"I am told your Asiatic beauties are the most convenient women

alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing in

nature I should like so much as women without souls; soul here is

the utter ruin of half the sex. A girl of eighteen shall have soul

enough to spend a hundred pounds in the turning of a tramp. Her

mother shall have soul enough to ride a sweepstake snatch at a

horse-race; her maiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the

furniture of a whole toy-shop, and others shall have soul enough to

behave as if they had no souls at all."

The "Citizen of the World" cannot understand why there are so many old

maids and bachelors in England. He regards the latter as most

contemptible, and says the mob should be permitted to halloo after them;

boys might play tricks on them with impunity; every well-bred company

should laugh at them, and if one of them, when turned sixty, offered to

make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or what would be a

greater punishment should fairly accept him. Old maids he would not

treat with such severity, because he supposes they are not so by their

own fault; but he hears that many have received offers, and refused

them. Miss Squeeze, the pawnbroker's daughter, had heard so much about

money, that she resolved never to marry a man whose fortune was not

equal to her own, without ever considering that some abatement should be

made as her face was pale and marked with the small-pox. Sophronia loved

Greek, and hated men. She rejected fine gentlemen because they were not

pedants, and pedants because they were not fine gentlemen. She found a

fault in every lover, until the wrinkles of old age overtook her, and

now she talks incessantly of the beauties of the mind.

The character of the information contained in the daily newspapers is

thus described--

"The universal passion for politics is gratified with daily papers,

as with us in China. But, as in ours, the Emperor endeavours to

instruct his people; in theirs the people endeavour to instruct the

Administration. You must not, however, imagine that they who

compile these papers have any actual knowledge of politics or the

government of a state; they only collect their materials from the

oracle of some coffee-house, which oracle has himself gathered them

the night before from a beau at a gaming-table, who has pillaged

his knowledge from the great man's porter, who has had his

information from the great man's gentleman, who has invented the

whole story for his own amusement the night preceding."

He gives the following specimens of contradictory newspaper intelligence

from abroad.

"_Vienna._--We have received certain advices that a party of

twenty-thousand Austrians, having attacked a much superior body of

Prussians, put them all to flight, and took the rest prisoners of

war.

"_Berlin._--We have received certain advices that a party of

twenty-thousand Prussians, having attacked a much superior body of

Austrians, put them to flight, and took a great number of prisoners

with their military chest, cannon, and baggage."

The Chinaman observing the laudatory character of epitaphs, suggests a

plan by which flattery might be indulged, without sacrificing truth. The

device is that anciently called "contrary to expectation," but

apparently borrowed by Goldsmith from some French poem. Here is a

specimen.

"Ye Muses, pour the pitying tear,

For Pollio snatched away;

O, had he lived another year

He had not died to-day."...

He gives another on Madam Blaize--

"Good people all with one accord

Lament for Madam Blaize,

Who never wanted a good word

From those who spoke her praise."

The Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog terminates in a stroke taken from

the old epigram of Demodocus--

"Good people all, of everysort,

Give ear unto my song,

And if you find it wondrous short,

It cannot hold you long.

"In Islington there was a man,

Of whom the world might say,

That still a godly race he ran,

Whene'er he went to pray.

"A kind and gentle heart he had,

To comfort friends and foes,

The naked every day he clad,

When he put on his clothes.

"And in this town a dog was found,

As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelps, and hound,

And curs of low degree.

"This dog and man at first were friends,

But when a pique began,

The dog to gain some private ends,

Went mad, and bit the man.

"Around from all the neighbouring streets

The wondering neighbours ran,

And swore the dog had lost his wits,

To bite so good a man.

"The wound, it seemed both sore and sad

To every Christian eye;

And, while they swore the dog was mad,

They swore the man would die.

"But soon a wonder came to light

That showed the rogues they lied,

The man recovered of the bite,

The dog it was that died."

The fine and elegant humour in "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "The

Deserted Village," has greatly contributed to give those works a lasting

place in the literature of this country. Goldsmith attacked, among other

imposters, the quacks of his day, who promised to cure every disease.

Reading their advertisements, he is astonished that the English patient

should be so obstinate as to refuse health on such easy terms. We find

from Swift that astrologers and fortune-tellers were very plentiful in

these times. The following lament was written towards the end of the

last century upon the death of one of them--Dr. Safford, a quack and

fortune-teller.

"Lament, ye damsels of our London City,

Poor unprovided girls, though fair and witty,

Who masked would to his house in couples come,

To understand your matrimonial doom;

To know what kind of man you were to marry,

And how long time, poor things, you were to tarry;

Your oracle is silent; none can tell

On whom his astrologic mantle fell;

For he, when sick, refused the doctor's aid,

And only to his pills devotion paid,

Yet it was surely a most sad disaster,

The saucy pills at last should kill their master."

The travels of Baron Münchausen were first published in 1786, and the

esteem in which they were held, and we may conclude their merit, was

shown by the numbers of editions rapidly succeeding each other, and by

the translations which were made into foreign languages. It is somewhat

strange that there should be a doubt with regard to the authorship of

so popular a work, but it is generally attributed to one Raspi, a German

who fled from the officers of justice to England. As, however, there is

little originality in the stories, we feel the less concerned at being

unable satisfactorily to trace their authorship--they were probably a

collection of the tales with which some old German baron was wont to

amuse his guests. A satire was evidently intended upon the marvellous

tales in which travellers and sportsmen indulged, and the first edition

is humbly dedicated to Mr. Bruce, whose accounts of Abyssinia were then

generally discredited. With the exception of this attack upon

travellers' tales there is nothing severe in the work--there is no

indelicacy or profanity--considerable falsity was, of course, necessary,

otherwise the accounts would have been merely fanciful. We have nothing

here to mar our amusement, except infinite extravagance. The author does

not claim much originality, and he admits an imitation of Gulliver's

Travels. But, no doubt, something is due to his insight in selection,

and to his ingenuity in telling the stories well and circumstantially;

otherwise this book would never have become historical, when so many

similar productions have perished. The stories in the first six

chapters, which formed the original book, are superior to those in the

continuation; there is always something specious, some ground work for

the gross improbabilities, which gives force to them. Thus, for

instance, travelling in Poland over the deep snow he fastens his horse

to something he takes to be a post, and which turns out to be the top of

a steeple. By the morning the snow has disappeared--he sees his mistake,

and his horse is hanging on the top of the church by its bridle. When on

his road to St. Petersburgh, a wolf made after him and overtook him.

Escape was impossible.

"I laid myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse run for

safety. The wolf did not mind me, but took a leap over me, and

falling on the horse began to tear and devour the hinder part of

the poor animal, which ran all the faster for its pain and terror.

I lifted up my head slily, and beheld with horror that the wolf had

ate his way into the horse's body. It was not long before he had

fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage and fell

upon him with the end of my whip. This unexpected attack frightened

him so much that he leaped forward, the horse's carcase dropped to

the ground, but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my

part whipping him continually, arrived in full career at St.

Petersburgh much to the astonishment of the spectators."

Speaking of stags, he mentions St. Hubert's stag, which appeared with a

cross between its horns. "They always have been," he observes, "and

still are famous for plantations and antlers." This furnishes him with

the ground-work of his story.

"Having one day spent all my shot, I found myself unexpectedly in

presence of a stately stag looking at me as unconcernedly as if it

had really known of my empty pouches. I charged immediately with

powder and upon it a good handful of cherry stones. Thus I let fly

and hit him just in the middle of the forehead between the antlers;

he staggered, but made off. A year or two afterwards, being with a

party in the same forest, I beheld a noble stag with a fine

full-grown cherry tree above ten feet high between its antlers. I

brought him down at one shot, and he gave me haunch and cherry

sauce, for the tree was covered with fruit."

In his ride across to Holland from Harwich under the sea, he finds great

mountains "and upon their sides a variety of tall noble trees loaded

with marine fruit, such as lobsters, crabs, oysters, scollops, mussels,

cockles, &c.," the periwinkle, he observes, is a kind of shrub, it grows

at the foot of the oyster tree, and twines round it as the ivy does

round the oak.

In the following, we have a manifest imitation of Lucian--Having passed

down Mount Etna through the earth, and come out at the other side, he

finds himself in the Southern Seas, and soon comes to land. They sail up

a river flowing with rich milk, and find that they are in an island

consisting of one large cheese--

"We discovered this by one of the company fainting away as soon as

he landed; this man always had an aversion to cheese--when he

recovered he desired the cheese to be taken from under his feet.

Upon examination we found him to be perfectly right--the whole

island was nothing but a cheese of immense magnitude. Here were

plenty of vines with bunches of grapes, which yielded nothing but

milk."

In all these cases he has contrived where there was an opening to

introduce some probable details. But as he proceeds further in his work,

his talent becoming duller--his extravagancies are worse sustained and

scarcely ever original. Sometimes he writes mere mawkish nonsense, and

at others he simply copies Lucian, as in the case of his making a voyage

to the moon, and then sailing into a sea-monster's stomach.

CHAPTER IX.

The Anti-Jacobin--Its Objects and Violence--"The Friends of

Freedom"--Imitation of Latin Lyrics--The "Knife Grinder"--The

"Progress of Man."

The "Anti-Jacobin" was commenced in 1797, with a view of counteracting

the baneful influences of those revolutionary principles which were

already rampant in France. The periodical, supported by the combined

talent of such men as Gifford, Ellis, Hookham Frere, Jenkinson (Lord

Liverpool), Lord Clare, Dr. Whitaker, and Lord Mornington, would no

doubt have had a long and successful career, had not politics led it

into a vituperative channel, through which it came to an untimely end in

eight months. The following address to Jacobinism will give some idea of

its spirit:--

"Daughter of Hell, insatiate power,

Destroyer of the human race,

Whose iron scourge and maddening hour

Exalt the bad, the good debase:

Thy mystic force, despotic sway,

Courage and innocence dismay,

And patriot monarchs vainly groan

With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone."

