Chapter I: Cannot Bear a Gun

“Timidity is generally reckoned an essential attribute of the fair
sex, and this absurd notion gives rise to more false starts than a
race for the Leger. Hence screams at mice, fits at spiders, faces
at toads, jumps at lizards, flights from daddy longlegs, panics at
wasps, _sauve qui peut_ at sight of a gun. Surely, when the
military exercise is made a branch of education at so many ladies’
academies, the use of the musket would only be a judicious step
further in the march of mind. I should not despair, in a month’s
practice, of making the most timid British female fond of
small-arms.”--HINTS BY A CORPORAL.

It can’t be minced, I’m quite convinced
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine and feminine
Are nothing else but sham.
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I’ll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

There’s cousin Bell can’t ‘bide the smell
Of powder--horrid stuff!
A single pop will make her drop,
She shudders at a puff.
My Manton near, with aspen fear
Will make her scream and run:
“It’s always so, you brute, you know
I cannot bear a gun!”

About my flask I must not ask,
I must not wear a belt,
I must not take a punch to make
My pellets, card or felt;
And if I just allude to dust,
Or speak of number one,
“I beg you’ll not--don’t talk of shot,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Percussion cap I dare not snap,
I may not mention Hall,

Or raise my voice for Mr. Joyce,
His wadding to recall;
At Hawker’s book I must not look,
All shooting I must shun,
Or else--“It’s hard, you’ve no regard,
I cannot bear a gun!”

The very dress I wear no less
Must suit her timid mind,
A blue or black must clothe my back,
With swallow-tails behind;
By fustian, jean, or velveteen,
Her nerves are overdone:
“Oh do not, John, put gaiters on,
I cannot bear a gun!”

E’en little James she snubs, and blames
His Liliputian train,
Two inches each from mouth to breach,
And charged with half a grain--
His crackers stopp’d, his squibbing dropp’d,
He has no fiery fun,
And all thro’ her “How dare you, Sir?
I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet Major Flint,--the Devil’s in’t!
May talk from morn to night,
Of springing mines, and twelves and nines,
And volleys left and right,
Of voltigeurs and tirailleurs,
And bullets by the ton:
She never dies of fright, or cries
“I cannot bear a gun!”

It stirs my bile to see her smile
At all his bang and whiz,
But if I talk of morning walk,
And shots as good as his,
I must not name the fallen game:
As soon as I’ve begun,
She’s in her pout, and crying out,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet, underneath the rose, her teeth
Are false, to match her tongue:
Grouse, partridge, hares, she never spares,
Or pheasants, old or young--
On widgeon, teal, she makes a meal,
And yet objects to none:
“What have I got, it’s full of shot!
I cannot bear a gun!”

At pigeon-pie she is not shy,
Her taste it never shocks,
Though they should be from Battersea,
So famous for blue rocks;
Yet when I bring the very thing
My marksmanship has won,
She cries “Lock up that horrid cup,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Like fool and dunce I got her once
A box at Drury Lane,
And by her side I felt a pride
I ne’er shall feel again:
To read the bill it made her ill,
And this excuse she spun,
“Der Freyschütz, oh, seven shots; you know,
I cannot bear a gun!”

Yet at a hint from Major Flint,
Her very hands she rubs,
And quickly drest in all her best,
Is off to Wormwood Scrubbs.
The whole review she sits it through,
With noise enough to stun,
And never winks, or even thinks,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

She thus may blind the Major’s mind
In mock-heroic strife,
But let a bout at war break out,
And where’s the soldier’s wife,
To take his kit and march a bit
Beneath a broiling sun?
Or will she cry, “My dear, good-bye,
I cannot bear a gun?”

If thus she doats on army coats,
And regimental cuffs,
The yeomanry might surely be
Secure from her rebuffs;
But when I don my trappings on,
To follow Captain Dunn,
My carbine’s gleam provokes a scream,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

It can’t be minced, I’m quite convinced,
All girls are full of flam,
Their feelings fine, and feminine,
Are nothing else but sham;
On all their tricks I need not fix,
I’ll only mention one,
How many a Miss will tell you this,
“I cannot bear a gun!”

TRIMMER’S EXERCISE,

FOR THE USE OF CHILDREN.

Here, come, Master Timothy Todd,
Before we have done you’ll look grimmer,
You’ve been spelling some time for the rod,
And your jacket shall know I’m a Trimmer.

You don’t know your A from your B,
So backward you are in your Primer;
Don’t kneel--you shall go on _my_ knee,
For I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

This morning you hinder’d the cook,
By melting your dumps in the skimmer;
Instead of attending your book,--
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

To-day, too, you went to the pond,
And bathed, though you are not a swimmer:
And with parents so doting and fond--
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

After dinner you went to the wine,
And help’d yourself--yes, to a brimmer;
You couldn’t walk straight in a line,
But I’ll make you to know I’m a Trimmer.

You kick little Tomkins about,
Because he is slighter and slimmer;
Are the weak to be thump’d by the stout?
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Then you have a sly pilfering trick,
Your school-fellows call you the nimmer,--
I will cut to the bone if you kick!
For I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

To-day you made game at my back:
You think that my eyes are grown dimmer,
But I watch’d you, I’ve got a sly nack!
And I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Don’t think that my temper is hot,
It’s never beyond a slow simmer;
I’ll teach you to call me Dame Trot
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

Miss Edgeworth, or Mrs. Chapone,
Might melt to behold your tears glimmer;
Mrs. Barbauld would let you alone,
But I’ll have you to know I’m a Trimmer.

AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.

“ARCHER. How many are there, _Scrub_?
SCRUB. Five-and-forty, sir.”--_Beaux Stratagem._

“For shame--let the linen alone!”--_Merry Wives of Windsor._

Mr. Scrub--Mr. Slop--or whoever you be!
The Cock of Steam Laundries,--the head Patentee
Of Associate Cleansers,--Chief founder and prime

Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime--
Co-partners and dealers, in linen’s propriety--
That make washing public--and wash in society--
O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego
For a moment the music that bubbles below,--
From your new Surrey Geysers[11] all foaming and hot,--
That soft “_simmer’s_ sang” so endear’d to the Scot--
If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger--
If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,
Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub,--
O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub,--
And lend me your ear,--Let me modestly plead
For a race that your labours may soon supersede--
For a race that, now washing no living affords--
Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,
Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,
Not with bread in the funds--or investments of cheese,
But to droop like sad willows that lived by a stream,
Which the sun has suck’d up into vapour and steam.
All, look at the laundress, before you begrudge
Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge--
When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins,
She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens,
And beginneth her toil while the morn is still grey,
As if she was washing the night into day--
Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora
Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her;
Not Venus that rose from the billow so early,
Look’d down on the foam with a forehead more _pearly_[12]--
Her head is involved in an aërial mist,
And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;
Her visage glows warm with the ardour of duty;
She’s Industry’s moral--she’s all moral beauty!
Growing brighter and brighter at every rub--
Would any man ruin her?--No, Mr. Scrub!
No man that is manly would work her mishap--
No man that is manly would covet her cap--
Nor her apron--her hose--nor her gown made of stuff--
Nor her gin--nor her tea--nor her wet pinch of snuff!
Alas! so _she_ thought--but that slippery hope
Has betray’d her--as though she had trod on her soap!
And she,--whose support,--like the fishes that fly,
Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky--
She whose living it was, and a part of her fare,
To be damp’d once a day, like the great white sea bear,
With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop--
Quite a living absorbent that revell’d in slop--
She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand,
And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land!

Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands,
Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands!
All haggard and pinch’d, going down in life’s vale,
With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-Dale!
No smoke from her flue--and no steam from her pane,
Where once she watch’d heaven, fearing God and the rain--
Or gazed o’er her bleach-field so fairly engross’d,
Till the lines wander’d idle from pillar to post!
Ah, where are the playful young pinners--ah, where
The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air--
The brisk waltzing stockings--the white and the black,
That danced on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack--
The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn’d,
That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!
There was white on the grass--there was white on the spray--
Her garden--it look’d like a garden of May!
But now all is dark--not a shirt’s on a shrub--
You’ve ruined her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!
You’ve ruin’d her custom--now families drop her--
From her silver reduced--nay, reduced from her _copper_!
The last of her washing is done at her eye,
One poor little kerchief that never gets dry!
From mere lack of linen she can’t lay a cloth,
And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth,--
But her children come round her as victuals grow scant,
And recal, with foul faces, the source of their want--
When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,
And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,
And even its pearlashes laid in the grave--
Whilst her tub is a-dry-rotting, stave after stave,
And the greatest of Coopers, ev’n he that they dub
Sir Astley, can’t bind up her heart or her tub,--
Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!
Need you wonder, when steam has deprived her of bread,
If she prays that the evil may visit _your_ head--
Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee,
If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the City--
In short, not to mention all plagues without number,
If she wishes you all in the _Wash_ at the Humber!

Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,
When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare--
When the sum of her suds might be summ’d in a bowl,
And the rusty cold iron quite enter’d her soul--
When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye
Had caught “the Cock Laundresses’ Coach” going by,
Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,
And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,
In a lather of passion that froth’d as it rose,
Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,
On her sheet--if a sheet were still left her--to write,
Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light--

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE

FROM BRIDGET JONES TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE.

It’s a shame, so it is--men can’t Let alone
Jobs as is Woman’s right to do--and go about there Own--
Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools
For washing to sit Up,--and push the Old Tubs from their stools!
But your just like the Raddicals,--for upsetting of the Sudds
When the world wagg’d well enuff--and Wommen wash’d your old dirty duds,
I’m Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no steam Indins, that’s Flat,--
But I Warrant your Four Fathers went as Tidy and gentlemanny for all that--
I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle
I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable period back when I were little,
And they Said it went with Steem,--But that was a joke!
For I never see none come of it,--that’s out of it--but only sum Smoak--
And for All your Power of Horses about your Indians you never had but Two
In my time to draw you About to Fairs--and hang you, you know that’s true!
And for All your fine Perspectuses,--howsomever you bewhich ’em,
Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at Mitchum,
Thof I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with one another to Do--
It ant as if a Bird’seye Hankicher can take a Birds-high view!
But Thats your look-out--I’ve not much to do with that--But pleas God to hold up fine,
Id show you caps and pinners and small things as lillywhit as Ever crosst the Line
Without going any Father off than Little Parodies Place,
And Thats more than you Can--and Ill say it behind your face--
But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you too Speak,--
As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak!
Thinks I, when I heard it--Well thear’s a Pretty go!
That comes o’ not marking of things or washing out the marks, and Huddling ’em up so!
Till Their frends comes and owns them, like drownded corpeses in a Vault,
But may Hap you havint Larn’d to spel--and That ant your Fault,
Only you ought to leafe the Linnins to them as has Larn’d,--
For if it warnt for Washing,--and whare Bills is concarnd,
What’s the Yuse, of all the world, for a Wommans Headication,
And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays--fit for any Cityation?

Well, what I says is this--when every Kittle has its spout,
Theirs no nead for Companys to puff steam about!
To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind
For blowing up Boats with,--but not to hurt human kind,
Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that’s loaded with hot water,
Thof a xSherrif might know Better, than make things for slaughtter,
As if War warnt Cruel enuff--wherever it befalls,
Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot washing[13] balls,--
But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs
As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Steam rubbing Clubs,
For washing Dirt Cheap,--and eating other Peple’s grubs!
Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea,
But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Beau-He!
They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there will be!)
And their Little drop of Somethings as they takes for their Goods,
When you and your Steam has ruined (G--d forgive mee) their lively Hoods,
Poor Women as was born to Washing in their youth!
And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth!
But if so be They leave their Lines what are they to go at--
They won’t do for Angell’s--nor any Trade like That,
Nor we cant Sow Babby Work,--for that’s all Bespoke,--
For the Queakers in Bridle! and a vast of the confind Folk
Do their own of Themselves--even the bettermost of em--aye, and evn them of middling
degrees--
Why--Lauk help you--Babby Linen and Bread ant Cheese!
Nor we can’t go a hammering the roads into Dust,
But we must all go and be Bankers, Like Mr. Marshes and Mr. Chamber, and that’s
what we must!
God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects,
When you nose you have suck’d us and hanged round our Mutherly necks,
And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides washing--
You ant, blame you, like Men to go a slushing and sloshing
In mob caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labers
And prettily jear’d At, you great Horse God-meril things, ant you now by your next
door nayhbours--
Lawk, I thinks I see you with your Sleaves tuckt up
No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp--
And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round
They’ll scruntch your Bones some day--I’ll be bound
And no more nor be a gudgement,--for it cant come to good
To sit up agin Providence, which your a doing,--nor not fit It should,
For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation,
Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of Creation--
And cant be dun without in any Country But a naked Hottinpot Nation.
Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs
And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs--
But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) nyther Bybills or Good Tracks,
Or youd no better than Taking the Close off one’s Backs--
And let your neighbours Oxin an Asses alone,--
And every Thing thats hern,--and give every one their Hone!

Well, its God for us All, and every Washer Wommen for herself,
And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf,
But if you warnt Noddis youd Let wommen a-be
And pull off your Pattins,--and leave the washing to we
That nose what’s what--Or mark what I say,
Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day--
When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their ant nun at all,
And Crismass cum--and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall,
Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare
Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite to do good in his Harm Chare--
Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for you not to wash
(for you dont wash) but to stew
And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew,
With a vast more like That,--and all along of Steem
Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam--
But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good,
And I cant say I’m sorry, afore God, if you shoud,
For men mought Get their Bread a great many ways
Without taking ourn,--aye, and Moor to your Prays,
You might go and skim the creme off Mr. Mack-Adam’s milky ways--that’s what you
might,
Or bete Carpets--or get into Parleamint,--or drive crabrolays from morning to night,
Or, if you must be of our sects, be Watchemen, and slepe upon a poste!
(Which is an od way of sleping I must say,--and a very hard pillow at most,)
Or you might be any trade, as we are not on that I’m awares,
Or be Watermen now, (not Water wommen) and roe people up and down
Hungerford stares.
If You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting Dirt,
But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt!
Yourn with Anymocity,
BRIDGET JONES.

