“You may do it extempore, for it’s nothing but roaring.”--QUINCE.
Amongst the great inventions of this age,
Which every other century surpasses,
Is one,--just now the rage,--
Called “Singing for all Classes --
That is, for all the British millions,
And billions,
And quadrillions,
Not to name _Quintilians_,
That now, alas! have no more ear than asses,
To learn to warble like the birds in June,
In time and tune,
Correct as clocks, and musical as glasses!
In fact, a sort of plan,
Including gentleman as well as yokel,
Public or private man,
To call out a Militia,--only Vocal
Instead of Local,
And not designed for military follies,
But keeping still within the civil border,
To form with mouths in open order,
And sing in volleys.
Whether this grand harmonic scheme
Will ever get beyond a dream,
And tend to British happiness and glory,
Maybe no, and maybe yes,
Is more than I pretend to guess--
However, here’s my story.
In one of those small, quiet streets,
Where business retreats,
To shun the daily bustle and the noise
The shoppy Strand enjoys,
But Law, Joint-Companies, and Life Assurance
Find past endurance--
In one of those back streets, to Peace so dear,
The other day, a ragged wight
Began to sing with all his might,
“_I have a silent sorrow here!_”
The place was lonely; not a creature stirred
Except some little dingy bird;
Or vagrant cur that sniffed along,
Indifferent to the Son of Song;
No truant errand-boy, or Doctor’s lad,
No idle filch or lounging cad,
No Pots encumbered with diurnal beer,
No printer’s devil with an author’s proof,
Or housemaid on an errand far aloof,
Lingered the tattered Melodist to hear--
Who yet, confound him! bawled as loud
As if he had to charm a London crowd,
Singing beside the public way,
Accompanied--instead of violin,
Flute, or piano, chiming in--
By rumbling cab, and omnibus, and dray,
A van with iron bars to play _staccato_,
Or engine _obligato_--
In short, without one instrument vehicular
(Not even a truck, to be particular),
There stood the rogue and roared,
Unasked and unencored,
Enough to split the organs called auricular!
Heard in that quiet place,
Devoted to a still and studious race,
The noise was quite appalling!
To seek a fitting simile and spin it,
Appropriate to his calling,
His voice had all Lablache’s _body_ in it;
But oh! the scientific tone it lacked,
And was, in fact,
Only a forty-boatswain-power of bawling!
’Twas said, indeed, for want of vocal _nous_,
The stage had banished him when he attempted it,
For tho’ his voice completely filled the house,
It also emptied it.
However, there he stood
Vociferous--a ragged don!
And with his iron pipes laid on
A row to all the neighbourhood.
In vain were sashes closed
And doors against the persevering Stentor,
Though brick, and glass, and solid oak opposed,
Th’ intruding voice would enter,
Heedless of ceremonial or decorum,
Den, office, parlour, study, and sanctorum;
Where clients and attorneys, rogues, and fools,
Ladies, and masters who attended schools,
Clerks, agents, all provided with their tools,
Were sitting upon sofas, chairs, and stools,
With shelves, pianos, tables, desks, before ’em--
How it did bore ’em!
Louder, and louder still,
The fellow sang with horrible goodwill,
Curses both loud and deep his sole gratuities,
From scribes bewildered making many a flaw
In deeds of law
They had to draw;
With dreadful incongruities
In posting ledgers, making up accounts
To large amounts,
Or casting up annuities--
Stunned by that voice, so loud and hoarse,
Against whose overwhelming force
No in-voice stood a chance, of course!
The Actuary pshawed and pished,
And knit his calculating brows, and wished
The singer “a bad life”--a mental murther!
The Clerk, resentful of a blot and blunder
Wished the musician further,
Poles distant--and no wonder!
For Law and Harmony tend far asunder--
The Lady could not keep her temper calm,
Because the sinner did not sing a psalm--
The Fiddler in the very same position
As Hogarth’s chafed musician
(Such prints require but cursory reminders)
Came and made faces at the wretch beneath,
And wishing for his foe between his teeth,
(Like all impatient elves
That spite themselves)
Ground his own grinders.
