MARTIAL IN TOWN.THE SERVANT OUT OF LIVERY.Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,It is not for thy wit reward:We know that thou canst draw a cork;In carving, use thy knife and fork;Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,And hold an urchin on each knee;Canst sort the cards, set tables right,And see old ladies home at night:With talents of such vast display,Thou'rt but a servant for the day!
Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,It is not for thy wit reward:We know that thou canst draw a cork;In carving, use thy knife and fork;Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,And hold an urchin on each knee;Canst sort the cards, set tables right,And see old ladies home at night:With talents of such vast display,Thou'rt but a servant for the day!
Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,It is not for thy wit reward:We know that thou canst draw a cork;In carving, use thy knife and fork;Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,And hold an urchin on each knee;Canst sort the cards, set tables right,And see old ladies home at night:With talents of such vast display,Thou'rt but a servant for the day!
Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,It is not for thy wit reward:We know that thou canst draw a cork;In carving, use thy knife and fork;Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,And hold an urchin on each knee;Canst sort the cards, set tables right,And see old ladies home at night:With talents of such vast display,Thou'rt but a servant for the day!
Dandle! when thou art asked abroad,
It is not for thy wit reward:
We know that thou canst draw a cork;
In carving, use thy knife and fork;
Canst hand the tea-cups round at tea,
And hold an urchin on each knee;
Canst sort the cards, set tables right,
And see old ladies home at night:
With talents of such vast display,
Thou'rt but a servant for the day!
ASTRONOMICAL AGITATION.REFORM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.FROM OUR OWN REPORTER.Yesterday, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of gentlemen and ladies interested in the stability of the solar system was held, pursuant to advertisement in the Vox Stellarum, True Sun, &c. at the sign of the Great Bear in the North Hemisphere, at OneP.M.(sidereal time).Long before the hour named, the neighbouring constellations were crowded with a brilliant assemblage of all the beauty and fashion of the upper regions. Amongst the glittering throng we noticed nearly all the stars of any magnitude occupying their accustomed places, together with deputations from various influential bodies interested in the support of the system; the principal Nebulæ, several Signs of the Zodiac, a deputation from the Electro-magnetic Grand Junction Company, and from the Galvanic Branch Association, his Highness the Meridian with several degrees of Longitude, the Equator with the Latitudinarian party, the Torrid Zone and his Tropics, their High Mightinesses the Hurricanes, Mr. Monsoon and the Trades' Union of the South Hemisphere, the Æthereal and Atmospheric Alliance Company, and, though last not least, their Royal Highnesses the Planets, who came in state, attended by a guard of honour of their Satellites in rings and belts, under a royal salute of Thunder and Lightning.The great Area of the Constellation was brilliantly lit with Zodiacal light. Notwithstanding the exertions of a strong party of the Centrifugal Police Force, assisted by the Comets from the out-stations under Inspector Halley, and a detachment of the South African Asteroids, (sent by Sir W. Herschel from head-quarters at the Cape,) the atmospheric pressure was nearly insupportable, and several of the ladies were nearly absorbed by the crowd. Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta appeared to suffer intensely; and we deeply regret to state that one of the Pleiads is still missing, to the great regret of her lovely sisters and their brilliant circle. The disorderly conduct of a White Squall (introduced by Mr. Monsoon) was as conspicuous as the undeviating and steady regularity of the members of the Trades' Union. Discordant cries of "Adjourn!" "Adjourn to the Milky Way!" quite drowned the music of the Spheres.On the arrival of the Planets, the meeting accordingly adjourned to the Via Lactea. Cassiopea's Chair (kindly lent for the occasion) was impartially, if not brilliantly, filled by our old and steady friend the Pole Star; his fair neighbour andprotegée, Aurora Borealis, acted as secretary, and excited universal admiration by her brilliant rapidity.The Man in the Moon then rose, and said he had been deputed by the Sidereal and Solar System Self-supporting Societies, to lay before the meeting a statement of their reasons for assembling. His indifference to all sublunary considerations was well known, and he was utterly incapable of casting reflections upon any body; but he must solemnly declare that the constant annoyances and insultswhich he received from his neighbours the Terrestrials were enough to inflame the temper of a Fixed Star. (Cheers from the Sidereal benches.) He had heard much of Tellurian attractions; but he was fortunately not of a warm temperament, and he would never so far deviate from the orbit of moral rectitude as to yield to them. The very idea of forming a Tellurian connexion was repulsive to him: and with his Eccentric tendency, unless he were warmly supported by the Influential Members of the System, and by that admirable institution the Centrifugal Force, he trembled for the consequences of the continuance of such conduct on the part of the Earth; he should hazard his very Equilibrium, and expose himself to an attack of Parabola. ("Shame!" and groans.) Ever since that scoundrel Daniel O'Rourke had obtruded himself upon him, he had had no peace: the sanctity of Sidereal society had been invaded, and the mysteries of the Lunarian Œconomy unveiled. (Loud cries of "Shame!" from Mars and Venus.) He had been, in common with many of those whom he was addressing, travestied at the Terrestrial theatres. (A voice, "The Olympic!") He had been exposed to the naked eye by astronomical lecturers, without even the decent intervention of a spy-glass. Whichever way he turned his phase, they followed him. But he would proceed at once to that which had principally induced him to address them; he meant the Monster Balloon (Confusion) and its crew. (Cries of "Down with 'em!" "Nebulize 'em!" "Tip 'em the Meteorics!" &c.) Yes, they had defied the elements, violated the whole of the Gravitation laws, and endangered the stability of the system itself. (Cheers.) He (the Honourable Lunarian) did not know where they would stop. Other aeronauts had respected Lunatic and Sidereal dignity, and had had the decency to perform their antics by daylight; but these Balloon Monsters, these vile Misouranists had done it burglariously, and by starlight. He had indeed been spared the indignity of beholding them; but all celestial security was at an end, and he did not know when he rose any evening, whether he should be allowed to set again in peace."(The worthy Luminary, overpowered by his feelings, sank beneath the Horizon in a Halo of tears, amidst thunders of applause.)The Winds rose all at once, and attempted to make themselves heard; and many of the Siderealists being anxious to neutralize all opposition, much irregularity and many disturbances ensued, but, the Fixed Stars surrounding the Chair, and the Centrifugal Force interfering, order was restored, andMr. Zephyr, of the Trades' Union, in a scarcely audible whisper, commenced by expressing his regret at the surface of the meeting having been ruffled by anything which hadfallen from the Moon. (Coruscations of laughter.) The Moon rose to order. "It was a vile slander of the grovelling Terrestrials,—he never let anything fall: the meteoric stones—" ("Order, order!") "Mr. Zephyr proceeded. He had expected a breeze, but was quite unprepared for such a blowing up. (Cheers.) His own course had been uniformly steady, and the principles by which he was actuated were now ascertained and appreciated by high and low. He was neither a Lunatic nor a Terrestrial, but of the Atmospheric Juste Milieu,—in short, an Aerialist. Whilst he opposed all undue Planetary influence, and disliked a Sidereal ascendency, he abhorred a Vacuum, and was deeply interestedin the stability of the Solar System. He could with confidence appeal to his worthy neighbours the Tropics, and to the whole constituency of the Torrid Zone for the confirmation of his assertions. ("Hear, hear!" from Cancer and Capricorn.) He had been accused of blowing hot and cold, (Ironical cheers from Messrs. Boreas and Auster,) but that was merely because he was not violent,—not a regular Destructive, like some of his neighbours, who were always kicking up a dust, and never knew when to stop. (Cheers from the Trades.) But he would no longer deviate from his course. It must, he thought, be clear to the least reflecting surfaces, that these large meetings had a tendency to cause disturbances, and to lead to serious irregularities. Many of the Stars would be out all night, and he feared that some of their Royal Highnesses the Planets would find it impossible to perform their necessary revolutions in proper time. How could they expect to find Honourable Luminaries ready to undertake the onerous duties of acting as Morning Stars if all this night-work were to be allowed? How was it possible, for instance, for Jupiter to go his circuit, or for Georgium Sidus to keep his distance? ("Order!") He looked upon the Balloon and its crew as mere trifles, light as air. There was no danger of their rising above their own petty sphere. It was quite clear that they were within the Gravitation laws: if they transgressed them, they would be very soon placedin vacuo, and the full penalty levied under the Newton act. That penalty amounted to a prohibition, for it not only inflicted sixteen feet perpendicular for the first second, but went on in a rapidly-increasing proportion. He must be excused for disbelieving the alleged Eccentricity of the worthy Luminary who rose last. He thought his anticipations of premature Parabola mere moonshine; he appeared to him to have viewed the light in which he was regarded by the Terrestrials through a most distorted medium. He could assure him that he had lately become the observed of all observers. The Fixed Stars were much better appreciated, and were considered as peculiarly well calculated for their places: even the Nebulæ were beginning to be properly estimated; and a very graphic account of the Double Stars had made them better known, and had displayed their peculiar sympathies, and numerous and unprecedented attractions. Even the necessity of Periodical Revolutions was now admitted below as well as above, and there appeared a strong tendency to a system of Universal Centralization. His worthy friends the Atmospherics would bear him out in saying that the doctrine of 'Pressure from without' was understood and acted on to its fullest extent, and that an important Displacement was generally anticipated. He begged to be allowed to subside by moving an adjournmentsine die." (At this period our reporter was obliged to leave; but we are happy to say there was every prospect of Mr. Zephyr's motion being carried.)
FROM OUR OWN REPORTER.
Yesterday, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of gentlemen and ladies interested in the stability of the solar system was held, pursuant to advertisement in the Vox Stellarum, True Sun, &c. at the sign of the Great Bear in the North Hemisphere, at OneP.M.(sidereal time).
Long before the hour named, the neighbouring constellations were crowded with a brilliant assemblage of all the beauty and fashion of the upper regions. Amongst the glittering throng we noticed nearly all the stars of any magnitude occupying their accustomed places, together with deputations from various influential bodies interested in the support of the system; the principal Nebulæ, several Signs of the Zodiac, a deputation from the Electro-magnetic Grand Junction Company, and from the Galvanic Branch Association, his Highness the Meridian with several degrees of Longitude, the Equator with the Latitudinarian party, the Torrid Zone and his Tropics, their High Mightinesses the Hurricanes, Mr. Monsoon and the Trades' Union of the South Hemisphere, the Æthereal and Atmospheric Alliance Company, and, though last not least, their Royal Highnesses the Planets, who came in state, attended by a guard of honour of their Satellites in rings and belts, under a royal salute of Thunder and Lightning.
The great Area of the Constellation was brilliantly lit with Zodiacal light. Notwithstanding the exertions of a strong party of the Centrifugal Police Force, assisted by the Comets from the out-stations under Inspector Halley, and a detachment of the South African Asteroids, (sent by Sir W. Herschel from head-quarters at the Cape,) the atmospheric pressure was nearly insupportable, and several of the ladies were nearly absorbed by the crowd. Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta appeared to suffer intensely; and we deeply regret to state that one of the Pleiads is still missing, to the great regret of her lovely sisters and their brilliant circle. The disorderly conduct of a White Squall (introduced by Mr. Monsoon) was as conspicuous as the undeviating and steady regularity of the members of the Trades' Union. Discordant cries of "Adjourn!" "Adjourn to the Milky Way!" quite drowned the music of the Spheres.
On the arrival of the Planets, the meeting accordingly adjourned to the Via Lactea. Cassiopea's Chair (kindly lent for the occasion) was impartially, if not brilliantly, filled by our old and steady friend the Pole Star; his fair neighbour andprotegée, Aurora Borealis, acted as secretary, and excited universal admiration by her brilliant rapidity.
