thoughts are still with his family, if his family are not with him.
‘Saunders,’ says he, after a short silence, ‘if you please, we’ll drink
Mrs. Whiffler and the children.’ Mr. Saunders feels this to be a
reproach against himself for not proposing the same sentiment, and
drinks it in some confusion. ‘Ah!’ Mr. Whiffler sighs, ‘these children,
Saunders, make one quite an old man.’ Mr. Saunders thinks that if they
were his, they would make him a very old man; but he says nothing. ‘And
yet,’ pursues Mr. Whiffler, ‘what can equal domestic happiness? what
can equal the engaging ways of children! Saunders, why don’t you get
married?’ Now, this is an embarrassing question, because Mr. Saunders
has been thinking that if he had at any time entertained matrimonial
designs, the revelation of that day would surely have routed them for
ever. ‘I am glad, however,’ says Mr. Whiffler, ‘that you _are_ a
bachelor,—glad on one account, Saunders; a selfish one, I admit. Will
you do Mrs. Whiffler and myself a favour?’ Mr. Saunders is
surprised—evidently surprised; but he replies, ‘with the greatest
pleasure.’ ‘Then, will you, Saunders,’ says Mr. Whiffler, in an
impressive manner, ‘will you cement and consolidate our friendship by
coming into the family (so to speak) as a godfather?’ ‘I shall be proud
and delighted,’ replies Mr. Saunders: ‘which of the children is it?
really, I thought they were all christened; or—’ ‘Saunders,’ Mr.
Whiffler interposes, ‘they _are_ all christened; you are right. The
fact is, that Mrs. Whiffler is—in short, we expect another.’ ‘Not a
ninth!’ cries the friend, all aghast at the idea. ‘Yes, Saunders,’
rejoins Mr. Whiffler, solemnly, ‘a ninth. Did we drink Mrs. Whiffler’s
health? Let us drink it again, Saunders, and wish her well over it!’
Doctor Johnson used to tell a story of a man who had but one idea,
which was a wrong one. The couple who dote upon their children are in
the same predicament: at home or abroad, at all times, and in all
places, their thoughts are bound up in this one subject, and have no
sphere beyond. They relate the clever things their offspring say or do,
and weary every company with their prolixity and absurdity. Mr.
Whiffler takes a friend by the button at a street corner on a windy day
to tell him a _bon mot_ of his youngest boy’s; and Mrs. Whiffler,
calling to see a sick acquaintance, entertains her with a cheerful
account of all her own past sufferings and present expectations. In
such cases the sins of the fathers indeed descend upon the children;
for people soon come to regard them as predestined little bores. The
couple who dote upon their children cannot be said to be actuated by a
general love for these engaging little people (which would be a great
excuse); for they are apt to underrate and entertain a jealousy of any
children but their own. If they examined their own hearts, they would,
perhaps, find at the bottom of all this, more self-love and egotism
than they think of. Self-love and egotism are bad qualities, of which
the unrestrained exhibition, though it may be sometimes amusing, never
fails to be wearisome and unpleasant. Couples who dote upon their
children, therefore, are best avoided.
THE COOL COUPLE
There is an old-fashioned weather-glass representing a house with two
doorways, in one of which is the figure of a gentleman, in the other
the figure of a lady. When the weather is to be fine the lady comes out
and the gentleman goes in; when wet, the gentleman comes out and the
lady goes in. They never seek each other’s society, are never elevated
and depressed by the same cause, and have nothing in common. They are
the model of a cool couple, except that there is something of
politeness and consideration about the behaviour of the gentleman in
the weather-glass, in which, neither of the cool couple can be said to
participate.
The cool couple are seldom alone together, and when they are, nothing
can exceed their apathy and dulness: the gentleman being for the most
part drowsy, and the lady silent. If they enter into conversation, it
is usually of an ironical or recriminatory nature. Thus, when the
gentleman has indulged in a very long yawn and settled himself more
snugly in his easy-chair, the lady will perhaps remark, ‘Well, I am
sure, Charles! I hope you’re comfortable.’ To which the gentleman
replies, ‘Oh yes, he’s quite comfortable quite.’ ‘There are not many
married men, I hope,’ returns the lady, ‘who seek comfort in such
selfish gratifications as you do.’ ‘Nor many wives who seek comfort in
such selfish gratifications as _you_ do, I hope,’ retorts the
gentleman. ‘Whose fault is that?’ demands the lady. The gentleman
becoming more sleepy, returns no answer. ‘Whose fault is that?’ the
lady repeats. The gentleman still returning no answer, she goes on to
say that she believes there never was in all this world anybody so
attached to her home, so thoroughly domestic, so unwilling to seek a
moment’s gratification or pleasure beyond her own fireside as she. God
knows that before she was married she never thought or dreamt of such a
thing; and she remembers that her poor papa used to say again and
again, almost every day of his life, ‘Oh, my dear Louisa, if you only
marry a man who understands you, and takes the trouble to consider your
happiness and accommodate himself a very little to your disposition,
what a treasure he will find in you!’ She supposes her papa knew what
her disposition was—he had known her long enough—he ought to have been
acquainted with it, but what can she do? If her home is always dull and
lonely, and her husband is always absent and finds no pleasure in her
society, she is naturally sometimes driven (seldom enough, she is sure)
to seek a little recreation elsewhere; she is not expected to pine and
mope to death, she hopes. ‘Then come, Louisa,’ says the gentleman,
waking up as suddenly as he fell asleep, ‘stop at home this evening,
and so will I.’ ‘I should be sorry to suppose, Charles, that you took a
pleasure in aggravating me,’ replies the lady; ‘but you know as well as
I do that I am particularly engaged to Mrs. Mortimer, and that it would
be an act of the grossest rudeness and ill-breeding, after accepting a
seat in her box and preventing her from inviting anybody else, not to
go.’ ‘Ah! there it is!’ says the gentleman, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I
knew that perfectly well. I knew you couldn’t devote an evening to your
own home. Now all I have to say, Louisa, is this—recollect that _I_ was
quite willing to stay at home, and that it’s no fault of _mine_ we are
not oftener together.’
With that the gentleman goes away to keep an old appointment at his
club, and the lady hurries off to dress for Mrs. Mortimer’s; and
neither thinks of the other until by some odd chance they find
themselves alone again.
But it must not be supposed that the cool couple are habitually a
quarrelsome one. Quite the contrary. These differences are only
occasions for a little self-excuse,—nothing more. In general they are
as easy and careless, and dispute as seldom, as any common
acquaintances may; for it is neither worth their while to put each
other out of the way, nor to ruffle themselves.
When they meet in society, the cool couple are the best-bred people in
existence. The lady is seated in a corner among a little knot of lady
friends, one of whom exclaims, ‘Why, I vow and declare there is your
husband, my dear!’ ‘Whose?—mine?’ she says, carelessly. ‘Ay, yours, and
coming this way too.’ ‘How very odd!’ says the lady, in a languid tone,
‘I thought he had been at Dover.’ The gentleman coming up, and speaking
to all the other ladies and nodding slightly to his wife, it turns out
that he has been at Dover, and has just now returned. ‘What a strange
creature you are!’ cries his wife; ‘and what on earth brought you here,
I wonder?’ ‘I came to look after you, _of course_,’ rejoins her
husband. This is so pleasant a jest that the lady is mightily amused,
as are all the other ladies similarly situated who are within hearing;
and while they are enjoying it to the full, the gentleman nods again,
turns upon his heel, and saunters away.
There are times, however, when his company is not so agreeable, though
equally unexpected; such as when the lady has invited one or two
particular friends to tea and scandal, and he happens to come home in
the very midst of their diversion. It is a hundred chances to one that
he remains in the house half an hour, but the lady is rather disturbed
by the intrusion, notwithstanding, and reasons within herself,—‘I am
sure I never interfere with him, and why should he interfere with me?
It can scarcely be accidental; it never happens that I have a
particular reason for not wishing him to come home, but he always
comes. It’s very provoking and tiresome; and I am sure when he leaves
me so much alone for his own pleasure, the least he could do would be
to do as much for mine.’ Observing what passes in her mind, the
gentleman, who has come home for his own accommodation, makes a merit
of it with himself; arrives at the conclusion that it is the very last
place in which he can hope to be comfortable; and determines, as he
takes up his hat and cane, never to be so virtuous again.
Thus a great many cool couples go on until they are cold couples, and
the grave has closed over their folly and indifference. Loss of name,
station, character, life itself, has ensued from causes as slight as
these, before now; and when gossips tell such tales, and aggravate
their deformities, they elevate their hands and eyebrows, and call each
other to witness what a cool couple Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so always were,
even in the best of times.
THE PLAUSIBLE COUPLE
The plausible couple have many titles. They are ‘a delightful couple,’
an ‘affectionate couple,’ ‘a most agreeable couple, ‘a good-hearted
couple,’ and ‘the best-natured couple in existence.’ The truth is, that
the plausible couple are people of the world; and either the way of
pleasing the world has grown much easier than it was in the days of the
old man and his ass, or the old man was but a bad hand at it, and knew
very little of the trade.
‘But is it really possible to please the world!’ says some doubting
reader. It is indeed. Nay, it is not only very possible, but very easy.
The ways are crooked, and sometimes foul and low. What then? A man need
but crawl upon his hands and knees, know when to close his eyes and
when his ears, when to stoop and when to stand upright; and if by the
world is meant that atom of it in which he moves himself, he shall
please it, never fear.
Now, it will be readily seen, that if a plausible man or woman have an
easy means of pleasing the world by an adaptation of self to all its
twistings and twinings, a plausible man _and_ woman, or, in other
words, a plausible couple, playing into each other’s hands, and acting
in concert, have a manifest advantage. Hence it is that plausible
couples scarcely ever fail of success on a pretty large scale; and
hence it is that if the reader, laying down this unwieldy volume at the
next full stop, will have the goodness to review his or her circle of
acquaintance, and to search particularly for some man and wife with a
large connexion and a good name, not easily referable to their
abilities or their wealth, he or she (that is, the male or female
reader) will certainly find that gentleman or lady, on a very short
reflection, to be a plausible couple.
The plausible couple are the most ecstatic people living: the most
sensitive people—to merit—on the face of the earth. Nothing clever or
virtuous escapes them. They have microscopic eyes for such endowments,
and can find them anywhere. The plausible couple never fawn—oh no! They
don’t even scruple to tell their friends of their faults. One is too
generous, another too candid; a third has a tendency to think all
people like himself, and to regard mankind as a company of angels; a
fourth is kind-hearted to a fault. ‘We never flatter, my dear Mrs.
Jackson,’ say the plausible couple; ‘we speak our minds. Neither you
nor Mr. Jackson have faults enough. It may sound strangely, but it is
true. You have not faults enough. You know our way,—we must speak out,
and always do. Quarrel with us for saying so, if you will; but we
repeat it,—you have not faults enough!’
The plausible couple are no less plausible to each other than to third
parties. They are always loving and harmonious. The plausible gentleman
calls his wife ‘darling,’ and the plausible lady addresses him as
‘dearest.’ If it be Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger, Mrs. Widger is
‘Lavinia, darling,’ and Mr. Widger is ‘Bobtail, dearest.’ Speaking of
each other, they observe the same tender form. Mrs. Widger relates what
‘Bobtail’ said, and Mr. Widger recounts what ‘darling’ thought and did.
If you sit next to the plausible lady at a dinner-table, she takes the
earliest opportunity of expressing her belief that you are acquainted
with the Clickits; she is sure she has heard the Clickits speak of
you—she must not tell you in what terms, or you will take her for a
flatterer. You admit a knowledge of the Clickits; the plausible lady
immediately launches out in their praise. She quite loves the Clickits.
Were there ever such true-hearted, hospitable, excellent people—such a
gentle, interesting little woman as Mrs. Clickit, or such a frank,
unaffected creature as Mr. Clickit? were there ever two people, in
short, so little spoiled by the world as they are? ‘As who, darling?’
cries Mr. Widger, from the opposite side of the table. ‘The Clickits,
dearest,’ replies Mrs. Widger. ‘Indeed you are right, darling,’ Mr.
Widger rejoins; ‘the Clickits are a very high-minded, worthy, estimable
couple.’ Mrs. Widger remarking that Bobtail always grows quite eloquent
upon this subject, Mr. Widger admits that he feels very strongly
whenever such people as the Clickits and some other friends of his
(here he glances at the host and hostess) are mentioned; for they are
an honour to human nature, and do one good to think of. ‘_You_ know the
Clickits, Mrs. Jackson?’ he says, addressing the lady of the house.
‘No, indeed; we have not that pleasure,’ she replies. ‘You astonish
me!’ exclaims Mr. Widger: ‘not know the Clickits! why, you are the very
people of all others who ought to be their bosom friends. You are
kindred beings; you are one and the same thing:—not know the Clickits!
