Chapter XXXV (1)

They coovered poor Stephen Blackpool’s face!

The crowd from the Old Hell Shaft pressed around him. Mr. Gradgrind ran to look at the sufferer’s face, but in doing so, he trod on a daisy. He wept: and a hundred and sixty more of his hairs turned gray. He would tread on no more daisies!

He was not, however, to be baulked in his humble, honest purpose of self-reform. As he passed over the common, a donkey kicked him. It reminded him that facts were stubborn things: and he had done with facts and stubbornness. He wept again.

“Rachel, beloved lass, art thou by me?”

“Ay, Stephen; how dost thou feel?”

“Hoomble and happy, lass. I be grateful and thankful. I be obliged to them as have brought charges o’ robbery agin me; an’ I hope as them as did it will be happy an’ enjoy the fruits. I do only look on my being pitched down that theer shaft, and having all my bones broke, as a mercy and a providence, and God bless ev’rybody!”

“Stephen, your head be a wandering.”

“Ay, lass; awlus a muddle.”

“Will you take anything, Stephen?”

“I do hoombly thank thee for a good and trew lass thou hast awlus been to me; and I dunnot care if I do take a little soomut warm――wi’ a little sugar.”

The sobered man had still credit at the neighbouring tavern. In two seconds he appeared with a steaming glass of rum-and-water, scarcely stopping to sip it by the way.

“Can thou drink rum, Stephen?” asked Rachel, taking the tumbler from the hands of the sobered man for fear of accidents.

“I do hoombly and kindly thank thee, lass,” said poor Stephen; “I can drink anything.”

Rachel placed the goblet to his parched and quivering lips.

There was a moment of breathless silence. Mr. Bounderby rattled three-and-sixpence in his breeches pocket, and finding that his ostentation was unnoticed, kicked a little boy down the Old Hell Shaft. Mr. Gradgrind purchased a pennyworth of violets from a blue-eyed flower-girl, and true to his new and trusting creed, accepted two counterfeit farthings as change for a sovereign without looking at them. The Whelp glared fiercely at the rum-and-water, and barked.

Stephen drank it, every drop. Finished. Down to the dregs. No heel-taps.

“I do hoombly thank thee, Rachel, good and trew lass as thou hast been to me; but I do feel much better.”

“Oh, here!” Mr. Bounderby blustered forward: “I’m not going to stand this. If a man suspected of robbing Josiah Bounderby, of Coketown’s Bank, is to feel ‘much better,’ I should like to know what’s the use of Old Hell Shafts. There’s a touch of the gold-spoon game in that; and I’m up to the gold-spoon game――rather! And it wont go down with Josiah Bounderby. Of Coketown. Not exactly. Here! Where’s a constable?”

There was none. Of course not. There never is, when wanted.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer pressed officiously forward, and volunteered to take Stephen into custody.

“Shame!” cried the populace.

“Oh, I daresay,” said Mr. Bounderby; “I’m a self-made man, and, having made myself, am not likely to be ashamed of anything. There, take him along.”

There was a movement, as if for a rescue. The sobered man had been sober quite long enough without a fight, and tucked up his sleeves.

Stephen prevented this explosion.

“Noa, lads,” he said, in his meek broken voice; “dunnot try to resky me. I be fond o’ constables. I like going to prison. As for hard labour, I ha’ been used to that long enough. Wi’ regard to law――it’s awlus a muddle.”

“Off with him!” said Mr. Bounderby. “When I used to commit robberies, I never had any rum-and-water given to me. No, nor didn’t talk about muddles. And I’m worth sixty thousand pounds, and have got ladies of family――ladies of family;”――he raised his voice to call attention to Mrs. Sparsit, who was ambling gently along with the submissive Stephen on her august shoulders――“acting as beasts of burden for me. Come up, madam!” and he gave Mrs. Sparsit a gentle touch of his whip, causing that high-nosed lady to prance a little.

They moved on, towards Coketown. The lights were beginning to blink through the fog. Like winking. The seven o’clock bells were ringing. Like one o’clock. Suddenly the tramp of horses and the fierce barking of a dog were heard.

With a wild cry, Sissy recognised Sleary’s company galloping towards them――all mounted; Mr. Sleary himself, grown much stouter, on his wonderful trained Arab steed, Bolivar; J. W. B. Childers, who had apparently not had time to change his dress, as the Indian warrior on the celebrated spotted Pegasus of the Caucasus; Kidderminster following, on the comic performing donkey, Jerusalem.

A dog, far in advance of the horse-riders, dashed amongst the astonished crowd, and singling out Mr. Bounderby, seized him by the scruff of the neck.

“Thath wight, Mewwylegth,” cried Mr. S., coming up panting (in addition to his former lisp, advancing age had afflicted him with a difficulty in pronouncing his _r’s_). “Thath the vewy identical cove: pin him! Good dog!”

“Help! murder!” cried the bully of humility, struggling with the animal. “Will you see a man worth sixty thousand pounds devoured by a dog?”

The prospect seemed to afford the bystanders considerable satisfaction.

“Ith no uthe, Thquire,” said Sleary, calmly; “the dog wont let go hith hold of you;” and he added, in a hissing voice, “_ith Jupeth dog_!”

“It’s a lie,” Bounderby faltered; “I didn’t murder him――he did it himself. I never saw the man. He hit me first. I never spoke to a clown in my life. Tear this hound off.”

“Quite enough, Thquire,” said Sleary. “I call on everybody in the Queenth name to athitht me in arethting thith man, Jothiah Bounderby, for the murder of my clown, Jupe, thickthteen yearth ago.”

Sissy fainted into the Whelp’s arms. From that moment the latter quadruped resolved to lead a virtuous life.

Mrs. Sparsit and Bitzer, with the alacrity of timeservers, released Stephen, and seized on their former patron. Stephen slipped quietly away in the confusion of the moment, remarking, with a wink of satisfaction to Rachel, “Awlus a muddle!”

Merrylegs retained his hold on his victim’s throat. Like a vice.

“Murder!” cried Bounderby! “release me from this dog, or demon, and I will confess all.”

“Mewwylegth, come here, thir!”

Merrylegs released his victim.

“Well, then,” said the detected miscreant, desperately――“sixteen years ago I murdered the man, Jupe, to obtain possession of eighteen-pence, with which I entered Coketown, and set up in business. And now, do your worst.”

The crowd recoiled in horror. The sobered man picked up Mr. Bounderby’s hat, that had dropped off in the scuffle, and immediately pawned it.

“Off with him!” cried Sleary, in a tone of theatrical authority,――“to jail!”

