PART IV.

And now, my little listening dears

With open mouths and open ears,

Like a rhymer whose only art is

That of telling a plain unvarnish'd tale,

To let you know I must not fail,

What became of all the parties.

Pierre went on to Compostella

To finish his pilgrimage,

His parents went back with him joyfully,

After which they returned to their own country,

And there, I believe, that all the three

Lived to a good old age.

For the gallows on which Pierre

So happily had swung,

It was resolved that never more

On it should man be hung.

To the Church it was transplanted,

As ancient books declare.

And the people in commotion,

With an uproar of devotion,

Set it up for a relic there.

What became of the halter I know not,

Because the old books show not,

But we may suppose and hope,

That the city presented Pierre

With that interesting rope.

For in his family, and this

The Corporation knew,

It rightly would be valued more

Than any cordon bleu.

The Innkeeper's wicked daughter

Confess'd what she had done,

So they put her in a Convent,

And she was made a Nun.

The Alcayde had been so frighten'd

That he never ate fowls again;

And he always pulled off his hat

When he saw a Cock and Hen.

Wherever he sat at table

Not an egg might there be placed;

And he never even muster'd courage for a custard,

Though garlic tempted him to taste

Of an omelet now and then.

But always after such a transgression

He hastened away to make confession;

And not till he had confess'd,

And the Priest had absolved him, did he feel

His conscience and stomach at rest.

The twice-born Birds to the Pilgrim's Church

As by miracle consecrated,

Were given, and there unto the Saint

They were publicly dedicated.

At their dedication the Corporation

A fund for their keep supplied;

And after following the Saint and his banners,

This Cock and Hen were so changed in their manners,

That the Priests were edified.

Gentle as any turtle-dove,

Saint Cock became all meekness and love;

Most dutiful of wives,

Saint Hen she never peck'd again,

So they led happy lives.

The ways of ordinary fowls

You must know they had clean forsaken;

And if every Cock and Hen in Spain

Had their example taken,

Why then--the Spaniards would have had

No eggs to eat with bacon.

These blessed Fowls, at seven years end,

In the odor of sanctity died:

They were carefully pluck'd and then

They were buried, side by side.

And lest the fact should be forgotten

(Which would have been a pity),

'Twas decreed, in honor of their worth,

That a Cock and Hen should be borne thenceforth,

In the arms of that ancient City.

Two eggs Saint Hen had laid--no more--

The chickens were her delight;

A Cock and Hen they proved,

And both, like their parents, were virtuous and white.

The last act of the Holy Hen

Was to rear this precious brood; and when

Saint Cock and she were dead,

This couple, as the lawful heirs,

Succeeded in their stead.

They also lived seven years,

And they laid eggs but two,

From which two milk-white chickens

To Cock and Henhood grew;

And always their posterity

The self-same course pursue.

Not one of these eggs ever addled,

(With wonder be it spoken!)

Not one of them ever was lost,

Not one of them ever was broken.

Sacred they are; neither magpie nor rat,

Snake, weasel, nor marten approaching them:

And woe to the irreverent wretch

Who should even dream of poaching them!

Thus then is this great miracle

Continued to this day;

And to their Church all Pilgrims go,

When they are on the way;

And some of the feathers are given them;

For which they always pay.

No price is set upon them,

And this leaves all persons at ease;

The Poor give as much as they can,

The Rich as much as they please.

But that the more they give the better,

Is very well understood;

Seeing whatever is thus disposed of,

Is for their own souls' good;

For Santiago will always

Befriend his true believers;

And the money is for him, the Priests

Being only his receivers.

To make the miracle the more,

Of these feathers there is always store,

And all are genuine too;

All of the original Cock and Hen,

Which the Priests will swear is true.

Thousands a thousand times told have bought them,

And if myriads and tens of myriads sought them,

They would still find some to buy;

For however great were the demand,

So great would be the supply.

And if any of you, my small friends,

Should visit those parts, I dare say

You will bring away some of the feathers,

And think of old Robin Gray.

[Illustration with caption: BURNS]

THE SEARCH AFTER HAPPINESS;

OR, THE QUEST OF SULTAUN SOLIMAUN.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Oh, for a glance of that gay Muse's eye,

That lighten'd on Bandello's laughing tale,

And twinkled with a luster shrewd and sly,

When Giam Batttista bade her vision hail!--

Yet fear not, ladies, the naive detail

Given by the natives of that land canorous;

Italian license loves to leap the pale,

We Britons have the fear of shame before us,

And, if not wise in mirth, at least must be decorous.

In the far eastern clime, no great while since,

Lived Sultaun Solimaun, a mighty prince,

Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round,

Beheld all others fix'd upon the ground;

Whose ears received the same unvaried phrase,

"Sultaun! thy vassal hears, and he obeys!"

All have their tastes--this may the fancy strike

Of such grave folks as pomp and grandeur like;

For me, I love the honest heart and warm

Of monarch who can amble round his farm,

Or when the toil of state no more annoys,

In chimney corner seek domestic joys--

I love a prince will bid the bottle pass,

Exchanging with his subjects glance and glass;

In fitting time, can, gayest of the gay,

Keep up the jest, and mingle in the lay--

Such Monarchs best our free-born humors suit,

But Despots must be stately, stern, and mute.

This Solimaun, Serendib had in sway--

And where's Serendib? may some critic say--

Good lack, mine honest friend, consult the chart,

Scare not my Pegasus before I start!

If Rennell has it not, you'll find, mayhap,

The isle laid down in Captain Sinbad's map--

Famed mariner! whose merciless narrations

Drove every friend and kinsman out of patience,

Till, fain to find a guest who thought them shorter,

He deign'd to tell them over to a porter--

The last edition see, by Long and Co.,

Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers in the Row.

Serendib found, deem not my tale a fiction--

This Sultaun, whether lacking contradiction--

(A sort of stimulant which hath its uses,

To raise the spirits and reform the juices,

--Sovereign specific for all sorts of cures

In my wife's practice, and perhaps in yours),

The Sultaun lacking this same wholesome bitter,

Of cordial smooth for prince's palate fitter--

Or if some Mollah had hag-rid his dreams

With Degial, Ginnistan, and such wild themes

Belonging to the Mollah's subtle craft,

I wot not--but the Sultaun never laugh'd,

Scarce ate or drank, and took a melancholy

That scorn'd all remedy profane or holy;

In his long list of melancholies, mad,

Or mazed, or dumb, hath Burton none so had.

Physicians soon arrived, sage, ware, and tried,

As e'er scrawl'd jargon in a darken'd room;

With heedful glance the Sultaun's tongue they eyed,

Peep'd in his bath, and God knows where beside,

And then in solemn accent spoke their doom,

"His majesty is very far from well."

Then each to work with his specific fell;

The Hakim Ibrahim INSTANTER brought

His unguent Mahazzim al Zerdukkaut,

While Roompot, a practitioner more wily,

Relied on Ms Munaskif all fillfily.

More and yet more in deep array appear,

And some the front assail, and some the rear;

Their remedies to reinforce and vary,

Came surgeon eke, and eke apothecary;

Till the tired Monarch, though of words grown chary,

Yet dropt, to recompense their fruitless labor,

Some hint about a bowstring or a saber.

There lack'd, I promise you, no longer speeches,

To rid the palace of those learned leeches.

Then was the council call'd--by their advice

(They deem'd the matter ticklish all, and nice,

And sought to shift it off from their own shoulders)

Tartars and couriers in all speed were sent,

To call a sort of Eastern Parliament

Of feudatory chieftains and freeholders--

Such have the Persians at this very day,

My gallant Malcolm calls them couroultai;--

I'm not prepared to show in this slight song

That to Serendib the same forms belong--

E'en let the learn'd go search, and tell me if I'm wrong.

The Omrahs, each with hand on scimitar,

Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war--

"The saber of the Sultaun in its sheath

Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death,

Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle,

Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle!

This dreary cloud that dims our sovereign's day,

Shall from his kindled bosom flit away,

When the bold Lootie wheels his courser round,

And the arm'd elephant shall shake the ground.

Each noble pants to own the glorious summons--

And for the charges--Lo! your faithful Commons!"

The Riots who attended in their places

(Serendib language calls a farmer Riot)

Look'd ruefully in one another's faces,

From this oration auguring much disquiet,

Double assessment, forage, and free quarters;

And fearing these as China-men the Tartars,

Or as the whisker'd vermin fear the mousers,

Each fumbled in the pockets of his trowsers.

And next came forth the reverend Convocation,

Bald heads, white beards, and many a turban green,

Imaum and Mollah there of every station,

Santon, Fakir, and Calendar were seen.

Their votes were various--some advised a Mosque

With fitting revenues should be erected,

With seemly gardens and with gay Kiosque,

To create a band of priests selected;

Others opined that through the realms a dole

Be made to holy men, whose prayers might profit

The Sultaun's weal in body and in soul.

But their long-headed chief, the Sheik Ul-Sofit,

More closely touch'd the point;--"Thy studious mood,"

Quoth he, "O Prince! hath thicken'd all thy blood,

And dull'd thy brain with labor beyond measure;

Wherefore relax a space and take thy pleasure,

And toy with beauty, or tell o'er thy treasure;

From all the cares of state, my Liege, enlarge thee,

And leave the burden to thy faithful clergy."

These counsels sage availed not a whit,

And so the patient (as is not uncommon

Where grave physicians lose their time and wit)

Resolved to take advice of an old woman;

His mother she, a dame who once was beauteous,

And still was called so by each subject duteous.

Now whether Fatima was witch in earnest,

Or only made believe, I can not say--

But she profess'd to cure disease the sternest,

By dint of magic amulet or lay;

And, when all other skill in vain was shown,

She deem'd it fitting time to use her own.

"Sympathia magica hath wonders done"

(Thus did old Fatima bespeak her son),

"It works upon the fibers and the pores,

And thus, insensibly, our health restores,

And it must help us here.--Thou must endure

The ill, my son, or travel for the cure.

Search land and sea, and get, where'er you can,

The inmost vesture of a happy man:

I mean his SHIRT, my son; which, taken warm

And fresh from off his back, shall chase your harm,

Bid every current of your veins rejoice,

And your dull heart leap light as shepherd-boy's."

Such was the counsel from his mother came;--

I know not if she had some under-game,

As doctors have, who bid their patients roam

And live abroad, when sure to die at home;

Or if she thought, that, somehow or another,

Queen-Regent sounded better than Queen-Mother;

But, says the Chronicle (who will go look it?)

That such was her advice--the Sultaun took it.

All are on board--the Sultaun and his train,

In gilded galley prompt to plow the main.

The old Rais was the first who question'd, "Whither?"

They paused--"Arabia," thought the pensive Prince,

"Was call'd The Happy many ages since--

For Mokha, Rais."--And they came safely thither.

But not in Araby, with all her balm,

Not where Judea weeps beneath her palm,

Not in rich Egypt, not in Nubian waste,

Could there the step of Happiness be traced.

One Copt alone profess'd to have seen her smile

When Bruce his goblet fill'd at infant Nile:

She bless'd the dauntless traveler as he quaff'd

But vanish'd from him with the ended draught.

"Enough of turbans," said the weary King.

"These dolimans of ours are not the thing;

Try we the Giaours, these men of coat, and cap, I

Incline to think some of them must be happy;

At least they have as fair a cause as any can,

They drink good wine and keep no Ramazan.

Then northward, ho!"--The vessel cuts the sea,

And fair Italia lies upon her lee.--

But fair Italia, she who once unfurl'd

Her eagle-banners o'er a conquer'd world,

Long from her throne of domination tumbled,

Lay, by her quondam vassals, sorely humbled,

The Pope himself look'd pensive, pale, and lean,

And was not half the man he once had been.

"While these the priest and those the noble fleeces,

Our poor old boot," they said, "is torn to pieces.

Its tops the vengeful claws of Austria feel,

And the Great Devil is rending toe and heel.

If happiness you seek, to tell you truly,

We think she dwells with one Giovanni Bulli;

A tramontane, a heretic--the buck,

Poffaredio! still has all the luck;

By land or ocean never strikes his flag--

And then--a perfect walking money-bag."

Off set our Prince to seek John Bull's abode,

But first took France--it lay upon the road.

Monsieur Baboon, after much late commotion,

Was agitated like a settling ocean,

Quite out of sorts, and could not tell what ail'd him,

Only the glory of his house had fail'd him;

Besides, some tumors on his noddle biding,

Gave indication of a recent hiding.

Our Prince, though Sultauns of such things are heedless,

Thought it a thing indelicate and needless

To ask, if at that moment he was happy.

And Monsieur, seeing that he was comme il faut, a

Loud voice muster'd up, for "Vive le Roi!"

Then whisper'd, "'Ave you any news of Nappy?"

The Sultaun answer'd him with a cross question--

"Pray, can you tell me aught of one John Bull,

That dwells somewhere beyond your herring-pool?"

The query seem'd of difficult digestion,

The party shrugg'd, and grinn'd, and took his snuff,

And found his whole good-breeding scarce enough.

Twitching his visage into as many puckers

As damsels wont to put into their tuckers

(Ere liberal Fashion damn'd both lace and lawn,

And bade the vail of modesty be drawn),

Replied the Frenchman, after a brief pause,

"Jean Bool!--I vas not know him--yes, I vas--

I vas remember dat, von year or two,

I saw him at von place call'd Vaterloo--

Ma foi! il s'est tres joliment battu,

Dat is for Englishman--m'entendez-vous?

But den he had wit him one damn son-gun,

Rogue I no like--dey call him Vellington."

Monsieur's politeness could not hide his fret,

So Solimaun took leave, and cross'd the strait.

John Bull was in his very worst of moods,

Raving of sterile farms and unsold goods;

His sugar-loaves and bales about he threw,

And on his counter beat the devil's tattoo.

His wars were ended, and the victory won,

But then, 'twas reckoning-day with honest John;

And authors vouch, 'twas still this Worthy's way,

"Never to grumble till he came to pay;

And then he always thinks, his temper's such,

The work too little, and the pay too much."

Yet grumbler as he is, so kind and hearty,

That when his mortal foe was on the floor,

And past the power to harm his quiet more,

Poor John had well-nigh wept for Bonaparte!

Such was the wight whom Solimaun salam'd--

"And who are you," John answer'd, "and be d--d?"

'A stranger come to see the happiest man--

So, signior, all avouch--in Frangistan.'--

"Happy? my tenants breaking on my hand;

Unstock'd my pastures, and untill'd my land;

Sugar and rum a drug, and mice and moths

The sole consumers of my good broadcloths--

Happy?---why, cursed war and racking tax

Have left us scarcely raiment to our backs."--

"In that case, signior, I may take my leave;

I came to ask a favor--but I grieve."--

"Favor?" said John, and eyed the Sultaun hard,

"It's my belief you came to break the yard!--

But, stay, you look like some poor foreign sinner--

Take that to buy yourself a shirt and dinner."--

With that he chuck'd a guinea at his head;

But, with due dignity, the Sultaun said,

"Permit me, sir, your bounty to decline;

A SHIRT indeed I seek, but none of thine.

