FRANÇOIS XAVIER AUGUSTE was a gay Mousquetaire,

The Pride of the Camp, the delight of the Fair:

He’d a mien so distingué and so debonnaire,

And shrugg’d with a grace so recherché and rare,

And he twirl’d his moustache with so charming an air,

—His moustaches I should say, because he’d a pair,—

And, in short, show’d so much of the true sçavoir faire,

All the ladies in Paris were wont to declare,

That could any one draw

Them from Dian’s strict law,

Into what Mrs. Ramsbottom calls a “Fox Paw,”

It would be François Xavier Auguste de St. Foix.

Now, I’m sorry to say,

At that time of day,

The Court of Versailles was a little too gay;

The Courtiers were all much addicted to Play,

To Bourdeaux, Chambertin, Frontignac, St. Peray,

Lafitte, Chateau Margaux,

And Sillery (a cargo

On which John Bull sensibly (?) lays an embargo),

While Louis Quatorze

Kept about him, in scores,

What the Noblesse, in courtesy, term’d his “Jane Shores,”

—They were call’d by a much coarser name out of doors.

This, we all must admit, in

A King’s not befitting!

For such courses, when followed by persons of quality,

Are apt to detract on the score of morality.

François Xavier Auguste acted much like the rest of them,

Dress’d, drank, and fought, and chassée’d with the best of them;

Took his œil de perdrix

Till he scarcely could see,

He would then sally out in the streets for a “spree;”

His rapier he’d draw,

Pink a Bourgeois

(A word which the English translate “Johnny Raw”),

For your thorough French Courtier, whenever the fit he’s in,

Thinks it prime fun to astonish a citizen;

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And perhaps it’s no wonder that this kind of scrapes,

In a nation which Voltaire, in one of his japes

Defines “an amalgam of Tigers and Apes,”

Should be merely considered as “Little Escapes.”

But I’m sorry to add,

Things are almost as bad

A great deal nearer home, and that similar pranks

Amongst young men who move in the very first ranks,

Are by no means confined to the land of the Franks.

Be this as it will,

In the general, still,

Though blame him we must,

It is really but just

To our lively young friend, François Xavier Auguste,

To say, that howe’er

Well known his faults were,

At his Bacchanal parties he always drank fair,

And, when gambling his worst, always play’d on the square;

So that, being much more of pigeon than rook, he

Lost large sums at faro (a game like “Blind Hookey”),

And continued to lose,

And to give I O U’s

Till he lost e’en the credit he had with the Jews;

And, a parallel if I may venture to draw

Between François Xavier Auguste de St. Foix,

And his namesake, a still more distinguished François,

Who wrote to his “sœur”1

From Pavia, “Mon Cœur,

I have lost all I had in the world fors l’honneur.”

So St. Foix might have wrote

No dissimilar note,

“Vive la bagatelle! toujours gai—idem semper—

I’ve lost all I had in the world but—my temper!”

From the very beginning,

Indeed of his sinning,

His air was so cheerful, his manners so winning,

That once he prevailed—or his friends coin the tale for him—

On the bailiff who “nabbed” him, himself to “go bail” for him.

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Well—we know in these cases

Your “Crabs” and “Deuce Aces”

Are wont to promote frequent changes of places;

Town doctors, indeed, are most apt to declare

That there’s nothing so good as the pure “country air,”

Whenever exhaustion of person, or purse, in

An invalid cramps him, and sets him a-cursing;

A habit, I’m very much grieved at divulging,

François Xavier Auguste was too prone to indulge in.

But what could be done?

It’s clear as the sun,

That, though nothing’s more easy than say, “Cut and run!”

Yet a Guardsman can’t live without some sort of fun—

E’en I or you,

If we’d nothing to do,

Should soon find ourselves looking remarkably blue.

And, since no one denies

What’s so plain to all eyes,

It won’t, I am sure, create any surprise,

That reflections like these half reduced to despair

François Xavier Auguste, the gay Black Mousquetaire.

Patience par force!

He considered, of course,

But in vain—he could hit on no sort of resource—

Love?—Liquor?—Law?—Loo?

They would each of them do,

There’s excitement enough in all four, but in none he

Could hope to get on sans l’argent—i.e. money.

Love?—no;—ladies like little cadeaux from a suitor.

Liquor?—no,—that won’t do, when reduced to “the Pewter.”—

Then Law?—’tis the same;

It’s a very fine game,

But the fees and delays of “the Courts” are a shame,

As Lord Brougham says himself—who’s a very great name,

Though the Times made it clear he was perfectly lost in his

Classic attempt at translating Demosthenes,

And don’t know his “particles.”—

Who wrote the articles,

Showing his Greek up so, is not known very well;

Many thought Barnes, others Mitchell—some Merivale;

But it’s scarce worth debate,

Because from the date

Of my tale one conclusion we safely may draw,

Viz.: ’twas not François Xavier Auguste de St. Foix!

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Loo?—No;—that he had tried;

’Twas, in fact, his weak side,

But required more than any a purse well supplied.

“Love?—Liquor?—Law?—Loo? No! ’tis all the same story.

Stay! I have it—Ma foi! (that’s “Odd’s Bobs!”) there is Glory!

Away with dull care!

Vive le Roi! Vive la Guerre!

Peste! I’d almost forgot I’m a Black Mousquetaire!

When a man is like me,

Sans six sous, sans souci,

A bankrupt in purse,

And in character worse,

With a shocking bad hat, and his credit at zero,

What on earth can he hope to become,—but a Hero?

What a famous thought this is!

I’ll go as Ulysses

Of old did—like him I’ll see manners and know countries;2

Cut Paris,—and gaming,—and throats in the Low Countries.”

So said, and so done—he arranged his affairs,

And was off like a shot to his Black Mousquetaires.

Now it happen’d just then

That Field-Marshal Turenne

Was a good deal in want of “some active young men,”

To fill up the gaps

Which through sundry mishaps,

Had been made in his ranks by a certain “Great Condé,”

A General unrivall’d—at least in his own day—

Whose valour was such,

That he did not care much

If he fought with the French,—or the Spaniards,—or Dutch,—

A fact which has stamped him a rather “Cool hand,”

Being nearly related to Louis le Grand.

It had been all the same had that King been his brother;

He fought sometimes with one, and sometimes with another;

For war, so exciting,

He took such delight in,

He did not care whom he fought, so he was fighting.

And, as I’ve just said, had amused himself then

By tickling the tail of Field-Marshal Turenne;

Since which, the Field-Marshal’s most pressing concern

Was to tickle some other Chief’s tail in his turn.

What a fine thing a battle is!—not one of those

Which one saw at the late Mr. Andrew Ducrow’s,

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Where a dozen of scene-shifters, drawn up in rows,

Would a dozen more scene-shifters boldly oppose,

Taking great care their blows

Did not injure their foes,

And alike, save in colour and cut of their clothes,

Which were varied, to give more effect to “Tableaux,”

While Stickney the Great

Flung the gauntlet to Fate,

And made us all tremble, so gallantly did he come

On to encounter bold General Widdicombe—

But a real good fight, like Pultowa, or Lützen

(Which Gustavus the Great ended all his disputes in),

Or that which Suwarrow engaged without boots in,

Or Dettingen, Fontenoy, Blenheim, or Minden,

Or the one Mr. Campbell describes, Hohenlinden,

Where “the sun was low,”

The ground all over snow,

And dark as mid-winter the swift Iser’s flow,—

Till its colour was altered by General Moreau:

While the big drum was heard in the dead of the night,

Which rattled the Bard out of bed in a fright,

And he ran up the steeple to look at the fight.

’Twas in just such another one

(Names only bother one—

Dutch ones indeed are sufficient to smother one),—

In the Netherlands somewhere—I cannot say where—

Suffice it that there

La Fortune de guerre

Gave a cast of her calling to our Mousquetaire.

One fine morning, in short, François Xavier Auguste,

After making some scores of his foes “bite the dust,”

Got a mouthful himself of the very same crust;

And though, as the Bard says, “No law is more just

Than for Necis artifices,”—so they call’d fiery

Soldados at Rome,—“arte suâ perire,”

Yet Fate did not draw

This poetical law

To its fullest extent in the case of St. Foix.

His Good Genius most probably found out some flaw,

And diverted the shot

From some deadlier spot

To a bone which, I think, to the best of my memory, ’s

Call’d by Professional men the “os femoris;”

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And the ball being one of those named from its shape,

And some fancied resemblance it bears to the grape,

St. Foix went down,

With a groan and a frown,

And a hole in his small-clothes the size of a crown.—

—Stagger’d a bit

By this “palpable hit,”

He turn’d on his face, and went off in a fit.

Yes! a Battle’s a very fine thing while you’re fighting,

These same Ups-and-Downs are so very exciting.

So go back to your canter; for one, I declare,

Is now fumbling about our capsized Mousquetaire,

A beetle-browed hag,

With a knife and a bag,

And an old tatter’d bonnet which, thrown back, discloses

The ginger complexion, and one of those noses

Peculiar to females named Levy and Moses,

Such as nervous folks still, when they come in their way, shun,

Old vixen-faced tramps of the Hebrew persuasion.

You remember, I trust,

François Xavier Auguste,

Had uncommon fine limbs, and a very fine bust.

Now there’s something—I cannot tell what it may be—

About good-looking gentlemen turn’d twenty-three,

Above all when laid up with a wound in the knee,

Which affects female hearts in no common degree,

With emotions in which many feelings combine,

Very easy to fancy, though hard to define;

Ugly or pretty,

Stupid or witty,

Young or old, they experience, in country or city,

What’s clearly not Love—yet it’s warmer than Pity—

And some such a feeling, no doubt, ’tis that stays

The hand you may see that old Jezebel raise,

Arm’d with the blade,

So oft used in her trade

The horrible calling e’en now she is plying,

Despoiling the dead, and despatching the dying!

For these “nimble Conveyancers,” after such battles,

Regarding as treasure trove all goods and chattels,

Think nought, in “perusing and settling” the titles,

So safe as six inches of steel in the vitals.

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Now don’t make a joke of,

That feeling I spoke of;

For, as sure as you’re born, that same feeling,—whate’er

It may be, saves the life of the young Mousquetaire!—

The knife, that was levell’d erewhile at his throat,

Is employ’d now in ripping the lace from his coat,

And from what, I suppose, I must call his culotte;

And his pockets, no doubt,

Being turned inside out,

That his mouchoir and gloves may be put “up the spout”

(For of coin, you may well conceive, all she can do

Fails to ferret out even a single écu);

As a muscular Giant would handle an elf,

The virago at last lifts the soldier himself,

And, like a She-Samson, at length lays him down

In a hospital form’d in the neighbouring town!

I am not very sure,

But I think ’twas Namur;

And there she now leaves him, expecting a cure.

CANTO II.

I abominate physic—I care not who knows

That there’s nothing on earth I detest like “a dose,”—

That yellowish-green-looking fluid, whose hue

I consider extremely unpleasant to view,

With its sickly appearance, that trenches so near

On what Homer defines the complexion of Fear;

Χλωρον δεος, I mean,

A nasty pale green,

Though for want of some word that may better avail,

I presume, our translators have rendered it “pale;”

For consider the cheeks

Of those “well-booted Greeks,”

Their Egyptian descent was a question of weeks;

Their complexion, of course, like a half-decayed leek’s;

And you’ll see in an instant the thing that I mean in it,

A Greek face in a funk had a good deal of green in it.

I repeat, I abominate physic; but then,

If folks will go campaigning about with such men

As the Great Prince de Condé and Marshal Turenne,

They may fairly expect

To be now and then check’d

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By a bullet, or sabre-cut. Then their best solace is

Found, I admit, in green potions and boluses;

So, of course, I don’t blame

St. Foix, wounded and lame,

If he swallowed a decent quant. suff. of the same;

Though I’m told, in such cases, it’s not the French plan

To pour in their drastics as fast as they can,

The practice of many an English Savan,

But to let off a man

With a little ptisanne,

And gently to chafe the patella (knee-pan).

“Oh, woman!” Sir Walter observes, “when the brow

’s wrung with pain, what a minist’ring Angel art thou!”

Thou’rt a “minist’ring Angel” in no less degree,

I can boldly assert, when the pain’s in the knee:

And medical friction

Is, past contradiction,

Much better performed by a She than a He.

A fact which, indeed, comes within my own knowledge,

For I well recollect, when a youngster at College,

And, therefore, can quote

A surgeon of note,

Mr. Grosvenor of Oxford, who not only wrote

On the subject a very fine treatise, but, still as his

Patients came in, certain soft-handed Phyllises

Were at once set to work on their legs, arms, and backs,

And rubbed out their complaints in a couple of cracks.—

Now, they say,

To this day,

When sick people can’t pay

On the Continent, many of this kind of nurses

Attend, without any demand on their purses;

And these females, some old, others still in their teens,

Some call “Sisters of Charity,” others “Beguines.”

They don’t take the vows; but, half-Nun and half-Lay,

Attend you; and when you’ve got better, they say,

“You’re exceedingly welcome! There’s nothing to pay.

Our task is now done;

You are able to run.

We never take money; we cure you for fun!”

Then they drop you a court’sy, and wish you good day,

And go off to cure somebody else the same way.

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—A great many of these, at the date of my tale,

In Namur walk’d the hospitals, workhouse, and jail.

Among them was one,

A most sweet Demi-nun,

Her cheek pensive and pale; tresses bright as the Sun,—

Not carroty—no; though you’d fancy you saw burn

Such locks as the Greeks lov’d, which moderns call auburn.

These were partially seen through the veil which they wore all,

Her teeth were of pearl, and her lips were of coral;

Her eye-lashes silken; her eyes, fine large blue ones,

Were sapphires (I don’t call these similes new ones;

But, in metaphors, freely confess I’ve a leaning

To such, new or old, as convey best one’s meaning).—

Then, for figure? In faith it was downright barbarity

To muffle a form

Might an anchorite warm

In the fusty stuff gown of a Sœur de la Charité;

And no poet could fancy, no painter could draw

One more perfect in all points, more free from a flaw,

Than hers who now sits by the couch of St. Foix,

Chafing there,

With such care,

And so dove-like an air,

His leg, till her delicate fingers are charr’d

With the Steer’s opodeldoc, joint-oil, and goulard;

—Their Dutch appellations are really too hard

To be brought into verse by a transmarine Bard.—

Now you’ll see,

And agree,

I am certain, with me,

When a young man’s laid up with a wound in his knee

And a Lady sits there,

On a rush-bottom’d chair,

To hand him the mixtures his doctors prepare,

And a bit of lump-sugar to make matters square;

Above all, when the Lady’s remarkably fair,

And the wounded young man is a gay Mousquetaire,

It’s a ticklish affair, you may swear, for the pair,

And may lead on to mischief before they’re aware.

I really don’t think, spite of what friends would call his

“Penchant for liaisons,” and graver men “follies”

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(For my own part, I think planting thorns on their pillows,

And leaving poor maidens to weep and wear willows,

Is not to be classed among mere peccadillos),

His “faults,” I should say—I don’t think François Xavier

Entertain’d any thoughts of improper behaviour

Tow’rds his nurse, or that once to induce her to sin he meant

While superintending his draughts and his liniment:

But, as he grew stout,

And was getting about,

Thoughts came into his head that had better been out;

While Cupid’s an urchin

We know deserves birching,

He’s so prone to delude folks, and leave them the lurch in.

’Twas doubtless his doing

That absolute ruin

Was the end of all poor dear Therèse’s shampooing.—

’Tis a subject I don’t like to dwell on; but such

Things will happen—ay, e’en ’mongst the phlegmatic Dutch.

These wring the false one’s heart enough,

If “made of penetrable stuff.”

And poor Therèse

Thus pines and decays,

Till, stung with remorse, St. Foix takes a post-chaise

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With, for “wheelers,” two bays,

And, for “leaders,” two greys,

And soon reaches France, by the help of relays.

Flying shabbily off from the sight of his victim,

And driving as fast as if Old Nick had kick’d him.

She, poor sinner,

Grows thinner and thinner,

Leaves off eating breakfast, and luncheon, and dinner,

Till you’d really suppose she could have nothing in her.—

One evening—’twas just as the clock struck eleven—

They saw she’d been sinking fast ever since seven,—

She breath’d one deep sigh, threw one look up to Heaven,

And all was o’er!—

Poor Therèse was no more—

She was gone!—the last breath that she managed to draw

Escaped in one half-utter’d word—’twas “St. Foix!”

Who can fly from himself? Bitter cares, when you feel ’em,

Are not cured by travel—as Horace says, “Cœlum

Non animum mutant qui currunt trans mare!”

It’s climate, not mind, that by roaming men vary—

Remorse for temptation to which you have yielded, is

A shadow you can’t sell as Peter Schlemil did his;

It haunts you for ever—in bed and at board.—

Ay, e’en in your dreams,

And you can’t find, it seems,

Any proof that a guilty man ever yet snored!

It is much if he slumbers at all, which but few,

—François Xavier Auguste was an instance—can do.

Indeed, from the time

He committed the crime

Which cut off poor sister Therèse in her prime,

He was not the same man that he had been—his plan

Was quite changed—in wild freaks he no more led the van;

He’d scarce sleep a wink in

A week; but sit thinking,

From company shrinking—

He quite gave up drinking.

At the mess-table, too, where now seldom he came,

Fish, fricassee, fricandeau, potage, or game,

Dindon aux truffes, or turbot à la crême,

No!—he still shook his head,—it was always the same,

Still he never complained that the cook was to blame!

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’Twas his appetite fail’d him—no matter how rare

And recherché the dish, how delicious the fare,—

What he used to like best he no longer could bear;

But he’d there sit and stare

With an air of despair;

Took no care, but would wear

Boots that wanted repair;

Such a shirt too! you’d think he’d no linen to spare.

He omitted to shave; he neglected his hair,

And look’d more like a Guy than a gay Mousquetaire.

One thing, above all, most excited remark;

In the evening he seldom sat long after dark.

Not that then, as of yore, he’d go out for “a lark”

With his friends; but when they,

After taking café,

Would have broiled bones and kidneys brought in on a tray,

—Which I own I consider a very good way,

If a man’s not dyspeptic, to wind up the day—

No persuasion on earth could induce him to stay;

But he’d take up his candlestick, just nod his head,

By way of “Good evening!” and walk off to bed.

Yet even when there he seem’d no better off,

For he’d wheeze, and he’d sneeze, and he’d hem! and he’d cough.

And they’d hear him all night,

Sometimes sobbing outright,

While his valet, who often endeavoured to peep,

Declared that “his master was never asleep!

But would sigh, and would groan, slap his forehead, and weep;

That about ten o’clock

His door he would lock,

And then never would open it, let who would knock!—

He had heard him,” he said,

“Sometimes jump out of bed,

And talk as if speaking to one who was dead!

He’d groan, and he’d moan,

In so piteous a tone,

Begging some one or other to let him alone,

That it really would soften the heart of a stone

To hear him exclaim so, and call upon Heaven

Then—The bother began always just at eleven!”

François Xavier Auguste, as I’ve told you before,

I believe was a popular man in his corps,

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And his comrades, not one

Of whom knew of the Nun,

Now began to consult what was best to be done.

Count Cordon Bleu

And the Sieur de la Roue

Confess’d they did not know at all what to do:

But the Chevalier Hippolyte Hector Achille

Alphonse Stanislaus Emile de Grandville

Made a fervent appeal

To the zeal they must feel

For their friend, so distinguished an officer, ’s weal,

“The first thing,” he said, “was to find out the matter

That bored their poor friend so, and caused all this clatter—

Mort de ma vie!”

—Here he took some rappee—

“Be the cause what it may, he shall tell it to me!”—

He was right, sure enough—in a couple of days

He worms out the whole story of Sister Therèse,

Now entomb’d, poor dear soul! in some Dutch Père la Chaise

—“But the worst thing of all,” François Xavier declares,

“Is, whenever I’ve taken my candle up stairs,

There’s Therèse sitting there—upon one of those chairs!

Such a frown, too, she wears,

And so frightfully glares,

That I’m really prevented from saying my pray’rs,

While an odour,—the very reverse of perfume,—

More like rhubarb or senna, pervades the whole room!”

Hector Achille

Stanislaus Emile,

When he heard him talk so felt an odd sort of feel;

Not that he cared for Ghosts—he was far too genteel—

Still a queerish sensation came on when he saw

Him, whom, for fun,

They’d, by way of a pun

On his person and principles, nick-named Sans Foi,

A man whom they had, you see,

Mark’d as a Sadducee,—

In his horns, all at once, so completely to draw,

And to talk of a Ghost, with such manifest awe!—

It excited the Chevalier Grandville’s surprise;

He shrugg’d up his shoulders, he turned up his eyes,

And he thought with himself that he could not do less

Than lay the whole matter before the whole Mess.

Repetition’s detestable;—

So, as you’re best able,

Paint to yourself the effect at the Mess-table—

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How the bold Brigadiers

Prick’d up their ears,

And received the account, some with fears, some with sneers.

How the Sieur de la Roue

Said to Count Cordon Bleu,

“Ma foi—c’est bien drôle—Monseigneur, what say you?”—

How Count Cordon Bleu

Declared he “thought so too;”—

How the Colonel affirm’d that “the case was quite new;”—

How the Captains and Majors

Began to lay wagers

How far the Ghost part of the story was true;—

How, at last, when asked “What was the best thing to do?”

Everybody was silent,—for nobody knew!—

And how, in the end, they said, “No one could deal

With the matter so well, from his prudence and zeal,

As the Gentleman who was the first to reveal

This strange story—viz. Hippolyte Hector Achille

Alphonse Stanislaus Emile de Grandville!”

I need scarcely relate

The plans, little and great,

Which came into the Chevalier Hippolyte’s pate

To rescue his friend from his terrible foes,

Those mischievous Imps, whom the world, I suppose

From extravagant notions respecting their hue,

Has strangely agreed to denominate “Blue,”

Inasmuch as his schemes were of no more avail

Than those he had, early in life, found to fail,

When he strove to lay salt on some little bird’s tail.

In vain did he try

With strong waters to ply

His friend, on the ground that he never could spy

Such a thing as a Ghost, with a drop in his eye;

St. Foix never would drink now unless he was dry;

Besides, what the vulgar call “sucking the monkey”

Has much less effect on a man when he’s funky.

In vain did he strive to detain him at table

Till his “dark hour” was over—he never was able,

Save once, when at Mess,

With that sort of address,

Which the British call “Humbug,” and Frenchmen “Finesse”

(It’s “Blarney” in Irish—I don’t know the Scotch),

He fell to admiring his friend’s English watch.3

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He examined the face,

And the back of the case,

And the young Lady’s portrait there, done on enamel, he

“Saw by the likeness was one of the family;”

Cried “Superbe!—Magnifique!”

(With his tongue in his cheek)—

Then he open’d the case, just to take a peep in it, and

Seized the occasion to pop back the minute hand.

With a demi-congé, and a shrug, and a grin, he

Returns the bijou and—c’est une affaire finie—

“I’ve done him,” thinks he, “now, I’ll wager a guinea!”

It happen’d that day

They were all very gay,

’Twas the Grand Monarque’s birthday—that is, ’twas St. Louis’s,

Which in Catholic countries, of course, they would view as his—

So when Hippolyte saw

Him about to withdraw,

He cried, “Come—that won’t do, my fine fellow, St. Foix,—

Give us five minutes longer, and drink Vive le Roi!”

François Xavier Auguste,

Without any mistrust,

Of the trick that was play’d, drew his watch from his fob,

Just glanced at the hour, then agreed to “hob-nob,”

Fill’d a bumper, and rose

With “Messieurs, I propose—”

He paused—his blanch’d lips fail’d to utter the toast.

’Twas eleven!—he thought it half-past ten at most—

Ev’ry limb, nerve, and muscle grew stiff as a post,—

His jaw dropp’d—his eyes

Swell’d to twice their own size—

And he stood as a pointer would stand—at a Ghost!

—Then shriek’d, as he fell on the floor like a stone,

“Ah! Sister Therèse! now—do let me alone!”

It’s amazing by sheer perseverance what men do,—

As water wears stone by the “Sæpe cadendo,”

If they stick to Lord Somebody’s motto, “Agendo!”

Was it not Robert Bruce?—I declare I’ve forgot,

But I think it was Robert—you’ll find it in Scott—

Who, when cursing Dame Fortune, was taught by a Spider,

“She’s sure to come round, if you will but abide her.”

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Then another great Rob,

Called “White-headed Bob,”

Whom I once saw receive such a thump on the “nob”

From a fist which might almost an elephant brain,

That I really believed, at the first, he was slain,

For he lay like a log on his back on the plain,

Till a gentleman present accustomed to train,

Drew out a small lancet, and open’d a vein

Just below his left eye, which relieving the pain,

He stood up like a trump, with an air of disdain,

While his “backer” was fain—

For he could not refrain

(He was dress’d in pea-green, with a pin and gold chain,

And I think I heard somebody call him “Squire Hayne”),—

To whisper ten words one should always retain,

—“Take a suck at the lemon and at him again!!!”—

A hint ne’er surpass’d, though thus spoken at random,

Since Teucer’s apostrophe—Nil desperandum!

Granville acted on it, and order’d his Tandem,

He had heard St. Foix say,

That no very great way

From Namur was a snug little town called Grandpré,

Near which, a few miles from the banks of the Maese,

Dwelt a pretty twin-sister of poor dear Therèse,

Of the same age, of course, the same father, same mother,

And as like to Therèse as one pea to another;

She liv’d with her Mamma,

Having lost her Papa,

Late of contraband schnaps an unlicensed distiller,

And her name was Des Moulins (in English, Miss Miller).

Now, though Hippolyte Hector

Could hardly expect her

To feel much regard for her sister’s “protector,”

When she’d seen him so shamefully leave and neglect her;

Still, he very well knew

In this world there are few

But are ready much Christian forgiveness to shew,

For other folk’s wrongs—if well paid so to do—

And he’d seen to what acts “Res angustæ” compel beaux

And belles, whose affairs have once got out at elbows,

With the magic effect of a handful of crowns

Upon people whose pockets boast nothing but “browns:”

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A few francs well applied

He’d no doubt would decide

Miss Agnes Des Moulins to jump up and ride

As far as head-quarters, next day, by his side;

For the distance was nothing, to speak by comparison,

To the town where the Mousquetaires now lay in garrison;

Then he thought, by the aid

Of a veil, and gown made

Like those worn by the lady his friend had betray’d,

They might dress up Miss Agnes so like to the Shade,

Which he fancied he saw, of that poor injured maid,

Come each night, with her pale face, his guilt to upbraid;

That if once introduced to his room, thus array’d,

And then unmask’d as soon as she’d long enough stay’d,

’Twould be no very difficult task to persuade

Him the whole was a scurvy trick, cleverly play’d,

Out of spite and revenge, by a mischievous jade!

With respect to the scheme—though I do not call that a gem—

Still I’ve known soldiers adopt a worse stratagem,

And that, too, among the decided approvers

Of General Sir David Dundas’s “Manœuvres.”

There’s a proverb, however,

I’ve always thought clever,

Which my Grandmother never was tired of repeating,

“The proof of the Pudding is found in the eating!”

We shall see, in the sequel, how Hector Achille

Had mix’d up the suet and plums for his meal.

The night had set in;—’twas a dark and a gloomy one:—

Off went St. Foix to his chamber; a roomy one.

Five stories high,

The first floor from the sky,

And lofty enough to afford great facility

For playing a game, with the youthful nobility,

Of “crack corps,” a deal in

Request, when they’re feeling,

In dull country quarters, ennui on them stealing;

A wet wafer’s applied

To a sixpence’s side,

Then it’s spun with the thumb up to stick on the ceiling;

Intellectual amusement, which custom allows old troops,—

I’ve seen it here practised at home by our Household troops.

He’d a table, and bed,

And three chairs; and all’s said.—

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A bachelor’s barrack, where’er you discern it, you’re

Sure not to find overburthen’d with furniture.

François Xavier Auguste lock’d and bolted his door

With just the same caution he’d practised before;

Little he knew

That the Count Cordon Bleu,

With Hector Achille, and the Sieur de la Roue,

Had been up there before him, and drawn ev’ry screw!

And now comes the moment—the watches and clocks

All point to eleven!—the bolts and the locks

Give way—and the party turn out their bag-fox!—

With step noiseless and light,

Though half in a fright,

A cup in her left hand, a draught in her right,

In her robe long and black, and her veil long and white,

Ma’amselle Agnes de Moulins walks in as a sprite!—

She approaches the bed

With the same silent tread,

Just as though she had been at least half a year dead!

