The Ingoldsby Legends, Volume 3
Author: Barham, Richard Harris
Date: 1836-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Poetry; Wit and Humor; Satire; Ghost stories; The Supernatural; Fantasy
Description: Richard Harris Barham (6 December 1788 – 17 June 1845) was a cleric of the Church of England, novelist, and humorous poet. He was better known by his nom de plume “Thomas Ingoldsby.” The son of a country gentleman, he was born at Canterbury, educated at St. Paul’s School and Oxford, and entered the church where he held various incumbencies. It is not, however, as a churchman that he is remembered, but as the author of a series of comic and serio-comic pieces in verse, sparkling with wit and full of striking and often grotesque turns of expression. * * * * The Legends, purporting to occur in th
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: Text is in the public domain worldwide.Illustrations are in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

Contents

Titlepage

List of Illustrations

THIRD SERIES:

The Lord of Thoulouse
The Wedding-Day
The Blasphemer’s Warning
The Brothers of Birchington
The Knight and the Lady
The House-Warming!!
The Forlorn One
Jerry Jarvis’s Wig
Unsophisticated Wishes

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS:

Hermann; Or, the Broken Spear
Hints for an Historical Play
Marie Mignot
The Truants
The Poplar
New-Made Honour
My Letters
The Confession
Song
Epigram
Epigram
Song
As I Laye a-Thynkynge

EDITOR’S APPENDIX:

Additional Illustrations

Memoir of R. H. Barham

«»

Illustrations

In the midst sits the doctor
The soapy-tail’d sow
The Squire
They dash’d up the hills

’Twas said a Tom-cat of Sir Alured Denne’s disappear’d on that day

Peacocks served up in their pride (that is, tails)

They found nothing at all, save some carp – which they fried
[COLOR]

Ledger in hand, Auld Hornie appears

Sir Thomas, her Lord, was stout of limb
[COLOR]

The Knight and the Lady
[TAILPIECE]

Sir Christopher Hatton he danced with grace

A grand pas de deux performed in the very first style
[COLOR]

His first thought was to throw it into the pig-stye

A thought too apt to indulge on a market-day
[COLOR]

We carved her initials

As I lay a-thynkynge, he rode upon his way

IN THE APPENDIX:

To Tappington mill-dam
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

One kick!—it was but one: but such a one!
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

“Make much of your steed, Robert Shurland!”
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

... If Orpheus first produced the waltz
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

If any one lied or if any one swore ...
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

“Whack”
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

The poor little page, too, himself got no quarter
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

He would then sally out in the streets for “a spree”
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

They’d such very odd heads and such very odd tails
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

They found nothing at all, save some carp – which they fried
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

Sir Thomas, her Lord, was stout of limb
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

A thought too apt to indulge on a market-day
[COLOR, FIRST EDITION]

There was an old woman ...
[FIRST EDITION]

The little man spun on
[FIRST EDITION]

And there were gossips sitting there
[FIRST EDITION]

The monks and the nuns in dead of night
[FIRST EDITION]

Wandering about and “Boo-hoo”-ing
[FIRST EDITION]

Making their court to their Polls and their Sues
[FIRST EDITION]

A grand pas de deux
[FIRST EDITION]

«»

The Lord of Thoulouse

A LEGEND OF LANGUEDOC

Veluti in speculum.

—Theatre Royal Cov. Gard.

Count Raymond rules in Languedoc,

O’er the champaign fair and wide,

With town and stronghold many a one,

Wash’d by the wave of the blue Garonne,

And from far Auvergne to Rousillon,

And away to Narbonne,

And the mouths of the Rhone;

And his Lyonnois silks and his Narbonne honey,

Bring in his lordship a great deal of money.

A thousand lances, stout and true,

Attend Count Raymond’s call;

And Knights and Nobles, of high degree,

From Guienne, Provence, and Burgundy,

Before Count Raymond bend the knee,

And vail to him one and all.

And Isabel of Arragon

He weds, the Pride of Spain,

You might not find so rich a prize,

A Dame so “healthy, wealthy, and wise;”

So pious withal—with such beautiful eyes—

So exactly the Venus de Medicis’ size—

In all that wide domain.

Then his cellar is stored

As well as his board,

With the choicest of all La Belle France can afford;

Chambertin, Château Margaux, La Rose, and Lafitte,

With Moet’s Champagne, “of the Comet year,” “neat

As imported,”—“fine sparkling,”—and not over sweet;

While his Chaplain, good man, when call’d in to say grace,

Would groan, and put on an elongated face

At such turtle, such turbot, John Dory, and plaice,

Not without blushing, pronouncing a benison,

Worthy old soul! on such very fat venison,

Sighing to think

Such victuals and drink,

Are precisely the traps by which Satan makes men his own,

And grieving o’er scores

Of huge barbecued Boars,

Which he thinks should not darken a Christian man’s doors,

Though ’twas all very well Pagan Poets should rate ’em

As “Animal propter convivia natum.”

He was right, I must say,

For at this time of day,

When we’re not so precise, whether cleric or lay,

With respect to our food, as in time so passé,

We still find our Boars, whether grave ones or gay,

After dinner, at least, very much in the way,

(We spell the word now with an E, not an A;)

And as honest Père Jacques was inclined to spare diet, he

Gave this advice to all grades of society,

“Think less of pudding—and think more of piety.”

As to his clothes,

Oh! nobody knows

What lots the Count had of cloaks, doublets, and hose,

Pantoufles, with bows

Each as big as a rose,

And such shirts with lace ruffles, such waistcoats, and those

Indescribable garments it is not thought right

To do more than whisper to oreilles polite.

Still in spite of his power, and in spite of his riches,

In spite of his dinners, his dress, and his ——— which is

The strangest of all things—in spite of his Wife,

The Count led a rather hum-drum sort of life.

He grew tired, in fact, of mere eating and drinking,

Grew tired of flirting, and ogling, and winking

At nursery maids

As they walk’d the Parades,

The Crescents, the Squares, and the fine Colonnades,

And the other gay places, which young ladies use

As their promenade through the good town of Thoulouse.

He was tired of hawking, and fishing, and hunting,

Of billiards, short-whist, chicken-hazard, and punting;

Of popping at pheasants,

Quails, woodcocks, and—peasants:

Of smoking, and joking,

And soaking, provoking

Such headaches next day

As his fine St. Peray,

Though the best of all Rhone wines can never repay,

Till weary of war, women, roast-goose, and glory,

With no great desire to be “famous in story,”

All the day long,

This was his song,

“Oh, dear! what will become of us?

Oh, dear! what shall we do?

We shall die of blue devils if some of us

Can’t hit on something that’s new!”

Meanwhile his sweet Countess, so pious and good,

Such pomps and such vanities stoutly eschew’d,

With all fermented liquors and high-seasoned food,

Deviled kidneys, and sweetbreads, and ducks and green peas;

Baked sucking-pig, goose, and all viands like these,

Hash’d calve’s-head included, no longer could please,

A curry was sure to elicit a breeze,

So was ale, or a glass of Port wine after cheese.

Indeed, any thing strong,

As to tipple, was wrong;

She stuck to “fine Hyson,” “Bohea,” and “Souchong,”

And similar imports direct from Hong Kong.

In vain does the family doctor exhort her

To take with her chop one poor half-pint of porter;

No!—she alleges

She’s taken the pledges!

Determined to aid

In a gen’ral Crusade

Against publicans, vintners, and all of that trade,

And to bring in sherbet, ginger-pop, lemonade,

Eau sucrée, and drinkables mild and home made;

So she claims her friends’ efforts, and vows to devote all hers

Solely to found “The Thoulousian Teetotallers.”

Large sums she employs

In dressing small boys

In long duffle jackets, and short corduroys,

And she boxes their ears when they make too much noise;

In short, she turns out a complete Lady Bountiful,

Filling with drugs and brown Holland the county full.

Now just at the time when our story commences,

It seems that a case

Past the common took place,

To entail on her ladyship further expenses,

In greeting with honour befitting his station

The Prior of Arles, with a Temperance Legation,

Despatched by Pope Urban, who seized this occasion

To aid in diluting that part of the nation,

An excellent man,

One who stuck to his can

Of cold water “without”—and he’d take such a lot of it!

None of your sips

That just moistens the lips;

At one single draught he’d toss off a whole pot of it,

No such bad thing

By the way, if they bring

It you iced, as at Verey’s, or fresh from the spring,

When the Dog Star compels folks in town to take wing,

Though I own even then I should see no great sin in it,

Were there three drops of Sir Felix’s gin in it.

Well, leaving the lady to follow her pleasure,

And finish the pump with the Prior at leisure,

Let’s go back to Raymond, still bored beyond measure,

And harping away,

On the same dismal lay,

“Oh dear! what will become of us?

Oh dear! what can we do?

We shall die of blue devils if some of us,

Can’t find out something that’s new!”

At length in despair of obtaining his ends

By his own mother wit, he takes courage, and sends,

Like a sensible man as he is, for his friends,

Not his Lyndhursts or Eldons, or any such high sirs,

But only a few of his “backstairs” advisers;

“Come hither,” says he,

“My gallants so free,

My bold Rigmarole, and my brave Rigmaree,

And my grave Baron Proser, now listen to me!

You three can’t but see I’m half dead with ennui.

What’s to be done?

I must have some fun,

And I will too, that’s flat—ay, as sure as a gun,

So find me out “something new under the sun,”

Or I’ll knock your three jobbernowls all into one;—

You three

Agree!

Come, what shall it be?

Resolve me—propound in three skips of a flea!”

Rigmarole gave a “Ha!” Rigmaree gave a “Hem!”

They look’d at Count Raymond—Count Raymond at them

As much us to say “Have you nihil ad rem?”

At length Baron Proser

Responded, “You know, sir,

That question’s some time been a regular poser;

Dear me!—Let me see,—

In the way of a ‘spree’

Something new?—Eh!—No!—Yes!—No!—’tis really no go, sir.”

Says the Count, “Rigmarole

You’re as jolly a soul,

On the whole, as King Cole, with his pipe and his bowl;

Come, I’m sure you’ll devise something novel and droll”—

In vain—Rigmarole with a look most profound,

With his hand to his heart and his eye to the ground,

Shakes his head as if nothing was there to be found.

“I can only remark,

That as touching a ‘lark’

I’m as much as your Highness can be, in the dark;

I can hit on no novelty—none on my life,

Unless, peradventure you’d ‘tea’ with your wife!”

Quoth Raymond, “Enough!

Nonsense!—humbug!—fudge!—stuff!

Rigmarole, you’re an ass,—you’re a regular Muff!

Drink tea with her ladyship?—I?—not a bit of it!

Call you that fun?—faith I can’t see the wit of it;

Mort de ma vie!

My dear Rigmaree,

You’re the man, after all,—come, by way of a fee,

If you will but be bright, from the simple degree

Of a knight I’ll create you at once a Mar-quis!

Put your conjuring cap on—consider and see,

If you can’t beat that stupid old ‘Sumph’ with his “tea!

“That’s the thing! that will do!

Ay, marry, that’s new!”

Cries Rigmaree, rubbing his hands, “that will please—

My ‘Conjuring cap’—it’s the thing;—it’s ‘the cheese!’

It was only this morning I picked up the news;

Please your Highness, a Conjuror’s come to Thoulouse;

I’ll defy you to name us,

A man half so famous

For devildoms,—Sir, it’s the great Nostradamus!

Cornelius Agrippa ’tis said went to school to him,

Gyngell’s an ass, and old Faustus a fool to him,

Talk of Lilly, Albertus, Jack Dee!—pooh! all six

He’d soon put in a pretty particular fix;

Why he’d beat, at digesting a sword, or ‘Gun tricks’

The great Northern Wizard himself all to sticks!

I should like to see you,

Try to sauter le coup

With this chap at short whist, or unlimited loo,

By the Pope you’d soon find it a regular ‘Do:’

Why he does as he likes with the cards,—when he’s got ’em,

There’s always an Ace or a King at the bottom;

Then for casting Nativities!—only you look

At the volume he’s published,—that wonderful book!

In all France not another, to swear I dare venture, is

Like, by long chalks, his ‘Prophetical Centuries’—

Don’t you remember how, early last summer, he

Warned the late King ’gainst the Tournament mummery?

Didn’t his Majesty call it all flummery,

Scorning

The warning,

And get the next morning

His poke in the eye from that clumsy Montgomery?

Why he’ll tell you, before

You’re well inside his door,

All your Highness may wish to be up to, and more!”

“Bravo!—capital!—come, let’s disguise ourselves—quick!

—Fortune’s sent him on purpose here, just in the nick;

We’ll see if old Hocus will smell out the trick;

Let’s start off at once—Rigmaree, you’re a Brick!”

The moon in gentle radiance shone

O’er lowly roof and lordly bower,

O’er holy pile and armed tower,

And danced upon the blue Garonne;

Through all that silver’d city fair,

No sound disturbed the calm, cool air,

Save the lover’s sigh alone!

Or where, perchance, some slumberer’s nose

Proclaim’d the depth of his repose,

Provoking from connubial toes

A hint—or elbow bone;

It might, with such trifling exceptions, be said,

That Thoulouse was as still as if Thoulouse were dead

And her “oldest inhabitant” buried in lead.

But hark! a sound invades the ear,

Of horses’ hoofs advancing near!

They gain the bridge—they pass—they’re here!

Side by side

Two strangers ride,

For the streets in Thoulouse are sufficiently wide,

That is I’m assured they are—not having tried.

—See, now they stop

Near an odd looking shop,

And they knock, and they ring, and they won’t be denied.

At length the command

Of some unseen hand

Chains, and bolts, and bars obey,

And the thick-ribbed oaken door, old and gray,

In the pale moonlight gives, slowly, way.

They leave their steeds to a page’s care,

Who comes mounted behind on a Flanders mare,

And they enter the house, that resolute pair,

With a blundering step but a dare-devil air,

And ascend a long, darksome, and rickety stair;

While, armed with a lamp that just helps you to see

How uncommonly dark a place can be,

The grimmest of lads with the grimmest of grins,

Says, “Gentlemen, please to take care of your shins!

Who ventures this road need be firm on his pins!

Now turn to the left—now turn to the right—

Now a step—now stoop—now again upright—

Now turn once again, and directly before ye

’s the door of the great Doctor’s Labora-tory.”

A word! a blow!

And in they go!

No time to prepare, or to get up a show,

Yet every thing there they find quite comme il faut;

Such as queer-looking bottles and jars in a row,

Retorts, crucibles, such as all conjurors stow,

In the rooms they inhabit, huge bellows to blow

The fire burning blue with its sulphur and tow;

From the roof a huge crocodile hangs rather low,

With a tail, such as that, which, we all of us know,

Mr. Waterton managed to tie in a bow:

Pickled snakes, potted lizards, in bottles and basins

Like those at Morel’s, or at Fortnum and Mason’s,

All articles found, you’re aware without telling,

In every respectable conjuror’s dwelling.

Looking solemn and wise,

Without turning his eyes,

Or betraying the slightest degree of surprise,

In the midst sits the doctor—his hair is white,

And his cheek is wan—but his glance is bright,

And his long black roquelaure, not over tight,

Is marked with strange characters much, if not quite,

Like those on the bottles of green and blue light

Which you see in a chymist’s shop-window at night.

His figure is tall and erect—rather spare about

Ribs,—and no wonder—such folks never care about

Eating or drinking,

While reading and thinking,

Don’t fatten—his age might be sixty or thereabout.

Raising his eye so grave and so sage,

From some manuscript work of a bygone age,

The seer very composedly turns down the page,

Then shading his sight,

With his hand from the light,

Says, “Well, Sirs, what would you at this time of night?

What brings you abroad these lone chambers to tread,

When all sober folks are at home and abed?”

“Trav’lers we,

In our degree,

All strange sights we fain would see,

And hither we come in company;

We have far to go, and we come from far,

Through Spain and Portingale, France and Navarre;

We have heard of your name,

And your fame, and our aim,

Great Sir, is to witness, ere yet we depart

From Thoulouse,—and to-morrow at cock-crow we start—

Your skill—we would fain crave a touch of your art!”

“Now naye, now naye—no trav’lers ye!

Nobles ye be

Of high degree!

With half an eye that one may easily see,—

Count Raymond, your servant!—Yours, Lord Rigmaree!

I must call you so now since you’re made a Mar-quis;

Faith, clever boys both, but you can’t humbug me!

No matter for that!

I see what you’d be at—

Well—pray no delay,

For it’s late, and ere day

I myself must be hundreds of miles on my way;

So tell me at once what you want with me—say!

Shall I call up the dead

From their mouldering bed?—

Shall I send you yourselves down to Hades instead?—

Shall I summon old Harry himself to this spot?”—

—“Ten thousand thanks, No! we had much rather not.

We really can’t say

That we’re curious that way;

But, in brief, if you’ll pardon the trouble we’re giving,

We’d much rather take a sly peep at the living?

Rigmaree, what say you, in

This case, as to viewing

Our spouses, and just ascertain what they’re doing?”

“Just what pleases your Highness—I don’t care a sous in

The matter—but don’t let old Nick and his crew in!”

—“Agreed!—pray proceed then, most sage Nostradamus,

And show us our Wives—I dare swear they won’t shame us!”

A change comes o’er the wizard’s face,

And his solemn look by degrees gives place

To a half grave, half comical, kind of grimace.

“For good or for ill,

I work your will!

Yours be the risk and mine the skill;

Blame not my art if unpleasant the pill!”

He takes from a shelf, and he pops on his head,

A square sort of cap, black, and turned up with red,

And desires not a syllable more may be said;

He goes on to mutter,

And stutter, and sputter

Hard words, such as no men but wizards dare utter.

“Dies mies!—Hocus pocus—

Adsis Demon! non est jokus!

Hi Cocolorum!—don’t provoke us!—

Adesto!

Presto!

Put forth your best toe!”

And many more words, to repeat which would choke us,—

Such a sniff then of brimstone!—it did not last long,

Or they could not have borne it, the smell was so strong.

A mirror is near,

So large and so clear,

If you priced such a one in a drawing room here,

And was ask’d fifty pounds, you’d not say it was dear;

But a mist gather’d round at the words of the seer,

Till at length as the gloom

Was subsiding, a room

On its broad polish’d surface began to appear.

And the Count and his comrade saw plainly before ’em,

The room Lady Isabel called her “Sanctorum.”

They start, well they might,

With surprise at the sight,

Methinks I hear some lady say, “Serve ’em right!”

For on one side the fire

Is seated the Prior,

At the opposite corner a fat little Friar;

By the side of each gentleman, easy and free,

Sits a lady, as close as close well may be,

She might almost as well have been perch’d on his knee.

Dear me! dear me!

Why one’s Isabel—she

On the opposite side’s La Marquise Rigmaree!—

To judge from the spread

On the board, you’d have said

That the partie quarrée had like aldermen fed,

And now from long flasks, with necks covered with lead,

They were helping themselves to champagne, white and red.

Hobbing and nobbing,

And nodding and bobbing,

With many a sip

Both from cup and from lip,

And with many a toast followed up by a “Hip!—

Hip!—hip!—huzzay!”

—The Count, by the way,

Though he sees all their doing, can’t hear what they say,

Notwithstanding both he

And Mar-quis Rigmaree

Are so vex’d and excited at what they can see,

That each utters a sad word beginning with D.

That word once spoke,

The silence broke,

In an instant the vision is cover’d with smoke!

But enough has been seen.

“Horse! horse! and away!”

They have, neither, the least inclination to stay,

E’en to thank Nostradamus, or ask what’s to pay.—

They rush down the stair,

How, they know not, nor care,

The next moment the Count is astride on his bay,

And my Lord Rigmaree on his mettlesome grey;

They dash through the town,

Now up, and now down;

And the stones rattle under their hoofs as they ride,

As if poor Thoulouse were as mad as Cheapside; [1]

Through lane, alley, and street,

Over all that they meet;

The Count leads the way on his courser so fleet,

My Lord Rigmaree close pursuing his beat,

With the page in the rear to protect the retreat.

Where the bridge spans the river, so wide and so deep,

Their headlong career o’er the causeway they keep,

Upsetting the watchman, two dogs, and a sweep,

All the town population that was not asleep.

They at length reach the castle, just outside the town,

Where—in peace it was usual with Knights of renown—

The portcullis was up, and the drawbridge was down.

They dash by the sentinels—“France et Thoulouse!”

Ev’ry soldier (—they then wore cock’d hats and long queues,

Appendages banish’d from modern reviews),

His arquebus lower’d, and bow’d to his shoes;

While Count Raymond pushed on to his lady’s boudoir—he

Had made up his mind to make one at her soirée.

He rush’d to that door,

Where ever before,

He had rapped with his knuckles, and “tirled at the pin,”

Till he heard the soft sound of his Lady’s “Come in!”

But now, with a kick from his iron-heel’d boot,

Which, applied to a brick wall, at once had gone through’t,

He dash’d open the lock;

It gave way at the shock!

(—Dear ladies, don’t think in recording the fact,

That your bard’s for one moment defending the act,

No—it is not a gentleman’s—none but a low body

No—could perform it)—and there he saw—NOBODY!!

Nobody?—No!!

Oh, ho!—Oh, ho!

There was not a table—there was not a chair

Of all that Count Raymond had ever seen there

(They’d maroon-leather bottoms well stuff’d with horse-hair),

That was out of its place!—

There was not a trace

Of a party—there was not a dish or a plate—

No sign of a tablecloth—nothing to prate

Of a supper, symposium, or sitting up late;

There was not a spark of fire left in the grate,

It had all been poked out, and remained in that state.

If there was not a fire,

Still less was there Friar,

Marquise, or long glasses, or Countess, or Prior!

And the Count, who rush’d in open mouth’d, was struck dumb,

And could only ejaculate, “Well!—this is rum!”

He rang for the maids—had them into the room

With the butler, the footman, the coachman, the groom.

He examined them all very strictly—but no!

Notwithstanding he cross-and re-question’d them so,

’Twas in vain—it was clearly a case of “No Go!”

“Their Lady,” they said,

“Had gone early to bed,

Having rather complain’d of a cold in her head—

The stout little Friar, as round as an apple,

Had pass’d the whole night in a vigil in chapel,

While the Prior himself, as he’d usually done,

Had rung in the morning, at half-after one,

For his jug of cold water and twopenny bun,

And been visible, since they were brought him, to none.

But,” the servants averr’d,

“From the sounds that were heard

To proceed now and then from the father’s sacellum,

They thought he was purging

His sins with a scourging,

And making good use of his knotted flagellum.”

For Madame Rigmaree,

They all testified, she

Had gone up to her bed-chamber soon after tea,

And they really supposed that there still she must be,

Whichher spouse, the Mar-quis,

Foundat once to agree

With the rest of their tale, when he ran up to see.

Alack for Count Raymond! he could not conceive

How the case really stood, or know what to believe;

Nor could Rigmaree settle to laugh or to grieve.

There was clearly a hoax,

But which of the folks

Had managed to make them the butt of their jokes,

Wife or wizard, they both knew no more than Jack Nokes;

That glass of the wizard’s

Stuck much in their gizzards,

His cap, and his queer cloak all X’s and Izzards;

Then they found, when they came to examine again,

Some slight falling off in the stock of champagne,

Small, but more than the butler could fairly explain.

However, since nothing could make the truth known,

Why,—they thought it was best to let matters alone.

The Count in the garden

Begg’d Isabel’s pardon

Next morning for waking her up in a fright,

By the racket he’d kicked up at that time of night;

And gave her his word he had ne’er misbehaved so,

Had he not come home as tipsy as David’s sow.

Still, to give no occasion for family snarls,

The friar was pack’d back to his convent at Arles,

While as for the prior,

At Raymond’s desire,

The Pope raised his rev’rence a step or two higher,

And made him a bishop in partibus—where

His see was I cannot exactly declare,

Or describe his cathedral, not having been there,

But I dare say you’ll all be prepared for the news,

When I say ’twas a good many miles from Thoulouse,

Where the prelate, in order to set a good precedent,

Was enjoin’d, as a sine quâ non, to be resident.

You will fancy with me,

That Count Raymond was free,

For the rest of his life, from his former ennui;

Still it somehow occurr’d that as often as he

Chanced to look in the face of my Lord Rigmaree,

There was something or other—a trifling degree

Of constraint—or embarrassment—easy to see,

And which seem’d to be shared by the noble Mar-quis,

While the ladies—the queerest of all things, by half in

My tale, never met from that hour without laughing!

MORAL.

Good gentlemen all, who are subjects of Hymen,

Don’t make new acquaintances rashly, but try men,

Avoid above all things your cunning (that’s sly) men!

Don’t go out o’ nights

To see conjuring sleights,

But shun all such people, delusion whose trade is;

Be wise!—stay at home and take tea with the ladies.

If you chance to be out,

At a “regular bout,”

And get too much of “Abbot’s Pale Ale” or “Brown Stout,”

Don’t be cross when you come home at night to your spouse,

Nor be noisy, nor kick up a dust in the house!

Be careful yourself, and admonish your sons,

To beware of all folks who love twopenny buns!

And don’t introduce to your wife or your daughter,

A sleek, meek, weak gent—who subsists on cold water!

«»

[1]

“The stones did rattle underneath,

As if Cheapside were mad.”

—Gilpin’s Tour in Middlesex and Herts.

The main incident recorded in the following excerpta from our family papers has but too solid a foundation. The portrait of Roger Ingoldsby is not among those in the gallery, but I have some recollection of having seen, when a boy, a picture answering the description here given of him, much injured, and lying without a frame in one of the attics.

The Wedding-Day
or, The Buccaneer’s Curse

A FAMILY LEGEND

It has a jocund sound,

That gleeful marriage chime,

As from the old and ivied tower,

It peals, at the early matin hour,

Its merry, merry round;

And the Spring is in its prime,

And the song-bird, on the spray,

Trills from his throat, in varied note,

An emulative lay—

It has a joyous sound!!

And the Vicar is there with his wig and his book,

And the Clerk with his grave, quasi-sanctified look,

And there stand the village maids all with their posies,

Their lilies, and daffy-down-dillies, and roses,

Dight in white,

A comely sight,

Fringing the path to the left and the right;

—From our nursery days we all of us know

Ne’er doth “Our Ladye’s garden grow”

So fair for a “Grand Horticultural Show”

As when border’d with “pretty maids all on a row.”

And the urchins are there, escap’d from the rule

Of that “Limbo of Infants,” the National School,

Whooping, and bawling,

And squalling, and calling,

And crawling, and creeping,

And jumping, and leaping,

Bo-peeping ’midst “many a mouldering heap” in

Whose bosom their own “rude forefathers” are sleeping;

—Young rascals!—instead of lamenting and weeping,

Laughing and gay,

A gorge deployée—

Only now and then pausing—and checking their play,

To “wonder what ’tis makes the gentlefolks stay,”

Ah, well a-day!

Little deem they,

Poor ignorant dears! the bells, ringing away,

Are any thing else

Than mere parish bells,

Or that each of them, should we go into its history,

Is but a “Symbol” of some deeper mystery—

That the clappers and ropes

Are mere practical tropes

Of “trumpets” and “tongues,” and of “preachers,” and popes,

Unless Clement the fourth’s worthy Chaplain, Durand, err,

See the “Rationale,” of that goosey-gander.

Gently! gently, Miss Muse!

Mind your P’s and your Q’s!

Don’t be malapert—laugh, Miss, but never abuse!

Calling names, whether done to attack or to back a schism,

Is, Miss, believe me, a great piece of jack-ass-ism,

And as, on the whole,

You’re a good-natured soul,

You must never enact such a pitiful rôle.

No, no, Miss, pull up, and go back to your boys

In the churchyard, who’re making this hubbub and noise—

But hush! there’s an end to their romping and mumming,

For voices are heard—here’s the company coming!

And see!—the avenue gates unfold,

And forth they pace, that bridal train,

The grave, the gay, the young, the old,

They cross the green and grassy lane,

Bridesman, Bridesmaid, Bridegroom, Bride,

Two by two, and side by side,

Uncles, and aunts, friends tried and prov’d,

And cousins, a great many times removed.

A fairer or a gentler she,

A lovelier maid, in her degree,

Man’s eye might never hope to see,

Than darling, bonnie Maud Ingoldsby,

The flow’r of that goodly company;

While whispering low, with bated voice,

Close by her side, her heart’s dear choice,

Walks Fredville’s hope, young Valentine Boys.

—But where, oh where,—

Is Ingoldsby’s heir?

Little Jack Ingoldsby?—where, oh where?

Why he’s here,—and he’s there,

And he’s every where—

He’s there, and he’s here;

In the front—in the rear,—

Now this side, now that side,—now far, and now near—

The Puck of the party, the darling “pet” boy,

Full of mischief, and fun, and good humour and joy;

With his laughing blue eye, and his cheek like a rose,

And his long curly locks, and his little snub nose;

In his tunic, and trousers, and cap—there he goes!

Now pinching the bridesmen,—now teasing his sister,

And telling the bridesmaids how “Valentine kiss’d her;”

The torment, the plague, the delight of them all,

See he’s into the churchyard!—he’s over the wall—

Gambolling, frolicking, capering away,

He’s the first in the church, be the second who may!

•       •       •       •       •

’Tis o’er;—the holy rite is done,

The rite that “incorporates two in one,”

—And now for the feasting, and frolic, and fun!

Spare we to tell of the smiling and sighing,

The shaking of hands, the embracing, and crying,

The “toot—toot—toot”

Of the tabour and flute,

Of the white wigg’d Vicar’s prolonged salute,

Or of how the blithe “College Youths,”—rather old stagers

Accustom’d, for years, to pull bell ropes for wagers—

Rang, faster than ever, their “triple-bob-majors;”

(So loud as to charm ye,

At once and alarm ye;

—“Symbolic,” of course, of that rank in the army.)

Spare we to tell of the fees and the dues

To the “little old woman that open’d the pews,”

Of the largesse bestow’d on the Sexton and Clerk,

Of the four-year-old sheep roasted whole in the park,

Of the laughing and joking,

The quaffing and smoking.

And chaffing, and broaching—that is to say, poking

A hole in a mighty magnificent tub

Of what men, in our hemisphere, term “Humming Bub.”

But which gods,—who, it seems, use a different lingo

From mortals,—are wont to denominate “Stingo.”

Spare we to tell of the horse-collar grinning;

The cheese! the reward of the ugly one winning;—

Of the young ladies racing for Dutch body-linen,—

—The soapy-tailed sow,—a rich prize when you’ve caught her,—

Of little boys bobbing for pippins in water;

The smacks and the whacks,

And the jumpers in sacks,

These down on their noses and those on their backs;—

Nor skills it to speak of those darling old ditties,

Sung rarely in hamlets now—never in cities,

The “King and the Miller,” the “Bold Robin Hood,”

“Chevy Chase,” “Gilderoy,” and the “Babes in the Wood!”

—You’ll say that my taste

Is sadly misplaced,

But I can’t help confessing these simple old tunes

The “Auld Robin Grays,” and the “Aileen Aroons,”

The “Gramachree Mollys” and the “Sweet Bonny Doons”

Are dearer to me,

In a tenfold degree,

Than a fine fantasia from over the sea;

And, for sweetness, compared with a Beethoven fugue, are

As “best-refined loaf,” to the coarsest “brown sugar;” [1]

—Alack, for the Bard’s want of science! to which he owes

All this misliking of foreign capricios!—

Not that he’d say

One word, by the way,

To disparage our new Idol, Monsieur Duprez—

But he grudges, he owns, his departed half guinea

Each Saturday night when devoured by chagrin, he

Sits listening to singers whose names end in ini.

But enough of the rustics—let’s leave them pursuing

Their out-of-door gambols, and just take a view in

The inside the hall, and see what they are doing;

And first there’s the Squire,

The hale, hearty sire

Of the bride,—with his coat-tails subducted and higher,

A thought, than they’re commonly wont to aspire;

His back and his buckskins exposed to the fire;—

—Bright, bright are his buttons,—and bright is the hue

Of his squarely-cut coat of fine Saxony blue;

And bright the shalloon of his little quilled queue;

—White, white as “Young England’s,” the dimity vest

Which descends like an avalanche o’er his broad breast,

Till its further progression is put in arrest

By the portly projection that springs from his chest,

Overhanging the garment—that can’t be exprest;

—White, white are his locks,—which, had Nature fair play,

Had appeared a clear brown, slightly sprinkled with grey,

But they’re white as the peaks of Plinlimmon to-day,

Or Ben Nevis, his pate is si bien poudré!

Bright, bright are the boots that envelope his heels,

—Bright, bright is the gold chain suspending his seals,

And still brighter yet may the gazer descry

The tear-drop that spangles the fond father’s eye

As it lights on the bride—

His belov’d one—the pride

And delight of his heart,—sever’d now from his side;—

But brighter than all,

Arresting its fall,

Is the smile, that rebukes it for spangling at all,

—A clear case, in short, of what old poets tell, as

Blind Homer for instance, {@@GREEK} En dakresi gelas.

Then, there are the Bride and the Bridegroom, withdrawn

To the deep Gothic window that looks on the lawn,

Ensconced on a squab of maroon-coloured leather,

And talking—and thinking, no doubt—of the weather.

But here comes the party—Room! room for the guests!

In their Pompadour coats, and laced ruffles, and vests,

—First, Sir Charles Grandison

Baronet, and his son,

Charles,—the mamma does not venture to “show”—

—Miss Byron, you know,

She was call’d long ago—

For that lady, ’twas said, had been playing the d———l,

Last season, in town, with her old beau, Squire Greville,

Which very much shock’d, and chagrin’d, as may well be

Supposed, “Doctor Bartlett,” and “Good Uncle Selby.”

—Sir Charles, of course, could not give Greville his gruel, in

Order to prove his abhorrence of duelling,

Nor try for, deterr’d by the serious expense, a

Complete separation, a thoro et mensá,

So he “kept a calm sough,” and, when asked to a party,

A dance, or a dinner, or tea and écarté,

He went with his son, and said, looking demurely,

He’d “left her at home, as she found herself poorly.”

