XXI.

But what to do?--my temples ache From evening’s dew till morning’s pearl, What course to take my boy to make-- Oh could I make my boy--a girl!

CLUBS,

TURNED UP BY A FEMALE HAND.

“Clubs! Clubs! part ’em! part ’em! Clubs! Clubs!”--ANCIENT CRIES OF LONDON.

Of all the modern schemes of Man, That time has brought to bear, A plague upon the wicked plan That parts the wedded pair! My female friends they all agree They hardly know their hubs; And heart and voice unite with me, “We hate the name of Clubs!”

One selfish course the Wretches keep; They come at morning chimes, To snatch a few short hours of sleep-- Rise--breakfast--read the Times-- Then take their hats, and post away, Like Clerks or City scrubs, And no one sees them all the day,-- They live, eat, drink, at Clubs!

On what they say, and what they do, They close the Club-House gates; But one may guess a speech or two, Though shut from their debates: “The Cook’s a _hasher_--nothing more-- The Children noisy grubs-- A Wife’s a quiz, and home’s a bore”-- Yes,--that’s the style at Clubs!

With Rundle, Dr. K., or Glasse, And such Domestic Books, They once put up--but now, alas! It’s hey! for foreign cooks! “When _will_ you dine at home, my Dove?” I say to Mister Stubbs,-- “When Cook can make an omelette, love,-- An omelette like the Clubs!”

Time was, their hearts were only placed On snug domestic schemes, The book for two--united taste,-- And such connubial dreams,-- Friends dropping in at close of day To singles, doubles, rubs,-- A little music--then the tray-- And not a word of Clubs!

But former comforts they condemn; French kickshaws they discuss, They take their wine, the wine takes them, And then they favour us:-- From some offence they can’t digest, As cross as bears with cubs, Or sleepy, dull, and queer, at best-- That’s how they come from Clubs!

It’s very fine to say “Subscribe To Andrews’--can’t you read?” When Wives, the poor neglected tribe, Complain how they proceed! They’d better recommend at once Philosophy and tubs,-- A woman need not be a dunce To feel the wrong of Clubs.

A set of savage Goths and Picts, Would seek us now and then-- They’re pretty pattern-Benedicts To guide our single men! Indeed my daughters both declare “Their Beaux shall not be subs. To White’s, or Black’s, or anywhere,-- They’ve seen enough of Clubs!”

They say, “_without_ the marriage ties, They can devote their hours To catechize or botanize-- Shells, Sunday Schools, and flow’rs-- Or teach a Pretty Poll new words, Tend Covent-Garden shrubs, Nurse dogs and chirp to little birds-- As Wives do since the Clubs.”

Alas! for those departed days Of social wedded life, When married folks had married ways, And lived like Man and Wife! Oh! Wedlock then was pick’d by none-- As safe a lock as Chubb’s! But couples, that should be as one, Are now the Two of Clubs!

Of all the modern schemes of man That time has brought to bear, A plague upon the wicked plan That parts the wedded pair! My female friends they all allow They meet with slights, and snubs, And say, “They have no husbands now,-- They’re married to their Clubs!”

THE UNITED FAMILY.

“We stick at nine.”--MRS. BATTLE.

“Thrice to thine And thrice to mine, And thrice again, To make up nine.” --_The Weird Sisters in Macbeth._

How oft in families intrudes The demon of domestic feuds, One liking this, one hating that, Each snapping each, like dog and cat, With divers bents and tastes perverse, One’s bliss, in fact, another’s curse. How seldom anything we see Like our united family!

Miss Brown of chapels goes in search, Her sister Susan likes the church; One plays at cards, the other don’t; One will be gay, the other won’t: In pray’r and preaching one persists, The other sneers at Methodists; On Sundays ev’n they can’t agree Like our united family.

There’s Mr. Bell, a Whig at heart, His lady takes the Tories’ part, While William, junior, nothing loth, Spouts Radical against them both. One likes the News, one takes the Age, Another buys the unstamped page; They all say _I_, and never _we_, Like our united family.

Not so with us;--with equal zeal We all support Sir Robert Peel;

[Illustration: LOVE AND A COTTAGE.]

[Illustration: SINGLE BLESSEDNESS.]

Of Wellington our mouths are full, We dote on Sundays on John Bull, With Pa and Ma on selfsame side, _Our_ house has never to divide-- No opposition members be In our united family.

Miss Pope her “Light Guitar” enjoys, Her father “cannot bear the noise,” Her mother’s charm’d with all her songs, Her brother jangles with the tongs. Thus discord out of music springs, The most unnatural of things, Unlike the genuine harmony In our united family!

We _all_ on vocal music dote; To each belongs a tuneful throat, And all prefer that Irish boon Of melody--“The Young May Moon”-- By choice we all select the harp, Nor is the voice of one too sharp, Another flat--all in one key Is our united family.

Miss Powell likes to draw and paint, But then it would provoke a saint, Her brother takes her sheep for pigs, And says her trees are periwigs. Pa praises all, black, blue, or brown; And so does Ma--but upside down! They cannot with the same eye see, Like our united family.

Miss Patterson has been to France, Her heart’s delight is in a dance; The thing her brother cannot bear, So she must practise with a chair. Then at a waltz her mother winks; But Pa says roundly what he thinks, All dos-à-dos, not vis-à-vis, Like our united family.

We none of us that whirling love, Which both our parents disapprove, A hornpipe we delight in more, Or graceful Minuet de la Cour-- A special favourite with Mamma, Who used to dance it with Papa, In this we still keep step, you see, In our united family.

Then books--to bear the Cobb’s debates! One worships Scott--another hates, Monk Lewis Ann fights stoutly for, And Jane likes “Bunyan’s Holy War.” The father on Macculloch pores, The mother says _all_ books are bores; But blue serene as heav’n are we, In our united family.

We never wrangle to exalt Scott, Banim, Bulwer, Hope, or Galt, We care not whether Smith or Hook, So that a novel be the book, And in one point we all are fast, Of novels we prefer the last,-- In that the very heads agree Of our united family!

To turn to graver matters still, How much we see of sad self-will! Miss Scrope, with brilliant views in life, Would be a poor lieutenant’s wife. A lawyer has her Pa’s good word, Her Ma has looked her out a Lord, What would they not all give to be Like our united family!

By one congenial taste allied, Our dreams of bliss all coincide, We’re all for solitudes and cots, And love, if we may choose our lots. As partner in the rural plan Each paints the same dear sort of man; One heart alone there seems to be In our united family.

One heart, one hope, one wish, one mind,-- One voice, one choice, all of a kind,-- And can there be a greater bliss-- A little heav’n on earth--than this? The truth to whisper in your ear, It must be told!--we are not near The happiness that ought to be In our united family!

Alas! ’tis our congenial taste That lays our little pleasures waste-- We all delight, no doubt, to sing, We all delight to touch the string, But where’s the heart that nine may touch? And nine “May Moons” are eight too much-- Just fancy nine, all in one key, Of our united family!

The play--Oh how we love a play, But half the bliss is shorn away; On winter nights we venture nigh, But think of houses in July! Nine crowded in a private box, Is apt to pick the stiffest locks-- Our curls would all fall out, though we Are one united family!

In art the self-same line we walk, We all are fond of heads in chalk, We one and all our talent strain Adelphi prizes to obtain; Nine turban’d Turks are duly sent, But can the royal Duke present Nine silver palettes--no, not he-- To our united family.

Our eating shows the very thing, We all prefer the liver-wing, Asparagus when scarce and thin, And peas directly they come in, The marrow-bone--if there be one-- The ears of hare when crisply done, The rabbit’s brain--we all agree In our united family.

In dress the same result is seen, We all so doat on apple-green; But nine in green would seem a school Of charity to quizzing fool-- We cannot all indulge our will With “that sweet silk on Ludgate Hill,” No _remnant_ can sufficient be For our united family.

In reading hard is still our fate, One cannot read o’erlooked by eight, And nine “Disowned”--nine “Pioneers,” Nine “Chaperons,” nine “Buccaneers,” Nine “Maxwells,” nine “Tremaines,” and such, Would dip into our means too much-- Three months are spent o’er volumes three, In our united family.

Unhappy Muses! if the Nine Above in doom with us combine,-- In vain we breathe the tender flame, Our sentiments are all the same, And nine complaints address’d to Hope Exceed the editorial scope, One in, and eight _put out_, must be Of our united family!

But this is nought--of deadlier kind, A ninefold woe remains behind. O why were we so art and part? So like in taste, so one in heart? Nine cottages may be to let, But here’s the thought to make us fret, We cannot each add Frederick B. To our united family.

THE DEAD ROBBERY.

“Here’s that will sack a city.”--HENRY THE IVTH.

Of all the causes that induce mankind To strike against themselves a mortal docket, Two eminent above the rest we find-- To be in love, or to be out of pocket: Both have made many melancholy martyrs, But p’rhaps, of all the felonies de se, By ponds, and pistols, razors, ropes, and garters, Two-thirds have been through want of _£. s. d.!_ Thus happen’d it with Peter Bunce; Both in the _dumps_ and out of them at once, From always drawing blanks in Fortune’s lottery, At last, impatient of the light of day, He made his mind up to return his clay Back to the pottery.

Feigning a raging tooth that drove him mad, From twenty divers druggists’ shops He begg’d enough of laudanum by drops T’ effect the fatal purpose that he had; He drank them, died, and while old Charon ferried him, The Coroner convened a dozen men, Who found his death was _phial_-ent--and then The Parish buried him! Unwatch’d, unwept, As commonly a Pauper sleeps, he slept; There could not be a better opportunity For bodies to steal a body so ill kept, With all impunity. In fact, when Night o’er human vice and folly Had drawn her very necessary curtains, Down came a fellow with a sack and spade, Accustom’d many years to drive a trade, With that Anatomy more Melancholy Than Burton’s!

The Watchman in his box was dozing; The Sexton drinking at the Cheshire Cheese; No fear of any creature interposing, The human Jackal work’d away at ease: He toss’d the mould to left and right, The shabby coffin came in sight, And soon it open’d to his double-knocks,-- When lo! the stiff’un that he thought to meet, Starts sudden up, like Jacky-in-a-box, Upon his seat! Awaken’d from his trance, For so the laudanum had wrought by chance, Bunce stares up at the moon, next looking level, He spies a shady Figure, tall and bony, Then shudders out these words “Are--you--the--Devil?” “The Devil a bit of him,” says Mike Mahoney, “I’m only com’d here, hoping no affront, To pick up honestly a little blunt--” “Blunt!” echoes Bunce, with a hoarse croak of laughter,-- “Why, man, I turn’d life’s candle in the socket, Without a rap in either pocket, For want of that same blunt you’re looking after!” “That’s true,” says Mike, “and many a pretty man Has cut his stick upon your very plan, Not worth a copper, him and all his trumps, And yet he’s fetch’d a dacent lot of stuff, Provided he was sound and fresh enough, And dead as dumps.” “I take,” quoth Bunce, with a hard wink, “the fact is, You mean a subject for a surgeon’s practice,-- I hope the question is not out of reason, But just suppose a lot of flesh and bone, For instance, like my own, What might it chance to fetch now, at this season?” “Fetch, is it?” answers Mike, “why prices differ,-- But taking this same small bad job of ours, I reckon, by the pow’rs! I’ve lost ten pound by your not being stiffer!”

“Ten pounds!” Bunce echoes in a sort of flurry, “Odd zounds! Ten pounds, How sweet it sounds, Ten pounds!” And on his feet upspringing in a hurry-- It seem’d the operation of a minute-- A little scuffle--then a whack-- And then he took the Body Snatcher’s sack And poked him in it! Such is this life! A very pantomime for tricks and strife! See Bunce, so lately in Death’s passive stock, Invested, now as active as a griffin, Walking--no ghost--in velveteens and smock, To sell a stiff’un!

A flash of red, then one of blue, At last, like lighthouse, came in view; Bunce rang the nightbell; wiped his highlows muddy; His errand told; the sack produced; And by a sleepy boy was introduced To Dr. Oddy, writing in his study The bargain did not take long time to settle, “Ten pounds, Odd zounds! How well it sounds, Ten pounds,” Chink’d into Bunce’s palm in solid metal. With joy half-crazed, It seem’d some trick of sense, some airy gammon, He gazed and gazed, At last, possess’d with the old lust of Mammon, Thought he, “With what a very little trouble, This little capital I now might double----” Another scuffle of its usual brevity,-- And Doctor Oddy, in his suit of black, Was finishing, within the sack, His “Thoughts upon Longevity!”

The trick was done. Without a doubt, The sleepy boy let Bunce and burthen out; Who coming to a lone convenient place, The body stripp’d; hid all the clothes; and then, Still favoured by the luck of evil men, Found a new customer in Dr. Case. All more minute particulars to smother, Let it suffice, Nine guineas was the price For which one doctor bought the other; As once I heard a Preacher say in Guinea, “You see how one black sin bring on anudder, Like little nigger pickaninny, A-riding pick-a-back upon him mudder!” “Humph!” said the Doctor, with a smile sarcastic, Seeming to trace Some likeness in the face, “So death at last has taken old Bombastic!” But in the very middle of his joking,-- The _subject_, still unconscious of the scoff-- Seized all at once with a bad fit of choking, He too was _taken of_! Leaving a fragment “On the Hooping Cough.”

Satan still sending luck, Another body found another buyer: For ten pounds ten the bargain next was struck, Dead doctors going higher. “Here,” said the purchaser, with smile quite pleasant, Taking a glimpse at his departed brother, “Here’s half a guinea in the way of present-- Subjects are scarce, and when you get another, Let _me_ be first.”--Bunce took him at his word, And suddenly his old atrocious trick did, Sacking M.D. the third, Ere he could furnish “Hints to the Afflicted.”

Flush’d with success, Beyond all hope or guess, His new dead robbery upon his back, Bunce plotted--such high flights ambition takes,-- To treat the Faculty like ducks and drakes, And sell them all ere they could utter “Quack!” But fate opposed. According to the schools, When men become insufferably bad, The gods confer to drive them mad; March hairs upon the heads of April fools! Tempted by the old demon avaricious, Bunce traded on too far into the morning; Till nods, and winks, and looks, and signs suspicious, Ev’n words malicious, Forced on him rather an unpleasant warning. Glad was he to perceive, beside a wicket, A porter, ornamented with a ticket, Who did not seem to be at all too busy-- “Here, my good man, Just show me, if you can, A doctor’s--if you want to earn a tizzy!”

Away the porter marches, And with grave face, obsequious precedes him, Down crooked lanes, round corners, under arches; At last, up an old-fashion’d staircase leads him, Almost impervious to the morning ray, Then shows a door--“There, that’s a doctor’s reckon’d, A rare Top-Sawyer, let who will come second-- Good day.”

“I’m right,” thought Bunce, “as any trivet; Another venture--and then up I give it!” He rings--the door, just like a fairy portal, Opens untouch’d by mortal---- He gropes his way into a dingy room, And hears a voice come growling through the gloom, “Well--eh?--Who? What?--Speak out at once!” “I will,” says Bunce. “I’ve got a sort of article to sell; Medical gemmen knows me very well--” But think Imagination how it shock’d her To hear the voice roar out, “Death! Devil! d--n! Confound the vagabond, he thinks I am A rhubarb-and-magnesia Doctor!” “No Doctor!” exclaim’d Bunce, and dropp’d his jaw, But louder still the voice began to bellow, “Yes,--yes,--odd zounds!--I _am_ a Doctor, fellow, At law!” The word sufficed.--Of things Bunce feared the most (Next to a ghost) Was law,--or any of the legal corps,-- He dropp’d at once his load of flesh and bone, And, caring for no body, save his own, Bolted,--and lived securely till fourscore, From never troubling Doctors any more!

A PARENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THREE YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS.

Thou happy, happy elf! (But stop,--first let me kiss away that tear)-- Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he’s poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite! With spirits feather-light, Untouch’d by sorrow, and unsoil’d by sin-- (Good heavn’s! the child is swallowing a pin!) Thou little tricksy Puck! With antic toys so funnily bestuck, Light as the singing bird that wings the air-- (The door! the door! he’ll tumble down the stair!) Thou darling of thy sire! (Why, Jane! he’ll set his pinafore a-fire!) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love’s dear chain so strong and bright a link, Thou idol of thy parents--(Drat the boy! There goes my ink!)

Thou cherub--but of earth; Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale, In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail!)

Thou human humming-bee, extracting hone From ev’ry blossom in the world that blows, Singing in Youth’s Elysium ever sunny, (Another tumble!--that’s his precious nose!)

Thy father’s pride and hope! (He’ll break the mirror with that skipping-rope!)

[Illustration: ARTHUR’S SEAT.]

[Illustration: A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SON.]

With pure heart newly stamp’d from Nature’s mint-- (Where _did_ he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove! (He’ll have that jug off, with another shove!) Dear nurseling of the hymeneal nest! (Are those torn clothes his best?) Little epitome of man! (He’ll climb upon the table, that’s his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life-- (He’s got a knife!)

Thou enviable being! No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky foreseeing, Play on, play on, My elfin John! Toss the light ball--bestride the stick-- (I knew so many cakes would make him sick!) With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down, Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk, With many a lamb-like frisk, (He’s got the scissors, snipping at your gown!)

Thou pretty opening rose! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the South, (He really brings my heart into my mouth!) Fresh as the morn, and brilliant as its star,-- (I wish that window had an iron bar!) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove, (I tell you what, my love, I cannot write unless he’s sent above!)