But still with unrelenting note,
Though not a copper came of it, in verity,
The horrid fellow with the ragged coat,
And iron throat,
Heedless of present honour and prosperity,
Sang like a Poet singing for posterity,
In penniless reliance--
And, sure, the most immortal Man of Rhyme
Never set Time
More thoroughly at defiance!
From room to room, from floor to floor,
From Number One to Twenty-four
The Nuisance bellowed, till all patience lost,
Down came Miss Frost,
Expostulating at her open door--
“Peace, monster, peace!
Where _is_ the New Police!
I vow I cannot work, or read, or pray,
Don’t stand there bawling, fellow, don’t!
You really send my serious thoughts astray,
Do--there’s a dear good man--do go away.”
Says he, “I won’t!”
The spinster pulled her door to with a slam,
That sounded like a wooden d--n,
For so some moral people, strictly loth
To swear in words, however up,
Will crash a curse in setting down a cup,
Or through a doorpost vent a banging oath--
In fact, this sort of physical transgression
Is really no more difficult to trace
Than in a given face
_A very bad expression_.
However, in she went,
Leaving the subject of her discontent
To Mr. Jones’s Clerk at Number Ten;
Who, throwing up the sash,
With accents rash,
Thus hailed the most vociferous of men:
“Come, come, I say, old feller, stop your chant!
I cannot write a sentence--no one can’t!
So just pack up your trumps,
And stir your stumps--”
Says he, “I shan’t!”
Down went the sash
As if devoted to “eternal smash,”
(Another illustration
Of acted imprecation),
While close at hand, uncomfortably near,
The independent voice, so loud and strong,
And clanging like a gong,
Roared out again the everlasting song,
“I have a silent sorrow here!”
The thing was hard to stand!
The Music-master could not stand it--
But rushing forth with fiddle-stick in hand
As savage as a bandit,
Made up directly to the tattered man,
And thus in broken sentences began--
But playing first a prelude of grimace,
Twisting his features to the strangest shapes,
So that to guess his subject from his face,
He meant to give a lecture upon apes--
“Com--com--I say!
You go away!
Into two parts my head you split--
My fiddle cannot hear himself a bit,
When I do play--
You have no bis’ness in a place so still!
Can you not come another day?”
Says he--“I will.”
“No--no--you scream and bawl!
You must not come at all!
You have no rights, by rights, to beg--
You have not one off-leg--
You ought to work--you have not some complaint--
You are not cripple in your back or bones--
Your voice is strong enough to break some stones”--
Says he--“It ain’t!”
“I say you ought to labour!
You are in a young case,
You have not sixty years upon your face,
To come and beg your neighbour,
And discompose his music with a noise
More worse than twenty boys--
Look what a street it is for quiet!
No cart to make a riot,
No coach, no horses, no postilion,
If you will sing, I say, it is not just,
To sing so loud.”--Says he, “I MUST!
I’M SINGING FOR THE MILLION!”
THERE’S NO ROMANCE IN THAT.
O days of old, O days of Knights,
Of tourneys and of tilts,
When love was balk’d and valour stalk’d
On high heroic stilts--
Where are ye gone?--adventures cease,
The world gets tame and flat,--
We’ve nothing now but New Police--
There’s no Romance in that!
I wish I ne’er had learn’d to read,
Or Radcliffe how to write!
That Scott had been a boor on Tweed,
And Lewis cloister’d quite!
Would I had never drunk so deep
Of dear Miss Porter’s vat;
I only turn to life, and weep--
There’s no Romance in that!
No Bandits lurk--no turban’d Turk
To Tunis bears me off--
I hear no noises in the night
Except my mother’s cough,--
No Bleeding Spectre haunts the house,
No shape,--but owl or bat,
Come flitting after moth or mouse,--
There’s no Romance in that!
