"Oh, you queer soul!" said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in

which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully

at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering upon the box in the coldest

corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially

reserved for him.

Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was

he, for he could trace his genealogy back all the way to his parents,

who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a

drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg and a diurnal pension of

twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the

neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public

streets with ignominious epithets of "leathers," "charity," and the

like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But now that fortune had

cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point

the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords

charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing

human nature is, and how impartially the same amiable qualities are

developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a

month, and Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry, the shop being shut up, were taking

their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after

several deferential glances at his wife, said,

"My dear--" He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up

with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.

"Well!" said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.

"Nothing, my dear, nothing," said Mr. Sowerberry.

"Ugh, you brute!" said Mrs. Sowerberry.

"Not at all, my dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, humbly. "I thought you

didn't want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say----"

"Oh, don't tell me what you were going to say," interposed Mrs.

Sowerberry. "I am nobody; don't consult me, pray. _I_ don't want to

intrude upon your secrets." And, as Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave

an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.

"But, my dear," said Sowerberry, "I want to ask your advice."

"No, no, don't ask mine," replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting

manner; "ask somebody else's." Here there was another hysterical laugh,

which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and

much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very

effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging as a special

favour to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to

hear, and, after a short altercation of less than three quarters of an

hour's duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.

"It's only about young Twist, my dear," said Mr. Sowerberry. "A very

good-looking boy that, my dear."

"He need be, for he eats enough," observed the lady.

"There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear," resumed Mr.

Sowerberry, "which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute,

my dear."

Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment.

Mr. Sowerberry remarked it, and, without allowing time for any

observation on the good lady's part, proceeded,

"I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but

only for children's practice. It would be very new to have a mute in

proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it that it would have a superb

effect."

Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way,

was much struck by the novelty of the idea; but, as it would have been

compromising her dignity to have said so under existing circumstances,

she merely inquired with much sharpness why such an obvious suggestion

had not presented itself to her husband's mind before. Mr. Sowerberry

rightly construed this as an acquiescence in his proposition: it was

speedily determined that Oliver should be at once initiated into the

mysteries of the profession, and, with this view, that he should

accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being

required.

The occasion was not long in coming; for, half an hour after breakfast

next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop, and supporting his cane

against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book, from

which he selected a small scrap of paper which he handed over to

Sowerberry.

"Aha!" said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance;

"an order for a coffin, eh?"

"For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards," replied Mr.

Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book, which, like

himself, was very corpulent.

"Bayton," said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr.

Bumble; "I never heard the name before."

Bumble shook his head as he replied, "Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry,

very obstinate; proud, too, I'm afraid, sir."

"Proud, eh?" exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer.--"Come, that's too

much."

"Oh, it's sickening," replied the beadle; "perfectly antimonial, Mr.

Sowerberry."

"So it is," acquiesced the undertaker.

"We only heard of them the night before last," said the beadle; "and we

shouldn't have known anything about them then, only a woman who lodges

in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for

them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He

had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice, which is a very clever lad,

sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, off-hand."

"Ah, there's promptness," said the undertaker.

"Promptness, indeed!" replied the beadle. "But what's the consequence;

what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband

sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and

so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir. Good, strong,

wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish

labourers and a coalheaver only a week before--sent 'em for nothing,

with a blacking-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take

it, sir."

As the flagrant atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble's mind in full

force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed

with indignation.

"Well," said the undertaker, "I ne--ver--did----"

"Never did, sir!" ejaculated the beadle,--"no, nor nobody never did;

but, now she's dead, we've got to bury her, and that's the direction,

and the sooner it's done, the better."

Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked-hat wrong side first, in a

fever of parochial excitement, and flounced out of the shop.

"Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you,"

said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the

street.

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of

sight during the interview, and who was shaking from head to foot at

the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble's voice. He needn't

have taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble's glance, however;

for that functionary on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the

white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the

undertaker had got Oliver upon trial, the subject was better avoided,

until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all

danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus

effectually and legally overcome.

"Well," said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, "the sooner this job

is done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your

cap, and come with me." Oliver obeyed; and followed his master on his

professional mission.

They walked on for some time through the most crowded and densely

inhabited part of the town, and then striking down a narrow street more

dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look

for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either

side were high and large, but very old; and tenanted by people of the

poorest class, as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently

denoted without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks

of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies half doubled,

occasionally skulked like shadows along. A great many of the tenements

had shop-fronts; but they were fast closed, and mouldering away: only

the upper rooms being inhabited. Others, which had become insecure

from age and decay, were prevented from falling into the street by

huge beams of wood which were reared against the tottering walls, and

firmly planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have

been selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many

of the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were

wrenched from their positions to afford an aperture wide enough for the

passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy; the very

rats that here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous

with famine.

There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver

and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the

dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid,

the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs, and,

stumbling against a door on the landing, rapped at it with his knuckles.

It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker at

once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the apartment

to which he had been directed. He stepped in, and Oliver followed him.

There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching mechanically over

the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold

hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in

another corner; and in a small recess opposite the door there lay upon

the ground something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shuddered as

he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept involuntarily closer to

his master; for, though it was covered up, the boy _felt_ that it was a

corpse.

The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly,

and his eyes were blood-shot. The old woman's face was wrinkled, her two

remaining teeth protruded over her under lip, and her eyes were bright

and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man,--they

seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.

"Nobody shall go near her," said the man, starting fiercely up, as the

undertaker approached the recess. "Keep back! d--n you, keep back, if

you've a life to lose."

"Nonsense! my good man," said the undertaker, who was pretty well used

to misery in all its shapes,--"nonsense!"

"I tell you," said the man, clenching his hands, and stamping furiously

on the floor,--"I tell you I won't have her put into the ground. She

couldn't rest there. The worms would worry--not eat her,--she is so worn

away."

The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape

from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.

"Ah!" said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the

feet of the dead woman; "kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her every

one of you, and mark my words. I say she starved to death. I never knew

how bad she was, till the fever came upon her, and then her bones were

starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle; she died

in the dark--in the dark. She couldn't even see her children's faces,

though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the

streets, and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying;

and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to

death. I swear it before the God that saw it,--they starved her!"--He

twined his hands in his hair, and with a loud scream rolled grovelling

upon the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing from his lips.

The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had

hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that

passed, menaced them into silence; and having unloosened the man's

cravat, who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the

undertaker.

"She was my daughter," said the old woman, nodding her head in the

direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly

than even the presence of death itself.--"Lord, Lord!--well, it is

strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be

alive and merry now, and she lying there, so cold and stiff! Lord,

Lord!--to think of it;--it's as good as a play--as good as a play!"

As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment,

the undertaker turned to go away.

"Stop, stop!" said the old woman in a loud whisper. "Will she be buried

to-morrow--or next day--or to-night? I laid her out, and I must walk,

you know. Send me a large cloak--a good warm one, for it is bitter

cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind: send

some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some

bread, dear?" she said eagerly, catching at the undertaker's coat, as he

once more moved towards the door.

"Yes, yes," said the undertaker, "of course; anything, everything." He

disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp, and, dragging Oliver

after him, hurried away.

The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a

half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble

himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode, where

Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the

workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been

thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; the bare coffin

having been screwed down, was then hoisted on the shoulders of the

bearers, and carried down stairs into the street.

"Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady," whispered

Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; "we are rather late, and it won't do

to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,--as quick as you like."

Thus directed, the bearers trotted on, under their light burden, and the

two mourners kept as near them as they could. Mr. Bumble and Sowerberry

walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs were not as

long as his master's, ran by the side.

There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had

anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the

churchyard in which the nettles grew, and the parish graves were made,

the clergyman had not arrived, and the clerk, who was sitting by the

vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it

might be an hour or so before he came. So they set the bier down on the

brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp

clay with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys, whom the

spectacle had attracted into the churchyard, played a noisy game at

hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements jumping

backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and Bumble, being

personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him, and read the

paper.

At length, after the lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble,

and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave;

and immediately afterwards the clergyman appeared, putting on his

surplice as he came along. Mr Bumble then threshed a boy or two, to

keep up appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of

the burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his

surplice to the clerk, and ran away again.

"Now, Bill," said Sowerberry to the grave-digger, "fill up."

It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full that the

uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The grave-digger

shovelled in the earth, stamped it loosely down with his feet,

shouldered his spade, and walked off, followed by the boys, who murmured

very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon.

"Come, my good fellow," said Bumble, tapping the man on the back, "they

want to shut up the yard."

The man, who had never once moved since he had taken his station by

the grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had

addressed him, walked forward for a few paces, and then fell down in a

fit. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss of

her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off) to pay him any attention;

so they threw a can of cold water over him, and when he came to, saw him

safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed on their

different ways.

"Well, Oliver," said Sowerberry, as they walked home, "how do you like

it?"

"Pretty well, thank you, sir," replied Oliver, with considerable

hesitation. "Not very much, sir."

"Ah, you'll get used to it in time, Oliver," said Sowerberry. "Nothing

when you _are_ used to it, my boy."

Oliver wondered in his own mind whether it had taken a very long time to

get Mr. Sowerberry used to it; but he thought it better not to ask the

question, and walked back to the shop, thinking over all he had seen and

heard.

CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION,

AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM.

It was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase,

coffins were looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, Oliver had

acquired a great deal of experience. The success of Mr. Sowerberry's

ingenious speculation exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. The

oldest inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so

prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful

processions which little Oliver headed in a hat-band reaching down

to his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the

mothers in the town. As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his

adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity of

demeanour and full command of nerve which are so essential to a finished

undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the beautiful

resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded people bear

their trial and losses.

For instance, when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of some

rich old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of

nephews and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the

previous illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even

on the most public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves

as need be--quite cheerful and contented, conversing together with as

much freedom and gaiety as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb

them. Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic

calmness; and wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so

far from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds

to render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable,

too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during

the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached

home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. All

this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with

great admiration.