THE BLUE BOAR.

’Tis known to man, ’tis known to woman,
’Tis known to all the world in common,
How politics and party strife
Vex public, even private, life;
But, till some days ago, at least
They never worried brutal beast.

I wish you could have seen the creature,
A tame domestic boar by nature,
Gone wild as boar that ever grunted,
By Baron Hoggerhausen hunted.
His back was up, and on its ledge
The bristles rose like quickset hedge;
His eye was fierce and red as coal,
Like furnace, shining through a hole,
And restless turn’d for mischief seeking;
His very hide with rage was reeking;
And oft he gnash’d his crooked tusks,
Chewing his tongue instead of husks,
Till all his jaw was white and yesty,
Showing him savage, fierce, and resty.

And what had caused this mighty vapour?
A dirty fragment of a paper,
That in his rambles he had found,
Lying neglected on the ground;
A relic of the Morning Post,
Two tattered columns at the most,
But which our irritated swine
(Derived from Learned Toby’s line)
Digested easy as his meals,
Like any quidnunc Cit at Peel’s.

He read, and mused, and pored and read,
His shoulders shrugg’d, and shook his head;
Now at a line he gave a grunt,
Now at a phrase took sudden stunt,
And snorting turn’d his back upon it,
But always came again to con it;
In short he petted up his passion,
After a very human fashion,
When Temper’s worried with a bone
She’ll neither like nor let alone.
At last his fury reach’d the pitch
Of that most irritating itch,
When mind and will, in fever’d faction,
Prompt blood and body into action;
No matter what, so bone and muscle
May vent the frenzy in a bustle;
But whether by a fight or dance
Is left to impulse and to chance.
So stood the Boar, in furious mood
Made up for any thing but good;
He gave his tail a tighter twist,
As men in anger clench the fist,
And threw fresh sparkles in his eye
From the volcano in his fry--
Ready to raze the parish pound,
To pull the pigsty to the ground,
To lay Squire Giles, his master, level,
Ready, indeed, to play the devil.

So, stirr’d by raving demagogues,
I’ve seen men rush, like rabid dogs,
Stark staring from the Pig and Whistle,
And like his Boarship, in a bristle,
Resolved unanimous on rumpus
From any quarter of the compass;
But whether to duck Aldgate Pump,
(For wits in madness never jump)
To liberate the beasts from Cross’s;
Or hiss at all the Wigs in Ross’s;
On Waithman’s column hang a weeper;
Or tar and feather the old sweeper;
Or break the panes of landlord scurvy,
And turn the King’s Head topsy-turvy;
Rebuild, or pull down, London Wall;
Or take his cross from old Saint Paul;
Or burn those wooden Highland fellows,
The snuff-men’s idols, ‘neath the gallows!
None fix’d or cared--but all were loyal
To one design--a battle royal.

Thus stood the Boar, athirst for blood,
Trampling the Morning Post to mud,
With tusks prepared to run a muck;--
And sorrow for the mortal’s luck
That came across him Whig or Tory,
It would have been a tragic story--
But fortune interposing now,
Brought Bessy into play--a Sow;--
A fat, sleek, philosophic beast
That never fretted in the least,
Whether her grains were sour or sweet,
For grains are grains, and she could eat.
Absorb’d in two great schemes capacious,
The farrow and the farinaceous,
If cares she had, they could not stay,
She drank, and _wash’d_ them all away.
In fact this philosophic sow
Was very like a German frow;
In brief--as wit should be and fun,--
If sows turn Quakers, she was one;
Clad from the duckpond, thick and slab,
In bran-new muddy suit of drab.
To still the storm of such a lubber,
She came like oil--at least like blubber--
Her pigtail of as passive shape
As ever droop’d o’er powder’d nape;
Her snout, scarce turning up--her deep
Small eyes half settled into sleep;
Her ample ears, dependent, meek,
Like fig-leaves shading either cheek;
Whilst, from the corner of her jaw,
A sprout of cabbage, green and raw,
Protruded,--as the Dove, so stanch
For Peace, supports an olive branch,--
Her very grunt, so low and mild,
Like the soft snoring of a child,
Inquiring into his disquiets,
Served like the Riot Act, at riots,--
He laid his restive bristles flatter,
And took to arguefy the matter.

“O Bess, O Bess, here’s heavy news!
They mean to ‘mancipate the Jews!
Just as they turn’d the blacks to whites,
They want to give them equal rights,
And, in the twinkling of a steeple,
Make Hebrews quite like other people.
Here, read--but I forget your fetters,
You’ve studied litters more than letters.”

“Well,” quoth the Sow, “and no great miss,
I’m sure my ignorance is bliss;
Contentedly I bite and sup,
And never let my flare flare-up;
Whilst you get wild and fuming hot--
What matters Jews be Jews or not?
Whether they go with beards like Moses,
Or barbers take them by the noses,
Whether they live, permitted dwellers,
In Cheapside shops, or Rag Fair cellars,
Or climb their way to civic perches,
Or go to synagogues or churches?”
“Churches!--ay, there the question grapples,
No, Bess, the Jews will go to Chappell’s!”

“To chapel--well--what’s that to you?
A Berkshire Boar, and not a Jew?
We pigs,--remember the remark
Of our old drover Samuel Slark,
When trying, but he tried in vain,
To coax me into Sermon Lane,
Or Paternoster’s pious Row,--
But still I stood and grunted No!
Of Lane of Creed an equal scorner,
Till bolting off, at Amen Corner,
He cried, provoked at my evasion,
‘Pigs, blow ’em! ar’n’t of no persuasion!’”

“The more’s the pity, Bess--the more--”
Said, with sardonic grin, the Boar;
“If Pigs were Methodists and Bunyans,
They’d make a sin of sage and onions;
The curse of endless flames endorse
On every boat of apple-sauce;
Give brine to Satan, and assess
Blackpuddings with bloodguiltiness;
Yea, call down heavenly fire and smoke
To burn all Epping into coke!”

“Ay,” cried the Sow, extremely placid,
In utter contrast to his acid,
“Ay, that would be a Sect indeed!
And every swine would like the creed,
The sausage-making curse and all;
And should some brother have a call,
To thump a cushion to that measure,
I would sit under him with pleasure;
Nay, put down half my private fortune
T’ endow a chapel at Hog’s Norton.--
But what has this to do, my deary,
With their new Hebrew whigmaleery?”

