HUGGINS AND DUGGINS.
A PASTORAL AFTER POPE.
TWO swains or clowns—but call them swains—
While keeping flocks on Salisbury Plains,
For all that tend on sheep as drovers,
Are turned to songsters, or to lovers,
Each of the lass he called his dear,
Began to carol loud and clear.
First Huggins sang, and Duggins then,
In the way of ancient shepherd men;
Who thus alternate hitch’d in song,
“All things by turns, and nothing long.”
HUGGINS.
Of all the girls about our place,
There’s one beats all in form and face;
Search through all Great and Little Bumpstead,
You’ll only find one Peggy Plumpstead.
FOLLOW MY LEADER.
DUGGINS.
To groves and streams I tell my flame,
I make the cliffs repeat her name:
When I’m inspired by gills and noggins,
The rocks re-echo Sally Hoggins!
HUGGINS.
When I am walking in the grove,
I think of Peggy as I rove.
I’d carve her name on every tree,
But I don’t know my A, B, C.
DUGGINS.
Whether I walk in hill or valley,
I think of nothing else but Sally.
I’d sing her praise, but I can sing
No song, except “God save the King.”
HUGGINS.
My Peggy does all nymphs excel,
And all confess she bears the bell,—
Where’er she goes swains flock together,
Like sheep that follow the bellwether.
DUGGINS.
Sally is tall and not too straight,—
Those very poplar shapes I hate;
But something twisted like an S,—
A crook becomes a shepherdess.
HUGGINS.
When Peggy’s dog her arms imprison,
I often wish my lot was hisn;
How often I should stand and turn,
To get a pat from hands like hern.
DUGGINS.
I tell Sall’s lambs how blest they be,
To stand about and stare at she;
But when I look, she turns and shies,
And won’t bear none but their sheep’s-eyes!
HUGGINS.
Love goes with Peggy where she goes.—
Beneath her smile the garden grows;
Potatoes spring, and cabbage starts,
’Tatoes have eyes, and cabbage hearts!
DUGGINS.
Where Sally goes it’s always spring,
Her presence brightens every thing;
The sun smiles bright, but where her grin is,
It makes brass farthings look like guineas.
HUGGINS.
For Peggy I can have no joy,
She’s sometimes kind, and sometimes coy,
And keeps me, by her wayward tricks,
As comfortless as sheep with ticks.
RAMSAY’S GENTLE SHEPHERD.
DUGGINS.
Sally is ripe as June or May,
And yet as cold as Christmas day;
For when she’s asked to change her lot,
Lamb’s wool,—but Sally, she wool not
HUGGINS.
Only with Peggy and with health,
I’d never wish for state or wealth;
Talking of having health and more pence,
I’d drink her health if I had fourpence.
DUGGINS.
Oh, how that day would seem to shine,
If Sally’s banns were read with mine;
She cries, when such a wish I carry,
“Marry come up!” but will not marry.
DOMESTIC DIDACTICS.
BY AN OLD SERVANT.
IT is not often when the Nine descend that they go so low as into areas; it is certain, nevertheless, that they were in the habit of visiting John Humphreys, in the kitchen of No. 189, Portland Place, disguised, no doubt, from mortal eye, as seamstresses or charwomen—at all events, as Winifred Jenkins says, “they were never ketch’d in the fact.” Perhaps it was the rule of the house to allow no followers, and they were obliged to come by stealth, and to go in the same manner; indeed, from the fragmental nature of John’s verses, they appear to have often left him very abruptly. Other pieces bear witness of the severe distraction he suffered between his domestic duty to the Umphravilles, twelve in family, with their guests, and his own secret visitors from Helicon. It must have been provoking, when seeking for a simile, to be sent in search of a salt-cellar; or when hunting for a rhyme, to have to look for a missing teaspoon. By a whimsical peculiarity, the causes of these lets and hindrances are recorded in his verses, by way of parenthesis: and though John’s poetry was of a decidedly serious and moralising turn, these little insertions give it so whimsical a character, as to make it an appropriate offering in the present work. Poor John! the grave has put a period to his didactics, and the publication of his lays in “Hood’s Own,” therefore, cannot give him pain, as it certainly would have done otherwise, for the MSS. were left by last will and testament “to his very worthy master, Joshua Umphraville, Esq., to be printed in Elegant Extracts, or Flowers of English Poetry.” The Editor is indebted to the kindness of that gentleman for a selection from the papers; which he has been unable to arrange chronologically, as John always wrote in too great a hurry to put dates. Whether he ever sent any pieces to the periodicals is unknown, for he kept his authorship as secret as Junius’s, till his death discovered his propensity for poetry, and happily cleared up some points in John’s character, which had appeared to his disadvantage. Thus when his eye was “in fine frenzy rolling,” bemused only with Castalian water, he had been suspected of being “bemused with beer;” and when he was supposed to indulge in a morning sluggishness, he was really rising with the sun, at least with Apollo. He was accused occasionally of shamming deafness, whereas it was doubtless nothing but the natural difficulty of hearing more than Nine at once. Above all, he was reckoned almost wilfully unfortunate in his breakage; but it appears that when deductions for damage were made from his wages, the poetry ought to have been stopped, and not the money. The truth is, John’s master was a classical scholar, and so accustomed to read of Pegasus, and to associate a Poet with a Horseman, that he never dreamt of one as a Footman.
NOT UP YET.
The Editor is too diffident to volunteer an elaborate criticism of the merits of Humphreys as a Bard—but he presumes to say thus much, that there are several Authors, of the present day, whom John ought not to walk behind.
