_To be sung by_ MR. JOHNSTONE _in the character of_

LOONEY M'TWOLTER.

I.

"Mr. Jack, your address," says the prompter to me,

So I gave him my card--"No, that a'nt it," says he,

"'Tis your public address." "Oh!" says I, "never fear,

If address you are bother'd for, only look here."

[_Puts on hat affectedly._

Tol de rol lol, &c.

II.

With Drurys for sartain we'll never have done,

We've built up another, and yet there's but one;

The old one was best, yet I'd say, if I durst,

The new one is better--the last is the first.

Tol de rol, &c.

III.

These pillars are called by a Frenchified word,

A something that's jumbled of antique and verd,

The boxes may show us some verdant antiques,

Some bold harridans who beplaster their cheeks.

Tol de rol, &c.

IV.

Only look how high Tragedy, Comedy, stick,

Lest their rivals, the horses, should give them a kick!

If you will not descend when our authors beseech ye,

You'll stop there for life, for I'm sure they can't reach ye.

Tol de rol, &c.

V.

Each one shilling god within reach of a nod is,

And plain are the charms of each gallery goddess,

You, brandy-faced Moll, don't be looking askew,

When I talked of a goddess I didn't mean you.

Tol de rol, &c

VI.

Our stage is so prettily fashion'd for viewing,

The whole house can see what the whole house is doing.

'Tis just like the hustings, we kick up a bother,

But saying is one thing and doing's another.

Tol de rol, &c.

VII.

We've many new houses, and some of them rum ones,

But the newest of all is the new House of Commons,

'Tis a rickety sort of a bantling I'm told,

It will die of old age when it's seven years old.

Tol de rol, &c.

VIII.

As I don't know on whom the election will fall,

I move in return for returning them all;

But for fear Mr. Speaker my meaning should miss,

The house that I wish 'em to sit in is this.

Tol de rol, &c.

IX.

Let us cheer our great Commoner, but for whose aid

We all should have gone with short commons to bed,

And since he has saved all the fat from the fire,

I move that the House be call'd Whitbread's Entire.

Tol de rol, &c.

ARCHITECTURAL ATOMS.

TRANSLATED BY DR. B.

Lege, Dick, Lege!--JOSEPH ANDREWS.

_To be recited by the Translator's Son._

Away, fond dupes! who smit with sacred lore,

Mosaic dreams in Genesis explore,

Dote with Copernicus, or darkling stray

With Newton, Ptolemy, or Tycho Brahe:

To you I sing not, for I sing of truth,

Primæval systems, and creation's youth;

Such as of old, with magic wisdom fraught,

Inspired Lucretius to the Latians taught.

I sing how casual bricks, in airy climb,

Encounter'd casual horse-hair, casual lime;

How rafters borne through wondering clouds elate,

Kiss'd in their slope blue elemental slate,

Clasp'd solid beams in chance-directed fury,

And gave to birth our renovated Drury.

Thee, son of Jove, whose sceptre was confessed,

Where fair OEolia springs from Tethys' breast:

Thence on Olympus 'mid Celestials placed,

God of the winds, and Ether's boundless waste,

Thee I invoke! Oh, _puff_ my bold design,

Prompt the bright thought, and swell the harmonious line;

Uphold my pinions, and my verse inspire

With Winsor's patent gas, or wind of fire,

In whose pure blaze thy embryo form enroll'd,

The dark enlightens, and enchafes the cold.

But while I court thy gifts, be mine to shun

The deprecated prize Ulysses won;

Who sailing homeward from thy breezy shore,

The prison'd winds in skins of parchment bore:--

Speeds the fleet bark, till o'er the billowy green

The azure heights of Ithaca are seen;

But while with favouring gales her way she wins,

His curious comrades ope the mystic skins:

When lo! the rescued winds, with boisterous sweep,

Roar to the clouds, and lash the rocking deep;

Heaves the smote vessel in the howling blast,

Splits the stretch'd sail, and cracks the tottering mast.

Launch'd on a plank, the buoyant hero rides

Where ebon Afric stems the sable tides,

While his duck'd comrades o'er the ocean fly,

And sleep not in the whole skins they untie.

So when to raise the wind some lawyer tries,

Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes.

On speed the smiling suit, "Pleas of our Lord

The King" shine jetty on the wide record:

Nods the prunella'd bar, attornies smile,

And siren jurors flatter to beguile;

Till stript--nonsuited--he is doom'd to toss

In legal shipwreck, and redeemless loss;

Lucky, if, like Ulysses, he can keep

His head above the waters of the deep.

Æolian monarch! Emperor of Puffs!

We modern sailors dread not thy rebuffs;

See to thy golden shore promiscuous come

Quacks for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb;

Fools are their bankers--a prolific line,

And every mortal malady's a mine.

Each sly Sangrado, with his poisonous pill,

Flies to the printer's devil with his bill,

Whose Midas touch can gild his asses' ears,

And load a knave with folly's rich arrears.

And lo! a second miracle is thine,

For sloe-juiced water stands transform'd to wine.

Where Day and Martin's patent blacking roll'd,

Burst from the vase Pactolian streams of gold;

Laugh the sly wizards glorying in their stealth,

Quit the black art, and loll in lazy wealth.

See Britain's Algerines, the Lottery fry,

Win annual tribute by the annual lie.

Aided by thee--but whither do I stray?

Court, city, borough, own thy sovereign sway:

An age of puffs the age of gold succeeds,

And windy bubbles are the spawn it breeds.

If such thy power, O hear the Muse's prayer!

Swell thy loud lungs, and wave thy wings of air;

Spread, viewless giant, all thy arms of mist

Like windmill sails to bring the poet grist;

As erst thy roaring son with eddying gale

Whirl'd Orithyia from her native vale--

So, while Lucretian wonders I rehearse,

Augusta's sons shall patronize my verse.

I sing of Atoms, whose creative brain,

With eddying impulse, built new Drury Lane;

Not to the labours of subservient man,

To no young Wyatt appertains the plan;

We mortals stalk, like horses in a mill,

Impassive media of Atomic will;

Ye stare! then truth's broad talisman discern--

'Tis Demonstration speaks.--Attend and learn!

From floating elements in chaos hurl'd,

Self-form'd of atoms, sprang the infant world.

No great First Cause inspired the happy plot,

But all was matter, and no matter what.

Atoms, attracted by some law occult,

Settling in spheres, the globe was the result;

Pure child of Chance, which still directs the ball,

As rotatory atoms rise or fall.

In ether launch'd, the peopled bubble floats,

A mass of particles and confluent motes,

So nicely pois'd, that if one atom flings

Its weight away, aloft the planet springs,

And wings its course thro' realms of boundless space,

Outstripping comets in eccentric race.

Add but one atom more, it sinks outright

Down to the realms of Tartarus and night.

What waters melt or scorching fires consume,

In different forms their being reassume;

Hence can no change arise, except in name,

For weight and substance ever are the same.

Thus with the flames that from old Drury rise,

Its elements primæval sought the skies,

There, pendulous to wait the happy hour,

When new attractions should restore their power.

So in this procreant theatre elate,

Echoes unborn their future life await;

Here embryo sounds in ether lie conceal'd,

Like words in northern atmosphere congeal'd.

Here many a fœtus laugh and half encore

Clings to the roof, or creeps along the floor.

By puffs concipient some in ether flit,

And soar in bravos from the thundering pit;

Some forth on ticket nights from tradesmen break,

To mar the actor they design to make;

While some this mortal life abortive miss,

Crush'd by a groan, or strangled by a hiss.

So, when "dog's-meat" re-echoes through the streets,

Rush sympathetic dogs from their retreats,

Beam with bright blaze their supplicating eyes,

Sink their hind-legs, ascend their joyful cries;

Each, wild with hope, and maddening to prevail,

Points the pleased ear, and wags the expectant tail.

Ye fallen bricks! in Drury's fire calcined,

Since doom'd to slumber, couch'd upon the wind,

Sweet was the hour, when tempted by your freaks,

Congenial trowels smooth'd your yellow cheeks.

Float dulcet serenades upon the ear,

Bends every atom from its ruddy sphere,

Twinkles each eye, and, peeping from its veil,

Marks in the adverse crowd its destined male.

The oblong beauties clap their hands of grit,

And brick-dust titterings on the breezes flit;

Then down they rush in amatory race,

Their dusty bridegrooms eager to embrace.

Some choose old lovers, some decide for new,

But each, when fix'd, is to her station true.

Thus various bricks are made as tastes invite,

The red, the grey, the dingy, or the white.

Perhaps some half-baked rover, frank and free,

To alien beauty bends the lawless knee,

But of unhallow'd fascinations sick,

Soon quits his Cyprian for his married brick;

The Dido atom calls and scolds in vain,

No crisp Æneas soothes the widow's pain.

So in Cheapside, what time Aurora peeps,

A mingled noise of dustmen, milk, and sweeps,

Falls on the housemaid's ear; amaz'd she stands,

Then opes the door with cinder-sabled hands,

And "matches" calls. The dustman, bubbled flat,

Thinks 'tis for him, and doffs his fan-tail'd hat;

The milkman, whom her second cries assail,

With sudden sink, unyokes the clinking pail;

Now louder grown, by turns she screams and weeps;

Alas! her screaming only brings the sweeps.

Sweeps but put out--she wants to raise a flame,

And calls for matches, but 'tis still the same.

Atoms and housemaids! mark the moral true,

If once ye go astray, no _match_ for you!

As atoms in one mass united mix,

So bricks attraction feel for kindred bricks;

Some in the cellar view, perchance, on high,

Fair chimney chums on beds of mortar lie;

Enamour'd of the sympathetic clod,

Leaps the red bridegroom to the labourer's hod,

And up the ladder bears the workman, taught

To think he bears the bricks--mistaken thought!

A proof behold--if near the top they find

The nymphs or broken corner'd, or unkind,

Back to the bottom leaping with a bound,

They bear their bleeding carriers to the ground.

So legends tell, along the lofty hill

Paced the twin heroes, gallant Jack and Jill;

On trudged the Gemini to reach the rail

That shields the well's top from the expectant pail,

When ah! Jack falls; and, rolling in the rear,

Jill feels the attraction of his kindred sphere;

Head over heels begins his toppling track,

Throws sympathetic somersets with Jack,

And at the mountain's base, bobbs plump against him, whack!

Ye living atoms, who unconscious sit,

Jumbled by chance in gallery, box, and pit,

For you no Peter opes the fabled door,

No churlish Charon plies the shadowy oar;--

Breathe but a space, and Boreas' casual sweep

Shall bear your scatter'd corses o'er the deep,

To gorge the greedy elements, and mix

With water, marl, and clay, and stones and sticks;

While, charged with fancied souls, sticks, stones and clay,

Shall take your seats, and hiss or clap the play.

O happy age! when convert Christians read

No sacred writings but the Pagan creed;

O happy age! when spurning Newton's dreams,

Our poet's sons recite Lucretian themes,

Abjure the idle systems of their youth,

And turn again to atoms and to truth.

O happier still! when England's dauntless dames,

Awed by no chaste alarms, no latent shames,

The bard's fourth book unblushingly peruse,

And learn the rampant lessons of the stews!

All hail, Lucretius, renovated sage!

