| “But Augustus’s Heart was too full to speak.” |
Let anyone who suffers at sea fancy what it is to be spoken to at all, when the fearful sensations, the awful precursors of the inevitable, have full possession of him, and then to suffer in the very presence of the dear creature from whom every human weakness has been hitherto carefully hidden! The drawing is followed by a poem, in which the position of the unhappy Augustus is described. He could not speak in reply to his bride’s appeal; in the words of the poet:
| “She gazed upon the wave, Sublime she declared it; But no reply he gave— He could not have dared it. “Oh, then, ‘Steward!’ he cried, With deepest emotion; Then tottered to the side, And leant o’er the ocean.” |
Poor miserable Augustus! his face is pale as death, his treasured locks blown out of shape; his eyeglass swings in the wind; the distant steamer is making mad plunges into the heaving wave; the rain falls, and let us hope the romantic bride turns away as her young husband “leans o’er the ocean.”
Only those who have passed from the tableland of life can recollect the passion for speculation in railways that took possession of the public in 1845 and the two or three following years. I myself caught the disease, and, acting on the advice of “one who knew,” I bought a number of shares in one of the new lines; these were £25 shares, on which £8 each had been paid. I was assured by my adviser that I should receive interest at the rate of eight per cent. till the year 1850; after that time the line would pay ten. I awoke one morning to find that a panic was in full blast, and all railway property depreciated. My feelings may be imagined, for I certainly cannot describe them, when I found, on reference to the Times, that my £8 shares—£17 being still due upon each—were quoted at half a crown apiece! My friend had the courage of his opinions, for he had invested the whole of his property in railway stocks. He was completely ruined in mind and body, and died miserably before the panic was over.
Multiply these examples by thousands, and you will arrive at a clear idea of the nature of a panic, which seems to mystify the young gentleman immortalized by Leech in the drawing illustrating the following dialogue:
“I say, Jim, what’s a Panic?”
“Blowed if I know; but there is von to be seen in the City.”
It has been my fate in the course of a long life to attend several fancy-dress balls, but I can scarcely call to mind a single example of the successful assumption of an historical character, or, indeed, of any character that could disguise the very modern young lady or gentleman who was masquerading in it. My first acquaintance with Mark Lemon, so long the esteemed editor of Punch, began in the Hanover Square Rooms, at a fancy-dress ball given by a society—chiefly, I think, composed of the better class of tradespeople—called the Gothics. On that occasion might have been seen a young gentleman in the dress of one of Charles II.’s courtiers, and looking about as unlike his prototype as possible—in earnest conversation with another courtier, of the time of George II. I was of the Charles’ period, Lemon of that of the Georges. Those who remember Lemon’s figure later in life would have been surprised by the change that time had made in it, if they could have witnessed the interview between the two young men, one scarcely stouter than the other. In proof of my idea that the greater number of guests were in trade, I might give scraps of conversation between Mary Queen of Scots and Guy Fawkes, or between Henry VIII. and Edward the Black Prince, that would leave no doubt on the subject; nay, later in the evening I had convincing proof of the correctness of my surmise, as you shall hear. I danced with a Marie Antoinette of surpassing beauty, with whom I fell incontinently in love. More than once I danced with her, and when supper was announced, my earnest appeal to be allowed to conduct her to the banquet was successful. My lovely friend was full of the curiosity peculiar to her sex, which showed itself in her anxiety to know who and what I was. To tell the truth, I was equally curious to know who she was, and what her friends were.
“Well,” said I, “if you will tell me who you are, I will tell you who I am and what I am.”