Is hardly safe to step out of doors!
Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt,
But as quiet as if he was ‘shod with felt,’
Till he rushes against you with all his force,
And then I needn’t describe the course,
While he kicks you about without remorse,
How awkward it is to be groom’d by a horse!
Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear,
And you never dream that the brute is near,
Till he pokes his horn right into your ear,
Whether you like the thing or lump it,--
And all for want of buying a trumpet!
“I’m not a female to fret and vex,
But if I belonged to the sensitive sex,
Exposed to all sorts of indelicate sounds,
I wouldn’t be deaf for a thousand pounds.
Lord! only think of chucking a copper
To Jack or Bob with a timber limb,
Who looks as if he was singing a hymn,
Instead of a song that’s very improper!
Or just suppose in a public place
You see a great fellow a-pulling a face,
With his staring eyes and his mouth like an O,--
And how is a poor deaf lady to know,--
The lower orders are up to such games--
If he’s calling ‘Green Peas,’ or calling her names?”
(“They’re tenpence a peck!” said the deafest of Dames.)
“’Tis strange what very strong advising,
By word of mouth, or advertising,
By chalking on walls, or placarding on vans,
With fifty other different plans,
The very high pressure, in fact, of pressing,
It needs to persuade one to purchase a blessing!
Whether the Soothing American Syrup,
A Safety Hat or a Safety Stirrup,--
Infallible Pills for the human frame,
Or Rowland’s O-don’t-o (an ominous name)!
A Doudney’s suit which the shape so hits
That it beats all others into _fits_;
A Mechi’s razor for beards unshorn,
Or a Ghost-of-a-Whisper-Catching Horn!
“Try it again, Ma’am, only try!”
Was still the voluble Pedlar’s cry;
“It’s a great privation, there’s no dispute,
To live like the dumb unsociable brute,
And to hear no more of the _pro_ and _con_,
And how Society’s going on,
Than Mumbo Jumbo or Prester John,
And all for want of this _sine quâ non_;
Whereas, with a horn that never offends,
You may join the genteelest party that is,
And enjoy all the scandal, and gossip, and quiz,
And be certain to hear of your absent friends;--
Not that elegant ladies, in fact,
In genteel society ever detract,
Or lend a brush when a friend is black’d,--
At least as a mere malicious act,--
But only talk scandal for fear some fool
Should think they were bred at _charity_ school.
Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation,
Which even the most Don Juanish rake
Would surely object to undertake
At the same high pitch as an altercation.
It’s not for me, of course, to judge
How much a Deaf Lady ought to begrudge;
But half-a-guinea seems no great matter--
Letting alone more rational patter--
Only to hear a parrot chatter:
Not to mention that feather’d wit,
The Starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit;
The Pies and Jays that utter words,
And other Dicky Gossips of birds,
That talk with as much good sense and decorum,
As many _Beaks_ who belong to the quorum.
“‘Try it--buy it--say ten and six,
The lowest price a miser could fix:
I don’t pretend with horns of mine,
Like some in the advertising line,
To ‘_magnify sounds_’ on such marvellous scales
That the sounds of a cod seem as big as a whale’s;
But popular rumours, right or wrong,--
Charity sermons, short or long,--
Lecture, speech, concerto, or song,
All noises and voices, feeble or strong,
From the hum of a gnat to the clash of a gong,
This tube will deliver distinct and clear;
Or, supposing by chance
You wish to dance,
Why, it’s putting a _Horn-pipe_ into your ear!
Try it--buy it!
Buy it--try it!
The last New Patent, and nothing comes nigh it,
For guiding sounds to their proper tunnel:
Only try till the end of June,
And if you and the Trumpet are out of tune
I’ll turn it gratis into a funnel!”
In short, the pedlar so beset her,--
Lord Bacon couldn’t have gammon’d her better,--
With flatteries plump and indirect,
And plied his tongue with such effect,--
A tongue that could almost have butter’d a crumpet,--
The deaf old woman bought the Trumpet.
* * * * *
* * * * *
The pedlar was gone. With the horn’s assistance,
She heard his steps die away in the distance;
And then she heard the tick of the clock,
The purring of puss and the snoring of Shock;
And she purposely dropp’d a pin that was little,
And heard it fall as plain as a skittle!
’Twas a wonderful horn, to be but just!
Nor meant to gather dust, must and rust;
So in half a jiffy, or less than that,
In her scarlet cloak and her steeple-hat,
Like old Dame Trot, but without her cat,
The gossip was hunting all Tringham through,
As if she meant to canvass the borough,
Trumpet in hand, or up to the cavity;--
And, sure, had the horn been one of those
The wild Rhinoceros wears on his nose,
It couldn’t have ripp’d up more depravity!
