WHERE—AND OH! WHERE?[Sidenote:Henry S. Leigh]
Where are the times when—miles awayFrom the din and the dust of cities—Alexis left his lambs to play,And wooed some shepherdess half the dayWith pretty and plaintive ditties?
Where are the pastures daisy-strewnAnd the flocks that lived in clover;The Zephyrs that caught the pastoral tuneAnd carried away the notes as soonAs ever the notes were over?
Where are the echoes that bore the strainsEach to his nearest neighbour;And all the valleys and all the plainsWhere all the nymphs and their love-sick swainsMade merry to pipe and tabor?
Where are they gone? They are gone to sleepWhere Fancy alone can find them;But Arcady's times are like the sheepThat quitted the care of Little Bo-peep,For they've left their tales behind them!
THE SECRETS OF THE HEART[Sidenote:Austin Dobson]
"Le coeur mène où il va"
SCENE—A Chalet covered with honeysuckle
NINETTEThis way—
NINONNo, this way—
NINETTEThis way, then.
(They enter the Chalet)You are as changing, child,—as men.
NINONBut are they? Is it true, I mean?Who said it?
NINETTESister Séraphine.She was so pious and so good,With such sad eyes beneath her hood,And such poor little feet,—all bare!Her name was Eugénie la Fère.She used to tell us,—moonlight nights,—When I was at the Carmelites.
NINONAh, then it must be right. And yet,Suppose for once—suppose, Ninette—
NINETTEBut what?
NINONSuppose it were not so?Suppose thereweretrue men, you know!
NINETTEAnd then?
NINONWhy, if thatcouldoccur,What kind of men should you prefer?
NINETTEWhat looks, you mean?
NINONLooks, voice and all.
NINETTEWell, as to that, he must be tall,Or say, not "tall"—of middle size;And next, he must have laughing eyes;And a hook-nose,—with, underneath,Oh! what a row of sparkling teeth!
NINON (touching her cheek suspiciously)Has he a scar on this side?
NINETTEHush!Some one is coming. No; a thrush:I see it swinging there.
NINONGo on.
NINETTEThen he must fence (ah, look, 'tis gone!)And dance like Monseigneur, and sing"Love was a Shepherd,"—everythingThat men do. Tell me yours, Ninon.
NINONShall I? Then mine has black, black hair …I mean, heshouldhave; then an airHalf sad, half noble; features thin;A littleroyaleon the chin;And such a pale, high brow. And then,He is a prince of gentlemen;—He, too, can ride and fence and writeSonnets and madrigals, yet fightNo worse for that—
NINETTEI know your man.
NINONAnd I know yours. But you'll not tell,—Swear it!
NINETTEI swear upon this fan,—My grandmother's!
NINONAnd I, I swearOn this old turquoisereliquaire,—My great-great-grandmother's!—(After a pause)
Ninette!I feelsosad.
NINETTEI too. But why?
NINONAlas, I know not!
NINETTE (with a sigh)Nor do I.
BRITISH FESTIVITIES[Sidenote:Mark Twain]
Niagara Falls is a most enjoyable place of resort. The hotels are excellent, and the prices not at all exorbitant. The opportunities for fishing are not surpassed in the country; in fact, they are not even equalled elsewhere. Because, in other localities, certain places in the streams are much better than others; but at Niagara one place is just as good as another, for the reason that the fish do not bite anywhere, and so there is no use in your walking five miles to fish, when you can depend of being just as unsuccessful nearer home. The advantages of this state of things have never heretofore been properly placed before the public.
The weather is cool in summer, and the walks and drives are all pleasant, and none of them fatiguing. When you start out to "do" the Falls you first drive down about a mile, and pay a small sum for the privilege of looking down from a precipice into the narrowest part of the Niagara river. A railway "cut" through a hill would be as comely if it had an angry river tumbling and foaming through its bottom. You can descend a staircase here a hundred and fifty feet down, and stand at the edge of the water. After you have done it, you will wonder why you did it; but you will then be too late.
The guide will explain to you, in his blood-curdling way, how he saw the little steamer,Maid of the Mist,descend the fearful rapids—how first one paddle-box was out of sight behind the raging billows, and then the other, and at what point it was that her smoke-stack toppled overboard, and where her planking began to break and part asunder—and how she did finally live through the trip, after accomplishing the incredible feat of travelling seventeen miles in six minutes, or six miles in seventeen minutes, I have really forgotten which. But it was very extraordinary, anyhow. It is worth the price of admission to hear the guide tell the story nine times in succession to different parties, and never miss a word or alter a sentence or a gesture.
Then you drive over the Suspension Bridge, and divide your misery between the chances of smashing down two hundred feet into the river below and the chances of having the railway train overhead smashing down on to you. Either possibility is discomforting taken by itself, but, mixed together, they amount in the aggregate to positive unhappiness.
On the Canada side you drive along the chasm between long ranks of photographers standing guard behind their cameras, ready to make an ostentatious frontispiece of you and your decaying ambulance, and your solemn crate with a hide on it, which you are expected to regard in the light of a horse, and a diminished and unimportant background of sublime Niagara; and a great many peoplehavethe ineffable effrontery or the native depravity to aid and abet this sort of crime.
Any day, in the hands of these photographers, you may see stately pictures of papa and mamma, Johnny and Bub and Sis, or a couple of country cousins, all smiling hideously, and all disposed in studied and uncomfortable attitudes in their carriage, and all looming up in their grand and awe-inspiring imbecility before the snubbed and diminished presentment of that majestic presence, whose ministering spirits are the rainbows, whose voice is the thunder, whose awful front is veiled in clouds, who was monarch here dead and forgotten ages before this hackful of small reptiles was deemed temporarily necessary to fill a crack in the world's unnoted myriads, and will still be monarch here ages and decades of ages after they shall have gathered themselves to their blood relations, the other worms, and been mingled with the unremembering dust.
There is no actual harm in making Niagara a background whereon to display one's marvellous insignificance in a good strong light, but it requires a sort of superhuman self-complacency to enable one to do it.
When you have examined the stupendous Horseshoe Fall till you are satisfied you cannot improve on it, you return to America by the new Suspension Bridge, and follow up the bank to where they exhibit the Cave of the Winds.
Here I followed instructions, and divested myself of all my clothing and put on a waterproof jacket and overalls. This costume is picturesque, but not beautiful. A guide, similarly dressed, led the way down a flight of winding stairs, which wound and wound and still kept on winding long after the thing ceased to be a novelty, and then terminated long before it had begun to be a pleasure. We were then well down under the precipice, but still considerably above the level of the river.
We now began to creep along flimsy bridges of a single plank, our persons shielded from perdition by a crazy wooden railing, to which I clung with both hands—not because I was afraid, but because I wanted to. Presently the descent became steeper, and the bridge flimsier, and sprays from the American Fall began to rain down on us in fast-increasing sheets that soon became blinding, and after that our progress was mostly in the nature of groping. Now a furious wind began to rush out from behind the waterfall, which seemed determined to sweep us from the bridge, and scatter us on the rocks and among the torrents below. I remarked that I wanted to go home; but it was too late. We were almost under the monstrous wall of water thundering down from above, and speech was in vain in the midst of such a pitiless crash of sound.