There were pictorial illustrations consisting of political caricatures

of a very gross character, representing men grotesquely deformed, and

sometimes intermixed with monsters, demons, frogs, toads, and other

animals.

One part of the paper was headed "Lies," and another was devoted to

correcting less culpable mis-statements. Some prose satirical pieces

were introduced, such as "Fox's Birthday," in which a mock description

of a grand dinner is given, at which all the company had their pockets

picked. After the delivery of revolutionary orations, and some attempts

at singing "Paddy Whack," and "All the books of Moses," the festival

terminates in a disgusting scene of uproar. Several similar reports are

given of "The Meeting of the Friends of Freedom," upon which occasions

absurd speeches are made, such as that by Mr. Macfurgus, who declaims in

the following grandiloquent style:--

"Before the Temple of Freedom can be erected the surface must be

smoothed and levelled, it must be cleared by repeated revolutionary

explosions, from all the lumber and rubbish with which aristocracy

and fanaticism will endeavour to encumber it, and to impede the

progress of the holy work. The completion of the edifice will

indeed be the more tardy, but it will not be the less durable for

having been longer delayed. Cemented with the blood of tyrants and

the tears of the aristocracy, it will rise a monument for the

astonishment and veneration of future ages. The remotest posterity

with our children yet unborn, and the most distant portions of the

globe will crowd round its gates, and demand admission into its

sanctuary. 'The Tree of Liberty' will be planted in the midst, and

its branches will extend to the ends of the earth, while the

friends of freedom meet and fraternize and amalgamate under its

consolatory shade. There our infants shall be taught to lisp in

tender accents the revolutionary hymn, there with wreaths of

myrtle, and oak, and poplar, and vine, and olive and cypress, and

ivy, with violets and roses and daffodils and dandelions in our

hands, we will swear respect to childhood and manhood, and old age,

and virginity, and womanhood, and widowhood; but above all to the

Supreme Being. There we will decree and sanction the immortality of

the soul, there pillars and obelisks, and arches, and pyramids will

awaken the love of glory and of our country. There painters and

statuaries with their chisels and colours, and engravers with their

engraving tools will perpetuate the interesting features of our

revolutionary heroes."

The next extract is called "The Army of England," written by the

ci-devant Bishop of Autun, and represents a French invasion as

imminent:--

"Good republicans all

The Directory's call

Invites you to visit John Bull;

Oppressed by the rod

Of a king and a God

The cup of his misery's full;

"Old Johnny shall see

What makes a man free,

Not parchments, or statutes, or paper;

And stripped of his riches,

Great charter and breeches,

Shall cut a free citizen's caper.

"Then away, let us over

To Deal or to Dover,

We laugh at his talking so big;

He's pampered with feeding,

And wants a sound bleeding,

_Par Dieu_! he shall bleed like a pig.

"John tied to a stake

A grand baiting will make

When worried by mastiffs of France,

What republican fun

To see his blood run

As at Lyons, La Vendée and Nantes.

"With grape-shot discharges,

And plugs in his barges,

With national razors good store,

We'll pepper and shave him

And in the Thames lave him--

How sweetly he'll bellow and roar!

"What the villain likes worse

We'll vomit his purse

And make it the guineas disgorge,

For your Raphaels and Rubens

We would not give twopence;

Stick, stick to the pictures of George."

The following is on "The New Coalition" between Fox and Horne Tooke.

_Fox._ When erst I coalesced with North

And brought my Indian bantling forth

In place--I smiled at faction's storm,

Nor dreamt of radical reform.

_Tooke._ While yet no patriot project pushing

Content I thumped old Brentford's cushion,

I passed my life so free and gaily,

Not dreaming of that d--d Old Bailey.

_Fox._ Well, now my favourite preacher's Nickle,

He keeps for Pitt a rod in pickle;

His gestures fright the astonished gazers,

His sarcasms cut like Packwood's razors.

_Tooke._ Thelwall's my name for state alarm;

I love the rebels of Chalk Farm;

Rogues that no statutes can subdue,

Who'd bring the French, and head them too.

_Fox._ A whisper in your ear John Horne,

For one great end we both were born,

Alike we roar, and rant and bellow--

Give us your hand my honest fellow.

_Tooke._ Charles, for a shuffler long I've known thee,

But come--for once I'll not disown thee,

And since with patriot zeal thou burnest,

With thee I'll live--or hang in earnest.

But the most celebrated of these poems is "The Friend of Humanity, and

The Knife-Grinder"--

_Friend of Humanity._ Needy knife-grinder! whither are you going?

Rough is the road, your wheel is out of order,

Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in't,

So have your breeches!

Weary knife-grinder! little think the proud ones,

Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike-road,

What hard work 'tis crying all day, "knives and

Scissors to grind, O!"

Tell me, knife-grinder, how you came to grind knives?

Did some rich man tyranically use you?

Was it the squire? or parson of the parish?

Or the attorney?

Was it the squire for killing of his game? or

Covetous parson for his tithes distraining?

Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little

All in a lawsuit?

(Have you not read the "Rights of Man" by Tom Paine?)

Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,

Ready to fall as soon as you have told your

Pitiful story.

_Knife-grinder._ Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir;

Only last night a-drinking at the 'Chequers,'

This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were

Torn in a scuffle.

Constables came up for to take me into

Custody; they took me before the justice,

Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish-

Stocks for a vagrant.

I should be glad to drink your honour's health in

A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence,

But for my part I never love to meddle

With politics, Sir.

_Friend of Humanity._ I give thee sixpence! I will see thee d----d first!

Wretch! whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance!

Sordid! unfeeling! reprobate! degraded!

Spiritless outcast!

(_Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transport

of Republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy._)

This poem, written as a parody of "The Widow" of Southey, is said to

have annihilated English Sapphics. Various attempts were formerly made

to adapt classic metres to English; not only Gabriel Harvey but Sir

Philip Sydney tried to bring in hexameters. Beattie says the attempt was

ridiculous, but since Longfellow's "Evangeline" we look upon them with

more favour, though they are not popular. Dr. Watts wrote a Sapphic ode

on the "Last Judgment," which notwithstanding the solemnity of the

subject, almost provokes a smile.

Frere was a man of great taste and humour. He wrote many amusing poems.

Among his contributions, jointly with Canning and Ellis, to the

"Anti-Jacobin," is the "Loves of the Triangles," and the scheme of a

play called the "Double Arrangement," a satire upon the immorality of

the German plays then in vogue. Here a gentleman living with his wife

and another lady, Matilda, and getting tired of the latter, releases her

early lover, Rogero, who is imprisoned in an abbey. This unfortunate

man, who has been eleven years a captive on account of his attachment to

Matilda, is found in a living sepulchre. The scene shows a subterranean

vault in the Abbey of Quedlinburgh, with coffins, scutcheons, death's

heads and cross-bones; while toads and other loathsome reptiles are seen

traversing the obscurer parts of the stage. Rogero appears in chains,

in a suit of rusty armour, with his beard grown, and a cap of grotesque

form upon his head. He sings the following plaintive ditty:--

"Whene'er with haggard eyes I view

This dungeon that I'm rotting in,

I think of those companions true

Who studied with me at the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen.

(_Weeps and pulls out a blue kerchief with which he wipes his eyes;

gazing tenderly at it he proceeds:_)

"Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,

Which once my love sat knotting in!

Alas! Matilda then was true!

At least, I thought so at the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen.

(_Clanks his chains._)

"Barbs! barbs! alas! how swift you flew,

Her neat post waggon trotting in,

Ye bore Matilda from my view;

Forlorn I languished in the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen.

"This faded form! this pallid hue!

This blood my veins is clotting in,

My years are many--they were few,

When first I entered at the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen.

"There first for thee my passion grew,

Sweet! sweet Matilda Pottingen!

Thou wast the daughter of my tu-

-tor, law professor at the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen.

"Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu,

That kings and priests are plotting in;

Here doomed to starve on water gru-

-el, never shall I see the U-

-niversity of Gottingen,

-niversity of Gottingen."

The idea of making humour by the division of words may have been

original in this case, but it was conceived and adopted by Lucilius, the

first Roman satirist.

The "Progress of Man," by Canning and Hammond, is an ironical poem,

deducing our origin and development according to the natural, and in

opposition to the religious system. The argument proceeds in the

following vein:--

"Let us a plainer, steadier theme pursue,

Mark the grim savage scoop his light canoe,

Mark the fell leopard through the forest prowl,

Fish prey on fish, and fowl regale on fowl;

How Lybian tigers' chawdrons love assails,

And warms, midst seas of ice, the melting whales;

Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts,

Shrinks shrivelled shrimps, but opens oysters' hearts;

Then say, how all these things together tend

To one great truth, prime object, and good end?

"First--to each living thing, whate'er its kind,

Some lot, some part, some station is assigned

The feathered race with pinions skim the air;

Not so the mackerel, and still less the bear....

Ah! who has seen the mailed lobster rise,

Clap her broad wings, and soaring claim the skies?

When did the owl, descending from her bower,

Crop, midst the fleecy flocks the tender flower;

Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,

In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim?

The same with plants--potatoes 'tatoes breed--

Uncostly cabbage springs from cabbage seed,

Lettuce from lettuce, leeks to leeks succeed,

Nor e'er did cooling cucumbers presume

To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom;

Man, only--rash, refined, presumptuous man,

Starts from his rank, and mars Creation's plan;

Born the free heir of Nature's wide domain,

To art's strict limits bounds his narrowed reign,

Resigns his native rights for meaner things,

For faith and fetters, laws, and priests, and kings."