“Sow that you are! this Bill, if current,
Would be as good as our death-warrant;--
And, with its legislative friskings,
Loose twelve new tribes upon our griskins!
Unjew the Jews, what follows then?
Why, they’ll eat pork like other men,
And you shall see a Rabbi dish up
A chine as freely as a Bishop!
Thousands of years have pass’d, and pork
Was never stuck on Hebrew fork;
But now, suppose that relish rare
Fresh added to their bill of fare,
Fry, harslet, pettitoes, and chine,
Leg, choppers, bacon, ham, and loin,
And then, beyond all goose or duckling”--

“Yes, yes--a little tender suckling!
It must be held the aptest savour
To make the eager mouth to slaver!
Merely to look on such a gruntling,
A plump, white, sleek and sappy runtling,
It makes one--ah! remembrance bitter!
It made me eat my own dear litter!”

“Think, then, with this new waken’d fury,
How we should fare if tried by _Jewry_!
A pest upon the meddling Whigs!
There’ll be a pretty run on pigs!
This very morn a Hebrew brother
With three hats stuck on one another,
And o’er his arm a bag, or poke,
A thing pigs never find a joke,
Stopp’d--rip the fellow!--though he knew
I’ve neither coat to sell nor shoe,
And cock’d his nose--right at me, lovey!
Just like a pointer at a covey!

To set our only friends agin us!
That neither care to fat nor thin us!
To boil, to broil, to roast, or fry us,
But act like real Christians by us!--
A murrain on all legislators!
Thin wash, sour grains, and rotten ’taters!
A bulldog at their ears and tails!
The curse of empty troughs and pails
Famish their flanks as thin as weasels!
May all their children have the measles;
Or in the straw untimely smother,
Or make a dinner for the mother!
A cartwhip for all law inventors!
And rubbing-posts stuck full of tenters!
Yokes, rusty rings, and gates, to hitch in
And parish pounds to pine the flitch in,
Cold, and high winds, the Devil send ’em--
And then may Sam the Sticker end ’em!”

’Twas strange to hear him how he swore!
A Boar will curse, though like a boar,
While Bess, like Pity, at his side
Her swine-subduing voice supplied!
She bade him such a rage discard;
That anger is a foe to lard;
’Tis bad for sugar to get wet,
And quite as bad for fat to fret;
“Besides,”--she argued thus at last--
“The Bill you fume at has not pass’d,
For why, the Commons and the Peers
Have come together by the ears:
Or rather, as we pigs repose,
One’s tail beside the other’s nose,
And thus, of course, take adverse views
Whether of Gentiles or of Jews.
Who knows? They say the Lords’ ill-will
Has thrown out many a wholesome Bill,
And p’rhaps some Peer to Pigs propitious
May swamp a measure so _Jew-dish-us_!”

The Boar was conquer’d: at a glance,
He saw there really was a chance--
That as the Hebrew nose is hooked,
The Bill was equally as crooked;
And might outlast, thank party embers,
A dozen tribes of Christian members;--
So down he settled in the mud,
With smoother back, and cooler blood,
As mild, as quiet, a Blue Boar,
As any over tavern-door.

MORAL.

The chance is small that any measure
Will give all classes equal pleasure;
Since Tory Ministers or Whigs,
Sometimes can’t even “please the Pigs.”

A FLYING VISIT.

“A Calendar! a Calendar! look in the Almanac, find out
moonshine--find out moonshine!”--_Midsummer Night’s Dream._

The by-gone September,
As folks may remember,
At least if their memory saves but an ember,
One fine afternoon,
There went up a Balloon,
Which did not return to the Earth very soon.

For, nearing the sky,
At about a mile high,
The Aëronaut bold had resolved on a fly;
So cutting his string,
In a Parasol thing,
Down he came in a field like a lark from the wing.

Meanwhile, thus adrift,
The Balloon made a shift
To rise very fast, with no burden to lift;
It got very small,
Then to nothing at all;
And then rose the question of where it would fall?

Some thought that, for lack
Of the man and his pack,
’Twould rise to the Cherub that watches Poor Jack;
Some held, but in vain,
With the first heavy rain,
’Twould surely come down to the Gardens again!

But still not a word
For a month could be heard
Of what had become of the Wonderful Bird:
The firm Gye and Hughes,
Wore their boots out and shoes,
In running about and inquiring for news.

Some thought it must be
Tumbled into the Sea;
Some thought it had gone off to High Germanie:
For Germans, as shown
By their writings, ’tis known
Are always delighted with what is high-flown.

Some hinted a bilk,
And that maidens who milk,
In far distant Shires would be walking in silk:
Some swore that it must,
“As they said at the _fust_,
Have gone again’ flashes of lightning and _bust_!”

However, at last,
When six weeks had gone past,
Intelligence came of a plausible cast;
A wondering clown,
At a hamlet near town,
Had seen “like a moon of green cheese” coming down.

Soon spread the alarm,
And from cottage and farm,
The natives buzz’d out like the bees when they swarm;
And off ran the folk,--
It is such a good joke
To see the descent of a bagful of smoke.

And lo! the machine,
Dappled yellow and green,
Was plainly enough in the clouds to be seen:
“Yes, yes,” was the cry,
“It’s the old one, sure_ly_,
Where _can_ it have been such a time in the sky?

“Lord! where will it fall?
It can’t find out Vauxhall,
Without any pilot to guide it at all!”
Some wager’d that Kent
Would behold the event,
Debrett had been posed to _predict_ its “descent.”

Some thought it would pitch
In the old Tower Ditch,
Some swore on the Cross of St. Paul’s it would hitch,
And Farmers cried “Zounds!
If it drops on our grounds,
We’ll try if Balloons can’t be put into pounds!”

But still to and fro
It continued to go,
As if looking out for soft places below--
No difficult job,
It had only to bob
Slap-dash down at once on the heads of the mob:

Who, too apt to stare
At some castle in air,
Forget that the earth is their proper affair;
Till, watching the fall
Of some soap-bubble ball,
They tumble themselves with a terrible sprawl.

Meanwhile, from its height
Stooping downward in flight,
The Phenomenon came more distinctly in sight:
Still bigger and bigger,
And strike me a nigger
Unfreed, if there was not a live human figure!

Yes, plain to be seen,
Underneath the machine,
There dangled a mortal--some swore it was Green;
Some Mason could spy;
Others named Mr. Gye;
Or Hollond, compell’d by the Belgians to fly.

’Twas Graham the flighty,
Whom the Duke high and mighty,
Resign’d to take care of his own lignum-vitæ;
’Twas Hampton, whose whim
Was in Cloudland to swim,
Till e’en Little Hampton look’d little to him!

But all were at fault;
From the heavenly vault
The falling balloon came at last to a halt;
And bounce! with the jar
Of descending so far,
An outlandish Creature was thrown from the car!

At first with the jolt
All his wits made a bolt,
As if he’d been flung by a mettlesome colt;
And while in his faint,
To avoid all complaint,
The Muse shall endeavour his portrait to paint.

The face of this elf,
Round as platter of delf,
Was pale as if only a cast of itself:
His head had a rare
Fleece of silvery hair,
Just like the Albino at Bartlemy Fair.

