they brush up stairs and discover a couple of poachers among their
game." This, however, the ladies would by no means admit, and the
huntsmen quickly riding away, we took our chocolate with the lady abbess
and her nuns, made all matters perfectly pleasant, saluted the fair at
parting, and bade adieu to the Oakland Cottages.
Upon our return to our inn, we received a good-humoured lecture from
Blackstrap, who was just, as he phrased it, on the wing for Bristol and
Bath, "where" said he, "if you will meet me at old Matthew Temple's,
the Castle Inn, I will engage to give you a hearty welcome, and another
bottle of the old particular;" a proposition that was immediately agreed
to, as the route we had previously determined upon. One circumstance
had, during our sojourn in the west, much annoyed my friend Transit
and myself; we had intended to have been present at the Doncaster
race meeting for 1825, and have booked both the betting men and
their betters. Certainly a better bit of sport could never have been
anticipated, but we were neither of us endowed with ubiquity, and were
therefore compelled to cry content in the west when our hearts and
inclinations were in the ~269~~north. "If now your 'Spirit in the
Clouds,' your merry unknown, he that sometimes shoots off his witty
arrows at the same target with ourselves, should archly suspect that
old Tom Whipcord was not upon the turf, I would venture a cool hundred
against the field, that we should have a report from him, 'ready cut
and dried,' and quite as full of fun and whim as if you had been present
yourself, Master Bernard, aided and assisted by our ally, Tom Whipcord
of Oxford." "Heaven forgive you, Blackmantle, for the sins you have
laid upon that old man's back! You are not content with working him hard
in the 'Annals' every month, but you must make him mount the box
of some of the short stages, and drive over the rough roads of the
metropolis, where he is in danger of having his wheel locked, or meeting
with a regular upset at every turn." Though Bob has given sufficient
proofs of his spirit in danger, I certainly never suspected him to be
possessed of the spirit of divination, and yet his prophetic address
had scarcely concluded before Boots announced a parcel for Bernard
Blackmantle, Esq. forwarded from London, per favour of Mr. Williams.
And, Heaven preserve me from the charge of imposing upon my reader's
credulity! but, as I live, it was his very hand--another sketch by my
attendant sprite, "the Spirit in the Clouds," and to the very tune of
Transit's anticipations, and my wishes.
A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO BERNARD BLACKMANTLE, ESQ.,
HUMOROUS DESCRIPTION OF DONCASTER
RACES, THE GREAT ST. LEGER, HORSES,
AND CHARACTERS, IN 1825.
BY AN HONEST REVIEWER,
ALIAS "The spirit in the clouds."{1}
"All hail, great master! grave sir, hail! I come
To answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly,
To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride
On the curl'd clouds; to thy strong bidding, task
Ariel, and all his quality.
Prospero. Why, that's my spirit!
Shakspeare--Tempest.
"Good morrow to my worthy masters; and a merry Christmas
to you all!"--The Bellman.
"Mendiei, mimi, balatrones."--Hor.
"Mimics, beggars, and characters of all sorts and sizes."
--Free Translation.
My Good Mr. Spy,
Will you not exclaim, Mercy upon us! here is a text and title as
long and as voluminous as a modern publication, or the sermon of the
fox-hunting parson, who, when compelled to
1 See last number of the Spy, Part XXI. p. 273.
~271~~preach on a saint's day, mounted the pulpit in his sporting
toggery, using his gown as "a cloak of maliciousness?" But have
patience, sweet Spy; be kindly-minded, dear Bernard: like John of Magna
Charta memory, "I have a thing to say;" and do now be a good attentive
Hubert to hear me out.
"Indeed, since you have inspirited, if not inspired me, by the 'immortal
honour' of dubbing me your 'associate,' I were wanting in common
gratitude not to attempt, by the return of moon, for I believe that
luminary, like your numbers, comes out new every fourth week, to convey
to you the swellings-over of my gratitude for the kind and fine things
you have been pleased to cheer me with; although even yet, though the
time will come, I can neither withdraw my vizor, nor disclose my
'family cognomen.'
