XXII.

So he was tried, and he was hung (Fit punishment for such) On Horsham-drop, and none can say It was a drop too much.

THE MONKEY-MARTYR.

A FABLE.

“God help thee, said I, but I’ll let thee out, cost what it will: so I turned about the cage to get to the door.”--STERNE.

’Tis strange, what awkward figures and odd capers Folks cut, who seek their doctrine from the papers; But there are many shallow politicians, Who take their bias from bewilder’d journals,-- Turn state physicians, And make themselves fools’-caps of the diurnals. One of this kind, not human, but a monkey, Had read himself at last to this sour creed-- That he was nothing but Oppression’s flunkey, And man a tyrant over all his breed. He could not read Of niggers whipt, or over-trampled weavers, But he applied their wrongs to his own seed, And nourish’d thoughts that threw him into fevers; His very dreams were full of martial beavers, And drilling Pugs, for liberty pugnacious, To sever chains vexatious: In fact, he thought that all his injur’d line Should take up pikes in hand, and never drop ’em Till they had cleared a road to Freedom’s shrine,-- Unless perchance the turnpike men should stop ’em.

Full of this rancour, Pacing one day beside St. Clement Danes, It came into his brains To give a look in at the Crown and Anchor; Where certain solemn sages of the nation Were at that moment in deliberation How to relieve the wide world of its chains, Pluck despots down, And thereby crown Whitee- as well as blackee-man-cipation. Pug heard the speeches with great approbation, And gaz’d with pride upon the Liberators; To see mere coal-heavers Such perfect Bolivars-- Waiters of inns sublim’d to innovators, And slaters dignified as legislators-- Small publicans demanding (such their high sense Of liberty) an universal license-- And pattern-makers easing Freedom’s clogs-- The whole thing seem’d So fine, he deem’d The smallest demagogues as great as Gogs!

Pug, with some curious notions in his noddle, Walk’d out at last, and turn’d into the Strand, To the left hand, Conning some portions of the previous twaddle, And striding with a step that seem’d design’d To represent the mighty March of Mind, Instead of that slow waddle Of thought, to which our ancestors inclin’d-- No wonder, then, that he should quickly find He stood in front of that intrusive pile, Where Cross keeps many a kind Of bird confin’d, And free-born animal, in durance vile-- A thought that stirr’d up all the monkey-bile! The window stood ajar-- It was not far, Nor, like Parnassus, very hard to climb-- The hour was verging on the supper-time, And many a growl was sent through many a bar. Meanwhile Pug scrambled upward like a tar, And soon crept in, Unnotic’d in the din Of tuneless throats, that made the attics ring With all the harshest notes that they could bring; For like the Jews, Wild beasts refuse, In midst of their captivity--to sing.

Lord! how it made him chafe, Full of his new emancipating zeal, To look around upon this brute-bastille, And see the king of creatures in--a safe! The desert’s denizen in one small den, Swallowing slavery’s most bitter pills-- A bear in bars unbearable. And then The fretful porcupine, with all its quills Imprison’d in a pen! A tiger limited to four feet ten; And, still worse lot, A leopard to one spot! An elephant enlarg’d, But not discharg’d; (It was before the elephant was shot;) A doleful wanderoo, that wander’d not; An ounce much disproportion’d to his pound. Pug’s wrath wax’d hot To gaze upon these captive creature’s round; Whose claws--all scratching--gave him full assurance They found their durance vile of vile endurance.

He went above--a solitary mounter Up gloomy stairs--and saw a pensive group Of hapless fowls-- Cranes, vultures, owls, In fact, it was a sort of Poultry-Compter, Where feather’d prisoners were doom’d to droop: Here sat an eagle, forc’d to make a stoop, Not from the skies, but his impending roof; And there aloof, A pining ostrich, moping in a coop; With other samples of the bird creation, All cag’d against their powers and their wills, And cramp’d in such a space, the longest bills Were plainly bills of least accommodation. In truth, it was a very ugly scene To fall to any liberator’s share, To see those winged fowls, that once had been Free as the wind, no freer than fixed air.

His temper little mended, Pug from this Bird-cage Walk at last descended Unto the lion and the elephant, His bosom in a pant To see all nature’s Free List thus suspended, And beasts depriv’d of what she had intended. They could not even prey In their own way; A hardship always reckon’d quite prodigious. Thus he revolv’d-- And soon resolv’d To give them freedom, civil and religious.

