Lydia Green.
Am Rhein.
“Serve-um-Right.”
To a Friend at Parting.
Ad Professorem Linguæ Germanicæ.
Pome of a Possum.
The following “Society Verses” of MortimerCollins are given here by way of introducing an imitation of them in macaronic verse:
Ad Chloen, M.A.
(FRESH FROM HER CAMBRIDGE EXAMINATION.)
To the Fair “Come-Outer.”
Here are a few juvenile specimens, the first being a little-known old nursery ballad:
The Four Brothers.
Little Bo-peep.
Jack and Jill.
The Teetotum.
Schoolboys and college youths not unfrequently adorn their books with some such macaronic as this:
Inscriptions and epitaphs are often the vehicles of quaint and curious diction, and of these we give some instances:
The Sign of the “Gentle Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”
(On the road from Cape Town to Simon’s Bay, Cape of Good Hope.)
In the Visitors’ Book at Niagara Falls.
In the Visitors’ Book of Mount Kearsarge House.
(Summit of Mount Kearsarge, North Conway, N.H.)
The following epitaph is to be found in Northallerton Churchyard:
There are no macaronic authors nowadays, though poems of this class are still to be had in colleges and universities; but everything pertaining to college life is ephemeral, coming in with Freshman and going out with Senior. College students are the prolific fathers of a kind of punning Latin composition, such as:
“Ounumsculls. Youdamnumsculls.Sic transitdrove atu pone tandem temo verfrom the north.”“He is visiting hisante, Mrs.Dido Etdux, and intends stopping here tillortum.”“Heet superwith us last evening, and is a terrible fellow. Helambdaman almost to death the other evening, but he got his match—the other mancutis nosoff for him andnoctemflaturnaflounder.”“Doctores! Ducum nex mundi nitu Panes; tritucum at ait. Expecto meta fumen, and eta beta pi. Superattente one—Dux, hamor clam pati; sum parates, homine, ices, jam, etc. Sideror hoc.”
“Ounumsculls. Youdamnumsculls.Sic transitdrove atu pone tandem temo verfrom the north.”
“He is visiting hisante, Mrs.Dido Etdux, and intends stopping here tillortum.”
“Heet superwith us last evening, and is a terrible fellow. Helambdaman almost to death the other evening, but he got his match—the other mancutis nosoff for him andnoctemflaturnaflounder.”
“Doctores! Ducum nex mundi nitu Panes; tritucum at ait. Expecto meta fumen, and eta beta pi. Superattente one—Dux, hamor clam pati; sum parates, homine, ices, jam, etc. Sideror hoc.”
In a similar dialect to this, Dean Swift and Dr. Sheridan used to correspond. In this way:
The Dean once wrote to the Doctor:
To which the Doctor responded:
At this the Dean settles the whole affair by—
Sydney Smith proposed as a motto for a well-known fish-sauce purveyor the following line from Virgil (Æn.iv.I):
When two students named Payne and Culpepper were expelled from college, a classmate wrote:
And Dr. Johnson wrote the following epitaph on his cat:
“Mi-catinter omnes.”A gentleman at dinner helped his friend to a potato, saying—“I think that is a good mealy one.” “Thank you,” was the reply, “it could not bemelior.”Another gentleman while driving one day was asked by a lady if some fowls they passed were ducks or geese. One of the latter at the moment lifting up its voice, the gentleman said, “That’s youranser!”“Well, Tom, are you sick again?” asked a student of his friend, and was answered in English and in Latin, “Sic sum.”
“Mi-catinter omnes.”
A gentleman at dinner helped his friend to a potato, saying—“I think that is a good mealy one.” “Thank you,” was the reply, “it could not bemelior.”
Another gentleman while driving one day was asked by a lady if some fowls they passed were ducks or geese. One of the latter at the moment lifting up its voice, the gentleman said, “That’s youranser!”
“Well, Tom, are you sick again?” asked a student of his friend, and was answered in English and in Latin, “Sic sum.”
