returned thanks:--then came alternately songs and glees by the
professional gentlemen:--then they drank Mrs. Hicks and family;--and
then--for be it observed, the fervour of the applause increased as
the night grew older--the uproar was tremendous. Nine times nine
seemed infinitely too small a complement of cheers to compliment the
Hickses, and I had become dead tired of the whole affair, when Mr.
Hicks--the great Mr. Hicks--rose to return thanks for _that_ honour.
He talked of connubial felicity, and spoke of the peculiar merits
and charms of his daughters with all the eloquence of a tuft-hunting
mother. Having done which, he fell to moralising upon the lateness of
the hour, and the necessity of recollecting that Greenwich was nearly
five miles from town; that, happy as we were, prudence pointed to
a period at which such enchantments should terminate. "Gentlemen,"
said he, "in conclusion, I have obtained permission to propose one
parting bumper. I believe we are all agreed that the constitution of
England is a blessing envied by every country in the world--(loud
cheers). We have drank the king, the queen, the royal family, the
army, the navy, the ministers, and indeed everything that we could
be well supposed to drink constitutionally. Gentlemen, the place in
which we are now assembled suggests to me the best, the most loyal,
the most appropriate, and the most constitutional toast possible as
a conclusion. I give it you with feelings of mingled loyalty and
piety--I propose to you, 'The Crown and Sceptre,' and may they never
be separated."
This unqualified piece of nonsense, delivered seriously by Hicks
(rather overcome) to about fifty or sixty survivors of the original
dinner, nearly killed me with laughing: not so the company--at it
they went--cheered like mad--up-standing nine times nine--rattle went
the forks--jingle and smash went the glasses--and, in the midst of
the uproar, Hicks rose, the Master did the same, and, of course, we
followed the example.
Then came all the worry and confusion about carriages--the little
alley was crowded with people seeking for conveyances--it had just
begun to rain. Hull looked at _me_, and inquired what vehicle I
had?--I had none--I was annihilated--when, judge my delight and
surprise at finding the illustrious Hicks himself at my side,
offering Hull and myself places in his coach. I could scarcely
believe it; however, so it was, and an advantage was derivable from
it for which I was scarcely prepared.
"Come down with _me_," said Hicks, "directly:--this way--they
are preparing a deputation to light me through the alley to the
carriage--I want to avoid it. My boy tells me it is all ready--if
we can but get round the corner, we shall be off without being
observed--they _will_ do these things, but _incog._ for me--I hate
state and finery--eh, Mr. Hull?"
"Pooh, pooh!" said Hull, "_you_ need no new honours--to be sure--what
a day--eh--never was any thing so splendid!"
And so Hicks's boy, or, as Hull called him, "b'y," preceding, we
made our escape into the patriot's carriage; and never did I more
rejoice in my life. The quiet of the calm which aeronauts experience
when they rise in a few minutes from the tumultuous shoutings of the
populace into the dead stillness of the vast expanse above, cannot be
more surprising than was the tranquillity of the coach compared with
the boisterousness of the company.
Mr. Hicks carried us as far as he could, without inconveniencing
himself, and set us down at the corner of a small street in
Cheapside, having, just before we parted, mentioned to me that if at
any time I should be in need of any article in the hardware line, I
should find every thing he had at wholesale prices and of the very
best quality.
Hull and I walked westward, but whether it arose from the length of
the way or its width, I cannot exactly state, I was uncommonly tired
when I reached home. When I fell asleep, which I did as soon as I got
into bed, I dreamed of the extraordinary infatuation which possesses
men in all classes of life to believe themselves eminently important,
and their affairs seriously interesting to all the rest of the world;
and became perfectly satisfied that every sphere and circle of
society possesses its Hicks, and that my friend the hardwareman was
not one bit a greater fool than his neighbours.
THE MANSERVANT'S LETTER.[64]
Murrel Green, Thursday.
"DEAR SARAH,--I should not wonder if you wasn't a little surprised
at neither seeing nor hearing from me before this, as I calculate
you also will be at reading the date of this hepistol. The truth is,
that the Captain, whose stay in England will be very short, says
to me, just as I was coming off to you the night after I wrote,
'Lazenby,' says he, 'where do you go when you leave me?' So I
contumaciously expressed myself in these identical words, 'Why, sir,'
says I in a masculine manner, 'I am going to Blissford.' Whereupon
he observed to me that he supposed I had got what the French calls
a _chair ah me_ there, and that I was likely to settle myself in
the neighbourhood--so then I expostulated with him and mentioned my
notion of setting up in the general line, and he laughed and said
that he hoped to do that himself some day, and was quite factious
upon the toepick, which after his manner the night before, rather
constaminated me, as Goldfinch says in Ben Jonson's 'Beggars' Opera;'
whereupon he; says, looking at me in his droll way, 'Tom,' says he,
'I shan't be long in London; hadn't you better go up with me and Mrs.