Then seating herself on the “rush-bottom’d chair,”

Throws a cold stony glance on the Black Mousquetaire.

If you’re one of the “play-going public,” kind reader,

And not a Moravian or rigid Seceder,

You’ve seen Mr. Kean,

I mean in that scene

Of Macbeth,—by some thought the crack one of the piece,

Which has been so well painted by Mr. M‘Clise,—

When he wants, after having stood up to say grace,4

To sit down to his haggis, and can’t find a place;

You remember his stare

At the high-back’d arm-chair,

Where the Ghost sits that nobody else knows is there,

And how, after saying “What man dares I dare!”

He proceeds to declare

He should not so much care

If it came in the shape of a “tiger” or “bear,”

But he don’t like it shaking its long gory hair!

While the obstinate Ghost, as determined to brave him,

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With a horrible grin,

Sits, and cocks up his chin,

Just as though he was asking the tyrant to shave him.

And Lennox and Rosse

Seem quite at a loss

If they ought to go on with their sheep’s head and sauce;

And Lady Macbeth looks uncommonly cross,

And says in a huff,

It’s all “Proper stuff!”—

All this you’ll have seen, Reader, often enough;

So perhaps ’twill assist you in forming some notion

Of what must have been François Xavier’s emotion

If you fancy what troubled

Macbeth to be doubled,

And, instead of one Banquo to stare in his face

Without “speculation,” suppose he’d a brace!

I wish I’d poor Fuseli’s pencil, who ne’er I bel-

ieve was exceeded in painting the terrible,

Or that of Sir Joshua

Reynolds, who was so a-

droit in depicting it—vide his piece

Descriptive of Cardinal Beaufort’s decease,

Where that prelate is lying,

Decidedly dying,

With the King and his suite,

Standing just at his feet,

And his hands, as Dame Quickly says, fumbling the sheet;

While, close at his ear, with the air of a scorner,

“Busy, meddling,” old Nick’s grinning up in the corner.

But painting’s an art I confess I am raw in,

The fact is, I never took lessons in drawing,

Had I done so, instead

Of the lines you have read,

I’d have giv’n you a sketch should have fill’d you with dread!

François Xavier Auguste squatting up in his bed,

His hands widely spread,

His complexion like lead,

Ev’ry hair that he has standing up on his head,

As when, Agnes des Moulins first catching his view,

Now right, and now left, rapid glances he threw,

Then shriek’d with a wild and unearthly holloo,

“Mon Dieu! v’là deux!

By the Pope there are two!!!”

He fell back—one long aspiration he drew.

In flew De la Roue,

And Count Cordon Bleu,

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Pommade, Pomme-de-terre, and the rest of their crew,

He stirr’d not,—he spoke not,—he none of them knew!

And Achille cried “Odzooks!

I fear by his looks,

Our friend, François Xavier, has popp’d off the hooks!”

’Twas too true!

Malheureux!!

It was done!—he had ended his earthly career,—

He had gone off at once with a flea in his ear;

—The Black Mousquetaire was as dead as Small-beer!!

L’Envoye.

A moral more in point I scarce could hope

Than this, from Mr. Alexander Pope.

If ever chance should bring some Cornet gay

And pious Maid,—as, possibly, it may,—

From Knightsbridge Barracks, and the shades serene

Of Clapham Rise, as far as Kensal Green;

O’er some pale marble when they join their heads

To kiss the falling tears each other sheds;

Oh! may they pause!—and think, in silent awe,

He, that reads the words, “Ci gît St. Foix!”

She, that the tombstone which her eye surveys

Bears this sad line,—“Hic jacet Sœur Therèse!”—

Then shall they sigh, and weep, and murmuring say,

“Oh! may we never play such tricks as they!”—

And if at such a time some Bard there be,

Some sober Bard, addicted much to tea

And sentimental song—like Ingoldsby—

If such there be—who sings and sips so well,

Let him this sad, this tender story tell!

Warn’d by the tale, the gentle pair shall boast,

“I’ve ’scaped the Broken Heart!”—“and I the Ghost!!”

SIR RUPERT THE FEARLESS, a gallant young knight,

Was equally ready to tipple or fight,

Crack a crown, or a bottle,

Cut sirloin, or throttle!

In brief, or, as Hume says, “to sum up the tottle,”

Unstain’d by dishonour, unsullied by fear,

All his neighbours pronounced him a preux chevalier.

Despite these perfections, corporeal and mental,

He had one slight defect, viz., a rather lean rental;

Besides, as ’tis own’d there are spots in the sun,

So it must be confessed that Sir Rupert had one;

Being rather unthinking,

He’d scarce sleep a wink in

A night, but addict himself sadly to drinking,

And what moralists say,

Is as naughty—to play,

To Rouge et Noir, Hazard, Short Whist, Ecarté;

Till these, and a few less defensible fancies

Brought the Knight to the end of his slender finances.

When at length through his boozing,

And tenants refusing

Their rents, swearing “times were so bad they were losing,”

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His steward said, “O, sir,

It’s some time ago, sir,

Since aught through my hands reach’d the baker or grocer,

And the tradesmen in general are grown great complainers,”

Sir Rupert the Brave thus address’d his retainers:

“My friends, since the stock

Of my father’s old hock

Is out, with the Kürchwasser, Barsac, Moselle,

And we’re fairly reduced to the pump and the well,

I presume to suggest,

We shall all find it best

For each to shake hands with his friends ere he goes,

Mount his horse, if he has one, and—follow his nose;

As to me, I opine,

Left sans money or wine,

My best way is to throw myself into the Rhine,

Where pitying trav’llers may sigh, as they cross over,

‘Though he lived a roué, yet he died a philosopher.’”

The knight, having bow’d out his friends thus politely,

Got into his skiff, the full moon shining brightly,

By the light of whose beam,

He soon spied on the stream

A dame, whose complexion was fair as new cream;

Pretty pink silken hose

Cover’d ankles and toes,

In other respects she was scanty of clothes;

For, so says tradition, both written and oral,

Her one garment was loop’d up with bunches of coral.

Full sweetly she sang to a sparkling guitar,

With silver chords stretch’d over Derbyshire spar,

And she smiled on the Knight,

Who, amazed at the sight,

Soon found his astonishment merged in delight;

But the stream by degrees

Now rose up to her knees,

Till at length it invaded her very chemise,

While the heavenly strain, as the wave seem’d to swallow her,

And slowly she sank, sounded fainter and hollower;

—Jumping up in his boat

And discarding his coat,

“Here goes,” cried Sir Rupert, “by jingo, I’ll follow her!”

Then into the water he plunged with a souse

That was heard quite distinctly by those in the house.

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Down, down, forty fathom and more from the brink,

Sir Rupert the Fearless continues to sink,

And, as downward he goes,

Still the cold water flows

Through his ears, and his eyes, and his mouth, and his nose,

Till the rum and the brandy he’d swallow’d since lunch

Wanted nothing but lemon to fill him with punch;

Some minutes elapsed since he enter’d the flood,

Ere his heels touch’d the bottom, and stuck in the mud.

But oh! what a sight

Met the eyes of the Knight,

When he stood in the depth of the stream bolt upright!—

A grand stalactite hall,

Like the cave of Fingal,

Rose above and about him;—great fishes and small

Came thronging around him, regardless of danger,

And seem’d all agog for a peep at the stranger.

Their figures and forms to describe, language fails—

They’d such very odd heads, and such very odd tails;

Of their genus or species a sample to gain,

You would ransack all Hungerford market in vain;

E’en the famed Mr. Myers,

Would scarcely find buyers,

Though hundreds of passengers doubtless would stop

To stare, were such monsters exposed in his shop.

But little reck’d Rupert these queer-looking brutes,

Or the efts and the newts

That crawled up his boots,

For a sight, beyond any of which I’ve made mention,

In a moment completely absorb’d his attention.

A huge crystal bath, which, with water far clearer

Than George Robins’ filters, or Thorpe’s (which are dearer),

Have ever distill’d,

To the summit was fill’d,

Lay stretch’d out before him,—and every nerve thrill’d

As scores of young women

Were diving and swimming,

Till the vision a perfect quandary put him in;—

All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns,

They came floating about him like so many prawns.

Sir Rupert, who (barring the few peccadilloes

Alluded to) ere he leapt into the billows

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Possessed irreproachable morals, began

To feel rather queer, as a modest young man;

When forth stepp’d a dame, whom he recognised soon

As the one he had seen by the light of the moon,

And lisp’d, while a soft smile attended each sentence,

“Sir Rupert, I’m happy to make your acquaintance;

My name is Lurline,

And the ladies you’ve seen

All do me the honour to call me their Queen;

I’m delighted to see you, sir, down in the Rhine here,

And hope you can make it convenient to dine here.”

The Knight blush’d and bow’d

As he ogled the crowd

Of subaqueous beauties, then answer’d aloud:

“Ma’am, you do me much honour,—I cannot express

The delight I shall feel—if you’ll pardon my dress.—

May I venture to say, when a gentleman jumps

In the river at midnight for want of ‘the dumps,’

He rarely puts on his knee-breeches and pumps;

If I could but have guess’d—what I sensibly feel—

Your politeness—I’d not have come en deshabille,

But have put on my silk tights in lieu of my steel.”

Quoth the lady, “Dear sir, no apologies, pray,

You will take our ‘pot-luck’ in the family way;

We can give you a dish

Of some decentish fish,

And our water’s thought fairish; but here in the Rhine

I can’t say we pique ourselves much on our wine.”

The Knight made a bow more profound than before,

When a Dory-faced page oped the dining-room door,

And said, bending his knee,

“Madame, on a servi!”

Rupert tender’d his arm, led Lurline to her place,

And a fat little Mer-man stood up and said grace.

What boots it to tell of the viands, or how she

Apologised much for their plain water-souchy,

Want of Harvey’s, and Crosse’s,

And Burgess’s sauces?

Or how Rupert, on his side, protested, by Jove, he

Preferr’d his fish plain, without soy or anchovy.

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Suffice it the meal

Boasted trout, perch, and eel,

Besides some remarkably fine salmon peel.

The Knight, sooth to say, thought much less of the fishes

Than of what they were served on, the massive gold dishes;

While his eye, as it glanced now and then on the girls,

Was caught by their persons much less than their pearls,

And a thought came across him and caused him to muse,

“If I could but get hold

Of some of that gold,

I might manage to pay off my rascally Jews!”

When dinner was done, at a sign to the lasses,

The table was clear’d, and they put on fresh glasses;

Then the lady addrest

Her redoubtable guest

Much as Dido, of old, did the pious Eneas,

“Dear sir, what induced you to come down and see us?”—

Rupert gave her a glance most bewitchingly tender,

Loll’d back in his chair, put his toes on the fender,

And told her outright,

How that he, a young Knight,

Had never been last at a feast or a fight;

But that keeping good cheer,

Every day in the year,

And drinking neat wines all the same as small-beer,

Had exhausted his rent,

And, his money all spent,

How he borrow’d large sums at two hundred per cent;

How they follow’d—and then,

The once civillest of men,

Messrs. Howard and Gibbs, made him bitterly rue it he

’d ever raised money by way of annuity;

And, his mortgages being about to foreclose,

How he jump’d in the river to finish his woes!

Lurline was affected, and own’d, with a tear,

That a story so mournful had ne’er met her ear;

Rupert, hearing her sigh,

Look’d uncommonly sly,

And said, with some emphasis, “Ah! miss, had I

A few pounds of those metals

You waste here on kettles,

Then, Lord once again

Of my spacious domain,

A free Count of the Empire once more I might reign,

With Lurline at my side,

My adorable bride

(For the parson should come, and the knot should be tied);

249

No couple so happy on earth should be seen

As Sir Rupert the Brave and his charming Lurline;

Not that money’s my object—No, hang it! I scorn it—

And as for my rank—but that you’d so adorn it—

I’d abandon it all

To remain your true thrall,

And instead of ‘the Great,’ be call’d ‘Rupert the Small;’

—To gain but your smiles, were I Sardanapalus,

I’d descend from my throne, and be boots at an alehouse.”5

Lurline hung her head,

Turn’d pale, and then red,

Growing faint at this sudden proposal to wed,

As though his abruptness, in “popping the question”

So soon after dinner, disturb’d her digestion.

Then, averting her eye,

With a lover-like sigh,

“You are welcome,” she murmur’d in tones most bewitching,

“To every utensil I have in my kitchen!”

Up started the Knight,

Half mad with delight,

Round her finely-form’d waist

He immediately placed

One arm, which the lady most closely embraced,

Of her lily-white fingers the other made capture,

And he press’d his adored to his bosom with rapture.

“And, oh!” he exclaim’d, “let them go catch my skiff, I

’ll be home in a twinkling and back in a jiffy,

Nor one moment procrastinate longer my journey

Than to put up the banns and kick out the attorney.”

One kiss to her lip, and one squeeze to her hand,

And Sir Rupert already was half-way to land,

For a sour-visaged Triton,

With features would frighten

Old Nick, caught him up in one hand, though no light one,

Sprang up through the waves, popp’d him into his funny,

Which some others already had half-fill’d with money;

In fact, ’twas so heavily laden with ore

And pearls, ’twas a mercy he got it to shore:

But Sir Rupert was strong,

And while pulling along,

Still he heard, faintly sounding, the water-nymphs’ song.

250

LAY OF THE NAIADS.

“Away! away! to the mountain’s brow,

Where the castle is darkly frowning;

And the vassals, all in goodly row,

Weep for their lord a-drowning!

Away! away! to the steward’s room,

Where law with its wig and robe is;

Throw us out John Doe and Richard Roe,

And sweetly we’ll tickle their tobies!”

The unearthly voices scarce had ceased their yelling,

When Rupert reach’d his old baronial dwelling.

What rejoicing was there!

How the vassals did stare!

The old housekeeper put a clean shirt down to air,

For she saw by her lamp

That her master’s was damp,

And she fear’d he’d catch cold, and lumbago and cramp;

But, scorning what she did,

The Knight never heeded

Wet jacket or trousers, nor thought of repining,

Since their pockets had got such a delicate lining,

But oh! what dismay

Fill’d the tribe of Ca Sa,

When they found he’d the cash, and intended to pay!

Away went “cognovits,” “bills,” “bonds,” and “escheats,”—

Rupert clear’d off all scores, and took proper receipts.

Now no more he sends out

For pots of brown stout,

Or schnaps, but resolves to do henceforth without,

Abjure from this hour all excess and ebriety,

Enrol himself one of a Temp’rance Society,

All riot eschew,

Begin life anew,

And new-cushion and hassock the family pew!

Nay to strengthen him more in his new mode of life,

He boldly determines to take him a wife.

Now, many would think that the Knight, from a nice sense

Of honour, should put Lurline’s name in the licence,

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And that, for a man of his breeding and quality,

To break faith and troth,

Confirm’d by an oath,

Is not quite consistent with rigid morality;

But whether the nymph was forgot, or he thought her

From her essence scarce wife, but at best wife-and-water.

And declined as unsuited,

A bride so diluted—

Be this as it may,

He, I’m sorry to say

(For, all things consider’d, I own ’twas a rum thing),

Made proposals in form to Miss Una Von—something

(Her name has escaped me), sole heiress, and niece

To a highly respectable Justice of Peace.

“Thrice happy’s the wooing

That’s not long a-doing!”

So much time is saved in the billing and cooing—

The ring is now bought, the white favours, and gloves,

And all the et cetera which crown people’s loves;

A magnificent bride-cake comes home from the baker,

And lastly appears, from the German Long Acre,

That shaft which the sharpest in all Cupid’s quiver is,

A plum-colour’d coach, and rich Pompadour liveries.

’Twas a comely sight

To behold the Knight,

With his beautiful bride, dress’d all in white,

And the bridesmaids fair with their long lace veils,

As they all walk’d up to the altar rails,

While nice little boys, the incense dispensers,

March’d in front with white surplices, bands, and gilt censers.

With a gracious air, and a smiling look,

Mess John had opened his awful book,

And had read so far as to ask if to wed he meant?

And if “he knew any just cause or impediment?”

When from base to turret the castle shook!!!

Then came a sound of a mighty rain

Dashing against each storied pane,

The wind blew loud,

And a coal-black cloud

O’ershadowed the church, and the party, and crowd;

How it could happen they could not divine,

The morning had been so remarkably fine!

252

Still the darkness increased, till it reach’d such a pass!

That the sextoness hasten’d to turn on the gas;

But harder it pour’d,

And the thunder roar’d,

As if heaven and earth were coming together:

None ever had witness’d such terrible weather.

Now louder it crash’d,

And the lightning flash’d,

Exciting the fears

Of the sweet little dears

In the veils, as it danced on the brass chandeliers;

The parson ran off, though a stout-hearted Saxon,

When he found that a flash had set fire to his caxon.

Though all the rest trembled, as might be expected,

Sir Rupert was perfectly cool and collected,

And endeavour’d to cheer

His bride, in her ear

Whisp’ring tenderly, “Pray don’t be frighten’d, my dear;

Should it even set fire to the castle, and burn it, you’re

Amply insured both for buildings and furniture.”

But now, from without,

A trustworthy scout

Rush’d hurriedly in,

Wet through to the skin,

Informing his master “the river was rising,

And flooding the grounds in a way quite surprising.”

He’d no time to say more,

For already the roar

Of the waters was heard as they reach’d the church-door,

While, high on the first wave that roll’d in, was seen,

Riding proudly, the form of the angry Lurline;

And all might observe, by her glance fierce and stormy,

She was stung by the spretæ injuria formæ.

What she said to the Knight, what she said to the bride,

What she said to the ladies who stood by her side,

What she said to the nice little boys in white clothes,

Oh, nobody mentions,—for nobody knows;

For the roof tumbled in, and the walls tumbled out,

And the folks tumbled down, all confusion and rout,

The rain kept on pouring,

The flood kept on roaring,

The billows and water-nymphs roll’d more and more in;

Ere the close of the day

All was clean wash’d away—

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One only survived who could hand down the news,

A little old woman that open’d the pews;

She was borne off, but stuck,

By the greatest good luck,

In an oak-tree, and there she hung, crying and screaming,

And saw all the rest swallow’d up the wild stream in;

In vain, all the week,

Did the fishermen seek

For the bodies, and poke in each cranny and creek;

In vain was their search,

After aught in the church,

They caught nothing but weeds, and perhaps a few perch;

The Humane Society

Tried a variety

Of methods, and brought down, to drag for the wreck, tackles,

But they only fish’d up the clerk’s tortoiseshell spectacles.

MORAL.

This tale has a moral. Ye youths, oh, beware

Of liquor, and how you run after the fair!

Shun playing at shorts—avoid quarrels and jars—

And don’t take to smoking those nasty cigars!

—Let no run of bad luck, or despair for some Jewess-eyed

Damsel, induce you to contemplate suicide!

Don’t sit up much later than ten or eleven!—

Be up in the morning by half after seven!

Keep from flirting—nor risk, warn’d by Rupert’s miscarriage,

An action for breach of a promise of marriage;—

Don’t fancy odd fishes!

Don’t prig silver dishes!

And to sum up the whole, in the shortest phrase I know,

Beware of the Rhine, and take care of the Rhino!

I BELIEVE there are few

But have heard of a Jew,

Named Shylock, of Venice, as arrant a “screw”

In money transactions as ever you knew;

An exorbitant miser, who never yet lent

A ducat at less than three hundred per cent,

Insomuch that the veriest spendthrift in Venice,

Who’d take no more care of his pounds than his pennies,

When press’d for a loan, at the very first sight

Of his terms, would back out, and take refuge in Flight.

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It is not my purpose to pause and inquire

If he might not, in managing thus to retire,

Jump out of the frying-pan into the fire;

Suffice it, that folks would have nothing to do,

Who could possibly help it, with Shylock the Jew.

But, however discreetly one cuts and contrives,

We’ve been most of us taught in the course of our lives,

That “Needs must when the Elderly Gentleman drives!”

In proof of this rule,

A thoughtless young fool,

Bassanio, a Lord of the Tomnoddy school,

Who, by showing at Operas, Balls, Plays, and Court,

A “swelling” (Payne Collier would read “swilling”) “port,”

And inviting his friends to dine, breakfast, and sup,

Had shrunk his “weak means,” and was “stump’d” and “hard up,”

Took occasion to send

To his very good friend

Antonio, a merchant whose wealth had no end,

And who’d often before had the kindness to lend

Him large sums, on his note, which he’d managed to spend.

“Antonio,” said he,

“Now listen to me;

I’ve just hit on a scheme which, I think you’ll agree,

All matters consider’d, is no bad design,

And which, if it succeeds, will suit your book and mine.

“In the first place, you know all the money I’ve got,

Time and often, from you has been long gone to pot,

And in making those loans you have made a bad shot;

Now do as the boys do when, shooting at sparrows

And tom-tits, they chance to lose one of their arrows,

—Shoot another the same way—I’ll watch well its track,

And, turtle to tripe, I’ll bring both of them back!—

So list to my plan,

And do what you can

To attend to and second it, that’s a good man!

“There’s a Lady, young, handsome, beyond all compare, at

A place they call Belmont, whom, when I was there, at

The suppers and parties my friend Lord Mountferrat

Was giving last season, we all used to stare at.

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Then, as to her wealth, her solicitor told mine,

Besides vast estates, a pearl-fishery, and gold mine,

Her iron strong box

Seems bursting its locks,

It’s stuffed so with shares in ‘Grand Junctions’ and ‘Docks,’

Not to speak of the money she’s got in the Stocks,

French, Dutch, and Brazilian,

Columbian, and Chilian,

In English Exchequer-bills full half a million,

Not ‘kites,’ manufactured to cheat and inveigle,

But the right sort of ‘flimsy,’ all signed by Monteagle.

Then I know not how much in Canal-shares and Railways,

And more speculations I need not detail, ways

Of vesting which, if not so safe as some think ’em.

Contribute a deal to improving one’s income;

In short, she’s a Mint!

—Now I say, deuce is in’t

If, with all my experience, I can’t take a hint,

And her ‘eye’s speechless messages,’ plainer than print

At the time that I told you of, known from a squint.

In short, my dear Tony,

My trusty old crony,

Do stump up three thousand once more as a loan—I

Am sure of my game—though, of course there are brutes,

Of all sorts and sizes, preferring their suits

To her, you may call the Italian Miss Coutts,

Yet Portia—she’s named from that daughter of Cato’s—

Is not to be snapp’d up like little potatoes,

And I have not a doubt

I shall rout every lout

Ere you’ll whisper Jack Robinson—cut them all out—

Surmount every barrier,

Carry her, marry her!

—Then hey! my old Tony, when once fairly noosed,

For her Three-and-a-half per Cents—New and Reduced!”

With a wink of his eye

His friend made reply

In his jocular manner, sly, caustic, and dry.

“Still the same boy, Bassanio—never say ‘die’!

—Well—I hardly know how I shall do ’t, but I’ll try,—

Don’t suppose my affairs are at all in a hash,

But the fact is, at present I’m quite out of cash;

The bulk of my property, merged in rich cargoes, is

Tossing about, as you know, in my Argosies,

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Tending, of course, my resources to cripple,—I

‘ve one bound to England,—another to Tripoli—

Cyprus—Masulipatam—and Bombay;—

A sixth, by the way,

I consigned t’other day

To Sir Gregor M‘Gregor, Cacique of Poyais,

A country where silver ’s as common as clay.

Meantime, till they tack,

And come, some of them, back,

What with Custom-house duties, and bills falling due,

My account with Jones Lloyd and Co. looks rather blue;

While, as for the ‘ready,’ I’m like a Church-mouse,—

I really don’t think there’s five pounds in the house.

But, no matter for that,

Let me just get my hat,

And my new silk umbrella that stands on the mat,

And we’ll go forth at once to the market—we two,—

And try what my credit in Venice can do;

I stand well on ’Change, and, when all’s said and done, I

Don’t doubt I shall get it for love or for money.”

They were going to go,

When, lo! down below,

In the street, they heard somebody crying, “Old Clo’!”

—“By the Pope, there’s the man for our purpose!—I knew

We should not have to search long. Solanio, run you,

—Salarino,—quick!—haste! ere he get out of view,

And call in that scoundrel, old Shylock the Jew!”

With a pack,

Like a sack

Of old clothes at his back,

And three hats on his head, Shylock came in a crack,

Saying, “Rest you fair, Signior Antonio!—vat, pray,

Might your vorship be pleashed for to vant in ma vay?”

—“Why, Shylock, although,

As you very well know,

I am what they call ‘warm,’—pay my way as I go,

And, as to myself, neither borrow nor lend,

I can break through a rule to oblige an old friend;

And that’s the case now—Lord Bassanio would raise

Some three thousand ducats—well,—knowing your ways,

And that nought’s to be got from you, say what one will,

Unless you’ve a couple of names to the bill,

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Why, for once, I’ll put mine to it,

Yea, seal and sign to it—

Now, then, old Sinner, let’s hear what you’ll say

As to ‘doing’ a bill at three months from to-day?

Three thousand gold ducats, mind—all in good bags

Of hard money—no sealing-wax, slippers, or rags?”

“—Vell, ma tear,” says the Jew,

“I’ll see vat I can do!

But Mishter Antonio, hark you, ’tish funny

You say to me, ‘Shylock, ma tear, ve’d have money!’

Ven you very vell knows,

How you shpit on my clothes,

And use naughty vords—calls me Dog—and avouch

Dat I put too much int’resht py half in ma pouch,

And vhile I, like de resht of ma tribe, shrug and crouch,

You find fault mit ma pargains, and say I’m a Smouch.

—Vell!—no matters, ma tear,—

Von vord in your ear!

I’d be friends mit you bote—and to make dat appear,

Vy, I’ll find you de monies as soon as you vill,

Only von littel joke musht be put in de pill;—

Ma tear, you musht say,

If on such and such day

Such sum or such sums, you shall fail to repay,

I shall cut vhere I like, as de pargain is proke,

A fair pound of your flesh—chest by vay of a joke.”

So novel a clause

Caused Bassanio to pause;

But Antonio, like most of those sage “Johnny Raws”

Who care not three straws

About Lawyers or Laws,

And think cheaply of “Old Father Antic,” because

They have never experienced a gripe from his claws,

“Pooh pooh’d” the whole thing.—“Let the Smouch have his way,

Why, what care I, pray,

For his penalty?—Nay,

It’s a forfeit he’d never expect me to pay:

And, come what come may,

I hardly need say

My ships will be back a full month ere the day.”

So, anxious to see his friend off on his journey,

And thinking the whole but a paltry concern, he

Affix’d with all speed

His name to a deed,

Duly stamp’d and drawn up by a sharp Jew attorney.

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Thus again furnish’d forth, Lord Bassanio, instead

Of squandering the cash, after giving one spread,

With fiddling and masques, at the Saracen’s Head,

In the morning “made play,”

And without more delay,

Started off in the steamboat for Belmont next day.

But scarcely had he

From the harbour got free,

And left the Lagunes for the broad open sea,

Ere the ’Change and Rialto both rung with the news

That he’d carried off more than mere cash from the Jew’s.

Though Shylock was old,

And, if rolling in gold,

Was as ugly a dog as you’d wish to behold,

For few in his tribe ’mongst their Levis and Moseses

Sported so Jewish an eye, beard, and nose as his,

Still, whate’er the opinions of Horace and some be,

Your aquilæ generate sometimes Columbæ,6

Like Jephthah, as Hamlet says, he’d “one fair daughter,”

And every gallant, who caught sight of her, thought her

A jewel—a gem of the very first water;

A great many sought her,

Till one at last caught her,

And, upsetting all that the Rabbis had taught her,

To feelings so truly reciprocal brought her,

That the very same night

Bassanio thought right

To give all his old friends that farewell “invite,”

And while Shylock was gone there to feed out of spite,

On “wings made by a tailor” the damsel took flight.

By these “wings” I’d express

A grey duffle dress,

With brass badge and muffin cap, made, as by rule,

For an upper-class boy in the National School.

Jessy ransack’d the house, popp’d her breeks on, and when so

Disguised, bolted off with her beau—one Lorenzo,

An “Unthrift,” who lost not a moment in whisking

Her into the boat,

And was fairly afloat

Ere her Pa had got rid of the smell of the griskin.

260

Next day, while old Shylock was making a racket,

And threatening how well he’d dust every man’s jacket

Who’d help’d her in getting aboard of the packet,

Bassanio at Belmont was capering and prancing,

And bowing, and scraping, and singing, and dancing,

Making eyes at Miss Portia, and doing his best

To perform the polite, and to cut out the rest;

And, if left to herself, he no doubt had succeeded.