Victor Hugo was once asked if he could write English poetry. “Certainement,” was the reply, and he sat down and wrote this verse:
In the “Innocents Abroad” of Mark Twain he gives a letter written by his friend Mr. Blucher to a Parisian hotel-keeper, which was as follows:
“‘Monsieur le Landlord: Sir—Pourquoidon’t youmettezsomesavonin your bed-chambers?Est-ce-que-vous pensezI will steal it?Le nuit passeéyou charged mepour deux chandelleswhen I only had one;hier vous avezcharged meavec glacewhen I had none at all;tout les joursyou are coming some fresh game or other upon me,mais vous ne pouvez pasplay thissavondodge on me twice.Savonis a necessaryde la vieto anybody but a Frenchman,et je l’aurai hors de cette hotelor make trouble. You hear me.—Allons.Blucher.’”
“‘Monsieur le Landlord: Sir—Pourquoidon’t youmettezsomesavonin your bed-chambers?Est-ce-que-vous pensezI will steal it?Le nuit passeéyou charged mepour deux chandelleswhen I only had one;hier vous avezcharged meavec glacewhen I had none at all;tout les joursyou are coming some fresh game or other upon me,mais vous ne pouvez pasplay thissavondodge on me twice.Savonis a necessaryde la vieto anybody but a Frenchman,et je l’aurai hors de cette hotelor make trouble. You hear me.—Allons.
Blucher.’”
“I remonstrated,” says Mr. Twain, “against the sending of this note, because it was so mixed up that the landlord would never be able to make head or tail of it; but Blucher said he guessed the old man could read the French of it, and average the rest.”
Productions like the preceding, and like that with which we conclude are continually finding their way into print, and are always readable, curious, and fresh for an idle hour.
Pocahontas and Captain Smith.(Jamestown, a.d.1607.)“Johannes Smithus, walking up a streetus, met two ingentes Ingins et parvulus Ingin. Ingins non capti sunt ab Johanne, sed Johannes captus est ab ingentibus Inginibus. Parvulus Ingin run off hollerin, et terrifficatus est most to death. Big Ingin removit Johannemad tentem, ad campum, ad marshy placem, papoosem, pipe of peacem, bogibus, squawque. Quum Johannes examinatus est ab Inginibus, they condemnati sunt eum to be cracked on capitem ab clubbibus. Et a big Ingin was going to strikaturus esse Smithum with a clubbe, quum Pocahontas came trembling down, et hollerin, ‘Don’t ye duit, don’t ye duit!’ Sic Johannes non periit, sed grew fat on corn bread et hominy.”
Pocahontas and Captain Smith.
(Jamestown, a.d.1607.)
“Johannes Smithus, walking up a streetus, met two ingentes Ingins et parvulus Ingin. Ingins non capti sunt ab Johanne, sed Johannes captus est ab ingentibus Inginibus. Parvulus Ingin run off hollerin, et terrifficatus est most to death. Big Ingin removit Johannemad tentem, ad campum, ad marshy placem, papoosem, pipe of peacem, bogibus, squawque. Quum Johannes examinatus est ab Inginibus, they condemnati sunt eum to be cracked on capitem ab clubbibus. Et a big Ingin was going to strikaturus esse Smithum with a clubbe, quum Pocahontas came trembling down, et hollerin, ‘Don’t ye duit, don’t ye duit!’ Sic Johannes non periit, sed grew fat on corn bread et hominy.”