M. when we are married, and stop with us till we go?'--for, mind
you, he is going to take her out with him to share the toils of the
champaign; and this was the very first of his directly insinuating
that the thing was all settled: so I hesitates a little; and thinking
of you, my dear Sarah, I says, says I, 'Sir, will you give me an
hour to preponderate?'--'To be sure I will,' says the Captain. Well,
I begins to think; and I calculated I might make a few pounds by
stopping and paying his bills and managing his luggage, and all
_that_, before he went. So I says to Susan--she as I wrote about
in my last--'If you was _me_,' says I, 'what would you do in this
conundrum?'--'Why,' says Susan, 'if you ask me _my_ advice, if I was
_you_ I'd stay and go with the Captain.' So I considers a bit more;
and I says to her, 'I don't much like missus as is to be.'--'Nor I,'
said Susan, 'although I have knowed her longer than you; but for all
_that_, I'm going as her maid; only to stay till they leave England
for good.'--'Why,' says I, having heard her opinion of the future
Mrs. Merman, and how Mrs. Gibson had gone away entirely excavated by
the levity of her mistresse's behaviour, 'I had no notion you would
do such a thing.'
"So Susan says to me, 'Lazenby,' says she--she calls me Lazenby, for
we are quite like brother and sister now--'my old missus wishes it;
and she hints something about remembering me hereafter; and so what
is it?' says Susan; 'in these days, folks don't stick at trifles; and
sure if Miss Millicent is good enough to be Captain Merman's wife,
she is good enough to be my missus.' That seemed remarkably judicial
to my comprension; and so, thinking what was good for Susan could not
be interogatory to me, up I goes to the Captain, and agrees to stay
with him, as I tell you, till he bids a Jew to his native land, at
which perriod, dear Sarah, I hope to return to you, like the good bee
who, as Pope says in 'The Deserted Village'--
'Behaves in bee-hives as behoves him,'
and bring you an affectionate art, and I should say upwards of seven
pounds fourteen shillings in hard cash by way of hunney. Susan says
she should like to know you, she is so much indisposed towards you
by my inscription of you; and I should like you to be friends, which
perhaps may be some of these days, if she comes back to that part
of the country. She would be uncommon nice company for both of us,
she is so candied and filantropical, and it is a great thing for a
married couple to have such a friend.
"I don't know whether you have ever been in this quarter of the
world, although, as I don't think you could well have got to
Blissford by any other road from London, pr'aps you have; it is very
wild and romantic, with a bit of a green before the door, upon which
there are geese, ducks, enseterar; and Susan and I am going to take
a walk, and we shall carry this letter ourselves to Artley Row,
where is the Post-office, because, as I have promised the Captain
not to say anything one way or the other, I thought if he saw a
letter redressed to the Passonage, he might inspect something; so
Susan and I agreed it would be better to go out in the dusk as if
miscellaneously, and slip it in unbeknown to any body, while master
and missus is enjoying their _teat a teat_ after dinner. We go on
to the meterpolis in the morning, and Susan and I go outside in
the rumble-tumble, for Miss Pennefather has lent us the charriot,
which I suppose I shall have to bring back, which, as I cannot do
without horses, will be a very pretty incursion. I don't in course
know how long the Captain will be before he goes, so do not fret. I
have got your wach, which does not keep tim well, but I never look
at it without thinking of you. Susan says it wants to have new hands
put to it, and I shall give it to a watchmaker in town to riggle at
it spontaneously on my arrival. The Captain and his mate seem very
happy, which also makes me think of you, Sarah dear; she certainly
is no beauty to my taste; she is a good deal in the Ottomy line, and
I should say not easily pleased; but in course as yet it all goes
uncommon comfortable; for, as O'Keefe says in his comical farce of
'Love for Love:'--
To fools a curse, to those a lasting boon,
What wisely spends the hunney moon.
"I hope poor Miss Fanny don't take on about the loss of master;
I'm sure if I was she, and knew that he left me for the sake of
Malooney's money, I should care no more about him than nothing at
all--true love loves for itself a loan--don't it, dear Sarah? Oh,
Sarah! Susan and I had some hot sassages and mashed potatoes for
dinner to-day, and I did so think of you, and I said so; and Susan
says to me, says she, 'Does your Sarah love sassages?' so I said,
says I, 'Yes, where's the girl of taste as doesn't?'--and so she says
again, 'Then I wish she was here'--and we both laughed like bogies.