Two Foreigners near,

“Of distinction,” appear;

A pair more illustrious you ne’er heard of, or saw,

Count Ferdinand Fathom,—Count Thaddeus of Warsaw,

All cover’d with glitt’ring bijouterie and hair—Poles,

Whom Lord Dudley Stuart calls “Patriot,”—Hook “Bare Poles;”

Such rings, and such brooches, such studs, and such pins!

’Twere hard to say which

Were more gorgeous and rich,

Or more truly Mosaic, their chains on their chins!

Next Sir Roger de Coverley,—Mr. Will Ramble,

With Dame Lismahago, (née Tabitha Bramble),—

Mr. Random and Spouse,—Mrs. Pamela Booby,

(Whose nose was acquiring a tinge of the ruby,

And “people did say”—but no matter for that…

Folks were not then enlighten’d by good Father Mat.)—

—Three friends from “the Colonies” near them were seen,

The great Massachussetts man, General Muff Green,—

Mr. Jonathan W.Doubikins,—men

“Influential some,”—and their “smart” Uncle Ben;—

Rev. Abraham Adams (preferr’d to a stall),—

—Mr. Jones and his Lady, from Allworthy Hall;

—Our friend Tom, by the way,

Had turn’d out rather gay

For a married man—certainly “people did say.”

He was shrewdly suspected of using his wife ill,

And being as sly as his half-brother Blifil.—

(Miss Seagrim, ’tis well known, was now in high feather,

And “people did say,” they’d been seen out together,—

A fact, the “Boy Jones,” who, in our days, with malice

Aforethought, so often got into the Palace,

Would seem to confirm, as, ’tis whispered he owns, he’s

The son of a natural son of Tom Jones’s.)

Lady Bellaston, (mem. she had not been invited!),

Sir Peregrine Pickle, now recently knighted,—

All joyous, all happy, all looking delighted!

—It would bore you to death should I pause to describe,

Or enumerate, half of the elegant tribe

Who filled the back ground,

And among whom were found

The elîte of the old county families round,

Such as Honeywood, Oxenden, Knatchbull, and Norton,

Matthew Robinson, [2]  too, with his beard, from Monk’s Horton,

The Faggs, and Finch-Hattons, Tokes, Derings, and Deedess,

And Fairfax, (who then called the castle of Leeds his;)

Esquires, Knights, and Lords,

In bag-wigs and swords;

And the troops, and the groups

Of fine Ladies in hoops;

The pompons, the toupées, and the diamonds and feathers

The flowered-silk sacques

Which they wore on their backs,—

—How?—sacques and pompoons, with the Squire’s boots and leathers?—

Stay! stay!—I suspect,

Here’s a trifling neglect

On your part, Madame Muse—though you’re commonly accurate,

As to costume, as brown Quaker, or black Curate,

For once, I confess,

Here you’re out as to dress;—

You’ve been fairly caught napping, which gives me distress,

For I can’t but acknowledge it is not the thing,

Sir Roger de Coverley’s laced suit to bring

Into contact with square-cut coats,—such as George Byng,

And poor dear Sir Francis appeared in, last spring.—

So, having for once been compelled to acknowledge, I

’ve made a small hole in our mutual chronology,

Canter on, Miss, without farther apology,—

Only don’t make

Such another mistake,

Or you’ll get in a scrape, of which I shall partake;—

Enough!—you are sorry for what you have done,

So dry your eyes, Miss, blow your nose, and go on!

Well—the party are met, all radiant and gay,

And how every person is dress’d—we won’t say;

Suffice it, they all come glad homage to pay

To our dear “bonnie Maud,” on her own wedding-day,

To dance at her bridal, and help “throw the stocking,”

—A practice that’s now discontinued as shocking.

There’s a breakfast, they know—

There always is so

On occasions like these, wheresoever you go.

Of course there are “lots” of beef, potted and hung,

Prawns, lobsters, cold fowl, and cold ham, and cold tongue,

Hot tea, and hot coffee, hot rolls, and hot toast,

Cold pigeon-pie (rook?), and cold boil’d and cold roast,

Scotch marmalade, jellies, cold creams, colder ices—

Blancmange, which young ladies say, so very nice is,—

Rock-melons in thick, pines in much thinner slices,—

Char, potted with clarified butter and spices,

Renewing an appetite long past its crisis—

Refined barley-sugar, in various devices.

Such as bridges, and baskets, and temples, and grottos—

And nasty French lucifer snappers with mottoes.

—In short, all those gimcracks together were met

Which people of fashion tell Gunter to get

When they give a grand dejeuner à la fourchette—

(A phrase which, though French, in our language still lingers,

Intending a breakfast with forks and not fingers.)

And see! what a mountainous bridecake!—a thing

By itself—with small pieces to pass through the ring!

Now as to the wines!—“Ay, the wine!” cries the Squire,

Letting fall both his coat-tails,—which nearly take fire,—

Rubbing his hands,

He calls out, as he stands,

To the serving-men waiting “his Honour’s” commands,

“The wine!—to be sure—here you Harry—Bob—Dick—

The wine, don’t you hear?—bring us lights—come, be quick!—

And a crow-bar to knock down the mortar and brick—

Say what they may

’Fore George, we’ll make way

Into old Roger Ingoldsby’s cellar to-day;

And let loose his captives, imprison’d so long,

His flasks, and his casks, that he bricked up so strong!”—

—“Oh dear! oh dear! Squire Ingoldsby, bethink you what you do!”

Exclaims old Mrs. Botherby, [3]  —she is in such a stew!—

“Oh dear! oh dear! what do I hear?—full oft you’ve heard me tell

Of the curse ‘Wild Roger’ left upon whoe’er should break his cell!

“Full five-and-twenty years are gone since Roger went away,

As I bethink me, too, it was upon this very day!

And I was then a comely dame, and you, a springald gay,

Were up and down to London town, at opera, ball, and play;

Your locks were nut-brown then, Squire—you grow a little grey!—

“‘Wild Roger,’ so we call’d him then, your grandsire’s youngest son,

He was in truth,

A wayward youth,

We fear’d him, every one,

In ev’ry thing he had his will, he would be stayed by none,

And when he did a naughty thing, he laugh’d and call’d it fun!

—One day his father chid him sore—I know not what he’d done,

But he scorn’d reproof;

And from this roof

Away that night he run!

“Seven years were gone and over—‘Wild Roger’ came again,

He spoke of forays and of frays upon the Spanish Main;

And he had store of gold galore, and silks, and satins fine,

And flasks, and casks of Malvoisie, and precious Gascon wine!

Rich booties he had brought, he said, across the western wave,

And came, in penitence and shame, now of his sire to crave,

Forgiveness and a welcome home—his sire was in his grave!

“Your Father was a kindly man—he played a brother’s part,

He press’d his brother to his breast—he had a kindly heart,

Fain would he have him tarry here, their common hearth to share,

But Roger was the same man still,—he scorn’d his brother’s pray’r!

He call’d his crew,—away he flew, and on those foreign shores

Got kill’d in some outlandish place—they call it the

Eyesores; [4]

But ere he went,

And quitted Kent,

—I well recall the day,—

His flasks and casks of Gascon wine he safely ‘stow’d away;’

Within the cellar’s deepest nook, he safely stow’d them all,

And Mason Jones brought bricks and stones, and they built up the wall.

“Oh! then it was a fearful thing to hear ‘Wild Roger’s’ ban!

Good gracious me! I never heard the like from mortal man;

‘Here’s that,’ quoth he, ‘shall serve me well, when I return at last,

A batter’d hulk, to quaff and laugh at toils and dangers past;

Accurst be he, whoe’er he be, lays hand on gear of mine,

Till I come back again from sea, to broach my Gascon wine!’

And more he said, which filled with dread all those who listen’d there;

In sooth my very blood ran cold, it lifted up my hair

With very fear, to stand and hear “Wild Roger” curse and swear!!

He saw my fright, as well he might, but still he made his game,

He called me ‘Mother Bounce-about,’ my Gracious, what a name!

Nay, more ‘an old’—some ‘boat-woman,’—I may not say for shame!—

Then, gentle Master, pause awhile, give heed to what I tell,

Nor break, on such a day as this, ‘Wild Roger’s’ secret cell!”

“Pooh! pooh!” quoth the Squire,

As he mov’d from the fire,

And bade the old Housekeeper quickly retire,

“Pooh!—never tell me!

Nonsense—fiddle-de-dee!

What?—wait Uncle Roger’s return back from sea?—

Why he may, as you say,

Have been somewhat too gay,

And, no doubt, was a broth of a boy in his way;

But what’s that to us, now, at this time of day?—

What, if some quarrel

With Dering or Darrell—

—I hardly know which, but I think it was Dering,—

Sent him back in a huff to his old privateering,

Or what his unfriends chose to call Buccaneering,

It’s twenty years since, as we very well know,

He was knock’d on the head in a skirmish, and so

Why rake up ‘auld warld’ tales of deeds long ago?—

—Foul befall him who would touch the deposit

Of living man, whether in cellar or closet!

But since, as I’ve said,

Knock’d on the head,

Uncle Roger has now been some twenty years dead,

As for his wine,

I’m his heir, and it’s mine!

And I’d long ago work’d it well, but that I tarried

For this very day—

And I’m sure you’ll all say

I was right—when my own darling Maud should get married!

So lights and a crow-bar!—the only thing lies

On my conscience, at all, with respect to this prize,

Is some little compunction anent the Excise—

Come—you, Master Jack,

Be the first, and bring back

Whate’er comes to hand—Claret, Burgundy, Sack—

Head the party, and mind that you’re back in a crack!”

Away go the clan,

With cup and with can,

Little Jack Ingoldsby leading the van;

Little reck they of the Buccaneer’s ban,

Hope whispers, “Perchance we’ll fall in with strong beer too here!”

Blest thought! which sets them all grinning from ear to ear!

Through cellar one, through cellars two,

Through cellars three they past!

And their way they took

To the farthest nook

Of cellar four—the last!—

Blithe and gay, they batter away,

On this wedding-day of Maud’s,

With all their might, to bring to light,

“Wild Roger’s” “Custom-house frauds!”

And though stone and brick

Be never so thick,

When stoutly assailed, they are no bar

To the powerful charm

Of a Yeoman’s arm

When wielding a decentish crow-bar!

Down comes brick, and down comes stone,

One by one—

The job’s half done!—

“Where is he?—now come—where’s Master John?”—

—There’s a breach in the wall three feet by two,

And Little Jack Ingoldsby soon pops through!

Hark!—what sound’s that?—a sob?—a sigh?—

The choking gasp of a stifled cry?—

“—What can it be?—

Let’s see!—let’s see!

It can’t be little Jack Ingoldsby?

The candle—quick!”—

Through stone and through brick,

They poke in the light on a long split stick;

But ere he who holds it can wave it about,

He gasps, and he sneezes—THE LIGHT GOES OUT!

Yet were there those, in after days,

Who said that pale light’s flickering blaze,

For a moment, gleam’d on a dark Form there,

Seem’d as bodied of foul black air!—

—In Mariner’s dress,—with cutlass braced

By buckle and broad black belt, to its waist,—

—On a cock’d-hat, laced

With gold, and placed

With a degagée, devil-may-care, kind of taste,

O’er a balafré brow by a scar defaced!—

That Form, they said, so foul and so black

Grinn’d as it pointed at poor little Jack.—

—I know not, I, how the truth may be,

But the pent up vapour, at length set free,

Set them all sneezing,

And coughing, and wheezing,

As, working its way

To the regions of day,

It, at last, let a purer and healthier breeze in!

Of their senses bereft,

To the right and the left,

Those varlets so lately courageous and stout,

There they lay kicking and sprawling about,

Like Billingsgate fresh fish, unconscious of ice,

Or those which, the newspapers give us advice,

Mr. Taylor, of Lombard-street, sells at half-price!

—Nearer the door, some half dozen, or more!

Scramble away

To the rez de chaussée,

(As our Frenchified friend always calls his ground-floor,)

And they call, and they bawl, and they bellow and roar

For lights, vinegar, brandy, and fifty things more.

At length, after no little clamour and din,

The foul air let out and the fresh air let in,

They drag one and all

Up into the hall,

Where a medical Quaker, the great Dr. Lettsom,

Who’s one of the party, “bleeds, physicks, and sweats ’em.”

All?—all—save One—

—“But He!—my Son?—

Merciful Heaven!—where—WHERE IS JOHN?”

•       •       •       •       •

Within that cell, so dark and deep,

Lies One, as in a tranquil sleep,

A sight to make the sternest weep!—

—That little heart is pulseless now,

And cold that fair and open brow,

And closed that eye that beam’d with joy

And hope—“Oh, God! my Boy!—my Boy!”

Enough!—I may not,—dare not,—show

The wretched Father’s frantic woe,

The Mother’s tearless, speechless—No!

I may not such a theme essay—

Too bitter thoughts crowd in and stay

My pen—sad memory will have way!

Enough!—at once I close the lay,

Of fair Maud’s fatal Wedding-day!

It has a mournful sound,

That single, solemn Bell!

As to the hills and woods around,

It flings its deep-toned knell;

That measured toll!—alone—apart,

It strikes upon the human heart!

—It has a mournful sound!—

MORAL.

Come, come, Mrs. Muse, we can’t part in this way,

Or you’ll leave me as dull as ditch-water all day.

Try and squeeze out a Moral or two from your lay!

And let us part cheerful, at least, if not gay!

First and foremost then, Gentlefolks, learn from my song,

Not to lock up your wine, or malt-liquor, too long!

Though Port should have age,

Yet I don’t think it sage

To entomb it, as some of your connoisseurs do,

Till it’s losing in flavour, and body, and hue;

—I question if keeping it does it much good

After ten years in bottle and three in the wood.

If any young man, though a snubb’d younger brother,

When told of his faults by his father and mother,

Runs restive, and goes off to sea in a huff,

Depend on’t, my friends, that young man is a Muff!

Next—ill-gotten gains

Are not worth the pains!—

They prosper with no one!—so whether cheroots,

Or Havanna cigars,—or French gloves, or French boots,—

Whatever you want, pay the duty!—nor when you

Buy any such articles, cheat the revenue!

And “now to conclude,”—

For it’s high time I should,—

When you do rejoice, mind,—whatsoever you do,

That the hearts of the lowly rejoice with you too!—

Don’t grudge them their jigs,

And their frolics and “rigs,”

And don’t interfere with their soapy-tail’d pigs;

Nor “because thou art virtuous,” rail, and exhale,

An anathema, breathing of vengeance and wail,

Upon every complexion less pale than sea-kail!

Nor dismiss the poor man to his pump and his pail,

With “Drink there!—we’ll have henceforth no more cakes and ale!!

«»

[1]  Ad Amicum, Servientem ad legem—

This rhyme, if, when scann’d by your critical ear, it

Is not quite legitimate, comes pretty near it.

—T.I.

[2]  A worthy and eccentric country gentleman, afterwards the second Lord Rokeby, being cousin (“a great many times removed”) and successor in the barony to Richard, Archbishop of Armagh, who first bore that title.—His beard was truly Patriarchal.—Mr. Muntz’s—pooh!—

[3]  Great grandmamma, by the father’s side, to the excellent lady of the same name who yet “keeps the keys” at Tappington.

[4]  Azores? – Mrs. Botherby’s orthography, like that of her distinguished contemporary Baron Duberly, was “a little loose.”

“Mox Regina filium peperit a multis optatem et a Deo sanctificatum. Cumque Infans natus fuisset, statim clarâ voce, omnibus audientibus, clamavit ‘Christianus sum! Christianus sum! Christianus sum!’ Ad hanc vocem Presbyteri duo, Widerinus et Edwoldus, dicentes Deo Gratias, et omnes qui aderant mirantes, cœperunt cantare Te Deum laudamus. Quo facto rogabat Infans cathecumenum a Widerino sacerdote fieri, et ab Edwoldo teneri ad praesignaculum fidei et Eomwoldum vocari”

—Nov. Legend. Angl. In Vita Scti Romualdi.

The Blasphemer’s Warning

A LAY OF ST. ROMWOLD

In Kent, we are told,

There was seated of old,

A handsome young gentleman, courteous and bold,

He’d an oaken strong-box, well replenish’d with gold,

With broad lands, pasture, arable, woodland, and wold,

Not an acre of which had been mortgaged or sold;

He’d a Plesaunce and Hall passing fair to behold,

He had beeves in the byre, he had flocks in the fold,

And was somewhere about five-and-twenty years old.

His figure and face,

For beauty and grace,

To the best in the county had scorn’d to give place.

Small marvel then,

If, of women and men

Whom he chanced to foregather with, nine out of ten

Express’d themselves charm’d with Sir Alured Denne.

From my earliest youth,

I’ve been taught, as a truth,

A maxim which most will consider as sooth,

Though a few, peradventure, may think it uncouth;

There are three social duties, the whole of the swarm

In this great human hive of ours, ought to perform,

And that too as soon as conveniently may be;

The first of the three—

Is, the planting a Tree!

The next, the producing a Book—then, a Baby!

(For my part, dear Reader, without any jesting, I

So far at least, have accomplished my destiny.)

From the foremost, i.e.

The “planting the Tree,”

The knight, may, perchance, have conceiv’d himself free,

Inasmuch as that, which way soever he looks

Over park, mead, or upland, by streamlets and brooks

His fine beeches and elms shelter thousands of rooks;

In twelve eighty-two,

There would also accrue

Much latitude as to the article, Books;

But, if those we’ve disposed of, and need not recall,

Might, as duties, appear in comparison small,

One remain’d, there was no getting over at all,

—The providing a male Heir for Bonnington Hall;

Which, doubtless, induced the good Knight to decide,

As a matter of conscience, on taking a Bride.

It’s a very fine thing, and delightful to see

Inclination and duty unite and agree,

Because it’s a case

That so rarely takes place;

In the instance before us, then, Alured Denne

Might well be esteem’d the most lucky of men,

Inasmuch as hard by,

Indeed so very nigh,

That her chimneys, from his, you might almost descry,

Dwelt a Lady at whom he’d long cast a sheep’s eye,

One whose character scandal itself could defy,

While her charms and accomplishments rank’d very high,

And who would not deny

A propitious reply,

But reflect back his blushes, and give sigh for sigh.

(A line that’s not mine, but Tom Moore’s, by-the-bye.)

There was many a gay and trim bachelor near,

Who felt sick at heart when the news met his ear,

That fair Edith Ingoldsby, she whom they all

The “Rosebud of Tappington” ceased not to call,

Was going to say,

“Honour, love, and obey”

To Sir Alured Denne, Knight, of Bonnington Hall,

That all other suitors were left in the lurch,

And the parties had even been “out-asked” in church,

For every one says,

In those primitive days,

And I must own I think it redounds to their praise,

None dream’d of transferring a daughter or niece

As a bride, by an “unstamp’d agreement,” or lease,

’Fore a Register’s Clerk, or a Justice of Peace,

While young ladies had fain

Single women remain,

And unwedded maids to the last “crack of doom” stick,

Ere marry, by taking a jump o’er a broomstick.

So our bride and bridegroom agreed to appear

At holy St. Romwold’s, a Priory near,

Which a long while before, I can’t say in what year,

Their forebears had join’d with the neighbours to rear,

And endow’d, some with bucks, some with beef, some with beer,

To comfort the friars, and make them good cheer.

Adorning the building,

With carving and gilding,

And stone altars, fix’d to the chantries and fill’d in;

(Papistic in substance and form, and on this count

With Judge Herbert Jenner Fust justly at discount.

See Cambridge Societas Camdeniensis

V. Faulkner, tert. prim. Januarii mensis,

With “Judgment reversed, costs of suit, and expenses;)”

All raised to St. Romwold, with some reason, styled

By Duke Humphrey’s confessor, [1]  “a Wonderful Child,”

For ne’er yet was Saint, except him, upon earth

Who made “his profession of faith” at his birth,

And when scarce a foot high, or six inches in girth,

Converted his “Ma,” and contrived to amend a

Sad hole in the creed of his grandsire, King Penda.

Of course to the shrine

Of so young a divine

Flow’d much holy water, and some little wine,

And when any young folks did to marriage incline,

The good friars were much in request, and not one

Was more “sought unto” than the Sub-prior, Mess John;

To him, there and then,

Sir Alured Denne

Wrote a three-corner’d note with a small crow-quill pen,

To say what he wanted, and fix “the time when,”

And, as it’s well known that your people of quality

Pique themselves justly on strict punctuality,

Just as the clock struck the hour he’d nam’d in it,

The whole bridal party rode up to the minute.

Now whether it was that some rapturous dream,

Comprehending “fat pullets and clouted cream,”

Had borne the good man, in its vision of bliss,

Far off to some happier region than this—

Or, whether his beads, ’gainst the fingers rebelling,

Took longer than usual that morning in telling;

Or whether, his conscience with knotted cord purging,

Mess John was indulging himself with a scourging,

In penance for killing some score of the fleas,

Which, infesting his hair-shirt, deprived him of ease,

Or whether a barrel of Faversham oysters,

Brought in, on the evening before, to the cloisters,

Produced indigestion,

Continues a question,

The particular cause is not worth a debate;

For my purpose it’s clearly sufficient to state

That, whatever the reason, his rev’rence was late,

And Sir Alured Denne,

Not the meekest of men,

Began banning away at a deuce of a rate.

Now here, though I do it with infinite pain,

Gentle reader, I find I must pause to explain

That there was—what, I own,

I grieve to make known—

On the worthy knight’s character one single stain,

But for which, all his friends had borne witness I’m sure,

He had been sans reproche, as he still was sans peur.

The fact is, that many distinguish’d commanders

“Swore terribly (teste T.Shandy) in Flanders.”

Now into these parts our knight chancing to go, countries

Named from this sad, vulgar custom, “The Low Countries,”

Though on common occasions as courteous as daring,

Had pick’d up this shocking bad habit of swearing.

And if any thing vex’d him, or matters went wrong,

Was giv’n to what low folks call, “Coming it strong.”

Good, bad, or indifferent then, young or old,

He’d consign them, when once in a humour to scold,

To a place where they certainly would not take cold.

—Now if there are those, and I’ve some in my eye,

Who’d esteem this a crime of no very deep dye,

Let them read on—they’ll find their mistake by and bye.

Near or far

Few people there are

But have heard, read, or sung about Young Lochinvar,

How in Netherby Chapel, “at morning tide,”

The Priest and the Bridegroom stood waiting the Bride;

How they waited, “but ne’er

A Bride was there,”

Still I don’t find, on reading the ballad with care,

The bereaved Mr. Graham proceeded to swear,

And yet to experience so serious a blight in

One’s dearest affections, is somewhat exciting.

’Tis manifest then

That Sir Alured Denne

Had far less excuse for such bad language, when

It was only the Priest not the Bride who was missing—

He had fill’d up the interval better with kissing.

And ’twas really surprising,

And not very wise in

A Knight to go on so anathematising,

When the head and the front of the Clergyman’s crime

Was but being a little behind as to time:—

Be that as it may

He swore so that day

At the reverend gentleman’s ill-judged delay,

That not a bystander who heard what he said,

But listen’d to all his expressions with dread,

And felt all his hair stand on end on his head;

Nay many folks there

Did not stick to declare

The phenomenon was not confined to the hair,

For the little stone Saint who sat perched o’er the door,

St. Romwold himself, as I told you before,

What will scarce be believed,

Was plainly perceived

To shrug up his shoulders, as very much grieved,

And look down with a frown

So remarkably brown,

That all saw he’d now quite a different face on

From that he received at the hands of the mason;

Nay, many averr’d he half rose in his niche,

When Sir Alured, always in metaphor rich,

Call’d his priest an “old son of ———” some animal—which,

Is not worth the inquiry—a hint’s quite enough on

The subject—for more I refer you to Buffon.

It’s supposed that the Knight

Himself saw the sight,

And it’s likely he did, as he easily might;

For ’tis certain he paused in his wordy attack

And, in nautical language, seem’d “taken aback.”

In so much that when now

The “prime cause of the row,”

Father John, in the chapel at last made his bow,

The Bridegroom elect was so mild and subdued

None could ever suppose he’d been noisy and rude,

Or made use of the language to which I allude;

Fair Edith herself, while the knot was a tying,

Her bridemaids around her, some sobbing, some sighing,

Some smiling, some blushing, half-laughing, half-crying,

Scarce made her responses in tones more complying

Than he who’d been raging and storming so recently,

All softness now, and behaving quite decently.

Many folks thought too the cold stony frown

Of the Saint up aloft from his niche looking down,

Brought the sexton and clerk each an extra half-crown,

When, the rite being over, the fees were all paid,

And the party remounting, the whole cavalcade

Prepared to ride home with no little parade.

In a climate so very unsettled as ours

It’s as well to be cautious and guard against showers,

For though, about One,

You’ve a fine brilliant sun,

When your walk or your ride is but barely begun,

Yet long ere the hour hand approaches the Two,

There is not in the whole sky one atom of blue,

But it “rains cats and dogs,” and you’re fairly wet through

Ere you know where to turn, what to say, or to do;

For which reason I’ve bought, to protect myself well, a

Good stout Taglioni and gingham umbrella,

But in Edward the First’s days I very much fear

Had a gay cavalier

Thought fit to appear

In any such “toggery”—then ’twas term’d “gear”—

He’d have met with a highly significant sneer,

Or a broad grin extending from ear unto ear

On the features of every soul he came near;

There was no taking refuge too then, as with us,

On a slip-sloppy day, in a cab or a ’bus,

As they rode through the woods

In their wimples and hoods,

Their only resource against sleet, hail, or rain

Was, as Spenser describes it, to “pryck o’er the plaine,”

That is to clap spurs on, and ride helter-skelter

In search of some building or other for shelter.

Now it seems that the sky

Which had been of a dye

As bright and as blue as your lady-love’s eye,

The season in fact being genial and dry,

Began to assume

An appearance of gloom

From the moment the Knight began fidget and fume,

Which deepen’d and deepen’d till all the horizon

Grew blacker than aught they had ever set eyes on,

And soon, from the far west the element’s rumbling

Increased, and kept pace with Sir Alured’s grumbling,

Bright flashes between,

Blue, red, and green,

All livid and lurid began to be seen;

At length down it came—a whole deluge of rain,

A perfect Niagara, drenching the plain,

And up came the reek,

And down came the shriek

Of the winds like a steam-whistle starting a train;

And the tempest began so to roar and to pour,

That the Dennes and the Ingoldsbys, starting at score,

As they did from the porch of St. Romwold’s church door,

Had scarce gain’d a mile, or a mere trifle more,

Ere the whole of the crew

Were completely wet through.

They dash’d o’er the downs, and they dash’d through the vales,

They dash’d up the hills, and they dash’d down the dales,

As if elderly Nick was himself at their tails;

The Bridegroom in vain

Attempts to restrain

The Bride’s frighten’d palfry by seizing the rein,

When a flash and a crash,

Which produced such a splash

That a Yankey had called it “an Almighty Smash,”

Came down so complete

At his own courser’s feet

That the rider, though famous for keeping his seat,

From its kickings and plungings, now under now upper,

Slipp’d out of his demi-pique over the crupper,

And fell from the back of his terrified cob

On what bards less refined than myself term his “Nob.”

(To obtain a genteel rhyme’s sometimes a tough job).—

Just so—for the nonce to enliven my song

With a classical simile cannot be wrong—

Just so—in such roads and in similar weather,

Tydides and Nestor were riding together,

When, so says old Homer, the king of the Sky,

The great “Cloud-compeller,” his lightnings let fly,

And their horses both made such a desperate shy

At this freak of old Zeus,

That at once they broke loose,

Reins, traces, bits, breechings were all of no use;

If the Pylian Sage, without any delay,

Had not whipp’d them sharp round and away from the fray,

They’d have certainly upset his cabriolet,

And there’d been the—a name I won’t mention—to pay.

Well, the Knight in a moment recover’d his seat

Mr. Widdicombe’s mode of performing that feat

At Astley’s could not be more neat or complete,

—It’s recorded, indeed, by an eminent pen

Of our own days that this our great Widdicombe, then

In the heyday of life, had afforded some ten

Or twelve lessons in riding to Alured Denne,—

It is certain the Knight

Was so agile and light

That an instant sufficed him to set matters right,

Yet the Bride was by this time almost out of sight;

For her palfrey, a rare bit of blood, who could trace

Her descent from the “pure old Caucasian race,”

Sleek, slim, and bony, as

Mr. Sidonia’s

Fine “Arab steed”

Of the very same breed,

Which that elegant gentleman rode so genteelly

—See “Coningsby” written by “B. D’Israeli”—

That palfrey, I say,

From this trifling delay

Had made what at sea’s call’d “a great deal of way.”

“More fleet than the roe-buck” and free as the wind,

She had left the good company rather behind;

They whipp’d and they spurr’d and they after her prest;

Still Sir Alured’s steed was “by long chalks” the best

Of the party, and very soon distanced the rest,

But long ere e’en he had the fugitive near’d,

She dash’d into the wood and at once disappear’d.

It’s a “fashious” affair when you’re out on a ride,

—Ev’n supposing you’re not in pursuit of a bride,

If you are it’s more fashious, which can’t be denied,—

And you come to a place where three cross-roads divide,

Without any way-post, stuck up by the side

Of the road, to direct you and act as a guide,

With a road leading here, and a road leading there,

And a road leading no one exactly knows where.

When Sir Alured came

In pursuit of the dame

To a fork of this kind,—a three-prong’d one—small blame

To his scholarship if in selecting his way

His respect for the Classics now led him astray;

But the rule, in a work I won’t stop to describe, is

In medio semper tutissimus ibis,

So the knight being forced of the three paths to enter one,

Dash’d, with these words on his lips, down the centre one.

Up and down hill,

Up and down hill,

Through brake and o’er briar he gallops on still

Aye banning, blaspheming, and cursing his fill

At his courser because he had given him “a spill;”

Yet he did not gain ground

On the palfrey, the sound,

On the contrary, made by the hoofs of the beast

Grew fainter, and fainter,—and fainter—and—ceased!

Sir Alured burst through the dingle at last,

To a sort of a clearing and there—he stuck fast;

For his steed, though a freer one ne’er had a shoe on,

Stood fix’d as the Governor’s nag in “Don Juan,”

Or much like the statue that stands, cast in copper, a

Few yards south-east of the door of the Opera,

Save that Alured’s horse had not got such a big tail,

While Alured wanted the cock’d hat and pig-tail.

Before him is seen

A diminutive Green

Scoop’d out from the covert—a thick leafy screen

Of wild foliage, trunks with broad branches between

Encircle it wholly, all radiant and sheen,

For the weather at once appear’d clear and serene,

And the sky up above was a bright mazarine,

Just as though no such thing as a tempest had been,

In short it was one of those sweet little places

In Egypt and Araby known as “oases.”

There, under the shade

That was made by the glade,

The astonish’d Sir Alured sat and survey’d

A little low building of Bethersden stone,

With ivy and parasite creepers o’ergrown,

A Sacellum, or cell

In which Chronicles tell

Saints and anchorites erst were accustom’d to dwell;

A little round arch, on which, deeply indented,

The zig-zaggy pattern by Saxons invented

Was cleverly chisell’d, and well represented,

Surmounted a door,

Some five feet by four,

It might have been less or it might have been more,

In the primitive ages they made these things lower

Than we do in buildings that had but one floor.

And these Chronicles say

When an anchorite gray

Wish’d to shut himself up and keep out of the way

He was commonly wont in such low cells to stay,

And pray night and day on the rez de chaussée.

There, under the arch I’ve endeavoured to paint,

With no little surprise,

And scarce trusting his eyes,

The Knight now saw standing that little Boy Saint!

The one whom before,

He’d seen over the door

Of the Priory shaking his head as he swore—

With mitre, and crozier, and rochet, and stole on,

The very self-same—or at least his Eidolon!

With a voice all unlike to the infantine squeak,

You’d expect, that small Saint now address’d him to speak;

In a bold, manly tone, he

Began, while his stony

Cold lips breath’d an odour quite Eau-de-Cologne-y;

In fact, from his christening, according to rumour, he

Beat Mr. Brummell to sticks, in perfumery. [1]

“Sir Alured Denne!”

Said the Saint, “be atten-
tive! Your ancestors, all most respectable men,

Have for some generations being vot’ries of mine,

They have bought me mould candles, and bow’d at my shrine,

They have made my monks presents of ven’son and wine,

With a right of free pasturage, too, for their swine.

And, though you, in this

Have been rather remiss,

Still I owe you a turn for the sake of ‘Lang Syne.’

And I now come to tell you, your cursing and swearing

Have reach’d to a pitch that is really past bearing.

’Twere a positive scandal

In even a Vandal,

It ne’er should be done, save with bell, book, and candle:

And though I’ve now learn’d, as I’ve always suspected,

Your own education’s been somewhat neglected;

Still, you’re not such an uninformed pagan, I hope,

As not to know cursing belongs to the Pope!

And his Holiness feels, very properly, jealous

Of all such encroachments by paltry lay fellows.

Now, take my advice,

Saints never speak twice,

So take it at once, as I once for all give it;

Go home! you’ll find there all as right as a trivet,

But mind, and remember, if once you give way

To that shocking bad habit, I’m sorry to say,

I have heard you so sadly indulge in to-day,

As sure as you’re born, on the very first trip

That you make—the first oath that proceeds from your lip,

I’ll soon make you rue it!

—I’ve said it—I’ll do it!

“Forewarn’d is forearmed,” you shan’t say but you knew it;

Whate’er you hold dearest or nearest your heart,

I’LL TAKE IT AWAY, if I come in a cart!

I will, on my honour! you know it’s absurd,

To suppose that a Saint ever forfeits his word

For a pitiful Knight, or to please any such man—

I’ve said it! I’ll do’t—if I don’t, I’m a Dutchman?”—

He ceased—he was gone as he closed his harangue,

And some one inside shut the door with a bang!

