On the second occasion, the author of Christabel was accompanied by one

of his sons. The Poet, talking and walking as usual, chanced to pursue

some argument, which drew from the son, who had not been introduced

to me, the remark, “Ah, that’s just like your crying up those foolish

Odes and Addresses!” Coleridge was highly amused with this mal-àpropos,

and, without explaining, looked slily round at me, with the sort of

suppressed laugh one may suppose to belong to the Bey of _Tittery_. The

truth was, he felt naturally partial to a book he had attributed in the

first instance to the dearest of his friends.

“MY DEAR CHARLES,--This afternoon, a little, thin,

mean-looking sort of a foolscap, sub-octavo of poems, printed on

very dingy outsides, lay on the table, which the cover informed me

was circulating in our book-club, so very Grub Streetish in all its

appearance, internal as well as external, that I cannot explain

by what accident of impulse (assuredly there was no _motive_ in

play) I came to look into it. Least of all, the title, Odes and

Addresses to Great Men, which connected itself in my head with

Rejected Addresses, and all the Smith and Theodore Hook squad. But,

my dear Charles, it was certainly written by you, or under you,

or _una cum_ you. I know none of your frequent visitors capacious

and assimilative enough of your converse to have reproduced you

so honestly, supposing you had left yourself in pledge in his

lock-up house. Gillman, to whom I read the spirited parody on the

introduction to Peter Bell, the Ode to the Great Unknown, and to

Mrs. Fry; he speaks doubtfully of Reynolds and Hood. But here come

Irving and Basil Montagu.

“_Thursday night, 10 o’clock._--No! Charles, it is _you_. I have

read them over again, and I understand why you have _anon’d_

the book. The puns are nine in ten good--many excellent--the

_Newgatory_ transcendent. And then the _exemplum sine exemplo_ of

a volume of personalities and contemporaneities, without a single

line that could inflict the infinitesimal of an unpleasance on any

man in his senses; saving and except perhaps in the envy-addled

brain of the despiser of your _Lays_. If not a triumph over him,

it is at least an _ovation_. Then, moreover, and besides, to speak

with becoming modesty, excepting my own self, who is there but you

who could write the musical lines and stanzas that are intermixed?

“Here Gillman, come up to my garret, and driven back by the

guardian spirits of four huge flower-holders of omnigenous roses

and honeysuckles--(Lord have mercy on his hysterical olfactories!

what will he do in Paradise? I must have a pair or two of

nostril-plugs, or nose-goggles laid in his coffin)--stands at the

door, reading that to M’Adam, and the washerwoman’s letter, and he

admits _the facts_. You are found _in the manner_, as the lawyers

say! so, Mr. Charles! hang yourself up, and send me a line, by way

of token and acknowledgment. My dear love to Mary. God bless you

and your Unshamabramizer,

“S. T. COLERIDGE.”

It may be mentioned here, that instead of feeling “the infinitesimal of

an unpleasance” at being Addressed in the Odes, the once celebrated Mr.

Hunt presented to the Authors a bottle of his best “Permanent Ink,” and

the eccentric Doctor Kitchiner sent an invitation to dinner.

From Colebrooke, Lamb removed to Enfield Chase,--a painful operation

at all times, for as he feelingly misapplied Wordsworth, “the _moving_

accident was not his trade.” As soon as he was settled, I called upon

him, and found him in a bald-looking yellowish house, with a bit of a

garden, and a wasp’s nest convanient, as the Irish say, for one stung

my pony as he stood at the door. Lamb laughed at the fun; but, as the

clown says, the whirligig of time brought round its revenges. He was

one day bantering my wife on her dread of wasps, when all at once he

uttered a horrible shout,--a wounded specimen of the species had slily

crawled up the leg of the table, and stung him in the thumb. I told

him it was a refutation well put in, like Smollett’s timely snowball.

“Yes,” said he, “and a stinging commentary on Macbeth--

“_By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes._”

There were no pastoral yearnings concerned in this Enfield removal.

There is no doubt which of Captain Morris’s Town and Country Songs

would have been most to Lamb’s taste. “The sweet shady side of

Pall-Mall,” would have carried it hollow. In courtesy to a friend, he

would select a green lane for a ramble, but left to himself, he took

the turnpike road as often as otherwise. “Scott,” says Cunningham, “was

a stout walker.” Lamb was a _porter_ one. He calculated Distances,

not by Long Measure, but by Ale and Beer Measure. “Now I have walked

a pint.” Many a time I have accompanied him in these matches against

Meux, not without sharing in the stake, and then, what cheerful and

profitable talk! For instance, he once delivered to me orally the

substance of the Essay on the Defect of Imagination in Modern Artists,

subsequently printed in the Athenæum. But besides the criticism, there

were snatches of old poems, golden lines and sentences culled from rare

books, and anecdotes of men of note. Marry, it was like going a ramble

with gentle Izaak Walton, minus the fishing.

To make these excursions more delightful to one of my temperament,

Lamb never affected any spurious gravity. Neither did he ever act the

Grand _Senior_. He did not exact that common copy-book respect, which

some asinine persons would fair command on account of the mere length

of their years. As if, forsooth, what is bad in itself, could be the

better for keeping; as if intellects already _mothery_, got anything

but _grandmothery_ by lapse of time! In this particular, he was opposed

to Southey, or rather (for Southey has been opposed to himself) to his

Poem on the Holly Tree.

“So serious should my youth appear among

The thoughtless throng;

So would I seem among the young and gay

_More grave than they_.”

There was nothing of Sir Oracle about Lamb. On the contrary, at sight

of a solemn visage that “creamed and mantled like the standing pool,”

he was the first to pitch a mischievous stone to disturb the duck-weed.

“He was a boy-man,” as he truly said of Elia; “and his manners lagged

behind his years.” He liked to herd with people younger than himself.

Perhaps, in his fine generalizing way, he thought that, in relation

to Eternity, we are all contemporaries. However, without reckoning

birthdays, it was always “Hail fellow, well met;” and although he

was my elder by a quarter of a century, he never made me feel, in

our excursions, that I was “taking a walk with the schoolmaster.”

I remember, in one of our strolls, being called to account, very

pompously, by the proprietor of an Enfield Villa, who asserted that my

dog Dash, who never hunted anything in his dog-days, had chased the

sheep; whereupon, Elia taking the dog’s part, said very emphatically,

“Hunt _Lambs_, Sir? Why he has never hunted _me_!” But he was always

ready for fun, intellectual or practical--now helping to pelt D*****,

a modern Dennis, with puns; and then to persuade his sister, God bless

her! by a vox et preterea nihil, that she was as deaf as an adder.

In the same spirit, being requested by a young Schoolmaster to take

charge of his flock for a day, “during the unavoidable absence of the

Principal,” he willingly undertook the charge, but made no other use

of his brief authority than to give the boys a whole holiday.

As Elia supplied the place of the Pedagogue, so once I was substitute

for Lamb himself. A prose article in the Gem, was not from his hand,

though it bore his name. He had promised a contribution, but being

unwell, his sister suggested that I should write something for him, and

the result was the “Widow” in imitation of his manner. It will be seen

that the forgery was taken in good part.

“DEAR LAMB,--You are an impudent varlet, but I will keep

your secret. We dine at Ayrton’s on Thursday, and shall try to

find Sarah and her two spare beds for that night only. Miss M. and

her tragedy may be d---- d, so may _not_ you and your rib. Health

attend you.

Yours,

T. HOOD, Esq.

“_Enfield._

“Miss Bridget Hood sends love.”

How many of such pleasant reminiscences revive in my memory, whilst

thinking of him, like secret writing brought out by the kindly warmth

of the fire! But they must be deferred to leave me time and space

for other attributes--for example, his charity, in its widest sense,

the moderation in judgment which, as Miller says, is “the Silken

String running through the Pearl Chain of all Virtues.” If he was

intolerant of anything, it was of Intolerance. He would have been (if

the foundation had existed, save in the fiction of Rabelais,) of the

Utopian order of Thelemites, where each man under scriptural warrant

did what seemed good in his own eyes. He hated evil speaking, carping,

and petty scandal. On one occasion having slipped out an anecdote,

to the discredit of a literary man, during a very confidential

conversation, the next moment, with an expression of remorse, for

having impaired even my opinion of the party, he bound me solemnly to

bury the story in my own bosom. In another case he characteristically

rebuked the backbiting spirit of a censorious neighbour. Some Mrs.

Candour telling him, in expectation of an ill-natured comment, that

Miss ***, the teacher at the Ladies’ School, had married a publican,

“Has she so?” said Lamb, “then I’ll have my beer there!”

As to his liberality in a pecuniary sense, he passed (says Lamb of

Elia) with some people, through having a settled but moderate income,

for a great miser. And in truth he knew the value of money, its power,

its usefulness. One January night he told me with great glee that

at the end of the late year he had been able to lay by--and thence

proceeded to read me a serio-comic lecture on the text, of “Keep

your hand out of your Pocket.” The truth is, Lamb, like Shakspeare

in the universality of his sympathies, could feel, pro tempore, what

belonged to the character of a Gripe-all. The reader will remember his

capital Note in the “Dramatic Specimens,” on “the decline of Misers,

in consequence of the _Platonic_ nature of an affection for Money,”

since Money was represented by “_flimsies_,” instead of substantial

coin, the good old solid sonorous dollars and doubloons, and pieces

of eight, that might be handled, and hugged, and rattled, and perhaps

kissed. But to this passion for hoarding he one day attributed a new

origin. “A Miser,” he said, “is sometimes a grand personification of

Fear. He has a fine horror of Poverty. And he is not content to keep

Want from the door, or at arm’s length,--but he places it, by heaping

wealth upon wealth, _at a sublime distance_!” Such was his theory: now

for his practice. Amongst his other guests, you occasionally saw an

elderly lady, formal, fair, and flaxen-wigged, looking remarkably like

an animated wax doll,--and she did visit some friends or relations,

at a toyshop near St. Dunstan’s. When she spoke, it was as if by an

artificial apparatus, through some defect in her palate, and she had a

slight limp and a twist in her figure, occasioned--what would Hannah

More have said!--by running down Greenwich Hill! This antiquated

personage had been Lamb’s Schoolmistress--and on this retrospective

consideration, though she could hardly have taught him more than to

read his native tongue--he allowed her in her decline, a yearly sum,

equal to--what shall I say?--to the stipend which some persons of

fortune deem sufficient for the active services of an all-accomplished

gentlewoman in the education of their children. Say, thirty pounds per

annum.

Such was Charles Lamb. To sum up his character, on his own principle

of antagonism, he was, in his views of human nature, the opposite of

Crabbe; in Criticism, of Gifford; in Poetry, of Lord Byron; in Prose,

of the last new Novelist; in Philosophy, of Kant; and in Religion, of

Sir Andrew Agnew. Of his wit I have endeavoured to give such samples as

occurred to me; but the spirit of his sayings was too subtle and too

much married to the circumstances of the time to survive the occasion.

They had the brevity without the levity of wit--some of his puns

contained the germs of whole essays. Moreover, like Falstaff, he seemed

not only witty himself but the occasion of it by example in others.

“There is M******” said he, “who goes about dropping his good things

as an Ostrich lays her eggs, without caring what becomes of them.” It

was once my good fortune to pick up one of Mr. M.’s foundlings, and it

struck me as particularly in Lamb’s own style, containing at once a

pun and a criticism. “What do you think,” asked somebody, “of the book

called ‘A Day in Stowe Gardens?’” Answer: “A Day ill-bestowed.”

It is now some years ago, since I stood with other mourners in Edmonton

Church Yard, beside a grave in which all that was mortal of Elia was

deposited. It may be a dangerous confession to make, but I shed no

tear; and scarcely did a sigh escape from my bosom. There were many

sources of comfort. He had not died young. He had happily gone before

that noble sister, who not in selfishness, but the devotion of a

unique affection, would have prayed to survive him but for a day, lest

he should miss that tender care which had watched over him upwards

from a little child. Finally he had left behind him his works, a rare

legacy! and above all, however much of him had departed, there was

still more of him that could not die--for as long as Humanity endures

and man owns fellowship with man, the spirit of Charles Lamb will still

be extant!

* * * * *

On the publication of the Odes and Addresses, presentation copies were

sent at the suggestion of a friend, to Mr. Canning and Sir Walter

Scott. The minister took no notice of the little volume; but the

novelist did, in his usual kind manner. An eccentric friend in writing

to me, once made a number of colons, semicolons, &c., at the bottom of

the paper, adding

“And these are my points that I place at the foot,

That you may put stops that I can’t stop to put.”

It will surprise no one, to observe that the author of Waverley had as

little leisure for punctuation.

“SIR WALTER SCOTT has to make thankful acknowledgments for

the copy of the Odes to Great People with which he was favoured

and more particularly for the amusement he has received from the

perusal. He wishes the unknown author good health good fortune

and whatever other good things can best support and encourage his

lively vein of inoffensive and humorous satire.

_Abbotsford Melrose 4th May_”

The first time I ever saw the Great Unknown, was at the private view of

Martin’s Picture of “Nineveh,” when by a striking coincidence, one of

our most celebrated women, and one of our greatest men, Mrs. Siddons

and Sir Walter Scott, walked simultaneously up opposite sides of the

room, and met and shook hands in front of the painting. As Editor of

the Gem, I had afterwards occasion to write to Sir Walter, from whom I

received the following letter, which contains an allusion to some of

his characteristic partialities:--

“MY DEAR MR. HOOD,--It was very ungracious in me to leave

you in a day’s doubt whether I was gratified or otherwise with

the honour you did me to inscribe your Whims and Oddities to me I

received with great pleasure this new mark of your kindness and it

was only my leaving your volume and letter in the country which

delayed my answer as I forgot the address.

I was favoured with Mr. Cooper’s beautiful sketch of the

heart-piercing incident of the dead greyhound which is executed

with a force and fancy which I flatter myself that I who was in my

younger days and in part still am a great lover of dogs and horses

and an accurate observer of their habits can appreciate, I intend

the instant our term ends to send a few verses if I can make any

at my years in acknowledgment. I will get a day’s leisure for this

purpose next week when I expect to be in the country. Pray inform

Mr. Cooper of my intention though I fear I will be unable to do

anything deserving of the subject.