The Man in the Moon then rose, and said he had been deputed by the Sidereal and Solar System Self-supporting Societies, to lay before the meeting a statement of their reasons for assembling. His indifference to all sublunary considerations was well known, and he was utterly incapable of casting reflections upon any body; but he must solemnly declare that the constant annoyances and insultswhich he received from his neighbours the Terrestrials were enough to inflame the temper of a Fixed Star. (Cheers from the Sidereal benches.) He had heard much of Tellurian attractions; but he was fortunately not of a warm temperament, and he would never so far deviate from the orbit of moral rectitude as to yield to them. The very idea of forming a Tellurian connexion was repulsive to him: and with his Eccentric tendency, unless he were warmly supported by the Influential Members of the System, and by that admirable institution the Centrifugal Force, he trembled for the consequences of the continuance of such conduct on the part of the Earth; he should hazard his very Equilibrium, and expose himself to an attack of Parabola. ("Shame!" and groans.) Ever since that scoundrel Daniel O'Rourke had obtruded himself upon him, he had had no peace: the sanctity of Sidereal society had been invaded, and the mysteries of the Lunarian Œconomy unveiled. (Loud cries of "Shame!" from Mars and Venus.) He had been, in common with many of those whom he was addressing, travestied at the Terrestrial theatres. (A voice, "The Olympic!") He had been exposed to the naked eye by astronomical lecturers, without even the decent intervention of a spy-glass. Whichever way he turned his phase, they followed him. But he would proceed at once to that which had principally induced him to address them; he meant the Monster Balloon (Confusion) and its crew. (Cries of "Down with 'em!" "Nebulize 'em!" "Tip 'em the Meteorics!" &c.) Yes, they had defied the elements, violated the whole of the Gravitation laws, and endangered the stability of the system itself. (Cheers.) He (the Honourable Lunarian) did not know where they would stop. Other aeronauts had respected Lunatic and Sidereal dignity, and had had the decency to perform their antics by daylight; but these Balloon Monsters, these vile Misouranists had done it burglariously, and by starlight. He had indeed been spared the indignity of beholding them; but all celestial security was at an end, and he did not know when he rose any evening, whether he should be allowed to set again in peace."
(The worthy Luminary, overpowered by his feelings, sank beneath the Horizon in a Halo of tears, amidst thunders of applause.)
The Winds rose all at once, and attempted to make themselves heard; and many of the Siderealists being anxious to neutralize all opposition, much irregularity and many disturbances ensued, but, the Fixed Stars surrounding the Chair, and the Centrifugal Force interfering, order was restored, and
Mr. Zephyr, of the Trades' Union, in a scarcely audible whisper, commenced by expressing his regret at the surface of the meeting having been ruffled by anything which hadfallen from the Moon. (Coruscations of laughter.) The Moon rose to order. "It was a vile slander of the grovelling Terrestrials,—he never let anything fall: the meteoric stones—" ("Order, order!") "Mr. Zephyr proceeded. He had expected a breeze, but was quite unprepared for such a blowing up. (Cheers.) His own course had been uniformly steady, and the principles by which he was actuated were now ascertained and appreciated by high and low. He was neither a Lunatic nor a Terrestrial, but of the Atmospheric Juste Milieu,—in short, an Aerialist. Whilst he opposed all undue Planetary influence, and disliked a Sidereal ascendency, he abhorred a Vacuum, and was deeply interestedin the stability of the Solar System. He could with confidence appeal to his worthy neighbours the Tropics, and to the whole constituency of the Torrid Zone for the confirmation of his assertions. ("Hear, hear!" from Cancer and Capricorn.) He had been accused of blowing hot and cold, (Ironical cheers from Messrs. Boreas and Auster,) but that was merely because he was not violent,—not a regular Destructive, like some of his neighbours, who were always kicking up a dust, and never knew when to stop. (Cheers from the Trades.) But he would no longer deviate from his course. It must, he thought, be clear to the least reflecting surfaces, that these large meetings had a tendency to cause disturbances, and to lead to serious irregularities. Many of the Stars would be out all night, and he feared that some of their Royal Highnesses the Planets would find it impossible to perform their necessary revolutions in proper time. How could they expect to find Honourable Luminaries ready to undertake the onerous duties of acting as Morning Stars if all this night-work were to be allowed? How was it possible, for instance, for Jupiter to go his circuit, or for Georgium Sidus to keep his distance? ("Order!") He looked upon the Balloon and its crew as mere trifles, light as air. There was no danger of their rising above their own petty sphere. It was quite clear that they were within the Gravitation laws: if they transgressed them, they would be very soon placedin vacuo, and the full penalty levied under the Newton act. That penalty amounted to a prohibition, for it not only inflicted sixteen feet perpendicular for the first second, but went on in a rapidly-increasing proportion. He must be excused for disbelieving the alleged Eccentricity of the worthy Luminary who rose last. He thought his anticipations of premature Parabola mere moonshine; he appeared to him to have viewed the light in which he was regarded by the Terrestrials through a most distorted medium. He could assure him that he had lately become the observed of all observers. The Fixed Stars were much better appreciated, and were considered as peculiarly well calculated for their places: even the Nebulæ were beginning to be properly estimated; and a very graphic account of the Double Stars had made them better known, and had displayed their peculiar sympathies, and numerous and unprecedented attractions. Even the necessity of Periodical Revolutions was now admitted below as well as above, and there appeared a strong tendency to a system of Universal Centralization. His worthy friends the Atmospherics would bear him out in saying that the doctrine of 'Pressure from without' was understood and acted on to its fullest extent, and that an important Displacement was generally anticipated. He begged to be allowed to subside by moving an adjournmentsine die." (At this period our reporter was obliged to leave; but we are happy to say there was every prospect of Mr. Zephyr's motion being carried.)
THE ADVENTURES OF A TALE.BY THE HON. MRS. ERSKINE NORTON."I could [and will] a tale unfold!"—Hamlet.It is with indignation such only as a literary composition, conscious of its own high value, and smarting under injustice and neglect, can be supposed to feel, that I lift up my voice from behind the serried ranks of my companions, long tales and short, the light effusion of three pages, or the decided weight of three volumes; serious tales or gay; moral or profane; fine French or low Irish; tales without an end, and tales that ought never to have had a beginning; tales in ponderous verse or in gossamer prose; the delicate and brittle ware called travellers' tales; or those more substantial and important-looking matters, political economy tales. I say, that from behind this prodigious phalanx I rise up like Erskine from behind the big-wigs of the first law-court he addressed, elevating myself as the young counsellor on his bench, and making myself heard,—not, it is true, in the general cause of justice, liberty, humanity, and so forth, but in that cause in which all, if not eloquent, are at least earnest and sincere,—in the cause of self.It is said that Minerva (a goddess) sprang from the brain of Jupiter without a mamma; I, Seraphina (a tale), issued forth from the lovely head (I am not quite so sure of the brain) of a fair romantic young lady, without a papa;—at least so I presume, for my composition is purely feminine; my slight and delicate texture could only have been woven by an unassisted female imagination.While yet in embryo, I was christened Seraphina, and was to be composed in three or four reasonably long letters (ladies' letters, crossed and re-crossed with different coloured inks,) to Clementina. My respected parent decided that there was nothing equal to the epistolary form for describing the sentiments and adventures of a heroine; for who like herselfcanlay open all those finer and minuter feelings of the inmost heart, pouring into the ear of sympathising friendship every wish, every hope, every thought? Soul meets soul, even through the vulgar medium of pens, ink, and paper; "thoughts that glow and words that burn," are traced by the delicate fingers that "resume the pen," with a celerity altogether surprising; no agitation can delay, no fatigue can excuse; the half-dozen sheets of foolscap that are to be run over before she can lay her throbbing temples on her pillow, her white drapery (i. e. her night-gown) floating round her, her long hair unbound (very much out of curl), her snowy feet on the cold marble (she has lost her slippers), her door carefully locked, but her trellised casement left open, that the pale moonbeams may peep through it; her lamp is decaying, her hands are trembling, her eyes swimming in tears;—n'importe, the six sheets of foolscap are finished! O, there is nothing like the epistolary form! Seraphina shall be in letters to Clementina;"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,Some absent lover, or some captive maid."—Pope.I can just recollect, as I began to assume form and consistency, how much and how dearly I was fondled by my young and doting mother; indeed, at times, I ran some danger of being killed by kindness.While transcribing some of the deeply affecting scenes and sentiments with which I abound, I was nearly obliterated by her tears, my material parts being composed with a very fine pen and very pale ink; at other times, when the stronger passions took possession of the scene, and revenge, hatred, and fury predominated, she would crush me in her hand, "her eyes in a fine frenzy rolling," and throw me to the other end of the room. Of course she had some difficulty in smoothing me out again. Nevertheless I grew in stature, and in favour with mamma, myself, and four young ladies, her neighbours, (all under fifteen,) who were at home for the holidays. On the assembling of this little coterie, I was mysteriously brought forth from my perfumed drawer, where I lay covered with dried rose-leaves, and read by the author of my being, in a way in which an author only can read. My young auditory listened in profound attention and admiration, secretly resolving that they too would try their unfledged wings in authorship, when they had left off school and finished their education. Except to these four interesting girls, my existence was a profound secret.My composition is certainly enough to excite emulation, however hopeless. I am (though I say it myself) an exquisite tale. My heroine is a model of beauty, virtue, tenderness, and thrilling sensibility; "a perfect wonder that the world ne'er saw;" therefore the world ought the more to appreciate so rare a conception. Her mother was a suffering angel on earth; but, happily for herself, she removed to a more congenial abode, while her cherub child was yet in infancy. The surviving parent is, of course, a horrid tyrant, who cannot comprehend the highly-wrought sensibilities of his daughter, and therefore will not give way to them. There is the suitor favoured by the father, and the lover favoured by the daughter. There are a locking up, an elopement, delicate and dubious situations full of excitement, misapprehensions of all kinds, a false female friend, libertine lords, fine unfeeling ladies, dark stormy nights, and a catastrophe of the most extraordinary, pathetic, and soul-subduing interest. And then my descriptions of nature! my silver moon and diamond stars! my rustling trees! my woodbine, jessamine, and violets!A little conceit I acknowledge to, when copied on pale pink, gilt-edged paper, curiously ornamented with embossed loves and doves, written in a neat small running-hand, the tails of my letters prettily curled, plenty of dashes, and very few stops, I was thus headed:SERAPHINA; OR, SUFFERING SENSIBILITY.A TALE.BY A FAIR UNKNOWN."Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,And man below, and saints above,For love is heaven, and heaven is love."Lay of the Last Minstrel.I was highly scented, and sealed in green wax, with a device of Cupid tormenting a heart.The dignified Half-yearly was selected for my debut. It rarely admitted literature of my class, and such only of acknowledged merit; consequently it was considered my proper and natural medium. From it, I was to be commented on and extracted in the monthlies, as wellin Edinburgh and Dublin as in London; I was to be pirated by the Americans and translated by the French; and at the end of the year I was, by express permission, to appear in one of the most fashionable annuals, my tenderest scene forming the subject of a gorgeous frontispiece, on which the most celebrated artists were to lavish their talents. The identification of the "Fair Unknown" was to become the puzzle of the season; and already many scenes of admiring wonder on the part of others, and of dignified modesty on her own, had been played off in the active imagination of my dear parent; the acknowledgement of Evelina by its young authoress to her father, and the final recognition of theGreatUnknown, were her models.At length, with this dazzling perspective before me, I was dismissed from the maternal embrace. Betty the housemaid slipped with me out of the street-door, holding me with a piece of white paper between her finger and thumb, to prevent her soiling my envelope; while my mother watched us from the window with tears in her eyes. On reaching the twopenny post-office, Betty without any ceremony pushed me through a slit beneath a window, and, to my great discomposure, I fell head over heels into a dirty box full of all sorts of queer-looking epistles. As might be expected, I painfully felt this my first tumble (for I cannot call itstep) into real from imaginary life. I had scarcely time to recover from the shock before the box was withdrawn, and we were all turned out by a fat woman on a horrid thing called a counter, where we weresorted, as she termed it, and distributed, with a rapidity that was quite confounding, to three or four shabby-looking men having bags under their arms. I, being the first turned out, was the last the post-mistress clawed up. She retained me a full minute, twirled me round, examined my seal, thrust her great finger between my delicate side folds, and brought me up to her eye to peer if possible into my inside, when the monster who held his bag open to receive me, called out,"Come, mistress,—can't wait no longer!""Well," she replied, "bless me, if this don't look for all the world like a walentine!" and into the bag she reluctantly dropped me, writhing as I was with pain and indignation.When I had somewhat smoothed my ruffled plumes, I ventured to look round on my fellow-travellers, in search of some congenial spirit with whom I might beguile the tediousness of time, as we jolted along on the shoulders of the postman; but I looked round in vain. My nearest neighbour, to my great annoyance, was a butcher's bill, with whom every jolt brought me in contact; the dirty thing had a wet wafer prest down by a greasy thumb. I shrank from it with horror, and fell back on an epistle from a young