* Held at the Hand and Shears, the corner of Middle Streetand King Street, Cloth Fair. The Pied Poudre was originallyinstituted to determine disputes regarding debts andcontracts, when the churchyard of the ancient Priorycontained the booths and standings of the Drapers andClothiers. The beadle of Cloth Fair received the annual feeof 3s. and 4d. for measuring the yard-sticks. The officersof the Pied Poudre are two Serjeants at Maee for the LordMayor, two for the Poultry, and two for Giltspur StreetCompters, and a constable appointed by the steward of LordKensington, to attend the court in his behalf. There wasformerly an Associate, (the Common Serjeant, or one of theattorneys of the Lord Mayor's Sheriffs' Court,) but thisofficer has not attended for the last hundred and fiftyyears.
Some minor cases having been disposed of, Counsellor Rumtum rose, put on his green spectacles and “twelve children phisiognomy,” (a most imposing gravity!) and opened his pleadings
“Gentlemen of the Jury, the plaintiff is Miss Andromache the Goddess of Wisdom, commonly called Minerva; the defendant is Mr. Andrew Macky, Merry Andrew and Bearward, who boasts the largest menagerie of well-educated monkeys in the fair. The plaintiff seeks to recover damages for an assault, perpetrated by the defendant's servant Jamboa, a belligerent baboon with a blue face. The Goddess had been stationed, like the Palladium of Troy, in a temple adjoining the defendant's caravan. The watchful cock was perched on her helmet, a waving plume descended to her heels, a magnificent breast-plate and royal robe adorned her imperial person, and armed with a spear and a shield, she presented all the fascinations which the ancients have attributed to Pallas. It is not in evidence, whether Miss Andromache had been transported by heroes like Diomedes and Ulysses; but it may be presumed that curiosity induced her to descend from her own palace to take a peep at Andrew Macky's menagerie. The Goddess was charmed with the intelligent visage and tall stately figure of the wild man of the woods, who sat quietly in a corner, leaning on his staff; and being desirous of ascertaining his exact altitude, (Wisdom, Gentlemen of the Jury, is ever on the lookout for new discoveries,) she roused him from his reverie, by propelling the sharp point of her spear to Jamboa's dextral hip-joint, to make him jump. Starting up furiously, he struck her immortal Ægis to the ground, inflicted with his grinders terrible havoc on her gorgeous trappings, smashed ferociously her invincible breast-plate; and imprinted on her royal person evident proofs of the piquant condition of his nails. For this assault and battery Andromache claims of Andrew Macky ample and liberal compensation; which, Gentlemen of the Jury, (here Counsellor Rumtum, tried the “soft sawder!”) with your wonted gallantry, you will doubtless award her.”
The Court, however, expressed an opinion, that the Goddess of Wisdom, by making an unprovoked sortie on so respectable a baboon, had not acted with her usual discretion, and directed Minerva to be nonsuited.
Look at the gay caps and bonnets in yonder balcony; and hark to the fifes and fiddles, accelerating the sharp trot to a full gallop! And now the volunteer vocalist, having frowned into nothingness a St. Cecilian on the salt-box, demands silence for this seasonable chant.
Don't you remember the third of September?
Fun's Saturnalia, Bartlemy fair!
Punch's holiday, O what a jolly day!
When we fiddled and danced at the Bear.
Romping, reeling it, toe and heeling it,
Ham and vealing it, toddy and purl—
Have you forgot that I paid the shot
I have not! my adorable girl.
With ranters and roysters we push'd thro' the cloisters,
Had plenty of oysters, of porter a pot;
I treated my Hebe with brandy, not (B. B!)
And sausages smoking, and gingerbread hot.
She whisper'd, “How nice is fried bacon in slices,
And eggs”—What a crisis!—Love egg'd me on—
“My dearest,” said I, “ I wish I may die
If we don't have a fry to-night at the Swan.”
