MY DEAR BOGLE,--It is ten thousand pities that you are not here. Why the
deuce can't you make yourself useful to the commonwealth, by calculating
a gradient, laying down a curve, or preparing a table of traffic, in
order to obtain the proper qualification for a railway witness? Nothing
in this world is easier. You have only to sit at your window for a given
amount of hours once a-week, and note down the number of the cabs and
carts which jolt and jingle to the Broomielaw; or, if you like that
better, to ascertain the quality of the soil three feet beneath your own
wine-cellar; and you are booked for a month's residence in London, free
quarters in a first-rate hotel, five guineas a-day, and all expenses
paid. I confess that this regimen seems to me both profitable and
pleasant. I have been here for six weeks feeding on the fat of the land,
drinking claret which even a Leith man would scarcely venture to
anathematize, white-baiting at Blackwall, and varying these sensual
qualifications with an occasional trip to Richmond and Ascot races. I
have, moreover, mark you, a bunch of as pretty bank paper in my pocket
as ever was paid into the Exchequer; and the whole equivalent I have
given for this kind and liberal treatment was certain evidence touching
the iron-trade of Ayrshire, which I poured into the drowsy ears of five
worthy gentlemen, about as familiar with that subject as you are with
the mythology of the Chinese. Long life to the railway mania, say I! It
has been treasure-trove to some of us. The only thing I regret is my
inability to carry the war into the enemy's country, and make my fortune
out of the English companies. I have the appetite but not the power;
and, after all, it would hardly make up for Flodden.
I like this sort of life much better than assorting cargoes and
superintending the arrival of sugar casks. There is no want of society,
for I find myself here surrounded by the old familiar faces. I do not
think there is a soul in this hotel except townsmen of our own. You meet
in the committee rooms the same excellent fellows whom you have daily
encountered for the last ten years on the Exchange, and they are all
getting fatter upon their work. Edinburgh, too, has furnished her quota.
We have Writers to the Signet by the score, and a sprinkling of the
young Advocates whom we are accustomed to meet upon circuit. Poor lads!
it does one good to see them thriving. This must be a very different
sort of business from the weariful Parliament House, and the two square
yards of processes, with a fee of three guineas for many an interminable
condescendence. I believe they would have no objection if the Session of
Parliament were declared perpetual; and for that matter no more would I.
Certainly, of all tribunals ever invented by the ingenuity of man, a
Parliamentary Committee is the most extraordinary. It is a court of
enquiry consisting of five members, whose principal qualification is
absolute previous ignorance of the localities and conflicting interests
with regard to which they must decide. Of their impartiality, therefore,
there can be no doubt. You or I might just as well sit down at a
moment's notice, and adjudicate upon the merits of three competing lines
between Pekin and Canton, with an equal chance of arriving at a
satisfactory conclusion. Of course they must be guided entirely by
evidence, and have plenty of materials laid before them from which they
may pick and choose. It is the richest thing in the world to see two
crack engineers pitted against each other. The first, who appears on
behalf of the line, does not know and cannot conceive the slightest
engineering difficulty. If a mountain stands in his way, he plunges
fearlessly into its bowels, finds in the interior strata of surpassing
mineral wealth, yet marvellously adapted for the purposes of a four-mile
tunnel, and brings you out sound and safe at the opposite side, as
though he had been perforating a gigantic cheese instead of hammering
his path through whinstone coeval with the creation. If a lake stands in
the way, he will undertake to drain it, with immense advantage to the
neighbouring proprietors. If a valley intervenes, he will bridge it with
a viaduct, which shall put to shame the grandest relics of antiquity. He
has no knowledge of such bugbears as steep gradients or dangerous
curves; a little hocus-pocus with the compasses transforms all these
into gentle undulations, and sweeps of the most graceful description. He
will run you his rails right through the heart of the most populous
city,--yea, even Glasgow herself,--and across the streets, without the
slightest interruption to the traffic. He will contrive so, that the
hissing of the locomotive shall be as graceful a sound as the plashing
of a fountain in the midst of our bisected squares; and he is indignant
at the supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to prefer
the prospect of a budding garden, to a clean double pair of rails
beneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming it along at the
rate of some fifty miles per hour.