I have not any grief profound,
Or secrets to confess,
My story would not fetch a pound
For A. K. Newman’s press;
Instead of looking thin and pale,
I’m growing red and fat,
As if I lived on beef and ale--
There’s no Romance in that!
It’s very hard, by land or sea
Some strange event I court,
But nothing ever comes to me
That’s worth a pen’s report:
It really made my temper chafe,
Each coast that I was at,
I vow’d, and rail’d, and came home safe,--
There’s no Romance in that!
The only time I had a chance
At Brighton one fine day,
My chestnut mare began to prance,
Took fright, and ran away;
Alas! no Captain of the Tenth
To stop my steed came pat;
A Butcher caught the rein at length,--
There’s no Romance in that!
Love--even love--goes smoothly on
A railway sort of track--
No flinty sire, no jealous Don!
No hearts upon the rack;
No Polydore, no Theodore--
His ugly name is Mat,
Plain Matthew Pratt and nothing more--
There’s no Romance in that!
He is not dark, he is not tall,
His forehead’s rather low,
He is not pensive--not at all,
But smiles his teeth to show;
He comes from Wales and yet in size
Is really but a sprat;
With sandy hair and greyish eyes--
There’s no Romance in that!
He wears no plumes or Spanish cloaks,
Or long sword hanging down;
He dresses much like other folks,
And commonly in brown;
His collar he will not discard,
Or give up his cravat,
Lord Byron-like--he’s not a Bard--
There’s no Romance in that!
He’s rather bald, his sight is weak,
He’s deaf in either drum;
Without a lisp he cannot speak,
But then--he’s worth a plum.
He talks of stocks and three per cents.
By way of private chat,
Of Spanish Bonds, and shares, and rents,--
There’s no Romance in that!
I sing--no matter what I sing,
Di Tanti--or Crudel,
Tom Bowling, or God save the King,
Di piacer--All’s Well;
He knows no more about a voice
For singing than a gnat--
And as to Music “has no choice,”
There’s no Romance in that!
Of light guitar I cannot boast,
He never serenades;
He writes, and sends it by the post,
He doesn’t bribe the maids:
No stealth, no hempen ladder--no!
He comes with loud rat-tat,
That startles half of Bedford Row--
There’s no Romance in that!
He comes at nine in time to choose
His coffee--just two cups,
And talks with Pa about the news,
Repeats debates, and sups.
John helps him with his coat aright,
And Jenkins hands his hat;
My lover bows, and says good-night--
There’s no Romance in that!
I’ve long had Pa’s and Ma’s consent,
My aunt she quite approves,
My Brother wishes joy from Kent,
None try to thwart our loves;
On Tuesday reverend Mr. Mace
Will make me Mrs. Pratt,
Of Number Twenty, Sussex Place--
There’s no Romance in that!
THE PAINTER PUZZLED.
“Draw, Sir!”--_Old Play._
Well, something must be done for May,
The time is drawing nigh,
To figure in the catalogue
And woo the public eye.
Something I must invent and paint;
But, oh! my wit is not
Like one of those kind substantives
The answer Who and What?
Oh, for some happy hit! to throw
The gazer in a trance;
But _posé là_--there I am posed,
As people say in France.
In vain I sit and strive to think,
I find my head, alack!
Painfully empty, still, just like
A bottle “on the rack.”
In vain I task my barren brain
Some new idea to catch,
And tease my hair--ideas are shy
Of “coming to the scratch.”
In vain I stare upon the air,
No mental visions dawn;
A blank my canvas still remains,
And worse--a blank undrawn:
An “aching void” that mars my rest
With one eternal hint,
For, like the little goblin page,
It still keeps crying “Tint!”
But what to tint? ay, there’s the rub,
That plagues me all the while,
As, Selkirk-like, I sit without
A subject for my _i’le_.
“Invention’s seventh heaven” the bard
Has written--but my case
Persuades me that the creature dwells
In quite another place.