That night there was no country cousins, raw From Wales, to view the lion and his kin; The keeper’s eyes were fix’d upon a saw; The saw was fix’d upon a bullock’s shin: Meanwhile with stealthy paw, Pug hastened to withdraw The bolt that kept the king of brutes within. Now, monarch of the forest! thou shalt win Precious enfranchisement--thy bolts are undone; Thou art no longer a degraded creature, But loose to roam with liberty and nature; And free of all the jungles about London-- All Hampstead’s heathy desert lies before thee! Methinks I see thee bound from Cross’s ark, Full of the native instinct that comes o’er thee, And turn a ranger Of Hounslow Forest, and the Regent’s Park-- Thin Rhodes’s cows--the mail-coach steeds endanger, And gobble parish watchmen after dark:-- Methinks I see thee, with the early lark, Stealing to Merlin’s cave--(_thy_ cave.)--Alas, That such bright visions should not come to pass! Alas, for freedom, and for freedom’s hero! Alas, for liberty of life and limb! For Pug had only half unbolted Nero, When Nero _bolted him_!

CRANIOLOGY.

’Tis strange how like a very dunce, Man--with his bumps upon his sconce, Has lived so long, and yet no knowledge he Has had, till lately, of Phrenology-- A science that by simple dint of Head-combing he should find a hint of, When scratching o’er those little pole-hills, The faculties throw up like mole-hills; A science that, in very spite Of all his teeth, ne’er came to light, For though he knew his skull had _grinders_, Still there turn’d up no _organ_ finders, Still sages wrote, and ages fled, And no man’s head came in his head-- Not even the pate of Erra Pater, Knew aught about its pia mater. At last great Dr. Gall bestirs him-- I don’t know but it might be Spurzheim-- Tho’ native of a dull and slow land, And makes partition of our Poll-land, At our Acquisitiveness guesses, And all those necessary _nesses_

[Illustration: VIOLINIST.]

[Illustration: A PLASTER CAST.]

Indicative of human habits, All burrowing in the head like rabbits. Thus Veneration, he made known, Had got a lodging at the Crown: And Music (see Deville’s example), A set of chambers in the Temple: That Language taught the tongues close by, And took in pupils thro’ the eye, Close by his neighbour Computation, Who taught the eyebrows numeration.

The science thus--to speak in fit Terms--having struggled from its nit, Was seiz’d on by a swarm of Scotchmen, Those scientifical hotch-potch men, Who have at least a penny dip And wallop in all doctorship, Just as in making broth they smatter By bobbing twenty things in water: These men, I say, make quick appliance And close, to phrenologic science; For of all learned themes whatever, That schools and colleges deliver, There’s none they love so near the bodles, As analyzing their own noddles; Thus in a trice each northern blockhead Had got his fingers in his shock head, And of his bumps was babbling yet worse Than poor Miss Capulet’s dry wet-nurse; Till having been sufficient rangers Of their own heads, they took to strangers’, And found in Presbyterians’ polls The things they hated in their souls; For Presbyterians hear with passion Of organs join’d with veneration. No kind there was of human pumpkin, But at its bumps it had a bumpkin; Down to the very lowest gullion, And oiliest scull of oily scullion. No great man died but this they _did_ do, They begg’d his cranium of his widow; No murderer died by law disaster, But they took off his sconce in plaster; For thereon they could show depending, “The head and front of his offending,” How that his philanthropic bump Was master’d by a baser lump; For every bump (these wags insist) Has its direct antagonist, Each striving stoutly to prevail, Like horses knotted tail to tail; And many a stiff and sturdy battle Occurs between these adverse cattle, The secret cause, beyond all question, Of aches ascribed to indigestion,-- Whereas ’tis but two knobby rivals Tugging together like sheer devils, Till one gets mastery good or sinister, And comes in like a new prime-minister.

Each bias in some master node is:-- What takes M‘Adam where a road is, To hammer little pebbles less? His organ of destructiveness: What makes great Joseph so encumber Debate? a lumping lump of Number: Or Malthus rail at babies so? The smallness of his Philopro-- What severs man and wife? a simple Defect of the Adhesive pimple: Or makes weak women go astray? Their bumps are more in fault than they.

These facts being found and set in order By grave M.D.’s beyond the Border, To make them for some months eternal, Were enter’d monthly in a journal, That many a northern sage still writes in, And throws his little Northern Lights in, And proves and proves about the phrenos, A great deal more than I or he knows. How Music suffers, _par exemple_, By wearing tight hats round the temple; What ills great boxers have to fear From blisters put behind the ear: And how a porter’s Veneration Is hurt by porter’s occupation: Whether shillelaghs in reality May deaden Individuality: Or tongs and poker be creative Of alterations in the Amative: If falls from scaffolds make us less Inclin’d to all Constructiveness: With more such matters, all applying To heads--and therefore _head_ifying.

A SAILOR’S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS.

