stumbled over my father-in-law’s beehives! He has 252 bees; thanks
to me, he is now able to check them. Some of the insects having an
account against me, preferred to _settle_ on my calf. Others swarmed
on my hands. My bald head seemed a perfect humming-top! Two hundred
and fifty-two stings--it should be “stings--and arrows of outrageous
fortune!” But that’s my luck. Rushed bee-blind into the horse-pond,
and _torn out_ by Tiger, the house dog. Staggered incontinent into
the pig-sty, and collared by the sow--sus. per coll. for kicking her
sucklings; recommended oil for my wounds, and none but lamp ditto in
the house; relieved of the stings at last--what luck! by 252 operations.
9th. Gave my adored Belinda a black eye, in the open street, aiming at
a lad who attempted to snatch her reticule. Belinda’s part taken by a
big rascal, as deaf as a post, who wanted to fight me “for striking a
woman.” My luck again.
12th. Purchased a mare, warranted so gentle that a lady might ride
her, and, indeed, no animal could be quieter, except the leather one,
formerly in the Show-room, at Exeter Change. Meant for the first time
to ride with Belinda to the Park--put my foot in the stirrup, and found
myself on my own back instead of the mare’s. Other men are thrown by
their horses, but a saddle does it for me. Well, nothing is so hard as
my luck--unless it be the fourth flag or stone from the post at the
north corner of Harley Street.
14th. Run down in a wherry by a coal-brig, off Greenwich, but
providentially picked up by a steamer, that burst her boiler directly
afterwards. Saved to be scalded!--But misfortunes with me never came
single, from my very childhood. I remember when my little brothers and
sisters tumbled down stairs, they always hitched halfway at the angle.
_My_ luck invariably turned the corner. It could not bear to bate me a
single bump.
17th. Had my eye picked out by a pavior who was _axing_ his way, he
didn’t care where. Sent home in a hackney chariot that upset. Paid
Jarvis a sovereign for a shilling. My luck all over!
1st of May. My flue on fire. Not a sweep to be had for love or
money!--Lucky enough _for me_--the parish engine soon arrived, with
all the charity school. Boys are fond of playing--and indulged their
propensity by playing into my best drawing-room. Every friend I had
dropped in to dinner. Nothing but Lacedemonian black broth. Others have
pot-luck, but I have not even pint-luck--at least of the right sort.
8th. Found, on getting up, that the kitchen garden had been stripped by
thieves, but had the luck at night to catch some one in the garden, by
walking into my own trap. Afraid to call out, for fear of being shot at
by the gardener, who would have hit me to a dead certainty--for such is
my luck!
10th. Agricultural distress is a treat to mine. My old friend Bill--I
must henceforth call him Corn-bill--has, this morning, laid his
unfeeling wooden leg on my tenderest toe, like a thresher. In spite of
Dibdin, I don’t believe that oak has any heart; or it would not be such
a walking tread-mill!
[Illustration: A CORNISH MAN.]
12th. Two pieces of “my usual.” First knocked down by a mad bull.
Secondly, picked up by a pick-pocket. Anybody but me would have found
one honest humane man out of a whole crowd; but I am born to suffer,
whether done by accident or done by design. Luckily for me and the
pick-pocket, I was able to identify him, bound over to prosecute,
and had the satisfaction of exporting him to Botany Bay. I suppose I
performed well in a court of justice, for the next day--“_Encore un
coup_!”--I had a summons to serve with a Middlesex jury, at the Old
Bailey, for a fortnight.
14th. My number in the lottery has come up a capital prize. Luck at
last--if I had not lost the ticket.
A TRUE STORY.
Whoe’er has seen upon the human face
The yellow jaundice and the jaundice black,
May form a notion of old Colonel Case
With nigger Pompey waiting at his back.
Case,--as the case is, many time with folks
From hot Bengal, Calcutta, or Bombay,
Had tint his tint, as Scottish tongues would say,
And show’d two cheeks as yellow as eggs’ yolks.