The opposing engineer has a contrary story to tell. He has the utmost
confidence in the general ability of his scientific friend, but on this
occasion he has the misfortune to differ in opinion. Very carefully has
he gone over the whole of the line surveyed. He is sorry to say that the
gradients are utterly impossible, and the curves approaching to a
circle. Tunnelling is out of the question. How are two miles of
quicksand and two of basaltic rock to be gone through? The first is
deeper than the Serbonian bog, and would swallow up the whole British
army. The second could not be pierced in a shorter time than Pharaoh
took to construct the pyramids of Egypt. He considers a railway in the
heart of a town to be an absolute and intolerable nuisance; and, on the
whole, looking at the plan before him, he has come to the conclusion,
that a more dangerous and impracticable line was never yet laid before a
committee of the United Parliament of Great Britain.
So much for the engineering Hector and Achilles. Out of these two
opinions, of necessity, must the five respectable members on the bench
form their judgment; for of themselves they know nothing, having been
purposely selected on account of their superior ignorance.
Cross-examination makes the matter still worse. A cantankerous waspish
counsel, with the voice of an exasperated cockatoo, endeavours to make
the opposing engineer contradict himself. He might as well try to
overturn Ailsa Crag. He of the impossible gradients is the hero of a
hundred committees, quite accustomed to legal artifice, cool, wary, and
self-collected. He receives every thrust with a pleasant smile, and
sometimes returns them with damaging effect. If close pressed, he is
conscious that behind him is a thicket of algebra, into which neither
counsel nor judges will dare to follow; and so fortified by the
mysteries of his calling, he is ready to defy the universe. Then come
the hordes of subordinate witnesses, the gentlemen who are to give
evidence for and against the bill. One side represents the country as
abounding in mineral produce and agricultural wealth: the other likens
it unto Patmos, or the stony Arabia. Tims swears that the people of his
district are mad, insane, rabid in favour of the line. Jenkins, his
next-door neighbour, on the contrary, protests that if the rails were
laid down to-morrow, they would be torn up by an insurrection of the
populace _en masse_. John thinks the Dreep-daily Extension is the only
one at all suited to supply the wants of the country; Sandy opines that
the Powhead's Junction is the true and genuine potato; and both John and
Sandy, Tims and Jenkins, are backed by a host of corroborators. Then
come the speeches of the counsel, and rare specimens they are of
unadulterated oratory. I swear to you, Bogle, that, no later than a week
ago, I listened to such a picture of Glasgow and the Clyde, from the
lips of a gentleman eminent alike in law and letters, as would have
thrown a diorama of Damascus into the shade. He had it all, sir, from
the orchards of Clydesdale to the banks of Bothwell, the pastoral
slopes of Ruglen, and the emerald solitudes of the Green. The river
flowed down towards the sea in translucent waves of crystal. From the
parapets of the bridge you watched the salmon cleaving their way upwards
in vivid lines of light. Never did Phoebus beam upon a lovelier object
than the fair suburb of the Gorbals, as seen from the Broomielaw,
reposing upon its shadow in perfect stillness. Then came the forest of
masts, the activity of the dockyards, and
"The impress of shipwrights, whose hard toil
Doth scarce divide the Sunday from the week."
Further down, the villas of the merchant princes burst upon your view,
each of them a perfect Sirmio--then Port-Glasgow, half spanned by the
arch of a dissolving rainbow--Dumbarton, grand and solemn as became the
death-place of the Bruce--Ben Lomond, with its hoary head swathed in
impenetrable clouds--and lo! the ocean and the isles. Not a Glasgow man
in the committee-room but yearned with love and admiration towards the
gifted speaker, who certainly did make out a case for the Queen of the
West such as no matter-of-fact person could possibly have believed. And
all this was done by merely substituting a Claude Lorraine glass for our
ordinary dingy atmosphere. The outline was most correct and graphic, but
the secret lay in the handling and distribution of the colours. I shall
not wonder if the whole committee, clerk included come down this autumn
to catch a glimpse of that terrestrial paradise.