A SERENADE.

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby!” Thus I heard a father cry, “Lullaby, oh, lullaby! The brat will never shut an eye; Hither come, some power divine! Close his lids or open mine!”

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby!” What the devil makes him cry? “Lullaby, oh, lullaby!” Still he stares--I wonder why? Why are not the sons of earth Blind, like puppies, from the birth?

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby!” Thus I heard the father cry; “Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Mary, you must come and try!-- Hush, oh, hush, for mercy’s sake-- The more I sing, the more you wake!”

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Fie, you little creature, fie; Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Is no poppy-syrup nigh? Give him some, or give him all, I am nodding to his fall!”

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Two such nights, and I shall die! Lullaby, oh, lullaby! He’ll be bruised, and so shall I,-- How can I from bedposts keep, When I’m walking in my sleep?”

“Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Sleep his very looks deny-- Lullaby, oh, lullaby! Nature soon will stupify-- My nerves relax,--my eyes grow dim-- Who’s that fallen--me or him?”

AN INCENDIARY SONG.

Come, all conflagrating fellows, Let us have a glorious rig: Sing old Rose, and burn the bellows! Burn me, but I’ll burn my wig!

Christmas time is all before us: Burn all puddings, north and south. Burn the Turkey--Burn the Devil! Burn snap-dragon! burn your mouth!

Burn the coals! they’re up at sixty! Burn Burn’s Justice--burn Old Coke. Burn the chestnuts! Burn the shovel! Burn a fire, and burn the smoke!

Burn burnt almonds. Burn burnt brandy. Let all burnings have a turn. Burn Chabert, the Salamander,-- Burn the man that wouldn’t burn!

Burn the old year out, don’t ring it; Burn the one that must begin. Burn Lang Syne; and, whilst you’re burning, Burn the burn he paidled in.

Burn the boxing! Burn the Beadle! Burn the baker! Burn his man! Burn the butcher--Burn the dustman, Burn the sweeper, if you can!

Burn the Postman! burn the postage, Burn the knocker--burn the bell! Burn the folks that come for money! Burn the bills--and burn ’em well.

Burn the Parish! Burn the rating! Burn all taxes in a mass. Burn the Paving! Burn the lightning! Burn the burners! Burn the gas!

Burn all candles, white or yellow-- Burn for war, and not for peace; Burn the Czar of all the Tallow! Burn the King of all the Greece!

Burn all canters--burn in Smithfield. Burn Tea-Total hum and bug. Burn his kettle, burn his water, Burn his muffin, burn his mug!

Burn the breeks of meddling vicars, Picking holes in Anna’s Urns! Burn all Steers’s Opodeldoc, Just for being good for burns.

Burn all Swindlers! Burn Asphaltum! Burn the money-lenders down-- Burn all schemes that burn one’s fingers! Burn the Cheapest House in town!

Burn all bores and boring topics; Burn Brunel--aye, in his hole! Burn all _subjects_ that are Irish! Burn the niggers black as coal!

Burn all Boz’s imitators! Burn all tales without a head! Burn a candle near the curtain! Burn your Burns, and burn your bed!

Burn all wrongs that won’t be righted, Poor poor Soup, and Spanish claims-- Burn that Bell, and burn his Vixen! Burn all sorts of burning shames!

Burn the Whigs! and burn the Tories! Burn all parties, great and small! Burn that everlasting Poynder-- Burn his Suttees once for all!

Burn the fop that burns tobacco. Burn a Critic that condemns.-- Burn Lucifer and all his matches! Burn the fool that burns the Thames!

Burn all burning agitators-- Burn all torch-parading elves! And oh! burn Parson Stephen’s speeches, If they haven’t burnt themselves.

COPY.

A NEW SPECIES OF POETRY.

If I were used to writing verse, And had a Muse not so perverse, But prompt at Fancy’s call to spring And Carol like a bird in Spring; Or like a Bee, in summer time, That hums about a bed of thyme, And gathers honey and delights From ev’ry blossom where it ‘lights; If I, alas! had such a Muse, To touch the Reader or amuse, And breathe the true poetic vein, This page should not be fill’d in vain! But ah! the power was never mine To dig for gems in Fancy’s mine: Or wander over land and main To seek the Fairies’ old domain-- To watch Apollo while he climbs His throne in oriental climes; Or mark the “gradual dusky veil” Drawn over Tempé’s tuneful vale, In classic lays remembered long-- Such flights to bolder wings belong; To Bards who on that glorious height, Of sun and song, Parnassus hight, Partake the fire divine that burns, } In Milton, Pope, and Scottish Burns, } Who sang his native braes and burns. }

For me a novice strange and new, Who ne’er such inspiration knew, But weave a verse with travail sore, Ordain’d to creep and not to soar, A few poor lines alone I write, Fulfilling thus a friendly rite, Not meant to meet the Critic’s eye, For oh! to hope from such as I, For anything that’s fit to read, Were trusting to a broken reed!

_1st of April, 1840._ E. M. G.

SKIPPING. A MYSTERY.

Little Children skip, The rope so gaily gripping, Tom and Harry, Jane and Mary, Kate, Diana, Susan, Anna, All are fond of skipping!

The Grasshoppers all skip, The early dew-drop sipping, Under, over, Bent and clover, Daisy, sorrel, Without quarrel, All are fond of skipping!

The tiny Fairies skip, At midnight softly tripping; Puck and Peri, Never weary, With an antic, Quite romantic, All are fond of skipping!

The little Boats they skip, Beside the heavy Shipping, While the squalling Winds are calling, Falling, rising, Rising, falling, All are fond of skipping!

The pale Diana skips, The silver billows tipping, With a dancing Lustre glancing To the motion Of the ocean-- All are fond of skipping!

The little Flounders skip, When they feel the dripping; Scorching, frying, Jumping, trying If there is not Any shying, All are fond of skipping!

The very Dogs they skip, While threatened with a whipping, Wheeling, prancing, Learning dancing, To a measure, What a pleasure! All are fond of skipping!

The little Fleas they skip, And nightly come a nipping, Lord and Lady, Jude and Thady, In the night So dark and shady-- All are fond of skipping!

The Autumn Leaves they skip; When blasts the trees are stripping; Bounding, whirling, Sweeping, twirling, And in wanton Mazes curling, All are fond of skipping!

The Apparitions skip, Some mortal grievance ripping, Thorough many A crack and cranny, And the keyhole Good as any-- Are all fond of skipping!

But oh! how Readers skip, In heavy volumes dipping! * * * * * and * * * * * * * * * and * * * * * * * * and * * * * * * * * * * * * * All are fond of skipping!

A BUTCHER.

Whoe’er has gone thro’ London Street, Has seen a Butcher gazing at his meat, And how he keeps Gloating upon a sheep’s Or bullock’s personals, as if his own; How he admires his halves, And quarters--and his calves, As if in truth upon his own legs grown;-- _His_ fat! _his_ suet! _His_ kidneys peeping elegantly thro’ it! _His_ thick flank! And _his_ thin! _His_ shank! _His_ shin! Skin of his skin, and bone too of his bone!

With what an air He stands aloof, across the thoroughfare Gazing--and will not let a body by, Tho’ buy! buy! buy! be constantly his cry; Meanwhile his arms a-kimbo, and a pair Of Rhodian legs, he revels in a stare At his Joint Stock--for one may call it so, Howbeit without a _Co._ The dotage of self-love was never fonder Than he of his brute bodies all a-row.

Narcissus in the wave did never ponder, With love so strong, On his “portrait charmant,” As our vain butcher on his carcass yonder. Look at his sleek round skull! How bright his cheek, how rubicund his nose is! His visage seems to be Ripe for beef-tea; Of brutal juices the whole man is full-- In fact, fulfilling the metempsychosis, The Butcher is already half a Bull.

A PUBLIC DINNER.

“Sit down and fall to, said the Barmecide.”--ARABIAN NIGHTS.

At seven you just nick it, Give card--get wine ticket; Walk round through the Babel, From table to table, To find--a hard matter-- Your name in a platter; Your wish was to sit by Your friend Mr. Whitby, But Steward’s assistance Has placed you at distance, And, thanks to arrangers, You sit among strangers; But too late for mending; Twelve sticks come attending A stick of a Chairman, A little dark spare man, With bald shining nob, ‘Mid Committee swell-mob; In short, a short figure, You thought the Duke bigger; Then silence is wanted, _Non Nobis_ is chanted; Then Chairman reads letter, The Duke’s a regretter, A promise to break it, But chair he can’t take it; Is grieved to be from us, But sends friend Sir Thomas, And what is far better, A cheque in the letter. Hear! hear! and a clatter, And there ends the matter.

Now soups come and fish in, And C---- brings a dish in; Then rages the battle, Knives clatter, forks rattle, Steel forks with black handles, Under fifty wax candles; Your soup-plate is soon full, You sip just a spoonful. Mr. Roe will be grateful To send him a plateful; And then comes the waiter, “Must trouble for tater;” And then you drink wine off With somebody--nine off; Bucellas made handy, With Cape and bad Brandy, Or East India Sherry, That’s very hot--very. You help Mr. Myrtle, Then find your mock-turtle Went off, while you lingered, With waiter light-fingered. To make up for gammon, You order some salmon, Which comes to your fauces With boats without sauces. You then make a cut on Some Lamb big as Mutton; And ask for some grass too, But that you must pass too; It served the first twenty, But toast there is plenty. Then, while lamb gets coldish, A goose that is oldish-- At carving not clever-- You’re begged to dissever, And when you thus treat it, Find no one will eat it. So, hungry as glutton, You turn to your mutton, But--no sight for laughter-- The soup it’s gone after. Mr. Green then is very Disposed to take Sherry, And then Mr. Nappy Will feel very happy; And then Mr. Conner Requests the same honour; Mr. Clarke, when at leisure, Will really feel pleasure; Then waiter leans over To take off a cover From fowls which all beg of, A wing or a leg of; And while they all peck bone, You take to a neck bone, But even your hunger Declares for a younger. A fresh plate you call for, But vainly you bawl for: Now taste disapproves it, No waiter removes it. Still hope, newly budding, Relies on a pudding; But critics each minute Set fancy agin it-- “That’s queer Vermicelli.” “I say, Vizetelly, There’s glue in that jelly.” “Tarts bad altogether; That crust’s made of leather.” “Some custard, friend Vesey?” “No--batter made easy.” “Some cheese, Mr. Foster?” “--Don’t like single Glo’ster.” Meanwhile, to top table, Like fox in the fable, You see silver dishes, With those little fishes, The whitebait delicious Borne past you officious; And hear rather plainish A sound that’s champaignish, And glimpse certain bottles Made long in the throttles: And sniff--very pleasant! Grouse, partridge, and pheasant, And see mounds of ices For patrons and vices, Pine-apple, and bunches Of grapes for sweet munches, And fruits of all virtue That really _desert_ you. You’ve nuts, but not crack ones, Half empty, and black ones; With oranges sallow-- They can’t be called yellow-- Some pippins well wrinkled, And plums almond sprinkled, Some rout cakes, and so on, Then with business to go on; Long speeches are stutter’d, And toasts are well buttered, While dames in the gallery, All dressed in fallallery, Look on at the mummery: And listen to flummery. Hip, hip! and huzzaing, And singing and saying, Glees, catches, orations, And lists of donations. Hush! a song, Mr. Tinney-- “Mr. Benbow, one guinea; Mr. Frederick Manual, One guinea--and annual.” Song--Jockey and Jenny-- “Mr. Markham one guinea.” “Have you all filled your glasses?” Here’s a health to good lasses. The subscription still skinny-- “Mr. Franklin--one guinea.” Franklin looks like a ninny; “Mr. Boreham, one guinea-- Mr. Blogg, Mr. Finney, Mr. Tempest--one guinea, Mr. Merrington--twenty,” Rough music, in plenty. Away toddles Chairman, The little dark spare man, Not sorry at ending, With white sticks attending, And some vain Tomnoddy Votes in his own body To fill the void seat up, And get on his feet up, To say, with voice squeaking, “Unaccustomed to speaking,” Which sends you off seeking Your hat, number thirty-- No coach--very dirty. So, hungry and fevered, Wet-footed, spoilt beavered, Eyes aching in socket, Ten pounds out of pocket, To Brook-street the Upper You haste home to supper.

A CHARITY SERMON.

“‘I would have walked many a mile to have communed with you; and, believe me, I will shortly pay thee another visit; but my friends, I fancy, wonder at my stay; so let me have the money immediately.’ Trulliber then put on a stern look, and cried out, ‘Thou dost not intend to rob me?’

* * * * *

‘I would have thee know, friend,’ addressing himself to Adams, ‘I shall not learn my duty from such as thee. I know what charity is, better than to give to vagabonds.’”--JOSEPH ANDREWS.

I’m an extremely charitable man--no collar and long hair, though a little carrotty; Demure, half-inclined to the unknown tongues, but I never gain’d anything by Charity. I got a little boy into the Foundling, but his unfortunate mother was traced and baited, And the overseers found _her_ out--and she found _me_ out--and the child was affili_ated_. Oh, Charity will come home to roost-- Like curses and chickens is Charity.

I once, near Whitehall’s very old wall, when ballads danced over the whole of it, Put a bad five-shilling-piece into a beggar’s hat, but the old hat had got a hole in it; And a little boy caught it in his little hat, and an officer’s eye seem’d to care for it, As my bad crown piece went through _his_ bad crown piece, and they took me up to Queen’s Square for it. Oh, Charity, &c.

I let my very old (condemn’d) old house to a man, at a rent that was shockingly low, So I found a roof for his ten motherless babes--all defunct and fatherless now; For the plaguy one-sided party wall fell in, so did the roof, on son and daughter, And twelve jurymen sat on eleven bodies, and brought in a very personal verdict of Manslaughter. Oh, Charity, &c.

I pick’d up a young well-dress’d gentleman, who had fallen in a fit in St. Martin’s Court, And charitably offer’d to see him home--for charity always seem’d to be my forte, And I’ve had presents for seeing fallen gentlemen home, but this was a very unlucky job-- Do you know, he got my watch--my purse--and my handkerchief--for it was one of the swell mob. Oh, Charity, &c.

Being four miles from Town, I stopt a horse that had run away with a man, when it seem’d that they must be dash’d to pieces, Though several kind people were following him with all their might--but such following a horse his speed increases; I held the horse while he went to recruit his strength; and I meant to ride it home, of course; But the crowd came up and took me up--for it turn’d out the man had run away with the horse. Oh, Charity, &c.

I watch’d last month all the drovers and drivers about the suburbs, for it’s a positive fact, That I think the utmost penalty ought always to be enforced against everybody under Mr. Martin’s act; But I couldn’t catch one hit over the horns, or over the shins, or on the ears, or over the head; And I caught a rheumatism from early wet hours, and got five weeks of ten swell’d fingers in bed. Oh, Charity, &c.

Well, I’ve utterly done with Charity, though I used so to preach about its finest fount; Charity may do for some that are more lucky, but _I_ can’t turn it to any account-- It goes so the very reverse way--even if one chirrups it up with a dust of piety; That henceforth let it be understood, I take my name entirely out of the List of Subscribers to the Humane Society. Oh, Charity, &c.

THE CHINA MENDER.

Good morning, Mr. What-d’ye-call! Well! here’s another pretty job! Lord help my Lady!--what a smash!--if you had only heard her sob! It was all through Mr. Lambert: but for certain he was winey, To think for to go to sit down on a table full of Chiney. “Deuce take your stupid head!” says my Lady to his very face; But politeness, you know, is nothing, when there’s Chiney in the case; And if ever a woman was fond of Chiney to a passion It’s my mistress, and all sorts of it, whether new or old fashion. Her brother’s a sea-captain, and brings her home shiploads-- Such bonzes, and such dragons, and nasty, squatting things like toads; And great nidnoddin’ mandarins, with palsies in the head: I declare I’ve often dreamt of them, and had nightmares in my bed. But the frightfuller they are--lawk! she loves them all the better: She’d have Old Nick himself made of Chiney if they’d let her.