Signior, I kiss your hands, so fare you well,"--

"Kiss and be d--d," quoth John, "and go to hell!"

Next door to John there dwelt his sister Peg,

Once a wild lass as ever shook a leg

When the blithe bagpipe blew--but, soberer now,

She DOUCELY span her flax and milk'd her cow.

And whereas erst she was a needy slattern,

Nor now of wealth or cleanliness a pattern,

Yet once a month her house was partly swept,

And once a week a plenteous board she kept.

And, whereas, eke, the vixen used her claws

And teeth of yore, on slender provocation.

She now was grown amenable to laws,

A quiet soul as any in the nation;

The sole remembrance of her warlike joys

Was in old songs she sang to please her boys.

John Bull, whom, in their years of early strife,

She wont to lead a cat-and-doggish life,

Now found the woman, as he said, a neighbor,

Who look'd to the main chance, declined no labor,

Loved a long grace, and spoke a northern jargon.

And was d--d close in making of a bargain.

The Sultaun enter'd, and he made his leg,

And with decorum courtesy'd sister Peg;

(She loved a book, and knew a thing or two,

And guess'd at once with whom she had to do).

She bade him "Sit into the fire," and took

Her dram, her cake, her kebbuck from the nook;

Ask'd him "About the news from Eastern parts:

And of her absent bairns, puir Highland hearts!

If peace brought down the price of tea and pepper,

And if the NITMUGS were grown ONY cheaper;--

Were there nae SPEERINGS of our Mungo Park--

Ye'll be the gentleman that wants the sark?

If ye wad buy a web o' auld wife's spinning

I'll warrant ye it's a weel-wearing linen."

Then up got Peg, and round the house 'gan scuttle

In search of goods her customer to nail,

Until the Sultaun strain'd his princely throttle

And hallo'd--"Ma'am, that is not what I ail.

Pray, are you happy, ma'am, in this snug glen?"--

"Happy?" said Peg; "What for d'ye want to ken?

Besides, just think upon this by-gane year,

Grain wadna pay the yoking of the pleugh."--

"What say you to the present?"--"Meal's sae dear,

To make their brose my bairns have scarce aneugh."--

"The devil take the shirt," said Solimaun,

"I think my quest will end as it began.--

Farewell, ma'am; nay, no ceremony, I beg"--

"Ye'll no be for the linen then?" said Peg.

Now, for the land of verdant Erin,

The Sultaun's royal bark is steering,

The Emerald Isle, where honest Paddy dwells,

The cousin of John Bull, as story tells.

For a long space had John, with words of thunder

Hard looks, and harder knocks, kept Paddy under,

Till the poor lad, like boy that's flogg'd unduly,

Had gotten somewhat restive and unruly.

Hard was his lot and lodging, you'll allow,

A wigwam that would hardly serve a sow;

His landlord, and of middle men two brace,

Had screw'd his rent up to the starving-place;

His garment was a top-coat, and an old one,

His meal was a potato, and a cold one;

But still for fun or frolic, and all that,

In the round world was not the match of Pat.

The Sultaun saw him on a holiday,

Which is with Paddy still a jolly day;

When mass is ended, and his load of sins

Confess'd, and Mother Church hath from her binns

Dealt forth a bonus of imputed merit,

Then is Pat's time for fancy, whim, and spirit!

To jest, to sing, to caper fair and free,

And dance as light as leaf upon the tree.

"By Mahomet," said Sultaun Solimaun,

"That ragged fellow is our very man!

Rush in and seize him--do not do him hurt,

But, will he nill he, let me have his SHIRT."

Shilela their plan was well-nigh after baulking

(Much less provocation will set it a-walking),

But the odds that foil'd Hercules foil'd Paddy Whack;

They seized, and they floor'd, and they stripp'd him--Alack

Up-bubboo! Paddy had not--a shirt to his back!!!

And the King, disappointed, with sorrow and shame

Went back to Serendib as sad as he came.

THE DONKEY AND HIS PANNIERS.

THOMAS MOORE.

A donkey whose talent for burden was wondrous,

So much that you'd swear he rejoiced in a load,

One day had to jog under panniers so pond'rous,

That--down the poor donkey fell, smack on the road.

His owners and drivers stood round in amaze--

What! Neddy, the patient, the prosperous Neddy

So easy to drive through the dirtiest ways,

For every description of job-work so ready!

One driver (whom Ned might have "hail'd" as a "brother")

Had just been proclaiming his donkey's renown,

For vigor, for spirit, for one thing or other--

When, lo! 'mid his praises, the donkey came down.

But, how to upraise him?--one shouts, T'OTHER whistles,

While Jenky, the conjurer, wisest of all,

Declared that an "over-production" of thistles--

(Here Ned gave a stare)--was the cause of his fall.

Another wise Solomon cries, as he passes--

"There, let him alone, and the fit will soon cease,

The beast has been fighting with other jack-asses,

And this is his mode of 'TRANSITION TO PEACE'"

Some look'd at his hoofs, and, with learned grimaces,

Pronounced that too long without shoes he had gone--

"Let the blacksmith provide him a sound metal basis

(The wiseacres said), and he's sure to jog on."

But others who gabbled a jargon half Gaelic,

Exclaim'd, "Hoot awa, mon, you're a' gane astray"--

And declared that "whoe'er might prefer the METALLIC,

They'd shoe their OWN donkeys with papier mache."

Meanwhile the poor Neddy, in torture and fear,

Lay under his panniers, scarce able to groan,

And, what was still dolefuler--lending an ear

To advisers whose ears were a match for his own.

At length, a plain rustic, whose wit went so far

As to see others' folly, roar'd out as he pass'd--

"Quick--off with the panniers, all dolts as ye are,

Or your prosperous Neddy will soon kick his last."

MISADVENTURES AT MARGATE.

A LEGEND OF JARVIS'S JETTY.

B. HARRIS BABHAM.

MR. SIMPKINSON (loquitur).

I was in Margate last July, I walk'd upon the pier,

I saw a little vulgar Boy--I said "What make you here?--

The gloom upon your youthful cheek speaks any thing but joy;"

Again I said, "What make you here, you little vulgar Boy?"

He frown'd, that little vulgar Boy--he deem'd I meant to scoff--

And when the little heart is big, a little "sets it off;"

He put his finger in his mouth, his little bosom rose,--

He had no little handkerchief to wipe his little nose!

"Hark! don't you hear, my little man?--it's striking nine," I said,

"An hour when all good little boys and girls should be in bed.

Run home and get your supper, else your Ma' will scold--Oh fie!--

It's very wrong indeed for little boys to stand and cry!"

The tear-drop in his little eye again began to spring,

His bosom throbb'd with agony--he cried like any thing!

I stoop'd, and thus amidst his sobs I heard him murmur--"Ah

I haven't got no supper! and I haven't got no Ma'!--

"My father, he is on the seas,--my mother's dead and gone!

And I am here on this here pier, to roam the world alone;

I have not had, this live-long day, one drop to cheer my heart,

Nor 'BROWN' to buy a bit of bread with,--let alone a tart.

"If there's a soul will give me food, or find me in employ,

By day or night, then blow me tight!" (he was a vulgar Boy;)

"And now I'm here, from this here pier it is my fixed intent

To jump, as Mr. Levi did from off the Monu-ment!"

"Cheer up! cheer up! my little man--cheer up!" I kindly said.

You are a naughty boy to take such things into your head:

If you should jump from off the pier, you'd surely break your legs,

Perhaps your neck--then Bogey'd have you, sure as eggs are eggs!

"Come home with me, my little man, come home with me and sup;

My landlady is Mrs. Jones--we must not keep her up--

There's roast potatoes on the fire,--enough for me and you--

Come home,--you little vulgar Boy--I lodge at Number 2."

I took him home to Number 2, the house beside "The Foy"

I bade him wipe his dirty shoes,--that little vulgar Boy,--

And then I said to Mistress Jones, the kindest of her sex,

"Pray be so good as go and fetch a pint of double X!"

But Mrs. Jones was rather cross, she made a little noise,

She said she "did not like to wait on little vulgar Boys."

She with her apron wiped the plates, and, as she rubb'd the delft

Said I might "go to Jericho, and fetch my beer myself!"

I did not go to Jericho--I went to Mr. Cobb--

I changed a shilling--(which in town the people call "a Bob")--

It was not so much for myself as for that vulgar child--

And I said, "A pint of double X, and please to draw it mild!"

When I came back I gazed about--I gazed on stool and chair--

I could not see my little friend--because he was not there!

I peep'd beneath the table-cloth--beneath the sofa too--

I said "You little vulgar Boy! why what's become of you?"

I could not see my table-spoons--I look'd, but could not see

The little fiddle-pattern'd ones I use when I'm at tea;

--I could not see my sugar-tongs--my silver watch--oh, dear!

I know 'twas on the mantle-piece when I went out for beer.

I could not see my Mackintosh!--it was not to be seen!

Nor yet my best white beaver hat, broad-brimm'd and lined with green;

My carpet-bag--my cruet-stand, that holds my sauce and soy,--

My roast potatoes!--all are gone!--and so's that vulgar Boy!

I rang the bell for Mrs. Jones, for she was down below,

"--Oh, Mrs. Jones! what do you think?--ain't this a pretty go?

--That horrid little vulgar Boy whom I brought here to-night,

--He's stolen my things and run away!!"--Says she, "And sarve you

right!!"

* * * * * *

Next morning I was up betimes--I sent the Crier round,

All with his bell and gold-laced hat, to say I'd give a pound

To find that little vulgar Boy, who'd gone and used me so;

But when the Crier cried "O Yes!" the people cried, "O No!"

I went to "Jarvis' Landing-place," the glory of the town,

There was a common sailor-man a-walking up and down;

I told my tale--he seem'd to think I'd not been treated well,

And called me "Poor old Buffer!" what that means I cannot tell.

That sailor-man, he said he'd seen that morning on the shore,

A son of--something--'twas a name I'd never heard before,

A little "gallows-looking chap"--dear me; what could he mean?

With a "carpet-swab" and "muckingtogs," and a hat turned up with

green.

He spoke about his "precious eyes," and said he'd seen him "sheer,"

--It's very odd that sailor-men should talk so very queer--

And then he hitch'd his trowsers up, as is, I'm told, their use,

--It's very odd that sailor-men should wear those things so loose.

I did not understand him well, but think he meant to say

He'd seen that little vulgar Boy, that morning swim away

In Captain Large's Royal George about an hour before,

And they were now, as he supposed, "someWHERES" about the Nore.

A landsman said, "I TWIG the chap--he's been upon the Mill--

And 'cause he GAMMONS so the FLATS, ve calls him Veeping Bill!"

He said "he'd done me wery brown," and "nicely STOW'D the SWAG."

--That's French, I fancy, for a hat--or else a carpet-bag.

I went and told the constable my property to track;

He asked me if "I did not wish that I might get it back?"

I answered, "To be sure I do!--it's what I come about."

He smiled and said, "Sir, does your mother know that you are out?"

Not knowing what to do, I thought I'd hasten back to town,

And beg our own Lord Mayor to catch the Boy who'd "done me brown."

His Lordship very kindly said he'd try and find him out,

But he "rather thought that there were several vulgar boys about."

He sent for Mr. Whithair then, and I described "the swag,"

My Mackintosh, my sugar-tongs, my spoons, and carpet-bag;

He promised that the New Police should all their powers employ;

But never to this hour have I beheld that vulgar Boy!

MORAL.

Remember, then, what when a boy I've heard my Grandma' tell,

"BE WARN'D IN TIME BY OTHERS' HARM, AND YOU SHALL DO FULL WELL!"

Don't link yourself with vulgar folks, who've got no fix'd abode,

Tell lies, use naughty words, and say they "wish they may be blow'd!"

Don't take too much of double X!--and don't at night go out

To fetch your beer yourself, but make the pot-boy bring you stout!

And when you go to Margate next, just stop and ring the bell,

Give my respects to Mrs. Jones, and say I 'm pretty well!

THE GHOST.

R. HARRIS BARHAM.

There stands a City,--neither large nor small,

Its air and situation sweet and pretty;

It matters very little--if at all--

Whether its denizens are dull or witty,

Whether the ladies there are short or tall,

Brunettes or blondes, only, there stands a city!--

Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute

That there's a Castle, and a Cobbler in it.

A fair Cathedral, too, the story goes,

And kings and heroes lie entombed within her;

There pious Saints, in marble pomp repose,

Whose shrines are worn by knees of many a Sinner;

There, too, full many an Aldermanic nose

Roll'd its loud diapason after dinner;

And there stood high the holy sconce of Becket,

--Till four assassins came from France to crack it.

The Castle was a huge and antique mound,

Proof against all th' artillery of the quiver,

Ere those abominable guns were found,

To send cold lead through gallant warrior's liver

It stands upon a gently rising ground,

Sloping down gradually to the river,

Resembling (to compare great things with smaller)

A well-scooped, moldy Stilton cheese--but taller.

The Keep, I find, 's been sadly alter'd lately,

And 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honor jealous,

In martial panoply so grand and stately,

Its walls are rilled with money-making fellows,

And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly,

With leaden pipes, and coke, and coal, and bellows

In short, so great a change has come to pass,

Tis now a manufactory of Gas.

But to my tale.--Before this profanation,

And ere its ancient glories were out short all,

A poor hard-working Cobbler took his station

In a small house, just opposite the portal;

His birth, his parentage, and education,

I know but little of--a strange, odd mortal;

His aspect, air, and gait, were all ridiculous;

His name was Mason--he'd been christened Nicholas.

Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm,

And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion;

But, spite of all her piety, her arm

She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion;

And, being of a temper somewhat warm,

Would now and then seize, upon small occasion,

A stick, or stool, or any thing that round did lie,

And baste her lord and master most confoundedly.

No matter;--'tis a thing that's not uncommon,

'Tis what we all have heard, and most have read of,--

I mean, a bruising, pugilistic woman,

Such as I own I entertain a dread of,

--And so did Nick,--whom sometimes there would come on

A sort of fear his Spouse might knock his head off,

Demolish half his teeth, or drive a rib in,

She shone so much in "facers" and in "fibbing."

"There's time and place for all things," said a sage

(King Solomon, I think), and this I can say,

Within a well-roped ring, or on a stage,

Boxing may be a very pretty FANCY,

When Messrs. Burke or Bendigo engage;

--'Tis not so well in Susan or in Nancy:--

To get well mill'd by any one's an evil,

But by a lady--'tis the very Devil.

And so thought Nicholas, whose only trouble

(At least his worst) was this, his rib's propensity;

For sometimes from the ale-house he would hobble,

His senses lost in a sublime immensity

Of cogitation--then he couldn't cobble--

And then his wife would often try the density

Of his poor skull, and strike with all her might,

As fast as kitchen wenches strike a light.

Mason, meek soul, who ever hated strife,

Of this same striking had a morbid dread,

He hated it like poison--or his wife--

A vast antipathy!--but so he said--

And very often, for a quiet life,

On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed,

Grope darkling in, and soon as at the door

He heard his lady--he'd pretend to snore.

