The Elder Brother
Centrick, in London noise, and London follies,
Proud Covent Garden blooms, in smoky glory;
For chairmen, coffee-rooms, piazzas, dollies,
Cabbages, and comedians, fame’d in story!
On this gay spot, (upon a sober plan,)
Dwelt a right regular, and staid, young man;—
Much did he early hours and quiet love;
And was entitle’d Mr. Isaac Shove.
An Orphan he;—yet rich in expectations,
(Which nobody seem’d likely to supplant,)
From, that prodigious bore of all relations,
A fusty, canting, stiff-rump’d Maiden Aunt:
The wealthy Miss Lucretia Cloghorty,—
Who had brought Isaac up, and own’d to forty.
Shove on this maiden’s Will relied securely;
Who vow’d she ne’er would wed, to mar his riches;
Full often would she say of men demurely,—
“I can’t abide the filthy things in breeches!”
He had Apartments up two pair of stairs;
On the first floor lodge’d Doctor Crow;—
The Landlord was a torturer of hairs,
And made a grand display of wigs, below;
From the beau’s Brutus, to the parson’s grizzle:—
Over the door-way was his name;—’twas Twizzle.
Now, you must know,
This Doctor Crow
Was not of Law, nor Music, nor Divinity;—
He was obstetrick;—but, the fact is,
He didn’t in Lucina’s turnpike practise;
He took bye-roads,—reducing Ladies’ shapes,
Who had secure’d themselves from leading apes,
But kept the reputation of virginity.
Crow had a roomy tenement of brick,
Enclose’d with walls, one mile from Hyde Park corner;
Fir trees, and yews, were planted round it, thick;—
No situation was forlorner!15
Yet, notwithstanding folks might scout it,
It suited qualmish Spinsters, who fell sick,
And didn’t wish the world to know about it.
Here many a single gentlewoman came,
Pro tempore,—full tender of her fame!
Who, for a while, took leave of friends in town;—
“Business, forsooth! to Yorkshire call’d her down,
Too weighty to be settle’d by Attorney!”—
And, in a month’s, or six weeks’ time, came back!
When every body cried, “Good lack!
How monstrous thin you’ve grown, upon your journey!”
The Doctor, knowing that a puff of Scandal
Would blow his private trade to tatters,
Dreaded to give the smallest handle
To those who dabble in their neighbours’ matters;
Therefore, he wisely held it good
To hide his practice from the neighbourhood,
And not appear, there, as a resident;
But merely one who, casually, went
To see the lodgers in the large brick house;—
To lounge, and chat, not minding time a souse;—
Like one to whom all business was quite foreign;—
And, thus, he visited his female sick;
Who lay as thick,
Within his tenement of brick,
As rabbits in a warren.
He lodge’d in Covent Garden all the while,
And, if they sent, in haste, for his assistance,
He soon was with ’em;—’twas no mighty distance;—
From the town’s end it was but a bare mile.
Now Isaac Shove
Living above
This Doctor Crow,
And knowing Barber Twizzle live’d below,
Thought it might be as well,
Hearing so many knocks, single and double,
To buy, at his own cost, a street-door bell,
And save confusion, in the house, and trouble;
Whereby his (Isaac’s) visitors might know,
Without long waiting in the dirt, and drizzle,
To ring for him at once;—and not to knock for Crow,—
Nor Twizzle.
Besides he now began to feel
The want of it was rather ungenteel;
For he had, often, thought it a disgrace
To hear, while sitting in his room, above,
Twizzle’s shrill maid, on the first landing-place,
Screaming, “a man below vants Mister Shove!”
The bell was bought; the wire was made to steal
Round the dark stair-case, like a tortur’d eel,—
Twisting, and twining;
The jemmy handle Twizzle’s door-post grace’d,
And, just beneath, a brazen plate was place’d,
Lacquer’d and shining;—
Graven whereon, in characters full clear,
And legible, did “Mr. Shove” appear;
And, furthermore, which you might read right well,
Was—“Please to ring the bell.”
At half-past ten, precisely to a second,—
Shove, every night, his supper ended;
And sipp’d his glass of negus, till he reckon’d,
By his stop-watch, exactly, one more quarter;
Then, as exactly, he untied one garter;—
A token ’twas that he for bed intended:
Yet having, still, a quarter good before him,
He leisurely undress’d before the fire;
Contriving, as the quarter did expire,
To be as naked as his mother bore him:
Bating his shirt, and night-cap on his head;—
Then, as the watchman bawl’d eleven,
He had one foot in bed,
More certainly than cuckolds go to Heaven.