Sparkling with dew,

Each green herb anew

Its profusion of sweets round Sir Alured threw,

As pensive and thoughtful he slowly withdrew,

(For the hoofs of his horse had got rid of their glue,)

And the cud of reflection continued to chew

Till the gables of Bonnington Hall rose in view.

Little reck’d he what he smelt, what he saw,

Brilliance of scenery,

Fragrance of greenery,

Fail’d in impressing his mental machinery;

Many an hour had elapsed, well I ween, ere he

Fairly was able distinction to draw

’Twixt the odour of garlic and bouquet du Roi.

Merrily, merrily sounds the horn,

And cheerily ring the bells;

For the race is run,

The goal is won,

The little lost mutton is happily found,

The Lady of Bonnington’s safe and sound

In the Hall where her new Lord dwells!

Hard had they ridden, that company gay,

After fair Edith, away and away:

This had slipp’d back o’er his courser’s rump,

That had gone over his ears with a plump,

But the Lady herself had stuck on like a trump,

Till her panting steed

Relax’d her speed,

And feeling, no doubt, as a gentleman feels

When he’s once shown a bailiff a fair pair of heels,

Stopp’d of herself, as it’s very well known

Horses will do, when they’re thoroughly blown,

And thus the whole group had foregather’d again,

Just as the sunshine succeeded the rain.

Oh, now the joy, and the frolicking, rollicking

Doings indulged in by one and by all!

Gaiety seized on the most melancholic in

All the broad lands around Bonnington Hall.

All sorts of revelry,

All sorts of devilry,

All play at “High Jinks” and keep up the ball.

Days, weeks, and months, it is really astonishing,

When one’s so happy, how Time flies away;

Meanwhile the Bridegroom requires no admonishing

As to what pass’d on his own wedding day;

Never since then,

Had Sir Alured Denne

Let a word fall from his lip or his pen

That began with a D, or left off with an N!

Once, and once only, when put in a rage,

By a careless young rascal he’d hired as a Page,

All buttons and brass,

Who in handling a glass

Of spiced hippocras, throws

It all over his clothes,

And spoils his best pourpoint, and smartest trunk hose,

While stretching his hand out to take it and quaff it (he

’d given a rose noble a yard for the taffety),

Then, and then only, came into his head,

A very sad word that began with a Z,

But he check’d his complaint,

He remember’d the Saint,

In the nick—Lady Denne was beginning to faint!

That sight on his mouth acted quite as a bung,

Like Mahomet’s coffin, the shocking word hung

Half-way ’twixt the root and the tip of his tongue.

Many a year

Of mirth and good cheer

Flew over their heads, to each other more dear

Every day, they were quoted by peasant and peer

As the rarest examples of love ever known,

Since the days of Le Chivaler D’Arbie and Joanne,

Who in Bonnington chancel lie sculptured in stone.

Well—it happen’d at last,

After certain years past,

That an embassy came to our court from afar—

From the Grand-duke of Muscovy—now call’d the Czar,

And the Spindleshank’d Monarch, determined to do

All the grace that he could to a Nobleman, who

Had sail’d all that way from a country which few

In our England had heard of, and nobody knew,

With a hat like a muff, and a beard like a Jew,

Our arsenals, buildings, and dock-yards to view,

And to say how desirous,

His Prince Wladimirus

Had long been with mutual regard to inspire us,

And how he regretted he was not much nigher us,

With other fine things,

Such as Kings say to Kings

When each tries to humbug his dear Royal Brother, in

Hopes by such “gammon” to take one another in—

King Longshanks, I say,

Being now on his way

Bound for France, where the rebels had kept him at bay,

Was living in clover

At this time at Dover,

I’ the castle there, waiting a tide to go over.

He had summon’d, I can’t tell you how many men,

Knights, nobles, and squires to the wars of Guienne,

And among these of course was Sir Alured Denne,

Who, acting like most

Of the knights in the host,

Whose residence was not too far from the coast,

Had brought his wife with him, delaying their parting,

Fond souls, till the very last moment of starting.

Of course, with such lots of lords, ladies, and knights,

In their Saracenettes, [3]  and their bright chain-mail tights,

All accustom’d to galas, grand doings, and sights,

A matter like this was at once put to rights;

’Twould have been a strange thing,

If so polish’d a king,

With his Board of Green Cloth, and Lord Steward’s department,

Couldn’t teach an Ambassador what the word “smart” meant

A banquet was order’d at once for a score,

Or more, of the corps that had just come on shore,

And the King, though he thought it “a bit of a bore,”

Ask’d all the élite

Of his levée to meet

The illustrious Strangers and share in the treat;

For the Boyar himself, the Queen graciously made him her

Beau for the day, from respect to Duke Wladimir.

(Queer as this name may appear in the spelling,

You won’t find it trouble you,

Sound but the W,

Like the first L in Llan, Lloyd, and Llewellyn!”)

Fancy the fuss, and the fidgetty looks

Of Robert de Burghersh, the constable’s, cooks;

For of course the cuisine

Of the King and the Queen

Was behind them at London, or Windsor or Sheene,

Or wherever the Court ere it started had been,

And it’s really no jest,

When a troublesome guest,

Looks in at a time when you’re busy and prest,

Just going to fight, or to ride, or to rest,

And expects a good lunch when you’ve none ready drest.

The servants no doubt,

Were much put to the rout,

By this very extempore sort of set out.

But they wisely fell back upon Poor Richard’s plan,

“When you can’t what you would, you must do what you can!”

So they ransack’d the country, folds, pig-styes, and pens,

For the sheep, and the porkers, the cocks and the hens;

’Twas said a Tom-cat of Sir Alured Denne’s,

A fine tabby-gray

Disappear’d on that day,

And whatever became of him no one could say;

They brought all the food

That ever they cou’d,

Fish, flesh, and fowl, with sea-coal and dry wood,

To his Majesty’s Dapifer, Eudo (or Ude),

They lighted the town up, sat ringing the bells,

And borrow’d the waiters from all the hotels.

A bright thought moreover, came into the head

Of Dapifer, Eudo, who’d some little dread,

As he said, for the thorough success of his spread.

So he said to himself, “What a thing it would be

Could I have here with me

Some one two or three

Of their outlandish scullions from over the sea!

It’s a hundred to one if the Suite or their Chief

Understand our plum-puddings, and barons of beef;

But with five minutes’ chat with their cooks or their valets

We’d soon dish up something to tickle their palates!”

With this happy conceit for improving the mess,

Pooh-poohing expense, he dispatch’d an express

In a waggon and four on the instant to Deal,

Who dash’d down the hill without locking the wheel,

And, by means which I guess but decline to reveal,

Seduced from the Downs, where at anchor their vessel rode,

Lumpoff Icywitz, serf to a former Count Nesselrode,

A cook of some fame,

Who invented the same

Cold pudding that still bears the family name.

This accomplish’d, the Chef’s peace of mind was restor’d,

And in due time a banquet was placed on the board

“In the very best style,” which implies in a word,

“All the dainties the season” (and king) “could afford.”

There were snipes, there were rails,

There were woodcocks and quails,

There were peacocks served up in their pride (that is tails),

Fricandeau, fricassees,

Ducks and green peas,

Cotelettes à l’Indienne, and chops à la Soubise

(Which last you may call “onion sauce” if you please),

There were barbecu’d pigs

Stuff’d with raisins and figs,

Omelettes and haricots, stews and ragouts,

And pork griskins, which Jews still refuse and abuse.

Then the wines,—round the circle how swiftly they went!

Canary, Sack, Malaga, Malvoisie, Tent;

Old Hock from the Rhine, wine remarkably fine,

Of the Charlemagne vintage of seven ninety-nine,—

Five cent’ries in bottle had made it divine!

The rich juice of Rousillon, Gascoygne, Bourdeaux,

Marasquin, Curacoa,

Kirschen Wasser, Noyeau,

And Gin which the company voted “No Go;”

The guests all hob-nobbing,

And bowing and bobbing;

Some prefer white wine, while others more value red,

Few, a choice few,

Of more orthodox goût,

Stick to “old crusted port,” among whom was Sir Alured;

Never indeed at a banquet before

Had that gallant commander enjoy’d himself more.

Then came “sweets”—served in silver were tartlets and pies—in glass,

Jellies composed of punch, calves’ feet, and isinglass,

Creams, and whipt-syllabubs, some hot, some cool,

Blancmange, and quince-custards, and gooseberry fool.

And now from the good taste which reigns it’s confest

In a gentleman’s, that is an Englishman’s, breast,

And makes him polite to a stranger and guest,

They soon play’d the deuce

With a large Charlotte Russe;

More than one of the party dispatched his plate twice

With “I’m really ashamed, but—another small slice!

Your dishes from Russia are really so nice!”

Then the prime dish of all! “There was nothing so good in

The whole of the Feed”

One and all were agreed,

“As the great Lumpoff Icywitz’ Nesselrode pudding!”

Sir Alured Denne, who’d all day, to say sooth,

Like Iago, been “plagued with a sad raging tooth,”

Which had nevertheless interfered very little

With his—what for my rhyme I’m obliged to spell—vittle,

Requested a friend,

Who sat near him to send

Him a spoonful of what he heard all so commend,

And begg’d to take wine with him afterwards, grateful

Because for a spoonful he’d sent him a plateful.

Having emptied his glass—he ne’er balk’d it or spill’d it—

The gallant Knight open’d his mouth—and then fill’d it!

You must really excuse me—there’s nothing could bribe

Me at all to go on and attempt to describe

The fearsome look then

Of Sir Alured Denne!

—Astonishment, horror, distraction of mind,

Rage, misery, fear, and iced pudding—combined!

Lip, forehead, and cheek—how these mingle and meet

All colours, all hues, now advance, now retreat,

Now pale as a turnip, now crimson as beet!

How he grasps his arm-chair in attempting to rise,

See his veins how they swell! mark the roll of his eyes!

Now east and now west, now north and now south,

Till at once he contrives to eject from his mouth

That vile “spoonful”—what

He has got he knows not,

He isn’t quite sure if it’s cold or it’s hot,

At last he exclaims, as he starts from his seat,

“A SNOWBALL by ———!” what I decline to repeat,—

’Twas the name of a bad place, for mention unmeet.

Then oh what a volley!—a great many heard

What flow’d from his lips, and ’twere really absurd

To suppose that each man was not shock’d by each word;

A great many heard too, with mix’d fear and wonder

The terrible crash of the terrible thunder,

That broke as if bursting the building asunder;

But very few heard, although every one might,

The short, half-stifled shriek from the chair on the right,

Where the lady of Bonnington sat by her Knight;

And very few saw—some—the number was small,

In the large ogive window that lighted the hall,

A small stony Saint in a small stony pall,

With a small stony mitre, and small stony crosier,

And small stony toes that owed nought to the hosier,

Beckon stonily downward to some one below,

As Merryman says “for to come for to go!”

While every one smelt a delicious perfume

That seem’d to pervade every part of the room!

Fair Edith Denne,

The bonne et belle then,

Never again was beheld among men!

But there was the fauteuil on which she was placed,

And there was the girdle that graced her small waist,

And there was her stomacher brilliant with gems,

And the mantle she wore, edged with lace at the hems,

Her rich brocade gown sat upright in its place,

And her wimple was there—but where—WHERE WAS HER FACE?

’Twas gone with her body—and nobody knows,

Nor could any one present so much as suppose

How that Lady contrived to slip out of her clothes!

But ’twas done—she was quite gone—the how and the where,

No mortal was ever yet found to declare;

Though inquiries were made, and some writers record

That Sir Alured offered a handsome reward.

•       •       •       •       •

King Edward went o’er to his wars in Guienne,

Taking with him his barons, his knights, and his men,

You may look through the whole

Of that King’s muster-roll,

And you won’t find the name of Sir Alured Denne;

But Chronicles tell that there formerly stood

A little old chapel in Bilsington wood;

The remains to this day,

Archæologists say,

May be seen, and I’d go there and look if I could.

There long dwelt a hermit remarkably good,

Who lived all alone,

And never was known

To use bed or bolster, except the cold stone;

But would groan and would moan in so piteous a tone,

A wild Irishman’s heart had responded “Och hone!”

As the fashion with hermits of old was to keep skins

To wear with the wool on—most commonly sheep-skins

He, too, like the rest was accustom’d to do so;

His beard, as no barber came near him, too, grew so,

He bore some resemblance to Robinson Crusoe,

In Houndsditch, I’m told, you’ll sometimes see a Jew so.

He lived on the roots,

And the cob-nuts and fruits,

Which the kind-hearted rustics, who rarely are churls

In such matters, would send by their boys and their girls;

They’d not get him to speak,

If they’d tried for a week,

But the colour would always mount up in his cheek,

And he’d look like a dragon if ever he heard

His young friends use a naughty expression or word.

How long he lived, or at what time he died,

’Twere hard, after so many years, to decide,

But there’s one point on which all traditions agree,

That he did die at last, leaving no legatee,

And his linen was marked with an A and a D.

Alas! for the glories of Bonnington Hall!

Alas, for its splendour! alas for its fall!

Long years have gone by

Since the trav’ler might spy

Any decentish house in the parish at all.

For very soon after the awful event,

I’ve related, ’twas said through all that part of Kent

That the maids of a morning, when putting the chairs

And the tables to rights, would oft pop unawares

In one of the parlours, or galleries, or stairs,

On a tall, female figure, or find her, far horrider,

Slowly o’ nights promenading the corridor;

But whatever the hour, or wherever the place,

No one could ever get sight of her face!

Nor could they perceive,

Any arm in her sleeve,

While her legs and her feet too, seem’d mere “make-believe,”

For she glided along with that shadow-like motion

Which gives one the notion

Of clouds on a zephyr, or ships on the ocean;

And though of her gown they could hear the silk rustle

They saw but that side on’t ornée with the bustle.

The servants, of course, though the house they were born in,

Soon “wanted to better themselves,” and gave warning,

While even the new Knight grew tired of a guest

Who would not let himself or his family rest;

So he pack’d up his all,

And made a bare wall

Of each well-furnish’d room in his ancestors’ Hall,

Then left the old Mansion to stand or to fall,

Having previously barr’d up the windows and gates,

To avoid paying sesses, and taxes and rates,

And settled on one of his other estates,

Where he built a new mansion, and called it Denne Hill

And there his descendants reside, I think, still.

Poor Bonnington, empty, or left, at the most,

To the joint occupation of rooks and a Ghost,

Soon went to decay,

And moulder’d away,

But whether it dropp’d down at last I can’t say,

Or whether the jackdaws produced, by degrees, a

Spontaneous combustion like that one at Pisa

Some cent’ries ago,

I’m sure I don’t know,

But you can’t find a vestige now ever so tiny,

“Perierunt,” as some one says, “etiam ruinæ.”

MORAL.

The first maxim a couple of lines may be said in,

If you are in passion, don’t swear at a wedding!

Whenever you chance to be ask’d out to dine,

Be exceedingly cautious—don’t take too much wine!

In your eating remember one principal point,

Whatever you do, have your eye on the joint!

Keep clear of side dishes, don’t meddle with those

Which the servants in livery, or those in plain clothes,

Poke over your shoulders and under your nose;

Or, if you must live on the fat of the land,

And feed on fine dishes you don’t understand,

Buy a good book of cookery! I’ve a compact one,

First rate of the kind, just brought out by Miss Acton,

This will teach you their names, the ingredients they’re made of,

And which to indulge in, and which be afraid of,

Or else, ten to one, between ice and cayenne,

You’ll commit yourself some day, like Alured Denne.

“To persons about to be married” I’d say,

Don’t exhibit ill-humour, at least on The Day!

And should there perchance be a trifling delay

On the part of officials, extend them your pardon,

And don’t snub the parson, the clerk, or churchwarden!

To married men this—For the rest of your lives,

Think how your misconduct may act on your wives!

Don’t swear then before them, lest haply they faint,

Or what sometimes occurs—run away with a Saint!

«»

[1]  Honest John Capgrave, the veracious biographer of “English Saints,” author, or rather compiler of the “Nova Legenda Angliæ,” was chaplain to Humphrey, “the Good Duke” of Gloucester. A beautiful edition of his work was printed by Wynkyn de Worde.

[2]  “In eodem autem prato in quo baptizatus Sanctus Romualdus nunquam gratissimus odor deficit; neque ibi herbæ pallescunt, sed semper in viriditate permanentes magna nectaris suavitate redolent.

—Nov. Legend. Angl.

[3]  This silk, of great repute among our ancestors, had been brought home, a few years before by Edward, from the Holy Land.

A serious error, similar to that which forms the subject of the following Legend, is said to have occurred in the case of one or rather two gentlemen named Curina, who dwelt near Hippo in the days of St. Augustine. The matter was set right, and a friendly hint at the same time conveyed to the ill-used individual, that it would be advisable for him to apply to the above-mentioned Father, and be baptized with as little delay as possible. The story is quoted in “The Doctor,” together with another of the same kind, which is given on no less authority than that of Gregory the Great.

The Brothers of Birchington

A LAY OF ST. THOMAS À BECKET

You are all aware that

On our throne there once sat

A very great king who’d an Angevin hat,

With a great sprig of broom, which he wore as a badge in it,

Named from this circumstance, Henry Plantagenet.

Pray don’t suppose

That I’m going to prose

O’er Queen Eleanor’s wrongs, or Miss Rosamond’s woes,

With the dagger and bowl, and all that sort of thing,

Not much to the credit of Miss, Queen, or King.

The tale may be true,

But between me and you,

With the King’s escapade I’ll have nothing to do;

But shall merely select, as a theme for my rhymes,

A fact, which occurr’d to some folks in his times.

If for health, or a “lark,”

You should ever embark

In that best of improvements on boats since the Ark,

The steam-vessel call’d the “Red Rover,” the barge

Of an excellent officer, named Captain Large,

You may see, some half way

’Twixt the pier at Herne Bay

And Margate, the place where you’re going to stay,

A village call’d Birchington, fam’d for its “Rolls,”

As the fishing-bank, just in its front, is for Soles.

Well,—there stood a fane

In this Harry Broom’s reign,

On the edge of the cliff, overhanging the main,

Renown’d for its sanctity all through the nation,

And orthodox friars of the Austin persuasion.

Among them there was one,

Whom if once I begun

To describe as I ought I should never have done,

Father Richard of Birchington, so was the Friar

Yclept, whom the rest had elected their Prior.

He was tall and upright,

About six feet in height,

His complexion was what you’d denominate light,

And the tonsure had left, ’mid his ringlets of brown,

A little bald patch on the top of his crown.

His bright sparkling eye

Was of hazel, and nigh

Rose a finely arch’d eyebrow of similar dye,

He’d a small, well-form’d mouth with the Cupidon lip,

And an aquiline nose, somewhat red at the tip.

Indoors and out

He was very devout,

With his Aves and Paters—and oh, such a knout!!

For his self-flagellations! the Monks used to say

He would wear out two penn’orth of whip-cord a-day!

Then how his piety

Shows in his diet, he

Dines upon pulse, or, by way of variety,

Sand-eels or dabs; or his appetite mocks

With those small periwinkles that crawl on the rocks.

In brief, I don’t stick

To declare Father Dick—

So they call’d him, “for short”—was a “Regular Brick,”

A metaphor taken—I have not the page aright—

Out of an ethical work by the Stagyrite.

Now Nature, ’tis said,

Is a comical jade,

And among the fantastical tricks she has play’d,

Was the making our good Father Richard a Brother,

As like him in form as one pea’s like another;

He was tall and upright,

About six feet in height,

His complexion was what you’d denominate light,

And, though he had not shorn his ringlets of brown,

He’d a little bald patch on the top of his crown.

He’d a bright sparkling eye

Of the hazel, hard by

Rose a finely-arch’d sourcil of similar dye;

He’d a small, well-shaped mouth, with a Cupidon lip,

And a good Roman nose, rather red at the tip.

But here, it’s pretended,

The parallel ended;

In fact, there’s no doubt his life might have been mended,

And people who spoke of the Prior with delight,

Shook their heads if you mention’d his brother, the Knight.

If you’d credit report,

There was nothing but sport,

And High Jinks going on night and day at “the court,”

Where Sir Robert, instead of devotion and charity,

Spent all his time in unseemly hilarity.

He drinks and he eats

Of choice liquors and meats,

And he goes out on We’n’sdays and Fridays to treats,

Gets tipsy whenever he dines or he sups,

And is wont to come quarrelsome home in his cups.

No Paters, no Aves;

An absolute slave he’s

To tarts, pickled salmon, and sauces, and gravies;

While as to his beads—what a shame in a Knight!—

He really don’t know the wrong end from the right!

So, though ’twas own’d then,

By nine people in ten,

That “Robert and Richard were two pretty men,”

Yet there the praise ceased, or, at least the good Priest

Was consider’d the “Beauty,” Sir Robert the “Beast.”

Indeed, I’m afraid

More might have been laid

To the charge of the Knight than was openly said,

For then we’d no “Phiz’s,” no “H.B.’s,” nor “Leeches,”

To call Roberts “Bobs,” and illustrate their speeches.

’Twas whisper’d he’d rob,

Nay murder! a job

Which would stamp him no “brick,” but a “regular snob,”

(An obsolete term, which, at this time of day,

We should probably render by mauvais sujet.)

Now if here such affairs

Get wind unawares,

They are bruited about, doubtless, much more “down stairs,”

Where Old Nick has a register-office, they say,

With commissioners quite of such matters au fait.

Of course, when he heard

What his people averr’d

Of Sir Robert’s proceedings in deed and in word,

He asked for the ledger, and hastened to look

At the leaves on the creditor side of this book.

’Twas with more than surprise

That he now ran his eyes

O’er the numberless items, oaths, curses, and lies,

Et cetera, set down in Sir Robert’s account,

He was quite “flabbergasted” to see the amount.

“Dear me! this is wrong!

It’s a great deal too strong,

I’d no notion this bill had been standing so long—

Send Levybub here!” and he filled up a writ

Of “Ca sa,” duly prefaced with “Limbo to wit.”

“Here Levybub, quick!”

To his bailiff, said Nick,

“I’m ‘ryled,’ and ‘my dander’s up,’ ‘Go a-head slick’

Up to Kent—not Kentuck—and at once fetch away

A snob there—I guess that’s a mauvais sujet.

“One De Birchington, knight—

’Tis not clear quite

What his t’other name is—they’ve not enter’d it right,

Ralph, Robert, or Richard? they’ve not gone so far,

Our critturs have put it down merely as “R.”

“But he’s tall and upright,

About six feet in height,

His complexion, I reckon, you’d calculate light,

And he’s farther ‘set down’ having ringlets of brown,

With a little bald patch on the top of his crown.

“Then his eye and his lip,

Hook-nose, red at tip,

Are marks your attention can’t easily slip;

Take Slomanoch with you, he’s got a good knack

Of soon grabbing his man, and be back in a crack!”

That same afternoon

Father Dick, who, as soon

Would “knock in” or “cut chapel” as jump oe’r the moon,

Was missing at vespers—at compline—all night!

And his monks were, of course, in a deuce of a fright.

Morning dawn’d—’twas broad day,

Still no Prior! the tray

With his muffins and eggs, went untasted away;—

He came not to luncheon—all said, “it was rum of him!”

—None could conceive what on earth had become of him.

They examined his cell,

They peep’d down the well;

They went up the tow’r, and looked into the bell,

They dragg’d the great fish-pond, the little one tried,

But found nothing at all, save some carp—which they fried.

“Dear me! Dear me!

Why, where can he be?

He’s fall’n over the cliff?—tumbled into the sea?”

“Stay—he talk’d,” exclaimed one, “If I recollect right,

Of making a call on his brother, the Knight!”

He turns as he speaks,

The “Court Lodge” he seeks,

Which was known then, as now, by the queer name of Quekes,

But scarce half a mile on his way had he sped,

When he spied the good Prior in the paddock—stone dead!

Alas! ’twas too true!

And I need not tell you

In the convent his news made a pretty to do;

Through all its wide precincts so roomy and spacious,

Nothing was heard but “Bless me!” and “Good Gracious!!”

They sent for the May’r

And the Doctor, a pair

Of grave men, who began to discuss the affair,

When in bounced the Coroner, foaming with fury,

“Because,” as he said, “’twas pooh! pooh!-ing his jury.”

Then commenced a dispute,

And so hot they went to ’t,

That things seem’d to threaten a serious émeute,

When, just in the midst of the uproar and racket,

Who should walk in but St. Thomas à Becket.

Quoth his saintship, “How now?

Here’s a fine coil, I trow!

I should like to know, gentlemen, what’s all this row?

Mr. Wickliffe—or Wackliffe—whatever your name is—

And you, Mr. May’r, don’t you know, Sirs, what shame is?

“Pray what’s all this clatter

About?—what’s the matter?”

Here a monk, whose teeth funk and concern made to chatter,

Sobs out, as he points to the corpse on the floor,

’Tis all dickey with poor Father Dick—he’s no more!”

“How!—what?” says the saint,

“Yes he is—no he ain’t! [1]

He can’t be deceased—pooh! it’s merely a faint,

Or some foolish mistake which may serve for our laughter,

‘He should have died,’ like the old Scotch Queen, ‘hereafter.’

“His time is not out;

Some blunder no doubt,

It shall go hard but what I’ll know what it’s about—

I shan’t be surprised if that scurvy Old Nick’s

Had a hand in’t; it savours of one of his tricks.”

When a crafty old hound

Claps his nose to the ground,

Then throws it up boldly, and bays out, “I’ve found!”

And the pack catch the note, I’d as soon think to check it,

As dream of bamboozling St. Thomas à Becket.

Once on the scent,

To business he went,

“You Scoundrel, come here, Sir,” (’twas Nick that he meant,)

“Bring your books here this instant—bestir yourself—do,

I’ve no time to waste on such fellows as you.”

Every corner and nook

In all Erebus shook,

As he struck on the pavement his pastoral crook,

All its tenements trembled from basement to roofs,

And their nigger inhabitants shook in their hoofs.

Hanging his ears,

Yet dissembling his fears,

Ledger in hand, straight “Auld Hornie” appears,

With that sort of half sneaking, half-impudent look,

Bankrupts sport when cross-question’d by Cresswell or Cooke.

“So Sir-r-r! you are here,”

Said the saint with a sneer,

“My summons, I trust, did not much interfere

With your morning engagements—I merely desire,

At your leisure, to know what you’ve done with my Prior?

“Now, none of your lies,

Mr. Nick! I’d advise

You to tell me the truth without any disguise,

Or-r-r!!” The Saint, while his rosy gills seem’d to grow rosier,

Here gave another great thump with his crosier.

Like a small boy at Eton,

Who’s not quite a Crichton,

And don’t know his task but expects to be beaten,

Nick stammer’d, scarce knowing what answer to make,

“Sir, I’m sadly afraid here has been a mistake.

“These things will occur,

We are all apt to err,

The most cautious sometimes as you know, holy Sir;

For my own part—I’m sure I do all that I can—

But—the fact is—I fear—we have got the wrong man.”

“Wrong man!” roar’d the Saint—

But the scene I can’t paint,

The best colours I have are a vast deal too faint—

Nick afterwards own’d that he ne’er knew what fright meant,

Before he saw saint under so much excitement.

“Wrong man! don’t tell me—

Pooh!—fiddle-de-dee!

What’s your right, Scamp, to any man!—come, let me see;

I’ll teach you, you thorough-paced rascal, to meddle

With church matters, come, Sirrah, out with your schedule!”

In support of his claim

The fiend turns to the name

Of “De Birchington” written in letters of flame,

Below which long items stand, column on column,

Enough to have eked out a decent-sized volume!

Sins of all sorts and shapes,

From small practical japes,

Up to dicings, and drinkings, and murders, and rapes,

And then of such standing!—a merciless tick,

From an Oxford tobacconist,—let alone Nick.

The Saint in surprise

Scarce believed his own eyes,

Still he knew he’d to deal with the father of lies,

And “So this!—you call this!” he exclaimed in a searching tone,

“This!!! the account of my friend Dick de Birchington!”

“Why,” said Nick, with an air

Of great candour, “it’s there

Lies the awkwardest part of this awkward affair—

I thought all was right—see the height tallies quite,

The complexion’s what all must consider as light;

There’s the nose, and the lip, and the ringlets of brown,

And the little bald patch on the top of the crown.

“And then the surname,

So exactly the same—

I don’t know—I can’t tell how the accident came,

But some how—I own it’s a very sad job,

But—my bailiff grabb’d Dick when he should have nabb’d Bob.

“I am vex’d beyond bounds

You should have such good grounds

For complaint; I would rather have given five pounds,

And any apology, Sir, you may choose,

I’ll make with much pleasure, and put in the News.”

“An apology!—pooh!

Much good that will do!

An ‘apology’ quotha!—and that too from you!—

Before any proposal is made of the sort,

Bring back your stol’n goods, thief!—produce them in Court!”

In a moment, so small

It seem’d no time at all,

Father Richard sat up on his what-do-ye-call—

Sur son séant—and, what was as wondrous as pleasing,

At once began coughing, and sniffing, and sneezing.

While, strange to relate,

The Knight, whom the fate

Of his brother had reach’d, and who’d knock’d at the gate,

To make further enquiries, had scarce made his bow

To the Saint, ere he vanish’d, and no one knew how!

Erupit—evasit,

As Tully would phrase it,

And none could have known where to find his Hic jacet—

That sentence which man his mortality teaches—

Sir Robert had disappear’d, body and breeches!

“Heyday! Sir, heyday!

What’s the matter now—eh?”

Quoth à Becket, observing the gen’ral dismay,

“How, again!—’pon my word this is really too bad!

It would drive any saint in the calendar mad.

“What, still at your tricking?

You will have a kicking?

I see you won’t rest till you’ve got a good licking—

Your claim, friend?—what claim?—why you show’d me before

That your old claim was cancell’d—you’ve cross’d out the score!

“Is it that way you’d Jew one?

You’ve settled the true one;

Do you mean to tell me he has run up a new one?

Of the thousands you’ve cheated

And scurvily treated,

Name one you’ve dared charge with a bill once receipted!

In the Bankruptcy Court should you dare to presume

To attempt it, they’d soon kick you out of the room,

—Ask Commissioner Fonblanque, or ask my Lord Brougham.

“And then to make under

So barefaced a blunder,

Your caption!—why what’s the world come to, I wonder?

My patience! it’s just like his impudence, drat him!

—Stand out of the way there, and let me get at him!”

The Saint raised his arm,

But Old Nick, in alarm,

Dash’d up through the skylight, not doing much harm,

While, quitte pour la peur, the Knight, sound on the whole,

Down the chimney came tumbling as black as a coal!

Spare we to tell

Of what after befell!

How the Saint lectured Robert de Birchington well,

Bade him alter his life, and held out as a warning

The narrow escape he’d made on that morning.

Nor need we declare

How, then and there,

The jury and Coroner blew up the May’r

For his breach of decorum as one of the Quorum,

In not having Levybub brought up before ’em.

Nor will you require

Me to state how the Prior

Could never thenceforth bear the sight of a fire,

Nor ever was heard to express a desire

In cold weather to see the thermometer higher.

Nor shall I relate

The subsequent fate

Of St. Thomas à Becket, whose reverend pate

Fitzurse and De Morville, and Brito and Tracy

Shaved off, as his crown had been merely a jasey. [2]

Suffice it to say,

From that notable day

The “Twin Birchington Brothers” together grew gray;

In the same holy convent continued to dwell,

Same food and same fastings, same habit, same cell.

No more the Knight rattles

In broils and in battles,

But sells, by De Robins, his goods and his chattels,

And counting all wealth a mere Will-o’the-wisp,

Disposes of Quekes to Sir Nicholas Crispe.

One spot alone

Of all he had known

Of his spacious domain he retain’d as his own,

In a neighbouring parish, whose name, I may say

Scarce any two people pronounce the same way.

Re-cul-ver some style it,

While others revile it

As bad, and say Re-culver—’tisn’t worth while, it

Would seem to dispute, when we know the result immat-
erial—I accent, myself, the penultimate.

Sages, with brains

Full of “Saxon remains,”

May call me a booby, perhaps, for my pains,

Still I hold, at the hazard of being thought dull by ’em,

Fast by the quantity mark’d for Regulbium.

Call’t as you will

The traveller still,

In the voyage that we talk’d about, marks on the hill

Overhanging the sea, the “twin towers” raised then

By “Robert and Richard, those two pretty men.”

Both tall and upright,

And just equal in height;

The Trinity House talked of painting them white,

And the thing was much spoken of some time ago,

When the Duke, I believe—but I really don’t know.

Well-there the “Twins” stand

On the verge of the land,

To warn mariners off from the Columbine sand,

And many a poor man have Robert and Dick

By their vow caused to ’scape, like themselves, from Old Nick.

So, whether you’re sailors

Or Tooley-street tailors,

Broke loose from your masters, those sternest of jailers,

And, bent upon pleasure, are taking your trip

In a craft which you fondly conceive is a ship,

When you’ve pass’d by the Nore,

And you hear the winds roar

In a manner you scarce could have fancied before,

When the cordage and tackling

Are flapping and crackling,

And the boy with the bell

Thinks it useless to tell

You that “dinner’s on table,” because you’re unwell;

When above you all’s “scud,”

And below you the flood

Looks a horrible mixture of soap-suds and mud,

When the timbers are straining,

And folks are complaining

The dead-lights are letting the spray and the rain in,

When the helm’s-man looks blue,

And Captain Large too,

And you really don’t know what on earth you shall do.

In this hubbub and row

Think where you’d be now,

Except for the Birchington boys and their vow!

And while o’er the wide wave you feel the craft pitch hard,

Praie for ye sowles of Robertte and Rychard!

MORAL.

It’s a subject of serious complaint in some houses,

With young married men who have elderly spouses,

That persons are seen in their figures and faces,

With very queer people in very queer places,

So like them that one for the other’s oft taken,

And conjugal confidence thereby much shaken:

Explanations too often are thought mere pretences,

And Richard gets scolded for Robert’s offences.

