F. W. N.--or even any Publishers--but the original old Bailey. It
belongs to a set of Songs composed during the courtly leisure of what
is technically called a Juryman in Waiting--that is, one of a _corps
de reserve_, held in readiness to fill up the gaps which extraordinary
mental exertion--or sedentary habits--or starvation, may make in the
Council of Twelve. This wrong box it was once my fortune to get into.
On the 5th of November, at the 6th hour, leaving my bed, and the
luxurious perusal of Taylor on Early Rising--I walked from a yellow fog
into a black one, in my unwilling way to the New Court, which sweet
herbs even could not sweeten, for the sole purpose of making criminals
uncomfortable. A neighbour, a retired sea Captain with a wooden leg,
now literally a jury-mast, limped with me from Highbury Terrace on the
same hanging errand--a personified Halter. Our legal drill Corporal
was Serjeant Arabin, and when our muster roll without butter was over,
before breakfast, the uninitiated can form no idea of the ludicrousness
of the excuses of the would-be Nonjurors,--aggravated by the solemnity
of a previous oath, the delivery from a witness-box like a pulpit, and
the professional gravity of the Court. One weakly old gentleman had
been ordered by his physician to eat little, but often, and apprehended
even fatal consequences from being locked up with an obstinate eleven;
another conscientious demurrer desired time to make himself master
of his duties, by consulting Jonathan Wild, Vidocq, Hardy Vaux, and
Lazarillo de Tormes. But the number of deaf men who objected the
hardness of their hearing criminal cases was beyond belief. The
Publishers of “Curtis on the Ear” and “Wright on the Ear”--(two popular
surgical works, though rather suggestive of Pugilism)--ought to have
stentorian agents in that Court. Defective on one side myself, I was
literally ashamed to strike up singly in such a chorus of muffled
double drums, and tacitly suffered my ears to be boxed with a common
Jury. I heard, on the right hand, a Judge’s charge--an arraignment
and evidence to match, with great dexterity, but failing to catch the
defence from the left hand, refused naturally to concur in any sinister
verdict. The learned Serjeant, I presume, as I was only half deaf,
only half discharged me,--committing me to the relay-box, as a juror
in Waiting,--and from which I was relieved only by his successor, Sir
Thomas Denman, and to justify my dulness, I made even his stupendous
voice to repeat my dismissal twice over!
It was during this compelled attendance that the project struck me
of a Series of Lays of Larceny, combining Sin and Sentiment in that
melo-dramatic mixture which is so congenial to the cholera morbid
sensibility of the present age and stage. The following are merely
specimens, but a hint from the Powers that be--in the Strand,--will
promptly produce a handsome volume of the remainder, with a grateful
Dedication to the learned Serjeant.
[Illustration: “DESCEND YE NINE.”]
LINES TO MARY.
(AT NO. 1, NEWGATE, FAVOURED BY MR. WONTNER.)
O Mary, I believ’d you true,
And I was blest in so believing;
But till this hour I never knew--
That you were taken up for thieving!
Oh! When I snatch’d a tender kiss
Or some such trifle when I courted,
You said, indeed, that love was bliss,
But never owned you were transported!
But then to gaze on that fair face--
It would have been an unfair feeling,
To dream that you had pilfered lace--
And Flints had suffered from your stealing!
Or when my suit I first preferr’d,
To bring your coldness to repentance,
Before I hammered out a word,
How could I dream you’d heard a sentence,
Or when with all the warmth of youth
I strove to prove my love no fiction,
How could I guess I urged a truth
On one already past conviction!
How could I dream that ivory part,
Your hand--where I have look’d and linger’d,
Altho’ it stole away my heart,
Had been held up as one light-finger’d!
In melting verse your charms I drew,
The charms in which my muse delighted--
Alas! the lay I thought was new,
Spoke only what had been _indicted_!
Oh! when that form, a lovely one,
Hung on the neck its arms had flown to,
I little thought that you had run
A chance of hanging on your own too.
You said you pick’d me from the world,
My vanity it now must shock it--
And down at once my pride is hurl’d,
You’ve pick’d me--and you’ve pick’d a pocket.
Oh! when our love had got so far,
The bans were read by Dr. Daly,
Who asked if there was any _bar_--
Why did not some one shout “Old Bailey?”
But when you rob’d your flesh and bones
In that pure white that angel garb is,
Who could have thought you, Mary Jones,
Among the Joans that link with _Darbies_?
