Chapter X (2)

And was there then no argument
To change the doctor’s vile intent,
And move his pity?--yes, in truth,
And that was--paying for the tooth.
“Zounds! pay for such a stump! I’d rather--”
But here the menace went no farther,
For with his other ways of pinching,
Hunks had a miser’s love of snuff,
A recollection strong enough
To cause a very serious flinching;
In short he paid and had the feature
Replaced as it was meant by nature;
For tho’ by this ’twas cold to handle,
(No corpse’s could have felt more horrid,)
And white just like an end of candle,
The doctor deemed and proved it too,
That noses from the nose will do
As well as noses from the forehead;
So, fixed by dint of rag and lint,
The part was bandaged up and muffled.
The chair unfastened, Hunks arose,
And shuffled out, for once unshuffled;
And as he went, these words he snuffled--
“Well, this _is_ ‘paying thro’ the nose.’”

THE LOGICIANS.

AN ILLUSTRATION.

“Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons
logic had put into their hands--“--SCRIBLERUS.

See here two cavillers,
Would-be unravellers
Of abstruse theory and questions mystical
In tête-à-tête,
And deep debate,
Wrangling according to form syllogistical.

Glowing and ruddy
The light streams in upon their deep brown study,
And settles on our bald logician’s skull:
But still his meditative eye looks dull
And muddy,
For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato;
But to the world without
And things about,
His eye is blind as that of a potato:
In fact, logicians
See but by syllogisms--taste and smell
By propositions;
And never let the common dray-horse senses
Draw inferences.
How wise his brow! how eloquent his nose!
The feature of itself is a negation!
How gravely double is his chin, that shows
Double deliberation;
His scornful lip forestalls the confutation!
O this is he that wisely with a major
And minor proves a greengage is no gauger!--
By help of ergo,
That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager,
And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo!
O this is he that logically tore his
Dog into dogmas--following Aristotle--
Cut up his cap into ten categories,
And cork’d an abstract conjuror in a bottle!
O this is he that disembodied matter,
And proved that incorporeal corporations
Put nothing in no platter,
And for mock turtle only supp’d sensations!
O this is he that palpably decided,
With grave and mathematical precision
How often atoms may be subdivided
By long division;
O this is he that show’d I is not I,
And made a ghost of personal identity;
Proved “Ipse” absent by an alibi,
And frisking in some other person’s entity;
He sounded all philosophies in truth,
Whether old schemes or only supplemental;--
And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth,
A dental knowledge of the transcendental!

The other is a shrewd severer wight,
Sharp argument hath worn him nigh the bone:
For why? he never let dispute alone,
A logical knight-errant,
That wrangled ever--morning, noon, and night,
From night to morn; he had no wife apparent
But Barbara Celárent!
Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma,
For on the point of his two fingers full
He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a
Most deadly toss, like any baited bull.
Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe
A sophism in his angry ear! for _that_
He took ferociously between his teeth,
And shook it--like a terrier with a rat!--
In fact old Controversy ne’er begat
One half so cruel
And dangerous as he, in verbal duel!
No one had ever so complete a fame
As a debater;
And for art logical his name was greater
Than Dr. Watts’s name!--

Look how they sit together!
Two bitter desperate antagonists,
Licking each other with their tongues, like fists,
Merely to settle whether
This world of ours had ever a beginning--
Whether created,
Vaguely undated,
Or time had any finger in its spinning:
When, lo!--for they are sitting at the basement--
A hand, like that upon Belshazzar’s wall,
Lets fall
A written paper through the open casement.

“O foolish wits! (thus runs the document)
To twist your brains into a double knot
On such a barren question! Be content
That there is such a fair and pleasant spot
For your enjoyment as this verdant earth.
Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth,
For vainly ye contend;
Before you can decide about its birth,
The world will have an end!”

LITTLE O’P.--AN AFRICAN FACT.