Lawk-a-mercy! break her Chiney, and it’s breaking her very heart; If I touch’d it, she would very soon say, “Mary, we must part.” To be sure she _is_ unlucky: only Friday comes Master Randall, And breaks a broken spout, and fresh chips a tea-cup handle: He’s a dear, sweet little child, but he will so finger and touch, And that’s why my Lady doesn’t take to children much. Well! there’s stupid Mr. Lambert, with his two great coat flaps, Must go and sit down on the Dresden shepherdesses’ laps, As if there was no such things as rosewood chairs in the room; I couldn’t have made a greater sweep with the handle of the broom. Mercy on us! how my mistress began to rave and tear! Well! after all, there’s nothing like good ironstone ware for wear. If ever I marry, that’s flat, I’m sure it won’t be John Dockery,-- I should be a wretched woman in a shop full of crockery. I should never like to wipe it, though I love to be neat and tidy, And afraid of mad bulls on market-days every Monday and Friday. I’m very much mistook if Mr. Lambert’s will be a catch; The breaking the Chiney will be the breaking-off of his own match. Missis wouldn’t have an angel, if he was careless about Chiney; She never forgives a chip, if it’s ever so small and tiny. Lawk! I never saw a man in all my life in such a taking; I could find in my heart to pity him for all his mischief-making. To see him stand a-hammering and stammering, like a zany; But what signifies apologies, if they won’t mend old Chaney! If he sent her up whole crates full, from Wedgwood’s and Mr. Spode’s, He couldn’t make amends for the crack’d mandarins and smash’d toads. Well! every one has their tastes, but, for my part, my own self, I’d rather have the figures on my poor dear grandmother’s old shelf: A nice pea-green poll-parrot, and two reapers with brown ears of corns, And a shepherd with a crook after a lamb with two gilt horns, And such a Jemmy Jessamy in top boots and sky-blue vest, And a frill and flower’d waistcoat, with a fine bowpot at the breast. God help her, poor old soul! I shall come into ’em at her death, Though she’s a hearty woman for her years, except her shortness of breath. Well! you think the things will mend--if they won’t, Lord mend us all! My Lady will go in fits, and Mr. Lambert won’t need to call: I’ll be bound in any money, if I had a guinea to give, He won’t sit down again on Chiney the longest day he has to live. Poor soul! I only hope it won’t forbid his bans of marriage, Or he’d better have sat behind on the spikes of my Lady’s carriage. But you’ll join ’em all of course, and stand poor Mr. Lambert’s friend; I’ll look in twice a day, just to see, like, how they mend. To be sure it is a sight that might draw tears from dogs and cats; Here’s this pretty little pagoda, now, has lost four of its cocked hats: Be particular with the pagoda: and then here’s this pretty bowl-- The Chinese Prince is making love to nothing because of this hole; And here’s another Chinese man, with a face just like a doll-- Do stick his pigtail on again, and just mend his parasol. But I needn’t tell you what to do; only do it out of hand, And charge whatever you like to charge--my Lady won’t make a stand. Well! good morning, Mr. What-d’ye-call; for it’s time our gossip ended: And you know the proverb, the less as is said, the sooner the Chiney’s mended.

ON A PICTURE OF HERO AND LEANDER.

Why, Lover, why Such a water rover? Would she love thee more For coming _half seas over_?

Why, Lady, why, So in love with dipping? Must a lad of _Greece_ Come all over _dripping_?

Why, Cupid, why Make the passage brighter? Were not any boat Better than a _lighter_?

Why, Madam, why So intrusive standing? Must thou be on the stair When he’s on the _landing_?

MISS FANNY’S FAREWELL FLOWERS.

Not “the posie of a ring.” SHAKESPEARE (all but the _not_).

I came to town a happy man: I need not now dissemble Why I return so sad at heart-- It’s all through Fanny Kemble: Oh! when she threw her flowers away, What urged the tragic slut on To weave in such a wreath as that, Ah me! a bachelor’s button.

None fought so hard, none fought so well, As I to gain some token-- When all the pit rose up in arms, And heads and hearts were broken; “Huzza!” said I, “I’ll have a flower As sure as my name’s Dutton;”-- I made a snatch--I got a catch-- By Jove! a bachelor’s button!

I’ve lost my watch--my hat is smashed-- My clothes declare the racket; I went there in a full dress coat, And came home in a jacket. My nose is swell’d--my eye is black-- My lip I’ve got a cut on! Odds buds!--and what a bud to get-- The deuce! a bachelor’s button!

My chest’s in pain; I really fear I’ve somewhat hurt my bellows, By pokes and punches in the ribs From those _herb-strewing fellows_. I miss two teeth in my front row; My corn has had a _fut_ on; And all this pain I’ve had to gain This cursed bachelor’s button.

Had I but won a rose--a bud-- A pansy--or a daisy-- A periwinkle--anything-- But this--it drives me crazy! My very sherry tastes like squills, I can’t enjoy my mutton; And when I sleep I dream of it-- Still--still----a bachelor’s button

My place is book’d per coach to-night, But oh, my spirit trembles To think how country friends will ask Of Knowleses and of Kembles. If they should breathe about the wreath, When I go back to Sutton, I shall not dare to show my share, That all!--a bachelor’s button!

My luck in life was never good, But this my fate will burden: I ne’er shall like my farming more,-- I know I shan’t the Garden. The turnips all may have the fly, The wheat may have the smut on, I care not,--I’ve a blight at heart,-- Ah me!--a bachelor’s button!

THE STAGE-STRUCK HERO.

‘It must be. So Plato?--Thou reasonest?--Well.” --_School Cato._

It’s very hard! oh, Dick, my boy, It’s very hard one can’t enjoy A little private spouting; But sure as Lear or Hamlet lives, Up comes our master, bounce! and gives The tragic muse a routing!

Ay, there he comes again! be quick! And hide the book--a playbook, Dick, He must not set his eyes on! It’s very hard, the churlish elf Will never let one stab one’s self Or take a bowl of p’ison!

It’s very hard, but when I want To die--as Cato did--I can’t, Or go _non compos mentis_-- But up he comes, all fire and flame;-- No doubt he’d do the very same With Kemble for a ‘prentice!

Oh, Dick! Oh, Dick! it was not so Some half a dozen years ago! Melpomene was no sneaker, When, under Reverend Mister Poole, Each little boy at Enfield School Became an Enfield speaker!

No cruel master-tailor’s cane Then thwarted the theatric vein; The tragic soil had tillage. O dear dramatic days gone by! You, Dick, were Richard then--and I Play’d Hamlet to the village,

Or, as Macbeth, the dagger clutch’d, Till all the servant-maids were touch’d-- Macbeth, I think, my pet is; Lord, how we spouted Shakespeare’s works-- Dick, we had twenty little Burkes, And fifty Master Betties!

Why, there was Julius Cæsar Dunn, And Norval, Sandy Philip,--one Of Elocution’s champions-- Genteelly taught by his mamma To say, not father, but papa, Kept sheep upon the Grampians!

Coriolanus Crumpe--and Fig In Brutus, with brown-paper wig, And Huggins great in Cato; Only he broke so often off, To have a fit of whooping-cough, While reasoning with Plato.

And Zangra too,--but I shall weep, If longer on this theme I keep, And let remembrance loose, Dick; Now forced to act--it’s very hard-- “Measure for Measure” with a yard-- You Richard, with a goose, Dick!

Zounds! Dick, it’s very odd our dads Should send us there when we were lads To learn to talk like Tullies; And now, if one should just break out, Perchance, into a little spout, A stick about the skull is.

Why should stage-learning form a part Of schooling for the tailor’s art? Alas! dramatic notes, Dick, So well record the sad mistake Of him who tried at once to make Both _Romeo_ and _Coates_, Dick!

YE TOURISTS AND TRAVELLERS.

Ye Tourists and Travellers, bound to the Rhine, Provided with passport, that requisite docket, First listen to one little whisper of mine-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

Don’t wash or be shaved--go like hairy wild men, Play dominoes, smoke, wear a cap, and smock-frock it, But if you speak English, or look it, why then-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll sleep at great inns, in the smallest of beds, Find charges as apt to mount up as a rocket, With thirty per cent. as a tax on your heads,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll see old Cologne,--not the sweetest of towns,-- Wherever you follow your nose you will shock it; And you’ll pay your three dollars to look at three crowns,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll count seven Mountains, and see Roland’s Eck, Hear legends veracious as any by Crockett; But oh! to the tone of romance what a check,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

Old Castles you’ll see on the vine-covered hill,-- Fine ruins to rivet the eye in its socket-- Once haunts of Baronial Banditti, and still-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll stop at Coblenz, with its beautiful views, But make no long stay with your money to stock it, Where Jews are all Germans, and Germans all Jews,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!--

A Fortress you’ll see, which, as people report, Can never be captured, save famine should block it-- Ascend Ehrenbreitstein--but that’s not their _forte_,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll see an old man who’ll let off an old gun, And Lurley, with her hurly-burly, will mock it; But think that the words of the echo thus run,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

You’ll gaze on the Rheingau, the soil of the Vine! Of course you will freely Moselle it and Hock it-- P’raps purchase some pieces of Humbugheim wine-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

Perchance you will take a frisk off to the Baths-- Where some to their heads hold a pistol and cock it; But still mind the warning, wherever your paths-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

And Friendships you’ll swear, most eternal of pacts, Change rings, and give hair to be put in a locket; But still, in the most sentimental of acts-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

In short, if you visit that stream or its shore, Still keep at your elbow one caution to knock it, And where Schinderhannes was Robber of yore,-- Take care of your pocket!--take care of your pocket!

RURAL FELICITY.

Well, the country’s a pleasant place, sure enough, for people that’s country born, And useful, no doubt, in a natural way, for growing our grass and our corn. It was kindly meant of my cousin Giles, to write and invite me down. Tho’ as yet all I’ve seen of a pastoral life only makes me more partial to town.

At first I thought I was really come down into all sorts of rural bliss, For Porkington Place, with its cows and its pigs, and its poultry, looks not much amiss; There’s something about a dairy farm, with its different kinds of live stock, That puts one in mind of Paradise, and Adam, and his innocent flock; But somehow the good old Elysium fields have not been well handed down, And as yet I have found no fields to prefer to dear Leicester Fields up in town.

To be sure it is pleasant to walk in the meads, and so I should like for miles, If it wasn’t for clodpoles of carpenters that put up such crooked stiles; For the bars jut out, and you must jut out, till you’re almost broken in two, If you clamber you’re certain sure of a fall, and you stick if you try to creep through. Of course, in the end, one learns how to climb without constant tumbles-down, But still as to walking so stylishly, it’s pleasanter done about town. There’s a way, I know, to avoid the stiles, and that’s by a walk in a lane, And I did find a very nice shady one, but I never dared go again; For who should I meet but a rampaging bull, that wouldn’t be kept in the pound, A trying to toss the whole world at once, by sticking his horns in the ground? And that, by-the-bye, is another thing, that pulls rural pleasures down, Ev’ry day in the country is cattle-day, and there’s only two up in town.

Then I’ve rose with the sun, to go brushing away at the first early pearly dew, And to meet Aurory, or whatever’s her name, and I always got wetted through; My shoes are like sops, and I caught a bad cold, and a nice draggle-tail to my gown, That’s not the way that we bathe our feet, or wear our pearls, up in town! As for picking flowers, I have tried at a hedge, sweet eglantine roses to snatch, But, mercy on us! how nettles will sting, and how the long brambles do scratch; Beside hitching my hat on a nasty thorn that tore all the bows from the crown, One may walk long enough without hats branching off, or losing one’s bows about town. But worse than that, in a long rural walk, suppose that it blows up for rain, And all at once you discover yourself in a real St. Swithin’s Lane; And while you’re running all duck’d and drown’d, and pelted with sixpenny drops, “Fine weather,” you hear the farmers say; “a nice growing shower for the crops!” But who’s to crop me another new hat, or grow me another new gown? For you can’t take a shilling fare with a plough as you do with the hackneys in town.

Then my nevys too, they must drag me off to go with them gathering nuts, And we always set out by the longest way and return by the shortest cuts. Short cuts, indeed! But it’s nuts to them, to get a poor lustyish aunt To scramble through gaps, or jump over a ditch, when they’re morally certain she can’t,-- For whenever I get in some awkward scrape, and it’s almost daily the case, Tho’ they don’t laugh out, the mischievous brats, I see the “hooray!” in their face. There’s the other day, for my sight is short, and I saw what was green beyond, And thought it was all terry firmer and grass, till I walked in the duckweed pond: Or perhaps when I’ve pully-hauled up a bank they see me come launching down, As none but a stout London female can do as is come a first time out of town. Then how sweet, some say, on a mossy bank a verdurous seat to find, But for my part I always found it a joy that brought a repentance behind; For the juicy grass with its nasty green has stained a whole breadth of my gown-- And when gowns are dyed, I needn’t say, it’s much better done up in town. As for country fare, the first morning I came I heard such a shrill piece of work! And ever since--and it’s ten days ago--we’ve lived upon nothing but pork; One Sunday except, and then I turn’d sick, a plague take all countrified cooks! Why didn’t they tell me, _before_ I had dined, they made pigeon pies of the rooks? Then the gooseberry wine, tho’ it’s pleasant when up, it doesn’t agree when it ’s down, But it served me right, like a gooseberry, fool to look for champagne out of town? To be sure cousin G. meant it all for the best when he started this pastoral plan, And his wife is a worthy domestical soul and she teaches me all that she can, Such as making of cheese, and curing of hams, but I’m sure that I never shall learn, And I’ve fetch’d more back-ache than butter as yet by chumping away at the churn; But in making hay, tho’ it’s tanning work, I found it more easy to make, But it tries one’s legs, and no great relief when you’re tired to sit down on the rake. I’d a country dance, too, at harvest home, with a regular country clown, But, Lord! they don’t hug one round the waist and give one such smacks in town: Then I’ve tried to make friends with the birds and the beasts, but they take to such curious rigs, I’m always at odds with the turkey-cock, and I can’t even please the pigs. The very hens pick holes in my hand when I grope for the new-laid eggs, And the gander comes hissing out of the pond on purpose to flap at my legs. I’ve been bump’d in a ditch by the cow without horns, and the old sow trampled me down, The beasts are as vicious as any wild beasts--but they’re kept in cages in town! Another thing is the nasty dogs--thro’ the village I hardly can stir Since giving a bumpkin a pint of beer just to call off a barking cur; And now you would swear all the dogs in the place were set on to hunt me down, But neither the brutes nor the people I think are as civilly bred as in town. Last night about twelve I was scared broad awake, and all in a tremble of fright, But instead of a family murder it proved an owl, that flies screeching at night. Then there’s plenty of ricks and stalks all about, and I can’t help dreaming of Swing-- In short, I think that a pastoral life is not the most happiest thing; For, besides all the troubles I’ve mentioned before, as endured for rurality’s sake, I’ve been stung by the bees, and I’ve set among ants, and once--ugh! I trod on a snake! And as to mosquitoes, they tortured me so, for I’ve got a particular skin, I do think it’s the gnats coming out of the ponds, that drives the poor suicides in! And after all an’t there new-laid eggs to be had upon Holborn Hill? And dairy-fed pork in Broad St. Giles, and fresh butter wherever you will? And a covered cart that brings Cottage Bread quite rustical-like and brown? So one isn’t so very uncountrified in the very heart of the town. Howsomever my mind’s made up, and although I’m sure cousin Giles will be vext, I mean to book me an inside place up to town upon Saturday next, And if nothing happens, soon after ten, I shall be at the Old Bell and Crown, And perhaps I may come to the country again, when London is all burnt down.

THE DOCTOR.

A SKETCH.

“Whatever is, is right.”--POPE.

There once was a Doctor, (No foe to the proctor,) A physic concocter, Whose dose was so pat, However it acted, One speech it extracted,-- “Yes, yes,” said the doctor, “I meant it for that!”

And first, all “unaisy,” Like woman that’s crazy, In flies Mistress Casey, “Do come to poor Pat The blood’s running faster! He’s torn off the plaster--” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

Anon, with an antic, Quite strange and romantic, A woman comes frantic-- “What could you be at? My darling dear Aleck, You’ve sent him oxalic!” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

Then in comes another, Dispatch’d by his mother, A blubbering brother, Who gives a rat-tat-- “Oh, poor little sister Has lick’d off a blister!” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

Now home comes the flunkey, His own powder-monkey, But dull as a donkey-- With basket and that-- “The draught for the Squire, Sir, He chuck’d in the fire, Sir--” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

The next is the pompous Head Beadle, old Bumpus-- “Lord! here is a rumpus: That pauper, Old Nat, In some drunken notion Has drunk up his lotion--” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

At last comes a servant, In grief very fervent: “Alas! Doctor Derwent, Poor Master is flat! He’s drawn his last breath, Sir-- That dose was his death, Sir.” “Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I meant it for that!”

LAYING DOWN THE LAW.

----“I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark.”

MERCHANT OF VENICE.

“If thou wert born a Dog, remain so; but if thou wert born a Man, resume thy former shape.”--ARABIAN NIGHTS.

A Poodle, Judge-like, with emphatic paw, Dogmatically laying down the law,-- A batch of canine Counsel round the table, Keen-eyed, and sharp of nose, and long of jaw, At sight, at scent, at giving tongue, right able: O, Edwin Landseer, Esquire, and R.A., Thou great Pictorial Æsop, say, What is the moral of this painted fable? O, say, accomplished artist! Was it thy purpose, by a scene so quizzical, To read a wholesome lesson to the Chartist, So over partial to the means called Physical, Sticks, staves, and swords, and guns, the tools of treason? To show, illustrating the better course, The very Brutes abandoning Brute Force, The worry and the fight, The bark and bite, In which, says Doctor Watts, the dogs delight, And lending shaggy ears to Law and Reason, As uttered in that Court of high antiquity Where sits the Chancellor, supreme as Pope, But works--so let us hope-- In equity, not iniquity?

Or was it but a speculation On transmigration, How certain of our most distinguished Daniels, Interpreters of Law’s bewildering book, Would look Transformed to mastiffs, setters, hounds, and spaniels (As Brahmins in their Hindoo code advance) With that great lawyer of the Upper House Who rules all suits by equitable _nous_, Become--like vile Armina’s spouse-- A Dog, called Chance?[4] Methinks, indeed, I recognise In those deep-set and meditative eyes Engaged in mental puzzle, And that portentous muzzle, A celebrated judge, too prone to tarry To hesitate on devious ins and outs, And, on preceding doubts, to build _re-doubts_ That regiments could not carry-- Prolonging even Law’s delays, and still Putting a skid upon the wheel up-hill, Meanwhile the weary and desponding client Seem’d--in the agonies of indecision-- In Doubting Castle, with that dreadful Giant Described in Bunyan’s Vision!

