never succeed in passing myself off as anything but the
Regimental Chaplain.
THE COMPASS, WITH VARIATIONS.
“The Needles have sometimes been fatal to Mariners.”
PICTURE OF ISLE OF WIGHT.
One close of day--’twas in the Bay
Of Naples, bay of glory!
While light was hanging crowns of gold
On mountains high and hoary,
A gallant bark got under weigh,
And with her sails my story.
For Leghorn she was bound direct,
With wine and oil for cargo,
Her crew of men some nine or ten,
The Captain’s name was Iago;
A good and gallant bark she was,
La Donna (call’d) del Lago.
Bronzed mariners were hers to view,
With brown cheeks clear or muddy,
Dark, shining eyes, and coal-black hair,
Meet heads for painter’s study;
But ’midst their tan their stood one man,
Whose cheek was fair and ruddy.
His brow was high, a loftier brow
Ne’er shone in song or sonnet,
His hair a little scant, and when
He doff’d his cap or bonnet,
One saw that Grey had gone beyond
A premiership upon it.
His eye--a passenger was he,
The cabin he had hired it,--
His eye was gray, and when he look’d
Around, the prospect fired it--
A fine poetic light, as if
The Appe-Nine inspired it.
His frame was stout, in height about
Six feet--well made and portly;
Of dress and manner just to give
A sketch, but very shortly,
His order seem’d a composite
Of rustic with the courtly.
[Illustration: A STORM IN TABLE BAY.]
He ate and quaff’d, and joked and laugh’d,
And chatted with the seamen,
And often task’d their skill and ask’d
“What weather is’t to be, man?”
No demonstration there appear’d
That he was any demon.
No sort of sign there was that he
Could raise a stormy rumpus,
Like Prospero, make breezes blow,
And rocks and billows thump us,--
But little we supposed what he
Could with the needle compass!
Soon came a storm--the sea at first
Seemed lying almost fallow--
When lo! full crash, with billowy dash,
From clouds of black and yellow,
Came such a gale, as blows but once
A cent’ry, like the aloe!
Our stomachs we had just prepared
To vest a small amount in;
When, gush! a flood of brine came down
The skylight--quite a fountain,
And right on end the table rear’d,
Just like the Table Mountain.
Down rush’d the soup, down gush’d the wine,
Each roll, its rôle repeating,
Roll’d down--the round of beef declar’d
For parting--not for meating!
Off flew the fowls, and all the game
Was “too far gone for eating!”
Down knife and fork--down went the pork,
The lamb too broke its tether;
Down mustard went--each condiment--
Salt--pepper--all together!
Down everything, like craft that seek
The Downs in stormy weather.
Down plunged the Lady of the Lake,
Her timbers seemed to sever;
Down, down, a dreary derry down,
Such lurch she had gone never;
She almost seem’d about to take
A bed of down for ever!
Down dropt the captain’s nether jaw,
Thus robb’d of all its uses,
He thought he saw the Evil One
Beside Vesuvian sluices,
Playing at dice for soul and ship
And throwing _Sink_ and _Deuces_.
Down fell the steward on his face,
To all the Saints commending;
And candles to the Virgin vow’d,
As save-alls ’gainst his ending.
Down fell the mate, he thought his fate,
Check-mate, was close impending!
Down fell the cook--the cabin boy,
Their beads with fervour telling,
While alps of serge with snowy verge,
Above the yards came yelling.
Down fell the crew, and on their knees
Shuddered at each white swelling!
Down sunk the sun of bloody hue,
His crimson light a cleaver
To each red rover of a wave:
To eye of fancy-weaver,
Neptune, the God, seemed tossing in
A raging scarlet fever!
Sore, sore afraid, each Papist pray’d
To Saint and Virgin Mary;
But one there was that stood composed
Amid the waves’ vagary;
As staunch as rock, a true game cock
’Mid chicks of Mother Cary!
His ruddy cheek retain’d its streak,
No danger seemed to shrink him;
His step still bold,--of mortal mould
The crew could hardly think him:
The Lady of the Lake, he seem’d
To know, could never sink him.
[Illustration: A ROUGH SEA.]
Relax’d at last the furious gale,
Quite out of breath with racing;
The boiling flood in milder mood,
With gentler billows chasing;
From stem to stern, with frequent turn,
The Stranger took to pacing.