Now _will_ you know the Clickits? Will you make a point of knowing
them? Will you meet them in a friendly way at our house one evening,
and be acquainted with them?’ Mrs. Jackson will be quite delighted;
nothing would give her more pleasure. ‘Then, Lavinia, my darling,’ says
Mr. Widger, ‘mind you don’t lose sight of that; now, pray take care
that Mr. and Mrs. Jackson know the Clickits without loss of time. Such
people ought not to be strangers to each other.’ Mrs. Widger books both
families as the centre of attraction for her next party; and Mr.
Widger, going on to expatiate upon the virtues of the Clickits, adds to
their other moral qualities, that they keep one of the neatest phaetons
in town, and have two thousand a year.
As the plausible couple never laud the merits of any absent person,
without dexterously contriving that their praises shall reflect upon
somebody who is present, so they never depreciate anything or anybody,
without turning their depreciation to the same account. Their friend,
Mr. Slummery, say they, is unquestionably a clever painter, and would
no doubt be very popular, and sell his pictures at a very high price,
if that cruel Mr. Fithers had not forestalled him in his department of
art, and made it thoroughly and completely his own;—Fithers, it is to
be observed, being present and within hearing, and Slummery elsewhere.
Is Mrs. Tabblewick really as beautiful as people say? Why, there indeed
you ask them a very puzzling question, because there is no doubt that
she is a very charming woman, and they have long known her intimately.
She is no doubt beautiful, very beautiful; they once thought her the
most beautiful woman ever seen; still if you press them for an honest
answer, they are bound to say that this was before they had ever seen
our lovely friend on the sofa, (the sofa is hard by, and our lovely
friend can’t help hearing the whispers in which this is said;) since
that time, perhaps, they have been hardly fair judges; Mrs. Tabblewick
is no doubt extremely handsome,—very like our friend, in fact, in the
form of the features,—but in point of expression, and soul, and figure,
and air altogether—oh dear!
But while the plausible couple depreciate, they are still careful to
preserve their character for amiability and kind feeling; indeed the
depreciation itself is often made to grow out of their excessive
sympathy and good will. The plausible lady calls on a lady who dotes
upon her children, and is sitting with a little girl upon her knee,
enraptured by her artless replies, and protesting that there is nothing
she delights in so much as conversing with these fairies; when the
other lady inquires if she has seen young Mrs. Finching lately, and
whether the baby has turned out a finer one than it promised to be. ‘Oh
dear!’ cries the plausible lady, ‘you cannot think how often Bobtail
and I have talked about poor Mrs. Finching—she is such a dear soul, and
was so anxious that the baby should be a fine child—and very naturally,
because she was very much here at one time, and there is, you know, a
natural emulation among mothers—that it is impossible to tell you how
much we have felt for her.’ ‘Is it weak or plain, or what?’ inquires
the other. ‘Weak or plain, my love,’ returns the plausible lady, ‘it’s
a fright—a perfect little fright; you never saw such a miserable
creature in all your days. Positively you must not let her see one of
these beautiful dears again, or you’ll break her heart, you will
indeed.—Heaven bless this child, see how she is looking in my face! can
you conceive anything prettier than that? If poor Mrs. Finching could
only hope—but that’s impossible—and the gifts of Providence, you
know—What _did_ I do with my pocket-handkerchief!’
What prompts the mother, who dotes upon her children, to comment to her
lord that evening on the plausible lady’s engaging qualities and
feeling heart, and what is it that procures Mr. and Mrs. Bobtail Widger
an immediate invitation to dinner?
THE NICE LITTLE COUPLE
A custom once prevailed in old-fashioned circles, that when a lady or
gentleman was unable to sing a song, he or she should enliven the
company with a story. As we find ourself in the predicament of not
being able to describe (to our own satisfaction) nice little couples in
the abstract, we purpose telling in this place a little story about a
nice little couple of our acquaintance.
Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in question. Mr.
Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner of
a small bird. Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women, and
has the prettiest little figure conceivable. She has the neatest little
foot, and the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little smile,
and the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes, and the
quietest little manner, and is, in short, altogether one of the most
engaging of all little women, dead or alive. She is a condensation of
all the domestic virtues,—a pocket edition of the young man’s best
companion,—a little woman at a very high pressure, with an amazing
quantity of goodness and usefulness in an exceedingly small space.
Little as she is, Mrs. Chirrup might furnish forth matter for the moral
equipment of a score of housewives, six feet high in their
stockings—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed the
expression—and of corresponding robustness.
Nobody knows all this better than Mr. Chirrup, though he rather takes
on that he don’t. Accordingly he is very proud of his better-half, and
evidently considers himself, as all other people consider him, rather
fortunate in having her to wife. We say evidently, because Mr. Chirrup
is a warm-hearted little fellow; and if you catch his eye when he has
been slyly glancing at Mrs. Chirrup in company, there is a certain
complacent twinkle in it, accompanied, perhaps, by a half-expressed
toss of the head, which as clearly indicates what has been passing in
his mind as if he had put it into words, and shouted it out through a
speaking-trumpet. Moreover, Mr. Chirrup has a particularly mild and
bird-like manner of calling Mrs. Chirrup ‘my dear;’ and—for he is of a
jocose turn—of cutting little witticisms upon her, and making her the
subject of various harmless pleasantries, which nobody enjoys more
thoroughly than Mrs. Chirrup herself. Mr. Chirrup, too, now and then
affects to deplore his bachelor-days, and to bemoan (with a
marvellously contented and smirking face) the loss of his freedom, and
the sorrow of his heart at having been taken captive by Mrs.
Chirrup—all of which circumstances combine to show the secret triumph
and satisfaction of Mr. Chirrup’s soul.
We have already had occasion to observe that Mrs. Chirrup is an
incomparable housewife. In all the arts of domestic arrangement and
management, in all the mysteries of confectionery-making, pickling, and
preserving, never was such a thorough adept as that nice little body.
She is, besides, a cunning worker in muslin and fine linen, and a
special hand at marketing to the very best advantage. But if there be
one branch of housekeeping in which she excels to an utterly
unparalleled and unprecedented extent, it is in the important one of
carving. A roast goose is universally allowed to be the great
stumbling-block in the way of young aspirants to perfection in this
department of science; many promising carvers, beginning with legs of
mutton, and preserving a good reputation through fillets of veal,
sirloins of beef, quarters of lamb, fowls, and even ducks, have sunk
before a roast goose, and lost caste and character for ever. To Mrs.
Chirrup the resolving a goose into its smallest component parts is a
pleasant pastime—a practical joke—a thing to be done in a minute or so,
without the smallest interruption to the conversation of the time. No
handing the dish over to an unfortunate man upon her right or left, no
wild sharpening of the knife, no hacking and sawing at an unruly joint,
no noise, no splash, no heat, no leaving off in despair; all is
confidence and cheerfulness. The dish is set upon the table, the cover
is removed; for an instant, and only an instant, you observe that Mrs.
Chirrup’s attention is distracted; she smiles, but heareth not. You
proceed with your story; meanwhile the glittering knife is slowly
upraised, both Mrs. Chirrup’s wrists are slightly but not ungracefully
agitated, she compresses her lips for an instant, then breaks into a
smile, and all is over. The legs of the bird slide gently down into a
pool of gravy, the wings seem to melt from the body, the breast
separates into a row of juicy slices, the smaller and more complicated
parts of his anatomy are perfectly developed, a cavern of stuffing is
revealed, and the goose is gone!
To dine with Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup is one of the pleasantest things in
the world. Mr. Chirrup has a bachelor friend, who lived with him in his
own days of single blessedness, and to whom he is mightily attached.
Contrary to the usual custom, this bachelor friend is no less a friend
of Mrs. Chirrup’s, and, consequently, whenever you dine with Mr. and
Mrs. Chirrup, you meet the bachelor friend. It would put any
reasonably-conditioned mortal into good-humour to observe the entire
unanimity which subsists between these three; but there is a quiet
welcome dimpling in Mrs. Chirrup’s face, a bustling hospitality oozing
as it were out of the waistcoat-pockets of Mr. Chirrup, and a
patronising enjoyment of their cordiality and satisfaction on the part
of the bachelor friend, which is quite delightful. On these occasions
Mr. Chirrup usually takes an opportunity of rallying the friend on
being single, and the friend retorts on Mr. Chirrup for being married,
at which moments some single young ladies present are like to die of
laughter; and we have more than once observed them bestow looks upon
the friend, which convinces us that his position is by no means a safe
one, as, indeed, we hold no bachelor’s to be who visits married friends
and cracks jokes on wedlock, for certain it is that such men walk among
traps and nets and pitfalls innumerable, and often find themselves down
upon their knees at the altar rails, taking M. or N. for their wedded
wives, before they know anything about the matter.
However, this is no business of Mr. Chirrup’s, who talks, and laughs,
and drinks his wine, and laughs again, and talks more, until it is time
to repair to the drawing-room, where, coffee served and over, Mrs.
Chirrup prepares for a round game, by sorting the nicest possible
little fish into the nicest possible little pools, and calling Mr.
Chirrup to assist her, which Mr. Chirrup does. As they stand side by
side, you find that Mr. Chirrup is the least possible shadow of a shade
taller than Mrs. Chirrup, and that they are the neatest and
best-matched little couple that can be, which the chances are ten to
one against your observing with such effect at any other time, unless
you see them in the street arm-in-arm, or meet them some rainy day
trotting along under a very small umbrella. The round game (at which
Mr. Chirrup is the merriest of the party) being done and over, in
course of time a nice little tray appears, on which is a nice little
supper; and when that is finished likewise, and you have said ‘Good
night,’ you find yourself repeating a dozen times, as you ride home,
that there never was such a nice little couple as Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup.
Whether it is that pleasant qualities, being packed more closely in
small bodies than in large, come more readily to hand than when they
are diffused over a wider space, and have to be gathered together for
use, we don’t know, but as a general rule,—strengthened like all other
rules by its exceptions,—we hold that little people are sprightly and
good-natured. The more sprightly and good-natured people we have, the
better; therefore, let us wish well to all nice little couples, and
hope that they may increase and multiply.
THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE
Egotism in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by
two examples.
The egotistical couple may be young, old, middle-aged, well to do, or
ill to do; they may have a small family, a large family, or no family
at all. There is no outward sign by which an egotistical couple may be
known and avoided. They come upon you unawares; there is no guarding
against them. No man can of himself be forewarned or forearmed against
an egotistical couple.
The egotistical couple have undergone every calamity, and experienced
every pleasurable and painful sensation of which our nature is
susceptible. You cannot by possibility tell the egotistical couple
anything they don’t know, or describe to them anything they have not
felt. They have been everything but dead. Sometimes we are tempted to
wish they had been even that, but only in our uncharitable moments,
which are few and far between.
We happened the other day, in the course of a morning call, to
encounter an egotistical couple, nor were we suffered to remain long in
ignorance of the fact, for our very first inquiry of the lady of the
house brought them into active and vigorous operation. The inquiry was
of course touching the lady’s health, and the answer happened to be,
that she had not been very well. ‘Oh, my dear!’ said the egotistical
lady, ‘don’t talk of not being well. We have been in _such_ a state
since we saw you last!’—The lady of the house happening to remark that
her lord had not been well either, the egotistical gentleman struck in:
‘Never let Briggs complain of not being well—never let Briggs complain,
my dear Mrs. Briggs, after what I have undergone within these six
weeks. He doesn’t know what it is to be ill, he hasn’t the least idea
of it; not the faintest conception.’—‘My dear,’ interposed his wife
smiling, ‘you talk as if it were almost a crime in Mr. Briggs not to
have been as ill as we have been, instead of feeling thankful to
Providence that both he and our dear Mrs. Briggs are in such blissful
ignorance of real suffering.’—‘My love,’ returned the egotistical
gentleman, in a low and pious voice, ‘you mistake me;—I feel
grateful—very grateful. I trust our friends may never purchase their
experience as dearly as we have bought ours; I hope they never may!’
Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the question
thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few
preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he
had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the
Dowager Lady Snorflerer. On our replying in the negative, he presumed
we had often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on
intimate terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog. Finding that we were equally
unable to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great
astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile,
inquired who it was that had told that capital story about the mashed
potatoes. ‘Who, my dear?’ returned the egotistical lady, ‘why Sir
Chipkins, of course; how can you ask! Don’t you remember his applying
it to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like the Prince and
Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?’ ‘To be sure, I
remember that,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘but are you quite
certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of
Austria and the pump?’ ‘Upon my word then, I think it did,’ replied his
wife. ‘To be sure it did,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘it was
Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.’ However, it turned out, a
few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’s memory was
rather treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had
been told by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined
there; but there appearing, on further consideration, strong
circumstantial evidence tending to show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch
as the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in question,
wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the egotistical gentleman
recanted this opinion; and after laying the story at the doors of a
great many great people, happily left it at last with the Duke of
Scuttlewig:—observing that it was not extraordinary he had forgotten
his Grace hitherto, as it often happened that the names of those with
whom we were upon the most familiar footing were the very last to
present themselves to our thoughts.
It not only appeared that the egotistical couple knew everybody, but
that scarcely any event of importance or notoriety had occurred for
many years with which they had not been in some way or other connected.