The "Anti-Jacobin" was continued under the name of the "Anti-Jacobin

Review," and in this modified form lasted for upwards of twenty years.

It was mostly a journal of passing events, but there were a few attempts

at humour in its pages.

CHAPTER X.

Wolcott--Writes against the Academicians--Tales of a Hoy--"New Old

Ballads"--"The Sorrows of Sunday"--Ode to a Pretty

Barmaid--Sheridan--Comic Situations--"The Duenna"--Wits.

Wolcott, a native of Devonshire, was educated at Kingsbridge, and

apprenticed to an apothecary. He soon discovered a genius for painting

and poetry, and commenced to write about the middle of the last century

as Peter Pindar. He composed many odes on a variety of humorous

subjects, such as "The Lousiad," "Ode to Ugliness," "The Young Fly and

the Old Spider," "Ode to a Handsome Widow," whom he apostrophises as

"Daughter of Grief," "Solomon and the Mouse-trap," "Sir Joseph Banks and

the Boiled Fleas," "Ode to my Ass," "To my Candle," "An Ode to Eight

Cats kept by a Jew," whom he styles, "Singers of Israel." Lord Nelson's

night-cap took fire as the poet was wearing it reading in bed, and he

returned it to him with the words,

"Take your night-cap again, my good lord, I desire,

For I wish not to keep it a minute,

What belongs to a Nelson, where'er there's a fire,

Is sure to be instantly in it."

In "Bozzi and Piozzi" the former says:--

"Did any one, that he was happy cry,

Johnson would tell him plumply 'twas a lie;

A lady told him she was really so,

On which he sternly answered, 'Madam, no!

Sickly you are, and ugly, foolish, poor,

And therefore can't be happy, I am sure.'"

UPON POPE.

"'Grant me an honest fame, or grant me none,'

Says Pope, (I don't know where,) a little liar,

Who, if he praised a man, 'twas in a tone

That made his praise like bunches of sweet-briar,

Which, while a pleasing fragrance it bestows,

Pops out a pretty prickle on your nose."

He seems to have gained little by his early poems, many of which were

directed against the Royal Academicians. One commences:--

"Sons of the brush, I'm here again!

At times a Pindar and Fontaine,

Casting poetic pearl (I fear) to swine!

For, hang me, if my last years odes

Paid rent for lodgings near the gods,

Or put one sprat into this mouth divine."

Sometimes he calls the Academicians, "Sons of Canvas;" sometimes

"Tagrags and bobtails of the sacred brush." He afterwards wrote a

doleful elergy, "The Sorrows of Peter," and seems not to have thought

himself sufficiently patronized, alluding to which he says--

"Much did King Charles our Butler's works admire,

Read them and quoted them from morn to night,

Yet saw the bard in penury expire,

Whose wit had yielded him so much delight."

Wolcott was a little restricted by a due regard for religion or social

decorum. He reminds us of Sterne, often atoning for a transgression by a

tender and elevated sentiment. The following from the "Tales of a Hoy,"

supposed to be told on a voyage from Margate gives a good specimen of

his style--

_Captain Noah._ Oh, I recollect her. Poor Corinna![14] I could cry

for her, Mistress Bliss--a sweet creature! So kind! so lovely! and

so good-natured! She would not hurt a fly! Lord! Lord! tried to

make every body happy. Gone! Ha! Mistress Bliss, gone! poor soul.

Oh! she is in Heaven, depend on it--nothing can hinder it. Oh,

Lord, no, nothing--an angel!--an angel by this time--for it must

give God very little trouble to make _her_ an angel--she was so

charming! Such terrible figures as my Lord C. and my Lady Mary, to

be sure, it would take at least a month to make such ones anything

like angels--but poor Corinna wanted very few repairs. Perhaps the

sweet little soul is now seeing what is going on in our cabin--who

knows? Charming little Corinna! Lord! how funny it was, for all the

world like a rabbit or a squirrel or a kitten at play. Gone! as you

say, Gone! Well now for her epitaph.

CORINNA'S EPITAPH.

"Here sleeps what was innocence once, but its snows

Were sullied and trod with disdain;

Here lies what was beauty, but plucked was its rose

And flung like a weed to the plain.

"O pilgrim! look down on her grave with a sigh

Who fell the sad victim of art,

Even cruelty's self must bid her hard eye

A pearl of compassion impart.

"Ah! think not ye prudes that a sigh or a tear

Can offend of all nature the God!

Lo! Virtue already has mourned at her bier

And the lily will bloom on her sod."

He wrote some pretty "new-old" ballads--purporting to have been written

by Queen Elizabeth, Sir T. Wyatt, &c., on light and generally amorous

subjects. Much of his satire was political, and necessarily fleeting.

In "Orson and Ellen" he gives a good description of the landlord of a

village inn and his daughter,

"The landlord had a red round face

Which some folks said in fun

Resembled the Red Lion's phiz,

And some, the rising Sun.

"Large slices from his cheeks and chin

Like beef-steaks one might cut;

And then his paunch, for goodly size

Beat any brewer's butt.

"The landlord was a boozer stout

A snufftaker and smoker;

And 'twixt his eyes a nose did shine

Bright as a red-hot poker.

* * * * *

"Sweet Ellen gave the pot with hands

That might with thousands vie:

Her face like veal, was white and red

And sparkling was her eye.

"Her shape, the poplar's easy form

Her neck the lily's white

Soft heaving, like the summer wave

And lifting rich delight.

"And o'er this neck of globe-like mould

In ringlets waved her hair;

Ah, what sweet contrast for the eye

The jetty and the fair.

"Her lips, like cherries moist with dew

So pretty, plump, and pleasing,

And like the juicy cherry too

Did seem to ask for squeezing.

"Yet what is beauty's use alack!

To market can it go?

Say--will it buy a loin of veal,

Or round of beef? No--no.

"Will butchers say 'Choose what you please

Miss Nancy or Miss Betty?'

Or gardeners, 'Take my beans and peas

Because you are so pretty?'"

He wrote a pleasant satire on the tax upon hair-powder introduced by

Pitt, and the shifts to which poor people would be put to hide their

hair. He seems to have been as inimical as most people to taxation. He

parodies Dryden's "Alexander's Feast:"

"Of taxes now the sweet musician sung

The court and chorus joined

And filled the wondering wind,

And taxes, taxes, through the garden rung.

"Monarch's first of taxes think

Taxes are a monarch's treasure

Sweet the pleasure

Rich the treasure

Monarchs love a guinea clink...."

He was, as we may suppose, averse to making Sunday a severe day. He

wrote a poem against those who wished to introduce a more strict

observance of Sunday, and called it, "The Sorrows of Sunday." He says:

"Heaven glorieth not in phizzes of dismay

Heaven takes no pleasure in perpetual sobbing,

Consenting freely that my favourite day,

May have her tea and rolls, and hob-and-nobbing;

Life with the down of cygnets may be clad

Ah! why not make her path a pleasant track--

No! cries the pulpit Terrorist (how mad)

No! let the world be one huge hedge-hog's back."

He wrote a great variety of gay little sonnets, such as "The Ode to a

Pretty Barmaid:"

"Sweet nymph with teeth of pearl and dimpled chin,

And roses, that would tempt a saint to sin,

Daily to thee so constant I return,

Whose smile improves the coffee's every drop

Gives tenderness to every steak and chop

And bids our pockets at expenses spurn.

"What youth well-powdered, of pomatum smelling

Shall on that lovely bosom fix his dwelling?

Perhaps the waiter, of himself so full!

With thee he means the coffee-house to quit

Open a tavern and become a wit

And proudly keep the head of the Black Bull.

"'Twas here the wits of Anna's Attic age

Together mingled their poetic rage,

Here Prior, Pope, and Addison and Steele,

Here Parnel, Swift, and Bolingbroke and Gay

Poured their keen prose, and turned the merry lay

Gave the fair toast, and made a hearty meal.

"Nymph of the roguish smile, which thousands seek

Give me another, and another steak,

A kingdom for another steak, but given

By thy fair hands, that shame the snow of heaven...."

He seems to have some misgivings about conjugal felicity:--

"An owl fell desperately in love, poor soul,

Sighing and hooting in his lonely hole--

A parrot, the dear object of his wishes

Who in her cage enjoyed the loaves and fishes

In short had all she wanted, meat and drink

Washing and lodging full enough I think."

Poll takes compassion on him and they are duly married--

"A day or two passed amorously sweet

Love, kissing, cooing, billing, all their meat,

At length they both felt hungry--'What's for dinner?

Pray, what have we to eat my dear,' quoth Poll.

'Nothing,' by all my wisdom, answered Owl.

'I never thought of that, as I'm a sinner

But Poll on something I shall put my pats

What sayst thou, deary, to a dish of rats?'

'_Rats_--Mister Owl, d'ye think that I'll eat rats,

Eat them yourself or give them to the cats,'

Whines the poor bride, now bursting into tears:

'Well, Polly, would you rather dine on mouse

I'll catch a few if any in the house;'

'I won't eat rats, I won't eat mice--I won't

Don't tell me of such dirty vermin--don't

O, that within my cage I had but tarried.'

'Polly,' quoth owl, 'I'm sorry I declare

So delicate you relish not our fare

You should have thought of that before you married.'"

"The Ode to the Devil," is in reality a severe satire upon human nature

under an unpleasant form. He says that men accuse the devil of being the

cause of all the misdoings with which they are themselves solely

chargeable, moreover that in truth they are very fond of him, and guilty

of gross ingratitude in calling him bad names:--

"O Satan! whatsoever gear

Thy Proteus form shall choose to wear

Black, red, or blue, or yellow

Whatever hypocrites may say

They think thee (trust my honest lay)

A most bewitching fellow.

* * * * *

"'Tis now full time my ode should end

And now I tell thee like a friend,

Howe'er the world may scout thee

Thy ways are all so wondrous winning

And folks so very fond of sinning

They cannot do without thee."