In another moment the guide disappeared behind the grand deluge, and, bewildered by the thunder, driven helplessly by the wind, and smitten by the arrowy tempest of rain, I followed. All was darkness. Such a mad, storming, roaring, and bellowing of warring wind and water never crazed my ears before. I bent my head, and seemed to receive the Atlantic on my back. The world seemed going to destruction. I could not see anything, the flood poured down so savagely. I raised my head, with open mouth, and the most of the American cataract went down my throat. If I had sprung a leak now, I had been lost. And at this moment I discovered that the bridge had ceased, and we must trust for a foothold to the slippery and precipitous rocks. I never was so scared before and survived it. But we got through at last, and emerged into the open day, where we could stand in front of the laced and frothy and seething world of descending water, and look at it. When I saw how much of it there was, and how fearfully in earnest it was, I was sorry I had gone behind it.
I said to the guide, "Son, did you know what kind of an infernal place this was before you brought me down here?"
"Yes."
This was sufficient. He had known all the horror of the place, and yet he brought me there! I regarded it as deliberate arson. I then destroyed him.
I managed to find my way back alone to the place from whence I had started on this foolish enterprise, and then hurried over to Canada, to avoid having to pay for the guide.
At the principal hotel I fell in with the Major of the 42nd Fusiliers, and a dozen other hearty and hospitable Englishmen, and they invited me to join them in celebrating the Queen's birthday. I said I would be delighted to do it. I said I liked all the Englishmen I had ever happened to be acquainted with, and that I, like all my countrymen, admired and honoured the Queen. But I said there was one insuperable drawback—I never drank anything strong upon any occasion whatever, and I did not see how I was going to do proper and ample justice to anybody's birthday with the thin and ungenerous beverages I was accustomed to.
The Major scratched his head, and thought over the matter at considerable length; but there seemed to be no way of mastering the difficulty, and he was too much of a gentleman to suggest even a temporary abandonment of my principles. But by-and-by he said:
"I have it. Drink soda-water. As long as you never do drink anything more nutritious, there isn't any impropriety in it."
And so it was settled. We met in a large parlour, handsomely decorated with flags and evergreens, and seated ourselves at a board well laden with creature comforts, both solid and liquid. The toasts were happy, and the speeches were good, and we kept it up until long after midnight. I never enjoyed myself more in my life. I drank thirty-eight bottles of soda-water. But do you know that that is not a reliable article for a steady drink? It is too gassy. When I got up in the morning I was full of gas, and as tight as a balloon. I hadn't an article of clothing that I could wear, except my umbrella.
After breakfast I found the Major making grand preparations again. I asked what it was for, and he said this was the Prince of Wales's birthday. It had to be celebrated that evening. We celebrated it. Much against my expectations, we had another splendid time. We kept it up till some time after midnight again. I was tired of soda, and so I changed off for lemonade. I drank several quarts. You may consider lemonade better for a steady drink than soda-water; but it isn't so. In the morning it had soured on my stomach. Biting anything was out of the question—it was equivalent to lockjaw. I was beginning to feel worn and sad too.
Shortly after luncheon, I found the Major in the midst of some more preparations. He said this was the Princess Alice's birthday. I concealed my grief.
"Who is the Princess Alice?" I asked.
"Daughter of her Majesty the Queen," the Major said.
I succumbed. That night we celebrated the Princess Alice's birthday. We kept it up as late as usual, and really I enjoyed it a good deal. But I could not stand lemonade. I drank a couple of kegs of ice-water.
In the morning I had toothache, and cramps, and chilblains, and my teeth were on edge from the lemonade, and I was still pretty gassy, I found the inexorable Major at it again.
"Who is this for?" I asked.
"His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh," he said.
"Son of the Queen?"
"Yes."
"And this is his birthday—you haven't made any mistake?"
"No; the celebration comes off to-night."
I bowed before the new calamity. We celebrated the day. I drank part of a barrel of cider. Among the first objects that met my weary and jaundiced eye the next day was the Major at his interminable preparations again. My heart was broken, and I wept.
"Whom do we mourn this time?" I said.
"The Princess Beatrice, daughter of the Queen."
"Here, now," I said; "it is time to inquire into this thing. How long is the Queen's family likely to hold out? Who comes next on the list?"
"Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Royal,Prince Arthur, Princess Mary of Teck, Prince Leopold, the Grand-duke ofMecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand-duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince…"
"Hold! There's a limit to human endurance. I am only mortal. What man dare do, I dare; but he who can celebrate this family in detail, and live to tell it, is less or more than man. If you have to go through this every year, it is a mercy I was born in America, for I haven't constitution enough to be an Englishman. I shall have to withdraw from this enterprise. I am out of drinks. Out of drinks, and so many more to celebrate! Out of drinks, and only just on the outskirts of the family yet, as you may say! I am sorry enough to have to withdraw, but it is plain enough that it has to be done. I am full of gas, and my teeth are loose, and I am wrenched with cramps, and afflicted with scurvy, and toothache, measles, mumps, and lockjaw, and the cider last night has given me the cholera. Gentlemen, I mean well; but really I am not in a condition to celebrate the other birthdays. Give us a rest."
SIR JOHN WATERS[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
Amongst the distinguished men in the Peninsular War whom my memory brings occasionally before me, is the well-known and highly popular Quartermaster-General Sir John Waters, who was born at Margam, a Welsh village in Glamorganshire. He was one of those extraordinary persons that seem created by kind nature for particular purposes; and, without using the word in an offensive sense, he was the most admirable spy that was ever attached to an army. One would almost have thought that the Spanish War was entered upon and carried on in order to display his remarkable qualities. He could assume the character of Spaniards of every degree and station, so as to deceive the most acute of those whom he delighted to imitate. In the posada of the village he was hailed by the contrabandist or the muleteer as one of their own race; in the gay assemblies he was an accomplished hidalgo; at the bullfight the toreador received his congratulations as from one who had encountered the toro in the arena; in the church he would converse with the friar upon the number of Ave Marias and Paternosters which could lay a ghost, or tell him the history of every one who had perished by the flame of the Inquisition, relating his crime, whether carnal or anti-Catholic; and he could join in theseguadillaor in theguaracha.
But what rendered him more efficient than all was his wonderful power of observation and acute description, which made the information he gave so reliable and valuable to the Duke of Wellington. Nothing escaped him. When amidst a group of persons, he would minutely watch the movement, attitude, and expression of every individual that composed it; in the scenery by which he was surrounded he would carefully mark every object: not a tree, not a bush, not a large stone, escaped his observation; and it was said that in a cottage he noted every piece of crockery on the shelf, every domestic utensil, and even the number of knives and forks that were got ready for use at dinner.