Thus we learned that when the well-known attempt upon the life of
George the Third was made by Hatfield in Drury Lane theatre, the
egotistical gentleman’s grandfather sat upon his right hand and was the
first man who collared him; and that the egotistical lady’s aunt,
sitting within a few boxes of the royal party, was the only person in
the audience who heard his Majesty exclaim, ‘Charlotte, Charlotte,
don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened; they’re letting off squibs,
they’re letting off squibs.’ When the fire broke out, which ended in
the destruction of the two Houses of Parliament, the egotistical
couple, being at the time at a drawing-room window on Blackheath, then
and there simultaneously exclaimed, to the astonishment of a whole
party—‘It’s the House of Lords!’ Nor was this a solitary instance of
their peculiar discernment, for chancing to be (as by a comparison of
dates and circumstances they afterwards found) in the same omnibus with
Mr. Greenacre, when he carried his victim’s head about town in a blue
bag, they both remarked a singular twitching in the muscles of his
countenance; and walking down Fish Street Hill, a few weeks since, the
egotistical gentleman said to his lady—slightly casting up his eyes to
the top of the Monument—‘There’s a boy up there, my dear, reading a
Bible. It’s very strange. I don’t like it.—In five seconds afterwards,
Sir,’ says the egotistical gentleman, bringing his hands together with
one violent clap—‘the lad was over!’
Diversifying these topics by the introduction of many others of the
same kind, and entertaining us between whiles with a minute account of
what weather and diet agreed with them, and what weather and diet
disagreed with them, and at what time they usually got up, and at what
time went to bed, with many other particulars of their domestic economy
too numerous to mention; the egotistical couple at length took their
leave, and afforded us an opportunity of doing the same.
Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone are an egotistical couple of another class,
for all the lady’s egotism is about her husband, and all the
gentleman’s about his wife. For example:—Mr. Sliverstone is a clerical
gentleman, and occasionally writes sermons, as clerical gentlemen do.
If you happen to obtain admission at the street-door while he is so
engaged, Mrs. Sliverstone appears on tip-toe, and speaking in a solemn
whisper, as if there were at least three or four particular friends
up-stairs, all upon the point of death, implores you to be very silent,
for Mr. Sliverstone is composing, and she need not say how very
important it is that he should not be disturbed. Unwilling to interrupt
anything so serious, you hasten to withdraw, with many apologies; but
this Mrs. Sliverstone will by no means allow, observing, that she knows
you would like to see him, as it is very natural you should, and that
she is determined to make a trial for you, as you are a great
favourite. So you are led up-stairs—still on tip-toe—to the door of a
little back room, in which, as the lady informs you in a whisper, Mr.
Sliverstone always writes. No answer being returned to a couple of soft
taps, the lady opens the door, and there, sure enough, is Mr.
Sliverstone, with dishevelled hair, powdering away with pen, ink, and
paper, at a rate which, if he has any power of sustaining it, would
settle the longest sermon in no time. At first he is too much absorbed
to be roused by this intrusion; but presently looking up, says faintly,
‘Ah!’ and pointing to his desk with a weary and languid smile, extends
his hand, and hopes you’ll forgive him. Then Mrs. Sliverstone sits down
beside him, and taking his hand in hers, tells you how that Mr.
Sliverstone has been shut up there ever since nine o’clock in the
morning, (it is by this time twelve at noon,) and how she knows it
cannot be good for his health, and is very uneasy about it. Unto this
Mr. Sliverstone replies firmly, that ‘It must be done;’ which agonizes
Mrs. Sliverstone still more, and she goes on to tell you that such were
Mr. Sliverstone’s labours last week—what with the buryings, marryings,
churchings, christenings, and all together,—that when he was going up
the pulpit stairs on Sunday evening, he was obliged to hold on by the
rails, or he would certainly have fallen over into his own pew. Mr.
Sliverstone, who has been listening and smiling meekly, says, ‘Not
quite so bad as that, not quite so bad!’ he admits though, on
cross-examination, that he _was_ very near falling upon the verger who
was following him up to bolt the door; but adds, that it was his duty
as a Christian to fall upon him, if need were, and that he, Mr.
Sliverstone, and (possibly the verger too) ought to glory in it.
This sentiment communicates new impulse to Mrs. Sliverstone, who
launches into new praises of Mr. Sliverstone’s worth and excellence, to
which he listens in the same meek silence, save when he puts in a word
of self-denial relative to some question of fact, as—‘Not seventy-two
christenings that week, my dear. Only seventy-one, only seventy-one.’
At length his lady has quite concluded, and then he says, Why should he
repine, why should he give way, why should he suffer his heart to sink
within him? Is it he alone who toils and suffers? What has she gone
through, he should like to know? What does she go through every day for
him and for society?
With such an exordium Mr. Sliverstone launches out into glowing praises
of the conduct of Mrs. Sliverstone in the production of eight young
children, and the subsequent rearing and fostering of the same; and
thus the husband magnifies the wife, and the wife the husband.
This would be well enough if Mr. and Mrs. Sliverstone kept it to
themselves, or even to themselves and a friend or two; but they do not.
The more hearers they have, the more egotistical the couple become, and
the more anxious they are to make believers in their merits. Perhaps
this is the worst kind of egotism. It has not even the poor excuse of
being spontaneous, but is the result of a deliberate system and malice
aforethought. Mere empty-headed conceit excites our pity, but
ostentatious hypocrisy awakens our disgust.
THE COUPLE WHO CODDLE THEMSELVES
Mrs. Merrywinkle’s maiden name was Chopper. She was the only child of
Mr. and Mrs. Chopper. Her father died when she was, as the play-books
express it, ‘yet an infant;’ and so old Mrs. Chopper, when her daughter
married, made the house of her son-in-law her home from that time
henceforth, and set up her staff of rest with Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle.
Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle are a couple who coddle themselves; and the
venerable Mrs. Chopper is an aider and abettor in the same.
Mr. Merrywinkle is a rather lean and long-necked gentleman, middle-aged
and middle-sized, and usually troubled with a cold in the head. Mrs.
Merrywinkle is a delicate-looking lady, with very light hair, and is
exceedingly subject to the same unpleasant disorder. The venerable Mrs.
Chopper—who is strictly entitled to the appellation, her daughter not
being very young, otherwise than by courtesy, at the time of her
marriage, which was some years ago—is a mysterious old lady who lurks
behind a pair of spectacles, and is afflicted with a chronic disease,
respecting which she has taken a vast deal of medical advice, and
referred to a vast number of medical books, without meeting any
definition of symptoms that at all suits her, or enables her to say,
‘That’s my complaint.’ Indeed, the absence of authentic information
upon the subject of this complaint would seem to be Mrs. Chopper’s
greatest ill, as in all other respects she is an uncommonly hale and
hearty gentlewoman.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity of flannel,
and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural
extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds,
and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated
spirits and other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism,
or lumbago.
Mr. Merrywinkle’s leaving home to go to business on a damp or wet
morning is a very elaborate affair. He puts on wash-leather socks over
his stockings, and India-rubber shoes above his boots, and wears under
his waistcoat a cuirass of hare-skin. Besides these precautions, he
winds a thick shawl round his throat, and blocks up his mouth with a
large silk handkerchief. Thus accoutred, and furnished besides with a
great-coat and umbrella, he braves the dangers of the streets;
travelling in severe weather at a gentle trot, the better to preserve
the circulation, and bringing his mouth to the surface to take breath,
but very seldom, and with the utmost caution. His office-door opened,
he shoots past his clerk at the same pace, and diving into his own
private room, closes the door, examines the window-fastenings, and
gradually unrobes himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the
fender to air, and determining to write to the newspapers about the
fog, which, he says, ‘has really got to that pitch that it is quite
unbearable.’
In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected mother fully
concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues are occupied
with the same subject, which is their constant theme all day. If
anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that they must
assuredly be mad, and her first salutation is, ‘Why, what in the name
of goodness can bring you out in such weather? You know you _must_
catch your death.’ This assurance is corroborated by Mrs. Chopper, who
adds, in further confirmation, a dismal legend concerning an individual
of her acquaintance who, making a call under precisely parallel
circumstances, and being then in the best health and spirits, expired
in forty-eight hours afterwards, of a complication of inflammatory
disorders. The visitor, rendered not altogether comfortable perhaps by
this and other precedents, inquires very affectionately after Mr.
Merrywinkle, but by so doing brings about no change of the subject; for
Mr. Merrywinkle’s name is inseparably connected with his complaints,
and his complaints are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle’s;
and when these are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her
time, cuts in with the chronic disorder—a subject upon which the
amiable old lady never leaves off speaking until she is left alone, and
very often not then.
But Mr. Merrywinkle comes home to dinner. He is received by Mrs.
Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper, who, on his remarking that he thinks his
feet are damp, turn pale as ashes and drag him up-stairs, imploring him
to have them rubbed directly with a dry coarse towel. Rubbed they are,
one by Mrs. Merrywinkle and one by Mrs. Chopper, until the friction
causes Mr. Merrywinkle to make horrible faces, and look as if he had
been smelling very powerful onions; when they desist, and the patient,
provided for his better security with thick worsted stockings and list
slippers, is borne down-stairs to dinner. Now, the dinner is always a
good one, the appetites of the diners being delicate, and requiring a
little of what Mrs. Merrywinkle calls ‘tittivation;’ the secret of
which is understood to lie in good cookery and tasteful spices, and
which process is so successfully performed in the present instance,
that both Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle eat a remarkably good dinner, and
even the afflicted Mrs. Chopper wields her knife and fork with much of
the spirit and elasticity of youth. But Mr. Merrywinkle, in his desire
to gratify his appetite, is not unmindful of his health, for he has a
bottle of carbonate of soda with which to qualify his porter, and a
little pair of scales in which to weigh it out. Neither in his anxiety
to take care of his body is he unmindful of the welfare of his immortal
part, as he always prays that for what he is going to receive he may be
made truly thankful; and in order that he may be as thankful as
possible, eats and drinks to the utmost.
Either from eating and drinking so much, or from being the victim of
this constitutional infirmity, among others, Mr. Merrywinkle, after two
or three glasses of wine, falls fast asleep; and he has scarcely closed
his eyes, when Mrs. Merrywinkle and Mrs. Chopper fall asleep likewise.
It is on awakening at tea-time that their most alarming symptoms
prevail; for then Mr. Merrywinkle feels as if his temples were tightly
bound round with the chain of the street-door, and Mrs. Merrywinkle as
if she had made a hearty dinner of half-hundredweights, and Mrs.
Chopper as if cold water were running down her back, and oyster-knives
with sharp points were plunging of their own accord into her ribs.
Symptoms like these are enough to make people peevish, and no wonder
that they remain so until supper-time, doing little more than doze and
complain, unless Mr. Merrywinkle calls out very loudly to a servant ‘to
keep that draught out,’ or rushes into the passage to flourish his fist
in the countenance of the twopenny-postman, for daring to give such a
knock as he had just performed at the door of a private gentleman with
nerves.
Supper, coming after dinner, should consist of some gentle provocative;
and therefore the tittivating art is again in requisition, and
again—done honour to by Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, still comforted and
abetted by Mrs. Chopper. After supper, it is ten to one but the
last-named old lady becomes worse, and is led off to bed with the
chronic complaint in full vigour. Mr. and Mrs. Merrywinkle, having
administered to her a warm cordial, which is something of the
strongest, then repair to their own room, where Mr. Merrywinkle, with
his legs and feet in hot water, superintends the mulling of some wine
which he is to drink at the very moment he plunges into bed, while Mrs.
Merrywinkle, in garments whose nature is unknown to and unimagined by
all but married men, takes four small pills with a spasmodic look
between each, and finally comes to something hot and fragrant out of
another little saucepan, which serves as her composing-draught for the
night.
There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who do so at
a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are niggardly and
parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough to coddle their
visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them, for our readers may
rest assured of the accuracy of these general principles:—that all
couples who coddle themselves are selfish and slothful,—that they
charge upon every wind that blows, every rain that falls, and every
vapour that hangs in the air, the evils which arise from their own
imprudence or the gloom which is engendered in their own tempers,—and
that all men and women, in couples or otherwise, who fall into
exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and forget their natural sympathy
and close connexion with everybody and everything in the world around
them, not only neglect the first duty of life, but, by a happy
retributive justice, deprive themselves of its truest and best
enjoyment.
THE OLD COUPLE
They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and have
great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair is grey,
their step tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome pair whose
wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed grown old so
soon!
It seems but yesterday—and yet what a host of cares and griefs are
crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them, lengthens
out into a century! How many new associations have wreathed themselves
about their hearts since then! The old time is gone, and a new time has
come for others—not for them. They are but the rusting link that feebly
joins the two, and is silently loosening its hold and dropping asunder.
It seems but yesterday—and yet three of their children have sunk into
the grave, and the tree that shades it has grown quite old. One was an
infant—they wept for him; the next a girl, a slight young thing too
delicate for earth—her loss was hard indeed to bear. The third, a man.