Such is a brief and unexaggerated abstract of the transactions of these
railway committees; and you may judge for yourself how far the members
are likely to understand the true circumstances of the case from
evidence so singularly conflicting. Sometimes three or four days are
wasted before they can even comprehend the precise position of the lines
which they are required to consider, and, after all, these impressions
must be of the haziest description. For my own part, I think the
legislature has made a most palpable mistake in not intrusting such
important functions to parties who possess competent local knowledge;
and I am satisfied that the result of the present session has proved the
insufficiency of the system. I demur altogether to the propriety of
devolving upon Members of Parliament the duties of a civil jury. They
have surely enough to do in weighing and determining the larger
questions of policy, without entering into the minute details
necessarily involved in the consideration of railways, roads, bridges,
and canals. These should be transferred to parties conversant with such
subjects, and responsible to the public for their decisions. Besides
this, the direct pecuniary loss to Scotland by the present system of
sending witnesses to London--though personally I have no reason to
complain--is quite enormous, and demands attention in a national point
of view. It is calculated that not less than a million and a half
sterling, has been expended in the course of last year in carrying the
Scottish bills through Parliament, and by far the greater part of this
sum has been absorbed by plethoric London, and cannot by possibility
return. Now, the whole annual value of the lands and houses in Scotland
does not exceed ten millions, (in 1843, it was little more than
nine)--an amount which is totally inadequate to afford so prodigious a
deduction as this, for the mere purpose of procuring authority to carry
our own schemes into execution. That the seventh part of the rental of a
country should be drawn away from it, and expended beyond its
boundaries, in the course of simple preliminary investigations, is not
only an exorbitant abuse, but, to my mind, a clear demonstration of the
total falsity of the system. It may have worked tolerably when there was
less work to do; but the amazing increase of private bills during the
last few years must render a new arrangement necessary. I wish our
countrymen would be a little more alive to the vast benefit of local
institutions in a pecuniary point of view. Can there be any doubt, that,
if the details connected with all the private bills applicable to
Scotland, were referred to a paid board of commissioners sitting
permanently in Edinburgh, whose judgment of course would be subject to
the review of Parliament, the business would be got through, not only
more cheaply, but with greater satisfaction and dispatch? I cannot see
why London should be entitled to this exclusive monopoly, or the
principle of centralization pushed so far as to injure the extremities
of the empire. The private committee business has already become an
absolute nuisance to the whole bulk of the members. It is a function for
which few of them have been educated, which is in itself highly
distasteful, and, moreover, interferes most materially with their public
duties. Let them, then, be freed from this thraldom, and Scotland will
have no reason to complain. We don't ask for any power of legislation;
we only require that within and among ourselves the necessary
investigations shall be made. This can be done in Edinburgh quite as
well as in London; and very sorely does our poor Metropolis stand in
need of such indigenous support. Dublin has its viceregal court, and
therefore can make some stand against centralization. Edinburgh has
nothing left her except the courts of law, which have been pared down by
ignorant experimentalists to the smallest possible substance. All that
could be taken from her has been transferred to London. Her local
boards, her officers of state, have vanished one by one; and scarce any
remonstrance has been made against these useless and unjustifiable
aggressions.
I find myself getting into the Malagrowther vein, so I had better pull
up in time, without hinting at the existence of claymores. Only this,
should there ever be a decent agitation in Scotland, you will find the
old Tories at the head of it, demanding the restitution of certain
ancient rights, which Whiggery has subverted, and Conservatism trodden
under foot. Undoubtedly, at no very distant period, the great questions
of centralization and uniformity will be gravely and considerately
discussed, both within and without the walls of the British Parliament.
Next year it is probable that the transit between Edinburgh and London
will be effected in fourteen hours. That of itself will go far to bring
matters to a crisis. If we are to be centralized, let the work be
thoroughly done; if not, let us get back at least a reasonable portion
of our own.
But to the committees. You can have no idea, Bogle, of the excitement
caused by any of their decisions. At the close of the evidence, counsel,
agents, and spectators are unceremoniously hustled out of the room, to
give leisure for the selected senators to make up their minds on the
propriety of passing or rejecting the preamble of the bill. In the lobby
all is confusion. Near the door stand five-and-twenty speculators, all
of them heavy holders of stock, some flushed in the face like peonies,
some pale and trembling with excitement. The barristers, for the most
part, have a devil-may-care look, as if it mattered little to them,
whether the Dreep-daily or Powhead's gentry shall carry the day. And, in
truth, it is of little consequence. The sittings of this committee
cannot by possibility be prolonged, and as most of the legal gentlemen
have other briefs--
"To-morrow to fresh fields and pastures new."
