Canstthou love me, lady?I’ve not learn’d to woo:Thou art on the shadySide of sixty too.Still I love thee dearly!Thou hast lands and pelf:But I love thee merelyMerely for thyself.
Wilt thou love me, fairest?Though thou art not fair;And I think thou wearestSomeone-else’s hair.Thou could’st love, though, dearly:And, as I am told,Thou art very nearlyWorth thy weight, in gold.
Dost thou love me, sweet one?Tell me that thou dost!Women fairly beat one,But I think thou must.Thou art loved so dearly:I am plain, but thenThou (to speak sincerely)Art as plain again.
Love me, bashful fairy!I’ve an empty purse:And I’ve “moods,” which vary;Mostly for the worse.Still, I love thee dearly:Though I make (I feel)Love a little queerly,I’m as true as steel.
Love me, swear to love me(As, you know, they do)By yon heaven above meAnd its changeless blue.Love me, lady, dearly,If you’ll be so good;Though I don’t see clearlyOn what ground you should.
Love me—ah or love meNot, but be my bride!Do not simply shove me(So to speak) aside!P’raps it would be dearlyPurchased at the price;But a hundred yearlyWould be very nice.
’Tisbut a box, of modest deal;Directed to no matter where:Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal—Yes, I am blubbering like a seal;For on it is this mute appeal,“With care.”
I am a stern cold man, and rangeApart: but those vague words “With care”Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange:Drawn from my moral Moated Grange,I feel I rather like the changeOf air.
Hast thou ne’er seen rough pointsmen spySome simple English phrase—“With care”Or “This side uppermost”—and cryLike children? No? No more have I.Yet deem not him whose eyes are dryA bear.
But ah! what treasure hides beneathThat lid so much the worse for wear?A ring perhaps—a rosy wreath—A photograph by Vernon Heath—Some matron’s temporary teethOr hair!
Perhaps some seaman, in PeruOr Ind, hath stow’d herein a rareCargo of birds’ eggs for his Sue;With many a vow that he’ll be true,And many a hint that she is too,Too fair.
Perhaps—but wherefore vainly pryInto the page that’s folded there?I shall be better by and by:The porters, as I sit and sigh,Pass and repass—I wonder whyThey stare!
Iwatch’dher as she stoop’d to pluckA wildflower in her hair to twine;And wish’d that it had been my luckTo call her mine.
Anon I heard her rate with madMad words her babe within its cot;And felt particularly gladThat it had not.
I knew (such subtle brains have men)That she was uttering what she shouldn’t;And thought that I would chide, and thenI thought I wouldn’t:
Who could have gazed upon that face,Those pouting coral lips, and chided?A Rhadamanthus, in my place,Had done as I did:
For ire wherewith our bosoms glowIs chain’d there oft by Beauty’s spell;And, more than that, I did not knowThe widow well.
So the harsh phrase pass’d unreproved.Still mute—(O brothers, was it sin?)—I drank, unutterably moved,Her beauty in:
And to myself I murmur’d low,As on her upturn’d face and dressThe moonlight fell, “Would she say No,By chance, or Yes?”
She stood so calm, so like a ghostBetwixt me and that magic moon,That I already was almostA finish’d coon.
But when she caught adroitly upAnd soothed with smiles her little daughter;And gave it, if I’m right, a supOf barley-water;
And, crooning still the strange sweet loreWhich only mothers’ tongues can utter,Snow’d with deft hand the sugar o’erIts bread and butter;
And kiss’d it clingingly—(Ah, whyDon’t women do these things in private?)—I felt that if I lost her, IShould not survive it:
And from my mouth the words nigh flew—The past, the future, I forgat ’em:“Oh! if you’d kiss me as you doThat thankless atom!”
But this thought came ere yet I spake,And froze the sentence on my lips:“They err, who marry wives that makeThose little slips.”
It came like some familiar rhyme,Some copy to my boyhood set;And that’s perhaps the reason I’mUnmarried yet.
Would she have own’d how pleased she was,And told her love with widow’s pride?I never found out that, becauseI never tried.