How we giggled when Pantaloon wriggled,
And led a jig with Columbine down;
How we roar'd when Harlequin's sword
Conjur'd Mother Goose into the Clown!
To Saunders's booth I toddled my Ruth,
Saw Master and Miss romp and reel on the rope—
And it was our faults if we didn't both waltz,
My eye! with old Guy, Old Nick and the Pope.
Rigging's rife again, fun's come to life again,
Punch and his wife again, frolicksome pair,
Footing it, crikey! like Cupid and Psyche,
Summon each rum'un to Bartlemy fair.
Trumpets blowing, roundabouts going,
Toby the Theban, intelligent Pig!
His compliments sends, inviting his friends
To meet the Bonassus to-night at a jig.
“Now my little lads and lasses! Shut one eye, and don't breathe on the glasses! Here's Nero a-fiddling while Rome was a-burning—and Cin-cinnatus a-digging potatoes. Here's Sampson and the Phillis-tines—Cain and Abel, and the Tower of Babel.” This was sounded by a gaunt fellow (a stronger man than Sampson, for he lugged him in by the head and shoulders!) with a gin-and-fog voice and a bristly beard. His neighbour, a portly ogress with a Cyclopical physiognomy (her drum “most tragically run through!”), advertised a grunting giant, (a Pygmalion to his relations!) and backed his stupendous flitches against Smith-field and the world.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” squeaked a little mountebank through an asthmatic trumpet, “walk in and see a tragical, comical, operatical, pantomimical Olla Podrida of Smiles, Tears, Broad Grins, and Horselaughs, called The Hobgoblin, or My Lady go-Nimble's Ghost; the Humours of Becky Burton and Doctor Diddleum; a Prologue by Lucifer and his imps; capering on his pericranium bySignor Franchinello; and dancing in a dark lantern byMynheer Von Trompingtonverbruggenhausentiraliravontamen!”
“Here's your dainty spiced gingerbread! that will melt in your mouth like a red hot brickbat, and rumble in your inside like Punch and his wheelbarrow!”—“And here's your Conjuration Compound, that if you bathe a beefsteak in it the over night, it will come out a veal cutlet in the morning!”
The fair was lighted up, and the fun grew “fast and furious” beginning with a loud chorus of acclamation, and so running on through the whole Sol fa of St. Bartlemy delight. There was a blended incarnation of kettle-drums, fifes, fiddles, French horns, rattles, trumpets, and gongs! A giantess of alarming dimensions, beaming with maternal ecstasy! reddened with deeper intensity from her painted show-cloth; and a miniature Lady-monster, a codicil to the giantess! peeped out imploringly from a wine-cooler in which some facetious crowned sconce had ensconced her at an after-dinner merriment to his Queen and Courtiers.
0230m
The Mermaid had a long tail to exhibit and tell. Messrs. Rumfiz and Glumfiz, disciples of Zoroaster! began their magical incantations, swallowed knives and forks and devoured blue flame with increased voracity; the Fantoccini footed it with laudable vigour; the Conjuror would have coined his copper nose, only, winked the wag, “I knows and you knows Je n'ose pas!” the lions and tigers roared “Now or never!” and amidst this oratorio of discord and din, Harlequin, Othello, Columbine, Sir John Falstaff, Desdemona, Jim Crow, Cardinal Wolsey, and Scaramouch quadrilled on the outside platform of Richardson's Grand Booth, the gong (his prompter's tintinabulum!) sounding superabundant glorification.
We hastened to this renowned modern temple of the Smithfield drama, which was splendidly illuminated and guarded by tremendous pasteboard Genii, sphinxes, and unicorns, and saw our old acquaintance Bonassus (who looked like one of His Mandingo Majesty's Spanish liquorice guards!) enact Othello and Jim Crow. After much interpolated periphrasis and palaver, Mr. Bigstick darkly intimated that when he ceased to love the “gentle Desdemona,” (Miss Teresa Tumbletuzzy!)