I am very truly your obliged humble servant,

WALTER SCOTT.”

_Edinburgh 4 March._

At last, during one of his visits to London, I had the honour of a

personal interview with Sir Walter Scott at Mr. Lockhart’s in Sussex

Place. The number of the house had escaped my memory; but seeing a fine

dog down an area, I knocked without hesitation at the door. It happened

however to be the wrong one. I afterwards mentioned the circumstance

to Sir Walter. It was not a bad point, he said, for he was very fond

of dogs; but he did not care to have his own animals with him, about

London, “for fear he should be taken for Bill Gibbons.” I then told him

I had lately been reading the Fair Maid of Perth, which had reminded

me of a very pleasant day spent many years before, beside the Linn of

Campsie, the scene of Conachar’s catastrophe. Perhaps he divined what

had really occurred to me,--that the Linn, as a cataract, had greatly

disappointed me; for he smiled, and shook his head archly, and said

he had since seen it himself, and was rather ashamed of it. “But I

fear, Mr. Hood, I have done worse than that before now, in finding a

Monastery where there was none to be found; though there was plenty

(here he smiled again) of Carduus Benedictus, or Holy Thistle.”

In the meantime he was finishing his toilet, in order to dine at the

Duchess of Kent’s; and before he put on his cravat I had an opportunity

of noticing the fine massive proportions of his bust. It served

to confirm me in my theory that such mighty men are, and must be,

physically, as well as intellectually, gifted beyond ordinary mortals;

that their strong minds must be backed by strong bodies. Remembering

all that Sir Walter Scott had done, and all that he had suffered,

methought he had been in more than one sense “a Giant in the Land.”

After some more conversation, in the course of which he asked me if I

ever came to Scotland, and kindly said he should be glad to see me at

Abbotsford, I took my leave, with flattering dreams in my head that

never were, and now, alas! never can be, realised!

* * * * *

And now, not to conclude in too melancholy a tone, allow me, gentle

reader, to present to you the following genuine letter, the names,

merely, for obvious reasons, being disguised.

_To T. Hood, Esq._

“Thou’rt a comical chap--so am I; but thou possessest brains

competent to write what I mean;--I don’t--therefore, Brother Comic,

wilt thou oblige me (if ’twas in my power I would you)--I’ll tell

you just what I want, and no more. Of late, Lord *** has been

endeavouring to raise a body of yeomanry in this county. Now

there’s a man at Bedfont--a compounder of nauseous drugs--and

against whom I owe a grudge, who wishes to enter, but who’s no

more fit for a fighter than I for a punster. Now if you will just

give him a palpable hit or two in verse, and transmit them to me

by post, directed to A. B., Post Office, Bedfont, your kindness

shall ever be remembered with feelings of the deepest sincerity and

gratitude. His name is ‘JAMES BOOKER, CHEMIST,’ Bedfont

_of course_. If you disapprove of the above, I trust you will

not abuse the confidence placed in you, by ‘SPLITTING.’

You’ll say, how can I?--by showing this letter to him. He knows the

handwriting full well--but you’ll not do so, I hope. Perhaps, if

you feel a disposition to oblige me, you will do so at your first

convenience, ere the matter will be getting stale.

“Yours truly,

“A. B.

“Perhaps you will be kind enough to let me have an answer from you,

even if you will NOT condescend to accede to my wish.

“Perhaps you’ve not sufficient particulars. He’s a little fellow,

flushed face, long nose, precious ugly, housekeeper as ugly, lives

between the two Peacock Inns, is a single man, very anxious to get

possession of Miss Boltbee, a ward in Chancery with something like

£9000 (WISH he may get it), is famous for his Gout

Medicine, sells jalap (should like to make him swallow an ounce),

always knows other people’s business better than his own, used

to go to church, now goes to chapel, and in the whole, is a great

rascal.

“Bedfont is thirteen miles from London.”

[Illustration: PRESERVED IN SPIRITS.]

[4] To borrow an example from fiction, there is that slave of

circumstances, Oliver Twist. There are few authors whom one

would care to see running two heats with the same horse. It

is intended therefore as a compliment, that I wish Boz would

re-write the history in question from page 122, supposing his

hero NOT to have met with the Artful Dodger on his road to seek

his fortune.

[5] In justice to the Society, it ought to be recorded, that two

of its members have since distinguished themselves in print: the

authoress of “London in the Olden Time,” and the author of a

“History of Moral Science.”

[6] There was a dash of ink in my blood. My father wrote two novels,

and my brother was decidedly of a literary turn, to the great

disquietude for a time of an anxious parent. She suspected him,

on the strength of several amatory poems of a very desponding

cast, of being the victim of a hopeless attachment; so he was

caught, closeted, and catechised, and after a deal of delicate

and tender sounding, he confessed, not with the anticipated

sighs and tears, but a very unexpected burst of laughter, that

he had been guilty of translating some fragments of Petrarch.

[7] A cottage of Ungentility, for it had neither double coach-house

nor wings. Like its tenant, it stood alone. He said, glancing at

the Paternoster one, that he did not like “the Row.” There was

a bit of a garden, in which, being, as he professed, “more fond

of Men Sects than of Insects,” he made probably his first and

last observation in Entomology. He had been watching a spider

on a gooseberry bush, entrapping a fly. “Good God,” he said, “I

never saw such a thing! Directly he was caught, in her fatal

spinning, she darted down upon him, and in a minute turned him

out, completely lapped in a shroud! It reminded me of the Fatal

Sisters in Gray.”

[8] A sort of rheumatic celerity, of which Sir W. Scott’s favourite

dramatiser seemed to have a very accurate notion. Those who

remember “poor Terry’s” deliberate delivery, will be able to

account, for the shout of laughter which once rang throughout

the Adelphi green-room, at his emphatic manner of giving,

from a manuscript-play, the stage direction of “Enter----,

with--a--lack--ri--ty!”

[9] As regards his Unitarianism, it strikes me as more probable

that he was what the unco guid people call “Nothing at all.”

which means that he was every thing but a Bigot. As he was in

spirit an Old Author, so was he in faith an Ancient Christian,

too ancient to belong to any of the modern sub-hubbub-divisions

of--Ists,--Arians, and--Inians.

[10] Talking of Poetry, Lamb told me one day that he had just met

with the most vigorous line he had ever read. “Where?” “Out of

the Camden’s Head, all in one line--

“To _One Hundred Pots of Porter_ £2 1 8”

[11] Somebody happened to say that the Peasant ought to figure in

the Percy Anecdotes, as an example of uncultivated genius. “And

where will they stick me?” asked Clare, “will they stick me in

the instinct?”

[12] I once cut out from a country newspaper what seemed to me a very

good old English poem. It proved to be a _naturalization_, by

Cary, of a French Song to April, by Remy Belleau.

[13] The father expressing an uncertainty to what profession he

should devote a younger Cary, Lamb said, “Make him an

Apothe-Cary.”

[14] Unable to make any thing “like a likeness” of a sitter for the

purpose, I have a sort of Irish faculty for taking faces behind

their backs. But my pencil has not been guilty of half the

personalities attributed to it; amongst others “a formidable

likeness of a Lombard Street Banker.” Besides that one would

rather draw on a Banker than at him, I have never seen the

Gentleman alluded to, or even a portrait of him in my life.

[15] On a visit to Norfolk, I was much surprised to find that Opium,

or Opie, as it was vulgarly called, was quite in common use in

the form of pills amongst the lower classes, _in the vicinity

of the Fens_. It is not probable that persons in such a rank

of life had read the Confessions,--or, might not one suspect

that as Dennis Brulgruddery was driven to drink by the stale,

flat and unprofitable prospects of Muckslush Heath, so the

Fen-People in the dreary foggy cloggy boggy wastes of Cambridge

and Lincolnshire, had flown to the Drug for the sake of the

magnificent _scenery_ that filled the splendid visions of its

Historian?

[Illustration: A LEADING ARTICLE.]

THE CARNABY CORRESPONDENCE.

THERE is no estimate more ludicrous than that which is formed by

unthinking persons of the powers of Authors. Thus when a gentleman

has once written a Book, say, on Domestic Medicine, it is popularly

supposed that he is competent to compose a work on any subject

whatever, from Transcendental Philosophy down to Five Minutes’ Advice

on the Teeth. Something of the kind is observable in the Autobiography

of Brasbridge, the Silversmith, of Fleet Street, who tells us that

after the publication of his Memoirs, he was hailed by a fellow-citizen

with “So you have written a book!--why, for the future I shall call you

Shakspeare!” as if the recorder of a set of “fiddle-headed” anecdotes

became, ipso facto, on a par with the creator of Othello. For another

instance I can refer to my own humble experience. The anti-antiquarian

nature of my literary researches is sufficiently well known; yet it

did not prevent a grave retrospective-looking gentleman from one day

concluding an account of some inedited architectural remains near

Whitehall, with--“I wonder now that _you_, as a writer, have never

taken up the subject!” The worthy F.A.S. might as well have suggested

a plot for a Farce to Sylvanus Urban;--but such is the general

opinion of the universality of a genius that prints. Bearing this

tendency in mind, it will not seem so extraordinary that the following

correspondence should be placed in the hands of the Editor of the Comic

Annual by a respectable tradesman, who affirmed with tears in his eyes,

that “it was a grave subject, worthy of the serious consideration of

the Public.”

[Illustration: THERE’S A DEFICIENCY ON THE QUARTER.]

No. I.--_To Mister_ BENJAMIN CARNABY, _7, Brigantine Row,

Deptford, London. (With Spead.)_

DEER BRUTHER,

I am trully sory to arrow up yure relativ felings But it do seam to Me

as my deer Bob is beeing shamfully Iltretid at his Skull. Inclosd is

the pore fellars too letters the last jist cum to hand, And were sich

a blo to fathurly felings I have nevver bean my hone Man evver sins.

Id appeer he hav wel ni bin Starvd. Prays God his pore Muther is coald

under the Hearth, it wud spile the rest of hir hashes if so be she

cood read his tail of pewtered meet. If she ad a delite hear abuv it

were childrins legs strate And there Bellis well fild partickly groin

up Yuths--and She wood av run creazy to think of the Constitushun bein

rewind for evver and ever with turnd tabil Bear. And you too I no you

will blead at art for the mizriz of yure pore Nevy But I hop you will

old up under it tho it be as it war a thunderboult on us boath. In

respex of Larning it seam his mind hav bin reglectid to be nurrisht up

as well as is bodely Fram even to cumpare the too Leters my Bob rite a

site better gud Inglish nor his Master witch to my mind He mite hav dun

grates at Home in loo of paing sich mints of Munny for Skulling But wat

disapints me Most next to his fammishin is the Greek and Lattin as I

did sit my Art upon to hav won clasicle Skollard branch in the famely.

Them too hushers desarves a wiping at a carts tale, and so do that

mawks with hir luv gammux in juvenal presents Much gud it wur my sendin

him abuv a duzzin mile off from Lunnun to uncorrup his morrils. Has for

the Dockter I cud find in my hart to strip his dipplomer over his years

with my hone ands wen I think that in loo of techin the yung idear how

to shut he has mayhap stunted the Pore boys groth for his lif to cum.

But overpourin felings forebids my drawin moor picters of Bobs suffrin.

I have had no stummuck ever sins the Post nockt me down with the Nus.

But it wood not be becummin a parrent and a Farthe to be revealing in

lucksriz wile the Sun of his hone lines ware revealing in fliblod beaf

and vargis. To be sure these is felings that you as an unmarred man

cant enter into at full lenth, but as hone Unkil by fleash and blud you

will enter into the hard boord partickly as yure hone coarse of lif as

had its scrimps and cum shorts and tort you what it is to be pincht

in youre Fud. Wi i mite as well hav sent him to a short communing

Yorksheer Skull at twenty pound per anum a yeer and had his close

chuckt in to his Bed and bord. In the interium I hav forwardid him a

cumfitting letter with a Won Pun Not to treet himself to sumat moor

stayin and suportin nor stal pastery. But I do hop and beg Deer Bruther

to hav your sentimints on the cas as you be moor caperble to advize

me than I am, and not to delay riting if so be yure officious dutis

purvent pearsonally quitin the yard. I wud have tuck a place on the

Rumfud Stag and sit off at wons but Gowt forebid my cotching and so do

Missis Rumsey for as yusial wen my felings is Frustratid all my Nervs

is flone to my Fut. Pore Missis Rumsey simperthizes at evvery thing and

is quit as upsit in her sperrits for as she say altho but Houskeper

her Bowls yarns to Bob all as one with an hone hoffspring. She do say

as Bobs a littel piggin brested and shoes simtoms of pullmary afection

she trembil for fear pourness of blud sows seeds of sumthink fatle in

his lunges. Indeed her mutherly hangsity offen remind a lass of her

as lies volting in All allows barking. With witch I conclud with all

brutherly luv, hopping to here by return of Poast. I no you seldim or

nevver anser peples favers partickly mine but I do hop as this hear is

a matter of vittle importins you will devot a few minuets to

Yure luving but aflicted Bruther

JOHN CARNABY.

P. S. If so be you thort best to poshay off xpressivly to Bob, watever

is disburstid out of pockit my Puss shall kiver the hole. Praps you

may lick him to be tuck away at wons for it wud be a thowsend pitis to

brake his sperrit and he is rayther tender artid as you may gudge by

wat he rite of his pore late muther. Well, hevin nose I war never in

faver of turning Cots but if so be they wood reform the Skulls I wood

jine the Wigs.

ENCLOSURE, No. I.--_To_ JOHN CARNABY, _Esquire.

Number 49, Polyanthus Place, Mile End Road, London._

HONOURED PARENT,

As the sight of his native Terra Firma to the hardy Mariner on the

pathless waste of the vast expanse of Ocean, so are the filial

affections of a Son and School boy to inform we break up on Friday the

21st Instant; when I hope to find Yourself, comprising all my Relations

and Friends, enjoying that greatest of Blessings, a state of salubrity.