That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good

people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm

with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that

for some weeks he continued meekly to submit to the domination and

ill-treatment of Noah Claypole, who used him far worse than ever, now

that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the black

stick and hat-band, while he, the old one, remained stationary in the

muffin-cap and leathers. Charlotte treated him badly because Noah did;

and Mrs. Sowerberry was his decided enemy because Mr. Sowerberry was

disposed to be his friend: so, between these three on one side, and a

glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as comfortable

as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up by mistake in the grain

department of a brewery.

And now I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history, for I

have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance,

but which indirectly produced a most material change in all his future

prospects and proceedings.

One day Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen, at the usual

dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton--a pound and a

half of the worst end of the neck; when, Charlotte being called out of

the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole,

being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a

worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young Oliver Twist.

Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the

table-cloth, and pulled Oliver's hair, and twitched his ears, and

expressed his opinion that he was a "sneak," and furthermore announced

his intention of coming to see him hung whenever that desirable event

should take place, and entered upon various other topics of petty

annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was.

But, none of these taunts producing the desired effect of making Oliver

cry, Noah attempted to be more facetious still, and in this attempt

did what many small wits, with far greater reputations than Noah

notwithstanding, do to this day when they want to be funny;--he got

rather personal.

"Work'us," said Noah, "how's your mother?"

"She's dead," replied Oliver; "don't you say anything about her to me!"

Oliver's colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly, and there was

a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Mr. Claypole thought

must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying. Under this

impression he returned to the charge.

"What did she die of, work'us?" said Noah.

"Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me," replied Oliver,

more as if he were talking to himself than answering Noah. "I think I

know what it must be to die of that!"

"Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, work'us," said Noah, as a tear

rolled down Oliver's cheek. "What's set you a snivelling now?"

"Not _you_," replied Oliver, hastily brushing the tear away. "Don't

think it."

"Oh, not me, eh?" sneered Noah.

"No, not you," replied Oliver, sharply. "There; that's enough. Don't say

anything more to me about her; you'd better not!"

"Better not!" exclaimed Noah. "Well! better not! work'us; don't be

impudent. _Your_ mother, too! She was a nice 'un, she was. Oh, Lor!"

And here Noah nodded his head expressively, and curled up as much of

his small red nose as muscular action could collect together for the

occasion.

"Yer know, work'us," continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence,

and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity--of all tones the most

annoying--"Yer know, work'us, it carn't be helped now, and of course yer

couldn't help it then, and I'm very sorry for it, and I'm sure we all

are, and pity yer very much. But yer must know, work'us, your mother was

a regular right-down bad 'un."

"What did you say?" inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly.

"A regular right-down bad 'un, work'us," replied Noah, coolly; "and it's

a great deal better, work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd

have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung, which is

more likely than either, isn't it?"

Crimson with fury, Oliver started up, overthrew chair and table, seized

Noah by the throat, shook him in the violence of his rage till his teeth

chattered in his head, and, collecting his whole force into one heavy

blow, felled him to the ground.

A minute ago the boy had looked the quiet, mild, dejected creature that

harsh treatment had made him. But his spirit was roused at last; the

cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire. His breast

heaved, his attitude was erect, his eye bright and vivid, and his whole

person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly tormentor that lay

crouching at his feet, and defied him with an energy he had never known

before.

"He'll murder me!" blubbered Noah. "Charlotte! missis! here's the new

boy a-murdering me! Help! help! Oliver's gone mad! Char--lotte!"

Noah's shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a

louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen

by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was

quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human life

to come further down.

"Oh, you little wretch!" screamed Charlotte, seizing Oliver with her

utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong

man in particularly good training,--"Oh, you little un-grate-ful,

mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!" and between every syllable Charlotte gave

Oliver a blow with all her might, and accompanied it with a scream for

the benefit of society.

Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not be

effectual in calming Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into the

kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she scratched his

face with the other; and in this favourable position of affairs Noah

rose from the ground, and pummeled him from behind.

This was rather too violent exercise to last long; so, when they

were all three wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they

dragged Oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into

the dust-cellar, and there locked him up; and this being done, Mrs.

Sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears.

"Bless her, she's going off!" said Charlotte. "A glass of water, Noah,

dear. Make haste."

"Oh, Charlotte," said Mrs. Sowerberry, speaking as well as she could

through a deficiency of breath and a sufficiency of cold water, which

Noah had poured over her head and shoulders,--"Oh, Charlotte, what a

mercy we have not been all murdered in our beds!"

"Ah, mercy, indeed, ma'am," was the reply. "I only hope this'll teach

master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures that are born to

be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! he was all

but killed, ma'am, when I came in."

"Ah, poor fellow!" said Mrs. Sowerberry, looking piteously on the

charity-boy.

Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level

with the crown of Oliver's head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his

wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed

some very audible tears and sniffs.

"What's to be done!" exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. "Your master's not at

home--there's not a man in the house,--and he'll kick that door down in

ten minutes." Oliver's vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in

question rendered this occurrence highly probable.

"Dear, dear! I don't know, ma'am," said Charlotte, "unless we send for

the police-officers."

"Or the millingtary," suggested Mr. Claypole.

"No, no," said Mrs. Sowerberry, bethinking herself of Oliver's old

friend; "run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly,

and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap,--make haste. You can hold

a knife to that black eye as you run along, and it'll keep the swelling

down."

Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed;

and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a

charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his

head, and a clasp-knife at his eye.

A CONTRADICTION.

Bent upon extra thousands netting,

Graspall's the oddest mortal living!

His only object seems _for-getting_--

How strange he should not be _for-giving_!

H. II.

THE GRAND CHAM OF TARTARY, AND THE HUMBLE-BEE.

_Abridged from the voluminous

Epic Poem by Beg-beg (formerly a mendicant

ballad-singer, afterwards Principal Lord Rector

of the University of Samarcand, and subsequently

Historiographer and Poet Laureate to the Court of

Balk,) by C. J. Davids, Esq._

I.

The great Tartar chief, on a festival day,

Gave a spread to his court, and resolv'd to be gay;

But, just in the midst of their music and glee,

The mirth was upset by a humble-bee--

A humble-bee--

They were bored by a rascally _humble-bee_!

II.

This riotous bee was so wanting in sense

As to fly at the Cham with malice prepense:

Said his highness, "My fate will be _felo-de-se_,

If I'm thus to be teas'd by a humble-bee--

A humble-bee--

How _shall_ I get rid of the humble-bee!"

III.

The troops in attendance, with sabre and spear,

Were order'd to harass the enemy's rear:

But the brave body-guards were forced to flee--

They were all so afraid of the humble-bee--

The humble-bee--

The soldiers were scar'd by the humble-bee.

IV.

The solicitor-general thought there was reason

For indicting the scamp on a charge of high-treason;

While the chancellor _doubted_ if any decree

From the woolsack would frighten the humble-bee--

The humble-bee--

So the lawyers fought shy of the humble-bee.

V.

The Cham from his throne in an agony rose,

While the insect was buzzing right under his nose:--

"Was ever a potentate plagued like me,

Or worried to death by a humble-bee!

A humble-bee--

Don't let me be stung by the humble-bee!"

VI.

He said to a page, nearly choking with grief,

"Bring hither my valiant commander-in-chief;

And say that I'll give him a liberal fee,

To cut the throat of this humble-bee--

This humble-bee--

This turbulent, Jacobin, humble-bee!"

VII.

His generalissimo came at the summons,

And, cursing the courtiers for cowardly _rum-uns_,

"My liege," said he, "it's all fiddle-de-dee

To make such a fuss for a humble-bee--

A humble-bee--

I don't care a d--n for the humble-bee!"

VIII.

The veteran rush'd sword in hand on the foe,

And cut him in two with a desperate blow.

His master exclaim'd, "I'm delighted to see

How neatly you've settled the humble-bee!"

The humble-bee--

So there was an end of the humble-bee.

IX.

By the doctor's advice (which was prudent and right)

His highness retired very early that night:

For they got him to bed soon after his tea,

And he dream'd all night of the humble-bee--

The humble-bee--

He saw the grim ghost of the humble-bee.

MORAL.

Seditious disturbers, mind well what you're _arter_--

Lest, humming a prince, you by chance catch a _Tartar_.

Consider, when planning an impudent spree,

You may get the same luck as the humble-bee--

The humble-bee--

Remember the doom of the humble-bee!

THE DUMB WAITER.

I can not really understand,

(Said Henry to his aunt,)

Why a dumb waiter this is called,--

Upon my word, I can't;

For I have heard you often say

It _answers_ very well.

Why, then, the waiter is called _dumb_,

I cannot think, or tell.

Between you, boy, this difference know,--

For once attention lending,--

While without _speaking_ this _attends_,

You _speak_ without _attending_.

FAMILY STORIES.--No. III.

GREY DOLPHIN.

BY THOMAS INGOLDSBY, ESQ.

"He won't--won't he? Then bring me my boots!" said the Baron.

Consternation was at its height in the castle of Shurland--a caitiff had

dared to disobey the Baron! and--the Baron had called for his boots!

A thunderbolt in the great hall had been a _bagatelle_ to it.

A few days before, a notable miracle had been wrought in the

neighbourhood; and in those times miracles were not so common as

they are now:--no Royal Balloons, no steam, no railroads,--while the

few Saints who took the trouble to walk with their heads under their

arms, or pull the Devil by the nose, scarcely appeared above once in a

century:--so it made the greater sensation.

The clock had done striking twelve, and the Clerk of Chatham was

untrussing his points preparatory to seeking his truckle-bed: a

half-emptied tankard of mild ale stood at his elbow, the roasted

crab yet floating on its surface. Midnight had surprised the worthy

functionary while occupied in discussing it, and with the task yet

unaccomplished. He meditated a mighty draught: one hand was fumbling

with his tags, while the other was extended in the act of grasping the

jorum, when a knock on the portal, solemn and sonorous, arrested his

fingers. It was repeated thrice ere Emanuel Saddleton had presence of

mind sufficient to inquire who sought admittance at that untimeous hour.

"Open! open! good Clerk of St. Bridget's," said a female voice, small,

yet distinct and sweet,--"an excellent thing in woman."

