The Project Gutenberg EBook of More Bab Ballads, by W. S. Gilbert (#4 in our series by W. S. Gilbert) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: More Bab Ballads Author: W. S. Gilbert Release Date: June, 1997 [EBook #933] [This file was first posted on June 3, 1997] [Most recently updated: May 21, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: US-ASCII
Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Contents:
Mister William
The Bumboat Woman’s Story
The Two
Ogres
Little Oliver
Pasha Bailey Ben
Lieutenant-Colonel
Flare
Lost Mr. Blake
The Baby’s Vengeance
The Captain
And The Mermaids
Annie Protheroe. A Legend of Stratford-Le-Bow
An
Unfortunate Likeness
Gregory Parable, LL.D.
The King Of Canoodle-Dum
First
Love
Brave Alum Bey
Sir Barnaby Bampton Boo
The Modest
Couple
The Martinet
The Sailor Boy To His Lass
The Reverend
Simon Magus
Damon v. Pythias
My Dream
The Bishop Of Rum-Ti-Foo
Again
A Worm Will Turn
The Haughty Actor
The Two Majors
Emily,
John, James, And I. A Derby Legend
The Perils Of Invisibility
Old
Paul And Old Tim
The Mystic Selvagee
The Cunning Woman
Phrenology
The
Fairy Curate
The Way Of Wooing
Hongree And Mahry. A
Recollection Of A Surrey Melodrama
Etiquette
Oh, listen to the tale of MISTER WILLIAM, if you please,
Whom
naughty, naughty judges sent away beyond the seas.
He forged a
party’s will, which caused anxiety and strife,
Resulting
in his getting penal servitude for life.
He was a kindly goodly man, and naturally prone,
Instead of
taking others’ gold, to give away his own.
But he had heard
of Vice, and longed for only once to strike—
To plan one
little wickedness—to see what it was like.
He argued with himself, and said, “A spotless man am I;
I
can’t be more respectable, however hard I try!
For six and
thirty years I’ve always been as good as gold,
And now for
half an hour I’ll plan infamy untold!
“A baby who is wicked at the early age of one,
And then
reforms—and dies at thirty-six a spotless son,
Is never,
never saddled with his babyhood’s defect,
But earns from
worthy men consideration and respect.
“So one who never revelled in discreditable tricks
Until
he reached the comfortable age of thirty-six,
May then for half
an hour perpetrate a deed of shame,
Without incurring permanent
disgrace, or even blame.
“That babies don’t commit such crimes as forgery is true,
But
little sins develop, if you leave ’em to accrue;
And he who
shuns all vices as successive seasons roll,
Should reap at length
the benefit of so much self-control.
“The common sin of babyhood—objecting to be drest—
If
you leave it to accumulate at compound interest,
For anything you
know, may represent, if you’re alive,
A burglary or murder
at the age of thirty-five.
“Still, I wouldn’t take advantage of this fact, but be
content
With some pardonable folly—it’s a mere experiment.
The
greater the temptation to go wrong, the less the sin;
So with something
that’s particularly tempting I’ll begin.
“I would not steal a penny, for my income’s very fair—
I
do not want a penny—I have pennies and to spare—
And
if I stole a penny from a money-bag or till,
The sin would be enormous—the
temptation being nil.
“But if I broke asunder all such pettifogging bounds,
And
forged a party’s Will for (say) Five Hundred Thousand Pounds,
With
such an irresistible temptation to a haul,
Of course the sin must
be infinitesimally small.
“There’s WILSON who is dying—he has wealth from
Stock and rent—
If I divert his riches from their natural
descent,
I’m placed in a position to indulge each little
whim.”
So he diverted them—and they, in turn, diverted
him.
Unfortunately, though, by some unpardonable flaw,
Temptation
isn’t recognized by Britain’s Common Law;
Men found
him out by some peculiarity of touch,
And WILLIAM got a “lifer,”
which annoyed him very much.
For, ah! he never reconciled himself to life in gaol,
He fretted
and he pined, and grew dispirited and pale;
He was numbered like
a cabman, too, which told upon him so
That his spirits, once so
buoyant, grew uncomfortably low.
And sympathetic gaolers would remark, “It’s very true,
He
ain’t been brought up common, like the likes of me and you.”
So
they took him into hospital, and gave him mutton chops,
And chocolate,
and arrowroot, and buns, and malt and hops.
Kind Clergymen, besides, grew interested in his fate,
Affected
by the details of his pitiable state.
They waited on the Secretary,
somewhere in Whitehall,
Who said he would receive them any day
they liked to call.
“Consider, sir, the hardship of this interesting case:
A
prison life brings with it something very like disgrace;
It’s
telling on young WILLIAM, who’s reduced to skin and bone—
Remember
he’s a gentleman, with money of his own.
“He had an ample income, and of course he stands in need
Of
sherry with his dinner, and his customary weed;
No delicacies now
can pass his gentlemanly lips—
He misses his sea-bathing
and his continental trips.
“He says the other prisoners are commonplace and rude;
He
says he cannot relish uncongenial prison food.
When quite a boy
they taught him to distinguish Good from Bad,
And other educational
advantages he’s had.
“A burglar or garotter, or, indeed, a common thief
Is
very glad to batten on potatoes and on beef,
Or anything, in short,
that prison kitchens can afford,—
A cut above the diet in
a common workhouse ward.
“But beef and mutton-broth don’t seem to suit our WILLIAM’S
whim,
A boon to other prisoners—a punishment to him.
It
never was intended that the discipline of gaol
Should dash a convict’s
spirits, sir, or make him thin or pale.”
“Good Gracious Me!” that sympathetic Secretary cried,
“Suppose
in prison fetters MISTER WILLIAM should have died!
Dear me, of
course! Imprisonment for Life his sentence saith:
I’m
very glad you mentioned it—it might have been For Death!
“Release him with a ticket—he’ll be better then,
no doubt,
And tell him I apologize.” So MISTER WILLIAM’S
out.
I hope he will be careful in his manuscripts, I’m sure,
And
not begin experimentalizing any more.
I’m old, my dears, and shrivelled with age, and work, and grief,
My
eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, the Thief!
For
terrible sights I’ve seen, and dangers great I’ve run—
I’m
nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done!
Ah! I’ve been young in my time, and I’ve played
the deuce with men!
I’m speaking of ten years past—I
was barely sixty then:
My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes
were large and sweet,
POLL PINEAPPLE’S eyes were the standing
toast of the Royal Fleet!
A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships
With
apples and cakes, and fowls, and beer, and halfpenny dips,
And
beef for the generous mess, where the officers dine at nights,
And
fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites.
Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth Bay,
By
far the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.’
LIEUTENANT
BELAYE commanded the gunboat Hot Cross Bun,
She was seven
and thirty feet in length, and she carried a gun.
With a laudable view of enhancing his country’s naval pride,
When
people inquired her size, LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied,
“Oh,
my ship, my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy-ones!”
Which
meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her guns.
Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below,
“Come
down, Little Buttercup, come” (for he loved to call me so),
And
he’d tell of the fights at sea in which he’d taken a part,
And
so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE’S heart!
But at length his orders came, and he said one day, said he,
“I’m
ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German Sea.”
And
the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day,
For
every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE.
And I went to a back back street, with plenty of cheap cheap shops,
And
I bought an oilskin hat and a second-hand suit of slops,
And I
went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE (and he never suspected me!)
And
I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea.
We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one,—
Remarkably
nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross Bun,
I’m
sorry to say that I’ve heard that sailors sometimes swear,
But
I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong, I declare.
When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a “Messmate, ho!
What cheer?”
But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was
“How do you do, my dear?”
When Jack Tars growl, I believe
they growl with a big big D-
But the strongest oath of the Hot
Cross Buns was a mild “Dear me!”
Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could scarcely call them
slick:
Whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick;
And
whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was light and fair,
They
spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair.
They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run,
And
they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun.
And
as he was proud of his gun—such pride is hardly wrong—
The
Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long.
They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said
That
BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red—
That
JOE looked quite his age—or somebody might declare
That BARNACLE’S
long pig-tail was never his own own hair.
BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him,
“But,
then,” he would say, “there is little to do on a gunboat
trim
I can hand, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too—
And
it is such a treat to sail with a gentle well-bred crew.”
I saw him every day. How the happy moments sped!
Reef
topsails! Make all taut! There’s dirty weather ahead!
(I
do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun:
In
that case, I don’t know whatever we should have
done!)
After a fortnight’s cruise, we put into port one day,
And
off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE,
And after
a long long week had passed (and it seemed like a life),
LIEUTENANT
BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife!
He up, and he says, says he, “O crew of the Hot Cross Bun,
Here
is the wife of my heart, for the Church has made us one!”
And
as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their wits,
And all
fell down in so many separate fainting-fits.
And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be,
And
lo! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me,
Who all had
fled from their homes in a sailor’s blue array,
To follow
the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE.
* * * * * * * *
It’s strange to think that I should ever have loved
young men,
But I’m speaking of ten years past—I was
barely sixty then,
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and
age, I trow!
And poor POLL PINEAPPLE’S eyes have lost their
lustre now!
Good children, list, if you’re inclined,
And wicked children
too—
This pretty ballad is designed
Especially for you.
Two ogres dwelt in Wickham Wold—
Each traits distinctive
had:
The younger was as good as gold,
The elder was as bad.
A wicked, disobedient son
Was JAMES M’ALPINE, and
A
contrast to the elder one,
Good APPLEBODY BLAND.
M’ALPINE—brutes like him are few—
In greediness
delights,
A melancholy victim to
Unchastened appetites.
Good, well-bred children every day
He ravenously ate,—
All
boys were fish who found their way
Into M’ALPINE’S
net:
Boys whose good breeding is innate,
Whose sums are always right;
And
boys who don’t expostulate
When sent to bed at night;
And kindly boys who never search
The nests of birds of song;
And
serious boys for whom, in church,
No sermon is too long.
Contrast with JAMES’S greedy haste
And comprehensive hand,
The
nice discriminating taste
Of APPLEBODY BLAND.
BLAND only eats bad boys, who swear—
Who can behave,
but don’t—
Disgraceful lads who say “don’t
care,”
And “shan’t,” and “can’t,”
and “won’t.”
Who wet their shoes and learn to box,
And say what isn’t
true,
Who bite their nails and jam their frocks,
And make
long noses too;
Who kick a nurse’s aged shin,
And sit in sulky mopes;
And
boys who twirl poor kittens in
Distracting zoëtropes.
But JAMES, when he was quite a youth,
Had often been to school,
And
though so bad, to tell the truth,
He wasn’t quite a fool.
At logic few with him could vie;
To his peculiar sect
He
could propose a fallacy
With singular effect.
So, when his Mentors said, “Expound—
Why eat good
children—why?”
Upon his Mentors he would round
With
this absurd reply:
“I have been taught to love the good—
The pure—the
unalloyed—
And wicked boys, I’ve understood,
I
always should avoid.
“Why do I eat good children—why?
Because I love
them so!”
(But this was empty sophistry,
As your Papa
can show.)
Now, though the learning of his friends
Was truly not immense,
They
had a way of fitting ends
By rule of common sense.
“Away, away!” his Mentors cried,
“Thou uncongenial
pest!
A quirk’s a thing we can’t abide,
A quibble
we detest!
“A fallacy in your reply
Our intellect descries,
Although
we don’t pretend to spy
Exactly where it lies.
“In misery and penal woes
Must end a glutton’s joys;
And
learn how ogres punish those
Who dare to eat good boys.
“Secured by fetter, cramp, and chain,
And gagged securely—so—
You
shall be placed in Drury Lane,
Where only good lads go.
“Surrounded there by virtuous boys,
You’ll suffer
torture wus
Than that which constantly annoys
Disgraceful
TANTALUS.
(“If you would learn the woes that vex
Poor TANTALUS,
down there,
Pray borrow of Papa an ex-
Purgated LEMPRIERE.)
“But as for BLAND who, as it seems,
Eats only naughty
boys,
We’ve planned a recompense that teems
With gastronomic
joys.
“Where wicked youths in crowds are stowed
He shall unquestioned
rule,
And have the run of Hackney Road
Reformatory School!”
EARL JOYCE he was a kind old party
Whom nothing ever could put
out,
Though eighty-two, he still was hearty,
Excepting as
regarded gout.
He had one unexampled daughter,
The LADY MINNIE-HAHA JOYCE,
Fair
MINNIE-HAHA, “Laughing Water,”
So called from her melodious
voice.
By Nature planned for lover-capture,
Her beauty every heart
assailed;
The good old nobleman with rapture
Observed how
widely she prevailed
Aloof from all the lordly flockings
Of titled swells who worshipped
her,
There stood, in pumps and cotton stockings,
One humble
lover—OLIVER.
He was no peer by Fortune petted,
His name recalled no bygone
age;
He was no lordling coronetted—
Alas! he was a simple
page!
With vain appeals he never bored her,
But stood in silent sorrow
by—
He knew how fondly he adored her,
And knew, alas!
how hopelessly!
Well grounded by a village tutor
In languages alive and past,
He’d
say unto himself, “Knee-suitor,
Oh, do not go beyond your
last!”
But though his name could boast no handle,
He could not every
hope resign;
As moths will hover round a candle,
So hovered
he about her shrine.
The brilliant candle dazed the moth well:
One day she sang to
her Papa
The air that MARIE sings with BOTHWELL
In NEIDERMEYER’S
opera.
(Therein a stable boy, it’s stated,
Devoutly loved a noble
dame,
Who ardently reciprocated
His rather injudicious flame.)
And then, before the piano closing
(He listened coyly at the
door),
She sang a song of her composing—
I give one
verse from half a score:
BALLAD
Why, pretty page, art ever sighing?
Is sorrow in thy heartlet
lying?
Come, set a-ringing
Thy laugh entrancing,
And
ever singing
And ever dancing.
Ever singing, Tra! la! la!
Ever
dancing, Tra! la! la!
Ever singing, ever dancing,
Ever singing,
Tra! la! la!
He skipped for joy like little muttons,
He danced like Esmeralda’s
kid.
(She did not mean a boy in buttons,
Although he fancied
that she did.)
Poor lad! convinced he thus would win her,
He wore out many
pairs of soles;
He danced when taking down the dinner—
He
danced when bringing up the coals.
He danced and sang (however laden)
With his incessant “Tra!
la! la!”
Which much surprised the noble maiden,
And
puzzled even her Papa.
He nourished now his flame and fanned it,
He even danced at
work below.
The upper servants wouldn’t stand it,
And
BOWLES the butler told him so.
At length on impulse acting blindly,
His love he laid completely
bare;
The gentle Earl received him kindly
And told the lad
to take a chair.
“Oh, sir,” the suitor uttered sadly,
“Don’t
give your indignation vent;
I fear you think I’m acting madly,
Perhaps
you think me insolent?”
The kindly Earl repelled the notion;
His noble bosom heaved
a sigh,
His fingers trembled with emotion,
A tear stood in
his mild blue eye:
For, oh! the scene recalled too plainly
The half-forgotten time
when he,
A boy of nine, had worshipped vainly
A governess
of forty-three!
“My boy,” he said, in tone consoling,
“Give
up this idle fancy—do—
The song you heard my daughter
trolling
Did not, indeed, refer to you.
“I feel for you, poor boy, acutely;
I would not wish to
give you pain;
Your pangs I estimate minutely,—
I, too,
have loved, and loved in vain.
“But still your humble rank and station
For MINNIE surely
are not meet”—
He said much more in conversation
Which
it were needless to repeat.
Now I’m prepared to bet a guinea,
Were this a mere dramatic
case,
The page would have eloped with MINNIE,
But, no—he
only left his place.
The simple Truth is my detective,
With me Sensation can’t
abide;
The Likely beats the mere Effective,
And Nature is
my only guide.
A proud Pasha was BAILEY BEN,
His wives were three, his tails
were ten;
His form was dignified, but stout,
Men called him
“Little Roundabout.”
His Importance
Pale Pilgrims came from o’er the sea
To wait on PASHA
BAILEY B.,
All bearing presents in a crowd,
For B. was poor
as well as proud.
His Presents
They brought him onions strung on ropes,
And cold boiled beef,
and telescopes,
And balls of string, and shrimps, and guns,
And
chops, and tacks, and hats, and buns.