In a matter so nice,

If I’m ask’d my advice,

I say copy King Henry to obviate that,

And stick something remarkable up in your hat!

Next, observe, in this world where we’ve so many cheats,

How useful it is to preserve your receipts!

If you deal with a person whose truth you don’t doubt

Be particular, still, that your bill is cross’d out;

But, with any inducement to think him a scamp,

Have a formal receipt on a regular stamp!

Let every gay gallant my story who notes

Take warning, and not go on “sowing wild oats!”

Nor depend that some friend

Will always attend,

And by “making all right” bring him off in the end,

He may be mistaken so let him beware,

St. Thomas à Beckets are now rather rare.

Last of all, may’rs and magistrates, never be rude

To juries! they are people who won’t be pooh-pooh’d!

Especially Sandwich ones—no one can say

But himself may come under their clutches one day;

They then may pay off

In kind any scoff,

And, turning their late verdict quite “wisey wersey,”

“Acquit you,” and not “recommend you to mercy.” [3]

«»

[1]  Cantise, for “is not;” St. Thomas, it seems, had lived long enough in the country to pick up a few of its provincialisms.

[2]  Nec satis fuit eis sanguine sacerdotis et nece ecclesiam prophanare, nisi, corona capitis amputata, funestis gladiis jam defuncti ejicerent cerebrum.

—Matt. Paris.

[3]  At a Quarter Sessions held at Sandwich, (some six miles from Birchington,) on Tuesday the 8th of April last, before W. F. Boteler, Esq., the recorder, Thomas Jones, mariner, aged 17, was tried for stealing a jacket, value ten shillings. The jury after a patient hearing, found him “not guilty,” and “recommended him to mercy.”
—See the whole case reported in the “Kentish Observer,” April 10, 1845.

The Knight
and the Lady

A DOMESTIC LEGEND OF
THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE

“Hail, wedded love! mysterious tie!”

—Thomson—or Somebody.

The Lady Jane was tall and slim,

The Lady Jane was fair,

And Sir Thomas, her Lord, was stout of limb,

But his cough was short, and his eyes were dim,

And he wore green “specs,” with a tortoiseshell rim,

And his hat was remarkably broad in the brim,

And she was uncommonly fond of him,

And they were a loving pair!—

—And the name and the fame

Of the Knight and his Dame,

Were ev’rywhere hail’d with the loudest acclaim;

And wherever they went, or wherever they came,

Far and wide,

The people cried,

Huzza! for the Lord of this noble domain,—

Huzza! Huzza! Huzza!—once again!—

Encore!—Encore!—

One cheer more!—

—All sorts of pleasure, and no sort of pain

To Sir Thomas the Good, and the Fair Lady Jane!!

Now Sir Thomas the Good,

Be it well understood,

Was a man of a very contemplative mood—

He would pore by the hour

O’er a weed, or a flower,

Or the slugs that come crawling out after a shower;

Black-beetles, and Bumble-bees,—Blue-bottle flies,

And Moths were of no small account in his eyes;

An “Industrious Flea” he’d by no means despise,

While an “Old Daddy-long-legs,” whose “long legs” and thighs

Pass’d the common in shape, or in colour, or size,

He was wont to consider an absolute prize.

Nay, a hornet or wasp he could scarce “keep his paws off”—he

Gave up, in short,

Both business and sport,

And abandon’d himself, tout entier, to Philosophy.

Now, as Lady Jane was tall and slim,

And Lady Jane was fair,

And a good many years the junior of him,—

And as he,

All agree,

Look’d less like her Mari,

As he walk’d by her side, than her Père, [1]

There are some might be found entertaining a notion

That such an entire, and exclusive devotion

To that part of science, folks style Entomology,

Was a positive shame,

And, to such a fair Dame,

Really demanded some sort of apology;

—No doubt, it would vex

One half of the sex

To see their own husband, in horrid green “specs,”

Instead of enjoying a sociable chat,

Still poking his nose into this and to that,

At a gnat, or a bat, or a cat, or a rat,

Or great ugly things,

All legs and wings,

With nasty long tails arm’d with nasty long stings;

And they’d join such a log of a spouse to condemn,

—One eternally thinking,

And blinking, and winking

At grubs,—when he ought to be winking at them.—

But no!—oh no!

’Twas by no means so

With the Lady Jane Ingoldsby—she, far discreeter,

And, having a temper more even and sweeter,

Would never object to

Her spouse, in respect to

His poking and peeping

After “things creeping;”

Much less be still keeping lamenting, and weeping,

Or scolding at what she perceived him so deep in.

Tout au contraire,

No lady so fair

Was e’er known to wear more contented an air;

And,—let who would call,—every day she was there,

Propounding receipts for some delicate fare,

Some toothsome conserve, of quince, apple, or pear,

Or distilling strong waters,—or potting a hare,—

Or counting her spoons and her crockery-ware;—

Or else, her tambour-frame before her, with care

Embroidering a stool or a back for a chair,

With needle-work roses, most cunning and rare,

Enough to make less-gifted visitors stare,

And declare, where’er

They had been, that, “they ne’er

In their lives had seen aught that at all could compare

With dear Lady Jane’s housewifery—that they would swear.”

Nay more; don’t suppose

With such doings as those

This account of her merits must come to a close;

No;—examine her conduct more closely, you’ll find

She by no means neglected improving her mind;

For there, all the while, with air quite bewitching,

She sat herring-boning, tambouring, or stitching,

Or having an eye to affairs of the kitchen,

Close by her side,

Sat her kinsman, MacBride,

Her cousin, fourteen-times-removed,—as you’ll see

If you look at the Ingoldsby family tree,

In “Burke’s Commoners,” vol. xx., page 53.

All the papers I’ve read agree,

Too, with the pedigree,

Where, among the collateral branches, appears

“Captain Dugald Mac Bride, Royal Scots Fusileers;”

And I doubt if you’d find in the whole of his clan

A more highly-intelligent, worthy young man;—

And there he’d be sitting,

While she was a-knitting,

Or hemming, or stitching, or darning and fitting,

Or putting a “gore,” or a “gusset,” or “bit” in,

Reading aloud, with a very grave look,

Some very “wise saw” from some very good book,—

Some such pious divine as

St. Thomas Aquinas:

Or, equally charming,

The works of Bellarmine;

Or else he unravels

The “voyages and travels”

Of Hackluytz—(how sadly these Dutch names do sully verse!)—

Purchas’s, Hawksworth’s, or Lemuel Gulliver’s,—

Not to name others, ’mongst whom there are few so

Admired as John Bunyan, and Robinson Crusoe.—

No matter who came,

It was always the same,

The Captain was reading aloud to the Dame,

Till, from having gone through half the books on the shelf,

They were almost as wise as Sir Thomas himself.

Well,—it happened one day,

—I really can’t say

The particular month;—but I think ’twas in May,—

’Twas, I know, in the Spring-time,—when “Nature looks gay,”

As the Poet observes,—and on tree-top and spray

The dear little dickey-birds carol away;

When the grass is so green, and the sun is so bright,

And all things are teeming with life and with light,—

That the whole of the house was thrown into affright,

For no soul could conceive what was gone with the Knight!

It seems he had taken

A light breakfast—bacon,

An egg—with a little broiled haddock—at most

A round and a half of some hot butter’d-toast,

With a slice of cold sirloin from yesterday’s roast.

And then—let me see!—

He had two—perhaps three

Cups (with sugar and cream) of strong Gunpowder tea,

With a spoonful in each of some choice eau de vie,

—Which with nine out of ten would perhaps disagree.—

—In fact, I and my son

Mix “black” with our “Hyson,”

Neither having the nerves of a bull, or a bison,

And both hating brandy like what some call “pison.”

No matter for that—

He had call’d for his hat,

With the brim that I’ve said was so broad and so flat,

And his “specs” with the tortoiseshell rim, and his cane

With the crutch-handled top, which he used to sustain

His steps in his walks, and to poke in the shrubs

And the grass, when unearthing his worms and his grubs—

Thus arm’d, he set out on a ramble—alack!

He set out, poor dear Soul!—but he never came back!

“First dinner-bell” rang

Out its euphonous clang

At five—folks kept early hours then—and the “Last”

Ding-dong’d, as it ever was wont, at half-past,

While Betsey, and Sally,

And Thompson, the Valet,

And every one else was beginning to bless himself,

Wondering the Knight had not come in to dress himself.—

—Quoth Betsey, “Dear me! why, the fish will be cold!—

Quoth Sally, “Good gracious! how ‘Missis’ will scold!”—

Thompson, the Valet,

Look’d gravely at Sally,

As who should say “Truth must not always be told!”

Then, expressing a fear lest the Knight might take cold

Thus exposed to the dews,

Lambs’-wool stockings, and shoes,

Of each a fresh pair,

He put down to air,

And hung a clean shirt to the fire on a chair.—

Still the Master was absent—the Cook came and said, “he

Much fear’d, as the dinner had been so long ready,

The roast and the boil’d

Would be all of it spoil’d,

And the puddings, her Ladyship thought such a treat,

He was morally sure, would be scarce fit to eat!”

This closed the debate—

’Twould be folly to wait,”

Said the Lady, “Dish up!—Let the meal be served straight;

And let two or three slices be put on a plate,

And kept hot for Sir Thomas.—He’s lost sure as fate!

And, a hundred to one, won’t be home till it’s late!”

—Captain Dugald MacBride then proceeded to face

The Lady at table,—stood up, and said grace,—

Then set himself down in Sir Thomas’s place.

Wearily, wearily, all that night,

That live-long night, did the hours go by;

And the Lady Jane,

In grief and in pain,

She sat herself down to cry!—

And Captain MacBride,

Who sat by her side,

Though I really can’t say that he actually cried,

At least had a tear in his eye!—

As much as can well be expected, perhaps,

From very “young fellows” for very “old chaps;”

And if he had said

What he’d got in his head,

’Twould have been “Poor old Buffer! he’s certainly dead!”

The morning dawn’d,—and the next,—and the next,

And all in the mansion were still perplex’d;

No watch-dog “bay’d a welcome home,” as

A watch-dog should, to the “Good Sir Thomas;”

No knocker fell

His approach to tell,

Not so much as a runaway ring at the bell—

The Hall was silent as Hermit’s cell.

Yet the sun shone bright upon tower and tree,

And the meads smiled green as green may be,

And the dear little dickey-birds caroll’d with glee,

And the lambs in the park skipp’d merry and free—

—Without, all was joy and harmony!

“And thus ’twill be,—nor long the day,—

Ere we, like him, shall pass away!

Yon Sun, that now our bosoms warms,

Shall shine,—but shine on other forms;—

Yon Grove, whose choir so sweetly cheers

Us now, shall sound on other ears,—

The joyous Lamb, as now, shall play,

But other eyes its sports survey,—

The Stream we loved shall roll as fair,

The flowery sweets, the trim Parterre

Shall scent, as now, the ambient air,—

The Tree, whose bending branches bear

The One loved name—shall yet be there;—

But where the hand that carved it?—Where?”—

These were hinted to me as

The very ideas

Which passed through the mind of the fair Lady Jane,

Her thoughts having taken a sombre-ish train,

As she walk’d on the esplanade, to and again,

With Captain MacBride,

Of course, at her side,

Who could not look quite so forlorn,—though he tried,

—An “idea,” in fact, had got into his head,

That if “poor dear Sir Thomas” should really be dead,

It might be no bad “spec.” to be there in his stead,

And, by simply contriving, in due time, to wed

A Lady who was young and fair,

A Lady slim and tall,

To set himself down in comfort there

The Lord of Tapton Hall.— [2]

Thinks he, “We have sent

Half over Kent

And nobody knows how much money’s been spent,

Yet no one’s been found to say which way he went!—

The groom, who’s been over

To Folkstone and Dover,

Can’t get any tidings at all of the rover!

—Here’s a fortnight and more has gone by, and we’ve tried

Every plan we could hit on—the whole country-side,

Upon all its dead walls, with placards we’ve supplied,—

And we’ve sent out the Crier, and had him well cried—

“MISSING!!

Stolen, or stray’d,

Lost, or mislaid,

A GENTLEMAN;—middle-aged, sober, and staid;—

Stoops slightly;—and when he left home was array’d

In a sad-coloured suit, somewhat dingy and fray’d;—

Had spectacles on with a tortoiseshell rim,

And a hat rather low-crown’d, and broad in the brim.—

Whoe’er

Shall bear,

Or shall send him with care,

(Right side uppermost) home;—or shall give notice where

The said middle-aged GENTLEMAN is;—or shall state

Any fact, that may tend to throw light on his fate,

To the man at the turnpike, called TAPPINGTON GATE,

Shall receive a REWARD OF FIVE POUNDS for his trouble,—

(> N.B.—If defunct the REWARD will be double!! <)”

“Had he been above ground

He must have been found.

No; doubtless he’s shot,—or he’s hang’d,—or he’s drown’d!—

Then his Widow—ay! ay!—

But, what will folks say?—

To address her at once—at so early a day!

Well—what then?—who cares?—let ’em say what they may—

A fig for their nonsense and chatter!—suffice it, her

Charms will excuse one for casting sheep’s eyes at her!”

When a man has decided

As Captain MacBride did,

And once fully made up his mind on the matter, he

Can’t be too prompt in unmasking his battery.

He began on the instant, and vow’d that “her eyes

Far exceeded in brilliance the stars in the skies,—

That her lips were like roses—her cheeks were like lilies—

Her breath had the odour of daffy-down-dillies!”—

With a thousand more compliments equally true,

And expressed in similitudes equally new!

—Then his left arm he placed

Round her jimp, taper waist—

—Ere she’d fix’d to repulse, or return, his embrace,

Up came running a man, at a deuce of a pace,

With that very peculiar expression of face

Which always betokens dismay or disaster,

Crying out—’twas the Gardener,—“Oh, Ma’am! we’ve found Master!”—

—“Where? where?” scream’d the lady; and Echo scream’d—“Where?”—

—The man couldn’t say “There!”

He had no breath to spare,

But, gasping for air, he could only respond

By pointing—he pointed, alas!—TO THE POND!!

—’Twas e’en so—poor dear Knight!—with his “specs” and his hat

He’d gone poking his nose into this and to that;

When, close to the side

Of the bank, he espied

An “uncommon fine” Tadpole, remarkably fat!

He stooped;—and he thought her

His own;—he had caught her!

Got hold of her tail,—and to land almost brought her,

When—he plump’d head and heels into fifteen feet water!

The Lady Jane was tall and slim,

The Lady Jane was fair,

Alas, for Sir Thomas!—she grieved for him,

As she saw two serving-men, sturdy of limb,

His body between them bear.

She sobb’d, and she sigh’d; she lamented, and cried,

For of sorrow brimful was her cup;

She swoon’d, and I think she’d have fall’n down and died,

If Captain MacBride

Had not been by her side,

With the Gardener; they both their assistance supplied,

And managed to hold her up.—

But, when she “comes to,”

Oh! ’tis shocking to view

The sight which the corpse reveals!

Sir Thomas’s body,

It look’d so odd—he

Was half eaten up by the eels!

His waistcoat and hose, and the rest of his clothes

Were all gnaw’d through and through;

And out of each shoe

An eel they drew;

And from each of his pockets they pull’d out two!

And the Gardener himself had secreted a few,

As well we may suppose;

For, when he came running to give the alarm,

He had six in the basket that hung on his arm.

Good Father John [3]

Was summon’d anon;

Holy water was sprinkled,

And little bells tinkled,

And tapers were lighted,

And incense ignited,

And masses were sung, and masses were said,

All day, for the quiet repose of the dead,

And all night no one thought about going to bed.

But Lady Jane was tall and slim,

And Lady Jane was fair,—

And, ere morning came, that winsome dame

Had made up her mind—or, what’s much the same,

Had thought about—once more “changing her name,”

And she said, with a pensive air,

To Thompson, the valet, while taking away,

When supper was over, the cloth and the tray,—

“Eels a many

I’ve ate; but any

So good ne’er tasted before!—

They’re a fish, too, of which I’m remarkably fond.—

Go—pop Sir Thomas again in the Pond—

“Poor dear!—HE’LL CATCH US SOME MORE!!

MORAL.

All middle-aged Gentlemen let me advise,

If you’re married, and have not got very good eyes,

Don’t go poking about after blue-bottle flies!—

If you’ve spectacles, don’t have a tortoiseshell rim,

And don’t go near the water,—unless you can swim!

Married Ladies, especially such as are fair,

Tall, and slim, I would next recommend to beware

How, on losing one spouse, they give way to despair;

But let them reflect, “There are fish, and no doubt on’t—

As good in the river as ever came out on’t!”

Should they light on a spouse who is given to roaming

In solitude—raison de plus, in the “gloaming,”—

Let them have a fix’d time for said spouse to come home in!

And if, when “last dinner-bell’s rung, he is late,

To insure better manners in future—Don’t wait!—

If of husband or children they chance to be fond,

Have a stout iron-wire fence put all round the pond!

One more piece of advice, and I close my appeals—

That is—if you chance to be partial to eels,

Then—Crede experto—trust one who has tried—

Have them spatch-cock’d,—or stew’d—they’re too oily when fried!

[1]

My friend, Mr. Hood;

In his comical mood,

Would have probably styled the good Knight and his Lady—

Him—“Stern-old and Hopkins,” and her “Tête and Braidy.”

[2]  The familiar abbreviation for Tappington Everard still in use among the tenantry,—Vide Prefatory Introduction to the Ingoldsby Legends, Volume I.

[3]  For some account of Father John Ingoldsby, to whose papers I am so much beholden, see introduction to “The Jackdaw of Rheims” in Volume 1. This was the last ecclesiastical act of his long and valuable life.

The House-Warming!!

A LEGEND OF BLEEDING-HEART YARD

Did you ever see the Devil dance?

—Old Query.

Sir Christopher Hatton he danced with grace,

He’d a very fine form and a very fine face,

And his cloak and his doublet were guarded with lace,

And the rest of his clothes,

As you well may suppose,

In taste were by no means inferior to those;

He’d a yellow-starched ruff,

And his gloves were of buff,

On each of his shoes a red heel and a rose,

And nice little moustaches under his nose;

Then every one knows

How he turned out his toes,

And a very great way that accomplishment goes,

In a Court where it’s thought, in a lord or duke, a

Disgrace to fall short in “the Brawls”—(their Cachouca).

So what with his form, and what with his face,

And what with his velvet cloak guarded with lace,

And what with his elegant dancing and grace,

His dress and address

So tickled Queen Bess

That her Majesty gave him a very snug place;

And seeing, moreover, at one single peep, her

Advisers were, few of them, sharper or deeper,

(Old Burleigh excepted), she made him Lord Keeper!

I’ve heard, I confess with no little surprise,

English history called a farrago of lies,

And a certain Divine,

A connexion of mine,

Who ought to know better, as some folks opine,

Is apt to declare,

Leaning back in his chair,

With a sort of a smirking, self-satisfied, air,

That “all that’s recorded in Hume, and elsewhere,

“Of our early ‘Annales’

A trumpery tale is,

Like the ‘Bold Captain Smith’s,’ and ‘the luckless Miss

Bayley’s’—

That old Roger Hoveden, and Ralph de Diceto,

And others (whose names should I try to repeat o-
ver, well I’m assured you would put in your veto),

Though all holy friars,

Were very great liars,

And raised stories faster than Grissel and Peto—

That Harold escaped with the loss of a “glim”—

—That the shaft which killed Rufus ne’er glanced from a limb

Of a tree, as they say, but was aimed slap at him,—

“That Fair Rosamond never was poisoned or spitted,

But outlived Queen Nell, who was much to be pitied;—

That Nelly her namesake, Ned Longshanks’s wife,

Ne’er went Crusading at all in her life,

Nor suck’d the wound made by the poison-tipped knife!

For as she,

O’er the sea,

Towards far Galilee

Never, even in fancy, march’d carcass or shook shanks,

Of course she could no more suck Longshanks than Cruikshanks,

But, leaving her spindle-legged liege-lord to roam,

Staid behind, and suck’d something much better at home,—

That it’s quite as absurd

To say Edward the Third,

In reviving the Garter, afforded a handle

For any Court-gossip, detraction, or scandal,

As ’twould be to say,

That at Court t’other day,

At the fête which the newspapers say was so gay,

His Great Representative then stole away

Lady Salisbury’s garters as part of the play.—

—That as to Prince Hal’s being taken to jail,

By the London Police, without mainprize or bail,

For cuffing a judge,

It’s a regular fudge;

And that Chief-Justice Gascoigne, it’s very well known,

Was kicked out the moment he came to the throne.—

—Then that Richard the Third was a “marvellous proper man”—

Never killed, injured, or wrong’d of a copper, man!—

Ne’er wished to smother

The sons of his brother,—

Nor ever stuck Harry the Sixth, who, instead

Of being squabashed, as in Shakspeare we’ve read,

Caught a bad influenza, and died in his bed,

In the Tower, not far from the room where the Guard is

(The octagon one that adjoins Duffus Hardy’s).

—That, in short, all the ‘facts’ in the Decem Scriptores,

Are nothing at all but sheer humbugging stories.”

Then if, as he vows, both this country and France in,

Historians thus gave themselves up to romancing,

Notwithstanding what most of them join in advancing

Respecting Sir Christopher’s capering and prancing,

’Twill cause no surprise

If we find that his rise

Is not to be solely ascribed to his dancing!

The fact is, Sir Christopher, early in life,

As all bachelors should do, had taken a wife,

A Fanshawe by family,—one of a house,

Well descended, but boasting less “nobles” than nous;

Though e’en as to purse

He might have done worse,

For I find, on perusing her Grandfather’s will, it is

Clear she had “good gifts beside possibilities,” [1]

Owches and rings,

And such sort of things,

Orellana shares (then the American Stocks),

Jewell’d stomachers, coifs, ruffs, stilk-stockings with clocks,

Point-lace, cambric handkerchiefs, nightcaps, and—socks—

(Recondite apparel contained in her box),

—Then the height of her breeding

And depth of her reading

Might captivate any gay youth, and, in leading

Him on to “propose,” well excuse the proceeding:

Truth to tell, as to “reading,” the Lady was thought to do

More than she should, and know more than she ought to do;

Her maid, it was said,

Declared that she read

(A custom all staid folks discourage) in bed;

And that often, o’ nights,

Odd noises and sights

In her mistress’s chamber had giv’n her sad frights,

After all in the mansion had put out their lights,

And she verily thought that hobgoblins and sprites

Were there, kicking up all sorts of devil’s delights;—

Miss Alice, in short, was supposed to “collogue”—I

Don’t much like the word—with the subtle old rogue, I

’ve heard call’d by so many names—one of them’s “Bogy”—

Indeed ’twas conceived,

And by most folks believed,

—A thing at which all of her well-wishers griev’d—

That should she incline to play such a vagary,

Like sage Lady Branxholm, her contempo-rary,

(Excuse the false quantity, reader, I pray),

She could turn a knight into a waggon of hay,

Or two nice little boys into puppies at play,

Raison de plus, not a doubt could exist of her

Pow’r to turn “Kit Hatton” into “Sir Christopher;”

But what “mighty magic,” or strong “conjuration,”

Whether love-powder, philtre, or other potation

She used, I confess,

I’m unable to guess,—

Much less to express

By what skill and address

She “cut and contrived” with such signal success,

As we Londoners say, to “inwiggle” Queen Bess,

Inasmuch as I lack heart

To study the Black Art;

Be that as it may,—it’s as clear as the sun,

That, however she did it, ’twas certainly done!

Now, they’re all very well, titles, honour, and rank,

Still we can’t but admit, if we choose to be frank,

There’s no harm in a snug little sum in the Bank!

An old proverb says,

“Pudding still before praise!”

An adage well known I’ve no doubt in those days,

And George Colman, the Younger, in one of his plays,

Makes one of his characters loudly declare

That “a Lord without money,”—I quote from his “Heir-At-Law”—“’s but a poor wishy-washy affair!”—

In her subsequent conduct I think we can see a

Strong proof the Dame entertain’d some such idea,

For, once in the palace,

We find Lady Alice

Again playing tricks with her Majesty’s chalice

In the way that the jocose, in

Our days, term “hocussing;”

The liquor she used, as I’ve said, she kept close,

But, whatever it was, she now doubled the dose!

(So true is the saying,

“We never can stay, in

Our progress, when once with the foul fiend we league us.”)

—She “doctor’d” the punch, and she “doctor’d” the negus,

Taking care not to put in sufficient to flavour it,

Till, at every fresh sip

That moisten’d her lip,

The Virgin Queen grew more attach’d to her Favourite.

“No end” now he commands

Of money and lands,

And, as George Robins says, when he’s writing about houses,

“Messuages, tenements, crofts, tofts, and outhouses,”

Parks, manors, chases, She “gives and she grants,

To him and his heirs, and his uncles and aunts;”

Whatever he wants, he has only to ask it,

And all other suitors are “left in the basket,”

Till Dudley, and Rawleigh

Began to look squally,

While even grave Cecil, the famous Lord Burleigh,

Himself, “shook his head,” and grew snappish and surly.

All this was fine sport,

As our authors report,

To dame Alice, become a great Lady at Court,

Where none than her Ladyship’s husband look’d bigger,

Who “led the brawls” [2]  still with the same grace and vigour,

Though losing a little in slimness and figure;

For eating and drinking all day of the best

Of viands well drest,

With “Burgess’s Zest,”

Is apt, by degrees, to enlarge a man’s vest;

And, what in Sir Christopher went to increase it, he

’d always been rather inclined to obesity;

—Few men in those times were found to grow thinner

With beefsteaks for breakfast, and pork-pie for dinner.

Now it’s really a difficult problem to say

How long matters might have gone on in this way,

If it had not unluckily happened one day

That Nick,—who, because

He’d the gout in his claws,

And his hoofs—(he’s by no means so young as he was,

And is subject of late to a sort of rheumatic a-
ttack that partakes both of gout and sciatica,)—

All the night long had twisted and grinn’d,

His pains much increased by an easterly wind,

Which always compels him to hobble and limp,

Was strongly advised by his Medical Imp

To lie by a little, and give over work,

For he’d lately been slaving away like a Turk,

On the Guinea-coast, helping to open a brave trade

In Niggers, with Hawkins [3]  who founded the slave-trade,

So he call’d for his ledger, the constant resource

Of your mercantile folk, when they’re “not in full force;”

—If a cold or catarrh makes them husky and hoarse,

Or a touch of gout keeps them away from “the Bourse,”

They look over their books as a matter of course.

Now scarce had Nick turn’d over one page, or two,

Ere a prominent item attracted his view,

A Bill!—that had now been some days overdue,

From one Alice Hatton, nêe Fanshawe—a name

Which you’ll recognise, reader, at once as the same

With that borne by Sir Christopher’s erudite dame!

The signature—much more prononcêe than pink,

Seem’d written in blood—but it might be red ink—

While the rest of the deed

He proceeded to read,

Like ev’ry “bill, bond, or acquittance” whose date is

Three hundred years old, ran in Latin,—“Sciatis

(Diaboli?) omnes ad quos hæc pervenient—”

—But courage, dear Reader, I mean to be lenient,

And scorn to inflict on you half the “Law-reading”

I picked up “umquhile” in three days’ Special-pleading,

Which cost me—a theme I’ll not pause to digress on—

Just thirty-three pounds six-and-eightpence a lesson—

“As I’m stout, I’ll be merciful,” therefore, and sparing

All these technicalities, end by declaring

The Deed so correct

As to make one suspect,

(Were it possible any such person could go there)

Old Nick had a Special Attorney below there:

’Twas so framed and express’d no tribunal could shake it,

And firm as red wax and black ferret could make it.

By the roll of his eye

As Old Nick put it by,

It was clear he had made up his mind what to do

In respect to the course he should have to pursue,

When his hoof would allow him to put on a shoe!!

No, although the Lord Keeper held under the crown, house

And land in the country—he’d never a Town-house,

And, as we have seen,

His course always had been,

When he wanted a thing, to solicit the Queen,

So now, in the hope of a fresh acquisition,

He danced off to Court with his “Humble Petition.”

“Please your Majesty’s Grace,

I have not a place,

I can well put my head in, to dine, sup, or sleep!

Your Grace’s Lord Keeper has nowhere to keep,

So I beg and intreat,

At your Majesty’s feet,

That your Grace will be graciously pleas’d for to say,

With as little delay

As your Majesty may,

Where your Majesty’s Grace’s Lord Keeper’s to stay—

—And your Grace’s Petitioner ever will pray!”

The Queen, when she heard

This petition preferr’d,

Gave ear to Sir Christopher’s suit at a word;—

Odds Bobs, my good Lord!” was her gracious reply,

I don’t know, not I,

Any good reason why

A Lord Keeper, like you, should not always be nigh

To advise—and devise—and revise—our supply—

A House! we’re surprised that the thing did not strike

Us before—Yes!—of course!—Pray, whose House would you like!

When I do things of this kind, I do them genteelly,

A House?—let me see! there’s the Bishop of Ely!

A capital mansion, I’m told, the proud knave is in,

Up there in Holborn, just opposite Thavies’ Inn—

Where the Strawberries grow so fine and so big,

Which our Grandmother’s Uncle tucked in like a pig,

King Richard the Third, which you all must have read of—

The day,—don’t you know?—he cut Hastings’ head off—

And mark me, proud Prelate!—I’m speaking to you,

Bishop Heaton!—you need not, my lord, look so blue—

Give it up on the instant! I don’t mean to shock you,

Or else by ———! (The Bishop was shocked!)—I’ll unfrock you!!”

The Queen turns abruptly her back on the group,

The Courtiers all bow as she passes, and stoop

To kiss, as she goes, the hind flounce of her hoop,

And Sir Christopher, having thus danced to some tune,

Skips away with much glee in his best rigadoon!

While poor Bishop Heaton,

Who found himself beaten,

In serious alarm at the Queen’s contumelious

And menacing tone, at once gave him up Ely House

With every appurtenance thereto belonging,

Including the strawberry beds ’twas so strong in;

Politely he bow’d to the gratified minion,

And said, “There can be, my good lord, in opinion

No difference betwixt yours

And mine as to fixtures,

And tables, and chairs—

We need no survey’rs—

Take them just as you find them, without reservation,

Grates, coppers, and all, at your own valuation!”

Well! the object is gain’d!

A good town-house obtained,

The next thing to be thought of, is now

The “house-warming” party—the when and the how—

The Court ladies call,

One and all, great and small,

For an elegant “Spread,” and more elegant Ball,

So, Sir Christopher, vain as we know of his capering,

No sooner had finished his painting and papering,

Than he sat down and wrote,

A nice little pink note

To every great Lord, whom he knew, and his spouse,

“From our poor place on Holborn-hill (late Ely House),

Lord Keeper and Dame Alice Hatton request,

Lord So-and-so’s (name, style, or title exprest)

Good company on

The next Eve of St. John,

Viz: Friday week, June 24th, as their guest,

To partake of pot-luck,

And taste a fat buck.

N.B. Venison on table exactly at 3,

Quadrilles in the afternoon.

R. S. V. P.

For my good Lord of So-and-so these, and his wife;

Ride! ride! for thy life! for thy life! for thy life!”

Thus, courtiers were wont to indorse their expresses

In Harry the VIIIth’s time, and also Queen Bess’s.

The Dame, for her part, too, took order that cards

Should be sent to the mess-rooms of all the Hussards,

The Household troops, Train-bands, and horse and foot Guards.

Well, the day for the rout

At length came about,

And the bells of St. Andrew’s rang merrily out,

As horse-litter, coach, and pad-nag, with its pillion,

(The mode of conveyance then used by “the Million,”)

All gallant and grand,

Defiled from the Strand,

Some through Chancery (then an unpaved and much wetter) Lane,

Others through Shoe (which was not a whit better) Lane,

Others through Fewtar’s (corrupted to Fetter) Lane;

Some from Cheapside, and St. Mary-le-Bow,

From Bishopsgate Street, Dowgate Hill, [4]  and Budge Row,

They come and they go,

Squire and Dame, Belle and Beau,

Down Snore Hill (which we have since whitewashed to Snow),

All eager to see the magnificent show,

And sport what some call “a fantastical toe;”

In silk and in satin,

To batten and fatten

Upon the good cheer of Sir Christopher Hatton,

A flourish, trumpets!—sound again!—

He comes, bold Drake, the chief who made a

Fine hash of all the pow’rs of Spain,

And so serv’d out their Grand Armada:

With him come Frobisher and Hawkins,

In yellow ruffs, rosettes, and stockings.

Room for my Lord!—proud Leicester’s Earl

Retires a while from courtly cares,

Who took his wife, poor hapless girl!

And pitch’d her neck and heel down stairs;

Proving, in hopes to wed a richer,

If not her “friend,” at least her “pitcher.”

A flourish, trumpets! strike the drums!

Will Shakspeare, never of his pen sick,

Is here—next Doctor Masters comes,

Renown’d afar for curing men sick,—

Queen’s Serjeant Barham [5]  with his bums

And tipstaves, coif, and wig forensic;

(He lost, unless Sir Richard lies, his

Life at the famous “Black Assizes.”)

Room! Room! for great Cecil!—place, place, for his Dame!—

Room! Room! for Southampton—for Sidney, whose name

As a Preux Chevalier, in the records of Fame

“Beats Banagher”—e’en now his praises, we all sing ’em,

Knight, Poet, Gentleman!—Room for sage Walsingham!

Room for Lord Hunsdon!—for Sussex!—for Rawleigh!—

For INGOLDSBY!! Oh! it’s enough to appal ye!

Dear me! how they call!

How they squall! how they bawl!

This dame has lost her shoe—that one her shawl—

My lord’s got a tumble—my lady a fall!

Now a Hall! a Hall!

A Brawl! a Brawl!

Here’s my Lord Keeper Hatton, so stately and tall,

Has led out Lady Hunsdon to open the Ball!