[Illustration: page271]
It was true, and joy it was 'twas true, that we were at rowings,
sailings, feastings, and dancings together, but how comes it we were
not at the great racings together? that neither you, nor your ministers,
they who,
"----correspondent to command,
Perform thy spiriting gently----"
were at the grand muster of the North, the Doncaster meeting? Bernard, I
tell thee all the world was there; from royalty and loyalty down to the
dustman and democracy. Then such "sayings and doings," a million
of hooks could hardly have had an eye to all. You have read of the
confusion of tongues, of "Babel broke loose," of the crusaders'
contributory encampment peopled by dozens of nations; you have seen the
inside of a patent theatre on the first night of a Christmas
pantomime, or mingled in an Opera-house masquerade; have listened to a
Covent-garden squabble, a Billingsgate commotion, or a watch-house
row; but in the whole course of your life, varied as ~272~~it has been,
active as it has proved, you never have, never could have experienced
any thing at all to eclipse or even to equal the "hey, fellow, well
met" congregatory musters, and the "beautiful and elegant confusions"
of Doncaster town in the race week of (September) eighteen hundred and
twenty-five!
I am not, however, about to inflict upon you a "list of the horses,"
nor "the names, weights, and colours of the riders;" but I cannot
help thinking that the English Spy will not have quite completed his
admirable gallery of portraits, and his unique museum of curiosities
for the benefit and delight of posterity, if he omit placing in their
already splendid precincts two or three heads and sketches, which the
genius of notoriety is ready to contribute as her own, and which to
pass over would be as grievous to miss, as Mrs. Waylett's breeches,{2}
characters at the Haymarket Theatre, or a solution of Euclid by one of
Dr. Birkbeck's "operatives."
Allow me, then, who am not indeed "without vanity," once more to "stand
by your side," or rather for you, and to attempt, albeit I have not your
magic pencil, another taste of my quality, by dashing off _con amore_
the lions of the North.
2 There frequently occur circumstances in a younker's life
which lie never, in all his after career, forgets. I
remember a very worthy and a very handsome old gentlewoman,
the wife of an eminent physician, once being exceedingly
wroth, it was almost the only time I ever knew her seriously
angry, because a nephew of hers asserted all women were,
what in the vulgate is called "knock-knee'd," and almost
threatened to prove the contrary. Had she lived in our days,
the truth, almost on any evening on our stage, might be
ascertained, and I fear not at all to the satisfaction of
the defender of her sex's shape. Nature never intended women
to wear the breeches, and the invention of petticoats was
the triumph of art. Why will Eve's daughters publicly
convince us they are not from top to toe perfect?
~273~~As, however, some that attend my sitting are quite as difficult
to manage as the conspirators of Prospero's isle, it may be as well if,
like Ariel, I sing to them as I lay on the colours of identification.
Bear in mind still, that I am a "spirit in the clouds," and, therefore,
there can be nothing of "_michin malachi_" in my melody.
I love a race-course, that I do;
But then, good folks, it is as true,
Only don't blab, I tell it you,
I can't love all its people;
For though I'm somewhat down and fly,
Is slang gone out, sweet Mister Spy?
Of trade with them I am as shy
As jumping from a steeple.
Yet what with fashion's feather'd band,
And pawing steeds, and crowded stand;
Its sights are really very grand,
Which to deny were sin.
But then, though fast the horses run,
Few gain by "clone," and "done," and "done,"
For what a damper to the fun!
Those "only laugh who win."
Oh! what a mixture must we greet
In rooms, at inns, on turf, in street;
Be "hand and glove" with all we meet,
Old files, and new-bronzed faces!
With marquis, lord, and duke, and squire,
We now keep up the betting fire;
And then the guard of the "Highflyer"
We book at Northern races.{3}
3 A song would be no song at all without notes; I must
there-fore try a few. I can assure you they are not mere
humming ones. _Allons_--"all is not gold that glitters,"
neither is it all "prunella" that blows a horn upon the
stern of a coach. The "York Highflyer" I really am not to go
down gratis "next jour-ney" for puffing it is a good coach,
and the guard is a good guard, and he ventured a "good bit"
of money on the Leger, and was "floored," for "Cleveland"
was a slow one. However, it didn't balk his three days'
holiday, nor spoil his new coat, nor blight his nosegay. I
saw him after his defeat, looking as rosy as Pistol, and
heard him making as much noise as one; "nor malice domestic
nor foreign levy" could hurt him.
~274~~
Look in that room,{4} judge for yourself;
See what a struggle's made for wealth,
What crushings, bawlings for the pelf,
'Twixt high heads and low legs.
That is Lord K----,{5} and that Lord D-----,{5}
That's Gully{6}; yon's fishmonger C;{5}
A octree-man that; that, Harry Lee,{5}
Who stirr'd Mendoza's pegs.
Or walk up stairs; behold yon board,
Rich with its thrown-down paper hoard,
But oh! abused, beset, adored
By wine-warm'd folks o' nights.