So _that_ shows we don't forget you.
"As to Miss Fanny, there is one thing--which, if you have an
opportunity upon the sly, you may incoherently hint--which may be
p'rhaps a considerable revelation of her despondency, if she still
cares for master; which is this--the officer which is to have the
recruiting party in place of him, as Rattan told me before I came
away, is taller and better-looking than master, and quite the
gentleman: p'raps, if you tell Miss Fanny that, it will controvert
her regret, and make her easy--I know enough of the seck, Sarah, to
know that it is with females as it is with fighters--to use the words
of Young in his 'Abelard and Eloisa,'--
One down, t'other come on.
"And so perhaps Miss Fanny may make up her mind to the gentleman
which will relieve my master--I am sure I hope she may, for she is I
am sure constipated to make any man happy in that way. Well, Sarah
dear, I must now say good-bye--or else, Tim flies so fast, Susan and
I may be mist. I haven't room to tell you all about Master's wedding,
which was all done with as little ceremony as possible, and as Susan
says there was not a minnit to be lost, but I will explain all
particulars when I come back to you, which will not be long first. So
squeeze my keeping you in expence for these few days, for I was so
busy I could not write before, but Susan says she is sure you will
forgive me, and so I think you will.
"I say, dear Sarah, in exclusion, I hope that you have not been
speaking to William Waggle, the baker's young youth, because, as I
am absent, it might give some grounds for calomel--Mrs. Hodgson and
those two Spinkeses her sisters is always a-watching--I'm not a bit
jellies myself--no, I scorn the 'green hided malster,' as Morton
says in his 'New Way to pay old Debts'--but I know the world--I know
what the old Tabbies say, and how they skirtinize every individil
thing which relates to us--as I says to Susan--the eyes of the hole
world is on us two--you and me--and therefore, Sarah dear, mind
what you do, and do not encourage any of them to walk with you in
an evening--specially Bill, inasmuch as the whiteness of his jacket
would make the round-counter the more evident to the Hargooses of the
place.
"A jew Sarah--the next you will hear from me will be in London--most
probably at the Whiteoss Cellar in Pickadilly, or the Golden Cross,
Charing Cross, which the Captain thinks the quietest spots to fix
upon--rely upon my righting you the minute I have time--I told Rattan
that I was going back to Blissford, so he will have had no message
for you; besides, I don't want you to have any miliary connexions
during my abstinence--therefore please to remember me in your art, as
I do you in mine, and if you will, do me the fever to pay Mrs. Jukes
three and ninepence which I owe her for washing my things, which I
will repay you when we meet--best love, in which Susan, though she
does not know you, joins with equal sincerity--take care of yourself,
dear Sarah, and mind about the baker.
"Yours always true till death,
"THOMAS LAZENBY."
THE BIBLIOMANIAC.
"Here," said he, drawing from one of his pockets a very small dirty
black-letter book, "this is all I shall do to-day--my pursuit,
you know--eh--old books--rare books--I don't care what I give so
as I can secure them--this is a tract of 1486--seventeen pages
originally--five only wanting--two damaged--got it for seventy-two
pounds ten shillings--Caxton--only one other copy extant--that in the
British Museum."
"Seventy-two pounds for _that_!" said I.
"To be sure," replied Hull; "why, my dear sir, it is not worth _my_
while to come out of the city unless I spend seventy or eighty pounds
in the morning--I cannot afford the time for less."
"And what is it about?" said I, innocently.
"Why, I do _not_ happen to know _that_," said Hull; "it is an essay,
I believe, to prove that Edward the Fourth never had the toothache;
but it is, as you see, in Latin, and I don't read Latin."
"Then why buy it?" said I.
"Buy!" exclaimed he, looking at me through his glass with an
expression of astonishment--"I buy thousands of books!--pooh, pooh!
millions, my dear sir, in the course of a year, but I never think of
reading them--my dear friend, I have no time to read."
I confess I did not exactly comprehend the character of the
bibliomania, which appeared to engross my friend, nor the particular
gratification which the purchase of the unreadable works seemed to
afford him. But he only curled up his mouth, as much as to say that
I was a dunce, and that there was a sort of delight--felt in common
with magpies, I presume--of picking up objects and hiding them away
in dark holes and corners.--_Gilbert Gurney._
ABSENCE OF MIND.