One night, then, ever partial to society,

Nick, with a friend (another jovial fellow),

Went to a Club--I should have said Society--

At the "City Arms," once call'd the "Porto Bello"

A Spouting party, which, though some decry it, I

Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow;

There they discuss the tax on salt, and leather,

And change of ministers and change of weather.

In short, it was a kind of British Forum,

Like John Gale Jones', erst in Piccadilly,

Only they managed things with more decorum,

And the Orations were not QUITE so silly;

Far different questions, too, would come before 'em

Not always politics, which, will ye nill ye,

Their London prototypes were always willing,

To give one QUANTUM SUFF. of--for a shilling.

It more resembled one of later date,

And tenfold talent, as I'm told, in Bow-street,

Where kindlier nurtured souls do congregate,

And, though there are who deem that same a low street

Yet, I'm assured, for frolicsome debate

And genuine humor it's surpassed by no street,

When the "Chief Baron" enters, and assumes

To "rule" o'er mimic "Thesigers" and "Broughams."

Here they would oft forget their Rulers' faults,

And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper,

Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz,

How Gas-lights differ from the Delphic Vapor.

Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts,

And what the Romans wrote on ere obey'd paper,--

This night the subject of their disquisitions

Was Ghosts, Hobgoblins, Sprues, and Apparitions.

One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man,"

Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel:"--

His well-read friend, who next to speak began,

Said, "That was Poetry, and nothing real;"

A third, of more extensive learning, ran

To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal;

Of sheeted Specters spoke with shorten'd breath,

And thrice he quoted "Drelincourt on Death."

Nick, smoked, and smoked, and trembled as he heard

The point discuss'd, and all they said upon it,

How frequently some murder'd man appear'd,

To tell his wife and children who had done it;

Or how a Miser's Ghost, with grisly beard,

And pale lean visage, in an old Scotch bonnet,

Wander'd about to watch his buried money!

When all at once Nick heard the clock strike One--he

Sprang from his seat, not doubting but a lecture

Impended from his fond and faithful She;

Nor could he well to pardon him expect her,

For he had promised to "be home to tea;"

But having luckily the key o' the back door,

He fondly hoped that, unperceived, he

Might creep up stairs again, pretend to doze,

And hoax his spouse with music from his nose.

Vain fruitless hope!--The wearied sentinel

At eve may overlook the crouching foe,

Till, ere his hand can sound the alarum-bell,

He sinks beneath the unexpected blow;

Before the whiskers of Grimalkin fell,

When slumb'ring on her post, the mouse may go,--

But woman, wakeful woman, 's never weary,

--Above all, when she waits to thump her deary.

Soon Mrs. Mason heard the well-known tread;

She heard the key slow creaking in the door,

Spied through the gloom obscure, toward the bed

Nick creeping soft, as oft he had crept before;

When, bang, she threw a something at his head,

And Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor;

While she exclaim'd with her indignant face on,--

"How dare you use your wife so, Mr. Mason?"

Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated,

Especially the length of her oration,--

Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated,

Roused by the bump into a good set passion,

So great, that more than once he execrated,

Ere he crawl'd into bed in his usual fashion;

--The Muses hate brawls; suffice it then to say,

He duck'd below the clothes--and there he lay:

'Twas now the very witching time of night,

When church-yards groan, and graves give up their dead,

And many a mischievous, enfranchised Sprite

Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead,

And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight,

To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed,

Sleeping, perhaps, serenely as a porpoise,

Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus.

Not so our Nicholas, his meditations

Still to the same tremendous theme recurred,

The same dread subject of the dark narrations,

Which, back'd with such authority, he'd heard;

Lost in his own horrific contemplations,

He pondered o'er each well-remembered word;

When at the bed's foot, close beside the post,

He verily believed he saw--a Ghost!

Plain and more plain the unsubstantial Sprite

To his astonish'd gaze each moment grew;

Ghastly and gaunt, it rear'd its shadowy height,

Of more than mortal seeming to the view,

And round its long, thin, bony fingers drew

A tatter'd winding-sheet, of course ALL WHITE;--

The moon that moment peeping through a cloud,

Nick very plainly saw it THROUGH THE SHROUD!

And now those matted locks, which never yet

Had yielded to the comb's unkind divorce,

Their long-contracted amity forget,

And spring asunder with elastic force;

Nay, e'en the very cap, of texture coarse,

Whose ruby cincture crown'd that brow of jet,

Uprose in agony--the Gorgon's head

Was but a type of Nick's up-squatting in the bed.

From every pore distill'd a clammy dew.

Quaked every limb,--the candle too no doubt,

En regle, WOULD have burnt extremely blue,

But Nick unluckily had put it out;

And he, though naturally bold and stout,

In short, was in a most tremendous stew;--

The room was fill'd with a sulphureous smell,

But where that came from Mason could not tell.

All motionless the Specter stood,--and now

Its reverend form more clearly shone confest,

From the pale cheek a beard of purest snow

Descended o'er its venerable breast;

The thin gray hairs, that crown'd its furrow'd brow,

Told of years long gone by.--An awful guest

It stood, and with an action of command,

Beckon'd the Cobbler with its wan right hand.

"Whence, and what art thou, Execrable Shape?"

Nick MIGHT have cried, could he have found a tongue,

But his distended jaws could only gape,

And not a sound upon the welkin rung,

His gooseberry orbs seem'd as they would have sprung

Forth from their sockets,--like a frightened Ape

He sat upon his haunches, bolt upright,

And shook, and grinn'd, and chatter'd with affright.

And still the shadowy finger, long and lean,

Now beckon'd Nick, now pointed to the door;

And many an ireful glance, and frown, between,

The angry visage of the Phantom wore,

As if quite vexed that Nick would do no more

Than stare, without e'en asking, "What d' ye mean?"

Because, as we are told,--a sad old joke too,--

Ghosts, like the ladies, "never speak till spoke to."

Cowards, 'tis said, in certain situations,

Derive a sort of courage from despair,

And then perform, from downright desperation,

Much more than many a bolder man would dare.

Nick saw the Ghost was getting in a passion,

And therefore, groping till he found the chair,

Seized on his awl, crept softly out of bed,

And follow'd quaking where the Specter led.

And down the winding stair, with noiseless tread,

The tenant of the tomb pass'd slowly on,

Each mazy turning of the humble shed

Seem'd to his step at once familiar grown,

So safe and sure the labyrinth did he tread

As though the domicile had been his own,

Though Nick himself, in passing through the shop,

Had almost broke his nose against the mop.

Despite its wooden bolt, with jarring sound,

The door upon its hinges open flew;

And forth the Spirit issued,--yet around

It turn'd as if its follower's fears it knew,

And once more beckoning, pointed to the mound,

The antique Keep, on which the bright moon threw

With such effulgence her mild silvery gleam,

The visionary form seem'd melting in her beam.

Beneath a pond'rous archway's somber shade,

Where once the huge portcullis swung sublime,

'Mid ivied battlements in ruin laid,

Sole, sad memorials of the olden time,

The Phantom held its way,--and though afraid

Even of the owls that sung their vesper chime,

Pale Nicholas pursued, its steps attending,

And wondering what on earth it all would end in.

Within the moldering fabric's deep recess

At length they reach a court obscure and lone;

It seemed a drear and desolate wilderness,

The blackened walls with ivy all o'ergrown;

The night-bird shrieked her note of wild distress,

Disturb'd upon her solitary throne,

As though indignant mortal step should dare,

So led, at such an hour, should venture there!

--The Apparition paused, and would have spoke

Pointing to what Nick thought an iron ring,

But then a neighboring chanticleer awoke,

And loudly 'gan his early matins sing

And then "it started like a guilty thing,"

As that shrill clarion the silence broke.

--We know how much dead gentlefolks eschew

The appalling sound of "Cock-a-doodle-do!"

The vision was no more--and Nick alone--

"His streamer's waving" in the midnight wind,

Which through the ruins ceased not to groan;

--His garment, too, was somewhat short behind,--

And, worst of all, he knew not where to find

The ring,--which made him most his fate bemoan--

The iron ring,--no doubt of some trap door,

'Neath which the old dead Miser kept his store.

"What's to be done?" he cried, "'t were vain to stay

Here in the dark without a single clew--

Oh, for a candle now, or moonlight ray!

'Fore George, I'm sadly puzzled what to do."

(Then clapped his hand behind)--"'Tis chilly too--

I'll mark the spot, and come again by day.

What can I mark it by?--Oh, here's the wall--

The mortar's yielding--here I'll stick my awl!"

Then rose from earth to sky a withering shriek,

A loud, a long-protracted note of woe,

Such as when tempests roar, and timbers creak,

And o'er the side the masts in thunder go;

While on the deck resistless billows break,

And drag their victims to the gulfs below;--

Such was the scream when, for the want of candle,

Nick Mason drove his awl in up to the handle.

Scared by his Lady's heart-appalling cry,

Vanished at once poor Mason's golden dream--

For dream it was;--and all his visions high,

Of wealth and grandeur, fled before that scream--

And still he listens, with averted eye,

When gibing neighbors make "the Ghost" their theme

While ever from that hour they all declare

That Mrs. Mason used a cushion in her chair!

A LAY OF ST. GENGULPHUS.

R. HARRIS BARHAM

Gengulphus comes from the Holy Land,

With his scrip, and his bottle, and sandal shoon;

Full many a day hath he been away,

Yet his lady deems him return'd full soon.

Full many a day hath he been away,

Yet scarce had he crossed ayont the sea,

Ere a spruce young spark of a Learned Clerk

Had called on his Lady, and stopp'd to tea.

This spruce young guest, so trimly drest,

Stay'd with that Lady, her revels to crown;

They laugh'd, and they ate, and they drank of the best

And they turn'd the old castle quite upside down.

They would walk in the park, that spruce young Clerk,

With that frolicsome Lady so frank and free,

Trying balls and plays, and all manner of ways,

To get rid of what French people call Ennui.

* * * * * *

Now the festive board with viands is stored,

Savory dishes be there, I ween,

Rich puddings and big, and a barbacued pig,

And ox-tail soup in a China tureen.

There's a flagon of ale as large as a pail--

When, cockle on hat, and staff in hand,

While on naught they are thinking save eating and drinking,

Gengulphus walks in from the Holy Land!

"You must be pretty deep to catch weasels asleep,"

Says the proverb: that is "take the Fair unawares."

A maid o'er the banisters chancing to peep,

Whispers, "Ma'am, here's Gengulphus a-coming up-stairs."

Pig, pudding, and soup, the electrified group,

With the flagon pop under the sofa in haste,

And contrive to deposit the Clerk in the closet,

As the dish least of all to Gengulphus's taste.

Then oh! what rapture, what joy was exprest,

When "poor dear Gengulphus" at last appear'd!

She kiss'd and she press'd "the dear man" to her breast,

In spite of his "great, long, frizzly beard."

Such hugging and squeezing! 'twas almost unpleasing,

A smile on her lip, and a tear in her eye;

She was so very glad, that she seem'd half mad,

And did not know whether to laugh or to cry.

Then she calls up the maid and the table-cloth's laid,

And she sends for a pint of the best Brown Stout;

On the fire, too, she pops some nice mutton-chops,

And she mixes a stiff glass of "Cold Without."

Then again she began at the "poor dear" man;

She press'd him to drink, and she press'd him to eat,

And she brought a foot-pan, with hot water and bran,

To comfort his "poor dear" travel-worn feet.

"Nor night nor day since he'd been away,

Had she had any rest," she "vow'd and declared."

She "never could eat one morsel of meat,

For thinking how 'poor dear' Gengulphus fared."

She "really did think she had not slept a wink

Since he left her, although he'd been absent so long,"

Here he shook his head,--right little he said,

But he thought she was "coming it rather too strong."

Now his palate she tickles with the chops and the pickles

Till, so great the effect of that stiff gin grog,

His weaken'd body, subdued by the toddy,

Falls out of the chair, and he lies like a log.

Then out comes the Clerk from his secret lair;

He lifts up the legs, and she lifts up the head,

And, between them, this most reprehensible pair

Undress poor Gengulphus and put him to bed.

Then the bolster they place athwart his face,

And his night-cap into his mouth they cram;

And she pinches his nose underneath the clothes,

Till the "poor dear soul" goes off like a lamb.

* * * * *

And now they tried the deed to hide;

For a little bird whisper'd "Perchance you may swing;

Here's a corpse in the case, with a sad swell'd face,

And a Medical Crowner's a queer sort of thing!"

So the Clerk and the wife, they each took a knife,

And the nippers that nipp'd the loaf-sugar for tea;

With the edges and points they sever'd the joints

At the clavicle, elbow, hip, ankle, and knee.

Thus, limb from limb, they dismember'd him

So entirely, that e'en when they came to his wrists,

With those great sugar-nippers they nipped off his "flippers,"

As the Clerk, very flippantly, termed his fists.

When they cut off his head, entertaining a dread

Lest the folks should remember Gengulphus's face,

They determined to throw it where no one could know it,

Down the well,--and the limbs in some different place.

But first the long beard from the chin they shear'd,

And managed to stuff that sanctified hair,

With a good deal of pushing, all into the cushion

That filled up the seat of a large arm-chair.

They contriv'd to pack up the trunk in a sack,

Which they hid in an osier-bed outside the town,

The Clerk bearing arms, legs, and all on his back,

As that vile Mr. Greenacre served Mrs. Brown.

But to see now how strangely things sometimes turn out,

And that in a manner the least expected!

Who could surmise a man ever could rise

Who'd been thus carbonado'd, out up, and dissected?

No doubt 't would surprise the pupils at Guy's;

I am no unbeliever--no man can say that o' me--

But St. Thomas himself would scarce trust his own eyes

If he saw such a thing in his School of Anatomy.

You may deal as you please with Hindoos and Chinese,

Or a Mussulman making his heathen salaam, or

A Jew or a Turk, but it's rather guess work

When a man has to do with a Pilgrim or Palmer.

* * * * *

By chance the Prince Bishop, a Royal Divine,

Sends his cards round the neighborhood next day, and urges his

Wish to receive a snug party to dine,

Of the resident clergy, the gentry, and burgesses.

At a quarter past five they are all alive,

At the palace, for coaches are fast rolling in,

And to every guest his card had express'd

"Half-past" as the hour for "a greasy chin."

Some thirty are seated, and handsomely treated

With the choicest Rhine wine in his Highness's stock

When a Count of the Empire, who felt himself heated,

Requested some water to mix with his Hock.

The Butler, who saw it, sent a maid out to draw it,

But scarce had she given the windlass a twirl,

Ere Gengulphus's head, from the well's bottom, said

In mild accents, "Do help us out, that's a good girl!"

Only fancy her dread when she saw a great head

In her bucket;--with fright she was ready to drop:--

Conceive, if you can, how she roar'd and she ran,

With the head rolling after her, bawling out "Stop!"

She ran and she roar'd, till she came to the board

Where the Prince Bishop sat with his party around,

When Gengulphus's poll, which continued to roll

At her heels, on the table bounced up with a bound.

Never touching the cates, or the dishes or plates,

The decanters or glasses, the sweetmeats or fruits,

The head smiles, and begs them to bring his legs,

As a well-spoken gentleman asks for his boots.