Fiddlers! Fiddlers! fiddle away!

Resin your catgut! fiddle and play!

A roundelay!

Fiddle away!

Obey! obey!—hear what they all say!

Hip!—Music!—Nosey!!—play up there!—play!”

Never was any thing half so gay

As Sir Christopher Hatton’s grand holiday!

The clock strikes twelve!—Who cares for the clock?

Who cares for—Hark!—What a loud Single-knock!

Dear me! dear me!

Who can it be?—

Why, who can be coming at this time of night,

With a knock like that honest folk to affright?—

“Affright?”—yes, affright!—there are many who mock

At fear, and in danger stand firm as a rock,

Whom the roar of the battle-field never could shock,

Yet quail at the sound of a vile “Single-knock!”

Hark?—what can the Porter be thinking of?—What!—

If the booby has not let him in I’ll be shot!—

Dear me! how hot

The room’s all at once got!—

And what rings through the roof?—

It’s the sound of a hoof!—

It’s some donkey a-coming upstairs at full trot!

Stay!—the folding-doors open! the leaves are thrown back,

And in dances a tall Figurant—ALL IN BLACK!!

Gracious me what an entrechat! Oh, what a bound!

Then with what an a-plomb he comes down to the ground!

Look there! look there!

Now he’s up in the air!

Now he’s here!—now he’s there—now he’s no one knows where!—

See! see!—he’s kick’d over a table and chair!

There they go!—all the strawberries, flowers, and sweet herbs,

Turn’d o’er and o’er,

Down on the floor,

Ev’ry caper he cuts oversets or disturbs

All the “Keen’s Seedlings” and “Wilmot’s Superbs!”

There’s a pirouette!—we’re

All a great deal too near!

A ring!—give him room or he’ll “shin” you—stand clear!

There’s a spring again!—oh! ’tis quite frightful!—oh dear!

His toe’s broke the top of the glass chandelier!!

Now he’s down again!—look at the congées and bows

And salaams which he makes to the Dame of the House,

Lady Alice, the noble Lord Treasurer’s spouse!

Come, now we shall view

A grand pas de deux

Perform’d in the very first style by these two

—But no!—she recoils—she could scarce look more pale if

Instead of a Beau’s ’twas the bow of a Bailiff!—

He holds out his hand—she declines it, and draws

Back her own—see!—he grasps it with horrid black claws,

Like the short, sharp, strong nails of a Polar Bear’s paws!!

Then she “scream’d such a scream!”

Such another, I deem,

As, long after, Miss Mary Brown [6]  scream’d in her dream,

Well she might! for ’twas shrewdly remark’d by her Page,

A sharp little boy about twelve years of age,

Who was standing close by

When she utter’d her cry,

That the whole of her arm shrivell’d up, and grew dry,

While the fingers and thumb of the hand he had got

In his clutches became on the instant RED HOT!!

Now he whirls and he twirls

Through the girls in their curls

And their rouge, and their feathers, and diamonds, and pearls;

Now high,—now low,—

Now fast, and now slow,

In terrible circumgyration they go;

The flame-coloured Belle and her coffee-faced Beau!

Up they go once! and up they go twice!—

Round the hall!—round the hall!—and now up they go thrice!

Now one grand pirouette, the performance to crown!

Now again they GO UP!!—and they NEVER COME DOWN!!!

•       •       •       •       •

The thunder roars!

And the rain it pours!

And the lightning comes in through the windows and doors!

Then more calling, and bawling,

And squalling, and falling,

Oh! what a fearful “stramash” they are all in!

Out they all sally,

The whole corps de ballet—

Some dash down Holborn-hill into the valley,

Where stagnates Fleet Ditch at the end of Harp Alley,

Some t’other way, with a speed quite amazing,

Nor pause to take breath till they get beyond Gray’s Inn.

In every sense of the word, such a rout of it,

Never was made in London, or out of it!

When they came the next day to examine the scene,

There was scarcely a vestige of all that had been;

The beautiful tapestry, blue, red, and green,

Was all blacken’d and scorch’d, and look’d dirty and mean.

All the crockery broken, dish, plate, and tureen!

While those who look’d up could perceive in the roof,

One very large hole in the shape of a hoof!

Of poor Lady Hatton, it’s needless to say,

No traces have ever been found to this day,

Or the terrible dancer who whisk’d her away;

But out in the court-yard—and just in that part

Where the pump stands—lay bleeding a LARGE HUMAN HEART!

And sundry large stains

Of blood and of brains,

Which had not been wash’d off notwithstanding the rains,

Appear’d on the wood, and the handle, and chains,

As if somebody’s head with a very hard thump,

Had been recently knock’d on the top of the pump.

That pump is no more!—that of which you’ve just read,—

But they’ve put a new iron one up in its stead,

And still, it is said,

At that “small hour” so dread,

When all sober people are cosy in bed,

There may sometimes be seen on a moonshiny night,

Standing close by the new pump, a Lady in White,

Who keeps pumping away with, ’twould seem, all her might,

Though never a drop comes her pains to requite!

And hence many passengers now are debarr’d

From proceeding at nightfall through Bleeding Heart Yard!

MORAL.

Fair ladies attend!

And if you’ve a “friend

At Court,” don’t attempt to bamboozle or trick her!

—Don’t meddle with negus, or any mix’d liquor!—

Don’t dabble in “Magic!” my story has shown,

How wrong ’tis to use any charms but your own!

Young Gentlemen, too, may, I think, take a hint,

Of the same kind, from what I’ve here ventured to print,

All Conjuring’s bad! they may get in a scrape,

Before they’re aware, and whatever its shape,

They may find it no easy affair to escape.

It’s not every body that comes off so well

From leger-de-main tricks as Mr. Brunel.

Don’t dance with a Stranger who looks like a Guy,

And when dancing don’t cut your capers too high!

Depend on’t the fault’s in

Your method of waltzing,

If ever you kick out the candles—don’t try!

At a ball or a play,

Or any soirée,

When a petit souper constitutes the “Après,”

If strawb’ries and cream with CHAMPAGNE form a part,

Take care of your HEAD!—and take care of your HEART!

If you want a new house

For yourself and your spouse,

Buy, or build one,—and honestly pay, every brick, for it!

Don’t be so green as to go to old Nick for it—

—Go to George Robins—he’ll find you “a perch,”

(Dulce domum’s his word,) without robbing the Church!

The last piece of advice which I’d have you regard

Is, “don’t go of a night into Bleeding Heart Yard,”

It’s a dark, little, dirty, black, ill-looking square,

With queer people about, and unless you take care,

You may find when your pocket’s clean’d out and left bare,

That the iron one is not the only “PUMP” there!

«»

[1]  “Seven hundred pounds and possibilities is good gifts.”

—Sir Hugh Evans.

[2]

The grave Lord Keeper led the brawls,

The seals and maces danced before him.

—Gray.

[3]  Sir John Hawkins for “his worthye attempts and services,” and because “in the same he had dyvers conflights with the Moryans and slew and toke dyvers of the same Moryans” received from Elizabeth an honourable augmentation to his coat armour, including, for his crest, “A Demi-Moor sable, with two manacles on each arm, or.”

[4]  Sir Francis Drake’s house, “the Arbour,” stood here.

[5]  Called by Sir Richard Baker “The famous Lawyer.”—See his Chronicle.

[6]  Vide the celebrated ballad of “Giles Scroggins.”

—Catnach’s ed. 7 Dials, Lond., 1841.

The Forlorn One

Ah! why those piteous sounds of woe,

Lone wanderer of the dreary night?

Thy gushing tears in torrents flow,

Thy bosom pants in wild affright!

And thou, within whose iron breast

Those frowns austere too truly tell,

Mild pity, heaven-descended guest,

Hath never, never deign’d to dwell.

“That rude, uncivil touch forego,”

Stern despot of a fleeting hour!

Nor “make the angels weep” to know

The fond “fantastic tricks” of power!

Know’st thou not “mercy is not strain’d,

But droppeth as the gentle dew,”

And while it blesseth him who gain’d,

It blesseth him who gave it, too!

Say, what art thou? and what is he,

Pale victim of despair and pain,

Whose streaming eyes and bended knee

Sue to thee thus—and sue in vain?

Cold, callous man!—he scorns to yield,

Or ought relax his felon gripe,

But answers,—“I’m Inspector Field!

And this here warment’s prigg’d your wipe.”

«»

Jerry Jarvis’s Wig

A LEGEND OF THE WEALD OF KENT

“The wig’s the thing! the wig! the wig!”

—Old Song.

“Joe,” said old Jarvis, looking out of his window,—it was his ground-floor back,—“Joe, you seem to be very hot, Joe, and you have got no wig!”

“Yes, sir,” quoth Joseph, pausing and resting upon his spade, “it’s as hot a day as ever I see; but the celery must be got in, or there’ll be no autumn crop, and—”

“Well, but Joe, the sun’s so hot, and it shines so on your bald head, it makes one wink to look at it. You’ll have a coup-de soleil, Joe.”

“A what, sir?”

“No matter; it’s very hot working; and if you’ll step in doors, I’ll give you—”

“Thank ye, your honour, a drop of beer will be very acceptable.”

Joe’s countenance brightened amazingly.

“Joe, I’ll give you—my old wig!”

The countenance of Joseph fell, his grey eye had glistened as a blest vision of double X flitted athwart his fancy; its glance faded again into the old, filmy, gooseberry-coloured hue, as he growled in a minor key, “A wig, sir!”

“Yes, Joe, a wig. The man who does not study the comfort of his dependants is an unfeeling scoundrel. You shall have my old worn-out wig.”

“I hope, sir, you’ll give me a drop o’ beer to think your honour’s health in, it is very hot, and—”

“Come in, Joe, and Mrs. Witherspoon shall give it you.”

“Heaven bless your honour;” said honest Joe, striking his spade perpendicularly into the earth, and walking with more than usual alacrity towards the close-cut, quickset hedge which separated Mr. Jarvis’s garden from the high road.

From the quickset hedge aforesaid he now raised, with all due delicacy, a well-worn and somewhat dilapidated jacket, of a stuff by drapers most pseudonymously termed “everlasting.” Alack! alack! what is there to which tempus edax rerum will accord that epithet? In its high and palmy days it had been all of a piece; but as its master’s eye now fell upon it, the expression of his countenance seemed to say with Octavian,

“Those days are gone, Floranthe!”

It was now, from frequent patching, a coat not unlike that of the patriarch, one of many colours.

Joseph Washford inserted his wrists into the corresponding orifices of the tattered garment, and with a steadiness of circumgyration, to be acquired only by long and sufficient practice, swung it horizontally over his ears, and settled himself into it.

“Confound your old jacket,” cried a voice from the other side the hedge; “keep it down, you rascal! don’t you see my horse is frightened at it?”

“Sensible beast!” apostrophized Joseph, “I’ve been frightened at it myself every day for the last two years.”

The gardener cast a rueful glance at its sleeve, and pursued his way to the door of the back kitchen.

“Joe,” said Mrs. Witherspoon, a fat, comely dame, of about five-and-forty, “Joe, your master is but too good to you; he is always kind and considerate. Joe, he has desired me to give you his old wig.”

“And the beer, Ma’am Witherspoon?” said Washford, taking the proffered caxon, and looking at it with an expression somewhat short of rapture; “and the beer, ma’am?”

“The beer, you guzzling wretch!—what beer? Master said nothing about no beer. You ungrateful fellow, has not he given you a wig?”

“Why, yes, Madam Witherspoon; but then, you see, his honour said it was very hot, and I’m very dry, and—”

“Go to the pump, sot!” said Mrs. Witherspoon, as she slammed the back-door in the face of the petitioner.

Mrs. Witherspoon was “of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion,” and Honorary Assistant Secretary to the Appledore branch of the “Ladies’ Grand Junction Water-working Temperance Society.”

Joe remained for a few moments lost in mental abstraction; he looked at the door, he looked at the wig; his first thought was to throw it into the pig-stye,—his corruption rose, but he resisted the impulse; he got the better of Satan; the half-formed imprecation died before it reached his lips, He looked disdainfully at the wig; it had once been a comely jasey enough, of the colour of over-baked gingerbread, one of the description commonly known during the latter half of the last century by the name of a “brown George.” The species, it is to be feared, is now extinct, but a few, a very few of the same description might, till very lately, be occasionally seen,—rari nantes in gurgite vasto—the glorious relics of a bygone day, crowning the cerebellum of some venerated and venerable provost, or judge of assize; but Mr. Jarvis’s wig had one peculiarity; unlike most of its fellows, it had a tail!—“cribbed and confined,” indeed, by a shabby piece of faded shalloon.

Washford looked at it again; he shook his bald head; the wig had certainly seen its best days; still it had about it somewhat of an air of faded gentility; it was “like ancient Rome, majestic in decay,”—and as the small ale was not to be forthcoming, why—after all, an old wig was better thaa nothing!

Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis, of Appledore, in the Weald of Kent, was a gentleman by Act of Parliament; one of that class of gentlemen who, disdaining the bourgeois-sounding name of “attorney-at-law,” are, by a legal fiction, denominated solicitors. I say by a legal fiction, for surely the general tenor of the intimation received by such as enjoy the advantage of their correspondence has little in common with the idea usually attached to the term “solicitation.” “If you don’t pay my bill, and costs, I’ll send you to jail,” is a very energetic entreaty. There are, it is true, etymologists who derive their style and title from the Latin infinitive “solicitare,” to “make anxious,”—in all probability they are right.

If this be the true etymology of his title, as it was the main end of his calling, then was Jeremiah Jarvis a worthy exemplar of the genus to which he belonged. Few persons in his time had created greater solicitude among his Majesty’s lieges within the “Weald.” He was rich, of course. The best house in the country-town is always the lawyer’s, and it generally boasts a green door, stone steps, and a brass knocker. In neither of these appendages to opulence was Jeremiah deficient; but then he was so very rich; his reputed wealth, indeed, passed all the common modes of accounting for its increase. True, he was so universal a favourite that every man whose will he made was sure to leave him a legacy; that he was a sort of general assignee to all the bankruptcies within twenty miles of Appledore; was clerk to half the “trusts;” and treasurer to most of the “rates,” “funds,” and “subscriptions,” in that part of the country; that he was land-agent to Lord Mountrhino, and steward to the rich Miss Tabbytale of Smerrididdle Hall; that be had been guardian (?) to three young profligates who all ran through their property, which, somehow or another, came at last into his hands, “at an equitable valuation.” Still his possessions were so considerable, as not to be altogether accounted for, in vulgar esteem, even by these and other honourable modes of accumulation; nor were there wanting those who conscientiously entertained a belief that a certain dark-coloured gentleman, of indifferent character, known principally by his predilection for appearing in perpetual mourning, had been through life his great friend and counsellor, and had mainly assisted in the acquirement of his revenues. That “old Jerry Jarvis had sold himself to the devil” was, indeed, a dogma which it were heresy to doubt in Appledore;—on this head, at least, there were few schismatics in the parish.

When the worthy “Solicitor” next looked out of his ground floor back, he smiled with much complacency at beholding Joe Washford again hard at work—in his wig—the little tail aforesaid oscillating like a pendulum in the breeze. If it be asked what could induce a gentleman, whose leading principle seems to have been self-appropriation, to make so magnificent a present, the answer is, that Mr. Jarvis might perhaps have thought an occasional act of benevolence necessary or politic; he is not the only person, who, having stolen a quantity of leather, has given away a pair of shoes, pour l’amour de Dieu,—perhaps he had other motives.

Joe, meanwhile, worked away at the celery-bed; but truth obliges us to say, neither with the same degree of vigour or perseverance as had marked the earlier efforts of the morning. His pauses were more frequent; he rested longer on the handle of his spade; while ever and anon his eye would wander from the trench beneath him to an object not unworthy the contemplation of a natural philosopher. This was an apple-tree.

Fairer fruit never tempted Eve, or any of her daughters; the bending branches groaned beneath their luxuriant freight, and dropping to earth, seemed to ask the protecting aid of man either to support or to relieve them, The fine, rich glow of their sun-streaked clusters derived additional loveliness from the level beams of the descending day-star. An anchorite’s mouth had watered at the pippins.

On the precise graft of the espalier of Eden, “Sanchoniathon, Manetho, and Berosus” are undecided; the best-informed Talmudists, however, have, if we are to believe Dr. Pinner’s German Version, pronounced it a Ribstone pippin, and a Ribstone pippin-tree it was that now attracted the optics, and discomposed the inner man of the thirsty, patient, but perspiring gardener. The heat was still oppressive; no beer had moistened his lip, though its very name, uttered as it was in the ungracious tones of a Witherspoon, had left behind a longing as intense as fruitless. His thirst seemed supernatural, when at this moment his left ear experienced “a slight and tickling sensation,” such as we are assured is occasionally produced by an infinitesimal dose in homceopathy; a still, small voice—it was as though a daddy long-legs were whispering in his tympanum—a small voice seemed to say, “Joe!—take an apple, Joe!!”

Honest Joseph started at the suggestion; the rich crimson of his jolly nose deepened to a purple tint in the beams of the setting sun; his very forehead was incarnadine. He raised his hand to scratch his ear,—the little tortuous tail had worked its way into it,—he pulled it out by the bit of shalloon, and allayed the itching, then cast his eye wistfully towards the mansion where his master was sitting by the open window. Joe pursed up his parched lips into an arid whistle, and with a desperate energy struck his spade once more into the celery-bed.

Alack! alack! what a piece of work is man!—how short his triumphs!—how frail his resolutions!

From this fine and very original moral reflection we turn reluctantly to record the sequel. The celery-bed, alluded to as the main scene of Mr. Washford’s operations, was drawn in a rectilinear direction, nearly across the whole breadth of the parallelogram that comprised the “kitchen garden.” Its northern extremity abutted to the hedge before mentioned, its southern one—woe is me that it should have been so!—was in fearful vicinity to the Ribstone pippin-tree. One branch, low bowed to earth, seemed ready to discharge its precious burden into the very trench. As Joseph stooped to insert the last plant with his dibble, an apple of more than ordinary beauty bobbed against his knuckles.—“He’s taking snuff, Joe.” whispered the same small voice;—the tail had twisted itself into its old position. “He is sneezing!—now, Joe!—now!” and, ere the agitated horticulturist could recover from his surprise and alarm, the fruit was severed, and—in his hand!

“He! he! he!” shrilly laughed, or seemed to laugh, that accursed little pigtail.—Washford started at once to the perpendicular;—with an enfrenzied grasp he tore the jasey from his head, and, with that in one hand, and his ill-acquired spoil in the other, he rushed distractedly from the garden!

•       •       •       •       •

All that night was the humble couch of the once happy gardener haunted with the most fearful visions. He was stealing apples,—he was robbing hen-roosts,—he was altering the chalks upon the milk-score,—he had purloined three chemises from a hedge, and he awoke in the very act of cutting the throat of one of Squire lodge’s sheep! A clammy dew stood upon his temples,—the cold perspiration burst from every pore,—he sprang in terror from the bed.

“Why, Joe, what ails thee, man?” cried the usually incurious Mrs. Washford; “what be the matter with thee? Thee hast done nothing but grunt and growl all t’ night long, and now thee dost stare as if thee saw summut. What bees it, Joe?”

A long-drawn sigh was her husband’s only answer; his eye fell upon the bed. “How the devil came that here?” quoth Joseph, with a sudden recoil: “who put that thing on my pillow?”

“Why, I did, Joseph. Th’ ould nightcap is in the wash, and thee didst toss and tumble so, and kick the clothes off, I thought thee mightest catch cowld, so I clapt t’ wig atop o’ thee head.”

And there it lay,—the little sinister-looking tail impudently perked up, like an infernal gnomon on a Satanic dial-plate—Larceny and Ovicide shone in every hair of it!

“The dawn was overcast, the morning lower’d

And heavily in clouds brought on the day,”

when Joseph Washford once more repaired to the scene of his daily labours; a sort of unpleasant consciousness flushed his countenance, and gave him an uneasy feeling as he opened the garden-gate; for Joe, generally speaking, was honest as the skin between his brows; his hand faltered as it pressed the latch. “Pooh, pooh! ’twas but an apple, after all!” said Joseph. He pushed open the wicket, and found himself beneath the tempting tree.

But vain now were all its fascinations; like fairy gold seen by the morning light, its charms had faded into very nothingness. Worlds, to say nothing of apples, which in shape resemble them, would not have bought him to stretch forth an unhallowed hand again; he went steadily to his work.

The day continued cloudy: huge drops of rain fell at intervals, stamping his bald pate with spots as big as halfpence; but Joseph worked on. As the day advanced, showers fell thick and frequent; the fresh-turned earth was itself fragrant as a bouquet.—Joseph worked on; and when at last Jupiter Pluvius descended in all his majesty, soaking the ground into the consistency of a dingy pudding, he put on his party-coloured jacket, and strode towards his humble home, rejoicing in his renewed integrity. “’Twas but an apple, after all! Had it been an apple-pie, indeed!”—“An apple-pie!” the thought was a dangerous one—too dangerous to dwell on. But Joseph’s better Genius was at this time lord of the ascendant;—he dismissed it, and passed on.

On arriving at his cottage, an air of bustle and confusion prevailed within, much at variance with the peaceful serenity usually observable in its economy. Mrs. Washford was in high dudgeon! her heels clattered on the red-tiled floor, and she whisked about the house like a parched pea upon a drum-head; her voice, generally small and low,—“an excellent thing in woman,”—was pitched at least an octave above its ordinary level; she was talking fast and furious. Something had evidently gone wrong. The mystery was soon explained. The “cussed ould twoad of a cat” had got into the dairy, and licked off the cream from the only pan their single cow had filled that morning! And there she now lay, purring as in scorn. Tib, heretofore the meekest of mousers, the honestest, the least “scaddle” of the feline race,—a cat that one would have sworn might have been trusted with untold flsh,—yes,—there was no denying it,—proofs were too strong against her,—yet there she lay, hardened in her iniquity, coolly licking her whiskers, and reposing quietly upon—what?—Jerry Jarvis’s old wig!!

The patience of a Stoic must have yielded;—it had been too much for the temperament of the Man of Uz. Joseph Washford lifted his hand—that hand which had never yet been raised on Tibby, save to fondle and caress—it now descended on her devoted head in one tremendous “dowse.” Never was cat so astonished,—so enraged—all the tiger portion of her nature rose in her soul. Instead of galloping off, hissing and sputtering, with arched back, and tail erected, as any ordinary Grimalkin would unquestionably have done under similar circumstances, she paused a moment,—drew back on her haunches,—all her energies seemed concentrated for one prodigious spring; a demoniac fire gleamed in her green and yellow eyeballs, as, bounding upwards, she fixed her talons firmly in each of her assailant’s cheeks!—many and many a day after were sadly visible the marks of those envenomed claws—then, dashing over his shoulder with an unearthly mew, she leaped through the open casement, and was seen no more.

“The Devil’s in the cat!” was the apostrophe of Mrs. Margaret Washford. Her husband said nothing, but thrust the old wig into his pocket, and went to bathe his scratches at the pump.

Day after day, night after night, ’twas all the same—Joe Washford’s life became a burden to him; his natural upright and honest mind struggled hard against the frailty of human nature. He was ever restless and uneasy; his frank, open, manly look, that blenched not from the gaze of the spectator, was no more: a sly and sinister expression had usurped the place of it.

Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis had little of what the world calls “Taste,” still less of Science. Ackerman would have called him a “Snob,” and Buckland a “Nincompoop.” Of the Horticultural Society, its fetes, its fruits, and its fiddlings, he knew nothing. Little recked he of flowers—save cauliflowers—in these, indeed, he was a connoisseur; to their cultivation and cookery the respective talents of Joe and Madame Witherspoon had long been dedicated; but as for a bouquet!—Hardham’s 37 was “the only one fit for a gentleman’s nose.” And yet, after all, Jerry Jarvis had a good-looking tulip-bed. A female friend of his had married a Dutch merchant; Jerry drew the settlements; the lady paid him by a cheque on “Child’s,” the gentleman by a present of a “box of roots.” Jerry put the latter in his garden—he had rather they had been schalots.

Not so his neighbour, Jenkinson; he was a man of “Taste” and of “Science;” be was an F.R.C.E.B.S., which, as he told the Vicar, implied, “Fellow of the Royal Cathartico-Emetico-Botanical Society,” and his autograph in Sir John Frostyface’s album stood next to that of the Emperor of all the Russias. Neighbour Jenkinson fell in love with the pips and petals of “neighbour Jarvis’s tulips.” There were one or two among them of such brilliant, such surpassing beauty,—the “cups” so well formed,—the colours so defined. To be sure, Mr. Jenkinson had enough in his own garden; but then “Enough,” says the philosopher, “always means a little more than a man has got.”—Alas! alas! Jerry Jarvis was never known to bestow,—his neighbour dared not offer to purchase from so wealthy a man; and, worse than all, Joe, the gardener, was incorruptible—aye, but the Wig?

Joseph Washford was working away again in the blaze of the mid-day sun: his head looked like a copper saucepan fresh from the brazier’s.

“Why, where’s your wig, Joseph?” said the voice of his master from the well-known window; “what have you done with your wig?” The question was embarrassing,—its tail had tickled his ear till it had made it sore; Joseph had put the wig in his pocket.

Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis was indignant; he liked not that his benefits should be ill appreciated by the recipient. “Hark ye, Joseph Washford,” said he, “either wear my wig, or let me have it again!”

There was no mistaking the meaning of his tones; they were resonant of indignation and disgust, of mingled grief and anger, the amalgamation of sentiment naturally produced by

“Friendship unreturn’d,

And unrequited love.”

Washford’s heart smote him: be felt all that was implied in his master’s appeal. “It’s here, your Honour,” said he; “I had only taken it off because we have had a smartish shower; but the sky is brightening now.” The wig was replaced, and the little tortuous pigtail wriggled itself into its accustomed position.

At this moment neighbour Jenkinson peeped over the hedge.

“Joe Washford!” said neighbour Jenkinson.

“Sir, to you,” was the reply.

“How beautiful your tulips look after the rain!”

“Ah! sir, master sets no great store by them flowers;” returned the gardener.

“Indeed! Then perhaps he would have no objection to part with a few?”

“Why, no!—I don’t think master would like to give them,—or anything else,—away, sir;” and Washford scratched his ear.

“Joe!!” said Mr. Jenkinson—“Joe!!”

The Sublime, observes Longinus, is often embodied in a monosyllable—“Joe!!!”—Mr. Jenkinson said no more; but a half-crown shone from between his upraised fingers, and its “poor, poor dumb mouth” spoke for him.

How Joseph Washford’s left ear did itch! He looked to the ground-floor back—Mr. Jarvis had left the window.

Mr. Jenkinson’s ground-plot boasted, at daybreak next morning, a splendid Semper Augustus, “which was not so before,” and Joseph Washford was led home, much about the same time, in a most extraordinary state of “civilation,” from “The Three Jolly Potboys.”

From that hour he was the Fiend’s!

•       •       •       •       •

“Facilis descensus Averni!” says Virgil. “It is only the first step that is attended with any difficulty,” says—somebody else,—when speaking of the decollated martyr St. Dennis’s walk with his head under his arm. “The First Step!”—Joseph Washford had taken that step!—he had taken two—three—four steps; and now, from a hesitating, creeping, cat-like mode of progression, he had got into a firmer tread—an amble—a positive trot! He took the family linen “to the wash:” one of Madame Witherspoon’s best Holland chemises was never seen after.

“Lost?—impossible! How could it be lost?—where could it be gone to?—who could have got it? It was her best—her very best!—she should know it among a hundred—among a thousand!—it was marked with a great W in the corner!—Lost?—impossible—She would see!”—Alas! she never did see—the chemise—abiit, erupit, evasit,—it was

“Like the lost Pleiad, seen on earth no more;”

—but Joseph Washford’s Sunday shirt was seen, finer and fairer than ever, the pride and dulce decus of the Meeting.

The Meeting?—aye, the Meeting. Joe Washford never missed the Appledore Independent Meeting House, whether the service were in the morning or afternoon,—whether the Rev. Mr. Slyandry exhorted or made way for the Rev. Mr. Tearbrain. Let who would officiate, there was Joe. As I have said before, be never missed;—but other people missed—one missed an umbrella,—one a pair of clogs. Farmer Johnson missed his tobacco-box,—Farmer Jackson his greatcoat,—Miss Jackson missed her hymn-book,—a diamond edition, bound in maroon-coloured velvet, with gilt corners and clasps. Everything, in short, was missed—but Joe Washford; there he sat, grave, sedate, and motionless—all save that restless, troublesome, fidgety little Pigtail attached to his wig, which nothing could keep quiet, or prevent from tickling and interfering with Miss Thompson’s curls, as she sat back to back with Joe, in the adjoining pew. After the third Sunday, Nancy Thompson eloped with the tall recruiting sergeant of the Connaught Rangers.

The summer passed away,—autumn came and went,—and Christmas, jolly Christmas, that period of which we are accustomed to utter the mournful truism, it “comes but once a-year,” was at hand. It was a fine bracing morning; the sun was just beginning to throw a brighter tint upon the Quaker-coloured ravine of Orlestone Hill, when a medical gentleman, returning to the quiet little village of Ham Street, that lies at its foot, from a farm-house at Kingsnorth, rode briskly down the declivity.

After several hours of patient attention, Mr. Moneypenny had succeeded in introducing to the notice of seven little expectant brothers and sisters a “remarkably fine child,” and was now hurrying home in the sweet hope of a comfortable “snooze” for a couple of hours before the announcement of tea and muffins should arouse him to fresh exertion. The road at this particular spot had, even then, been cut deep below the surface of the soil, for the purpose of diminishing the abruptness of the descent, and, as either side of the superincumbent banks was clothed with a thick mantle of tangled copsewood, the passage, even by day, was sufficiently obscure, the level beams of the rising or setting sun, as they happened to enfilade the gorge, alone illuminating its recesses. A long stream of rosy light was just beginning to make its way through the vista, and Mr. Moneypenny’s nose had scarcely caught and reflected its kindred ray, when the sturdiest and most active cob that ever rejoiced in the appellation of a “Suffolk Punch,” brought herself up in mid career upon her haunches, and that with a suddenness which had almost induced her rider to describe that beautiful mathematical figure, the parabola, between her ears. Peggy—her name was Peggy—stood stock-still, snorting like a stranded grampus, and alike insensible to the gentle hints afforded her by hand and heel.

“Tch!—tch!—get along, Peggy!” half exclaimed, half whistled the equestrian. If ever steed said in its heart, “I’ll be shot if I do!” it was Peggy at that moment. She planted her forelegs deep in the sandy soil, raised her stump of a tail to an elevation approaching the horizontal, protruded her nose like a pointer at a covey, and with expanded nostril continued to snuffle most egregiously.

Mr. Geoffrey Gambado, the illustrious “Master of the Horse to the Doge of Venice,” tells us, in his far-famed treatise on the Art Equestrian, that the most embarrassing position in which a rider can be placed is, when he wishes to go one way, and his horse is determined to go another. There is, to be sure, a tertium quid, which, though it “splits the difference,” scarcely obviates the inconvenience; this is when the parties compromise the matter by not going any way at all—to this compromise Peggy and her (soi-disant) master were now reduced; they had fairly joined issue. “Budge!” quoth the doctor.—“Budge not!” quoth the fiend,—for nothing short of a fiend could, of a surety, inspire Peggy at such a time with such unwonted obstinacy.—Moneypenny whipped and spurred—Peggy plunged, and reared, and kicked, and for several minutes to a superficial observer the termination of the contest might have appeared uncertain; but your profound thinker sees at a glance that, however the scales may appear to vibrate, when the question between the sexes is one of perseverance, it is quite a lost case for the masculine gender. Peggy beat the doctor “all to sticks,” and when he was fairly tired of goading and thumping, maintained her position as firmly as ever.

It is of no great use, and not particularly agreeable, to sit still, on a cold frosty morning in January, upon the outside of a brute that will neither go forwards nor backwards—so Mr. Moneypenny got off, and muttering curses both “loud” and “deep” between his chattering teeth, “progressed” as near as the utmost extremity of the extended bridle would allow him, to peep among the weeds and brushwood that flanked the road, in order to discover, if possible, what it was that so exclusively attracted the instinctive attention of his Bucephalus.

His curiosity was not long at fault; the sunbeam glanced partially upon some object ruddier even than itself—it was a scarlet waisteoat, the wearer of which, overcome perchance by Christmas compotation, seemed to have selected for his “thrice driven bed of down,” the thickest clump of the tallest and most imposing nettles, thereon to doze away the narcotic effects of superabundant juniper.

This, at least, was Mr. Moneypenny’s belief, or he wonld scarcely have uttered, at the highest pitch of his contralto, “What are you doing there, you drunken rascal? frightening my horse!”—We have already hinted, if not absolutely asserted, that Peggy was a mare; but this was no time for verbal criticism.—“Get up, I say,—get up, and go home, you scoundrel!”—But the “scoundrel” and “drunken rascal” snswered not; he moved not, nor could the prolonged shouting of the appellant, aided by significant explosions from a double-thonged whip, succeed in eliciting a reply. No motion indicated that the recumbent figure, whose outline alone was visible, was a living and a breathing man!

The clear, shrill tones of a plougbboy’s whistle sounded at this moment from the bottom of the hill, where the broad and green expanse of Romncy Marsh stretches away from its foot for many a mile, and now gleamed through the mists of morning, dotted and enamelled with its thousand flocks. In a few minutes his tiny figure was seen “slouching” up the ascent, casting a most disproportionate and ogre-like shadow before him.

“Come here, Jack,” quoth the doctor,—“come here, boy, lay hold of this bridle, and mind that my horse does not run away.”

Peggy threw up her head, and snorted disdain of the insinuation,—she had not the slightest intention of doing any such thing.

Mr. Moneypenny meanwhile, disencumbered of his restive nag, proceeded by manual application to arouse the sleeper.