That was the worst of all, but even that grief is softened now.
It seems but yesterday—and yet how the gay and laughing faces of that
bright morning have changed and vanished from above ground! Faint
likenesses of some remain about them yet, but they are very faint and
scarcely to be traced. The rest are only seen in dreams, and even they
are unlike what they were, in eyes so old and dim.
One or two dresses from the bridal wardrobe are yet preserved. They are
of a quaint and antique fashion, and seldom seen except in pictures.
White has turned yellow, and brighter hues have faded. Do you wonder,
child? The wrinkled face was once as smooth as yours, the eyes as
bright, the shrivelled skin as fair and delicate. It is the work of
hands that have been dust these many years.
Where are the fairy lovers of that happy day whose annual return comes
upon the old man and his wife, like the echo of some village bell which
has long been silent? Let yonder peevish bachelor, racked by rheumatic
pains, and quarrelling with the world, let him answer to the question.
He recollects something of a favourite playmate; her name was Lucy—so
they tell him. He is not sure whether she was married, or went abroad,
or died. It is a long while ago, and he don’t remember.
Is nothing as it used to be; does no one feel, or think, or act, as in
days of yore? Yes. There is an aged woman who once lived servant with
the old lady’s father, and is sheltered in an alms-house not far off.
She is still attached to the family, and loves them all; she nursed the
children in her lap, and tended in their sickness those who are no
more. Her old mistress has still something of youth in her eyes; the
young ladies are like what she was but not quite so handsome, nor are
the gentlemen as stately as Mr. Harvey used to be. She has seen a great
deal of trouble; her husband and her son died long ago; but she has got
over that, and is happy now—quite happy.
If ever her attachment to her old protectors were disturbed by fresher
cares and hopes, it has long since resumed its former current. It has
filled the void in the poor creature’s heart, and replaced the love of
kindred. Death has not left her alone, and this, with a roof above her
head, and a warm hearth to sit by, makes her cheerful and contented.
Does she remember the marriage of great-grandmamma? Ay, that she does,
as well—as if it was only yesterday. You wouldn’t think it to look at
her now, and perhaps she ought not to say so of herself, but she was as
smart a young girl then as you’d wish to see. She recollects she took a
friend of hers up-stairs to see Miss Emma dressed for church; her name
was—ah! she forgets the name, but she remembers that she was a very
pretty girl, and that she married not long afterwards, and lived—it has
quite passed out of her mind where she lived, but she knows she had a
bad husband who used her ill, and that she died in Lambeth work-house.
Dear, dear, in Lambeth workhouse!
And the old couple—have they no comfort or enjoyment of existence? See
them among their grandchildren and great-grandchildren; how garrulous
they are, how they compare one with another, and insist on likenesses
which no one else can see; how gently the old lady lectures the girls
on points of breeding and decorum, and points the moral by anecdotes of
herself in her young days—how the old gentleman chuckles over boyish
feats and roguish tricks, and tells long stories of a ‘barring-out’
achieved at the school he went to: which was very wrong, he tells the
boys, and never to be imitated of course, but which he cannot help
letting them know was very pleasant too—especially when he kissed the
master’s niece. This last, however, is a point on which the old lady is
very tender, for she considers it a shocking and indelicate thing to
talk about, and always says so whenever it is mentioned, never failing
to observe that he ought to be very penitent for having been so sinful.
So the old gentleman gets no further, and what the schoolmaster’s niece
said afterwards (which he is always going to tell) is lost to
posterity.
The old gentleman is eighty years old, to-day—‘Eighty years old,
Crofts, and never had a headache,’ he tells the barber who shaves him
(the barber being a young fellow, and very subject to that complaint).
‘That’s a great age, Crofts,’ says the old gentleman. ‘I don’t think
it’s sich a wery great age, Sir,’ replied the barber. ‘Crofts,’ rejoins
the old gentleman, ‘you’re talking nonsense to me. Eighty not a great
age?’ ‘It’s a wery great age, Sir, for a gentleman to be as healthy and
active as you are,’ returns the barber; ‘but my grandfather, Sir, he
was ninety-four.’ ‘You don’t mean that, Crofts?’ says the old
gentleman. ‘I do indeed, Sir,’ retorts the barber, ‘and as wiggerous as
Julius Caesar, my grandfather was.’ The old gentleman muses a little
time, and then says, ‘What did he die of, Crofts?’ ‘He died
accidentally, Sir,’ returns the barber; ‘he didn’t mean to do it. He
always would go a running about the streets—walking never satisfied
_his_ spirit—and he run against a post and died of a hurt in his
chest.’ The old gentleman says no more until the shaving is concluded,
and then he gives Crofts half-a-crown to drink his health. He is a
little doubtful of the barber’s veracity afterwards, and telling the
anecdote to the old lady, affects to make very light of it—though to be
sure (he adds) there was old Parr, and in some parts of England,
ninety-five or so is a common age, quite a common age.
This morning the old couple are cheerful but serious, recalling old
times as well as they can remember them, and dwelling upon many
passages in their past lives which the day brings to mind. The old lady
reads aloud, in a tremulous voice, out of a great Bible, and the old
gentleman with his hand to his ear, listens with profound respect. When
the book is closed, they sit silent for a short space, and afterwards
resume their conversation, with a reference perhaps to their dead
children, as a subject not unsuited to that they have just left. By
degrees they are led to consider which of those who survive are the
most like those dearly-remembered objects, and so they fall into a less
solemn strain, and become cheerful again.
How many people in all, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and one or
two intimate friends of the family, dine together to-day at the eldest
son’s to congratulate the old couple, and wish them many happy returns,
is a calculation beyond our powers; but this we know, that the old
couple no sooner present themselves, very sprucely and carefully
attired, than there is a violent shouting and rushing forward of the
younger branches with all manner of presents, such as pocket-books,
pencil-cases, pen-wipers, watch-papers, pin-cushions, sleeve-buckles,
worked-slippers, watch-guards, and even a nutmeg-grater: the latter
article being presented by a very chubby and very little boy, who
exhibits it in great triumph as an extraordinary variety. The old
couple’s emotion at these tokens of remembrance occasions quite a
pathetic scene, of which the chief ingredients are a vast quantity of
kissing and hugging, and repeated wipings of small eyes and noses with
small square pocket-handkerchiefs, which don’t come at all easily out
of small pockets. Even the peevish bachelor is moved, and he says, as
he presents the old gentleman with a queer sort of antique ring from
his own finger, that he’ll be de’ed if he doesn’t think he looks
younger than he did ten years ago.
But the great time is after dinner, when the dessert and wine are on
the table, which is pushed back to make plenty of room, and they are
all gathered in a large circle round the fire, for it is then—the
glasses being filled, and everybody ready to drink the toast—that two
great-grandchildren rush out at a given signal, and presently return,
dragging in old Jane Adams leaning upon her crutched stick, and
trembling with age and pleasure. Who so popular as poor old Jane, nurse
and story-teller in ordinary to two generations; and who so happy as
she, striving to bend her stiff limbs into a curtsey, while tears of
pleasure steal down her withered cheeks!
The old couple sit side by side, and the old time seems like yesterday
indeed. Looking back upon the path they have travelled, its dust and
ashes disappear; the flowers that withered long ago, show brightly
again upon its borders, and they grow young once more in the youth of
those about them.
CONCLUSION
We have taken for the subjects of the foregoing moral essays, twelve
samples of married couples, carefully selected from a large stock on
hand, open to the inspection of all comers. These samples are intended
for the benefit of the rising generation of both sexes, and, for their
more easy and pleasant information, have been separately ticketed and
labelled in the manner they have seen.
We have purposely excluded from consideration the couple in which the
lady reigns paramount and supreme, holding such cases to be of a very
unnatural kind, and like hideous births and other monstrous
deformities, only to be discreetly and sparingly exhibited.
And here our self-imposed task would have ended, but that to those
young ladies and gentlemen who are yet revolving singly round the
church, awaiting the advent of that time when the mysterious laws of
attraction shall draw them towards it in couples, we are desirous of
addressing a few last words.
Before marriage and afterwards, let them learn to centre all their
hopes of real and lasting happiness in their own fireside; let them
cherish the faith that in home, and all the English virtues which the
love of home engenders, lies the only true source of domestic felicity;
let them believe that round the household gods, contentment and
tranquillity cluster in their gentlest and most graceful forms; and
that many weary hunters of happiness through the noisy world, have
learnt this truth too late, and found a cheerful spirit and a quiet
mind only at home at last.
How much may depend on the education of daughters and the conduct of
mothers; how much of the brightest part of our old national character
may be perpetuated by their wisdom or frittered away by their folly—how
much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger of
vanishing every day—are questions too weighty for discussion here, but
well deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples
nevertheless.
To that one young couple on whose bright destiny the thoughts of
nations are fixed, may the youth of England look, and not in vain, for
an example. From that one young couple, blessed and favoured as they
are, may they learn that even the glare and glitter of a court, the
splendour of a palace, and the pomp and glory of a throne, yield in
their power of conferring happiness, to domestic worth and virtue. From
that one young couple may they learn that the crown of a great empire,
costly and jewelled though it be, gives place in the estimation of a
Queen to the plain gold ring that links her woman’s nature to that of
tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in her woman’s
heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast shall be
that it knows no Royalty save Nature’s own, and no pride of birth but
being the child of heaven!
So shall the highest young couple in the land for once hear the truth,
when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving shouts—
God bless them.
THE MUDFOG AND OTHER SKETCHES
PUBLIC LIFE OF MR. TULRUMBLE—ONCE MAYOR OF MUDFOG
Mudfog is a pleasant town—a remarkably pleasant town—situated in a
charming hollow by the side of a river, from which river, Mudfog
derives an agreeable scent of pitch, tar, coals, and rope-yarn, a
roving population in oilskin hats, a pretty steady influx of drunken
bargemen, and a great many other maritime advantages. There is a good
deal of water about Mudfog, and yet it is not exactly the sort of town
for a watering-place, either. Water is a perverse sort of element at
the best of times, and in Mudfog it is particularly so. In winter, it
comes oozing down the streets and tumbling over the fields,—nay, rushes
into the very cellars and kitchens of the houses, with a lavish
prodigality that might well be dispensed with; but in the hot summer
weather it _will_ dry up, and turn green: and, although green is a very
good colour in its way, especially in grass, still it certainly is not
becoming to water; and it cannot be denied that the beauty of Mudfog is
rather impaired, even by this trifling circumstance. Mudfog is a
healthy place—very healthy;—damp, perhaps, but none the worse for that.
It’s quite a mistake to suppose that damp is unwholesome: plants thrive
best in damp situations, and why shouldn’t men? The inhabitants of
Mudfog are unanimous in asserting that there exists not a finer race of
people on the face of the earth; here we have an indisputable and
veracious contradiction of the vulgar error at once. So, admitting
Mudfog to be damp, we distinctly state that it is salubrious.
The town of Mudfog is extremely picturesque. Limehouse and Ratcliff
Highway are both something like it, but they give you a very faint idea
of Mudfog. There are a great many more public-houses in Mudfog—more
than in Ratcliff Highway and Limehouse put together. The public
buildings, too, are very imposing. We consider the town-hall one of the
finest specimens of shed architecture, extant: it is a combination of
the pig-sty and tea-garden-box orders; and the simplicity of its design
is of surpassing beauty. The idea of placing a large window on one side
of the door, and a small one on the other, is particularly happy. There
is a fine old Doric beauty, too, about the padlock and scraper, which
is strictly in keeping with the general effect.
In this room do the mayor and corporation of Mudfog assemble together
in solemn council for the public weal. Seated on the massive wooden
benches, which, with the table in the centre, form the only furniture
of the whitewashed apartment, the sage men of Mudfog spend hour after
hour in grave deliberation. Here they settle at what hour of the night
the public-houses shall be closed, at what hour of the morning they
shall be permitted to open, how soon it shall be lawful for people to
eat their dinner on church-days, and other great political questions;
and sometimes, long after silence has fallen on the town, and the
distant lights from the shops and houses have ceased to twinkle, like
far-off stars, to the sight of the boatmen on the river, the
illumination in the two unequal-sized windows of the town-hall, warns
the inhabitants of Mudfog that its little body of legislators, like a
larger and better-known body of the same genus, a great deal more
noisy, and not a whit more profound, are patriotically dozing away in
company, far into the night, for their country’s good.
Among this knot of sage and learned men, no one was so eminently
distinguished, during many years, for the quiet modesty of his
appearance and demeanour, as Nicholas Tulrumble, the well-known
coal-dealer. However exciting the subject of discussion, however
animated the tone of the debate, or however warm the personalities
exchanged, (and even in Mudfog we get personal sometimes,) Nicholas
Tulrumble was always the same. To say truth, Nicholas, being an
industrious man, and always up betimes, was apt to fall asleep when a
debate began, and to remain asleep till it was over, when he would wake
up very much refreshed, and give his vote with the greatest
complacency. The fact was, that Nicholas Tulrumble, knowing that
everybody there had made up his mind beforehand, considered the talking
as just a long botheration about nothing at all; and to the present
hour it remains a question, whether, on this point at all events,
Nicholas Tulrumble was not pretty near right.