And when the parson came to say,
My goods were yours, if I had got any,
And you should honour and obey,
Who could have thought--“O Bay of Botany.”
But, oh,--the worst of all your slips
I did not till this day discover--
That down in Deptford’s prison ships,
Oh, Mary! you’ve a hulking lover!
[Illustration: “’T WERE WELL IF WE HAD NEVER MET.”]
No. II.
“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 kissed 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!
No. III.
“I’d be a Parody.”--BAILEY.
We met--’twas in a mob--and I thought he had done me--
I felt--I could not feel--for no watch was upon me;
He ran--the night was cold--and his pace was unalter’d,
I too longed much to pelt--but my small-boned legs falter’d.
I wore my bran new boots--and unrivall’d their brightness,
They fit me to a hair--how I hated their tightness!
I call’d, but no one came, and my stride had a tether;
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather!
And once again we met--and an old pal was near him,
He swore a something low--but ’twas no use to fear him;
I seized upon his arm, he was mine and mine only,
And stept--as he deserv’d--to cells wretched and lonely:
And there he will be tried--but I shall ne’er receive her,
The watch that went too sure for an artful deceiver;
The world may think me gay--heart and feet ache together,
Oh _thou_ hast been the cause of this anguish, my leather.
[Illustration: STOP HIM!]
[Illustration: THE SOURCE OF THE NIGER.]
LETTER
FROM A PARISH CLERK IN BARBADOES TO ONE IN HAMPSHIRE, WITH AN ENCLOSURE.
“Thou mayest conceive, O reader, with what concern I perceived the eyes
of the congregation fixed upon me.”--MEMOIRS OF P. P.
MY DEAR JEDIDIAH,
Here I am safe and sound--well in body, and in fine voice for my
calling--though thousands and thousands of miles, I may say, from
the old living Threap-Cum-Toddle. Little did I think to be ever
giving out the Psalms across the Atlantic, or to be walking in the
streets of Barbadoes, surrounded by Blackamoors, big and little;
some crying after me, “There him go--look at Massa Amen!” Poor
African wretches! I do hope, by my Lord Bishop’s assistance, to
instruct many of them, and to teach them to have more respect for
ecclesiastic dignitaries.
Through a ludicrous clerical mischance, not fit for me to mention,
we have preached but once since our arrival. Oh! Jedidiah, how
different from the row of comely, sleek, and ruddy plain English
faces, that used to confront me in the Churchwarden’s pew, at the
old service in Hants,--Mr. Perryman’s clean, shining, bald head;
Mr. Truman’s respectable powdered, and Mr. Cutlet’s comely and
well-combed caxon!--Here, such a set of grinning sooty faces, that
if I had been in any other place, I might have fancied myself at a
meeting of Master Chimney-sweeps on May-Day. You know, Jedidiah,
how strange thoughts and things will haunt the mind, in spite of
one’s self, at times the least appropriate:--the line that follows
“The rose is red, the violet’s blue,” in the old Valentine, I am
ashamed to say, came across me I know not how often. Then after
service, no sitting on a tombstone for a cheerful bit of chat
with a neighbour--no invitation to dinner from the worshipful
Churchwardens. The jabber of these Niggers is so outlandish or
unintelligible, I can hardly say I am on speaking terms with any
of our parishioners, except Mr. Pompey, the Governor’s black,
whose trips to England have made his English not quite so full of
Greek as the others. There is one thing, however, that is so great
a disappointment of my hopes and enjoyments, that I think, if I
had foreseen it, I should not have come out even at the Bishop’s
request. The song in the play-book says, you know, “While all
Barbadoes bells do ring!”--but alas, Jedidiah, there is not a
ring of bells in the whole island!--You who remember my fondness
for that melodious pastime, indeed I may say my passion, for a
Grandsire Peel of Triple Bob-Majors truly pulled, and the changes
called by myself, as when I belonged to the Great Tom Society of
Hampshire Youths,--may conceive my regret that, instead of coming
here, I did not go out to Swan River--I am told they have a Peel
there.
[Illustration: BLACK BARBERISM.]