Be kind to babes and beasts and birds:Hearts may be hard, though lips are coral;And angry words are angry words:And that’s the moral.
Forever; ’tis a single word!Our rude forefathers deem’d it two:Can you imagine so absurdA view?
Forever! What abysms of woeThe word reveals, what frenzy, whatDespair! For ever (printed so)Did not.
It looks, ah me! how trite and tame!It fails to sadden or appalOr solace—it is not the sameAt all.
O thou to whom it first occurr’dTo solder the disjoin’d, and dowerThy native language with a wordOf power:
We bless thee! Whether far or nearThy dwelling, whether dark or fairThy kingly brow, is neither hereNor there.
But in men’s hearts shall be thy throne,While the great pulse of England beats:Thou coiner of a word unknownTo Keats!
And nevermore must printer doAs men did long ago; but run“For” into “ever,” bidding twoBe one.
Forever! passion-fraught, it throwsO’er the dim page a gloom, a glamour:It’s sweet, it’s strange; and I supposeIt’s grammar.
Forever! ’Tis a single word!And yet our fathers deem’d it two:Nor am I confident they err’d;Are you?
“Underthe trees!” Who but agreesThat there is magic in words such as these?Promptly one sees shake in the breezeStately lime-avenues haunted of bees:Where, looking far over buttercupp’d leas,Lads and “fair shes” (that is Byron, and he’sAn authority) lie very much at their ease;Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas,Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese:Not objecting at all though it’s rather a squeezeAnd the glass is, I daresay, at 80 degrees.Some get up glees, and are mad about RiesAnd Sainton, and Tamberlik’s thrilling high Cs;Or if painters, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise,And the tone and the breadth of that landscape of Lee’s;Or if learned, on nodes and the moon’s apogees,Or, if serious, on something of AKHB’s,Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees;Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to fleas.Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes,With their innocent lambswool or book on their knees,And talk, and enact, any nonsense you please,As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas;And you hear an occasional “Harry, don’t tease”From the sweetest of lips in the softest of keys,And other remarks, which to me are Chinese.And fast the time flees; till a ladylike sneeze,Or a portly papa’s more elaborate wheeze,Makes Miss Tabitha seize on her brown muffatees,And announce as a fact that it’s going to freeze,And that young people ought to attend to their PsAnd their Qs, and not court every form of disease:Then Tommy eats up the three last ratafias,And pretty Louise wraps herrobe de ceriseRound a bosom as tender as Widow Machree’s,And (in spite of the pleas of her lorn vis-a-vis)Goes to wrap up her uncle—a patient of Skey’s,Who is prone to catch chills, like all old Bengalese:—But at bedtime I trust he’ll remember to greaseThe bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupeesFrom the premature clutch of his fond legatees;Or at least have no fees to pay any M. D.sFor the cold his niece caught, sitting under the Trees.
Shelaid it where the sunbeams fallUnscann’d upon the broken wall.Without a tear, without a groan,She laid it near a mighty stone,Which some rude swain had haply castThither in sport, long ages past,And Time with mosses had o’erlaid,And fenced with many a tall grassblade,And all about bid roses bloomAnd violets shed their soft perfume.There, in its cool and quiet bed,She set her burden down and fled:Nor flung, all eager to escape,One glance upon the perfect shapeThat lay, still warm and fresh and fair,But motionless and soundless there.
No human eye had mark’d her passAcross the linden-shadow’d grassEre yet the minster clock chimed seven:Only the innocent birds of heaven—The magpie, and the rook whose nestSwings as the elmtree waves his crest—And the lithe cricket, and the hoarAnd huge-limb’d hound that guards the door,Look’d on when, as a summer windThat, passing, leaves no trace behind,All unapparell’d, barefoot all,She ran to that old ruin’d wall,To leave upon the chill dank earth(For ah! she never knew its worth)’Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling,And dews of night, that precious thing!
