘paying thro’ the nose.’”

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THE LOGICIANS.
AN ILLUSTRATION.

“Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons logic had put into their hands—“—Scriblerus.

EE here two cavillers,
Would-be unravellers
Of abstruse theory and questions mystical
In tête-à-tête,
And deep debate,
Wrangling according to form syllogistical.

Glowing and ruddy
The light streams in upon their deep brown study,
And settles on our bald logician’s skull:
But still his meditative eye looks dull
And muddy,
For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato;
But to the world without
And things about,
His eye is blind as that of a potato:
In fact, logicians
See but by syllogisms—taste and smell
By propositions;
And never let the common dray-horse senses
Draw inferences.
How wise his brow! how eloquent his nose!
The feature of itself is a negation!
How gravely double is his chin, that shows
Double deliberation;
His scornful lip forestalls the confutation!
O this is he that wisely with a major
And minor proves a greengage is no gauger!—
By help of ergo,
That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager,
And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo!
O this is he that logically tore his
Dog into dogmas—following Aristotle—
Cut up his cap into ten categories,
And cork’d an abstract conjuror in a bottle!
O this is he that disembodied matter,
And proved that incorporeal corporations
Put nothing in no platter,
And for mock turtle only supp’d sensations!
O this is he that palpably decided,
With grave and mathematical precision
How often atoms may be subdivided
By long division;
O this is he that show’d I is not I,
And made a ghost of personal identity;
Proved “Ipse” absent by an alibi,
And frisking in some other person’s entity;
He sounded all philosophies in truth,
Whether old schemes or only supplemental;—
And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth,
A dental knowledge of the transcendental!

The other is a shrewd severer wight,
Sharp argument hath worn him nigh the bone:
For why? he never let dispute alone,
A logical knight-errant,
That wrangled ever—morning, noon, and night,
From night to morn; he had no wife apparent
But Barbara Celárent!
Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma,
For on the point of his two fingers full
He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a
Most deadly toss, like any baited bull.
Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe
A sophism in his angry ear! for that
He took ferociously between his teeth,
And shook it—like a terrier with a rat!—
In fact old Controversy ne’er begat
One half so cruel
And dangerous as he, in verbal duel!
No one had ever so complete a fame
As a debater;
And for art logical his name was greater
Than Dr. Watts’s name!—

Look how they sit together!
Two bitter desperate antagonists,
Licking each other with their tongues, like fists,
Merely to settle whether
This world of ours had ever a beginning—
Whether created,
Vaguely undated,
Or time had any finger in its spinning:
When, lo!—for they are sitting at the basement—
A hand, like that upon Belshazzar’s wall,
Lets fall
A written paper through the open casement.

“O foolish wits! (thus runs the document)
To twist your brains into a double knot
On such a barren question! Be content
That there is such a fair and pleasant spot
For your enjoyment as this verdant earth.
Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth,
For vainly ye contend;
Before you can decide about its birth,
The world will have an end!”

---

LITTLE O’P.—AN AFRICAN FACT.

T was July the First, and the great hill of Howth
Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south,
And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork,
Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork.
Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name,
And little O’Patrick was mate of the same;
For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope,
They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope.
Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast,
Only little O’P. made a swim to the coast;
And when he revived from a sort of a trance,
He saw a big Black with a very long lance.
Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue,
“Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung!”
Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf,
And down came a hundred as black as himself.
They brought with them guattul, and pieces of klam,
The first was like beef, and the second like lamb;
“Don’t I know,” said O’P., “what the wretches are at?
They’re intending to eat me as soon as I’m fat!”
In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot,
His rations of jarbul he suffered to rot;
He would not touch purry or doolberry-lik,
But kept himself growing as thin as a stick.
Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth,
He would not let chobbery enter his mouth,
But kicked down the krug shell, tho’ sweetened with natt,—
“I an’t to be pisoned the likes of a rat!”
At last the great Joddry got quite in a rage,
And cried, “O mi pitticum dambally nage!
The chobbery take, and put back on the shelf,
Or give me the krug shell, I’ll drink it myself!
The doolberry-lik is the best to be had,
And the purry (I chewed it myself) is not bad;
The jarbul is fresh, for I saw it cut out,
And the Bok that it came from is grazing about.
My jumbo! but run off to Billery Nang,
And tell her to put on her jigger and tang,
And go with the Bloss to the man of the sea,
And say that she comes as his Wulwul from me.”
Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep,
With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep,
And the moment he spied her, said little O’P.,
“Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow’s at me!”
But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms,
She came to accept him for life in her arms,
And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love,
A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove,
With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss,
Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss;
At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack,
And Joddry began to look blacker than black;
“By Mumbo! by Jumbo!—why here is a man,
That won’t be made happy, do all that I can;
He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed,
Let the Rham take his shangwang and chop off his head!”

