Sir Rupert the Fearless. A Legend of Germany. R. Harris Barham
Sir Rupert the Fearless, a gallant young knight,
Was equally ready to tipple or fight,
Crack a crown, or a bottle,
Cut sirloin, or throttle;
In brief, or as Hume says, “to sum up the tottle,”
Unstain’d by dishonor, unsullied by fear,
All his neighbors pronounced him a preux chevalier.
Despite these perfections, corporeal and mental,
He had one slight defect, viz., a rather lean rental;
Besides, ’tis own’d there are spots in the sun,
So it must be confess’d that Sir Rupert had one;
Being rather unthinking,
He’d scarce sleep a wink in
A night, but addict himself sadly to drinking;
And what moralists say,
Is as naughty—to play,
To Rouge et Noir, Hazard, Short Whist, Ecarte;
Till these, and a few less defensible fancies
Brought the Knight to the end of his slender finances.
When at length through his boozing,
And tenants refusing
Their rents, swearing “tunes were so bad they were losing,”
His steward said, “O, sir,
It’s some time ago, sir,
Since aught through my hands reach’d the baker or grocer,
And the tradesmen in general are grown great complainers.”
Sir Rupert the brave thus address’d his retainers:
“My friends, since the stock
Of my father’s old hock
Is out, with the Kurchwasser, Barsae, Moselle,
And we’re fairly reduced to the pump and the well,
I presume to suggest,
We shall all find it best
For each to shake hands with his friends ere he goes,
Mount his horse, if he has one, and—follow his nose;
As to me, I opine,
Left sans money or wine,
My best way is to throw myself into the Rhine,
Where pitying trav’lers may sigh, as they cross over,
Though he lived a roue, yet he died a philosopher.”
The Knight, having bow’d out his friends thus politely.
Got into his skiff, the full moon shining brightly,
By the light of whose beam,
He soon spied on the stream
A dame, whose complexion was fair as new cream,
Pretty pink silken hose
Cover’d ankles and toes,
In other respects she was scanty of clothes;
For, so says tradition, both written and oral,
Her ONE garment was loop’d up with bunches of coral.
Full sweetly she sang to a sparkling guitar,
With silver chords stretch’d over Derbyshire spar,
And she smiled on the Knight,
Who, amazed at the sight,
Soon found his astonishment merged in delight;
But the stream by degrees
Now rose up to her knees,
Till at length it invaded her very chemise,
While the heavenly strain, as the wave seem’d to swallow her
And slowly she sank, sounded fainter and hollower;
—Jumping up in his boat
And discarding his coat,
“Here goes,” cried Sir Rupert, “by jingo I’ll follow her!”
Then into the water he plunged with a souse
That was heard quite distinctly by those in the house.
Down, down, forty fathom and more from the brink,
Sir Rupert the Fearless continues to sink,
And, as downward he goes,
Still the cold water flows
Through his ears, and his eyes, and his mouth, and his nose
Till the rum and the brandy he’d swallow’d since lunch
Wanted nothing but lemon to fill him with punch;
Some minutes elapsed since he enter’d the flood,
Ere his heels touch’d the bottom, and stuck in the mud.
But oh! what a sight
Met the eyes of the Knight,
When he stood in the depth of the stream bolt upright!—
A grand stalactite hall,
Like the cave of Fingal,
Rose above and about him;—great fishes and small
Came thronging around him, regardless of danger,
And seem’d all agog for a peep at the stranger,
Their figures and forms to describe, language fails—
They’d such very odd heads, and such very odd tails;
Of their genus or species a sample to gain,
You would ransack all Hungerford market in vain;
E’en the famed Mr. Myers,
Would scarcely find buyers,
Though hundreds of passengers doubtless would stop
To stare, were such monsters exposed in his shop.
But little reck’d Rupert these queer-looking brutes,
Or the efts and the newts
That crawled up his boots,
For a sight, beyond any of which I’ve made mention,
In a moment completely absorb’d his attention.
A huge crystal bath, which, with water far clearer
Than George Robins’ filters, or Thorpe’s (which are dearer),
Have ever distill’d,
To the summit was fill’d,
Lay stretch’d out before him—and every nerve thrill’d
As scores of young women
Were diving and swimming,
Till the vision a perfect quandary put him in;—
All slightly accoutred in gauzes and lawns,
They came floating about him like so many prawns.
Sir Rupert, who (barring the few peccadilloes
Alluded to), ere he lept into the billows
Possess’d irreproachable morals, began
To feel rather queer, as a modest young man;
When forth stepp’d a dame, whom he recognized soon
As the one he had seen by the light of the moon,
And lisp’d, while a soft smile attended each sentence,
“Sir Rupert, I’m happy to make your acquaintance;
My name is Lurline,
And the ladies you’ve seen,
All do me the honor to call me their Queen;
I’m delighted to see you, sir, down in the Rhine here
And hope you can make it convenient to dine here.”
The Knight blush’d, and bow’d,
As he ogled the crowd
Of subaqueous beauties, then answer’d aloud;
“Ma’am, you do me much honor—I can not express
The delight I shall feel—if you’ll pardon my dress—
May I venture to say, when a gentleman jumps
In the river at midnight for want of the ‘dumps,’
He rarely puts on his knee-breeches and pumps;
If I could but have guess’d—what I sensibly feel—
Your politeness—I’d not have come en dishabille,
But have put on my SILK tights in lieu of my STEEL.”
Quoth the lady, “Dear sir, no apologies, pray,
You will take our ‘pot-luck’ in the family way;
We can give you a dish
Of some decentish fish,
And our water’s thought fairish; but here in the Rhine,
I can’t say we pique ourselves much on our wine.”
The Knight made a bow more profound than before,
When a Dory-faced page oped the dining-room door,
And said, bending his knee,
“Madame, on a servi!”
Rupert tender’d his arm, led Lurline to her place,
And a fat little Mer-man stood up and said grace,
What boots it to tell of the viands, or how she
Apologized much for their plain water-souchy,
Want of Harvey’s, and Cross’s,
And Burgess’s sauces?
Or how Rupert, on his side, protested, by Jove, he
Preferr’d his fish plain, without soy or anchovy.
Suffice it the meal
Boasted trout, perch, and eel,
Besides some remarkably fine salmon peel,
The Knight, sooth to say, thought much less of the fishes
Than what they were served on, the massive gold dishes;
While his eye, as it glanced now and then on the girls,
Was caught by their persons much less than their pearls,
And a thought came across him and caused him to muse,
“If I could but get hold
Of some of that gold,
I might manage to pay off my rascally Jews!”
