CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library PN 6151.S76 V.4 Library of wit and humor, prose and poet 3 1924 027 238 330 o,,.,.. 'i%J, Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027238330 THE LIBRAEY WIT AISTD HUMOR EDITED BY A. R. SPOFFORD Librarian of Congress ^^^ > \ THE LIBRARY WIT AND HUMOR PROSE AND POETRY SELECTED FROM THE LITERATURE OF ALL TIMES AND NATIONS ■DITRD, WITH BIOURAPHIOAL ARB CRITICAL VOTBfi, BT A. R. ^OFFORD, Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.,and RUFUS E. SHAPLEY, Author of " Solid for Mulhooly " ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY-FIVE CHOICE ETCHINGS ENGRAVED EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK VOLUME IV PHILADELPHIA THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING CO., Limited 1899 Copyrighted by THE GEBBIB PUBLISHING CO., Jjn). CONTENTS OF VOLUME IV. COMPLETE BOOKS AND IMPORTANT PIECES. FAOB Reynaed the Pox. Version of Goethe. Translated by Thomas Arnold 1 A LiTTiB DiNNEB AT TiMMiNs's W. M. Thackeray 88 The Bon Gaultibb Ballads Prof. Aytoun and Theo. Martin 104 The Broken Pitcher 104 The Courtship of our Cid 104 The Student of Genoa . . 106 Brusch Groggenburg 107 The Lay of the Love-Lorn 108 My Wife's Cousin 110 The Queen in France. An Ancient Scottish Ballad Ill The Massacre of the Macpherson 114 The Young Stock-broker's Bride . 115 The Lay of the Lover's Friend 116 The Dirge of the Drinker 116 Dame Fredegonde 117 The Husband's Petition 117 How I Killed the Bear ... Chaa. Dudley Warner .... 120 A. JooriAB Babonet Tobias Smollett 124 A Feast after the Manner of the Ancients Tobias Smollett 128 Phcbnixiana Capt. Geo. H. Derby 132 Official Report of Prof. John Phoenix, A. M 132 A New System of English Grammar 139 Farewell to San Francisco 142 Illustrated Newspapers 143 Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman Anonymous 149 Positivism on an Island Wm. Hurrell Mallock .... 157 Colonel MuLBEEBT Sellers Mark Twain and C. D. Warner. 175 Eetubn op Agamemnon J. B. Ansiey 183 Mark Lemon's Jest Book 191 The Jobsiad. (Translated by C. T. Brookes) Carl Arnold Kariiim 230 The Tbub Histoey. (Translated by W. Tooke) .... Lucian 264 Icaromenippus, or THE jErial Jaunt. Trans, by W. Tooke Lucian 282 Our New Livery AND other things. From Potiphar Papers (?eo. Wm. Curtis, LL.D. . . . 305 Accompanied on the Flute. Tale of Ancient Rome . . J. B. Anstey 316 How TO MAK£ Love fob a Fbiend Gharlea Lever 84] V »i CONTENTS Of VOL, IV. PAGE Lays por Lawyers 350 The Lawyer's Suit John O. Saxe 350 The Lawyer's Stratagem IVom "The Boston Post." . . 350 An Old Saw From "Harper's Monthly." . . 351 St. Peter versus A Lawyer ..... , . . : Anonymous 351 The Annuity . George Outram 352 The Annuitant's Answer George Outram 353 The Jolly Testator Lord Neaves .... . . 354 The First Client Irwin Russell 355 A Whimsical Attorney's Bill S. T. IT. 355 The Great Ham Case Punch 356 Case of Libel . Thomas Moore 356 Report on an Adjudged Case. (Not to be found in any of the Books) William Cowper 357 Owen Kerr versus Owen Kerr The Western Jurist 358 McVey versus Hennigan Anonymous 35b How the Lawyers got a Patron Saint John G. Saxe 359 Thb Real Facts about Venus and Adohis Alfred Crowquill , 39S SHORTER PIECES. 82 83 85 119 146 146 147 148 156 Ergo BibamuB. . . , , . Goethe The Book Pedlar Snnmel G. Goodrich . . A Jersey Centenarian F. Bret Rarte. . . . The Parting with the Family Pet The San Francisco Post. The Abbot of Waltham .... ... . From Percy's Reliques . Nothing Goethe The Duke and the Tinker From Percy's Reliques . The Critic Epes Sargent A New Use of the Human Face Emperor Trajan. . . . Chloe's Hair . Lucillus 156 On a Deaf Housekeeper From Greek Anthology 156 Once on a Time a Fool said this J. V. Von Scheffel 180 Old Assyrian J. V. Von Scheffel 180 The Guide Post Johan Peter Hebel 180 The Wives of Weinsberg G. A. Biirger 181 A Curious Circumstance Robert Reinick 182 First Intoxication August Kopisch 182 Pope and Sultan Folks-song from the German . . 183 The Belle of the Ball Room W. M. Praed. 247 The Faithful Lovers Anonymous 248 A Lover's Chronicle Abraham Cowley 249 Mr. Stivers' Horse Jos. M. Bailey 251 Daniel O'Connell and Biddy Moriarty Madden' s Revelations of Ireland 253 Culix in Carmine Henry T. Stanton 258 The Suicidal Cat Anonymous 259 The Hat. Translated from the French by Mrs. E. W. Latimer 260 John Gilpin WilUam Cowper 294 The Treadmill Song ^^^ . Oliver W. Holmes . . . ] 297 The March to Moscow . . B. Southey ! 297 CONTENTS OF VOL. IV. vix The Magpie, or Bad Company Anonymous 299 The Eabbinical Origin of Women Thomas Moore 300 I Wish He Would Decide Anonymous 301 An Idyl of the Period Anonymous 301 Flight C. S. Calverley 302 Pungent and Witty Sentences from French Humorists 303 Paper. A Poem Benjamin Franklin 320 Kisses in Market Anonymous 321 The Friars of Dijon Thos. Campbell 321 The Milkmaid and the Banker . Horace Smith 323 The Yankee Recruit James Russell Lowell .... 324 The Old Clock James Nack . ... .326 Ladies Boots Charles Godfrey Leland . . . 328 The Tall Gentleman to His Lady Love Anonymous 329 The Irishman William Maginn . . . 329 True to Poll F. C. Burnaud 330 The New Genesis From " The Spectator" ... 330 The Magic Lay of the One-Horse Shay John Hughes, A. M. .... 338 The Deacon's Masterpiece, or The \\onderful One-Horse Shay Oliver W. Holmes 338 The Soup Story Bebegi 339 Church and State Thomas Moore 360 Lying Thomas Moore 360 The Millennium Thomas Moore 361 Cho-Che-Bang and Chi-Chil-Bloo Anonymous 364 My First Punch William E. Burton 369 The Right Place but the Wrong Man Paul Llynd 375 Love is Like a Dizziness Jnmes Hogg 381 The Wonderfu' Wean William Miller 381 Cockie,-Leerie,-La William Miller 382 My Shirt Buttons Eliza Cooke . . ..... 385 The Romance of Broadway J. P. Ingram 389 The Sunday Question Thomas Hood 390 The Bachelor's Dream Thomas Hood 392 Domestic Poems. Good Night Thomas Hood 393 Parental Ode to My Son, aged 3 years, 5 months Thomas Hood 393 A Serenade Thomas Moore 394 Faithless Nellie Gray Thomas Hood 394 Stanzas to an Egg Punch 395 The Eggs From the Spanish of Yriarte . 395 THE RACONTEUR, (YARNS.) Archbishop Ryan's Exchange of Passes . 88 Testy Neighbors 103 An Enterprising Hackman . . . 103 Two Mustard Plasters . . .103 Mrs. Jones' Carriage 108 Theory of a Perfect Family 118 PAGE Retaliation 181 Justice and Her Scales 123 An Old Lady's First Railroad Ride . . 132 A Conservative Farmer 155 Happy Childhood 15d Too Old to be Trifled With 156 riU CONTENTS OF TOL, IV. PAGE A Story of Brignoli 156 A Schoolboy's Excuse 174 One of Beecher's Stories 190 Characteristics of Babies 190 Some Impromptu Definitions .... 190 He Stole His Thunder 250 Orthodox Forgiveness 254 When Evarts Unbends . 254 The Duke of Wellington's Experiment . 255 Pie. Geo. Augustus Sala 256 Lincoln as a Mercantile Agency .... 257 Practice Before Marriage. Puck . . 257 The Retort Vicious 257 A Cure 257 Short Kansas Poem 260 A Little Domestic Story 263 Her Reasons 263 Hopeless 263 A Dangerous Puppy 263 Cabby's Reply to Mcintosh 302 For the Heathen 304 A Mixed Decision 331 Matter of Conscience. Col. R. Ingersoll 331 Clergymen as Fire Escapes 331 Distinction Between the Form of Prayer 331 Suspected Her Husband 331 Hamlet with a Navy Pistol 332 How Jim took in His Father 333 Not the Dog's Fault 334 A Warning to Pinchers 334 A Car Conductor's Mistaka 334 Awkward 335 Audacity . , . , , 335 FASH Caught 336 Did not Know a Name More lUustrioua 339 Sheridan Compromising a Difficulty . . 340 The Essence of Time 349 Thackeray's American Oyster 361 Blaine's Salt Illustration 362 Davidge, the Comedian 362 Could Not Help Himself 363 Whatever You Do, Do Well 363 How the Dutchman Gave a Promissory Note 363 The Living Corpse 366 The Skunk, or Biddy Maloney's Cat . . 367 Garrick and the Mastiff 368 Bad for the Cow 369 Molifere's Physician 369 No Contempt Meant 369 Irish Diamonds 374 He Got It Wrong 874 Dr. Pott's Unmentionables 377 Early Times in Indiana 377 Professor of Natural History 379 A New Jersey Judge 380 Beau Brummel and Lord Deloraine . . 380 Guessing the Authors as He Proceeds . 382 An Exacting Husband 383 How It Goes 383 Court Scene in San Francisco 383 Going to Buy New York 384 Patent Alarm Beds 384 Don't Do It Again 389 Parrot Story 400 Jones' Cow 400 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PORTBAITS. (Boccaccio, Mark Twain, and Sivrauel Lover) Frontispiece. The Royal Nuksery By W. Kaulbach Page 55 The Triumph ... By W. Kaulbach "80 Confessions of an Elderly Gentleman . By George Cruihshank ..." 163 John T. Raymond as Colonel Sellers . . By McGoffin "177 ENGRAVINGS ON V^OOD, fWENTY-SEVBN ILLUSTRATIONS FOE Reynard THE Fox. Designed by William Kaid- '""A From page 3 to 82 The Return. Knrtum's Johaiad By Hnssanclever .... Page 241 Xns EiAittSAilOK. Sortiim's Jobsmd , , , By Basaancleuer . , , . " ae THE LIBRARY WIT AI^D HUMOR. REYNARD THE FOX. TRANSLATED BY THOMAS ARNOLD FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE. The Btory of Reynard the Fox, here preaented to the American public in the Translation of Mr, Arnold, is one which has been famous for centuries. The earliest edition known of this remarkable work is pre- served in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and is supposed to be a unique copy ; it is a black letter octayo in Dutch, and was printed at Qouda, near Rot- terdam, in 1479. Upon this work was based the trans- lation of William Oaxton, published in 1481. This first English Reynard is also extremely rare, only three copies being known, of which two are in the British Museum ; it is, however, easy of reference, having been reprinted by the Percy Society in 1844. The first Ger- man version waa published at Liibeck in 1498, but the origin of the legend is much more remote, the poem having been known in Low German, French, and Latin, even in the twelfth century. At the present day, it is impossible to trace the authorship of the oldest ver- sion, referred by some to Willem die Matoc; but a Beinhart Fuchs is still preserved, dating about the mid- dle of the thirteenth century, and it would seem that the earliest traces of the Poem must be sought in Flanders, where the nucleus of the series of adventures was formed. Henry von Alkmar, who was in the ser- vice of the Duke of Lorraine, is stated, in the Preface to the Liibeck Edition, to be the first who translated the story from the Italian and French into German ; but other authorities refer the authorship to a certain Nicholas Bauraann, who died at Rostock in 1526, and the motive of his writing the Poem is stated to have been revenge for the persecution with which he was visited at th6 Court of Jiilich, Yet the story waa evi- dently not of his invention, therefore he must only be regarded as one of the numerous editors; Its earliest public seems to have been the same which received with avidity the Eulenspiegel legend, the Lay of the Niebelungen, the Ship of Fools of Sebastian Brandt, and similar productions— and in its general satiric views of mankind it belongs especially to the grotesque VOL. IV. — W. H. school which has given to Germany some of its most enduring fictions. Its celebrity, however, is European ; and, translated into almost every language, it has become a native of many lands. Such a work, to be adequately represented to the present age, required the hand of a master who should unite with the grave wisdom of the acute and experi- enced man of the world, the happy and playful facility of the better kind of critic; such a combination pre- sented itself iu GOKTHE : such a book the product naturally to be expected. The enlarged views of later centuries blend most oppurtuuely with the an- tique form, and under the veil of animals the symbolic representations of the divi-ree passions of meu stand boldly in relief, creations as real as many passing forms which, like mirror-shadows, endure not. This is, however, no place for entering upon the criticism of a poem like the Reynard of Goethe which was published in 1793, while the French Revolution was at its height, a biting commentary on that fearful time. Books of such significance descend into the depths of the soul without the dead weight of the critic's laudation being attached to them. One of the specialities of the present edition con- sists in the reproduction, for the first time in this country, of the wonderful engravings of Kaulbach, who seized upon the spirit of Goethe's design, and as- sumed with a happy facility the mood, which, as by a witch's spell, transformed men into their brute syno- nyms. Reared into artistic power, under the careful eye of Cornelius, Willielm von Kaulbach was one of the foremost men of Germany in art. At an early period he distinguished himself in sarcastic and hu- moresque drawing, and it would be curious to know whether the pictorial epic of Reynard was not an early conception in the artist's mind, cherished there as only true and wished-for designs can be cherished, and exe- cuted in enthusiastic leisure. The work, in its original quarto form, appeared In 1846, and haa obtained for Kaulbach an ineffaceable reputation. So great was the popularity of that edition, that, in 1867, a reduction in the size of the engravings was made, and the Poem republished by Cotta, From this smaller book the present edition has originated, 1 9 EEYNAED THE FOX. The designB have been faithfully transferred by Eng- lish artists, and reproduced with every attention to detail and execution. Thus the reader will have, in our "Library of Wit and Humor" a series of artistic produc- tions, which, for a union of idealism and naturalism, have never been surpassed and rarely equalled. These varied and remarkable conceptions of Goethe's poem vividly render the epic design of the author, and their singular fertility in detail evidences the closest study of aoimal habits, conjoined with the greatest attention to the leading purpose of satirising the peculiarities of sjciety. No series of engravings could so adequately have ful- filled this object — the thorough adaptation of homely and domestic furniture in the abode of Reynard is strangely, but most admirably contrasted by the mag- nificence which reigns in the leonine household, while in no caae has Nature been wronged by a departure from the laws which govern bi-ute forms and pecu- liarities. These words will, it is hoped, sufficiently explaiu to the reader the end and aim of the poet, and the truth- fulness and genius of the artist. CHAPTER THE FIRST. THE ACCUSATION. The pleasant fe»at of Whitsuntide was come • The woods and hills were clad in vernal bloom ; The full-awakened birds, from every tree, Made the air ring with cheerful melody ; Sweet were the meadows after passing showers ; BrUliant the heaven with light, the earth with flowers. Noble, the King of Beasts, now holds his Court ; Thither his summoned Vassals all resort ; From North and South they troop, from East and West, Of Birds and Quadrupeds the First and Best. The Royal will had been proclaimed, that all Of ev'ry class, should come, both Great and Small To grace the pomp of that high festival : Not One should fail ; and yet there did fail One ; Reynard the Foz, the Rogue, was seen of none ; His many crimes from Court kept him away ; in evil conscience shuns the light of day. To face that grave Assembly much he feared. For all accused him ; no one had he spared : Greybeard, the Badger, stood his friend alone, '^be Badger, who was Reynard's Brother's son. Begirt with many a Relative and Friend, Who aid in war, in peace might counsel lend. Sir Isegritn, the Wolf, approached the throne. And with due rev'rence bowing humbly down, His suit in plaintive accents he began, And thus his wrathful accusation ran : — " Most gracious Lord and King ! in pity hear I Let my complaint find favour in Your ear. Happy the subjects of Your glorious reign; Here none who seek for justice seek in vain. Vouchsafe, then, to commis'rate my distress ; For Reynard's malice grant me some redress. Me in all ways the Wretch hath wronged and shamed, My spouse dishonoured and my ChUdren maimed ; Three lie at home, the youngest born of six, Befouled and blinded by his filthy tricks. " 'T is long ago my plaint in Court was filed, Showing by Reynard how I'd been beguOed ; The cunning Fox knew well a plea to draw, And boldly he presumed to wage his law : He dared not come at the appointed day ; So I had judgment — and my costs to pay. All present here can vouch this tale is true ; But none can tell such things as I can do. Had I the tongues of Angels, lungs of brass, Whole days and weeks — nay, months and years would pass Ere I could mention all my injuries. Or tell one half his crimes and tricks and lies. If all the Sheep on earth were killed and flayed. And all their skins were into parchment made, Not half sufficient were they to contain. The wrongs whereof I justly could complain : The worst is the dishonour of my Wife ; That eats away my heart, and sours my life : Desire of vengeance haunts me, night and day. And vengeance I will have, come what come may." He ceased, and stood in silent mood apart, Gloom on his brow and anger in his heart. Up jumped a Poodle from a neighbouring bench, Hight Frizpate, who addressed the King in French. And he complained, it was not long ago, In winter, when the ground was deep in snow, That not a single Beast could hunt his prey, He'd given much in charity away, And for himself had but one sausage left ; By the false Fox of this he was bereft : A foul and almost sacrilegious theft I Scant had he spoken when with fiery eyes, Tybalt, the Cat, sprang forth in angry wise, And kneeling cried — " My august and gra- cious King, REYNAED THE FOX Bejnard must answer many a grievous thing : Most dreaded of all living beasts is he, Ay, more than e'en Your sacred Majesty. Grant me Your patience, though; and hear me out: Frizpate hath little to coajplain about: The thing he speaks ef happened years by- gone; Should be the last to speak of robbery." The Panther then — "These jars are little use; Reynard's misdeeds admit of no excuse ; He is a Robber and a Murderer ; That, in this Presence boldly I aver. No kind of crime but he doth exercise; Nought sacred is there in his impious eyea: That sanaage ne'er was his ; it was my own, My all, my only remaining sustenance; I stumbled on it by the merest chance. I happened once into a mill to creep; It was was deep night; the Miller fast asleep ; Being at that time stinted in my diet, I took the sausage; why should I deny it? But Frizpate filched it from me; so that he His soul is fixed upon ungodly pelf; Although the Nobles, nay, the King himself Should suffer loss of health and wealth and all. And the whole state to hopeless ruin fall, So he could get the leg of a fat Capon, he Would never care the value of a half-penny. " Let me relate the trick he tried to play EEYNAED THE FOX. To Puss, the gentle Hare, but yesterday ; — Poor Puss, who lives just like an Anchoret, And never injured mortal Being yet. Reynard, who latterly has given out That he has turned ascetic and devout, Promis'd he'd teach him at the quickest rate, How he as Chaplain, might oificiate; ' The service you shall chant ; ' quoth he, ' as we do ; And we'll begin our lesson with the Credo I' So down they sat together and began; For he had no misgivings — the good Man. But not long time continued they to sing; For, 'gainst the Peace of our dread Lord, the King, And setting at defiance all his laws, He seized on Puss with his pernicious claws. I heard their song as I was passing by, And wondered that it stopped so suddenly ; I'd scarce proceeded though a dozen span, ere I took the Felon Reynard with the mainour. Fast hold had he of Pussy by the throat, That he could scarce articulate one note. Certes, at that time had I not come up. He'd gone that night in Paradise to sup. Yon stands our timid Friend ; and in his flesh You still may see his wounds all raw and fresh. " Will not our Sov'reign Lord these ills abate ? "Will you, brave Peers and pillars of the State, Such daily breaches of the peace permit, Such violations of the Royal writ 1 If there no stop be put to these foul crimes, Much do I fear me, that in future times Frequent reproach the King will have to hear From all to whom Justice and Right are dear." Again spake Isegrim ; " 'T is even so, Reynard has ever been the common Foe; 'T were better he had perished long ago. For while that wretch shall live, no rest will be For honest, loyal, peaceful Folk, like me. Albeit, according to the present fashion. The Felon ever meets with most compassion ; If such crimes pass unpunished, not u, year hence We all shall rue our most unwise forbear- ance." Undaunted by this host of angry Foes, The Badger, Reynard's Nephew, now uprose; Boldly prepared to plead his Uncle's cause. All stained with crime and falsehood as he was. "Now fair and soft. Sir Isegrim," said he; " Your words smack less of truth than en- mity. 'Tis known you hate my Uncle ; and, in sooth, A fair word had he ne'er from your foul mouth. Yet from your malice hath he nought to fear. In the King's favour stood he now but here, He'd give you ample reason to repent Stirring in these stale subjects of complaint. You take good care too not to say one word Of ills that he for your sake hath incurred. Yet many of the Barons here well know What happened not so very long ago; When you and he a solemn covenant sware. That friendship Each should to the Other bear, And, like true Comrades, Good and Evil share. I must relate, it is not long to tell. The strange adventure which that time befell, When you and he, in the cold winter weather, Went through the country travelling together! " It chanced a Carter, on the King's high road, Was driving homeward with a heavy load; REYNARD THE FOX. Your subtle nostrils soon sniffed out 't was fish; You'd soon have had them if you'd had your wish : But they were closely packed ; and what was worse, You'd not a single stiver in your purse. What then did my kind-hearted Uncle do ? Ah ! what indeed hath he not done for you ? Down in the road he laid himself for dead : 'T was a bold thought to come into his head ! And when the Carter saw him lying there, To kill him out-an-end did he prepare ; But, cunning Reynard stUl held in his breath, Stiff'ning his limbs and counterfeiting death ; 'T was a consummate masterpiece of art. That showed him cool of head as brave of heart ; [in his cart. The Carter picked him up, and pitched him A cap he thought to make out of his skin. And a bag too to keep his dollars in. This did my Uncle do for Isegrim : When would he venture such a risk for him ? While onward went the Carter with his load, Reynard kept throwing fish down in the road ; And Isegrim, who waa in haste to sup, Fast as he threw them down, gobbled them up. Reynard grew weary of this sport at last. And thought 'twas his turn now to break his fast; So down he sprang ; but with disgust and wonder Found Isegrim had pilfered all the plunder : He'd stuffed till he was nigh to burst in sunder. He told my Uncle he had left his share — But nothing but the heads and bones were there. " Another of his tricks I must narrate ; And so Heav'n help me, as I truth relate. A Countryman had lately killed a Swine ; Large were its hams and noble was its chine. Reynard had fouud out where the carcase hung And told it Isegrim with truthful tongue. And they agreed in common they would toil. Would share the danger and divide the spoil : To Reynard's share the danger fell alone ; But of the spoil, forsooth, he'd next to none. The larder-walls were strong and steep and high; My Uncle clomb them , though, right skilfully ; True to his word, did he the Porker throw Out of the window to the Wolf below. Now, by bad fortune, there were in the grounds A couple of most ill-conditioned Hounds ; They chased my Uncle with appalling din ; He got away, but not with a whole skin : And straight unto the Wolf his way did make, To show what he had suffered for his sake. And claim his lawful share ; then Isegrim Said he'd reserved the prime tit-bit for him ; And thrusting in his cheek his lying tongue. Produced the hook by which the Pig had hung. His feelings Reynard had no words t' express, But what he felt all present here may guess. " Scores of such pranks I might remember well. Were you iuclined to hear, and I to teU But 't is enough : were Reynard summoned here, Soon would he make his innocence appear. "As for the other charge, 't is most absurd ; You, my dread Liege, and you, my Lords, have heard What Isegrim has said about his Wife, Whom 't was his duty to protect with life. In all its details that affair I know ; It happened now just seven years ago. That Reynard's bosom first received a wound From the soft eyes of Lady Gieremund. My Uncle is not to be blamed at all : They met together at a fancy ball : Is'grim had gone upon a tour to Rome : Husbands, if wise, would always stay at home. My Uncle proffered her his faith and troth ; She sanctioned his attentions, nothing loth. Is it not, therefore, a most crying shame, That her own Lord should sully her fair 9 What any Man of honour would conceal, He seems to take a pleasure to reveal. "What have we next? This trumpery affair, The Panther has brought up about the Hare. Such utter trash ! what ! shall a Master scruple To chastise a perverse or sluggish Pupil 1 If this be so, how are our Youth to be Trained up in learning and morality ? The wisest book that ever was compiled Says, if you spare the rod you spoil the child. "Then we have Mouuseer Frizpate, who complains He was deprived of his ill-gotten gains. A pretty fuss, forsooth, about a sausage ! 'T were better he said nothing of that passage. For it turns out 't was stolen ; and the Thief Has the assurance now to ask relief. ' 6 REYNARD THE FOX. The Evil on his own head has recoiled : 'T Is only just the Spoiler should be spoiled. Is Reynard blamed, that from a Robber he Has wrung the fruits of his dishonesty ? He did his duty, that deny who can, Like a true Fox and loyal Gentleman. Why, had he hanged him on the spot, I ween. He must assuredly have pardoned been : But he respects the King's Prerogative, And therefore spared the Thief and let him live. " But little justice can my Uncle get ; At least, but little hath he got as yet ; Since the King's Peace was publicly made known. No one hath led the life that he hath done. With books he passes half his time away. And takes but one abstemious meal a day. Water his only drink, and roots his food ; Poultry and butchers' meat he hath eschew'd, And cannot bear the very thought of blood ; With whips doth mortify his flesh, and wear Next to his very skin a shirt of hair. I heard it mentioned only yesterday, By one who happened to have passed that way; His castle, Malepartus, he hath shut, And in the desert built a Hermit's hut. So lean and pale and haggard he hath grown. By his best Friends he scarcely would be known. But 'tis the burden of a good old song, That absent Folks are ever in the wrong. I only wish to Heav'n that he were here ; From all these scandals he would soon be clear." Scarce had he ceased, when from a neigh- b'ring hill A cry resounded, like a clarion shrill. The voice it was of honest Chanticleer, Who with his Wives and Concubines drew near ; A dead Hen borne behind him on a bier. It was the headless corpse of young Grey leg. As good a Fowl as ever laid an egg ; His fav'rite Daughter of a num'rous brood ; And impious Reynard now had shed her blood. Foremost the sad and mourning Sire doth stride. His dappled wings low trailing by his side ; While after him two youthful Cock'rells march, Each bearing in his grasp a burning torch ; Cantart of one, Cryart the other's name ; 'Twixt France and Holland none more known to fame ; They were the Brothers of the murdered Dame. Four tender Pullets bore their Mother's bier, Clucking so loud 't was pitiful to ear ; Dire was the clatter, awful were the cries, And the shriU clamor pierced the startled skies. Soon as the Heralds silence had restor'd. Unto the throne stepped up the martial Bird ; O'erwhelm'd with woe he thrice essayed to speak. And thrice the words died choking in his beak. Ashamed so chicken-hearted to appear, He gave one vig'rous crow his voice to clear, And thus began ; — " My Liege and Sov'reign, hail! With pity listen to my grievous tale ■ See upon yonder blood-stained bier, A proof of Reynard's cruel spite. And wanton enmity to right, Partlett, the best and most submissive Wife That ever solaced a poor Husband's life. How joyed was I with her and them to rove, And watch my Offspring full of life and love. That time no terrors for their lot I felt, For in complete security we dwelt : Our home was in a convent's spacious yard. Whose lofty walls its inmates safely guard ; And six stout Dogs belonging to the farm, Who loved us well, protected us from harm. " Reynard, it seems, that lawless Repro- bate, Like Satan, envying our happy state. Around our Eden often lay in wait. Stealthily round the walls by night he'd creep, And through the crannies of the gates would peep. The trusty Guardians of myself and Wife Oft made the Ruffian scamper for dear life ; Once they did catch him, and well tanned his hide. He got away, though sorely scarified ; And for a good while after let us bide. " But ah, Sire ! now begins my tale of woe; Again he came, and that not long ago ; Within our convent walls he slily slunk Clad in the vestments of a holy Monk, Wore a long frock, and sandals 'stead of shoes And looked for all the world like a Recluse. EEYNAED THE FOX. Water his only drink and roots his food ; All flesh of every kind he had eschewed, And could not bear the very thought of blood. But that my Wife and Daughters present were, He said he would have shown the shirt of hair. Which he for penance next his skin must wear And, on the word and honour of a Fowl, I myself saw the tonsure 'neath his cowl. Tow'rda him I own I felt my heart relent. He seem'd so really, truly penitent; He spoke of his past sins with such compunc- tion. And of the Heav'nly grace with so much unction. ' Farewell ! ' at length he cried, ' I needs must go; ' I stiU have many pious deeds to do ; ' I have the Nones and Vespers yet to say, ' And by a dying Vulture's bed to pray. ' He too was a sad Sinner in his day. ' Bless you, my Children, may you ever thrive ' In the calm peace which this World cannot give.' And saying thus, the odious Hypocrite Crossing himself departed from our sight. He left us, all his soul on mischief bent ; While ours were filled with happiest content. " Wo ventured forth ; and habit, more than fear, Kept us at first to the old convent near. Eeynard we daily saw near our abode ; It seem'd some bus'ness led him oft that road ; His looks were ever bent upon the ground. As though his mind were lost in thought pro- found ; Or, if he chanced our family to see, It was ' Good'en ' and ' Benedicite ; ' And he would tell his beads and seem to pray And smite his breast, and so pass on his way. " Now, bolder grown, we further went abroad, In search of pleasure and our daily food. Ah ! fatal error ! from behind a bush Eeynard among us made a sudden rush. Seatt'ring and squand'ring to the left and right, Tow'rds our old home we took our screaming flight. In vain, alas ! our Foe was there before ; In threat'ning guise he barred us from the door ; With surer aim tliis time he bore away Of all my Sons the fairest as his prey : And I was there, and impotent to save ! My Son ! uiy Son ! my Beautiful ! my Brave ! "And now he once had tasted of our blood, It seemed as he disdained all other food : At all times came he on us — night and day— Nor Dogs, nor Men, nor gates, kept him away. Of all mine Offspring I'm well nigh bereft; Five, out of twenty, all that now are left : With grief and terror I am all but wild ; Soon will he leave me neither Chick nor Child. Oh, give me justice ! 'twas but yesterday He tore my Daughter from my side away ; Villain ! without or pity or remorse : The Dogs were but in time to save her corse. See, there she lies ! my Child whom Eeynard slew! Help me, or he will have the Others too ! Oh ! Cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle doo ! " Fierce was the fire that in the King's eye burned. As to the Badger wrathfully he turned. And thus began ; " Come hither, Sir, and see This sample of your Uncle's piety ! Now by my royal mane I make a vow. This Miscreant shall not pass unpunish'd so, If Heav'n preserve my life another year. But words avail not. Honest Chanticleer, I claim the right your inj'ries to redress. To share, if not to lessen, your distress. Entombed shall your fair Daughter be, with all The pomp befits a royal funeral : A Vigil shall be sung, a Mass be said, REYNARD THE FOX. Tlie more to honour the illustrious Dead: We with our Council will the while take thought How may the Murd'rer be to justice brought." In sable was the Chapel Royal hung ; The Mass was duly said, the Vigil sung. The People, joining with the Quiristers Sang Domino placebo, verse by verse. I could relate who gave each versicle, Who the responses ; but 't were long to tell ; And so I pass it by : 't is just as well. Deep in a grave they laid the honor'd Dead, And placed a marble tablet at her head ; 'T was thick, and square, and polished brigiit as glass, With this inscription graven on its face : GBEYLBG THE SPECKLED ONE LIES BUKIED HEKE THE DEAR-LOVED DATJGHTEK OF BRAVE CHANTICLEER THROUGHOUT THE EARTH 'T WERE VAIN TO SEEK HER MATCH NO HEN COULD OPT'nBR LAY OR FEATLIER SCRATCH IN REYNARD'S CLUTCH SHE DREW HER LATEST BREATH AND PASSED UNTIMELY TO THE REALMS OP DEATH LET ALL GOOD MEN HER MUBD'REE EXE- CRATE AND SHED A TEAR OF PITY FOR HER FATE, Meanwhile the King in solemn Council sate. Discussing with the Wisest in his state, How they the Culprit might to Justice draw And vindicate the majesty of Law. At length it was resolved, by one and all, To send a summons to the Criminal, Commanding him, all bus'ness laid aside, He should to Court repair, and there his doom abide. The summons writ and sealed. Bruin, the Bear, Selected they to be the Messenger ; And him the King addressed ; "Sir Bruin, see That you perform your mission faithfully. We know you stout of limb and brave of heart ; Yet would We counsel caution on your part ; Courage is oft but a poor match for art. Reynard, remember, speaks but to deceive ; Neither his lies nor tiattery believe, Or you may soon have too good cause to grieve." " Fear not, my Liege," the trusty Bear replied. Confident in his strength and shaggy hide " Reynard, however tricksy he may be. Will not, I wager, try his tricks on me. Me or my mission an he treat with scorn, I'll make him rue the hour that he was born." CHAPTER THE SECOND. THE FIRST SUMMONS. Now with his ragged staff the Bear set forth, And with his best grease larded the lean earth. Through forests vast he went and deserts drear; But his bold heart knew neither doubt nor fear. At length the mountain region he approached, Wherein Sir Reynard generally poached : But Bruin would not tarry or delay ; Tow'rds Malepartus held he on his way. The fav'rite fastness of the Robber Chief; And there he hoped to catch the wily Thief: Thither for safety usually he fled. When threat'ning danger overhung his head. At length Sir Bruin stood before tlie gate, And, finding it was shut, he scratel't-d his pate, Not knowing whether best to go or wait. REYNAED THE FOX. 9 Then he began to ery, with mighty din ; " What, cousin Reynard, ho ! are you within ? Bruin the Bear it is who calls. I bring A missive from our Sovereign Lord, the King : He orders you, all bus'ness laid aside, Repair to Court and there your doom abide ; That equal right and justice may be done. And satisfaction given to every one. I am to fetch you : if you hesitate. The gallows or the wheel will be your fate. Better to come at once, fair cousin, sith The king, you know, will not be trifled with." Reynard, from the beginning to the end. Had heard this summons ; and did now per- pend In what way he might punish his fat Friend. Into a private comer he had fled. Where he could hear securely all was said. His keep was built with many a secret door. With traps above and pits beneath the floor ; With labyrinthine passages and channels, With secret chambers and with sliding panels. There he would often hide, the cunning Hound, When he was wanted, and would not be found. Amid this intricate obscurity. Where none could safely find his path but he, Full many a simple Beast has lost his way, And to the wily Robber fall'n a prey. Reynard suspected there might be some cheat ; For the Deceitful always fear deceit. Was Bruin quite alone ? He felt afraid. There might be others hid in ambuscade. But soon as he was fully satisfied TTia fears were vain, forth from the door he hied; And, " Welcome, dearest Uncle, here ; " quoth he. With studied look of deep humility, And the most Jesuitical of whispers, " I heard you call ; but I was reading Vespers. I am quite grieved you should have had to wait. In this cold wind too, standing at my gate. Blow glad I am you're come ; for I feel sure With your kind aid, my cause will be secure ; However that may be, at least, I know More welcome nobody could be than you. But truly 't was a pity I must say T' have sent you such a long and tedious way. Good Heav'nsI how hot you are I you're tired to death ! How wet your hair is, and how scant your breath ! Although no slight our good king could have meant, Some other Messenger he might have sent Than Bruin, the chief glory of his Court, His kingdom's main adornment and support. Though I should be the last to blame his choice. Who have in sooth no cause but to rejoice. How I am slandered well aware am I, But on your love of Justice I rely. That you will speak of things just as you find them; As to my Enemies I need not mind them : Their malice vainly shall my cause assail ; For Truth, we know, is great, and must prevail. "To Court to-morrow we will take our way : I should myself prefer to start to-day. Not having cause — why should I have? — to hide; But I am rather bad in my inside. By what I've eaten I am quite upset, And nowise fitted for a journey yet." "What was it ? " asked Sir Bruin, quite pre- par'd. For Reynard had not thrown him off his guard. "Ah!" quoth the Fox, "what boots It to explain ? E'en your kind pity could not ease my pain. Since flesh I have abjured, for my soul's weal, I'm often sadly put to 't for a meal. I bear my wretched life as best I can ; A Hermit fares not like an Alderman. But yesterday, as other viands failed, I ate some honey, — see how I am swelled I Of that there's always to be had enough : Would I had never touched the cursed stuff. I ate it out of sheer necessity ; Physic is not so nauseous near to me. " " Honey ! " exclaimed the Bear ; "did you say honey ? Would I could any get for love or money I How can you speak so ill of what's so good ? Honey has ever been my fav'rite food ; It is so wholesome, and so sweet and luscious ; I can't conceive how you can call it nauseous. Do get me some on't ; and you may depend You'll make me evermore your steadfast friend. " "You're surely joking, Uncle I" Reynard cried ; " No, on my sacred word ! " the Bear replied ; ■' I'd not, though jokes as blackberries were rife. Joke upon such a subject for my life." " Well ! you surprise me ; " said the knavish Beast; 10 EEYNAED THE FOX. " There's no accounting certainly for taste ; And one Man's meat is oft Another's poison. I'll wager that you never set your eyes on Such store of honey as you soon shall spy At Gaffer Joiner's, who lives here hard by. " In fancy o'er the treat did Bruin gloat ; While his mouth fairly watered at the thought. " Oh, take me, take me there, dear Coz," quoth he, "And I will ne'er forget your courtesy. Oh, let me have a taste, if not my fill : Do, Cousin. " Eeynard grinned, and said, " I will. Honey you shall not long time be without : 'Tis true just now I'm rather sore of foot; But what of that ? tlie love I bear to you Shall make the road seem short and easy too. Not one of all my kith or kin is there Whom I so honour as th' illustrious Bear. Come then ! and in return I know you'll say A good word for me on the Council-day. You shall have honey to your heart's content, And wax too, if your fancy's that way bent." Whacks of a different sort the sly Eogue meant. Off starts the wily Fox, in merry trim. And Bruin blindly follows after him. "If you have luck," thought Eeynard, with a titter, "I guess you'll find our honey rather bitter." When they at length reached Goodman Joiner's yard, The joy that Bruin felt he might have spar'd. But Hope, it seems, by some eternal rule, Beguiles the Wisest as the merest Fool. 'Twas ev'ning now, and Eeynard knew, he said, The Goodman would be safe and sound in bed. A good and skilful Carpenter was he : Within his yard there lay an old oak tree. Whose gnarled and knotted trunk he had to split ; A stout wedge had he driven into it : The cleft gaped open a good three foot wide ; Towards this spot the crafty Eeynard hied ; " Uncle," quoth he, "your steps this way direct. You'll find more honey here than you suspect. In at this fissure boldly thrust your pate ; But I beseech you to be moderate : Eemember, sweetest things the soonest cloy, And Temperance enhances every joy." " What ! " said the Bear, a shock'd look as he put on Of self-restraint; " d'ye take me for a Glutten? With tlianks I use the gifts of Providence, But to abuse them count a grave oflfeuee." And so Sir Bruin let himself be fooled : As Strength will be whene'er by Craft 'tis ruled. Into the cleft he thrust his greedy maw Up to tlie ears, and either foremost paw. Eeynard drew near ; and tugging might and main Pull'd forth the wedge ; and the trunk closed again. By head and foot was Bruin firmly caught : Nor threats nor flatt'ry could avail him aught. He howled, he raved, he struggled and he tore, Till the whole place re-echoed witli his roar ; And Goodman Joiner, wakened by the rout. Jumped up much wond'ring what 'twas all about ; And seized his axe, that he might be prepar'd. And danger, if it came, might find him on hia guard. Still howled the Bear and struggled to get free From the accursed grip of that cleft tree. He strove and strained ; but strained and strove in vain. His mightiest eflforts but increased his pain : He thought he never should get loose again. And Eeynard thought the same, for hia own part; And wished it too, devoutly from his heart. And as the Joiner coming he espied, Armed with his axe, the jesting Euflian cried : " Uncle, what cheer ? Is th' honey to your taste? REYNAED THE FOX. IT Don't eat too quick, there's no such need of haste. The Joiner's coming ; and I make no question, He brings you your dessert, to help digestion." Then deeming 'twas not longer safe to stay, To Malepartus back he took his way. The Joiner, when he came and saw the Bear; Off to the ale-houae did with speed repair. Where oft the Villagers would sit and swill ; And a good many sat carousing still. " Neighbours," quoth he, " be quick ! In my court-yard A Bear is trapped ; come, and come well pre- par'd : I vow, 'tis true." Up started every Man, And pell-mell, helter-skelter off they ran ; Seizing whatever handiest they could take, A pitch-fork One, Another grasps a rake, A Third a flail ; and arm'd was ev'ry one With some chance weapon, stick or stake or stone. The Priest and Sacristan both joined the throng, A mattock this, the other bore a prong. The Parson's Maid came too ; Judith her name. And fair was she of face and fair of fame ; (His Rev'rence could not live without her aid; She cooked his victuals, and she warmed his bed.) She brought the distaff she had used all day, With which she hoped the luckless Bear to pay- Bruin with terror heard th' approaching roar, And with fresh desperation tugged and tore : His head he thus got free from out the cleft ; But hide and hair, alack ! behind he left ; While from the hideous wound the crimson blood Adown his breast in copious currents flow'd. Was never seen so pitiable a Beast ! It holp him nought his head to have releas'd ; His feet still being fastened in the tree, These with one more huge effort he set free. But than his head no better fared his paws ; For he rent off alike the skin and claws. This was in sooth a different sort of treat From what he had expected there to meet ; He wished to Heav'n he ne'er had ventured there : It was a most unfortunate affair ! Bleeding upon the ground he could but sprawl. For he could neither stand, nor walk, nor crawl. The Joiner now came up with all his Crew : To the attack with eager souls they flew : With thwacks and thumps belabouring the poor Wight ; They hoped to slay him on the spot outright. The Priest kept poking at him with his prong, From afar off — the handle being long. Bruin in anguish rolled and writhed about ; Each howl of his called forth an answering shout. On every side his furious Foemen swarmed. With spits and spades, with hoes and hatchets armed ; Weapons all wielded too by nerves of pith : His large sledge-hammer bore the sinewy Smith. They struck, they yelled, they pelted and they hallooed ; While in a pool of filth poor Bruin wallowed. To name these Heroes were too long by half: There was the long-nosed Jem, the bandy Ralph ; These were the worst; but crooked-fingered Jack, With his flail fetched him many a grievous thwack : His Step-brother, hight Cuckelson the Fat, Stood, but aloof, with an enormous bat : Dame Judith was not idle with her distaff : While Gaffer Grumble stirr'd him up with his staff; And Men and Women many more were there, All vowing vengeance 'gainst th' unhappy Bear. The foremost — in the noise — was Cuckelson : He boasted that he was Dame Gertrude's Son ; And all the World believed that this was true ; But who his Father, no one ever knew. Fame indeed said — but Fame is such a Liar, That Brother Joseph, the Franciscan Friar, Might, if he chose, claim the paternity ; Or share the same with Others, it might be. Now stones and brick-bats from all sides were shower'd ; And Bruin, tho' he scorned to die a Coward, Was by opposing numbers all but overpower'd. The Joiner's Brother then, whose name was Scrub, 12 REYNAED THE FOX. Whirling around his head a masaive club, Hushed in the midst, with execrations horrid, And dealt the Bear a blow plump on the fore- head. That blow was struck with such tremendous might, Bruin lost both his hearing and his sight. One desp'rate plunge he made though, and as luck Would have it, 'mong the Women ran a-muck. Ye Saints I how tkey did scream and shriek and squall I Over each other how they tumbled all ! And some fell in the stream that ran hard by, And it was deep just there, unluckily. The pastor cried aloud — "Look, neighbours, look! See, yonder — in the water Jude, my Cook ; With all her wool — she's left her distaff here, Help I save her ! you shall have a cask of beer; As well as absolution for past crimes, And full indulgence for all future times.'' Fired with the promised boon, they left the Bear, Who lay half dead, all stunned and stupid there ; Plunged to the Women's rescue; fished out five; All that had fallen in, and all alive. The miserable Bear, while thus his Foes Were busied, finding respite from their blows ; Managed to scramble to the river's brim ; And in he rolled ; but not with hopes to swim ; For life a very burden was to him : Those shameful blows no more he could abide ; They pierced his soul more than they pained his hide. He wished to end his days in that deep water. Nor feared t' incur the perils of self-slaughter. But no ! against his will he floated down ; It seemed in truth he was not born to drown. Now when the Bear's escape the Men de- scried, " Oh shame ! insufferable shame ! " they cried ; Then in a rage began to rate the Women ; " See where the Bear away from us is swim- ming; Had you but stayed at home, your proper place. We should not have encountered this dis- grace." Then to the cleft tree turning, they found there The bleeding strips of Bruin's hide and hair ; At this into loud laughter they broke out. And after him thus sent a jeering shout ; "You'll sure come back again, old Devil- spawn, As you have left your wig and gloves in pawn." Thus insult added they to injury. And Bruin heard them and sore hurt was he ; He cursed them all, and his own wretched fate ; He cursed the Honey that had been his bait ; He cursed the Fox who led him in the Snare ; He even cursed the King who sent him there. Such were his pray'rs as quick he swept along, For the stream bore him onward, swift and strong ; So, without effort, in a little whUe, He floated down the river near a mile. Then with a heavy heart he crawled on shore, For he was wet and weary, sick and sore. The Sun throughout his course would never see A Beast in such a shocking plight as he. Hard and with pain he fetched his lab'ring breath, And every moment looked and wished for death. His head swam round with a strange sort of dizziness, As he thought o'er the whole perplexing busi- ness. " Oh, Reynard ! " he gasped out, " Thou Traitor vile ! Oh, Scoundrel, Thief ! " and more in the same style. He thought upon the tree; the jibes and knocks He had endured ; and once more cursed the Fox. Eeynard, well pleased t' have cozened Uncle Bruin, And lured him, as he thought, to his sure ruin, Had started off upon a Chicken-chase ; He knew, close by, a tried and fav'rite place. A fine fat Pullet soon became his prey. Which in his felon clutch he bore away : This he devoured, bones and all , right speedily; And, if the truth be spoken, somewhat greedily. Prepared for any chance that might betide, He slowly sauntered by the river side ; Stopping from time to time to take a draught j EEYNARD THE FOX. 13 And thought aloud, while in his sleeye he laugh'd : " How i*eaaed I am t' have triok'd that stupid Bear t Honey he longed for, and has had his share ; I'm not to blame ; I warned him of the wax ; By this he knows how tastes a Joiner's axe. I'm glad to have shown him this good turn, as he Ha3 ever been so good and kind to me. Poor Uncle ! well ; by chance should he be dead, I'll for his soul have scores of masses said. It is the least methinks that I can do." While musing thus he chanced to look below ; And saw Sir Bruin on the other shore Writhing and welt'ring in a pool of gore. Reynard could scarce, so great was his sur- prise. Believe the evidence of his own eyes. " Bruiu alive ! and in this place ! " quoth he, " Why, Joiner, what a Booby you must be ! A Bear's hams make the most delicious food ! You could not surely know they were so good. A dish, by which a Duke would set vast store. To be so slighted by a stupid Boor ! My Friend has left though, I am glad to see, A pledge for your kind hospitality." Thus spake the Fox, as he beheld the Bear, Lying all weary-worn and bleeding there. Then he called out — " Why, Uncle, is that you ? What upon earth can you have here to do ? You've something at the Joiner's left, I fear, Shall I run back and let him know you're here? Prithee, is stolen Honey very sweet ? Or did you honestly pay for your treat ? How red your face is ! you have ate too quick ; I trust you have not gorged till you are sick. Really you should have been more moderate ; I could have got you lots at the same rate. Nay, I declare — I trust there is no harm in't — You seem t' have on some sort of Priestly gar- ment; With scarlet gloves, and collar too, and hat ; Rather a dangerous prank to play ia that. Yet, now I look more close, your ears are gone, sure; Have you of late submitted to the tonsure. And did the stupid Barber cut them off? " Thus did the cruel-hearted Reynard scoff; While Bruin, all unable to reply, Could only moan with grief and agony. No longer could he these sharp jibes sustain, So crept into the water back again : He floated downward with the stream once more. And again landed on the shelving shore. There in a miserable state he lay, And piteously unto himself did say ; " That Some one would but slay me here out- right ! Ne'er shall I reach the Court in this sad plight; But on this spot in shame and grief shall die, A mortal proof of Reynard's treachery. Oh ! I will have a dire revenge, I swear. If it please Providence my life to spare." With firm resolve his pain to overcome, At length he started on his journey home ; And after four long toilsome days were past. Crippled and maimed, he reached the Court at last. When the King saw the Bear so sorely maimed, " Great Heaven ! Is this Sir Bruin ? " he ex- claimed ; " My trusty Messenger in such a state I " " Ah, Sire !" said Bruin, "and is this the fate That should a King's Ambassador befall ? But spare my breath — the Fox has done it all." Then spake the King in wrath ; " Now by the Mass, This outrage vile shall not unpunished pass. What ! shall the noblest Baron of our court Afford this Traitor means of savage sport ? No ; by my sceptre and my crown I swear. If crown or sceptre I am fit to bear. Or of stern Justice longer wield the sword. Right shall be done! Pledged is my royal word." Summoned in haste the Council promptly sate, On this fresh outrage to deliberate. Subject to the King's will, they all agree That Reynard once again must summoned be; At Court he should appear; and, if he might. Answer th' impeachment and defend his right. Tybalt, the Cat, should now the summons carry, As he was well known to be wise and wary. So counselled One and All : the King con- curr'd ; 14 EEYNAED THE FOX. And thus to Tybalt spoke his Sov'reigu Lord ; " Now mark your mission and the sequence well; If a third summons Reynard should eompel, He and his whole Race, I have sworn an oath, Shall feel the deadly power of my wrath. So let him come in time, if he be wise ; Nor this last warning recklessly despise." Tybalt replied ; " My Liege, I fear that I Shall scarcely prosper in this embassy ; Not that indeed I ought to say, ' I fear ; ' To do Your will all danger would I dare : I merely hint, that for this task, of All I am least fit, being so very small. If the stout, stalwart Bear was so abused. What can poor I do ? Hold me, pray, excused." " Nay," said the King, " Wisdom and Wit, 't is known, Are not the attributes of Strength alone. How often do we see a little Man Succeed more neatly than a great one can. Though not a Giant, you are learned and wise. And Wisdom compensates for want of Size." The Cat was flattered and he bowed his head ; "Your will be done, my Sov'reign Liege," he said; " If on my right I only see a sign, A prosp'rous journey will, I know, be mine." CHAPTER THE THIRD. THE SECOND SUMMONS. Not far did Tybalt on his journey get, Before a Magpie on the wing he met : " Hail, noble bird ; " quoth he, " vouchsafe to 'light, As a propitious omen, on my right." The Magpie screeched ; his onward way he cleft; Then stooped his wing and perched on Tybalt's left. The Cat much serious ill from this forebode, But on it put the best face that he could. To Malepartus he proceeded straight, And found Sir Reynard sitting at his gate. " Good Even, gentle Cousin," Tybalt said, " May bounteous Heav'n show'r blessings on your head. I bring sad news ; the King has sent to say. If you come not to Court without delay, Not only your own life will forfeit be, His wrath will fall on your whole Family." " Welcome, dear Nephew," quoth the Foi ; " not less I wish you ev'ry kind of happiness." Though thus he spoke, it went against hif will ; For in his heart he wished him ev'ry ill ; And thought 't would be the veiy best of sport To send him also back disgraced to Court. " Nephew," said he ; for he still called him Nephew; " Step in and see what supper we can give you ; You must be tired ; and all physicians tell ye. You can't sleep soundly on an empty belly. I am your Host for once ; you stay to- night ; And we'll to Court start with to-morrow's liglit. For you of all my Kindred love I best, To you confide myself tlie readiest. That brutal Bear was here the other day, Bouncing and swaggering in such a way. That not for all the world contains would I Myself have trusted in his company. But having you my Comrade, travelling Will be a very difierent sort of thing. So you will share our potluck, then to bed. And off we start by sunrise : that's agreed." " Nay," replied Tybalt, " why not go to- night ? The roads are dry ; the moon is shining bright." May be, the omen on his mem'ry struck ; May be, he had no fancy for potluck. " I am not fond of trav'lling after nightfall ;" EEYNAED THE FOX. 36 Kepliea the Fox; " some People are so spiteful ; Who, though by day they civilly would greet you, Would out your throat, if they by night should meet you." "Well, but," says Tybalt, in a careless way, " What have you got for supper if I stay ? " Says Reynard, " Well, I candidly avow. Our larder is but poorly stocked just now ; But we've some honey-oomb, if you like that." " Like such infernal rubbish I " quoth the Cat, And spat, and sware a loud and lusty oath. As he was wont to do when he was wroth ; " If you indeed had got a Mouse or so, I should much relish them ; but honey — pooh ! " What ! " answers Reynard, " are you fond of Mice? I think I can procure some in a trice, If you're in earnest ; for the Priest, my Neigh- bor, Vows that to keep them down is quite a labor ; In his tithe barn so num'rously they swarm ; They do him, he declares, no end of harm." Thoughtlessly said the Cat, " Do me the favor To take me where these Mice are ; for in flavor All other game they beat out of the field ; Beside the sport which they in hunting yield." " Well," says the Fox, " now that I know your taste, I'll promise you shall have a sumptuous feast. We'll start at once and not a moment waste." Tybalt had faith and followed ; quickly they Reached the Priest's tithe bam, built with walls of clay. Only the day before, Reynard a hole Had through it scratched, and a fat Pullet stole. Martin, the Priest's young Son — or Nephew rather. For he was ne'er allowed to call him Father, — Had found the theft out, and, if possible, Determined to find out the Thief as well ; So, craftily, a running noose he tied. And fixed it firmly by the hole inside ; Thus hoped he to avenge the stolen Pullet, Should the Thief chance return, upon his guUet. Reynard, suspecting something of the sort. Said, " Nephew dear, I wish you lots of sport; In at this opening you can safely glide ; And while you're inousing, I'll keep watch outside. You'll catch them by the dozen, now 'tis dark. How merrily they chirrup ; only hark ! I shall be waiting here till you come back ; So come as soon as you have had your whack. To-night, whatever happens, we'll not part, As we so early in the morning start." Tybalt replies, as any prudent Beast would, " I've no great faith, I own it, in the Priest- hood: Is't quite safe, think ye ? " Reynard answer^ " WeU ; Perhaps not : 't is impossible to tell ; We'd best return at once, as you're so nervous ; My Wife, I'll answer for it, will not starve us ; She'll toss us up for supper something nice. If not quite so much to your taste as Mice." Stung to the quick by Reynard's taunting tongue, Into the op'ning Tybalt boldly sprung. And plunged directly in the ready snare : Such entertainment and such dainty fare Did the sly Fox for all his Guests prepare. When theCat felt the string about his neck, He gave a sideward spring and got a check ; This made him throw a wondrous somersaut. And, the noose tight'ning, he was fairly caught. To Reynard then he loudly called for aid. Who list'ning at the hole in mock'fy said ; " Nephew, how are the Mice? I hope they're fat; They are well fed enough, I'm sure of that : If the Priest knew his vermin were your veni- son, I'm sure he'd bring some mustard, with his benison ; Or send his Son with it, — that best of Boys. But Nephew, prithee, why make such a noise? Is it at Court the fashion so to sing At meals ? It seems an inconvenient thing. Oh ! but I wish the gentle Isegrim Were in your place ; how I would badger him I I stake my tail on't I would make him pay For all the ill he's wrought me many a day." Then off he starts t' indulge some other vice ; No matter what ; he was not over nice : There never lived a Soul, at any time. More foully tainted with all kinds of crime ; Murder and theft, adultery and perjury ; 'T was past the skill of spiritual surgery ; He'd broke the Ten Commandments o'er and 16 REYNAED THE FOX. And would as readily have broke a score. He fancied now some fresh sport might be found In a short visit to Dame Gieremund ; This he proposed with a two-fold intent; To learn the grounds of Isegrim's complaint ; And likewise to renew an ancient sin, Which he especially delighted in. Is'grim, he knew, was absent at the Court ; And it was common subject of report, The She- Wolf's passion for the shameless Fox Had made her Husband's hatred orthodox. When Reynard to the Wolf's retreat had come, He found Dame Gieremund was not at home : " God bless you, my Stepchildren dear ; " quoth he; And to the young ones nods good-humour'dly ; The object of his call he never mentions ; But hastes away after his own inventions. Dame Gieremund returns at break of day ; "Has no one called here, while I 've been away ? " Asks she ; her Children answer, " Yes, Mamma : We've had a visit from our Godpapa, Eeynard ; he called us his Stepchildren though ; What did he mean by that?" "I'll let him know;" Quoth she, and angrily she hurried off, Determined to avenge this cutting scoff. She knew where it was likely she should meet him; And when she found him thus began to greet him: " Wretch, Monster, Brute ! " her rage was quite be wild 'ring ; " How dare you use such language to my Children? You, of all Men, t' attack my character ! But you shall dearly pay for it, I swear." With that she flew at him, and — oh dis- grace ! She pulled him by the beard and scratched his face. Then first he felt the power of her teeth. As, grappled by the throat; he gasped for breath ; He 'scaped her clutches though, and fled amain; She, after him ; and mark, what happened then. It chanced a ruined abbey stood in sight, And thitherward in haste both bent their flight : A fissure was there in the crumbling wall. Narrow it was and low and all ways small ; Through this the subtle Fox contrived to pass, Though hardly, thin and lanky as he was ; My Lady, who was anything but slim, Rammed in her head and tried to follow him ; But fast she stuck — it seemed Fate helped the Blackguard, — And she could neither forward get nor back- ward. Soon as the Fox saw how she was confin'd, Quick he whipped round and fell on her behind ; And not without full many a bitter scoff, For all she'd done he amply paid her off. Wearied with vengeance, if not satiated, The mischief-loving Rogue at length retreated. And when Dame Gieremund at length got free. No where in all the neighbourhood was he. Homeward, with tott'ring steps, she then re- turn'd ; While with revenge and shame her panting bosom burn'd. Return we now to Tybalt ; when he found How in that slipknot durance he was bound, That strength and struggling nothing might avail, After the mode of Cats, he 'gan to wail. This Martin heard, and swift sprang out of bed; "The Lord be praised;" the spiteful Urchin said, " The Thief is caught that stole our Hen away ; And, please the pigs, he shall the piper pay ; And that right dearly too, if but the noose hold :" Then struck a light and woke up all the House- hold; Both old and young, and great and small. Forthwith assembled there. The Priest himself, in morning gown Thrown loosely round him, hurried down, And ran to join the throng : A pitchfork's double steel he bore — His faithful cook-maid went before, For she was bold and strong. — Stout Martin too, a cudgel plies. And knocks out one of Tybalt's eyes ; Meanwhile the Parson, with his fork, Thrusts, hacks, and hews, like any Turk, Poor Tybalt thought to die I But frantic both with rage and pain, 'Neath the Priest's robe he dash'd amain ; And there revenged u cruel way. REYNARD THE FOX. 17 The wounds he'd suffer'd in the fray, And his extinguished eye. The Parson roll'd upon the ground, Lamenting loud his frightful wound. And terror seized on all around, While loud the cook-maid vow'd ; — The devil's self was in the beast, And she'd give all that she possest. Nay (if she had it), gold in store, The Parson had his own once more : — Meanwhile the others crowd. To bear their master to his bed, Leaving the luckless Cat for dead. But Tybalt woke from out his swoon And found his enemies were gone : He set to work with might and main And gnawed the hateful cord in twain. He hastened on his road, in shame and sor- row, Towards the Court, and reached it on the mor- row. And bitterly did he himself upbraid : " Me ! to be so comi)letely gulled !" he said ; " How shall I ever show my face for shame. All batter'd as I am, half blind, and lame ? The very Sparrows in the hedge will cry out, ' There you go. Master Tybalt, with your eye out!'" Who shall describe the wrath King Noble felt, When at his feet the injured Tybalt knelt? He swore the Traitor vile should die the death: His Council in all haste he summoneth : The Lords Spiritual and Temporal Assembled in obedience to his call : And the King said — He wished it to be known He would maintain the honor of His Crown ; That is, so it were done consistently With the true principles of liberty : But something must at once be done to stem Rebellion ; and He left it all to them. — Judgment, 't was moved, against the Fox should pass, he Being doomed at once to death for contumacy. The Badger, seeing what a storm was brew- ing. How all conspired to work his Kinsman's ruin, Thus spake : " My Liege, it boots not to deny ; These charges press on Reynard grievously But Justice follows one eternal plan Remember, Sire, the Pox is a Free Man The Law in such a case is most precise, VOL. IV. — yf. H. Requiring that he should be summoned thrice : If then he fail, there is nought more to say ; But Law and Justice both must have their way." " Ha I " said the Monarch sternly, " say you so ? Where shall be found the Messenger to go ? Who hath an eye too many ? who will stake His life and limbs for this bad Traitor's sake f 'Gainst Reynard's cunning who will wage hit wit? I doubt if any one will venture it.'' The Badger answered, " I will venture. Sire ; And undertake the task, if You desire Happen what may. Whether 't is better, I A summons bear straight from Your Majesty ; Or of my own accord appear to go : Whichever You think best, that will I do." " Go then I so let it be ; " the Monarch said ; " You know what crimes to Reynard's charge are laid; You know too all his malice ; so beware. Your Predecessors' fate lest you may share." Greybeard replied, " I trust I may prevail ; But shall have done my duty, if I fail." Away to Malepartus doth he hie ; Finds Reynard with his Wife and Family ; And greets him; " Save you, Uncle : I can't tell How charmed I am to see you look so well. E'en let your Enemies say what they can. You're a most extraordinary Man : Prudent and wise and wary as you are. 18 KEYNAED THE FOX. Yet the King's wrath so scornfully to dare. You'd best be warned in time : on every side Are ill reports against you multiplied. Take my advice ; with me to Court away 'T will help you nothing longer to delay. You're charged with almost every sort of crime ; You're summoned now to-day for the third time, And surely sentenced if you fail t' appear : The King will straightway lead his Barons here; And what can you expect will then befall? You will be ta'en and hanged : nor is that all: Your fortress razed, your children and your Wife Cruelly butchered, or enslaved for life. From the King's wrath you cannot hope to flee; Better then, surely, to return with me. You need not dread to stand before your Judges ; You're never at a loss for cunning dodges : With your consummate sliill and artifice, You've got thro' many a scrape, and will thro' this." Thus Greybeard spake, and Eeynard thus replied ; " Your counsel, Nephew, shall my conduct guide : I were to blame, should I your warning slight ; I will to Court; and Heav'n defend the right ; The King besides, I trust, some grace may show ; The use I've been to him he well doth know ; That for no other cause than this I'm hated, And, save your presence, like a Badger baited. The Court would go to pieces but for me ; I don't pretend that from all blame I'm free ; But were I ten times deeper in disgrace. Could I but see my Sov'reign face to face. And come to speech with him, I would engage To soothe the transports of his Eoyal rage. Many 't is true may at his council sit ; But many heads have oft but scanty wit : When they get fixed in one of their dead- locks. To whom send they for aid, but to the Pox ? No matter how Involved the case may be. They find it smooth and easy, thanks to me. For this I meet with envy ; even those I most befriend turn out my bitt'rest foes ; But moralists agree 't is not more hatefiil, Than it is natural, to be ungrateful. 'T is this I have to fear ; for well I know My death they have intended long ago. Ten of the mightiest Barons in the land My utter downfall seek — a pow'rful band : Can I alone such odds as these withstand ? 'T was only this kept me from Court, I vow ; But I agree 't were best to go there now. By far more honorable that will be, Than bring my dearest Wife and Family, By tarrying here, into disgrace and trouble ; For that would only make the mischief double. And of the King I stand in wholesome awe, His arm is mighty and his will is law. Mine Enemies perchance by courtesy I may subdue; at least I can but try." Then to his Wife, who stood with weeping eyne, He turned and said — " My gentle Ermelyne, Be mindful of our Children ; yet I know You need no hint from me to make you so. Our youngest, Greykin, will most care require; He'll be the living image of his Sire, If these convulsions do not stop his breathing. And by Heaven's blessing he survive his teething. And here's this cunning little rascal, Eussel, He thro' the world will manage well to bus- tle; His pluck may get him into many a scrape. His craft will ever teach him how to 'scape ; I love him well, and have no fear for him ; He'll be a match, I ween, for Isegrim And all his Brood. And now, farewell, dear Chuck ; When I return, as, have I any luck, I soon shall do, I'll prove me sensible Of all your kindness : so once more, fare- well." Then from his home with Greybeard he de- parted ; And sad he felt in spirit and down-hearted ; And sad too, grieving for her mate and sick son. Was the leal soul of Ermelyne, the Vixen. Reynard nor Greybeard neither silence brake For near an hour ; then thus the former spake : " Ah, Nephew, heavy is my soul to-night ; For, truth to speak, I'm in a mortal fright ; EEYNAED THE FOX. 19 My frame with strange forebodings shuddereth; I feel assured I go to certain death ; My oonsoienoe sinks 'neath mine enormities ; You little think how ill I am at ease. WUl yon, dear Nephew, my confession hear ? There is, alas ! no reverend Pastor near : Could I but of this load my bosom free, I then should face the King more cheerfully." " Confession certes benefits the soul," Quoth Greybeard, " but you must confess the whole ; All treasons, felonies and misdemeanors, However great — and great, no doubt, have been yours." " Yea," answered Eeynard, " I will nought conceal ; List then, oh, list, while I my crimes reveal. Confiteor tibi, Paler — " " Nay, no Latin! " Quoth Greybeard: " 'tis a tongue I'm nowise pat in. It would not much avail you to be shriven. If I knew not the sins I had forgiven." "So be it then;" the Fox rejoined; "I ween A very wicked sinner I have been ; And I must do what penance you enjoin To save this miserable soul of mine. The Otter, and the Dog, and many more. With many a trick have I tormented sore : Indeed of living beasts there scarce is one To whom I've not some turn of mischief done. Mine Uncle Bruin I beguiled of late ; With honey he prepared his maw to sate ; I sent him back with bloody paws and pate : And Cousin Tibby, he came here to mouse ; I cozen'd him into a running noose, And there, I'm told, an eye he chanced to lose. But I must say the fault was somewhat theirs; They should have minded more the King's affairs. With justice too complains Sir Chanticleer ; I ate his chicks — and very good they were. Nay, with unfeigned repentance I must own I have not spared the King upon the throne ; And, Heaven forgive me for it! even the Queen Has not been safe from my malicious spleen. But most I've outraged Isegrim, the Wolf; 'Twixt him and me yawns an abysmal gulf. Him I've disgraced in every way I could ; And if I might have done so more, I would. I've even called him Uncle, as a jibe ; For I'm no kin to any of his tribe. " He came to me about six years ago ; I lived then in the cloister, down below ; He sought my help a Monk to get him made : His fancy was to toll the bells, he said ; He loved the sound so much : so with a loop, I fastened his fore-feet into the rope : He was delighted, and began to toll — 'T was the great bell — with all his heart and soul; But not much credit did his efforts win ; For he kicked up such an infernal din, Out rushed the People when the noise they heard. Thinking some dread mishap must have oc curr'd. They came and found my friend the Wolf; and ere His purpose to turn Monk he could declare. They fell to work and so belabored him, 'T was all but up with Master Isegrim. " Tlie Fool was still unsatisfied ; still craved To be a Monk and have his noddle shaved ; With a hot iron then I singed his poll. Till the swart skin all shrivelled on his skull. Ah ! many are the blows and thumps and kicks That he has been regaled with through my tricks. I taught him the best manner to catch Fish ; And he caught just as many as I'd wish. " Once, when in partnership we chanced t' engage. We groped our way into a parsonage ; Well stored the larder was of the good Priest, For he was rich and amply benefic'd. Bacon there was and hams more than enough, And lots of pork lay salting in a trough. Is'grim contrived^ to scratch the stone wall through. And crept in at the hole with much ado. Urged on by me and his own appetite ; For with long fasting he was rav'nous quite. I did not follow, as I had some doubt How, if I once got in, I might get out. Isegrim gorged till chuck-full to the eyes. And swell'd to nearly twice his former size ; So that, although he strove with might and main. He could not for his life get out again. 'Thou lett'st me in,' he cried, 'oh, faithless hole! 20 REYNARD THE FOX. Empty, and will not let me out when full.' Away I hastened ; raised a loud alarm, On the Wolfs track in hopes the Boors might swarm. Into the Parson's dwelling then I run ; And find him to his dinner sitting down, — A fine fat capon just brought on the tray, — This I snapped up, and with it stole away. Up rose the Priest in haste and overthrew The table with the food and liquors too ; On every side the glass and crockery flew. ' Kill him ! ' call'd out th' enraged Ecclesiastic ; ' Oh ! that the bones in his damn'd gullet may stick ! ' Then, his feet catching in the cloth, he stum- bled. And all among the mess and fragments tumbled. But loudly he continued still to bawl : The hubbub brought the Household, one and all. Away I sped, as fast as I could go ; They after me, with whoop and tally-ho : The Parson shouting loud as he was able. The Thief! he's stole my dinner from my table ! ' I ne'er, until I reached the pantry, stopped ; But there, ah, well-a-day ! the fowl I dropped; I could no longer toil beneath its weight, But lightened of my load escaped 1 ly flight. The Parson, stooping to pick up the fowl. Spied Master Is 'grim stuck fast in the hole : ' Halloo!' he cried, 'halloo! come here, my friends ! ' See what a scapegoat righteous Heaven sends ! ' Here's a Wolf caught ; if he should get away ' We were disgraced for ever and a day. ' The Wolf no doubt wished he'd ne'er seeu the larder ; Meanwhile their blows rained on him, harder and harder; And many a grievous thump and kick and thwack He got upon his shoulders, sides and back ; And all the while, as if the Devil stirr'd them, They yelled and screamed and swore — I stood and heard them. At length it seemed all up with Isegrim ; He swooned; and then they left ofi' beating him. I'd lay a bet he never had before His hide so curried, and will never more. 'T would make an altar-piece, to paint the way They made him for the Parson's victuals pay. At length out in the street for dead they threw him; And over shards and pebbles rough they drew him: Then flung him, as no signs of life he show'd, Into a stagnant ditch beside the road, And left him buried there in slime and mud. How he recovered's more than I can tell ; It almost seems a sort of miracle. " Yet after this, about a year, he swore To be my Friend and firm Ally once more : I cannot say his word I quite believed ; I felt that one of us would be deceived. I soon found out his object was to get A meal of Fowls on which his heart was set I told him of a rafter, where there us'd A Cock with seven fine fat Hens to roost. EEYNAED THK FOX. 21 It was past twelve o'clock, one cloudy night When moon and stars gave not one ray of light, I took him to a house I'd known before, Where was a window on the second floor ; The lattice shutter by good luck stood ope ; To this along the wall we slily crope ; And, being never barren in expedients, I prayed mine Uncle he would take prece- dence : ' Go boldly in,' I whispered ; ' do not fear ; 'You never saw such Fowls, as you'll find here; ' I'll warrant, you ne'er finer met or plumper; ' I'd lay my life you'll carry off a thumper.' Cautiously in he stole, while I stayed out ; And here and there he 'gan to grope about : But before long in tones subdued he said, ' Reynard, by aU that's Holy, I'm betrayed; ' You've led me, I suspect, a wildgoose chase : ' Of Fowls I find not the remotest trace.' ' The foremost I've long had,' said I ; ' you'U find ' The others just a little way behind : ' You'd better make your way across the rafter ; ' Don't be afraid ; I'll follow closely after.' This rafter now was anything but broad. And no ways suited to sustain a load ; And Isegrim was fain to use his talons In order any how to keep his balance. Out at the window I contrived to back, And then slammed to the shutter in a crack ; It jarred the rafter, and the Wolf fell plump, ere He could restore himself, a monstrous thumper. Thus was again my prophecy fulfill'd ; In such prophetic warnings am I skill'd. The Housecarles, who around the chimney dozed. Were, by his heavy fall, from slumber roused ; ' What's that fall'n from the window ? ' cried they all. And lit the lamp and searched about the hall '• And in a corner found they Isegrim ; Good Saints in Heav'n ! how they did punish him! Yet somehow he contrived to get away With a whole skin, but how I cannot say. " I must confess, too, vven though it wound A lady's honor, with Dame Gieremund I've oftentimes committed mortal sin ; — It is so hard to stop when you begin. This fault with deep contrition I deplore, And trust I never may be tempted more. " Such are my sins, O Father ! if not all. At least I have confessed the principal. I pray for absolution, and submit To whatsoever penance you think fit." Then Greybeard shook his head, looked wise and big ; And from a neighb'ring bush plucked off a twig. " My Son," quoth he, " this rod receive ; with it Three times your back in penance must you smite ; Next, having laid it gently on the ground. Three times across it must you gravely bound ; Lastly, in humble and obedient mood. Three times with rev'rence must you kiss the rod. This done, I pardon and absolve you quite, And every other punishment remit." This penance cheerfully by Eeynard done, Greybeard resumed ; " Let your good works, my Son, Prove the sincerity of your repentance. Read psalms, and learn by heart each pious sentence ; Go oft to Church ; mind what the Pastor says : And duly fast on the appointed days ; Show those, who seek, the right path ; from your store Give willingly and largely to the poor ; And from your heart and soul renounce tha Devil And all his works, and ev'ry thought of evil. 22 EEYNAED THE FOX. So shall you come to Grace at last." " To do All this," said Eeynard, " solemnly I vow." The shrift now ended, tow'rds the Court they bent Their steps, — the Confessor and Penitent In seeming meditation wrapt: their way Through pleasant woods and fertile pastures lay. On their right hand an ancient cloister stood, Where holy women of religious mood, Passed a pure life in social solitude. Stored was their yard with Cocks and Hens and Chickens, Who often roamed abroad in search of pick- ings. Eeynard, when not with weightier matters busied, Would pay them frequently a friendly yisit. And now to Greybeard did he turn and say, " By yonder wall you'll find our shortest way." He did not mean exactly what he said ; His Confessor towards the wall he led ; While greedily his eyes rolled in his roguish head. One Cock'rell notes he in particular, Who plump and proud was strutting in the rear: On him pounced Eeynard sudden from behind, And made his feathers scatter in the wind. While the Fox licked his disappointed chaps. Greybeard, incensed at such a sad relapse. Exclaimed, " Alas ! alas I what have you done? Is this your penitence, unworthy Son ? Fresh from confession, for a paltry Fowl Will you so peril your unhappy soul ? " Said Eeynard, " You rebuke me as you ought : For I have sinned in truth, tho' but in thought, Pray for me, dearest Nephew, pray to Heaven, With other sins that this may be forgiven. Never, oh ! never more will I offend." The cloister passed, the highway they re» gain'd : Their pathway lay across a narrow nook : The Fox behind cast many a longing look Towards those tempting Fowls ; it was in vain He strove his carnal yearnings to restrain. If any one had then struck off his head, Back to the Fowls it must perforce have fled. Greybeard said sternly, "Whither doth your eye Still wander ? This is hateful gluttony." Quoth Eeynard, "You quite misconceive th' affair ; You should not interrupt me when in pray'r. Let me conclude my orisons for those Whose souls I've sent to premature repose ; Their bodies to my maw a prey were given : For thus accomplished was the will of Heaven." Greybeard was silent ; Eeynard did not turn His head, while yet the Fowls he could discern. They 've left the cloister now behind them quite : They near the Court : the Palace is in sight : Eeynard's bold heart beats faintly in his breast ; So grave the charges that against him prest. CHAPTEE THE FOUETH. THE TRIAL. Soon as 't was known by general report Eeynard was really coming to the Court, Out they all rushed in haste, both Great and Small, Eager to see the famous Criminal : In flocks and herds and droves they thronged to meet him. But scarce did one with word of welcome greet him. EEYNAED THE FOX. 2S Eeynard oared little though for this: he thought — Or seemed at least to think — it mattered nought. With Greybeard on indiif 'rent things he talked As, bold as brass, along the street he walked; He could not, had he been the King's own Son, Free from all crime, with prouder step have gone: And so before the King and all his Peers He stood, as though he felt nor doubts nor fears. " Dread Lord and gracious Sov'reign ! " thus said he, " For ever gracious have you proved to me; — Therefore I stand before You, void of fear, Sure that my tale with patience you will hear ; — A more devoted Servant to the Crown, Than I have been, my Liege hath never known ; 'T is this brings me such hosts of Enemies, Who strive to work me mischief in Your eyes ; And bitter reason should I have to grieve, Could You one half their calumnies believe. But high and just and righteous all Your views are ; You hear the Accused, as well as the Accuser ; Howev'r behind my back they slander me, You know how great is my integrity. " " Silence that lying tongue ! " the Monarch cries, " Nor think to veil your crimes with sophis- tries. In one career of vice your life is spent ; It calls aloud to Heav'n for punishment. How have you kept the peace that I ordained Throughout My kingdom's breadth should be maintained ? Yon mourns the Cock, disconsolate with grief; His Children slain by you, false-hearted thief ! You boast of your devotion to the Crown, Is't by your treatment of My Servants shown ? Bruin, by your devices, hath been lamed; My faithful Tybalt so severely maimed, The Leech doubts if he may his health restore — But I will waste My words on you no more; Lo ! your Accusers press on every side ; All further subterfuge seems now denied." "Ah! Sire," rejoined the Fox, "am I to blame My Uncle Bruin has returned so lame ? Or is it my fault he has tastes so tunny, He must needs pilfer honest People's honey ? What if the Peasants caught him in the fact, And, 'spite his size and strength, he got well whack'd? I could not help it, nor could succour him ;— In sooth 't was lucky he knew how to swim. Then as for Tybalt, when he came to me, I shewed him ev'ry hospitality. Gave him the best I had ; but not content. His mind was wholly upon thieving bent : He scorned my larder, and would poke hii nose in The Parson's granary to go a mousing. In spite of all my caution and advice — It seems he has a strange penchant for Mice. Shall I be punished because they were Fools ? Does that comport with Justice' sacred rules? Bat You will do Your royal will I know; And I must e'en submit for weal or woe : Whether I am imprisoned, tortured, martyred, Burnt or beheaded, or hung, drawn and quar- tered ; So it must be, if so it be You list : Your pow'r is great, how can the Weak resist? Tho' to the State small good my death will bring ; I shall at least die loyal to my King." Up spake the Earn then, " Friends, the time is come ; Urge now your plaints, or evermore be dumb !" Then, all confederate for Reynard's ruin, Stept Tybalt forth, and Isegrim, and Bruin ; And other beasts came swarming by the score. The thin-skinn'd Eoebuck and the thiok- skinn'd Boar, Neddy the Donkey too, and many more. Frizzy the Poodle also, and the Goat, The Squirrel, and the Weasel, and the Stoat; Nor did the Ox or Horse fail to appear ; And Beasts of savage nature too were there ; The flitting Eabbit, and the nimble Hare. The Swan, the Stork, the Heron and the Crane ; All thither flew, all eager to complain. Sibby the Goose, with anger hissing, came. And the Duck Quackley, who was sadly lame; And Chanticleer, that most unhappy Cock, Whose sorrows might have touched a heart of rock, With the few Childrea that to him were left, Accused the Fox of murder and of theft. In countless flocks came swarming in the Birds, The Beasts in vast innumerable herds ; All vehement alike on vengeance bent. 24 KEYNARD THE FOX. All claiu'rous press'd for Keynard's punish- ment. Charge upon charge there followed, thick and fast, And each fresh plaint more weighty than the last. Since Noble sat upon his Father's throne. Was never yet such a Grand Oyer known ; Indeed so num'rous the complainants were, It seemed an Oyer with no Terminer. Meanwhile the Fox conducted his defence With most consummate skill and impudence ; One time a Witness he would browbeat so, That what he said the poor man scarce should know; Or else repeat his answers In a tone. Which gave a sense quite difif'rent from his own; Or interrupt with some facetious jest, Or tell a story with such hum'rous zest. That, serious things forgotten in the sport. They laugh'd the Prosecutor out of Court. And when he spoke, Truth seemed to tip his tongue. Indignant as each charge aside he flung ; They heard with wonder and diversion blent. Almost disposed to think him innocent ; Nay, some there were who more than half believed He was himself the Party most aggrieved. At length came Witnesses who stood so high For unimpeachable veracity. That all his crimes and outrages, as clear As is the sun at noon, were made appear. The Council all agreeing, with one breath. Pronounced him guilty and condemned to death ; Bound, to the gallows he should thence be led, And hanged there by the neck till he was dead. And Reynard now gave up the game for lost ; His skill had served him for display at most ; And as the King himself his doom pronounced, All hope of mercy he as vain renounced ; For seized and pinioned, hopeless was his case, With ignominious death before his face. As there he stood, disgraced, disconsolate, His Foes bestirred themselves to speed his fate His Friends the while in silent awe stood round ; Great was their trouble, and their pain pro- found ; Martin the Ape, Greybeard, and many more. Who to the hapless Culprit kindred bore The King's will they respected as they ought ; But sorrow'd all — more than one might have thought : For Eeynard was a Peer of high degree. And now stood stripped of every dignity ; Adjudged to die a death of infamy. A sight indeed to make his Kinsmen grieve ; Then of the King they one and all took leave, And left the Court, as many as were there ; Keynard's disgrace they had no mind to share. The King was sore chagrined though in his heart, To see so many Peers and Knights depart ; It proved the Fox had some Adherents still Too much disposed to take his sentence ill. Then turning to his Chancellor, he said, " Though Reynard's crimes his doom have merited, 'T is cause for anxious thought and deepest care How we his num'rous friends from Court may spare. " But Bruin, Isegrim and Tybalt, all Were busied round the luckless Criminal. Anxious to execute the King's decree. They hurried forth their hated Enemy, And onward hastened to the fatal tree. Thus to the Wolf then spake the spiteful Cat : " Sir Isegrim, you've now got tit-for-tat ; You need not be reminded, I'll be sworn, Of all the wrongs from Eeynard you have borne. You'll not forget, unless your heart's grown callous. He had your Brother hanged on that same gallows. And taunted him with many a biting scoff; In his own coin you now can pay him off. Remember too the foul trick you were played, Sir Bruin, when by Reynard's craft betrayed To that base Joiner and his rabble Crew ; The insults you received, the beating too ; Besides the deep and scandalous disgrace To be the talking-stock of every place. Keep close together then and have a care ; Lest he slip off before one is aware : For if, by any artifice or chance. He now contrive to 'scape our vigilance, We shall remain eternally disgrac'd, Nor ever shall the sweets of vengeance taste." Quoth Isegrim , " What boots it chattering so f Fetch me a halter without more ado. A halter, ho ! and see that it be strong : We would not have his suff 'ring last too long," REYNAED THE FOX. 25 Thus against Keynard did they vent their wrath, As tow'rds the gibbet they held on their path. He'd heard all they had said, and not yet spoke ; But now, with sidelong leer, he silence broke ; " If you a halter want, Tybalt's the man To fit you one upon the newest plan ; He knows how best to make a running noose. From which one cannot possibly get loose ; He learnt it at the Parson's granary. Where to catch Mice he went, and lost an eye. But, Isegrim ! and Bruin I why pretend Such zeal to hasten your poor Uncle's end ? In sooth it does not to your credit tend." Now rose the King, with all his Lords, to see Justice was done with due solemnity ; And, by her courtly Dames accompanied, The Queen herself walked by the Monarch's side: And never was there seen a Crowd so great As followed them to witness Reynard's fate. Meanwhile Sir Isegrim his Friends besought To march close packed, and keep a sharp look- out; For much he feared, lest by some shifty wile The Fox might yet their watchfulness beguile : And specially did he conjure his Wife ; " See that the Wretch escape not, on thy life ; If he should this time slip from out our pow'r, We ne'er should know another peaceful hour. Think of your wrongs;" thus Bruin he ad- dressed ; " And see yon pay them with full interest. Tybalt can clamber ; he the rope shall fix ; You hold Sir Reynard tight, and mind his tricks : I'll raise the ladder, and you may depend on't In a few minutes we shall make an end on't." Quoth Bruin, "Quick! and get the ladder plac'd : I'll warrant me I'll hold the Ruffian fast." "Why should you take," again thus Rey- nard saith, " Such pains to expedite your TTnole's death ? You know, the more the haste, the worse the speed. Ah I sad and cruel is my lot indeed. To meet with hate from such old Friends as you ! I know 't were vain, or I for grace would sue. Stem Isegrim hath e'en compelled his Wife Join this unkindly plot against my life : Her memories of the past might surely wake Some feelings of compassion for my sake : But when you can foretell to-morrow's wind, Then trust the constancy of Womankind. But if so be it must ; so let it be. The sooner done, the sooner I am free. My fate will but with my poor Father's match ; Albeit, good Soul, he died with more despatch. Neither did such a goodly Company Attend his death, as now has honor'd me. You seem to fancy, if you spared me now You'd all be shamed; and haply, 't would be so." "Hear him!" cried Bruin; "hear the Ruf- fian boast; Quick ! prithee, quick ! let no more time be lost." Then Reynard seriously to think began — " Could I but now devise some cunning plan ; That, in this hour of my extremest need, I might be pardoned and from bondage freed ; Escape with credit from death's bitter throes, And heap disgrace on these detested Foes. What can be done ? 't is worth some pains to take, Since nothing less than life is here at stake. Slight seem the chances for me ; strong, against ; The King, no doubt, is bitterly incens'd ; My Enemies all here ; my Friends away ; All my misdeeds brought to the light of day :-. And, truth to speak, but little good I've done , Yet ever hoped this evil hour to shun. If they'd but grant me liberty of speech, Some of their cruel hearts I yet might reack,- And so get free of this accursed rope ; 26 REYNAED THE FOX. At least I'll try it : — while there's life, there's hope." Then turning on the ladder where he stood, He thus addressed th' assembled Multitude : "My doom is fixed; chance of escape is none; Grant then a dying man one trifling boon : Before you all, as many as are here. Ere yet I close my criminal career. Fain would I freely all my sins confess, Lamenting that their number is not less ; Else for some crime in secret done by me, The Innocent perchance might punished be : And thus my sinful soul some hope may have Of mercy on the other side the grave." Many were moved at this and 'gan to say ; "Small is the favor, brief is the delay." And as i^ seemed a reasonable thing. They begged it and obtained it of the King. A load was now removed from Reynard's heart, And he at once prepared to play his part : While through the Crowd expectant murmurs ran, With well-feigned penitence he thus began : " Oh, aid me now, Spiritus Domini ! For I am sentenced and must shortly die. Vast as this meeting, scarce can I see one, To whom I've not some grievous inj'ry done. Whilst I was still a tiny little Brat, Scarce weaned, and not much higher than my hat, I loved to watch the Lambs and Kids at play When from their watchful Herds they chanced to stray : It made my bosom throb to hear them bleat, My bowels yearn too for substantial meat. Ere long, in j est, I bit to death a Lamb, Who'd stroU'd away some distance from its Dam ; While yet 'twas warm and fresh, I licked the blood, And found that it was exquisitely good. Four of the youngest Kids I next did slaughter : The thought — Heav'n help me ! — makes my mouth yet water. Grown bolder, I indulged each wild caprice ; My tooth spared neither Fowls nor Ducks nor Geese : I caught and ate them wheresoever found, And some, half-eaten, buried in the ground. " One winter, on the Rhine, it chanced I met Is' grim, — a meeting I may well regret. He claimed direct relationship with me. Showed we were Cousins, and in what degree. Guileless myself, I readily believed ; Perhaps too ready to be so deceived. Ourselves we bound then in a solemn league ; Force should be used by him ; by me, intrigue ; Eternal friendship each to each we swore, Ah ! little did I ween what fruit his friend- ship bore. " The provinces we traversed, one and all ; He the large booty stealing ; I, the small. Our bargain was, we should divide all fair ; But what he chose to leave was all my share ; Nor was this all th' injustice I must bear. If e'er he chanced a Goat or Sheep to steal. And I came up, and found him at his meal ; Or caught him gorging a fresh-slaughtered Calf, Of which he'd not devoured more than half; He'd grin hia teeth at me, and swear and curse ; I was e'en glad that matters were no worse. And thus it was he always treated me, However large the booty chanced to be. In hunting, if we ever caught, by luck, Some head of noble game, as Hind, or Buck, Or Ox, or Cow, whose carcase vast was more Than e'en his gluttony could all devour ; His Wife and Children straight made their appearance, And in a trice there was a total clearance ; Not e'en a spare rib fell unto my share. But what was gnawed and polished, clean and bare : And thus was I forever forced to fare. But Heav'n be thanked I never suffered hun- ger; I'd means to live on, twenty years or longer ; A treasure vast of silver and of gold, Securely hidden in a secret hold. More than a single waggon, I might say Even at seven loadings, could convey." Noble, the King, heard all that Reynard said. And bending forward now his Royal head ; " Say then, where did you get it from ? " he cried, " I mean the treasure." And the Fox replied, ' ' It boots me nought to keep my secret now ; I cannot take my wealth to where I go. All, as Your Grace commands me, will I tell; From fear or favor nought will I conceal. EEYNARD THE FOX. 27 Stol'n was the treasure ; I'll not tell a lie : Th' occasion though the theft shall justify. " There was a plot, a most atrocious thing 1 Even to murder You, my Lord and King ; And then to seize upon the vacant Throne : Beyond all doubt the deed would have been done, If but secure that treasure had been left ; Your life, my Liege, depended on that theft. It helped indeed to lay my Father low, Perchance involved his soul in endless woe : But private interests, however dear. With public duties must not interfere." The Queen had heard this lengthy rigmarole With most extreme bewilderment of soul. Alternating between alarm and pleasure ; Her Husband's murder, heaps of glitt'ring treasure. And widow's weeds, and bridal garments white, In wild confusion danced before her sight. " Reynard," she cried, " your hour is almost come; Before you lies the road to your long home ; Nought but true penitence can save your soul ; Tell nothing but the truth, and tell the whole.' ' Then spake the King, " Be silent, ev'ry one ! Let Reynard from the gallows-tree come down ; And let him, — but still bound, — approach mine ear, ' Tisfit that this strange hist'ry Ishouldhear." With cheerful hopes buoyed up the Fox de- scends, While grieved his Foes were, and rejoiced his Friends ; Approached, as he was bid, the King and Queen ; Who longed to know what might this myst'ry mean. His web of lies he straight prepared to spin ; 'If the King's grace,' he thought, 'I could but win, And, by some cunning trick of policy. Could ruin those who seek to ruin me. From peril then should I be wholly freed. Ah ! that would be a master stroke indeed. 'T is a bold cast : if I would prosper in 't, 'T win need the use of falsehood without stint.' The Queen impatient questioned him again : "The whole proceeding, Reynard, now ex- plain ; Speak truth, and ease your conscience and your soul." " Truly,'' said Reynard, " will I tell the whole Am I not doomed, too justly doomed, (o die? No chance there is to 'scape my destiny. My soul to burden more at such a time Were but to add a folly to my crime. Better to speak the truth at any rate. Though Friends and Kinsmen I may implicate. There is no help for it, I know right well ; Before mine eyes I have the pains of Hell." And the King's heart with gloom was over- spread ; " And speak' st thou nought but sober truth V ' he said, Reynard replied with sanctimonious mien, ' ' A miserable Sinner have I been ; And oft have lied to serve mine interest ; But surely now the truth shall aid me best : Falsely to make a dying declaration Would be to court eternal condemnation. Yourself, my Liege, have doomed that I must die; With my last words I dare not breathe a lie.'' While thus did Reynard, vile Dissembler, speak, Remorse and terror seemed to blanch his cheek. And the Queen said, " His anguish moves my ruth : Encourage him, dear Lord, to speak the truth ; And hear his story calmly to the end : Our safety may upon his tale depend. Give your commands that no one silence break, And let him publicly his statement make." At the King's bidding not a, sound was heard ; And Reynard spake, " Please you, my gracious Lord, Receive with favor what I have to say ; Though note nor minute have I here to-day, The whole conspiracy will I lay bare, And no one, be he Friend or Foe, will spare." CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE PAKDON. Now hear what lying tales the Fox dared state, To screen himself, and others inculpate ; To what base falsehoods utterance he gave, Slandered his very Father in the grave, Traduced the Badger too, his staunchest Friend ; He thought all means were sanctioned by the end; 28 EEYNAED THE FOX. So he could but get credit for his lies, And have revenge upon his Enemies. Thus he began : " It chanced that once my Sire, Whose wit and wisdom still the World ad- mire. Discovered, hid in an obscure retreat, The treasures of King Emmerick the Great ; It seemed a Godsend, but it brought such evil, T was much more likely sent him from the Devil. With his new fortune he waxed haught and proud ; For his old Comrades deemed himself too good; Fancied that by assistance of his pelf To higher circles he might raise himself; Conceived ideas the most absurd and vain. And hatched the strangest maggots in his brain. He sent off Tybalt to Ardennes' wild regions For Bruin, tend'ring him his sworn allegiance ; Inviting him to Flanders to repair. And promising to make him King when there. Bruin with vast delight his letter read. Without delay to Flanders off he sped ; Him did my Sire exultingly receive ; And planned how their designs they might achieve. They got to j oin them in the enterprise, Is' grim the savage, and Greybeard the wise. These four in the conspiracy combin'd ; Four persons truly, though but one in mind ; While Tybalt joined their counsels for" a fifth : They journeyed onwards till they came to Ifth ; A little village is there of that name. Obscure it is and all unknown to Fame ; 'Twixt this and Ghent, in a sequestered spot. They met together to arrange their plot. Over the meeting, which murk night did hide, The Devil and my Father did preside ; One o'er their minds with false hopes kept his hold, One, with the influence of his dirty gold. Regardless of all loyalty and faith, They compassed and imagined the King's death : The five then swore on Is'grim's cursed head. Bruin th e Bear should reign in Noble's stead ; And at Aix-la^Chapelle, upon the throne, Should bind his temples with the golden crown. If any one their trait' reus scheme withstood, Bound to the King by fealty or blood. Him should my Sire with words or bribes per- suade, Or, failing these, call force in to his aid. I learnt the bus'ness in the strangest way ; The Badger had been drinking hard one il.-iy. Th' uxorious blockhead, though it risked his life, Told the whole secret to his wheedling Wife ; He bound her though to solemn secrecy. And the Fool fancied that he safe would be. But what are woman's vows ? His Wife and mine Gossips had been together from lang syne ; And when they met, the former, as with child Of her grand secret, nodded, smirked and smil'd; And having made my Wife first swear an oath. By the three Kings, and by her faith and troth. Never to breathe one word to mortal soul. Relieved her lab' ring bosom of the whole. My Wife was horror-struck, and straightway she Felt it her duty to tell all to me ; Of course ; for Moralists have all one mind. That inofficious vows can never bind. I saw at once — what man of sense would not?