The clerk arose, crossed to the doorway, and undid the latchet.

On the threshold stood a lady of surpassing beauty: her robes were

rich, and large, and full; and a diadem, sparkling with gems that shed

a halo around, crowned her brow: she beckoned the clerk as he stood in

astonishment before her.

"Emanuel!" said the lady; and her tones sounded like those of a silver

flute. "Emanuel Saddleton, truss up your points, and follow me!"

The worthy clerk stared aghast at the vision; the purple robe, the

cymar, the coronet,--above all, the smile;--no, there was no mistaking

her; it was the blessed St. Bridget herself!

And what could have brought the sainted lady out of her warm shrine at

such a time of night? and on such a night? for it was as dark as pitch,

and, metaphorically speaking, "rained cats and dogs."

Emanuel could not speak, so he looked the question.

"No matter for that," said the Saint, answering to his thought. "No

matter for that, Emanuel Saddleton; only follow me, and you'll see."

The clerk turned a wistful eye at the corner-cupboard.

"Oh, never mind the lantern, Emanuel; you'll not want it: but you may

bring a mattock and shovel." As she spoke, the beautiful apparition held

up her delicate hand. From the tip of each of her long taper fingers

issued a lambent flame of such surpassing brilliancy as would have

plunged a whole gas company into despair--it was a "Hand of Glory,"

such a one as tradition tells us yet burns in Rochester Castle every

St. Mark's Eve. Many are the daring individuals who have watched in

Gundulph's Tower, hoping to find it, and the treasure it guards;--but

none of them ever did.

"This way, Emanuel!" and a flame of peculiar radiance streamed from her

little finger as it pointed to the pathway leading to the churchyard.

Saddleton shouldered his tools, and followed in silence.

The cemetery of St. Bridget's was some half-mile distant from the

clerk's domicile, and adjoined a chapel dedicated to that illustrious

lady, who, after leading but a so-so life, had died in the odour of

sanctity. Emanuel Saddleton was fat and scant of breath, the mattock was

heavy, and the saint walked too fast for him: he paused to take second

wind at the end of the first furlong.

"Emanuel," said the holy lady good-humouredly, for she heard him

puffing; "rest a while, Emanuel, and I'll tell you what I want with you."

Her auditor wiped his brow with the back of his hand, and looked all

attention and obedience.

"Emanuel," continued she, "what did you and Father Fothergill, and the

rest of you, mean yesterday by burying that drowned man so close to me?

He died in mortal sin, Emanuel; no shrift, no unction, no absolution:

why, he might as well have been excommunicated. He plagues me with his

grinning, and I can't have any peace in my shrine. You must howk him up

again, Emanuel!"

"To be sure, madam,--my lady,--that is, your holiness," stammered

Saddleton, trembling at the thought of the task assigned him. "To he

sure, your ladyship; only--that is--"

"Emanuel," said the Saint, "you'll do my bidding; or it would be better

you had!" and her eye changed from a dove's eye to that of a hawk, and

a flash came from it as bright as the one from her little finger. The

Clerk shook in his shoes, and, again dashing the cold perspiration from

his brow, followed the footsteps of his mysterious guide.

* * * * *

The next morning all Chatham was in an uproar. The Clerk of St.

Bridget's had found himself at home at daybreak, seated in his own

arm-chair, the fire out, and--the tankard of ale quite exhausted.

Who had drunk it? Where had he been? How had he got home?--all was a

mystery: he remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;" all

was fog and fantasy. What he could clearly recollect was, that he had

dug up the grinning sailor, and that the Saint had helped to throw him

into the river again. All was thenceforth wonderment and devotion.

Masses were sung, tapers were kindled, bells were tolled; the monks

of St. Romuald had a solemn procession, the abbot at their head, the

sacristan at their tail, and the holy breeches of St. Thomas-à-Becket

in the centre; Father Fothergill brewed a XXX puncheon of holy-water.

The Rood of Gillingham was deserted; the chapel of Rainham forsaken;

every one who had a soul to be saved flocked with his offering to St.

Bridget's shrine, and Emanuel Saddleton gathered more fees from the

promiscuous piety of that one week than he had pocketed during the

twelve preceding months.

Meanwhile the corpse of the ejected reprobate oscillated like a pendulum

between Sheerness and Gillingham Reach. Now borne by the Medway into the

Western Swale, now carried by the refluent tide back to the vicinity

of its old quarters, it seemed as though the River god and Neptune

were amusing themselves with a game of subaqueous battledore, and had

chosen this unfortunate carcass as a marine shuttlecock. For some time

the alternation was kept up with great spirit, till Boreas, interfering

in the shape of a stiffish "Nor'-wester," drifted the bone (and flesh)

of contention ashore on the Shurland domain, where it lay in all the

majesty of mud. It was soon discovered by the retainers, and dragged

from its oozy bed, grinning worse than ever. Tidings of the god-send

were of course carried instantly to the castle, for the Baron was a very

great man; and if a dun crow had flown across his property unannounced

by the warder, the Baron would have kicked him, the said warder, from

the topmost battlement into the bottommost ditch,--a descent of peril,

and one which "Ludwig the leaper," or the illustrious Trenk himself,

might well have shrunk from encountering.

"An't please your lordship--" said Peter Periwinkle.

"No, villain! it does not please me!" roared the Baron.

His lordship was deeply engaged with a peck of Feversham oysters,--he

doted on shellfish, hated interruption at meals, and had not yet

despatched more than twenty dozen of the "natives."

"There's a body, my lord, washed ashore in the lower creek," said the

seneschal.

The Baron was going to throw the shells at his head; but paused in the

act, and said with much dignity,

"Turn out the fellow's pockets!"

But the defunct had before been subjected to the double scrutiny of

Father Fothergill and the Clerk of St. Bridget's. It was ill gleaning

after such hands; there was not a single marvedi.

We have already said that Sir Ralph de Shurland, Lord of the Isle

of Sheppey, and of many a fair manor on the main-land, was a man of

worship. He had rights of freewarren, saccage and sockage, cuisage and

jambage, fosse and fork, infang theofe and outfang theofe; and all waifs

and strays belonged to him in fee simple.

"Turn out his pockets!" said the Knight.

"Please you, my lord, I must say as how they was turned out afore, and

the devil a rap's left."

"Then bury the blackguard!"

"Please your lordship, he has been buried once."

"Then bury him again, and be----!" The Baron bestowed a benediction.

The seneschal bowed low as he left the room, and the Baron went on with

his oysters.

Scarce ten dozen more had vanished when Periwinkle reappeared.

"An't please you, my lord, Father Fothergill says as how that it's the

Grinning Sailor, and he won't bury him anyhow."

"Oh! he won't--won't he?" said the Baron. Can it be wondered at that he

called for his boots?

Sir Ralph de Shurland, Lord of Shurland and Minster, Baron of Sheppey

_in comitatu_ Kent, was, as has been before hinted, a very great man.

He was also a very little man; that is, he was relatively great and

relatively little,--or physically little and metaphorically great,--like

Sir Sidney Smith and the late Mr. Bonaparte. To the frame of a dwarf he

united the soul of a giant and the valour of a gamecock. Then, for so

small a man, his strength was prodigious; his fist would fell an ox, and

his kick--oh! his kick was tremendous, and, when he had his boots on,

would,--to use an expression of his own, which he had picked up in the

holy wars,--would send a man from Jericho to June. He was bull-necked

and bandy-legged; his chest was broad and deep, his head large, and

uncommonly thick, his eyes a little blood-shot, and his nose _retrousé_

with a remarkably red tip. Strictly speaking, the Baron could not be

called handsome; but his _tout ensemble_ was singularly impressive: and

when he called for his boots, everybody trembled, and dreaded the worst.

"Periwinkle," said the Baron, as he encased his better leg, "let the

grave be twenty feet deep!"

"Your lordship's command is law."

"And, Periwinkle,"--Sir Ralph stamped his left heel into its

receptacle,--"and, Periwinkle, see that it be wide enough to hold not

exceeding two!"

"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."

"And, Periwinkle,--tell Father Fothergill I would fain speak with his

reverence."

"Ye--ye--yes, my lord."

The Baron's beard was picked, and his moustaches, stiff and stumpy,

projected horizontally like those of a Tom-cat; he twirled the one,

stroked the other, drew the buckle of his surcingle a thought tighter,

and strode down the great staircase three steps at a stride.

The vassals were assembled in the great hall of Shurland Castle; every

cheek was pale, every tongue was mute, expectation and perplexity were

visible on every brow. What would his lordship do? Were the recusant

anybody else, gyves to the heels and hemp to the throat were but too

good for him: but it was Father Fothergill who had said "I won't;" and,

though the Baron was a very great man, the Pope was a greater, and the

Pope was Father Fothergill's great friend--some people said he was his

uncle.

Father Fothergill was busy in the refectory trying conclusions with a

venison pasty, when he received the summons of his patron to attend him

in the chapel cemetery. Of course he lost no time in obeying it, for

obedience was the general rule in Shurland Castle. If anybody ever said

"I won't," it was the exception; and, like all other exceptions, only

proved the rule the stronger. The Father was a friar of the Augustine

persuasion; a brotherhood which, having been planted in Kent some few

centuries earlier, had taken very kindly to the soil, and overspread

the county much as hops did some few centuries later. He was plump and

portly, a little thick-winded, especially after dinner, stood five

feet four in his sandals, and weighed hard upon eighteen stone. He was

moreover a personage of singular piety; and the iron girdle, which, he

said, he wore under his cassock to mortify withal, might have been well

mistaken for the tire of a cart-wheel. When he arrived, Sir Ralph was

pacing up and down by the side of a newly-opened grave.

"_Benedicite!_ fair son,"--(the Baron was as brown as a cigar,)

--"_Benedicite!_" said the chaplain.

The Baron was too angry to stand upon compliment.--"Bury me that

grinning caitiff there!" quoth he, pointing to the defunct.

"It may not be, fair son," said the Friar; "he hath perished without

absolution."

"Bury the body!" roared Sir Ralph.