Pompey, the chip of some old ebon block,
In hue was like his master’s stiff cravat,
And might indeed have claimed akin to _that_,
Coming, as _he_ did, of an old _black stock_.
Case wore the liver’s livery that such
Must wear, their past excesses to denote,
Like Greenwich pensioners that take too much,
And then do penance in a yellow coat.
Pompey’s, a deep and permanent jet dye,
A stain of nature’s staining--one of those,
We call _fast_ colours--merely, I suppose,
Because such colours never _go_ or _fly_.
Pray mark this difference of dark and sallow,
Pompey’s black husk, and the old Colonel’s yellow.
The Colonel, once a penniless beginner,
From a long Indian rubber rose a winner,
With plenty of pagodas in his pocket,
And homeward turning his Hibernian thought,
Deem’d _Wicklow_ was the very place that ought
To harbour one whose _wick_ was in the socket.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN ROCK.]
Unhappily for Case’s scheme of quiet,
Wicklow just then was in a pretty riot,
A fact recorded in each day’s diurnals,
Things, Case was not accustomed to peruse,
Careless of news;
But Pompey always read these bloody journals,
Full of Kilmany and Killmore work,
The freaks of some O’Shaunessy’s shillaly,
Of morning frays by some O’Brien Burke,
Or horrid nightly outrage by some Daly;
How scums deserving of the Devil’s ladle,
Would fall upon the harmless scull and knock it,
And if he found an infant in the cradle
Stern Rock would hardly hesitate to rock it;--
In fact, he read of burner and of killer,
And Irish ravages, day after day,
Till, haunting in his dreams, he used to say,
That “Pompey could not sleep on _Pompey’s Pillar_.”
Judge then the horror of the nigger’s face
To find--with such impressions of that dire land--
That Case,--his master, was a packing case
For Ireland!
He saw in fearful reveries arise,
Phantasmagorias of those dreadful men
Whose fame associate with Irish plots is,
Fitzgeralds--Tones--O’Connors--Hare--and then
“Those _Emmetts_,” not so “little in his eyes”
As Doctor Watts’s!
He felt himself piked, roasted--carv’d and hack’d,
His big black burly body seemed in fact
A pincushion for Terror’s pins and needles,--
Oh, how he wish’d himself beneath the sun
Of Afric--or in far Barbadoes--one
Of Bishop Coleridge’s new _black beadles_.
Full of this fright,
With broken peace and broken English choking,
As black as any raven and as croaking,
Pompey rushed in upon his master’s sight,
Plump’d on his knees, and clasp’d his sable digits,
Thus stirring Curiosity’s sharp fidgets--
“O Massa!--Massa!--Colonel!--Massa Case,--
Not go to Ireland!--Ireland dam bad place;
Dem take our bloods--dem Irish--every drop--
Oh why for Massa go so far a distance
To have him life?”----Here Pompey made a stop,
Putting an awful period to existence.
“Not go to Ireland--not to Ireland, fellow,
And murder’d--why should I be murder’d, Sirrah?”
Cried Case, with anger’s tinge upon his yellow,--
Pompey, for answer, pointing in a mirror
The Colonel’s saffron, and his own japan,--
“Well, what has that to do--quick--speak outright, boy?”
“O Massa”--(so the explanation ran)
“Massa be killed--’cause Massa _Orange Man_,
And Pompey killed--’cause Pompey not a _White Boy_!”
[Illustration: POMPEY’S PILLAR.]
[Illustration: “O, NOTHING IN LIFE CAN SADDEN US.”]
THE SORROWS OF AN UNDERTAKER.
To mention only by name the sorrows of an Undertaker, will be likely to
raise a smile on most faces,--the mere words suggest a solemn stalking
parody of grief to the satiric fancy;--but give a fair hearing to my
woes, and even the veriest mocker may learn to pity an Undertaker who
has been unfortunate in all his undertakings.