gentleman at school, which was at least clean, and in fair round characters; so I attended to what it had to say. The date took up a large portion of the paper, and then: "My dear mamma,—I have the pleasure to inform you that our Christmas vacation begins on the 20th. I am very well. I hope you are very well. I hope my papa is very well; and my brothers and sisters, my uncles, aunts, and cousins. I beg my duty to my papa, my love to my brothers and sisters, my respects to my uncles and aunts, and my remembrances to my cousins; and believe me your dutiful son." I sighed, and turned to a business-like looking letter, directed in a precise hand to Messrs. ——, in some darklane in the city. The names of the persons addressed, and a very exact date, took up, as in the schoolboy's letter, a vast deal of room, and then it began: "Gentlemen,—We beg to acknowledge yourfavourof the 1st instant—" I could not get any further, for I was suddenly attracted by a smart-looking and very highly scented affair, sealed, and directed to a lord; but was disappointed on finding it was only a Bond-street perfumer's little yearly account of one hundred and fifty pounds for perfumes, fine soaps, cold-cream, and tooth-brushes. There was no other very close to me, so I ventured gently to push my way to a curiously folded epistle directed to Miss Matilda Dandeville, Oxford-street: "Dear Tilly,—Pray send me, as soon as you can, my close bonnet, for my nose is nearly off from wearing my pink silk and blonde this freezing weather. Full of life and fun here! Shall tell you all when we meet. It will be your turn next; meantime, business, business! money, money! Love to all inquiring friends." I felt disgusted. Do not gentlemen and ladies write by the twopenny-post? Nothing but duns, bills, business, and money! Is there no sense, sentiment, or sensibility, to be found in a twopenny-postbag? I certainly did observe some fashionable-looking letters, and one decidedly with a coronet; but they were too far down, quite unattainable; so I drew myself up as much apart as possible from the things by which I was so unhappily surrounded, and remained the rest of the way in dignified stillness. My wounded feelings were somewhat soothed by observing the awe, mingled with curiosity, with which I was regarded; and somewhat amused by the perfumer's genteel account turning its back on the butcher's bill, and the lady of the pink and blonde squeezing herself into a corner to avoid contact with a housemaid. The schoolboy alone was at perfect liberty,—and a great annoyance he was,—evidently delighting to jumble us all together by a single jump, and constantly peering at my seal, trying to read my address, and touching my embossed and gilded edges.At length we reached our district, and that nervous sound, the postman's rap, was heard in rapid succession down the street; heads were popped out at windows, and doors were opened, and pence ready, before we reached. Out hopped the housemaid, out jumped the school-boy; and, as my fellow-travellers departed, I sank gradually lower, until I arrived among the genteel-looking letters I had spied at a distance; a slight shuffle was perceptible among them: their black and red seals were erected with great gravity, and my pink dye became almost crimson when I found that, from the gaiety of my attire, they evidently thought me "no better than I should be;" however I had scarcely time to feel uneasy, so swift were our evolutions, and so completely were we all turned topsy-turvy every time the postman's hand was introduced among us, and that was every minute; the big-wigs lost their dignity, and as to me, I felt my seal crack like a lady's stay-lace; I thought my envelope was torn away, and that I myself would have been displayed. Shocked at the very idea of such a catastrophe, I sank senseless to the bottom of the bag, and only recovered on being violently shaken from it, and hearing my brutal conductor exclaim: "Why, here it is, to be sure; and if it isn't the walentine itself, I declare!" He seized his pence, and, folding up his empty bag, strode off.I found myself in the hands of a respectable man-servant out of livery, who, after having examined me with a look of surprise, introduced me up stairs into rather a dark and heavy drawing-room, with, however, a cheerful fire, bookcases, and portraits of distinguished authors. I lay for some time on a circular table, which was covered with newspapers and periodicals: there was a dead silence; if I had had a heart, it would have beaten audibly. At length a side-door opened, and a young gentleman stept in from an adjoining room; he glanced his eyes over the table, evidently in search of letters from the post; and, when he saw me, he smiled, and, picking me up, carried me into the room he had just left. I am sure he must have felt me tremble in his grasp. In this apartment, the only furniture was chairs and three writing-tables, the two smaller of which were occupied by my bearer and another young gentleman; but at that in the centre was seated a grave elderly personage, rather large in person, with bushy eyebrows, and keen penetrating eyes. I, who was extremely ignorant at that time, and had heard much of the knowledge, power, and dignity of the Half-yearly, without exactly knowing what it was, took this gentlemen for it himself. My introducer held me up to his young companion, and a stifled laugh passed between them; but, recovering his gravity, he laid me on the Half-yearly's desk, as near under his spectacles as he could bring me without interrupting his pen. The old gentleman started, frowned, and, lowering his head, looked at me from above his spectacles, (an awful way of looking, as is well known,) inquiring gruffly, "What's this?" "A letter by the twopenny, sir; a lady's verses I should think, by its appearance." "D—— ladies' verses! Take it away." "Shallweopen it, sir?" "Don't pester me!" and in an instant afterwards he was lost in his important meditations.The two young gentlemen cut round my seal, and perused the note of the Fair Unknown, with tears—but not of sympathy.Iwas then taken up, and passages here and there recited in an under-tone with mock gravity, eliciting, in spite of their dread of their superior, bursts of irrepressible laughter: these, at last, attracted his attention, and, looking over his shoulder, he angrily inquired what they were about. "Pray, sir, do look at this! it is quite a curiosity;" and my note was handed to him."A fair unknown, with that modesty which ever accompanies genius; with faltering accent, timid step, and eyes that seek the ground, presumes to lay at the feet of the great Half-yearly the first-born of her imagination! She prays him not to spurn the babe; but to take it, cherish it, and usher it into the world!—It is his own!""Mine!" exclaimed the Half-yearly, settling his wig; "I hope she does not mean to swear it to me; such scrapes are marvellously difficult to get out of. Wafer up the babe, if you please, gentlemen, in a sheet of foolscap, (its proper swaddling band,) and add a sentence to our Notices to Correspondents."In a few weeks after this memorable scene, my young and tender parent was at breakfast with her family, when her father entered, carrying a new Half-yearly, with leaves uncut, and hot from the press, under his arm. My mother's heart leaped in her bosom, her face became scarlet, and her mouthful of bread and butter nearly choked her. Her father dawdled a little over the advertisements and answers to correspondents: at the latter he smiled. "Whatamuses you, sir?" inquired his anxious daughter in a tone of forced calmness: he read, "A Fair Unknown is earnestly requested to send for her babe immediately; the Half-yearly having no intention of cherishing, fostering, furthering, or fathering it in any way whatever." It was well for his thunderstricken auditor that the reader became immediately too much absorbed in a political paper to notice the effect of this appalling blow. She made her escape unobserved: I was instantly sent for, torn from my coarse envelope, and pressed to her agonised bosom.Her four friends had returned to school, she could not therefore have the benefit of their advice and condolence; and, to tell truth, she did not appear much to regret this circumstance,—the mortification of their presence would have been too great.Betty was not even let into the secret: I was placed in a plain white envelope, accompanied by a note much less romantic than the first, addressed to a Monthly; and, being sealed with a more respectable and well-behaved seal, she hid me in her muff, and dropped me herself into the same dirty box as before.The Monthly was not nearly so terrible a person as the Half-yearly. He was not at home on my arrival in the evening, and I was laid with several other very literary-looking letters on a table in his dressing-room, near a good fire, with a lamp ready to light, a pair of slippers on the hearth-rug, and a large easy chair with a dressing-gown thrown over it. All this looked sociable and comfortable; and, feeling quite in spirits, I curtsied respectfully to a moral paper, shook hands with a political argument, chatted with ajeu d'esprit, and flirted with a sonnet.The Monthly returned home about midnight in exceeding good humour, humming an opera tune; he lit his lamp, donned his dressing-gown, thrust his feet into his slippers, and, having mused a little while over the fire, ventured a glance at the table. "The deuce take it, what a lot there are of them!" he exclaimed; "politics, morality, and poetry I am not fit for to-night, that's very clear; something entertaining—what's this?" (taking up me)—"a woman's hand—prose—a tale—just the very thing!" and forthwith I was begun.Reader, can you imagine—no, you cannot, so there is no use in appealing to your sympathy—the state of agitation I was in? He read amazingly fast, and hummed and ha'ed as he proceeded; and, to my utter astonishment, at one of my most pathetic appeals he burst into a fit of laughter: in short—I grieve to say it—but I fear the Monthly, as indeed he himself had hinted, had indulged a little too freely,—had taken a little drop too much; for, soon after this unaccountable explosion of merriment, he yawned, settled himself more decidedly in his chair, read very much slower, and at last, on observing that he turned over two of my pages at once without finding it out, I ventured to look up, and, behold! his eyes were closing,—sleep was creeping over him! I lay aghast, every moment inclining more and more backwards, till I reposed upon his knee. The pangs of wounded pride, acute as they were, began to give way to apprehensions of the most serious nature; his hold momentarily relaxed, and at length I fell—fell over the fender, reader! and there I lay, roasting like a Spanish priest cooked by a French soldier, (the French, they say, are excellent cooks,) until he should discover the hidden treasures of his monastery.Alas! I thought my treasures were lost for ever to the literary world! There they lay, scorching and melting, until at last fortunately a cinder, inspired no doubt by the Muses, leapt out to my protection, and, by destroying a small portion, saved the remainder; for the smell of fire became so strong, that a servant, who had just let himself into the house from a high-life-below-stairs party, came rushing in with a nose extended to its utmost width, rousing and alarming his sleeping master. "Deuce take it!" exclaimed the Monthly on perceiving me, "in ten minutes more we should have been all set on fire by this d—dsoporific(I think that is what he called me). Who would have thought it had spirit enough to burn!" The next morning I was despatched home, without a single line, not even an apology, for my miserable condition.The curse of Cain was upon me: my own mother (who had become engaged in the creation of another offspring) received me with mortifying coolness, and beheld my burnt and disfigured tale with horror and contempt. She gave up all thoughts of the London annuals, (her new pet was intended for one of them,) and, having coarsely repaired me, I was put into the general post, addressed to a country annual, the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town.The glowing aspirations of youth were chilled, misfortune had set her seal upon me; but, although hope was diminished, pride remained unquelled, for, as I glided over high-ways, and jolted over by-ways, in the Diddle-town coach, I recalled to my recollection all that I had heard (especially while I lay smothered up for six weeks on the learned Half-yearly's table) of the many great luminaries of literature who had struggled into light and life through the dark and chilling mists of neglect, ignorance, and envy. I had no doubt but that I should yet burst forth from my cloud, astonishing and dazzling the weak eyes which had hitherto refused to encounter, or were incapable of dwelling upon, my beauty and brilliancy.On being presented to the Diddle-town editor, he immediately seized upon me with great glee, and carried me off, without reading me, to the printer's devil; and, to my utter astonishment, I found myself in the process of printing an hour after my arrival. Although this consummation had long been devoutly wished, I cannot say I was much flattered at its mode.I appeared in the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town. The editor gave out that I was the production of a celebrated lady-author, anonymous on the occasion to all but him. I was demurely listened to by a coterie of old maids, who, on my conclusion, curtsied to the reader and curtsied to each other, sighed, and inquired if there were a picture; I was hummed over by two or three lazy half-pay officers; I was spelt over by a cottage-full of young lace-makers; and I was wept over by the Diddle-town milliners' apprentice girls.But my desire for a larger and nobler sphere of action can no longer be suppressed: I am determined to make known that I exist, and to inform the reading world, and all who, like many great philosophers of old, are eager to seek what they are never likely to find, that the Tale of Seraphina reposes in all its neglected sweetness, and unappreciated, because unappreciable beauty, on the leaves of the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town.
BY THE HON. MRS. ERSKINE NORTON.
"I could [and will] a tale unfold!"—Hamlet.
It is with indignation such only as a literary composition, conscious of its own high value, and smarting under injustice and neglect, can be supposed to feel, that I lift up my voice from behind the serried ranks of my companions, long tales and short, the light effusion of three pages, or the decided weight of three volumes; serious tales or gay; moral or profane; fine French or low Irish; tales without an end, and tales that ought never to have had a beginning; tales in ponderous verse or in gossamer prose; the delicate and brittle ware called travellers' tales; or those more substantial and important-looking matters, political economy tales. I say, that from behind this prodigious phalanx I rise up like Erskine from behind the big-wigs of the first law-court he addressed, elevating myself as the young counsellor on his bench, and making myself heard,—not, it is true, in the general cause of justice, liberty, humanity, and so forth, but in that cause in which all, if not eloquent, are at least earnest and sincere,—in the cause of self.
It is said that Minerva (a goddess) sprang from the brain of Jupiter without a mamma; I, Seraphina (a tale), issued forth from the lovely head (I am not quite so sure of the brain) of a fair romantic young lady, without a papa;—at least so I presume, for my composition is purely feminine; my slight and delicate texture could only have been woven by an unassisted female imagination.