His acquaintance with the Spanish language was marvellous; from the finest works of Calderon to the ballads in the patois of every province, he could quote, to the infinite delight of those with whom he associated. He could assume any character that he pleased: he could be the Castilian, haughty and reserved; the Asturian, stupid and plodding; the Catalonian, intriguing and cunning; the Andalusian, laughing and merry,—in short, he was all things to all men. Nor was he incapable of passing off, when occasion required, for a Frenchman; but, as he spoke the language with a strong German accent, he called himself an Alsatian. He maintained that character with the utmost nicety; and as there is a strong feeling of friendship, almost equal to that which exists in Scotland, amongst all those who are born in the departments of France bordering on the Rhine, and who maintain their Teutonic originality, he always found friends and supporters in every regiment in the French service.
He was on one occasion entrusted with a very difficult mission by the Duke of Wellington, which he undertook effectually to perform, and to return on a particular day with the information that was required.
Great was the disappointment when it was ascertained beyond a doubt that, just after leaving the camp, he had been taken prisoner before he had time to exchange his uniform. Such, however, was the case; a troop of dragoons had intercepted him, and carried him off; and the commanding officer desired two soldiers to keep a strict watch over him and carry him to headquarters. He was, of course, disarmed, and, being placed on a horse, was, after a short time, galloped off by his guards. He slept one night under durance vile at a small inn, where he was allowed to remain in the kitchen; conversation flowed on very glibly, and, as he appeared a stupid Englishman, who could not understand a word of French or Spanish, he was allowed to listen, and thus obtained precisely the intelligence that he was in search of. The following morning, being again mounted, he overheard a conversation between his guards, who deliberately agreed to rob him, and to shoot him at a mill where they were to stop, and to report to their officer that they had been compelled to fire at him in consequence of his attempt to escape.
Shortly before they arrived at the mill, for fear that they might meet with some one who would insist on having a portion of the spoil, the dragoons took from their prisoner his watch and his purse, which he surrendered with a good grace. On their arrival at the mill they dismounted, and, in order to give some appearance of truth to their story, they went into the house, leaving their prisoner outside, in the hope that he would make some attempt to escape. In an instant Waters threw his cloak upon a neighbouring olive-bush, and mounted his cocked hat on the top. Some empty flour-sacks lay upon the ground, and a horse laden with well-filled flour-sacks stood at the door. Sir John contrived to enter one of the empty sacks and throw himself across the horse. When the soldiers came out of the house they fired their carbines at the supposed prisoner, and galloped off at the utmost speed.
A short time after the miller came out and mounted his steed; the general contrived to rid himself of the encumbrance of the sack, and sat up, riding behind the man, who, suddenly turning round, saw a ghost, as he believed, for the flour that still remained in the sack had completely whitened his fellow-traveller and given him a most unearthly appearance. The frightened miller was "putrified," as Mrs. Malaprop would say, at the sight, and a push from the white spectre brought the unfortunate man to the ground, when away rode the gallant quartermaster with his sacks of flour, which, at length bursting, made a ludicrous spectacle of man and horse.
On reaching the English camp, where Lord Wellington was anxiously deploring his fate, a sudden shout from the soldiers made his lordship turn round, when a figure, resembling the statue in "Don Juan," galloped up to him. The duke, affectionately shaking him by the hand, said:
"Waters, you never yet deceived me; and, though you have come in a most questionable shape, I must congratulate you and myself."
When this story was told at the Club, one of those listeners who always want something more called out, "Well, and what did Waters say?" to which Alvanley replied:
"Oh, Waters made a veryfloweryspeech, like a well-bred man."
LORD WESTMORELAND[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
When I was presented at the Court of Louis XVIII. Lord Westmoreland, the grandfather of the present lord, accompanied Sir Charles Stewart to the Tuileries. On our arrival in the room where the King was we formed ourselves into a circle, when the King good-naturedly inquired after Lady Westmoreland, from whom his lordship was divorced, and whether she was in Paris. Upon this the noble lord looked sullen, and refused to reply to the question put by the King. His Majesty, however, repeated it, when Lord Westmoreland hallooed out, in bad French, "Je ne sais pas, je ne sais pas, je ne sais pas." Louis, rising, said, "Assez, milord; assez, milord."
On one occasion, Lord Westmoreland, who was Lord Privy Seal, being asked what office he held, replied, "Le Chancellier est le grand sceau (sot); moi je suis le petit sceau d'Angle-terre." On another occasion, he wished to say "I would if I could, but I can't," and rendered it, "Je voudrais si je coudrais, mais je ne cannais pas."
COLONEL KELLY AND HIS BLACKING[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
Among the odd characters I have met with, I do not recollect any one more eccentric than the late Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly, of the First Foot Guards, who was the vainest man I ever encountered. He was a thin, emaciated-looking dandy, but had all the bearing of a gentleman. He was haughty in the extreme, and very fond of dress; his boots were so well varnished that the polish now in use could not surpass Kelly's blacking in brilliancy; his pantaloons were made of the finest leather, and his coats were inimitable; in short, his dress was considered perfect.
His sister held the place of housekeeper to the Custom-house, and when it was burnt down, Kelly was burnt with it, in endeavouring to save his favourite boots. When the news of his horrible death became known, all the dandies were anxious to secure the service of his valet, who possessed the mystery of the inimitable blacking. Brummell lost no time in discovering his place of residence, and asked what wages he required; the servant answered, his late master gave him £150 a year, but it was not enough for his talents, and he should require £200; upon which Brummell said, "Well, if you will make it guineas,Ishall be happy to attend uponyou." The late Lord Plymouth eventually secured this phoenix of valets at £200 a year, and bore away the sovereignty of boots.
JOHN KEMBLE[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
John Kemble had the honour of giving the Prince of Wales some lessons inelocution. According to the vitiated pronunciation of the day, thePrince, instead of saying "oblige," would say "obleege," upon whichKemble, with much disgust depicted upon his countenance, said:
"Sir, may I beseech your Royal Highness to open your royal jaws, and say 'oblige'?"
ROGERS AND LUTTRELL[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
I saw a good deal of the poet Rogers during his frequent visits to Paris; and often visited him in his apartments, which were always on the fourth or fifth story of the hotel or private house in which he lived. He was rich, and by no means avaricious, and chose those lofty chambers partly from a poetic wish to see the sun rise with greater brilliancy, and partly from a fancy that the exercise he was obliged to take in going up and down stairs would prove beneficial to his liver.
I could relate many unpublished anecdotes of Rogers, but they lose their piquancy when one attempts to narrate them. There was so much in his appearance, in that cadaverous, unchanging countenance, in the peculiar low, drawling voice, and rather tremulous accents in which he spoke. His intonations were very much those one fancies a ghost would use if forced by some magic spell to give utterance to sounds. The mild venom of every word was a remarkable trait in his conversation. One might have compared the old poet to one of those velvety caterpillars that crawl gently and quietly over the skin, but leave an irritating blister behind. To those, like myself, who weresansconsequence, and with whom he feared no rivalry, he was very good-natured and amiable, and a most pleasant companion, with a fund of curious anecdote about everything and everybody. But woe betide those in great prosperity and renown; they had, like the Roman emperor, in Rogers the personification of the slave who bade them "remember they were mortal."
