My treatment to begin--
I wish that he had call’d him out,
Before he call’d him in!
For though to physic he was bred,
And pass’d at Surgeons’ Hall,
To make his post a sinecure
He never cured at all!
“The doctor look’d about my breast,
And then about my back,
And then he shook his head and said,
‘Your case looks very black.’
And first he sent me hot cayenne,
And then gamboge to swallow,--
But still my fever would not turn
To Scarlet or to Yellow!
“With madder and with turmeric
He made his next attack;
But neither he nor all his drugs
Could stop my dying black.
At last I got so sick of life,
And sick of being dosed,
One Monday morning I gave up
My physic and the ghost!
“Oh, Phœbe dear, what pain it was
To sever every tie!
You know black beetles feel as much
As giants when they die--
And if there is a bridal bed,
Or bride of little worth,
It’s lying in a bed of mould,
Along with Mother Earth.
“Alas! some happy, happy day
In church I hoped to stand,
And like a muff of sable skin
Receive your lily hand;
But sternly with that piebald match
My fate untimely clashes--
For now, like Pompe-double-i,
I’m sleeping in my ashes!
“And now farewell!--a last farewell!
I’m wanted down below,
And have but time enough to add
One word before I go,--
In mourning crape and bombazine
Ne’er spend your precious pelf--
Don’t go in black for me,--for I
Can do it for myself.
“Henceforth within my grave I rest,
But Death who there inherits,
Allow’d my spirit leave to come,
You seem’d so out of spirits;
But do not sigh, and do not cry,
By grief too much engross’d--
Nor, for a ghost of colour, turn
The colour of a ghost!
“Again farewell, my Phœbe dear!
Once more a last adieu!
For I must make myself as scarce
As swans of sable hue.”
From black to grey, from grey to nought,
The shape began to fade,
And, like an egg, though not so white,
The Ghost was newly laid!
TO MR. WRENCH AT THE ENGLISH OPERA HOUSE.[14]
Oh very pleasant Mr. Wrench,--
The first, upon the pit’s first bench,
I’ve scrambled to my place,
To hail thee on these summer boards
With joy, even critic-craft affords,
And watch thy welcome face!
Ere thou art come, how I rejoice
To hear thy free and easy voice,
Lounging about the slips;
And then thy figure comes and owns
The voice as careless as the tones
That saunter from thy lips.
Oh come and cast a quiet glance,
To glad a nameless friend, askance
The lamps’ ascending glare;
Better it is than bended knees,
Heart-squeezing, and profound congés--
That old familiar air.
Even in the street, in that apt face,
Full of gay gravity, I trace
The soul of native whim;
A constant, never-failing store
Of quiet mirth, that ne’er runs o’er,
But aye is near the brim.
Quoth I, “There goes a happy wight,
Inimical to spleen and spite,
And careless of all care;
Who oils the ruffled waves of strife,
And makes the work-day suit of life
Of very easy wear.
Lord! if he had some people’s ills
To cope--their hungry bonds and bills,
How faintly they would tease;
Things that have cost both tears and sighs--
Their foes, as motelings in his eyes--
Their duns, his summer fleas!
The stage, I guess, is not thy school--
Thou dost not antic like the fool
That wept behind his mask;
Thy playing is thy play--a sport--
A revel, as perform’d at Court,
And not a trade--a task!
Gay _Freeman_, art thou hired for _him_?
No--‘tis thy humour and thy whim
To be that easy guest;
Whereas whoever plays for pelf,
(Like Bennett) only gives _him_-self,
Or _her_--like Mrs. West!
Nay, thou--to look beyond the stage,
Thy life is but another page
Continued of the play;
The same companionable sprite--
Thy whim and pleasantry by night
Are with thee in the day!
LOVE, WITH A WITNESS.
He has shav’d off his whiskers and blacken’d his brows,
Wears a patch and a wig of false hair,--
But it’s him--Oh it’s him!--we exchanged lovers’ vows,
When I lived up in Cavendish Square.