More of them
They brought him white kid gloves, and pails,
And candlesticks,
and potted quails,
And capstan-bars, and scales and weights,
And
ornaments for empty grates.
Why I mention these
My tale is not of these—oh no!
I only mention them to
show
The divers gifts that divers men
Brought o’er the
sea to BAILEY BEN.
His Confidant
A confidant had BAILEY B.,
A gay Mongolian dog was he;
I
am not good at Turkish names,
And so I call him SIMPLE JAMES.
His Confidant’s Countenance
A dreadful legend you might trace
In SIMPLE JAMES’S honest
face,
For there you read, in Nature’s print,
“A
Scoundrel of the Deepest Tint.”
His Character
A deed of blood, or fire, or flames,
Was meat and drink to SIMPLE
JAMES:
To hide his guilt he did not plan,
But owned himself
a bad young man.
The Author to his Reader
And why on earth good BAILEY BEN
(The wisest, noblest, best
of men)
Made SIMPLE JAMES his right-hand man
Is quite beyond
my mental span.
The same, continued
But there—enough of gruesome deeds!
My heart, in thinking
of them, bleeds;
And so let SIMPLE JAMES take wing,—
’Tis
not of him I’m going to sing.
The Pasha’s Clerk
Good PASHA BAILEY kept a clerk
(For BAILEY only made his mark),
His
name was MATTHEW WYCOMBE COO,
A man of nearly forty-two.
His Accomplishments
No person that I ever knew
Could “yödel” half
as well as COO,
And Highlanders exclaimed, “Eh, weel!”
When
COO began to dance a reel.
His Kindness to the Pasha’s Wives
He used to dance and sing and play
In such an unaffected way,
He
cheered the unexciting lives
Of PASHA BAILEY’S lovely wives.
The Author to his Reader
But why should I encumber you
With histories of MATTHEW COO?
Let
MATTHEW COO at once take wing,—
’Tis not of COO I’m
going to sing.
The Author’s Muse
Let me recall my wandering Muse;
She shall be steady
if I choose—
She roves, instead of helping me
To tell
the deeds of BAILEY B.
The Pasha’s Visitor
One morning knocked, at half-past eight,
A tall Red Indian at
his gate.
In Turkey, as you’re p’raps aware,
Red
Indians are extremely rare.
The Visitor’s Outfit
Mocassins decked his graceful legs,
His eyes were black, and
round as eggs,
And on his neck, instead of beads,
Hung several
Catawampous seeds.
What the Visitor said
“Ho, ho!” he said, “thou pale-faced one,
Poor
offspring of an Eastern sun,
You’ve never seen the
Red Man skip
Upon the banks of Mississip!”
The Author’s Moderation
To say that BAILEY oped his eyes
Would feebly paint his great
surprise—
To say it almost made him die
Would be to
paint it much too high.
The Author to his Reader
But why should I ransack my head
To tell you all that Indian
said;
We’ll let the Indian man take wing,—
’Tis
not of him I’m going to sing.
The Reader to the Author
Come, come, I say, that’s quite enough
Of this absurd
disjointed stuff;
Now let’s get on to that affair
About
LIEUTENANT-COLONEL FLARE.
The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I
dare say there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no
direction
You’d find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With
that of COLONEL FLARE.
His soldiers might be rated
As military Pearls.
As unsophisticated
As
pretty little girls!
They never smoked or ratted,
Or talked
of Sues or Polls;
The Sergeant-Major tatted,
The others nursed
their dolls.
He spent his days in teaching
These truly solemn facts;
There’s
little use in preaching,
Or circulating tracts.
(The vainest
plan invented
For stifling other creeds,
Unless it’s
supplemented
With charitable deeds.)
He taught his soldiers kindly
To give at Hunger’s call:
“Oh,
better far give blindly,
Than never give at all!
Though sympathy
be kindled
By Imposition’s game,
Oh, better far be swindled
Than
smother up its flame!”
His means were far from ample
For pleasure or for dress,
Yet
note this bright example
Of single-heartedness:
Though ranking
as a Colonel,
His pay was but a groat,
While their reward
diurnal
Was—each a five-pound note.
Moreover,—this evinces
His kindness, you’ll allow,—
He
fed them all like princes,
And lived himself on cow.
He set
them all regaling
On curious wines, and dear,
While he would
sit pale-ale-ing,
Or quaffing ginger-beer.
Then at his instigation
(A pretty fancy this)
Their daily
pay and ration
He’d take in change for his;
They brought
it to him weekly,
And he without a groan,
Would take it from
them meekly
And give them all his own!
Though not exactly knighted
As knights, of course, should be,
Yet
no one so delighted
In harmless chivalry.
If peasant girl
or ladye
Beneath misfortunes sank,
Whate’er distinctions
made he,
They were not those of rank.
No maiden young and comely
Who wanted good advice
(However
poor or homely)
Need ask him for it twice.
He’d wipe
away the blindness
That comes of teary dew;
His sympathetic
kindness
No sort of limit knew.
He always hated dealing
With men who schemed or planned;
A
person harsh—unfeeling—
The Colonel could not stand.
He
hated cold, suspecting,
Official men in blue,
Who pass their
lives detecting
The crimes that others do.
For men who’d shoot a sparrow,
Or immolate a worm
Beneath
a farmer’s harrow,
He could not find a term.
Humanely,
ay, and knightly
He dealt with such an one;
He took and tied
him tightly,
And blew him from a gun.
The earth has armies plenty,
And semi-warlike bands,
I’m
certain there are twenty
In European lands;
But, oh! in no
direction
You’d find one to compare
In brotherly affection
With
that of COLONEL FLARE.
MR. BLAKE was a regular out-and-out hardened sinner,
Who was
quite out of the pale of Christianity, so to speak,
He was in the
habit of smoking a long pipe and drinking a glass of grog on a Sunday
after dinner,
And seldom thought of going to church more than twice
or—if Good Friday or Christmas Day happened to come in it—three
times a week.
He was quite indifferent as to the particular kinds of dresses
That
the clergyman wore at church where he used to go to pray,
And whatever
he did in the way of relieving a chap’s distresses,
He always
did in a nasty, sneaking, underhanded, hole-and-corner sort of way.
I have known him indulge in profane, ungentlemanly emphatics,
When
the Protestant Church has been divided on the subject of the proper
width of a chasuble’s hem;
I have even known him to sneer
at albs—and as for dalmatics,
Words can’t convey an
idea of the contempt he expressed for them.
He didn’t believe in persons who, not being well off themselves,
are obliged to confine their charitable exertions to collecting money
from wealthier people,
And looked upon individuals of the former
class as ecclesiastical hawks;
He used to say that he would no
more think of interfering with his priest’s robes than with his
church or his steeple,
And that he did not consider his soul imperilled
because somebody over whom he had no influence whatever, chose to dress
himself up like an exaggerated GUY FAWKES.
This shocking old vagabond was so unutterably shameless
That
he actually went a-courting a very respectable and pious middle-aged
sister, by the name of BIGGS.
She was a rather attractive widow,
whose life as such had always been particularly blameless;
Her
first husband had left her a secure but moderate competence, owing to
some fortunate speculations in the matter of figs.
She was an excellent person in every way—and won the respect
even of MRS. GRUNDY,
She was a good housewife, too, and wouldn’t
have wasted a penny if she had owned the Koh-i-noor.
She was just
as strict as he was lax in her observance of Sunday,
And being
a good economist, and charitable besides, she took all the bones and
cold potatoes and broken pie-crusts and candle-ends (when she had quite
done with them), and made them into an excellent soup for the deserving
poor.
I am sorry to say that she rather took to BLAKE—that outcast
of society,
And when respectable brothers who were fond of her
began to look dubious and to cough,
She would say, “Oh, my
friends, it’s because I hope to bring this poor benighted soul
back to virtue and propriety,
And besides, the poor benighted soul,
with all his faults, was uncommonly well off.
And when MR. BLAKE’S dissipated friends called his attention
to the frown or the pout of her,
Whenever he did anything which
appeared to her to savour of an unmentionable place,
He would say
that “she would be a very decent old girl when all that nonsense
was knocked out of her,”
And his method of knocking it out
of her is one that covered him with disgrace.
She was fond of going to church services four times every Sunday,
and, four or five times in the week, and never seemed to pall of them,
So
he hunted out all the churches within a convenient distance that had
services at different hours, so to speak;
And when he had married
her he positively insisted upon their going to all of them,
So
they contrived to do about twelve churches every Sunday, and, if they
had luck, from twenty-two to twenty-three in the course of the week.
She was fond of dropping his sovereigns ostentatiously into the plate,
and she liked to see them stand out rather conspicuously against the
commonplace half-crowns and shillings,
So he took her to all the
charity sermons, and if by any extraordinary chance there wasn’t
a charity sermon anywhere, he would drop a couple of sovereigns (one
for him and one for her) into the poor-box at the door;
And as
he always deducted the sums thus given in charity from the housekeeping
money, and the money he allowed her for her bonnets and frillings,
She
soon began to find that even charity, if you allow it to interfere with
your personal luxuries, becomes an intolerable bore.
On Sundays she was always melancholy and anything but good society,
For
that day in her household was a day of sighings and sobbings and wringing
of hands and shaking of heads:
She wouldn’t hear of a button
being sewn on a glove, because it was a work neither of necessity nor
of piety,
And strictly prohibited her servants from amusing themselves,
or indeed doing anything at all except dusting the drawing-rooms, cleaning
the boots and shoes, cooking the parlour dinner, waiting generally on
the family, and making the beds.
But BLAKE even went further than
that, and said that people should do their own works of necessity, and
not delegate them to persons in a menial situation,
So he wouldn’t
allow his servants to do so much as even answer a bell.
Here he
is making his wife carry up the water for her bath to the second floor,
much against her inclination,—
And why in the world the gentleman
who illustrates these ballads has put him in a cocked hat is more than
I can tell.
After about three months of this sort of thing, taking the smooth
with the rough of it,
(Blacking her own boots and peeling her own
potatoes was not her notion of connubial bliss),
MRS. BLAKE began
to find that she had pretty nearly had enough of it,
And came,
in course of time, to think that BLAKE’S own original line of
conduct wasn’t so much amiss.
And now that wicked person—that detestable sinner (“BELIAL
BLAKE” his friends and well-wishers call him for his atrocities),
And
his poor deluded victim, whom all her Christian brothers dislike and
pity so,
Go to the parish church only on Sunday morning and afternoon
and occasionally on a week-day, and spend their evenings in connubial
fondlings and affectionate reciprocities,
And I should like to
know where in the world (or rather, out of it) they expect to go!
Weary at heart and extremely ill
Was PALEY VOLLAIRE of Bromptonville,
In
a dirty lodging, with fever down,
Close to the Polygon, Somers
Town.
PALEY VOLLAIRE was an only son
(For why? His mother had
had but one),
And PALEY inherited gold and grounds
Worth several
hundred thousand pounds.
But he, like many a rich young man,
Through this magnificent
fortune ran,
And nothing was left for his daily needs
But
duplicate copies of mortgage-deeds.
Shabby and sorry and sorely sick,
He slept, and dreamt that
the clock’s “tick, tick,”
Was one of the Fates,
with a long sharp knife,
Snicking off bits of his shortened life.
He woke and counted the pips on the walls,
The outdoor passengers’
loud footfalls,
And reckoned all over, and reckoned again,
The
little white tufts on his counterpane.
A medical man to his bedside came.
(I can’t remember that
doctor’s name),
And said, “You’ll die in a very
short while
If you don’t set sail for Madeira’s isle.”
“Go to Madeira? goodness me!
I haven’t the money
to pay your fee!”
“Then, PALEY VOLLAIRE,” said
the leech, “good bye;
I’ll come no more, for your’re
sure to die.”
He sighed and he groaned and smote his breast;
“Oh, send,”
said he, “for FREDERICK WEST,
Ere senses fade or my eyes
grow dim:
I’ve a terrible tale to whisper him!”
Poor was FREDERICK’S lot in life,—
A dustman he
with a fair young wife,
A worthy man with a hard-earned store,
A
hundred and seventy pounds—or more.
FREDERICK came, and he said, “Maybe
You’ll say what
you happened to want with me?”
“Wronged boy,”
said PALEY VOLLAIRE, “I will,
But don’t you fidget
yourself—sit still.”
THE TERRIBLE TALE.
“’Tis now some thirty-seven years ago
Since first
began the plot that I’m revealing,
A fine young woman, whom
you ought to know,
Lived with her husband down in Drum Lane, Ealing.
Herself
by means of mangling reimbursing,
And now and then (at intervals)
wet-nursing.
“Two little babes dwelt in their humble cot:
One was her
own—the other only lent to her:
Her own she slighted.
Tempted by a lot
Of gold and silver regularly sent to her,
She
ministered unto the little other
In the capacity of foster-mother.
“I was her own. Oh! how I lay and sobbed
In
my poor cradle—deeply, deeply cursing
The rich man’s
pampered bantling, who had robbed
My only birthright—an attentive
nursing!
Sometimes in hatred of my foster-brother,
I gnashed
my gums—which terrified my mother.
“One day—it was quite early in the week—
I
in MY cradle having placed the bantling—
Crept
into his! He had not learnt to speak,
But I could see his
face with anger mantling.
It was imprudent—well, disgraceful
maybe,
For, oh! I was a bad, blackhearted baby!
“So great a luxury was food, I think
No wickedness but
I was game to try for it.
Now if I wanted anything to drink
At
any time, I only had to cry for it!
Once, if I dared to
weep, the bottle lacking,
My blubbering involved a serious smacking!
“We grew up in the usual way—my friend,
My foster-brother,
daily growing thinner,
While gradually I began to mend,
And
thrived amazingly on double dinner.
And every one, besides my foster-mother,
Believed
that either of us was the other.
“I came into his wealth—I bore his name,
I
bear it still—his property I squandered—
I mortgaged
everything—and now (oh, shame!)
Into a Somers Town shake-down
I’ve wandered!
I am no PALEY—no, VOLLAIRE—it’s
true, my boy!
The only rightful PALEY V. is you, my boy!
“And all I have is yours—and yours is mine.
I still
may place you in your true position:
Give me the pounds you’ve
saved, and I’ll resign
My noble name, my rank, and my condition.
So
far my wickedness in falsely owning
Your vasty wealth, I am at
last atoning!”
* * * * * * *
FREDERICK he was a simple soul,
He pulled from his pocket a
bulky roll,
And gave to PALEY his hard-earned store,
A hundred
and seventy pounds or more.
PALEY VOLLAIRE, with many a groan,
Gave FREDERICK all that he
called his own,—
Two shirts and a sock, and a vest of jean,
A
Wellington boot and a bamboo cane.
And FRED (entitled to all things there)
He took the fever from
MR. VOLLAIRE,
Which killed poor FREDERICK WEST. Meanwhile
VOLLAIRE
sailed off to Madeira’s isle.
I sing a legend of the sea,
So hard-a-port upon your lee!
A
ship on starboard tack!
She’s bound upon a private cruise—
(This
is the kind of spice I use
To give a salt-sea smack).
Behold, on every afternoon
(Save in a gale or strong Monsoon)
Great
CAPTAIN CAPEL CLEGGS
(Great morally, though rather short)
Sat
at an open weather-port
And aired his shapely legs.
And Mermaids hung around in flocks,
On cable chains and distant
rocks,
To gaze upon those limbs;
For legs like those, of flesh
and bone,
Are things “not generally known”
To
any Merman TIMBS.
But Mermen didn’t seem to care
Much time (as far as I’m
aware)
With CLEGGS’S legs to spend;
Though Mermaids
swam around all day
And gazed, exclaiming, “That’s
the way
A gentleman should end!
“A pair of legs with well-cut knees,
And calves and ankles
such as these
Which we in rapture hail,
Are far more eloquent,
it’s clear
(When clothed in silk and kerseymere),
Than
any nasty tail.”
And CLEGGS—a worthy kind old boy—
Rejoiced to add
to others’ joy,
And, when the day was dry,
Because it
pleased the lookers-on,
He sat from morn till night—though
con-
Stitutionally shy.
At first the Mermen laughed, “Pooh! pooh!”
But finally
they jealous grew,
And sounded loud recalls;
But vainly.
So these fishy males
Declared they too would clothe their tails
In
silken hose and smalls.