And as he walk’d to self he talked,
Some ancient ditty thrumming,
In under tone, as not alone--
Now whistling, and now humming--
“You’re welcome, Charlie,” “Cowdenknowes,”
“Kenmure,” or “Campbells’ Coming.”
Down went the wind, down went the wave,
Fear quitted the most finical;
The Saints, I wot, were soon forgot,
And Hope was at the pinnacle:
When rose on high, a frightful cry--
“The Devil’s in the binnacle!”
“The Saints be near,” the helmsman cried,
His voice with quite a falter--
“Steady’s my helm, but every look
The needle seems to alter;
God only knows where China lies,
Jamaica, or Gibraltar!”
The captain stared aghast at mate,
The pilot at th’ apprentice;
No fancy of the German Sea
Of Fiction the event is:
But when they at the compass look’d,
It seem’d non compass mentis.
Now north, now south, now east, now west,
The wavering point was shaken,
’Twas past the whole philosophy
Of Newton, or of Bacon;
Never by compass, till that hour
Such latitudes were taken!
With fearful speech, each after each
Took turns in the inspection;
They found no gun--no iron--none
To vary its direction;
It stem’d a new magnetic case
Of Poles in Insurrection!
Farewell to wives, farewell their lives,
And all their household riches;
Oh! while they thought of girl or boy,
And dear domestic niches,
All down the side which holds the heart,
That needle crave them stitches.
With deep amaze, the Stranger gaz’d
To see them so white-liver’d:
And walk’d abaft the binnacle,
To know at what they shiver’d;
But when he stood beside the card,
St. Josef! how it quiver’d!
No fancy-motion, brain-begot,
In eye of timid dreamer--
The nervous finger of a sot
Ne’er show’d a plainer tremor;
To every brain it seem’d too plain,
There stood th’ Infernal Schemer!
Mix’d brown and blue each visage grew,
Just like a pullet’s gizzard;
Meanwhile the captain’s wandering wit,
From tacking like an izzard,
Bore down in this plain course at last,
“It’s Michael Scott--the Wizard!”
A smile past o’er the ruddy face;
“To see the poles so falter,
I’m puzzled, friends, as much as you,
For with no fiends I palter;
Michael I’m not--although a Scott--
My Christian name is Walter.”
Like oil it fell, that name, a spell
On all the fearful faction;
The Captain’s head (for he had read)
Confess’d the Needle’s action,
And bow’d to Him in whom the North
Has lodged its main attraction!
[Illustration: A STAR OF THE FIRST MAGNETUDE.]
SUMMER--A WINTER ECLOGUE.
A Back Parlour at Camberwell. Sylvanus is seated at the
breakfast-table, and greeteth his friend Civis.
SYL.--A good morrow to you, friend Civis, and a hearty
welcome!--How hath sleep dealt with you through the night?
CIV.--Purely indeed, and with rare pastoral dreams. I have
done nothing but walk through pleasant groves, or sit me down under
shady boughs, the whole livelong night. A foretaste, my friend, of the
rural delights yet to come, in strolling with you amongst the dainty
shades of this your verdant retreat. How have I yearned all through the
month of June, to be a Jack-i’-the-Green again amidst your leaves here!
You know my prospect in town.
SYL.--Aye, truly; I did once spend, or rather misspend a whole
week there in the dog-days. You looked out opposite on a scorching
brick front of six stories, with a south aspect--studded with I know
not how many badges of Assurance from fire, and not without need--for
the shop windows below seemed all a-blaze with geranium-coloured silks,
at that time the mode, and flamme d’enfer. The left-hand shop, next
door, was all red, likewise, with regiments of lobsters, in their new
uniforms; beyond that, a terrible flaring Red Lion, newly done up with
paint. At the next door, a vender of red morocco pocket-books--my eyes
were in a scarlet fever, the whole time of my sojourning.
CIV.--A true picture, I confess. We are, indeed, a little
strong in the warm tints; but they give the more zest to your suburban
verdure. All the way down overnight, I thought only of the two tall elm
trees beside your gate, and which have always been to my city optics as
refreshing as a pair of green spectacles. Surely of all spots I have
seen, Camberwell is the greenest, as the poet says, that ever laid hold
of Memory’s waist.
SYL.--It hath been greener aforetime. But I pray you sit down
and fall to.--Shall I help you to some of this relishing salted fish?
CIV.--By your good leave, Sylvanus, I will first draw up these
blinds. My bed-room, you know, looks out only to the road, and I am
longing to help my eyes, to a little of what, as a citizen, I may truly
call the green fat of nature.