When we add to this the pleasing Sensation of scholastic Duties

fulfilled with Attention, Industry, and Diligence, accompanied by a

preponderating Progress in all juvenile Studies, Objects, and Pursuits,

a sanguine expectation is indulged that the parental Sentiments of

Satisfaction will be spontaneously conferred on the present half

Year, participating however with a due regard to health, comfort,

and morals. Indeed it would be precocious to anticipate otherwise

by the unrelenting Vigilance and Inculcation evinced by our Guide,

Philosopher, and Friend, Doctor Darby and Assistants, as likewise the

more than maternal Solicitude betrayed by Mrs. Doctor D. who begs Leave

to cordially unite with the Same in Respectful Compliments.

I am happy to say the improvement I have made in the Latin and

Greek Tongues, including French and Italian, has been very great

and such as I trust to deserve and obtain his Parent’s, Master’s,

Friend’s and Wellwisher’s warmest approbation and Esteem. And this

Reflection will be enhanced to reflect, that by being impressed upon

by pious, virtuous, and loyal Principles, every juvenile Member of the

Establishment is a firm and uncompromising Supporter and Defender of

King, Church and State.

I will now conclude by giving my best Love to all Relations and

Friends, and accept the Same from

Honoured Parent,

Your Dutiful and Affectionate Son,

ROBERT CARNABY.

[Illustration: DRAWING UP ARTICLES OF SEPARATION.]

ENCLOSURE No. II.--_From the Same to the Same._

DEAR FATHER,

I hope you wont be angry at writing of my own Acord and if you like

you may stop the postage out of what you mean to give me next time,

but the other letter was all a flam and didnt speak my real mind. The

Doctor frumpt it all up out of his own head, and we all copied it out

for all our fathers. What I want to tell you is as the holidays is so

nigh, I do wish you would make up your mind for me to be took away for

good and all. I dont like the victuals for one thing and besides I am

allmost sure we are not well teached. The table beer always gives me

the stomach ake if I don’t tie a string tight round it and I only wish

you see some of Mr. Murphy’s ruling when he smells so of rum Another

thing is the batter puddings which the fellows call it putty, because

it sticks pains in our insides, and sometimes we have stinking beef.

Tom Spooner has saved a bit on the sly to show parents, but it’s so

strong we are afeard it wont keep over the three weeks to the holidays,

and we are treated like gally slaves, and hare and hounds is forbid

because last time the hare got up behind the Chelmsford Coach and went

home to his friends in Leadenhall Market. As for sums we know the

ciphering Master has got a Tutors Key because theres a board at the

bottom of his desk comes out with a little coaxing, and more than that

hes a cruel savage and makes love to Masters daughter, and shes often

courted in the school room because its where her father don’t come

so much as anywheres else. The new Footman is another complaint. The

Doctor dont allow him nothing a year for his wages except his profits

out of the boys with fruit and pastery, and besides being rotten and

stale, hes riz burnt almonds twice since Micklemas. Then we are almost

quite sure Monseur Le Smith dont know Italian at least we have always

observed he never talks to the image boys, and the old Cook never

favours no one now except Carter with sop in pans ever since his Mother

come to see him. And thats why I do hope at my next school you will

raise my pocket money, its unpossible to tip handsome out of sixpence

a week. Jackson saved enough to buy a Donkey and then divided him into

shares and I had a shilling share but the Doctor were so unjust as

seize on him altho there was no law agin bringing asses to the school.

It was the same on Guy Fox day with our squibs and rockets which we

was more mortified to hear them going off after we were in bed. I am

certain sure we should have had a barring out in our school room long

and long ago only the Doctor hardly ever wants to come in. Thats the

way the ushers do just as they like in school hours and Mr. Huckings

does a leathersellers bookkeeping and Mr. Snitch makes poetry for the

newspapers. Its not my fault then if I am backwards in my Greek and

Latin though I have got a Prize for Spelling and Grammer but we all

have prizes for something to please our parents when we go home. The

only treat we have is reddishes out of the garden when they are got old

and burning hot and popgunny and them wont last long as masters going

to keep pigs. I suppose then we shall have measely pork to match the

stinking beef. The fellows say its because the Doctor swops Stokes’s

schooling agin butchers meat and as the edication is so very bad old

Stokes on his part wont send in any better quality. Thats whats called

mutual accommodation in the newspapers. Give my love to Mrs. Rumsey

with thanks for the plum cake only next time more sweetmeat, and say

I am almost sure I sometimes sleep in a damp bed. I am certain sure

Mrs. Rumsey would advise you the same as I do, namely for me to be

took away, without running more risks, if it was only for fear of Mac

Kenzie, for hes a regular tyrant and hectors over us all. Hes three

parts a nigger and you cant punch his head so as to do any good, and

only last Monday he was horsed for wanting to googe little Jones’s eyes

out and for nothing at all but just looking at his towel to see if the

black come off. I am ready to take my drop down dead if it is not all

faithfully true, Mac Kenzie and the beef and the Footman and all, and

I do hope you will trust to my word and be agreeable to my offer to be

took away and I do hope it will be before next Saturday for that’s Mr.

Paynes visiting day, the Drawing Master as I call him, but some of the

fellows have nick named him Sinbad because he hunted the elephants so

for their teeth. Philip Frank says theres a capital school at Richmond

where the Master permits fishing and boating and cigars and gunpowder

and poney chaises for only sixty guineas a year. I often think if my

poor dear late Mother was alive it is just the genteel sort of School

she would like me to be finished off at. But thats as you prefer and

if you will only promise upon your honour to remove me I wont run

away. I forgot to say I have very bad head akes sometimes besides the

stomach akes and last week I was up in the nussery for being feverish

and spotty, and I had to take antimonious wine but nothing made me sick

except the gruel. Precious stuff it is and tastes like slate pencil

dust and salt. I was in great hopes it was scarlet fever or something

catching that I might be sent home to you, but the fisician said my

rash was only chickings or stinging nettles. Altogether I am so unhappy

at not getting on in my learning that I do beg and pray to be took

away, and I will be very dutiful and grateful all the rest of my days.

Do, pray, do, and consider me down on my bended knees. And I will wish

you every comfort in life if you will only provide for mine, and I will

pray for your gout to go away for ever and ever, and then I will nurse

your last days and be such a good son to you as never was except me.

And in that case I owe three shillings to the footman and shouldn’t

like to leave the school in debt. I shall expect to see you come in all

the coaches that go the road or at least that you will fetch me in a

letter, and if I am disappointed I really do believe I shall go off my

head or something. With which I remain

Dear Father,

Your dutiful and affectionate Son,

ROBERT CARNABY.

[Illustration: THE OLD ORIGINAL RAILWAY.]

No. II.--_To Mister_ JOHN CARNABY, _Number 49, Polyanthus

Place, Mile End, London._

DEAR BROTHER,

This is to acknowledge the favour of your family letter with

enclosures, which came to hand as pleasant and welcome as a 4-inch

shell, that is no great treat of itself, and discharges a worse lot

of botheration from its inside. Between both I got as Port Royal a

headache as a man need desire from a bottle of new rum, for which, as

it’s not unbrotherly to swear at a nevy, “dear Bob” and his school be

d--d. As to my not answering letters, I _always_ do, provided they are

either saucy or challenging; in which case, like answering a broadside,

it’s a point of duty and honour to return as good as you get;--but for

swopping sweet civil lollipop letters, lick for lick, it’s more than I

would do with any female alive, let alone a man. And when yours are not

lollipopping, they’re snivelling, or else both together, as the case

is now. However blood’s blood: and so for once I will commit what you

want, rather than accept your invite, and go up to help you and that

old dry red cow, Mother Rumsey, to chew the cud of the matter all over

again by word of mouth. As for harrowing up my feelings, or ploughing

them up either, thank my stars it’s a stiffer soil than that comes to.

Why, my feelings are as tough--and not without need--as a bull-beef

steak fresh killed, and take quite as much pitching into before they’re

as tender as you suppose. Likely it is, that a man who has rammed his

head, as I have in Africa, into a stuck camel for a secondhand swig at

his cistern, would come within sixty degrees of the notion of pitying

a lubberly school-boy for having as much as ever he could swill of

sour swipes! Then for bad food, the stinkingest beef I ever met with

was none to be had, good or bad, except the smell of the empty barrel.

That’s something like what you call being pincht in my fud; and so it

was I reckon when I gave my watch, and a good seven shilling piece

besides, for about a pound of pork cartridges. So I’m not going to

pipe my eye at dear Bob’s short commons neither. It’s all very well

for pap-boating mothers to admire fat babbies while they’re on the

lap; but the whole human breed would be spoiled, if Mother Nature

did not unspoil it again by sending us now and then to the School

of Adversity, without a knife and fork and a spoon. I came in for a

quarter’s learning there myself, in the Desart as aforesaid, and one of

the lessons I learnt was from the ostriches; namely, when you can’t

get a regular cargo of food, you must go in ballast with old shoes,

leather caps, or any other odd matters you can pick up. There’s nothing

in life like bringing chaps up hardy, if they’re to stand the hammering

we’re all born to, provided we are born alive. I once heard a clever

Yankee arguing to the same point. “Rear up your lads,” says he, “like

nails; and then they’ll not only go through the world, but you may

clench ’em on t’other side.” And for my part, if I was a father, which

thank God I am not, to my knowledge, I would mark down a week of Banyan

days to every month in the Almanack, just to accustom the youngsters to

take in and let out their bread bags, till it came natural; like the

Laps and Esquimaux, who spend their lives in a feast and a fast, turn

and turn about, whereby their insides get as elastic as India rubber,

and accommodate themselves to their loading, chock full or clean, as

falls out. I’ve known the time I would have given all my prize-money

for a set of linings of the same conveniency, as when it was coming

to the toss-up of a cowry whether I was to eat Tom Pike, or Tom Pike

was to eat me. Just read the North Pole Voyages, and you will see that

pampering bellies is not the exact course to make Captain Backs. So

for all that’s been made on that tack, hitherto, you owe nothing but a

higher rating to Doctor Darby, provided there’s any step above Doctor

in his service; I’ll even go so far as stand my share towards a bit

of plate to him, for not making my nevy a loblolly milk-sop. That’s

my notion about hard fare. To be sure there was Mother Brownrigg was

hung for going a little too near the wind in her ‘prentices’ insides;

but if the balance was squared, a few of the other old women would be

run up to the yard-arm, for slow poisoning the rising generation with

sugar-plum cakes and kickshaw tarts. And that your dear Bob has got

a rare sweet tooth of his own is as plain as the Pike of Teneriffe,

for it sticks out like a Barbary wild boar’s tusks all through his

precious complaints. Whereby you had better clap a stopper on in time,

unless mayhap you want him to grow up in the fashion, which seems

now-a-days for our young men to know, and think, and talk, aye and

write too, about kitchen craft,--with their _pully olays_ and _volley

vongs_--as if they was so many cook’s mates at a French hotel. There’s

no disputing likings, but rather than be such a macaroni dishclout

dandy, as delicate as a lap-dog, I’d be a turnspit’s whelp at once, and

sit up on my hind legs a-begging for the sop in the pan. Now if you’re

for his being one of those unabled-bodied objects of creation, I’ve

no more to say; for you have got the right bearings, and have only to

stand on till you bring dear Bob and Molly Coddle into one. But if so

be on the contrary you have gumption enough to want to claw off that

point, then down helm at once, and cut Mother Rumsey adrift, plum

cakes and all. I’ve long had on my mind to drop you a word of advice

against that old catamaran, who knows fast enough that two bears’ heads

are never so likely to rub together as when they’re a-licking the same

cub. By the cub I mean my nevy, and the two old ones are you and Mother

R. Besides it’s been my observation through life. Many’s the young man

and woman will live for years together in the same house, or make the

India voyage together in the same ship, without hooking on, or even

coming in sight of such a notion; but neither I, nor anybody else, ever

saw two old ones, he and she, in the like case, without their coming at

long and at last to a splice in church. So it is with an old cat and

dog, that while they had a tooth in their heads could hardly abide in

the same parish, whereas when they get on the superannuated list, you

will see them as thick as thieves, and messing together in the same

dish. The philosophy of it is more than I pretend to know, unless it be

they’re past fighting, and fit for no active sort of work;--but so it

is, as sure as the sea is salt. You had best then part company at once,

if you don’t want to see dear Bob mast-headed up to the back garret, or

cooped down in the coal-cellar, on monkey’s allowance; such being the

first steps a stepmother always takes in any story-book I ever read.

I’m for my nevy having fair-play after all. So as I’ve subscribed to

the bit of plate to Dr. Darby for case-hardening the fellow’s carcass,

you may set me down towards the spitefullest boatswain’s cat that ever

was handled, in case it turns out he has neglected the boy’s mind.

I’ve seen a man seized up for a much smaller offence than crimping and

inveigling a long hundred of lads at a time to a Sham Abram school, and

swindling them out of the best part of the property about them, namely

their juvenile time. It is only a streak above kidnapping, seeing that

for any profit in learning the youngsters might as well spend their

best years in the Plantations. Not but that Parents deserve a cobbing

themselves for putting a boy under a master without asking to look at

his certificates. As for the Latin and Greek, mayhap they’re no loss

to take on about. The dead and gone tongues for a tradesman’s son,

that’s going behind a counter, is much of a muchness with fitting up a

Newcastle collier’s cabin after the pattern of a Leith smack’s; only

that the gilding and polishing may be grimed and grubbed off again in

the course of trade. Still, considering they were paid for as work

done, in common honesty my nevy ought to have had them put in his

head; or at least something in lieu, such as Navigation or the like.

His own mother tongue is quite a different matter; and thereupon I’ll

give you my mind, upright and downright, of the two School-letters.