He had beautiful eyes, and his lips were the same,
And his voice was as soft as a flute--
Like a Lord or a Marquis he look’d when he came,
To make love in his master’s best suit.
If I lived for a thousand long years from my birth,
I shall never forget what he told;
How he lov’d me beyond the rich women of earth,
With their jewels and silver and gold?
When he kiss’d me and bade me adieu with a sigh,
By the light of the sweetest of moons,
Oh how little I dreamt I was bidding good-bye
To my Missis’s tea-pot and spoons!
LINES BY A SCHOOL-BOY.
When I was first a scholar, I went to Dr. Monk,
And elephant-like I had, sir, a cake put in my trunk;
The Rev. Doctor Monk, sir, was very grave and prim,
He stood full six foot high, sir, and we all looked up to him.
They didn’t pinch and starve us, as here they do at York,
For every boy was ask’d, sir, to bring a knife and fork.
And then I had a chum too, to fag and all of that,
I made him sum up my sums too, and eat up all my fat.
For goodness we had prizes, and birch for doing ill,
But none of the Birch that visits the bottom of Cornhill.
And we’d half a dozen ushers to teach us Latin and Greek,
And all we’d got in our heads, sir, was combed out once a week.
And then we had a shop, too, for lollipops and squibs,
Where I often had a lick, sir, at Buonaparty’s ribs!
Oh! if I was at Clapham, at my old school again,
In the rod I could fancy honey, and sugar in the cane.
ADDRESS TO MARIA DARLINGTON
ON HER RETURN TO THE STAGE.
“It was Maria!--
And better fate did Maria deserve than to have her banns forbid--
She had, since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round
St. Peter’s once--and returned back--.”
_See the whole story in Sterne and the newspapers._
Thou art come back again to the stage
Quite as blooming as when thou didst leave it;
And ’tis well for this fortunate age
That thou didst not, by going off, grieve it!
It is pleasant to see thee again--
Right pleasant to see thee, by Herclé,
Unmolested by pea-colour’d Hayne!
And free from that thou-and-thee Berkeley!
Thy sweet foot, my Foote, is as light
(Not _my_ Foote--I speak by correction)
As the snow on some mountain at night,
Or the snow that has long on thy neck shone.
The Pit is in raptures to free thee,
The Boxes impatient to greet thee,
The Galleries quite clam’rous to see thee,
And thy scenic relations to meet thee!
Ah, where was thy sacred retreat?
Maria! ah, where hast thou been,
With thy two little wandering Feet,
Far away from all peace and pea-green!
Far away from Fitzhardinge the bold,
Far away from himself and his lot!
I envy the place thou hast stroll’d,
If a stroller thou art--which thou’rt not!
Sterne met thee, poor wandering thing,
Methinks, at the close of the day--
When thy Billy had just slipp’d his string,
And thy little dog quite gone astray--
He bade thee to sorrow no more--
He wish’d thee to lull thy distress
In his bosom--he couldn’t do more,
And a Christian could hardly do less!
Ah, me! for thy small plaintive pipe
I fear we must look at thine eye--
That eye--forced so often to wipe
That the handkerchief never got dry!
Oh sure ’tis a barbarous deed
To give pain to the feminine mind--
But the wooer that left thee to bleed
Was a creature more killing than kind!
The man that could tread on a worm
Is a brute--and inhuman to boot;
But he merits a much harsher term
That can wantonly tread on a Foote!
Soft mercy and gentleness blend
To make up a Quaker--but he
That spurn’d thee could scarce be a _Friend_,
Though he dealt in that Thou-ing of thee!
They that loved thee, Maria, have flown!
The friends of the midsummer hour!
But those friends now in anguish atone,
And mourn o’er thy desolate bow’r.
Friend Hayne, the Green Man, is quite out,
Yea, utterly out of his bias;
And the faithful Fitzhardinge, no doubt,
Is counting his Ave Marias!
Ah, where wast thou driven away
To feast on thy desolate woe?
We have witness’d thy weeping in play,
But none saw the earnest tears flow--
Perchance thou wert truly forlorn,--
Though none but the fairies could mark
Where they hung upon some Berkeley thorn,
Or the thistle in Burderop Park!