So slow, indeed, was justice in its ways, Beset by more than customary clogs, Going to law in those expensive days Was much the same as going to the Dogs! But possibly I err, And that sagacious and judicial creature, So Chancellor-like in feature, With ears so wig-like, and a cap of fur, Looking as grave, responsible, and sage, As if he had the guardianship, in fact, Of all poor dogs, or crackt, And puppies under age-- It may be that the Creature was not meant Any especial Lord to represent, Eldon or Erskine, Cottenham or Thurlow, Or Brougham (more like him whose potent jaw Is holding forth the letter of the law), Or Lyndhurst, after the vacation’s furlough, Presently sitting in the House of Peers, On wool he sometimes wishes in his ears, When touching Corn Laws, Taxes, or Tithe-piggery, He hears a fierce attack, And, sitting on his sack, Listens in his great wig to greater Whiggery!

So, possibly, those others, In coats so various, or sleek, or rough, Aim not at any of the legal brothers, Who wear the silken robe, or gown of stuff. Yet who that ever heard or saw The Counsel sitting in that solemn Court, Who, having passed the Bar, are safe in port, Or those great Sergeants, learned in the Law,-- Who but must trace a feature now and then Of those forensic men, As good at finding heirs as any harrier, Renown’d like greyhounds for long tales--indeed, At worrying the ear as apt as terriers,-- Good at conveyance as the hairy carriers That bear our gloves, umbrellas, hats, and sticks, Books, baskets, bones, or bricks, In Deeds of Trust as sure as Tray the trusty,-- Acute at sniffing flaws on legal grounds,-- And lastly--well the catalogue it closes!-- Still following their predecessors’ noses, Through ways however dull or dusty, As fond of hunting precedents, as hounds Of running after foxes more than musty.

However slow or fast, Full of urbanity, or supercilious, In temper wild, serene, or atrabilious, Fluent of tongue, or prone to legal saw, The Dogs have got a Chancellor, at last, For Laying down the Law! And never may the canine race regret it, With whinings and repinings loud or deep,-- Ragged in coat, and shortened in their keep, Worried by day, and troubled in their sleep, With cares that prey upon the heart and fret it-- As human suitors have had cause to weep-- For what is Law, unless poor Dogs can get it Dog-cheap?

A BLACK JOB.

“No doubt the pleasure is as great, Of being cheated as to cheat.”--HUDIBRAS.

The history of human-kind to trace, Since Eve--the first of dupes--our doom unriddled, A certain portion of the human race Has certainly a taste for being diddled.

Witness the famous Mississippi dreams! A rage that time seems only to redouble-- The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, For rolling in Pactolian streams, That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. No matter what,--to pasture cows on stubble, To twist sea-sand into a solid rope, To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, Or light with gas the whole celestial cope-- Only propose to blow a bubble, And Lord! what hundreds will subscribe for soap!

Soap!--it reminds me of a little tale, Tho’ not a pig’s, the hawbuck’s glory, When rustic games and merriment prevail-- But here’s my story: Once on a time--no matter when-- A knot of very charitable men Set up a Philanthropical Society, Professing on a certain plan, To benefit the race of man, And in particular that dark variety, Which some suppose inferior--as in vermin, The sable is to ermine, As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, As blacking, or as ink to “milk below,” Or yet a better simile, to show, As ragman’s dolls to images in plaster!

However, as is usual in our city, They had a sort of managing Committee A board of grave responsible Directors-- A Secretary, good at pen and ink-- A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink, And quite an army of collectors! Not merely male, but female duns, Young, old, and middle-aged--of all degrees-- With many of those persevering ones, Who mite by mite would beg a cheese!

And what might be their aim? To rescue Afric’s sable sons from fetters-- To save their bodies from the burning shame Of branding with hot letters-- Their shoulders from the cowhide’s bloody strokes, Their necks from iron yokes? To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, The Planter’s avarice, the Driver’s knavery? To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten ’em, To polish up and brighten ’em, And make them worthy of eternal bliss? Why, no--the simple end and aim was this-- Reading a well-known proverb much amiss-- To wash and whiten ’em!

They look’d so ugly in their sable hides: So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, However the poor elves Might wash themselves, Nobody knew if they were clean or not-- On Nature’s fairness they were quite a blot! Not to forget more serious complaints That even while they join’d in pious hymn, So black they were and grim, In face and limb, They look’d like Devils, though they sang like Saints!

The thing was undeniable! They wanted washing! not that slight ablution To which the skin of the White Man is liable, Merely removing transient pollution-- But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing And scrubbing, Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head With stiff, strong, saponaceous lather, And pails of water--hottish rather, But not so boiling as to turn ’em red!

So spoke the philanthropic man Who laid, and hatch’d, and nursed the plan-- And oh! to view its glorious consummation! The brooms and mops, The tubs and slops, The baths and brushes in full operation! To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, Go in a raven and come out a swan! While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels, Black Venus rises from the soapy surge, And all the little Niggerlings emerge As lily-white as mussels.

Sweet was the vision--but alas! However in prospectus bright and sunny, To bring such visionary scenes to pass One thing was requisite, and that was--money; Money, that pays the laundress and her bills, For socks and collars, shirts and frills, Cravats and kerchiefs--money, without which The negroes must remain as dark as pitch; A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery, To think of millions of immortal souls Dwelling in bodies black as coals, And living--so to speak--in Satan’s livery!

Money--the root of evil,--dross, and stuff! But oh! how happy ought the rich to feel, Whose means enable them to give enough To blanch an African from head to heel! How blessed--yea, thrice blessed--to subscribe Enough to scour a tribe! While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one, Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know He helped to bleach a Hottentot’s great toe, Or little one! Moved by this logic (or appall’d) To persons of a certain turn so proper, The money came when call’d, In silver, gold, and copper, Presents from “Friends to blacks,” or foes to whites, “Trifles,” and “offerings,” and “widow’s mites,” Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions, With other gifts And charitable lifts, Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. As thus--Elisha Brettel, An iron kettle. The Dowager Lady Scannel, A piece of flannel. Rebecca Pope, A bar of soap. The Misses Howels, Half-a-dozen towels. The Master Rush’s, Two scrubbing-brushes. Mr. T. Groom, A stable broom, And Mrs. Grubb, A tub.

Great were the sums collected! And great results in consequence expected. But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavour, According to reports At yearly courts, The blacks, confound them! were as black as ever!

Yes! spite of all the water sous’d aloft, Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand, Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, And scourers in the office strong and clever, In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, The routing and the grubbing, The blacks, confound them! were as black as ever!

In fact in his perennial speech, The Chairman own’d the niggers did not bleach, As he had hoped, From being washed and soaped, A circumstance he named with grief and pity; But still he had the happiness to say, For self and the Committee, By persevering in the present way And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, Although he could not promise perfect white, From certain symptoms that had come to light, He hoped in time to get them gray!

Lull’d by this vague assurance, The friends and patrons of the sable tribe Continued to subscribe, And waited, waited on with much endurance-- Many a frugal sister, thrifty daughter-- Many a stinted widow, pinching mother-- With income by the tax made somewhat shorter, Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter, Only to hear as ev’ry year came round, That Mr. Treasurer had spent her pound; And as she loved her sable brother, That Mr. Treasurer must have another!

But, spite of pounds or guineas, Instead of giving any hint Of turning to a neutral tint, The plaguy negroes and their piccaninnies Were still the colour of the bird that caws-- Only some very aged souls Showing a little gray upon their polls, Like daws!

However, nothing dashed By such repeated failures, or abashed, The Court still met;--the Chairman and Directors, The Secretary, good at pen and ink, The worthy Treasurer, who kept the chink, And all the cash Collectors; With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous, Without whose help, no charlatan alive, Or Bubble Company could hope to thrive, Or busy Chevalier, however sedulous-- Those good and easy innocents in fact, Who willingly receiving chaff for corn, As pointed out by Butler’s tact, Still find a secret pleasure in the act Of being pluck’d and shorn!

However, in long hundreds there they were, Thronging the hot, and close, and dusty court, To hear once more addresses from the Chair, And regular Report.

Alas! concluding in the usual strain, That what with everlasting wear and tear, The scrubbing-brushes hadn’t got a hair-- The brooms--mere stumps--would never serve again-- The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds, The towels worn to threads, The tubs and pails too shatter’d to be mended-- And what was added with a deal of pain, But as accounts correctly would explain, Tho’ thirty thousand pounds had been expended-- The Blackamoors had still been wash’d in vain!

“In fact, the negroes were as black as ink, Yet, still as the Committee dared to think, And hoped the proposition was not rash, A rather free expenditure of cash--” But ere the prospect could be made more sunny-- Up jump’d a little, lemon-coloured man, And with an eager stammer, thus began, In angry earnest, though it sounded funny: “What! More subscriptions! No--no--no,--not I! You have had time--time--time enough to try! They WON’T come white! then why--why--why--why--why More money?”

“Why!” said the Chairman, with an accent bland, And gentle waving of his dexter hand, “Why must we have more dross, and dirt, and dust, More filthy lucre, in a word, more gold-- The why, sir, very easily is told, Because Humanity declares we must! We’ve scrubb’d the negroes till we’ve nearly killed ’em, And finding that we cannot wash them white, But still their nigritude offends the sight, _We mean to gild ’em_?”

A DISCOVERY IN ASTRONOMY.

One day--I had it from a hasty mouth, Accustom’d to make many blunders daily, And therefore will not name, precisely, South, Herschell, or Baily-- But one of those great men who watch the skies, With all their rolling, winking eyes, Was looking at that Orb whose ancient God Was patron of the Ode, and Song, and Sonnet, When thus he musing cried--“It’s very odd That no Astronomer of all the squad Can tell the nature of those spots upon it!

“Lord, master!” muttered John, a liveried elf, “To wonder so at spots upon the sun! I’ll tell you what he’s done-- _Freckled himself_!”

THE SAUSAGE MAKER’S GHOST.

A LONDON LEGEND.

Somewhere in Leather Lane-- I wonder that it was not Mincing, And for this reason most convincing, That Mr. Brain Dealt in those well-minced cartridges of meat Some people like to eat-- However, all such quibbles overstepping, In Leather Lane he lived; and drove a trade In porcine sausages, though London made, Call’d “Epping.” Right brisk was the demand, Seldom his goods stay’d long on hand, For out of all adjacent courts and lanes, Young Irish ladies and their swains-- Such soups of girls and broths of boys!-- Sought his delicious chains, Preferr’d to all polonies, saveloys, And other foreign toys-- The mere chance passengers Who saw his “sassengers,” Of sweetness undeniable, So sleek, so mottled, and so “friable,” Stepp’d in, forgetting ev’ry other thought, And bought.

Meanwhile a constant thumping Was heard, a sort of subterranean chumping-- Incessant was the noise! But though he had a foreman and assistant, With all the tools consistent, (Besides a wife and two fine chopping boys) His means were not yet vast enough For chopping fast enough To meet the call from streets, and lanes, and passages, For first-chop “sassages.”

However, Mr. Brain Was none of those dull men and slow, Who, flying bird-like by a railway train, Sigh for the heavy mails of long ago; He did not set his face ‘gainst innovations For rapid operations, And therefore in a kind of waking dream Listen’d to some hot-water sprite that hinted To have his meat chopp’d, as the Times was printed, By steam!

Accordingly in happy hour, A bran-new Engine went to work Chopping up pounds on pounds of pork With all the energy of Two-Horse-Power, And wonderful celerity--

[Illustration: THE JUDGES OF A-SIZE.]

[Illustration: LONG COMMONS AND SHORT COMMONS.]

When lo! when ev’rything to hope responded, Whether his head was turn’d by his prosperity, Whether he had some sly intrigue, in verity, The man absconded!

His anxious Wife in vain Placarded Leather Lane, And all the suburbs with descriptive bills, Such as are issued when from homes and tills Clerks, dogs, cats, lunatics, and children roam; Besides advertisements in all the journals, Or weeklies or diurnals, Beginning “LEFT HIS HOME”-- The sausage-maker, spite of white and black, Never came back.

Never, alive!--But on the seventh night, Just when the yawning grave its dead releases, Filling his bedded wife with sore affright In walk’d his grisly Sprite, In fifty thousand pieces! “O Mary!” so it seem’d In hollow melancholy tone to say, Whilst thro’ its airy shape the moonlight gleam’d With scarcely dimmer ray-- “O Mary! let your hopes no longer flatter, Prepare at once to drink of sorrow’s cup-- It ain’t no use to mince the matter-- The Engine’s chopp’d me up!”

TO JOSEPH HUME, ESQ., M.P.

“I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.”

Oh, Mr. Hume, thy name Is travelling post upon the road to fame, With four fast horses and two sharp postilions; Thy reputation Has friends by numeration, Units, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Millions. Whenever public men together dine, They drink to thee With three times three-- That’s nine. And oft a votary proposes then To add unto the cheering one cheer more-- Nine and One are Ten; Or somebody, for thy honour still more keen, Insists on four times four-- Sixteen!

In Parliament no star shines more or bigger, And yet thou dost not care to cut a figure; Equally art thou eloquent and able, Whether in showing how to serve the nation Or laying its petitions on the Table Of Multiplication. In motion thou art second unto none, Though fortune on thy motions seems to frown, For though you set a number down You seldom carry one. Great at speech thou art, though some folks cough, But thou art greatest at a _paring_ off.

But never blench, Although in stirring up corruption’s worms You make some factions Vulgar as certain fractions, Almost reduced unto their lowest terms. Go on, reform, diminish, and retrench; Go on, for ridicule not caring; Sift on from one to nine with all their noughts, And make state cyphers eat up their own orts, And only in thy saving be unsparing; At soldiers’ uniforms make awful rackets, Don’t trim though, but untrim their jackets. Allow the tin mines no tin tax, Cut off the Great Seal’s wax!

Dock all the dock-yards, lower masts and sails, Search foot by foot the Infantry’s amounts, Look into all the Cavalry’s accounts, And crop their horses’ tails. Look well to Woolwich and each Money-vote, Examine all the cannons’ charges well, And those who found th’ Artillery compel To forge twelve-pounders for a five-pound note. Watch Sandhurst too, its debts and its Cadets-- Those Military pets. Take army--no, take Leggy Tailors Down to the Fleet, for no one but a nincum Out of our nation’s narrow income Would furnish such wide trousers to the Sailors. Next take, to wonder him, The Master of the Horse’s horse from under him; Retrench from those who tend on Royal ills Wherewith to gild their pills. And tell the Stag-hound’s Master he must keep The deer, &c., cheap. Close as new brooms Scrub the Bed Chamber Grooms; Abridge the Master of the Ceremonies Of his very monies; In short, at every salary have a pull, And when folks come for pay On quarter-day, Stop half and make them give receipts in full.

Oh, Mr. Hume, don’t drink, Or eat, or sleep, a wink, Till you have argued over each reduction: Let it be food to you, repose and suction; Though you should make more motions by one half Than any telegraph, Item by item all these things enforce, Be on your legs till lame, and talk till hoarse; Have lozenges--mind, Dawson’s--in your pocket, And swing your arms till aching in their socket; Or if awake you cannot keep, Talk of retrenchment in your sleep; Expose each Peachum, and show up each Lockit-- Go down to the M.P.’s before you sup, And while they’re sitting blow them up, As Guy Fawkes could not do with all his nous; But now we live in different Novembers, And safely you may walk into the House, First split its ears and then divide its members!

TO ADMIRAL GAMBIER, G.C.B.

“Well, if you reclaim such as Hood, your Society will deserve the thanks of the country.”--_Temperance Society’s Herald_, vol. 1, No. 1, p. 8.

“My father, when last I from Guinea Came home with abundance of wealth, Said, ‘Jack, never be such a ninny As to drink--’ says I, ‘Father, your health?’”

_Nothing like Grog._

Oh! Admiral Gam--I dare not mention _bier_ In such a temperate ear-- Oh! Admiral Gam--an admiral of the Blue, Of course to read the Navy List aright, For strictly shunning wine of either hue, You can’t be Admiral of the Red or White:-- Oh, Admiral Gam! consider ere you call On merry Englishmen to wash their throttles With water only; and to break their bottles, To stick, for fear of trespass, on the wall Of Exeter Hall!

Consider, I beseech, the contrariety Of cutting off our brandy, gin, and rum, And then, by tracts, inviting us to come And “_mix_ in your society!” In giving rules to dine, or sup, or lunch, Consider Nature’s ends before you league us To strip the Isle of Rum of all its punch-- To dock the Isle of Mull of all its negus-- Or doom--to suit your milk and water view-- The Isle of Skye to nothing but sky-blue!

Consider--for appearance’ sake--consider The sorry figure of a spirit-ridder, Going on this crusade against the suttler; A sort of Hudibras--without a Butler!

Consider--ere you break the ardent spirits Of father, mother, brother, sister, daughter; What are your beverage’s washy merits? Gin may be low--but I have known low-water!

Consider well, before you thus deliver, With such authority, your sloppy cannon; Should British tars taste nothing but the _river_, Because the _Chesapeake_ once fought the _Shannon_!

Consider, too--before all Eau-de-vie, Schiedam, or other drinkers, you rebut-- To bite a bitten dog all curs agree; But who would cut a man because he’s _cut_?

Consider--ere you bid the poor to fill Their murmuring stomach with the “murmuring rill”-- Consider that their streams are not like ours, Reflecting heaven, and margined by sweet flowers; On their dark pools by day no sun reclines, By night no Jupiter, no Venus shines; Consider life’s sour taste, that bids them mix Their rum with Acheron, or Gin with Styx; If you must pour out water to the poor, oh! Let it be _aqua d’ oro_!