For none of them waltz’d so genteelly as he did;

But an obstacle lay,

Of some weight, in his way,

The defunct Mr. P. who was now turned to clay,

Had been an odd man, and, though all for the best he meant,

Left but a queer sort of “Last will and testament,”—

Bequeathing her hand,

With her houses and land,

&c., from motives one don’t understand,

As she rev’renced his memory, and valued his blessing,

To him who should turn out the best hand at guessing!

Like a good girl, she did

Just what she was bid,

In one of three caskets her picture she hid,

And clapp’d a conundrum a-top of each lid.

A couple of Princes, a black and a white one,

Tried first, but they both fail’d in choosing the right one,

Another from Naples, who shoe’d his own horses;

A French Lord, whose graces might vie with Count D’Orsay’s;—

A young English Baron;—a Scotch Peer his neighbour:—

A dull drunken Saxon, all moustache and sabre;

All follow’d, and all had their pains for their labour.

Bassanio came last—happy man be his dole!

Put his conjuring cap on,—considered the whole,—

The gold put aside as

Mere “hard food for Midas,”

The silver bade trudge

As a “pale common drudge;”

Then choosing the little lead box in the middle,

Came plump on the picture, and found out the riddle.

Now, you’re not such a goose as to think, I dare say,

Gentle Reader, that all this was done in a day,

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Any more than the dome

Of St. Peter’s at Rome

Was built in the same space of time; and, in fact,

Whilst Bassanio was doing

His billing and cooing,

Three months had gone by ere he reach’d the fifth act;

Meanwhile that unfortunate bill became due,

Which his Lordship had almost forgot, to the Jew,

And Antonio grew

In a deuce of a stew,

For he could not cash up, spite of all he could do

(The bitter old Israelite would not renew);

What with contrary winds, storms, and wrecks, and embargoes, his

Funds were all stopp’d, or gone down in his argosies,

None of the set having come into port,

And Shylock’s attorney was moving the Court

For the forfeit supposed to be set down in sport.

The serious news

Of this step of the Jew’s,

And his fixed resolution all terms to refuse,

Gave the newly-made Bridegroom a fit of “the Blues,”

Especially, too, as it came from the pen

Of his poor friend himself on the wedding-day,—then,

When the Parson had scarce shut his book up, and when

The Clerk was yet uttering the final Amen.

“Dear Friend,” it continued, “all’s up with me—I

Have nothing on earth now to do but to die!

And, as death clears all scores, you’re no longer my debtor;

I should take it as kind

Could you come—never mind—

If your love don’t persuade you, why,—don’t let this letter!”

I hardly need say this was scarcely read o’er

Ere a post-chase and four

Was brought round to the door,

And Bassanio, though, doubtless, he thought it a bore,

Gave his lady one kiss, and then started at score.

But scarce in his flight

Had he got out of sight

Ere Portia, addressing a groom, said, “My lad, you a

Journey must take on the instant to Padua;

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Find out there Bellario, a Doctor of Laws,

Who, like Follett, is never left out of a cause,

And give him this note,

Which I’ve hastily wrote,

Take the papers he’ll give you—then push for the ferry

Below, where I’ll meet you, you’ll do’t in a wherry,

If you can’t find a boat on the Brenta with sails to it

—Stay, bring his Gown too, and wig with three tails to it.”

Giovanni (that’s Jack)

Brought out his hack,

Made a bow to his mistress, then jump’d on its back,

Put his hand to his hat, and was off in a crack.

The Signora soon follow’d, herself, taking, as her

Own escort, Nerissa, her maid, and Balthasar.

“The Court is prepared, the Lawyers are met,

The Judges all ranged, a terrible show!”

As Captain Macheath says,—and when one’s in debt,

The sight’s as unpleasant a one as I know.

Yet still not so bad after all, I suppose,

As if, when one cannot discharge what one owes,

They should bid people cut off one’s toes or one’s nose;

Yet here, a worse fate,

Stands Antonio, of late

A Merchant, might vie e’en with Princes in state.

With his waistcoat unbutton’d, prepared for the knife,

Which, in taking a pound of flesh, must take his life;

—On the other side Shylock, his bag on the floor,

And three shocking bad hats on his head, as before,

Imperturbable stands,

As he waits their commands

With his scales and his great snicker-snee in his hands:

—Between them, equipt in a wig, gown, and bands,

With a very smooth face, a young dandified Lawyer,

Whose air, ne’ertheless, speaks him quite a top-sawyer,

Though his hopes are but feeble,

Does his possible

To make the hard Hebrew to mercy incline,

And in lieu of his three thousand ducats take nine,

Which Bassanio, for reasons we well may divine,

Shows in so many bags all drawn up in a line.

But vain are all efforts to soften him—still

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He points to the bond

He so often has conn’d,

And says in plain terms he’ll be shot if he will.

So the dandified Lawyer, with talking grown hoarse,

Says, “I can say no more—let the law take its course.”

Just fancy the gleam of the eye of the Jew,

As he sharpen’d his knife on the sole of his shoe

From the toe to the heel,

And grasping the steel,

With a business-like air was beginning to feel

Whereabouts he should cut, as a butcher would veal,

When the dandified Judge put a spoke in his wheel.

“Stay, Shylock,” says he,

“Here’s one thing—you see

This bond of yours gives you here no jot of blood!

—The words are ‘A pound of flesh,’—that’s clear as mud—

Slice away, then, old fellow—but mind!—if you spill

One drop of his claret that’s not in your bill,

I’ll hang you, like Haman!—by Jingo, I will!”

When apprised of this flaw,

You never yet saw

Such an awfully mark’d elongation of jaw

As in Shylock, who cried, “Plesh ma heart! ish dat law?”—

Off went his three hats,

And he look’d as the cats

Do, whenever a mouse has escaped from their claw.

“—Ish’t the law?”—why the thing won’t admit of a query—

“No doubt of the fact,

Only look at the Act;

Acto quinto, cap: tertio, Dogi Falieri—

Nay, if, rather than cut, you’d relinquish the debt,

The Law, Master Shy, has a hold on you yet.

See Foscari’s ‘Statutes at large’—‘If a Stranger

A Citizen’s life shall, with malice, endanger,

The whole of his property, little or great,

Shall go, on conviction, one half to the State,

And one to the person pursued by his hate;

And, not to create

Any farther debate,

The Doge, if he pleases, may cut off his pate.’

So down on your marrowbones, Jew, and ask mercy!

Defendant and Plaintiff are now wisy wersy.”

264

What need to declare

How pleased they all were

At so joyful an end to so sad an affair?

Or Bassanio’s delight at the turn things had taken,

His friend having saved, to the letter, his bacon?—

How Shylock got shaved, and turn’d Christian, though late,

To save a life-int’rest in half his estate?

How the dandified Lawyer, who’d managed the thing,

Would not take any fee for his pains but a ring

Which Mrs. Bassanio had given to her spouse,

With injunctions to keep it on leaving the house?—

How when he, and the spark

Who appeared as his clerk,

Had thrown off their wigs, and their gowns, and their jetty coats,

There stood Nerissa and Portia in petticoats?—

How they pouted, and flouted, and acted the cruel,

Because Lord Bassanio had not kept his jewel?—

How they scolded and broke out,

Till, having their joke out,

They kissed, and were friends, and, all blessing and blessed,

Drove home by the light

Of a moonshiny night,

Like the one in which Troilus, the brave Trojan knight,

Sat astride on a wall, and sigh’d after his Cressid?—

All this, if ’twere meet,

I’d go on to repeat,

But a story spun out so’s by no means a treat,

So, I’ll merely relate what, in spite of the pains

I have taken to rummage among his remains,

No edition of Shakspeare, I’ve met with, contains;

But, if the account which I’ve heard be the true one,

We shall have it, no doubt, before long, in a new one.

In an MS., then, sold

For its full weight in gold,

And knock’d down to my friend, Lord Tomnoddy, I’m told

It’s recorded that Jessy, coquettish and vain,

Gave her husband, Lorenzo, a good deal of pain;

Being mildly rebuked, she levanted again,

Ran away with a Scotchman, and, crossing the main,

Became known by the name of the “Flower of Dunblane.”

265

That Antonio, whose piety caused, as we’ve seen,

Him to spit upon every old Jew’s gaberdine,

And whose goodness to paint

All colours were faint,

Acquired the well-merited prefix of “Saint,”

And the Doge, his admirer, of honour the fount,

Having given him a patent, and made him a Count,

He went over to England, got nat’ralis’d there,

And espous’d a rich heiress in Hanover Square.

That Shylock came with him, no longer a Jew,

But converted, I think may be possibly true,

But that Walpole, as these self-same papers aver,

By changing the y in his name into er,

Should allow him a fictitious surname to dish up,

And in Seventeen-twenty-eight make him a Bishop,

I cannot believe—but shall still think them two men

Till some Sage proves the fact “with his usual acumen.”

MORAL.

From this tale of the

Bard It’s uncommonly hard

If an editor can’t draw a moral.—’Tis clear,

Then,—In ev’ry young wife-seeking Bachelor’s ear

A maxim, ’bove all other stories, this one drums,

“Pitch Greek to old Harry, and stick to Conundrums!!”

To new-married Ladies this lesson it teaches,

“You’re ‘no that far wrong’ in assuming the breeches!”

Monied men upon ’Change, and rich Merchants it schools

To look well to assets—nor play with edge tools!

Last of all, this remarkable History shows men,

What caution they need when they deal with old-clothesmen!

So bid John and Mary

To mind and be wary,

And never let one of them come down the are’!

CANTO I.

WITH a moody air, from morn till noon,

King Ferdinand paces the royal saloon;

From morn till eve

He does nothing but grieve;

Sighings and sobbings his midriff heave,

And he wipes his eyes with his ermined sleeve,

And he presses his feverish hand to his brow,

And he frowns and he looks I can’t tell you how;

And the Spanish Grandees, in their degrees,

Are whispering about in twos and in threes,

And there is not a man of them seems at his ease,

But they gaze on the monarch, as watching what he does,

With their very long whiskers, and longer Toledos.

Don Caspar, Don Gusman, Don Juan, Don Diego,

Don Gomez, Don Pedro, Don Bias, Don Rodrigo,

Don Jerome, Don Giacomo join Don Alphonso

In making inquiries

Of grave Don Ramirez,

The Chamberlain, what it is makes him take on so;

A Monarch so great that the soundest opinions

Maintain the sun can’t set throughout his dominions.

But grave Don Ramirez

In guessing no nigher is

Than the other grave Dons who propound these inquiries;

When, pausing at length, as beginning to tire, his

Majesty beckons, with stately civility.

To Señor Don Lewis

Condé d’Aranjuez,

Who in birth, wealth, and consequence second to few is,

And Señor Don Manuel, Count de Pacheco,

A lineal descendant from King Pharaoh Neco,

Both Knights of the Golden Fleece, highborn Hidalgos,

With whom e’en the King himself quite as a “pal” goes.

268

“Don Lewis,” says he,

“Just listen to me;

And you, Count Pacheco,—I think that we three

On matters of state, for the most part agree,—

Now you both of you know

That some six years ago,

Being then, for a King, no indifferent Beau,

At the altar I took, like my forbears of old,

The Peninsula’s paragon,

Fair Blanche of Aragon,

For better, for worse, and to have and to hold—

And you’re fully aware,

When the matter took air,

How they shouted, and fired the great guns in the Square,

Cried ‘Viva!’ and rung all the bells in the steeple,

And all that sort of thing

The mob do when a King

Brings a Queen-Consort home for the good of his people.

“Well!—six years and a day

Have flitted away

Since that blessed event, yet I’m sorry to say—

In fact it’s the principal cause of my pain—

I don’t see any signs of an Infant of Spain!—

Now I want to ask you,

Cavaliers true,

And Counsellors sage—what the deuce shall I do?—

The State—don’t you see?—hey?—an heir to the throne—

Every monarch, you know, should have one of his own—

Disputed succession—hey?—terrible Go!—

Hum—hey?—Old fellows—you see!—don’t you know?”—

Now Reader, dear,

If you’ve ever been near

Enough to a Court to encounter a Peer

When his principal tenant’s gone off in arrear,

And his brewer has sent in a long bill for beer,

And his butcher and baker, with faces austere,

Ask him to clear

Off, for furnish’d good cheer,

Bills, they say, “have been standing for more than a year,”

And the tailor and shoemaker also appear

With their “little account”

Of “trifling amount,”

For Wellingtons, waistcoats, pea-jackets, and—gear

Which to name in society’s thought rather queer,—

While Drummond’s chief clerk, with his pen in his ear,

And a kind of a sneer, says, “We’ve no effects here!”

—Or if ever you’ve seen

An Alderman keen

After turtle, peep into a silver tureen,

269

In search of the fat call’d par excellence “green,”

When there’s none of the meat left—not even the lean!—

—Or if ever you’ve witnessed the face of a sailor

Return’d from a voyage, and escaped from a gale, or

Poeticè “Boreas,” that “blustering railer,”

To find that his wife, when he hastens to “hail” her,

Has just run away with his cash—and a tailor—

If one of these cases you’ve ever survey’d,

You’ll, without my aid,

To yourself have portray’d

The beautiful mystification display’d,

And the puzzled expression of manner and air

Exhibited now by the dignified pair,

When thus unexpectedly ask’d to declare

Their opinions as Councillors, several and joint,

On so delicate, grave, and important a point.

Señor Don Lewis

Condé d’Aranjuez

At length forced a smile ’twixt the prim and the grim,

And look’d at Pacheco—Pacheco at him—

Then, making a rev’rence, and dropping his eyes,

Cough’d, hemm’d, and deliver’d himself in this wise:

“My Liege!—unaccustom’d as I am to speaking

In public—an art I’m remarkably weak in—

I feel I should be—quite unworthy the name

Of a man and a Spaniard—and highly to blame,

Were there not in my breast

What—can’t be exprest,—

And can therefore,—your Majesty,—only be guess’d—

—What I mean to say is—since your Majesty deigns

To ask my advice on your welfare—and Spain’s—

And on that of your Majesty’s Bride—that is, Wife—

It’s the—as I may say—proudest day of my life!

But as to the point—on a subject so nice

It’s a delicate matter to give one’s advice,

Especially, too,

When one don’t clearly view

The best mode of proceeding,—or know what to do;

My decided opinion, however, is this,

And I fearlessly say that you can’t do amiss,

If, with all that fine tact

Both to think and to act,

270

In which all know your Majesty so much excels—

You are graciously pleased to—ask somebody else!”

Here the noble Grandee

Made that sort of congée,

Which, as Hill used to say, “I once happen’d to see”

The great Indian conjuror, Ramo Samee,

Make, while swallowing what all thought a regular choker,

Viz. a small sword as long and as stiff as a poker.

Then the Count de Pacheco,

Whose turn ’twas to speak, o-

mitting all preface, exclaim’d with devotion,

“Sire, I beg leave to second Don Lewis’s motion!”

Now a Monarch of Spain

Of course could not deign

To expostulate, argue, or, much less, complain

Of an answer thus giv’n, or to ask them again;

So he merely observ’d, with an air of disdain,

“Well, Gentlemen,—since you both shrink from the task

Of advising your Sovereign—pray whom shall I ask?”

Each felt the rub,

And in Spain not a Sub,

Much less an Hidalgo, can stomach a snub,

So the noses of these

Castilian Grandees

Rise at once in an angle of several degrees,

Till the under-lip’s almost becoming the upper,

Each perceptibly grows, too, more stiff in the crupper;

Their right hands rest

On the left side the breast,

While the hilts of their swords, by their left hands deprest,

Make the ends of their scabbards to cock up behind,

Till they’re quite horizontal instead of inclined,

And Don Lewis, with scarce an attempt to disguise

The disgust he experiences, gravely replies,

“Sire, ask the Archbishop—his Grace of Toledo!—

He understands these things much better than we do!”

—Pauca Verba!—enough,

Each turns off in a huff,

This twirling his moustache, that fingering his ruff,

Like a blue-bottle fly on a rather large scale,

With a rather large corking-pin stuck through his tail.

King Ferdinand paces the royal saloon,

With a moody brow, and he looks like a “Spoon,”

271

And all the Court Nobles, who form the ring,

Have a spoony appearance, of course, like the King,

All of them eyeing King Ferdinand

As he goes up and down, with his watch in his hand,

Which he claps to his ear as he walks to and fro,—

“What is it can make the Archbishop so slow?”

Hark!—at last there’s a sound in the courtyard below,

Where the Beefeaters all are drawn up in a row,—

I would say the “Guards,” for in Spain they’re in chief eaters

Of omelettes and garlick, and can’t be call’d Beefeaters;

In fact, of the few

Individuals I knew

Who ever had happened to travel in Spain,

There has scarce been a person who did not complain

Of their cookery and dishes as all bad in grain,

And no one, I’m sure, will deny it who’s tried a

Vile compound they have that’s called Olla podrida.

(This, by-the-by,

’s a mere rhyme to the eye,

For in Spanish the i is pronounced like an e,

And they’ve not quite our mode of pronouncing the d.

In Castille, for instance, it’s given through the teeth,

And what we call Madrid, they sound more like Madreeth.)

Of course you will see in a moment they’ve no men

That at all correspond with our Beefeating Yeomen;

So call them “Walloons,” or whatever you please,

By their rattles and slaps they’re not “standing at ease,”

But, beyond all disputing,

Engaged in saluting,

Some very great person among the Grandees;—

Here a Gentleman Usher walks in and declares,

“His Grace the Archbishop’s a-coming up stairs!”

The Most Reverend Don Garcilasso Quevedo

Was just at this time, as he

Now held the Primacy

(Always attached to the See of Toledo),

A man of great worship officii virtute

Versed in all that pertains to a Counsellor’s duty,

Well skill’d to combine

Civil laws with divine;

As a statesman, inferior to none in that line;

As an orator, too,

He was equall’d by few;

272

Uniting, in short, in tongue, head-piece, and pen,

The very great powers of three very great men,

Talleyrand,—who will never drive down Piccadilly more

To the Travellers’ Club-House!—Charles Phillips—and Phillimore.

Not only at home,

But even at Rome,

There was not a Prelate among them could cope

With the Primate of Spain in the eyes of the Pope.

(The Conclave was full, and they’d not a spare hat, or he

’d long since been Cardinal, Legate à latere,

A dignity fairly his due, without flattery,

So much he excited among all beholders

Their marvel to see

At his age—thirty-three

Such a very old head on such very young shoulders.)

No wonder the King, then, in this his distress,

Should send for so sage an adviser express,

Who, you’ll readily guess,

Could not do less

Than start off at once, without stopping to dress,

In his haste to get Majesty out of a mess.

His Grace the Archbishop comes up the back way—

Set apart for such Nobles as have the entrée,

Viz. Grandees of the first class, both cleric and lay—

Walks up to the monarch, and makes him a bow,

As a dignified clergyman always knows how,

Then replaces the mitre at once on his brow;

For in Spain, recollect,

As a mark of respect

To the Crown, if a Grandee uncovers, it’s quite

As a matter of option, and not one of right;

A thing not conceded by our Royal Masters,

Who always make noblemen take off their “castors,”

Except the heirs male

Of John Lord Kinsale,

A stalwart old Baron, who, acting as Henchman

To one of our early Kings, kill’d a big Frenchman;

A feat which his Majesty deigning to smile on,

Allow’d him thenceforward to stand with his “tile” on;

And all his successors have kept the same privilege

Down from those barbarous times to our civil age.

273

Returning his bow with a slight demi-bob,

And replacing the watch in his hand in his fob,

“My Lord,” said the King, “here’s a rather tough job,

Which it seems, of a sort is,

To puzzle our Cortes,

And since it has quite flabbergasted that Diet, I

Look to your Grace with no little anxiety

Concerning a point

Which has quite out of joint

Put us all with respect to the good of society:—

Your Grace is aware

That we’ve not got an Heir.

Now, it seems, one and all, they don’t stick to declare

That of all our advisers there is not in Spain one

Can tell, like your Grace, the best way to obtain one;

So put your considering cap on—we’re curious

To learn your receipt for a Prince of Asturias.”

One without the nice tact

Of his Grace would have backt

Out at once, as the Noblemen did,—and, in fact

He was, at the first, rather pozed how to act—

One moment—no more!—

Bowing then as before,

He said, “Sire, ’twere superfluous for me to acquaint

The ‘Most Catholic King’ in the world that a Saint

Is the usual resource

In these cases,—of course

Of their influence your Majesty well knows the force

If I may be, therefore, allowed to suggest

The plan which occurs to my mind as the best,

Your Majesty may go

At once to St. Jago,

Whom, as Spain’s patron Saint, I pick out from the rest:

If your Majesty looks

Into Guthrie, or Brooks,

In all the approved Geographical books

You will find Compostella laid down in the maps

Some two hundred and sev’nty miles off; and, perhaps,

In a case so important you may not decline

A pedestrian excursion to visit his shrine;

And, Sire, should you choose

To put peas in your shoes,

The Saint, as a Gentleman, can’t well refuse

So distinguish’d a Pilgrim, especially when he

Considers the boon will not cost him one penny!”

274

His speech ended, his Grace bow’d, and put on his mitre

As tight as before, and perhaps a thought tighter,

“Pooh! pooh!” says the King,

“I shall do no such thing!

It’s nonsense,—Old fellow—you see—no use talking—

The peas set apart, I abominate walking—

Such a deuced way off too—hey?—walk there—what, me?

Pooh!—it’s no Go, Old fellow!—you know—don’t you see?”

“Well, Sire,” with much sweetness the Prelate replied,

“If your Majesty don’t like to walk, you can ride!

And then, if you please,

In lieu of the peas,

A small portion of horse-hair, cut fine, we’ll insert,

As a substitute under your Majesty’s shirt;

Then a rope round your collar instead of a laced band,—

A few nettles tuck’d into your Majesty’s waistband,—

Assafœtida mix’d with your bouquet and civet,

I’ll warrant you’ll find yourself right as a trivet!”

“Pooh! pooh!

I tell you,”

Quoth the King, “It won’t do!”—

A cold perspiration began to bedew

His Majesty’s cheek, and he grew in a stew,

When Jozé de Humez, the King’s privy-purse-keeper

(Many folks thought it could scarce have a worse keeper),

Came to the rescue, and said with a smile,

“Sire, your Majesty can’t go—’twould take a long while,

And you won’t post it under TWO SHILLINGS A MILE!!

Twenty-seven pounds ten

To get there—and then

Twenty-seven pounds ten more to get back agen!!

Sire, the tottle’s enormous—you ought to be King

Of Golconda as well as the Indies, to fling

Such a vast sum away upon any such thing!”

At this second rebuff

The Archbishop look’d gruff,

And his eye glanc’d on Humez as if he’d say “Stuff!”

But seeing the King seem’d himself in a huff,

He chang’d his demeanour, and grew smooth enough;

Then taking his chin ’twixt his finger and thumb,

As a help to reflection, gave vent to a “Hum!”

275

’Twas the pause of an instant—his eye assumed fast

That expression which says, “Come, I’ve got it at last!”

“There’s one plan,” he resumed, “which with all due respect to

Your Majesty, no one, I think, can object to—

—Since your Majesty don’t like the peas in the shoe—or to

Travel—what say you to burning a Jew or two?

Of all cookeries, most,

The Saints love a roast!

And a Jew’s of all others the best dish to toast;

And then for a Cook

We have not far to look—

Father Dominic’s self, Sire, your own Grand Inquisitor,

Luckily now at your Court is a visitor;

Of his Rev’rence’s functions there is not one weightier

Than Heretic-burning—in fact, ’tis his métier.

Beside Alguazils

Who still follows his heels,

He has always familiars enough at his beck at home,

To pick you up Hebrews enough for a hecatomb!

And depend on it, Sire, such a glorious specific

Would make every Queen throughout Europe prolific!”

Says the King, “That’ll do!

Pooh! pooh!—burn a Jew?

Burn half a score Jews—burn a dozen—burn two—

Your Grace, it’s a match!

Burn all you can catch,

Men, women, and children—Pooh! pooh!—great and small—

Old clothes—slippers—sealing-wax—Pooh!—burn them all!

For once we’ll be gay,

A grand Auto-da-fé

Is much better fun than a ball or a play!”

So the warrant was made out without more delay,

Drawn, seal’d, and delivered, and

(Signed)

YO EL RE!

CANTO II.

There is not a nation in Europe but labours

To toady itself and to humbug its neighbours—

“Earth has no such folks—no folks such a city.

So great or so grand, or so fine, or so pretty,”

276

Said Louis Quatorze,

“As this Paris of ours!”

—Mr. Daniel O’Connell exclaims, “By the Pow’rs,

Ould Ireland’s on all hands admitted to be

The first flow’r of the earth, and first Gim of the sea!”—

—Mr. Bull will inform you that Neptune,—a lad he,

With more of affection than rev’rence, styles, “Daddy,”—

Did not scruple to “say

To Freedom, one day,”

That if ever he chang’d his aquatics for dry land,

His home should be Mr. B.’s “Tight little Island.”—

He adds, too, that he,

The said Mr. B.,

Of all possible Frenchmen can fight any three;

That, with no greater odds, he knows well how to treat them,

To meet them, defeat them, and beat them, and eat them.—

—In Italy, too, ’tis the same to the letter;

There each Lazzarone

Will cry to his crony,

“See Naples, then die!7 and the sooner the better!”

The Portuguese say, as a well understood thing,

“Who has not seen Lisbon8 has not seen a good thing!”—

While an old Spanish proverb runs glibly as under,

Quien no ha visto sevilla

No ha visto maravilla!

“He who ne’er has viewed Seville has ne’er view’d a Wonder!”

And from all I can learn this is no such great blunder.

In fact, from the river,

The famed Guadalquiver,

Where many a knight’s had cold steel through his liver,9

The prospect is grand. The Iglesia Mayor

Has a splendid effect on the opposite shore,

With its lofty Giralda, while two or three score

Of magnificent structures around, perhaps more,

As our Irish friends have it, are there “to the fore:”

Then the old Alcazar,

More ancient by far,

277

As some say, while some call it one of the palaces

Built in twelve hundred and odd by Abdalasis,

With its horse-shoe shaped arches of Arabesque tracery,

Which the architect seems to have studied to place awry,

Saracenic and rich;

And more buildings “the which,”

As old Lilly, in whom I’ve been looking a bit o’ late,

Says, “You’d be bored should I now recapitulate;”10

In brief, then, the view

Is so fine and so new,

It would make you exclaim, ’twould so forcibly strike ye,

If a Frenchman, “Superbe!”—if an Englishman, “Crikey!”

Yet there at his ease, with his whole Court around him,

King Ferdinand sits “in his Glory”—confound him!—

Leaning back in his chair,

With a satisfied air,

And enjoying the bother, the smoke and the smother,

With one knee cocked carelessly over the other;

His pouncet-box goes

To and fro at his nose,

As somewhat misliking the smell of old clothes,

And seeming to hint, by this action emphatic,

That Jews, e’en when roasted, are not aromatic;

There, too, fair Ladies

From Xeres, and Cadiz,

Catalinas, and Julias, and fair Iñesillas,

In splendid lace veils, and becoming mantillas;

Elviras, Antonias, and Claras, and Floras,

And dark-eyed Jacinthas and soft Isidoras,

Are crowding the “boxes,” and looking on coolly as

Though ’twas but one of their common tertulias,

Partaking, as usual, of wafer and ices,

Snow-water, and melons cut out into slices,

And chocolate,—furnished at coffee-house prices;

While many a suitor,

And gay coadjutor

In the eating-and-drinking line scorns to be neuter;

One, being perhaps just return’d with his tutor

From travel in England, is tempting his “future”

With a luxury neat as imported, “The Pewter,”

And charming the dear Violantes and Iñeses

With a three-corner’d Sandwich, and soupçon of “Guinness’s;”

While another, from Paris but newly come back,

Hints “the least taste in life” of the best cogniac.

Such ogling and eyeing,

In short, and such sighing,

And such complimenting (one must not say l——g),

Of smart Cavaliers with each other still vying,

279

Mix’d up with the crying,

And groans of the dying,

All hissing, and spitting, and broiling, and frying,

Form a scene which, although there can be no denying

To a bon Catholique it may prove edifying,

I doubt if a Protestant smart Beau, or merry Belle,

Might not shrink from it as somewhat too terrible.

It’s a question with me if you ever survey’d a

More stern-looking mortal than old Torquemada,

Renown’d Father Dominic, famous for twisting dom-

estic and foreign necks all over Christendom;

Morescoes or Jews,

Not a penny to choose,

If a dog of a heretic dare to refuse

A glass of old port, or a slice from a griskin,

The good Padre soon would so set him a frisking,

That I would not, for—more than I’ll say—be in his skin.

