Chapter VI: Preface (4)

“It’s very hard,” she used to moan,
“That other people have their ducklings
To grace their waters--mine alone
Have never any pretty chucklings.”
For why!--each little yellow navy
Went down--all downy--to old Davy!

She had a lake--a pond I mean--
Its wave was rather thick than pearly--
She had two ducks, their napes were green--
She had a drake, his tail was curly,--
Yet spite of drake, and ducks, and pond,
No little ducks had Mrs. Bond!

The birds were both the best of mothers--
The nests had eggs--the eggs had luck--
The infant D.’s came forth like others--
But there, alas! the matter stuck!
They might as well have all died addle,
As die when they began to paddle!

For when, as native instinct taught her,
The mother set her brood afloat,
They sank ere long right under water,
Like any overloaded boat;
They were web-footed too to see,
As ducks and spiders ought to be!

No peccant humour in a gander
Brought havoc on her little folks,--
No poaching cook--a frying pander
To appetite,--destroyed their yolks,--
Beneath her very eyes, Od’ rot ’em!
They went like plummets to the bottom.

The thing was strange--a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works!
For little ducks, beyond conviction,
Should float without the help of corks:
Great Johnson it bewildered him!
To hear of ducks that could not swim.

Poor Mrs. Bond! what could she do
But change the breed--and she tried divers,
Which dived as all seemed born to do;
No little ones were e’er survivors--
Like those that copy gems, I’m thinking,
They all were given to die-sinking!

In vain their downy coats were shorn:
They floundered still,--Batch after batch went!
The little fools seemed only born
And hatched for nothing but a hatchment!
Whene’er they launched--oh sight of wonder!
Like fires the water “got them under!”

No woman ever gave their lucks
A better chance than Mrs. Bond did;
At last quite out of heart and ducks,
She gave her pond up and desponded;
For Death among the water lilies,
Cried “_Duc_ ad me,” to all her dillies.

But though resolved to breed no more,
She brooded often on this riddle--
Alas! twas darker than before!
At last, about the summer’s middle,
What Johnson, Mrs. Bond, or none did,
To clear the matter up the sun did!

The thirsty Sirius, dog-like, drank
So deep his furious tongue to cool,
The shallow waters sank and sank,
And lo, from out the wasted pool,
Too hot to hold them any longer,
There crawled some eels as big as conger!

I wish all folks would look a bit,
In such a case below the surface;
But when the eels were caught and split
By Mrs. Bond, just think of _her_ face,
In each inside at once to spy
A ducking turned to giblet pie!

The sight at once explained the case.
Making the Dame look rather silly,
The tenants of that _Eely Place_
Had found the way to _Pick a dilly_,
And so by under-water suction,
Had wrought the little ducks’ abduction.

AN ASSENT TO THE SUMMUT OF MOUNT BLANK.

It was on the 1st of Augst,--I remember by my wags cumming dew, and I wanted to be riz,--that Me and master maid our minds up to the Mounting. I find Master as oppend an acount with the Keep Sack--but as that is a cut abov, and rit in by only Lords and Laddies, I am reduced to a Peer in the pagis of the Comick Anual--Mr H giving leaves.

Wile we waited at Sham Money, our minds sevral tims misgiv, but considdring only twelve Gentelmen and never a footmun had bin up, we determind to make ourselves particler, and so highered gides to sho us up. For a long tim the whether was dout full weather--first it snew--then thew--and then friz--and that was most agreeabil for a tempting. The first thing I did was to change my blew and wite livry, as I guest we shood hav enuf of blew and wite on the mounting--but put on a dred nort for fear of every thing--takin care to hav my pockets well cramd with sand witches, and, as proved arterwards, they broke my falls very much when I slipd on my bred and ams. The land Lord was so kind as lend me His green gaws tap room blind for my eyes, and I recumend no boddy to go up any Snowhill without green vales--for the hice dazls like winkin. Sum of the gides wanted me to ware a sort of crimpt skaits, but thoght my feet would be the stifer for a cramp on--and declind binding any think xcept my list garters round my Shews. I did all this by advize of John Maly Cuthay the Chief Gide, who had bin 8 tims up to every think. Thus a tired we sit out, on our feat, like Capting Paris, with our Nor poles in our hands,--Master in verry good sperrits, and has for me I was quit ellivatted to think what a figger the Summut of Mount Blank wood cut down the airys of Portland Plaice.

Arter sliping and slidding for ours, we cum to the first principle Glazier. To give a correct noshun, let any won suppose a man in fustions with a fraim and glass and puttey and a dimond pensel, and its quit the revers of that. It’s the sam with the Mare of Glass. If you dont think of a mare or any think maid of glass you have it xactly. We was three ours gitting over the Glazier, and then come to the Grand Mullets, ware oar beds was bespoak--that is, nothing but clean sheats of sno,--and never a warmin pan. To protect our heds we struck our poles agin the rock, with a cloath over them, but it looked like a verry little tent to so much mounting. There we was,--all Sno with us Sollitory figgers atop. Nothink can give the sublime idear of it but a twelf Cake.

