In the next place, all the following travelling puns are strictly prohibited:—
All allusions upon entering a town to the pound and the stocks—knowing a man by his gait and not liking his style—calling a tall turnpike-keeper a colossus of roads—paying the post-boys charges of ways and means—seeing no sign of an inn—or, replying, "Sir, you are out," to your friend who says he does—talking of a hedger having a stake in the bank—all allusions to sun and air to a new-married couple—all stuff about village belles—calling the belfry a court of a peal—saying, upon two carpenters putting up paling, that they are very peaceable men to be fencing in a field—all trash about "manors make the man," in the shooting season—and all such stuff about trees, after this fashion—"that's a pop'lar tree—I'll turn over a new leaf, and make my bough," etc. etc.
Puns upon field sports, such as racing being a matter of course—horses starting without being shy—a good shot being fond of his but and his barrel—or saying that a man fishing deserves a rod for taking such a line; if he is sitting under a bridge calling him an arch fellow—or supposing him a nobleman because he takes his place among the piers—or that he will catch nothing but cold, and no fish by hook or by crook. All these are prohibited.
To talk of yellow pickles at dinner, and say the way to Turn 'em Green is through Hammersmith—all allusions to eating men, for Eton men, or Staines on the table-cloth—or Egg-ham, are all exploded—as are all stuff about Maids and Thornbacks, and Plaice—or saying to a lady who asks you to help her to the wing of a chicken, that it is a mere matter of a pinion—all quibbles about dressing hare and cutting it—all stuff about a merry fellow being given to wine—or upon helping yourself to say you have a platonic affection for roast beef—or when fried fish runs short, singing to the mistress of the house, with Tom Moore,—
"Your sole, though a very sweet sole, love,
Will ne'er be sufficient for me,"
are entirely banished.
At the play-house never talk of being a Pittite because you happen not to be in the boxes—never observe what a Kean eye one actor has, or that another can never grow old because he must always be Young—never talk of the uncertainty of Mundane affairs in a farce, or observe how Terrybly well a man plays Mr. Simpson—banish from your mind the possibility of saying the Covent Garden manager has put his best Foot forward, or that you should like to go to Chester for a day or two—or that you would give the world to be tied to a Tree—or that Mr. Make ready is a presentable actor—all such stuff is interdicted.
In speaking of Parliament, forget Broom and Birch, Wood and Cole, Scarlett and White, Lamb and the Leakes, the Hares and the Herons, the Cootes and the Cruins—such jumbles will lead into great difficulties, and invariably end, without infinite caution, in an observation, that the conduct of that House is always regulated by the best possible Manners.
There are some temptations very difficult to avoid—for instance, last Saturday we saw gazetted, as a bankrupt, "Sir John Lade, Cornhill, watchmaker!" Now this, we confess, was a provocation hard of resistance—when one sees a lad of sixty-four set up only to break down, and perceives that whatever he may do with watches, he could not make a case before the Insolvent Debtors' Court; and moreover, since his taking to watchmaking arose from his having, in the spring of life, gone upon tick, and that the circumstance may be considered as a striking instance of a bad wind-up—we admit that in the hands of a young beginner such a thing is quite irresistible, but such temptations should be avoided as much as possible.