Time, which strews a man’s head with silver, sometimes fills his
pockets with gold. As he gradually performed one good office for
Nicholas Tulrumble, he was obliging enough, not to omit the other.
Nicholas began life in a wooden tenement of four feet square, with a
capital of two and ninepence, and a stock in trade of three bushels and
a-half of coals, exclusive of the large lump which hung, by way of
sign-board, outside. Then he enlarged the shed, and kept a truck; then
he left the shed, and the truck too, and started a donkey and a Mrs.
Tulrumble; then he moved again and set up a cart; the cart was soon
afterwards exchanged for a waggon; and so he went on like his great
predecessor Whittington—only without a cat for a partner—increasing in
wealth and fame, until at last he gave up business altogether, and
retired with Mrs. Tulrumble and family to Mudfog Hall, which he had
himself erected, on something which he attempted to delude himself into
the belief was a hill, about a quarter of a mile distant from the town
of Mudfog.
About this time, it began to be murmured in Mudfog that Nicholas
Tulrumble was growing vain and haughty; that prosperity and success had
corrupted the simplicity of his manners, and tainted the natural
goodness of his heart; in short, that he was setting up for a public
character, and a great gentleman, and affected to look down upon his
old companions with compassion and contempt. Whether these reports were
at the time well-founded, or not, certain it is that Mrs. Tulrumble
very shortly afterwards started a four-wheel chaise, driven by a tall
postilion in a yellow cap,—that Mr. Tulrumble junior took to smoking
cigars, and calling the footman a ‘feller,’—and that Mr. Tulrumble from
that time forth, was no more seen in his old seat in the chimney-corner
of the Lighterman’s Arms at night. This looked bad; but, more than
this, it began to be observed that Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble attended the
corporation meetings more frequently than heretofore; and he no longer
went to sleep as he had done for so many years, but propped his eyelids
open with his two forefingers; that he read the newspapers by himself
at home; and that he was in the habit of indulging abroad in distant
and mysterious allusions to ‘masses of people,’ and ‘the property of
the country,’ and ‘productive power,’ and ‘the monied interest:’ all of
which denoted and proved that Nicholas Tulrumble was either mad, or
worse; and it puzzled the good people of Mudfog amazingly.
At length, about the middle of the month of October, Mr. Tulrumble and
family went up to London; the middle of October being, as Mrs.
Tulrumble informed her acquaintance in Mudfog, the very height of the
fashionable season.
Somehow or other, just about this time, despite the health-preserving
air of Mudfog, the Mayor died. It was a most extraordinary
circumstance; he had lived in Mudfog for eighty-five years. The
corporation didn’t understand it at all; indeed it was with great
difficulty that one old gentleman, who was a great stickler for forms,
was dissuaded from proposing a vote of censure on such unaccountable
conduct. Strange as it was, however, die he did, without taking the
slightest notice of the corporation; and the corporation were
imperatively called upon to elect his successor. So, they met for the
purpose; and being very full of Nicholas Tulrumble just then, and
Nicholas Tulrumble being a very important man, they elected him, and
wrote off to London by the very next post to acquaint Nicholas
Tulrumble with his new elevation.
Now, it being November time, and Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble being in the
capital, it fell out that he was present at the Lord Mayor’s show and
dinner, at sight of the glory and splendour whereof, he, Mr. Tulrumble,
was greatly mortified, inasmuch as the reflection would force itself on
his mind, that, had he been born in London instead of in Mudfog, he
might have been a Lord Mayor too, and have patronized the judges, and
been affable to the Lord Chancellor, and friendly with the Premier, and
coldly condescending to the Secretary to the Treasury, and have dined
with a flag behind his back, and done a great many other acts and deeds
which unto Lord Mayors of London peculiarly appertain. The more he
thought of the Lord Mayor, the more enviable a personage he seemed. To
be a King was all very well; but what was the King to the Lord Mayor!
When the King made a speech, everybody knew it was somebody else’s
writing; whereas here was the Lord Mayor, talking away for half an
hour-all out of his own head—amidst the enthusiastic applause of the
whole company, while it was notorious that the King might talk to his
parliament till he was black in the face without getting so much as a
single cheer. As all these reflections passed through the mind of Mr.
Nicholas Tulrumble, the Lord Mayor of London appeared to him the
greatest sovereign on the face of the earth, beating the Emperor of
Russia all to nothing, and leaving the Great Mogul immeasurably behind.
Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was pondering over these things, and inwardly
cursing the fate which had pitched his coal-shed in Mudfog, when the
letter of the corporation was put into his hand. A crimson flush
mantled over his face as he read it, for visions of brightness were
already dancing before his imagination.
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Tulrumble to his wife, ‘they have elected me, Mayor
of Mudfog.’
‘Lor-a-mussy!’ said Mrs. Tulrumble: ‘why what’s become of old Sniggs?’
‘The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,’ said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for
he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously designating a
gentleman who filled the high office of Mayor, as ‘Old Sniggs,’—‘The
late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead.’
The communication was very unexpected; but Mrs. Tulrumble only
ejaculated ‘Lor-a-mussy!’ once again, as if a Mayor were a mere
ordinary Christian, at which Mr. Tulrumble frowned gloomily.
‘What a pity ’tan’t in London, ain’t it?’ said Mrs. Tulrumble, after a
short pause; ‘what a pity ’tan’t in London, where you might have had a
show.’
‘I _might_ have a show in Mudfog, if I thought proper, I apprehend,’
said Mr. Tulrumble mysteriously.
‘Lor! so you might, I declare,’ replied Mrs. Tulrumble.
‘And a good one too,’ said Mr. Tulrumble.
‘Delightful!’ exclaimed Mrs. Tulrumble.
‘One which would rather astonish the ignorant people down there,’ said
Mr. Tulrumble.
‘It would kill them with envy,’ said Mrs. Tulrumble.
So it was agreed that his Majesty’s lieges in Mudfog should be
astonished with splendour, and slaughtered with envy, and that such a
show should take place as had never been seen in that town, or in any
other town before,—no, not even in London itself.
On the very next day after the receipt of the letter, down came the
tall postilion in a post-chaise,—not upon one of the horses, but
inside—actually inside the chaise,—and, driving up to the very door of
the town-hall, where the corporation were assembled, delivered a
letter, written by the Lord knows who, and signed by Nicholas
Tulrumble, in which Nicholas said, all through four sides of
closely-written, gilt-edged, hot-pressed, Bath post letter paper, that
he responded to the call of his fellow-townsmen with feelings of
heartfelt delight; that he accepted the arduous office which their
confidence had imposed upon him; that they would never find him
shrinking from the discharge of his duty; that he would endeavour to
execute his functions with all that dignity which their magnitude and
importance demanded; and a great deal more to the same effect. But even
this was not all. The tall postilion produced from his right-hand
top-boot, a damp copy of that afternoon’s number of the county paper;
and there, in large type, running the whole length of the very first
column, was a long address from Nicholas Tulrumble to the inhabitants
of Mudfog, in which he said that he cheerfully complied with their
requisition, and, in short, as if to prevent any mistake about the
matter, told them over again what a grand fellow he meant to be, in
very much the same terms as those in which he had already told them all
about the matter in his letter.
The corporation stared at one another very hard at all this, and then
looked as if for explanation to the tall postilion, but as the tall
postilion was intently contemplating the gold tassel on the top of his
yellow cap, and could have afforded no explanation whatever, even if
his thoughts had been entirely disengaged, they contented themselves
with coughing very dubiously, and looking very grave. The tall
postilion then delivered another letter, in which Nicholas Tulrumble
informed the corporation, that he intended repairing to the town-hall,
in grand state and gorgeous procession, on the Monday afternoon next
ensuing. At this the corporation looked still more solemn; but, as the
epistle wound up with a formal invitation to the whole body to dine
with the Mayor on that day, at Mudfog Hall, Mudfog Hill, Mudfog, they
began to see the fun of the thing directly, and sent back their
compliments, and they’d be sure to come.
Now there happened to be in Mudfog, as somehow or other there does
happen to be, in almost every town in the British dominions, and
perhaps in foreign dominions too—we think it very likely, but, being no
great traveller, cannot distinctly say—there happened to be, in Mudfog,
a merry-tempered, pleasant-faced, good-for-nothing sort of vagabond,
with an invincible dislike to manual labour, and an unconquerable
attachment to strong beer and spirits, whom everybody knew, and nobody,
except his wife, took the trouble to quarrel with, who inherited from
his ancestors the appellation of Edward Twigger, and rejoiced in the
_sobriquet_ of Bottle-nosed Ned. He was drunk upon the average once a
day, and penitent upon an equally fair calculation once a month; and
when he was penitent, he was invariably in the very last stage of
maudlin intoxication. He was a ragged, roving, roaring kind of fellow,
with a burly form, a sharp wit, and a ready head, and could turn his
hand to anything when he chose to do it. He was by no means opposed to
hard labour on principle, for he would work away at a cricket-match by
the day together,—running, and catching, and batting, and bowling, and
revelling in toil which would exhaust a galley-slave. He would have
been invaluable to a fire-office; never was a man with such a natural
taste for pumping engines, running up ladders, and throwing furniture
out of two-pair-of-stairs’ windows: nor was this the only element in
which he was at home; he was a humane society in himself, a portable
drag, an animated life-preserver, and had saved more people, in his
time, from drowning, than the Plymouth life-boat, or Captain Manby’s
apparatus. With all these qualifications, notwithstanding his
dissipation, Bottle-nosed Ned was a general favourite; and the
authorities of Mudfog, remembering his numerous services to the
population, allowed him in return to get drunk in his own way, without
the fear of stocks, fine, or imprisonment. He had a general licence,
and he showed his sense of the compliment by making the most of it.
We have been thus particular in describing the character and avocations
of Bottle-nosed Ned, because it enables us to introduce a fact
politely, without hauling it into the reader’s presence with indecent
haste by the head and shoulders, and brings us very naturally to
relate, that on the very same evening on which Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble
and family returned to Mudfog, Mr. Tulrumble’s new secretary, just
imported from London, with a pale face and light whiskers, thrust his
head down to the very bottom of his neckcloth-tie, in at the tap-room
door of the Lighterman’s Arms, and inquiring whether one Ned Twigger
was luxuriating within, announced himself as the bearer of a message
from Nicholas Tulrumble, Esquire, requiring Mr. Twigger’s immediate
attendance at the hall, on private and particular business. It being by
no means Mr. Twigger’s interest to affront the Mayor, he rose from the
fireplace with a slight sigh, and followed the light-whiskered
secretary through the dirt and wet of Mudfog streets, up to Mudfog
Hall, without further ado.
Mr. Nicholas Tulrumble was seated in a small cavern with a skylight,
which he called his library, sketching out a plan of the procession on
a large sheet of paper; and into the cavern the secretary ushered Ned
Twigger.
‘Well, Twigger!’ said Nicholas Tulrumble, condescendingly.
There was a time when Twigger would have replied, ‘Well, Nick!’ but
that was in the days of the truck, and a couple of years before the
donkey; so, he only bowed.
‘I want you to go into training, Twigger,’ said Mr. Tulrumble.
‘What for, sir?’ inquired Ned, with a stare.
‘Hush, hush, Twigger!’ said the Mayor. ‘Shut the door, Mr. Jennings.
Look here, Twigger.’
As the Mayor said this, he unlocked a high closet, and disclosed a
complete suit of brass armour, of gigantic dimensions.
‘I want you to wear this next Monday, Twigger,’ said the Mayor.
‘Bless your heart and soul, sir!’ replied Ned, ‘you might as well ask
me to wear a seventy-four pounder, or a cast-iron boiler.’
‘Nonsense, Twigger, nonsense!’ said the Mayor.
‘I couldn’t stand under it, sir,’ said Twigger; ‘it would make mashed
potatoes of me, if I attempted it.’
‘Pooh, pooh, Twigger!’ returned the Mayor. ‘I tell you I have seen it
done with my own eyes, in London, and the man wasn’t half such a man as
you are, either.’
‘I should as soon have thought of a man’s wearing the case of an
eight-day clock to save his linen,’ said Twigger, casting a look of
apprehension at the brass suit.
‘It’s the easiest thing in the world,’ rejoined the Mayor.
‘It’s nothing,’ said Mr. Jennings.
‘When you’re used to it,’ added Ned.
‘You do it by degrees,’ said the Mayor. ‘You would begin with one piece
to-morrow, and two the next day, and so on, till you had got it all on.
Mr. Jennings, give Twigger a glass of rum. Just try the breast-plate,
Twigger. Stay; take another glass of rum first. Help me to lift it, Mr.
Jennings. Stand firm, Twigger! There!—it isn’t half as heavy as it
looks, is it?’