The Gides pinted out from hear the Pick de Middy, but I was too cold to understand Frentch--and we see a real Shammy leeping, as Master sed, from scrag to scrag, and from pint to pint, for vittles and drink--but to me it looked like jumpin a bout to warm him self. His springs in the middel of Winter I realy beleave as uncredible. Nothink else was muving xcept Havelaunches, witch is stupendus Sno balls in high situations, as leaves their plaices without warnin, and makes a deal of mischief in howses and famlies. We shot of our pistle, but has it maid little or no noise, didnt ear the remarkbly fine ekko.

We dind at the Grand Mullets on cold foul and a shivver of am, with a little O de Colon, agen stomical pans. Wat was moor cumfortble we found haf a bottel of brandey, left behind by sum one before, and by way of return we left behind a littel crewit of Chilly Viniger for the next cummer, whoever he mite be or not. Alter this repass’d we went to our sublime rests, I may say, in the Wurld’s garrits, up 150 pare of stares. As faling out of Bed was dangerus, we riz a wal of stons on each side. Knowing how comfortble Master sleeps at Home, I regretted his unaccommodation, and partickly as he was verry restless, and every tim he stird kickd me about the Hed. I laid awack a good wile thinking how littel Farther, down in Summerset Sheer, thoght I was up in Mount Blank Sheer; but at long and last I went of like a top, and dremt of Summuts. Won may sleep on wus pillers than Nap Sacks.

Next mornin we riz erly, having still a good deal to git up, and skrambled on agin, by crivises and crax as maid our flesh crawl on hands and nees to look at. Master wanted to desend in a crack, but as he mite not git up in a crack agin, his letting himself down was unrecomended. Arter menny ours works, we cum to the Grand Plato. Master called it a vast Amphi-Theater; and so it is, except Du-Crow and the Horses and evry thing. Hear we brekfisted, but was surprizd at our stomicks not having moor hedges, Master only eting a Chickin wing, and me only eting all the rest. We had littel need to not eat,--the most uneasy part to go was to cum. In about too ours we cum to a Sno wall, up rite as high as St. Paul’s; that maid us cum to an alt, and I cood not help saying out, Wat is only too human legs to 200 feet! Howsumever, after a bottel of Wine we was abel to proceed in a zig zag direxion,--the Gides axing the way, and cutting steps afore. After a deal of moor white slavery, we sucsided in gitting up to the Mounting’s top, and no body can hav a distant idea of it, but them as is there. Such Sno! And ice enuf to serve all the Fish Mungers, and the grate Routs till the end of the Wurld!

I regrets my joy at cumming to the top maid me forget all I ment to do at it; and in partickler to thro a tumble over hed and heals, as was my mane object in going up. Howsumever, I shall allways be abel to say Me and Master as bin to the Summut of Mount Blank, and so has a little butterfly. I ought to mension the curiousness of seeing one there, but we did not ketch it, as it was too far abov us.

We dissented down in much shorter time, and without anny axident xcept Masters sliding telliscope, witch roled of the ice. Wen we cum agin to Sham Money, the Land Lord askd our names to be rit in the book, as was dun, by Mr. W. in prose, but by me in poetry--

“Mount Blank is very hard to be cum at,
But Me and Master as bin to its Summut.”

“JOHN JONES.”

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!”

A HORSE-DEALER

Is a double dealer, for he dealeth more in double meanings than your punster. When he giveth his word it signifieth little, howbeit it standeth for two significations. He putteth his promises like his colts in a break. Over his mouth, Truth, like the turnpike man, writeth up No Trust. Whenever he speaketh, his spoke hath more turns than the fore-wheel. He telleth lies, not white only, or black, but likewise gray, bay, chestnut-brown, cream, and roan--piebald and skewbald. He sweareth as many oaths out of court as any man, and more in; for he will swear two ways about a horse’s dam. If, by God’s grace, he be something honest, it is only a dapple, for he can be fair and unfair at once. He hath much imagination, for he selleth a complete set of capital harness, of which there be no traces. He advertiseth a coach, warranted on its first wheels, and truly the hind pair are wanting to the bargain. A carriage that hath travelled twenty summers and winters, he describeth well-seasoned. He knocketh down machine horses that have been knocked up on the road, but is so tender of heart to his animals that he parteth with none for a fault; “for,” as he sayeth, “blindness or lameness be misfortunes.” A nag, proper only for dog’s meat, he writeth down, but crieth up, “fit to go to any hounds;” or, as may be, “would suit a timid gentleman.” String-halt he calleth “grand action,” and kicking, “lifting the feet well up.” If a mare have the farcical disease, he nameth her “out of Comedy,” and selleth Blackbird for a racer because he hath a running thrush. Horses that drink only water, he justly warranteth to be “temperate,” and if dead lame, declareth them “good in all their paces,” seeing that they can go but one. Roaring he calleth “sound,” and a steed that high bloweth in running, he compareth to Eclipse, for he oustrippeth the wind. Another might be entered at a steeplechase, for why--he is as fast as a church. Thoroughpin with him is synonymous with “perfect leg.” If a nag cougheth, ’tis “a clever hack.” If his knees be fractured, he is “well broke for gig or saddle.” If he reareth, he is “above sixteen hands high.” If he hath drawn a tierce in a cart he is a good fencer. If he biteth, he shows good courage; and he is playful merely, though he should play the devil. If he runneth away, he calleth him “off the Gretna Road, and has been used to carry a lady.” If a cob stumbleth, he considereth him a true goer, and addeth “The proprietor parteth from him to go abroad.” Thus, without much profession of religion, yet is he truly Christian-like in practice, for he dealeth not in detraction, and would not disparage the character even of a brute. Like unto Love, he is blind unto all blemishes, and seeth only a virtue, meanwhile he gazeth at a vice. He taketh the kick of a nag’s hoof like a love token, saying only, before standers-by, “Poor fellow,--he knoweth me!”--and is content rather to pass as a bad rider, than that the horse should he held restive or over-mettlesome which discharges him from its back. If it hath bitten him beside, and moreover bruised his limb against a coach-wheel, then, constantly returning good for evil, he giveth it but the better character, and recommendeth it before all the studs in his stable. In short, the worse a horse may be, the more he chanteth his praise, like a crow that croweth over Old Ball, whose lot it is on a common to meet with the Common Lot.

