on his infirmity. One day, a dumb man was brought to the Justice-room
charged with passing bad notes. B. declined to enter upon the case. ‘Go
to Alderman F.,’ he said: ‘when a dumb man _utters_, a deaf one ought
to hear it.’”
* * * * *
“B. was equally hard on Alderman V.’s linen-drapery. One day he came
late into Court. ‘I have just come,’ said he, ‘from V.’s villa. He had
family prayers last night, and began thus--Now let us read the Psalm
Nunc _Dimities_.’”
* * * * *
“Old S., the tobacconist of Holborn Hill, wore his own hair tied behind
in a queue, and had a favourite seat in the shop, with his back to the
window. Alderman B. pointed him out once to me. ‘Look! there he is, as
usual, advertising his _pigtail_.’”
* * * * *
“Alderman A. was never very remarkable for his skill in orthography. A
note of his writing is still extant, requesting a brother magistrate
to preside for him, and giving, _literatim_, the following reason
for his own absence:--‘Jackson the painter is to take me off in my
Rob of Office, and I am gone to give him a _cit_.’ His pronunciation
was equally original. I remember his asking Alderman C., just before
the 9th of November, whether he should have any men in armour in his
_shew_.”
* * * * *
“Guildhall and its images were always uppermost with Alderman A. It was
he who so misquoted Shakspeare--‘A Parish Beadle, when he’s trod upon,
feels as much corporal suffering as Gog and Magog.’”
* * * * *
“A well-known editor of a morning paper enquired of Alderman B.,
one day, what he thought of his journal. ‘I like it all,’ said the
Alderman, ‘but its _Broken English_.’ The editor stared and asked for
an explanation. ‘Why, the _List of Bankrupts_, to be sure!’”
* * * * *
“When Alderman B. was elected Mayor, to give greater éclat to his
banquet, he sent for Dobbs, the most celebrated cook of that time,
to take the command of the kitchen. Dobbs was quite an enthusiast in
his art, and some culinary deficiencies on the part of the ordinary
Mansion-House professors driving him at least to desperation, he
leapt upon one of the dressers, and began an oration to them, by this
energetic apostrophe,--‘Gentlemen! do you call yourselves cooks!’”
* * * * *
“One of the present Household titles in the Mansion-House establishment
was of singular origin. When the celebrated men in armour were first
exhibited, Alderman P., who happened to be with his Lordship previous
to the procession, was extremely curious in examining the suits of
mail, &c., expressing, at the same time, an eager desire to try on one
of the helmets. The Mayor, with his usual consideration, insisted on
first sending it down to the kitchen to be aired, after which process
the ambition of the Alderman met with its gratification. For some
little time he did not perceive any inconvenience from his new beaver,
but by degrees the enclosure became first uncomfortably, and then
intolerably warm; the confined heat being aggravated by his violent
but vain struggles to undo the unaccustomed fastenings. An armourer
was obliged to be sent for before his face could be let out, red and
rampant as a Brentford Lion from its iron cage. It appeared, that in
the hurry of the Pageant, the chief Cook had clapped the casque upon
the fire, and thus found out a recipe for stewing an Alderman’s head
in its own steam, and for which feat he has retained the title of the
Head-Cook, ever since!”
* * * * *
“G. the Common-council-man, was a Warden of his own Company, the
Merchant Tailors’. At one of their frequent Festivals, he took with
him, to the dinner, a relation, an officer of the tenth foot. By some
blunder, the soldier was taken for one of the fraternity, but G.
hastened to correct the mistake:--‘Gentlemen, this isn’t one of the
Ninth parts of a man--he’s one of the Tenth!’”
“One day there was a dispute, as to the difficulty of Catch-Singing,
Alderman B. struck in, ‘Go to Cheshire the Hangman--he’ll prove to you
there’s a good deal of _Execution_ in a _Catch_.’”
[Illustration: “A REPORT ON THE FARM.”]
A ZOOLOGICAL REPORT.
