his gouty foot. At the same moment, Margaret and Louisa, with sisterly
impetuosity, threw themselves on my neck, and not being attentive to my
“outplay or loose leg,” according to Sir Thomas Parkyn’s “Instructions
for Wrestling,” the result was a “hanging trippet.” “A hanging trippet
is when you put your toe behind your adversary’s heel, on the same
side, with a design to hook his leg up forwards, and throw him on his
back.”
The reader will guess my satisfaction when night came, and allowed
me to rid myself of my unlucky limb. Fatigued with my walk through
dry sand and wet gravel, exhausted by excessive emotion, and, maybe,
a little flustered by dipping into the cup of welcome, I literally
tumbled into bed, and was soon dreaming of running races and leaping
for wagers, gallopading, waltzing, and other feats of a biped, when I
was suddenly aroused by shrill screams of “Thieves!” and “Murder!” with
a more hoarse call for “Frank! Frank!” There were burglars, in fact,
in the house, who were packing and preparing to elope with the family
plate, without the consent of parents. It was natural for the latter to
call a son and a soldier to the rescue, but son or soldier never came
in time to start for the plate; not that I wanted zeal or courage, or
arms, but I wanted that unlucky limb, and I groped about a full half
hour in the dark, before I could lay my hand upon my leg.
The next morning I took a solitary stroll before breakfast to look at
the estate; but during my absence abroad, some exchanges of land had
taken place with our neighbour, Sir Theophilus. The consequence was, in
taking my wood through a wood of his, but which had formerly been our
own, and going with my “best leg foremost,” as a man in my predicament
always does, I popped it into a man-trap. Thus my timber failed me at a
pinch when it might really have stood my friend. Luckily the trap was
one of the humane sort;--but it was far from pleasant to stand in it
for two hours calling out for Leg Bail.
I could give many more instances of scrapes, besides the perpetual
hobble which my wooden leg brought me into, but I will mention only
one. At the persuasion of my friends, a few years ago, I stood for Rye,
but the electors, perhaps, thought I only half stood for it, for they
gave me nothing but split votes. It was perhaps as well that I did not
go into the House, for with two such odd legs I could never properly
have “paired off.” The election expenses, however, pressed, heavily on
my pocket, and to defray them, and all for one Wooden Leg, I had to cut
down some thousand loads of timber.
[Illustration: “TIMBER TOO FOR HIS KNEES.”]
THE GHOST.
A VERY SERIOUS BALLAD.
“I’ll be your second.”--LISTON.
In Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in Town.
But Brown and stout will both wear out,
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow’d wife to mourn
At twenty pence a yard.
Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To _manumit_ her blacks.
With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing thus came about,
She asked him in at home, and then
At church he asked her out!
Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phœnix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand.
One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;
It came a little after one,
But she was after two!
“Oh Mrs. B., oh Mrs. B.!
Are these your sorrow’s deeds,
Already getting up a flame,
To burn your widow’s weeds?
“It’s not so long since I have left
For aye the mortal scene;
My memory--like Roger’s,
Should still be bound in green!
“Yet if my face you still retrace
I almost have a doubt--
I’m like an old For-get-me-Not,
With all the leaves torn out!
“To think that on that finger-joint,
Another pledge should cling;
O Bess! upon my very soul,
It struck like ‘Knock and Ring.’
“A ton of marble on my breast
Can’t hinder my return;
Your conduct, Ma’am, has set my blood
A-boiling in my urn!
“Remember on! remember how
The marriage rite did run--
If ever we one flesh should be,
’Tis now--when I have none!
“And you, Sir--once a bosom friend--
Of perjured faith convict,
As ghostly too can give no blow,
Consider you are kick’d.
“A hollow voice is all I have,
But this I tell you plain,
Marry come up!--you marry, Ma’am,
And I’ll come up again.”
More he had said, but chanticleer
The spritely shade did shock
With sudden crow, and off he went,
Like fowling-piece at cock!
[Illustration: COCK OF THE WALK.]
[Illustration: “THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON.”]
A TALE OF THE GREAT PLAGUE.
“This is one of the _pest_ discretions.”--SIR HUGH EVANS.
About five or six years after that deplorable great Plague of London,
there befel a circumstance which, as it is not set forth in Defoe his
history of the pestilence, I shall make bold to write down herein, not
only on account of the strangeness of the event, but also because it
carries a moral pick-a-back, as a good story ought to do.