THE FALL.

“Down, down, down, ten thousand fathoms deep.”

COUNT FATHOM.

Who does not know that dreadful gulf, where Niagara falls,
Where eagle unto eagle screams, to vulture vulture calls;
Where down beneath, Despair and Death in liquid darkness grope
And, upward on the foam there shines a rainbow without Hope;
While, hung with clouds of Fear and Doubt, the unreturning wave
Suddenly gives an awful plunge, like life into the grave;
And many a hapless mortal there hath dived to bale or bliss;
One--only one--hath ever lived to rise from that abyss!
Oh, Heaven! it turns me now to ice with chill of fear extreme,
To think of my frail bark adrift on that tumultuous stream!
In vain with desperate sinews, strung by love of life and light,
I urged that coffin, my canoe, against the current’s might:
On--on--still on--direct for doom, the river rushed in force,
And fearfully the stream of Time raced with it in its course.
My eyes I closed--I dared not look the way towards the goal;
But still I viewed the horrid close, and dreamt it in my soul.
Plainly, as through transparent lids, I saw the fleeting shore,
And lofty trees, like winged things, flit by for evermore;
Plainly,--but with no prophet sense--I heard the sullen sound,
The torrent’s voice--and felt the mist, like death-sweat gathering
round.
Oh agony! Oh life! My home! and those that made it sweet:
Ere I could pray, the torrent lay beneath my very feet.
With frightful whirl, more swift than thought, I passed the dizzy
edge,
Bound after bound, with hideous bruise, I dashed from ledge to
ledge,
From crag to crag,--in speechless pain,--from midnight deep to deep;
I did not die,--but anguish stunned my senses into sleep.
How long entranced, or whither dived, no clue I have to find
At last the gradual light of life came dawning o’er my mind;
And through my brain there thrilled a cry,--a cry as shrill as
birds’
Of vulture or of eagle kind, but this was set to words:--
“It’s Edgar Huntley in his cap and nightgown, I declares!
He’s been a walking in his sleep, and pitched all down the stairs!”

THE ILLUMINATI.

“Light, I say, light.”--OTHELLO.

Those who have peeped into the portfolios of Mr. Geoffrey Crayon, will easily remember his graphic sketches of a locality called Little Britain--and his amusing portraits of its two leading families, the Lambs and the Trotters. I imagine the deserved popularity of the draughtsman made him much in request at routs, soirées, and conversazioni, or so acute an observer would not have failed to notice a nocturnal characteristic of the same neighbourhood,--I mean the frequent and alarming glares of light that illuminate its firmament; but in spite of which, no parish engine rumbles down the steps of St. Botolph, the fire-ladders hang undisturbed in their chains, and the turn-cock smokes placidly in the tap-room of the Rose-and-Crown. For this remarkable apathy, my own more domestic habits enable me to account.

It is the fortune, or misfortune, of the house where I lodge to confront that of Mr. Wix, “Wax and Tallow Chandler to his Majesty;” and certainly no individual ever burned so much to evince his loyalty. He and his windows are always framing an excuse for an illumination.

The kindling aptitude ascribed to Eupyrions, and Lucifers, and Chlorate Matches, is nothing to his. Contrary to Hoyle’s rules for loo,--a single court card is sufficient with him for “a blaze.” He knows and keeps the birthdays of all royal personages, and shows by tallow in tins how they wax in years. As sure as the Park guns go off in the morning, he fires his six-pounders in the evening; as sure as a newsman’s horn is sounded in the street, it blows the same spark into a flame.--In some cases his inflammability was such, he has been known to ignite, and exhibit fire, where he should have shed water. He was once--it is still a local joke--within an ace of rejoicing at Marr’s Murder.

During the long War he was really a nuisance, and what is worse, not indictable. For one not unused to the melting mood, he was strangely given to rejoicing. Other people were content to light up for the great victories, but he commemorated the slightest skirmishes. In civil events the same, whether favourable to Whig or Tory. Like the lover of Bessy Bell, and Mary Gray, he divided his flame between them.--He lighted when the administration of the Duke of Wellington came in, and he lighted when it went out,--in short, it seemed, as with the Roman Catholics, that candle-burning was a part of his religion, and that he had got his religion itself from an illuminated missal.