When dinner was done, at a sign to the lasses,
The table was clear’d, and they put on fresh glasses;
Then the lady addrest
Her redoubtable guest
Much as Dido, of old, did the pious Eneas,
“Dear sir, what induced you to come down and see us?”—
Rupert gave her a glance most bewitchingly tender,
Loll’d back in his chair, put his toes on the fender,
And told her outright
How that he, a young Knight,
Had never been last at a feast or a fight;
But that keeping good cheer
Every day in the year,
And drinking neat wines all the same as small-beer,
Had exhausted his rent,
And, his money all spent,
How he borrow’d large sums at two hundred per cent.;
How they follow’d—and then,
The once civilest of men,
Messrs. Howard and Gibbs, made him bitterly rue it he’d
Ever raised money by way of annuity;
And, his mortgages being about to foreclose,
How he jumped into the river to finish his woes!
Lurline was affected, and own’d, with a tear,
That a story so mournful had ne’er met her ear:
Rupert, hearing her sigh,
Look’d uncommonly sly,
And said, with some emphasis, “Ah! miss, had I
A few pounds of those metals
You waste here on kettles,
Then, Lord once again
Of my spacious domain,
A free Count of the Empire once more I might reign,
With Lurline at my side,
My adorable bride
(For the parson should come, and the knot should be tied);
No couple so happy on earth should be seen
As Sir Rupert the brave and his charming Lurline;
Not that money’s my object—No, hang it! I scorn it—
And as for my rank—but that YOU’D so adorn it—
I’d abandon it all
To remain your true thrall,
And, instead of ‘the GREAT,’ be call’d ‘Rupert the SMALL,’
—To gain but your smiles, were I Sardanapalus,
I’d descend from my throne, and be boots at an alehouse.”
Lurline hung her head
Turn’d pale, and then red,
Growing faint at this sudden proposal to wed,
As though his abruptness, in “popping the question”
So soon after dinner, disturb’d her digestion.
Then, averting her eye,
With a lover-like sigh,
“You are welcome,” she murmur’d in tones most bewitching,
“To every utensil I have in my kitchen!”
Upstarted the Knight,
Half mad with delight,
Round her finely-form’d waist
He immediately placed
One arm, which the lady most closely embraced,
Of her lily-white fingers the other made capture,
And he press’d his adored to his bosom with rapture,
“And, oh!” he exclaim’d, “let them go catch my skiff,
I’ll be home in a twinkling and back in a jiffy,
Nor one moment procrastinate longer my journey
Than to put up the bans and kick out the attorney.”
One kiss to her lip, and one squeeze to her hand
And Sir Rupert already was half-way to land,
For a sour-visaged Triton,
With features would frighten
Old Nick, caught him up in one hand, though no light one,
Sprang up through the waves, popp’d him into his funny,
Which some others already had half-fill’d with money;
In fact, ’twas so heavily laden with ore
And pearls, ’twas a mercy he got it to shore;
But Sir Rupert was strong,
And while pulling along,
Still he heard, faintly sounding, the water-nymphs’ song.
Lay of the Naiads
“Away! away! to the mountain’s brow,
Where the castle is darkly frowning;
And the vassals, all in goodly row,
Weep for their lord a-drowning!
Away! away! to the steward’s room,
Where law with its wig and robe is;
Throw us out John Doe and Richard Roe,
And sweetly we’ll tidde their tobies!”
The unearthly voices scarce had ceased their yelling, When Rupert reach’d his old baronial dwelling.
What rejoicing was there!
How the vassals did stare!
The old housekeeper put a clean shirt down to air,
For she saw by her lamp
That her master’s was damp,
And she fear’d he’d catch cold, and lumbago, and cramp;
But, scorning what she did,
The Knight never heeded
Wet jacket, or trousers, or thought of repining,
Since their pockets had got such a delicate lining.
But, oh! what dismay
Fill’d the tribe of Ca Sa,
When they found he’d the cash, and intended to pay!
Away went “cognovits,” “bills,” “bonds,” and “escheats,”
Rupert cleared off old scores, and took proper receipts.
Now no more he sends out,
For pots of brown stout,
Or schnapps, but resolves to do henceforth without,
Abjure from this hour all excess and ebriety,
Enroll himself one of a Temp’rance Society,
All riot eschew,
Begin life anew,
And new-cushion and hassock the family pew!
Nay, to strengthen him more in this new mode of life
He boldly determined to take him a wife.
Now, many would think that the Knight, from a nice sense
Of honor, should put Lurline’s name in the license,
And that, for a man of his breeding and quality,
To break faith and troth,
Confirm’d by an oath,
Is not quite consistent with rigid morality;
But whether the nymph was forgot, or he thought her
From her essence scarce wife, but at best wife-and-water
And declined as unsuited,
A bride so diluted—
Be this as it may,
He, I’m sorry to say
For, all things consider’d, I own ’twas a rum thing,
Made proposals in form to Miss Una Von—something
(Her name has escaped me), sole heiress, and niece
To a highly respectable Justice of Peace.
“Thrice happy’s the wooing
That’s not long a-doing!”
So much time is saved in the billing and cooing—
The ring is now bought, the white favors, and gloves,
And all the et cetera which crown people’s loves;
A magnificent bride-cake comes home from the baker.
And lastly appears, from the German Long Acre,
That shaft which, the sharpest in all Cupid’s quiver is,
A plumb-color’d coach, and rich Pompadour liveries,
’Twas a comely sight
To behold the Knight,
With his beautiful bride, dress’d all in white,
And the bridemaids fair with their long lace vails,
As they all walk’d up to the altar rails,
While nice little boys, the incense dispensers,
March’d in front with white surplices, bands, and gilt censers.
With a gracious air, and a smiling look,
Mess John had open’d his awful book,
And had read so far as to ask if to wed he meant?
And if “he knew any just cause or impediment?”
When from base to turret the castle shook!!!
Then came a sound of a mighty rain
Dashing against each storied pane,
The wind blew loud,
And coal-black cloud
O’ershadow’d the church, and the party, and crowd;
How it could happen they could not divine,
The morning had been so remarkably fine!
Still the darkness increased, till it reach’d such a pass
That the sextoness hasten’d to turn on the gas;
But harder it pour’d,
And the thunder roar’d,
As if heaven and earth were coming together;
None ever had witness’d such terrible weather.
Now louder it crash’d,
And the lightning flash’d,
Exciting the fears
Of the sweet little dears
In the vails, as it danced on the brass chandeliers;
The parson ran off, though a stout-hearted Saxon,
When he found that a flash had set fire to his caxon.
Though all the rest trembled, as might be expected,
Sir Rupert was perfectly cool and collected,
And endeavor’d to cheer
His bride, in her ear
Whisp’ring tenderly, “Pray don’t be frighten’d, my dear
Should it even set fire to the castle, and burn it, you’re
Amply insured, both for buildings and furniture.”
But now, from without,
A trustworthy scout
Rush’d hurriedly in—
Wet through to the skin,
Informing his master ‘the river was rising,
And flooding the grounds in a way quite surprising.’
He’d no time to say more,
For already the roar
Of the waters was heard as they reach’d the church-door,
While, high on the first wave that roll’d in, was seen,
Riding proudly, the form of the angry Lurline;
And all might observe, by her glance fierce and stormy,
She was stung by the spretoe injuria formoe.