And there it might have lain forlornFrom morn till eve, from eve to morn:But that, by some wild impulse led,The mother, ere she turn’d and fled,One moment stood erect and high;Then pour’d into the silent skyA cry so jubilant, so strange,That Alice—as she strove to rangeHer rebel ringlets at her glass—Sprang up and gazed across the grass;Shook back those curls so fair to see,Clapp’d her soft hands in childish glee;And shriek’d—her sweet face all aglow,Her very limbs with rapture shaking—“My hen has laid an egg, I know;“And only hear the noise she’s making!”
Iknownot if in others’ eyesShe seem’d almost divine;But far beyond a doubt it liesThat she did not in mine.
Each common stone on which she trodI did not deem a pearl:Nay it is not a little oddHow I abhorr’d that girl.
We met at balls and picnics oft,Or on a drawingroom stair;My aunt invariably cough’dTo warn me she was there:
At croquet I was bid remarkHow queenly was her pose,As with stern glee she drew the darkBlue ball beneath her toes,
And made the Red fly many a foot:Then calmly she would stoop,Smiling an angel smile, to putA partner through his hoop.
At archery I was made observeThat others aim’d more near.But none so tenderly could curveThe elbow round the ear:
Or if we rode, perhaps shedidPull sharply at the curb;But then the way in which she slidFrom horseback was superb!
She’d throw off odes, again, whose flowAnd fire were more than Sapphic;Her voice was sweet, and very low;Her singing quite seraphic:
Shewasa seraph, lacking wings.That much I freely own.But, it is one of those queer thingsWhose cause is all unknown—
(Such are the wasp, the household fly,The shapes that crawl and curlBy men called centipedes)—that ISimply abhorred that girl.
* * *
No doubt some mystery underliesAll things which are and which are not:And ’tis the function of the WiseNot to expound to us what is what,
But let his consciousness play roundThe matter, and at ease evolveThe problem, shallow or profound,Which our poor wits have fail’d to solve,
Then tell us blandly we are fools;Whereof we were aware before:That truth they taught us at the schools,And p’raps (who knows?) a little more.
—But why did we two disagree?Our tastes, it may be, did not dovetail:All I know is, we ne’er shall beHero and heroine of a love-tale.
Omemory! that which I gave theeTo guard in thy garner yestreen—Little deeming thou e’er could’st behave theeThus basely—hath gone from thee clean!Gone, fled, as ere autumn is endedThe yellow leaves flee from the oak—I have lost it for ever, my splendidOriginal joke.
What was it? I know I was brushingMy hair when the notion occurred:I know that I felt myself blushingAs I thought, “How supremely absurd!“How they’ll hammer on floor and on table“As its drollery dawns on them—howThey will quote it”—I wish I were ableTo quote it just now.
I had thought to lead up conversationTo the subject—it’s easily done—Then let off, as an airy creationOf the moment, that masterly pun.Let it off, with a flash like a rocket’s;In the midst of a dazzled conclave,Where I sat, with my hands in my pockets,The only one grave.
I had fancied young Titterton’s chuckles,And old Bottleby’s hearty guffawsAs he drove at my ribs with his knuckles,His mode of expressing applause:While Jean Bottleby—queenly Miss Janet—Drew her handkerchief hastily out,In fits at my slyness—what can itHave all been about?
I know ’twas the happiest, quaintestCombination of pathos and fun:But I’ve got no idea—the faintest—Of what was the actual pun.I think it was somehow connectedWith something I’d recently read—Or heard—or perhaps recollectedOn going to bed.
WhathadI been reading? TheStandard:“Double Bigamy;” “Speech of the Mayor.”And later—eh? yes! I meanderedThrough some chapters of Vanity Fair.How it fuses the grave with the festive!Yet e’en there, there is nothing so fine—So playfully, subtly suggestive—As that joke of mine.
Did it hinge upon “parting asunder?”No, I don’t part my hair with my brush.Was the point of it “hair?” Now I wonder!Stop a bit—I shall think of it—hush!There’share, a wild animal—Stuff!It was something a deal more recondite:Of that I am certain enough;And of nothing beyond it.
Hair—locks! There are probably manyGood things to be said about those.Give me time—that’s the best guess of any—“Lock” has several meanings, one knows.Iron locks—iron-gray locks—a “deadlock”—That would set up an everyday wit:Then of course there’s the obvious “wedlock;”But that wasn’t it.