His eyes they were odd,
Like the eyes of a cod,
And gave him the look of a watery God.
His nose was a snub;
Under which for his grub,
Was a round open mouth like to that of a chub.

His person was small,
Without figure at all,
A plump little body as round as a ball:
With two little fins,
And a couple of pins,
With what has been christen’d a bow in the shins.

His dress it was new,
A full suit of sky-blue--
With bright silver buckles in each little shoe--
Thus painted complete,
From his head to his feet,
Conceive him laid flat in Squire Hopkins’s wheat.

Fine text for the crowd!
Who disputed aloud
What sort of a creature had dropp’d from the cloud--
“He’s come from o’er seas,
He’s a Cochin Chinese--
By jingo! he’s one of the wild Cherookees!”

“Don’t nobody know?”
“He’s a young Esquimaux,
Turn’d white like the hares by the Arctical snow.”
“Some angel, my dear,
Sent from some upper _spear_
For Plumtree or Agnew, too good for this-here!”

Meanwhile, with a sigh,
Having open’d one eye,
The Stranger rose up on his seat by and by;
And finding his tongue,
Thus he said, or he sung,
“_Mi criky bo biggamy kickery bung!_”

“Lord! what does he speak?”
“It’s Dog-Latin--it’s Greek!”
“It’s some sort of slang for to puzzle a Beak!”
“It’s no like the Scotch,”
Said a Scot on the watch,
“Phoo! it’s nothing at all but a kind of hotch-potch!”

“It’s not parly voo,”
Cried a schoolboy or two,
“Nor Hebrew at all,” said a wandering Jew.
Some held it was sprung
From the Irvingite tongue,
The same that is used by a child very young.

Some guess’d it high Dutch,
Others thought it had much
In sound of the true Hoky-poky-ish touch;
But none could be poz,
What the Dickens (not Boz),
No mortal could tell what the Dickens it was!

When who should come pat,
In a moment like that,
But Bowring, to see what the people were at--
A Doctor well able,
Without any fable,
To talk and translate all the babble of Babel.

So just drawing near,
With a vigilant ear,
That took ev’ry syllable in, very clear,
Before one could sip
Up a tumbler of flip,
He knew the whole tongue from the root to the tip!

Then stretching his hand,
As you see Daniel stand,
In the Feast of Belshazzar, that picture so grand!
Without more delay,
In the Hamilton way
He English’d whatever the Elf had to say.

“_Krak kraziboo ban_,
I’m the Lunatic Man,
Confined in the Moon since creation began--
_Sit muggy bigog_,
Whom, except in a fog,
You see with a Lantern, a Bush, and a Dog.

“_Lang sinery lear_,
For this many a year,
I’ve long’d to drop in at your own little sphere,--
_Och, pad-mad aroon_,
Till one fine afternoon,
I found that Wind-Coach on the horns of the Moon.

“_Cush quackery go_,
But, besides you must know,
I’d heard of a profiting Prophet below;
_Big botherum blether_,
Who pretended to gather
The tricks that the Moon meant to play with the weather.

“_So Crismus an crash_,
Being shortish of cash,
I thought I’d a right to partake of the hash--
_Slik mizzle an smak_,
So I’m come with a pack,
To sell to the trade, of my own Almanack.

“_Fiz, bobbery pershal_,
Besides aims commercial,
Much wishing to honour my friend Sir John Herschel,
_Cum puddin and tame_,
It’s inscribed to his name,
Which is now at the full in celestial fame.

“_Wept wepton wish wept_,
Pray this Copy accept”--
But here on the Stranger some Kidnappers leapt:
For why? a shrewd man
Had devis’d a sly plan
The Wonder to grab for a show Caravan.

So plotted, so done--
With a fight as in fun,
While mock pugilistical rounds were begun,
A knave who could box,
And give right and left knocks,
Caught hold of the Prize by his silvery locks.

And hard he had fared,
But the people were scared
By what the Interpreter roundly declared:
“You ignorant Turks!
You will be your own Burkes--
He holds all the keys of the lunary works!

“You’d best let him go--
If you keep him below,
The Moon will not change, and the tides will not flow;
He left her at full,
And with such a long pull,
Zounds! ev’ry man Jack will run mad like a bull!”

So awful a threat
Took effect on the set;
The fright, tho’, was more than their Guest could forget;
So taking a jump,
In the car he came plump,
And threw all the ballast right out in a lump.

Up soar’d the machine,
With its yellow and green;
But still the pale face of the Creature was seen,
Who cried from the car,
“_Dam in yooman bi gar!_”
That is,--“What a sad set of villains you are!”

Howbeit, at some height,
He threw down quite a flight
Of Almanacks, wishing to set us all right--
And, thanks to the boon,
We shall see very soon
If Murphy knows most, or the Man in the Moon!

A ROW AT THE OXFORD ARMS.

“Glorious Apollo, from on high behold us.”--OLD SONG.

As latterly I chanced to pass
A Public House, from which, alas!
The Arms of Oxford dangle!
My ear was startled by a din,
That made me tremble in my skin,
A dreadful hubbub from within,
Of voices in a wrangle--

Voices loud, and voices high,
With now and then a party-cry,
Such as used in times gone by
To scare the British border;
When foes from North and South of Tweed--
Neighbours--and of Christian creed--
Met in hate to fight and bleed,
Upsetting Social Order.

Surprised, I turn’d me to the crowd,
Attracted by that tumult loud,
And ask’d a gazer, beetle-brow’d,
The cause of such disquiet.
When lo! the solemn-looking man,
First shook his head on Burleigh’s plan,
And then, with fluent tongue, began
His version of the riot:

A row!--why yes,--a pretty row, you might hear from this to Garmany,
And what is worse, it’s all got up among the Sons of Harmony,
The more’s the shame for them as used to be in time and tune,
And all unite in chorus like the singing-birds in June!
Ah! many a pleasant chant I’ve heard in passing here along,
When Swiveller was President a-knocking down a song;
But Dick’s resign’d the post, you see, and all them shouts and hollers
Is ‘cause two other candidates, some sort of larned scholars,
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!
Lord knows their names, I’m sure I don’t, no more than any yokel,
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal;
Nay, some do say, although of course the public rumour varies,
They’ve no more warble in ’em than a pair of hen canaries,
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t’other sort of thing,
For a man may make a song, you know, although he cannot sing;
But lork! it’s many folk’s belief they’re only good at prosing,
For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing;
And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials,
If pop’lar, it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials,
And then about all sorts of streets, by every little monkey,
It’s chanted like the “Dog’s Meat Man,” or “If I had a Donkey.”
Whereas, as Mr. Catnach says, and not a bad judge neither,
No ballad--worth a ha’penny--has ever come from either,
And him as writ “Jim Crow,” he says, and got such lots of dollars,
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Howsomever that’s the meaning of the squabble that arouses,
This neighbourhood, and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses,
Who want to have their dinners and their parties, as is reason
In Christian peace and charity according to the season.
But from Number Thirty-Nine--since this electioneering job,
Ay, as far as Number Ninety, there’s an everlasting mob;
Till the thing is quite a nuisance, for no creature passes by,
But he gets a card, a pamphlet, or a summut in his eye;
And a pretty noise there is!--what with canvassers and spouters,
For in course each side is furnish’d with its backers and its touters;
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried,
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married;
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms,
If you’re dying for a surgeon, you must fetch him from the “Arms;”
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars,
To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers.

