I crave good Mr. Du B----’s pardon for my “flat burglary” with regard to
the title of the present little paper. It is very far from my intention
to endeavour in any way to place myself in competition with that great
satirical genius, of whose very superior talents and brilliant wit I am
pleased to be thus afforded an opportunity of avowing myself an ardent
admirer: but as this title suits my purpose, I must entreat his
permission to appropriate it, and merely remind him of the poet Puff’s
excuse on a somewhat similar occasion--“All that can be said is--that
two people happened to hit upon the same thought, (title,) and
Shakspeare (Du B----) made use of it first, that is all.”
Pocket-books (as implied by their name) were originally intended as
_portable_ receptacles for our different memoranda, remarks and
communications. But now it is no longer honoured by an immediate
attendance on our person; its station at present is confined to the
bureau, desk, or private drawer. What man who can boast of being _d’un
assez bon air_ would consent to injure his exquisite _adonisation_ of
coat, by wearing a pocket-book in _his_ side-breast pocket, and thus
ungratefully frustrate all poor Mr. Stultz’s efforts at an exact and
perfect _fit_. The ladies, for some reason, concerning which I do not so
much as venture even a surmise, (for Heaven forefend that I should
attempt to dive into these sacred mysteries, or, as “Uncle Selby” would
call them, _femalities_,) have entirely given up the use of pockets,
therefore I would advise that memorandum-books destined for the use of
the fair sex should in future be styled--_reticule_-books.
Old pocket-books are like some old ladies’ chests of drawers--delightful
things to rummage and recur to. Looking over an old pocket-book is like
revisiting scenes of past happiness after a lapse of years.
Recollections and associations of both a painful and pleasurable nature
are vividly recalled, or forcibly present themselves to our mind.
Treasured letters, private remarks, favourite quotations, dates of days
spent in peculiar enjoyment, all these meet our eye, and rise up like
the shadows of those past realities connected with them, whose memory
they are intended to perpetuate to us.
----Pocket-books are indexes to their owner’s mind--were it an allowable
action to inspect another’s pocket-book, we might form a tolerably
shrewd guess at the character and disposition of its possessor. On
picking up a lost pocket-book by chance in the streets, one can be at no
loss to divine the quality of its former proprietor. A large rusty black
leather pocket-book, looking more like a portmanteau than a memorandum
book, stuffed with papers half printed, half written, blank stamp
receipts, churchwarden’s orders and directions, long lists of
parishioners, with a small ink-horn in one corner--denotes the property
of a tax-gatherer. The servant-maid’s is an old greasy red morocco
one--in the blank leaf is written in straggling characters reaching from
the top of one side to the bottom of the other--
Sarah Price her book,
God give her grace therein to look.
In the part designated “cash account” are various items, for the most
part concerning tea, sugar, and ribbon. Among the memoranda are the
following:--“Spent last Easter Monday was a twel’month with Tom Hadley,
at Greenwich--in great hopes I shall get leave to go again this year. My
next wages comes due 4th August, 18--. Jane Thompson says she pays only
4s. for the best _sowtchong_ tea; and I pay 4s. 6d.--to speak to Mr.
Ilford the grocer about it.”--The pockets are crammed full of songs and
ballads, of which her favourites are “Black eyed Susan,” “Auld Robin
Gray,” and “Lord William and Fair Margaret.” Perhaps a letter from Tom
Hadley, an old silver coin, his gift, and a lucky penny with a hole in
it.--The young lady’s is elegantly bound in red and gilt. In the blank
leaf is written in a little niminy piminy hand-writing--“To my sweet
friend Ellen Woodmere, from her affectionate Maria Tillotson.”
Quotations from Pope, Young, Thomson, Lord Byron, and Tom Moore, occupy
the blank pages--“Memoranda. June 16th saw Mrs. Siddons riding in her
chariot in Hyde Park. Mem. Wonder why pa’ won’t let me read dear lord
Byron’s new work the ‘Don Juan’--there must be something odd in it. Mem.
To remember and ask Maria what she paid a yard for that beautiful lace
round her collar. Mem. What a horrid wretch that Robespierre must have
been! I’m glad he was killed himself at last. Mem. To tell pa’ that it
is quite impossible for me to go to the ball next Tuesday without a new
lutstring dress. Mem. How I wish I had been Joan of Arc!--But I would
not have put on the men’s clothes again in prison--I wonder why she did
so--How silly!”--In the pockets are some of her dear Maria’s letters--a
loose leaf torn out of sir Charles Grandison describing Miss Harriet
Byron’s dress at the masquerade--and several copies of verses and
sonnets, the productions of some of her former schoolfellows.
The old bachelor’s pocket-book is of russia leather, glossy with use,
yet still retaining its grateful and long-enduring odour. The memoranda
chiefly consist of the dates of those days on which he had seen or
spoken to remarkable or celebrated people. Opposite the prognostics
concerning weather, which he has since found incorrect, are to be seen
the words: “No such thing”--“Pshaw, the fellow talks about what he does
not understand”--“Absurd folly,” &c.--In the pockets are sundry square
scraps of paper cut out at different periods from old newspapers--a copy
of “The Means to be used for the recovery of persons _apparently_
drowned”--a watch-paper cut out for him by his little grand-niece--and,
(wrapped up in several folds of silver paper,) a long ringlet of auburn
hair with its wavy drop, and springy relapse as you hold it at
full-length between your finger and thumb. Among the leaves is a small
sprig of jasmin which _she_ had worn in _her_ bosom a whole evening at a
party, and which he had gently possessed himself of, on taking leave of
her for the night.----