Twigger was a good strong, stout fellow; so, after a great deal of
staggering, he managed to keep himself up, under the breastplate, and
even contrived, with the aid of another glass of rum, to walk about in
it, and the gauntlets into the bargain. He made a trial of the helmet,
but was not equally successful, inasmuch as he tipped over
instantly,—an accident which Mr. Tulrumble clearly demonstrated to be
occasioned by his not having a counteracting weight of brass on his
legs.
‘Now, wear that with grace and propriety on Monday next,’ said
Tulrumble, ‘and I’ll make your fortune.’
‘I’ll try what I can do, sir,’ said Twigger.
‘It must be kept a profound secret,’ said Tulrumble.
‘Of course, sir,’ replied Twigger.
‘And you must be sober,’ said Tulrumble; ‘perfectly sober.’ Mr. Twigger
at once solemnly pledged himself to be as sober as a judge, and
Nicholas Tulrumble was satisfied, although, had we been Nicholas, we
should certainly have exacted some promise of a more specific nature;
inasmuch as, having attended the Mudfog assizes in the evening more
than once, we can solemnly testify to having seen judges with very
strong symptoms of dinner under their wigs. However, that’s neither
here nor there.
The next day, and the day following, and the day after that, Ned
Twigger was securely locked up in the small cavern with the sky-light,
hard at work at the armour. With every additional piece he could manage
to stand upright in, he had an additional glass of rum; and at last,
after many partial suffocations, he contrived to get on the whole suit,
and to stagger up and down the room in it, like an intoxicated effigy
from Westminster Abbey.
Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so
charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble’s wife. Here was a sight for the common
people of Mudfog! A live man in brass armour! Why, they would go wild
with wonder!
The day—_the_ Monday—arrived.
If the morning had been made to order, it couldn’t have been better
adapted to the purpose. They never showed a better fog in London on
Lord Mayor’s day, than enwrapped the town of Mudfog on that eventful
occasion. It had risen slowly and surely from the green and stagnant
water with the first light of morning, until it reached a little above
the lamp-post tops; and there it had stopped, with a sleepy, sluggish
obstinacy, which bade defiance to the sun, who had got up very
blood-shot about the eyes, as if he had been at a drinking-party
over-night, and was doing his day’s work with the worst possible grace.
The thick damp mist hung over the town like a huge gauze curtain. All
was dim and dismal. The church steeples had bidden a temporary adieu to
the world below; and every object of lesser importance—houses, barns,
hedges, trees, and barges—had all taken the veil.
The church-clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front garden of
Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic person had
coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out came a
gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, intended to represent a
herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court-card on
horseback. This was one of the Circus people, who always came down to
Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas
Tulrumble expressly for the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his
tail about, balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away
with his fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and
souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a
reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of
scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most
indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do, by Nicholas
Tulrumble, they no sooner recognized the herald, than they began to
growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of
his riding like any other man. If he had come out on his head indeed,
or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even
standing on one leg with his other foot in his mouth, they might have
had something to say to him; but for a professional gentleman to sit
astride in the saddle, with his feet in the stirrups, was rather too
good a joke. So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted
with great energy, as he pranced ingloriously away.
On the procession came. We are afraid to say how many supernumeraries
there were, in striped shirts and black velvet caps, to imitate the
London watermen, or how many base imitations of running-footmen, or how
many banners, which, owing to the heaviness of the atmosphere, could by
no means be prevailed on to display their inscriptions: still less do
we feel disposed to relate how the men who played the wind instruments,
looking up into the sky (we mean the fog) with musical fervour, walked
through pools of water and hillocks of mud, till they covered the
powdered heads of the running-footmen aforesaid with splashes, that
looked curious, but not ornamental; or how the barrel-organ performer
put on the wrong stop, and played one tune while the band played
another; or how the horses, being used to the arena, and not to the
streets, would stand still and dance, instead of going on and
prancing;—all of which are matters which might be dilated upon to great
advantage, but which we have not the least intention of dilating upon,
notwithstanding.
Oh! it was a grand and beautiful sight to behold a corporation in glass
coaches, provided at the sole cost and charge of Nicholas Tulrumble,
coming rolling along, like a funeral out of mourning, and to watch the
attempts the corporation made to look great and solemn, when Nicholas
Tulrumble himself, in the four-wheel chaise, with the tall postilion,
rolled out after them, with Mr. Jennings on one side to look like a
chaplain, and a supernumerary on the other, with an old
life-guardsman’s sabre, to imitate the sword-bearer; and to see the
tears rolling down the faces of the mob as they screamed with
merriment. This was beautiful! and so was the appearance of Mrs.
Tulrumble and son, as they bowed with grave dignity out of their
coach-window to all the dirty faces that were laughing around them: but
it is not even with this that we have to do, but with the sudden
stopping of the procession at another blast of the trumpet, whereat,
and whereupon, a profound silence ensued, and all eyes were turned
towards Mudfog Hall, in the confident anticipation of some new wonder.
‘They won’t laugh now, Mr. Jennings,’ said Nicholas Tulrumble.
‘I think not, sir,’ said Mr. Jennings.
‘See how eager they look,’ said Nicholas Tulrumble. ‘Aha! the laugh
will be on our side now; eh, Mr. Jennings?’
‘No doubt of that, sir,’ replied Mr. Jennings; and Nicholas Tulrumble,
in a state of pleasurable excitement, stood up in the four-wheel
chaise, and telegraphed gratification to the Mayoress behind.
While all this was going forward, Ned Twigger had descended into the
kitchen of Mudfog Hall for the purpose of indulging the servants with a
private view of the curiosity that was to burst upon the town; and,
somehow or other, the footman was so companionable, and the housemaid
so kind, and the cook so friendly, that he could not resist the offer
of the first-mentioned to sit down and take something—just to drink
success to master in.
So, down Ned Twigger sat himself in his brass livery on the top of the
kitchen-table; and in a mug of something strong, paid for by the
unconscious Nicholas Tulrumble, and provided by the companionable
footman, drank success to the Mayor and his procession; and, as Ned
laid by his helmet to imbibe the something strong, the companionable
footman put it on his own head, to the immeasurable and unrecordable
delight of the cook and housemaid. The companionable footman was very
facetious to Ned, and Ned was very gallant to the cook and housemaid by
turns. They were all very cosy and comfortable; and the something
strong went briskly round.
At last Ned Twigger was loudly called for, by the procession people:
and, having had his helmet fixed on, in a very complicated manner, by
the companionable footman, and the kind housemaid, and the friendly
cook, he walked gravely forth, and appeared before the multitude.
The crowd roared—it was not with wonder, it was not with surprise; it
was most decidedly and unquestionably with laughter.
‘What!’ said Mr. Tulrumble, starting up in the four-wheel chaise.
‘Laughing? If they laugh at a man in real brass armour, they’d laugh
when their own fathers were dying. Why doesn’t he go into his place,
Mr. Jennings? What’s he rolling down towards us for? he has no business
here!’
‘I am afraid, sir—’ faltered Mr. Jennings.
‘Afraid of what, sir?’ said Nicholas Tulrumble, looking up into the
secretary’s face.
‘I am afraid he’s drunk, sir,’ replied Mr. Jennings.
Nicholas Tulrumble took one look at the extraordinary figure that was
bearing down upon them; and then, clasping his secretary by the arm,
uttered an audible groan in anguish of spirit.
It is a melancholy fact that Mr. Twigger having full licence to demand
a single glass of rum on the putting on of every piece of the armour,
got, by some means or other, rather out of his calculation in the hurry
and confusion of preparation, and drank about four glasses to a piece
instead of one, not to mention the something strong which went on the
top of it. Whether the brass armour checked the natural flow of
perspiration, and thus prevented the spirit from evaporating, we are
not scientific enough to know; but, whatever the cause was, Mr. Twigger
no sooner found himself outside the gate of Mudfog Hall, than he also
found himself in a very considerable state of intoxication; and hence
his extraordinary style of progressing. This was bad enough, but, as if
fate and fortune had conspired against Nicholas Tulrumble, Mr. Twigger,
not having been penitent for a good calendar month, took it into his
head to be most especially and particularly sentimental, just when his
repentance could have been most conveniently dispensed with. Immense
tears were rolling down his cheeks, and he was vainly endeavouring to
conceal his grief by applying to his eyes a blue cotton
pocket-handkerchief with white spots,—an article not strictly in
keeping with a suit of armour some three hundred years old, or
thereabouts.
‘Twigger, you villain!’ said Nicholas Tulrumble, quite forgetting his
dignity, ‘go back.’
‘Never,’ said Ned. ‘I’m a miserable wretch. I’ll never leave you.’
The by-standers of course received this declaration with acclamations
of ‘That’s right, Ned; don’t!’
‘I don’t intend it,’ said Ned, with all the obstinacy of a very tipsy
man. ‘I’m very unhappy. I’m the wretched father of an unfortunate
family; but I am very faithful, sir. I’ll never leave you.’ Having
reiterated this obliging promise, Ned proceeded in broken words to
harangue the crowd upon the number of years he had lived in Mudfog, the
excessive respectability of his character, and other topics of the like
nature.
‘Here! will anybody lead him away?’ said Nicholas: ‘if they’ll call on
me afterwards, I’ll reward them well.’
Two or three men stepped forward, with the view of bearing Ned off,
when the secretary interposed.
‘Take care! take care!’ said Mr. Jennings. ‘I beg your pardon, sir; but
they’d better not go too near him, because, if he falls over, he’ll
certainly crush somebody.’
At this hint the crowd retired on all sides to a very respectful
distance, and left Ned, like the Duke of Devonshire, in a little circle
of his own.
‘But, Mr. Jennings,’ said Nicholas Tulrumble, ‘he’ll be suffocated.’
‘I’m very sorry for it, sir,’ replied Mr. Jennings; ‘but nobody can get
that armour off, without his own assistance. I’m quite certain of it
from the way he put it on.’
Here Ned wept dolefully, and shook his helmeted head, in a manner that
might have touched a heart of stone; but the crowd had not hearts of
stone, and they laughed heartily.
‘Dear me, Mr. Jennings,’ said Nicholas, turning pale at the possibility
of Ned’s being smothered in his antique costume—‘Dear me, Mr. Jennings,
can nothing be done with him?’
‘Nothing at all,’ replied Ned, ‘nothing at all. Gentlemen, I’m an
unhappy wretch. I’m a body, gentlemen, in a brass coffin.’ At this
poetical idea of his own conjuring up, Ned cried so much that the
people began to get sympathetic, and to ask what Nicholas Tulrumble
meant by putting a man into such a machine as that; and one individual
in a hairy waistcoat like the top of a trunk, who had previously
expressed his opinion that if Ned hadn’t been a poor man, Nicholas
wouldn’t have dared do it, hinted at the propriety of breaking the
four-wheel chaise, or Nicholas’s head, or both, which last compound
proposition the crowd seemed to consider a very good notion.
It was not acted upon, however, for it had hardly been broached, when
Ned Twigger’s wife made her appearance abruptly in the little circle
before noticed, and Ned no sooner caught a glimpse of her face and
form, than from the mere force of habit he set off towards his home
just as fast as his legs could carry him; and that was not very quick
in the present instance either, for, however ready they might have been
to carry _him_, they couldn’t get on very well under the brass armour.
So, Mrs. Twigger had plenty of time to denounce Nicholas Tulrumble to
his face: to express her opinion that he was a decided monster; and to
intimate that, if her ill-used husband sustained any personal damage
from the brass armour, she would have the law of Nicholas Tulrumble for
manslaughter. When she had said all this with due vehemence, she posted
after Ned, who was dragging himself along as best he could, and
deploring his unhappiness in most dismal tones.
What a wailing and screaming Ned’s children raised when he got home at
last! Mrs. Twigger tried to undo the armour, first in one place, and
then in another, but she couldn’t manage it; so she tumbled Ned into
bed, helmet, armour, gauntlets, and all. Such a creaking as the
bedstead made, under Ned’s weight in his new suit! It didn’t break down
though; and there Ned lay, like the anonymous vessel in the Bay of
Biscay, till next day, drinking barley-water, and looking miserable:
and every time he groaned, his good lady said it served him right,
which was all the consolation Ned Twigger got.
Nicholas Tulrumble and the gorgeous procession went on together to the
town-hall, amid the hisses and groans of all the spectators, who had
suddenly taken it into their heads to consider poor Ned a martyr.
Nicholas was formally installed in his new office, in acknowledgment of
which ceremony he delivered himself of a speech, composed by the
secretary, which was very long, and no doubt very good, only the noise
of the people outside prevented anybody from hearing it, but Nicholas
Tulrumble himself. After which, the procession got back to Mudfog Hall
any how it could; and Nicholas and the corporation sat down to dinner.
But the dinner was flat, and Nicholas was disappointed. They were such
dull sleepy old fellows, that corporation. Nicholas made quite as long
speeches as the Lord Mayor of London had done, nay, he said the very
same things that the Lord Mayor of London had said, and the deuce a
cheer the corporation gave him. There was only one man in the party who
was thoroughly awake; and he was insolent, and called him Nick. Nick!