_To Harvey Williams, Esq., Regent’s Terrace, Portland Park._
HONNERED SUR,
Being maid a Feller of the Zoological Satiety, and I may say by
your Honner’s meens, threw the carrachter your Humbel was favered
with, and witch provd sattisfacktry to the Burds and Bests,
considring I was well quailifid threw having Bean for so menny
hears Hed Guardner to your Honner, besides lookin arter the Pigs
and Poltry. Begs to axnolige my great fullness for the Sam, and
ham quit cumfittable and happy, sow much sow as wen I ham amung
the Anymills to reckin myself like Addam in Parodies, let alone my
Velvoteens.
Honnerd Sur,--awar of your parshalty for Liv Stox and Kettle
Breading, ham indust to faver with a Statement of wat is dun at the
Farm, havin tacken provintial Noats wile I was at Kings-ton with
a Pekin elefunt for chainges of Hair. As respex a curacy beg to
say, tho the Sectary drawd up his Report from his hone datums and
memmorandusses, and never set his eyes on my M.E.S.S., yet we has
tallys to our tails in the Mane.
Honnerd Sir,--I will sit out with the Qadripids, tho weave add the
wust lux with them. Scarse anny of the Anymills with fore legs
has moor nor one Carf. Has to the Wappity Dears, hits wus then
the Babby afore King Sollyman, but their his for one littel Dear
betwin five femail she hinds. The Sambo Dear as was sent by Mr.
Spring was so unnatral has to heat up her Forn and in consequins
the Sing-Sing is of no use for the lullabis. Has for Corsichan hits
moor Boney nor ever, But the Axis on innqueries as too littel Axes
about a munth hold. The Neil Gow has increst one Carf, but their
his no Foles to the Quaggys. Their his too littel Zebry but one as
not rum to grow; the Report says, “the Mail Owen to the Nessessary
Confinement in regard to Spaice is verry smal.”
Honnerd Sur, the Satiety is verry rich in Assis, boath Commun assis
and uncommon assis, and as the Report recumends will do my Inndever
to git the Maltese Cross for your Honner. The Kangroses as reerd up
a large smal fammily but looks to be ill nust and not well put to
there feat, and at the surjesting of a femail Feller too was put
out to the long harmd Babboon to dry nus, but she was too violent
and dandled the pure things to deth. The infunt Zebew is all so
ded owen to Atemps with a backbord to prevent groing out of the
sholders, boath parrents being defourmd with umphs; but the spin as
is suposed was hert in the exspearment, and it sudenly desist. Mr.
Wallack will be glad to here the Wallachian Sheap has add sicks
lams, but one was pisend by eating the ewes in the garden witch is
fattle to kattle. Has to gots we was going on prospus in the Kiddy
line, but the Billy gots becum so vishus and did so menny butts a
weak we was obleeged to do away with the Entire. As regards Rabits
a contiguous dissorder havin got into the Stox, we got rid of the
Hole let alone one Do and Brewd, witch was all in good Helth up to
Good Fridy wen the Mother brekfisted on her bunnis. The increas in
the Groth of Hairs as bean maid an object, and the advice tacken
of Mr. Prince and Mr. Roland, who recumendid Killin one of the
Bares for the porpus of Greece. We hav a grate number of ginny
pigs--their is moor than twenty of them in one Pound.
About Struthus Burds the Ostreaches is in in perfic helth and full
of Plums. The femail Hen lade too egs wile the Committy was sittin
and we hop they will atch, as we put them under a she Hemew as
was sittin to Mr. Harvy. We propos breading Busturds xept we hav
not got a singel specieman of the specious Galnatious Burds. I am
sory to say The Curryso has not bread. Hits the moor disapinting
as we considder these Birds as our Crax. We sucksided in razing a
grate menny Turkys and some intresting expearimints was maid on
them by the Committy and the Counsel on Crismus day. Lickwise on
Poltry Fouls with regard to there being of Utility for the Tabel
and “under the latter head” the report informs “sum results hav
bean obtained witch air considdered very satisfactry,” but their
will be more degested trials of the subjex as the Report says “the
expeariments must be repetid in order to istablish the accuracy
of the deduckshuns.” Wat is remarkable the hens pressented by Mr.