Sheridan was one of those writers to whose pecuniary distresses we owe

the rich treasure he has bequeathed. His brother and his best friend

confided to him that they were both in love with Miss Linley, a public

singer, and his romantic or comic nature suggested to him that while

they were competing for the prize, he might clandestinely carry it off.

Succeeding in his attempt, he withdrew his wife from her profession, and

was ever afterwards in difficulties. He seems in his comedies to have a

love of sudden strokes and surprises, approaching almost to practical

jokes, and very successful when upon the stage. A screen is thrown down

and Lady Teazle discovered behind it--a sword instead of a trinket drops

out of Captain Absolute's coat--the old duenna puts on her mistress'

dress--all these produce an excellent effect without showing any very

great power of humour. But he was celebrated as a wit in society--was

full of repartee and pleasantry, and we are surprised to find that his

plays only contain a few brilliant passages, and that their tissue is

not more generally shot through with threads of gold.

In comparison with the other dramatists of whom we have spoken, we

observe in Sheridan the work of a more modern age. We have here no

indelicacy or profanity, excepting the occasional oath, then

fashionable; but we meet that satirical play on the manners and

sentiments of men, which distinguishes later humour. In Mrs. Malaprop,

we have some of that confusion of words, which seems to have been

traditional upon the stage. Thus, she says that Captain Absolute is the

very "pine-apple of perfection," and that to think of her daughter's

marrying a penniless man, gives her the "hydrostatics." She does not

wish her to be a "progeny of learning," but she should have a

"supercilious knowledge" of accounts, and be acquainted with the

"contagious countries." There is a satire, which will come home to most

of us in Malaprop, notwithstanding her ignorance and stupidity, giving

her opinion authoritatively on education. She says that Lydia Languish

has been spoiled by reading novels, in which Sir Anthony agrees. "Madam,

a circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical

knowledge! It blossoms through the year, and depend on it, Mrs.

Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long

for the fruit at last." Not only Mrs. Malaprop, but also Sir Anthony,

form an entirely wrong estimate of themselves. The latter tells his son

that he must marry the woman he selects for him, although she have the

"skin of a mummy, and beard of a Jew." On his son objecting, he tells

him not to be angry. "So you will fly out! Can't you be cool like me?

What the devil good can a passion do? Passion is of no service, you

impudent, violent, over-bearing reprobate. There, you sneer again! don't

provoke me!--but you rely on the mildness of my temper, you do, you

dog!"

Sheridan's humour is generally of this strong kind--very suitable for

stage effect, but not exquisite as wit. Hazlitt admits this in very

complimentary terms:--

"His comic muse does not go about prying into obscure corners, or

collecting idle curiosities, but shows her laughing face, and

points to her rich treasure--the follies of mankind. She is

garlanded and crowned with roses and vine leaves. Her eyes sparkle

with delight, and her heart runs over with good-natured malice."

Sheridan often aims at painting his scenes so as to be in antithesis to

ordinary life. In Faulkland we have a lover so morbidly sensitive, that

even every kindness his mistress shows him, gives him the most exquisite

pain. Don Ferdinand is much in the same state. Lydia Languish is so

romantic, that she is about to discard her lover--with whom she intended

to elope--as soon as she hears he is a man of fortune. In Isaac the Jew,

we have a man who thinks he is cheating others, while he is really being

cheated. Sir Peter Teazle's bickering with his wife is well known and

appreciated. The subject is the oldest which has tempted the comic muse,

and still is, unhappily, always fresh. The following extracts are from

"The Duenna"--

Isaac says to Father Paul that "he looks the very priest of Hymen!"

_Paul._ In short I may be called so, for I deal in repentance and

mortification.

_Don Antonio._ But thou hast a good fresh colour in thy face,

father, i' faith!

_Paul._ Yes. I have blushed for mankind till the hue of my shame is

as fixed as their vices.

_Isaac._ Good man!

_Paul._ And I have laboured too, but to what purpose? they continue

to sin under my very nose.

_Isaac._ Efecks, fasher, I should have guessed as much for your

nose seems to be put to the blush more than any other part of your

face.

Don Jerome's song is worthy of Gay:--

"If a daughter you have she's the plague of your life

No peace shall you know though you've buried your wife,

At twenty she mocks at the duty you taught her,

Oh! what a plague is an obstinate daughter!

Sighing and whining,

Dying and pining,

Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!

"When scarce in their teens they have wit to perplex us,

With letters and lovers for ever they vex us:

While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her;

O! what a plague is an obstinate daughter!

Wrangling and jangling,

Flouting and pouting,

Oh, what a plague is an obstinate daughter."

One of Sheridan's strong situations is produced in this play. Don Jerome

gives Isaac a glowing description of his daughter's charms; but when the

latter goes to see her, the Duenna personates her.

_Isaac._ Madam, the greatness of your goodness overpowers me, that

a lady so lovely should deign to turn her beauteous eyes on me, so.

(_He turns and sees her._)

_Duenna._ You seem surprised at my condescension.

_Isaac._ Why yes, madam, I am a little surprised at it. (_Aside_)

This can never be Louisa--She's as old as my mother!...

_Duenna._ Signor, won't you sit?

_Isaac._ Pardon me, Madam, I have scarcely recovered my

astonishment at--your condescension, Madam. (_Aside_) She has the

devil's own dimples to be sure.

_Duenna._ I do not wonder, Sir, that you are surprised at my

affability. I own, Signor, that I was vastly prepossessed against

you, and being teazed by my father, did give some encouragement to

Antonio; but then, Sir, you were described to me as a quite

different person.

_Isaac._ Ay, and so you were to me upon my soul, Madam.

_Duenna._ But when I saw you, I was never more struck in my life.

_Isaac._ That was just my case too, Madam; I was struck all in a

heap for my part.

_Duenna._ Well, Sir, I see our misapprehension has been mutual--you

have expected to find me haughty and averse, and I was taught to

believe you a little black, snub-nosed fellow, without person,

manner, or address.

_Isaac._ Egad, I wish she had answered her picture as well.

After this interview, Don Jerome asks him what he thinks of his

daughter.

_Don Jerome._ Well, my good friend, have you softened her?

_Isaac._ Oh, yes, I have softened her.

_Don J._ Well, and you were astonished at her beauty, hey?

_Isaac._ I was astonished, indeed. Pray how old is Miss?

_Don J._ How old? let me see--twenty.

_Isaac._ Then upon my soul she is the oldest looking girl of her

age in Christendom.

_Don J._ Do you think so? but I believe you will not see a prettier

girl.

_Isaac._ Here and there one.

_Don J._ Louisa has the family face.

_Isaac._ Yes, egad, I should have taken it for a family face, and

one that has been in the family some time too.

_Don J._ She has her father's eyes.

_Isaac._ Truly I should have guessed them to be so. If she had her

mother's spectacles I believe she would not see the worse.

_Don J._ Her aunt Ursula's nose, and her grandmother's forehead to

a hair.

_Isaac._ Ay, faith, and her grandmother's chin to a hair.

Sheridan, as we have observed, was not more remarkable as a dramatist

than as a man of society, and passed for what was called a "wit." The

name had been applied two centuries before to men of talent generally,

especially to writers, but now it referred exclusively to such as were

humorous in conversation. These men, though to a certain extent the

successors of the parasites of Greece, and the fools of the middle ages,

were men of education and independence, if not of good family, and

rather sought popularity than any mercenary remuneration. The majority

of them, however, were gainers by their pleasantry, they rose into a

higher grade of society, were welcome at the tables of the great, and

derived many advantages, not unacceptable to men generally poor and

improvident. As Swift well observed, though not unequal to business,

they were above it. Moreover, the age was one in which society was less

varied than it is now in its elements and interests; when men of talent

were more prominent, and it was easier to command an audience. It was

known to all that Mr. ---- was coming, and guests repaired to the feast,

not to talk, but to listen, as we should now to a public reading. The

greatest joke and treat was to get two of such men, and set them against

each other, when they had to bring out their best steel; although it

sometimes happened, that both refused to fight. We need scarcely say

that the humour which was produced in such quantities to supply

immediate demand was not of the best kind, and that a large part of it

would not have been relished by the fastidious critics of our own day.

But some of these "wits" were highly gifted, they were generally

literary men, and many of their good sayings have survived. The two who

obtained the greatest celebrity in this field, seem to have been

Theodore Hook and Sydney Smith. Selwyn, a precursor of these men, was

so full of banter and impudence that George II. called him "that

rascal George." "What does that mean," said the wit one day,

musingly--"'rascal'? Oh, I forgot, it was an hereditary title of all the

Georges." Perhaps Selwyn might have been called a "wag"--a name given to

men who were more enterprising than successful in their humour, and

which referred originally to mere ludicrous motion.

CHAPTER XI.

Southey--Drolls of Bartholomew Fair--The "Doves"--Typographical

Devices--Puns--Poems of Abel Shufflebottom.

We have already mentioned the name of Southey. By far the greater part

of his works are poetical and sentimental, and hence some doubt has been

thrown upon the authorship of his work called "The Doctor." But in his

minor poems we find him verging into humour, as where he pleads the

cause of the pig and dancing bear, and even of the maggot. The last

named is under the head of "The Filbert," and commences--

"Nay gather not that filbert, Nicholas,

There is a maggot there; it is his house--

His castle--oh! commit not burglary!

Strip him not naked; 'tis his clothes, his shell;

His bones, the case and armour of his life,

And thou shalt do no murder, Nicholas.

It were an easy thing to crack that nut,

Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth;

So easily may all things be destroyed!

But 'tis not in the power of mortal man

To mend the fracture of a filbert shell.