To be sure the Doctor likes weight of metal, and fires away with the

high-soundingest words he can get, whereby his meaning is apt to loom

bigger than it is, like a fishing-boat in a fog; and where there’s

such a ground swell of language, a seaman is apt to think there’s no

great depth of ideas; but bating that, there’s nothing to shake a

rope’s end at, but quite the reverse, especially as to teaching the

youngsters to give three cheers for their king and country. Now, Dear

Bob’s letter-work on the other hand, with its complaints of hard fare,

is only fit to be sung by a snivelling Swiss beggar boy to his hurdy

gurdy; besides many a chafe in the grammar and orthography, and being

writ in such a scrambling up and down fist as a drunken purser might

scrawl in a gale of wind. Now it’s my opinion a landsman that hasn’t

his hands made as hard as horn with hauling home sheets nor his fingers

as stiff and sticky as pitch can make ’em, has it in his power to write

as fine penmanship as copperplate except for the want of good will. So

that the fault may be set down to my nevy’s own account, and mayhap

many of the rest, for no doubt there are skulkers at school as well as

on board ship. My advice then is this, namely, just throw a shot across

Dr. Darby’s forefoot, to let him know you mean to overhaul him, and

demand a sight of the school log, and so forth; by which you will have

satisfaction one way or another; and putting the case he has gone to

leeward of his duty, why, then come hammer and tongs, and blaze away at

him to your heart’s content. The next step in course will be to take my

nevy from under his orders, and find him a berth in a well officered

ship; and I am ready so far to do an uncle’s part by the lad, as help

to look out for a proper well-appointed craft. That’s my advice whether

you steer by it or not--and so no more at present, and not sorry to

belay--from

Dear John, Your loving Brother,

BEN CARNABY.

[Illustration: LAYING DOWN THE LAW.]

No. III.--_To Mr._ BENJAMIN CARNABY, _Brigantine Row,

Deptford, London._

DEER BRUTHER,

This is to acnolidge the faver of your verry hash letter as I am

complld to call it, both as regard deer Bob and that verry wurthy sole,

pore Mrs. Rumsey. I am sory to find you can bare a grug so long, for

I am shure she is too obleeging and civil spokin to hav disagred to

your smokin in the parler if so be she had none you maid it sich a

int. As for her inwigglin me into becummin a step farther to my one

child watever old brut bares and cats and dogs may do, I hop my Virtu

will purtect me from infiddlety to a former ti. As for pore Bob, he

hav no more sweat toth then all boys is born with, and if he do rite

with a bad hand, i nevver cud rite any grate shacks myself on an emti

stummach. But that’s what you can’t or won’t inter into, no more than

I can inter into cammil’s insids or hostridges eating their old shues

and lether caps. In regard to yure advis thanking you all the sam,

but meen to foller my hone, not but wat it ware nateral for you to

recumend acording to yure one line of lif, to wom fiting and dueling

is sekonand nater. As such hammer and tonges and blazin away pistles

wood be quit in yure spear, but as for my wantin satisfaxion of Doctor

Darby, and shuting his fore feet, or his hind feet ether, or inded any

wares els, is moor than I coud promis tho no dout ment kindly, but I

am nun of yure wingin amers. Besids being agin the Bibil and Gospil

and only fit for gentilmen born. Still I tak as frendly ment, as well

as yure offir to git yure nevy a siteation on bord ship witch wood

be a shure way to hurry my dissent to the Tom. The see always was a

haw to my mind, and if it litind or a grate hevvy gal came, I shod

transpire with frite; or be thinkin on fogie nites of the ship lossing

her way and gittin out of her depth. Howsumever I feal grateful for the

horible idear, tho I cant xcept, and in meen time have rit to Dr. D.

to remonsterit and ask him to say candiddle wether he hav starvd deer

Bob and ruind his mind or no. I faver with a coppy of mine and will

foreward hisn wen it cum, and as my gowt is mendin, mayhap I may go

down to rumfud sum of thes days, and luck into every think with my one

ize.

I am Deer Benjamin

Yure luving Bruther

JOHN CARNABY.

[Illustration: BUTT AND BEN.]

(Copy.)

_To Dr._ DARBY _Socratis Hous School Establismint, Rumfud

Essex._

DOCTER DARBY SUR.

If so be a farther and a Parrint may tak so grate a libberty, its my

wish to rite about my Sun. Not bein a skollard, oing to neglected

genus in yuth, I am uncompitent to be a Gudge and war indust to sho

the skull letter to my Bruther Benjamin, of the late Rial Navy who had

moor buck larning for his Sheers, besids seein forren parts and he

do say wot give grate concern to All as is concarned, namely my Suns

edication is fur from a thurro nollige of evvery thing, and partickly

his hostifografy or summat to that effect. As such is hily blammabil

to yureself or tooters whos provins war to propergit wot they had in

their hone heds into them under them, insted of witch his unkel say

he hav bin teecht moor ignorans then anny think else. Witch is verry

ard considring mints of munny lad out, and hevin nose I have not bin

sparring with him, but pade away at a grate rat, ever sins he war

britchd. Hunderds cant kiver him from fust to last And nothin but

blited hops arter all. Cirkimstancis purvented my having moor nor one

acomplishment and that war my farthers bisness, but tho brort up hill

miself I no the Valley of edicashun. Warefor if it be no offens I wish

to no candiddle from your hone Mouth wether you hav so unedicatted

him as his Unkil suspex. At sam tim will esteam a faver to no if he

continny in gud helth witch ware always a littel dellicat and pecking,

but I trust as how Rumfud hare and gud beaf and muttin and holesum wit

bred and milk hav made him quit fat. His pore late muther lickwise

made a pint of gud unturnd tabel bear, as all assiduities is injurus

to yuth. As she used to say, pore sole, fud and flanning saves fisick.

Allso I hop and trust you disalow the boys of advanst years tirenizing

over the weekly wons, or savedge tooters as is apt to sho lickings and

dislickings. The tooters morrils in course is a car not overluckd, but

sweetharting demand constant vigilings to gard agin its cumming in

clandestiny where it ort not. Mrs. Rumsey also begs to apollogiz for

naming damp beds, but in coarse Misses Doctor Darby have a muther’s

feelings about damp lining for boys boddis. All witch will give grate

sattisfaxun to here, as in case of the revers parrintel duty will feal

hobbligated to remov afore the mischief go to fur. I shall luck eggerly

for your anser and trust you will embrace all the queerys. I ashore it

will giv grate pleshure not to hav to remove my custom, with witch and

respective compliments,

I remane Dr. Darby Sur

Your verry humbel Servant

JOHN CARNABY.

[Illustration: “WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE CAN DO TILL WE TRY.”]

[Illustration: “THERE’S A RIGHT WAY AND A WRONG FOR EVERY THING.”]

No. IV.--_To Mister_ BENJAMIN CARNABY, _Brigantine Row,

Deptford._

DEER BENJAMIN,

Inclosd is Dr. Darby’s explainative Not, witch for anny thing I no to

the contrairy is evvery thing as we cud luck for, without going into

the retales. He apear to hav no douts of a misscomprehenshun on our

parts, witch prove us to be boath in the rong as will be a grate comfit

to you and deer Benjamin.

Yure luving Bruther

JOHN CARNABY.

(THE ENCLOSURE.)--_To_ JOHN CARNABY, _Esquire._

DEAR SIR,

In ancient Greece and Rome, so celebrated for their classical

Attainments, it would have been considered derogatory to the Academical

Dignity, for Scholastic Discipline to be subject to Animadversion from

a Civic Character, professedly unconversant with Polite Literature in

all its Branches. As the Principal of a Pedagogical Establishment, I

might, therefore, objurgate with Propriety any irrelevant Discussion

to be deprecated from such a superfluous source. Conscious, however,

of standing on the Basis of an undeniable Prospectus, which professes

to embrace Universal Knowledge, throughout the Circle of the Arts and

Sciences, I am prepared to assert that a more Comprehensive System

of Education could not be devised than that which is ascribed to

the Establishment of Socrates House. If further Testimonials were

necessary, I might triumphantly appeal to the Mental Cultivation of

flourishing Members of Society, evinced in the successful Pursuit of

Affluence, in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, so advantageous

to the Commerce, Wealth, and Power, of the United Kingdom. Such

Testimonies, it is presumed, are sufficiently obvious to the most

Unprejudiced Mind, to demand those unerring Principles of fostering

Talent, inviting Emulation, and stimulating Enquiry, combined with

Moral, Intellectual, and Dietetical qualities, such as to command

the unreserved Approbation and Confidence of all parties engaged in

the important Task of Juvenile Tuition. Trusting that the Prolixity

of this explanatory Statement will propitiate the most Paternal

Solicitude, with sentiments in accordance with the rapid Progress of

Human Civilization, permit me to subscribe myself, with every feeling

of respect,

Dear Sir,

Your most obedient, faithful, humble servant,

SIMON DARBY, LL.D.

[Illustration: WIGWAM.]

No. V.--_To Mr._ JOHN CARNABY, _49, Polyanthus Place, Mile End

Road, London._

DEAR BROTHER,

If I was to write what comes uppermost, I should stand a chance of a

place I won’t name. But you always was a you-know-what, and as the

proverb says, there’s never a one like you now you are old. As for the

school, it’s the nest of a land pirate; and for any good to his mind,

dear Bob might as well be in the Hulks. However it won’t do to let you

go and make a so-and-so of yourself all over the country--whereby,

luckily for you, there’s an old shipmate of mine laid up at Rumford,

and so I can kill him and my Nevy with the same stone. So let Mister

Doctor Darby look out for squalls, and that’s all from

Your loving Brother,

BEN CARNABY.

[Illustration: “BLESS ME, HOW BALD YOU ARE!”

“YES--I WAS PLUCKED AT COLLEGE.”]

No. VI.--(_From the Same to the Same._)

DEAR BROTHER,

This is to say I made this place, namely Rumford, yesterday morning

about 10 A.M., and immediately bore away to Socrates House,

and asked for my nevy,--but you shall have it logged down all fair and

square.

[Illustration: “IN FOR A PENNY--IN FOR A POUND.”]

Well, after a haul at the bell, and so forth, I was piloted into a

room, on the ground tier, by the footman, and a pastryfaced son of a

land cook he looked sure enough. Where, as soon as may be, Mrs. Doctor

Darby joins company, a tight little body enough, all bobbing up and

down with courtesys like the buoy at the Nore, and as oily tongued as

any rat in the Greenland Docks. By her own account, she rated a step

above Mother to six score of boys, big and little, and every man jack

of them more made of, and set store by, than if they had been parts

of her own live stock. All which flummery would go down with you, and

the marines, mayhap, but not with old sailors like me. As for dear

Bob, she buttered him of both sides, thick and threefold, as the best,

sweetest, darlingest, and what not young gentleman of the whole kit,

besides finding out a family likeness between him and his uncle, which

if it’s any feature at all, is all my eye. Next she enquired after

you, the worthiest parent she ever knew, not excepting her own father,

whereby I blest my stars you were not within hail; or you would have

been flabbergasted in no time, with your eyes running like scuppers,

and your common senses on their beam ends. At long and last in comes my

Nevy himself, as smooth and shining as a new copper; whereby says she,

“I hope you will excuse untidiness, and so forth, because of sending

for him just as he stood.” That’s how he came no doubt in his Sunday’s

breeches; besides twigging the wet soap-suds in his ears. “Here my

sweet love,” she sings out, “here’s your dear kind uncle so good as to

come to enquire after your welfare.” So dear Bob, heaves ahead, and

gets a kiss, not from me tho, and a liquorish lozenge for what she

called his nasty hack. Nothing however but a colic with parched peas,

as he owned to afterwards. “Now, then, Nevy,” says I, “what cheer--how

do you like your berth?” when up jumps Madam like a scalded cat; and

no or yes, I must drink the favour of a glass of Sherry Rank Cape,

John, as ever was shipped. Then Master Robert, bless him, must have a

leetle glass too, but provided I approve, and a ration of sweet cake.

Whereby says she, “Now I will leave you to your mutual confidences”--as

looked all fair and above board enough, if I had not made out a foot

near the door. And in the twinkling of a handspike in sails Dr. Darby

himself, with as many scrapes to me as if I was Port Admiral; and as

anxious about my old gout,--for I’ve got an easy shoe for a bunion--as

if he’d been intimate with it in my great-grandfather’s time. Well, we

palavered a bit about the French news, and the weather, and the crops,

whatever you like, let alone book learning; but that was not my course,

and impatient to see Tom Pike, besides, so I ran slap aboard him at

once with an ask to see the school. As I looked for, he was took all

aback; however Madam wasn’t thrown so dead in the wind, but jumped up

to the bell tackle, and after a bit of a whisper with the servant, we

got under way for the school; but contrived to land somehow in the

kitchen, with a long row of quartern loaves drawn up on a dresser to

receive us, like a file of marines. Then Madam begins to spin a long

yarn about plain food, but plenty of it, for growing youths--dear Bob’s

very lathy, John, for all that--and then comes the Doctor’s turn to

open with a preachment on animal foods, and what will digest, and what

won’t; tho’ for my own part, I never met with any meat but would do it

in time, more or less. So by way of clapping a stopper I made bold to

remind that time is short tho’ life is long, and thereby luffing slap

up to my Nevy, “Bob,” says I, “what’s the variation of the compass?”

So Master Bob turns it about a bit, and then says he, “Why, it’s one

leg shorter than t’other.” Which is about as nigh it, Brother, as you

are to Table Bay! And how it gave the Doctor a bad fit of coughing,

which his wife caught of him as natural as if it had been the hooping

sort--at last says she, “Maybe Master Robert has not progressed yet

into navigation.” “Maybe not, Ma’am,” says I, “and so we’ll try on

another tack--Nevy, what’s metaphysics?” “Brimstone and Treacle,”

says Bob, as ready as gunpowder, and the lady looked as satisfied as

Bob did--but the Doctor had another bad fit, and good reason why, for

there’s no more physic in metaphysics than a baby might take in its

pap. By this time we were going up stairs, but lay-to awhile alongside

a garden pump on the landing, to have a yarn about dowsing glims,

and fire guards, and going the rounds at night; and as dear Bob hung

astarn, I yawed, and let fly at him again with “What’s religion?” “The

colic on Sundays,” says he, as smart as you like; tho’ what he meant

by colic the Old Gentleman knows. However both the Doctor and Madam

pulled a pleasant face at him, and looked as pleased as if he had found

out the longitude; but that was too fine weather to last, for thinks

I, in course he can carry on a little further on that board, so says

I, “What’s the main-top-gallant rule of Christianity?” “Six weeks at

Christmas,” says he, as bold as brass from getting encouraged before.