Kicking open the casement, to each one's amazement

Straight a right leg steps in, all impediment scorns,

And near the head stopping, a left follows hopping

Behind,--for the left leg was troubled with corns.

Next, before the beholders, two great brawny shoulders,

And arms on their bent elbows dance through the throng;

While two hands assist, though nipped off at the wrist,

The said shoulders in bearing the body along.

They march up to the head, not one syllable said,

For the thirty guests all stare in wonder and doubt,

As the limbs in their sight arrange and unite,

Till Gengulphus, though dead, looks as sound as a trout.

I will venture to say, from that hour to this day,

Ne'er did such an assembly behold such a scene;

Or a table divide fifteen guests of a side

With a dead body placed in the center between.

Yes, they stared--well they might at so novel a sight

No one utter'd a whisper, a sneeze, or a hem,

But sat all bolt upright, and pale with affright;

And they gazed at the dead man, the dead man at them.

The Prince Bishop's Jester, on punning intent,

As he view'd the whole thirty, in jocular terms

Said "They put him in mind of a Council of Trente

Engaged in reviewing the Diet of Worms."

But what should they do?--Oh! nobody knew

What was best to be done, either stranger or resident;

The Chancellor's self read his Puffendorf through

In vain, for his book could not furnish a precedent.

The Prince Bishop mutter'd a curse, and a prayer,

Which his double capacity hit to a nicety;

His Princely, or Lay, half induced him to swear,

His Episcopal moiety said "Benedicite!"

The Coroner sat on the body that night,

And the jury agreed,--not a doubt could they harbor,--

"That the chin of the corpse--the sole thing brought to light--

Had been recently shav'd by a very bad barber."

They sent out Van Taunsend, Von Burnie, Von Roe,

Von Maine, and Von Rowantz--through chalets and chateaux,

Towns, villages, hamlets, they told them to go,

And they stuck up placards on the walls of the Stadthaus.

"MURDER!!

"WHEREAS, a dead gentleman, surname unknown,

Has been recently found at his Highness's banquet,

Rather shabbily dressed in an Amice, or gown

In appearance resembling a second-hand blanket;

"And WHEREAS, there's great reason indeed to suspect

That some ill-disposed person, or persons, with malice

Aforethought, have kill'd, and begun to dissect

The said Gentleman, not far from this palace.

"THIS IS TO GIVE NOTICE!--Whoever shall seize;

And such person or persons, to justice surrender,

Shall receive--such REWARD--as his Highness shall please,

On conviction of him, the aforesaid offender.

"And, in order the matter more clearly to trace

To the bottom, his Highness, the Prince Bishop, further,

Of his clemency, offers free PARDON and Grace

To all such as have NOT been concern'd in the murther.

"Done this day, at onr palace,--July twenty-five--

By command,

(Signed)

Johann Von Russell,

N.B.

Deceased rather in years--had a squint when alive;

And smells slightly of gin--linen marked with a G."

The Newspapers, too, made no little ado,

Though a different version each managed to dish up;

Some said "The Prince Bishop had run a man through,"

Others said "an assassin had kill'd the Prince Bishop."

The "Ghent Herald" fell foul of the "Bruxelles Gazette,"

The "Bruxelles Gazette," with much sneering ironical,

Scorn'd to remain in the "Ghent Herald's" debt,

And the "Amsterdam Times" quizz'd the "Nuremberg Chronicle."

In one thing, indeed, all the journals agreed,

Spite of "politics," "bias," or "party collision;"

Viz.: to "give," when they'd "further accounts" of the deed,

"Full particulars" soon, in "a later Edition."

But now, while on all sides they rode and they ran,

Trying all sorts of means to discover the caitiffs,

Losing patience, the holy Gengulphus began

To think it high time to "astonish the natives."

First, a Rittmeister's Frau, who was weak in both eyes,

And supposed the most short-sighted woman in Holland,

Found greater relief, to her joy and surprise,

From one glimpse of his "squint" than from glasses by Dollond.

By the slightest approach to the tip of his Nose,

Meagrims, headache, and vapors were put to the rout;

And one single touch of his precious Great Toes

Was a certain specific for chillblains and gout.

Rheumatics,--sciatica,--tic-douloureux!

Apply to his shin-bones--not one of them lingers--

All bilious complaints in an instant withdrew,

If the patient was tickled with one of his fingers.

Much virtue was found to reside in his thumbs:

When applied to the chest, they cured scantness of breathing.

Sea-sickness, and colic; or, rubb'd on the gums,

Were "A blessing to Mothers," for infants in teething.

Whoever saluted the nape of his neck,

Where the mark remain'd visible still of the knife,

Notwithstanding east winds perspiration might check,

Was safe from sore-throat for the rest of his life.

Thus, while each acute and each chronic complaint

Giving way, proved an influence clearly Divine,

They perceived the dead Gentleman must be a Saint,

So they lock'd him up, body and bones, in a shrine.

Through country and town his new Saintship's renown

As a first-rate physician kept daily increasing,

Till, as Alderman Curtis told Alderman Brown,

It seem'd as if "Wonders had never DONE CEASING,"

The Three Kings of Cologne began, it was known,

A sad falling off in their offerings to find,

His feats were so many--still the greatest of any,--

In every sense of the word, was-behind.

For the German Police were beginning to cease

From exertions which each day more fruitless appear'd,

When Gengulphus himself, his fame still to increase,

Unravell'd the whole by the help of--his beard!

If you look back you'll see the aforesaid barbe gris,

When divorced from the chin of its murder'd proprietor,

Had been stuffed in the seat of a kind of settee,

Or double-arm'd chair, to keep the thing quieter.

It may seem rather strange, that it did not arrange

Itself in its place when the limbs join'd together;

Perhaps it could not get out, for the cushion was stout,

And constructed of good, strong, maroon-color'd leather

Or what is more likely, Gengulphus might choose,

For saints, e'en when dead, still retain their volition,

It should rest there, to aid some particular views,

Produced by his very peculiar position,

Be that as it may, on the very first day

That the widow Gengulphus sat down on that settee,

What occur'd almost frightened her senses away,

Beside scaring her hand-maidens, Gertrude and Betty,

They were telling their mistress the wonderful deeds

Of the new Saint, to whom all the Town said their orisons;

And especially how, as regards invalids,

His miraculous cures far outrival'd Von Morison's.

"The cripples," said they, "fling their crutches away,

And people born blind now can easily see us!"

But she (we presume, a disciple of Hume)

Shook her head, and said angrily, "'Credat Judaeus!'

"Those rascally liars, the Monks and the Friars,

To bring grist to their mill, these devices have hit on.

He works miracles!--pooh!--I'd believe it of you

Just as soon, you great Geese,--or the Chair that I sit on!"

The Chair--at that word--it seems really absurd,

But the truth must be told,--what contortions and grins

Distorted her face!--She sprang up from her place

Just as though she'd been sitting on needles and pins!

For, as if the Saint's beard the rash challenge had heard

Which she utter'd, of what was beneath her forgetful

Each particular hair stood on end in the chair,

Like a porcupine's quills when the animal's fretful,

That stout maroon leather, they pierced altogether,

Like tenter-hooks holding when clench'd from within,

And the maids cried--"Good gracious! how very tenacious!"

--They as well might endeavor to pull off her skin!--

She shriek'd with the pain, but all efforts were vain;

In vain did they strain every sinew and muscle,--

The cushion stuck fast!--From that hour to her last

She could never get rid of that comfortless "Bustle"!

And e'en as Macbeth, when devising the death

Of his King, heard "the very stones prate of his whereabouts;"

So this shocking bad wife heard a voice all her life

Crying "Murder!" resound from the cushion,--or thereabouts.

With regard to the Clerk, we are left in the dark

As to what his fate was; but I can not imagine he

Got off scot-free, though unnoticed it be

Both by Ribadaneira and Jacques de Voragine:

For cut-throats, we're sure, can be never secure,

And "History's Muse" still to prove it her pen holds,

As you'll see, if you'll look in a rather scarce book,

"God's Revenge against Murder," by one Mr. Reynolds.

MORAL.

Now, you grave married Pilgrims, who wander away,

Like Ulysses of old (vide Homer and Naso),

Don't lengthen your stay to three years and a day,

And when you are coming home, just write and say so!

And you, learned Clerks, who're not given to roam,

Stick close to your books, nor lose sight of decorum,

Don't visit a house when the master's from home!

Shun drinking,--and study the "Vilce Sanctorum!"

Above all, you gay ladies, who fancy neglect

In your spouses, allow not your patience to fail;

But remember Gengulphus's wife!--and reflect

On the moral enforced by her terrible tale!

SIR RUPERT THE FEARLESS.

A LEGEND OF GERMANY.

R. HARRIS BARHAM

Sir Rupert the Fearless, a gallant young knight,

Was equally ready to tipple or fight,

Crack a crown, or a bottle,

Cut sirloin, or throttle;

In brief, or as Hume says, "to sum up the tottle,"

Unstain'd by dishonor, unsullied by fear,

All his neighbors pronounced him a preux chevalier.

Despite these perfections, corporeal and mental,

He had one slight defect, viz., a rather lean rental;

Besides, 'tis own'd there are spots in the sun,

So it must be confess'd that Sir Rupert had one;

Being rather unthinking,

He'd scarce sleep a wink in

A night, but addict himself sadly to drinking;

And what moralists say,

Is as naughty--to play,

To Rouge et Noir, Hazard, Short Whist, Ecarte;

Till these, and a few less defensible fancies

Brought the Knight to the end of his slender finances.

When at length through his boozing,

And tenants refusing

Their rents, swearing "tunes were so bad they were losing,"

His steward said, "O, sir,

It's some time ago, sir,

Since aught through my hands reach'd the baker or grocer,

And the tradesmen in general are grown great complainers."

Sir Rupert the brave thus address'd his retainers:

"My friends, since the stock

Of my father's old hock

Is out, with the Kurchwasser, Barsae, Moselle,

And we're fairly reduced to the pump and the well,

I presume to suggest,

We shall all find it best

For each to shake hands with his friends ere he goes,

Mount his horse, if he has one, and--follow his nose;

As to me, I opine,

Left sans money or wine,

My best way is to throw myself into the Rhine,

Where pitying trav'lers may sigh, as they cross over,

Though he lived a roue, yet he died a philosopher."

The Knight, having bow'd out his friends thus politely.

Got into his skiff, the full moon shining brightly,

By the light of whose beam,

He soon spied on the stream

A dame, whose complexion was fair as new cream,

Pretty pink silken hose

Cover'd ankles and toes,

In other respects she was scanty of clothes;

For, so says tradition, both written and oral,

Her ONE garment was loop'd up with bunches of coral.

Full sweetly she sang to a sparkling guitar,

With silver chords stretch'd over Derbyshire spar,

And she smiled on the Knight,

Who, amazed at the sight,

Soon found his astonishment merged in delight;

But the stream by degrees

Now rose up to her knees,

Till at length it invaded her very chemise,

While the heavenly strain, as the wave seem'd to swallow her

And slowly she sank, sounded fainter and hollower;

--Jumping up in his boat

And discarding his coat,

"Here goes," cried Sir Rupert, "by jingo I'll follow her!"

Then into the water he plunged with a souse

That was heard quite distinctly by those in the house.

Down, down, forty fathom and more from the brink,

Sir Rupert the Fearless continues to sink,

And, as downward he goes,

Still the cold water flows

Through his ears, and his eyes, and his mouth, and his nose

Till the rum and the brandy he'd swallow'd since lunch

Wanted nothing but lemon to fill him with punch;

Some minutes elapsed since he enter'd the flood,

Ere his heels touch'd the bottom, and stuck in the mud.

But oh! what a sight

Met the eyes of the Knight,

When he stood in the depth of the stream bolt upright!--

A grand stalactite hall,

Like the cave of Fingal,

Rose above and about him;--great fishes and small

Came thronging around him, regardless of danger,

And seem'd all agog for a peep at the stranger,

Their figures and forms to describe, language fails--

They'd such very odd heads, and such very odd tails;

Of their genus or species a sample to gain,

You would ransack all Hungerford market in vain;

E'en the famed Mr. Myers,

Would scarcely find buyers,

Though hundreds of passengers doubtless would stop

To stare, were such monsters exposed in his shop.

But little reck'd Rupert these queer-looking brutes,

Or the efts and the newts

That crawled up his boots,

For a sight, beyond any of which I've made mention,

In a moment completely absorb'd his attention.

A huge crystal bath, which, with water far clearer

Than George Robins' filters, or Thorpe's (which are dearer),

Have ever distill'd,

To the summit was fill'd,

Lay stretch'd out before him--and every nerve thrill'd

As scores of young women

Were diving and swimming,

Till the vision a perfect quandary put him in;--

All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns,

They came floating about him like so many prawns.

Sir Rupert, who (barring the few peccadilloes

Alluded to), ere he lept into the billows

Possess'd irreproachable morals, began

To feel rather queer, as a modest young man;

When forth stepp'd a dame, whom he recognized soon

As the one he had seen by the light of the moon,

And lisp'd, while a soft smile attended each sentence,

"Sir Rupert, I'm happy to make your acquaintance;

My name is Lurline,

And the ladies you've seen,

All do me the honor to call me their Queen;

I'm delighted to see you, sir, down in the Rhine here

And hope you can make it convenient to dine here."

The Knight blush'd, and bow'd,

As he ogled the crowd

Of subaqueous beauties, then answer'd aloud;

"Ma'am, you do me much honor--I can not express

The delight I shall feel--if you'll pardon my dress--

May I venture to say, when a gentleman jumps

In the river at midnight for want of the 'dumps,'

He rarely puts on his knee-breeches and pumps;

If I could but have guess'd--what I sensibly feel--

Your politeness--I'd not have come en dishabille,

But have put on my SILK tights in lieu of my STEEL."

Quoth the lady, "Dear sir, no apologies, pray,

You will take our 'pot-luck' in the family way;

We can give you a dish

Of some decentish fish,

And our water's thought fairish; but here in the Rhine,

I can't say we pique ourselves much on our wine."

The Knight made a bow more profound than before,

When a Dory-faced page oped the dining-room door,

And said, bending his knee,

"Madame, on a servi!"

Rupert tender'd his arm, led Lurline to her place,

And a fat little Mer-man stood up and said grace,

What boots it to tell of the viands, or how she

Apologized much for their plain water-souchy,

Want of Harvey's, and Cross's,

And Burgess's sauces?

Or how Rupert, on his side, protested, by Jove, he

Preferr'd his fish plain, without soy or anchovy.

Suffice it the meal

Boasted trout, perch, and eel,

Besides some remarkably fine salmon peel,

The Knight, sooth to say, thought much less of the fishes

Than what they were served on, the massive gold dishes;

While his eye, as it glanced now and then on the girls,

Was caught by their persons much less than their pearls,

And a thought came across him and caused him to muse,

"If I could but get hold

Of some of that gold,

I might manage to pay off my rascally Jews!"