There were two great men once amused themselves

Watching two maggots run their wriggling race,

And wagering on their speed; but, Nick, to us

It were no sport to see the pampered worm

Roll out and then draw in his folds of fat

Like to some barber's leathern powder bag

Wherewith he feathers, frosts or cauliflowers,

Spruce beau, or lady fair, or doctor grave."

Also his Commonplace Book proves that, like many other hardworking men,

he amused his leisure hours with what was light and fantastic. Moreover,

he speaks in some places of the advantage of intermingling amusement and

instruction--

"Even in literature a leafy style, if there be any fruit under the

foliage, is preferable to a knotty one however fine the grain.

Whipt cream is a good thing, and better still when it covers and

adorns that amiable compound of sweetmeats and ratafia cakes soaked

in wine, to which Cowper likened his delightful poem, when he thus

described 'The Task'--

"'It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some

that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I

may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the

better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and

take the opportunity that disguise procures me to drop a word in

favour of religion. In short there is some froth, and here and

there some sweetmeat which seems to entitle it justly to the name

of a certain dish the ladies call a 'trifle.' But in 'task' or

'trifle' unless the ingredients were good the whole were nought.

They who should present to their deceived guests whipt white of egg

would deserve to be whipt themselves."

But Southey by no means follows the profitable rule he here lays down.

On the contrary, he sometimes betrays such a love of the marvellous as

would seem unaccountable, had we not read bygone literature, and

observed how strong the feeling was even as late as the days of the

"Wonderful Magazine." Among his strange fancies we find in the "Chapter

on Kings:"

"There are other monarchies in the inferior world beside that of

the bees, though they have not been registered by naturalists nor

studied by them. For example, the king of the fleas keeps his court

at Tiberias, as Dr. Clark discovered to his cost, and as Mr. Cripps

will testify for him."

He proceeds to give humorous descriptions of the king of monkeys, bears,

codfish, oysters, &c.

Again--

"Would not John Dory's name have died with him, and so been long

ago dead as a door-nail, if a grotesque likeness for him had not

been found in the fish, which being called after him, has

immortalized him and his ugliness? But if John Dory could have

anticipated this sort of immortality when he saw his own face in

the glass, he might very well have 'blushed to find it fame.'"

He is fond of introducing quaint old legends--

"There are certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out of

Adam's side, but that Adam had originally been created with a tail,

and that among the various experiments and improvements which were

made in form and organization before he was finished, the tail was

removed as an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or

superfluous part, which was then lopped off, the woman was formed."

While on this subject he says that Lady Jekyll once asked William Wiston

"Why woman was formed out of man's rib rather than out of any other part

of his body?" Wiston scratched his head and replied, "Indeed, Madam, I

do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked part of the

body."

Southey gives a playbill of the Drolls of Bartholomew Fair in the time

of Queen Anne--

"At Crawley's booth over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield,

during the time of the Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little

opera, called the 'Old Creation of the World,' yet newly revived,

with the addition of 'Noah's Flood.' Also several fountains playing

water during the time of the play. The last scene does represent

Noah and his family coming out of the Ark, with all the beasts two

and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting

upon trees. Likewise over the Ark is seen the sun rising in a most

glorious manner. Moreover, a multitude of angels will be seen in a

double rank, which represents a double prospect, one for the sun,

the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of

bells. Likewise machines descend from above, double and treble,

with Dives rising out of Hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham's bosom;

besides several figures, dancing jigs, sarabands, and country

dances to the admiration of the spectators, with the merry conceits

of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall."

"So recently as the year 1816 the sacrifice of Isaac was

represented on the stage at Paris. Samson was the subject of the

ballet; the unshorn son of Manoah delighted the spectators by

dancing a solo with the gates of Gaza on his back; Delilah clipt

him during the intervals of a jig, and the Philistines surrounded

and captured him in a country-dance."

Sometimes Southey indulges his fancy on very trifling subjects as,

"The Doves, father as well as son, were blest with a hearty

intellectual appetite, and a strong digestion, but the son had the

more Catholic taste. He would have relished caviare, would have

ventured on laver, undeterred by its appearance, and would have

liked it. He would have eaten sausages for breakfast at Norwich,

sally-luns at Bath, sweet butter in Cumberland, orange marmalade at

Edinburgh, Findon haddocks at Aberdeen, and drunk punch with

beef-steaks to oblige the French, if they insisted upon obliging

him with a _déjeuner à l'Anglaise_."

'A good digestion turneth all to health.'

"He would have eaten squab pie in Devonshire, and the pie which is

squabber than squab in Cornwall; sheep's-head with the hair on in

Scotland, and potatoes roasted on the hearth in Ireland, frogs with

the French, pickled-herrings with the Dutch, sour-krout with the

Germans, maccaroni with the Italians, aniseed with the Spaniards,

garlic with anybody, horse-flesh with the Tartars, ass-flesh with

the Persians, dogs with the North-Western American Indians, curry

with the Asiatic East Indians, bird's-nests with the Chinese,

mutton roasted with honey with the Turks, pismire cakes on the

Orinoco, and turtle and venison with the Lord Mayor, and the turtle

and venison he would have preferred to all the other dishes,

because his taste, though Catholic, was not undiscriminating." ...

"At the time of which I am now speaking, Miss Trewbody was a maiden

lady of forty-seven in the highest state of preservation. The whole

business of her life had been to take care of a fine person, and in

this she had succeeded admirably. Her library consisted of two

books; 'Nelson's Festivals and Fasts' was one, the other was the

'Queen's Cabinet Unlocked;' and there was not a cosmetic in the

latter which she had not faithfully prepared. Thus by means, as she

believed, of distilled waters of various kinds, maydew and

buttermilk, her skin retained its beautiful texture still and much

of its smoothness, and she knew at times how to give it the

appearance of that brilliancy which it had lost. But that was a

profound secret. Miss Trewbody, remembering the example of Jezebel,

always felt conscious that she had committed a sin when she took

the rouge-box in her hand, and generally ejaculated in a low voice

'The Lord forgive me!' when she laid it down; but looking in the

glass at the same time she indulged a hope that the nature of the

temptation might be considered an excuse for the transgression. Her

other great business was to observe with the utmost precision all

the punctilios of her situation in life, and the time which was not

devoted to one or other of these worthy occupations was employed in

scolding her servants and tormenting her niece. This kept the lungs

in vigorous health; nay it even seemed to supply the place of

wholesome exercise, and to stimulate the system like a perpetual

blister, with this peculiar advantage, that instead of an

inconvenience it was a pleasure to herself, and all the annoyance

was to her dependents.

"Miss Trewbody lies buried in the Cathedral at Salisbury, where a

monument was erected to her memory, worthy of remembrance itself

for its appropriate inscription and accompaniments. The epitaph

recorded her as a woman eminently pious, virtuous and charitable,

who lived universally respected, and died sincerely lamented by all

who had the happiness of knowing her. This inscription was upon a

marble shield supported by two Cupids, who bent their heads over

the edge with marble tears larger than gray peas, and something of

the same colour, upon their cheeks. These were the only tears that

her death occasioned, and the only Cupids with whom she had ever

any concern."

Southey introduces into this work a variety of extracts from rare and

curious books--stories about Job beating his wife, about surgical

experiments tried upon criminals, about women with horns, and a man who

swallowed a poker, and "looked melancholy afterwards." Well might he

suppose that people would think this farrago a composite production of

many authors, and he says that if it were so he might have given it

instead of the "Doctor" a name to correspond with its heterogeneous

origin, such as--Isdis Roso Heta Harco Samro Grobe Thebo Heneco Thojamma

&c., the words continuing gradually to increase in length till we come

to

Salacoharcojotacoherecosaheco.

After reading such flights as the above, we are surprised to find him

despising the jester's bauble--

"Now then to the gentle reader. The reason why I do not wear cap

and bells is this.

"There are male caps of five kinds, which are worn at present in

this kingdom, to wit, the military cap, the collegiate cap, and the

night-cap. Observe, reader, I said _kinds_, that is to say in

scientific language _genera_--for the _species_ and varieties are

numerous, especially in the former genus.

"I am not a soldier, and having long been weaned from Alma Mater,

of course have left off my college cap. The gentlemen of the hunt

would object to my going out with bells on; it would be likely to

frighten their horses; and were I to attempt it, it might involve

me in unpleasant disputes. To my travelling cap the bells would be

an inconvenient appendage; nor would they be a whit more

comfortable upon my night cap. Besides, my wife might object to

them. It follows that if I would wear a cap and bells, I must have

a cap made on purpose. But this would be rendering myself singular;

and of all things, a wise man will avoid ostentatious appearance of

singularity. Now I am certainly not singular in playing the fool

without one."

There is much in the style of the "Doctor," which reminds us of Sterne.

He was evidently a favourite author with Southey, who speaking of his

Sermons says, "You often see him tottering on the verge of laughter, and

ready to throw his periwig in the face of the audience." Perhaps from

him he acquired his love for tricks of form and typographical surprises.

He introduces what he calls interchapters. "Leap chapters they cannot

properly be called, and if we were to call them 'Ha-has' as being

chapters, which the reader may skip if he likes, the name would appear

rather strange than significant."

He sometimes introduces a chapter without any heading in the following

way--

"Sir," says the Compositor to the Corrector of the Press "there is

no heading for the copy for this chapter. What must I do?"

"Leave a space for it," the Corrector replies. "It is a strange

sort of book, but I dare say the author has a reason for everything

he says or does, and most likely you will find out his meaning as

you set up."

Chapter lxxxviii begins--"While I was writing that last chapter a flea

appeared upon the page before me, as there once did to St. Dominic." He

proceeds to say that his flea was a flea of flea-flesh, but that St.

Dominic's was the devil.