Consider--ere as furious as a griffin, Against a glass of grog you make such work, A man may like a stiff’un, And yet not be a Burke!

Consider, too, before you bid all skinkers Turn water-drinkers, What sort of fluid fills their native rivers; Their Mudiboos, and Niles, and Guadalquivirs. How should you like, yourself, in glass or mug, The Bog--the Bug-- The Maine--the Weser--or that freezer, Neva? Nay, take the very rill of classic ground-- Lord Byron found Even Castaly better for Geneva.

Consider--if, to vote Reform’s arrears, His Majesty should please to make you peers, Your titles would be very far from trumps, To figure in a book of blue and red:-- The Duke of Draw-well--what a name to dread! Marquis of Main-pipe! Earl New-River-Head! And Temperance’s chief, the Prince of Pumps!

TO SPENCER PERCEVAL, ESQ., M.P.

Oh, Mr. Spencer! I mean no offence, sir-- Retrencher of each trencher--man or woman’s; Maker of days of ember, Eloquent Member Of the House of Com--I mean to say short commons-- Thou Long Tom Coffin singing out, “Hold Fast”-- Avast!

Oh, Mr. Perceval! I’ll bet a dollar, a Great growth of Cholera, And new deaths reckon’d, Will mark thy Lenten twenty-first and second. The best of our physicians, when they con it, Depose the malady is in the air: Oh, Mr. Spencer! if the ill _is_ there, Why should you bid the people live upon it?

Why should you make discourses against courses, While doctors, though they bid us rub and chafe, Declare, of all resources, The man is safest who gets in the safe? And yet you bid poor suicidal sinners Discard their dinners, Thoughtless how Heaven above will look upon’t, For man to die so wantonly of want!

By way of a variety, Think of the ineffectual piety Of London’s Bishop, at St. Faith’s or Bride’s, Lecturing such chamelion insides, Only to find He’s preaching to the wind.

Whatever others do,--or don’t, I cannot--dare not--must not fast, and won’t, Unless by night your day you let me keep, And _fast_ asleep; My constitution can’t obey such censors: I must have meat Three times a-day to eat; My health’s of such a sort,-- To say the truth, in short, The _coats_ of my stomach are not _Spencers_!

TO MISS KELLY.

ON HER OPENING THE STRAND THEATRE.

O Betty--I beg pardon--Fanny K. (I was just thinking of your Betty Finnikin)-- Permit me this to say, In quite a friendly way-- I like your theatre, though but a minnikin; For though small stages Kean dislikes to spout on, Renounce me if I don’t agree with Dowton, The Minors are the Passions’ proper schools For me, I never can Find wisdom in the plan That keeps large reservoirs for little Pooles.

I like your boxes where the audience sit A family circle; and your little pit; I like your little stage, where you discuss Your pleasant bill of fare, And show us passengers so rich and rare, Your little stage seems quite an omnibus.

I like exceedingly your Parthian dame, Dimly remembering dramatic codgers, The ghost of Memory--the shade of Fame!-- Lord! what a housekeeper for Mr. Rogers! I like your savage, of a one-horse power; And Terence, done in Irish from the Latin; And Sally--quite a kitchen-garden flower; And Mrs. Drake, serene in sky-blue satin! I like your girl as speechless as a mummy-- It shows you can play dummy!-- I like your boy, deprived of every gleam Of light for ever--a benighted being! And really think--though Irish it may seem-- Your blindness is worth seeing.

I like your Governess; and there’s a striking Tale of Two Brothers, that sets tears a-flowing-- But I’m not going All through the bill to tell you of my liking. Suffice it, Fanny Kelly! with your art So much in love, like others I have grown, I really mean myself to take a part In “Free and Easy”--at my own bespeak-- And shall three times a week Drop in and make your pretty house my own!

TO DOCTOR HAHNEMANN.

THE HOMŒOPATHIST.

Well, Doctor, Great concoctor Of medicines to help in man’s distress; Diluting down the strong to meek, And making even the weak more weak, “Fine by degrees, and beautifully less”-- Founder of a new system economic, To druggists anything but comic; Framed the whole race of Ollapods to fret, At profits, like thy doses, very small; To put all Doctors’ Boys in evil case, Thrown out of bread, of physic, and of place,-- And show us old Apothecaries’ Hall “To Let.”

How fare thy Patients? are they dead or living, Or, well as can expected be, with such A style of practice, liberally giving “A sum of more to that which had too much?” Dost thou preserve the human frame, or turf it? Do thorough draughts cure thorough colds or not? Do fevers yield to anything that’s hot? Or hearty dinners neutralise a surfeit? Is’t good advice for gastronomic ills, When Indigestion’s face with pain is crumpling, To cry “Discard those Peristaltic Pills, Take a hard dumpling!”

Tell me, thou German Cousin, And tell me honestly without a diddle, Does an attenuated dose of rosin Act as a _tonic_ on the old _Scotch fiddle_? Tell me, when Anhalt-Coethen babies wriggle, Like eels just caught by sniggle, Martyrs to some acidity internal, That gives them pangs infernal, Meanwhile the lip grows black, the eye enlarges; Say, comes there all at once a cherub-calm, Thanks to that soothing homœopathic balm, The half of half, of half, a drop of “_varges_?”

Suppose, for instance, upon Leipzig’s plain, A soldier pillowed on a heap of slain, In urgent want both of a priest and proctor; When lo! there comes a man in green and red, A featherless cocked-hat adorns his head, In short a Saxon military doctor-- Would he, indeed, on the right treatment fix, To cure a horrid gaping wound, Made by a ball that weighed a pound, If he well peppered it with number six?

Suppose a felon doomed to swing Within a _rope_, Might friends not hope To cure him with a _string_? Suppose his breath arrived at a full stop, The shades of death in a black cloud before him, Would a quintillionth dose of the New Drop Restore him?

Fancy a man gone rabid from a bite, Snapping to left and right, And giving tongue like one of Sebright’s hounds, Terrific sounds, The pallid neighbourhood with horror cowing, To hit the proper homœopathic mark; Now, might not “the last taste in life” of _bark_, Stop his _bow-wow-ing_? Nay, with a well-known remedy to fit him, Would he not mend, if with all proper care, He took “_a hair Of the dog that bit him_?”

Picture a man--we’ll say a Dutch Meinheer-- In evident emotion, Bent o’er the bulwark of the Batavier, Owning those symptoms queer-- Some feel in a _Sick Transit_ o’er the ocean, Can anything in life be more pathetic Than when he turns to us his wretched face?-- But would it mend his case To be decillionth-dosed With something like the ghost Of an emetic?

Lo! now a darkened room! Look through the dreary gloom, And see that coverlet of wildest form, Tost like the billows in a storm, Where ever and anon, with groans, emerges A ghastly head! While two impatient arms still beat the bed, Like a strong swimmer’s struggling with the surges; There Life and Death are on their battle-plain, With many a mortal ecstasy of pain-- What shall support the body in its trial, Cool the hot blood, wild dream, and parching skin, And tame the raging malady within-- A sniff of Next-to-Nothing in a phial?

Oh! Doctor Hahnemann, if here I laugh, And cry together, half and half, Excuse me, ’tis a mood the subject brings, To think, whilst I have crowed like chanticleer, Perchance, from some dull eye the hopeless tear Hath gushed, with my light levity at schism, To mourn some Martyr of Empiricism! Perchance, on thy own system, I have given A pang superfluous to the pains of Sorrow, Who weeps with Memory from morn till even; Where comfort there is none to lend or borrow, Sighing to one sad strain, “She will not come again, To-morrow, nor to-morrow, nor to-morrow!”

Doctor, forgive me, if I dare prescribe A rule for thee thyself, and all thy tribe, Inserting a few serious words by stealth; _Above all price of wealth The Body’s Jewel,--not for minds profane, Or hands, to tamper with in practice vain-- Like to a Woman’s Virtue is Man’s Health. A heavenly gift within a holy shrine! To be approached and touched with serious fear, By hands made pure, and hearts of faith severe, Even as the priesthood of the ONE divine!_

But, zounds! each fellow with a suit of black, And, strange to fame, With a diploma’d name, That carries two more letters pick-a-back, With cane, and snuff-box, powdered wig, and block, Invents _his_ dose, as if it were a chrism, And dares to treat our wondrous mechanism, Familiar as the works of old Dutch clock; Yet, how would common sense esteem the man, Oh how, my unrelated German cousin, Who having some such time-keeper on trial, And finding it too fast, enforced the dial To strike upon the Homœopathic plan Of fourteen to the dozen? Take my advice, ’tis given without a fee, Drown, drown your book ten thousand fathoms deep Like Prospero’s beneath the briny sea, For spells of magic have all gone to sleep! Leave no decillionth fragment of your works, To help the interests of quacking Burkes; Aid not in murdering even widow’s mites,-- And now forgive me for my candid zeal, I had not said so much, but that I feel Should you _take ill_ what here my Muse indites, An Ode-ling more will set you all to rights.

TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITHFIELD MARKET.

“Sweeping our flocks and herds.”--DOUGLAS.

O philanthropic men!-- For this address I need not make apology-- Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen, And planting further off its vile Zoology-- Permit me thus to tell, I like your efforts well, For routing that great nest of Hornithology!

Be not dismay’d although repulsed at first, And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts, Charge on!--you shall upon their hornworks burst, And carry all their _Bull_-warks and their _Ram_-parts.

Go on, ye wholesale drovers! And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds! As wild as Tartar-Curds, That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers, Off with them all!--those restive brutes, that vex Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle; And save the female sex From being cow’d--like Iö--by the cattle!

Fancy,--when droves appear on The hill of Holborn, roaring from its top,-- Your ladies--ready, as they own, to drop, Taking themselves to Thomson’s with a _Fear-on_!

Or, in St. Martin’s Lane, Scared by a Bullock, in a frisky vein,-- Fancy the terror of your timid daughters While rushing souse Into a coffee-house, To find it--Slaughter’s.

Or fancy this:-- Walking along the street, some stranger Miss, Her head with no such thought of danger laden, When suddenly ’tis “Aries Taurus Virgo!” You don’t know Latin, I translate it ergo, Into your Areas a Bull throws the Maiden! Think of some poor old crone Treated, just like a penny, with a toss! At that vile spot now grown So generally known For making a Cow Cross!

Nay, fancy your own selves far off from stall, Or shed, or shop--and that an Ox infuriate Just pins you to the wall, Giving you a strong dose of _Oxy-Muriate_!

Methinks I hear the neighbours that live round The Market-ground Thus make appeal unto their civic fellows-- “’Tis well for you that live apart--unable To hear this brutal Babel, But our _firesides_ are troubled with their _bellows_.

“Folks that too freely sup Must e’en put up With their own troubles if they can’t digest; But we must needs regard The case as hard The _others’_ victuals should disturb our rest, That from our sleep _your_ food should start and jump us! We like, ourselves, a steak, But, Sirs, for pity’s sake! We don’t want oxen at our doors to _rump-us_!

“If we _do_ doze--it really is too bad! We constantly are roar’d awake or rung, Through bullocks mad That run in all the ‘Night Thoughts’ of our Young!”

Such are the woes of sleepers--now let’s take The woes of those that wish to keep _a Wake_. Oh think! when Wombell gives his annual feasts, Think of these “Bulls of Basan,” far from mild ones; Such fierce tame beasts, That nobody much cares to see the Wild ones!

Think of the Show woman, “what shows a Dwarf,” Seeing a red Cow come To swallow her Tom Thumb, And forc’d with broom of birch to keep her off!

Think, too, of Messrs. Richardson and Co., When looking at their public private boxes, To see in the back row Three live sheep’s heads, a porker’s and an Ox’s! Think of their Orchestra, when two horns come Through, to accompany the double drum!

Or, in the midst of murder and remorses, Just when the Ghost is certain, A great rent in the curtain, And enter two tall skeletons--of Horses!

Great philanthropics! pray urge these topics! Upon the solemn Councils of the Nation, Get a Bill soon, and give, some noon, The Bulls, a Bull of Excommunication!

Let the old Fair have fair-play as its right, And to each show and sight Ye shall be treated with a Free List latitude; To Richardson’s Stage Dramas, Dio--and Cosmo--ramas, Giants and Indians wild, Dwarf, Sea Bear, and Fat Child, And that most rare of Shows--a Show of gratitude!

TO MARY

AT NO. 1, NEWGATE.

_Favoured by Mr. Wontner._

O Mary, I believ’d you true, And I was blest in so believing; But till this hour I never knew-- That you were taken up for thieving!

Oh! when I snatch’d a tender kiss Or some such trifle when I courted, You said, indeed, that love was bliss, But never owned you were transported!

But then to gaze on that fair face-- It would have been an unfair feeling, To dream that you had pilfered lace-- And Flints had suffered from your stealing!

Or when my suit I first preferr’d, To bring your coldness to repentance, Before I hammer’d out a word, How could I dream you’d heard a sentence!

Or when with all the warmth of youth I strove to prove my love no fiction, How could I guess I urged a truth On one already past conviction!

How could I dream that ivory part, Your hand--where I have look’d and linger’d, Altho’ it stole away my heart, Had been held up as one light-finger’d!

In melting verse your charms I drew, The charms in which my muse delighted-- Alas! the lay I thought was new, Spoke only what had been _indicted_!

Oh! when that form, a lovely one, Hung on the neck its arms had flown to, I little thought that you had run A chance of hanging on your own too.

You said you pick’d me from the world, My vanity it now must shock it-- And down at once my pride is hurl’d, You’ve pick’d me--and you’ve pick’d a pocket.

Oh! when our love had got so far, The bans were read by Dr. Daley, Who asked if there was any _bar_-- Why did not some one shout “Old Bailey?”

But when you rob’d your flesh and bones In that pure white that angel garb is, Who could have thought you, Mary Jones, Among the Joans that link with _Darbies_?

And when the parson came to say, My goods were yours, if I had got any, And you should honour and obey, Who could have thought--“O Bay of Botany.”

But, oh,--the worst of all your slips I did not till this day discover-- That down in Deptford’s prison ships, Oh, Mary! you’ve a hulking lover!

No. II.

“Love, with a witness.”

He has shaved off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows, Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,-- But it’s him--Oh it’s him!--we exchanged lovers’ vows, When I lived up in Cavendish Square.

He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same, And his voice was as soft as a flute--

[Illustration: FANNY.]

[Illustration: FINDING A MAY’R’S NEST.]

Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d when he came, To make love in his master’s best suit.

If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth, I shall never forget what he told; How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth, With their jewels and silver and gold!

When he kissed me and bade me adieu with a sigh, By the light of the sweetest of moons, Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!

No. III.

“I’d be a Parody.”--BAILEY.

We met--’twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me-- I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me; He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unalter’d, I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs falter’d. I wore my bran new boots--and unrivall’d their brightness, They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness! I call’d, but no one came, and my stride had a tether; Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!

And once again we met--and an old pal was near him, He swore a something low--but ’twas no use to fear him; I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only, And stept--as he deserv’d--to cells wretched and lonely; And there he will be tried--but I shall ne’er receive her, The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver; The world may think me gay,--heart and feet ache together, Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather.

TO FANNY.

“Gay being, born to flutter!”--SALE’S GLEE.

Is this your faith, then, Fanny! What, to chat with every Dun? I’m the one, then, but of many, Not of many, but the _One_!

Last night you smil’d on all, Ma’am, That appear’d in scarlet dress; And your Regimental Ball, Ma’am, Look’d a little like a _Mess_.

I thought that of the Sogers (As the Scotch say) one might do; And that I, slight Ensign Rogers, Was the chosen man and true.

But ‘Sblood! your eye was busy With that ragamuffin mob;-- Colonel Buddell--Colonel Dizzy-- And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb.

General Joblin, General Jodkin, Colonels--Kelly, Felly, with Majors--Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin And the Quarter-master Smith.

Major Powderum--Major Dowdrum-- Major Chowdrum--Major Bye-- Captain Tawney--Captain Fawney, Captain Any-one--but I!

Deuce take it! when the regiment You so praised, I only thought That you lov’d it in abridgement, But I now am better taught!

I went, as loving man goes, To admire thee in quadrilles; But Fan, you dance fandangoes With just any fop that wills!

I went with notes before us, On the lay of Love to touch; But with all the Corps in chorus, Oh! it is indeed too much!

You once--ere you contracted For the Army--seem’d my own; But now you laugh with all the Staff, And I may sigh alone!

I know not how it chances, When my passion ever dares, But the warmer my advances, Then the cooler are your airs.

I am, I don’t conceal it, But I am a little hurt; You’re a Fan, and I must feel it, Fit for nothing but a _Flirt_!

I dreamt thy smiles of beauty On myself alone did fall; But alas! “Cosi Fan Tutti!” It is thus, Fan, thus with all!

You have taken quite a mob in Of new military flames;-- They would make a fine Round Robin If I gave you all their names!

TO MR. MALTHUS.

My dear, do pull the bell, And pull it well, And send those noisy children all up stairs, Now playing here like bears-- You George, and William, go into the grounds, Charles, James, and Bob are there,--and take your string, Drive horses, or fly kites, or anything, You’re quite enough to play at hare and hounds,-- You little May, and Caroline, and Poll, Take each your doll, And go, my dears, into the two-back pair, Your sister Margaret’s there-- Harriet and Grace, thank God, are both at school, At far off Ponty Pool-- I want to read, but really can’t get on-- Let the four twins, Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, Go--to their nursery--go--I never can Enjoy my Malthus among such a clan!