What would be the consequence, thought Nicholas, of anybody presuming
to call the Lord Mayor of London ‘Nick!’ He should like to know what
the sword-bearer would say to that; or the recorder, or the
toast-master, or any other of the great officers of the city. They’d
nick him.
But these were not the worst of Nicholas Tulrumble’s doings. If they
had been, he might have remained a Mayor to this day, and have talked
till he lost his voice. He contracted a relish for statistics, and got
philosophical; and the statistics and the philosophy together, led him
into an act which increased his unpopularity and hastened his downfall.
At the very end of the Mudfog High-street, and abutting on the
river-side, stands the Jolly Boatmen, an old-fashioned low-roofed,
bay-windowed house, with a bar, kitchen, and tap-room all in one, and a
large fireplace with a kettle to correspond, round which the working
men have congregated time out of mind on a winter’s night, refreshed by
draughts of good strong beer, and cheered by the sounds of a fiddle and
tambourine: the Jolly Boatmen having been duly licensed by the Mayor
and corporation, to scrape the fiddle and thumb the tambourine from
time, whereof the memory of the oldest inhabitants goeth not to the
contrary. Now Nicholas Tulrumble had been reading pamphlets on crime,
and parliamentary reports,—or had made the secretary read them to him,
which is the same thing in effect,—and he at once perceived that this
fiddle and tambourine must have done more to demoralize Mudfog, than
any other operating causes that ingenuity could imagine. So he read up
for the subject, and determined to come out on the corporation with a
burst, the very next time the licence was applied for.
The licensing day came, and the red-faced landlord of the Jolly Boatmen
walked into the town-hall, looking as jolly as need be, having actually
put on an extra fiddle for that night, to commemorate the anniversary
of the Jolly Boatmen’s music licence. It was applied for in due form,
and was just about to be granted as a matter of course, when up rose
Nicholas Tulrumble, and drowned the astonished corporation in a torrent
of eloquence. He descanted in glowing terms upon the increasing
depravity of his native town of Mudfog, and the excesses committed by
its population. Then, he related how shocked he had been, to see
barrels of beer sliding down into the cellar of the Jolly Boatmen week
after week; and how he had sat at a window opposite the Jolly Boatmen
for two days together, to count the people who went in for beer between
the hours of twelve and one o’clock alone—which, by-the-bye, was the
time at which the great majority of the Mudfog people dined. Then, he
went on to state, how the number of people who came out with beer-jugs,
averaged twenty-one in five minutes, which, being multiplied by twelve,
gave two hundred and fifty-two people with beer-jugs in an hour, and
multiplied again by fifteen (the number of hours during which the house
was open daily) yielded three thousand seven hundred and eighty people
with beer-jugs per day, or twenty-six thousand four hundred and sixty
people with beer-jugs, per week. Then he proceeded to show that a
tambourine and moral degradation were synonymous terms, and a fiddle
and vicious propensities wholly inseparable. All these arguments he
strengthened and demonstrated by frequent references to a large book
with a blue cover, and sundry quotations from the Middlesex
magistrates; and in the end, the corporation, who were posed with the
figures, and sleepy with the speech, and sadly in want of dinner into
the bargain, yielded the palm to Nicholas Tulrumble, and refused the
music licence to the Jolly Boatmen.
But although Nicholas triumphed, his triumph was short. He carried on
the war against beer-jugs and fiddles, forgetting the time when he was
glad to drink out of the one, and to dance to the other, till the
people hated, and his old friends shunned him. He grew tired of the
lonely magnificence of Mudfog Hall, and his heart yearned towards the
Lighterman’s Arms. He wished he had never set up as a public man, and
sighed for the good old times of the coal-shop, and the chimney corner.
At length old Nicholas, being thoroughly miserable, took heart of
grace, paid the secretary a quarter’s wages in advance, and packed him
off to London by the next coach. Having taken this step, he put his hat
on his head, and his pride in his pocket, and walked down to the old
room at the Lighterman’s Arms. There were only two of the old fellows
there, and they looked coldly on Nicholas as he proffered his hand.
‘Are you going to put down pipes, Mr. Tulrumble?’ said one.
‘Or trace the progress of crime to ‘bacca?’ growled another.
‘Neither,’ replied Nicholas Tulrumble, shaking hands with them both,
whether they would or not. ‘I’ve come down to say that I’m very sorry
for having made a fool of myself, and that I hope you’ll give me up the
old chair, again.’
The old fellows opened their eyes, and three or four more old fellows
opened the door, to whom Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, thrust out
his hand too, and told the same story. They raised a shout of joy, that
made the bells in the ancient church-tower vibrate again, and wheeling
the old chair into the warm corner, thrust old Nicholas down into it,
and ordered in the very largest-sized bowl of hot punch, with an
unlimited number of pipes, directly.
The next day, the Jolly Boatmen got the licence, and the next night,
old Nicholas and Ned Twigger’s wife led off a dance to the music of the
fiddle and tambourine, the tone of which seemed mightily improved by a
little rest, for they never had played so merrily before. Ned Twigger
was in the very height of his glory, and he danced hornpipes, and
balanced chairs on his chin, and straws on his nose, till the whole
company, including the corporation, were in raptures of admiration at
the brilliancy of his acquirements.
Mr. Tulrumble, junior, couldn’t make up his mind to be anything but
magnificent, so he went up to London and drew bills on his father; and
when he had overdrawn, and got into debt, he grew penitent, and came
home again.
As to old Nicholas, he kept his word, and having had six weeks of
public life, never tried it any more. He went to sleep in the town-hall
at the very next meeting; and, in full proof of his sincerity, has
requested us to write this faithful narrative. We wish it could have
the effect of reminding the Tulrumbles of another sphere, that
puffed-up conceit is not dignity, and that snarling at the little
pleasures they were once glad to enjoy, because they would rather
forget the times when they were of lower station, renders them objects
of contempt and ridicule.
This is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this
particular source. Perhaps, at some future period, we may venture to
open the chronicles of Mudfog.
FULL REPORT OF THE FIRST MEETING OF THE MUDFOG ASSOCIATION
for the advancement of everything
We have made the most unparalleled and extraordinary exertions to place
before our readers a complete and accurate account of the proceedings
at the late grand meeting of the Mudfog Association, holden in the town
of Mudfog; it affords us great happiness to lay the result before them,
in the shape of various communications received from our able,
talented, and graphic correspondent, expressly sent down for the
purpose, who has immortalized us, himself, Mudfog, and the association,
all at one and the same time. We have been, indeed, for some days
unable to determine who will transmit the greatest name to posterity;
ourselves, who sent our correspondent down; our correspondent, who
wrote an account of the matter; or the association, who gave our
correspondent something to write about. We rather incline to the
opinion that we are the greatest man of the party, inasmuch as the
notion of an exclusive and authentic report originated with us; this
may be prejudice: it may arise from a prepossession on our part in our
own favour. Be it so. We have no doubt that every gentleman concerned
in this mighty assemblage is troubled with the same complaint in a
greater or less degree; and it is a consolation to us to know that we
have at least this feeling in common with the great scientific stars,
the brilliant and extraordinary luminaries, whose speculations we
record.
We give our correspondent’s letters in the order in which they reached
us. Any attempt at amalgamating them into one beautiful whole, would
only destroy that glowing tone, that dash of wildness, and rich vein of
picturesque interest, which pervade them throughout.
‘_Mudfog_, _Monday night_, _seven o’clock_.
‘We are in a state of great excitement here. Nothing is spoken of, but
the approaching meeting of the association. The inn-doors are thronged
with waiters anxiously looking for the expected arrivals; and the
numerous bills which are wafered up in the windows of private houses,
intimating that there are beds to let within, give the streets a very
animated and cheerful appearance, the wafers being of a great variety
of colours, and the monotony of printed inscriptions being relieved by
every possible size and style of hand-writing. It is confidently
rumoured that Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy have engaged three
beds and a sitting-room at the Pig and Tinder-box. I give you the
rumour as it has reached me; but I cannot, as yet, vouch for its
accuracy. The moment I have been enabled to obtain any certain
information upon this interesting point, you may depend upon receiving
it.’
‘_Half-past seven_.
I have just returned from a personal interview with the landlord of the
Pig and Tinder-box. He speaks confidently of the probability of
Professors Snore, Doze, and Wheezy taking up their residence at his
house during the sitting of the association, but denies that the beds
have been yet engaged; in which representation he is confirmed by the
chambermaid—a girl of artless manners, and interesting appearance. The
boots denies that it is at all likely that Professors Snore, Doze, and
Wheezy will put up here; but I have reason to believe that this man has
been suborned by the proprietor of the Original Pig, which is the
opposition hotel. Amidst such conflicting testimony it is difficult to
arrive at the real truth; but you may depend upon receiving authentic
information upon this point the moment the fact is ascertained. The
excitement still continues. A boy fell through the window of the
pastrycook’s shop at the corner of the High-street about half an hour
ago, which has occasioned much confusion. The general impression is,
that it was an accident. Pray heaven it may prove so!’
‘_Tuesday_, _noon_.
‘At an early hour this morning the bells of all the churches struck
seven o’clock; the effect of which, in the present lively state of the
town, was extremely singular. While I was at breakfast, a yellow gig,
drawn by a dark grey horse, with a patch of white over his right
eyelid, proceeded at a rapid pace in the direction of the Original Pig
stables; it is currently reported that this gentleman has arrived here
for the purpose of attending the association, and, from what I have
heard, I consider it extremely probable, although nothing decisive is
yet known regarding him. You may conceive the anxiety with which we are
all looking forward to the arrival of the four o’clock coach this
afternoon.
‘Notwithstanding the excited state of the populace, no outrage has yet
been committed, owing to the admirable discipline and discretion of the
police, who are nowhere to be seen. A barrel-organ is playing opposite
my window, and groups of people, offering fish and vegetables for sale,
parade the streets. With these exceptions everything is quiet, and I
trust will continue so.’
‘_Five o’clock_.
‘It is now ascertained, beyond all doubt, that Professors Snore, Doze,
and Wheezy will _not_ repair to the Pig and Tinder-box, but have
actually engaged apartments at the Original Pig. This intelligence is
_exclusive_; and I leave you and your readers to draw their own
inferences from it. Why Professor Wheezy, of all people in the world,
should repair to the Original Pig in preference to the Pig and
Tinder-box, it is not easy to conceive. The professor is a man who
should be above all such petty feelings. Some people here openly impute
treachery, and a distinct breach of faith to Professors Snore and Doze;
while others, again, are disposed to acquit them of any culpability in
the transaction, and to insinuate that the blame rests solely with
Professor Wheezy. I own that I incline to the latter opinion; and
although it gives me great pain to speak in terms of censure or
disapprobation of a man of such transcendent genius and acquirements,
still I am bound to say that, if my suspicions be well founded, and if
all the reports which have reached my ears be true, I really do not
well know what to make of the matter.
‘Mr. Slug, so celebrated for his statistical researches, arrived this
afternoon by the four o’clock stage. His complexion is a dark purple,
and he has a habit of sighing constantly. He looked extremely well, and
appeared in high health and spirits. Mr. Woodensconce also came down in
the same conveyance. The distinguished gentleman was fast asleep on his
arrival, and I am informed by the guard that he had been so the whole
way. He was, no doubt, preparing for his approaching fatigues; but what
gigantic visions must those be that flit through the brain of such a
man when his body is in a state of torpidity!
‘The influx of visitors increases every moment. I am told (I know not
how truly) that two post-chaises have arrived at the Original Pig
within the last half-hour, and I myself observed a wheelbarrow,
containing three carpet bags and a bundle, entering the yard of the Pig
and Tinder-box no longer ago than five minutes since. The people are
still quietly pursuing their ordinary occupations; but there is a
wildness in their eyes, and an unwonted rigidity in the muscles of
their countenances, which shows to the observant spectator that their
expectations are strained to the very utmost pitch. I fear, unless some
very extraordinary arrivals take place to-night, that consequences may
arise from this popular ferment, which every man of sense and feeling
would deplore.’
‘_Twenty minutes past six_.
‘I have just heard that the boy who fell through the pastrycook’s
window last night has died of the fright. He was suddenly called upon
to pay three and sixpence for the damage done, and his constitution, it
seems, was not strong enough to bear up against the shock. The inquest,
it is said, will be held to-morrow.’
‘_Three-quarters part seven_.
‘Professors Muff and Nogo have just driven up to the hotel door; they
at once ordered dinner with great condescension. We are all very much
delighted with the urbanity of their manners, and the ease with which
they adapt themselves to the forms and ceremonies of ordinary life.
Immediately on their arrival they sent for the head waiter, and
privately requested him to purchase a live dog,—as cheap a one as he
could meet with,—and to send him up after dinner, with a pie-board, a
knife and fork, and a clean plate. It is conjectured that some
experiments will be tried upon the dog to-night; if any particulars
should transpire, I will forward them by express.’
‘_Half-past eight_.