To jail! to jail! to jail!

* * * * *

――――:o:――――

THE POLITICAL “MRS. GUMMIDGE.”
_A “Dickens” of a Situation._

Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone had been in a low state for some time, and had almost burst into tears when a chill gust from the North, coming suddenly, and――to her――unexpectedly down the chimney, had blown the lid off the bubbling saucepan, and the soot into the stew therein.

“I am a much-crossed cretur’,” were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when that unpleasant occurrence took place, “and everythink goes contrairy with me.”

“Oh, it’ll soon leave off,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull――meaning the North wind,――“and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable to you than it is to us.”

“I feel it more,” said Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone.

It was indeed a very cold, cheerless day, with cutting blasts of wind, which seemed to blow from every quarter at once, but from the North and East for choice, Mrs. Gummidge’s peculiar corner of the fireside seemed――to her at least――to be the chilliest and most uncomfortable, as her seat was certainly the hardest. She complained of the North-Easter, and of its visitation just at this time and _at her back_, which she said gave her the “creeps.”

“It is certainly very uncomfortable,” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull. “Everybody must feel it so.”

“I feel it more than other people,” said Mrs. Gummidge.

So at dinner. The fish――from which she had expected great things――were small and bony, and the stew was smoky and burnt. All acknowledged that they felt this something of a disappointment, but Mrs. Gummidge said she felt it more than they did, and again made that former declaration with great bitterness――“I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and every think goes contrairy with me.”

Later, when Mr. Peggotty-Bull came home to tea, this unfortunate Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone was knitting in her corner, in a very wretched and miserable condition. Her knitting――a nondescript piece of work――seemed to be a regular Egyptian labyrinth for complicated tangle, and a very Penelope’s web for inconclusiveness and power of alternate weaving and unweaving. “Cheer up, Grand Mawther!” cried Mr. Peggotty-Bull. (Mr. Peggotty meant Grand Old Girl.)

Mrs. Gummidge did not appear to be able to cheer up. She dropped her knitting with a gesture of despair.

“What’s amiss, Dame?” said Mr. Peggotty-Bull.

“Everythink!” returned Mrs. Gummidge. “Including _you_,” she continued, dolefully. “You’ve a willing mind to face the troubles before you, but you ain’t ready. I’m sorry it should be along o’ me that you’re so unready.”

“Along o’ you? It ain’t along o’ you!” said Mr. Peggotty, good naturedly, and perhaps without _quite_ meaning it. “Don’t ye believe a bit on it,”

“Yes, yes, it is!” cried Mrs. Gummidge-Gladstone. “I know what I am. I know that I am a much-crossed cretur’, and not only that everythink goes contrairy with me, but that I go contrairy with everybody. Yes, yes. I feel more than other people do, and I show it more. It’s my misfortun.”

One really couldn’t help thinking that the misfortune extended to some other Members of that House, besides Mrs. Gummidge.

“I ain’t what I could wish myself to be,” said Mrs. Gummidge. “I am far from it. I know what I am. My troubles has made me contrairy. I feel my troubles, and they makes me contrairy. I wish I didn’t feel them, but I do. I wish I could be harden’d to ’em, but I ain’t. If I felt less, I could do more. I make the House uncomfortable. I don’t wonder at it. It’s far from right that I should do it. I’d better leave the House. I’m a much-crossed cretur’, and had better not make myself contrairy here. If thinks must go contrairy with me, and I must go contrairy myself, let me go contrairy alone at my own place. I’d better leave the House, and retire and be a riddance.”

Mr. Peggotty-Bull, whose countenance had exhibited the mixed traces of many feelings, including puzzlement, impatience, and profound sympathy, looked upward at a portrait of an ancient, but buck-like and somewhat Hebraic personage upon the wall, and, shaking his head, with a lively expression of those mixed sentiments still animating his face, said, in a solemn whisper,

“She’s been thinking of the Old ’Un!”

This parody of “David Copperfield” appeared in _Punch_ May 2, 1885, it was illustrated by an excellent cartoon of Mr. Gladstone as “Mrs. Gummidge.”

――――:o:――――

Space will not permit of the insertion of further extracts from the parodies on Dickens, it remains, therefore, to enumerate his principal works in chronological order, followed by a list of the parodies, imitations, and plays founded upon them:――

A CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS.

Sketches by Boz 1836-37
Sunday under Three Heads 1836
Pickwick Papers 1837
Oliver Twist 1838
Sketches of Young Gentlemen 1838
Nicholas Nickleby 1839
Sketches of Young Couples 1840
Master Humphrey’s Clock (The Old
Curiosity Shop & Barnaby Rudge) 1840-1
American Notes 1842
Christmas Carol 1843
Martin Chuzzlewit 1844
The Chimes 1845
Cricket on the Hearth 1846
Pictures from Italy 1846
Battle of Life 1846
Dombey and Son 1848
Haunted Man 1848
David Copperfield 1850
Mr. Nightingale’s Diary 1851
Child’s History of England 1852-4
Bleak House 1853
Hard Times 1854
Little Dorrit 1857
Hunted Down 1859
Tale of Two Cities 1859
Great Expectations 1861
Uncommercial Traveller 1861
Our Mutual Friend 1865
Mystery of Edwin Drood 1870

_Sam Weller_, a Journal of Wit and Humour. Edited by Sam Slick, with
illustrations. 1837.

_Posthumous Papers of the Cadgers’ Club._ With sixteen engravings.
London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

_Posthumous Papers of the Wonderful Discovery Club_, formerly of
Camden Town. Established by Sir Peter Patron. Edited by “Poz.”
With eleven illustrations, designed by Squib, and engraved by
Point. London. 1838.

_The Post-humourous Notes of the Pickwickian Club._ Edited by “Bos.” 2
vols, with numerous illustrations. London.

_Pickwick in America_, detailing all the adventures of that individual
in the United States. Edited by “Bos.” Illustrated with forty-six
engravings by “Phis.” London. E. Lloyd, about 1837.

_Pickwick Abroad_, or a Tour in France, by G. W. M. Reynolds. This is
a thick octavo volume, published in 1839, with numerous
illustrations. The first edition is rather scarce, but reprints
(published by Willoughby & Co., London) are not difficult to
procure. The woodcuts, in the body of the book, are curious, as
showing the architecture and appearance of the principal streets
of Paris fifty years ago.

_The Adventures of Marmaduke Midge_, the Pickwickian Legatee.
(Particulars of this work are wanting.)

Amongst the many piracies and imitations of _The Pickwick Papers_, was
“The Penny Pickwick,” edited by “Bos,” with illustrations. The
preface is signed “Bos,” Rose Cottage, St. John’s Wood. Printed
and published by E. Lloyd, Bloomsbury. 1838.