Absence of mind may be defined to be a slowness of mind, in speaking
or in action. The absent man is one who, when he is reckoning up
a bill, and hath collected the particulars, will ask a by-stander
what the amount is. When he is engaged in a law-suit, and the day
of trial comes, he forgets it, and goes into the country. He goes
to the theatre to see the play, and is left behind, asleep upon the
benches. He takes any article, and puts it away securely; then he
begins to look for it, and is never able to find it. If a man comes
and tells him of the death of a friend, and asks him to the funeral,
he says, with a melancholy countenance, and tears in his eyes, "What
uncommon good luck!" When he receives money, he calls men to witness
the transaction; when he pays a debt, he does not. He quarrels with
his servant for not bringing him cucumbers in winter; and forces his
children to run and wrestle for their health, till they are ready
to die of fatigue. When in the country, he dresses his dinner of
herbs, he salts them until they are unfit to eat. And if anybody ask
him, "How many dead have been carried through the sacred gate, to be
buried?" he answers, "I wish to my heart you and I had half as many."
A DISTINGUISHED TRAVELLER.
Lady Cramly was, or rather had been during her husband's lifetime,
the authoress of a solitary work, upon the memory of which she still
lived and revelled. She had published two volumes of travels. In some
of the countries which she described she really _had_ been, but in
others certainly not; but wherever the scene was laid, Lady Cramly
and Seraphine were at the top of the tree. Princes were proud to
hand them to their carriage--crowned heads opened their palaces to
receive them--Lady Cramly received medals, orders, and decorations,
which never before had been conferred upon females. Seraphine--with
a pug nose, low forehead, and high shoulders--had been painted by
all the first artists, and modelled by all the first sculptors on the
Continent. The book of travels had gone through eleven editions--Mr.
Liberal, the eminent publisher, had made six thousand pounds by it,
and would have made more, only that he had foolishly insisted, out
of respect to the character of her particular friend the Pope, upon
expunging the authoress's account of her having waltzed with his
Holiness at a masquerade during the carnival, to which he went only
to have the pleasure of being her partner. Upon this circumstance,
and her having been made a Burgher (or rather Burgheress) at Bruges
(the only instance of the honour ever having been bestowed upon a
lady), she not unfrequently descanted, and so often had she told
the histories amongst others, that all who heard them, including
Seraphine herself, felt certain, that if nobody else believed them,
Lady Cramly did.
It was of Lady Cramly the wag said that her authority ought never
to be doubted, for she must always be _re-lied_ upon. Nevertheless,
her poetical prose was very amusing, and upon Waller's principle (we
presume) she was certainly an extremely eloquent and entertaining
companion.
DALY'S PRACTICAL JOKES[65]
Among the group was a man whose name was Daly--who, of all the people
accounted sane and permitted to range the world keeperless, I hold to
have been the most decidedly mad. His conversation was full of droll
conceits, mixed with a considerable degree of superior talent, and
the strongest evidence of general acquirements and accomplishments.
He appeared to be on terms of familiar intimacy with all the members
of our little community, and, by his observations and anecdotes,
equally well known to persons of much higher consideration; but his
description of himself to _me_, shortly after our introduction,
savoured so very strongly of insanity--peculiar in its character,
I admit--that I almost repented having, previously to hearing his
autobiography, consented to send on my horses to Teddington, in order
to accompany him to that village after the departure of the rest of
the party to London, in a boat in which he proposed to row himself
up to Hampton Court, where, it appeared, he had, a few days before,
fixed his temporary residence.
"I hope," said he, "that we shall be better acquainted. I daresay you
think me an odd fish--I know I _am_ one. My father, who is no more,
was a most respectable man in his way--a sugar-baker in St. Mary Axe.
I was destined to follow in his wake and succeed to the business;
however, I cut the treacle tubs at an early age--I saw no fun in
firkins, and could not manage conviviality in canvas sleeves. D'ye
ever read the _London Gazette_?"
"Sometimes," said I.
"In that interesting paper," said Daly, "I used to look twice a
week to see the price of Muscovados. One hapless Saturday I saw my
father's name along with the crush: the affair was done--settled;
dad went through the usual ceremony, and came out of Guildhall as
white as one of his own superfine lumps. Refreshed by his ruin, my
exemplary parent soon afterwards bought a house in Berkeley Square,
stood a contest for a county, and died rather richer than he started."
"And you, I suppose, his heir?" said I.