‘The animal has been procured. He is a pug-dog, of rather intelligent
appearance, in good condition, and with very short legs. He has been
tied to a curtain-peg in a dark room, and is howling dreadfully.’
‘_Ten minutes to nine_.
‘The dog has just been rung for. With an instinct which would appear
almost the result of reason, the sagacious animal seized the waiter by
the calf of the leg when he approached to take him, and made a
desperate, though ineffectual resistance. I have not been able to
procure admission to the apartment occupied by the scientific
gentlemen; but, judging from the sounds which reached my ears when I
stood upon the landing-place outside the door, just now, I should be
disposed to say that the dog had retreated growling beneath some
article of furniture, and was keeping the professors at bay. This
conjecture is confirmed by the testimony of the ostler, who, after
peeping through the keyhole, assures me that he distinctly saw
Professor Nogo on his knees, holding forth a small bottle of prussic
acid, to which the animal, who was crouched beneath an arm-chair,
obstinately declined to smell. You cannot imagine the feverish state of
irritation we are in, lest the interests of science should be
sacrificed to the prejudices of a brute creature, who is not endowed
with sufficient sense to foresee the incalculable benefits which the
whole human race may derive from so very slight a concession on his
part.’
‘_Nine o’clock_.
‘The dog’s tail and ears have been sent down-stairs to be washed; from
which circumstance we infer that the animal is no more. His forelegs
have been delivered to the boots to be brushed, which strengthens the
supposition.’
‘_Half after ten_.
‘My feelings are so overpowered by what has taken place in the course
of the last hour and a half, that I have scarcely strength to detail
the rapid succession of events which have quite bewildered all those
who are cognizant of their occurrence. It appears that the pug-dog
mentioned in my last was surreptitiously obtained,—stolen, in fact,—by
some person attached to the stable department, from an unmarried lady
resident in this town. Frantic on discovering the loss of her
favourite, the lady rushed distractedly into the street, calling in the
most heart-rending and pathetic manner upon the passengers to restore
her, her Augustus,—for so the deceased was named, in affectionate
remembrance of a former lover of his mistress, to whom he bore a
striking personal resemblance, which renders the circumstances
additionally affecting. I am not yet in a condition to inform you what
circumstance induced the bereaved lady to direct her steps to the hotel
which had witnessed the last struggles of her _protégé_. I can only
state that she arrived there, at the very instant when his detached
members were passing through the passage on a small tray. Her shrieks
still reverberate in my ears! I grieve to say that the expressive
features of Professor Muff were much scratched and lacerated by the
injured lady; and that Professor Nogo, besides sustaining several
severe bites, has lost some handfuls of hair from the same cause. It
must be some consolation to these gentlemen to know that their ardent
attachment to scientific pursuits has alone occasioned these unpleasant
consequences; for which the sympathy of a grateful country will
sufficiently reward them. The unfortunate lady remains at the Pig and
Tinder-box, and up to this time is reported in a very precarious state.
‘I need scarcely tell you that this unlooked-for catastrophe has cast a
damp and gloom upon us in the midst of our exhilaration; natural in any
case, but greatly enhanced in this, by the amiable qualities of the
deceased animal, who appears to have been much and deservedly respected
by the whole of his acquaintance.’
‘_Twelve o’clock_.
‘I take the last opportunity before sealing my parcel to inform you
that the boy who fell through the pastrycook’s window is not dead, as
was universally believed, but alive and well. The report appears to
have had its origin in his mysterious disappearance. He was found half
an hour since on the premises of a sweet-stuff maker, where a raffle
had been announced for a second-hand seal-skin cap and a tambourine;
and where—a sufficient number of members not having been obtained at
first—he had patiently waited until the list was completed. This
fortunate discovery has in some degree restored our gaiety and
cheerfulness. It is proposed to get up a subscription for him without
delay.
‘Everybody is nervously anxious to see what to-morrow will bring forth.
If any one should arrive in the course of the night, I have left strict
directions to be called immediately. I should have sat up, indeed, but
the agitating events of this day have been too much for me.
‘No news yet of either of the Professors Snore, Doze, or Wheezy. It is
very strange!’
‘_Wednesday afternoon_.
‘All is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length enabled
to set the minds of your readers at rest. The three professors arrived
at ten minutes after two o’clock, and, instead of taking up their
quarters at the Original Pig, as it was universally understood in the
course of yesterday that they would assuredly have done, drove straight
to the Pig and Tinder-box, where they threw off the mask at once, and
openly announced their intention of remaining. Professor Wheezy may
reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with _his_ notions of fair
and equitable dealing, but I would recommend Professor Wheezy to be
cautious how he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation. How
such a man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary,
such an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be
mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally inquire.
Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear
to give utterance to them just now.’
‘_Four o’clock_.
‘The town is filling fast; eighteenpence has been offered for a bed and
refused. Several gentlemen were under the necessity last night of
sleeping in the brick fields, and on the steps of doors, for which they
were taken before the magistrates in a body this morning, and committed
to prison as vagrants for various terms. One of these persons I
understand to be a highly-respectable tinker, of great practical skill,
who had forwarded a paper to the President of Section D. Mechanical
Science, on the construction of pipkins with copper bottoms and
safety-values, of which report speaks highly. The incarceration of this
gentleman is greatly to be regretted, as his absence will preclude any
discussion on the subject.
‘The bills are being taken down in all directions, and lodgings are
being secured on almost any terms. I have heard of fifteen shillings a
week for two rooms, exclusive of coals and attendance, but I can
scarcely believe it. The excitement is dreadful. I was informed this
morning that the civil authorities, apprehensive of some outbreak of
popular feeling, had commanded a recruiting sergeant and two corporals
to be under arms; and that, with the view of not irritating the people
unnecessarily by their presence, they had been requested to take up
their position before daybreak in a turnpike, distant about a quarter
of a mile from the town. The vigour and promptness of these measures
cannot be too highly extolled.
‘Intelligence has just been brought me, that an elderly female, in a
state of inebriety, has declared in the open street her intention to
“do” for Mr. Slug. Some statistical returns compiled by that gentleman,
relative to the consumption of raw spirituous liquors in this place,
are supposed to be the cause of the wretch’s animosity. It is added
that this declaration was loudly cheered by a crowd of persons who had
assembled on the spot; and that one man had the boldness to designate
Mr. Slug aloud by the opprobrious epithet of “Stick-in-the-mud!” It is
earnestly to be hoped that now, when the moment has arrived for their
interference, the magistrates will not shrink from the exercise of that
power which is vested in them by the constitution of our common
country.’
‘_Half-past ten_.
‘The disturbance, I am happy to inform you, has been completely
quelled, and the ringleader taken into custody. She had a pail of cold
water thrown over her, previous to being locked up, and expresses great
contrition and uneasiness. We are all in a fever of anticipation about
to-morrow; but, now that we are within a few hours of the meeting of
the association, and at last enjoy the proud consciousness of having
its illustrious members amongst us, I trust and hope everything may go
off peaceably. I shall send you a full report of to-morrow’s
proceedings by the night coach.’
‘_Eleven o’clock_.
‘I open my letter to say that nothing whatever has occurred since I
folded it up.’
‘_Thursday_.
‘The sun rose this morning at the usual hour. I did not observe
anything particular in the aspect of the glorious planet, except that
he appeared to me (it might have been a delusion of my heightened
fancy) to shine with more than common brilliancy, and to shed a
refulgent lustre upon the town, such as I had never observed before.
This is the more extraordinary, as the sky was perfectly cloudless, and
the atmosphere peculiarly fine. At half-past nine o’clock the general
committee assembled, with the last year’s president in the chair. The
report of the council was read; and one passage, which stated that the
council had corresponded with no less than three thousand five hundred
and seventy-one persons, (all of whom paid their own postage,) on no
fewer than seven thousand two hundred and forty-three topics, was
received with a degree of enthusiasm which no efforts could suppress.
The various committees and sections having been appointed, and the more
formal business transacted, the great proceedings of the meeting
commenced at eleven o’clock precisely. I had the happiness of occupying
a most eligible position at that time, in
‘SECTION A.—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY.
GREAT ROOM, PIG AND TINDER-BOX.
_President_—Professor Snore. _Vice-Presidents_—Professors Doze and
Wheezy.
‘The scene at this moment was particularly striking. The sun streamed
through the windows of the apartments, and tinted the whole scene with
its brilliant rays, bringing out in strong relief the noble visages of
the professors and scientific gentlemen, who, some with bald heads,
some with red heads, some with brown heads, some with grey heads, some
with black heads, some with block heads, presented a _coup d’oeil_
which no eye-witness will readily forget. In front of these gentlemen
were papers and inkstands; and round the room, on elevated benches
extending as far as the forms could reach, were assembled a brilliant
concourse of those lovely and elegant women for which Mudfog is justly
acknowledged to be without a rival in the whole world. The contrast
between their fair faces and the dark coats and trousers of the
scientific gentlemen I shall never cease to remember while Memory holds
her seat.
‘Time having been allowed for a slight confusion, occasioned by the
falling down of the greater part of the platforms, to subside, the
president called on one of the secretaries to read a communication
entitled, “Some remarks on the industrious fleas, with considerations
on the importance of establishing infant-schools among that numerous
class of society; of directing their industry to useful and practical
ends; and of applying the surplus fruits thereof, towards providing for
them a comfortable and respectable maintenance in their old age.”
‘The author stated, that, having long turned his attention to the moral
and social condition of these interesting animals, he had been induced
to visit an exhibition in Regent-street, London, commonly known by the
designation of “The Industrious Fleas.” He had there seen many fleas,
occupied certainly in various pursuits and avocations, but occupied, he
was bound to add, in a manner which no man of well-regulated mind could
fail to regard with sorrow and regret. One flea, reduced to the level
of a beast of burden, was drawing about a miniature gig, containing a
particularly small effigy of His Grace the Duke of Wellington; while
another was staggering beneath the weight of a golden model of his
great adversary Napoleon Bonaparte. Some, brought up as mountebanks and
ballet-dancers, were performing a figure-dance (he regretted to
observe, that, of the fleas so employed, several were females); others
were in training, in a small card-board box, for pedestrians,—mere
sporting characters—and two were actually engaged in the cold-blooded
and barbarous occupation of duelling; a pursuit from which humanity
recoiled with horror and disgust. He suggested that measures should be
immediately taken to employ the labour of these fleas as part and
parcel of the productive power of the country, which might easily be
done by the establishment among them of infant schools and houses of
industry, in which a system of virtuous education, based upon sound
principles, should be observed, and moral precepts strictly inculcated.
He proposed that every flea who presumed to exhibit, for hire, music,
or dancing, or any species of theatrical entertainment, without a
licence, should be considered a vagabond, and treated accordingly; in
which respect he only placed him upon a level with the rest of mankind.
He would further suggest that their labour should be placed under the
control and regulation of the state, who should set apart from the
profits, a fund for the support of superannuated or disabled fleas,
their widows and orphans. With this view, he proposed that liberal
premiums should be offered for the three best designs for a general
almshouse; from which—as insect architecture was well known to be in a
very advanced and perfect state—we might possibly derive many valuable
hints for the improvement of our metropolitan universities, national
galleries, and other public edifices.
‘The President wished to be informed how the ingenious gentleman
proposed to open a communication with fleas generally, in the first
instance, so that they might be thoroughly imbued with a sense of the
advantages they must necessarily derive from changing their mode of
life, and applying themselves to honest labour. This appeared to him,
the only difficulty.
‘The Author submitted that this difficulty was easily overcome, or
rather that there was no difficulty at all in the case. Obviously the
course to be pursued, if Her Majesty’s government could be prevailed
upon to take up the plan, would be, to secure at a remunerative salary
the individual to whom he had alluded as presiding over the exhibition
in Regent-street at the period of his visit. That gentleman would at
once be able to put himself in communication with the mass of the
fleas, and to instruct them in pursuance of some general plan of
education, to be sanctioned by Parliament, until such time as the more
intelligent among them were advanced enough to officiate as teachers to
the rest.
‘The President and several members of the section highly complimented
the author of the paper last read, on his most ingenious and important
treatise. It was determined that the subject should be recommended to
the immediate consideration of the council.
‘Mr. Wigsby produced a cauliflower somewhat larger than a
chaise-umbrella, which had been raised by no other artificial means
than the simple application of highly carbonated soda-water as manure.
He explained that by scooping out the head, which would afford a new
and delicious species of nourishment for the poor, a parachute, in
principle something similar to that constructed by M. Garnerin, was at
once obtained; the stalk of course being kept downwards. He added that
he was perfectly willing to make a descent from a height of not less
than three miles and a quarter; and had in fact already proposed the
same to the proprietors of Vauxhall Gardens, who in the handsomest
manner at once consented to his wishes, and appointed an early day next
summer for the undertaking; merely stipulating that the rim of the
cauliflower should be previously broken in three or four places to
ensure the safety of the descent.
‘The President congratulated the public on the _grand gala_ in store
for them, and warmly eulogised the proprietors of the establishment
alluded to, for their love of science, and regard for the safety of
human life, both of which did them the highest honour.