Alas! the Seven of Ephesus might sooner have been awakened from their century of somnolency. His was that “dreamless sleep that knows no waking;” his cares in this world were over. Vainly did Moneypenny practise his own constant precept, “To be well shaken!”—there lay before him the lifeless body of a Murdered Man!

The corpse lay stretched upon its back, partially concealed, as we have before said, by the nettles which had sprung up among the stumps of the half-grubbed underwood; the throat was fearfully lacerated, and the dark, deep, arterial dye of the coagulated blood showed that the carotid had been severed. There was little to denote the existence of any struggle; but as the day brightened, the sandy soil of the road exhibited an impression as of a body that had fallen on its plastic surface, and had been dragged to its present position, while fresh horse-shoe prints seemed to intimate that either the assassin or his victim had been mounted. The pockets of the deceased were turned out, and empty; a hat and heavy-loaded whip lay at no great distance from the body.

“But what have we here?” quoth Doctor Moneypenny; “what is it that the poor fellow holds so tightly in his hand?”

That hand had manifestly clutched some article with all the spasmodic energy of a dying grasp—IT WAS AN OLD WIG!

•       •       •       •       •

Those who are fqrtunate enough to have seen a Cinque Port Court-house may possibly divine what that useful and most necessary edifice was some eighty years ago. Many of them seem to have undergone little alteration, and are in general of a composite order of architecture, a fanciful arrangement of brick and timber, with what Johnson would have styled “interstices, reticulated, and decussated between intersections” of lath and plaster. Its less euphonious designation in the “Weald” is a “noggin.” One half the basement story usually of the more solid material, the other, open to the street,—from which it is separated only by a row of dingy columns, supporting a portion of the superstructure,—is paved with tiles, and sometimes does duty as a market-place, while, in its centre, flanking the board staircase that leads to the sessions-house above, stands an ominous-looking machine, of heavy perforated wood, clasped within whose stern embrace “the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep” oil occasionally the drowsiness produced by convivial excess, in a most undignified positions an inconvenience much increased at times by some mischievous urchin, who, after abstracting the shoes of the helpless détenu, amuses himself by tickling the soles of his feet.

It was in such a place, or rather in the Court-room above, that in the year 1761 a hale, robust man, somewhat past the middle age, with a very bald pate, save where a continued tuft of coarse, wiry hair, stretching from above each ear, swelled out into a greyish-looking bush upon the occiput, held up his hand before a grave and enlightened assemblage of Dymchurch jurymen. He stood arraigned for that offence most heinous in the sight of God and man, the deliberate and cold-blooded butchery of an unoffending, unprepared fellow-creature,—homicidium quod nullo vidente, nullo auscultante, clam perpetratur.

The victim was one Humphry Bourne, a reputable grazier of Ivychurch, worthy and well-to-do, though, perchance, a thought too apt to indulge on a market-day, when “a score of ewes” had brought in a reasonable profit.

Some such cause had detained him longer than usual at an Ashford cattle-show; he had left the town late, and alone; early in the following morning his horse was found standing at his own stable-door, the saddle turned round beneath its belly, and much about the time that the corpse of its unfortunate master was discovered some four miles off, by our friend the pharmacopolist.

That poor Bourne had been robbed and murdered there could be no question.

Who, then, was the perpetrator of the atrocious deed?—The unwilling hand almost refuses to trace the name of—Joseph Washford.

Yet so it was. Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis was himself the coroner for that division of the county of Kent known by the name of “The Lath of Scraye.” He had not sat two minutes on the body before he recognized his quondam property, and started at beholding in the grasp of the victim, as torn in the death-struggle from the murderer’s head, his own OLD WIG,—his own perky little pigtail, tied up with a piece of shabby shalloon, now wriggling and quivering, as in salutation of its ancient master. The silver buckles of the murdered man were found in Joe Washford’s shoes,—broad pieces were found in Joe Washford’s pockets,—Joe Washford had himself been found, when the hue-and-cry was up, hid in a corn-rig at no great distance from the scene of slaughter, his pruning-knife red with the evidence of his crime—“the grey hairs yet stuck to the heft!”

For their humane administration of the laws, the lieges of this portion of the realm have long been celebrated. Here it was that merciful verdict was recorded in the case of the old lady accused of larceny, “We find her Not Guilty, and hope she will never do so any more!” Here it was that the more experienced culprit, when called upon to plead with the customary, though somewhat superfluous, inquiry, as to “how he would be tried?” substituted for the usual reply “By God and my country,” that of “By your worship and a Dymchurch Jury.” Here it was—but enough!—not even a Dymchurch jury could resist such evidence, even though the gallows (i.e. the expense of erecting one) stared them, as well as the criminal, in the face. The very pig-tail alone!—ever at his ear!—a clearer cease of suadente Diabolo never was made out. Had there been a doubt, its very conduct in the Court-house would have settled the question. The Rev. Joel Ingoldsby, umquhile chaplain to the Romney Bench, has left upon record that when exhibited in evidence, together with the blood-stained knife, its twistings, its caperings, its gleeful evolutions quite “flabbergasted” the jury, and threw all beholders into a consternation. It was remarked, too, by many in the Court, that the Forensic Wig of the Recorder himself was, on that trying occasion, palpably agitated, and that its three depending, learned-looking tails lost curl at once, and slunk beneath the obscurity of the powdered collar, just as the boldest dog recoils from a rabid animal of its own species, however small and insignificant.

Why prolong the painful scene?—Joe Washford was tried—Joe Washford was convicted—Joe Washford was hanged!

The fearful black gibbet, on which his body clanked in its chains to the midnight winds, frowns no more upon Orlestone Hill; it has sunk beneath the encroaching hand of civilization; but there it might be seen late in the last century, an awful warning to all bald-pated gentlemen how they wear, or accept, the old wig of a Special Attorney,

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes!

Such gifts, as we have seen, may lead to a “Morbid Delusion, the climax of which is Murder!”

The fate of the Wig itself is somewhat doubtful; nobody seems to have recollected, with any degree of precision, what became of it. Mr. Ingoldsby “had heard” that, when thrown into the fire by the Court-keeper, after whizzing, and fizzling, and performing all sorts of supernatural antics and contortions, it at length whirled up the chimney with bang that was taken for the explosion of one of the Feversham powder-mills, twenty miles off; while others insinuate that in the “Great Storm” which took place on the night when Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis went to his “long home,”—wherever that may happen to be,—and the whole of “The Marsh” appeared as one broad sheet of flame, something that looked very like a Fiery Wig—perhaps a miniature Comet—it had unquestionably a tail—was seen careering in the blaze,—and seeming to “ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm.”

«»

Unsophisticated Wishes

BY MISS JEMIMA INGOLDSBY, AGED 15

(Communicated by her cousin Tom)

Oh! how I should like in a Coach to ride,

Like the Sheriffs I saw upon Lord Mayor’s day.

With a Coachman and little Postilion astride

On the back of the leader, a prancing bay.

And then behind it, oh! I should glory

To see the tall serving men standing upright,

Like the two who attend Mister Montefiore,

(Sir Moses I should say) for now he’s a Knight.

And then the liveries, I know it is rude to

Find fault—but I’ll hint as he can’t see me blush,

That I’d not have the things I can only allude to

Either orange in hue or constructed of plush;

But their coats and their waistcoats and hats are delightful,

Their charming silk stockings—I vow and declare

Our John’s ginger gaiters so wrinkled and frightful,

I never again shall be able to bear.

Oh! how I should like to have diamonds and rubies,

And large plume of feathers and flowers in my hair,

My gracious! to think how our Tom and those boobies,

Jack Smith and his friend Mister Thompson, would stare.

Then how I should like to drive to Guildhall,

And to see the nobility flocking in shoals,

With their two-guinea tickets to dance at the ball

Which the Lord Mayor gives for relief of the Poles.

And to look at the gas so uncommonly pretty,

And the stars and the armour all just as they were,

The day that the Queen came in state to the city

To dine with the whole Corporation and Mayor.

Oh! how I should like to see Jane and Letitia,

Miss Jones and the two Misses Frump sitting still,

While dear Ensign Brown, of the West Kent Militia,

Solicits my hand for the “Supper” Quadrille.

With his fine white teeth and his cheek like a rose,

And his black cravat and his diamond pin,

And the nice little mustache under his nose,

And the dear little tuft on the tip of his chin.

And how I should like some fine morning to ride

In my coach, and my white satin shoes and gown,

To St. James’s Church, with a Beau by my side,

And I shouldn’t much care if his name was Brown.

«»

Hermann;
or, The Broken Spear

An Emperor famous in council and camp,

Has a son who turns out a remarkable scamp;

Takes to dicing and drinking,

And d———mning and sinking,

And carries off maids, wives, and widows, like winking!

Since the days of Arminius, his namesake, than Hermann

There never was seen a more profligate German.

He escapes from the City;

And joins some banditti

Insensible quite to remorse, fear, and pity;

Joins in all their carousals, and revels, and robberies,

And in kicking up all sorts of shindies and bobberies.

Well, hearing one day

His associates say

That a bridal procession was coming their way,

Inflamed with desire, he

Breaks into a priory,

And kicking out every man Jack of a friar, he

Upsets in a twinkling the mass-books and hassocks,

And dresses his rogues in the clergyman’s cassocks.

The new married folks

Taken in by this hoax,

Mister Hermann grows frisky and full of his jokes:

To the serious chagrin of her late happy suitor,

Catching hold of the Bride, he attempts to salute her:

Now Heaven knows what

Had become of the lot

It’s Turtle to Tripe they’d have all gone to pot—

If a dumb Lady, one

Of her friends, had not run

To her aid, and, quite scandalized, stopp’d all his fun!

Just conceive what a caper

He cut, when her taper

Long fingers scrawled this upon whitey-brown paper,

(At the instant he seized, and before he had kissed her)—

“Ha, done, Mister Hermann! for shame! it’s your sister!”

His hair stands on end,—he desists from his tricks

And remains in “a pretty particular fix.”

As he knows Sir John Nicholl

Still keeps rods in pickle,

Offences of this kind severely to tickle,

At so near an escape from his court and its sentence

His eyes fill with tears, and his breast with repentance:

So, picking and stealing,

And unrighteous dealing,

Of all sorts, he cuts, from this laudable feeling:

Of wickedness weary

With many a tear, he

Now takes a French leave of the vile Condottieri:

And the next thing we hear of this penitent villain,

He is begging in rags in the suburbs of Milan.

Half starv’d, meagre, and pale,

His energies fail,

When his sister comes in with a pot of mild ale:

But though tatter’d his jerkins

His heart is whole,—workings

Of conscience debar him from “Barclay and Perkins.”

“I’ll drink,” exclaims he,

“Nothing stronger than tea,

And that but the worst and the weakest Bohea,

Till I’ve done—from my past scenes of folly a far actor—

Some feat shall redeem both my wardrobe and character.”

At signs of remorse so decided and visible

Nought can equal the joy of his fair sister Isabel,

And the Dumb Lady too

Who runs off to a Jew

And buys him a coat of mail spick and span new,

In the hope that his prowess and deeds as a Knight

Will keep his late larcenies quite out of sight.

By the greatest good luck, his old friends the banditti

Choose this moment to make an attack on the city!

Now you all know the way

Heroes hack, hew, and slay,

When once they get fairly mixed up in a fray:

Hermann joins in the mélée,

Pounds this to a jelly,

Runs that through the back, and a third through the belly.

Till many a broken bone, bruised rib, and flat head,

Make his ci-devant friends curse the hour that he ratted.

Amid so many blows,

Of course you’ll suppose

He must get a black eye, or, at least bloody nose:

“Take that!” cried a bandit, and struck, while he spoke it,

His spear in his breast, and, in pulling out broke it.

Hermann fainted away

When, as breathless he lay,

A rascal claimed all the renown of the day;

A recreant, cowardly, white-livered knight,

Who had skulked in a furze bush the whole of the fight.

But the Dumb Lady soon

Put some gin in a spoon,

And half strangles poor Hermann, who wakes from his swoon,

And exhibits his wound, when the head of the spear

Fits its handle, and makes his identity clear.

The murder thus out, Hermann’s fêted and thankéd,

While his rascally rival gets tossed in a blanket:

And to finish the play—

As reformed rakes, they say,

Make the best of all husbands—the very same day

Hermann sends for a priest, as he must wed with some—lady,

Buys a ring and a licence, and marries the Dumb Lady.

MORAL.

Take warning, young people of every degree,

From Hermann’s example, and don’t live too free!

If you get in bad company, fly from it soon!

If you chance to get thrash’d, take some gin in a spoon;

And remember, since wedlock’s not all sugar-candy;

If you wish to ’scape “wigging,” a dumb wife’s the dandy!

«»

Hints for an
Historical Play;

To Be Called William Rufus;
or the Red Rover.

ACT 1.

Walter Tyrrel, the son of a Norman Papa,

Has, somehow or other, a Saxon Mama:

Though humble, yet far above mere vulgar loons,

He’s a sort of a sub in the Rufus dragoons;

Has travelled, but comes home abruptly, the rather

That some unknown rascal has murder’d his Father;

And scarce has he pick’d out, and stuck in his quiver,

The arrow that pierced the old gentleman’s liver,

When he finds, as misfortunes come rarely alone,

That his sweetheart has bolted,—with whom is not known.

But, as murder will out, he at last finds the lady

At court with her character grown rather shady:

This gives him the “blues,” and impairs the delight

He’d have otherwise felt, when they dub him a Knight.

For giving a runaway stallion a check,

And preventing his breaking King Rufus’s neck.

ACT 2.

Sir Walter has dress’d himself up like a Ghost,

And frightens a soldier away from his post;

Then, discarding his helmet, he pulls his cloak higher,

Draws it over his ears and pretends he’s a Friar.

This gains him access to his sweetheart, Miss Faucit;

But, the King coming in, he hides up in her closet;

Where oddly enough, among some of her things,

He discovers some arrows he’s sure are the King’s,

Of the very same pattern with that which he found

Sticking into his father when dead on the ground!

Forgetting his funk, he bursts open the door,

Bounces into the Drawing-room, stamps on the floor,

With an oath on his tongue, and revenge in his eye,

And blows up King William the Second, sky-high;

Swears, storms, shakes his fist, and exhibits such airs,

That his Majesty bids his men kick him down stairs.

ACT 3.

King Rufus is cross when he comes to reflect,

That as King, he’s been treated with gross disrespect;

So he pens a short note to a holy physician,

And gives him a rather unholy commission,

Viz, to mix up some arsenic and ale in a cup,

Which the chances are Tyrrel may find and drink up.

Sure enough, on the very next morning, Sir Walter

Perceives in his walks, this same cup on the altar.

As he feels rather thirsty, he’s just about drinking,

When Miss Faucit in tears, comes in running like winking;

He pauses of course, and, as she’s thirsty too,

Says, very politely, “Miss, I after you!”

The young lady curtsies, and being so dry,

Raises somehow her fair little finger so high,

That there’s not a drop left him to “wet t’other eye;”

While the dose is so strong, to his grief and surprise,

She merely says, “Thankee, Sir Walter,” and dies.

At that moment the King, who is riding to cover,

Pops in en passant on the desperate lover,

Who has vow’d, not five minutes before, to transfix him,

—So he does,—he just pulls out his arrow and sticks him.

From the strength of his arm, and the force of his blows,

The Red-bearded Rover falls flat on his nose;

And Sir Walter, thus having concluded his quarrel,

Walks down to the foot-lights, and draws this fine moral.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,

Lead sober lives;—

Don’t meddle with other folks’ Sweethearts or Wives!—

When you go out a sporting, take care of your gun,

And—never shoot elderly people in fun!”

«»

Marie Mignot

Miss Marie Mignot was a nice little Maid,

Her Uncle a Cook, and a Laundress her trade;

And she loved as dearly as any one can

Mister Lagardie, a nice little man.

But Oh! But Oh!

Story of woe!

A sad interloper, one Monsieur Modeau,

Ugly and old,

With plenty of gold,

Made his approach

In an elegant coach,

Her fancy was charmed with the splendour and show,

And he bore off the false-hearted Molly Mignot.

Monsieur Modeau was crazy and old,

And Monsieur Modeau caught a terrible cold,

His nose was stuffed, and his throat was sore,

He had physic by the quart and Doctors by the score.

They sent squills

And pills,

And very long bills,

And all they could do did not make him get well,

He sounded his M’s and his N’s like an L.

A shocking bad cough

At last took him off,

And Mister Lagardie her former young beau,

Came a courting again to the Widow Modeau.

Mister Lagardie, to gain him éclat,

Had cut the Cook’s shop and followed the law;

And when Monsieur Modeau set out on his journey,

Was an Articled Clerk to a Special Attorney.

He gave her a call

On the day of a ball,

To which she’d invited the court, camp and all;

But “poor dear Lagardie,”

Again was too tardy,

For a Marshall of France

Had just asked her to dance;

In a twinkling, the ci-devant Madame Modeau

Was wife of the Marshall Lord Marquis Dinot.

Mister Lagardie was shocked at the news,

And went and enlisted at once in the Blues.

The Marquis Dinot

Felt a little so so—

Took physic, grew worse, and had notice to go—

He died, and was shelved, and his Lady so gay

Smiled again on Lagardie now placed on full pay,

A Swedish Field Marshall with a guinea a day;

When an old Ex-King

Just showed her the ring:

To be Queen, she conceived was a very fine thing;

But the King turned a Monk,

And Lagardie got drunk,

And said to the Lady with a deal of ill-breeding,

“You may go to the d———l and I’ll go to Sweden.”

Thus between the two stools,

Like some other fools,

Her Ladyship found

Herself plump on the ground;

So she cried, and she stamped, and she sent for a hack,

And she drove to a convent and never came back.

MORAL.

Wives, Maidens, and Widows, attend to my lay!

If a fine moral lesson you’d draw from a play,

To the Haymarket go

And see Marie Mignot,

Miss Kelly plays Marie, and Williams Modeau;

Mrs. Glover and Vining

Are really quite shining,

And though Thompson for a Marquis,

Has almost too much carcass,

Yet it’s not fair to pass him or

John Cooper’s Cassimir,

And the piece would be barren

Without Mr. Farren;

No matter, go there, and they’ll teach you the guilt

Of coquetting and ogling, and playing the jilt,

Such folks gallop awhile, but at last they get spilt;

Had Molly Mignot

Behaved comme il faut,

Nor married the Lawyer nor Marquis Dinot,

She had ne’er been a nun, whose fare very hard is,

But the mother of half-a-score little Lagardies.

«»

The Truants

Three little Demons have broken loose

From the National School below!

They are resolved to play truant to-day,

Their primer and slate they have cast away,

And away, and away they go!

“Hey boys! hey boys! up go we!

Who so merry as we three?”

The reek of that most infernal pit,

Where sinful souls are stewing,

Rises so black, that in viewing it,

A thousand to one but you’d ask with surprise

As its murky columns met your eyes,

“Pray is Old Nick a brewing?”

Thither these three little Devils repair,

And mount by steam to the uppermost air.

They have got hold of a wandering star,

That happened to come within hail.

O swiftly they glide!

As they merrily ride

All a cock-stride

Of that Comet’s tail.

Oh the pranks!

Oh the pranks!

The merry pranks, the mad pranks,

These wicked urchins play!

They kissed the Virgin and filled her with dread,

They popped the Scorpion into her bed;

They broke the pitcher of poor Aquarius,

They stole the arrows of Sagittarius,

And they skimmed the Milky Way.

They filled the Scales with sulphur full,

They halloed the Dog-star on at the Bull,

And pleased themselves with the noise.

They set the Lion

On poor Orion;

They shaved all the hair

Off the Lesser Bear!

They kicked the shins

Of the Gemini Twins—

Those heavenly Siamese Boys!—

Never was such confusion and wrack,

As they produced in the Zodiac!—

“Huzza! Huzza!

Away! Away!

Let us go down to the earth and play!

Now we go up, up, up,

Now we go down, down, down,

Now we go backwards and forwards,

Now we go round, round, round!”

Thus they gambol, and scramble, and tear,

Till at last they arrive at the nethermost air.

And pray now what were these Devilets called?

These three little Fiends so gay?

One was Cob!

Another was Mob!

The last and the least was young Chittabob!

Queer little Devils were they!

Cob was the strongest,

Mob was the wrongest,

Chittabob’s tail was the finest and longest!

Three more frolicsome Imps I ween,

Beelzebub’s self hath seldom seen.

Over Mountain, over Fell,

Glassy Fountain, mossy Dell,

Rocky Island, barren Strand,

Over Ocean, over Land;

With frisk and bound, and squeaks and squalls,

Heels over head, and head over heels;

With curlings and twistings, and twirls and wheeleries,

Down they drop at the gate of the Tuilleries.

Courtiers were bowing and making legs,

While Charley le Roi was bolting eggs:

“Mob,” says Cob,

“Chittabob,” says Mob,

“Come here, you young Devil, we’re in for a job!”

Up jumps Cob to the Monarch’s ear,

“Charley, my jolly boy, never fear;

If you mind all their jaw

About Charter and Law,

You might just as well still be the Count d’Artois!

No such thing,

Show ’em you’re King,

Tip ’em an Ordinance, that’s the thing!”

Charley dined,

Took his pen and signed;

Then Mob kicked over his throne from behind!

“Huzza! Huzza! we may scamper now!

For here we have kicked up a jolly good row!”

“Over the water and over the Sea,

And over the water with Charlie;”

Now they came skipping and grinning with glee.

Not pausing to chaff or to parley,

Over, over,

On to Dover;

On fun intent,

All through Kent

These mischievous devils so merrily went.

Over hill and over dale,

Sunken hollow, lofty ridge,

Frowning cliff, and smiling vale,

Down to the foot of Westminster-bridge.

“Hollo,” says Cob,

“There’s the Duke and Sir Bob!

After ’em Chittabob, after ’em Mob.

Mob flung gravel, and Chittabob pebbles,

His Grace c———’d them both for a couple of rebels:

His feelings were hurt,

By the stones and the dirt—

In went he,

In an ecstasy,

And blew up the nobles of high degree.

“Mr. Brougham, Mr. Hume,

May fret and may fume—

And so may all you whom I see in this room;

Come weal, come woe, come calm, come storm—

I’ll see you all—blessed—ere I give you Reform!”

“Bravo!” says Chittabob, “that’s your sort,

Come along, schoolfellows, here’s more sport.

Look there! look there!

There’s the great Lord May’r!

With the gravest of Deputies close to his chair;

With Hobler, his Clerk!

Just the thing for a lark;

Huzzah! huzzah! boys, follow me now;

Here we may kick up another good row.”

Here they are,

Swift as a star,

They shoot in mid air, over Temple Bar!

Zach. Macaulay beheld the flight,

Of these three little dusky sons of night,

And his heart swell’d with joy and elation—

“Oh, see!” quoth he,

“Those Niggerlings three,

Who have just got emancipation!”

Lord Key took fright:

At the very first sight,

The whole Court of Aldermen wheel’d to the right;

Some ran from Chittabob—more from Mob,

The great locum tenens jump’d up upon Cob,

Who roar’d and ran,

With the Alderman

To the Home Office, pick-a-back—catch ’em who can!

“Stay at home—here’s a plot,

And I can’t tell you what,

If you don’t I’ll be shot,

But you’ll all go topot”

Ah little he weened while the ground he thus ran over,

’Twas a Cob he bestrode—not his white horse from Hanover.

Back they came galloping through the Strand,

When Joseph Lancaster, stick in hand,

Popped up his head before ’em.

Well we know,

That honest old Joe,

Is a sort of High Master down below,

And teaches the Imps decorum.

Satan had started him off in a crack,

To flog these three little runaways back.

Fear each assails;

Every one quails;

“Oh dear! how he’ll tickle our little black tails!

Have done, have done,

Here’s that son f a gun;

Old Joe, come after us,—run, boys, run.”

Off ran Cob,

Off ran Mob.

And off in a fright ran young Chittabob

Joe caught Chittabob just by the tail,

And Cob by his crumpled horn;

Bitterly then did these Imps bewail,

That ever they were born!

Mob got away,

But none to this day,

Know exactly whither he went;

Some say he’s been seen about Blackfriars’ bridge,

And some say he’s down in Kent.

But where’er he may roam,

He has not ventured home,

Since the day the three took wing,

And many suppose,

He has changed his clothes;

And now goes by the name of “Swing.”

«»

The Poplar

Ay, here stands the Poplar, so tall and so stately,

On whose tender rind—’twas a little one then—

We carved her initials; though not very lately—

We think in the year eighteen hundred and ten.

Yes, here is the G which proclaimed Georgiana;

Our heart’s empress then; see, ’tis grown all askew;

And it’s not without grief we perforce entertain a

Conviction, it now looks much more like a Q.

This should be the great D too, that once stood for Dobbin,

Her lov’d patronymic—ah! can it be so?

It’s once fair proportions, time too, has been robbing;

A D?—we’ll be Deed if it isn’t an O!

Alas! how the soul sentimental it vexes,

That thus on our labours, stern Chronos should frown;

Should change our soft liquids to izzards and X es,

And turn true-love’s alphabet all upside down!

«»

New-Made Honour

( IMITATED FROM MARTIAL )

A friend I met, some half-hour since—

“Good-morrow, Jack!” quoth I;

The new-made Knight, like any Prince,

Frowned, nodded, and passed by;

When up came Jem—“Sir John, your Slave!”

“Ah, James; we dine at eight—

Fail not—(low bows the supple knave)

Don't make my lady wait.”

The King can do no wrong?

As I'm a sinner,

He's spoilt an honest tradesman and my dinner.

«»

My Letters

“Litera scripta manet.”

—Old Saw.

Another mizzling, drizzling day!

Of clearing up there’s no appearance;

So I’ll sit down without delay,

And here, at least, I’ll make a clearance!

Oh ne’er “on such a day as this,”

Would Dido with her woes oppressèd,

Have wooed Æneas back to bliss,

Or Troilus gone to hunt for Cressid!

No, they’d have stayed at home, like me,

And popped their toes upon the fender,

And drank a quiet cup of tea:—

On days like this one can’t be tender.

So, Molly, draw that basket nigher,

And put my desk upon the table—

Bring that Portfolio—stir the fire—

Now off as fast as you are able!

First here’s a card from Mrs. Grimes,

“A Ball!”—she knows that I’m no dancer—

That woman’s asked me fifty times,

And yet I never send an answer.

“Dear Jack,—

Just lend me twenty pounds,

Till Monday next, when I’ll return it.

Yours truly,

Henry Gibbs.”

Why Z———ds!

I’ve seen the man but twice—here, burn it.

One from my Cousin Sophy Daw—

Full of Aunt Margery’s distresses;

“The Cat has kittened in ‘the draw,’

And ruined two bran-new silk dresses.”

From Sam, “The Chancellor’s motto,”—nay

Confound his puns, he knows I hate ’em;

“Pro Rege, Lege, Grege,”—Ay,

“For King read Mob!” Brougham’s old erratum.

From Seraphina Price—“At two”—

Till then I can’t, my dearest John, stir;”

Two more because I did not go,

Beginning “Wretch” and “Faithless Monster!”

“Dear Sir,—

“This morning Mrs. P.—

Who’s doing quite as well as may be,

Presented me at half-past three

Precisely, with another baby.

“We’ll name it John, and know with pleasure

You’ll stand”—Five guineas more, confound it!—

I wish they’d called it Nebuchadnezzar,

Or thrown it in the Thames and drowned it.

What have we next? A civil Dun:

“John Brown would take it as a favour”—

Another, and a surlier one,

“I can’t put up with sich behaviour.”

“Bill so long standing,”—“quite tired out,”—

“Must sit down to insist on payment,”

“Called ten times,”—Here’s a fuss about

A few coats, waistcoats, and small raiment!

For once I’ll send an answer, and in-
form Mr. Snip he needn’t “call” so;

But when his bill’s as “tired of standing”

As he is, beg ’twill “sit down also.”

This from my rich old Uncle Ned,

Thanking me for my annual present;

And saying he last Tuesday wed

His cook-maid, Molly—vastly pleasant!

An ill-spent note from Tom at school,

Begging I’ll let him learn the fiddle;

Another from that precious fool,

Miss Pyefinch, with a stupid riddle.

“D’ye give it up?” indeed I do!

Confound these antiquated minxes;

I won’t pay “Billy Black” to a “Blue,”

Or Œdipus to such old sphinxes.

A note sent up from Kent to show me,

Left with my bailiff, Peter King;

“I’ll burn them precious stacks down, blow me!

“Yours most sincerely,

“Captain Swing.”

Four begging letters with petitions,

One from my sister Jane, to pray

I’ll “execute a few commissions”

In Bond Street, “when I go that way.”

And buy at Pearsal’s in the City

Twelve skeins of silk for netting purses:

Colour no matter, so it’s pretty;—

Two hundred pens—” two hundred curses!

From Mistress Jones: “My little Billy

Goes up his schooling to begin,

Will you just step to Piccadilly,

And meet him when the coach comes in?

“And then, perhaps, you will as well, see

The poor dear fellow safe to school

At Dr. Smith’s in Little Chelsea!”

Heaven send he flog the little fool!

From Lady Snooks: “Dear Sir, you know

You promised me last week a Rebus;

A something smart and apropos,

For my new Album?”—Aid me, Phoebus!

“My first is followed by my second;

Yet should my first my second see,

A dire mishap it would be reckon’d,

And sadly shocked my first would be.

“Were I but what my whole implies,

And passed by chance across your portal;

You’d cry ‘Can I believe my eyes?

I never saw so queer a mortal!’

“For then my head would not be on,

My arms their shoulders must abandon;

My very body would be gone,

I should not have a leg to stand on.”

Come that’s dispatch’d—what follows?—Stay

“Reform demanded by the nation;

Vote for Tagrag and Bobtail!” Ay,

By Jove, a blessed Reformation!

Jack clap the saddle upon Rose—

Or no!—the filly—she’s the fleeter;

The devil take the rain—here goes,

I’m off—a plumper for Sir Peter!

«»

The Confession

There’s somewhat on my breast, father,

There’s somewhat on my breast!

The livelong day I sigh, father,

And at night I cannot rest.

I cannot take my rest, father,

Though I would fain do so;

A weary weight oppresseth me—

This weary weight of woe!

’Tis not the lack of gold, father,

Nor want of worldly gear;

My lands are broad, and fair to see,

My friends are kind and dear.

My kin are leal and true, father,

They mourn to see my grief;

But oh! ’tis not a kinsman’s hand,

Can give my heart relief!

’Tis not that Janet’s false, father,

’Tis not that she’s unkind;

Tho’ busy flatterers swarm around—

I know her constant mind.

’Tis not her coldness, father,

That chills my labouring breast,

It’s that confounded cucumber

I’ve eat and can’t digest.

«»

Song

I.

There sits a bird on yonder tree,

More fond than Cushat Dove;

There sits a bird on yonder tree,

And sings to me of love.

Oh! stoop thee from thine eyrie down!

And nestle thee near my heart.

For the moments fly,

And the hour is nigh,

When thou and I must part

My love!

When thou and I must part.

II.

In yonder covert lurks a Fawn,

The pride of the sylvan scene;

In yonder covert lurks a Fawn,

And I am his only queen;

Oh! bound from thy secret lair,

For the sun is below the west;

No mortal eye

May our meeting spy,

For all are clos’d in rest,

My Love!

Each eye is closed in rest.

III.

Oh, sweet is the breath of morn!

When the sun’s first beams appear;

Oh! sweet is the shepherd’s strain,

When it dies on the listening ear;

And sweet the soft voice which speaks

The Wanderer’s welcome home;

But sweeter far

By yon pale mild star,

With our true Love thus to roam,

My Dear!

With our own true love to roam!

«»

Epigram

Brave L———, so says a knight of the pen,

“Has exposed himself much at the head of his men,”

As his men ran away without waiting to fight,

To expose himself there’s to be first in the flight.

Had it not been as well, when he saw his men quail,

To have stayed and exposed himself more at their tail?

Or say, is it fair, in this noblest of quarrels,

To suffer the chief to engross all the laurels?

No! his men, so the muse to all Europe shall sing,

Have exposed themselves fully as much as their king.

«»

Epigram

Eheu Fugaces!

What Horace says is,

Eheu fugaces

Anni labuntur, Postume, Postume!

Years glide away, and are lost to me, lost to me!

Now, when the folks in the dance sport their merry toes,

Taglionis and Ellslers, Duvernays and Ceritos,

Sighing I murmur, “O mihi præteritos!”

«»

Song

’Tis sweet to think the pure etherial being,

Whose mortal form reposes with the dead,

Still hovers round unseen, yet not unseeing,

Benignly smiling o’er the mourner’s bed!

She comes in dreams, a thing of light and lightness;

I hear her voice, in still small accents tell,

Of realms of bliss, and never fading brightness;

Where those who lov’d on earth, together dwell.

Ah! yet a while, blest shade, thy flight delaying,

The kindred soul with mystic converse cheer,

To her rapt gaze, in visions bland displaying,

The unearthly glories of thy happier sphere!

Yet, yet remain! till freed like thee, delighted,

She spurns the thraldom of encumbering clay;

Then as on earth, in tenderest love united,

Together seek the realms of endless day!

«»

As I Laye a-Thynkynge

The Last Lines of Thomas Ingoldsby.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye;

There came a noble Knyghte,

With his hauberke shynynge brighte,

And his gallant heart was lyghte,

Free and gaye;

As I lay a-thynkynge, he rode upon his waye.

As I lay a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the tree!

There seem’d a crimson plain,

Where a gallant Knyghte laye slayne,

And a steed with broken rein

Ran free,

As I laye a-thynkynge, most pitiful to see!

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

Merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the boughe;

A lovely Mayde came bye,

And a gentil youth was nyghe,

And he breathed many a syghe

And a vowe;

As I laye a-thynkynge, her hearte was gladsome now.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

Sadly sang the Birde as she sat upon the thorne;

No more a Youth was there,

But a Maiden rent her haire,

And cried in sadde despaire,

“That I was borne!”