"Water and earth alike reject him," returned the chaplain; "holy St.

Bridget herself----"

"Bridget me no Bridgets! do me thine office quickly, Sir Shaveling;

or, by the piper that played before Moses!----" The oath was a fearful

one; and whenever the Baron swore to do mischief, he was never known

to perjure himself. He was playing with the hilt of his sword.--"Do me

thine office, I say. Give him his passport to heaven!"

"He is already gone to hell!" stammered the friar.

"Then do you go after him!" thundered the Lord of Shurland.

His sword half leaped from its scabbard. No!--the trenchant blade that

had cut Suleiman Ben Malek Ben Buckskin from helmet to chine disdained

to daub itself with the cerebellum of a miserable monk: it leaped back

again; and as the chaplain, scared at its flash, turned him in terror,

the Baron gave him a kick!--one kick!--it was but one!--but such a one!

Despite its obesity, up flew his holy body in an angle of forty-five

degrees; then, having reached its highest point of elevation, sunk

headlong into the open grave that yawned to receive it. If the reverend

gentleman had possessed a neck, he had infallibly broken it; as he did

not, he only dislocated his vertebræ,--but that did quite as well. He

was as dead as ditch-water.

"In with the other rascal!" said the Baron, and he was obeyed; for

there he stood in his boots. Mattock and shovel made short work of it;

twenty feet of superincumbent mould pressed down alike the saint and the

sinner. "Now sing a requiem who list!" said the Baron, and his lordship

went back to his oysters.

The vassals at Castle Shurland were astounded, or, as the seneschal Hugh

better expressed it, "perfectly conglomerated," by this event. What!

murder a monk in the odour of sanctity,--and on consecrated ground too!

They trembled for the health of the Baron's soul. To the unsophisticated

many it seemed that matters could not have been much worse had he shot

a bishop's coach-horse;--all looked for some signal judgment. The

melancholy catastrophe of their neighbours at Canterbury was yet rife

in their memories: not two centuries had elapsed since those miserable

sinners had cut off the tail of St. Thomas's mule. The tail of the mule,

it was well known, had been forthwith affixed to that of the mayor; and

rumour said it had since been hereditary in the corporation. The least

that could be expected was, that Sir Ralph should have a friar tacked

on to his for the term of his natural life! Some bolder spirits there

were, 'tis true, who viewed the matter in various lights, according to

their different temperaments and dispositions; for perfect unanimity

existed not even in the good old times. The verderer, roistering Hob

Roebuck, swore roundly, "'Twere as good a deed as eat to kick down the

chapel as well as the monk."--Hob had stood there in a white sheet for

kissing Giles Miller's daughter.--On the other hand, Simpkin Agnew,

the bell-ringer, doubted if the devil's cellar, which runs under the

bottomless abyss, were quite deep enough for the delinquent, and

speculated on the probability of a hole being dug in it for his especial

accommodation. The philosophers and economists thought with Saunders

M'Bullock, the Baron's bagpiper, that "a feckless monk more or less

was nae great subject for a clamjamphry," especially as "the supply

considerably exceeded the demand;" while Malthouse, the tapster, was

arguing to Dame Martin that a murder now and then was a seasonable

check to population, without which the Isle of Sheppey would in time be

devoured, like a mouldy cheese, by inhabitants of its own producing.

Meanwhile, the Baron ate his oysters, and thought no more of the matter.

But this tranquillity of his lordship was not to last. A couple of

Saints had been seriously offended; and we have all of us read at school

that celestial minds are by no means insensible to the provocations of

anger. There were those who expected that St. Bridget would come in

person, and have the friar up again as she did the sailor; but perhaps

her ladyship did not care to trust herself within the walls of Shurland

Castle. To say the truth, it was scarcely a decent house for a female

Saint to be seen in. The Baron's gallantries, since he became a widower,

had been but too notorious; and her own reputation was a little blown

upon in the earlier days of her earthly pilgrimage: then things were so

apt to be misrepresented: in short, she would leave the whole affair

to St. Austin, who, being a gentleman, could interfere with propriety,

avenge her affront as well as his own, and leave no loop-hole for

scandal. St. Austin himself seems to have had his scruples, though

of their precise nature it were difficult to determine, for it were

idle to suppose him at all afraid of the Baron's boots. Be this as it

may, the mode which he adopted was at once prudent and efficacious. As

an ecclesiastic, he could not well call the Baron out, had his boots

been out of the question; so he resolved to have recourse to the law.

Instead of Shurland Castle, therefore, he repaired forthwith to his own

magnificent monastery, situate just without the walls of Canterbury,

and presented himself in a vision to its abbot. No one who has ever

visited that ancient city can fail to recollect the splendid gateway

which terminates the vista of St. Paul's street, and stands there yet

in all its pristine beauty. The tiny train of miniature artillery which

now adorns its battlements is, it is true, an ornament of a later date;

and is said to have been added some centuries after by some learned

but jealous proprietor, for the purpose of shooting any wiser man than

himself who might chance to come that way. Tradition is silent as to any

discharge having taken place, nor can the oldest inhabitant of modern

days recollect any such occurrence. Here it was, in a handsome chamber,

immediately over the lofty archway, that the superior of the monastery

lay buried in a brief slumber snatched from his accustomed vigils. His

mitre--for he was a mitred abbot, and had a seat in parliament--rested

on a table beside him; near it stood a silver flagon of Gascony wine,

ready, no doubt, for the pious uses of the morrow. Fasting and watching

had made him more than usually somnolent, than which nothing could

have been better for the purpose of the Saint, who now appeared to him

radiant in all the colours of the rainbow.

"Anselm!"--said the beatific vision,--"Anselm! are you not a pretty

fellow to lie snoring there, when your brethren are being knocked at

head, and Mother Church herself is menaced! It is a sin and a shame,

Anselm!"

"What's the matter?--Who are you?" cried the Abbot, rubbing his eyes,

which the celestial splendour of his visiter had set a-winking. "Ave

Maria! St. Austin himself!--Speak, _Beatissime_! what would you with the

humblest of your votaries?"

"Anselm!" said the Saint, "a brother of our order, whose soul Heaven

assoilzie! hath been foully murdered. He hath been ignominiously kicked

to the death, Anselm; and there he lieth cheek-by-jowl with a wretched

carcass, which our sister Bridget has turned out of her cemetery for

unseemly grinning. Arouse thee, Anselm!"

"Ay, so please you, _Sanctissime_!" said the Abbot: "I will order

forthwith that thirty masses be said, thirty _Paters_, and thirty

_Aves_."

"Thirty fools' heads!" interrupted his patron, who was a little peppery.

"I will send for bell, book, and candle."

"Send for an inkhorn, Anselm. Write me now a letter to his Holiness the

Pope in good round terms, and another to the coroner, and another to

the sheriff and seize me the never-enough-to-be-anathematised villain

who hath done this deed! Hang him as high as Haman, Anselm!--up with

him!--down with his dwelling-place, root and branch, hearth-stone and

roof-tree,--down with it all, and sow the site with salt and sawdust!"

St. Austin, it will be perceived, was a radical reformer.

"Marry will I," quoth the Abbot, warming with the Saint's eloquence;

"ay, marry will I, and that _instanter_. But there is one thing you have

forgotten, most Beatified--the name of the culprit."

"Ralph de Shurland."

"The Lord of Sheppey! Bless me!" said the Abbot, crossing himself,

"won't that be rather inconvenient? Sir Ralph is a bold baron and a

powerful; blows will come and go, and crowns will be cracked, and----"

"What is that to you, since yours will not be of the number?"

"Very true, _Beatissime_! I will don me with speed, and do your bidding."

"Do so, Anselm!--fail not to hang the baron, burn his castle, confiscate

his estate, and buy me two large wax-candles for my own particular

shrine out of your share of the property."

With this solemn injunction the vision began to fade.

"One thing more!" cried the Abbot, grasping his rosary.

"What is that?" asked the Saint.

"_O Beate Augustine, ora pro nobis!_"

"Of course I shall," said St. Austin. "_Pax vobiscum!_"--and Abbot

Anselm was left alone.

Within an hour all Canterbury was in commotion. A friar had been

murdered,--two friars--ten--twenty; a whole convent had been

assaulted,--sacked,--burnt,--all the monks had been killed, and all

the nuns had been kissed! Murder!--fire!--sacrilege! Never was city in

such an uproar. From St. George's gate to St. Dunstan's suburb, from

the Donjon to the borough of Staplegate, all was noise and hubbub.

"Where was it?"--"When was it?"--"How was it?" The Mayor caught up his

chain, the Aldermen donned their furred gowns, the Town-clerk put on his

spectacles. "Who was he?"--"What was he?"--"Where was he?"--he should

be hanged,--he should be burned,--he should be broiled,--he should be

fried,--he should be scraped to death with red-hot oyster-shells! "Who

was he?"--"What was his name?"

The abbot's Apparitor drew forth his roll and read aloud: "Sir Ralph de

Shurland, Knight banneret, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and Lord of

Sheppey."

The Mayor put his chain in his pocket, the Aldermen took off their

gowns, the Town-clerk put his pen behind his ear,--It was a county

business altogether: the Sheriff had better call out the _posse

comitatus_.

While saints and sinners were thus leaguing against him, the Baron de

Shurland was quietly eating his breakfast. He had passed a tranquil

night, undisturbed by dreams of cowl or capuchin; nor was his appetite

more affected than his conscience. On the contrary, he sat rather

longer over his meal than usual; luncheon-time came, and he was ready

as ever for his oysters; but scarcely had Dame Martin opened his first

half-dozen when the warder's horn was heard from the barbican.

"Who the devil's that?" said Sir Ralph. "I'm not at home, Periwinkle. I

hate to be disturbed at meals, and I won't be at home to anybody."

"An't please your lordship," answered the seneschal, "Paul Prior hath

given notice that there is a body----"

"Another body!" roared the Baron. "Am I to be everlastingly plagued with

bodies? No time allowed me to swallow a morsel. Throw it into the moat!"