It was July the First, and the great hill of Howth
Was bearing by compass sow-west and by south,
And the name of the ship was the Peggy of Cork,
Well freighted with bacon and butter and pork.
Now, this ship had a captain, Macmorris by name,
And little O’Patrick was mate of the same;
For Bristol they sailed, but by nautical scope,
They contrived to be lost by the Cape of Good Hope.
Of all the Cork boys that the vessel could boast,
Only little O’P. made a swim to the coast;
And when he revived from a sort of a trance,
He saw a big Black with a very long lance.
Says the savage, says he, in some Hottentot tongue,
“Bash Kuku my gimmel bo gumborry bung!”
Then blew a long shell, to the fright of our elf,
And down came a hundred as black as himself.
They brought with them _guattul_, and pieces of _klam_,
The first was like beef, and the second like lamb;
“Don’t I know,” said O’P., “what the wretches are at?
They’re intending to eat me as soon as I’m fat!”
In terror of coming to pan, spit, or pot,
His rations of _jarbul_ he suffered to rot;
He would not touch _purry_ or _doolberry-lik_,
But kept himself _growing_ as thin as a stick.
Though broiling the climate, and parching with drouth,
He would not let _chobbery_ enter his mouth,
But kicked down the _krug_ shell, tho’ sweetened with _natt_,--
“I an’t to be pisoned the likes of a rat!”
At last the great _Joddry_ got quite in a rage,
And cried, “O mi pitticum dambally nage!
The _chobbery_ take, and put back on the shelf,
Or give me the _krug_ shell, I’ll drink it myself!
The _doolberry-lik_ is the best to be had,
And the _purry_ (I chewed it myself) is not bad;
The _jarbul_ is fresh, for I saw it cut out,
And the _Bok_ that it came from is grazing about.
My _jumbo_! but run off to Billery Nang,
And tell her to put on her _jigger_ and _tang_,
And go with the _Bloss_ to the man of the sea,
And say that she comes as his _Wulwul_ from me.”
Now Billery Nang was as Black as a sweep,
With thick curly hair like the wool of a sheep,
And the moment he spied her, said little O’P.,
“Sure the Divil is dead, and his Widow’s at me!”
But when, in the blaze of her Hottentot charms,
She came to accept him for life in her arms,
And stretched her thick lips to a broad grin of love,
A Raven preparing to bill like a Dove,
With a soul full of dread he declined the grim bliss,
Stopped her Molyneux arms, and eluded her kiss;
At last, fairly foiled, she gave up the attack,
And _Joddry_ began to look blacker than black;
“By Mumbo! by Jumbo!--why here is a man,
That won’t be made happy, do all that I can;
He will not be married, lodged, clad, and well fed,
Let the _Rham_ take his _shangwang_ and chop off his head!”

THE ASSISTANT DRAPERS’ PETITION.

Pity the sorrows of a class of men,
Who, though they bow to fashion and frivolity;
No fancied claims or woes fictitious pen,
But wrongs ell-wide, and of a lasting quality.

Oppress’d and discontented with our lot,
Amongst the clamorous we take our station
A host of Ribbon Men--yet is there not
One piece of Irish in our agitation.

We do revere Her Majesty the Queen;
We venerate our Glorious Constitution:
We joy King William’s advent should have been,
And only want a Counter Resolution.

Tis not Lord Russell and his final measure,
’Tis not Lord Melbourne’s counsel to the throne,
Tis not this Bill, or that, gives us displeasure,
The measures we dislike are all our own.

The Cash Law the “Great Western” loves to name,
The tone our foreign policy pervading;
The Corn Laws--none of these we care to blame,
Our evils we refer to over-trading.

By Tax or Tithe our murmurs are not drawn;
We reverence the Church--but hang the cloth!
We love her ministers--but curse the lawn!
We have, alas! too much to do with both!

We love the sex:--to serve them is a bliss!
We trust they find us civil, never surly;
All that we hope of female friends is this,
That their last linen may be wanted early.

Ah! who can tell the miseries of men
That serve the very cheapest shops in town?
Till faint and weary, they leave off at ten,
Knock’d up by ladies beating of ’em down!

But has not Hamlet his opinion given--
O Hamlet had a heart for Drapers’ servants!
“That custom is”--say custom after seven--
“More honour’d in the breach than the observance.”

O come then, gentle ladies, come in time,
O’erwhelm our counters, and unload our shelves;
Torment us all until the seventh chime,
But let us have the remnant to ourselves!

We wish of knowledge to lay in a stock,
And not remain in ignorance incurable;--
To study Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Locke,
And other fabrics that have proved so durable.

We long for thoughts of intellectual kind,
And not to go bewilder’d to our beds;
With stuff and fustian taking up the mind,
And pins and needles running in our heads!

For oh! the brain gets very dull and dry,
Selling from morn till night for cash or credit;
Or with a vacant face and vacant eye,
Watching cheap prints that Knight did never edit.

Till sick with toil, and lassitude extreme,
We often think when we are dull and vapoury,
The bliss of Paradise was so supreme,
Because that Adam did not deal in drapery.