At an evening party many years since at Lady Jersey's every one was praising the Duke of B——, who had just come in, and who had lately attained his majority. There was a perfect chorus of admiration to this effect: "Everything is in his favour—he has good looks, considerable abilities, and a hundred thousand a year." Rogers, who had been carefully examining the "young ruler," listened to these encomiums for some time in silence, and at last remarked, with an air of great exultation, and in his most venomous manner, "Thank God, he has got bad teeth!"
His well-known epigram on Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley—
They say that Ward's no heart, but I deny it;He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it—
was provoked by a remark made at table by Mr. Ward. On Rogers observing that his carriage had broken down, and that he had been obliged to come in a hackney-coach, Mr. Ward grumbled out in a very audible whisper, "In a hearse, I should think," alluding to the poet's corpse-like appearance. This remark Rogers never forgave, and, I have no doubt, pored over his retaliatory impromptu, for he had no facility in composition. Sydney Smith used to say that, if Rogers was writing a dozen verses, the street was strewn with straw, the knocker tied up, and the answer to the tender inquiries of his anxious friends was, that Mr. Rogers was as well as could be expected.
It used to be very amusing in London to see Rogers with hisfidus Achates, Luttrell. They were inseparable, though rival wits, and constantly saying bitter things to each other. Luttrell was the natural son of Lord Carhampton, Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, and in his youth known as the famous Colonel Luttrell of Junius. I consider him to have been the most agreeable man I ever met. He was far more brilliant in conversation than Rogers; and his animated, bustling manner formed an agreeable contrast with the spiteful calmness of his corpse-like companion. He was extremely irritable, and even passionate; and in his moments of anger he would splutter and stutter like a maniac in his anxiety to give utterance to the flow of thoughts which crowded his mind, and, I might almost say, his mouth.
On one occasion the late Lady Holland took him a drive in her carriage over a rough road, and, as she was very nervous, she insisted on being driven at a foot's pace. This ordeal lasted some hours, and when he was at last released, poor Luttrell, perfectly exasperated, rushed into the nearest club-house, and exclaimed, clenching his teeth and hands, "The very funerals passed us!"
THE PIG-FACED LADY[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
Among the many absurd reports and ridiculous stories current in former days, I know of none more absurd or more ridiculous than the general belief of everybody in London, during the winter of 1814, in the existence of a lady with a pig's face. This interesting specimen of porcine physiognomy was said to be the daughter of a great lady residing in Grosvenor Square.
It was rumoured that during the illuminations which took place to celebrate the peace, when a great crowd had assembled in Piccadilly and St. James's Street, and when carriages could not move on very rapidly,horresco referens!an enormous pig's snout had been seen protruding from a fashionable-looking bonnet in one of the landaus which were passing. The mob cried out, "The pig-faced lady! Stop the carriage—stop the carriage!" The coachman, wishing to save his bacon, whipped his horses, and drove through the crowd at a tremendous pace; but it was said that the coach had been seen to set down its monstrous load in Grosvenor Square.
Another report was also current. Sir William Elliot, a youthful baronet, calling one day to pay his respects to the great lady in Grosvenor Square, was ushered into a drawing-room, where he found a person fashionably dressed, who, on turning towards him, displayed a hideous pig's face. Sir William, a timid young gentleman, could not refrain from uttering a shout of horror, and rushed to the door in a manner the reverse of polite; when the infuriated lady or animal, uttering a series of grunts, rushed at the unfortunate baronet as he was retreating, and inflicted a severe wound on the back of his neck. This highly improbable story concluded by stating that Sir William's wound was a severe one, and had been dressed by Hawkins, the surgeon, in St. Audley Street.
I am really almost ashamed to repeat this absurd story; but many persons now alive can remember the strong belief in the existence of the pig-faced lady which prevailed in the public mind at the time of which I speak. The shops were full of caricatures of the pig-faced lady, in a poke bonnet and large veil, with "A pig in a poke" written underneath the print. Another sketch represented Sir William Elliot's misadventure, and was entitled, "Beware the pig-sty!"
HOBY, THE BOOTMAKER, OF ST. JAMES'S STREET[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
Hoby was not only the greatest and most fashionable bootmaker in London, but, in spite of the old adage,ne sutor ultra crepidam, he employed his spare time with considerable success as a Methodist preacher at Islington. He was said to have in his employment three hundred workmen; and he was so great a man in his own estimation that he was apt to take rather an insolent tone with his customers. He was, however, tolerated as a sort of privileged person, and his impertinence was not only overlooked but was considered as rather a good joke. He was a pompous fellow, with a considerable vein of sarcastic humour.
I remember Horace Churchill (afterwards killed in India with the rank of major-general), who was then an ensign in the Guards, entering Hoby's shop in a great passion, saying that his boots were so ill made that he should never employ Hoby for the future. Hoby, putting on a pathetic cast of countenance, called to his shopman:
"John, close the shutters. It is all over with us. I must shut up shop;Ensign Churchill withdraws his custom from me."
Churchill's fury can be better imagined than described.
On another occasion the late Sir John Shelley came into Hoby's shop to complain that his top-boots had split in several places. Hoby quietly said:
"How did that happen, Sir John?"
"Why, in walking to my stables."
"Walking to your stables!" said Hoby, with a sneer. "I made the boots for riding, not walking."
Hoby was bootmaker to the Duke of Kent; and, as he was calling on H.R.H. to try on some boots, the news arrived that Lord Wellington had gained a great victory over the French army at Vittoria. The duke was kind enough to mention the glorious news to Hoby, who coolly said:
"If Lord Wellington had had any other bootmaker than myself he never would have had his great and constant successes; for my boots and prayers bring his lordship out of all his difficulties."
One may well say that there is nothing like leather; for Hoby died worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.
Hoby was bootmaker to George III., the Prince of Wales, the royal dukes, and many officers in the Army and Navy. His shop was situated at the top of St. James's Street, at the corner of Piccadilly, next to the Old Guards Club. He was bootmaker to the Duke of Wellington from his boyhood, and received innumerable orders in the duke's handwriting, both from the Peninsula and France, which he always religiously preserved. Hoby was the first man who drove about London in a tilbury. It was painted black, and drawn by a beautiful black cob. This vehicle was built by the inventor, Mr. Tilbury, whose manufactory was, fifty years back, in a street leading from South Audley Street into Park Street.