"So please you, my lord, it is a body of horse,--and--and Paul says

there is a still larger body of foot behind it; and he thinks, my

lord,--that is, he does not know, but he thinks--and we all think, my

lord, that they are coming to--to besiege the castle!"

"Besiege the castle! Who? What? What for?"

"Paul says, my lord, that he can see the banner of St. Austin, and the

bleeding heart of Hamo de Crevecoeur, the abbot's chief vassal; and

there is John de Northwood, the sheriff, with his red-cross engrailed;

and Hever, and Leybourne, and Heaven knows how many more; and they are

all coming on as fast as ever they can."

"Periwinkle," said the Baron, "up with the drawbridge; down with the

portcullis; bring me a cup of canary, and my night-cap. I won't be

bothered with them. I shall go to bed."

"To bed, my lord!" cried Periwinkle, with a look that seemed to say,

"He's crazy."

At this moment the shrill tones of a trumpet were heard to sound thrice

from the champaign. It was the signal for parley: the Baron changed his

mind; instead of going to bed, he went to the ramparts.

"Well, rapscallions! and what now?" said the Baron.

A herald, two pursuivants, and a trumpeter, occupied the foreground of

the scene; behind them, some three hundred paces off, upon a rising

ground, was drawn up in battle-array the main body of the ecclesiastical

forces.

"Hear you, Ralph de Shurland, Knight, Baron of Shurland and Minster, and

Lord of Sheppey, and know all men, by these presents, that I do hereby

attach you, the said Ralph, of murder and sacrilege, now, or of late,

done and committed by you, the said Ralph, contrary to the peace of our

Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity: and I do hereby require

and charge you, the said Ralph, to forthwith surrender and give up your

own proper person, together with the castle of Shurland aforesaid, in

order that the same may be duly dealt with according to law. And here

standeth John de Northwood, Esquire, good man and true, sheriff of this

his majesty's most loyal county of Kent, to enforce the same, if need

be, with his _posse comitatus_."

"His what?" said the Baron.

"His _posse comitatus_, and----"

"Go to Bath!" said the Baron.

A defiance so contemptuous roused the ire of the adverse commanders.

A volley of missiles rattled about the Baron's ears. Night-caps avail

little against contusions. He left the walls, and returned to the great

hall.

"Let them pelt away," quoth the Baron; "there are no windows to break,

and they can't get in." So he took his afternoon nap, and the siege went

on.

Towards evening his lordship awoke, and grew tired of the din. Guy

Pearson, too, had got a black eye from a brick-bat, and the assailants

were clambering over the outer wall. So the Baron called for his Sunday

hauberk of Milan steel, and his great two-handed sword with the terrible

name:--it was the fashion in feudal times to give names to swords; King

Arthur's was christened Excalibar; the Baron called his Tickletoby, and

whenever he took it in hand it was no joke.

"Up with the portcullis! down with the bridge!" said Sir Ralph; and out

he sallied, followed by the _élite_ of his retainers. Then there was

a pretty to-do. Heads flew one way--arms and legs another; round went

Tickletoby, and, wherever it alighted, down came horse and man: the

Baron excelled himself that day. All that he had done in Palestine faded

in the comparison; he had fought for fun there, but now it was for life

and lands. Away went John de Northwood; away went William of Hever, and

Roger of Leybourne. Hamo de Crevecoeur, with the church vassals and

the banner of St. Austin, had been gone some time. The siege was raised,

and the Lord of Sheppey left alone in his glory.

But, brave as the Baron undoubtedly was, and total as had been the

defeat of his enemies, it cannot be supposed that _La Stoccata_ would

be allowed to carry it away thus. It has before been hinted that Abbot

Anselm had written to the Pope, and Boniface the Eighth piqued himself

on his punctuality as a correspondent in all matters connected with

church discipline. He sent back an answer by return of post; and by it

all Christian people were strictly enjoined to aid in exterminating the

offender, on pain of the greater excommunication in this world, and a

million of years of purgatory in the next. But then, again, Boniface the

Eighth was rather at a discount in England just then. He had affronted

Longshanks, as the loyal lieges had nicknamed their monarch; and

Longshanks had been rather sharp upon the clergy in consequence. If the

Baron de Shurland could but get the King's pardon for what in his cooler

moments he admitted to be a peccadillo, he might sniff at the Pope, and

bid him "do his devilmost."

Fortune, who, as the poet says, delights to favour the bold, stood his

friend on this occasion. Edward had been, for some time, collecting a

large force on the coast of Kent, to carry on his French wars for the

recovery of Guienne; he was expected shortly to review it in person;

but, then, the troops lay principally in cantonments about the mouth of

the Thames, and his majesty was to come down by water. What was to be

done?--the royal barge was in sight, and John de Northwood and Hamo de

Crevecoeur had broken up all the boats to boil their camp-kettles. A

truly great mind is never without resources.

"Bring me my boots!" said the Baron.

They brought him his boots, and his dapple-grey steed along with them.

Such a courser! all blood and bone, short-backed, broad-chested, and,

but that he was a little ewe-necked, faultless in form and figure. The

Baron sprang upon his back, and dashed at once into the river.

The barge which carried Edward Longshanks and his fortunes had by this

time nearly reached the Nore; the stream was broad and the current

strong, but Sir Ralph and his steed were almost as broad, and stronger.

After breasting the tide gallantly for a couple of miles, the Knight was

near enough to hail the steersman.

"What have we got here?" said the king. "It's a mermaid," said one.

"It's a grampus," said another. "It's the devil," said a third. But they

were all wrong; it was only Ralph de Shurland. "Grammercy," quoth the

king, "that fellow was never born to be drowned!"

It has been said before that the Baron had fought in the holy wars; in

fact, he had accompanied Longshanks, when only heir-apparent, in his

expedition twenty-five years before, although his name is unaccountably

omitted by Sir Harris Nicolas in his list of crusaders. He had been

present at Acre when Amirand of Joppa stabbed the prince with a

poisoned dagger, and had lent Princess Eleanor his own toothbrush after

she had sucked out the venom from the wound. He had slain certain

Saracens, contented himself with his own plunder, and never dunned the

commissariat for arrears of pay. Of course he ranked high in Edward's

good graces, and had received the honour of knighthood at his hands on

the field of battle.

In one so circumstanced it cannot be supposed that such a trifle as the

killing a frowzy friar would be much resented, even had he not taken

so bold a measure to obtain his pardon. His petition was granted, of

course, as soon as asked; and so it would have been had the indictment

drawn up by the Canterbury town-clerk, viz. "That he, the said Ralph de

Shurland, &c. had then and there, with several, to wit, one thousand,

pair of boots, given sundry, to wit, two thousand, kicks, and therewith

and thereby killed divers, to wit, ten thousand, Austin friars," been

true to the letter.

Thrice did the gallant Grey circumnavigate the barge, while Robert

de Winchelsey, the chancellor, and archbishop to boot, was making

out, albeit with great reluctance, the royal pardon. The interval was

sufficiently long to enable his majesty, who, gracious as he was, had

always an eye to business, just to hint that the gratitude he felt

towards the Baron was not unmixed with a lively sense of services to

come; and that, if life was now spared him, common decency must oblige

him to make himself useful. Before the archbishop, who had scalded his

fingers with the wax in affixing the great seal, had time to take them

out of his mouth, all was settled, and the Baron de Shurland, _cum

suis_, had pledged himself to be forthwith in readiness to accompany his

liege lord to Guienne.

With the royal pardon secured in his vest, boldly did his lordship turn

again to the shore; and as boldly did his courser oppose his breadth of

chest to the stream. It was a work of no common difficulty or danger; a

steed of less "mettle and bone" had long since sunk in the effort: as it

was, the Baron's boots were full of water, and Grey Dolphin's chamfrain

more than once dipped beneath the wave. The convulsive snorts of the

noble animal showed his distress; each instant they became more loud

and frequent; when his hoof touched the strand, and "the horse and his

rider" stood again in safety on the shore.

Rapidly dismounting, the Baron was loosening the girths of his

demi-pique, to give the panting animal breath, when he was aware of as

ugly an old woman as he ever clapped eyes upon, peeping at him under the

horse's belly.

"Make much of your steed, Ralph Shurland! Make much of your steed!"

cried the hag, shaking at him her long and bony finger. "Groom to the

hide, and corn to the manger. He has saved your life, Ralph Shurland,

for the nonce; but he shall yet be the means of your losing it, for all

that!"

The Baron started: "What's that you say, you old faggot?" He ran round

by his horse's tail; the women was gone!

The Baron paused; his great soul was not to be shaken by trifles; he

looked around him, and solemnly ejaculated the word "Humbug!" then,

slinging the bridle across his arm, walked slowly on in the direction of

the castle.

The appearance, and still more, the disappearance of the crone,

had however made an impression; every step he took he became more

thoughtful. "'Twould be deuced provoking though, if he _should_ break my

neck after all!" He turned, and gazed at Dolphin with the scrutinizing

eye of a veterinary surgeon.--"I'll be shot if he is not groggy!" said

the Baron.

With his lordship, like another great Commander, "Once to be in doubt,

was once to be resolved:" it would never do to go to the wars on a

rickety prad. He dropped the rein, drew forth Tickletoby, and, as the

enfranchised Dolphin, good easy horse, stretched out his ewe-neck to the

herbage, struck off his head at a single blow. "There, you lying old

beldame!" said the Baron; "now take him away to the knackers."

* * * * *

Three years were come and gone. King Edward's French wars were over;

both parties, having fought till they came to a stand-still, shook

hands; and the quarrel, as usual, was patched up by a royal marriage.

This happy event gave his majesty leisure to turn his attention to

Scotland, where things, through the intervention of William Wallace,

were looking rather queerish. As his reconciliation with Philip now

allowed of his fighting the Scotch in peace and quietness, the monarch

lost no time in marching his long legs across the border, and the short

ones of the Baron followed him of course. At Falkirk, Tickletoby was in

great request; and, in the year following, we find a contemporary poet

hinting at its master's prowess under the walls of Caerlaverock,

Obec eus fu achiminez

Li beau Rafe de Shurlande

Ki kant seoit sur le cheval

Ne sembloit home le someille.