While yet in embryo, I was christened Seraphina, and was to be composed in three or four reasonably long letters (ladies' letters, crossed and re-crossed with different coloured inks,) to Clementina. My respected parent decided that there was nothing equal to the epistolary form for describing the sentiments and adventures of a heroine; for who like herselfcanlay open all those finer and minuter feelings of the inmost heart, pouring into the ear of sympathising friendship every wish, every hope, every thought? Soul meets soul, even through the vulgar medium of pens, ink, and paper; "thoughts that glow and words that burn," are traced by the delicate fingers that "resume the pen," with a celerity altogether surprising; no agitation can delay, no fatigue can excuse; the half-dozen sheets of foolscap that are to be run over before she can lay her throbbing temples on her pillow, her white drapery (i. e. her night-gown) floating round her, her long hair unbound (very much out of curl), her snowy feet on the cold marble (she has lost her slippers), her door carefully locked, but her trellised casement left open, that the pale moonbeams may peep through it; her lamp is decaying, her hands are trembling, her eyes swimming in tears;—n'importe, the six sheets of foolscap are finished! O, there is nothing like the epistolary form! Seraphina shall be in letters to Clementina;
"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,Some absent lover, or some captive maid."—Pope.
"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,Some absent lover, or some captive maid."—Pope.
"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,Some absent lover, or some captive maid."—Pope.
"Sure, letters were invented for some wretch's aid,
Some absent lover, or some captive maid."—Pope.
I can just recollect, as I began to assume form and consistency, how much and how dearly I was fondled by my young and doting mother; indeed, at times, I ran some danger of being killed by kindness.While transcribing some of the deeply affecting scenes and sentiments with which I abound, I was nearly obliterated by her tears, my material parts being composed with a very fine pen and very pale ink; at other times, when the stronger passions took possession of the scene, and revenge, hatred, and fury predominated, she would crush me in her hand, "her eyes in a fine frenzy rolling," and throw me to the other end of the room. Of course she had some difficulty in smoothing me out again. Nevertheless I grew in stature, and in favour with mamma, myself, and four young ladies, her neighbours, (all under fifteen,) who were at home for the holidays. On the assembling of this little coterie, I was mysteriously brought forth from my perfumed drawer, where I lay covered with dried rose-leaves, and read by the author of my being, in a way in which an author only can read. My young auditory listened in profound attention and admiration, secretly resolving that they too would try their unfledged wings in authorship, when they had left off school and finished their education. Except to these four interesting girls, my existence was a profound secret.
My composition is certainly enough to excite emulation, however hopeless. I am (though I say it myself) an exquisite tale. My heroine is a model of beauty, virtue, tenderness, and thrilling sensibility; "a perfect wonder that the world ne'er saw;" therefore the world ought the more to appreciate so rare a conception. Her mother was a suffering angel on earth; but, happily for herself, she removed to a more congenial abode, while her cherub child was yet in infancy. The surviving parent is, of course, a horrid tyrant, who cannot comprehend the highly-wrought sensibilities of his daughter, and therefore will not give way to them. There is the suitor favoured by the father, and the lover favoured by the daughter. There are a locking up, an elopement, delicate and dubious situations full of excitement, misapprehensions of all kinds, a false female friend, libertine lords, fine unfeeling ladies, dark stormy nights, and a catastrophe of the most extraordinary, pathetic, and soul-subduing interest. And then my descriptions of nature! my silver moon and diamond stars! my rustling trees! my woodbine, jessamine, and violets!
A little conceit I acknowledge to, when copied on pale pink, gilt-edged paper, curiously ornamented with embossed loves and doves, written in a neat small running-hand, the tails of my letters prettily curled, plenty of dashes, and very few stops, I was thus headed:
SERAPHINA; OR, SUFFERING SENSIBILITY.A TALE.BY A FAIR UNKNOWN.
"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,And man below, and saints above,For love is heaven, and heaven is love."
"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,And man below, and saints above,For love is heaven, and heaven is love."
"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,And man below, and saints above,For love is heaven, and heaven is love."
"Love rules the camp, the court, the grove,
And man below, and saints above,
For love is heaven, and heaven is love."
Lay of the Last Minstrel.
I was highly scented, and sealed in green wax, with a device of Cupid tormenting a heart.
The dignified Half-yearly was selected for my debut. It rarely admitted literature of my class, and such only of acknowledged merit; consequently it was considered my proper and natural medium. From it, I was to be commented on and extracted in the monthlies, as wellin Edinburgh and Dublin as in London; I was to be pirated by the Americans and translated by the French; and at the end of the year I was, by express permission, to appear in one of the most fashionable annuals, my tenderest scene forming the subject of a gorgeous frontispiece, on which the most celebrated artists were to lavish their talents. The identification of the "Fair Unknown" was to become the puzzle of the season; and already many scenes of admiring wonder on the part of others, and of dignified modesty on her own, had been played off in the active imagination of my dear parent; the acknowledgement of Evelina by its young authoress to her father, and the final recognition of theGreatUnknown, were her models.
At length, with this dazzling perspective before me, I was dismissed from the maternal embrace. Betty the housemaid slipped with me out of the street-door, holding me with a piece of white paper between her finger and thumb, to prevent her soiling my envelope; while my mother watched us from the window with tears in her eyes. On reaching the twopenny post-office, Betty without any ceremony pushed me through a slit beneath a window, and, to my great discomposure, I fell head over heels into a dirty box full of all sorts of queer-looking epistles. As might be expected, I painfully felt this my first tumble (for I cannot call itstep) into real from imaginary life. I had scarcely time to recover from the shock before the box was withdrawn, and we were all turned out by a fat woman on a horrid thing called a counter, where we weresorted, as she termed it, and distributed, with a rapidity that was quite confounding, to three or four shabby-looking men having bags under their arms. I, being the first turned out, was the last the post-mistress clawed up. She retained me a full minute, twirled me round, examined my seal, thrust her great finger between my delicate side folds, and brought me up to her eye to peer if possible into my inside, when the monster who held his bag open to receive me, called out,
"Come, mistress,—can't wait no longer!"
"Well," she replied, "bless me, if this don't look for all the world like a walentine!" and into the bag she reluctantly dropped me, writhing as I was with pain and indignation.
When I had somewhat smoothed my ruffled plumes, I ventured to look round on my fellow-travellers, in search of some congenial spirit with whom I might beguile the tediousness of time, as we jolted along on the shoulders of the postman; but I looked round in vain. My nearest neighbour, to my great annoyance, was a butcher's bill, with whom every jolt brought me in contact; the dirty thing had a wet wafer prest down by a greasy thumb. I shrank from it with horror, and fell back on an epistle from a young gentleman at school, which was at least clean, and in fair round characters; so I attended to what it had to say. The date took up a large portion of the paper, and then: "My dear mamma,—I have the pleasure to inform you that our Christmas vacation begins on the 20th. I am very well. I hope you are very well. I hope my papa is very well; and my brothers and sisters, my uncles, aunts, and cousins. I beg my duty to my papa, my love to my brothers and sisters, my respects to my uncles and aunts, and my remembrances to my cousins; and believe me your dutiful son." I sighed, and turned to a business-like looking letter, directed in a precise hand to Messrs. ——, in some darklane in the city. The names of the persons addressed, and a very exact date, took up, as in the schoolboy's letter, a vast deal of room, and then it began: "Gentlemen,—We beg to acknowledge yourfavourof the 1st instant—" I could not get any further, for I was suddenly attracted by a smart-looking and very highly scented affair, sealed, and directed to a lord; but was disappointed on finding it was only a Bond-street perfumer's little yearly account of one hundred and fifty pounds for perfumes, fine soaps, cold-cream, and tooth-brushes. There was no other very close to me, so I ventured gently to push my way to a curiously folded epistle directed to Miss Matilda Dandeville, Oxford-street: "Dear Tilly,—Pray send me, as soon as you can, my close bonnet, for my nose is nearly off from wearing my pink silk and blonde this freezing weather. Full of life and fun here! Shall tell you all when we meet. It will be your turn next; meantime, business, business! money, money! Love to all inquiring friends." I felt disgusted. Do not gentlemen and ladies write by the twopenny-post? Nothing but duns, bills, business, and money! Is there no sense, sentiment, or sensibility, to be found in a twopenny-postbag? I certainly did observe some fashionable-looking letters, and one decidedly with a coronet; but they were too far down, quite unattainable; so I drew myself up as much apart as possible from the things by which I was so unhappily surrounded, and remained the rest of the way in dignified stillness. My wounded feelings were somewhat soothed by observing the awe, mingled with curiosity, with which I was regarded; and somewhat amused by the perfumer's genteel account turning its back on the butcher's bill, and the lady of the pink and blonde squeezing herself into a corner to avoid contact with a housemaid. The schoolboy alone was at perfect liberty,—and a great annoyance he was,—evidently delighting to jumble us all together by a single jump, and constantly peering at my seal, trying to read my address, and touching my embossed and gilded edges.
At length we reached our district, and that nervous sound, the postman's rap, was heard in rapid succession down the street; heads were popped out at windows, and doors were opened, and pence ready, before we reached. Out hopped the housemaid, out jumped the school-boy; and, as my fellow-travellers departed, I sank gradually lower, until I arrived among the genteel-looking letters I had spied at a distance; a slight shuffle was perceptible among them: their black and red seals were erected with great gravity, and my pink dye became almost crimson when I found that, from the gaiety of my attire, they evidently thought me "no better than I should be;" however I had scarcely time to feel uneasy, so swift were our evolutions, and so completely were we all turned topsy-turvy every time the postman's hand was introduced among us, and that was every minute; the big-wigs lost their dignity, and as to me, I felt my seal crack like a lady's stay-lace; I thought my envelope was torn away, and that I myself would have been displayed. Shocked at the very idea of such a catastrophe, I sank senseless to the bottom of the bag, and only recovered on being violently shaken from it, and hearing my brutal conductor exclaim: "Why, here it is, to be sure; and if it isn't the walentine itself, I declare!" He seized his pence, and, folding up his empty bag, strode off.
I found myself in the hands of a respectable man-servant out of livery, who, after having examined me with a look of surprise, introduced me up stairs into rather a dark and heavy drawing-room, with, however, a cheerful fire, bookcases, and portraits of distinguished authors. I lay for some time on a circular table, which was covered with newspapers and periodicals: there was a dead silence; if I had had a heart, it would have beaten audibly. At length a side-door opened, and a young gentleman stept in from an adjoining room; he glanced his eyes over the table, evidently in search of letters from the post; and, when he saw me, he smiled, and, picking me up, carried me into the room he had just left. I am sure he must have felt me tremble in his grasp. In this apartment, the only furniture was chairs and three writing-tables, the two smaller of which were occupied by my bearer and another young gentleman; but at that in the centre was seated a grave elderly personage, rather large in person, with bushy eyebrows, and keen penetrating eyes. I, who was extremely ignorant at that time, and had heard much of the knowledge, power, and dignity of the Half-yearly, without exactly knowing what it was, took this gentlemen for it himself. My introducer held me up to his young companion, and a stifled laugh passed between them; but, recovering his gravity, he laid me on the Half-yearly's desk, as near under his spectacles as he could bring me without interrupting his pen. The old gentleman started, frowned, and, lowering his head, looked at me from above his spectacles, (an awful way of looking, as is well known,) inquiring gruffly, "What's this?" "A letter by the twopenny, sir; a lady's verses I should think, by its appearance." "D—— ladies' verses! Take it away." "Shallweopen it, sir?" "Don't pester me!" and in an instant afterwards he was lost in his important meditations.
The two young gentlemen cut round my seal, and perused the note of the Fair Unknown, with tears—but not of sympathy.Iwas then taken up, and passages here and there recited in an under-tone with mock gravity, eliciting, in spite of their dread of their superior, bursts of irrepressible laughter: these, at last, attracted his attention, and, looking over his shoulder, he angrily inquired what they were about. "Pray, sir, do look at this! it is quite a curiosity;" and my note was handed to him.
"A fair unknown, with that modesty which ever accompanies genius; with faltering accent, timid step, and eyes that seek the ground, presumes to lay at the feet of the great Half-yearly the first-born of her imagination! She prays him not to spurn the babe; but to take it, cherish it, and usher it into the world!—It is his own!"
"Mine!" exclaimed the Half-yearly, settling his wig; "I hope she does not mean to swear it to me; such scrapes are marvellously difficult to get out of. Wafer up the babe, if you please, gentlemen, in a sheet of foolscap, (its proper swaddling band,) and add a sentence to our Notices to Correspondents."