There were also numerous song and jest books named after either Mr.
Pickwick or Sam Weller, but these scarcely come within the scope
of this list.

_The Life and Adventures of Oliver Twiss_, the Workhouse Boy. Edited
by “Bos.” London. No date, about 1840.

_Scenes from the Life of Nickleby Married_, containing certain
Remarkable Passages, Strange Adventures, and Extraordinary
Occurrences that befel the Nickleby Family in their further
Career, being a Sequel to “Nicholas Nickleby.” Edited by “Guess.”
With twenty-one illustrations by “Quiz.” London. John Williams,
Paternoster Row. 1840.

_Nickelas Nickelbery._ Containing the Adventures, Misadventures,
Chances, Mis-Chances, Fortunes, Mis-fortunes, Mysteries,
Mis-eries, and Miscellaneous manœuvres of the Family of
Nickelbery. By “Bos.” With forty-three woodcut illustrations.
London. E. Lloyd, about 1838. An impudent piracy upon _Nicholas
Nickleby_, published in penny weekly numbers, and parodying the
whole of the story and characters, under very slightly altered
names. This has been ascribed to Mr. J. P. Prest.

_The Nickleby Papers_, by “Poz.” In penny numbers.

_Mister Humfries’ Clock._ “Bos,” maker. A Miscellany of striking
interest. Illustrated. London, 1840.

_Master Timothy’s Bookcase_; or, the Magic Lanthorn of the World. By
G. W. M. Reynolds. London, 1842.

_A Girl at a Railway Junction’s Reply_ [to an article in the Christmas
number for 1866 of “All the Year Round,” entitled “Mugby
Junction.”] London.

_Parley’s Penny Library._ Containing piratical versions of Barnaby
Rudge, the Old Curiosity Shop, and the Picnic Papers. About 1841.

_Change for the American Notes_; or, Letters from London to New York.
By an American Lady. London. Wiley and Putnam. 1843. (This was
written by a Yorkshireman, Mr. Henry Wood.)

_Current American Notes._ By “Buz.” London. No date.

_Christmas Eve with the Spirits_, with some further tidings of the
Lives of Scrooge and Tiny Tim. London, 1870.

_A Christmas Carol._ Being a few scattered staves from a familiar
composition, re-arranged for performance by a Distinguished
Musical Amateur, during the Holiday season, at
Hawarden.――_Punch._ December 26, 1885. This is a political skit,
the only present interest of which consists in the four very
humourous illustrations by Harry Furniss, which are exquisite
parodies of those by John Leech, in the original book.

_The Faces in the Fire_; a Story for the Season. By Redgap. With
illustrations by T. H. Nicholson: London. Willoughby & Co.,
Warwick Lane. No date. Dedicated to the Earl of Carlisle. Pp.
165. (Written in imitation of Dickens’s Christmas Books, and
published about 1845.) In a second edition, published by James
Blackwood, in 1856, the name of George Frederick Pardon is given
on the title page as the author.

_January Eve._ A Tale of the Times. By George Soane, B.A. London: E.
Churton, 1847: pp. 180. Dedicated to Lord John Russell. In his
preface the author not only admits that a similarity exists
between his writings and those of Dickens, but is bold enough to
assert that he, and not Dickens, is the original “Simon Pure.” “A
little tale of mine, the _Three Spirits_, was thought by many to
be exceedingly like Boz’s ‘Christmas Carol,’ yet the Carol was
not published till some years after it. If then, there be any
imitation in the case at all, it is Boz――glorious Boz――who has
taken a hint from my writings.”

_The Battle of London Life_; or, “Boz” and his Secretary. By Morna.
With a portrait and illustrations by G. A. Sala. This is a scarce
little volume of 106 pages, which was published by George Peirce,
of 310, Strand, London, in 1849. It was written by Thomas M.
O’Keefe, although it is generally attributed to Mr. George
Augustus Sala; he certainly furnished several illustrations,
which are signed G. Sala, and on the cover there is an
advertisement of “The April Fool Book,” written by the author of
“The Battle of London Life,” also illustrated by George Sala.

_Old Jolliffe_: Not a Goblin Story. By the Spirit of a little Bell,
awakened by “The Chimes.” London: W. N. Wright, 1845. Dedicated
to Queen Adelaide. Pp. 56.

_The Wedding Bells_, an Echo of “The Chimes,” with coloured
illustrations by the Author, who states that the work was
suggested by “The Chimes” of Charles Dickens.

_Facts and Figures from Italy._ Addressed during the last two winters
to C. Dickens, being an appendix to his “Pictures.” By Don Jeremy
Savonarola. London, R. Bentley, 1847. This was written by Francis
Mahony. (“Father Prout.”)

_The Sketch Book._ By “Bos.” Containing tales, sketches, etc. With
seventeen woodcut illustrations. London.

_Dombey and Daughter_: A Moral Fiction. By Renton Nicholson, Lord
Chief Baron of the celebrated Judge and Jury Society, held at the
Garrick’s Head Hotel, Bow Street. London. Thomas Farris. No date,
about 1847. With illustrations. Pp. 94. At the end of the story
Baron Nicholson bids his readers _Farewell_, and remarks, “I
think I may, without arrogance, predict that these pages will be
read with pleasure by those whose tastes are not vitiated, and
who prefer a simple story, representing scenes of real life, to
the monstrous productions of a feverish imagination, which of
late have been received with unmerited though almost universal
applause.” This was published in monthly parts.

Renton Nicholson also wrote _Cockney Adventures_, and Tales of London
Life, in imitation of the Pickwick Papers.

_Dombey and Father_, by Buz. A Satire on Charles Dickens. New York,
1868.

_Micawber Redivivus_; or, How to make a fortune as a Middleman, etc.
By Jonathan Coalfield [_i.e._ W. Graham Simpson?].

_Bleak House_; a Narrative of Real Life. Being a faithful detail of
facts connected with a suit in the Irish Court of Chancery, from
the year 1826 to 1851. London, H. Elliott. 1856.

_Characteristic Sketches of Young Gentlemen._ By Quiz Junior. With
Illustrations. London. W. Kidd.

_A Child’s History of Germany._ By H. W. Friedlaender. A pendant to a
“Child’s History of England,” by Charles Dickens. Celle, 1861.

_No Thoroughfare_; the Book in Eight Acts. This parody appeared in
“The Mask,” No. 1, February, 1868.

_No Thoroughfare._ A parody upon Dickens’s N.T. By C――s D――s, B.
Brownjohn and Domby. Boston U.S.