Well, that, sir, is the racket; and the more the sin and shame
Of them that help to stir it up, and propagate the same;
Instead of vocal ditties, and the social flowing cup,--
But they’ll be the House’s ruin, or the shutting of it up,
With their riots and their hubbubs, like a garden full of bears,
While they’ve damaged many articles and broken lots of squares,
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother,
By throwing _Morning Heralds_, _Times_, and _Standards_ at each other;
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn’t to repeat,
And the names they call each other--for I’ve heard ’em in the street--
Such as Traitors, Guys, and Judases, and Vipers, and what not,
For Pasley and his divers ain’t so blowing-up a lot.
And then such awful swearing!--for there’s one of them that cusses
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition ‘busses;
For he cusses every member that’s agin him at the poll,
As I wouldn’t cuss a donkey, tho’ it hasn’t got a soul;
And he cusses all their families, Jack, Harry, Bob or Jim,
To the babby in the cradle, if they don’t agree with him.
Whereby, altho’ as yet they have not took to use their fives,
Or, according as the fashion is, to sticking with their knives,
I’m bound there’ll be some milling yet, and shakings by the collars,
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall,
Instead of clouds, and every man his song, and then his call--
And as if there wasn’t Whigs enough and Tories to fall out,
Besides politics in plenty for our splits to be about,--
Why, a Cornfield is sufficient, sir, as anybody knows,
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows--
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics, and other Irish stews,
To agitate society and loosen all its screws;
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres,--
But it’s not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears.
And as to College larning, my opinion for to broach,
And I’ve had it from my cousin, and he driv a college coach,
And so knows the University, and all as there belongs,
And he says that Oxford’s famouser for sausages than songs,
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant,
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want,
Or other Tavern Melodists I can’t just call to mind--
But it’s not the classic system for to propagate the kind,
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers!

For my part in the matter, if so be I had a voice,
It’s the best among the vocalists I’d honour with the choice;
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch;
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch;
Cause why, the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics--
And not to say, like Muffincaps, their Catichiz and Collec’s.
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud,
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd,
Have brought their jangling voices, as far as they can compass,
Have turn’d a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus,
And him as knows most hymns--altho’ I can’t see how it follers--
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

Well, that’s the row--and who can guess the upshot after all?
Whether Harmony will ever make the “Arms” her House of call,
Or whether this here mobbing--as some longish heads foretel it,
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it.
Howsomever, for the present, there’s no sign of any peace,
For the hubbub keeps a growing, and defies the New Police;--
But if _I_ was in the Vestry, and a leading sort of Man,
Or a Member of the Vocals, to get backers for my plan,
Why, I’d settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle,
For I’d have another candidate--and that’s the Parish Beadle,
Who makes such lots of Poetry, himself, or else by proxy,
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy;
Whereby--if folks was wise--instead of either of them Scholars,
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers,
They’ll lend their ears to reason, and take my advice as follers,
Namely--Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers!

A TABLE OF ERRATA.

(HOSTESS LOQUITUR.)

Well! thanks be to heaven,
The summons is given;
It’s only gone seven
And should have been six;
There’s fine overdoing
In roasting and stewing,
And victuals past chewing
To rags and to sticks!

How dreadfully chilly!
I shake, willy-nilly;
That John is so silly
And never will learn!
This plate is a cold one,
That cloth is an old one,
I wish they had told one
The lamp wouldn’t burn.

Now then for some blunder,
For nerves to sink under;
I never shall wonder
Whatever goes ill.
That fish is a riddle!
It’s broke in the middle,
A Turbot! a fiddle!
It’s only a Brill!

It’s quite over-boil’d too,
The butter is oil’d too,
The soup is all spoil’d too,
It’s nothing but slop.
The smelts looking flabby,
The soles are as dabby,
It all is so shabby
That Cook shall not stop!

As sure as the morning,
She gets a month’s warning,
My orders for scorning--
There’s nothing to eat!
I hear such a rushing,
I feel such a flushing,
I know I am blushing
As red as a beet!

Friends flatter and flatter,
I wish they would chatter;
What _can_ be the matter
That nothing comes next?
How very unpleasant!
Lord! there is the pheasant!
Not wanted at present,
I’m born to be vext!

The pudding brought on too
And aiming at ton too!
And where is that John too,
The plague that he is?
He’s off on some ramble:
And there is Miss Campbell,
Enjoying the scramble,
Detestable Quiz!

The veal they all eye it,
But no one will try it,
An Ogre would shy it
So ruddy as that!
And as for the mutton,
The cold dish it’s put on,
Converts to a button
Each drop of the fat.

The beef without mustard!
My fate’s to be fluster’d,
And there comes the custard
To eat with the hare!
Such flesh, fowl, and fishing,
Such waiting and dishing,
I cannot help wishing
A woman might swear!

Oh dear! did I ever--
But no, I did never--
Well, come, that is clever,
To send up the brawn!
That cook, I could scold her,
Gets worse as she’s older;
I wonder who told her
That woodcocks are drawn!

It’s really audacious!
I cannot look gracious,
Lord help the voracious
That came for a cram!
There’s Alderman Fuller
Gets duller and duller.
Those fowls, by the colour,
Were boil’d with the ham!

Well, where is the curry?
I’m all in a flurry,
No, cook’s in no hurry--
A stoppage again!
And John makes it wider,
A pretty provider!
By bringing up cider
Instead of champagne!

My troubles come faster!
There’s my lord and master
Detects each disaster,
And hardly can sit:
He cannot help seeing,
All things disagreeing;
If _he_ begins d--ing
I’m off in a fit!

This cooking?--it’s messing!
The spinach wants pressing,
And salads in dressing
Are best with good eggs.
And John--yes, already--
Has had something heady,
That makes him unsteady
In keeping his legs.

How _shall_ I get through it!
I never can do it,
I’m quite looking to it,
To sink by and by.
Oh! would I were dead now,
Or up in my bed now,
To cover my head now
And have a good cry!

THE GREEN MAN.

Tom Simpson was as nice a kind of man
As ever lived--at least at number Four,
In Austin Friars, in Mrs. Brown’s first floor,
At fifty pounds,--or thereabouts,--per ann.
The Lady reckon’d him her best of lodgers,
His rent so punctually paid each quarter,--
He did not smoke like nasty foreign codgers--
Nor play French horns like Mr. Rogers--
Or talk his flirting nonsense to her daughter--
Not that the girl was light behaved or courtable--
Still on one failing tenderly to touch,
The Gentleman did like a drop too much,
(Tho’ there are many such)
And took more Port than was exactly portable.
In fact,--to put the cap upon the nipple,
And try the charge,--Tom certainly _did_ tipple.
He thought the motto was but sorry stuff
On Cribb’s Prize Cup--Yes, wrong in ev’ry letter--
That “D----d be he who first cries _Hold Enough_!”
The more cups hold, and if enough, the better.
And so to set example in the eyes
Of Fancy’s lads, and give a broadish hint to them,
All his cups were of such ample size
That he got into them.
Once in the company of merry mates,
In spite of Temperance’s ifs and buts,
So sure as Eating is set off with _plates_,
His Drinking always was bound up with _cuts_!