They set to work, these water-men,
And made their nether robes—but
when
They drew with dainty touch
The kerseymere upon their
tails,
They found it scraped against their scales,
And hurt
them very much.
The silk, besides, with which they chose
To deck their tails
by way of hose
(They never thought of shoon),
For such a use
was much too thin,—
It tore against the caudal fin,
And
“went in ladders” soon.
So they designed another plan:
They sent their most seductive
man
This note to him to show—
“Our Monarch sends
to CAPTAIN CLEGGS
His humble compliments, and begs
He’ll
join him down below;
“We’ve pleasant homes below the sea—
Besides,
if CAPTAIN CLEGGS should be
(As our advices say)
A judge of
Mermaids, he will find
Our lady-fish of every kind
Inspection
will repay.”
Good CAPEL sent a kind reply,
For CAPEL thought he could descry
An
admirable plan
To study all their ways and laws—
(But
not their lady-fish, because
He was a married man).
The Merman sank—the Captain too
Jumped overboard, and
dropped from view
Like stone from catapult;
And when he reached
the Merman’s lair,
He certainly was welcomed there,
But,
ah! with what result?
They didn’t let him learn their law,
Or make a note of
what he saw,
Or interesting mem.:
The lady-fish he couldn’t
find,
But that, of course, he didn’t mind—
He
didn’t come for them.
For though, when CAPTAIN CAPEL sank,
The Mermen drawn in double
rank
Gave him a hearty hail,
Yet when secure of CAPTAIN CLEGGS,
They
cut off both his lovely legs,
And gave him such a tail!
When CAPTAIN CLEGGS returned aboard,
His blithesome crew convulsive
roar’d,
To see him altered so.
The Admiralty did insist
That
he upon the Half-pay List
Immediately should go.
In vain declared the poor old salt,
“It’s my misfortune—not
my fault,”
With tear and trembling lip—
In vain
poor CAPEL begged and begged.
“A man must be completely legged
Who
rules a British ship.”
So spake the stern First Lord aloud—
He was a wag, though
very proud,
And much rejoiced to say,
“You’re
only half a captain now—
And so, my worthy friend, I vow
You’ll
only get half-pay!”
Oh! listen to the tale of little ANNIE PROTHEROE.
She kept a
small post-office in the neighbourhood of BOW;
She loved a skilled
mechanic, who was famous in his day—
A gentle executioner
whose name was GILBERT CLAY.
I think I hear you say, “A dreadful subject for your rhymes!”
O
reader, do not shrink—he didn’t live in modern times!
He
lived so long ago (the sketch will show it at a glance)
That all
his actions glitter with the lime-light of Romance.
In busy times he laboured at his gentle craft all day—
“No
doubt you mean his Cal-craft,” you amusingly will say—
But,
no—he didn’t operate with common bits of string,
He
was a Public Headsman, which is quite another thing.
And when his work was over, they would ramble o’er the lea,
And
sit beneath the frondage of an elderberry tree,
And ANNIE’S
simple prattle entertained him on his walk,
For public executions
formed the subject of her talk.
And sometimes he’d explain to her, which charmed her very much,
How
famous operators vary very much in touch,
And then, perhaps, he’d
show how he himself performed the trick,
And illustrate his meaning
with a poppy and a stick.
Or, if it rained, the little maid would stop at home, and look
At
his favourable notices, all pasted in a book,
And then her cheek
would flush—her swimming eyes would dance with joy
In a glow
of admiration at the prowess of her boy.
One summer eve, at supper-time, the gentle GILBERT said
(As
he helped his pretty ANNIE to a slice of collared head),
“This
reminds me I must settle on the next ensuing day
The hash of that
unmitigated villain PETER GRAY.”
He saw his ANNIE tremble and he saw his ANNIE start,
Her changing
colour trumpeted the flutter at her heart;
Young GILBERT’S
manly bosom rose and sank with jealous fear,
And he said, “O
gentle ANNIE, what’s the meaning of this here?”
And ANNIE answered, blushing in an interesting way,
“You
think, no doubt, I’m sighing for that felon PETER GRAY:
That
I was his young woman is unquestionably true,
But not since I began
a-keeping company with you.”
Then GILBERT, who was irritable, rose and loudly swore
He’d
know the reason why if she refused to tell him more;
And she answered
(all the woman in her flashing from her eyes)
“You mustn’t
ask no questions, and you won’t be told no lies!
“Few lovers have the privilege enjoyed, my dear, by you,
Of
chopping off a rival’s head and quartering him too!
Of vengeance,
dear, to-morrow you will surely take your fill!”
And GILBERT
ground his molars as he answered her, “I will!”
Young GILBERT rose from table with a stern determined look,
And,
frowning, took an inexpensive hatchet from its hook;
And ANNIE
watched his movements with an interested air—
For the morrow—for
the morrow he was going to prepare!
He chipped it with a hammer and he chopped it with a bill,
He
poured sulphuric acid on the edge of it, until
This terrible Avenger
of the Majesty of Law
Was far less like a hatchet than a dissipated
saw.
And ANNIE said, “O GILBERT, dear, I do not understand
Why
ever you are injuring that hatchet in your hand?’
He said,
“It is intended for to lacerate and flay
The neck of that
unmitigated villain PETER GRAY!”
“Now, GILBERT,” ANNIE answered, “wicked headsman,
just beware—
I won’t have PETER tortured with that
horrible affair;
If you appear with that, you may depend you’ll
rue the day.”
But GILBERT said, “Oh, shall I?”
which was just his nasty way.
He saw a look of anger from her eyes distinctly dart,
For ANNIE
was a woman, and had pity in her heart!
She wished him a good evening—he
answered with a glare;
She only said, “Remember, for your
ANNIE will be there!”
* * * * * * * *
The morrow GILBERT boldly on the scaffold took his stand,
With
a vizor on his face and with a hatchet in his hand,
And all the
people noticed that the Engine of the Law
Was far less like a hatchet
than a dissipated saw.
The felon very coolly loosed his collar and his stock,
And placed
his wicked head upon the handy little block.
The hatchet was uplifted
for to settle PETER GRAY,
When GILBERT plainly heard a woman’s
voice exclaiming, “Stay!”
’Twas ANNIE, gentle ANNIE, as you’ll easily believe.
“O
GILBERT, you must spare him, for I bring him a reprieve,
It came
from our Home Secretary many weeks ago,
And passed through that
post-office which I used to keep at Bow.
“I loved you, loved you madly, and you know it, GILBERT CLAY,
And
as I’d quite surrendered all idea of PETER GRAY,
I quietly
suppressed it, as you’ll clearly understand,
For I thought
it might be awkward if he came and claimed my hand.
“In anger at my secret (which I could not tell before),
To
lacerate poor PETER GRAY vindictively you swore;
I told you if
you used that blunted axe you’d rue the day,
And so you will,
young GILBERT, for I’ll marry PETER GRAY!”
[And so she did.
I’ve painted SHAKESPEARE all my life—
“An
infant” (even then at “play”!)
“A boy,”
with stage-ambition rife,
Then “Married to ANN HATHAWAY.”
“The bard’s first ticket night” (or “ben.”),
His
“First appearance on the stage,”
His “Call before
the curtain”—then
“Rejoicings when he came of
age.”
The bard play-writing in his room,
The bard a humble lawyer’s
clerk.
The bard a lawyer {1}—parson
{2}—groom {3}—
The
bard deer-stealing, after dark.
The bard a tradesman {4}—and
a Jew {5}—
The
bard a botanist {6}—a
beak {7}—
The
bard a skilled musician {8}
too—
A sheriff {9}
and a surgeon {10}
eke!
Yet critics say (a friendly stock)
That, though it’s evident
I try,
Yet even I can barely mock
The glimmer of his
wondrous eye!
One morning as a work I framed,
There passed a person, walking
hard:
“My gracious goodness,” I exclaimed,
“How
very like my dear old bard!
“Oh, what a model he would make!”
I rushed outside—impulsive
me!—
“Forgive the liberty I take,
But you’re
so very”—“Stop!” said he.
“You needn’t waste your breath or time,—
I
know what you are going to say,—
That you’re an artist,
and that I’m
Remarkably like SHAKESPEARE. Eh?
“You wish that I would sit to you?”
I clasped him
madly round the waist,
And breathlessly replied, “I do!”
“All
right,” said he, “but please make haste.”
I led him by his hallowed sleeve,
And worked away at him apace,
I
painted him till dewy eve,—
There never was a nobler face!
“Oh, sir,” I said, “a fortune grand
Is yours,
by dint of merest chance,—
To sport his brow at second-hand,
To
wear his cast-off countenance!
“To rub his eyes whene’er they ache—
To
wear his baldness ere you’re old—
To clean his
teeth when you awake—
To blow his nose when you’ve
a cold!”
His eyeballs glistened in his eyes—
I sat and watched
and smoked my pipe;
“Bravo!” I said, “I recognize
The
phrensy of your prototype!”
His scanty hair he wildly tore:
“That’s right,”
said I, “it shows your breed.”
He danced—he stamped—he
wildly swore—
“Bless me, that’s very fine indeed!”
“Sir,” said the grand Shakesperian boy
(Continuing
to blaze away),
“You think my face a source of joy;
That
shows you know not what you say.
“Forgive these yells and cellar-flaps:
I’m always
thrown in some such state
When on his face well-meaning chaps
This
wretched man congratulate.
“For, oh! this face—this pointed chin—
This
nose—this brow—these eyeballs too,
Have always been
the origin
Of all the woes I ever knew!
“If to the play my way I find,
To see a grand Shakesperian
piece,
I have no rest, no ease of mind
Until the author’s
puppets cease.
“Men nudge each other—thus—and say,
‘This
certainly is SHAKESPEARE’S son,’
And merry wags (of
course in play)
Cry ‘Author!’ when the piece is done.
“In church the people stare at me,
Their soul the sermon
never binds;
I catch them looking round to see,
And thoughts
of SHAKESPEARE fill their minds.
“And sculptors, fraught with cunning wile,
Who find it
difficult to crown
A bust with BROWN’S insipid smile,
Or
TOMKINS’S unmannered frown,
“Yet boldly make my face their own,
When (oh, presumption!)
they require
To animate a paving-stone
With SHAKESPEARE’S
intellectual fire.
“At parties where young ladies gaze,
And I attempt to
speak my joy,
‘Hush, pray,’ some lovely creature says,
‘The
fond illusion don’t destroy!’
“Whene’er I speak, my soul is wrung
With these or
some such whisperings:
‘’Tis pity that a SHAKESPEARE’S
tongue
Should say such un-Shakesperian things!’
“I should not thus be criticised
Had I a face of common
wont:
Don’t envy me—now, be advised!”
And,
now I think of it, I don’t!
A leafy cot, where no dry rot
Had ever been by tenant seen,
Where
ivy clung and wopses stung,
Where beeses hummed and drummed and
strummed,
Where treeses grew and breezes blew—
A thatchy
roof, quite waterproof,
Where countless herds of dicky-birds
Built
twiggy beds to lay their heads
(My mother begs I’ll make
it “eggs,”
But though it’s true that dickies
do
Construct a nest with chirpy noise,
With view to rest their
eggy joys,
’Neath eavy sheds, yet eggs and beds,
As
I explain to her in vain
Five hundred times, are faulty rhymes).
’Neath
such a cot, built on a plot
Of freehold land, dwelt MARY and
Her
worthy father, named by me
GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D.
He knew no guile, this simple man,
No worldly wile, or plot,
or plan,
Except that plot of freehold land
That held the cot,
and MARY, and
Her worthy father, named by me
GREGORY PARABLE,
LL.D.
A grave and learned scholar he,
Yet simple as a child could
be.
He’d shirk his meal to sit and cram
A goodish deal
of Eton Gram.
No man alive could him nonplus
With vocative
of filius;
No man alive more fully knew
The passive
of a verb or two;
None better knew the worth than he
Of words
that end in b, d, t.
Upon his green in early spring
He
might be seen endeavouring
To understand the hooks and crooks
Of
HENRY and his Latin books;
Or calling for his “Caesar on
The
Gallic War,” like any don;
Or, p’raps, expounding unto
all
How mythic BALBUS built a wall.
So lived the sage who’s
named by me
GREGORY PARABLE, LL.D.
To him one autumn day there came
A lovely youth of mystic name:
He
took a lodging in the house,
And fell a-dodging snipe and grouse,
For,
oh! that mild scholastic one
Let shooting for a single gun.
By three or four, when sport was o’er,
The Mystic One
laid by his gun,
And made sheep’s eyes of giant size,
Till
after tea, at MARY P.
And MARY P. (so kind was she),
She,
too, made eyes of giant size,
Whose every dart right through the
heart
Appeared to run that Mystic One.
The Doctor’s
whim engrossing him,
He did not know they flirted so.
For,
save at tea, “musa musae,”
As I’m advised,
monopolised
And rendered blind his giant mind.
But looking
up above his cup
One afternoon, he saw them spoon.
“Aha!”
quoth he, “you naughty lass!
As quaint old OVID says, ‘Amas!’”
The Mystic Youth avowed the truth,
And, claiming ruth, he said,
“In sooth
I love your daughter, aged man:
Refuse to
join us if you can.
Treat not my offer, sir, with scorn,
I’m
wealthy though I’m lowly born.”
“Young sir,”
the aged scholar said,
“I never thought you meant to wed:
Engrossed
completely with my books,
I little noticed lovers’ looks.
I’ve
lived so long away from man,
I do not know of any plan
By
which to test a lover’s worth,
Except, perhaps, the test
of birth.
I’ve half forgotten in this wild
A father’s
duty to his child.
It is his place, I think it’s said,
To
see his daughters richly wed
To dignitaries of the earth—
If
possible, of noble birth.
If noble birth is not at hand,
A
father may, I understand
(And this affords a chance for you),
Be
satisfied to wed her to
A BOUCICAULT or BARING—which
Means
any one who’s very rich.
Now, there’s an Earl who lives
hard by,—
My child and I will go and try
If he will
make the maid his bride—
If not, to you she shall be tied.”
They sought the Earl that very day;
The Sage began to say his
say.
The Earl (a very wicked man,
Whose face bore Vice’s
blackest ban)
Cut short the scholar’s simple tale,
And
said in voice to make them quail,
“Pooh! go along! you’re
drunk, no doubt—
Here, PETERS, turn these people out!”
The Sage, rebuffed in mode uncouth,
Returning, met the Mystic
Youth.
“My darling boy,” the Scholar said,
“Take
MARY—blessings on your head!”
The Mystic Boy undid his vest,
And took a parchment from his
breast,
And said, “Now, by that noble brow,
I ne’er
knew father such as thou!
The sterling rule of common sense
Now
reaps its proper recompense.
Rejoice, my soul’s unequalled
Queen,
For I am DUKE OF GRETNA GREEN!”
The story of FREDERICK GOWLER,
A mariner of the sea,
Who
quitted his ship, the Howler,
A-sailing in Caribbee.
For
many a day he wandered,
Till he met in a state of rum
CALAMITY
POP VON PEPPERMINT DROP,
The King of Canoodle-Dum.
That monarch addressed him gaily,
“Hum! Golly de
do to-day?
Hum! Lily-white Buckra Sailee”—
(You
notice his playful way?)—
“What dickens you doin’
here, sar?
Why debbil you want to come?
Hum! Picaninnee,
dere isn’t no sea
In City Canoodle-Dum!”
And GOWLER he answered sadly,
“Oh, mine is a doleful tale!
They’ve
treated me werry badly
In Lunnon, from where I hail.
I’m
one of the Family Royal—
No common Jack Tar you see;
I’m
WILLIAM THE FOURTH, far up in the North,
A King in my own countree!”
Bang-bang! How the tom-toms thundered!
Bang-bang!
How they thumped this gongs!
Bang-bang! How the people wondered!
Bang-bang!
At it hammer and tongs!
Alliance with Kings of Europe
Is an
honour Canoodlers seek,
Her monarchs don’t stop with PEPPERMINT
DROP
Every day in the week!
FRED told them that he was undone,
For his people all went insane,
And
fired the Tower of London,
And Grinnidge’s Naval Fane.
And
some of them racked St. James’s,
And vented their rage upon
The
Church of St. Paul, the Fishmongers’ Hall,
And the Angel
at Islington.