Crockford hav not provd grate layers tho provided with a Better
Yard and plenty of Turf. We hav indevourd to bread the grate Cok
of the Wud onely we have no Wud for him to be Cok of--and now
for aquotic Warter Burds we hav wite Swons but they hav not any
cygnitures, and the Black is very unrisenable as to expens but Mr.
Hunt has offerd to black one very lo on condishun hits not aloud
to go into the Warter. The Polish swons wod hav bread onely they
did not lay. The Satiety contanes a grate number of Gease and witch
thriv all most as well as they wood on a commun farm and the Sam
with Dux. We wonted to have dukelings from the Mandereen Dux but
they shook there Heds. Too ears a go a qantitty of flownders and
also a quantitty of heals of witch an exact acount is recordid
wear turned into one of the Ponds but there State as not bean
looked into since they wear plaiced their out of unwillingnes to
disturb the Hotter. At pressent their exists in one Pond a stock
of Karps and in too others a number of gould fish of the commun
Sort. The number left as bean correcly tacken and the ammount
checkt by the Pellycanes and Herrins and Spun-bills and guls and
other piskiverous Burds. Looking at the hole of the Farm in one
Pint of Vue we hav ben most suckcesful with Rabits and Poltry and
Piggins and Ginny Pigs but the breading of sich being well none to
Skullboys, I beg as to their methodistical principals to refer your
Honner to Master Gorge wen he cums home for the Holedays. I furgot
to say the Parnassian Sheap was acomidated with a Pen to it self
but produst nothin worth riting. But the attemps we hav maid this
here, will be prosycutid next here with new Vigors.
Honnerd Sur,--their is an aggitating Skeam of witch I humbly aprove
verry hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail Fellers,--and
that is to make the Farm a Farm Ornay. For instances the Buffloo
and Fallo dears and cetra to have their horns Gilded and the
Mufflons and Sheaps is to hav pink ribbings round there nex. The
munkys is to ware fancy dressis and the Ostreaches is to have their
plums stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always
spred out on fraim wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to
be tort to Dance to Wippert’s Quadrils and the Lions mains is to
be subjective to pappers, and the curling-tongues. The gould and
silver Fesants is to be Pollisht evry day with Plait Powder and the
Cammile and Drumdearis and other defourmd anymills is to be paddid
to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howerd is to file down the tusks of
the wild Bores and Peckaris and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is
to be made as like the Kings Patten as posible. The elifunt will
be himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the
Flaminggoes will be toucht up with Frentch ruge and the Damisels
will hav chaplits of heartifitial Flours. The Sloath is proposd to
hav an ellegunt Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware one of Perren’s
lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters baldnes will be hided
by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains will be put into trousirs
and the Hippotomus tite laced for a waste. Experience will dictait
menny more imbellishing modes, with witch I conclud that I am
Your Honners
Very obleeged and humbel former Servant,
STEPHEN HUMPHREYS.
LITERARY REMINISCENCES.
“Commençons par le commencement.”