Alas! what pity ’tis that regularity,
Like Isaac Shove’s, is such a rarity!
But there are swilling Wights, in London town,
Term’d—Jolly dogs,—Choice Spirits,—alias, Swine,
Who pour, in midnight revel, bumpers down,
Making their throats a thoroughfare for wine.
These spendthrifts, who Life’s pleasures, thus, out-run,
Dozing, with head-aches, till the afternoon,
Lose half men’s regular estate of Sun,
By borrowing, too largely, of the Moon.
One of this kidney,—Toby Tosspot hight,—
Was coming from the Bedford, late at night:
And being Bacchi plenus,—full of wine,—
Although he had a tolerable notion
Of aiming at progressive motion,
’Twasn’t direct,—’twas serpentine,
He work’d, with sinuosities, along,
Like Monsieur Corkscrew worming thro’ a Cork;
Not straight, like Corkscrew’s proxy, stiff Don Prong,
A Fork.
At length, with near four bottles in his pate,
He saw the moon shining on Shove’s brass plate;
When reading, “Please to ring the bell,”
And being civil, beyond measure,
“Ring it!”—says Toby—“very well;
I’ll ring it with a deal of pleasure.”
Toby, the kindest soul in all the town,
Gave it a jerk that almost jerk’d it down.
He waited full two minutes; no one came;
He waited full two minutes more; and then,—
Says Toby, “if he’s deaf, I’m not to blame;
I’ll pull it for the gentleman again.”
But the first peal woke Isaac in a fright,
Who, quick as lightning, popping up his head,
Sat on his head’s Antipodes, in bed,—
Pale as a parsnip,—bolt upright.
At length he, wisely, to himself did say,—
Calming his fears,—
“Tush!—’tis some fool has rung, and run away;”—
When peal the second rattle’d in his ears!
Shove jump’d into the middle of the floor;
And, trembling at each breath of air that stirr’d,
He grope’d down stairs, and open’d the street door,
While Toby was performing peal the third.
Isaac eye’d Toby, fearfully askant,—
And saw he was a strapper,—stout, and tall;
Then, put this question;—“Pray, Sir, what d’ye want?”
Says Toby,—“I want nothing, Sir, at all.”
“Want nothing!—Sir, you’ve pull’d my bell, I vow,
As if you’d jerk it off the wire!”
Quoth Toby,—gravely making him a bow,—
“I pull’d it, Sir, at your desire.”
“At mine!”—“Yes, yours—I hope I’ve done it well;
High time for bed, Sir; I was hast’ning to it;
But if you write up Please to ring the bell,
Common politeness makes me stop, and do it.”
Isaac, now, waxing wroth apace,
Slamm’d the street door in Toby’s face,
With all his might;
And Toby, as he shut it, swore
He was a dirty son of—something more
Than delicacy suffers me to write:
And, lifting up the knocker, gave a knock,
So long, and loud, it might have raise’d the dead;
Twizzle declares his house sustain’d a shock,
Enough to shake his lodgers out of bed.
Toby, his rage thus vented in the rap,
Went serpentining home, to take his nap.
’Tis, now, high time to let you know
That the obstetrick Doctor Crow
Awoke in the beginning of this matter,
By Toby’s tintinnabulary clatter:
And, knowing that the bell belong’d to Shove,
He listen’d in his bed, but did not move;
He only did apostrophize;—
Sending to hell
Shove, and his bell,
That wouldn’t let him close his eyes.
But when he heard a thundering knock,—says he,
“That’s, certainly, a messenger for me;—
Somebody ill, in the Brick House, no doubt;”—
Then mutter’d, hurrying on his dressing-gown,
“I wish my Ladies, out of town,
Chose more convenient times for crying out!”
Crow, in the dark, now, reached the stair-case head;
Shove, in the dark, was coming up to bed.
A combination of ideas flocking,
Upon the pericranium of Crow,—
Occasion’d by the hasty knocking,
Succeeded by a foot he heard below,—
He did, as many folks are apt to do,
Who argue in the dark, and in confusion;—
That is, from the Hypothesis, he drew
A false conclusion:
Concluding Shove to be the person sent,
With an express, from the brick tenement;
Whom Barber Twizzle, torturer of hairs,
Had, civilly, let in, and sent up stairs.