CALAMITY POP implored him
In his capital to remain
Till
those people of his restored him
To power and rank again.
CALAMITY
POP he made him
A Prince of Canoodle-Dum,
With a couple of
caves, some beautiful slaves,
And the run of the royal rum.
Pop gave him his only daughter,
HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP:
FRED
vowed that if over the water
He went, in an English ship,
He’d
make her his Queen,—though truly
It is an unusual thing
For
a Caribbee brat who’s as black as your hat
To be wife of
an English King.
And all the Canoodle-Dummers
They copied his rolling walk,
His
method of draining rummers,
His emblematical talk.
For his
dress and his graceful breeding,
His delicate taste in rum,
And
his nautical way, were the talk of the day
In the Court of Canoodle-Dum.
CALAMITY POP most wisely
Determined in everything
To model
his Court precisely
On that of the English King;
And ordered
that every lady
And every lady’s lord
Should masticate
jacky (a kind of tobaccy),
And scatter its juice abroad.
They signified wonder roundly
At any astounding yarn,
By
darning their dear eyes roundly
(’T was all they had to darn).
They
“hoisted their slacks,” adjusting
Garments of plantain-leaves
With
nautical twitches (as if they wore breeches,
Instead of a dress
like EVE’S!)
They shivered their timbers proudly,
At a phantom forelock dragged,
And
called for a hornpipe loudly
Whenever amusement flagged.
“Hum!
Golly! him POP resemble,
Him Britisher sov’reign, hum!
CALAMITY
POP VON PEPPERMINT DROP,
De King of Canoodle-Dum!”
The mariner’s lively “Hollo!”
Enlivened Canoodle’s
plain
(For blessings unnumbered follow
In Civilization’s
train).
But Fortune, who loves a bathos,
A terrible ending
planned,
For ADMIRAL D. CHICKABIDDY, C.B.,
Placed foot on
Canoodle land!
That rebel, he seized KING GOWLER,
He threatened his royal brains,
And
put him aboard the Howler,
And fastened him down with chains.
The
Howler she weighed her anchor,
With FREDERICK nicely nailed,
And
off to the North with WILLIAM THE FOURTH
These horrible pirates
sailed.
CALAMITY said (with folly),
“Hum! nebber want him again—
Him
civilize all of us, golly!
CALAMITY suck him brain!”
The
people, however, were pained when
They saw him aboard his ship,
But
none of them wept for their FREDDY, except
HUM PICKETY WIMPLE TIP.
A clergyman in Berkshire dwelt,
The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES,
And
in his church there weekly knelt
At least a hundred souls.
There little ELLEN you might see,
The modest rustic belle;
In
maidenly simplicity,
She loved her BERNARD well.
Though ELLEN wore a plain silk gown
Untrimmed with lace or fur,
Yet
not a husband in the town
But wished his wife like her.
Though sterner memories might fade,
You never could forget
The
child-form of that baby-maid,
The Village Violet!
A simple frightened loveliness,
Whose sacred spirit-part
Shrank
timidly from worldly stress,
And nestled in your heart.
POWLES woo’d with every well-worn plan
And all the usual
wiles
With which a well-schooled gentleman
A simple heart
beguiles.
The hackneyed compliments that bore
World-folks like you and
me,
Appeared to her as if they wore
The crown of Poesy.
His winking eyelid sang a song
Her heart could understand,
Eternity
seemed scarce too long
When BERNARD squeezed her hand.
He ordered down the martial crew
Of GODFREY’S Grenadiers,
And
COOTE conspired with TINNEY to
Ecstaticise her ears.
Beneath her window, veiled from eye,
They nightly took their
stand;
On birthdays supplemented by
The Covent Garden band.
And little ELLEN, all alone,
Enraptured sat above,
And
thought how blest she was to own
The wealth of POWLES’S love.
I often, often wonder what
Poor ELLEN saw in him;
For calculated
he was not
To please a woman’s whim.
He wasn’t good, despite the air
An M.B. waistcoat gives;
Indeed,
his dearest friends declare
No greater humbug lives.
No kind of virtue decked this priest,
He’d nothing to
allure;
He wasn’t handsome in the least,—
He wasn’t
even poor.
No—he was cursed with acres fat
(A Christian’s direst
ban),
And gold—yet, notwithstanding that,
Poor ELLEN
loved the man.
As unlike BERNARD as could be
Was poor old AARON WOOD
(Disgraceful
BERNARD’S curate he):
He was extremely good.
A BAYARD in his moral pluck
Without reproach or fear,
A
quiet venerable duck
With fifty pounds a year.
No fault had he—no fad, except
A tendency to strum,
In
mode at which you would have wept,
A dull harmonium.
He had no gold with which to hire
The minstrels who could best
Convey
a notion of the fire
That raged within his breast.
And so, when COOTE and TINNEY’S Own
Had tootled all they
knew,
And when the Guards, completely blown,
Exhaustedly withdrew,
And NELL began to sleepy feel,
Poor AARON then would come,
And
underneath her window wheel
His plain harmonium.
He woke her every morn at two,
And having gained her ear,
In
vivid colours AARON drew
The sluggard’s grim career.
He warbled Apiarian praise,
And taught her in his chant
To
shun the dog’s pugnacious ways,
And imitate the ant.
Still NELL seemed not, how much he played,
To love him out and
out,
Although the admirable maid
Respected him, no doubt.
She told him of her early vow,
And said as BERNARD’S wife
It
might be hers to show him how
To rectify his life.
“You are so pure, so kind, so true,
Your goodness shines
so bright,
What use would ELLEN be to you?
Believe me, you’re
all right.”
She wished him happiness and health,
And flew on lightning wings
To
BERNARD with his dangerous wealth
And all the woes it brings.
Oh, big was the bosom of brave ALUM BEY,
And also the region
that under it lay,
In safety and peril remarkably cool,
And
he dwelt on the banks of the river Stamboul.
Each morning he went to his garden, to cull
A bunch of zenana
or sprig of bul-bul,
And offered the bouquet, in exquisite bloom,
To
BACKSHEESH, the daughter of RAHAT LAKOUM.
No maiden like BACKSHEESH could tastily cook
A kettle of kismet
or joint of tchibouk,
As ALUM, brave fellow! sat pensively by,
With
a bright sympathetic ka-bob in his eye.
Stern duty compelled him to leave her one day—
(A ship’s
supercargo was brave ALUM BEY)—
To pretty young BACKSHEESH
he made a salaam,
And sailed to the isle of Seringapatam.
“O ALUM,” said she, “think again, ere you go—
Hareems
may arise and Moguls they may blow;
You may strike on a fez, or
be drowned, which is wuss!”
But ALUM embraced her and spoke
to her thus:
“Cease weeping, fair BACKSHEESH! I willingly swear
Cork
jackets and trousers I always will wear,
And I also throw in a
large number of oaths
That I never—no, never—will
take off my clothes!”
* * * * *
They left Madagascar away on their right,
And made Clapham Common
the following night,
Then lay on their oars for a fortnight or
two,
Becalmed in the ocean of Honololu.
One day ALUM saw, with alarm in his breast,
A cloud on the nor-sow-sow-nor-sow-nor-west;
The
wind it arose, and the crew gave a scream,
For they knew it—they
knew it!—the dreaded Hareem!!
The mast it went over, and so did the sails,
Brave ALUM threw
over his casks and his bales;
The billows arose as the weather
grew thick,
And all except ALUM were terribly sick.
The crew were but three, but they holloa’d for nine,
They
howled and they blubbered with wail and with whine:
The skipper
he fainted away in the fore,
For he hadn’t the heart for
to skip any more.
“Ho, coward!” said ALUM, “with heart of a child!
Thou
son of a party whose grave is defiled!
Is ALUM in terror? is ALUM
afeard?
Ho! ho! If you had one I’d laugh at your beard.”
His eyeball it gleamed like a furnace of coke;
He boldly inflated
his clothes as he spoke;
He daringly felt for the corks on his
chest,
And he recklessly tightened the belt at his breast.
For he knew, the brave ALUM, that, happen what might,
With belts
and cork-jacketing, he was all right;
Though others might
sink, he was certain to swim,—
No Hareem whatever had terrors
for him!
They begged him to spare from his personal store
A single cork
garment—they asked for no more;
But he couldn’t, because
of the number of oaths
That he never—no, never!—would
take off his clothes.
The billows dash o’er them and topple around,
They see
they are pretty near sure to be drowned.
A terrible wave o’er
the quarter-deck breaks,
And the vessel it sinks in a couple of
shakes!
The dreadful Hareem, though it knows how to blow,
Expends all
its strength in a minute or so;
When the vessel had foundered,
as I have detailed,
The tempest subsided, and quiet prevailed.
One seized on a cork with a yelling “Ha! ha!”
(Its
bottle had ’prisoned a pint of Pacha)—
Another a toothpick—another
a tray—
“Alas! it is useless!” said brave ALUM
BEY.
“To holloa and kick is a very bad plan:
Get it over, my
tulips, as soon as you can;
You’d better lay hold of a good
lump of lead,
And cling to it tightly until you are dead.
“Just raise your hands over your pretty heads—so—
Right
down to the bottom you’re certain to go.
Ta! ta! I’m
afraid we shall not meet again”—
For the truly courageous
are truly humane.
Brave ALUM was picked up the very next day—
A man-o’-war
sighted him smoking away;
With hunger and cold he was ready to
drop,
So they sent him below and they gave him a chop.
O reader, or readress, whichever you be,
You weep for the crew
who have sunk in the sea?
O reader, or readress, read farther,
and dry
The bright sympathetic ka-bob in your eye.
That ship had a grapple with three iron spikes,—
It’s
lowered, and, ha! on a something it strikes!
They haul it aboard
with a British “heave-ho!”
And what it has fished the
drawing will show.
There was WILSON, and PARKER, and TOMLINSON, too—
(The
first was the captain, the others the crew)—
As lively and
spry as a Malabar ape,
Quite pleased and surprised at their happy
escape.
And ALUM, brave fellow, who stood in the fore,
And never expected
to look on them more,
Was really delighted to see them again,
For
the truly courageous are truly humane.
This is SIR BARNABY BAMPTON BOO,
Last of a noble race,
BARNABY
BAMPTON, coming to woo,
All at a deuce of a pace.
BARNABY
BAMPTON BOO,
Here is a health to you:
Here is wishing you
luck, you elderly buck—
BARNABY BAMPTON BOO!
The excellent women of Tuptonvee
Knew SIR BARNABY BOO;
One
of them surely his bride would be,
But dickens a soul knew who.
Women
of Tuptonvee,
Here is a health to ye
For a Baronet, dears,
you would cut off your ears,
Women of Tuptonvee!
Here are old MR. and MRS. DE PLOW
(PETER his Christian name),
They
kept seven oxen, a pig, and a cow—
Farming it was their game.
Worthy
old PETER DE PLOW,
Here is a health to thou:
Your race isn’t
run, though you’re seventy-one,
Worthy old PETER DE PLOW!
To excellent MR. and MRS. DE PLOW
Came SIR BARNABY BOO,
He
asked for their daughter, and told ’em as how
He was as rich
as a Jew.
BARNABY BAMPTON’S wealth,
Here is your jolly
good health:
I’d never repine if you came to be mine,
BARNABY
BAMPTON’S wealth!
“O great SIR BARNABY BAMPTON BOO”
(Said PLOW to
that titled swell),
“My missus has given me daughters two—
AMELIA
and VOLATILE NELL!”
AMELIA and VOLATILE NELL,
I hope
you’re uncommonly well:
You two pretty pearls—you extremely
nice girls—
AMELIA and VOLATILE NELL!
“AMELIA is passable only, in face,
But, oh! she’s
a worthy girl;
Superior morals like hers would grace
The home
of a belted Earl.”
Morality, heavenly link!
To you I’ll
eternally drink:
I’m awfully fond of that heavenly bond,
Morality,
heavenly link!
“Now NELLY’S the prettier, p’raps, of my gals,
But,
oh! she’s a wayward chit;
She dresses herself in her showy
fal-lals,
And doesn’t read TUPPER a bit!”
O TUPPER,
philosopher true,
How do you happen to do?
A publisher looks
with respect on your books,
For they do sell, philosopher
true!
The Bart. (I’ll be hanged if I drink him again,
Or
care if he’s ill or well),
He sneered at the goodness of
MILLY THE PLAIN,
And cottoned to VOLATILE NELL!
O VOLATILE
NELLY DE P.!
Be hanged if I’ll empty to thee:
I like
worthy maids, not mere frivolous jades,
VOLATILE NELLY DE P.!
They bolted, the Bart. and his frivolous dear,
And MILLY was
left to pout;
For years they’ve got on very well, as I hear,
But
soon he will rue it, no doubt.
O excellent MILLY DE PLOW,
I
really can’t drink to you now;
My head isn’t strong,
and the song has been long,
Excellent MILLY DE PLOW!
When man and maiden meet, I like to see a drooping eye,
I always
droop my own—I am the shyest of the shy.
I’m also fond
of bashfulness, and sitting down on thorns,
For modesty’s
a quality that womankind adorns.
Whenever I am introduced to any pretty maid,
My knees they knock
together, just as if I were afraid;
I flutter, and I stammer, and
I turn a pleasing red,
For to laugh, and flirt, and ogle I consider
most ill-bred.
But still in all these matters, as in other things below,
There
is a proper medium, as I’m about to show.
I do not recommend
a newly-married pair to try
To carry on as PETER carried on with
SARAH BLIGH.
Betrothed they were when very young—before they’d learnt
to speak
(For SARAH was but six days old, and PETER was a week);
Though
little more than babies at those early ages, yet
They bashfully
would faint when they occasionally met.
They blushed, and flushed, and fainted, till they reached the age
of nine,
When PETER’S good papa (he was a Baron of the Rhine)
Determined
to endeavour some sound argument to find
To bring these shy young
people to a proper frame of mind.
He told them that as SARAH was to be his PETER’S bride,
They
might at least consent to sit at table side by side;
He begged
that they would now and then shake hands, till he was hoarse,
Which
SARAH thought indelicate, and PETER very coarse.
And PETER in a tremble to the blushing maid would say,
“You
must excuse papa, MISS BLIGH,—it is his mountain way.”
Says
SARAH, “His behaviour I’ll endeavour to forget,
But
your papa’s the coarsest person that I ever met.
“He plighted us without our leave, when we were very young,
Before
we had begun articulating with the tongue.
His underbred suggestions
fill your SARAH with alarm;
Why, gracious me! he’ll ask us
next to walk out arm-in-arm!”
At length when SARAH reached the legal age of twenty-one,
The
Baron he determined to unite her to his son;
And SARAH in a fainting-fit
for weeks unconscious lay,
And PETER blushed so hard you might
have heard him miles away.
And when the time arrived for taking SARAH to his heart,
They
were married in two churches half-a-dozen miles apart
(Intending
to escape all public ridicule and chaff),
And the service was conducted
by electric telegraph.
And when it was concluded, and the priest had said his say,
Until
the time arrived when they were both to drive away,
They never
spoke or offered for to fondle or to fawn,
For he waited
in the attic, and she waited on the lawn.
At length, when four o’clock arrived, and it was time to go,
The
carriage was announced, but decent SARAH answered “No!
Upon
my word, I’d rather sleep my everlasting nap,
Than go and
ride alone with MR. PETER in a trap.”
And PETER’S over-sensitive and highly-polished mind
Wouldn’t
suffer him to sanction a proceeding of the kind;
And further, he
declared he suffered overwhelming shocks
At the bare idea of having
any coachman on the box.
So PETER into one turn-out incontinently rushed,
While SARAH
in a second trap sat modestly and blushed;
And MR. NEWMAN’S
coachman, on authority I’ve heard,
Drove away in gallant
style upon the coach-box of a third.
Now, though this modest couple in the matter of the car
Were
very likely carrying a principle too far,
I hold their shy behaviour
was more laudable in them
Than that of PETER’S brother with
MISS SARAH’S sister EM.
ALPHONSO, who in cool assurance all creation licks,
He up and
said to EMMIE (who had impudence for six),
“MISS EMILY, I
love you—will you marry? Say the word!”
And EMILY
said, “Certainly, ALPHONSO, like a bird!”