A quatrain which Mr. Simpkinson translates,

"With them was marching

The good Ralph de Shurland,

Who, when seated on horseback,

Does not resemble a man asleep!"

So thoroughly awake, indeed, does he seem to have proved himself, that

the bard subsequently exclaims, in an ecstasy of admiration,

Si ie estoie une pucellette

Je li donroie ceur et cors

Tant est de lu bons lí recors.

"If I were a young maiden,

I would give him my heart and person,

So great is his fame!"

Fortunately the poet was a tough old monk of Exeter; since such a

present to a nobleman, now in his grand climacteric, would hardly have

been worth the carriage. With the reduction of this stronghold of the

Maxwells seem to have concluded the Baron's military services; as on

the very first day of the fourteenth century we find him once more

landed on his native shore, and marching, with such of his retainers

as the wars had left him, towards the hospitable shelter of Shurland

Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant

from high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly

old woman in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large

stone, in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her

knees and her chin upon her thumbs. The Baron started: the remembrance

of his interview with a similar personage in the same place, some three

years since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot,

but the form was gone; nothing remained but the seat it had appeared

to occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the

whitened skull of a dead horse. A tender remembrance of the deceased

Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the Baron's bosom; he drew the

back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction

in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt

of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable

kick of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One

word alone issued from his lips elucidatory of what was passing in

his mind,--it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful

followers,--that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the beach

till it reached the very margin of the stream;--one instant more, and

it would be engulfed for ever. At that moment a loud "Ha! ha! ha!" was

distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and

toothless jaws: it sank beneath the flood in a horse-laugh!

Meanwhile Sir Ralph de Shurland felt an odd sort of sensation in his

right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been

taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more

than once;--had they been "galoshed," their owner might have defied

Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such thing as a trifle."

A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence.

The Baron marched on; the uneasiness in his foot increased. He plucked

off his boot; a horse's tooth was sticking in his great toe!

The result may be anticipated. Lame as he was, his lordship, with

characteristic decision would hobble on to Shurland; his walk increased

the inflammation; a flagon of _aqua vitæ_ did not mend matters. He was

in a high fever; he took to his bed. Next morning the toe presented the

appearance of a Bedfordshire carrot; by dinner-time it had deepened

to beetroot; and when Bargrave, the leech, at last sliced it off, the

gangrene was too confirmed to admit of remedy. Dame Martin thought it

high time to send for Miss Margaret, who, ever since her mother's death,

had been living with her maternal aunt, the abbess, in the Ursuline

convent of Greenwich. The young lady came, and with her came one Master

Ingoldsby, her cousin-german by the mother's side; but the Baron was

too far gone in the deadthraw to recognise either. He died as he lived,

unconquered and unconquerable. His last words were--"Tell the old hag

to go to ----." Whither remains a secret. He expired without fully

articulating the place of her destination.

But who and what was the crone who prophesied the catastrophe? Ay,

"that is the mystery of this wonderful history."--Some said it was Dame

Fothergill, the late confessor's mamma; others, St. Bridget herself;

others thought it was nobody at all, but only a phantom conjured up by

Conscience. As we do not know, we decline giving an opinion.

And what became of the Clerk of Chatham? Mr. Simpkinson avers than he

lived to a good old age, and was at last hanged by Jack Cade, with his

inkhorn about his neck, for "setting boys copies." In support of this

he adduces his name "Emanuel," and refers to the historian Shakspeare.

Mr. Peters, on the contrary, considers this to be what he calls one of

Mr. Simpkinson's "Anacreonisms," inasmuch as, at the introduction of Mr.

Cade's reform measure, the clerk would have been hard upon two hundred

years old. The probability is, that the unfortunate alluded to was his

great-grandson.

Margaret Shurland in due course became Margaret Ingoldsby, her portrait

still hangs in the gallery at Tappington. The features are handsome, but

shrewish, betraying, as it were, a touch of the old Baron's temperament;

but we never could learn that she actually kicked her husband. She

brought him a very pretty fortune in chains, owches, and Saracen

ear-rings; the barony, being a male fief, reverted to the crown.

In the abbey-church at Minster may yet be seen the tomb of a recumbent

warrior, clad in the chain-mail of the 13th century. His hands are

clasped in prayer; his legs, crossed in that position so prized by

Templars in ancient, and tailors in modern, days, bespeak him a soldier

of the Faith in Palestine. Close to his great-toe, lies sculptured in

bold relief a horse's head; and a respectable elderly lady, as she shows

the monument, fails not to read her auditors a fine moral lesson on the

sin of ingratitude, or to claim a sympathising tear to the memory of

poor "Grey Dolphin!"

FRIAR LAURENCE AND JULIET.

BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

_Friar._

Who is calling Friar Laurence?

--Madam Juliet! how d'ye do?

Dear me--talk of the--beg pardon--

I've been talking about _you_.

Mistress Montagu, they tell me

You on Thursday mean to wed!

It is strange you never told me

That poor Mister M. was dead!

_Juliet._

M.'s alive! yet County Paris

I'm to marry, people say!

(I shall marry the whole county

If I go on in this way:)

Once you've wedded me already,

If I wed again, you see,

Though in _you_ a _little_ error,

'Twill be very _big o' me_.

_Friar._

'Pon my life, it's very awkward!

I'll on some expedient hit;

If you'll find me ready money,

I will find you ready wit:

I can't let you wed a second

Ere I know the first has died;

Think of faggots! for such deeds, ma'am,

Holy friars have been fried!

_Juliet._

'Tan't my wish, sir, nor intention,--

Any scheme of yours I'll hail;

To escape from County Paris,

Put me in the county jail:

Kill me dead! and make me food for

Earthworm, viper, toad, or rat;

Make a widower of Ro-me-

-O,--('twill _hurt_ me to do that!)

_Friar._

If you've really resolution

That your life-blood should be spilt,

I will save you, for I'll have you

Not quite killed, but merely _kilt_:

Could you in a vault be buried--

Horizontal--in a niche?

And of death so good a copy,

None could find out which is which?

_Juliet._

I would vault into a vault, sir,

With a dead man in his shroud;

I'd do any dirty work, sir,

Though my family's so proud!

I'll do whatsoe'er you bid me,

'Till you say I've done enough:

Nay, sir, much as I dislike it,

I'll take 'poticary's stuff!

_Friar._

Then go home, ma'am, and be merry;

Say that Paris you will wed;

Tell your nurse you've got a headache,

And go quietly to bed:

Ask for something warm,--some negus,

Grog, or gruel, or egg-flip,

Put in this, and then drink quickly,--

'Tis so nauseous if you sip.

_Juliet._

Give, oh! give me quick the phial,

From the trial I'll not shrink,--

Is it shaken when it's taken?

Gracious me! it's black as ink!

There's no fear, I trust, of failure?--

No--I doubt not its effect;

From your conversation's _tenor_

No base phial I expect.

_Friar._

You will have the bridegroom _follow_,

Where he generally _leads_;

'Stead of hymeneal flowers,

He will wear sepulchral weeds:

_I_ to Romeo will quickly

Write a letter by the post;

He will wake you, and should Paris

Meet you,--say you are your ghost!

_Juliet._

'Tis an excellent arrangement,

As you bid me I will act;

But within the tomb, dear friar,

Place a basket nicely pack'd;--

Just a loaf, a tongue, a chicken,

Port and sherry, and some plums;

It will _really_ be a comfort

Should I wake e'er Romeo comes!

CHAPTER IN THE LIFE OF A STATESMAN,

BEING INEDITED LETTERS OF ADDISON.

NOW FIRST PRINTED FROM THE AUTOGRAPH ORIGINALS.

The following letters, which have never before been published, are

exceedingly curious, as exhibiting Addison in a new point of view, and

as displaying traits in that celebrated man's character, differing

very materially from those which his biographers have recorded. They

are addressed to Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax, and to Monsieur

Robethon, secretary to the Elector of Hanover, afterwards George

the First of England. They represent Addison as eager for place and

pension, yearning after pecuniary reward, dwelling upon services

unrequited, urging his utmost interest to procure some new emoluments,

and discontentedly comparing his own condition with that of other more

fortunate placemen. Leaving the letters to speak for themselves, it is

only necessary to add that they are accompanied by a few notes which

furnish some new data in the family history of the writer.

TO CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX.

Dublin Castle, May 7, 1709.

MY LORD,--I am glad of any occasion of paying my

duty to your lordship, and therefore cannot but lay

hold of this, in transmitting to your lordship our

Lord Lieutenant's[71] speech at the opening of the

parliament, with a couple of addresses from the House

of Commons upon that occasion. Your lordship will see

by them that all parties have set out in good-humour,

which is entirely owing to his excellency's conduct,

who has addressed himself so all sorts of men since

his arrival here, with unspeakable application. They

were under great apprehensions, at his first coming,

that he would drive directly at repealing the Test,

and had formed themselves into a very strong body for

its defence; but, as their minds are at present pretty

quiet upon that head, they appear willing to enter into

all other measures that he would have them. Had he

proceeded otherwise, it is easie to see that all things

would have been thrown into the utmost confusion, and

a stop put to all public business. His excellency,

however, gains ground daily; and I question not but in

a new parliament, where parties are not settled and

confirmed, he will be able to lead them into any thing

that will be for their real interests and advantage.

I have the happiness every day to drink

your lordship's health in very good wine,[72] and with

very honest gentlemen; and am ever, with the greatest

respect, my lord, Your lordship's most obedient and

most humble servant,

J. ADDISON.

[71] Thomas Wharton, Earl of Wharton, appointed Lord Lieutenant of

Ireland, April 21, 1709. How Addison became the secretary of this

Verres, as delineated by Swift,--or how Wharton, who professed to think

virtue to be only a name, and would not have given a guinea as the

purchase-price of the best reputation, obtained the appointment of the

Queen's vicegerent in Ireland,--would be matters of perfect astoundment,

were it not known that Wharton forced himself upon Lord Godolphin, by

showing him a treasonable letter of that lord's to the abdicated family,

of which he had contrived to become the possessor. Wharton's vice-regal

power was but of short duration; he was recalled: Lords Justices were

appointed in the September of the same year, and Wharton returned to

England to make a bad use of the letter. Godolphin had, however, been

too cunning for him, and procured an act of grace in his absence, which

enabled him to set the vengeance of the Lord Lieutenant at defiance. As

an apology for Addison's serving under such a man, it may be urged, that

the acceptance of the office so proffered implied no approbation of his

crimes; and that a subordinate officer is under no obligation to examine

the opinions or conduct of those under whom he acts, excepting that he

may not be made the actual tool of his atrocities or crimes.