As Shove came up, tho’ he had, long time, kept
His character, for patience, very laudably,
He couldn’t help, at every step he stepp’d,
Grunting, and grumbling, in his gizzard, audibly.
For Isaac’s mental feelings, you must know,
Not only were considerably hurt,
But his corporeal, also—
Having no other clothing than a shirt;—
A dress, beyond all doubt, most light and airy,
It being, then, a frost in January.
When Shove was deep down stairs, the Doctor heard,
(Being much nearer the stair top,)
Just here and there, a random word,
Of the Soliloquies that Shove let drop;—
But, shortly, by progression, brought
To contact nearer,
The Doctor, consequently, heard him clearer,—
And then the fag-end of this sentence caught:
Which Shove repeated warmly, tho’ he shiver’d:—
“Damn Twizzle’s house! and damn the Bell!
And damn the fool who rang it!—Well,
From all such plagues I’ll quickly be deliver’d.”
“What?—quickly be deliver’d!” echoes Crow;—
“Who is it?—Come, be sharp;—reply, reply;
Who wants to be deliver’d? let me know.”
Recovering his surprise, Shove answer’d, “I.”
”You be deliver’d!” says the Doctor,—“’Sblood!”
Hearing a man’s gruff voice—“You lout! you lob!
You be deliver’d!—Come, that’s very good!”
Says Shove, “I will, so help me Bob!”
“Fellow,” cried Crow, “you’re drunk with filthy beer!
A drunkard, fellow, is a brute’s next neighbour;—
But Miss Cloghorty’s time was very near,
And, I suppose, Lucretia’s now in labour.”
“Zounds!” bellows Shove, with rage and wonder wild,
“Why then, my maiden Aunt is big with child!”
Here was, at once, a sad discovery made!
Lucretia’s frolick, now, was past a joke;—
Shove tremble’d for his Fortune, Crow, his Trade,
Both, both saw ruin,—by one fatal stroke;
But, with his Aunt, when Isaac did discuss,
She hush’d the matter up, by speaking thus:
“Sweet Isaac!” said Lucretia, “spare my Fame!—
Tho’, for my babe, I feel as should a mother,
Your Fortune will continue much the same;
For,—keep the Secret,—you’re his Elder Brother.”
Footnotes
N.B. Half our modern Legends are either borrow’d or translated from the German. Return
This is the conclusion of all that was originally printed under the title of “My Night-gown and Slippers.” Return
Roses were not emblems of faction, cries the Critick, till the reign of Henry the Sixth.—Pooh!—This is a figure, not an anachronism. Suppose, Mr. Critick, you and all your descendants should be hang’d, although your father died in his bed:—Why then posterity, when talking of your father, may allude to the family gallows, which his issue shall have render’d notoriously symbolical of his House. Return
—“Quis talia fando
Temperet à lachrymis?” says Æneas, by way of proem; yet, for a Hero, tolerably “use’d to the melting mood,” he talks, on this occasion, much more than he cries; and, though he begins with a wooden Horse, and gives a general account of the burning of Troy, still the “quorum pars magna fui” is, evidently, the great inducement to his chattering:—accordingly, he keeps up Queen Dido to a scandalous late hour, after supper, for the good folks of Carthage, to tell her an egotistical story, that occupies two whole books of the Æneid.—Oh, these Heroes!—I once knew a worthy General—but I wont tell that story. Return
Far be it from me to offer a pedantick affront to the Gentlemen who peruse me, by explaining the word Incubus; which Pliny and others, more learnedly, call Ephialtes.—I, modestly, state it to mean the Night-Mare, for the information of the Ladies. The chief symptom by which this affliction is vulgarly known, is a heavy pressure upon the stomach, when lying in a supine posture in bed. It would terrify some of my fair readers, who never experience’d this characteristick of the Incubus, were I to dwell on its effects; and it would irritate others, who are in the habit of labouring under its sensations. Return
An old Gentlewoman, a great admirer of the black letter, (as many old Gentlewomen are) presented the Author of these Tales with the Original MS. of this Sonnet; advising the publication of a facsimile of the Knight’s hand-writing. It is painful, after this, to advance, that the Sonnet, so far from being genuine, is one of the clumsiest literary forgeries, that the present times have witnessed. It appears, in this authentick Story, that Sir Thomas Erpingham was married in the reign of Henry the Fifth; and it is evidently intended, that Moderns should believe he writ these love-verses almost immediately after his marriage; not only from the ardour with which he celebrates the beauty of his wife, but from the circumstance of