HARRINGTON HOUSE AND LORD PETERSHAM[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
When our army returned to England in 1814 my young friend, Augustus Stanhope, took me one afternoon to Harrington House, in Stable-yard, St. James's, where I was introduced to Lord and Lady Harrington, and all the Stanhopes. On entering a long gallery, I found the whole family engaged in their sempiternal occupation of tea-drinking. Neither in Nankin, Pekin, nor Canton was the teapot more assiduously and constantly replenished than at this hospitable mansion. I was made free of the corporation, if I may use the phrase, by a cup being handed to me; and I must say that I never tasted any tea so good before or since.
As an example of the undeviating tea-table habits of the house of Harrington, General Lincoln Stanhope once told me that, after an absence of several years in India, he made his reappearance at Harrington House, and found the family, as he had left them on his departure, drinking tea in the long gallery. On his presenting himself, his father's only observation and speech of welcome to him was, "Hallo, Linky, my dear boy! delighted to see you. Have a cup of tea?"
LORD ALVANLEY[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
From the time of good Queen Bess, when the English language first began to assume somewhat of its present form, idiom, and mode of expression, to the day of our most gracious sovereign Queen Victoria, every age has had its punsters, humorists, and eloquent conversationalists; but I much doubt whether the year 1789 did not produce the greatest wit of modern times, in the person of William Lord Alvanley.
After receiving a very excellent and careful education, Alvanley entered the Coldstream Guards at an early age, and served with distinction at Copenhagen and in the Peninsula; but, being in possession of a large fortune, he left the Army, gave himself up entirely to the pursuit of pleasure, and became one of the principal dandies of the day. With the brilliant talents which he possessed, he might have attained to the highest eminence in any line of life he had embraced.
Not only was Alvanley considered the wittiest man of his day in England, but, during his residence in France, and tours through Russia and other countries, he was universally admitted to possess, not only great wit and humour, butl'esprit françaisin its highest perfection; and no greater compliment could be paid him by foreigners than this. He was one of the rare examples (particularly rare in the days of the dandies, who were generally sour and spiteful) of a man combining brilliant wit and repartee with the most perfect good-nature. His manner, above all, was irresistible; and the slight lisp, which might have been considered as a blemish, only added piquancy and zest to his sayings.
In appearance he was about the middle height, and well and strongly built, though he latterly became somewhat corpulent. He excelled in all manly exercises, was a hard rider to hounds, and was what those who do not belong to the upper ten thousand call "a good-plucked one." His face had somewhat of the rotund form and smiling expression which characterises the jolly friars one meets with in Italy. His hair and eyes were dark, and he had a very small nose, to which, after deep potations, his copious pinches of snuff had some difficulty in finding their way, and were in consequence rather lavishly bestowed upon his florid cheek. He resided in Park Street, St. James's, and his dinners there and at Melton were considered to be the best in England. He never invited more than eight people, and insisted upon having the somewhat expensive luxury of an apricot-tart on the sideboard the whole year round.
Alvanley was a good speaker; and, having made some allusion to O'Connell in rather strong terms in the House of Lords, the latter very coarsely and unjustly denounced him, in a speech he made in the House of Commons, as a bloated buffoon. Alvanley thereupon called out the Liberator, who would not meet him, but excused himself by saying, "There is blood already on this hand"—alluding to his fatal duel with D'Esterre.
Alvanley then threatened O'Connell with personal chastisement. Upon this, Morgan O'Connell, a very agreeable, gentlemanlike man, who had been in the Austrian service, and whom I knew well, said he would take his father's place. A meeting was accordingly agreed upon at Wimbledon Common, Alvanley's second was Colonel George Dawson Damer, and our late consul at Hamburgh, Colonel Hodges, acted for Morgan O'Connell. Several shots were fired without effect, and the seconds then interfered and put a stop to any further hostilities.
On their way home in a hackney-coach, Alvanley said, "What a clumsy fellow O'Connell must be, to miss such a fat fellow as I am! He ought to practise at a haystack to get his hand in." When the carriage drove up to Alvanley's door, he gave the coachman a sovereign. Jarvey was profuse in his thanks and said, "It's a great deal for only having taken your lordship to Wimbledon."
"No, my good man," said Alvanley; "I give it you, not for taking me, but for bringing me back."
Everybody knows the story of Gunter, the pastrycook. He was mounted on a runaway horse with the King's hounds, and excused himself for riding against Alvanley by saying, "Oh my lord, I can't hold him, he's so hot!" "Ice him, Gunter—ice him!" was the consoling rejoinder.
In the hunting-field in a northern county, Sir Charles S——, whose married life was not a very happy one, wore one morning at the meet a wonderful greatcoat, with enormous horn buttons. Alvanley, riding up to him, and apparently looking at the buttons with great admiration, said, "A little attention of Lady S——'s, I presume, Sir Charles?"
Alvanley had a delightful recklessness andlaisser allerin everything. His manner of putting out his light at night was not a very pleasant one for his host for the time being. He always read in bed, and when he wanted to go to sleep he either extinguished his candle by throwing it on the floor in the middle of the room, and taking a shot at it with the pillow, or else quietly placed it, when still lighted, under the bolster. At Badminton, and other country houses, his habits in this respect were so well known that a servant was ordered to sit up in the passage to keep watch over him.
Alvanley's recklessness in money matters was almost incredible. His creditors having become at last very clamorous, that able and astute man of the world, Mr. Charles Greville, with the energetic and bustling kindness in mixing himself up in all his friends' affairs which still distinguishes him, had undertaken to settle those of Alvanley. After going through every item of the debts, matters looked more promising than Mr. Greville expected, and he took his leave. In the morning he received a note from Alvanley, to say that he had quite forgotten to take into account a debt of fifty-five thousand pounds.
SALLY LUNN[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
Some fifty years back, or thereabouts, Albinia, Countess of Buckinghamshire, lived in her charming villa in Pimlico, surrounded by a large and beautiful garden. It was here she used to entertain theéliteof London society with magnificentfêtes, bal champêtres, and public breakfasts. After one of thosefêtes, I called one morning to pay my respects; and, on ringing the bell, the servant ushered me into the conservatory, where I found Lady Harrington, the celebrated cantatrice Mrs. Billington, and the Duke of Sussex, who was said to be very muchépriswith the English "Catalani," as she was called.
Mrs. Billington was extremely beautiful, though it was absurd to compare her to Catalani as a singer; but she was the favourite of the Duke of Sussex, which made her many friends. During my visit, chocolate and tea-cakes were served to our party, when Lady Harrington related a curious anecdote about those cakes. She said her friend Madame de Narbonne, during the emigration, determined not to live upon the bounty of foreigners, found means to amass money enough to enable her to open a shop in Chelsea, not far from the then fashionable balls of Ranelagh.
It had been the custom in France, before the Revolution, for young ladies in some noble families to learn the art of making preserves and pastry; accordingly, Madame de Narbonne commenced her operations under the auspices of some of her acquaintances; and all those who went to Ranelagh made a point of stopping and buying some of her cakes. Their fame spread like lightning throughout the West End, and orders were given to have them sent for breakfast and tea in many great houses in the neighbourhood of St. James's. Madame de Narbonne employed a Scotch maid-servant to execute her orders. The name of this woman was "Sally Lunn," and ever since a particular kind of tea-cake has gone by that name.