What she said to the Knight, what she said to the bride,
What she said to the ladies who stood by her side,
What she said to the nice little boys in white clothes,
Oh, nobody mentions—for nobody knows;
For the roof tumbled in, and the walls tumbled out,
And the folks tumbled down, all confusion and rout,
The rain kept on pouring,
The flood kept on roaring,
The billows and water-nymphs roll’d more and more in
Ere the close of the day
All was clean wash’d away—
One only survived who could hand down the news,
A little old woman that open’d the pews;
She was borne off, but stuck,
By the greatest good luck,
In an oak-tree, and there she hung, crying and screaming,
And saw all the rest swallow’d up the wild stream in;
In vain, all the week,
Did the fishermen seek
For the bodies, and poke in each cranny and creek;
In vain was their search
After aught in the church,
They caught nothing but weeds, and perhaps a few perch.
The Humane Society
Tried a variety
Of methods, and brought down, to drag for the wreck, tackles
But they only fished up the clerk’s tortoise-shell spectacles.
Moral
This tale has a moral. Ye youths, oh, beware
Of liquor, and how you run after the fair!
Shun playing at SHORTS—avoid quarrels and jars—
And don’t take to smoking those nasty cigars!
—Let no run of bad-luck, or despair for some Jewess-eyed
Damsel, induce you to contemplate suicide!
Don’t sit up much later than ten or eleven!—
Be up in the morning by half after seven!
Keep from flirting—nor risk, warn’d by Rupert’s miscarriage,
An action for breach of a promise of marriage;—
Don’t fancy odd fishes!
Don’t prig silver dishes!
And to sum up the whole, in the shortest phrase I know,
BEWARE OF THE RHINE, AND TAKE CARE OF THE RHINO!
Look at the Clock. R. Harris Barham
“Look at the Clock!” quoth Winifred Pryce,
As she opened the door to her husband’s knock,
Then paused to give him a piece of advice,
“You nasty Warmint, look at the Clock!
Is this the way, you
Wretch, every day you
Treat her who vow’d to love and obey you?—
Out all night!
Me in a fright!
Staggering home as it’s just getting light!
You intoxified brute!—you insensible block!—
Look at the Clock!—Do!—Look at the Clock!”
Winifred Pryce was tidy and clean,
Her gown was a flower’d one, her petticoat green,
Her buckles were bright as her milking-cans,
Her hat was a beaver, and made like a man’s;
Her little red eyes were deep set in their socket-holes,
Her gown-tail was turn’d up, and tuck’d through the pocket-holes;
A face like a ferret
Betoken’d her spirit:
To conclude, Mrs. Pryce was not over young,
Had very short legs, and a very long tongue.
Now David Pryce
Had one darling vice;
Remarkably partial to any thing nice,
Nought that was good to him came amiss,
Whether to eat, or to drink or to kiss!
Especially ale—
If it was not too stale
I really believe he’d have emptied a pail;
Not that in Wales
They talk of their Ales:
To pronounce the word they make use of might trouble you,
Being spelt with a C, two R’s, and a W.
That particular day,
As I’ve heard people say,
Mr. David Pryce had been soaking his clay,
And amusing himself with his pipe and cheroots,
The whole afternoon at the Goat-in-Boots,
With a couple more soakers,
Thoroughbred smokers,
Both, like himself, prime singers and jokers;
And, long after day had drawn to a close,
And the rest of the world was wrapp’d in repose,
They were roaring out “Shenkin!” and “Ar hydd y nos;”
While David himself, to a Sassenach tune,
Sang, “We’ve drunk down the Sun, boys! let’s drink down the Moon!
What have we with day to do?
Mrs. Winifred Pryce, ’t was made for you!”—
At length, when they couldn’t well drink any more,
Old “Goat-in-Boots” showed them the door:
And then came that knock,
And the sensible shock
David felt when his wife cried, “Look at the Clock!”
For the hands stood as crooked as crooked might be,
The long at the Twelve, and the short at the Three!
That self-same clock had long been a bone
Of contention between this Darby and Joan;
And often, among their pother and rout,
When this otherwise amiable couple fell out,
Pryce would drop a cool hint,
With an ominous squint
At its case, of an “Uncle” of his, who’d a “Spout.”
That horrid word “Spout”
No sooner came out
Than Winifred Pryce would turn her about,
And with scorn on her lip,
And a hand on each hip,
“Spout” herself till her nose grew red at the tip,
“You thundering Willin,
I know you’d be killing
Your wife,—ay, a dozen of wives,—for a shilling!
You may do what you please,
You may sell my chemise
(Mrs. P. was too well-bred to mention her stock),
But I never will part with my Grandmother’s Clock!”
Mrs. Pryce’s tongue ran long and ran fast,
But patience is apt to wear out at last,
And David Pryce in temper was quick,
So he stretch’d out his hand, and caught hold of a stick;
Perhaps in its use he might mean to be lenient,
But walking just then wasn’t very convenient,
So he threw it, instead,
Direct at her head;
It knock’d off her hat;
Down she fell flat;
Her case, perhaps, was not much mended by that:
But whatever it was,—whether rage and pain
Produced apoplexy, or burst a vein,
Or her tumble induced a concussion of brain,
I can’t say for certain,—but THIS I can,
When sober’d by fright, to assist her he ran,
Mrs. Winifred Pryce was dead as Queen Anne!
The fatal catastrophe
Named in my last strophe
As adding to grim Death’s exploits such a vast trophy,
Made a great noise; and the shocking fatality,
Ran over, like wild-fire, the whole Principality.
And then came Mr. Ap Thomas, the Coroner,
With his jury to sit, some dozen or more, on her.
Mr. Pryce to commence
His “ingenious defense,”
Made a “powerful appeal” to the jury’s “good sense,”
“The world he must defy
Ever to justify
Any presumption of ‘Malice Prepense;’”— The unlucky lick
From the end of his stick
He “deplored”—he was “apt to be rather too quick;”—
But, really, her prating
Was so aggravating:
Some trifling correction was just what he meant;—all
The rest, he assured them, was “quite accidental!”
Then he calls Mr. Jones,
Who depones to her tones,
And her gestures and hints about “breaking his bones,”
While Mr. Ap Morgan, and Mr. Ap Rhys
Declared the deceased
Had styled him “a Beast,”
And swear they had witness’d, with grief and surprise,
The allusion she made to his limbs and his eyes.
The jury, in fine, having sat on the body
The whole day, discussing the case, and gin-toddy,
Return’d about half-past eleven at night
The following verdict, “We find, SARVE HER RIGHT!”
Mr. Pryce, Mrs. Winifred Pryce being dead,
Felt lonely, and moped; and one evening he said
He would marry Miss Davis at once in her stead.