“Shay-oss is come agin”
At this moment the scenes stuck fast in the grooves—the halves of a house with an interstice of a yard or so between—when a lecturing mechanic bawled out from his sixpenny elysium,
“Ve don't expect no good grammar here, Muster Thingumbob, but, hang it! you might close the scenes!”
Mr. Bigstick being politely requested (“Strike up, Snow-drop! Go it, Day and Martin!”) to “Jump Jim Crow” in triplicate, came forward, curvetting and salaaming with profound respect, and treated his audience with thisvariorum versionof their old favourite.
Here's jumping Jim, his coat and skim-
-mer very well you know;
If you've a crow to pluck with him,
He's pluck'd you first! I trow—
Where'er he goes he gaily crows,
A Blackey and a Beau!
Reels about and wheels about,
And jumps Jim Crow.
O how the town ran up and down
To see the dancing Nigger!
If Jim's a flat, 'tis tit for tat!
For Jim thinks John a bigger
To (for a Yankee lean and lanky)
Shell his coppers so.—
What a noodle I—Yankee-doodle!
Rare Jim Crow!
Bull has fill'd his noddle full
Of learning, in profusion;
And Jim, with his long limping limb,
Has jump'd to this conclusion,
“A ninny and”—you understand!
When sitting all a-row,
Britons roar “Encore! Encore!
Jump Jim Crow!”
Jim's play'd his pranks—with many thanks,
He gives you now the hop;
Because, like hisCommercial Banks,
He thinks it time tostop!
What Nigger Lad has ever had
Such lucky cards to throw?
Ever trump'd, or ever jump'd
Like Jump Jim Crow?
The pantomine of Hot Rolls, or Harlequin Dumpling, and the Dragon of Wantley concluded the performances; in which Mr. Bigstick's promising young pupil, Master Magnumdagnumhuggleduggle, by ajeu de théâtrebolted the baker; (bones, apron, night-cap and all!) set Old Father Thames on fire, exhibited the fishes frying in agony, and in his suit of spiked armour, like an “Egyptian Porcupig,”
“To make him strong and mighty,
Drank by the tale, six pots of ale
And a quart of Aqua Vitæ!”
and marched forth fiercely to a ferocious fight with a green leather dragon stuffed with fiery serpents, that hissed and exploded to the tune of two-pence a time!
The Bartlemy fairities were in raptures. Master Magnumdagnumhuggleduggle, Mr. Big stick, the Tumblctuzzy and the Dragon were successively garlanded with broccoli-sprouts and turnip-tops! It was all round my hat” with Bonassus, who divided the Lion's share with the Dragon, and looked like a May-day Jack-in-the-green! The enthusiasm of the audience did not end here. They called for the Call-boy, and the Candle-snuffer, whose bliss would have felt no cc aching void” had a “bit of bacon” accompanied, by way of a relish, this kitchen garden of cabbage.
The bells of St. Bartholomew chimed the hour when churchyards and “Charlies” yawn; upon which the illuminations and mob went out, and away, and Momus looked as down in the mouth as a convolvulus. *
* Next morning's sun saw Smithfield restored to those politeintelligences whose “talk is of bullocks”—with no greaternuisance remaining, than its chartered brutes upon Jourlegs, beaten, goaded, tortured, and blasphemed at by itsgreater brutes upon two!
The elephant booked his trunk and departed; the menagerie man returned to his dish of bird's claws and beaks, with a second course of shark's teeth and fish-bones; Punch and Judy were amicably domiciled with the dog, the devil, and the doctor; the Jacks-in-the-box, Noah's arks, Dutch dolls, and wooden Scaramouches, were stowed away pell-mell; the gingerbread kings, queens, and nuts, were huddled higgledy-piggledy into their tin canisters; a muddled chorister warbled “Fly not yet” to an intrusive “Blue-Bottle” that popped in the Queen's Crown and his own among a midnight dancing party of shopmen and Abigails, and a solitary fiddle, scraped by a cruel cobbler, squeaked theLay of the Last Minstrel!