I do not recommend a newly-married pair to try
To carry on as
PETER carried on with SARAH BLIGH,
But still their shy behaviour
was more laudable in them
Than that of PETER’S brother with
MISS SARAH’S sister EM.
Some time ago, in simple verse
I sang the story true
Of
CAPTAIN REECE, the Mantelpiece,
And all her happy crew.
I showed how any captain may
Attach his men to him,
If
he but heeds their smallest needs,
And studies every whim.
Now mark how, by Draconic rule
And hauteur ill-advised,
The
noblest crew upon the Blue
May be demoralized.
When his ungrateful country placed
Kind REECE upon half-pay,
Without
much claim SIR BERKELY came,
And took command one day.
SIR BERKELY was a martinet—
A stern unyielding soul—
Who
ruled his ship by dint of whip
And horrible black-hole.
A sailor who was overcome
From having freely dined,
And
chanced to reel when at the wheel,
He instantly confined!
And tars who, when an action raged,
Appeared alarmed or scared,
And
those below who wished to go,
He very seldom spared.
E’en he who smote his officer
For punishment was booked,
And
mutinies upon the seas
He rarely overlooked.
In short, the happy Mantelpiece,
Where all had gone so
well,
Beneath that fool SIR BERKELY’S rule
Became a
floating hell.
When first SIR BERKELY came aboard
He read a speech to all,
And
told them how he’d made a vow
To act on duty’s call.
Then WILLIAM LEE, he up and said
(The Captain’s coxswain
he),
“We’ve heard the speech your honour’s made,
And
werry pleased we be.
“We won’t pretend, my lad, as how
We’re glad
to lose our REECE;
Urbane, polite, he suited quite
The saucy
Mantelpiece.
“But if your honour gives your mind
To study all our ways,
With
dance and song we’ll jog along
As in those happy days.
“I like your honour’s looks, and feel
You’re
worthy of your sword.
Your hand, my lad—I’m doosid
glad
To welcome you aboard!”
SIR BERKELY looked amazed, as though
He didn’t understand.
“Don’t
shake your head,” good WILLIAM said,
“It is an honest
hand.
“It’s grasped a better hand than yourn—
Come,
gov’nor, I insist!”
The Captain stared—the coxswain
glared—
The hand became a fist!
“Down, upstart!” said the hardy salt;
But BERKELY
dodged his aim,
And made him go in chains below:
The seamen
murmured “Shame!”
He stopped all songs at 12 p.m.,
Stopped hornpipes when at sea,
And
swore his cot (or bunk) should not
Be used by aught than he.
He never joined their daily mess,
Nor asked them to his own,
But
chaffed in gay and social way
The officers alone.
His First Lieutenant, PETER, was
As useless as could be,
A
helpless stick, and always sick
When there was any sea.
This First Lieutenant proved to be
His foster-sister MAY,
Who
went to sea for love of he
In masculine array.
And when he learnt the curious fact,
Did he emotion show,
Or
dry her tears or end her fears
By marrying her? No!
Or did he even try to soothe
This maiden in her teens?
Oh,
no!—instead he made her wed
The Sergeant of Marines!
Of course such Spartan discipline
Would make an angel fret;
They
drew a lot, and WILLIAM shot
This fearful martinet.
The Admiralty saw how ill
They’d treated CAPTAIN REECE;
He
was restored once more aboard
The saucy Mantelpiece.
I go away this blessed day,
To sail across the sea, MATILDA!
My
vessel starts for various parts
At twenty after three, MATILDA.
I
hardly know where we may go,
Or if it’s near or far, MATILDA,
For
CAPTAIN HYDE does not confide
In any ’fore-mast tar, MATILDA!
Beneath my ban that mystic man
Shall suffer, coûte
qui coûte, MATILDA!
What right has he to keep from me
The
Admiralty route, MATILDA?
Because, forsooth! I am a youth
Of
common sailors’ lot, MATILDA!
Am I a man on human plan
Designed,
or am I not, MATILDA?
But there, my lass, we’ll let that pass!
With anxious
love I burn, MATILDA.
I want to know if we shall go
To church
when I return, MATILDA?
Your eyes are red, you bow your head;
It’s
pretty clear you thirst, MATILDA,
To name the day—What’s
that you say?
- “You’ll see me further first,”
MATILDA?
I can’t mistake the signs you make,
Although you barely
speak, MATILDA;
Though pure and young, you thrust your tongue
Right
in your pretty cheek, MATILDA!
My dear, I fear I hear you sneer—
I
do—I’m sure I do, MATILDA!
With simple grace you make
a face,
Ejaculating, “Ugh!” MATILDA.
Oh, pause to think before you drink
The dregs of Lethe’s
cup, MATILDA!
Remember, do, what I’ve gone through,
Before
you give me up, MATILDA!
Recall again the mental pain
Of what
I’ve had to do, MATILDA!
And be assured that I’ve endured
It,
all along of you, MATILDA!
Do you forget, my blithesome pet,
How once with jealous rage,
MATILDA,
I watched you walk and gaily talk
With some one thrice
your age, MATILDA?
You squatted free upon his knee,
A sight
that made me sad, MATILDA!
You pinched his cheek with friendly
tweak,
Which almost drove me mad, MATILDA!
I knew him not, but hoped to spot
Some man you thought to wed,
MATILDA!
I took a gun, my darling one,
And shot him through
the head, MATILDA!
I’m made of stuff that’s rough and
gruff
Enough, I own; but, ah, MATILDA!
It did annoy
your sailor boy
To find it was your pa, MATILDA!
I’ve passed a life of toil and strife,
And disappointments
deep, MATILDA;
I’ve lain awake with dental ache
Until
I fell asleep, MATILDA!
At times again I’ve missed a train,
Or
p’rhaps run short of tin, MATILDA,
And worn a boot on corns
that shoot,
Or, shaving, cut my chin, MATILDA.
But, oh! no trains—no dental pains—
Believe me when
I say, MATILDA,
No corns that shoot—no pinching boot
Upon
a summer day, MATILDA—
It’s my belief, could cause
such grief
As that I’ve suffered for, MATILDA,
My having
shot in vital spot
Your old progenitor, MATILDA.
Bethink you how I’ve kept the vow
I made one winter day,
MATILDA—
That, come what could, I never would
Remain
too long away, MATILDA.
And, oh! the crimes with which, at times,
I’ve
charged my gentle mind, MATILDA,
To keep the vow I made—and
now
You treat me so unkind, MATILDA!
For when at sea, off Caribbee,
I felt my passion burn, MATILDA,
By
passion egged, I went and begged
The captain to return, MATILDA.
And
when, my pet, I couldn’t get
That captain to agree, MATILDA,
Right
through a sort of open port
I pitched him in the sea, MATILDA!
Remember, too, how all the crew
With indignation blind, MATILDA,
Distinctly
swore they ne’er before
Had thought me so unkind, MATILDA.
And
how they’d shun me one by one—
An unforgiving group,
MATILDA—
I stopped their howls and sulky scowls
By pizening
their soup, MATILDA!
So pause to think, before you drink
The dregs of Lethe’s
cup, MATILDA;
Remember, do, what I’ve gone through,
Before
you give me up, MATILDA.
Recall again the mental pain
Of what
I’ve had to do, MATILDA,
And be assured that I’ve endured
It,
all along of you, MATILDA!
A rich advowson, highly prized,
For private sale was advertised;
And
many a parson made a bid;
The REVEREND SIMON MAGUS did.
He sought the agent’s: “Agent, I
Have come prepared
at once to buy
(If your demand is not too big)
The Cure of
Otium-cum-Digge.”
“Ah!” said the agent, “there’s a berth—
The
snuggest vicarage on earth;
No sort of duty (so I hear),
And
fifteen hundred pounds a year!
“If on the price we should agree,
The living soon will
vacant be;
The good incumbent’s ninety five,
And cannot
very long survive.
See—here’s his photograph—you see,
He’s
in his dotage.” “Ah, dear me!
Poor soul!”
said SIMON. “His decease
Would be a merciful release!”
The agent laughed—the agent blinked—
The agent blew
his nose and winked—
And poked the parson’s ribs in
play—
It was that agent’s vulgar way.
The REVEREND SIMON frowned: “I grieve
This light demeanour
to perceive;
It’s scarcely comme il faut, I
think:
Now—pray oblige me—do not wink.
“Don’t dig my waistcoat into holes—
Your mission
is to sell the souls
Of human sheep and human kids
To that
divine who highest bids.
“Do well in this, and on your head
Unnumbered honours
will be shed.”
The agent said, “Well, truth to tell,
I
have been doing very well.”
“You should,” said SIMON, “at your age;
But
now about the parsonage.
How many rooms does it contain?
Show
me the photograph again.
“A poor apostle’s humble house
Must not be too luxurious;
No
stately halls with oaken floor—
It should be decent and no
more.
“ No billiard-rooms—no stately trees—
No croquêt-grounds
or pineries.”
“Ah!” sighed the agent, “very
true:
This property won’t do for you.”
“All these about the house you’ll find.”—
“Well,”
said the parson, “never mind;
I’ll manage to submit
to these
Luxurious superfluities.
“A clergyman who does not shirk
The various calls of Christian
work,
Will have no leisure to employ
These ‘common forms’
of worldly joy.
“To preach three times on Sabbath days—
To wean
the lost from wicked ways—
The sick to soothe—the sane
to wed—
The poor to feed with meat and bread;
“These are the various wholesome ways
In which I’ll
spend my nights and days:
My zeal will have no time to cool
At
croquet, archery, or pool.”
The agent said, “From what I hear,
This living will not
suit, I fear—
There are no poor, no sick at all;
For
services there is no call.”
The reverend gent looked grave, “Dear me!
Then there is
no ‘society’?—
I mean, of course, no sinners
there
Whose souls will be my special care?”
The cunning agent shook his head,
“No, none—except”—(the
agent said)—
“The DUKE OF A., the EARL OF B.,
The
MARQUIS C., and VISCOUNT D.
“But you will not be quite alone,
For though they’ve
chaplains of their own,
Of course this noble well-bred clan
Receive
the parish clergyman.”
“Oh, silence, sir!” said SIMON M.,
“Dukes—Earls!
What should I care for them?
These worldly ranks I scorn and flout!”
“Of
course,” the agent said, “no doubt!”
“Yet I might show these men of birth
The hollowness of
rank on earth.”
The agent answered, “Very true—
But
I should not, if I were you.”
“Who sells this rich advowson, pray?”
The agent
winked—it was his way—
“His name is HART; ’twixt
me and you,
He is, I’m grieved to say, a Jew!”
“A Jew?” said SIMON, “happy find!
I purchase
this advowson, mind.
My life shall be devoted to
Converting
that unhappy Jew!”
Two better friends you wouldn’t pass
Throughout a summer’s
day,
Than DAMON and his PYTHIAS,—
Two merchant princes
they.
At school together they contrived
All sorts of boyish larks;
And,
later on, together thrived
As merry merchants’ clerks.
And then, when many years had flown,
They rose together till
They
bought a business of their own—
And they conduct it still.
They loved each other all their lives,
Dissent they never knew,
And,
stranger still, their very wives
Were rather friendly too.
Perhaps you think, to serve my ends,
These statements I refute,
When
I admit that these dear friends
Were parties to a suit?
But ’twas a friendly action, for
Good PYTHIAS, as you
see,
Fought merely as executor,
And DAMON as trustee.
They laughed to think, as through the throng
Of suitors sad
they passed,
That they, who’d lived and loved so long,
Should
go to law at last.
The junior briefs they kindly let
Two sucking counsel hold;
These
learned persons never yet
Had fingered suitors’ gold.
But though the happy suitors two
Were friendly as could be,
Not
so the junior counsel who
Were earning maiden fee.
They too, till then, were friends. At school
They’d
done each other’s sums,
And under Oxford’s gentle rule
Had
been the closest chums.
But now they met with scowl and grin
In every public place,
And
often snapped their fingers in
Each other’s learned face.
It almost ended in a fight
When they on path or stair
Met
face to face. They made it quite
A personal affair.
And when at length the case was called
(It came on rather late),
Spectators
really were appalled
To see their deadly hate.
One junior rose—with eyeballs tense,
And swollen frontal
veins:
To all his powers of eloquence
He gave the fullest
reins.
His argument was novel—for
A verdict he relied
On
blackening the junior
Upon the other side.
“Oh,” said the Judge, in robe and fur,
“The
matter in dispute
To arbitration pray refer—
This is
a friendly suit.”
And PYTHIAS, in merry mood,
Digged DAMON in the side;
And
DAMON, tickled with the feud,
With other digs replied.
But oh! those deadly counsel twain,
Who were such friends before,
Were
never reconciled again—
They quarrelled more and more.
At length it happened that they met
On Alpine heights one day,
And
thus they paid each one his debt,
Their fury had its way—
They seized each other in a trice,
With scorn and hatred filled,
And,
falling from a precipice,
They, both of them, were killed.
The other night, from cares exempt,
I slept—and what d’you
think I dreamt?
I dreamt that somehow I had come
To dwell
in Topsy-Turveydom—
Where vice is virtue—virtue, vice:
Where nice is nasty—nasty,
nice:
Where right is wrong and wrong is right—
Where
white is black and black is white.
Where babies, much to their surprise,
Are born astonishingly
wise;
With every Science on their lips,
And Art at all their
finger-tips.
For, as their nurses dandle them
They crow binomial theorem,
With
views (it seems absurd to us)
On differential calculus.
But though a babe, as I have said,
Is born with learning in
his head,
He must forget it, if he can,
Before he calls himself
a man.
For that which we call folly here,
Is wisdom in that favoured
sphere;
The wisdom we so highly prize
Is blatant folly in
their eyes.
A boy, if he would push his way,
Must learn some nonsense every
day;
And cut, to carry out this view,
His wisdom teeth and
wisdom too.
Historians burn their midnight oils,
Intent on giant-killers’
toils;
And sages close their aged eyes
To other sages’
lullabies.
Our magistrates, in duty bound,
Commit all robbers who are found;
But
there the Beaks (so people said)
Commit all robberies instead.
Our Judges, pure and wise in tone,
Know crime from theory alone,
And
glean the motives of a thief
From books and popular belief.
But there, a Judge who wants to prime
His mind with true ideas
of crime,
Derives them from the common sense
Of practical
experience.
Policemen march all folks away
Who practise virtue every day—
Of
course, I mean to say, you know,
What we call virtue here below.
For only scoundrels dare to do
What we consider just and true,
And
only good men do, in fact,
What we should think a dirty act.
But strangest of these social twirls,
The girls are boys—the
boys are girls!
The men are women, too—but then,
Per
contra, women all are men.
To one who to tradition clings
This seems an awkward state of
things,
But if to think it out you try,
It doesn’t really
signify.
With them, as surely as can be,
A sailor should be sick at sea,
And
not a passenger may sail
Who cannot smoke right through a gale.
A soldier (save by rarest luck)
Is always shot for showing pluck
(That
is, if others can be found
With pluck enough to fire a round).
“How strange!” I said to one I saw;
“You quite
upset our every law.
However can you get along
So systematically
wrong?”
“Dear me!” my mad informant said,
“Have you
no eyes within your head?
You sneer when you your hat should doff:
Why,
we begin where you leave off!
“Your wisest men are very far
Less learned than our babies
are!”
I mused awhile—and then, oh me!
I framed
this brilliant repartee:
“Although your babes are wiser far
Than our most valued
sages are,
Your sages, with their toys and cots,
Are duller
than our idiots!”
But this remark, I grieve to state,
Came just a little bit too
late
For as I framed it in my head,
I woke and found myself
in bed.
Still I could wish that, ’stead of here,
My lot were in
that favoured sphere!—
Where greatest fools bear off the
bell
I ought to do extremely well.
I often wonder whether you
Think sometimes of that Bishop, who
From
black but balmy Rum-ti-Foo
Last summer twelvemonth came.
Unto
your mind I p’r’aps may bring
Remembrance of the man
I sing
To-day, by simply mentioning
That PETER was his name.
Remember how that holy man
Came with the great Colonial clan
To
Synod, called Pan-Anglican;
And kindly recollect
How, having
crossed the ocean wide,
To please his flock all means he tried
Consistent
with a proper pride
And manly self-respect.