[72] Addison's habitual taciturnity and fondness for the bottle are well

known. There is a story, not yet forgotten, that the profligate Duke of

Wharton, who was, perhaps, only the reputed or imputed son of this earl,

afterwards Marquis of Wharton, once at table plied Addison so briskly

with wine, in order to make him talk, that he could not retain it in his

stomach. His grace is said to have observed, that "he could get wine,

but not wit out of him."

TO M. DE ROBETHON, SECRETARY TO THE ELECTOR OF HANOVER.

St. James's, Sept. 4, 1714.

SIR,--I have been obliged to so close an attendance

on the Lords Justices, and have had so very little

time at my own disposal during my absence from their

excellencies, that I could not do myself the honour

before now, to assure you of my respects, and to

beg the continuance of that friendship which you

formerly honoured me with, at Hanover.[73] I cannot

but extremely rejoice at the occasion, which will give

me on opportunity of waiting on you in England, where

you will find a whole nation in the highest joy, and

thoroughly sensible of the great blessings which they

promise themselves from his Majesty's accession to the

throne.

I take the liberty to send you, enclosed,

a poem written on this occasion by one of our most

eminent hands, which is indeed a masterpiece in its

kind; and, though very short, has touched upon all

the topics which are most popular among us. I have

likewise transmitted to you, a copy of the preamble to

the Prince of Wales's patent, which was a very grateful

task imposed upon me by the Lords Justices. Their

excellencies have ordered that the lords and others who

meet his Majesty, be out of mourning that day, as also

their coaches; but all servants, except those of the

City magistrates, to be in mourning. The shortness of

the time, which would not be sufficient for the making

of new liveries, occasioned this last order.

The removal of the Lord Bolingbroke[74] has

put a seasonable check to an interest that was making

in many places for members in the next parliament; and

was very much relished by the people, who ascribed to

him, in a great measure, the decay of trade and public

credit.

You will do me a very great honour if you

find means submissive enough to make the humble offers

of my duty acceptable to his Majesty. May God Almighty

preserve his person, and continue him for many years

the blessing of these kingdoms! I am, with great esteem

and respect, Sir, your most obedient and most humble

servant,

J. ADDISON.

[73] Lord Godolphin conferred on Addison, as a reward for his poem

entitled _The Campaign_, commemorative of the battle of Blenheim, the

place of Commissioner of Appeals, in the room of the celebrated Locke,

who had been appointed a Lord of Trade. The year following, he attended

Lord Halifax to Hanover; and, in the next, was appointed secretary to

Sir Charles Hedges, and was continued in that office by his successor,

Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland.

[74] Addison was a sound Whig. Bolingbroke records, that, after the

peace which followed the ever memorable battle of Blenheim, he engaged

with Addison in a two hours' conversation, and their politics differed

_toto cælo_ from each other.

TO THE SAME.

St. James's, Sept 11.

SIR,--Though I am not without hopes of seeing you in

England before this letter comes to your hands, I

cannot defer returning you my thanks for the honour of

yours of the 17th N. S. which I received this morning.

I beg leave to send you the enclosed ceremonial for the

King's entry, published by the Earl of Suffolk, Deputy

Earl Marshal, as regulated by the Lords Justices and

privy council.[75] The Attorney-general is preparing a

proclamation, reciting the rewards set on the Pretender

by the late Queen and Parliament, with the security set

for the payment, as established by a clause in an act

passed since his Majesty's accession to the throne. As

such a proclamation is very requisite; so, perhaps, it

may come with a good grace from the Regents before his

Majesty's arrival. It will, I believe, be fixed up in

all the market-towns, especially among the highlands in

Scotland, where there has been some meetings, but, by

the care of the Regents, of no consequence.

[Subscribed in the same words as the preceding.]

TO THE EARL OF HALIFAX.

Oct. 17, 1714.

MY LORD,--I find by your lordship's

discourse that you have your reasons

for laying aside the thought of bringing me into a

part of Lowndes's place;[76] and, as I hope they do

not proceed from any change of goodwill towards me,

I do entirely acquiesce in them. I know that one in

your lordship's high station has several opportunities

of showing favour to your dependants, as one of your

generous temper does not want to be reminded of it when

any such offer. I must therefore beg your lordship to

believe that I think no more of what you were pleased

to mention in relation to the Treasury, though the

kind and condescending manner in which your lordship

was pleased to communicate yourself to me on that

subject, shall always raise in me the most constant and

unfeigned zeal for your honour and service.

I fancy, if I had a friend to represent to

his Majesty that I was sent abroad by King William,

and taken off from all other pursuits in order to be

employed in his service[77]--that I had the honour to

wait on your lordship to Hanover,--that the post I am

now in, is the gift of a particular lord [Sunderland],

in whose service I have been employed formerly,--that

it is a great fall, in point of honour, from being

secretary to the Regents, and that their request

to his Majesty still subsists in my favour,--with

other intimations that might perhaps be made to my

advantage,--I fancy, I say, that his Majestie, upon

such a representation, would be inclined to bestow on

me some mark of his favour. I protest to your lordship

I never gained to the value of five thousand pounds[78]

by all the business I have yet been in; and, out of

that, very near a fourth part has been laid out in my

elections.[79] I should not insist on this subject

so long, were it not taken notice of by some of the

Lords Justices themselves, as well as many others,

that his Majestie has yet done nothing for me, though

it was once expected he would have done something more

considerable for me than I can at present have the

confidence to mention. As I have the honour to write

to your lordship, whose favour I have endeavoured to

cultivate, and should be very ambitious of deserving,

I will humbly propose it to your lordship's thoughts,

whether his Majestie might not be inclined, if I was

mentioned to him, to put me in the Commission of Trade,

or in some honorary post about the Prince, or by some

other method to let the world see that I am not wholly

disregarded by him. I am ashamed to talk so long of

myself; but, if your lordship will excuse me this time,

I will never more erre on this side. I shall only

beg leave to add, that I mentioned your lordship's

kind intentions towards me only to two persons. One

of them was Phillips,[80] whom I could not forbear

acquainting, in the fulness of my heart, with the

kindness you had designed both him and me, which I take

notice of because I hope your lordship will have him in

your thoughts.

Though I put by several importunities which

are made me to recommend persons and pretensions to

your lordship, there are some which I cannot resist,

without declaring, what would go very much against

me, that I have no credit with your lordship. Of this

kind is a request made me yesterday by Lady Irby,

that I would mention her to your lordship as one who

might be made easy in her fortune if your lordship

would be pleased to procure for her the place of a

bedchamber-woman to the Princess. I told her that

places of that nature were out of your lordship's

province; but she tells me, as the proper persons are

not yet named to whom she should make her applications,

and as my Lord Townsend has gained the same favour for

Mrs. Selwyn, she hopes you will excuse her solicitation

upon this occasion.

My Lord Dorchester, from whom I lately

conveyed a letter to your lordship, has likewise

obliged me to speak in favour of Mr. Young, who marryed

a sister of Mr. Chetwynd's, and formerly was a clerk

under me in Ireland. He is now a man of estate, of

honest principles, and has been very serviceable to

Lord Dorchester in the elections at Salisbury.

I humbly beg leave to congratulate your

lordship upon the honours you have lately received; and

whenever your lordship will allow me to wait on you,

I shall always value the honour of being admitted to

your conversation more than any place that can be given

me. I am, with the greatest respect, my lord,

Your lordship's most devoted and most obedient servant,

J. ADDISON.

[75] Budgell has recorded that he attended Lord Halifax and Addison in a

barge to Greenwich to meet George the First from Hanover. Halifax said

he expected to have the Treasurer's staff, and to have great influence;

that he would endeavour to avoid some of the errors of late reigns,

and make his master a great king, and would recommend Addison to be

a secretary of state. Addison, as Budgell says, blushed, and thanked

him for such honourable friendship, but declared that his merits and

ambition did not carry him to so high a place. Halifax was, however,

circumvented in all his speculations: Walpole acquired more influence,

or succeeded by intrigue; and the effects mortified Lord Halifax so

acutely, that a pulmonary fever was the consequence, and death soon put

a quietus upon his lordship's unsuccessful struggle for power.

[76] Lowndes was secretary to the Lords of the Treasury.

[77] Congreve first introduced Addison to the notice of lord Halifax

while being educated at Oxford for the church, when his lordship is said

to have dedicated Addison to the state, and avowed he would never do

the church any other harm than in keeping him out of it. The post which

Addison here alludes to, was that of secretary to Lord Sunderland, who

was then appointed to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, but never went

to Dublin to assume the vice-regal dignity. Addison evidently deemed

that appointment a degradation, and much inferior to that of being

secretary to the Lords Regent of the kingdom till the arrival of the

new King. As to his having been in Lord Sunderland's employ formerly,

it has reference to his being his lordship's secretary upon the earl's

succeeding Sir Charles Hedges, as Secretary of State, in 1706.

[78] This assertion seems strange, when it is known that in 1711, long

prior to his marriage with the Countess of Warwick, Addison had expended

ten thousand pounds upon the purchase of the Bilton estate, near Rugby,

in Warwickshire: and Oldmixon, in his History, says, Addison left by his

will, in 1719, to his daughter and to Lady Warwick, his fortune, which

was about twelve thousand pounds. His daughter, who resided at Bilton

till her death, in 1797, enjoyed an income of more than twelve hundred

pounds per annum.

[79] Addison sat in the two last parliaments of Queen Anne. The Commons'

Journals record that on a petition against his election for Lestwithiel,

in 1708, he was found not duly elected; but by Lord Wharton's interest

at the general election, he was chosen member for Malmesbury: indeed, as

Swift wrote to Stella, so popular had Addison then become, that "if he

had stood for the kingship, he would have been chosen."