As I laye a-thynkynge, she perished forlorne.

As I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

Sweetly sang the Birde as she sat upon the briar;

There came a lovely childe,

And his face was meek and mild,

Yet joyously he smiled

On his sire;

As I laye a-thynkynge, a Cherub mote admire.

But I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge,

And sadly sang the Birde as it perch’d upon a bier;

That joyous smile was gone,

And the face was white and wan,

As the downe upon the Swan

Doth appear,

As I laye a-thynkynge—oh! bitter flow’d the tear!

As I laye a-thynkynge, the golden sun was sinking,

O merrie sang that Birde as it glitter’d on her breast

With a thousand gorgeous dyes,

While soaring to the skies,

’Mid the stars she seem’d to rise,

As to her nest;

As I laye a-thynkynge, her meaning was exprest:—

“Follow, follow me away,

It boots not to delay,”—

’Twas so she seem’d to saye,

“HERE IS REST!”

T.I.

«»

Appendix

ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS

The illustrations presented here appeared in the 1898 first edition of The Ingoldsby Legends as illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Comparison to the illustrations from 1907 in the body of this book provides a fascinating glimpse of the evolution of Rackham’s style during that decade as he became one of the Grand Masters of the Golden Age of Illustration.

The earlier color plates are done in clear light pastels, rather than the layered and evocative coloring he was to use later. Several of the line drawings that were later worked in color have been included here – the final drawing in this section, “Pas de deux,” deserves special attention. This original version is comic in tone, but the later color version (found in “The Housewarming”) has an eerie atmosphere that is quite beautiful.

Appendix

MEMOIR OF
THE REV. RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM

(Abridged from the memoir by his son,
R. H. Dalton Barham)

Richard Harris Barham was born on December 6, 1788, in Canterbury, where his family had for many generations resided. His father, dying in 1795, bequeathed a moderate estate to his only son, then about five or six years of age. A portion of this property consisted of the manor known as Tappington, or Tapton Wood, so often alluded to in The Ingoldsby Legends. The boy was sent to St. Paul’s School, of which he was for two years “captain.” He then entered at nineteen as a gentleman commoner at Brazenose College, and was speedily elected a member of the well-known Phoenix Common Room, at that time one of the “crack” university clubs. Here he found a kindred spirit in the gay and gifted Lord George Grenville (afterwards Lord Nugent). Here, too, be was again thrown into contact with one whom he had known in earlier days, Cecil Tattersall, the friend of Shelley and Lord Byron, and, like most of that misguided party, but too well known by his abused talents and melancholy end. And here also his intimacy with Theodore Hook took rise.

College life, more especially at that day, was likely to present numerous and sore temptations to one who was overflowing with good-nature and high spirits, and whose early loss had not only placed a perilous abundance of funds at his disposal, but also left him utterly unchecked by parental counsel and authority. His reply to Mr. Hodson, his tutor, afterwards principal of Brazenose, will convey some notion of the hours he was wont to keep. This gentleman, on one occasion, demanded an explanation of his continued absence from morning chapel.

“The fact is, sir,” urged his pupil, “you are too late for me,”

“Too late!” repeated the tutor, in astonishment.

“Yes, sir. I cannot sit up till seven o’clock in the morning: I am a man of regular habits; and unless I get to bed by four or five at latest, I am really fit for nothing next day.”

The habit was one for “time to strengthen, not efface.” No one might have quoted the old Scotch ballad with greater feeling and sincerity:

“Up in the morning’s nae for me,

Up in the morning airly:

I’d rather watch a winter’s night

Than up in the morning airly.”

With him a strong natural bent supplied the place of caprice or love of singularity, and he sat up because he found, as the morning advanced, his ideas flowed more freely, and his mental energies became in every way more active than at any other period of the twenty-four hours. It could hardly fail of exciting a considerable degree of astonishment, to mark how, after a day spent without one moment’s rest or relaxation, in the intricacies of business, often of a harassing and momentous nature, his eye would light up and his spirits overflow as the chimes of midnight were approaching; an entirely new set of faculties seemed to come into play, and if there was no one at hand to benefit by his conversation —to listen to his inexhaustible fund of anecdote and observation, he would devote himself to the investigation of some obscure genealogical point, or the perusal of some treasured volume in black letter, with a freshness and vigour not to be surpassed by the most orderly of mortals. At these times, too, his powers of composition reached their culminating point, and he wrote with a facility which not only surprised himself, but which he actually viewed with distrust; and he would not unfrequently lay down his pen, from an apprehension that what was so fluent must of necessity be feeble also. Indeed, he was no adept in the art of cudgelling the brain, and, in respect of poetry at all events, he wrote easily or not at all. The slightest check would often delay the publication of an article of this kind for months, and numbers of manuscripts remained at his death, whose unfinished state could be attributed only to some trifling stumbling-block, which a little labour might have levelled or avoided.

It was during the course of a short but severe illness, that Mr. Barham first entertained the notion of becoming a candidate for holy orders; and, though he so far prosecuted his original design of preparing for the bar as to become a pupil of an eminent conveyancer, he soon relinquished the profession of law. Having passed his examination with sufficient credit to entitle him to a place in the “second class,” Mr. Barham was in due time admitted to the curacy of Ashford, in Kent. Thence he proceeded to Westwell, a small parish some few miles distant. In 1814 he married Caroline, third daughter of Captain Smart, of the Royal Engineers, and shortly afterwards, on being presented to the living of Snargate, he removed to Warehorn, the curacy of which was at the same time offered him. These parishes were about two miles apart, and situated, the former in, the latter on the verge of Romney Marsh; and, as may be expected, they abounded in desperadoes, engaged in what by technical euphemism was termed the “Free Trade.” But, notwithstanding the reckless character of these men, the new rector met with nothing of outrage or incivility at their hands. Many a time and oft indeed, on returning homewards late at night, he was challenged by some half-seen horseman; but on making known his name and office, he was invariably allowed to pass on with a “Good night—it’s only parson!” while a long and shadowy line of mounted smugglers, each with his led horse laden with tubs, filed silently by. Nay, they even extended their familiarity so far as to make the church itself a dépôt for contraband goods; and on one occasion a large seizure of tobacco had been made in the Snargate belfry—calumny contended for the discovery of a keg of hollands [gin] under the vestry-table.

It was scarcely to be expected that the pursuit of literature should flourish in so uncongenial an atmosphere, however favourable it might prove for the development of that “holy vegetation” of which Mr. Peter Plymley pleasantly discourses. It was reserved for an accident, no other than the breaking of one leg, and the spraining of its fellow, occasioned by the overturn of a gig, to bring a taste into play which might otherwise have lain dormant for years, or died for lack of exercise. A novel, entitled Baldwin, [1] rapidly thrown off in a few weeks, was the result; a work which fell stillborn from the Minerva Press, under the management of the matrons of that establishment.

Scarcely was his restoration to health complete, than he went to London to consult Abernethy about the illness of one of his children. He chanced to encounter an old friend, at whose suggestion he became candidate for a minor canonry then vacant at St. Paul’s, to which in 1821 he was duly elected. It has been said that literature is “an excellent walking-stick, although a bad crutch;” doubtless at this period of his life it proved a serviceable auxiliary to Mr. Barham, who found his income diminished at a time when an increasing family and a residence in London would admit of no curtailment of expenditure. Accordingly, while articles of the lighter sort, mostly bearing on the events of the day, were struck off in rapid succession, he devoted considerable time and industry towards the completion of a book then in progress, called Gorton’s Biographical Dictionary, and about one-third of which was contributed by him. His professional duties, however, soon precluded his continuing any regular literary engagement, or undertaking any work of importance. Poetical trifles, indeed, fell as usual from his pen, and together with an occasional review, &c., made their appearance in Blackwood, the John Bull, the Globe, and sundry other periodicals. We find, for example, the following passage in his diary, entered about this time:—“My wife goes to bed at ten to rise at eight, and look after the children, and other matrimonial duties; I sit up till three in the morning working at rubbish for Blackwood—she is the slave of the ring, and I of the lamp.”

In 1824 he received the appointment of a priest in ordinary of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal, and was shortly afterwards presented to the incumbency of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Gregory by St. Paul. In the pulpit he was not remarkable, less, perhaps, from the want of power, than from a rooted disapproval of anything like oratorical display in such a place,—anything, in short, that might seem calculated to convert the house of prayer into a mere theatre for intellectual exhibition. It was not, then, as a popular preacher, “pleasant to sit under,” that he was beloved, still less as a party one; he published no pamphlets, got up no petitions, nor was his voice to be heard at Exeter Hall; but he was ever watchful over the welfare of his people, temporal and eternal.

His appointment in the Chapel Royal led to an acquaintance which quickly ripened into a warm friendship with the Rev. Edward Cannon, also one of the priests of the household, and who for many years had been on intimate terms with the family of Mrs. Barham—the singular being introduced to the world under the name of Godfrey Moss, in Theodore Hook’s novel, Maxwell.

About 1826 Mr. Barham commenced a diary, which for some time he continued with considerable spirit and regularity, and from this some excerpts may be made.

“August l6th. — Received a letter from Blackwood, with a copy of numbers 115 and 116 of his Magazine, thanking me for ‘The Ghost, a Canterbury Tale,’ which appeared in the first of the two numbers, and which Mr. John Hughes (son of our Residentiary) had transmitted to him from me, informing him, at the same time, of the fact of their having appeared in sections, in three successive numbers of the London Chronicle just before that paper was merged in the St. James’s Chronicle. Of this journal Dr. Johnson was the first editor, and I the last. The causes of its decline may be inferred.”

“November 26th. — Dined at Doctor Hughes’s. Sir Walter Scott had been there the day before: and the Dr. told me the following anecdote, which he had just heard from the ‘Great Unknown.’—A Scottish clergy man, whose name was not mentioned, had some years since been cited before the Ecclesiastical Assembly at Edinburgh, to answer to a charge brought against him of great irreverence in religious matters, and Sir Walter was employed by him to arrange his defence. The principal fact alleged against him was his having asserted, in a letter which was produced, that ‘he considered Pontius Pilate to be a very ill-used man, as he had done more for Christianity than all the other nine apostles put together.’ The fact was proved, and suspension followed.”

“October 6th, 1827. — Mr. Attwood, who had set to music my lines entitled ‘Too Late,’ and published them in the Harmonicon last year, gave me to-day some verses, written, on perusing them, by a lady, a friend of his.”

The song in question was elicited by an expression in a letter, from a dear and near relative. He was in the army, and had struggled on, many a weary year, unnoticed and a subaltern, happy, however, in the cheering companionship of an affectionate wife; at length the partner of his toils and hopes sank by the way, and was taken from him; then, in quick succession, came wealth, honours, promotion; but they had been “delayed till be was indifferent, and did not care for them, till he was solitary, and could not impart them”—in his own words, it was—

TOO LATE.

Too late! though flowerets round me blow,

And clearing skies shine bright and fair;

Their genial warmth avails not now—

Thou art not here the beam to share.

Through many a dark and dreary day,

We journeyed on ’midst grief and gloom;

And now at length the cheering ray

Breaks forth, it only gilds thy tomb.

Our days of hope and youth are past,

Our short-lived joys for ever flown;

And now when Fortune smiles at last,

She finds me cheerless, chilled—alone!

Ah! no; too late the boon is given,

Alike the frowns and smiles of Fate;

The broken heart by sorrow riv’n,

But murmurs now, “Too late! Too late!”

About this time Mr. Barham found opportunities of renewing his acquaintance with Theodore Hook. To say nothing of this gentleman’s unequalled happiness in impromptu versification, to pass by that particular province of practical humour [2]  with which his name is so commonly associated, and in which be was facile princeps, Hook yet possessed depth and originality of mind, little dreamed of, probably, by those who were content to bask in the sunshine of his wit. It is noted in the diary that Hook “spoke one evening of his two eldest daughters, of whom Mary, the senior, bad just turned twenty-one; the name of the second was Louisa, and he designated them accordingly as ‘Vingt-un’ and ‘Loo!’ He gave me on this occasion the proofs of all be ever wrote of his last novel, Peregrine Bunce, which I brought away with me.”

As was not unfrequently the case with Mr. Hook’s writings, the earlier portions of this novel were forwarded to his friend for inspection, previous to publication; the following note accompanied the proofs of the second volume:-

Dear Cardinal,— When you have run through Peregrine, will you send him in pacquet to me at the Athenaeum. I have no other ‘document’ wherewith to refresh my memory as to his progress. If you like it, put on it (G.); if you don’t, put (B.); if mediocre (T.). If none of these should express your opinion, I shall expect to see (D. B.) or (D.B.) as the case may be.

Yours most truly,

T.E.H.

The address here refers to the senior cardinal’s stall, a relic of the ancien régime, which Mr. Barham had for some time held in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

“November 6th. — Passed one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent at Lord ———’s. The company, beside the host and hostess, consisted of Mr. Cannon, Mr. C. Walpole, Mr. Hill, generally known as ‘Tom Hill,’ [3]  Theodore Hook, and myself. While at dinner, Hook began to be excessively amusing. He took occasion to repeat part of a prologue which he once spoke as an amateur, before a country audience, without one word being intelligible from the beginning to the end. He afterwards preached part of a sermon in the style of the Rev. ———, of Norwich, of whom he gave a very humorous account; not one sentence of the harangue could be understood, and yet you could not help, all through, straining your attention to catch the meaning. He then gave us many absurd particulars of the Berriers Street hoax, which he admitted was contrived by himself and Henry H———, who was formerly contemporary with me at Brazenose, and whom I knew there, now a popular preacher. He also mentioned another of a similar character, but previous in point of time, of which he had been the sole originator. The object of it was a Quaker who lived in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Among other things brought to his house were the dresses of a punch and nine blue devils, and the body of a man from Lambeth bonehouse, who had the day before been found drowned in the Thames.

“In the evening, after Lady ——— had sung ‘I’ve been roaming,’ Hook placed himself at the pianoforte, and gave a most extraordinary display of his powers, both as a musician and an improvisatore. His assumed object was to give a specimen of the burlettas formerly produced at Sadler’s Wells, and he went through the whole of one which he composed upon the spot.”

“March 13, 1828. — Lord ———, Sir A. B———, Theodore Hook, Stephen Price, and Cannon dined here. Cannon told a story of a manager at a country theatre, who, having given out the play of ‘Douglas,’ found the whole entertainment nearly put to a stop, by the arrest of ‘Young Norval’ as he was entering the theatre. In this dilemma, no other performer of the company being able to take the part, he dressed up a tall, gawkey lad who snuffed the candles, in a plaid and philabeg, and pushing him on the stage, advanced himself to the footlights, with the book in his hand, and addressed the audience with, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen—

‘This young gentleman’s name is Norval. On the Grampian hills

His father feeds his flock, a frugal swain,

Whose constant care was to increase his store,

And keep his only son (this young gentleman) at home.

For this young gentleman had heard,’ &c.

And so on through the whole of the play, much to the delectation of the audience.”

“March 23. — Dined at Sir A. B———’s. An unpleasant altercation took place between Cannon and Hook, owing to an allusion, somewhat ill-timed, made by the former to ‘treasury defaulters.’ This circumstance interrupted the harmony of the evening, and threw a damp upon the party. Hook made but one pun: on Walpole’s remarking that, of two paintings mentioned, one was ‘a shade above the other in point of merit,’ he replied, ‘I presume you mean to say it was a shade over (chef d’oeuvre).’

“May 14. — Acted as one of the stewards to the Literary Fund dinner. Fitzgerald, the poet, spouted as usual, and broke down. Cannon observed ‘Poeta nascitur non Fitz.’”

With his vivid imagination, and strong passion for the marvellous, it is not to be altogether wondered at if Mr. Barham appeared a little disposed to give credence to the existence of things undreamed of in our philosophy. He seemed at times to endeavour to persuade himself into credulity, much in the way that some people strive to convict themselves of a bodily ailment. Unlike poor Lady Cork, whose enjoyment of “her murders’ sensibly declined, he never lost his relish for a “good ghost story;” nothing delighted him more than to listen to one of those “true histories,” properly fitted with the regular complement of names, dates, and locale, attested by “living witnesses of unblemished reputation,” and hedged in on all sides by circumstantial evidence of the most incontrovertible nature; one, in short, of those logical culs de sac, which afford no exit, but by unceremoniously kicking down the opposing barrier. It was Sir Walter Scott, we believe, who was thus driven to extricate himself from a similar dilemma, when, on being asked “how he accounted” for some strange tale he had related, on no less authority than that of his own grandmother, he was forced to reply, after some deliberation, “Aiblins my grandmither was an awfu’ leear.”

It was Mr. Barham’s happiness to form an intimate friendship with the Hughes family. His duties at St. Paul’s were necessarily the means of bringing him under the frequent observation of Dr. Hughes, who was canon residentiary of that cathedral. To Mrs. Hughes, more especially, the correspondent of Sir Walter Scott, Southey, and other ornaments of the age, Mr. Barham was indebted, not only for a large proportion of the legendary lore which forms the groundwork of the Ingoldsby effusions, but also for the application of a stimulus that induced him to complete many papers, which diffidence, or that aptitude, previously spoken of, to turn aside at the faintest suspicion of “a lion in the way,” would have left unattempted or unfinished. The distich, inscribed in a copy of The Ingoldsby Legends, presented to the lady in question, implies no more than the actual fact

“To Mrs. Hughes who made me do ’em,

Quod placeo est—si placeo—tuum.”

To her activity, indeed, it may be said, the publication of My Cousin Nicholas [4]  was mainly owing. The MS., which had been laid aside in an imperfect state for some years, being placed in her hands, so favourable was her opinion of its merits, that, acting “with a friendly vigour beyond the law,” she submitted it forthwith to the inspection of Mr. Blackwood; the first intimation the author received of the circumstance being the appearance of the introductory chapters in the pages of that gentleman’s magazine. Retreat was of course impossible; the difficulties, if difficulties there were, were speedily surmounted, and the catastrophe worked up in a manner which certainly brought no discredit on the earlier portions of the work.

His letters to Mrs. Hughes well illustrate that happy temperament with which he was endowed, and that almost involuntary flow of humour which distinguished his conversation and correspondence, not less than his more elaborate efforts.

“April 15, 1828.

“My Dear Madam,—

“… I have little news to tell you, except that Mrs.—, the auctioneeress, if there be such a word, is likely to die, and that the sorrowing widower, in posse, is said to have already made arrange ments to take the beautiful (Oh! that I could add prudent) Miss Foote, as her successor. He, at least, says green-room scandal, wears a watch riband she has given him, as the decoration of a military order; while others add, that though the gentleman is unquestionably anxious to become a ‘Knight Companion,’ the lady is still ‘Grand Cross.’

“I enclose a set of rhymes, as yet in a chrysalis state; should John Bull get hold of them, after they have thrown off the grab, I am afraid they are too well adapted for his purpose for him to refrain from appropriating what is now a mere embryo.

THE LONDON UNIVERSITY
or, STINKOMALEE TRIUMPHANS

AN ODE TO BE PERFORMED
ON THE OPENING OF THE NEW COLLEGE
OF GRAFTONSTREET EAST

Whene’er with pitying eye I view

Each operative sot in town.

I smile to think how wondrous few

Get drunk who study at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

What precious fools “The People” grew,

Their alma mater not in town;

The “useful classes’ hardly knew

Four was composed of two and two,

Until they learned it at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

But now they’re taught by Joseph Hu-
me, by far the cleverest Scot in town,

Their items and their tottles too

Each may dissect his sister Sue,

From his instructions at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Then L———e comes, like him how few

Can caper and can trot in town,

In pirouette or pas de deux—

He beats the famed Monsieur Giroux,

And teaches dancing at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

And Gilchrist, see, that great Gentoo

Professor, has a lot in town
of Cockney boys, who fag Hindoo,

And larn Jem-nasties at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Sam R——— corpse of vampire hue,

Comes from its grave, to rot in town;

For Bays the dead bard’s crowned with Yew,

And chaunts the Pleasures of the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Frank Jeffrey, of the Scotch Review,—

Whom Moore had nearly shot in town,—

Now, with his pamphlet stitched in blue

And yellow, d———ns the other two,

But lauds the ever-glorious U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Great Birkbeck, king of chips and glue,

Who paper oft does blot in town,

From the Mechanics’ Institu-
tion, comes to prate of wedge and screw,

Lever and axle, at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Lord Waithman, who long since withdrew

From Mansion House to cot in town;

Adorn’d with chair of ormolu.

All darkly grand, like Prince Lee Boo,

Lectures on Free Trade at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Fat F———, with his coat of blue,

Who speeches makes so hot in town,

In rhetoric, spells his lectures through,

And sounds the V for W,

The vay they speaks it at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Then H———e comes, who late at New-
gate-market—sweetest spot in town!

Instead of one clerk popped in two,

To make a place for his nephew,

Seeking another at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

There’s Captain Ross, a traveller true,

Has just presented. what in town

’s an article of great virtu,

(The telescope he once peep’d through,

And ’spied an Esquimaux canoe

On Croker Mountains), to the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

Since Michael gives no roast nor stew,

Where Whigs might eat and plot in town,

And swill his port, and mischief brew—

Poor Creevy sips his water gru-
el as the beadle of the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

There’s Jerry Bentham and his crew,

Names ne’er to be forgot in town,

In swarms like Banquo’s long is-sue—

Turk, Papist, Infidel, and Jew,

Come trooping on to join the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

To crown the whole with triple queue

Another such there’s not in town,
twitching his restless nose askew,

Behold tremendous Harry Brough-
am! Law Professor at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

GRAND CHORUS:

Huzza! Huzza! for Harry Brough-
am! Law Professor at the U-
niversity we’ve Got in town.

“I have room for no more than to say that I am most
sincerely and truly yours,

“R.H.B.”

As a pendant to the above may be subjoined the following hint to a rival establishment:—

ON THE WINDOWS OF KING’s COLLEGE REMAINING BOARDED

Loquitur Discipulus Esuriens.

Professors, in your plan there seems

A something not quite right

’Tis queer to cherish learning’s beams,

By shutting out the light.

While thus we see your windows block’d,

If nobody complains;

Yet everybody must be shock’d,

To see you don’t take pains.

And tell me why should bodily

Succumb to mental meat?

Or why should ητα, βητα, πι (eta, beta, pi)
Be all the pie we eat?

No helluo librorum I,

No literary glutton,

Would veal with Virgil like to try,

With metaphysics, mutton.

Leave us no longer in the lurch,

With Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos:

But give us beef as well as birch,

And board us—not your windows.

The following note to Mrs. Hughes contains an acknowledgement of one of those beguiling Berkshire delicacies so fraught with peril to the inexperienced or unwary:—

“St. Paul’s Churchyard, Jan. 5, 1830.

“My Dear Madam,—

I know not how to thank you; ‘rude I am in speech and manner;’ never till this hour tasted I such a dainty!

“But young Norval never had such a ‘pig’s head’ to be thankful for: it is truly delicious, almost too much so, indeed, for it tempted me last night to do what I very seldom do, and never ought to do—viz., eat a hearty supper: the consequence was, that I ‘dreamt of the d———l, and awoke in a fright:’—

Methought I was seated at church,

With Wellington acting as clerk,

And there in a pew,

Was Rothschild the Jew

Dancing a jig with Judge Park:

Lady Morgan sat playing the organ;

While behind the vestry door,

Horace Twiss was snatching a kiss

From the lips of Hannah More.

“In short, I cannot tell you half the vagaries I was carried through, at least within any moderate compass in a letter, but I mean to put as much of it down as I can call to remembrance, and, following the example of Mr. Bottom, the weaver, get some good-natured Peter Quince to ‘make a ballad of it,’ and ‘it shall be called Barham’s dream,’ not because ‘it hath no bottom,’ but because it proceeded from a pig’s head, a metaphor in which Mrs. B. sometimes speaks of mine, when, more than usually persevering, I resist unto the death some measure which I consider wrong, and she right, or vice versa, as the case may be. Let me not forget to add, however, that in the present instance she is to the full as much inclined to be pig-headed as myself, and begs me to join her thanks to my own....”

In the autumn of 1831, the appointment of Mr. Sidney Smith to one of the canonries of St. Paul’s proved the means of introducing Mr. Barham to the society of this distinguished individual. Differing, as they did, in political opinion, not less than in the character and subject-matter of their wit, there was, nevertheless, a sufficient appreciation of each other to induce a greater degree of intimacy than their relative positions might have called for. The first appearance of Mr. Smith at the cathedral, for the purpose of taking possession of his stall, is thus briefly noted:

“Oct. 2, 1831. — Rev. Sidney Smith read himself in as Residentiary at St. Paul’s; dined with him afterwards at Dr. Hughes’s. He mentioned having once half offended Sam Rogers by recommending him, when he sat for his picture, to be drawn saying his prayers, with his face in his hat.”

No one at all familiar with the writings of this extraordinary person can fail to have remarked the professional turn his wit is apt to take. In his bon mots this peculiarity is noticeable, most of those on record bearing some reference, more or less, to clerical matters. Perhaps no better illustration of this uniform flow of ideas can be adduced, than a description of an interview, furnished by himself, with a well-known fashionable publisher.

He said that the gentleman in question called upon him with an introduction from a certain literary baronet, and after hinting a condolence on his recent losses in the American funds, proposed, probably by way of repairing them, the production of a novel in three volumes.

“Well, Sir,” said Mr. Smith, after some seeming consideration, “if I do so I can’t travel out of my own line, ne sutor ultra crepidam; I must have an archdeacon for my hero, to fall in love with the pew-opener, with the clerk for a confidant—tyrannical interference of the churchwardens—clandestine correspondence concealed under the hassocks—appeal to the parishioners, &c., &c.”

“All that, Sir,” said Mr. ———, “I would not presume to interfere with; I would leave it entirely to your own inventive genius.”

“Well, Sir,” returned the canon with urbanity, “I am not prepared to come to terms at present, but if ever I do undertake such a work, you shall certainly have the refusal”. [5]

“Oct., 1831. — Sir Walter Scott came to town and visited Dr. Hughes, is much sunk in spirits, but still retains gleams of his former humour, and he told, with almost his usual glee, the story of a placed minister, near Dundee, who, in preaching on Jonah, said:—‘Ken ye, brethren, what fish it was that swallowed him? Aiblins ye may think it was a shark; nae, nae, my brethren, it was nae shark: or aiblins ye may think it was a saumon; nae, nae, my brethren, it was nae saumon: or aiblins ye may think it was a dolphin; nae, nae, my brethren, it was nae dolphin.’

“Here an old woman, thinking to help her pastor out of a dead lift, cried out, ‘Aiblins, Sir, it was a dunter.’ (The vulgar name of a species of whale common to the Scotch coast.)

“‘Aiblins, Madam, ye’re an auld witch for taking the word o’ God out of my mouth,’ was the reply of the disappointed rhetorician.

“Mr. L———, late chaplain to the archbishop, dined there, and, in a conversation which ensued, mentioned his having, in a late tour, fallen in with the original Dominie Sampson. This gentleman was a Mr. Thompson, the son of the placed minister of Melrose, and himself in orders, though without a manse. He had lived for many years a chaplain in Sir Walter’s family, and was tutor to his children, who used to take advantage of his absence of mind, to open the window while he was lecturing, get quietly out of it, and go to play, a circumstance he would rarely perceive. Sir Walter had many opportunities of procuring him a benefice, but never dared avail himself of them, satisfied that his absence of mind would only bring him into scrapes, if placed in a responsible situation. Mr. T. was once very nearly summoned before the Synod for reading the ‘visitation of the sick’ service from our Liturgy, to a poor man confined to his bed by illness.”

“Feb. 11. — Dined with Sir George W———r. John Murray, the publisher, who was present, told me that Sir Walter Scott, on being taxed by him as the author of Old Mortality, not only denied having written it, but added, ‘In order to convince you that I am not the author, I will review the book for you in the Quarterly,— which he actually did, and Murray still has the MS. in his handwriting.”

From the publication of My Cousin Nicholas in Blackwood, to the establishment of Bentley’s Miscellany in 1837, nothing worthy of note in the way of literature engaged Mr. Barham’s attention. During this period his leisure was mainly directed to the prosecution of genealogical and archaeological inquiries, and more especially to the acquiring a knowledge of the various early editions of the Bible, in whole and in parts. He subsequently conceived the design, in which, by the liberal aid of the Chapter, he was enabled to make considerable progress, of restoring and re-arranging the valuable library of St. Paul’s. Meanwhile, he was not altogether unmindful of the Muse, but occasionally enlivened his friends and the public with “pieces didactic, descriptive,” &c., as circumstances might call forth. Of these the “rough copy” was usually forwarded to his kind friend, Mrs. Hughes, at Kingston Lisle.

“St. Paul’s Churchyard, July 27, 1833.

“My Dear Madam,— Here we are at last, once more returned to the immediate vicinity of the ‘Wren’s Nest.’ … I own I should not have been grieved at being able to run about a little longer among the groves of Summer Hill, which I think I described to you as the seat of Charles the Second, and since of Mr. James Alexander, the East India Director, and immediately adjoining our grounds. As you encourage me to bestow all my tediousness on your worship, I shall make no apology for enclosing a copy of ‘an effusion’ which burst from a heart overflowing with nonsense when I quitted it, for the last time, on my return to the ‘Wells;’ will it do for another number of Family Poetry?

ODE ON A NEARER PROSPECT
OF SUMMER HILL

O Summer Hill! if thou wert mine,

I’d order in a pipe of wine,

And ask a dozen friends to dine.

In faith, I would not spare the guineas,

But send for Pag and other ninies,

Flutes, hautboys, fiddles, pipes, and tabors,

Hussars with moustaches and sabres,

Quadrilles, and that grand waltz of Weber’s,

And give a dance to all my neighbours;

And here I’d sit and quaff my fill

Among the trees of Summer Hill.

Then with bland eye careering slowly,

O’er bush-crowned ridge end valley lowly;

I’d drain the cup to thee, old Rowley!

To thee, and to thy courtly train,

Once tenants of thy fair domain;

Soft Stewart, haughtiest Castlemaine,

Pert Nelly Gwynne, and Lucy Waters,

Old England’s fairest, frailest daughters.

E’en now, ’midst yonder leafy glade,

Methinks I see thy Royal shade

In amplitude of wig arrayed;

Near thee thy rival in peruke,

Stands Buckingham, uproarious Duke,

With Tony Hamilton and Killegrew;

And Wilmot, that sad rake till ill he grew,

When to amend his life and turn it

He promised pious Doctor Burnet;

In time let’s hope to make old Nicholas

Lose all his pains, and look ridiculous!

Alexander! loftier far

Now culminates thy happier star

Than his of old, my ancient crony,

Thy namesake erst of Macedony,

Unrivalled, save, perhaps, by Boney.

Oh! happier far in thy degree

Art thou, although a conqueror he,

While thou art but an ex-M.P.

Yea, far more blessed my Alexander,

Art thou than that deceas’d commander;

Much though his name be honour’d, Fate,

Making thee Lord of this estate,

Dubbed thee in verity “The Great.”

Thou ne’er wert led through wanton revelling,

These sylvan scenes to play the devil in;

In these sweet shades so praised by Grammont,

Thou didst not call thyself “Young Ammon.”

And I, for one, wouldst thou invite us,

Would never fear the fate of Clytus.

No lady of too easy virtue

E’er made you think enough to hurt you,

And then with recklessness amazing,

Bade you set house and all a-blazing.

(’Tis hard to say which works the quicker,

To make folks blockheads, love or liquor.

But oh! it is an awful thing,

When both combine to make a king

Descend to play the part of Swing!)

Another world, thou dost not sigh

To conquer, much less pipe thine eye,

I dare be sworn—no! Alexander,

Thou art not half as great a gander:

This is thy globe—here toujours gai

Thy motto still, though, well-a-day,

Sarum be popp’d in schedule A.

O Summer, Summer, Summer Hill,

Fain would I gaze and linger still;

But see the moon her silver lamp

Uprears, the grass is getting damp.

And hark! the curfew’s parting knell

Is toll’d by Doctor Knox’s bell!

I go to join my wife and daughters,

Drinking these nasty-flavoured waters.

O Summer Hill! I must repine,

Thou art not, never will be mine

— I have not even got the wine.

“And now having surfeited you with rubbish enough for one dose, let me conclude with my best acknowledgements, &c.

“Your much obliged,

“R. H. Barham.”

“Nov. 1834. — You have, of course, heard of Tom D———’s absurd challenge to F———, for quizzing his liaison with Madame ———; if not, the enclosed doggerel will make you au fait of the facts.”

THE TWO M.P.’S

(MAGAZINE PUBLISHER AND MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT)

BEING A TRUE AND PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE GRAND MILLING MATCH THAT DIDN’T TAKE PLACE

Says Tom D——— to F———r

T’other morning, “I say, Sir,

You’ve call’d me a Roué, a Dicer, and Racer,

Now I’d have you to know, Sir,

Such names are ‘No Go,’ Sir;

By Jove, Sir, I never knew anything grosser.

“And then Madame ———

Extremely distrest is

At your calling her Lais—she’s more like Thalestris,

As you’ll find, my fine joker,

If once you provoke her,

She’s a d———l if once she gets hold of a poker.

“For myself, to be candid,

And not underhanded,

I write thus to say I’ll be hang’d if I stand it.

So give up the name

Of the man or the dame

Who has made this infernal attack on my fame,

And recall what you’ve said of

A man you’re afraid of,

Or turn out, my Trump, and let’s see what you’re made of.

“I have ‘barkers’ by Nock, Sir,

With percussion locks, Sir,

Will give you your gruel—hang me if I box, Sir,

And I’ve sent my old Pal in,

My ‘noble friend Allen,’

To give you this here, and to stop your caballing!”

Then says F———r, says he,

“What a spoon you must be,

Tommy D———, to send this here message to me:

Why if I was to fight about

What my friends write about,

My life I should be in continual fright about!