— The wickedness and folly of the plot : All living Beasts had gone unto the Dogs, — And fared, as formerly those stupid Frogs ; Who with their ceaseless croakings worried Heaven, EKYNAED THE FOX. To change the King who first to them was given ; His tranquil reign inglorious they deemed ; Theylong'd for greater freedom, as it seemed; Then o'er them to preside Heav'n sent the Stork ; Like a Legitimate he set to work ; All who opposed he banished from the State, Decreed their lands and chattels confiscate ; And while he thus enrich'd himself, he swore 'T was all to benefit the Church and Poor ; While love for law and order he professed. Freedom in speech and action were repressed ; And none were heard, or suffered, to repine ; Thus did he prove he ruled by Right Divine. The poor Fools curst their self-invited fate. And wished the old King back ; but 't was too late." Thus spake the Fox ; and lied at ev'ry word. That all who heard him wondered as they heard. "The State," he thus proceeded, "had been lost; But 'twas Your safety. Sire, concerned me most : The risks I ran to save You were immense. And merited some better recompense. Bruin's fell mind I knew ; his temper curst. His love of cruelty forebode the worst ; Our lives, if he had chanced to get the sway, Had not been worth the purchase of a day. Our present King enjoys a difif'rent fame ; Noble alike by nature and by name. A sad and stupid change indeed it were — A royal Lion for a clownish Bear ! Thus with myself I oft communed in thought ; And means to ward this evil daily fought. "One thing was certain; if my Sire re- tain' d This vast amount of wealth at his command. Hosts of Allies together he might bring. Would win his game, while we should lose our King. And now my chiefest study was to trace This secret treasure to its hiding place ; Then bear it safe away, if so I might ; Of this I dreamed by day and schemed by night. Wherever now the crafty Old-one went. Through field or forest where his steps he bent. Whether in cold, or heat, or wet, or dry, Close on his track incessantly was I. "But Chance at length, or rather, Heaven's high will. Procured me what I could not gain by skill. Concealed behind a bush, one summer's day, Chewing the cud of bitter thought, I lay; Grinding all sorts of plans within my pate. This treasure to secure, and save the State : When from a fissure in the rocks hard by, I saw my Father creep out stealthily ; With expectation breathless I lay bid : While, cautious, he looked round on ev'ry side ; Thought himself safe, perceiving no one near. And then began his games, as you shall hear. ■J1^ The hole with sand he filled, and all around He levelled skilfully th' adjacent ground ; Nor was this all ; before he left the place, All marks of footsteps he contrived t' efface : Bent to the earth, he swished his tail about. And smoothed it o'er with his elastic snout. Ah ! truly was my Sire a wondrous Man ! The wide World now may match him, if it can! How many quips and cranks and wanton wiles I learnt from him, most cunning of old Files! " But to proceed. He quickly left the spot ; 'Here then the treasure is concealed,' I thought. I hastened to the rocks with eager soul, Soon scratched away the sand and cleared the hole, 30 REYNARD THE FOX. And down into the cleft with caution stole. Good Heav'ns! what precious things there met my sight ! What masses of red gold and silver white 1 The oldest present here, I'm bold to say, Ne' er saw such stores as I beheld that day. My Wife I brought the glorious sight to see ; To move the treasure hourly laboured we ; And sooth, it was a work of toil and pain; We'd nought to help us, — neither cart nor wain. My good Wife held out bravely to the last, Till we in safety had the treasure plao'd. " Meanwhile my Sire consulted day by day. With those who sought our Sov' reign to betray. For dread and horror now your souls prepare. Their machinations base whilst I lay bare. By Isegrim and Bruin briefs were sent. To raise recruits and stir up discontent ; All were allured in Bruin's host to serve; Whom lucre might from duty tempt to swerve. And that the call they sooner might obey. They were assured a month's advance of pay. These briefs my Father round the country bore; He deemed in safety he had left his store ; Though if with all his friends he'd searched for ever. He ne'er had found a solitary stiver. No pains he spared to further the design ; Sought ev'ry spot between the Elbe and Rhine, And many Converts to the cause he made ; — Who largely promises may soon persuade. " At length the summertide once more was come; With it returned my weary Father home ; Of troubles and mishaps he'd much to tell. Of many hair-breadth 'scapes by field and fell; How for his life he had been forced to flee, Among the towered heights of Saxony ; Where wicked hunters chased him out of spite, With horse and hound, from morn till starry night ; That scarce he saved his skin by rapid flight. With joy then to his Comrades he display'd The long list of Adherents he had made. Bruin was charmed, and, with the other four, Studied th' important writing o'er and o'er. Twelve hundred souls of Is'grim's savage Clan, Had pledged themselves to join him to a man. With sharp and hungry teeth and open jaws, They promised to support King Bruin's cause. The Cats and Bears enrolled without a bribe ; And all the Glutton, all the Badger tribe ; But, less devoted, or more cautious, they Had bargained for the month's advance of pay. All these and many more had sworn t' attend, At the first summons which the Bear should send. By me this plot was foiled: but thanks be given Not unto me for this ; but unto Heaven ! "My Sire now hastened to the cave one* more; Eager to tell his cherished treasure o'er: But, though the firmest faith possessed his mind. The more he sought the more he did not find. Vain were his labors, his regrets as vain. Doomed never to behold his wealth again. Three days disconsolate he roamed the wood, Shunning his mates, and never tasting food ; The fourth — sad day for me ! although his Heir- He hanged himself from grief and sheer despair. " Thus have I done, thus suffered, good my Lord, To countervail a plot my soul abhorr'd. Though for my pains this strange return I get. The steps I took I never can regret. Is' grim and Bruin sit at Your right hand, Doomed as a Traitor the poor Fox must stand ; But yet this thought shall consolation bring ; I lost my Father, but I saved my King. The ill I've done be buried in my grave. My name this one good deed from infamy shall save." He ceased : a murmur ran through all the crowd; But what all thought, none dared to speak aloud. The King and Queen both felt a strong desire This wondrous store of treasure to acquire ; They call'd the Fox aside and bade him say In what place he had stowed it all away. Though Reynard found it hard his joy to hide. Still in desponding accents he replied ; " Why should I tell this secret to my Lord, Who dooms my death and ever doubts my word? REYNARD THE FOX. 31 In Traitors he prefers his trust to place, Whose triumph is achieved in my disgrace." "Nay," said the Queen, impatient; "nay, not so I His vengeance just my Lord may yet forego, The past he may forgive, may e' en forget ; And you may live a life of credit yet ; Could he but have some certain pledge, that you Would for the future loyal prove and true." " Ah gracious Queen ! " the wily Fox re- plies, " Let me find favor in King Noble's eyes ; Through your mild influence let me pardoned be, And hence depart in life and member free ; Amply will I atone for all my crimes ; Nor King nor Kaiser lives of modern times Can truly boast one half the wealth to own, Which I will lay before my Sov'reign's throne." " Believe him not I " the angry Monarch cries ; " Whose lips ne'er open but to utter lies. If he would teach you how to cheat or thieve. His words you then might readily believe." And the Queen said — " Let not my Lord be wroth : " Though Reynard's life ill augurs for his truth ; Yet surely this time hath he spoken sooth. His Father and his Uncle hath he not Shown to have shared in th at accursed plot ? He might have sure devised some stratagem. While blaming others, to exon'rate them. And if he do speak truth, how great a prize We lose, if now with him his secret dies." Awhile the Monarch paused, immersed in thought. In his soul's depths as though he counsel sought. Then answered — " If you think 'twere better so. Nor deem that 111 from such a course may flow, I may pursue the bent of my own mind, To mercy more than vengeance still inclin'd. The Culprit I will pardon, and restore, As a new man, to all he held before. This time I trust him — let him though take heed — This time I trust him, for the last indeed ; For by my Father's crown I make a vow, If with false tidings he deceive me now. On all who claim his kin, where'er they be. My wrath shall fall, e'en to the tenth degree. In torture shall they perish utterly. " Seeing the King so easily was sway'd, Reynard took heart and spake out undis- may'd : "To lie now were most criminal, no doubt; When I should be so speedily found out." Thus the sly Knave the Royal pardon won, Both for his Father's treason and his own. Freed from the gallows and his Enemies, Great was his joy nor less was their sur» prise. " Noblest of Kings ! " he cried, " and best of Lords ! My gratitude is all too vast for words. But the warm thanks of this poor heart are given To you, and your august Spouse, next to Heaven. My life You spare ; my wealth is but Youi due ; For life and wealth alike belong to You. The favors heaped on my unworthy self Far, far outweigh all thoughts of paltry pelf. To You as a free gift I now make o'er The whole of good King Emmerick's mighty store. Then listen. Sire, while I its hiding place By certain signs enable you to trace. " Now mark me I Far in Flanders, to the east. There lies a wild inhospitable waste ; There grows a single copse named Husterlow, Near it the waters of a fountain flow. Called Krekelburn ; these names remember well; Why they're so called is more than I can tell. It is a savage and romantic scene. Where foot of Beast hath ne'er or rarely been ; There dwell alone the Owl, the Bat, the Jay ; And there it was I stow'd my wealth away. Remember, Sire, close each to each they lie. The copse, and the spring Krekelburn hard by- Yourself and Royal Spouse had best go there. It were not safe to send a Messenger : 'T were far too great a risk to trust a Stranger; 32 EEYNAED THE FOX. And with the truest Friend not much less danger. Now further mark my words : at Krekelburn Sharp to the left you take a sudden turn ; A stone' s throw off two birches shall you see, Their pensile branches drooping gracefully. Directly up to these then must you go ; There delve forthwith ; the treasure lies below. At first but moss you'll find about the roots, But soon your toil will meet with richer fruits ; Heaps of red gold you'll find ; in ingots part, — Part fabricated by the Goldsmith's art ; Among it will be seen King Emmerick's crown, Which silly Bruin hoped to call his own ; And many a costly chain and jewel rare. Far more than I can reckon up, are there. Then, gracious Sire ! when all this wealth You see. Will You not think with kindness on poor Me? ' That honest Foi ! ' methinks I hear You say, ' With so much skill to store his wealth away ! ' My blessing be upon him day and night I ' " Thus Beynard spake, the wily Hypocrite. And the King answered : ' ' You must with me go. Or ne'er shall I find out this Husterlow? Of Lubeck and Cologne I've oft heard tell. Of Paris also and Aix-la-Chapelle ; But never yet of Husterlow before. Or Krekelburn, until this very hour. How may I know that this is not again A pure invention of your subtle brain ? " Rejoined the Fox, with brazen face, " My Lord, I send thee not to trace The weary way to foreign strand. The place lies here in Flemish land. It is enough to drive one to despair. To find one's word so doubted every where 1 Haply there may be some one here in Court Who may avouch the truth of my report." He looked around and call'd the Hare, — who came — • A timid terror trembling through his frame. "Come hither, Master Puss I" the Fox began ; " Hold up your head, and look. Sir, like a man! The King desires to learn if aught you know Of either Krekelburn or Husterlow ; Speak truly now, on your allegiance oath." And the Hare answered — "Sire! I know them both. Far off in Flanders in the waste they lie, Husterlow first, and Krekelburn close by : Husterlow is the name they give a copse, Where crookback Simon had his working He coined false money; that was years ago. It is a dreary spot, as well I know ; From cold and hunger there I've suffered much. When flying from the cruel Beagles' clutch." " Enough," cried Reynard, " thou canst go. The King has heard what he would know." Then Noble spoke once more ; "Reynard, forget my hasty speech. Bat now at once set out and teach The way to this thy store." Quoth Reynard " Gladly would I go With thee, at once the path to show ; But ah 1 a deadly sin 't would be. To take me in this company, The cause with shame I tell ! " How Isegrim turned Monk, Sire, you have heard ; 'Twas more to serve his belly, than the Lord. Soon were his Brethren weary of his tricks ; Almost starved out ; he ate enough for six ; For flesh on fast days would he rave and howl. And caring nothing for his wretched soul, At last, one afternoon, about Mid-Lent, He sent for me, and straight to him I went : And I must needs confess that I was stag- ger' d To see him look so sadly gaunt and hag- gard. He thus entreated me, with tearful eyes. By all our loves, by all our kindred ties ; ' Get me some food, or I shall die of famine ! ' Sweet Coz, you see the wretched plight I am in.' My heart was softened ; for he is my kin ; And in my weakness I committed sin : To the next town I hied and stole some meat ; Placed it before the Wolf, and he did eat. But for my goodness ill was I repaid, By this vile Judas treach'rously betray'd. And I, for this offence, more heinous than All my past crimes, lie 'neath the Church's ban. REYNARD THE FOX. 33 But now I hare escaped my threatened doom, I thought, with Your kind leave, to wend to Rome ; By penitence and alms I there might hope To purchase absolution of the Pope ; Thence, having kissed his Holiness' s toe, I purposed to Jerusalem to go ; With cockle hat and staff and sandal shoon Why should a Fox not take a Palmer^ tone? Returned, from all sins purged, I might with pride Then take my place, Sire, at Your honored side. But if perchance I ventured this to-day, Would not the pious Scandal-mongers say ; ' Lo ! how the King seeks Reynard's com- pany, ' Whom he so lately had condemned to die ; ' And he still excommunicated too ! ' But judge You, Sire, what may be best to do." "Heav'ns ! " cried the King, " how should I know all this ? It were a sin to keep you here, I wis ; The Hare, or some one else, can show the way: You have Our leave to go without delay. For worlds I' d not your pilgrimage prevent ; Since I believe you truly penitent. May Heaven, which alone your heart can read, Prosper your purpose and your journey speed 1'' CHAPTER THE SIXTH. TBE RELAPSE. Thus Reynard gained once more his So v' reign's grace : Who slowly mounting up to his high place, Prepared t' address the meeting from his throne ; Bade them be silent all, and all sit down. After their rank, ranged on the verdant sward ; On either hand drew up the Royal Guard ; At the Queen's side th' undaunted Reynard stood ; And thus the Monarch spake in thoughtful mood: " Be still and listen, all ye Beasts and Birds, Both small and great, hear and attend Our words ! Here, in Ourmercy, see where Reynard stands, VOL. IV. — W. H. Late doomed to suffer by the Hangman's hands. But now for certain reasons, grave and high, Touching Ourself, Our crown and dignity, And, at the intercession of Our Queen, Restored to grace and favor hath he been ; And free We here pronounce him, from this date, In life and limb, in person and estate. In Our protection him and his We take. Desiring they be honored, for our sake : And furthermore, it is Our Royal will, Henceforth of him none dare to utter ill ; Convinced, as We his former faults forgive, In future he a better life will live. To-morrow will he leave his hearth and home, And start upon a pilgrimage for Rome ; Thence will he make, as he doth now aver, A journey to the Holy Sepulchre ; And then return, his sins confessed and shriven, Completely reconciled to Us and Heaven." He ceased. The Cat, in anger and despair. Sought out his dear Allies, the Wolf and Bear : "Our labor's lost;" he cried, "ah! well-a- day. The very Devil is there here to pay I From this curst place would I were safe away I If Reynard once get power, be sure that he His fierce revenge will wreak on all us three. Of my right eye already am I reft ; Alas I the other will not long be left. ' ' "Woe's me I what shall we do ?" exclaimed the Bear. "Let us," said Is'grim, "to the Throne re- pair ! Sure 't is the strangest thing that e'er was seen ! " Forthwith they knelt before the King, and Queen : For justice loud they spoke, or rather stam- mered ; For justice, inarticulately clamored. But angrily the King broke forth : — " My Lords ! Either you did not hear, or mark my wordg. It is my pleasure Reynard to forgive ; It is a branch of my prerogative ; For is it not to every Schoolboy known, Mercy's the brightest jewel of the Crown?" His mighty wrath had now to fury risen ; He bade them both be seized and oast in prisOTi ; 8 34 REYNARD THE FOX. Deeming they still might plot, if left at large, The treasons, laid by Reynard to their charge. The Fox was now ■well paid for all his pains ; Himself in favor, and his Foes in chains : Nay more — he from the King contrived to win The grant of a square-foot of Bruin's skin ; He Towed — and never could enough eitol it — It was the very thing to make a wallet. Thus was he for his pilgrim-journey suited ; But liking not to make it quite bare-footed, He sued the Queen; "May't please your Majesty, Your own devoted Pilgrim now am I ; The road I have to go is rough and long, And I in health am anything but strong ; It greatly would protect my tender toes. Saving your presence, if I had some shoes. Now Isegrim the Wolf hath got two pair ; Stout-built and strong ; and one he well may spare ; It cannot incommode him much to lose them. Since he has no occasion now to use them. Speak for me, gracious Madam, to the King, He will not sure deny so small a thing. Dame Gieremund, too, cannot be averse To let me have the loan of two of hers ; As she'll not see her Lord some time to come, Like a good Housewife, she will stay at home." The Queen replied, she thought it was but fair That each of them should let him have a pair : And Reynard thanked her with his best of bows, Saying; " I promise, if I get the shoes. Your Majesty shall have my daily pray'rs. That Heaven preserve you free from fretting cares ; Besides, what holy relics back I bring, You shall be sure to share them with the King." He had his wish: from Isegrim' s fore paws Two shoes they stripped him oif, both skin and claws ; And Gieremund, his next to widowed Dame, As to her hinder feet, they served the same. Now while the Wolf and Bear together lie In prison and in pain, and wish to die ; With shoes and wallet fitted out, the Fox Draws near to Gieremund, whom thus he mocks ; "Look, best and dearest one, these shoes, you see. Fit just as though they had been made for me ! Though you have wished me ill in days by- gone. Such well-timed kindness can for all atone. Who would have thought, a few short hours ago. To see me honored and accoutred so ? But Fortune's wheel is ever on the move ; And what is now depressed soon mounts above. Act on this maxim, and you baffie Fate ; Hope, when in trouble ; fear, when fortunate. Whene'er to Rome I get, or cross the sea. My heart untravelled with my Friends will be ; And you the largest portion shall obtain Of those Indulgences I hope to gain." Poor Gieremund meanwhile in torture lay, And scarce could muster strength enough to say; "This hour is thine, and we must needs sub- mit ; But there may come a day of reck'ning yet." Thus Isegrim and Bruin both remained Wounded, disgraced, imprisoned and en- chained ; And Reynard's triumph seemed complete to be;— Although he grieved that Tybalt still was free. When morning came, the Hypocrite arose. And first he greased, and then he donned his Next to the Royal levee hastening. To make his congg, thus addressed the King ; "Your Servant, Sire, your notice would engage Ere he sets out on his long pilgrimage. Sad is my lot: the Church's ban hangs o'er me, A dreary, dang' rous journey lies before me : ' T would give me hope, and confidence of heart To have your Chaplain's blessing ere I start; Success would then my onward steps attend, And bring my travels to a happy end." Now Noble' s private Chaplain was the Ram ; A gentle Brute, and Bellyn was his name ; The King, who of his services was chary. Employed him also as his Secretary. Him now he bade come forth, and thus ad- dress' d ; "Speak over Reynard, — 't is his own re- quest, — BEYNAED THE FOX. 3o Some holy words, his deep remorse t' assuage, And cheer him on his lonely pilgrimage ; He goes, you know, to Rome ; then o'er the sea; And by your blessing sanctified would be ; Then, having hung his wallet by his side, Give him a Palmer's staff his steps to guide." And Bellyn answered thus; " My gracious Lord, What Reynard has avowed you surely heard ; He owns he still is excommunicate ; And truly I lament his wretched state ; But should I do the thing you now require, I might incur my worthy Bishop's ire ; The matter easily might reach his ear ; And he could punish me, and would, I fear. To Reynard, certes, I wish nothing ill ; And gladly would perform my Sov'reign's will; For this, all things in reason would I venture, Could I be sure to 'scape my Bishop's cen- sure: But the good Prelate is an awful Man, And such a strict Disciplinarian ; Besides, there are th' Archdeacon and the Dean" — The King no longer could contain his spleen, — "What," he exclaimed, "boots all this idle prate ? I asked for deeds, not words. Sir Woolypate." And then he swore, and loudly, at the Ram, Saying, "Are you aware, Sir, who I am ? Nor Priest nor Pope shall in my realm have sway ; I look My Subjects shall their King obey. And whether you wish Reynard well or ill Can have no influence on My Royal will. It is my pleasure he should go to Rome ; May be 'tis yours he should remain at home." Astounded by the Monarch's stern reproof, The poor Ram trembled to his very hoof ; And straight he took his book and 'gan to read A blessing over Reynard's sinful head ; But little did that Wretch attend to it. Or little care about the benefit. The blessing o'er, they bring his scrip and staff; How in his sleeve doth the false Pilgrim laugh ; While down his cheeks dissembling tear-drops course, As though his heart were melting with re- morse. And in good sooth he did feel some regret. That Tybalt was not in his power yet : He wished to cage him with the other Three, Whom he had brought to such extremity. He begged them all, and chiefly Iscgrim, That they would pardon and would pray for him ; Then, with some fear still ling'Hng at his heart. Lest he might be detained, prepared to start. And Noble, King of Beasts, much edified To see such symptoms of repentance, cried ; " Say, my good Reynard, prithee, why such haste ? Some few hours with your Friends you sure may waste." " Nay, my kind Lord," said that false- hearted Loon, "A good work ne'er can be commenced too soon. Dismiss me, Sire ; th' important hour is come, Big with the fate that Reynard leads to Rome.'' The Monarch, taken in by Reynard's art, Gave him his gracious license to depart ; And bade th' assembled Barons of his Court The Pilgrim a short distance to escort. The Wolf and Bear 'scaped this humilia- tion ; 36 REYNARD THE FOX. And from their fetters forged some conso- lation. To the King's favor quite restored again, Reynard sets forth with all that lordly train, Upon his pious journey to be shriven, — Much the same road that Lawyers go to Heaven ; — Pleased to have brought the King to such a pass. Led by the nose as easy as an Ass. Honored was he and waited on by those Who even now had been his bitter Foes. Nor could he yet let his old tricks alone ; But turning back he knelt before the Throne, Kissed the King's hand, and cried; — "Ah, dearest Lord ! Vouchsafe to let me speak one parting word: Remember what great int' rests are at stake, And of those Traitors an example make : Some acts of mercy Reason will condemn ; Your People suffer, if You pardon them." And then with downcast look away he went. And all the bearing of a Penitent. The King broke up his Court without delay ; Then to his royal palace took his way : And those who, to their shame, and Reynard's pride, His progress had some way accompanied, Now took their leave and hastened to de- part. Meanwhile the Rogue so well had plied his art. Insisting on the blessings of repentance, He'd softened not a few of his Attendants ; And specially the tender-hearted Hare From sympathetic tears could not forbear. Him now the cunning Fox accosted thus ; " And must we part indeed, dear Cousin Puss? If you and Bellyn could persuaded be A little further yet to go with me, 'T would be an act of kindness on your part, And comfort much my poor afflicted heart. How greatly to my credit 'twill redound If I in such society am found ; Pleasant Companions are ye both, I ken. And, what's far better, honest, gentlemen; Ne'er doing wrong, you others' wrongs for- give, And, as I lately did, you always live, Of grass and herbs and leaves you make your food, And never soil your guiltless teeth with blood ; Hence are your consciences serene and quiet ;- Such Good results from vegetable diet." And thus into the snare he laid they fell : A little flattery sometimes does well. To Malepartus, journeying on, they came; When thus the wily Fox addressed the silly Bam; " Dear Bellyn, will you tarry here a little? You must, by this time, surely want some victual ; And hereabouts you'll find enough to eat ; The herbage is particularly sweet. In fact we rather of our pastures vaunt ; I'll just take Pussy in to see his Aunt ; — Poor Soul ! she sits alone disconsolate, And mourning over my unhappy fate ; And when she hears that I to Rome must go, 'Twill cause her quite an ecstacy of woe. Pussy, I know, for his dear Uncle's sake, Will to his Aunt the sad news gently break.'' And thus, to carry out his own vile ends. The Fox contrived to separate the Friends. Puss entered with him ; when — omen of ill I His footsteps stumbled on the very sill ; But Reynard smiled, and they passed onward, where His vixen Wife and cubby Children were. How Ermelyne rejoiced to see her Lord In safety to her longing arms restored 1 She'd suffered much anxiety and pain, Lest by his wrathful Foes he should be slain. Or a close pris'ner for his life remain. And seeing him decked out with scrip and staff. She scarce knew whether first to cry or laugh, So great her j oy and wonder : thus she spoke ; " Reynie, my Love; my heart had almost broke ; How glad I am you're come ! Where haxi you been? And what does all this masquerading mean ? '' And thus the Fox replied — "Ah, dearest Wife! But narrowly have I escaped with life : My Foes were powerful, and I was weak ; I had the halter round my very neck ; But our good King, with that peculiar sense That marks all Sov' reigns, saw my innocence ; And, as a testimonial to my worth. In pious Palmer's weeds has sent me forth ; My character without the slightest stain ; KEYNAED THE FOX. 37 The Wolf and the Bear as Hostages remain ; And master Puss, you see, has by the King Been giv'n to me as a peace-offering : For the King said, — 'Keynard, you see that Hare. ' Yon trembling Coward, who stands crouch- ing there ; ' That is the wretch by whom you've been be- tray' d,' And for his treason he shall now be paid." Puss heard these threat' ning words with mortal fear ; They seemed to ring a death-knell in his ear ; Confused and soared he strove in haste to fly, But Keynard darted on him viciously. And clutched him by the throat ; Puss shrieked amain, "Help, Bellyn, help ! " he cried, and cried again, " Help ! or by this false Pilgrim I am slain." But long he did not cry : for Reynard's teeth Soon cut his windpipe, and let out his breath. Thus did this cursed and incarnate Fiend Betray and murder his too-trusting Friend. "Come now," he said, "to supper let us haste ; Our Friend is fat and delicate to taste ; The Simpleton was ne'er of use before ; To make him so long time ago I swore. He wished to wound, but was afraid to strike ; So perish every one who does the like ! " Then the whole Family sat down to sup ; The Hare was skinned and shared and eaten up: The Vixen greatly the repast enjoyed. And oft exclaimed, as with the bones she toyed ; " Heaven bless the King and Queen 1 how good they are. To cater for us such delicious fare.'' "For this time," said the Fox, "it may suflEce ; I hope ere long a nobler sacrifice ; That I may let the whole world plainly see, None injures Reynard with impunity." Quoth Ermelyne — "Dear Lord, I prithee tell. How you have got away so safe and well." " 'T would take,'' said he, "full many a weary hour To show how I escaped the Law's grim pow'r ; T' explain the tricks, I played my Enemies, And how I dammed — with dust- King Noble's eyes. In sooth the bonds that now our hearts unite, Though we are sworn as Lieges, are but slight ; And when the truth shall break upon hia mind. Within no bounds his rage will be confin'd. Me if again within his power he hold No wealth can save of silver or of gold ; No chance of mercy left, my fate will be To hang like fruit, upon the gallows tree. " Let us, dear Love, at once to Swabia fly; Unknown by all, perdue we there may lie ; A safe asylum we are sure to find. And heaps of provender of every kind ; Fowls, geese, hares, rabbits ; butter, chees«, and cream ; Birds in the air and fishes in the stream. There far from faithless Friends and furious Foes Our life will ebb in leisure and repose ; In charity with all we'll pass our days. And bring our Children up in Virtue's ways. "For, dearest Chuck, to speak without disguise, I've told a most infernal pack of lies : A tale I forged about King Emmerick's store ; 38 REYNARD THE FOX. And that 't was hid at Krekelburu I swore. If they go thither, as they will no doubt, They soon must find the whole deception out; And when 't is all discovered, you may form Some faint idea of how the King will storm. Mow he will swear ; what vengeance he will vow ; And sure I feel that what he swears, he'll do. "Sou may suppose what fiha I told, dear Wife; Ne' er was I so put to it in my life ; Again to lie were not the slightest use, And therefore would admit of no excuse. "But happen now what may, one thing is plain ; Nothing shall tempt me back to Court again : Not for the wide world's wealth, from north to south, I'd thrust my head into the Lion's mouth." Him answered thus the sorrowing Er- melyue ; " And why should we be Outeasts, Husband mine? Why should we leave our comfortable home. Abroad, like Rogues and Vagabonds, to roam ? Here known by all, by all respected, too, Your friends are faithful and your Vassals true ; And certainties against uncertainties To change, is neither provident nor wise. Against our will we cannot hence be torn ; Our stronghold here might laugh a, siege to scorn. Let the King hither come with all his Host : He'll have his journey for his pains at most. Of our escape I entertain no doubt ; So many ways we have of getting out. The King is strong iind we are weak ; but yet We to his pow'r can well oppose our wit. For this I have no fears : but for your vow To undertake a pilgrimage just now, That chills my heart with icy fears I own : What can I do, left friendless and alone?'' To her thus Reynard ; " Sweet, you have prevailed ; ' T was but a moment that my courage failed ; His threats are idle, and my fears are vain ; Shadows avaunt ! Reynard's himself again ! As for my vow — better to be forsworn, Than live the wretched finger-mark of scorn : Vows, when compulsory, bind not the least ; I've heard that doctrine taught by many a Priest : For my part, it may to the devil go ; — I speak not of the doctrine, but my vow. " So be it as you wish. I stay at home ; For what on earth have I to do at Rome ? And for my promised journey to Jerusalem, I only named the project to bamboozle 'em ; Nor if, instead of the one oath I swore, I'd sworn a dozen, would I go the more. With you and my dear Children will I stay, And get out of my scrape as best I may. And though the King should have me in his clutch. Perchance it may not help him over-much ; I may succeed, as I have done ere now. To fit a Fool's cap on his Royal brow : At least I'll try : the vow I freely make, I dare be sworn, I think, I shall not break." Bellyn meanwhile had all impatient grown ; Had ate his fill, and wanted to be gone ; " Puss ! are you ready ? It is getting late." Thus he calls out at Malepartus' gate ; And softly at the first, then louder knocks : When to the door proceeds the wily Fox, And says — "You must excuse our cousin Puss; You can return ; he'll pass the night with us.'' " Methought," replied the Ram, "I heard him cry, ' Help ! Bellyn, help ! oh, help me or'I die ! ' I trust no ill could here my Coz befall.' ' "I thought," said Reynard, "You'd have heard him call ; For in good sooth he made a mighty din ; I'll tell you how it happened — just step in." But Bellyn's heart was not quite free from fear ; So he said, "Thank ye ; I am better here." Then wily Reynard answered ; " Very well 1 You shall hear how the accident befell. I had just told my wife about my vow — My promised pilgrimage to Rome, you know — When she, alas ! good soul, was so cast down. That with the shock she fell into a swoon. Our simple Friend, alarmed, began to cry, ' Help ! Bellyn, help ! — help, or my Aunt will die.' " "Certes," said Bellyn, "he did loudly call." " He did," quoth Reynard, " Now I've told you all. As for my inj'ring him ;" the False One said ; EEYNARD THE FOX. 39 " I could not hurt a hair of that dear head. I would be torn to pieces, limb by limb, Sooner than even think of harming him. "And now," quoth he, "to bus'ness. Yes- terday, The King desired me, as I came away. That I, by letter, should communicate My thoughts on certain grave affairs of State. This letter, with some other papers too, I beg you'll carry back to Court with you. I've giv'n the King some excellent advice, Which, though I say it, is beyond all price. While Puss was resting from his weary jaunt. And talking old times over with his Aunt, I j ust contrived a spare half hour to snatch. And have drawn up a masterly despatch." "I would with pleasure all your letters t-ake ; ' ' Said Bellyn, "but I fear the seals might break ; And I a serious censure should expect, Having no pouch the papers to protect." "That's true, dear Nephew;" answered Reynard, pat, " But we can very soon get over that : The wallet that they made of Bruin's skin. Will be the very thing to put them in ; 'T is strong and thick, and will the wet repel; I've one within will suit me just as well ; And doubt not that your labor will be vain ; Some favor from the King, you'll sure obtain." The silly Ram believed all Reynard said ; Then back into his house the Sly One sped. And in his wallet crammed the poor Hare's head ; Next having thought how he might best pre- vent The Ram from finding out what 't was he sent ; Unto the door returning, thus he spake ; " Here, Nephew, hang this wallet round your neck. In its contents I trust you will not pry ; 'T would prove a fatal curiosity. The knots in a peculiar way are done. Which only to the King and me are known ; A mode that I invariably use, Whenever I transmit important news ; If the King sees the fastenings all right. The Messenger finds favor in his sight. " Nay if a greater merit you desire ; And to preferment in the church aspire ; You have my fullest leave to tell the King, The letters were of your imagining ; That though the handy-work by me was done. The whole idea was yours, and yours alone ; So shall your mental powers be highly rated. And you, no doubt, be duly elevated. You'll rise to any station, that you wish, up ; Be made a prebend or — who knows? — a bishop.'' Who then so happy as that silly Ram? He frisked and gamboled like a very lamb ; And joyfully he cried ; "Now do I see The love, dear Uncle, that you bear to me. What credit will not this adventure bring ! How shall I be respected by the King 1 That I such clever letters should indite — I, who was ne'er considered over bright ! And all this pleasure and this honor too, I've none to thank for. Uncle dear, but you. No longer will I tarry. Let me see : — You're sure that Puss will not go back with me?" "Nay," answered Reynard, "that's im- possible : For, truth to speak, he's just now far from well; A cold he's got has settled in his head ; He' s had his gruel and is gone to bed : His Aunt it is, this treatment doth advise ; She's greatly skilled in all such remedies. He'll follow speedily ; nay, I would swear He'll be at Court as soon as you are there.'' " Farewell, then ! " said the Ram, " no time I'll waste. Farewell ! ' ' And off he started in great haste : Travelled all night, the roads not being heavy. And just arrived in time for the King's lev^e. When the King saw him with the wallet on. He motioned him he should approach th( Throne, Then said, while he held out his hand to kiss, "Bellyn, you're welcome back; but what means this ? Is that not Reynard's wallet that you bear ? Methinks that I should know it any where. I trust you left him safe and well in health ; I would not have him harmed for thrice his wealth." And Bellyn said ; " Despatches, Sire, I bring 40 REYNAED THE FOX. From Reynard greeting to my Lord the King; To get them all complete we both combin' d ; And what he executed, I design' d. For though the handy-work by him was done, Ihe whole idea was mine, and mine alone. He tied the knots in a peculiar way, Which you would understand, he bade me say." The King, perplexed, straight for the Bea- ver sent, He was a man for learning eminent ; Could read off-hand, and seldom stopped to spell ; Knew foreign tongues — and his own pretty well; He acted for the King as Notary ; To read despatches oft employed was he ; Vast was his science ; Castor was his name ; And at the Royal bidding now he came. And Tybalt was commanded to assist, The fastenings of the wallet to untwist. The strings untied, the pouch was op'd ; when lo I A sight of drearl and agonizing woe ! Forth Castor drew the poor Hare's mangled head ; "This call you a despatch, forsooth?" he said ; ■' I own it fairly puzzles my poor brains ; Heav'n only knows, for I don't, what it means." Both King and Queen were startled and distress' d : And Noble's head sunk down upon his breast ; The only words he said distinctly were — " Oh ! Reynard ! Reynard ! would I had you here ! " Then long a stern and solemn silence kept ; Till, by degrees, along the circle crept Th' astounding tidings that the King had wept. At length his grief found utt'rance, and he spoke, While his strong frame like to a Woman's shook ; — "He has deceived me; — Me! his King and Lord! How could I trust the perjured Traitor's word ? Oh ! day of shame ! where shall I hide my head? Disgraced ! dishonored ! would that I were dead!" He seemed quite frantic ; and the Courtly Crew Felt it their duty to seem frantic too. But Leopardus, near the thronewho stood, — , A Prince he was, and of the Royal blood — Thus spake; "My gracious Liege, I cannol see Why Yon and our good Queen thus grieve(J should be. Banish such gloomy feelings, and take heart ; Despair was never yet a Monarch's part. As You, Sire, who so prudent ? who so strong ? Remember too, a King can do no wrong." " Alas ! " cried Noble, " it is even so ; And this it is adds sharpness to my woe. 'Tis not alone that I have been deceiv'd ; For that, I might have well in private griev'd ; But that the Wretch, to gain his wicked ends, Has caused me do injustice to my Friends ; — Bruin and Is'grim, who in prison lie, The Victims of his cursed villany. Is't not enough my soul to overwhelm, That the two noblest Barons of my realm Should be so punished, and for no offence, But my blind trust in Reynard's evidence? Alas! 'twas in an evil hour, I ween, I heeded the persuasions of the Queen ; She, in simplicity a very child, By his false tongu* was easily beguil'd. And for his pard«n did so warmly pray — I should have been more firm — but I gave way. Idle is all regret ; advice too late ; For even Kings must sometimes bow to Fate." REYNAED THE FOX. 41 The Leopard answered, " Sire, though you know best, Haply I may a useful hint suggest. Some comfort to the Wolf and Bear 't would bring To have the Ram as a peace-offering : You heard him boldly, as a boast, declare, T was he that counselled killing the poor Hare. Thus shall you deal him forth a righteous fate, And thus the injured Peers propitiate. Then we wUl hunt the Fox through all the land. And kill him, — if we catch him, — out of hand ; For if he get but liberty of speech. The very Devil will he over-reach. In fine, until that crafty Brute is slain, No respite from our griefs shall we obtain." He ceased ; and Noble, King of Beasts, re- plies ; "Your counsel pleases me, as just and wise. Hasten and set th' imprisoned Barons free ; In honor shall they take their state near me. Be all the Council summoned : they shall learn How foully that base Traitor is forsworn ; How he and Bellyn killed the gentle Hare ; How he traduced the loyal Wolf and Bear : And, as you counsel, Bellyn and his Heirs For ever I make o'er to them and theirs." Then Leopardus went without delay To where the Wolf and Bear in Prison lay. Straight from their bonds by his commands released, In soothing words the Twain he thus ad- dressed : " Hail, Noble Lords ! good tidings, lo, I bring ! Full pardon and free conduct from the King ! By law, you both have been condemned of treason ; And law is the perfection of all reason ; But since 'tis proved you're free of all offence, Vou're freely pardoned, for your innocence. Anil likewise in some measure to atone i'or all the sufPrings you have undergone, Bellyn and all his Tribe, the King declares. Are given up to you and to your Heirs : in grove or green whene'er you chance to meet them. You have full privilege to kill and eat them. Further, the King will lend his royal aid To punish him by whom you've been betray' d ; The Fox and all his Kindred, to a man, You've leave to take and torture, if you can. These rights, which unto you the King doth yield. Will all by his Successors be upheld ; And, in return, you from your souls will cast All painful recollections of the past ; Raised to your old estate, afresh will swear Royal allegiance to the King to bear." They took the pardon at the proffered price, Bellyn the Simple fell a sacrifice : And all his Kindred suffered too with him. Victims to the fierce Clan of Isegrim. Eternal war was entered on that day ; The Wolves thenceforward made all Sheep their prey ; Hunting and worrying them by day and night ; They had the power, and therefore had the right. The Monarch further solace yet imparts To Isegrims and Bruin's wounded hearts. By ordering a twelve-days' festival. At which his Barons should be present all ; That so his Lieges might distinctly see Those the King loved, should duly honored be. CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. THE OUTLAWRY. The Court was for the festival prepared ; And all who came, the banquet freely shared ; By day and night succeeded endless feasts ; Was never such a gathering of Beasts ; All to do homage to the Wolf and Bear, Who in their present joy forgot past care. Nor did the Guests do nought but feed like Brutes ; The scene was varied with refined pursuits ; The charms of music lent their soothing aid. The big drums thundered and the trumpets bray'd ; The dance enlivened the convivial hall, The courtly minuet and the common brawl ; While day by day the sports afresh begin, And day by day new Guests come trooping in. To name them all would too much time engross ; There came the erudite Rhinoceros : Thick-skinned himself, he flayed the thin skinned tribe, A savage Critic, though himself a Scribe ; 42 REYNARD THE FOX. In nil the gossip versed of former times. He fashioned hist'ry into nurs'ry rhymes ; Vv, told in prose, made it seem all a sham, Ey cooking up his facts d, V epigramme. Next the Hysena, the good Bishop, came, Ilia restless zeal forever in a flame ; \i'ilh his devices the whole kingdom rang, So mixed they were of piety and slang : No Blood-hound e'er so quick a scent as he To track the tainted sons of Heresy ; On that accursed and deadly schism which taught That in, and not by, baptism Grace was caught. There was Sir Nibble too, the long-haired Rat; Haggard and gi-im and sworn Foe to the Cat ; Though he at one time, unless Rumor lied, Had wished to 'list himself on Tybalt' s side : Hoped all past diiferences to efiace, Not Gaul by Roman, nor by Spartan, Helot, Were used as they were by the reverend Prelate : Them with his pfcn te maL.gled sore ; and would Have had then) burnt by inches, if he could. He came ; h"t not in over-cheerful mood, J'^jr at this time his thoughts could nought but broud And in his favor to obtain a place. But when he found his fawning flatt'ry spurned, His sembled friendship into hate was turned ; Where once he slavered, now he spat his spite. And shewed his rodent teeth and strove to bite; But Tybalt thought it prudent to determine EEYNARD THE FOX. 4S To bide his time till he might crush the Vermin. There too was Jocko seen, the long-armed Ape, Who was in mind ungainly as in shape ; Malice and fun in him so nicely blent. When playful most, then most he mischief meant ; He chattered nonsense with look so demure, Most Folks would think — he must mean some- thing sure ; His very talents he would twist to ill. For he could limn and draw with ease and skill ; But, just to prove his power at grimaces. Caricatured his best Friends to their faces. To count them all, for ages would endure ; But Reynard was not one of them, be sure. In watchful idleness he lurk'd at home, That false pretended Palmer, bound for Rome. To visit Court he was too circumspect ; He knew what welcome he might there ex- pect. Safely at home himself he might applaud ; But not so safely could appear abroad. Meanwhile was held high junketing at Court ; There all was mirth and jollity and sport ; Feasting and gambling were there, night and day; And those who came to stuff remained to play. Full was the royal palace as Noah's ark; Jousts were there held, and tourneys, in the park. From his high place the King surveyed the whole. And the vast tumult fiU'd his mighty soul. 'T was now the eighth day of the festival ; The King was set at table in his hall. His Peers around, and by his side his Queen ; When lo ! the Rabbit rushed upon the scene ! Bunny the Mild, his face all smeared' d with blood ; And thus he spake, as panting there he stood ; "Ah, Sire! ah, hear me! Lords and Gen- tles all! Or some such fate may some of you befall; What murderous wrongs from Reynard I've received ; Too scandalous almost to be believed ! I passed by Malepartus yesterday ; My road in coming hither led that way ; Dressed out in Pilgrim's habits there he sate. Seemed to be reading Matins at his gate. I hurried on, in haste to reach this Court, Deeming Your summons, Sire, a safe escort. He follow'd me yet still I thought That he in courtesy but sought. His friendly court to shew. But he, without a moment's pause, Fix'd in my neck his pointed claws, And bore me to the ground ; Hardly I scaped with life I trow. For from his fierce and spiteful blow, I bear this ghastly wound. And as I strove his grasp to clear, The villain tore away an ear, As all may plainly see I Bethink thee. Sire, that day by day, Thy bidden guests are made his prey, And maim'd or slain on the highway. For wanton cruelty.'' He'd ended scarce, when there arose Merknau the Crow, to state his woes. Who cried : ' ' Attend, mighty King, And list the hideous tale I bring ! For grief and truth, I scarce can speak, Methinks my faithful heart will break. Ere I the horrid deed can tell. Which this unhappy morn befel. — As I with Scharfenebb, my dame, Upon the moor at daylight came. We found Reynard upon the heath. Stretch' d out, sans motion, life or breath, As corse long dead he lies ! His tongue hangs from his gaping jaws, Stiffen'd in death seem limbs and paws. Inverted are his eyes 1 I felt his head and breast, but not A sign of life was there I wot, — Grieved for his loss, and with my mate, Lamented his unhappy fate, And course so early run. — My wife meanwhile, draws near his chin. And listens if perchance within. Some sign of life remains ; When snap ! — her head is off. and he Bounds from the earth, and makes at me. I 'scaped, I know not how, into a tree ; Unconscious terror must have winged my flight : And thence I saw, oh heavens ! what a sight ! Sooner, alas ! would I have lost my life ! I saw the Murderer mangle my dear Wife ; Her tender flesh I saw his talons tear, u REYNAED THE FOX. The crunching of her bones too could I hear. So mad with hunger seemed the Cannibal, That he devoured flesh, feathers, bones and all I That hour of anguish ne'er will be forgot ! The Wretch now satiated left the spot ; And I alighted on that cursed ground, But nothing there save drops of gore I found, And these few feathers from my poor Wife's wing. Which here in Court, to prove my case, I bring. " My tale is ended. Sire ! my task is done : I've humbly laid my griefs before the Throne. From his misdoings, all the Realm complains 'T is Reynard rules, and not the King that reigns. For those who have the power such crimes to stem, And yet repress them not, encourage them. Forgive me if too bold in what I say ; But grief is voluble and will have way." Now all the court had heard these tales of woe, '"■ofh from the gentle Rabbit and the Crow. And much incensed was Noble, King of beasts. Who liked not this disturbance in his feasts. Thus then he spake in angry tones though sad ; " Much have I borne with ; but this is far too bad I In vain it seems that my behests are spoken ; My laws are outraged and my peace is broken. This traitor haa deceived me once before ; But never, never shall deceive me more ! Nor my fault is't that such a Criminal Is still at large ; the Queen has done it all. I shall not be the last, as not the first, By woman's idle counsels to be curst. But if this rebel Thief go longer free, The name of justice will a mock'ry be. Take council, then, my Lords, and do your best To rid our kingdom of this common Pest." Pleased were the Bear and Wolf this speech to hear ; And thought their hour of vengeance now was near ; But prudently were silent, seeing both The King so much disturbed and deeply wroth. At length the Queen in gentle accents spake ; " Do not, dear Lord, your plans too rashly make ; Calm dignity will best assert the Bight ; Of angry words th' effect is oft but slight. Men oft blame Others their own guilt to hide ; Justice demands to hear the other side ; Of those who're loudest in his absence, some, If he were present, would perchance be dumb. For Reynard ; skilful, wise and wary still I knew him, and suspected nought of ill. All I advised was with the best intent, Though the result has prov'd so different. From all I ever heard or understood, If bad his deeds, yet his advice was good. Behooves us to remember in this case His num'rous Followers and powerful Race. With over-haste affairs but badly speed ; But what your Royal will shall have decreed, That shall your faithful Subjects execute ; And thus ripe counsels yield their proper fruit.' ' Then spake the royal Libbard thus; "My Lord, Permit me humbly to throw in a word ; I own I think that Reynard should be heard. With ease You can Your objects carry out. When he comes hither, as he will, no doubt. I think this is the general view ; I mean. We all would take the same view as the Queen." Then Isegrim spake out; "Forgive me. Prince, Your words, though wise, do not my mind convince. REYNARD THE FOX. 45 Put case that Reynard now were present here, And from this double charge himself could clear ; Yet would I undertake to show good cause His worthless life lies forfeit to the laws. But of such matters better sileut be Until we have him safe in custody. Have you forgot the wondrous tale he told About King Emm'rick's hidden store of gold? At Husterlow, near Krekelburn, he swore It would be found, and fifty falsehoods more. Both me and Bruin hath he brought to shame ; And life we hold less dear than our good name. And yet at freedom roams the Rebel still, And steals and murders whom and what he will. If to the King and Council this seem fit, We, howsoever wronged, must needs submit. Prince Libbard though suggests he may ap- pear E'en yet at Court ; but why is he not here ? The Royal missive bade all Lieges come ; Buthe, the skulking Thief! remains at home." Then said the King of Beasts ; " Why more Why for the Traitor's coming longer stay ? My Royal will is, ye all ready be On the sixth day from this to follow me. CTnless our po w' r shall quite be set at nought, These ills, my Lords, must to a close be brought. Prepare yourselves at once for battle's din ; Come, armed with sword and bow and jave- lin ; Let each right worthily his weapons wield. So he may merit knighthood on the field. My Subjects I expect will aid their Liege ; The fortress Malepartus we'll besiege ; And all its myst'ries into daylight bring." Then cried they all aloud ; " Long live the King!" Thus were the Monarch and the Peers And Reynard's certain doom now seemed de- creed. But Greybeard, at the banquet who had been, In secret left the gay and festive scene. He hastened off the wary Fox to find. And let him know what now was in the wind. And as alone his weary way he sped, Thus to himself the grieving Badger said ; "Ah! Uncle dear ! how I deplore thy case ; Thou prop and ornament of all our Race 1 With thee to aid us and to plead our cause We never feared the rigor of the laws." Thus he arrived at Malepartus' gate, Where in the open air Sir Reynard sate. Two youthful Pigeons he his prey had made, Who their first flight that morning had es- say'd ; But ill-supported by their new-fledged wings. They fell, and he pounced on the poor weak things. Soon as he saw the Badger drawing near He rose and said ; " Ah, welcome. Nephew dear ! — For dear you are to me 'fore all my Kin ; — But what a mortal hurry you seem in ! How hot you are ! and how you puff and blow ! You bring some cheerful news for me, I know." "Alas!" said Greybeard, panting, "any- thing But cheerful. Uncle, are the news I bring. For all, excepting honor, now is lost : Ne'er have I known King Noble seem so crost ; Deep hath he vowed a shameful death shall be The doom of Reynard and his Family. He and his Barons bold, a doughty Band, Armed at all points, — for such is his com- mand, — With bow and sword and javelin and spear. On the sixth day from this will all be here. Bethink you then in time ; for what can you, ' Gainst such an army, single-handed do ? Bruin and Isegrim are with the King Quite reconciled ; their will is every thing. The Wolf of crimes of every sort and kind Accuses you, and sways the Royal mind. He has, — as you will but too shortly see, — Been raised to a Field Marshal's dignity. The Crow and Rabbit have been both at Court, And of your doings made a sad report. Should the King this time get you in his pow'r. Your life's not worth the purchase of an hour." " That all? Your story moves me," quoth the Fox, "As summer breezes do primaeval rocks. As for the King and all his Council too, I'll warrant me they'll have enough to do ; At least to talk about ; because, in fact, They'll prate and prate for ever, and not act. About such trifles, Nephew, do not fret ; 46 EEYNAED THE FOX. But just step in and see what we can get. You see these nice young Pigeons I've just caught ; They are the best of eating, to my thought ; Their bones and flesh like jellied milk and blood : So light; and I'm compell'd to take light food ; My Wife too is of the same taste as I ; Come in ; she'll welcome you right heartily. :3he is not well though, so I would not let her Know why you come ; for trifles quite upset her. We'll start to-morrow ; and I'm nought afraid But you'll afi'ord me kind and kindred aid." Quoth Greybeard, " I would die for you with pleasure." Quoth Reynard, "You oblige me past all measure. And if I live, as well I trust I may. Be sure that I your kindness will repay." "Go," said the other, "go before your Peers, With that brave honest heart, devoid of fears ; At least a hearing you'll obtain from them. Even Prince Libbard says they can't condemn, Until they've heard all you may have to say ; And the Queen thinks precisely the same way. This hint to your advantage you may guide." '' Be sure I will ; " the crafty Fox replied ; " Howe'er the King may storm ; in his de- spight, I have no doubt to make the matter right ; I know the bait at which he'll surely bite." So into Reynard's dwelling now they went ; The Housewife welcomed them with kind intent ; The hospitable board was quickly spread, And on the Pigeons daintily they fed ; Duly divided each one had his share ; Much were they relished and was nought to spare. They could, for it was but a scanty feast. Have eaten half a dozen more at least. The meal concluded, they to chat begin ; And the fond Father has the Children in ; And as they climb and cling about his knees, They waken his parental sympathies : " Are they not charming little Rogues?" he said, " So frolic, yet so thoroughly well-bred. Eussell is such a Scamp ; and his young Brother, Greykin, will one day prove j ust such another Never will they their lineage disgrace ; Their principles do honor to their Race. One a young straggling Bantam up shall pick, The other pounce upon a, Guinea-chick ; Nor do they rest contented on dry ground, But plunge for Ducklings in the Parson's pond. To hunt I'd send them oft'ner, if I durst ; But care and prudence they must study first ; Learn never to be taken unawares, And to avoid all Hunters, Dogs and snares. And when by habit they expert shall grow, And courage, tempered with due caution, show, In search of prey then daily shall they roam, And never shall we want for food at home Slow stealthy step, low crouch and steadfast aim. Sure Spring and firm grip ; that is Rey- nard's game ; Thus have we still upheld the credit of our name." "Ay, Children are in truth great blessings, Sir;" Said Greybeard, who was still a Bachelor. " Pledges of holy and of lawful love, A constant joy and solace must they prove ; Centered in them the happy Parents see The pleasures both of Hope and Memory ; And if sometimes they prove a source of trouble. That makes, no doubt, the latter pleasure double. Nor are your joys confined to you alone ; /love your Children as they were my own." "Suffice it for to-day;" then Reynard said ; " We all are sleepy ; let us now to bed." Then on the floor, soft strewn with leaves and hay. Their weary limbs adown to rest they lay. But Reynard could not sleep for haunting cares. So grave appeared the posture of affairs. He tossed and tumbled all the livelong night. With aching eyes he met the morning light. Then to the Partner of his joys and woes Thus did he speak, as from his couch he rose ; " Be not alarmed ; to Court I go again At Greybeard's wish ; at home you'll safe re- main. That no one know where I am gone 'twere best; REYNARD THE FOX. 47 Be of good cheer and leave to Heav'n the rest." "What!'' cried Dame Ermelyne, "Again to Court ! Methinks your foes would wish no better sport. Are you obliged to go ? Bethink you well Of what on your last visit there befell." "Indeed," quoth Reynard, "it was past a jest, i ne'er remember to have been so prest. But nothing certain is beneath the sun ; No matter how a thing may be begun, None can say how 'twill finish, till 'tis done. Albeit 'tis needful that to Court I go, — For I have much that's weighty there to do, — Be calm, I beg you ; there is nought to fear ; A week at furthest I'll again be here. Adieu then, for a time, dear Love ; " he cried ; Then off he starts with Greybeard at his side. CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. THE JOHKNET. Towards King Noble's Court without delay. Greybeard and Reynard now held on their way. And the Fox said, " My heart feels quite elate, This journey will, I know, prove fortunate. And yet, dear Nephew, since I last confest, My life has truly not been of the best. Hear what fresh crimes I now have to de- plore ;^ Some too which I forgot to tell before. "A good stout scrip I've had from Bruin's hide; The Wolf and his good Lady have supplied My tender feet, each with a pair of shoes ; 'Tis thus I've wreaked my vengeance on my Foes. The King too, I confess, I've badly treated. And with gross falsehoods scandalously cheated. Further, — for nought will I conceal from you, — I killed the Hare, and what's more, ate him too ; His mangled head by Belly n I sent back. Trusting the King would stretch him on the rack. The Rabbit too, I tried to make my prey ; Although^thank Heav'n for that ! — he got away. Th' offence of which the Crow doth now com- plain Is not without foundation in the main ; For why should I the simple truth disguise ? I did devour his wife before his eyes. " These my chief sins are since my last confession ; But I omitted then an old transgression ; A trick, for which I hope forgiv'n to be. Against the Wolf, mine ancient Enemy. " One day we happened to be travelling The road between Kaktyas and Blverding ; When we a Mare perceived with her young Foal, The Dam and Daughter each as black as coal ; ' Bout four months old the Filly seemed to be ; Said Is' grim, who was nearly starved, to me, ' See, prithee. Nephew, if you can entice ' You Mare to sell her Foal at any price.' Rash was the venture, I was well aware ; But up I trotted, and addressed the Mare , ' Say, dearest Madam, may I make so bold ' To ask if this sweet Creature's to be sold ? ' If so, for it belongs to you, I see, ' I trust upon the price we may agree.' Said she : ' Yes, if I get the sum I want, ' I '11 sell her ; and 'tis not exorbitant ; ' You '11 find it written on my near hind hoof.' I guessed her meaning and kept well aloof. 'Alas !' I cried, as though I nought suspected; ' My education has been sore neglected ; ' Reading and writing are beyond my pow'r ; ' My parents have a deal to answer for. ' Not for myself the dear Child I desire ; ' It was the Wolf who bade me to inquire.' ' He'd better come himself,' replied the Mare ; Quoth I, ' I'll tell him what your wishes are.' So where he waited I joined Isegrim : 48 REYNARD THE FOX. ' The Foal is to be had,' said I to him ; ' The price is written on the Mare's hind hoof; ' She kindly offered me to see the proof ; ' But 'twas no use to me, who cannot read ; ' My life, alas ! has sadly run to seed. ' But you, dear Uncle, soon will make it out ; ' Approach and read, for you can read, no doubt.' Said Isegrim, ■ I rather think I can ; ' German, French, Latin and Italian. ' To school I went at Erfurt, then to college, ' Where I picked up a vast amount of know- ledge ; ' Took duly my degrees and honors too ; ' I swear I quite forget how much I knew : ' All one learns there is wondrously abstruse, 'Though not, perhaps, in practice of much use. ' I'll go and the inscription read at once, ' To prove that, though a Scholar, I'm no Dunce.' So off he started to the Mare, quite bold, Asked for how much the Foal was to be sold ; She gave the answer she had giv'n before ; And down he stooped the writing to explore. Her hoof she lifted gently from the grass ; ?resh shod and armed with six new nails it was ; And fetched him a full plumper on the head, That down he tumbled, stunned, and lay for dead. then off she galloped with her frisky Foal, A.nd whinnied as she went, for joy of soul. for a good hour the Wolf lay on the ground. Then 'gan to howl, like any beaten Hound. I hastened up to him, and, 'Uncle, say,' Quoth I, ' What causes you lament this way ? ' Have you your bargain made with Ma- dam JIare? '.And eaten up her Foal? that's not quite fair ! ' Sure, for my pains I should have had my share. ' And, as you are so learned, prithee do ' Expound to me the writing on the shoe ? ' ' Ah me ! I am derided I ' he made moan ; ' My Buff'rings though might melt a heart of stone. ' Never before did I so badly fare. ' Oh I may the Devil fetch that long-legged Mare ! ' Six bleeding wounds I have in my poor head. ' The only wonder is I am not dead.' " Thus I've confessed, as far as I am able. And made my conscience clean and comfort- able. Now that is done, I trust to hear from you Some ghostly counsel what is next to do." '^^^^^^"ST"** Him Greybeard answers thus; "'Tistrue indeed Of ghostly counsel you stand sore in need ; For from your tone I gather that, as yet. Your crimes you rather boast of, than regret. 'Tis true, regret for past misdeeds is vain ; It cannot bring the Dead to life again. Your sins I must in charity forgive. Seeing how short a time you have to live ; For certainly the worst results I dread : You never can get over that Hare's head. It was in sooth a most audacious thing To aggravate the anger of the King ! More mischief to your cause thereby you've done Than in your thoughtlessness you reckon on." " Nay, not a jot," replied th' undaunted Rogue ; "Self-interest will always be in vogue. Those in the world who live must look to rough it. And meet with many a kick and many s buffet. He who would best get on must rant and roister, Nor think to pass his time as in a cloister. As for the Hare, I own he tempted me ; He skipped and sprang about so saucily, And looked so plump, that howsoe'er ] strove, REYNARD THE FOX. 49 My appetite proved stronger than my love. For the Ram's fate I do not care a pin ; His was the suffring ; mine may be the sin. 'Tis not my worst misdeed by many a one ; My penance otherwise were quickly done. To love our Neighbors we are told, 'tis true ; But Most do just what they ought not to do. What's done though can't be helped; and, as you said, 'Tis worse than useless to regret the Dead. Useless indeed, I think, is all regret ; Save some advantage from it one can get. ■' Enough of this I we live in awful times ! No Rank or Station seems exempt from crimes ! Corruption from the Rich spreads to the Poor ; Good men the gen'ral 111 can but deplore ; And though we dare not speak, we think the more. "The King himself will plunder, that we know. As much as any of his Subjects do ; And, what he does not take himself, de- volves. As lawful prey, upon the Bears and Wolves. To speak the truth dares not a single Soul, The mischief may be ne' er so great or foul. The Clergy keep quite silent ; and no won- der ; They have a decent portion of the plunder. If of extortion any one complains, He only has his trouble for his pains. If aught that you possess the Great allures. Then may you safely say it has been yours. But Few to tales of grievance wilLattend ; And they are sure to weary in the end. Noble, the Lion, is our Lord and King ; He acts as he were Lord of every thing ; He calls us oft his Children ; and, 'twould seem, Forsooth, that all we have belongs to him. For let me speak my mind ; our gracious King Loves ever those the most, who most can bring ; And who will dance as he may choose to sing. The Many suffer, though but Few complain ; The Bear and Wolf are now in pow'r again ; They steal and rob and pillage, left and right ; And yet find favor in the Royal sight. VOL. IV. — yr. H. While each who might have influence is dumb, Living in hopes that his own time may come. Let a poor Devil, like myself, but take A paltry chicken, what a howl they makal They're all upon his back without remorse. And he's condemned to suffer, as of course. For those who crimes commit of deeper dye. No mercy show to petty larceny. " Such thoughts, I own, have often crossed my mind When to repentance I have felt inclin'd ; And to myself I've said, in Reason's spite, That what so many do must sure be right. Conscience indeed within me sometimes stirs, And says, with that peculiar voice of hers . ' Reynard, why seek thus to deceive thy- self ? ' No good came ever of unrighteous pelf.' Then deep remorse I've felt for doing wrong ; Deep for the moment, but not lasting long. Because, look round the world which way I would, I saw the Bad fared better than the Good. Not, as times go, can every one afford To cherish Virtue as its own reward. " The people too, save their nobility, In all their Betters' secrets love to pry ; Their faults they will observe and con by rote. And pick holes e'en in Honor's petticoat^ '■ But the worst feature of this pinchbeck age, Which, if my scorn it mov'd not, would my rage. Is, that all sorts of public men we see Merged in the slough of mediocrity. There will they plunge and wade and flounce and flounder, Endeav'ring each to keep the other under ; For if one strive, by merits of his own. To rise, his Neighbors pelt and pull him down, As though 't were quite agreed that little men From a dead level had the furthest ken ; That by example might the World be schooled With what a small amount of wisdom it is ruled. " In private, too, all paltry vices flourish ; Men are morose and selfish, sly and currish : 4 50 flEYNAED THE FOX. Backbiting, malice, lying and false-swearing Have become matters of familiar bearing. Hypocrites and false Prophets so abound That Truth, save in a well, can ne'er be found. " If to remonstrate with them you should try. Quickly and coolly will they thus reply ; ' The sins you mention cannot serious be. Or sure the Clergy from them would be free.' Thus, following those of a superior station, The People sin, like Apes, by imitation. Thinking and acting much as Monkeys do, They often get the same allowance too. " Truly the Priesthood better should be- have; With common care, their credit they might save. But it quite marvelous appears to me The slight in which they hold the Laity. Before our very eyes they do not mind To act in any way they feel inclin'd ; As though we all, like Bats, or Moles, were blind. And ev'ry one, his eyes who uses, knows What kind of store they set upon their vows. Beyond the Alps, 'tis said, that ev'ry Priest Holds consort with one Mistress at the least ; And what is winked at by the Court of Rome No wonder should be practised here at home. The holy Fathers, if truth may be spoke. Have Children just like any married Folk ; And, with paternal love, take care enough None of their Offspring shall be badly off ; These, never thinking what was their Mam- ma, To lawful Children will not yield the^as; Others they treat with as much slight and scorn. As they were honestly, nay, nobly born. Clad in the armor of sheer impudence. They have of shame or modesty no sense. Time was, these base-born Sons o'th' Clergy knew What was their proper place, and kept it too. But now they go about as brave and bold As any Lords. Such is the pow'r of gold. " You see the Priest possessed, go where you will, Of toll and tribute from each farm and mill; And thus the World is disciplined to ill. No marvel the poor People go astray. When, blind themselves, the Blind lead them the way. " Where for that pattern Pastor shall we look Content to feed and not to shear his flock ; Who the pure precepts of the Gospel teaches. And practises the doctrines that he preaches ; Who, if he suifer Wrong, will pardon it. And turn his right cheek if his left be smit ; Who upon worldly treasures sets no store, But sells his all and gives it to the Poor ? Alas 1 much readier a Priest you'll find To pride, revenge, and avarice inclin'd. Such set the Laity a vile example. And on all precepts of their Master trample. " As for their Bastards, would they quiet be, No one on earth would notice them, you see. 'Tis but their vanity that we condemn ; For most unjust it were to carp at them. It is not Race that makes us great or good ; Nor shame nor honor come by birth or blood. Let Heralds draw what fancied lines they can, Virtue and Vice alone mark man from man. The honest Priest will ever honored be ; The bad be shunned, whate'er his pedigree; How good soe'er the sermons he may preach. Folks will contrast his actions with his speech. ' What does he for the Church ? ' they'll argue thus, ' He who is ever preaching up to us — " Be sure you keep your Church in good repair, " My Brethren, if of Grace you wish to share ; ' ' ' For aught he does himself, while us he fleeces, ' The sacred edifice might fall to pieces.' " In costly fare and sumptuous array They squander more than half their wealth away. Engrossed with worldly thoughts, how can they spare Their time for acts of piety and pray'r ? While the good Pastor — so at least T ve heard — Devotes his life to th' service of the Lord ; With modest temperance and sober gaiety. Setting » good example to the Laity. " Full well too do I know the hooded class ; A dirty, frowzy, hypooritic Race ; A tribe of prowling, prying Creatures, which Spend their whole time in hunting up the Rich. Adepts in flattery, they reckon most EEYNABD THE FOX. 61 How they may U8e it on a liberal Host. If one but get a footing, three or four Are sure to follow, if not many more. Who in the cloister only longest prates Is sure to gain promotion o'er his Mates ; Reader he's made. Librarian or Prior, Or he may even mount to something higher. Others, as good aa he, are thrust aside ; The prizes so unfairly they divide. Some pass their time in fasting and in pray'r, While others sleep or sumptuously fare. " As for your Papal Legates, Prelates, Deans, Your Abbesses, your Ni^ns, and your Be- guines, What tales might I tell of them if I would ; Yet little I regret, to say, that's good. One cry they always have, and one alone ; 'T is, ' GiTe rae yours and let me keep my own.' But few there are, not Ten assuredly. Who strictly with their Founder's rules com- ply. 'T is thus the Church acquires a doubtful name. Is brought to weakness, and sometimes to shame." " Uncle," the Badger said, " I cannot guess Why you should other People's sins confess. If they've done 111, what Good is that to you? With your own matters you've enough to do. Why should you meddle with the Priests and Nuns? Sure Mother Church can manage her own Sons. Let each his own peculiar burdens bear ; Let each th' account of his own deeds pre- pare ; The audit-day will surely come, which none, Or in, or out a cloister-walls, can shun. "You talk too much though of all sorts of things ; Scarce can I follow all your wanderings ; I sometimes fear you'll leave me in the lurch ; Pity you did not go into the Church. Great as your lore, you'd there find scope for it; I should, with Others, reap the benefit. The most of us, I own, are Brutes indeed, And of good doctrine stand in awful need." Now the Court's precincts they approached at last; Said Reynard to himself — " The die is cast ! " When on the road Martin the Ape they met. Who off upon a tour to Rome had set ; And both he kindly greeted. " Uncle dear," Thus to the Fox, "be of good heart and cheer." Then questions put he to him, not a few. Although the state of matters well he knew, " My good luck seems for ever to have fled," To Martin then the wily Reynard said ; "Some scurvy Comrades, moved by dirty spleen, Again, I find, accusing me have been. The Rabbit and the Crow complain, I hear, That one has lost a Wife, and one an ear. But what on earth has that to do with me ? That would I make them pretty quickly see, If to the King I could but get to speak ; My cause I know is strong, as theirs is weak. But still I labor 'neath the Papal Ban, A wretched excommunicated man ! There's not a Soul, except the Prebendary, Can rescue me from out this sad quandary. Unhappily, though why I cannot tell, I don't stand, somehow, with the Clergy well. This and more evils to a vast amount, I suffer upon Isegrim's account. " A Monk he once became ; but one fine day He from the monastery ran away : The rules he found too rigid, and he sware He lost his time in fasting and in pray'r. I helped his flight ; a cause of deep regret, Which I have ever felt and do so yet ; For nought since then he's done but slander me. And work me ev'ry kind of injury. What if I made a pilgrimage to Rome ; How would my family get on at home ? Isegrim then would cause them endless 111 ; He'd have the pow'r, as he now has the will. And many Others are there who design All sorts of mischief both to me and mine. If from this awful Ban I were but freed. My cause at Court were certain to succeed " Said Martin, " I am glad 'tis in my pow'r To do you service in this trying hour. I am just starting on a tour to Rome; And may do much t' ameliorate your doom. You are my Kinsman ; set your mind at rest ; I will not suffer you to be oppress'd. I've some weight, as the Bishop's Secretary ; 62 REYNARD THE FOX. I'll make him cite to Rome the Prebendary ; Against him in your cause will I make fight, And, Uncle, they shall do you ample right. The doom of Ban, reversed shall shortly be, Your absolution I'll bring back with me. Your Foes their long hostility shall rue. Losing their labor and their money too. I know how causes may at Rome be won, And what is best to do, what leave undone. My Cousin, Simon, has great influence ; For our name's sake he'll favor your de- fence : There's Gripeall too, Greedy and Eitherside, And Turncoat, and I know not who beside. For I have at the College many a Friend, Who to our cause their able aid will lend ; Or, rather let me say, their aid will sell ; For only those they help who fee them well. I've sent my money first, for that alone Will there ensure that justice shall be done. Loudly they talk of justice, and such cant. But 'tis your money that they really want. How crooked be a cause, or intricate, The touch of gold will make it plain and straight. With that to find a welcome you are sure. Without it, closed against you ev'ry door. " Do you then, Uncle, stay at home ; while I Tour knotty cause will manage to untie. To Court 'twere best you should at once re- pair; Seek out my Wife, Dame Ruckenaw, when there ; She 's a shrewd Soul, and with the King and Queen A special Favorite has ever been. Take her advice, whate'er she recommend ; There 's nothing but she'll do t' oblige a Friend. On many a staunch Ally you there will light; Such often help one more than being right. Her Sisters two are sure with her to be. And my three Children, for I have but three ; And many others of our common Kin, Who '11 stoutly stick by you, through thick and thin. Should justice be denied you, send to me. And what my pow'r is you shall quickly see: An awful Evil on this land shall fall. On King, Men, Women, Children, one and all; An Interdict shall on the realm be laid ; No service shall be sung, no mass be said ; No Christian grave receive th' unhouseled Dead. The land a heathen desert will I make ; Be of good cheer then, Coz, and comfort take. " The Pope is old, nor sound in mind or limb; But Few he cares for, and None care for him. 'T is Cardinal Wiseacre rules the Church, And crows, as roosted on the highest perch ; To which no doubt one day he may aspire, For he is full of craft and full of fire. He is enamoured of a certain Dame, Whom well I know, and, if I would, could name. Her wishes she has only to make known ; And what she wishes, is as good as done. "But many tricks and frauds are played at Rome, Which to the Pope's ears never chance to come. But no one can get on without some aid ; Friends must one make, or buy them ready- made. Rely on me, dear Coz ; the King well knows, I will not see you fall before your Foes ; 'T were just as well, he should remember too How Many kindred claim, with me and you : For sober counsel, not a Family At Court can with the Apes and Foxes vie. This cannot fail your dangers to allay. Let matters even take what turn they may." Reynard replies, "There's nothing, dearest Coz, Gives me such comfort as your friendship does: I shall remember it, an I get free.' ' Then each the other greeted courteously ; And tow'rds the Court, to face his angry Foes, Reynard, with no escort but Greybeard goes. CHAPTER THE NINTH. THE ADVOCACT. Reynard had now reached Court, and still had hope With his accusers he might safely cope ; Yet when his numerous foes he saw arrayed. All eager for revenge, he felt dismayed ; But though his heart might tremble, with firm stride EEYNAEB THE FOX. 6S He passed the Barons, Greybeard by his side. Unto the Monarch's throne they both drew near, When Greybeard whispered thus in Reynard's ear; " Take courage, Uncle, for the King is gra- cious ; And, we know, fortune favors the Audacious : The brave love danger on its own account. And are more pleased the greater its amount." And Reynard answered, " What you say is true ; Sage your advice and comfortable too ; Were you in my place I'd so counsel you." With searching eye he glanced th' assembly round. Where many Kinsmen, but few Friends, he found ; For at his hands the most but ill had fared ; The Otter nor the Beaver had he spared ; None but he'd played some pranks on, great or small ; Yet with assurance now he greets them all. And down before the throne he lowly knelt, And boldly spake, howe'er he may have felt; " May Heav'n above, from whom no thought or thing Is hidden, long preserve my Lord the King ; And my good Lady too and gracious Queen, Whose humblest Vassal I am proud t' have been; And grant you both sound judgment, clear and strong. The diff'rence to discern 'tween Right and Wrong. For falsehood now is rife in ev'ry spot ; Almost all men appear what they are not. Would each man's thoughts were writ upon his brow, So that his secret soul the King might know ; Then would it plainly to the world appear How true and loyal is the heart I bear. I know the Wicked rage together still, And howl against me, as they always will. In ev'ry way to injure me they strive. And of Your countenance would quite de- prive ; As though I were the veriest Wretch alive. But love of Justice is a mighty thing; None own its pow'r more than my Lord and King. Let men seek to mislead him as they may. From the straight path of Right he ne'er will stray." While thus he spake the Courtiers round him throng. All woud'ring at the boldness of his tongue. His crimes so flagrant and notorious were, That each was anxious his defence to hear. "Thou Rascal Reynard!" thus the Mon- arch said, "Thy glozing speech thy cause can little aid ; On thy persuasive arts no more depend. Thy shameless course at length hath reach' d its end. Thy truth and loyalty we all well know, As witness here the Rabbit and the Crow. Full is the measure of thy wickedness. And craft can nought avail thee, boldness less." Reynard, uneasy at this Royal speech, Feared now the King he might not over-reach, For he had spoke in terms precise and plain ; Ah ! how he wished he were safe home again 1 But wishing now could do him little good ; He must get through it the best way he could. " Noblest and mightiest of Kings;" he said, " Though you decree my life is forfeited, I fain may hope that You will hear me first ; You've heard but one side, and that side the worst. When clouds and tempests o'er the State were hovering. Firm have I stood and faithful to my Sove- reign, When some, that I could name, have fled their post, Some who are now esteemed and favored most, Who bravely take each opportunity. When I am absent, most to slander me. Hear only my defence and then decide ; My doom, whate' er it be, I must abide. ' ' Forgotten is my service to the State ? How I have early watched and labored late f If of all crimes not quite exempt I were. Of my free will should I now venture here ? I should have shunned Your presence con- science-scared, Nor my Accusers thus to meet have dared. Nay, the world's treasures, heaped up seven- fold, Should not have drawn me forth from my strong-hold. Upon my native heather I was free, 54 REYNARD THE FOX. And none might touch me with impunity ; But my good Greybeard with the message came That I was wanted here, and here I am ! I had been counsel holding with the Ape, How from the Papal Ban I might escape ; And he had promised to remoYO the whole Of that oppressive burden from my soul. ' I will myself,' said he, ' to Rome resort ; ' Do you, without delay, repair to Court ; ' I'll undertake your character I'll clear.' Such his advice ; he'd own it were he here. Our Bishop knows the truth of much I state ; five years has Martin been his Surrogate. "And here I find complaint upon complaint ; Enough to wear the patience of a Saint. The ogling Rabbit has, I hear, a case ; Let him stand forth and meet me, face to face ! ' T is a light task the Absent to accuse ; But none to hear my answer can refuse. Scurvy Companions, are they, by my troth I My Guests they've been, the Crow and Rab- bit, both. " 'T was but the morning before yesterday. The latter tow'rds my dwelling came his way; He greeted me in passing, soft and fair ; I'd just begun the form of Morning Pray'r. He let me know that he for Court was bound ; I said, ' Heav'n grant you get there safe and Bound.' He spoke of empty stomach, weary feet ; I asked, ' Will you take anything to eat ? ' ' I fear I might intrude ; ' was his reply. ' Oh ! not the slightest in the world,' said I. I fetched some wheaten bread and cherries fresh ; (On Wedn'sdays 't is my rule to eat no flesh ;) And Master Bunny seemed contented quite, And ate his bread and fruit with appetite. My youngest Son, a forward little Chap, Suddenly jumped into the Rabbit's lap. To see if he might chance pick up a scrap, 'T was rude, I own, but the Boy meant no ill ; Children you know. Sire, will be Children still. But, making no allowance for his youth. The brutal Rabbit struck him in the mouth. Poor little Russell ! 't was too bad indeed ; For the blow made his lips and nostrils bleed. And then my eldest, Greykin, quick as thought. Leapt up and seized th' Aggressor by the throat ; His game he played and 'venged his Brother well ! 'T is thus exactly how the thing befell. I ran directly that I heard the noise. Rescued the Rabbit, and chastised the Boys. I do not sympathize with him a jot. For richly he deserved whate' er he got. Had I meant ill, I had not interposed ; The Young Ones his account would soon have closed. And this is now my thanks ! He says, I hear, 'T was I myself that tore his gtupid ear. A blund'ring tale ! I think my powers I know Rather too well to botch a bus'ness so. " As for the Crow, he came quite out of breath. And said his Wife had ate herself to death. Some great Fish she had gorged, gills, bones and all. Had choked her, as her swallow was but small. The truth he best knows ; but the Slanderer Now dares assert that I have murdered her ; May-be he did, himself; there's none can tell; For my own part, it were impossible ; These dingy Devils, when they choose to fly. No spring of mine could reach, however high. " Those who bring forward charges such as these Should prove them by trustworthy witnesses. This ev'ry Freeman may of right demand ; And on my Right I boldly take my stand. Are there no proofs ; another course is clear ; lo ! ready to do battel am I here ! Let both the day and place be now assign'd ; And if a worthy Advers'ry I find, In birth my equal, I'll the combat dare ; And he the honor who then wins may wear. Such ever was the rule of law of yore ; So be it now, for I desire no more." All stood and heard and wondered, Beasts and Birds, At the audacity of Reynard's words. The Crow and Rabbit both felt dire dismay. And secretly from Court they stole away ; Nor did they dare another word to say. They muttered to each other; "'Twer* indeed Unwise against him further to proceed. Do what we may, no better should we be ; For after all , what Witnesses have we ? The truth unto ourselves is only known. "W KA.ULBACH PIN/" - GOFFIN SCUijF r^VV//^ ' VT/V/^// r.. '///.Vz-V', REYNAED THE FOX. 55 For with the Felon we were each alone. So in the end the loss on us would fall. Oh ! would the Devil seize him, once for all ! And he proposes battel now ! To us ! Truly the thought is too preposterous ! So powerful and cunning as he is ; So full of vigor and of trickeries ! 'T would take to face him five as good as we, And even then he'd beat them easily." Both Isegrim and Bruin groaned with ire, When from the Court they saw the Twain re- tire. "Are any present here," then said the King, " Who against Eeynard have a charge to bring ? If any such there be, let them advance ; For he stands here on his deliverance. There were enough to threaten yesterday ; And now their time is come ; but where are they?" Said Eeynard, "Ah ! 'tis ever the old game ; Those who against the Absent most declaim, Boasting what they could do, would he but come, When he arrives, stay prudently at home. These Sland'rers vile, the Rabbit and the Crow, Fain would have brought poor me to shame and woe. But I forgive, since they are penitent ; Most thoroughly ashamed away they went. How dangerous it is, you all have seen, T' encourage those who slander absent men. They scruple not the truth aside to wrest. And victimise the Wisest and the Best. To Others only do these words apply. Of little moment to the State am I." " Hear me ! " exclaimed the King, " thou Traitor wild ! Say, where is Puss, the Gentle and the Mild '/ My brave and trusty Courier was he, And treacherously slain hath been by thee. Had I not pardoned thee thy numerous crimes ? Equipped thee forth to visit holy climes. With scrip and staff and other pilgrim gear. Believing thy repentance was sincere ? And thy first act was my poor Puss to kill ! Bellyn thou mad'st thy Messenger of ill : He in thy wallet brought the mangled head ; And here in open Court unblushing said, He brought despatches which you both had framed. Though he the larger share of merit claimed : But in the wallet was the head alone I Bellyn hath paid the penalty And the same fate awaits on thee. One though hath suffered for the base design ; Bellyn hath lost his life ; look thou to thine !" "Great Heav'ns ! What do I hear?'' sly Reynard said, "Puss murdered 1 Gracious Pow'rs! and Bellyn dead ! Oh, fatal hour ! oh, cursed love of pelf ! Alas! alas! that I were dead myself ! With them the choicest treasures have I lost ! Jewels, such as the wide world cannot boast 1 The rarest things by them I sent for You ; For I believed them loyal both, and true. Of Bellyn who would credit such a thing, His Friend to murder and to rob his King ? Who on this earth could e'er expect to find Such craft with such simplicity combin'd ?" To hear him out the Monarch would not stay. He rose and tow'rds his palace took his way; Nor caught distinctly all that Eeynard spake : Determined was he deep revenge to take. To his own closet did he straight withdraw, And found the Queen there with Dame Eucke- naw ; A special Fav'rite had she ever been. The sly She-ape, both with the King and Queen ; She haply now might do the Fox some good ; For she was wise and wary, sage and shrewd. Full soon the shrew Dame Euckenaw Observed the cloud on Noble's brow, And sought to lull the storm to rest. Which raged within the Monarch's breast, " Dread, sire I " quoth she, " if in thy rage Thine humblest servant dare to wage A word, impute it to the zeal I ever for thine honor feel ; Sir Eeynard whatsoe'er he be. Is of my blood and family. And as at Court he has appeared, 'Tis fit that his defence be heard. Had not his Father, whose fame still endurea. And who was graced and countenanced bj Yours, With evil tongues for ever to contend. And from false charges his good name da- fend? 66 EEYNARD THE FOX. But still his Foes he taffled in the end. When thoroughly was sifted the affair, 'T was found what close inspection it would bear. Although his Sland'rers charged him many a time With incapacity, as well as crime ; Yet he retained his station to the last, And, as the Bear and Wolf are now, was grac'd. Twould be as well if they themselyea could clear From all that 'gainst their characters we hear. But of the rules of Right they nothing know ; Both what they say proves this, as what they do." Then the King answered ; " Can you won- der. Dame, That Reynard's conduct should my wrath in- flame ? My trusty Hare did he not basely slay ? And lead that Simpleton, the Ram, astray ? And now presumes in open Court, forsooth. To boast about his loyalty and truth ; When by the gen'ral Toice accused he stands, Of crimes unnumbered as the ocean sands ! 'T is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. He breaks My peace and sets My laws at nought. With robberies and murders, day and night. My land and Lieges doth he vex and fright ! I'll bear no more ! " Then answered the She- ape ; " Not ev'ry one his course can wisely shape. 'T is hard to please all men, and giv'nto few Both to deserve success and get it too : And he who prospers, in his path shall find Honor before. Envy and Hate behind ; His Foes in secret will his ruin scheme, When open fight too dangerous they deem. " And many a time has this to Reynard happed. ft cannot have Tour memory escaped. How often to your rescue he hath come. With counsel sage, when all the rest were dumb. What fine discernment through his judgment ran In that late leading case of ' Snake and Man.' None could decide the issue that was raised, But he alone ; how was his wisdom praised ? " Noble the King reflected a brief space, Then answered ; " Yes, I recollect the case ; But all the details I have quite forgot. 'T was most confused and tangled ; was it not? I pray you, if you can, the facts relate.'' " Briefly," said she, "the whole affair I'll state. "Two years ago, a Snake of Dragon race Loudly accused a Peasant to Your Grace. The Man refused her justice, she complained, Though twice against Mm she hadjudgment gained. The Man appearing to defend the wrong, She entered on her case with eager tongue. " Through a small op'ning in a hedge one day The Snake, it seem'd, had tried to force her way ; A springe there was before the op'ning plac'd, Which, as she entered, caught and held her fast. She must perforce have perished where she lay, But that a Trav'Uer chanced to pass that way j To whom she loudly cried ; ' Oh I pity me ! ' Let me implore thee. Sir ! and set me free ! ' And the Man said; 'Well, I will let thee loose ; ' 'T is hard to see thee strangling in that noose. ' Yet ere I do it, thou must frankly swear ' From ev'ry mischief tow'rds me to forbear.' A solemn oath the anxious Dragon vowed, Ne' er to harm him to whom her life she owed. Then from the snare the Man the Snake re- leased ; All gratitude she was, or seemed at least. '' They travelled on together, but ere long The Dragon felt the pains of hunger strong. And in a moment on the Man she flew. Thinking to strangle and devour him too. With fearful energy he sprang a,side, And ' Oh ! is this your gratitude ? ' he cried, ' Is this the way you keep that awful oath ? ' Said she, ' To break it I am truly loath, ' But I am positively faint with hunger ; ' I feel a gnawing I can bear no longer. ' I know how shocking is ingratitude; ' But cannot perish here for want of food.' ' Spare me a little yet ; ' the Man replied ; ' Some People we may meet who shall decide, 'ImpartialJudges betwixt thee and me.' ' Well r tartly said the Snake ; ' so let it be 1 EEYNAED THE FOX. 57 " They journey'd on, till, coming to a pond, Strongnib, the Raven, with' his Son they found ; His name was Little Beaky. These the Snake Begged the arbitrament to undertake. The Raven heard the case with thoughtful care, And, hoping to himself might fall a share. Straight gave his judgment that the Man be eaten. ' Now,' cried the Snake triumphant, ' I have beaten ; • My honest purpose shall no more be crost.' ' Nay,' said the Man, ' I have not fairly lost. ' How shall a Thief on life and death decide ? ' Or such a case by one sole Judge be tried ? ' I stand upon my Right and shall appeal ; ■ A Court of four or ten I safe might feel.' ' Come on then,' said the Snake ; and oS they set; Ere long with both the Wolf and Bear they met. The poor Man now was seized with mortal terror ; Sure five such Judges never sat in error ; A Bear, a Wolf, two Ravens, and a Snake ; Well might th' Appellant for his safety quake. The hungry Court were soon unanimous ; And the grim Wolf delivered judgment thus ; — ' The Snake beyond all doubt the Man might kill, ' Yet keep her conscience quite unburdened still; ' 'T was plain no law necessity could know, ■ And hunger would release from any vow.' . " Anxious enough the Man was, for the five Had plain made up their minds he should not live. Then darting forth her forked and pois'nous tongue Again the Snake upon the Trav'Uer sprung. He leap' d aside with prompt dexterity. Crying, 'Who gave thee power over me? ' ' Twice thou thyself hast heard it ; ' she re- plied ; 'Twice has the judgment been upon my side.' Then said the Man, ' Judges yourselves ye call! Robbers and Murd'rers are ye, one and all I' ' You and your judgment I repudiate; ' King Noble only shall decide my fate ; ' To him do I appeal ; to his decree ' Will I submit, though adverse it should be.' " Then said the Wolf and Bear with jeering grin, ' You'd better try ; the Snake is sure to win.' They thought no doubt that the assembled Peers Would counsel You, Sire, just like Wolves and Bears. Five pressed against poor One, his life to take ; The Wolf, the Bear, the Ravens, and the Snake. The Wolf indeed put in a triple claim ; His Sons, Thinpaunch and Greedyguts by name. Each hoped to have a share of the poor Man; A terrible disturbance these began ; Howling and clamoring in such a sort, That both were promptly ordered out of Court. " Humbly imploring justice of your Grace, Then did the Man begin to state his case ; — The Snake now wish'd to kiU him, heedless both Of all his kindness, and her solemn oath. The facts the Snake knew could not be denied, hence She pleaded, in confession and avoidance, Th' almighty power of hunger was the cause, Which owns no master, and obeys no laws. "Sore puzzled were You, Sire, how to de- cide ; Solution it appeared the case defied ; Hard to condemn the honest Man it seemed ; And hard to bear sharp hunger's tooth. You deemed. Your Council then You summoned to Your aid. Who only more involved the question made ; Most part gave judgment that the man should die, But gave their reasons too, unluckily ; And these so bad and inconsistent were. The more they gave the more they 'broiled th' affair. For Reynard, as a last resource. You sent ; He came and heard afresh the argument ; You the decision left to him alone, And said as he adjudged, it should be done. 58 REYNARD THE FOX. "Then Reynard said, 'Ere I decide tlie case, ' 'T ia needful I should go and view the place ; 'And eee the very way the Snake was bound, 'When by the Traveller she first was found.' So to the spot they sallied, and when there. The Snake again was fastened in the snare ; Thus matters stood exactly as they were. " Then Reynard gave his judgment : ' Things are now ' Just as before the cause arose below ; ' And neither party can of triumph boast, ' For neither now has won, and neither lost ; ' And as the circumstances now appear, ' The justice of the case to me seems clear : ' If the Man please to do so, from the noose ' The Snake, upon her oath, he may let loose; ' If not, then he can let her hang there still, ' And go about hia bus'ness if he will. ' Such are my views : if better here there be, ' Impart them ; or, if not, use these with me.' " Reynard's decision of this weighty cause Met at that time with general applause. From you, my Liege, and all who knew the laws. The Man vowed better it could not have been ; It even gained th' approval of the Queen. "'T was on all hands agreed that fitter far Bruin and Is 'grim were to serve in war; For they were known and feared in ev'ry spot. And gladly went where plunder might be got. Strong are they, big and bold; that none denies, Yet are their words more bold and big than wise ; And too much of their strength alone they brag, While in the field behind they often lag. At home the Bravest of the Brave are they ; At home too always they prefer to stay : In sooth the Bears and Wolves eat up the land ; 'Gainst their united force there 's nought can stand. What matters it to them whose house may burn? Xo warm them by the flames will serve their turn. What matters it to them who pine or starve ? While their own meals they take good care to carve. They gulp the yolk, and leave the shell, and swear That the partition is most just and fair. Reynard the Fox though, on the other hand, The rules of justice well doth understand ; And if some evil he perchance have done, Remember, Sire, he is not made of stone. A wiser Counsellor You ne'er shall meet; Hence am I bold his pardon to entreat." And the King said ; "I must awhile reflect. The judgment I distinctly recollect ; Justice was done unto the Snake, 't is plain > Yet still a Rogue is Reynard in the main. Who trusts him is deceived beyond all doubt ; No bonds so tight but he will wriggle out. The Wolf, the Bear, the Cat before ; and now Hath he assailed the Rabbit and the Crow ; One of an eye, another of an ear, A third of life itself he spoils, you hear ; And yet, though why I cannot comprehend, You seek the odious monster to defend." " Ah ! Sire, I cannot from myself conceal The service he hath done the Commonweal ; " Thus the Ape answered ; " nor will you deny How num'rous are his Friends and Family." Then rose the King of Beasts and issued straight To where th' assembled Court his coming wait. Round that vast circle as he cast his eyes, A host of Reynard's Relatives he spies ; To vindicate their Kinsman's cause they came, And in such numbers they were hard to name ; They ranged together close : on th' other side The num'rous Foes of Reynard he descried ; The Court they seemed between them to di- vide. And thus began the Monarch ; " Reynard, hear; Thyself from this one crime how canst thou ^ clear ? By thee, with Bellyn's help, the Hare is dead ; And as a despatch thou send'st Me back his head. 'T was done to mock My pow'r, that well I know ; But Bellyn has atoned, and so must thou." " Woe's me ! would I were dead I " the Foi replied ; REYNARD THE FOX. 59 " But as You find the truth, Sire, so decide. If I am guilty, let me die, and shame Fall as a heritage upon my name. Bellyn, the Traitor vile, hath filch' d from me The rarest Treasure eye did ever see. To him and Puss 't was giv'n ; and sure I am. That Puss was robbed and murdered by the Ram. Oh I could it be but found ; though much I fear It never more to daylight will appear." " Nay," said the sly She-ape, " why thus despond ? If 't is on earth it surely may be found. Early and late we'll seek and never tire ; Of Priests, as well as Laymen, we '11 inquire. But, that our labor may not be in vain. What were the Jewels like 'twere best ex- plain." "Ah, well-a-day ! " said Reynard; "but they were Such wondrous costly things, so rich and rare! To get them back I have but little hope ; None but an Idiot e'er would give them up. How will it vex poor Ermelyne, my wife ; I fear she '11 not forgive me all her life. For, doubting Bellyn, if not Pussy too. She begged me not to let the Treasures go. "I would commence the search this very day; But these false charges force me here to stay; I 'm bound in honor to defend my Right, By the bold ordeal of judicial fight. If I succeed, — as sure succeed I must. Since I am innocent and Heav'n is just, — Unsought I will not leave one spot of ground. But these lost Jewels shall again be found." CHAPTER THE TENTH. THE SECOND PABDON. " My Liege !'' thus ran the Fox's crafty speech ; " Before my Friends a hearing I beseech ; What Treasures let them learn for You were sent; For though 't was foiled, yet good was mine intent ; On me the blame falls not, but on the Thief." " Say on ; " the Monarch answered, " but be brief." " Honor and Faith, alas ! from earth have fled ! " With well-dissembled grief then Reynard said : " The first of these choice Jewels was a Ring ; Designed a special present for my King. Of finest, purest gold this Ring was cast ; Yet was the substance by the work surpass'd ; E'en the Crown Jewels 'twould not have dis- grac'd. On th' inner side, that next the finger worn, Engraven letters did the hoop adorn ; Three Hebrew words of meaning strange they were; Few in this land could read the character. To Master Abryou of Triers alone, The meaning of those mystic words was known : He is a wise and very learned Jew, Skilled in all tongues 'twixt Luen'burg and Peru ; With stones and herbs is he acquainted well ; Knows of what use each one is capable. He said, when unto him I showed the Ring ; ' Concealed here lies full many a curious thing ; ' These three engraven names, from Paradise ' Were brought of yore by Seth, the Good and Wise; ' When he, of coming Ills to Man fore-taught, ' In Eden's bow'rs the Oil of Mercy sought. ' Who on his finger wears this Ring shall be ' From ev'ry risk and peril always free ; ' Lightning nor thunder-bolt nor magic charm ' Shall potent be to work him woe or harm.' And furthermore the cunning Master said. Whose finger bore that Ring, so he had read, Should never freeze in winter's direst cold. And calmly live in years and honors old. " On th' outer side was set a precious Stone, A brilliant Carbuncle by night that shone. And, with its clear and phosphorescent ray. All things discovered, plain as it were day. Great pow'rs too had this Stone the Sick to heal ; Whoso but touched it free from crime should feel; Nor grief nor trouble could his mind disturb ; The pow'r of Death alone it could not curb. And the sage Master unto me made known The future virtues of this wond'rous Stone ; As thus ; the proud Possessor of the Gem Both fire and water may alike contemn ; Safe from the power of each Enemy, 60 REYNARD THE FOX. Betrayed or captured can he never be. If fasting, on the Stone he gaze, fourscore Of Foes shall he o'ercome in fight, and more. The virtues of that Jewel can reduce The strength of poison and each deadly j uioe. Hate it at once will quell ; nay, e' en will oft- en The hearts of those you have befriended soft- en. ' But who could count this Jewel's virtues o'er? I found it haply 'mong my Father's store ; And kept it ever sacred for my King : Myself I knew unworthy such a Ring. Of right it appertained to him alone. Whose virtues shed alustre on his Throne ; On whom depend our hopes and welfare still. Whose life I've ever guarded, ever will. " I trusted also, luckless that I am ! A Comb and Mirror to that treach'rous Ram. I hoped that they accepted might have been. As a memorial, by my gracious Queen. They were, in sooth, most precious works of art. And form'd too of my Father's hoard a part. Coveted were they greatly by my Wife, And caused, alas ! between us, frequent strife ; She fairly longed for them, she used to say ; But yet I ne'er a single inch gave way. " Both Comb and Mirror I, with best intent. Unto my gracious Lady freely sent. A benefactress kind in Her I see ; From Evil hath she ever shielded me ; When slan'drous charges 'gainst me were pre- ferr'd. She oft hath interposed a friendly word. Royal She is by qualities and birth ; And both by words and works She proves her worth. None so deserved those Treasures as my Queen; And yet their beauty hath She never seen ; And — ah ! that I should say so— never will ! To find them now, I fear, is past all skill. " First of the Comb to speak. To fashion that. The Artist took bones of the Civet-cat ; That wond'rous Beast that lives on flow'rs and spice. And dwells 'twixt India's shores and Para- dise. Dyed is his skin with tints of various hues ; And sweetest odors round doth he diffuse ; Hence do all other Beasts his footsteps trace And follow him about from place to place ; For they all feel and know, his very smell Is certain to preserve them sound and well. 