Morn appearing, Nature cheering,
Milkmaids crying “Milk!” for tea,
Singing, joking; chimneys smoking,
Bring, alas! no joys to me.
Phoebus beaming, kettles steaming—
Basso—hark I the dustman's bell,
Obligato!—ff Sweep!” stoccato!
Old St. Bartle!sound thy knell.
Put out the light!” exclaimed Mr. Bonassus Bigstick, with a lugubrio-comic expression of countenance that might convulse a Trappist, to a pigeon-toed property-man and a duck-legged drummer, who were snuffing two farthing rushlights in the Proscenium.
“Put out the light!” and straightway he pocketed the extinguished perquisite. We were retiring from the scene of Mr. Bigstick's glory in company with two lingering chimney-sweeps, who had left their brushes and brooms at the box door, when our progress was arrested by a tap on the shoulder from Uncle Timothy.
“If you would explore the 'secrets of the prison-house,' I can gratify your curiosity, having an engagement with the great Tragedian to crush a mug of mum with him behind the scenes.”
We were too happy to enjoy so novel a treat not to embrace the offer with alacrity. Mr. Big-stick welcomed us with a tragic hauteur, and carrying an inch of candle stuck at the extremity of Prospero's magic wand, lighted his party to the Green Room. As we passed along, the great Tragedian, who had the knack of looking everything into nothing, scowled an armoury of daggers at Harlequin, and Harlequin, if possible, looked more black than the Moor. On entering the sanctum sanctorum, Mr. Bigstick, striking an attitude and exclaiming “Cara Sposa! Idol mio!” introduced us to Teresa, the High-Dumptiness of St. Bartlemy, whom he dangled after like a note of admiration, he all mast, she all hulk; and when they parted, (with a Dolly Bull curtsy exquisitely fussy and fumy the Tumbletuzzy made her exit,) it was odd to see the steeple separated from the chancel.
“Ten thousand times ten thousand pardons, most divine bard! but having sunned myself in the optics of Teresa, my own became eclipsed to every object less refulgent. Gentlemen,”—pulling forward a pipe-flourishing, porter-swigging personage who belonged quite as much to Bagfair as to St. Bartlemy, and looked as if he lived in everlasting apprehension of sibillations technically called, “Goose”—“Mr. Pegasus Bubangrub the Bartholomew Fair Poet, who may challenge all the Toby Philpots in Christendom to leap up to the chin into a barrel of beer, drink it down to his foot, and then dance a jig upon the top of it! Mr. Bubangrub edits a penny weekly; reports queer trials; does our Caravanlibretto; answers my challenges; roasts my rivals, puffs his pipe—and Me! At present he is a mere dab-chick of literature; but let him start a rum name, and he shall cut the genteel caper, cut, too, his sky parlour, penny-a-lining and old pals; wonder, with amiable simplicity! what 'shooting the moon' can be, and diving for a dinner; and casting off his Toady's skin for the lion's, be feasted, flattered, paragraphed—'Purge, eat cleanly, and live like a gentleman!”
Mr. Bubangrub bowed, and respectfully hinted that every kingdom has its cabals, not excepting the realm of actors and actresses. That to soothe their petty jealousies; check the too-aspiring ambition of one, tickle the self-complacency of another—to be grave with the tragic; funny with the comic; patient with the ignorant and presuming, and on terms of eternal friendship with all—to come off victorious on that slippery ground
“Where unfledg'd actors learn to laugh and cry,
Where infant punks their tender voices try,
And little Maximins the Gods defy,”
are difficulties that none but dramatic politicians of experience and discretion can surmount; and he advised every author to whom appetite offered a more powerful stimulant than genius, to make haste and possess himself of the important secret.