“As to telling you, who

Wrote that thing about you,

One word’s worth a thousand—Blow me if I do!

If you will be so gay, Sir,

The people will say, Sir,

That you are a Roué, and I’m

Yours,

Jemmy F———r.”

Taking no active part in polities himself, saving as regards the occasional sallies before alluded to, and scrupulously forbearing the exercise of any direct influence he might have held over others, Mr. Barham, nevertheless, remained a stanch and true Conservative, invariably recording his vote spite of any inconvenience to which it might subject him. He was wont to dwell with great gout upon the following amusing incident, as bearing so directly upon the general characteristics of the opposing parties:

— “I told you that we had been busy with the West Kent election … What amused me very much was, that on landing from the steamboat at Gravesend, where my vote was to be taken, the rain was falling pretty steadily, and every one of the passengers who boasted an umbrella, of course, had it in play. A strong detachment of the friends of all the candidates lined the pier, to see us come on shore, and loud cheers from either party arose as any one mounted the steps bearing their respective colours: with that modesty which is one of my distinguishing characteristics, I had endeavoured to decline the honour of a dead cat at my head, with which I was favoured on a previous occasion, by mounting no colours at all; but something distingué in my appearance, as self-complacency fondly whispered in my ear, made the Tory party roar out as I mounted the platform—

“‘Here comes von o’ hour side!’

“‘You be blowed!’ said a broad-faced gentleman in sky-blue ribbons, ‘I say he’s our’n.’

“‘Be blowed yourself,’ quoth one of my discriminating friends opposite, ‘Why, don’t you see the gemman’s got a silk umbrella?’

“The conclusion was irresistible—Tory I must be, and the ‘I know’d it’ which responded to my ‘Geary for ever’ was truly delicious.”

“Nov. 17, 1832. — Dined with Mr. Smith, He told me of the motto he had proposed for Bishop B———’s arms, in allusion to his brother, the well-known fish-sauce projector,

“Gravi jampridem saucia cura.”

In a few days afterwards, Mr. Barham received the following invaluable recipe; it was forwarded by post without signature or comment of any kind.

A RECEIPT FOR SALAD

(LAST EDITION)

Two large potatoes passed through kitchen sieve,

Unwonted softness to the salad give;

Of ardent mustard add a single spoon,

Distrust the condiment which bites so soon;

But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault

To add a double quantity of salt;

Three times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown,

And once with vinegar, procured from town,

True flavour needs it, and your poet begs

The pounded yellow of two well-boiled eggs;

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,

And, scarce suspected, animate the whole;

And, lastly, on the flavoured compound toss

A magic teaspoon of anchovy sauce.

Then, though green turtle fail, though venison’s tough,

And ham and turkey are not boiled enough,

Serenely full, the epicure may say,—

“Fate cannot harm me,—I have dined to-day.”

N.B.— As this salad is the result of great experience and reflection, it is to be hoped young salad-makers will not attempt any improvements upon it.

The following letter refers principally to a change of abode, which, by the kindness of Mr. Smith, who placed a residentiary house in Amen Corner at his disposal, Mr. Barham was enabled to make. The building, coeval with the cathedral itself, having remained for a considerable time unoccupied, or tenanted only by rats and cats, “and such small deer,” its condition will readily be understood by those conversant in such matters; to the uninitiated, the description here given will suffice:—

Sept. 17, 1889.

“My Dear Madam,— Delightful as it always is to hear from you, I do not hesitate to say that your last is the most agreeable letter I have yet been favoured with from Kingston Lisle, and that from its announcing your determination to quit those delicious ‘green fields’ which Falstaff babbled of, and like his antitype Morris, to take up again with ‘the sweet shady side of Pall Mall.’ Not that I have any objection to the country, in summer, or even in autumn—quite the reverse—but then I manage my enjoyment of it, as Lady Grace says, ‘soberly.’ ‘When through the hawthorn blows the cold wind’ I confess I like London as well as Lady Townley herself.

“As to ourselves we are literally ‘moving,’ and moving we shall be for this month to come. Never before did I fully comprehend the bitterness of David’s curse, ‘Make them like unto a wheel;’ he had certainly a ‘flitting’ in his eye at the time he uttered it. By the way, the Scotch, who are usually very happy in their terms, are singularly infelicitous in this. To flit gives one the idea of light and airy locomotion, such as befits a ghost or a gossamer, it speaks of light clouds, thistledown, and shadows by moonlight; not chests of drawers, warming-pans, and crockery, with all the ten thousand nondescripts of domestic economy—flit? A bat may flit, or perhaps a bachelor, but not a middle-aged gentleman of fourteen stone six; his ‘desert is too heavy to mount.’ Then as to the invasion and its consequences, I protest I can scarcely think of it at times without compunction; it almost seems like Cortez and his ruffians ‘wading through slaughter to a throne,’ and shutting the gates of mercy on ten thousand unoffending aborigines, who have grown old in the peace and tranquillity of half a century. Do not suppose that the S———s are the only animals who will bewail our avatar. ‘What millions died that Caesar may be great!’ My heart sickens at the thought of this wholesale massacre—this sacrifice to Moloch, for I grieve to say, that, denied the tender mercies of the thumb and finger, wives, husbands, fathers, and ‘all, all their pretty ones’ perished, like so many Suttees, in the flames. As I heard the one exterminating crackle, I could not help feeling for the moment that a Thug was a respectable member of society in comparison with myself. That their progeny, if not their ghosts, will ‘murder sleep’ hereafter I cannot but fear.

“To turn from so painful a subject, as extremes always meet, I jump at once from the lowest to the highest in the scale of created beings, from the meanest retainer of the crown to the crown itself. What think you of a visit from, and confabulation with, the Queen of the Belgians! On Saturday, I was in the library at St. Paul’s, my ‘custom always of an afternoon,’ with a bookbinder’s ’prentice and a printer’s devil, looking out fifty dilapidated folios for rebinding; I had on a coat which, from a foolish prejudice in the multitude against patched elbows, I wear nowhere else, my hands and face encrusted with the dust of years, and wanting only the shovel—I had the brush—to sit for the portrait of a respectable master chimney-sweeper, when the door opened, and in walked the Cap of Maintenance bearing the sword of, and followed by, the Lord Mayor in full fig, with the prettiest and liveliest little Frenchwoman leaning upon his arm. Nobody could get at the ‘Lions’ but myself; I was fairly in for it; and was thus presented in the most recherché, if not the most expensive court dress that I will venture to say the eyes of royalty were ever greeted withal. Heureusement pour moi, she spoke excellent English, and rattled on with a succession of questions, which I answered as best I might—they were sensible, however, showed some acquaintance with literature, and a very good knowledge of dates.

“My gaucherie afforded her one opportunity of displaying her acquaintance with chronology which she did not miss. The date of a MS. was the question; I unthinkingly referred to that of the Battle of Agincourt, an allusion which a courtier would have shunned as a rock ahead, considering the figure an Orleans cut in that fight. It was not quite so bad certainly as the gentleman telling Prince Eugene that ‘a certain event took place in the year the Countess of Soissons (his mother) poisoned her husband,’ but it was enough to have made poor Colonel Dalton faint. She relieved me, however, in an instant by saying, ‘Ah! 1415,’ while George C———, who was with her, coolly asked, ‘when it was printed?’ She turned to him briskly and said at once, ‘You see it is a manuscript,’ which satisfied the gentleman of the bedchamber, and saved my reply. More of this when we meet, but my paper, like Macheath’s courage, ‘is out,’ so for the present, believe me as ever,

“Yours, most faithfully,

“R. H. B.”

By way of postscript, another anecdote anent royalty may be added:—

“I must tell you one of his (Moore’s) stories, because, as Sir Walter Scott is the hero of it, I know it will not be unacceptable to you. When George IV went to Ireland, one of the ‘pisintry,’ delighted with his affability to the crowd on landing, said to the toll-keeper as the king passed through,

“‘Och, now! an’ his Majesty, God bless him, never paid the turnpike, an’ how’s that?’

“‘Oh! kings never does, we let’s ’em go free:’ was the answer.

“‘Then there’s the dirty money for ye,’ says Pat. ‘It shall never be said that the king came here, and found nobody to pay the turnpike for him.’

“Moore, on his visit to Abbotsford, told this story to Sir Walter, when they were comparing notes as to the two royal visits.

“‘Now, Mr. Moore,’ replied Scott, ‘there ye have just the advantage of us; there was no want of enthusiasm here; the Scotch folk would have done anything in the world for his Majesty, but—pay the turnpike.’”

In 1837, Mr. Bentley published the first number of his Miscellany; having engaged the services of Mr. Charles Dickens, then rising rapidly in public estimation, and an ample staff of regular collaborateurs, he sought to secure any occasional auxiliaries whose assist ance might be of value; among others he applied to Mr. Barham, who entered at once and very warmly into the design, promising such aid as more important avocations might allow.

Up to this time he had been an anonymous and comparatively unknown writer. The popularity, however, of The Ingoldsby Legends, which now appeared in rapid succession in the pages of the new periodical, rendered the pseudonym he had, for obvious reasons, assumed, a very insufficient disguise, and though he never entirely abandoned it, he was soon pretty generally known to be their author. Hamilton Tighe was the first subject derived from the inexhaustible stores of Mrs. Hughes and her son. “The Original Ghost Story,” writes Mr. Hughes, “was said to have occurred in the family of the late Mr. Pye, the Poet Laureate, a neighbour and brother magistrate of my maternal grandfather, and the date of it was supposed to be connected with the taking of Vigo.” Patty Morgan, the Milk-maid’s Story, and The Dead Drummer, were transmitted also through the same medium; the former having been recounted by Lady Eleanor Butler [6]  as a whimsical Welsh Legend, the latter by Sir Walter Scott, who, having better means than most men of ascertaining facts and names, believed in their authenticity.

As regards the latter story, the main incidents are fully attested by a contemporary pamphlet, purporting to be a narrative of the “Life, Confession, and Dying Speech of Jarvis Matchan,” and signed by the Rev. J. Nicholson, who attended him as minister, and another witness. The murder, however, was committed not on Salisbury Plain, but in the neighbourhood of Alconbury, in Huntingdonshire, and the culprit was accordingly, “on Wednesday the 2nd of August, 1786, executed at Huntingdon, and hung in chains in the parish of Alconbury, for the wilful murder of Benjamin Jones, a drummer boy in the 48th Regiment of Foot, on the 19th of August, 1780.” Matchan’s escape to sea, and the subsequent vision on Salisbury Plain, which wrung from him his confession, and proved unquestionably the grounds of his conviction, are given with great minuteness, and though differing a little in detail, are to the full as marvellous as anything recorded in the poem.

The Hand of Glory also owes its origin to the same source. Nell Cook, Grey Dolphin, The Ghost, and The Smuggler’s Leap, are veritable Kentish Legends, a little renovated, perhaps, as regards “dresses and decorations,” but, without doubt, sufficiently authentic for the purpose. Greater liberties have been taken with The Old Woman Clothed in Grey, who, for anything that appeared to the contrary, was a well-disposed ghost enough, haunting an old rectory within a few miles of Cambridge. it is represented to have been her custom to stroll about the house at dead of night, with a bag of money in her hand, of which she appeared exceedingly anxious to be relieved, offering it to whomsoever she happened to meet in the course of her peregrinations; no one, however, seems to have been bold enough to accept the gift. The principal improbability of the tale manifestly consists in the fact, that no one was found sufficiently enterprising to meet her wishes.

So strong was the belief that treasure was concealed about the building in question, that when it was taken down and the materials sold, on the erection of the present parsonage-house, the incumbent expressly stipulated for the right and title to all valuables that might be discovered, and he actually received, we believe, three battered half-pence in fulfilment of the agreement. As for the old lady, as she has never appeared since the destruction of her favourite “walk,” it is conjectured, either that she has taken refuge in an old cellar which has been bricked over, and is likely to remain undisturbed for years, or that she has adopted an effectual method of disencumbering herself of all superfluous cash, by investing it in the scrip of some “great fen railroad company,” and may even now be wandering an unhappy shade around the precincts of Capel Court.

The materials of most of the tales referring to Popish superstition were derived from a variety of monkish chronicles and writings, the Aurea Legenda among the rest, with which the library of Sion College abounds, and with most of which Mr. Barham was tolerably familiar. Of The Jackdaw of Rheims, he gives the following account:—

“I have no time to do more for this number than scratch off a doggerel version of an old Catholic legend that I picked up out of a High Dutch author. I am afraid the poor ‘Jackdaw’ will be sadly pecked at. Had I more time, I meant to have engrafted on it a story I have heard Cannon tell of a magpie of his acquaintance.

“A certain notable housewife, he used to say, had observed that her stock of pickled cockles were running remarkably low, and she spoke to the cook in consequence, who alone had access to them. The cook had noticed the same serious deficiency,—‘she couldn’t tell how, but they certainly disappeared much too fast!’ A degree of coolness, approaching to estrangement, ensued between these worthy individuals, which the rapid consumption of the pickled cockles by no means contributed to remove. The lady became more distant than ever, spoke pointedly and before company, of ‘some people’s unaccountable partiality to pickled cockles,’ &c. The cook’s character was at stake; unwilling to give warning, with such an imputation upon her self-denial, not to say honesty, she, nevertheless, felt that all confidence between her mistress and herself was at an end.

“One day the jar containing the evanescent condiment being placed as usual on the dresser, while she was busily engaged in basting a joint before the fire, she happened to turn suddenly round, and beheld, to her great indignation, a favourite magpie, remarkable for his conversational powers and general intelligence, perched by its side, and dipping his beak down the open neck with every symptom of gratification. The mystery was explained—the thief detected! Grasping the ladle of scalding grease which she held in her hand, the exasperated lady dashed the whole contents over the hapless pet, accompanied by the exclamation—‘Oh, d———me, you’ve been at the pickled cockles, have ye?’

“Poor Mag, of course, was dreadfully burnt; most of his feathers came off, leaving his little round pate, which had caught the principal part of the volley, entirely bare. The poor bird moped about, lost all his spirit, and never spoke for a year.

“At length when he had pretty well recovered, and was beginning to chatter again, a gentleman called at the house, who, on taking off his hat, discovered a very bald head! The magpie, who happened to be in the room, appeared evidently struck by the circumstance; his reminiscences were at once powerfully excited by the naked appearance of the gentleman’s skull. Hopping upon the back of his chair, and looking him hastily over, he suddenly exclaimed, in the ear of the astounded visitor —‘Oh, d———me, you’ve been at the pickled cockles, have ye?’”

In the same letter be goes on to say:—

“I cannot sufficiently thank you for your story of the Virgin Unmasked; it is a most amusing one, and highly characteristic of the standard of morality too commonly found in ‘Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.’ As to the communication of the gallivanting propensities of her husband to the dying woman, it is only to be paralleled by what Mr. ———, the conchologist, once told me, and which I think carries friendly consolation and good offices in extremis to even a higher pitch.

“He was once a surgeon at W———, in Kent, and said that in the course of his practice, he had to pay what he considered would be his last visit to au elderly labouring man on Adisham Downs. He had left him in the last stage of illness the day before, and was not surprised on calling again to find him dead, but did experience a little astonishment at seeing the bed on which he bad been lying now withdrawn from under the body, and placed in the middle of the floor. To his remarks, the answer given by her who had officiated as nurse(?) was —‘Dearee me, Sir, you see there was partridge feathers in the bed, and folks can’t die upon geame feathers no how, and we thought as how he never would go, so we pulled bed away, and then I just pinched his poor nose tight with one hand, and shut his mouth close with t’other, and, poor dear! he went off like a lamb!’”

The Singular Passage in the Life of the late Doctor Harris, though drawing not a little on the reader’s faith, certainly so far originated in fact that the strange details were communicated to Mr. Barham by a young lady on her sick-bed, and who herself was so impressed with their truth, as to urge most strongly the apprehension of the young man of whose horrible arts she believed herself to be the victim. The delusion only terminated with her life. It is worthy of remark that the very gentleman to whom she referred, and who was also well known to Mr. Barham, was shortly afterwards taken into custody on the charge of perpetrating a robbery at one of the theatres. His identity was sworn to most positively by the prosecutrix, but an alibi was so irrefragably established as to place his innocence beyond suspicion. This story, though printed in the first series of The Ingoldsby Legends, appeared originally in Blackwood, and has, indeed, little in common with the productions with which it is at present associated.

As respects the poems, remarkable as they have been pronounced for the wit and humour which they display, their distinguishing attraction lies in the almost unparalleled flow and facility of the versification. Popular phrases, sentences the most prosaic, even the cramped technicalities of legal diction, and snatches from well-nigh every language, are wrought in with an apparent absence of all art and effort that surprises, pleases, and convulses the reader at every turn; the author triumphs with a master’s hand over every variety of stanza, however complicated or exacting; not a word seems out of place, not an expression forced; syllables the most intractable find the only partners fitted for them throughout the range of language, and couple together as naturally as those kindred spirits which poets tell us were created pairs, and dispersed in space to seek out their particular mates. A harmony pervades the whole, a perfect modulation of numbers never, perhaps, surpassed, and rarely equalled in compositions of this class. This was the forte of Thomas Ingoldsby; a harsh line or untrue rhyme grated like the Shandaean hinge upon his ear; no inviting point or alluring pun would induce him to entertain either for an instant; sacrifice or circumlocution were the only alternatives. At the same time, scarcely any vehicle could he better adapted for the development of his peculiar powers than that unshackled metre which admits of no laws save those of rhyme and melody; but which also, from the very want of definite regulations, presents no landmark to guide the poet, and demands a thorough knowledge of rhythm to prevent his becoming lost among a succession of confused and unconnected stanzas.

Of the unflagging spirit of fun which animates these productions there can be but one opinion; Mr. Barham was, unquestionably an adept in the mysteries of mirth, happy in his use of anachronism, and all the means and appliances of burlesque; he was skilled, moreover, to relieve his humour, however broad, from any imputation of vulgarity, by a judicious admixture of pathos and antiquarian lore. There are, indeed, passages in his writings, The Execution, for example, and the battle-field in The Black Mousquetaire, standing out in strong contrast from the ludicrous imagery which surrounds them, and affording evidence of powers of a very opposite and far higher order. That he had his faults is, of course, not to be denied; the digressions may sometimes appear too long or too frequent; the moral a little forced, and here and there an occasional objectionable expression might be discovered; but some indulgence may be claimed on the score of hurried composition and the very slight opportunity of correction afforded by the mode of publication. It would be improper, perhaps, to dismiss this subject without touching briefly upon a charge of coarseness and want of reverence which has been brought against the work in question, albeit few authors, upon the whole, have been more tenderly dealt with by the press than Thomas Ingoldsby. [7]  As regards the first moiety of this alleged offence against good taste, little need be said; it could only have been detected by one deeply imbued with that transatlantic spirit of delicacy, such singular instances of which have, from time to time, made their appearance in the papers; he must be sensitive overmuch, constituted

tremblingly alive all o’er,

To smart and agonize at every pore,

who fears to rub against the plain language of The Legends. No one who knew Mr. Barham would for a moment suspect him to be guilty of any intentional irreverence. Firmly and conscientiously opposed to avowed Popery, and not less so to that anomalous system which means Romanism if it means anything, he could not view the rapid propagation of these opinions with indifference. “Non ex quovis ligno fit Mercurius;” he, perhaps, was not of the wood out of which schoolmen and controversialists are framed; but furnished with goodly weapons of the lighter sort, he did not hesitate to direct them against the errors in question. An occasional appeal to the nonsense of the public has its effect.

To return to the diary:—

“August 21, 1839. — Hook drove me down to Thames Ditton, from his house at Fulham. Fished all day, and dined téte-a-téte at the ‘Swan.’ Though not in health, his spirits were as good as ever. We caught eight dozen and a half of gudgeons, and he repeated to me almost as many anecdotes. Among the rest, one of a trick he played when a boy behind the scenes of the Haymarket. He was there one evening, during the heat of the Westminster election, at the representation of ‘The Wood Demon,’ and observing the prompter with the large speaking-trumpet in his hand used to produce the supernatural voices incidental to the piece, he watched him for some time, and saw him go through the business more than once. As the effect was to be repeated, he requested of the man to be allowed to make the noise for him; the prompter incautiously trusted him with the instrument, when, just at the moment, the ‘Fiend’ rose from the trap, and the usual roar was to accompany his appearance, ‘SHERIDAN FOR EVER!!!’ was bawled out in the deepest tones that could be produced—not more to the astonishment of the audience than to the confusion of the involuntary partisan himself, from whom they seemed to proceed.

“He mentioned also a reply that he made to the Duke of Rutland, who, observing him looking about the hall, as they were leaving the Marquis of Hertford’s, asked him what he had lost?

“‘My hat. If I had as good a beaver (Belvoir) as your Grace, I should have taken better care of it.’”

Whether Theodore Hook and his great rival, Mr. Sidney Smith, ever met in society, we do not know. An arrangement was made for the purpose of bringing them together at the table of a common friend, but, alas! a tailor—

What dire mishaps from trivial causes spring!

one to whom Hook owed a considerable sum, having failed in the interval, the latter was unable or indisposed to keep the appointment. The circumstance served to elicit one of those happy strokes of sarcasm which the Canon dealt so adroitly.

Mr. H———, the host, not aware of the cause of his detention, delayed dinner for some time, observing that “he was sure Hook would come, as he had seen him, in the course of the afternoon, at the Athenaeum, evidently winding himself up for the encounter with tumblers of cold brandy and water.”

“That’s hardly fair,” said Smith, “I can’t be expected to be a match for him unless wound up too, so when your servant ushers in Mr. Hook, let Mr. H———’s Punch be announced at the same time.”

“Dec. 5. — Met my old friend Charles D———, who appears to have become quite a convert to phrenology; went with him to De Ville to have his head felt; scribbled the following lines during the ‘manipulation’:

Oh, my head! my head! my head!

Lack! for my poor unfortunate head!

Mister de Ville

Has been to feel,

And what do you think he said?

He felt it up, and he felt it down,

Behind the ears, and across the crown,

Sinciput, occiput, great and small,

Bumps and organs, he tickled ’em all;

And he shook his own, as he gravely said,

“Sir, you really have got a most singular head!

“Why here’s a bump,

Only feel what a lump;

Why the organ of ‘Sound’ is an absolute hump;

And only feel here,

Why, behind each ear,

There’s a bump for a butcher or a bombardier;

Such organs of slaughter

Would spill blood like water;

Such ‘lopping and topping’ of heads and of tails,

Why, you’ll cut up a jackass with Alderman S———”.

[Caetera desunt.]

Among the various departments of literature in which Mr. Barham sought relaxation, the drama occupied a considerable portion of his attention; from the Greek tragedians to Shakespeare and the more modern playwrights, there was scarcely an author possessed of any pretensions to merit, with whose writings he was not familiar. His acquaintances indeed, with the works of the Swan of Avon was such as to enable him, at one time, when his memory was in its full vigour, to supply the context to any quotation that could be made from them, and to mention the play, the act, and generally the very scene from which it had been taken. Warmly attached to the cause of the drama, he looked with con siderable interest on the formation of “the Garrick Club,” [8]  which was established with some design of being made instrumental in bringing back the neglected Muse “to glory again.”

The death of Theodore Hook, which occurred on August 24, 1841, deeply affected Mr. Barham; a warm attachment had sprung up between them during an intimacy of twenty years, and be heard of the event that had dissolved it with the most heartfelt grief, not unmixed with something of a sinister foreboding as regarded himself. One of the last parties at which Hook was present was at Amen Corner; he was unusually late, and dinner was served before he made his appearance; Mr. Barham apologized for having sat down without him, observing that he had quite given him up, and had supposed “that the weather had deterred him.”

“Oh!” replied the former, “I had determined to come, weather or no.”

Like most men resident in London, however much its occupations may be in accordance with their taste, there was nothing Mr. Barham so thoroughly enjoyed as to snatch a hasty run into the country, more especially if, in addition to fresh breezes, green fields, and odorous flowers, there could be obtained what poor Cannon used to denominate a “sniff of the briny.” He had started, about the middle of August, 1841, for Margate, full of spirits at the prospect of a longer holiday than usual, which was to embrace a week’s shooting among the Kentish hills, little dreaming of the evil tidings that were to follow him; immediately on his arrival he addressed the following amusing “log” to his old schoollellow and valued friend Dr. Roberts:—

“Dear Roberts,—

“August 16. — Nine A.M. — Two cabs, three trunks, one band-box, a wife, three girls, two carpet-bags, portfolio, and a Dick on the dickey.

“Half-past Nine. — On board the Royal George; luggage safe stowed, all but the Dick, who quitted.

“Three-quarters-past Nine. — Rum and milk, eggs, and cold beef.

“Ten. — Off she goes; Times and Morning Herald.

“Eleven. — Blackwall Railroad Company, all well.

“Half-past Twelve. — Off Gravesend.

“Half-past One. — Off Sheppey, bell rings, dinner; ‘more mutton for the lady.’

“Three. — Off Herne Bay, beautiful weather, sea like a duck-pond; gin-and-water.

“Twenty minutes past Four. — Landed on Margate jetty, went to old lodgings, landlady moved and gone to America. — N.B. Husband has another wife there
Forced to seek for quarters, old ones being laid into the hotel.

“Half-past Four. — Three bedrooms and first-floor sitting-room at a hatter’s on Marine Parade. Don’t know whether engaged or not, depends on next post, which comes in at half-past six; old woman, former lodger, to send her answer by it; have tea there upon speculation.

“Five. — Very good tea, ditto bread, ditto butter; hurdy-gurdy under window, ‘Nix my Dolly.’

“Five minutes past Five. — Another cup. Bagpipes under window, ‘Jim Crow.’

“Ten minutes past Five. — Conjuror under window, lots of tricks, three eggs out of a handkerchief.

“Six. — Post in, old woman don’t come, take the lodgings, three guineas a week, seem very comfortable, children at window looking at conjuror, hurdy-gurdy, ‘I’d be a butterfly;’ fiddler, ‘College Hornpipe”; bagpipes, ‘Within a mile of Edinburgh Town;’ wish they were! Post going off, God bless you, all well, and in screaming spirits.

“R. H. B.”

In 1840, Mr. Barham succeeded, in course of rotation, to the presidency of Sion College; and in 1842, his long services at St. Paul’s were rewarded with the divinity readership in that Cathedral, and by his being permitted to exchange his living for the more valuable one of St. Faith, the duties of which were far less onerous than those he had fulfilled during well-nigh twenty years. He still continued under the bishop’s licence in his old abode in Amen Corner. This, indeed, he was enabled to do till his decease, although shortly after his induction, the death of Mr. Sidney Smith placed the residentiary house in other bands. The last communication he received from this gentleman runs as follows:—

“Green Street, Monday.

“Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheasant and bread sauce;—barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the real church man, the thirty-nine times articled clerk, the pheasant, the pheasant!

“Ever yours,

“Sidney Smith.”

A more laconic note, in acknowledgement of a similar arrival, was penned by Mr. Barham himself, but whether it ever reached the hands of the eminent individual to whom it appears to have been addressed, is doubtful:—

“Many thanks, my dear Lord, for the birds of your giving,

Though I wish with the dead, you had sent me the living.”

The first indications of Mr. Barham’s fatal disease exhibited themselves on October 28, 1844, the day of the Queen’s visit to the City, for the purpose of opening the Royal Exchange. He had accompanied his wife and daughters to a friend’s house to witness the procession, and had even remarked, as a cutting east wind whistled through the open windows, that, in all probability, that day’s sight-seeing would cost many of the imprudent gazers their lives. In the course of the evening he was attacked with a violent fit of coughing, the result of sudden and severe inflammation in the throat. It was found in the following June that recovery was impossible. To say that be received the intimation with fortitude, would afford but a very inadequate notion of the calmness and contentment with which he regarded his approaching end. Having arranged, with his usual perspicuity, all the details of his temporal affairs, be partook for the last time of the holy communion, in company with all his household, and set himself, in perfect sell-possession, to make final preparation for the awful change at hand.

His last lines, entitled As I laye a-thynkynge, were written but a few days before be quitted Clifton, where be had been for a change, and are of a more sombre hue, referring chiefly to the death of his youngest son, to whom his latest thoughts were constantly recurring. They were placed, at his express desire, in the bands of Mr. Bentley for publication.

On the morning of June 17, 1845, he expired in the fifty-seventh year of his age, without a struggle, in faith, and hope, and in charity with all men.

Independent of any admiration that Mr. Barham’s wit and talent might excite, there was a warmth of heart about him, and an amiability of disposition, which rendered him justly dear to many even beyond the pale of intimacy. His spirits were fresh and buoyant, his constitution vigorous, and his temperament sanguine. His humour never ranged “beyond the limits of becom ing mirth,” and was in its essence free from gall. Where irony was his object, it was commonly just, and always gentle. On his writings might, in fairness, be inscribed:—

Non ego mordaci distrinxi carmine quenquam,

Nulla venenato est litera mixta joco.

Perhaps his virtues were of a kind especially adapted to win their own reward; certain it is, he had ever cause to view humanity under its fairest aspect. He never lost a friend: he never met with coldness or neglect. His family were devotedly attached to him; those upon whom he was instrumental in conferring benefits were rarely, if ever, wanting in gratitude: and his own claims to consideration were readily and liberally allowed. All these things pass away. But as an author, he can scarcely be forgotten. His productions, whatever may be their defects or blemishes, must occupy that niche in the literature of the country, which his originality has carved out.

«»

[1]  The price he received for this work was twenty pounds, with additional advantages dependent on certain of those book-selling “contingencies,” which Theodore Hook used to describe as things that never happen. The definition was not violated in the present instance.

[2]  Much as Mr. Barham, with all reasonable and right-thinking people, condemned this practice of playing practical jokes, there was something so original and irresistibly ludicrous in the positions brought about by Theodore Hook’s humour, as to draw a smile from the most unbending. The only thing of the kind in which Mr B. was ever personally engaged was as a boy at Canterbury, when, with a schoolfellow, later a gallant major, “famed for deeds of arms,” he entered a Quakers’ meeting-house; looking round at the grave assembly, the latter held up a penny tart, and said solemnly, “Whoever speaks first shall have this pie.”—“Go thy way,” commenced a drab-coloured gentleman, rising,—“go thy way, and —“The pie’s yours, sir,” exclaimed D———, placing it before the astounded speaker, and hastily effecting his escape.

[3]  The Mr. Hill of Gilbert Gurney, who also furnished the idea of Mr. Poole’s Paul Pry.

[4]  In one of his letters to this lady, he observes of Nicholas, “Whatever his demerits may be, they must in fairness rest at your door, since you certainly, if you did not absolutely call him into life, prevented his being overlaid in his premiere jeunesse; but for your fostering care he had expired long since of laziness and indigestion.”

[5]  To this may be added the advice he is said to have given to the Bishop of New Zealand, previous to his departure, recommending him to have regard to the minor as well as to the more grave duties of his station—to be given to hospitality—and, in order to meet the tastes of his native guests, never to be without a smoked little boy in the bacon-rack, and a cold clergyman on the sideboard. “And as for myself, my Lord,” he concluded, “all I can say is, that when your new parishioners do eat you, I sincerely hope you will disagree with them.” Of Dean C——— he said, his only adequate punishment would be, to be preached to death by wild curates.

[6]  The story, as told by Lady Eleanor Butler, one of the celebrated “Ladies of Llangollen,” ran, that a young carpenter, residing in the valley, had married a girl to whom he was much attached, and they lived together for several years very happily, till the wife’s mother dying, bequeathed to her daughter some household furniture, and among other articles a clock. They had previously possessed a clock of their own, and the husband now proposed to sell the new one, which the wife objected to, as it had belonged to her mother, wishing on the other hand to dispose of their own. From this the husband was averse, from a similar reason. A dispute, the first they had ever known, followed, and, as he persisted in selling the legacy, was frequently renewed. From this moment they became as remarkable for living unhappily together, as they had previously been for the contrary. The husband occasionally even used blows, and either from the ill-treatment which she received, or from natural causes, the wife soon fell into a languishing, low way. At length she died; but whether any very recent injuries had been inflicted to hasten her decay does not appear. The carpenter, however, seems to have anticipated it, as a fortnight after her funeral he had engaged himself to a second wife.

Her betrothed was on his way along the mountain path which led to her cottage, the evening before the day fixed for the celebration of his second nuptials, when one of the fogs so common among the hills came suddenly on. Well acquainted with his road he felt no alarm, but some surprise at a singular sound which he heard behind him, as of some heavy body following. The fog for some time prevented his discovering what it was; but at length a gust of wind partially removing the mist, be distinctly perceived, at a distance of only a few yards, the clock which had been the cause of all his matrimonial strife. It came on apparently self-moved, and as he looked again, he beheld not the usual face, hut that of his deceased wife, which occupied the place generally allotted to the hours, minutes, and hands.

He uttered a loud scream and rushed forward, the clock still following him, and it was, as he fancied, on the point of overtaking him, when be fell exhausted against the cottage door. The sound of his fall attracted the attention of the inmates, who found him lying at the threshold in a swoon. After some time he recovered his senses, when he repeated this story with the strongest assertions of its truth in every particular. A fever was the consequence of the great mental excitement occasioned by the delusion, and he did not survive his adventure many days.

[7]  One of these attacks, not the wisest, and exhibiting, on the part of the writer, a most amusing imperviousness to the force of humour, was fairly met by the following retort from the assailed:—

For turning grave things to farce, Prior asserts,

A ladle once stuck in an old woman’s skirts;

My muse then may surely esteem it a boon,
if in hers there sticks only a bit of a spoon.

— T. I

[8]  The following lines, composed by Mr. B., and set as a glee by Mr. Hawes, were sung at the opening dinner:

Let Poets of superior parts

Consign to deathless fame

The larceny of the Knave of Hearts

Who spoiled his Royal Dame.

Alack! my timid muse would quail

Before such thievish cubs,

But plumes a joyous wing to hail

Thy birth, fair Queen of Clubs!