Madame de Narbonne, not speaking English, replied to her customers (when they inquired the name of thebrioches), "bon." Hence the etymology of "bun," according to Lady Harrington; but I confess that I do not feel quite satisfied with her derivation.
"MONK" LEWIS[Sidenote:Captain Gronow]
"Monk" Lewis had a black servant, affectionately attached to his master; but so ridiculously did this servant repeat his master's expressions, that he became the laughing-stock of all his master's friends. Brummell used often to raise a hearty laugh at Carlton House by repeating witticisms which he pretended to have heard from Lewis's servant; some of these were very stale; yet they were considered so good as to be repeated at the clubs, and greatly added to the reputation of the Beau as a teller of good things. "On one occasion," said Brummell, "I called to inquire after a young lady who had sprained her ankle. Lewis, on being asked how she was, had said, in the black's presence, 'The doctor has seen her, put her legs straight, and the poor chicken is doing well.' The servant, therefore, told me, with a mysterious and knowing look, 'Oh, sir, the doctor has been here, she has laid eggs, and she and the chickens are doing well.'"
THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD[Sidenote:Hood]
I sawe a Mayd sitte on a Bank,Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond;And whiles His flatterynge Vowes she drank,Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond!
All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist,For She was fayre and He was Kinde;The Sunne went down before She wistAnother Sonne had sett behinde!
With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe,That deemd Her owne the Urchine's Sinne,She pluckt Him out, but he was nowePast being Whipt for fallynge in.
She then beginnes to wayle the LaddeWith Shrikes that Echo answered round—O! foolishe Mayd to be soe saddeThe Momente that her Care was drownd!
SHY NEIGHBOURHOODS[Sidenote:Charles Dickens]
One of the pleasantest things I have lately met with, in a vagabond course of shy metropolitan neighbourhoods and small shops, is the fancy of a humble artist, as exemplified in two portraits representing Mr. Thomas Sayers, of Great Britain, and Mr. John Heenan, of the United States of America. These illustrious men are highly coloured in fighting trim and fighting attitude. To suggest the pastoral and meditative nature of their peaceful calling, Mr. Heenan is represented on emerald sward, with primroses and other modest flowers springing up under the heels of his half-boots; while Mr. Sayers is impelled to the administration of his favourite blow, the Auctioneer, by the silent eloquence of a village church. The humble homes of England, with their domestic virtues and honeysuckle porches, urge both heroes to go in and win; and the lark and other singing birds are observable in the upper air, ecstatically carolling their thanks to Heaven for a fight. On the whole, the associations entwined with the pugilistic art by this artist are much in the manner of Izaak Walton.
But it is with the lower animals of back streets and by-ways that my present purpose rests. For human notes we may return to such neighbourhoods when leisure and opportunity serve.
Nothing in shy neighbourhoods perplexes my mind more than the bad company birds keep. Foreign birds often get into good society, but British birds are inseparable from low associates. There is a whole street of them in St. Giles's; and I always find them in poor and immoral neighbourhoods, convenient to the public-house and the pawnbroker's. They seem to lead people into drinking, and even the man who makes their cages usually gets into a chronic state of black eye. Why is this? Also, they will do things for people in short-skirted velveteen coats with bone buttons, or in sleeved waistcoats and fur caps, which they cannot be persuaded by the respectable orders of society to undertake. In a dirty court in Spitalfields, once, I found a goldfinch drawing his own water, and drawing as much of it as if he were in a consuming fever. That goldfinch lived at a bird-shop, and offered, in writing, to barter himself against old clothes, empty bottles, or even kitchen stuff. Surely a low thing and a depraved taste in any finch! I bought that goldfinch for money. He was sent home, and hung upon a nail over against my table. He lived outside a counterfeit dwelling-house, supposed (as I argued) to be a dyer's; otherwise it would have been impossible to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go; a shock which in the best of times had made him tremble. He drew no water but by stealth and under the cloak of night. After an interval of futile and at length hopeless expectation, the merchant who had educated him was appealed to. The merchant was a bow-legged character, with a flat and cushiony nose, like the last new strawberry. He wore a fur cap and shorts, and was of the velveteen race, velveteeny. He sent word that he would "look round." He looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset that bird; when it was appeased, he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water; and finally, leaped about his perch and sharpened his bill as if he had been to the nearest wine-vaults and got drunk.
Donkeys, again. I know shy neighbourhoods where the donkey goes in at the street-door, and appears to live upstairs, for I have examined the back-yard from over the palings, and have been unable to make him out. Gentility, nobility, royalty, would appeal to that donkey in vain to do what he does for a costermonger. Feed him with oats at the highest price, put an infant prince and princess in a pair of panniers on his back, adjust his delicate trappings to a nicety, take him to the softest slopes at Windsor, and try what pace you can get out of him. Then starve him, harness him anyhow to a truck with a flat tray on it, and see him bowl from Whitechapel to Bayswater. There appears to be no particular private understanding between birds and donkeys, in a state of nature; but in the shy neighbourhood state you shall see them always in the same hands and always developing their very best energies for the very worst company. I have known a donkey—by sight; we were not on speaking terms—who lived over on the Surrey side of London Bridge, among the fastnesses of Jacob's Island and Dockhead. It was the habit of that animal, when his services were not in immediate requisition, to go out alone idling. I have met him a mile from his place of residence, loitering about the streets; and the expression of his countenance at such times was most degraded. He was attached to the establishment of an elderly lady who sold periwinkles, and he used to stand on Saturday nights with a cartful of those delicacies outside a gin-shop, pricking up his ears when a customer came to the cart, and too evidently deriving satisfaction from the knowledge that they got bad measure. His mistress was sometimes overtaken by inebriety. The last time I ever saw him (about five years ago) he was in circumstances of difficulty, caused by this failing. Having been left alone with the cart of periwinkles, and forgotten, he went off idling. He prowled among his usual low haunts for some time, gratifying his depraved tastes, until, not taking the cart into his calculations, he endeavoured to turn up a narrow alley, and became greatly involved. He was taken into custody by the police, and, the Green Yard of the district being near at hand, was backed into that place of durance. At that crisis I encountered him; the stubborn sense he evinced of being—not to compromise the expression—a blackguard, I never saw exceeded in the human subject. A flaring candle in a paper shade, stuck in among his periwinkles, showed him, with his ragged harness broken and his cart extensively shattered, twitching his mouth and shaking his hanging head, a picture of disgrace and obduracy. I have seen boys being taken to station-houses, who were as like him as his own brother.