Depravity! mercy shield her ears!
’Twas plain enough that her village peers
In the ways of vice were no raw beginners;
For whenever she raised the tube to her drum
Such sounds were transmitted as only come
From the very Brass Band of human sinners!
Ribald jest and blasphemous curse
(Bunyan never vented worse),
With all those weeds, not flowers, of speech
Which the Seven Dialecticians teach;
Filthy Conjunctions, and Dissolute Nouns,
And Particles pick’d from the kennels of towns,
With Irregular Verbs for irregular jobs,
Chiefly active in rows and mobs,
Picking possessive Pronouns’ fobs,
And Interjections as bad as a blight,
Or an Eastern blast, to the blood and the sight;
Fanciful phrases for crime and sin,
And smacking of vulgar lips where Gin,
Garlic, Tobacco, and offals go in--
A jargon so truly adapted, in fact,
To each thievish, obscene, and ferocious act,
So fit for the brute with the human shape,
Savage Baboon, or libidinous Ape,
From their ugly mouths it will certainly come
Should they ever get weary of shamming dumb!
Alas! for the Voice of Virtue and Truth,
And the sweet little innocent prattle of Youth!
The smallest urchin whose tongue could tang,
Shock’d the Dame with a volley of slang,
Fit for Fagin’s juvenile gang;
While the charity chap,
With his muffin cap,
His crimson coat, and his badge so garish,
Playing at dumps, or pitch in the hole,
Cursed his eyes, limbs, body and soul,
As if they didn’t belong to the Parish!
’Twas awful to hear, as she went along,
The wicked words of the popular song;
Or supposing she listen’d--as gossips will--
At a door ajar, or a window agape,
To catch the sounds they allow’d to escape,
Those sounds belong’d to Depravity still!
The dark allusion, or bolder brag
Of the dexterous “dodge,” and the lots of “swag,”
The plunder’d house--or the stolen nag--
The blazing rick, or the darker crime,
That quench’d the spark before its time--
The wanton speech of the wife immoral--
The noise of drunken or deadly quarrel,
With savage menace, which threaten’d the life,
Till the heart seem’d merely a strop “for the knife;”
The human liver, no better than that,
Which is sliced and thrown to an old woman’s cat;
And the head, so useful for shaking and nodding,
To be punch’d into holes, like “a shocking bad hat,”
That is only fit to be punch’d into wadding!
In short, wherever she turn’d the horn,
To the highly bred, or the lowly born,
The working man, who look’d over the hedge,
Or the mother nursing her infant pledge,
The sober Quaker, averse to quarrels,
Or the Governess pacing the village through,
With her twelve Young Ladies, two and two,
Looking, as such young ladies do,
Truss’d by Decorum and stuff’d with morals--
Whether she listen’d to Hob or Bob,
Nob or Snob,
The Squire on his cob,
Or Trudge and his ass at a tinkering job,
To the “Saint” who expounded at “Little Zion”--
Or the “Sinner” who kept “the Golden Lion”--
The man teetotally wean’d from liquor--
The Beadle, the Clerk, or the Reverend Vicar--
Nay, the very Pie in its cage of wicker--
She gather’d such meanings, double or single,
That like the bell,
With muffins to sell,
Her ear was kept in a constant tingle!
But this was nought to the tales of shame,
The constant runnings of evil fame,
Foul, and dirty, and black as ink,
That her ancient cronies, with nod and wink,
Pour’d in her horn like slops in a sink:
While sitting in conclave, as gossips do,
With their Hyson or Howqua, black or green,
And not a little of feline spleen
Lapp’d up in “Catty packages,” too,
To give a zest to the sipping and supping;
For still by some invisible tether,
Scandal and Tea are link’d together,
As surely as Scarification and Cupping;
Yet never since Scandal drank Bohea--
Or sloe, or whatever it happen’d to be,
For some grocerly thieves
Turn over new leaves,
Without much amending their lives or their tea--
No, never since cup was fill’d or stirr’d
Were such wild and horrible anecdotes heard,
As blacken’d their neighbours of either gender,
Especially that, which is called the Tender,
But, instead of the softness we fancy therewith,
Was harden’d in vice as the vice of a smith.
Women! the wretches! had soil’d and marr’d
Whatever to womanly nature belongs;
For the marriage tie they had no regard,
Nay, sped their mates to the sexton’s yard,
(Like Madame Laffarge, who with poisonous pinches
Kept cutting off her L by inches)--
And as for drinking, they drank so hard
That they drank their flat-irons, pokers, and tongs!