'T was of such bone this precious Comb was made ; His rarest skill the Artist had displayed ; It equalled polished silver in its brightness, And e'en surpassed it in its lustrous white- ness; Its scent excelled cloves, pinks and cinna- mon ; For the Beast's odor lives in ev'ry bone ; Corruption may his fleshly frame assail, But o'er his skeleton can nought prevail ; This never knows decay or gives offence, But keeps away all plague and pestilence. " Upon the Comb's broad back one might behold A large blue Stone engrained with threads of gold; Where stood in figures, carved in high relief, The tale of Paris, the young Trojan Chief; Who one day, sitting by a river's strand. Three Godlike Women saw before him stand ; Juno, Minerva, Venus, were they named ; Each for herself had long an Apple claimed ; — Though once 't was common to them all in- deed ; — To end this strife, at length they thus agreed ; Paris the golden Apple should decree To her he judged the Fairest of the Three, And hers alone it evermore should be. All Three the S'outh with curious eye sur- veyed ; ' Let me be fairest held,' thus Juno said ; ' Let but the Apple be decreed as mine ; ' And riches infinite henceforth are thine.' Minerva then ; ' The prize on me bestow, ' And mighty shalt thou be on earth below ; 'Dreadful thy name alike to Friend and Foe.' Last, Venus ; ' Why to Wealth or Might aspire ? ' Is not King Priamus of Troy thy Sire ? ' Are not thy Brethren, Hector and the rest, ' Supreme in wealth and pow'r by All con- fessed ? ' And while their arms still shelter Troy, your sway ' Does not this land, and foreign realms obey 7 ' If Beauty's Prize thou unto me award, ' Thine the best treasure Earth can e'er af ford; EEYNAED THE FOX. 61 ' That treasure is a Woman past compare, 'As noble and prudent, virtuous and fair : ' Give me the Apple ; Greece's peerless Queen 'Thou shalt possess; Helen the famed, I mean.' To her the Apple then awarded he. Adjudging her the Fairest of the Three. He by her friendly aid that Lady gay, The Spouse of Menelaus, stole away ; And long did her sweet fellowship enjoy. Secure within the sacred walls of Troy. " Carved was this story on a middle field ; Bound which, with graven words, stood many a shield ; That whoso took the Comb up in his hand. The fable there might read and understand. " Next of the Mirror hear. In lieu of glass, A clear and beauteous Berylstone there was ; All things were shewn therein, though miles away; And that, by night as plainly as by day. Whoso upon his face or speck or spot, Or in his eye perchance a cook had got. Let him but gaze upon that Mirror clear, And ev'ry blemish straight should disappear. Who would not, having such a treasure, boast? Who would not grieve for such a treasure lost ? " Out of a costly wood was made the frame, Close-grained and shining ; Shittim is its name; No worm can pierce it ; and men justly hold, 'T is more than equal to its weight in gold, The nearest that comes to it in degree. For its rare qualities, is Ebony. 'T was of this wood, so shining and close- grained. In days of yore, when King Crompardes reign'd, A cunning Artist framed a wond'rous Steed, Of mighty powers and unrivalled speed ; His Rider in a short hour's space he bore. With greatest ease, one hundred miles, or more. I know not all the facts ; but any how A Steed like that you cannot meet with now. "The Mirror's border, for a good foot wide, With exquisite carved work was beautified ; And 'neath each subject an inscription stood, In golden letters, which its meaning shew'd. " Briefly of each of these will I discourse: First came the story of the envious Horse; Who, racing for a wager with a Stag, Was greatly vexed so far behind to lag. ' Shepherd, on the plain, he thus address' d; ' I '11 make thee wealthy, do but my behest. ' A Stag has hid himself in yonder brake ; ' I '11 carry thee ; mount boldly on my back ; ' Him thou shalt slay, and flesh and horns and fell ' In the next market town canst dearly sell. ' Mount on my back at once ; we '11 give him chase ; ' I '11 venture,' said the Swain, ' in any case ; ' No harm can come of the experiment.' So up he mounted, and away they went. The Stag they saw a little way ahead ; They followed fast, and fast away he fled, Till the earth trembled under their thunder- ing tread. Long the Chase lasted, but the nimble Hart Of his Pursuers had, and kept the start ; Until at length, relaxing in his speed. Thus spake, panting, the over-wearied Steed ; ' Prithee dismount, for I am quite distrest ; ' Heavy thou art, and I have need of rest.' ' No, by my soul ! ' the Shepherd Man re- plied ; ' It was thyself invited me to ride ; ' I' ve got thee and I'll keep thee in my power.' And Man's Slave has the Horse been since that hour. Thus Evils, which for Others had been sped, Will oft rebound on the Projector's head. "Now further hear, while I with truth What next was carved around the Mirror's How once upon a time it came to pass, A rich Man owned a Spaniel and an Ass ; The Dog was never known to bark or bite, And was deservedly a Favorite ; At table by his Master's side he sate, Fish, flesh and fowl together with him ate ; Or rested in his lap, and there was fed With dainty morsels of best wheaten bread. The Spaniel then, who was a Hound of grace, Would wag his tail, and lick his Master's face. Now Neddy, when he saw the Dog's good luck With envy and astonishment was struck ; ' With my Lord's tastes,' said he. ' how can it suit 62 EEYNAED THE FOX. ' To be so partial to that lazy Brute ? ' Up in his lap it jumps, and licks his beard, 'As though by such strange antics 't were endear' d ; ' While I must toil and travail, in and out, ' Fetch faggots home, and carry sacks about. ' I wish my Lord would think the matter o' er, • And take a dozen Dogs, or e'en a score ; • I'd wager, in a year they'd not get through - One half the work that in a month I do. While with the best his Dogship fills his maw, ■= Half starved am I, or only stuffed with straw. ' On the hard earth my couch has ever been : ' And jeered and mocked am I, wherever seen. ' I can and will this life no longer bear ; ' In my Lord's favors I will have my share.' Just as he spoke, his Master chanced to pass ; His game at once begins that stupid Ass ; Cockn up his bended tail, lays back his ears. And o'er his frightened Lord curvetting rears ; Brays long and loudly, while his beard he licks. And strives to imitate the Spaniel's tricks. Caressing him with hard and lusty kicks. His terror-stricken Master sprang aside ; ' Oh ! take this horrid Ass away,' he cried ; ' Kill him at once 1 ' His Servants run in haste ; With showers of blows poor Neddy's sides they baste ; Then in his stable lock him up again : And thus the Ass he was he doth remain- "How many are there of this self-same brood, Who, envying Others, do themselves no good. Set these in place or power, and just as soon Might you feed Porkers with a silver spoon. Let the Ass still his burdens duly bear : Of straw and thistles make his bed and fare : Treat him in any other way you will, The Brute retains his former habits still ; And, taking human nature for his guide, Seeks his own ends, and cares for nought be- side. " Further will I this narrative pursue ; If these long tales. Sire, do not weary You. Around the Mirror's border next was placed. Carved in relief, with proper legends graced, The story how Sir Tybalt, heretofore, Eternal friendship with my Father swore : Each vowed to Each to prove a firm Ally, And common danger jointly to defy. Trav'Uing along one day they chanced to hear A cry of Hounds and Huntsmen in their rear. ' Hark to those sounds,' cried Tybalt ; ' good advice ' Were worth, at such a moment, any price.' The old one said, ' Your terrors, prithee, lull ; ' Of wiles and shifts I have a budget full. ' Let's stick together, nor forget our oath ; ' And they shall Neither of us have, or Both.' (He said this merely Tybalt to console ; He had no shifts or wiles, good simple Soul 1) 'Bother the oath!' replied the treach'rous Cat; ' Methinks I know a trick worth two of that.' Into a tree, as fast as he could tear. He climbed, and left his Uncle planted there. The poor Soul stood awhile in anxious doubt ; While near and nearer came that Hunter rout. Then said the Cat ; ' Uncle, as you don't climb, 'You'd better ope your budget; now's the time ! ' Just then the Beagles caught my Sire in view ; The Huntsmen shouted, and their horns they blew ; Off ran my Father ; after him the Hounds ; Amid a perfect Babel of mad sounds ; Barking and bellowing and bugle-blowing, Enough to set the very Devil going. My Father swate again for very fright. His fewmets cast, and made himself more light ; BEYNARD THE FOX. 63 And so at length he 'soaped his Foes by flight. Thus by his best of Friends was he betrayd, By him to whom he trusted most for aid. His life was perilled, for those Dogs were swift ; The hole he fled to was his only shift ; And had he not remembered that in time, His Foes would soon have made short work of him. "Would of such scurvy Scum the world were rid, Who treat their Friends as subtle Tybalt did. How can I love or honor such a Knave, Who's sinned the more, the more I pardoned have 1 All this was figured round the Mirror's frame, With legends fit to mark the moral aim. "Upon the next compartment might be view'd A specimen of lupine gratitude. The Wolf had found a Horse's skeleton. For little was there left of it but bone ; He gnawed voracious, and, by evil luck, A pointed fragment in his gullet stuck ; His sufferings were terrible to see, He was as nearly choked as Wolf could be. He sent forth Messenger on Messenger To call the Doctors in, from far and near ; But though he promised they should well be paid. Not one could render him the slightest aid. At length appeared the learned Doctor Crane, With crimson bonnet and gold-pommelled cane. ' Oh ! help me, Doctor ! ' cries the Invalid ; ' Oh ! help me, I beseech you, and with speed ; ' But from my throat take out this cursed bone, ' And any fee you name shall be your own.' The Crane of his professions felt no doubt ; He stuck his long bill down the Wolf's huge throat. And in a jiffey pulled the sharp bone out. 'Zounds!' howled the Wolf; 'you give me monstrous pain ! 'Take care you never hurt me so again ! ' I pardon you ; had it another been, ' I might not have so patient proved, I ween.' 'The bone's extracted;' said the cautious Crane ; ■ You're cured ; so never mind a little pain. ' As other Patients are expecting me, 'I'll go, if you'll oblige me with my fee.' Hark to the Simpleton 1 ' the rude Wolf said ; ■ He's hurt me, and yet wishes to be paid. ' 'T would seem the stupid Idiot cannot know ' How much to my forbearance he doth owe. ' His bill and head, which both were in my maw, ' Unharmed have I allowed him to withdraw : ' Methinks that I should ask for the reward ! ' 'T is thus the Strong all justice disregard. "These tales, and others of a, kindred taste. In high relief artistically ohas'd. With legends graved in characters of gold, Around the Mirror's frame one might behold. Too good for me so rare a work had been, For I am all too humble, all too mean ; Therefore I sent it for my gracious Queen. To her and You, my Liege, I hoped 't would prove A token of my loyalty and love. Much did my Children, little Dears, lament. When from their home away the Glass was sent. Before it, they were wont, the livelong day. To skip about and dance and frisk and play. And laugh in childish innocence of mind. To see their long thick brushes trail behind. Ah ! little did I then anticipate The Ram's foul treason or the Hare's sad fate! I thought they both were beasts of honest worth , And the two dearest Friends I had on earth. 64 KEYNAED THE FOX. Accursed the Murd'rer's mem'ry I denounce I All hope though will I not as yet renounce; Where' er the Treasures are, I make no doubt To find them still ; like Murder, Theft will out. Much I suspect that Some there present are, Who know the truth about the whole affair ; Both what befell the Jewels and the Hare. " Full well I know, my Liege, what weighty things Must daily occupy the minds of Kings. It does not stand with reason to expect, Each trifling matter You should recollect. Then let me that most wonderful of cures Eecall, which once my Sire performed for Yours. " Sick lay the King and dangerously ill ; He must have died, but for my Father's skill. Who say then, Sire, that neither he nor I Have e' er done service to Your Maj esty , Not only speak the thing that is not true. But utter a gross calumny on You. "Forgive me. Sire, nor deem my tongue too bold. With Your good leave that tale I will unfold, My Sire was known, as far as Fame could reach, Vo be a learned and a skilful Leech. All diagnostics of disease he knew. Judged by a Patient's pulse, and water too ; Could heal an injury in any part, And aided Nature with his wondrous Art. Emetics of all kinds he understood. And what was cool and thinning for the blood. With skill and safety could he breathe a vein, And draw a tooth without the slightest pain. You will not. Sire, remember this the least, For You were then a Suckling at the breast. 'T was when drear Winter's pall the earth o'erspread. Sick lay Your Father and confined to bed ; So sadly weak that he could not stir out ; They were obliged to carry him about. All who could medicine were bade to come. From ev'ry spot between this Court and Kome. Not One of them encouraged any hope ; But All, without exception, gave him up. Then my poor Father they called in at last, Though not till ev'ry chance of cure seemed past. He felt the Monarch's pulse, and shook his head ; ' May the King live for ever ! ' then he said ; ' Though much I fear he hath not long to live : ' To save his life, mine own I'd gladly give. ' The contents of yon vase let me inspect, ' To see what mischief I may there detect.' ' Do as he bids ; ' the King said to the Nurse ; 'Do what you will; I'm getting worse and worse.' " Upon the Mirror's rim was fair engraved The mode in which Tour Sire by mine was saved. The contents of the vessel they had brought My Sire examined, with reflective thought ; Then said ; ' To save Your health is but one way; ' And that will not admit the least delay : ' Your life is gone, unless, within the hour, ' The liver of a Wolf you shall devour ; ' He must too, at the least, be sev'n years old; ' And you must eat it, Sire, ere it be cold. ' All scruples on the point must be withstood ; ' The water here is thick and red as blood.' It chanced the Wolf was standing near the bed. And with disgust heard all my Father said. To him with feeble voice the Monarch spake ; ' You hear. Sir Wolf, the physic I must take. ' Quick, then, about it! to eiTect my cure, ' You will not grudge your liv«r, I am sure.' ' Of no use mine would be ; ' the Wolf replied, ' I am but five years old next Lammas-tide.' ' Nonsense ! ' my Father cried ; ' we soon shall see ; ' For we must lay you open instantly. Off to the kitchen then the Wolf was brought ; And out they cut his liver, quick as thought 'T was dished up smoking on a silver plate. REYNARD THE FOX. 65 And by Your Royal Father eaten straight. From that same hour he was quite cured and ■well; Restored to health as by a miracle. What gratitude the King, Your Father, shewed ; The style of Doctor He on mine bestowed : At Court none dared this title to neglect, Or treat him with the slightest disrespect. Before th' assembled Peers he wore a cap Of crimson velvet, with a golden snap ; His place was ever at the King's right hand, And honored was by All throughout the land. " Of his poor Son how diff'rent is the lot I The Father's virtues now are all forgot. The greediest Rogues are now advanced to pow'r, Who only seek for what they may devour. Int'rest and Gain are thought of now alone. And Right and Justice but by name are known. Great Lords are those, who Servants were before, And without mercy grind the suffring Poor : Blindly they strike their former Mates among, Norheed theleast the ranks from whence they sprung. Their own advantage their sole end and aim. They still contrive to win, whate'erthe game. 'T is such as these that on the Wealthy fix, Their flatt'ry choking All on whom it sticks : No man's petition will they ever heed, If not by costly gifts accompanied : By rapine and extortion still they live, And, like the Horse-leech, ever cry, ' Give 1 give ! ' " Such greedy Wolves as these, the choice tit-bits Would always keep, as their own perquisites : When a prompt sacrifice their King might save. Time for reflection they will ever crave. You see how, in this case, the Wolf preferr'd To save his liver, rather than his Lord ; And what a liver too ! The selfish Brute I For I without reserve will speak my thought. In ought that danger to the King involves. What signifies the death of twenty Wolves ? Nay, without loss, the whole Tribe might be slain. So but the King and Queen their lives retain. None seek pure water from a puddled souroe, I TOL. IV — W. H. ' Or from a Sow's ear make a silken purse. No doubt, Sire, You the whole affair forget ; For you were much too young to noUce it : I'm sure though of the truth of what I say, As though it happened only yesterday. " 'Graved on the Mirror all this story stood ; For 't was my Father's special wish it should. Fair was the work and beauteous to behold, Adorned with Jewels, and inlaid with gold. Oh ! for the chance to get that Mirror back, Fortune and life how gladly would I stake ! ' ' " Reynard ! " said Noble, " I your speech have heard. And all your tales and fables, ev'ry word. Your Father may have been both good and great. And haply did vast service to the state : — It must have happened a long time ago ; I never heard one word of it till now. But of your evil deeds I learn each day ; Your sport is death ; so all My People say. If these are but old tales, as you declare. Strange that no good of you e'er meets mine ear.'' " Sire !" said the Fox, " allow me to ex- plain. What you have said has caused Me deepest pain. To you no good I e'er have done. You state ; — But not a word will I retaliate : Forbid it. Heaven ! for full well, I know, To You the service of my life I owe. " Permit me one adventure to repeat, Which I am certain You will not forget. Is' grim and I once chanced a Boar to hunt ; We caught him soon ; good Saints ! how he did grunt ! You came, and much of hunger You com- plain' d. And said Your Spouse was following close behind : — If we would Each give up a little bit, We should on both confer a benefit ; A portion of our booty we might spare ; And Is'grim answered, 'Yes ; ' — with such an air ; While all the while between his teeth he mut- tered. So that one could not hear a word he uttered. Said I, ' Sire! have Your wish I I but de- plore 5 ee REYNARD THE FOX. ' Instead of one Swine we have not a score. Say, Which of us the booty shall divide ? ' The Wolf! ' You then with dignity replied. Well pleased was Is' grim, and with shame- less front, 'Gan to divide, according to his wont. One quarter. Sire, he placed aside for You ; Another, to Your Royal Spouse as due ; The other half he claimed as his own share, And greedily began the flesh to tear ; My humble part, beside the ears and snout. Was half the lung, and that was all I got ; And all the rest he kept himself ; to us In sooth he was not over-generous. Your portion soon was gone ; but I perceived Your appetite was by no means relieved. Isegrim though, just like a greedy beast. Pretended not to see it in the least ; Continuing still to gnaw and champ and chew. Nor offered. Sire, the smallest bit to You. But then Your Royal Paws did You uprear. And smite him heavily behind the ear ; It tore his skin, and swift away he sped. Howling like mad, with bald and bleeding head. ' Thou blund'ring Glutton ! ' after him You cried, ' I '11 teach thee how thy booty to divide: ' Hence ! quick ! go fetch us something more to eat ! ' Then I said. Sire, — You should not want for meat ; I'd follow quickly upon Is' grim' s track. And I'd be bound, we'd soon bring some- thing back. And You were pleased to say. You were content ; So after Isegrim with speed I went. He shewed his wound, and grumbled bitterly ; But I persuaded him to hunt with me. We fell in with a Calf, which we pursued. And caught him ; 't was, I knew. Your fav'- rite food ; We brought and laid it at Your Royal feet ; It was an off 'ring for a Monarch meet ; Ycu saw 't was fat, and to reward our toil, With gracious condescension deigned to smile ; And many a kindly word to me You spoke, And said my hunting always brought good luck ; Adding, ' Now, Reynard, you divide the Calf.' I answered, ' Sire, to You belongs one half ; ' That, with Your leave, I place aside for You; ' The other to Your Royal Spouse is due ; ' The entrails, such as liver, heart, and lungs, ' All this to your dear Children, Sire, be- longs : ' I'll take the feet, for those I love to gnaw ; ' And with the head the Wolf may cram his maw.' Then, did You thus address me ; ' Where, I pray, ' Learnt you to carve in such a courtly way ? ' ' Yonder my Teacher stands, my Liege ; ' I said ; ' Thfi Greedy Wolf, with bald and bleeding head. ■ Had I not learnt, it were indeed a shame ; ' For, Swine or Calf, the principle's the same.' " Thus pain and sorrow did the Wolf be- fall ; And sure his greediness deserved it all. Alas ! there are too many of the kind ; To sacrifice all else to Self inclin'd. Their constant thoughts all bent in one direc- tion. They grind their Vassals, calling it ' Protec- tion.' The Poor perchance are starved, but what care they ? Ah ! wretched is the land that owns their sway ! Far otherwise, mine honored Liege, You see. That You have always been esteemed by me ; All that I ever either reap or glean I dedicate to You and to my Queen. Whate'er I chance to gain, or great or small ; you surely have the largest share of all. Think of this story of the Calf and Swine ; Then judge to whom reward You should as- sign. But ah ! poor Reynard's merits have growa dim ; All favors now are heaped on Isegrim ! All must submit perforce to his commands ; All tribute pass through his tenacious hands. But little for Your int'rest doth he care. Not e' en content with half for his own share. You heed alone what he and Bruin say. While Reynard's wisest words are thrown away. EEYNARD THE FOX. 67 " But now I am accused and shall not budge ; 1 know I stand before an upright Judge. Let whoso will, bring forth what charge he please, Let him bring forward too his Witnesses ; And pledge, upon the issue of the strife, As I will do, his wealth, his ears, his life. Such were the law and practice heretofore To these I now appeal, and ask no more." " Happen what may," then said the King, " by me The path of Justice shall not straitened be. Though thou art tainted, by Suspicion's breath. To have a hand in gentle Puss's death — My trusty Messenger ! I loved him well ; And mourned his loss, far more than tongue can tell ! How did I grieve when I the Beaver saw That bleeding head from out thy wallet draw ! His crime the Ram atoned for on the spot ; But thou hast leave to fight the matter out. — " We pardon Reynard's treasons 'gainst the Crown, For many services which he hath done. If Any aught against him have to say. Let him stand forth and prove it as he may ; Or by sworn Witnesses, or else by fight ; For here stands Reynard to defend his Right." Then thus the Fox replied ; " My gracious Lord! My humblest thanks are all I can afford. To ev'ry one You freely lend an ear ; And e'en the Meanest meet with Justice here. Heav'n is my witness, with how sad a heart I suffered Puss and Bellyn to depart ; Some strange foreboding of their fate had I ; For, oh ! I loved them both right tenderly.'' Thus cunningly did Reynard play his game ; Thus artfully his endless fables frame. Another triumph thus his wit achieved, For he again by all was quite believed. He spake with so much earnestness, in sooth. It was scarce possible to doubt his truth. Some with him even for his loss condoled ; And thus once more his Sov'reign he cajoled ; The story of the trinkets pleased the King ; He longed to have them, ' specially the Ring ; He said to Reynard, " Go, in peace of mind, Go, and seek, far and near, the Lost to find. Do all you can ; more will I not require ; My aid you may obtain, when you desire." "Thanks, Sire;" said Reynard, "for this act of Grace ; Now, in my heart. Despair to Hope gives place. To punish Crime, and Falsehood to refute. This is, my Liege, Your noblest Attribute. Though Darkness still the whole affair en- shrouds. Ere long shall Light dispel the murky clouds, The quest forthwith, Sire, will I expedite, Incessantly will travel, day and night ; And when I find the Treasures which I seek, If to retake them I should prove too weak. Then will I venture that kind aid to pray, Which You have offered graciously this day. Ah ! let me at Your feet but lay them down, Repaid shall be my toil ; my loyal truth made known." The Monarch seemed well pleased to be de- ceived. And all the Court as readily believed ; So cleverly the Fox his falsehoods wove, That what he only said, he seemed to prove. And Reynard's mind was wonderfully eased, For he was free to wander where he pleased. But Is'grim could his wrath no more re- strain ; He gnashed his teeth, and thus began com- plain ; " My Liege, and can you once more yield belief To this thrice-damned Perjurer and Thief? Perceive you not. Sire, that in boasting thus. He but deludeth You and beardeth us ? Truth doth he from his very soul despise ; And all his wit is spent in feigning lies. But I'll not let him off so lightly now ; What a false Knave he is I soon shall shew ; Him of three grievous crimes I now indict ; And 'scape he shall not, even should we fight. He talks of calling Witnesses forsooth ; — As though that were the way to get the Truth ! They might stand here and witness all the day; He 'd manage to explain their words away ; And there might be no Witnesses at times ; Should therefore all unpunished be his crimes ? But who will dare the Culprit to accuse. When he is sure his time and suit to lose ; And from that time for ever, wrong or right, Be a marked object for the RufHan's spite 7 E'en You Yourself, Sire, by experience know, 68 REYNARD THE FOX. As well as we, what mischief he can do. To-day I have him safe ; he cannot flee ; So let him look to 't ; he shall answer me! " CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH. THE DEFIANCE. Thus Isegrim, the Wolf, commenced his plaint ; Though words would fail his mighty rage to paint ; " My Liege, this Reynard is a Scoundrel still, He ever has been one, and ever wUl. And there he stands, and dares my wrath defy, Sland'ring myself and all my Family. My black Beast has he ever been, through life! What endless Evils has he wrought my wife ! He onoe contrived the poor Thing to per- suade Into a mill-pond through a bog to wade. He promised she should gratify her wish. And catch that day a multitude of Fish ; She'd but to slip her tail into the pond, And leave it hanging close upon the ground : Fast would the Fishes fix; she'd soon take more Than Three besides herself could well devour. Partly she waded on, and partly swam, Till to the sluice she got beneath the dam ; There, where the waters stood most still and deep. Should she her tail drop down, and quiet keep. Tow'rds ev'ning-tide there came a nipping breeze. And bitterly did it begin to freeze ; She had not borne it long ; but, in a trice. Her tail was fairly frozen in the ice. She thought 't was owing to the Fishes' weight She could not move it, and that all was right. Reynard perceived her case,— the Repro- bate ! — And then — but what he did I dare not state — He shall not now escape me, by mine oath ! That outrage costs the life of One or Both ! Prate as he will, he'll not impose on me ; Nor shall his lying tongue now set him free ! I caught him in the very act, I say — It was the merest chance I passed that way — I heard her cry, the poor deluded One 1 Fast was she fixed there, and defence had none. I came, and with my own eyes saw a sight — Oh Heav'ns ! why did my heart not break outright ? ' Reynard ! what art thou doing there V I cried ; He heard me, and away the Coward hied. I hastened to the spot in grief and wrath, Slipping and slith'ring on the glassy path. Ne'er had I greater trouble in my life. Than then, to break the ice and free my Wife. But my best efforts did not quite avail ; She was obliged , poor Soul ! to tug and hale ; And left behind a fourth part of her tail. Loudly she howled, and long ; some Peasants near Her cries of bitter anguish chanced to hear. They hurried thither and soon spied us out. And to each other 'gan to bawl and shout; Across the narrow dam in haste they swarmed, With spades and mattocks, pikes and axes armed ; The Womankind with spindles ; how they screamed and stormed ! ' Catch them and kill them ! curse them ! ' One and All Thus to each other did they loudly call. Such deep alarm I never felt before. Nor my poor Gieremund, till that sad hour. We saved our lives, though with the greatest pain. And had to run till our hides smoked again. There was one Fellow, — curses on his Soul ! Armed with a long and iron-headed pole, Who, light of foot, kept foil' wing in our track. For ever poking at my sides and back. Had not the night approached with friendly gloom. We from the spot alive had never come. And what a hubbub did the Women keep ! Swearing, the Hags ! we had devoured their Sheep. As they were armed with neither pikes nor prongs, They tried to wound us with their spiteful tongues. We tow'rds the water took our course again. And crept among the sedges in the fen. The Hinds dared not in this pursuit embark. For luckily it now had grown pitch-dark ; So they returned, sore disappointed, home : REYNARD THE FOX. And thus we just escaped our threatened doom. " You see, my Liege, how grave was this offence ; A mesh of treachery and violence. Such crimes Your love of justice must con- demn ; For None are safe unless You punish tbem." The King heard this complaint with pa- tient ear ; Then said, "Be sure you shall have justice here ; Her rights are ever sacred, come what may : But We will hear what Reynard has to say." The Fox replied: "If true this tale were found. Much to my credit would it not redound ; The charge is grave ; but gracious Heav'n forbid, I e'er should act as Is' grim says I did. All I have done was at his Wife's own wish : I don't deny I taught her to take Fish ; I told her where they would abound, and shew' d How she might get there by the nearest road. But soon as ever of the Fish I spoke. With greedy haste, away from me she broke ; Without reflection hurried to the spot. And all my rules and cautions quite forgot. Then if she happened to get frozen in, From sitting there so long it must have been ; Had she but pulled her tail more quickly out. She'd have got Fish enough, I make no doubt. But Gluttony, a vice to be abhorr'd. Like Virtue, often brings its own reward. The heart that never will be satisfied Must needs oft prove a drear and aching void. Whoso the Spirit hath of Greediness Will lead a life of trouble and distress ; Him nothing satisfies : this, Gieremund, When frozen in, by sad experience found. "And thus it is my trouble is repaid ! Thus am I thanked for all my honest aid ! I shoved and strove my best to set her free ; But much too heavy for my strength was she. While in this charitable act engaged. Came Isegrim, and furiously he raged ; He had, it seems, been prowling round the shore ; And there he stood, and fiercely cursed and swore ; I never heard such rude and savage tones ; They made my flesh quite creep upon my bones ; Once, twice, and thrice at my poor head he hurl'd The wildest execrations in the world. Thinks I then to myself, ' It seems to me ' My safest course at once to fly will be ; ' For it were better sure to run away ' Than to this jealous Madman fall a prey.' And well it was I fled, or, by my faith ! Beyond a doubt I had been torn to death. When two Dogs fight together o'er a bone, The victory can but remain to one. I thought it therefore far the safer course To flee his anger and his brutal force. For that he is a Brute he can't deny; Ask his own Wife ; she knows as well as I ; Ask her, and she no doubt will answer true. With him, the Liar ! what have I to do ? " When he perceived his Wife in such a plight, No doubt he went to help her ; well he might, If by the peasant Rabble they were press' d, I guess it happened really for the best; It cannot but have done the She-Wolf good. Have stirred her sinews, and have thawed her blood. 'T is truly infamous, upon my life. To hear him now so scandalize his Wife. But ask herself ; think ye, if truth he spoke, She would not vengeance on my head invoke ? " Meanwhile a week's imparlance will I crave, Means to consult my Friends that I may have; And see what answer it were best to frame. To meet the Wolf's absurd and groundless claim.'' " Nothing but Rogu'ry,'' answered Giere- mund, " In all you say and do is ever found ; Tricks, treason, treach'ry, stratagems, and lies, — Falsehood, in short, in ev'ry shape and guise. Who trusts your glozing and deceitful tongue, For his credulity will sufier long. This no one better than myself can tell ; Witness what happened lately at the well. " Two buckets there were hanging ; you in one — Wherefore I knew not — had yourself let down ; And nohow able to get up again. Of your position loudly did complain. At morning to the spot I chanced repair, 70 REYNARD THE J'OX. And asked, you what you could be doing there ; You answered, 'Cousin dear, come down here too ; ' There 's no good luck I would not share with you. ' Get in the bucket and descend with speed ; ' Of Fish I promise you a glorious feed.' " It was some Demon led me, sure, that way, And made me credit what you pleased to say; I to your oaths should ne'er have trusted more ; Well do I recollect what oaths you swore : Not only that of Fish you' d had your till. But you had even ate till you were ill. My sympathy my judgment over-ruled ; — Ass that I was to let myself be fooled ! " Into the bucket did I thoughtless get ; And down it went ; the other mounting straight ; A nd we about midway together met. Astonished and alarmed, I called to you ; ' In Heaven's name, where am I going to ? ' ' Here we go up and down ! ' you answered thus ; ' So goes it in the world, and so with us. ' Nor let it be a subject of surprise ; ' By our own merits we must fall or rise.' Safe mounted, on the edge you lightly stepp'd Out of your bucket, and away you leapt ; While at the bottom of the well I lay. In sad distress of mind, the livelong day. And suifered endless blows before I got away. " Some Boors came to the well at eventide. Nor was it long before poor Me they spied ; Piteous indeed was my unhappy state. As, cold and wet and hungry, there I sate. Then to each other said the Boors ; ' Hallo ! ' See ! in yon bucket sits our ancient Foe ! ' The Thief, from whom we nothing safe can keep ; ' Who eats our Kidlings and devours our Sheep ! ' ' Just pull him up ! ' said One ; ' I'll wait for him ; ' And he shall catch it, when he reach the brim.' •He for our Sheep shall pay!' another said : — I think the debts of all my Tribe I paid. Blows upon blows fell on me, thick and fast ; A sadder hour than that I never past ; I deemed each moment must have been my last." Then Reynard answered ; " If you but re- flect, Tliose blows, you'll own, had all a good effect. For mine own part, I honestly admit They 'd not have suited with my taste a bit; And as the matter stood, you see quite well. For both to ' scape had not been possible. To censure me is anything but just : In such a case you '11 ne'er Another trust A lesson for the future let it be ; — The world you know is full of roguery." " Now," said the Wolf, " what need of further proof ? From this vile Traitor have I borne enough. Of yet another outrage I complain ; The marks whereof I even stOl retain. Through him I got into the worst of scrapes. In Saxony among a brood of Apes. Induced by him I went into the lair ; He knew what mischief I should meet with there. Had I not fled with timely haste away. Both eyes and ears I should have lost that day. But with his lying tongue he told me first — Ah ! be that lying tongue for ever curst I — That I should find his Lady Aunt within ; Dame Ruckenaw I fancied he must mean. Of me he wished, I doubt not, to be rid. And grieved I got away, e'en as I did. He sent me down, the sly and juggling Elf! Into that horrid nest ; — I thought ' twas Hell itself." Reynard replied before th' assembled Lords, Malicious meaning lurking in his words ; "To pity Isegrim I'm half inclin'd ; I doubt if he is in his perfect mind. If this adventure he desire to teU, To state it truly would be just as well. " About three years ago, to Saxony, With a vast store of booty, travelled he ; I followed ; so far truth I recognise In what he states ; the rest 's a pack of lies. And those whose cruelty he now bemoans. They were not Apes at all, but just Baboons. With them no kinship have I ever claimed ; EEYNAED THE FOX. 71 Of such alliance I should feel ashamed. Martin the Ape, and Buckenaw his Spouse, They are my Kin, as Ey'rybody knows ; I honor him as Uncle, her as Aunt ; Of their afBnity I well may vaunt : He is a Notary, well versed in law, Can sign his name, and protests deftly draw. In what of those vile Creatures Is' grim spoke, Your scorn at my expense he would provoke. Relationship with them I quite repel ; For they are like the very Fiends of Hell. If I then called the old Hag ' Aunt,' 't was done For prudent reasons to myself best known ; I nothing lost thereby, I fairly own. Her honored Guest, I sumptuously fared ; Or else she might have choked, for aught I cared, " You see, my Lords, Sir Isegrim and I Left the high-road and passed a mountain by. A cavern in the rear we chanced to mark. Deep it appeared, and long, and wondrous dark. My Friend complained, as usual, of a sink- ing ;— He's got a Wolf inside him, to my thinking ; For let him eat as much as e'er he will, Who ever heard him own he'd had his fill? — I said to him ; ' The Inmates of this cave ' Will certainly good store of victuals have ; ' I make no doubt they'll let us have a share ; ' Most seasonable is our coming here.' But Isegrim replied, ' Go in and see ; ' I '11 wait for you meanwhile beneath this tree. ' Your social talents no one can deny ; ' You make Acquaintance easier far than I. ' Go in, good Coz ; I'm sure you'll be so good ' To call me, if you meet with any food.' He wanted me to face the danger first ; It being more, the Dastard ! than he durst. "I entered; nor without a shudd'ring dread Did I the long and sinuous passage thread ; And what I saw — oh ! not for worlds of gold. Would I again that awful sight behold ! — A nest of ugly Monsters, great and small. And their Dam with them, ugliest of them all. With long black teeth bristled her frightful jaws. Her hands and feet with long and crooked claws, A long and hairy tail behind she bore •. Such a grim Wretch I never saw before I Her swart, gaunt Children had the strangest shapes. And looked, for all the world, like goblin Apes. She gazed upon me with an evil eye ; ' Would I were safe out of this house I ' thought I. Than Isegrim she was a bigger Beast ; Some of her Young too were as big, at least. This horrible and hideous Brood I found Bedded on rotten hay on the dank ground. With filth all slobbered o'er. There oozed a smell On ev'ry side them, as from pitch of Hell. The honest truth to speak, for [ '11 not lie, I felt small pleasure in their company ; They were so many, and alone was I. With mine own bosom then I counsel sought, How from this cursed place I might get out. I greeted them with many a friendly word ; Although such a deceit my soul abhorr'd ; But thought it just as prudent to be civil; — E'en as I would be to the very Devil. I called the old One, ' Aunt ; ' the young ones, ' Cousins,' And gave thera tender epithets by dozens. ' May gracious Heaven grant you lengthened days ! ' Thus I began ; ' and prosper all your ways ! ' Are these your Children ? But I need not ask; ' Their likeness it were difficult to mask. ' I vow my very soul with joy it cheers, ' To see them look so well, the little Dears ! ' So fresh and nice do you contrive to make 'em, ' Strangers might for the Koyal Children take 'em. ' And grateful am I, as I ought to be, ' That you should thus augment our Family, ' And graft such worthy scions on our tree. ' Who has such Kinsfolk is most blest indeed ; ' For they may aid him in the hour of need.' • As thus lip-honor forth to her I dealt. Far different, in truth, from what I felt. She, on her side, of me made much ado ; Was very civil ; called me ' Nephew,' too ; Although the old Fool knew, as well as I, She bore no kinship to my Family. I thought, to call her 'Aunt,' was no great crime ; Albeit with fear I sweated all the time. 72 REYNARD THE POX. With kindliesi words by her was I address' d ; ' Reynard, dear Kinsman ! welcome, as my Guest ! ' 'T is very good of you, that I will say, ' To drop in on us in this friendly way. ' From your instructions shall my Children gain ' The skill how they to honor may attain.' Her Courtesy thus did I cheaply earn ; A trifling sacrifice just served my turn ; Claiming her kin, though she was so uncouth, And holding back some disagreeable truth. Most glailly would I then have gone away ; But she entreated me that I would stay ; ' So shoi t a visit surely you'll not make ; 'At least some slight refreshment you will take : ' And saying thus, she brought me heaps of food. More than I might describe, all fresh and good ; Fish, ven'son, wild-fowl, and all sorts of game ; — Much did I wonder whence the Deuce it came. Of all these to my heart's content I ate, And heartily enjoyed the bounteous treat. And even when I 'd had my utmost fill, She kept on urging me to take more still : — For some there are so over-hospitable, Would force their Guests eat more than they are able. — A joint of fine buck ven'son then brought she A present for my Wife and Family. I thanked her, as behoved me, for her cheer ; She was all gracious ; called me ' Cousin dear ; ' And said, ' I hope to see you often here.' I promised all she asked ; indeed I would Have promised anything, as matters stood. " At length I managed to get safely off. Without an accident, and pleased enough ; For nothing found I there, you may suppose. Either to gratify the eyes or nose. Through the dark gall'ries did I swiftly flee, And hastened to the op'ning by the tree : There on the greensward Isegrim still lay. Sighing and groaning in a grievous way. ' How fares it with you. Uncle mine ? ' I cried ; ' Ah ! nearly dead with hunger ; ' he replied. I pitied him, and just his life to save, The rnent T brought to him I freely gave. He ate it up with grateful gluttony ; Though now he has forgotten all, you see. His meal concluded, he desired to know. Who were the Dwellers in the cave below : ' What sort of Folk are they down there ? ' he said ; ' And was your entertainment good or bad ? ' I told him just the pure and naked truth ; The nest was vile, the Inmates most uncouth ; In manners wild, uncourteous, and rough ; To make amends though there was food enough : And if he wished himself to have a share, He 'd nought to do but enter boldly there ; Only he must be mindful Truth to spare. ' Though Falsehood is almost the worst of crimes, ' Truth is not to lie apol;en at all times.' This I repeated to hiru o'er and o'er. And added sev'ral snge inf-tructions more : ' He who unwisely swaggering about Truth, ' Has it for ever wobbling in his mouth, ' Is sure to meet with endless grief and woe, ' And persecution wheresoe'er he go ; ' Others caressed and prosp'rous shall he find ; ' While he in ev'ry place will lag behind.' I fully warned him what he might expect. If he these warnings madly should neglect : ' He who but speaks what Others like to hear ' Is sure to be respected far and near.' " These are the very words. Sire, that I Both for his guidance, and my conscience' sake : But if he chose to act quite contrary And suffer'd for it, who to blame but he ? His looks with age are grizzled, but 't is plain One seeks for judgment under them in vain. Such stupid Brutes on bluntness lay a stress, And disregard all prudence and finesse ; And, groping underground with mole-like eyes, Afiect the light of Wisdom to despise. The sole advice I pressed on him, forsooth. Was not to be too spendthrift of the Truth : He rudely answered, ' I should think I know ' How to behave, at least as well as you.' Into the cave then did he boldly trot ; And you shall hear what welcome there he got. "He finds the frightful Dam within her lair. Like some old dotard Devil crouching there : The young ones too ! With terror and sur- prise, EEYNAED THE FOX. 73 ' Help ! help ! what hideous Beasts 1 ' he wildly cries ; ' Are these your Offspring, pray ? Faugh ! how they smell ! • Worse than the slime-engendered Spawn of HeU! ' Take them and drawn them ! — that is all they 're worth; — ' Lest the unclean Brood overrun the earth ! ' An they were mine, I 'd have them throttled straight ; ' To catch young Devils they might serve as bait ; ' One need but take them down to some bog's edge, ' And let them hang there, fastened to the sedge. ' Bog-apes indeed ! it is a name that suits ' Their nature well, the nasty, dirty Brutes ! ' The outraged Mother answered with a shriek, For haste and anger scarce would let her ' What Devil sent this bouncing Knave to us ? ' In my own house to be insulted thus ! ' The vulgar BufEau 1 My poor Children too! ' Ugly or handsome, what is that to you ? ' Keynard the Fox, with fifty times your sense, ' A man of knowledge and experience, ' Has only just now left us ; he avow'd ' My Young were handsome, and their man- ners good ; ' Nay e'en to call them Cousins he was proud. ' A short time back, and in this very place, ' All this he stated frankly to my face. ' If you they do not please, as they did him, ' Eemeruber you came here of your own whim ; ' Nobody asked you. Gaffer Isegrim I ' But he demanded food of her, and said ; ' Bring it at once, or I your search may aid ; ' I cannot stand your vanity to please.' — With that he strove upon her store to seize. Nor prudent was the thought, or wise the deed; But little did he all my cautions heed. Upon him, quick as thought, herself she threw. And bit and scratched him, that the blood she drew. Her children too were all as bad as she, And tore and clawed and mauled him fear- fully. He did not dare return their blows again ; But howled and screamed in agony of pain. He sought, — the only chance his life to save — With hasty steps, the op'ning of the cave. " I saw him come, with mangled cheeks and lips, His torn hide hanging down in gory strips ; One ear was split and bloody was his nose ; He looked, in short, one wound from head to toes. I asked, for his condition moved my ruth, 'You surely have not gone and spoke the Truth ? ' But he replied ; • I said just what I thought. ' OhI to what sad disgrace have I been brought ! ' The ugly Witch ! Ah, would I had her here ! 'I'd make her pay for my dishonor, dear ! ' What think you, Reynard ? Have you ever seen ' So vile a Brood ; so nasty and obscene ? ' I told her so, and surely I did right ; ' But straight I lost all favor in her sight. ' I came but badly off, upon my soul ! ' Would I had never seen the cursed hole ! ' Then answered I, ' You must be mad, I swear ; ' How widely different my instructions were '' Your Servant, dearest Aunt," you should have said, — ' It never injures one to seem well-bred ; — 74 EEYNARD THE FOX. " The world, I hope, goes ever well with you, " And your sweet darling little Children too. " The joy I feel is more than I can tell " To see you looking all so nice and well." — But Isegriia impatiently broke in ; ' What ! call that Bitch my Aunt ! those Cubs my Kin ! ' The Devil may make oif with all the Fry ; ' He their relationship may claim, not I ! ' Faugh ! but they are a foul and filthy race ! ' Ne'er again may I meet them face to face I ' " Such were his actions, such was his re- ward ; Judge then if I betrayed him, good my Lord. He can't deny that what I 've said is true ; At least 't will not much help him if he do.'' Then Isegrim replied with wrathful tongue. His breast with sense of deep injustice wrung ; " 'What boots this idle war of angry words ? Can we decide our feud with woman's swords ? Right still is Right, whate'er the Bad pre- tend ! And he who hath it, keeps it to the end. Reynard now bears himself as vauntingly As though the Right were his ; but we shall see. " "With me you shall do battel ; thus alone On which side truth is marshalled shall be known. A pretty tale forsooth is this you tell Of our adventure at the She-ape's cell ; That I was starving and was fed by you ! But in what manner gladly I would know ; For what you brought me was just nought but bone ; You best yourself know where the flesh was gone. And there you boldly stand, and flout and jeer- By Heav'n ! but this doth touch mine honor near ! Suspicions vile your false and slanderous tongue On my good name and loyalty hath flung ; That I, devoid of 'legiance and faith. Had compassed and imagined my King's death ; 'While you to Him with idle fables prate Of stores and treasures, at a shameless rate. Treasures and stores, forsooth ! to my poor mind. Such wonders will be somewhat hard to find. But what doth most my vengeful wrath arouse Is the deep shame you've done my dearest Spouse. " For all these grievances, both old and new, I will do battel to the death with you. Here to your face do I proclaim you are A Traitor vile, a Thief, a Murderer ; And I will make it good, life against life ; And thus, and not by chiding, end our strife. What I avouch, I am prepared to prove ; Whereof in token here I fling my glove ; Thus formally the battel do I wage ; Stoop then if you have heart, and lift my gage. My Sov' reign Liege and all th' assembled Lords Have heard and know the import of my words ; They will assist this trial of the right, As Witnesses of our judicial fight. But you shall not escape me anyhow. Until our feud is settled ; that I vow ! ' ' Then with himself did Reynard counsel take ; ' Fortune and life are now indeed at stake : ' For big and strong is he ; I, weak and small ; ' 'Twere sad if ill mine efforts now befall ; ' Vain then were all my cunning and my skill ; ' Yet will I hope a good conclusion still. ' Of some advantage I may fairly boast ; ' Since his fore-claws he hath but lately lost : ' And, in the end, unless his passion cool, ' He may perchance be foiled, presumptuous Fool ! ' Then to the Wolf he boldly thus spake out; " I stuff the Traitor's name back down your throat ! Charge upon charge against me you devise, But I denounce them all as groundless lies ; You offer battel now, and haply think That from the trial I in fear may shrink ; But long I've wished this means my truth to prove ; The challenge I accept I Lo ! here my glove ! '' Then Noble, King of Beasts, agreed to hold The gages profl'ered by these champions bold ; HEYNAKD THE FOX. 7S And said, " Bring forth your Sureties now as bail Tliat at to-morrow's fight you shall not fail, Both sides I've heard, but understand no more — Nay, less I may say — than I did before." As Is' grim' s Sureties stood the Cat and Bear, Tybalt and Bruin ; those for Reynard were Greybeard and Monkie, Martin's Son and Heir. To Reynard then thus spake Dame Eueke- naw ; " Coolness and prudence now must be your law. My Husband, who is on his road to Rome, Taught me a pray'r last time he was at home ; Good Abbot Gulpall did the same compose, And gave it, as a favor, to my Spouse. He said it was a pray'r of woud'rous might, A saving spell for those about to fight : He who, the morning, this should fasting hear. Nor pain nor peril all that day need fear ; Vanquished he could not be by any Foe, Nor death nor wounds of any nature know. This pray'r o'er you to-morrow will I say ; Then, Nephew dear, be jocund for to-day." " Thanks, dearest Aunt," said Reynard, " for your care ; Deeply beholden am I for your pray'r ; But mostly do I trust, and ever will, The justice of my cause, and mine own skill." All night his Friends remained with him, and sought With cheerful chat to scare each gloomy thought. Dame Ruckenaw, more thoughtful than the rest. Was ever busied how to serve him best. From head to tail she had him closely sheared, And then with fat and oil his body smeared ; He stood all smooth and sleek from top to toe. That he no grip should offer to his Foe. Then thus she spake ; " We must be cir- cumspect, And on all chances of the fight reflect. Hearken to my advice ; a Friend in need. Who gives good counsel, is a Friend indeed. To-night, whate'er you do, before you sleep. Of light Liebfrauenmilch drink pottle-deep : To-morrow, when you enter in the lists^ Attend me well, herein the point consists — Wet well your brush — I need not tell you how — Then fly upon your unsuspecting Foe ; Lash at his face, and salve him right i' th' eye; His smarting sight will darken instantly ; This cannot fail to cause him sore distress, And in the combat profit you no less. Next must you take to flight, as though in fear ; He will be sure to follow in your rear ; You will take heed to run against the wind, While your swift feet kick up the dust behind ; So shall his lids be closed with sand and dirt ; Then on one side spring sudden and alert ; And while he stops his smarting eyes to wipe. Upon them deal another stinging stripe ; Thus, blinded, at your mercy shall he be. And yours the undisputed victory. " Yourself to rest now, dearest Nephew, lay; We will be sure to wake you when 't is day. But first, as now the midnight hour is past, Ere yet you slumber, and while still you fast, Your heart to strengthen, should it chance be weak, Those sacred words of power I '11 o'er you speak." Then both her hands she placed upon his head, And with a solemn voice these words she said : 76 REYNARD THE FOX. ' Tiw rof tfo sessap hsir''hhig gnidnuos-hgih ! ' Now ey'ry adverse charm you may defy." They laid him then to rest beneath a tree ; And there he slept both long and tranquilly. Soon as the morning o'er the hill-tops brake, The Beaver came his Kinsman to awake ; With him the Otter; greeting kind they gave; Bade him arise, and bear him bold and brave ; And laughing said, he had no need to shave. The Otter brought with him a nice young duck. And handing it to Eeynard, thus he spoke: "For this I've toiled, while you were fast asleep ; And it hath cost me many a parlous leap ; I caught it at the mill near Huenerbrod ; Eat it, dear Coz ; and may it do you good ! ' ' " Gramercy for the handsel!" Reynard said. With cheerful heart as out he skipped from bed; " So choice a present I would never slight ; I pray that Heav'n your kindness may re- quite." He ate and drank unto his heart's content ; Then to the lists with all his Friends he went ; Down to a sandy level near a field, Where the appointed combat should be held. CHAPTER THE TWELFTH. THE BATTEL. When Reynard thus before the throne ap- peared. Shorn of his hair, with oil and ointment smeared ; The good King was so tickled with the sight. He could not choose but fairly laugh outright. " Why, Fox, who taught thee such a trick ? " he cried, " As shave thy hair away, to save thy hide ! fleynard the Fox well may they christen thee. For all thy life is full of foxery ; No matter how involved may be the scrape, Thou 'rt sure to fiind some loop-hole for escape." Low to the King, with reverential mien. Bowed Reynard, and still lower to the Queen ; Then gaily did he leap the lists within. Where waited Isegrim with all his Kin ; Who prayed the Fox might find a shameful fate, And showered upon him words of thTeat'ning hate. The Lynx and Libbard, Marshals of the list, Brought forth the holy relics in a chest ; The while, bare-headed stood the Champions both. The Wolf and Fox, and took the wonted oath. With many angry words and scowling looks, First Isegrim the Wolf swore 'gainst the Fox : He was a Traitor, Murderer and Thief; Guilty of ev'ry kind of crime, in brief; False unto him and outraging his Wife ; This he would prove against him, life for life. Then Reynard swore, upon the other side, That Isegrim, the Wolf, most foully lied ; A Traitor and a Perjurer was he. While he himself from ev'iy crime was free. The doughty Marshals then, ere they with- drew, Bade both the Champions their devoir to do. And truly keep the rules of lawful fight ; And Heav'n in justice would defend the Right ; The lists then duly cleared of ev'ry one, They left the Champions in the midst alone. To Reynard though Dame Ruckenaw drew near. And, as she passed, thus whispered in his ear ; " Remember, Nephew, the advice I gave ; My counsel follow, and your credit save.'' To her, in cheerful tones, the Fox replies " My heart your kindly warning fortifies ; My wiles have carried me through many a scrape. Through risks of ev'ry kind and ev'ry shape ; Nor fear I but they shall assist me now To baffle yonder fierce and savage Foe. Shame upon him and his I look to heap, While all my Friends shall fame and honor reap." Now stand the Champions in the lists alone, While husht and still the anxious Crowd look on. Wildly and savagely, with outstretched claws, With bristling hair, and wide-distended jaws, Is' grim, the Wolf, the onset first began. And, swift as thought, at his Opponent ran. The wily Fox dared not the charge abide. But, light of foot, sprang actively aside ; Nor did he now his Aunt's advice forget ; REYNAED THE FOX. 77 Hia bushy tail already had he wet ; On BT'ry side this did he whisk and flirt, And so besmear it well with sand and dirt. Thought Isegrim, "I surely have him now;" But Reynard dealt him so severe a blow, Across his eyes, with his bedraggled tail, That the "Wolfs sight and hearing 'gan to fail. 'T was not the only time this trick he'd played ; Others this stinging ointment had essayed ; Isegrim's Children he half blinded so. As has been hinted at some time ago ; And now he hoped to blind the Father, too. Having to Is' grim' s eyes this salve applied ; Again the wily Reynard sprang aside ; And taking care to run against the wind, He stirred a mighty cloud of dust behind. This filled the Wolf's eyes, that they smarted sore ; The more he rubbed, they smarted all the more ; And worse he fared than he had done before. Meanwhile the crafty Reynard did not fail To ply with vigor his assiduous tail ; Lashing his Adversary left and right, Till wholly he deprived him of his sight. Faint he became, and dazed, and all con- fused : The wary Fox quick his advantage used : " Aha, Sir Wolf, How many a Lamb and other harmless Beast Your maw have furnished with a guilty feast ; While I have borne the scandal and the blame, And your bad deeds have sullied my good name; But your iniquities henceforth shall cease ; And the poor Innocents may rest in peace. A boon as gainful 'tis to you, as them, Your further guilty progress now to stem ; Your only chance is this your soul to save ; Yet if my pardon you will humbly crave, And freely own that vanquished now you are, I will have mercy, and your life will spare." He said; and gripping hard his Foeman's throat, Again his bleeding cheeks he fiercely smote. But Is'grim's strength no longer idle lay; He gave two vig'rous twists, and tore away. But Reynard at his face once more lets fly, And sharply striking him, tears out an eye : A deep and ghastly wound ! the smoking blood Adown his cheek in crimson current flow'd. " See ! " quoth the taunting Fox ; '' he hath it now ; Avenged am I, and vanquished is my foe ! " But mad with pain and heedless of his wound, The savage Wolf, with one tremendous bound, On Reynard sprang, and bore him to the ground : He seizing in his fearful jaws, One of Sir Reynard's foremost paws Shewed him the fight was not yet done And taught him that to change his tone, Good reason might be found. No other way was there to choose, Unless indeed his paw to lose Which still he hoped to save ; — Meanwhile the Wolf in angry voice And wrathful words this wretched choice To his opponent gave ; "Thrice perjured Knave, thy hour has come. Yield thee or death shall be thy doom. Thine hour is come ! it little shall avail To scratch the dust up, or bewet thy tail ; To save thy hair ; to smear thyself with grease ; Woe on thee. Miscreant ! thou'st run out thy lease ! Thou'st wrought me countless ills ; told many a lie ; Wounded me sorely, and tore out mine eye ; But now, escape thou shalt not ; yield or die ! " Thought Reynard then ; " This is an evil hour ! What shall I do on earth t' avoid his pow'r ? Me, if I yield not, will this Savage slay ; If I do yield, disgraced am I for aye. I've earned his hate, for I've abused him still, With wrong and insult, to my utmost skill." Then, with sweet words and accents soft and smooth, He strove his fierce Opponent's wrath to soothe ; " Hear me, good Uncle ! I with joy will be Your Vassal, I and all my Family ; A pilgrimage with pleasure, for your sake, Unto the Holy Sepulchre I'll make ; I'll visit ev'ry church upon my track. 78 EEYNAED THE FOX. And endless absolutions bring you back ; Your soul to benefit these cannot fail ; Your blessed parents too they may avail ; Though they may now be in a better place ; Who is there does not need a saving Grace ? I'll honour you, as though the Pope you were ; The deepest and most solemn oaths will swear, That I myself and all my Relatives Shall do you homage for our goods and lives ; And suit and service will we yield to you, More than to our liege King we even do. " Take then my offer, Uncle, while you may; And all the land shall quickly own your sway; All that I catch myself, to you I'll bring ; Fish, Fowls, Ducks, Geese and Pigeons — everything ! Yourself, your Wife and Children, of all pelf Shall have first choice, ere I wiU taste my- self. Your safety will I watch with anxious eye, That harm or danger ne'er approach you nigh. They call me cunning, powerful are you ; Together what great things may we not do ! What a confed'racy were this of ours ! Wisdom and Strength ! who could withstand such pow'rs ! To join together thus though, but to fight — That, dearest Uncle, never can be right ! This combat I had done my best to shun, If but it might with honor have been done. But, as the public challenge came from you, What, in the name of honor, could I do ? My courtesy I've carried such a length, I've not put forth one quarter of my strength ; For to myself I said, ' Now, have a care ; ' It is but right you should your Uncle spare.' Had I but given way to hate or spleen, How different the issue might have been ! You have not suffered much ; if your poor eye Have met with an untoward injury, It happened by the purest accident, For which, with all my soul, do I lament. I know a simple and a certain cure, In which you shall participate, be sure : Or if the hurt be greater than my skill, You'll have one comforting advantage still : If you at any time would fain repose, Only one window will you have to close ; While we, unless we always keep awake, A double trouble have to undertake. " Bethink you then, dear Uncle ; all my Kin Shall kneel before your feet, my grace to win ; Here, in full Court, my Children and my Wife From you shall pray my pardon and my life. Here will I even publicly declare, The crimes, I charged you with, but slanders were , That I have grossly lied ; nay, I will vow. That nought against your character I know ; That, for all future time, I never will Or breathe or think against you aught of 111. " This freely will I do to soothe your ire : What expiation can you more desire ? Kill me ; and where will be the slightest good? My Friends and Kindred will keep up the feud. Spare me ; and think how in renown you rise ; For all will deem you generous and wise. Prove thus how truly noble is your mind ; Another chance you may not quickly find. But do your pleasure ; for you will, I see : — To live or die is all the same to me ! " "False Fox!" replied the savage Wolf; " how fain Thou from my grapple wouldst be loose again 1 But were the world one lump of fire-tried gold. And offered h«re, my vengeance to withhold, I would not, base Dissembler, let thee go : What value are thine oaths, full well I know. What for thy Friends or Kindred do I care ? Their enmity methinks I well may bear, Well might'st thou at my silly weakness scoff, If protestations now could get thee off. Of thy forbearance thou didst boasting speak 1 How is 't mine eye hangs bleeding on my cheek ? By thine infernal claws is not my hide In twenty places scored and scarified ? When panting I was worn almost to death, What leisure didst thou grant to fetch my breath ? Pardon and Mercy ! That is not the way That Injury and Insult I repay! Me thou hast basely wronged ; and my joor Wife— REYNARD THE FOX. 79 Ah ! thou shalt pay the forfeit with thy life !" Thus spake the Wolf; the crafty Fox mean- while, Who saw that nothing could be gained by guile, Using the other hand he still had free. Gripped hold of his Opponent savagely • And in so very sensitive a part, The startled Wolf howled with the siok'ning smart. Swift then the Fox withdrew his other paw From the huge chasm of that portentous jaw ; With both his Foeman hard and fast he clenched, And lugged and scratched and haled and nipped and wrenched, That Isegrim screamed out, till blood he spate. And brake with pain into a seething sweat. Glad Reynard deemed his conquest now secure ; Yet, tooth and nail, held firm, to make all sure ; While the Wolf, spent and sprawling under most. Stifled and blind, himself gave up for lost The sanguine stream in copious currents flows, Adown his beard, from eyes and mouth and nose. Oh 1 not for heaps of wealth and boundless gold, The triumph of that hour had Reynard sold ! The more his Foe grew faint and weak, the more He griped and pinched and bit and clawed and tore ; I' th' dust the Wolf rolled, with dull, hollow sobs, Gestures unseemly and convulsive throbs. With wailings loud his Friends the Monarch prayed He would command the combat might be The King replied ; " E'en so then let it be, If you all wish it ; 't is all one to me.'' Then Noble bids the Marshals of the list To cause the champions from the fight desist. The Lynx and Libbard quick are at their post. And Reynard as the Conqueror thus accost ; ' Enough ! the King doth now his mandate send The combat shall conclude, the strife shall end. He wills you spare the life of Isegrim, And leave the issue of the day to Him. If either of the Twain should lose his life. We all had reason to regret the strife. The vict'ry, Reynard, rests with you ; we own That you right nobly your devoir have done ; And have from all golden opinions won." Then Reynard said; "To all my thanks I pay; And gladly will the King's behests obey ; Too proud to do whatever he require : Victor I what triumph can I more desire ? But that my cause I may not prejudice I humbly crave to ask my Friends' advice." Then Reynard's Friends with one accord replied ; "We think it best the King were satisfied." And round him gathered in tumultuous flocks The Relatives of the victorious Fox ; The Beaver and the Otter and the Ape, With Greybeard, wished him joy of his es. cape. And many greeted him as Friends, of those Who heretofore had been his dearest Foes ; The Squirrel and the Weasel and the Stoat, The Ermine too, and some of lesser note. Who formerly would scarcely speak his name. Kindred with him are now too glad to claim. In fine, he found no end of Relatives, Who brought with them their children and their Wives ; While Great and Little with each other vie. To lavish compliments and flattery. In the World's circle fares it ever thus ; Good wishes rain upon the Prosperous ; But the unfortunate or needy man May e'en get through his troubles as he can. So fares it now ; and all the Courtiers strive How honor to the Victor they may give. Some sing ; some play the flute ; the hautboy, some ; Some blow the trumpet; others beat the drum ; And his now num'rous Friends in chorus cry ; " Hail 1 happy day of joy and victory ! Hail! conqu' ring Hero ! unto whom we trace The honor and renown of all our Race. How did we grieve when wounded there yo" lay! How glad we greet the issue of the fray! " And Reynard answered ; " Thanks, my worthy Friends ; 80 EEYNAED THE FOX. For all I've borne your kindness makes amends ; " Then, 'while behind in swarming crowds they prest, Marched onward with the Marshals of the list. And thus with acclamations loud they bring The Conqueror in triumph to the King. So soon as they arrived before the throne, The Fox with humble bearing knelt him down; But the good Monarch motioned him to rise, And then addressed him thus, in gracious wise; " The day is yours by right of victory ; And from all forfeit We pronounce you free. With all Our Aarons, counsel shall be ta'en, So soon as Isegrim is whole again ; Then will We judge the cause as best we may. The matter is concluded for to-day." "Your resolution. Sire ;' ' with bow pro- found Said wily Reynard, " is both wise and sound. Thou know'st, when first I did appear, I stood accused before thy throne, And that, by some now standing here, Of crimes, which I had never known ; — This was to please the Wolf, for he Avow'd himself mine enemy. And sought mine overthrow. They saw that he held lofty place, And had thy favor and thy grace, Therefore, they join' d him to decry My fame, — and yell'd out 'Crucify!' A sorry pack, I trow ! They're like those hungry dogs of yore. That gather' d round a kitchen door; Hoping the cook their plight might see. And throw a bone, for charity. While thus they gazed, another hound. They saw from out the kitchen bound ; And in his mouth a piece of meat. Which he had stol' n ; but his retreat The cook had mark'd — hot water thrown. And scalded him unto the bone. But still he kept his prize. 'Ah, Ah ! ' the others cry 'see, see ! Gad' zooks, a lucky dog is he. And stands in favor with the cook. Heavens, what a piece! — nay, only look!' But quickly he replies : ' My friends, 'tis not as you suppose — Small favor have I had, God knows, And as you all may see ! Seen from the front, no doubt you find My case is good ; — but look behind. And you will pity me! ' They look'd, and saw his scalded tail And back, on which the hair did fail ; And gazed in horror and dismay, Hung down their tails, and slunk away, Leaving him there alone. " Such is the fate. Sire, of the Covetous ; They prosper and they perish ever thus ; In pow'r they find no lack of eager Friends, Who fawn upon them for their selfish ends ; With kind indulgence all their foibles treat. Because their mouths are haply full of meat: From All they look for and receive respect ; For who will dare the Prosp'rous to neglect ? Allies in Old and Young alike they find. Until misfortune falls on them behind ; Their enviable lot then alters quick, Their former Friends to them no longer stick; But right and left fall off, like scalded hair. And leave them in their sorrow, lone and bare; Or as that sycophantic pack of Hounds Forsook their comrade, when they saw his wounds. " Ah ! Sire; all humble though he be, and weak. Shall None of Reynard thus have cause to speak. I set some value on my honest name ; My Friends through me shall never come to shame. One only mission have I to fulfil ; To learn and execute my Sov'reign's will." "What need more words?" thus did the King reply ; " We comprehend the matter perfectly. To you as a free Baron We restore All privileges you e'er held before. Henceforth at Court Our favors shall you meet. And at Our Privy Council take your seat. To pow'r and honor will we raise you up ; And you shall well deserve it, as we hope. Whatever faults are charged on you, 't is clear We never can afford to miss you here. Of all your Peers none can above you rise. If only you prove virtuous as wise. No fresh complaints against you will We hear. Vi KA'JLBACH. PIT J ^:cGOFF:"^^,_sc^JLF ^ -/H /■ / /^'l-// //' '. REYNARD THE FOX. 81 No matter what Complainants may appear. Nay, to evince Our confidence still more, We now appoint you Lord High Chancellor ; Then did the Fox before the Monarch kneel, Saying ; " Ah ! could I speak the thanks I feel To You; Sire, and my gracious Lady dear. And, I may add, to everybody here ! May Heav'n eternal blessings on you shower; Would to confer them were but in my power. ' ' And now with grateful, though with hum- ble heart, I crave Your kind permission to depart ; And to my Wife and Children home return, Who still with anxious tears my absence mourn." " Depart in peace ! " replied the mighty King; "And fear not any man or any thing." So Reynard left with all his Kin ; two score There were who with him journeyed, if not more. All full of triumph and of joy they are, And in their Kinsman's glory hope to share. While he himself his transports noway veils ; But stalks as proud as though he had two tails ; To think he'd won such honor by sheer wit. And how the bravest use to make of it. " This realm henceforth (thus to himself thought he). On true Fox principles shall governed be. By members only of my Family. A certain truth the world may thus behold. How much more wisdom is of worth than gold." VOL, IV, — W. H, Thus he, with all his Friends, as an escort, Reached Malepartus, his domestic fort. He thanked them for the sympathy they'd shewn. When he in peril's harm had stood alone ; And promised all their kindness to repay ; Then they departed and went each his way. His dwelling then he entered, where be found His Wife and Children haply safe and sound How Ermelyne rejoiced to see her Lord To her fond arms alive and well restor'd! And earnestly she prayed him to relate By what good chance he 'scaped his threat- ened fate. Reynard replied ; "It was not chance, dear Wife, But skill and cunning that have saved my life. Again with Noble reconciled am I ; Ne'er in his favor have I stood so high. He's called me to his Council, as of yore. And in full Court has named me Chancellor ; Has given into my keeping the Great Seal ; So henceforth I shall rule the Commonweal. The Wolf have I in battel overcome ; In future are his lips for ever dumb ; Wounded he lies, disabled and disgraced ; My marks of vengeance on him have I placed, Her streams of sorrow may his Wife unsluice Henceforth her Husband is of little use. But nothing shall I grieve on that account ; Vanquished is he, and I, Lord Paramount Be of good cheer then. Love ; for happy hours 6 82 EEYNARD THE FOX. The future liaa in store for us and ours." Great was the Vixen's gladness ; while her Boys Their Sire half deadened with their frantic joys. They frisked and sprang about on ev'ry side; "Oh, happy day! oh, joyful hour!" they cried ; " Who upon earth so fortunate as we? For honored through our Father shall we be. Our Enemies we now may set at nought, And have it our own way, as Foxes ought." Now Reynard lives in honor and in state ; Then let us all his wisdom imitate ; Eschew the Evil and select the Good : This moral points our tale, when understood. The truth with fables hath the Poet mixed. That Virtue in your hearts may be infixed ; And you who purchase and peruse this poem May see the ways o' th' world, and learn to know ' em ; As it has been, is now, and aye will be. Here then ends Reynard's life and history ; And with a bow we here lay down our pen. The Lord preserve us evermore. Amen ! The scribe who erst this tale did write. Now wends him to the Wolf's sad plight; Tells how his friends, the Bear and Cat, In rueful council o'er him sat ; And bore him from the lists away. Upon a litter stuffed with hay. How learned leeches dressed each wound, How all his hurts were salved and bound, And twenty-six, in number found. How some rare herb, rubb'd in his ear, Caused signs of life to re-appear ; And how in piteous case he lay, Stretch'd on his bed for many a day. His wife attended him with care. But mourn'd the loss she had to bear, For faith ! unto their mutual pain, He ne' er was quite himself again. THE END OF BETNAED THE FOX. EEGO BIBAMUS! Assembled we have for a laudable end. Associates ! Ergo bibamus ! Whilst raising the glasses, your chatting sus- pend! Remember the " Ergo bibamus ! " No older, no truer a word do I know, No better from neighbor to neighbor to go, At banquets in value and volume to grow, Than glorious " Ergo bibamus ! " But shortly ago when my darling I spied, I thought of the " Ergo bibamus ! " Approached her and smiled; on her turning aside, I quickly repeated : Bibamus ! And when reconciled, she will pet me and kiss. Or when I her tenderness painfully miss, For want of a better I cherish the bliss Of comforting " Ergo bibamus ! " Stern fate has decreed, and I have to obey, To part from you. Ergo bibamus ! No load shall I carry unless you will say Repeatedly: " Ergo bibamus ! " Unlike to the miser's emaciate frame, The joyous will fatten, and thrive all the same, His comrades will duly acknowledge his claim And help him by " Ergo bibamus ! " The present occasion, allow me to say, Is one of an " Ergo bibamus ! " To-day is, indeed, a peculiar day. Suggestive forever : Bibamus! Our joy is so inward, our feelings so bold. That up in the skies like the faithful of odd We clearly our angels, our idols, behold, Who lovingly whisper : Bibamus ! From the German o/ Goelhe. Th, by Paul Drtsex, THE BOOK PEDDLER. 83 THE BOOK PEDDLER. [SiJHOTL Gkiswold GoorRiCH, 1793-1861 ; bom .n Connecticut. He was a book publisher in Hartford and Boston. In the latter city he was the editor of the Token, an illustrated annual. He is best known as Peter Parley, a nom de plume, which he assumed in writing a series of books for children, which extended through more than a hundred volumes. He was United States Consul at Paris, where he published, in 1852, a statistical work on the United States. Among his works are " Tke Outcast and Other Poems ; " " Fireside Educa^ iion;^^ "Sketches from a Students Window ;^^ " BecoUec- tiorts ofalAfeUme ;" and " lUustrated Natural History of the Animal Kingdom.''^] I "WAS now the proprietor of a book- store in Pearl street, my establishment being devoted chiefly to the selling of school-books and such books as were in large demand ; psalms and hymns, Bibles, and Webster's spelling-books constituted a large portion of the articles in which I dealt. Thaddeus of Warsaw, the Scottish Chiefs, Young's Night Thoughts, Sanford and Merton, Paradise Lost, Mysteries of Udolpho, Caleb Williams, Lady of the Lake, Coelebs in search of a Wife, and the Castle of Otranto were the class of books which constituted the belles-lettres part of my stock in trade. My dealings were chiefly with country merchants and Connecticut peddlers, who operated in the Southern and Western States. A sketch of a single customer will throw light upon this portion of my life. " Good-morning, Doctor," — for the title I had acquired in the apothecary's shop still adhered to me, — " how are you, my old cock?" The man who entered my shop, and addressed me in these words, was tall, thin, with lank hair, and a pair of wide- drab corduroy pantaloons, and a butter- nut-colored coat, of ample width and pro- digal length of skirts. His dress was loose as that of a Turk's, and the motions of the man within were as free as a wild cat's. There was a careless ease in his gait, which seemed to show that he h^d not been accustomed to either the re- straints of nicely-adjusted garments or tight-laced breeding. My reply to the man was hearty. "Good- morning, God bless you ! how are you, Mr. Fleecer ? " This was said while a mutual grapple of the hands took place. attended by an undulating motion of the whole frame. After a few more congratulatory words, we proceeded to business. With a vast deal of higgling, the peddler laid out a variety of articles, generally selecting them with a reference to two points, bulk and cheapness. The idea he entertained of his customers seemed to be, that they would buy books as they would load a boat, by the measure of size only. So nice a test as weight, even, was in his experience too subtle and delicate a prin- ciple to be used in the purchase of these articles. The subject, the manner in which it was treated, the name of the author, the quality of paper and print were all considerations either secondary or overlooked. Having made up the bulk of his pur- chases in this way, Mr. Fleecer looked over my shelves, and poked about in every nook and corner, as if searching for something he could not find. At length, taking me to the farther end of my shop, and stealing a heedful glance around to see that no one could overhear us, he spoke as follows, in a low tone. " Well, Doctor, — you're a doctor, you know, — now let me see some books in the doctor's line. I suppose you've got Aristotle's ?" " No, indeed ! " said I. " Oh ! none of your gammon ; come, out with it ! I'll pay a good price." " Upon my word, I haven't a copy." " You have ! I know you have I " " I tell you I have not." "Well, haven't you got Volney's Euins?" "No." " Nor Tom Paine ? " "No." "Nor ?" " No, not a copy." " Are you in airnest, Doctor? " " Yes, I never keep such books." " Who said you did ? You don't keep 'em, ha ? Nor I nother ; I only axed you to let me see 'm ! Aint my father a dea- con in Pokkytunk, and do you suppose I want to meddle with such infidel trash ? Not I. Still there's no harm in looking, I suppose. A cat may look on a king, mayn't she. Doctor ? " "Yes, no doubt." "Well, well, that's settled. Have you got Young's Night Thoughts ? " " Plenty." 84 THE BOOK PEDDLER. " Let me see one.'' Here I showed Mr. Fleecer the book, " This is not the right kind," said he. " I want that edition that's got the picter at the beginning of a gal walken out by starlight, called Contemplation." I handed my customer another copy. He then went on, — ' Aye, this is it. Thot are picter there is a very material pint. Doctor. The young fellers down in Kentucky think it's a wolloping kind of a story, you know, about some gal that's in love. They look at the title-page, and see ' Night Thoughts, by Alexander Yoxtng.' Well, that seems as if it meant something queer. So they look to the frontispiece and see a female all wrapped up in a cloak, goen out very sly, with nothing under heaven but the stars to see what she's about. ' Hush, hush,' I say, and look round as if afeard that somebody would hear us. And then I shut up the book, and put it into my chist, and de- liberately lock the lid. Then the feller becomes rampacious. He begs, and wheedles, and flatters, and at last he swears. I shake my head. Finally he takes out a five-dollar bill ; I slip it into my pocket, and hand him out the book as if I was stealin, and tell him not to let anybody know who sold it to him, and not to take off the brown paper kiver till he gets shut up tight in his own room. I then say, " Good-day, mister," and clear out like chain lightning for the next county." " You seem to be pleased with your re- collections, Fleecer." " Well, I can't help snickering when I think of them fellers. Why, Bleech, I sold more than ten hundred o' them Night Thoughts, for five dollars a-piece, in Kentucky, last winter, and all the fellers bought 'em under the idea that it was a queer story, too good to be alto- gether decent." " So you cheated 'em, ha ? " " I cheated 'em? not I, indeed ! If they were cheated at all, they cheated them- selves, I guess ? I didn't tell 'em a lie. Couldn't they see for themselves ? Have- n't they got eyes ? Why, what should a feller du ? They come smelling about like rats arter cheese, and ax me if I haint got some rowdy books : I show 'em the Sky Lark, and Peregrine Pickle, and so 'on, but they want something better. Well, now, as I told you afore, I'm a deacon's son, and I don't like to sell Tom Paine, and Volney's Ruins, and that sort o' thing. So, thinks I to myself— I'll play them sparks a Yankee trick. They want some rowdy books, and I'll sell 'em some- thing pious. In this way they may get some good, and in the course of provi- dence, they may be convarted. Well, the first one I tried, it worked like ginger. He bought the book at a tavern. Arter he'd got it he couldn't hardly wait, he was so fairse to read it. So he went into a room, and I peeped through the key-hole. He began at the title-page, and then he looked at the figger of Miss Contemplation walking forth among the stars. I could see his mouth water. Then he turned to the first part, and begun to read. I heard him as plain as Dr. Belcher's sarmon ; it went pretty much like this, {Reads.) ' The Complaint. Night I.'— " ' Good — that's natural enough,' says he. {Reads.) ' On Life, Death, and Immortality.' — " ' Whew ? I suppose it's some feller in love, and is going to cut his throat.' (Beads.) * Tired Nature's sweet reatorer, balmy sleep I He, like the world, his ready visit pays, When fortune smiles.' — " ' That's all gammon ! ' {Reads.) ' Night I sable goddess — from her ebon throne,' — " What in nater is the feller at? ' {Reals.) ' The bell strikes one ; we take no note of time,' — " ' Why that's exactly what the parson said in his sarmon last Sunday ! ' He turns over several pages. {Reads.) * Night II. On Time, Death, and Friendship.' ' When the cock crowed, he wept,' — " ' By Saint Peter, I'm gummed ! That d — d Yankee peddler has sold me a psalm- book, or something of the kind, and made me believe it was a rowdy. The infernal hypocrite ! And so I've paid five dollars for a psalm-book ! Well, it's a good joke, and the feller desarves his money for his ingenuity. He, he, he ! ho, ho, ho ! I must laugh, tho' I'm as mad as a snapping- turtle. Zachary ! if I could get his nose betwixt my thumb and finger, I'd make him sing every line in the book to a tune of my own. To sell me a psalm-book! — the canting, whining, blue-light peddler ! Fire and brimstone I It makes me sweat A JERSEY CENTENAEIAN. 85 to think on't. And he did it so sly, too — the wooden-nutmeg rascal ! I wish I could catch him ! ' " By this time I thought it best for me to make myself scarce. I had paid my bill, and my horse and wagon were all ready, for I had calculated upon a bit of a breeze. I mounted my box, and having axed the landlord the way to Lexington, I took the opposite direction to throw my psalm-book friend off the scent, in case he was inclined for a chase ; so I pursued my journey and got clear. I met the fellow about six months arter, at Nashville ; I was goin' to ax him if he had a psalm- book to part with, but he looked so pla- guey hard at me, that I cocked my beaver over my right eye, and squinted with the left, and walked on. Sen that, I hain't seen him. By S. 6. Goodrich (Petee Pauley). A JEESEY CENTENAEIAN. [Fbancis Beet Harte, born in New York, 1839 ; went to California in 1854, and roved about digging for gold, teaching scliool and running express. In 1857 lie appeared in the Golden Era as a type-setter, but soon be- gan to write slcetclies for the paper, which attracted immediate attention. He was advanced to assistant editor, and a little later became principal editor of the weekly Califomian. He was for six years secretary of the mint in San Francisco, and during the time wrote a number of poems for the city journals, such as " The Society upon the Stanislaus," " The Pliocene SkuU,'^ and "John Bw-ns of Gettysburg." In 1868, he was an editor of the Overland Monthly, in which he began more amhitioua work with " Tlie LucJc of Roaring Camp," a characteristic picture of mining life. The next year he published " The Outcasts of Poker Flat," following with other tales of a similar kind. In 1870 appeared a short poem entitled " Plain Language from Ti-uihful James," or " The Heathen Chinee, " which had unexampled popularity. For a short time he was professor- of recent literature in the University of California. In 1871 he removed to New York, and collected and published his " Condensed JTouefo." Among other of hia publications are "Gabriel Conray,^* "East and West Poems," "Mrs. Skaggs^s Smbands," etc. He has been a frequent contributor to the Atlantic Monthly. In 1878 he was appointed U. S. consul to Crefeld, in Bheniah Prussia, and aftenvards exchanged to Glasgow, Scotland.] | I have seen her at last. She is a hun- ' dred and seven years old, and remembers George Washington quite distinctly. It is somewhat confusing, however, that she also remembers a contemporaneous Jo- siah W. Perkins of Basking Eidge, N. J., and, I think, has the impression that Perkins was the better man. Perkins at the close of the last century, paid her some little attention. There are a few things that a really noble woman of a hundred and seven yeai's never forgets. It was Perkins who said to her in 1795, in the streets of Philadelphia, " Shall I show thee General Washington ? " Then she said careless-like (for you know, child, at that time it wasn't what it is now to see General Washington), she said, " So do, Josiah, so do I " Then he pointed to a tall man who got out of a carriage, and went into a large house. He was larger than you be. He wore his own hair — not powdered; had a flowered chint« vest, with yellow breeches and blue stock- ings, and a broad-brimmed hat. In sum- mer he wore a white straw hat, and at his farm at Basking Eidge he always wore it. At this point, it is too evident that she was describing the clothes of the all-fascinating Perkins : so I gently, but firmly led her back to Washington. — Then it appeared that she did not remember exactly what he wore. To assist her, I sketched the general historic dress of that period. She said she thought he was dressed like that. Em- boldened by my success, I added a hat of Charles II., and pointed shoes of the eleventh century. She indorsed these with such cheerful alacrity, that I drop- ped the subject. The house upon which I had stumbled, or, rather, to which my horse — a Jersey hack, accustomed to historic research — had brought me, was low and quaint. Like most old houses it had the appear- ance of being encroached upon by the surrounding glebe, as if it were already half in the grave, with a sod or two, in the shape of moss thrown on in it, like ashes on ashes, and dust on dust. A wooden house, instead of acquiring dig- nity with age, is apt to lose its youth and respectability together. A porch, with scant, sloping seats, from which even the winter's snow must have slid un- comfortably, projected from a door-wpy that opened most unjustifiably into & small sitting room. There was no vesti- bule, or locus pcenitenticc, for llic em- barra.ssed or bashful visitor : he passed at A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. once from the security of the public road into shameful privacy. And here in the mellow autumnal sunlight, that, stream - ing through the maples and sumach on the opposite bank, flickered and danced upon the floor, she sat and discoursed of George Washington, and thought of Per- kins. She was quite in keeping with the house and the season, albeit a little in ad- vance of both ; her skin being of a faded russet, and her hands so like dead November leaves, that I fancied they even rustled when she moved them. For all that, she was quite bright and cheery ; her faculties still quite vigorous, although performing irregularly and spasmodically. It was somewhat discom- posing, I confess, to observe, that at times her lower jaw would drop, leaving her speechless, until one of the family would notice it, and raise it smartly into place with a slight snap, — an operation always performed in such an habitual, perfunc- tory manner, generally in passing to and fro in their household duties, that it was very trying to the spectator. It was still more embarrassing to observe that the dear old lady had evidently no knowledge of this, but believed she was still talking, and that, on resuming her actual vocal utterance, she was often abrupt and in- coherent, beginning always in tne middle of a sentence, and often in the middle of a word. " Sometimes," said her daughter, a giddy, thoughtless young woman of eighty-five, — " sometimes just moving her head sort of unhitches her jaw ; and, if we don't happen to see it, she'll go on talking for hours without ever making a sound." Although I was convinced, after this, that during my interview I had lost several important revelations re- garding George Washington through these peculiar lapses, I could not help re- flecting how beneficent were these provi- sions of the Creator, — how, if properly studied and applied, they might be fraught with happiness to mankind, — how a slight jostle or jar at a dinner- party might make the post-prandial elo- quence of garrulous senility satisfactory to itself, yet harmless to others, — how a more intimate knowledge of anatomy introduced into the domestic circle, might make a home tolerable at least, if not happy, — how a long-sufiering hus- band, under the pretence of a conjugal caress, might so unhook his wife's con- dyloid process as to allow the flow of expostulation, criticism, or denunciation, to go on with gratification to her, and perfect immunity to himself. But this was not getting back to George Washington and the early struggles of the Eepublic. So I returned to the com- mander-in-chief, but found, after one or two leading questions, that she was rather inclined to resent his re-appear- ance on the stage. Her reminiscences here were chiefly social and local, and more or less flavored with Perkins. We got back as far as the Revolutionary epoch, or, rather her impressions of that epoch, when it was still fresh in the pub- lic mind. And here I came upon an in- cident, purely personal and local, but, withal, so novel, weird, and uncanny, that for a while I fear it quite displaced George Washington in my mind, and tinged the autumnal fields beyond with a red that was not of the sumach. I do not remember to have read of it in the books. I do not know that it is entirely authentic. It was attested to me by mother and daughter, as an uncontra- dicted tradition. In the little field beyond, where the plough still turns up musket-balls and cartridge-boxes, took place one of those irregular skirmishes between the militia- men and Knyphausen's stragglers, that made the retreat historical. A Hessian soldier, wounded in both legs and utterly helpless, dragged himself to the cover of a hazel-copse, and lay there hidden for two days. On the third day, maddened by thirst, he managed to creep to the rail- fence of an adjoining farm-house, but found himself unable to mount it or pass through. There was no one in the house but a little girl of six or seven years. He called to her, and in a faint voice asked for water. She returned to the house, as if to comply with his request, but, mounting a chair, took from the chimney a heavily-loaded Queen Anne musket, and, going to the door, took deliberate aim at the helpless intruder, and fired. The man fell back dead, with- out a groan. She replaced the musket, and, returning to the fence, covered the body with boughs and leaves, until it was hidden. Two or three days after, she re- lated the occurrence in a careless, casual way, and leading the way to the fence, with a piece of bread and butter in her guiltless little fingers, pointed out the result of her simple, unsophisticated A JERSEY CENTENARIAN. 87 effort. The Hessian was decently buried, but I could not find out wliat became of the little girl. Nobody seemed to re- member. I trust, that, in after years, she was happily married ; that no Jersey Lovelace attempted to trifle with a heart whose impulses were so prompt, and whose purposes were so sincere. They did not seem to know if she had married or not. Yet it does not seem probable that such simplicity of conception, frank- ncoS of expression, and deftness of exe- cution, were lost to posterity, or that they failed, in their time and season, to give flavor to the domestic felicity of the period. Beyond this, the story, perhaps, has little value, except as an offset to the usual anecdotes of Hessian atrocity. They had their financial panics even in Jersey, in the old days. She remem- bered when Dr. White married your cousin Mary — or was it Susan ? — Yes, it was Susan. She remembered that your uncle Harry brought in an armful of bank-notes, — paper money, you know, — and threw them in the corner, saying they were no good to anybody. She re- membered playing with them, and giving them to your Aunt Anna — no, child, it was your own mother, bless your heart! Some of them was marked as high as a hundred dollars. Everybody kept gold and silver in a stocking, or in a " chaney " vase, like that. You never used money to buy anything. When Josiah went to Springfield to buy anything, he took a cart-load of things with him to exchange. That yaller pictur-fi'ame was paid for in greenings. But then people knew jest what they had. They didn't fritter their substance away in unchristian trifles, like your father, Eliza Jane, who doesn't know that there is a God, who will smite him hip and thigh ; for vengeance is mine, and those that believe in me. But here, singularly enough, the inferior maxillar- ies gave out, and her jaw dropped. (I noticed that her giddy daughter of eighty- five was sitting near her ; but I do not pretend to connect this fact with the arrested flow of personal disclosure.) Howbeit, when she recovered her speech again, it appeared that she was com- plaining of the weather. The seasons had changed very much since your father went to sea. The winters used to be terrible in those days. When she went over to Springfield, in June, she saw the snow still on Watson's Eidge. There were whole days when you couldn't git over to William Henry's, their next neighbor, a quarter of a mile away. It was that drefful winter that the Spanish sailor was found. You don't re- member the Spanish sailor, Eliza Jane — it was before your time. There was a little personal skirmishing here, which I feared at first, might end in a suspension of maxillary functions, and the loss of the story ; but here it is. Ah, me ! it is a pure white winter idyl : how shall I sing it this bright, gay autumnal day ? It was a terrible night, that winter's night, when she and the century were young together. The sun was lost at three o'clock : the night came down like a white sheet, that flapped around the house, beat at the windows with its edges, and at last wrapped it in a close embrace. In the middle of the night, they thought they heard above the wind a voice crying, " Christus, Christus ! " in a foreign tongue. They opened the door, — no easy task in the north wind that pressed its strong shoulders against it, — ^but nothing was to be seen but the drifting snow. The next morning dawned on fences hidden, and a landscape changed and obliterated with drift. During the day, they again heard the cry of "Christus !" this time faint and hidden, like a child's voice. They searched in yain : the drifted snow hid its secret. On the third day they broke a path to the fence, and then they heard the cry distinctly. Dig- ging down, they found the body of a man, — a Spanish sailor, — dark and bearded, with ear-rings in his ears. As they stood gazing down at his cold and pulseless figure, the cry of " Christus ! " again rose upon the wintry air ; and they turned and fled in superstitious terror to the house. And then one of the children, bolder than the rest, knelt down, and opened the dead man's rough pea-jacket, and found — ^what think you ? — a little blue and green parrot, nestling against his breast. It was the bird that had echoed mechanically the last despairing cry of the life that was given to save it. It was the bird, that ever after, amid outlandish oaths and wilder sailor songs, that I fear often shocked the pure ears of its gentle mistress, and brought scandal into the Jerseys, still retained that one weird and mournftil cry. The sun meanwhile was sinking be- hind the steadfast range beyond, and I A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. could not help feeling that I must depart with my wants unsatisfied. I had brought away no historic fragment : I absolutely knew little or nothing new regarding George Washington. I had been ad- dressed variously by the names of differ- ent members of the family who were dead and forgotten ; I had stood for an hour in the past : yet I had not added to my historical knowledge, nor the practical benefit of your readers. I spoke once more of Washington, and she replied with a reminiscence of Perkins. Stand forth, O Josiah W. Perkins, of Basking Ridge, N. J. Thou wast of little account in thy life, I warrant ; thou didst not even feel the greatness of thy day and time ; thuu didst criticise thy super- iors ; thou wast small and narrow in thy ways ; thy very name and grave are un- known and uncared for : but thou wast once kind to a woman that survived thee, and, lo ! thy name is again spoken of men, and for a moment lifted up above thy betters. AN EXCHANGE OF PASSES. Archbishop Ryan in the course of his social experiences in Philadelphia has already won a name for wit and repartee. At a dinner recently given him by Cath- olic citizens a brilliant company of gen- tlemen was assembled. Among other Pennsylvania Railroad men the president and one of the vice-presidents and ex- Attorney-Geueral MacVeagh, who is counsel for the road. MacVeagh as usual was scintillating, and in a funny way said to the guest of the evening: " Your Grace, you see here a great many railroad men. You will meet them often on social occasions here and you will always find that they take their lawyer with them. Hence I am here. They won't go anywhere without their counsel. Now, we have nearly everything men want, but I have a suggestion to make to you for an exchange with us. We can give free passes on all the railroads of the country. Now if you would only give us — say a free pass to Paradise by way of exchange." "Ah," said his Grace, with a merry twinkle in his eye, " I would not like to separate them from their counsel." A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. I. [William Makepeace Thackebay, born at Calcutta, 1811 ; died in London, Dec. 24, 1863. His father vras in the East India civil service, to which may be due many life-like pictnrea in his writings. His early life brought him a varied experience, first of fortune and then of po- verty. The study of art took him for years to the Con- tinent, and at the age of thirty he took up the profession of authorship, writing copiously for Punch and Fraaer's Magazine. His first notable work of fiction, " Vanity Fair,''^ appeared in 1846-7, and his Lectures on " Englieh Humoi-wis " and on the "Four Georges,^^ wrought out with rare literary skill, were delivered to admiring audiences in England and America from 1851 to 1856. The GomliiU Magazine began in 1860 under Thackeray's edi- torship, and quickly ran to the unprecedented circulation of over 100,000 copies. In person Thackeray was tall, mas- sive brained, and commanding, with genial and kindly manners. His place in the literature of the nineteenth century is a high one, and the title unquestionably be- longs to him of the first satirist of the age. Nowhere are to be found such pictures of the meanness, selfishness, and heartless servility of society to rank and money, combined with skillful and masterly portraitures of noble and kindly men, and devoted, unselfish women. The style of Thackeray is his own, always pure, free and flowing, refined, yet forcible, while his delicate and sub- tile humor, frequently sportive, but never too broad, en- livens all hie books, which are not wanting also in the deepest pathos, lofty morality and sometimes tragic power.] Me. and Mes. Fitzeoy Timmins live in Lilliput Street, that neat little street which runs at right angles with the Park and Brobdingnag Gardens. It is a very genteel neighborhood, and I need not say they are of a good family. Especially Mrs. Timmins, as her mam- ma is always telling Mr. T. They are Suffolk people, and distantly related to the Right Honorable the Earl of Bun- gay. Besides his house in Lilliput Street, Mr. Timmins has chambers in Figtree Court, Temple, and goes the Northern Circuit. The other day, when there was a slight difference about the payment of fees be- tween the great Parliamentary Counsel and the Solicitors, Stoke and Pogers, of Great George Street, sent the papers of the Lough Foyle and Lough Corrib Junc- tion Railway to Mr. Fitzroy Timmins, who was so elated that he instantly pur- chased a couple of looking-glasses for his drawing-rooms (the front room is 16 by A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. ]2, and the back, a tight but elegant ap;\rtment, 10 ft. 6 by 8 tt. 4), a coral for the baby, two new dresses for Mrs. Tim- mins, and a little rosewood desk, at the Pantechnicon, for which Eosa had long been sighing, with crumpled legs, emer- ald-green and gold morocco top, and drawers all over. Mrs. Timmins is a very pretty poetess (her " Lines to a Faded Tulip " and her " Plaint of Plinlimmon " appeared in one of last year's Keepsakes) ; and Fitzroy, as he impressed a kiss on the snowy fore- head of his bride, pointed out to her, in one of the innumerable pockets of the desk, an elegant ruby-tipped pen, and six charming little gilt blank books, marked " My Books," which Mrs. Fitzroy might fill, he said (he is an Oxford man, and very polite), " with the delightful pro- ductions of her Muse." Besides these books, there was pink paper, paper with crimson edges, lace paper, all stamped with R. F. T. (Eosa Fitzroy Timmins) and the hand and battle-axe, the crest of the Timminses (and borne at Ascalon by Eoaldus de Timmins, a crusader, who is now buried in the Temple Church, next to Sergeant Snooks), and yellow, pink, light-blue and other scented sealing- waxes, at the service of Eosa when she chose to correspond with her friends. Eosa, you may be sure, jumped with joy at the sight of this sweet present ; called her Charles (his first name is Samuel, but they have sunk that) the best of men ; embraced him a great number of times, to the edification of her buttony little page, who stood at the landing; and as soon as he was gone to chambers, took the new pen and a sweet sheet of paper, and began to compose a poem. What shall it be about?" was natu- rally her first thought. " What should be a young mother's first inspiration ? " Her child lay on the sofa asleep before her ; and she began in her neatest hand — "LINKS *'ONMT SON, BTJNGAT DE BRACT GASHLEIOH TYMMTNS, AGED TEN MONTHS. " How beautiful ! how beautiful thou ssemest, My boy, my precious one, my rosy babe ! Kind angels hover round thee as thou dreamest : Boft lashes hide thy beauteous azure eye which gleam- est." " Gleamest ? thine eye which gleamest ? Is that grammar ? " thought Eosa, who had puzzled her little brain for some time with this absurd question when the baby woke. Then the cook came up to ask about dinner ; then Mrs. Fuudy slipped over from No. 27 (they are op- posite neighbors, and made an acquaint- ance through Mrs. Fundy's macaw) ; and a thousand things happened. Fi- nally, there was no rhyme to babe except Tippoo Saib (against whom Major Gash- leigh, Eosa's grandfather, had distin- guished himself), and so she gave up the little poem about her De Bracy. Nevertheless, when Fitzroy returned from chambers to take a walk with his wife in the Park, as he peeped through the rich tapestry hanging which divided the two drawing-rooms, he found his dear girl still seated at the desk, and writ- ing, writing away with her ruby pen as fast as it could scribble. " What a genius that child has I " he said ; " why, she is a second Mrs. Nor- ton ! " and advanced smiling to peep over her shoulder and see what pretty thing Eosa was composing. It was not poetry, though, that she was writing, and Fitz read as follows : — " lAlUput Street, Tuesday, 22(i May. " Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy Tymmyns request the pleasure of Sir Thomas and Lady Kicklebury's company at dinner on Wednesday, at 7J o'clock." " My dear ! " exclaimed the barrister, pulling a long face. " Law, Fitzroy ! " cried the beloved of his bosom, " how you do startle one ! " " Give a dinner-party with our means ! " said he. " Ain't you making a fortune, you miser ? " Eosa said. " Fifteen guineas a day is four thousand five hundred a year; I've calculated it." And so saying, she rose, and taking hold of his whiskers (which are as fine as those of any man of his circuit), she put her mouth close up against his and did something to his long face, which quite changed the expression of it, and which the little page heard outside the door. " Our dining-room won't hold ten," he said. "We'll only ask twenty, my love. Ten are sure to refuse in this season, when everybody is giving parties. Look, here is the list." 90 A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. " Earl and Countess of Bungay, and Lady Barbara Saint Mary's." " You are dying to get a lord into the house," Timmins said (he has not altered his name in Fig-tree Court yet, and therefore I am not so affected as to call him Tymmyiis). " Law, my dear, they are our cousins, and must be asked," Eosa said. " Let us put down my sister and Tom Crowder, then." " Blanche Crowder is really so very fat, Fitzroy," his wife said, " and our rooms are so very small." Fitz laughed. " You little rogue," he said, "Lady Bungay weighs two of Blanche, even when she's not in the f " " Fiddlesticks ! " Eosa cried out. "Doc- tor Crowder really cannot be admitted ; he makes such a noise eating his soup, that it is really quite disagreeable." And she imitated the gurgling noise performed by the Doctor while inhauating his soup, in such a funny way, that Fitz saw in- viting him was out of the question. " Besides, we mustn't have too many relations," Eosa went on. " Mamma, of course, is coming. She doesn't like to be asked in the evening; and she'll bring her silver bread-basket and her candle- sticks, which are very rich and hand- some.'' " And you complain of Blanche for being too stout I " groaned out Tim- mins. " Well, well, don't be in a pet," said little Eosa. "The girls won't come to dinner, but will bring their music after- wards." And she went on with the list. "Sir Thomas and Lady Kicklebury, 2. No saying no: we must ask them, Charles. They are rich people, and any room in their house in Brobdingnag Gardens would swallow up our humble cot. But to people in our position in society they will be glad enough to come. The city people are glad to mix with the old families." "Very good," says Fitz, with a sad face of assent — and Mrs. Timmins went on reading her list. " Mr. and Mrs. Topham Sawyer, Bel- gravine Place." " Mrs. Sawyer hasij't asked you all the season. She gives herself the airs of an empress; and when" — "One's Member, you know, my dear, one must have," Eosa replied, with much dignity ; as if the presence of the representative of her native place would be a protection to her dinner. And a note was written and transported by the page early next morning to the mansion of the Sawyers, in Belgravine Place. The Topham Sawyers had just come down to breakfast ; Mrs. T. in her large dust-colored morning dress and Madonna front (she looks rather scraggy of a morning, but I promise you her ringlets and figure will stun you of an evening) ; and having read the note the following dialogue passed : — Mrs. Topham Sawyer. — " Well, upon my word, I don't know where things will end. Mr. Sawyer, the Timminses hare asked us to dinner." Mr. Topham Sawyer. — " Ask us to din- ner ! What d impudence ! " Mrs. Topham Sawyer. — " The most dangerous and insolent revolutionary principles are abroad, Mr. Sawyer ; and I shall write and hint as much to these persons." Mr. Topham Sawyer. — " No, d it, Joanna: they are my constituents and we must go. Write a civil note, and say we will come to their party." {He re- sumes the perusal of " The Times," and Mrs. Topham Sawyer writes) — " My Deae Eosa, " Wb shall have great pleasure in joining your little party. I do not reply in the third person, as we are old friends, you know, and country neighbors. I hope your mamma is well : present my kindest remembrances to her, and I hope we shall see much MOBK of each other in the summer, when we go down to the Sawpits (for going abroad is out of the question in these dreadful times). With a hundred kisses to your dear little pet, " Believe me your attached "J. T. S." She said Pet, because she did not know whether Eosa's child was a girl or boy ; and Mrs. Timmins was very much pleased with the kind and gracious nature of the reply to her invitation. II. The next persons whom little Mrs. Timmins v/as bent upon asking, were Mr. and Mrs. John Eowdy, of the firm of Stumpy, Eowdy and Co., of Brobding- nag Gardens, of the Prairie, Putney, and of Lombard Street, City. Mrs. Timmins and Mrs. Eowdy had A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. 