It is a notoriously known fact, as collected from the bills of
mortality, that there died of the plague in the mere metropolis
a matter of some hundreds of thousands of human souls; yet
notwithstanding this most awful warning to evil doers, the land did
nevertheless bring forth such a rank crop of sin and wickedness,
that the like was never known before or after; the City of London,
especially, being overrun with bands of thieves and murtherers, against
whom there was little or no check, the civical police having been
utterly disbanded and disrupt during the ravages of the pestilence.
Neither did men’s minds turn for some time towards the mere safeguard
of property, being still distracted with personal fears, for although
the pest had, as it were, died of the excess of its own violence, yet
from time to time there arose flying rumours of fresh breakings out of
the malady. The small-pox and the malignant fever being the prolific
parents of such like alarms. Accordingly many notable robberies and
divers grievous murthers having been acted with impunity during the
horrible crisis of the pest, those which had before been wicked were
now hardened, and became a thousand times worse, till the city and the
neighbourhood thereof seemed given in prey to devils, who had been
loosened for a season from the everlasting fetters of the law.
Now four of these desperadoes having met together at the Dolphin in
Deptford, they laid a plot together to rob a certain lone mansion house
which stood betwixt the Thames marshes and the Forest of Hainault, and
which was left in the charge of only one man, the family being gone
off to another mansion house in the county of Wiltshire, for the sake
of a more wholesome air. And the manner of the plot was this: one of
the villains going in a feigned voice was to knock at the front-door
and beg piteously for a night’s shelter, and then the door, being
opened, the other knaves were to rush in and bind the serving-man, or
murther him, as might seem best, and so taking his keys they were to
ransack the house, where they expected to find a good store of plate.
Accordingly, one Friday, at the dead of the night, they set forth,
having for leader a fellow that was named Blackface, by reason of a
vizard which he wore always on such errands, diverting themselves by
the way with laying out each man his share of the booty in the manner
that pleased him best, wine and the women of Lewkener’s Lane coming
in you may be sure for the main burthen of the song. At last they
entered the fore-court of the house which they were to rob, and which
was as silent as death, and as dark, excepting a glimmer from one
window towards the top. Blackface then, as agreed upon, began to beat
at the door, but being flushed with drink, instead of entreating for
an entrance, he shouted out to the serving-man, bidding him with many
terrible oaths to come down and to render up his keys, for that they
were come to relieve him of his charge.
“In the name of God, my masters,” cried the serving-man from the
window, “what do you want here?”
“We are come,” returned Blackface, “to relieve you of your trust, so
throw us down your keys.”
“An that be all,” said the serving-man, whose name was Adams, “wait but
a little while and you shall have the keys and my place to boot. Come
again but a few hours hence, and you shall find me dead, when you may
do with me and my trust as you list.”
“Come, come,” cries Blackface, “no preaching, but come down and open,
or we will bring fire and faggot to the door.”
“Ye shall not need,” answered Adams, “hearken only to what I say, and
you shall have free passage; but I give you fair warning, though I
be but a single man, and without weapon, and sick even unto death,
yet shall your coming in cost you as many lives as ye bear amongst
you, for within these walls there is a dismal giant that hath slain
his thousands, even the plague.” At these dreary words the courage of
the robbers was taken somewhat aback, but Blackface spirited them on,
saying it was no doubt an invention to deter them from the spoil.
“Alas,” answered Adams, who overheard their argument, “what I say is
the solemn and sorrowful truth, and which I am speaking for the last
time, for I shall never see to-morrow’s blessed sun. As for the door,
I will open it to you with my own hands, beseeching you for your own
sakes to stand a little apart, and out of the taint of my breath, which
is sure destruction. There is one child herein a dead corpse, as you
shall behold if you have so much courage, for it lieth unburied in the
hall.” So saying he descended, and presently flung open the hall door,
the villains withdrawing a little backward, and they saw verily by the
light of a rush wick which he carried, that he was lapt only in a white
sheet, and looking very pale and ghost-like, with a most dismal black
circle round each of his eyes.
[Illustration: THE COMMON LOT.]
“If ye disbelieve me still,” he said, “look inwards when I draw back
from the door, and ye shall see what was a living child this day, but
is now a corpse hastening to corruption. Alas! in the midst of life we
are in death: she was seized at play.” With these words he drew aside,
and the robbers looking through the door, perceived it was even as
he said, for the dead body of the child was lying on the hall table,
with the same black ring round its eyes, and dressed in brocade and
riband as though death had carried it off, even as he said, in its
holiday clothes. “Now,” said Adams, after they had gazed awhile, “here
be the keys,” therewithal casting towards them a huge bunch; but the
villains would now no more meddle with them than with so many aspics or
scorpions, looking on them in truth as the very keys of death’s door.