’Twas just the same thing with his own race and nation,

And Christian Dissenters of every persuasion,

Muggletonian or Quaker,

Or Jumper or Shaker,

No matter with whom in opinion partaker,

George Whitfield, John Bunyan, or Thomas Gat-acre,

They’d no better chance than a Bonze or a Fakir;

If a woman, it skill’d not—if she did not deem as he

Bade her to deem touching Papal supremacy.

By the Pope, but he’d make her!

From error awake her,

Or else—pop her into an oven and bake her!

No one, in short, ever came half so near, as he

Did, to the full extirpation of heresy;

And if, in the times of which now I am treating,

There had been such a thing as a “Manchester Meeting,”

“Pretty pork” he’d have made “Moderator” and “Minister,”

Had he but caught them on his side Cape Finisterre;—

Pye Smith, and the rest of them once in his bonfire, hence-

forth you’d have heard little more of the “Conference.”

And—there on the opposite side of the ring,

He, too, sits “in his Glory,” confronting the King,

With his cast-iron countenance frowning austerely

That matched with his en bon point body but queerly,

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For, though grim his visage, his person was pursy,

Belying the rumour

Of fat folks’ good humour;

Above waves his banner of “Justice and Mercy,”

Below and around stand a terrible band ad-

ding much to the scene—viz. The “Holy Hermanidad,”

That’s “Brotherhood,”—each looking grave as a Grand-dad.

Within the arena

Before them is seen a

Strange, odd-looking group, each one dress’d in a garment

Not “dandified” clearly, as certainly “varment,”

Being all over vipers and snakes, and stuck thick

With multiplied silhouette profiles of Nick;

And a cap of the same,

All devils and flame,

Extinguisher-shaped, much like Salisbury Spire,

Except that the latter’s of course somewhat higher;

A long yellow pin-a-fore,

Hangs down each chin afore,

On which, ere the wearer had donn’d it, a man drew

The Scotch badge, a Saltire, or Cross of St. Andrew;

Though I fairly confess I am quite at a loss

To guess why they should choose that particular cross,

Or to make clear to you

What the Scotch had to do

At all with the business in hand,—though it’s true

That the vestment aforesaid, perhaps from its hue,

Viz. yellow, in juxta-position with blue

(A tinge of which latter tint could but accrue

On the faces of wretches, of course, in a stew

As to what their tormentors were going to do),

Might make people fancy, who no better knew,

They were somehow connected with Jeffrey’s Review;

Especially too

As it’s certain that few

Things would make Father Dominic blither or happier

Than to catch hold of it, or its Chef, Macvey Napier.—

No matter for that—my description to crown,

All the flames and the devils were turn’d upside down

On this habit, facetiously term’d San Benito,

Much like the dress suit

Of some nondescript brute

From the show-van of Wombwell (not George) or Polito.

And thrice happy they,11

Dress’d out in this way

To appear with éclat at the Auto-da-fé,—

Thrice happy indeed whom the good luck might fall to

Of devils tail upward, and “Fuego revolto,”

For, only see there,

In the midst of the Square,

Where, perch’d up on poles six feet high in the air

Sit, chained to the stake, some two, three, or four pair

Of wretches, whose eyes, nose, complexion, and hair,

Their Jewish descent but too plainly declare,

Each clothed in a garment more frightful by far, a

Smock-frock sort of gaberdine, call’d a Samarra,

With three times the number of devils upon it,—

A proportion observed on the sugar-loaf’d bonnet,

With this further distinction—of mischief a proof—

That every fiend Jack stands upright on his hoof!

While the pictured flames, spread

Over body and head,

Are three times as crooked, and three times as red!

All, too, pointing upwards, as much as to say,

“Here’s the real bonne bouche of the Auto-da-fé.”

Torquemada, meanwhile,

With his cold, cruel smile,

Sits looking on calmly, and watching the pile,

As his hooded “Familiars” (their names, as some tell, come

From their being so much more “familiar” than “welcome”)

Have, by this time, begun

To be “poking their fun,”

And their firebrands, as if they were so many posies

Of lilies and roses,

Up to the noses

Of Lazarus Levi and Money Ben Moses;

While similar treatment is forcing out hollow moans

From Aby Ben Lasco and Ikey Ben Solomons,

Whose beards—this a black, that inclining to grizzle—

Are smoking, and curling, and all in a fizzle;

The King, at the same time, his Dons and his visitors,

Sit, sporting smiles, like the Holy Inquisitors,——

Enough!—no more!

Thank Heaven, ’tis o’er!

The tragedy’s done! and we now draw a veil

O’er a scene which makes outraged humanity quail;

282

The last fire’s exhausted, and spent like a rocket,

The last wretched Hebrew’s burnt down in his socket,

The Barriers are open, and all, saints and sinners,

King, Court, Lords, and Commons, gone home to their dinners,

With a pleasing emotion

Produced by the notion

Of having exhibited so much devotion,

All chuckling to think how the Saints are delighted

At having seen so many “Smouches” ignited:—

All, save Privy-purse Humez,

Who sconced in his room is,

And, Cocker in hand, in his leather-backed chair,

Is puzzling to find out how much the “affair”

(By deep calculations, the which I can’t follow) cost,—

The tottle, in short, of the whole of the Holocaust.

Perhaps you may think it a rather odd thing,

That, while talking so much of the Court and the King,

In describing the scene

Through which we’ve just been

I’ve not said one syllable as to the Queen;

Especially, too, as her Majesty’s “Whereabouts,”

All things considered, might well be thought thereabouts;

The fact was, however, although little known,

Sa Magestad had hit on a plan of her own,

And suspecting, perhaps, that an Auto alone

Might fail in securing this “Heir to the throne,”

Had made up her mind,

Although well inclined

Towards galas and shows of no matter what kind,

For once to retire,

And bribe the Saints higher

Than merely by sitting and seeing a fire,—

A sight, after all, she did not much admire;

So she locked herself up,

Without platter or cup,

In her Oriel, resolved not to take bite or sup,

Not so much as her matin-draught (our “early purl”),

Nor put on her jewels, nor e’en let the girl,

Who helped her to dress, take her hair out of curl,

But to pass the whole morning in telling her beads,

And in reading the lives of the Saints, and their deeds,

283

And in vowing to visit, without shoes or sandals,

Their shrines, with unlimited orders for candles,

Holy water, and Masses of Mozart’s and Handel’s.12

And many a Pater, and Ave, and Credo

Did She, and her Father Confessor, Quevedo

(The clever Archbishop, you know, of Toledo)

Who came, as before, at a very short warning,

Get through, without doubt, in the course of that morning:

Shut up, as they were,

With nobody there

To at all interfere with so pious a pair;

And the Saints must have been stony-hearted indeed,

If they had not allow’d all these pains to succeed.

Nay, it’s not clear to me, but their very ability

Might, Spain throughout,

Have been brought into doubt,

Had the Royal bed still remain’d cursed with sterility;

St. Jago, however, who always is jealous

In Spanish affairs, as their best authors tell us,

And who, if he saw

Anything like a flaw

In Spain’s welfare, would soon sing, “Old Rose, burn the bellows!”

Set matters to rights like a King of good fellows:

By his interference,

Three-fourths of a year hence,

There was nothing but capering, dancing, and singing,

Cachucas, Boleros, and bells set a ringing,

In both the Castilles,

Triple-bob-major peals,

Rope-dancing, and tumbling, and somerset-flinging,

Seguidillas, Fandangos,

While ev’ry gun bang goes;

And all the way through, from Gibraltar to Biscay,

Figueras and Sherry make all the Dons frisky

(Save Moore’s “Blakes and O’Donnells,” who stick to the whisky);

All the day long

The dance and the song

Continue the general joy to prolong;

And even long after the close of the day

284

You can hear little else but “Hip! hip! hurray!”

The Escurial, however, is not quite so gay,

For, whether the Saint had not perfectly heard

The petition the Queen and Archbishop preferred,—

Or whether his head, from his not being used

To an Aufo-da-fé, was a little confused,—

Or whether the King, in the smoke and the smother,

Got bother’d, and so made some blunder or other,

I am sure I can’t say;

All I know is, that day

There must have been some mistake!—that I’m afraid, is

Only too clear,

Inasmuch as the dear

Royal Twins,—though fine babies,—proved both little Ladies!

MORAL.

Reader!—Not knowing what your “persuasion” may be,

Mahometan, Jewish, or even Parsee,

Take a little advice which may serve for all three!

First—“When you are at Rome, do as Rome does!” and note all her

Ways—drink what She drinks! and don’t turn Tee-totaller!

In Spain, raison de plus,

You must do as they do,

Inasmuch as they’re all there “at sixes and sevens,”

Just, as you know,

They were some years ago,

In the days of Don Carlos and Brigadier Evans;

Don’t be nice, then—but take what they’ve got in their shops,

Whether griskins or sausages, ham or pork-chops!

Next—Avoid Fancy-trousers!—their colours and shapes

Sometimes, as you see, may lead folks into scrapes!

For myself, I confess

I’ve but small taste in dress,

My opinion is, therefore, worth nothing—or less—

But some friends I’ve consulted,—much given to watch one’s

Apparel—do say

It’s by far the best way,

And the safest, to do as Lord Brougham does—buy Scotch ones!

I might now volunteer some advice to a King,—

Let Whigs say what they will, I shall do no such thing,

But copy my betters, and never begin

Until, like Sir Robert, “I’m duly CALLED IN!”

FYTTE I.

OUT and spake Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

A stalwart knight, I ween, was he,

“Come east, come west,

Come lance in rest,

Come falchion in hand, I’ll tickle the best

Of all the Soldan’s Chivalrie!”

Oh! they came west, and they came east,

Twenty-four Emirs and Sheiks at the least,

And they hammer’d away

At Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

Fall back, fall edge, cut, thrust, and point,—

But he topp’d off head, and he lopp’d off joint;

Twenty and three!

Of high degree,

287

Lay stark and stiff on the crimson’d lea,

All—all save one—and he ran up a tree!

“Now count them, my squire, now count them and see!”

“Twenty and three!

Twenty and three!—

All of them Nobles of high degree:

There they be lying on Ascalon lea!”

Out and Spake Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

“What news? what news? come, tell to me!

What news? what news, thou little Foot-page?—

I’ve been whacking the foe, till it seems an age

Since I was in Ingoldsby Hall so free!

What news? what news from Ingoldsby Hall?

Come tell me now, thou Page so small!”

“Oh, Hawk and Hound

Are safe and sound,

Beast in byre and Steed in stall;

And the Watch-dog’s bark,

As soon as it’s dark,

Bays wakeful guard around Ingoldsby Hall!”

—“I care not a pound

For Hawk or for Hound,

For Steed in stall, or for Watch-dog’s bay:

Fain would I hear

Of my dainty dear;

How fares Dame Alice, my Lady gay?”—

Sir Ingoldsby Bray, he said in his rage,

“What news? what news? thou naughty Foot-page!”—

That little Foot-page full low crouch’d he,

And he doff’d his cap, and he bended his knee,

“Now lithe and listen, Sir Bray, to me:

Lady Alice sits lonely in bower and hall,

Her sighs they rise, and her tears they fall:

She sits alone,

And she makes her moan;

Dance and song

She considers quite wrong;

Feast and revel

Mere snares of the devil;

She mendeth her hose, and she crieth ‘Alack!

When will Sir Ingoldsby Bray come back?’”

288

“Thou liest! thou liest, thou naughty Foot-page,

Full loud dost thou lie, false Page, to me!

There, in thy breast,

’Neath thy silken vest,

What scroll is that, false Page, I see?”

Sir Ingoldsby Bray in his rage drew near,

That little Foot-page he blench’d with fear;

“Now where may the Prior of Abingdon lie?

King Richard’s Confessor, I ween, is he,

And tidings rare

To him do I bear,

And news of price from his rich Ab-bee!”

“Now nay, now nay, thou naughty Page!

No learned clerk, I trow, am I,

But well, I ween,

May there be seen

Dame Alice’s hand with half an eye;

Now nay, now nay, thou naughty Page,

From Abingdon Abbey comes not thy news;

Although no clerk,

Well may I mark

The particular turn of her P’s and her Q’s!”

Sir Ingoldsby Bray, in his fury and rage,

By the back of the neck takes that little Foot-page;

The scroll he seizes,

The Page he squeezes,

And buffets,—and pinches his nose till he sneezes;

Then he cuts with his dagger the silken threads

Which they used in those days, ’stead of little Queen’s-heads.

When the contents of the scroll met his view,

Sir Ingoldsby Bray in a passion grew,

Backward he drew

His nailed shoe,

And he kicked that naughty Foot-page, that he flew

Like a cloth-yard shaft from a bended yew,

I may not say whither—I never knew.

“Now count the slain

Upon Ascalon plain,—

Go count them, my Squire, go count them again!”

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“Twenty and three!

There they be,

Stiff and stark on that crimson’d lea!—

Twenty and three?—

—Stay—let me see!

Stretched in his gore

There lieth one more!

By the Pope’s triple crown there are twenty and four!

Twenty-four trunks, I ween, are there,

But their heads and their limbs are no-body knows where!

Ay, twenty-four corses, I rede, there be,

Though one got away and ran up a tree!”

“Look nigher, look nigher,

My trusty Squire!”—

“One is the corse of a bare-footed Friar!!”

Out and spake Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

“A boon, a boon, King Richard,” quoth he,

“Now Heav’n thee save,

A boon I crave,

A boon, Sir King, on my bended knee;

A year and a day

Have I been away,

King Richard, from Ingoldsby Hall so free;

Dame Alice, she sits there in lonely guise,

And she makes her moan, and she sobs and she sighs,

And tears like rain-drops fall from her eyes,

And she darneth her hose, and she crieth ‘Alack!

Oh! when will Sir Ingoldsby Bray come back?’

A boon, a boon, my Liege,” quoth he

“Fair Ingoldsby Hall I fain would see!”

“Rise up, rise up, Sir Ingoldsby Bray,”

King Richard said right graciously,

“Of all in my host

That I love the most,

I love none better, Sir Bray, than thee!

Rise up, rise up, thou hast thy boon;

But—mind you make haste, and come back again soon!”

FYTTE II.

Pope Gregory sits in St. Peter’s chair.

Pontiff proud, I ween, is he,

And a belted Knight,

In armour dight,

Is begging a boon on his bended knee,

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With signs of grief and sounds of woe

Featly he kisseth his Holiness’ toe.

“Now pardon, Holy Father, I crave,

O Holy Father, pardon and grace!

In my fury and rage

A little Foot-page

I have left, I fear me, in evil case:

A scroll of shame

From a faithless dame

Did that naughty Foot-page to a paramour bear:

I gave him a ‘lick’

With a stick,

And a kick,

That sent him—I can’t tell your Holiness where!

Had he as many necks as hairs,

He had broken them all down those perilous stairs!”

“Rise up, rise up. Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

Rise up, rise up, I say to thee;

A soldier, I trow,

Of the Cross art thou;

Rise up, rise up from thy bended knee!

Ill it beseems that a soldier true

Of holy Church should vainly sue:—

—Foot-pages, they are by no means rare,

A thriftless crew, I ween, be they,

Well mote we spare

A Page—or a pair,

For the matter of that—Sir Ingoldsby Bray.

But stout and true

Soldiers, like you,

Grow scarcer and scarcer every day!

Be prayers for the dead

Duly read,

Let a mass be sung, and a pater be said;

So may your qualms of conscience cease,

And the little Foot-page shall rest in peace!”

“Now pardon, Holy Father, I crave,

O Holy Father, pardon and grace!

Dame Alice, my wife,

The bane of my life,

I have left, I fear me, in evil case!

A scroll of shame in my rage I tore,

Which that caitiff Page to a paramour bore;

’Twere bootless to tell how I storm’d and swore;

Alack! alack! too surely I knew

The turn of each P, and the tail of each Q,

And away to Ingoldsby Hall I flew!

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Dame Alice I found,—

She sank on the ground,—

I twisted her neck till I twisted it round!

With jibe and jeer, and mock, and scoff,

I twisted it on—till I twisted it off!—

All the King’s Doctors and all the King’s Men

Can’t put fair Alice’s head on agen!”

“Well-a-day! well-a-day!

Sir Ingoldsby Bray

Why really I hardly know what to say:—

Foul sin, I trow, a fair Ladye to slay,

Because she’s perhaps been a little too gay.—

—Monk must chant and Nun must pray

For each mass they sing, and each pray’r they say,

For a year, and a day,

Sir Ingoldsby Bray

A fair rose-noble must duly pay!

So may his qualms of conscience cease,

And the soul of Dame Alice may rest in peace!”

“Now pardon, Holy Father, I crave,

O Holy Father, pardon and grace!

No power could save

That paramour knave;

I left him, I wot, in evil case!

There, ’midst the slain

Upon Ascalon plain,

Unburied, I trow, doth his body remain,

His legs lie here, and his arms lie there,

And his head lies—I can’t tell your Holiness where!”

“Now out and alas! Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

Foul sin it were, thou doughty Knight,

To hack and to hew

A champion true

Of Holy Church in such pitiful plight!

Foul sin her warriors so to slay,

When they’re scarcer and scarcer every day!—

—A chantry fair,

And of Monks a pair,

To pray for his soul for ever and aye,

Thou must duly endow, Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

And fourteen marks by the year must thou pay

For plenty of lights

To burn there o’ nights—

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None of your rascally ‘dips’—but sound,

Round, ten-penny moulds of four to the pound!—

And a shirt of the roughest and coarsest hair

For a year and a day, Sir Ingoldsby, wear!

So may your qualms of conscience cease,

And the soul of the Soldier shall rest in peace!”

“Now nay, Holy Father, now nay, now nay!

Less penance may serve!” quoth Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

“No champion free of the Cross was he;

No belted Baron of high degree;

No Knight nor Squire

Did there expire;

He was, I trow, but a bare-footed Friar!

And the Abbot of Abingdon long may wait

With his monks around him, and early and late

May look from loop-hole, and turret, and gate

He hath lost his Prior—his Prior his pate!”

“Now Thunder and turf!” Pope Gregory said,

And his hair rais’d his triple crown right off his head—

“Now Thunder and turf! and out and alas!

A horrible thing has come to pass!

What!—cut off the head of a reverend Prior,

And say he was ‘only (!!!) a bare-footed Friar!’—

‘What Baron or Squire,

Or Knight of the shire

Is half so good as a holy Friar?’

O turpissime!

Vir nequissime!

Sceleratissime!—quissime!—issime!

Never, I trow, have the Servi servorum

Had before ’em

Such a breach of decorum,

Such a gross violation of morum bonorum,

And won’t have again sæcula sæculorum!—

Come hither to me,

My Cardinals three,

My Bishops in partibus,

Masters in Artibus,

Hither to me, A.B. and D.D.

Doctors and Proctors of every degree.

Go fetch me a book!—go fetch me a bell

As big as a dustman’s!—and a candle as well—

I’ll send him—where good manners won’t let me tell!”

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—“Pardon and grace!—now pardon and grace!”

—Sir Ingoldsby Bray fell flat on his face—

“Meâ culpâ!—in sooth I’m in pitiful case.

Peccavi! peccavi!—I’ve done very wrong!

But my heart it is stout, and my arm it is strong,

And I’ll fight for Holy Church all the day long;

And the Ingoldsby lands are broad and fair,

And they’re here, and they’re there, and I can’t tell you where,

And Holy Church shall come in for her share!”

Pope Gregory paused, and he sat himself down,

And he somewhat relaxed his terrible frown,

And his Cardinals three they pick’d up his crown.

“Now, if it be so that you own you’ve been wrong,

And your heart is so stout, and your arm is so strong,

And you really will fight like a trump all day long;

If the Ingoldsby lands do lie here and there,

And Holy Church shall come in for her share,—

Why, my Cardinals three,

You’ll agree

With me

That it gives a new turn to the whole affair,

And I think that the Penitent need not despair!

—If it be so, as you seem to say,

Rise up, rise up, Sir Ingoldsby Bray!

“An Abbey so fair Sir Bray shall found.

Whose innermost wall’s encircling bound

Shall take in a couple of acres of ground;

And there in that Abbey all the year round,

A full choir of monks, and a full choir of nuns,

Shall live upon cabbage and hot-cross buns.

And Sir Ingoldsby Bray,

Without delay,

Shall hie him again

To Ascalon plain,

And gather the bones of the foully slain:

And shall place said bones, with all possible care,

In an elegant shrine in his Abbey so fair;

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And plenty of lights

Shall be there o’ nights;

None of your rascally ‘dips’ but sound,

Best superfine wax-wicks, four to the pound;

And Monk and Nun

Shall pray, each one,

For the soul of the Prior of Abingdon!

And Sir Ingoldsby Bray, so bold and so brave,

Never shall wash himself, comb, or shave,

Nor adorn his body,

Nor drink gin-toddy,

Nor indulge in a pipe,—

But shall dine upon tripe,

And blackberries gathered before they are ripe,

And for ever abhor, renounce, and abjure

Rum, hollands, and brandy, wine, punch, and liqueur:”

(Sir Ingoldsby Bray

Here gave way

To a feeling which prompted a word profane,

But he swallow’d it down, by an effort, again,

And his Holiness luckily fancied his gulp a

Mere repetition of O, meâ culpâ!)

“Thrice three times upon Candlemas-day

Between Vespers and Compline, Sir Ingoldsby Bray

Shall run round the Abbey, as best he may,

Subjecting his back

To thump and to thwack,

Well and truly laid on by a bare-footed Friar,

With a stout cat-o’-ninetails of whipcord and wire;

And nor he, nor his heir14

Shall take, use, or bear

Any more, from this day,

The surname of Bray,

As being dishonour’d; but all issue male he has

Shall, with himself, go henceforth by an alias!

So his qualms of conscience at length may cease,

And Page, Dame, and Prior shall rest in peace!”

Sir Ingoldsby (now no longer Bray)

Is off like a shot away and away,

Over the brine

To far Palestine,

To rummage and hunt over Ascalon plain

For the unburied bones of his victim slain.

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“Look out, my squire,

Look higher and nigher,

Look out for the corpse of a bare-footed Friar!

And pick up the arms, and the legs, of the dead,

And pick up his body, and pick up his head!”

FYTTE III.

Ingoldsby Abbey is fair to see,

It hath manors a dozen, and royalties three,

With right of free warren (whatever that be);

Rich pastures in front, and green woods in the rear,

All in full leaf at the right time of year;

About Christmas, or so, they fall into the sear,

And the prospect, of course, becomes rather more drear;

But it’s really delightful in spring-time,—and near

The great gate Father Thames rolls sun-bright and clear;

Cobham woods to the right,—on the opposite shore

Laindon Hills in the distance, ten miles off or more;

Then you’ve Milton and Gravesend behind,—and before

You can see almost all the way down to the Nore.15

So charming a spot

It’s rarely one’s lot

To see, and when seen it’s as rarely forgot.

Yes, Ingoldsby Abbey is fair to see,

And its Monks and its Nuns are fifty and three,

And there they all stand each in their degree,

Drawn up in the front of their sacred abode,

Two by two in their regular mode,

While a funeral comes down the Rochester road.

Palmers twelve, from a foreign strand,

Cockle in hat, and staff in hand.

Come marching in pairs, a holy band!

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Little boys twelve, dressed all in white,

Each with his brazen censer bright,

And singing away with all their might,

Follow the Palmers—a goodly sight;

Next high in air

Twelve Yeomen bear

On their sturdy necks, with a good deal of care,

A patent sarcophagus firmly rear’d

Of Spanish mahogany (not veneer’d),

And behind walks a Knight with a very long beard.

Close by his side

Is a Friar, supplied

With a stout cat-o’-ninetails of tough cow-hide,

While all sorts of queer men

Bring up the rear—Men-

at-arms, Nigger captives, and Bow-men, and Spear-men.

It boots not to tell

What you’ll guess very well,

How some sang the requiem, some toll’d the bell;

Suffice it to say,

’Twas on Candlemas-day

The procession I speak about reach’d the Sacellum;

And in lieu of a supper

The Knight on his crupper

Received the first taste of the Father’s flagellum;

That, as chronicles tell

He continued to dwell

All the rest of his days in the Abbey he’d founded,

By the pious of both sexes ever surrounded,

And, partaking the fare of the Monks and the Nuns,

Ate the cabbage alone, without touching the buns;

—That year after year, having run round the Quad

With his back, as enjoin’d him, exposed to the rod,

Having not only kiss’d it, but bless’d it, and thank’d it, he

Died, as all thought, in the odour of sanctity,

When,—strange to relate!—and you’ll hardly believe

What I’m going to tell you,—next Candlemas Eve

The Monks and the Nuns in the dead of the night

Tumble, all of them, out of their beds in affright,

Alarm’d by the bawls,

And the calls, and the squalls

Of some one who seem’d running all round the walls!

Looking out, soon

By the light of the moon,

There appears most distinctly to ev’ry one’s view,

And making, as seems to them, all this ado,

The form of a Knight with a beard like a Jew,

As black as if steep’d in that “Matchless!” of Hunt’s,

And so bushy, it would not disgrace Mr. Muntz;

A bare-footed Friar stands behind him, and shakes

A flagellum, whose lashes appear to be snakes;

While, more terrible still, the astounded beholders

Perceive the said Friar has NO HEAD ON HIS SHOULDERS,

But is holding his pate

In his left hand, out straight,

As if by a closer inspection to find

Where to get the best cut at his victim behind,

With the aid of a small “bull’s-eye lantern,”—as placed

By our own New Police,—in a belt round his waist.

All gaze with surprise,

Scarce believing their eyes,

When the Knight makes a start like a race-horse, and flies

From his headless tormentor, repeating his cries,—

In vain,—for the Friar to his skirts closely sticks,

“Running after him,”—so said the Abbot,—“like Bricks!”

Thrice three times did the Phantom Knight

Course round the Abbey as best he might,

Be-thwack’d and be-smack’d by the headless Sprite,

While his shrieks so piercing made all hearts thrill,—

Then a whoop and a halloo,—and all was still!

Ingoldsby Abbey has passed away,

And at this time of day,

One can hardly survey

Any traces or track, save a few ruins, grey

With age, and fast mouldering into decay,

Of the structure once built by Sir Ingoldsby Bray;

But still there are many folks living who say

That on every Candlemas Eve, the Knight,

Accoutred and dight

In his armour bright,

With his thick black beard,—and the clerical Sprite,

With his head in his hand, and his lantern alight,

Run round the spot where the old Abbey stood,

And are seen in the neighbouring glebe-land and wood;

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More especially still, if it’s stormy and windy,

You may hear them for miles kicking up their wild shindy;

And that once in a gale

Of wind, sleet, and hail,

They frighten’d the horses, and upset the mail.

What ’tis breaks the rest

Of these souls unblest

Would now be a thing rather hard to be guess’d,

Though some say the Squire, on his death-bed, confess’d

That on Ascalon plain,

When the bones of the slain

Were collected that day, and pack’d up in a chest

Caulk’d and made water-tight,

By command of the Knight,

Though the legs and the arms they’d got all pretty right,

And the body itself in a decentish plight,

Yet the Friar’s Pericranium was nowhere in sight;

So, to save themselves trouble, they pick’d up instead,

And popp’d on the shoulders a Saracen’s Head!

Thus the Knight in the terms of his penance had fail’d,

And the Pope’s absolution, of course, nought avail’d.

Now though this might be,

It don’t seem to agree

With one thing which, I own, is a poser to me,—

I mean, as the miracles wrought at the shrine

Containing the bones brought from far Palestine

Were so great and notorious, ’tis hard to combine

This fact with the reason these people assign,

Or suppose that the head of the murder’d Divine

Could be aught but what Yankees would call “genu-ine.”

’Tis a very nice question—but be’t as it may,

The Ghost of Sir Ingoldsby (ci-devant Bray),

It is boldly affirmed, by the folks great and small

About Milton, and Chalk, and around Cobham Hall,

Still on Candlemas-day haunts the old ruin’d wall,

And that many have seen him, and more heard him squall.

So, I think, when the facts of the case you recall,

My inference, reader, you’ll fairly forestall,

Viz.: that, spite of the hope

Held out by the Pope,

Sir Ingoldsby Bray was d—d after all!

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MORAL.

Reverend gentlemen!—you who are given to roam,

Don’t keep up a soft correspondence at home!

But while you’re abroad lead respectable lives;

Love your neighbours, and welcome,—but don’t love their wives!