Unfold the modest mystics of thy page;

Return no more to thy sepulchral shelf,

But live, kind bard,--that I may live myself!

THEATRICAL ALARM BELL.

BY THE EDITOR OF THE M. P.

Bounce, Jupiter, bounce!--O'HARA.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

As it is now the universally-admitted, and indeed

pretty-generally-suspected aim of Mr. Whitbread and the infamous,

bloodthirsty, and, in fact, illiberal faction to which he belongs, to

burn to the ground this free and happy Protestant city, and establish

himself in St. James's Palace, his fellow committee-men have thought

it their duty to watch the principles of a theatre built under his

auspices. The information they have received from undoubted authority,

particularly from an old fruit-woman who had turned king's evidence, and

whose name for obvious reasons we forbear to mention, though we have had

it some weeks in our possession, has induced them to introduce various

reforms: not such reforms as the vile faction clamour for, meaning

thereby revolution, but such reforms as are necessary to preserve the

glorious constitution of the only free, happy, and prosperous country

now left upon the face of the earth. From the valuable and authentic

source above alluded to, we have learnt that a sanguinary plot has

been formed by some united Irishmen, combined with a gang of Luddites,

and a special committee sent over by the Pope at the instigation of

the beastly Corsican fiend, for destroying all the loyal part of

the audience on the anniversary of that deeply-to-be-abhorred and

highly-to-be-blamed stratagem, the gunpowder plot, which falls this year

on Thursday, the 5th of November. The whole is under the direction of

a delegated committee of O.P.'s, whose treasonable exploits at Covent

Garden you all recollect, and all of whom would have been hung from the

chandeliers at that time but for the mistaken lenity of government.

At a given signal a well-known O.P. was to cry out from the gallery,

"Nosey! Music!" whereupon all the O.P.'s were to produce from their

inside pockets a long pair of shears, edged with felt to prevent their

making any noise, manufactured expressly by a wretch at Birmingham,

one of Mr. Brougham's evidences, and now in custody. With these they

were to cut off the heads of all the loyal N.P.'s in the house, without

distinction of sex or age. At the signal, similarly given, of "Throw

him over," which it now appears always alluded to the overthrow of our

never-sufficiently-enough-to-be-deeply-and-universally-to-be-venerated

constitution, all the heads of the N.P.'s were to be thrown at the

fiddlers, to prevent their appearing in evidence, or perhaps as a false

and illiberal insinuation that they have no heads of their own. All that

we know of the further designs of these incendiaries is, that they are

by-a-great-deal-too-much too-horrible-to-be-mentioned.

The manager has acted with his usual promptitude on this trying

occasion. He has contracted for 300 tons of gunpowder, which

are at this moment placed in a small barrel under the pit, and

a descendant of Guy Faux, assisted by Colonel Congreve, has

undertaken to blow up the house, when necessary, in so novel and

ingenious a manner, that every O.P. shall be annihilated, while not

a whisker of the N.P.'s shall be singed. This strikingly displays

the advantages of loyalty and attachment to government. Several

other hints have been taken from the theatrical regulations of the

not-a-bit-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-universally-execrated monster

Bonaparte. A park of artillery, provided with chain-shot, is to be

stationed on the stage, and play upon the audience in case of any

indication of misplaced applause or popular discontent (which accounts

for the large space between the curtain and the lamps); and the public

will participate our satisfaction in learning that the indecorous custom

of standing up with the hat on is to be abolished, as the Bow Street

officers are provided with daggers, and have orders to stab all such

persons to the heart, and send their bodies to Surgeons' Hall; gentlemen

who cough are only to be slightly wounded. Fruit-women bawling "Bill of

the Play" are to be forthwith shot, for which purpose soldiers will be

stationed in the slips, and ball-cartridge is to be served out with the

lemonade. If any of the spectators happen to sneeze or spit they are to

be transported for life, and any person who is so tall as to prevent

another seeing, is to be dragged out and sent on board the tender, or, by

an instrument taken out of the pocket of Procrustes, to be forthwith cut

shorter, either at the head or foot, according as his own convenience may

dictate.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen, have the committee, through my medium,

set forth the not-in-a-hurry-to-be-paralleled plan they have

adopted for preserving order and decorum within the walls of their

magnificent edifice. Nor have they, while attentive to their own

concerns, by any means overlooked those of the cities of London

and Westminster. Finding, on enumeration, that they have with a

with-two-hands-and-one-tongue-to-be-applauded liberality, contracted

for more gunpowder than they want, they have parted with the surplus

to the mattock-carrying and hustings-hammering high bailiff of

Westminster, who has, with his own shovel, dug a large hole in

the front of the parish church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, that,

upon the least symptom of ill-breeding in the mob at the general

election, the whole of the market may be blown into the air. This,

ladies and gentlemen, may at first make provisions _rise_, but

we pledge the credit of our theatre that they will soon _fall_

again, and people be supplied as usual with vegetables in the

in-general-strewed-with-cabbage-stalks-but-on-Saturday-night-lighted-up-

with-lamps market of Covent Garden.

I should expatiate more largely on the other advantages of the glorious

constitution of these by-the-whole-of-Europe-envied realms, but I am

called away to take an account of the ladies, and other artificial

flowers, at a fashionable rout, of which a full and particular account

will hereafter appear. For the present, my fashionable intelligence is

scanty, on account of the opening of Drury Lane; and the ladies and

gentlemen who honour me with their attention, will not be surprised if

they find nothing under my usual head!

THE THEATRE.

BY THE REV. G. C.

Nil intentatum nostri liquôre poetæ,

Nec minimum meruère decus, vestigia Græca

Ausi desesere, et celebrare domestica facta.--HORAT.

A PREFACE OF APOLOGIES.

If the following poem should be fortunate enough to be selected for the

opening Address, a few words of explanation may be deemed necessary, on

my part, to avert invidious misrepresentation. The animadversion I have

thought it right to make on the noise created by tuning the orchestra,

will, I hope, give no lasting remorse to any of the gentlemen employed

in the band. It is to be desired that they would keep their instruments

ready tuned, and strike off at once. This would be an accommodation to

many well-meaning persons who frequent the theatre, who not being blest

with the ear of St. Cecilia, mistake the tuning for the overture, and

think the latter concluded before it is begun.

"one fiddle will

Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still--"

was originally written "one hautboy will," but having providentially

been informed, when this poem was upon the point of being sent off, that

there is but one hautboy in the band, I averted the storm of popular and

managerial indignation from the head of its blower; as it now stands,

"one fiddle" among many, the faulty individual will, I hope, escape

detection. The story of the flying playbill is calculated to expose

a practice, much too common, of pinning playbills to the cushions,

insecurely, and frequently, I fear, not pinning them at all. If these

lines save one playbill only from the fate I have recorded, I shall not

deem my labour ill employed. The concluding episode of Patrick Jennings,

glances at the boorish fashion of wearing the hat in the one-shilling

gallery. Had Jennings thrust his between his feet at the commencement of

the play, he might have leaned forward with impunity, and the catastrophe

I relate would not have occurred. The line of handkerchiefs formed to

enable him to recover his loss, is purposely so crossed in texture and

materials, as to mislead the reader in respect of the real owner of any

one of them. For, in the satirical view of life and manners, which I

occasionally present, my clerical profession has taught me how extremely

improper it would be by any allusion, however slight, to give any

uneasiness, however trivial, to any individual, however foolish or wicked.

G. C.

THE THEATRE.

Interior of a theatre described.--Pit gradually fills.--The

check-taker.--Pit full.--The orchestra tuned.--One fiddle

rather dilatory.--Is reproved--and repents.--Evolutions of a

playbill.--Its final settlement on the spikes.--The gods taken

to task--and why.--Motley group of playgoers.--Holywell Street,

St. Pancras.--Emanuel Jennings binds his son apprentice.--Not in

London--and why.--Episode of the hat.

'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six,

Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,

Touch'd by the lamplighter's Promethean art,

Start into light and make the lighter start;

To see red Phoebus through the gallery pane

Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane,

While gradual parties fill our widen'd pit,

And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit.

At first, while vacant seats give choice and ease,

Distant or near, they settle where they please;

But when the multitude contracts the span,

And seats are rare, they settle where they can.

Now the full benches, to late comers, doom

No room for standing, miscall'd _standing-room_.

Hark! the check-taker moody silence breaks,

And bawling "Pit full," gives the check he takes;

Yet onward still, the gathering numbers cram,

Contending crowders shout the frequent damn,

And all is bustle, squeeze, row, jabbering, jam.

See to their desks Apollo's sons repair;

Swift rides the rosin o'er the horse's hair;

In unison their various tones to tune

Murmurs the hautboy, growls the hoarse bassoon;

In soft vibration sighs the whispering lute,

Tang goes the harpsichord, too-too the flute,

Brays the loud trumpet, squeaks the fiddle sharp,

Winds the French-horn, and twangs the tingling harp;

Till, like great Jove, the leader, figuring in,

Attunes to order the chaotic din.

Now all seems hush'd--but no, one fiddle will

Give, half-ashamed, a tiny flourish still;

Foil'd in his crash, the leader of the clan

Reproves with frowns the dilatory man;

Then on his candlestick thrice taps his bow,

Nods a new signal, and away they go.

Perchance, while pit and gallery cry, "Hats off,"

And awed Consumption checks his chided cough,

Some giggling daughter of the Queen of Love

Drops, reft of pin, her playbill from above;

Like Icarus, while laughing galleries clap,

Soars, ducks, and dives in air the printed scrap;

But, wiser far than he, combustion fears,

And, as it flies, eludes the chandeliers;

Till sinking gradual, with repeated twirl,

It settles, curling, on a fiddler's curl;

Who from his powder'd pate the intruder strikes,

And, for mere malice, sticks it on the spikes.

Say, why these Babel strains from Babel tongues?

Who's that calls "Silence" with such leathern lungs?

He who, in quest of quiet, "silence" hoots,

Is apt to make the hubbub he imputes.

What various swains our motley walls contain!

Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane;

Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,

Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;

From the Haymarket canting rogues in grain,

Culls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane;

The lottery cormorant, the auction shark,

The full-price master, and the half-price clerk;

Boys who long linger at the gallery door,

With pence twice five, they want but twopence more,

Till some Samaritan the twopence spares,

And sends them jumping up the gallery stairs.

Critics we boast who ne'er their malice baulk,

But talk their minds, we wish they'd mind their talk;

Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live,

Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;

Jews from St. Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,

That for old clothes they'd even axe St. Mary;

And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,

Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait,

Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse

With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

Yet here, as elsewhere, chance can joy bestow,

Where scowling fortune seem'd to threaten woe.

John Richard William Alexander Dwyer

Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire;

But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues,

Emanuel Jennings polish'd Stubbs's shoes.

Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy

Up as a corn-cutter, a safe employ;

In Holywell Street, St. Pancras, he was bred

(At number twenty-seven, it is said),

Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head:

He would have bound him to some shop in town,

But with a premium he could not come down;

Pat was the urchin's name, a red-hair'd youth,

Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,

The Muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat,

But, leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat;

Down from the gallery the beaver flew,

And spurn'd the one to settle in the two.

How shall he act? Pay at the gallery door

Two shillings for what cost, when new, but four?

Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,

And gain his hat again at half-past eight?

Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,

John Mullins whispers, "Take my handkerchief."