SYL.--Nay, Civis--I pray you let the blinds alone. The rolls
are getting cold. This ham is excellently well cured, and the eggs are
new-laid. Come, take a seat.
CIV.--I beseech your patience for one moment. There the
blind is up. What a brave flood of sunshine--and what a glorious blue
sky!--What a rare dainty day to roam abroad in, dallying with the
Dryads!--But what do I behold! Oh, my Sylvanus, the Dryads are stripped
of their green kirtles--stark naked! The trees are all bare, God help
me! as bare as the “otamies in Surgeons’ Hall!”
SYL.--You would take no forewarning--I bade you not pull up
the blind. It was my intent to have broken the truth to you, after you
had made a full meal; but now you must to breakfast with what appetite
you may!
CIV.--As I hope to see Paradise--there is not a green bough
between this and Peckham!
SYL.--No, truly, not a twig! I would not advise any forlorn
Babes to die in our woods, for Cock Robin would be painfully perplext
to provide them with a pall. Alas! were a Butterfly to be born in our
bowers, there is not a leaf to swaddle it in.
[Illustration: BABES IN THE WOOD.]
CIV.--Miserable man that I am, to have come down so late, or
rather that winter should have arrived thus early! Ungenial climate!
untimely Boreas!
SYL.--Blame not Boreas, nor winter neither. Boiling heat had
more part than freezing point in this havoc. To think that even summer
nowadays should go by steam!
CIV.--You speak in Sphynxian riddles! Oh, my Sylvanus, tell
me in plain English prose what has become of the green emeralds of the
forest?
SYL.--Destroyed in one day by a swarm of locusts. Not the
locusts of Scripture, such as were eaten by St. John in the wilderness,
but a new species. I caught one in the fact, on the very elm tree you
wot of, and which it had stripped to the bone, saving one bough.
[Illustration: A NEW LOCUST.]
CIV.--I am glad, with all my heart, that you have him secure,
for I delight to gaze on the wonders of nature, even of the destructive
kinds. You shall show me your new locust. Of course you thrusted a pin
through the body, and fixed it down to a cork after the manner of the
entomologists.
SYL.--No, truly; for it knocked me down after the manner of
the pugilists, and so made its escape.
CIV.--How! be they so huge, then? To my fancy, they seem more
like flying dragons than locusts.
SYL.--It is true, notwithstanding. Some of them which I have
seen, measured nearly six feet in length; others, that were younger,
from three to five. One of these last, the Minimi, or small fry, I
likewise took captive, though not without some shrewd kicking and
biting, and striking with its fore-paws.
CIV.--The smallest of animals will do so to escape from
bondage. I take for granted you knocked him on the head, for the sake
of peace.
SYL.--No, indeed. I had not the heart; the visage was so
strangely human, ape or monkey could not look more like a man in the
face; and then it cried and whined for all the world like a mere boy.
CIV.--It would have been a kind of petty murder to slay him.
I do not think I could commit Monkeycide myself. They look, as Lady
Macbeth says, so like our Fathers. To kill an ape would plant the
whole stings of an apiary in my conscience. I pray you go on with the
description.
SYL.--Willingly, and according to the system of the great
Linnæus. Antennæ or horns he had none, thus differing from the common
locust, but in lieu thereof, sundry bunches and tufts of coarse red
hair; eyes brown, and tending inwards towards the proboscis or snout.
Two fore-legs or arms terminating in ten palpi or feelers, and the same
number of toes or claws on the hinder feet. On grasping truncus, or the
trunk, it was cased in a loose skin resembling corduroy, the same being
most curiously furnished with sundry bags or pouches, into which, like
the provident pelican, it stuffed the forage it had collected from the
trees.
CIV.--With submission, Sylvanus, to your better judgment, I
should have taken this same Locust, from your description, to have been
actually a mere human boy.
SYL.--Between ourselves, he was--though of what nation or
parentage I know not. To use his own heathenish jargon, he was doing “a
morning fake on the picking lay for a cove wot add a tea-crib in the
monkery.”
CIV.--A strange gibberish, but I do remember that Peter the
Wild Boy was wont to discourse in the same uncouth fashion. Poor savage
of the woods! I do feel for his pitiful estate; but what could move him
to pluck off all-the green emeralds of the Forest?