Ah, perhaps, when old age’s white snow
Has silver’d the crown of Hayne’s nob--
For even the greenest will grow
As hoary as “White-headed Bob--”
He’ll wish, in the days of his prime,
He had been rather kinder to one
He hath left to the malice of Time--
A woman--so weak and undone!
ODE TO R. W. ELLISTON, ESQ.,
THE GREAT LESSEE!
“_Rover._ Do you know, you villain, that I am this moment the
greatest man living?”--WILD OATS.
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!
Bright was thy youth--thy manhood brighter still--
The greatest Romeo upon Holburn 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!
Though 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!
Next, the Olympic Games were tried, each feat
Practised the most bewitching in Wych Street.
Charles had his royal ribaldry restored,
And in a downright neighbourhood drank and whored;
Rochester there in dirty ways again
Revell’d--and lived 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!”
Lastly--and thou wert built for it by nature!--
Crown’d was thy head in Drury Lane Th_eä_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 Queen!
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 damnlets 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 holdst 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 Stephen’s 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!
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 gloved--
Make Bunn the Great, and Winston the Beloved,
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!
SHOOTING PAINS.
“The charge is prepared.”--MACHEATH.
If I shoot any more I’ll be shot,
For ill-luck seems determined to star me,
I have march’d the whole day
With a gun--for no pay--
Zounds, I’d better have been in the army!
What matters Sir Christopher’s leave?
To his manor I’m sorry I came yet!
With confidence fraught,
My two pointers I brought,
But we are not a point towards game yet!
And that gamekeeper too, with advice!
Of my course he has been a nice chalker,
Not far, were his words,
I could go without birds:
If my legs could cry out, they’d cry “Walker!”
Not Hawker could find out a flaw,--
My appointments are modern and Mantony,
And I’ve brought my own man,
To mark down all he can,
But I can’t find a mark for my Antony!
The partridges,--where can they lie?
I have promised a leash to Miss Jervas,
As the least I could do;
But without even two
To brace me,--I’m getting quite nervous!
To the pheasants--how well they’re preserved!
My sport’s not a jot more beholden,
As the birds are so shy,
For my friends I must buy;--
And so send “silver pheasants and golden.”
I have tried ev’ry form for a hare,
Every patch, every furze that could shroud her,
With toil unrelax’d,
Till my patience is tax’d,
But I cannot be taxed for hare-powder.
I’ve been roaming for hours in three flats
In the hope of a snipe for a snap at;
But still vainly I court
The percussioning sport,
I find nothing for “setting my cap at!”
A woodcock,--this month is the time,--
Right and left I’ve made ready my lock for,
With well-loaded double,
But spite of my trouble,
Neither barrel can I find a cock for!
A rabbit I should not despise,
But they lurk in their burrows so lowly;
This day’s the eleventh,
It is not the seventh,
But they seem to be keeping it hole-y.
For a mallard I’ve waded the marsh,
And haunted each pool, and each lake--oh!
Mine is not the luck,
To obtain thee, O Duck,
Or to doom thee, O Drake, like a Draco!
For a field-fare I’ve fared far a-field,
Large or small I am never to sack bird,
Not a thrush is so kind
As to fly, and I find
I may whistle myself for a blackbird!
I am angry, I’m hungry, I’m dry,
Disappointed, and sullen, and goaded,
And so weary an elf,
I am sick of myself,
And with Number One seem overloaded.
As well one might beat round St. Paul’s,
And look out for a cock or a hen there;
I have search’d round and round
All the Baronet’s ground,
But Sir Christopher hasn’t a wren there!
Joyce may talk of his excellent caps,
But for nightcaps they set me desiring,
And it’s really too bad,
Not a shot I have had
With Hall’s Powder, renown’d for “quick firing.”
If this is what people call sport,
Oh! of sporting I can’t have a high sense,
And there still remains one
More mischance on my gun--
“Fined for shooting without any license.”
THE DUEL.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.
“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”
In Brentford town, of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.
To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow’d,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.
Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
“You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.
“Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.
“So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,--
I’ll pop it into you.”
Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
“Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer
Knows how to prime and load.
“And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep’s.”
Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.
But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give--
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.
To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step
They took a dozen more.
They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.
Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.
Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
“Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now,
Be doom’d to have a ball.
“I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?”
Said Mr. B., “I do agree--
But think of Honour’s Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.
“But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can’t we aim above, as if
We had call’d out the sun?”
So up into the harmless air,
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!
DOG-GREL VERSES, BY A POOR BLIND.
“Hark! hark! the dogs do bark,
The beggars are coming...”--OLD BALLAD.
Oh what shall I do for a dog?
Of sight I have not got a particle,
Globe, Standard, or Sun,
Times, Chronicle--none
Can give _me_ a good leading article.
A Mastiff once led me about,
But people appeared so to fear him--
I might have got pence
Without his defence,
But Charity would not come near him.
A Blood-hound was not much amiss,
But instinct at last got the upper;
And tracking Bill Soames,
And thieves to their homes,
I never could get home to supper.
A Fox-hound once served me as guide,
A good one at hill and at valley;
But day after day
He led me astray,
To follow a milk-woman’s tally.
A turnspit once did me good turns
At going and crossing, and stopping;
Till one day his breed
Went off at full speed,
To spit at a great fire in Wapping.
A Pointer once pointed my way,
But did not turn out quite so pleasant,
Each hour I’d a stop
At a Poulterer’s shop
To point at a very high pheasant.
A Pug did not suit me at all,
The feature unluckily rose up;
And folks took offence
When offering pence,
Because of his turning his nose up.
A Butcher once gave me a dog,
That turn’d out the worst one of any;
A Bull dog’s own pup,
I got a toss up,
Before he had brought me a penny.
My next was a Westminster Dog,
From Aistrop the regular cadger;
But, sightless, I saw
He never would draw
A blind man so well as a badger.
A greyhound I got by a swop,
But, Lord! we soon came to divorces:
He treated my strip
Of cord like a slip,
And left me to go my own courses.
A poodle once tow’d me along,
But always we came to one harbour,
To keep his curls smart,
And shave his hind part,
He constantly call’d on a barber.
My next was a Newfoundland brute,
As big as a calf fit for slaughter;
But my old cataract
So truly he back’d
I always fell into the water.
I once had a sheep-dog for guide,
His worth did not value a button;
I found it no go,
A Smithfield Ducrow,
To stand on four saddles of mutton.
My next was an Esquimaux dog,
A dog that my bones ache to talk on,
For picking his ways
On cold frosty days
He pick’d out the slides for a walk on.
Bijou was a lady-like dog,
But vex’d me at night not a little,
When tea-time was come
She would not go home,
Her tail had once trail’d a tin kettle.
I once had a sort of a Shock,
And kiss’d a street post like a brother,
And lost every tooth
In learning this truth--
One blind cannot well lead another.
A terrier was far from a trump,
He had one defect, and a thorough,
I never could stir,
‘Od rabbit the cur!
Without going into the Borough.
My next was Dalmatian, the dog!
And led me in danger, oh crikey!
By chasing horse heels,
Between carriage wheels,
Till I came upon boards that were spiky.
The next that I had was from Cross,
And once was a favourite spaniel
With Nero,[15] now dead,
And so I was led
Right up to his den like a Daniel.
A mongrel I tried, and he did,
As far as the profit and lossing,
Except that the kind
Endangers the blind,
The breed is so fond of a crossing.
A setter was quite to my taste,
In alleys or streets broad or narrow,
Till one day I met
A very dead set,
At a very dead horse in a barrow.
I once had a dog that went mad,
And sorry I was that I got him;
I came to a run,
And a man with a gun
Pepper’d _me_ when he ought to have shot him.
My profits have gone to the dogs,
My trade has been such a deceiver,
I fear that my aim
Is a mere losing game,
Unless I can find a Retriever.
“UP THE RHINE.”
Why, Tourist, why
With Passports have to do?
Pr’ythee stay at home and pass
The Port and Sherry too.