To aggravate this propensity, Mr. Sperm, the great oil merchant, lives nearly opposite to Mr. Wix, and his principle and his interest coincide exactly with those of his neighbour. Mr. Sperm possesses a very large star,--and, like certain managers, he brings it forward as often as he can. He is quite as lax in his political creed as the chandler, and will light up on the lightest occasions,--for instance, let there be but a peal of bells, and the Genius of the Ring directly invokes the Genius of the Lamp. In short, Mr. Wix and Mr. Sperm both resemble the same thing--a merchant-man getting rid of goods by means of lighters.

As the other inhabitants do not always choose to follow the example of these two--I have known our illuminations to be very select--the great oil and tallow establishments blazing all alone in their glory. On other occasions--for instance, the rejoicings for that bill which Lord L. calls a Bill of Panes and Penalties--I have seen our street assume the motley appearance of a chessboard, alternately dark and bright--to say nothing of Mrs. Frampton’s lodging-house, where every tenant was of a different sentiment,--and the several floors afforded a striking example of the Clare Obscure.

Among general illuminations, I remember none more so than the one on the accession of his late Majesty--but what so universally brightened the Great Britain might be expected to light the Little one. It was in reality an unrivalled exhibition of its kind, and I propose therefore to give some account of it, the situation of my apartment having afforded unusual opportunities--for it is at the angle of a corner house and thus while its easterly windows stare into those of the Rumbold family, its northern ones squint aside into the sashes of that elderly spinster Miss Winter.

It must have been an extreme fit of loyalty that put such a thought into the penurious mind of Miss W., but she resolved for once in her life to illuminate. I could see her at a large dining-table--so called by courtesy, for it never dined--reviewing a regiment of glass custard cups, so called also by courtesy, for they never held custard--and another division of tall jelly glasses, equally unknown to jellies. I might have thought that she meant for once to give a very light supper, had I not seen her fill them all with oil from a little tin can, and afterwards she furnished them with a floating wick. They were then ranged on the window-frame, alternately tall and short; and after this costly preparation, which, by the heaving of her neckerchief, she visibly sighed over, she folded her arms demurely before her, and, by the light of her solitary rush taper, sat down to await the extravagant call of “Light-up!”

The elder Miss Rumbold--the parents were out of town--was not idle in the mean time. She packed all the little R.’s off to bed--(I did not see them have any supper)--and then, having got rid of the family branches, began on the tin ones. She had fixed her head quarters in the drawing-room, from whence I saw Caroline and Henry detached, with separate parcels of tins and candles, to do the same office for the floors above and below. But no such luck! After a while, the street door gently opened, and forth sneaked the two deserters, of course to see better illuminations than their own. At the slam of the door behind them Miss Rumbold comprehended the full calamity: first, she threw up her arms, then her eyes, then clenched her teeth and then her hands; going through all the pantomime for distress of mind--but she had no time for grieving, and indeed but little for rejoicing. Mr. Wix’s was beginning to glitter. Tearing up and down stairs like a lamplighter on his ladder, she furnished all the blank windows, and then returned to the drawing-room; and what was evidently her favourite fancy, she had completed and hung up two festoons of artificial flowers; but alas! her stock on hand fell short a whole foot of the third window--I am afraid for want of the very bouquet in Caroline’s bonnet. Removing the unfortunate garlands, she rushed out full speed, and the next moment I saw her in the story above, rapidly unpapering her curls, and making herself as fit as time allowed, to sit in state in the drawing-room, by the light of twenty-seven long sixes.

A violent uproar now recalled my attention to Number 29, where the mob had begun to call out to Miss Winter for her Northern Lights. Miss W. was at her post, and rushed with her rush to comply with the demand; but a sudden twitter of nervousness aggravating her old palsy, she could not persuade her wavering taper to alight on any one of the cottons. There was a deal of coquetting indeed between wick and wick, but nothing like a mutual flame. In vain the thin lover-like candle kept hovering over its intended, and shedding tears of grease at every repulse; not a glimmer replied to its glance, till at last, weary of love and light, it fairly leaped out of its tin socket, and drowned its own twinkle in a tall jelly-glass. The patience of the mob, already of a thin texture, was torn to rags by this conclusion; they saw that if she would, Miss Winter never _could_ illuminate: but as this was an unwelcome truth, they broke it to her with a volley of stones that destroyed her little Vauxhall in a moment, and in a twinkle left her nothing to twinkle with!

Shocked at this catastrophe, I turned with some anxiety to Miss Rumbold’s, but with admirable presence of mind she had lighted every alternate candle in her windows, and was thus able to present a respectable front at a short notice. The mob, however, made as much uproar as at Miss Winter’s, though the noise was different in character, and more resembled the boisterous merriment which attends upon Punch. In fact Miss Rumbold had a Fantoccini over head she little dreamt of. Awakened by the unusual light, the younger Rumbolds had rushed from bed to the window, where, exhilarated by childish spirits and the appearance of a gala, they had got up an extempore Juvenile Ball, and were dancing with all their might in their little nightcaps and nightgowns. In vain the unconscious Matilda pointed to her candles, and added her own private pair from the table to the centre window; in vain she wrung her hands, or squeezed them on her bosom: the more she protested in dumb show, the more the mob shouted; and the more the mob shouted, the wilder the imps jigged about. At last Matilda seemed to take some hint; she vanished from the drawing-room like a Ghost, and reappeared like a Fury in the nursery--a pair of large hands vigorously flourished and flogged--the heels of the Corps de Ballet flew up higher than their heads--the mob shouted louder than ever--and exeunt omnes.