He only, of the reverend pack
Who minister to Christians black,
Brought
any useful knowledge back
To his Colonial fold.
In consequence
a place I claim
For “PETER” on the scroll of Fame
(For
PETER was that Bishop’s name,
As I’ve already told).
He carried Art, he often said,
To places where that timid maid
(Save
by Colonial Bishops’ aid)
Could never hope to roam.
The
Payne-cum-Lauri feat he taught
As he had learnt it; for he thought
The
choicest fruits of Progress ought
To bless the Negro’s home.
And he had other work to do,
For, while he tossed upon the Blue,
The
islanders of Rum-ti-Foo
Forgot their kindly friend.
Their
decent clothes they learnt to tear—
They learnt to say, “I
do not care,”
Though they, of course, were well aware
How
folks, who say so, end.
Some sailors, whom he did not know,
Had landed there not long
ago,
And taught them “Bother!” also, “Blow!”
(Of
wickedness the germs).
No need to use a casuist’s pen
To
prove that they were merchantmen;
No sailor of the Royal N.
Would
use such awful terms.
And so, when BISHOP PETER came
(That was the kindly Bishop’s
name),
He heard these dreadful oaths with shame,
And chid
their want of dress.
(Except a shell—a bangle rare—
A
feather here—a feather there
The South Pacific Negroes wear
Their
native nothingness.)
He taught them that a Bishop loathes
To listen to disgraceful
oaths,
He gave them all his left-off clothes—
They bent
them to his will.
The Bishop’s gift spreads quickly round;
In
PETER’S left-off clothes they bound
(His three-and-twenty
suits they found
In fair condition still).
The Bishop’s eyes with water fill,
Quite overjoyed to
find them still
Obedient to his sovereign will,
And said,
“Good Rum-ti-Foo!
Half-way I’ll meet you, I declare:
I’ll
dress myself in cowries rare,
And fasten feathers in my hair,
And
dance the ‘Cutch-chi-boo!’” {11}
And to conciliate his See
He married PICCADILLILLEE,
The
youngest of his twenty-three,
Tall—neither fat nor thin.
(And
though the dress he made her don
Looks awkwardly a girl upon,
It
was a great improvement on
The one he found her in.)
The Bishop in his gay canoe
(His wife, of course, went with
him too)
To some adjacent island flew,
To spend his honeymoon.
Some
day in sunny Rum-ti-Foo
A little PETER’ll be on view;
And
that (if people tell me true)
Is like to happen soon.
I love a man who’ll smile and joke
When with misfortune
crowned;
Who’ll pun beneath a pauper’s yoke,
And
as he breaks his daily toke,
Conundrums gay propound.
Just such a man was BERNARD JUPP,
He scoffed at Fortune’s
frown;
He gaily drained his bitter cup—
Though Fortune
often threw him up,
It never cast him down.
Though years their share of sorrow bring,
We know that far above
All
other griefs, are griefs that spring
From some misfortune happening
To
those we really love.
E’en sorrow for another’s woe
Our BERNARD failed
to quell;
Though by this special form of blow
No person ever
suffered so,
Or bore his grief so well.
His father, wealthy and well clad,
And owning house and park,
Lost
every halfpenny he had,
And then became (extremely sad!)
A
poor attorney’s clerk.
All sons it surely would appal,
Except the passing meek,
To
see a father lose his all,
And from an independence fall
To
one pound ten a week!
But JUPP shook off this sorrow’s weight,
And, like a Christian
son,
Proved Poverty a happy fate—
Proved Wealth to be
a devil’s bait,
To lure poor sinners on.
With other sorrows BERNARD coped,
For sorrows came in packs;
His
cousins with their housemaids sloped—
His uncles forged—his
aunts eloped—
His sisters married blacks.
But BERNARD, far from murmuring
(Exemplar, friends, to us),
Determined
to his faith to cling,—
He made the best of everything,
And
argued softly thus:
“’Twere harsh my uncles’ forging knack
Too
rudely to condemn—
My aunts, repentant, may come back,
And
blacks are nothing like as black
As people colour them!”
Still Fate, with many a sorrow rife,
Maintained relentless fight:
His
grandmamma next lost her life,
Then died the mother of his wife,
But
still he seemed all right.
His brother fond (the only link
To life that bound him now)
One
morning, overcome by drink,
He broke his leg (the right, I think)
In
some disgraceful row.
But did my BERNARD swear and curse?
Oh no—to murmur loth,
He
only said, “Go, get a nurse:
Be thankful that it isn’t
worse;
You might have broken both!”
But worms who watch without concern
The cockchafer on thorns,
Or
beetles smashed, themselves will turn
If, walking through the slippery
fern,
You tread upon their corns.
One night as BERNARD made his track
Through Brompton home to
bed,
A footpad, with a vizor black,
Took watch and purse,
and dealt a crack
On BERNARD’S saint-like head.
It was too much—his spirit rose,
He looked extremely cross.
Men
thought him steeled to mortal foes,
But no—he bowed to countless
blows,
But kicked against this loss.
He finally made up his mind
Upon his friends to call;
Subscription
lists were largely signed,
For men were really glad to find
Him
mortal, after all!
An actor—GIBBS, of Drury Lane—
Of very decent station,
Once
happened in a part to gain
Excessive approbation:
It sometimes
turns a fellow’s brain
And makes him singularly vain
When
he believes that he receives
Tremendous approbation.
His great success half drove him mad,
But no one seemed to mind
him;
Well, in another piece he had
Another part assigned him.
This
part was smaller, by a bit,
Than that in which he made a hit.
So,
much ill-used, he straight refused
To play the part assigned him.
* * * * * * * *
That night that actor slept, and I’ll attempt
To tell
you of the vivid dream he dreamt.
THE DREAM.
In fighting with a robber band
(A thing he loved sincerely)
A
sword struck GIBBS upon the hand,
And wounded it severely.
At
first he didn’t heed it much,
He thought it was a simple
touch,
But soon he found the weapon’s bound
Had wounded
him severely.
To Surgeon COBB he made a trip,
Who’d just effected featly
An
amputation at the hip
Particularly neatly.
A rising man was
Surgeon COBB
But this extremely ticklish job
He had achieved
(as he believed)
Particularly neatly.
The actor rang the surgeon’s bell.
“Observe my wounded
finger,
Be good enough to strap it well,
And prithee do not
linger.
That I, dear sir, may fill again
The Theatre Royal
Drury Lane:
This very night I have to fight—
So prithee
do not linger.”
“I don’t strap fingers up for doles,”
Replied
the haughty surgeon;
“To use your cant, I don’t play
rôles
Utility that verge on.
First amputation—nothing
less—
That is my line of business:
We surgeon nobs despise
all jobs
Utility that verge on
“When in your hip there lurks disease”
(So dreamt
this lively dreamer),
“Or devastating caries
In
humerus or femur,
If you can pay a handsome fee,
Oh,
then you may remember me—
With joy elate I’ll amputate
Your
humerus or femur.”
The disconcerted actor ceased
The haughty leech to pester,
But
when the wound in size increased,
And then began to fester,
He
sought a learned Counsel’s lair,
And told that Counsel, then
and there,
How COBB’S neglect of his defect
Had made
his finger fester.
“Oh, bring my action, if you please,
The case I pray you
urge on,
And win me thumping damages
From COBB, that haughty
surgeon.
He culpably neglected me
Although I proffered him
his fee,
So pray come down, in wig and gown,
On COBB, that
haughty surgeon!”
That Counsel learned in the laws,
With passion almost trembled.
He
just had gained a mighty cause
Before the Peers assembled!
Said
he, “How dare you have the face
To come with Common Jury
case
To one who wings rhetoric flings
Before the Peers assembled?”
Dispirited became our friend—
Depressed his moral pecker—
“But
stay! a thought!—I’ll gain my end,
And save my poor
exchequer.
I won’t be placed upon the shelf,
I’ll
take it into Court myself,
And legal lore display before
The
Court of the Exchequer.”
He found a Baron—one of those
Who with our laws supply
us—
In wig and silken gown and hose,
As if at Nisi
Prius.
But he’d just given, off the reel,
A famous
judgment on Appeal:
It scarce became his heightened fame
To
sit at Nisi Prius.
Our friend began, with easy wit,
That half concealed his terror:
“Pooh!”
said the Judge, “I only sit
In Banco or in Error.
Can
you suppose, my man, that I’d
O’er Nisi Prius
Courts preside,
Or condescend my time to spend
On anything
but Error?”
“Too bad,” said GIBBS, “my case to shirk!
You
must be bad innately,
To save your skill for mighty work
Because
it’s valued greatly!”
But here he woke, with sudden
start.
* * * * * * * *
He wrote to say he’d play the part.
I’ve but to
tell he played it well—
The author’s words—his
native wit
Combined, achieved a perfect “hit”—
The
papers praised him greatly.
An excellent soldier who’s worthy the name
Loves officers
dashing and strict:
When good, he’s content with escaping
all blame,
When naughty, he likes to be licked.
He likes for a fault to be bullied and stormed,
Or imprisoned
for several days,
And hates, for a duty correctly performed,
To
be slavered with sickening praise.
No officer sickened with praises his corps
So little
as MAJOR LA GUERRE—
No officer swore at his warriors more
Than
MAJOR MAKREDI PREPERE.
Their soldiers adored them, and every grade
Delighted to hear
their abuse;
Though whenever these officers came on parade
They
shivered and shook in their shoes.
For, oh! if LA GUERRE could all praises withhold,
Why, so could
MAKREDI PREPERE,
And, oh! if MAKREDI could bluster and scold,
Why,
so could the mighty LA GUERRE.
“No doubt we deserve it—no mercy we crave—
Go
on—you’re conferring a boon;
We would rather be slanged
by a warrior brave,
Than praised by a wretched poltroon!”
MAKREDI would say that in battle’s fierce rage
True happiness
only was met:
Poor MAJOR MAKREDI, though fifty his age,
Had
never known happiness yet!
LA GUERRE would declare, “With the blood of a foe
No tipple
is worthy to clink.”
Poor fellow! he hadn’t, though
sixty or so,
Yet tasted his favourite drink!
They agreed at their mess—they agreed in the glass—
They
agreed in the choice of their “set,”
And they also
agreed in adoring, alas!
The Vivandière, pretty FILLETTE.
Agreement, you see, may be carried too far,
And after agreeing
all round
For years—in this soldierly “maid of the
bar,”
A bone of contention they found!
It may seem improper to call such a pet—
By a metaphor,
even—a bone;
But though they agreed in adoring her, yet
Each
wanted to make her his own.
“On the day that you marry her,” muttered PREPERE
(With
a pistol he quietly played),
“I’ll scatter the brains
in your noddle, I swear,
All over the stony parade!”
“I cannot do that to you,” answered LA GUERRE,
“Whatever
events may befall;
But this I can do—if you
wed her, mon cher!
I’ll eat you, moustachios and all!”
The rivals, although they would never engage,
Yet quarrelled
whenever they met;
They met in a fury and left in a rage,
But
neither took pretty FILLETTE.
“I am not afraid,” thought MAKREDI PREPERE:
“For
country I’m ready to fall;
But nobody wants, for a mere Vivandière,
To
be eaten, moustachios and all!
“Besides, though LA GUERRE has his faults, I’ll allow
He’s
one of the bravest of men:
My goodness! if I disagree with him
now,
I might disagree with him then.”
“No coward am I,” said LA GUERRE, “as you guess—
I
sneer at an enemy’s blade;
But I don’t want PREPERE
to get into a mess
For splashing the stony parade!”
One day on parade to PREPERE and LA GUERRE
Came CORPORAL JACOT
DEBETTE,
And trembling all over, he prayed of them there
To
give him the pretty FILLETTE.
“You see, I am willing to marry my bride
Until you’ve
arranged this affair;
I will blow out my brains when your honours
decide
Which marries the sweet Vivandière!”
“Well, take her,’ said both of them in a duet
(A
favourite form of reply),
“But when I am ready to marry FILLETTE.
Remember
you’ve promised to die!”
He married her then: from the flowery plains
Of existence the
roses they cull:
He lived and he died with his wife; and his brains
Are
reposing in peace in his skull.
EMILY JANE was a nursery maid,
JAMES was a bold Life Guard,
JOHN
was a constable, poorly paid
(And I am a doggerel bard).
A very good girl was EMILY JANE,
JIMMY was good and true,
JOHN
was a very good man in the main
(And I am a good man too).
Rivals for EMMIE were JOHNNY and JAMES,
Though EMILY liked them
both;
She couldn’t tell which had the strongest claims
(And
I couldn’t take my oath).
But sooner or later you’re certain to find
Your sentiments
can’t lie hid—
JANE thought it was time that she made
up her mind
(And I think it was time she did).
Said JANE, with a smirk, and a blush on her face,
“I’ll
promise to wed the boy
Who takes me to-morrow to Epsom Race!”
(Which
I would have done, with joy).
From JOHNNY escaped an expression of pain,
But Jimmy said, “Done
with you!
I’ll take you with pleasure, my EMILY JANE!”
(And
I would have said so too).
JOHN lay on the ground, and he roared like mad
(For JOHNNY was
sore perplexed),
And he kicked very hard at a very small lad
(Which
I often do, when vexed).
For JOHN was on duty next day with the Force,
To punish all
Epsom crimes;
Young people will cross when they’re
clearing the course
(I do it myself, sometimes).
* * * * * * * *
The Derby Day sun glittered gaily on cads,
On maidens with gamboge
hair,
On sharpers and pickpockets, swindlers and pads,
(For
I, with my harp, was there).
And JIMMY went down with his JANE that day,
And JOHN by the
collar or nape
Seized everybody who came in his way
(And I
had a narrow escape).
He noticed his EMILY JANE with JIM,
And envied the well-made
elf;
And people remarked that he muttered “Oh, dim!”
(I
often say “dim!” myself).
JOHN dogged them all day, without asking their leaves;
For his
sergeant he told, aside,
That JIMMY and JANE were notorious thieves
(And
I think he was justified).
But JAMES wouldn’t dream of abstracting a fork,
And JENNY
would blush with shame
At stealing so much as a bottle or cork
(A
bottle I think fair game).
But, ah! there’s another more serious crime!
They wickedly
strayed upon
The course, at a critical moment of time
(I pointed
them out to JOHN).
The constable fell on the pair in a crack—
And then, with
a demon smile,
Let JENNY cross over, but sent JIMMY back
(I
played on my harp the while).
Stern JOHNNY their agony loud derides
With a very triumphant
sneer—
They weep and they wail from the opposite sides
(And
I shed a silent tear).
And JENNY is crying away like mad,
And JIMMY is swearing hard;
And
JOHNNY is looking uncommonly glad
(And I am a doggerel bard).
But JIMMY he ventured on crossing again
The scenes of our Isthmian
Games—
JOHN caught him, and collared him, giving him pain
(I
felt very much for JAMES).
JOHN led him away with a victor’s hand,
And JIMMY was
shortly seen
In the station-house under the grand Grand Stand
(As
many a time I’ve been).
And JIMMY, bad boy, was imprisoned for life,
Though EMILY pleaded
hard;
And JOHNNY had EMILY JANE to wife
(And I am a doggerel
bard).
OLD PETER led a wretched life—
Old PETER had a furious
wife;
Old PETER too was truly stout,
He measured several yards
about.
The little fairy PICKLEKIN
One summer afternoon looked in,
And
said, “Old PETER, how de do?
Can I do anything for you?
“I have three gifts—the first will give
Unbounded
riches while you live;
The second health where’er you be;
The
third, invisibility.”
“O little fairy PICKLEKIN,”
Old PETER answered with
a grin,
“To hesitate would be absurd,—
Undoubtedly
I choose the third.”
“’Tis yours,” the fairy said; “be quite
Invisible
to mortal sight
Whene’er you please. Remember me
Most
kindly, pray, to MRS. P.”
Old MRS. PETER overheard
Wee PICKLEKIN’S concluding word,
And,
jealous of her girlhood’s choice,
Said, “That was some
young woman’s voice:
Old PETER let her scold and swear—
Old PETER, bless him,
didn’t care.
“My dear, your rage is wasted quite—
Observe,
I disappear from sight!”
A well-bred fairy (so I’ve heard)
Is always faithful to
her word:
Old PETER vanished like a shot,
Put then—his
suit of clothes did not!