When dinner was done, at a sign to the lasses,

The table was clear'd, and they put on fresh glasses;

Then the lady addrest

Her redoubtable guest

Much as Dido, of old, did the pious Eneas,

"Dear sir, what induced you to come down and see us?"--

Rupert gave her a glance most bewitchingly tender,

Loll'd back in his chair, put his toes on the fender,

And told her outright

How that he, a young Knight,

Had never been last at a feast or a fight;

But that keeping good cheer

Every day in the year,

And drinking neat wines all the same as small-beer,

Had exhausted his rent,

And, his money all spent,

How he borrow'd large sums at two hundred per cent.;

How they follow'd--and then,

The once civilest of men,

Messrs. Howard and Gibbs, made him bitterly rue it he'd

Ever raised money by way of annuity;

And, his mortgages being about to foreclose,

How he jumped into the river to finish his woes!

Lurline was affected, and own'd, with a tear,

That a story so mournful had ne'er met her ear:

Rupert, hearing her sigh,

Look'd uncommonly sly,

And said, with some emphasis, "Ah! miss, had I

A few pounds of those metals

You waste here on kettles,

Then, Lord once again

Of my spacious domain,

A free Count of the Empire once more I might reign,

With Lurline at my side,

My adorable bride

(For the parson should come, and the knot should be tied);

No couple so happy on earth should be seen

As Sir Rupert the brave and his charming Lurline;

Not that money's my object--No, hang it! I scorn it--

And as for my rank--but that YOU'D so adorn it--

I'd abandon it all

To remain your true thrall,

And, instead of 'the GREAT,' be call'd 'Rupert the SMALL,'

--To gain but your smiles, were I Sardanapalus,

I'd descend from my throne, and be boots at an alehouse."

Lurline hung her head

Turn'd pale, and then red,

Growing faint at this sudden proposal to wed,

As though his abruptness, in "popping the question"

So soon after dinner, disturb'd her digestion.

Then, averting her eye,

With a lover-like sigh,

"You are welcome," she murmur'd in tones most bewitching,

"To every utensil I have in my kitchen!"

Upstarted the Knight,

Half mad with delight,

Round her finely-form'd waist

He immediately placed

One arm, which the lady most closely embraced,

Of her lily-white fingers the other made capture,

And he press'd his adored to his bosom with rapture,

"And, oh!" he exclaim'd, "let them go catch my skiff,

I'll be home in a twinkling and back in a jiffy,

Nor one moment procrastinate longer my journey

Than to put up the bans and kick out the attorney."

One kiss to her lip, and one squeeze to her hand

And Sir Rupert already was half-way to land,

For a sour-visaged Triton,

With features would frighten

Old Nick, caught him up in one hand, though no light one,

Sprang up through the waves, popp'd him into his funny,

Which some others already had half-fill'd with money;

In fact, 'twas so heavily laden with ore

And pearls, 'twas a mercy he got it to shore;

But Sir Rupert was strong,

And while pulling along,

Still he heard, faintly sounding, the water-nymphs' song.

LAY OF THE NAIADS.

"Away! away! to the mountain's brow,

Where the castle is darkly frowning;

And the vassals, all in goodly row,

Weep for their lord a-drowning!

Away! away! to the steward's room,

Where law with its wig and robe is;

Throw us out John Doe and Richard Roe,

And sweetly we'll tidde their tobies!"

The unearthly voices scarce had ceased their yelling,

When Rupert reach'd his old baronial dwelling.

What rejoicing was there!

How the vassals did stare!

The old housekeeper put a clean shirt down to air,

For she saw by her lamp

That her master's was damp,

And she fear'd he'd catch cold, and lumbago, and cramp;

But, scorning what she did,

The Knight never heeded

Wet jacket, or trousers, or thought of repining,

Since their pockets had got such a delicate lining.

But, oh! what dismay

Fill'd the tribe of Ca Sa,

When they found he'd the cash, and intended to pay!

Away went "cognovits," "bills," "bonds," and "escheats,"

Rupert cleared off old scores, and took proper receipts.

Now no more he sends out,

For pots of brown stout,

Or schnapps, but resolves to do henceforth without,

Abjure from this hour all excess and ebriety,

Enroll himself one of a Temp'rance Society,

All riot eschew,

Begin life anew,

And new-cushion and hassock the family pew!

Nay, to strengthen him more in this new mode of life

He boldly determined to take him a wife.

Now, many would think that the Knight, from a nice sense

Of honor, should put Lurline's name in the license,

And that, for a man of his breeding and quality,

To break faith and troth,

Confirm'd by an oath,

Is not quite consistent with rigid morality;

But whether the nymph was forgot, or he thought her

From her essence scarce wife, but at best wife-and-water

And declined as unsuited,

A bride so diluted--

Be this as it may,

He, I'm sorry to say

For, all things consider'd, I own 'twas a rum thing,

Made proposals in form to Miss Una Von--something

(Her name has escaped me), sole heiress, and niece

To a highly respectable Justice of Peace.

"Thrice happy's the wooing

That's not long a-doing!"

So much time is saved in the billing and cooing--

The ring is now bought, the white favors, and gloves,

And all the et cetera which crown people's loves;

A magnificent bride-cake comes home from the baker.

And lastly appears, from the German Long Acre,

That shaft which, the sharpest in all Cupid's quiver is,

A plumb-color'd coach, and rich Pompadour liveries,

'Twas a comely sight

To behold the Knight,

With his beautiful bride, dress'd all in white,

And the bridemaids fair with their long lace vails,

As they all walk'd up to the altar rails,

While nice little boys, the incense dispensers,

March'd in front with white surplices, bands, and gilt censers.

With a gracious air, and a smiling look,

Mess John had open'd his awful book,

And had read so far as to ask if to wed he meant?

And if "he knew any just cause or impediment?"

When from base to turret the castle shook!!!

Then came a sound of a mighty rain

Dashing against each storied pane,

The wind blew loud,

And coal-black cloud

O'ershadow'd the church, and the party, and crowd;

How it could happen they could not divine,

The morning had been so remarkably fine!

Still the darkness increased, till it reach'd such a pass

That the sextoness hasten'd to turn on the gas;

But harder it pour'd,

And the thunder roar'd,

As if heaven and earth were coming together;

None ever had witness'd such terrible weather.

Now louder it crash'd,

And the lightning flash'd,

Exciting the fears

Of the sweet little dears

In the vails, as it danced on the brass chandeliers;

The parson ran off, though a stout-hearted Saxon,

When he found that a flash had set fire to his caxon.

Though all the rest trembled, as might be expected,

Sir Rupert was perfectly cool and collected,

And endeavor'd to cheer

His bride, in her ear

Whisp'ring tenderly, "Pray don't be frighten'd, my dear

Should it even set fire to the castle, and burn it, you're

Amply insured, both for buildings and furniture."

But now, from without,

A trustworthy scout

Rush'd hurriedly in--

Wet through to the skin,

Informing his master 'the river was rising,

And flooding the grounds in a way quite surprising.'

He'd no time to say more,

For already the roar

Of the waters was heard as they reach'd the church-door,

While, high on the first wave that roll'd in, was seen,

Riding proudly, the form of the angry Lurline;

And all might observe, by her glance fierce and stormy,

She was stung by the spretoe injuria formoe.

What she said to the Knight, what she said to the bride,

What she said to the ladies who stood by her side,

What she said to the nice little boys in white clothes,

Oh, nobody mentions--for nobody knows;

For the roof tumbled in, and the walls tumbled out,

And the folks tumbled down, all confusion and rout,

The rain kept on pouring,

The flood kept on roaring,

The billows and water-nymphs roll'd more and more in

Ere the close of the day

All was clean wash'd away--

One only survived who could hand down the news,

A little old woman that open'd the pews;

She was borne off, but stuck,

By the greatest good luck,

In an oak-tree, and there she hung, crying and screaming,

And saw all the rest swallow'd up the wild stream in;

In vain, all the week,

Did the fishermen seek

For the bodies, and poke in each cranny and creek;

In vain was their search

After aught in the church,

They caught nothing but weeds, and perhaps a few perch.

The Humane Society

Tried a variety

Of methods, and brought down, to drag for the wreck, tackles

But they only fished up the clerk's tortoise-shell spectacles.

MORAL.

This tale has a moral. Ye youths, oh, beware

Of liquor, and how you run after the fair!

Shun playing at SHORTS--avoid quarrels and jars--

And don't take to smoking those nasty cigars!

--Let no run of bad-luck, or despair for some Jewess-eyed

Damsel, induce you to contemplate suicide!

Don't sit up much later than ten or eleven!--

Be up in the morning by half after seven!

Keep from flirting--nor risk, warn'd by Rupert's miscarriage,

An action for breach of a promise of marriage;--

Don't fancy odd fishes!

Don't prig silver dishes!

And to sum up the whole, in the shortest phrase I know,

BEWARE OF THE RHINE, AND TAKE CARE OF THE RHINO!

LOOK AT THE CLOCK.

R. HARRIS BARHAM.

"Look at the Clock!" quoth Winifred Pryce,

As she opened the door to her husband's knock,

Then paused to give him a piece of advice,

"You nasty Warmint, look at the Clock!

Is this the way, you

Wretch, every day you

Treat her who vow'd to love and obey you?--

Out all night!

Me in a fright!

Staggering home as it's just getting light!

You intoxified brute!--you insensible block!--

Look at the Clock!--Do!--Look at the Clock!"

Winifred Pryce was tidy and clean,

Her gown was a flower'd one, her petticoat green,

Her buckles were bright as her milking-cans,

Her hat was a beaver, and made like a man's;

Her little red eyes were deep set in their socket-holes,

Her gown-tail was turn'd up, and tuck'd through the pocket-holes;

A face like a ferret

Betoken'd her spirit:

To conclude, Mrs. Pryce was not over young,

Had very short legs, and a very long tongue.

Now David Pryce

Had one darling vice;

Remarkably partial to any thing nice,

Nought that was good to him came amiss,

Whether to eat, or to drink or to kiss!

Especially ale--

If it was not too stale

I really believe he'd have emptied a pail;

Not that in Wales

They talk of their Ales:

To pronounce the word they make use of might trouble you,

Being spelt with a C, two R's, and a W.

That particular day,

As I've heard people say,

Mr. David Pryce had been soaking his clay,

And amusing himself with his pipe and cheroots,

The whole afternoon at the Goat-in-Boots,

With a couple more soakers,

Thoroughbred smokers,

Both, like himself, prime singers and jokers;

And, long after day had drawn to a close,

And the rest of the world was wrapp'd in repose,

They were roaring out "Shenkin!" and "Ar hydd y nos;"

While David himself, to a Sassenach tune,

Sang, "We've drunk down the Sun, boys! let's drink down the Moon!

What have we with day to do?

Mrs. Winifred Pryce, 't was made for you!"--

At length, when they couldn't well drink any more,

Old "Goat-in-Boots" showed them the door:

And then came that knock,

And the sensible shock

David felt when his wife cried, "Look at the Clock!"

For the hands stood as crooked as crooked might be,

The long at the Twelve, and the short at the Three!

That self-same clock had long been a bone

Of contention between this Darby and Joan;

And often, among their pother and rout,

When this otherwise amiable couple fell out,

Pryce would drop a cool hint,

With an ominous squint

At its case, of an "Uncle" of his, who'd a "Spout."

That horrid word "Spout"

No sooner came out

Than Winifred Pryce would turn her about,

And with scorn on her lip,

And a hand on each hip,

"Spout" herself till her nose grew red at the tip,

"You thundering Willin,

I know you'd be killing

Your wife,--ay, a dozen of wives,--for a shilling!

You may do what you please,

You may sell my chemise

(Mrs. P. was too well-bred to mention her stock),

But I never will part with my Grandmother's Clock!"

Mrs. Pryce's tongue ran long and ran fast,

But patience is apt to wear out at last,

And David Pryce in temper was quick,

So he stretch'd out his hand, and caught hold of a stick;

Perhaps in its use he might mean to be lenient,

But walking just then wasn't very convenient,

So he threw it, instead,

Direct at her head;

It knock'd off her hat;

Down she fell flat;

Her case, perhaps, was not much mended by that:

But whatever it was,--whether rage and pain

Produced apoplexy, or burst a vein,

Or her tumble induced a concussion of brain,

I can't say for certain,--but THIS I can,

When sober'd by fright, to assist her he ran,

Mrs. Winifred Pryce was dead as Queen Anne!

The fatal catastrophe

Named in my last strophe

As adding to grim Death's exploits such a vast trophy,

Made a great noise; and the shocking fatality,

Ran over, like wild-fire, the whole Principality.

And then came Mr. Ap Thomas, the Coroner,

With his jury to sit, some dozen or more, on her.

Mr. Pryce to commence

His "ingenious defense,"

Made a "powerful appeal" to the jury's "good sense,"

"The world he must defy

Ever to justify

Any presumption of 'Malice Prepense;'"-- The unlucky lick

From the end of his stick

He "deplored"--he was "apt to be rather too quick;"--

But, really, her prating

Was so aggravating:

Some trifling correction was just what he meant;--all

The rest, he assured them, was "quite accidental!"

Then he calls Mr. Jones,

Who depones to her tones,

And her gestures and hints about "breaking his bones,"

While Mr. Ap Morgan, and Mr. Ap Rhys

Declared the deceased

Had styled him "a Beast,"

And swear they had witness'd, with grief and surprise,

The allusion she made to his limbs and his eyes.

The jury, in fine, having sat on the body

The whole day, discussing the case, and gin-toddy,

Return'd about half-past eleven at night

The following verdict, "We find, SARVE HER RIGHT!"

Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Winifred Pryce being dead,

Felt lonely, and moped; and one evening he said

He would marry Miss Davis at once in her stead.

Not far from his dwelling,

From the vale proudly swelling,

Rose a mountain, it's name you'll excuse me from telling

For the vowels made use of in Welsh are so few

That the A and the E, the I, O, and the U,

Have really but little or nothing to do;

And the duty, of course, falls the heavier by far,

On the L, and the H, and the N, and the R,

Its first syllable "PEN,"

Is pronounceable;--then

Come two LL's, and two HH's, two FF's, and an N;

About half a score R's and some Ws follow,

Beating all my best efforts at euphony hollow:

But we shan't have to mention it often, so when

We do, with your leave, we'll curtail it to "PEN."

Well--the moon shone bright

Upon "PEN" that night,

When Pryce, being quit of his fuss and his fright,

Was scaling its side

With that sort of stride

A man puts out when walking in search of a bride

Mounting higher and higher,

He began to perspire,

Till, finding his legs were beginning to tire,

And feeling opprest

By a pain in his chest,

He paus'd, and turn'd round to take breath, and to rest;

A walk all up hill is apt, we know,

To make one, however robust, puff and blow,

So he stopp'd, and look'd down on the valley below.

O'er fell, and o'er fen,

Over mountain and glen,

All bright in the moonshine, his eye roved, and then

All the Patriot rose in his soul, and he thought

Upon Wales, and her glories, and all he'd been taught

Of her Heroes of old,

So brave and so bold,--

Of her Bards with long beards, and harps mounted in gold

Of King Edward the First,

Of memory accurst;

And the scandalous manner in which he behaved,

Killing Poets by dozens,

With their uncles and cousins,

Of whom not one in fifty had ever been shaved--

Of the Court Ball, at which, by a lucky mishap,

Owen Tudor fell into Queen Katherine's lap;

And how Mr. Tudor,

Successfully woo'd her,

Till the Dowager put on a new wedding ring,

And so made him Father-in law to the King.