Oh Mr. Malthus, I agree In everything I read with thee! The world’s too full, there is no doubt, And wants a deal of thinning out,-- It’s plain--as plain as Harrow Steeple-- And I agree with some thus far, Who say the Queen’s too popular, That is,--she has too many people.

There are too many of all trades, Too many bakers, Too many every-thing-makers, But not too many undertakers,-- Too many boys,-- Too many hobby-de-hoys,-- Too many girls, men, widows, wives and maids,-- There is a dreadful surplus to demolish, And yet some Wrongheads, With thick not long heads, Poor Metaphysicians! Sign petitions Capital punishment to abolish; And in the face of censuses such vast ones New hospitals contrive, For keeping life alive, Laying first stones, the dolts! instead of last ones! Others, again, in the same contrariety, Deem that of all Humane Society They really deserve thanks, Because the two banks of the Serpentine, By their design, Are Saving Banks. Oh! were it given but to me to weed The human breed, And root out here and there some cumbering elf, I think I could go through it, And really do it With profit to the world and to myself,-- For instance, the unkind among the Editors, My debtors, those I mean to say Who cannot or who will not pay And all my creditors.

These, for my own sake, I’d destroy; But for the world’s, and every one’s, I’d hoe up Mrs. G--’s two sons, And Mrs. B--’s big little boy, Call’d only by herself an “only joy.” As Mr. Irving’s chapel’s not too full, Himself alone I’d pull-- But for the peace of years that have to run, I’d make the Lord Mayor’s a perpetual station, And put a period to rotation, By rooting up all Aldermen but one,-- These are but hints what good might thus be done! But ah! I fear the public good Is little by the public understood,-- For instance--if with flint, and steel, and tinder, Great Swing, for once a philanthropic man Proposed to throw a light upon thy plan, No doubt some busy fool would hinder His burning all the Foundling to a cinder.

Or, if the Lord Mayor, on an Easter Monday, That wine and bun-day, Proposed to poison all the little Blue-coats Before they died by bit or sup, Some meddling Marplot would blow up, Just at the moment critical, The economy political Of Saving their fresh yellow plush and new coats. Equally ’twould be undone, Suppose the Bishop of London, On that great day In June or May, When all the large small family of charity, Brown, black, or carroty, Walk in their dusty parish shoes In too, too many two-and-twos, To sing together till they scare the walls Of old St. Paul’s, Sitting in red, grey, green, blue, drab, and white, Some say a gratifying sight, Tho’ I think sad--but that’s a schism-- To witness so much pauperism--

Suppose, I say, the Bishop then, to make In this poor overcrowded world more room, Proposed to shake Down that immense extinguisher, the dome-- Some humane Martin in the charity _Gal_-way I fear would come and interfere, Save beadle, brat, and overseer, To walk back in their parish shoes, In too, too many two-and-twos, Islington--Wapping--or Pall Mall way!

Thus people hatch’d from goose’s egg, Foolishly think a pest a plague, And in its face their doors all shut, On hinges oil’d with cajeput-- Drugging themselves with drams well spiced and cloven, And turning pale as linen rags, At hoisting up of yellow flags, While you and I are crying “Orange Boven!” Why should we let precautions so absorb us, Or trouble shipping with a quarantine-- When if I understand the thing you mean, We ought to _import_ the Cholera Morbus!

TO ST. SWITHIN.

“The rain it raineth every day.”

The Dawn is overcast, the morning low’rs, On ev’ry window-frame hang beaded damps Like rows of small illumination lamps, To celebrate the Jubilee of Show’rs! A constant sprinkle patters from all leaves, The very Dryads are not dry, but soppers, And from the Houses’ eaves Tumble eaves-droppers.

The hundred clerks that live along the street, Bondsmen to mercantile and City schemers, With squashing, sloshing and galoching feet, Go paddling, paddling, through the wet, like steamers, Each hurrying to earn the daily stipend-- Umbrellas pass of every shade of green, And now and then a crimson one is seen, Like an Umbrella _ripen’d_.

Over the way a waggon Stands with six smoking horses, shrinking, blinking, While in the George and Dragon The man is keeping himself dry--and drinking! The Butcher’s boy skulks underneath his tray, Hats shine--shoes don’t--and down droop collars, And one blue Parasol cries all the way To school, in company with four small scholars!

Unhappy is the man to-day who rides, Making his journey sloppier, not shorter; Aye, there they go, a dozen of outsides, Performing on “a Stage with real water!” A dripping Pauper crawls along the way, The only real willing out-of-doorer And says, or seems to say, “Well, I am poor enough--but here’s a _pourer_!”

The scene in water colours thus I paint, Is your own Festival, you Sloppy Saint! Mother of all the Family of Rainers! Saint of the Soakers! Making all people croakers, Like frogs in swampy marshes, and complainers! And why you mizzle forty days together, Giving the earth your water-soup to sup, I marvel--Why such wet, mysterious weather? I wish you’d _clear it up_! Why cast such cruel dampers On pretty Pic Nics, and against all wishes Set the cold ducks a-swimming in the hampers, And volunteer, unask’d, to wash the dishes? Why drive the Nymphs from the selected spot, To cling like lady-birds around a tree-- Why spoil a Gipsy party at their tea, By throwing your cold water upon hot?

Cannot a rural maiden, or a man, Seek Hornsey-Wood by invitation, sipping Their green with Pan, But souse you come, and show their Pan, all dripping! Why upon snow-white table-cloths and sheets, That do not wait, or want a second washing, Come squashing? Why task yourself to lay the dust in streets, As if there were no Water-Cart contractors, No pot-boys spilling beer, no shop-boys ruddy Spooning out puddles muddy, Milkmaids, and other slopping benefactors!

A Queen you are, raining in your own right, Yet oh! how little flatter’d by report! Even by those that seek the Court, Pelted with every term of spleen and spite. Folks rail and swear at you in every place; They say you are a creature of no bowel; They say you’re always washing Nature’s face, And that you then supply her, With nothing drier, Than some old wringing cloud by way of towel! The whole town wants you duck’d, just as you duck it, They wish you on your own mud porridge supper’d, They hope that you may kick your own big bucket, Or in your water-butt go sous! heels up’ard! They are, in short, so weary of your drizzle, They’d spill the water in your veins to stop it-- Be warn’d! You are too partial to a mizzle-- Pray _drop it_!

LINES TO A LADY ON HER DEPARTURE FOR INDIA.

Go where the waves run rather Holborn-hilly, And tempests make a soda-water sea, Almost as rough as our rough Piccadilly, And think of me!

Go where the mild Madeira ripens _her_ juice,-- A wine more praised than it deserves to be! Go pass the Cape, just capable of ver-juice, And think of me!

Go where the Tiger in the darkness prowleth, Making a midnight meal of he and she; Go where the Lion in his hunger howleth, And think of me!

Go where the serpent dangerously coileth, Or lies along at full length like a tree, Go where the Suttee in her own soot broileth, And think of me!

Go where with human notes the Parrot dealeth In mono-_polly_-logue with tongue as free, And like a woman, all she can revealeth, And think of me!

Go to the land of muslin and nankeening, And parasols of straw where hats should be, Go to the land of slaves and palankeening, And think of me!

Go to the land of Jungles and of vast hills, And tall bamboos--may none _bamboozle_ thee! Go gaze upon their Elephants and Castles, And think of me!

Go where a cook must always be a currier, And parch the pepper’d palate like a pea, Go where the fierce musquito is a worrier, And think of me!

Go where the maiden on a marriage plan goes, Consign’d for wedlock to Calcutta’s quay, Where woman goes for mart, the same as mangoes, And think of me!

Go where the sun is very hot and fervent, Go to the land of pagod and rupee, Where every black will be your slave and servant, And think of me!

SIR JOHN BOWRING.

To Bowring, man of many tongues, (All over tongues like rumour) This tributary verse belongs To paint his learned humour; All kinds of gabs he talks, I wis, From Latin down to Scottish; As fluent as a parrot is, But far more _Polly_-glottish! No grammar too abstruse he meets However dark and verby,-- He gossips Greek about the streets, And often _Russ_--in urbe--: Strange tongues whate’er you do them call, In short the man is able To tell you what’s _o’clock_ in all The _dialects_ of Babel. Take him on ‘Change; try Portuguese, The Moorish and the Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, Tyrolese, The Swedish and the Danish; Try him with these and fifty such, His skill will ne’er diminish, Although you should begin in Dutch And end (like me) in _Finnish_.

TO MR. M‘ADAM.

“Let us take to the road!”--_Beggar’s Opera._

Madam, hail! Hail, Roadian! hail, Collossus! who dost stand Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land! Oh universal Leveller! all hail! To thee, a good, yet stony-hearted man, The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going,-- To thee,--how much for thy commodious plan, Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing! The Bristol mail Gliding o’er ways, hitherto deem’d invincible, When carrying Patriots, now shall never fail Those of the most “_unshaken_ public principle.” Hail to thee, Scot of Scots! Thou northern light, amid those heavy men! Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside, Thou scatter’st flints and favours far and wide, From palaces to cots;-- Dispenser of coagulated good! Distributor of granite and of food! Long may thy fame its even path march on, E’en when thy sons are dead! Best benefactor! though thou giv’st a stone To those who ask for bread!

Thy first great trial in this mighty town Was, if I rightly recollect, upon That gentle hill which goeth Down from “the County” to the Palace gate, And, like a river, thanks to thee, now floweth Past the Old Horticultural Society,-- The chemist Cobb’s, the house of Howell and James, Where ladies play high shawl and satin games-- A little _Hell_ of lace! And past the Athenæum, made of late, Severs a sweet variety Of milliners and booksellers who grace Waterloo Place, Making division, the Muse fears and guesses, ’Twixt Mr. Rivington’s and Mr Hessey’s. Thou stood’st thy trial, Mac! and shaved the road From Barber Beaumont’s to the King’s abode So well, that paviours threw their rammers by, Let down their tuck’d shirt sleeves, and with a sigh Prepared themselves, poor souls, to chip or die!

Next, from the palace to the prison, thou Didst go, the highway’s watchman, to thy beat,-- Preventing though the _rattling_ in the street, Yet kicking up a row, Upon the stones--ah! truly watchman-like, Encouraging thy victims all to strike, To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily;-- Thou hast smoothed, alas, the path to the Old Bailey! And to the stony bowers Of Newgate, to encourage the approach, By caravan or coach,-- Hast strewed the way with flints as soft as flowers.

Who shall dispute thy name! Insculpt in stone in every street, We soon shall greet Thy trodden down, yet all unconquered fame! Where’er we take, even at this time, our way, Nought see we, but mankind in open air, Hammering thy fame, as Chantrey would not dare;-- And with a patient care Chipping thy immortality all day! Demosthenes, of old,--that rare old man,-- Prophetically _followed_, Mac! thy plan:-- For he, we know, (History says so,) Put _pebbles_ in his mouth when he would speak The _smoothest_ Greek! It is “impossible, and cannot be,” But that thy genius hath, Besides the turnpike, many another path Trod, to arrive at popularity. O’er Pegasus, perchance, thou hast thrown a thigh, Nor ridden a roadster only;--mighty Mac! And ‘faith I’d swear, when on that wingèd hack, Thou hast observed the highways in the sky! Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep, And “hard to climb,” as Dr. B. would say? Dost think it best for Sons of Song to keep The noiseless _tenor_ of their way? (see Gray.) What line of road _should_ poets take to bring Themselves unto those waters, loved the first!-- Those waters which can wet a man to sing! Which, like thy fame, “from _granite_ basins burst, Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thirst?”

That thou’rt a proser, even thy birthplace might Vouchsafe;--and Mr. Cadell _may_, God wot, Have paid thee many a pound for many a blot,-- Cadell’s a wayward wight! Although no Walter, still thou art a Scot, And I can throw, I think, a little light Upon some works thou hast written for the town,-- And published, like a Lilliput Unknown! “Highways and Byeways” is thy book, no doubt, (One whole edition’s out,) And next, for it is fair That Fame, Seeing her children, should confess she had ’em;-- “Some _Passages_ from the life of Adam Blair,”-- (Blair is a Scottish name,) What are they, but thy own good roads, M‘Adam?

O! indefatigable labourer In the paths of men! when thou shalt die, ’twill be A mark of thy surpassing industry, That of the monument, which men shall rear Over thy most inestimable bone, Thou didst thy very self lay the first stone!-- Of a right ancient line thou comest,--through Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue, Until we see thy sire before our eyes,-- Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise! But he, our great Mac Parent, erred, and ne’er Have our walks since been fair? Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on ‘Change, For ever varying, through his varying range, Time maketh all things even! In this strange world, turning beneath high heaven, He hath redeemed the Adams, and contrived,-- (How are time’s wonders hived!) In pity to mankind, and to befriend ’em,-- (Time is above all praise,) That he, who first did make our evil ways, Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend ’em!

A _FRIENDLY_ EPISTLE TO MRS. FRY, _IN_ NEWGATE.

“Sermons in stones.”--_As You Like It._ “Out! out! damned spot!”--_Macbeth._

I like you, Mrs. Fry! I like your name! It speaks the very warmth you feel in pressing In daily act round Charity’s great flame-- I like the crisp brown way you have of dressing, Good Mrs. Fry! I like the placid claim You make to Christianity,--professing Love, and good _works_--of course you buy of Barton, Beside the young _fry’s_ bookseller, Friend Darton!

I like, good Mrs. Fry, your brethren mute-- Those serious, solemn gentlemen that sport-- I should have said, that _wear_, the sober suit Shaped like a court dress--but for heaven’s court. I like your sisters too,--sweet Rachel’s fruit-- Protestant nuns! I like their stiff support Of virtue--and I like to see them clad With such a difference--just like good from bad!

I like the sober colours--not the wet; Those gaudy manufactures of the rainbow-- Green, orange, crimson, purple, violet-- In which the fair, the flirting, and the vain, go-- The others are a chaste, severer set, In which the good, the pious, and the plain, go-- They’re moral _standards_, to know Christians by-- In short, they are your _colours_, Mrs. Fry!

As for the naughty tinges of the prism-- Crimson’s the cruel uniform of war-- Blue--hue of brimstone! minds no catechism; And green is young and gay--not noted for Goodness, or gravity, or quietism, Till it is saddened down to tea-green, or Olive--and purple’s given to wine, I guess; And yellow is a convict by its dress!

They’re all the devil’s liveries, that men And women wear in servitude to sin-- But how will they come off; poor motleys, when Sin’s wages are paid down, and they stand in The Evil presence? You and I know, then How all the party colours will begin To part--the _Pit_tite hues will sadden there, Whereas the _Fox_ite shades will all show fair!

Witness their goodly labours one by one! _Russet_ makes garments for the needy poor-- _Dove-colour_ preaches love to all--and _dun_ Calls every day at Charity’s street-door-- _Brown_ studies scripture, and bids woman shun All gaudy furnishing--_olive_ doth pour Oil into wounds: and _drab_ and _slate_ supply Scholar and book in Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

Well! Heaven forbid that I should discommend The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavour! When all persuasions in your praises blend-- The Methodist’s creed and cry are, _Fry_ for ever! No--I will be your friend--and, like a friend, Point out your very worst defect--Nay, never Start at that word!--But I _must_ ask you why You keep your school _in_ Newgate, Mrs. Fry?

Too well I know the price our mother Eve Paid for _her_ schooling: but must all her daughters Commit a petty larceny, and thieve-- Pay down a crime for “_entrance_” to your “_quarters_?” Your classes may increase, but I must grieve Over your pupils at their bread-and-waters! Oh, tho’ it cost you rent--(and rooms run high!) Keep your school _out_ of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

O save the vulgar soul before it’s spoiled! Set up your mounted sign _without_ the gate-- And there inform the mind before ’tis soiled! ’Tis sorry writing on a greasy slate! Nay, if you would not have your labours foiled, Take it _inclining_ tow’rds a virtuous state, Not prostrate and laid flat--else, woman meek! The _upright_ pencil will but hop and shriek!

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to drain The evil spirit from the heart it preys in,-- To bring sobriety to life again, Choked with the vile Anacreontic raisin,-- To wash Black Betty when her black’s ingrain,-- To stick a moral lacquer on Moll Brazen, Of Suky Tawdry’s habits to deprive her; To tame the wild-fowl-ways of Jenny Diver!

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to teach Miss Nancy Dawson on her bed of straw-- To make Long Sal sew up the endless breach She made in manners--to write heaven’s own law On hearts of granite.--Nay, how hard to preach, In cells, that are not memory’s--to draw The moral thread, through the immoral eye Of blunt Whitechapel natures, Mrs. Fry!

In vain you teach them baby-work within: ’Tis but a clumsy botchery of crime; ’Tis but a tedious darning of old sin-- Come out yourself, and stitch up souls in time-- It is too late for scouring to begin When virtue’s ravelled out, when all the prime Is worn away, and nothing sound remains; You’ll fret the fabric out before the stains!

I like your chocolate, good Mrs. Fry! I like your cookery in every way; I like your shrove-tide service and supply;

[Illustration: “A CHILD’S _call_ TO BE DISPOSED OF.”]

[Illustration: “TO LADIES’ EYES A ROUND, BOYS!”]

I like to hear your sweet _Pandeans_ play; I like the pity in your full-brimmed eye; I like your carriage, and your silken grey, Your dove-like habits, and your silent preaching; But I don’t like your Newgatory teaching.