For when conferred the fairy slim
Invisibility on him,
She
popped away on fairy wings,
Without referring to his “things.”
So there remained a coat of blue,
A vest and double eyeglass
too,
His tail, his shoes, his socks as well,
His pair of—no,
I must not tell.
Old MRS. PETER soon began
To see the failure of his plan,
And
then resolved (I quote the Bard)
To “hoist him with his own
petard.”
Old PETER woke next day and dressed,
Put on his coat, and shoes,
and vest,
His shirt and stock; but could not find
His only
pair of—never mind!
Old PETER was a decent man,
And though he twigged his lady’s
plan,
Yet, hearing her approaching, he
Resumed invisibility.
“Dear MRS. P., my only joy,”
Exclaimed the horrified
old boy,
“Now, give them up, I beg of you—
You
know what I’m referring to!”
But no; the cross old lady swore
She’d keep his—what
I said before—
To make him publicly absurd;
And MRS.
PETER kept her word.
The poor old fellow had no rest;
His coat, his stick, his shoes,
his vest,
Were all that now met mortal eye—
The rest,
invisibility!
“Now, madam, give them up, I beg—
I’ve had
rheumatics in my leg;
Besides, until you do, it’s plain
I
cannot come to sight again!
“For though some mirth it might afford
To see my clothes
without their lord,
Yet there would rise indignant oaths
If
he were seen without his clothes!”
But no; resolved to have her quiz,
The lady held her own—and
his—
And PETER left his humble cot
To find a pair of—you
know what.
But—here’s the worst of the affair—
Whene’er
he came across a pair
Already placed for him to don,
He was
too stout to get them on!
So he resolved at once to train,
And walked and walked with
all his main;
For years he paced this mortal earth,
To bring
himself to decent girth.
At night, when all around is still,
You’ll find him pounding
up a hill;
And shrieking peasants whom he meets,
Fall down
in terror on the peats!
Old PETER walks through wind and rain,
Resolved to train, and
train, and train,
Until he weighs twelve stone’ or so—
And
when he does, I’ll let you know.
When rival adorers come courting a maid,
There’s something
or other may often be said,
Why he should be pitched upon
rather than him.
This wasn’t the case with Old PAUL
and Old TIM.
No soul could discover a reason at all
For marrying TIMOTHY
rather than PAUL;
Though all could have offered good reasons, on
oath,
Against marrying either—or marrying both.
They were equally wealthy and equally old,
They were equally
timid and equally bold;
They were equally tall as they stood in
their shoes—
Between them, in fact, there was nothing to
choose.
Had I been young EMILY, I should have said,
“You’re
both much too old for a pretty young maid,
Threescore at the least
you are verging upon”;
But I wasn’t young EMILY.
Let us get on.
No coward’s blood ran in young EMILY’S veins,
Her
martial old father loved bloody campaigns;
At the rumours of battles
all over the globe
He pricked up his ears like the war-horse in
“Job.”
He chuckled to hear of a sudden surprise—
Of soldiers,
compelled, through an enemy’s spies,
Without any knapsacks
or shakos to flee—
For an eminent army-contractor was he.
So when her two lovers, whose patience was tried,
Implored her
between them at once to decide,
She told them she’d marry
whichever might bring
Good proofs of his doing the pluckiest thing.
They both went away with a qualified joy:
That coward, Old PAUL,
chose a very small boy,
And when no one was looking, in spite of
his fears,
He set to work boxing that little boy’s ears.
The little boy struggled and tugged at his hair,
But the lion
was roused, and Old PAUL didn’t care;
He smacked him, and
whacked him, and boxed him, and kicked
Till the poor little beggar
was royally licked.
Old TIM knew a trick worth a dozen of that,
So he called for
his stick and he called for his hat.
“I’ll cover myself
with cheap glory—I’ll go
And wallop the Frenchmen who
live in Soho!
“The German invader is ravaging France
With infantry rifle
and cavalry lance,
And beautiful Paris is fighting her best
To
shake herself free from her terrible guest.
“The Frenchmen in London, in craven alarms,
Have all run
away from the summons to arms;
They haven’t the pluck of
a pigeon—I’ll go
And wallop the Frenchmen who skulk
in Soho!”
Old TIMOTHY tried it and found it succeed:
That day he caused
many French noses to bleed;
Through foggy Soho he spread fear and
dismay,
And Frenchmen all round him in agony lay.
He took care to abstain from employing his fist
On the old and
the crippled, for they might resist;
A crippled old man may have
pluck in his breast,
But the young and the strong ones are cowards
confest.
Old TIM and Old PAUL, with the list of their foes,
Prostrated
themselves at their EMILY’S toes:
“Oh, which of us
two is the pluckier blade?”
And EMILY answered and EMILY
said:
“Old TIM has thrashed runaway Frenchmen in scores,
Who
ought to be guarding their cities and shores;
Old PAUL has made
little chaps’ noses to bleed—
Old PAUL has accomplished
the pluckier deed!”
Perhaps already you may know
SIR BLENNERHASSET PORTICO?
A
Captain in the Navy, he—
A Baronet and K.C.B.
You do?
I thought so!
It was that Captain’s favourite whim
(A
notion not confined to him)
That RODNEY was the greatest tar
Who
ever wielded capstan-bar.
He had been taught so.
“BENBOW! CORNWALLIS! HOOD!—Belay!
Compared
with RODNEY”—he would say—
“No other tar
is worth a rap!
The great LORD RODNEY was the chap
The French
to polish!
“Though, mind you, I respect LORD HOOD;
CORNWALLIS,
too, was rather good;
BENBOW could enemies repel,
LORD NELSON,
too, was pretty well—
That is, tol-lol-ish!”
SIR BLENNERHASSET spent his days
In learning RODNEY’S
little ways,
And closely imitated, too,
His mode of talking
to his crew—
His port and paces.
An ancient tar he tried
to catch
Who’d served in RODNEY’S famous batch;
But
since his time long years have fled,
And RODNEY’S tars are
mostly dead:
Eheu fugaces!
But after searching near and far,
At last he found an ancient
tar
Who served with RODNEY and his crew
Against the French
in ’Eighty-two,
(That gained the peerage).
He gave him
fifty pounds a year,
His rum, his baccy, and his beer;
And
had a comfortable den
Rigged up in what, by merchantmen,
Is
called the steerage.
“Now, JASPER”—’t was that sailor’s
name—
“Don’t fear that you’ll incur my
blame
By saying, when it seems to you,
That there is anything
I do
That RODNEY wouldn’t.”
The ancient sailor
turned his quid,
Prepared to do as he was bid:
“Ay,
ay, yer honour; to begin,
You’ve done away with ‘swifting
in’—
Well, sir, you shouldn’t!
“Upon your spars I see you’ve clapped
Peak halliard
blocks, all iron-capped.
I would not christen that a crime,
But
’twas not done in RODNEY’S time.
It looks half-witted!
Upon
your maintop-stay, I see,
You always clap a selvagee!
Your
stays, I see, are equalized—
No vessel, such as RODNEY prized,
Would
thus be fitted!
“And RODNEY, honoured sir, would grin
To see you turning
deadeyes in,
Not up, as in the ancient way,
But downwards,
like a cutter’s stay—
You didn’t oughter;
Besides,
in seizing shrouds on board,
Breast backstays you have quite ignored;
Great
RODNEY kept unto the last
Breast backstays on topgallant mast—
They
make it tauter.”
SIR BLENNERHASSET “swifted in,”
Turned deadeyes
up, and lent a fin
To strip (as told by JASPER KNOX)
The iron
capping from his blocks,
Where there was any.
SIR BLENNERHASSET
does away,
With selvagees from maintop-stay;
And though it
makes his sailors stare,
He rigs breast backstays everywhere—
In
fact, too many.
One morning, when the saucy craft
Lay calmed, old JASPER toddled
aft.
“My mind misgives me, sir, that we
Were wrong about
that selvagee—
I should restore it.”
“Good,”
said the Captain, and that day
Restored it to the maintop-stay.
Well-practised
sailors often make
A much more serious mistake,
And then ignore
it.
Next day old JASPER came once more:
“I think, sir, I was
right before.”
Well, up the mast the sailors skipped,
The
selvagee was soon unshipped,
And all were merry.
Again a day,
and JASPER came:
“I p’r’aps deserve your honour’s
blame,
I can’t make up my mind,” said he,
“About
that cursed selvagee—
It’s foolish—very.
“On Monday night I could have sworn
That maintop-stay
it should adorn,
On Tuesday morning I could swear
That selvagee
should not be there.
The knot’s a rasper!”
“Oh,
you be hanged,” said CAPTAIN P.,
“Here, go ashore at
Caribbee.
Get out—good bye—shove off—all right!”
Old
JASPER soon was out of sight—
Farewell, old JASPER!
On all Arcadia’s sunny plain,
On all Arcadia’s hill,
None
were so blithe as BILL and JANE,
So blithe as JANE and BILL.
No social earthquake e’er occurred
To rack their common
mind:
To them a Panic was a word—
A Crisis, empty wind.
No Stock Exchange disturbed the lad
With overwhelming shocks—
BILL
ploughed with all the shares he had,
JANE planted all her stocks.
And learn in what a simple way
Their pleasures they enhanced—
JANE
danced like any lamb all day,
BILL piped as well as danced.
Surrounded by a twittling crew,
Of linnet, lark, and thrush,
BILL
treated his young lady to
This sentimental gush:
“Oh, JANE, how true I am to you!
How true you are to me!
And
how we woo, and how we coo!
So fond a pair are we!
“To think, dear JANE, that anyways.
Your chiefest end
and aim
Is, one of these fine summer days,
To bear my humble
name!”
Quoth JANE, “Well, as you put the case,
I’m true
enough, no doubt,
But then, you see, in this here place
There’s
none to cut you out.
“But, oh! if anybody came—
A Lord or any such—
I
do not think your humble name
Would fascinate me much.
“For though your mates, you often boast.
You distance
out-and-out;
Still, in the abstract, you’re a most
Uncompromising
lout!”
Poor BILL, he gave a heavy sigh,
He tried in vain to speak—
A
fat tear started to each eye
And coursed adown each cheek.
For, oh! right well in truth he knew
That very self-same day,
The
LORD DE JACOB PILLALOO
Was coming there to stay!
The LORD DE JACOB PILLALOO
All proper maidens shun—
He
loves all women, it is true,
But never marries one.
Now JANE, with all her mad self-will,
Was no coquette—oh
no!
She really loved her faithful BILL,
And thus she tuned
her woe:
“Oh, willow, willow, o’er the lea!
And willow once
again!
The Peer will fall in love with me!
Why wasn’t
I made plain?”
* * * * *
A cunning woman lived hard by,
A sorceressing dame,
MACCATACOMB
DE SALMON-EYE
Was her uncommon name.
To her good JANE, with kindly yearn
For BILL’S increasing
pain,
Repaired in secrecy to learn
How best to make her plain.
“Oh, JANE,” the worthy woman said,
“This mystic
phial keep,
And rub its liquor in your head
Before you go
to sleep.
“When you awake next day, I trow,
You’ll look in
form and hue
To others just as you do now—
But not to
PILLALOO!
“When you approach him, you will find
He’ll think
you coarse—unkempt—
And rudely bid you get behind,
With
undisguised contempt.”
The LORD DE PILLALOO arrived
With his expensive train,
And
when in state serenely hived,
He sent for BILL and JANE.
“Oh, spare her, LORD OF PILLALOO!
(Said BILL) if wed you
be,
There’s anything I’d rather do
Than
flirt with LADY P.”
The Lord he gazed in Jenny’s eyes,
He looked her through
and through:
The cunning woman’s prophecies
Were clearly
coming true.
LORD PILLALOO, the Rustic’s Bane
(Bad person he, and proud),
He
laughed Ha! ha! at pretty JANE,
And sneered at her aloud!
He bade her get behind him then,
And seek her mother’s
stye—
Yet to her native countrymen
She was as fair as
aye!
MACCATACOMB, continue green!
Grow, SALMON-EYE, in might,
Except
for you, there might have been
The deuce’s own delight
“Come, collar this bad man—
Around the throat he
knotted me
Till I to choke began—
In point of fact,
garotted me!”
So spake SIR HERBERT WRITE
To JAMES, Policeman Thirty-two—
All
ruffled with his fight
SIR HERBERT was, and dirty too.
Policeman nothing said
(Though he had much to say on it),
But
from the bad man’s head
He took the cap that lay on it.
“No, great SIR HERBERT WHITE—
Impossible to take
him up.
This man is honest quite—
Wherever did you rake
him up?
“For Burglars, Thieves, and Co.,
Indeed, I’m no
apologist,
But I, some years ago,
Assisted a Phrenologist.
“Observe his various bumps,
His head as I uncover it:
His
morals lie in lumps
All round about and over it.”
“Now take him,” said SIR WHITE,
“Or you will
soon be rueing it;
Bless me! I must be right,—
I
caught the fellow doing it!”
Policeman calmly smiled,
“Indeed you are mistaken, sir,
You’re
agitated—riled—
And very badly shaken, sir.
“Sit down, and I’ll explain
My system of Phrenology,
A
second, please, remain”—
(A second is horology).
Policeman left his beat—
(The Bart., no longer furious,
Sat
down upon a seat,
Observing, “This is curious!”)
“Oh, surely, here are signs
Should soften your rigidity:
This
gentleman combines
Politeness with timidity.
“Of Shyness here’s a lump—
A hole for Animosity—
And
like my fist his bump
Of Impecuniosity.
“Just here the bump appears
Of Innocent Hilarity,
And
just behind his ears
Are Faith, and Hope, and Charity.
He of true Christian ways
As bright example sent us is—
This
maxim he obeys,
‘Sorte tuâ contentus sis.’
“There, let him go his ways,
He needs no stern admonishing.”
The
Bart., in blank amaze,
Exclaimed, “This is astonishing!
“I must have made a mull,
This matter I’ve
been blind in it:
Examine, please, my skull,
And tell
me what you find in it.”
That Crusher looked, and said,
With unimpaired urbanity,
“SIR
HERBERT, you’ve a head
That teems with inhumanity.
“Here’s Murder, Envy, Strife
(Propensity to kill
any),
And Lies as large as life,
And heaps of Social Villany.
“Here’s Love of Bran-New Clothes,
Embezzling—Arson—Deism—
A
taste for Slang and Oaths,
And Fraudulent Trusteeism.
“Here’s Love of Groundless Charge—
Here’s
Malice, too, and Trickery,
Unusually large
Your bump of Pocket-Pickery—”
“Stop!” said the Bart., “my cup
Is full—I’m
worse than him in all;
Policeman, take me up—
No doubt
I am some criminal!”
That Pleeceman’s scorn grew large
(Phrenology had nettled
it),
He took that Bart. in charge—
I don’t know
how they settled it.
Once a fairy
Light and airy
Married with a mortal;
Men,
however,
Never, never
Pass the fairy portal.
Slyly stealing,
She
to Ealing
Made a daily journey;
There she found him,
Clients
round him
(He was an attorney).
Long they tarried,
Then they married.
When the ceremony
Once
was ended,
Off they wended
On their moon of honey.
Twelvemonth,
maybe,
Saw a baby
(Friends performed an orgie).
Much
they prized him,
And baptized him
By the name of GEORGIE,
GEORGIE grew up;
Then he flew up
To his fairy mother.
Happy
meeting—
Pleasant greeting—
Kissing one another.
“Choose
a calling
Most enthralling,
I sincerely urge ye.”
“Mother,”
said he
(Rev’rence made he),
“I would join the
clergy.
“Give permission
In addition—
Pa will let me
do it:
There’s a living
In his giving—
He’ll
appoint me to it.
Dreams of coff’ring,
Easter off’ring,
Tithe
and rent and pew-rate,
So inflame me
(Do not blame me),
That
I’ll be a curate.”
She, with pleasure,
Said, “My treasure,
’T
is my wish precisely.
Do your duty,
There’s a beauty;
You
have chosen wisely.
Tell your father
I would rather
As
a churchman rank you.
You, in clover,
I’ll watch over.”
GEORGIE
said, “Oh, thank you!”
GEORGIE scudded,
Went and studied,
Made all preparations,
And
with credit
(Though he said it)
Passed examinations.