The dogs of shy neighbourhoods I observe to avoid play, and to be conscious of poverty. They avoid work, too, if they can, of course; that is in the nature of all animals. I have the pleasure to know a dog in a back street in the neighbourhood of Walworth who has greatly distinguished himself in the minor drama, and who takes his portrait with him when he makes an engagement, for the illustration of the playbill. His portrait (which is not at all like him) represents him in the act of dragging to the earth a recreant Indian, who is supposed to have tomahawked, or essayed to tomahawk, a British officer. The design is pure poetry, for there is no such Indian in the piece, and no such incident. He is a dog of the Newfoundland breed, for whose honesty I would be bail to any amount; but whose intellectual qualities in association with dramatic fiction I cannot rate high. Indeed, he is too honest for the profession he has entered. Being at a town in Yorkshire last summer, and seeing him posted in the bill of the night, I attended the performance. His first scene was eminently successful; but, as it occupied a second in its representation (and five lines in the bill), it scarcely afforded ground for a cool and deliberate judgment of his powers. He had merely to bark, run on, and jump through an inn window, after a comic fugitive. The next scene of importance to the fable was a little marred in its interest by his over-anxiety; forasmuch as while his master (a belated soldier in a den of robbers on a tempestuous night) was feelingly lamenting the absence of his faithful dog, and laying great stress on the fact that he was thirty leagues away, the faithful dog was barking furiously in the prompter's box, and clearly choking himself against his collar. But it was in his greatest scene of all that his honesty got the better of him. He had to enter a dense and trackless forest, on the trail of the murderer, and there to fly at the murderer when he found him resting at the foot of a tree, with his victim bound ready for slaughter. It was a hot night, and he came into the forest from an altogether unexpected direction, in the sweetest temper, at a very deliberate trot, not in the least excited; trotted to the foot-lights with his tongue out; and there sat down, panting, and amiably surveying the audience, with his tail beating the boards, like a Dutch clock. Meanwhile the murderer, impatient to receive his doom, was audibly calling to him "Co-o-ome here!" while the victim, struggling with his bonds, assailed him with the most injurious expressions. It happened, through these means, that when he was in course of time persuaded to trot up and rend the murderer limb from limb, he made it (for dramatic purposes) a little too obvious that he worked out that awful retribution by licking butter off his blood-stained hands.
In a shy street behind Long Acre, two honest dogs live who perform in Punch's shows. I may venture to say that I am on terms of intimacy with both, and that I never saw either guilty of the falsehood of failing to look down at the man inside the show, during the whole performance. The difficulty other dogs have in satisfying their minds about these dogs appears to be never overcome by time. The same dogs must encounter them over and over again, as they trudge along in their off-minutes behind the legs of the show and beside the drum; but all dogs seem to suspect their frills and jackets, and to sniff at them as if they thought those articles of personal adornment an eruption—a something in the nature of mange, perhaps. From this Covent-garden window of mine I noticed a country dog only the other day, who had come up to Covent Garden Market under a cart, and had broken his cord, an end of which he still trailed along with him. He loitered about the corners of the four streets commanded by my window; and bad London dogs came up and told him lies that he didn't believe; and worse London dogs came up and made proposals to him to go end steal in the market, which his principles rejected; and the ways of the town confused him, and he crept aside and lay down in a doorway. He had scarcely got a wink of sleep, when up comes Punch with Toby. He was darting to Toby for consolation and advice, when he saw the frill, and stopped, in the middle of the street, appalled. The show was pitched, Toby retired behind the drapery, the audience formed, the drum and pipes struck up. My country dog remained immovable, intently staring at these strange appearances, until Toby opened the drama by appearing on his ledge, and to him entered Punch, who put a tobacco-pipe into Toby's mouth. At this spectacle the country dog threw up his head, gave one terrible howl, and fled due west.
We talk of men keeping dogs, but we might often talk more expressively of dogs keeping men. I know a bull-dog in a shy corner of Hammersmith who keeps a man. He keeps him up a yard, and makes him go to the public-houses and lay wagers on him, and obliges him to lean against posts and look at him, and forces him to neglect work for him, and keeps him under rigid coercion. I once knew a fancy terrier who kept a gentleman—a gentleman who had been brought up at Oxford, too. The dog kept the gentleman entirely for his glorification, and the gentleman never talked about anything but the terrier. This, however, was not in a shy neighbourhood, and is a digression consequently.
There are a great many dogs in shy neighbourhoods who keep boys. I have my eye on a mongrel in Somerstown who keeps three boys. He feigns that he can bring down sparrows and unburrow rats (he can do neither), and he takes the boys out on sporting pretences into all sorts of suburban fields. He has likewise made them believe that he possesses some mysterious knowledge of the art of fishing, and they consider themselves incompletely equipped for the Hampstead ponds, with a pickle-jar and wide-mouthed bottle, unless he is with them and barking tremendously. There is a dog residing in the Borough of Southwark who keeps a blind man. He may be seen most days, in Oxford Street, haling the blind man away on expeditions wholly uncontemplated by, and unintelligible to, the man; wholly of the dog's conception and execution. Contrariwise, when the man has projects, the dog will sit down in a crowded thoroughfare and meditate. I saw him yesterday, wearing the money-tray like an easy collar, instead of offering it to the public, taking the man against his will, on the invitation of a disreputable cur, apparently to visit a dog at Harrow—he was so intent on that direction. The north wall of Burlington House Gardens, between the Arcade and the Albany, offers a shy spot for appointments among blind men at about two or three o'clock in the afternoon. They sit (very uncomfortably) on a sloping stone there, and compare notes. Their dogs may always be observed, at the same time, openly disparaging the men they keep, to one another, and settling where they shall respectively take their men when they begin to move again. At a small butcher's in a shy neighbourhood (there is no reason for suppressing the name; it is by Notting Hill, and gives upon the district called the Potteries), I know a shaggy black-and-white dog who keeps a drover. He is a dog of an easy disposition, and too frequently allows this drover to get drunk. On these occasions it is the dog's custom to sit outside the public-house, keeping his eye on a few sheep, plainly casting up in his mind how many he began with when he left the market, and at what places he has left the rest. I have seen him perplexed by not being able to account to himself for certain particular sheep. A light has gradually broken on him, he has remembered at what butcher's he left them, and in a burst of grave satisfaction has caught a fly off his nose, and shown himself much relieved. If I could at any time have doubted the fact that it was he who kept the drover, and not the drover who kept him, it would have been abundantly proved by his way of taking undivided charge of the six sheep, when the drover came out besmeared with red ochre and beer, and gave him wrong directions, which he calmly disregarded. He has taken the sheep entirely into his own hands, has merely remarked with respectful firmness, "That instruction would place them under an omnibus; you had better confine your attention to yourself—you will want it all"; and has driven his charge away, with an intelligence of ears and tail, and a knowledge of business, that has left his lout of a man very, very far behind.