Southey was particularly fond of acoustic humour. He represents

Wilberforce as saying of the unknown author of the Doctor--Pooo-oo-oo-oo-r

cr[=e][=e][=e]a-ture. Perhaps his familiarity with the works of Nash,

Decker, and Rabelais suggested his word coming.

One of the interchapters begins with the word _Aballiboozobanganorribo_.

He questions in the "Poultry Yard" the assertion of Aristotle that it is

an advantage for animals to be domesticated. The statement is regarded

unsatisfactory by the fowl--replies to it being made by Chick-pick,

Hen-pen, Cock-lock, Duck-luck, Turkey-lurkey, and Goosey-loosey.

He occasionally coins words such as Potamology for the study of rivers,

and Chapter cxxxiv is headed--

"A transition, an anecdote, an apostrophe, and a pun, punnet, or

pundigrion."

He proposes in another chapter to make a distinction between masculine

and feminine in several words.

"The troublesome affection of the diaphragm which every person has

experienced is to be called according to the sex of the

patient--He-cups or She-cups--which upon the principle of making

our language truly British is better than the more classical form

of Hiccup and Hoeccups. In the Objective use, the word becomes

Hiscups or Hercups and in like manner Histerrics should be altered

into Herterics--the complaint never being masculine."

The Doctor is rich in variety of verbal humour--

"When a girl is called a lass, who does not perceive how that

common word must have arisen? who does not see that it may be

directly traced to a mournful interjection _Alas!_ breathed

sorrowfully forth at the thought that the girl, the lovely innocent

creature upon whom the beholder has fixed his meditative eye, would

in time become a woman--a woe to man."

Our Doctor flourished in an age when the pages of Magazines, were filled

with voluntary contributions from men who had never aimed at dazzling

the public, but came each with his scrap of information, or his humble

question, or his hard problem, or his attempt in verse--

"A was an antiquary, and wrote articles upon Altars and Abbeys and

Architecture. B made a blunder which C corrected. D demonstrated

that E was in error, and that F was wrong in Philology, and neither

Philosopher nor Physician though he affected to be both. G was a

Genealogist. H was a Herald who helped him. I was an inquisitive

inquirer, who found reason for suspecting J to be a Jesuit. M was a

Mathematician. N noted the weather. O observed the stars. P was a

poet, who produced pastorals, and prayed Mr. Urban to print them. Q

came in the corner of the page with a query. R arrogated to himself

the right of reprehending every one, who differed from him. S

sighed and sued in song. T told an old tale, and when he was wrong

U used to set him right; V was a virtuoso. W warred against

Warburton. X excelled in Algebra. Y yearned for immortality in

rhyme, and Z in his zeal was always in a puzzle."

We have already observed that the pictorial representations of demons,

which were originally intended to terrify, gradually came to be

regarded as ludicrous. There was something decidedly grotesque in the

stories about witches and imps, and Southey, deep in early lore, was

remarkable for developing a branch of humour out of them. In one place

he had a catalogue of devils, whose extraordinary names he wisely

recommends his readers not to attempt to pronounce, "lest they should

loosen their teeth or fracture them in the operation." Comic demonology

may be said to have been out of date soon after time.

Southey is not generally amatory in his humour, and therefore we

appreciate the more the following effusions, which he facetiously

attributes to Abel Shufflebottom. The gentleman obtained Delia's

pocket-handkerchief, and celebrates the acquisition in the following

strain--

"'Tis mine! what accents can my joy declare?

Blest be the pressure of the thronging rout,

Blest be the hand, so hasty, of my fair,

And left the tempting corner hanging out!

"I envy not the joy the pilgrim feels,

After long travel to some distant shrine,

When at the relic of his saint he kneels,

For Delia's pocket-handkerchief is mine.

"When first with filching fingers I drew near,

Keen hope shot tremulous through every vein,

And when the finished deed removed my fear,

Scarce could my bounding heart its joy contain.

"What though the eighth commandment rose to mind,

It only served a moment's qualm to move;

For thefts like this it could not be designed,

The eighth commandment was not made for love.

"Here when she took the macaroons from me,

She wiped her mouth to clear the crumbs so sweet,

Dear napkin! Yes! she wiped her lips in thee,

Lips sweeter than the macaroons she eat.

"And when she took that pinch of Mocabau,

That made my love so delicately sneeze,

Thee to her Roman nose applied I saw,

And thou art doubly dear for things like these.

"No washerwoman's filthy hand shall e'er,

Sweet pocket-handkerchef, thy worth profane,

For thou hast touched the rubies of my fair,

And I will kiss thee o'er and o'er again."

In another Elegy he expatiates on the beauty of Delia's locks;--

"Happy the _friseur_ who in Delia's hair,

With licensed fingers uncontrolled may rove;

And happy in his death the dancing bear,

Who died to make pomatum for my love.

"Fine are my Delia's tresses as the threads

That from the silk-worm, self-interred, proceed,

Fine as the gleamy gossamer that spreads

Its filmy web-work over the tangled mead.

"Yet with these tresses Cupid's power elate

My captive heart hath handcuffed in a chain,

Strong as the cables of some huge first-rate,

That bears Britannia's thunders o'er the main.

"The Sylphs that round her radiant locks repair,

In flowing lustre bathe their brightened wings,

And elfin minstrels with assiduous care,

The ringlets rob for fairy fiddlestrings."

Of course Shufflebottom is tempted to another theft--a rape of the

lock--for which he incurs the fair Delia's condign displeasure--

"She heard the scissors that fair lock divide,

And while my heart with transport panted big,

She cast a fiery frown on me, and cried,

'You stupid puppy--you have spoilt my wig.'"

CHAPTER XII.

Lamb--His Farewell to Tobacco--Pink Hose--On the Melancholy of

Tailors--Roast Pig.

No one ever so finely commingled poetry and humour as Charles Lamb. In

his transparent crystal you are always seeing one colour through

another, and he was conscious of the charm of such combinations, for he

commends Andrew Marvell for such refinement. His early poems printed

with those of Coleridge, his schoolfellow at Christ's Hospital, abounded

with pure and tender sentiment, but never arrested the attention of the

public. We can find in them no promise of the brilliancy for which he

was afterwards so distinguished, except perhaps in his "Farewell to

Tobacco," where for a moment he allowed his Pegasus to take a more

fantastic flight.

"Scent, to match thy rich perfume,

Chemic art did ne'er presume,

Through her quaint alembic strain,

None so sovereign to the brain;

Nature that did in thee excel,

Framed again no second smell,

Roses, violets, but toys

For the smaller sort of boys,

Or for greener damsels meant,

Thou art the only manly scent."

But although forbidden to smoke, he still hopes he may be allowed to

enjoy a little of the delicious fragrance at a respectful distance--

"And a seat too 'mongst the joys

Of the blest Tobacco Boys;

Where though I, by sour physician,

Am debarred the full fruition

Of thy favours, I may catch

Some collateral sweets, and snatch

Sidelong odours that give life-

Like glances from a neighbour's wife,

And still live in thee by places

And the suburbs of thy graces;

And in thy borders take delight,

An unconquered Canaanite."

His early years brought forth another kind of humour which led to his

being appointed jester to the "Morning Post." He was paid at the rate of

sixpence a joke, furnished six a day, and depended upon this

remuneration for his supplementary livelihood--everything beyond mere

bread and cheese. As humour, like wisdom, is found of those who seek her

not, we may suppose the quality of these productions was not very good.

He thus bemoans his irksome task, which he performed generally before

breakfast--

"No Egyptian task-master ever devised a slavery like to that, our

slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out for half the

tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us. Half-a-dozen jests

in a day, (bating Sundays too,) why, it seems nothing! We make

twice the number every day in our lives as a matter of course, and

claim no Sabbatical exemptions. But then they come into our head.

But when the head has to go out to them--when the mountain must go

to Mahomet. Readers, try it for once, only for some short

twelvemonth."

Lamb, however, only obtained this undesirable appointment by a

coincidence he thus relates,--

"A fashion of flesh--or rather pink-coloured hose for the ladies

luckily coming up when we were on our probation for the place of

Chief Jester to Stuart's Paper, established our reputation. We were

pronounced a 'capital hand.' O! the conceits that we varied upon

_red_ in all its prismatic differences!... Then there was the

collateral topic of ankles, what an occasion to a truly chaste

writer like ourself of touching that nice brink and yet never

tumbling over it, of a seemingly ever approximating something 'not

quite proper,' while like a skilful posture master, balancing

between decorums and their opposites, he keeps the line from which

a hair's breadth deviation is destruction.... That conceit arrided

us most at that time, and still tickles our midriff to remember

where allusively to the flight of Astroea we pronounced--in

reference to the stockings still--that 'Modesty, taking her final

leave of mortals, her last blush was visible in her ascent to the

Heavens by the track of the glowing instep.'"

References of a somewhat amatory character often make sayings

acceptable, which for their intrinsic merit would scarcely raise a

smile, and Lamb soon seriously deplored the loss of this serviceable

assistance. He continues:--

"The fashion of jokes, with all other things, passes away as did

the transient mode which had so favoured us. The ankles of our fair

friends in a few weeks began to reassume their whiteness, and left

us scarce a leg to stand upon. Other female whims followed, but

none methought so pregnant, so invitatory of shrewd conceits, and

more than single meanings."

He tells us that Parson Este and Topham brought up the custom of witty

paragraphs first in the "World," a doubtful statement--and that even in

his day the leading papers began to give up employing permanent wits.

Many of our provincial papers still regale us with a column of facetiæ,

but machine-made humour is not now much appreciated. We require

something more natural, and the jests in these papers now consist mostly

of extracts from the works, or anecdotes from the lives of celebrated

men. The pressure thus brought to bear upon Lamb for the production of

jests in a given time led him to indulge in very bad puns, and to try to

justify them as pleasant eccentricities. What can be expected from a man

who tells us that "the worst puns are the best," or who can applaud

Swift for having asked, on accidentally meeting a young student carrying

a hare; "Prithee, friend, is that your own hair or a wig?" He finds the

charm in such hazards in their utter irrelevancy, and truly they can

only be excused as flowing from a wild and unchastened fancy. It must

require great joviality or eccentricity to find any humour in

caricaturing a pun.