Not far from his dwelling,
From the vale proudly swelling,
Rose a mountain, it’s name you’ll excuse me from telling
For the vowels made use of in Welsh are so few
That the A and the E, the I, O, and the U,
Have really but little or nothing to do;
And the duty, of course, falls the heavier by far,
On the L, and the H, and the N, and the R,
Its first syllable “PEN,”
Is pronounceable;—then
Come two LL’s, and two HH’s, two FF’s, and an N;
About half a score R’s and some Ws follow,
Beating all my best efforts at euphony hollow:
But we shan’t have to mention it often, so when
We do, with your leave, we’ll curtail it to “PEN.”
Well—the moon shone bright
Upon “PEN” that night,
When Pryce, being quit of his fuss and his fright,
Was scaling its side
With that sort of stride
A man puts out when walking in search of a bride
Mounting higher and higher,
He began to perspire,
Till, finding his legs were beginning to tire,
And feeling opprest
By a pain in his chest,
He paus’d, and turn’d round to take breath, and to rest;
A walk all up hill is apt, we know,
To make one, however robust, puff and blow,
So he stopp’d, and look’d down on the valley below.
O’er fell, and o’er fen,
Over mountain and glen,
All bright in the moonshine, his eye roved, and then
All the Patriot rose in his soul, and he thought
Upon Wales, and her glories, and all he’d been taught
Of her Heroes of old,
So brave and so bold,—
Of her Bards with long beards, and harps mounted in gold
Of King Edward the First,
Of memory accurst;
And the scandalous manner in which he behaved,
Killing Poets by dozens,
With their uncles and cousins,
Of whom not one in fifty had ever been shaved—
Of the Court Ball, at which, by a lucky mishap,
Owen Tudor fell into Queen Katherine’s lap;
And how Mr. Tudor,
Successfully woo’d her,
Till the Dowager put on a new wedding ring,
And so made him Father-in law to the King.
He thought upon Arthur, and Merlin of yore,
On Gryffith ap Conan, and Owen Glendour;
On Pendragon, and Heaven knows how many more.
He thought of all this, as he gazed, in a trice,
On all things, in short, but the late Mrs. Pryce;
When a lumbering noise from behind made him start,
And sent the blood back in full tide to his heart,
Which went pit-a-pat
As he cried out “What’s that?”—
That very queer sound?—
Does it come from the ground?
Or the air,—from above,—or below,—or around?—
It is not like Talking,
It is not like Walking,
It’s not like the clattering of pot or of pan,
Or the tramp of a horse,—or the tread of a man,—
Or the hum of a crowd,—or the shouting of boys,—
It’s really a deuced odd sort of a noise!
Not unlike a cart’s,—but that can’t be;—for when
Could “all the King’s horses, and all the King’s men,”
With Old Nick for a wagoner, drive one up “PEN?”
Pryce, usually brimful of valor when drunk,
Now experienced what school-boys denominate “funk.”
In vain he look’d back
On the whole of the track
He had traversed; a thick cloud, uncommonly black,
At this moment obscured the broad disc of the moon,
And did not seem likely to pass away soon;
While clearer and clearer,
’Twas plain to the hearer,
Be the noise what it might, it drew nearer and nearer,
And sounded, as Pryce to this moment declares,
Very much “like a coffin a-walking up stairs.”
Mr. Pryce had begun
To “make up” for a run,
As in such a companion he saw no great fun,
When a single bright ray
Shone out on the way
He had passed, and he saw, with no little dismay,
Coming after him, bounding o’er crag and o’er rock,
The deceased Mrs. Winifred’s “Grandmother’s Clock!!”
’Twas so!—it had certainly moved from its place,
And come, lumbering on thus, to hold him in chase;
’Twas the very same Head, and the very same Case,
And nothing was altered at all—but the Face!
In that he perceived, with no little surprise,
The two little winder-holes turn’d into eyes
Blazing with ire,
Like two coals of fire;
And the “Name of the Maker” was changed to a Lip,
And the Hands to a Nose with a very red tip,
No!—he could not mistake it,—’twas SHE to the life!
The identical face of his poor defunct Wife!
One glance was enough
Completely “Quant. suff.”
As the doctors write down when they send you their “stuff,”—
Like a Weather-cock whirled by a vehement puff,
David turned himself round;
Ten feet of ground
He clear’d, in his start, at the very first bound!
I’ve seen people run at West End Fair for cheeses—
I’ve seen Ladies run at Bow Fair for chemises—
At Greenwich Fair twenty men run for a hat,
And one from a Bailiff much faster than that—
At foot-ball I’ve seen lads run after the bladder—
I’ve seen Irish Bricklayers run up a ladder—
I’ve seen little boys run away from a cane—
And I’ve seen (that is, READ OF) good running in Spain;
But I never did read
Of, or witness such speed
As David exerted that evening.—Indeed
All I have ever heard of boys, women, or men,
Falls far short of Pryce, as he ran over “PEN!”
He reaches its brow,—
He has past it,—and now
Having once gained the summit, and managed to cross it, he
Rolls down the side with uncommon velocity;
But, run as he will,
Or roll down the hill,
That bugbear behind him is after him still!
And close at his heels, not at all to his liking,
The terrible clock keeps on ticking and striking,
Till, exhausted and sore,
He can’t run any more,
But falls as he reaches Miss Davis’s door,
And screams when they rush out, alarm’d at his knock,
“Oh! Look at the Clock!—Do!—Look at the Clock!!”
Miss Davis look’d up, Miss Davis look’d down,
She saw nothing there to alarm her;—a frown
Came o’er her white forehead,
She said, “It was horrid
A man should come knocking at that time of night,
And give her Mamma and herself such a fright;—
To squall and to bawl
About nothing at all!”
She begg’d “he’d not think of repeating his call;
His late wife’s disaster
By no means had past her,”
She’d “have him to know she was meat for his Master!”
Then regardless alike of his love and his woes,
She turn’d on her heel and she turn’d up her nose,
Poor David in vain
Implored to remain,
He “dared not,” he said, “cross the mountain again.”
Why the fair was obdurate
None knows,—to be sure it
Was said she was setting her cap at the Curate;—
Be that as it may, it is certain the sole hole
Pryce found to creep into that night was the Coal-hole!
In that shady retreat
With nothing to eat
And with very bruised limbs, and with very sore feet,
All night close he kept;
I can’t say he slept;
But he sigh’d, and he sobb’d, and he groan’d, and he wept;
Lamenting his sins,
And his two broken shins,
Bewailing his fate with contortions and grins,
And her he once thought a complete Rara Avis,
Consigning to Satan,—viz., cruel Miss Davis’
Mr. David has since had a “serious call,”
He never drinks ale, wine, or spirits, at all,
And they say he is going to Exeter Hall
To make a grand speech,
And to preach, and to teach
People that “they can’t brew their malt liquor too small!”
That an ancient Welsh Poet, one PYNDAR AP TUDOR,
Was right in proclaiming “ARISTON MEN UDOR!”
Which means “The pure Element
Is for Man’s belly meant!”
And that GIN’S but a SNARE of Old Nick the deluder!