In a few weeks after this memorable scene, my young and tender parent was at breakfast with her family, when her father entered, carrying a new Half-yearly, with leaves uncut, and hot from the press, under his arm. My mother's heart leaped in her bosom, her face became scarlet, and her mouthful of bread and butter nearly choked her. Her father dawdled a little over the advertisements and answers to correspondents: at the latter he smiled. "Whatamuses you, sir?" inquired his anxious daughter in a tone of forced calmness: he read, "A Fair Unknown is earnestly requested to send for her babe immediately; the Half-yearly having no intention of cherishing, fostering, furthering, or fathering it in any way whatever." It was well for his thunderstricken auditor that the reader became immediately too much absorbed in a political paper to notice the effect of this appalling blow. She made her escape unobserved: I was instantly sent for, torn from my coarse envelope, and pressed to her agonised bosom.
Her four friends had returned to school, she could not therefore have the benefit of their advice and condolence; and, to tell truth, she did not appear much to regret this circumstance,—the mortification of their presence would have been too great.
Betty was not even let into the secret: I was placed in a plain white envelope, accompanied by a note much less romantic than the first, addressed to a Monthly; and, being sealed with a more respectable and well-behaved seal, she hid me in her muff, and dropped me herself into the same dirty box as before.
The Monthly was not nearly so terrible a person as the Half-yearly. He was not at home on my arrival in the evening, and I was laid with several other very literary-looking letters on a table in his dressing-room, near a good fire, with a lamp ready to light, a pair of slippers on the hearth-rug, and a large easy chair with a dressing-gown thrown over it. All this looked sociable and comfortable; and, feeling quite in spirits, I curtsied respectfully to a moral paper, shook hands with a political argument, chatted with ajeu d'esprit, and flirted with a sonnet.
The Monthly returned home about midnight in exceeding good humour, humming an opera tune; he lit his lamp, donned his dressing-gown, thrust his feet into his slippers, and, having mused a little while over the fire, ventured a glance at the table. "The deuce take it, what a lot there are of them!" he exclaimed; "politics, morality, and poetry I am not fit for to-night, that's very clear; something entertaining—what's this?" (taking up me)—"a woman's hand—prose—a tale—just the very thing!" and forthwith I was begun.
Reader, can you imagine—no, you cannot, so there is no use in appealing to your sympathy—the state of agitation I was in? He read amazingly fast, and hummed and ha'ed as he proceeded; and, to my utter astonishment, at one of my most pathetic appeals he burst into a fit of laughter: in short—I grieve to say it—but I fear the Monthly, as indeed he himself had hinted, had indulged a little too freely,—had taken a little drop too much; for, soon after this unaccountable explosion of merriment, he yawned, settled himself more decidedly in his chair, read very much slower, and at last, on observing that he turned over two of my pages at once without finding it out, I ventured to look up, and, behold! his eyes were closing,—sleep was creeping over him! I lay aghast, every moment inclining more and more backwards, till I reposed upon his knee. The pangs of wounded pride, acute as they were, began to give way to apprehensions of the most serious nature; his hold momentarily relaxed, and at length I fell—fell over the fender, reader! and there I lay, roasting like a Spanish priest cooked by a French soldier, (the French, they say, are excellent cooks,) until he should discover the hidden treasures of his monastery.
Alas! I thought my treasures were lost for ever to the literary world! There they lay, scorching and melting, until at last fortunately a cinder, inspired no doubt by the Muses, leapt out to my protection, and, by destroying a small portion, saved the remainder; for the smell of fire became so strong, that a servant, who had just let himself into the house from a high-life-below-stairs party, came rushing in with a nose extended to its utmost width, rousing and alarming his sleeping master. "Deuce take it!" exclaimed the Monthly on perceiving me, "in ten minutes more we should have been all set on fire by this d—dsoporific(I think that is what he called me). Who would have thought it had spirit enough to burn!" The next morning I was despatched home, without a single line, not even an apology, for my miserable condition.
The curse of Cain was upon me: my own mother (who had become engaged in the creation of another offspring) received me with mortifying coolness, and beheld my burnt and disfigured tale with horror and contempt. She gave up all thoughts of the London annuals, (her new pet was intended for one of them,) and, having coarsely repaired me, I was put into the general post, addressed to a country annual, the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town.
The glowing aspirations of youth were chilled, misfortune had set her seal upon me; but, although hope was diminished, pride remained unquelled, for, as I glided over high-ways, and jolted over by-ways, in the Diddle-town coach, I recalled to my recollection all that I had heard (especially while I lay smothered up for six weeks on the learned Half-yearly's table) of the many great luminaries of literature who had struggled into light and life through the dark and chilling mists of neglect, ignorance, and envy. I had no doubt but that I should yet burst forth from my cloud, astonishing and dazzling the weak eyes which had hitherto refused to encounter, or were incapable of dwelling upon, my beauty and brilliancy.
On being presented to the Diddle-town editor, he immediately seized upon me with great glee, and carried me off, without reading me, to the printer's devil; and, to my utter astonishment, I found myself in the process of printing an hour after my arrival. Although this consummation had long been devoutly wished, I cannot say I was much flattered at its mode.
I appeared in the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town. The editor gave out that I was the production of a celebrated lady-author, anonymous on the occasion to all but him. I was demurely listened to by a coterie of old maids, who, on my conclusion, curtsied to the reader and curtsied to each other, sighed, and inquired if there were a picture; I was hummed over by two or three lazy half-pay officers; I was spelt over by a cottage-full of young lace-makers; and I was wept over by the Diddle-town milliners' apprentice girls.
But my desire for a larger and nobler sphere of action can no longer be suppressed: I am determined to make known that I exist, and to inform the reading world, and all who, like many great philosophers of old, are eager to seek what they are never likely to find, that the Tale of Seraphina reposes in all its neglected sweetness, and unappreciated, because unappreciable beauty, on the leaves of the "Rosebud" of Diddle-town.
WHEN AND WHY THE DEVIL INVENTED BRANDY.A POPULAR TRADITION FROM THE DUCHY OF SAXE-MEININGEN;TRANSLATED FORTHE BENEFIT OF THE TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.[30]Many years ago, our village (Steinbach) and Winterstein (in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha) disputed about the common boundaries. Witnesses were called from both sides; but the dispute could not be brought to an end, because each of them spoke in favour of his own village. Amongst these witnesses were two men,—the one a native of Steinbach, and the other of Winterstein,—who had been instructed in magic by the devil, to whom they had sold their souls.These two men in one and the same night conceived a resolution to erect false boundary-stones, to which they intended to give an appearance of antiquity by the help of magic, so that people might suppose they had stood there, for many years. Both of them, in the figures of fiery men, went up the hill where was the boundary in dispute. Neither of them knew of the intentions of the other. When they met on the hill, he who arrived the last, asked the other,"What he was doing there?""That is no concern of yours!" answered this; "tell me first whatyouare doing here?""I will place boundary-stones, and settle the limits as they ought to be.""That I have done already, and there you see the stones; and, as the stones go, so goes the boundary.""You are wrong, for the boundary goes this way; and my master told me that I was in the right.""Pray, who is your master? A fine gentleman must he be!""My master is the devil. Are you satisfied now? and do you feel respect for me?""That is a lie! for the devil ismymaster; and he told me that I was right: and, therefore, get off as quick as you can, or you shall see!"So saying, they threw themselves upon each other; but the man of our village proved too strong for the other, to whom he gave such a blow on the mouth that his head flew off and rolled down the hill. The fiery man without a head quickly ran after it to catch it, and fix it on again; but he did not succeed in doing so before he arrived at the spot where the little brook, which flows down the hill, enters the Emse.Meanwhile, our man, who gave the blow, looked from the hill how the other chased his own head, when on a sudden a third fiery man stood before him, who asked,"What he had done there?""That is no concern of yours!" answered our man; "and, if you do not go your ways immediately, I'll treat you just as I have the other.""Have you no more respect for me? and don't you know that I am your master, the devil?""And, if you are the devil himself, I care not a straw for you! Go to h—!""And that I'll do," said the devil; "but not without you."Thus saying, the devil stooped to carry him away on his shoulders; but our man, watching his opportunity, caught his neck between his two legs, and then, laying his hands on him, and holding him down to the ground, he said,"Now you are in my power; and now you shall feel what my hands are able to do. You have during your life broken the neck of many a poor man; you shall now learn yourself how it feels!"Thus saying, he set about to screw the devil's neck round with all his might; but, when the devil saw that our man was in earnest, he gave him good words, and prayed him not to do so, and not to smother him, promising to do anything he might require."As I hear you speaking so piteously," said our man, "I'll let you loose; but not before you have returned to me the bond by which I sold you my soul. And, moreover, you must swear to me by your own grandmother, not to claim any part in me; and, during all your life hereafter, never to take any man's bond for his soul."The devil, though not pleased with these conditions, yet, for the safety of his own neck, could not but return the bond, and even swear by his grandmother what our man had ordered him to do.But, as soon as the devil found himself free, he jumped on his legs, and, retiring a few paces lest the other might take him unawares a second time, he said,"Now I am free; and now I must tell you that, though I have returned your bond, and sworn not to claim any part in you, I have not promised you not to break your own neck; and that I shall do now, and upon this very spot you shall die for having throttled me, and for having been about to smother me."The devil then rushed upon him in order to kill him; but our man ran away straight into the wood, the devil after him. But, coming to an old beech which was hollow, and had likewise an opening beneath, he quickly crept into it and hid himself, and the devil would have certainly missed him had not his toe peeped out from the hole; but, his toe being all fiery, and glistening through the darkness, the devil found out where he had hid himself, and stept near to catch him by the toe. But he in the tree, hearing him come, dragged back his toe, and climbed higher up. The devil then crept likewise into the tree. The other climbed still higher up, and the devil pursued him, until at last our man reached another hole high up, through which he crept out. As soon as he was out, he quickly shut the hole, and jumped as quickly down to fasten the opening below. And this he did with magic, and did it so well that the devil himself, nor hisgrandmother, could have opened it. Having performed this, he went his ways.Thus the devil sat in the old beech-tree, and could not come out, though he bethought himself for a long time how to do so. Thus he was kept in the beech; and during that time many of our own people, when going to Winterstein or coming from it, heard him bleating and grunting. At last, amongst a large lot of trees, the old beech was cut down, and the devil regained his freedom. The first thing he did was to hasten down below, and see how matters stood there. It was as empty as a church during the week, and not a single soul was to be heard or seen there; for the devil not having returned for so long a while, and no one knowing where he was, not a single soul had arrived. And that broke the heart of the devil's grandmother, who died with grief; and, when she was dead, all the souls who were then there ran away, and went straight to heaven. Thus the devil stood quite alone, without knowing how to get new souls, for he had forsworn to take the bond of any man more, and this was then the only mode in which he would get souls. And thus he stood there ruminating, and was near to pull out his horns from his head with grief and despair, when he hit upon an idea. While he had been in his beech, which stood on the old Hart-place, he had, to while away his time, bethought himself of many things, and amongst others he invented brandy. That he remembered in the midst of his grief, and he conceived at once it would be the best means of getting hold of new souls.He immediately went to Nordhausen, and made himself a distiller; and burnt brandy as much as he could, which he sent into all the world. And he showed to all the men of Nordhausen how brandy was made, promising them great riches if they learnt it, and made brandy like him. And the men of Nordhausen did not oblige him to say it twice, for they all became distillers, and made brandy like him. And thus it happened that to the present day there is no other place in the world where there is so much of brandy burned as at Nordhausen.[31]And so it turned out as the devil expected. Whenever people got a little brandy into their stomachs they began to swear, and d—d their souls to the devil; so that the devil got them when they were dead without taking any bond from them, and without serving them, as he was obliged to do before, when he sought a man's soul. When the brandy rose into their heads, they collared each other, and fought, and broke their necks; so that the devil was saved all the trouble he had had before in wringing them. And, if the devil had had before the greatest pains to be imagined in order to get a poor soul a week for his hell, they came now by their own accord by dozens and scores every day; and scarcely a year passed before hell was too small to hold them. The devil was then obliged to build a new hell at the side of the old one, for the sake of giving them accommodation.In one word, since the devil got loose from the beech on the Hart-place, since that time brandy was introduced into the world; and, since we have brandy, it may be said "that the devil is loosened," as our proverb goes.
A POPULAR TRADITION FROM THE DUCHY OF SAXE-MEININGEN;TRANSLATED FORTHE BENEFIT OF THE TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.[30]
Many years ago, our village (Steinbach) and Winterstein (in the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha) disputed about the common boundaries. Witnesses were called from both sides; but the dispute could not be brought to an end, because each of them spoke in favour of his own village. Amongst these witnesses were two men,—the one a native of Steinbach, and the other of Winterstein,—who had been instructed in magic by the devil, to whom they had sold their souls.
These two men in one and the same night conceived a resolution to erect false boundary-stones, to which they intended to give an appearance of antiquity by the help of magic, so that people might suppose they had stood there, for many years. Both of them, in the figures of fiery men, went up the hill where was the boundary in dispute. Neither of them knew of the intentions of the other. When they met on the hill, he who arrived the last, asked the other,
"What he was doing there?"