Speaking of the prospectus of a certain Burial Society, who promised a

handsome plate with an angel above and a flower below, Lamb

ventures--"Many a poor fellow, I dare swear, has that Angel and Flower

kept from the Angel and Punchbowl, while to provide himself a bier he

has curtailed himself of beer." But to record all Lamb's bad puns would

be a dull and thankless task. We will finish the review of his verbal

humour by quoting a passage out of an indifferent farce he wrote

entitled, "Mr. H----."

(_The hero cannot on account of his patronymic get any girl to

marry him._)

"My plaguy ancestors, if they had left me but a Van, or a Mac, or

an Irish O', it had been something to qualify it--Mynheer Van

Hogsflesh, or Sawney Mac Hogsflesh, or Sir Phelim O'Hogsflesh, but

downright blunt---- If it had been any other name in the world I

could have borne it. If it had been the name of a beast, as Bull,

Fox, Kid, Lamb, Wolf, Lion; or of a bird, as Sparrow, Hawk,

Buzzard, Daw, Finch, Nightingale; or of a fish, as Sprat, Herring,

Salmon; or the name of a thing, as Ginger, Hay, Wood; or of a

colour, as Black, Gray, White, Green; or of a sound, as Bray; or

the name of a month, as March, May; or of a place, as Barnet,

Baldock, Hitchen; or the name of a coin, as Farthing, Penny,

Twopenny; or of a profession, as Butcher, Baker, Carpenter, Piper,

Fisher, Fletcher, Fowler, Glover; or a Jew's name, as Solomons,

Isaacs, Jacobs; or a personal name, as Foot, Leg, Crookshanks,

Heaviside, Sidebottom, Ramsbottom, Winterbottom; or a long name, as

Blanchenhagen or Blanchhausen; or a short name as Crib, Crisp,

Crips, Tag, Trot, Tub, Phips, Padge, Papps, or Prig, or Wig, or

Pip, or Trip; Trip had been something, but Ho--!"

(_Walks about in great agitation; recovering his coolness a little,

sits down._)

These were weaker points in Lamb, but we must also look at the other

side. Those who have read his celebrated essay on Hogarth will find that

he possesses no great appreciation for that humour which is only

intended to raise a laugh, and might conclude that he was more of a

moralist than a humorist. He admires the great artist as an instructor,

but admits that "he owes his immortality to his touches of humour, to

his mingling the comic with the terrible." Those, he continues, are to

be blamed who overlook the moral in his pictures, and are merely taken

with the humour or disgusted by the vulgarity. Moreover, there is a

propriety in the details; he notices the meaning in the tumbledown

houses "the dumb rhetoric," in which "tables, chairs, and joint stools

are living, and significant things." In these passages Lamb seems to

regard the comic merely as a means to an end;--"Who sees not," he asks,

"that the grave-digger in Hamlet, the fool in Lear have a kind of

correspondency to, and fall in with, the subjects which they seem to

interrupt; while the comic stuff in 'Venice Preserved,' and the doggrel

nonsense of the cook and his poisoning associates in the Rollo of

Beaumont and Fletcher are pure irrelevant, impertinent discords--as bad

as the quarreling dog and cat under the table of our Lord and the

Disciples at Emmaus, of Titian."

Lamb's interpretation of Hogarth's works is that of a superior and

thoughtful mind: but we cannot help thinking that the humour in them

was not so entirely subordinate to the moral. One conclusion we may

incidentally deduce from his remarks--that the meaning in pictorial

illustrations, either as regards humour or sentiment, is not so

appreciable as it would be in words, and consequently that caricatures

labour under considerable disadvantages. "Much," he says, "depends upon

the habits of mind we bring with us." And he continues--"It is peculiar

to the confidence of high genius alone to trust much to spectators or

readers," he might have added that in painting, this confidence is often

misplaced, especially as regards the less imaginative part of the

public. We owe him a debt, however, for a true observation with regard

to the general uses of caricatures, that "it prevents that disgust at

common life which an unrestricted passion for ideal forms and beauties

is in danger of producing."

But leaving passages in which Lamb approves of absurd jesting, and those

in which he commends humour for pointing a moral, we come to consider

the largest and most characteristic part of his writings, his pleasant

essays, in which he has neither shown himself a moralist or a

mountebank.

The following is from an Essay "On the Melancholy of Tailors."

"Observe the suspicious gravity of their gait. The peacock is not

more tender, from a consciousness of his peculiar infirmity, than a

gentleman of this profession is of being known by the same

infallible testimonies of his occupation, 'Walk that I may know

thee.'

"Whoever saw the wedding of a tailor announced in the newspapers, or

the birth of his eldest son?

"When was a tailor known to give a dance, or to be himself a good

dancer, or to perform exquisitely upon the tight rope, or to shine

in any such light or airy pastimes? To sing, or play on the violin?

Do they much care for public rejoicings, lightings up, ringing of

bells, firing of cannons, &c.

"Valiant I know they be, but I appeal to those who were witnesses

to the exploits of Eliot's famous troop whether in their fiercest

charges they betrayed anything of that thoughtless oblivion to

death with which a Frenchman jigs into battle, or, whether they did

not show more of the melancholy valour of the Spaniard upon whom

they charged that deliberate courage which contemplation and

sedentary habits breathe."

Lamb accounts for this melancholy of tailors in several ingenious ways.

"May it not be that the custom of wearing apparel, being derived to

us from the fall, and one of the most mortifying products of that

unhappy event, a certain seriousness (to say no more of it) may in

the order of things have been intended to have been impressed upon

the minds of that race of men to whom in all ages the care of

contriving the human apparel has been entrusted."

He makes further comments upon their habits and diet, observing that

both Burton and Galen especially disapprove of cabbage.

In "Roast Pig" we have one of those homely subjects which were congenial

to Lamb.

"There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that of the

crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over roasted crackling--as it is

well called--the very teeth are invited to their share of the

pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy, brittle

resistance--with the adhesive oleaginous--O call it not fat--but

an indefinable sweetness growing up to it--the tender blossoming of

fat--fat cropped in the bud--taken in the shoot in the first

innocence--the cream and quintessence of the child pig's yet pure

food--the lean--no lean, but a kind of animal manna--or rather fat

and lean (if it must be so) so blended and running into each other,

that both together make but one ambrosian result, or common

substance.

"Behold him, while he is doing--it seemeth rather a refreshing

warmth than a scorching heat, that he is passive to. How equably he

twirleth round the string! Now he is just done. To see the extreme

sensibility of that tender age; he hath wept out his pretty

eyes--radiant jellies--shooting stars....

"His sauce should be considered. Decidedly a few bread crumbs done

up with his liver and brains, and a dish of mild sage. But banish,

dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech you the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your

whole hogs to your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out

with plantations of the rank and guilty garlic, you cannot poison

them or make them sharper than they are--but consider he is a

weakling--a flower."

Lamb gives his opinion that you can no more improve sucking pig than you

can refine a violet.

Thus he proceeds along his sparkling road--his humour and poetry

gleaming one through the other, and often leaving us in pleasant

uncertainty whether he is in jest or earnest. Though not gifted with the

strength and suppleness of a great humorist, he had an intermingled

sweetness and brightness beyond even the alchemy of Addison. We regret

to see his old-fashioned figure receding from our view--but he will ever

live in remembrance as the most joyous and affectionate of friends.

CHAPTER VIII.

Byron--Vision of Judgment--Lines to Hodgson--Beppo--Humorous

Rhyming--Profanity of the Age.

Moore considered that the original genius of Byron was for satire, and

he certainly first became known by his "English Bards and Scotch

Reviewers." Nevertheless, his humorous productions are very small

compared with his sentimental. It might perhaps have been expected that

his mind would assume a gloomy and cynical complexion. His personal

infirmity, with which, in his childhood, even his mother was wont to

taunt him, might well have begotten a severity similar to that of Pope.

The pressure of friends and creditors led him, while a mere stripling,

to form an uncongenial alliance with a stern puritan, who, while

enjoying his renown, sought to force his soaring genius into the

trammels of commonplace conventionalities. On his refusing, a clamour

was raised against him, and those who were too dull to criticise his

writings were fully equal to the task of finding fault with his morals.

It may be said that he might have smiled at these attacks, and conscious

of his power, have replied to his social as well as literary critics

"Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye,"

and so he might, had he possessed an imperturbable temper, and been able

to forecast his future fame. But a man's career is not secure until it

is ended, and the throne of the author is often his tomb. Moreover, the

same hot blood which laid him open to his enemies, also rendered him

impatient of rebuke. Coercion roused his spirit of opposition; he fell

to replies and retorts, and to "making sport for the Philistines." He

would show his contempt for his foes by admitting their charges, and

even by making himself more worthy of their vituperation. And so a great

name and genius were tarnished and spotted, and a dark shadow fell upon

his glory. But let us say he never drew the sword without provocation.

In condemning the wholesale onslaught he made in the "Bards and

Reviewers," we must remember that it was a reply to a most unwarrantable

and offensive attack made upon him by the "Edinburgh Review," written as

though the fact of the author being a nobleman had increased the spleen

of the critic. It says:--

"The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither

gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have

seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction

for that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat,

and can no more get above or below the level than if they were so

much stagnant water.... We desire to counsel him that he forthwith

abandon poetry and turn his talents, which are considerable, and

his opportunities, which are great, to better account."[15]

So his profanity in the "Vision of Judgment," was in answer to Southey's

poem of that name, the introduction of which contained strictures

against him. Accused of being Satanic, he replies with some profanity,

and with that humour which he principally shows in such retorts--

"Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate,

His keys wore rusty, and the lock was dull,

So little trouble had been given of late--

Not that the place by any means was full;

But since the Gallic era 'eighty-eight'

The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,

And 'a pull together,' as they say

At sea--which drew most souls another way.