91 been brought up at the same school to- gether, and there was always a little rivalry between them, from the day when they contended for the French prize at school to last week, when each had a stall at the Fancy Fair for the benefit of the Daughters of Decayed Muffin-men : and when Mrs. Timmins danced against Mrs. Rowdy in the Scythe Mazurka at the Polish Ball, headed by Mrs. Hugh Slasher. Rowdy took twenty-three pounds more than Timmins in the Muffin transaction (for ghe had possession of a kettle-holder worked by the hands of E-y-lty, which brought crowds to her stall) ; but in the Mazurka Rosa conquered ; she has the prettiest little foot possible (which in a red boot and silver heel looked so lovely that even the Chinese ambassador re- marked it), whereas Mrs. Rowdy's foot is no trifle, as Lord Cornbury acknowledged when it came down on his lordship's boot-tip as they danced together amongst the Scythes. "These people are ruining them- selves," said Mrs. John Rowdy to her husband, on receiving the pink note. It vfas carried round by that rogue of a buttony page in the evening; and he walked to Brobdingnag Gardens, and in the Park afterwards, with a young lady who is kitchen-maid at twenty-seven, and v/ho is not more than fourteen years older than little Buttons. "These people are ruining them- selves," said Mrs. John to her husband. " Rosa says she has asked the Bungays." "Bungays indeed! Timmins was always a tuft-hunter," said Rowdy, who had been at college with the barrister, and who, for his own part, has no more objection to a lord than you or I have ; and adding, " Hang him, what business has he to be giving parties?" allowed Mrs. Rowdy, neverlheless, to accept Rosa's invitation. " When I go to Ijiisincss to-morrow, I will just have a look at Mr. Fitz's ac- count," Mr. Rowdy thought, " and if it is overdrawn, as it usually is, why" . . . The announcement of Mrs. Rowdy's brougham here put an end to this agree- able train of thought ; and the banker and his lady stepped into it to join a snug little family-party of two and twenty, given by Mr. and Mrs. Secondchop at their great house on the other side of the Park. " Rowdys 2, Bungays 3, ourselves and mamma 3, 2 Sawyers," calculated little Rosa. "General Gulpin," Rosa continued, " eats a great deal, and is very stupid, but he looks well at table with his star and ribbon. Let us put hiTn down ! " and she noted down "Sir Thomas and Lady Gulpin, 2. Lord Castlemouldy, 1." " You will make your party abomi- nably genteel and stupid," groaned Tim- mins. Why don't you ask some of our old friends? Old Mrs. Portman has asked us twenty times, I am sure, within the last two years.'' " And the last time we went there, there was pea-soup for dinner!" Mrs. Timmins said, with a look of ineffable scorn. " Nobody can have been kinder than the Hodges have always been to us ; and some sort of return we might make, I think." " Return, indeed ! A pretty sound it is on the staircase to hear ' Mr. and Mrs. Odges and Miss Odges ' pronounced by Billiter, who always leaves his A's out. No, no : see attorneys at your chambers, my dear — ^but what could the poor creatures do in our society ? " And so, one by one, Timmins's old friends were tried and eliminated by Mrs. Timmins, just as if she had been an Irish Attorney- General, and they so many Catholics on Mr. Mitchel's jury. Mrs. Fitzroy insisted that the party should be of her very best company. Funnyman, the great wit, was asked, because of his jokes ; and Mrs. Butt, on whom he practises ; and Potter, who is asked because everybody else asks him ; and Mr. Ranville Ranville of the For- eign Office, who might give some news of the Spanish squabble; and Botherby, who has suddenly sprung up into note because he is intimate with the French Revolution, and visits Ledru-Rollin and Lamartine. And these, with a couple more who are amis de la maison, made up the twenty, whom Mrs. Timmins thought she might safely invite to her little dinner. But the deuce of it was, that when the answers to the invitations came back, everybody accepted ! Here was a pretty quandary. How they were to get twenty into their dining-room was a calculation which poor Timmins could not solve at all ; and he paced up and down the little room in dismay. 92 A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. " Pooh I " said Rosa with a laugh. " Your sister Blanche looked very well in one of my dresses last year; and you know how stout she is. We will find some means to accommodate them all, depend upon it." Mrs. John Rowdy's note to dear Rosa, accepting the latter's invitation, was a very gracious and kind one ; and Mrs. Fitz showed it to her husband when he came back from chambers. But there f/as another note which had arrived for him by this time from Mr. Rowdy — or rather from the firm ; and to the effect that Mr. F. Timmins had overdrawn his account 28/. 18s. 6d., and was requested to pay that sum to his obedient servants. Stumpy, Rowdy and Co. And Timmins did not like to tell his wife that the contending parties in the Lough Foyle and Lough Corrib Railroad had come to a settlement, and that the fifteen guineas a day had consequently determined. " I have had seven days of it, though," he thought ; " and that will be enough to pay for the desk, the dinner, and the glasses, and make all right with Stumpy and Rowdy." III. The cards for dinner having been is- sued, it became the duty of Mrs. Tim- mins to make further arrangements respecting the invitations to the tea- party which was to follow the more sub- stantial meal. These arrangements are difiicult, as any lady knows who is in the habit of entertaining her friends. There are — People who are offended if you ask them to tea whilst others have been asked to dinner; People who are offended if you ask them to tea at all ; and cry out furiously, " Good heavens 1 Jane my love, why do these Timmins's suppose that I am to leave my dinner-table to attend their soiree ? " (the dear reader may fill up the to any strength, according to his liking) — or, " Upon my word, William my dear, it is too much to ask us to pay twelve shillings for a brougham, and to spend I don't know how much in gloves, just to make our courtesies in Mrs. Tim- mins's little drawing room." Mrs. Moser made the latter remark about the Timmins affair, while the former was uttered by Mr. Grumpley, barrister-at-law, to his lady, in Gloucester Place. That there are people who are offended if you don't ask them at all, is a point which I suppose nobody will question. Timmin's earliest friend in life was Simmins, whose wife and family have taken a cottage at Mortlake lor the season. " We can't a-sk them to come out of the country," Rosa said to her Fitzroy — (between ourselves, she was delighted that Mrs. Simmins was out of the way, and was as jealous of her as every well- regulated woman should be of her hus- band's female friends) — "we can't ask them to come so far for the evening." "Why, no, certainly," said Fitzroy, who has himself no very great opinion of a tea-party; and so the Simminses were cut out of the list. And what was the consequence ? The consequence was, that Simmins and Timmins cut when they met at West- minster; that Mrs. Simmins sent back all the books which she had borrowed from Rosa, with a withering note of thanks; that Kosa goes about saying that Mrs. Simmins squints ; that Mrs. S., on her side, declares that Rosa is crooked, and behaved shamefully to Captain Hicks in marrying Fitzroy over him, though she was forced to do it by her mother, and prefers the Captain to her husband to this day. If, in a word, these two men could be made to fight, I believe their wives would not be dis- pleased; and the reason of all this misery, rage, and dissension, lies in a poor little twopenny dinner-party in Lilliput Street. Well, the guests, both for before and after meat, having been asked, old Mrs. Gashleigh, Rosa's mother — (and, by consequence, Fitzroy's dear mother-in- law, though I promise you that " dear " is particularly sarcastic) — Mrs. Gashleigh of course was sent for, and came with Miss Eliza Gashleigh, who plays on the guitar, and Emily, who limps a little, but plays sweetly on the concertina. They live close by — trust them for that. Your mother-in-law is always within hearing, thank our stars for the attention of the dear women. The Gashleigh s, I say, live close by, and came early on the morning after Rosa's notes had been is- sued for the dinner. When Fitzroy, who was in his little A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. 93 study, which opens into his little dining- room — one of those absurd little rooms which ought to be called a gentleman's pantry, and is scarcely bigger than a shower-bath, or a state cabin in a ship — when Fitzroy heard his mother-in-law's knock, and her well-known scuffling and chattering in the passage — in which she squeezed up young Buttons, the page, while she put questions to him regarding baby, and the cook's health, and whether she had taken what Mrs. Gashleigh had sent over-night, and the housemaid's health, and whether Mr. Timmins had gone to chambers or not — and when, after this preliminary chatter. Buttons flung open the door announcing — " Mrs. Gashleigh and the young ladies," Fitzroy laid down his " Times " newspaper with an expression that had best not be printed here, and took his hat and walked away. Mrs. Gashleigh has never liked him since he left oflf calling her mamma, and kissing her. But he said he could not stand it any longer— he was hanged if he would. So he went away to cham- bers, leaving the field clear to Eosa, mamma, and the two dear girls. — Or to one of them, rather : for be- fore leaving the house, he thought he would have a look at little Fitzroy up stairs in the nursery, and he found the child in the hands of his maternal aunt Eliza, who was holding him and pinching him as if he had been her guitar, I sup- pose ; so that the little fellow bawled pitifully — and his father finally quitted the premises. No sooner was he gone, although the party was still a fortnight oif, than the women pounced upon his little study, and began to put it in order. Some of his papers they pushed up over the book- case, some they put behind the Encyclo- paedia, some they crammed into the drawers — where Mrs. Gashleigh found three cigars which she pocketed, and some letters, over which she cast her eye ; and by Fitz's return they had the room as neat as possible, and the best glass and dessert-service mustered on the study-table. It was a very neat and handsome service, as you may be sure Mrs. Gash- leigh thought, whose rich uncle had pur- chased it for the young couple, at Spode and Copeland's; but it was only for twelve persons. It was agreed that it would be, in all respects, cheaper and better to purchase a dozen more dessert-plates ; and with " my silver basket in the centre," Mrs. G. said (she is always bragging about that confounded bread-basket), "we need not have any extra china dishes, and the table will look very pretty." On making a roll-call of the glasses, it was calculated that at least a dozen or so tumblers, four or five dozen wineS; eight water-bottles, and a proper quan- tity of ice-plates, were requisite ; and that as they would always be useful, it would be best to purchase the articles immediately. Fitz tumbled over the basket containing them, which stood in the hall, as he came in from chambers, and over the boy who had brought them — and the little bill. The women had had a long debate, and something like a quarrel, it must be owned, over the bill of fare. Mrs. Gash- leigh, who had lived a great part of her life in Devonshire, and kept house in great state there, was famous for making some dishes, without which, she thought, no dinner could be perfect. When she proposed her mock-turtle, and stewed pigeons, and gooseberry-cream, Rosa turned up her nose — a pretty little nose it was, by the way, and with a natural turn in that direction. " Mock -turtle in June, mamma ! " said she. " It was good enough for your grand- father, Kosa," the mamma replied: "it was good enough for the Lord High Admiral, when he was at Plymouth; it was good enough for the first men in the county, and relished by Lord Fortys- kewer and Lord EoUs; Sir Lawrence Porker ate twice of it after Exeter Races ; and I think it might be good enough for "■ — "I will not have it, mamma!" said Eosa, with a stamp of her foot ; and Mrs. Gashleigh knew what resolution there was in that. Once, when she had tried to physic the baby, there had been a similar fight between them. So Mrs. Gashleigh made out a carte, in which the soup was left with a dash — a melancholy vacuum ; and in which the pigeons were certainly thrust in amongst the entries; but Eosa determined they never should make an evtrde at all into her dinner-party, but that fehe would have the dinner her own way 94 A LITTLE DINNEE AT TIMMINS'S. When Fitz returned, then, and after he had paid the little bill of &l. 14s. 6d. for the glass, Eosa flew to him with her sweetest smiles, and the baby in her arms. And after she had made him re- mark how the child grew every day more and more like him, and after she had treated him to a number of compliments and caresses, which it were positively fulsome to exhibit in public, and after she had soothed him into good humor by her artless tenderness, she began to speak to him about some little points which she had at heart. She pointed out with a sigh how shabby the old curtains looked since the dear new glasses which her darling Fitz had given her had been put up in the drawing-room. Muslin curtains cost nothing, and she must and would have them. The muslin curtains were accorded. She and Fitz went and bought them at Shoolbred's, when you may be sure she treated herself likewise to a neat, sweet, pretty half-mourning (for the Court, you know, is in mourning) — -a neat sweet barSge, or calimanco, or bombazine, or tifiany, or some such thing; but Madame Camille, of Regent Street, made it up, and Rosa looked like an angel in it on the night of her little dinner. "And, my sweet," she continued, after the curtains had been accorded, " mam- ma and I have been talking about the dinner. She wants to make it very ex- pensive, which I cannot allow. I have been thinking of a delightful and eco- nomical plan, and you, my sweetest Fitz, must put it into execution." " I have cooked a mutton-chop when I was in chambers," Fitz said with a laugh." " Am I to put on a cap and an apron ? " No : but you are to go to the ' Mega- therium Club ' (where, you wretch, you are always going without my leave), and you are to beg Monsieur Mirobolant, your famous cook, to send you one of his best aides-de-camp, as I know he will, and with his aid we can dress the dinner and the confectionery at home for almost nothing, and we can show those purse- proud Topham Sawyers and Eowdys that the humble cottage can furnish forth an elegant entertainment as well as the gilded halls of wealth." Fitz .agreed to speak to Monsieur Mirobolant. If Eosa had had a fancy for the cook of the Prime Minister, I believe the deluded creature of a husband would have asked Lord John for the loan of him. IV. FiTZEOY TiMMiNS, whose taste for wine is remarkable for so young a man, is a member of the committee of the " Megatherium Club," and the great Mirobolant, good-natured as all great men are, was only too happy to oblige him. A young friend and protigi of his, of considerable merit, M. Cavalca- dour, happened to be disengaged through the lamented death of Lord Hauncher, with whom young Cavalcadour had made his d&hut as an artist. He had nothing to refuse to his master, Mirobo- lant, and would impress himself to be useful to a gourmet so distinguished as Monsieur Timmins. Fitz went away as pleased as Punch with this encomium of the great Mirobolant, and was one of those who voted against the decreasing of Mirobolant's salary when the measure was proposed by Mr. Parings, Colonel Close, and the Screw party in the com- mittee of the club. Faithful to the promise of his great master, the youthful Cavalcadour called in Lilliput Street the next day. A rich crimson velvet waistcoat, with buttons of blue glass and gold, a variegated blue satin stock, over which a graceful mosaic chain hung in glittering folds, a white hat worn on one side of his long curling ringlets, redolent with the most delight- ful hair-oil — one of those white hats which looks as if it had been just skinned — and a pair of gloves not exactly of the color of beurrefrais, but of beurr that has been up the chimney, with a natty cane with a gilt nob, completed the upper part, at any rate, of the costume of the young fellow whom the page introduced to Mrs. Timmins. Her mamma and she had been just having a dispute about the gooseberry- cream when Cavalcadour arrived. His presence silenced Mrs. Gashleigh; and Eosa, in carrying on a conversation with him in the French language — which she had acquired perfectly in an elegant finishing establishment in Kensington Square — had a great advantage over her mother, who could only pursue the dia- logue with very much difficulty, eyeing one or other interlocutor with an alarmed A LITTLE DIN NEE AT TIMMINS'S. 96 and suspicious look, and gasping out "We" whenever she thought a proper opportunity arose for the use of that affirmative. " I have two leetl menus weez me," said Cavalcadour to Mrs. Gashleigh. " Minews — ^yes, — oh, indeed !" answer- ed the lady. " Two little cartes." ■" Oh, two carts I Oh, we," she said. " Coming, I suppose ! " And she looked out of the window to see if they v/ere there. Cavalcadour smiled. He produced from a pocket-book a pink paper and a blue paper, on which he had written two bills of fare — the last two which he had composed for the lamented Hauncher — and he handed these over to Mrs. Fitz- roy. The poor little woman was dreadfully puzzled with these documents (she has them in her possession still), and began to read from the pink one as follows : — " DINDE POUK 16 PBBSONNES. Potage (clair) ^ la Rigodon. Do. & la Prince de Tombuctou. Deux Poieeons. Saumon de Severn© KougetB Grratin^s k la Boadic6e. ^ la C16opatre. Deux Releves. Le Chapeau-^-troiB-cornes farci k la Robespierre. Le Tire-botte k TOdalisque. Six Entries. Saut6 de Hannetons k I'Epinglifere. CdteletteB k la Megatberium. Bourrasque de Veau k la Palsambleu. LaitanceB de Carpe en goguette k la Heine Pomare. Turban de Volaille k rArchevfique de Canterbury." And SO on with the entremets, and hors d'ceuvres, and the rotis, and the relevia. " Madame will see that the dinners are quite simple," said Mr. Cavalcadour. " Oh, quite," said Eosa, dreadfully puz- zled. " Which would Madame like?" " Which would we like, mamma ?" Rosa asked ; adding, as if after a little thought, " I think, sir, we should prefer the blue one." At which Mrs. Gash- leigh nodded as knowingly as she could ; though pink or blue, I defy anybody to know what these cooks mean by their jargon. " If you please, Madame, we will go down below and examine the scene of operations," Monsieur Cavalcadour said ; and so he was marshalled down the stairs to the kitchen, which he didn't like to name, and appeared before the cook in all his splendor. He cast a rapid glance around the premises, and a smile of something like contempt lighted up his features. " Will you bring pen and ink if you please, and I will write down a few of the articles which will be necessary for us? We shall require if you please, eight more stew-pans, a couple of braising- pans, eight sautS-pans, six bainmarie- pans, a freezing-pot with accessories, and a few more articles of which I will inscribe the names." And Mr. Caval- cadour did so, dashing down, with the rapidity of genius, a tremendous list of ironmongery goods, which he handed over to Mrs. Timmins. She and her mamma were quite frightened by the awful catalogue. " I will call three days hence and superintend the progress of matters ; and we will make the stock for the soup the day before the dinner." "Don't you think, sir," here inter- posed Mrs. Gashleigh, " that one soup — a fine rich mock-turtle, such as I have seen in the best houses in the West of England, and such as the late Lord Fortyskewer " — " You will get what is wanted for the soups, if you please," Mr. Cavalcadour continued, not heeding this interruption, and as bold as a captain on his own quarter-deck ; " for the stock of clear soup, you will get a leg of beef, a leg of veal, and a ham." "We, munsee," said the cook, drop- ping a terrified courtesy : " a leg of beef, a leg of veal, and a hnm." " You can't serve a leg of veal at a party," said Mrs. Gashleigh ; " and a leg of beef is not a company dish." " Madame, they are to make the stock of the clear soup," Mr. Cavalcadour said. " Wliat I " cried Mrs. Gashleigh ; and the cook repeated his former expression. "Never, whilst I am in this house," cried out Mrs. Gashleigh, indignantly ; " never in a Christian English household ; never shall such sinful waste be per- mitted by me. If you wish me to dine, Eosa, you must get a dinner less expensive. The Eight Honorable Lord Fortyskewer could dine, sir, without these wicked luxuries, and I presurce my daughter's guests can." A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. " Madame is perfectly at liberty to de- cide," said Mr. Oavalcadour. " I came to oblige Madame, and my good friend Mirobolant, not myself." " Thank you, sir, I think it will be too expensive," Eosa stammered in a great flutter ; " but I am very much obliged to you." " U n'y a point d' obligation, Madame," said Monsieur Alcide Oamille Oavalca- dour in his most superb manner; and, making a splendid bow to the lady of the house, was respectfully conducted to the upper regions by little Buttons, leav- ing Eosa frightened, the cook amazed and silent, and Mrs. Gashleigh boiling with indignation against the dresser. Up to that moment, Mrs. Blowser, the cook, who had come out of Devonshire with Mrs. Gashleigh (of course that lady garrisoned her daughter's house with servants, and expected them to give her information of every thing which took place there) — up to that moment, I say, the cook had been quite contented with that subterraneous station which she occupied in life, and had a pride in keeping her kitchen neat, bright, and clean. It was, in her opinion, the comfortablest room in the house (we all thought so when we came down of a night to smoke there), and the hand- somest kitchen in Lilliput Street. But after the visit of Oavalcadour, the cook became quite discontented, and uneasy in her mind. She talked in a melancholy manner over the area-rail- ings to the cooks at twenty-three and twenty-five. She stepped over the way and conferred with the cook there. She made inquiries at the baker's and at other places about the kitchens in the great houses in the Brobdingnag Gar- dens, and how many spits, bangmarry- pans, and stoo-pans they had. She thought they could not do with an occa- sional help, but must have a kitchen- maid. And she was often discovered by a gentleman of the police force, who was, I believe, her cousin, and occasionally visited her when Mrs. Gashleigh was not in the house or spying it : — who was dis- covered seated with Mrs. Bundell in her lap, its leaves bespattered with her tears. " My pease be gone, Pelissea," she said, ■'zins I zaw that ther Frenchman!" And it was all the faithful fellow could do to console her. "-'— the dinner 1 " said Timmins, in a rage at last. " Having it cooked in the house is out of the question. The bother of it, and the row your mother makes, are enough to drive one mad. It won't happen again, I can promise you, Eosa. Order it at Fubsby's at once. You can have every thing from Fubsby's — from footmen to salt-spoons. Let's go and order it at Fubsby's." " Darling, if you don't mind the ex- pense, and if it will be any relief to you, let us do as you wish," Eosa said ; and she put on her bonnet, and they went off to the grand cook and confectioner of the Brobdingnag quarter. On the arm of her Fitzroy, Eosa went off to Fubsby's, that magnificent shop at the corner of Parliament Place and Alicompayne Square — a shop into which the rogue had often cast a glance of ap- probation as he passed : for there are not only the most wonderftil and delici- ous cakes and confections in the window, but at the counter there are almost sure to be three or four of the prettiest women in the whole of this world, with little darling caps of the last French make, with beautiful wavy hair, and the neatest possible waists and aprons. Yes, there they sit ; and others, per- haps, besides Fitz, have cast a sheep's- eye through those enormous plate-glass window-panes. I suppose it is the fact of perpetually living among such a quan- tity of good things that makes those young ladies so beautiful. They come into the place, let us say, like ordinary people, and gradually grow handsomer and handsomer, until they grow out into the perfect angels you see. It can't be otherwise : if you and I, my dear fellow, were to have a course of that place, we should become beautiful too. They live in an atmosphere of the most delicious pine-apples, blanc-manges, creams (some whipped, and some so good that of course they don't want whipping), jellies, tipsy- cakes, cherry-brandy — one hundred thousand sweet and lovely things. Look at the preserved fruits, look at the golden ginger, the outspreading ananas, the dar- ling little rogues of Ohina oranges, ranged in the gleaming crystal cylinders. Mon JDieu ! Look at the strawberries in the leaves. Each of them is as large nearly as a lady's reticule, and looks as if it had been A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. 97 brought up in a nursery to itself. One of those strawberries is a meal for those young ladies behind the counter; they nibble oifa little from the side, and if they are very hungry, which can scarcely ever happen, they are allowed to go to the crystal can- isters and take out a rout-cake or maca- roon. In the evening they sit and tell each other little riddles out of the bon- bons ; and when they wish to amuse themselves, they read the most delight- ful remarks, in the French language, about Love, and Cupid, and Beauty, be- fore they place them inside the crackers. They always are writing down good things into Mr. Fubsby's ledgers. It must be a perfect feast to read them. Talk of the Garden of Eden ! I believe it was nothing to Mr. Fubsby's house ; and I have no doubt that after those young ladies have been there a certain time, they get to such a pitch of loveli- ness at last, that they become complete angels, with wings sprouting out of their lovely shoulders, when (after giving just a preparatory balance or two, they fly up to the counter and perch there for a min- ute, hop down again, and affectionately kiss the other young ladies, and say, " Good-by, dears ! We shall meet again Id, haul." And then with a whirr of their deliciously scented wings, away they fly for good, whisking over the trees of Brobdingnag Square, and up into the iky, as the policeman touches his hat. It is up there that they invent the legends for the crackers, and the won- derful riddles and remarks on the bon- bons. No mortal, I am sure, could write them. I never saw a man in such a state as Fitzroy Timmins in the presence of those ravishing houris. Mrs. Fitz having ex- plained that they required a dinner for twenty persons, the chief young lady asked what Mr. and Mrs. Fitz would like, and named a thousand things, each better than the other, to all of which Fitz instantly said yes. The wretch was in such a state of infatuation that I be- lieve if that lady had proposed to him a fricasseed elephant, or a boa-constrictor in jelly, he would have said, "O, yes, certainly ; put it down." That Peri wrote down in her album a list of things which it would make your mouth water to listen to. But she took it all quite calmly. Heaven bless you I they don't care about things that are no VOL. IV. — w. H. delicacies to them! But whatever she chose to write down, Fitzroy let her. After the dinner and dessert were ordered (at Fubsby's they furnish every- thing : dinner and dessert, plate and china, servants in your own livery, and, if you please, guests of title too), the married couple retreated from that shop of wonders ; Eosa delighted that the trouble of the dinner was all ofi' their hands : but she was afraid it would be rather expensive. " Nothing can be too expensive which pleases you, dear," Fitz said. " By the way, one of those young women was rather good-looking," Eosa remarked: "the one in the cap with the blue ribbons." (And she cast about the shape of the cap in her mind, and de- termined to have exactly such another.) "Think so? I didn't observe," said the miserable hypocrite by her side ; and when he had seen Eosa home, he went back, like an infamous fiend, to order something else which he had forgotten, he said, at Fubsby's. Get out of that Paradise, you cowardly, creeping, vile serpent you ! Until the day of the dinner, the infat- uated fop was always going to Fubsby's. He was remarked there. He used to go before he went to chambers in the morn- ing, and sometimes on his return from the Temple : but the morning was the time which he preferred; and one day, when he went on one of his eternal pre- texts, and was chatting and flirting at the counter, a lady who had been reading yesterday's paper and eating a half-penny bun for an hour in the back shop (if that paradise may be called a shop) — a lady stepped forward, laid down " The Morn- ing Herald," and confronted him. That lady was Mrs. Gashleigh. From that day the miserable Fitzroy was in her power ; and she resumed a sway over his house, to shake off' which had been the object of his life, and the result of many battles. And for a mere freak — (for, on going into Fubsby's a week afterwards he found the Peris drinking tea out of blue cups, and eating stale bread and butter, when his absurd passion instantly van- ished) — I say, for a mere freak, the most intolerable burden of his life was put on his shoulders again — his mother-in-law. On the day before the little dinner took place — and I promise you we shall come to it in the very next chapter — a 7 98 A tlTTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. tall and elegant middle-aged gentleman, who might have passed for an earl but that there was a slight incompleteness about his hands and feet, the former being uncommonly red, and the latter large and irregular, was introduced to Mrs. Timmins by the page, who an- nounced him as Mr. Truncheon. "I'm Truncheon, Ma'am," he said with a low bow. " Indeed ! " said Eosa. " About the dinner, M'm, from Fubsby's, M'm. As you have no butler, M'm, I presume you will wish me to act as sich. I shall bring two persons as haids to- morrow; both answers to the name of John. I'd best, if you please, inspect the premises, and will thank you to allow your young man to show me the pantry and kitohing." Truncheon spoke in a low voice, and with the deepest and most respectful melancholy. There is not much expres- sion in his eyes, but from what there is, you would fancy that he was oppressed by a secret sorrow. Rosa tremljled as she surveyed this gentleman's size, his splendid appearance, and gravity. "I am sure," she said, " I never shall dare to ask him to hand a glass of water." Even Mrs. Gashleigh, when she came on the morning of the actual dinner-party, to superintend matters, was cowed, and retreated from the kitchen before the calm majesty of Truncheon. And yet that great man was, like all the truly great — affable. He put aside his coat and waistcoat (both of evening cut, and looking prema- turely splendid as he walked the streets in noon-day), and did not disdain to rub the glasses and polish the decanters, and to show young buttons the proper mode of preparing these articles for a dinner. And while he operated, the maids, and Buttons, and cook, when she could — and what had she but the vegetables to boil ? — crowded round him, and listened with wonder as he talked of the great families as he had lived with. That man, as they saw him there before them, had been cab-boy to Lord Tantallan, valet to the Earl of Bareacres, and groom of the chambers to the Duchess Dowager of Fitzbattleaxe. Oh, it was delightful to bear Mr. Truncheon I VI. On the great, momentous, stupendous day of the dinner, my beloved female reader may imagine that Fitzroy Timmins was sent about his business at an early hour in the morning, while the women began to make preparations to receive their guests. " There will be no need of your going to Fubsby's," Mrs. Gashleigh said to him, with a look that drove him out of doors. " Everything that we re- quire has been ordered there I You will please to be back here at six o'clock, and not sooner : and I presume you will acqui- esce in my arrangements about the wine f " " 0, yes, mamma," said the prostrate son-in-law. " In so large a party — a party beyond some folks' means — expensive wines are absurd. The light sherry at 26s., the champagne at 42s.; and you are not to go beyond 36s. for the claret and port after dinner. Mind, coffee will be served; and you come up stairs after two rounds of the claret." " Of course, of course," acquiesced the wretch ; and hurried out of the house to his chambers, and to discharge the com- missions with which the womankind had intrusted him. As for Mrs. Gashleigh, you might have heard her bawling over the house the whole day long. That admirable woman was everywhere: in the kitchen until the arrival of Truncheon, before whom she would not retreat without a battle ; on the stairs ; in Fitzroy's dressing-room ; and in Fitzroy's minor's nursery, to whom she gave a dose of her own composition, while the nurse was sent out on a pretext to make purchases of garnish for the dishes to be served for the little dinner. Garnish for the dishes ! As if the folks at Fubsby's could not garnish dishes better than Gashleigh, with her stupid old- world devices of laurel-leaves, parsley, and cut turnips ! Why, there was not a dish served that day that was not covered over with skewers, on which truffles, cray- fish, mushrooms, and forced-meat were impaled. When old Gashleigh went down with her barbarian bunches of holly and greens to stick about the meats, even the cook saw their incon- gruity, and, at Truncheon's orders, flung the whole shrubbery into the dust-houae, where, while poking about the premises, you may be sure Mrs. G. saw it. A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. '' Every candle which was to be burned that night (including the tallow candle, which she said was a good enough bed- light for Fitzroy) she stuck into the can- dlesticks with her own hands, giving her own high-shouldered plated candlesticks of the year 1798 the place of honor. She Upset all poor Eosa's floral arrangements, turning the nosegays from one vase into the other without any pity, and was never tired of beating, and pushing, and pat- ting, and whapping the curtain and sofa ' draperies into shape in the little drawing- room. In Fitz's own apartments she revelled with peculiar pleasure. It has been de- scribed how she had sacked his study and pushed away his papers, some of which, including three cigars, and the commencement of an article for " The Law Magazine,'' "Lives of the Sheriffs' Officers," he has never been able to find to this day. Mamma now went into the little room in the back regions, which is Fitz's dressing-room (and was destined to be a cloak-room), and here she rum- maged to her heart's delight. In an incredibly short space of time she examined all his outlying pockets, drawers, and letters ; she inspected his socks and handkerchiefs in the top drawers; and on the dressing-table, his razors, shaving-strop, and hair-oil. She carried off his silver-topped scent-bottle out of his dressing-case, and a half-dozen of his favorite pills (which Fitz possesses in common with every well-regulated man), and probably administered them to her own family. His boots, glossy pumps, and slippers, she pushed into the shower-bath, where the poor fellow stepped into them the next morning, in the midst of a pool in which they were lying. The baby was found sucking his boot-hooks the next day in the nursery ; and as for the bottle of varnish for his shoes (which he generally paints upon the trees himself, having a pretty taste in that way), it could never be found to the present hour ; but it was remarked that the young Master Gashleighs, when they came home for the holidays, al- ways wore lacquered high-lows ; and the reader may draw his conclusions from that fact. In the course of the day all the servants gave Mrs. Timmins warning. The cook said she coodn't abear it no longer, 'aving Mrs. G. always about her kitching, with her fingers in all the saucepans. Mrs. G. had got her the place, but she preferred one as Mrs. G. didn't get for her. The nurse said she was come to nuss Master Fitzroy, and knew her duty ; his grandmamma wasn't his nuss, and was always aggrawating her, — missus must shoot herself elsewhere. The housemaid gave utterance to the same sentiments in language more violent. Little Buttons bounced up to his mis- tress, said he was butler of the family, Mrs. G. was always poking about his pantry, and dam if he'd stand it. At every moment Rosa grew more and more bewildered. The baby howled a great deal during the day. His large china christening-bowl was cracked by Mrs. Gashleigh altering the flowers in it, and pretending to be very cool, whilst her hands shook with rage. "Pray go on, mamma," Eosa said with tears in her eyes. " Should you like to break the chandelier ? " " Ungrateful, unnatural child ! " bel- lowed the other. "Only that I know you couldn't do without me, I'd leave the house this minute." "As you wish," said Eosa; but Mrs. G. didn't wish : and in this juncture Truncheon arrived. That officer surveyed the dining-room, laid the cloth there with admirable pre- cision and neatness ; ranged the plate on the sideboard with graceful accuracy, but objected to that old thing in the centre, as he called Mrs. Gashleigh's sil- ver basket, as cumbrous and useless for the table, where they would want all the room they could get. Order was not restored to the house, nor, indeed, any decent progress made, until this great man came: but where there was a revolt before, and a general disposition to strike work and to yell out defiance against Mrs. Gashleigh, who was sitting bewildered and furious in the drawing-room — where there was before commotion, at the appearance of the master-spirit, all was peace and unani- mity : the cook went back to her pans, the housemaid busied herself with the china and glass, cleaning some articles and breaking others. Buttons sprang up and down the stairs, obedient to the orders of his chief, and all things went well and in their season. 100 A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. At six, the man with the wine came from Binney and Latham's. At a quarter past six, Timmins himself arrived. At half-past six, he might have been heard shouting out for his varnished boots — but we know where those had been hidden ^and for his dressing things ; but Mrs. Gaahleigh had put them away. As in his vain inquiries for these articles he stood shouting, " Nurse ! Buttons I Eosa my dear ! " and the most fearful execrations up and down the stairs, Mr. Truncheon came out on him. " Igscuse me, sir," says he, " but it's impawsable. We can't dine twenty at that table — not if you set 'em out awinder, we can't." " What's to be done? " asked Fitzroy, in an agony; "they've all said they'd come." " Can't do it," said the other ; " with two top and bottom — and your table is as narrow as a bench — -we can't hold more than heighteen, and then each person's helbows will be into his neighbor's cheer." "Rosa! Mrs. Gashleigh!" cried out Timmins, " come down and speak to this gentl— this"— " Truncheon, air," said the man. The women descended from the draw- ing-room. "Look and see, ladies," he tiaid, inducting them into the dining- itoom: "there's the room, there's the ta- ble laid for heighteen, and I deiy you to .(iqueeze in more." "One person in a party always fails," ,'jaid Mrs. Gashleigh, getting alarmed. " That's nineteen," Mr. Truncheon re- marked. " We must knock another hoflf. Ma'am." And he looked her hard in the face. Mrs. Gashleigh was very red and ner- vous, and paced, or rather squeezed round the table (it was as much as she could do). The chairs could not be put any closer than they were. It was impossible, unless the convive sat as a centre-piece in the middle, to put another guest at that table. " Look at that lady moving' round, sir. You see now the difiicklty. If my men wasn't thinner, they couldn't hoperate at all," Mr. Truncheon observed, who seem- ed to have a spite to Mrs. Gashleigh. " What is to be done? " she said, with purple accents. " My dearest mamma," Rosa cried out, "you must stop at home — how sorry I am ! " And she shot one glance at Fitz- roy, who shot another at the great Trun- cheon, who held down his eyes. "We could manage with heighteen," he said, mildly. Mrs. Gashleigh gave a hideous laugh. She went away. At eight o'clock she was pacing at the corner of the street, and actually saw the company arrive. First came the Topham Sawyers, in their light-blue carriage with the white ham- mercloth and blue and white ribbons — their footmen drove the house down with the knocking. Then followed the ponderous and snuff- colored vehicle, with faded gilt wheels and brass earl's coronets all over it, the conveyance of the House of Bungay. The Countess of Bungay and daughter stepped out of the carriage. The fourteenth Earl of Bungay couldn't come. Sir 'Thomas and Lady Gulpin's fly made its appearance, from which issued the General with his star, and Lady Gul- pin in yellow satin. TheRowdys' broug- ham followed next ; after which Mrs. Butt's handsome equipage drove up. The two friends of the house, young gentlemen from the Temple, now arrived in cab No. 9996. We tossed up, in fact, which should pay the fare. Mr. Ranville Ranville walked, and was dusting his boots as the Templars drove up. Lord Castlemouldy came out of a twopenny omnibus. Funnyman, the wag, came last, whirling up rapidly in a han- som, just as Mrs. Gashleigh, with rage in her heart, was counting that two people had failed, and that there were only sev- enteen after all. Mr. Truncheon passed our names to Mr. Billiter, who bawled them out on the stairs. Rosa was smiling in a pink dress, and looking as fresh as an angel, and re- ceived her company with that grace which has always characterized her. The moment of the dinner arrived, old Lady Bungay scuffled off on the arm of Fitzroy, while the rear was brought up by Rosa and Lord Castlemouldy, of Bal- lyshanvanvoght Castle, co. Tipperary. Some fellows who had the luck, took down ladies to dinner. I was not sorry to be out of the way of Mrs. Rowdy, with her dandyfied airs, or of that high and mighty county princess, Mrs. Topham Sawyer. A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. 101 VII. Of course it does not become the pre- sent writer, who has partaken of tlie best entertainment which his friends could supply, to make fun of their (somewhat ostentatious, as it must be confessed) hos- pitality. If they gave a dinner beyond their means, it is no business of mine. I hate a man who goes and eats a friend's meat, and then blabs the secrets of the mahogany. Such a man deserves never to be asked to dinner again ; and though at the close of a London season that seems no great loss, and you sicken of a whitebait as you would of a whale — yet we must always remember that there's another season coming, and hold our tongues for the present. As for describing, then, the mere vic- tuals on Timmins's table, that would be absurd. Everybody — (I mean of the gen- teel world, of course, of which I make no doubt the reader is a polite ornament) — everybody has the same everything in London. You see the same coats, the same dinners, the same boiled fowls and mutton, the same cutlets, fish, and cucum- bers, the same lumps of Wenham-Lake ice, etc. The waiters with white neck- cloths are as like each other everywhere as the peas which they hand round with the ducks of the second course. Can't any one invent anything new ? The only difference between Timmins's dinner and his neighbor's was, that he had hired, as we have said, the greater part of the plate, and that his cowardly conscience magnified faults and disasters of which no one else probably took heed. But Eosa thought, from the supercilious air with which Mrs. Topham Sawyer was eyeing the plate and other arrangements, that she was remarking the difference of the ciphers on the forks and spoons— (which had, in fact, been borrowed from every one of Fitzroy's friends — I know, for instance, that he had six, among others, and only returned five, along with a battered old black-pronged plated abomination, which I have no doubt be longs to Mrs. Gashleigh, whom I hereby request to send mine in exchange) — their guilty consciences, I say, made them fancy that every one was spying out their domestic deficiencies : whereas, it is pro- bable that nobody present thought of their tailings at all. People never do: they never see holes in their neighbors' coats — they are too indolent, simple, and charitable. Some things, however, one could not help remarking: for instance, though Fitz is my closest friend, yet could I avoid seeing and being amused by his per- plexity and his dismal efforts to be face- tious? His eye wandered all round the little room with quick uneasy glances, very different from those frank and jovial looks with which he is accustomed to welcome you to a leg of mutton ; and Eosa, from the other end of the table, and over the flowers, entrde dishes and wine- coolers, telegraphed him with signals of corresponding alarm. Poor devils! why did they ever go beyond that leg of mut- ton? Funnyman was not brilliant in con- versation, scarcely opening his mouth, except for the purposes of feasting. The fact is, our friend Tom Dawson wa& at table, who knew all his stories, and in his presence the greatest wag is always silent and uneasy. Fitz has a very pretty wit of his own, and a good reputation on circuit ; but he is timid before great people. And in- deed the presence of that awful Ladj- Bungay on his right hand was enough to damp him. She was in court mourning (for the late Prince of Schlippenschlop- pen). She had on a large black funereal turban and appurtenances, and a vast breastplate of twinkling, twiddling black bugles. No wonder a man could not be gay in talking to her. Mrs. Eowdy and Mrs. Topham Saw- yer love each other as women do who have the same receiving nights, and ask the same society ; they were only sepa- rated by Eanville Eanville, who tries to be well with both : and they talked at each other across him. Topham and Eowdy growled out a con- versation about Eum, Ireland, and the Navigation Laws, quite unfit for print. Sawyer never speaks three words without mentioning the House and the Speaker. The Irish Peer said nothing (which was a comfort) ; but he ate and drank of everything which came in his way, and cut his usual absurd figure in dyed whis- kers and a yellow under-waistcoat. General Gulpin sported his star, and looked fat and florid, but melancholy. His wife ordered away his dinner, just 102 A LITTLE DINNER AT TIMMINS'S. jike Uoiiodt 8aucho's physician at Bara- taria. Botherby's stories about Lamartine are as old as the hills, since the barri- cades of 1848; and he could not get in a word or cut the slightest figure. And as for Tom Dawson, he was carrying on an undertoned small-talk with Lady Barba- ra St. Mary's, so that there was not much conversation worth record going on within the dining-room. Outside, it was different. Those houses in Lilliput Street are so uncommonly compact, that you can hear every thing which takes place all over the tenement ; and so — In the awful pauses of the banquet, and the hall-door being furthermore open we had the benefit of hearing : The cook, and the occasional cook, be- low stairs, exchanging rapid phrases re- garding dinner ; The smash of the soup-tureen, and swift descent of the kitchen-maid and soap-ladle down the stairs to the lower regions. This accident created a laugh, and rather amused Fitzroy and the com- pany, and caused Funnyman to say, bowing to Eosa, that she was mistress of herself, though China fall. But she did not heed him, for at that moment another noise commenced, namely, that of— The baby in the upper rooms, who commenced a series of piercing yells, which, though stopped by the sudden clapping to of the nursery-door, were only more dreadful to the mother when suppressed. She would have given a guinea to go up stairs and have done with the whole entertainment. A thundering knock came at the door very early after the dessert, and the poor soul took a speedy opportunity of sum- moning the ladies to depart, though you may be sure it was only old Mrs. Gash- leigh, who had come with her daughters — of course the first persons to come. I saw her red gown whisking up the stairs, which were covered with plates and dishes, over which she trampled. Instead of having any quiet after the retreat of the ladies, the house was kept in a rattle, and the glasses jingled on the table as the flymen and coachmen plied the knocker, and the soiree came in. From my place I could see every thing: the guests as they arrived (I remarked very few carriages, mostly cabs and flies). and a little crowd of blackguard boys and children, who were formed round the door, and gave ironical cheers to the folks as they stepped out of their vehi- cles. As for the evening-party, if a crowd in the dog-days is pleasant, poor Mrs. Tim- uiins certainly had a successful soirie. You could hardly move on the stair. .Mrs. Sternhold broke in the banisters, an.l nearly fell through. There was such a noise and chatter you could not hear the singing of the Miss Gashleighs, which was no great loss. Lady Bungay could hardly get to her carriage, being entangled with Colonel Wedgewood in the passage. An absurd attempt was made to get up a dance of some kind ; but before Mrs. Crowder had got round the room, the hanging-lamp in the din- ing room below was stove in, and fell with a crash on the table, now prepared for refreshment. Why, in fact, did the Timminses give that party at all ? It was quite beyond their means. They have offended a score of their old friends, and pleased none of their acquaintances. So angry were many who were not asked, that poor Rosa says she must now give a couple of more parties, and take in those not previously invited. And I know for a fact that Fubsby's bill is not yet paid ; nor Binney and Latham's the wine-merchants ; that the breakage and hire of glass and china cost ever so much money ; that every true friend of Timmins has cried out against his absurd extravagance, and that now, when every one is going out of town, Fitz has hardly money enough to pay his circuit, much more to take Rosa to a watering place, as he wished and promised. As for Mrs. Gashleigh, the only feasi- ble plan of economy which she can sug- gest is that she should come and live with her daughter and son-in-law, and that they should keep house together. If he agrees to this, she has a little sum at the banker's, with which she would not mind easing his present difficulties ; and the poor wretch is so utterly bewil- dered and crest-fallen that it is very like- ly he will become her victim. The Topham Sawyers, wlien they go down into the country, will represent Fitz as a ruined man and reckless prodi- gal ; his uncle, the attorney, from whom he has expectations, will most likely AN ENTEEPRISING HACKMAN. 105 withdraw his business, and adopt some other member of his family— Blanche Crowder for instance, whose husband, the doctor, has had high words with poor Fitzroy already, of course at the women's instigation. And all these accumulated miseries fall upon the unfortunate wretch because he was good-natured, and his wife would have a Little Dinner. TESTY NEIGHBOES. There lived at one time, in the fashion- able quarter of Dublin, an eminent law- yer, who afterwards came to occupy a position on the judicial bench. He was a man of high professional attainments, but of testy and irritable temper. His next-door neighbor was a retired major, noted for the eccentricity of his habits. Between the two there was anything but a friendly feeling, and they did all in their power to annoy and harass each other. One night, memorable in Ireland as " the night of the great storm," the major's chimneys were blown down. Crash they went through the roof of the lawyer's house, and thence down through floor after floor, carrying havoc in their course. The man of law was in no good humor as he contemplated the destruc- tion ; and what made matters worse was that it was the major's chimney that had occasioned the wreck. His mind was actively engaged in devising some pro- cess by which he could get satisfaction from his arch enemy, when a missive arrived from the latter, couched as fol- lows : " Send me back my bricks immed- iately, or I'll put the matter into the hands of an attorney." AN ENTEEPEISmG HACKMAN. A tall, portly, dignified citizen, well known in Philadelphia, arrived in New York, the other day, and having no bag- gage but a light travelling satchel, was utterly oblivious to the appeals of the hackmen as he emerged from the railway station. " Fee — thavanoo Hotel ? Fifth avenoo — ^go-in' ritup ! Fifth avenoo ? " Broadbrim stalked right on without a word. Another knight of the whip charged down upon him. " Say Nicholas Hotel ! Say Nicholas Hotel coach? This way for the S'Nich- olas 1 " No response from the passenger, and not a muscle moved at this appeal. Then there was a rush of half a dozen. " Kerridge, sir, kerridge ? Wanter ride up ? " " Winsur House 1 Whose going up to the Winsur?" e. & i- "Astor House, sir?" " Brevoort House ? Breevoort ? " — "Metropolitan Hotel?" "Eight down Broadway I "—" Ere you are, kerridge, sir ? " The traveller loomed up like a ten-pin among vinegar cruets, and face as placid as a pan of milk, was calmly and silently moving away from the crowd of jarvies, who looked after him with something like amazement, when a sudden thought seemed to strike one, who, running after him, seized hold of one of the handles of his travelling bag— "Deaf and dumb asylum, sir? Going right up?" This was too much. Dignity relaxed into a laugh, and the driver got a fare for a down-town hotel. He was taken sick in the night, and in her youthful ignorance she made two mustard plasters, and put one in front and one behind, and then with horrid sarcasm she asked him how he felt. But he was a well-bred man, and merely said that he realized with a tenderness he had never known before, the true position of a sand- wich in the community. — Norwich Bul- letin. Explanatory.- — Jones assumes, on coming home to dinner, the bearing of an enraged husband. "Why is it, Mrs. Jones, that you ride through Wall street in the very equipage I am struggling to maintain for you at high charge, and cut your husband ? " Mrs. Jones at once reassures him, " You certainly would not have your wife, from a five-thousand dollar barouche, bow to a man who is at work for his Hy- ing I " 104 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. THE BON GAULTIEE BALLADS. [These celebrated contributions to literature were cliiefiy the joint production of the late Professor W. E. Aytoun, and Theodore Martin. We reprint only about half of them, the other half being only of ephemeiul ■erest — "hits of the times" — which have long since ■it their interest. Sir Theodore Martin in his biography of Aytoun, 3ay6, ' ' Some of the best of those ballads were exclusively Aytoun's, Buch as 'The Massacre of Ote Macpkerson,' ' The Broken Pitcher j' and that best of all imitations of the Scottish Ballad ' The Queen in France.^ " " IVifi Dirge of the Drinker ^^ is a clever imitation of Aytoun's *' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliei-s,^^ by Theodore Martin. THE BROKEN PITCHER. It was a Moorish maiden was sitting by a well, And what the maiden thought of, I cannot, cannot tell, When by there rode a valiant knight from the town of Oviedo — Alphonso Guzman was he bight, the Count of Desparedo. " Oh, maiden, Moorish maiden ! why sitt'st thou by the spring ? Say, dost thou seek a lover, or any other thing? Why gazest thou upon me, with eyes so large and wide, And wherefore doth the pitcher lie broken by thy side ? " "I do not seek a lover, thou Christian knight so gay, Because an article like that hath never come my way ; And why I gaze upon you, I cannot, cannot tell, Except that in your iron hose you look un- common swell. " My pitcher it is broken, and this the reason is, — A shepherd came behind me, and tried to snatch a kiss ; I would not stand his nonsense, so ne'er a word I spoke, But scored him on the costard, and so the jug was broke. " My uncle, the Alcaydg, he waits for me at home. And will not take his tumbler until Zorayda come. I cannot bring him water— the pitcher is in pieces — And so I'm sure to catch it, 'cos he wallops all his nieces." " Oh, maiden, Moorish maiden ? wilt thou be ruled by me ! So wipe thine eyes and rosy lips, and give me kisses three ; And I '11 give thee my helmet, thou kind and courteous lady. To carry home the water to thy uncle, the AlcaydS." He lighted down from off his steed — he tied him to a tree — • He bowed him to the maiden, and took his kisses three : " To wrong thee, sweet Zorayda, I swear would be a sin ! " He knelt him at the fountain, and he dipped his helmet in. Up rose the Moorish maiden — behind the knight she steals. And caught Alphonso Guzman up tightly by the heels ; She tipped him in, and held him down beneath the bubbling water, — " Now, take thou that for venturing to kiss Al Hamet's daughter ! " A Christian maid is weeping in the town of Oviedo ; She waits the coming of her love, the Count of Desparedo. I pray you all in charity, that you will never tell, How he met the Moorish maiden beside the lonely well. THE COURTSHIP OF OUR CID. (SAWDUST.) [The frequenters of Astley's Theatre, London, of forty years ago (1846) will easily recognize the names referred to here.] What a pang of sweet emotion Thrilled the Master of the Ring, When he first beheld the lady, THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. lOS Through the stabled portal spring ! Midway in his wild grimacing Stopped the piebald- visaged Clown ; And the thunders of the audience Nearly brought the gallery down. Donna Inez Woolfordiuez ! Saw ye ever such a maid, With the feathers swaling o'er her, And her spangled rich brocade ? In her fairy hand a horsewhip, On her foot a buskin small, So she stepped, the stately damsel. Through the scarlet grooms and all. And she beckoned for her courser, And they brought a milk-white mare ; Proud, I ween, was that Arabian Such a gentle freight to bear : And the Master moved towards her, With a proud and stately walk ; And, in reverential homage, Eubbed her soles with virgin chalk. Eound she flew, as Flpra flying Spans the circle of the year ; And the youth of London sighing, Half forgot the ginger beer — Quite forgot the maids beside them ; As they surely well might do When she raised two Boman candles, Shooting fireballs red and blue I Swifter than the Tartar's arrow. Lighter than the lark in flight. On the left foot now she bounded, Now she stood upon the right. Like a beautiful Bacchante, Here she soars, and there she kneels, While amid her floating tresses. Flash two whirling Catherine wheels! Hark ! the blare of yonder trumpet! See the gates are open wide ! Room, there, room for Gomersalez,— Gomersalez in his pride ! Rose the shouts of exultation. Rose the oat's triumphant call, As he bounded, man and courser, Over Master, Clown, and all ! Donna Inez Woolfordinez ! Why those blushes on thy cheek? Doth thy trembling bosom tell thee. He hath come thy love to seek ? Fleet thy Arab— but behind thee He is rushing like a gale ; One foot on his coal black's shoulders, And the other on his tail I Onward, onward, panting maiden I He is faint and fails — for now. By the feet he hangs suspended From his glistening saddle-bow. Down are gone both cap and feather. Lance and gonfalon are down ! Trunks, and cloak, and vest of velvet, He has flung them to the Clown. Faint and failing I Up he vaulteth. Fresh aa when he first began ; All in coat of bright vermilion, 'Quipped as Shaw, the Life-guardsman.' Eight and left his whizzing broadsword, Like a sturdy flail, he throws ; Cutting out a path unto thee Through imaginary foes. Woolfordinez ! speed thee onward ! He is hard upon thy track, — Paralyzed is Widdicombez, Nor his whip can longer crack ; He has flung away his broadsword, 'T is to clasp thee to his breast. Onward ! — see he bares his bosom. Tears away his scarlet vest ; Leaps from out his nether garments, And his leathern stock unties — As the flower of London's dustmen. Now in swift pursuit he flies. Nimbly now he cuts and shuffles. O'er the buckle, heel and toe I And with hands deep in his pockets Winks to all the throng below I Onward, onward rush the coursers ; Woolfordinez, peerless girl, O'er the garters lightly bounding From her steed with airy whirl ! Gomersalez, wild with passion. Danger- all but her — forgets; Wheresoe'er she flies, pursues her, Casting clouds of somersets ! Onward, onward rush the coursers; Bright is Gomersalez' eye ; Saints protect thee, Woolfordinez, For his triumph, sure, is nigh ! *Shaw, the life-guardsman, at "Waterloo, killed fiva Frenchmen with hia own sword. 106 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. Now his courser's flanks he lashes, O'er his shoulder flings the rein, And his feet aloft he tosses, Holding stoutly by the mane I Then his feet once more regaining, Doffs his jacket, doffs his smalls ; And In graceful folds around him A bespangled tunic falls. Pinions from his heels are bursting. His bright locks have pinions o'er them ; And the public sees with rapture Maia's nimble son before them. Speed thee, speed thee, Woolfordinei I For a panting god pursues : And the chalk is very nearly Rubbed from thy white satin shoes ; Every bosom throbs with terror. You might hear a pin to drop ; All was hushed, save where a starting Cork gave out a casual pop. One smart lash across his courser. One tremendous bound and stride, And our noble Oid was standing By his Woolfordinez' side ! With a god's embrace he clasped her, Raised her in his manly arms; And the stables' closing barriers Hid his valor, and her charms 1 THE STUDENT OF JENA. Once, — 't was when I lived at Jena, — At a Wirthshaus' door I sat ; And in pensive contemplation, Ate the sausage thick and fat ; Ate the kraut, that never sourer Tasted to my lips than here ; Smoked my pipe of strong canaster, Sipped my fifteenth jug of beer; Gazed upon the glancing river, Gazed upon the tranquil pool, Whence the silver-voiced Undine, When the nights were calm and cool, As the Baron FouquS tells us, Rose from out her shelly grot. Casting glamor o'er the waters. Witching that enchanted spot. From the shadow which the coppice Flings across the ripp] ing stream, Did I hear a sound of music — Was it thought or was it dream ? There beside a pile of linen, Stretched along the daisied sward. Stood a young and blooming maiden — 'T was her thrush-like song I heard : Evermore within the eddy Did she plunge the white chemise; And her robes were loosely gathered Rather far above her knees ; Then my breath at once forsook me, For too surely did I deem That I saw the fair Undine Standing in the glancing stream — And I felt the charm of knighthood ; And from that remembered day, Every evening to the Wirthshaus Took I my enchanted way. Shortly to relate my story, Many a week of summer long. Came I there, when beer-o'ertaken, With my lute and with my song ; Sang in mellow-toned soprano, All my love and all my woe, Till the river-maiden answered, Lilting in the stream below : — " Fair Undine ! sweet Undine ! Dost thou love as I love thee 1 " " Love is free as running water," Was the answer made to me. Thus, in interchange seraphic, Did I woo my phantom fay, Till the nights grew long and chilly, Short and shorter grew the day ; Till at last — 't was dark and gloomy, Dull and starless was the sky. And my steps were all unsteady, For a little flushed was I, — To the well-accustomed signal No response the maiden gave ; But I heard the waters washing, And the moaning of the wave. Vanished was my own Undine, All her linen, too, was gone ; And I walked about, lamenting, On the river bank alone. Idiot that I was, for never Had I asked the maiden's name. Was it Lieschen — was it Gretchen ? Had she tin — or whence she came? So I took my trusty meerschaum, And I took my lute likewise ; Wandered forth in minstrel fashion, THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. 107 Underneath the lowering skies ; Sang before each comely Wirthshaus, Sang beside each purling stream, That same ditty which I chanted When Undine was my theme, Singing, as I sang at Jena, When the shifts were hung to dry, " Fair Undine ! young Undine ! Dost thou love as well as I ? " But, alas ! in field or village. Or beside the pebbly shore. Did I see those glancing ankles. And the white robe nevermore ; And no answer came to greet me, No sweet voice to mine replied ; But I heard the water rippling. And the moaning of the tide. BURSOH GEOGGENBUEG. APTEK THE MANNEE OF SCHILLER. " Bttrsch ! if foaming beer content ye. Come and drink your fill ! In our cellars there is plenty ; Eimmel ! how you swill ! That the liquor hath allurance. Well I understand ; But 't is really past endurance, When you squeeze my hand ! " And he heard her as if dreaming, Heard her half in awe ; And the meerschaum's smoke came streaming From his open jaw ; And his pulse beat somewhat quicker Than it did before. And he finished ofi' his liquor. Staggered through the door ; Bolted ofi' direct to Munich, And within the year Underneath his German tunic Stowed whole butts of beer. And he drank like fifty fishes. Drank till all was blue ; For he felt extremely vicious — Somewhat thirsty too. But at length this dire deboshing Drew towards an end ; Few of all his silber-grosehen Had he left to spend. And he knew it was not prudent Longer to remain ; So, with weary feet, the student Wended home again. At the tavern's well-known portal, Knocks he as before, And a waiter, rather mortal, Hiccups through the door, — " Master 's sleeping in the kitchen ; You '11 alarm the house ; Yesterday the Jungfrau Fritchen Married Baker Kraus ! " Like a fiery comet bristling. Rose the young man's hair. And, poor soul ! he fell a-whistling, Out of sheer despair. Down the gloomy street in silence, Savage calm he goes ; But he did no deed of vi'lence — Only blew his nose. Then he hired an airy garret Near her dwelling-place ; Grew a beard of fiercest carrot, Never washed his face ; Sate all day beside the casement, Sate a dreary man ; Found in smoking such an easement As the wretched can : Stared for hours and hours together, Stared yet more and more ; Till in fine and sunny weather, At the baker's door. Stood, in apron white and mealy. That beloved dame. Counting out the loaves so freely, Selling of the same. Then like a volcano puffing, Smoked he out his pipe ; Sigh'd and supp'd on ducks and stuffing Ham, and kraut, and tripe : Went to bed, and in the morning, Waited as before. Still his eyes in anguish turning, To the baker's door ; Till with apron white and mealy. Came the lovely dame. Counting out the loaves so freely. Selling of the same. So, one day — the fact 's amazing I— On his post he died And they found the body gazing At the baker's bride. (08 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS, THE LAY OF THE LOVELORN. PAKODY ON TENNYSON'S " LOCKSLY HALL." "With CoMKADES, you may pass the rosy, permission of the chair, 1 shall leave you for a little, for I'd like to take the air. Whether 't was the sauce at dinner, or that glass of ginger beer, Or these strong cheroots, I know not, but I feel a little queer. Let me go. Now, Chuckster, blow me, 'pon my soul, this is too bad I When you want me, ask the waiter, he knows where I'm to be had I Whew ! This is a great relief now I Let me but undo my stock, Besting here beneath the porch, my nerves will steady like a rock. In my ears I hear the singing of a lot of favorite tunes — Bless my heart, how very odd ! Why, surely there's a brace of moons I See ! the stars ! how bright they twinkle, winking with a frosty glare, Like my faithless cousin Amy when she drove me to When his feeble love is sated, he will hold thee surely then Something lower than his hookah, — something less than his cayenne. O, my cousin, spider-hearted I Oh, my Amy I No, confound it ! I must wear the mournful willow, — all around my hat I've bound it. Falser than the Bank of Fancy, — frailer than a shilling glove. Puppet to a father's anger, — minion to a nabob's love ! Is it well to wish thee happy ? Having known me, could you ever Stoop to marry half a heart, and little more than half a liver ? Happy! Damme! Thou shalt lower to his level day by day. Changing from the best of China to the com- monest of clay. As the husband is, the wife is, — he is stomach- plagued and old ; And his curry soups will make thy cheek the color of his gold. What is this? His eyes are pinky. Was't the claret ? Oh, no, no, — Bless your soul, it was the salmon, — salmon always makes him so. Take him to thy dainty chamber — soothe him with thy lightest fancies. He wiU understand thee, won't he ?— pay thee with a lover's glances ? Louder than the loudest trumpet, harsh as harshest ophicleide. Nasal respirations answer the endearments of his bride. Sweet response, delightful music I Gaze upon thy noble charge Till the spirit fill thy bosom that inspired the meek Laffarge. Better thou wert dead before me, — better, better that I stood Looking on thy murdered body, like the in- jured Daniel Good ! Better, thou and I were lying, cold and limber- stiff and dead. With a pan of burning charcoal underneath our nuptial bed 1 Cursed be the bank of England's notes, that tempt the soul to sin ! Cursed be the want of acres, — doubly cursed the want of tin ! Cursed be the marriage contract, that enslaved thy soul to greed ! Cursed be the sallow lawyer, that prepared and drew the deed ! Cursed be his foul apprentice, who the loath. some fees did earn ! Cursed be the clerk and parson, — cursed be the whole concern I Oh, 't is well that I should bluster, — much I'm like to make of that ; Better comfort have I found in singing " All Around my Hat." THE BON GAULTIEE BALLADS. 109 But that sang, so wildly plaintive, palls upon my British ears. 'T will not do to pine for ever, — I am getting up in years. Can't I turn the honest penny, scribbling for the weekly press. And in writing Sunday libels drown my pri- vate wretchedness ? Oh, to feel the wild pulsation that in man- hood's dawn I knew. When my days were all before me, and my years were twenty-two. When I smoked my independent pipe along the Quadrant wide, With the many larks of London flaring up on every side. When I went the pace so wildly, caring little what might come. Coffee-milling care and sorrow, with a nose- adapted thumb. Felt the exquisite enjoyment, tossing nightly off', oh heavens ! Brandy at the Cider Cellars, kidneys smoking- hot at Evans' I Or in the Adelphi sitting, half in rapture half in teai'S, Saw the glorious melo-drama conjure up the shades of years I Saw Jack Sheppard, noble stripling, act his wondrous feats again, Snapping Newgate's bars of iron, like an in- fant's daisy chain. Might was right, and all the terrors which had held the world in awe Were despised and prigging prospered, spite of Laurie, spite of law. In 3uch scenes as these I triumphed, ere my passion's edge was rusted. And my cousin's cold refusal left me very much disgusted ! Since, my heart is sore and withered, and I do not care a curse Whether worse shall be the better, or the better be the worse. Hark ! my merry comrades call me, bawling for another jorum ; They would mock me in derision, should I thus appear before 'em. Womankind no more shall vex me, such at least, as go arrayed In the most expensive satins, and the newest silk brocade. I '11 to Afric, lion-haunted, where the giant forest yields Barer robes and finer tissue than are sold at Spitalfields. Or to burst all chains of habit, flinging habit'f self aside, I shall walk the tangled jungle in mankind's primeval pride ; Feeding on the luscious berries and the rich cassava root. Lots of dates and lots of guavas, clusters of forbidden fruit. Never comes the trader thither, never o'er the purple main Sounds the oath of British commerce, or the accents of cockaigne. There, methinka, would be enjoyment, where no envious rule prevents ; Sink the steamboats ! cuss the railways 1 rot, rot the Three per Cents. There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have space to breathe, my cousin ! I will take some savage woman — nay, I '11 take at least a dozen. There I '11 rear my young mulattoes, as no Bond Street brats are reared : They shall dive for alligators, catch the wild goats by the beard — Whistle to the cockatoos, and mock the hairy- faced baboon, Worship mighty Mumbo Jumbo, in the moun- tains of the Moon. I myself, in far Timbuctoo, leopard's blood will daily quaff. Ride a tiger-hunting, mounted on a thorough- bred giraffe. Fiercely shall I shout the war-whoop, as some sullen stream he crosses, Startling from their noon-day slumbers, iron- bound rhinoceroses. Fool! again, the dream, the fancy! But I know my words are mad, For I hold the grey barbarian lower than the Christian cad. 110 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. I the swell — the city dandy I I to seek such horrid places, — I to haunt with squalid negroes, blubber-lips, and monkey faces. I to wed with Coromantees ! I, who managed — very near — To secure the heart and fortune of the widow Shillibeer 1 Jtufi and nonsense I let me never fling a single chance away, Maids ere now, I know, have loved me, and another maiden may. "Morning Post" ("The Times" won't trust me), help me, as I know you can ; I will pen an advertisement, — that 's a never- failing plan. "Wanted — By a bard in wedlock, some young interesting woman : Looks are not so much an object, if the shiners be forthcoming 1 "Hymen's chains, the advertiser vows, shall be but silken fetters. Please address to A. T., Chelsea. N. B. — You must pay the letters." That 's the sort of thing to do it. Now I '11 go and taste the balmy, — Rest thee with thy yellow nabob, spider- hearted cousin Amy ! MY WIFE'S COUSIN. DBCE.BD with shoes of blackest polish, And with shirt as white as snow, After matutinal breakfast To my daily desk I go ; First a fond salute bestowing On my Mary's ruby lips, Which, perchance, may be rewarded With a pair of playful nips. All day long across the ledger Still my patient pen I drive, Thinking what a feast awaits me In my happy home at five ; In my small one-storied Eden Where my wife awaits ray coming, And our solitary handmaid Mutton chops with care ia crumbing. When the clock proclaims my freedom, Then my hat I seize and vanish ; Every trouble from my bosom. Every anxious care I banish. Swiftly brushing o'er the pavement. At a furious pace I go. Till I reach my darling dwelling In the wilds of Pimlico. " Mary, wife, where art thou, dearest ? " Thus I cry, while yet afar ; Ah ! what scent invades my nostrils? — 'T is the smoke of a cigar I Instantly into the parlor Like a maniac I haste. And I find a young Life-Guardsman, With his arm round Mary's waist. And his other hand is playing Most familiarly with hers ; And I think my Brussels carpet Somewhat damaged by his spurs. " Fire and furies ! what the blazes? " Thus in frenzied wrath I call; When my spouse her arms upraises, With a most astounding squall. " Was there ever such a monster : Ever such a wretched wife ? Ah ! how long must I endure it : How protract this hateful life 1 All day long quite unprotected. Does he leave his wife at home ; And she cannot see her cousins, Even when they kindly come ! " Then the young Life-Guardsman, rising. Scarce vouchsafes a single word. But with look of deadly menace. Claps his hand upon his sword; And in fear I faintly falter — " This your cousin, then he 's mine I Very glad, indeed, to see you, — Won't you stop with us, and dine ? " Won't a ferret suck a rabbil ? — As a thing of course he stops ; And, with most voracious swallow Walks into my mutton chops. In the twinkling of a bed-post, Is each savory platter clear, And he shows uncommon science In his estimate of beer. Half-and-half goes down before him, Gurgling from the pewter-pot ; THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. Ill And he moves a counter motion For a glass of something hot. Neither chops nor beer I grudge him, Nor a moderate share of goes ; But I know not why he's always Treading upon Mary's toes. Evermore, when home returning, From the couuting house I come, Do I find the young Life-Guardsman Smoking pipes and driuking rum. Evermore he stays to dinner, Evermore devours my meal ; For I have a wholesome horror Both of powder and of steel. Yet I know he 's Mary's cousin. For my only son and heir Much resembles that young Guardsman, With the self-same curly hair. But I wish he would not always Spoil my carpet with his spurs ; And I 'd rather see his fingers In the fire, than touching hers. THE QUEEN IN FRANCE. AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH BALLAD. PAET I. It fell upon the August month, When landsmen bide at hame, That our gude Queen went out to sail Upon the saut-sea faem. And she has ta'en the silk and gowd. The like was never seen ; And she has ta'en the Prince Albert, And the bauld Lord Aberdeen. " Ye'se bide at hame. Lord Wellington : Ye daurna gang wi' me : For ye hae been ance in the land o' France, And that 's eneuch for ye. " Ye'se bide at hame. Sir Robert Peel, To gather the red and the white monie ; And see that my men dinna eat me up At Windsor wi' their gluttonle." They hadna sailed a league, a league, — A league, but barely twa. When the lift grew dark, and the waves grew wan, And the wind began to blaw. " O weel, weel may the waters rise, In welcome o' their Queen ; What gars ye look sae white, Albert ? What makes your e'e sae green ? " " My heart is sick, my held is sair : Gie me a glass o' gude brandie : To set my foot on the braid green sward, I 'd gie the half n' my yearly fee. " It 'b sweet to hunt the sprightly hare On the bonny slopes o' Windsor lea, But 0, it 's ill to bear the thud And pitching o' the saut, saut sea I " And aye they sailed, and aye they sailed. Till England sank behind. And over to the coast of France They drave before the wind. Then up and spak the King o' France, Was birling at the wine ; " O wha may be the gay ladye That owns that ship sae fine ? " And wha may be that bonnie lad, That looks sae pale and wan ? I '11 wad my lands o' Picardie That he's nae Englishman." Then up and spak an auld French lord, Was sitting beneath his knee, " It is the Queen o' braid England That's come across the sea." " And an it be England's Queen, She's welcome here the day : I 'd rather hae her for a friend Then for a deadly fae, " Gae, kill the eerock in the yard, The auld sow in the stye. And bake for her the brockit calf, But and the ' puddock-pie ! " And he has gane until the ship. As sune as it drew near, And he has ta'en her by the hand — " Ye 're kindly welcome here ! " And syne he kissed her on ae cheek, And syne upon the ither : And he ca'ed her liis sister dear. And she ca'ed him her brither. 1 Fuddock ia Scotch for Frog. 112 THE BON GAULTIEE BALLADS. " Light doun, light doun now ladye mine, Light doun upon the shore ; Nae English king has trodden here, This thousand years and more." " And gin I lighted on your land. As light fu' weel I may, O am I free to feast wi' you, And free to come and gae ? " And he has sworn by the Haly Eood, And the black stane o' Dumblane, That she is free to come and gae Till twenty days are gane. " I 've lippened to a Frenchman's aith," Said gude Lord Aberdeen ; " But I '11 never lippeu to it again Sae lang 's the grass is green. " Yet gae your ways, my sovereign liege, Since better may na be ; The wee bit bairns are safe at hame, By the blessing o' Marie 1 " irheu doun she lighted frae the ship, She lighted safe and sound ; And glad was our good Prince Albert To step upon the ground. " Is that your Queen, My Lord," she said, " That auld and buirdly dame ? i see the crown upon her held ; But I dinna ken her name." .i.nd she has kissed the Frenchman's Queen, And eke her daughters three. And gi'en her hand to the young Princess That louted upon the knee. And she has gane to the proud castle. That 's biggit beside the sea : But aye, when she thought o' the bairns at hame. The tear was in her e'e. She gied the King the Cheshire cheese, But and the porter fine ; And he gied her the puddock-pies, But and the blude-red wine. Then up and spak the dourest prince, An Admiral was he ; " Let 's keep the Queen o' England here. Sin' better may na be I " mony is the dainty king That we hae trappit here ; And mony is the English yerl That 's in our dungeons drear 1 " " You lee, you lee, ye graceless loon, Sae loud 's I hear ye lee I There never yet was Englishman That came to skaith by me. " Gae out, gae out, ye fause traitor I Gae out until the street ; It 's shame that Kings and Queens should sit Wi' sic a knave at meat ! " Then up and raise the young French lord, In wrath and hie disdain— " O ye may sit, and ye may eat Your puddock-pies alane. " But were I in my ain gude ship, An sailing wi' the wind. And did I meet wi' auld Napier, I 'd tell him o' my mind." then the Queen leuch loud and lang. And her color went and came ; " Gin ye met wi' Charlie on the sea Ye 'd wish yersell at hame I " And aye they birlit at the wine, And drank right merrilie. Till the auld cock crawed in the castle-yard. And the abbey bell struck three. The Queen she gaed until her bed, And Prince Albert likewise ; And the last word that gay lady said Was — " thae puddock-pies ! " The sun was high within the lift Afore the French King raise ; And syne he louped intil his aark, And warslit on his claes. " Gae up, gae up, my little foot-page, Gae up until the toun : And gin ye meet wi' the auld harper, Be sure ye bring him doun." And he has met wi' the auld harper ; O but his e'en were red ; And the bizzing o' a swarm o' bees Was singing in his held. THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. lis " Alack ! alack ! " the harper said, " That this should e'er hae been I I daurna gang before my liege, For I was fou yestreen." " It 'a you maun come, ye auld harper : Ye daurna tarry lang ; The King is just dementit-like For wanting o' a sang." And when he came to the King's chamber, He loutit on his knee, " O what may be your gracious will Wi' an auld frail man like me ? " " I want a sang, harper," he said, " I want a sang richt speedilie ; And gin ye dinna make a sang, I '11 hang ye up on the gallows-tree." " I cannot do 't, my liege," he said, " Hae mercy on my auld gray hair I But gin that I had got the words, I think that I might mak the air.'' " And wha 'a to make the words, fause loon, When minstrels we have barely twa ; And Lamartine is in Paris toun. And Victor Hugo far awa ? " " The deil may gang for Lamartine, And fly away wi' auld Hugo, For a better minstrel than them baith Within this very toun I know. " kens my liege the gude Walter, — At hame they ca' him BON Gatjltiee? He '11 rhyme ony day wi' True Thomas, And he is in the castle here." The French King first he lauchit loud. And syne did he begin to sing ; " My e'en are auld, and my heart is cauld. Or I snld hae known the minstrels' King. " Gae take to him this ring o' gowd, And this mantle o' silk sae fine, ind bid him mak a maister sang For his sovereign ladye's sake and mine." " I winna take the gowden ring, Nor yet the mantle fine : But I'll make the sang for my ladye's sake. And for a cup of wine." The Queen was sitting at the cards, The King ahint her back ; And aye she dealed the red honors. And aye she dealed the black ; '-'OL. IV.— W. H. And syne unto the dourest Prince' She spak richt courteouslie : — " Now will ye play, Lord Admiral, Now will ye play wi' me ? " The dourest prince he bit his lip, And his brow was black as glaur : " The only game that e'er I play Is the bluidy game o' war 1 " " And gin ye play at that, young man, It weel may cost ye sair ; Ye 'd better stick to the game at cards, For you '11 win nae honors there I " The King he leuch, and the Queen she leuch, Till the tears ran blithely doun ; But the Admiral he raved and swore, Till they kicked him frae the room. The Harper came, and the Harper sang, And O but they were fain ; For when he had sung the gude sang twice, They called for it again. It was the sang o' the Field o' Gowd, In the days of auld lang syne ; When bauld King Henry crossed the seas, Wi' his brither King to dine. And aye he harped, and aye he carped, Till up the Queen she sprang — " I '11 wad a County Palatine, Gude Walter made that sang." Three days had come, three days had gane, The fourth began to fa'. When our gude Queen to the Frenchman said, " It 's time I was awa ! " O, bonny are the fields o' France, And saftly draps the rain ; But my bairnies are in Windsor Tower, And greeting a' their lane. " Now ye maun come to me, Sir King, As I have come to ye ; And a benison upon your held For a' your courtesie ! " Ye maun come, and bring your ladye fere : Ye sail na say me no ; And ye 'se mind, we have aye a bed to spare For your wily friend Guizot." 1 Prince Joinville, Lord High Admiral of the French Navy in 1846. 8 IM THE BON GAULTIEE BALLADS. Now he has ta'en her lily white hand, And put it to his lip, And he has ta'en her to the strand. And left her in her ship. " Will ye come back, sweet bird," he cried, " Will ye come kindly here, When the lift is blue, and the lavrocks sing. In the spring-time o' the year ? " ' It 's I would blithely come, my Lord, To see ye in the spring ; It 's I would blithely venture back, But for ae little thing. " It is na that the winds are rude, Or that the waters rise, But I lo'e the roasted beef at hame. And no thae puddock-pies ! " THE MASSACRE OF THE MACPHEESON. FROM THE GAELIC. I. Fhairshon swore a feud Against the clan M'Tavish : Marched into their land To murder and to ravish ; For he did resolve To extirpate the vipers. With four-and-twenty men, And five-and-thirty pipers. II. But when he had gone Half-way down Strath Canaan, Of his fighting tail Just three were remainin'. They were all he had. To back him in ta battle ; All the rest had gone Off, to drive ta cattle. " Fery coot ! " cried Fhairshon, " So my clan disgraced is ; Lads, we '11 need to fight Pefore we touch the peasties. Here 's Mhic-Mac-Methusaleh Coming wi' his fassals. Gillies seventy-three, And sixty Dhuinfiwassails ! " IV. " Coot tay to you, sir ; Are not you ta Fhairshon ? Was you coming here To visit any person ? You are a plackguard, sir ! It is now six hundred Coot long years, and more, Since my glen was plundered." " Fat is tat you say ? Dar you cock your peaver ? I will teach you, sir. Fat is coot pehavior ; You shall not exist For another day more ; I will shoot you, sir. Or stap you with my claymore I " " I am fery glad To learn what you mention, Since I can prevent Any such intention." So Mhic-Mac-Methusaleh Gave some warlike howls. Threw his skhian dhu. An' stuck it in his powels. In this fery way Tied ta faliant Fhairshon, Who was always thought A superior person. Fhairshon had a son. Who married Noah's daughter. And nearly spoiled ta Flood, By trinking up ta water. Which he would have done, I at least believe it, Had ta mixture peen Only half Glenlivet. This is all my tale : Sirs, I hope 't is new t' ye ! Here 's your very good healths, And tamn ta whusky tuty! THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. llf THE YOUNG STOCKBROKER'S BRIDE. " O SWIFTLY speed the gallant bark ! — I say, you mind my luggage, porter I I do not heed yon storm-cloud dark, I go to wed old Jenkin's daughter. I go to claim my own Maria, The fairest flower that blooms in Harwich ; My panting bosom is on fire. And all is ready for the marriage." Thus spoke young Mivins, as he stepped On board the " Firefly," Harwich packet; The bell rung out, the paddles swept Plish-plashing round with noisy racket. The lowering clouds young Mivins saw. But fear, he felt, was only folly ; And so he smoked a fresh cigar. Then fell to whistling—" Nix my dolly ! " The wind it roared ; the packet's hulk Rocked with a most unpleasant motion ; Young Mivins leant him o'er a bulk, And poured his sorrows to the ocean. Tints— blue and yellow — signs of wo — Flushed, rainbow-like, his noble face in. As suddenly he rushed below, Crying, " Steward, steward, bring a basin ! " On sped the bark ; the howling storm The funnel's tapering smoke did blow far; Unmoved, young Mivins' lifeless form Was stretched upon a hair-cloth sofa. All night he moaned, the steamer groaned. And he was hourly getting fainter; When it came bump against the pier. And there was fastened by the painter. Young Mivins rose, and blew his nose, Caught wildly at his small portmanteau ; He was unfit to lie or sit. And found it difficult to stand, too. He sought the deck, he sought the shore. He sought the lady's house like winking. And asked, low tapping at the door, " Is this the house of Mr. Jenkin ? " A short man came — he told his name — Mivins was short — he cut him shorter, For in a fury, he exclaimed, " Are you the man as vauts my darter ? Vot kim'd on you last night, young squire 1 " " It -was the steamer, rot and scuttle her ! " " Mayhap it vos, but our Maria, Valked off' last night vith Bill the butler. " And so you 've kim'd a post too late." " It was the packet, sir, miscarried! " " Vy, does you think a gal can vait As sets 'er 'art on being married ? Last night she vowed she 'd be a bride, And 'ave a spouse for vuss or better : So Bill struck in ; the knot vos tied. And now I vishes you may get her ! " Young Mivins turned him from the spot, Bewilder'd with the dreadful stroke, her Perfidy came like a shot — He was a thunderstruck stockbroker. "A curse on steam and steamers too ! By their delays I 've been undone ! " He cried, as, looking very blue. He rode a bachelor to London. THE LAY OF THE LOVER'S FRIEND. [Air — "The days we went a gipsying."] I vf OTJLD all womankind were dead. Or banished o'er the sea ; For they have been a bitter plague These last six weeks to me : It is not that I 'm touched myself, For that I do not fear ; No female face hath shown me grace For many a bygone year. But 't is the most infernal bore, Of all the bores I know. To have a friend who 's lost his heart A short time ago. Whene'er we steam it to Blackwall, Or down to Greenwich run. To quaff' the pleasant cider cup. And feed on fish and fun ; Or climb the slopes of Richmond Hill, To catch a breath of air : Then, for my sins, he straight begins To rave about his fair. Oh, 't is the most tremendous bore, Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who 's lost his heart A short time ago. In vain you pour into his ear Your own confiding grief; In vain you claim his sympathy. In vain you ask. relief ; In vain you try to rouse him by Joke, repartee, or quiz ; His sole reply 's a burning sigh, 116 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. And " What a mind it ia ! " O Lord ! it is the greatest bore, Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who 's lost his heart A short time ago. I've heard her thoroughly described A hundred times, I 'm sure ; A.nd all the whUe I 've tried to smUe, And patiently endure ; He waxes strong upon his pangs, And potters o'er his grog ; And still I say, in a playful way — " Why you 're a lucky dog !" But oh 1 it is the heaviest bore. Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who 's lost his heart A short time ago. I really wish he'd do like me When I was young and strong ; I formed a passion every week, But never kept it long. But he has not the sportive mood That always rescued me. And so I would all women could Be banished o'er the sea. For 't is the most egregious bore, Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who 's lost his heart A short time ago. THE DIRGE OF THE DRINKER. BY W- ESQ. BkOTHBRS, spare awhile your liquor, lay your final tumbler down ; He has dropp'd — that star of honor — on the field of his renown ! Raise the wail, but raise it softly, lowly bend- ing on your knees. If you find it more convenient, you may hiccup if you please. Sous of Pantagruel, gently let your hip-hur- rahing sink. Be your manly accents clouded, half with sor- row, half with drink ! Lightly to the sofa pillow lift his head from off the floor ; See, how calm he sleeps, unconscious as the deadest nail in door ! Widely o'er the earth I've wander'd ; where the drink most freely flow'd, I have ever reel'd the foremost, foremost to the beaker strode. Deep in shady Cider Cellars I have dream'd o'er heavy wet. By the fountains of Damascus I have quafl'd the rich Sherbet, Regal Montepulciano drained beneath iti native rock, On Johannis' sunny mountain frequent hiccup'd o'er my hock ; I have bathed in butts of Xeres deeper than did e'er Monsoon, Sangaree'd with bearded Tartars in the Moun- tains of the Moon ; In beer-swilling Copenhagen I have drunk your Danesman blind, I have kept my feet in Jena, when each bursch to earth declined ; Glass for glass, in fierce Jamaica, I have shared the planter's rum. Drank with Highland dhuinie-wassels, till each gibbering Gael grew dumb ; I have smiled o'er Jersey Lightning, and of Cocktails taken some ; But a stouter, bolder drinker — one that loved his liquor more — Never yet did I encounter than our friend upon the floor ! Yet the best of us are mortal, we to weakness all are heir. He has fallen, who rarely stagger'd — let the rest of us beware ! We shall leave him, as we found him, — lying where his manhood fell, 'Mong the trophies of the revel, for he took his tipple well. Better 't were we loosed his neckcloth, laid his throat and bosom bare, Pulled his Hobies ofi', and turu'd his toes to taste the breezy air. Throw the sofa cover o'er him, dim the flaring of the gas, Calmly, calmly let him slumber, and, as by the bar we pass, We shall bid that thoughtful waiter place beside him, near and handy. Large supplies of soda water, tumblers hot' tomed well with brandy. So when waking, he shall drain them, with that deathless thirst of his, Clinging to the hand that smote him, like a good 'un as he is I THE BON GAULTIER BALIiADS. 117 DAME FEEDEGONDE. Whbn folks with headstrong passion blind, To play the fool make up their mind, They 're sure to come with phrases nice. And modest air, for your advice. But, as a truth unfailing make it. They ask, but never mean to take it. 