"That is no concern of yours!" answered this; "tell me first whatyouare doing here?"
"I will place boundary-stones, and settle the limits as they ought to be."
"That I have done already, and there you see the stones; and, as the stones go, so goes the boundary."
"You are wrong, for the boundary goes this way; and my master told me that I was in the right."
"Pray, who is your master? A fine gentleman must he be!"
"My master is the devil. Are you satisfied now? and do you feel respect for me?"
"That is a lie! for the devil ismymaster; and he told me that I was right: and, therefore, get off as quick as you can, or you shall see!"
So saying, they threw themselves upon each other; but the man of our village proved too strong for the other, to whom he gave such a blow on the mouth that his head flew off and rolled down the hill. The fiery man without a head quickly ran after it to catch it, and fix it on again; but he did not succeed in doing so before he arrived at the spot where the little brook, which flows down the hill, enters the Emse.
Meanwhile, our man, who gave the blow, looked from the hill how the other chased his own head, when on a sudden a third fiery man stood before him, who asked,
"What he had done there?"
"That is no concern of yours!" answered our man; "and, if you do not go your ways immediately, I'll treat you just as I have the other."
"Have you no more respect for me? and don't you know that I am your master, the devil?"
"And, if you are the devil himself, I care not a straw for you! Go to h—!"
"And that I'll do," said the devil; "but not without you."
Thus saying, the devil stooped to carry him away on his shoulders; but our man, watching his opportunity, caught his neck between his two legs, and then, laying his hands on him, and holding him down to the ground, he said,
"Now you are in my power; and now you shall feel what my hands are able to do. You have during your life broken the neck of many a poor man; you shall now learn yourself how it feels!"
Thus saying, he set about to screw the devil's neck round with all his might; but, when the devil saw that our man was in earnest, he gave him good words, and prayed him not to do so, and not to smother him, promising to do anything he might require.
"As I hear you speaking so piteously," said our man, "I'll let you loose; but not before you have returned to me the bond by which I sold you my soul. And, moreover, you must swear to me by your own grandmother, not to claim any part in me; and, during all your life hereafter, never to take any man's bond for his soul."
The devil, though not pleased with these conditions, yet, for the safety of his own neck, could not but return the bond, and even swear by his grandmother what our man had ordered him to do.
But, as soon as the devil found himself free, he jumped on his legs, and, retiring a few paces lest the other might take him unawares a second time, he said,
"Now I am free; and now I must tell you that, though I have returned your bond, and sworn not to claim any part in you, I have not promised you not to break your own neck; and that I shall do now, and upon this very spot you shall die for having throttled me, and for having been about to smother me."
The devil then rushed upon him in order to kill him; but our man ran away straight into the wood, the devil after him. But, coming to an old beech which was hollow, and had likewise an opening beneath, he quickly crept into it and hid himself, and the devil would have certainly missed him had not his toe peeped out from the hole; but, his toe being all fiery, and glistening through the darkness, the devil found out where he had hid himself, and stept near to catch him by the toe. But he in the tree, hearing him come, dragged back his toe, and climbed higher up. The devil then crept likewise into the tree. The other climbed still higher up, and the devil pursued him, until at last our man reached another hole high up, through which he crept out. As soon as he was out, he quickly shut the hole, and jumped as quickly down to fasten the opening below. And this he did with magic, and did it so well that the devil himself, nor hisgrandmother, could have opened it. Having performed this, he went his ways.
Thus the devil sat in the old beech-tree, and could not come out, though he bethought himself for a long time how to do so. Thus he was kept in the beech; and during that time many of our own people, when going to Winterstein or coming from it, heard him bleating and grunting. At last, amongst a large lot of trees, the old beech was cut down, and the devil regained his freedom. The first thing he did was to hasten down below, and see how matters stood there. It was as empty as a church during the week, and not a single soul was to be heard or seen there; for the devil not having returned for so long a while, and no one knowing where he was, not a single soul had arrived. And that broke the heart of the devil's grandmother, who died with grief; and, when she was dead, all the souls who were then there ran away, and went straight to heaven. Thus the devil stood quite alone, without knowing how to get new souls, for he had forsworn to take the bond of any man more, and this was then the only mode in which he would get souls. And thus he stood there ruminating, and was near to pull out his horns from his head with grief and despair, when he hit upon an idea. While he had been in his beech, which stood on the old Hart-place, he had, to while away his time, bethought himself of many things, and amongst others he invented brandy. That he remembered in the midst of his grief, and he conceived at once it would be the best means of getting hold of new souls.
He immediately went to Nordhausen, and made himself a distiller; and burnt brandy as much as he could, which he sent into all the world. And he showed to all the men of Nordhausen how brandy was made, promising them great riches if they learnt it, and made brandy like him. And the men of Nordhausen did not oblige him to say it twice, for they all became distillers, and made brandy like him. And thus it happened that to the present day there is no other place in the world where there is so much of brandy burned as at Nordhausen.[31]
And so it turned out as the devil expected. Whenever people got a little brandy into their stomachs they began to swear, and d—d their souls to the devil; so that the devil got them when they were dead without taking any bond from them, and without serving them, as he was obliged to do before, when he sought a man's soul. When the brandy rose into their heads, they collared each other, and fought, and broke their necks; so that the devil was saved all the trouble he had had before in wringing them. And, if the devil had had before the greatest pains to be imagined in order to get a poor soul a week for his hell, they came now by their own accord by dozens and scores every day; and scarcely a year passed before hell was too small to hold them. The devil was then obliged to build a new hell at the side of the old one, for the sake of giving them accommodation.
In one word, since the devil got loose from the beech on the Hart-place, since that time brandy was introduced into the world; and, since we have brandy, it may be said "that the devil is loosened," as our proverb goes.
THE WIT IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.BY RICHARD JOHNS.Reader, are you a wit? If so, are you a whit the better for so being?The mere imputation of being a facetious fellow has cost me so dearly, that I can well imagine what fearful consequences the actual possession of a real patent from the court of Momus involves. For mine own part, I may truly saymyoffences against the gravity of society ought to have been denominated accidents. Unwittingly have I offended: I have no pretension to the art of "making a good hit," cutting up a private acquaintance or a public character, "backbiting," or giving "a slap in the face." I am no alchymist at retorts, to be able to transmute the missile aimed at me, into a crown of triumph. If I say a sharp thing, it is because I did not perceive its point; or I would not have meddled with it. I never had the knack of running other men's jokes to death by clapping riders to them; and as to mine own, such as they are, any one is welcome to the credit of them who will take their responsibilities.But, ere the speculative reader closes the bargain, let him "listen to my tale of woe." My father was a wit and a man of letters: he proved his good sense by marrying a fool,—I beg my mother's pardon; she died soon after I was born, and I only judge by the character she left behind her, to say nothing of her MS. poems and common-place book, which I inherited. When ten years of age, I lost my remaining parent, he being killed in a duel arising out of a christening-dinner; on which occasion he originated thenowstanding joke of wishing the heir "long life to be a better man than his father." The worthy host, who was here hinted at, in his relational position, conceiving the expression implied not only an impossibility, but an impertinence, my progenitor was called out, and incontinently sent home again with a hole pinked in his body, which let the existence out of the wittiest man of his day. With such an example before my mental eyes of the consequences of being a bright ornament of society, is it to be wondered that I determined to be the dullest dolt in my school? Alas! it was declared by all, that a "Winkings" must be a wit and a clever fellow, in spite of my endeavours to prove the contrary.If I committed the most egregious blunders in my class, there was always somebody to say, "Winkings knows better; he is a wag,—a dry dog; very like a whale, that he can't answer such a simple question;" and the cheek of the "dry dog" was often wetted by tears; and the "wag" found the jest no joke; and, if my ignorance was "very like a whale," it was one on mine own shoulders, since, if I really knew better, I certainly got the worst of it. I have been flogged one moment for pretending to be obtuse, when there was no pretence in the matter; and the next, for saying impudent things to the dominie, which I had never intended. I unconsciously quizzed the ushers, to mine own disgrace; while the writing-master declared, if ever Ididwrite, it must be without tuition and by intuition, for I was too busy making the other boys laugh, or worrying them till they cried, to attend to my copy. Such was my character at a school which I quitted early in my nonage, having persuaded my guardiansthat my education was complete, out of sheer compassion to my master. Had I not left his school, there was a probability of my being his only scholar, so numerous were the complaints from my schoolfellows' parents of "that mischief-making, sly, quarrelsome, impudent little scapegrace, Master Sam Winkings, who, from all they had heard, seemed quite enough to corrupt a whole school." Thus early did my unhappy destiny develope itself; people would have it that I was always saying or imagining evil of them, setting others by the ears for the fun of the fight, and jesting and sneering at all the world holds sacred and respectable.But in those days unjust accusations were of little consequence to me; if strangers belied me, my immediate relatives were then proud of my "facetious ways," and my "dry humour,—so like his poor father!" Thus lauded and encouraged, matters were at one time going on so pleasantly that I had some intention of favouring the deceit my friends seemed determined to put on themselves, and, professing myself a wit, take all the honours for my fortuitous smart sayings, rather than be accused of affectation in eternally denying them. The tables, however, were soon turned; and it was well I still stuck to the truth, or disasters might have more speedily befallen me. As it was, I in due course of time offended matter-of-fact uncles by jests that I was unconscious of; shocked the ears of fair cousins bydouble entendremost unmeaningly; and robbed maiden aunts of their good names, when I really meant to compliment their virtues.But I will at once individualize my misfortunes, and I feel assured of the reader's sympathy. "Sam," said my uncle John, as he was breakfasting with me at my chambers in the Temple, where I didnothing, with an air of business: having been called to the bar, "I want to ask your advice; but you really are such a facetious fellow, that you even laugh at a man's misfortunes.""Indeed, sir, you wrong me," I replied, anxious to justify myself, for I was his reputed heir. "Only state your case, and I will give you as good advice as if I were your fee'd counsel.""Well, Sam, you must in the first place know," said the old gentleman, "that I shall be obliged to stand an action for assault.""Sorry for it, uncle: I hope it is not a bad action on your part, or we had better——" I was going to add "compromise, rather than go into court;" but my worthy relative, who was about one of the most irritable men in existence, interrupted me."Confound you, sir! whenwillyou leave off your puns? What bad action did I ever commit in the whole course of my life?""Beg pardon, uncle, you quite misunderstand me," apologised I, wishing to explain."No, I don't, Sam," retorted he, shaking his head; "your unhappy propensity is too well known. But I will forgive you this once; onlydobe serious. I tell you, boy, it may cost me a cool hundred, besides expenses."I again assured him that I was all attention; and as he threw himself back in his chair, in preparation for a lengthy detail, I quietly continued my breakfast, only occasionally putting in a "Yes," "Truly," "Really," and so on, as Uncle John paused for breath."I was down at Brighton last week, as you know, Sam: had a dreadful headache, and thought a shower-bath would do me good; sowent to the new baths. An attendant almost ran against me in the hall. 'Shower-bath,' said I. 'Yes, sir, in a moment, sir; hot or cold?' 'A hot shower-bath!' exclaimed I in the very extremity of surprise. 'I am not used to be jested with, young man.' The fellow stared as if he did not half understand me; but brushed off, and I walked into the waiting-room. My head throbbed with pain, and not a little with perplexity at what the fellow could mean by a hot shower-bath; I had never heard of such a thing, and thought the rogue was quizzing me. Well, Sam, to go on with my story, I was soon ushered into a little bathing-room, with its tall sentry-box, by the same man I had at first spoken to. 'Get more towels,' said I: there were only three. 'Yes, sir,' and away went my gentleman; while I stripped, and shut myself up in the bath. For the life of me, I could not muster resolution enough, just at first, to pull the string. It is no joke, Sam, to stand the shock of a deluge of cold water. I can assure you it always seems to make my red face hiss again.""No doubt, sir," said I inadvertently."Young gentleman," slowly enunciated my uncle, drawing himself up to his full height in his seat, as if to give greater gravity to his words by causing them to fall from an increased altitude, "it is not becoming inyouto make such a remark, thoughImay choose to be a little facetious on myself. You need not excuse yourself," he added, seeing I was about to reply; "it is your infirmity; but your wit will one day be your only portion."What could I do?—I sighed, let Uncle John go on with his narrative, and helped myself to an egg."Well, nephew, if you can keep from your jokes for a moment, I will come at once to the assault. I had at last made up my mind to endure the cold shock, so I pulled the cord. Never shall I forget it: down came at least six gallons of boiling water! Yes! I am sure it was boiling: the fellow had done it to spite me. The rascal was entering the room with the towels at that very moment, and Ihadmy revenge. I dashed open the door and seized him by the neck. I kicked him, I cuffed him; he cried out 'Murder!' 