"Thank you," cries Pat, "but one won't make a line;"

"Take mine," cried Wilson, and cried Stokes, "take mine."

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,

Where Spitalfields with real India vies.

Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted hue,

Starr'd, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,

Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.

George Green below, with palpitating hand,

Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band.

Up soars the prize; the youth, with joy unfeign'd,

Regain'd the felt, and felt what he regain'd,

While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat

Made a low bow, and touch'd the ransom'd hat.

_To the Managing Committee of the New Drury Lane Theatre._

GENTLEMEN,

Happening to be wool-gathering at the foot of Mount Parnassus, I was

suddenly seized with a violent travestie in the head. The first symptoms

I felt were several triple rhymes floating about my brain, accompanied by

a singing in my throat, which quickly communicated itself to the ears of

everybody about me, and made me a burthen to my friends, and a torment

to Doctor Apollo, three of whose favourite servants, that is to say,

Macbeth, his butcher, Mrs. Haller, his cook, and George Barnwell, his

book-keeper, I waylaid in one of my fits of insanity, and mauled after

a very frightful fashion. In this woeful crisis I accidentally heard

of your invaluable New Patent Hissing Pit, which cures every disorder

incident to Grub Street. I send you enclosed a more detailed specimen of

my case; if you could mould it into the shape of an Address to be said

or sung on the first night of your performance, I have no doubt that I

should feel the immediate effects of your invaluable New Patent Hissing

Pit, of which they tell me one hiss is a dose.

I am, &c.

MOMUS MEDLAR.

CASE NO. I.

MACBETH.

_Enter_ MACBETH _in a red nightcap_. PAGE _following with a torch_.

Go, boy, and thy good mistress tell

(She knows that my purpose is cruel),

I'd thank her to tingle her bell,

As soon as she's heated my gruel.

Go, get thee to bed and repose,

To sit up so late is a scandal;

But ere you have ta'en off your clothes,

Be sure that you put out that candle.

Ri fol de rol tol de rol lol.

My stars, in the air here's a knife!

I'm sure it cannot be a hum;

I'll catch at the handle, add's life,

And then I shall not cut my thumb.

I've got him!--no, at him again,

Come, come, I'm not fond of these jokes:

This must be some blade of the brain:

Those witches are given to hoax.

I've one in my pocket, I know,

My wife left on purpose behind her,

She bought this of Teddy-high-ho,

The poor Caledonian grinder.

I see thee again! o'er thy middle

Large drops of red blood now are spill'd,

Just as much as to say diddle diddle,

Good Duncan pray come and be kill'd.

It leads to his chamber, I swear;

I tremble and quake every joint;

No dog at the scent of a hare

Ever yet made a cleverer point.

Ah, no! 'twas a dagger of straw--

Give me blinkers to save me from starting;

The knife that I thought that I saw,

Was nought but my eye, Betty Martin.

Now o'er this terrestrial hive

A life paralytic is spread,

For while the one half is alive,

The other is sleepy and dead.

King Duncan in grand majesty

Has got my state bed for a snooze,

I've lent him my slippers, so I

May certainly stand in his shoes.

Blow softly, ye murmuring gales,

Ye feet rouse no echo in walking,

For though a dead man tells no tales,

Dead walls are much given to talking.

This knife shall be in at the death,

I'll stick him, then off safely get.

Cries the world, this could not be Macbeth,

For he'd ne'er stick at anything yet.

Hark, hark, 'tis the signal by goles,

It sounds like a funeral knell:

O hear it not, Duncan, it tolls

To call thee to heaven or hell.

Or if you to heaven won't fly,

But rather prefer Pluto's ether,

Only wait a few years till I die,

And we'll go to the devil together,

Ri fol de rol, &c.

CASE NO. II.

THE STRANGER.

Who has e'er been at Drury must needs know the Stranger,

A wailing old Methodist, gloomy and wan,

A husband suspicious, his wife acted Ranger,

She took to her heels, and left poor Hypochon.

Her martial gallant swore that truth was a libel,

That marriage was thraldom, elopement no sin;

Quoth she, "I remember the words of my Bible,

My spouse is a Stranger, and I'll take him in."

With my sentimentalibus lachrymæ roar'em,

And pathos and bathos delightful to see;

And chop and change ribs a-la-mode Germanorum,

And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee.

To keep up her dignity, no longer rich enough,

Where was her plate? why 'twas laid on the shelf.

Her land fuller's earth, and her great riches kitchen stuff,

Dressing the dinner instead of herself.

No longer permitted in diamonds to sparkle,

Now plain Mrs. Haller, of servants the dread,

With a heart full of grief and a pan full of charcoal,

She lighted the company up to their bed.

Incensed at her flight, her poor hubby in dudgeon

Roam'd after his rib in a gig and a pout,

Till, tired with his journey, the peevish curmudgeon,

Sat down and blubber'd just like a church spout.

One day on a bench as dejected and sad he laid,

Hearing a squash, he cried, "Hullo, what's that?"

'Twas a child of the Count's, in whose service lived Adelaide,

Soused in the river and squalled like a cat.

Having drawn his young excellence up to the bank, it

Appear'd that himself was all dripping, I swear,

No wonder he soon became dry as a blanket,

Exposed as he was to the Count's _son_ and _heir_.

"Dear sir," quoth the Count, "in reward of your valour,

To show that my gratitude is not mere talk,

You shall eat a beefsteak which my cook, Mrs. Haller,

Cut from the rump with her own knife and fork."

Behold, now the Count gave the Stranger a dinner,

With gunpowder tea, which you know brings a ball,

And, thin as he was, that he might not grow thinner,

He made of the Stranger no stranger at all;

At dinner fair Adelaide brought up a chicken,

A bird that she never had met with before,

But, seeing him, scream'd, and was carried off, kicking,

And he bang'd his nob 'gainst the opposite door.

To finish my tale without roundaboutation,

Young master and missee besieged their papa,

They sung a quartetto in grand blubberation;

The Stranger cried "Oh!" Mrs. Haller cried "Ah!"

Though pathos and sentiment largely are dealt in,

I have no good moral to give in exchange,

For though she as a cook might be given to melting,

The Stranger's behaviour was certainly strange,

With his sentimentalibus lachrymæ roar'em,

And pathos and bathos delightful to see,

And chop and change ribs a-la-mode Germanorum,

And high diddle ho diddle, pop tweedle dee.

CASE NO. III.

GEORGE BARNWELL.

George Barnwell stood at the shop door,

A customer hoping to find, sir;

His apron was hanging before,

But the tail of his coat was behind, sir.

A lady so painted and smart,

Cried, "Sir, I've exhausted my stock o' late,

I've got nothing left but a groat,

Could you give me four penn'orth of chocolate?

Rum ti, &c.

Her face was rouged up to the eyes,

Which made her look prouder and prouder,

His hair stood on end with surprise,

And hers with pomatum and powder.

The business was soon understood;

The lady, who wish'd to be more rich,

Cries, "Sweet sir, my name is Milwood,

And I lodge at the Gunner's, in Shoreditch."

Rum ti, &c.

Now nightly he stole out, good lack,

And into her lodging would pop, sir,

And often forgot to come back,

Leaving master to shut up the shop, sir,

Her beauty his wits did bereave;

Determin'd to be quite the crack O,

He lounged at the Adam and Eve,

And call'd for his gin and tobacco.

Rum ti, &c.

And now (for the truth must be told)

Though none of a 'prentice should speak ill,

He stole from the till all the gold,

And ate the lump sugar and treacle.

In vain did his master exclaim,

"Dear George, don't engage with that Dragon,

She'll lead you to sorrow and shame,

And leave you the devil a rag on

Your Rum ti," &c.

In vain he entreats and implores

The weak and incurable ninny,

So kicks him at last out of doors,

And Georgy soon spends his last guinea.

His uncle, whose generous purse

Had often relieved him, as I know,

Now finding him grow worse and worse,

Refused to come down with the rhino.

Rum ti, &c.

Cried Milwood, whose cruel heart's core,

Was so flinty that nothing could shock it,

"If ye mean to come here any more,

Pray come with more cash in your pocket.

Make nunky surrender his dibs,

Rub his pate with a pair of lead towels,

Or stick a knife into his ribs,

I'll warrant he'll then show some bowels."

Rum ti, &c.

A pistol he got from his love,

'Twas loaded with powder and bullet,

He trudged off to Camberwell Grove,

But wanted the courage to pull it.

"There's nunky as fat as a hog,

While I am as lean as a lizard;

Here's at you! you stingy old dog!"

And he whips a long knife in his gizzard.

Rum ti, &c.

All you who attend to my song,

A terrible end of the farce shall see,

If you join the inquisitive throng

That followed poor George to the Marshalsea.

"If Milwood were here, dash my wigs!"

Quoth he, "I would pummel and lam her well!

Had I stuck to my prunes and my figs,

I ne'er had stuck nunky at Camberwell."

Rum ti, &c.

Their bodies were never cut down,

For granny relates with amazement,

A witch bore 'em over the town

And hung them on Thorowgood's casement.

The neighbours, I've heard the folks say,

The miracle noisily brag on,

And the shop is to this very day,

The sign of the George and the Dragon.

Rum ti, &c.

PUNCH'S APOTHEOSIS.

BY T. H.

Rhymes the rudders are of verses,

With which, like ships, they steer their courses.--HUDIBRAS.

_Scene draws, and discovers_ PUNCH _on a throne surrounded by_

LEAR, LADY MACBETH, MACBETH, OTHELLO, GEORGE BARNWELL, HAMLET,

GHOST, MACHEATH, JULIET, FRIAR, APOTHECARY, ROMEO, _and_

FALSTAFF.--PUNCH _descends, and addresses them in the following_

RECITATIVE.

As manager of horses Mr. Merryman is,

So I with you am master of the ceremonies,--

These grand rejoicings, let me see, how name ye 'em?

Oh, in Greek lingo 'tis E--pi--thalamium.

October's tenth it is, toss up each hat to-day,

And celebrate with shouts our opening Saturday.

On this great night 'tis settled by our manager,

That we, to please great Johnny Bull, should plan a jeer,

Dance a bang-up theatrical cotillon,

And put on tuneful Pegasus a pillion;

That every soul, whether or not a cough he has,

May kick like Harlequin, and sing like Orpheus.

So come, ye pupils of Sir John Gallini,

Spin up a teetotum like Angiollini;

That John and Mrs. Bull from ale and teahouses,

May shout huzza for Punch's Apotheosis!

[_They dance and sing._

AIR--"_Sure such a day._"--TOM THUMB.

_Lear._ Dance, Regan, dance with Cordelia and Goneril,

Down the middle, up again, poussette, and cross;

Stop Cordelia, do not tread upon her heel,

Regan feeds on coltsfoot, and kicks like a horse.

See, she twists her mutton fists like Molyneux or Beelzebub,

And t'other's clack, who pats her back, is louder far than Hell's

hubbub.

They tweak my nose, and round it goes, I fear they'll break the ridge

of it.

Or leave it all just like Vauxhall, with only half the bridge of it.

_Omnes._ Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holiday,

Glory to tomfoolery. Huzza! huzza!

_Lady Macbeth._ I kill'd the King, my husband is a heavy dunce,

He left the grooms unmassacred, then massacred the stud,

One loves long gloves, for mittens, like King's evidence,

Let truth with the fingers out, and won't hide blood.