The men--they fought and gambled at fairs;
And poach’d--and didn’t respect grey hairs--
Stole linen, money, plate, poultry, and corses;
And broke in houses as well as horses;
Unfolded folds to kill their own mutton,--
And would their own mothers and wives for a button;
But not to repeat the deeds they did,
Backsliding in spite of all moral skid,
If all were true that fell from the tongue,
There was not a villager, old or young,
But deserved to be whipp’d, imprison’d, or hung,
Or sent on those travels which nobody hurries,
To publish at Colburn’s, or Longman’s, or Murray’s.
Meanwhile the Trumpet, _con amore_,
Transmitted each vile diabolical story;
And gave the least whisper of slips and falls,
As that Gallery does in the Dome of St. Paul’s,
Which, as all the world knows, by practice or print,
Is famous for making the most of a hint.
Not a murmur of shame,
Or buzz of blame,
Not a flying report that flew at a name,
Not a plausible gloss, or significant note,
Not a word in the scandalous circles afloat,
Of a beam in the eye, or diminutive note,
But vortex-like that tube of tin
Suck’d the censorious particle in;
And, truth to tell, for as willing an organ
As ever listen’d to serpent’s hiss,
Nor took the viperous sound amiss,
On the snaky head of an ancient Gorgon!
The Dame, it is true, would mutter “shocking!”
And give her head a sorrowful rocking,
And make a clucking with palate and tongue,
Like the call of Partlett to gather her young,
A sound, when human, that always proclaims
At least a thousand pities and shames;
But still the darker the tale of sin,
Like certain folks, when calamities burst,
Who find a comfort in “hearing the worst,”
The farther she poked the Trumpet in.
Nay, worse, whatever she heard, she spread
East and West, and North and South,
Like the ball which, according to Captain Z.,
Went in at his ear, and came out at his mouth.
What wonder between the Horn and the Dame,
Such mischief was made wherever they came,
That the parish of Tringham was all in a flame!
For although it required such loud discharges,
Such peals of thunder as rumbled at Lear,
To turn the smallest of table-beer,
A little whisper breathed into the ear
Will sour a temper “as sour as varges.”
In fact such very ill blood there grew,
From this private circulation of stories,
That the nearest neighbours the village through,
Look’d at each other as yellow and blue,
As any electioneering crew
Wearing the colours of Whigs and Tories.
Ah! well the Poet said, in sooth,
That “whispering tongues can poison Truth,”--
Yea, like a dose of oxalic acid,
Wrench and convulse poor Peace, the placid,
And rack dear Love with internal fuel,
Like arsenic pastry, or what is as cruel,
Sugar of lead, that sweetens gruel,--
At least such torments began to ring ’em
From the very morn
When that mischievous Horn
Caught the whisper of tongues in Tringham.
The Social Clubs dissolved in huffs,
And the Sons of Harmony came to cuffs,
While feuds arose and family quarrels,
That discomposed the mechanics of morals,
For screws were loose between brother and brother,
While sisters fasten’d their nails on each other;
Such wrangles, and jangles, and miff, and tiff,
And spar, and jar--and breezes as stiff
As ever upset a friendship--or skiff!
The plighted lovers, who used to walk,
Refused to meet, and declined to talk;
And wish’d for _two_ moons to reflect the sun,
That they mightn’t look together on one;
While wedded affection ran so low,
That the oldest John Anderson snubbed his Jo--
And instead of the toddle adown the hill,
Hand in hand,
As the song has plann’d,
Scratch’d her, penniless, out of his will!
In short, to describe what came to pass
In a true, though somewhat theatrical way,
Instead of “Love in a Village”--alas!
The piece they perform’d was “The Devil to Pay!”
However, as secrets are brought to light,
And mischief comes home like chickens at night;
And rivers are track’d throughout their course,
And forgeries traced to their proper source;--
And the sow that ought
By the ear is caught,--
And the sin to the sinful door is brought;
And the cat at last escapes from the bag--
And the saddle is placed on the proper nag--
And the fog blows off, and the key is found--
And the faulty scent is pick’d out by the hound--
And the fact turns up like a worm from the ground--
And the matter gets wind to waft it about;
And a hint goes abroad, and the murder is out--
And the riddle is guess’d--and the puzzle is known--
So the truth was sniff’d, and the Trumpet was _blown_!