And, as bricklayers cry from the tiles and the leads

When they’re shovelling the snow off, “Take care of your heads!”

Knights!—whose hearts are so stout, and whose arms are so strong,

Learn,—to twist a wife’s neck is decidedly wrong!

If your servants offend you, or give themselves airs,

Rebuke them—but mildly—don’t kick them down stairs!

To “Poor Richard’s” homely old proverb attend,

“If you want matters well managed, Go!—if not, Send!”

A servant’s too often a negligent elf;

—If it’s business of consequence, Do it yourself!

The state of society seldom requires

People now to bring home with them unburied Friars,

But they sometimes do bring home an inmate for life;

Now—don’t do that by proxy!—but chose your own wife!

For think how annoying ’twould be, when you’re wed,

To find in your bed,

On the pillow, instead

Of the sweet face you look for—A Saracen’s Head!

I SAW thee, Netley, as the sun

Across the western wave

Was sinking slow,

And a golden glow

To thy roofless towers he gave;

And the ivy sheen,

With its mantle of green,

That wrapt thy walls around,

Shone lovelily bright,

In that glorious light,

And I felt ’twas holy ground.

Then I thought of the ancient time—

The days of the Monks of old,—

When to Matin and Vesper, and Compline chime,

The loud Hosanna roll’d,

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And thy courts, and “long-drawn aisles” among,

Swell’d the full tide of sacred song.

And then a vision pass’d

Across my mental eye;16

And silver shrines, and shaven crowns,

And delicate Ladies, in bombazeen gowns,

And long white veils, went by;

Stiff, and staid, and solemn, and sad,—

—But one, methought, wink’d at the Gardener-lad!

Then came the Abbot, with mitre and ring,

And pastoral staff, and all that sort of thing,

And a monk with a book, and a Monk with a bell

And “dear little souls,”

In clean linen stoles,

Swinging their censers, and making a smell.—

And see where the Choir-master walks in the rear,

With front severe,

And brow austere,

Now and then pinching a little boy’s ear

When he chaunts the responses too late, or too soon,

Or his Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La’s not quite in tune.

(Then you know,

They’d a “moveable Do,”

Not a fix’d one as now—and of course never knew

How to set up a musical Hullah-baloo.)

It was, in sooth, a comely sight,

And I welcom’d the vision with pure delight.

But then “a change came o’er”

My spirit—a change of fear—

That gorgeous scene I beheld no more,

But deep beneath the basement floor

A dungeon dark and drear!

And there was an ugly hole in the wall—

For an oven too big,—for a cellar too small!

And mortar and bricks

All ready to fix,

And I said, “Here’s a Nun has been playing some tricks!—

That horrible hole!—it seems to say,

‘I’m a grave that gapes for a living prey!’”

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And my heart grew sick, and my brow grew sad—

And I thought of that wink at the Gardener-lad.

“Well, I can’t understand

How any man’s hand

Could wall up that hole in a Christian land!

Why a Mussulman Turk

Would recoil from the work,

And though, when his ladies run after the fellows, he

Stands not on trifles, if madden’d by jealousy,

Its objects, I’m sure, would declare, could they speak,

In their Georgian, Circassian, or Turkish, or Greek,

‘When all’s said and done, far better it was for us,

Tied back to back,

And sewn up in a sack,

To be pitch’d neck-and-heels from a boat in the Bosphorus!’

—Oh! a Saint ’twould vex

To think that the sex

Should be treated no better than Combe’s double X!

Sure some one might run to the Abbess, and tell her

A much better method of stocking her cellar.”

If ever on polluted walls

Heaven’s red right arm in vengeance falls,

If e’er its justice wraps in flame

The black abodes of sin and shame,

That justice, in its own good time,

Shall visit for so foul a crime,

Ope desolation’s floodgate wide,

And blast thee, Netley, in thy pride!

Lo where it comes!—the tempest lours,—

It bursts on thy devoted towers;

Ruthless Tudor’s bloated form

Rides on the blast, and guides the storm;

I hear the sacrilegious cry,

“Down with the nests, and the rooks will fly!”

Down! down they come—a fearful fall—

Arch, and pillar, and roof-tree, and all,

Stained pane, and sculptured stone,

There they lie on the greensward strown—

Mouldering walls remain alone!

Shaven crown,

Bombazeen gown,

Mitre, and Crozier, and all are flown!

And yet, fair Netley, as I gaze

Upon that grey and mouldering wall,

The glories of thy palmy days

Its very stones recall!—

They “come like shadows, so depart”—

I see thee as thou wert—and art—

Sublime in ruin!—grand in woe!

Lone refuge of the owl and bat;

No voice awakes thine echoes now!

No sound—Good Gracious!—what was that?

Was it the moan,

The parting groan

Of her who died forlorn and alone,

Embedded in mortar, and bricks, and stone?—

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Full and clear

On my listening ear

It comes—again—near, and more near—

Why, ’zooks! it’s the popping of Ginger Beer!

—I rush’d to the door—

I tread the floor,

By Abbots and Abbesses trodden before,

In the good old chivalric days of yore,

And what see I there?—

In a rush-bottom’d chair

A hag, surrounded by crockery-ware,

Vending, in cups, to the credulous throng,

A nasty decoction miscall’d Souchong,—

And a squeaking fiddle and “wry-neck’d fife”

Are screeching away, for the life!—for the life!—

Danced to by “All the World and his Wife.”

Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, are capering there,

Worse scene, I ween, than Bartlemy Fair!—

Two or three Chimney-sweeps, two or three Clowns,

Playing at “pitch and toss,” sport their “Browns,”

Two or three damsels, frank and free,

Are ogling, and smiling, and sipping Bohea.

Parties below, and parties above,

Some making tea, and some making love.

Then the “toot—toot—toot”

Of that vile demi-flute,—

The detestable din

Of that crack’d violin,

And the odours of “Stout,” and tobacco, and gin.

“—Dear me!” I exclaim’d, “what a place to be in!”

And I said to the person who drove my “shay”

(A very intelligent man, by the way),

“This, all things consider’d, is rather too gay!

It don’t suit my humour,—so take me away!

Dancing! and drinking!—cigar and song!

If not profanation, it’s ‘coming it strong,’

And I really consider it all very wrong.—

—Pray, to whom does this property now belong?”

—He paused, and said,

Scratching his head,

“Why, I really do think he’s a little to blame,

But I can’t say I knows the Gentleman’s name!”

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“Well—well!” quoth I,

As I heaved a sigh,

And a tear-drop fell from my twinkling eye,

“My vastly good man, as I scarcely doubt

That some day or other you’ll find it out,

Should he come in your way,

Or ride in your ‘shay’

(As perhaps he may),

Be so good as to say

That a Visitor, whom you drove over one day,

Was exceedingly angry, and very much scandalised,

Finding these beautiful ruins so Vandalised,

And thus of their owner to speak began,

As he order’d you home in haste,

‘No doubt he’s a very respectable man,

But—I can’t say much for his taste.’”18

A FEELING sad came o’er me as I trod the sacred ground

Where Tudors and Plantagenets were lying all around:

I stepp’d with noiseless foot, as though the sound of mortal tread

Might burst the bands of the dreamless sleep that wraps the mighty dead!

The slanting ray of the evening sun shone through those cloisters pale,

With fitful light on regal vest, and warrior’s sculptured mail,

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As from the stain’d and storied pane it danced with quivering gleam,

Each cold and prostrate form below seem’d quickening in the beam.

Now, sinking low, no more was heard the organ’s solemn swell,

And faint upon the listening ear the last Hosanna fell:

It died—and not a breath did stir;—above each knightly stall

Unmoved, the banner’d blazonry hung waveless as a pall.

I stood alone!—a living thing ’midst those that were no more—

I thought on ages past and gone—the glorious deeds of yore—

On Edward’s sable panoply, on Cressy’s tented plain,

The fatal Roses twined at length—on great Eliza’s reign.

I thought on Naseby—Marston Moor—on Worc’ster’s “crowning fight;”

When on mine ear a sound there fell—it chill’d me with affright,

As thus in low, unearthly tones I heard a voice begin,

“—This here’s the Cap of Giniral Monk!—Sir! please put summut in!”

Cætera desiderantur.

“HARK! listen, Mrs. Ingoldsby,—the clock is striking nine!

Give Master Tom another cake, and half a glass of wine,

And ring the bell for Jenny Smith, and bid her bring his coat,

And a warm bandana handkerchief to tie about his throat.

“And bid them go the nearest way, for Mr. Birch has said

That nine o’clock’s the hour he’ll have his boarders all in bed;

And well we know when little boys their coming home delay,

They often seem to walk and sit uneasily next day!”

“—Now, nay, dear Uncle Ingoldsby, now send me not, I pray,

Back by that Entry dark, for that you know’s the nearest way;

I dread that Entry dark with Jane alone at such an hour,

It fears me quite—it’s Friday night!—and then Nell Cook hath pow’r!”

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“And who’s Nell Cook, thou silly child?—and what’s Nell Cook to thee?

That thou should’st dread at night to tread with Jane that dark entrée?”

—“Nay, list and hear, mine Uncle dear! such fearsome things they tell

Of Nelly Cook, that few may brook at night to meet with Nell!

“It was in bluff King Harry’s days,—and Monks and Friars were then,

You know, dear Uncle Ingoldsby, a sort of Clergymen.

They’d coarse stuff gowns, and shaven crowns—no shirts,— and no cravats,

And a cord was placed about their waist—they had no shovel hats!

“It was in bluff King Harry’s days, while yet he went to shrift,

And long before he stamped and swore, and cut the Pope adrift;

There lived a portly Canon then, a sage and learned clerk;

He had, I trow, a goodly house, fast by that Entry dark!

“The Canon was a portly man—of Latin and of Greek,

And learned lore, he had good store,—yet health was on his cheek.

The Priory fare was scant and spare, the bread was made of rye,

The beer was weak, yet he was sleek—he had a merry eye.

“For though within the Priory the fare was scant and thin,

The Canon’s house it stood without;—he kept good cheer within;

Unto the best he prest each guest with free and jovial look,

And Ellen Bean ruled his cuisine.—He called her ‘Nelly Cook.’

“For soups, and stews, and choice ragouts, Nell Cook was famous still!

She’d make them even of old shoes, she had such wond’rous skill:

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Her manchets fine were quite divine, her cakes were nicely brown’d,

Her boil’d and roast, they were the boast of all the ‘Precinct’ round;

“And Nelly was a comely lass, but calm and staid her air,

And earthward bent her modest look—yet was she passing fair;

And though her gown was russet brown, their heads grave people shook:

—They all agreed no Clerk had need of such a pretty Cook.

“One day, ’twas on a Whitsun-Eve—there came a coach and four;—

It passed the ‘Green-Court’ gate, and stopped before the Canon’s door;

The travel-stain on wheel and rein bespoke a weary way,—

Each panting steed relax’d its speed—out stept a Lady gay.

“‘Now, welcome! welcome! dearest Niece,’—the Canon then did cry,

And to his breast the Lady prest—he had a merry eye,—

‘Now, welcome! welcome! dearest Niece! in sooth, thou’rt welcome here,

’Tis many a day since we have met—how fares my Brother dear?’—

“‘Now, thanks, my loving Uncle,’ that Lady gay replied:

‘Gramercy for thy benison!’—then ‘Out, alas!’ she sighed;

‘My father dear he is not near; he seeks the Spanish Main;

He prays thee give me shelter here till he return again!’—

“‘Now, welcome! welcome! dearest Niece; come lay thy mantle by!’

The Canon kiss’d her ruby lip—he had a merry eye,—

But Nelly Cook askew did look,—it came into her mind

They were a little less than ‘kin,’ and rather more than ‘kind.’

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“Three weeks are gone and over—full three weeks and a day,

Yet still within the Canon’s house doth dwell that Lady gay;

On capons fine they daily dine, rich cates and sauces rare,

And they quaff good store of Bordeaux wine,—so dainty is their fare.

“And fine upon the virginals is that gay Lady’s touch.

And sweet her voice unto the lute, you’ll scarce hear any such;

But is it ‘O Sanctissima!’ she sings in dulcet tone?

Or ‘Angels ever bright and fair’?—Ah, no!—it’s ‘Bobbing Joan!’

“The Canon’s house is lofty and spacious to the view;

The Canon’s cell is ordered well—yet Nelly looks askew;

The Lady’s bower is in the tower,—yet Nelly shakes her head—

She hides the poker and the tongs in that gay Lady’s bed!

“Six weeks were gone and over—full six weeks and a day,

Yet in that bed the poker and the tongs unheeded lay!

From which, I fear, it’s pretty clear that Lady rest had none;

Or, if she slept in any bed—it was not in her own.

“But where that Lady pass’d her night, I may not well divine,

Perhaps in pious oraisons at good St. Thomas’ Shrine,

And for her father far away breathed tender vows and true—

It may be so—I cannot say—but Nelly look’d askew.

“And still at night, by fair moonlight, when all were lock’d in sleep,

She’d listen at the Canon’s door,—she’d through the keyhole peep—

I know not what she heard or saw, but fury fill’d her eye—

—She bought some nasty Doctor’s-stuff, and she put it in a pie!

“It was a glorious summer’s eve—with beams of rosy red

The Sun went down—all Nature smiled—but Nelly shook her head.

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Full softly to the balmy breeze rang out the Vesper bell—

—Upon the Canon’s startled ear it sounded like a knell!

“‘Now here’s to thee, mine Uncle! a health I drink to thee!

Now pledge me back in Sherris sack, or a cup of Malvoisie!’—

The Canon sigh’d—but, rousing, cried, ‘I answer to thy call,

And a Warden-pie’s a dainty dish to mortify withal!’

“’Tis early dawn—the matin chime rings out for morning pray’r—

And Prior and Friar is in his stall—the Canon is not there!

Nor in the small Refect’ry hall, nor cloister’d walk is he—

All wonder—and the Sacristan says, ‘Lauk-a-daisy-me!’

“They’ve search’d the aisles and Baptistry—they’ve search’d above—around—

The ‘Sermon House’—the ‘Audit Room’—the Canon is not found.

They only find that pretty Cook concocting a ragout,

They ask her where her master is—but Nelly looks askew.

“They call for crow-bars—‘jemmies’ is the modern name they bear—

They burst through lock, and bolt, and bar—but what a sight is there!—

The Canon’s head lies on the bed—his Niece lies on the floor!

—They are as dead as any nail that is in any door!

“The livid spot is on his breast, the spot is on his back!

His portly form, no longer warm with life, is swoln and black!—

The livid spot is on her cheek,—it’s on her neck of snow,

And the Prior sighs, and sadly cries, ‘Well—here’s a pretty Go!’

“All at the silent hour of night a bell is heard to toll,

A knell is rung, a requiem ’s sung as for a sinful soul,

And there’s a grave within the Nave; it’s dark, and deep, and wide,

And they bury there a Lady fair, and a Canon by her side!

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“An Uncle—so ’tis whisper’d now throughout the sacred fane,—

And a Niece—whose father’s far away upon the Spanish Main—

The Sacristan, he says no word that indicates a doubt,

But he puts his thumb unto his nose, and spreads his fingers out!

“And where doth tarry Nelly Cook, that staid and comely lass?

Ay, where?—for ne’er from forth that door was Nelly known to pass.

Her coif and gown of russet brown were lost unto the view,

And if you mention’d Nelly’s name—the Monks all looked askew!

“There is a heavy paving-stone fast by the Canon’s door,

Of granite grey, and it may weigh some half a ton or more,

And it is laid deep in the shade within that Entry dark,

Where sun or moonbeam never play’d, or e’en one starry spark.

“That heavy granite stone was moved that night, ’twas darkly said,

And the mortar round its sides next morn seem’d fresh and newly laid,

But what within the narrow vault beneath that stone doth lie,

Or if that there be vault or no—I cannot tell—not I!

“But I’ve been told that moan and groan, and fearful wail and shriek

Came from beneath that paving-stone for nearly half a week—

For three long days and three long nights came forth those sounds of fear;

Then all was o’er—they never more fell on the listening ear.

“A hundred years have gone and past since last Nell Cook was seen,

When worn by use, that stone got loose, and they went and told the Dean.—

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—Says the Dean, says he, ‘My Masons three! now haste and fix it tight;’

And the Masons three peep’d down to see, and they saw a fearsome sight.

“Beneath that heavy paving-stone a shocking hole they found—

It was not more than twelve feet deep, and barely twelve feet round;

—A fleshless, sapless skeleton lay in that horrid well!

But who the deuce ’twas put it there those Masons could not tell.

“And near this fleshless skeleton a pitcher small did lie,

And a mouldy piece of ‘kissing crust,’ as from a Warden-pie!

And Doctor Jones declared the bones were female bones and, ‘Zooks!

I should not be surprised,’ said he, ‘If these were Nelly Cook’s!’

“It was in good Dean Bargrave’s days, if I remember right,

Those fleshless bones beneath the stones these Masons brought to light;

And you may well in the ‘Dean’s Chapelle’ Dean Bargrave’s portrait view,

‘Who died one night,’ says old Tom Wright, ‘in sixteen forty-two!’

“And so two hundred years have passed since that these Masons three,

With curious looks, did set Nell Cook’s unquiet spirit free;

That granite stone had kept her down till then—so some suppose,—

—Some spread their fingers out, and put their thumbs unto their nose.

“But one thing’s clear—that all the year, on every Friday night

Throughout that Entry dark doth roam Nell Cook’s unquiet Sprite:

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On Friday was that Warden-pie all by that Canon tried;

On Friday died he, and that tidy Lady by his side!

“And though two hundred years have flown, Nell Cook doth still pursue

Her weary walk, and they who cross her path the deed may rue;

Her fatal breath is fell as death! the Simoom’s blast is not

More dire—(a wind in Africa that blows uncommon hot).

“But all unlike the Simoom’s blast, her breath is deadly cold,

Delivering quivering, shivering shocks unto both young and old,

And whoso in that Entry dark doth feel that fatal breath,

He ever dies within the year some dire untimely death!

“No matter who—no matter what condition, age, or sex.

But some ‘get shot,’ and some ‘get drown’d,’ and some ‘get’ broken necks;

Some ‘get run over’ by a coach;—and one beyond the seas

‘Got’ scraped to death with oyster-shells among the Caribbees!

“Those Masons three, who set her free, fell first!—it is averred

That two were hang’d on Tyburn tree for murdering of the third:

Charles Storey,19 too, his friend who slew, had ne’er, if truth they tell,

Been gibbeted on Chatham Downs, had they not met with Nell!

“Then send me not, mine Uncle dear, oh! send me not, I pray,

Back through that Entry dark to-night, but round some other way!

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I will not be a truant boy, but good, and mind my book,

For Heaven forfend that ever I foregather with Nell Cook!”

The class was call’d at morning tide, and Master Tom was there;

He looked askew, and did eschew both stool, and bench, and chair.

He did not talk, he did not walk, the tear was in his eye,—

He had not e’en that sad resource, to sit him down and cry.

Hence little boys may learn, when they from school go out to dine,

They should not deal in rigmarole, but still be back by nine;

For if, when they’ve their greatcoat on, they pause before they part,

To tell a long and prosy tale,—perchance their own may smart.

MORAL.

—A few remarks to learned Clerks in country and in town—

Don’t keep a pretty serving-maid, though clad in russet brown!—

Don’t let your Niece sing “Bobbing Joan!”—don’t, with a merry eye,

Hob-nob in Sack and Malvoisie,—and don’t eat too much pie!!

And oh! beware that Entry dark,—Especially at night,—

And don’t go there with Jenny Smith all by the pale moonlight!—

So bless the Queen and her Royal Weans,—And the Prince whose hand she took,—

And bless us all, both great and small,—and keep us from Nell Cook!

I REMEMBER, I remember,

When I was a little Boy,

One fine morning in September

Uncle brought me home a toy.

I remember how he patted

Both my cheeks in kindliest mood;

“Then,” said he, “you little Fat-head,

There’s a top because you’re good.”

Grandmamma—a shrewd observer—

I remember gazed upon

My new top, and said with fervour,

“Oh! how kind of Uncle John!”

While mamma, my form caressing,—

In her eye the tear-drop stood,

Read me this fine moral lesson,

“See what comes of being good!”

I remember, I remember,

On a wet and windy day,

One cold morning in December,

I stole out and went to play;

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I remember Billy Hawkins

Came, and with his pewter squirt

Squibb’d my pantaloons and stockings,

Till they were all over dirt!

To my mother for protection

I ran, quaking every limb:

—She exclaimed, with fond affection,

“Gracious Goodness! look at him!”—

Pa cried, when he saw my garment,

—’Twas a newly-purchased dress—

“Oh! you nasty little Warment,

How came you in such a mess?”

Then he caught me by the collar,

—Cruel only to be kind—

And to my exceeding dolour,

Gave me—several slaps behind.

Grandmamma, while yet I smarted,

As she saw my evil plight,

Said—’twas rather stony-hearted—

“Little rascal! sarve him right!”

I remember, I remember,

From that sad and solemn day,

Never more in dark December

Did I venture out to play.

And the moral which they taught, I

Well remember; thus they said—

“Little Boys, when they are naughty.

Must be whipped and sent to bed!”

I SING of a Shirt that never was new!

In the course of the year Eighteen hundred and two,

Aunt Fanny began,

Upon Grandmamma’s plan,

To make one for me, then her “dear little man.”—

—At the epoch I speak about, I was between

A man and a boy,

A hobble-de-hoy,

A fat, little, punchy concern of sixteen,—

Just beginning to flirt,

And ogle,—so pert,

I’d been whipt every day had I had my desert,

—And Aunt Fan volunteer’d to make me a shirt!

I’ve said she began it,—

Some unlucky planet

No doubt interfered,—for, before she, and Janet

Completed the “cutting-out,” “hemming,” and “stitching,”

A tall Irish footman appear’d in the kitchen;—

—This took off the maid,

And I’m sadly afraid,

My respected Aunt Fanny’s attention, too, stray’d;

For, about the same period, a gay son of Mars,

Cornet Jones of the Tenth (then the Prince’s) Hussars,

With his fine dark eyelashes,

And finer moustaches,

And the ostrich plume work’d on the corps’ sabre-tasches

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(I say nought of the gold-and-red cord of the sashes,

Or the boots far above the Guards’ vile spatterdashes),—

So eyed, and so sigh’d, and so lovingly tried

To engage her whole ear as he lounged by her side,

Looking down on the rest with such dignified pride,

That she made up her mind

She should certainly find

Cornet Jones at her feet, whisp’ring “Fan, be my bride!”—

—She had even resolved to say “Yes,” should he ask it,

—And I—and my Shirt—were both left in the basket.

To her grief and dismay

She discovered one day

Cornet Jones of the Tenth was a little too gay;

For, besides that she saw him—he could not say nay—

Wink at one of the actresses capering away

In a Spanish bolero, one night at the play,

She found he’d already a wife at Cambray;—

One at Paris,—a nymph of the corps de ballet;—

And a third down in Kent, at a place call’d Foot’s Cray.—

He was “viler than dirt!”—

Fanny vowed to exert

All her powers to forget him,—and finish my Shirt.

But, oh! lack-a-day!

How time slips away!—

Who’d have thought that while Cupid was playing these tricks,

Ten years had elapsed, and—I’d turn’d twenty-six?—

“I care not a whit,—

He’s grown not a bit,”

Says my Aunt, “it will still be a very good fit,”

So Janet and She,

Now about thirty-three

(The maid had been jilted by Mr. Magee),

Each taking one end of “the Shirt” on her knee,

Again began working with hearty good-will,

“Felling the Seams,” and “whipping the Frill,”—

For, twenty years since, though the Ruffle had vanish’d,

A Frill like a Fan had by no means been banish’d;

People wore them at playhouses, parties, and churches,

Like overgrown fins of overgrown perches.—

Now, then, by these two thus laying their caps

Together, my “Shirt” had been finish’d, perhaps,

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But for one of those queer little three-corner’d straps,

Which the ladies call “Side-bits,” that sever the “Flaps;”

—Here unlucky Janet

Took her needle, and ran it

Right into her thumb, and cried loudly, “Ads cuss it!

I’ve spoiled myself now by that ’ere nasty Gusset!”

For a month to come

Poor dear Janet’s thumb

Was in that sort of state vulgar people call “Rum.”

At the end of that time,

A youth, still in his prime,

The Doctor’s fat Errand-boy,—just such a dolt as is

Kept to mix draughts, and spread plasters and poultices,

Who a bread-cataplasm each morning had carried her,

Sigh’d,—ogled,—proposed,—was accepted,—and married her!

Much did Aunt Fan

Disapprove of the plan;

She turn’d up her dear little snub at “the Man,”

She “could not believe it,”—

“Could scarcely conceive it

Was possible—What! such a place!—and then leave it!—

And all for a ‘Shrimp’ not as high as my hat—

A little contemptible ‘Shaver’ like that!!

With a broad pancake face, and eyes buried in fat!”

For her part, “She was sure

She could never endure

A lad with a lisp, and a leg like a skewer!—

Such a name too;—(’twas Potts!)—and so nasty a trade—

No, no,—she would much rather die an old maid!—

He a husband, indeed!—Well, mine, come what may come,

Shan’t look like a blister, or smell of Guaiacum!”

But there! She’d “declare,

It was Janet’s affair—

—Chacun à son goût

As she baked she might brew—

She could not prevent her—’twas no use in trying it—

Oh, no—she had made her own bed, and might lie in it.

They ‘repent at leisure who marry at random.’

No matter—De gustibus non disputandum!”

Consoling herself with this choice bit of Latin,

Aunt Fanny resignedly bought some white satin,

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And, as the Soubrette

Was a very great pet

After all,—she resolved to forgive and forget,

And sat down to make her a bridal rosette,

With magnificent bits of some white-looking metal

Stuck in, here and there, each forming a petal.—

—On such an occasion one couldn’t feel hurt,

Of course, that she ceased to remember—my Shirt!

Ten years,—or nigh,—

Had again gone by,

When Fan accidentally casting her eye

On a dirty old work-basket, hung up on high

In the store-closet where herbs were put by to dry,

Took it down to explore it—she didn’t know why.—

Within, a pea-soup colour’d fragment she spied,

Of the hue of a November fog in Cheapside,

Or a bad piece of ginger-bread spoilt in the baking.

—I still hear her cry,—

“I wish I may die

If here isn’t Tom’s Shirt, that’s been so long a-making!

My gracious me!

Well,—only to see!

I declare it’s as yellow as yellow can be!

Why, it looks as though’t had been soak’d in green tea!

Dear me, did you ever?

—But come—’twill be clever

To bring matters round; so I’ll do my endeavour—

‘Better late,’ says an excellent proverb, ‘than Never!’—

It is stain’d, to be sure; but ‘grass-bleaching’ will bring it

To rights ‘in a jiffy.’—We’ll wash it, and wring it;

Or, stay,—‘Hudson’s Liquor’

Will do it still quicker,

And——” Here the new maid chimed in, “Ma’am, Salt of Lemon

Will make it, in no time, quite fit for the Gemman!”

So they “set in the gathers,”—the large round the collar,

While those at the wristbands of course were much smaller,—

The button-holes now were at length “overcast;”

Then a button itself was sewn on—’twas the last!

All’s done!

All’s won!

Never under the sun

Was Shirt so late finish’d—so early begun!—

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—The work would defy

The most critical eye.

It was “bleach’d,”—it was wash’d,—it was hung out to dry,—

It was mark’d on the tail with a T, and an I!

On the back of a chair it

Was placed,—just to air it,

In front of the fire.—“Tom to-morrow shall wear it!”

—O cæca mens hominum!—Fanny, good soul,

Left her charge for one moment—but one—a vile coal

Bounced out from the grate, and set fire to the whole!

Had it been Doctor Arnott’s new stove—not a grate:—

Had the coal been a “Lord Mayor’s coal,”—viz. a slate;—

What a different tale had I had to relate!

And Aunt Fan—and my Shirt—been superior to Fate;—

One moment—no more!—

—Fan open’d the door!

The draught made the blaze ten times worse than before;

And Aunt Fanny sank down—in despair—on the floor!

You may fancy perhaps Agrippina’s amazement,

When, looking one fine moonlight night from her casement,

She saw, while thus gazing,

All Rome a-blazing,

And, losing at once all restraint on her temper, or

Feelings, exclaimed, “Hang that Scamp of an Emperor,

Although he’s my son!—

—He thinks it prime fun,

No doubt!—While the flames are demolishing Rome,

There’s my Nero a-fiddling and singing ‘Sweet Home!’”