No! mine was a joke for the ages;Full of intricate meaning and pith;A feast for your scholars and sages—How it would have rejoiced Sidney Smith!’Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal;And, singing him out from the herd,Fling wide immortality’s portal—But what was the word?
Ah me! ’tis a bootless endeavour.As the flight of a bird of the airIs the flight of a joke—you will neverSee the same one again, you may swear.’Twas my firstborn, and O how I prized it!My darling, my treasure, my own!This brain and none other devised it—And now it has flown.
Whenthe young Augustus EdwardHas reluctantly gone bedward(He’s the urchin I am privileged to teach),From my left-hand waistcoat pocketI extract a batter’d locketAnd I commune with it, walking on the beach.
I had often yearn’d for somethingThat would love me, e’en a dumb thing;But such happiness seem’d always out of reach:Little boys are off like arrowsWith their little spades and barrows,When they see me bearing down upon the beach;
And although I’m rather handsome,Tiny babes, when I would dance ’emOn my arm, set up so horrible a screechThat I pitch them to their nursesWith (I fear me) mutter’d curses,And resume my lucubrations on the beach.
And the rabbits won’t come nigh me,And the gulls observe and fly me,And I doubt, upon my honour, if a leechWould stick on me as on others,And I know if I had brothersThey would cut me when we met upon the beach.
So at last I bought this trinket.For (although I love to think it)’Twasn’tgivenme, with a pretty little speech:No! I bought it of a pedlar,Brown and wizen’d as a medlar,Who was hawking odds and ends about the beach.
But I’ve managed, very nearly,To believe that I was dearlyLoved by Somebody, who (blushing like a peach)Flung it o’er me saying, “Wear itFor my sake”—and I declare, itSeldom strikes me that I bought it on the beach.
I can see myself revealingUnsuspected depths of feeling,As, in tones that half upbraid and half beseech,I aver with what delight IWould give anything—my right eye—For a souvenir of our stroll upon the beach.
O! that eye that never glisten’dAnd that voice to which I’ve listen’dBut in fancy, how I dote upon them each!How regardless what o’clock itIs, I pore upon that locketWhich does not contain her portrait, on the beach!
As if something were inside itI laboriously hide it,And a rather pretty sermon you might preachUpon Fantasy, selectingFor your “instance” the affectingTale of me and my proceedings on the beach.
I depict her, ah, how charming!I portray myself alarmingHerby swearing I would “mount the deadly breach,”Or engage in any scrimmageFor a glimpse of her sweet image,Or her shadow, or her footprint on the beach.
And I’m ever ever seeingMy imaginary Being,And I’d rather that my marrowbones should bleachIn the winds, than that a cruelFate should snatch from me the jewelWhich I bought for one and sixpence on the beach.
Inmoss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean:Meaning, however, is no great matter)Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;
Thro’ God’s own heather we wonn’d together,I and my Willie (O love my love):I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,And flitterbats waver’d alow, above:
Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,(Boats in that climate are so polite),And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!
Thro’ the rare red heather we danced together,(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:—
By rises that flush’d with their purple favours,Thro’ becks that brattled o’er grasses sheen,We walked and waded, we two young shavers,Thanking our stars we were both so green.
We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,Hid in weltering shadows of daffodillyOr marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:
Songbirds darted about, some inkyAs coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky—They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!
But they skim over bents which the midstream washes,Or hang in the lift ’neath a white cloud’s hem;They need no parasols, no goloshes;And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.
Then we thrid God’s cowslips (as erst His heather)That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;And snapt—(it was perfectly charming weather)—Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:
And Willie ’gan sing (O, his notes were fluty;Wafts fluttered them out to the white-wing’d sea)—Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,Rhymes (better to put it) of “ancientry:”
Bowers of flowers encounter’d showersIn William’s carol—(O love my Willie!)Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrowI quite forget what—say a daffodilly:
A nest in a hollow, “with buds to follow,”I think occurred next in his nimble strain;And clay that was “kneaden” of course in Eden—A rhyme most novel, I do maintain:
Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,And all least furlable things got “furled;”Not with any design to conceal their “glories,”But simply and solely to rhyme with “world.”