* * * * *
’Tis a day in November--a day of fog--
But the Tringham people are all agog;
Fathers, Mothers, and Mothers’ Sons,--
With sticks, and staves, and swords, and guns,--
As if in pursuit of a rabid dog;
But their voices--raised to the highest pitch--
Declare that the game is “a Witch!--a Witch!”
Over the Green, and along by The George--
Past the Stocks, and the Church, and the Forge,
And round the Pound, and skirting the Pond,
Till they come to the whitewash’d cottage beyond,
And there at the door they muster and cluster,
And thump, and kick, and bellow, and bluster--
Enough to put Old Nick in a fluster!
A noise, indeed, so loud and long,
And mix’d with expressions so very strong,
That supposing, according to popular fame,
“Wise Woman” and Witch to be the same,
No hag with a broom would unwisely stop,
But up and away through the chimney-top;
Whereas, the moment they burst the door,
Planted fast on her sanded floor,
With her Trumpet up to her organ of hearing,
Lo and behold! Dame Eleanor Spearing!
Oh! then arises the fearful shout--
Bawl’d and scream’d, and bandied about--
“Seize her!--Drag the old Jezebel out!”
While the Beadle--the foremost of all the band,
Snatches the Horn from her trembling hand--
And after a pause of doubt and fear,
Puts it up to his sharpest ear.
“Now silence--silence--one and all!”
For the Clerk is quoting from Holy Paul!
But before he rehearses
A couple of verses,
The Beadle lets the Trumpet fall:
For instead of the words so pious and humble,
He hears a supernatural grumble.
Enough, enough! and more than enough;--
Twenty impatient hands and rough,
By arm, and leg, and neck, and scruff,
Apron, ‘kerchief, gown of stuff--
Cap, and pinner, sleeve, and cuff--
Are clutching the Witch wherever they can,
With the spite of Woman and fury of Man;
And then--but first they kill her cat,
And murder her dog on the very mat--
And crush the infernal Trumpet flat;--
And then they hurry her through the door
She never, never will enter more!
Away! away! down the dusty lane
They pull her, and haul her, with might and main;
And happy the hawbuck, Tom or Harry,
Dandy, or Sandy, Jerry, or Larry,
Who happens to get “a leg to carry!”
And happy the foot that can give her a kick,
And happy the hand that can find a brick--
And happy the fingers that hold a stick--
Knife to cut, or pin to prick--
And happy the Boy who can lend her a lick;--
Nay, happy the urchin--Charity-bred,
Who can shy very nigh to her wicked old head!
Alas! to think how people’s creeds
Are contradicted by people’s deeds!
But though the wishes that Witches utter
Can play the most diabolical rigs--
Send styes in the eye--and measle the pigs--
Grease horses’ heels--and spoil the butter;
Smut and mildew the corn on the stalk--
And turn new milk to water and chalk,--
Blight apples--and give the chickens the pip--
And cramp the stomach--and cripple the hip--
And waste the body--and addle the eggs--
And give a baby bandy legs;
Though in common belief a Witch’s curse
Involves all these horrible things, and worse--
As ignorant bumpkins all profess,
No bumpkin makes a poke the less
At the back or ribs of old Eleanor S.!
As if she were only a sack of barley!
Or gives her credit for greater might
Than the Powers of Darkness confer at night
On that other old woman, the parish Charley!
Ay, now’s the time for a Witch to call
On her Imps and Sucklings one and all--
Newes, Pyewacket, or Peck in the Crown,
(As Matthew Hopkins has handed them down)
Dick, and Willet, and Sugar-and-Sack,
Greedy Grizel, Jarmara the Black,
Vinegar Tom, and the rest of the pack--
Ay, now’s the nick for her friend Old Harry
To come “with his tail” like the bold Glengarry,
And drive her foes from their savage job
As a mad Black Bullock would scatter a mob:--
But no such matter is down in the bond;
And spite of her cries that never cease,
But scare the ducks and astonish the geese,
The Dame is dragg’d to the fatal pond!
And now they come to the water’s brim--
And in they bundle her--sink or swim;
Though it’s twenty to one that the wretch must drown,
With twenty sticks to hold her down;
Including the help to the self-same end,
Which a travelling Pedlar stops to lend.
A Pedlar!--Yes!--The same!--the same!
Who sold the Horn to the drowning Dame!
And now is foremost amid the stir,
With a token only reveal’d to her;
A token that makes her shudder and shriek,
And point with her finger, and strive to speak--
But before she can utter the name of the Devil,
Her head is under the water level!
MORAL.
There are folks about town--to name no names--
Who much resemble that deafest of Dames!