The playing cog, the paying peer,
Pigeon and Greek alike are here;
And some are clear'd, and others clear;
Ask Bayner,{6} and such wights.
4 The new subscription room; where down stairs more than
the "confusion of tongues" prevails, and above a man's
character, if in-sured, would go under the column of "trebly
hazardous." It is really a pity that hone-racing should
appear so close a neighbour to gambling as it does at
Doncastor.
5 My men of letters are not merely alphabet men, but bona
fide characters of consideration upon the turf. I confess
Lord Kennedy is a bit of a favourite of mine, ever since I
saw him so good-natured at the pigeon-shooting matches at
Battersea; and greatly rejoiced was I to find him unplucked
at the more desperate wagerings of the North. He really is
clever in the main, and no subject for St. Luke's, though he
depends much on a bedlamite. Gulley, Crock-ford, and Bland,
need no character; and every body knows Harry Lee fought a
pluck battle with old Dan. But it is "box Harry" with
fighters now.
6 Poor Rayner of C. G. T.--hundreds at one fell swoop! all
his morning's winnings gone in one evening's misfortune. Let
him think on't when next he plays "the School of Reform."
~275~~
Nay, thick as plagues of Egypt swarm
These emblems of the devil's charm,
When the fall'n angel works a harm
To Eve's demented brood;
Worse than of famish'd shark the maw,
Worse than snake's tooth, or tiger's claw,
The gambler's fish{7} spits from its maw
Hell's poison-filled food!
But, halt! Who're they so deep in port,
Who jostle thus the dons of sport,
With all th' assumed airs of court,
From which indeed they are?
But not from court of Carlton,
Nor James's Court, nor any one;
But where "the fancy" used to run
To see the creatures spar.
The one's a diamond, that you see,
But yet a black one I agree,
And in the way of chancery
A smart Ward in his time;
The other he's from Vinsor down,
And though a great gun in that town,
Has lately been quite basted brown,
And gone off--out of time.{8}
7 The spotted ball now, worse in its woe-causing than the
apple of Ida, is disgorged from a splendidly gilded fish.
What a pity it is that the eternal vociforators of "red
wins, black loses," et vice versa, could not be turned into
Jonahs, and their odd fish into a whale, and let all be cast
into the troubled waters (without a three days' redemption)
they brew for others!
8 "There never were such times." X Xs, in the ring, and
failures in the Fives Court, overcome us now without our
special wonder; for boxers are become betters to extents
that would make the fathers of the P.R. bless themselves and
bolt. Cannon and Ward were, however, both on the right side,
and the nods with which they honoured their old acquaintance
were certainly improvements upon the style of the academy
for manners in Saint Martin's Street.
~276~~
Look, here's a bevy; who but they!
Just come to make the poor Tykes pay
The charge of post-horses and chay,
That brought them to some tune;
Lo! Piccadilly Goodered laughs,
As when some novice, reeling, quaffs
His gooseberry wine in tipsy draughts,
At his so pure saloon.{9}
Good gracious, too! (oh, what a trade
Can oyster sales at night be made!)
Here swallowing wine, like lemonade,
Sits Mrs. H's man{10}!
And by the Loves and Graces all,
By Vestris' trunks, Maria's shawl,
There trots the nun herself, so tall,
A flirting of a fan,
And blushing like the "red, red rose,"
With paly eyes and a princely nose,
And laced in Nora Crinas clothes,
(Cool, like a cucumber,)
With beaver black, with veil so green,
And huntress boots 'neath skirt quite clean,
She looks Diana's self--_a quean_,
In habit trimm'd with fur.
And Mr. Wigelsworth he flew,{11}
And Miss and Mistress W.
To bow and court'sy to the new
Arrival at their Boy;
9 "Lightly tread, 'tis hallow'd ground." I dare not go on;
you have been before me, Bernard: (vide vol. i. p. 295, of
Spy). But really it will be worth while for us to look in on
Goodered some fine morning, say three, a.m., when he gets
his print of Memnon home, to which, at Sheardowns, he was so
liberal as to subscribe. He will discourse to you of the
round table!
10 "If I stand here, I saw him."--Shakespeare, Hamlet.
11 The host of the Black Boy at Doncastor, who really pro-
vided race ordinaries in no ordinary way.
~277~~
Though he was Black, yet she was fair;
And sure I am that nothing there
With that clear nymph could aught compare,12
Or more glad eyes employ.