_Macbeth._ When spooneys on two knees implore the aid of sorcery.

To suit their wicked purposes they quickly put the laws awry,

With Adam I in wife may vie, for none could tell the use of her,

Except to cheapen golden pippins hawk'd about by Lucifer.

_Omnes._ Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holiday,

Glory to tomfoolery. Huzza! huzza!

_Othello._ Wife, come to life, forgive what your black lover did,

Spit the feathers from your mouth and munch roast beef;

Iago he may go and be toss'd in the coverlid,

That smother'd you because you pawn'd my handkerchief.

_Geo. Barnwell._ Why, neger, so eager about your rib immaculate?

Milwood shows for hanging us they've got an ugly knack o' late;

If on beauty stead of duty but one peeper bent he sees,

Satan waits with Dolly baits to hook in us apprentices.

_Omnes._ Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holiday,

Glory to tomfoolery. Huzza! huzza!

_Hamlet._ I'm Hamlet in camlet, my ap and perihelia,

The moon can fix which lunatics makes sharp or flat.

I stuck by ill-luck, enamour'd of Ophelia,

Old Polony like a sausage, and exclaim'd, "Rat! Rat!"

_Ghost._ Let Gertrude sup the poisoned cup, no more I'll be an

actor in

Such sorry food, but drink home-brew'd of Whitbread's manufacturing.

_Macheath._ I'll Polly it, and folly it, and dance it quite the

dandy O,

But as for tunes I have but one, and that is "Drops of Brandy O."

_Omnes._ Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holiday,

Glory to tomfoolery. Huzza! huzza!

_Juliet._ I'm Juliet Capulet, who took a dose of hellebore,

A Hell-of-a-bore I found it to put on a pall.

_Friar._ And I am the friar who so corpulent a belly bore.

_Apothecary._ And that is why poor skinny I have none at all.

_Romeo._ I'm the resurrection man of buried bodies amorous.

_Falstaff._ I'm fagg'd to death, and out of breath, and am for

quiet clamorous,

For though my paunch is round and staunch, I ne'er begin to fill it

ere I

Feel that I have no stomach left for entertainment military.

_Omnes._ Round let us bound, for this is Punch's holiday,

Glory to tomfoolery. Huzza! huzza! [_Exeunt dancing._

ODES AND ADDRESSES TO GREAT PEOPLE.

(1825.)

ODE TO MR. GRAHAM.

THE AERONAUT.

Up with me!--up with me into the sky!--

WORDSWORTH--ON A LARK:

I.

Dear Graham, whilst the busy crowd,

The vain, the wealthy, and the proud,

Their meaner flights pursue,

Let us cast off the foolish ties

That bind us to the earth, and rise

And take a bird's-eye view!

II.

A few more whiffs of my cigar

And then, in Fancy's airy car,

Have with thee for the skies:

How oft this fragrant smoke upcurl'd

Hath borne me from this little world,

And all that in it lies!

III.

Away!--away!--the bubble fills--

Farewell to earth and all its hills!--

We seem to cut the wind!--

So high we mount, so swift we go,

The chimney-tops are far below,

The Eagle's left behind!

IV.

Ah me! my brain begins to swim!--

The world is growing rather dim;

The steeples and the trees--

My wife is getting very small!

I cannot see my babe at all!--

The Dollond, if you please!--

V.

Do, Graham, let me have a quiz,

Lord! what a Lilliput it is,

That little world of Mogg's!--

Are those the London Docks?--that channel,

The mighty Thames?--a proper kennel

For that small Isle of Dogs!

VI.

What is that seeming tea-urn there!

That fairy dome, St. Paul's!--I swear,

Wren must have been a wren!--

And that small stripe?--it cannot be

The City Road!--Good lack? to see

The little ways of men!

VII.

Little, indeed!--my eyeballs ache

To find a turnpike. I must take

Their tolls upon my trust!--

And where is mortal labour gone?

Look, Graham, for a little stone

MacAdamized to dust!

VIII.

Look at the horses!--less than flies!--

Oh, what a waste it was of sighs

To wish to be a Mayor!

What is the honour?--none at all,

One's honour must be very small

For such a civic chair!

IX.

And there's Guildhall!--'tis far aloof--

Methinks, I fancy thro' the roof

Its little guardian Gogs,

Like penny dolls--a tiny show!--

Well,--I must say they're ruled below.

By very little logs!

X.

Oh! Graham, how the upper air

Alters the standards of compare;

One of our silken flags

Would cover London all about--

Nay, then--let's even empty out

Another brace of bags!

XI.

Now for a glass of bright champagne

Above the clouds!--Come, let us drain

A bumper as we go!

But hold!--for God's sake do not cant

The cork away--unless you want

To brain your friends below.

XII.

Think! what a mob of little men

Are crawling just within our ken,

Like mites upon a cheese!

Pshaw!--how the foolish sight rebukes

Ambitious thoughts!--can there be _Dukes_

Of _Gloster_ such as these!

XIII.

Oh! what is glory?--what is fame?

Hark to the little mob's acclaim,

'Tis nothing but a hum!

A few near gnats would trump as loud

As all the shouting of a crowd

That has so far to come!

XIV.

Well--they are wise that choose the near,

A few small buzzards in the ear,

To organs ages hence!--

Ah me, how distance touches all;

It makes the true look rather small,

But murders poor pretence.

XV.

"The world recedes!--it disappears!

Heav'n open on my eyes--my ears

With buzzing noises ring!"

A fig for Southey's Laureate lore!--

What's Rogers here?--who cares for Moore

That hears the angels sing!

XVI.

A fig for earth, and all its minions!--

We are above the world's opinions,

Graham! we'll have our own!--

Look what a vantage height we've got!--

Now----_do_ you think Sir Walter Scott

Is such a Great Unknown?

XVII.

Speak up!--or hath he hid his name

To crawl thro' "subways" into fame,

Like Williams of Cornhill?--

Speak up, my lad!--when men run small

We'll show what's little in them all,

Receive it how they will!

XVIII.

Think now of Irving!--shall he preach

The princes down--shall he impeach

The potent and the rich,

Merely on ethic stilts,--and I

Not moralize at two miles high

The true didactic pitch!

XIX.

Come:--what d'ye think of Jeffrey, sir?

Is Gifford such a Gulliver

In Lilliput's Review,

That like Colossus he should stride

Certain small brazen inches wide

For poets to pass through?

XX.

Look down! the world is but a spot.

Now say--Is Blackwood's _low_ or not,

For all the Scottish tone?

It shall not weigh us here--not where

The sandy burden's lost in air--

Our lading--where is't flown!

XXI.

Now,--like you Croly's verse indeed--

In heaven--where one cannot read

The "Warren" on a wall?

What think you here of that man's fame?

Tho' Jerdan magnified his name,

To me 'tis very small!

XXII.

And, truly, is there such a spell

In those three letters, L. E. L.,

To witch a world with song?

On clouds the Byron did not sit,

Yet dared on Shakespeare's head to spit,

And say the world was wrong!

XXIII.

And shall not we? Let's think aloud!

Thus being couch'd upon a cloud,

Graham, we'll have our eyes!

We felt the great when we were less,

But we'll retort on littleness

Now we are in the skies.

XXIV.

O Graham, Graham, how I blame

The bastard blush,--the petty shame,

That used to fret me quite,--

The little sores I cover'd then,

No sores on earth, nor sorrows when

The world is out of sight!

XXV.

_My_ name is Tims. I am the man

That North's unseen diminish'd clan

So scurvily abused!

I am the very P. A. Z.

The London's Lion's small pin's head

So often hath refused!

XXVI.

Campbell--(you cannot see him here)--

Hath scorn'd my _lays_:--do his appear

Such great eggs from the sky?

And Longman, and his lengthy Co.

Long, only, in a little Row,

Have thrust my poems by!

XXVII.

What else?--I'm poor, and much beset

With petty duns--that is--in debt

Some grains of golden dust!

But only worth, above, is worth.

What's all the credit of the earth?

An inch of cloth on trust!

XXVIII.

What's Rothschild here, that wealthy man!

Nay, worlds of wealth?--Oh, if you can

Spy out,--the _Golden Ball!_

Sure as we rose, all money sank:

What's gold or silver now?--the Bank

Is gone--the 'Change and all!

XXIX.

What's all the ground-rent of the globe?--

Oh, Graham, it would worry Job

To hear its landlords prate!

But after this survey, I think

I'll ne'er be bullied more, nor shrink

From men of large estate!

XXX.

And less, still less, will I submit

To poor mean acres' worth of wit--

I that have Heaven's span--

I that like Shakespeare's self may dream

Beyond the very clouds, and seem

An Universal Man!

XXXI.

Oh, Graham, mark those gorgeous crowds!

Like birds of paradise the clouds

Are winging on the wind!

But what is grander than their range?

More lovely than their sunset change?--

The free creative mind!

XXXII.

Well! the Adults' School's in the air!

The greatest men are lesson'd there

As well as the lessee!

Oh could earth's Ellistons thus small

Behold the greatest stage of all,

How humbled they would be!

XXXIII.

"Oh would some god the giftie gie 'em,

To see themselves as others see 'em,"

'Twould much abate their fuss!

If they could think that from the skies

They are as little in our eyes

As they can think of us!

XXXIV.

Of us! are _we_ gone out of sight?

Lessen'd! diminish'd! vanish'd quite!

Lost to the tiny town!

Beyond the Eagle's ken--the grope

Of Dollond's longest telescope!

Graham! we're going down!

XXXV.

Ah me! I've touch'd a string that opes

The airy valve!--the gas elopes--

Down goes our bright balloon!--

Farewell the skies! the clouds! I smell

The lower world! Graham, farewell,

Man of the silken moon!

XXXVI.

The earth is close! the City nears--

Like a burnt paper it appears,

Studded with tiny sparks!

Methinks I hear the distant rout

Of coaches rumbling all about--

We're close above the Parks!

XXXVII.

I hear the watchmen on their beats,

Hawking the hour about the streets.

Lord! what a cruel jar

It is upon the earth to light!

Well--there's the finish of our flight!

I've smoked my last cigar!

ODE TO MR. M'ADAM.

Let us take to the road!--BEGGAR'S OPERA.

I.

M'adam, hail!

Hail, Roadian! hail, Colossus! who dost stand

Striding ten thousand turnpikes on the land!

Oh, universal Leveller! all hail!

To thee, a good, yet stony-hearted man,

The kindest one, and yet the flintiest going--

To thee--how much for thy commodious plan,

Lanark Reformer of the Ruts, is Owing!

The Bristol mail

Gliding o'er ways, hitherto deem'd invincible,

When carrying patriots now shall never fail

Those of the most "_unshaken_ public principle."

Hail to thee, Scott of Scots!

Thou northern light, amid those heavy men!

Foe to Stonehenge, yet friend to all beside,

Thou scatter'st flints and favours far and wide,

From palaces to cots;

Dispenser of coagulated good!

Distributor of granite and of food!

Long may thy fame its even path march on,

E'en when thy sons are dead!

Best benefactor! though thou giv'st a stone

To those who ask for bread!

II.