My Father, a Furnisher and Performer in the funeral line, used to say
of me,--noticing some boyish levities--that “I should never do for an
Undertaker.” But the prediction was wrong--my Parent died, and I did
for him in the way of business. Having no other alternative, I took
possession of a very fair stock and business. I felt at first as if
plunged in the Black Sea--and when I read my name upon the shop door,
it threw a crape over my spirits, that I did not get rid of for some
months.
Then came the cares of business. The scandalous insinuated that the
funerals were not so decorously performed as in the time of the Late. I
discharged my mutes, who were grown fat and jocular, and sought about
for the lean and lank visaged kind. But these demure rogues cheated and
robbed me--plucked my feathers and pruned my scarfs, and I was driven
back again to my “merrie men,”--whose only fault was making a pleasure
of their business.
[Illustration: FAIRY LAND.]
Soon after this, I made myself prominent in the parish, and obtained
a contract for Parochial Conchology--or shells for the paupers. But
this even, as I may say, broke down on its first tressels. Having as my
first job to inter a workhouse female--Ætat. 96--and wishing to gain
the good opinion of the parish, I had made the arrangements with more
than usual decency. The company were at the door. Placing myself at
the head, with my best burial face, and my slowest solemnity of step,
I set forward, and thanks to my professional deafness,--induced by
the constant hammering--I never perceived, till at the church gates,
that the procession had not stirred from the door of the house. So
good a joke was not lost upon my two Mutes, who made it an excuse for
chuckling on after occasions. But to me the consequence was serious.
A notion arose amongst the poor that I was too proud to walk along
with their remains, and the ferment ran so high, that I was finally
compelled to give up my contract.
So much for foot funerals. Now for coach work. The extravagant charges
of the jobbers at last induced me to set up a Hearse and Mourning
Coaches of my own, with sleek ebony long-tailed horses to match. One
of these--the finest of the set--had been sold to me under warranty of
being sound and free from vice; and so he was, but the dealer never
told me that he had been a charger at Astley’s. Accordingly on his
very first performance, in passing through Bow,--at that time a kind
of Fairy Land,--he thought proper, on hearing a showman’s trumpet, to
dance a cotillion in his feathers! There was nothing to be done but to
travel on with three to the next stage, where I sold the caperer at a
heavy loss, and to the infinite regret of my merry mourners, with whom
this exhibition had made him a great favourite. From this period my
business rapidly declined, till instead of five or six demises, on an
average, I put in only two defuncts and a half per week.
In this extremity a “black job” was brought to me that promised to make
amends for the rest. One fine morning a brace of executors walked into
the shop, and handing to me the following extract of a will, politely
requested that I would perform accordingly--and with the pleasing
addition that I was to be regardless of the expense. The document ran
thus: “Item, I will and desire that after death, my body be placed in
a strong leaden coffin, the same to be afterwards enclosed in one of
oak, and therein my remains to be conveyed handsomely to the village
of *** in Norfolk, my birth-place; there to lie, being duly watched,
during one night, in the Family mansion now unoccupied, and on the
morrow to be carried thence to the church, the coffin being borne by
the six oldest resident and decayed parishioners, male or female, and
for the same they shall receive severally the sum of five pounds, to be
paid on or before the day of interment.”
It will be believed that I lost no time in preparing the last solid
and costly receptacles for the late Lady Lambert; and the unusual
bulk of the deceased seemed in prospective to justify a bill of
proportionate magnitude. I was prodigal of plumes and scutcheons, of
staves and scarfs, and mourning coaches; and finally, raising a whole
company of black cavalry, we set out by stages, short and sweet, for
our destination. I had been prudent enough to send a letter before me
to prepare the bearers, and imprudent enough to remit their fees in
advance. But I had no misgivings. My men enjoyed the excursion, and so
did I. We ate well, drank well, slept well, and expected to be well
paid for what was so well done. At the last stage it happened I had
rather an intricate reckoning to arrange, by which means being detained
a full hour behind the cavalcade, I did not reach the desired village
till the whole party had established themselves at the Dying Dolphin;
a fact I first ascertained from hearing the merriment of my two mutes
in the parlour. Highly indignant at this breach of decorum, I rushed
in on the offending couple; and let the Undertaking Reader conceive my
feelings, when the following letter was put into my hands, explaining
at once the good joke of the two fellows, or rather, that of the whole
village.