'T is not advice they want, in fact, But confirmation in their act. Now mark what did, in such a case, A worthy priest who knew the race. A dame more buxom, blithe and free. Than Fredegonde you scarce would see. So smart her dress, so trim her shape. Ne'er hostess offer'd juice of grape, Could for her trade wish better sign ; Her looks gave flavor to her wine. And each guest feels it, as he sips. Smack of the ruby of her lips. A smile for all, a welcome glad, — A jovial coaxing way she had; And, — what was more her fate than blame, — A nine-months' widow was our dame. But toil was hard, for trade was good. And gallants sometimes will be rude. " And what can a lone woman do ? The nights are long, and eerie too. Now, Guillot there 's a likely man. None better draws or taps a can ; He 's just the man, I think, to suit. If I could bring my courage to 't." With thoughts like these her mind is cross'd : The dame, they say, who doubts is lost. ■" But then the risk ? I'll beg a slice Of Father Eaulin's good advice." Prankt in her best, with looks demure. She seeks the priest; and, to be sure. Asks if he thinks she ought to wed : " With such a business on my head, I'm worried off my legs with care. And need some help to keep things square. I've thought of Guillot, truth to tell ! He's steady, knows his business well. What do you think ? " When thus he met her ; " Oh, take him, dear, you can't do better ! " " But then the danger, my good pastor. If of the man I make the master. There is no trusting to these men." " Well, well, my dear, don't have him then " " But help I must have, there's the curse. I may go farther and fare worse." " Why, take him then ! " " But if he should Turn out a tliaukless ue'er-do-goocl, — In drink and riot waste my all. And rout me out of house and hall ? " " Don't have him, then ! But I 've a plan To clear your doubts, if any can. The bells a peal are ringing, — hark ! Go straight, and what they tell you mark. If they say ' Yes 1 ' wed, and be blest— If ' No,' why — do as you think best." The bells rung out a triple bob : Oh, how our widow's heart did throb, As thus she heard their burden go, " Marry, mar-marry, mar-Guillot ! " Bells were not then left to hang idle : A week, — and they rang for her bridal. But, woe the while, they might as well Have rung the poor dame's parting knell. The rosy dimples left her cheek. She lost her beauties plump and sleek ; For Guillot oftener kicked than kiss'd And back'd his orders with his fist, Proving by deeds as well as words. That servants make the worst of lords. She seeks the priest, her ire to wreak, And speaks as angry women speak. With tiger looks, and bosom swelling. Cursing the hour she took his telling. To all, his calm reply was this, — " I fear you've read the bells amiss. If they have led you wrong in aught. Your wish, not they, inspired the thought. Just go, and mark well what they say." Off trudged the dame upon her way. And sure enough their chime went so, — " Don't have that knave, that knave Guillot !" " Too true," she cried, " there's not a doubt: What could my ears have been about ! " She had forgot, that, as fools think, The bell is ever sure to clink. THE HUSBAND'S PETITION. Comb hither, my heart's darling. Come, sit upon my knee. And listen, while I whisper A boon I ask of thee. You need not pull my whiskers 118 THEORY OF A PEEFECT FAMILY. So amorously, my dove ; 'T is something quite apart from The gentle cares of love. I feel a bitter craving — A dark and deep desire, That glows beneath my bosom Like eoala of kindled fire. The passion of the nightingale, When singing to the rose. Is feebler than the agony That murders my repose I Nay, dearest ! do not doubt me. Though madly thus I speak — I feel thy arms about me. Thy tresses on my cheek : I know the sweet devotion That links thy heart with mine, — I know my soul's emotion Is doubly felt by thine : And deem not that a shadow Hath fallen across my love : No, sweet, my love is shadowless, As yonder heaven above. These little taper fingers — Ah, Jane ! how white they be ! — Can well supply the cruel want That almost maddens me. Thou wilt not sure deny me My first and fond request ; I pray thee, by the memory Of all we cherish best — By all the dear remembrance Of those delicious days, When, hand in hand, we wandered Along the summer braes : By all we felt, unspoken. When 'neath the early moon, We sat beside the rivulet, In the leafy month of June ; And by the broken whisper That fell upon my ear, More sweet than angel-music. When first I woo'd thee, dear ! By that great vow which bound thee For ever to my side, And by the ring that made thee My darling and my bride ! Thou wilt not fail nor falter. But bend thee to the task— A BOILED SHEEP'S-HEAD ON StJNDAY Ib all the boon I ask ! THEORY OF A PERFECT FAMILY. A monthly nurse, having expressed the opinion that three was a perfect num- ber for a family, her mistress, curious to know the grounds of such a theory, asked her to explain her ideal and how she would realize it. The nurse replied that it was simple enough, and thereupon set forth her view as follows: She would arrange that the first child would very properly be brought forth by the wife. The assortment second should justly fall to the husband's share, and the third would, of course, again go to the wife. But, by this time, in anticipation of hig turn next, the husband would be likely to sug- gest that the number was already large enough, and he would generously forego his claim for increase and be content that his wife should remain in possession of the larger portion of the family jewels : from which the nurse concluded that three was the perfect number, inasmuch as it was pleasing to both husband and wife ; whereas a larger number, though it might not be objectionable to the wife, was not, under the regulations, desired by the hus- band. The mistress did not become a convert to the nurse's interesting and rather original idea. Retaliation. — A lady of a truly manly spirit, accompanied by a small poodle, is said to have sadly failed the other day, in an attempted reformatory movement. She entered the smoking-car of a Western train and solemnly refused to go into another car, observing that her presence would keep the occupants from smoking. One stony wretch, however, insensible to the claims of refinement and reform, be- gan to enjoy his accustomed cigar, which was suddenly snatched from his lips, with the remark in high treble, " If there is anything I do hate it is tobacco-smoke ! " For a time the offender was silent and motionless, then gravely rising, amid the plaudits of the assembled smokers, he took that little poodle and gently threw him out of the window, sighing, " If there is anything T do hate it is a poodle." Why is a boy like a locomotive ? Be- cause he has to be switched to get him on the right track. PARTING WITH THE FAMILY PET. 119 PAETING WITH THE FAMILY PET. The other morning, says the San Pran- eisco Post, while the proprietor of the approaching circus and menagerie was picking his teeth in front of the Russ House, a tall, sun-burned, bald-headed man, with pine burs in his clothes and a stick of sassafras in his mouth, approached and said — " Be you the wild animal man, mister ? " The proprietor of the circus admitted that such was the fact. " Then," proceeded the man from the mountains, "I think I'll get you to make me an offer for a large-sized Californian lion I've got." " Good specimen, eh? " asked the circus man. " Good ! Well, I should say so. Measures eleven feet from his nose to the tip of his tail. Caught him myself when a cub. Just four years old to-morrow." " Hum — good appetite ? " " Appetite ? Great Scott — appetite ? Well, I should smile — that's just the reason why I'm parting with Jay — I call him Jay Gould, because he takes every- thing in. If it wasn't for his appetite, and the queer little things it makes him do, I wouldn't part with Gould for a for- tune." "Savage, eh?" "Well, no, I don't know as I should call Jay savage exactly — sorter nibblish though, he may be. Has a kinder habit of gnawing up things, so to speak. In fact, the neigh- bors — I live in Bladder's Peak — have got to be so fussy and particular of late that I can't as much- as unchain J. G. for a little fresh air without their getting grumpy about it." " There's no pleasing some people," said the hippodromer. " I should say not. Now, for instance, about three months after Jay got to be as big as a boarding-house sofa, I came home one day from a picnic and found he had eaten up Aunt Maria, who had been left at home to mind the house — ^leastways she was nowhere to be found, and as Jay Gould seemed sort of bulgy-like, and kept coughing up hairpins and false teeth for a day or two, we kinder suspicioned the whole thing." "Maternal aunt?" in- quired the showman, thoughtfully. " Ex- actly. My wife took on dreadfully for a day or two and wanted me to shoot Jay right oif. But, as I told her that most likely he'd catched the rheumatism and things from the remains, we'd better call it sqiiare." "And did she?" "Well, she kinder got reconciled after a while, especially as Jay seemed fond of playing with the children. One morning, soon after that, my wife's mother — whose fam- ily lived with me, you see— didn't come down to breakfast. As all her false hair was hanging over a chair back, and Gould crawled out from under a bed, licking his chops, and his tongue a good deal coated — mother-in-law was always taking things for the liver complaint — we saw at once it was another visitation of Providence and that the heavy hand of affliction was again upon us. Well; as you may sup- pose, the old lady — that's my wife — pranced arQund a good deal then, and got down the breech-loader right away. But just then arrived a gold medal from the S. P. 0. A. Society, awarded on account of my forbearance in the Aunt Maria business, and so I got her calmed down after a while." "Pacified her, eh ? " " Yes, I managed to arrange a reprieve for Jay somehow. You see, I was always fond of pets, and tender- hearted, and all that, you understand. I argued that the poor animal didn't know that he was doing wrong — ^merciful man is merciful to his beasts, &c." "After that you kept the animal chained ? " " Well, no. The fact is I set out to get a chain several times, but one thing and another prevented, until one day last week I actually missed the old lady her- self. I looked around for a couple ot days, when somehow of a sudden I sorter intentioned where she was. I gave Gould half a pound of emetic right away, but all we could get out of him was a pair of high-heeled shoes and a chest protector. It was too late, too late. We put the shoes and things in the coffin and had Jay led behind the hearse to the cemetery. Wanted to have as much of the corpse present as possible — don't you see? We had the animal decorated with flowers and things as fine as you please. Folks said it was the touchingest thing that ever took place in them parts ; " and the bereaved husband sighed heavily. "Don't wonder you want to sell the beast," remarked the menagerie man after a pause. " Well, I sorter do, and I sorter don't," said Mr. Skidmore, ab- stractedly. " There's so many memories and things clustered round J. G. — seems kinder like parting with one's family burying-lot, as it were. On the other 120 MOW I KILLED A BEAE. hand, though, now that the old lady is goiie, I sorter feel as though the old in- sect had — well, outlived his usefulness, so to speak. So suppose I have his box hauled around to your show after the performance this afternoon, and see if we can't strike a bargain." " All right," iaid the manager, " I'm going up Salt Lake way after a while, and perhaps I can work him off for big money to some of the Mormon elders." " There's a mint of money in him as a family pet," said the other earnestly, and after striking the circus proprietor for a season dead- head, the widower shouldered his um- brella and drifted sadly down the street. HOW I KILLED A BEAE. [Charles Dudley Warner, bom in Masaacliusetts, 1829 ; graduated at Hamilton College, 1851. After spend- ing a short time in surveying on the iSIisBOUfi frontier, he studied law in New York and began practice in Chicago, but in 1860 removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he was assistant editor and afterwards editor-in- chief of the Hartford Press. In 1867 he became assistant editor of the Gourant^ with which he is still connected. He is the author of " My Swmmerin a Garden^' (1871) ; *' Saunterinys" (1872) ; "Bac^Log StudieB^^ (1872) ; joint author with "Mark Twain" (Clemens) of " TJie Gilded Age" (1873), a novel ; and author of " Mummies and Moslems" (1876), a book of travels in Egypt. As a writer he has a fine vein of fancy, a delicate humor, and rich thought.] The following is from " In the Wilderness," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , Boston. So many conflicting accounts have ap- peared about my casual encounter with an Adirondack bear last summer, that in justice to the public, to myself, and to the bear, it is necessary to make a plain statement of the facts. Besides, it is so seldom I have occasion to kill a bear, that the celebration of the exploit may be excused. The encounter was unpremeditated on both sid;3. I was not hunting for a bear, and I have no reason to suppose that a bear was looking for me. The fact is, that we were both out blackberrying, and met by chance, — the usual way. There is among the Adirondack visitors always a great deal of conversation about bears, — a general expression of the wish to see one in the woods, and much speculation as to how a person would act if he or she chanced to meet one. But bears are scarce and timid, and appear only to a favored few. It was a warm day in August, just the sort of day when an adventure of any kind seemed impossible. But it occurred to the housekeepers at our cottage — there were four of them — to send me to the clearing, on the mountain back of the house, to pick blackberries. It was rather a series of small clearings, running up into the forest, much overgrown with bushes and briers, and not unromantio. Cows pastured there, penetrating through the leafy passages from one opening to another, and browsing among the bushes. I was kindly furnished with a six-quart pail, and told not to be gone long. Not from any predatory instinct, but to save appearances, I took a gun. It adds to the manly aspect of a person with a tin pail if he also carries a gun. It was possible I might start up a partridge; though how I was to hit him, if he started up instead of standing still, puzzled me. Many people use a shot-gun for part-, ridges. I prefer the rifle : it makes a clean job of death, and does not prema- turely stuff the bird with globules of lead. The rifle was a Sharp's, carrying a ball- cartridge (ten to the pound),— an excel- lent weapon belonging to a friend of mine, who had intended, for a good many years back, to kill a deer with it. He could hit a tree with it — ^if the wind did not blow, and the atmosphere was just right, and the tree was not too far off — nearly every time. Of course, the tree must have some size. Needless to say that I was at that time no sportsman. Years ago I killed a robin under the most hu- miliating circumstances. The bird was in a low cherry-tree. I loaded a big shot- gun pretty full, crept up under the tree, rested the gun on the fence, with the muzzle more than ten feet from the bird, shut both eyes, and pulled the trigger. When I got up to see what had happened, the robin was scattered about under the tree in more than a thousand pieces, no one of which was big enough to enable a naturalist to decide from it to what spe- cies it belonged. This disgusted me with the life of a sportsman. I mention the incident to show, that, although I went blackberrying armed, there was not much inequality between me and the bear. In this blackberry-patch bears had been seen. The summer before, our col- HOW I KILLED A BEAR. 121 ored cook, accompanied by a little girl of the vicinage, was picking berries there one day, when a bear came out of the woods, and walked towards them. The girl took to her heels, and escaped. Aunt Ohloewas paralyzed with terror. Instead of attempting to run, she sat down on the ground where she was standing, and be- gan to weep and scream, giving herself up for lost. The bear was bewildered by this conduct. He approached and looked at her ; he walked around and surveyed her. Probably he had never seen a col- ored person before, and did not know whether she would agree with him : at any rate, after watching her a few mo- ments, he turned about, and went into the forest. This is an authentic instance of the delicate consideration of a bear, and is much more remarkable than the forbearance towards the African slave of the well-known lion, because the bear had no thorn in his foot. When I had climbed the hill, I set up my rifle against a tree, and began pick- ing berries, lured on from bush to bush by the black gleam of fruit (that always promises more in the distance than it re- alizes when you reach it); penetrating farther and farther, through leaf-shaded cow-paths flecked with sunlight, into clearing after clearing. I could hear on all sides the tinkle of bells, the cracking of sticks, and the stamping of cattle that were taking refhge in the thicket from the flies. Occasionally, as I broke through a covert, I encountered a meek cow, who stared at me stupidly for a second, and then shambled off into the brush. I became accustomed to this dumb society, and picked on in silence, attributing all the wood-noises to the cat- tle, thinking nothing of any real bear. In point of met, however, I was thinking all the time of a nice romantic bear, and, as I picked, was composing a story about a generous she-bear who had lost her cub, and who seized a small girl in this very vv^ood, carried her tenderly off to a cave, and brought her up on bear's milk and honey. When the girl got big enough to run away, moved by her inherited in- stincts, she escaped, and came into the valley to her father's house (this part of the story was to be worked out, so that the child would know her father by some family resemblance, and have some lan- guage in which to address him), and told him where the bear lived. The father took hi.s gun, and, guided by the unfeel- ing daughter, went into the woods and shot the bear, who never made any re- sistance, and only, when dying, turned reproachful eyes upon her murderer. The moral of the tale was to be kindness to animals. I was in the midst of this tale, when I happened to look some rods away to the other edge of the clearing, and there was a bear ! He was standing on his hind- legs, and doing just what I was doing, — picking blackberries. With one paw he bent down the bush, while with the other he clawed the berries into his mouth, — green ones and all. To say that I was astonished is inside the mark. I suddenly discovered that I didn't want to see a bear, after all. At about the same moment the bear saw me, stopped eating berries, and regarded me with a glad sur- prise. It is all very well to imagine what you would do under such circumstances. Probably you wouldn't do it : I didn't. The bear dropped down on his fore-feet, and came slowly towards me. Climbing a tree was of no use, with so good a, climber in the rear. If I started to run, I had no doubt the bear would give chase ; and although a bear cannot run down hill as fast as he can run up hill, yet I felt that he could get over this rough, brush-tangled ground faster than I could. The bear was approaching. It sud- denly occurred to me how I could divert his mind until I could fall back upon my military base. My pail was nearly full of excellent berries, — much better than the bear could pick himself. I put the pail on the ground, and slowly backed away from it, keeping my eye, as beast-tamers do, on the bear. The ruse succeeded. The bear came up to the berries, and stopped. Not accustomed to eat out of a pail, he tipped it over, and nosed about in the fruit, "gorming" (if there is such a word) it down, mixed with leaves and dirt, like a pig. The bear is a worse feeder than the pig. Whenever he dis- turbs a maple-sugar camp in the spring, he always upsets the buckets of syrup, and tramples round in the sticky sweets, wasting more than he eats. The bear's manners are thoroughly disagreeable. As soon as my enemy's head was down, I started and ran. Somewhat out of breath, and shaky, I reached my faithful rifle. It was not a moment too soon. I heard the "bear crashing through the 122 HOW I KILLED A BEAR. brush after me. Enraged at my duplic- ity, he was now coming on with blood in his eye. I felt that the time of one of us was probably short. The rapidity of thought at such moments of peril is well known. I thought an octavo volume, had it illustrated and published, sold fifty thousand copies, and went to Europe on the proceeds, while that bear was loping across the clearing. As I was cocking the gun, I made a hasty and unsatisfac- tory review of my whole life. I noted, that, even in such a compulsory review, it is almost impossible to think of any good thing you have done. The sins come out uncommonly strong. I recol- lected a newspaper subscription I had delayed paying years and years ago, until both editor and newspaper were dead, and which now never could be paid to all eternity. The bear was coming on. I tried to remember what I had read about encounters with bears. I couldn't recall an instance in which a man had run away from a bear in the woods and escaped, although I recalled plenty where the bear had run from the man and got off. I tried to think what is the best way to kill a bear with a gun, when you are not near enough to club him with the stock. My first thought was to fire at his head ; to plant the ball between his eyes : hut this is a dangerous experiment. The bear's brain is very small : and, unless you hit that, the bear does not mind a bullet in his head ; that is, not at the time. I remembered that the instant death of the bear would follow a bullet planted just back of his fore-leg, and sent into his heart. This spot is also difficult to reach, unless the bear stands off, side towards you, like a target. I finally de- termined to fire at him generally. The bear was coming on. The contest seemed to me very different from anything at Oreedmoor. I had carefully read the reports of the shooting there ; but it was not easy to apply the experience I had thus acquired. I hesi- tated whether I had better fire lying on my stomach, or lying on my back, and resting the gun on my toes. But in neither position, I reflected, could I see the bear until he was upon me. The range was too short; and the bear wouldn't wait for me to examine the thermometer, and note the direction of the wind. Trial of the Oreedmoor method, therefore, had to be abandoned; and I bitterly regretted that I had not read more accounts of off- hand shooting. For the bear was coming on. I tried to fix my last thoughts upon my family. As my family is small, this was not difficult. Dread of displeasing my wife, or hurting her feelings, was upper- most in my mind. What would be her anxiety as hour after hour passed on, and I did not return ! What would the rest of the household think as the afternoon passed, and no blackberries came I What would be my wife's mortification when the news was brought that her husband had been eaten by a bear.' I cannot im- agine anything more ignominious than to have a husband eaten by a bear. And this was not my only anxiety. The mind at such times is not under control. With the gravest fears the most whimsical ideas will occur. I looked beyond the mourning friends, and thought what kind of an epitaph they would be compelled to put upon the stone. Something like this : — HERB HE THE REMAINS OF EATEN BY A BEAK Aug. 20, 1877. It is a very unheroic and even disagree- able epitaph. That " eaten by a bear " is intolerable. It is grotesque. And then I thought what an inadequate lan- guage the English is for compact expres- sion. It would not answer to put upon the stone simply " eaten ; " for that is in- definite, and requires explanation : it might mean eaten by a cannibal. This diificulty could not occur in the German, where essen signifies the act of feeding by a man, and fressen by a beast. How sim- ple the thing would be in German ! — HIER LIEGT HOCHWOHLGEBOBBN HEER , GEFEESSEN i. Aug. 20, 1877. That explains itself. The well-horn one was eaten by a beast, and presumably by a bear, — an animal that has a bad reputation since the days of Elisha. The bear v/as coming on ; he had, in fact, come on. I judged that he could see the whites of my eyes. All my sub- sequent reflections were confused. I JUSTICE AND HER SCALES. 123 raised the gun, covered the bear's breast with the sight, and let drive. Then I turned, and ran like a deer. I did not hear the bear pursuing. I looked back. The bear had stopped. He was lying down. I then remembered that the best thing to do after having fired your gun is to reload it. I slipped in a charge, keep- ing my eyes on the bear. He never stirred. I walked back suspiciously. There was a quiver in the hind-legs, but no other motion. Still he might be shamming: bears often -sham. To make sure, I approached, and put a ball into his head. He didn't mind it now : he minded nothing. Death had come to him with a merciful suddenness. He was calm in death. In order that he might remain so, I blew his brains out, and then started for home. I had killed a bear I Notwithstanding my excitement, I managed to saunter into the house with an unconcerned air. There was a chorus of voices : — " Where arie your blackberries ? " " Why were you gone so long ? " "Where's your pail?" "I left the pail." " Left the pail ? What for ? " "A bear wanted it." " Oh, nonsense 1 " " Well, the last I saw of it, a bear had it." " Oh, come ! You didn't really see a bear?" " Yes, but I did really see a real bear." " Did he run ? " " Yes : he ran after me." " I don't believe a word of it. What did you do?" "Ohl nothing particular — except kill the bear." Cries of " Gammon ! " " Don't believe it!" "Where's the bear?" " If you want to see the bear, you must go up into the woods. I couldn't bring him down alone." Having satisfied the household that something extraordinary had occurred, and excited the posthumous fear of some of them for my own safety, I went down into the valley to get help. The great bear-hunter, who keeps one of the sum- mer boarding-houses, received my story with a smile of incredulity; and the in- credulity spread to the other inhabitants and to the boarders as soon as the story was known. However, as I insisted in all soberness, and offered to lead them to the bear, a party of forty or fifty people at last started off with me to bring the bear in. Nobody believed there was any bear in the case; but everybody who could get a gun carried one; and we went into the woods armed with guns, pistols, pitchforks, and sticks, against all contin- gencies or surprises, — a crowd made up mostly of scoffers and jeerers. But when I led the way to the fatal spot, and pointed out the bear, lying peacefully wrapped in his own skin, some- thing like terror seized the boarders, and genuine excitement the natives. It was a no-mistake bear, by George ! and the hero of the fight — well, I will not insist upon that. But what a procession that was, carrying the bear home I and what a congregation was speedily gathered in the valley to see the bear ! Our best preach- er up there never drew anything like it on Sunday. And I must say that my particular friends, who were sportsmen, behaved very well, on the whole. They didn't deny that it was a bear, although they said it was small for a bear. Mr. Deanie, who is equally good with a rifle and a rod, admitted that it was a very fair shot. He is probably the best salmon-fisher in the United States, and he is an equally good hunter. I suppose there is no per- son in America who is more desirous to kill a moose than he. But he needlessly remarked, after he had examined the wound in the bear, that he had seen that kind of a shot made by a cow's horn. This sort of talk affected me not. When I went to sleep that night, my last delic- ious thought was, " I've killed a bear 1 " JUSTICE AND HER SCALES. A lady once consulted Dr. Johnson on the degree of turpitude to be attached to her son's robbing an orchard. " Madam," said Johnson, " it all depends upon the weight of the boy. I remember my school-fellow, David Garrick, who was always a little fellow, robbing a dozen of orchards with impunity ; but the very first time I climbed up an apple tree — for I was always a heavy boy — ^the bough broke with me, and it was called judg- ment. I suppose that is why justice m always represented with a pair of scales." 124 A JOCULAR BARONET. A JOCULAE BAEONET.' [ToBiAB Smollett, an emineut British novelist, born in tlie year 1721, was descended from an old and distin- guished family in Dumbartonshire. His gi'andfather, Sir James Smollett, of Bonhill, was one of the commis- Baries or conaistorial judges of Edinburgh, and sat in the Scots parliament as representative of his native euuutry. Had the novelist survived about four more years than the term of his too short life, he would, as heir of entail, have succeeded to the ancestral estate in the beautiful vale of Leven. He lost his father while very young, but he was well educated, and afterward apprenticed to a surgeon in Glasgow. He is said to have wished to enter the ai-ray, and being disappointed, to have avenged himself on his grandfather, who thwarted his inclinations, by describing Sir James under the unamiable character of the old judge in ^^ Roderick Random.^^ In 1748, in his twenty-seventh year, he produced his '^ Roderick Ecmdom,^^ which was read with the utmost avidity, and seemed at once to place its author very near, if not in the actual rank of Fielding as a novelist. In 1751 appeared " Peregrine PickUy^' a more ambi- tious and not less successful work, and in 1753, " Fer- dinand Count Fathom," an inferior production, though containing scenes of striking adventure and eloquent description. Smollett next translated '' Don Quixote " (1755), in which it is admitted he was surpassed by Motteux and Jarvis. Another novel appeared in 1760- Gl, ^' The Adventures of Sir Laiincelot Greaves;" in 1766 two volumes of querulous " Travels in France and Italy;" in 1769 " The Aduenturee of an Atom ;" a political satire unworthy of its author ; and in 1771, only a few months before his death, " Tlie Expedition of Humphrey Clinker" the best of all the novels of Smollett, and in the opinion of Tliackeray, one of the very best in the whole range of imaginative literature. Worn out with literary cares, private misfortunes, anxiety and ill-health, the novelist retired to Italy, and died at Leghorn, October 21st, 1771, in the fifty-first year of his age.] I helieve there is something mischiev- ous in ray disposition, for nothing diverts me so much as to see certain characters tormented with false terrors. We last night lodged at the house of Sir Thomas r,ulford, an old friend of my uncle, ' iolly fellow, of moderate intellect, vvho, in spite of the gout, which hath lamed him, is resolved to he merry to the last ; and mirth he has a particular knack in extracting from his guests, let their humor be ever so caustic or refrac- 1 From Smollett's last novel, " The Expedition of Hnm- phrey Clinker," which was wi'itten at Monte Novo, near Leghorn, in 1770-71. Scott characterized this work as "the last, and, like music, 'sweetest in the close,' the most pleasing of his compositions." tory. Besides our company, there was in the house a fat-headed justice of the peace, called Frogmore, and a country practitioner in surgery, who seemed to be our landlord's chief companion and con- fidant. We found the knight sitting on a couch, with his crutches by his side, and his feet supported on cushions ; but he received us with a hearty welcome, and seemed greatly rejoiced at our arri- val. After tea we were entertained with a sonata on the harpsichord, by Lady Bulford, who sang and played to admira- tion ; but Sir Thomas seemed to be a lit- tle asinine in the article of ears, though he affected to be in raptures ; and beg- ged his wife to favour us with an arietta of her own composing. This arietta, however, she no sooner began to perform, than he and the justice fell asleep ; but the moment she ceased playing, the knight waked snorting, and exclaimed : " cara! what d'ye think, gentlemen? Will you talk any more of your Pergo- lesi and your Corelli ? " At the same time he thrust his tongue in one cheek, and leered with one eye at the doctor and me, who sat on his left hand. He concluded the pantomime with a loud laugh, which he could command at all times extempore. Notwithstanding his disorder, he did not do penance at sup- per, nor did he ever refuse his glass when the toast went round, but rather encour- aged a quick circulation, both by precept and example. I soon perceived the doctor had made himself very necessary to the baronet : he was the whetstone of his wit, the butt of his satire, and his operator in certain ex- periments of humor which were occasion- ally tried on strangers. Justice Frog- more was an excellent subject for this species of philosophy : sleek and corpu- lent, solemn and shallow, he had studied Burn^ with uncommon application ; hut he studied nothing so much as the art of living (that is, eating) well. This fat buck had often afforded good sport to our landlord ; and he was frequently started with tolerable success in the course of this evening: but the baronet's appetite for ridicule seemed to be chiefly excited by the appearance, address, and conversation of Lismahago, whom he attempted in all the different modes of exposition ; but he put me in mind of a ^ Bum's Justice of Peace. A JOCULAR BAEONET. 125 contest that I once saw between a young hound find an old hedgehog. The dog turned hiin over and over, and bounced, and barked, and mumbled ; but as often as he attemped to bite, he felt a prickle in his jaws, and recoiled in manifest con- fusion. The captain when left to him- self, will not fail to turn his ludicrous side to the company ; but if any man attempts to force him into that attitude, he becomes stubborn aa a mule, and un- manageable as an elephant unbroken. Divers tolerable jokes were cracked on the justice, who ate a most unconscion- able supper, and, among other things, a large plate of boiled mushrooms, which he had no sooner swallowed than the doctor observed, with great gravity, that they were of the kind called champignons, which on some constitutions had a poi- sonous effect. Mr. Frogmore, startled at this remark, asked, in some confusion, why he had not been so kind as to give him that notice sooner? He answered, that he took it for granted, by his eating them so heartily, that he was used to the dish ; but as he seemed to be under some apprehension, he prescribed a bumper of plague-water, which the justice drank of immediately, and retired to rest, not without marks of terror and disquiet. At midnight we were shown to our different chambers, and in half an hour I was fast asleep in bed ; but about three o'clock in the morning I was awakened with a dismal cry of " Fire ! " and start- ing up, ran to the window in my shirt. The night was dark and stormy ; and a number of people, half dressed, ran back- wards and forwards through the court- yard, with links and lanterns, seemingly in the utmost hurry and trepidation. Slipping on my clothes in a twinkling, I ran downstairs, and, on inquiry, found the fire was confined to a back stair, which led to a detached apartment where Lismahago lay. By this time the lieu- tenant was alarmed by a bawling at his window, which was in the second story, but he could not find his clothes in the dark, and his room-door was locked on the outside. The servants called to him that the house had been robbed ; that, with- out doubt the villains had taken away his clothes, fastened the door, and set the house on fire, for the staircase was in flames. In this dilemma the poor lieu- tenant ran about the room naked, like a squirrel in a cage, popping out his head at the window between whiles, and im- ploring assistance. At length the knight in person was brought out in his chair, attended by my uncle and all the family, including our aunt Tabitha, who screamed and cried, and tore her hair, as if she had been distracted. Sir Thomas had already ordered his people to bring a long ladder, which was applied to the captain's window, and now he exhorted him earnestly to descend. There was no need of much rhetoric to persuade Lismahago, who forthwith made his exit by the window, roaring all the time to the people below to hold fast the ladder. Notwithstanding the gravity of the occasion, it was impossible to behold this scene without being seized with an in- clination to laugh. The rueful aspect; of the lieutenant in his shirt, with u quilted nightcap, fastened under his chin, and his long lank limbs and haunche.^ exposed to the wind, made a very pic- turesque appearance when illuminated by the links and torches which the ser- vants held up to light him in his descent. All the company stood round the ladder except the knight, who sat in his chaii, exclaiming from time to time : "Lord have mercy on usl — save the gentleman's life — mind your footing, dear captain ! — softly ! — stand fast ! — clasp the ladder with both hands there! — well done, my dear boy ! — 0, bravo ! — an old soldier forever ! — bring a blanket — bring a warm blanket to comfort his poor car- cass — warm the bed in the greenroom — give me your hand, dear captain — I'm rejoiced to see thee safe and sound with all my heart." Lismahago was received at the foot of the ladder by his inamorata, who, snatch- ing a blanket from one of the maids, wrapped it about his body ; two men- servants took him under their arms, and a female conducted him to the green-room, still accompanied by Mrs. Tabitha, who saw him fairly put to bed. During this whole transaction he spoke not a syllable, but looked exceeding grim, sometimes at one, sometimes at another of the specta- tors, who now adjourned in a body to the parlour where we had supper, every one surveying another with marks of aston- ishment and curiosity. The knight being seated in an easy- chair, seized my uncle by the hand, and, bursting into a long and loud laugh — "Mat," cried he, "crown me with oak, 126 A JOCULAR BAEONET. or ivy, or laurel, or parsley, or what you will, and acknowledge this to be a cowp de maitre in the way of waggery — ha, ha, ha ! Such a camisicata, scagliata heffaia I che roba I O what a subj ect ! what a caricatura ! for a Rosa, a Rembrandt, a Schalken ! Zooks, I'll give a hundred guineas to have it painted — what a fine descent from the cross, or ascent to the gallows ! what light and shadows I what a group below ! what expression above ! what an aspect,! Did you mind the as- pect? Ha, ha, ha ! and the limbs and the muscles — every toe denoted terror ! ha, ha, ha I Then the blanket I what costume ! St. Andrew ! St. Lazarus ! St. Barrabas ! ha, ha, ha ! " " After all, then," cried Mr. Bramble, very gravely, '" this was no more than a false alarm. We have been frightened out of our beds, and almost out of our senses, for the joke's sake ! " "Ay, and such a joke !" cried our land- lord — " such a farce ! such a denouement ! such a catastrophe ! " "Have a little patience," replied our squire ; " we are not yet come to the cat- astrophe ; and pray God it may not turn out a tragedy instead of a farce. The captain is one of those saturnine subjects who have no idea of humor. He never laughs in his own person ; nor can he bear that other people should laugh at his expense. Besides, if the subject had been properly chosen, the joke was too severe in all conscience." " 'Sdeath ! " cried the knight, " I could not have bated him an ace, had he been my own father : and as for the subject, such another does not present itself once in half a century." Here Mrs. Tabitha interposing, and bridling up, declared she did not see that Mr. Lismahago was a fitter subject for ridicule than the knight himself; and that she was very much afraid he would very soon find he had mistaken his man. The baronet was a good deal disconcerted by this intimation, saying that he must be a Goth and a barbarian if he did not enter into the spirit of such a happy and humorous contrivance. He begged, how- ever, that Mr. Bramble and his sister would bring him to reason ; and this request was reinforced by Lady Bulford, who did not fail to read the baronet a lecture on his indiscretion, which lecture he received with submission on one side of the face, and a leer on the other. We now went to bed for the second time ; and before I got up, my uncle had visited Lismahago in the green room, and used such arguments with him, that, when we met in the parlour, he seemed to be quite appeased. He received the knight's apology with a good grace, and even professed himself pleased at finding he had contributed to the diversion of the company. Sir Thomas shook him by the hand, laughing heartily ; and then desired a pinch of snuff, in token of perfect reconciliation. The lieutenant, putting his hand in his waiscoat pocket, pulled out, instead of his own Scotch mull, a very fine gold snufi" box, which he no sooner perceived than he said : " Here is a small mistake." " No mistake at all," cried the baronet ; " a fair exchange is no robbery. Oblige me so far, captain as to let me keep your mull as a memorial." " Sir," said the lieutenant, " the mull is much at your service, but this machine I can by no means retain. It looks like compounding a sort of felony in the code of honour. Besides, I don't know but there may be another joke in this conveyance ; and I don't find myself disposed to be brought on the stage again : I won't presume to make free with your pockets, but I beg you wiU put it up again with your own hand." So saying, with a certain austerity of aspect he presented the snuff-box to the knight, who received it in some confusion, and restored the mull, which he would by no means keep, except on the terms of exchange. This transaction was like to give a grave cast to the conversation, when my uncle took notice that Mr. Justice Frog- more had not made his appearance either at the night alarm, or now at the general rendezvous. The baronet, hearing Frog- more mentioned — " Odso ! " cried he, " I had forgotten the justice. Prithee, doctor, go and bring him out of his kennel." Then laughing till his sides were well shaken, he said he would show the captain that he was not tlje only person of the drama exhibited for the entertainment of the company. As to the night scene, it could not affect the justice, who had been purposely lodged in the further end of the house, remote from the noise, and lulled with a dose of opium into the bargain. In a few minutes Mr. Justice was led A JOCULAR BARONET. 127 into the parlour in his night-cap and loose morning-gown, rolling his head from side to side, and groaning piteously all the way. '' Why ! neighbour Frogmore," ex- claimed the baronet, "what is the mat- ter ? you look as if you were not a man for this world. Set him down softly on the couch — poor gentleman ! Lord, have mercy on us ! What makes him so pale, and yellow, and bloated?" " Oh, Sir Thomas ! " cried the justice : " I doubt it is all over with me, those mushrooms I ate at your table have done my business — ah ! oh ! hey I " "Now, the Lord forbid 1" said the other : " what, man ! have a good heart. How does thy stomach feel? ha ! " To this interrogation he made no reply, but throwing aside his night-gown dis- covered that his waistcoat would not meet on his belly by five good inches at least. " Heaven protect us all ! " cried Sir Thomas, " what a melancholy spectacle ! Never did I see a man so suddenly swelled but when he was either just dead or just dying. Doctor, canst thou do nothing for this poor object? " " I don't think the case is quite desper- ate," said the surgeon, " but I would advise Mr. Frogmore to settle his affairs with all expedition; the parson may come and pray by him, while I prepare a clyster and an emetic draught." The justice, rolling his languid eyes, ejaculated with great fervency : " Lord, have mercy on us ! " Then he begged the surgeon to despatch. " As for my world- ly affairs," said he, " they are all settled but one mortgage, which must be left to my heirs ; but my poor soul ! my poor soul ! what will become of my poor soul ! — ^miserable sinner that I am ! " " Nay, prithee, my dear boy, compose thyself," resumed the knight ; " consider the mercy of Heaven is infinite ; thou canst not have any sins of a very deep dye on thy conscience, or the devil's in't." " Name not the devil," exclaimed the terrified Frogmore ; " I have more sins to answer for than the world dreams of. Ah, friend, I have been sly — sly — d d sly ! Send for the parson without loss of time, and put me to bed, for I am post- ing to eternity." He was accordingly raised from the couch, and supported by two servants, who led him back to his room; but be- fore he quitted the parlour, he entreated the good company to assist him with their prayers. He added : " Take warn- ing by me, who am suddenly cut off in my prime, like a flower of the field ; and Heaven forgive you. Sir Thomas, for suffering such poisonous trash to be eaten at your table." He was no sooner removed out of hearing than the baronet abandoned him- self to a violent fit of laughing, in which he was joined by the greatest part of the company ; but we could hardly prevent the good lady from going to undeceive the patient, by discovering that, while he slept, his waistcoat had been straitened by the contrivance of the surgeon, and that the disorder in his stomach and bowels was occasioned by some antimo- nial wine, which he had taken overnight, under the denomination of plague-water. She seemed to think that his apprehen- sion might put an end to his life : the knight swore he was no such chicken, but a tough old rogue, that would live long enough to plague all his neighbors. On inquiry, we found his character did not entitle him to much compassion or respect, and therefore let our landlord's humour take its course. A clyster was actually administered by an old woman of the family, who had been Sir Thomas' nurse, and the patient took a draught made with oxymel of squills to forward the operation of the antimonial wine, which had been retarded by the opiate of the preceding night. He was visited by the vicar, who read prayers, and began to take an account of the state of his soul. The knight and I, with the doctor, entered the chamber at this juncture, and found Frogmore . . . crying for mercy, confessing his sins, or asking the vicar's opinion of his case ; and the vicar an- swered in a solemn, snuffling tone, that heightened the ridicule of the scene. The emetic having done its oflice, the doctor interfered, and ordered the patient to be put to bed again. He declared that much of the virus was discharged ; and, giving him a composing draught, assured him he had good hopes of his recovery. This welcome hint he received with tears of joy in his eyes, protesting that, if he should recover, he would al- ways think himself indebted for his life to the great skill and tenderness of his doctor, whose hands he squeezed with great fervour ; and thus he was left to his repose. 128 A FEAST AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. We were pressed to stay to dinner, that we might , be witnesses of his resuscita- tion ; but my uncle insisted on our depart- ing before noon, that we might reach this town before it should be dark. In the meantime Lady Bulford conducted us into the garden to see a fish-pond, just finished, which Mr. Bramble censured as being too near the parlour, where the knight now sat by himself, dozing in an elbow-chair, after the fatigues of his morning achievement. In this situation he reclined, with his feet wrapped in flannel, and supported in a line with his body, when, the door flying open with a violent shock. Lieutenant Lismahago rushed into the room, with horror in his looks, exclaiming : "A mad dog ! a mad dog'j " and throwing up the window-sash, leaped into the garden. Sir Thomas, waked by this tremendous exclamation, started up, and, forgetting his gout, fol- lowed the lieutenant's example by a kind of instinctive impulse. He not only bolted through the window like an arrow from a bow, but ran up to his middle in the pond before he gave the least sign of recollection. Then the captain began to bawl : " Lord, have mercy on us ! pray take care of the gentleman ! — mind your footing, my dear boy ! — get warm blankets — comfort his poor carcass — warm the bed in the green-room I " Lady Bulford was thunderstruck at this phenomenon, and the rest of the company gazed in silent astonishment, while the servants hastened to assist their master, who suffered himself to be carried back into the parlour without speaking a word. Being instantly accommodated with dry clothes and flannels, comforted with a cordial, and replaced in statu quo, one of the maids was ordered to chafe his lower extremities, an operation in consequence of which his senses seemed to return, and his good-humour to revive. As we had followed him into the room, he looked at every individual in his turn, with a cer- tain ludicrous expression of countenance, but fixed his eye in particular on Lisma- hago, who presented him with a pinch of snuff; and when he took it in silence — " Sir Thomas Bulford," said he, " I am much obliged to you for all your favours, and some of them I have endeavoured to repay in your own coin." " Give me thy hand," cried the baronet; 'hou hast indeed paid me 'scot and lot;' and even left a balance in my hands, for which, in presence of this company, I promise to be accountable." So saying, he laughed very heartily, and even seemed to enjoy the retaliation which had been exacted at his own ex- pense; but Lady Bulford looked very grave, and in all probability thought the lieutenant had carried his resentment too far, considering that her husband was valetudinary ; but, according to the pro- verb, " he that will play at bowls must expect to meet with rubbers." T. Smollett. A FEAST AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. From " Peregrine Pickle,^' Our young gentleman, by his insinuat- ing behaviour, acquired the full con- fidence of the doctor, who invited him to an entertainment, which he intended to prepare in the manner of the ancients. Pickle, struck with this idea, eagerly em- braced the proposal, which he honored with many encomiums, as a ' plan in all respects worthy of his genius and appre- hension ' ; and the day was appointed at some distance of time, that the treater might have leisure to compose certain pickles and confections which were not to be found among the culinary prepara- tions of these degenerate days. With a view of rendering the physi- cian's taste more conspicuous, and ex- tracting from it the more diversion, Peregrine proposed that some foreigners should partake of the banquet ; and the task being left to his care and discretion, he actually bespoke the company of a French marquis, an Italian count and a German baron, whom he knew to be egregious coxcombs, and therefore more likely to enhance the joy of the entertain- ment. Accordingly, the hour being arrived, he conducted them to the hotel where the physician lodged, after having re- galed their expectations with an elegant meal in the genuine old Roman taste : and they were received by Mr. Pallet, who did the honors of the house, while his friend superintended the cook below. By this communicative painter the guests understood that the doctor had met with numerous difficulties in the execution of A FEAST AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. 129 his design ; that no fewer than five cooks had been dismissed because they could not prevail upon their own consciences to obey his directions in things that were contrary to the present practice of their art, &c. ... A servant, coming into the room, announced dinner ; and the enter- tainer led the way into another apart- ment, where they found a long table, or rather two boards joined together, and furnished with a variety of dishes, the steams of which had such evident effect upon the nerves of the company, that the marquis made frightful grimaces, under pretence of taking snuff; the Italian's eyes watered, the German's visage under- went several distortions of feature; our hero found means to exclude the odour from his sense of smelling by breathing only through his mouth; and the poor painter, running into another room, plugged his nostrils with tobacco. The doctor himself, who was the only person then present whose organs were not dis- composed, pointing to a couple of couches placed on each side of the table, told his guests that he was sorry he could not procure the exact triclinia of the ancients, which was somewhat different from these conveniences, and desired they would have the goodness to repose themselves without ceremony, each in his respective couchette, while he and his friend Mr. Pallet would place themselves upright at the ends, that they might have the pleasure of serving those that lay along. This disposition, of which the strangers had no previous idea, disconcerted and perplexed them in a most ridiculous manner ; the marquis and baron stood bowing to each other on pretence of dis- puting the lower seat, but, in reality, with a view of profiting by the example of each other, for neither of them under- stood the manner in which they were to loll ; and Peregrine, who enjoyed their confusion, handed the count to the other side, where, with the most mischievous politeness, he insisted upon his taking possession of the upper place. In this disagreeable and ludicrous sus- pense, they continued acting a panto- mime of gesticulations, until the doctor earnestly entreated them to waive all compliment and form, lest the dinner should be spoiled before the ceremonial could be adjusted. . . . Every one settled according to the arrangement already de- scribed, the doctor graciously undertook VOL. IV. — ^. H. to give some account of the dishes aa they occurred, that the company might be directed in their choice ; and, with an air of infinite satisfaction thus began : "This here, gentlemen, is a boiled goose, served up in a sauce composed of pepper, lovage, coriander, mint, rue, anchovies and oil ! I wish, for your sakes, gentle- men, it was one of the geese of Ferrara, so much celebrated among the ancients for the magnitude of their livers, one of which is said to have weighed upwards of two pounds ; with this food, exquisite as it was, did the tyrant Heliogabalus regale his hounds. But I beg pardon ; I had almost forgot the soup, which I hear is so necessary an article at all tables in France. At each end there are dishes of the salaccabia of the Eomana ; one is made of parsley, pennyroyal, cheese, pine-tops, honey, vinegar, brine, eggs, cucumbers, onions and hen-livers ; the other is much the same as the soup- maigre of this country. Then there is a loin of boiled veal, with fennel and cara- way seed, on a pottage composed of pickle, oil, honey and flour, and a curious hashis of the lights, liver and blood of a hare, together with a dish of roasted pigeons. Monsieur le Baron, shall I help you to a plate of this soup ? " The German, who did not at all disapprove of the ingredi- ents, assented to the proposal, and seemed to relish the composition ; while the mar- quis, being asked by the painter which of the silly-kickabys he chose, was, in con- sequence of his desire, accommodated with a portion of the soup-maigre ; and the count, in lieu of spoon-meat, of which he said he was no great admirer, supplied himself with a pigeon, therein conform- ing to the choice of our young gentle- man, whose example he determined to follow through the whole course of the entertainment. The Frenchman having swallowed the first spoonful, made a lull pause; his throat swelled as if an egg had stuck in his gullet, his eyes rolled, and his mouth underwent a series of involuntary con- tractions and dilatations. Pallet, who looked steadfastly at this connoisseur, with a view of consulting his taste before he himself would venture upon the soup, began to be disturbed at these emo- tions, and observed with some con- cern, that the poor gentleman seemed to be going into a fit, when Peregrine as- sured him that these were symptoms of 9 130 A FEAST AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. ecstasy, and, for further confirmation, asked the marquis how he found the soup. It was with infinite difiiculty that his com- plaisance could so far master his disgust as to enahle him to answer : ' Altogether excellent, upon my honour ! ' And the painter, being certified of his approbation, lifted the spoon to his mouth without scruple ; but far from justifying the eulo- gium of his taster, when this present com- position diffused itself upon his palate, he seemed to be deprived of all sense and motion, and sat like the leaden statue of some river-god, with the liquor flowing out at both sides of the mouth. The doctor, alarmed at this indecent phenomenon, earnestly inquired into the cause of it ; and when Pallet recovered his recollection, and swore that he would rather swallow porridge made of burning brimstone than such an infernal mess as that which he had tasted, the physician, in his own vindication, assured the com- pany that, except the usual ingredients, he had mixed nothing in the soup but some sal-ammoniac, instead of the ancient nitrum, which could not now be procured ; and appealed to the marquis whether such a succedaneum was not an improve- ment on the whole. The unfortunate petitmattre, driven to the extremity of his condescension, acknowledged it to he a masterly refinement ; and deeming him obliged, in point of honour, to evince his sentiments by his practice, forced a few more mouthfuls of this disagreeable potion down his throat, till his stomach was so much offended that he was compelled to start up of a sudden, and in the hurry of his elevation overturned his plate into the bosom of the baron. The emergency of his occasions would not permit him to stay and make apologies for this abrupt behaviour, so that he flew into another apartment, where Pickle found him puking and crossing himself with great devotion ; and a chair at his desire being brought to the door, he slipped into it more dead than alive, conjuring his friend Pickle to make his peace with the com- pany, and in particular excuse him to the baron, on account of the violent fit of ill- ness with which he had been seized. It was not without reason that he employed a mediator ; for when our hero returned to the dining-room, the German had got up, and was under the hands of his own lackey, who wiped the grease from a rich embroidered waistcoat, while he, almost frantic with his misfortune, stamped upon the ground, and in high Dutch cursed the unlucky banquet, and the impertinent entertainer, who all this time, with great deliberation, consoled him for the disas- ter, by assuring him that the damage might be repaired with some oil of tur- pentine and a hot iron. Peregrine, who could scarce refrain from laughing in his face, appeased his indignation by telling him how much the whole company, and especially the marquis, was mortified at the accident; and the unhappy salaccabia being removed, the places were filled with two pies, one of dormice liquored with syrup of white poppies, which the doctor had substituted in the room of toasted poppy-seed, formerly eaten with honey as a dessert ; and the other composed of a hock of pork baked in honey. Pallet, hearing the first of these dishes described, lifted up his hands and eyes, and with signs of loathing and amaze- ment, pronounced : ' A pie made of dormice and syrup of poppies : Lord in heaven ! what beastly fellows these Romans were ! ' His friend checked him for his irreverent exclamation with a severe look, and recommended the veal, which he himself cheerfully ate with such encomiums to the company that the baron resolved to imitate his example, after having called for a bumper of Burgundy, which the physician, for his sake, wished to have been the true wine of Falernum. The painter, seeing nothing else upon the table which he would venture to touch, made a merit of necessity, and had re- course to the veal also; although he could not help saying, that he would not give one slice of the roast-beef of Old England for all the dainties of a Roman emperor's table. But all the doctor's invitations and assurances could not prevail upon his guests to honour the hashis and the goose and that course was succeeded by another, in which he told them were divers of those dishes which among the ancients had obtained the appellation of politeles or magnificent. ' That which smokes in the middle,' said he, ' is a sow's stomach, filled with a composition of minced pork, hog's brains, eggs, pepper, cloves, garlic, aniseed, rue, ginger, oil, wine and pickle. On the right-hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with a sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage and pep- per. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed or rather purged with milk. At that A FEAST AFTER THE MANNER OF THE ANCIENTS. 131 end, next Mr. Pallet, are fritters of pom- piona, lovage, origanum, and oil; and here are a couple of pullets, roasted and stuffed in the manner of Apicius.' The painter, who had by wry faces testified his abhorrence of the sow's stom- ach, which he compared to a bagpipe, and the snails which had undergone pur- gation, no sooner heard him mention the roasted pullets, than he eagerly solicited a wing of the fowl ; upon which the doc- tor desired he would take the trouble of cutting them up, and accordingly sent them round, while Mr. Pallet tucked the tablecloth under his chin, and brandished his knife and fork with singular address ; but scarce were they set down before him, when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he called aloud, in a manifest disorder : ' Zounds I this is the essence of a whole bed of garlic ! ' That he might not, how- ever, disappoint or disgrace the enter- tainer, he applied his instruments to one of the birds ; and when he opened up the cavity, was assaulted by such an irruption of intolerable smells, that without staying to disengage himself from the cloth, he sprung away with an exclamation of ' Lord Jesus ! ' and involved the whole table in havoc, ruin and confiision. Before Pickle could accomplish his escape he was sauced with a syrup of the dormice pie, which went to pieces in the general wreck: and as for the Italian count, he was overwhelmed by the sow's stomach, which, bursting in the fall, dis- charged its contents upon his leg and thigh, and scalded him so miserably that he shrieked with anguish, and grinned with a most ghastly and horrible aspect. The baron, who sat secure without the vortex of this tumult, was not at all dis- pleased at seeing his companions involved in such a calamity as that which he had already shared ; but the doctor was con- founded with shame and vexation. After having prescribed an application of oil to the count's leg, he expressed his sorrow for the misadventure, which he openly ascribed to want of taste and prudence in the painter, who did not think proper to return and make an apology in person ; and protested that there was nothing in the fowls which could give offence to a sensible nose, the stufiing being a mixture of pepper, lovage and asafcetida, and the sauce consisting of wine and herring- pickle, which he had used instead of the celebrated garum of the Eomans,; that famous pickle having been prepared some- times of the scombri, which were a sort of tunny-fish, and sometimes of the silurus, or shad-fish ; nay, he observed, that there was a third kind called garum hcemation, made of the guts, gills and blood of the thynnus. The physician, finding it would be im- practicable to re-establish the order of the banquet by presenting again the dishes which had been discomposed, ordered everything to be removed, a clean cloth to be laid, and the dessert to be brought in. Meanwhile he regretted his incapacity to give them a specimen of the aliens or fish-meals of the ancients ; such as the jus diabaton, the conger-eel, which, in Galen's opinion, is hard of digestion ; the corrmta, or gurnard, described by Pliny in his Natural History, who says the horns of many of them were a foot and a half in length; the mullet and lamprey, that were in the highest estimation of old, of which last Julius Csesar borrowed six thousand for one triumphal supper. He observed that the manner of dressing them was described by Horace, in the account he gives of the entertainment to which Msecenas was invited by the epi- cure Nasiedenus, Affertur squillos inter mursena natantes, &c. ; and told them that they were commonly eaten with the thus Syriaeum, a certain anodyne and astringent seed, which quali- fied the purgative nature of the fish. Finally, this learned physician gave them to understand, that though this was reck- oned a luxurious dish in the zenith of the Roman taste, it was by no means compar- able in point of expense to some prepara- tions in vogue about the time of that absurd voluptuary, Heliogabalus, who ordered the brains of six hundred ostriches to be compounded in one mess. By this time the dessert appeared, and the company were not a little rejoiced to see plain olives in salt and water ; but what the master of the feast valued him- self upon, was a sort of jelly, which he affirmed to be preferable to the hypotrim- ma of Hesychius, being a mixture of vinegar, pickle, and honey, boiled to a proper consistence, and candied asafcetida, which he asserted, in contradiction to Aumelbergius and Lister, was no other than the laser Syriaeum, so precious as to be sold among the ancients to the weight 132 PHOENIXIANA. of a silver penny. The gentlemen took his word for the excellency of this gum, but contented themselves with the olives, which gave such an agreeable relish to the wine that they seemed very well disposed to console themselves for the dis- graces they had endured ; and Pickle, un- willing to lose the least circumstance of entertainment that could be enjoyed in their company, went in quest of the painter, who remained in his penitentials in another apartment, and could not be persuaded to re-enter the banqueting- room until Peregrine undertook to pro- cure his pardon from those whom he had injured. Having assured him of this in- dulgence, our young gentlemen led him in like a criminal, bowing on all hands with an air of humility and contrition ; and particularly addressing himself to the count, to whom he swore in English he had no intent to affront man, woman, or child, but was fain to make the best of his way, that he might not give the hon- ourable company cause of offense by obey- ing the dictates of nature in their pre- sence. When Pickle interpreted this apology to the Italian, Pallet was forgiven in very polite terms, and even received into favour by his friend the doctor in consequence of our hero's intercession ; so that all the guests forgot their chagrin, and paid their respects so piously to the bottle, that in a short time the champagne produced very evident eflFects in the behaviour of all pre- sent. T. Smollett. AN OLD LADY'S FIEST EAILEOAD RIDE. An old lady was going to Stamford, Conn., to visit a daughter, and took her seat in the cars for the first time in her life. During the ride the car in which she was seated was thrown down an embank- ment and demolished. Crawling out from beneath the debris, she spied a man who was held down in a sitting posture by his legs being fastened. "Is this Stamford ? " she anxiously inquired. The man was from Boston. He was in considerable pain, but he did not lose sight of the fact that he was from Boston, so he said : " No, this is a catastrophe." " Oh," ejaculated the old lady, " then I hadn't oughter got oif here." " PH(ENIXIANA, OR SKETCHES AND BURLESQUES." By John Pikenix.i [Capt. Geo. H. Debby, U. S. A., born 1823, died 1861, i^ notably deserving of a place in the Library of Wir and HuMOE. John Phoenix was the pioneer of the preaent school of American Humor, — at least of the Pacific Coast School, which includes the names of the foremost humorists of the present day. Bret Harte, Mark Twain, John Hay, Joaquin Miller, and even Artemas Ward and Josh Billings, have all .worked in the vein originally struck by John Phoenix.] We select an extract, amusing from a historical point of view, as well as representative of his original and quaint style. OFFICIAL EEPOET OF PEOFESSOE JOHN PHCENIX, A.M. Of a Military Survey and Beconnoitsance of the rouU from Ban Francisco to the Mission of Dolores, made with a view to ascertain the practicability of connecting those points by a Railroad.^ Mission of Doloees, Feb. 15, 1855. It having been definitely determined that the great Railroad, connecting the City of San Francisco with the head of navigation on Mission Creek, should be constructed without unnecessary delay, a large appropriation ($120,000) was granted for the purpose of causing thorough military examinations to be made of the proposed routes. The routes, which had principally attracted the attention of the public, were "the Northern," following the line of Brannan Street, "the Central," through Folsom Street, and " the extreme Southern," passing over the " Old Plank Road " to the Mission. Each of these proposed routes has many enthusiastic advocates ; but " the Central " was, un- doubtedly, the favorite of the public, it being more extensively used by emigrants from San Francisco to the Mission, and therefore more widely and favorably known than the others. It was to the examination of this route, that the Com- 1 Published by D. Appleton & Co., New York. 2 The Mission Dolores is (1856) only 2J^ miles bom the City Hall of San Francisco, and a favorite suburban locality, lying within the limits of the City Survey. This fact noted for the benefit of distant readers of these sketches. PH(ENIXIANA. 133 mittee, feeling a confidence (eminently justified by the result of my labors) in my experience, judgment and skill as a mili- tary Engineer, appointed me on the first instant. Having notified that Honorable Body of my acceptance of the important trust confided to me, in a letter, wherein I also took occasion to congratulate them on the good judgment they had evinced, I drew from the Treasurer the amount ($40,000) appropriated for my peculiar route, and having invested it securely in loans at three per cent, a month (made, to avoid accident, in my own name), I proceeded to organize my party for the expedition. In a few days my arrangements were completed, and my scientific corps organ- ized, as follows : — JOHN Phcenix, A.M. . . /Principal Engineer and V Chief Astronomer. {Apocryphal Engineers. First Assistant As- tronomer. {Hypercritical Engineers. Second Assistant As- tronomer. Db. Abraham Dunshunneb, Geologist. Dr. Targeb Heavysterne, Naturalist. Hebr Von Dee "Wbeqates, . Botanist. Dr. Fogy L. Bigquns . . Ethnologist. Dr. Tushuakeb Dentist. EnryHalfeedJineiN8,B.M. JD^fteinen. Adolphe Kraut . . . l Hi Fun . . . , Interpreter. James Ph(bnix {my elder j Treasurer. brother) v Joseph Phoenix, ditto. . Quarter- Master. William Ph(enix (younger | Commissary. brother) . , . . . t Peter Phcenix ditto. . Clerk. Paul Ph(enix (my cousin) . Sutler, Eeuben Phcenix ditto. . Wagon-Master. ElCHABD Pfl(ENIX (seCOUd f ^j^^^^ ^^^^_ cousin) i- These gentlemen, with one hundred and eighty-four laborers employed as teamsters, chainmen, rodmen, etc., made up the party. For instruments we had 1 large Transit Instrument (8-inch achro- matic lens), 1 Mural Circle, 1 Altitude and Azimuth instrument (these instruments were permanently set up in a mule cart, which was backed into the plane of the true meridian, when required for use), 13 large Theodolites, 13 small ditto, 8 Transit Compasses, 17 Sextants, 34 Artificial Horizons, 1 Sidereal Clock, and 184 Solar Compasses. Each Employee was fur- nished with a gold chronometer watch, and, by a singular mistake, a diamond pin and gold chain ; for directions having been given, that they should be furnished with " chains and pins," — meaning of course such articles as are used in survey- ing — Lieut. Root, whose " zeal somewhat overran his discretion," incontinently procured for each man the above-named articles of jewelry, by mistake. They were purchased at Tucker's (where, it is needless to remark, " you can buy a dia- mond pin or ring)," and afterwards proved extremely useful in our inter- course with the natives of the Mission of Dolores, and indeed, along the route. Every man was suitably armed, with four of Colt's revolvers, a Minie rifle, a copy of Col. Benton's speech on the Pacific Railroad, and a mountain howit- zer. These last-named heavy articles required each man to be furnished with a wheelbarrow for their transportation, which was accordingly done ; and these vehicles proved of great service on the survey, in transporting not only the arms but the baggage of the party, as well as the plunder derived from the natives. A squadron of dragoons, numbering 160 men, under Capt. McSpadden, had been detailed as an escort. They accordingly left about a week before us, and we heard of them occasionally on the march. On consulting with my assistants, I had determined to select, as a base for our operations, a line joining the summit of Telegraph Hill with the extremity of the wharf at Oakland, and two large iron thirty-two pounders were accordingly procured, and at great expense imbedded in the earth, one at each extremity of the line, to mark the initial points. On placing compasses over these points to determine the bearing of the base, we were extremely perplexed by the unac- countable local attraction that prevailed ; and were compelled, in consequence, to select a new position. This we finally concluded to adopt between Fort Point and Saucelito ; but, on attempting to measure the base, we were deterred by the unexpected depth of the water inter- vening, which, to our surprise, was con- siderably over the chain bearers' heads. Disliking to abandon our new line, which had been selected with much care and at great expense, I determined to employ in its measurement a reflecting instrument, used very successfiilly by the United 134 PHCENIXIANA. States CoasC Survey. I therefore directed my assistants to procure me a " Helio- TiiOPE," but after being annoyed by having brought to me successively a sweet-smelling shrub of that name, and a box of " Lubin's Extract " to select from, it was finally ascertained, that no such instrument could be procured in Cali- fornia. In this extremity, I bethought myself of using as a substitute the flash of gunpowder. Wishing to satisfy myself of its practicability by an experiment, I placed Dr. Dunshunner at a distance of forty paces from my Theodolite, with a flint-lock musket, carefully primed, and directed him to flash in the pan, when I should wave my hand. Having covered the Doctor with the Theodolite, and by a movement of the tangent screw placed the intersection of the cross lines directly over the muzzle of the musket, I accord- ingly waved ; when I was astounded by a tremendous report, a violent blow in the eye, and the instantaneous disappearance of the instrument. Observing Dr. Dunshunner lying on his back in one direction, and my hat, which had been violently torn from my head, at about the same distance in another, I con- cluded that the musket had been acci- dentally loaded. Such proved to be the case ; the marks of three buckshot were found in my hat, and a shower of screws, broken lenses and pieces of brass, which shortly fell around us, told where the ball had struck, and bore fearful testimony to the accuracy of Dr. Dunshunner's prac- tice. Believing these experiments more curious than useful, I abandoned the use of the " Heliotrope " or its substitutes, and determined to reverse the usual pro- cess, and arrive at the length of the base line by subsequent triangulation. I may as well state here, that this course was adopted and resulted to our entire satis- faction ; the distance from Fort Point to Saucelito by the solution of a mean of 1,867,434,926,465 triangles, being deter- mined to be exactly three hundred and twenty-four feet. This result diflered very much from our preconceived ideas and irom the popular opinion ; the distance being generally supposed to be some ten miles ; but I will stake my professional reputation on the accuracy of our work, and there can, of course, be no disputing the elucidations of science, or facts de- monstrated by mathematical process, how- ever incredible they may appear 'per se. We had adopted an entire new system of triangulation, which I am proud to claim (though I hope with becoming modesty) as my own invention. It simply consists in placing one leg of a tripod on the initial point, and opening out the other legs as far as possible ; the distance between the legs is then measured hy a two-foot rule and noted down ; and the tripod moved, so as to form a second tri- angle, connected with the first, and so on, until the country to be triangulated has been entirely gone over. By using a large number of tripods, it is easily seen with what rapidity the work may be carried on, and this was, in fact, the object of my requisition for so large a number of solar compasses, the tripod being in my opinion the only useful portion of that absurd in- strument. Having given Lieut. Root charge of the triangulation, and detached Mr. Jinkins with a small party on hydro- graphical duty (to sound a man's well, on the upper part of Dupont Street, and re- port thereon), on the 5th of February I left the Plaza, with the savans and the remainder of my party, to commence the examination and survey of Kearny Street. Besides the mules drawing the cart which carried the transit instrument, I had procured two fine pack mules, each ot which carried two barrels of ale for the draftsmen. Following the tasteful ex- ample of that gallant gentleman — who conducted the Dead Sea Expedition, and wishing likewise to pay a compliment to the administration under which I was employed, I named the mules " Fanny Pierce," and " Fanny Bigler." Our cor- tege passing along Kearny Street attracted much attention irom the natives, and in- deed, our appearance was sufficiently imposing to excite interest even in less untutored minds than those of these bar- barians. First came the cart, bearing our instru- ments ; then a cart containing Lieut. Zero with a level, with which he con- stantly noted the changes of grade that might occur ; then one hundred and fifty men, four abreast, armed to the teeth, each wheeling before him his personal property and a mountain howitzer ; then the savans, each with note-book and pen- cil, constantly jotting down some object of interest (Doctor Tushmaker was so zealous to do something, that he pulled a tooth from an iron rake standing near a PHCENIXIANA. 135 stable-door, and was cursed therefor by the illiberal proprietor), and finally, the Chief Professor, walking arm in arm with Dr. Dunshunner, and gazing from side to side, with an air of ineffable blandness and dignity, brought up the rear. I had made arrangements to measure the length of Kearny Street by two me- thods ; first, by chaining its sidewalks ; and secondly, by a little instrument of my invention called the " Go-it-ometer." This last consists of a straight rod of brass, firmly strapped to a man's leg and connected with a system of clock-work placed on his back, with which it per- forms, when he walks, the office of a 6a/- lisiic pendulum. About one foot below the ornamental buttons on the man's back appeal's a dial-plate connected with the clock-work, on which is promptly re- gistered, by an index, each step taken. Of course, the length of the step being known, the distance passed over in a day may be obtained by a very simple pro- cess. We arrived at the end of Kearny Street, and encamped for the night about sun- down, near a large brick building, in- habited by a class of people called " The Orphans," who, I am credibly informed, have no fathers or mothers ! After seeing the camp properly arranged, the wheel- barrows parked and a guard detailed, I sent for the chainmenand "Go-it-ometer" bearer, to ascertain the distance traveled during the day. Judge of my surprise to find that the chainmen, having received no instruc- tions, had simply drawn the chain after them through the streets, and had no idea of the distance whatever. Turning from them in displeasure, I took from the " Go-it-ometer " the number of paces marked, and on working the distance, found it to be four miles and a-half. Upon close questioning the bearer, Wil- liam Boulder (called by his associates, " Slippery Bill "), I ascertained that he had been in a saloon in the vicinity, and after drinking five glasses of a beverage, known among the natives as " Lager Bier," he had danced a little for their amusement. Feeling very much dissatis- fied with the day's survey, I stepped out of the camp, and stopping an omnibus, asked the driver how far he thought it to the Plaza? He replied, "Half-a- mile," which I accordingly noted down, and returned very much pleased at so easily obtaining so much valuable infor- mation. It would appear, therefore, that " Slippery Bill," under the influence of five glasses (probably 2J quarts) of " Lager Bier," had actually danced four miles. Kearny Street, of which I present above a spirited engraving from a beau- tifiil drawing by Mr. Kraut, is a pass, about fifty feet in width. The soil is loose and sandy, about one inch in depth, be- low which Dr. Dunshunner discovered a stratum of white pine, three inches in thickness, and beneath this again, sand. It is densely populated, and smells of horses. Its surface is intersected with many pools of sulphuretted protoxide of hydrogen, and we found several specimens of a vegetable substance, loosely distri- buted, which is classed by Mr. Weegates as the stalkus cabbagiensis. It being late in the evening when our arrangements for encamping were com- pleted, we saw but little of the natives until the next morning, when they gathered about our camp to the number of eighteen. We were surprised to find them of di- minutive stature, the tallest not exceeding three feet in height. They were exces- sively mischievous, and disposed to steal such trifling things as they could carry away. Their countenances are of the color of dirt, and their hair white and glossy as the silk of maize. The one that we took to be their chief, was an exceed- ingly diminutive personage, but with a bald head which gave him a very vener- able appearance. He was dressed in a dingy robe of jaconet, and was borne in the arms of one of his followers. On making them a speech, proposing a treaty, and assuring them of the protection of their great Father, Pierce, their chief was affected to tears, and on being comforted by his followers, repeatedly exclaimed, " da, da, — da, da " ; which, we were in- formed by the interpreter, meant " father," and was intended as a respectful allusion to the President. We presented him after- wards with some beads, hawk-bells and other presents, which he immediately thrust into his mouth, saying " Goo," and crowing like a cock ; which was rendered 136 PHCENIXIANA. by the interpreter into an expression of high satisfaction. Having made presents to all his followers, they at length left us very well pleased, and we shortly after took up our line of march. From the notes of Dr. Bigguns, I transcribe the following description of one of this deeply interesting people : " Kearny Street native ; name — Bill ; — height, two feet nine inches ; — hair, white ; — complexion, dirt color ; — eyes, blue : — no front teeth; — opal at extremity of nose; — dress, a basquine of bluish bombazine, with two gus- sets, ornamented down the front with crochet work of molasses candy, three buttons on one side and eight button holes on the other — leg- gings of tow-cloth, fringed at the bottoms and permitting free ventilation behind — one shoe and one boot ; — occupation, erecting small py- ramids of dirt and water ; when asked what they were, replied 'pies,' (word in Spanish meaning feet; supposed they might be the feet or foundation of some barbarian struc- ture) — religious belief, obscure ; when asked who made him, replied ' PAR ' (supposed to be tlie name of one of their principal Deities)." We broke up our encampment and moved North by compass across Market Street, on the morning of the 6th, and about noon had completed the survey as far as the corner of Second Street. While crossing Market Street, being anxious to know the exact time, I con- cluded to determine it by observation. Having removed the Sidereal Clock from the cart, and put it in the street, we placed the cart in the plane of the Meri- dian, and I removed the eye and object- glass of the transit, for the purpose of wiping them. While busily engaged in this manner, an individual, whom I have reason to believe is connected with a iire company, approached, and seeing the large brazen tube of the transit pointed to the sky, mistook it for a huge speaking trumpet. Misled by this delusion, he mounted the cart, and in an awful tone of voice shouted through the transit " Wash her, Thirteen ! " but having mis- calculated the strength of his lungs, he was seized with a violent fit of coughing, and before he could be removed had com- pletely coughed the vertical hairs out of the instrument. I was in despair at this sudden destruction of the utility of our most valuable instrument, but fortunately recollecting a gridiron, that we had r.mong our kitchen apparatus, I directed Dr. Heavysterne to hold it up in the plane of the true Meridian, and with an opera glass watched and noted by the clock the passage of the sun's centre across the five bars. Having made these observations, I requested the principal computer to work them out, as I wished to ascertain the time immediately; but he replying that it would take some three months to do it, I concluded not to wait, but sent a man into the grocery, corner of Market and Second, to inquire the time, who soon returned with the desired information. It may be thought singular, that with so many gold watches in our party, we should ever be found at a loss to ascertain the time; but the fact was that I had directed every one of our em- ployees to set his watch by Greenwich mean time, which, though excellent to give one the longitude, is for ordinary purposes the meanest time that can be found. A distressing casualty that befell Dr. Bigguns on this occasion may be found worthy of record. An omnibus, passing during the time of observation, was driven carelessly near our Sidereal Clock, with which it almost came into contact. Dr. Bigguns, with a slight smile, remarked that " the clock was nearly run down" and immediately fainted away. The pursuits of science cannot be delayed by accidents of this nature, two of the workmen removed our unfortunate friend, at once, to the Orphan Asylum, where, having rung the bell, they left him on the steps and departed, and we never saw him afterwards. From the corner of Market to the cor- ner of Second and Folsom Streets, the route presents no object of interest worthy of mention. We were forced to the con- clusion, however, that little throwing of stones prevails near the latter point, as the inhabitants mostly live in glass houses. On the 8th we had brought the survey nearly up to Southwick's Pass on Folsom Street, and we commenced going through the Pass on the morning of the 9th. 'This pass consists of a rectangular ravine, about 10 feet in length, the sides lined with pine boards, with a white oak {quercus albus) bar, that at certain occa- sions forms across, entirely obstructing the whole route. We found no difiiculty in getting through the Pass on foot, nor with the wheelbarrows ; but the mule carts and the " two Fannies " were more troublesome, and we were finally unable to get them through without a consider- PHCENTXIANA. 137 able pecuniary disbursement, amounting in all to one dollar and fifty cents ($1.50). We understand that the City of San Francisco is desirous of effecting a safe and free passage through this celebrated cafion, but a large appropriation ($220,- 000) is required for the purpose. The following passages relating to this portion of the route, transcribed from the Geological Notes of Dr. Dunshuuner, though not directly connected with the objects of the survey, are extremely curious in a scientific point of view, and may be of interest to the general reader. " The country in the vicinity of the route, after leaving Southwick's Pass, is very pro- ductive and I observed with astonishment, that red-headed children appear to grow spontane- ously. A building was pointed out to me, near our line of march, as the locale of a most as- tounding agricultural and architectural phe- nomenon, which illustrates the extreme fertility of the soil in a remarkable degree. A small pine wardrobe, which had been left standing by the side of the house (a frame cottage with a piazza), at the commencement of the rainy season, took root, and in a few weeks grew to the prodigious height of thirty feet, and still preserving its proportions and characteristic appearance, extended in each direction, until it covered a space of ground some forty by twenty feet in measurement. " This singular phenomenon was taken ad- vantage of by the proprietors ; doors and win- dows were cut in the wardrobe, a chimney erected, and it now answers every purpose of an addition to the original cottage, being two stories in height! This, doubtless, appears almost incredible, but fortunately the house and attached wardrobe may be seen any day, from the road, at a trifling expense of omnibus hire, by the sceptical. Some distance beyond, rises a noble structure, built entirely of cat- wood, called ' The Valley House,' by Mrs. Hubbard." Not imagining that a venial species of profanity was conveyed by this legend, I concluded that Mrs. Hubbard was simply the proprietor. This brought to my mind the beautiful lines of a primitive poet, Spenser,! if I mistake not : " Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard To get her poor dog a bone ; But when she got there, the cupboard was bare. And so the poor dog got none.' " Feeling curious to ascertain if this were, by any possibility, the ancient residence of the heroine of these lines, perchance an ancestress of the present proprietor, I ventured to call 1 The Doctor is in error ; the lines quoted are from Chaucer. J. P. and inquire ; and my antiquarian zeal was re- warded by the information that such was the case ; and that, if I returned at a later hour during the evening, I could be allowed a siglit of the closet, and a view of the skeleton of the original dog. Delighted witli my success, I returned accordingly, and finding the door closed, ventured to knock ; when a sudden shower of rain fell, lasting but about five seconds, but drenching me to the skin. Un- deterred by this contretemps, I elevated my umbrella and knocked again, loudly, when a violent concussion upon the umbrella, accom- panied by a thrill down the handle, which caused me to seat myself precipitately in a bucket by the side of the door, convinced me that electrical phenomena of an unusual character were prevalent, and decided me to return with all speed to our encampment. Here I W3.s astounded by discovering inverted on the summit of my umbrella, a curious and deeply interesting vase, of singularly antique shape, and composed, apparently, of white porcelain. Whether this vase fell from the moon, a comet, or a passing meteor, I have not yet decided ; drawings of it are being prepared and the whole subj ect will receive my thorough investigation at an early day.' " I subsequently attempted to pursue my investigations at the ' Valley House,' but the curt manner of the proprietor led me to suspect that the subject was distasteful, and I was re- luctantly compelled to abandon it. " Near the ' Valley House,' I observed an advertisement of ' The Mountain View,' by P. Buckley ; but the building in which it is' ex- hibited being closed, I had no opportunity to judge of the merits of the painting, or the skill of Mr. Buckley as an artist. A short distance further, I discovered a small house occupied by a gentleman, who appeared engaged in some description of trafSc with the emigrants; and on watching his motions intently, my surprise was great to find that his employment consisted in selling them small pieces of pasteboard at fifty cents apiece ! Curious to know the nature of these valuable bits of paper, I watched care- fully the proprietor's motions through a win- dow for some hours; but being at length observed by hina, I was requested to leave — and I left. This curious subject is, therefore, I regret to say, enwrapped in mystery, and I re- luctantly leave it for the elucidation of some future savant. The beautiful idea, originated byCol. Benton, that bufialoes and other wild animals are the pioneer engineers, and that subsequent explorations can discover no better roads than those selected by them, would ap- pear to apply admirably to the Central Route. Many pigs, singly and in droves, met and passed me continually ; and as the pig is un- iThiB curious antique, to which I hape giyen the name of the " Dunehunner Vaae," has singularly the appearance of a wasli basin I When the drawings are completed, it is to be presented to the California Aca- demy of Natural Sciences. J. P. 138 PHCENIXIANA. questionably a more sagacious animal than the bufifalo, tlieir preference for this route is a most significant fact. I was, moreover, in- formed by the emigrants, that this route was ' the one followed by Col. Fremont when he lost his men.' This statement must be received cum grano salis, as, on my inquiry — ' What men ? ' my informant replied ' A box of chess- men,' which answer, from its levity, threw an air of doubt over the whole piece of infor- mation, in my mind. There can be no question, however, that Lieut. Beale has frequently traveled this route, and that it was a favorite with him ; indeed, I am informed that he took the first omnibus over it that ever left San Francisco for the Mission of Dolores. "The climate in these latitudes is mild; snow appears to be unknown, and we saw but little ice; what there was being sold at twenty- five cents per lb. " The geological formation of the country is not volcanic. I saw but one small specimen of trap dur.ng the march, which I observed at ' The Valley House,' with a mouse in it. From the vast accumulations of sand in these re- gions, I am led to adopt the opinions of the ethnologists of the ' California Academy of Natural Sciences,' and conclude that the original name of this territory was Sand Fran- cisco, from which the final ' d ' in the prefix has been lost by time, like the art of painting on glass. " Considering the innumerable villages of pigs to be found located on the line of march, and the consequent effect produced on the at- mosphere, I would respectfully suggest to the Chief Engineer the propriety of changing the name of ttie route by a slight alteration in the orthography, giving it the appropriate and euphonious title of the ' ScentrzX R. E. Route.' " Respectfully submitted, ■' ABRAHAM DUNSHUNNER, LL.D " P. G. C. R. E. R. S." From Southwick's Pass, the survey was continued with unahated ardor until the evening of the lOtli instant, when we had arrived opposite Mrs. Freeman's " Ameri- can Eagle," where we encamped. From this point a botanical party under Prof. Weegates was sent over the hills to the S. and W. for exploration. They returned on the 11th, bringing a box of sardines, a tin can of preserved whortleberries, and a bottle of whisky, as specimens of the pro- ducts of the country over which they had passed. They reported discovering on the old plank road, an inn or hostel kept by a native American Irishman, whose sign exhibited the Harp of Ireland encircling the shield of the United States, with the mottoes " Erin go unum, E Plukibus bragh." On the 14th the party arrived in good health and excellent spirits at the ' Night- ingale," Mission of Dolores. History informs us, that " The Nig;htingale club at the village was held. At the sign of the Cabbage and Shears." It is interesting to the Antiquarian to look over the excellent cabbage garden, still extant immediately opposite the Night- ingale, and much more so to converse with Mr. Shears, the respected and urbane pro- prietor. The survey and reconnaissance being finished on our arrival at the Mission, it may be expected that I should here give a full and impartial statement as to the merits or demerits of the route, in con- nection with the proposed Railroad. Some three months must elapse, how- ever, before this can be done, as the tri- angulation has yet to be perfectly com- puted, the sub-reports examined and compiled, the observations worked out, and the maps and drawings executed. Be- sides, I have received a letter from certain parties interested in the Southern and Northern routes, informing me that if I suspend my opinion on the " Great Cen- tral" for the present, it will be greatly to my interest, — and as my interest is cer- tainly my principal consideration, I shall undoubtedly comply with their request, unless, indeed, greater inducement is offered to the contrary. Meanwhile I can assure the public that a great deal may certainly be said in favor of the Central Route. A lull report accom- panied by maps, charts, sub-reports, diagrams, calculations, tables and statistics, may shortly be expected. Profiles of Prof. Heavysterne, Dr. Dun- shunner and myself, executed in black court plaster by Mr. Jinkins, R. A., one of the Artists of the Expedition, in his unrivalled style of elegance, may be seen for a short time at Messrs. LeCount & Strong's — scale, IJ inch to 1 foot. In conclusion I beg leave to return my thanks to the Professors, Assistants, and Artists of the Expedition, for the energy, fidelity and zeal, with which they have ever co-operated with me, and seconded my efforts ; and to assure them that I shall be happy at any time to sit for my portrait for them, or to accept the handsome ser- vice of plate, which I am told they have prepared for me, but feel too much delicacy to speak to me about. PHCENIXIANA. 139 I remain, with tlie highest respect and esteem for myself and every body else, John Phcenix, a.m., Chief Engineer and ABtronomer, S. F. A. M. D. C. B. The annexed sketch of our route, pre- pai'ed by Mr. Jinkins and Kraut, is re- spectfully submitted to the Public. It is not, of course, compiled with that accuracy, which will characterize our final maps, .but for the ordinary purposes of travel, will be found suflSciently correct. J. P., A. M. c. E. & c. A. KECONNOISSANCE OF THE CENTRAL EAILEOAD EOUTE, FROM San Francisco to tbe Mission of Dolores, Btj Prof. John Phanix, Esq., A.M. iH C.A. & C.E. Drawn by Kratjt St, Jinkins, R.A., Artists to the Exhibition. KEAKNY STREET. 783467515^ Note — The soundings are in fathoms, showing the depth of mud and water during the rainy season. Co) Represpu's a man walking down the street at the time of the passage of the £xpedition. SECOND STREET. Nightingale. (o) Sonthwick's Pass. E. Ealfred Jinkins, Del. A. Kraut, ScuJp. A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. I HAVE often thought that the adjectives of the English language were not suffi- ciently definite for the purposes of de- scription. They have but three degrees of comparison — a very insufficient number certainly, when we consider that they are to be applied to a thousand objects, which, though of the same general class or quality, differ from each other by a thousand different shades or degrees of the same peculiarity. Thus, though there are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, all of which must, from the nature of things, differ from each other in the matter of climate, — we have but half a dozen ex- pressions to convey to one another our ideas of this inequality. We say, " It is a fine day ; " " It is a very fine day ; " " It is the finest day we have seen; " or, "It is an unpleasant day ; " "A very unpleasant day ; " " The most unpleasant day we ever saw." But it is plain, that none of these expressions give an exact idea of the nature of the day; and the two superlative ex- pressions are generally untrue. I once heard a gentleman remark, on a rainy, snowy, windy and (in the ordinary English language) indescribable day, that it was " most preposterous weather." He came nearer to giving a correct idea of it, than he could have done by any ordinary mode of expression ; but his description was not sufficiently definite. Again : — we say of a lady — " She is beautiful ; " " She is very beautiful," or " She is perfectly beautiful; " descriptions, which, to one who never saw her, are no descriptions at all, for among thousands of women he has seen, probably no two are equally beautiful; and as to a perfectly beautiful woman, he knows that no such being was ever created — unless by G. P. R. James, for one of the two horsemen to fall in love with, and marry at the end of the second volume. If I meet Smith in the street, and ask him — as I am pretty sure to do — " How he does? "he infallibly replies — "Tolerable, thank you" — which gives me no exact idea of Smith's health — for he has made the same reply to me on a hundred differ- ent occasions — on every one of which there must have been some slight shade of difference in his physical economy, and of course a corresponding change in his feelings. To a man of a mathematical turn of mind — ^to a student and lover of the exact sciences these inaccuracies of expression, this inability to understand exactly how things are, must be a constant source of annoyance; and to one who like myself, unites this turn of mind to an ardent love of truth, for its own sake — ^the reflection that the English language does not enable us to speak the truth with exactness, is peculiarly painfiil. For this reason I have, with some trouble, made myself thoroughly acquainted with every ancient and modern language, in the hope that I might find 140 PHCENIXIANA. some one of them that would enable me to express precisely my ideas ; but the same insufficiency of adjectives exists in all except that of the Flathead Indians of Puget Sound, which consists of but forty- six words, mostly nouns; but to the constant use of which exists the objection, that nobody but that tribe can understand it. And as their literary and scientific advancement is not such as to make a residence among them, for a man of my disposition, desirable, I have abandoned the use of their language, in the belief that for me it is hyas, cultus, or as the Spaniard hath it, tio me vale nada. Despairing, therefore, of making new discoveries in foreign languages, I have set myself seriously to work to reform our own; and have, I think, made an im- portant discovery, which, when developed into a system and universally adopted, will give a precision of expression, and a consequent clearness of idea, that will leave little to be desired, and will, I modestly hope, immortalize my humble name as the promulgator of the truth and the benefactor of the human race. Before entering upon my system I will give you an account of its discovery (which, perhaps I might with more modesty term an adaptation and enlarge- ment of the idea of another), which will surprise you by its simplicity, and, like the method of standing eggs on end, of Co- lumbus, the inventions of printing, gun- powder and the mariner's compass, prove another exemplification of the truth of Hannah More's beautifully expressed sentiment : " Large streams from little fountains flow. Large aches from little toe-oorns grow." During the past week my attention was attracted by a large placard embellishing the corners of our streets, headed in mighty capitals, with the word " Pheenology," and illustrated by a map of a man's head, ci'isely shaven, and laid oif in lots, duly numbered from one to forty-seven. Be- neath this edifying illustration appeared a legend, informing the inhabitants of San Diego and vicinity that Professor Dodge had arrived, and taken rooms (which was inaccurate, as he had but one room) at the Gyascutus House, where he would be happy to examine and furnish them with a chart of their heads, showing the moral and intellectual endowments, at the low price of three dollars each. Always gratified with an opportunity of spending my money and making scientific researches, I immediately had my hair cut and carefully combed, and hastened to present myself and my head to the Professor's notice. I found him a tall and thin Professor, in a suit of rusty, not to say seedy black, with a closely buttoned vest, and no perceptible shirt- collar or wristbands. Sis nose was red, his spectacles were blue, and he wore a brown wig, beneath which, as I subse- quently ascertained, his bald head was laid off in lots, marked and numbered with Indian ink, after the manner of the diagram upon his advertisement. Upon a small table lay many little books with yellow covers, several of the placards, pen and ink, a pair of iron callipers with brass knobs, and six dollars in silver. Having explained the object of my visit, and in- creased the pile of silver by six half- dollars from my pocket — whereat he smiled, and I observed he wore false teeth — (scientific men always do ; they love to encourage art) the Professor placed me in a chair, and rapidly manipulating my head, after the manner of a sham pooh (l am not certain as to the orthography of this expression), said that my tempera- ment was "lymphatic, nervous, bilious." I remarked that " I thought myself dys- peptic," but he made no reply. Then seizing on the callipers, he embraced with them my head in various places, and made notes upon a small card that lay near him on the table. He then stated that my " hair was getting very thin on the top," placed in my hand one of the yellow- covered books, which I found to be an almanac containing anecdotes about the virtues of Dodge's Hair Invigorator, and recommending it to my perusal, he remarked that he was agent for the sale of this wonderful fluid, and urged me to purchase a bottle — price two dollars. Stating my willingness to do so, the Pro- fessor produced it from a hair trunk that stood in a corner of the room, which he stated, by the way, was originally an ordinary pine box, on which the hair had grown since " the Invigorator " had been placed in it — (a singular fact) and recom- mended me to be cautious in wearing gloves while rubbing it upon my head as unhappy accidents had occurred — ^the hair growing freely from the ends of the fi ngers, if used with the bare hand. He then seated himself at the table, and PHOENIXIANA. 141 rapidly filling up what appeared to me a black certificate, ne soon handed over the following singular document. "Phrenological Chakt op thb head OF M. John Phcenix, by Flatbrokb B. Dodge, Professor of Phrenology, and in- ventor and proprietor of Dodge's celebrated Hair Invigorator, Stimulator of the Conscience, and Arouser of the Mental Faculties : Temperament — Lymphatic, Nervous, Bilious. Size of Head, 11. Imitation, II. Amativeness, Hi Self- Esteem, i. Caution^ 3. Benevolence, 12. Combativeness, 2i. Mirth, 1. Credulity, 1. Language, 12. Causality, 12. Firmness, 2. Conscientiousness, 12. Veneration, 12. Destrnctiveness, 9. Philoprogenitiveness, 0. Hope, 10." Having gazed on this for a few moments in mute astonishment — during which the Professor took a glass of brandy and water, and afterwards a mouthful of to- bacco — I turned to him and requested an explanation. Why," said he, " it's very simple ; the number 12 is the maximum, 1 the mini- mum ; for instance, you are as benevolent as a man can be — ^therefore I mark you. Benevolence, 12. You have little or no self-esteem — hence I place you, Self- esteem, J. You've scarcely any credulity — don't you see ? " / did see 1 This was my discovery. I saw at a flash how the English language was susceptible of improvement, and, fired with the glorious idea, I rushed from the room and the house ; heedless of the Pro- fessor's request that I would buy more of his Invigorator ; heedless of his alarmed cry that I would pay for the bottle I'd got ; heedless that I tripped on the last step of the Gyascutus House, and smashed there the precious fluid (the step has now a growth of four inches of hair on it, and the people use it as a door mat) ; I rushed home, and never grew calm till with pen, ink and paper before me, I commenced the development of my system. This system — shall I say this great sys- tem — is exceedingly simple, and easily explained in a few words. In the first place, "figures won't lie." Let us then represent by the number 100, the maxi- mum, the ne plus ultra of every human quality — grace, beauty, courage, strength, wisdom, learning — every thing. Let per- fection, I say, be represented by 100, and an absolute minimum of all qualities by the number 1. Then by applying the numbers between, to the adjectives used in conversation, we shall be able to arrive at a very close approximation to the idea we wish to convey ; in other words, we shall be enabled to speak the truth. Glorious, soul-inspiring ideal For in- stance, the most ordinary question asked of you is, " How do you do? " To this, instead of replying, "Pretty well," "Very well," "Quite well," orthelike absurdities — after running through your mind that perfection of health is 100, no health at all, 1 — you say, with a graceful bow, " Thank you, I'm 52 to-day;" or feeling poorly, " I'm 13, I'm obliged to you," or " Pm 68," or " 75," or " 87i," as the case may be I Do you see how very close in this way you may approximate to the truth ; and how clearly your questioner will understand what he so anxiously wishes to arrive at — ^your exact state of health ? Let this system be adopted into our elements of grammar, our conversation, our literature, and we become at once an exact, precise, mathematical, truth- telling people. It will apply to every thing but politics; there, truth being of no account, the system is useless. But in literature, how admirable I Take an example : As a 19 young and 76 beautifiil lady was 52 gaily tripping down the sidewalk of our 84 frequented street, she accidentally came in contact 100 (this shows that she came in close contact) with a 73 fat, but 87 good-humored looking gentleman, who was 93 (i. e. intently) gazing into the window of a toy-shop. Gracefiilly 56 ex- tricating herself, she received the excuses of the 96 embarrassed Falstaff with a 68 bland smile, and continued on her way. But hardly — 7 — had she reached the corner of the block, ere she was overtaken by a 24 young man, 32 poorly dressed, but of an 85 expression of countenance; 91 hastily touching her 54 beautifully rounded arm, he said, to her 67 surprise — " Madam, at the window of the toy- shop yonder, you dropped this bracelet, which I had the 71 good fortune to ob- serve, and now have the 94 happiness to hand to you." Of course the expression " 94 happiness " is merely the young man's polite hyperbole. Blushing with 76 modesty, the lovely (76, as before, of course), lady took the 142 PHCENIXIANA. bracelet — which was a 24 magnificent diamond clasp — (24 magnificent, playfully sarcastic ; it was probably not one of Tucker's) from the young man's hand, and 84 hesitatingly drew from her beau- tifully 38 embroidered reticule a 67 port- monnaie. The young man noticed the action, and 73 proudly drawing back, added — " Do not thank me ; the pleasure of gazing for an instant at those 100 eyes (perhaps too exaggerated a compliment), has already more than compensated me for any trouble that I might have had." She thanked him, however, and with a 67 deep blush and a 48 pensive air, turned from him, and pursued with a 33 slow step her promenade. Of course you see that this is but the commencement of a pretty little tale, which I might throw oiF, if I had a mind to, showing in two volumes, or forty-eight chapters of thrilling interest, how the young man sought the girl's acquaint- ance, how the interest first excited, deepened into love, how they suffered much from the opposition of parents (her parents of course), and how, after much trouble, annoyance, and many perilous adventures, they were finally married — their happiness, of course, being repre- sented by 100. But I trust that I have said enough to recommend my system to the good and truthful of the literary world ; and besides, just at present I have something of more immediate importance to attend to. You would hardly believe it, but that everlasting (100) scamp of a Professor has brought a suit against me for stealing a bottle of his disgusting Invigorator ; and as the suit comes off before a Justice of the Peace, whose only principle of law is to find guilty and fine any accused per- son whom he thinks has any money — (because if he don't he has to take his costs in County Scrip), it behooves me to " take time by the fore-lock." So, for the present, adieu. Should my system suc- ceed to the extent of my hopes and ex- pectations, I shall publish my new grammar early in the ensuing month, with suitable dedication and preface ; and should you, with your well known liberality, publish my prospectus, and give me a handsome literary notice, I shall be pleased to furnish a presentation copy to each of the little Pioneer children. P, S. — I regret to add that having just read this article to Mrs. Phoenix, and asked her opinion thereon, she replied, that "if a first-rate magazine article were represented by 100, she should judge this to be about 13 ; or if the quintessence of stupidity were 100, she should take this to be in the neighborhood of 96." This, as a criticism, is perhaps a little dis- couraging, but as an exemplification of the merits of my system it is exceedingly flattering. How could she, I should like to know, in ordinary language, have given so exact and truthful an idea — ^how expressed so forcibly her opinion (which, of course, differs from mine) on the sub- ject ? As Dr. Samuel Johnson learnedly re- marked to James Boswell, Laird of Auchinleck, on a certain occasion — " Sir, the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof" John Phcenix. Late — Passing by one of our doggeries about 3 A. M., the other morning, from which proceeded " a sound of revelry by night," a hapless stranger on his home- ward way paused to obtain a slight refreshment, and to the host he said, " It appears to me your visitors are rather late to-night." " Oh no," replied the worthy landlord, "the boys of San Diego gene- rally run for forty-eight hours, stranger ; it's a little late for night before last, but for to-night ! why it's just in the shank of the evening." Volumes could not have said more. John Phcenix. FAREWELL TO SAN FRANCISCO. As the last line fell from the dock, and our noble steamer with a miglity throb and deep sigh, at bidding adieu to San Francisco, swung slowly round, and passengers crowded to the side to ex- change a farewell salutation with their friends and acquaintances. " Good bye, Jones," " Good bye. Brown," ' God bless you old fellow, take care of yourself ! " they shouted. Not seeing any one that I knew, and fearing the passengers might think I had no friends, I shouted " Good bye, Muggins," and had the satisfaction of having a shabby man much inebriated, reply as he swung his rimless hat, " Good bye, my brother." Not particularly elated at this recognition, I tried it again, with, " Good bye Colonel," whereat thirty-foui respectable gentlemen took off their hate, PHCENIXIANA. 