This interlude being over, the rabble moved on to Mr. Wix’s, whose every window, as usual, shone “like nine good deeds in a naughty world,” and he obtained nine cheers for the display. Poor Mr. Sperm was not so fortunate. He had been struggling manfully with a sharp nor-wester to light up his star, but one obstinate limb persisted in showing which way the wind blew. It was a point not to be gained, and though far from red hot, it caused a hiss that reached even to Number 14, and frightened all the Flowerdews. Number 14, as the Clown expresses it in Twelfth Night, was “as lustrous as ebony.” In vain Mrs. Flowerdew pleaded from one window, and Mr. Flowerdew harangued from the other, while Flowerdew junior hammered and tugged at the space between; the glaziers and their friends unglazed everything; and I hope the worthy family, the next time they have a Crown and Anchor, will remember to have them the right side uppermost. Green and yellow lamps decline to hang upon hooks that are topsy-turvy, and the blue and red are just as particular.

I forgot to say that during the past proceedings, my eyes had frequently glanced towards Number 28. Its occupier, Mr. Brookbank, was in some remote way connected with the royal household, and had openly expressed his intention of surprising Little Britain. And in truth Little Britain was surprised enough, when it beheld at Mr. Brookbank’s nothing but a few sorry flambeaux: he talked to the mob, indeed, of a transparency of Peace and Plenty, but as they could see no sign of either, and they had plenty of stones, they again broke the peace. I am sorry to say that in this instance the mob were wrong, for there _was_ a transparency, but as it was lighted from the outer side, Mr. B.’s Peace and Plenty smiled on nobody but himself.

There was only one more disorder, and it occurred at the very house that I help to inhabit. Not that we were dim by any means, for we had been liberal customers to Mr. Sperm and to Mr. Wix: the tallow of one flared in all our panes, and the oil of the other fed a brilliant W. P. Alas! it was these fiery initials, enigmatical as those at Belshazzar’s banquet, that caused all our troubles. The million could make out the meaning of the W, but the other letter, divided in conjecture among them, was literally a split P. Curiosity increased to furiosity, and what might have happened nobody only knows, if my landlady had not proclaimed that her W had spent such a double allowance of lamps, that her R had been obliged to retrench.

To aid her oratory, the rabble were luckily attracted from our own display by a splendour greater even than usual at Number 9. The warehouseman of Mr. Wix--_like Master like Man_--had got up an illumination of his own, by leaving a firebrand among the tallow, that soon caused the breaking out of an insurrection in Grease, and where candles had hitherto been lighted only by Retail, they were now ignited by Wholesale; or as my landlady said,--“All the fat was in the fire!”

I ventured to ask her when all was over, what she thought of the lighting-up, and she gave me her opinion in the following sentiment, in the prayer of which I most heartily concur. “Illuminations,” she said, “were very pretty things to look at, and no doubt new Kings ought to be illuminated; but what with the toil, and what with the oil, and what with the grease, and what with the mob, she hoped it would be long, very long, before we had a new King again!”

SONNET.

Along the Woodford road there comes a noise
Of wheels, and Mr. Rounding’s neat postchaise
Struggles along, drawn by a pair of bays,
With Rev. Mr. Crow and six small Boys;
Who ever and anon declare their joys,
With trumping horns and juvenile huzzas,
At going home to spend their Christmas days,
And changing Learning’s pains for Pleasure’s toys.
Six weeks elapse, and down the Woodford way,
A heavy coach drags six more heavy souls,
But no glad urchins shout, no trumpets bray;
The carriage makes a halt, the gate-bell tolls,
And little Boys walk in as dull and mum
As six new scholars to the Deaf and Dumb.

THE STEAM SERVICE.

“Life is but a _kittle_ cast.”--BURNS.

The time is not yet come--but come it will--when the masts of our Royal Navy shall be unshipped, and huge unsightly chimneys be erected in their place. The trident will be taken out of the hand of Neptune, and replaced by the effigy of a red hot poker; the Union Jack will look like a smoke-jack; and Lambtons, Russels, and Adairs, will be made Admirals of the Black; the forecastle will be called the Newcastle, and the cockpit will be termed the coal-pit; a man-of-war’s tender will be nothing but a Shields’ collier: first lieutenants will have to attend lectures on the steam-engine, and midshipmen must take lessons as climbing boys in the art of sweeping flues. In short, the good old tune of “Rule Britannia,” will give way to “Polly put the Kettle on;” while the Victory, the Majestic, and the Thunderer of Great Britain will “paddle in the burn,” like the Harlequin, the Dart, and the Magnet of Margate.

It will be well for our song writers to bear a wary eye to the Fleet, if they would prosper as Marine Poets. Some sea Gurney may get a seat at the Admiralty Board, and then farewell, a long farewell, to the old ocean imagery; marine metaphor will require a new figure-head. Flowing sheets, snowy wings, and the old comparison of a ship to a bird, will become obsolete and out of date! Poetical topsails will be taken aback, and all such things as reefs and double reefs will be shaken out of song. For my own part, I cannot be sufficiently thankful that I have not sought a Helicon of salt water; or canvassed the Nine Muses as a writer for their Marine Library; or made Pegasus a sea-horse, when sea-horses as well as land-horses are equally likely to be superseded by steam. After such a consummation, when the sea service, like the tea service, will depend chiefly on boiling water, it is very doubtful whether the Fleet will be worthy of anything but plain prose. I have tried to adapt some of our popular blue ballads to the boiler, and Dibdin certainly does not steam quite so well as a potato. However, if his Sea Songs are to be in immortal use, they will have to be revised and corrected in future editions thus:--

I _steamed_ from the Downs in the Nancy,
My jib how she _smoked_ through the breeze.
She’s a vessel as tight to my fancy
As ever _boil’d_ through the salt seas.