---

THE ASSISTANT DRAPERS’ PETITION.

ITY the sorrows of a class of men,
Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity;
No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen,
But wrongs ell-wide, and of a lasting quality.

Oppress’d and discontented with our lot,
Amongst the clamorous we take our station
A host of Ribbon Men—yet is there not
One piece of Irish in our agitation.

We do revere Her Majesty the Queen;
We venerate our Glorious Constitution:
We joy King William’s advent should have been,
And only want a Counter Resolution.

Tis not Lord Russell and his final measure,
’Tis not Lord Melbourne’s counsel to the throne,
Tis not this Bill, or that, gives us displeasure,
The measures we dislike are all our own.

The Cash Law the “Great Western” loves to name,
The tone our foreign policy pervading;
The Corn Laws—none of these we care to blame,
Our evils we refer to over-trading.

By Tax or Tithe our murmurs are not drawn;
We reverence the Church—but hang the cloth!
We love her ministers—but curse the lawn!
We have, alas! too much to do with both!

We love the sex:—to serve them is a bliss!
We trust they find us civil, never surly;
All that we hope of female friends is this,
That their last linen may be wanted early.

Ah! who can tell the miseries of men
That serve the very cheapest shops in town?
Till faint and weary, they leave off at ten,
Knock’d up by ladies beating of ’em down!

But has not Hamlet his opinion given—
O Hamlet had a heart for Drapers’ servants!
“That custom is”—say custom after seven—
“More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”

O come then, gentle ladies, come in time,
O’erwhelm our counters, and unload our shelves;
Torment us all until the seventh chime,
But let us have the remnant to ourselves!

We wish of knowledge to lay in a stock,
And not remain in ignorance incurable;—
To study Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke,
And other fabrics that have proved so durable.

We long for thoughts of intellectual kind,
And not to go bewilder’d to our beds;
With stuff and fustian taking up the mind,
And pins and needles running in our heads!

For oh! the brain gets very dull and dry,
Selling from morn till night for cash or credit;
Or with a vacant face and vacant eye,
Watching cheap prints that Knight did never edit.

Till sick with toil, and lassitude extreme,
We often think when we are dull and vapoury,
The bliss of Paradise was so supreme,
Because that Adam did not deal in drapery.

---

SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION.

“An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that could only belong to a Boney-parte.—Life of Napoleon.

IME was, I always had a drop
For any tale of sigh or sorrow;
My handkerchief I used to sop
Till often I was forced to borrow;
I don’t know how it is, but now
My eyelids seldom want a-drying;
The doctor, p’rhaps, could tell me how—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

O’er Goethe how I used to weep,
With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet,
When Werter put himself to sleep
With pistols kiss’d and clean’d by Charlotte;
Self-murder is an awful sin,
No joke there is in bullets flying,
But now at such a tale I grin—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

The Drama once could shake and thrill
My nerves, and set my tears a-stealing,
The Siddons then could turn at will
Each plug upon the main of feeling;
At Belvidera now I smile,
And laugh while Mrs. Haller’s crying;
’Tis odd, so great a change of style—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

That heart was such—some years ago,
To see a beggar quite would shock it,
And in his hat I used to throw
The quarter’s savings of my pocket:
I never wish—as I did then!—
The means from my own purse supplying,
To turn them all to gentlemen—
I fear my heart is ossifying!

We’ve had some serious things of late,
Our sympathies to beg or borrow,

“DOG-BERRY.”

THE LAST CUT.

New melo-drames, of tragic fate,
And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow;
Miss Zouch’s case, our eyes to melt,
And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing,
But Lord!—so little have I felt,
I’m sure my heart is ossifying!