'You ordered hot water, sir!' I called him a liar, and knocked his head against the wall."Here my uncle became so animated, that he seemed inclined to enact his story. Reader, I have mentioned that I had helped myself to an egg. Now, there has long been a question as to the proper mode of boiling eggs. I like them put into cold water: thus, by the heat being gradually introduced, the shell is prevented from cracking. My man, on the contrary, is for plunging the egg into water at boiling-point. Obstinate fellow! his perverseness on this occasion cost me a thousand a-year and a house in Lancashire. Uncle John was dashing out his hand towards my wig, which, in all the majesty of curls, decorated a block on the side-table, no doubt fancying that he was again going to throttle the knight of the bath, and I had just discovered my egg-shell full of vile slimy fluid, instead of the luxurious yolk and white it would have contained had my rascal obeyed directions. Behold the consequences! My uncle sprang half out of his seat in the frenzy of scalding recollections; while I on the opposite side of the table rose in an agony of vexation, exclaiming "Cracked! cracked! D—the fellow, always in hot water!"Reader, did you ever happen to say an ill-natured thing of a person whom you supposed to have just left the room, but who, in point of fact, not having progressed many yards from the back of your chair, suddenly confronts you to thank you for the attention; if so, you may imagine my uncle's sarcastic acknowledgments. "Thank you, sir; I am very much obliged to you," said the old man, in a moment recovering himself from his menacing attitude; "I humbly thank you. Your wit, sir, will make your fortune. I am cracked, am I? I am always in hot water?" Then, changing his tone as he stalked from his chair to possess himself of his hat, he thundered out, "Mr. Samuel Winkings, no longer nephew of mine,—if a scurvy jest is all your sympathy for your invalid uncle, jeered at and parboiled by a rascally bath waiter, I wish you a very good morning!"In vain I interposed between the old gentleman and the door; I essayed to explain; I offered to put myself, my servant, upon oath; he would not listen to me. He declared all wits were liars,—that I had provoked him past bearing; and away he went, and away went my hopes in that quarter. Never did he forgive me. He died last week, and the only mention he favours me with, in his will, runs thus: "To Samuel Winkings I leave nothing; he can doubtless live by his wit, and I would not insult him by making him any other provision."Though Uncle John had discarded me, still Aunt Jemima, a legacy-huntress all her life, could not carry her quarry to earth with her. She must in her turn make a bequest; and it was at one time thought this would be in my favour, till, in an unluckly hour, I irretrievably lost my place in her good graces. Aunt Jem, as she was familiarly called by her nephews and nieces, had "great expectations" from Miss Julia and Miss Maria Beech, very rich ancient maidens, sufficiently her seniors to make it worth while to calculate what they would leave behind them. Of course my aunt laid herself out in every possible way to conciliate these ladies; indeed, among all their acquaintance, her anxiety to please them was only rivalled by a Mr. Smith, an elderly gentleman living at Barking, in Essex. He, like Aunt Jem, took great pleasure in toadyism, though wealthy enough to have afforded himself much more respectable amusements. There was a cross-fire of invitations, and a grand struggle every Christmas between the lady and gentleman legacy-hunters for the possession of the Misses Beech; and, during a stay I was making last year at my aunt's abode in Hampshire, I found that, yielding to her superior powers of persuasion, the worthy spinsters were her own from the approaching Christmas-eve even until Twelfth-day. "Then they positivelymustgo to Mr. Smith; he was so pressing, and madesucha point of it." This delightful announcement was conveyed in a letter to mine aunt, received at breakfast-time, and triumphantly read to me."They each of them bring their own maid," said the hospitable lady as she conned over their epistle; "but I do not mind the expense nor the trouble; the Beeches are such pleasant companions. I dare say they won't die worth less than twenty thousand pounds apiece. Now I hope you intend to make yourself agreeable, Sam. Let us have none of your jests and your dry sayings. They are—they are staid, serious persons, and don't like such things, but arepartial to sensible conversation. If I recollect right, the last time Miss Julia was here, she told me she had three thousand pounds in the Long Annuities. Both she and her sister treat me with the greatest confidence. I only wish they would not go to Barking so soon. If we were to make things very agreeable to them, who knows, Sam, but they might break their engagement with that mercenary Mr. Smith?"Thus ran on my aunt, while I silently acquiesced in all she said."Why, Sam, you do not seem pleased at the prospect of company!""Indeed, aunt," replied I, "I was only thinking you would like myroom.""Will you havedonewith your jests?" said Aunt Jem, suspecting a joke in my literal offer, I knowing that ladies' maids are often more fastidious as to their bedchambers than their mistresses."It is very provoking," exclaimed I in a pet, "that you always think I am making some foolish pun. I only wish to domypart towards rendering your guests and their attendants comfortable. You know what a fuss they make about their servants; turning the house into a hospital for the slightest cold, and talking of 'dear Mr. Smith's cough medicine!' I was only thinking what I could do, to keep the Beeches from Barking."I suppose, in my haste to exculpate myself from the charge of punning, I could not have taken due care to elongate thepropername of the fair spinsters, and, doubtless, it must have sounded a mostimproperone in the ears of my aunt; for her little eyes seemed actually to emit sparks, as a black cat's back is said to do when ruffled in the dark."They are gentlewomen, Mr. Winkings!" cried Aunt Jem, almost choked with indignation, "and their attendants are respectable young persons, whileyouare a disgrace to your family. For shame! for shame!" emphatically continued the angry lady, interrupting the excuses I attempted to make; "I will not listen to you. I beg you will leave my house immediately. Your room is indeed most desirable, as you just now so wittily remarked. I would not subject my friends to the insolent licence of your tongue for worlds!"Away marched Aunt Jem with the strut of an incensed turkey-cock, and an hour afterwards, I was on my way back to London; nor have I ever been able to convince my mistaken relative of my innocence, and still do I remain under the ban of her displeasure.It would be wearying the reader to state all I have lost, and all I have suffered from the imputation of being a droll; and so I will content myself with one more instance of my unhappy fatality.Not long ago I dined with Lord C——, who, though he certainly does not bear the character of being over bright, was still to me a star of great promise, seeing that he had given me assurance of provision under the operation of the "poor laws' bastard legislation," or some such affair, I forget exactly what, since unfortunately it is now no affair of mine.The dinner in question was the only one I ever got out of his lordship, who on this occasion merely asked me, I believe, on account of my reputation for drollery. In fact, I was intended to be the jack-pudding of the company; but I determined to eat much and saylittle, for fear of giving offence. This did not suit his lordship, who considered my silence during the early part of the dinner as so much time lost, many of the party having been asked to meet the facetious Sam Winkings."We have just had a discussion here," smiled Lord C——, in his attempt to draw me out, "as to the impossibility of real wit making a rankling wound, it being like the clean cut of a razor. For myself, I am but a fool in such matters. What doyousay, Mr. Winkings?""That I am quite of your lordship's opinion," replied I, most deferentially.Here, a fit of coughing went round the table, which might or might not have covered a laugh; but looks were exchanged, plainly showing me that something was wrong. Little did I think at the time that, in delivering myself of my first actual sentence, in my hurry to agree with our host, I had called him a noodle. The peer was the only one who indulged in a decided cachinnation. Even he did not laugh comfortably; and I began to imagine that I had made one of my unlucky hits."I beg pardon, my lord; I only meant perfectly to agree with your lordship," said I, crossing my knife and fork over a delicious slice from a haunch of Southdown, for which my embarrassment had taken away all relish."Don't mention it, Mr. Winkings," rejoined Lord C——, getting up a fresh laugh; "I am sorry I disturbed you till after dinner. You don't like 'to eat mutton cold.' How goes the quotation?""'And cut blocks with a razor,' my lord," replied I, with the most imperturbable gravity.The sensation was immense. Several of the guests palpably scowled at me, as if I had been guilty of an impertinence towards our host. Some stifled their risibility, and others laughed outright. Alas! what had I done? Just helped him to the remembrance of a quotation which there can be no doubt his lordship had forgotten, except as it referred to mutton. But I had the reputation for sarcasm, and of course I had made a personal attack on Lord C——, who, acting under this impression, certainly passed the matter off with a great deal of urbanity."Glad you hit him so hard," said a caustic old gentleman on my right. "Can't bear to see men of wit asked to be funny. My lord had much better have let well alone.""In the name of Heaven, sir," cried I, almost at my wits' end, "whathaveI done?""Ah, you're a wag," said the caustic old gentleman."Indeed, sir, I am not a wag, but the most unfortunate individual in the world."My neighbour was convulsed with laughter; and it was not until we left my lord's house after that luckless dinner that I elicited from him the particulars of my offence. His lordship has, like my uncle and aunt, of course, left me to live by my wits; fortunately, my caustic little friend thinks they will stand me in excellent stead. He has taken the place of my offended patron, and has actually introduced me to a publisher, for whom I am just now engaged in editing a new edition of facetiæ, in two volumes quarto, comprising the complete reminiscences of the celebrated Joseph Miller.
BY RICHARD JOHNS.
Reader, are you a wit? If so, are you a whit the better for so being?
The mere imputation of being a facetious fellow has cost me so dearly, that I can well imagine what fearful consequences the actual possession of a real patent from the court of Momus involves. For mine own part, I may truly saymyoffences against the gravity of society ought to have been denominated accidents. Unwittingly have I offended: I have no pretension to the art of "making a good hit," cutting up a private acquaintance or a public character, "backbiting," or giving "a slap in the face." I am no alchymist at retorts, to be able to transmute the missile aimed at me, into a crown of triumph. If I say a sharp thing, it is because I did not perceive its point; or I would not have meddled with it. I never had the knack of running other men's jokes to death by clapping riders to them; and as to mine own, such as they are, any one is welcome to the credit of them who will take their responsibilities.
But, ere the speculative reader closes the bargain, let him "listen to my tale of woe." My father was a wit and a man of letters: he proved his good sense by marrying a fool,—I beg my mother's pardon; she died soon after I was born, and I only judge by the character she left behind her, to say nothing of her MS. poems and common-place book, which I inherited. When ten years of age, I lost my remaining parent, he being killed in a duel arising out of a christening-dinner; on which occasion he originated thenowstanding joke of wishing the heir "long life to be a better man than his father." The worthy host, who was here hinted at, in his relational position, conceiving the expression implied not only an impossibility, but an impertinence, my progenitor was called out, and incontinently sent home again with a hole pinked in his body, which let the existence out of the wittiest man of his day. With such an example before my mental eyes of the consequences of being a bright ornament of society, is it to be wondered that I determined to be the dullest dolt in my school? Alas! it was declared by all, that a "Winkings" must be a wit and a clever fellow, in spite of my endeavours to prove the contrary.
If I committed the most egregious blunders in my class, there was always somebody to say, "Winkings knows better; he is a wag,—a dry dog; very like a whale, that he can't answer such a simple question;" and the cheek of the "dry dog" was often wetted by tears; and the "wag" found the jest no joke; and, if my ignorance was "very like a whale," it was one on mine own shoulders, since, if I really knew better, I certainly got the worst of it. I have been flogged one moment for pretending to be obtuse, when there was no pretence in the matter; and the next, for saying impudent things to the dominie, which I had never intended. I unconsciously quizzed the ushers, to mine own disgrace; while the writing-master declared, if ever Ididwrite, it must be without tuition and by intuition, for I was too busy making the other boys laugh, or worrying them till they cried, to attend to my copy. Such was my character at a school which I quitted early in my nonage, having persuaded my guardiansthat my education was complete, out of sheer compassion to my master. Had I not left his school, there was a probability of my being his only scholar, so numerous were the complaints from my schoolfellows' parents of "that mischief-making, sly, quarrelsome, impudent little scapegrace, Master Sam Winkings, who, from all they had heard, seemed quite enough to corrupt a whole school." Thus early did my unhappy destiny develope itself; people would have it that I was always saying or imagining evil of them, setting others by the ears for the fun of the fight, and jesting and sneering at all the world holds sacred and respectable.
But in those days unjust accusations were of little consequence to me; if strangers belied me, my immediate relatives were then proud of my "facetious ways," and my "dry humour,—so like his poor father!" Thus lauded and encouraged, matters were at one time going on so pleasantly that I had some intention of favouring the deceit my friends seemed determined to put on themselves, and, professing myself a wit, take all the honours for my fortuitous smart sayings, rather than be accused of affectation in eternally denying them. The tables, however, were soon turned; and it was well I still stuck to the truth, or disasters might have more speedily befallen me. As it was, I in due course of time offended matter-of-fact uncles by jests that I was unconscious of; shocked the ears of fair cousins bydouble entendremost unmeaningly; and robbed maiden aunts of their good names, when I really meant to compliment their virtues.
