After condoling with me on my loss and showing her sweet womanly sympathy, she concluded her letter by informing me that she had "one of the sweetest pets eyes ever beheld, a darling devoted to her with a faithfulness which would really be a lesson to 'our specie,'" and that, in the circumstances, she would let me have her little darling for five pounds. I was so astonished and angry at the meanness of this "lady of fashion" that I said—Well, perhaps my exact expression had better be buried in oblivion.
BALLAD OF THE UNSURPRISED JUDGE, 1895.[A]
[Footnote A: It was a well-known expression of Sir Henry Hawkins when on the Bench, "I should be surprised at nothing;" and after the long and strange experiences which these reminiscences indicate, the literal truth of the observation is not to be doubted. This clever ballad, which was written in 1895, seems sufficiently appropriate to find a place in these memoirs, and I wish I knew the name of the writer, that my thanks and apologies might be conveyed to him for this appropriation of them.]
("Mr. Justice Hawkins observed, 'I am surprised at nothing,'"—Pitts v. Joseph, "Times" Report, March 27.)
All hail to Sir Henry, whom nothing surprises!
Ye Judges and suitors, regard him with awe,
As he sits up aloft on the Bench and applies his
Swift mind to the shifts and the tricks of the law.
Many years has he lived, and has always seen clear things
That Nox seemed to hide from our average eyes;
But still, though encompassed with all sorts of queer things,
He never, no, never, gives way to surprise.
When a rogue, for example, a company-monger,
Grows fat on the gain of the shares he has sold,
While the public gets lean, winning nothing but hunger
And a few scraps of scrip for its masses of gold;
When the fat man goes further and takes to religion,
A rascal in hymn-books and Bibles disguised,
"It's a case," says Sir Henry, "of rook versus pigeon,
And the pigeon gets left—well, I'm hardly surprised."
There's a Heath at Newmarket, and horses that run there;
There are owners and jockeys, and sharpers and flats;
There are some who do nicely, and some who are done there;
There are loud men with pencils and satchels and hats.
But the stewards see nothing of betting or money,
As they stand in the blinkers for stewards devised;
Their blindness may strike Henry Hawkins as funny,
But he only smiles softly—he isn't surprised.
So here's to Sir Henry, the terror of tricksters,
Of law he's a master, and likewise a limb;
His mind never once, when its purpose is fixed, errs:
For cuteness there's none holds a candle to him.
Let them try to deceive him, why, bless you, he's been there,
And can track his way straight through a tangle of lies;
And though some might grow gray at the things he has seen there,
He never, no, never, gives way to surprise.
By the courtesy of Sir Francis Burnand, who most kindly obtained permission from Messrs. Bradbury and Agnew, I insert the following poem, which appeared in a February number of Punch in the year 1887:—