SYL.--To make sham Hyson and mock Souchong. Even in June you
would have deemed it was November, there were so many ragged Guys
collecting gunpowder. Oh, Civis, thou hast no notion of the tea-trade
that hath been carried on in these parts. Many times I have believed
myself to be dwelling in Canton, and that my name was Hum. Thrice I
have caught myself marvelling at the huge feet of Mrs. S., and have
groped behind my nape for the national pigtail.
CIV.--Sylvanus, spare me. I have but one green week in the
year, and here it is all blotted out of the calendar. I pray you do not
jest with me. What hath become of the leaves of yon sycamore?
SYL.--Plucked by a Blackamoor, who preferred it to the
climbing of chimneys.
CIV.--And yonder Ashes, which I could mourn for in appropriate
sackcloth?
SYL.--Stripped by the select young gentleman of Seneca-house,
who left the politer branches of education for the purpose. Scholars,
you know, will play truant gratis, and these had the opportunity of
performing it at twopence the hour. One Saturday they did turn their
half-holiday into a whole one, and were found by the geographical
master picking Chinese Pekoe and Padre on the sloe bushes and willows
of Peckham Rye.
CIV.--Oh, my Sylvanus, such then is the cause of the
desolation I survey. To think that I may have myself helped to swallow
the verdure that I should now be sitting under. That the green
Druidical leaves, instead of clothing the Dryads, should be assisting
in the sweeping of my own Kidderminster carpets!
SYL.--Verily so it is. The great god Pan is dead, and Pot will
reign in his stead.
CIV.--Such a misfortune was never before read in a tea-cup!
Oh, my Sylvanus, what is to become of patriotism or love of the
country, when the best part of the country is turned to grouts?
SYL.--I have heard by way of rumour, that Mistress Shakerly
of our village, attributes her palsy to a dash of aspen in her British
Congo; indeed there be shrewd doubts abroad whether the great Projector
hath been at all reforming by turning over a new leaf. Mr. Fairday, the
notable chemist, hath sworn solemnly on his affidavit, that the tea is
strongly emetical, having always acted upon his stomach as tea and turn
out.
[Illustration: A GREAT PROJECTOR.]
CIV.--Of a verity it ought to be tested by the doctors.
SYL.--They have tested it, and tasted it to boot. Dr. Budd,
the Pennyroyal Professor of Botany, hath ranked it with the rankest
of poisons, after experimenting its destructive virtues on select tea
parties of his relations and friends.
CIV.--And I doubt not Dr. Rudd, of the same Royal College,
hath added a confirmation to this christening.
SYL.--You know the proverb. Doctors’ opinions do not keep
step, or match together, better than their horses. Dr. Rudd hath given
this beverage with cream of tartar and sugar of lead to consumptives,
and hath satisfied himself morally and physically that phthisic does
not begin with tea.
[Illustration: SLOE POISON.]
CIV.--Dr. Rudd is an ass! Oh, my Sylvanus, I am sick at heart!
Only two days since I did purchase a delectable book of poems, called
“Foliage,” purposely to read under your trees, but how can I enjoy
it, when the very foliage of nature is, as the booksellers say, out of
print! “Bare ruined quires where late the sweet birds sung.”
SYL.--My friend, take comfort. This tea-tray will not be
brought up another year, for the counterfeit herb hath all been seized,
and condemned to be burnt in the yard of the Excise.
CIV.--I am glad on’t, for it will be, as the French say, “a
feu-de-joie;” and verily all the little singing birds ought to collect
on the chimney-pots to chaunt a Tea Deum. In the mean time I must
borrow Job’s patience under my boils, though they be of the size of
kettles, and have boiled away my summer at a gallop. Possibly you may
have fewer locusts another season; but by way of precaution, the next
time I come down by the stage I shall attend to an old stage direction
in Macbeth, namely, “Enter the army with their green boughs in their
hands.”
PAIR’D _NOT_ MATCH’D.
Of wedded bliss
Bards sing amiss,
I cannot make a song of it;
For I am small,
My wife is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it.
When we debate
It is my fate
To always have the wrong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
And when I speak
My voice is weak,
But hers--she makes a gong of it!
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration: RUNNING COUNTER.]
She has, in brief,
Command in Chief,
And I’m but Aide-de-camp of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
She gives to me
The weakest tea,
And takes the whole Souchong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration: LONG COMMONS AND SHORT COMMONS.]
She’ll sometimes grip
My buggy whip,
And make me feel the thong of it!