143 and I got down from the position that I had occupied on a camp stool, with much dignity, inwardly wondering whether my friends were all aids to Bigler, in which case their elevated rank and affection for me would both be satisfactorily accounted Away we sped down the bay, the cap- tain standing on the wheel-house direct- ing our course. " Port, Port a little, Port," he shouted. " What's he calling for ? " inquired a youth of good-natured but unmistakable verdancy of appearance, of me. "Port wine," said I, ''and the storekeeper don't hear him, you'd better take him up some." " I will," said In- nocence ; " Fve got a bottle of first rate in my state room." And he did, but soon returned with a particularly crest-fallen and sheepish appearance. " Well, what did he say to you," inquired I. " Pointed at the notice on that tin," said the poor fellow. "Passengers not allowed on the wheel-house." He is, though, ain't he ? " added my friend with a faint attempt at a smile, as the captain in an awful voice shouted " Starboard ! " "Is what ? ' ' said I, "Loud on the wheel-house!" Good God ! I went below. At 9 o'clock in the evening we arrived at Monterey, where our modest salute was answered by the thundering response of a 24-pounder from the fort. This useful defensive work, which mounts some twenty heavy guns and contains quarters for a regiment, was built in 1848, by Hal- leck, Peachy & Billings. It is now used as a hermitage by a lonely officer of the U. S. Army. The people of Monterey have a wild legend concerning this deso- late recluse. I was told that he passes the whole of his time in sleep, never by any chance getting out of bed until he hears the gun of a steamer, when he rushes forth in his shirt, fires off a 24-pounder, sponges and reloads it, takes a drink and turns in again. They never have seen him ; it's only by his semi-Tnonihly reports they know of his existence. " Well," said I to my informant, a bustling little fellow named Bootjacks, who came off on board of us, " suppose some day a steamer should arrive and he should not return her gun?" " Well, sir," replied Boot- jacks, with a quaint smile, we should conclude that he was either dead, or out of powder." Logical deduction this, and a rather curious story, altogether ; how I should like to see him I jjg^ Phesk. ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPERS. A year or two since a weekly paper was started in London, called the " Illus- trated News " It was filled with toler- ably executed wood-cuts, representing scenes of popular interest, and though per- haps better calculated for the nursery than the reading room, it took very well in England, where few can read, but all can understand pictures, and soon attained an immense circulation. As when the inimitable London Punch attained its world-wide celebrity, supported by such writers as Thackeray, Jerrold and Hood, would-be funny men on this side of the Atlantic attempted absurd imitations — the " Yankee Doodle "—the "John Don- key," etc., which as a matter of course proved miserable failures; so did the success of this illustrated affair inspire our money-loving publishers with hopes of dollars, and soon appeared from Bos- ton, New York and other places, picto- rial and illustrated newspapers, teeming with execrable and silly effusions, ana filled with the most fearful wood engrav- ings, "got up regardless of expense" or anything else; the contemplation of which was enough to make an artist tear his hair and rend his garments. A Yan- kee named Gleason, of Boston, published the first, we believe, calling it the GUa- son's Pictorial (it should have been Glea- son's Pickpocket) and Drawing-Eoom Companion. In this he presented to his unhappy subscribers, views of his house in the country, and his garden, and for aught we know, of his " ox and his ass, and the stranger within his gates." A detestable invention for transferring da- guerreotypes to plates for engraving, hav- ing come into notice about this time, was eagerly seized upon by Gleason, for further embellishing his catchpenny publication — duplicates and uncalled for pictures were easily obtained, and many a man has gazed in horror-stricken as- tonishment on the likeness of a respect- ed friend, as a " Portrait of Monroe Ed- wards," or that of his deceased grand- mother, in the character of " One of the Signers of the Declaration of Indepen- dence." They love pictures in Yankee- dom : every tin peddler has one on his wagon, and an itinerant lecturer can al- ways obtain an audience by sticking up a likeness of some unhappy female, with 144 PHCENIXIANA. her ribs laid open in an impossible man- ner, for public inspection, or a hairless gentleman, with the surface of his head laid out in eligible lots duly marked and numbered. The factory girls of Lowell, the Professors of Harvard, all bought the new Pictorial. (Professor Webster was reading one, when Dr. Parkman called on him on the morning of the murder.) Gleason's speculation was crowned with success, and he bought himself a new cooking-stove, and erected an out-building on his estate, with both of which he favored the public in a new wood-cut immediately. Inspired by his success, old Feejee- Mermaid - Tom - Thumb - Woolly - horse- Joyce-Heth-Barnum, forthwith got out another Illustrated Weekly, with pictures far more extensive, letter-press still sil- lier, and engravings more miserable, if possible, than Yankee Gleason's. And then we were bored and buffeted by hav- ing incredible likenesses of Santa Anna, Queen Victoria and poor old Webster thrust beneath our nose, to that degree that we wished the respected originals had never existed, or that the art of wood engraving had perished with that of painting on glass. It was, therefore, with the most in- tense delight that we saw a notice the other day of the failure and stoppage of Barnum's Illustrated News; we rejoiced thereat greatly, and we hope that it will never be revived, and that Gleason will also fail as soon as he conveniently can and that his trashy pictorial will perish with it. It must not be supposed from the tenor of these remarks that we are opposed to the publication of a properly conducted and creditably executed illustrated paper. "On the contrary, quite the reverse." We are passionately fond of art our- selves, and we believe that nothing can have a stronger tendency to refinement in society, than presenting to the public chaste and elaborate engravings, copies of works of high artistic merit, accom- panied by graphic and well-written es- says. It was for the purpose of intro- ducing a paper containing these features to our appreciative community, that we have made these introductory remarks, and for the purpose of challenging com- parison, and defying competition, that we have criticised so severely the imbe- cile and ephemeral productions men- tioned above. At a vast expenditure of money, time and labor, and after the most incredible and unheard of exertion, on our part, individually, we are at length able to present to the public an illus- trated publication of unprecedented mer- it, containing engravings of exceeding costliness and rare beauty of design, got up on an expensive scale, which never has been attempted before in this or any other country. We furnish our readers this week with the first number, merely premising that the immense expense attending its issue, will require a corresponding liberality of patronage on the part of the public, to cause it to be continued. PHCEI^IX PIOTOEIAL. And Second Story Front Room Companion! VOL. I.] SAN DIEGO, OCT. 1, 1853. [NO. 1. Portrait of His Eoyal Highness Prince Albert. — Prince Albert, the son of a gen- tleman named Coburg, is the husband of Queen Victoria of England, and the father of many of her children. He is the inventor of the celebrated " Albert hat," which has been lately introduced with great efiect in the U. S. Army. The Prince is of German extraction, his father being a Dutchman and his mother a Duchess. Mansion of John Phoenix, Esq., San Diego, California. House in v/hich Shakspeare was born, in Stratford-on- Avon . PHCENIXIANA. 146 Abboteford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott, author of Byron'a Pilgrim's Pro- gress, etc. The Capitol at Washington. Residence of Governor Bigler, at Be- nicia, California. Battle of Lake Erie (See remarki, p. 96.) [Page 96.] The battle of Lake Erie, of which our artist presents a spirited engraving, copied from the original painting, by Hannibal Carracci, in the possession of J. P. Haven, Esq., was fought in 1836, on Chesapeake Bay, between the U. S. Frigates Consti- tution and Guerriere and the British troops, under General Putnam. Our glorious flag, there as everywhere was victorious, and " Long may it wave, o'er the land of the free, and the home of the slave." Fearful accident on the Camden and Amboy Bailroad ! I Terrible loss of life 1 1 Interview between Mrs. Harriet Beecher Btowe and the Duchess of Sutherland, from & group of Statuary, by Clarke Mills. VOL. IV — "W- H View of the City of San Diego, by Sir Benjamin West. Bank account of J. Phoenix, Esq., at Adams & Co., Bankers, San Francisco, California. Gas Works, San Diego Herald Office. Steamer Goliah. View of a California Ranch. — Landseer. Shell of an Oyster once eaten by Gene- ral Washington ; showing the General's manner of opening oysters. There ! — ^this is but a specimen of what we can do if liberally sustained. We wait with anxiety to hear the verdict of the public, before proceeding to any further and greater outlays. Subscription, $5 per annum, payable invariably in advance. INDUCEMENTS FOB CLUBBING. Twenty copies furnished for one year, for fifty cents. Address John Phoenix. Office of the San Diego Herald. John Phcenxx. 10 146 NOTHING. THE ABBOT OF WALTHAM. Bluff Harry the Eighth was out hunting one day, And outrode his henchman, and then lost his way; He stumbled and grumbled, till weary and late, He came to fair Waltham, and kuock'd at the gate. " So ho ! worthy father, a yeoman is here. Who craves for a bed, and a tithe of your cheer.'' 80 they led him at once to the large guesten hall, And summoned the abbot, who came to the call. Now the abbot was plump, as an abbot should be. He ordered a chine, and some good Malvoisie, "And," quoth he, "honest yeoman, now spare not, I pray, No beef have I tasted for many a day ; For, alas 1 I must own, except for a bone, Of a capon or turkey, my appetite' s gone. I would give half my abbey for hunger like thine." Said the King to himself, ' ' You shall soon have a chine." At sunrise the abbot took leave of his guest, Who, grace to the beef, had enjoyed a good rest, But, ere the next sun in the west had gone down, The Abbot of Waltham was summoned to town. He was lodged in the Tower, and there, day by day. Fed on dry bread alone, till his flesh fell away, When a rich, juicy chine on his table was placed, And to do it full justice, the abbot made haste. Such a dinner few abbots had certainly made, His mouth and his teeth kept good time to his blade. He ground it, and found it most excellent meat, And vow'd that a monarch would find it a treat. "Hal ha!" cried bluff Harry, who entered his cell, " I have helped your digestion. Lord Abbot, right well, Go home to your monks, for your health is now sure, But half of your abbey I claim for the cure I' Percy's Beliquee. Anontmotjs. NOTHING. I've set my heart upon nothing, you see; Hurrah ! And ao the world goes well with me ; Hurrah 1 And who has a mind to be fellow of mine. Why not let him take hold and help me drain These mouldy lees of wine. I set my heart at first upon wealth ! Hurrah I And barter'd away my peace and health ; But, ah I The slippery change went about like air ; And when I had clutch' d me a handful here, Away it went there. I set my heart upon woman next ; Hurrah ! For her sweet sake was oft perplex' d ; But, ah I The false one look'd for a daintier lot. The constant one wearied me out and out, The best was not easily got. I set my heart upon travels grand. Hurrah ! And spurn' d our plain old fatherland; But, ah! Nought seem'd to be just the thing it should; Most comfortless beds and indifferent food. My tastes misunderstood. I set my heart upon sounding fame ; Hurrah ! And lo ! I'm eclips'd by some upstart's name ; And, ah ! When in public life I loom'd quite high, The folks tlint pass'd me would look awry ; Their very worst friend was I. THE DUKE AND THE TINKER. 147 And then I set my heart upon war, Hurrah 1 We gain'd some battles with eclat ; Hurrah I We troubled the foe with sword and flame, And some of our friends fared quite the same. I lost a leg for fame. Now I've set my heart upon nothing, you see ; Hurrah I And the whole wide world belongs to me ; Hurrah ; The feast begins to run low no doubt ; Sut at the old cask we'll have one good bout: Come drink the lees all out ! GosTas—Tranalaled by J. S. Dwioht. THE DUKE AND THE TINKER. [The Duke and the Tinker is one of the " Ballads that illustrate Shakspeare" in Dr. Percy's "Eeliques," ori- ginally derived from the Pepys collection. The story on which both it and the introduction to Shakspeare's Tam- ing of the Shrew were founded, is thus related in Burton's Anaiomy of Melanchaly ; — " The Duke of Burgundy, at the marriage of Eleonora, sister to the king of Por- tugal, at Burges in Flanders, which was solemnized in the deepe of winter ; when, as by reason of unseason- able weather, he could neither hawke nor hunt, and was now tired with cards, dice, etc., and such other domes- tick sports, or to see ladies dance ; with some of his courtiers he would in the evening walke disguised all about the towne. It so fortuned, as he was walking late one night, he found a countrey fellow dead drunke, snorting on a bulke ; he caused his followers to bring him to his palace, and there stripping him of his old clothes, and attyring him after the court fashion, when he wakened, he and they were all ready to attend upon his excellency, and persuade him that he was some great duke. The poor fellow admiring how he came there, was served in state all day long ; after supper he saw them dance, heard musicke, and all the rest of those court-like pleasures; but, late at night, when he was well tipled, and again faste asleepe, they put on his old robes, and so conveyed him to the place where they first found him. Now the fellow had not made them so good sport the day before, as he did now, when he returned to himself ; all the jest was to see how he looked upon it. In conclusion, after some little admiration, the poore man told his friends he had seen a vision, con- stantly believed it, and would not otherwise be per- ■uaded, and so the jest ended." — Wills.] Now as fame does report a young duke keeps a court, One that pleases his fancy with frolicksome sport ; But amongst all the rest, here is one, I protest. Which will make you to smile when you hear the true jest ; A poor tinker he found, lying drunk on the ground, As secure in a sleep as if laid in a swound. The duke said to his men, "William, Eichard, and Ben, Take him home to my palace, we'll sport with him then." O'er a horse he was laid, and with care soon con-vey'd To the palace, altho' he was poorly arrai' d : Then they stript off his cloaths, both his shirt, shoes and hose, And they put him to bed for to take his repose. Haying pulled off his shirt, which was all over dirt. They did give him clean hoUand: this was no great huii ; On a bed of soft down, like a lord of renown, They did lay him to sleep the drink out of his crown. In the morning when day, then admiring he lay, For to see the rich chamber both gaudy and gay- Now he lay something late, in his rich bed of state, Till at last knights and squires they on him did wait ; And the chamberlain bare, then did like- wise declare. He desired to know what apparel he'd wear : The poor tinker amazed, on the gentlemen And admired how he to this honor was raised. Tho' he seem'd something mute, yet he chose a rich suit, Which he straightways put on without longer dispute ; With a star on his side, which the tinker oft eyed, 148 THE CEITIC. And it seem'd for to swell him no little with pride ; For he said to himself, " Where is Joan, my sweet wife ? Sure she never did see me so fine in her Ufe." From a convenient place, the right duke his good grace Did observe his behaviour in every case. To a garden of state on the tinker they wait, Trumpets sounding before him : thought he, this is great ; Where an hour or two, pleasant walks he did view, With commanders and squires in scarlet and blue. A fine dinner was drest, both for him and his guests. He was placed at the table above all the rest. In a rich chair or bed, lined with fine crimson red, With a rich golden canopy over his head : As he sat at his meat, the music play'd sweet. With the choicest of singing his joys to com- pleat. While the tinker did dine, he had plenty of wine, Rich canary with sherry and tent superfine. Like a right honest soul, faith, he took off his bowl. Till at last he began for to tumble and roll From his chair to the floor, where he sleeping did snore. Being seven times drunker than ever before. Then the duke did ordain, they should strip him amain. And restore him his old leather garments again : 'T was a point next the worst, yet perform it they must. And they carried him strait, where they found him at first Then he slept all the night, as indeed well he might ; But when he did waken his joys took their flight. For his glory to him so pleasant did seem. That he thought it to be but a mere golden dream ; Till at length he was brought to the duke^ where he sought For a pardon, as fearing he had set him at nought ; But his highness he said, " Thou'rt a jolly bold blade, Such a frolic before I think never wasplai'd." THE CEITIC. [Epes Saeoent, (1812-1880) a copioue writer in prcm and verse, was bom at Gloucester, Maes., educated in part at Harvard College and became a journalist. Of tbe Boston Advertiser^ Atlas, Transcript and the New York Mirror he was associate editor ; produced many diamas andjuvenile tales ; edited *' The Modem Standard Drama" (1846-56) ; wrote e. " Life of Benry Oiay " (1842), "Songs of the Sea" (1847), "Standard Speaker" (1852), "Arctic Adventure^' (1857), ^' Planchette ; or. Modem Spiritualism^' (1869), and many other works. He waa the author of the favorite song, "A Life on the Ocean Wave."] Once on a time, the nightingale, whose sing- ing. Had with her praises set the forest ringing, Consented at a concert to appear: Of course her friends all flocked to hear. And with them many a critic, wide awake To pick a flaw, or carp at a mistake. She sang as only nightingales can sing; And when she'd ended, There was a general cry of "Bravo! splen- did!" While she, poor thing. Abashed and fluttering, to her nest retreated, Quite terrified to be so warmly greeted. The turkeys gobbled their delight ; the geese. Who had been known to hiss at many a trial. That this was perfect, ventured no denial : It seemed as if the applause would never cease. But 'mong the critics on the ground, An ass was present, pompous and profound, Who said,— "My friends, I'll not dispute the honor That you would do our little prima donna: Although her upper notes are very shrill. And she defies all method in her trill. She has some talent, and, upon the whole. With study, may some cleverness attain. CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. 149 Then, her friends tell me, she's a virtuous soul; Butr— but " "But" — growled the lion, "by my mane, I never knew an ass, who did not strain To qualify a good thing with a but !" "Nay," said the goose, approaching with a strut, "Don't interrupt him, sire; pray let it pass; The ass is honest, if he is an ass !" "I was about," said Long Ear, "to remark. That there is something lacking in her whistle : Something magnetic, To waken chords and feelings sympathetic. And kindle in the breast a spark Like — like, for instance, a good juicy thistle." The assembly tittered, but the fox, with gravity. Said, at the lion winking, "Our learned friend, with his accustomed suavity, Has given his opinion without shrinking; But, to do justice to the nightingale. He should inform us, as no doubt he will. What sort of music 'tis, that does not fail His sensibilities to rouse and thrill." "Why," said the critic, with a look potential. And pricking up his ears, delighted much At Reynard's tone and manner deferential, — "Why, sir, there's nothing can so deeply touch Mj/ feelings, and so carry me away As a fine, mellow, ear-inspiring bray." " I thought so," said the fox, without a pause ; "As far as you're concerned, your judg- ment's true; Tou do not like the nightingale, because The nightingale is not an ass like youl" Why do women talk less in February than in any other month ? Because it is the shortest month in the year. " What is your business, sir ? " asked the Court, in a sharp voice. " A concho- logist." " What's that ? " said the Judge. " I open clams," said the conchologist. CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDEKLY GENTLEMAN. j CONTAINING HIS FIEST LOVE. With an Illustration by George Cruikshank. The Countess of Blessington need not be afraid that I shall interfere with her work in the unhappy tale which I am about to begin ; my scene will be laid in a very different walk of life, and the lady whose charms have wounded my heart bears no resemblance whatever to the aris- tocratic beauties which grace the book of the countess. My arrangement ever goes upon an opposite principle to hers; her elderly gentleman proceeds from first to last, getting through his fates and fortunes in regular rotation, as if they were so many letters of the alphabet, from A to Z : I read mine backward in the manner of Turks, Jews and other infidels ; for worse than 'Turk or Jew have I been treated by the fair sex. When I confess to being an elderly gen- tleman, I leave my readers to their own conjectures as to the precise figure of my age. It is sufficient to say that I have arrived at the shady side of fifty, — how much further, it is unnecessary to add. I have been always what is called a man in easy circumstances. My father worked hard in industrious pursuits, and left me, his only son, a tolerably snug thing. I started in life with some five or six thou- sand pounds, a good business as tobacco- nist, a large stock-in-trade, excellent credit and connection, not a farthing in debt, and no encumbrance in the world. In fact, I had, one way or another, about a thousand a year, with no great quantity of trouble. I liked business, and stuck to it ; became respected in my trade and my ward ; and have frequently filled the im- portant office of common councilman with considerable vigor and popularity. As I never went into rash speculations, and put by something every year, my means are now about double what they were some thirty-five years ago, when Mr. Gay- less, Sr., departing this life, left the firm of Gay less. Son & Co. to my manage- ment. It is not to be wondered at, that a man in such circumstances should occasionally allow himself relaxation from his labours. I entered heartily into all the civic festiy- 150 CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. ities ; and, at my snug bachelor's country i ing her cap at a penniless dog, because he house on Fortress Terrace, Kentish Town, did the thing genteelly enough every now and then. Many an excursion have I made up and down the river, to Green- wich, Richmond, Blackwall, etc. ; have spent my summer at Margate, and once went to the lakes of Westmoreland. Some of that party proposed to me to go over to see the lakes of Killarney ; but I had by that time come to the years of discretion, and was not such a fool as to trust myself among the Irish. I however did go once to Paris, but, not understanding the lan- guage, I did not take much interest in the conversation of the Frenchmen ; and as for talking to English people, why I can do that at home without distressing my purse or person. The younger portion of my fair readers may be anxious to know what is the per- sonal appearance of him who takes the liberty of addressing them. I have al- ways noticed that young ladies are very curious on this point; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to persuade them how irrational is their anxiety. It is in vain to quote to them the venerable maxims of antiquity, such as, " It is not handsome is, but handsome does," or, " When Poverty enters the door. Love flies out at the win- dow," or, " All is not gold that glitters," or many more adages of equal wisdom. It is generally of no avail to dilate upon the merits of mind and intellect to persons whose thoughts run after glossy locks and sparkling eyes, and to whose imagination a well-filled ledger is of secondary import- ance to a well-tripped quadrille. In my own knowledge, a young lady of our ward refused to accept the hand of a thriving bill-broker in Spital square, — a highly re- spectable middle-aged man, who had made a mint of money by sharp application to his business, — and chose a young barrister of the Inner Temple, whose bill, to my certain knowledge, was refused discount by the Spital-square broker at twenty-five per cent. I have been assured by officers in the army that the case has sometimes occurred of girls in garrison towns prefer- ring an ensign to a major of many years service ; and I have heard, on authority had romantic eyes, and wrote rubbish in albums and pocket-books. I really have no patience with such stuff. Middle-aged ladies are far less fastidious. If I must delineate myself, however, here goes. So far trom deteriorating by age, I think I have improved, like Madeira. A miniature of me, taken in my twenty-first year, by an eminent artist who lived in Gutter lane, and drew undeniable likenesses at an hour's sitting for half a guinea, forms a great contrast to one by Chalon, painted much more than twenty years afterward. You really would never think them to represent the same man, and yet both are extremely alike . I was in my youth a sallow-faced lad with hollow cheeks, immense staring eyes, and long thin sandy hair, plastered to the side of my head. By the course of living which I have led in the city, the sallow complexion has been replaced by a durable red, the lean cheek is now comfortably plumped out, the eyes pursed round and contracted by substantial layers of fat, and the long hair having in general taken its departure has left the remainder considerably improved by the substitution of a floating silver for the soapy red. Then my stature, which, like that of many celebrated men of an- cient and modern times, cannot be said to be lofty, gave me somewhat an air of insig- nificance when I was thin-gutted and slim ; but, when it is taken in conjunction with the rotundity I have attained in the prog- ress of time, no one can say that I do not fill a respectable place in the public eye. I have also conformed to modern fashions; and when depicted by Chalon in a flowing mantle, with "Jour d gauche " (whatever that may mean) written under it, I am as grand as an officer of hussars with his mar- tial cloak about him, and quite as distinct a thing from the effigy of Mr. McDawbs of Gutter Lane, as the eau de Portugal which now perfumes my person, is, from the smell of the tobacco which filled my gar- ments with the odor of the shop when first I commenced my amorous adventures. Such was I, and such am I ; I have now said, I think, enough to introduce me to the public. My story is briefly this: — which I have reason to credit, of a West- : On the 28d day of last December, just end lady rejecting an actual governor of a ' before the snow, I had occasion to go on colony, on the ground that he was a with- some mercantile business to Edinburgh, ered fellow as old and prosy as her grand- and booked myself at a certain hotel, father, — as if there was anything disgrace- which must be nameless, for the journey — fill in that, — and shortly afterwards cock- then rendered perilous by the weather. I CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. 151 bade adieu to my friends at a genial din- ner given on the 22d, in the coiiee-room, when I cheered their drooping spirits by perpetual bumpers of port, and all the consolation that my oratory could supply. I urged that travelling inside, even in Christmas week, in a stage-coach, was nothing nearly so dangerous as flying in a balloon ; that we were not to think of Napoleon's army perishing in the snows of Russia, but rather of the bark that car- ried the fortunes of Caesar; that great occasions required more than ordinary exertions ; and that the last advices con- cerning the house of Screw, Longcut & Co., in the High street, rendered it highly probable that their acceptances would not be met unless that I was personally in Ed- inburgh within a week. These and other arguments I urged with an eloquence which, to those who were swallowing my wine, seemed resistless. Some of my own Bagmen, who had for years travelled in black rappee or Irish blackguard, shag, canister, or such commodities, treated the adventure as a matter of smoke ; others, not of such veteran experience, regarded my departure as an act of rashness not far short of insanity. " To do such a thing," said my old neighbor, Joe Grabble, Candlestick maker and deputy, " at your time of life ! " I had swallowed, perhaps, too much port, and, feeling warmer than usual, I did not much relish this observation. " At my time of life, Joe," said I ; " what of 'that ? It is not years that make a man younger or older ; it is the spirits, Joe, — the life, the sprightliness, the air. There is no such thing now, Joe, as an old man, as an elderly man, to be found anywhere but on the stage. Certainly, if people poke themselves eternally upon a high stool behind a desk in a murky counting- house in the city and wear such an odd quiz of dress as you do, they must be ac- counted old." "And yet," said Joe, "I am four years younger than you. " Don't you remember how we were together at school at Mud- dlehead's, at the back of Honey-lane- market, in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-fou — ? " "There is no need," said I, interrupting him, " of quoting dates. It is not con- sidered genteel in good society. I do not admit your statement to be correct." " I'll prove it from the parish register," S4id Joe Grabble. " Don't interrupt, Joe," said I ; " inter- rupting is not considered genteel in good society, I neither admit or deny your assertion ; but how does that afl'ect my argument? I maintain that in every particular I am as young as I was thirty years ago." " And quite as ready to go philander- ing," said Joe, with a sneer. " Quite," replied I, " or more so. Nayj I venture to say that I could at this mo- ment make myself as acceptable to that pretty young woman at the bar, as nine- tenths of the perfumed dandies of the West-end." " By your purse, no doubt," said Joe, " if even that would obtain you common civility." I was piqued at this ; and, under the impulse of the moment and the wine, I performed the rash act of betting a rump and dozen for the present company, against five shillings that she would ac- knowledge that I was a man of gaiety and gallantry calculated to win a lady's heart before I left London, short as was the remaining space. Joe caught at the bet, and it was booked in a moment. The party broke up about nine o'clock, and I could not help observing something like a suppressed horse laugh on their counte- nances. I confess that, when I was left alone, I began to repent of my precipi- tancy. But faint heart never won fair lady ; so, by a series of manceuvring with which long practice had rendered me perfect, I fairly, in the course of an hour, entrenched myself in the bar, and, at about ten o'clock, was to be found diligently discuss- ing a fragrant remnant of broiled chicken and mushroom, hobnobbing with the queen of the pay department in sundry small glasses of brandy and water, ex- tracted from the grand reservoir of the tumbler placed before me. So far all was propitious ; but as old Nick would have it, in less than ten minutes the party was joined by a mustachoed fellow who had come fresh from fighting — or pretending to fight for Donna Isabella, or Don Carlos, — BLeaven knows which (I dare say he didn't) — and was full of Bilboa, and San Sebastian, and Espartero, and Alaix pur- suing Gomez, and Zumalacariegui, and General Evans, and all that style of talk, for which women have open ears. I am sure that I could have bought the fellow body and soul — at least all his property, 162 CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY GeNTLEMAN. real and personal, for fifty pounds ; but there he sat, crowing me down whenever I ventured to edge in a word by some story of siege, or battle, or march, ninety- nine hundred parts of his stories being nothing more nor less than lies. I know I should have been sorry to have bulled or beared in Spanish on the strength of them ; but the girl (her name is Sarah) swallowed them all with open mouth scarcely deigning to cast a look upon me. With mouth equally open, he swallowed the supper and the brandy for which I was paying ; shutting mine every time I attempted to say a word by asking me had I ever served abroad. I never was so provoked in my life ; and, when I saw him press her hand, I could have knocked him down, only that I have no patience •in that line, which is sometimes considered to be doubly hazardous. I saw little chance of winning my wager, and was in no slight degree out of temper ; but all things, smooth or rough, must have an end, and at last it was time that we should retire. My Spanish hero desired to be called at four, — I don't know why, — and Sarah said with a most fascinating smile. " You may depend upon't, sir ; if there was no one else as would call you, I'd call you myself" "Never," said he, kissing her hand, "did boots appear so beautiflil." " Devil take you ! " muttered I, as I moved up stairs, with a rolling motion ; for the perils of the journey, the annoy- ance of the supper-table, the anticipation of the lost dinner and the unwon lady, aid- ed perhaps, by what I swallowed, tended somewhat to make my footsteps unsteady. My mustachoed companion and I were shown into adjacent rooms, and I fell sulkily asleep. About four o'clock I was aroused by a knocking, as I at first thought, at my own room, but which I soon found to be that of my neighbor. I immediately caught the silver sound of the voice of Sarah summoning its ten- ant. " It's just a gone the three ke-waters, sir, and you ought to be up." "I am up already, dear girl," responded a voice irom inside, in tones as soft as the potations at my expense of the preceding night would permit ; "I shall be ready to start in a jiffy." The words were hardly spoken when I heard him emerging, luggage in hand, which he seemed to carry with little diffi- culty. " Good-bye, dear," saidhe, "forgive this trouble." " It's none in the least in life, sir," said she. And then— god of jealousy ! he kissed her. " For shame, sir ; " said Sarah. " You mustn't. I never permit it ; never ! " And he kissed her again ; on which she, having, I suppose, exhausted her stock of indignation in the speech already made, afforded no observation. He skipped down stairs, and I heard her say, with a sigh, " What a nice man ! " The amorous thought rose swiftly over my mind. " Avaunt ! " said I, Thou green-eyed monster ; make way for Cupid, little god of love. Is my rump and my dozen yet lost? No. As the song ?ays, "When should lovers breathe their vows ? When should ladies hear them ? When the dew is on the boughs. When none else is near them." " Whether the dew was on the boughs," or not, I could not tell ; but it was cer- tain that none else was near us. With the rapidity of thought I jumped out of bed, upsetting a jug fiill of half-fi-ozen water, which splashed aU over, every wretch of an icicle penetrating to my very marrow, but not cooling the ardour of my love. After knocking my shins in various places, I at last succeeded in finding my dressing-gown, knee smalls and slippers, and, so clad, presented myself at the top of the staircase before the barmaid. She was leaning over the balustrade, looking down through the deep well after the de- parting stranger, whose final exit was an- nounced by the slamming of the gate after him by the porter. I could not help think- ing of Fanny Kemble in the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet. She sighed, and I stood forward. " Oh ! " she screamed, " Lord have mercy upon us ! what is this ? " " Be not afraid," said I, " Sarah ; I am no ghost." "Oh, no," said she, recovering. "I didn't suppose you were ; but I thought you were a Guy Fawkes." " No angelic girl, I am not Guy Fawkes; another flame in mine," and I caught her hand, endeavoring to apply it to my lips. " Get along, you old — -." I am not ■^/ (■■") n/fy-cjjfy^/i /?, COiSTFESSIONS Ot Al>f ELDEELY GENTLEMAif. 15* quite certain what the angelic Sarah called me ; but I think it was a masculine sheep or goat. " Sarah,'' said I, " let me press this fair hand to my lips." Sarah saved me the trouble. She gave me— not a lady's "slap," which we all know is rather an encouragement than other- wise, — but a very vigorous well-planned, scientific blow, which loosened my two Tore teeth ; and then skipped up stairs, shut herself in her room, and locked the door. I followed, stumbled up stairs and ap- proached in the dark towards the keyhole, whence shone the beams of her candle. I was about to explain that innocence had nothing to fear from me, when a somewhat unintelligible scuffling up the stairs was followed by a very intelligible barking. The house-dog, roused by the commotion, was abroad, an animal more horrid even than the school-master, — and, before I could convey a word as to the purity of my intentions, he had caught me by the calf of the leg so as to make his cursed fangs meet in my flesh, and bring the blood down into my slippers. I do not pretend to be Alexander or Julius Csesar and I confess that my first emotion, when the brute let me loose for a moment, and prepared with another fierce howl, for a fresh invasion of my personal comfort, ■was to fly,— I had not time to reflect in Tlhat direction, but, as my enemy came fi-om below, it was natural that my flight should be upwards. Accordingly up stairs I stumbled as I could, and the dog after me, barking and snapping every lioment, fortunately without inflicting »,ny further wounds. I soon reached the top of the staircase, and, as further flight was hopeless, I was obliged to throw myself astride across the balustrade, which was high enough to jjrevent him from getting at me withoutgiving himself more inconvenience than it seemed he thought the occasion called for. There was a situation for a respectable citizen, tobacconist, and gallant! The darkness was intense ; but I knew by an occasional snappish bark whenever I ven- tured to stir, or make the slightest noise, that the dog was crouching underneath me ready for a spring. The thermometer was several degrees below freezing point, and I had nothing to guard me from the cold but a night-gown and shirt. I was bare-legged and bare-fooled, having lost my slippers in the run. The uneasy seat on which I was perched was as hard as iron, and colder than ice. I had re- ceived various bruises in the adventures of the last few minutes, but I forgot them in the smarting pain of my leg, rendered acute to the last degree by exposure to the frost. And then I knew perfectly well, that, if I did not keep my seat with the dexterity of a Ducrow, I was exposed to falling on one side to be mangled by a beast of a dog watching my descent with a malignant pleasure, and, on the other to be dashed to pieces by tumbling down from the top to the bottom of the house. The sufferings of Mazeppa were nothing com- pared to mine. He was, at least, safe from all danger of falling off" his unruly steed. They had the humanity to tie him on. Here I remained, with my bedroom candle in my hand, — I don't know how long, but it seemed an eternity, — until at length the dog began to retire by degrees, backward, like the champion's horse at the coronation of George the Fourth, keeping his eye fixed upon me all the time. I watched him with intense interest as he slowly receded down stairs. He stopped a long time peeping over one stair so that nothing of him was visible but his two great glaring eyes, and then they disappeared. I listened. He had gone. I gently descended ; cold and wretched as I was, I actually smiled as I gathered my dressing gown about me, preparatory to returning to bed. Hark ! He was coming back again, tearing up stairs like a wild bull. I caught his eyes. With a violent spring I caught at and climbed to the top of ah old press that stood on the landing, just as the villanous animal reared himself against it, scratching and tearing to get at me, and gnashing his teeth in disappointment. Such teeth too ! " Why, what is the matter? " cried the beauteous Sarah, opening her chamber door and putting forth a candle and a night cap. " Sarah, my dear," I exclaimed. " Call off' the dog, lovely vision ! " "Get along with you!" said Sarah; " and don't call me a lovely vision, or I'll scream out of my window into the street. It serves you right." "Serves me right, Sarah!" I exclaimed, in a voice which, I am sure, was vei-y touching. "You'll not leave me here, Sarah; look, look at this dreadfdl ani- mal ! " 154 CONFESSIONS OF AN ELDERLY GENTLEMAN. " You are a great deal safer there tlian anywhere else," said Sarah; and she drew in her head again and locked the door, leaving me and the dog gazing at each other with looks of mutual hatred. How long I continued in this position I feel it impossible to guess. It appeared to me more than the duration of a whole life. I was not even soothed by the deep snoring which penetrated from the sleep- ing apartment of the fair cause of all my woes, and indicated that she was in the oblivious land of dreams. I suppose I should have been compelled to await the coming of day-light, and the awakening of the household, before my release from my melancholy situation, if fortune had not so favoured me, as to excite, by way of diversion, a disturbance below stairs which called oif my guardian friend. I never heard a more cheerful sound than that of his feet trotting down stairs ; and as soon as I ascertained that the coast was clear, I descended and tumbled at once into bed, much annoyed both in mind and body. The genial heat of the blankets, however, soon produced its natural effects and I forgot my sorrows in slumber. When I awoke it was broad day-light, — as broad I mean, as day-light condescends to be in December, — an un- easy sensation surprised me. Had I missed the coach ? Devoting the waiters to the infernal gods, I put my hand under my pillow for my watch, but no watch was there. Sleep was completely banished from my eyes, and I jumped out of bed to make the necessary inquiries ; when to my additional horror and astonishment I found my clothes had vanished. I rang the bell violently and summoned the whole posse comitaius of the house, whom I accused, in the loftiest tones, of misde- meanors of all descriptions. In return, I was asked who and what I was and what brought me there; and one of the waiters suggested an instant search of the room, as he had shrewd suspicions that I was the man with the carpet-bag who went about robbing hotels. After a scene of much tumult, the appearance of Boots at last cut the knot. It was, it seems, "No. 12 wot was to ha' gone by the Edenbry coach at six o'clock that morn- ing, but wot had changed somehow into No. 11, wot went at four." " And why," said I, " didn't you knock at No. 12?" " So I did," said Boots ; " I knocked fit to wake the dead, and, as there war n't no answer, I didn't wake the living; I didn't knock no more, 'specially as Sarah " " What of Sarah ? " I asked in haste. " — 'Specially as Sarah was going by at the time and told me not to disturb you, for she knowd you had been uneasy in the night, and wanted rest in the morning." 1 waited for no further explanation, but rushed to my room and dressed my- self as fast as I could, casting many a rueful glance at my dilapidated counte- nance, and many a reflection equally rue- ful on the adventures of the night. My place was lost and the money I paid for it, that was certain ; but going to Edinburgh was indispensable. I pro- ceeded, therefore to book myself again and on doing so found Joe Grabble in the cofiee-room talking to Sarah. He had returned like Paul Pry, in quest of an umbrella, or something else he had for- gotten the night before, and I arrived just in time to hear him ask if I was off. The reply was by no means flattering to my vanity. " I do not know nothink about him," said the indignant damsel, " except that, whether he's off or on, he's a nasty old willin." " Hey day, Peter ! " exclaimed Joe. "So you are not gone? What is this Sarah says about you ? " " May I explain," said I, approaching her with a bow, " fair Sarah ? " "I don't want your conversation at no price," was the reply. "You 're an old wretch as I wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs." " Hey day ! " cried Joe. " This is not precisely the character you expected. The rump and dozen " But the subject is too painful to be pur- sued. My misfortunes were, however, not yet at an end. I started that evening by the mail. We had not got twenty miles from town when the snow storm began. I was one of its victims. The mail stuck somewhere in Yorkshire, where we were ^ snowed up and half starved for four days, and succeeded only after a thousand perils, the details of which may be read most pathetically related in the news- papers of the period, in reaching our destination. When there, I lost little time in repairing to our agent, — a W. S. of the name of McCracken, — who was at a handsome flat in Nicholson Street, not far from the college. He welcomed me HAPPY AND INNOCENT (?) CHILDHOOD. 155 cordially ; but there was sometliing dolor- ous in his tone, nevertheless. "Sit ye down Master Gay less; sit ye down and tak' a glass of wine ; it wul do you good after yer lang and cauld journey. I hae been looking for ye for some days." " What about the house of Screw and Longcut," I inquired, with much anxiety. " I am vara sorry to say naething euid." "Failed?" ' Why just that ; they cam down three days ago. They struggled an' struggled, but it wad no do." " What is the state of their affairs ? " " Oh ! bad — bad — saxpence in the pund forby. But, why were you no here by the cotch o' whilte ye advised me. That cotch came in safe enuch ; and it puzzled me quite to see yer name bookit in the way bill, and ye no come. I did no ken what to do. I suppose some accident de- tained you ? " " It was, indeed, an accident," replied I faintly, laying down my untasted glass. " I hope it's of nae consequence else- where," said MoOracken, " because it is unco unlucky here ; for if ye had been in E'nbro' on the Saturday, I think — indeed I am sure — that we wad hae squeezed ten or twelve shillings in the pund out o' them, — for they were in hopes o' remit- tances to keep up; but, when Monday cam', they saw the game was gane, and they now clane dished. So you see Mr. Gayless, ye're after the fair." " Afterthe/ai>, indeed," said I ; for men can pun even in misery, there will not be sixpence in the pound, and it is more than six hundred and iifty pounds out of my pocket. I had the expense (includ- ing that of a lost place) of a journey to Edinburgh and back for nothing. I was snowed up on the road, and frozen up on the top of the stair case. I lost a pair of teeth, and paid the dentist for another. I was bumped and bruised, bullied by a barmaid and hunted by a dog. I paid my rump and dozen amid the never-ending jokes of those who were eating and drink- ing them ; and I cannot look forward to the next dog-days without having before my eyes the horrors of hydrophobia. Such was my last love I At what time of life may a man be said to belong to the vegetable kingdom ? When long experience has made him sage. A CONSEEVATIVE FARMER. An old Scotch farmer, who was exceed- ingly fond of lessening the agricultural labor on his farm, happened to enter a chemist's shop one day on business. He found the man of drugs busily employed cleaning a galvanic battery. The farmer looked on for some time at the operations of the chemist, and being roused by curi- osity, he addressed the shopman : " What kind o' a machine dae ye ca' that, mais- ter ? " " Oh," replied the chemist, " this is a new machine for sowing turnips." " For sawin' neeps ! " cried the astonished son of toil ; " hoo dis't work ? " " Take hold of the two handles," said the chem- ist. The farmer soon complied, being now all eagerness to understand all about the new machine. No sooner had he laid hold of the handles than the chem- ist set the thing in motion. Soon he had the satisfaction of seeing the worthy far- mer dancing and howling in the most dreadful manner. " Throw the handles on the counter," said the chemist. This the farmer found it impossible to do. At length, looking imploringly in the face of the chemist, he cried: "Woal woal man, it's perfect murder hauding that thing." The chemist then stopped the current of electricity. As soon as the farmer was released, he rushed from the shop, shout- ing : " Fags, I'll stick tae the auld-fash- ioned barrow yet." HAPPY AND INNOCENT (?) CHILD- HOOD. How beautiful are the innocent and health-imparting sports of happy child- hood! How the middle-aged or still older heart responds to tender memories of jocund youth as the boys are seen ab- sorbed in their merry games ! " Out you first!" "No 't isn't either!" "I tell you it is ; you just come out of that I " " Well, you get me out if you can ! " " You bet I just can, though ! " " You're a liar I " " You're another ! " Smash, crack, bang I Hair pulled, garments rolled in mud, blows, mutterings, and what Victor Hugo would call a " formid- able breathing," with gruntings and 156 GREEK WIT AND HUMOR. snortings as the contestants struggle. Finally, " There, have you had enough? " " Ye-e-s, let up, will you ? " " Were you out or not ? " and, after some mutterings, a grumbling assent. These are the sounds that come from the vacant lots of the city of an afternoon, as the boys play the merry bat and ball. " Happy, happy childhood I " TOO OLD TO BE TRIFLED WITH. An old army surgeon, who was very fond of a joke, if not perpetrated at his own expense, was one day at a mess, when a wag remarked to the doctor, who had been somewhat severe in his remarks on the literary deiiciencies of some of the officers: "Doctor, are you acquainted with Captain G. ? " " Yes, I know him well," replied the doctor; but what of him ? " "^Nothing, in particular," replied the officer ; " I have just received a letter from him, and I'll wager you a dozen of old port that you can't guess in five guesses how he spells cat." " Done," said the doctor, " it's a wager.'' " Well, commence guessing," said the officer. "K-a double-t." "No." " C-a-t-e." " No, try it again." " K-a-t-e." " No, you have missed it again." " Well, then," returned the doctor, "C-a double-t." " No, that's not the way; try it again, — it's your last guess." " C-a-g-t." " No," said the wag, " that's not the way ; you have lost your wager." " Well," said the doctor, with much petulance of manner, "how does he spell it?" "Why, he spells it c-a-t," replied the wag, with the utmost gravity, amid the roars of the mess; and almost choking with rage the doctor sprang to his feet, exclaiming: " Gentlemen, I am too old to be trifled with in this manner." A STORY OF BRIGNOLI. Many amusing anecdotes are now re- called of the peculiarities of Brignoli, the celebrated tenor, recently deceased, one of which is in connection with the very church of St. Agnes in which his requiem was sung and from which his body was carried to the tomb. He had agreed upon a certain occasion, at the request of Father McDowald, to be present and sing a solo at the 10.30 A. m. mass. He came into the choir, and after divesting him- self of throat coverings, tumbling over music stands and nearly setting the choir crazy by trying his voice and delaying the service, he finally concluded that he was "in voice." By the time Brignoli got ready Father McDowald had begun his sermon, but Brignoli leaned over the choir railings and tried to attract his attention by shaking his head, gesticulating with his hands and saying in a voice audible enough to be heard in the choir : "Me ready for ze sing I Stoppa ze preach ! Stoppa ze preach I " And the good priest actually did cut his sermon short to accommodate the im- patient tenor, whose voice rang out with such fervor as to thrill the devout wor- shipers. GREEK WIT AND HUMOR. NEW USE OF A HUMAN FACE. With nose so long and mouth so wide, And those twelve grinders side by side, Dick, with a very little trial. Would make an excellent sun-dial. Attributed to the Empeeoe Teajav chloe's haie. Chloe, those locks of raven hair, — Some people say you dye them ; But that's a libel, I can swear, For I know where you buy them. Lttcillius. ON A DEAF HOUSEKEEPER. Of all life's plagues I recommend to no man To hire as a domestic a deaf woman. I've got one who my orders does not hear, Mishears them rather, and keeps blundering near. Thirsty and hot, I asked her for a drink ; She bustled out, and brought me back some ink. Eating a good rump-steak, I called for mur tard; POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 157 Away she went, and whipped me up a custard. I wanted with my chicken to have ham; Blundering once more, she brought a pot of jam. I wished in season for a cut of salmon; And what she brought me was a huge fat gammon. I can't my voice raise higher and still higher, As if I were a herald or town-crier. T would better be if she were deaf outright ; But anyhow she quits my house this night. Ancient Gbesk. Anon. POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. THE NEW PAUL AND VIRGINIA. A Satire. [WiLUAM HusHELL Mallook was bom in Devon- shire in 1849. His father is a younger son of the late Mr. Roger Malloclc, of Cockington Court, in the south of Devon ; he is in Holy orders, and had for many years the livings of Cockington and Torre Mohun. His mother is a daughter of the late Yen. R. Hurrell Froude, Archdeacon of Totnes, and she is a sister of Mr. Anthony Froude, the historian. Mr. Mallock was educated by a private tutor, the Rev. W. B. Philpot, of Littlehamp- ton, Sussex, and afterwards of Balliol College, Oxford, where in 1871 he gained the Newdigate Prize Poem, the subject being "The Isthmus of Suez." He took, at Oxford, a second-class in the iinal classical schools. Mr. Mallock has never entered any profession, though atone time he contemplated the diplomatic service. *' The New Eepvblic,^* most of which he wrote when he was at Oxford, was published in 1876, it having at first ap- peared in a fragmentary form in Belgravia. A year later he published " The New Paul and Virginia.^* In 1879, he published " Is TJ/e Worth XAving f " which ap- peared in fragments in the ContemporaTy Review and the NineteerUh Century. In 1880, he brought out a small edition of *' Poems,^^ written, most of them, many years previously. The following year he published " A Ro- mance of the Nineteenth Century ; ^^ and in 1882 "Social Equality : a Study in a Missing Science,** the substance 3f which had already appeared in fragments in the Nineteenth Century and the Contemporary during the three previous years.] The magnificent ocean-steamer, the Australasian, waa bound for England, on her homeward voyage from Melbourne. She carried Her Majesty's mails and ninety-eight first-class passengers. The skies were cloudless ; the sea was smooth as glass. Never did vessel start under happier auspices. No sound of sickness was to be heard anywhere; and when dinner time came there was not a single appetite wanting. But the passengers soon discovered they were lucky in more than weather. Dinner was hardly half over before two of those present had begun to attract general attention ; and every one was wondering, in whispers, who they could possibly be. One of the objects of this delightful curiosity was a large-boned, middle-aged man, with gleaming spectacles, and lank, untidy hair ; whose coat fitted him so ill, and who held his head so high, that it was plain at a glance he was some great celebrity. The other was a beautiful lady of about thirty years of age. No one present had seen her like before. She had the fairest hair and the darkest eye- brows, the largest eyes and the smallest waist conceivable ; — in fact, art and nature had been struggling as to which should do the most for her ; whilst her bearing was so haughty and distin- guished, her glance so tender, and her dress so expensive and so fascinating, that she seemed at the same time to defy and to court attention. Evening fell on the ship with a soft, warm witchery. The air grew purple, and the waves began to glitter in the moonlight. The passengers gathered in knots upon the deck. The distinguished strangers were still the subject of conjec- ture. At last the secret was discovered by the wife of an old colonial judge ; and the news spread like wildfire. In a few minutes all knew that there were on board the Australasian no less personages than Professor Paul Darnley and the superb Virginia St. John. II. Miss St. John had, for at least six years, been the most renowned woman in Europe. In Paris and St. Petersburg, no less than in London, her name was equally familiar both to princes and to pot-boys ; the eyes of all the world were upon her. Yet in spite of this exposed situation, scandal had proved powerless to wrong her; she defied detraction. Her enemies could but echo her friends' praise of her beauty ; her i'riends could but confirm her enemies' description of her character. Though of birth that 158 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. might be called almost humble, she had been connected with the heads of many distinguished families ; and so general was the affection she inspired, and so winning the ways in which she contrived to retain it, that she found herself at the age of thirty mistress of nothing except a large fortune. She was now converted with surprising rapidity by a ritualistic priest, and she became in a few months a model of piety and devotion. She made lace trimmings for the curate's vest- ments ; she bowed at church as often and profoundly as possible ; she enjoyed noth- ing so much as going to confession ; she learnt to despise the world. Indeed, such utter dross did her riches now seem to her, that despite all the arguments of her ghostly counsellor, she remained con- vinced that they were too worthless to offer to the Church, and she saw nothing for it but to still keep them for herself. The mingled humility and discretion of this resolve so won the heart of a gifted colonial bishop, then on a visit to Eng- land, that having first assured himself that Miss St. John was sincere in making it, he besought her to share with him his humble mitre, and make him the happiest prelate in the whole Catholic Church. Miss St. John consented. The nuptials were celebrated with the most elaborate ritual, and after a short honeymoon the bishop departed for his South Pacific diocese of the Chasuble Islands, to pre- pare a home for his bride, who was to follow him by the next steamer. Professor Paul Darnley, in his own walk of life, was even more renowned than Virginia had been in hers. He had written three volumes on the origin of life, which he had spent seven years in looking for in infusions of hay and cheese ; he had written five volumes on the entozoa of the pig, and two volumes of lectures, as a corollary to these, on the sublimity of human heroism and the whole duty of man. He was renowned all over Europe and America as a com- plete embodiment of enlightened modern thought. His mind was like a sea, into which the other great minds of the age discharged themselves, and in which all the slight discrepancies of the philosophy of the present century mingled together and formed one harmonious whole. He criticized everything; he took nothing on trust, except the unspeakable sublimity of the human race and its august terres- trial destinies. And in his double capacity of a seer and a savant, he had destroyed all that the world had believed in the past, and revealed to it all that it is going to feel in the future. Nor was he less successful in his own private life. He married, at the age of forty, an excel- lent evangelical lady, ten years his senior, who wore a green gown, grey cork-screw curls, and who had a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds. Ortho- dox though she was, Mrs. Darnley was yet proud beyond measure of her hus- band's world-wide fame, for she did but imperfectly understand the grounds of it. Indeed, the only thing that marred her happiness was the single tenet of his that she had really mastered. This, unluckily, was that he disbelieved in hell. And so, as Mrs. Darnley conceived that that place was designed mainly to hold those who doubted its existence, she daily talked her utmost, and left no text un- turned to convince her darling of his very dangerous error. These assiduous arguments soon began to tell. The Pro- fessor grew moody and brooding, and he at last suggested to his medical man that a voyage round the world unaccompanied by his wife, was the prescription most needed by his failing patience. Mrs. Darnley at length consented with a fairly good grace. She made her hus- band pledge himself that he would not be absent for above a twelvemonth, or else, she said, she should immediately come after him. She bade him the ten- derest of adieus, and promised to pray till his return for his recovery of a faith in hell. The Professor, who had but exceeded his time by six months, was now on board the Australasian, homeward bound to his wife. Virginia was outward bound to her husband. The sensation created by the presence of these two celebrities was profound be- yond description; and the passengers were never weary of watching the gleam- ing spectacles and the scjuare-toed boots of the one, and the liquid eyes and the ravishing toilettes of the other. There were three curates, who, having been very quick in making Virginia's acquaint- ance, soon sang at nightfall with her s> beautiful vesper hymn. And so lovely POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 159 did the strains sound, and so devotional did Virginia look, that most of the pass- engers the night after joined in a repeti- tion of this touching evening office. The Professor, as was natural, held quite aloof; and pondered over a new species of bug, which he had found very plentiful in his berth. But it soon oc- curred to him that he often heard the name of God being uttered otherwise than in swearing. He listened more at- tentively to the sounds which he had at iirst set down as negro melodies : and he soon became convinced that they were something whose very existence he des- pised himself for remembering — namely, Christian hymns. He then thought of the three curates, whose existence he despised himself for remembering also. And -the conviction rapidly dawned on him, that though the passengers seemed fully alive to his fame as a man of science, they could yet know very little of all that science had done for them ; and of the death-blow it had given to the foul superstitions of the past. He there- fore resolved that next day he would preach them a lay-sermon. At the appointed time the passengers gathered eagerly round him — all but Virginia, who retired to her cabin when she saw that the preacher wore no sur- plice; as she thought it would be a mortal sin to listen to a sermon without one. The Professor began amidst a profound silence. He first proclaimed to his hearers the great primary axiom in which all modern thought roots itself. He told them that there was but one order of things, it was so much neater than two ; and if we would be certain of anything we must never doubt it. Thus, since countless things exist that the senses can take account of, it is evident that nothing exists that the senses cannot take account of. The senses can take no account of God ; therefore God does not exist. Men of science can only see theology in a ridiculous light ; therefore theology has no side that is not ridiculous. He then told them a few of the new names that enlightened thinkers had applied to the Christian Deity — how Professor Tyndall had called him an "atom-manufacturer," and Professor Huxley, a " pedantic drill- sergeant." The passengers at once saw how demonstrably at variance with fact was all religion, and they laughed with a sense of humor that was quite new to them. The professor's tones then became more solemn ; and, having extinguished error, he proceeded to unveil the brilliant light of truth. He showed them how, viewed by modern science, all existence is a chain, with a gas at one end, and no one knows what at the other ; and how Humanity is a link somewhere; but, holy and awful thought ! — we can none of us tell where. " However," he proceeded, " of one thing we can be quite certain : all that is, is matter ; the laws of matter are eternal, and we cannot act or think without conforming to them : and if," he said, "we would be solemn, and high, and happy, and heroic, and saintly, we have but to strive and struggle to do what we cannot for an instant avoid doing. Yes," he exclaimed, "as the sublime Tyndall tells us, let us struggle to attain to a deeper knowledge of matter, and a more faithful conformity to its laws ! " The Professor would have proceeded ; but the weather had been rapidly grow- ing rough and he here became violently sea-sick. "Let us," he exclaimed hurriedly, " conform to the laws of matter and go below." Nor was the advice premature. A storm arose, exceptional in its suddenness and its fury. It raged for two days with- out ceasing. The Australasian sprang a leak ; her steering gear was disabled ; and it was feared she would go ashore on an island that was seen dimly through the fog to the leeward. The boats were got in readiness. A quantity of provisions and of the passengers' baggage was already stowed in the cutter ; when the clouds parted, the sun came out again, and the storm subsided almost as quickly as it arose. IV. No sooner were the ship's damages in a fair way to be repaired than the Pro- fessor resumed his sermon. He climbed into the cutter, which was still full of the passengers' baggage, and sat down on the largest of Virginia's boxes. This so alarmed Virginia that she followed the Professor into the cutter to keep an eye on her property ; but she did not forget to stop her ears with her fingers, that she might not be guilty of listening to an un- surpliced minister. 160 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. The Professor took up the thread of his discourse just where he had broken it off. Every circumstance favoured him. The calm sea was sparkling under the gentlest breeze ; all Nature seemed suffused with gladness ; and at two miles' distance was an enchanting island, green with every kind of foliage, and glowing with the hues of a thousand flowers. The Professor, having reminded his hearers of what nonsense they now thought all the Christian teachings, went on to show them the blessed results of this. Since the God that we once called all-holy is a fable, that Humanity is all-holy must be a fact. Since we shall never be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy hereafter, it is evident that we can be sublime, and solemn, and unspeakably happy here. " This," said the Professor, " is the new Gospel. It is founded on exact thought. It is the gospel of the kingdom of man ; and had I only here a microscope and a few chemicals, I could demonstrate its eternal truth to you. There is no heaven to seek for ; there is no hell to shun. We have nothing to strive and live for except to be unspeak- ably happy." This eloquence was received with en- thusiasm. The captain in pp.rticular, who had a wife in every port he touched at, was overjoyed at hearing that there was no hell ; and he sent for all his crew, that they might learn the good news likewise. But soon the general gladness was marred by a sound of weeping. Three-fourths of the passengers, having had time to reflect a little, began exclaim- ing that as a matter of fact they were really completely miserable, and that for various reasons they could never be any- thing else. " My iriends," said the Pro- fessor, quite undaunted, " that is doubt- less completely true. You are not happy now ; you probably never will be. But that is of little moment. Only conform faithfully to the laws of matter, and your children's children will be happy in the course of a few centuries ; and you will like that far better than being happy yourselves. Only consider the matter in this light, and you yourselves will be- come happy also ; and whatever you say, and whatever you do, think only of the effect it will have five hundred years afterwards." At these solemn words, the anxious faces grew calm. An awful sense of the responsibility of each one of us, and the infinite consequences of every human act, was filling the hearts of all ; when by a faithful conformity to the laws of matter, the boiler blew up, and the Australasian went down. In an instant the air was rent with yells and cries ; and all the Humanity that was on board the vessel was busy, as the Professor ex- pressed it, uniting itself with the infinite azure of the past. Paul and Virginia, however, floated quietly away in the cutter, together with the baggage and provisions. Virginia was made almost senseless by the suddenness of the catas- trophe ; and on seeing five sailors sink within three yards of her, she fainted dead away. 'The Professor begged her not to take it so much to heart, as these were the very men who had got 'the cutter in readiness ; " and they are there- fore," he said, "still really alive in the fact of our happy escape." Virginia, however, being quite insensible, the Pro- fessor turned to the last human being still to be seen above the waters, and shouted to him not to be afraid of death, as there was certainly no hell, and that his life, no matter how degraded and miserable, had been a glorious mystery, full of infinite significance. The next moment the struggler was snapped up by a shark. The cutter, meanwhile, borne by a current, had been drifting rapidly towards the island. And the Professor, spreading to the breeze Vii'ginia's beauti- ful lace parasol, soon brought it to the shore on a beach of the softest sand. The scene that met Paul's eyes as he landed was one of extreme lovelineais. He had run the boat ashore in a little fairy bay, full of translucent waters, and fringed with silvery sands. On either side it was protected by fantastic rocks, and in the middle it opened inland to an enchanting valley, where tall tropical trees made a grateful shade, and where the ground was carpeted with the softest moss and turf Paul's first care was for his fair com- panion. He spread a costly cashmere shawl on the beach, and placed her, still fainting, on this. In a few moments she opened her eyes ; but was on the point of fainting again as the horrors of the liist half-hour came back to her, when she POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 161 caught sight in the cutter of the largest of her own boxes, and she began to re- cover herself. Paul begged her to remain quiet while he went to reconnoitre. He had hardly proceeded twenty yards into the valley, when to his infinite as- tonishment he came on a charming cot- tage, built under the shadow of a broad tree, with a broad verandah, plate-glass windows, and red window-blinds. His first thought was that this could be no desert island at all, but some happy European settlement. But on approach- ing the cottage, it proved to be quite unten- anted, and from the cobwebs woven across the doorway it seemed to have been long abandoned. Inside there was abundance of luxurious furniture; the floors were covered with gorgeous Indian carpets ; and there was a pantry well stocked with plate and glass and table-linen. The Professor could not tell what to make of it, till, examining the structure more closely, he found it composed mainly of a ship's timbers. This seemed to tell its own tale ; and he at once concluded that he and Virginia were not the first cast- aways who had been forced to make the island for some time their dwelling-place. Overjoyed at this discovery, the Pro- fessor hastened back to Virginia. She was by this time quite recovered, and was kneeling on the cashmere shawl, with a rosary in her hands, designed especially for the use of Anglo-Catholics, and was alternately lifting up her eyes in grati- tude to heaven, and casting them down in anguish at her torn and crumpled dress. The poor Professor was horrified at the sight of a human being in this de- grading attitude of superstition. But as Virginia quitted it v/ith alacrity as soon as ever he told his news to her, he hoped he might soon convert her into a sublime and holy Utilitarian. The first thing she besought him to do was to carry her big- gest box to this charming cottage, that she might change her clothes, and ap- pear in something fit to be seen in. The Professor most obligingly at once did as she asked him ; and whilst she was busy at her toilette, he got from the cutter what provisions he could, and proceeded to lay the table. When all was ready he rang a gong which he found suspended in the lobby ; Virginia appeared shortly in a beautiful pink dressing-gown, embroid- ered with silver flowers ; and just before sunset, the tvv'o sat down to a really ex- VOL. IV. — W. II. cellent meal. The bread-tree at the door of the cottage contributed some beautiful French rolls ; close at hand also they dis- covered a butter-tree ; and the Professor had produced from the cutter a variety of salt and potted meats, paU-de-foie-gras, cakes, preserved fruit, and some bottles of fine champagne. This last helped much to raise their spirits. Virginia found it very dry, and exactly suited to her palate. She had but drunk five glasses of it, when her natural smile re- turned to her, though she was much dis- appointed because Paul took no notice of her dressing-gown ; and when she had drunk three glasses more, she quietly went to sleep on the sofa. The moon had by this time risen in dazzling splendour; and the Professor went out and lighted a cigar. All during dinner there had been a feeling of dull despair in his heart, which even the champagne did not dissipate. But now, as he surveyed in the moonlight the won- drous Paradise in which his strange fate had cast him, his mood changed. The air was full of the scents of a thousand night-smelling flowers ; the sea murmured on the beach in soft voluptuous cadences. The Professor's cigar was excellent. He nov/ saw his situation in a truer light. Here is a bountiful island, where earth unbidden brought forth all her choicest fruits ; and most of the luxuries of civil- ization had already been wafted thither. Existence here seemed to be purified from all its evils. Was not this the very condition of things which all the sublim- est and exactest thinkers of modern times had been dreaming and lecturing, and writing books about for a good half-cen- tury ? Here was a place where Humanity could do justice to itself, and realize those glorious destinies which all thinkers take for granted must be in store for it. True, from the mass of Humanity he was com- pletely cut away ; but Virginia was his companion. Holiness, and solemnity, and unspeakably significant happiness, did not, he argued, depend on the multi- plication table. He and Virginia repre- sented Humanity as well as a million couples. They were a complete Hu- manity in themselves, and Humanity in a perfectible shape ; and the very next day they would make preparations for fulfilling their holy destiny, and being as solemnly and unspeakably happy as it was their stern duty to be. The Professor 11 162 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. turned his eyes upwards to the starry heavens; and a sense came over him of the eternity and the immensity of Na- ture, and the demonstrable absence of any intelligence that guided it. These reflections naturally brought home to him with more vividness the stupendous and boundless importance of Man. His bosom swelled violently ; and he cried aloud, his eyes still fixed on the firma- ment, " Oh, important All ! oh, important Me!" When he came back to the cottage, he found Virginia just getting off the sofa, and preparing to go off to bed. She was too sleepy even to say good-night to him, and with evident want of temper was tugging at the buttons of her dressing- gown. " Ah," she murmured as she left the room, " if God, in his infinite mercy, had only spared my maid !" Virginia's evident discontent gave pro- found pain to Paul. "How solemn," he exclaimed, " for half Humanity to be discontented ! " But he was still more disturbed at the appeal to a chimerical manufacturer of atoms ; and he ex- claimed, in yet more sorrowful tones, " How solemn for half Humanity to be sunk lower than the beasts by supersti- tion ! " However, he hoped that these stupend- ous evils might, under the present favour- able conditions, vanish in the course of a few days' progress ; and he went to bed, full of august auguries. VI. Next morning he was up betimes ; and the prospects of Humanity looked more glorious than ever. He gathered some of the finest pats from the butter-tree, and some French rolls from the bread- tree. He discovered a cow close at hand, that allowed him at once to milk it ; and a little roast pig ran up to him out of the underwood, and fawning on him with its trotters, said, " Come, eat me." The Professor vivisected it before Virginia's door, that its automatic noise, which the vulgar call cries of pain, might awaken her ; and he then set it in a hot dish on the table. " It has come ! it has come ! " he shouted, rapturously, as Virginia entered the room, this time in a blue silk dress- ing-gown, embroidered with flowers of gold. " What has come ?" said Virginia, pet- tishly, for she was suffering from a terri- ble headache, and the Professor's loud voice annoyed her. "You don't mean to say that we are rescued, are we ? " " Yes," answered Paul, solemnly ; " we are rescued from all the pains and imper- fections of a world that has not learnt how to conform to the laws of matter, and is but imperfectly acquainted with the science of sociology. It is therefore inevitable that, the evils of existence being thus removed, we shall both be solemnly, stupendously, and unspeakably happy." Nonsense ! " said Virginia, snap- pishly, who thought the Professor was joking. " It is not nonsense," said the Pro- fessor. " It is deducible from the teach- ings of John Stuart Mill, of Auguste Comte, of Mr. Frederic Harrison, and of all the exact thinkers who have cast off superstition, and who adore Humanity." Virginia meanwhile ate paU-de-foie- gras, of which she was passionately fond ; and, growing a little less sullen, she at last admitted that they were lucky in hav- ing at least the necessaries of life left to them. " But as for happiness — there is nothing to do here, there is no church to go to, and you don't seem to care a bit for my dressing-gown. What have we got to make us happy?" " Humanity, " replied the Professor eagerly, — " Humanity, that divine entity, which is of course capable of everything that is fine and invaluable, and is the ob- ject of indescribable emotion to all exact thinkers. And what is Humanity ?" he went on more earnestly, " You and I are Humanity — you and I are that august existence. You already are all the world to me ; and I very soon shall be all the world to you. Adored being, it will be my mission and my glory to compel you to live for me. And then, as modern philosophy can demonstrate, we shall both of us be significantly and unspeak- ably happy." For a few moments Virginia merely stared at Paul. Suddenly she turned quite pale, her lips quivered, and ex- claiming, " How dare you ! — and I, too, the wife of a bishop !" she left the room in hysterics. The Professor could mate nothing of this. Though he had dissected many dead women, he knew very little of the POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 163 tearta of live ones. A sense of shyness overpowered him. He felt embarrassed, he could not tell why, at being thus left alone with Virginia. He lit a cigar, and went out. Here was a to-do indeed, he thought. How would progress be possi- ble if one half of Humanity misunder- stood the other? He was thus musing, when suddenly a voice startled him; and in another mo- ment a man came rushing up to him, with every demonstration of joy. "Oh, my dear master ! oh, emancipator of the human intellect ! and is it indeed you ? Thank God ! 1 beg pardon for my unspeakable blasphemy — I mean, thank circumstances over which I have no control." It was one of the three curates, whom Paul had supposed drowned, but who now related how he had managed to swim ashore, despite the extreme length of his black clerical coat. "These rags of superstition," he said, " did their best to drown me. But I survive in spite of them, to covet truth and to reject error. Thanks to your glorious teaching," he went on, looking reverentially into the Professor's face, the very notion of an Almighty Father makes me laugh con- sumedly, it is so absurd and so immoral. Science, through your instrumentality, has opened my eyes, I am now an exact thinker." " Do you believe," said Paul, "in sol- emn, significant, and unspeakably happy Humanity?" " I do," said the curate, fervently, "Whenever I think of Humanity, I groan and moan to myself out of sheer solemnity." " Then two-thirds of Humanity," said the Professor, "are thoroughly enlight- ened. Progress will now go on smoothly." At this moment Virginia came out, having rapidly recovered composure at the sound of a new man's voice. " You here — you, too ! " exclaimed the curate. "How solemn, how significant I This is truly Providential 1 mean this has truly happened through conformity to the laws of matter." "Well," said Virginia," "since we have a clergyman amongst us, we shall perhaps be able to get on." VII. Things now took a better turn. The Professor ceased to feel shy ; and pro- posed, when the curate had finished an enormous breakfast, that they should go down to the cutter, and bring up the things in it to the cottage. " A few hours' steady progress," he said, " and the human race will command all the luxuries of civilization — the glorious fruits of centuries of onward labour." The three spent a very busy morning in examining and unpacking the lug- gage. The Professor found his favourite collection of modern philosophers ; Vir- ginia found a large box of knick-nacks, with which to adorn the cottage ; and there was, too, an immense store of wine and of choice provisions. " It is rather sad," sighed Virginia, as she dived into a box of French choco- late-creams, " to think that all the poor people are drowned that these things be- longed to." " They are not dead," said the Profes- sor, "they still live on this holy and stupendous earth. They live in the use we are making of all they had got toge- ther. The owner of those chocolate- creams is immortal because you are eat- ing them." Virginia licked her lips, and said, " Nonsense ! " " It is not nonsense," said the Profes- sor. " It is the religion of Humanity." All day they were busy, and the tin:e passed pleasantly enough. Wines, pro- visions, books, and china ornaments were carried up to the cottage and bestowed in proper places. Virginia filled the glasses in the drawing-room with gor- geous leaves and flowers ; and declared by the evening, as she looked around her, that she could almost fancy herself in St. John's Wood. " See," said the Professor, " how rapid is the progress of material civilization ! Humanity is now entering on the fruits of ages. Before long it will be in a posi- tion to be unspeakably happy." Virginia retired to bed early. The Professor took the curate out with him to look at the stars ; and promised to lend him some writings of the modern phil- osophers, which would make him more perfect in the new view of things. They said good-night, murmuring together that there was certainly no God, that Humanity was very important, and that everything was very solemn. 164 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. VIII. Next morning the curate began study- ing a number of essays that the Professor lent him, all written by exact thinkers, who disbelieved in God, and thought Humanity adorable and most important. Virginia lay on the sofa, and sighed over one of Miss Broughton's novels ; and it occurred to the Professor that the island was just the place where, if anywhere, the missing link might be found. "Ah!" he exclaimed; "all is still progress. Material progress came to an end yesterday. Mental progress has be- gun to-day. One-third of humanity is cultivating sentiment; another third is learning to covet truth. I, the remain- ing and most enlightened third, will go and seek it. Glorious, solemn Human- ity I I will go and look about for its arboreal ancestor." Every step the Professor took he found the island more beautiful. But he came back to luncheon, having been unsuc- cessful in his search. Events had marched quickly in his absence. Vir- ginia was at the beginning of her third volume; and the curate had skimmed over so many essays, that he professed I'limself able to give a thorough account of the want of faith that was in him. After luncheon the three sat together ill easy chairs, in the verandah, some- 'times talking, sometimes falling into a Vialf-doze. They all agreed that they (lere wonderfully comfortable, and the Professor said — " All Humanity is now at rest, and in utter peace. It is just taking breath, be- fore it becomes unspeakably and signifi- cantly happy." He would have said more, but he was here startled by a piteous noise of crying, and the three found themselves confron- ted by an old woman dripping with sea- water, and with an expression on her face of the utmost misery. They soon recognized her as one of the passengers of the ship. She told them how she had been floated ashore on a spar, and how she had been sustained by a little roast pig, that kindly begged her to eat it, hav- ing first lain in her bosom to restore her to warmth. She was now looking for her son. " And if I cannot find him," said the old woman, "I shall never smile again. He has half broken my heart," she went on, " by his wicked ways. But if I- thought he was dead — dead in the midst of his sins, it would be broken altogether ; for in that case he must certainly be in hell." " Old woman," said the Professor, very slowly and solemnly, " be comforted. 1 announce to you that your son is alive." "Oh, bless you, sir, for that word!" cried the old woman. " But where is he ? Have you seen him ? Are you sure that he is living? " I am sure of it," said the Professor, " because enlightened thought shows me that he cannot be anything else. It is true that I saw him sink for a third time in the sea, and that he was then snapped up by a shark. But he is as much alive as ever in his posthumous activities. He has made you wretched after him ; and that is his future life. Become an exact thinker, and you will see that this is so. Old woman," added the Professor, sol- emnly, " you are your son in hell." At this the old woman flew into a ter- rible rage. " In hell, sir ! " she exclaimed ; " me in hell ! — a poor lone woman like me ! How dare you!" And she sank back in a chair and fainted. " Alas ! " said the Professor, " thus is misery again introduced into the world. A fourth part of humanity is now miser- able." The curate answered promptly that if no restoratives were given her, she would probably die in a few minutes. " And to let her die," he said, " is clearly our sol- emn duty. It will be for the greatest happiness of the greatest number." No," said the professor; "for our sense of pity would then be wounded, and the happiness of all of us would be marred by that." "Excuse me," said the curate; "but exact thought shows me that pity for others is but the imagining of their misfortunes falling on ourselves. Now, we can none of us imagine ourselves ex- actly in the old woman's case ; therefore it is quite impossible that we can pity her." " But," said the Professor, " such an act would violate our ideas of justice." " You are wrong again," said the curate ; " for exact thought shows me that the love of justice is nothing but the fear of suffering injustice. If we were to kill strong men, we might naturally feai POSITIVISM ON AK ISLAND. ISb that strong men would kill us. But whatever we do to fainting old women, we cannot expect that fainting old wo- men will do anything to us in return." "Your reasoning cannot be sound," said the professor, " for it would lead to the most horrible conclusions. I will solve the difficulty better. I will make the old woman happy, and therefore fit to live. Old woman," he exclaimed, " you are yourself by your own unhappi- ness expiating your son's sins. Do but think of that, and you will become un- speakably happy." Meanwhile, however, the old woman had died. When the professor discover- ed this he was somewhat shocked ; but at length with a sudden change of coun- tenance. " We neither of us did it," he exclaimed, "her death is no act of ours. It is part of the eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteousness — righteousness, which is, as we all know, but another name for happiness. Let us adore the event with reverence." " Yes," said the curate, " we are well rid of her. She was an immoral old woman ; for happiness is the test of morality, and she was very unhappy." " On the contrary," said the Professor, " she was a moral old woman ; for she made us happy by dying so very oppor- tunely. Let us speak well of the dead. Her death has been a holy and a blessed one. She has conformed to the laws of matter. Thus is unhappiness destined to fade out of the world. Quick ! let us tie a bag of shot to all the sorrow and evil of Humanity, which, after all, is only a fourth part of it ; and let us sink her in the bay close at hand, that she may catch lobsters for us." " At last," said the Professor, as they began dinner that evening, " the fulness of time has come. All the evils of humanity are removed, and progress has come to an end because it can go no further. We have nothing now to do but to be unspeakably and significantly happy." The champagne flowed freely. Our friends ate and drank of the best, their spirits rose ; and Virginia admitted that this was really "jolly." The sense of the word pleased the Professor, but its sound seemed below the gravity of the occasion ; so he begged her to say "sub- lime " instead. " We can make it mean," he said, "just the same, but we prefer it for the sake of its associations." It soon, however, occurred to him that eating and drinking were hardly delights sufficient to justify the highest state of human emotion ; and he began to fear he had been feeling sublime prematurely ; but in another moment he recollected he was an altruist, and that the secret of their happiness was not that any one of them was happy, but that they each knew the others were. " Yes, my dear curate," said the Pro- fessor, " what I am enjoying is the cham- pagne that you drink, and what you are enjoying is the champagne that I drink. This is altruism ; this is benevolence ; this is the sublime outcome of enlight- ened modern thought. The pleasures of the table, in themselves, are low anc" beastly ones ; but if we each of us ar^ only glad because the others are enjoying them, they become holy and glorious beyond description." "They do," cried the curate raptur- ously, " indeed they do ! I will drinlv. another bottle for your sake. It in sublime ! " he said as he tossed off thre« glasses. " It is significant 1 " he said aa he finished three more. " Tell me, my dear, do I look significant ?" he added, as he turned to Virginia, and suddenly tried to crown the general bliss by kiss- ing her. Virginia started back, looking fire and fiiry at him. The Professor was com- pletely astounded by an occurrence so unnatural, and exclaimed in a voice of thunder, " Morality, sir, — remember mo- rality ! How dare you upset that which Professor Huxley tells us must be for ever strong enough to hold its own ? " But the last glass of champagne had put the curate beyond the reach of exact thought. He tumbled under the table, and the Professor carried him ofi' to bed. The Professor, like most serious think- ers, knew but little of that trifle com- monly called "the world." ' He had never kissed any one except his wife ; even that he did as seldom as possible ; and the curate lying dead drunk was the first glimpse he had of what, par excell- ence, is called "life." But though the 166 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. scene just described was thus a terrible shock to him, in one way it gave him an unlooked-for comfort. He felt that even yet things were not quite as sublime as they should be. He now saw the reason. " Of course," he said, " existence cannot be perfect, so long as one third of Hu- manity makes a beast of itself. A little more progress is still necessary." He hastened to explain this next morning to Virginia, and begged her not to be alarmed at the curate's scandalous conduct. "Immorality," he said, "is but a want of success in attaining our own happiness. It is evidently most im- moral for the curate to be kissing you ; and therefore kissing you would not really conduce to his happiness. I will convince him of this solemn truth in a very few moments. Then the essential dignity of human nature will become at once apparent, and we shall all of us at last begin to be unspeakably happy." The curate, however, altogether de- clined to be convinced. He maintained stoutly that to kiss Virginia would be the greatest pleasure that Humanity could offer him. " And if it is immoral as well as pleasant," he added, " I should like it all the better." At this the Professor gave a terrible groan ; he dropped almost fainting into a chair ; he hid his face in his hands ; and murmured half - articulately, "Then I can't tell what to do ! " In another instant, however, he recovered himself; he fixed a dreadful look on the curate, and said, " That last statement of yours cannot be true ; for if it were, it would upset all my theories. It is a fact that can be proved and verified, that if you kissed Virginia it would make you miserable." " Pardon me," said the curate, rapidly moving towards her, " your notion is a remnant of superstition ; I will explode it by a practical experiment." The Professor caught hold of the curate's coat-tails, and forcibly pulled him back into his seat. " If you dare attempt it," he said, " I will kick you soundly, and, shocking, im- moral man ! you will feel miserable enough then." The curate was a terrible coward, and very weak as well. " You are a great hulking fellow," he said, eyeing the Pro- fessor ; " and I am of a singularly delicate build. I must, therefore, conform to the laws of matter, and give in." He said this in a very sulky voice ; and, going out of the room, slammed the door after him. A radiant expression suffused the face of the Professor. " See," he said to Vir- ginia, " the curate's conversion is already half accomplished. In a few hours more he will be rational, he will be moral, he will be solemnly and significantly happy." ■The Professor talked like this to Vir- ginia the whole morning ; but in spite of all his arguments she declined to be com- forted. " It is all very well," she said, " whilst you are in the way. But as soon as your back is turned, I know he will be at me again." " Will you never," said Paul, by this time a little irritated, "will you never listen to exact thought ? The curate is now reflecting ; and a little reflection must inevitably convince him that he does not really care to kiss you, and that it would give him very little real pleasure to do so." "Stuff!" exclaimed Virginia, with a sudden vigour at which the Professor was thunderstruck. " I can tell you," she went on, " that better men than he have borne kicks for my sake ; and to kiss me is the only thing that little man cares about — what shall I do?" she ex- claimed, bursting into tears. " Here is one of you insulting me by trying to kiss me ; and the other insulting me by saying that I am not worth being kissed ! " " Ah, me ! " groaned the poor Professor in agony, " here is one third of Humanity plunged in sorrow ; and another third has not yet freed itself from vice. When, when will sublilnity begin ? " At dinner, however, things wore a more promising aspect. The curate had been so terrified by the Professor's threats, that he hardly dared so much as look at Virginia ; and to make up for it, he drank an unusual quantity of champagne, which soon set him laughing and chatter- ing at a rate that was quite extraordi- nary. Virginia seeing herself thus neglec- ted by the curate, began to fear that, as Paul said, he really did not so much care to kiss her after all. She therefore put on all her most enticing ways ; she talked, flirted, and smiled her best, and made her must effective eyes, that the curate POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 167 might see what a prize was for ever be- yond his reach. Paul thought the state of affairs full of glorious promise. Virginia's tears were dried, she had never looked so radiant and exquisite before. The curate had foregone every attempt to kiss Virginia, and yet he seemed happiness itself. The Professor took the latter aside, as soon as the meal was over, to congratulate him on the holy state to which exact thought had conducted him. " You see," he said, " what a natural growth the loftiest morality is. Virginia doesn't want to be kissed by you. I should be shocked at your doing so shocking a thing as kissing her. If you kissed her, you would make both of us miserable ; and, as a necessary consequence, you would be in an agony likewise ; in addition to which I should inevitably kick you." " But," said the curate, " suppose I kissed Virginia on the sly, — I merely put this as an hypothesis, remember, — and that in a little while she liked it, what then ? She and I would both be happy ; and you ought to be happy too, because we were." "Idiot!" said the Professor. "Vir- ginia is another man's wife. Nobody really likes kissing another man's wife ; nor do wives ever like kissing anyone except their husbands. What they really like is what Professor Huxley calls ' the undefined but bright ideal of the highest good,' which, as he says, exact thought shows us is the true end of existence. But, pooh ! what is the use of all this talking? You know which way your higher nature calls you ; and, of course, unless men believe in God, they cannot help obeying their higher nature." " I," said the curate, " think the belief in God a degrading superstition ; I think every one an imbecile who believes a miracle possible. And yet I do not care two straws about the highest good. What you call my lower nature is far the strongest ; I mean to follow it to the best of my ability ; and I prefer calling it my higher, for the sake of the associations." This plunged the Professor in deeper grief than ever. He knew not what to do. He paced up and down the veran- dah, or about the rooms, and moaned and groaned as if he had a violent tooth- ache. Virginia and the curate asked what was amiss with him. " I am ago- nizing," he said "for the sake of holy solemn, unspeakably dignified Human- ity." The curate, seeing the Professor thus dejected, by degrees took heart again ; and as Virginia still continued her ias- cinating behaviour to him, he resolved to try and prove to her that, the test of morality being happiness, the most moral thing she could do would be to allow him to kiss her. No sooner had he begun to propound these views, than the Professor gave over his groaning, seized the curate by the collar, and dragged him out of the room with a roughness that nearly throttled him. " I was but propounding a theory— an opinion," gasped the curate. " Surely thought is free. You will not persecute me for my opinions?" " It is not for your opinions," said the Professor, "but for the horrible effect they might have. We can only tolerate opinions that have no possible conse- quence. You may promulgate any of those as much as you like ; because to do that would be a self-regarding action." XII. "Well," said the curate, "if I may not kiss Virginia, I will drink brandy instead. That will make me happy enough ; and then we shall all be radiant." He soon put his resolve into practice. He got a bottle of brandy, he sat himself down under a palm-tree, and told the Professor he was going to make an after- noon of it. " Foolish man ! " said the Professor ; "I was never drunk myself, it is true; but I know that to get drunk makes one's head ache horribly. To get drunk is, therefore, horribly immoral; and therefore I cannot permit it." "Excuse me," said the curate; "it is a self-regarding action. Nobody's head will ache but mine ; so that is my own lookout. I have been expelled from school, from college, and from my first • curacy, for drinking. So I know well enough the balance of pains and plea- sures." Here he pulled out his brandy bottle, and applied his lips to it. "Oh, Humanity I" he exclaimed, "how solemn this brandy tastes ! " Matters went on like this for several days. The curate was too much frightened to again approach Virginia. Virginia at 168 F0SITIVIS5I ON AN ISLAlfD. last became convinced that lie did not care about kissing her. Her vanity was wounded, and she became sullen ; and this made the Professor sullen also. In fact, two-thirds of Humanity were over- cast with gloom. The only happy section of it was the curate, who alternately smoked and drank all day long. " The nasty little beast! " said Virginia to the Professor ; " he is nearly always drunk. I am beginning quite to like you, Paul, by comparison with him. Let us turn him out, and not let him live in the cottage." " No," said the Professor ; " for he is one third of Humanity. You do not properly appreciate the solidarity of man- kind. His existence, however, I admit is a great difficulty." One day at dinner, however, Paul came in radiant. " Oh holy, oh happy event ! " he ex- claimed ; " all will go right at last." Virginia inquired anxiously what had happened, and Paul informed her that the curate, who had got more drunk than usual that afternoon, had fallen over a cliff, and been dashed to pieces. " What event," he asked, "could be more charming — more unspeakably holy? It bears about it every mark of sanctity. It is for the greatest happiness of the greatest number." " Come," he continued, " let us begin our love-feast. Let us each seek the happiness of the other. Let us in- stantly be sublime and happy." " Let us prepare ourselves," said Paul solemnly, as they sat down to dinner, "for realizing to the full the essential dignity of Humanity — that grand etre, which has come, in the course of progress, to consist of you and me. Every condi- tion of