As the dogs of shy neighbourhoods usually betray a slinking consciousness of being in poor circumstances—for the most part manifested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and a misgiving that somebody is going to harness them to something, to pick up a living—so the cats of shy neighbourhoods exhibit a strong tendency to relapse into barbarism. Not only are they made selfishly ferocious by ruminating on the surplus population around them, and on the densely crowded state of all the avenues to cats'-meat; not only is there a moral and politico-economical haggardness in them, traceable to these reflections; but they evince a physical deterioration. Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got up; their black turns rusty, like old mourning; they wear very indifferent fur; and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk velvet. I am on terms of recognition with several small streets of cats, about the Obelisk in Saint George's Fields, and also in the vicinity of Clerkenwell Green, and also in the back settlements of Drury Lane. In appearance, they are very like the women among whom they live. They seem to turn out of their unwholesome beds into the street, without any preparation. They leave their young families to stagger about the gutters, unassisted, while they frouzily quarrel and swear and scratch and spit at street corners. In particular, I remark that when they are about to increase their families (an event of frequent recurrence) the resemblance is strongly expressed in a certain dusty dowdiness down-at-heel self-neglect, and general giving up of things. I cannot honestly report that I have ever seen a feline matron of this class washing her face when in an interesting condition.
Not to prolong these notes of uncommercial travel among the lower animals of shy neighbourhoods by dwelling at length upon the exasperated moodiness of the tom-cats and their resemblance in many respects to a man and a brother, I will come to a close with a word on the fowls of the same localities.
That anything born of an egg and invested with wings should have got to the pass that it hops contentedly down a ladder into a cellar, and callsthatgoing home, is a circumstance so amazing as to leave one nothing more in this connexion to wonder at. Otherwise I might wonder at the completeness with which these fowls have become separated from all the birds of the air—have taken to grovelling in bricks and mortar and mud—have forgotten all about live trees and make roosting-places of shop-boards, barrows, oyster-tubs, bulk-heads, and door-scrapers. I wonder at nothing concerning them, and take them as they are. I accept as products of nature and things of course a reduced Bantam family of my acquaintance in the Hackney Road, who are incessantly at the pawnbroker's. I cannot say that they enjoy themselves, for they are of a melancholy temperament; but what enjoyment they are capable of they derive from crowding together in the pawnbroker's side-entry. Here, they are always to be found in a feeble flutter, as if they were newly come down in the world, and were afraid of being identified. I know a low fellow, originally of a good family from Dorking, who takes his whole establishment of wives, in single file, in at the door of the jug department of a disorderly tavern near the Haymarket, manoeuvres them among the company's legs, emerges with them at the Bottle Entrance, and so passes his life. Over Waterloo Bridge there is a shabby old speckled couple (they belong to the wooden French-bedstead, washingstand, and towel-horse-making trade) who are always trying to get in at the door of a chapel. Whether the old lady, under a delusion reminding one of Mrs. Southcott, has an idea of entrusting an egg to that particular denomination, or merely understands that she has no business in the building and is consequently frantic to enter it, I cannot determine; but she is constantly endeavouring to undermine the principal door; while her partner, who is infirm upon his legs, walks up and down, encouraging her and defying the Universe. But the family I have been best acquainted with, since the removal from this trying sphere of a Chinese circle at Brentford, reside in the densest part of Bethnal Green. Their abstraction from the objects among which they live, or rather their conviction that those objects have all come into existence in express subservience to fowls, has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many journeys at divers hours. After careful observation of the two lords and the ten ladies of whom this family consists, I have come to the conclusion that their opinions are represented by the leading lord and leading lady: the latter, as I judge, an aged personage, afflicted with a paucity of feathers and visibility of quill, that gives her the appearance of a bundle of office-pens. When a railway goods van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses, perfectly satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air, which may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets, as a kind of meteoric discharge, for fowls to peck at. Peg-tops and hoops they account, I think, as a sort of hail; shuttlecocks, as rain, or dew. Gaslight comes quite as natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion that, in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the corner has superseded the sun.
DRINKING SONG[Sidenote:J.K. Stephen]
There are people, I know, to be found,Who say and apparently thinkThat sorrow and care may be drownedBy a timely consumption of drink.
Does not man, these enthusiasts ask,Most nearly approach the divineWhen engaged in the soul-stirring taskOf filling his body with wine?
Have not beggars been frequently known,When satisfied, soaked and replete,To imagine their bench was a throneAnd the civilised world at their feet?
Lord Byron has finely describedThe remarkably soothing effectOf liquor, profusely imbibed,On a soul that is shattered and wrecked.
In short, if your body or mindOr your soul or your purse come to grief,You need only get drunk, and you'll find,Complete and immediate relief.
For myself, I have managed to doWithout having recourse to this plan,So I can't write a poem for you,And you'd better get some one who can.
LETTERS OF T.E. BROWN[Sidenote:T.E. Brown]
Thank you very much for the satire. Satire is an undoubted branch of poetry; but I do not affect it much. There is a strong, healthy, noble satire, the _sæva indignatio_of the Latin classics. But, short of that, satire seems only an element of discontent and unhappiness.
I know the "pip," the "black pigs" too, know them well; but they are quite beneath contempt; and nothing on earth would induce me to cross the bright blue of my serenity. I have a great notion of being the master of my own happiness, and not suffering it to be contingent on the manners and conduct of other people.
If a man slights me, he does me no harm; but if his conduct is detrimental to the general good, if he is unjust, a villain in high place, a seducer, a poison, a snare to the innocent, then have at him! though,constitutionallyI had rather leave him alone.
The sum of happiness in the world is not too large. I would like, if possible, to increase it by the modest contribution of my own store. If so, I must guard it from all disturbance; and poetry enables me to do this, gives me a thousand springs of joy, in none of which there is one drop of bitterness—and thank God for that!
We are here in the I. of Wight, busy comparing it with the I. of Man, of course. It is really a beautiful island, not merely as regards richness of vegetation, an ornament that just now is not available, but also for its configuration. The "lay of the land," the attitude, and gesture of the lines are admirable. The coast is dismally inferior to ours; glens are not to be seen, and streams are puny, but very clean. On the whole we give the preference to Mona, and that upon purely æsthetic, not patriotic, grounds.
I hope you are all well and thriving. Accept my best wishes for the New Year. Your satire discloses perhaps a slight biliary secretion—all satire, I fear, is bile. I hope I may impute it to Christmas festivities rather than to any permanent disorder!
P.S.—I return the verses, as I think you would like to keep them….
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I did very well in the Isle of Man; had two good solitary walks, drank deep draughts of—don't know how to describe it—that social brewage which I get nowhere else. Very likely other people get it in their own habitats. But it really does seem to me as if the whole island was quivering and trembling all over withstories—they are like leaves on a tree. The people are always telling them to one another, and any morning or evening you hear, whether you like it or not, innumerable anecdotes, sayings, tragedies, comedies—I wonder whether they lie fearfully. They are a marvellouslynarrationalcommunity. And you've not been there a day before all this closes round you with a quiet familiarity of "use and custom" which is most fascinating. Nothing else in the universe seems of any consequence.
And warly cares, and warly men,May a' gae tapsalteerie, O!
A week more and I should have become reabsorbed into this medium past recovery and past recognition….