"'Behold me, thou jilt-flirt! behold me!' he cri'd—
'I'm Bolus, whom some call the 'knave!'
God grant, that to punish your falsehood and pride,
You should feel at this moment a pain in your side.
Quick, swallow this rhubarb!—I'll physic the bride,
And send her well-dosed to the grave!'
"Thus saying, the physic her throat he forced down,
In spite of whate'er she could say:
Then bore to his chariot the maiden so brown,
Nor ever again was she seen in that town,
Or the doctor who whisked her away.
"Not long lived the brewer, and none since that time
To inhabit the brew-house presume;
For old women say that by order sublime
There Sally Green suffers the pain of her crime,
And bawls to get out of the room.
"At midnight four times in each year does her sprite
With shrieks make the chamber resound.
'I won't take the rhubarb!' she squalls in affright,
While a cup in his left hand, a draught in his right,
Giles Bolus pursues her around.
"With wigs so well powdered, twelve doctors so grave,
Dancing hornpipes around them are seen;
They drink chicken-broth, and this horrible stave
Is twanged through each nose, 'To Giles Bolus the knave,
And his patient the sick Sally Green.'"
In the court of love, Dr. Van Buchell, the empiric, may pass muster as a physician. When that droll charlatan lost his first wife, in 1775, he paid her the compliment of preserving her body with great care. Dr. Hunter, with the assistance of Mr. Cruikshank, injected the blood-vessels of the corpse with a carmine fluid, so that the cheeks and lips had the hue of healthy life; the cavities of the body were artistically packed with the antiseptics used by modern embalmers; and glass eyes were substituted in place of the filmy balls which Death had made his own. Decked in a dainty apparel of lace and finest linen, the body was then placed in a bed of thin paste of plaster of Paris, which, crystallizing, made a most ornamental couch. The case containing this fantastic horror had a glass lid, covered with a curtain; and as Van Buchell kept it in his ordinary sitting-room, he had the pleasure of introducing his visitors to the lifeless form of his "dear departed." For several years the doctor lived very happily with this slough of an immortal soul—never quarrelling with it, never being scolded by it—on the whole, enjoying an amount of domestic tranquility that rarely falls to one man's lot. Unwisely he made in advanced years a new alliance, and manifested a desire to be on with the new and the old love at the same time. To this Mrs. Van Buchell (No. 2) strongly objected, and insisted that the quaint coffin of Mrs. Van Buchell (No. 1) should be removed from the parlour in which she was expected to spend the greatest part of her days. The eccentric mode in which Buchell displayed his affection for his first wife was scarcely less repulsive than the devotion to the interests of anatomical science which induced Rondeletius to dissect the dead body of his own child in his theatre at Montpelier.
Are there no more loves to be mentioned? Yes; let these concluding pages tell an interesting story of the last generation.
Fifty years ago the picturesque, sunny town of Holmnook had for its physician one Dr. Kemp, a grave and reverend Æsculapius, punctilious in etiquette, with an imposing formality of manner, accurate in costume, in every respect a courtier of the old school. Holmnook is an antique market-town, square and compact, a capital in miniature, lying at the foot of an old feudal castle, in which the Bigods once held sway. That stronghold of moated towers was three centuries since the abode of a mighty Duke; Surrey, the poet earl, luckless and inspired, was born within its walls. The noble acres of the princely house fell into the hands of a parvenu—a rich, grasping lawyer;—that was bad. The lawyer died and went to his place, leaving the land to the poor;—that was better. And now the produce of the rich soil, which whilom sent forth a crop of mailed knights, supports a college of toil and time-worn peasants, saving their cold thin blood from the penury of the poor-house, and sheltering them from the contumelies of—Guardians of the Poor. Hard by the college, housing these ancient humble children of man, is a school, based on the same beneficent foundation, where the village lads are taught by as ripe a scholar and true a gentleman as ever came from the banks of Isis; and round which temple of learning they play their rough, noisy games, under the observation of the veterans of the bourg—the almsmen and almswomen who sit in the sun and on benches before their college, clad in the blue coats of the charity, and feeling no shame in them, though the armorial badge of that old lawyer is tacked upon them in red cloth.
Holmnook is unlike most other English towns of its size, abounding as it does in large antique mansions, formerly inhabited by the great officers and dependents on the ducal household, who in many cases were blood relations of the duke himself. Under the capacious windows of these old houses, in the streets, and round the market-square, run rows of limes, spreading their cool shade over the pinnacles of gabled roofs, and flinging back bars across the shining shingle which decorates the plaster walls of the older houses. In the centre of the town stands an enormous church, large enough to hold an entire army of Christians, and containing many imposing tombs of earls and leaders, long since gone to their account.
Think of this old town, its venerable dwellings—each by itself suggesting a romance. Hear the cooing and lazy flapping of pigeons, making continual holiday round the massive chimneys. Observe, without seeming to observe, the mayor's pretty daughter sitting at the open oriel window of the Guild-hall, merrily singing over her needle-work, and wondering if her bright ribbon has a good effect on passers below. Heed the jingle of a harpsichord in the rector's parlour. Be pleased to remember that the year is 1790—not 1860. Take a glass of stinging ale at "The Knight of Armour" hostelry—and own you enjoy it. Take another, creaming good-naturedly up under your lip, and confess you like it better than its predecessor. See the High Sheriff's carriage pass through the excited town, drawn by four enormous black horses, and having three Bacchic footmen hanging on behind. Do all this, and then you'll have a faint notion of Holmnook, its un-English picturesqueness, its placid joy, and experience of pomp.