happiness that modern thinkers have dreamed of is now fulfilled. We have but to seek each happiness of the other, and we shall both be in a solemn, a significant, and unspeakable state of rapture. See, here is an exquisite leg of mutton. I," said Paul, who liked the fat best, " will give up all the fat to you." "And I," said Virginia resignedly, "will give up all the lean to you." A few mouthfiils made Virginia feel sick. " I confess," said she, " I can't get on with this fat." "I confess," the Professor answered, " I don't exactly like this lean." "Then let us," said Virginia, "be like Jack Sprat and his wife." " No," said the Prol'essor, meditatively, " that is quite inadmissible. For in that case we should be egoistic hedonists. However, for to-day it shall be as you say. I will think of something better to-morrow." Next day he and Virginia had a chicken apiece; only Virginia's was put before Paul, and Paul's before Virginia; and they each walked round the table to supply each other with the slightest ne- cessaries. " Ah ! " cried Paul, " this is altruism indeed. I think already I can feel the sublimity beginning." Virginia liked this rather better. But soon she committed the sin of taking for herself the liver of Paul's chicken. As soon as she had eaten the whole of it, her conscience began to smite her. She confessed her sin to Paul, and inquired, with some anxiety, if he thought she would go to hell for it. " Metaphorically," said Paul, "you have already done so. You are punished by the loss of the; pleasure you would have had in giving that liver to me, and also by your know- ledge of my knowledge of your folly in foregoing the pleasure." Virginia was much relieved by this answer; she at once took several more of the Professor's choicest bits, and was happy in the thought that her sins were expiated in the very act of their com- mission, by the latent pain she felt per- suaded they were attended by. Feeling that this was sufficient, she took care not to add Paul's disapproval to her punish- ment, she never told him again. For a short time this practice of altru- ism seemed to Virginia to have many advantages. But though the Professor was always exclaiming, " How significant is human life by the very nature of its constitution ! " she very soon found it a trifle dull. Luckily, however, she hit upon a new method of exercising mo- rality, and, as the Professor fully ad- mitted, of giving it yet a more solemn significance. The Professor having by some accident lost his razors, his moustaches had begun to grow profusely ; and Virginia had watched them with a deep, but half-con- scious admiration. At last, in a happy POSITIVISM ON APT ISLAND. U9 iiioment, she exclaimed, " Oh, Paul I do let me wax the ends for you." Paul at first giggled, blushed, and protested, but as Virginia assured him it would make her happy, he consented. "Then," she said, " you will know, that I am happy, and that in return will make you happy also. Ah!" she exclaimed when the operation was over, "do go and examine yourself in the glass. I declare you look exactly like Jack Barley, — Barley Sugar, as we used to call him — of the Blues." Virginia smiled ; suddenly she blushed ; the Professor blushed also. To cover the blushes she begged to be allowed to do his hair. " It will make me so much happier, Paul," she said. The Professor again as- sented, that he might make Virginia happy, and that she might be happy in knowing that he was happy in promoting her happiness. At last the Professor, shy and awkward as he was, was emboldened to offer to do Virginia's hair in return. She allowed him to arrange her fringe, and as she found he did no great harm to it, she let him repeat the operation as often as he liked. A week thus passed, full, as the profes- sor said, of infinite solemnity. " I admit, Paul," sighed Virginia, "that this alt- ruism, as you call it, is very touching. I like it very much. But," she added, sinking her voice to a whisper, " are you quite sure, Paul, that it is perfectly moral ! " " Moral ! " echoed the Professor, " mo- ral ! Why exact thought shows us that it is the very essence of all morality ! " XIV. Matters now went on charmingly. All existence seemed to take a richer colour- ing, and there was something, Paul said, which, in Professor Tyndall's words, gave fulness and tone to it, but which he could neither analyze nor comprehend. But at last a change came. One morning, whilst Virginia was arranging Paul's moustaches, she was frightened almost into a fit by a sudden apparition at the window. It was a hideous hairy figure, perfectly naked but for a band of silver which it wore round its neck. For a moment it did nothing but grin and stare ; then it flung into Virginia's lap a filthy piece of carrion, and in an instant it had bounded away with an almost miraculous activity Virginia screamed with disgust and terror and clung to Paul's knees for pro- tection. He seemed unmoved and pre- occupied. All at once, to her intense surprise, she saw his face light up with an expression of triumphant eagerness. " The missing link I " he exclaimed, " the missing link at lastl Thank God 1 beg pardon for my unspeakable blas- phemy — I mean, thank circumstances over which I have no control. I must this instant go out and hunt for it. Give me some provisions in a knapsack, for I will not come back till I have caught it." This was a fearful blow to Virginia. She fell at Paul's feet weeping, and be- sought him in piteous accents that he would not thus abandon her. " I must," said the Professor solemnly ; " for I am going in pursuit of truth. To arrive at Truth is man's perfect and most rapturous happiness. You must surely know that, even if I had forgotten to tell it to you. To pursue truth — holy truth for holy truth's sake — is a more solemn pleasure than even frizzling your hair." "Oh," cried Virginia, hysterically, "I don't care two straws for truth. What on earth is the good of it? " " It is its own end," said the Professor. " It is its own exceeding great reward. I must be off' in search of it. Good-bye for the present. Seek truth on your own ac- count, and be unspeakably happy also, because you know that I am seeking it." The Professor remained away for three days. For the first two of them Virginia was inconsolable. She wandered about mournfully with her head dejected. She very often sighed ; she very often uttered the name of Paul. At last she surprised herself by exclaiming aloud to the irre- sponsible solitude, "Oh, Paul, until you were gone, I never knew how passionately I loved you I " No sooner were these words out of her mouth, than she stood still, horror-stricken. " Alas ! " she cried, " and have I really come to this ! I am in a state of deadly sin, and there is no priest here to confess to I I must conquer my forbidden love as best I may. But, ah me, what a guilty thing I am ! " As she uttered these words, her eyes fell on a tin box of the Professor's marked "private," which he always kept carefully locked, and which had before now excited her curiosity. Suddenly she became con- scious of a new impulse. " I will pursue truth ! " she exclaimed. " I will break 170 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLA.ND tii^^t box open, and I will see what is in- jide it. Ah I " she added, as with the aid of the poker she at last wrenched off the padlock, "Paul may be right after all, there is more interest in the pursuit of truth than I thought there was." The box was full of papers, letters, and diaries, the greater part of which were marked " Strictly private." Seeing this, Virginia's appetite for truth became keener than ever. She instantly began her researches. The more she read, the more eager she became ; and the more private appeared the nature of the docu- ments, the more insatiable did her thirst for truth grow. To her extreme surprise, she gathered that the Professor had be- gun life as a clergyman. There were several photographs of him in his sur- plice ; and a number of devout prayers apparently composed by himself for his own personal use. This discovery was the result of her labours. " Certainly," she said, " it is one of ex- treme significance. If Paul was a priest now. Orders are indelible — at least in the Church of England. I know they are." Paul came back, to Virginia's extreme relief, without the missing link. But he was still radiant in spite of his failure; for he had discovered, he said, a place where the creature had apparently slept, and he had collected in a card-paper box a large number of its parasites. " I am glad," said Virginia, "that you have not found the missing link : though as to thinking that we really came from monkeys, of course that is too absurd. Now if you could have brought me a nice monkey, I should really have liked that. The Bishop has promised that I shall have a darling one, if I ever reach him — ah me ! — if Paul," continued Virginia, in a very solemn voice, after a long pause, " do you know that whilst you have been away I have been pursuing truth ? I rather liked it ; and I found it very, very significant." " Oh, joy ! " exclaimed the Professor. " Oh, unspeakable radiance ! Oh holy, oh essentially dignified Humanity ! it will very soon be perfect 1 Tell me, Vir- ginia, what truths have you been discov- ering ? " " One truth about you, Paul," said Vir- ginia, very gravely, " and one truth about me. I burn — oh, I burn to tell them to you ! " The Professor was enraptured to hear that one half of Humanity had been studying human nature; and he began asking Virginia if her discoveries be- longed to the domain of historical or bio- logical science. Meanwhile Virginia had flung herself on her knees before him, and was exclaiming in piteous accents — " By my fault, by my own fault, by my very grievous fault, holy father, I confess to you " " Is the woman mad ? " cried the Pro- fessor, starting up from his seat. "You are a priest, Paul," said Vir- ginia ; " that is one of the things I have discovered. I am in a state of deadly sin ; that is the other : and I must and will confess to you. Once a priest, always a priest. You cannot get rid of your or- ders, and you must and shall hear me." " I was once in orders, it is true," said Paul, reluctantly ; " but how did you find out my miserable secret? " " In my zeal for truth," said Virginia, " I broke open your tin box ; I read all your letters ; I looked at your early pho- tographs ; I saw all your beautiful pray- ers." " You broke open my box ! " cried the Professor. " You read my letters and my private papers I Oh, horrible ! oh, im- moral ! What shall we do if half Hu- manity has no feeling of honour? " " Oh," said Virginia, "it was all for the love of truth — of solemn and holy truth. I sacrificed every other feeling for that. But I have not told you my truth yet ; and I am determined you shall hear it, or I must still remain in my sins. Paul, I am a married woman ; and I dis- cover, in spite of that, that I have fallen in love with you. My husband, it is true, is far away ; and, whatever we do, he could never possibly be the wiser. But I am in a state of mortal sin, neverthe- less ; and I would give anything in the world if you would only kiss me." "Woman!" exclaimed Paul, aghast with fright and horror, " do you dare to abuse truth, by turning it to such base purposes ? " " Oh, you are so clever," Virginia went on, " and when the ends of your mous- taches are waxed, you look positively handsome ; and I love you so deeply and so tenderly, that I shall certainly go to hell if you do not give me absolution." POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 171 At thia the Professor jumped up, and, staring very hard at Virginia, asked her if, alter all that he had said on the ship, she really believed in such exploded fal- lacies as hell, God, and priestcraft. She reminded him that he had preach- ed there without a surplice, and that she had therefore not thought it right to lis- ten to a word he said. " Ah," cried the Professor, with a sigh of intense relief, " I see it all now. How can Humanity ever be unspeakably holy so long as one half of it grovels in dreams of an unspeakably holy God? As Mr. Frederic Harrison truly says, a want of faith in ' the essential dignity of man is one of the surest marks of the enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory.' " The Professor accordingly re- delivered to Virginia the entire substance of his lectures in the ship. He fully im- pressed on her that all the intellect of the world was on the side of Humanity ; and that God's existence could be disproved with a box of chemicals. He was agree- ably surprised at finding her not at all unwilling to be convinced, and extremely unexacting in her demands for proof. In a few days, she had not a remnant of super- stition left. "At last!" exclaimed the Professor ; " it has come at last ! Un- speakable happiness will surely begin now." XVI. No one now could possibly be more emancipated than Virginia. She tittered all day long, and whenever the Professor asked her why, she always told him ehe was thinking of "an intelligent First Cause," a conception which she said "was really quite killing." But when her first burst of intellectual excitement was over, she became more serious. "All thought, Paul," she said, " is valuable mainly be- cause it leads to action. Come, my love, my dove, my beauty, and let us kiss each other all day long. Let us enjoy the charming license which exact thought shows us we shall never be punished for." This was a result of freedom that the Professor had never bargained for. He could not understand it ; " because,'' he argued, " if people were to reason in that way, morality would at once cease to be possible." But he had seen so much of the world lately, that he soon recovered himself; and, recollecting that immoral- ity was only ignorance, he began to show Virginia where her error lay — her one remaining error. " I perceive," he said, " that you are ignorant of one of the greatest triumphs of exact thought — the distinction between the lower and higher pleasures. Philosophers, who have thought the whole thing over in their studies, have become sure that as soon as the latter are presented to men they will at once leave all and follow them." "They must be very nice pleasures," said Virginia, " if they would make me leave kissing you for the sake of them." "They are nice," said the Professor. "They are the pleasures of the imagina- tion, the intellect, and the glorious appre- hension of truth. Compared with these, kissing me would be quite insipid. Re- main here for a moment, whilst I go to fetch something ; and you shall then be- gin to taste them." In a few moments Paul came back again, and found Virginia in a state of intense expectancy. " Now " he exclaimed, trium- phantly. " Now " exclaimed Virginia, with a beating heart. The Professor put his hand in his pock- et, and drew slowly forth from it an object which Virginia knew well. It reminded her of the most innocent period of her life ; but she hated the very sight of it none the less. It was a Colenso's Arith- metic. "Come,'' said the Professor, "no truths are so pure and necessary as those of mathematics ; you shall at once begin the glorious apprehension of theni." " Oh, Paul," cried Virginia, in an agony, "but I really don't care for truth at all ; and you know that when I broke your tin box open and read your private letters in my search for it, you were very angry with me." "Ah," said Paul, holding up his finger, " but those were not necessary truths. Truths about human action and character are not necessary truths ; therefore men of science care nothing about them, and they have no place in scientific systems of ethics. Pure truths are of a very different character; and however much you may misunderstand your own inclinations, you can really care for nothing so much as do- ing a few sums. I will set you some very easy ones to begin with ; and you shall do them by yourself, whilst I magnify in the next room tlxe parasites of the missing link." 172 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. Virginia saw that there was no help for it. She did her sums by herself the whole morning, which, as at school she had been very good at arithmetic, was not a hard task for her ; and Paul magnified parasites in the next room, and prepared slides for his microscope. When they met again, Paul began skip- ping and dancing, as if he had gone quite out of his senses ; and every now and then between the skips, he gave a sepulchral groan. Virginia asked him, in astonish- ment, what on earth was the matter with him. "Matter!" he exclaimed. "Why, Hu- manity is at last perfect ! All the evils of existence are removed ; we neither of us believe in a God or a celestial future; and we are both in full enjoyment of the higher pleasures, and the apprehension of scien- tific truth. And therefore I skip because Humanity is so unspeakably happy ; and I groan because it is so unspeakably sol- emn." "Alas, alas ! " cried Virginia, " and would not you like to kiss me ? " " No," said the Professor, sternly ; " and you would not like me to kiss you. It is impossible that one half of Humanity should prefer the pleasure of unlawful love to the pleasure of finding out scien- tific truths." " But," pleaded Virginia, " cannot we enjoy both?" " No," said the Professor ; " for if I be- gan to kiss you, I should soon not care two straws about the parasites of the miss- ing link." " Well,'' said Virginia, " it is nice of you to say that ; but still Ah me ! " Virginia was preparing, with a rueful face, to resume her enjoyment of the higher pleasures, when a horrible smell, like that of an open drain, was suddenly blown in through the window. " Oh, rapture ! " cried the Professor, as Virginia was stopping her nose with her handkerchief, " I smell the missing link." And in another instant he was gone. "Well," said Virginia, "here is one comfort. Whilst Paul is away I shall be relieved from the higher pleasures. Alas ! " she cried, as she flung herself down on the sofa, " he is so nice-looking, and such an enlightened thinker. But it is plain he has never loved, or else very certainly he would love again." Paul returned in a couple of hours, again unsuccessful in his search. " Ah," cried Virginia, " I am so glad you have not caught the creature I " " Glad," echoed the Professor, " glad ! Do you know that till I have caught the missing link the cause of glorious truth will suffer grievously ? The missing link is the token of the solemn fact of our origin from inorgrjiic matter. I did catch one blessed glimpse of him. He had certainly a silver band about his neck. He was about three feet high. He was rolling in a lump of carrion. It is through him that we are related to the stars — the holy, the glorious stars, >ibout which we know so little." " Bother the stars! " said Virgi/iiii; "I couldn't bear, Paul, that anything .should come between you and me. I h >ve been thinking of you and longing for you the whole time you have been away.' " What ! " cried Paul, " and Low have you been able to forego the pleasures oi the intellect?" " I have deserted them," cried Virginia, "for the pleasures of the imagination, which I gathered from you were also very ennobling. And I found they were so ; for I have been imagining that you loved me. Why is the reality less ennobling than the imagination ? Paul, you shall love me ; I will force you to love me. It will make us both so happy : we shall never go to hell for it ; and it cannot possibly cause the slightest scandal." The Professor was more bewildered than ever by these appeals. He wondered how Humanity would ever get on if one half of it cared nothing for pure truth, and persisted in following the vulgar impulses that had been the most distinguishing feature of its benighted past — ^that is to say, those ages of its existence of which any record has been preserved for us. Luckily, however, Virginia came to his assistance. " I think I know, Paul," she said, " why I do not care as I should do for the intel- lectual pleasures. We have been both seeking them by ourselves ; and we have been therefore egoistic hedonists. It is quite true, as you say, that selfishness is a despicable thing. Let me," she went on, sitting down beside him, "look through your microscope along with you. I think perhaps, if we shared the pleasure, the missing link's parasites might have some interest for me." POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. 17S The Professor was overjoyed at this pro- posal. The two sat down side by side, and tried their best to look simultaneously through the eye-piece of the microscope. Virginia in a moment expressed herself much satisfied. It is true they saw noth- ing ; but their cheeks touched. The Pro- fessor too seemed contented ; and said they should both be in a state of rapture when they had got the right focus. At last Vir- ginia whispered, with a soft smile — " Suppose we put that nasty microscope aside ; it is only in the way. And then, oh, Paul ! dear love, dove of a Paul I we can kiss each other to our heart's content." Paul thought Virginia quite incorrigi- ble, and rushed headlong out of the room. XVIII. " Alas ! " cried Paul, "what can be done to convince one half of Humanity that it is really devoted to the higher pleasures and does not care for the lower — at least nothing to speak of? " The poor man was fn a state of dreadful perplexity, and felt ivell nigh distracted. At last a light broke in on him. He remembered that as one Of his most revered masters, Professor ITyndall, had admitted, a great part of ! Humanity would always need a religion, i Ind that Virginia now had none. He at Once rushed back to her. " Ah ! " he ex- claimed, "all is explained now. You I lannot be in love with me, for that would iJe unlawful passion. Unlawfiil passion is Unreasonable, and unreasonable passion irould quite upset a system of pure reason, \phich is what exact thought shows us is soon going to govern the world. No ! the emotions that you fancy are directed to me axe in reality cosmic emotion — in other words are the reasonable religion of the fiiture. I must now initiate you in its solemn and unspeakably significant wor- ship." Religion!" exclaimed Virginia, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. " It is not kind of you to be making fun of me. There is no God, no soul, and no super- natural order, and above all there is no hell. How then can you talk to me about religion ? " " You," replied Paul, " are associating religion with theology, as indeed the world hitherto always hns done. But those two things, as Professor Huxley well observes, have absolutely nothing to do with each other. 'It may be,' says that great teacher, 'that the object of a man's religion is an ideal of sensual enjoyment, or ' " " Ah ! " cried Virginia, " that is my re- ligion, Paul." " Nonsense ! " replied Paul ; " that can- not be the religion of half Humanity : else high, holy, solemn, awful morality would never be able to stand on its own basis. See, the night has fallen, the glorious moon has arisen, the stupendous stars are sparkling in the firmament. Come down with me to the seashore, where we may be face to face with nature, and I will show you then what true religion — what true worship is." The two went out together. They stood on the smooth sands, which glittered white and silvery in the dazzling moonlight. All was hushed. The gentle murmur of the trees, and the soft splash of the sea, seemed only to make the silence audible. The Professor paused close beside Vir- ginia, and took her hand. Virginia liked that, and thought that religion without theology was not perhaps so bad after all. Meanwhile Paul had fixed his eyes on the mo.on. Then, in a voice almost broken with emotion, he whispered, " The prayer of the man of science, it has been said, must be for the most part of the silent sort. He who said that was wrong. It need not be silent ; it need only be inar- ticulate. I have discovered an audible and a reasonable liturgy which will give utterance to the full to the religion of exact thought. Let us both join our voices, and let us croon at the moon." The Professor at once began a long low howling. Virginia joined him, until she was out of breath. " Oh, Paul," she said at last, " is this more rational than the Lord's Prayer ? " " Yes," said the Professor, " for we can analyze and comprehend that; but true religious feeling, as Professor Tyndall tells us, we can neither analyze nor compre- hend. See how big nature is, and how little — ah, how little ! — we know about it. Is it not solemn, and sublime, and awfiil ? Come, let us howl again." The Professor's devotional fervour grew every moment. At last he put his hand to his mouth, and began hooting like an owl, till it seemed that all the island echoed to him. The louder Paul hooted and howled, the more near did he draw tc Virginia. " Ah," he said, as he put his arm about 174 POSITIVISM ON AN ISLAND. her waist, " it is in solemn moments like this that the solidarity of mankind becomes most apparent." Virginia, during the last few moments had stuck her fingers in her ears. She now took them out, and, throwing her arms round Paul's neck, tried, with her cheek on his shoulder, to make another little hoot ; but the sound her lips formed was much more like a kiss. The power of religion was at last too much for Paul. " For the sake of cosmic emotion," he exclaimed, "0 other half of Humanity, and for the sake of rational religion, I will kiss you." The Professor was bending down his face over her, when, as if by magic, he started, stopped, and remained as one petrified. Amidst the sharp silence, there rang a human shout from the rocks. " Oh I " shrieked Virginia, falling on her knees, "it is a miracle ! it is a miracle ! God is angry with us for pretending that we do not believe on him." The Professor was as white as a sheet ; but he struggled with his perturbation manfully. "It is not a miracle," he cried, " but, an hallucination. It is an axiom with exact thinkers that all proofs of the miraculous are hallucinations." "See," shrieked Virginia again, "they are coming, they are coming. Do not you see them?" Paul looked, and there, sure enough, were two figures, a male and a female, ad- vancing slowly towards them, across the moonlit sand. " It is nothing," cried Paul ; " it cannot possibly be anything. I protest, in the name of science, that it is an optical delusion." Suddenly the female figure exclaimed, "Thank God, it is he!" In another moment the male figure ex- claimed, " Thank God, it is she I " "My husband ! " gasped Virginia. " My wife ! " replied the bishop (for it was none other than he). " Welcome to Chasuble Island. By the blessing of God it is on your own home you have been wrecked, and you have been living in the very house that I had intended to pre- pare for you. Providentially, too, Pro- fessor Darnley's wife has called here, in her search for her husband, who has overstayed his time. See, my love, my dove, my beauty, here is the monkey I promised you as a pet, which broke loose a few days ago and which I was in the act of looking for when your joint cries attracted us and we found you." A yell of delight here broke from the Professor. The eyes of the three others were turned on him, and he was seen embracing wildly a monkey which the bishop led by a chain. " The missing link ! " he exclaimed, "the missing link 1" " Nonsense ! " cried the sharp tones of a lady with a green gown and grey cork- screw curls. "It is nothing but a mon- key that the good bishop has been trying to tame for his wife. Don't you see her name engraved on the collar ? " The shrill accents acted like a charm upon Paul. He sprang away from the creature that he had just been caressing. He gazed for a moment on Virginia's lovely form, her exquisite toilette, and her melting eyes.- Then he turned wildly to the green gown and grey cork-screw curls. Sorrow and superstition he felt were again invading Humanity. " Alas !" he exclaimed at last, " I do now indeed believe in heU." " And I," cried Virginia, with much greater tact, and rushing into the arms of her bishop, " once more believe in hea- ven." w. H. Mallock. Dean Swift, while listening to a very uninteresting piece of music, showed signs of weariness. His neighbor observ- ing it, addressed him, saying : " Are you aware of the fact that this piece is very difficult ? " "I wish it were impossible," was Swift's reply. An Excuse. — A country pedagogue had two pupils, to one of whom he was partial, and to the other severe. One morning it happened that both of these two boys were late, and were called to account for it. " You must have heard the bell, boys ; why did you not come ? " " Please, sir," said the favorite, " I was dreamin' that I was goin' to Californy, and I thought the school-bell was the steamboat-bell as I was goin' in." " Very well," said the master, glad of any pre- text to excuse his favorite. " And now, sir," turning to the other, " what have you to say?" "Please, sir," said the puzzled boy, " I — I — was waiting to see Tom ofi'." COLONEI MULBEEEY SELLERS. 176 COLONEL MULBEEEY SELLEES. COLONEL SELLEES AT HOME. Two montha had gone by and the Haw- kins family were domiciled in Hawkeye. Washington Hawkins was at work in the real estate office again, and was alter- nately in paradise or the other place just as it happened that Louise was gracious to him or seemingly indifferent — because indifference or preoccupation could mean nothing else than that she was thinking of some other young person. Colonel Sellers had asked him several times, to dine with him, when he first returned to Hawkeye, but Washington, for no par- ticular reason, had not accepted. No particular reason except one which he preferred to keep to himself — viz. that he could not bear to be away from Louise. It occurred to him, now, that the Colonel had not invited him lately — could he be offended ? He resolved to go that very day, and give the Colonel a pleasant sur- prise. It was a good idea ; especially as Louise had absented herself from breakfast that morning, and torn his heart; he would tear hers, now, and let her see how it felt. The Sellers family were just starting to dinner when Washington burst upon them with his surprise. For an instant the Colonel looked nonplussed, and just a bit uncomfortable; and Mrs. Sellers looked actually distressed ; but the next moment the head of the house was him- self again, and exclaimed : " All right, my boy, all right — always glad to see you — always glad to hear your voice and take you by the hand. Don't wait for special invitations — that's all nonsense among friends. Just come whenever you can, and come as often as you can — ^the oftener the better. You can't please us any better than that, Washington ; the little woman will tell you so herself. We don't pretend to style. Plain folks, you know — plain folks. Just a plain family dinner, but such as it is, our friends are always wel- come, I reckon you know that yourself, Washington. Eun along, children, run along ; ' Lafayette, stand off the cat's tail. 1 In those old days the average man called his child- ren after his most revered literary and historical idols ; child, can't you see what you're doing ?^ Come, come, come, Eoderick Dhu, it isn't nice ibr little boys to h.ang onto young gentlemen's coat tails — but never mind him, Washington, he's full of spirits and don't mean any harm. Children will be children, you know. Take the chair next to Mrs. Sellers, Washington — tut, tut, Marie Antoinette, let your brother have the fork if he wants it, you are bigger than he is." Washington contemplated the banquet, and wondered if he were in his right mind. Was this the plain family dinner ? And was it all present ? It was soon ap- parent that this was indeed the dinner : it was all on the table : it consisted of abund- ance of clear, fresh water, and a basin of raw turnips — nothing more. Washington stole a glance at Mrs. Sellers's face, and would have given the world, the next moment, if he could have spared her that. The poor woman's face was crimson, and the tears stood in her eyes. Washington did not know what to do. He wished he had never come there and spied out this cruel poverty and brought pain to that poor little lady's heart and shame to her cheek ; but he was there, and there was no escape. Colonel Sellers hitched back his coat sleeves airily from his wrists as who should say " Now for solid enjoyment!" seized a fork, flourished it and began to harpoon tur- nips and deposit them in the plates before him : " Let me help you, Washington — Lafayette pass this plate to Washington — ah, well, well, my boy, things are looking pretty bright, now, / tell you. Specula- tion — my I the whole atmosphere's full of money. I wouldn't take three fortunes for one little operation I've got on hand now — have anything from the casters? No? Well, you're right, you're right. Some people like mustard with turnips, but — now there was Baron Poniatowski — Lord, but that man did know how to live ! " — ^true Eussian you know, Eussian to the back bone ; I say to my wife give consequently there was hardly a family, at least in the West, but had a Washington in it — and also a Lafayette a Franklin, and six or eight sounding names from Byron, Scott, and the Bible, if the offspring held out To Tisit such a family, was to find one's self confronted by a congress made up of representatives of the imperial myths and the majestic dead of all the ages. There was something thrilling about it, to a stranger, not to say KWi inspiring. 1V6 COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS. me a Russian every time, for a table com- rade. The Baron used to say, " Take mustard, Sellers, try the mustard, — a man can't know what turnips are in perfection without mustard,' but I always said, 'No.' Baron, I'm a plain man, and I want my food plain — none of your embellishments for Beriah Sellers — no made dishes for me ! And it's the best way — high living kills more than it cures in this world, you can rest assured of that. — Yes indeed, Washington, I've got one little operation on hand that — take some more water — help yourself, won't you ? — help yourself, there's plenty of it. — You'll find it pretty good, I guess. How does that fruit strike you?" Washington said he did not know that he had ever tasted better. He did not add that he detested turnips even when they were cooked — loathed them in their natural sta,te. No, he kept this to him- self, and praised the turnips to the peril of his soul. " I thought you'd hke them. Examine them — examine them — they'll bear it. See how perfectly firm and juicy they are ■—they can't start any like them in this part of the country, I can tell you. These are from New Jersey — I imported them myself. They cost like sin, too ; but lord bless me, I go in for having the best of a thing, even if it does cost a little more — it's the best economy, in the long run. These are the Early Malcolm — it's a tur- nip that can't be produced except in just )ne orchard, and the supply never is up i o the demand. Take some more water, Washington — you can't drink too much water with fruit — all the doctors say that. The plague can't come where this article is, my boy ! " " Plague ? What plague ? " "What plague; indeed? Why the Asiatic plague that nearly depopulated London a couple of centuries ago." " But how does that concern us ? There is no plague here, I reckon." "Sh! I've let it out! Well, never mind — just keep it to yourself. Perhaps I oughtn't said anything, but it's bound to come out sooner or later, so what is the odds ? Old McDowells wouldn't like me to — to — bother it all, I'll just tell the whole thing and let it go. You see, I've been down to St. Louis, and I happened to run across old Dr. McDowells — thinks the world of me, does the doctor. He's a man that keeps himself to himself, and well he may, for he knows that he's got a reputation that covers the whole earth — he won't condescend to open himself out to many people, but lord bless you, he and I are just like brothers ; he won't let me go to a hotel when I'm in the city — says I'm the only man that's company to him, and I don't know but there's some truth in it, too, because although I never like to glorify myself and make a great to-do over what I am or what I can do or what I know, I don't mind saying here among friends that I am better read up in most sciences, maybe, than the general run of professional men in these days. Well, the other day he let me into a little secret, strictly on the quiet, about this matter of the plague. " You see it's booming right along in our direction — follows the Gulf Stream, you know, just as all those epidemics do, — and within three months it will be just waltzing through this land like a whirl- wind ! And whoever it touches can make his will and contract for the funeral. Well you can't cure it, you know, but you can prevent it. How? Turnips ! that's it ! Turnips and water ! Nothing like it in the world, old McDowells says, just fill yourself up two or three times a day, and you can snap your fingers at the plague. Sh ! — keep mum, but just you confine yourself to that diet and you're all right. I wouldn't have old McDowells know that I told about it for anything — he never would speak to me again. Take some more water, Washington — ^the more water you drink, the better. Here, let me give you some more of the turnips. No, no, no, now, I insist. There, now. Absorb those. They're mighty sustaining — ^brim full of nutriment — all the medical books say so. Just eat from four to seven good-sized turnips at a meal, and drink from a pint and a half to a quart of water, and then just sit around a couple of hours and let them ferment. You'll feel like a fighting cock next day.'' Fifteen or twenty minutes later the Colonel's tongue was still chattering away — he had piled up several future fortunes out of several incipient "operations" which he had blundered into within the past week, and was now soaring along through some brilliant expectations born of late promising experiments upon the lacking ingredient of the eye-water. And at such a time Washington ought to have /-/// - ^- '^l'^^'/'^'''"'^- COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS. 177 been a rapt and enthusiastic listener, but he was not, for two matters disturbed his mind and distracted his attention. One was, that he discovered, to his confusion and shame, that in allowing himself to be helped a second time to the turnips, he had robbed those hungry children. He had not needed the dreadful " fruit," and had not wanted it ; and when he saw the pathetic sorrow in their faces when they asked for more and there was no more to give them, he hated himself for his stupidity and pitied the famishing young things with all his heart. The other matter that disturbed him was the dire inflation that had begun in his stomach. It grew and grew, it became more and more insupportable. Evidently the turnips were fermenting." He forced himself to sit still as long as he could, but his anguish conquered him at last. He rose in the midst of the Colonel's talk and excused himself on the plea of a previous engagement. The Colonel fol- lowed him to the door, promising over and over again that he would use his influence to get some of the Early Mal- colms for him, and insisting that he should not be such a stranger but come and take pot-luck with him every chance he got. Washington was glad enough to get away and feel free again. He im- mediately bent his steps toward home. In bed he passed an hour that threat- ened to turn his hair gray, and then a blessed calm settled down upon him that ^Ued his heart with gratitude. Weak and languid, he made shift to turn him- self about and seek rest and sleep ; and as his soul hovered upon the brink of uncon- sciousness, he heaved a long, deep sigh, and said to himself that in his heart he had cursed the Colonel's preventive of rheumatism, before, and now let the plague come if it must — he was done with preventives; if ever any man beguiled him with turnips and water again, let him die the death. COLONEL SELLERS TS ST. LOUIS. A few evenings after their arrival at the Southern, Philip and Harry made the acquaintance of a very agreeable gentleman, whom they had frequently ssen before about the hotel corridors, and passed a casual word with. He had the air of a man of business, and was evi- dently a person of importance. VOL. IV. — W. H. The precipitating of this casual inter- course into the more substantial form of an acquaintanceship was the work of the gentleman himseltj and occurred in this wise. Meeting the two friends in the lobby one evening, he asked them to give him the time, and added : " Excuse me, gentlemen — strangers in St. Louis? Ah, yes — yes. From the East, perhaps? Ah, just so, just so Eastern born myself — Virginia. Sellerc is my name — Beriah Sellers. Ah — by the way — New York, did you say ? That re- minds me ; just met some gentlemen from your State a week or two ago — very prominent gentlemen — in public life they are ; you must know them, without doubt. Let me see — let me see. Curious those names have escaped me. I know they were from your State, because I remem- ber afterward my old friend Governor Shackleby said to me — iine man, is the Governor — one of the finest men our country has produced — said he ' Colonel, how did you like those New York gentle- men ? — not many such men in the world, Colonel Sellers," said the Governor — ^yes, it was New York he said — I remember iii distinctly. I can't recall those names^ somehow. But no matter. Stopping here, gentlemen — stopping at the South- ern ? " In shaping their reply in their minds, the title "Mr." had a place in it; but when their turn had arrived to speak, the title " Colonel " came from their lips instead. They said yes, they were abiding at the Southern, and thought it a very good house. " Yes, yes, the Southern is fair. I my- self go to the Planter's, old aristocratic house. We Southern gentlemen don't change our ways, you know. I always make it my home there when I run down from Hawkeye — my plantation is in Hawkeye, a little up in the country. You should know the Planter's." Philip and Harry both said they should like to see a hotel that had been so famous in its day — a cheerful hostelrie, Philip said it must have been where duels were fought there across the dining-room table. "You may believe it sir, an uncom- monly pleasant lodging. Shall we walk?" And the three strolled along the streets, the Colonel talking all the way in the most liberal and friendly manner, and 12 178 COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS. with a frank open-heartedness that in- spired confidence. "Yea, born East myself, raised all along, know the West — a great country, gentlemen. The place for a young fellow of spirit to pick up a fortune, simply pick it up, it's lying round loose here. Not a day that I don't put aside an opportunity, too busy to look into it. Management of my own property takes my time. First visit? Looking for an opening ? " " Yes, looking around," replied Harry. "Ah, here we are. You'd rather sit here in front than go to my apartments ? So had I. An opening, eh?" The Colonel's eyes twinkled. " Ah, just so. The whole country is opening up, all we want is capital to develop it. Slap down the rails and bring the land into market. The richest land on God Al- mighty's footstool is lying right out there. If I had my capital free I could plant it for millions." " I suppose your capital is largely in your plantation ? " asked Philip. " Well, partly, sir, partly. I'm down here now with reference to a little operation — a little side thing merely. By the way gentlemen, excuse the liberty, hut it's about my usual time" — The Colonel paused, but as no move- ment of his acquaintances followed this plain remark, he added, in an explana- tory manner, " I'm rather particular about the exact time — have to be in this climate." Even this open declaration of his hospitable intention not being under- stood the Colonel politely said, "Gentlemen, will you take some- thing?" Colonel Sellers led the way to a saloon on Fourth Street under the hotel, and the young gentlemen fell into the custom of the country. " Not that/' said the Colonel to the bar-keeper, who shoved along the counter a bottle of apparently corn-whiskey, as if he had done it before on the same order; "not that," with a wave of the hand. " That Otard if you please. Yes. Never take an inferior liquor, gentlemen, not in the evening, in this climate. There. That's the stuff. My respects ! " The hospitable gentleman, having dis- posed of his liquor, remarking that it was not quite the thing — " when a man has his own cellar to go to, he is apt to get a little fastidious about his liquors " — called for cigars. But the brand offered did not suit him ; he motioned the box away, and asked for some particular Havana's, those in separate wrappers. " I always smoke this sort, gentlemen ; they are a little more expensive, but you'll learn, in this climate, that you'd better not economize on poor cigars." Having imparted this valuable piece of information, the Colonel lighted the fragrant cigar with satisfaction, and then carelessly put his fingers into his right vest pocket. That movement being without result, with a shade of disap- pointment on his face, he felt in his left vest pocket. Not finding anything there, he looked up with a serious and annoyed air, anxiously slapped his right panta- loon's pocket, and then his left and ex- claimed, " By George, that's annoying. By George, that's mortifying. Never had anything of that kind happen to me be- fore. I've left my pocket-book. Hold! Here's a bill, after all. No, thunder, it's a receipt." " Allow me,'' said Philip, seeing how seriously the Colonel was annoyed, and taking out his purse. The Colonel protested he couldn't think of it, and muttered something to the bar-keeper about " hanging it up," but the vender of exhilaration made no sign, and Philip had the privilege of pay- ing the costly shot ; Colonel Sellers pro- fusely apologizing and claiming the right " next time, next time." As soon as Beriah Sellers had bade his friends good night and seen them depart, he did not retire to apartments in the Planter's, but took his way to his lodg- ings with a friend in a distant part of the city. COLONEL SELLERS IN "WASHINGTON. As may be readily believed. Colonel Beriah Sellers was by this time one of the best known men in Washington. For the first time in his liie his talents had a fair field. He was now at the centre of the manu- facture of gigantic schemes, of specula- tions of all sorts, of political and social gossip. The atmosphere was full of little and big rumors and of vast, undefined expectations. Everybody was in haste, too, to push on his private plan, and feverish in his haste, as if in constant ap- COLONEL MULBERRY SELLERS. 179 prehension that to-morrow would be Judgment Day. Work while Congress is in session, said the uneasy spirit, for in the recess there is no work and no device. The Colonel enjoyed this bustle and confusion amazingly; he thrived in the air of indefinite expectation. All his own schemes took larger shape and more misty and majestic proportions; and in this congenial air, the Colonel seemed even to himself to expand into something large and mysterious. If he respected himself before he almost worshipped Beriah Sellers now, as a superior being. If he could have chosen an official position out of the highest, he would have been embarrassed in the selection. The presidency of the republic seemed too limited and cramped in the constitutional restrictions. If he could have been Grand Llama of the United States, that might have come the nearest to his idea of a position. And next to that he would have luxuriated in the irresponsible omniscience of the Special Correspondent. Colonel Sellers knew the President very well, and had access to his presence when officials were kept cooling their heels in the waiting-room. The Presi- dent liked to hear the Colonel talk, his voluble ease was a refreshment after the decorous dullness of men who only talked business and government, and everlast- ingly expounded their notions of justice and the distribution of patronage. The Colonel was as much a lover of farming and of horses as Thomas Jefferson was. He talked to the President by the hour about his magnificent stud, and his plan- tation at Hawkeye, a kind of principality he represented it. He urged the Presi- dent to pay him a visit during the recess, and see his stock farm. " The President's table is well enough," he used to say, to the loafers who gathered about him at Willard's, " well enough for a man on a salary, but God bless my soul, I should like him to see a little old-fashioned hospitality — open house, you know. A person seeing me at home might think I paid no attention to what was in the house, just let things flow in and out. He'd be mistaken. What I look to is quality, sir. The President has variety enough, but the quality I Vegetables of course you can't expect here. I'm very particular about mine. Take celery, now — there's only one spot in this country where celery will grow. But I am surprised about the wines. I should think they were manu-- factured in the New York Custom House. I must send the President some from my cellar. I was really mortified the other day at dinner to see Blacque Bey leave his standing in the glasses." When the Colonel first came to Wash- ington he had thoughts of taking the mission to Constantinople, in order to be on the spot to look after the dissemina- tion of his Eye Water, but as that inven- tion was not yet qui'^e ready, the project shrank a little in the presence of vaster schemes. Besides he felt that he could do the country more good by remaining at home. He was one of the South- erners who were constantly quoted as heartily " accepting the situation." "I'm whipped," he used to say with a jolly laugh, " the government was too many for me ; I'm cleaned out, done for, except my plantation and private man- sion. We played for a big thing, and lost it, and I don't whine, for one. I go for putting the old flag on all the vacant lots. I said to the President, says I, 'Grant, why don't you take Santo Domingo, annex the whole thing, and settle the bill afterwards.' That's my way. I'd take the job to manage Con- gress. The South would come into it. You've got to conciliate the South, con- solidate the two debts, pay 'em off in greenbacks, and go ahead. That's my notion. Boutwell's got the right notion about the value of paper, but he lacks courage. I should like to run the treasury department about six months. I'd make things plenty, and business look up." ' ^The Gilded Age, from which the aboTe brief extracts are made, is the joint production of Samuel L. Clemena (Marls Twain) and Charles D. Warner. It was pub- lished in 1880 at Hartford, Conn., by the American Pub- lishing Company. The Qilded Age was dramatized, and John T. Raymond, in the role of Col. Sellers, has made a success of it throughout the United States. Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835. He learned the trade of a printer. In 1855 he made a Toyage down the Mississippi and learned the business of a pilot. He became interested in mining in Nevada in 1862, and editor of The Enterprise, in Virginia City, where he remained three years. From there he went to San Francisco, where he first became famous as a humorist. Since then his career has been one of the most successful in the annals of literature. His works are too well known to require repetition here. 180 THE GUIDE-POST. ONCE A TIME A FOOL SAID THIS. [Josef Viktoe Von Scheffel, born February 16, 1826, at Karlsruhe, studied law and historj' at Munich, Heidel- berg and Berlin ; resides at present at Badolfszell on the Bodensee. Hia " GaudeamiM," a collection of hu- morous poems, was first published in 1868, at Stuttgart, and passed since through many editions. Of his epic "Der Trompeter von Sahkingen^^ over a hundred edi- tions were published.] Once a time a fool said this, That man was born to woe below. Since then this doctrine so amiss Is carried to and fro below. And for that fools are near and far, Now we no comfort know below. Oh ye, who so shortsighted are, How long your ears must grow below. J. V. Von Scheffel. Tr. by E. S'Estebbe. OLD ASSYRIAN. In the Black Whale at Ascalon A man drank day by day, Till, limp as any old sand bag. Upon the floor he lay. In the Black Whale at Ascalon The landlord said : " I say. He's drinking of my date-juice wine Much more than he can pay I " In the Black Whale at Ascalon The waiters brought the bill, In arrow-heads on six broad tiles. To him who thus did swill. In the Black Whale at Ascalon The guest cried out ; '■ woe I I spent in the Lamb at Nineveh My money long ago I " In the Black Whale at Ascalon The clock struck half-past four, When the Nubian porter he did pitch The stranger from the door. In the Black Whale at Ascalon No prophet hath renown ; And he who there would drink in peace Must pay the money down J. V. Ton Scheffel. Tr. by 0. G. Leland. THE GUIDE-POST. [JoHANN Peteb Hebel, bom May 11, 1760, at Basel, studied theology at Erlangen, was (1791) appointed sub. deacon at Karlsruhe, and in 1808, Director of the Ly- ceum. In 1819 he was made Prelate. He died Sep- tember 22, 1826, at Schwetzingen. His poems are written in the Allemanic Dialect, as it is spoken in the vicinity of Basel, and have been put into the ordi nary literary language by Scheffner, Adrian and Kein ick. His tales (" SchalzJcaetlein in de» rheinitchen Satis freunde") are full of charming humor. Auerbach'a book " Schrift und Yolk " (Leipsic 1846) treats princi- pally of Hebel.] D' ye know the road to th' barrel o' flour? At break o' day let down the bars. And plow y'r wheat-field, hour by hour, Till sundown, — ^yes, till shine o' stars. You peg away, the livelong day. Nor loaf about, nor gape around ; And that's the road to the thrashin' floor. And into the kitchen, I'll be bound I D 'ye know the road where dollars lay ? Follow the red cents, here and there ; For if a man leaves them, I guess. He won't find dollars anywhere. D 'ye know the road to Sunday's rest ? Jist don't o' week-days be afeard ; In field and work'Shop do y'r best, And Sunday comes itself I've heerd. On Saturdays it's not fur off'. And brings a basketful o' cheer, — A roast, and lota o' garden-stuff'. And, like as not, a jug o' beer I D 'ye know the road to poverty ? Turn in at every tavern-sign : Turn in, — 'tis temptin' as can be : There's bran'-new cards and liquor fine. In the last tavern there's a sack. And, when the cash y'r pocket quits Jist hang the wallet on y'r back, — You vagabond I see how it fits I D 'ye know what road to honor leads, And good old age ? a lovely sight! By way o' temperance, honest deeds, And tryiu' to do y'r dooty right. THE WIVES OF WEINSBERG. 181. And when the road forka, ary side, Aud you're in doubt wliich one it is, Stand still, and let y'r conscience guide : Thank God it can't lead much amiss I And now, the road to Church-yard gate You needn't ask ! Go anywhere ! B'or, whether roundabout or straight, All roads, at last, '11 bring you there. Go, fearin' God, but lovin' more ! I've tried to be an honest guide, — You'll find the grave has got a door, And somethin' for you t'other side. J. P. Hesel, Tr. b$ Bayard Taylob. THE WIVES OF WEINSBEEG. [Gottfried August Burgee, born January lat, 1748, at Holmerswende, near Halberstadt, died June 8, 1794, was one of the most popular writers of Ballads in Ger- many. The English translation of his " Lenore^^ was the first literary venture of Walter Scott ; Burger, who was married three times, led a life of great misery and constant pecuniary embarrassment. His ballad ",Dcr KaUer tmd der Abt " is an imitation of the old English ** King John and the Abbot of Canterbury " in Percy's " Beliqaea. " Burger was also the author of the first German version of the Munchausen stories.] Which way to Weinsberg ? neighbor, say I 'Tis sure a famous city : It must have cradled, in its day. Full many a maid of noble clay, And matrons, wise and witty ; And if ever marriage should happen to me, A Weinsberg dame my wife shaU be. King Conrad once, historians say. Fell out with this good city ; So down he came, one luckless day, — Horse, foot, dragoons, — in stern array,— And cannon, — more's the pity ! Around the walla the artillery roared. And bursting bombs their fury poured. But naught the little town could scare j Then red with indignation. He bade the herald straight repair Up to the gates, and thunder there The following proclamation : "Rascals I When I your town do take, No living thing shall save its neck I " Now, when the herald's trumpet sent These tidings through the city, To every house a death-knell went ; ijuch murder-cries the hot air rent Might move the stones to pity. Then bread grew dear, and good advioe Could not be had for any price. Then "Woe is me!" "O misery I" What shrieks of lamentation I And " Kyrie Eleison I " cried The pastors, and the flock replied, " Lord, save us from starvation ! " " 0, woe is me, poor Corydon 1 My neck, — my neck ! I'm gone 1 I'm gone.' Yet oft, when counsel, deed and prayer Had ail proved unavailing. When hope hung trembling on a hair, How oft has woman's wit been there !-• A refuge never failing ; For woman's wit and Papal fraud, Of olden time, were famed abroad. A youthful dame, — praised be her namel Last night had seen her plighted,— Whether in waking hour or dream. Conceived a rare and novel scheme. Which all the town delighted ; Which you, if you think otherwise, Have leave to laugh at and despise. At midnight hour, when culverin And gun and bomb were sleeping, Before the camp, with mournful mien. The loveliest embassy were seen All kneeling low and weeping. So sweetly, plaintively they prayed, But no reply save this was made : " The women have free leave to go. Each with her choicest treasure ; But let the knaves, their husbands, know That unto them the king will show The weight of his displeasure." With these sad terms the lovely train Stole weeping from the camp again. But, when the morning gilt the sky. What happened ? Give attention. The city gates wide open fly. And all the wives came trudging by. Each bearing — need I mention ?— Her own dear husband on her back, All snugly seated in a sack I 182 POPE AND SULTAN. Full many a sprig of court, the joke Not relishiug, protested, And urged the king ; but Conrad spoke : "A monarch's word must not be broke ! " And here the matter rested. " Bravo 1 " he cried. " Ha, ha ! Bravo I Our lady guessed it would be so." He pardoned all, and gave a ball, That night at royal quarters. The fiddles squeaked, the trumpets blew, And up and down the dancers flew, Court sprigs with city daughters. The mayor's wife — O rarest sight I^ Danced with the shoemaker that night I Ah, where is Weinsberg, Sir, I pray ? 'Tis sure a famous city : It must have cradled in its day, Full many a maid of noble clay, And matrons, wise and witty ; And if ever marriage should happen to me, A Weinsberg dame my wife shall be. IV. by C. T. Beooks. A CURIOUS CIRCUMSTANCE. As once I was walking o'er mead and lea A curious circumstance happened to me ; A huntsman I saw in the forest's brake He rode up and down beside a lake, And many a deer flew past the spot, But what did the huntsman ? — He shot them not. He blew his horn by the forest green, — Now tell me, good people, what could that mean? And as I walked on along the shore A curious circumstance happened once more ; In a little bark a fishermaid Eowed e'er by the side of the forest glade. In the twilight the fishes around her shot. But what did the maiden ? — She caught them not. She sang a song by the forest green,— Now tell me, good people, what could that mean? Eetracing my steps at evening's fall The most curious circumstance happened of all; A riderless horse stood in the brake An empty skifl^ reposed on the lake, Aiid passing the grove of alders there. What heard I therein ? — A whispering pair, The moon shone brightly, the night was serene. — Now tell me, good people, what could that mean? Tr. hy A. Baskebtillb. Fr(ym the German of Bobebt Beinick. FIRST INTOXICATION. When from the wine-press's bloody store Old Noah's goblet first ran o'er. There clustered 'round his throne The wives and babes he called his own ; For in those days no wine was known. And as he raised the cup on high They watched his face with anxious eye — He placed it to his lip ; And touched it slowly with the tip Of tongue ; then took a cautious sip. He emptied one, he emptied two, A third likewise, and felt like new — The poor old thing ! And then he gave a lusty spring. And then he started out to sing. " Praise God I " he cries, and leaps again ; " Good wine befrees from every pain." He jumped up from the floor ; " Dear wife, how good I feel all o'er ; Give me, I prithee, one drop more." But soon he sank, to wine a prey. Unknown the strength that in it lay; But now-a-day The world knows well just when, and where And how much each can sober bear. Tr. hy H. Phillips, Jb* From the German of August Kopisch. POPE AND SULTAN. The Pope lives jolly every day On what repentant sinners pay, The best of wines his only drink ; I'd like to be the Pope, I think. Yet no ! He's but a sorry dog. For he's no pretty wife to hug ; His single bedstead's far too small; I'd not be pope, then, after aU. THE EETUEN OF AGAMEMNON. 183 But there's the Sultan in his big house, His life is but one long carouse, With girls as pretty as one can see ; I think I'd rather sultan be. But no ! He's not a happy man, He's faithful to his Alcoran, He dares not drink a drop of wine ; So being sultan I'll decline. And yet to separate those lots Is just exactly, I think, what's Not sensible for me to do ; So I'U be Pope and Sultan too. Then darling maiden, kiss me now, I'll be Sultan then, I vow, And next dear brethren, pour the wine, And make me Pope by right divine. IToUs-Song from the German. Tr. by H. THE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON. It was ten years since Agamemnon, the mighty Argive monarch, had left his kingdom (somewhat suddenly, and after a stormy interview with the Queen, as those said who had the best opportunities of knowing), with the avowed intention of going to assist at the siege of Troy. He had never written once since, but so many reports of his personal daring and his terrible wounds bad reached the palace that Clytemnestra would often ob- serve, with a touch of annoyance, that, if not actually dead by that time, he must be nearly as full of holes as a fish- ing-net. So that she ivas scarcely surprised when they broke the intelligence to her one day that he Tcally had gone at last, having fallen, fighting desperately, against the most fearful odds, upon the Trojan plain ; and when, a little later, she formally announced to her faithful sub- jects her betrothal to jfEgisthus, her youngest and favorite courtier, they were not surprised in their turn. They told one another, with ribald face- tiousness, that they had rather expected something of the kind. They were celebrating this Queen's be- trothal day with the wildest enthusiasm, for they were a simple, affectionate peo- ple, and foresaw an impetus to local trade. It had '/een but a dull time for Argos during those weary ten years, and the city had become well-nigh deserted, as, one by one, all her bravest and her best had left her, to seek, as they poeti- cally put it, " a soldier's tomb." Several married men, in whom no such patriotic enthusiasm had ever been pre- viously suspected, found out that their country required their services, left their wives and their little ones, and started for the field of battle. There were many pushing Argive tradesmen, too, who abandoned their business and sought — not ostentatiously, but with the self-ef- facement of true heroism — the seat of war upon which their sovereign had been sitting so long ; while the real extent of their devotion was seldom appreciated until long after their departure, when it was generally discovered that, in their eagerness, they had left their affairs in the greatest confusion. And very soon almost the only young men left were mild, unwarlike youths, who were respectable and wore spec- tacles, while the rest of the male popu- lation was composed of equal parts of prattling infants and doddering octoge- narians. This was a melancholy state of things — but then the absent ones wrote such capital letters home, containing such gra- phic descriptions of camp life and the fiercer excitements of night attacks and forlorn hopes, that the recipients ought to have been amply consoled. They were not ; they only remarked that it seemed rather odd that the writers should so persistently forget to give their addresses, and that it was a singular cir- cumstance that while each letter pur- ported to come direct from the Grecian lines, every envelope somehow bore a different postmark. And often would the older married women (and their mothers too) wish with infinite pathos that they could only just get the missing ones home and talk to them a little — that was all ! But all anxiety was forgotten in the celebration of the betrothal, for the Argives were determined to do the thing really well. So in the principal streets they had erected triumphal arches, typi- fying the chief local manufactures, which were (as it is scarcely necessary to inform the scholar) soda-water and cane-bot- tomed chairs; and from these arches chairs and bottles were constantly drop- ping, like a gentle dew, upon the happy 184 THE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON. crowd which passed beneath. All the public fountains spouted a cheap dinner sherry like water — ' very like water,' said some disaffected persons; householders were graciously invited to exhibit flags and illuminations at their own expense, and in the market-place a fowl was being roasted whole for the populace. All was gaiety, therefore, at sunset, when the citizens assembled in groups about the square in front of the palace, prepared to cheer the royal pair with enthusiasm when they deigned to show themselves upon the balcony. The well-meaning old gentlemen who formed the Chorus (for in those days every house of any position in society maintained a chorus, and even shabby- genteel families kept a semi-chorus in buttons) were twittering in a corner, pre- pared to come forth by-and-by with the ill-timed allusions, melancholy and de- pressing forebodings, and unnecessary advice, which were all that was expected of them, and the Mayor and Corporation were fussing about distractedly with a brass band and the inevitable address. All at once there was a stir in the crowd, and the eyes of every one were s/;rained towards a tall and swaying scaf- fold on the royal house-top, where a small black figure, outlined sharply against the saffron sky, could be seen gesticulating wildly. " Look at the watchman I " they whis- pered excitedly, " what can be the matter with him ? " Now, before Agamemnon left he had h ad fires laid upon all the mountain tops in a straight line between Argos and Iroy, arranging to light the pile at the Troy end of the chain when it should be- come necessary to let them know at home that they might expect him back shortly. The watchman had been put up on a scaffold to look out for the beacon, and had been there for years, day and night, without being once allowed to quit his post — even on his birthday. It was ex- pected that Clytemnestra would have let him come down for good when she was informed of Agamemnon's death on such excellent authority, but she would not hear of such a thing. She knew people would think it very foolish and sentimen- tal of her, she said, but to take the watch- man down would seem so like giving up all hope. So she kept him up, a proof of her conjugal devotion which touched everyone — except perhaps the watchman himself. Clytemnestra and ^gisthus, who had happened to come out while all this ex- citement was at its height, found them- selves absolutely ignored. " Not a single cap off — not one solitary hurrah," cried the Queen with majestic anger. " What have you been doing to make yourself so unpopular with my loyal Argives ? " she demanded suspiciously. " I don't think it's anything to do with me, really," protested ^gisthus feebly. " They're only looking the other way just now, and — can't you see why?" he added suddenly, " they've lit the beacon on the to^ of Arachnmus I " Clytemnestra looked, and started vio- lently, as on the mountain-top in question a red tongue of flame shot up through the gathering dusk: "What does it mean?" she whispered, clutching him convulsively by the arm. " Well," said ^gisthus, " it looks to me, do you know, rather as if your late lamented husband has changed his mind about dying, and is on his way to your arms." " Then he is not dead I " exclaimedl Clytemnestra. " He is coming home. I shall look upon that face, hear that voice, press that hand once again 1 How exces- sively annoying I " " Confounded nuisance ! " he agreed heartily, but his irritation sounded slightly overdone, somehow. " Well, it's all over with the betrothal after this; don't you think it would be as well to get all the arches, and fire-works, and things out of the way ? We shan't want them now, you know.'' " Why not? " said the Queen ; " they will all do for him ; he won't know. Ye gods ! " she cried, stretching out her arms with a tragic groan. " Must I, too, do for him ? " " Any way," said -SIgisthus, with an at- tempted ease, " you won't want me any longer, and so, if you will kindly excuse me, I — I think I'll retire to some quiet spot whither I can drag myself with my broken heart and bleed to death, like a wounded deer, don't you know ! " " You can do all that just as well here," she replied. " I wish you to stay. Who knows what may happen ? " — she added, with a sinister smile. " We may be happy yet 1 " THE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON. 1S6 Clytemnestra's sinister smiles always mado ^gisthus feel exactly as if some- thing was disagreeing with him — so he stayed. By this time the populace had also realized the turn affairs had taken, but they very sensibly determined that it was their plain duty to persevere with the merriment. They were, as has been mentioned before, a simple and affection- ate people, and fond of their king ; so, as his return would be even more bene- ficial to trade than the betrothal, they rejoiced on, and there was nothing in the least strained or hollow in their revelry. And presently there was a fresh stir in the crowd, and then a rumbling of wheels as the covered chariot from the station rolled, amidst faint cheering, up to the palace gates, and was saluted by the one aged sentinel who stood on guard. "It is Agamemnon," gasped the Queen ; " he has come already — he must not find me unprepared. I will go within." She had just time to retire hastily, fol- lowed by iEgisthus, before a short stout man in faded regimentals and a cocked hat with a moulting plume descended from the vehicle. The Chorus, finding it left to them to do the honors, advanced in a row, singing the ode of welcome, which they had had in rehearsal ever since the first year of the war. " O King," they chanted in their cracked old trebles, " offspring of Atreus, and sacker of Troy ! " " Will you kindly count the boxes ? " interrupted the monarch, who hated sen- timent; "there should be four — a tin cocked-hat box, two camel-hair trunks, and a carpet bag. " But a Greek chorus was not easily sup- pressed, and they broke out again all together, " Nay, but with bursting hearts would we bid thee thrice hail 1 " " Once is ample, thank you, " said the King, with regal politeness ; " and I should be really distressed if any of you were to burst on my account. Has any- body such a thing as half a drachma about him? He heard no more of the ode, and the Mayor thought it advisable to roll up his address and take his Corporation home. Agamemnon had succeeded in borrow- ing the drachma, and had just turned his back to pay the driver as Clytemnestra glided down the broad steps to the court- yard, and, striking an attitude, addressed nobody in particular in tones of raptur- ous joy. " O happy day ! " she cried very loudly, " on which my hero husband returns to me after a long absence, quite unexpect- edly. Henceforth shall his helmet rust upon the hat-stand, and his spear repose innocuous amongst the umbrellas, and his breast-plate shall he replace by a chest-protector ; for a shield he shall have a sunshade, and instead of his sword he shall carry a spud. But now let me, as an exceptionally faithful wife, greet him before ye all with . Agamemnon, will you have the goodness to tell me who that young person is in the chariot?" was her abrupt and somewhat lame con- clusion. "Oh, there you are, eh?" said Aga- memnon, turning round and presenting a forefinger. " How de do, my love ; how de do ? " (" I shan't give you another obol !" he said to the driver, who seemed still unsatisfied.) " So, you're quite well, eh ? " he resumed to his wife ; plenty to say for yourself as usual. Gad, I feel as if I hadn't been away a week — till I look at you. * * * "Well, you want to know my little friend here. Al- low me to present her to you. One mo- ment." And bustling up to the chariot, he as- sisted from it a maiden with a pale face, great, wild, roving eyes, and hair of tawny gold, and led her back to his wife. " The Princess Cassandra, of Troy — my wife. Queen Clytemnestra. They tell me this young lady can prophesy very pret- tily, my dear," he remarked. Clytemnestra bowed coldly, and said she was sure it would be vastly amusing. " Did the Princess intend giving any public entertainments ? " "She is our visitor," Agamemnon put in warningly ; while Cassandra smiled satir- ically, and said nothing at all. Clytemnestra hoped she might be able to induce her to stay longer, a week was such a very short time. " She has kindly consented to stay only a little longer, my love," said Agamemnon — " all her life, in fact." The Queen was charmed to hear it ; it was so very nice and kind of her, partic- ularly as strangers were apt to find the neighborhood an unhealthy one. And as jiEglsthus joined them just then, she introduced him to the King, with the 186 THE EETUEN OF AGAMEMNON. remark that he had been the most faithful aaJ. devoted of courtiers during the whole period of the King's absence ; to which Agamemnon replied, with the slightest of scowls, that he was delighted to make the acquaintance of Mr. jllgisthus ; and af- ter that no one seemed to know exactly what to say for a minute or two. At last JEgisthus hazarded a supposi- tion that the royal warrior had found it warm over at Troy. " It varied, sir," said the monarch, un- comfortably ; " the climate varied. I used to get very warm fighting some- times." .^llgisthua agreed that a battle must be hot work, and Clytemnestra sud- denly esclaimed that her husband was wearing the very same dear shabby old uniform he had on when he went away. "The very same," said Agamemnon, smiling. " I wore it all through the campaign. Your true warrior is no dandy ! " " We were given to understand you were wounded," remarked ^gisthus. " Oh," said the King, " yes ; I was con- siderably wounded — all over the chest and arms. But what cared I? " " Exactly," said ^Egisthus ; " and, cu- riously enough, the weapons don't seem to have pierced your coat at all. I observe there are no patches." " No," the King replied ; " so you no- ticed that, eh? Well, the reason of that is that those fellows out there have a pe- culiar sort of way of cutting and slashing, so as to — ■ — " And he explained this by some elabo- rate illustrations with his sheathed sword, until jEgisthus said that he thought he understood how it was done. But Clytemnestra suddenly, with a kit- ten-like girlishness that sat but ill upon her, pounced playfully upon the weapon. " I want to see it drawn," she cried ; " I want to look upon the keen flashing blade which has penetrated the inmost recesses of so many of our country's foes. Oh, it won't come out," she added, as she at- tempted to pull it out of the scabbard ; " do make it come out ! '' The King tried, but the blade stuck half way, and what was visible of it s"eraed thickly coated with rust; but Aga- memnon said it was gore, and his orderly must have forgotten to clean his accou- trements after the fall of Troy. He added that it was the effect of the sea air. " Troy really has fallen then ? " asked jSgisthus. "I suppose you stayed to see the thing out ? " "I did, sir," answered the monarch proudly ; " I sacked the most fashionable quarters myself. I expect my booty will be forwarded — shortly. Didn't you know Troy was taken ? " he asked suspiciously. " Couldn't you see the beacon I lighted just before I started ? " The courtier murmured that it was wonderful to find so long and tedious a journey accomplished in such capital time. "What do you mean by that? How do you know how long it took?" de- manded Agamemnon. " Don't you see?" said Clytemnestra. " Why, you say you had the fire lighted at Ida when you started ; then, of course, they would see it directly over at Lemnos, and light theirs ; and then at Athos, and then " " You are not a time-table, my love," interrupted the monarch, coldly. " I won't trouble you for all these details. Come to the point." " The point is," she explained sweetly, " that we have only just seen the beacon flame arrive here at Arachnseus, after leaping from height to height across lake and plain ; so that you, my dearest, must have made the distance with almost equal celerity 1 " " I came with th6 beacon,'' said Aga- memnon, coughing; "perhaps that dis- poses of the difficulty ? " " Perhaps," said the Queen ; " I mean quite. And now," she continued, after a rapid exchange of glances with jiEgisthus, " you will come indoors, and have a nice cup of coffee and a warm bath before you do anything else, won't you?" He almost thought he would, he said ; fighting for ten long years without inter- mission was a dusty, tiring occupation, and he was accordingly about to enter, when his eye fell on the awnings and flags and red stair carpet, which had beer. , Erepared for the betrothal festivities, and e frowned. " Now, my dear, this sort of thing is all very well, no doubt ; but I don't c^re about it. I'm a plain, honest ruler of men, and I hate flummery and flattery — particularly when it comes out of my pocket ! Why, you've laid down the drugget from the Throne-Eoom over all this gravel. Take it up directly ; I de- THE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON. 187 dine to walk over it. Do you hear? This wasteful extravagance is positively sinful. Take it up 1 " Clytemnestra assured Mm earnestly that they had had no intention of annoy- ing him with it — which was literally true ; and suggested meekly that for the King to stay out in the court-yard until all the decorations were removed might be a tedious and even a ridiculous proceeding. " If," she added, " he was merely unwil- ling to spoil the drugget, he might easily remove his boots, which were extremely muddy — ^for a monarch's." " Well, well, my dear, be it so," said the King; "I did not intend to chide you. It is only that I have grown so accustomed to the frugal, hardy life of a camp, that I have imbibed a soldier's contempt for luxury." And, removing his boots, he followed the Queen into the Palace, as she led the way with a baleful expression upon her dark and inscrutable face. As the pair passed up the steps and between the lofty pillars, the hounds howled from the royal kennels at the back of the Palace, and — a stranger por- tent still — a meteor shot suddenly through the glowing gloom and burst in a rain of coloured stars above the house-top, while, shortly after, a staff fell from above upon the head of one of the Chorus — and was shivered to fragments ! .Sgisthus had strolled away under the colonnade, and Cassandra was left alone with the Chorus. She stood apart, mystic, moody, and impenetrable, letting down her flowing back hair. "You prophesy, do you not?" said the kind old men at length, wishing to make her feel at home ; might we beg you to favor us with a prediction,— just a little one?" Cassandra made excuses at first, as was proper ; she had a cold, and was feeling the effects of the journey. She v/as really not inspired just then, she protested, and besides, she had not touched a tripod for ages. But, upon being pressed, she gave way at last, after declaring with a little giggle that she was perfectly certain nobody would believe a single word she said. "I see before me," she began, in a weird, sepulchral tone which she found it impossible to keep up for many sen- tences, "a proud and stately pile — but enter not. See ye yon ghoul among the chimney-pots, yon amphisboena in the back garden? And the scent of gore pervades itl " " It is no happy home that is thus de- scribed I " the Chorus threw in profession- ally. " But the Finger of Fate is slowly un- wound, and the Hand of Destiny steps in to pace the marble halls with heavy tramp. And know, old men, that the Inevitable is not wholly unconnected with the Probable 1 " At this even their politeness could not restrain a gesture of incredulity, but she heeded it not, and continued: "Who is this that I see next, — this regal warrior bounding over the blazing battlements in brazen panoply ? " (" That must be Agamemnon," cried the Chorus; " the dispatches mentioned him bounding like that. Wonderful ! ") " I see him," she resumed, "pale and prostrate, — a prey to the pangs within him, scanning the billows from his storm- tossed ship. Now he has reached his native city. Hark ! how they greet him I And, behold, a stately matron meets him with a honeyed smile, inviting him to enter. He yields. And then " Here Cassandra stopped, with the re- mark that that v/as all, as there were limits even to the marvelous faculty of second-sight. The Chorus were not unimpressed, for they had never seen a prediction and its literal fiilfilment in quite such close con- junction before, and their own attempts always came wrong ; but although they were agreed that the prophecy was charm- ing as far as it went, they began to feel slightly afraid of the prophetess, and were secretly relieved when ^gisthus hap- pened to come up shortly afterwards with an offer to show her such places of inte- rest as Argos boasted. But they were great authorities upon all points of etiquette and morality, and they all remarked (when she had gone) that she displayed an unbecoming readi- ness in accepting the escort of a courtier who had not been formally introduced to her. "That may be the custom in Troy J' they said, wagging their beards, " but if she means to behave like that here — wdl!" And now the last gleam of the sunset had faded, and the stars straggled out in the pale green sky, whilst the Chorus 188 THE RETURN OF AGAMEMNON. walked up and down to keep warm, for the evening was growing chilly. Suddenly a loud cry broke the silence — a scream as of a strong man in mortal agony I It struck all of them that the voice was uncommonly like Agamem- non's, but none liked to say so, and they only observed with a forced composure that really the cats were becoming quite a nuisance. The cry came again, louder this time, and more distinct; it seemed to come from the direction of the royal bath-room. " Hi, here, somebody — help ! They've turned on the hot water, and I canH turn it off again ! " After this there could be no possible doubt that there was something the mat- ter far more serious than cats. Agamem- non, the king of men, was apparently in difficulties, and it was only too probable that this was Clytemnestra's fell work. They all ran about and fell over one another in the general flurry and confu- sion, and then as they recovered their presence of mind they began to consult upon the beat course to pursue under the circumstances. Some were of opinion that it would not be a quite unpardonable breach of court etiquette if they were to rush into the bath-room and pull the royal sufferer out ; others, more cautious, asked for precedents in a case of such delicacy, and they almost quarrelled, un- til the wisest of them all reminded his fellows that, at all events, it was too late to interfere then, as the monarch must certainly be hard-boiled by that time — which relieved them from all responsi- bility in the happiest manner. At this point the Queen appeared at the head of the marble steps, down which she glided cautiously and came towards them, evidently in a condition of sup- pressed excitement. " What a beautiful evening ! " said the Chorus in unison, for they considered it better taste not to appear to have noticed anything at all unusual. " Agamemnon is with his ancestors," she replied in a fierce whisper ; " I sewed up the sleeves of his bathing-gown and I drugged his coffee, and then from afar I turned on the hot water. And he is boiled, and it serves him right, and I'm glad of it — so now ! But tell me, ye aged ones," she added, with one of her quick transitions, " have I done well ? " Now the Chorus were distinctly dis- gusted at her want of tact and reserve, and would have greatly preferred not to be admitted into confidences of so purely domestic a description, but they were not the men to flinch from their duty. " In our opinion, O Queen," they re- plied coldly, " the deed was a hasty one, and accomplished without sufficient con- sideration." " Ha ! " she exclaimed angrily, " so ye would rate me like a girl ! Am I not your sovereign mistress ? Guard, seize these insolents ! " And the superannuatedoldsentinel lefi his box and tottered up to seize as many of them as he could lay hold of at once telling the remainder to consider them- selves under arrest, which they did dr rectly. " Summon the populace," Clytemnestra next commanded, and the Argives left the fireworks obediently and assembled before the steps. " Citizens ! Argives ! " she cried in a loud, clear voice, " I am sure you will all be very sorry and disappointed to hear that your beloved sovereign, so lately restored to us " (here she broke down with the naturalness of a great artist) — " that our beloved sovereign is — by a most deplorable and unaccountable lack of precaution " Alive ! " interrupted a voice from be- hind the Queen, and some one pushed aside the hangings before the door of the Palace, and began to descend the steps. It was Agamemnon himself. Clytemnestra shrieked as she turned slowly, and confronted him in silence for some moments ; the situation was in- tensely dramatic, and the Argives, a sim- ple and affectionate people, iiilly appre- ciated this, and never once regretted the fireworks they had abandoned. The Queen was the first to speak : " So," she said, pale and panting, " you — you've had your bath? " " Well — no," said Agamemnon ; " I happened to observe that some one had thoughtfully sewn up the armholes of my dressing-gown, and that the coffee had a particularly nasty smell in it, and so, somehow, I thought I would rather wait. And then the boiling water came rushing in, and I saw there had been a little mis- take somewhere. So it occurred to me that I too would dissemble and see what came of it, and I shouted for help. I think I see it all now." THE EETUEN OF AGAMEMNON. 189 And then he took a higher moral tone ; his manner was no longer cynical ; he was not angry even — only deeply wound- ed — and there was something fine and striking in the stern sadness of his brow. " So this," he said, " was to have been my fate ? I was to return, a war-worn warrior, to the hearth and home from which I had been absent so long — so long — to be ruthlessly parboiled, the very moment after my arrival, by the partner of my throne ? Was this kind — was this wifely, Clytemnestra? " " That comes so well from you, does it not?" she retorted. "Why — ^why — ^what do you mean?" he stammered. " You know very well what I mean," she said. " Bah ! why play the hypocrite with me ? " " Is it possible," he cried, " that you can suspect me of not having been near Troy all this time — ^tell me, Clytemnes- tra — ^is this monstrous thing possible ? " " Quite," she replied ; " I know you haven't ! " " What — when I tell you that there is a poet, a fellow called Homer or something, who has got a sort of reputation already by putting the campaign into verses, rather long, but quite readable (you must order them) ; well, there's a lot about me in them." " Did Homer see you there ? " "Now that's a most ridiculous ques- lion," he protested, with a feeling that (he was coming round, and that he should onvince her directly ; " the poet's blind, (Jlytemnestra, quite blind. But I will not argue — you must be content with a warrior's assurance." She laughed. " I'm afraid," she said, " that even a warrior's assurance will find it difficult to account satisfactorily for this — and this — and these ! " And as she spoke, she handed him a variety of arti- cles : a folding hat, a guide to Corinth, a conversation manual, several unused tourist tickets, one or two theatre pro- grammes, a green veil, some supper bills, a correct card for the Olympian races, with the names of probable starters, and three little jointed wooden dolls. Agamemnon took them all helplessly ; all his virtuous indignation had evapo- rated, and he looked very red and foolish as he said, with a kind of nervous laugh, " You've been looking in my pockets I " " I have," she said ; " and now what have you to say for yourself? I don't believe there is any such place as Troy." " There is, indeed," he pleaded ; " I can show it to you on the map I " " Well," she said, " if there is, you never went near it I " "Send those people away," he said, " and I will tell you all ! " And when they had gone, he confessed everything, explaining that he really had meant to go to Troy at first, and how, as he got nearer, he found himself less and less inclined for fighting — until at last he determined to travel about and see life instead, and, as he expressed it, " pick up a little character." "Well," said Clytemnestra, "I will have no little characters in my palace, Agamemnon." But he protested that she had not un- derstood him. " And if I have erred, my love," he suggested humbly, " excuse me, but I cannot help thinking that the means devised for my correction were unneces- sarily severe ! " " "They were nothing of the sort," she said ; " you deserved it all — and worse I " Upon this Agamemnon made haste to assure her that she had shown a very proper spirit, and he respected her the more for it. " And now," he put it to her, " why not let bygones be bygones?" But Clytemnestra's reply was that she would be quite willing to permit this when they were bygones, which, at pres- ent, she added, they were very far from being. The King was in despair, until benefi- cent nature came to his assistance; a faint chirrup was heard from a neighbor- ing bush, a circumstance which he turned to admirable account. "You hear it?" he asked tenderly, "the dulcet strain ? Know ye the note? Ah, Clytemnestra, 'tis the owl — ^the blithe and tuneful owl ! Owls sang on our bridal night — can you hear their melody now and be unmoved? No, I did but wrong ye ... a tear trembles on that eyelash, a smile flickers upon that lip ! I am pardoned. Clytemnestra — wife, embrace me ... we both have much to forgive !" This speech (which was not unlike some he had heard in thrilling dramas at the "Haemabronteion," Corinth, where theprophetess Cassandra had been greatly admired in her impersonations of perse- cuted and distracted heroines) touched 190 SOME IMPROMPTU DEFINITIONS. Clytemnestra's heart, in which, hard as it was, there was a strain of sentiment — and she fell sobbing into her husband's arms. And so all was forgotten and forgiven in the most satisfactory manner, the Chorus (who had been considering them- selves arrested until the intellectual strain had proved almost too much for them) were released, while it was found on in- quiry that both JEgisthus and Cassandra were missing, and no trace of them was ever found again ; but it was generally understood that, with a delicate unselfish- ness, they had been unwilling to remain where their presence would lead to inev- itable complications. And from that night — ^until the fatal day, some six short weeks afterwards, when each, by an unfortunate oversight, partook of a mixture which had been care- fully prepared for the other — there was not a happier royal couple in all Argos than Clytemneatra and Agamemnon. J. B. Anstey, Author of Vice Versa. ONE OF BEECHER'S STORIES. When I was pastor at Indianapolis, a celebrated preacher came there, a Geneva divine, who naturally spoke English with variations. It was in the year 1837, when the country was covered with ruin and the homes and property of half the citizens of Indianapolis were in the sheriff's hands. One Sunday he took my pulpit and wound up a thrilling dis- course with the tender peroration : " If you will bear with resignation and forti- tude the misfortunes which have fallen on you for a brief time here below, the time will come when you will be borne up aloft to a heavenly land by the cheru- bim and the sheriffim " (sic for seraphim). " Oh, dear," groaned a voice, " are we to find sheriffs there, too?" The Citizen. " There is one thing about babies," says a late traveler, "they never change. We have girls of the 'period, men of the world, but the baby is the same self-pos- sessed, fearless, laughing, voracious little heathen in all ages and in all countries." SOME IMPROMPTU DEFINITIONS. Impromptu definitions have often the merit of being amusing, whatever may be asked as to their correctness. "What on earth can that mean?" asked Hicks of Thackeray, pointing to an inscription over a doorway, " Mutual Loan Office." "I don't know," answered the novelist, " unless it means that two men that have nothing agree to lend it to one another." Said Lord Wellesley to Plunkett : " One of my aides-de-camp has written a per- sonal narrative of his travels ; pray, what is your definition of 'personal?'" "Well, my Lord," was Plunkett's reply, " we law- yers always consider personal as opposed to real ; " an explanation as suggestive as that of the London magistrate who inter- preted a "housekeeper" as meaning a sort of a " wife." An American contem- plating setting a lawsuit going, his so- licitor said he would undertake the mat- ter for a contingent fee. Meeting Mr. Burleigh soon afterward, the would-be litigant asked that gentleman what a contingent fee might be. " A contingent fee," quoth Mr. Burleigh, " is this — if the lawyer loses the case he gets nothing ; if he wins, you get nothing." " Then I don't get anything, win or lose?" said the questioner. " Well," was the con- solatory rejoinder, "that's about the size of a contingent fee." So Brougham was not much out in defining a lawyer " as a learned gentleman who rescues your es tate from your enemies and keeps it him- self." A Pun. — That was a good, though rather a severe pun, which was made by a student in one of our theological semi- naries (and he was not one of the bright- est of the class, either), when he asked, " Why is Prof. the greatest reviv- alist of the age ? " and on all " giving it up," said, " Because at the close of every sermon there is a ' Great Awakening.' " Advance. Conversation being dull at an even- ing party, the hostess requested one of her guests to go home, that the rest might ' have somebody to talk about. MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 191 MAKK LEMON S JEST BOOK. BEING A CHOICE COLLECTION OF JOKES, OLD AND NEW, IMPEOMPTUS AND EEPAETEES Which have passed current century after cen- turyj until their origin is " lost in the mist of ages.** MAKK LEMON'S INTRODUCTION. All good men love a good joke and regard it like "a thing of beauty," "a joy forever;" therefore we may opine that Torick's "flashes of merriment, which were wont to Bet the table in a roar," when Hamlet was king In Denmark, were tiunsported hither by our Danish in- vaders, and descended to Wamba, "Will Somers, Killi- grew, and other accredited j^ters, until Mr. Joseph Miller reiterated many of them over his pipe and tankard when seated with his delighted auditory at the Black Jack in Clare Market. Modern Research has been busy with honest Jo^'s fame, decreeing the collection of his jests to Captain Motley, who wrote short-lived plays in the time of the First and Second Georges ; but the same false Me- dium has affected to discover that Dick Whittington did not come to London City at the tail of a road wagon, neither was he beladled by a cross cook, and driven forth to Highgate, when Bow Bells invited him to re- turn and make venture of hiaCat, marry Fitzalwyn's daughter, and be thrice Lord Mayor of London, albeit it is written in City chronicles that Whittington's statue and the efligy of his gold-compelTing Grimalkin long stood over the door of New Gate prison house. We would not have destroyed the faith of the Rising Generation and those who are to succeed it in that Golden Legend, to have been thought as wise as the Ptolemies, or to have been made president of all the Dryasdusts in Eu- rope. No. Let us not part with our old belief in honest Joe Miller, but trust rather to Mr. Morley, the historian of Bartlemy Fair, and visit the Great Theatrical Booth over against the Hospital gate of St. Bartholomew, where Joe, probably, is to dance " the English Maggot dance," and after the appearance of " two Harlequins conclude with a Grand Dance and Chorus, accompanied with Ket- tle-drums and Trumpets." And when the Fair is over, and we are no longer invited to "walk up," let us march in the train of the Great Mime, until he takes his ease in his inn— the Black Jack aforesaid— and laugh at his jibes and flashes of merriment, before the Mad Wag shall be silenced by the great kill-joy, Death, and the jester's boon companions shall lay him in the graveyard in Por- tugal Fields, placing over him a friendly record of his social virtues. Joe Miller was a fact, and Modern Research shall not "ob us of that conviction ! The compiler of this volume has felt the importance of bis ihkV, Jinrl diligently sought how to distinguish true wit from false—the pure gold from Brummagen brass. He has carefully perused the Eight learned chapters of " Thoughts on Jesting," by Frederick Meier, Professor of Philosophy at Halle, and member of the Royal Acad- emy of Berlin, wherein it is declared that a jest "is an extreme fine Thought, tho result of a great Wit and Acumen, which are eminent Perfections of the Soul." , . "Hypocrites, with the appearance but without the reality of virtue, condemn from the teeth outwardly the Laughter and Jesting which they sincerely approve in their hearts ; and many sincere virtuous persons also account them criminal, either from Temperament, Mel- ancholy, or erroneous Principles of Morality. As the Censure of such Persons gives me pain, so their Appro- bation would give me great pleasure. But as long as they consider the suggestions of their Tempera- ment, deep Melancholy, and erroneous Principles as so many Dictates of real Virtue, so long they must not take it amiss if, while I revere their Viri:ue, I despise their Judgment." The result of an anxious consideration of these various Opinions was a conviction that to define Wit was like the attempt to define Beauty, " which," said the Philos- opher, " was the question of a Blind man:" and des- pairing, therefore, of finding a Standard of value, the Compiler of the following pages has ^thered from every available source the Odd sayipgs of all Times, carefully eschewing, however, the Coarse and the Irreverent, so that of the many Jests here collected, not one need be excluded from Family utterance. Of course, every one will miss some pet Jest from this Collection, and, as a consequence, declare it to be miserably incomplete. The Compiler mentions this probability to show that he has not been among the Critics for nothing. " TJte gravest heast is an ass ; the gravest bird is an owl ; Tlie gravest fish is an oyster ; and the gravest man isafooW says honest Joe Miller ; and with that Apophthegm the Compiler doffs his Cap and Bells, and leaves you. Gentle Reader, in the Merry Company he has brought together.^ Mabs Leuon. A CONFIRMED INVALID. A poor woman who had attended sev- eral confirmations, was at length recog- nized by the bishop. " Pray, have I not seen you here before ?" said his lordship. "Yes," replied the woman, "I get me conformed as often as I can ; they tell me it is good for the rheumatis." 1 The editors of The Library op Wit and Humor have made simply a selection from what they consider the best and brightest of Mark Lemon's collection, omitting all the "Joe Millers," which we have already pubhshed as a complete collection in volume II. The late worthy editor of Punch certainly brought together a larger number of good jests than was ever before pub- lished. 193 MAEK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. NO HARM DONE. A man of sagacity being informed of a serious quarrel between two of his female relations, asked the persons if in their quarrels either had called the other ugly ? On receiving an answer in the negative, " O, then, I shall soon make up the quar- rel." GOOD ADVICE. Lady spoke to the butler to be saving of an excellent cask of small beer, and asked him how it might be best pre- served ? "I know no method so effectual, my lady,'' replied the butler, " as placing a barrel of good ale by it." A SMALL INHEEITANOE. It was the habit of Lord Eldon, when Attorney General, to close his speeches with some remarks justifying his own character. At the trial of Home Tooke, speaking of his own reputation, he said : It is the little inheritance I have to leave my children, and, by God's help, I will leave it unimpaired." Here he shed tears, and, to the astonishment of those present, Mitford, the Solicitor-General, began to weep. " Just look at Mitford," said a bystander to Home Tooke ; "what on earth is he crying for?" Tooke re- plied, " He is crying to think what a small inheritance Eldon's children are likely to get." COMPLIMENTARY. Lord North, who was very corpulent before a severe sickness, said to his phy- sician after it, " Sir, I am obliged to you for introducing me to some old acquaint- ances." " Who are they, my lord ?" in- quired the doctor. " My ribs," replied his lordship, " which I have not felt for many years until now." INCREDIBLE. Sheridan made his appearance one day in a pair of new boots ; these attracting the notice of some of his friends, " Now guess," said he, " how I came by these boots?" Many probable guesses then took place. " No !" said Sheridan, " no, you've not hit it, nor ever will — I bought them and paid for them !" SPIRITUAL AND SPIRITUOUS. Dr. Pitcairn had one Sunday stumbled into a Presbyterian church, probably to beguile a few idle moments (for few will accuse that gentleman of having been a warm admirer of Calvinism), and seeing the parson apparently overwhelmed by the importance of his subject : — " What makes the man greet?" said Pitcairn to a fellow that stood near him. " By my faith, sir," answered the other, "you would perhaps greet, too, if you were in his place, and had as little to say." "Come along with me, friend, and let's have a glass together ; you are too good a feUow to be here," said Pitcairn, delighted with the man's repartee. THREE CAUSES. Three gentlemen being in a coffee- house, one called for a dram, " because he was hot." " Bring me another," said his companion, "because I am cold." The third, who sat by and heard them, very quietly called out, " Here, boy, bring me a glass, because Ilike it." ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER. Dr. A., physician at Newcastle, being summoned to a vestry, in order to repri- mand the sexton for drunkenness, he dwelt so long on the sexton's misconduct as to draw from him this expression : " Sir, I thought you would have been the last man alive to appear against me, as 1 have covered so many blunders of yours!" COME OF AGE. A young man met a rival who was somewhat advanced in years, and wishing to annoy him, inquired how old he was ? " I can't exactly tell," replied the other ; " but I can inform you that an ass is older at twenty than a man at sixty !" REVERSE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. When General Valiancy was quartered in a small town in Ireland, he and his lady were regularly besieged, as they got into their carriage, by an old beggar wo- man, who kept her post at the door, as- sailing them daily with fresh importu- nities. One morning, as Mrs. V. stepped into the carriage, the woman began. Oh, my lady ! success to your ladyship, and success to your honor's honor : for sure I did not dream last night that her ladyship gave me a pound of tea, and your honor gave me a pound of tobacco." " My good woman," said the general, "dreams go by the rule of contrary I" "Do they so?" MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 193 rejoined the old woman ; " then it must mean that your honor will give me the tea, and her ladyship the tobacco." HIC- CUPPING. A gentleman, at whose house Swift was dining in Ireland, after dinner introduced remarkably small hock glasses, and at length turning to Swift addressed him, " Mr. Dean, I shall be happy to take a glass of hie, ha3C, hoc with you." " Sir," rejoined the doctor, " I shall be happy to comply, but it must be out of a hujus glass." " JUNroS " DISCOVERED. Mr. Eogers was requested by Lady Holland to ask Sir Philip Francis whether he was the author of Junius. The poet approached the knight. " Will you. Sir Philip, — ^will your kindness excuse my addressing to you a single question?" "At your peril, sirl " was the harsh and the laconic answer. The intimidated bard retreated to his friends, who eagerly asked him the result of his application. " I don't know," he answered, " whether he is Junius ; but, if he be, he is certainly Junius Brutus." TOO MANY COOKS. Elwes, the noted miser, used to say, " If you keep one servant, your work is done ; if you keep two, it is half-done ; and if you keep three, you may do it yourself." AN EXTINGTJISHEE. While Commodore Anson's ship, the Centurion, was engaged in close fight with the rich Spanish galleon, which he afterwards took, a sailor came running to him, and cried out, " Sir, our ship is on fire very near the powder magazine." "Then pray, friend," said the commodore, not in the least degree discomposed, "run hack and assist in putting it out." A BAD SHOT. A cockney being out one day amusing himself with shooting, happened to fire through a hedge, on the other side of which was a man standing. The shot passed through the man's hat, but missed the bird. " Did you fire at me, sir? " he hastily asked. " O ! no, sir," said the shrewd sportsman, " I never hit what I fire at." ■WISE PEECAUTION. It 18 related of the great Dr. Clarke, VOL. IV — ^W. H. that when in one of his leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few friends in the most playful and frolicsome man- ner, he observed Beau Nash approaching, upon which he suddenly stopped : "My boys," said he, "let us be grave: here comes a, fool." A TRUMP CARD. At one of the Holland-house Sunday dinner-parties, a year or two ago. Crock- ford's Club, then forming, was talked of, and the noble hostess observed that the female passion for diamonds was surely less ruinous than the rage for play among men. " In short, you think," said Mr. Rogers, " that clubs are worse than dia- monds." This joke excited a laugh, and when it had subsided, Sydney Smith wrote the following impromptu sermonet — most appropriately on a card : Thoughtless that " all that's brightest fades. Unmindful of that Knave of Spades, The Sexton and his Subs : How foolishly we play our parts ! Our wives on diamonds set their hearts. We set our hearts on clubs ! THE DOCTRINE OF CHANCES. Lord Kames used to relate a story of a man who claimed the honor of his ac- quaintance on rather singular grounds. His lordship, when one of the justiciary judges, returning from the north circuit to Perth, happened one night to sleep at Dunkeld. The next morning, walking towards the ferry, but apprehending he had missed his way, he asked a man whom he met to conduct him. The other an- swered with much cordiality, " That I will do, with all my heart, my lord ; does not your lordship remember me ? My name's John ; I have had the honor to be before your lordship for stealing sheep 1" " Oh, John, I remember you well ; and how is your wife? she had the honor to be before me, too, for receiving them, knowing them to be stolen." " At your lordship's service. We were very lucky, we got off for want of evidence ; and I am still going on in the butcher trade." "Then," replied his lordship, " we may have the honor of meeting again." A CHEAP CURE. " Pray, Mr. Abernethy, what is the cure for gout? " asked an indolent and luxuri- ous citizen. "Live upon sixpence a day, and earn it 1 " was the pithy answer. 