Thy first great trial in this mighty town

Was, if I rightly recollect, upon

That gentle hill which goeth

Down from "the County" to the Palace gate,

And, like a river, thanks to thee, now floweth

Past the Old Horticultural Society,--

The chemist Cobb's, the house of Howell and James,

Where ladies play high shawl and satin games--

A little _Hell_ of lace!

And past the Athenæum, made of late,

Severs a sweet variety

Of milliners and booksellers who grace

Waterloo Place,

Making division, the Muse fears and guesses,

'Twixt Mr. Rivington's and Mr. Hessey's.

Thou stood'st thy trial, Mac! and shav'd the road

From Barber Beaumont's to the King's abode

So well, that paviours threw their rammers by,

Let down their tuck'd shirt-sleeves, and with a sigh

Prepar'd themselves, poor souls, to chip or die!

III.

Next, from the palace to the prison, thou

Didst go, the highway's watchman, to thy beat,--

Preventing though the _rattling_ in the street,

Yet kicking up a row,

Upon the stones--ah! truly watchman-like,

Encouraging thy victims all to strike,

To further thy own purpose, Adam, daily;--

Thou hast smooth'd, alas, the path to the Old Bailey!

And to the stony bowers

Of Newgate, to encourage the approach,

By caravan or coach,--

Hast strew'd the way with flints as soft as flowers.

IV.

Who shall dispute thy name!

Insculpt in stone in every street,

We soon shall greet

Thy trodden down, yet all unconquer'd fame!

Where'er we take, even at this time, our way,

Nought see we, but mankind in open air,

Hammering thy fame, as Chantrey would not dare;

And with a patient care,

Chipping thy immortality all day!

Demosthenes, of old,--that rare old man,--

Prophetically, _follow'd_, Mac! thy plan:--

For he, we know

(History says so),

Put _pebbles_ in his mouth when he would speak

The _smoothest_ Greek!

V.

It is "impossible, and cannot be,"

But that thy genius hath,

Beside the turnpike, many another path

Trod, to arrive at popularity.

O'er Pegasus, perchance, thou hast thrown a thigh,

Nor ridden a roadster only;--mighty Mac!

And 'faith I'd swear, when on that winged hack,

Thou hast observ'd the highways in the sky!

Is the path up Parnassus rough and steep,

And "hard to climb," as Dr. B. would say?

Dost think it best for sons of song to keep

The noiseless _tenor_ of their way? (see Gray).

What line of road _should_ poets take to bring

Themselves unto those waters, lov'd the first!--

Those waters which can wet a man to sing!

Which, like thy fame, "from _granite_ basins burst,

Leap into life, and, sparkling, woo the thirst?"

VI.

That thou'rt a proser, even thy birthplace might

Vouchsafe;--and Mr. Cadell _may_, God wot,

Have paid thee many a pound for many a blot,--

Cadell's a wayward wight!

Although no Walter, still thou art a Scot,

And I can throw, I think, a little light

Upon some works thou hast written for the town,--

And publish'd, like a Lilliput Unknown!

"Highways and Byeways" is thy book, no doubt

(One whole edition's out),

And next, for it is fair

That Fame,

Seeing her children, should confess she had 'em;--

"Some _Passages_ from the life of Adam Blair"--

(Blair is a Scottish name),

What are they, but thy own good roads, M'Adam?

VII.

O! indefatigable labourer

In the paths of men! when thou shalt die, 'twill be

A mark of thy surpassing industry,

That of the monument, which men shall rear

Over thy most inestimable bone,

Thou didst thy very self lay the first stone!

Of a right ancient line thou comest,--through

Each crook and turn we trace the unbroken clue,

Until we see thy sire before our eyes,

Rolling his gravel walks in Paradise!

But he, our great Mac Parent, err'd, and ne'er

Have our walks since been fair!

Yet Time, who, like the merchant, lives on 'Change,

For ever varying, through his varying range,

Time maketh all things even!

In this strange world, turning beneath high heaven!

He hath redeem'd the Adams, and contriv'd--

(How are Time's wonders hiv'd!)

In pity to mankind, and to befriend 'em--

(Time is above all praise)

That he, who first did make our evil ways,

Reborn in Scotland, should be first to mend 'em!

ODE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN.

O breathe not his name!--MOORE.

I.

Thou Great Unknown!

I do not mean Eternity nor Death,

That vast incog!

For I suppose thou hast a living breath,

Howbeit we know not from whose lung 'tis blown,

Thou man of fog!

Parent of many children--child of none!

Nobody's son!

Nobody's daughter--but a parent still!

Still but an ostrich parent of a batch

Of orphan eggs,--left to the world to hatch.

Superlative Nil!

A vox and nothing more,--yet not Vauxhall;

A head in papers, yet without a curl!

Not the Invisible Girl!

No hand--but a hand-writing on a wall--

A popular nonentity,

Still call'd the same,--without identity!

A lark, heard out of sight,--

A nothing shin'd upon,--invisibly bright,

"Dark with excess of light!"

Constable's literary John-a-nokes--

The real Scottish wizard--to no which,

Nobody--in a niche;

Every one's hoax!

Maybe Sir Walter Scott--

Perhaps not!

Why dost thou so conceal and puzzle curious folks?

II.

Thou--whom the second-sighted never saw,

The Master Fiction of fictitious history!

Chief Nong tong paw!

No mister in the world--and yet all mystery!

The "tricksy spirit" of a Scotch Cock Lane--

A _novel_ Junius puzzling the world's brain--

A man of magic--yet no talisman!

A man of clair obscure--not him o' the moon!

A star--at noon.

A non-descriptus in a caravan,

A private--of no corps--a northern light

In a dark lantern,--Bogie in a crape--

A figure--but no shape;

A vizor--and no knight;

The real abstract hero of the age;

The staple Stranger of the stage;

A Some One made in every man's presumption,

Frankenstein's monster--but instinct with gumption;

Another strange state captive in the north,

Constable-guarded in an iron mask--

Still let me ask,

Hast thou no silver platter,

No door-plate, or no card--or some such matter,

To scrawl a name upon, and then cast forth?

III.

Thou Scottish Barmecide, feeding the hunger

Of Curiosity with airy gammon?

Thou mystery-monger,

Dealing it out like middle cut of salmon,

That people buy and can't make head or tail of it

(Howbeit that puzzle never hurts the sale of it);

Thou chief of authors mystic and abstractical,

That lay their proper bodies on the shelf--

Keeping thyself so truly to thyself,

Thou Zimmerman made practical!

Thou secret fountain of a Scottish style,

That, like the Nile,

Hideth its source wherever it is bred,

But still keeps disemboguing

(Not disembroguing)

Thro' such broad sandy mouths without a head!

Thou disembodied author--not yet dead,--

The whole world's literary Absentee!

Ah! wherefore hast thou fled,

Thou learned Nemo--wise to a degree,

Anonymous LL.D.!

IV.

Thou nameless captain of the nameless gang

That do--and inquests cannot say who did it!

Wert thou at Mrs. Donatty's death-pang?

Hast thou made gravy of Wear's watch--or hid it?

Hast thou a Blue Beard chamber? Heaven forbid it!

I should be very loth to see thee hang!

I hope thou hast an alibi well plann'd,

An innocent, altho' an ink-black hand.

Tho' thou hast newly turn'd thy private bolt on

The curiosity of all invaders--

I hope thou art merely closeted with Colton,

Who knows a little of the _Holy Land_,

Writing thy next new novel--The Crusaders!

V.

Perhaps thou wert even born

To be unknown. Perhaps hung, some foggy morn,

At Captain Coram's charitable wicket,

Penn'd to a ticket

That Fate had made illegible, foreseeing

The future great unmentionable being.

Perhaps thou hast ridden

A scholar poor on St. Augustine's back,

Like Chatterton, and found a dusty pack

Of Rowley novels in an old chest hidden;

A little hoard of clever simulation,

That took the town--and Constable has bidden

Some hundred pounds for a continuation--

To keep and clothe thee in genteel starvation.

VI.

I liked thy Waverley--first of thy breeding;

I like its modest "sixty years ago,"

As if it was not meant for ages' reading.

I don't like Ivanhoe,

Tho' Dymoke does--it makes him think of clattering

In iron overalls before the king,

Secure from battering, to ladies flattering,

Tuning his challenge to the gauntlets' ring--

Oh better far than all that anvil clang

It was to hear thee touch the famous string

Of Robin Hood's tough bow and make it twang,

Rousing him up, all verdant, with his clan,

Like Sagittarian Pan!

VII.

I like Guy Mannering--but not that sham son

Of Brown. I like that literary Sampson,

Nine-tenths a Dyer, with a smack of Porson.

I like Dirk Hatteraick, that rough sea Orson

That slew the Gauger;

And Dandie Dinmont, like old Ursa Major;

And Merrilies, young Bertram's old defender,

That Scottish Witch of Endor,

That doom'd thy fame. She was the Witch, I take it,

To tell a great man's fortune--or to make it!

VIII.

I like thy Antiquary. With his fit on,

He makes me think of Mr. Britton,

Who has--or had--within his garden wall,

A _miniature Stone Henge_, so very small

The sparrows find it difficult to sit on;

And Dousterswivel, like Poyais' M'Gregor;

And Edie Ochiltree, that old _Blue Beggar_,

Painted so cleverly,

I think thou surely knowest Mrs. Beverly!

I like thy Barber--him that fir'd the _Beacon_--

But that's a tender subject now to speak on!

IX.

I like long-arm'd Rob Roy. His very charms

Fashion'd him for renown! In sad sincerity,

The man that robs or writes must have long arms,

If he's to hand his deeds down to posterity!

Witness Miss Biffin's posthumous prosperity!

Her poor brown crumpled mummy (nothing more)

Bearing the name she bore,

A thing Time's tooth is tempted to destroy!

But Roys can never die--why else, in verity,

Is Paris echoing with "Vive le _Roy!_"

Ay, Rob shall live again, and deathless Di

Vernon, of course, shall often live again--

Whilst there's a stone in Newgate, or a chain,

Who can pass by

Nor feel the Thief's in prison and at hand?

There be Old Bailey Jarveys on the stand!

X.

I like thy Landlord's Tales!--I like that Idol

Of love and Lammermoor--the blue-eyed maid

That led to church the mounted cavalcade,

And then pull'd up with such a bloody bridal!

Throwing equestrian Hymen on his haunches--

I like the family--not silver, branches

That hold the tapers

To light the serious legend of Montrose.

I like M'Aulay's second-sighted vapours,

As if he could not walk or talk alone.

Without the devil--or the Great Unknown--

Dalgetty is the dearest of Ducrows!

XI.

I like St. Leonard's Lily--drench'd with dew!

I like thy Vision of the Covenanters,

That bloody-minded Graham shot and slew.

I like the battle lost and won,

The hurly-burly's bravely done,

The warlike gallops and the warlike _cant_ers!

I like that girded chieftain of the ranters,

Ready to preach down heathens, or to grapple,

With one eye on his sword,

And one upon the Word--

How _he_ would cram the Caledonian Chapel!

I like stern Claverhouse, though he doth dapple

His raven steed with blood of many a corse--

I like dear Mrs. Headrigg, that unravels

Her texts of Scripture on a trotting horse--

She is so like Rae Wilson when he travels!

XII.