“Sir,--We have sought out the six oldest of the pauper parishioners of
this place, namely as follows:--
Margaret Squires, aged 101, blind and bed-rid.
Timothy Topping, aged 98, paralytic and bed-rid.
Darius Watts, aged 95, with loss of both legs.
Barbara Copp, 94 years, born without arms.
Philip Gill, about 81, an Idiot.
Mary Ridges, 79, afflicted with St. Vitus.
“Among whom we have distributed your Thirty Pounds according to desire,
and for which they are very grateful.
JOHN GILLS, }
SAM. RACKSTROW, } Overseers.”
Such were the six bearers who were to carry Lady Lambert to the church,
and who could as soon have carried the church to Lady Lambert. To crown
all, I rashly listened to the advice of my thoughtless mutes, and in an
evil hour deposited the body without troubling any parishioner, old or
young, on the subject. The consequence is, the Executors demur to my
bill, because I have not acted up to the letter of my instructions. I
have had to stand treat for a large party on the road, to sustain all
the charges of the black cavalry, and am besides minus thirty pounds in
charity, without even the merit of a charitable intention!
THE CARELESSE NURSE MAYD.
I sawe a Mayd sitte on a Bank,
Beguiled by Wooer fayne and fond;
And whiles His flatterynge Vowes She drank,
Her Nurselynge slipt within a Pond!
All Even Tide they Talkde and Kist,
For She was fayre and He was Kinde;
The Sunne went down before She wist
Another Sonne had sett behinde!
With angrie Hands and frownynge Browe,
That deemed Her owne the Urchine’s Sinne,
She pluckt Him out, but he was nowe
Past being Whipt for fallynge in.
She then beginnes to wayle the Ladde
With Shrikes that Echo answerde round--
O! foolishe Mayd to be soe sadde
The Momente that her Care was drownd!
[Illustration: “ACCUSTOMED TO THE CARE OF CHILDREN.”]
[Illustration: FANNY.]
TO FANNY.
“Gay being, born to flutter!”--SALE’S GLEE.
Is this your faith, then, Fanny!
What, to chat with every Dun?
I’m the one, then, but of many,
Not of many but the _One_!
Last night you smil’d on all, Ma’am,
That appear’d in scarlet dress;
And your Regimental Ball, Ma’am,
Look’d a little like a _Mess_.
I thought that of the Sogers
(As the Scotch say) one might do
And that I, slight Ensign Rogers,
Was the chosen man and true.
But ’Sblood! your eye was busy
With that ragamuffin mob;--
Colonel Buddell--Colonel Dizzy--
And Lieutenant-Colonel Cobb.
General Joblin, General Jodkin,
Colonels--Kelly, Felly, with
Majors--Sturgeon, Truffle, Bodkin,
And the Quarter-master Smith.
Major Powderum--Major Dowdrum--
Major Chowdrum--Major Bye--
Captain Tawney--Captain Fawney,
Captain Any-one--but I!
Deuce take it! when the regiment
You so praised, I only thought
That you lov’d it in abridgment,
But I now am better taught!
I went, as loving man goes,
To admire thee in quadrilles;
But Fan, you dance fandangoes
With just any fop that wills!
I went with notes before us,
On the lay of Love to touch;
But with all the Corps in chorus,
Oh! it is indeed too much!
You once--ere you contracted
For the Army--seem’d my own;
But now you laugh with all the Staff,
And I may sigh alone!
I know not how it chances,
When my passion ever dares,
But the warmer my advances,
Then the cooler are your airs.
I am, I don’t conceal it,
But I am a little hurt;
You’re a Fan, and I must feel it,
Fit for nothing but a _Flirt_!
I dreamt thy smiles of beauty
On myself alone did fall;
But alas! “Cosi Fan Tutti!”