One of the most curious efforts in the way of teaching a language was that attempted by a work published originally in Paris, in 1862, entitled “O Novo Guia em Portuguez e Inglez. Par Jose de Fonseca e Pedro Carolina,” or the New Guide to Conversation in Portuguese and English. Mr. G. C. Leland writes us that Fonseca “manufactured” this work by procuring a book of French dialogues, which he put word by word into English—(by the aid of a dictionary)—“of which he knew not a word, and what is strangest, did not learn a word, even while writing hisGuide. That he really humbugged his bookseller appears from this that he induced the poor victim to publish a large English dictionary!” This book has been reprinted, as a literary curiosity, and may be had at Quaritch’s, 15 Piccadilly, London, under the title of “A New Guide to the English,” by Pedro Carolina; Fonseca having takenhis name out, and dating the book from “Pekin,”—this being a mere joke. However, the original was a serious work, and by way of introduction to a poem in the Fonseca English, kindly given us by Professor E. H. Palmer, we give a few particulars of and extracts from the work itself, and here is the Preface:
“A choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms and despoiled phrases, it was missing yet to studious portuguese and brazilian Youth; and also to persons of other nations that wish to know the portuguese language. We sought all we may do, to correct that want, composing and divising the present little work in two parts. The first includes a greatest vocabulary proper names by alphabetical order; and the second forty-three Dialogues adapted to the usual precisions of the life. For that reason we did put, with a scrupulous exactness, a great variety own expressions to english and portugues idioms; without to attach us selves (as make some others) almost at a literal translation; translation what only will be for to accustom the portuguese pupils, or foreign, to speak very bad any of the mentioned idioms. We were increasing this second edition with a phraseology, in the first part, and some familiar letters, anecdotes, idiotisms, proverbs, and to second a coin’s index.“TheWorkswhich we were confering for this labour, find use us for nothing; but those what were publishing to Portugal, or out. They were almost all composedfor some foreign, or for some national little acquainted in the spirit of both languages. It was resulting from that corelessness to rest theseWorksfill of imperfections and anomalies of style; in spite of the infinite typographical faults which sometimes invert the sense of the periods. It increase not to contain any of thoseWorksthe figured pronunciation of the english words, nor the prosodical accent in the portugese: indispensable object whom wish to speak the english and portuguese languages correctly.“We expect then who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptance of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.”
“A choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms and despoiled phrases, it was missing yet to studious portuguese and brazilian Youth; and also to persons of other nations that wish to know the portuguese language. We sought all we may do, to correct that want, composing and divising the present little work in two parts. The first includes a greatest vocabulary proper names by alphabetical order; and the second forty-three Dialogues adapted to the usual precisions of the life. For that reason we did put, with a scrupulous exactness, a great variety own expressions to english and portugues idioms; without to attach us selves (as make some others) almost at a literal translation; translation what only will be for to accustom the portuguese pupils, or foreign, to speak very bad any of the mentioned idioms. We were increasing this second edition with a phraseology, in the first part, and some familiar letters, anecdotes, idiotisms, proverbs, and to second a coin’s index.
“TheWorkswhich we were confering for this labour, find use us for nothing; but those what were publishing to Portugal, or out. They were almost all composedfor some foreign, or for some national little acquainted in the spirit of both languages. It was resulting from that corelessness to rest theseWorksfill of imperfections and anomalies of style; in spite of the infinite typographical faults which sometimes invert the sense of the periods. It increase not to contain any of thoseWorksthe figured pronunciation of the english words, nor the prosodical accent in the portugese: indispensable object whom wish to speak the english and portuguese languages correctly.
“We expect then who the little book (for the care what we wrote him, and for her typographical correction) that may be worth the acceptance of the studious persons, and especially of the Youth, at which we dedicate him particularly.”
The “greatest vocabulary proper names” is in three columns—the first giving the Portuguese, the second the English words, and the third the English pronunciation:
The vocabulary fills about fifty pages, and is followed by a series of “familiar phrases,” of which a few are here given:
“Do which is that book? Do is so kind to tell me it. Let us go on ours feet. Having take my leave, iwas going. This trees make a beauty shade. This wood is full of thief’s. These apricots make me & to come water in mouth. I have not stricken the clock. The storm is go over, the sun begin to dissape it. I am stronger which him. That place is too much gracious. That are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain.”