Howbeit, such Bacchanalian revels
Bring very sad catastrophes about;
Palsy, Dyspepsy, Dropsy, and Blue Devils,
Not to forget the Gout.
Sometimes the liver takes a spleenful whim
To grow to Strasbourg’s regulation size,
As if for those hepatical goose pies--
Or out of depth the head begins to swim--
Poor Simpson! what a thing occurred to him!
’Twas Christmas--he had drunk the night before,--
Like Baxter, who “so went beyond his last”--
_One_ bottle more, and then _one_ bottle more,
Till, oh! the red-wine _Ruby-con_ was pass’d!
And homeward, by the short small chimes of day,
With many a circumbendibus to spare,
For instance, twice round Finsbury Square,
To use a fitting phrase, he _wound_ his way.

Then comes the rising, with repentance bitter,
And all the nerves--(and sparrows)--in a twitter,
Till settled by the sober Chinese cup:
The hands, o’er all, are members that make motions,
A sort of wavering just like the ocean’s,
Which has its swell, too, when it’s getting up--
An awkward circumstance enough for elves
Who shave themselves;
And Simpson just was ready to go thro’ it
When lo! the first short glimpse within the glass--
He jump’d--and who alive would fail to do it?--
To see, however it had come to pass,
One section of his face as green as grass!
In vain each eager wipe,
With soap--without--wet--hot or cold--or dry,
Still, still, and still, to his astonished eye
One cheek was green, the other cherry ripe!
Plump in the nearest chair he sat him down,
Quaking, and quite absorb’d in a deep study,--
But verdant and not brown,
What could have happened to a tint so ruddy?
Indeed it was a very novel case,
By way of penalty for being jolly,
To have that evergreen stuck in his face,
Just like the windows with their Christmas holly.

“All claret marks,”--thought he--Tom knew his forte--
“Are red--this colour CANNOT come from Port!”

One thing was plain; with such a face as his,
’Twas quite impossible to ever greet
Good Mrs. Brown; nay, any party meet,
Altho’ ’twas such a parti-coloured phiz!
As for the public, fancy Sarcy Ned,
The coachman, flying, dog-like, at his head,
With “Ax your pardon, Sir, but if you please--
Unless it comes too high--
Vere ought a fellow, now, to go to buy
The t’other half, Sir, of that ‘ere green cheese?”
His mind recoil’d--so he tied up his head,
As with a raging tooth, and took to bed;
Of course with feelings far from the serene,
For all his future prospects seemed to be,
To match his customary tea,
Black mixt with green.
Meanwhile, good Mrs. Brown
Wondered at Mr. S. not coming down,
And sent the maid up-stairs to learn the why;
To whom poor Simpson, half delirious,
Returned an answer so mysterious
That curiosity began to fry;
The more, as Betty, who had caught a snatch
By peeping in upon the patient’s bed,
Reported a most bloody, tied-up head,
Got over-night of course--“Harm watch, harm catch,”
From Watchmen in a boxing-match.

So, liberty or not,--
Good lodgers are too scarce to let them off in
A suicidal coffin--
The dame ran up as fast as she could trot;
“Appearance,--fiddlesticks!” should not deter
From going to the bed,
And looking at the head:
“La! Mister S----, he need not care for her!
A married woman that had had
Nine boys and gals, and none had turned out bad--
Her own dear late would come home late at night,
And liquor always got him in a fight,
She’d been in Hospitals--she wouldn’t faint
At gores and gashes fingers wide and deep;
She knew what’s good for bruises and what ain’t--
Turlington’s Drops she made a p’int to keep.
Cases she’d seen beneath the surgent’s hand--
Such skulls japann’d--she meant to say trepann’d!
Poor wretches! you would think they’d been in battle,
And hadn’t hours to live,
From tearing horses’ kicks or Smithfield cattle,
Shamefully over-driv!--
Heads forced to have a silver plate atop,
To get the brains to stop.
At imputations of the legs she’d been,
And neither screech’d nor cried--
Hereat she pluck’d the white cravat aside,
And lo! the whole phenomenon was seen--
“Preserve us all! He’s going to gangrene!”

Alas! through Simpson’s brain
Shot the remark, like ball, with mortal pain;
It tallied truly with his own misgiving,
And brought a groan,
To move a heart of stone--
A sort of farewell to the land of living!
And as the case was imminent and urgent,
He did not make a shadow of objection
To Mrs. B.’s proposal for a “surgent,”
But merely gave a sight of deep dejection,
While down the verdant cheek a tear of grief
Stole, like a dew-drop on a cabbage-leaf.
Swift flew the summons,--it was life or death!
And in as short a time as he could race it,
Came Doctor Puddicome as short of breath,
To try his Latin charms against _Hic Jacet_.
He took a seat beside the patient’s bed,
Saw tongue--felt pulse--examined the bad cheek,--
Poked, stroked, pinch’d, kneaded it--hemm’d--shook his head--
Took a long solemn pause the cause to seek,
(Thinking, it seem’d, in Greek,)
Then ask’d--‘twas Christmas--“Had he eaten grass,
Or greens--and if the cook was so improper
To boil them up with copper,
Or farthings made of brass;
Or if he drank his Hock from dark green glass,
Or dined at City Festivals, whereat
There’s turtle, and green fat?”
To all of which, with serious tone of woe,
Poor Simpson answered “No.”
Indeed he might have said in form auricular,
Supposing Puddicome had been a monk--
He had not eaten (he had only drunk)
Of any thing “Particular.”
The Doctor was at fault;
A thing so new quite brought him to a halt.
Cases of other colours came in crowds,
He could have found their remedy, and soon;
But green--it sent him up among the clouds,
As if he had gone up with Green’s balloon!
Black with Black Jaundice he had seen the skin;
From Yellow Jaundice yellow,
From saffron tints to sallow;--
Then retrospective memory lugg’d in
Old Purple Face, the Host at Kentish Town--
East Indians, without number,
He knew familiarly, by heat done Brown,
From tan to a burnt umber,
Ev’n those eruptions he had never seen
Of which the Caledonian Poet spoke,
As “_rashes_ growing green!”
“Pooh! pooh! a rash grow green!
Nothing of course but a broad Scottish joke!”
Then as to flaming visages, for those
The Scarlet Fever answer’d, or the Rose--
But verdant that was quite a novel stroke!
Men turn’d to blue, by Cholera’s last stage,
In common practice he had really seen;
But green--he was too old, and grave, and sage,
To think of the last stage to Turnham Green!