The very earliest of one’s literary recollections must be the
acquisition of the alphabet; and in the knowledge of the first
rudiments I was placed on a par with the Learned Pig, by two maiden
ladies that were called Hogsflesh. The circumstance would be scarcely
worth mentioning, but that being a day boarder, and taking my dinner
with the family, I became aware of a Baconian brother, who was never
mentioned except by his Initial, and was probably the prototype of
the sensitive “Mr. H.” in Lamb’s unfortunate farce. The school in
question was situated in Token-house Yard, a convenient distance for a
native of the Poultry, or Birchin-lane, I forget which, and in truth
am not particularly anxious to be more certainly acquainted with my
parish. It was a metropolitan one, however, which is recorded without
the slightest repugnance: firstly, for that, practically, I had no
choice in the matter; and secondly, because, theoretically, I would
as lief have been a native of London as of Stoke Pogis or little
Pedlington. If such local prejudices be of any worth, the balance
ought to be in favour of the capital. The Dragon of Bow Church, or
Gresham’s Grasshopper, is as good a terrestrial sign to be born under
as the dunghill cock on a village steeple. Next to being a citizen
of the world, it must be the best thing to be born a citizen of the
world’s greatest city. To a lover of his kind, it should be a welcome
dispensation that cast his nativity amidst the greatest congregation of
the species; but a literary man should exult rather than otherwise that
he first saw the light--or perhaps the fog--in the same metropolis as
Milton, Gray, De Foe, Pope, Byron, Lamb, and other town-born authors,
whose fame has nevertheless triumphed over the Bills of Mortality. In
such a goodly company I cheerfully take up my livery; and especially as
Cockneyism, properly so called, appears to be confined to no particular
locality or station in life. Sir Walter Scott has given a splendid
instance of it in an Orcadian, who prayed to the Lord to bless his own
tiny ait, “not forgetting the neighbouring island of Great Britain:”
and the most recent example of the style I have met with, was in the
Memoirs of Sir William Knighton, being an account of sea perils and
sufferings during a passage across the Irish Channel by “the First
Gentleman in Europe.”
Having alluded to my first steps on the ladder of learning, it may
not be amiss in this place to correct an assertion of my biographer
in the Book of Gems, who states, that my education was finished at a
certain suburban academy. In this ignorant world, where we proverbially
live and learn, we may indeed leave off school, but our education only
terminates with life itself. But even in a more limited sense, instead
of my education being finished, my own impression is, that it never
so much as progressed towards so desirable a consummation at any such
establishment, although much invaluable time was spent at some of those
institutions where young gentlemen are literally boarded, lodged, and
_done for_. My very first essay was at one of those places, improperly
called _semi_-naries, because they do not half teach anything; the
principals being probably aware that the little boys are as often
consigned to them to be “out of a mother’s way,” as for anything else.
Accordingly, my memory presents but a very dim image of a pedagogical
powdered head, amidst a more vivid group of females of a composite
charter-part dry-nurse, part housemaid, and part governess,--with a
matronly figure in the back ground, very like Mrs. S., allegorically
representing, as Milton says, “our universal mother.” But there is
no glimpse of Minerva. Of those pleasant associations with early
school days, of which so much has been said and sung, there is little
amongst my retrospections, excepting, perhaps, some sports which, like
charity, might have been enjoyed at home, without the drawback of
sundry strokes, neither apoplectic nor paralytic, periodical physic,
and other unwelcome extras. I am not sure whether an invincible
repugnance to early rising may not be attributable to our precocious
wintry summonses, from a warm bed into a dim damp school-room, to play
at filling our heads on an empty stomach; and perhaps I owe my decided
sedentary habits to the disgust at our monotonous walks, or rather
processions, or maybe to the sufferings of those longer excursions
of big and little, where a pair of compasses had to pace as far and
as fast as a pair of tongs. Nevertheless, I yet recall, with wonder,
the occasional visits of grown-up ex-scholars to their old school,
all in a flutter of gratitude and sensibility at recognising the spot
where they had been caned, and horsed, and flogged, and fagged, and
brimstone-and-treacled, and blackdosed and stickjawed, and kibed, and
fined,--where they had caught the measles and the mumps, and been
overtasked, and undertaught--and then, by way of climax, sentimentally
offering a presentation snuff-box to their revered preceptor, with an
inscription, ten to one, in dog Latin on the lid!
For my own part, were I to revisit such a haunt of my youth, it
would give me the greatest pleasure, out of mere regard to the
rising generation, to find Prospect House turned into a Floor Cloth
Manufactory, and the playground converted to a bleachfield. The
tabatière is out of the question. In the way of learning, I carried off
nothing in exchange for my knife and fork, and spoon, but a prize for
Latin without knowing the Latin for prize, and a belief which I had
afterwards to unbelieve again, that a block of marble could be cut in
two with a razor.