Accordingly, after venting a few curses on their ill luck, they began
to depart in very ill humour, when Adams again called to them to hear
his last words.
“Now,” said he, “though ye came hither with robbery, and perchance
murder in your hearts, against me, yet as a true Christian will I
not only forgive your wicked intents, but advise you how to shun
that miserable end which my own life is coming to so very suddenly.
Although your souls have been saved from sin, yet, doubtless ye have
not stood so long in this infected air without peril to the health of
your bodies, wherefore, by the advice of a dying man, go straightway
from this over to Laytonstone, where there be tan pits, and sit there
for a good hour amidst the strong smell of the tan, and which hath
more virtue as a remedy against the infection of the plague, than even
tobacco or the odour of drugs. Do this and live, for the poison is
strong and subtle, and seizeth, ere one can be aware, on the springs
of life.” Thereupon he uttered a dismal groan, and began yelling so
fearfully that the robbers with one accord took to flight, and never
stopped till they were come to Laytonstone, and into the tanner’s
very yard, where they sat down and stooped over the pit, snuffing up
the odours with all the relish of men in whose nostrils it was as the
breath of life. In which posture they had been sitting half an hour,
when there entered several persons with a lantern, and which they took
to be the tanner and his men, and to whom, therefore, they addressed
themselves, begging pardon for their boldness, and entreating leave to
continue awhile in the tan-yard to disinfect themselves of the plague;
but they had hardly uttered these words, when lo! each man was suddenly
seized upon, and bound in a twinkling, the constables, for such they
were, jeering them withal, and saying the plague had been too busy to
come itself, but had sent them a gallows and a halter instead, which
would serve their turn. Whereupon, most of the rogues became very
chop-fallen, but Blackface swore he could die easy but for one thing
upon his mind, and that was, what had become of the dead child and the
man dying of the plague, both of which he had seen with his own eyes.
Hereupon, the man with a lantern turned the light upon his own face,
which the rogues knew directly to be the countenance of Adams himself,
but without any of those black rings round the eyes, and for which
he explained he had been indebted to a little charcoal. “As for the
dead child,” he said, “you must enquire, my masters, of the worshipful
company of Barber Surgeons, and they will tell you of a certain waxen
puppet of Hygeia, the Goddess of Health, which used to be carried at
their pageants, and when it fell into disuse was purchased of them by
my Lady Dame Ellinor Wood, for a plaything to her own children. So one
head you see is worth four pair of hands, and your whole gang, tall,
and strong knaves though you be, have been overmatched by one old man
and a doll.”
[Illustration: LA TRAPPE.]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--MADAME HENGLER.]
ODE TO MADAME HENGLER,
FIREWORK-MAKER TO VAUXHALL.
Oh, Mrs. Hengler! Madame,--I beg pardon,
Starry Enchantress of the Surrey Garden!
Accept an Ode not meant as any scoff--
The Bard were bold indeed at thee to quiz,
Whose squibs are far more popular than his;
Whose works are much more certain to go off.
Great is thy fame, but not a silent fame;
With many a bang the public ear it courts;
And yet thy arrogance we never blame,
But take thy merits from thy own reports.
Thou hast indeed the most indulgent backers,
We make no doubting, misbelieving comments,
Even in thy most bounceable of moments;
But lend our ears implicit to thy crackers!--
Strange helps to thy applause too are not missing,
Thy Rockets raise thee,
And Serpents praise thee,
As none beside are ever praised--by hissing!
Mistress of Hydropyrics,
Of glittering Pindarics, Sapphics, Lyrics,
Professor of a Fiery Necromancy,
Oddly thou charmest the politer sorts
With midnight sports,
Partaking very much of _flash_ and _fancy_!
What thoughts had shaken all
In olden time at thy nocturnal revels,--
Each brimstone ball,
They would have deem’d an eyeball of the Devil’s,
But now thy flaming Meteors cause no fright;
A modern Hubert to the royal ear,
Might whisper without fear,
“My Lord, they say there were five moons to-night!”
Nor would it raise one superstitious notion
To hear the whole description fairly out:--
“One fixed--which t’other four whirl’d round about
With wond’rous motion.”