Come out of Newgate, Mrs. Fry! Repair Abroad, and find your pupils in the streets. O, come abroad into the wholesome air, And take your moral place, before Sin seats Her wicked self in the Professor’s chair. Suppose some morals raw! the true receipt’s To dress them in the pan, but do not try To cook them in the fire, good Mrs. Fry!

Put on your decent bonnet, and come out! Good lack! the ancients did not set up schools In jail--but at the _Porch_! hinting, no doubt, That Vice should have a lesson in the rules Before ’twas whipt by law.--O come about, Good Mrs. Fry! and set up forms and stools All down the Old Bailey, and thro’ Newgate-street, But not in Mr. Wontner’s proper seat!

Teach Lady Barrymore, if, teaching, you That peerless Peeress can absolve from dolour; Teach her it is not virtue to pursue Ruin of blue, or any other colour; Teach her it is not Virtue’s crown to rue, Month after month, the unpaid drunken dollar; Teach her that “flooring Charleys” is a game Unworthy one that bears a Christian name.

O come and teach our children--that ar’n’t _ours_-- That heaven’s straight pathway is a narrow way, Not Broad St. Giles’s, where fierce Sin devours Children, like Time--or rather they both prey On youth together--meanwhile Newgate low’rs Ev’n like a black cloud at the close of day, To shut them out from any more blue sky: Think of these hopeless wretches, Mrs. Fry!

You are not nice--go into their retreats, And make them Quakers, if you will.--’Twere best They wore straight collars, and their shirts sans _pleats_; That they had hats _with_ brims,--that they were drest In garbs without _lappels_--than shame the streets With so much raggedness.--You may invest Much cash this way--but it will cost its price, To give a good, round, real _cheque_ to Vice!

In brief,--Oh teach the child its moral rote, Not _in_ the way from which ’twill not depart,-- But _out_--out--out! Oh, bid it walk remote! And if the skies are closed against the smart, Ev’n let him wear the single-breasted coat, For that ensureth singleness of heart.-- Do what you will, his every want supply, _Keep_ him--but _out_ of Newgate, Mrs. Fry!

TO MR. DYMOKE.

THE CHAMPION OF ENGLAND.

“---- Arma Virumque cano!”--VIRGIL.

Mr. Dymoke! Sir Knight! if I may be so bold-- (I’m a poor simple gentleman just come to town,) Is your armour put by, like the sheep in a fold?-- Is your gauntlet ta’en up, which you lately flung down?

Are you--who _that_ day rode so mail’d and admired, Now sitting at ease in a library chair? Have you sent back to Astley the war-horse you hired, With a cheque upon Chambers to settle the fare?

What’s become of the cup? Great tin-plate worker! say! Cup and ball is a game which some people deem fun! Oh: _three golden balls_ haven’t lured you to play Rather false, Mr. D., to all pledges but one?

How defunct is the show that was chivalry’s mimic! The breastplate--the feathers--the gallant array! So fades, so grows dim, and so dies, Mr. Dymoke! The day of brass breeches! as Wordsworth would say!

Perchance in some village remote, with a cot, And a cow, and a pig, and a barndoor, and all;-- You show to the parish that peace is your lot, And plenty,--though absent from Westminster Hall!

And of course you turn every accoutrement now To its separate use, that your wants may be well-met;-- You toss in your breastplate your pancakes, and grow A salad of mustard and cress in your helmet.

And you delve the fresh earth with your falchion, less bright Since hung up in sloth from its Westminster task; And you bake your own bread in your tin; and, Sir Knight, Instead of your brow, put your beer in the casque!

How delightful to sit by your beans and your peas, With a goblet of gooseberry gallantly clutched, And chat of the blood that had deluged the Pleas And drenched the King’s Bench,--if the glove had been touched!

If Sir Columbine Daniel, with knightly pretensions Had snatched your “best doe,”--he’d have flooded the floor;-- Nor would even the best of his crafty inventions, “Life Preservers,” have floated him out of his gore!

Oh, you and your horse! what a couple was there! The man and his _backer_,--to win a great fight! Though the trumpet was loud,--you’d an undisturbed air! And the nag snuffed the feast and the fray _sans_ affright!

Yet strange was the course which the good Cato bore When he waddled tail-wise with the cup to his stall;-- For though his departure was at the front door, Still he went the back way out of Westminster Hall.

He went,--and ’twould puzzle historians to say, When they trust Time’s conveyance to carry your _mail_,-- Whether caution or courage inspired him that day, For though he retreated, he never turned tail.

By my life, he’s a wonderful charger!--The best! Though not for a Parthian corps!--yet for you!-- Distinguished alike at a fray and a feast, What a horse for a grand Retrospective Review!

What a creature to keep a hot warrior cool When the sun’s in the face, and the shade’s far aloof!-- What a _tailpiece_ for Bewick!--or piebald for Poole, To bear him in safety from Elliston’s hoof!

Well! hail to old Cato! the hero of scenes May Astley or age ne’er his comforts abridge;-- Oh, long may he munch Amphitheatre beans, Well “pent up in Utica” over the Bridge!

And to you, Mr. Dymoke, Cribb’s rival, I keep Wishing all country pleasures, the bravest and best! And oh! when you come to the Hummums to sleep, May you lie “like a warrior taking his rest!”

TO JOSEPH GRIMALDI, SENIOR.

“This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit.”

--_Twelfth Night._

Joseph! they say thou’st left the stage, To toddle down the hill of life, And taste the flannell’d ease of age, Apart from pantomimic strife-- “Retired--[for Young would call it so]-- The world shut out”--in Pleasant Row!

And hast thou really wash’d at last From each white cheek the red half-moon! And all thy public Clownship cast, To play the private Pantaloon? All youth--all ages yet to be Shall have a heavy miss of thee!

Thou didst not preach to make us wise-- Thou hadst no finger in our schooling-- Thou didst not “lure us to the skies”-- Thy simple, simple trade was--Fooling! And yet, Heav’n knows! we could--we can Much “better spare a better man!”

Oh, had it pleased the gout to take The reverend Croly from the stage, Or Southey, for our quiet’s sake, Or Mr. Fletcher, Cupid’s sage, Or, damme! namby pamby Poole,-- Or any other clown or fool!

Go, Dibdin--all that bear the name, Go Byeway Highway man! go! go! Go, Skeffy--man of painted fame, But leave thy partner, painted Joe! I could bear Kirby on the wane, Or Signor Paulo with a sprain!

Had Joseph Wilfred Parkins made His grey hairs scarce in private peace-- Had Waithman sought a rural shade-- Or Cobbett ta’en a turnpike lease-- Or Lisle Bowles gone to _Balaam_ Hill-- I think I could be cheerful still!

Had Medwin left off, to his praise, Dead-lion-kicking, like--a friend!-- Had long, long Irving gone his ways To muse on death at _Ponder’s End_-- Or Lady Morgan taken leave Of Letters--still I might not grieve!

But, Joseph--everybody’s Joe!-- Is gone--and grieve I will and must! As Hamlet did for Yorick, so Will I for thee (though not yet dust), And talk as he did when he miss’d The kissing-crust that he had kiss’d!

Ah, where is now thy rolling head! Thy winking, reeling, _drunken_ eyes, (As old Catullus would have said,) Thy oven-mouth, that swallow’d pies-- Enormous hunger--monstrous drouth!-- Thy pockets greedy as thy mouth!

Ah, where thy ears, so often cuff’d!-- Thy funny, flapping, filching hands!-- Thy partridge body, always stuff’d With waifs, and strays, and contrabands!-- Thy foot--like Berkeley’s _Foote_--for why? ’Twas often made to wipe an eye!

Ah, where thy legs--that witty pair! For “great wits jump”--and so did they! Lord! how they leap’d in lamplight air! Caper’d--and bounced--and strode away!-- That years should tame the legs--alack! I’ve seen spring through an Almanack!

But bounds will have their bound--the shocks Of Time will cramp the nimblest toes; And those that frisk’d in silken clocks May look to limp in fleecy hose-- One only--(Champion of the ring) Could ever make his Winter--Spring!

And gout, that owns no odds between The toe of Czar and toe of Clown, Will visit--but I did not mean To moralize, though I am grown Thus sad,--Thy going seem’d to beat A muffled drum for Fun’s retreat!

And, may be--’tis no time to smother A sigh, when two prime wags of London Are gone--thou, Joseph, one,--the other, A Joe!--“sic transit gloria _Munden_!” A third departure some insist on,-- Stage-apoplexy threatens Liston!--

Nay, then, let Sleeping Beauty sleep With ancient “_Dozey_” to the dregs,-- Let Mother Goose wear mourning deep, And put a hatchment o’er her eggs! Let Farley weep--for Magic’s man Is gone--his Christmas Caliban!

Let Kemble, Forbes, and Willet rain, As though they walk’d behind thy bier,-- For since thou wilt not play again, What matters,--if in heav’n or here! Or in thy grave, or in thy bed!-- There’s _Quick_ might just as well be dead!

Oh, how will thy departure cloud The lamplight of the little breast! The Christmas child will grieve aloud To miss his broadest friend and best,-- Poor urchin! what avails to him The cold New Monthly’s _Ghost of Grimm_?

For who like thee could ever stride! Some dozen paces to the mile! The motley, medley coach provide-- Or like Joe Frankenstein compile The _vegetable man_ complete!-- A proper _Covent Garden_ feat!

Oh, who like thee could ever drink, Or eat,--swill--swallow--bolt--and choke! Nod, weep, and hiccup--sneeze and wink?-- Thy very yawn was quite a joke! Though Joseph, Junior, acts not ill, “There’s no Fool like the old Fool” still!

Joseph, farewell! dear funny Joe! We met with mirth,--we part in pain! For many a long, long year must go Ere Fun can see thy like again-- For Nature does not keep great stores Of perfect Clowns--that are not _Boors_!

TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQ.,

EDITOR OF THE “GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE.”

“Dost thou not suspect my years?”--_Much Ado about Nothing._

Oh! Mr. Urban! never must _thou_ lurch A sober age made serious drunk by thee; Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church, And nurse thy little bald Biography.

Oh, my Sylvanus! what a heart is thine! And what a page attends thee! Long may I Hang in demure confusion o’er each line That asks thy little questions with a sigh!

Old tottering years have nodded to their falls, Like pensioners that creep about and die;-- But thou, Old Parr of periodicals, Livest in monthly immortality!

How sweet!--as Byron of _his_ infant said,-- “Knowledge of objects” in thine eye to trace; To see the mild no-meanings of thy head, Taking a quiet nap upon thy face!

How dear through thy Obituary to roam, And not a name of any name to catch! To meet thy Criticism walking home Averse from rows, and never calling “Watch!”

Rich is thy page in soporific things,-- Composing compositions,--lulling men,-- Faded old posies of unburied rings,-- Confessions dozing from an opiate pen:--

Lives of Right Reverends that have never lived,-- Deaths of good people that have really died,-- Parishioners,--hatched,--husbanded,--and wived,-- Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side!

The sacred query,--the remote response,-- The march of serious mind, extremely slow,-- The graver’s cut at some right agèd sconce, Famous for nothing many years ago!

B. asks of C. if Milton e’er did write “Comus,” obscured beneath some Ludlow lid;-- And C., next month, an answer doth indite, Informing B. that Mr. Milton did!

X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea, Caught upon Martin Luther years agone;-- And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee, Long dead, that gathered honey for King John.

There is no end of thee,--there is no end, Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits! Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend, And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets.

Go on, Sylvanus!--Bear a wary eye, The churches cannot yet be quite run out! Some parishes must yet have been passed by,-- There’s Bullock-Smithy has a church no doubt!

Go on--and close the eyes of distant ages! Nourish the names of the undoubted dead! So Epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages, Heavy and lively, though but seldom _red_.

Go on! and thrive! Demurest of odd fellows! Bottling up dulness in an ancient binn! Still live! still prose!--continue still to tell us Old truths! no strangers, though we take them in!

TO W. KITCHENER, M.D.,

AUTHOR OF “THE COOK’S ORACLE,” “OBSERVATIONS ON VOCAL MUSIC,” “THE ART OF INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE,” “PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS ON TELESCOPES, OPERA-GLASSES, AND SPECTACLES,” “THE HOUSEKEEPER’S LEDGER,” AND “THE PLEASURE OF MAKING A WILL.”

“I rule the roast, as Milton says!”--CALEB QUOTEM.

Hail! multifarious man! Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton! Born to enlighten The laws of Optics, Peptics, Music, Cooking-- Master of the Piano--and the Pan-- As busy with the kitchen as the skies! Now looking At some rich stew through Galileo’s eyes,-- Or boiling eggs--timed to a metronome-- As much at home In spectacles as in mere isinglass-- In the art of frying brown--as a digression On music and poetical expression,-- Whereas, how few, of all our cooks, alas! Could tell Calliope from “Callipee!” How few there be Could cleave the lowest for the highest stories, (Observatories,) And turn, like thee, Diana’s calculator, However _cook’s_ synonymous with _Kater_![5] Alas! still let me say, How few could lay The carving knife beside the tuning fork, Like the proverbial _Jack_ ready for any work!

Oh, to behold thy features in thy book! Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate, How it would look! With one raised eye watching the dial’s date, And one upon the roast, gently cast down-- Thy chops--done nicely brown-- The garnish’d brow--with “a few leaves of bay”-- The hair--“done Wiggy’s way!” And still one studious finger near thy brains, As if thou wert just come From editing of some New soup--or hashing Dibdin’s cold remains! Or, Orpheus-like,--fresh from thy dying strains Of music,--Epping luxuries of sound, As Milton says, “in many a bout Of linkëd sweetness long drawn out,” While all thy tame stuff’d leopards listen’d round!

Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal, Standing like Fortune,--on the jack--thy wheel. (Thou art, like Fortune, full of chops and changes, Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye!) Scanning our kitchen, and our vocal ranges, As though it were the same to sing or fry-- Nay, so it is--hear how Miss Paton’s throat Makes “fritters” of a note! And how Tom Cook (Fryer and Singer born By name and nature) oh! how night and morn He for the nicest public taste doth dish up The good things from that Pan of music--Bishop! And is not reading near akin to feeding, Or why should Oxford Sausages be fit Receptacles for wit? Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart, Minced brains into a Tart? Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts, Book-treats, Equally to instruct the Cook and cram her-- Receipts to be devour’d, as well as read, The Culinary Art in gingerbread-- The Kitchen’s _Eaten_ Grammar!

Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page-- Aye, very pleasant in its chatty vein-- So--in a kitchen--would have talk’d Montaigne. That merry Gascon--humourist, and sage! Let slender minds with single themes engage, Like Mr. Bowles with his eternal Pope,-- Or Haydon on perpetual Haydon,--or Hume on--“Twice three make four.” Or Lovelass upon Wills,--Thou goest on Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson! Thy brain is like a rich Kaleidoscope, Stuff’d with a brilliant medley of odd bits, And ever shifting on from change to change, Saucepans--old Songs--Pills--Spectacles--and Spits! Thy range is wider than a Rumford range! Thy grasp a miracle!--till I recall Th’ indubitable cause of thy variety-- Thou art, of course, th’ Epitome of all That spying--frying--singing--mix’d Society Of Scientific Friends, who used to meet Welsh Rabbits--and thyself--in Warren Street!

Oh, hast thou still those Conversazioni, Where learnëd visitors discoursed--and fed? There came Belzoni, Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead-- And gentle Poki--and that Royal Pair, Of whom thou didst declare-- “Thanks to the greatest _Cooke_ we ever read-- They were--what _Sandwiches_ should be--half _bred_?” There famed M‘Adam from his manual toil Relax’d--and freely own’d he took thy hints On “making _Broth_ with _Flints_”-- There Parry came, and show’d thee polar oil For melted butter--Combe with his medullary Notions about the _Skullery_, And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil-- There witty Rogers came, that punning elf! Who used to swear thy book Would really look A _Delphic_ “Oracle,” if laid on _Delf_-- There, once a month, came Campbell and discuss’d His own--and thy own--“_Magazine of Taste_”-- There Wilberforce the Just Came, in his old black suit, till once he traced Thy sly advice to _Poachers_ of Black Folks,-- That “do not break their _yolks_,”-- Which huff’d him home, in grave disgust and haste!

There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore Thy _Patties_--thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore, Who call’d thee “_Kitchen Addison_”--for why? Thou givest rules for Health and Peptic Pills, Forms for made dishes, and receipts for Wills, “_Teaching us how to live and how to die_?” There came thy Cousin-Cook, good Mrs. Fry-- There Trench, the Thames Projector, first brought on His sine _Quay_ non,-- There Martin would drop in on Monday eves, Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath ‘Gainst cattle days and death,-- Answer’d by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves, Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager For fighting on soup meagre-- “And yet (as thou wouldst add) the French have seen A Marshal _Tureen_?” Great was thy Evening Cluster!--often graced With Dollond--Burgess--and Sir Humphry Davy! ’Twas there M’Dermot first inclined to Taste,-- There Colburn learn’d the art of making paste For puffs--and Accum analysed a gravy. Colman--the Cutter of Coleman Street, ’tis said, Came there,--and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head, (His claim to letters)--Kater, too, the Moon’s Crony,--and Graham, lofty on balloons,-- There Croly stalked with holy humour heated, (Who wrote a light-horse play, which Yates completed)-- And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ, And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons,-- Madame Valbrèque thrice honour’d thee, and came With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle,-- The Dibdins,--Tom, Charles, Frognall, came with tuns Of poor old books, old puns! And even Irving spared a night from fame, And talk’d--till thou didst stop him in the middle, To serve round _Tewah-diddle_![6] Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye! So let them:--thou thyself art still a _Host_! Dibdin--Cornaro--Newton--Mrs. Fry! Mrs. Glasse, Mr. Spec!--Lovelass and Weber, Mathews in Quot’em--Moore’s fire-worshipping Gheber-- Thrice-worthy Worthy! seem by thee engross’d! Howbeit the Peptic Cook still rules the roast, Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling,-- And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion! Thou art, sans question, The Corporation’s love--its Doctor _Darling_! Look at the Civic Palate--nay, the Bed Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying “Illustrations of _Lying_!” Ninety square feet of down from heel to head It measured, and I dread Was haunted by a terrible night _Mare_, A monstrous burthen on the corporation!-- Look at the Bill of Fare for one day’s share, Sea-turtles by the score--oxen by droves. Geese, turkeys, by the flock--fishes and loaves Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation Was making up the huge man-mountain’s ration!