“Do which is that book? Do is so kind to tell me it. Let us go on ours feet. Having take my leave, iwas going. This trees make a beauty shade. This wood is full of thief’s. These apricots make me & to come water in mouth. I have not stricken the clock. The storm is go over, the sun begin to dissape it. I am stronger which him. That place is too much gracious. That are the dishes whose you must be and to abstain.”
Then come the dialogues, and one we give is supposed to take place at a morning call, which commences first with the visitor and the servant:
“‘Is your master at home?’—‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Is it up?’—‘No, sir, he sleep yet. I go make that he get up.’ ‘It come in one’s? How is it you are in bed yet?’—‘Yesterday at evening I was to bed so late that i may not rising me soon that morning.’”
“‘Is your master at home?’—‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Is it up?’—‘No, sir, he sleep yet. I go make that he get up.’ ‘It come in one’s? How is it you are in bed yet?’—‘Yesterday at evening I was to bed so late that i may not rising me soon that morning.’”
This is followed by a description of the dissipation which led to these late hours—“singing, dancing, laughing, and playing”—
“‘What game?’—‘To the picket.’ ‘Who have prevailed upon?’—‘I have gained ten lewis.’ ‘Till at what o’clock its had play one?’—‘Untill two o’clock after midnight.’”
“‘What game?’—‘To the picket.’ ‘Who have prevailed upon?’—‘I have gained ten lewis.’ ‘Till at what o’clock its had play one?’—‘Untill two o’clock after midnight.’”
But these conversations or dialogues, however amusing, are as nothing when compared with the anecdotes which are given by Fonseca, of which we transcribe a few:
“John II., Portugal King, had taken his party immediately. He had in her court castillians ambassadors coming for treat of the pease. As they had keeped in leng the negotiation he did them two papers in one from which he had wrotepeaceand on the otherwar—telling them ‘Choice you!’”“Philip, King’s Macedonia, being fall, and seeing the extension of her body drawed upon the dust was cry—‘Greats Gods! that we may have little part in this Univers!’”“One eyed was laied against a man which had good eyes that he saw better than him. The party was accepted. ‘I had gain over,’ said the one eyed; ‘why i see you two eyes, and you not look me who one!’”“The most vertious of the pagans, Socrates, was accused from impiety, and immolated to the fury of the envy and the fanaticism. When relates one’s him self that he has been condemned to death for the Athenians—‘And then told him, they are it for the nature,—But it is an unjustly,’ cried her woman ‘would thy replied-him that might be justify?’”“Cæsar seeing one day to Roma, some strangers, very riches, which bore between her arms little dogs and little monkeies and who was carressign them too tenderly was ask, with so many great deal reason, whether the women of her country don’t had some children?”“Two friends who from long they not were seen meet one’s selves for hazard. ‘How do is there?’ told one of the two. ‘No very well, told the other, and i am married from that I saw thee.’ ‘Good news.’ ‘Not quit, becauseI had married with a bad woman.’ ‘So much worse.’ ‘Not so much great deal worse; because her dower was from two thousand lewis.’ ‘Well, that confort.’ ‘Not absolutely, why i had emplored this sum for to buy some muttons which are all deads of the rot.’ ‘That is indeed very sorry.’ ‘Not so sorry, because the selling of hers hide have bring me above the price of the muttons.’ ‘So you are indemnified.’ ‘Not quit, because my house where i was disposed my money, finish to be consumed by the flames.’ ‘Oh, here is a great misfortune!’ ‘Not so great nor i either, because my wife and my house are burned together!’”
“John II., Portugal King, had taken his party immediately. He had in her court castillians ambassadors coming for treat of the pease. As they had keeped in leng the negotiation he did them two papers in one from which he had wrotepeaceand on the otherwar—telling them ‘Choice you!’”
“Philip, King’s Macedonia, being fall, and seeing the extension of her body drawed upon the dust was cry—‘Greats Gods! that we may have little part in this Univers!’”