—Stay—I’m really not sure ’twas that lady who said

The words I’ve put down, as she stepp’d into bed,—

On reflection, I rather believe she was dead;

But e’en when at College, I

Fairly acknowledge, I

Never was very precise in Chronology;

So, if there’s an error, pray set down as mine a

Mistake of no very great moment—in fine, a

Mere slip—’twas some Pleb’s wife, if not Agrippina.

You may fancy that warrior, so stern and so stony.

Whom thirty years since we all used to call BONEY,

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When, engaged in what he styled “fulfilling his destinies,”

He led his rapscallions across the Borysthenes,

And made up his mind

Snug quarters to find

In Moscow, against the catarrhs and the coughs

Which are apt to prevail ’mongst the “Owskis” and “Offs”

At a time of the year

When your nose and your ear

Are by no means so safe there as people’s are here,

Inasmuch as “Jack Frost,” that most fearful of Bogles,

Makes folk leave their cartilage oft in their “fogles.”

You may fancy, I say,

That same Boney’s dismay,

When Count Rostopchin

At once made him drop chin,

And turn up his eyes, as his rappee he took,

With a sort of mort-de-ma-vie kind of look,

On perceiving that “Swing,”

And “all that sort of thing,”

Was at work—that he’d just lost the game without knowing it:

That the Kremlin was blazing—the Russians “a-going it,”—

Every plug in the place frozen hard as the ground,

And the deuce of a Turn-cock at all to be found!

You may fancy King Charles at some Court Fancy-Ball

(The date we may fix

In Sixteen sixty-six),

In the room built by Inigo Jones at Whitehall,

Whence his father, the Martyr—(as such mourn’d by all

Who, in his, wept the Law’s and the Monarchy’s fall),—

Stept out to exchange regal robes for a pall—

You may fancy King Charles, I say, stopping the brawl,20

As burst on his sight the old church of St. Paul,

By the light of its flames, now beginning to crawl

From basement to buttress, and topping its wall—

—You may fancy old Clarendon making a call,

And stating in cold, slow, monotonous drawl,

“Sire, from Pudding Lane’s End, close by Fishmongers’ Hall,

To Pye Corner, in Smithfield, there is not a stall

There, in market, or street,—not a house, great or small

In which Knight wields his falchion, or Cobbler his awl,

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But’s on fire!!”—You may fancy the general squall,

And bawl as they all call for wimple and shawl!—

—You may fancy all this—but I boldly assert

You can’t fancy Aunt Fan—as she looked on MY SHIRT!!

Was’t Apelles? or Zeuxis?—I think ’twas Apelles,

That artist of old—I declare I can’t tell his

Exact patronymic—I write and pronounce ill

These Classical names—whom some Grecian Town-Council

Employ’d,—I believe, by command of the Oracle,—

To produce them a splendid piece, purely historical,

For adorning the wall

Of some fane, or Guildhall,

And who for his subject determined to try a

Large painting in oils of Miss Iphigenia

At the moment her Sire,

By especial desire

Of “that Spalpeen, O’Dysseus” (see Barney Maguire),

Has resolved to devote

Her beautiful throat

To old Chalcas’s knife, and her limbs to the fire;

—An act which we moderns by no means admire,—

An off’ring, ’tis true, to Jove, Mars, or Apollo, cost

No trifling sum in those days, if a holocaust,—

Still, although for economy we should condemn none,

In an αναξ ανδρων, like the great Agamemnon,

To give up to slaughter

An elegant daughter,

After all the French, Music, and Dancing they’d taught her,

And Singing,—at Heaven knows how much a quarter,—

In lieu of a Calf!—

It was too bad by half!

At a “nigger”21 so pitiful who would not laugh,

And turn up their noses at one who could find

No decenter method of “Raising the Wind?”

No doubt but he might,

Without any great Flight,

Have obtain’d it by what we call “flying a kite.”

Or on mortgage—or sure, if he couldn’t so do it, he

Must have succeeded “by way of annuity.”

But there—it appears,

His crocodile tears.

His “Oh! s,” and his “Ah! s,” his “Oh Law! s,” and “Oh dear! s,”

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Were all thought sincere,—so in painting his Victim

The Artist was splendid—but could not depict Him,

His features and phiz awry

Show’d so much misery,

And so like a dragon he

Look’d in his agony

That the foil’d Painter buried—despairing to gain a

Good likeness—his face in a printed Bandana.

—Such a veil is best thrown o’er one’s face when one’s hurt

By some grief which no power can repair or avert!—

—Such a veil I shall throw o’er Aunt Fan—and My Shirt!

MORAL.

And now for some practical hints from the story

Of Aunt Fan’s mishap, which I’ve thus laid before ye;

For, if rather too gay,

I can venture to say,

A fine vein of morality is in each lay

Of my primitive Muse, the distinguishing trait!

First of all—Don’t put off till to-morrow what may,

Without inconvenience, be managed to-day!

That golden occasion we call “Opportunity”

Rarely’s neglected by man with impunity!

And the “Future,” how brightly soe’er by Hood’s dupe colour’d,

Ne’er may afford

You a lost chance restored,

Till both you, and YOUR SHIRT, are grown old and pea-soup-colour’d!

I would also desire

You to guard your attire,

Young Ladies,—and never go too near the fire!—

—Depend on’t there’s many a dear little Soul

Has found that a Spark is as bad as a coal,—

And “in her best petticoat burnt a great hole!”

Last of all, gentle Reader, don’t be too secure!—

Let seeming success never make you “cock-sure!”

But beware!—and take care,

When all things look fair,

How you hang your Shirt over the back of your chair!—

—“There’s many a slip

’Twixt the cup and the lip!”

Be this excellent proverb, then, well understood,

And Don’t halloo before you’re quite out of the wood!!

’TWAS in Margate last July, I walk’d upon the pier,

I saw a little vulgar Boy—I said, “What make you here?

The gloom upon your youthful cheek speaks anything but joy;”

Again I said, “What make you here, you little vulgar Boy?”

He frown’d, that little vulgar Boy,—he deem’d I meant to scoff—

And when the little heart is big, a little “sets it off;”

He put his finger in his mouth, his little bosom rose,—

He had no little handkerchief to wipe his little nose!—

“Hark! don’t you hear, my little man?—it’s striking Nine,” I said,

“An hour when all good little boys and girls should be in bed.

Run home and get your supper, else your Ma’ will scold— Oh! fie!

It’s very wrong indeed for little boys to stand and cry!”

The tear-drop in his little eye again began to spring,

His bosom throbb’d with agony,—he cried like anything!

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I stoop’d, and thus amidst his sobs I heard him murmur—“Ah!

I haven’t got no supper! and I haven’t got no Ma’!!—”

“My father, he is on the seas,—my mother’s dead and gone!

And I am here, on this here pier, to roam the world alone!

I have not had, this live-long day, one drop to cheer my heart,

Nor ‘brown,’ to buy a bit of bread with,—let alone a tart.

“If there’s a soul will give me food, or find me in employ,

By day or night, then blow me tight!” (he was a vulgar Boy)

“And now I’m here, from this here pier it is my fixed intent

To jump, as Mister Levi did from off the Monu-ment!”

“Cheer up! cheer up! my little man—cheer up!” I kindly said,

“You are a naughty boy to take such things into your head:

If you should jump from off the pier, you’d surely break your legs,

Perhaps your neck—then Bogey’d have you, sure as eggs are eggs!

“Come home with me, my little man, come home with me and sup;

My landlady is Mrs. Jones—we must not keep her up,—

There’s roast potatoes at the fire,—enough for me and you—

Come home, you little vulgar Boy—I lodge at Number 2.”

I took him home to Number 2, the house beside “The Foy,”

I bade him wipe his dirty shoes,—that little vulgar Boy,—

And then I said to Mistress Jones, the kindest of her sex,

“Pray be so good as go and fetch a pint of double X!”

But Mrs. Jones was rather cross, she made a little noise.

She said she “did not like to wait on little vulgar Boys,”—

She with her apron wiped the plates, and as she rubbed the delf,

Said I might “go to Jericho, and fetch my beer myself!”

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I did not go to Jericho—I went to Mr. Cobb22—

I changed a shilling—(which in town the people call “a Bob”)—

It was not so much for myself as for that vulgar child—

And I said, “A pint of double X, and please to draw it mild!”—

When I came back I gazed about—I gazed on stool and chair—

I could not see my little friend—because he was not there!

I peep’d beneath the table-cloth—beneath the sofa too—

I said, “You little vulgar Boy! why, what’s become of you?”

I could not see my table-spoons—I look’d, but could not see

The little fiddle-pattern’d ones I use when I’m at tea;

—I could not see my sugar-tongs—my silver watch—oh dear!

I know ’twas on the mantelpiece when I went out for beer.

I could not see my Macintosh—it was not to be seen!—

Nor yet my best white beaver hat, broad-brimm’d and lined with green;

My carpet-bag—my cruet-stand, that holds my sauce and soy,—

My roast potatoes!—all are gone!—and so’s that vulgar Boy!

I rang the bell for Mrs. Jones, for she was down below,

“Oh, Mrs. Jones! what do you think?—ain’t this a pretty go?—

—That horrid little vulgar Boy whom I brought here to-night,

—He’s stolen my things and run away!!”—Says she, “And sarve you right!!”

Next morning I was up betimes—I sent the Crier round,

All with his bell and gold-laced hat, to say I’d give a pound

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To find that little vulgar Boy, who’d gone and used me so;

But when the Crier cried, “O Yes!” the people cried, “O No!”

I went to “Jarvis’ Landing-place,” the glory of the town,

There was a common sailor-man a-walking up and down,

I told my tale—he seem’d to think I’d not been treated well,

And call’d me “Poor old Buffer!”—what that means I cannot tell.

That Sailor-man he said he’d seen that morning on the shore,

A son of—something—’twas a name I’d never heard before,

A little “gallows-looking chap”—dear me! what could he mean?

With a “carpet-swab” and “muckingtogs,” and a hat turned up with green.

He spoke about his “precious eyes,” and said he’d seen him “sheer,”

—It’s very odd that Sailor-men should talk so very queer—

And then he hitch’d his trousers up, as is, I’m told, their use,

—It’s very odd that Sailor-men should wear those things so loose.

I did not understand him well, but think he meant to say

He’d seen that little vulgar Boy, that morning, swim away

In Captain Large’s Royal George, about an hour before,

And they were now, as he supposed, “somewheres” about the Nore.

A landsman said, “I twig the chap—he’s been upon the Mill—

And ’cause he gammons so the flats, ve calls him Veeping Bill!”

He said, “he’d done me wery brown,” and nicely “stow’d the swag,”

—That’s French, I fancy, for a hat—or else a carpet-bag.

I went and told the constable my property to track;

He ask’d me if “I did not wish that I might get it back?”

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I answered, “To be sure I do!—it’s what I’m come about.”

He smiled and said, “Sir, does your mother know that you are out?”

Not knowing what to do, I thought I’d hasten back to town,

And beg our own Lord Mayor to catch the Boy who’d “done me brown.”

His Lordship very kindly said he’d try and find him out,

But he “rather thought that there were several vulgar boys about.”

He sent for Mr. Withair then, and I describ’d “the swag,”

My Macintosh, my sugar-tongs, my spoons, and carpet-bag;

He promised that the New Police should all their powers employ!

But never to this hour have I beheld that vulgar Boy!

MORAL.

Remember, then, what when a boy I’ve heard my Grandma’ tell,

“Be warn’d in time by others’ harm, and you shall do full well!”

Don’t link yourself with vulgar folks, who’ve got no fixed abode,

Tell lies, use naughty words, and say “they wish they may be blow’d!”

Don’t take too much of double X!—and don’t at night go out

To fetch your beer yourself, but make the pot-boy bring your stout!

And when you go to Margate next, just stop, and ring the bell,

Give my respects to Mrs. Jones, and say I’m pretty well!

THE fire-flash shines from Reculver cliff,

And the answering light burns blue in the skiff,

And there they stand,

That smuggling band,

Some in the water and some on the sand,

Ready those contraband goods to land:

The night is dark, they are silent and still,

—At the head of the party is Smuggler Bill!

“Now lower away! come, lower away!

We must be far ere the dawn of the day.

If Exciseman Gill should get scent of the prey,

And should come, and should catch us here, what would he say?

Come, lower away, lads—once on the hill,

We’ll laugh, ho! ho! at Exciseman Gill!”

The cargo’s lower’d from the dark skiff’s side,

And the tow-line drags the tubs through the tide,

No trick nor flam,

But your real Schiedam.

“Now mount, my merry men, mount and ride!”

Three on the crupper and one before,

And the led-horse laden with five tubs more;

332

But the rich point-lace,

In the oil-skin case

Of proof to guard its contents from ill,

The “prime of the swag,” is with Smuggler Bill!

Merrily now in a goodly row,

Away and away those smugglers go,

And they laugh at Exciseman Gill, ho! ho!

When out from the turn

Of the road to Herne,

Comes Gill, wide awake to the whole concern!

Exciseman Gill, in all his pride,

With his Custom-house officers all at his side!

—They were called Custom-house officers then,

There were no such things as “Preventive men.”

Sauve qui peut!

That lawless crew,

Away, and away, and away they flew!

Some dropping one tub, some dropping two;—

Some gallop this way, and some gallop that,

Through Fordwich Level—o’er Sandwich Flat,

Some fly that way, and some fly this,

Like a covey of birds when the sportsmen miss;

These in their hurry

Make for Sturry,

With Custom-house officers close in their rear,

Down Rushbourne Lane, and so by Westbere,

None of them stopping,

But shooting and popping,

And many a Custom-house bullet goes slap

Through many a three-gallon tub like a tap,

And the gin spirts out

And squirts all about,

And many a heart grew sad that day

That so much good liquor was so thrown away.

Sauve qui peut!

That lawless crew,

Away, and away, and away they flew!

Some seek Whitstable—some Grove Ferry,

Spurring and whipping like madmen—very—

For the life! for the life! they ride! they ride!

And the Custom-house officers all divide,

And they gallop on after them far and wide!

All, all, save one—Exciseman Gill,—

He sticks to the skirts of Smuggler Bill!

Smuggler Bill is six feet high,

He has curling locks, and a roving eye,

He has a tongue and he has a smile

Trained the female heart to beguile,

And there is not a farmer’s wife in the Isle,

From St. Nicholas quite

To the Foreland Light,

But that eye, and that tongue, and that smile will wheedle her

To have done with the Grocer and make him her Tea-dealer;

There is not a farmer there but he still

Buys gin and tobacco from Smuggler Bill.

Smuggler Bill rides gallant and gay

On his dapple-grey mare, away, and away,

And he pats her neck and he seems to say,

“Follow who will, ride after who may,

In sooth he had need

Fodder his steed,

In lieu of Lent-corn, with a Quicksilver feed;

—Nor oats, nor beans, nor the best of old hay,

Will make him a match for my own dapple-grey!

Ho! ho!—ho! ho!” says Smuggler Bill—

He draws out a flask and he sips his fill,

And he laughs “Ho! ho!” at Exciseman Gill.

Down Chislett Lane, so free and so fleet

Rides Smuggler Bill, and away to Up-street;

Sarre Bridge is won—

Bill thinks it fun;

“Ho! ho! the old tub-gauging son of a gun—

His wind will be thick, and his breeks be thin,

Ere a race like this he may hope to win!”

Away, away

Goes the fleet dapple-grey,

Fresh as the breeze and free as the wind,

And Exciseman Gill lags far behind.

“I would give my soul,” quoth Exciseman Gill,

“For a nag that would catch that Smuggler Bill!—

No matter for blood, no matter for bone,

No matter for colour, bay, brown, or roan,

So I had but one!”

A voice cried, “Done!”

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“Ay, dun,” said Exciseman Gill, and he spied,

A Custom-house officer close by his side,

On a high-trotting horse with a dun-coloured hide.—

“Devil take me,” again quoth Exciseman Gill,

“If I had but that horse, I’d have Smuggler Bill!”

From his using such shocking expressions, it’s plain

That Exciseman Gill was rather profane.

He was, it is true,

As bad as a Jew,

A sad old scoundrel as ever you knew,

And he rode in his stirrups sixteen stone two.

—He’d just utter’d the words which I’ve mention’d to you,

When his horse coming slap on his knees with him, threw

Him head over heels, and away he flew,

And Exciseman Gill was bruised black and blue.

When he arose

His hands and his clothes

Were as filthy as could be,—he’d pitch’d on his nose,

And roll’d over and over again in the mud,

And his nose and his chin were all cover’d with blood;

Yet he screamed with passion, “I’d rather grill

Than not come up with that Smuggler Bill!”

—“Mount! Mount!” quoth the Custom-house officer, “get

On the back of my Dun, you’ll bother him yet.

Your words are plain, though they’re somewhat rough,

‘Done and Done’ between gentlemen’s always enough!—

I’ll lend you a lift—there—you’re up on him—so,

He’s a rum one to look at—a devil to go!”

Exciseman Gill

Dash’d up the hill,

And mark’d not, so eager was he in pursuit,

The queer Custom-house officer’s queer-looking boot.

Smuggler Bill rides on amain,

He slacks not girth and he draws not rein,

Yet the dapple-grey mare bounds on in vain,

For nearer now—and he hears it plain—

Sounds the tramp of a horse—“’Tis the Gauger again!”

Smuggler Bill

Dashes round by the mill

That stands near the road upon Monkton Hill,—

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“Now speed,—now speed,

My dapple-grey steed,

Thou ever, my dapple, wert good at need!

O’er Monkton Mead, and through Minster Level,

We’ll baffle him yet, be he gauger or devil!

For Manston Cave, away! away!

Now speed thee, now speed thee, my good dapple-grey,

It shall never be said that Smuggler Bill

Was run down like a hare by Exciseman Gill!”

Manston Cave was Bill’s abode;

A mile to the north of the Ramsgate road.

(Of late they say

It’s been taken away,

That is, levell’d and filled up with chalk and clay,

By a gentleman there of the name of Day.)

Thither he urges his good dapple-grey;

And the dapple-grey steed,

Still good at need,

Though her chest it pants, and her flanks they bleed,

Dashes along at the top of her speed;

But nearer and nearer Exciseman Gill

Cries, “Yield thee! now yield thee, thou Smuggler Bill!”

Smuggler Bill, he looks behind,

And he sees a Dun horse come swift as the wind,

And his nostrils smoke and his eyes they blaze

Like a couple of lamps on a yellow post-chaise!

Every shoe he has got

Appears red-hot!

And sparks round his ears snap, crackle, and play,

And his tail cocks up in a very odd way;

Every hair in his mane seems a porcupine’s quill,

And there on his back sits Exciseman Gill,

Crying “Yield thee! now yield thee, thou Smuggler Bill!”

Smuggler Bill from his holster drew

A large horse-pistol, of which he had two!

Made by Nock;

He pull’d back the cock

As far as he could to the back of the lock;

The trigger he touch’d and the welkin rang

To the sound of the weapon, it made such a bang;

Smuggler Bill ne’er missed his aim,

The shot told true on the Dun—but there came

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From the hole where it enter’d—not blood,—but flame,

—He changed his plan,

And fired at the man;

But his second horse-pistol flashed in the pan!

And Exciseman Gill, with a hearty good-will,

Made a grab at the collar of Smuggler Bill.

The dapple-grey mare made a desperate bound

When that queer Dun horse on her flank she found,

Alack! and alas! on what dangerous ground!

It’s enough to make one’s flesh to creep,

To stand on that fearful verge, and peep

Down the rugged sides so dreadfully steep,

Where the chalk-hole yawns full sixty feet deep.

O’er which that steed took that desperate leap!

It was so dark then under the trees,

No horse in the world could tell chalk from cheese—

Down they went—o’er that terrible fall,—

Horses, Exciseman, Smuggler, and all!!

Below were found

Next day on the ground

By an elderly gentleman walking his round

(I wouldn’t have seen such a sight for a pound),

All smash’d and dash’d, three mangled corses,

Two of them human,—the third was a horse’s—

That good dapple-grey, and Exciseman Gill

Yet grasping the collar of Smuggler Bill!

But where was the Dun? that terrible Dun?

From that terrible night he was seen by none!—

There are some people think, though I am not one,

That part of the story all nonsense and fun,

But the country-folks there,

One and all declare,

When the “Crowner’s ’Quest” came to sit on the pair,

They heard a loud Horse-laugh up in the air!—

—If in one of the trips

Of the steam-boat Eclipse

You should go down to Margate to look at the ships,

Or to take what the bathing-room people call “Dips,”

You may hear old folks talk

Of that quarry of chalk

Or go over—it’s rather too far for a walk,

337

But a three-shilling drive will give you a peep

At that fearful chalk-pit—so awfully deep,

Which is call’d to this moment “The Smuggler’s Leap!”

Nay more, I am told, on a moonshiny night,

If you’re “plucky,” and not over subject to fright,

And go and look over that chalk-pit white,

You may see, if you will,

The Ghost of Old Gill

Grappling the Ghost of Smuggler Bill,

And the Ghost of the dapple-grey lying between ’em.—

I’m told so—I can’t say I know one who’s seen ’em!

MORAL.

And now, gentle Reader, one word ere we part,

Just take a friend’s counsel, and lay it to heart.

Imprimis, don’t smuggle!—if bent to please Beauty,

You must buy French lace,—purchase what has paid duty!

Don’t use naughty words, in the next place,—and ne’er in

Your language adopt a bad habit of swearing!

Never say “Devil take me!”

Or “shake me!”—or “bake me!”

Or such-like expressions—Remember Old Nick

To take folks at their word is remarkably quick.

Another sound maxim I’d wish you to keep,

Is, “Mind what you’re after, and—Look ere you leap!”

Above all, to my last gravest caution attend—

Never borrow a horse you don’t know of a friend!!

OH! why doth thine eye gleam so bright,

Bloudie Jacke?

Oh! why doth thine eye gleam so bright?—

The Mother’s at home,

The Maid may not roam,

She never will meet thee to-night!

By the light

Of the moon—it’s impossible—quite!

Yet thine eye is still brilliant and bright,

Bloudie Jacke!

It gleams with a fiendish delight—

“’Tis done—

She is won!

Nothing under the sun

Can loose the charm’d ring, though it’s slight!

Ho! ho!

It fits so remarkably tight!”—

The wire is as thin as a thread,

Bloudie Jacke!

The wire is as thin as a thread!—

“Though slight be the chain,

Again might and main,

Cannot rend it in twain—She is wed!

She is wed!

She is mine, be she living or dead!

Haw! haw!!”

339

Nay, laugh not, I pray thee, so loud,

Bloudie Jacke!

Oh! laugh not so loud and so clear!

Though sweet is thy smile

The heart to beguile,

Yet thy laugh is quite shocking to hear,

O dear!

It makes the blood curdle with fear!

The Maiden is gone by the glen,

Bloudie Jacke!

She is gone by the glen and the wood—

It’s a very odd thing

She should wear such a ring,

While her tresses are bound with a snood.

By the rood!

It’s a thing that’s not well understood!

The Maiden is stately and tall,

Bloudie Jacke!

And stately she walks in her pride;

But the young Mary-Anne

Runs as fast as she can,

To o’ertake her, and walk by her side!

Though she chide—

She deems not her sister a bride!

But the Maiden is gone by the glen,

Bloudie Jacke!

Mary-Anne she is gone by the lea;

She o’ertakes not her sister,

It’s clear she has miss’d her,

And cannot think where she can be!

Dear me!

“Ho! ho!—We shall see! we shall see!”

Mary-Anne is gone over the lea,

Bloudie Jacke!

Mary-Anne she is come to the Tower!

But it makes her heart quail,

For it looks like a jail,

A deal more than a fair Lady’s bower,

So sour

Its ugly grey walls seem to lour.

340

For the barbican’s massy and high,

Bloudie Jacke!

And the oak-door is heavy and brown;

And with iron it’s plated

And machicolated,

To pour boiling oil and lead down;

How you’d frown

Should a ladle-full fall on your crown!

The rock that it stands on is steep,

Bloudie Jacke!

To gain it one’s forced for to creep;

The Portcullis is strong,

And the Drawbridge is long,

And the water runs all round the Keep;

At a peep

You can see that the Moat’s very deep!

The Drawbridge is long, but it’s down,

Bloudie Jacke!

And the Portcullis hangs in the air;

And no Warder is near,

With his horn and his spear,

To give notice when people come there.—

I declare

Mary-Anne has run into the Square!

The oak-door is heavy and brown,

Bloudie Jacke!

But the oak-door is standing ajar.

And no one is there

To say, “Pray take a chair,

You seem tired, Miss, with running so far—

So you are—

With grown people you’re scarce on a par!”

But the young Mary-Anne is not tired,

Bloudie Jacke!

She roams o’er your Tower by herself;

She runs through, very soon,

Each boudoir and saloon,

And examines each closet and shelf,

Your pelf,

All your plate, and your china—and delf.

341

She looks at your Arras so fine,

Bloudie Jacke!

So rich, all description it mocks;

And she now and then pauses

To gaze at your vases,

Your pictures, and or-molu clocks;

Every box,

Every cupboard, and drawer she unlocks.

She looks at the paintings so rare,

Bloudie Jacke!

That adorn every wall in your house;

Your impayable pieces,

Your Paul Veroneses,

Your Rembrandts, your Guidos, and Dows,

Morland’s Cows,

Claude’s Landscapes,—and Landseer’s Bow-wows.

She looks at your Statues so fine,

Bloudie Jacke!

And mighty great notice she takes

Of your Niobe crying,

Your Mirmillo dying,

Your Hercules strangling the snakes,—

How he shakes

The nasty great things as he wakes!

Your Laocoon, his serpents and boys,

Bloudie Jacke!

She views with some little dismay;

A copy of that I can

See in the Vatican,

Unless the Pope’s sent it away,

As they say,

In the Globe, he intended last May.23

There’s your Belvidere Phœbus, with which,

Bloudie Jacke!

Mr. Milman says none other vies.

(His lines on Apollo

Beat all the rest hollow,

And gain’d him the Newdigate prize.)

How the eyes

Seem watching the shaft as it flies!

342

There’s a room full of satins and silks,

Bloudie Jacke!

There’s a room full of velvet and lace,

There are drawers full of rings

And a thousand fine things,

And a splendid gold watch with a case

O’er its face,

Is in every room in the place.

There are forty fine rooms on a floor,

Bloudie Jacke!

And every room fit for a Ball,

It’s so gorgeous and rich,

With so lofty a pitch,

And so long, and so broad, and so tall;

Yes, all,

Save the last one—and that’s very small!

It boasts not stool, table, or chair,

Bloudie Jacke!

But one Cabinet, costly and grand,

Which has little gold figures

Of little gold Niggers,

With fishing-rods stuck in each hand.—

It’s japann’d,

And it’s placed on a splendid buhl stand.

Its hinges and clasps are of gold,

Bloudie Jacke!

And of gold are its key-hole and key,

And the drawers within

Have each a gold pin,

And they’re number’d with 1, 2, and 3,

You may see

All the figures in gold filigree!

Number 1’s full of emeralds green,

Bloudie Jacke!

Number 2’s full of diamonds and pearl;

But what does she see

In drawer Number 3

That makes all her senses to whirl,

Poor Girl!

And each lock of her hair to uncurl?—

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Wedding fingers are sweet pretty things,

Bloudie Jacke!

To salute them one eagerly strives,

When one kneels to “propose”—

It’s another quelque chose

When cut off at the knuckles with knives,

From our wives,

They are tied up in bunches of fives.

Yet there they lie, one, two, three, four!

Bloudie Jacke!

There lie they, five, six, seven, eight!

And by them, in rows,

Lie eight little Great-Toes,

To match in size, colour, and weight!

From their state,

It would seem they’d been severed of late.

Beside them are eight Wedding-rings,

Bloudie Jacke!

And the gold is as thin as a thread—

“Ho! ho!—She is mine—

This will make up the Nine!”

Dear me! who those shocking words said?—

—She fled

To hide herself under the bed.

But, alas! there’s no bed in the room,

Bloudie Jacke!

And she peeps from the window on high;

Only fancy her fright

And the terrible sight

Down below, which at once meets her eye!

“Oh My!!”

She half utter’d,—but stifled her cry.

For she saw it was You and your Man,

Bloudie Jacke!

And she heard your unpleasant “Haw! haw!!”

While her sister, stone dead,

By the hair of her head,

O’er the bridge you were trying to draw,

As she saw—

A thing quite contra-ry to law!

344

Your man has got hold of her heels,

Bloudie Jacke!

Bloudie Jacke! you’ve got hold of her hair!—

But nor Jacke nor his Man

Can see young Mary-Anne,

She has hid herself under the stair,

And there

Is a horrid great Dog, I declare!