There’s some is born with their straight legs by natur-- And some is born with bow-legs from the first-- And some that should have grow’d a good deal straighter, But they were badly nurs’d, And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs Astride of casks and kegs: I’ve got myself a sort of bow to larboard, And starboard, And this is what it was that warp’d my legs.--

’Twas all along of Poll, as I may say, That foul’d my cable when I ought to slip; But on the tenth of May, When I gets under weigh, Down there in Hartfordshire, to join my ship, I sees the mail Get under sail, The only one there was to make the trip. Well--I gives chase, But as she run Two knots to one, There warn’t no use in keeping on the race! Well--casting round about, what next to try on, And how to spin, I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, And bears away to leeward for the inn, Beats round the gable, And fetches up before the coach-horse stable: Well--there they stand, four kickers in a row, And so I just makes free to cut a brown ‘un’s cable. But riding isn’t in a seaman’s natur-- So I whips out a toughish end of yarn, And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter To splice me, heel to heel, Under the she-mare’s keel, And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn!

My eyes! how she did pitch! And wouldn’t keep her own to go in no line, Tho’ I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line But always making leeway to the ditch, And yaw’d her head about all sorts of ways; The devil sink the craft! And wasn’t she trimendus slack in stays! We couldn’t, no how, keep the inn abaft! Well--I suppose We hadn’t run a knot--or much beyond-- (What will you have on it?)--but off she goes, Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond! There I am!--all a-back! So I looks forward for her bridle-gears, To heave her head round on the t’other track; But when I starts, The leather parts, And goes away right over by the ears!

What could a fellow do, Whose legs, like mine, you know, were in the bilboes, But trim myself upright for bringing-to, And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows, In rig all snug and clever, Just while his craft was taking in her water? I didn’t like my burth tho’, howsomdever, Because the yarn, you see, kept getting taughter,-- Says I--I wish this job was rayther shorter! The chase had gain’d a mile A-head, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking: Now, all the while Her body didn’t take of course to shrinking. Says I, she’s letting out her reefs, I’m thinking,-- And so she swell’d, and swell’d, And yet the tackle held, ’Till both my legs began to bend like winkin. My eyes! but she took in enough to founder! And there’s my timbers straining every bit, Ready to split, And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder!

Well, there--off Hartford Ness, We lay both lash’d and water-logg’d together, And can’t contrive a signal of distress; Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, Tho’ sick of riding out--and nothing less; When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn:-- Hollo! says I, come underneath her quarter!-- And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn. So I gets off, and lands upon the road, And leaves the she-mare to her own concarn, A-standing by the water. If I get on another, I’ll be blowed!-- And that’s the way, you see, my legs got bow’d!

THE STAG-EYED LADY.

A MOORISH TALE.

Scheherazade immediately began the following story.

Ali Ben Ali (did you never read His wond’rous acts that chronicles relate,-- How there was one in pity might exceed The sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate Upon the throne of greatness--great indeed, For those that he had under him were great-- The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails, Was a Bashaw--Bashaws have horses’ tails.

Ali was cruel--a most cruel one! ’Tis rumour’d he had strangled his own mother-- Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done, ’Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother And sister too--but happily that none Did live within _harm’s_ length of one another, Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze To endless night, and shorten’d the Moon’s days.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man’s wit, And makes a bad man--absolutely bad, Made Ali wicked--to a fault:--’tis fit Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had No curb upon his will--no not a _bit_-- Wherefore he did not reign well--and full glad His slaves had been to hang him--but they falter’d, And let him live unhang’d--and still unalter’d,

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard, Wherein an Attic owl might roost--a trail Of bristly hair--that, honour’d and unshear’d, Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail: Being a sign of age--some gray appear’d, Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale; But yet not so poetic as when Time Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex His royal bosom that he had no son, No living child of the more noble sex, To stand in his Morocco shoes--not one To make a negro-pollard--or tread necks When he was gone--doom’d, when his days were done, To leave the very city of his fame Without an Ali to keep up his name.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love, Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear So call’d, because her lustrous eyes, above All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear; Then, through his Muftis piously he strove, And drumm’d with proxy-prayers Mohammed’s ear, Knowing a boy for certain must come of it, Or else he was not praying to his _Profit_.

Beer will grow _mothery_, and ladies fair Will grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame: Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir, Boy’d up his hopes, and even chose a name Of mighty hero that his child should bear; He made so certain ere his chicken came: But oh! all worldly wit is little worth, Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow’s sun A little daughter to this world of sins;-- _Miss_-fortunes never come alone--so one Brought on another, like a pair of twins: Twins! female twins!--it was enough to stun Their little wits and scare them from their skins To hear their father stamp, and curse and swear, Pulling his beard because he had no heir.