So you see, John, he don’t know his own persuasion. In course we were

all at wry faces again; but the Doctor had the gumption to shove his

out of a window, and sing out an order to nobody in the back yard. As

for Madam, she shot ahead into the sleeping rooms, where I saw half

a hundred of white dimity cots, two warming-pans, and nine clothes

baskets--Master Robert’s berth among the rest. Next we bore away

by a long passage to the kitchen again, where two rounds of boiled

beef had been put to officer the quartern loaves, and so through the

washery and pot-and-pannery into the garden ground, where I came in

for as long a yarn about the wholesomeness of fresh vegetables and

salads, as if the whole crew of youngsters had been on the books with

the scurvy. From the cabbages we got to the flowerbeds; and says the

Doctor, “I don’t circumscribe, or circumvent, one or t’other; I don’t

circumvent my pupils to scholastical works, but encourage perusing the

book of Nature.”--“That’s very correct, then, Doctor,” said I, “and

my own sentiment exactly. Nevy, what’s Natural Philosophy?”--“Keeping

rabbits,” says Bob; which sounds likely enough, but it’s not the thing

by sixty degrees. I can’t say but I felt the cats’-paws coming over my

temper; but I kept it under till we fetched the paddock, to look at the

cows; and that brought up another yarn about milk-dieting; and says

Madam, “when summer comes, our Doctor is so good as to permit the young

gentlemen to make his hay.”--“No doubt alive, Ma’am,” says I; “saves

hands, and good fun too, eh, nevy?--What’s Agriculture?” However this

time dear Bob chose to play sulky, and wouldn’t answer good or bad;

whereby the Doctor crowds up, with a fresh question. “Now then, Master

Robert,” says he pretty sharp, “I will ask you something you _do_

know. What is Algebra,--Al--gebra?”--“Please Sir,” says Bob, “it’s a

wild donkey all over stripes.”--“There’s a dear boy!” cries Madam, the

more fool she; but old Darby looked as black as thunder at midnight.

“I’m afraid,” says he, letting go the toplifts, as one may say, of his

eyebrows; “I’m afraid there has been a little slackness here with the

cat; but, by your leave, Sir, and so forth, I will investigate a little

into it myself. Now Master Robert, take a pull at your mental tackle,

for I’m going to overhaul your Mathematics:--How do you describe a

triangle?”--“Please Sir,” says Bob, “it’s the thing that tingle-tangles

to the big drum.” Well, there was the devil to pay again, and no pitch

hot! Old Darby looked as if he meant either to drop down dead on the

spot of apoplexy, or to murder dear Bob; he swelled and reddened up

so about the wattles without hoisting out a word. For my own part,

nevy as he was, I couldn’t help serving him out a back-handed slap

of the head, and then I turned-to at the schoolmaster. “So, Mister

Doctor,” says I, “this is what you call a liberal education in your

manifest?”--“Sir,” says he, looking as stiff as a corporal just made,

“whatever your, some cursed long hard word may be, I cannot consider

myself liable for the lagging astern of, I must say, the dullest sailor

in my whole convoy.”--“Why, blood and thunder!” said I, for old Nick

could not have helped it--“you told me that Bob, my nevy there, was the

handiest and smartest of the whole kit!”--“That was _me_, Sir,” says

the lady hauling in between us--“and then I only spoke as to temper,

as Greek and Latin are beyond a female’s provinces”--which was true

enough; so I felt bound to beg her pardon, which was granted: and

we had smooth water again till we neared the school-room. Now then,

thought I, look out for squalls, for my mind was made up to stand no

nonsense from the petty officers, that is to say, gentlemen ushers. So

I ranged up alongside the most mathematical looking one I could pick

out, by way of having a bout with him at trigonometry; but he chose

to be as shy, and deaf and dumb, as a Gibraltar monkey just grabbed.

“With submission, my good Sir,” says the Doctor, putting in his oar,

“Mr. Huckin may consider it a work of supereror-something, and a

going beyond ourselves, to re-examine him after the very satisfactory

certificates that satisfied _me_ myself.”--“That’s to say,” says I,

“in plain English, that I’m to get nothing but what I can screw out

of my nevy?”--“My dear Sir,” says the Doctor, “you misconstruct me

entirely--the whole of the juvenile pupils are open to candid scrutiny.

Suppose we begin with the classics. Master Bush, Sir, you will English

me _hic_, _hac_, _hoc_.”--“This, that, and t’other,” says Master Bush;

no great shakes of an answer, I guess, but it seemed to serve for a

come-off. Then came my turn, so I asked who was the discoverer of

America? and may I never break biscuit again, if he didn’t say “Yankee

Doodle!” Well, to cut off the end of a long yarn, this was as good as

there was to be got out of the best of them. One told me that Guy Fox

found out gunpowder; and another that a solar eclipse was along of the

sun’s standing in its own light. What else I might have learned, that

I never knew before, must be left over for a guess; for in the middle

of the next ask, it was all hats aloft! and three cheers for a half

holiday; but if I had any hand in begging it, may I die ashore in a dry

ditch! However that was too much of a dog’s trick to be took quietly,

so I prepared a broadside, with a volley of oaths to it, by way of

small arms; but before I could well bring it to bear, the Doctor hauls

out his watch, and says he, “It’s extremely bad luck, but there’s a

voting this morning for a parish beadle, and I make a point not to let

my private duties get to windward of my public ones.” So saying, with

a half-and-half sort of a bow, to me, he cut and run; Madam getting

athwart hawse so as to cover his getting off. In course it was no use

to waste speech upon her; but I made bold to d--n the whole covey of

undermasters, in the lump, as a set of the sharkingest, loggerheaded,

flute-playing, skulking, lubberly sons of grinning weavers and tailors

that ever broke bread. So the finish over all is, that I took my nevy

away, traps and all; and not an hour too soon; and with Bob in tow

I made Tom Pike’s, who was as glad to see his old messmate as I was

to see him; and what’s more, when he heard the bit of a brush I had

enjoyed, he informed me that Doctor Darby, LL.D., and what not, was all

one and the same with Darby the shipchandler, that went to pieces down

at Wapping. You see then, as the chaplain says, that all’s for the best

either here or hereafter; and so no more, till Monday, when I shall

bring my nevy Bob to you, to make what you will of him, which I hope

will be as like a man as possible. If otherwise, I won’t promise not to

change my name by act of parliament, and so be no relation to dear Bob,

nor to you neither; and that’s the real mind of

Your loving Brother,

BEN CARNABY.

[Illustration: RECRIMINATION.]

[Illustration: BLIND HOOKEY.]

A RISE AT THE FATHER OF ANGLING.

THE memory of Izaak Walton has hitherto floated down the stream of

time without even a nibble at it; but, alas! where is the long line

so pure and even that does not come sooner or later to have a weak

length detected in it? The severest critic of Molière was an old

woman; and now a censor of the same sex takes upon herself to tax the

immortal work of our Piscator with holding out an evil temptation to

the rising generation Instead of concurring in the general admiration

of his fascinating pictures of fishing, she boldly asserts that the

rod has been the spoiling of her child, and insists that in calling

the Angler gentle and inoffensive, the Author was altogether wrong in

his _dubbing_. To render her strictures more attractive she has thrown

them into a poetical form; having probably learned by experience that

a rhyme at the end of a line is a very taking bait to the generality

of readers. Hark! how she rates the meek Palmer whom Winifred Jenkins

would have called “an angle upon earth!”

_To Mr._ IZAAK WALTON, _at Mr._ MAJOR’S _the

Bookseller’s in Fleet Street._

Mr. Walton, it’s harsh to say it, but as a Parent I can’t help

wishing

You’d been hung before you publish’d your book, to set all the

young people a fishing!

There’s my Robert, the trouble I’ve had with him it surpasses a

mortal’s bearing,

And all thro’ those devilish angling works--the Lord forgive me for

swearing!

I thought he were took with the Morbus one day, I did with his nasty

angle!

For “oh dear,” says he, and burst out in a cry, “oh my gut is all

got of a tangle!”

It’s a shame to teach a young boy such words--whose blood wouldn’t

chill in their veins

To hear him, as I overheard him one day, a-talking of blowing out

brains?[16]

And didn’t I quarrel with Sally the cook, and a precious scolding I

give her,

“How dare you,” says I, “for to stench the whole house by keeping

that stinking liver?”

’Twas enough to breed a fever, it was! they smelt it next door at

the Bagots’,--

But it wasn’t breeding no fever--not it! ’twas my son a-breeding of

maggots!

I declare that I couldn’t touch meat for a week, for it all seemed

tainting and going,

And after turning my stomach so, they turned to blueflies, all

buzzing and blowing;

Boys are nasty enough, goodness knows, of themselves, without

putting live things in their craniums;

Well, what next? but he pots a whole cargo of worms along with my

choice geraniums.

[Illustration: “THE GREAT GLOBE ITSELF, YEA, ALL WHICH IT INHERIT,

SHALL DISSOLVE!”]

And another fine trick, tho’ it wasn’t found out, till the housemaid

had given us warning,

He fished at the golden fish in the bowl, before we were up and down

in the morning.

I’m sure it was lucky for Ellen, poor thing, that she’d got so

attentive a lover.

As bring her fresh fish when the others deceas’d, which they did a

dozen times over!

Then a whole new loaf was short! for I know, of course, when our

bread goes faster,--

And I made a stir with the bill in my hand, and the man was sent off

by his master;

But, oh dear, I thought I should sink thro’ the earth, with the

weight of my own reproaches,

For my own pretty son had made away with the loaf, to make pastry to

feed the roaches!

I vow I’ve suffered a martyrdom--with all sorts of frights and

terrors surrounded!

For I never saw him go out of the doors but I thought he’d come home

to me drownded.

And, sure enough, I set out one fine Monday to visit my married

daughter,

And there he was standing at Sadler’s Wells, a-performing with real

water.

It’s well he was off on the further side, for I’d have brain’d him

else with my patten,

For I thought he was safe at school, the young wretch! a studying

Greek and Latin,

And my ridicule basket he had got on his back, to carry his fishes

and gentles;

With a belt I knew he’d made from the belt of his father’s

regimentals--

Well, I poked his rods and lines in the fire, and his father gave

him a birching,

But he’d gone too far to be easy cured of his love for chubbing and

perching.

One night he never came home to tea, and altho’ it was dark and

dripping,

His father set off to Wapping, poor man! for the boy had a turn for

shipping;

As for me I set up, and I sobbed and I cried for all the world like

a babby,

Till at twelve o’clock he rewards my fears with two gudging from

Waltham Abbey!

And a pretty sore throat and fever he caught, that brought me a

fortnight’s hard nussing,

Till I thought I should go to my grey-hair’d grave, worn out with

the fretting and fussing;

But at last he was cur’d, and we did have hopes that the fishing was

cured as well,

But no such luck! not a week went by before we’d have another such

spell.

Tho’ he never had got a penny to spend, for such was our strict

intentions,

Yet he was soon set up in tackle agin, for all boys have such quick

inventions:

And I lost my Lady’s Own Pocket Book, in spite of all my hunting and

poking,

Till I found it chuck full of tackles and hooks, and besides it had

had a good soaking.

Then one Friday morning, I gets a summoning note from a sort of a

law attorney,

For the boy had been trespassing people’s grounds while his father

was gone a journey,

And I had to go and hush it all up by myself, in an office at Hatton

Garden;

And to pay for the damage he’d done, to boot, and to beg some

strange gentleman’s pardon.

And wasn’t he once fished out himself, and a man had to dive to find

him,

And I saw him brought home with my motherly eyes and a mob of people

behind him?

Yes, it took a full hour to rub him to life--whilst I was

a-screaming and raving,

And a couple of guineas it cost us besides, to reward the humane man

for his saving,

And didn’t Miss Crump leave us out of her will, all along of her

taking dudgeon

At her favourite cat being chok’d, poor Puss, with a hook sow’d up

in a gudgeon?

And old Brown complain’d that he pluck’d his live fowls, and not

without show of reason,

For the cocks looked naked about necks and tails, and it wasn’t

their moulting season;

And sure and surely, when we came to enquire, there was cause for

their screeching and cackles,

For the mischief confess’d he had picked them a bit, for I think he

called them the hackles.

A pretty tussle we had about that! but as if it warn’t picking

enough,

When the winter comes on, to the muff-box I goes, just to shake out

my sable muff--

“O mercy!” thinks I, “there’s the moth in the house!” for the fur

was all gone in patches;

And then at Ellen’s chinchilly I look, and its state of destruction

just matches--

But it wasn’t no moth, Mr. Walton, but flies--sham flies to go

trolling and trouting,

For his father’s great coat was all safe and sound, and that first

set me a-doubting.

A plague, say I, on all rods and lines, and on young or old watery

danglers!

And after all that you’ll talk of such stuff as no harm in the world

about anglers!

And when all is done, all our worry and fuss, why, we’ve never had

nothing worth dishing;

So you see, Mister Walton, no good comes at last of your famous book

about fishing.

As for Robert’s, I burnt it a twelvemonth ago; but it turned up too

late to be lucky,

For he’d got it by heart, as I found to the cost of

Your servant,

JANE ELIZABETH STUCKEY.

[Illustration: THERE’S NEVER A WHALE WITHOUT A BLUBBER.]

[16] Chewing and spitting out bullock’s brains into the water for

ground-bait is called _blowing of brains_. Salter’s Angler’s

Guide.

RIGHT AND WRONG.

A SKETCH AT SEA.

THE Rights of Man,--whether abstract or real, divine or vulgar, vested

or contested, civil or uncivil, common or uncommon--have been so fully

and so frequently discussed, that one would suppose there was nothing

new to be felt or expressed on the subject. I was agreeably surprised,

therefore, during a late passage from Ireland, to hear the rights of

an individual asserted in so very novel a manner as to seem worthy of

record. The injured party was an involuntary fellow-passenger; and

the first glance at him as he leisurely ascended the cabin stairs,

bespoke him an original. His face, figure, dress, gait, ad gestures,

were all more or less eccentric; yet, without any apparent affectation

of singularity. His manner was perfectly earnest and business-like,

though quaint. On reaching the deck, his first movement was towards the

gangway, but a moment sufficed to acquaint him with the state of the

case. The letter-bags having been detained an hour beyond the usual

time of departure, the steam had been put on at a gallop, and Her

Majesty’s mail packet the Guebre had already accomplished some hundred

fathoms of her course. This untoward event, however, seemed rather

to surprise than annoy our Original, who quietly stepped up to the

Captain, with the air of demanding what was merely a matter of course:

“Hollo, Skipper! Off she goes, eh? But you must turn about, my boy, and

let me get out.”