To be classical, as Ducrow would say, the Athenians, the day before
the Festival of Theseus, their Founder, gratefully sacrificed a ram,
in memory of Corridas the schoolmaster, who had been his instructor:
but in the present day, were such offerings in fashion, how frequently
would the appropriate animal be a donkey, and especially too big a
donkey to get over the Pons Asinorum!
From the preparatory school, I was transplanted in due time to what is
called by courtesy, a finishing one, where I was immediately set to
begin everything again at the beginning. As this was but a backward way
of coming forward, there seemed little chance of my ever becoming what
Mrs. Malaprop calls “a progeny of learning;” indeed my education was
pursued very much after the plan laid down by that feminine authority.
I had nothing to do with Hebrew, or Algebra, or Simony, or Fluxions, or
Paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches; but I obtained a supercilious
knowledge of accounts, with enough of geometry to make me acquainted
with the contagious countries. Moreover, I became fluent enough in
some unknown tongue to protect me from the French Mark; and I was
sufficiently at home (during the vacations) in the quibbles of English
grammar, to bore all my parents, relations, friends, and acquaintance,
by a pedantical mending of their “cakeology.” Such was the sum total
of my acquirements; being, probably, quite as much as I should have
learned at a Charity School, with the exception of the parochial
accomplishment of hallooing and singing of anthems.
I have entered into these personal details, though pertaining rather
to illiterate than to literary reminiscences, partly because the
important subject of Education has become of prominent interest, and
partly to hint that a writer may often mean in earnest what he says
in jest. One of my readers at least has given me credit for a serious
purpose. A schoolmaster called, during the vacation, on the father of
one of his pupils, and in answer to his announcement of the re-opening
of his establishment, was informed that the young gentleman was not to
return to the academy. The worthy parent declared that he had read the
“Carnaby Correspondence” in the Comic Annual, and had made up his mind.
“But, my dear Sir,” expostulated the pedagogue, “you cannot be serious;
why the Comic Annual is nothing but a book full of jokes!” “Yes, yes,”
returned the father, “but it has let me into a few of your tricks. I
believe Mr. Hood. James is not coming again!”
And now, it may be reasonably asked, where I did learn anything if not
at these establishments, which promise Universal Knowledge--extras
included--and yet unaccountably produce so very few Admirable
Crichtons?[4] It may plausibly be objected, that I did not duly avail
myself of such overflowing opportunities to dabble, dip, duck in, and
drink deeply of the Pierian spring, that I was an Idler, Lounger,
Tatler, Rambler, Spectator, anything rather than a student. To which
my reply must be, first, that the severest punishment ever inflicted
on my shoulders was for a scholar-like offence, the being “fond of my
book,” only it happened to be Robinson Crusoe; and secondly, that I did
go ahead at another guess sort of academy, a reference to which will
be little flattering to those Houses which claim Socrates, Aristotle,
Alfred, and other _Learnedissimi Worthii_, as their Sponsors and
Patron Saints. The school that really schooled me being comparatively
of a very humble order--without sign--without prospectus--without
ushers--without ample and commodious premises--in short, without
pretension, and consequently, almost without custom.
The autumn of the year 1811, along with a most portentous comet, “with
fear of change perplexing monarchs,” brought, alas! a melancholy
revolution in my own position and prospects, by the untimely death of
my father; and my elder brother shortly following him to the grave, my
bereaved mother naturally drew the fragments of the family more closely
around her, so that thenceforward her dearest care was to keep her
“only son, myself, at home.” She did not, however, neglect my future
interest, or persuade herself by any maternal vanity that a boy of
twelve years old could have precociously finished his education; and
accordingly the next spring found me at what might have been literally
called a High School, in reference to its distance from the ground.