Mine host of the Ram now entered with a curiously compounded mug of mum, in which the great Tragedian (who was not particular from Clos Vougeot to Old Tom) drank the Stage that goes with and without wheels. Mr. Bosky, who had got scent of our “Whereabouts,” arrived in time to propose the memory of Shakspere, and Mr. Bubangrub's longevity; Uncle Timothy gave Bonassus Bigstick and Bartlemy Fair; and Pegasus toasted the Tragic Muse and Teresa Tumbletuzzy. The Tragedian unbent by degrees; his adust countenance warmed into flesh and blood, and he grew facetious and festive.
“Bubangrub, my Brother of the Sun and Moon! my Nutmeg of delight! give us a song!”
The call was a command.
To pitch the tune Pegasus twanged from his Jew's-harp a chord, and apologizing for being “a little ropy,” began, in a voice between a whistle and a wheeze,
Ye snuff-takers of England
Who sniff your pinch at ease,
How very seldom you enjoy
The pleasures of a sneeze!
Give ear unto us smoking gents *
And we will plainly shew
All the joys, my brave boys!
When we a cloud do blow.
* In 1585, the English first saw pipes made of clay, amongthe native Indians of Virginia; which was at that timediscovered by Richard Greenville. Soon after they fabricatedthe first clay tobacco-pipes in Europe.In 1604, James the First endeavoured, by means of heavyimposts, to abolish the use of tobacco; and, in 1619, wrotehis“Counterblast” against what he accounted a noxious weed, andordered that no planter in Virginia should cultivate morethan one hundred pounds.In 1610, the smoking of tobacco was known at Constantinople.To render the custom ridiculous, a Turk, who had been foundsmoking, was conducted about the streets with a pipetransfixed through his nose! And in 1653, when smokingtobacco was first introduced into the Canton of Appenzell,in Switzerland, the children ran after the Smokers in thestreets; the Council likewise punished them, and ordered theinnkeepers to inform against such as should smoke in theirhouses.—In 1724, Pope Benedict XIV. revoked the bull ofexcommunication, published by Innocent, because he himselfhad acquired the habit of taking snuff!=
The snuffer, buffer! raps his mull,
His nose it cries out “Snuff!”
The Smoker, Joker! puffs his full
In this queer world of puff!
The lawyer's gout is soon smok'd out;—
If in the parsons toe
It ends in smoke, say simple folk,
Just ends his sermon so!
The tippler loves his swanky, swipe;
The prince, the peer, the beau,
A pipe of wine—give me my pipe
Of Backy for to blow!
No pinch or draught drive care abaft
From folks a cup too low,
Like the joys, my brave boys!
When we a cloud do blow.
A penny-postman-like rap at the caravan door was answered by the great Tragedian with
“'Open locks whoever knocks!'” And, as the unexpected visitor became visible, he added, “Tom Titlepage! as thou art Tom, welcome; but as thou art Tom and a boon companion, ten times welcome!”
The Publisher's compromised dignity looked a trifle offended. He did not half relish being treated so familiarly.
“An infernal business this, Mr. Bigstick! The devil waits—the press stands still!”
“And why Tom, don't you? Here's a joint stool; sit down and quaff out of Lady Macbeth's gilt goblet. Egad you and the devil are in the nick of time to listen to and carry away such a Chapter of—”
Mr. Titlepage. Draw it mild!
Mr. Bigstick. As the moonbeams!—Gentlemen, lend me your ears; which, perhaps, you would rather do than your purses! Who steals mine, steals—what he will not grow inconveniently corpulent upon!
The Tragedian began to rummage an ancient hair-trunk that looked as raggedly bald as his own scalp; dislodging sceptres, daggers, crowns, spangled robes and stage wigs. In Dicky Gossip's bob * he discovered what he sought for; a dirty, torn, dog's-eareddisjecti membra.