The magistrates of Camlachie, though sorely agitated for the integrity
of that important borough, threatened by the Dreep-daily Extension with
immediate intersection, yet preserve a becoming decorum of feature. The
senior bailie bows a dignified assent to the protestations of the
Parliamentary solicitor, that it is quite impossible the bill can
pass--such an interference with vested rights never can be sanctioned by
a British House of Commons, &c. &c.; and then, with a shrewd eye to
future proceedings, the wily Machiavel hints that at all events the
House of Lords will be sure to put the matter right. What in the name of
torture can make the committee deliberate so long? Two hours have
elapsed since we were excluded, and yet there is no indication of a
judgment. The chairman of the Powhead's line, which on the whole has had
the worst of it in evidence, begins to gain confidence from the delay.
Whispers arise and circulate that the committee are two to two, the
chairman not being able to make up his mind either way; but as his wife
is a third cousin of a Powheads director, there may yet be balm in
Gilead. Hark! the tinkling of a bell--there is a buzz as of a hive
overturned, the doors are opened, and the whole crowd rush elbowing in.
How provokingly calm are the countenances of the five legislators! Not a
twinkle in the eye of any of them to betray the nature of their
decision--nay, with a refinement of cruelty positively appalling, the
chairman is elaborating a quill into a toothpick until order shall be
partially restored. Now for the dictum--"The Committee, having heard
evidence, are of opinion that the preamble of the Dreep-daily Extension
Bill has not been proved, and further, that the preamble of the Powheads
Junction Bill has been satisfactorily proved, and they intend to report
accordingly." One second's pause, and a triumphant cheer bursts from the
dignitaries of Camlachie. The five-and-twenty speculators darting at
once to the door, choke up the entrance for a time--divers coat-tails
give way, and hats disappear in the scuffle--at last they break out from
the Cloisters like so many demoniacs, fling themselves into
four-and-twenty cabs, and offer triple fares for immediate transmission
to the City. One, more knowing than the rest, sneaks down to Westminster
Bridge, finds a steamer just starting, makes his way by water to the
Exchange; and five minutes before the earliest cab, obstructed by a
covey of coal-carts in the Strand, can fetch its agitated inmate to his
broker, his speedier rival has sold several thousand Dreep-dailys to
unwitting and unfortunate purchasers, and has become the coveted
possessor of every Powhead scrip then negotiable in the London market.
If there is any caricature in this sketch I shall submit to do penance
in the pillory.
I think I have now bored you sufficiently with railway matters: being a
literary character, you may like to know how I otherwise employ my time.
_Imprimis_, I have not attended a single debate in the House of Commons.
It is quite enough to spell one's way through the dreary columns of the
_Times_ after the matutinal muffin, without exposing the mind to the
cruelties of a Maynooth debate, or the body to the tender mercies of the
novel mode of ventilation. I find the theatres much more amusing, not
from the excellence of the dramatic performances, but from their sheer
and gross absurdity, which, without actual experience, is almost too
monstrous for belief. The fact is, that a new Cockney school has arisen,
ten times more twaddling and impotent than the ancient academy of that
name. The old professors, for whom I always had a sneaking kindness,
affected a sort of solitary grandeur, deported themselves with the
conscious swagger of genius, read Tooke's Pantheon, and prated of the
Heathen gods. This was very harmless and innocent pastime; tiresome, to
be sure, yet laughable withal; nor did it call for any further rebuke
than an occasional tap upon the cranium of some blockhead who forsook
his legitimate sphere, thrust himself in your way, and became
unsufferably blatant. Now the spirit of the times has changed. The
literary youth of London are all in the facetious line. They have
regular clubs, at which they meet to collate the gathered slang and
pilfered witticisms of the week; periodical compotations to work these
materials into something like a readable shape; and hebdomadal journals,
by means of which their choice productions are issued to a wondering
world. Now, though a single gnat can give you very little annoyance in
the course of a summer's night, the evil becomes serious when you are
surrounded with whole scores of these diminutive vermin, singing in your
ears, buzzing in your hair, and lighting incessantly on your face. In
vain you turn aside, in hopes to get rid of the nuisance. Go where you
will, a perfect cloud of midges keeps hovering round your head, each
tiny bloodsucker sounding his diminutive horn, in the full and perfect
belief that he discourses most excellent music. Even so, in London, are
you surrounded with these philosophers of the Cider-cellar. Their works
stare you every where in the face; the magazines abound with their wit;
their songs, consisting for the most part of prurient parodies, are
resonant throughout the purlieus of Covent Garden. What is worse than
all, they have wriggled themselves into a sort of monopoly of the
theatres, persuaded the public to cashier Shakespeare, who is now
utterly out of date, and to instal in his place a certain Mr J.R.