_The Mystery of Mr. E. Drood._ Specimen of an Adaptation. By Orpheus
C. Kerr. (Three and a half pages.) Published in _The Piccadilly
Annual_. London. John Camden Hotten. December, 1870. This very
scarce little work contains _Hunted Down_, by Charles Dickens,
which is not generally included amongst his collected writings.
It was originally written for an American publisher.

_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_, Complete. Part the Second by the Spirit
Pen of Charles Dickens, through a medium; embodying also that
Part of the Work which was published prior to the Termination of
the Author’s Earth-Life. 1873. The medium was Mr. J. P. James, of
Brattleborough, Vermont, U. S.

_John Jasper’s Secret_, being a Narrative of Certain Events following
and Explaining “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” with illustrations.
Philadelphia, about 1871. Also published in London in 1872.

_The Cloven Foot_; being an adaptation of the English novel, “The
Mystery of Edwin Drood” to American scenes, characters, customs,
and nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr. New York, 1870.

_A Great Mystery Solved_: Being a Sequel to “The Mystery of Edwin
Drood.” By Gillan Vase. In three vols. London, Remington and Co,
1878. Preface dated Hanover, July 12, 1878.

_Rifts in the Veil_, a Collection of Inspirational Poems and Essays,
given through Various Forms of Mediumship. London, W. H.
Harrison. 1878. This work on Spiritualism contains particulars of
a continuation of “Edwin Drood,” which is said to have been
dictated through a medium. The article occupies 30 closely
printed pages, and is entitled “An alleged _Postmortem_ work by
Charles Dickens.”

Plays founded upon the Novels of Charles Dickens.

As is well known Charles Dickens strongly objected to his Novels being adapted for the Stage, yet scarcely one of his better known works escaped that penalty of popularity. As most of these stage adaptations are little better than parodies, or imitations, a catalogue of them may be fitly inserted here.

In this compilation some assistance has been derived from the life of Dickens, by Mr. F. T. Marzials, (London, Walter Scott, 1887), but the following list contains more entries, and fuller details than he gave. It is, in fact, the only approximately complete list of plays founded on Dickens’s Works, giving the date and place where first performed, and the names of the publishers, where they could be ascertained.

_Sam Weller_, or the Pickwickians, a Drama in three acts, first
performed at the Strand New Theatre, London, July 17, 1837. By W.
T. Moncrieff. (Dicks 541.) This has a long preface, in which the
author defends himself against the charge of having merely
transferred Dickens’s characters and incidents from the story to
a play. He says, indeed, that he thinks Dickens ought to be
grateful to him, for the popularity of the play had greatly
extended the fame of the story.

_The Pickwickians_; or, the Peregrinations of Sam Weller. Arranged
from Mr. W. T. Moncrieff’s adaptation by T. H. Lacy. London.
1837. (Lacy 315.)

_The Pickwick Club._ A Burletta in three acts, by E. Stirling. City
of London Theatre, April 27, 1837. (Duncombe.)

_The Peregrinations of Pickwick_, an acting Drama. By William Leman
Rede. London, W. Strange. 1837.

_Bardell v. Pickwick_: versified and diversified. Songs and
choruses. Words by T. H. Gem. Leamington, 1881.

_The Great Pickwick Case_, arranged as a Comic Operetta. The words
of the songs by Robert Pollitt. Manchester, Abel Heywood & Son,
1884.

_Bardell v. Pickwick._ (Dicks 636.)

Last of the Pickwickiana comes Mr. F. C. Burnand’s dramatic Cantata,
_Pickwick_, with music by Mr. Edward Solomon, which was produced
at the Comedy Theatre, London, early in 1889. The parts were thus
distributed, Pickwick by Mr. Arthur Cecil, Mrs. Bardell by Miss
Lottie Venne, and “The Baker” by Mr. Rutland Barrington.

This Cantata has not yet been published.

There can be no doubt but that the character of Sam Weller made the fortune of _The Pickwick Papers_ when they first appeared in monthly parts, and sent the circulation up from a poor 400 to 40,000. The germ of this character has been traced back to a play, written by Mr. Samuel Beazley, entitled “The Boarding House,” and produced at what is now called the Lyceum Theatre, in 1811. That there is a slight resemblance in Simon Spatterdash in this play to Sam Weller cannot be denied, and Dickens may have seen or read the play, and have been struck with the possibility of converting the character of Spatterdash into that of his own immortal Sam.

_Oliver Twist_; or the Parish Boy’s Progress. A Drama in three acts.
By C. Z. Barnett. First performed at the Pavilion Theatre, May 21,
1838. (S. French.)

_Oliver Twist._ A serio-comic Burletta, in three acts, by George
Almar. Performed at the Royal Surrey Theatre, London, November
19, 1838. (Dicks 293.)

A similar adaptation, but in four acts, was published in New York.

_Bumble’s Courtship._ From Dickens’s “Oliver Twist.” A Comic
Interlude, in one act. By Frank E. Emson. London. (Lacy.)

_Nicholas Nickleby_, a Farce in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling.
Produced at the Adelphi Theatre, London 1838. (S. French 264.)

_Nicholas Nickleby_, a Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by H. Simms.
First performed at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, 1875. (Dicks 469.)

_The Infant Phenomenon_; or, a Rehearsal Rehearsed. A Dramatic Piece
in one Act. Being an episode in the adventures of Nicholas
Nickleby. Adapted by H. Horncastle, and originally produced at
the Strand Theatre, London, July 8, 1842. (Dicks 572.)

_The Fortunes of Smike_, or, a Sequel to Nicholas Nickleby; a Drama
in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling, London. Adelphi Theatre. London,
March 2, 1840. (Webster’s Acting Drama 94.)

_Nicholas Nickleby_; an Episodic Sketch; in three tableaux, based
upon an incident in “Nicholas Nickleby.” _Not published._ Strand
Theatre, Sept. 10, 1885.

_Barnaby Rudge._ A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts. By Charles Selby
and Charles Melville. First performed at the English Opera House,
June 28, 1841. (Dicks 393.)

_Barnaby Rudge_; or, the Murder at the Warren, a Drama in Three
Acts, by Thomas Higgie. No date. (Lacy.)

_Barnaby Rudge._ A Burlesque upon the Version now being played at
the Princess’s Theatre, London. _Fun._ November 24, 1866.

_Master Humphrey’s Clock_; a Domestic Drama, in Two Acts. By
Frederick Fox Cooper. Victoria Theatre, London, May 26, 1840.
(Lacy.)