And over their tea, and muffins, and crumpets,
Circulate many a scandalous word,
And whisper tales they could only have heard
Through some such Diabolical Trumpets!
AN OPEN QUESTION.
“It is the king’s highway, that we are in, and in this way it is
that thou hast placed the lions.”--BUNYAN.
What! shut the gardens! lock the latticed gate!
Refuse the shilling and the fellow’s ticket!
And hang a wooden notice up to state,
“On Sundays no admittance at this wicket!”
The birds, the beasts, and all the reptile race
Denied to friends and visitors till Monday!
Now, really, this appears the common case
Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
The Gardens,--so unlike the ones we dub
Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses,--
Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub,--
Wherefore should they be closed like public-houses?
No ale is vended at the wild Deer’s Head,--
Nor rum--nor gin--not even of a Monday--
The Lion is not carved--or gilt--or red,
And does not send out porter of a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
The bear denied! the leopard under locks!
As if his spots would give contagious fevers;
The beaver close as hat within its box;
So different from other Sunday beavers!
The birds invisible--the gnaw-way rats--
The seal hermetically seal’d till Monday--
The monkey tribe--the family of cats,--
We visit other families on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What is the brute profanity that shocks
The super-sensitively serious feeling?
The kangaroo--is he not orthodox
To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneeling?
Was strict Sir Andrew, in his sabbath coat,
Struck all a heap to see a _Coati Mundi_?
Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note
The pelicans presenting bills on Sunday?--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What feature has repulsed the serious set?
What error in the bestial birth or breeding,
To put their tender fancies on the fret?
One thing is plain--it is not in the feeding!
Some stiffish people think that smoking joints
Are carnal sins ’twixt Saturday and Monday--
But then the beasts are pious on these points,
For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What change comes o’er the spirit of the place,
As if transmuted by some spell organic?
Turns fell hyæna of the ghoulish race?
The snake, _pro tempore_, the true Satanic?
Do Irish minds,--(whose theory allows
That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday)--
Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows
Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
There are some moody fellows, not a few,
Who, turn’d by Nature with a gloomy bias,
Renounce black devils to adopt the blue,
And think when they are dismal they are pious:
Is’t possible that Pug’s untimely fun
Has sent the brutes to Coventry till Monday--
Or p’rhaps some animal, no serious one,
Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What dire offence have serious fellows found
To raise their spleen against the Regent’s spinney?
Were charitable boxes handed round,
And would not guinea pigs subscribe their guinea?
Perchance the Demoiselle refused to moult
The feathers in her head--at least till Monday;
Or did the elephant unseemly, bolt
A tract presented to be read on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
At whom did Leo struggle to get loose?
Who mourns through monkey tricks his damaged clothing?
Who has been hiss’d by the Canadian goose?
On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing?
Some Smithfield saint did jealous feelings tell
To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday,
Because he played extempore as well
As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
To me it seems that in the oddest way
(Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius)
Our would-be keepers of the Sabbath-day
Are like the keepers of the brutes ferocious--
As soon the tiger might expect to stalk
About the grounds from Saturday till Monday
As any harmless man to take a walk,
If saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
In spite of all hypocrisy can spin,
As surely as I am a Christian scion,
I cannot think it is a mortal sin--
(Unless he’s loose) to look upon a lion.
I really think that one may go, perchance,
To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday--
(That is, provided that he did not dance)
Bruin’s no worse than baking on a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
In spite of all the fanatic compiles,
I cannot think the day a bit diviner,
Because no children, with forestalling smiles,
Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor--
It is not plain, to my poor faith at least,
That what we christen “Natural” on Monday,
The wondrous History of bird and beast,
Can be unnatural because it’s Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
Whereon is sinful fantasy to work?
The dove, the wing’d Columbus of man’s haven?
The tender love-bird--or the filial stork?
The punctual crane--the providential raven?
The pelican whose bosom feeds her young?
Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday
That feather’d marvel with a human tongue,
Because she does not preach upon a Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
The busy beaver--that sagacious beast!
The sheep that owned an Oriental Shepherd--
That desert-ship the camel of the East,
The horn’d rhinoceros--the spotted leopard--
The creatures of the Great Creator’s hand
Are surely sights for better days than Monday--
The elephant, although he wears no band,
Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?
What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil,
Weary of frame, and worn and wan in feature,
Seek once a week their spirits to assoil,
And snatch a glimpse of “Animated Nature?”
Better it were if, in his best of suits,
The artisan, who goes to work on Monday,
Should spend a leisure hour amongst the brutes,
Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday--
But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?