Planche as the leading swan of the Thames. In giving him this prominent
place, I merely echo the opinions of his compeers, who with much
modesty, but at the same time with praiseworthy candour, have
acknowledged his pre-eminence in the modern walk of the drama, and with
him they decline competition. The new Beaumont and Fletcher, J. Taylor
and Albert Smith, Esquires, thus bear testimony to his merits in one of
their inimitable prologues:
"'Fair One with Golden Locks:' no, you won't do--
PLANCHE has taken the shine out of you:
Who runs with HIM, it may be safely reckon'd,
Whate'er the odds, must come in 'a bad second.'"
Ben Jonson never penned a more delicate or classical compliment, albeit
it halteth a little. Let us then submit to the better judgment of our
brethren, and bow down promiscuously before any brazen calf which their
eager idolatry may rear. Let London promulgate the law of letters, as
well as the statutes of the land. Therefore, say I, away with Romeo, and
give us Cinderella; banish Hamlet, and welcome Sleeping Beauty; let the
Tempest make room for Fortunio; and Venice Preserved for the gentle
Graciosa and Percinet! Do you, Bogle, disencumber your study as fast as
you can of these absurd busts of the older dramatists, now fit for
nothing but targets in a shooting-gallery. Fling the effigies, one and
all, into the area; and let us see, in their stead, each on its
appropriate pedestal, with some culinary garland round the head, new
stucco casts of J. R. Planche, Albert Smith, and Gilbert a-Beckett,
Esquires.
After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty?
Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly two
centuries--quite enough, one would think, to pacify his unconscionable
_Manes_. We have been dosed with his dramas from our youth upwards. Two
generations of the race of Kean have, in our own day, perished, after a
series of air-stabs, upon Bosworth field. We have seen twenty different
Hamlets appear upon the damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully as
many Romeos in the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in the
pomegranate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune;
therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with other
sounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we were presented
with "Nina Sforza," the "Legend of Florence," and several other dramas
of the highest class. Sheridan Knowles and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
professed themselves ready to administer any amount of food to the
craving appetite of the age--but all in vain. Tragedy was not what we
wanted--nor comedy--no, nor even passable melodrama. We sighed for
something of a more ethereal sort, and--laud we the gods!--the manna has
descended in showers. Go into any of the London theatres now, and the
following is your bill of fare. Fairies you have by scores in
flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and paucity of petticoats; gnomes of
every description, from the gigantic glittering diamond beetle, to the
grotesque and dusky tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and
swelling busts are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass--dragons
vomiting at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in
Trafalgar Square--Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian
owl--and the Seven Champions of Christendom smoking cigars upon the
parapets of Hungerford Bridge! All these things have I seen, Bogle, yea,
and cheered them to the echo, in company with some thousand Cockneys,
all agape at the glitter of tinselled pasteboard, and the glories of the
Catharine-wheel. Such is the intellectual banquet which London, queen of
literature, presents to her fastidious children!
The form of dramatic composition now most in vogue is the burlesque; or,
in the language of the great Planche, "the original, grand, comic,
romantic, operatic, melo-dramatic, fairy extravaganza!" There is a title
for you, that would have put Polonius to the blush. I have invested some
three shillings in the purchase of several of these works, in order
that I might study at leisure the bold and brilliant wit, the elegant
language, and the ingenious metaphors which had entranced me when I
heard them uttered from the stage. I am now tolerably master of the
subject, and therefore beg leave, before condescending upon details, to
hand you a recipe for the concoction of one of these delectable dishes.
Take my advice, and make the experiment yourself. Red Riding-Hood, I
think, is still a virgin story; but, unless you make haste, she will be
snapped up, for they are rapidly exhausting the stores of the "_Contes
des Fees_." Alexander will probably give you something for it, or you
can try our old friend Miller at the Green. The process is shortly this.