It is thus, Fan, thus with all!
You have taken quite a mob in
Of new military flames;--
They would make a fine Round Robin
If I gave you all their names!
[Illustration: A ROUND ROBIN.]
THE FANCY FAIR.
“It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it
is kept is ‘lighter than vanity;’ and also because all that is
there sold, or that cometh thither, is vanity.”--PILGRIM’S
PROGRESS.
“I named this place Boothia.”--CAPTAIN ROSS.
“A Fancy Fair,” said my friend L., in his usual quaint style, “is a
fair subject for fancy; take up your pen and try. For instance, there
was one held at the Mansion House. Conceive a shambling shock-headed
clodpole, familiar with the wakes of Bow, Barnet, and Bartlemy,
elbowing his awkward way into the Egyptian Hall, his round eyes and
mouth all-agape in the ludicrous expectation of seeing the Lord Mayor
standing on his very Worshipful head, the Lady Mayoress lifting
a hundred weight by her Right Honourable hair, the Sword-Bearer
swallowing his blade of state, the Recorder conjuring ribands from his
learned and eloquent mouth, and the Senior Alderman with a painted
York-and-Lancaster-face, dancing a _saraband_ à la Pierrot! Or fancy
Jolterhead at the fair of the Surrey Zoological, forcing his clumsy
destructive course through groups of female fashionables, like a hog in
a tulip bed, with the equally laughable intention of inspecting long
horns and short horns, prime beasts and lean stock, of handling the
porkers and coughing the colts. Nay, imagine our bumpkin at the great
Fancy Fair of all, blundering up to a stall kept by a Royal Duchess,
and enquiring perseveringly for a gilt gingerbread King and Queen--a
long-promised fairing to brother Bill at Leighton Buzzard!”
[Illustration: A ROUND OF BEEF.]
Little did L. dream during this flourish of fancy, that his whimsical
fiction had been forestalled by fact; and a deep shade of vexation
passed over his features while he perused the following hints from
Hants, as conveyed in a _bonâ fide_ letter to the Editor of the Comic
Annual.
HONNORD SUR,
Dont no if you Be a Hamshire man, or a man atacht to the fancy, but
as Both such myself, have took the libberty to write about what is
no joke. Of coarse allude to being Hoaxt up to Lonnon, to sea a
fair no fair at all and About as much fancy as you mite fancy on
the pint of a pin.--
Have follerd the Fancy, ever since cumming of Age, and bean to
every Pugilistical fite, from the Gaim Chicking down to the fite
last weak. Have bated Buls drawd Baggers, and Kild rats myself
meening to say with my Hone Dogs. Ought to no wot Fancy his. Self
prays is no re-comendation But have bean at every Fair Waik or
Revvle in England. Ought to no then wot a Fare is.
Has for the Lonnon job--could Sea nothin like Fancy and nothing
like fare. Only a Toy shop out of Town with a gals skool looking
after it, without a Guvverness and all oglein like Winkin. Lots
of the fare sects but no thimbel rig, no priking in the garter no
nothing. Am blest if our hone little Fare down at Goos Grean don’t
lick it all to Styx. Bulbeating, Baggerdrawing, Cuggleplaying,
Rastlin, a Sopped pigtale, a Mane of Cox Jackasreacing jumpin in
Sax, and a Grand Sire Peal of Trouble Bobs puld by the Collige
youths by way of givin a Bell’s Life to the hole. Call that Fancy.
Too wild Best Shoes, fore theaters besides a Horseplay a Dwarft a
She Giant, a fat Child a prize ox five carriboo savidges, a lurned
Pigg an Albany with wite Hares, a real See Murmad a Fir Eater and
lots of Punshes and Juddis. Call that a Fare.