I like thy Kenilworth--but I'm not going

To take a Retrospective Re-Review

Of all thy dainty novels--merely showing

The old familiar faces of a few,

The question to renew,

How thou canst leave such deeds without a name,

Forego the unclaim'd dividends of fame,

Forego the smiles of literary houris--

Mid Lothian's trump, and Fife's shrill note of praise,

And all the Carse of Gowrie's,

When thou might'st have thy statue in Cromarty--

Or see thy image on Italian trays,

Betwixt Queen Caroline and Buonaparté,

Be painted by the Titian of R.A.'s,

Or vie in signboards with the Royal Guelph!

Perhaps have thy bust set cheek by jowl with Homer's,

Perhaps send out plaster proxies of thyself

To other Englands with Australian roamers--

Mayhap, in literary Owhyhee

Displace the native wooden gods, or be

The China-Lar of a Canadian shelf!

XIII.

It is not modesty that bids thee hide--

She never wastes her blushes out of sight:

It is not to invite

The world's decision, for thy fame is tried,--

And thy fair deeds are scatter'd far and wide,

Even royal heads are with thy readers reckon'd,--

From men in trencher caps to trencher scholars

In crimson collars,

And learned serjeants in the forty-second!

Whither by land or sea art thou not beckon'd?

Mayhap exported from the Frith of Forth,

Defying distance and its dim control;

Perhaps read about Stromness, and reckon'd worth

A brace of Miltons for capacious soul--

Perhaps studied in the whalers, further north,

And set above ten Shakespeares near the pole!

XIV.

Oh, when thou writest by Aladdin's lamp,

With such a giant genius at command,

For ever at thy stamp,

To fill thy treasury from Fairy Land,

When haply thou might'st ask the pearly hand

Of some great British Vizier's eldest daughter,

Tho' princes sought her,

And lead her in procession hymeneal,

Oh, why dost thou remain a Beau Ideal!

Why stay, a ghost, on the Lethean wharf,

Envelop'd in Scotch mist and gloomy fogs?

Why, but because thou art some puny dwarf,

Some hopeless imp, like Riquet with the Tuft,

Fearing, for all thy wit, to be rebuff'd,

Or bullied by our great reviewing Gogs?

XV.

What in this masquing age

Maketh Unknowns so many and so shy?

What but the critic's page?

One hath a cast, he hides from the world's eye,

Another hath a wen--he won't show where;

A third has sandy hair,

A hunch upon his back, or legs awry,

Things for a vile reviewer to espy!

Another hath a mangel-wurzel nose--

Finally, this is dimpled,

Like a pale crumpet face, or that is pimpled;

Things for a monthly critic to expose--

Nay, what is thy own case--that being small,

Thou choosest to be nobody at all!

XVI.

Well, thou art prudent, with such puny bones--

E'en like Elshender, the mysterious elf,

That shadowy revelation of thyself--

To build thee a small hut of haunted stones--

For certainly the first pernicious man

That ever saw thee, would quickly draw thee

In some vile literary caravan--

Shown for a shilling

Would be thy killing.

Think of Crachami's miserable span!

No tinier frame the tiny spark could dwell in

Than there it fell in--

But when she felt herself a show, she tried

To shrink from the world's eye, poor dwarf! and died!

XVII.

O since it was thy fortune to be born

A dwarf on some Scotch _Inch_, and then to flinch

From all the Gog-like jostle of great men.

Still with thy small crow pen

Amuse and charm thy lonely hours forlorn--

Still Scottish story daintily adorn,

Be still a shade--and when this age is fled,

When we poor sons and daughters of reality

Are in our graves forgotten and quite dead,

And Time destroys our mottoes of morality,

The lithographic hand of Old Mortality

Shall still restore thy emblem on the stone,

A featureless death's head,

And rob Oblivion ev'n of the Unknown!

TO SYLVANUS URBAN, ESQUIRE,

EDITOR OF THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

Dost thou not suspect my years?--

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

I.

Oh! Mr. Urban! never must _thou_ lurch

A sober age made serious drunk by thee;

Hop in thy pleasant way from church to church,

And nurse thy little bald Biography.

II.

Oh, my Sylvanus! what a heart is thine!

And what a page attends thee! Long may I

Hang in demure confusion o'er each line

That asks thy little questions with a sigh!

III.

Old tottering years have nodded to their falls,

Like pensioners that creep about and die;

But thou, Old Parr of periodicals,

Livest in monthly immortality!

IV.

How sweet!--as Byron of _his_ infant said,--

"Knowledge of objects" in thine eye to trace;

To see the mild no-meanings of thy head,

Taking a quiet nap upon thy face!

V.

How dear through thy Obituary to roam,

And not a name of any name to catch!

To meet thy Criticism walking home

Averse from rows, and never calling "Watch!"

VI.

Rich is thy page in soporific things,--

Composing compositions,--lulling men,--

Faded old posies of unburied rings,--

Confessions dozing from an opiate pen:--

VII.

Lives of Right Reverends that have never liv'd,--

Deaths of good people that have really died,--

Parishioners,--hatch'd, husbanded, and wiv'd,--

Bankrupts and Abbots breaking side by side!

VIII.

The sacred query,--the remote response,--

The march of serious mind, extremely slow,--

The graver's cut at some right aged sconce,

Famous for nothing many years ago!

IX.

B. asks of C. if Milton e'er did write

"Comus," obscured beneath some Ludlow lid;--

And C., next month, an answer doth indite,

Informing B. that Mr. Milton did!

X.

X. sends the portrait of a genuine flea,

Caught upon Martin Luther years agone;

And Mr. Parkes, of Shrewsbury, draws a bee,

Long dead, that gather'd honey for King John.

XI.

There is no end of thee,--there is no end,

Sylvanus, of thy A, B, C, D-merits!

Thou dost, with alphabets, old walls attend,

And poke the letters into holes, like ferrets.

XII.

Go on, Sylvanus!--Bear a wary eye,

The churches cannot yet be quite run out!

Some parishes must yet have been pass'd by,--

There's Bullock-Smithy has a church no doubt!

XIII.

Go on--and close the eyes of distant ages!

Nourish the names of the undoubted dead!

So epicures shall pick thy lobster-pages,

Heavy and lively, though but seldom _red_.

XIV.

Go on! and thrive! Demurest of odd fellows!

Bottling up dulness in an ancient binn!

Still live! still prose!--continue still to tell us

Old truths! no strangers, though we take them in!

AN ADDRESS TO THE STEAM WASHING COMPANY.

_Archer._ How many are there, Scrub?

_Scrub._ Five-and-forty, Sir.--BEAUX STRATAGEM.

For shame--let the linen alone!--M. W. OF WINDSOR.

Mr. Scrub--Mr. Slop--or whoever you be!

The Cock of Steam Laundries,--the head Patentee

Of Associate Cleansers,--chief founder and prime

Of the firm for the wholesale distilling of grime--

Co-partners and dealers, in linen's propriety--

That make washing public--and wash in society--

O lend me your ear! if that ear can forego,

For a moment, the music that bubbles below,--

From your new Surrey Geisers[216] all foaming and hot,--

That soft "_simmer's_ sang" so endear'd to the Scot--

If your hands may stand still, or your steam without danger--

If your suds will not cool, and a mere simple stranger,

Both to you and to washing, may put in a rub--

O wipe out your Amazon arms from the tub--

And lend me your ear,--Let me modestly plead

For a race that your labours may soon supersede--

For a race that, now washing no living affords--

Like Grimaldi must leave their aquatic old boards,

Not with pence in their pockets to keep them at ease,

Not with bread in the funds--or investments of cheese--

But to droop like sad willows that liv'd by a stream,

Which the sun has suck'd up into vapour and steam.

Ah, look at the laundress, before you begrudge

Her hard daily bread to that laudable drudge;

When chanticleer singeth his earliest matins,

She slips her amphibious feet in her pattens,

And beginneth her toil while the morn is still grey,

As if she was washing the night into day--

Not with sleeker or rosier fingers Aurora

Beginneth to scatter the dewdrops before her;

Not Venus that rose from the billow so early,

Look'd down on the foam with a forehead more _pearly_[217]--

Her head is involv'd in an aërial mist,

And a bright-beaded bracelet encircles her wrist;

Her visage glows warm with the ardour of duty;

She's Industry's moral--she's all moral beauty!

Growing brighter and brighter at every rub--

Would any man ruin her? No, Mr. Scrub!

No man that is manly would work her mishap--

No man that is manly would covet her cap--

Nor her apron--her hose--nor her gown made of stuff--

Nor her gin, nor her tea, nor her wet pinch of snuff!

Alas! so _she_ thought, but that slippery hope

Has betrayed her, as tho' she had trod on her soap!

And she--whose support, like the fishes that fly,

Was to have her fins wet, must now drop from her sky;

She whose living it was, and a part of her fare,

To be damp'd once a day, like the great white sea bear,

With her hands like a sponge, and her head like a mop--

Quite a living absorbent that revell'd in slop--

She that paddled in water, must walk upon sand,

And sigh for her deeps like a turtle on land!

Lo, then, the poor laundress, all wretched she stands,

Instead of a counterpane, wringing her hands!

All haggard and pinch'd, going down in life's vale,

With no faggot for burning, like Allan-a-dale!

No smoke from her flue--and no steam from her pane,

Where once she watch'd heaven, fearing God and the rain--

Or gaz'd o'er her bleach-field so fairly engross'd,

Till the lines wander'd idle from pillar to post!

Ah, where are the playful young pinners--ah, where

The harlequin quilts that cut capers in air--

The brisk waltzing stockings--the white and the black,

That danc'd on the tight-rope, or swung on the slack--

The light sylph-like garments, so tenderly pinn'd,

That blew into shape, and embodied the wind!

There was white on the grass--there was white on the spray--

Her garden--it look'd like a garden of May!

But now all is dark--not a shirt's on a shrub--

You've ruin'd her prospects in life, Mr. Scrub!

You've ruin'd her custom--now families drop her--

From her silver reduc'd--nay, reduc'd from her _copper_!

The last of her washing is done at her eye,

One poor little 'kerchief that never gets dry!

From mere lack of linen she can't lay a cloth,

And boils neither barley nor alkaline broth;

But her children come round her as victuals grow scant,

And recall, with foul faces, the source of their want--

When she thinks of their poor little mouths to be fed,

And then thinks of her trade that is utterly dead,

And even its pearlashes laid in the grave--

Whilst her tub is a dry rotting, stave after stave,

And the greatest of coopers, ev'n he that they dub

Sir Astley, can't bind up her heart or her tub,--

Need you wonder she curses your bones, Mr. Scrub!

Need you wonder, when steam has depriv'd her of bread,

If she prays that the evil may visit _your_ head--

Nay, scald all the heads of your Washing Committee--

If she wishes you all the soot blacks of the city--

In short, not to mention all plagues without number,

If she wishes you all in the _Wash_ at the Humber!

Ah, perhaps, in some moment of drowth and despair,

When her linen got scarce, and her washing grew rare--

When the sum of her suds might be summ'd in a bowl,

And the rusty cold iron quite enter'd her soul--

When, perhaps, the last glance of her wandering eye

Had caught the "Cock Laundresses' Coach" going by,

Or her lines that hung idle, to waste the fine weather,

And she thought of her wrongs and her rights both together,

In a lather of passion that froth'd as it rose,

Too angry for grammar, too lofty for prose,

On her sheet--if a sheet were still left her--to write,

Some remonstrance like this then, perchance, saw the light--

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 216: Geisers, the boiling springs in Iceland.]