Select a fairy tale, or a chapter from the Arabian Nights; write out the
_dramatis personae_, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals,
genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent _corps
de ballet_; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with as much slang
repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let every couplet contain
either a pun or some innuendo upon the passing events of the day. This
in London is considered as the highest species of wit, and seldom fails
to bring down three distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I
fear you may be trammelled a little by the scantiness of local
allusions. Hungerford Bridge and Trafalgar Square, as I have already
hinted, have kept the Cockneys in roars of laughter for years, and are
dragged forward with unrelenting perseverance, but still undiminished
effect, in each successive extravaganza. I suspect you will find that
the populace of Glasgow are less easy to be tickled, and somewhat
jealous of quips at their familiar haunts. However, don't be
down-hearted. Go boldly at the Gorbals, the Goosedubs, and the great
chimney-stalk of St Rollox; it is impossible to predict how boldly the
municipal pulse may bound beneath the pressure of a dexterous finger.
Next, you must compose some stanzas, as vapid as you please, to be sung
by the leading virgin in pantaloons; or, what is better still, a few
parodies adapted to the most popular airs. I see a fine field for your
ingenuity in the Jacobite relics; they are entwined with our most sacred
national recollections, and therefore may be desecrated at will. Never
lose sight for a moment of the manifold advantages derivable from a free
use of the trap-door and the flying-wires; throw in a transparency, an
Elysian field, a dissolving view, and a miniature Vesuvius, and
"My basnet to a 'prentice cap,
Lord Surrey's o'er the Till,"
you will take all Glasgow by storm, and stand henceforward crowned as
the young Euripides of the West.
You and I, in the course of our early German studies, lighted, as I can
well remember, upon the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck. I attribute your loss
of the first prize in the Moral Philosophy class to the enthusiasm with
which you threw yourself into his glorious Bluebeard and Fortunatus. In
truth it was like hearing the tales of childhood told anew, only with a
manlier tone, and a clearer and more dignified purpose. How lucidly the
early, half-forgotten images were restored under the touch of that
inimitable artist! What a luxury it was to revel with the first
favourites of our childhood, now developed into full life, and strength,
and stately beauty! With these before us, how could we dare be infidels
and recreants to our earlier faith, or smile in scorn at the fanciful
loves and cherished dreams of infancy? Such were our feelings, nor could
it well be otherwise; for Tieck was, and is, a poet of the highest
grade--not a playwright and systematic jest-hunter; and would as soon
have put forth his hand in impious challenge against the Ark, as have
stooped to become a buffooning pander to the idle follies of the
million. It remained for England--great and classic England--no, by
heavens! I will not do her that wrong--but for London, and London
_artists_!--I believe that is the proper phrase--after having exhausted
every other subject of parody, sacred and profane, to invade the
sanctuary of childhood, and vulgarize the very earliest impressions
which are conveyed to the infant. Are not the men who sit down
deliberately to such a task more culpable than even the nursery jade
who administers gin and opium to her charge, in order that she may steal
to the back-door undisturbed, and there indulge in surreptitious
dalliance with the dustman? Far better had they stuck to their old trade
of twisting travesties from Shakespeare for the amusement of elderly
idiots, than attempted to people Fairyland with the palpable denizens of
St Giles. The Seven Champions of Christendom, indeed! They may well lay
claim to the title of Champions of Cockneydom incarnate, setting forth
on their heroic quest from the rendezvous in the Seven Dials.
Let us look a little into their individual feats, although I must needs
say, that the whole of these productions bear a marvellous resemblance
to each other. There is no more variety in any of them than can be found
in the copious advertisements of the Messrs Doudney. Still, it cannot
but be that some gems shall scintillate more than others, or, at all
events, be of coarser and duller water. With conscious impartiality, and
without imputing the palm of slang to any particular individual, I shall
give the precedence to Gemini, and their last approved duodecimo. Messrs
Taylor and Smith have bestowed upon the public three dramas--to wit,
Valentine and Orson, Whittington and his Cat, and Cinderella. I have not
been fortunate enough to meet with the earlier portions of this trilogy;
but I have got by me Cinderella, of which title the authors, with
characteristic purity, confess
"'Twould be proper _er_
To say, 'La Cenerentola,' from the opera."
You shall have a specimen, Bogle, of this extremely racy production,
which I strongly recommend you to keep in view as model. You cannot have
forgotten the tale of the poor deserted maiden, whose loneliness is thus
touchingly described--
"From poker, tongs, and kitchen stove,
To the neglected cellar,
Is all the change I ever know--
Oh, hapless Cinderella!"
But dear Cinderella_r_ is not doomed to mourn in dust and ashes for
ever. A prince is coming to her rescue, but in disguise, having changed
suits with his own valet. Let us mark the manner of his introduction to
the interesting family of the Baron:--
_Baron._--The Baron Soldoff, Baroness, and Misses!