He thought upon Arthur, and Merlin of yore,

On Gryffith ap Conan, and Owen Glendour;

On Pendragon, and Heaven knows how many more.

He thought of all this, as he gazed, in a trice,

On all things, in short, but the late Mrs. Pryce;

When a lumbering noise from behind made him start,

And sent the blood back in full tide to his heart,

Which went pit-a-pat

As he cried out "What's that?"--

That very queer sound?--

Does it come from the ground?

Or the air,--from above,--or below,--or around?--

It is not like Talking,

It is not like Walking,

It's not like the clattering of pot or of pan,

Or the tramp of a horse,--or the tread of a man,--

Or the hum of a crowd,--or the shouting of boys,--

It's really a deuced odd sort of a noise!

Not unlike a cart's,--but that can't be;--for when

Could "all the King's horses, and all the King's men,"

With Old Nick for a wagoner, drive one up "PEN?"

Pryce, usually brimful of valor when drunk,

Now experienced what school-boys denominate "funk."

In vain he look'd back

On the whole of the track

He had traversed; a thick cloud, uncommonly black,

At this moment obscured the broad disc of the moon,

And did not seem likely to pass away soon;

While clearer and clearer,

'Twas plain to the hearer,

Be the noise what it might, it drew nearer and nearer,

And sounded, as Pryce to this moment declares,

Very much "like a coffin a-walking up stairs."

Mr. Pryce had begun

To "make up" for a run,

As in such a companion he saw no great fun,

When a single bright ray

Shone out on the way

He had passed, and he saw, with no little dismay,

Coming after him, bounding o'er crag and o'er rock,

The deceased Mrs. Winifred's "Grandmother's Clock!!"

'Twas so!--it had certainly moved from its place,

And come, lumbering on thus, to hold him in chase;

'Twas the very same Head, and the very same Case,

And nothing was altered at all--but the Face!

In that he perceived, with no little surprise,

The two little winder-holes turn'd into eyes

Blazing with ire,

Like two coals of fire;

And the "Name of the Maker" was changed to a Lip,

And the Hands to a Nose with a very red tip,

No!--he could not mistake it,--'twas SHE to the life!

The identical face of his poor defunct Wife!

One glance was enough

Completely "Quant. suff."

As the doctors write down when they send you their "stuff,"--

Like a Weather-cock whirled by a vehement puff,

David turned himself round;

Ten feet of ground

He clear'd, in his start, at the very first bound!

I've seen people run at West End Fair for cheeses--

I've seen Ladies run at Bow Fair for chemises--

At Greenwich Fair twenty men run for a hat,

And one from a Bailiff much faster than that--

At foot-ball I've seen lads run after the bladder--

I've seen Irish Bricklayers run up a ladder--

I've seen little boys run away from a cane--

And I've seen (that is, READ OF) good running in Spain;

But I never did read

Of, or witness such speed

As David exerted that evening.--Indeed

All I have ever heard of boys, women, or men,

Falls far short of Pryce, as he ran over "PEN!"

He reaches its brow,--

He has past it,--and now

Having once gained the summit, and managed to cross it, he

Rolls down the side with uncommon velocity;

But, run as he will,

Or roll down the hill,

That bugbear behind him is after him still!

And close at his heels, not at all to his liking,

The terrible clock keeps on ticking and striking,

Till, exhausted and sore,

He can't run any more,

But falls as he reaches Miss Davis's door,

And screams when they rush out, alarm'd at his knock,

"Oh! Look at the Clock!--Do!--Look at the Clock!!"

Miss Davis look'd up, Miss Davis look'd down,

She saw nothing there to alarm her;--a frown

Came o'er her white forehead,

She said, "It was horrid

A man should come knocking at that time of night,

And give her Mamma and herself such a fright;--

To squall and to bawl

About nothing at all!"

She begg'd "he'd not think of repeating his call;

His late wife's disaster

By no means had past her,"

She'd "have him to know she was meat for his Master!"

Then regardless alike of his love and his woes,

She turn'd on her heel and she turn'd up her nose,

Poor David in vain

Implored to remain,

He "dared not," he said, "cross the mountain again."

Why the fair was obdurate

None knows,--to be sure it

Was said she was setting her cap at the Curate;--

Be that as it may, it is certain the sole hole

Pryce found to creep into that night was the Coal-hole!

In that shady retreat

With nothing to eat

And with very bruised limbs, and with very sore feet,

All night close he kept;

I can't say he slept;

But he sigh'd, and he sobb'd, and he groan'd, and he wept;

Lamenting his sins,

And his two broken shins,

Bewailing his fate with contortions and grins,

And her he once thought a complete Rara Avis,

Consigning to Satan,--viz., cruel Miss Davis'

Mr. David has since had a "serious call,"

He never drinks ale, wine, or spirits, at all,

And they say he is going to Exeter Hall

To make a grand speech,

And to preach, and to teach

People that "they can't brew their malt liquor too small!"

That an ancient Welsh Poet, one PYNDAR AP TUDOR,

Was right in proclaiming "ARISTON MEN UDOR!"

Which means "The pure Element

Is for Man's belly meant!"

And that GIN'S but a SNARE of Old Nick the deluder!

And "still on each evening when pleasure fills up,"

At the old Goat-in-Boots, with Metheglin, each cup

Mr. Pryce, if he's there,

Will get into "The Chair,"

And make all his QUONDAM associates stare

By calling aloud to the Landlady's daughter,

"Patty, bring a cigar, and a glass of Spring Water!"

The dial he constantly watches; and when

The long hand's at the "XII.," and the short at the "X.,"

He gets on his legs,

Drains his glass to the dregs,

Takes his hat and great-coat off their several pegs,

With his President's hammer bestows his last knock,

And says solemnly--"Gentlemen!

LOOK AT THE CLOCK!!!"

[Illustration: LAMB.]

THE BAGMAN'S DOG.

R. HARRIS BARHAM.

Stant littore Puppies!--VIRGIL.

It was a litter, a litter of five,

Four are drown'd, and one left alive,

He was thought worthy alone to survive;

And the Bagman resolved upon bringing him up,

To eat of his bread, and to drink of his cup,

He was such a dear little cock-tail'd pup!

The Bagman taught him many a trick;

He would carry, and fetch, and run after a stick,

He could well understand

The word of command,

And appear to doze

With a crust on his nose

Till the Bagman permissively waved his hand:

Then to throw up and catch it he never would fail,

As he sat up on end, on his little cock-tail.

Never was puppy so bien instruit,

Or possess'd of such natural talent as he;

And as he grew older,

Every beholder

Agreed he grew handsomer, sleeker, and bolder.

Time, however his wheels we may clog,

Wends steadily still with onward jog,

And the cock-tail'd puppy's a curly-tail'd dog!

When, just at the time

He was reaching his prime,

And all thought he'd be turning out something sublime,

One unlucky day,

How no one could say,

Whether soft liaison induced him to stray,

Or some kidnapping vagabond coaxed him away,

He was lost to the view,

Like the morning dew;--

He had been, and was not--that's all that they knew

And the Bagman storm'd, and the Bagman swore

As never a Bagman had sworn before;

But storming or swearing but little avails

To recover lost dogs with great curly tails.

In a large paved court, close by Billiter Square,

Stands a mansion, old, but in thorough repair,

The only thing strange, from the general air

Of its size and appearance, is how it got there;

In front is a short semicircular stair

Of stone steps--some half score--

Then you reach the ground floor,

With a shell-pattern'd architrave over the door.

It is spacious, and seems to be built on the plan

Of a Gentleman's house in the time of Queen Anne;

Which is odd, for, although

As we very well know,

Under Tudors and Stuarts the City could show

Many Noblemen's seats above Bridge and below,

Yet that fashion soon after induced them to go

From St. Michael Cornhill, and St. Mary-le-Bow,

To St. James, and St. George, and St. Anne in Soho--

Be this as it may--at the date I assign

To my tale--that's about Seventeen Sixty-Nine--

This mansion, now rather upon the decline,

Had less dignified owners--belonging, in fine,

To Turner, Dry, Weipersyde, Rogers, and Pyne--

A respectable House in the Manchester line.

There were a score

Of Bagmen, and more,

Who had travel'd full oft for the firm before,

But just at this period they wanted to send

Some person on whom they could safely depend--

A trust-worthy body, half agent, half friend--

On some mercantile matter, as far as Ostend;

And the person they pitch'd on was Anthony Blogg

A grave, steady man, not addicted to grog--

The Bagman, in short, who had lost the great dog.

* * * * * *

"The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!--

That is the place where we all wish to be,

Rolling about on it merrily!"

So all sing and say

By night and by day,

In the boudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,

In a sort of coxcombical roundelay;--

You may roam through the City, transversely or straight

From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland gate,

And every young Lady who thrums a guitar,

Ev'ry mustached Shopman who smokes a cigar,

With affected devotion

Promulgates his notion

Of being a "Rover" and "Child of the Ocean"--

Whate'er their age, sex, or condition may be,

They all of them long for the "Wide, Wide Sea!"

But, however they dote,

Only set them afloat

In any craft bigger at all than a boat,

Take them down to the Nore,

And you'll see that, before

The "Wessel" they "Woyage" in has made half her way

Between Shell-Ness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,

Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,

They'll be all of them heartily sick of "the Sea!"

* * * * * *

I've stood in Margate, on a bridge of size

Inferior far to that described by Byron,

Where "palaces and pris'ns on each hand rise--"

--That too's a stone one, this is made of iron--

And little donkey-boys your steps environ,

Each proffering for your choice his tiny hack,

Vaunting its excellence; and, should you hire one,

For sixpence, will he urge, with frequent thwack,

The much-enduring beast to Buenos Ayres--and back.

And there, on many a raw and gusty day,

I've stood, and turn'd my gaze upon the pier,

And seen the crews, that did embark so gay

That self-same morn, now disembark so queer;

Then to myself I've sigh'd and said, "Oh dear!

Who would believe yon sickly-looking man's a

London Jack Tar--a Cheapside Buccaneer!--"

But hold, my Muse!--for this terrific stanza

Is all too stiffly grand for our Extravaganza.

* * * * *

"So now we'll go up, up, up,

And now we'll go down, down, down,

And now we'll go backward and forward,

And now we'll go roun', roun', roun'."--

--I hope you've sufficient discernment to see,

Gentle Reader, that here the discarding the D

Is a fault which you must not attribute to me;

Thus my Nurse cut it off when, "with counterfeit glee,"

She sung, as she danced me about on her knee,

In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and three:

All I mean to say is, that the Muse is now free

From the self-imposed trammels put on by her betters,

And no longer like Filch, midst the felons and debtors,

At Drury Lane, dances her hornpipe in fetters.

Resuming her track,

At once she goes back

To our hero, the Bagman--Alas! and Alack!

Poor Anthony Blogg

Is as sick as a dog,

Spite of sundry unwonted potations of grog,

By the time the Dutch packet is fairly at sea,

With the sands called the Goodwins a league on her lee.

And now, my good friends, I've a fine opportunity

To obfuscate you all by sea terms with impunity,

And talking of "calking,"

And "quarter-deck walking,"

"Fore and aft,"

And "abaft,"

"Hookers," "barkeys," and "craft,"

(At which Mr. Poole has so wickedly laughed),

Of binnacles--bilboes--the boom call'd the spanker,

The best bower-cable--the jib--and sheet-anchor;

Of lower-deck guns--and of broadsides and chases,

Of taffrails and topsails, and splicing main-braces,

And "Shiver my timbers!" and other odd phrases

Employ'd by old pilots, with hard-featured faces;--

Of the expletives sea-faring Gentlemen use,

The allusions they make to the eyes of their crews;--

How the Sailors, too, swear,

How they cherish their hair,

And what very long pigtails a great many wear.--

But, Reader, I scorn it--the fact is, I fear,

To be candid, I can't make these matters so clear

As Marryat, or Cooper, or Captain Chamier,

Or Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, who brought up the rear

Of the "Nauticals," just at the end of the year

Eighteen thirty-nine--(how Time flies!--Oh, dear!)--

With a well-written preface, to make it appear

That his play, the "Sea-Captain," 's by no means small beer.

There!--"brought up the rear"--you see there's a mistake

Which none of the authors I've mentioned would make,

I ought to have said, that he "sail'd in their wake."--

So I'll merely observe, as the water grew rougher

The more my poor hero continued to suffer,

Till the Sailors themselves cried, in pity, "Poor Buffer!"

Still rougher it grew,

And still harder it blew,

And the thunder kick'd up such a hullballoo,

That even the Skipper began to look blue;

While the crew, who were few,

Look'd very queer, too,

And seem'd not to know what exactly to do,

And they who'd the charge of them wrote in the logs,

"Wind N. E.--blows a hurricane--rains cats and dogs."

In short it soon grew to a tempest as rude as

That Shakspeare describes near the "still vex'd Bermudas,"

When the winds, in their sport,

Drove aside from its port

The King's ship, with the whole Neapolitan Court,

And swamp'd it to give "the King's Son, Ferdinand," a

Soft moment or two with the Lady Miranda,

While her Pa met the rest, and severely rebuked 'em

For unhandsomely doing him out of his Dukedom,

You don't want me, however, to paint you a Storm,

As so many have done, and in colors so warm;

Lord Byron, for instance, in manner facetious,

Mr. Ainsworth, more gravely,--see also Lucretius,

--A writer who gave me no trifling vexation

When a youngster at school, on Dean Colet's foundation.--

Suffice it to say

That the whole of that day,

And the next, and the next, they were scudding away

Quite out of their course,

Propell'd by the force

Of those flatulent folks known in Classical story as

Aquilo, Libs, Notus, Auster, and Boreas,

Driven quite at their mercy

'Twist Guernsey and Jersey,

Till at length they came bump on the rocks and the shallows

In West longtitude, One, fifty-seven, near St. Maloes;

There you will not be surprised

That the vessel capsized,

Or that Blogg, who had made, from intestine commotions,

His specific gravity less than the Ocean's,

Should go floating away,

'Mid the surges and spray,

Like a cork in a gutter, which, swoll'n by a shower,

Runs down Holborn-hill about nine knots an hour.

You've seen, I've no doubt, at Bartholomew fair,

Gentle Header,--that is, if you've ever been there,--

With their hands tied behind them, some two or three pair

Of boys round a bucket set up on a chair,

Skipping, and dipping

Eyes, nose, chin, and lip in,

Their faces and hair with the water all dripping,

In an anxious attempt to catch hold of a pippin,

That bobs up and down in the water whenever

They touch it, as mocking the fruitless endeavor;

Exactly as Poets say,--how, though, they can't tell us,--

Old Nick's Nonpareils play at bob with poor Tantalus

--Stay!--I'm not clear,

But I'm rather out here;

'T was the water itself that slipp'd from him, I fear;

Faith, I can't recollect, and I haven't Lempriere--

No matter,--poor Blogg went on clucking and bobbing,

Sneezing out the salt water, and gulping and sobbing,

Just as Clarence, in Shakspeare, describes all the qualms he

Experienced while dreaming they'd drown'd him in Malmsey.