So matters stood in-doors--meanwhile without,
Growing in going like all other rumours,
The modern miracle was buzz’d about,
By People of all humours,
Native or foreign in their dialecticals;
Till all the neighbourhood, as if their noses
Had taken the odd gross from little Moses,
Seem’d looking thro’ green spectacles.
“Green faces!” so they all began to comment--
“Yes--opposite to Druggist’s lighted shops,
But that’s a flying colour--never stops--
A bottle-green that’s vanished in a moment.
Green! nothing of the sort occurs to mind,
Nothing at all to match the present piece;
Jack in the Green has nothing of the kind--
Green-grocers are not green--nor yet green geese!”
The oldest Supercargoes of Old Sailors
Of such a case had never heard,
From Emerald Isle to Cape de Verd;
“Or Greenland!” cried the whalers.
All tongues were full of the Green man, and still
They could not make him out, with all their skill;
No soul could shape the matter, head or tail--
But truth steps in where all conjectures fail.

A long half-hour, in needless puzzle,
Our Galen’s cane had rubbed against his muzzle:
He thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought--
And still it came to nought,
When up rush’d Betty, loudest of Town Criers,
“Lord, Ma’am, the new Police is at the door!
It’s B, ma’am, Twenty-four,--
As brought home Mr. S. to Austin Friars,
And says there’s nothing but a simple case--
He got that ‘ere green face
By sleeping in the kennel near the Dyer’s!”

* * * * *

BEN BLUFF.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

“Pshaw, you are not on a whaling voyage, where everything that
offers is game.”--THE PILOT.

Ben Bluff was a whaler, and many a day
Had chased the huge fish about Baffin’s old Bay,
But time brought a change his diversion to spoil,
And that was when Gas took the shine out of Oil.

He turn’d up his nose at the fumes of the Coke,
And swore the whole scheme was a bottle of smoke:
As to London he briefly delivered his mind,
“Sparma-city,” said he--but the City declined.

So Ben cut his line in a sort of a huff,
As soon as his whales had brought profits enough,
And hard by the Docks settled down for his life,
But, true to his text, went to Wales for a wife.

A big one she was, without figure or waist,
More bulky than lovely, but that was his taste;
In fat she was lapp’d from her sole to her crown,
And, turn’d into oil, would have lighted a town.

But Ben like a Whaler was charm’d with the match,
And thought, very truly, his spouse a great catch;
A flesh-and-blood emblem of Plenty and Peace,
And would not have changed her for Helen of Greece.

For Greenland was green in his memory still;
He’d quitted his trade, but retain’d the good-will;
And often, when soften’d by bumbo and flip,
Would cry--till he blubber’d--about his old ship.

No craft like the Grampus could work through a floe,
What knots she could run, and what tons she could stow.
And then that rich smell he preferr’d to the rose,
By just nosing the whole without holding his nose!

Now Ben he resolved, one fine Saturday night,
A snug Arctic Circle of friends to invite,
Old Tars in the trade, who related old tales,
And drank, and blew clouds that were “very like whales.”

Of course with their grog there was plenty of chat,
Of canting, and flinching, and cutting up fat;
And how Gun Harpoons into fashion had got,
And if they were meant for the Gun-whale or not?

At last they retired, and left Ben to his rest,
By fancies cetaceous, and drink, well possess’d,
When, lo! as he lay by his partner in bed,
He heard something blow through two holes in its head.

“A start!” mutter’d Ben, in the Grampus afloat,
And made but one jump from the deck to the boat!
“Huzza! pull away for the blubber and bone--
I look on that whale as already my own!”

Then groping about by the light of the moon,
He soon laid his hand on his trusty harpoon;
A moment he poised it, to send it more pat,
And then made a plunge to imbed it in fat!

“Starn all!” he sang out, “as you care for your lives--
Starn all, as you hope to return to your wives--
Stand by for the flurry! she throws up the foam!
Well done, my old iron, I’ve sent you right home!”

And scarce had he spoken, when lo! bolt upright
The Leviathan rose in a great sheet of white,
And swiftly advanced for a fathom or two,
As only a fish out of water could do.

“Starn all!” echoed Ben, with a movement aback,
But too slow to escape from the creature’s attack;
If flippers it had, they were furnish’d with nails,--
“You willin, I’ll teach you that Women an’t Whales!”

“Avast!” shouted Ben, with a sort of a screech,
“I’ve heard a Whale spouting, but _here_ is a speech!”
“A-spouting, indeed!--very pretty,” said she;
“But it’s you I’ll blow up, not the froth of the sea!

“To go to pretend to take _me_ for a fish!
You great Polar Bear--but I know what you wish--
You’re sick of a wife, that your hankering baulks,--
You want to go back to some young Esquimax!”

“O dearest,” cried Ben, frighten’d out of his life,
“Don’t think I would go for to murder a wife
I must long have bewailed”--“But she only cried Stuff!
Don’t name it, you brute, you’ve _be-whaled_ me enough!”

“Lord, Polly!” said Ben, “such a deed could I do?
I’d rather have murder’d all Wapping than you!
Come, forgive what is passed.” “O you monster!” she cried,
“It was none of your fault that it passed of one side!”

However, at last she inclined to forgive;
“But, Ben, take this warning as long as you live--
If the love of harpooning so strong must prevail,
Take a whale for a wife, not a wife for a whale.”

SALLY SIMPKIN’S LAMENT;

OR, JOHN JONES’S KIT-CAT-ASTROPHE.

“He left his body to the sea,
And made a shark his legatee.”
BRYAN AND PERENNE.

“Oh! what is that comes gliding in,
And quite in middling haste?
It is the picture of my Jones,
And painted to the waist.

“It is not painted to the life,
For where’s the trowsers blue?
Oh Jones, my dear!--oh dear! my Jones,
What is become of you?”

“Oh! Sally dear, it is too true,--
The half that you remark
Is come to say my other half
Is bit off by a shark!

“Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,
Yet most completely do!
A bite in one place seems enough,
But I’ve been bit in two.

“You know I once was all your own,
But now a shark must share!
But let that pass--for now to you
I’m neither here nor there.

“Alas! death has a strange divorce
Effected in the sea,
It has divided me from you,
And even me from me!

“Don’t fear my ghost will walk o’nights
To haunt, as people say;
My ghost _can’t_ walk, for, oh! my legs
Are many leagues away!

“Lord! think, when I am swimming round,
And looking where the boat is,
A shark just snaps away a _half_,
Without ‘a _quarter’s_ notice.’

“One half is here, the other half
Is near Columbia placed;
Oh! Sally, I have got the whole
Atlantic for my waist.

“But now, adieu--a long adieu!
I’ve solved death’s awful riddle,
And would say more, but I am doomed
To break off in the middle!”

I’M GOING TO BOMBAY.

“Nothing venture, nothing have.”--OLD PROVERB.

“Every Indiaman has at least two mates.”--FALCONER’S
MARINE GUIDE.