Why, Tourist, why
Embark for Rotterdam?
Pr’ythee stay at home and take
Thy Hollands in a dram.
Why, Tourist, why
To foreign climes repair?
Pr’ythee take thy German Flute,
And breathe a German air.
Why, Tourist, why
The Seven Mountains view?
Any one at home can tint
A hill with Prussian Blue.
Why, Tourist, why
To old Colonia’s walls?
Sure, to see a _Wrenish_ Dome,
One needn’t leave St. Paul’s.
THE COMET.
AN ASTRONOMICAL ANECDOTE.
“I cannot fill up a blank better than with a short history of this
self-same _Star_ling.”--STERNE’S SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.
Amongst professors of astronomy,
Adepts in the celestial economy,
The name of H******l’s very often cited;
And justly so, for he is hand and glove
With ev’ry bright intelligence above;
Indeed, it was his custom so to stop,
That once upon a time he got be-knighted
In his observatory thus coquetting
With Venus--or with Juno gone astray,
All sublunary matters quite forgetting
In his flirtations with the winking stars,
Acting the spy--it might be upon Mars--
A new André;
Or, like a Tom of Coventry, sly peeping,
At Dian sleeping:
Or ogling thro’ his glass
Some heavenly lass
Tripping with pails along the Milky Way;
Or Looking at that Wain of Charles the Martyr’s:--
Thus he was sitting, watchman of the sky,
When lo! a something with a tail of flame
Made him exclaim,
“_My_ stars!”--he always puts that stress on _my_--
“_My_ stars and garters!”
“A comet, sure as I’m alive!
A noble one as I should wish to view;
It can’t be Halley’s though, _that_ is not due
Till eighteen thirty-five.
Magnificent!--how fine his fiery trail!
Zounds! ’tis a pity, though he comes unsought--
Unask’d--unreckon’d,--in no human thought--
He ought--he ought--he ought
To have been caught
With scientific salt upon his tail!”
“I look’d no more for it, I do declare,
Than the Great Bear!
As sure as Tycho Brahe is dead,
It really enter’d in my head
No more than Berenice’s Hair!”
Thus musing, Heaven’s Grand Inquisitor
Sat gazing on the uninvited visitor
Till John, the serving-man, came to the upper
Regions, with “Please your Honour, come to supper.”
“Supper! good John, to-night I shall not sup
Except on that phenomenon--look up!”
“Not sup!” cried John, thinking with consternation
That supping on a _star_ must be _star_vation,
Or ev’n to batten
On Ignes Fatui would never fatten.
His visage seem’d to say, “that very odd is,”
But still his master the same tune ran on,
“I can’t come down,--go to the parlour, John,
And say I’m supping with the heavenly bodies.”
“The heavenly bodies!” echoed John, “Ahem!”
His mind still full of famishing alarms,
“‘Zooks, if your Honour sups with _them_,
In helping, somebody must make long arms!”
He thought his master’s stomach was in danger,
But still in the same tone replied the Knight,
“Go down, John, go, I have no appetite,
Say I’m engaged with a celestial stranger.”--
Quoth John, not much au fait in such affairs,
“Wouldn’t the stranger take a bit down stairs?”
“No,” said the master, smiling and no wonder,
At such a blunder,
“The stranger is not quite the thing you think,
He wants no meat or drink,
And one may doubt quite reasonably whether
He has a mouth,
Seeing his head and tail are join’d together,
Behold him,--there he is, John, in the South.”
John look’d up with his portentous eyes,
Each rolling like a marble in its socket.
At last the fiery tad-pole spies,
And, full of Vauxhall reminiscences, cries,
“A rare good rocket!”
“A what! A rocket, John! Far from it!
What you behold, John, is a comet,
One of those most eccentric things
That in all ages
Have puzzled sages
And frighten’d kings;
With fear of change that flaming meteor, John,
Perplexes sovereigns, throughout its range”--
“Do he?” cried John;
“Well, let him flare on,
_I_ haven’t got no sovereigns to change!”
MORE HULLAH-BALOO.