"He had not much to leave," replied my new friend. "He ran it rather
fine towards the close of his career. My two sisters got their
fortunes paid, but I came off with what we technically called the
scrapings--four hundred a year, sir, is the whole of my income; all
my personal property I carry under my hat. Timber I have none--save
my walking-stick; and as to land, except the mould in three geranium
pots, which stand in my sitting-room window, I haven't an inch.
Still, Mr. Gurney, although I have not a ducat in my purse,
'Yet I'm in love, and pleased with ruin.'"
"I envy your philosophy and spirits," said I.
"You are right," replied Daly; "fun is to me what ale was to
Boniface; I sleep upon fun--I drink for fun--I talk for fun--I live
for fun; hence my addiction to our dear funny friends of to-day. They
just suit me--they do nothing but laugh; they laugh _with_ one when
present, and _at_ one when absent--but to me that is the fun."
I immediately thought of the "funny" observations upon myself, which
I had overheard earlier in the day, pretty well assured that the
voice of my new laughter-loving acquaintance had not been the least
loud in the debate.
"I admit myself fond of practical joking," continued my friend. "I
don't mean in one's own particular circle--there it is dangerous;
people are not always in the same humour--what they think uncommonly
good fun one day, they will seriously resent as an insult the next.
There's no judging with certainty a man's temper of mind, and it is
not easy to ascertain how much melted butter a gentleman would like
to have poured into his coat-pocket without kicking; I avoid that
sort of thing, but on the great scale I confess my addiction. Coming
here yesterday evening, I stopped the chaise at the corner of Egham,
to turn the finger-post at the corner half round--sent all the people
bound for London to Chertsey, all the people destined for Egham to
Windsor, and all the people destined for Windsor to London--that's
_my_ way."
"Probably," said I, "but not theirs. And do you often indulge
yourself in these freaks?"
"Perpetually," replied Daly; "I've whipped off every knocker in
Sloane-street three nights running--a hundred and ninety-four,
exclusive of shops; and if ever the project of lighting London with
smoke should be brought to bear, I flatter myself you will hear
of my darkening the whole parish of Pancras, by grinding a gimblet
through a gas-pipe."
"These frolics must cost something," said I.
"Occasionally," said my friend; "but what of that? Every man has his
pursuits--I have mine."
"I should think," replied I, "if you perform such tricks often, your
pursuits must be innumerable."
"What!" exclaimed Daly; "pursuits after me, you mean? I'm obliged to
you for _that_--I see we shall be better acquainted--of that I am
now quite certain. One thing I _must_ tell you of myself, because,
although there is something equivocal in the outset of the adventure,
I set it all to rights afterwards, and will prove to you that in fact
all I did was done for fun--pure fun."
I foresaw an awkward discovery of some sort by the prefatory
deprecation of criticism; however, I listened to my slight
acquaintance with complacency and confidence.
"You must know," said Daly, "that I once had a brother,--long since
dead,--and you must know that he was my elder brother, and he
went abroad; I remained at home, and was my father's darling--he
fancied nothing on earth was like me. I was the wittiest, if
not the wisest fellow breathing; and I have seen my respectable
parent shake his fat sides with laughing at my jokes and antics,
till the tears ran down his rosy cheeks. Nevertheless I _had_ a
fault,--I cannot distinctly aver that I have even yet overcome
it,--I was extravagant--extravagant in everything--extravagant in
mirth--extravagant in love--extravagant in money-matters. After my
respected parent's death, I lodged at an upholsterer's--excellent
man!--occupied his first floor--but paid him no rent; on the
contrary, borrowed money of him."
"Indeed!" said I, "I----"
"Don't frown, Mr. Gurney," interrupted Daly, "you will find that
it comes all right in the end. I'm as honest as a Parsee--don't be
alarmed--I was then much younger than I am now; and, although the
world unjustly, ungenerously, and invariably judge a man's character
in after life by the foibles of his youth, don't be prejudiced,
but hear me. I borrowed money of him--I consulted him upon all
occasions--he was delighted with me, I with _him_--reciprocity of
feeling, you know, and all that sort of thing. My upholsterer was my
_cabinet_-minister--who better? who fitter to be consulted when any
new measure was on the _tapis_? So things went on for a year, at the
end of which, I owed him fourteen hundred and seventy-two pounds,
thirteen shillings, and ninepence halfpenny, without the interest."
"That was no joke, Mr. Daly," said I.
"No; but what followed was," continued my equivocal friend. "My
cabinet-minister applied for funds--I had none on hand. I therefore
quitted London, and retired to the blest shades of Holyrood--not that
this sort of constraint was at all necessary, for my friend, the
sofa-maker, never troubled himself to inquire after me."
"Why, then, did you go?" said I.