And “still on each evening when pleasure fills up,”
At the old Goat-in-Boots, with Metheglin, each cup
Mr. Pryce, if he’s there,
Will get into “The Chair,”
And make all his QUONDAM associates stare
By calling aloud to the Landlady’s daughter,
“Patty, bring a cigar, and a glass of Spring Water!”
The dial he constantly watches; and when
The long hand’s at the “XII.,” and the short at the “X.,”
He gets on his legs,
Drains his glass to the dregs,
Takes his hat and great-coat off their several pegs,
With his President’s hammer bestows his last knock,
And says solemnly—“Gentlemen!
LOOK AT THE CLOCK!!!”
The Bagman’s Dog. R. Harris Barham
Stant littore Puppies!—VIRGIL.
It was a litter, a litter of five,
Four are drown’d, and one left alive,
He was thought worthy alone to survive;
And the Bagman resolved upon bringing him up,
To eat of his bread, and to drink of his cup,
He was such a dear little cock-tail’d pup!
The Bagman taught him many a trick;
He would carry, and fetch, and run after a stick,
He could well understand
The word of command,
And appear to doze
With a crust on his nose
Till the Bagman permissively waved his hand:
Then to throw up and catch it he never would fail,
As he sat up on end, on his little cock-tail.
Never was puppy so bien instruit,
Or possess’d of such natural talent as he;
And as he grew older,
Every beholder
Agreed he grew handsomer, sleeker, and bolder.
Time, however his wheels we may clog,
Wends steadily still with onward jog,
And the cock-tail’d puppy’s a curly-tail’d dog!
When, just at the time
He was reaching his prime,
And all thought he’d be turning out something sublime,
One unlucky day,
How no one could say,
Whether soft liaison induced him to stray,
Or some kidnapping vagabond coaxed him away,
He was lost to the view,
Like the morning dew;—
He had been, and was not—that’s all that they knew
And the Bagman storm’d, and the Bagman swore
As never a Bagman had sworn before;
But storming or swearing but little avails
To recover lost dogs with great curly tails.
In a large paved court, close by Billiter Square,
Stands a mansion, old, but in thorough repair,
The only thing strange, from the general air
Of its size and appearance, is how it got there;
In front is a short semicircular stair
Of stone steps—some half score—
Then you reach the ground floor,
With a shell-pattern’d architrave over the door.
It is spacious, and seems to be built on the plan
Of a Gentleman’s house in the time of Queen Anne;
Which is odd, for, although
As we very well know,
Under Tudors and Stuarts the City could show
Many Noblemen’s seats above Bridge and below,
Yet that fashion soon after induced them to go
From St. Michael Cornhill, and St. Mary-le-Bow,
To St. James, and St. George, and St. Anne in Soho—
Be this as it may—at the date I assign
To my tale—that’s about Seventeen Sixty-Nine—
This mansion, now rather upon the decline,
Had less dignified owners—belonging, in fine,
To Turner, Dry, Weipersyde, Rogers, and Pyne—
A respectable House in the Manchester line.
There were a score
Of Bagmen, and more,
Who had travel’d full oft for the firm before,
But just at this period they wanted to send
Some person on whom they could safely depend—
A trust-worthy body, half agent, half friend—
On some mercantile matter, as far as Ostend;
And the person they pitch’d on was Anthony Blogg
A grave, steady man, not addicted to grog—
The Bagman, in short, who had lost the great dog.
“The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea!—
That is the place where we all wish to be,
Rolling about on it merrily!”
So all sing and say
By night and by day,
In the boudoir, the street, at the concert, and play,
In a sort of coxcombical roundelay;—
You may roam through the City, transversely or straight
From Whitechapel turnpike to Cumberland gate,
And every young Lady who thrums a guitar,
Ev’ry mustached Shopman who smokes a cigar,
With affected devotion
Promulgates his notion
Of being a “Rover” and “Child of the Ocean”—
Whate’er their age, sex, or condition may be,
They all of them long for the “Wide, Wide Sea!”
But, however they dote,
Only set them afloat
In any craft bigger at all than a boat,
Take them down to the Nore,
And you’ll see that, before
The “Wessel” they “Woyage” in has made half her way
Between Shell-Ness Point and the pier at Herne Bay,
Let the wind meet the tide in the slightest degree,
They’ll be all of them heartily sick of “the Sea!”
I’ve stood in Margate, on a bridge of size
Inferior far to that described by Byron,
Where “palaces and pris’ns on each hand rise—”
—That too’s a stone one, this is made of iron—
And little donkey-boys your steps environ,
Each proffering for your choice his tiny hack,
Vaunting its excellence; and, should you hire one,
For sixpence, will he urge, with frequent thwack,
The much-enduring beast to Buenos Ayres—and back.
And there, on many a raw and gusty day,
I’ve stood, and turn’d my gaze upon the pier,
And seen the crews, that did embark so gay
That self-same morn, now disembark so queer;
Then to myself I’ve sigh’d and said, “Oh dear!
Who would believe yon sickly-looking man’s a
London Jack Tar—a Cheapside Buccaneer!—”
But hold, my Muse!—for this terrific stanza
Is all too stiffly grand for our Extravaganza.
“So now we’ll go up, up, up,
And now we’ll go down, down, down,
And now we’ll go backward and forward,
And now we’ll go roun’, roun’, roun’.”—
—I hope you’ve sufficient discernment to see,
Gentle Reader, that here the discarding the D
Is a fault which you must not attribute to me;
Thus my Nurse cut it off when, “with counterfeit glee,”
She sung, as she danced me about on her knee,
In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and three:
All I mean to say is, that the Muse is now free
From the self-imposed trammels put on by her betters,
And no longer like Filch, midst the felons and debtors,
At Drury Lane, dances her hornpipe in fetters.
Resuming her track,
At once she goes back
To our hero, the Bagman—Alas! and Alack!
Poor Anthony Blogg
Is as sick as a dog,
Spite of sundry unwonted potations of grog,
By the time the Dutch packet is fairly at sea,
With the sands called the Goodwins a league on her lee.
And now, my good friends, I’ve a fine opportunity
To obfuscate you all by sea terms with impunity,
And talking of “calking,”
And “quarter-deck walking,”
“Fore and aft,”
And “abaft,”
“Hookers,” “barkeys,” and “craft,”
(At which Mr. Poole has so wickedly laughed),
Of binnacles—bilboes—the boom call’d the spanker,
The best bower-cable—the jib—and sheet-anchor;
Of lower-deck guns—and of broadsides and chases,
Of taffrails and topsails, and splicing main-braces,
And “Shiver my timbers!” and other odd phrases
Employ’d by old pilots, with hard-featured faces;—
Of the expletives sea-faring Gentlemen use,
The allusions they make to the eyes of their crews;—
How the Sailors, too, swear,
How they cherish their hair,
And what very long pigtails a great many wear.—
But, Reader, I scorn it—the fact is, I fear,
To be candid, I can’t make these matters so clear
As Marryat, or Cooper, or Captain Chamier,
Or Sir E. Lytton Bulwer, who brought up the rear
Of the “Nauticals,” just at the end of the year
Eighteen thirty-nine—(how Time flies!—Oh, dear!)—
With a well-written preface, to make it appear
That his play, the “Sea-Captain,” ’s by no means small beer.