I shall write a longer letter by the Nestor, Bird, which is the
next ship. This comes by the Lively, Kidd,--only to inform you that
I arrived here safe and well. Pray communicate the same, with my
love and duty, to my dear parents and relations, not forgetting
Deborah and Darius at Porkington, and Uriah at Pigstead. The same
to Mrs. Pugh, the opener,--Mr. Sexton, and the rest of my clerical
friends. I have no commissions at present, except to beg that you
will deliver the enclosed, which I have written at Mr. Pompey’s
dictation, to his old black fellow servant, at Number 45, Portland
Place. Ask for Agamemnon down the area. If an opportunity should
likewise offer of mentioning in any quarter that might reach
administration, the destitute state of our Barbarian steeples,
and belfries, pray don’t omit; and if, in the mean time, you could
send out even a set of small handbells, it might prove a parochial
acquisition as well as to me,
Dear Jedidiah,
Your faithful Friend and fellow Clerk,
HABAKKUK CRUMPE.
P.S.--I send Pompey’s letter open, for you to read--You will see
what a strange herd of black cattle I am among
[THE ENCLOSURE.]
I say, Aggy!--
You remember me?--Very well.--Runaway Pompey, somebody else.
Me Governor’s Pompey. You remember? Me carry out Governor’s
piccaninny a walk. Very well. Massa Amen and me write this to say
the news. Barbadoes all bustle. Nigger-mans do nothing but talkee
talkee. [_Pompey’s right, Jedidiah._] The Bishop is come. Missis
Bishop. Miss Bishop--all the Bishops. Very well. The Bishop come
in one ship, and him wigs come out in other ship. Bishop come one,
two, three, weeks first. [_It’s too true, Jedidiah._] Him say no
wig, no Bishop. Massa Amen, you remember, say so too. Very well.
Massa Amen ask me everything about nigger-man, where him baptises
in a water. [_So I did._] Me tell him in the sea, in the river,
any wheres abouts. You remember. Massa Amen ask at me again, who
’ficiates. Me tell him de Cayman. [_What man, Jedidiah, could
he mean?_] Very well. The day before the other day Bishop come
to dinner with Governor and Governess, up at the Big House. You
remember,--Missis Bishop too. Missis Bishop set him turban afire at
a candle, and me put him out. [_With a kettle of scalding water,
Jedidiah._] Pompey get nothing for that. Very well.
[Illustration: “BY GUM HIM TURBAN AFIRE.”]
I say, Aggy,--You know your Catechism? Massa Amen ask him at me
and my wife, Black Juno, sometimes You remember. Massa Amen say,
you give up a Devil? very well. Then him say, you give up all
work? very well. Then him say again, Black Juno, you give up your
_Pompeys_ and vanities? Black Juno shake her head, and say no.
Massa Amen say you must, and then my wife cry ever so much. [_It’s
a fact, Jedidiah, the black female made this ridiculous mistake._]
Very well. Governor come to you in three months to see the King.
Pompey too. You remember. Come for me to Blackwall. Me bring you
some of Governor’s rum. Black Juno say, tell Massa Agamemnon, he
must send some fashions, sometimes. You remember? Black Juno very
smart. Him wish for a Bell Assembly. [_Jedidiah, so do I._] You
send him out, you remember? Very well.
Massa Amen say write no more now. I say, O pray one little word
more for Agamemnon’s wife. Give him good kiss from Pompey.
[_Jedidiah, what a heathenish message!_] Black Diana a kiss too.
You remember? Very well. No more.
[Illustration: SHIP LETTERS.]
FRENCH AND ENGLISH.
“Good Heaven! Why even the little children in France speak
French!”--ADDISON.
I.
Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo,
If you do, like me,
You will repent by jingo.
Staring like a fool,
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy.
II.
Chaises stand for chairs,
They christen letters _Billies_,
They call their mothers _mares_,
And all their daughters _fillies_;
Strange it was to hear,
I’ll tell you what’s a good ’un,
They call their leather _queer_,
And half their shoes are wooden.
III.
Signs I had to make
For every little notion,
Limbs all going like
A telegraph in motion;
For wine I reel’d about,
To show my meaning fully,
And made a pair of horns,
To ask for “beef and bully.”
IV.
Moo! I cried for milk;
I got my sweet things snugger,
When I kissed Jeannette,
’Twas understood for sugar.
If I wanted bread,
My jaws I set a-going,
And asked for new-laid eggs,
By clapping hands and crowing?
V.
If I wish’d a ride,
I’ll tell you how I got it;
On my stick astride,
I made believe to trot it;
Then their cash was strange,
It bored me every minute,
Now here’s a _hog_ to change,
How many _sows_ are in it?
VI.
Never go to France,
Unless you know the lingo;
If you do, like me,
You will repent, by jingo;
Staring like a fool,
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy!
[Illustration: “Allons! Vîte! Vîte! Vîte! Vîte!”