* * *
O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,Could be furled together, this genial weather,And carted, or carried on “wafts” away,Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!How much fewer volumes of verse there’d be!
Yousee this pebble-stone? It’s a thing I boughtOf a bit of a chit of a boy i’ the mid o’ the day—I like to dock the smaller parts-o’-speech,As we curtail the already cur-tail’d cur(You catch the paronomasia, play ’po’ words?)Did, rather, i’ the pre-Landseerian days.Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern,And clapt it i’ my poke, having given for sameBy way o’ chop, swop, barter or exchange—‘Chop’ was my snickering dandiprat’s own term—One shilling and fourpence, current coin o’ the realm.O-n-e one and f-o-u-r fourPence, one and fourpence—you are with me, sir?—What hour it skills not: ten or eleven o’ the clock,One day (and what a roaring day it wasGo shop or sight-see—bar a spit o’ rain!)In February, eighteen sixty nine,Alexandrina Victoria, FideiHm—hm—how runs the jargon? being on throne.
Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put,The basis or substratum—what you will—Of the impending eighty thousand lines.“Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge.But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing:Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed.That shilling—and for matter o’ that, the pence—I had o’ course upo’ me—wi’ me say—(Mecum’sthe Latin, make a note o’ that)When I popp’d pen i’ stand, scratch’d ear, wiped snout,(Let everybody wipe his own himself)Sniff’d—tch!—at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed,Haw-haw’d (not hee-haw’d, that’s another guess thing:)Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door,I shoved the timber ope wi’ my omoplat;Andin vestibulo, i’ the lobby to-wit,(Iacobi Facciolati’s rendering, sir,)Donn’d galligaskins, antigropeloes,And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves,One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand,And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o’ rain,I flopp’d forth, ’sbuddikins! on my own ten toes,(I do assure you there be ten of them),And went clump-clumping up hill and down daleTo find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy.Put case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ boughtThis sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy,This pebble-thing, o’ the boy-thing? Q. E. D.That’s proven without aid from mumping Pope,Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.(Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You’re in Euclid now.)So, having the shilling—having i’ fact a lot—And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them,I purchased, as I think I said before,The pebble (lapis,lapidis,-di,-dem,-de—What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun,For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d;Investigates and re-investigates.Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head.Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.
At first the coin was mine, the chattel his.But now (by virtue of the said exchangeAnd barter)vice versaall the coin,Per juris operationem, vestsI’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom;(In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum;I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.)To have and hold the same to him and them . . .Confersome idiot on Conveyancing.Whereas the pebble and every part thereof,And all that appertaineth thereunto,Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem,(I fancy, sir, my Latin’s rather pat)Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should,(Subaudi cætera—clap we to the close—For what’s the good of law in a case o’ the kind)Is mine to all intents and purposes.This settled, I resume the thread o’ the tale.
Now for a touch o’ the vendor’s quality.He says a gen’lman bought a pebble of him,(This pebble i’ sooth, sir, which I hold i’ my hand)—And paid for’t,likea gen’lman, on the nail.“Did I o’ercharge him a ha’penny? Devil a bit.Fiddlepin’s end! Got out, you blazing ass!Gabble o’ the goose. Don’t bugaboo-babyme!Go double or quits? Yah! tittup! what’s the odds?”There’s the transaction view’d i’ the vendor’s light.
Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by,With her three frowsy blowsy brats o’ babes,The scum o’ the kennel, cream o’ the filth-heap—Faugh!Aie, aie, aie, aie! oτοτοτοτοτoĩ,(’Stead which we blurt out Hoighty toighty now)—And the baker and candlestickmaker, and Jack and Gill,Blear’d Goody this and queasy Gaffer that.Ask the schoolmaster. Take schoolmaster first.