His eye-balls are bloodshot and blear,

Bloudie Jacke!

He’s a sad ugly cur for a pet;

He seems of the breed

Of that “Billy,” indeed,

Who used to kill rats for a bet;

—I forget

How many one morning he ate.

He has skull, ribs, and vertebræ there,

Bloudie Jacke!

And thigh-bones;—and, though it’s so dim,

Yet it’s plain to be seen

He has pick’d them quite clean,—

She expects to be torn limb from limb,

So grim

He looks at her—and she looks at him.

She has given him a bun and a roll,

Bloudie Jacke!

She has given him a roll and a bun,

And a Shrewsbury cake,

Of Pailin’s24 own make,

Which she happened to take ere her run

She begun—

She’d been used to a luncheon at One.

It’s “a pretty particular Fix,”

Bloudie Jacke!

—Above,—there’s the Maiden that’s dead;

Below—growling at her—

There’s that Cannibal Cur

Who at present is munching her bread,

Instead

Of her leg,—or her arm,—or her head.

345

It’s “a pretty particular Fix,”

Bloudie Jacke!

She is caught like a mouse in a trap;—

Stay!—there’s something, I think,

That has slipp’d through a chink,

And fall’n, by a singular hap,

Slap,

Into poor little Mary-Anne’s lap!

It’s a very fine little gold ring,

Bloudie Jacke!

Yet, though slight, it’s remarkably stout,

But it’s made a sad stain,

Which will always remain

On her frock—for Blood will not wash out;

I doubt

Salts of Lemon won’t bring it about!

She has grasp’d that gold ring in her hand,

Bloudie Jacke!

In an instant she stands on the floor,

She makes but one bound

O’er the back of the hound,

And a hop, skip, and jump to the door,

And she’s o’er

The drawbridge she’d traversed before!

Her hair’s floating loose in the breeze,

Bloudie Jacke!

For gone is her “bonnet of blue.”

—Now the Barbican’s past!—

Her legs “go it” as fast

As two drumsticks a-beating tattoo,

As they do

At Réveille, Parade, or Review!

She has run into Shrewsbury town,

Bloudie Jacke!

She has called out the Beadle and May’r,

And the Justice of Peace,

And the Rural Police,

Till “Battle Field” swarms like a Fair,—

And see there!—

E’en the Parson’s beginning to swear!!

346

There’s a pretty to-do in your Tower,

Bloudie Jacke!

In your Tower there’s a pretty to-do!

All the people of Shrewsbury

Playing old gooseberry

With your choice bits of taste and vertu;

Each bijou

Is upset in their search after you!

They are playing the deuce with your things,

Bloudie Jacke!

There’s your Cupid is broken in two,

And so too, between us, is

Each of your Venuses,

The “Antique” ones you bought of the Jew,

And the new

One, George Robins swears came from St. Cloud.

The Callipyge’s injured behind,

Bloudie Jacke!

The De Medici’s injured before!

And the Anadyomene

’s injured in so many

Places, I think there’s a score,

If not more,

Of her fingers and toes on the floor.

They are hunting you up stairs and down,

Bloudie Jacke!

Every person to pass is forbid,

While they turn out the closets

And all their deposits—

“There’s the dust-hole—come lift up the lid!”—

So they did—

But they could not find where you were hid!

Ah! Ah!—they will have you at last,

Bloudie Jacke!

The chimneys to search they begin;—

They have found you at last!—

There you are, sticking fast,

With your knees doubled up to your chin,

Though you’re thin

—Dear me! what a mess you are in!—

What a terrible pickle you’re in,

Bloudie Jacke!

Why, your face is as black as your hat!

Your fine Holland shirt

Is all over dirt!

And so is your point-lace cravat!

What a Flat

To seek such an asylum as that!

They can scarcely help laughing, I vow,

Bloudie Jacke!

In the midst of their turmoil and strife;

You’re not fit to be seen!

—You look like Mr. Kean

In the play where he murders his wife!—

On my life

You ought to be scraped with a knife!

They have pull’d you down flat on your back,

Bloudie Jacke!

They have pull’d you down flat on your back!

And they smack, and they thwack,

Till your “funny bones” crack,

As if you were stretched on the rack,

At each thwack!

Good lack! what a savage attack!

They call for the Parliament Man,

Bloudie Jacke!

And the Hangman, the matter to clinch,

And they call for the Judge,

But others cry “Fudge!—

Don’t budge Mr. Calcraft,25 an inch!

348

Mr. Lynch!26

Will do very well at a pinch!”

It is useless to scuffle and cuff,

Bloudie Jacke!

It is useless to struggle and bite!

And to kick and to scratch

You have met with your match,

And the Shrewsbury Boys hold you tight

Despite

Your determined attempts “to show fight.”

They are pulling you all sorts of ways,

Bloudie Jacke!

They are twisting your right leg Nor-West,

And your left leg due South,

And your knee’s in your mouth,

And your head is poked down on your breast,

And it’s prest,

I protest, almost into your chest!

They have pulled off your arms and your legs,

Bloudie Jacke!

As the naughty boys serve the blue flies;

And they’ve torn from their sockets,

And put in their pockets

Your fingers and thumbs for a prize!

And your eyes

A Doctor has bottled—from Guy’s.27

349

Your Trunk, thus dismember’d and torn,

Bloudie Jacke!

They hew, and they hack, and they chop;

And, to finish the whole,

They stick up a pole

In the place that’s still called the Wylde Coppe,

And they pop

Your grim gory head on the top!

They have buried the fingers and toes,

Bloudie Jacke!

Of the victims so lately your prey.

From those fingers and eight toes

Sprang early potatoes,

“Ladyes’ Fyngers” they’re called to this day;

—So they say,—

And you usually dig them in May.

What became of the dear little girl?

Bloudie Jacke!

What became of the young Mary-Anne?

Why, I’m sadly afraid

That she died an Old Maid,

For she fancied that every Young Man

Had a plan

To trepan her like “poor Sister Fan!”

So they say she is now leading apes,

Bloudie Jacke!

And mends Bachelors’ small clothes below;

The story is old,

And has often been told,

But I cannot believe it is so—

No! No!

Depend on’t the tale is “No Go!”

MORAL.

And now for the moral I’d fain,

Bloudie Jacke!

That young Ladies should draw from my pen,—

It’s—“Don’t take these flights

Upon moon-shiny nights,

With gay, harum-scarum young men,

Down a glen!

You really can’t trust one in ten!”

350

Let them think of your terrible Tower,

Bloudie Jacke!

And don’t let them liberties take,

Whether Maidens or Spouses,

In Bachelors’ houses:

Or, some time or another, they’ll make

A Mistake!

And lose—more than a Shrewsberrie Cake!!

WHEN we were all little and good,—

A long time ago, I’m afraid, Miss—

We were told of the Babes in the Wood

By their false, cruel Uncle betray’d, Miss;

Their Pa was a Squire, or a Knight;

In Norfolk, I think, his estate lay—

That is, if I recollect right,

For I’ve not read the history lately.28

Rum ti, etc.

Their Pa and their Ma being seized

With a tiresome complaint, which, in some seasons,

People are apt to be seized

With, who’re not on their guard against plum-seasons,

351

Their medical man shook his head,

As he could not get well to the root of it;

And the Babes stood on each side the bed,

While their Uncle, he stood at the foot of it.

“Oh, Brother!” their Ma whisper’d, faint

And low, for breath seeming to labour, “Who’d

Think that this horrid complaint,

That’s been going about in the neighbourhood,

Thus should attack me,—nay, more.

My poor husband besides,—and so fall on him!

Bringing us so near to Death’s door

That we can’t avoid making a call on him!

“Now think, ’tis your sister invokes

Your aid, and the last word she says is,

Be kind to those dear little folks

When our toes are turned up to the daisies!—

By the servants don’t let them be snubb’d,—

—Let Jane have her fruit and her custard,—

And mind Johnny’s chilblains are rubb’d

Well with Whitehead’s best essence of mustard.

“You know they’ll be pretty well off in

Respect to what’s called ‘worldly gear,’

For John, when his Pa’s in his coffin,

Comes in to three hundred a-year;

And Jane’s to have five hundred pound

On her marriage paid down, ev’ry penny,

So you’ll own a worse match might be found,

Any day in the week, than our Jenny!”

Here the Uncle pretended to cry,

And, like an old thorough-paced rogue, he

Put his handkerchief up to his eye,

And devoted himself to Old Bogey

If he did not make matters all right,

And said, should he covet their riches,

He “wished the old Gentleman might

Fly away with him, body and breeches!”

352

No sooner, however, were they

Put to bed with a spade by the sexton,

Than he carried the darlings away

Out of that parish into the next one,

Giving out he should take them to town,

And select the best school in the nation,

That John might not grow a clown,

But receive a genteel education.

“Greek and Latin old twaddle I call!”

Says he, “While his mind’s ductile and plastic,

I’ll place him at Dotheboys Hall,

Where he’ll learn all that’s new and gymnastic.

While Jane, as, when girls have the dumps,

Fortune-hunters, by scores, to entrap ’em rise,

Shall go to those worthy old frumps,

The two Misses Tickler of Clapham Rise!”

Having thought on the How and the When

To get rid of his nephew and niece,

He sent for two ill-looking men,

And he gave them five guineas a-piece.—

Says he, “Each of you take up a child

On the crupper, and when you have trotted

Some miles through that wood lone and wild,

Take your knife out and cut its carotid!”

“Done” and “done” is pronounced on each side,

While the poor little dears are delighted

To think they a-cock-horse shall ride,

And are not in the least degree frighted;

They say their “Ta! Ta!” as they start,

And they prattle so nice on their journey,

That the rogues themselves wish to their heart

They could finish the job by attorney.

Nay, one was so taken aback

By seeing such spirit and life in them,

That he fairly exclaim’d, “I say, Jack,

I’m blow’d if I can put a knife in them!”—

353

“Pooh!” says his pal, “you great dunce!

You’ve pouch’d the good gentleman’s money,

So out with your whinger at once,

And scrag Jane, while I spiflicate Johnny.”

He refused, and harsh language ensued,

Which ended at length in a duel,

When he that was mildest in mood

Gave the truculent rascal his gruel;

The Babes quake with hunger and fear,

While the ruffian his dead comrade, Jack, buries;

Then he cries, “Loves, amuse yourselves here

With the hips, and the haws, and the blackberries!

“I’ll be back in a couple of shakes;

So don’t, dears, be quivering and quaking,

I’m going to get you some cakes,

And a nice butter’d roll that’s a-baking!”

He rode off with a tear in his eye,

Which ran down his rough cheek, and wet it,

As he said to himself with a sigh,

“Pretty souls!—don’t they wish they may get it!!”

From that moment the Babes ne’er caught sight

Of the wretch who thus sought their undoing,

But pass’d all that day and that night

In wandering about and “boo-hoo”-ing.

The night proved cold, dreary, and dark,

So that, worn out with sighings and sobbings,

Next morn they were found stiff and stark,

And stone-dead, by two little Cock-Robins.

These two little birds it sore grieves

To see what so cruel a dodge I call,—

They cover the bodies with leaves,

An interment quite ornithological;

It might more expensive have been,

But I doubt, though I’ve not been to see ’em,

If among those in all Kensal Green

You could find a more neat Mausoleum.

354

Now, whatever your rogues may suppose,

Conscience always makes restless their pillows,

And Justice, though blind, has a nose

That sniffs out all conceal’d peccadilloes.

The wicked old Uncle, they say,

In spite of his riot and revel,

Was hippish and qualmish all day,

And dream’t all night long of the d—l.

He grew gouty, dyspeptic, and sour,

And his brow, once so smooth and so placid,

Fresh wrinkles acquired every hour,

And whatever he swallow’d turn’d acid.

The neighbours thought all was not right,

Scarcely one with him ventured to parley,

And Captain Swing came in the night,

And burnt all his beans and his barley.

There was hardly a day but some fox

Ran away with his geese and his ganders:

His wheat had the mildew, his flocks

Took the rot, and his horses the glanders;

His daughters drank rum in their tea,

His son, who had gone for a sailor,

Went down in a steamer at sea,

And his wife ran away with a tailor!

It was clear he lay under a curse;

None would hold with him any communion;

Every day matters grew worse and worse,

Till they ended at length in The Union;

While his man being caught in some fact

(The particular crime I’ve forgotten),

When he came to be hanged for the act,

Split, and told the whole story to Cotton.

Understanding the matter was blown,

His employer became apprehensive

Of what, when ’twas more fully known,

Might ensue—he grew thoughtful and pensive;

355

He purchased some sugar-of-lead,

Took it home, popp’d it into his porridge,

Ate it up, and then took to his bed,

And so died in the workhouse at Norwich.

MORAL.

Ponder well now, dear Parents, each word

That I’ve wrote, and when Sirius rages

In the dog-days, don’t be so absurd

As to blow yourselves out with Green-gages!

Of stone-fruits in general be shy,

And reflect it’s a fact beyond question

That Grapes, when they’re spelt with an i,

Promote anything else but digestion.—

—When you set about making your will,

Which is commonly done when a body’s ill,

Mind, and word it with caution and skill,

And avoid, if you can, any codicil!

When once you’ve appointed an heir

To the fortune you’ve made, or obtain’d, ere

You leave a reversion beware

Whom you place in contingent remainder!

Executors, Guardians, and all

Who have children to mind, don’t ill treat them,

Nor think that, because they are small

And weak, you may beat them, and cheat them;

Remember that “ill-gotten goods

Never thrive;” their possession’s but cursory,

So never turn out in the woods

Little folks you should keep in the nursery.

Be sure he who does such base things

Will ne’er stifle Conscience’s clamour;

His “riches will make themselves wings,”

And his property come to the hammer!

Then He,—and not those he bereaves,

Will have most cause for sighings and sobbings,

When he finds himself smother’d with leaves

(Of fat catalogues) heap’d up by Robins!

OH, Salisbury Plain is bleak and bare,—

At least so I’ve heard many people declare,

For I fairly confess I never was there;—

Not a shrub nor a tree,

Nor a bush can you see;

No hedges, no ditches, no gates, no stiles,

Much less a house, or a cottage for miles;—

It’s a very sad thing to be caught in the rain

When night’s coming on upon Salisbury Plain.

Now, I’d have you to know

That a great while ago,—

The best part of a century, may be, or so,—

Across this same plain, so dull and so dreary,

A couple of Travellers, way-worn and weary,

Were making their way;

Their profession, you’d say,

At a single glance did not admit of a query;

The pump-handled pig-tail, and whiskers worn then,

With scarce an exception, by sea-faring men,

The jacket,—the loose trousers “bows’d up together”—all

Guiltless of braces, as those of Charles Wetherall,—

The pigeon-toed step, and the rollicking motion,

Bespoke them two genuine sons of the Ocean,

And show’d in a moment their real charácters

(The accent so placed on this word by our Jack-Tars).

The one in advance was sturdy and strong,

With arms uncommonly bony and long,

And his Guernsey shirt

Was all pitch and dirt,

Which sailors don’t think inconvenient or wrong.

357

He was very broad-breasted,

And very deep-chested;

His sinewy frame correspond with the rest did,

Except as to height, for he could not be more

At the most, you would say, than some five feet four,

And, if measured, perhaps had been found a thought lower.

Dame Nature, in fact,—whom some person or other,

—A Poet,—has call’d a “capricious step-mother,”—

You saw when beside him,

Had somehow denied him

In longitude what she had granted in latitude.

A trifling defect

You’d the sooner detect

From his having contracted a stoop in his attitude.

Square-built and broad-shoulder’d, good-humour’d and gay,

With his collar and countenance open as day,

The latter—’twas mark’d with small-pox, by the way,—

Had a sort of expression good-will to bespeak;

He’d a smile in his eye, and a quid in his cheek!

And, in short, notwithstanding his failure in height,

He was just such a man as you’d say, at first sight,

You would much rather dine, or shake hands, with than fight.

The other, his friend and companion, was taller,

By five or six inches, at least, than the smaller;—

From his air and his mien

It was plain to be seen,

That he was, or had been,

A something between

The real “Jack Tar” and the “Jolly Marine.”

For, though he would give an occasional hitch,

Sailor-like to his “slops,” there was something, the which,

On the whole savour’d more of the pipeclay than pitch.—

Such were now the two men who appear’d on the hill,

Harry Waters the tall one, the short “Spanking Bill.”

To be caught in the rain,

I repeat it again,

Is extremely unpleasant on Salisbury Plain;

And when with a good soaking shower there are blended

Blue lightnings and thunder, the matter’s not mended;

Such was the case

In this wild dreary place,

On the day that I’m speaking of now, when the brace

Of trav’llers alluded to quicken’d their pace,

Till a good steady walk became more like a race

To get quit of the tempest which held them in chase.

358

Louder, and louder

Than mortal gunpowder,

The heav’nly artillery kept crashing and roaring,

The lightning kept flashing, the rain too kept pouring,

While they, helter-skelter,

In vain sought for shelter

From what I’ve heard term’d, “a regular pelter;”

But the deuce of a screen

Could be anywhere seen,

Or an object except that on one of the rises,

An old way-post show’d

Where the Lavington road

Branch’d off to the left from the one to Devizes;

And thither the footsteps of Waters seem’d tending,

Though a doubt might exist of the course he was bending,

To a landsman, at least, who, wherever he goes,

Is content, for the most part, to follow his nose;—

While Harry kept “backing”

And “filling”—and “tacking,”—

Two nautical terms which, I’ll wager a guinea, are

Meant to imply

What you, Reader, and I

Would call going zig-zag, and not rectilinear.

But here, once for all, let me beg you’ll excuse

All mistakes I may make in the words sailors use

’Mongst themselves, on a cruise,

Or ashore with the Jews,

Or in making their court to their Polls and their Sues,

Or addressing those slop-selling females afloat—women

Known in our navy as oddly named boat-women.

The fact is, I can’t say I’m versed in the school

So ably conducted by Marryat and Poole

(See the last-mention’d gentleman’s “Admiral’s Daughter”);

The grand vade mecum

For all who to sea come,

And get, the first time in their lives, in blue water;

Of course in the use of sea terms you’ll not wonder,

If I now and then should fall into some blunder,

For which Captain Chamier, or Mr. T. P. Cooke,

Would call me a “Lubber,” and “Son of a Sea-cook.”

To return to our muttons—This mode of progression

At length upon Spanking Bill made some impression,

359

—“Hillo, messmate, what cheer?

How queer you do steer!”

Cried Bill, whose short legs kept him still in the rear.

“Why, what’s in the wind, Bo?—what is it you fear?”

For he saw in a moment that something was frightening

His shipmate much more than the thunder and lightning.

“Fear?” stammered out Waters, “why, Him!—don’t you see

What faces that Drummer-boy’s making at me?

—How he dodges me so

Wherever I go?—

What is it he wants with me, Bill,—do you know?”

“What Drummer-boy, Harry?” cries Bill in surprise

(With a brief explanation, that ended in “eyes”),

“What Drummer-boy, Waters?—the coast is all clear,

We haven’t got never no Drummer-boy here!”

—“Why, there!—don’t you see

How he’s following me?

Now this way, now that way, and won’t let me be!

Keep him off, Bill—look here—

Don’t let him come near!

Only see how the blood-drops his features besmear!

What, the dead come to life again!—Bless me!—Oh dear!”

Bill remark’d in reply, “This is all very queer—

What, a Drummer-boy—bloody, too—eh!—well, I never—

I can’t see no Drummer-boy here whatsumdever!”

“Not see him!—why there;—look!—he’s close by the post—

Hark!—hark!—how he drums at me now!—he’s a Ghost!”

“A what?” returned Bill,—at that moment a flash

More than commonly awful preceded a crash

Like what’s called in Kentucky “an Almighty Smash.”—

And down Harry Waters went plump on his knees,

While the sound, though prolong’d, died away by degrees;

In its last sinking echoes, however, were some

Which, Bill could not help thinking, resembled a drum!

“Hollo! Waters!—I says,”

Quoth he in amaze,

“Why, I never see’d nuffin in all my born days

360

Half so queer

As this here,

And I’m not very clear

But that one of us two has good reason for fear—

You to jaw about drummers with nobody near us!—

I must say as how that I thinks it’s mysterus.”

“Oh, mercy!” roar’d Waters, “do keep him off, Bill,

And, Andrew, forgive!—I’ll confess all!—I will!

I’ll make a clean breast,

And as for the rest,

You may do with me just what the lawyers think best;

But haunt me not thus!—let these visitings cease,

And your vengeance accomplish’d, Boy, leave me in peace!”

—Harry paused for a moment,—then turning to Bill,

Who stood with his mouth open, steady and still,

Began “spinning” what nauticals term a “tough yarn,”

Viz. his tale of what Bill call’d “this precious consarn.”

“What! bilk your Commander!—desart—and then rob!

And go scuttling a poor little Drummer-boy’s nob;

Why, my precious eyes! what a bloodthirsty swab!

There’s old Davy Jones,

Who cracks Sailors’ bones

For his jaw-work would never, I’m sure, s’elp me Bob,

Have come for to go for to do sich a job!

Hark ye, Waters,—or Matcham,—whichever’s your purser-name,

—T’other, your own, is, I’m sartain, the worser name,—

Twelve years have we lived on like brother and brother!

Now—your course lays one way, and mine lays another!”

“No, William, it may not be so;

Blood calls for blood!—’tis Heaven’s decree!

And thou with me this night must go,

And give me to the gallows-tree!

Ha!—see—He smiles—He points the way!

On, William, on!—no more delay!”

Now Bill,—so the story, as told to me, goes

And who, as his last speech sufficiently shows,

Was a “regular trump,”—did not like to “turn Nose;”

But then came a thunder-clap louder than any

Of those that preceded, though they were so many;

And hark!—as its rumblings subside in a hum.

What sound mingles too?—By the hokey—A Drum!!

I remember I once heard my Grandfather say,

That some sixty years since he was going that way

When they show’d him the spot

Where the gibbet—was not—

366

On which Matcham’s corse had been hung up to rot;

It had fall’n down—but how long before, he’d forgot;

And they told him, I think, at the Bear in Devizes,

The town where the Sessions are held,—or the ’Sizes,

That Matcham confess’d,

And made a clean breast

To the May’r; but that after he’d had a night’s rest,

And the storm had subsided, he “pooh-pooh’d” his friend,

Swearing all was a lie from beginning to end;

Said “he’d only been drunk”—

That his spirits had sunk

At the thunder—the storm put him into a funk,—

That, in fact, he had nothing at all on his conscience,

And found out, in short, he’d been talking great nonsense.—

But now one, Mr. Jones,

Comes forth and depones

That fifteen years since, he had heard certain groans

On his way to Stonehenge (to examine the stones

Described in a work of the late Sir John Soane’s),

That he’d follow’d the moans,

And, led by their tones,

Found a Raven a-picking a Drummer-boy’s bones!—

—Then the Colonel wrote word

From the King’s Forty-third,

That the story was certainly true which they’d heard,

For, that one of their drummers, and one Sergeant Matcham,

Had “brush’d with the dibs,” and they never could catch ’em.

So Justice was sure, though a long time she’d lagg’d,

And the Sergeant, in spite of his “Gammon,” got “scragg’d;”

And people averr’d

That an ugly black bird,

The Raven, ’twas hinted, of whom we have heard,

Though the story, I own, appears rather absurd,

Was seen (Gervase Matcham not being interr’d)

To roost all that night on the murderer’s gibbet;

An odd thing, if so, and it may be a fib—it,

However’s a thing Nature’s laws don’t prohibit.

—Next morning they add, that “black gentleman” flies out,

Having picked Matcham’s nose off, and gobbled his eyes out.

367

MORAL.
Avis au Voyageur.

Imprimis.

If you contemplate walking o’er Salisbury Plain,

Consult Mr. Murphy, or Moore, and refrain

From selecting a day when it’s likely to rain!

2º.

When trav’lling, don’t “flash”

Your notes or your cash

Before other people—it’s foolish and rash!

3º.

At dinner be cautious, and note well your party!—

There’s little to dread where the appetite’s hearty,—

But mind and look well to your purse and your throttle

When you see a man shirking, and passing his bottle!

4º.

If you chance to be needy,

Your coat and hat seedy,

In war-time especially never go out

When you’ve reason to think there’s a press-gang about!

5º.

Don’t chatter, nor tell people all that you think,

Nor blab secrets,—especially when you’re in drink.—

But keep your own counsel in all that you do!

—Or a Counsel may, some day or other, keep you.

6º.

Discard superstition!—and don’t take a post,

If you happen to see one at night, for a Ghost!

—Last of all, if by choice or convenience you’re led

To cut a man’s throat, or demolish his head,

Don’t do’t in a thunder-storm—wait for the summer!

And mind, above all things, the Man’s not a Drummer!!

DOL-DRUM the Manager sits in his chair,

With a gloomy brow and dissatisfied air,

And he says, as he slaps his hand on his knee,

“I’ll have nothing to do with Fiddle-de-dee!”

—“But Fiddle-de-dee sings clear and loud,

And his trills and his quavers astonish the crowd;

Such a singer as he

You’ll nowhere see;

They’ll all be screaming for Fiddle-de-dee!”

—“Though Fiddle-de-dee sings loud and clear,

And his tones are sweet, yet his terms are dear

The ‘glove won’t fit!’

The deuce a bit.

I shall give an engagement to Fal-de-ral-tit!”

The Prompter bow’d, and he went to his stall,

And the green baize rose at the Prompter’s call,

And Fal-de-ral-tit sang fol-de-rol-lol;

But, scarce had he done

When a “row” begun,

Such a noise was never heard under the sun.

“Fiddle-de-dee!—

—Where is he?

He’s the Artiste whom we all want to see!—

Dol-drum!—Dol-drum—

Bid the Manager come!

It’s a scandalous thing to exact such a sum

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For boxes and gallery, stalls and pit,

And then fob us off with a Fal-de-ral-tit!

Deuce a bit!

We’ll never submit!

Vive Fiddle-de-dee! à bas Fal-de-ral-tit!”

Dol-drum the Manager rose from his chair,

With a gloomy brow and dissatisfied air;

But he smooth’d his brow

As he well knew how,

And he walk’d on, and made a most elegant bow,

And he paused, and he smiled, and advanced to the lights,

In his opera-hat, and his opera tights;

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” then said he,

“Pray, what may you please to want with me?”

“Fiddle-de-dee!—

Fiddle-de-dee!”

Folks of all sorts and of every degree,

Snob, and Snip, and haughty Grandee,

Duchesses, Countesses, fresh from their tea,

And Shopmen, who’d only come there for a spree,

Halloo’d, and hooted, and roar’d with glee

“Fiddle-de-dee!—

None but He!—

Subscribe to his terms, whatever they be!—

Agree, agree, or you’ll very soon see

In a brace of shakes we’ll get up an O.P.!”

Dol-drum the Manager, full of care,

With a gloomy brow and dissatisfied air,

Looks distrest,

And he bows his best,

And he puts his right hand on the side of his breast,

And he says,—says he,

“We can’t agree;

His terms are a vast deal too high for me.—

There’s the rent, and the rates, and the sesses, and taxes—

I can’t afford Fiddle-de-dee what he axes.

If you’ll only permit

Fal-de-ral-tit——”

The “Generous Public” cried “Deuce a bit!

Dol-drum!—Dol-drum!—

We’ll none of us come.

It’s ‘No Go!’—it’s ‘Gammon!’—it’s ‘all a Hum:’—

370

You’re a miserly Jew!—

‘Cock-a-doodle-do!’

He don’t ask too much, as you know—so you do—

It’s a shame—it’s a sin—it’s really too bad—

You ought to be ’shamed of yourself—so you had!”

Dol-drum the Manager never before

In his lifetime had heard such a wild uproar,

Dol-drum the Manager turn’d to flee;

But he says—says he,

“Mort de ma vie!

I shall nevare engage vid dat Fiddle-de-dee!”

Then all the gentlefolks flew in a rage,

And they jump’d from the Omnibus on to the Stage,

Lords, Squires, and Knights, they came down to the lights,

In their opera-hats, and their opera-tights.

Ma’am’selle Cherrytoes

Shook to her very toes,

She couldn’t hop on, so hopp’d off on her merry toes.

And the “evening concluded” with “Three times three!”

“Hip—hip!—hurrah! for Fiddle-de-dee!”

Dol-drum the Manager, full of care.