* Suett boasted a recherché and extensive collection ofstage wigs, comprising every variety, from the full-bottom,to the Tyburn bob; which unique assortment was unfortunatelyburned in a fire that happened at the Birmingham Theatre, onFriday, August 13, 1792. This loss gave rise to severalsmart epigrams, among which were the following.“'Twas sure some upstart Tory in his rigs,Who fir'd poor Suett's long-tail'd race of Wigs;Ah! cruel Tory, thus his all to take,Nor leave him one e'en for a hair-breadth 'scape.”“Raise your subscriptions, every free-born soul—Stript of his wigs—behold a suffering Pole”Dicky answered the doggrel, in a jingle of his own.“Well—well may you joke, who perhaps have a wig,But my loss is severe tho', for all this here gig;For if spouse is dispos'd or to wrangle or box,Alas! what will keep her from combing my locks?My fortune's too ruin'd, as well as renown,For in losing my wigs—I am stripp'd to a crown!”
Opening the bundle, and selecting at random, he bespoke the company's attention to a fragment of
“All the world's a caravan! and all the gentlemen and ladies Lions and Tigresses! For if a man be neither dwarf nor giant, but an unhappy medium between the two—if he be not upon boxing terms with a whole menagerie, and will not fisty-cuff-it and roar for an engagement, dam'me! he may whistle for one!”
Mr. Bigstick paused, glared ghastly terrible and ghostly grim.
“Yes, I'm too tall for a wonderful monkey, and too good-natured for an intelligent bull-dog. I can't drink sangaree out of my father's skull, nor beat the big drum with the bones of my grandmother!”
He then, after taking a deep draught at the mum, resumed his narrative.
“I was articled to the law, and Pump Court was the pabulum where I began to qualify myself for Lord Chancellor. But fearful is the dramatic furor of attorney's clerks. My passion was not for bills of costs, but for bills of the play; I longed to draw, not leases, but audiences; as for pleas, my ambition was to please the town; and I cared nothing for Coke, while Shakspere's muse of fire warmed my imagination! Counsellor Cumming soon found his clerk going. I quitted the Court, leaving my solitary competitor the Pump to spout alone.”
A personable fellow * (for whom any lady might be proud to jump into the Serpentine, the jury finding a verdict of manslaughter against my good looks, with a deodand of five shillings on my whiskers! ) 'I left my father's house, and took with me'—as much wardrobe as I could conveniently carry ow, and behind my back.
* A very different looking personage to Mr. Bigstick musthave been the unhappy young gentleman, aged twenty-two, (seethe “Times” 21st March, 1835,) who killed himself by poison,and left this letter upon his table:—“I die a Catholic—I leave my mortal remains to my fatherand mother, regretting that they should have allowed thegrowth and development of a creature of so disagreeable aconformation as their son. Endowed with the most exquisitefeelings, my face has always frightened the fair sex. I goto seek in Heaven a society which my aspect will not annoy;for I imagine that, freed from its carnal covering, myspirit will not dismay the inhabitants of the other world.”
My first professional bow was in the Poor Gentleman, * and Raising the Wind, in a barn at Leighton Buzzard, where the Gods clambered up to the gallery by a ladder, through which many of the tippling deities could hardly see a hole!
* Another link in the dramatic chain is broken. ArthurGriffinhoof has joined the jocund spirits of Garrick,Hoadly, and the elder George.Rejoice, ye witlings! for the lamp that dimmed your littlefarthing rushlights, Death, the universal extinguisher, haseclipsed for ever! Retailers of small talk, who fattened onthe unctuous crumbs of conceit that fell from the merryman's table, make the most of your legacy: your master hathcarried his Broad Grins to Elysium. Ye select few, whoadmired the wit and loved the man, mourn!Thanks to the ghastly monarch! for he hath been a forbearingcreditor:—So large an amount of fun payable at sight, andGeorge a septuagenarian! Three days' grace—three score andten!A day of mirth will it be on Styx, when the ferryman rowsover Mr. Merryman. Faith, Mr. Colman, you're a very drollman!What a coil attends the new comer! Churchill, Lloyd,Thornton, Garrick, all inquiring about the modern Dram.Pers.—“Ye jovial goblins,” quoth George, “a Dram, per se!”Whereupon Sam—not the lexicographer—marching forth hiswooden leg, accepts, with an approving chuckle, the pun asFoote-ing, or garnish; they are hail spirit well met, andbecome as merry as ghosts.Life's a Jest; and a merrier one than thine, facetiousGeorge, Time shall not crack till the crack of doom.