Such are the very sights
Thou workest, Queen of Fire, on earth and heaven,
Between the hours of midnight and eleven,
Turning our English to Arabian Nights,
With blazing mounts, and founts, and scorching dragons,
Blue stars and white,
And blood-red light,
And dazzling Wheels fit for Enchanters’ waggons.
Thrice lucky woman! doing things that be
With other folks past benefit of parson;
For burning, no Burn’s Justice falls on thee,
Altho’ night after night the public see
Thy Vauxhall palaces all end in Arson!
Sure thou wast never born
Like old Sir Hugh, with water in thy head,
Nor lectur’d night and morn
Of sparks and flames to have an awful dread,
Allowed by a prophetic dam and sire
To play with fire.
O didst thou never, in those days gone by
Go carrying about--no schoolboy prouder--
Instead of waxen doll a little Guy;
Or in thy pretty pyrotechnic vein,
Up the parental pigtail lay a train,
To let off all his powder?
Full of the wildfire of thy youth,
Did’st never in plain truth,
Plant whizzing Flowers in thy mother’s pots,
Turning the garden into powder plots?
Or give the cook, to fright her,
Thy paper sausages well stuffed with nitre?
Nay, wert thou never guilty, now, of dropping
A lighted cracker by thy sister’s Dear,
So that she could not hear
The question he was popping?
Go on, Madame! Go on--be bright and busy
While hoax’d Astronomers look up and stare
From tall observatories, dumb and dizzy,
To see a Squib in Cassiopeia’s Chair!
A serpent wriggling into Charles’ Wain!
A Roman Candle lighting the Great Bear!
A rocket tangled in Diana’s train,
And Cracker’s stuck in Berenice’s Hair!
There is a King of Fire--Thou shouldst be Queen!
Methinks a good connexion might come from it;
Could’st thou not make him, in the garden scene,
Set out per Rocket and return per comet;
Then give him a hot treat
Of Pyrotechnicals to sit and sup,
Lord! how the world would throng to see him eat.
He swallowing fire, while thou dost throw it up.
One solitary night--true is the story,
Watching those forms that Fancy will create
Within the bright confusion of the grate,
I saw a dazzling countenance of glory!
Oh Dei gratias!
That fiery facias
’Twas thine, Enchantress of the Surrey Grove;
And ever since that night,
In dark and bright,
Thy face is _registered_ within my _stove_!
Long may that starry brow enjoy its rays;
May no untimely _blow_ its doom forestall;
But when old age prepares the friendly pall,
When the last spark of all thy sparks decays,
Then die lamented by good people all,
Like Goldsmith’s _Madam Blaize_!
RHYME AND REASON.
_To the Editor of the Comic Annual._
SIR,
In one of your Annuals you have given insertion to “A Plan for
Writing Blank Verse in Rhyme;” but as I have seen no regular long
poem constructed on its principles, I suppose the scheme did not
take with the literary world. Under these circumstances I feel
encouraged to bring forward a novelty of my own, and I can only
regret that such poets as Chaucer and Cottle, Spenser and Hayley,
Milton and Pratt, Pope and Pye, Byron and Batterbee, should have
died before it was invented.
The great difficulty in verse is avowedly the rhyme. Dean
Swift says somewhere in his letters, “that a rhyme is as hard
to find with him as a guinea,”--and we all know that guineas
are proverbially scarce among poets. The merest versifier that
ever attempted a Valentine must have met with this Orson, some
untameable savage syllable that refused to chime in with society.
For instance, what poetical Foxhunter--a contributor to the
Sporting Magazine--has not drawn all the covers of Beynard Ceynard,
Deynard, Feynard, Geynard, Heynard, Keynard, Leynard, Meynard,
Neynard, Peynard, Queynard, to find a rhyme for Reynard? The spirit
of the times is decidedly against Tithe; and I know of no tithe
more oppressive than that poetical one, in heroic measure, which
requires that every tenth syllable shall pay a sound in kind. How
often the Poet goes up a line, only to be stopped at the end by
an impracticable rhyme, like a bull in a blind alley! I have an
ingenious medical friend, who might have been an eminent poet by
this time, but the first line he wrote ended in ipecacuanha, and
with all his physical and mental power, he has never yet been able
to find a rhyme for it.