I thought the Prince was here!
(_To_ CINDERELLA.) Tell me who this is.
_Rodo._--(_Bowing._) I'm but a humble servant of his Highness.
_Baron._--Where is he?
_Rodo._--Sir, he waits down-stairs from shyness.
_Baron._--Give him the Baron's compliments, who begs
To this poor hall he'll stir his princely pegs.
[C. _Exit_ RODOLOPH, _bowing_.
(_To musicians._) Now change your costumes, quick as you are
able,
And be in readiness to wait at table;
Here are the pantry keys, (_throws them up_,) and there the
cellar's.
Now, try and look _distingue_--that's good fellows.
[L. _Exeunt musicians._
_Baroness._--What will the Browns say when this visit's told of?
'Tis a new era for the house of Soldoff!
QUARTETTE.--The BARON, BARONESS, CINDERELLA, and PATCHOULIA.
AIR.--'_The Campbells are coming._'
The Prince is a-coming, oh dear, oh dear,
The prince is a-coming, oh dear!
The Prince is a-coming, with piping and drumming,
The Prince is a-coming, oh dear, oh dear!
[C. _A grand march. Some hunters appear marching in at the
door, when_ CAPILLAIRE, _in the ducal cap, puts his head in
at the entrance and shouts._
_Capil._--Hold hard! (_music and procession stop._) Come back, you
muffs, that's not correct,
You're spoiling a magnificent effect.
Down those two staircases you've got to go'
A la 'The Daughter of St Mark,' you know.
[C. _They retire._
_Baron._--That was the Prince who show'd his face just now.
_Baroness._--What a fine voice!
_Ronde._--What eyes!
_Patch._--And what a brow!
_Cin._--(_aside._) To my mind, as a casual spectator,
If that's the Prince, he's very like a waiter.
[_March begins again. A grand procession enters the gallery, and
deploying in the centre, proceeds down the two staircases
simultaneously. Pages with hawks on their wrists. Hunters with dead
game, deer, herons, wild-ducks, &c. Men-at-Arms. Banners with the
Prince's Arms, &c. Ladies and Cavaliers. Flowergirls strewing flowers._
RODOLPE _with wand._ CAPILLAIRE _as the Prince. His train held up by two
diminutive pages._
_Capil._--(_as soon as he reaches the stage, advancing to the front
is almost tripped up by the pages mismanaging his train. He turns
round sharply._)
If you do that again, you'll get a whipping;
It won't do for a Duke to be caught tripping.
Let our train go. [_Some of the procession are moving off._ R.
What are you at? Dear, dear!
We don't mean that train there, but this train here.
(_Pointing to the train of his robe, the pages leave their hold of it._)
_Baron._--This princely visit is a condescension--
_Capil._--Now don't--
_Baroness._--(_curtsies_) A grace to which we've no pretension,
_Capil._--Bless me!
_Patch._--(_curtseying_) An honour not to be believed.
_Capil._--Oh, Lord!
_Patch._--(_curtseying_) A favour thankfully received.
_Baron._--(_bowing again_) This princely visit--
_Capil._--(_impatiently_) You've said that before.
Gammon! We know we're a tremendous bore.
We're a plain man, and don't like all this fuss;
Accept our game, but don't make game of us.
(_Looking about him._)
Well, Baron, these are comfortable quarters,
(_Examining Rondeletia and Patchoulia._)
And you hang out two very 'plummy' daughters.
_Ronde._--What wit!
_Patch._--What humour!
_Cin._--(_aside_) And what language--'plummy!'
_Capil._--We like your wife, too. Tho' not young she's 'crummy.'
_Cin._--(_aside_) And 'crummy,' too. Well, these are odd words, very!
I'm sure they're not in Johnson's Dictionary.
(_Attendant throws open door._ L.)
_Atten._--Wittles is on the table.
_Baron._--(_interrupting him_) Hush, you lout.
He means, you grace, the banquet waits without.
If at our humble board you'll deign to sit?
_Capil._--Oh, I'm not proud. I'll peck a little bit.
_Baron._--For your attendants--
_Capil._--Don't mind them at all.
Stick the low fellows in the servants' hall.
_Baron._--(_presenting the Baroness for Capillaire to take to dinner._)
My wife.