THE BROKEN DISH.
WHAT’S life but full of care and doubt,
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails and such vanities.
We plant pomegranite trees and things,
And go in gardens sporting,
With toys and fans of peacocks’ wings,
To painted ladies courting.
We gather flowers of every hue,
And fish in boats for fishes,
Build summer-houses painted blue,—
But life’s as frail as dishes.
Walking about their groves of trees,
Blue bridges and blue rivers,
How little thought them two Chinese
They’d both be smash’d to shivers.
ODE TO PEACE.
WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS’S GRAND ROUT.
OH Peace! oh come with me and dwell—
But stop, for there’s the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches,
On Wednesday, when there’s very few
In loft or pew—
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch’s.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage—
Hush! there’s a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods—
The five Miss Woods.
Oh Peace! thou art the Goddess I adore—
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet—
That’s Lord Drum’s footman, for he loves a riot.
Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d—
That’s Weippert’s band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches—
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace!—another carriage stops—
It’s early for the Blenkinsops.
Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have show’d up Lady Squander,
And now I’ve seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!—but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,—
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind;
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,—
Make way there for his Serene Highness!
Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place, and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry—
Susan, what business have you in my pantry?
Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife—Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poets’ quills—
They’re just beginning their quadrilles—
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;—
I wonder where I put my waiter—
Oh Peace!—but here my Ode I’ll cease;
I have no peace to write of Peace.
A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN.
When I reflect with serious sense,
While years and years run on,
How soon I may be summoned hence—
There’s cook a-calling John.
Our lives are built so frail and poor,
On sand and not on rocks,
We’re hourly standing at Death’s door—
There’s some one double-knocks.
All human days have settled terms,
Our fates we cannot force;
This flesh of mine will feed the worms—
They’re come to lunch of course.
And when my body’s turn’d to clay,
And dear friends hear my knell,
O let them give a sigh and say—
I hear the upstairs bell.
TO MARY HOUSEMAID,
ON VALENTINE’S DAY.
Mary, you know I’ve no love-nonsense,
And, though I pen on such a day,
I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.
Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature,
It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.
Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.
You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But, doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.
Let Susan flourish her fair arms
And at your odd legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.
WHAT ODD LEGS!
PAIN IN A PLEASURE-BOAT.
A SEA ECLOGUE.
“I apprehend you!”—SCHOOL OF REFORM.
BOATMAN.
SHOVE off there!—ship the rudder, Bill—cast off! she’s under way!
MRS. F.
She’s under what?—I hope she’s not! good gracious, what a spray!
BOATMAN.
Run out the jib, and rig the boom! keep clear of those two brigs!
MRS. F.
I hope they don’t intend some joke by running of their rigs!
SEE-VIEW:—BROAD STARES.
BOATMAN.
Bill, shift them bags of ballast aft—she’s rather out of trim!
MRS. F.
Great bags of stones! they’re pretty things to help a boat to swim!
BOATMAN.
The wind is fresh—if she don’t scud, it’s not the breeze’s fault!
MRS. F.
Wind fresh, indeed, I never felt the air so full of salt!
BOATMAN.
That Schooner, Bill, harn’t left the roads, with oranges and nuts!
MRS. F.
If seas have roads, they’re very rough—I never felt such ruts!
BOATMAN.
It’s neap, ye see, she’s heavy lade, and couldn’t pass the bar.
MRS. F.
The bar! what, roads with turnpikes too? I wonder where they are!
BOATMAN.
Ho! brig ahoy! hard up! hard up! that lubber cannot steer!
MRS. F.
Yes, yes,—hard up upon a rock! I know some danger’s near!
Lord, there’s a wave! it’s coming in! and roaring like a bull!
BOATMAN.
Nothing, Ma’am, but a little slop! go large, Bill! keep her full!
MRS. F.
What, keep her full! what daring work! when full, she must go down!
BOATMAN.
Why, Bill, it lulls! ease off a bit—it’s coming off the town!
Steady your helm! we’ll clear the Pint! lay right for yonder pink!
MRS. F.
Be steady—well, I hope they can! but they’ve got a pint of drink!
BOATMAN.
Bill, give that sheet another haul—she’ll fetch it up this reach.
MRS. F.
I’m getting rather pale, I know, and they see it by that speech!
I wonder what it is, now, but——I never felt so queer!
BOATMAN.
Bill, mind your luff—why Bill, I say, she’s yawing—keep her near!
MRS. F.
Keep near! we’re going further off; the land’s behind our backs.
STERNE’S MARIA.
BOATMAN.
Be easy, Ma’am, it’s all correct, that’s only ’cause we tacks:
We shall have to beat about a bit,—Bill, keep her out to sea.
MRS. F.
Beat who about? keep who at sea?—how black they look at me!
BOATMAN.
It’s veering round—I knew it would! off with her head! stand by!
MRS. F.
Off with her head! whose? where? what with?—an axe I seem to spy!
BOATMAN.
She can’t not keep her own, you see; we shall have to pull her in!
MRS. F.
They’ll drown me, and take all I have! my life’s not worth a pin!
BOATMAN.
Look out you know, be ready, Bill—just when she takes the sand!
MRS. F.
The sand—O Lord! to stop my mouth! how every thing is planned!
BOATMAN.
The handspike, Bill—quick, bear a hand! now Ma’am, just step ashore!
MRS. F.
What! an’t I going to be kill’d—and welter’d in my gore?
Well, Heaven be praised! but I’ll not go a sailing any more!