[Illustration: “HE’S A-GOING TO TAKE A TOWER.”]

“Let you get out!” echoed the Skipper, and again repeating it, with

what the musicians call a staccato--“Let--you--get--out!”

“Exactly so. I’m going ashore.”

“I’m rather afraid you are _not_, Sir,” said the Skipper, looking

decidedly serious, “unless you allude to the other side!”

[Illustration: AN AQUATIC TRIP.]

“The other side!” exclaimed the Oddity, involuntarily turning towards

England. “Poo! poo! nonsense, man,--I only came to look at your

accommodations. I’m not going across with you--I’m not, upon my word!”

“I must beg your pardon, Sir;” said the Captain, quite solemnly. “But

it is my firm opinion that you _are_ ‘going across.’”

“Poo, poo! all gammon.--I till you I am going back to Dublin.”

“Upon my soul, then,” said the Skipper, rather briskly, “you must swim

back like a grampus, or borrow a pair of wings from the gulls.”

The man at the helm grinned his broadest at what he thought a good joke

of his officer’s--while the Original turned sharply round, parodied a

hyena’s laugh at the fellow, and then returned to the charge.

“Come, come, Skipper--it’s quite as far out as I care for--if you want

to treat me to a sail!”

“Treat you to a sail!” roared the indignant officer. “Zounds! Sir, I’m

in earnest--as much in earnest as ever I was in my life.”

“So much the better,” answered the Original. “_I’m_ not joking myself,

and I have no right to be joked upon.”

“Joke or no joke,” said the Captain--“all I know is this. The mail bags

are on board--and it’s more than my post is worth to put back.”

“Eh? What? How?” exclaimed the Oddity, with a sort of nervous dance.

“You astonish me! Do--you--really--mean to say--I’m obligated to

go--whether I’ve a right or not?”

“I do indeed, Sir--I’m sorry for it, but it can’t be helped. My orders

are positive. The moment the mail is on board I must cast off.”

“Indeed!--well--but you know--why, that’s _your_ duty, not _mine_. _I_

have no right to be cast off! I’ve no right to be here at all. I’ve no

right to be anywhere--except in Merrion Square!”

The Captain was bothered. He shrugged up his shoulders, then gave a

low whistle, then plunged his hands in his pockets--then gave a loud

order to somebody, to do something, somewhere or other; and then began

to walk short turns on the deck. His Captive, in the meantime, made

hasty strides towards the stern, as if intending to leap overboard; but

he suddenly stopped short, and took bewildered look at the receding

coast. The original wrong was visibly increasing in length, breadth,

and depth, every minute; and he again confronted the Captain.

[Illustration: DEEP DISTRESS PRODUCED BY MACHINERY.]

“Well, Skipper--you’ve thought better of it--I’ve no right in the

world, have I?--You will turn her round?”

“Totally impossible, Sir--quite out of my power.”

“Very well, very well, very well indeed!” the Original’s temper was

getting up as well as the sea. “But mind, Sir--I protest. I protest

against _you_, Sir--and against the ship--and the ocean, Sir--and

everything! I’m getting further and further out--but, remember, I’ve

no _right_! You will take the consequences. I have no right to be

kidnapped--ask the Crown lawyers, if you think fit!”

After this denouncement, the Speaker began to pace up and down like

the Captain, but at the opposite side of the deck. He was on the boil,

however, as well as the engine,--and every time that he passed near

the man whom he considered as his Sir Hudson Lowe, he gave vent to the

inward feeling in a jerk of the head, accompanied by a short pig-like

grunt. Now and then it broke out in words, but always the same four

monosyllables, “This--is--too--bad”--with a most emphatic fall of the

foot to each. At last it occurred to a stout pompous-looking personage

to interpose as a mediator. He began by dilating on the immense

commercial importance of a punctual delivery of letters--thence he

insisted on the heavy responsibility of the Captain; with a promise

of an early return packet from Holyhead--and he was entering into

a congratulation of the fineness of the weather, when the Original

thought it was time to cut him short.

“My good Sir--you’ll excuse me. The case is nobody’s but my own. _You_

are a regular passenger. You have a right to be in this packet--you

have a right to go to Holyhead--or to Liverpool--or to Gibraltar,--or

to the world’s end--_if--you--like_. But _I_ choose to be in Dublin.

What right have I to be here then? Not--one--atom! I’ve no right to

be in this vessel--and the Captain there knows it. I’ve no right

(stamping) to be on this deck! I have no more right to be tossing at

sea (waving his arms up and down) than the Pigeon House!”

“It is a very unpleasant situation, I allow, Sir,” said the Captain

to the stout Passenger. “But, as I have told the gentleman, my hands

are tied. I can do nothing--though nobody is more sorry for his

inconvenience.”

“Inconvenience be hanged!” exclaimed the Oddity, in a passion at last.

“It is NO inconvenience, Sir! Not--the--smallest. But that

makes no difference as to my being here. It’s that--and that alone,--I

dispute all right to!”

[Illustration: SEA RIDDLE. “DO YOU GIVE IT UP?”]

“Well, but my dear, good Sir,” expostulated the pompous man; “admitting

the justice of your premises, the hardship is confessedly without

remedy.”

“To be sure it is,” said the Captain, “every inch of it. All I can say

is, that the gentleman’s passage shall be no expense to him!”

“Thankee--of _course_ not,” said the Original with a sneer. “I’ve no

right to put my hand in my pocket! Not that I mind expense. But it’s

my right I stand up for, and I defy you both to prove that I have any

right--or any shadow of a right--to be in your company! I’ll tell you

what, Skipper”--but before he could finish the sentence, he turned

suddenly pale, made a most grotesque wry face, and rushed forward to

the bow of the vessel. The Captain exchanged a significant smile with

the stout gentleman; but before they had quite spoken their minds of

the absent character, he came scrambling back to the binnacle, upon

which he rested with both hands, while he thrust his working visage

within a foot of the skipper’s face.

[Illustration: “CHARMING SPOTS ABOUT THIS PART OF THE RIVER.”]

“There, Skipper!--now, Mr. What d’ye call--What do you both say to

_that_? What right have I to be sick--as sick as a dog? I’ve no right

to be squeamish! I’m not a passenger. I’ve no right to go tumbling

over ropes and pails and what not to the ship’s head!”

“But my good Sir,”--began the pompous man.

“Don’t Sir me, Sir! _You_ took your own passage. You have a _right_ to

be sick--You’ve a right to go to the side every five minutes--you’ve a

right to DIE of it! But it’s the reverse with me--I have no

right of the sort!”

[Illustration: “WHAT RIGHT HAVE YOU IN MY STEEL TRAP?”]

“O certainly not, Sir,” said the pomposity, offended in his turn. “You

are indubitably the best judge of your own privileges. I only beg to be

allowed to remark, that where I felt I had so little right, I should

hesitate to intrude myself.” So saying, he bowed very formally, and

commenced his retreat to the cabin, while the Skipper pretended to

examine the compass very minutely. In fact our Original had met with

a chokepear. The fat man’s answer was too much for him, being framed

on a principle clean contrary to his own peculiar system of logic. The

more he tried to unravel its meaning, the more it got entangled. He

didn’t like it, without knowing why; and he quite disagreed with it,

though ignorant of its purport. He looked up at the funnel--and at

the flag--and at the deck,--and down the companion stairs,--and then

he wound up all by a long shake of his head, as mysterious as Lord

Burleigh’s, at the astonished man at the wheel. His mind seemed made

up. He buttoned his coat up to the very chin, as if to secure himself

to himself, and never opened his lips again till the vessel touched the

quay at Holyhead. The Captain then attempted a final apology--but it

was interrupted in the middle.

“Enough said, Sir--quite enough. If you’ve _only_ done your duty,

you’ve no right to beg pardon--and I’ve no right to ask it. All I mean

to say is, here am I in Holyhead instead of Dublin. I don’t care what

that fat fellow says--who don’t understand his own rights. I stick to

all I said before. I have no right to be up in the Moon, have I? Of

course not--and I’ve no more right to stand on this present quay, than

I have to be up in the Moon!”

PATRONAGE.

THE authenticity of the following letter will, probably, be disputed.

The system of patronage to which it refers, is one very likely to shock

the prejudices of serious sober-minded persons, who will naturally

refuse to credit such practical anachronisms as the superannuation of

sucklings. Goldsmith, it is true, has mentioned certain Fortunatuses

as being born with silver ladles in their mouths; but it would be

easier to suppose a child thus endowed with a whole service of plate

than to fancy one invested with a service of years. The most powerful

imagination would be puzzled to reconcile an Ex-Speakership with an

Infant untaught to lisp; or to recognise a retired Bow-street runner

in a nursling unable to walk. The existence of such very advanced

posts for the Infantry is, however, affirmed; but with what truth,

from my total want of political experience, I am unable to judge. Mr.

Wordsworth, indeed, who says that “the child is father of the man,”

seems to aim a quiz at the practice; and possibly the nautical phrase

of “getting a good _birth_,” may refer to such prosperous nativities.

For the rest, grown gentlemen have unquestionably been thrust,

sometimes, into public niches to which they were as ill adapted as

Mr. D.; the measures taken by Patrons not leading invariably, like

Stultz’s, to admirable fits. But the Lady waits to speak her mind.

[Illustration: JACK PUDDING.]

(COPY).

_To the Right Honourable_ LORD VISCOUNT ****, _&c., &c., &c.,

Whitehall._

MAY IT PLEASE YOUR LORDSHIP,

I humbly beg a thousand pardons and apologies for so great a liberty,

and taking up time so valuable to the nation with the present

application. Nothing short of absolute necessity could compel to such

a course; but I make bold to say, a case of greater hardship never had

the honour to be laid before official eyes. My poor husband, however,

is totally unaware of my writing; as he would certainly forbid any such

epistolary step, whether on my part or his own; though in point of

fact the shattered state of his nerves is such as to preclude putting

pen to paper if ever so inclined. But as a wife and a mother, it would

not become me to preserve silence, with my husband perishing by inches

before my eyes; and particularly when a nobleman of your Lordship’s

rank would be sure to sympathise for an unfortunate gentleman, of birth

and breeding, that after waiting above forty odd years for his rights,

has only come at last into a public post that must, and will be his

death!

[Illustration: “ONE BLACK BALL EXCLUDES.”]

To favour with the particulars, my husband has the honour to be

related very distantly to the Peerage; and as Your Lordship knows, it

is the privilege of Aristocracy to provide for all their connexions by

comfortable public situations, which are sometimes enjoyed very early

in life. To such Mr. D. had a hereditary right from his cradle, for

his noble relative the Duke of----, was so condescending as to stand

sponsor by proxy; and instead of the usual spoons, or a silver mug,

made a promise to the Infant of some office suited to its tender age;

for instance a superannuation, or the like, where there is nothing to

do, but the salary to receive. In point of fact, the making the Baby

a retired King’s Messenger was verbally undertaken at the font: but

before the child could come into office His Grace unfortunately went

out of power, by dying of apoplexy, leaving nothing but a promise,

which a new ministry was unjust and ungrateful enough not to make

good. In this shocking manner, Your Lordship, was my husband thrown

upon the world, without proper provision according to his station and

prospects, and was degraded to the necessity of his own exertions for

support, till his fortieth year, when the new Duke thought proper to

stir in his behalf. The truth is, a severe illness had left Mr. D.’s

mind and nerves in such a pitiful shattered state, as to make him unfit

for any business whatever, except public affairs; and accordingly

it became the duty of his friends to procure him some post under

government. So a proper application was made to his Grace, and through

his influence and the fortunate circumstance of an election at the

time, Mr. D. was appointed to the dreadful situation he at present

enjoys. Of course we entirely acquit His Grace, who never set eyes on

my husband in his life, and therefore could not be expected to know

the precise state of his constitution; but I appeal to Your Lordship,

whether it was proper patronage for a man shattered in mind and nerves,

and subject to tremors, and palpitations, and bodily shocks of all

sorts, to be made a Superintendent of Powder-Mills, with the condition

of living attached to the works?