There!—“brought up the rear”—you see there’s a mistake
Which none of the authors I’ve mentioned would make,
I ought to have said, that he “sail’d in their wake.”—
So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougher
The more my poor hero continued to suffer,
Till the Sailors themselves cried, in pity, “Poor Buffer!”
Still rougher it grew,
And still harder it blew,
And the thunder kick’d up such a hullballoo,
That even the Skipper began to look blue;
While the crew, who were few,
Look’d very queer, too,
And seem’d not to know what exactly to do,
And they who’d the charge of them wrote in the logs,
“Wind N. E.—blows a hurricane—rains cats and dogs.”
In short it soon grew to a tempest as rude as
That Shakspeare describes near the “still vex’d Bermudas,”
When the winds, in their sport,
Drove aside from its port
The King’s ship, with the whole Neapolitan Court,
And swamp’d it to give “the King’s Son, Ferdinand,” a
Soft moment or two with the Lady Miranda,
While her Pa met the rest, and severely rebuked ’em
For unhandsomely doing him out of his Dukedom,
You don’t want me, however, to paint you a Storm,
As so many have done, and in colors so warm;
Lord Byron, for instance, in manner facetious,
Mr. Ainsworth, more gravely,—see also Lucretius,
—A writer who gave me no trifling vexation
When a youngster at school, on Dean Colet’s foundation.—
Suffice it to say
That the whole of that day,
And the next, and the next, they were scudding away
Quite out of their course,
Propell’d by the force
Of those flatulent folks known in Classical story as
Aquilo, Libs, Notus, Auster, and Boreas,
Driven quite at their mercy
‘Twist Guernsey and Jersey,
Till at length they came bump on the rocks and the shallows
In West longtitude, One, fifty-seven, near St. Maloes;
There you will not be surprised
That the vessel capsized,
Or that Blogg, who had made, from intestine commotions,
His specific gravity less than the Ocean’s,
Should go floating away,
’Mid the surges and spray,
Like a cork in a gutter, which, swoll’n by a shower,
Runs down Holborn-hill about nine knots an hour.
You’ve seen, I’ve no doubt, at Bartholomew fair,
Gentle Header,—that is, if you’ve ever been there,—
With their hands tied behind them, some two or three pair
Of boys round a bucket set up on a chair,
Skipping, and dipping
Eyes, nose, chin, and lip in,
Their faces and hair with the water all dripping,
In an anxious attempt to catch hold of a pippin,
That bobs up and down in the water whenever
They touch it, as mocking the fruitless endeavor;
Exactly as Poets say,—how, though, they can’t tell us,—
Old Nick’s Nonpareils play at bob with poor Tantalus
—Stay!—I’m not clear,
But I’m rather out here;
’T was the water itself that slipp’d from him, I fear;
Faith, I can’t recollect, and I haven’t Lempriere—
No matter,—poor Blogg went on clucking and bobbing,
Sneezing out the salt water, and gulping and sobbing,
Just as Clarence, in Shakspeare, describes all the qualms he
Experienced while dreaming they’d drown’d him in Malmsey.
“O Lord,” he thought, “what pain it was to drown!”
And saw great fishes with great goggling eyes,
Glaring as he was bobbing up and down,
And looking as they thought him quite a prize,
When, as he sank, and all was growing dark,
A something seized him with its jaws!—A shark?—
No such thing, Reader—most opportunely for Blogg,
’Twas a very large, web-footed, curly-tail’d Dog!
I’m not much of a trav’ler, and really can’t boast
That I know a great deal of the Brittany coast,
But I’ve often heard say
That e’en to this day,
The people of Granville, St. Maloes, and thereabout,
Are a class that society doesn’t much care about;
Men who gam their subsistence by contraband dealing,
And a mode of abstraction strict people call “stealing,”
Notwithstanding all which, they are civil of speech,
Above all to a stranger who comes within reach;
And they were so to Bogg,
When the curly-tail’d Dog
At last dragged him out, high and dry on the beach.
But we all have been told,
By the proverb of old,
By no means to think “all that glitters is gold,”
And, in fact, some advance
That most people in France
Join the manners and air of a Maitre de Danse,
To the morals—(as Johnson of Chesterfield said)—
Of an elderly Lady, in Babylon bred,
Much addicted to flirting, and dressing in red.—
Be this as it might,
It embarrass’d Blogg quite
To find those about him so very polite.
A suspicious observer perhans might have traced
The petiles soins, tendered with so much good taste
To the sight of an old-fashion’d pocket-book, placed
In a black leather belt well secured round his waist
And a ring set with diamonds, his finger that graced,
So brilliant, no one could have guess’d they were paste.
The group on the shore
Consisted of four,
You will wonder, perhaps, there were not a few more;
But the fact is they’ve not, in that part of the nation,
What Malthus would term, a “too dense population,”
Indeed the sole sign of man’s habitation
Was merely a single
Rude hut, in a dingle
That led away inland direct from the shingle
Its sides clothed with underwood, gloomy and dark,
Some two hundred yards above high-water mark;
And thither the party,
So cordial and hearty,
Viz., an old man, his wife, two lads, made a start, he
The Bagman, proceeding,
With equal good breeding,
To express, in indifferent French, all he feels,
The great curly-tail’d Dog keeping close to his heels.—
They soon reach’d the hut, which seem’d partly in ruin,
All the way bowing, chattering, shrugging, Mon-Dieuing,
Grimacing, and what sailors call parley-vooing,
Is it Paris, or Kitchener, Reader, exhorts
You, whenever your stomach’s at all out of sorts,
To try, if you find richer viands won’t stop in it,
A basin of good mutton broth with a chop in it?
(Such a basin and chop as I once heard a witty one
Call, at the Garrick, “a c—d Committee one,”
An expression, I own, I do not think a pretty one.)
However, it’s clear
That with sound table beer,
Such a mess as I speak of is very good cheer;
Especially too
When a person’s wet through,
And is hungry, and tired, and don’t know what to do.
Now just such a mess of delicious hot pottage
Was smoking away when they enter’d the cottage,
And casting a truly delicious perfume
Through the whole of an ugly ill-furnish’d room;
“Hot, smoking hot,”
On the fire was a pot
Well replenish’d, but really I can’t say with what;
For, famed as the French always are for ragouts,
No creature can tell what they put in their stews,
Whether bull-frogs, old gloves, or old wigs, or old shoes
Notwithstanding, when offer’d I rarely refuse,
Any more than poor Blogg did, when seeing the reeky
Repast placed before him, scarce able to speak, he
In ecstasy mutter’d, “By Jove, Cocky-leeky!”
In an instant, as soon
As they gave him a spoon.
Every feeling and faculty bent on the gruel, he
No more blamed Fortune for treating him cruelly,
But fell tooth and nail on the soup and the bouilli.