* * * * *

When up the _flue_ the sailor goes
And ventures on the _pot_,
The landsman, he no better knows,
But thinks hard is his lot.

Bold Jack with smiles each danger meets,
Weighs anchor, lights the log;
_Trims up the fire, picks out the slates_,
And drinks his can of grog.

* * * * *

Go patter to lubbers and swabs, do you see,
’Bout danger, and fear, and the like;
But a _Boulton and Watt_ and good _Wall’s-end_ give me;
And it an’t to a little I’ll strike.

Though the tempest our _chimney_ smack smooth shall down smite,
And shiver each _bundle_ of wood;
Clear the wreck, _stir the fire_, and stow everything tight,
And _boiling a gallop_ we’ll scud.

I have cooked Stevens’s, or rather Incledon’s Storm in the same way; but the pathos does not seem any the tenderer for stewing.

Hark, the boatswain hoarsely bawling,
By shovel, tongs, and poker stand;
Down the scuttle quick be hauling,
Down your bellows, hand, boys, hand;
Now it freshens,--blow like blazes;
Now unto the coal-hole go;
Stir, boys, stir, don’t mind black faces,
Up your ashes nimbly throw.

Ply your bellows, raise the wind, boys,
See the valve is clear of course;
Let the paddles spin, don’t mind, boys,
Though the weather should be worse.
Fore and aft a proper draft get,
Oil the engines, see all clear;
Hands up, each a sack of coal get,
Man the boiler, cheer, lads, cheer.

Now the dreadful thunder’s roaring,
Peal on peal contending clash;
On our heads fierce rain falls pouring,
In our eyes the paddles splash.
One wide water all around us,
All above one smoke-black sky:
Different deaths at once surround us;
Hark! what means that dreadful cry?

The funnel’s gone! cries ev’ry tongue out,
The engineer’s washed off the deck:
A leak beneath the coal-hole’s sprung out
Call all hands to clear the wreck.
Quick, some coal, some nubbly pieces;
Come, my hearts, be stout and bold;
Plumb the boiler, speed decreases,
Four feet water getting cold.

While o’er the ship wild waves are beating,
We for wives or children mourn;
Alas! from hence there’s no retreating;
Alas! to them there’s no return.
The fire is out--we’ve burst the bellows,
The tinder-box is swamped below;
Heaven have mercy on poor fellows,
For only that can serve us now!

Devoutly do I hope that the kettle, though a great vocalist, will never thus appropriate the old Sea Songs of England. In the words of an old Greenwich pensioner--“Steamin and biling does very well for _Urn_ Bay, and the likes;” but the craft does not look regular and shipshape to the eye of a tar who has sailed with Duncan, Howe, and Jarvis--and who would rather even go without _port_ than have it through a _funnel_.

A LAY OF REAL LIFE.

“Some are born with a wooden spoon in their mouths, and some with a
golden ladle.”--GOLDSMITH.

“Some are born with tin rings in their noses, and some with silver
ones.”--SILVERSMITH.

Who ruined me ere I was born,
Sold every acre, grass or corn,
and left the next heir all forlorn?
My Grandfather.

Who said my mother was no nurse,
And physicked me and made me worse,
Till infancy became a curse?
My Grandmother.

Who left me in my seventh year,
A comfort to my mother dear,
And Mr. Pope, the overseer?
My Father.

Who let me starve, to buy her gin,
Till all my bones came through my skin,
Then called me “ugly little sin?”
My Mother.

Who said my mother was a Turk,
And took me home--and made me work,
But managed half my meals to shirk?
My Aunt.

Who “of all earthly things” would boast,
“He hated others’ brats the most,”
And therefore made me feel my post?
My Uncle.

Who got in scrapes, an endless score,
And always laid them at my door,
Till many a bitter bang I bore?
My Cousin.

Who took me home when mother died,
Again with father to reside,
Black shoes, clean knives, run far and wide?
My Stepmother.

Who marred my stealthy urchin joys,
And when I played cried “What a noise”--
Girls always hector over boys--
My Sister.

Who used to share in what was mine,
Or took it all, did he incline,
’Cause I was eight, and he was nine?
My Brother.

Who stroked my head, and said “Good lad,”
And gave me sixpence, “all he had;”
But at the stall the coin was bad?
My Godfather.

Who, gratis, shared my social glass,
But when misfortune came to pass,
Referr’d me to the pump? Alas!
My Friend.

Through all this weary world, in brief,
Who ever sympathised with grief,
Or shared my joy--my sole relief?
Myself.

A VALENTINE.

THE WEATHER. To P. MURPHY, Esq., M.N.S.

These, properly speaking, being esteemed the three arms of Meteoric
action.

Dear Murphy, to improve her charms,
Your servant humbly begs;
She thanks you for her leash of arms,
But wants a brace of legs.