_The Old Curiosity Shop._ A Drama in Four Acts. Adapted by George
Lander. First produced at the Theatre Royal, York, May 14, 1877.
(Dicks 398.)

_The Old Curiosity Shop_; a Drama in Two Acts. By Edward Stirling.
Adelphi Theatre, November 9, 1840. (French 1147.)

_The Old Curiosity Shop_; a Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by Mr.
Charles Dickens, Junr., from his Father’s Novel. _Not published._
Opera Comique Theatre. 1884.

_Mrs. Jarley’s Far-Famed Collection of Wax-Works_, as arranged by G.
B. Bartlett. In Two Parts. London.

_Yankee Notes for English Circulation._ A Farce in One Act, by
Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre. London. 1843. (Duncombe’s
Theatre.)

_Martin Chuzzlewit_, a Drama in Three Acts by Charles Webb. London.
(Barth.)

_Martin Chuzzlewit_; or, his wills and his ways, what he did, and
what he didn’t. A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by Thomas Higgie
and T. H. Lacy. Lyceum Theatre, London, July 8, 1844. (S. French
330.)

_So says the acting copy, but see next entry_:

_Martin Chuzzlewit_; a Drama in Three Acts. By Edward Stirling.
This, it is stated on the acting copy, was produced at the Lyceum
Theatre July 8, 1844. The two versions are unlike, and it is
clearly impossible that both could have been produced on the same
night at the same theatre. It is probable that Higgie and Lacy’s
version was that which was produced at the Strand Theatre July
15, 1844. (Duncombe’s plays.)

_Tom Pinch._ Domestic Comedy in Three Acts By Joseph J. Dilley and
Lewis Clifton. Vaudeville Theatre, London, March 10, 1881. (S.
French 1803.)

_Mrs. Sarah Gamp’s Tea and Turn Out_; a Bozzian Sketch, in One Act,
by B. Webster. Adelphi Theatre, London, October 26, 1846.
(Webster’s Drama 136.)

_Tartuffe Junior_, Von H. C. L. Klein. Neuwied, 1864. (A Play in
Five Acts after “Martin Chuzzlewit.”)

_Mrs. Gamp’s Party._ An adaptation in One Act. Manchester. Abel
Heywood & Son.

_Mrs. Harris._ A Farce in One Act, by Edward Stirling. Lyceum
Theatre, October, 1846. (Duncombe.)

_The Cricket on the Hearth_, a Fairy Tale of Home, in two acts. By
Edward Stirling. Adelphi Theatre, London, December 31, 1845.
(Webster’s Drama 124.)

_The Cricket on the Hearth_; or, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama, in
three acts. Dramatised by Albert Smith, by the express permission
of the Author. First produced at the Lyceum Theatre, 1845, and at
the Winter Garden, New York, September 14, 1859. (Dicks 394.)

_The Cricket on the Hearth_, a Fairy Tale of Home in Three Chirps.
By W. T. Townsend. London. (Lacy 649.)

This was another version which was produced at the City of London Theatre, January 7, 1846.

_A Christmas Carol_; or, the Miser’s Warning, by C. Z. Barnett.
Produced at the Surrey Theatre, February 5, 1844. This adaptation
was published with a note stating that “the extreme necessity
(the consequence of its high and deserved popularity) that so
imperatively called for its representation on the stage, has also
demanded its publication as a Drama, which it is the Adapter’s
sincere wish, as it is his conviction, will considerably augment
the sale of the original lovely and humanizing creation upon
which it is founded.” (Lacy 1410. Dicks 722.)

_Dot_, a Fairy Tale of Home. A Drama in Three Acts, from “The
Cricket on the Hearth.” Dramatised by Dion Boucicault. _Not
published._

_The Haunted Man_, a Drama. Adapted from Charles Dickens’s Christmas
Story. _Not published._

_The Chimes_, a Goblin Story, of some Bells that rang an Old Year
out, and a New Year in; a Drama, in Four Quarters, by Mark Lemon
and Gilbert Abbott à Beckett. Adelphi Theatre, London, December
19, 1844. (Webster’s Drama 115.)

_La Bataille de la Vie._ Pièce en Trois Actes, par M. M. Mèlesville
et André de Goy. Vaudeville Theatre, Paris, 1853.

_The Battle of Life_, founded on the Christmas Annual of Charles
Dickens, dramatised by Albert Smith. In Three Acts and in Verse.
Lyceum Theatre, London, December 21, 1846. (W. S. Johnson.)

_The Battle of Life_, a Drama in Three Acts, by Edward Stirling.
Surrey Theatre, London. January, 1847. (Duncombe’s Theatre 456.)

_Dombey and Son._ In three acts. Dramatized by John Brougham, and
produced at Burton’s Theatre, New York, 1850. (Dicks 375. French
126.)

_Dombey and Son_; or, Good Mrs. Brown, the Child Stealer. A Drama,
in two acts. “From the pen of the inimitable Charles Dickens,
Esq. As performed at the Royal Strand Theatre.” No date.

An impudent theft, in which many liberties are taken with
Dickens’s plot. This was published whilst the novel was in
progress, and is now very scarce.

_Captain Cuttle_; a Comic Drama, in one act. By John Brougham.
Burton’s Theatre, New York, January 14, 1850. (Dicks 572.)

_David Copperfield_, a Drama in two acts. Adapted by John Brougham,
and first performed at Brougham’s Lyceum, January 6, 1851. New
York. (French 133. Dicks 374.)

_David Copperfield_, a Drama in three acts, by John Brougham.
Brougham’s Lyceum Theatre, January 6, 1851. (French.)

_Little Emily_, a Drama in four acts. Adapted from Dickens’s “David
Copperfield,” by Andrew Halliday.

_Lady Dedlock’s Secret_, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on an episode
in “Bleak House,” by J. Palgrave Simpson. Opera Comique Theatre,
London, March 26, 1884. (French.)

“_Move on_,” or Jo, the Outcast, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by
James Mortimer. _Not published._

_Poor Jo_, a Drama in Three Acts. Adapted by Terry Hurst. _Not
published._

_Jo_, a Drama in Three Acts, by J. P. Burnett. _Not published._

_Bleak House_; or Poor “Jo.” A Drama, in Four Acts. Adapted by
George Lander. Pavilion Theatre, London, March 27, 1876. (Dicks
388.)

_Hard Times._ A Domestic Drama, in Three Acts, by T. Fox Cooper.
Strand Theatre, London, August 14, 1854. (Dicks.)

_No Thorough Fare_; a Drama in Five Acts, and a Prologue. By Charles
Dickens and W. Wilkie Collins. Adelphi Theatre, London, December
26, 1867, and afterwards in Paris. Printed in New York.