He saw a gentleman purchase of a ladA stone, and pay for itrite, on the square,And carry it offper saltum, jauntily,Propria quæ maribus, gentleman’s property now(Agreeably to the law explain’d above),In proprium usum, for his private ends.The boy he chuck’d a brown i’ the air, and bitI’ the face the shilling: heaved a thumping stoneAt a lean hen that ran cluck clucking by,(And hit her, dead as nail i’ post o’ door,)Thenabiit—what’s the Ciceronian phrase?—Excessit,evasit,erupit—off slogs boy;Off like bird,avi similis—(you observedThe dative? Pretty i’ the Mantuan!)—AngliceOff in three flea skips.Hactenus, so far,So good,tam bene.Bene,satis,male—,Where was I with my trope ’bout one in a quag?I did once hitch the syntax into verse:Verbum personale, a verb personal,Concordat—ay, “agrees,” old Fatchaps—cumNominativo, with its nominative,Genere, i’ point o’ gender,numero,O’ number,et persona, and person.Ut,Instance:Sol ruit, down flops sun,etand,Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!Excuse me, sir, I think I’m going mad.You see the trick on’t though, and can yourselfContinue the discoursead libitum.It takes up about eighty thousand lines,A thing imagination boggles at:And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,Extend from here to Mesopotamy.
“THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK CLUB.”
Cambridge, 1857.
1. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that the Fat Boy wasnotasleep; and that (1) Mr. Pickwick and (2) Mr. Weller, senr., ran. Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick’s maximum of speed.
2. Translate into coherent English, adding a note wherever a word, a construction, or an allusion, requires it:
“Go on, Jemmy—like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs”—“Smart chap that cabman—handled his fives well—but if I’d been your friend in the green jemmy—punch his head—pig’s whisper—pieman, too.”
Elucidate the expression, “the Spanish Traveller,” and the “narcotic bedstead.”
3. Who were Mr. Staple, Goodwin, Mr. Brooks, Villam, Mrs. Bunkin, “old Nobs,” “cast-iron head,” “young Bantam?”
4. What operation was performed on Tom Smart’s chair? Who little thinks that in which pocket, of what garment, in where, he has left what, entreating him to return to whom, with how many what, and all how big?
5. Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley; and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr. Grummer, Mrs. Raddle, and the fat Boy; also the surname of the Zephyr.
6. “Mr. Weller’s knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar.” Illustrate this by a reference to the facts.
7. Describe the Rebellion which had irritated Mr. Nupkins on the day of Mr. Pickwick’s arrest?
8. Give in full Samuel Weller’s first compliment to Mary, and his father’s critique upon the same young lady. What church was on the valentine that first attracted Mr. Samuel’s eye in the shop?
9. Describe the common Profeel-machine.
10. State the component parts of dog’s nose; and simplify the expression “taking a grinder.”
11. On finding his principal in the pound, Mr. Weller and the town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately eliminated, and state the number of rounds in the square which is not described.
12. “Any think for air and exercise; as the wery old donkey observed ven they yoke him up from his deathbed to carry ten gen’lmen to Greenwich in a tax-cart.” Illustrate this by stating any remark recorded in the Pickwick Papers to have been made by a (previously) dumb animal, with the circumstances under which he made it.
13. What kind of cigars did Mr. Ben Allen chiefly smoke, and where did he knock and take naps alternately, under the impression that it was his home?
14. What was the ordinary occupation of Mr. Sawyer’s boy? whence did Mr. Allen derive the idea that there was a special destiny between Mr. S. and Arabella?
15. Describe Weller’s Method of “gently indicating his presence” to the young lady in the garden; and the Form of Salutation usual among the coachmen of the period.
16. State any incidents you know in the career of Tom Martin, butcher, previous to his incarceration.
17. Give Weller’s Theories for the extraction of Mr. Pickwick from the Fleet. Where was his wife’s will found?
18. How did the old lady make a memorandum, and of what, at whist? Show that there were at least three times as many fiddles as harps in Muggleton at the time of the ball at Manor Farm.
19. What is a red-faced Nixon?
20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller’s song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man’s excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one?
21. How many lumps of sugar went into the Shepherd’s liquor as a rule? and is any exception recorded?
22. What seal was on Mr. Winkle’s letter to his father? What penitential attitude did he assume before Mr. Pickwick?
23. “She’s a swelling visibly.” When did thesame phenomenon occur again, and what fluid caused the pressure on the body in the latter case?