[80] Ambrose Phillips, "one of the wits at Button's," and Addison's

constant associate at that resort of the literati. In the latter part

of Queen Anne's reign, being a Whig, he was secretary to the Hanover

Club, and was, soon after the accession of George the First, put

into the commission of the peace; and, in 1717, appointed one of the

Commissioners of the Lottery. Paul Whitehead relates that when Addison

became Secretary of State, Phillips applied to him for some preferment,

but was coolly answered, that it was thought he was already provided

for, by being made a justice for Westminster. To this observation

Phillips with some indignation replied, "Though poetry was a trade he

could not live by, yet he scorned to owe subsistence to another which

he ought not to live by." Phillips will be long remembered by his

translation from Racine of the tragedy of the "Distressed Mother." He

died, struck with palsy, in Hanover-street, Hanover-square, June 18,

1749.

Oct. 24, 1714.

MY LORD,--Upon my coming home

this evening, I found a letter left for

me from your lordship which has raised in me a greater

satisfaction and sense of gratitude than I am able to

express. Nothing can be more acceptable to me than the

place which I hope your lordship has procured for me,

and particularly because it may put me in a way of

improving myself under your lordship's directions. I

will not pretend to express my thanks to your lordship

upon this occasion, but should be glad to employ my

whole life in it.

[Subscribed as before.]

Nov. 30, 1714.

MY LORD,--Finding that I have miscarried

in my pretensions to the Board

of Trade, I shall not trouble your lordship with the

resentments of the unhandsome treatment I have met with

from some of our new great men in every circumstance

of that affair; but must beg leave to express my

gratitude to your lordship for the great favour you

have shown me on this occasion, which I shall never

forget. Young Craggs[81] told me, about a week ago,

that his Majestie, though he did not think fit to

gratifie me in this particular, designed to give me a

recompense for my service under the Lords Justices, in

which case your lordship will probably be consulted.

Since I find I am never to rise above the station

in which I first entered upon public business, (for

I begin to look upon myself like an old serjeant or

corporal,) I would willingly turn my secretaryships,

in which I have served five different masters, to the

best advantage I can; and as your lordship is the

only patron I glory in, and have a dependence on,

I hope you will honour me with your countenance in

this particular. If I am offered less than a thousand

pounds, I shall beg leave not to accept it, since it

will look more like a clerk's wages than a mark of his

Majesty's favour. I verily believe that his Majesty

may think I had fees and perquisites belonging to me

under the Lords Justices; but, though I was offered a

present by the South Sea Company, I never took that,

nor anything else, for what I did, as knowing I had

no right to it. Were I of another temper, my present

place in Ireland[82] might be as profitable to me as

some have represented it. I humbly beg your lordship's

pardon for the trouble of such a letter, and do assure

your lordship that one of the greatest pleasures I

shall receive in whatever I get from the government

will be its enabling me to promote your honour and

interest more effectually. I am informed, Mr. Yard,

besides a place and an annual recompense for serving

the Lords Justices [of Ireland] under King William,

had considerable fees, and was never at the charge of

getting himself elected into the House of Commons.

I beg your lordship will give me leave to

add, that I believe I am the first man that ever drew

up a Prince of Wales's preamble without so much as a

medal for my pains.

[Subscribed as before.]

[81] Young Craggs was the son of a _barber_, who, by his merit, became

Postmaster-general, and home-agent to the Duke of Marlborough; he was

one of the first characters of the age, and had distinguished himself

in the House of Commons. The classical names of Damon and Pythias,

of Pylades and Orestes, of Nisus and Euryalus, are not oftener found

conjoined in ancient story than those of Addison and Craggs in the

real life of modern times. Addison, notwithstanding the discomfiture

evinced in these letters, succeeded in procuring the appointment of

a Lord Commissioner at the Board of Trade, which post he held till

he was made Secretary of State, April 16, 1717. But Addison was then

fast sinking into a bad habit of body: his great care was how to live,

and, as Tacitus Gordon, his great admirer, used to relate, was then

killing himself in drinking the widow Trueby's water, spoken of in the

"Spectator." Unfit for the drudgery of a political life,--the pack-horse

of the state,--he pleaded the being incapable of supporting the fatigues

of his office, and resigned the seals in March 1718, upon a pension from

the King of seventeen hundred pounds per annum. Craggs, who was his

successor, died prematurely and unmarried, in his twenty-eighth year, in

1721.

[82] Queen Anne, to whom Addison had been recommended by the Duchess of

Marlborough, on his appointment to be Secretary for Ireland, augmented

the salary annexed to the place of Keeper of the Records in Birmingham

Tower, to three hundred pounds per annum, and bestowed it on him.

MY LORD,--Your lordship having

given me leave to acquaint you with the names and

pretensions of persons who are importunate with me to

speak to your lordship in their behalf, I shall make

use of that liberty when I believe it may be of use to

your lordship, or when I cannot possibly resist the

solicitation. I presumed to write to your lordship in

favour of Mr. Hungerford, who purchased of me in the

commission of Appeals. All I aske is, that he may enjoy

the fruits of his purchase: as for his recommending

one to his place, I only hinted at it, if his coming

into the House might be of service to your lordship. I

would not have spoken of Mr. Wroth, had not he assured

me that he was first recommended to your lordship by my

Lord Cooper.[83] He tells me since, he had the honour

to be schoolfellow to your lordship, and I know has a

most entire respect for you, and I believe is able to

do his friends service.

The enclosed petition is of one who is

brother to a particular friend of mine at Oxford, and

brought me a letter in his behalf from Mr. Boscawen.

If your lordship would be pleased to refer it to

the Commissioners of Customs, it would give me an

opportunity of obliging one who may be of service to

me, and perhaps be a piece of justice to one who seems

to be a man of merit.

I must beg your lordship's patience for

one more, at the request of my Lord and Lady Warwick,

especially since I hear your lordship has formerly

promised to do something for him. His name is Edward

Rich: he is to succeed to the title of the Earl of

Warwick should the young lord have no heir of his

own.[84] He is in great want, writes an extraordinary

good hand, and would be glad of a small place. He

mentions in particular a King's tide-waiter. Capt.

Addison[85] tells me that he presumed to put your

lordship in mind of himself; but, as I hope to provide

for him in Ireland, I will not trouble you on his

account. I have another namesake, who is well turned

for greater business; but if he could have a stamper's

place, vacant by the death of one who was formerly my

servant, it would be a very great favour. I beg your

lordship to pardon this freedom, and I promise to use

it very sparingly hereafter.

When your lordship is at leisure, I

should be glad of a moment's audience: in the mean

time, I cannot conclude my letter without returning

your lordship thanks for all your favours, which have

obliged me, as long as I live, to be, in the most

particular manner, and with the utmost gratitude and

respect, my lord,

Your lordship's most devoted and Most obedient servant,

J. ADDISON.

[83] William, first Earl Cowper, Lord High Chancellor of England; he

died Oct. 10, 1723.

[84] Addison, it is said, was first introduced into the Warwick family

as tutor of the young lord here mentioned. The earl died soon after

the date of this letter; and Addison, at forty-five, took great pains

to woo the countess, who is described as being personally fraught with

half the pride of the nation. They were married in August 1716, though

not happily; for tradition reports they were seldom in each other's

company. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to Pope, written from

the East, after this period, says, "I received the news of Addison's

being declared Secretary of State with the less surprise, in that I knew

that post was almost offered to him before. At that time he declined it;

and I really believe he would have done well to have declined it now.

Such a post as that, and such a wife as the countess, do not seem to be

in prudence eligible for a man that is asthmatic; and we may see the day

when he will be heartily glad to resign them both."

[85] Dean Addison, who died April 20, 1703, left four children: Joseph,

the writer of these letters; Gulston, here spoken of as Captain Addison,

who died governor of Fort St. George, in the West Indies; Dorothy, of

whom Swift, in a letter dated October 25, 1710, says, "I dined to-day

with Addison and Steele, and a sister of Addison's, who is married to

Mons. Sartre, a Frenchman, prebendary of Westminster. Addison's sister

is a sort of wit, very like him: I am not fond of her." She married,

secondly, Daniel Combes, Esq. Addison bequeathed her in his will five

hundred pounds, which she lived to enjoy till March 2, 1750. The "other

namesake" was possibly Addison's other brother, Lancelot, who, Chalmers

states, was fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and an able classical

scholar.

April 28, 1715.

MY LORD,--I can only acknowledge

the receipt of your grace's[86] last

letters, without being able to return any satisfactory

answer to them, my Lord Lieutenant not being yet well

enough recovered to give any directions in publick

businesse. He has not found the desired effects from

the country air and remedies which he has taken; so

that he is at length prevailed upon to go to the Bath,

which we hope will set him right, if we may believe

the assurances given him by his physicians. Your grace

has, doubtlesse, heard many idle reports which have

been industriously spread abroad with relation to his

distemper, which is nothing else but the cholick,

occasioned by a too frequent use of vomits, to which

the physicians adde the drinking of small beer in too

great quantities when he has found himself a little

heated. I hope, before his excellency sets out for the

Bath, I shall receive his directions upon your grace's

letters, which I shall always execute with the greatest

pleasure and dispatch, being with all possible respect,

my lord,

Your grace's most obedient and Most humble servant,

J. ADDISON.

[86] The original of this letter having been forwarded in an envelope,

and wanting the notation, at foot of the first page, of the name of

the person to whom addressed, leaves it a conjecture who his grace

was, whether Ormond or Grafton. Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland,

is the Lord Lieutenant whose illness Addison describes. The earl never

went to Ireland to assume the vice-regal dignity; and, though this has

never been satisfactorily accounted for, the real causes were, in all

probability, his lordship's continued indisposition, and the death

of Anne, Countess-dowager of Sunderland, his mother. Charles Duke of

Grafton, and Henry Earl of Galway, were appointed Lords Justices of

Ireland, Nov. 1, 1715.

REMAINS OF HAJJI BABA.