Sniffing the lamp, the ancients thought,
Demosthenes _must_ toil;
But works of art are works indeed,
And always “smell of oil.”
Yet painting pictures some folks think,
Is merely play and fun;
That what is on an easel set
Must easily be done.
But, zounds! if they could sit in this
Uneasy easy-chair,
They’d very soon be glad enough
To cut the camel’s hair.
Oh! who can tell the pang it is
To sit as I this day--
With all my canvas spread, and yet
Without an inch of way.
Till, mad at last to find I am
Amongst such empty skullers,
I feel that I could strike myself,
But no--I’ll “strike my colours.”
A TRUE STORY.
Of all our pains, since man was curst,
I mean of body, not the mental,
To name the worst, among the worst,
The dental sure is transcendental;
Some bit of masticating bone,
That ought to help to clear a shelf,
But let its proper work alone,
And only seems to gnaw itself;
In fact, of any grave attack
On victual there is little danger,
’Tis so like coming to the _rack_,
As well as going to the manger.
Old Hunks--it seemed a fit retort
Of justice on his grinding ways--
Possessed a grinder of the sort,
That troubled all his latter days.
The best of friends fall out, and so
His teeth had done some years ago,
Save some old stumps with ragged root,
And they took turn about to shoot;
If he drank any chilly liquor,
They made it quite a point to throb;
But if he warmed it on the hob,
Why then they only twitched the quicker.
One tooth--I wonder such a tooth
Had never killed him in his youth--
One tooth he had with many fangs,
That shot at once as many pangs,
It had an universal sting;
One touch of that ecstatic stump
Could jerk his limbs, and make him jump,
Just like a puppet on a string;
And what was worse than all, it had
A way of making others bad.
There is, as many know, a knack,
With certain farming undertakers,
And this same tooth pursued their track,
By adding _achers_ still to _achers_!
One way there is, that has been judged
A certain cure, but Hunks was loth
To pay the fee, and quite begrudged
To lose his tooth and money both;
In fact, a dentist and the wheel
Of Fortune are a kindred cast,
For after all is drawn, you feel
It’s paying for a blank at last;
So Hunks went on from week to week,
And kept his torment in his cheek.
Oh! how it sometimes set him rocking,
With that perpetual gnaw--gnaw--gnaw,
His moans and groans were truly shocking
And loud,--altho’ he held his jaw.
Many a tug he gave his gum,
And tooth, but still it would not come;
Tho’ tied by string to some firm thing,
He could not draw it, do his best,
By draw’rs, although he tried a chest.
At last, but after much debating,
He joined a score of mouths in waiting,
Like his, to have their troubles out.
Sad sight it was to look about
At twenty faces making faces,
With many a rampant trick and antic,
For all were very horrid cases,
And made their owners nearly frantic.
A little wicket now and then
Took one of these unhappy men,
And out again the victim rushed,
While eyes and mouth together gushed;
At last arrived our hero’s turn,
Who plunged his hands in both his pockets,
And down he sat, prepared to learn
How teeth are charmed to quit their sockets.
Those who have felt such operations,
Alone can guess the sort of ache,
When his old tooth began to break
The thread of old associations;
It touched a string in every part,
It had so many tender ties;
One chord seemed wrenching at his heart,
And two were tugging at his eyes;
“Bone of his bone,” he felt of course,
As husbands do in such divorce;
At last the fangs gave way a little
Hunks gave his head a backward jerk,
And to! the cause of all this work,
Went--where it used to send his victual!
The monstrous pain of this proceeding
Had not so numbed his miser wit,
But in this slip he saw a hit
To save, at least, his purse from bleeding;
So when the dentist sought his fees,
Quoth Hunks, “Let’s finish, if you please.”
“How, finish! why it’s out!”--“Oh! no--
I’m none of your before-hand tippers,
’Tis you are out, to argue so;
My tooth is in my head no doubt,
But as you say you pulled it out,
Of course it’s there--between your nippers.”