“One eyed was laied against a man which had good eyes that he saw better than him. The party was accepted. ‘I had gain over,’ said the one eyed; ‘why i see you two eyes, and you not look me who one!’”
“The most vertious of the pagans, Socrates, was accused from impiety, and immolated to the fury of the envy and the fanaticism. When relates one’s him self that he has been condemned to death for the Athenians—‘And then told him, they are it for the nature,—But it is an unjustly,’ cried her woman ‘would thy replied-him that might be justify?’”
“Cæsar seeing one day to Roma, some strangers, very riches, which bore between her arms little dogs and little monkeies and who was carressign them too tenderly was ask, with so many great deal reason, whether the women of her country don’t had some children?”
“Two friends who from long they not were seen meet one’s selves for hazard. ‘How do is there?’ told one of the two. ‘No very well, told the other, and i am married from that I saw thee.’ ‘Good news.’ ‘Not quit, becauseI had married with a bad woman.’ ‘So much worse.’ ‘Not so much great deal worse; because her dower was from two thousand lewis.’ ‘Well, that confort.’ ‘Not absolutely, why i had emplored this sum for to buy some muttons which are all deads of the rot.’ ‘That is indeed very sorry.’ ‘Not so sorry, because the selling of hers hide have bring me above the price of the muttons.’ ‘So you are indemnified.’ ‘Not quit, because my house where i was disposed my money, finish to be consumed by the flames.’ ‘Oh, here is a great misfortune!’ ‘Not so great nor i either, because my wife and my house are burned together!’”
The concluding portion of this Guide is devoted to “Idiotisms and Proverbs,” of some of which it is rather difficult to recognise the original, as “To take time by the forelock,” is rendered “It want to take the occasion for the hairs!” Here are a few others:
“The walls have hearsay.”“Four eyes does see better than two.”“There is not any ruler without a exception.”“The mountain in work put out a mouse.”“He is like the fish into the water.”“To buy a cat in a pocket.”“To come back at their muttons.”“He is not so devil as he is black.”“Keep the chestnut of the fire with the hand of the cat.”“What come in to me for an ear yet out for another.”“Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat.”“These roses do button at the eyesight.”
“The walls have hearsay.”
“Four eyes does see better than two.”
“There is not any ruler without a exception.”
“The mountain in work put out a mouse.”
“He is like the fish into the water.”
“To buy a cat in a pocket.”
“To come back at their muttons.”
“He is not so devil as he is black.”
“Keep the chestnut of the fire with the hand of the cat.”
“What come in to me for an ear yet out for another.”
“Take out the live coals with the hand of the cat.”
“These roses do button at the eyesight.”
Enough perhaps has been given about this amusing Guide, and we here introduce Professor E. H. Palmer’s verses:
The Parterre.
A POETRY AS THE FONSECA.
Pidgin English is the name given to the dialect extensively used in the seaport towns of China as a means of communication between the natives and English and Americans, and is a very rude jargon in which English words are very strangely distorted. It is very limited, the Chinese learning Pidgin with only the acquirement of a few hundred words, the pronunciation and grammar of which have been modified to suit those of their own language. The word Pidgin itself is derived through a series of changes in the wordBusiness. Early traders made constant use of this word, and the Chinaman contracted it first toBusin, and then through the change toPishinit at length assumed the form ofPidgin, still retaining its original meaning. This at once shows the difficulty which a Chinaman has in mastering the pronunciation of English words, and as business or commerce is the great bond of union between the Chinese and the foreign residents, it is not to be wondered at that this word should give name to the jargon formed in its service. The Chinese have great difficulty in using the letterr, pronouncing it almost always likel, asloomforroom,clyforcry; and for thesake of euphony often addeeorloto the end of words.Galaworgalowis a word of no meaning, being used as a kind of interjection;chop, chop, means quick, quick;maskee, don’t mind;chop b’long, of a kind;topside galow, excelsior, or “hurrah for topside”;chin chin, good-bye;welly culio, very curious;Joss-pidgin-man, priest. With these few hints the reader may understand better the following version of “Excelsior,” which originally appeared inHarpers’ Magazinein 1869,—the moral, however, belongs solely to the Chinese translator:
Topside-Galow.