“No, Mounseer, not veat--them’s whoats!”]
OUR VILLAGE.
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain.”--GOLDSMITH.
I have a great anxiety to become a topographer, and I do not know that
I can make an easier commencement of the character, than by attempting
a description of our village. It will be found, as my friend the
landlord over the way says, that “things are drawn _mild_.”
I live opposite the Green Man. I know that to be the sign, in spite of
the picture, because I am told of the fact in large gilt letters, in
three several places. The whole-length portrait of “_l’homme verd_” is
rather imposing. He stands plump before you, in a sort of wrestling
attitude, the legs standing distinctly apart, in a brace of decided
boots, with dun tops, joined to a pair of creole-coloured leather
breeches. The rest of his dress is peculiar; the coat, a two-flapper,
green and brown, or, as they say at the tap, _half-and-half_; a cocked
hat on the half cock; a short belt crossing the breast like a flat
gas-pipe. The one hand stuck on the greeny-brown hip of my friend, in
the other a gun with a barrel like an entire butt, and a butt like a
brewer’s whole stock. On one side, looking up at the vanished visage of
his master, is all that remains of a liver-and-white pointer--seeming
now to be some old dog from India, for his white complexion is turned
yellow, and his liver is more than half gone!
The inn is really a very quiet, cozy, comfortable inn, though the
landlord announces a fact in larger letters, methinks, than his
information warrants, viz., that he is “_Licensed to deal in Foreign
Wines and Spirits_.” All innkeepers, I trust, are so licensed; there is
no occasion to make so brazen a brag of this sinecure permit.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE LADY OF “OUR VILLAGE.”]
I had written thus far, when the tarnished gold letters of the Green
Man seemed to be suddenly re-gilt; and on looking upwards, I perceived
that a sort of sky-light had been opened in the clouds, giving entrance
to a bright gleam of sunshine, which glowed with remarkable effect on
a yellow post-chaise in the stable-yard, and brought the ducks out
beautifully white from the black horse-pond. Tempted by the appearance
of the weather, I put down my pen and strolled out for a quarter of
an hour before dinner to inhale that air, without which, like the
chameleon I cannot feed. On my return, I found, with some surprise,
that my papers were a good deal discomposed; but, before I had time
for much wonder, my landlady entered with one of her most obliging
courtesies, and observed that she had seen me writing in the morning,
and it had occurred to her by chance, that I might by possibility
have been writing a description of the village. I told her that I had
actually been engaged on that very subject. “If that is the case, of
course, Sir, you would begin, no doubt, about the Green Man, being
so close by; and I dare say, you would say something about the sign,
and the Green Man with his top boots, and his gun, and his Indian
liver-and-white pointer, though his white to be sure is turned yellow,
and his liver is more than half gone.” “You are perfectly right, Mrs.
Ledger,” I replied, “and in one part of the description, I think I
have used almost your own very words.” “Well, that _is_ curious, Sir,”
exclaimed Mrs. L., and physically, not arithmetically, casting up
all her hands and eyes. “Moreover, what I mean to say, is this; and
I only say that to save trouble. There’s a young man lodges at the
Green Grocer’s over the way, who has writ an account of the village
already to your hand. The people about the place call him the Poet,
but, anyhow, he studies a good deal, and writes beautiful; and, as I
said before, has made the whole village out of his own head. Now, it
might save trouble, Sir, if you was to write it out, and I am sure I
have a copy, that, as far as the loan goes, is at your service, Sir.”
My curiosity induced me to take the offer; and as the poem really
forestalled what I had to say of the Hamlet, I took my landlady’s
advice and transcribed it,--and here it is.
OUR VILLAGE.--BY A VILLAGER.
Our village, that’s to say not Miss Mitford’s village, but our
village of Bullock Smithy,
Is come into by an avenue of trees, three oak pollards, two elders,
and a withy;
And in the middle, there’s a green of about not exceeding an acre
and a half;
It’s common to all, and fed off by nineteen cows, six ponies, three
horses, five asses, two foals, seven pigs, and a calf!
Besides a pond in the middle, as is held by a similar sort of common
law lease,
And contains twenty ducks, six drakes, three ganders, two dead dogs,
four drown’d kittens, and twelve geese.
Of course the green’s cropt very close, and does famous for bowling
when the little village boys play at cricket;
Only some horse, or pig, or cow, or great jackass is sure to come
and stand right before the wicket.