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
Against my life
She’ll take a knife,
Or fork, and dart the prong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
I sometimes think
I’ll take to drink,
And hector when I’m strong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
O, if the bell
Would ring her knell,
I’d make a gay ding-dong of it;
For I am small,
And she is tall,
And that’s the short and long of it!
[Illustration:
“Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.”
]
[Illustration: PROTECTING THE FARE.]
THE DUEL.
A SERIOUS BALLAD.
“Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay.”
In Brentford town of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray,
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.
To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allow’d,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.
Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.
Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love;
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.
So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell,--
I’ll pop it into you.
Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray,
Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer,
Knows how to prime and load.
And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls’ eyes,
May chance to hit a sheep’s.
Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.
But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give--
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.
To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step
They took a dozen more.
They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.
Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands,
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.
Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul’s Cathedral now,
Be doom’d to have a ball.
I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?
Said Mr. B., I do agree--
But think of Honour’s Courts!
If we go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports.
But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can’t we aim above, as if
We had call’d out the sun?
So up into the harmless air,
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end!
[Illustration: EXCHANGING--RECEIVING THE DIFFERENCE.]
THE ROPE DANCER.
AN EXTRAVAGANZA,--AFTER RABELAIS.
I am going, my masters, to tell you a strange romantic, aye,
necromantic, sort of story--and yet every monosyllable of it is as true
as the Legend of Dumpsius. If you should think otherwise, I cannot help
it. All I can say is, you are not experte credo, or expert at believing.
You must know, then, that on a certain day, of a certain year, certain
officers went on certain information, to a certain house, in a certain
court, in a certain city, to take up a certain Italian for a certain
crime. What gross fools are they who say there is nothing certain in
this world! However, in they went, with a crash and a dash, and a
grip and a grapple, and if they did not take him by the scruff of the
neck, like a dog, there is no truth in St. Winifred’s Well. He made
no resistance, not so much as a left-hander, though he was by trade a
smasher. As for any verbal defence, he never so much as attempted to
lay a lie, much less to hatch one. There he was, caught in the very
thing, act and fact, as poor a devil as need be to be making money.
He was as dead as any die he had about him: as sure of a gallows and
a rope, as if he had paid for them down on the nail of before-hand.
Oh, ye City Crœsuses, what think ye of a man having his quantum
suffocate of twisted hemp for making money! For my own part, if I was
to swing for saying so, I’d cry out like a Stentor, that one of God’s
images ought not to be made worm’s meat of for only washing the King’s
face. ’Twould be a very hard-boiled case, and yet, ’fore Gog and Magog,
so it was. For gilding a brass farthing he was to change twelve stone
of good human flesh to a clod of clay; to change a jolly, laughing,
smiling, grinning, crying, wondering, staring, face-making face for a
mere caput mortuum; to change prime tripe, delicate cow-heel, succulent
trotters, for a mouthful of dust; to change a garret for a grave; to
change a neckcloth for a halter. Zounds! what a deal of change for a
bad half sovereign! Well, there he was, caught like a rat, and going
for a tit-bit to the furr’d Law-Cats, and without so much as giving a
squeak for his life. The counterfeits were on him, so he had nothing to
utter. I verily believe, if you had found him in twice as many melting
pots, and crucibles, and dies, and white or brown gravy to boot, he
could not have coined an excuse. As I said before, he was found _with
the mould upon him_, and that, as the sexton of St. Sepulchre will
tell you, is as good as a burial to you any day of your life. He was
legally dead, and could not look, like other men, upon the sun as his
sun-in-law, so he wisely shook hands with himself, and bade good-bye to
himself, and did not attempt with his tongue to lick the cub of guilt
into a child of grace. All he asked, was to be allowed to take with
him a little reptile, or insect of some sort that he had brought over
from Italy, belike to be a solace to his captivity; for Baron Trenck,
you know, made a bon-camarade of a prison rat, and Monsieur F., in
the Bastile, as you know equally, made a long-standing friend of a
daddy-longlegs. We live in a world of whims. We eat them, and drink
them, and court them, and marry them, take them to bed and board with
us, and why not to prison? So Tonio begged for his whim to keep him
company, and as it was a small gentle-looking whim, neither so fierce
as a lion, nor so huge as an elephant, and moreover as it was a whim no
ways dangerous to Church or State, he was allowed to take it with him
in a little box, which he carried in his bosom.