The stalls (the cart-horses having been temporally ejected) sparkled with the elite—sixpenny-worth of coppers being paid for sitting apart in aristocratical exclusiveness. My declamation might have electrified Gog and Magog, and made the Men in Armour start from their spears! The barn rang with applause, my success was triumphant, and my fate decided.
“I next joined Mr. Dunderhead, the Dunstable manager, on whose boards I had the supreme felicity of beholding, for the first time, the Tum-bletuzzy. She danced with the castanets (le Pantomime de Vamour); my heart beat to her fairy footsteps; the long sixes capered before my eyes, my pulse thumped a hundred and twenty per minute—I wooed, and had well nigh won her—when our Harlequin, a ci-devant, ubiquitous, iniquitous barber, all but dashed the nectared cup from my lip. I did not horsewhip him, 'for that were poor revenge,'—no! I shewed him up on my benefit night in a patter song.”
“Bravo!” cried Mr. Bosky, “Let us, Mr. Bigstick, have the song by all means.”
The great Tragedian, screwing, à la Mathews, his mouth a-jar, condescendingly complied.
Stolen or stray'd my beautiful maid!
Unlucky my ducky has met a decoy—
As brown as a berry, as plump as a cherry,
And rosy-cheek'd, very! and Jenny-so-coy!
Baggage and bagging the Dunstable waggin
Were popp'd by a wag in, hight Harlequin Lun—
They, honey-moon hot, shot the moon like a shot;
But I'll shoot the rascal as sure as a gun!
She sings like a linnet, she plays on the spinnet,
A day's like a minute when she is in doors;
My aunt in the attic, my uncle extatic!
Encore the chromatique my Philomel pours!
I lov'd her so dearly and truly, for really
She cuts a mug * queerly, as Arthur's Queen Doll;
She beats the tol lol O of Molly Brown hollow,
And sings like Apollo in Gay's pretty Poll.
I told her a rebus, I gave her a wee buss;
She call'd me her Phoebus, her hero of pith;
Her caraway comfit, her prime sugar plumb, fit
For lady's lip, rum fit! her Lollypop Smith!
* The Mugs out of which the violent politicians of Charlesthe Second's time drank their beer, were fashioned into theresemblance of Shaftsbury's face. Hence the common phrase,“Ugly Mug!”
No more thought Teresa small tipple of me, sir,
Than pretty Miss P., sir, our premiere danseuse,
lightsome, lenitive! philoprogenitive!
Sukey with bouquet and white satin shoes!
To be, or not to be? is it a shot to be?
Is it a knot to be, tied to a beam?
Death's but a caper, life's but a taper,
A vision, a vapour, a shadow, a dream.
Hang melancholy! grieving's a folly!
Laugh and be jolly! there's nothing like fun!
I 'll make Miss Terese cry “Yes if you please!”
And down on his knees shall Harlequin Lun.”
“But the 'beautified Ophelia!' fickle, not false, and far less fickle than freakish! in all the tender distraction of Cranbourn Alley white muslin and myrtle, implored my forgiveness. Were her three-quarters' music and dancing to be thrown away upon a base barber?
'O ye, whose adamantine sorrows know
The iron agonies of copper woe!'”
Here the great Tragedian became overpowered, and cried a flood of stage tears very naturally.