a man writing any love-verses upon his wife at all;—but the style and language of the lines are most glaringly inconsistent with their pretended date. The fact is, we have here foisted upon us a close imitation of Cowley, (vide the Mistress) who was not born till the year 1618,—two centuries after the era in question. Chaucer died, A. D. 1400; and Henry the Fifth (who was king only 9 years, 5 months, and 11 days) began his reign scarcely 13 years after the death of that Poet. Sir Thomas, then, must, at least, have written in the obsolete phraseology of Chaucer,—and, probably, would have imitated him,—as did Lidgate, Occleve, and others;—nay, Harding, Skelton, &c. who were fifty or sixty years subsequent to Chaucer, were not so modern in their language as their celebrated predecessor. Having, in few words, prove’d (it is presume’d) this Sonnet to be spurious, an apology may be thought necessary for not saying a great deal more;—but this Herculean task is left, in deference, to the disputants on Vortigern; who will, doubtless, engage in it, as a matter of great importance, and, once more, lay the world under very heavy obligations, with various Pamphlets in folio, upon the subject:—and, surely, too many acknowledgments cannot be given to men who are so indefatigably generous in their researches, that half the result of them, when publish’d, causes even the sympathetick reader to labour as much as the Writer! How ungratefully did Pope say! “There, dim in clouds, the poring Scholiasts mark,
Wits, who, like owls, see only in the dark;
A lumber-house of books in every head;
For ever reading, never to be read!”—Dunciad. Return
If the Knight knew the aptness, in its full extent, of his oath, upon this occasion, we must give him more credit for his reading than we are willing to allow to military men of the age in which he flourish’d;—for, observe: he vows to cudgel a man lurking to rob his Lady of her virtue, in a bower;—how appropriately, therefore, does he swear by the God of the Gardens! who is represented with a kind of cudgel (falx lignea) in his right hand; and is, moreover, furnished with another weapon of formidable dimensions, (Horace calls it Palus) for the express purpose of annoying Robbers. “Fures dextra coercet,
Obscænoque ruber porrectus ab inguine Palus.” It must be confess’d that the last mention’d attribute of this Deity was stretch’d forth to promote pleasure in some instances, instead of fear;—for it was a sportive custom, in the hilarity of recent marriages, to seat the Bride upon his Palus;—but this circumstance by no means disproves its efficacy as a dread to Robbers; on the contrary, that implement must have been peculiarly terrifick, which could sustain the weight of so many Brides, without detriment to its firmness, or elasticity. Return
There is a terrible jumble in Somnus’s family. He was the son of Nox, by Erebus;—and Erebus, according to different accounts, was not only Nox’s husband, but her brother,—and even her son, by Chaos;—and Mors was daughter of Somnus, by that devil of a Goddess Nox, the mother of his father and himself!—The heathen Deities held our canonical notions in utter contempt; and must have laugh’d at the idea (which, surely, nobody does now,) of forbidding a man to marry his Grandmother. Return
Vide Lord Chesterfield’s Letters.—This noble Author, by the by, has set his dignified face against risibility. It would be well for us poor devils, who call ourselves Comic Writers, if our efforts were always as successful in raising a Laugh as his Lordship’s censure upon it. Return
I am aware that much has been said, of old, relative to the “cura boum,” and the “optuma torvæ forma bovis;”—but, for a show of cattle, I would back Smithfield, or most of our English market Towns, against any forum boarium of the Romans. Return
Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome;—he was a haughty Monarch, and built the Cloaca maxima. Return
This is a palpable plagiarism. Rolla thus addresses Pizarro: “Behold me, at thy feet—Me,—Rolla!—Me, that never yet have bent or bow’d—in humble agony I sue to you.”—The theft is more glaring, as the Apostrophe, both here, and in the original, occurs in the midst of a strong incident, and is address’d to an Enemy by a proud spirit, in very moving circumstances. Return
Vide Part 1st, page 61, lines 4-7. Return
Shakspeare certainly borrow’d this expression from Sir Thomas.—See Macbeth. Return
This seems to be a new comparative; for which the Author takes to himself due credit;—Novelty being scarce in poetical compositions. Return