[Illustration: FAIR PLAY’S A JEW--]
Now for Lonnon. No Sanderses--no Richardsens no wumwills menageris
no backy boxis to shy for--no lucky Boxis. No poster makin no
jugling or Dancing. Prest one yung laidy in ruge cheaks and
trowsers verry civelly For a bit of a caper on the tite rop--But
miss got on the hi rop, and call’d for a conestubble. Askt annother
in a ridding habbit for the faver of a little horsemunship and got
kicked out of her Booth. Goos Grean for my munny! Saw a yung laidy
there that swallerd a Sord and wasn’t too Partickler to jump threw
a hoop. Dutchesses look dull after that at a Fare. Verry dignified,
but Prefer the Wax Wurk, as a Show. Dont sea anny think in Watch
Pappers cut out by Countisses that have been born with all their
harms and legs--not Miss Biffins.
[Illustration: FANCY FAIRINGS.]
Must say one thing for Goos Grean. Never got my pockit pict xcept
at Lonnon--am sorry to say lost my Reader and Ticker and every Dump
I had let alone a single sovran. And lost the best part of that
besides to a Yung Laidy that nevver gave change. Greenish enuf says
you for my Tim of Day but I was gammund by the baggidge to bye five
shillin Pin Cushins. Wish Charrity had stayd at Hoam! The ould Mare
got a coald by waiting outside. And the five Charrity pincushins
hadn’t bran enuf in their hole boddys to make her a Mash.
Am told the Hospittle don’t clear anny grate proffits after all is
dun and Like enuff. A Fare should be a Fare and fokes at Room oght
to do as Room does. Have a notion Peeressis that keep Booths wood
take moor Munny if they wasn’t abuv having the dubble drums and
speakin trumpets and gongs. There’s nothin like goin the hole Hog!
Shall be happy, sur, to sea You at Goos Green next Fare and pint
out the Difference. Maybe in Flurtashun and Matchmacking and
getting off Dorters along with the dolls we ar a littel cut out,
but for Ginuen Fancy and Fun and Fair Play its a mear Green Goos to
Goos Green.
Remain Sur,
Your humbel tu command,
JACOB GILES.
P.S. Think Vallintins day wood be a Good fixter for next Fancy
Fare. Shan’t say why. Sniff sumthing of the kind going on amung
our hone Gals--Polly as just begd a sak of bran and she dont keap
rabits. Pincushins and nothin else. Tother day cum across a large
Watchpokit and suspect Mrs. G is at the Bottom of it. No churnin
butter, no packin egs, no setten Hens and crammin Turkis--All
sniping ribbins folding papper sowin up satten and splitting hole
trusses of straw. Am blest if its for litterin down Horsis. Dont no
how its all to be got to markit at Lonnon, the nine Gals and all
’xcept its by a Pickfurd Van.
[Illustration: HUNGERFORD MARKET.]
POEMS BY A POOR GENTLEMAN.
There, in a lonely room, from bailiffs snug,
The Muse found Scroggins stretched beneath a rug.--GOLDSMITH.
Poetry and poverty begin with the same letter, and in more respects
than one, are “as like each other as two P’s.”--Nine tailors are
the making of a man, but not so the nine Muses. Their votaries are
notoriously only water drinkers, eating mutton cold, and dwelling in
attics. Look at the miserable lives and deaths recorded of the poets.
“Butler,” says Mr. D’Israeli, “lived in a cellar, and Goldsmith in
a Deserted Village. Savage ran wild,--Chatterton was carried on St.
Augustine’s Back like a young gipsy; and his half-starved _Rowley_
always said Heigho, when he heard of gammon and spinach. Gray’s day’s
were ode-ious, and Gay’s gaiety was fabulous. Falconer was shipwrecked.
Homer was a blind beggar, and Pope raised a subscription for him, and
went snacks. Crabbe found himself in the poor-house, Spenser couldn’t
afford a great-coat, and Milton was led up and down by his daughters to
save the expense of a dog.”
It seems all but impossible to be a poet, in easy circumstances.
Pope has shown how verses are written by Ladies of Quality--and what
execrable rhymes Sir Richard Blackmore composed in his chariot; in a
hay-cart he might have sung like a Burns.