_Identity_; or, No Thoroughfare. A Drama in Four Acts. By Louis
Lequel. New York. (French.)

_L’Abime_, drame en cinq actes. (Founded on “No Thoroughfare.”)
Paris, 1868.

_The Tale of Two Cities_; or, the Incarcerated Victim of the
Bastille. An Historical Drama, in a Prologue and four acts.
Adapted by T. Fox Cooper. First performed at the Victoria
Theatre, London, July 7, 1860. (Dicks.)

_A Tale of Two Cities_; a Drama in two acts and a Prologue. By Tom
Taylor. Lyceum Theatre, London, January 30, 1860. (Lacy 661.)

_The Tale of Two Cities_; a Drama in three acts and a Prologue.
Adapted by H. J. Rivers. London.

_A Message from the Sea_, a Drama in Four Acts. Founded on Charles
Dickens’s tale of that name, by John Brougham. Britannia Theatre,
London, 1861. (Dicks 459.)

_A Message from the Sea_; a Drama in Three Acts. By Charles Dickens
and W. Wilkie Collins. London, 1861.

_The Dead Witness_; or Sin and its Shadow. A Drama in Three Acts, by
Wybert Reeve, founded on “The Widow’s Story” of The Seven Poor
Travellers, by C. Dickens. First produced at the Sheffield
Theatre. (S. French 1472.)

_Great Expectations_, a Drama in Three Acts, and a Prologue. By W.
S. Gilbert. _Not published._

Dickens himself did not often attempt parody, but his Reports of the Meetings of the “Mudfog Association” are admirable prose burlesques of the early proceedings of the British Association. These originally appeared in “Bentley’s Miscellany,” but have recently been republished.

――――

SAM WELLER’S ADVENTURES.
_A Song of the Pickwickians._

Who caused the smiles of rich and poor?
Who made a hit so slow, but sure?
And rose the worth of literature?
_Sam Weller._

I’m pretty well known about town,
For to gain a repute is my pride,
Though no vun can doubt my renown,
I’m a _covey of polish_ beside!
I renovates _cases_ for feet,
Whether high-lows or tops is the same,
I turns ’em off hand werry neat,
And Samivel Veller’s my name!

In the Borough my trade I dragged on,
Vith no vun to envy my sphere;
I polish’d the _soles_ of each don,
From the cadger bang up to the peer.
Their _understandings_ I greatly improved,
Vot happen’d to fall in the vay;
And many a gen’leman mov’d
To me in the course of the day.

Vun gen’leman――Pickwick, Esquire,
The head of the noted P. C.
Vun day tumbled in to enquire,
If I’d had the _fortin_ to see
A cove vearing Vellington _kicks_,
And a Miss Rachel Vardle beside,
Vot the gent had lugged off by the _nicks_,
And promis’d to make her his bride.

I knowed by the cut of his boot,
As the cove had put up at our inn,
So Pickwick, without a dispute,
Comes tumbling down with the _tin_!
And me arter that he engages,
To follow him in his career――
Good _togs_ and twelve _shiners_ for vages,
Paid every _annual_ year.

Some coves when they rises you know,
They stick to vulgarity will;
But that vos my notice below,
’Cos as how I’m a gen’leman still,
“For riches is nothing to me,
If ever them I vos among――”
As the gen’leman said, d’ye see,
At the time he vos goin’ to be hung!

(For remainder of this old street ballad see p. 276 of _The Life and Times of James Catnach_, by Charles Hindley. London. Reeves & Turner, 1878.)

――――

It should have been stated that the Parodies on Dickens, quoted from _The World_ on p. 215, were written by the Rev. W. H. A. Emra, of Salisbury (“New Sarum”) and by Mr. Walter Fletcher, of Hornsey. (“Robert le Diable.”)

COVENTRY PATMORE.

Amongst the parodies of Coventry Patmore which appeared on p. 194, mention should have been made of one which will be found in Mr. A. C. Swinburne’s _Heptalogia_, published by Chatto & Windus. It is called _The Person of the House_, and is in four Idyls, “The Monthly Nurse,” “The Caudle,” “The Sentences,” and “The Kid.”

When Mr. Coventry Patmore’s “Angel in the House” was first published, the _Athenæum_ furnished the following unique criticism:――

“The gentle reader we apprise, that this new Angel in the
House Contains a tale not very wise, About a person and a
spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes
to fit, And haply fancies he has writ Another ‘In Memoriam.’
How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea and
after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For
delectation of the young. But, reader, lest you say we quiz
The poet’s record of his she, Some little pictures you shall
see, Not in our language but in his:

‘While thus I grieved and kissed her glove,
My man brought in her note to say
Papa had bid her send his love,
And hoped I dine with them next day;
They had learned and practised Purcell’s glee,
To sing it by to-morrow night:
The postscript was――her sisters and she
Inclosed some violets blue and white.

* * * * *

‘Restless and sick of long exile,
From those sweet friends I rode, to see
The church repairs, and after a while
Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.
They introduced the Cousin Fred
I’d heard of, Honor’s favourite; grave,
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,
And with an air of the salt wave.’

Fear not this saline Cousin Fred; He gives no tragic
mischief birth; There are no tears for you to shed, Unless
they may be tears of mirth. From ball to bed, from field to
farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit
there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest
will come another day, If public sympathy allows; And this
is all we have to say About the ‘Angel in the House.’”

――――:o:――――

OXFORD COMMEMORATION.

“The Encænia,” or Commemoration of Founders and Benefactors which took place in June last, was marked by all the customary boisterous merriment on the part of the undergraduates. The ladies were cheered as usual, whilst marks of disapprobation were addressed at all persons whose attire presented any features of singularity. The Vice-Chancellor’s Latin address was inaudible on account of the interruptions, many of which were in excessively bad taste. The Proctors were loudly hissed, and called upon to retire, and as they did not attempt to do so, they were requested to sing a duet.

It is only perhaps in Oxford that such conduct on the part of educated men, presumably gentlemen, would be tolerated; as it was described (in imitation of Carlyle) fifteen years ago, so it remains:――

“What is Commemoration? Wherefore? Whereunto? Why? Is it a
mere vacuous Inanition, or speck cut out of this little
world, or has it not rather contrariwise some Meaning, apart
from that which is wrapt up in meness and youness and
every-one-else-ness, and two or three more beside?

Nay, is it not Portentous, Big with Signs, with its show
Sunday, its Dances, its Encænia and what not?