[Footnote 217: Query, _purly_?--Printer's Devil.]

LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE

FROM BRIDGET JONES,

TO THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN FORMING THE WASHING COMMITTEE.

It's a shame, so it is,--men can't Let alone

Jobs as is Woman's right to do--and go about there Own--

Theirs Reforms enuff Alreddy without your new schools

For washing to sit Up,--and push the Old Tubs from their stools!

But your just like the Raddicals,--for upsetting of the Sudds

When the world wagged well enuff--and Wommen washed your old

dirty duds,

I'm Certain sure Enuff your Ann Sisters had no stream Ingins,

that's Flat,--

But I Warrant your Four Fathers went as tidy and gentlemanny for

all that--

I suppose your the Family as lived in the Great Kittle

I see on Clapham Commun, some times a very considerable period back

when I were little,

And they Said it went with Steem,--But that was a joke!

For I never see none come of it,--that's out of it--but only

sum Smoak--

And for All your Power of Horses about your Ingins you never had

but Two

In my time to draw you About to Fairs--and curse you, you know

that's true!

And for All your fine Perspectuses,--howsomever you bewhich 'em,

Theirs as Pretty ones off Primerows Hill, as ever a one at Mitchum,

Thof I cant sea What Prospectives and washing has with one another

to Do--

It aant as if a Bird'seye Hankicher can take a Bird'shigh view!

But Thats your lookout--I've not much to do with that--But pleas God

to hold up fine,

Id show you caps and pinners and small things as lillywhit as Ever

crosst the Line

Without going any Father off then Little Parodies Place,

And Thats more than you Can--and Ill say it behind your face--

But when Folks talks of washing, it ant for you too Speak,--

As kept Dockter Pattyson out of his Shirt for a Weak!

Thinks I, when I heard it--Well thear's a Pretty go!

That comes o' not marking of things, or washing out the marks, and

Huddling 'em up so!

Till Their friends comes and owns them, like drownded corpeses in

a Vault,

But may Hap you havint Larn'd to spel--and that ant your Fault.

Only you ought to leafe the Linnens to them as has larn'd,--

For if it warnt for Washing,--and whare Bills is concarnd

What's the Yuse, of all the world, for a Wommans Edication,

And Their Being maid Schollards of Sundays--fit for any Cityation.

Well, what I says is This--when every Kittle has its spout,

Theirs no nead for Companys to puff steam about!

To be sure its very Well, when Their ant enuff Wind

For blowing up Boats with,--but not to hurt human kind

Like that Pearkins with his Blunderbush, that's loaded with hot

water,

Thof a Sheriff might know Better, than make things for slaughter,

As if War warnt Cruel enuff--wherever it befalls,

Without shooting poor sogers, with sich scalding hot washing balls,--

But thats not so Bad as a Sett of Bear Faced Scrubbs

As joins their Sopes together, and sits up Stream rubbing Clubs,

For washing Dirt Cheap,--and eating other Peple's grubs!

Which is all verry Fine for you and your Patent Tea,

But I wonders How Poor Wommen is to get Their Bo-He!

They must drink Hunt wash (the only wash God nose there will be!)

And their Little drop of Somethings as they takes for their Goods,

When you and your Steam has ruined (G--d] forgive mee!) their lively

Hoods,

Poor Women as was born to Washing in their youth!

And now must go and Larn other Buisnesses Four Sooth!

But if so be They leave their Lines what are they to go at--

They won't do for Angell's--nor any Trade like That,

Nor we cant Sow Babby Work,--for that's all Bespoke,--

For the Queakers in Bridle! and a vast of the confind Folk

Do their own of Themselves--even the bettermost of em--aye, and even

them of middling degrees--

Why God help you Babby Linen ant Bread and Cheese!

Nor we can't go a hammering the roads into Dust,

But we must all go and be Bankers,--and that's what we must!

God nose you oght to have more Concern for our Sects,

When you nose you have suck'd us and hanged round our Mutherly necks,

And remembers what you Owes to Wommen Besides washing--

You ant, curse you, like Men to go a slushing and sloshing

In mob caps, and pattins, adoing of Females Labers

And prettily jear'd At you great Horse God Meril things, ant you now

by you next door neighbours--

Lawk I thinks I see you with your Sleaves tuckt up

No more like Washing than is drownding of a Pupp--

And for all Your Fine Water Works going round and round

They'll scruntch your Bones some day--I'll be bound

And no more nor be a gudgement,--for it cant come to good

To sit up agin Providince, which your a doing,--nor not fit It should,

For man warnt maid for Wommens starvation,

Nor to do away Laundrisses as is Links of Creation--

And can't be dun without in any Country But a Hottinpot Nation.

Ah, I wish our Minister would take one of your Tubbs

And preach a Sermon in it, and give you some good rubs--

But I warrants you reads (for you cant spel we nose) nayther Bybills

or Good Tracks,

Or youd know better than Taking the Close off one's Backs--

And let your neighbours oxin and Asses alone,--

And every Thing thats hern,--and give every one their Hone!

Well, its God for us All, and every Washer Wommen for herself,

And so you might, without shoving any on us off the shelf,

But if you warnt Noddis youd Let wommen abe

And pull off Your Pattins,--and leave the washing to we

That nose what's what--Or mark what I say,

Youl make a fine Kittle of fish of Your Close some Day--

When the Aulder men wants Their Bibs and their ant nun at all,

And Crist mass cum--and never a Cloth to lay in Gild Hall,

Or send a damp shirt to his Woship the Mare

Till hes rumatiz Poor Man, and cant set uprite in his Chare--

Besides Miss-Matching Larned Ladys Hose, as is sent for you not to

wash (for you dont wash) but to stew

And make Peples Stockins yeller as oght to be Blew

With a vast more like That,--and all along of Steam

Which warnt meand by Nater for any sich skeam--

But thats your Losses and youl have to make It Good,

And I cant say I'm Sorry afore God if you shoud,

For men mought Get their Bread a great many ways

Without taking ourn,--aye, and Moor to your Prays

If You Was even to Turn Dust Men a dry sifting Dirt,

But you oughtint to Hurt Them as never Did You no Hurt!

Yourn with Anymocity,

BRIDGET JONES.

ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQUIRE,

THE GREAT LESSEE!

_Rover._ Do you know, you villain, that I am this moment the

greatest man living?--WILD OATS.

I.

Oh! Great Lessee! Great Manager! Great Man!

Oh, Lord High Elliston! Immortal Pan

Of all the pipes that play in Drury Lane!

Macready's master! Westminster's high _Dane_!

As Galway Martin, in the House's walls,

Hamlet and Doctor Ireland justly calls!

Friend to the sweet and ever-smiling Spring!

Magician of the lamp and prompter's ring!

Drury's Aladdin! Whipper-in of Actors,

Kicker of rebel-preface-malefactors!

Glass-blowers' corrector! King of the cheque-taker!

At once Great Leamington and Winston-Maker!

Dramatic Bolter of plain Bunns and cakes!

In silken _hose_ the most reform'd of _Rakes_!

Oh, Lord High Elliston! lend me an ear!

(Poole is away, and Williams shall keep clear)

While I, in little slips of prose, not verse,

Thy splendid course, as pattern-work, rehearse!

II.

Bright was thy youth--thy manhood brighter still--

The greatest Romeo upon Holborn Hill--

Lightest comedian of the pleasant day,

When Jordan threw her sunshine o'er a play!

But these, though happy, were but subject times,

And no man cares for bottom-steps that climbs--

Far from my wish it is to stifle down

The hours that saw thee snatch the Surrey crown!

Tho' now thy hand a mightier sceptre wields,

Fair was thy reign in sweet St. George's Fields.

Dibdin was _Premier_--and a golden _age_

For a short time enrich'd the subject stage.

Thou hadst, than other Kings, more peace-and-plenty;

Ours but one Bench could boast, but thou hadst twenty;

But the times changed--and Booth-acting no more

Drew Rulers' shillings to the gallery door.

Thou didst, with bag and baggage, wander thence,

Repentant, like thy neighbour Magdalens!

III.

Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat

Practis'd, the most bewitching in Wych Street.

Charles had his royal ribaldry restor'd,

And in a downright neighbourhood drank and whor'd;

Rochester there in dirty ways again

Revell'd--and liv'd once more in Drury Lane:

But thou, R. W.! kept thy moral ways,

Pit-lecturing 'twixt the farces and the plays,

A lamplight Irving to the butcher boys

That soil'd the benches and that made a noise:--

"YOU,--in the back!--can scarcely hear a line!

Down from those benches--butchers--they are MINE!"

IV.

Lastly--and thou wert built for it by nature!--

Crown'd was thy head in Drury Lane Th_ea_tre!

Gentle George Robins saw that it was good,

And renters cluck'd around thee in a brood.

King thou wert made of Drury and of Kean!

Of many a lady and of many a Quean!

With Poole and Larpent was thy reign begun--

But now thou turnest from the Dead and Dun,

Hook's in thine eye, to write thy plays, no doubt,

And Colman lives to cut the damnlet's out!

Oh, worthy of the house! the King's commission!

Isn't thy condition "a most bless'd condition?"

Thou reignest over Winston, Kean, and all

The very lofty and the very small--

Showest the plumbless Bunn the way to kick--

Keepest a Williams for thy veriest stick--

Seest a Vestris in her sweetest moments,

Without the danger of newspaper comments--

Tellest Macready, as none dared before,

Thine open mind from the half-open door!--

(Alas! I fear he has left Melpomene's crown,

To be a Boniface in Buxton town!)--

Thou hold'st the watch, as half-price people know,

And callest to them, to a moment, "Go!"

Teachest the sapient Sapio how to sing--

Hangest a cat most oddly by the wing--

Hast known the length of a Cubitt-foot--and kiss'd

The pearly whiteness of a Stephens' wrist--

Kissing and pitying--tender and humane!

"By heaven she loves me! Oh, it is too plain!"

A sigh like this thy trembling passion slips,

Dimpling the warm Madeira at thy lips!

V.

Go on, Lessee! Go on, and prosper well!

Fear not, though forty glass-blowers should rebel--

Show them how thou hast long befriended them,

And teach Dubois _their_ treason to condemn!

Go on! addressing pits in prose and worse!

Be long, be slow, be anything but terse--

Kiss to the gallery the hand that's glov'd--

Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Belov'd,

Go on--and but in this reverse the thing,

Walk backward with wax lights before the King--

Go on! Spring ever in thine eye! Go on!

Hope's favourite child! ethereal Elliston!

ODE TO RICHARD MARTIN, ESQUIRE,

M.P. FOR GALWAY.

I.

How many sing of wars,

Of Greek and Trojan jars--

The butcheries of men!

The Muse hath a "Perpetual Ruby Pen!"

Dabbling with heroes and the blood they spill;

But no one sings the man

That, like a pelican,

Nourishes Pity with his tender _Bill_!

II.

Thou Wilberforce of hacks!

Of whites as well as blacks,

Piebald and dapple gray,

Chestnut and bay--

No poet's eulogy thy name adorns!

But oxen, from the fens,

Sheep--in their pens,

Praise thee, and red cows with their winding horns!