For my own part, Your Lordship, I looked on the Duke’s letter of

congratulations as neither more nor less than my poor husband’s

death-warrant. Indeed he was so dreadfully alarmed himself, as to be

quite distressing to witness. He did nothing, the whole afternoon,

but walk up and down the room, shaking his head at himself in the

looking-glass, or looking up at the ceiling, and muttering, as if he

was already exploding sky high along with the Mills. But a refusal

was out of the question, as it would have afforded his Grace too good

an excuse for neglecting our interests for the future. To aggravate

the case, the very day after our taking possession, there was what is

called a blow at the works, and though so trifling as only to carry a

roof off a shed, it struck a cord on Mr. D.’s nerves that has never

done vibrating ever since. I do not exaggerate to say, that if he had

been struck with the palsy and St. Vitus, both at once, he could not

have showed more corporeal agitation. He trembled in every limb like an

aspen tree; while his eyes rolled, and his head went from side to side,

like the China Mandarin’s; besides scouring up and down stairs, and

rushing out of doors and in again, and trying all the chairs but could

not sit any where, and stamping, and muttering, and dancing about, till

I really expected he would scramble up the walls of the room, and fly

across the ceiling, like our tortoiseshell cat in her fits. If I lived

to Methusalem, Your Lordship, I should never forget it! Unluckily,

being new to his office, a mistaken notion of duty possessed him that

he ought not to quit the spot; indeed he solemnly declared, that if a

blow was to take place in his absence, he would rather commit his own

suicide than face the report of it in the newspapers, which had already

indulged in some seditious sneers at his appointment. All that could be

done, therefore, was to pack off Lucy, and Emily and Eliza, on week’s

visits among friends; myself remaining behind, as a wife’s proper post,

near my poor husband; but on the discomfortable condition of keeping

under ground in the cellar, because gunpowder in convulsions always

blasts upwards. What my feelings were, as we are troubled with rats,

Your Lordship may suppose; particularly when Mr. D. was officially

called upon to inspect the damage; and never shall I forget his gashly

appearance when he returned from his awful task! He was literally as

white as a sheet; and totally incapable to get out a word, till he had

swallowed three whole glasses of brandy! That settled his reason,--but

it was only to tell me that lie had scraped and grazed the skin off

every nubble of his back-bone, by a bad fall from a ladder, which he

had attempted to come down in wooden safety shoes. Such, Your Lordship,

was our miserable day; and it brought as wretched a night. Bed would

not be heard of--and we set up in two easy chairs, shuddering with

fright and cold, being December, and every door and window thrown wide

open, to give a thorough vent through the house, in case of another

shock. For Mr. D. was unfortunately possessed that one blow always

leads to another; and what with fancying flying sparks, for it was

starlight, and sniffing fire, he had worked himself up, before morning,

into a high fever and a light head. The nearest medical man was obliged

to be called in--and he had to give frightful doses of laudanum before

Mr. D.’s nerves could be lulled into a startlish sort of doze;--and at

waking, he was ordered to drink the strongest stimuluses; as indeed are

in use to the present time. But this continual brandy, brandy, brandy,

as Your Lordship knows, is a dreadful remedy; though, as my poor

husband says, he cannot fill up his place without its help. At times

I could almost believe, tho’ I would not breathe such a thing except

to Your Lordship, that between the stimuluses, and the delirium, and

the whole shock to the system, Mr. D. is a little beside his senses.

The mad Doctors do say, that we are all, every one of us, crazy on a

certain subject; and if such is the case, there can be no doubt that my

husband’s weak point is explosions, the extravagance of his precautions

making him an everlasting torment to himself as well as to all about

him. Of course it is to his disadvantage, and magnifies his terrors,

not to have been brought regularly up to the business; not that he

receives much comfort from those who have, for he says custom and

habit have made them so daring and hardened, that they would not mind

playing at snap-dragon in the Magazine, or grinding their knives on the

millstone that crushes the gunpowder into grains.

[Illustration: BAT AND BAWL.]

Since the above accident we have had, thank goodness, no more blows;

but, as Your Lordship is aware, a first impression will stick by us

for all our lives to come. At the best of times, let my husband be

reading, or writing, or eating his dinner, or in bed, or what not, the

exploding notion will come across him like a flash of lightning; as

for instance last Friday was a week. Mr. and Mrs. Trotter had dropped

in to tea; after which we had a rubber; and were all very comfortable,

my husband and me just in the nine holes, when all of a sudden there

was a fall of something and a scream. Up jumps Mr. D. of course,

chucking his cards here, there, and every where, and calling a blow! a

blow!--and as usual Emily and Lucy and Eliza and me rushed off to the

coal-cellar, while Mrs. T. went into a fit. It is true, by the blessing

of Providence, it was only the Housemaid letting her pail fall to

screech at a bat; but what is very disagreeable, the Trotters are old

friends, and have declined to set another foot within our doors. As for

servants, it is next to impossible to keep one about me; and as Your

Lordship’s own Lady will confirm, there is nothing more unpleasant to

a Mistress of a House than to be continually changing. But nine out

of ten prefer giving warning, to attending to so many punctiliums as

are laid down; and those that are willing to stay, break through so

many of the rules, that I am obliged to discharge them, to prevent Mr.

D. being ruffled by doing it himself. Besides it adds considerably to

servants’ work, to have chimneys swept so often as once a week,--and

moreover, Mr. D. insists on keeping all flints and steels, and tinder,

and matches, in his own bed-room, so that the housemaid has to go

to him every morning for her lights. He is just as particular about

extinguishing at night; and I lost the best cook I ever had, through

her sitting up in her bed-room to mend her stays, though she might have

known Mr. D. would come in to put her out--all of which is extremely

unpleasant, and to me in particular.

[Illustration: PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT.]

These, Your Lordship, are serious domestic evils; and I wish I could

say they were confined to the house. But the workmen at the Mills

are so ungrateful as to hate my husband for the over care he obliges

them to take of their own lives; and make no secret of wanting his

removal, by trying to torment him into resignation. Not a day passes

without squabbles about smoking, for Mr. D. is apt to sniff tobacco,

and insists on searching pockets for pipes, which the labourers one and

all decline; and besides scuffles, there have been several pay offs on

the spot. The consequence is ill will and bad blood to their superior,

and it is become a standing practical joke to play upon the family

feelings and fears. I have twice suffered all the disagreeables of

escaping from nothing at all in my night dress, exposed to rheumatism,

and the natives of a low neighbourhood; indeed only last Sunday the

fire bell was rung by nobody, and no wind at all to speak of. Another

party at enmity is Doctor Worral and all his establishment; because Mr.

D. felt it his public duty to have the Doctor up before a Justice, for

allowing his Young Gentlemen to send up fire-balloons. We had one day

of dreadful excitement on my husband’s part, through a wicked little

wretch of a pupil flashing the sunshine into the Mill with a bit of

looking-glass; and of course we are indebted for the Swing letters we

receive to the same juvenile quarters. To make bad worse, Mr. D. takes

them all for Gospel, and the extra watchings, and patrollings, and

precautions, after getting a threatening notice, are enough to wear

out all our hearts. As regards the School, I am ready to agree that it

is too near the Works; and to tell the truth, I shake in my shoes as

much as Mr. D., every fifth of November, at each squib and cracker that

goes off. On the same score our own sons are an everlasting misery to

us when they are at home; which they seldom are, poor fellows, on that

account. But if there is one thing above another that boys delight

to play with, it is gunpowder; and being at the very fountainhead,

Your Lordship may conceive the constant care it is to prevent their

getting at it, and what is worse, not always crowned with success.

Indeed even more innocent playthings are obliged to be guarded against;

for as their father says, “a little brat, just breeched, may strike

light enough to blow up a whole neighbourhood, through only spinning a

peg-tog in a paved yard.”

Such, your Lordship, is our present melancholy state. I have not dwelt,

as I might do, on expenses, such as the dresses that are spoiled in

the coal-cellar; the paying months’ wages instead of warnings; nor

the trays upon trays of glass and china that are chucked down, as the

way the servants always empty their hands when making their escapes

from my husband’s false alarms. Sometimes it’s a chair falls overhead;

or the wind slams the back door; or a smell of burnt wood from the

kitchen; or the ironing-blanket; or fat catched; or fall of soot; or

a candle-snuff; or a smoky coal; or, as I have known before now, only

the smell of the drains; with a hundred other little things that will

spring up in families, take what care you will. I ought not to forget

thunder-storms, which are another source of trouble; for, besides

seeing a dozen fanciful flashes for one real one, it is the misfortune

of Mr. D. not to put faith in conductors, or, to use his own words, “in

Franklin, philosophy, and fiddlesticks,--and a birch rod as likely to

frighten away lightning as an iron one.” In the meantime, through the

constant frights and flurries, I begin to find my own nerves infected

by bad example, and getting into startlish habits; and my daughter

Lucy, who was always delicate, seems actually going into a poor low

way. Agreeable society might do much to enliven our spirits; but my

husband is become very shy of visitors, ever since Captain Gower was so

inconsiderate as to walk in, one foggy night, with a lighted cigar in

his mouth. In fact he quite sets his face against the male sex: for, if

they do not smoke cigars, he says, and carry lucifers, they strut on

their iron heels and flourish about with iron-pointed walking-sticks

and umbrellas. All which, Your Lordship, is extremely hard on myself

and daughters, who, like all young people, are fond of a little gaiety;

but the very utmost they are allowed, is a single quadrille party at

Christmas, and then they are all obliged to dance in list shoes.

[Illustration: A SET-OFF IN ACCOUNT.]

I humbly trust to Your Lordship’s liberality, and goodness of heart, to

view the particulars of the above melancholy statement with attentive

consideration. As it may occur to inquire how we have suffered so

long without complaining, I beg to inform Your Lordship, that, being

such a time of profound peace, we have lived on from year to year in

the hope that no more ammunition would be required; and consequently

the place would become a comfortable sinecure. But it appears that

Spain and Portugal, and other countries, have gone to war on condition

of being supplied with gunpowder; and accordingly, to our bitter

disappointment, the works are as vigorous as ever. Your Lordship will

admit the hardship of such a cruel position to a man of Mr. D.’s very

peculiar constitution; and I do hope and trust will also regard his

interests with a favourable eye, in consideration of his long-standing

claims upon the country. What his friends most desire for him is, some

official situation,--of course with a sufficient income to support

his consequence, and a numerous family,--but without any business

attached to it, or only as much as might help to amuse his mind for

one or two hours in the day. Such a removal, considering my husband’s

unfitness for anything else, could occasion no sort of injury to the

public service; particularly as his vacancy would be so easy to fill

up. There are hundreds and thousands of land and sea officers on

half pay, who have been used to popping, and banging, and blowing up

rockets and bomb-shells, all their lives; and would, therefore, not

object to the Powder Mills; especially as the salary is handsome, with

a rent-free house and garden, coal and candles, and all the other

little perquisites that belong to public posts. As regards ourselves

on the contrary, any interest is preferable to the gunpowder interest;

and I take upon myself to say, that Mr. D. would be most proud and

happy to receive any favour from Your Lordship’s administration; as

well as answering for his pursuing any line of political principles,

conservative or unconservative, that might be chalked out. Any such act

of patronage would command the eternal gratitude of Mr. D., self, and

family; and, repeating a thousand apologies for thus addressing, I beg

leave to remain

Your Lordship’s most humble, obedient, and devoted servant,

LUCY EMILY DEXTER.

P.S.--Since writing the above, I am sorry to inform your Lordship, that

we have had another little blow, and Mr. D.’s state is indescribable.

He is more shaken than ever, and particularly through going all down

the stairs in three jumps. He was sitting reading at the time, and, as

he thinks, in his spectacles; but as they are not to be found, he is

possessed that they have been driven into his head.

[Illustration: LORD, HOW YOU MADE ME JUMP.]

ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

“Charlatan is rising in public favour, and has many _backers_ who

_book_ him to win.”--_Sporting Intelligence._

[Illustration]

OF all the signs of the times--considering them literally as

_signs_, and the public literally as “a _public_”--there are none

more remarkable than the Hahnemann’s Head,--the Crown and Compasses,

devoted to Gall and Spurzheim’s entire,--and the Cock and Bull, that

hangs out at the House of Call for Animal Magnetizers. The last

concern, especially--a daring, glaring, flaring, gin-palace-like

establishment--is a moral phenomenon. That a tap dispensing a raw,

heady, very unrectified article, should obtain any custom whatever,

in a reputed genteel and well-lighted neighbourhood, seems quite

impossible; yet such is the incomprehensible fact;--respectable

parties, scientific men, and even physicians, in good practice in

all other respects, have notoriously frequented the bar, from which

they have issued again, walking all sorts of ways at once, or more

frequently falling asleep on the steps, but still talking such

“rambling skimble-skamble stuff” as would naturally be suggested by

the incoherent visions of a drunken man. Such exhibitions, however are

comparatively rare in London to their occurrence in Paris, which city

has always taken the lead of our own capital in matters of novelty.

It is asserted by a good authority, that at a French concern, in the

same line, no less than seventy-eight “medical men, and sixty-three

other very intelligent individuals,” became thoroughly muzzy and

mystified, and so completely lost all “_clairvoyance_” of their own,

that they applied to an individual to read a book and a letter to

them; to tell them the hour on their own watches; to mention the pips

on the cards; and by way of putting the state of their “intuitive

foresight” beyond question, they actually appealed to the _back_sight

of a man who was sound asleep! A bout on so large a scale has not been

attempted, hitherto, in the English metropolis; but as all fashions

transplanted from Paris flourish vigorously in our soil, it is not

improbable that we may yet see a Meeting of the College of Physicians

rendered very how-come-you-so indeed by an excess of Mesmer’s

“particular.” The influence of such an example could not fail to have

a powerful influence on all classes; and a pernicious narcotic would

come into general use; the notorious effect of which is to undermine

the reason of its votaries, and rob them of their common senses. To

avert such a national evil, surely demands the timely efforts of

our philanthropists; and above all, of those persons who have set

their faces against the Old Tom--not of Lincoln, but of London--and

in their zeal for the public sobriety, aim at even converting the

brewers’ kilderkins into pumpkins.--Seriously, might not the Temperance

Societies extend the sphere of their operations by a whole hemisphere,

and perhaps with equal advantage to mankind, by attacking mental

dram-drinking, as well as the bodily tippling of ardent spirits? The

bewildered rollings, reelings, and idiotic effusions of mere animal

drunkenness can hardly be more degrading to rational human beings,

than the crazy toddlings and twaddlings of a bemused mind, whether

only maudlin with infinitesimal doses of quackery, or rampant to mad

staggers with the _lush_ious compounds and Devil’s Elixirs of the

Mesmerian Distillery. Take the wildest freaks of the most fuddled,

muddled, bepuddled soaker,--such as “trying to light his pipe at

a pump,”--attempting to wind up a plug with his watch-key,--or

requesting, from a damp bed in the gutter, to be tucked in,--and are

they a bit, or a whit, or a jot, or a what-not, more absurd, more

extravagant, or more indicative of imbecility of reason, than the

vagary of a somnambulist, gravely going through the back-gammon of

reading Back’s Journal, or a back-number of the Retrospective Review,

through the back of his head?

[Illustration: “I WAS TOLD I SHOULD FIND HERE SOME TRAP ROCKS!”]

In case the Great Water Companies alluded to should think proper to

adopt the foregoing suggestions, the following genuine letters are

placed very much at their service, as materials to be worked up into

Tracts:--

(COPY.)

_To Mr. Robert_ HOLLAND, _Linen-Draper, No. 194, Tottenham

Court Road, London._

DEAR BOB,

Hoping you are well, and well-doing, we have heard such wonderful

accounts in our parts lately about animal magnetizing, without any

clear notion what it is.

