MRS. NICKLEBY IN THE CHAIR.
A Song of Sympathetic Suggestion.
["Poor Mrs. Nickleby, who had at no time been remarkable for the possession of a very clear understanding, had been reduced by the late changes in affairs to a most complicated state of perplexity....
"'I don't know what to think, one way or other, my dear,' said Mrs. Nickleby; 'Nicholas is so violent, and your uncle has so much composure, that I can only hear what he says, and not what Nicholas does. Never mind—don't let us talk any more about it.'...
"Now Mrs. Nickleby was not the sort of person to be told anything in a hurry, or rather to comprehend anything of peculiar delicacy or importance on a short notice....
"'Anybody who had come in upon us suddenly would have supposed that I was confusing and distracting, instead of making things plainer; upon my word they would.'...
"'I am very sorry indeed,' said Mrs. Nickleby. 'I am very sorry indeed for all this. I really don't know what would be the best to do, and that's the truth;... but if it could be settled in any friendly manner—and some fair arrangement was come to, so that we undertook to have fish twice a week, and a pudding once, or a dumpling, or something of that sort, I do think it might be very satisfactory and pleasant for all parties.'
"This compromise, which was proposed with abundance of tears and sighs, not exactly meeting the point at issue, nobody took any notice of it."
Dickens's "Nicholas Nickleby.">[
Air—"Nickledy Nod."
Oh! where are we next to be carried,
My own dear Nickleby Nod?
We're worried, and hurried, and harried!
In pickle has no one a rod?
Obstruction's becoming a bore;
We're victims of boor, clown, and cad.
It seems of our "noble six hundred"
A solid majority's mad!
Dickens was surely prophetic,
My own dear Nickleby Nod!
The plight of yourself is pathetic,
The state of the House appears odd.
Can't we live quiet and decent?
The shindy makes common sense sad:
It seems from occurrences recent
The mass of the House must be mad!
Whom should we ask to protect us,
My own dear Nickleby Nod?
A rowdy rot seems to infect us
And Nemesis looks leaden-shod.
Shouldn't we look to the Chair
To save us from garrulous fad,
When row-de-dow fills all the air,
And the bulk of the House is gone mad?
Cynics may find it amusing,
My own dear Nickleby Nod,
This venomous mutual abusing.
Thersites seems ranked as a god.
Billingsgate sways our big swells,
Talent plays Brummagem Cad.
'Tis worse than Sarcasm of Sadler's Wells.
You're mild—and your House is mad!
More is to come in the Autumn,
My own poor Nickleby Nod!
We trust by that time you'll have taught 'em
Some decency—e'en by the rod.
"Not say any more about it?"
That will scarce answer, my lad!
Patience may soothe, but I doubt it
Much—when the culprits are mad!
"Settled in some friendly manner?"
My own poor Nickleby Nod,
Chamberlain, Sexton, and Tanner
(Say) as "fair friends" would look odd.
Gladstone, and Balfour, and Saunderson,
Might keep the peace, and be glad;
But while malignity maunders on
Nickleby policy's—mad!
"Some fair arrangement?"—with Russell?
My own poor Nickleby Nod,
Hark how they howl, shriek, and hustle!
Nay; you must whip out the rod.
Wish you had brought it forth sooner.
Nickleby rôle, my dear lad,
Of mild, muddled, well-meaning mooner,
Won't work—with a House gone mad!
News from Uganda.—"A conference," so the Times special lately wrote, "took place between Bishop Tucker and Monseigneur Hirth," with a view to amicably arranging their respective missions. Monseigneur Hirth wished to sing the old nigger melody of "Out ob de way ole Dan Tucker." Imperial Commissioner objected. Bishop Tucker, lineal descendant of the celebrated little Thomas who "cried for his supper," wanted to have all the black and white bread to himself according to the ancient nursery tradition of the Tucker family. Commissioner, quite a Gallio in his way, wouldn't hear of it. Ultimately the two ecclesiastical antagonists came to terms, the Commissioner (Our Own) wisely observing that "as the object of both missions was a spiritual one, there ought to be no Hirthly ground for disagreement."