But where there is, after all, but little reason in many of the scenes
witnessed at the period I quote, why should I continue to rhyme about
them? Let it therefore suffice, that with much of spirit there was some
folly, with a good deal of splendour an alloy of dross, and, with real
consequence, a good deal of that which was assumed. Like a showy drama,
the players (there was a goodly company in the north), dresses (they
were of all colours of the rainbow), and decorations (also various and
admirable), during the time of performance, were of the first order; but
that over, and the green and dressing rooms displayed many a hero sunk
into native insignificance, and the trappings of Tamerlane degenerated
to the hungry coat of a Jeremy Diddler (and there were plenty of
"Raising the Wind" professors at Doncaster), or the materiel of the
king and queen of Denmark to the dilapidated wardrobe of Mr. and Mrs.
Sylvester Daggerwood.
_Mais apropos de le drame, Monsieur L'Espion_, what is your report of
our theatres? Have you seen the monkeys? Are they not, for a classic
stage, grand,
----Those happiest smiles
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence
As pearls from diamonds dropt. In brief,
Her room would be a rarity most beloved,
If all could so become it."
Shakespeare, a little altered.
I would just say here, that if any disapprove of my picture of the lady,
they may take Bernard Blackmantle's ~278~~_magnifique, et admirable_?
Do they not awake in you visions of rapturous delight, as you contrast
their antics and mimicry, their grotesque and beautiful grimaces, their
cunning leers, with the eye of Garrick, the stately action of Kemble,
the sarcasm of Cooke, the study of Henderson, the commanding port of
Siddons, the fire of Kean, the voice of Young, the tones of O'Neill?
When you see them, as the traveller Dampier has it, "dancing from
tree to tree over your head," and hear them "chattering, and making a
terrible noise," do you not think of Lord Chesterfield, and exclaim, "A
well-governed stage is an ornament to society, an encouragement to wit
and learning, and a school of virtue, modesty, and good manners?" Do you
not feel, when you behold the flesh and blood punch and man-monkey of
Covent Garden Theatre "twist his body into all manner of shapes," or
"Monsieur Gouffe," of the Surrey, "hang himself for the benefit of Mr.
Bradley," that we may pay our money, and "see, and see, and see again,
and still glean something new, something to please, and something to
instruct;" and, lastly, in a fit of enthusiasm, exclaim,
"To wake the soul by tender strokes of art,
To raise the genius and to mend the heart,
To make mankind in conscious virtue bold,
Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold;"
For this great Jocko's self first leap'd the stage;
For this was puffd in ev'ry well-bribed page,
From evening "Courier" down to Sunday "Age!"{13}
13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of
praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the
original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is
ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original.
That the beings who banish legitimate performers should
puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!"
But "the world is still deceived by ornament."
~279~~But Charles Kemble pays well on occasions, and gold would make
"Hyperion" of a "satyr." Seriously, Mr. Blackmantle, the town is overrun
with monkeys; they are as busy, and as importunate, as Lady Montague's
boys on May day, or the Guy Fawkes representatives on the fifth of
November. They are "here, there, and every where," and the baboon
monopolists of Exeter 'Change and the Tower are ruined by the
importation:--a free trade in the article with the patentees of our
classic theatres, as the purchasing-merchants, has done the business for
Mr. Cross and the beef-eaters. Like the Athenian audience, the "thinking
people" of England are more pleased with the mimic than the real voice
of nature; and the four-footed puggys of the Brazils, like the true pig
of the Grecian, are cast in the shade by their reasoning imitator!
In short, not to be prosy on a subject which has awakened poetry and
passion in all, hear, as the grave-diggers say, "the truth on't."{13}
When winter triumph'd o'er the summer's flame,
And C. G. opened, Punchinello came;
Each odd grimace of monkey-art he drew,
Exhausted postures and imagined new:
The stage beheld him spurn its bounded reign,
And frighten'd fiddlers scraped to him in vain;
His seven-leagued leaps so well the fashion fit,
That all adore him--boxes, gallery, pit,{14}
13 It is suspicious, to say the least of it, this excess of
praise to an old representation; for, after all, punch, the
original punch, punch in the street, though not so loud, is
ten times more to "our manner born," and much more original.
That the beings who banish legitimate performers should
puff, till we grow sick, a "thing of shreds and patches!"
But "the world is still deceived by ornament."
14 One Dr. Samuel Johnson has something like this, but then
his lines were in praise of a "poor player," of a man who
wasted much paper in writing dramas now thought nothing of.
This is his doggrel.