Moreover, as you promise folks
On certain days a drizzle;
She thinks, in case she cannot rain,
She should have means to _mizzle_.

Some lightning too may just fall due,
When woods begin to moult;
And if she cannot “fork it out,”
She’ll wish to make a _bolt_!

THE ELLAND MEETING.

_Benedict._ “Here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure my lady
Tongue.”--MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

“Do you hear the rumour? They say the women are in insurrection,
and mean to make a----.”--THE WOMAN’S PRIZE.

“Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.”--K. HENRY IV.

“In a word, the Tartars came on.”--ROBINSON CRUSOE.

In my M. S. days,--and like many bookish bachelors of the same standing,--I was a member of a private literary society, with a name whereof I only remember that it began in Greek and ended in English. This re-union was framed on the usual plan of such institutions; except that the gallantry of the founders had ruled that half the members might be of the female sex, and accordingly amongst our “intellectual legs,” we numbered a fair proportion of the hose that are metaphorically blue. We assembled weekly at the house of some Fellow that had a house, where an original essay was first read by the author, and then submitted to discussion, much as a school-boy first spins his top and then lays it down to be pegged at by the rest of the company. The subjects, like Sir Roger de Coverley’s picture, generally left a great deal to be said on both sides, nor were there wanting choppers, not to say hackers of logic, to avail themselves of the circumstance; and as we possessed, amongst others, a brace of Irish barristers, a Quaker, a dissenter to everything, an author who spoke volumes, a geologist who could find sermons in stones, and one old man eloquent, surnamed for his discursiveness the rambler, we had usually what Bubb Doddington has called “a multiplicity of talk.”

It is worthy of record, however, and especially as running counter to the received opinion of the loquacity of the sex, that no female member was ever known to deliver or attempt to deliver a sentence on the subject in debate. Now and then, perchance, a short clearing cough would flatter us that we were going to benefit by feminine taste and delicacy of sentiment; but the expectation invariably fell to the ground, and we might as well have expected an opinion to transpire from the wax work of Mrs. Salmon or Madame Tussaud. I have since learned, it is true, from one of the maturest of the she-fellows, that she did once actually contemplate a few words to the matter in hand, but that at the very first stitch she lost her needle, by which she meant her tongue, and then in seeking for her needle she lost the thread of her ideas, and so gave up the task, she said, as not being “woman’s work.”

It would seem therefore, that a set discourse in company is altogether incompatible with the innate diffidence and shrinking timidity of the sex. Milton, indeed, makes this silent modesty a peculiar characteristic of perfect womanhood, as evinced in the demeanour of “accomplished Eve.” To mark it the more strongly, he liberally endows our general mother with fluency of speech in her colloquies with Adam, so as even to “forget all time” in conversing with him; whereas in the presence of a third party,--the Angel Visitor for instance, whom she less bids than makes welcome to her dessert,--she seldom opens her lips. Nor is this an overstrained picture: the same matronly, or spinsterly reserve, having survived the Fall, and the confusion of Babel, and the more womanly of her daughters, however good at what the Scotch call “a two-handed crack,” in a corner or behind a curtain will still evince a paradisiacal hesitation, amounting to an impediment, in addressing the most limited audience. In fact up to a comparatively recent period, the Miltonic theory was practically acknowledged and acted upon, at the theatre, the female characters of the Drama being always represented by proxies of men or boys.

Even in the present age, the début of an actress, having so many “lengths” to deliver in public, is reckoned one of the severest ordeals that womanly modesty can undergo. The celebrated Mrs. Siddons described it as a “fiery trial,”--a “terrible moment,”--and any play-goer who has witnessed the first appearance of a young lady on any stage will easily give credit for its agonies. The late Mrs. ---- once described to me very vividly her sufferings on a like awful occasion:--“The voice that would not come, and the tremor that would not go--the frame inclining to sink, and the head determined to swim,--the distinct consciousness of the presence of the body, with the indistinct impression of the absence of the mind. Thank Heaven,” she concluded, “that I had not to ‘extort’ the people, as Mawworm calls it, out of my own head--that I had not to furnish the speech, as well as the courage to utter it; for I protest that I could not have put together a sentence of my own, for the saving of my life!”

With such experience and impressions of the inaptitude of the sex for popular orators, my profound amazement may be conceived when on lately glancing over the columns of a morning journal, my eye was arrested by the extraordinary heading of

PUBLIC MEETING OF WOMEN AGAINST THE POOR LAWS.

In the first tumult of my agitation I pitched my Morning Herald, where Parson Adams threw his Æschylus, namely, behind the fire; but the very next instant, with a vague notion that it would _blow_ up, I snatched it out again. I am not certain,--being in weak health and spirits, and more than commonly nervous,--that I did not cry murder!--My first sensation, indeed, was a physical one, a complication of acuteness of earache, with the numbness of lock-jaw:--and then came the moral consciousness of some stunning domestic calamity, that seemed dilating every instant from a family into a national visitation. In fact I recollect nothing at all approaching the first bodily shock, except once, on the explosion of some neighbouring powder-mills, when a few highly condensed moments of intense silence were followed by the sudden burst of an imaginary peal, from a bell assembly of all the steeples in England; nor can I recall any experience equal to my mental horror afterwards, unless a certain delirious dream of being run away with by four gray mares, in the York mail!