_Capil._--No, no, old chap, you take the mother.
Young 'uns for me (_takes Patchoulia under one arm._)
Here's one, (_takes Rondeletia,_)
And here's another.
[_As they are going out_ ( L.) _the_ PRINCE, _forgetting
himself, passes before_ CAPILLAIRE.
Capil.--Halloa! where are you shoving to, you scrub?
Now for pot-luck, and woe betide the grub."
Match me that, Bogle, if you can! There is wit, genius, and polish for
you! No wonder that the "School for Scandal" has been driven off the
field. But we must positively indulge ourselves with a love scene, were
it merely to qualify the convulsions into which we have been thrown by
the humour of these funny fellows. Mark, learn, and understand how
ladies are to be wooed and won--
"[(_Enter_ PRINCE RODOLPH.) L.
_Rodo._--How's this--what, tears!--Enough to float a frigate!
_Patch._--Sir!
_Ronde._--Sir!
_Rodo._--Oh, it's the valet they look big at!
Come, what's the row?--peace-maker's my capacity.
_Ronde._--Low wretch!
_Patch._--I shudder, man, at your audacity!
How dare you interfere 'twixt your superiors?
_Rodo._--'Twas pity!
_Ronde._--Gracious! pity from inferiors!
_Rodo._--Nay, dry your eyes, your quarrel's cause I've found,
(_sings_) Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love,
'tis love that makes the world go round
The Prince is a sad dog, he'll pop away,
And bag you ten and twenty hearts a-day;
Knocks ladies down like nine-pins, with a look,
And worst of all can not be brought to book.
He sha'n't dim those eyes long, my darlings, shall he?
_Patch._--_Why, you mad flunky!_
_Ronde._--Why, you maniac valet!
_Patch._--Why, you impertinent piece of pretension!
_Ronde._--To call him man would be a condescension.
A valet, paugh! (_going._)
_Prince._--A clear case of cold shoulder.
_Patch._--We'll have you trounced, e'er you're a minute older!
[_Exeunt_ RONDELETIA _and_ PATCHOULIA. ( R.)
_Prince_--(R.) But listen, for a moment. No, they're gone,
Well, this is Cocker's old rule, 'set down one.'
I had no notion, while I was genteel,
How very small indeed a man may feel.
I've made what Capillaire calls a 'diskivery.'
I wonder what's my value out of livery!
But here comes humble little Cinderella ( R.);
I feel I love her--let's see, shall I tell her?
[_Enter_ CINDERELLA.
_Cin._--I've taken up the coffee, not too soon,
And made all tidy for the afternoon.
I think--
_Prince_--What do you think, you little gipsy?
_Cin._--I think the Prince and Pa are getting tipsy.
_Prince_--Well, darling, here I am again you see.
_Cin._--You don't mean you were waiting here for me?
_Prince_--Yes, but I was though; and can't you guess why?
_Cin._--You thought that I popp'd out upon the sly?
_Prince_--I have a secret for you--I'm in love!
_Cin._--(_dolefully_) Who with?
_Prince._--With you--fact! There's my hand and glove--
Do you return my passion and forgive me?
_Cin._--I never do return what people give me.
_Prince._--Then keep my heart!
_Cin._--Mine kicks up such a bobbery,
I'll give it you; exchange, you know, 's no robbery.
_Prince_--We'll wed next week--a house I'll see about.
_Cin._--I'd go with you--but I've no Sunday out."
Beaumont and Fletcher, did I say? Rather Ovid and Tibullus. What a
beautiful picture of innocence is conveyed in that suggestive line--
"You thought that I popp'd out upon the sly!"
It is too natural for fiction. It must be a reminiscence of departed
bliss--a sigh wafted from the street-door of a furnished lodging-house
in Bloomsbury, when our authors plied the bistoury at Guy's. Bogle, if
you ever should be in love, take a lesson from these great masters, and
your suit is sure to prosper. Not a serving-maid in the Saltmarket but
must yield to such fervid and impassioned eloquence.
Talking of songs, I shall just give you the interesting ditty with which
this excellent extravaganza concludes. There is fine moral in it, which
will do well to lay to heart.
"CINDERELLA _sings_.
When lords shall fall before my throne,
And dare not call their souls their own
On my slippery path, lest I should fall,
I'll think on the COAL-HOLE, and sing so small--
With my slipper so fine.
Tra-la, Tra-la!