Oh! worthy Doctor! surely thou hast driven The squatting Demon from great Garratt’s breast-- (His honour seems to rest!--) And what is thy reward?--Hath London given Thee public thanks for thy important service? Alas! not even The tokens it bestow’d on Howe and Jervis!-- Yet could I speak as Orators should speak Before the Worshipful the Common Council (Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill,) Thou shouldst not miss thy Freedom for a week, Richly engross’d on vellum:--Reason urges That he who rules our cookery--that he Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be A _Citizen_, where sauce can make a _Burgess_!

TO THE DEAN AND CHAPTER OF WESTMINSTER.

“Sure the Guardians of the Temple can never think they get enough.”--

CITIZEN OF THE WORLD.

Oh, very reverend Dean and Chapter, Exhibitors of giant men, Hail to each surplice-back’d adapter Of England’s dead, in her stone den! Ye teach us properly to prize Two-shilling Grays, and Gays, and Handels, And, to throw light upon our eyes, Deal in Wax Queens like old wax candles.

Oh, reverend showmen, rank and file, Call in your shillings, two and two; March with them up the middle aisle, And cloister them from public view. Yours surely are the dusty dead, Gladly ye look from bust to bust, And set a price on each great head, And make it come down with the dust.

Oh, as I see you walk along In ample sleeves and ample back, A pursy and well-order’d throng, Thoroughly fed, thoroughly black! In vain I strive me to be dumb,-- You keep each bard like fatted kid, Grind bones for bread like Fee-faw-fum! And drink from skulls as Byron did!

The profitable Abbey is A sacred ‘Change for stony stock, Not that a speculation ’tis-- The profit’s founded on a rock. Death and the Doctors in each nave Bony investments have inurn’d, And hard ’twould be to find a grave From which “no money is returned!”

Here many a pensive pilgrim, brought By reverence for those learnëd bones, Shall often come and walk your short Two-shilling fare upon the stones--[7] Ye have that talisman of Wealth Which puddling chemists sought of old Till ruin’d out of hope and health-- The Tomb’s the stone that turns to gold!

Oh, licensed cannibals, ye eat Your dinners from your own dead race, Think Gray, preserved--a “funeral meat,” And Dryden, devil’d--after grace, A relish;--and you take your meal From Rare Ben Jonson underdone, Or, whet your holy knives on Steele, To cut away at Addison!

Oh say, of all this famous age, Whose learnëd bones your hopes expect, Oh have ye number’d Rydal’s sage, Or Moore among your Ghosts elect? Lord Byron was not doom’d to make You richer by his final sleep-- Why don’t ye warn the Great to take Their ashes to no other heap!

Southey’s reversion have ye got? With Coleridge, for his body, made A bargain?--has Sir Walter Scott, Like Peter Schlemihl, sold his shade? Has Rogers haggled hard, or sold His features for your marble shows, Or Campbell barter’d ere he’s cold, All interest in his “_bone_ repose?”

Rare is your show, ye righteous men! Priestly Politos,--rare, I ween; But should ye not outside the Den Paint up what in it may be seen? A long green Shakspeare, with a deer Grasp’d in the many folds it died in,-- A Butler stuff’d from ear to ear, Wet White Bears weeping o’er a Dryden!

Paint Garrick up like Mr. Paap, A Giant of some inches high; Paint Handel up, that organ chap, With you, as grinders, in his eye; Depict some plaintive antique thing, And say th’ original may be seen;-- Blind Milton with a dog and string May be the Beggar o’ Bethnal Green!

Put up in Poet’s Corner, near The little door, a platform small; Get there a monkey--never fear, You’ll catch the gapers, one and all! Stand each of ye a Body Guard, A Trumpet under either fin, And yell away in Palace Yard “All dead! All dead! Walk in! Walk in!”

(But when the people are inside, Their money paid--I pray you, bid The keepers not to mount and ride A race around each coffin lid.-- Poor Mrs. Bodkin thought, last year, That it was hard--the woman clacks-- To have so little in her ear-- And be so hurried through the Wax!--)

“Walk in! two shillings only! come! Be not by country grumblers funk’d!-- Walk in, and see th’ illustrious dumb, The Cheapest House for the defunct!” Write up, ’twill breed some just reflection, And every rude surmise ’twill stop-- Write up, that you have no connection (In large)--with any other shop!

And still, to catch the Clowns the more, With samples of your shows in Wax, Set some old Harry near the door To answer queries with his _axe_.-- Put up some general begging-trunk-- Since the last broke by some mishap, You’ve all a bit of General Monk, From the respect you bore his Cap!

ON AN UNFAVOURABLE REVIEW.

“I’ll give him dash for dash.”

Jerdan, farewell! farewell to all Who ever praised me, great or small Your poet’s course is run! A weekly--no, an every-day Reviewer takes my fame away, And I am all undone!

I cannot live an author long! When I did write, O I did wrong To aim at being great; A Diamond Poet in a pin May twinkle on in peace, and win No diamond critic’s hate!

No small inditer of reviews Will analyse his tiny muse, Or lay his sonnets waste; Who strives to prove that Richardson, That calls himself a diamond one, Is but a bard of paste?

The smallest bird that wings the sky May tempt some sparrow shot, and die; But midges still go free! The peace that shuns my board and bed May settle on a lowlier head, And dwell, “St. John, with thee!”

I aimed at higher growth; and now My leaves are withered on the bough, I’m choked by bitter shrubs! O Mr. F. C. W.! What can I christen thy review But one of “Wormwood Scrubs?”

The very man that sought me once-- (Can I so soon be grown a dunce?) _He_ now derides my verse; But who, save me, will fret to find The editor has changed his mind,-- He can’t have got a worse.

TO PEACE.

WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS’S GRAND ROUT.

Oh Peace! oh come with me and dwell-- But stop, for there’s the bell. Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches, On Wednesday, when there’s very few In loft or pew-- Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch’s. Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage-- Hush! there’s a carriage. Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods-- The five Miss Woods. Oh Peace! thou art the Goddess I adore-- There come some more. Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet-- That’s Lord Drum’s footman, for he loves a riot.

Oh Peace! Knocks will not cease. Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d-- That’s Weippert’s band. Oh Peace! now glad I welcome thy approaches-- I hear the sound of coaches. Oh Peace! oh Peace!--another carriage stops-- It’s early for the Blenkinsops.

Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander, But wait till I have show’d up Lady Squander, And now I’ve seen her up the stair, Oh Peace!--but here comes Captain Hare. Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind, Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,-- If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken, Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind; Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,-- Make way there for his Serene Highness!

Oh Peace! if you do not disdain To dwell amongst the menial train, I have a silent place, and lone, That you and I may call our own; Where tumult never makes an entry-- Susan, what business have you in my pantry?

Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk, At variance with his wife--Oh Peace! And that great German, Vander Trunk, And that great talker, Miss Apreece; Oh Peace! so dear to poets’ quills-- They’re just beginning their quadrilles-- Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;-- I wonder where I put my waiter-- Oh Peace!--but here my Ode I’ll cease; I have no peace to write of Peace.

FOR THE NINTH OF NOVEMBER.

O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! I mean of course that venerable town, Mention’d in stories of renown, Built formerly of mud;-- O Lud, I say, why didst thou e’er Invent the office of a Mayor, An office that no useful purpose crowns, But to set Aldermen against each other, That should be Brother unto Brother,-- Sisters at least, by virtue of their gowns? But still if one must have a Mayor To fill the Civic chair, O Lud, I say, Was there no better day To fix on, than November Ninth so shivery And dull for showing off the Livery’s livery? Dimming, alas! The Brazier’s brass, Soiling th’ Embroiderers and all the Saddlers, Sopping the Furriers, Draggling the Curriers, And making Merchant Tailors dirty paddlers: Drenching the Skinners’ Company to the skin, Making the crusty Vintner chiller, And turning the Distiller To cold without instead of warm within;-- Spoiling the bran-new beavers Of Wax-chandlers and Weavers, Plastering the Plasterers and spotting Mercers, Hearty November-cursers-- And showing Cordwainers and dapper Drapers Sadly in want of brushes and of scrapers; Making the Grocer’s company not fit For Company a bit; Dying the Dyers with a dingy flood, Daubing incorporated Bakers, And leading the Patten-makers, Over their very pattens in the mud,-- O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!

“This is a sorry sight,” To quote Macbeth--but oh, it grieves me quite To see your Wives and Daughters in their plumes-- White plumes not white-- Sitting at open windows catching rheums, Not “Angels ever bright and fair,” But angels ever brown and sallow, With eyes--you cannot see above one pair, For city clouds of black and yellow-- And artificial flowers, rose, leaf, and bud, Such sable lilies And grim daffodilies Drooping, but not for drought, O Lud! O Lud!

I may as well, while I’m inclined, Just go through all the faults I find: O Lud! then, with a bitter air, say June, Could’st thou not find a better tune To sound with trumpets, and with drums, Than “See the Conquering Hero comes,” When he who comes ne’er dealt in blood? Thy May’r is not a War Horse, Lud, That ever charged on Turk or Tartar, And yet upon a march you strike That treats him like-- A little French if I may martyr-- Lewis Cart-Horse or Henry Carter! O Lud! I say Do change your day To some time when your Show can really show; When silk can seem like silk, and gold can glow. Look at your Sweepers, how they shine in May Have it when there’s a sun to gild the coach, And sparkle in tiara--bracelet--brooch-- Diamond--or paste--of sister, mother, daughter; When grandeur really may be grand-- But if thy Pageant’s thus obscured by land-- O Lud! it’s ten times worse upon the water! Suppose, O Lud, to show its plan, I call, like Blue Beard’s wife, to sister Anne, Who’s gone to Beaufort Wharf with niece and aunt To see what she can see--and what she can’t; Chewing a saffron bun by way of cud, To keep the fog out of a tender lung, While perch’d in a verandah nicely hung Over a margin of thy own black mud, O Lud!

Now Sister Anne, I call to thee, Look out and see: Of course about the bridge you view them rally And sally,

With many a wherry, sculler, punt, and cutter; The Fishmongers’ grand boat, but not for butter, The Goldsmiths’ glorious galley,-- Of course you see the Lord Mayor’s coach aquatic, With silken banners that the breezes fan, In gold all glowing, And men in scarlet rowing, Like Doge of Venice to the Adriatic; Of course you see all this, O Sister Anne? “No, I see no such thing! I only see the edge of Beaufort Wharf, With two coal lighters fasten’d to a ring: And, dim as ghosts, Two little boys are jumping over posts; And something farther off, That’s rather like the shadow of a dog, And all beyond is fog. If there be any thing so fine and bright, To see it I must see by second sight. Call this a Show? It is not worth a pin! I see no barges row, No banners blow; The show is merely a gallanty-show, Without a lamp or any candle in.”

But sister Anne, my dear, Although you cannot see, you still may hear? Of course you hear, I’m very sure of that, The “Water parted from the Sea” in C, Or “Where the Bee sucks,” set in B; Or Huntsman’s chorus from the Freyschutz frightful, Or Handel’s Water Music in A flat.

Oh music from the water comes delightful! It sounds as no where else it can: You hear it first, In some rich burst, Then faintly sighing, Tenderly dying Away upon the breezes, Sister Anne.

“There is no breeze to die on; And all their drums and trumpets, flutes and harps, Could never cut their way with ev’n three sharps Through such a fog as this, you may rely on. I think, but am not sure, I hear a hum,

Like a very muffled double drum, And then a something faintly shrill, Like Bartlemy Fair’s old buz at Pentonville. And now and then hear a pop, As if from Pedley’s Soda Water shop.

I’m almost ill with the strong scent of mud, And, not to mention sneezing, My cough is, more than usual, teasing; I really fear that I have chill’d my blood, O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud! O Lud!”

ON THE CELEBRATION OF PEACE.

BY DORCAS DOVE.

And is it thus ye welcome Peace, From Mouths of forty-pounding Bores? Oh cease, exploding Cannons, cease! Lest Peace, affrighted, shun our shores!

Not so the quiet Queen should come; But like a Nurse to still our Fears, With Shoes of List, demurely dumb, And Wool or Cotton in her Ears!

She asks for no triumphal Arch; No Steeples for their ropy Tongues; Down, Drumsticks, down, She needs no March, Or blasted Trumps from brazen Lungs.

She wants no Noise of mobbing Throats To tell that She is drawing nigh: Why this Parade of scarlet Coats, When War has closed his bloodshot Eye?

Returning to Domestic Loves, When War has ceased with all its Ills, Captains should come like sucking Doves, With Olive Branches in their Bills.

No need there is of vulgar Shout, Bells, Cannons, Trumpets, Fife, and Drum, And Soldiers marching all about, To let Us know that Peace is come.

Oh mild should be the Signs and meek, Sweet Peace’s Advent to proclaim! Silence her noiseless Foot should speak, And Echo should repeat the same.

Lo! where the Soldier walks, alas! With Scars received on Foreign Grounds; Shall we consume in Coloured Glass The Oil that should be pour’d in Wounds?

The bleeding Gaps of War to close, Will whizzing Rocket-Flight avail? Will Squibs enliven Orphans’ Woes? Or Crackers cheer the Widow’s Tale?

TO MR. ISAAK WALTON,

AT MR. MAJOR’S THE BOOKSELLER’S IN FLEET STREET.

Mr. Walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help wishing You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the young people a fishing! There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a mortal’s bearing, And all thro’ those devilish angling works--the Lord forgive me for swearing! I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty angle! For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all got of a tangle!” It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words--whose blood wouldn’t chill in their veins To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out brains? And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I give her, “How dare you,” says I, “for to stench the whole house by keeping that stinking liver?” Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at the Bagots’,-- But it wasn’t breeding no fever--not it! ’twas my son a breeding of maggots! I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed tainting and going, And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all buzzing and blowing; Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without putting live things in their craniums; Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my choice geraniums. And another fine trick, tho’ it wasn’t found out, till the housemaid had given us warning, He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down in the morning. I’m sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she’d got so attentive a lover, As bring her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a dozen times over! Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our bread goes faster,-- And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off by his master; But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the weight of my own reproaches, For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to feed the roaches! I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom--with all sorts of frights and terrors surrounded! For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home to be drownded. And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married daughter, And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real water, It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him else with my patten, For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch! a studying Greek and Latin, And my ridicule basket he had got on his back, to carry his fishes and gentles; With a belt I knew he’d made from the belt of his father’s regimentals-- Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave him a birching , But he’d gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and perching. One night he never came home to tea, and altho’ it was dark and dripping, His father set off to Wapping, poor man! for the boy had a turn for shipping; As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like a babby, Till at twelve o’clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from Waltham Abbey! And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a fortnight’s hard nussing, Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair’d grave, worn out with the fretting and fussing; But at last he was cur’d, and we did have hopes that the fishing was cured as well, But no such luck! not a week went by before we’d have another such spell. Tho’ he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict intentions, Yet he was soon set up in tackle agin, for all boys have such quick inventions: And I lost my Lady’s Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and poking, Till I found it chuck full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had got a good soaking. Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a law attorney, For the boy had been trespassing people’s grounds while his father was gone a journey, And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton Garden; And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some strange gentleman’s pardon. And wasn’t he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to find him, And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people behind him? Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life--whilst I was a-screaming and raving, And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man for his saving, And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her taking dudgeon? At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook sow’d up in a gudgeon? And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not without show of reason, For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t their moulting season; And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for their screeching and cackles, For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he called them the hackles. A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it wasn’t picking enough, When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out my sable muff-- “O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur was all gone in patches; And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction just matches-- But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies--sham flies to go trolling and trouting, For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first set me a-doubting. A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery danglers! And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world about anglers! And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had nothing worth dishing; So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book about fishing. As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too late to be lucky, For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of Your servant, JANE ELIZABETH STUCKEY.

TO MARY HOUSEMAID.

ON VALENTINE’S DAY.

Mary, you know I’ve no love-nonsense, And, though I pen on such a day, I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience, Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature, It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain, And many a poor unhappy creature May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch, Although your shape was two foot taller, And wisely you let others pinch Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands From getting red by household duty, But, doing all that it commands, Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms And at your old legs sneer and scoff, But let her laugh, for you have charms That nobody knows nothing of.

TO A BAD RIDER.

Why, Mr. Rider, why Your nag so ill indorse, man? To make observers cry, You’re mounted, but no horseman?

With elbows out so far, This thought you can’t debar me-- Though no Dragoon--Hussar-- You’re surely of the army!