It was a considerable time before I could muster resolution to peruse the speeches, the tone of which my prophetic soul forestalled as less resembling the notes of the feminine dulcimer, or piano, or hurdy-gurdy, than those of the masculine brazen trumpet. And should this seem a _harsh_ anticipation, it must be remembered that I had been prepared by no previous rehearsals for such a burst of female oratory. If I had met with a paragraph hinting that certain females had been observed in rough weather, mysteriously haunting the sea-beach, say of Scarborough for instance, and gesticulating, as if on speaking terms with the billows, my classical reminiscences might have recalled the system by which Demosthenes braced himself against the murmurs and roarings of a popular assembly--and I might have comprehended that the hoarse waves were resorted to as oratorical _breakers-in_. But there was no such warning; and consequently the report came upon me with all the startling suddenness and crash of a sempstress’s splitting a piece of stout calico. There was something astounding in the bare idea of a female voice, so commonly requiring a high pressure to induce it to sing in private circles, volunteering in public assembly to spout! A maiden speech even in a man is apt to excite a maidenly fever of nervousness; and many a rough and tough old sea-commander, who would have returned a broadside without flinching, has been converted physiognomically into an admiral of the blue, white, and red, and has found a bung in his speaking-trumpet, on having to reply to a volley of thanks. The very subject, so steeped in party spirit,--for alas! it is undeniable that the woes and wants of the poor have become a party question,--the very subject so steeped in party spirit, always a raw unrectified article, and at the present time distilled particularly above proof, seemed peculiarly unfit for womanly lips. In short I concluded primâ facie, that a female who could come forward, without a rehearsal all along shore, or practise on provincial boards, as a public orator, and on political topics, must needs be what some old writer calls “a mankind woman,”--and akin to the Hannah Snells and Mary Ann Talbots, that have heretofore enlisted in our army and navy. How far I was justified in these forebodings a few extracts will serve to show.

“Mrs. Susan Fearnley having been voted into the chair, opened the
business of the meeting by exhorting the females present _to take
the question of a repeal of this bill into their own hands_, and
not to rely on the exertions of others, _least of all on the House
of Commons_, but at once to assert _the dignity and equality of the
sex_, and as the chief magistrate of the realm was now a female,
to approach her _respectfully_, and lay their grievances before
her; and, should their application be unsuccessful, she would then
call upon them to resist the enforcement of this cruel law, _even
unto the death_--(loud cheers). Mrs. Grasby said, the new Poor
Law was not concocted by men, but by fiends in the shape of men;
it had been hatched and bred in the bottomless pit--(cheers). She
could wish the authors of this law to be sent to St. Helena, where
Napoleon was sent to, and remain till their bodies were wet with
the dew of heaven, and their hair as long as eagles’ feathers.
She would oppose that law, and she called upon her sisters now
before her to follow her example--(tremendous cheering). Mrs.
Hanson alluded to the personal disfiguration of the hair cutting
off, which excited much disapprobation; this was followed by a
description of the grogram gowns of shoddy and paste in which
the inmates of the bastiles are attired.” The address said, “We
approach your Majesty, and pray that you will exercise your
prerogative, and remove from your councils those heartless men who
are attempting to place us under this horrible law. _We beg leave
to remind your Majesty that allegiance is due only when protection
is extended to the subject._

“Signed on behalf of the Meeting,
“SUSAN FEARNLEY, _Chairwoman_.”

And the report said, “Thanks were then voted with loud cheering to Earl Stanhope, Mr. J. Fielden, to the Chairwoman, Mrs. Grasby, and Mrs. Hanson, for their eloquent speeches, and to the other females, who had got up and managed the meeting. Three groans were then given for the Whigs, and all who support the Poor Law Bill.”

I have purposely omitted an astounding declaration of the wives and mothers in the address, about their daughters, hoping that it is only founded on local scandal; and now, if such another merry meeting may be wished, what right-thinking Benedict or Bachelor but will join with me and Dogberry in a “God prohibit it?” When the Steam Washing Company was first established, there was a loud and shrill outcry against what were facetiously called the Cock Laundresses, who were roundly accused of a shameful invasion of woman’s provinces, and favoured with many sneering recommendations to wear mob caps, and go in stuff petticoats and pattens. But if Hercules with the distaff be but a sorry spectacle, surely Omphale with the club cuts scarcely a better figure. The he-creatures may now fairly retort, that it is as consistent with manhood to go out washing, as for womanhood to do chairing at a public meeting. If it be out of character for a fellow in a coat and continuations to be firsting and seconding linen, it is equally anomalous for a creature in petticoats to be firsting and seconding political resolutions; and for my own part, as a matter of taste, I would rather see a Gentlemen blowing up a copper flue than a Lady blowing up the foulness of the Poor Law.

In the mean time, there is reason to apprehend that the infection is gaining ground; the last post having brought me the following letter on the subject from a country correspondent.

_To the Editor of Hood’s Own, &c., &c._

HONOURED SIR,

I don’t know whether you be married or likely to be in the way of courting, but whether or not, most likely you have a mother or sister, or aunt, or she-cousin, or some such connexion of the female sex; as such will be interested in the following, as a matter that concerns us all, and particularly men like myself of a quiet turn and domestic habits.