"The angels all were singing out of tune,

And hoarse with having little else to do,

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,

Or curb a runaway young star or two,

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon

Broke out of bounds o'er the ethereal blue,

Splitting some planet with its playful tail

As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale."

The effect of Southey reading _his_ "Vision of Judgment" is thus

given:--

"Those grand heroics acted as a spell,

The angels stopped their ears, and plied their pinions,

The devils ran howling deafened down to hell,

The ghosts fled gibbering, for their own dominions."

His poem on a lady who maligned him to his wife, seems to show that he

did not well distinguish where the humorous ends and the ludicrous

begins. He represents her--

"With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown

A cheek of parchment and an eye of stone,

Mark how the channels of her yellow blood

Ooze at her skin, and stagnate there to mud,

Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,

A darker greenness of the scorpion's scale,

Look on her features! and behold her mind

As in a mirror of itself defined."

No one suffered more than Byron from his humour being misapprehended.

His letters abound with jests and _jeux d'esprit_, which were often

taken seriously as admissions of an immoral character. We gladly turn to

something pleasanter--to some of the few humorous pieces he wrote in a

genial tone--

EPIGRAM.

The world is a bundle of hay

Mankind are the asses who pull

Each tugs in a different way,

The greatest of all is John Bull.

Lines to Mr. Hodgson (afterwards Provost of Eton) written on board the

packet for Lisbon,

Huzza! Hodgson, we are going,

Our embargo's off at last,

Favourable breezes blowing

Bend the canvas o'er the mast,

From aloft the signal's streaming

Hark! the farewell gun is fired,

Women screeching, tars blaspheming,

Tell us that our time's expired.

Here's a rascal

Come to task all,

Prying from the custom house;

Trunks unpacking,

Cases cracking,

Not a corner for a mouse,

'Scapes unsearched amid the racket

Ere we sail on board the packet....

Now our boatmen quit the mooring,

And all hands must ply the oar:

Baggage from the quay is lowering,

We're impatient, push from shore.

"Have a care that case holds liquor--

Stop the boat--I'm sick--oh Lord!"

"Sick, ma'am, d--me, you'll be sicker,

Ere you've been an hour on board."

Thus are screaming

Men and women,

Gemmen, ladies, servants, tacks;

Here entangling,

All are wrangling,

Stuck together close as wax,

Such the general noise and racket

Ere we reach the Lisbon packet.

Fletcher! Murray! Bob! where are you?

Stretched along the deck like logs--

Bear a hand, you jolly tar, you!

Here's a rope's end for the dogs.

Hobhouse muttering fearful curses

As the hatchway down he rolls,

Now his breakfast, now his verses,

Vomits forth and d--ns our souls.

In Beppo there is much gay carnival merriment and some humour--a style

well suited to Italian revelry. When Laura's husband, Beppo, returns,

and is seen in a new guise at a ball, we read--

"He was a Turk the colour of mahogany

And Laura saw him, and at first was glad,

Because the Turks so much admire philogyny,

Although the usage of their wives is sad,

'Tis said they use no better than a dog any

Poor woman, whom they purchase like a pad;

They have a number though they ne'er exhibits 'em,

Four wives by law and concubines 'ad libitum."

On being assured that he is her husband, she exclaims--

"_Beppo._ And are you really truly, now a Turk?

With any other women did you wive?

Is't true they use their fingers for a fork?

Well, that's the prettiest shawl--as I'm alive!

You'll give it me? They say you eat no pork.

And how so many years did you contrive

To--Bless me! did I ever? No, I never

Saw a man grown so yellow! How's your liver?"

More than half the poem is taken up with digressions, more or less

amusing, such as--

"Oh, mirth and innocence! Oh milk and water!

Ye happy mixtures of more happy days!

In these sad centuries of sin and slaughter

Abominable man no more allays

His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter,

I love you both, and both shall have my praise!

Oh, for old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy!

Meantime I drink to your return in brandy."

We may observe that there is humour in the rhymes in the above stanzas.

He often used absurd terminations to his lines as--

"For bating Covent garden, I can hit on

No place that's called Piazza in Great Britain."

People going to Italy, are to take with them--

"Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar and Harvey,

Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye."

We are here reminded of the endings of some of Butler's lines. Such

rhymes were then regarded as poetical, but in our improved taste we only

use them for humour. Lamb considered them to be a kind of punning, but

in one case the same position, in the other the same signification is

given to words of the same sound. The following couplet was written

humorously by Swift for a dog's collar--

"Pray steal me not: I'm Mrs. Dingley's

Whose heart in this four-footed thing lies."

Pope has the well known lines,

"Worth makes the man and want of it the fellow,

And all the rest is leather and prunella."

Miss Sinclair also, in her description of the Queen's visit to Scotland,

has adopted these irregular terminations with good effect--

"Our Queen looks far better in Scotland than England

No sight's been like this since I once saw the King land.

Edina! long thought by her neighbours in London

A poor country cousin by poverty undone;

The tailors with frantic speed, day and night cut on,

While scolded to death if they misplace a button.

And patties and truffles are better for Verrey's aid,

And cream tarts like those which once almost killed Scherezade."

The parallelism of poetry has undergone very many changes, but there has

generally been an inclination to assimilate it to the style of chants or

ballad music. The forms adopted may be regarded as arbitrary--the

rythmical tendency of the mind being largely influenced by established

use and surrounding circumstances. We cannot see any reason why rhymes

should be terminal--they might be at one end of the line as well as at

the other. We might have--

"Early rose of Springs first dawn,

Pearly dewdrops gem thy breast,

Sweetest emblem of our hopes,

Meetest flower for Paradise."

But there are signs that all this pedantry, graceful as it is, will

gradually disappear. Blank verse is beginning to assert its sway, and

the sentiment in poetry is less under the domination of measure. No

doubt the advance to this freer atmosphere will be slow, music has

already adopted a wider harmony. Ballads are being superseded by part

singing, and airs by sonatas. The time will come when to produce a

jingle at the end of lines will seem as absurd as the rude harmonies of

Dryden and Butler now appear to us.

It would not be just to judge of the profanity of Byron by the standard

of the present day. We have seen that two centuries since parodies

which to us would seem distasteful, if not profane, were written and

enjoyed by eminent men. Probably Byron, a man of wide reading had seen

them, and thought that he too might tread on unforbidden ground and

still lay claim to innocence. The periodicals and collections of the

time frequently published objectionable imitations of the language of

Scripture and of the Liturgy, evidently ridiculing the peculiarities

inseparable from an old-fashioned style and translation. In the

"Wonderful Magazine" there was "The Matrimonial Creed," which sets forth

that the wife is to bear rule over the husband, a law which is to be

kept whole on pain of being "scolded everlastingly."

A litany supposed to have been written by a nobleman against Tom Paine,

was in the following style.

THE POOR MAN'S LITANY.

"From four pounds of bread at sixteen-pence price,

And butter at eighteen, though not very nice,

And cheese at a shilling, though gnawed by the mice,

Good Lord deliver us!"

The "Chronicles of the Kings of England," by Nathan Ben Sadi were also

of this kind, parodies on Scripture were used at Elections on both

sides, and one on the Te Deum against Napoleon had been translated into

all the European languages. But a most remarkable trial took place in

the year 1817, that of William Hone for publishing profane parodies

against the Government. From this we might have hoped that a better

taste was at length growing up, but Hone maintained that the prosecution

was undertaken on political grounds, and that had the satires been in

favour of the Government nothing would have been said against them. He

also complained of the profanity of his accuser, the Attorney-General,

who was perpetually "taking the Lord's name in vain" during his speech.

Some parts of Hone's publications seem to have debased the Church

Services by connecting them with what was coarse and low, but the main

object was evidently to ridicule the Regent and his Ministers, and this

view led the jury to acquit him. Still there was no doubt that his

satire reflected in both ways. His Catechism of a Ministerial member

commenced--

_Question._ What is your name?

_Answer._ Lick-spittle.

_Ques._ Who gave you this name?

_Ans._ My Sureties to the Ministry in my political charge, wherein

I was made a member of the majority, the child of corruption, and a

locust to devour the good things of this kingdom.

The supplications in his Litany were of the following kind--

"O Prince! ruler of thy people, have mercy upon us thy miserable

subjects."

Some of Gillray's caricatures would not now be tolerated, such as that

representing Hoche ascending to Heaven surrounded by Seraphim and

Cherubim--grotesque figures with red nightcaps and tri-coloured cockades

having books before them containing the Marseillaise hymn. In another

Pitt was going to heaven in the form of Elijah, and letting his mantle

drop on the King's Ministers.

It must be admitted that there is often a great difficulty in deciding

whether the intention was to ridicule the original writing or the

subject treated in the Parody. A variety of circumstances may tend to

determine the question on one side or the other, but regard should

especially be had as to whether any imperfection in the original is

pointed out. The fault may be only in form, but in the best travesties

the sense and subject are also ridiculed, and with justice.

Such was the aim in the celebrated "Rejected Addresses," and it was well

carried out. This work now exhibits the ephemeral character of humour,

for, the originals having fallen into obscurity, the imitations afford

no amusement. But we can still appreciate a few, especially the two

respectively commencing:--

"My brother Jack was nine in May,

And I was eight on New Year's day;

So in Kate Wilson's shop,

Papa, (he's my papa and Jack's,)

Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,

And brother Jack a top."...

And--