But I will at once individualize my misfortunes, and I feel assured of the reader's sympathy. "Sam," said my uncle John, as he was breakfasting with me at my chambers in the Temple, where I didnothing, with an air of business: having been called to the bar, "I want to ask your advice; but you really are such a facetious fellow, that you even laugh at a man's misfortunes."
"Indeed, sir, you wrong me," I replied, anxious to justify myself, for I was his reputed heir. "Only state your case, and I will give you as good advice as if I were your fee'd counsel."
"Well, Sam, you must in the first place know," said the old gentleman, "that I shall be obliged to stand an action for assault."
"Sorry for it, uncle: I hope it is not a bad action on your part, or we had better——" I was going to add "compromise, rather than go into court;" but my worthy relative, who was about one of the most irritable men in existence, interrupted me.
"Confound you, sir! whenwillyou leave off your puns? What bad action did I ever commit in the whole course of my life?"
"Beg pardon, uncle, you quite misunderstand me," apologised I, wishing to explain.
"No, I don't, Sam," retorted he, shaking his head; "your unhappy propensity is too well known. But I will forgive you this once; onlydobe serious. I tell you, boy, it may cost me a cool hundred, besides expenses."
I again assured him that I was all attention; and as he threw himself back in his chair, in preparation for a lengthy detail, I quietly continued my breakfast, only occasionally putting in a "Yes," "Truly," "Really," and so on, as Uncle John paused for breath.
"I was down at Brighton last week, as you know, Sam: had a dreadful headache, and thought a shower-bath would do me good; sowent to the new baths. An attendant almost ran against me in the hall. 'Shower-bath,' said I. 'Yes, sir, in a moment, sir; hot or cold?' 'A hot shower-bath!' exclaimed I in the very extremity of surprise. 'I am not used to be jested with, young man.' The fellow stared as if he did not half understand me; but brushed off, and I walked into the waiting-room. My head throbbed with pain, and not a little with perplexity at what the fellow could mean by a hot shower-bath; I had never heard of such a thing, and thought the rogue was quizzing me. Well, Sam, to go on with my story, I was soon ushered into a little bathing-room, with its tall sentry-box, by the same man I had at first spoken to. 'Get more towels,' said I: there were only three. 'Yes, sir,' and away went my gentleman; while I stripped, and shut myself up in the bath. For the life of me, I could not muster resolution enough, just at first, to pull the string. It is no joke, Sam, to stand the shock of a deluge of cold water. I can assure you it always seems to make my red face hiss again."
"No doubt, sir," said I inadvertently.
"Young gentleman," slowly enunciated my uncle, drawing himself up to his full height in his seat, as if to give greater gravity to his words by causing them to fall from an increased altitude, "it is not becoming inyouto make such a remark, thoughImay choose to be a little facetious on myself. You need not excuse yourself," he added, seeing I was about to reply; "it is your infirmity; but your wit will one day be your only portion."
What could I do?—I sighed, let Uncle John go on with his narrative, and helped myself to an egg.
"Well, nephew, if you can keep from your jokes for a moment, I will come at once to the assault. I had at last made up my mind to endure the cold shock, so I pulled the cord. Never shall I forget it: down came at least six gallons of boiling water! Yes! I am sure it was boiling: the fellow had done it to spite me. The rascal was entering the room with the towels at that very moment, and Ihadmy revenge. I dashed open the door and seized him by the neck. I kicked him, I cuffed him; he cried out 'Murder!' 'You ordered hot water, sir!' I called him a liar, and knocked his head against the wall."
Here my uncle became so animated, that he seemed inclined to enact his story. Reader, I have mentioned that I had helped myself to an egg. Now, there has long been a question as to the proper mode of boiling eggs. I like them put into cold water: thus, by the heat being gradually introduced, the shell is prevented from cracking. My man, on the contrary, is for plunging the egg into water at boiling-point. Obstinate fellow! his perverseness on this occasion cost me a thousand a-year and a house in Lancashire. Uncle John was dashing out his hand towards my wig, which, in all the majesty of curls, decorated a block on the side-table, no doubt fancying that he was again going to throttle the knight of the bath, and I had just discovered my egg-shell full of vile slimy fluid, instead of the luxurious yolk and white it would have contained had my rascal obeyed directions. Behold the consequences! My uncle sprang half out of his seat in the frenzy of scalding recollections; while I on the opposite side of the table rose in an agony of vexation, exclaiming "Cracked! cracked! D—the fellow, always in hot water!"
Reader, did you ever happen to say an ill-natured thing of a person whom you supposed to have just left the room, but who, in point of fact, not having progressed many yards from the back of your chair, suddenly confronts you to thank you for the attention; if so, you may imagine my uncle's sarcastic acknowledgments. "Thank you, sir; I am very much obliged to you," said the old man, in a moment recovering himself from his menacing attitude; "I humbly thank you. Your wit, sir, will make your fortune. I am cracked, am I? I am always in hot water?" Then, changing his tone as he stalked from his chair to possess himself of his hat, he thundered out, "Mr. Samuel Winkings, no longer nephew of mine,—if a scurvy jest is all your sympathy for your invalid uncle, jeered at and parboiled by a rascally bath waiter, I wish you a very good morning!"
In vain I interposed between the old gentleman and the door; I essayed to explain; I offered to put myself, my servant, upon oath; he would not listen to me. He declared all wits were liars,—that I had provoked him past bearing; and away he went, and away went my hopes in that quarter. Never did he forgive me. He died last week, and the only mention he favours me with, in his will, runs thus: "To Samuel Winkings I leave nothing; he can doubtless live by his wit, and I would not insult him by making him any other provision."
Though Uncle John had discarded me, still Aunt Jemima, a legacy-huntress all her life, could not carry her quarry to earth with her. She must in her turn make a bequest; and it was at one time thought this would be in my favour, till, in an unluckly hour, I irretrievably lost my place in her good graces. Aunt Jem, as she was familiarly called by her nephews and nieces, had "great expectations" from Miss Julia and Miss Maria Beech, very rich ancient maidens, sufficiently her seniors to make it worth while to calculate what they would leave behind them. Of course my aunt laid herself out in every possible way to conciliate these ladies; indeed, among all their acquaintance, her anxiety to please them was only rivalled by a Mr. Smith, an elderly gentleman living at Barking, in Essex. He, like Aunt Jem, took great pleasure in toadyism, though wealthy enough to have afforded himself much more respectable amusements. There was a cross-fire of invitations, and a grand struggle every Christmas between the lady and gentleman legacy-hunters for the possession of the Misses Beech; and, during a stay I was making last year at my aunt's abode in Hampshire, I found that, yielding to her superior powers of persuasion, the worthy spinsters were her own from the approaching Christmas-eve even until Twelfth-day. "Then they positivelymustgo to Mr. Smith; he was so pressing, and madesucha point of it." This delightful announcement was conveyed in a letter to mine aunt, received at breakfast-time, and triumphantly read to me.
"They each of them bring their own maid," said the hospitable lady as she conned over their epistle; "but I do not mind the expense nor the trouble; the Beeches are such pleasant companions. I dare say they won't die worth less than twenty thousand pounds apiece. Now I hope you intend to make yourself agreeable, Sam. Let us have none of your jests and your dry sayings. They are—they are staid, serious persons, and don't like such things, but arepartial to sensible conversation. If I recollect right, the last time Miss Julia was here, she told me she had three thousand pounds in the Long Annuities. Both she and her sister treat me with the greatest confidence. I only wish they would not go to Barking so soon. If we were to make things very agreeable to them, who knows, Sam, but they might break their engagement with that mercenary Mr. Smith?"
Thus ran on my aunt, while I silently acquiesced in all she said.
"Why, Sam, you do not seem pleased at the prospect of company!"
"Indeed, aunt," replied I, "I was only thinking you would like myroom."
"Will you havedonewith your jests?" said Aunt Jem, suspecting a joke in my literal offer, I knowing that ladies' maids are often more fastidious as to their bedchambers than their mistresses.
"It is very provoking," exclaimed I in a pet, "that you always think I am making some foolish pun. I only wish to domypart towards rendering your guests and their attendants comfortable. You know what a fuss they make about their servants; turning the house into a hospital for the slightest cold, and talking of 'dear Mr. Smith's cough medicine!' I was only thinking what I could do, to keep the Beeches from Barking."
I suppose, in my haste to exculpate myself from the charge of punning, I could not have taken due care to elongate thepropername of the fair spinsters, and, doubtless, it must have sounded a mostimproperone in the ears of my aunt; for her little eyes seemed actually to emit sparks, as a black cat's back is said to do when ruffled in the dark.
"They are gentlewomen, Mr. Winkings!" cried Aunt Jem, almost choked with indignation, "and their attendants are respectable young persons, whileyouare a disgrace to your family. For shame! for shame!" emphatically continued the angry lady, interrupting the excuses I attempted to make; "I will not listen to you. I beg you will leave my house immediately. Your room is indeed most desirable, as you just now so wittily remarked. I would not subject my friends to the insolent licence of your tongue for worlds!"
Away marched Aunt Jem with the strut of an incensed turkey-cock, and an hour afterwards, I was on my way back to London; nor have I ever been able to convince my mistaken relative of my innocence, and still do I remain under the ban of her displeasure.
It would be wearying the reader to state all I have lost, and all I have suffered from the imputation of being a droll; and so I will content myself with one more instance of my unhappy fatality.
Not long ago I dined with Lord C——, who, though he certainly does not bear the character of being over bright, was still to me a star of great promise, seeing that he had given me assurance of provision under the operation of the "poor laws' bastard legislation," or some such affair, I forget exactly what, since unfortunately it is now no affair of mine.
The dinner in question was the only one I ever got out of his lordship, who on this occasion merely asked me, I believe, on account of my reputation for drollery. In fact, I was intended to be the jack-pudding of the company; but I determined to eat much and saylittle, for fear of giving offence. This did not suit his lordship, who considered my silence during the early part of the dinner as so much time lost, many of the party having been asked to meet the facetious Sam Winkings.
"We have just had a discussion here," smiled Lord C——, in his attempt to draw me out, "as to the impossibility of real wit making a rankling wound, it being like the clean cut of a razor. For myself, I am but a fool in such matters. What doyousay, Mr. Winkings?"
"That I am quite of your lordship's opinion," replied I, most deferentially.
Here, a fit of coughing went round the table, which might or might not have covered a laugh; but looks were exchanged, plainly showing me that something was wrong. Little did I think at the time that, in delivering myself of my first actual sentence, in my hurry to agree with our host, I had called him a noodle. The peer was the only one who indulged in a decided cachinnation. Even he did not laugh comfortably; and I began to imagine that I had made one of my unlucky hits.
"I beg pardon, my lord; I only meant perfectly to agree with your lordship," said I, crossing my knife and fork over a delicious slice from a haunch of Southdown, for which my embarrassment had taken away all relish.
"Don't mention it, Mr. Winkings," rejoined Lord C——, getting up a fresh laugh; "I am sorry I disturbed you till after dinner. You don't like 'to eat mutton cold.' How goes the quotation?"
"'And cut blocks with a razor,' my lord," replied I, with the most imperturbable gravity.
The sensation was immense. Several of the guests palpably scowled at me, as if I had been guilty of an impertinence towards our host. Some stifled their risibility, and others laughed outright. Alas! what had I done? Just helped him to the remembrance of a quotation which there can be no doubt his lordship had forgotten, except as it referred to mutton. But I had the reputation for sarcasm, and of course I had made a personal attack on Lord C——, who, acting under this impression, certainly passed the matter off with a great deal of urbanity.
"Glad you hit him so hard," said a caustic old gentleman on my right. "Can't bear to see men of wit asked to be funny. My lord had much better have let well alone."
"In the name of Heaven, sir," cried I, almost at my wits' end, "whathaveI done?"
"Ah, you're a wag," said the caustic old gentleman.
"Indeed, sir, I am not a wag, but the most unfortunate individual in the world."
My neighbour was convulsed with laughter; and it was not until we left my lord's house after that luckless dinner that I elicited from him the particulars of my offence. His lordship has, like my uncle and aunt, of course, left me to live by my wits; fortunately, my caustic little friend thinks they will stand me in excellent stead. He has taken the place of my offended patron, and has actually introduced me to a publisher, for whom I am just now engaged in editing a new edition of facetiæ, in two volumes quarto, comprising the complete reminiscences of the celebrated Joseph Miller.