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down This his paternal rage, and thus addrest-- “O! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown, And box the compass of the royal chest? Ah! thou wilt mar that portly trunk, I own I love to gaze on!--Pr’ythee, thou hadst best Pocket thy fists. Nay, love, if you so thin Your beard, you’ll want a wig upon your chin!”

But not her words, nor e’en her tears, could slack The quicklime of his rage, that hotter grew: He called his slaves to bring an ample sack Wherein a woman might be _poked_--a few Dark grimly men felt pity and look’d black At this sad order; but their slaveships knew When any dared demur, his sword so bending Cut off the “head and front of their offending.”

For Ali had a sword, much like himself, A crooked blade, guilty of human gore-- The trophies it had lopp’d from many an elf Were stuck at his _head_-quarters by the score-- Nor yet in peace he laid it on the shelf, But jested with it, and his wit cut sore; So that (as they of Public Houses speak) He often did his dozen _butts_ a week.

Therefore his slaves, with most obedient fears, Came with the sack the lady to enclose; In vain from her stag-eyes “the big round tears Coursed one another down her innocent nose;” In vain her tongue wept sorrow in their ears; Though there were some felt willing to oppose, Yet when their heads came in their heads, that minute, Though ’twas a piteous _case_, they put her in it

And when the sack was tied, some two or three Of these black undertakers slowly brought her To a kind of Moorish Serpentine; for she Was doom’d to have _a winding sheet of water_. Then farewell, earth--farewell to the green tree-- Farewell, the sun--the moon--each little daughter! She’s shot from off the shoulders of a black, Like a bag of Wall’s-End from a coalman’s back.

The waters oped, and the wide sack full-fill’d All that the waters oped, as down it fell; Then closed the wave, and then the surface rill’d A ring above her, like a water-knell; A moment more, and all its face was still’d, And not a guilty heave was left to tell That underneath its calm and blue transparence A dame lay drowned in her sack, like Clarence.

But Heaven beheld, and awful witness bore, The moon in black eclipse deceased that night, Like Desdemona smother’d by the Moor-- The lady’s natal star with pale affright Fainted and fell--and what were stars before, Turn’d comets as the tale was brought to light, And all look’d downward on the fatal wave, And made their own reflections on her grave.

Next night, a head--a little lady head, Push’d through the waters a most glassy face, With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread, Comb’d by ‘live ivory, to show the space Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace Over their sleepy lids--and so she rais’d Her _aqua_line nose above the stream, and gazed.

She oped her lips--lips of a gentle blush, So pale it seem’d near drowned to a white,-- She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush Of music bubbling through the surface light; The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush To listen to the air--and through the night There come these words of a most plaintive ditty, Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity:

THE WATER PERI’S SONG.

Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter, The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave; The _Mussul_-man coming to fish in this water, Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.

This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier, This greyish _bath_ cloak is her funeral pall; And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!

Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, My mother’s own daughter--the last of her race-- She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin, And sleeps in the water that washes her face.

FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY.

A PATHETIC BALLAD.

Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war’s alarms: But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms!

Now as they bore him off the field, Said he, “Let others shoot, For here I leave my second leg, And the Forty-second Foot!”

The army-surgeons made him limbs: Said he,--“They’re only pegs: But there’s as wooden members quite, As represent my legs!”

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, Her name was Nelly Gray; So he went to pay her his devours, When he’d devoured his pay!

But when he called on Nelly Gray, She made him quite a scoff; And when she saw his wooden legs, Began to take them off!

“O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray! Is this your love so warm? The love that loves a scarlet coat, Should be more uniform!”

Said she, “I loved a soldier once, For he was blythe and brave; But I will never have a man With both legs in the grave!

“Before you had those timber toes, Your love I did allow, But then, you know, you stand upon Another footing now!”

“O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray! For all your jeering speeches, At duty’s call, I left my legs In Badajos’s _breaches_!”

“Why, then,” said she, “you’ve lost the feet Of legs in war’s alarms, And now you cannot wear your shoes Upon your feats of arms!”

“O, false and fickle Nelly Gray! I know why you refuse: Though I’ve no feet--some other man Is standing in my shoes!

“I wish I ne’er had seen your face; But, now, a long farewell! For you will be my death;--alas! You will not be my _Nell_!”

Now when he went from Nelly Gray, His heart so heavy got-- And life was such a burthen grown, It made him take a knot!

So round his melancholy neck, A rope he did entwine, And, for his second time in life, Enlisted in the Line!

One end he tied around a beam, And then removed his pegs, And, as his legs were off,--of course, He soon was off his legs!

And there he hung, till he was dead As any nail in town,-- For though distress had cut him up, It could not cut him down!