~280~~But I must have done. Christmas will soon be here, and "I have a
journey, sirs, shortly to go" to be prepared for its delights, and to
fit myself for its festivities; and yet I am unwilling, acute Bernard,
merry Echo, cheerful Eglantine, correct Transit, to "shake hands and
part," without tendering the coming season's congratulations; so if it
like you, dear spies o' the time, I will, like the swan, go off singing.
Marching along with berried brow,
And snow flakes on his "frosty pow,"
See father Christmas makes his bow,
And proffers jovial cheer;
About him tripping to and fro,
Picking the holly as they go,
And kiss-allowing misletoe,
His merry elves appear.
Then broach the barrel, fill the bowl,
And let us pledge the hearty soul,
Though swift the waning minutes roll,
And time will stay for none;
Lads, we will have a gambo still,
For though we've made the foolish feel,
And shamed the sinner in his ill,
Our withers are unwrung.
"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First rear'd the stage, immortal Skakspeare rose;
Each change of many-colour'd life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new;
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain:
His powerful strokes presiding truth impress'd,
And unresisted passion storm'd the breast."
~281~~
No poison in the cup have ye,
In all your travell'd history,
Pour'd for the hearty, good, and free;
This will your book evince:
So "here's the King!"fill, fill for him,
Then for our Country, to the brim;
With it, good souls, we'll sink or swim.
Huzzah! 'tis gall'd jades wince!
But now, adieu; o'er hill and plain
I scud, ere we shall meet again;
Meantime, all prosp'rous be your reign,
And friends attend in crowds;
Before your splendid course is o'er,
And Blackmantle shall please no more,
You'll know, though yet I'm doom'd to soar,
Your Spirit in the Clouds.{15}"
November, 1825.
Adieu, thou facetious sprite, and may the graybeard Time tread lightly
on thy buoyant spirits! Meet thee or not hereafter, thou shalt live in
my remembrance a cherished name, long as memory holds her influence o'er
the eccentric mind of Bernard Blackmantle. Here, too, must Transit
and myself take a farewell of merry Cheltenham, ever on the wing for
novelty: our sketches have been brief, but full of genuine character;
nor can they, as I hope, be considered in any instance as violating our
established rule--of being true to nature, without offending the ear of
chastity, or exciting aught but
15 "A. word to the wise," &c. Get honest "Tom Whipcord" to
take you by his hand on Valentine's night to the "noctes"
muster of the _Sporting Annals_ gents. You will know me by a
brace of "bleeding hearts" in my plaited neckerchief, and a
blue bunch of ribbons in my sinister side, as big as the
Herald newspaper, the gifts of my lady-love.
~282~~the approving smile of the lovers of mirth, and the patrons of
life's merriments. We had intended to have drawn aside the curtain of
the theatre and the castle, and have shown forth to the gaze of the
public the unhallowed mysteries which are sometimes performed there; but
reflection whispered, that morality might find more cause to blush at
the recital than her attendants would benefit by the exposure; and is is
lamentably true, that some persons would cheerfully forfeit all claim
to respectability of character for the honour of appearing in print,
depicted in their true colours, as systematic and profligate seducers.
To disappoint this infamous ambition, more than from any fear of the
threatened consequences, we have left the sable colonel and his dark
satellites to grope on through the murky ways of waywardness and
intrigue, without staining our pages with a full relation of their
heartless conduct, since to have revived the now forgotten tales might
have given additional pain to some beauteous victims whose fair names
have dropped into Lethe's waters, like early spring flowers nipped by
the lingering hand of slow-paced winter; or, in other instances, have
disturbed the repose of an unsuspecting husband, or have stung the
aged heart of a doting parent--evils we could not have avoided, had
we determined upon rehearsing the love scenes and intrigues of certain
well-known Cheltenham amateurs.
Adieu, merry Chelts! we're for quitting our quarters;
Adieu to the chase, to thy walks and thy waters,
To thy hunt, ball, and theatre, and card tables too,
And to all thy gay fair ones, a long, long adieu!
Blackmantle and Transit, the Spy and his friend,
Through Gloucester and Bristol, to Bath onward bend.
To show how amused they have been in your streets,
They give you, at parting, this man of sweetmeats;
A character, famous as Mackey, the dandy,
The London importer of horehound and candy;
The cheapest of doctors, whose nostrums dispense
A cure for all ills that affect taste or sense,
I doubt not quite as good as one half your M.D.'s,
Though sweet is the physic and simple the fees;
This, at least, you'll admit, as we dart from your view
That our vignette presents you with a sweet adieu!
A VISIT TO GLOUCESTER AND BERKELEY.