"O Lord," he thought, "what pain it was to drown!"

And saw great fishes with great goggling eyes,

Glaring as he was bobbing up and down,

And looking as they thought him quite a prize,

When, as he sank, and all was growing dark,

A something seized him with its jaws!--A shark?--

No such thing, Reader--most opportunely for Blogg,

'Twas a very large, web-footed, curly-tail'd Dog!

* * * * * * *

I'm not much of a trav'ler, and really can't boast

That I know a great deal of the Brittany coast,

But I've often heard say

That e'en to this day,

The people of Granville, St. Maloes, and thereabout,

Are a class that society doesn't much care about;

Men who gam their subsistence by contraband dealing,

And a mode of abstraction strict people call "stealing,"

Notwithstanding all which, they are civil of speech,

Above all to a stranger who comes within reach;

And they were so to Bogg,

When the curly-tail'd Dog

At last dragged him out, high and dry on the beach.

But we all have been told,

By the proverb of old,

By no means to think "all that glitters is gold,"

And, in fact, some advance

That most people in France

Join the manners and air of a Maitre de Danse,

To the morals--(as Johnson of Chesterfield said)--

Of an elderly Lady, in Babylon bred,

Much addicted to flirting, and dressing in red.--

Be this as it might,

It embarrass'd Blogg quite

To find those about him so very polite.

A suspicious observer perhans might have traced

The petiles soins, tendered with so much good taste

To the sight of an old-fashion'd pocket-book, placed

In a black leather belt well secured round his waist

And a ring set with diamonds, his finger that graced,

So brilliant, no one could have guess'd they were paste.

The group on the shore

Consisted of four,

You will wonder, perhaps, there were not a few more;

But the fact is they've not, in that part of the nation,

What Malthus would term, a "too dense population,"

Indeed the sole sign of man's habitation

Was merely a single

Rude hut, in a dingle

That led away inland direct from the shingle

Its sides clothed with underwood, gloomy and dark,

Some two hundred yards above high-water mark;

And thither the party,

So cordial and hearty,

Viz., an old man, his wife, two lads, made a start, he

The Bagman, proceeding,

With equal good breeding,

To express, in indifferent French, all he feels,

The great curly-tail'd Dog keeping close to his heels.--

They soon reach'd the hut, which seem'd partly in ruin,

All the way bowing, chattering, shrugging, Mon-Dieuing,

Grimacing, and what sailors call parley-vooing,

* * * * * * *

Is it Paris, or Kitchener, Reader, exhorts

You, whenever your stomach's at all out of sorts,

To try, if you find richer viands won't stop in it,

A basin of good mutton broth with a chop in it?

(Such a basin and chop as I once heard a witty one

Call, at the Garrick, "a c--d Committee one,"

An expression, I own, I do not think a pretty one.)

However, it's clear

That with sound table beer,

Such a mess as I speak of is very good cheer;

Especially too

When a person's wet through,

And is hungry, and tired, and don't know what to do.

Now just such a mess of delicious hot pottage

Was smoking away when they enter'd the cottage,

And casting a truly delicious perfume

Through the whole of an ugly ill-furnish'd room;

"Hot, smoking hot,"

On the fire was a pot

Well replenish'd, but really I can't say with what;

For, famed as the French always are for ragouts,

No creature can tell what they put in their stews,

Whether bull-frogs, old gloves, or old wigs, or old shoes

Notwithstanding, when offer'd I rarely refuse,

Any more than poor Blogg did, when seeing the reeky

Repast placed before him, scarce able to speak, he

In ecstasy mutter'd, "By Jove, Cocky-leeky!"

In an instant, as soon

As they gave him a spoon.

Every feeling and faculty bent on the gruel, he

No more blamed Fortune for treating him cruelly,

But fell tooth and nail on the soup and the bouilli.

* * * * * *

Meanwhile that old man standing by,

Subducted his long coat-tails on high,

With his back to the fire, as if to dry

A part of his dress which the watery sky

Had visited rather inclemently.--

Blandly he smil'd, but still he look'd sly,

And something sinister lurk'd in his eye,

Indeed, had you seen him his maritime dress in,

You'd have own'd his appearance was not prepossessing;

He'd a "dreadnought" coat, and heavy sabots,

With thick wooden soles turn'd up at the toes,

His nether man cased in a striped quelque chose,

And a hump on his back, and a great hook'd nose,

So that nine out of ten would be led to suppose

That the person before them was Punch in plain clothes.

Yet still, as I told you, he smiled on all present,

And did all that lay in his power to look pleasant.

The old woman, too,

Made a mighty ado,

Helping her guest to a deal of the stew;

She fish'd up the meat, and she help'd him to that,

She help'd him to lean, and she help'd him to fat.

And it look'd like Hare--but it might have been Cat.

The little garcons too strove to express

Their sympathy toward the "Child of distress"

With a great deal of juvenile French politesse;

But the Bagman bluff

Continued to "stuff"

Of the fat, and the lean, and the tender, and tough,

Till they thought he would never cry "Hold, enough!"

And the old woman's tones became far less agreeable,

Sounding like peste! and sacre! and diable!

I've seen an old saw, which is well worth repeating,

That says,

"Good Eatynge

Deserveth good Drynkynge."

You'll find it so printed by Caxton or Wynkyn,

And a very good proverb it is to my thinking.

Blogg thought so too;--

As he finish'd his stew,

His ear caught the sound of the word "Morbleu!"

Pronounced by the old woman under her breath.

Now, not knowing what she could mean by "Blue Death!"

He conceiv'd she referr'd to a delicate brewing

Which is almost synonymous,--namely, "Blue Ruin."

So he pursed up his lip to a smile, and with glee,

In his cockneyfy'd accent, responded "Oh, VEE!"

Which made her understand he

Was asking for brandy;

So she turn'd to the cupboard, and, having some handy,

Produced, rightly deeming he would not object to it,

An oracular bulb with a very long neck to it;

In fact you perceive her mistake was the same as his,

Each of them "reasoning right from wrong premises;"--

--And here by the way

Allow me to say,

Kind Reader--you sometimes permit me to stray--

'Tis strange the French prove, when they take to aspersing,

So inferior to us in the science of cursing:

Kick a Frenchman down stairs,

How absurdly he swears!

And how odd 'tis to hear him, when beat to a jelly,

Roar out in a passion, "Blue Death!" and "Blue Belly!"

"To return to our sheep" from, this little digression:--

Blogg's features assumed a complacent expression

As he emptied his glass, and she gave him a fresh one;

Too little he heeded,

How fast they succeeded.

Perhaps you or I might have done, though, as he did;

For when once Madam Fortune deals out her hard raps

It's amazing to think

How one "cottons" to Drink!

At such times, of all things in nature, perhaps,

There's not one that is half so seducing as Schnaps.

Mr. Blogg, beside being uncommonly dry,

Was, like most other Bagmen, remarkably shy,

--"Did not like to deny"--

"Felt obliged to comply"

Every time that she ask'd him to "wet t' other eye;"

For 'twas worthy remark that she spared not the stoup,

Though before she had seem'd so to grudge him the soup,

At length the fumes rose

To his brain; and his nose

Gave hints of a strong disposition to doze,

And a yearning to seek "horizontal repose."--

His queer-looking host,

Who, firm at his post,

During all the long meal had continued to toast

That garment 't were rude to

Do more than allude to,

Perceived, from his breathing and nodding, the views

Of his guest were directed to "taking a snooze:"

So he caught up a lamp in his huge dirty paw,

With (as Blogg used to tell it) "Mounseer, swivvy maw!"

And "marshal'd" him so

"The way he should go,"

Up stairs to an attic, large, gloomy, and low,

Without table or chair.

Or a movable there,

Save an old-fashion'd bedstead, much out of repair,

That stood at the end most remov'd from the stair.--

With a grin and a shrug

The host points to the rug,

Just as much as to say, "There!--I think you'll be snug!"

Puts the light on the floor,

Walks to the door,

Makes a formal Salaam, and is then seen no more;

When just as the ear lost the sound of his tread,

To the Bagman's surprise, and, at first, to his dread,

The great curly tail'd Dog crept from under the bed!--

--It's a very nice thing when a man's in a fright,

And thinks matters all wrong, to find matters all right;

As, for instance, when going home late-ish at night

Through a Church-yard, and seeing a thing all in white.

Which, of course, one is led to consider a Sprite,

To find that the Ghost

Is merely a post.

Or a miller, or chalky-faced donkey at most;

Or, when taking a walk as the evenings begin

To close, or, as some people call it, "draw in,"

And some undefined form, "looming large" through the haze

Presents itself, right in your path, to your gaze,

Inducing a dread

Of a knock on the head,

Or a sever'd carotid, to find that, instead

Of one of those ruffians who murder and fleece men,

It's your uncle, or one of the "Rural Policemen;"--

Then the blood flows again

Through artery and vein;

You're delighted with what just before gave you pain;

You laugh at your fears--and your friend in the fog

Meets a welcome as cordial as Anthony Blogg

Now bestow'd on HIS friend--the great curly-tail'd Dog.

For the Dog leap'd up, and his paws found a place

On each side his neck in a canine embrace,

And he lick'd Blogg's hands, and he lick'd his face,

And he waggled his tail as much as to say,

"Mr. Blogg, we've foregather'd before to-day!"

And the Bagman saw, as he now sprang up,

What, beyond all doubt,

He might have found out

Before, had he not been so eager to sup,

'T was Sancho!--the Dog he had rear'd from a pup!--

The Dog who when sinking had seized his hair--

The Dog who had saved, and conducted him there--

The Dog he had lost out of Billiter Square!

It's passing sweet,

An absolute treat,

When friends, long sever'd by distance, meet--

With what warmth and affection each other they greet!

Especially too, as we very well know,

If there seems any chance of a little cadeau,

A "Present from Brighton," or "Token" to show,

In the shape of a work-box, ring, bracelet, or so,

That our friends don't forget us, although they may go

To Ramsgate, or Rome, or Fernando Po.

If some little advantage seems likely to start,

From a fifty-pound note to a two-penny tart,

It's surprising to see how it softens the heart,

And you'll find those whose hopes from the other are strongest,

Use, in common, endearments the thickest and longest

But, it was not so here;

For although it is clear,

When abroad, and we have not a single friend near,

E'en a cur that will love us becomes very dear,

And the balance of interest 'twixt him and the Dog

Of course was inclining to Anthony Blogg,

Yet he, first of all, ceased

To encourage the beast,

Perhaps thinking "Enough is as good as a feast;"

And besides, as we've said, being sleepy and mellow,

He grew tired of patting, and crying "Poor fellow!"

So his smile by degrees harden'd into a frown,

And his "That's a good dog!" into "Down, Sancho! down!"

But nothing could stop his mute fav'rite's caressing,

Who, in fact, seem'd resolved to prevent his undressing,

Using paws, tail, and head,

As if he had said,

"Most beloved of masters, pray, don't go to bed;

You had much better sit up, and pat me instead!"

Nay, at last, when determined to take some repose,

Blogg threw himself down on the outside the clothes,

Spite of all he could do,

The Dog jump'd up too,

And kept him awake with his very cold nose;

Scratching and whining,

And moaning and pining,

Till Blogg really believed he must have some design in

Thus breaking his rest; above all, when at length

The Dog scratch'd him off from the bed by sheer strength.

Extremely annoy'd by the "tarnation whop," as it

's call'd in Kentuck, on his head and its opposite,

Blogg show'd fight;

When he saw, by the light

Of the flickering candle, that had not yet quite

Burnt down in the socket, though not over bright,

Certain dark-color'd stains, as of blood newly spilt,

Reveal'd by the dog's having scratch'd off the quilt--

Which hinted a story of horror and guilt'--

'T was "no mistake,"--

He was "wide awake"

In an instant; for, when only decently drunk,

Nothing sobers a man so completely as "funk."

And hark!--what's that?--

They have got into chat

In the kitchen below--what the deuce are they at?--

There's the ugly old Fisherman scolding his wife--

And she!--by the Pope! she's whetting a knife!--

At each twist

Of her wrist,

And her great mutton fist,

The edge of the weapon sounds shriller and louder!--

The fierce kitchen fire

Had not made Blogg perspire

Half so much, or a dose of the best James's powder,--

It ceases--all's silent!--and now, I declare

There's somebody crawls up that rickety stair.

* * * * * * *

The horrid old ruffian comes, cat-like, creeping;--

He opens the door just sufficient to peep in,

And sees, as he fancies, the Bagman sleeping!

For Blogg, when he'd once ascertain'd that there was some

"Precious mischief" on foot, had resolv'd to play "'Possum;"--

Down he went, legs and head,

Flat on the bed,

Apparently sleeping as sound as the dead;

While, though none who look'd at him would think such a thing

Every nerve in his frame was braced up for a spring.

Then, just as the villain

Crept, stealthily still, in,

And you'd not have insur'd his guest's life for a shilling,

As the knife gleam'd on high, bright and sharp as a razor,

Blogg, starting upright, "tipped" the fellow "a facer;"--

--Down went man and weapon.--Of all sorts of blows,

From what Mr. Jackson reports, I suppose

There are few that surpass a flush hit on the nose.

Now, had I the pen of old Ossian or Homer,

(Though each of these names some pronounce a misnomer,

And say the first person

Was call'd James M'Pherson,

While, as to the second, they stoutly declare

He was no one knows who, and born no one knows where)

Or had I the quill of Pierce Egan, a writer

Acknowledged the best theoretical fighter

For the last twenty years,

By the lively young Peers,

Who, doffing their coronets, collars, and ermine, treat

Boxers to "Max," at the One Tun in Jermyn Street;

--I say, could I borrow these Gentlemen's Muses,

More skill'd than my meek one in "fibbings" and "bruises,"

I'd describe now to you

As "prime a Set-to,"

And "regular turn-up," as ever you knew;

Not inferior in "bottom" to aught you have read of

Since Cribb, years ago, half knock'd Molyneux's head off.

But my dainty Urania says, "Such things are shocking!"

Lace mittens she loves,

Detesting "The Gloves;"

And turning, with air most disdainfully mocking,

From Melpomene's buskin, adopts the silk stocking.

So, as far as I can see,

I must leave you to "fancy"

The thumps, and the bumps, and the ups and the downs,

And the taps, and the slaps, and the raps on the crowns,

That pass'd 'twist the Husband, Wife, Bagman, and Dog,

As Blogg roll'd over them, and they roll'd over Blogg;

While what's called "The Claret"

Flew over the garret:

Merely stating the fact.

As each other they whack'd,

The Dog his old master most gallantly back'd;

Making both the gargcos, who came running in, sheer off,

With "Hippolyte's" thumb, and "Alphonse's" left ear off;

Next making a stoop on

The buffeting group on

The floor, rent in tatters the old woman's jupon;

Then the old man turn'd up, and a fresh bite of Sancho's

Tore out the whole seat of his striped Calimancoes.--

Really, which way

This desperate fray

Might have ended at last, I'm not able to say,

The dog keeping thus the assassins at bay:

But a few fresh arrivals decided the day;

For bounce went the door,

In came half a score

Of the passengers, sailors, and one or two more

Who had aided the party in gaining the shore!