Meanwhile that old man standing by,
Subducted his long coat-tails on high,
With his back to the fire, as if to dry
A part of his dress which the watery sky
Had visited rather inclemently.—
Blandly he smil’d, but still he look’d sly,
And something sinister lurk’d in his eye,
Indeed, had you seen him his maritime dress in,
You’d have own’d his appearance was not prepossessing;
He’d a “dreadnought” coat, and heavy sabots,
With thick wooden soles turn’d up at the toes,
His nether man cased in a striped quelque chose,
And a hump on his back, and a great hook’d nose,
So that nine out of ten would be led to suppose
That the person before them was Punch in plain clothes.
Yet still, as I told you, he smiled on all present,
And did all that lay in his power to look pleasant.
The old woman, too,
Made a mighty ado,
Helping her guest to a deal of the stew;
She fish’d up the meat, and she help’d him to that,
She help’d him to lean, and she help’d him to fat.
And it look’d like Hare—but it might have been Cat.
The little garcons too strove to express
Their sympathy toward the “Child of distress”
With a great deal of juvenile French politesse;
But the Bagman bluff
Continued to “stuff”
Of the fat, and the lean, and the tender, and tough,
Till they thought he would never cry “Hold, enough!”
And the old woman’s tones became far less agreeable,
Sounding like peste! and sacre! and diable!
I’ve seen an old saw, which is well worth repeating,
That says,
“Good Eatynge
Deserveth good Drynkynge.”
You’ll find it so printed by Caxton or Wynkyn,
And a very good proverb it is to my thinking.
Blogg thought so too;—
As he finish’d his stew,
His ear caught the sound of the word “Morbleu!”
Pronounced by the old woman under her breath.
Now, not knowing what she could mean by “Blue Death!”
He conceiv’d she referr’d to a delicate brewing
Which is almost synonymous,—namely, “Blue Ruin.”
So he pursed up his lip to a smile, and with glee,
In his cockneyfy’d accent, responded “Oh, VEE!”
Which made her understand he
Was asking for brandy;
So she turn’d to the cupboard, and, having some handy,
Produced, rightly deeming he would not object to it,
An oracular bulb with a very long neck to it;
In fact you perceive her mistake was the same as his,
Each of them “reasoning right from wrong premises;”—
—And here by the way
Allow me to say,
Kind Reader—you sometimes permit me to stray—
’Tis strange the French prove, when they take to aspersing,
So inferior to us in the science of cursing:
Kick a Frenchman down stairs,
How absurdly he swears!
And how odd ’tis to hear him, when beat to a jelly,
Roar out in a passion, “Blue Death!” and “Blue Belly!”
“To return to our sheep” from, this little digression:—
Blogg’s features assumed a complacent expression
As he emptied his glass, and she gave him a fresh one;
Too little he heeded,
How fast they succeeded.
Perhaps you or I might have done, though, as he did;
For when once Madam Fortune deals out her hard raps
It’s amazing to think
How one “cottons” to Drink!
At such times, of all things in nature, perhaps,
There’s not one that is half so seducing as Schnaps.
Mr. Blogg, beside being uncommonly dry,
Was, like most other Bagmen, remarkably shy,
—“Did not like to deny”—
“Felt obliged to comply”
Every time that she ask’d him to “wet t’ other eye;”
For ’twas worthy remark that she spared not the stoup,
Though before she had seem’d so to grudge him the soup,
At length the fumes rose
To his brain; and his nose
Gave hints of a strong disposition to doze,
And a yearning to seek “horizontal repose.”—
His queer-looking host,
Who, firm at his post,
During all the long meal had continued to toast
That garment ’t were rude to
Do more than allude to,
Perceived, from his breathing and nodding, the views
Of his guest were directed to “taking a snooze:”
So he caught up a lamp in his huge dirty paw,
With (as Blogg used to tell it) “Mounseer, swivvy maw!”
And “marshal’d” him so
“The way he should go,”
Up stairs to an attic, large, gloomy, and low,
Without table or chair.
Or a movable there,
Save an old-fashion’d bedstead, much out of repair,
That stood at the end most remov’d from the stair.—
With a grin and a shrug
The host points to the rug,
Just as much as to say, “There!—I think you’ll be snug!”
Puts the light on the floor,
Walks to the door,
Makes a formal Salaam, and is then seen no more;
When just as the ear lost the sound of his tread,
To the Bagman’s surprise, and, at first, to his dread,
The great curly tail’d Dog crept from under the bed!—
—It’s a very nice thing when a man’s in a fright,
And thinks matters all wrong, to find matters all right;
As, for instance, when going home late-ish at night
Through a Church-yard, and seeing a thing all in white.
Which, of course, one is led to consider a Sprite,
To find that the Ghost
Is merely a post.
Or a miller, or chalky-faced donkey at most;
Or, when taking a walk as the evenings begin
To close, or, as some people call it, “draw in,”
And some undefined form, “looming large” through the haze
Presents itself, right in your path, to your gaze,
Inducing a dread
Of a knock on the head,
Or a sever’d carotid, to find that, instead
Of one of those ruffians who murder and fleece men,
It’s your uncle, or one of the “Rural Policemen;”—
Then the blood flows again
Through artery and vein;
You’re delighted with what just before gave you pain;
You laugh at your fears—and your friend in the fog
Meets a welcome as cordial as Anthony Blogg
Now bestow’d on HIS friend—the great curly-tail’d Dog.
For the Dog leap’d up, and his paws found a place
On each side his neck in a canine embrace,
And he lick’d Blogg’s hands, and he lick’d his face,
And he waggled his tail as much as to say,
“Mr. Blogg, we’ve foregather’d before to-day!”
And the Bagman saw, as he now sprang up,
What, beyond all doubt,
He might have found out
Before, had he not been so eager to sup,
’T was Sancho!—the Dog he had rear’d from a pup!—
The Dog who when sinking had seized his hair—
The Dog who had saved, and conducted him there—
The Dog he had lost out of Billiter Square!
It’s passing sweet,
An absolute treat,
When friends, long sever’d by distance, meet—
With what warmth and affection each other they greet!
Especially too, as we very well know,
If there seems any chance of a little cadeau,
A “Present from Brighton,” or “Token” to show,
In the shape of a work-box, ring, bracelet, or so,
That our friends don’t forget us, although they may go
To Ramsgate, or Rome, or Fernando Po.
If some little advantage seems likely to start,
From a fifty-pound note to a two-penny tart,
It’s surprising to see how it softens the heart,
And you’ll find those whose hopes from the other are strongest,
Use, in common, endearments the thickest and longest
But, it was not so here;
For although it is clear,
When abroad, and we have not a single friend near,
E’en a cur that will love us becomes very dear,
And the balance of interest ’twixt him and the Dog
Of course was inclining to Anthony Blogg,
Yet he, first of all, ceased
To encourage the beast,
Perhaps thinking “Enough is as good as a feast;”
And besides, as we’ve said, being sleepy and mellow,
He grew tired of patting, and crying “Poor fellow!”