“Zounds! sir, d’ye think I’d sell the truth
To get a fee? no, wretch, I scorn it.”
But Hunks still asked to see the tooth,
And swore by gum! he had not drawn it.
His end obtained, he took his leave,
A secret chuckle in his sleeve;
The joke was worthy to produce one,
To think, by favour of his wit,
How well a dentist had been bit
By one old stump, and that a loose one!
The thing was worth a laugh, but mirth
Is still the frailest thing on earth:
Alas! how often when a joke
Seems in our sleeve, and safe enough,
There comes some unexpected stroke,
And hangs a weeper on the cuff!
Hunks had not whistled half a mile,
When, planted right against the stile,
There stood his foeman, Mike Maloney,
A vagrant reaper, Irish-born,
That helped to reap our miser’s corn,
But had not helped to reap his money,
A fact that Hunks remembered quickly;
His whistle all at once was quelled,
And when he saw how Michael held
His sickle, he felt rather sickly.
Nine souls in ten, with half his fright,
Would soon have paid the bill at sight,
But misers (let observers watch it)
Will never part with their delight
Till well demanded by a hatchet--
They live hard--and they die to match it.
Thus Hunks, prepared for Mike’s attacking,
Resolved not yet to pay the debt,
But let him take it out in hacking;
However, Mike began to stickle
In word before he used the sickle;
But mercy was not long attendant:
From words at last he took to blows,
And aimed a cut at Hunks’s nose;
That made it what some folks are not--
A Member very independent.
Heaven knows how far this cruel trick
Might still have led, but for a tramper
That came in danger’s very nick,
To put Maloney to the scamper.
But still compassion met a damper;
There lay the severed nose, alas!
Beside the daisies on the grass,
“Wee, crimson-tipt” as well as they,
According to the poet’s lay:
And there stood Hunks, no sight for laughter!
Away ran Hodge to get assistance,
With nose in hand, which Hunks ran after,
But somewhat at unusual distance.
In many a little country place
It is a very common case
To have but one residing doctor,
Whose practice rather seems to be
No practice, but a rule of three,
Physician--surgeon--drug-decocter;
Thus Hunks was forced to go once more
Where he had ta’en his tooth before.
His mere name made the learnëd man hot--
“What! Hunks again within my door!
I’ll pull his nose;” quoth Hunks, “you cannot.”
The doctor looked and saw the case
Plain as the nose _not_ on his face.
“O! hum--ha--yes--I understand.”
But then arose a long demur,
For not a finger would he stir
Till he was paid his fee in hand;
That matter settled, there they were,
With Hunks well strapped upon his chair.
The opening of a surgeon’s job--
His tools, a chestful or a drawful--
Are always something very awful,
And give the heart the strangest throb;
But never patient in his funks
Looked half so like a ghost as Hunks,
Or surgeon half so like a devil
Prepared for some infernal revel:
His huge black eye kept rolling, rolling,
Just like a bolus in a box:
His fury seemed above controlling,
He bellowed like a hunted ox:
“Now, swindling wretch, I’ll show thee how
We treat such cheating knaves as thou;
Oh! sweet is this revenge to sup;
I have thee by the nose--it’s now
My turn--and I will turn it up.”
Guess how the miser liked the scurvy
And cruel way of venting passion;
The snubbing folks in this new fashion
Seemed quite to turn him topsy turvy;
He uttered prayers, and groans, and curses,
For things had often gone amiss
And wrong with him before, but this
Would be the worst of all _reverses_!
In fancy he beheld his snout
Turned upward like a pitcher’s spout;
There was another grievance yet,
And fancy did not fail to show it,
That he must throw a summerset,
Or stand upon his head to blow it.
And was there then no argument
To change the doctor’s vile intent,
And move his pity?--yes, in truth,
And that was--paying for the tooth.