It's a great many years ago--mine then were few--

Since I spent a short time in the old Courageux;

I think that they say

She had been, in her day

A First-rate,--but was then what they term a Rasee,--

And they took me on board in the Downs, where she lay

(Captain Wilkinson held the command, by the way.)

In her I pick'd up, on that single occasion,

The little I know that concerns Navigation,

And obtained, inter alia, some vague information

Of a practice which often, in cases of robbing,

Is adopted on shipboard--I think it's call'd "Cobbing."

How it's managed exactly I really can't say,

But I think that a Boot-jack is brought into play,--That is, if I'm

right:--it exceeds my ability

To tell how 'tis done;

But the system is one

Of which Sancho's exploit would increase the facility.

And, from all I can learn, I'd much rather be robb'd

Of the little I have in my purse, than be "cobb'd;"--

That's mere matter of taste:

But the Frenchman was placed--

I mean the old scoundrel whose actions we've traced--

In such a position, that, on his unmasking,

His consent was the last thing the men thought of asking.

The old woman, too,

Was obliged to go through,

With her boys, the rough discipline used by the crew,

Who, before they let one of the set see the back of them,

"Cobb'd" the whole party,--ay, "every man Jack of them."

MORAL.

And now, Gentle Reader, before that I say

Farewell for the present, and wish you good-day.

Attend to the moral I draw from my lay!--

If ever you travel, like Anthony Blogg,

Be wary of strangers!--don't take too much grog!--

And don't fall asleep, if you should, like a hog!--

Above all--carry with you a curly-tail'd Dog!

Lastly, don't act like Blogg, who, I say it with blushing,

Sold Sancho next month for two guineas at Flushing;

But still on these words of the Bard keep a fix'd eye,

INGRATUM SI DIXERIS, OMNIA DIXTI!!!

L'Envoye.

I felt so disgusted with Blogg, from sheer shame of him,

I never once thought to inquire what became of him;

If YOU want to know, Reader, the way. I opine,

To achieve your design,--

--Mind, it's no wish of mine,--

Is,--(a penny will do't)--by addressing a line

To Turner, Dry, Weipersyde, Rogers, and Pyne.

DAME FREDEGONDE.

WILLIAM AYTOUS.

When folks with headstrong passion blind,

To play the fool make up their mind,

They're sure to come with phrases nice,

And modest air, for your advice.

But, as a truth unfailing make it,

They ask, but never mean to take it.

'Tis not advice they want, in fact,

But confirmation in their act.

Now mark what did, in such a case,

A worthy priest who knew the race.

A dame more buxom, blithe and free,

Than Fredegonde you scarce would see.

So smart her dress, so trim her shape,

Ne'er hostess offer'd juice of grape,

Could for her trade wish better sign;

Her looks gave flavor to her wine,

And each guest feels it, as he sips,

Smack of the ruby of her lips.

A smile for all, a welcome glad,--

A jovial coaxing way she had;

And,--what was more her fate than blame,--

A nine months' widow was our dame.

But toil was hard, for trade was good,

And gallants sometimes will be rude.

"And what can a lone woman do?

The nights are long and eerie too.

Now, Guillot there's a likely man.

None better draws or taps a can;

He's just the man, I think, to suit,

If I could bring my courage to't."

With thoughts like these her mind is cross'd:

The dame, they say, who doubts, is lost.

"But then the risk? I'll beg a slice.

Of Father Raulin's good advice."

Frankt in her best, with looks demure,

She seeks the priest; and, to be sure,

Asks if he thinks she ought to wed:

"With such a business on my head,

I'm worried off my legs with care,

And need some help to keep things square.

I've thought of Guillot, truth to tell!

He's steady, knows his business well,

What do you think?" When thus he met her

"Oh, take him, dear, you can't do better!"

"But then the danger, my good pastor,

If of the man I make the master.

There is no trusting to these men."

"Well, well, my dear, don't have him then!"

"But help I must have, there's the curse.

I may go further and fare worse."

"Why, take him then!" "But if he should

Turn out a thankless ne'er-do-good,--

In drink and riot waste my all,

And rout me out of house and hall?"

"Don't have him, then! But I've a plan

To clear your doubts, if any can.

The bells a peal are ringing,--hark!

Go straight, and what they tell you mark.

If they say 'Yes!' wed, and be blest--

If 'No,' why--do as you think best."

The bells rung out a triple bob:

Oh, how our widow's heart did throb,

And thus she heard their burden go,

"Marry, mar-marry, mar-Guillot!"

Bells were not then left to hang idle:

A week,--and they rang for her bridal

But, woe the while, they might as well

Have rung the poor dame's parting knell.

The rosy dimples left her cheek.

She lost her beauties plump and sleek,

For Guillot oftener kick'd than kiss'd,

And back'd his orders with his fist,

Proving by deeds as well as words,

That servants make the worst of lords.

She seeks the priest, her ire to wreak,

And speaks as angry women speak,

With tiger looks, and bosom swelling,

Cursing the hour she took his telling.

To all, his calm reply was this,--

"I fear you've read the bells amiss,

If they have led you wrong in aught,

Your wish, not they, inspired the thought,

Just go, and mark well what they say."

Off trudged the dame upon her way,

And sure enough the chime went so,--

"Don't have that knave, that knave Guillot!"

"Too true," she cried, "there's not a doubt:

What could my ears have been about!"

She had forgot, that, as fools think,

The bell is ever sure to clink.

THE KING OF BRENTFORD'S TESTAMENT.

W. MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

The noble king of Brentford

Was old and very sick;

He summoned his physicians

To wait upon him quick;

They stepped into their coaches,

And brought their best physic.

They crammed their gracious master

With potion and with pill;

They drenched him and they bled him;

They could not cure his ill.

"Go fetch," says he, "my lawyer;

I'd better make my will."

The monarch's royal mandate

The lawyer did obey;

The thought of six-and-eightpence

Did make his heart full gay.

"What is't," says he, "your majesty

Would wish of me to-day?"

"The doctors have belabored me

With potion and with pill;

My hours of life are counted

O man of tape and quill!

Sit down and mend a pen or two,

I want to make my will.

"O'er all the land of Brentford

I'm lord and eke of Kew:

I've three per cents and five per cents;

My debts are but a few;

And to inherit after me

I have but children two.

"Prince Thomas is my eldest son,

A sober prince is he;

And from the day we breeched him,

Till now he's twenty-three,

He never caused disquiet

To his poor mamma or me.

"At school they never flogged him;

At college, though not fast,

Yet his little go and great go

He creditably passed,

And made his year's allowance

For eighteen months to last.

"He never owed a shilling,

Went never drunk to bed,

He has not two ideas

Within his honest head;

In all respects he differs

From my second son, Prince Ned.

"When Tom has half his income

Laid by at the year's end,

Poor Ned has ne'er a stiver

That rightly he may spend,

But sponges on a tradesman,

Or borrows from a friend.

"While Tom his legal studies

Most soberly pursues,

Poor Ned must pass his mornings

A-dawdling with the Muse;

While Tom frequents his banker,

Young Ned frequents the Jews.

"Ned drives about in buggies,

Tom sometimes takes a 'bus;

Ah, cruel fate, why made you

My children differ thus?

Why make of Tom a DULLARD,

And Ned a GENIUS?"

"You'll cut him with a shilling,"

Exclaimed the man of wits:

"I'll leave my wealth," said Brentford,

"Sir Lawyer, as befits;

And portion both their fortunes

Unto their several wits."

"Your grace knows best," the lawyer said,

"On your commands I wait."

"Be silent, sir," says Brentford,

"A plague upon your prate!

Come, take your pen and paper,

And write as I dictate."

The will, as Brentford spoke it,

Was writ, and signed, and closed;

He bade the lawyer leave him,

And turned him round, and dozed;

And next week in the church-yard

The good old king reposed.

Tom, dressed in crape and hatband,

Of mourners was the chief;

In bitter self-upbraidings

Poor Edward showed his grief;

Tom hid his fat, white countenance

In his pocket handkerchief.

Ned's eyes were full of weeping,

He faltered in his walk;

Tom never shed a tear,

But onward he did stalk,

As pompous, black, and solemn,

As any catafalque.

And when the bones of Brentford--

That gentle king and just--

With bell, and book, and candle,

Were duly laid in dust,

"Now, gentlemen," says Thomas,

"Let business be discussed.

"When late our sire beloved

Was taken deadly ill,

Sir Lawyer, you attended him,

(I mean to tax your bill;)

And, as you signed and wrote it,

I pr'ythee read the will."

The lawyer wiped his spectacles,

And drew the parchment out;

And all the Brentford family

Sat eager round about:

Poor Ned was somewhat anxious,

But Tom had ne'er a doubt.

"My son, as I make ready

To seek my last long home,

Some cares I had for Neddy,

But none for thee, my Tom:

Sobriety and order

You ne'er departed from.

"Ned hath a brilliant genius,

And thou a plodding brain;

On thee I think with pleasure,

On him with doubt and pain."

("You see, good Ned," says Thomas

"What he thought about us twain.")

"Though small was your allowance,

You saved a little store;

And those who save a little

Shall get a plenty more."

As the lawyer read this compliment,

Tom's eyes were running o'er.

"The tortoise and the hare, Tom,

Set out, at each his pace;

The hare it was the fleeter,

The tortoise won the race;

And since the world's beginning,

This ever was the case.

"Ned's genius, blithe and singing

Steps gayly o'er the ground;

As steadily you trudge it,

He clears it with a bound;

But dullness has stout legs, Tom,

And wind that's wondrous sound.

"O'er fruits and flowers alike, Tom,

You pass with plodding feet;

You heed not one nor t'other,

But onward go your beat,

While genius stops to loiter

With all that he may meet.

"And ever, as he wanders,

Will have a pretext fine

For sleeping in the morning,

Or loitering to dine,

Or dozing in the shade,

Or basking in the shine.

"Your little steady eyes, Tom,

Though not so bright as those

That restless round about him

Your flashing genius throws,

Are excellently suited

To look before your nose.

"Thank heaven, then, for the blinkers

It placed before your eyes;

The stupidest are weakest,

The witty are not wise;

O, bless your good stupidity,

It is your dearest prize!

"And though my lands are wide,

And plenty is my gold,

Still better gifts from Nature,

My Thomas, do you hold--

A brain that's thick and heavy,

A heart that's dull and cold;

"Too dull to feel depression,

Too hard to heed distress,

Too cool to yield to passion,

Or silly tenderness.

March on--your road is open

To wealth, Tom, and success.

"Ned sinneth in extravagance,

And you in greedy lust."

("I' faith," says Ned, "our father

Is less polite than just.")

"In you, son Tom, I've confidence,

But Ned I can not trust.

"Wherefore my lease and copyholds,

My lands and tenements,

My parks, my farms, and orchards,

My houses and my rents,

My Dutch stock, and my Spanish stock,

My five and three per cents;

"I leave to you, my Thomas--"

("What, all?" poor Edward said;

"Well, well, I should have spent them,

And Tom's a prudent head.")

"I leave to you, my Thomas,--

To you, IN TRUST for Ned."

The wrath and consternation

What poet e'er could trace

That at this fatal passage

Came o'er Prince Tom his face;

The wonder of the company,

And honest Ned's amaze!

"'Tis surely some mistake,"

Good-naturedly cries Ned;

The lawyer answered gravely,

"'Tis even as I said;

'T was thus his gracious majesty

Ordained on his death-bed.

"See, here the will is witnessed,

And here's his autograph."

"In truth, our father's writing,"

Said Edward, with a laugh;

"But thou shalt not be loser, Tom,

We'll share it half and half."

"Alas! my kind young gentleman,

This sharing can not be;

'Tis written in the testament

That Brentford spoke to me,

'I do forbid Prince Ned to give

Prince Tom a half-penny.

"'He hath a store of money,

But ne'er was known to lend it;

He never helped his brother;

The poor he ne'er befriended;

He hath no need of property

He knows not how to spend it.

"'Poor Edward knows but how to spend,

And thrifty Tom to hoard;

Let Thomas be the steward then,

And Edward be the lord;

And as the honest laborer

Is worthy his reward,

"'I pray Prince Ned, my second son,

And my successor dear,

To pay to his intendant

Five hundred pounds a year;

And to think of his old father,

And live and make good cheer.'"

Such was old Brentford's honest testament;

He did devise his moneys for the best,

And lies in Brentford church in peaceful rest.

Prince Edward lived, and money made and spent;

But his good sire was wrong, it is confessed,

To say his young son Thomas, never lent.

He did. Young Thomas lent at interest,

And nobly took his twenty-five per cent.

Long time the famous reign of Ned endured,

O'er Chiswick, Fulham, Brentford, Putney, Kew;

But of extravagance he ne'er was cured.

And when both died, as mortal men will do,

'T was commonly reported that the steward

Was very much the richer of the two.

TITMARSH'S CARMEN LILLIENSE.

W. MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

LILLE, Sept. 2, 1843.

My heart is weary, my peace is gone,

How shall I e'er my woes reveal?

I have no money, I lie in pawn,

A stranger in the town of Lille.

I.

With twenty pounds but three weeks since

From Paris forth did Titmarsh wheel,

I thought myself as rich a prince

As beggar poor I'm now at Lille.

Confiding in my ample means--

In troth, I was a happy chiel!

I passed the gate of Valenciennes.

I never thought to come by Lille.

I never thought my twenty pounds

Some rascal knave would dare to steal;

I gayly passed the Belgic bounds

At Quievrain, twenty miles from Lille.

To Antwerp town I hastened post,

And as I took my evening meal

I felt my pouch,--my purse was lost,

O Heaven! Why came I not by Lille?

I straightway called for ink and pen,

To grandmamma I made appeal;

Meanwhile a load of guineas ten

I borrowed from a friend so leal.

I got the cash from grandmamma

(Her gentle heart my woes could feel),

But where I went, and what I saw,

What matters? Here I am at Lille.

My heart is weary, my peace is gone,

How shall I e'er my woes reveal?

I have no cash, I lie in pawn,

A stranger in the town of Lille.

II.

To stealing I can never come,

To pawn my watch I'm too genteel,

Besides, I left my watch at home;

How could I pawn it, then, at Lille?

"La note," at times the guests will say,

I turn as white as cold boiled veal:

I turn and look another way,

_I_ dare not ask the bill at Lille.

I dare not to the landlord say,

"Good sir, I can not pay your bill:"

He thinks I am a Lord Anglais,

And is quite proud I stay at Lille.

He thinks I am a Lord Anglais,

Like Rothschild or Sir Robert Peel,

And so he serves me every day

The best of meat and drink in Lille.

Yet when he looks me in the face

I blush as red as cochincal;

And think did he but know my case,

How changed he'd be, my host of Lille.

My heart is weary, my peace is gone.

How shall I e'er my woes reveal?

I have no money, I lie in pawn,

A stranger in the town of Lille.

III.