My own notion is, it must be something new of my Lord

Spenser’s--Althorp as was--who was always very curious about his beasts.

Others do say the Duke of Bedford, with a fresh cattle show--nobody

knows.

Now you are just at the fountain-head to learn, and as most of us down

here is more or less engaged in breeding stock, it would be a main

thing to be put up to the secret at its first start.

[Illustration: WRINGING OUT THE OLD YEAR.]

Also whether it is expensive to buy--and who found it out--and if

likely to do away with oilcake and mangel-wurzel, and such like

particulars.

Praise be blest, we are all stout and hearty, except your poor aunt,

who died three year ago. Which is all the news at present from,

Dear Bob,

Your loving Uncle,

REUBEN OXENHAM.

(COPY.)

_To Mr. Reuben_ OXENHAM, _Grazier, Grasslands, near

Lincolnshire._

DEAR UNCLE,

I was agreeably surprised by your breaking silence; for I had made up

my mind you was a distrest farmer gone off swan hopping (excuse the

joke) to Swan River, or to get settled among the Dutch boars and lions

at the Cape of Good Hope. Thank heaven such is not the case; though

damped with my dear aunt’s going off. I little thought, poor soul! the

why and wherefore my goose three Christmases ago was the last! But we

must all be cut off some day or other, which is a religious consolation

for the remnants that are left behind.

[Illustration: SWAN-HOPPING.]

I have examined, as you desired, a sample of animal magnetism; which

turns out to be the reverse of every thing you expect. Indeed such

might have been anticipated by a little forethought on the subject.

There is nothing to describe about animals to such as you, that deal

in them of all qualities; but it is quite likely that you have forgot

all about magnets, since the days of your youth. But perhaps, when

they are named to you, your memory may serve to recollect little bone

boxes, at sixpence a piece, with a blackamoor’s head atop, and a

little bar of philosopher’s steel inside, that points out the north,

and sets a needle dancing like mad. It likewise picks up emery, and

sticks fast to the blade of a knife. But that is all its powers are

competent to--and of course on too small a scale to have any dancing,

or lifting, or sticking effect on objects so big as bullocks, or even

a pig, or a sheep. Accordingly, you will not be surprised to hear that

animal magnetism has nothing at all to do with beasts or load-stones

either, but is all of a piece with juggling, quacksalving, and

mountebanking, such as universal physic, spitting Coventry ribbons,

tumbling, and posturing, thimble-rig, and the like fabrics. One of the

principal tricks is sending people off to sleep against their wills;

not so new a trick though, but it has been heard of years and years

ago at Bow Street; and easy enough to perform any day, with a pint of

porter,--provided one was rogue enough to want to hocus-pocus the money

out of other people’s pockets into one’s own. To come to the point,

there’s an outlandish Count set up in it at the west end; and no doubt

will realise a fortune. He has his carriage-people for customers, as

well as Howel and James; indeed, I have heard of the Somebodies as well

as Nobodies running after common fortune-tellers’ tales, and not too

high to be above going up into their back garrets. Some say he is a

Frenchman, others say a German; but the last for choice, for he smokes

enough to drive all the rats out of the neighbourhood. Besides, the

Germans, I’m told, will believe anything, provided it’s impossible;

which is some excuse for their wanting other people to give the same

long credits; and besides, Germans as well as French, and indeed all

other foreigners, for that matter, though ever such honest people in

the main; yet when they _do_ turn rogues at English expense, they

invariably go more than the whole hog, namely, boar, sow, sucking

pigs and all. So I determined to go wide awake, and to keep my eyes

open, too, by not taking bit or sup in the house, if offered ever

so politely. It is surely not showing disrespect to hospitality, to

object to hocussed victuals and drinks. I might have spared my fears,

however; for there was nothing provided but the ledgerdemain, &c., and

that was charged a guinea for, which you can repay at convenience. I

preferred to see somebody else conjured before me; so another patient

was taken first. She was a fine strapping young woman enough, dressed

half and half between a fine lady and a servantmaid; but as sly-looking

a baggage as you could select from an assortment of gypseys; and unless

her face belied her, quite capable of scratching a Cock Lane ghost.

Indeed something came across me that I had seen her before; and if

memory don’t deceive, it was at some private theatricals contrary to

law. For certain she could keep her countenance; for if the outlandish

figure of a doctor, with his queer faces, had postured, and pawed,

and poked towards _me_, with his fingers, for all the world like the

old game of “My grandmother sends you a staff, and you’re neither to

smile nor to laugh,” as he did to her, I should have bursted, to a

dead certainty; instead of going off, as she did, into an easy sleep.

As soon as she was sound, the Count turned round to me and the company

with his broken English--“Ladies and gentlemens,” says he, “look here

at dis yoong maidens, Mizz Charlot Ann Elizabet Martin”--for that is

his way of talking. “Wid my magnetismuses I tro her into von state of

sombamboozleism”--or something to that effect. “Mizz Charlot Ann, dou

art a slip.” “As fast as a church, Mister Count,” says she, talking

and hearing as easy as broad awake. “Ferry goot,” says he. “Now I take

dis boke,--Missis Glasse Cokery,--and I shall make de maidens read

som little of him wid her back. Dere he is bytween her sholders. Mizz

Charlot Ann, what you see now mit your eyes turned de wrong way for to

look?” “Why, then,” says she, “Mr. Count, I see quite plain a T, and

an O. Then comes R, and O, and S, and T--and the next word is H, and

A, and I, and R.” “Ferry goot,” tries the Count over again. “Dat is

to rost de hare. Ladies and gentlemens, you all here? As Gott is my

shudge, so is here in de boke. Now den, Mizz Charlot Ann, vons more.

Vot you taste in your mouse?” “Why, then, Master,” says Charlotte Ann,

“as sure as fate, I taste sweet herbs chopped up small!” “Ferry goot

indeed!--bot what mor by sides de sweet herrubs?” “Why,” says she,

“it’s a relish of salt, and pepper, and mace,--and, let me see--there’s

a flavour of currant jelly.” “Besser and besser!” cries the Count.

“Ladies and gentlemens, are not dese voonderfools? You shall see every

wart of it in de print. Mizz Charlot Ann, vot you feel now?” “Lawk a

mercy, Mister Count,” says she, “there’s a sort of stuffy feel, so

there is, in my inside!” “Yaw! like van fool belly! Ferry goot! Now you

feel vot?” “Feel! Mister Count?” says she--“why I don’t feel nothing at

all--the stuffiness is gone clean away!” “Yaw, my shild!” says he. “Dat

is by cause I take avay de cokery boke from your two sholders. Ladies

and gentlemens, dese is grand powers of magnetismus! Ach himmel! As

Hamlet say, dere is more in our philosofies dan dere is in de heaven or

de earth! Our mutter Nature is so fond to hide her face! Bot von adept,

so as me, can lift up a whale!”

[Illustration: SLEEPING DRAUGHTS.]

To shorten a long story, the sombamboosleism lasted for two hours;

while Miss Charlot Ann told fortunes in her sleep, and named people’s

inward complaints, and prescribed for them with her eyes shut. Mine

was dropsy; and I was to take antimonious wine three times a-day, to

throw the water off my stomach. So, if you like to ask your apothecary,

or the parish doctor, they will be able to tell you whether it looks

like proper practice or the reverse. For my own part, I mean to

suspend myself till I feel more symptoms; and in the meantime I have

experimented on myself so far as to try behind my back with the Ready

Reckoner. But I could not even see the book, much less make out a

figure. To be sure I was broad awake, but it stands to reason that the

circumstance only gave the better chance in its favour--at least it

has always been reckoned so with a book held the proper natural way.

I was the more particular with the book-work, because it looked like

the master-key to let you into the whole house:--for no doubt, if you

can do _that_ trick, you can do all the rest, and have a hare dressed

between your shoulders as easily as a blister. But to my mind it is all

sham Abraham; or the little boys that go every day with whole satchels

full of books at their backs would know rather more about them than

they do generally at leaving off school.

And now, Uncle, I have explained to you all about Animal Magnetism;

and, says you, there are many things that come by names they have no

right to, without going to Scotland, where you know they call a pitcher

a pig. So it is very lucky on the whole, that you wrote to me, instead

of posting up to London on a fool’s errand,--as did a respectable

Lancashire grazing gentleman, the other day, in the newspapers, who

was hoaxed all the way up to town, by a false notion that Animal

Magnifying, as he called it, was some new, cheap, and quick way of

fatting cattle. It will maybe turn out quite as deceitful an article

as to its other qualities; and in that case, if I had the luck to be

a magistrate, I would cold pig the sleeping partners with Cold Bath

Fields and send off the active ones, to take a walk at a cart’s tail,

with something they could feel, if they could not read it, on their

backs and shoulders. That’s how I would measure out the law, if I

was Lord Chief Justice. In which sentiments I conclude, with love

to yourself, and all my cousins, if I have any living--with my best

condolences for my poor late Aunt. As to business, I have only broken

twice as yet; which is doing pretty well, considering the hard times

and the state of trade. Wishing you the like prosperity, with health,

and every other blessing, I remain, dear Uncle,

Your affectionate nephew,

ROBERT HOLLAND.

P.S. Since the foregoing, I have discussed the subject with a

neighbour, a Veterany Surgeon; and he says it is all very well for the

old men and women Physicians, but won’t go down with the Horse Doctors.

“However,” says he, “if you are bent on trying it, I will give you a

receipt. Take a two-year old full blood colt, half broke, or not broke

at all--if vicious, so much the better. Shoe him behind with a couple

of stout horse-shoe loadstones, and then stand convenient, and take

a tug or two at his tail, till you feel him begin to operate. That’s

Animal Magnetism, and will do you quite as much good or harm as the

other new kick, and save you all the fees besides.”

[Illustration: SOMNAMBULISM.]

[Illustration: A MAIDEN ASSLEP.]

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

AN UNPUBLISHED POEM, FROM SIDNEY.

IT may be necessary to bespeak the indulgent consideration of the

reader, for the appearance of the following Curiosity in such a work.

The truth is, the pages of the Comic Annual naturally present to me

the most obvious means of making the Poem known; betides, as it were,

offering personal security for my own belief in its authenticity.

And, considering my literary credit as so pledged, I do not hesitate

to affirm that I think the effusion in question may confidently be

referred to Sidney: and even--on the internal evidence of its pastoral

character--to the Arcadia. The verses have never till now appeared in

print. The lover of Old English Poetry would vainly hunt for it in any

edition extant of the works of Sir Philip; and, probably, the family

records and remains at Penshurst might be searched to as little purpose

for a copy in MS. From the extreme quaintness of the original, which

would have required the help of a glossary to render it generally

intelligible, I have thought it advisable to translate many of the

phrases into more current language; but scrupulously preserving the

_sense_ of the text. Enough of the peculiar style, however, still

remains, to aid in forming a judgment of the author’s æra. As for the

apparent incongruity of the double vocation ascribed to the tuneful

Swain in the Poem, besides abundant classical evidence that the

Corydons of ancient times were often, also, heroes, or warriors, or

adventurers, we have the positive contemporary testimony of modern

travellers, that in those very pastures where the scene is laid, it

is at this day the practice to entrust the charge of the flocks to

personages who have formerly been engaged in the same perilous career

as the “Forlorn Shepherd.” His lament, it will be seen, is full of

regrets and stealing tears for the stirring times of Auld Lang Syne.

THE FORLORN SHEPHERD’S COMPLAINT.

“Vell! Here I am--no Matter how it suits,

A-keeping Company with them dumb Brutes,

Old Park vos no bad Judge--confound his vig!

Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!

“The like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales

To go a-tagging arter Vethers’ Tails

And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,

But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!

“To go to set this solitary Job

To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!

It’s out of all our Lines, for sure I am

Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!”

[Illustration: A PUBLIC DINNER.]

“I arn’t ashamed to say I sit and veep

To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep,

The spooniest Beasts in Nater, all to Sticks,

And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!

“If I’d fore-seed how Transports would turn out

To only Baa! and Botanize about,

I’d quite as leaf have had the t’other Pull,

And come to Cotton as to all this Vool!

“Von only happy moment I have had

Since here I come to be a Farmer’s Cad,

And then I cotch’d a vild Beast in a Snooze,

And pick’d her Pouch of three young Kangaroos!

“Vot chance have I to go to Race or Mill?

Or show a sneaking Kindness for a Till;

And as for Vashings, on a hedge to dry,

I’d put the Natives’ Linen in my Eye!

“If this whole Lot of Mutton I could scrag,

And find a Fence to turn it into Swag,

I’d give it all in Lonnon Streets to stand,

And if I had my pick, I’d say the Strand!

“But ven I goes, as maybe vonce I shall,

To my old crib to meet with Jack, and Sal,

I’ve been so gallows honest in this Place,

I shan’t not like to show my sheepish Face.

“It’s wery hard for nothing but a Box

Of Irish Blackguard to be keepin’ Flocks,

’Mong naked Blacks, sich Savages to hus,

They’ve nayther got a Pocket nor a Pus.

“But Folks may tell their Troubles till they’re sick

To dumb brute Beasts,--and so I’ll cut my Stick!

And vot’s the Use a Feller’s Eyes to pipe

Vere von can’t borrow any Gemman’s Vipe?”

[Illustration: OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND.]

ANACREONTIC.

BY A FOOTMAN.

It’s wery well to talk in praise

Of Tea and Water-drinking ways,

In proper time and place;

Of sober draughts, so clear and cool,

Dipp’d out of a transparent pool

Reflecting heaven’s face.

Of babbling brooks, and purling rills,

And streams as gushes from the hills,

It’s wery well to talk;--

But what becomes of all sich schemes,

With ponds of ice, and running streams,

As doesn’t even walk?

When Winter comes with piercing cold,

And all the rivers, new or old,

Is frozen far and wide;

And limpid springs is solid stuff,

And crystal pools is hard enough

To skate upon and slide;--

What then are thirsty men to do,

But drink of ale, and porter too,

Champagne as makes a fizz;

Port, sherry, or the Rhenish sort,

And p’rhaps a drop of summut short--

The water-pipes is friz!