“Zounds! pay for such a stump! I’d rather--”
But here the menace went no farther,
For with his other ways of pinching,
Hunks had a miser’s love of snuff,
A recollection strong enough
To cause a very serious flinching;
In short he paid and had the feature
Replaced as it was meant by nature;
For tho’ by this ’twas cold to handle,
(No corpse’s could have felt more horrid,)
And white just like an end of candle,
The doctor deemed and proved it too,
That noses from the nose will do
As well as noses from the forehead;
So, fixed by dint of rag and lint,
The part was bandaged up and muffled.
The chair unfastened, Hunks arose,
And shuffled out, for once unshuffled;
And as he went, these words he snuffled--
“Well, this _is_ ‘paying thro’ the nose.’”
THE LOGICIANS.
AN ILLUSTRATION.
“Metaphysics were a large field in which to exercise the weapons
logic had put into their hands--“--SCRIBLERUS.
See here two cavillers,
Would-be unravellers
Of abstruse theory and questions mystical
In tête-à-tête,
And deep debate,
Wrangling according to form syllogistical.
Glowing and ruddy
The light streams in upon their deep brown study,
And settles on our bald logician’s skull:
But still his meditative eye looks dull
And muddy,
For he is gazing inwardly, like Plato;
But to the world without
And things about,
His eye is blind as that of a potato:
In fact, logicians
See but by syllogisms--taste and smell
By propositions;
And never let the common dray-horse senses
Draw inferences.
How wise his brow! how eloquent his nose!
The feature of itself is a negation!
How gravely double is his chin, that shows
Double deliberation;
His scornful lip forestalls the confutation!
O this is he that wisely with a major
And minor proves a greengage is no gauger!--
By help of ergo,
That cheese of sage will make no mite the sager,
And Taurus is no bull to toss up Virgo!
O this is he that logically tore his
Dog into dogmas--following Aristotle--
Cut up his cap into ten categories,
And cork’d an abstract conjuror in a bottle!
O this is he that disembodied matter,
And proved that incorporeal corporations
Put nothing in no platter,
And for mock turtle only supp’d sensations!
O this is he that palpably decided,
With grave and mathematical precision
How often atoms may be subdivided
By long division;
O this is he that show’d I is not I,
And made a ghost of personal identity;
Proved “Ipse” absent by an alibi,
And frisking in some other person’s entity;
He sounded all philosophies in truth,
Whether old schemes or only supplemental;--
And had, by virtue of his wisdom-tooth,
A dental knowledge of the transcendental!
The other is a shrewd severer wight,
Sharp argument hath worn him nigh the bone:
For why? he never let dispute alone,
A logical knight-errant,
That wrangled ever--morning, noon, and night,
From night to morn; he had no wife apparent
But Barbara Celárent!
Woe unto him he caught in a dilemma,
For on the point of his two fingers full
He took the luckless wight, and gave with them a
Most deadly toss, like any baited bull.
Woe unto him that ever dared to breathe
A sophism in his angry ear! for _that_
He took ferociously between his teeth,
And shook it--like a terrier with a rat!--
In fact old Controversy ne’er begat
One half so cruel
And dangerous as he, in verbal duel!
No one had ever so complete a fame
As a debater;
And for art logical his name was greater
Than Dr. Watts’s name!--
Look how they sit together!
Two bitter desperate antagonists,
Licking each other with their tongues, like fists,
Merely to settle whether
This world of ours had ever a beginning--
Whether created,
Vaguely undated,
Or time had any finger in its spinning:
When, lo!--for they are sitting at the basement--
A hand, like that upon Belshazzar’s wall,
Lets fall
A written paper through the open casement.
“O foolish wits! (thus runs the document)
To twist your brains into a double knot
On such a barren question! Be content
That there is such a fair and pleasant spot
For your enjoyment as this verdant earth.
Go eat and drink, and give your hearts to mirth,
For vainly ye contend;
Before you can decide about its birth,
The world will have an end!”
LITTLE O’P.--AN AFRICAN FACT.