SYMPTOMS OF OSSIFICATION.

“An indifference to tears, and blood, and human suffering, that
could only belong to a _Boney-parte_.--_Life of Napoleon._

Time was, I always had a drop
For any tale of sigh or sorrow;
My handkerchief I used to sop
Till often I was forced to borrow;
I don’t know how it is, but now
My eyelids seldom want a-drying;
The doctor, p’rhaps, could tell me how--
I fear my heart is ossifying!

O’er Goethe how I used to weep,
With turnip cheeks and nose of scarlet,
When Werter put himself to sleep
With pistols kiss’d and clean’d by Charlotte;
Self-murder is an awful sin,
No joke there is in bullets flying,
But now at such a tale I grin--
I fear my heart is ossifying!

The Drama once could shake and thrill
My nerves, and set my tears a-stealing,
The Siddons then could turn at will
Each plug upon the main of feeling;
At Belvidera now I smile,
And laugh while Mrs. Haller’s crying;
’Tis odd, so great a change of style--
I fear my heart is ossifying!

That heart was such--some years ago,
To see a beggar quite would shock it,
And in his hat I used to throw
The quarter’s savings of my pocket:
I never wish--as I did _then_!--
The means from my own purse supplying,
To turn them all to gentlemen--
I fear my heart is ossifying!

We’ve had some serious things of late,
Our sympathies to beg or borrow,

New melo-drames, of tragic fate,
And acts, and songs, and tales of sorrow;
Miss Zouch’s case, our eyes to melt,
And sundry actors sad good-bye-ing,
But Lord!--so little have I felt,
I’m sure my heart is ossifying!

A CUSTOM-HOUSE BREEZE.

One day--no matter for the month or year,
A Calais packet, just come over,
And safely moor’d within the pier,
Began to land her passengers at Dover;
All glad to end a voyage long and rough.
And during which,
Through roll and pitch,
The Ocean-King had _sick_ophants enough!

Away, as fast as they could walk or run,
Eager for steady rooms and quiet meals,
With bundles, bags, and boxes at their heels,
Away the passengers all went but one,
A female, who from some mysterious check,
Still linger’d on the steamer’s deck,
As if she did not care for land a tittle,
For horizontal rooms, and cleanly victual--
Or nervously afraid to put
Her foot
Into an Isle described as “tight and little.”

In vain commissioner and touter,
Porter and waiter throng’d about her;
Boring, as such officials only bore--
In spite of rope and barrow, knot and truck,
Of plank and ladder, there she stuck,
She couldn’t, no, she wouldn’t go on shore.

“But, ma’am,” the steward interfered,
“The wessel must be cleared.
You mustn’t stay aboard, ma’am, no one don’t!
It’s quite agin the orders so to do--
And all the passengers is gone but you.”
Says she, “I cannot go ashore and won’t!”
“You ought to!”
“But I can’t!”
“You must!”
“I shan’t!”

At last, attracted by the racket,
’Twixt gown and jacket,
The captain came himself, and cap in hand,
Begg’d very civilly to understand
Wherefore the lady could not leave the packet.

“Why then,” the lady whispered with a shiver,
That made the accents quiver,
“I’ve got some foreign silks about me pinn’d,
In short, so many things, all contraband,
To tell the truth I am afraid to land,
In such a _searching_ wind!”

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Tarantula.

[2] The name of a well-known lion at that time in the Zoological Gardens.

[3] A word caught from some American Trader in passing.

[4] See the story of Sidi Nonman, in the “Arabian Nights.”

[5] Captain Kater, the moon’s surveyor.

[6] The doctor’s composition for a _night-cap_.

[7] “Since this poem was written, Doctor Ireland and those in authority under him have reduced the fares. It is gratifying to the English people to know that while butcher’s meat is rising tombs are falling.”--_Note in Third Edition._

[8] The daughter of William Harvey, the artist.

[9] Solomon Eagle.

[10] The late favourite of the King’s Theatre, who left the pas seul of life, for a perpetual _Ball_. Is not that her effigy now commonly borne about by the Italian image vendors--an ethereal form holding a wreath with both hands above her head--and her husband, in emblem, beneath her foot?

[11] Geysers:--the boiling springs in Iceland.

[12] Query, _purly_?--Printer’s Devil.

[13] This word is omitted in the later edition.

[14] The Adelphi.

[15] The name of the lion in the Zoological Gardens.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood, by Thomas Hood