With a troubled brow and dissatisfied air,

Saddest of men,

Sat down, and then

Took from his table a Perryan pen,

And he wrote to the “News,”

How Mac Fuze and Tregooze,

Lord Tomnoddy, Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues,

And the whole of their tail, and the separate crews

Of the Tags and the Rags, and the No-one-knows-whos,

Had combined Monsieur Fal-de-ral-tit to abuse,

And make Dol-drum agree

With Fiddle-de-dee,

Who was not a bit better singer than he.

—Dol-drum declared “he never could see,

For the life of him, yet, why Fiddle-de-dee,

Who in B flat, or C,

Or whatever the key,

Could never at any time get below G,

Should expect a fee the same in degree

As the great Burlybumbo who sings double D.”

Then slily he added a little N.B.,

“If they’d have him in Paris he’d not come to me!”

371

The Manager rings,

And the Prompter springs

To his side in a jiffy, and with him he brings

A set of those odd-looking envelope things,

Where Britannia (who seems to be crucified) flings

To her right and her left, funny people with wings

Amongst Elephants, Quakers, and Catabaw Kings;

And a taper and wax

And small Queen’s heads in packs,

Which, when notes are too big, you’re to stick on their backs.

Dol-drum the Manager seal’d with care

The letter and copies he’d written so fair,

And sat himself down with a satisfied air;

Without delay

He sent them away,

In time to appear in “our columns” next day!

Dol-drum the Manager, full of care,

Walk’d on to the stage with an anxious air.

And peep’d through the curtain to see who were there.

There was Mac Fuze,

And Lieutenant Tregooze,

And there was Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues,

And the Tags, and the Rags, and the No-one-knows-whos;

And the green-baize rose at the Prompter’s call,

And they all began to hoot, bellow, and bawl,

And cry “Cock-a doodle,” and scream and squall

“Dol-drum!—Dol-drum!—

Bid the Manager come!”

You’d have thought from the tones

Of their hisses and groans,

They were bent upon breaking his (Opera) bones.

And Dol-drum comes, and he says—says he,

“Pray, what may you please to want with me?”—

“Fiddle-de-dee!—

Fiddle-de-dee!—

We’ll have nobody give us sol fa but He!

For he’s the Artiste whom we all want to see.”

—Manager Dol-drum says—says he—

(And he looks like an owl in “a hollow beech-tree”)—

“Well, since I see

The thing must be,

I’ll sign an agreement with Fiddle-de-dee!”

Then Mac Fuze, and Tregooze,

And Jenks of the Blues,

And the Tags, and the Rags, and the No-one-knows-whos,

372

Extremely delighted to hear such good news,

Desist from their shrill “Cock-a-doodle-doos.”

“Vive Fiddle-de-dee!

Dol-drum and He!

They are jolly good fellows as ever need be!

And so’s Burlybumbo, who sings double D!

And whenever they sing, why, we’ll all come and see!”

So, after all

This terrible squall,

Fiddle-de-dee

’s at the top of the tree,

And Dol-drum and Fal-de-ral-tit sing small!

Now Fiddle-de-dee sings loud and clear,

At I can’t tell you how many thousands a-year,

And Fal-de-ral-tit is considered “Small Beer;”

And Ma’am’selle Cherrytoes

Sports her merry toes,

Dancing away to the fiddles and flutes,

In what the folks call a “Lithuanian” in boots.

So here’s an end to my one, two, and three;

And bless the Queen—and long live She!

And grant that there never again may be

Such a halliballoo as we’ve happen’d to see

About nothing on earth but “Fiddle-de-dee!”

IT’S in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes One,

And the roast meat’s brown and the boil’d meat’s done,

And the barbecu’d sucking-pig’s crisp’d to a turn,

And the pancakes are fried, and beginning to burn;

The fat stubble-goose

Swims in gravy and juice,

With the mustard and apple-sauce ready for use;

Fish, flesh, and fowl, and all of the best,

Want nothing but eating—they’re all ready drest,

But where is the Host, and where is the Guest?

Pantler and serving-man, henchman and page,

Stand sniffing the duck-stuffing (onion and sage),

And the scullions and cooks,

With fidgety looks,

Are grumbling and mutt’ring, and scowling as black

As cooks always do when the dinner’s put back;

For though the board’s deckt, and the napery, fair

As the unsunn’d snow-flake, is spread out with care,

And the Dais is furnish’d with stool and with chair,

And plate of orféverie costly and rare,

Apostle-spoons, salt-cellar, all are there,

And Mess John in his place,

With his rubicund face,

And his hands ready folded, prepared to say Grace,

Yet where is the Host?—and his convives—where?

374

The Scroope sits lonely in Bolton Hall,

And he watches the dial that hangs by the wall,

He watches the large hand, he watches the small,

And he fidgets and looks

As cross as the cooks,

And he utters—a word which we’ll soften to “’Zooks!”

And he cries, “What on earth has become of them all?—

What can delay

De Vaux and De Saye?

What makes Sir Gilbert de Umfraville stay?

What’s gone with Poyntz, and Sir Reginald Braye?

Why are Ralph Ufford and Marny away?

And De Nokes, and De Styles, and Lord Marmaduke Grey,

And De Roe?

And De Doe?—

Poynings, and Vavasour—where be they?

Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Osbert, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,

And the Mandevilles, père et filz (father and son)?

Their cards said ‘Dinner precisely at One!’

There’s nothing I hate, in

The world, like waiting!

It’s a monstrous great bore, when a Gentleman feels

A good appetite, thus to be kept from his meals!”

It’s in Bolton Hall, and the clock strikes Two!

And the scullions and cooks are themselves in “a stew,”

And the kitchen-maids stand, and don’t know what to do,

For the rich plum-puddings are bursting their bags,

And the mutton and turnips are boiling to rags,

And the fish is all spoil’d,

And the butter’s all oil’d,

And the soup’s got cold in the silver tureen,

And there is nothing, in short, that is fit to be seen!

While Sir Guy Le Scroope continues to fume,

And to fret by himself in the tapestried room,

And still fidgets, and looks

More cross than the cooks,

And repeats that bad word, which we’ve soften’d to “’Zooks!”

Two o’clock’s come, and Two o’clock’s gone,

And the large and the small hands move steadily on,

Still nobody’s there,

No De Roos, or De Clare,

To taste of the Scroope’s most delicate fare,

Or to quaff off a health unto Bolton’s Heir,

375

That nice little boy who sits there in his chair,

Some four years old, and a few months to spare,

With his laughing blue eyes, and his long curly hair,

Now sucking his thumb, and now munching his pear.

Again, Sir Guy the silence broke,

“It’s hard upon Three!—it’s just on the stroke!

Come, serve up the dinner!—A joke is a joke!”—

Little he deems that Stephen de Hoaques,29

Who “his fun,” as the Yankees say, everywhere “pokes,”

And is always a great deal too fond of his jokes,

Has written a circular note to De Nokes,

And De Styles, and De Roe, and the rest of the folks,

One and all,

Great and small,

Who were asked to the Hall

To dine there and sup, and wind up with a ball,

And had told all the party a great bouncing lie, he

Cook’d up, that “the fête was postponed sine die,

The dear little curly-wigg’d heir of La Scroope

Being taken alarmingly ill with the croup!”

When the clock struck Three,

And the Page on his knee

Said “An’t please you, Sir Guy Le Scroope, On a servi!”

And the Knight found the banquet-hall empty and clear,

With nobody near

To partake of his cheer,

He stamp’d, and he storm’d—then his language!—Oh dear!

’Twas awful to see, and ’twas awful to hear!

And he cried to the button-deck’d Page at his knee,

Who had told him so civilly “On a servi,”

“Ten thousand fiends seize them, wherever they be!

—The Devil take them! and the Devil take thee!

And the Devil may eat up the dinner for me!!”

376

In a terrible fume

He bounced out of the room,

He bounced out of the house—and page, footman, and groom,

Bounced after their master; for scarce had they heard

Of this left-handed Grace the last finishing word,

Ere the horn at the gate of the Barbican tower

Was blown with a loud twenty-trumpeter power,

And in rush’d a troop

Of strange guests!—such a group

As had ne’er before darken’d the door of the Scroope!

This looks like De Saye—yet—it is not De Saye—

And this is—no, ’tis not—Sir Reginald Braye—

This has somewhat the favour of Marmaduke Grey—

But stay!—Where on earth did he get those long nails?

Why, they’re claws!—then Good Gracious!—they’ve all of them tails!

That can’t be De Vaux—why, his nose is a bill,

Or, I would say a beak!—and he can’t keep it still!—

Is that Poynings?—Oh, Gemini!—look at his feet!!

Why, they’re absolute hoofs!—is it gout or his corns

That have crumpled them up so?—by Jingo, he’s horns!

Run! run!—There’s Fitz-Walter, Fitz-Hugh, and Fitz-John,

And the Mandevilles, père et fils (father and son).

And Fitz-Osbert, and Ufford—they’ve all got them on!

Then their great saucer eyes—

It’s the Father of lies

And his Imps—run! run! run!—they’re all fiends in disguise,

Who’ve partly assumed, with more sombre complexions,

The forms of Sir Guy Le Scroope’s friends and connections,

And He—at the top there—that grim-looking elf—

Run! run! that’s the “muckle-horned Clootie” himself!

And now what a din

Without and within!

For the courtyard is full of them,—How they begin

To mop, and to mowe, and make faces, and grin!

Cock their tails up together,

Like cows in hot weather,

And butt at each other, all eating and drinking,

The viands and wine disappearing like winking.

And then such a lot

As together had got!

Master Cabbage, the steward, who’d made a machine

To calculate with, and count noses,—I ween

377

The cleverest thing of the kind ever seen,—

Declared, when he’d made,

By the said machine’s aid,

Up, what’s now called, the “tottle” of those he survey’d,

There were just—how he proved it I cannot divine,—

Nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety, and nine.

Exclusive of Him,

Who, giant in limb,

And black as the crow they denominate Jim,

With a tail like a bull, and a head like a bear,

Stands forth at the window,—and what holds he there,

Which he hugs with such care,

And pokes out in the air,

And grasps as its limbs from each other he’d tear?

Oh! grief and despair!

I vow and declare

It’s Le Scroope’s poor, dear, sweet, little, curly-wigg’d Heir!

Whom the nurse had forgot, and left there in his chair,

Alternately sucking his thumb and his pear!

What words can express

The dismay and distress

Of Sir Guy, when he found what a terrible mess

His cursing and banning had now got him into?

That words, which to use are a shame and a sin too,

Had thus on their speaker recoil’d, and his malison

Placed in the hands of the Devil’s own “pal” his son!—

He sobb’d and he sigh’d,

And he scream’d, and he cried,

And behaved like a man that is mad, or in liquor,—he

Tore his peaked beard, and he dash’d off his “Vicary,”30

Stamped on the jasey

As though he were crazy,

And staggering about just as if he were “hazy,”

378

Exclaimed, “Fifty pounds!” (a large sum in those times)

“To the person, whoever he may be, that climbs

To that window above there, en ogive, and painted,

And bring down my curly-wi’——” here Sir Guy fainted!

With many a moan,

And many a groan,

What with tweaks of the nose, and some eau de Cologne,

He revived,—Reason once more remounted her throne,

Or rather the instinct of Nature,—’twere treason

To Her, in the Scroope’s case, perhaps, to say Reason,—

But what saw he then?—Oh! my goodness! a sight

Enough to have banished his reason outright!—

In that broad banquet hall

The fiends one and all,

Regardless of shriek, and of squeak, and of squall,

From one to another were tossing that small,

Pretty, curly-wigg’d boy, as if playing at ball:

Yet none of his friends or his vassals might dare

To fly to the rescue, or rush up the stair,

And bring down in safety his curly wigg’d Heir!

Well a day! Well a day!

All he can say

Is but just so much trouble and time thrown away;

Not a man can be tempted to join the mêlée,

E’en those words cabalistic, “I promise to pay

Fifty pounds on demand,” have, for once, lost their sway,

And there the Knight stands,

Wringing his hands

In his agony—when, on a sudden, one ray

Of hope darts through his midriff!—His Saint!—Oh, it’s funny,

And almost absurd,

That it never occurr’d!—

“Ay! the Scroope’s Patron Saint!—he’s the man for my money!

Saint—who is it?—really I’m sadly to blame,—

On my word I’m afraid,—I confess it with shame,—

That I’ve almost forgot the good Gentleman’s name,—

Cut—let me see—Cutbeard?—no!—Cuthbert!—egad!

St. Cuthbert of Bolton!—I’m right—he’s the lad!

Oh, holy St. Cuthbert, if forebears of mine—

Of myself I say little,—have knelt at your shrine,

379

And have lashed their bare backs, and—no matter—with twine,

Oh! list to the vow

Which I make to you now,

Only snatch my poor little boy out of the row

Which that Imp’s kicking up with his fiendish bow-wow,

And his head like a bear, and his tail like a cow!

Bring him back here in safety!—perform but this task,

And I’ll give!—Oh!—I’ll give you whatever you ask!—

There is not a shrine

In the County shall shine

With a brilliancy half so resplendent as thine,

Or have so many candles, or look half so fine!—

Haste, holy St. Cuthbert, then,—hasten in pity!”—

—Conceive his surprise

When a strange voice replies,

“It’s a bargain!—but, mind, sir, The best Spermaceti!”—

Say, whose that voice?—whose that form by his side,

That old, old, grey man, with his beard long and wide,

In his coarse Palmer’s weeds,

And his cockle and beads?—

And, how did he come?—did he walk?—did he ride?

Oh! none could determine,—oh! none could decide,—

The fact is, I don’t believe any one tried,

For while ev’ry one stared, with a dignified stride,

And without a word more,

He march’d on before,

Up a flight of stone steps, and so through the front door,

To the banqueting-hall, that was on the first floor,

While the fiendish assembly were making a rare

Little shuttlecock there of the curly-wigg’d Heir.—

—I wish, gentle Reader, that you could have seen

The pause that ensued when he stepp’d in between,

With his resolute air, and his dignified mien,

And said, in a tone most decided, though mild,

“Come!—I’ll trouble you just to hand over that child!”

The Demoniac crowd

In an instant seem’d cowed;

Not one of the crew volunteer’d a reply,

All shrunk from the glance of that keen-flashing eye,

Save one horrid Humgruffin, who seem’d by his talk,

And the airs he assumed, to be Cock of the walk,

380

He quailed not before it, but saucily met it,

And as saucily said, “Don’t you wish you may get it?”

My goodness!—the look that the old Palmer gave!

And his frown!—’twas quite dreadful to witness—“Why, slave!

You rascal!” quoth he,

“This language to ME!!

—At once, Mr. Nicholas! down on your knee,

And hand me that curly-wigg’d boy!—I command it—

Come!—none of your nonsense!—you know I won’t stand it.”

Old Nicholas trembled,—he shook in his shoes,

And seem’d half inclined, but afraid, to refuse.

“Well, Cuthbert,” said he,

“If so it must be,

—For you’ve had your own way from the first time I knew ye;—

Take your curly-wigg’d brat, and much good may he do ye!

But I’ll have in exchange”—here his eye flash’d with rage—

“That chap with the buttons—he gave me the Page!”

“Come, come,” the Saint answer’d, “you very well know

The young man’s no more his than your own to bestow—

Touch one button of his, if you dare, Nick—no! no!

Cut your stick, sir—come, mizzle! be off with you!—go!”—

The Devil grew hot—

“If I do I’ll be shot!

An you come to that, Cuthbert, I’ll tell you what’s what;

He has asked us to dine here, and go we will not!

Why, you Skinflint,—at least

You may leave us the feast!

Here we’ve come all that way from our brimstone abode,

Ten million good leagues, sir, as ever you strode,

And the deuce of a luncheon we’ve had on the road—

—‘Go!’—‘Mizzle!’ indeed—Mr. Saint, who are you,

I should like to know?—‘Go!’—I’ll be hanged if I do!

He invited us all—we’ve a right here—it’s known

That a Baron may do what he likes with his own—

Here, Asmodeus—a slice of that beef;—now the mustard!—

What have you got?—oh, apple-pie—try it with custard!”

The Saint made a pause

As uncertain, because

He knew Nick is pretty well “up” in the laws,

And they might be on his side—and then, he’d such claws!

On the whole, it was better, he thought, to retire

With the curly-wigg’d boy he’d pick’d out of the fire,

And give up the victuals—to retrace his path,

And to compromise—(spite of the Member for Bath).

So to old Nick’s appeal,

As he turn’d on his heel,

He replied, “Well, I’ll leave you the mutton and veal,

And the soup à la Reine, and the sauce Bechamel,

As The Scroope did invite you to dinner, I feel

I can’t well turn you out—’twould be hardly genteel—

But be moderate, pray,—and remember thus much,

Since you’re treated as Gentlemen, show yourselves such,

And don’t make it late,

But mind and go straight

Home to bed when you’ve finish’d—and don’t steal the plate!

Nor wrench off the knocker, or bell from the gate.

Walk away, like respectable Devils, in peace,

And don’t ‘lark’ with the watch, or annoy the police!”

Having thus said his say,

That Palmer grey

Took up little Le Scroope, and walk’d coolly away,

While the Demons all set up a “Hip! hip! hurray!”

Then fell, tooth and claw, on the victuals, as they

Had been guests at Guildhall upon Lord Mayor’s day,

All scrambling and scuffling for what was before ’em,

No care for precedence or common decorum.

Few ate more hearty

Than Madame Astarte,

And Hecate,—considered the Belles of the party.

Between them was seated Leviathan, eager

To “do the polite,” and take wine with Belphegor;

Here was Morbleu (a French devil), supping soup-meagre,

And there, munching leeks, Davy Jones of Tredegar

(A Welsh one), who’d left the domains of Ap Morgan

To “follow the sea,”—and next him Demogorgon,—

Then Pan with his pipes, and Fauns grinding the organ

To Mammon and Belial, and half a score dancers,

Who’d joined with Medusa to get up “the Lancers;”

382

—Here’s Lucifer lying blind drunk with Scotch ale,

While Beelzebub’s tying huge knots in his tail,

There’s Setebos, storming because Mephistopheles

Gave him the lie,

Said he’d “blacken his eye,”

And dash’d in his face a whole cup of hot coffee-lees;—

Ramping and roaring,

Hiccoughing, snoring,

Never was seen such a riot before in

A gentleman’s house, or such profligate revelling

At any soirée—where they don’t let the Devil in.

Hark!—as sure as fate

The clock’s striking Eight!

(An hour which our ancestors called “getting late”)

When Nick, who by this time was rather elate,

Rose up and addressed them.

“’Tis full time,” he said,

“For all elderly Devils to be in their bed;

For my own part, I mean to be jogging, because

I don’t find myself now quite so young as I was;

But, Gentlemen, ere I depart from my post,

I must call on you all for one bumper—the toast

Which I have to propose is—Our Excellent Host!

—Many thanks for his kind hospitality—may

We also be able,

To see at our table

Himself, and enjoy, in a family way,

His good company down stairs at no distant day!

You’d, I’m sure, think me rude

If I did not include

In the toast my young friend there, the curly-wigg’d Heir!

He’s in very good hands, for you’re all well aware

That St. Cuthbert has taken him under his care;

Though I must not say ‘bless,’—

—Why, you’ll easily guess,—

May our curly-wigg’d Friend’s shadow never be less!”

Nick took off his heel-taps—bow’d—smiled—with an air

Most graciously grim,—and vacated the chair.—

Of course the élite

Rose at once on their feet,

And followed their leader, and beat a retreat;

When a sky-larking Imp took the President’s seat,

383

And, requesting that each would replenish his cup,

Said, “Where we have dined, my boys, there let us sup!”—

—It was three in the morning before they broke up!!!

I scarcely need say

Sir Guy didn’t delay

To fulfil his vow made to St. Cuthbert, or pay

For the candles he’d promised, or make light as day

The shrine he assured him he’d render so gay.

In fact, when the votaries came there to pray,

All said there was nought to compare with it—nay,

For fear that the Abbey

Might think he was shabby,

Four Brethren thenceforward, two cleric, two lay,

He ordained should take charge of a new-founded chantry,

With six marcs apiece, and some claims on the pantry;

In short, the whole County

Declared, through his bounty

The Abbey of Bolton exhibited fresh scenes

From any displayed since Sir William de Meschines,31

And Cecily Roumeli came to this nation

With William the Norman, and laid its foundation.

For the rest, it is said,

And I know I have read

In some Chronicle—whose, has gone out of my head—

That, what with these candles, and other expenses,

Which no man would go to if quite in his senses,

He reduced, and brought low

His property so,

That, at last, he’d not much of it left to bestow;

And that, many years after that terrible feast,

Sir Guy, in the Abbey, was living a Priest;

And there, in one thousand and—something,—deceased.

(It’s supposed by this trick

He bamboozled Old Nick,

And slipped through his fingers remarkably “slick.”)

While, as to young Curly-wig,—dear little Soul,

Would you know more of him, you must look at “The Roll,”

Which records the dispute,

And the subsequent suit,

Commenced in “Thirteen sev’nty-five,”—which took root

384

In Le Grosvenor’s assuming the arms Le Scroope swore

That none but his ancestors, ever before,

In foray, joust, battle, or tournament wore.

To wit, “On a Prussian-blue Field, a Bend Or;”

While the Grosvenor averred that his ancestor bore

The same, and Scroope lied like a—somebody tore

Off the simile,—so I can tell you no more,

Till some A double S shall the fragment restore.32

MORAL.

This Legend sound maxims exemplifies—e.g.

1mo.

Should anything tease you,

Annoy, or displease you,

Remember what Lilly says, “Animum rege!”33

And as for that shocking bad habit of swearing,—

In all good society voted past bearing,—

Eschew it! and leave it to dustmen and mobs,

Nor commit yourself much beyond “’Zooks!” or “Odsbobs!”

2do.

When asked out to dine by a Person of Quality,

Mind, and observe the most strict punctuality!

For should you come late,

And make dinner wait,

And the victuals get cold, you’ll incur, sure as fate,

The Master’s displeasure, the Mistress’s hate.

And—though both may, perhaps, be too well-bred to swear,—

They’ll heartily wish you—I need not say Where.

3tio.

Look well to your Maid-servants!—say you expect them

To see to the children, and not to neglect them!

And if you’re a widower, just throw a cursory

Glance in, at times, when you go near the Nursery.

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—Perhaps it’s as well to keep children from plums,

And from pears in the season,—and sucking their thumbs!

4to.

To sum up the whole with a “Saw” of much use,

Be just and be generous—don’t be profuse!—

Pay the debts that you owe,—keep your word to your friends,

But—DON’T SET YOUR CANDLES ALIGHT AT BOTH ENDS!!—

For of this be assured, if you “go it” too fast,

You’ll be “dish’d” like Sir Guy,

And like him, perhaps, die

A poor, old, half-starv’d, Country Parson at last!

SAINT ALOYS

Was the Bishop of Blois,

And a pitiful man was he,

He grieved and he pined

For the woes of mankind,

And of brutes in their degree,—

He would rescue the rat

From the claws of the cat,

And set the poor captive free;

Though his cassock was swarming

With all sorts of vermin,

He’d not take the life of a flea!—

Kind, tender, forgiving,

To all things living,

From injury still he’d endeavour to screen ’em,

Fish, flesh, or fowl,—no difference between ’em—

Nihil putavit a se alienum.

The Bishop of Blois was a holy man,—

A holy man was he!

For Holy Church

He’d seek and he’d search

As a Bishop in his degree.

From foe and from friend

He’d “rap and he’d rend,”

To augment her treasurie.

Nought would he give, and little he’d lend,

That Holy Church might have more to spend—

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“Count Stephen”34 (of Blois) “was a worthy Peer,

His breeches cost him but a crown,

He held them sixpence all too dear,

And so he call’d the Tailor lown!”—

Had it been the Bishop instead of the Count,

And he’d overcharged him to half the amount,

He had knock’d that Tailor down!—

Not for himself!—

He despised the pelf;

He dress’d in sackcloth, he dined off delf;

And, when it was cold, in lieu of a surtout,

The good man would wrap himself up in his virtue.35

Alack! that a man so holy as he,

So frank and free in his degree,

And so good and so kind, should mortal be!

Yet so it is—for loud and clear

From St. Nicholas’ tower, on the listening ear,

With solemn swell

The deep-toned bell

Flings to the gale a funeral knell;

And hark!—at its sound,

As a cunning old hound,

When he opens, at once causes all the young whelps

Of the cry to put in their less dignified yelps,

So—the little bells all,

No matter how small,

From the steeples both inside and outside the wall,

With bell-metal throat

Respond to the note,

And join the lament that a prelate so pious is

Forced thus to leave his disconsolate diocese,

Or, as Blois’ Lord May’r

Is heard to declare,

“Should leave this here world for to go to that there.”

And see, the portals opening wide,

From the Abbey flows the living tide;

Forth from the doors

The torrent pours,

Acolytes, Monks, and Friars in scores,

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This with his chasuble, that with his rosary,

This from his incense-pot turning his nose awry,

Holy Father, and Holy Mother,

Holy Sister, and Holy Brother,

Holy Son, and Holy Daughter,

Holy Wafer, and Holy Water,

Every one drest

Like a guest in his best,

In the smartest of clothes they’re permitted to wear,

Serge, sackcloth, and shirts of the same sort of hair

As now we make use of to stuff an arm-chair,

Or weave into gloves at three shillings a pair,

And employ for shampooing in cases rheumatic,—a

Special specific, I’m told, for Sciatica.

Through groined arch, and by cloister’d stone,

With mosses and ivy long o’ergrown,

Slowly the throng

Come passing along,

With many a chaunt and solemn song,

Adapted for holidays, high-days, and Sundays,—

Dies iræ, and De profundis,

Miserere, and Domine dirige nos,

Such as, I hear, to a very slow tune are all

Commonly chaunted by Monks at a funeral,

To secure the defunct’s repose,

And to give a broad hint to Old Nick, should the news

Of a prelate’s decease bring him there on a cruise,

That he’d better be minding his P’s and his Q’s,

And not come too near,—since they can, if they choose,

Make him shake in his hoofs—as he does not wear shoes.

Still on they go,

A goodly show,

With footsteps sure, though certainly slow,

Two by two in a very long row;

With feathers, and Mutes

In mourning suits,

Undertaker’s men walking in hat-bands and boots.—

Then comes the Crosier, all jewels and gold,

Borne by a lad about eighteen years old;

Next, on a black velvet cushion, the Mitre,

Borne by a younger boy, ’cause it is lighter.

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Eight Franciscans, sturdy and strong,

Bear, in the midst, the good Bishop along;

Eight Franciscans, stout and tall,

Walk at the corners, and hold up the pall;

Eight more hold a canopy high over all,

With eight Trumpeters tooting the Dead March in Saul.—

Behind, as Chief Mourner, the Lord Abbot goes, his—

Monks coming after him, all with posies,

And white pocket-handkerchiefs up at their noses,

Which they blow whenever his Lordship blows his—

And oh! ’tis a comely sight to see

How Lords and Ladies, of high degree,

Vail, as they pass, upon bended knee,

While quite as polite are the Squires and the Knights,

In their helmets, and hauberks, and cast-iron tights.

And little boys kneeling beneath them in rows,

Their hands join’d in pray’r, all in very long clothes,

With inscriptions on brass, begging each who survives,

As they some of them seem to have led so-so lives,

To Praie for the Sowles of themselves and their wives.—

—The effect of the music, too, really was fine,

When they let the good prelate down into his shrine,

390

And by old and young

The “Requiem” was sung:

Not vernacular French, but a classical tongue,

That is—Latin—I don’t think they meddled with Greek—

In short, the whole thing produced—so to speak—

What in Blois they would call a Coup d’œil magnifique!

—That ray, methinks, that rests so sheen

Upon each briar-bound hillock green,

So calm, so tranquil, so serene,—

Gives to the eye a fairer scene,—

Speaks to the heart with holier breath

Than all this pageantry of Death.—

But chacun à son goût—this is talking at random—

We all know “De gustibus non disputandum!”

So canter back, Muse, to the scene of your story

The Cathedral of Blois—

Where the Sainted Aloys

Is by this time, you’ll find, “left alone in his glory,”

“In the dead of the night,” though with labour opprest,

Some “mortals” disdain “the calm blessings of rest;”

Your cracksman, for instance, thinks night-time the best

To break open a door, or the lid of a chest;

And the gipsy who close round your premises prowls,

To ransack your hen-roost, and steal all your fowls,

Always sneaks out at night with the bats and the owls,

—So do Witches and Warlocks, Ghosts, Goblins, and Ghouls,

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To say nothing at all of those troublesome “Swells”

Who come from the playhouses, “flash kens,” and “hells,”

To pull off people’s knockers, and ring people’s bells.