The plan I propose aims to obviate this hardship. My system is, to
take the bull by the horns; in short, to try at first what words
will chime, before you go farther, and fare worse. To say nothing
of other advantages, it will at least have one good effect,--and
that is, to correct the erroneous notion of the would-be poets and
poetesses of the present day, that the great _end_ of poetry is
rhyme. I beg leave to present a specimen of worse, which proves
quite the reverse, and am, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
JOHN DRYDEN GRUBB.
[Illustration: REFUSING TITHE.]
THE DOUBLE KNOCK.
Rat-tat it went upon the lion’s chin
“That hat, I know it!” cried the joyful girl:
“Summer’s it is, I know him by his knock,
Comers like him are welcome as the day!
Lizzy! go down and open the street-door,
Busy I am to anyone but _him_
Know him you must--he has been often here;
Show him up stairs, and tell him I’m alone.”
Quickly the maid went tripping down the stair;
Thickly the heart of Rose Matilda beat;
“Sure he has brought me tickets for the play--
Drury or Covent Garden--darling man!--
Kemble will play--or Kean who makes the soul
Tremble; in Richard or the frienzied Moor--
Farren, the stay and prop of many a farce
Barren beside--or Liston, Laughter’s Child--
Kelly the natural, to witness whom
Jelly is nothing to the public’s jam--
Cooper, the sensible--and Walter Knowles
Super, in William Tell--now rightly told.
Better--perchance, from Andrews, brings a box,
Letter of boxes for the Italian stage--
Brocard! Donzelli! Taglioni! Paul!
No card--thank Heaven--engages me to-night!
Feathers, of course, no turban, and no toque--
Weather’s against it, but I’ll go in curls.
Dearly I dote on white--my satin dress,
Merely one night--it won’t be much the worse--
Cupid the New Ballet I long to see--
Stupid! why don’t she go and ope the door!”
Glisten’d her eye as the impatient girl
Listen’d, low bending o’er the topmost stair.
Vainly, alas! she listens and she bends,
Plainly she hears this question and reply:
“Axes your pardon, Sir, but what d’ye want?”
“Taxes,” says he, “and shall not call again!”
[Illustration: BARKER’S PANORAMA.]
A FOXHUNTER
Is a jumble of paradoxes. He sets forth clean though he comes out of
a kennel, and returns home dirty. He cares not for cards, yet strives
to be always with the pack. He loves fencing, but without carte or
tierce, and delights in a steeplechase, though he does not follow
the Church. He is anything but litigious, yet is fond of a certain
suit, and retains Scarlet. He keeps a running account with Horse,
Dog, Fox, and Co., but objects to a check. As to cards, in choosing a
pack he prefers Hunt’s. In Theatricals, he favours Miss Somerville,
because her namesake wrote the Chase, though he never read it. He is
no great dancer, though he is fond of casting off twenty couple; and
no great Painter, though he draws covers, and seeks for a brush. He
is no Musician, and yet is fond of five bars. He despises Doctors,
yet follows a course of bark. He professes to love his country, but
is perpetually crossing it. He is fond of strong ale and beer, yet
dislikes any purl. He is good-tempered, yet so far a Tartar as to
prefer a saddle of Horse to a saddle of Mutton. He is somewhat rough
and bearish himself, but insists on good breeding in horses and dogs.
He professes the Church Catechism, and countenances heathen dogmas, by
naming his hounds after Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Diana. He cares not
for violets, but he doats on a good scent. He says his wife is a shrew,
but objects to destroying a Vixen. In Politics he inclines to Pitt, and
runs after Fox. He is no milksop, but he loves to Tally. He protects
Poultry, and preserves Foxes. He follows but one business, and yet has
many pursuits. He pretends to be knowing, but a dog leads him by the
nose. He is as honest a fellow as need be, yet his neck is oftener
in danger than a thief’s. He swears he can clear anything, but is
beaten by a fog. He is no landlord of houses, but is particular about
fixtures. He studies “Summering the Hunter,” but goes Huntering in
the Winter. He esteems himself prosperous, and is always going to the
dogs. He delights in the Hunter’s Stakes, but takes care not to stake
his hunter. He praises discretion, but would rather let the cat out of
the bag than a fox. He does not shine at a human conversazione, but is
great among dogs giving tongue. To conclude, he runs as long as he can,
and then goes to earth, and his Heir is in at his death. But his Heir
does not stand in his shoes, for he never wore anything but boots.
[Illustration: “STAND AND DELIVER.”]
[Illustration: FANCY PORTRAIT--“I’D BE A BUTTERFLY.”]
BAILEY BALLADS.