(Do
not quarrel
With him, moral,
Scrupulous digestions—
’Twas
his mother,
And no other,
Answered all the questions.)
Time proceeded;
Little needed
GEORGIE admonition:
He,
elated,
Vindicated
Clergyman’s position.
People
round him
Always found him
Plain and unpretending;
Kindly
teaching,
Plainly preaching,
All his money lending.
So the fairy,
Wise and wary,
Felt no sorrow rising—
No
occasion
For persuasion,
Warning, or advising.
He, resuming
Fairy
pluming
(That’s not English, is it?)
Oft would fly up,
To
the sky up,
Pay mamma a visit.
* * * * * * * *
Time progressing,
GEORGIE’S blessing
Grew more Ritualistic—
Popish
scandals,
Tonsures—sandals—
Genuflections mystic;
Gushing
meetings—
Bosom-beatings—
Heavenly ecstatics—
Broidered
spencers—
Copes and censers—
Rochets and dalmatics.
This quandary
Vexed the fairy—
Flew she down to Ealing.
“GEORGIE,
stop it!
Pray you, drop it;
Hark to my appealing:
To
this foolish
Papal rule-ish
Twaddle put an ending;
This
a swerve is
From our Service
Plain and unpretending.”
He, replying,
Answered, sighing,
Hawing, hemming, humming,
“It’s
a pity—
They’re so pritty;
Yet in mode becoming,
Mother
tender,
I’ll surrender—
I’ll be unaffected—”
But
his Bishop
Into his shop
Entered unexpected!
“Who is this, sir,—
Ballet miss, sir?”
Said
the Bishop coldly.
“’T is my mother,
And no other,”
GEORGIE
answered boldly.
“Go along, sir!
You are wrong, sir;
You
have years in plenty,
While this hussy
(Gracious mussy!)
Isn’t
two and twenty!”
(Fairies clever
Never, never
Grow in visage older;
And
the fairy,
All unwary,
Leant upon his shoulder!)
Bishop
grieved him,
Disbelieved him;
GEORGE the point grew warm on;
Changed
religion,
Like a pigeon, {12}
And
became a Mormon!
A maiden sat at her window wide,
Pretty enough for a Prince’s
bride,
Yet nobody came to claim her.
She sat like a beautiful
picture there,
With pretty bluebells and roses fair,
And jasmine-leaves
to frame her.
And why she sat there nobody knows;
But this
she sang as she plucked a rose,
The leaves around her strewing:
“I’ve
time to lose and power to choose;
’T is not so much the gallant
who woos,
But the gallant’s way of wooing!”
A lover came riding by awhile,
A wealthy lover was he, whose
smile
Some maids would value greatly—
A formal lover,
who bowed and bent,
With many a high-flown compliment,
And
cold demeanour stately,
“You’ve still,” said
she to her suitor stern,
“The ’prentice-work of your
craft to learn,
If thus you come a-cooing.
I’ve time
to lose and power to choose;
’T is not so much the gallant
who woos,
As the gallant’s way of wooing!”
A second lover came ambling by—
A timid lad with a frightened
eye
And a colour mantling highly.
He muttered the errand on
which he’d come,
Then only chuckled and bit his thumb,
And
simpered, simpered shyly.
“No,” said the maiden, “go
your way;
You dare but think what a man would say,
Yet dare
to come a-suing!
I’ve time to lose and power to choose;
’T
is not so much the gallant who woos,
As the gallant’s way
of wooing!”
A third rode up at a startling pace—
A suitor poor, with
a homely face—
No doubts appeared to bind him.
He kissed
her lips and he pressed her waist,
And off he rode with the maiden,
placed
On a pillion safe behind him.
And she heard the suitor
bold confide
This golden hint to the priest who tied
The knot
there’s no undoing;
With pretty young maidens who can choose,
’Tis
not so much the gallant who woos,
As the gallant’s way
of wooing!”
The sun was setting in its wonted west,
When HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant
of Chassoores,
Met MAHRY DAUBIGNY, the Village Rose,
Under
the Wizard’s Oak—old trysting-place
Of those who loved
in rosy Aquitaine.
They thought themselves unwatched, but they were not;
For HONGREE,
Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Found in LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES
DUBOSC
A rival, envious and unscrupulous,
Who thought it not
foul scorn to dodge his steps,
And listen, unperceived, to all
that passed
Between the simple little Village Rose
And HONGREE,
Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
A clumsy barrack-bully was DUBOSC,
Quite unfamiliar with the
well-bred tact
That animates a proper gentleman
In dealing
with a girl of humble rank.
You’ll understand his coarseness
when I say
He would have married MAHRY DAUBIGNY,
And dragged
the unsophisticated girl
Into the whirl of fashionable life,
For
which her singularly rustic ways,
Her breeding (moral, but extremely
rude),
Her language (chaste, but ungrammatical),
Would absolutely
have unfitted her.
How different to this unreflecting boor
Was
HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
Contemporary with the incident
Related in our opening paragraph,
Was
that sad war ’twixt Gallia and ourselves
That followed on
the treaty signed at Troyes;
And so LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES DUBOSC
(Brave
soldier, he, with all his faults of style)
And HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant
of Chassoores,
Were sent by CHARLES of France against the lines
Of
our Sixth HENRY (Fourteen twenty-nine),
To drive his legions out
of Aquitaine.
When HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Returned, suspecting
nothing, to his camp,
After his meeting with the Village Rose,
He
found inside his barrack letter-box
A note from the commanding
officer,
Requiring his attendance at head-quarters.
He went,
and found LIEUTENANT-COLONEL JOOLES.
“Young HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
This night
we shall attack the English camp:
Be the ‘forlorn hope’
yours—you’ll lead it, sir,
And lead it too with credit,
I’ve no doubt.
As every man must certainly be killed
(For
you are twenty ’gainst two thousand men),
It is not likely
that you will return.
But what of that? you’ll have the benefit
Of
knowing that you die a soldier’s death.”
Obedience was young HONGREE’S strongest point,
But he
imagined that he only owed
Allegiance to his MAHRY and his King.
“If
MAHRY bade me lead these fated men,
I’d lead them—but
I do not think she would.
If CHARLES, my King, said, ‘Go,
my son, and die,’
I’d go, of course—my duty would
be clear.
But MAHRY is in bed asleep, I hope,
And CHARLES,
my King, a hundred leagues from this.
As for LIEUTENANT-COLONEL
JOOLES DUBOSC,
How know I that our monarch would approve
The
order he has given me to-night?
My King I’ve sworn in all
things to obey—
I’ll only take my orders from my King!”
Thus
HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Interpreted the terms of
his commission.
And HONGREE, who was wise as he was good,
Disguised himself
that night in ample cloak,
Round flapping hat, and vizor mask of
black,
And made, unnoticed, for the English camp.
He passed
the unsuspecting sentinels
(Who little thought a man in this disguise
Could
be a proper object of suspicion),
And ere the curfew bell had boomed
“lights out,”
He found in audience Bedford’s
haughty Duke.
“Your Grace,” he said, “start not—be not
alarmed,
Although a Frenchman stands before your eyes.
I’m
HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
My Colonel will attack your
camp to-night,
And orders me to lead the hope forlorn.
Now
I am sure our excellent KING CHARLES
Would not approve of this;
but he’s away
A hundred leagues, and rather more than that.
So,
utterly devoted to my King,
Blinded by my attachment to the throne,
And
having but its interest at heart,
I feel it is my duty to disclose
All
schemes that emanate from COLONEL JOOLES,
If I believe that they
are not the kind
Of schemes that our good monarch would approve.”
“But how,” said Bedford’s Duke, “do you propose
That
we should overthrow your Colonel’s scheme?”
And HONGREE,
Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores,
Replied at once with never-failing
tact:
“Oh, sir, I know this cursed country well.
Entrust
yourself and all your host to me;
I’ll lead you safely by
a secret path
Into the heart of COLONEL JOOLES’ array,
And
you can then attack them unprepared,
And slay my fellow-countrymen
unarmed.”
The thing was done. The DUKE of BEDFORD gave
The order,
and two thousand fighting men
Crept silently into the Gallic camp,
And
slew the Frenchmen as they lay asleep;
And Bedford’s haughty
Duke slew COLONEL JOOLES,
And gave fair MAHRY, pride of Aquitaine,
To
HONGREE, Sub-Lieutenant of Chassoores.
The Ballyshannon foundered off the coast of Cariboo,
And
down in fathoms many went the captain and the crew;
Down went the
owners—greedy men whom hope of gain allured:
Oh, dry the
starting tear, for they were heavily insured.
Besides the captain and the mate, the owners and the crew,
The
passengers were also drowned excepting only two:
Young PETER GRAY,
who tasted teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND CO.,
And SOMERS, who from
Eastern shores imported indigo.
These passengers, by reason of their clinging to a mast,
Upon
a desert island were eventually cast.
They hunted for their meals,
as ALEXANDER SELKIRK used,
But they couldn’t chat together—they
had not been introduced.
For PETER GRAY, and SOMERS too, though certainly in trade,
Were
properly particular about the friends they made;
And somehow thus
they settled it without a word of mouth—
That GRAY should
take the northern half, while SOMERS took the south.
On PETER’S portion oysters grew—a delicacy rare,
But
oysters were a delicacy PETER couldn’t bear.
On SOMERS’
side was turtle, on the shingle lying thick,
Which SOMERS couldn’t
eat, because it always made him sick.
GRAY gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store
Of
turtle unmolested on his fellow-creature’s shore.
The oysters
at his feet aside impatiently he shoved,
For turtle and his mother
were the only things he loved.
And SOMERS sighed in sorrow as he settled in the south,
For
the thought of PETER’S oysters brought the water to his mouth.
He
longed to lay him down upon the shelly bed, and stuff:
He had often
eaten oysters, but had never had enough.
How they wished an introduction to each other they had had
When
on board the Ballyshannon! And it drove them nearly mad
To
think how very friendly with each other they might get,
If it wasn’t
for the arbitrary rule of etiquette!
One day, when out a-hunting for the mus ridiculus,
GRAY
overheard his fellow-man soliloquizing thus:
“I wonder how
the playmates of my youth are getting on,
M’CONNELL, S. B.
WALTERS, PADDY BYLES, and ROBINSON?”
These simple words made PETER as delighted as could be,
Old
chummies at the Charterhouse were ROBINSON and he!
He walked straight
up to SOMERS, then he turned extremely red,
Hesitated, hummed and
hawed a bit, then cleared his throat, and said:
I beg your pardon—pray forgive me if I seem too bold,
But
you have breathed a name I knew familiarly of old.
You spoke aloud
of ROBINSON—I happened to be by.
You know him?”
“Yes, extremely well.” “Allow me, so do I.”
It was enough: they felt they could more pleasantly get on,
For
(ah, the magic of the fact!) they each knew ROBINSON!
And Mr. SOMERS’
turtle was at PETER’S service quite,
And Mr. SOMERS punished
PETER’S oyster-beds all night.
They soon became like brothers from community of wrongs:
They
wrote each other little odes and sang each other songs;
They told
each other anecdotes disparaging their wives;
On several occasions,
too, they saved each other’s lives.
They felt quite melancholy when they parted for the night,
And
got up in the morning soon as ever it was light;
Each other’s
pleasant company they reckoned so upon,
And all because it happened
that they both knew ROBINSON!
They lived for many years on that inhospitable shore,
And day
by day they learned to love each other more and more.
At last,
to their astonishment, on getting up one day,
They saw a frigate
anchored in the offing of the bay.
To PETER an idea occurred. “Suppose we cross the main?
So
good an opportunity may not be found again.”
And SOMERS thought
a minute, then ejaculated, “Done!
I wonder how my business
in the City’s getting on?”
“But stay,” said Mr. PETER: “when in England, as
you know,
I earned a living tasting teas for BAKER, CROOP, AND
CO.,
I may be superseded—my employers think me dead!”
“Then
come with me,” said SOMERS, “and taste indigo instead.”
But all their plans were scattered in a moment when they found
The
vessel was a convict ship from Portland, outward bound;
When a
boat came off to fetch them, though they felt it very kind,
To
go on board they firmly but respectfully declined.
As both the happy settlers roared with laughter at the joke,
They
recognized a gentlemanly fellow pulling stroke:
’Twas ROBINSON—a
convict, in an unbecoming frock!
Condemned to seven years for misappropriating
stock!!!
They laughed no more, for SOMERS thought he had been rather rash
In
knowing one whose friend had misappropriated cash;
And PETER thought
a foolish tack he must have gone upon
In making the acquaintance
of a friend of ROBINSON.
At first they didn’t quarrel very openly, I’ve heard;
They
nodded when they met, and now and then exchanged a word:
The word
grew rare, and rarer still the nodding of the head,
And when they
meet each other now, they cut each other dead.
To allocate the island they agreed by word of mouth,
And PETER
takes the north again, and SOMERS takes the south;
And PETER has
the oysters, which he hates, in layers thick,
And SOMERS has the
turtle—turtle always makes him sick.
{1} “Go
with me to a Notary—seal me there
Your single bond.”—Merchant
of Venice, Act I., sc. 3.
{2} “And
there shall she, at Friar Lawrence’ cell,
Be shrived and
married.”—Romeo and Juliet, Act II., sc. 4.
{3} “And give the fasting horses provender.”—Henry the Fifth, Act IV., sc. 2.
{4} “Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares.”—Troilus and Cressida, Act I., sc. 3.
{5} “Then must the Jew be merciful.”—Merchant of Venice, Act IV., sc. 1.
{6} “The
spring, the summer,
The chilling autumn, angry winter, change
Their
wonted liveries.”—Midsummer Night Dream, Act IV.,
sc. 1.
{7} “In
the county of Glo’ster, justice of the peace and coram.”
Merry
Wives of Windsor, Act I., sc. 1.
{8} “What lusty trumpet thus doth summon us?”—King John, Act V., sc. 2.
{9} “And I’ll provide his executioner.”—Henry the Sixth (Second Part), Act III., sc. 1.
{10} “The
lioness had torn some flesh away,
Which all this while had bled.”—As
You Like It, Act IV., sc. 3.
{11} Described by MUNGO PARK.
{12} “Like a bird.”—Slang expression.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MORE BAB BALLADS ***
******This file should be named 3babb10h.htm or 3babb10h.zip****** Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, 3babb11h.htm VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 3babb10ah.htm Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date. Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so. Most people start at our Web sites at: http://gutenberg.net or http://promo.net/pg These Web sites include award-winning information about Project Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext05 or ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext05 Or /etext04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, as it appears in our Newsletters. Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+ We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002 If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end. The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks! This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated): eBooks Year Month 1 1971 July 10 1991 January 100 1994 January 1000 1997 August 1500 1998 October 2000 1999 December 2500 2000 December 3000 2001 November 4000 2001 October/November 6000 2002 December* 9000 2003 November* 10000 2004 January* The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. We need your donations more than ever! As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones that have responded. As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. In answer to various questions we have received on this: We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, just ask. While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to donate. International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are ways. Donations by check or money order may be sent to: PROJECT GUTENBERG LITERARY ARCHIVE FOUNDATION 809 North 1500 West Salt Lake City, UT 84116 Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment method other than by check or money order. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states. We need your donations more than ever! You can get up to date donation information online at: http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html *** If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, you can always email directly to: Michael S. Hart hart@pobox.com Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. We would prefer to send you information by email. **The Legal Small Print** (Three Pages) ***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START*** Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to. *BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market any commercial products without permission. To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, [1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that time to the person you received it from. If you received it on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement copy. If you received it electronically, such person may choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to receive it electronically. THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you may have other legal rights. INDEMNITY You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook, [2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook, or [3] any Defect. DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this "Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, or: [1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however, if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, including any form resulting from conversion by word processing or hypertext software, but only so long as *EITHER*: [*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and does *not* contain characters other than those intended by the author of the work, although tilde (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may be used to convey punctuation intended by the author, and additional characters may be used to indicate hypertext links; OR [*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent form by the program that displays the eBook (as is the case, for instance, with most word processors); OR [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC or other equivalent proprietary form). [2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this "Small Print!" statement. [3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the gross profits you derive calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to let us know your plans and to work out the details. WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine readable form. The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. Money should be paid to the: "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: hart@pobox.com [Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be they hardware or software or any other related product without express permission.] *END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*