There’s fifty-five private houses, let alone barns and workshops,
and pig-sties, and poultry huts, and such-like sheds;
With plenty of public-houses--two Foxes, one Green Man, three Bunch
of Grapes, one Crown, and six King’s Heads.
The Green Man is reckon’d the best, as the only one that for love or
money can raise
A postillion, a blue jacket, two deplorable lame white horses, and a
ramshackled “neat post-chaise.”
There’s one parish church for all the people, whatsoever may be
their ranks in life or their degrees,
Except one very damp, small, dark, freezing-cold, little Methodist
chapel of Ease;
And close by the church-yard, there’s a stone-mason’s yard, that
when the time is seasonable
Will furnish with afflictions sore and marble urns and cherubims
very low and reasonable.
There’s a cage, comfortable enough; I’ve been in it with Old Jack
Jeffrey and Tom Pike;
For the Green Man next door will send you in ale, gin, or any thing
else you like.
I can’t speak of the stocks, as nothing remains of them but the
upright post;
But the pound is kept in repairs for the sake of Cob’s horse, as is
always there almost.
There’s a smithy of course, where that queer sort of a chap in his
way, Old Joe Bradley,
Perpetually hammers and stammers, for he stutters and shoes horses
very badly.
There’s a shop of all sorts, that sells every thing, kept by the
widow of Mr. Task;
But when you go there it’s ten to one she’s out of every thing you
ask.
You’ll know her house by the swarm of boys, like flies, about the
old sugary cask.
There are six empty houses, and not so well paper’d inside as out,
For bill-stickers won’t beware, but sticks notices of sales and
election placards all about.
That’s the Doctor’s with a green door, where the garden pots in the
windows is seen;
A weakly monthly rose that don’t blow, and a dead geranium, and a
tea-plant with five black leaves and one green.
As for hollyoaks at the cottage doors, and honeysuckles and
jasmines, you may go and whistle;
But the Tailor’s front garden grow two cabbages, a dock, a ha’porth
of pennyroyal, two dandelions, and a thistle.
There are three small orchards--Mr. Busby’s the schoolmaster’s is
the chief--
With two pear-trees that don’t bear; one plum and an apple, that
every year is stripped by a thief.
There’s another small day-school too, kept by the respectable Mrs.
Gaby;
A select establishment, for six little boys and one big, and four
little girls and a baby.
There’s a rectory, with pointed gables and strange odd chimneys that
never smokes,
For the rector don’t live on his living like other Christian sort of
folks;
There’s a barber’s, once a-week well filled with rough black-bearded
shock-headed churls,
And a window with two feminine men’s heads, and two masculine ladies
in false curls;
There’s a butcher’s and a carpenter’s and a plumber’s and a small
green-grocer’s, and a baker,
But he won’t bake on a Sunday, and there’s a sexton that’s a
coal-merchant besides, and an undertaker;
And a toy-shop, but not a whole one, for a village can’t compare
with the London shops;
One window sells drums, dolls, kites, carts, bats, Clout’s balls,
and the other sells malt and hops.
And Mrs. Brown, in domestic economy not to be a bit behind her
betters,
Lets her house to a milliner, a watchmaker, a rat-catcher, a
cobbler, lives in it herself, and it’s the post-office for
letters.
Now I’ve gone through all the village--ay, from end to end, save and
except one more house,
But I haven’t come to that--and I hope I never shall--and that’s the
Village Poor-House!
[Illustration: AN UNFORTUNATE BEE-ING.]
THE SCRAPE-BOOK.
“Luck’s all!”
Some men seem born to be lucky. Happier than kings, Fortune’s wheel
has for them no revolutions. Whatever they touch turns to gold,--their
path is paved with the philosopher’s stone. At games of chance they
have no chance; but what is better, a certainty. They hold four suits
of trumps. They get windfalls, without a breath stirring--as legacies.
Prizes turn up for them in lotteries. On the turf, their horse--an
outsider--always wins. They enjoy a whole season of benefits. At the
very worst, in trying to drown themselves, they dive on some treasure
undiscovered since the Spanish Armada; or tie their halter to a hook,
that unseals a hoard in the ceiling. That’s their luck.
There is another kind of fortune, called ill-luck; so ill, that you
hope it will die;--but it don’t. That’s my luck.
Other people keep scrap-books; but I, a scrape-book. It is theirs to
insert bon-mots, riddles, anecdotes, caricatures, facetiæ of all kinds;
mine to record mischances, failures, accidents, disappointments; in
short, as the betters say, I have always a bad book. Witness a few
extracts, bitter as extract of bark.