Is it not a time when it is permitted to Man to wriggle out
of the inextricable snares of the Fowler with his
Attorney-logic, and the frothy effervescences of defunct and
buried-in-dusty tomes Antiquity which are nomen-clated
Lectures? And to be Oblivious of these Gehenna-Bailiffs
emissaried by professors in Tailor-craft, Wine-craft, and
the innumerable other crafts and mysteries ranking under the
genus Productive Industry. Aye, and those gaily apparelled
young ladies (Madchen) who confluctuate hither as to a
Focus, or centre of Attraction, though they themselves are
also an Attraction, which is an inextricable mystery of
Involvedness; do not these too teach a lesson to the gawks,
in whose heads is nothing but the Roots of their World
restored Hair, and who imagine that the whole Furniture of
that digesting mechanism, Man, is but a Lay-figure, gifted
indeed, with struttableness and swagger, on which to hang
their Peacock-plumes, fringes, cobwebs, and such.

And there is the Encænia too, with its Chaotic Hubbub of
Tympanum-splitting Noise, Undergraduates Noise, Ticket
admitted Noise, as it were a sort of Tenfold Bedlam smitten
with Interjectional Rabies, of groanings and yelpings,
Approbation, Depreciation, and the like.”

* * * * *

From _The Shotover Papers_. Oxford. 1874.

――――

“_The Irish Revolution_, a history in three books.” By Thomas Snarlyle. Such is the title of a parody, to be found in _The Puppet-Showman’s Album_, published about 1848, which concludes with a sentence curiously appropriate to these times:――

“Ireland, Ireland, thy leaders are in jail. But be not a Rachel weeping for these children, be comforted!”

――――:o:――――

JOHN RUSKIN.

Let us take a small extract from his notes on Samuel Prout and William Hunt’s loan collection of pictures:――

“That little brown-red butterfly [142] … is a piece of real
painting; and it is as good as Titian or anybody else ever
did, and if you can enjoy it you can enjoy Titian and all
other good painters; and if you can’t see anything in _it_
you can’t see anything in _them_, and its all affectation
and pretence to say that you care about them. And with this
butterfly in the drawing I put first, please look at the mug
and loaf in the one I have put last of the Hunt series, No.
171. The whole art of painting is in that mug――as the
fisherman’s genius was in the bottle. If you can feel how
beautiful it is, how ethereal, how heathery, and heavenly,
as well as to the uttermost muggy, you have an eye for
colour and can enjoy heather, heaven, and everything else
below and above. If not, you must enjoy what you can
contentedly, but it won’t be painting; and in mugs it will
be more the beer than the crockery, and on the moors rather
grouse than heather.”

For those who have neglected the opportunity of testing their taste for art on this butterfly, and on this mug, I would advise a visit to Venice, to learn whether they can appreciate Bassano’s hair trunk, as shown in his grand picture of the Pope Alexander and the Doge of Venice. It is _not_ Ruskin, but Mark Twain who thus describes it:

“The hair of this trunk is _real_ hair, so to speak, white
in patches, brown in patches. The details are finely worked
out; the repose proper to hair in a recumbent and inactive
condition, is charmingly expressed. There is a feeling about
this part of the work, which lifts it to the highest
altitudes of art; the sense of sordid realism vanishes
away――one recognizes that there is _soul_ here. View this
trunk as you will, it is a gem, it is a marvel, it is a
miracle. Some of the effects are very daring, approaching
even to the boldest flights of the rococo, the sirocco, and
the Byzantine schools. Yet the master’s hand never
falters――it moves on, calm, majestic, confident; and, with
that art which conceals art, it finally casts over the _tout
ensemble_, by mysterious methods of its own, a subtle
something which refines, subdues, etherealizes the arid
components, and endues them with the deep charm and gracious
witchery of poesy. Among the art-treasures of Europe there
are pictures which approach the hair trunk――there are two
which may be said to equal it, possibly――but there is none
that surpasses it.”

――――

ON ALL FOURS CLAVIGERA;
OR, _Right at Last_.

It may be remembered that Professor Buskin during the Spring addressed a letter to a provincial paper, respecting the projected new railway for Derbyshire. As he therein expressed some very strong opinions against the scheme, as one likely to give the miserable, melancholy, and toiling millions who dwell in smoke-stifling and unwholesome towns, an occasional chance of letting a little bright fresh air and sunlight in upon the gloom of their darkened lives, it is satisfactory to know that the letter in question is now believed to have been a clever hoax. At any rate, the zenith of that boon to millions, the summer excursion season has produced a second communication to the same journal: and, as it not only bears the Professor’s signature, but breathes with the spirit of his larger philanthropy, there can be little doubt as to its authenticity.

In the course of this second letter, Professor BUSKIN says:――

“I do not know how this mental revolution has come about
within me, nor, were you to ask me, could I tell you. I only
recognise the stupendous fact that I feel, and am not
ashamed to avow, that I no longer regard the wild witchery
of the Derbyshire glens as a precious and special property
held by Providence in trust for me and a few exclusive
well-to-do Sybarites for our sole select and selfish
delectation.

* * * * *

Here it is, this Derbyshire Garden of Eden, with its
magic-lantern-slide effects, lost for ever and for ever to
everyone save to you and to me and the lucky Stall-sitters
who hold, out of the overflowing fulness of their purses,
the front places in the world’s glittering show, to the
shifting and shutting out of the humbler and poorer from the
sight and sense of it.”

“Follow, if you can, without wetted feet, the floretted
banks and foam-crisped wavelets of the slyly wilful stream.
Into the very heart and depth of this, and politely bending
with the bends of it, your railway introduces its
close-clinging attention. The rocks are not big enough to be
tunnelled, they are cheerily blasted away; the brook is not
wide enough to be bridged, it is comfortably covered in, and
is thence-forward no physical obstacle to an enterprising
Railway Company. I have not said, I leave the clergyman and
physician to say, what moral and sanitary changes follow a
free access to the gifts of Nature. But I may, at least,
advise your correspondent that envenomed air is deadlier to
the young than the old, and that the sooner a completed line
of railway enables the pent-up thousands of pestiferous
cities to figure as three-and-sixpenny excursionists, if
only for a few hours, amidst these hitherto inaccessible
fairy haunts, the sooner will English children who have been
reared in mephitic fume instead of mountain breeze, who have
had for playground heaps of ashes instead of banks of
flowers, whose Christmas holidays brought them no memory,
whose Easter sun no hope, enjoy some of the blessed delight
of breezy hillside and sunlit glen hitherto claimed as the
special and peculiar heirloom of that unreasoning and
wrong-headed class who, singing the sweet song of Nature’s
praise, defame that priceless metal line which, like some
mighty wizard, alone has borne their welcome echo to a
myriad aching city hearts.”