Thou art sung on brutal pipes!

Drovers may curse thee,

Knackers asperse thee,

And sly M.P.'s bestow their cruel wipes;

But the old horse neighs thee,

And zebras praise thee,

Asses, I mean--that have as many stripes!

III.

Hast thou not taught the drover to forbear,

In Smithfield's muddy, murderous, vile environ,--

Staying his lifted bludgeon in the air!

Bullocks don't wear

_Oxide_ of iron!

The cruel Jarvy thou hast summon'd oft,

Enforcing mercy on the coarse Yahoo,

That thought his horse the _courser_ of the two--

Whilst Swift smiled down aloft!--

O worthy pair! for this, when ye inhabit

Bodies of birds--(if so the spirit shifts

From flesh to feather)--when the clown uplifts

His hand against the sparrow's nest, to _grab_ it,--

He shall not harm the MARTINS and the _Swifts_!

IV.

Ah! when Dean Swift was _quick_, how he enhanc'd

The horse!--and humbled biped man like Plato!

But now he's dead, the charger is mischanc'd--

Gone backward in the world--and not advanc'd,--

Remember Cato!

Swift was the horse's champion--not the King's,

Whom Southey sings,

Mounted on Pegasus--would he were thrown!

He'll wear that ancient hackney to the bone,

Like a mere clothes-horse airing royal things!

Ah well-a-day! the ancients did not use

Their steeds so cruelly!--let it debar men

From wanton rowelling and whip's abuse--

Look at the ancients' _Muse_!

Look at their _Carmen_!

V.

O, Martin! how thine eye--

That one would think had put aside its lashes,--

That can't bear gashes

Thro' any horse's side, must ache to spy

That horrid window fronting Fetter Lane,--

For there's a nag the crows have pick'd for victual,

Or some man painted in a bloody vein--

Gods! is there no _Horse-spital_!

That such raw shows must sicken the humane!

Sure Mr. Whittle

Loves thee but little,

To let that poor horse linger in his _pane_!

VI.

O build a Brookes's Theatre for horses!

O wipe away the national reproach--

And find a decent Vulture for their corses!

And in thy funeral track

Four sorry steeds shall follow in each coach!

Steeds that confess "the luxury of _wo_!"

True mourning steeds, in no extempore black,

And many a wretched hack

Shall sorrow for thee,--sore with kick and blow

And bloody gash--it is the Indian knack--

(Save that the savage is his own tormentor)--

Banting shall weep too in his sable scarf--

The biped woe the quadruped shall enter,

And Man and Horse go half and half,

As if their grief's met in a common _Centaur_!

ODE TO W. KITCHENER, M.D.

_Author of the Cook's Oracle--Observations on Vocal Music--the Art of

Invigorating and Prolonging Life--Practical Observations on Telescopes,

Opera Glasses, and Spectacles--the Housekeeper's Ledger--and the Pleasure

of Making a Will._

I rule the roast, as Milton says!--CALEB QUOTEM.

I.

Hail! multifarious man!

Thou Wondrous, Admirable Kitchen Crichton!

Born to enlighten

The laws of optics, peptics, music, cooking--

Master of the piano--and the pan--

As busy with the kitchen as the skies!

Now looking

At some rich stew thro' Galileo's eyes,

Or boiling eggs--timed to a metronome--

As much at home

In spectacles as in mere isinglass--

In the art of frying brown--as a digression

On music and poetical expression,--

Whereas, how few of all our cooks, alas!

Could tell Calliope from "Calliopee!"

How few there be

Could leave the lowest for the highest stories,

(Observatories,)

And turn, like thee, Diana's calculator,

However _cook's_ synonymous with _Kater_![218]

Alas! still let me say,

How few could lay

The carving-knife beside the tuning-fork,

Like the proverbial _Jack_ ready for any work!

II.

Oh, to behold thy features in thy book!

Thy proper head and shoulders in a plate,

How it would look!

With one rais'd eye watching the dial's date,

And one upon the roast, gently cast down--

Thy chops--done nicely brown--

The garnish'd brow--with "a few leaves of bay"--

The hair--"done Wiggy's way!"

And still one studious finger near thy brains,

As if thou wert just come

From editing some

New soup--or hashing Dibdin's cold remains!

Or, Orpheus-like--fresh from thy dying strains

Of music--Epping luxuries of sound,

As Milton says, "in many a bout

Of linked sweetness long drawn out,"

Whilst all thy tame stuff'd leopards listen'd round!

III.

Oh, rather thy whole proper length reveal,

Standing like Fortune,--on the jack--thy wheel.

(Thou art, like Fortune, full of chops and changes,

Thou hast a fillet too before thine eye!)

Scanning our kitchen, and our vocal ranges,

As tho' it were the same to sing or fry--

Nay, so it is--hear how Miss Paton's throat

Makes "fritters" of a note!

And is not reading near akin to feeding,

Or why should Oxford sausages be fit

Receptacles for wit?

Or why should Cambridge put its little, smart,

Minc'd brains into a tart?

Nay, then, thou wert but wise to frame receipts,

Book-treats,

Equally to instruct the cook and cram her--

Receipts to be devour'd, as well as read,

The culinary art in gingerbread--

The Kitchen's _Eaten_ Grammar!

IV.

Oh, very pleasant is thy motley page--

Ay, very pleasant in its chatty vein--

So--in a kitchen--would have talk'd Montaigne,

That merry Gascon--humorist, and sage!

Let slender minds with single themes engage,

Like Mr. Bowles with his eternal Pope,--

Or Lovelass upon Wills,--thou goest on

Plaiting ten topics, like Tate Wilkinson!

Thy brain is like a rich kaleidoscope,

Stuff'd with a brilliant medley of odd bits,

And ever shifting on from change to change,

Saucepans--old songs--pills--spectacles--and spits!

Thy range is wider than a Rumford range!

Thy grasp a miracle!--till I recall

Th' indubitable cause of thy variety--

Thou art, of course, th' epitome of all

That spying--frying--singing--mix'd Society

Of Scientific Friends, who used to meet

Welsh Rabbits--and thyself--in Warren Street!

V.

Oh, hast thou still those conversazioni,

Where learned visitors discoursed--and fed?

There came Belzoni,

Fresh from the ashes of Egyptian dead--

And gentle Poki--and that royal pair,

Of whom thou didst declare--

"Thanks to the greatest _Cooke_ we ever read--

They were--what _Sandwiches_ should be--half _bred_!"

There fam'd M'Adam from his manual toil

Relax'd--and freely own'd he took thy hints

On "making _broth_ with _flints_"--

There Parry came, and show'd the polar oil

For melted butter--Coombe with his medullary

Notions about the _scullery_,

And Mr. Poole, too partial to a broil--

There witty Rogers came, that punning elf!

Who used to swear thy book

Would really look

A _Delphic_ "Oracle," if laid on _Delf_--

There, once a month, came Campbell and discuss'd

His own--and thy own--"_Magazine_ of _Taste_"--

There Wilberforce the Just

Came, in his old black suit, till once he trac'd

Thy sly advice to _poachers_ of black folks,

That "do not break their _yolks_,"--

Which huff'd him home, in grave disgust and haste!

VI.

There came John Clare, the poet, nor forbore

Thy _patties_--thou wert hand-and-glove with Moore,

Who call'd thee _Kitchen Addison_--for why?

Thou givest rules for health and peptic pills,

Forms for made dishes, and receipts for wills,

"_Teaching us how to live and how to die!_"

There came thy cousin-cook, good Mrs. Fry--

There Trench, the Thames projector, first brought on

His sine _Quay_ non,--

There Martin would drop in on Monday eves,

Or Fridays, from the pens, and raise his breath

'Gainst cattle days and death,--

Answer'd by Mellish, feeder of fat beeves,

Who swore that Frenchmen never could be eager

For fighting on soup meagre--

"And yet (as thou wouldst add) the French have seen

A Marshal _Tureen_!"

VII.

Great was thy evening cluster!--often grac'd

With Dollond--Burgess--and Sir Humphry Davy!

'Twas there M'Dermot first inclin'd to taste,--

There Colburn learn'd the art of making paste

For puffs--and Accum analysed a gravy.

Colman, the cutter of Colman Street, 'tis said

Came there, and Parkins with his Ex-wise-head,

(His claim to letters)--Kater, too, the Moon's

Crony,--and Graham, lofty on balloons,

There Croly stalk'd with holy humour heated,

(Who wrote a light-horse play, which Yates completed),

And Lady Morgan, that grinding organ,

And Brasbridge telling anecdotes of spoons,

Madame Valbrèque thrice honour'd thee, and came

With great Rossini, his own bow and fiddle,--

And even Irving spar'd a night from fame,

And talk'd--till thou didst stop him in the middle,

To serve round _Tewah-diddle_![219]

VIII.

Then all the guests rose up, and sighed good-bye!

So let them:--thou thyself art still a _Host_!

Dibdin--Cornaro--Newton--Mrs. Fry!

Mrs. Glasse--Mr. Spec!--Lovelass--and Weber,

Mathews in Quotem--Moore's fire-worshipping Gheber--

Thrice-worthy worthy! seem by thee engross'd!

Howbeit the peptic cook still rules the roast,

Potent to hush all ventriloquial snarling,--

And ease the bosom pangs of indigestion!

Thou art, sans question,

The Corporation's love--its Doctor _Darling_!

Look at the civic palate--nay, the bed

Which set dear Mrs. Opie on supplying

"Illustrations of _Lying!"_

Ninety square feet of down from heel to head

It measured, and I dread

Was haunted by a terrible night _Mare_,

A monstrous burthen on the corporation!--

Look at the bill of fare, for one day's share,

Sea-turtles by the score--oxen by droves,

Geese, turkeys, by the flock--fishes and loaves

Countless, as when the Lilliputian nation

Was making up the huge man-mountain's ration!

IX.

Oh! worthy Doctor! surely thou hast driven

The squatting demon from great Garratt's breast--

(His honour seems to rest!--)

And what is thy reward?--Hath London given

Thee public thanks for thy important service?

Alas! not even

The tokens it bestow'd on Howe and Jervis!--

Yet could I speak as orators should speak

Before the worshipful the Common Council

(Utter my bold bad grammar and pronounce ill),

Thou shouldst not miss thy freedom, for a week,

Richly engross'd on vellum:--Reason urges

That he who rules our cookery--that he

Who edits soups and gravies, ought to be

A _Citizen_, where sauce can make a _Burgess_!

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 218: Captain Kater, the Moon's Surveyor.]

[Footnote 219: The Doctor's composition for a _nightcap_.]

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| |

| Transcriber Notes: |

| |

| P.5: 'INTRODUTION' changed to 'INTRODUCTION'. |

| P.83. 'beesech' changed to 'beseech'. |

| P.103. 'quetions' changed to 'questions'. |

| P.111. 'Futnre' changed to 'future'. |

| P.145. 'acqaintance' changed to 'acquaintance'. |

| P.187. 'Queeen' changed to 'Queen'. |

| P.188. '-cophronio' changed to '-cophornio |

| P.281. 'surpise' changed to 'surprise'. |

| Fixed various punctuation. |

| The equals sign is used to surround =bold text=; |

| underscores to surround _italic text_. |

| |

+--------------------------------------------------------------+