So his smile by degrees harden’d into a frown,
And his “That’s a good dog!” into “Down, Sancho! down!”
But nothing could stop his mute fav’rite’s caressing,
Who, in fact, seem’d resolved to prevent his undressing,
Using paws, tail, and head,
As if he had said,
“Most beloved of masters, pray, don’t go to bed;
You had much better sit up, and pat me instead!”
Nay, at last, when determined to take some repose,
Blogg threw himself down on the outside the clothes,
Spite of all he could do,
The Dog jump’d up too,
And kept him awake with his very cold nose;
Scratching and whining,
And moaning and pining,
Till Blogg really believed he must have some design in
Thus breaking his rest; above all, when at length
The Dog scratch’d him off from the bed by sheer strength.
Extremely annoy’d by the “tarnation whop,” as it
’s call’d in Kentuck, on his head and its opposite,
Blogg show’d fight;
When he saw, by the light
Of the flickering candle, that had not yet quite
Burnt down in the socket, though not over bright,
Certain dark-color’d stains, as of blood newly spilt,
Reveal’d by the dog’s having scratch’d off the quilt—
Which hinted a story of horror and guilt’—
’T was “no mistake,”—
He was “wide awake”
In an instant; for, when only decently drunk,
Nothing sobers a man so completely as “funk.”
And hark!—what’s that?—
They have got into chat
In the kitchen below—what the deuce are they at?—
There’s the ugly old Fisherman scolding his wife—
And she!—by the Pope! she’s whetting a knife!—
At each twist
Of her wrist,
And her great mutton fist,
The edge of the weapon sounds shriller and louder!—
The fierce kitchen fire
Had not made Blogg perspire
Half so much, or a dose of the best James’s powder,—
It ceases—all’s silent!—and now, I declare
There’s somebody crawls up that rickety stair.
The horrid old ruffian comes, cat-like, creeping;—
He opens the door just sufficient to peep in,
And sees, as he fancies, the Bagman sleeping!
For Blogg, when he’d once ascertain’d that there was some
“Precious mischief” on foot, had resolv’d to play “’Possum;”—
Down he went, legs and head,
Flat on the bed,
Apparently sleeping as sound as the dead;
While, though none who look’d at him would think such a thing
Every nerve in his frame was braced up for a spring.
Then, just as the villain
Crept, stealthily still, in,
And you’d not have insur’d his guest’s life for a shilling,
As the knife gleam’d on high, bright and sharp as a razor,
Blogg, starting upright, “tipped” the fellow “a facer;”—
—Down went man and weapon.—Of all sorts of blows,
From what Mr. Jackson reports, I suppose
There are few that surpass a flush hit on the nose.
Now, had I the pen of old Ossian or Homer,
(Though each of these names some pronounce a misnomer,
And say the first person
Was call’d James M’Pherson,
While, as to the second, they stoutly declare
He was no one knows who, and born no one knows where)
Or had I the quill of Pierce Egan, a writer
Acknowledged the best theoretical fighter
For the last twenty years,
By the lively young Peers,
Who, doffing their coronets, collars, and ermine, treat
Boxers to “Max,” at the One Tun in Jermyn Street;
—I say, could I borrow these Gentlemen’s Muses,
More skill’d than my meek one in “fibbings” and “bruises,”
I’d describe now to you
As “prime a Set-to,”
And “regular turn-up,” as ever you knew;
Not inferior in “bottom” to aught you have read of
Since Cribb, years ago, half knock’d Molyneux’s head off.
But my dainty Urania says, “Such things are shocking!”
Lace mittens she loves,
Detesting “The Gloves;”
And turning, with air most disdainfully mocking,
From Melpomene’s buskin, adopts the silk stocking.
So, as far as I can see,
I must leave you to “fancy”
The thumps, and the bumps, and the ups and the downs,
And the taps, and the slaps, and the raps on the crowns,
That pass’d ‘twist the Husband, Wife, Bagman, and Dog,
As Blogg roll’d over them, and they roll’d over Blogg;
While what’s called “The Claret”
Flew over the garret:
Merely stating the fact.
As each other they whack’d,
The Dog his old master most gallantly back’d;
Making both the gargcos, who came running in, sheer off,
With “Hippolyte’s” thumb, and “Alphonse’s” left ear off;
Next making a stoop on
The buffeting group on
The floor, rent in tatters the old woman’s jupon;
Then the old man turn’d up, and a fresh bite of Sancho’s
Tore out the whole seat of his striped Calimancoes.—
Really, which way
This desperate fray
Might have ended at last, I’m not able to say,
The dog keeping thus the assassins at bay:
But a few fresh arrivals decided the day;
For bounce went the door,
In came half a score
Of the passengers, sailors, and one or two more
Who had aided the party in gaining the shore!
It’s a great many years ago—mine then were few—
Since I spent a short time in the old Courageux;
I think that they say
She had been, in her day
A First-rate,—but was then what they term a Rasee,—
And they took me on board in the Downs, where she lay
(Captain Wilkinson held the command, by the way.)
In her I pick’d up, on that single occasion,
The little I know that concerns Navigation,
And obtained, inter alia, some vague information
Of a practice which often, in cases of robbing,
Is adopted on shipboard—I think it’s call’d “Cobbing.”
How it’s managed exactly I really can’t say,
But I think that a Boot-jack is brought into play,—That is, if I’m
right:—it exceeds my ability
To tell how ’tis done;
But the system is one
Of which Sancho’s exploit would increase the facility.
And, from all I can learn, I’d much rather be robb’d
Of the little I have in my purse, than be “cobb’d;”—
That’s mere matter of taste:
But the Frenchman was placed—
I mean the old scoundrel whose actions we’ve traced—
In such a position, that, on his unmasking,
His consent was the last thing the men thought of asking.
The old woman, too,
Was obliged to go through,
With her boys, the rough discipline used by the crew,
Who, before they let one of the set see the back of them,
“Cobb’d” the whole party,—ay, “every man Jack of them.”
Moral
And now, Gentle Reader, before that I say
Farewell for the present, and wish you good-day.
Attend to the moral I draw from my lay!—
If ever you travel, like Anthony Blogg,
Be wary of strangers!—don’t take too much grog!—
And don’t fall asleep, if you should, like a hog!—
Above all—carry with you a curly-tail’d Dog!
Lastly, don’t act like Blogg, who, I say it with blushing,
Sold Sancho next month for two guineas at Flushing;
But still on these words of the Bard keep a fix’d eye,
INGRATUM SI DIXERIS, OMNIA DIXTI!!!
L’Envoye.
I felt so disgusted with Blogg, from sheer shame of him,
I never once thought to inquire what became of him;
If YOU want to know, Reader, the way. I opine,
To achieve your design,—
—Mind, it’s no wish of mine,—
Is,—(a penny will do’t)—by addressing a line
To Turner, Dry, Weipersyde, Rogers, and Pyne.