24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of the meeting?
25. “Πςοβατογνώμων: a good judge of cattle; hence, a good judge of character.” Note on Æsch. Ag.—Illustrate the theory involved by a remark of the parent Weller.
26. Give some account of the word “fanteeg,” and hazard any conjecture explanatory of the expression “My Prooshan Blue,” applied by Mr. Samuel to Mr. Tony Weller.
27. In developing to P. M. his views of a proposition, what assumption did Mr. Pickwick feel justified in making?
28. Deduce from a remark of Mr. Weller, junior, the price per mile of cabs at the period.
29. What do you know of the hotel next the Bull at Rochester?
30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have worn gaiters?
1. See Chapters IV., VIII., XXVIII., LIV.
(1), IV., XXX. (twice), XXXIX.
(2), LVI.
2. Two of Jingle’s speeches are here quoted, the first being in Chapter III., and the second in Chapter II. For “Spanish traveller” see Chapter III., and for “narcotic bedstead” see Chapter XLI. “Go on, Jemmy,” is Mr. Jingle’s adjuration to the actor whom he has previously designated “Dismal Jemmy,” urging the commencement of the ‘Stroller’s Tale.’ “Like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs” has the double application to the stroller’s melancholy and the first line of Gay’s song of ‘Black-eyed Susan’—“All in the Downs the fleet was moored.” “Handled his fives well” of course refers to the “sparring” of the cabman who wanted to fight Mr. Pickwick. “Friend in the green jemmy” refers to Mr. Winkle, who, we are told in Chapter I., “wore a new green shooting-coat,” &c. “Pig’s whisper” is slang for a very brief space of time. Bartlett says the Americans have “pig’s whistle” the same signification.
3. See Chapters VII., XVIII., XIX., XXII., XXXIV., XXXVII., XXXVI., XLIV.
4. See two several parts of ‘The Bagman’s Story’ in Chapter XIV.
5. See Chapters XXIV., XXV., XLVI., VIII,, XLI.
6. See Chapter XX.
7. See Chapter XXIV.
8. See Chapters XXV., LVI., XXXIII.
9. See Chapter XXXIII.
10. See Chapters XXXIII. and XXXI.
11. See the end of Chapter XIX.
12. Illustrations will be found severally in Chapters XXXIII., XXXV., XLVII.
13. See Chapters XXX. and XXXII.
14. See two separate passages in Chapter XXXVIII.
15. See Chapters XXXIX. and XLIII.
16. See Chapter XLII.
17. See Chapters XLIII., XLV., LV.
18. See Chapters VI. and XXVIII.
19. See Chapter XLIII. “You’ve been a prophesyin’ away very fine like a red-faced Nixon as the sixpenny books gives picters on.” The allusion is to Robert Nixon, the Cheshire prophet. SeeNotes and Queries, first series, vol. viii., pp. 257 and 326; and fourth series, vol. xi., pp. 171 and 265. Nixon’s prophecies have been frequently published in the form of chapbooks, and were probably current at the time with a highly-coloured portrait.
20. The first requisition may be complied with by reference to Chapter XLIII. The following is answered in Chapter X.
21. See Chapters XLV. and LII.
22. See Chapters L. and XLVII.
23. See Chapters XXXIII. and XLV.
24. The first two questions are answered in Chapters LII. and LV. The next is answered at the end of Chapter XXXIII.; where also is the information lastly required.
25. The illustration required is in Chapter LV.
26. See Chapters XXXVIII. and XXXIII. “Fanteeg, a worry or bustle. Also, ill-humour.—Various Dialects.”—Halliwell. “Prooshan blue” probably refers to the colour of dress-coats. “Which gentleman of your party wears a bright blue dress-coat?” enquires The Boots, in ‘Pickwick,’ Chapter II. Thus Sam Weller’s “Prooshan Blue” is a finely-dressed fellow of the Pickwick-Weller period.
27. See Chapter XXIV.
28. See the opening of Chapter XXII.
29. See Chapter II.
30. See Chapter XX.