In connection with these linguistic curiosities we take the following from an old number ofHarpers’ Magazine: “A practical parent objects to the silliness of our nursery rhymes, for the reason that the doggerel is rendered pernicious by the absence of a practical moral purpose, and as introducing infants to the realities of life through an utterly erroneous medium. They are taught to believe in a world peopled by Little Bo-peeps and Goosey, Goosey Ganders, instead of a world of New York Central, Erie, North-Western Preferred, &c. &c. It is proposed, therefore, to accommodate the teaching of the nursery to the requirements of the age, to invest children’s rhymes with a moral purpose. Instead, for example, of the blind wonderment as to the nature of astronomical bodies inculcated in that feeble poem commencing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star,’ let the child be indoctrinated into the recent investigations of science, thus:
“Then, again, there is the gastronomic career of Little Jack Homer, which inculcates gluttony. It is practicable that this fictitious hero should familiarise the child with the principles of theDelectus:
“The episode of Jack and Jill is valueless as an educational medium. But it might be made to illustrate the arguments of a certain school of political economists:
“Even the pleasures of life have their duties, and the child needs to be instructed in the polite relaxation of society. The unmeaning jingle of‘Hey diddle diddle,’ might be invested with some utility of a social kind:
“And the importance of securing a goodparti, of rejecting ineligible candidates, and of modifying flirtations by a strict regard to the future, might be impressed upon the female mind at an early age in the following moral:
The preceding is all very well, but there are others which have been travestied and changed also—“Mary’s little Lamb,” for instance, will never be allowed to rest in its true Saxon garb, but is being constantly dressed in every tongue and dialect. But recently one has arisen bold enough to doubt the story altogether, and throw discredit on the song. Mr. Baring Gould, and iconoclasts like him, strive to show that William Tell and otherancient heroes never did live, but we never expected to doubt the existence of “Mary’s little Lamb,” yet a correspondent to a magazine sent not long ago what he says is the “true story of Mary and her lamb,” hoping it will take the place of the garbled version hitherto received as authentic:
We have still another way of it, in what may be termed an exaggerated synonymic adherence to the central idea of the ballad:
Linguistic renderings of many of these ancient songs may be found in the works of the Rev. Francis Mahoney (Father Prout), Dr. Maginn, &c., as well as in the “Arundines Cami” of the Rev. H. Drury. Of these here follow a few:
Little Bo-peep.
Ba, Ba, Black Sheep.
Here is a song of Mahoney’s, which is given complete:
Which, put into English, is:
The last of these we give is from the “Arundines Cami”:
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
This familiar nursery rhyme has also been “revised” by a committee of eminent preceptors and scholars, with this result:
Dr. Lang, in his book on “Queensland,” &c., is wroth against the colonists for the system of nomenclature they have pursued, in so far as introducing such names as Deptford, Codrington, Greenwich, and so on. Conceding that there may be some confusion by the duplication in this way of names from the old country, they are surely better than the jaw-breaking native names which are strung together in the following lines:
The followingjeu d’esprit, in which many of the absurd and unpronounceable names of American towns and villages are happily hit off, is from theOrpheus C. Kerr(office-seeker)Papers, by R. H. Newell, a work containing many of those humorous, semi-political effusions, which were so common in the United States during the Civil War:
The American Traveller.
A Rhyme for Musicians.
Surnames.
BY JAMES SMITH, ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF “REJECTED ADDRESSES.”
The next verses are somewhat similar, and are taken from an old number of theEuropean Magazine:
Coincidences and Contrarieties.
The English Language.
Spelling Reform.
Owed To My Creditors.
An Original Love Story.