---

A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE.

NE day—no matter for the month or year,
Calais packet, just come over,
And safely moor’d within the pier,
Began to land her passengers at Dover;
All glad to end a voyage long and rough.
And during which,
Through roll and pitch,
The Ocean-King had sickophants enough!

Away, as fast as they could walk or run,
Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals,
With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels,
Away the passengers all went but one,
A female, who from some mysterious check,
Still linger’d on the steamer’s deck,
As if she did not care for land a tittle,
For horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual—
Or nervously afraid to put
Her foot
Into an Isle described as “tight and little.”

In vain commissioner and touter,
Porter and waiter throng’d about her;
Boring, as such officials only bore—
In spite of rope and barrow, knot and truck,
Of plank and ladder, there she stuck,
She couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t go on shore.

“But, ma’am,” the steward interfered,
“The wessel must be cleared.
You mustn’t stay aboard, ma’am, no one don’t!
It’s quite agin the orders so to do—
And all the passengers is gone but you.”
Says she, “I cannot go ashore and won’t!”
“You ought to!”
“But I can’t!”
“You must!”
“I shan’t!”

At last, attracted by the racket,
’Twixt gown and jacket,
The captain came himself, and cap in hand,
Begg’d very civilly to understand
Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet.

“Why then,” the lady whispered with a shiver,
That made the accents quiver,
“I’ve got some foreign silks about me pinn’d,
In short, so many things, all contraband,
To tell the truth I am afraid to land,
In such a searching wind!”

Duncan Grant & Co., Printers, Edinburgh.

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THOMAS HOOD’S WORKS.

HOOD’S WORKS. Complete in 10 vols. All the Writings of the Author of the “Song of the Shirt” (“Hood’s Own” First and Second Series included). With all the original Cuts by Cruikshank, Leech, &c. A complete re-issue. In 10 vols., crown 8vo, cloth, 50s.; half calf, 70s.; half morocco, 70s.

COMPLETE EDITION OF HOOD’S POETICAL WORKS IN TWO VOLUMES.

1. HOOD’S SERIOUS POEMS. A New and Complete Edition, with full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 5s.

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⁂ These two volumes contain the entire poems of the late Thomas Hood, which are now collected and issued complete for the first time.

HOOD’S OWN; or, Laughter from Year to Year. First and Second Series in one vol., complete with all the original Illustrations by Cruikshank, Leech, &c. In entirely new and handsome binding. Now ready, new edition. Royal 8vo, cloth gilt, 10s. 6d.

HOOD’S OWN; or, Laughter from Year to Year. First Series. A new edition. In one vol. 8vo, illustrated by 350 Woodcuts. Cloth plain 7s. 6d.; gilt edges, 8s. 6d.

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HOOD’S WHIMS AND ODDITIES. In Prose and Verse. With 87 original designs. A new edition. In one vol., fcap. 8vo, cloth plain, 3s. 6d.

HOOD’S WHIMS AND ODDITIES AND WIT AND HUMOUR. With 87 original designs. In one vol., fcap. 8vo, 6s.

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New Books and New Editions.

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New Volume now ready.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Tarantula.

[2] The name of a well-known lion at that time in the Zoological Gardens.

[3] A word caught from some American Trader in passing.

[4] See the story of Sidi Nonman, in the “Arabian Nights.”

[5] Captain Kater, the moon’s surveyor.

[6] The doctor’s composition for a night-cap.

[7] “Since this poem was written, Doctor Ireland and those in authority under him have reduced the fares. It is gratifying to the English people to know that while butcher’s meat is rising tombs are falling.”—Note in Third Edition.

[8] The daughter of William Harvey, the artist.

[9] Solomon Eagle.

[10] The late favourite of the King’s Theatre, who left the pas seul of life, for a perpetual Ball. Is not that her effigy now commonly borne about by the Italian image vendors—an ethereal form holding a wreath with both hands above her head—and her husband, in emblem, beneath her foot?

[11] Geysers:—the boiling springs in Iceland.

[12] Query, purly?—Printer’s Devil.

[13] This word is omitted in the later edition.

[14] The Adelphi.

[15] The name of the lion in the Zoological Gardens.

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