_Punch._ August 23, 1884.

――――

ON TOOTHPICKS.
_By Professor Buskin._

I came the other day quite by chance on this piece of news in my _Daily Telegraph_:――“It is said that no less than 25 millions of Toothpicks are annually made in England. This is just one to each person.” “Just one?” No, there is no justice here, it is all injustice. Think of this――25 millions, and think further of the 25 millions of Englishmen who can use them. Yes, this is what England has come to be――a nation of Toothpickers; for mark this, each man _can_ use a toothpick if he will; if he can by fair means or foul (too often, alas, by foul!) obtain the paltry coin to purchase the Tooth-pick with.

But then these dilettanti-scribblers, these writers in the newspapers who are paid for their scribbling, these folk (forsooth!) say, “what have you to do with this――this Toothpicking?” I answer we have all to do with it. For hear, yea, and forbear with me a minute while I speak to you of this same Toothpicking.

Friends, it comes to this. Picking is a natural attribute of man. He must throughout life be a picker. But now comes the momentous question, a picker of what? A picker of knowledge, a dabbler in all the ’ologies, an admirable Crichton, veriest of prigs, or a picker of locks, a red-handed burglar, a hero of penny novels, or will he be a picker of teeth, a drawling vacuity weary of himself, weary of every thing, an inane hanger on to the skirts of the Universe? Will not the brave man, the wise man, the man of resolve, of energy, of endurance, a picker of roads, will he not go forth to beautify Hincksey, to plant the new Utopia, to commence the Era of Æstheticism, and of the Fors?

Now, turning his picking propensities to some real use, he will learn to do hard work, to blister his hands, to wheel barrows, to preach Buskinism.

From _The Shotover Papers_. Oxford, 1874.

――――

Mr. Ruskin is a depressing pessimist, according to whom nearly everything that was done in England three centuries or so ago was lovely and true, whilst all nineteenth century progress is in the wrong direction. “I know of nothing” he writes “that has been taught the youth of our time except that their fathers were apes, and their mothers winkles; that the world began in accident, and will end in darkness; that honour is a folly, ambition a virtue, charity a vice, poverty a crime, and rascality the means of all wealth and the sum of all wisdom.” Now these sweeping assertions are false, and Mr. Ruskin knows they are false, he could not advance a tittle of proof that any professor in modern times had inculcated any such doctrines. Those who want an antidote to Mr. Ruskin’s views should read “_Pre-Raffaelitism_; or a Popular enquiry into some newly-asserted Principles connected with the Philosophy, Poetry, Religion and Revolution of Art” by the Rev. Edward Young, M.A. London: Longmans & Co., 1857.

OUIDA.

MOLL MARINE:
(BY “_Weeder_.”)

Moll Marine! A simple, touching name! It had been bestowed upon her by the rude country hinds among whom she dwelt. It was all she received at their hands besides blows and curses. Moll was a common name in those parts, but none knew what it meant, none discerned the hidden poetry in that brief monosyllable. Moll Marine they called her, because she came among them as a waif from the wild waves, as a white foam fleck that the winds toss on to the cold rocks to gleam a moment in the setting sun, and then dissolve for ever into the dews of night.

She was only fifteen, tall and graceful as a young poplar, with a warm brown skin and a scented wealth of amber hair. Everybody hated her. “It was natural,” she thought. They beat her, but she cared not. She was like a lucifer; they struck her, and she blazed forth resplendent; beautiful as the spotted panther of the forest, as the shapely thistle that the ass crops unheeding, as the beaming comet that shakes out her golden tresses in the soft hush of summer nights.

And she loved. Loved madly, passionately, hopelessly.

He knew it. He knew that he had but to say, “Come!” and she would follow him to disgrace or death, to polar snows or deserts arid as Gehenna. To him she was nothing. No more than the painted fly he pinned in sport, than the yellow meadow flowers that he crushed beneath his heel, than the soft tender doves whose downy necks he wrung and whose bodies he eat with cruel relish.

[We regret to say that the rest of this contribution is improper, and unfit for publication.――ED.]

From _The Light Green_. Cambridge, 1872.

――――

_The World_ prize competition, for parodies on Ouida’s _Under Two Flags_, subject “The Cambridgshire Stakes.”

FIRST PRIZE.

‘Seven to 5 on Leoville; 9 to 3 on Lartington; 10 to 2 on Falmouth; 13 to 4 Flotsam; 17 to 9 Exeter; the Field bar one; 22 to 8 Lord Clive; 33 to 12 Discord! Take the Field bar one; take the Field!’ yelled a burly bookmaker, as an elegant young patrician redolent of Jockey Club sauntered past him.

‘I do take it in; also the _Life_,’ said the noble, as he flicked some dust from his spotless boots, and then he blew his nose gracefully.

‘O, stow yer larks!’ said the other; but the next moment he repented using such language; for the apparently delicate nobleman had carelessly taken him by the seat of his trousers and thrown him over the rails, as though he had been a feather, instead of weighing at least 15 stone.

‘Curse him!’ he muttered, as he came back trying to look pleased. ‘What d’yer want to do, my lord?’ he said, with a ghastly smile.

Mentioning a horse, the haughty young aristocrat asked what he would lay against it.

‘Against it?’ said the welcher. ‘Well, it ain’t usual for us to lay against ’em; but I’ll give yer 4 to 2.’

‘Very well,’ wearily replied the marquis; ‘in half millions. I also want to back it for a lady, in gloves.’

‘Wery good, my lord; dogskin or kid?’

This of course could only be meant for insult. The peer looked at him half amused, half disgusted, and walked listlessly away.

The welcher scowled after him with bitter hatred; but just then the bell rang, and he hurried off to see the horses and jockeys weighed. When he arrived at the shed he found all ready but one, the jockey who was to ride the horse he had laid against. He was just sitting down to dinner.

‘They’re waiting for you,’ said a steward, rushing into the room.

‘Ask them to wait a little longer; I shall be ready in forty minutes,’ said the jockey, taking a spoonful of potage à la Tortue.

The steward rushed out somewhat excitedly.

‘Now’s my time,’ said the welcher, and creeping behind the light weight he gently unfastened one of his spurs, and put another in its place. He had scarcely finished when the referee came in to say that the starter would wait no longer. Quaffing a large goblet of champagne, the jockey murmured, ‘Che, sara, sara,’ and staggered out. Why did the welcher look so fiendish. _He had fastened on the jockey’s boot a spur with painted rowels._