“Encore! encore!” shouted Uncle Timothy.
Othello was at a loss whether or not to take this as a compliment, and weep a second brewing. He rubbed his eyes—but the Noes had it—
“Bigstick's himself again!”
“On the disbanding of our troop, we hied to Stoke-Pogeis with a letter of introduction to the manager. Mr. Truncheon (his wig 'in most admired disorder,') started and exclaimed, 'What the deuce could Dunderhead have been about to send you here?' The other night Dowager Mucklethrift bespoke 'Too late for Dinner,' I speculated on one upon the strength of it, and treated the company (who were as thin as our houses,) to a gallon of 'intermediate,' when, lo! and behold! in she tottered with her retinue (a rush of two!) to the boxes, and her deaf butler Diggory, esquiring some half-dozen lady patronesses, hobbled up to the threepenny gallery to grin down upon us!
“A man may as well bob for whale in the river Thames; for live turtle in the City Basin; for white-bait in the Red Sea; expect to escape choking after having bolted a grape-shot, or to elicit a divine spark from the genius of a mud volcano, as hope not to be ruined and rolled up among such sublime intelligences! There's a hole in the kettle, sir, and we are half starved!” Surrounded by Short's Gardens and dwelling in Queer Street, Teresa and myself began to diet on our superfluities. My Romeo last-rose-of-summer pantaloons were diluted into a quart of hot pea-soup, and Bobadil's superannuated cocked hat and Justice Midas's wig were stewed down in the shape of a mutton scrag, Juliet's Flanders' lace flounce furnishing the trimmings! At this extremity, when Mrs. Heidelburg's embroidered satin petticoat of my aunt's had gone to “my uncle's” for a breakfast, my friend Dennis O'Doddipool, * whose success at Cork had enabled him to draw one, and enjoy his bottle, invited us to Ballina-muck.
* An Hibernian member of a strolling company of comedians,in the north of England, lately advertised for his benefit,“An occasional Address, to be spoken by a new actor” Thisexcited great expectation among the towns-people. On hisbenefit night Paddy Roscius stepped forward, and in a richbrogue thus addressed the audience:“To-night a new actor appears on the stage,To claim your protection, and your patron-oge;Now, who do you think this new actor may be?Why, turn round your eyes, and look full upon me,And then you 'll be sure this new actor to see.”Qy.—Could this new actor be Mr. O'Doddipool?
We showered down as many benedictions upon Dennis as would stand between Temple Bar and Westminster, bundled up our 'shreds and patches,' levied tribute on the farmers' poultry, and when a goose fell in our way, made him so wise as never to be taken for a goose again! and arrived by short stages, in a long caravan, at Holyhead. Hey for Ireland! straight we bent our way to the land of praties and Paddies! O'Doddipool welcomed us with all the huggings and screechings of a German salutation; danced like Mr. Moses at the feast of Purim, * and cried—
* The feast of Purim, an ancient Jewish festival, heldyearly on the 7th of March, is in commemoration of the fallof Hainan and his ten sons. This feast is generally spent inpublic rejoicing, such as masked balls, letting offfireworks, &c. At one time a Fair was held in the vicinityof Duke's Place; but which the authorities of the City ofLondon have put down for several years past. Amongst themore respectable order, family parties are kept up to a verylate hour. The tables are generally adorned with hung beef,to commemorate the hanging of Haman. On the evening of thisfeast, the Jews attend their synagogues, where the Readerchants the Book of Esther in the Hebrew language; and at onetime, (the practice is now partially abolished,) wheneverthe Reader repeated the name of Haman, the younger branchesof the congregation beat the seats, and otherwise created anoise, with small wooden hammers, which were designatedHaman-clappers.
—like the French butcher, * for joy! I played first comedy before the lamps and second fiddle behind'em,—walking gentlemen and running footmen,—bravos and bishops, ** —swept the boards with Tragedy's sweeping pall, and a birch-broom,—