13 I'M MAEK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. A GEAVB DOCTOR. Counsellor Crips being on a party at Castle-Martyr, one of the company, a physician, strolled out before dinner into the churchyard. Dinner being served, and the doctor not returned, some one expressed hia surprise where he could be gone to. " Oh," says the counsellor, " he is but just stept out to pay a visit to some 3f his old patients." BLACK AND WHITE. During the short time that Lord Byron ■was in Parliament, a petition, setting forth the wretched condition of the Irish peasantry, was one evening presented, and very coldly received by the " hereditary legislative wisdom." "Ah,'' said Lord Byron, " what a misfortune it was for the Irish that they were not born black! They would then have had plenty of friends in both houses." SIMPLE DIVISION. When the Earl of Bradford was brought before the Lord Chancellor, to be ex- amined upon application for a statute of lunacy against him, the chancellor asked him, " How many legs has a sheep ? " — "Does your lordship mean," answered Lord Bradford, " a live sheep or a dead sheep?" "Is it not the same thing?" said the chancellor. " No, my lord," said Lord Bradford, "there is much difierence ; a live sheep may have four legs ; a dead sheep has only two ; the two forelegs are shoulders ; but there are but two legs of mutton." HAND AND GLOVE. A dyer, in a court of justice, being ordered to hold up his hand, that was all black ; " Take off your glove, friend," said the judge to him. " Put on your specta- cles, my lord," answered the dyer. FALSE DELICACY. A person disputing with Peter Pindar, said, in great heat, that he did not like to be thought a scoundrel. " I wish," re- plied Peter, " that you had as great a dislike to being a scoundrel." A FAMILY PARTY. A certain lodging-house was very much infested by vermin. A gentleman who slept there one nigh' told the landlady so in the morning, when she said, " La, sir, we haven't a single bug in the house." " No, ma'am,'' said he, " they're all mar- ried, and have large families too," A HAPPY SUGGESTION. When Jenny Lind, the Swedish night- ingale, gave a concert to the Consumption Hospital, the proceeds of which concert amounted to 1,776/. 15s., and were to be devoted to the completion of the building, Jerrold suggested that the new part of the hospital should be called " The Night- ingale's Wing." QUALIFYING FOR BAIL. A gentleman once appeared in the Court of King's Bench to give bail in the sum of 3,O007. Sergeant Davy, wanting to display his wit, said to him, sternly, " And pray, sir, how do you make out that you are worth 3,000/. ? " The gentle- man stated the particulars of his prop- erty up to 2,940/. "That's all very good," said the sergeant, " but you want 60/. more to be worth 3,000/." ''^For that sum," replied the gentleman, in no ways disconcerted, " I have a note of hand of one Mr. Sergeant Davy, and I hope he will have the honesty soon to settle it." The sergeant looked abashed, and Lord Mansfield observed, in his usual urbane tone, " Well, brother Davy, I think we may accept the bail." THE PINK OF POLITENESS. Lord Berkeley was once dining with Lord Chesterfield (the pink of politeness) and a large party, when it was usual to drink wine until they were mellow. Berk- eley had by accident shot one of his game- keepers, and Chesterfield, under the warmth of wine, said, "Pray, my lord Berkeley, how long is it since you shot a gamekeeper ? " " Not since you hanged your tutor, my lord ! " was the reply. You know that Lord Chesterfield brought Dr. Dodd to trial, in consequence of which he was hanged. HIGH AND LOW. " I expect six clergymen to dine with me on such a day," said a gentleman to his butler. " Very good, sir," said the butler. " Are they High Church or Low Church, sir ? " " What on earth can that signify to you?" asked the astonished master. "Everything, sir," was there- ply. " If they ,^re High Church, they'll drink ; if they are Low Church, they'll eat ! " CITY LOVE. In making love let poor men sigh, But love that's ready-made is better Por men of business, — So I, MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 195 If madam will be cruel, let lier, But should she wish that I should wait And miss the 'Change — oh, no, I thanii her, I court by deed, or after dale, Through my solicitor or banker. LORD CHESTERFIELD. When Lord Chesterfield was in admin- istration, he proposed a person to his late majesty as proper to fill a place of great trust, but which the king himself was determined should be filled by another. The council, however, resolved not to in- dulge the Mng, for fear of a dangerous precedent, and it was Lord Chesterfield's business to present the grant of office for the king's signature. Not to incense his majesty by asking him abruptly, he, with accents of great humility, begged to know with whose name his majesty would be pleased to have the blanks filled up. With the devil's ! " replied the king in a paroxysm of rage. " And shall the in- strument," said the Earl, coolly, " run as usual, Our trusty and well-beloved cousin and counsellor?" — a repartee at which the king laughed heartily, and with great good-humour signed the grant. quin's soliloquy on seeing the "em- balmed BODY OE DUKE HUMPHREY, AT ST. ALBAN'S. " A plague on Egypt's arts, I say — Embalm the dead — on senseless clay Rich wine and spices waste : Like sturgeon, or like brawn, shall I, Bound in a precious pickle lie. Which I can never taste ! Let me embalm this flesh of mine. With turtle fat, and Bourdeaux wine, And spoil the Egyptian trade. Than Glo'ster's Duke, more happy I, Embalm'd alive, old Quiu shall lie A mummy ready made." A PRETTY PICTURE. E taking the portrait of a lady, perceived that when he was working at her mouth she was trying to render it smaller by contracting her lips. " Do not trouble yourself so much, madam," ex- claimed the painter, "if you please, I will draw your face without any mouth at all." CAUSE OF ABSENCE. When the late Lord Campbell married Miss Scarlett, and departed on his wed- ding trip, Mr. Justice Abbott observed, when a cause was called on in the Bench, •'I thought, Mr. Brougham, that Mr. Campbell was in this case ? " " Yes, my lord," replied Brougham, "but I under- stand he is ill — sufiering from Scarlett fever." THE scold's vocabulary. The copiousness of the English lan- guage perhaps was never more apparent than in the following character, by a lady, of her own husband : " He is," says she, " an abhorred, bar- barous, capricious, detestable, envious, fastidious, hard-hearted, illiberal, ill- natured, jealous, keen, loathsome, malev- olent, nauseous, obstinate, passionate, quarrelsome, raging, saucy, tantalizing, uncomfortable, vexatious, abominable, bitter, captious, disagreeable, execrable, fierce, grating, gross, hasty, malicious, nefarious, obstreperous, peevish, restless, savage, tart, unpleasant, violent, waspish, worrying, acrimonious, blustering, care- less, discontented, fretful, growling, hate- ful, inattentive, malignant, noisy, odious, perverse, rigid, severe, teasing, unsuitable, angry, boisterous, choleric, disgusting, gruff, hectoring, incorrigible, mischievous, negligent, oft'ensive, pettish, roaring, sharp, sluggish, snapping, snarling, sneaking, sour, testy, tiresome, torment- ing, touchy, arrogant, austere, awkward, boorish, brawling, brutal, bullying, chur- lish, clamorous, crabbed, cross, currish, dismal, dull, dry, drowsy, grumbling, horrid, hufiish, insolent, intractable, iras- cible, ireful, morose, murmuring, opinion- ated, oppressive, outrageous, overbearing, petulant, plaguy, rough, rude, rugged, spiteful, splenetic, stern, stubborn, stupid, sulky, sullen, surly, suspicious, treacher- ous, troublesome, turbulent, tyrannical, virulent, wrangling, yelping dog-in-a- manger. ON fortune. Fortune, they say, doth give too much to many, And yet she never gave enough to any. TRANSPOSING A COMPLIMENT. It was said of a work (which had been inspected by a severe critic), in terms which at first appeared very flattering, " There is a great deal in this book which is new, and a great deal that is true." So far good, the author would think; but then came the negation : " But it unfor- tunately happens, that those portions which are new are not true, and those which are true are not new I " SCOTCH SIMPLICITY. At Hawick, the people used to wear wooden clogs, which made a clanMng 196 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. noise on the pavement. A dying old woman had some friends by her bedside, who said to her, " Weel, Jenny, ye are gaun to Heeven, and gin you should see our folk, ye can tell them that we're a' weel." To which Jenny replied, " Weel, gin I shud see them I'se tell them, but you mauna expect that I am to gang clank clanking through Heeven looking for your folk." MAIDS AND WIVES. Women are all alike. When they're maids they're mild as milk ; once make 'em wives, and they lean their backs against their marriage certificates, and defy you. —D.J. A TRUE COURTIER. One day, when Sir Isaac Heard was in company with George III., it was an- nounced that his ma,iesty's horse was ready for hunting. " Sir Isaac," said the king, " are you a judge of horses ? " " In my younger days, please your majesty, I was a great deal among them," was the reply. " What do you think of this, then ? " said the king, who was by this time preparing to mount his favourite : and, without waiting for an answer, added " we call him Perfection." " A most ap- propriate name," replied the courtly J)ierald, bowing as his majesty reached the saddle, "for he bears the best of characters." A SHEEPISH COMPLIMENT. Lord Cockburn, the proprietor of Bonaly, was sitting on the hill-side with a shepherd, and observing the sheep re- posing in the coldest situation, he ob- served to him, " John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the other side of the hill." The shepherd answered, "Ah, my lord, but if ye had been a sheep ye would hae had mair sense." CONSIDERABLE LATITUDE. Sir Eichard Jebb being called to see a patient who fancied himself very ill, told him ingenuously what he thought, and de- clined prescribing for him. " Now you are here," said the patient, " I shall be obliged to you. Sir Richard, if you will tell me how I must live; what I may eat, and what I may not." " My directions as to that point," replied Sir Richard, " will be few and simple 1 You must not eat the poker, shovel, or tongs, for they are hard of digestion ; nor the bellows, because they are windy; but eat anything else you please I " A WIFE AT FORTY. " My notion of a wife at forty,'' said Jerrold, " is, that a man should be able to change her, like a bank-note, for two twenties." MEASURING HIS DISTANCE. A browbeating counsel asked a witness how far he had been from a certain place. "Just four yards, two feet, and six inches," was the reply. " How came you to be so exact, my friend?" "Because I expected some fool or other would ask me, and so I measured it." EMPEROR OF china's PHYSICIANS. Sir G. Staunton related a curious anec- dote of old Kien Long, Emperor of China. He was inquiring of Sir George the man- ner in which physicians were paid in England. When, after some difficulty, his majesty was made to comprehend the system, he exclaimed, " Is any man well in England, that can afford to be ill? Now, I will inform you," said he, " how I manage my physicians. I have four, to whom the care of my health is committed: a certain weekly salary is allowed them, but the moment I am ill, the salary stops till I am well again. I need not inform you my illnesses are usually short." THE RULING PASSION AFTER DEATH. A drunken witness leaving the box, blurted out, " My Lord, I never cared for anything but women and horseflesh ! " Mr. Justice Maule : " Oh, you never cared for anything but women and horseflesh ? Then I advise you to go home and make your will, or, if you have made it, put a codicil to it, and direct your executors, as soon as you are dead, to have you flayed, and to have your skin made into side- saddles, and then, whatever happens, you will have the satisfaction of reflecting that, after death, some part of you will be constantly in contact with what, in life, were the dearest objects of your affections." OLD STORIES OVER AGAIN. Bubb Doddington was very lethargic. Falling asleep one day, after dinner with Sir Richard Temple and Lord Cobham, the latter reproached Doddington with his drowsiness. Doddington denied having been asleep ; and to prove he had not, offered to repeat all Lord Cobham had MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 197 been saying. Cobham challenged him to do so. Doddington repeated a story ; and Lord Cobham owned ho had been telling it. " Well," said Doddington, " and yet I did not hear a word of it ; but I went to sleep, because I knew that about this time of day you would tell that story." EQUALITY. Some one was praising our public schools to Charles Lamb, and said : " All our best men were public school men. Look at our poets. There's Byron, he was a Har- row boy — " " Yes," interrupted Charles, " and there's Bums — he was a ploughboy." QUITE NATURAL. " Did any of you ever see an elephant's skin ? " asked the master of an infant Bchool in a fast neighbourhood. " / have 1 " shouted a six-year-old at the foot of the class. "Where?" inquired old spectacles, amused by his earnestness. " On the elephant ! " was the reply. MILTON ON WOMAN. Milton was asked by a friend whether he would instruct his daughters in the different languages : to which he replied, "No, sir; one tongue is sufficient for a woman." A GOOD REASON. " That's a pretty bird, grandma," said a little boy. " Yes," replied the old dame, " and he never cries." " That's because he's never washed," rejoined the young- ster. CLAW AND CLAW. Lord Erskine and Dr. Parr, who were both remarkably conceited, were in the habit of conversing together, and compli- menting each other on their respective abilities. On one of these occasions. Parr promised that he would write Er- skine's epitaph ; to which the other re- plied, that "such an intention on the doctor's part was almost a temptation to commit suicide." NOT so BAD FOR A KING. George FV., on hearing some one de- clare that Moore had murdered Sheridan, in his late life of that statesman, ob- served, " I won't say that Mr. Moore has murdered Sheridan, but he has certainly attempted his life." A BAD CROP. After a long drought, there fell a tor- rent of rain ; and a country gentleman observed to Sir John Hamilton, " This is a most delightful rain ; I hope it will bring up everything out of the ground." " By Jove, sir," said Sir John, " I hope not ; for I have sowed three wives in it, and I should be very sorry to see them come up again." A GUIDE TO GOVERNMENT SITUATIONS. Dr. Henniker, being engaged in private conversation with the great Earl of Chatham, his lordship asked him how he defined wit. " My lord," said the doc- tor, " wit is like what a pension would be, given by your lordship to your humble servant, a good thing well applied." A RUB AT A RASCAL. George Colman being once told that a man whose character was not very im- maculate had grossly abused him, point- edly remarked, that " the scandal and ill report of some persons that might be mentioned was like fuller's earth: it daubs your coat a little for a time, but when it is rubbed off your coat is so much the cleaner." THE WORST OF ALL CRIMES. An old offender being asked whether he had committed all the crimes laid to his charge, answered, " I have done still worse I I suffered myself to be appre- BEIGHT AND SHARP. A little boy having been much praised for his quickness of reply, a gentleman present observed that when children were keen in their youth, they were generally stupid and dull when they were advanced in years, and vice versa. "What a very sensible boy, sir, must you have been ! " returned the child. HUMAN HAPPINESS. A captain in the navy, meeting a friend as he landed at Portsmouth, boasted that he had left his whole ship's company the happiest fellows in the world. " How so ?" asked his friend. " Why, I have just flogged seventeen, and they are happy it is over ; and all the rest are happy that they have escaped." MEASURE FOR MEASURE. A fellow stole Lord Chatham's large gouty shoes ; his servant, not finding them, began to curse the thief. " Never mind," said his lordship, " all the harm I wish the rogue is, that the shoes may At him /" 198 MAEK LEMOK'S JEST BOOK. A DESERVED EETOKT. A spendthrift, who had nearly wasted all his patrimony, seeing an acquaintance in a coat not of the newest cut, told him that he thought it had been his great- grandfather's coat. " So it was," said the gentleman, " and I have also my great- grandfather's lands, which is more than you can say." SEALINGt AN OATH. " Do you," said Fanny, t'other day, " la earnest love me as you say ; Or are those tender words applied Alike to fifty girls beside ? " " Dear, cruel girl," cried I, " forbear, For by those eyes — those lips I swear ! " She stopp'd me as the oath I took, And cried, " You've sworn — now kiss the book." A NEAT QUOTATION. Lord Norbury asking the reason.of the delay that happened in a cause, was told that Mr. Sergeant Joy, who was to lead, was absent, but Mr. Hope, the solicitor, had said that he would return immedi- ately. His lordship humorously repeated the well-known lines, — "Hope told a flattering tale, that Joy would soon return." GOOD SPOET. A gentleman on circuit narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before breakfast. "Thirty-three hairs!" exclaimed Lord Norbury : " zounds, sir ! then you must have been firing at a wig." A GOOD SERVANT. "I can't conceive," said one nobleman to another, " how it is that you manage. Though your estate is less than mine, I could not afford to live at the rate you do." " My lord," said the other, " I have a place." " A place ? you amaze me, I never heard of it till now — pray what place? " " I am my own steward." SCOTCH UNDERSTANDING. A lady asked a very silly Scotch noble- man, how it happened that the Scots who came out of their own country were, generally speaking, men of more abilities than those who remained at home. "Oh, madam," said he, " the reason is obvious. At every outlet there are persons sta- tioned to examine all who pass, that, for the honor of the country, no one be per- mitted to leave it who is not a man of understanding." "Then," said she, "I suppose your lordship was smuggled." BRUTAL AFFECTIONS. The attachment of some ladies to their lap-dogs amounts, in some instances, to inl'atuation. An ill-tempered lap-dog biting a piece out of a male visitor's leg, his mistress thus expressed her compas- sion : ~ it will not make him sick ! AN INTRODUCTORY CEREMONY. An alderman of London once requested an author to write a speech for him to speak at Guildhall. " I must first dine with you," replied he, " and see how you open your mouth, that I may know what sort of words will fit it." A PLACE WANTED. A gentleman, who did not live very happily with his wife, on the maid tell- ing him that she was about to give her mistress warning, as she kept scolding her from morning till night. "Happy girl ! " said the master, " I wish I could give warning too." SIGN OF BEING CRACKED. In a cause respecting a will, evidence was given to prove the testatrix, an apothecary's widow, a lunatic; amongst other things, it was deposed that she had swept a quantity of pots, lotions, potions, &c., into the street as rubbish. "I doubt," said the learned judge, " whether sweep- ing physic into the street be any proof of insanity." " True, my lord," replied the counsel, " but sweeping the pots away certainly was." CRUEL SUGGESTION. Lord Stanley came plainly dressed to request a private audience of King James I., but was refused admittance into the royal closet by a sprucely-dressed coun- tryman of the king's. James, hearing the altercation between the two, came out and inquired the cause. "My liege," said Lord Stanley, " this gay countryman of yours has refused me admittance to your presence." " Cousin," said the king, " hov/ shall I punish him ? Shall I send him to the Tower ? " " O, no, my liege," replied Lord Stanley, "inflict a severer punishment — send him back to Scotland/" A BOOK CASE. There is a celebrated reply of Mr. Curran to a remark of Lord Clare, who MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 199 curtly exclaimed at one of his legal posi- tioDs, " O ! if that he law, Mr. Curran, I may burn my law-books 1 " " Better read them, my lord," was the sarcastic and appropriate rejoinder. ME. canning's parasites. Nature descends down to infinite small- ness. Mr. Canning has his. parasites ; and if yon take a large buzzing blue-bottle fly, and look at it in a microscope, you may see twenty or thirty little ugly in- sects crawling about it, which doubtless think their fly to be the bluest, grandest, merriest, most important animal in the universe, and are convinced that the world would be at an end if it ceased to buzz.— S. S. A HOME AEGUMBNT. By one decisive argument Tom gained his lovely Kate's consent. To fix the bridal day. " Why in such haste, dear Tom to wed? I shall not change my mind," sae said. " But then," says he, ■' I may." A BAD PEN. " Nature has written ' honest man on his face," said a friend to Jerrold, speak- ing of a person in whom Jerrold's faith was not altogether blind. " Humph ! " Jerrold replied, " then the pen must have been a very bad one." EEADY EEPLY. The grass-plots in the college courts or quadrangles are not for the unhallowed feet of the under-graduates. Some, how- ever, are hardy enough to venture, in de- spite of all remonstrance. A master of Trinity had often observed a student of his college invariably cross the green, when, in obedience to the calls of his ap- petite, he went to hall to dine. One day the master determined to reprove the de- linquent for invading the rights of his superiors, and for that purpose he threw up the sash at which he was sitting, and called to the student. " Sir, I never look out of my window but I see you walking across the grass-plot." " My lord," re- plied the offender instantly, "I never walk across the grass-plot, but I see you looking out of your window." The mas- ter, pleased at the readiness of the reply, closed his window. A PROPHECY. Charles Mathews, the elder, being asked what he was going to do with his son (the young man's profession was to be that of an architect), " Why," an- swered the comedian, " he is going to draw houses, like his father." MILESIAN ADVICE. " Never be critical upon the ladies," was the maxim of an old Irish peer, re- markable for his homage to the sex ; " the only way in the world that a true gentle- man ever will attempt to look at the faults of a pretty woman, is to shut his eyes. FOLLOWING A LEADEE. Franklin, when ambassador to France, being at a meeting of a literary society, and not well understanding the French when declaimed, determined to applaud when he saw a lady of his acquaintance express satisfaction. When they had ceased, a little child, who understood the French, said to him, "But, grandpapa, you always applauded the loudest when they were praising you ! " Franklin laughed heartily and explained the mat- ter. TWICE RUINED. " I never was ruined but twice,'' said a wit ; " once when I lost a lawsuit, and once when I gained one." "l PAUSE FOE A REPLY." Smith made an assertion to Jones. Jones replied that was " a confounded lie — kely story." Smith first started, and then blandly requested Jones to be kind enough to place his syllables closer to- gether upon the next occasion. A GOOD-HEARTED FELLOW. In a valedictory address an editor wrote, — " If we have offended any man in the short but brilliant course of our public career, let him send us a new hat, and we will then forget the past." A cool chap that ! EPIGRAM FROM THE ITALIAN. His hair so black — his beard so grey, 'Tis strange ! But what you know the cause ? 'Tis that his labours always lay _ Less on his brain than on his jaws. MAEEIAGE. A widower, having taken another wife, was, nevertheless, always paying some panegyric to the memory of his late spouse in the presence of his present one, who one day added, with great feeling, " Be- lieve me, my dear, nobody regrets her loss more than I do." 200 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. VISIBLE PROOF. An Irishman being asked on a late trial for a certificate of his marriage, exhibited a huge scar on his head, which looked as though it might have been made with a fire-shovel. The evidence was satisfac- tory. SIMPLICITY OF THE LEARNED POESON. The great scholar had a horror of the east wind ; and Tom Sheridan once kept him prisoner in the house for a fortnight hy fixing the weathercock in that direc- tion. KEEN EEPLY. A retired vocalist, who had acquired a large fortune by marriage, was asked to sing in company. " Allow me," said he, " to imitate the nightingale, which does not sing after it has made its nest." A CERTAINTY. A physician passing by a stonemason's shop, bawled out, "Good morning, Mr. D. ! Hard at work, I see. You finish your gravestones as far as ' In the memory of, ' and then wait, I suppose, to see who wants a monument next ? " " Why, yes, " replied the man, " unless somebody's sick, and you are doctoring him ; then I keep right on." A BROAD HINT. Charles II. playing at tennis with a dean, who struck the ball well, the king said, " That's a good stroke for a dean." " I'll give it the stroke of a bishop if your majesty pleases, " was the suggestive re- joinder. DIDO. Of this tragedy, the production of Jo- seph Eeed, author of the " Eegister Of- fice," Mr. Nichols, in his " Literary Anec- dotes," gives some curious particulars. He also relates an anecdote of Johnson concerning it: " It happened that I was in Bolt Court on the day that Henderson, the justly celebrated actor, was first intro- duced to Dr. Johnson, and the conversa- tion turning on dramatic subjects, Hender- son asked the doctor's opinion of 'Dido' and its author. ' Sir,' said Johnson, ' I never did the man an injury, yet he would read his tragedy to me.' " NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH. During a recent representation of King Lear at one of our metropolitan theatres, an old gentleman from the country, who was visibly affected by the pathos of some of the scenes, electrified the house by roaring out : " Mr. Manager ! Sir ! Alter the play I I didn't pay my money to be made wretched in this way. Give us something funny, or I'll summons you, sir I " AS YOU LIKE IT. Lord Brougham used to say he didn't care how he dressed when abroad, " be- cause nobody knew him ; " and he didn't care how he dressed when at home, " be- cause everybody knew him." TRUTH NOT ALWAYS TO BE SPOKEN. If a man were to set out calling every- thing by its right name, he would be knocked down before he got to the corner of the street. PARTNERSHIP DISSOLVED. Dr. Parr had a high opinion of his own skill at whist, and could not even patiently tolerate the want of it in his partner. Being engaged with a party in which he was unequally matched, he was asked by a lady how the fortune of the game turned, when he replied, " Pretty well, madam, considering that I have three adversaries." A NEW SCHOLAR. A Californian gold-digger having be- come rich desired a friend to procure for him a library of books. The friend obeyed, and received a letter of thanks thus worded, — " I am obliged to you for the pains of your selection. I particularly admire a grand religious poem about Par- adise, by a Mr. Milton, and a set of plays (quite delightful) by a Mr. Shakspeare. If these gentlemen should vtrite and publish anything more, be sure and send me their new works." KNOWING HIS MAN. A man was brought before Lord Mans- field, charged with stealing a silver ladle, and the counsel for the crown was rather severe upon the prisoner for being an attorney. " Come, come," said his lord- ship, " don't exaggerate matters ; if the fellow had been an attor-ney, he would have stolen the bowl as well as the ladle." A SMALL GLASS. The manager of a Scotch theatre, at which G. F. Cooke was playing Macbeth, seeing him greatly exhausted towards the close of the performance, offered him some MAEK LEMON'S JEST BOOK, 201 whisky in a very small thistle-glass, say- ing at the same time, by way of encour- agement, " Take that, Mr. Cooke ; take that, sir; it is the real mountain dew; that will never hurt you, sir! " " Not if it was vitriol 1" was the rejoinder. A BAD LABEL. Tom bought a gallon of gin to take home ; and, by way of a label, wrote his name upon a card, which happened to be the seven of clubs, and tied it to the handle. A friend coming along, and ob- serving the jug, quietly remarked: "That's an aw&l careless way to leavethat liquor." " Why? " said Tom. " Because somebody might come along with the dght of clubs and take it ! " UNREASONABLE. " Tom," said a colonel to one of his men, " how can so good and brave a sol dier as you get drunk so often ? " " Col- onel," replied he, " how can you expect all the virtues that adorn the human char- acter for sixpence a day ? " AN HONEST WAEEANTY. A gentleman once bought a horse of a country dealer. The bargain concluded and the money paid, the gentleman said, " Now, my friend, I have bought your horse, what are his faults ? " "I know of no faults that he has, except two," replied the man, " and one is, that he is hard to catch." " Oh ! never mind that," said the buyer, " I will contrive to catch him at any time, I will engage ; but what is the other ? " "Ah, sir I that is the worst," answered the fellow ; " he is good for nothing when you have caught him." THE EEASON WHY. A man said the onjy reason why his dwelling was not blown away in a late storm was, because there was a heavy mortgage on it. BLOTTING IT OUT. Mathews' attendant in his last illness, intending to give him his medicine, gave in mistake some ink from a phial on a shelf. On discovering the error, his friend exclaimed, "Good heavens, Mathews, I have given you ink ! " " Never— never mind, my boy — never mind," said Mat- hews, faintly, "I'll swallow a bit — of blotting-paper." CLEKICAL "WIT. An old gentleman of eighty-four having taken to the altar a young damsel of about sixteen, the clergyman said to him, " The font is at the other end of the church." " What do I want with the font ? " said the old gentleman. " Oh I I beg your pardon," said the clerical wit, "I thought you had brought this child to he christened." A NICE iDISTINCTION. Ned Shuter thus explained his rea- sons for preferring to wear stockings with holes to having them darned: "A hole," said he, " may be the accident of a day, and will pass upon the best gentleman, but a darn is premeditated poverty." WIT DEFINED. Dryden's description of wit is excellent. He says, — "A thousand different shapes wit wears, Comely in thousand shapes appears ; 'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jeot, Admir'd with laughter at a feast; Nor florid talk which can this title gain, — The proofs of wit forever must remain." PROFITABLE JUGGLING. A professor of legerdemain entertained an audience in a village which was prin- cipally composed of colliers. After " as- tonishing the natives " with various tricks, he asked the loan of a half-penny. A collier, with a little hesitation, handed out the coin, which the juggler speedily exhibited, as he said, transformed into a sovereign. "An' is that my bawbee ? " exclaimed the collier. " Undoubtedly,'' answered the juggler. " Let's see it," said the collier; and turning it round and round with an ecstasy of delight, thanked the juggler for his kindness, and putting it into his pocket, said, " I'se warrant ye'U no turn'i into a bawbee again." A lawyer's OPINION OF LAW. Counsellor M- -t, after he retired from practice, being one day in company where the uncertainty of the law became the topic of conversation, was applied to for his opinion, upon which he laconic- ally observed : "If any man were to claim the coat upon my back, and threaten my refusal with a lawsuit, he should certainly have it, lest in defending my coat I should too late find that I was deprived of my waistcoat also." 202 MARK LKMON'S JEST BOOK. A TEUTH FOB THE LADIES. A learned doctor has given his opinion that tight lacing is a public benefit, inas- much as it kills off all the foolish girls, and leaves the vpise only to grow into vv'omen. A GKETNA CTJSTOMEK. A runavray couple were married at Gretna Green. The smith demanded five guineas for his services. '' How is this ?" said the bridegroom, " the gentleman you last married assured me that he only gave you a guinea." " True," said the smith, " but he was an Irishman. I have mar- ried him six times. He is a good customer, and you I may never see again." VEEY PRETTY. One day, just as an English officer had arrived at Vienna, the empress, knowing that he had seen a certain princess much celebrated for her beauty, asked him if it was really true that she v/as the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. " I thought so yesterday," he replied. AN ODD BIKD. A late Duke of Norfolk had a fancy for owls, of which he kept several. He called one, from the resemblance to the Chan- cellor, Lord Thurlow. The duke's so- licitor was once in conversation with his grace, when, to his surprise, the owl-keeper came up and said, " Please you, my lord, Lord Thurlow's laid an egg." A FAIR PROPOSAL. " Why don't you take off your hat ?" said Lord F to a boy struggling with a calf " So I wuU, sir," replied the lad ; " if your lordship will hold my calf, I'll pull off my hat." GOOD RIDDAKCE. A certain well-known provincial bore having left a tavern party, of which Burns was one, the bard immediately de- manded a bumper, and, addressing him- self to the chaii^nan, said, " I give you the health, gentlemen all, of the waiter that called my Lord out of the room." SATISFACTION. Lord William Poulat was said to be the author of a pamphlet called " The Snake in the Grass." A gentleman abused in it sent him a challenge. Lord William protested his innocence, but the gentleman insisted upon a denial under his own hand. Lord William took a pen and began : " This is to scratify that the buk called 'The Snak— '" "Oh! my Lord," said the person, " I'm satisfied ; your Lordship has already convinced me you did not write the book." THE SWORD AND THE SCABBARD. A wag, on seeing his friend with some- thiug under his cloak, asked him what it was. " A poniard," answered he ; but he observed that it was a bottle : taking it from him, and drinking the contents, he returned it, saying, " There, I give you the scabbard back again." CEEtAINLY NOT ASLEEP. A country schoolmaster had two pupils, to one of whom he was partial, and to the other severe. One morning it hap- pened that these two boys were late, and were called up to account for it. " You must have heard the bell, boys ; why did you not come ? " " Please sir," said the favorite, " I was dreaming that I was going to Margate, and I thought the school-bell was the steamboat-bell." " Very well," said the master, glad of any pretext to excuse his favorite. " And now, sir," turning to the other, " what have you to say ? " " Please, sir," said the puzzled boy, "I- — I- — was waiting to see Tom off/ " THE RIVALS. A good story of Gibbon is told in the last volume of Moore's Memoirs. The dramatis personce were Lady Elizabeth Foster, Gibbon the historian, and an eminent French physician — the historian and doctor being rivals in courting the lady's favor. Impatient at Gibbon's occupying so much of her attention by his conversation, the doctor said crossly to him, " Quand milady Elizabeth Foster seramalade de vosfadaisesje la guirirai." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is made ill by your twaddle, I will cure her.] On which Gibbon, drawing himself up grandly, and looking disdainfully at the physician, replied, "Quand milady Eliza- beth Foster sera morte de vos recettes, je I' im-mor-ialiserai." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is dead from your recipes, I will immortalize her.] THE EMPTY GUN. As Dick and Tom in fierce dispute en- gage. And, face to face the noisy contest wage ; MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 20S 'Don't cock your chin at me,'' Dick smartly cries. "Fear not — his head's not charged," a friend replies. A SATISFACTORY REASON. Mr. Alexander, the architect of several fine buildings in the county of Kent, was under cross-examination at Maid- stone, by Sergeant (afterwards Baron) Garrow, who wished to detract from the weight of his testimony. "You are u builder I believe?'' "No, sir; I am not a builder ; I am an architect ! " " Ah, well? architect or builder, builder or Ai'chitect, they are much the same, I sup- pose ? " "I beg your pardon, sir ; I can- uot admit that: I consider them to be totally different ! " " Oh, indeed ! perhaps you will state wherein this great diiference cionsists ? " " An architect, sir, prepares the plan, conceives the design, draws out the specifications, — in short, supplies the mind. The builder is merely the brick- layer or the carpenter : the builder, in fact, is the machine — the architect the power that puts the machine together and sets it going ! " " Oh, very well, Mr. Architect, that will do ! And now, after your very ingenious distinction without a difference, perhaps you can inform the court who was the architect for the Tower of Babel? " "There was mo architect, sir, and hence the confusion ! " ON jekyll's nearly being thrown DOWN BY A VERY SMALL PIG. As Jekyll walk'd out in his gown and his wig, He happen'd to tread on a very small , pig: Pig of science," he said, " or else I'm mistaken. For surely thou art an abridgment of Bacon." clear the court. An Irish crier at Ballinasloe being ordered to clear the court, did so by this announcement : " Now, then, all ye blackguards that isn't lawyers must leave the coort." extenuating circumstances. A case of some great offense was tried before Lord Hermand (who was a great toper), and the counsel pleaded extenua- tion for his client in that he was drunk when he committed the offense. " Drunk !" exclaimed Lord Hermand, in great in- dignation ; " if he could do such a thing when he was drunk, what might he not have done when he was sober ! " evident- ly implying that the normal condition of human nature, and its most hopeful one, was a condition of intoxication. CONFIDENCE. The first time Jerrold saw a celebrated song-writer, the latter said to him : — " Youngster, have you sufficient con- fidence in me to lend me a guinea? " Jerrold. " Oh I yes ; I've all the confi- dence, but I haven't the guinea." A CLEAR CASE. Mr. Justice Maule would occasionally tax the powers of country juries. £x. gr. '' Gentlemen," said the judge, " the learned counsel is perfectly right in his law, there is some evidence upon that point ; but he's a lawyer, and you're not, and you don't know what he means lay some evidence, so I'll tell you. Suppose there was an action on a bill of exchange, and six people swore they saw the de- fendant accept it, and six others swore they heard him say he should have to pay it, and six others knew him in- timately, and swore to his handwriting; and suppose on the other side they called a poor old man who had been at school with the defendant forty years before and had not seen him since, and he said he rather thought the acceptance was not his writing, why there'd be some evidence that it was not, and that's what Mr. means in this case." Need we add that the jury retired to consider their verdict ? the LATIN FOR COLD. A schoolmaster asked one of his scholars in the winter time, what was the Latin for cold. " Oh ! sir," answered the lad, " I forget at this moment, al- though I have it at vay fingers' ends." PIECE DE RESISTANCE. " Do come and dine with me," said John to Pat : "you must; though I have only a nice piece of beef and some potatoes for you." " Oh! my dear fellow I don't make the laist apology about the dinner, it's the very same I should have had at home, barrin' the beef." LAMB AND ERSKINE. Counsellor Lamb, an old man when Lord Erskine vfas in the height of his re- 204 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. putation, was of timid and nervous dis- position, usually prefacing his pleadings with, an apology to that effect ; and on one occasion, when opposed, in some cause, to Erskine, he happened to re- mark that " he felt himself growing more and more timid as he grew older." " No wonder," replied the relentless barrister ; " every one knows the older a laTnib grows, the more sheepish he becomes." TEtTE WIT. True wit is like the brilliant stone Dug from Golconda's mine ; Which boasts two various powers in one. To cut as well as shine. Genius, like that, if polish'd right. With the same gifts abounds ; Appears at once both keen and bright, And sparkles while it wounds. THE CUT DIEECT. A gentleman having his hair cut, was asked by the garrulous operator " how he would have it done ? " If possible," re- plied the gentleman, " in silence." BUSY-BODIES. A master of a ship called out, " Who is below?" A boy answered, " Will, sir." " What are you doing ? " " Nothing, sir." "Is Tom there?" "Yes," said Tom. "What are you Aomgt " "Help- ing Will, sir." THE FOECE OF HABIT. A toping bookseller presented a cheque at the banking-house of Sir W. Curtis and Co., and upon the cashier putting the usual question, " How will you have it ? " replied, " Cold, without sugar." ONE HEAD BETTEE THAN A DOZEN. King Henry VIII., designing to send an embassy to Francis I. at a very dan- gerous juncture, the nobleman selected begged to be excused, saying, "Such a threatening message to so hot a prince as Francis I. might go near to cost him his life." " Fear not," said old Harry, " if the French king should take away your life, I will take off the heads of a dozen Frenchmen now in my power." " But of all these heads," replied the noble- man, "there may not be one to fit my shoulders." KEEPING A CONSCIENCE. The great controversy on the propriety of requiring a subscription to articles of faith, as practiced by the Church of England, excited at this time (1772) a very strong sensation amongst the members of the two universities. Paley, when pressed to sign the clerical petition which was presented to the House of Commons for relief, ex- cused himself, saying, " He could not afford to keep a conscience." POETMANTEAU VS. TEUNK. Sergeant Whitaker, one of the most eminent lawyers of his day, was an ec- centric. A friend, at one of the assize towns, oflfered him a bed, and the next morning asked him if he had found him- self comfortable and warm. " Yes, mad- am," replied the Serjeant; "yes, pretty well, on the whole. At first I felt a little queer for want of Mrs. Whitaker ; but recollecting that my portmanteau was in the room, I threw it behind my back, and it did every bit as well." OLD TIMES. A gentleman in company with Foote, took up a newspaper, saying, " He wanted to see what the ministry were about." Foote, with a smUe, replied, "Look among the robberies." JOHNSON AND MES. SIDDONS. In spite of the ill-founded contempt Dr. Johnson professed to entertain lor actors, he persuaded himself to treat Mrs. Siddons with great politeness, and said, when she called on him at Bolt Court, and Frank, his servant, could not imme- diately provide her with a chair, " You see, madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be got." EOWING IN THE SAME BOAT. "We row in the same boat, you know," said a literary friend to Jerrold. This literary friend was a comic writer, and a comic writer only. Jerrold replied, " True, my good fellow, we do row in the same boat, but with very different skulls." THE EULING PASSION. In the last illness of George Colman, the doctor being late in an appointment, apologized to his patient, saying that he had been called in to see a man who had fallen down a well. " Did he Mck the bucket, doctor?" groaned out poor George. MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 206 DEGENERACY. There had been a carousing party at Colonel Grant's, the late Lord Seafield, and two Highlanders were ij attendance to carry the guests up stairs, it being un- derstood that none could by any other means arrive at their sleeping apartments. One or two of the guests, however, were walking up stairs and declined the prof- fered assistance. The attendants were utterly astonished, and indignantly ex- claimed, " Aigh, it's sare cheenged times at Castle Grant, when gentlemens can gang to bed on their ain/eet." PAYING IN KIND. A farmer, having lost some ducks, was asked by the counsel for the prisoner ac- cused of stealing them to describe their peculiarity. Alter he had done so, the counsel remarked, " They can't be such a rare breed, aa I have some like them in my yard." "That's very likely," said the farmer ; " these are not the only ducks of the same sort I've had stolen lately." THE LATE LORD AUDLEY. Mr. Philip Thicknesse, father of the late Lord Audley, being in want of money, applied to his son for assistance. This being denied, he immediately hired a cobbler's stall, directly opposite his lord- iihip's house, and put up a board, on which was inscribed, in large letters, " Boots and shoes mended in the best and cheapest manner, by Philip Thicknesse, father of Lord Audley." His lordship took the hint and the board was removed. SCOTCH PENETRATION. An old lady who lived not far from Ab- botsford, and from whom the " Great Un- known " had derived many an ancient tale, was waited upon one day by the au- thor of " Waverley." On Scott endeavor- ing to conceal the authorship, the old dame protested, " D 'ye think, sir, I dinna ken my ain groats in ither folk's kail ? " THE REASON WHY. A pedlar sold a large quantity of stuff, which he called the Madagascar Rat Ex- terminator, in a neighborhood, and yet the vermin were as alive and active as ever. On being told that it had no effect — " Perhaps," saidtheimperturbablepedlar, " yours may not be the Madagascar rats." THE LETTER H. Sir James Scarlett, when at the Bar, | had to cross-examine a witness whose ev- idence it was thought would be very dam- aging, unless he could be bothered a little, and his only vulnerable point was said to be his self-esteem. The witness present- ed himself in the box — a portly, over- dressed person, and Scarlett took him in hand. Q. Mr. John Tomkins, I believe? A. Yes. Q. You are a stock-broker ? A. I ham. Scarlett regarded him attentively for a few moments, and then said: "And a very fine, well-dressed ham you are, sir? " The shout of laughter which followed completely disconcerted the witness, and the counsel's point was gained. A PROMISE TO PAY. Joe Haines was more remarkable for his practical jokes than for his acting. He was seized one morning by two bailiffs, for a debt of 20^., as the Bishop of Ely was passing by in his coach. " Gentle- men," said Joe, "here's my cousin, the Bishop of Ely going by his house ; let me but speak to him, and he'll pay the debt and charges." The bailiffs thought they might venture this, as they were within three or four yards of him. Joe went boldly up to the coach, and pulled his hat off to the bishop. His lordship ordered the coach to stop, when Joe whispered him gently, " My lord, here are two men who have such great scruples of conscience, that I fear they'll hang themselves." " Very well," said the bishop ; so, calling to the bailiffs, he said, "You two men come to me to-morrow morning, and 1 will satisfy you." The men bowed, and went away pleased. Early on the follow- ing day, the bailiffs, expecting the debt and charges, paid a visit to the bishop ; when, being introduced, his lordship ad- dressed them. "Well, my men, what are your scruples of conscience?" — "Scruples!" echoed the bailiff; "we have no scruples. We are bailiffs, my lord, who yesterday arrested your cousin, Joe Haines, for a debt of 201. ; and your lordship kindly promised to satisi'y us to- day." The bishop reflecting that his honor and name would be exposed were he not to comply, paid the debt and charges. A NEW DISGUISE. The Duke of Norfolk of Foote's time was much addicted to the bottle. On a 206 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. masquerade night, he asked Foote what new character he should go in. "Go sober 1 " said Foote. WET AND DEY. Dr. Macknight, who was a better com- mentator than preacher, having been caught in a shower of rain, entered the vestry soaked with wet. As the time drew on for divine service he became much distressed, and ejaculated over and over, " Oh, I wish that I was dry ! Do you think I'm dry ? Do you think I'm dry eneuch noo?" To this his jo- cose colleague, Dr. Henry, the historian, returned : " Bide a wee, doctor, and ye'se be dry eneuch when ye get into the pu' pit." HUM AND WATER. A certain Scotchman, who is not a member of any temperance society, being asked by a dealer to purchase some fine old Jamaica, drily answered, "To tell you the truth, Mr. ■ — — , I canna' say I'm very fond of rum ; for if I tak' mair than six tum'lers, it's very apt to gi'e me a headache." A BUDGET OP BLTJNDEKS. Perhaps the best concentrated specimen of blunders, such as occur in all nations, but which, of course, are fathered upon Paddy wholesale, as if by common con- sent, is the following : Copy of a letter, written during the Rebel- lion by Sir , an Irish Member of Parliament, to his friend in London. My Deae Sie : Having now a little peace and quiet- ness, I ait down to inform you of the dreadful bustle and confusion we are in from these blood-thirsty rebels, most of whom are, I'm glad to say, killed and dis- persed. We are in a pretty mesa, can get nothing to eat, nor wine to drink, except whisky, and when we sit down to dinner we are obliged to keep both hands armed. Whilst I write this, I hold a sword in each hand and a pistol in the other. I concluded from the beginning that this would be the end of it, and I see I was right, for it is not half over yet. At pres- ent there are such goings on that every- thing is at a standstill. I should have anssvered your letter a fortnight ago, but I did not receive it till this morning. In- deed, scarcely a mail arrives safely with- out being robbed. No longer ago than yesterday the coach with the mails from Dublin was robbed near this town ; the bags had been judiciously left behind for fear of accident, but by good luck there was nobody in it but two outside passen- gers, who had nothing for the thieves to take. Last Thursday notice was given that a gang of rebels was advancing here under the French standard, but they had no colors, nor any drums except bagpipes. Immediately every man in the place, in- cluding women and children, ran out to meet them. We soon found our force much too little ; we were far too near to think of retreating. Death was in every face, but to it we went, and, by the time half our little party were killed, we began to be all alive again. Fortunately the rebels had no guns, except pistols, cut- lasses, and pikes, and as we had plenty of muskets and ammunition, we put them all to the sword. Not a soul of them escaped, except some that were drowned in an adja- cent bog, and, in a very short time, noth- ing was to be heard but silence. Their uniforms were all different colors, but mostly green. After the action we went to rummage a sort of camp, which they had left behind them. All we found were a few pikes, without heads, a parcel of empty bottles ftxll of water, and a bundle of French commissions filled up with Irish names. Troops are now stationed all around the country, which exactly squares with my ideas. I have only time to add that I am in great haste. Yours truly. P. S. — If you do not receive this, of course it must have miscarried, therefore I beg you will write to let me know. MAKING A CLEARANCE. At Glasgow forty years ago, when the time had come for the bowl to be introduced, some jovial and thirsty member of the company proposed as a toast, " The trade of Glasgow and the outward bound ; " the hint was taken, and silks and satins moved off to the drawing-room. KITCHENER AND OOLMAN. The most celebrated wits and bon vivants of the day graced the dinner-table of the late Dr. Kitchener, and inter alios, the late George Oolman,who was an especial favor- ite ; his interpolation of a little monosylla- ble in a written admonition which the doc- tor caused to be placed on the mantelpiece of the dining parlor will never be forgotten, MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 207 and was the origin of such a drinking bout as was seldom permitted under his roof. The caution ran thus: "Come at seven, go at eleven." Oolman briefly al- tered the sense of it ; for, upon the doc- tor's attention being directed to the card, he read, to his astonishment, " Come at seven, go it at eleven I " which the guests did, and the claret was punished accord- ingly. A LONG BILL. When Foote was at Salt Hill, he dined St the Castle Inn, and when Partridge, the host, produced his bill, which was rather exorbitant, the comedian asked him his name. " Partridge, sir," said he. " Partridge ! It should have been Wood- cock, by the length of your bill 1" SALISBURY CATHEDBAL SPIEE. A sexton in Salisbury Cathedral was telling Charles Lamb that eight people had dined at the pointed top of the spire ; upon which Lamb remarked that they must have been very sharp set. CASH PAYMENTS. Peterson, the comedian, lent a brother actor two shillings, and when he made a demand for the sum, the debtor turning peevishly from him, said, "Hang it I I'll pay you to-day in some shape or other." Peterson good-humoredly replied, " I shall be much obliged to you, Tom, to let it be as like two shillings as you can." A FIG FOE THE GEOCEE. When Abernethy was canvassing for the office of surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital, he called upon a rich grocer. The great man, addressing him, said, " I suppose, sir, you want my vote and inter- est at this momentous epoch of your life." " No, I don't," said Abernethy. " I want a penny worth of figs ; come, look sharp and wrap them up ; I want to be off!" STEAMBOAT EACING. Sir Charles Lyell, when in the United States, received the following advice from a friend : " When you are racing with an opposition steamboat, or chasing her, and the other passengers are cheering the captain, who is sitting on the safety-valve to keep it down with his weight, go as far as you can from the engine, and lose no time, especially if you hear the captain exclaim, ' Fire up, boys ! put on the resin!' Sh'attld a servant call out, ' Those gentlemen who have not paid their passage will please to go to the la- dies' cabin,' obey the summons without a moment's delay, for then an explosion may be apprehended. ' Why to the ladies' cabin ? ' said I. Because it is the safe end of the boat, and they are getting anxious for the personal security of those who have not yet paid their dollars, being of course, indifferent about the rest. Therefore never pay in advance; for should you fall overboard during a race, and the watch cries out to the captain, ' A passenger overboan?,' he will ask, 'Has he paid his passage?' and if he receives an answer in the affirmative, he will call out ' Go ahead ! ' " what's in a syllable? Longfellow, the poet, was introduced to one Longworth, and some one noticed the similarity of the first syllable of the names. " Yes," said the poet, " but in this case I fear Pope's line will apply — ' Worth makes the man, the want of it the felloiu.' " ACCOMMODATING PEINCIPLES. In one of Sir Robert Walpole's letters, lie gives a very instructive picture of a skilful minister and a condescending Par- liament. " My dear friend," writes Sir Robert, " there is scarcely a member whose purse I do not know to a sixpence, and whose very soul almost I could not purchase at the offer. The reason former ministers have been deceived in this mat- ter is evident — they never considered the temper of the people they had to deal with. I have known a minister so weak as to offer an avaricious old rascal a star and garter, and attempt to bribe a young rogue, who set no value upon money, with a lucrative employment. I pursue methods as opposite as the poles, and therefore my administration has been at- tended with a different effect." " Patriots," says Walpole, " sprung up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them within lour-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreason- able or insolent demand, and up starts a patriot." UNWELCOME AGEEEMENT. A pompous parish clergyman felt his dignity mightily offended by a chubby- faced lad who was passing him without moving his hat. " Do you know who I 208 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. am, sir, that yoA pass me in that unman- nerly way? You are better fed than taught, sir." "Whew, may be it is so, measter, for you teaches me, but I feed myself." A READY EECKONEB. A. man entered a shop, saying he should like a twopenny loaf, which was accord- ingly placed before him. As if suddenly changing his mind, he declared he should prefer two pen'orth of whisky instead. This he drank off, and pushing the loaf towards the shopkeeper, was departing, when demand of payment was made for the whisky. " Sure, and haven't I given ye the loaf for the whisky ? " " Well, but you did not pay for the loaf, you know. " " Thrue, and why should I ? don't you see, I didn't take the loaf, man alive ! " And away he quietly walked, leaving the worthy dealer lost in a brown study. A EOYAL MUFF. The following anecdote was told with great glee at a dinner, by William IV., then Duke of Clarence : — "I was riding in the Park the other day, on the road between Teddington and Hampton-wick, when I was overtaken by a butcher's boy, on horseback, with a tray of meat under his arm. ' Nice pony that of yours, old gentleman,' said he. 'Pretty fair,' was my reply. 'Mine's a good 'un too,' rejoined he ; ' and I'll trot you to Hamp- ton-wick for a pot o' beer.' I declined the match ; and the butcher's boy, as he stuck his single spur into his horse's side, exclaimed, with a look of contempt, 'I thought you were only a muff 1 ' " PAINTING. A gentleman seeing a fine painting representing a man playing on the lute, paid this high compliment to the artist, " When I look at that painting I think myself deaf." GENERAL WOLEE. General Wolfe invited a Scotch officer to dine with him : the same day he was also invited by some brother officers. " You must excuse me," said he to them ; "I am already engaged to Wolfe." A smart young ensign observed, he might as well have expressed himself with more respect and said General Wolfe. "Sir," said the Scotch oificer, with great promp- titude, "we never say General Alex ander, or General Caesar." Wolfe, who was within hearing, by a low bow to the Scotch officer, acknowledged the pleasure he felt at the high compliment. NOISE FOE NOTHING. When Thomas Sheridan was in a nervous, debilitated state, and dining with his father at Peter Moore's, the servant in passing by the fire-place, knocked down the plate-warmer, and made such a clatter as caused the invalid to start and tremble. Moore, provoked by the accident, rebuked the man, and added, "I suppose you have broken all the plates? " '''No, sir," said the servant, "not one I" "Not one!" exclaimed Sheridan, "then hang it, sir, you have made all that noise/or nothing I " HOW TO MAKE A MAN OF CONSEQUENCE. A brow austere, a circumspective eye, A frequent shrug of the os humeri. A nod significant, a stately gait, A blustering manner, and a tone of weight, A smile sarcastic, an expressive stare, — Adopt all these, as time and place will bear ; Then rest assur'd that those of little sense Will deem you sure a man of consegwnce. A MECHANICAL SUEGEON. A valiant sailor, who had lost his leg formerly in the wars, was nevertheless, for his great prudence and courage, made captain of a ship; and being in the midst of an engagement, a cannon ball took off his wooden supporter, so diat he fell down. The seamen immediately called out for a surgeon. " Confound you all," said he, " no surgeon, no surgeon, — a car- penter! a carpenter!" CANINE POETRY. A pretty little dog had written on its collar the following distich : — " This collar don't belong to you, sir, Pass on — or you may have one too, sir." The same person might have been the proprietor of another dog, upon whose collar was inscribed : — ■ " I am Tom Draper's dog. Whose dog are you?" FULL INSIDE. Charles Lamb, one afternoon, in re- turning from a dinner-party, took his seat in a crowded omnibus, when a stout gen- tleman subsequently looked in, and po- litely asked, '* All full inside?" " I don't know how it may be, sir, with the other MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 209 passengers," answered Lamb, "but that last piece of oyster-pie did the business for me." A SHORT JOURNEY. An old clergyman one Sunday, at the close of the sermon, gave notice to the congregation that in the course of the week he expected to go on a mission to the heathen. One of his parishioners, in great agitation, exclaimed, " Why, my dear sir, you have never told us one word of this before ; what shall we do?" "Oh, brother," said the parson, "I don't expect to go out of this town." VALUE OF APPLAUSE. Some one remarked to Mrs. Siddons that applause was necessary to actors, as it gave them confidence. "More," replied the actress; "it gives us breath." DRINKING ALONE. The author of the " Parson's Daugh- ter, " when surprised one evening in his arm-chair, two or three hours after din- ner, is reported to have apologized by saying, "When one is alone, the bottle does come round so often. " On a similar occasion. Sir Hercules Langreish, on being asked, " Have you finished all that port (three bottles) without assistance ? " answered, "No — not quite that — I had the assistance of a bottle of Madeira. " REFORMATION. Judge Burnet, son of the famous Bishop of Salisbury, when young, is said to have been of a wild and dissipated turn. Being one day found by the bishop in a very serious humor, " What is the matter with you, Tom ? " said he, " what are you ruminating on ? " "A greater work than your lordship's History of the Ref- ormation," answered the son. " Ay I what is that ?" said the bishop. "The refor- mation of myself, my lord," answered the son. EXTRAORDINARY COMPROMISE. At Durham assize, a deaf old lady, who had brought an action for damages against a neighbor, was being examined, when the judge suggested a compromise, and instructed counsel to ask what she would take to settle the matter. " His lordship wants to know what you will take ? " asked the learned counsel, bawling as loud as ever he could in the old lady's ear. "I thank his lordship kindly," answered the ancient dame ; and if it's VOL. IV. — W. H. not ill convenience to him, I'll take a little warm ale I " IMPROMPTU BY R. B. SHERIDAN. Lord Erskine having once asserted, in the presence of Lady Erskine and Mr. Sheridan, that a wife was only a tin canis- ter tied to one's tail, Sheridan at once presented her these lines — Lord Erskine at woman presuming to rail, Calls a wife ' ' a tin canister tied to one's tail ; ' And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on. Seems hurt at his lordship's degrading com- parison. But wherefore "degrading?" Considered aright, A canister's useful, and polished and bright; And should dirt its original purity hide, 'Tis the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied. NOTIONS OF HAPPINESS. "Were I but a king," said a country boy, " I would eat my fill of fat bacon, and svAng upon a gate all day long." KNOWING BEST. " I wish, reverend father,'' said Curran to Father O'Leary, " that you were St. Peter, and had the keys of heaven, be- cause then you could let me in." " By my honor and conscience," replied O'Leary, " it would be better for you that I had the keys of the other place, for then I could let you out." FEW FRIENDS. A nobleman, extremely rich, but a miser, stopping to change horses at Ath- lone, the carriage was surrounded by paupers, imploring alms, to whom he turned a deaf ear, and drew up the glass. A ragged old woman, going round to the other side of the carriage, bawled out, in the old peer's hearing, " Please you, my lord, just chuck one tinpenny out of your coach, and I'll answer it will trait all your friends in Athlone." " ESSAY ON MAN. " At ten, a child ; at twenty, wild ; At thirty, tame, if ever ; At forty, wise ; at fifty, rich ; At sixty, good, or never ! A CLOSE ESCAPE. One of James Smith's favorite anec- dotes related to Colonel Greville. The Colonel requested young James to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. 14 210 MAEK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. He was taken prisoner during the Ameri- can war, along with three other officers of the same rank ; one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washing- ton, who announced to them that the con- duct of their Government, in condemning one of his officers to death, as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals ; and, that, much to his regret, he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots, without delay, to decide which of them should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, " I knew how it would be ; I never won so much as a hit at backgammon in my life. " As Greville was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, " And what, " inquired Smith, " did you say to comfort him ? " " Why, I remem- ber saying to him, when they left us, ' D — it, old fellow, never mind ! ' " But it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhorta- tion. Lady Asgill persuaded the French Minister to interpose, and the Captain was permitted to escape. A MODERN SCULPTOR. Brown and Smith were met by an over- dressed individual. " Do you know that chap. Smith ? " said Brown. " Yes, I know him ; that is, I know of him — he's a sculptor." "Such a fellow as that a sculptor I surely you must be mistaken." " He may not be the kind of one you mean, but I know that he chiselled a tailor — out of a suit of clothes last week." THE GOtTTY SHOE. James Smith used to tell, with great glee, a story showing the general convic- tion of his dislike to ruralities. He was sitting in the library at a country-house, when a gentleman proposed a quiet stroll in the pleasure-grounds. " Stroll ! why don't you see my gouty shoe ? " " Yes, I see that plain enough, and I wish I'd brought one too ; but they are all out now." "Well, and what then?" " What then ? why, my dear fellow, you don't mean to say that you have really got the gout ? I thought you had only put on that shoe to get off being shown over the improvements." A COMEDIAN AND A LAWYER. A few years ago, when Billy Burton, the American actor, was in his " trouble, " a young lawyer was examining him as to hov^ he had spent his money. There were about three thousand pounds unaccounted for, when the attorney, put on a severe, scrutinizing face, and exclaimed, with much self-complacency, — " Now, sir, I want you to tell this court and jury how you used those three thousand pounds ? " Burton put on one of his serio-comic faces, winked at the audience, and ex- claimed, " The lawyers got that!" The judge and audience were convulsed with laughter. The counsellor was glad to let the comedian go. NOTHING PERSONAL. At a dinner-party one day a certain knight, whose character was considered to be not altogether unexceptionable, said he would give them a toast ; and looking hard in the face of Mrs. M , who was more celebrated for wit than beauty, gave " Honest men an' bonny lasses ! " " With all my heart. Sir John, " said Mrs. M -, " for it neither applies to you nor me." A MISTAKE. Old Dick Baldwin stoutly maintained that no man ever died of drinking. " Some puny things," he said, "have died of learning to drink, but no man ever died of drinking." Mr. Baldwin was no mean authority ; for he spoke from great prac- tical experience, and, was, moreover, many years treasurer of St. Bartholomew's Hos- pital. THE HUMANE SOCIETY AT AN EYENING PARTY. At an evening party, a very elderly lady was dancing with a young partner. A stranger approached Jerrold, who was looking on, and said — " Pray, sir, can you tell me who is the young gentleman dancing with that very elderly lady ? " " One of the Humane Society, I should think," replied Jerrold. SENT HOME FREE. A very considerate hotel-keeper, adver- tising his " Burton XXXX, " concludes the advertisement: — "N.B. Parties drinking more than four glasses of this potent beverage at one sitting, carefully sent home gratis in a wheelbarrow, if re- quired." MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 211 DAIRY FED. In one of the county courts recently, a woman was testifying on behalf of her son, and swore that he had worked on a farm ever since he was born. The lawyer who cross-examined her said, " You assert that your son has worked on a farm ever since he was born 1" "I do." "AVhat did he do the first year?" "He milked," she replied. The witness was questioned no further. WHOSE ? Sydney Smith being ill, his physician advised him to "take a walk upon an empty stomach." " Vponwhose ? " saidhe. WILL AND THE WAY. At a provincial Law Society's dinner, the president called upon the senior at- torney to give as a toast the person whom he considered the best friend of the profes- sion. " Certainly, " was the response. " The man who makes his own will." A RUNAWAY KNOCK. Douglas Jerrold describing a very dangerous illness from which he had just recovered, said — " Ay, sir, it was a run- away knock at Death's door, I can assure you." USE IS SECOND NATURE. A tailor that was ever accustomed to steal some of the cloth his customer brought, when he came one day to make himself a suit, stole half-a-yard. His wife perceiving it, asked the reason : " Oh," said he, " it is to keep my hands in use, lest at any time I should forget it" NOTHING TO LAUGH AT. When Lord Lauderdale intimated his intention to repeat some good thing Sheri- dan had mentioned to him, " Pray don't, my dear Lauderdale," said the wit ; " a joke in your mouth is no laughing mat- ter I" ONLY ENOUGH FOR ONE. Sheridan was once staying at the house of an elderly maiden lady in the country, who wanted more of his company than he was willing to give. Proposing one day to take a stroll with him, he excused him- self on account of the badness of the weather. Shortly afterwards she met him sneaking out alone. "So, Mr. Sheridan," said she, " it has cleared up." " Just a little, ma'am — enough for one, but not enough for two." A NEW READING. Kemble playing Hamlet in the country, the gentleman who acted Quildenstern was, or imagined himself to be, a capital musician. Hamlet asks him, " Will you play upon this pipe?" "My lord, I cannot." " I pray you." " Believe me, I cannot.'' " I do beseech you." " Well, if your lordship insists on it, I shall do as well as I can ; " and to the confusion of Hamlet, and the great amusement of the audience, he played " Godsave the King 1 " ACCURATE DESCRIPTION. A certain lawyer received a severe in- jury from something in the shape of a horsewhip. " Where were you hurt ? " said a medical friend ; " Was it near the vertebra ? " " No, no, " said the other ; "it was near the race-course." A TOLERABLY GOOD HINT. A young lawyer, boasting of his readi- ness to undertake the defence of any per- son accused of crime, declared he would as soon undertake the cause of a man whom he knew to be guilty as one whom he believed to be innocent. An aged Quaker being present, he appealed to him for the correctness of his views. " What say you to that, old gentleman?" "Why, I say, that if thee lived in my neighbor- hood I should keep my stable locked, that's all," replied the Quaker. LATE AND EARLY. The regular routine of clerkly business ill suited the literary tastes and the way- ward habits of Charles Lamb. Once, at the India House, a superior said to him, " I have remarked, Mr. Lamb, that you come very late to the office." " Yes, sir," replied the wit, "but you must remember that I go away early." The oddness of the excuse silenced the reprover. FAIR PLAY. Curran, who was a very small man, having a dispute with a brother counsel, (who was a very stout man), in which word? ran high on both sides, called him out. The other, however, objected. "You are so little, " said he, " that I might fire at you a dozen times without hitting, whereas, the chance is that you may shoot me at the first fire." " To convince you, " cried Curran, " I don't wish to take any advantage, you shall chalk my size upon your body, and all hits out of the ring shall go for nothing." 212 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. lincoln's-inn dinners. On the evening of the coronation-day of our gracious Queen, the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn gave the students a feed ; when a profane wag, in giving out a verse of the National Anthem, which he was solicited to lead in a solo, took that op- portunity of stating a grievance as to the modicum of port allowed, in manner and form following : " Happy and glorious '' — Three half-pints 'mong four of us, Heaven send no more of us, God save the Queen ! which ridiculous perversion of the author's meaning was received with a full chorus, amid tremendous shouts of laughter and applause. COOL RETORT. Henderson, the actor, was seldom known to be in a passion. When at Oxford, he was one day debating with a fellow-student, who, not keeping his tem- per, threw a glass of wine in the actor's face ; when Henderson took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and coolly said, " That sir, was a digression : now for the argument." A GOOD JOKE. A fire-eating Irishman challenged a barrister, who gratified him by an accept- ance. The duellist, being very lame, re- quested that he might have a prop. Suppose," said he, "I lean against this milestone ? " " With pleasure," replied the lawyer, " on condition that I may lean against the next." The joke settled the quarrel. MARRIAGE. In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. INDUSTRY AND PERSEVERANCE. A spendthrift said, " Five years ago I was not worth a farthing in the world ; now see where I am through my own ex- ertions." " Well, where are you ? " in- quired a neighbor. " Why, I now owe more than a thousand pounds ! " LAMB AND SHARP SAUCE. A retired cheesemonger, who hated any allusions to the business that had en- riched him, said to Charles Lamb, in course of discussion on the Poor-I^aws, " You must bear in mind, sir, that I have got rid of that sort of stuff which you poets call the 'milk of human kindness.' " Lamb looked at him steadily, and replied, " Yes, I am aware of that — you turned it all into cheese several years ago ! " AN irishman's PLEA. " Are you guilty or not guilty ? " asked the clerk of arraigns of a prisoner the other day. "An' sure now," said Pat, " what are you put there for but to find that out?" HARD OF DIGESTION. Quin had been dining, and his host ex- pressed his regret that he could offer no more wine, as he had lost the key of his wine-cellar. While the coffee was get- ting ready the host showed his guest some natural curiosities, and among the rest an ostrich. " Do you know, sir, that this bird has one very remarkable property — he will swallow iron ? " " Then, very likely," said Quin, "he has swallowed the key of your wine-cellar ! " sailor's WEDDING. A jack-tar just returned from sea, de- termined to commit matrimony; but at the altar the parson demurred, as there was not cash enough between them to pay the fees : on which Jack, thrusting a few shillings into the sleeve of his cas- sock, exclaimed, " Never mind, brother, marry us sta far as it will go." QUID PRO QUO. Smith and Brown, running opposite ways round a corner, struck each other. " Oh dear ! " says Smith, " how you made my head ring ! " " That's a sign it's hollow," said Brown. "Didn't yours rinc/? " said Smith. "No," said Brown. " That's a sign it's cracked," replied his friend. ENCOURAGEMENT. A young counsel commenced his stam- mering speech with the remark, "The unfortunate client who appears by me — " and then he came to a foil stop ; begin- ning again, after an embarrassed pause, with a repetition of the remark, " My unfortunate client — ." He did not find his fluency of speech quickened by the calm raillery of the judge, who inter- posed, in his softest tone, " Pray go on, so far the court is quite with you." A SHORT CREED. A sceptical man, conversing with Dr. Parr, observed that he would believe nothing that he did not understand. Dr. MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 213 Parr replied, '' Then, young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I know." SMART REPLY. Some schoolboys meeting a poor wo- man driving asses, one of them said to her, ''Good morning, mother of asses." "Good morning, my child," was the reply. CALUMNY. George the Third once said to Sir J. Irwin, a famous bon-vivant, "They tell me. Sir John, you love a glass of wine." " Those, sire, who have so reported me to your Majesty," answered he, bowing pro- foundly, " do me great injustice ; they should have said — a bottle 1 " A REVERSE JOKE. A soldier passing through a meadow, a large mastiff ran at him, and he stabbed the dog with a bayonet. The master of the dog asked him why he had not rather struck the dog with the butt-end of his weapon ? " So I should," said the sol- dier, " if he had run at me with his tail!" SYDNEY smith's RECEIPT FOR SALAD. To make this condiment your poet begs The pounded yellow of two hard-boil'd eggs; Two boil'd potatoes, passed through kit- chen-sieve. Smoothness and softness to the salad give; Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, half-suspected, animate the whole. Of mordant mustard add a single spoon, Distrust the condiment that bites too soon ; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, To add a double quantity of salt. And, lastly, o'er the flavor'd compound toss A magic soup-spoon of anchovy sauce. Oh, green and glorious I — oh, herbaceous treat ! 'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat; Back to the world he'd turn his fleeting soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad-bowl ! Serenely ftill, the epicure would say, " Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to- day 1 " SYDNEY SMITH SOPORIFIC. A lady complaining to Sydney Smith that she could not sleep^ — " 1 can furnish you," he said, " with a perfect soporific. I have published two volumes of Sermons ; take them up to bed with you. I recom- mended them once to Blanco White, and before the third page — hewas fotstaskepi" GOOD AT A PINCH. A severe snow-storm in the Highlands, which lasted for several weeks, having stopped all communication betwixt neigh- boring hamlets, snuff-takers were reduced to their last pinch. Borrowing and beg- ging from all the neighbors within reach were resorted to, but this soon failed, and all were alike reduced to the extremity which unwillingly abstinent snuffers alone know. The minister of the parish was amongst the unhappy number ; the ' craving was so intense that study was out of the question. As a last resort, the beadle was despatched, through the snow, to a neighboring glen in the hope of get- ting a supply ; but he came back as un- successful as he went. " What's to be dune, John ? " was the minister's pathetic inquiry. John shook his head, aa much as to say that he could not tell ; but im- mediately thereafter started up, as if a new idea had occurred to him. He came back in a few minutes, crying, " Hae." The minister, too eager to be scrutinizing, took a long, deep pinch, and then said, " Whaur did you get it ? " " I soupit i the poupit," was John's expressive reply. The minister's accumulated superfluous Sabbath suns' now came into good use. WILKES'S READY REPLY. Luttrell and Wilkes were standing on the Brentford hustings, when Wilkes asked his adversary, privately, whether he thought there were more fools or rogues among the multitude of Wilkites spread out before them. " I'll tell them what you say, and put an end to you," said the Colonel. But, perceiving the threat gave Wilkes no alarm, he added, " Surely you don't mean to say you could stand here one hour after I did so?" " Why (the answer was), you would not be alive one instant after." "How so?" " I should merely say it was a lie, and they'd tear you to pieces in a moment." ON ROGERS THE POET, "WHO WAS EGO- TISTICAL. So well deserved is Rogers' fame, > Swept. 214 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. That friends, who hear him most, advise The egotist to change his name To " Argus," with his hundred I's I A POSER. In a Chancery suit one of the counsel, describing the boundaries of his client's land, said, in showing the plan of it, " We lie on this side, my lord." The opposite counsel then said, " And we lie on that side." The Chancellor, with a good- humored grin, observed, " If you lie on both sides, whom will you have me be- lieve?" A QUIET DOSE. A mean fellow, thinking to get an opinion of his health gratis, asked a .medical acquaintance what he should take for such a compLaint? "I'll tell you," said the doctor, sarcastically, " you should take advice." AURICULAE CONFESSION. A cunning juryman, addressing the clerk of the court when administering the oath, saying, " Speak up ; I cannot hear what you say." "Stop ! are you deaf? " asked Baron Alderson. "Yes, of one ear." " Then you may leave the box, for it is necessary that jurymen should hear both sides." A DRY FELLOW. " Well, Will," said an Earl one day to Will Speir, seeing the latter finishing his dinner, " have you had a good dinner to- day ? " (Will had been grumbling some time before.) " Ou, vera gude," answered Will ; " but gin onybody asks if I got a dram after' t, what will I say ? " GOOD EVIDENCE. " Did you ever see Mr. Murdock return oats ? " inquired the counsel, " Yes, your honor," was the reply. "On what ground did he reflise them ? " was next asked by the learned counsel. " In the back-yard" said Teddy, amidst the laughter of the court. EPIGRAM BY AARON HILL. Tender handed stroke a nettle. And it stings you for your pains ; Grasp it as a man of mettle. And it soft as silk remains. 'Tis the same with common natures — Use them kindly, they rebel : But be rough as nutmeg-graters, And the rogues will use you well. ON A PALE LADY. Whence comes it that, in Clara's face. The lily only has a place ? Is it that the absent rose Is gone to paint her husband's rwse f IN THE BACKGROUND. An Irishman once ordered a painter t« draw his picture, and to represent him standing behind a tree. IN WANT OF A HUSBAND. A young lady was told by a married lady that she had better precipitate her- self from off the rocks of the Passaic falls into the basin beneath than marry. The young lady replied, " I would, if I thought I should find a husband at the bottom." THE REASON WHY. Foote was once asked why learned men are to be found in rich men's houses, and rich men never to be seen in those of the learned. " Why," said he, " the first know what they want, but the latter do not." BARK AND BITE. • Lord Clare, who was very much op- posed to Curran, one day brought a New- foundland dog upon the bench, and dur- ing Curran's speech turned himself aside and caressed the animal. Curran stopped. " Go on, go on, Mr. Curran," said Lord Clare. " O, I beg a thousand pardons," was the rejoinder ; " I really thought your lordship was employed in considta- tion." A PRESSING REASON. A tailor sent his bill to a lawyer for money ; the lawyer bid the boy tell his master that he was not running away, but very busy at that time. The boy comes again, and tells him he must have the money. " Did you not tell your master," said the lawyer, " that I was not running away ? " " Yes, sir," answered the boy, " hut he bade me tell you that he was." SMALL WIT. Sir George Beaumont once met Quin at a small dinner-party. There was a de- licious pudding, which the master of the house, pushing the dish towards Quin, begged him to taste. A gentleman had just before helped himself to an immense piece of it. " Pray," said Quin, looking first at the gentleman's plate and then at the dish, " which is the pudding?" MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 215 THROW PHYSIC TO THE DOGS. When the celebrated Beau Nash was ill, Dr. Cheyne wrote a prescription for him. The next day the doctor, coming to see his patient, inquired if he had fol- lowed his prescription. " No, truly, doc- tor," said Nash ; "if I had I should have broken my neck, for I threw it out of a two-pair-of-stairs window." TOO GOOD. A physician, much attached to his pro- fession, during his attendance on a man ofletters, observing that the patient was very punctual in taking all his medicines, exclaimed in the pride of his heart : "Ah ! my dear sir, you deserve to be ill." A COMPAEISON. " I never knew anything so bad as the short weight you give me for my'money," said a debtor to his grocer. " Only the long wait you give me for mine," was the reply. JAMES SMITH AND JUSTICE HOLEOYD. Formerly, it was customary, in emer- gencies, for the Judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was de- sired by his father to attend a Judge's chambers for that purpose ; but being en- gaged to dine in Eussell Square, at the next house to Mr. Justice Holroyd's, he thought he might as well save himself the disagreeable necessity of leaving the party at eight, by despatching his Dusi- ness at once ; so, a few minutes before six, he boldly knocked at the Judge's, and re- quested to speak to him on particular business. The Judge was at dinner, but came down without delay, swore the affi- davit, and then gravely asked what was the pressing necessity that induced our friend to disturb him at that hour. As Smith told his story, he raked his inven- tion for a lie, but finding none fit for the purpose, he blurted out the truth : — " The fact is, my Lord, I am engaged to dine at the next house — and — and " " And, sir, you thought you might as well save your own dinner by spoiling mine ? " " Exactly so, my Lord ; but " " Sir, I wish you a good evening." Though Smith brazened the matter out, he said he never was more frightened. A GOOD INVESTMENT. An English journal lately contained the following announcement : — " To he sold, one hundred and thirty lawsuits, the property of an attorney retiring from business. N.B. — The clients are rich and obstinate." NOT IMPOETUNATE. Mrs. Robison (widow of the eminent professor of natural philosophy) having invited a gentleman to dinner on a par- ticular day, he had accepted, with the reservation, " If I am spared." " Weel, weel," said Mrs. Eobison, " if ye're dead, I'll no' expect ye." ENVY. A drunken man was found in the sub- urbs of Dublin, lying on his face by the roadside, apparently in a state of physi- cal unconsciousness. "He is dead," said a countryman of his, who was looking at him. " Dead ! " replied another, who had turned him with his face uppermost ; " by the powers, I wish I had just half his complaint ! " — in other words, a moiety of the whisky he had drunk. A SEASONABLE REFUSAL. At the time of expected invasion at the beginning of the century, some of the town magistrates called upon an old maiden lady of Montrose, and solicited her subscription to raise men for the ser- vice of the King. " Indeed," she an- swered right sturdily, "I'll do nae sic thing ; I never could raise a man ybr my- seV, and I'm no gaun to raise men for King Greorge." VALUE OF NOTHING. Porson one day sent his gyp with a note to a certain Cantab, requesting him to find the value of nothing. Next day he met his friend walking, and stopping him, desired to know, " Whether he had succeeded?" His friend answered — "Yes I" "And what may it be? "asked Porson. " Sixpence ! " replied the Can- tab, " which I gave the man for bringing the note." MIND YOUE POINTS. A writer, in describing the last scene of "Othello," had this exquisite passage: — " Upon which the Moor, seizing a bol- ster full of rage and jealousy, smothers her." NOSCE TE IPSUM. Sheridan was one day much annoyed by a fellow-member of the House of Com- mons, who kept crying out every few minutes, " Hear I hear 1 " During the 21« MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. debate he took occasion to des^Tibe a political contemporary that wished to play rogue, but had only sense enough to act fool. " Where," exclaimed he, with great emphasis — " where shall we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish fool than he ? " " Hear ! hear 1 " was shouted by the troublesome member. Sheridan turned round, and, thanking him for the prompt information, sat down amid a gen- eral roar of laughter. HENEY EKSKINE. The late Hon. Henry Erskine met his acquaintance, Jemmy Ba — four, a barris- ter, who dealt in hard words and circum- locutious sentences. Perceiving that his ankle was tied up with a silk handker- chief, the former asked the cause. " Why, my dear sir," answered the wordy lawyer, " I was taking a romantic ramble in my brother's grounds, when, coming to a gate, I had to climb over it, by which I came in contact with the first bar, and have grazed the epidermis on my skin, attended with a slight extravasation of blood." " You may thank your lucky stars," replied Mr. Erskine, " that your brother's gate was not as lo/ti/ as your style, or you must have broken your neck." CONSTANCY. Curran, hearing that a stingy and slov- enly barrister had started for the Conti- nent with a shirt and a guinea, observed, " He'll not change either till he comes back." SPEAKING OF SAUSAGES. Mr. Smith passed a pork-shop the other day — Mr. Smith whistled. The moment he did this, every sausage "wagged its tail." As a note to this, we would men- tion that the day before he lost a New- foundland dog, that weighed sixty-eight pounds. BRINGING HIS MAN DGWN. Eogers used to relate this story : An Englishman and a Frenchman fought a duel in a darkened room. The English- man, unwilling to take his antagonist's life, generously fired up the chimney, and — brought down the Frenchman. "When I tell this story in France," pleasantly added the relator, " I make the Englishman go up the chimney." GRANDILOQUENCE. A boasting fellow was asked, " Pray, sir, what may your business be ? " " Oh,'' replied the boaster, " I am but a cork- cutter : but then it is in a very large way I " "Indeed ! " replied the other ; " then I presume you are a cutter of bungs! " LEGAL EXTRAVAGANCE. " Hurrah ! Hurrah I " cried a young lawyer, who had succeeded to his father's practice, " I've settled that old Chancery suit at last." " Settled it 1 " cried the astonished parent, " why I gave you that as an annuity for your life." VERY LIKELY. An English officer lost his leg at the battle of Vittoria, and after sufi'ering am- putation with the greatest courage, thus addressed his servant, who was crying, or pretending to cry, in one corner of the room : " None of your hypocritical tears, you idle dog ; you know you are very glad, for now you will have only one boot to clean instead of two." ORATORY. At the time when Sir Kichard Steele was preparing his great room in York Buildings for public orations, he was be- hindhand in payments to the workmen ; and coming one day among them, to see what progress they made, he ordered the carpenter to get into the rostrum, and speak anything that came uppermost, that he might observe how it could be heard. " Why then. Sir Eichard," says the fellow, " here we have been working for you these six months, and cannot get one penny of money. Pray, sir, when do you mean to pay us ? " " Very well, very well," said Sir Eichard ; " pray come down; I have heard quite enough; I cannot but own you speak very dis- tinctly, though I don't much admire your subject." CUTTING AN ACQUAINTANCE. George Selwyn, happening to be at Bath when it was nearly empty, was induced, for the mere purpose of killing time, to cultivate the acquaintance of an elderly gentleman he was in the habit of meeting at the Eooms. In the height of the fol- lowing season, Selwyn encountered his old associate in St. James's street. He endeavored to pass unnoticed, but in vain. " What I don't you recollect me?" ex- claimed the outtee. " I recollect you per- fectly," replied Selwyn; "and when I MAKK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 217 next go to Bath, I shall be most happy to become acquainted with you again." VEEY SHOCKING, IP TRUE. At a dinner-party, one of the giiests used his knife improperly in eating. At length a wag asked aloud : " Have you heard of poor L 's sad affair ? I met him at a party yesterday, when to our great horror, he suddenly took up the knife, and " " Good heavens ! " inter- posed one of the ladies ; " and did he cut his throat?" "Why, no," ansv/ered the relator, "he did not cut his throat with his knife ; but we all expected he would, for he actually jOM< it up to his mouth." THE ONE-SPTJR HORSEMAN. A student riding being jeered on the way for wearing but one spur, said that if one side of his horse went on, it was not likely that the other would stay behind. [This is, no doubt, the original of the well-known passage in Hudibras — " For Hudibras wore but one spur. As wisely knowing, could he «tir To active trot one side of 's horse," &c.] RATHER THE WORST HALF. On one occasion a lad, while at home for the holidays, complained to his mother that a schoolfellow who slept with him took up half the bed. "And why not? " said the mother ; " he's entitled to half, isn't he ? " " Yes, mother," rejoined the son ; " but how would you like to have him take out all the soft for his half? He will have his half out of the middle, and I have to sleep both sides of him I" AN INSURMOUNTABLE DIFFICULTY. The elder Booth, the tragedian, had a broken nose. A lady once remarked to him, "Hike your acting, Mr. Booth; but, to be frank with you — I can't get over your nose ! " " No wonder, madam," replied he, " the bridge is gone I " MAKING FREE. Formerly, members of Parliament had the privilege of franking letters sent by post. When this was so, a sender on one occasion applied to the post-office to know why some of his franked letters had been charged. He was told that the name on the letter did not appear to be in his hand-writing. " It was not," he replied, "precisely the same; but the truth is, I happened to be a little when I franked them.'' " Then, sir, will you be so good in future as to write drunk when you makeyree ? " PLAIN ENOUGH. A gentleman, praising the personal charms of a very plain woman in the presence of Foote, the latter said : "And why don't you lay claim to such an ac- complished beauty ? " " What right have I to her?" exclaimed the gentleman. "Every right by the law of nations," replied Foote ; " every right, as the first discoverer" WELL SAID. A gentleman speaking of the happi- ness of the married state before his daughter, disparagingly said, " She who marries, does well ; but she who does not marry, does better." " Well, then," said the young lady, " I will do well; let those who choose do better." SLEEPING AT CHURCH. Dr. South, when once preaching before Charles II., observed that the monarch and his attendants began to nod, and some of them soon after snored, on which he broke off in his sermon, and said : "Lord Lauderdale, let me entreat you to rouse yourself; you snore so loud that you will awake the King! " SHERIDAN CONVIVIAL. Lord Byron notes : — "What a wreck is Sheridan I and all from bad pilotage ; for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little squally. Poor dear Sherry ! I shall never forget the day he and Rogers, and Moore, and I passed to- gether, when he talked and we listened, without one yawn, from six to one in the morning." One night, Sheridan was found in the street by a watchman, bereft of that " di- vine particle of air " called reason, and fuddled, and bewildered, and almost in- sensible. He (the watchman) asked, "Who are you, sir ?" No answer. "What's your name?" A hiccup. "What's your name?" Answer, in a slow, deliberate and impassive tone, " Wilberibrce ! " By- ron notes : — " Is not that Sherry all over ? — and, to my mind, excellent. Poor fellow ! Ms very dregs are better thrn tht first sprightly runnings of others." THE WORSE OF TWO EVILS. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in King Charles II.'s time, was saying one day to 218 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. Sir Robert Viner, in a melancholy hu- mor : " I am afraid, Sir Robert, I shall die a beggar at last, which is the most terrible thing in the world." " Upon my word, my lord," said Sir Robert, " there is another thing more terrible which you have to apprehend, and that is that you will live a beggar, at the rate you go on." QUID PEO QUO. A worthy Roman Catholic clergyman, well known as " Priest Matheson," and universally respected in the district, had charge of a mission in Aberdeenshire, and for a long time made his journeys on a piebald pony, the priest and his " Pyet Shelty " sharing an aflfectionate recognition wherever they came. On one occasion, however, he made his ap- pearance on a steed of a different de- scription, and passing near a Seceding meeting-house, he forgathered with the minister, who, after the usual Icindly greetings, missing the familiar pony, said, " Ou, priest ! fat's come o' the auld Pyet?" "He's deid, minister." " Weel, he was an auld faithfu' servant, and ye wad nae doot gie him the offices o' the Church?" "Na, minister," said his friend, not quite liking this allusion to his priestly offices, " I didna dae that, for ye see he turned Seceder afore he deed, an' I buried him like a beast." He then rode quietly away. CEBDIT. Among the witty aphorisms upon this un- safe topic are Lord Alvanley's description of a man who " muddled away his fortune in paying his tradesmen's bills;" Lord Orford's definition of timber, "an excres- cence on the face of the earth, placed there by Providence for the payment of debts ; " and Pelham's argument, that it is respectable to he arrested, because it shows that the party once had credit. SEEING NOT BELIEVING. A lady's maid told her mistress that she once swallowed several pins together. " Dear me ! " said the lady, " didn't they hill you ? " bueke'8 tediousness. Though upon great occasions Burke was one of the most eloquent of men that ever sat in the British senate, he had in ordinary matters as much as any man the faculty oftiring his auditors. During the latter years of his life the failing gained so much upon him that he more than once dispersed the house, a circum- stance which procured him the nick-name of the Dinner-bell. A gentleman was one day going into the House, when he was surprised to meet a great number of people coming out in a body. " Is the House up?" said he; "No," answered one of the fugitives, "but Mr. Burke is up." quite at ease. Foote, the actor, was one day taken into White's Club House by a friend who wanted to write a note. Lord Carmarthen approached to speak to him ; but feeling rather shy, he merely said, " Mr. Foote, your handkerchief is hanging out of your pocket." Foote looking suspiciously round, and hurriedly thrusting the hand- kerchief back into his pocket, replied, " Thank you, my lord ; you know the com- pany better than I do." CHARLES, DUKE OF NOEEOLK. In cleanliness the Duke was negligent to so great a degree that he rarely made use of water for the purpose of bodily re- freshment and comfort. Nor did he change his linen more frequently than he washed himself. Complaining, one day to Dudley North, that he was a martyr to rheumatism, and had ineffec- tually tried every remedy for its relief, " Pray, my lord," said he, " did you ever try a clean shirt ? " CLEAEING EMIGEANTS. An Irish gentleman, resident in Canada, was desirous to persuade his sons to work as backwoodsmen, instead of drinking champagne at something more than a dollar a bottle. Whenever this old gentle- man saw his sons so engaged he used to exclaim, " Ah, my boys ! there goes an acre of land, trees and all." natuee and aet. A worthy English agriculturist visited , the great dinner-table of the Astor House Hotel, in New York, and took up the bill of fare. His eye caught up the names of its — ^to him — unknown dishes : " Soupe a la flamande" — "Soupe a la Creci" — " Langue de Bosuf piqufee " — " Pieds de Cochon a la Ste. M6nehould " — Pates de sanglier " — " Pates a la gelee de volailles" — " Les cannelons de creme glac6e." It was too much for his simple heart. Lay- MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 219 ing down the scarlet-bound volume in disgust, he cried to the waiter, " ilere, my good man, I shall go back to fint -prin- ciples ! Give us some beans and bacon I" THE SNTJPF-BOX. At a party in Portman Square, Brum- mel's snuff-box was particularly ad- mired ; it was handed round, and a gentle- man, finding it rather difficult to open, incautiously applied a dessert- knife to the lid. Poor Brummel was on thorns; at last he could not contain himself any longer, and addressing the host, said, with his characteristic quaintness, " Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster." TWO CAKKIAGES. Two ladies disputed for precedency, one the daughter of a wealthy brewer, the other the daughter of a gentle- man of small fortune. " You are to consider, miss," said the brewer's daughter, " that my papa keeps a coach." "Very true, miss," said the other, " and you are to consider that he likewise keeps a dray." A POECIBLE AEGTJMENT. That erudite Cantab, Bishop Burnett, preaching before Charles II., being much warmed with his subject, uttered some religious truth with great vehemence, and at the same time, striking his fist on the desk with great violence, cried out, " Who dare deny this ? " " Faith," said the king, in a tonemore^iano than that of the ora- tor, " nobody that is within the reach of thMfist of yours." ORTHOGRAPHY. The laird of M'N b was writing a letter from an Edinburgh coffee-house, when a friend observed that he was set- ting at defiance the laws of orthography and grammar. " I ken that weel eno' ! " exclaimed the Highland chieftain, " but how can a man write grammar with a pen like this?" STEALING ON CREDIT. A Kelt from the Western Highlands of Scotland was walking along the streets of the " auld toun " of Ayr one morning when a man was about to be executed for sheep-stealing. Donald's astonish- ment and disgust at the punishment was as profound as that of the enlightened public which led to its abolition, but its grounds and reasons were different. As he passed along with an ever-incrensiug crowd, and ignorant of its cause, he asked a man by his side, " Whar' are the folks gaun ? " " To see a man hang>ed." " They're hangin' a man, are they ? What are they hangin' him for? " " He's been stealing a sheep." " Stealin' a sheep ! silly body ! What for did he no buy the sheep and no pay for't?" MELODRAMATIC HIT. Burke's was a complete failure, when he at the end of a great speech against the tyranny of the government flung a dagger on the floor of the House of Com- mons, and produced nothing but a smothered laugh, and a joke from Sheri- dan, — " The gentleman has brought us the knife, but where is th^fork 9 " AN irishman's notion of discount. It chanced, one gloomy day in the month of December, that a good-hu- mored Irishman applied to a merchant to discount a bill of exchange for him at rather a long, though not an unusual date ; and the merchant having casually re- marked that the bill had a great many days to run. "That's true," replied the Irishman, "but consider how short the days are at this time of the year." SIR WALTER SCOTT'S PARRITCH-PAN. In the Museum at Abbotsford there is a small Roman patera, or goblet, in show- ing which Sir Walter Scott tells the fol- lowing story : " I purchased this (says he) at a nobleman's roup near by, at the enormous sum of twenty-five guineas. I would have got it for twenty-pence if an antiquary who knew its value had not been there and opposed me. However, I was almost consoled for the bitter price it cost by the amusement I derived from an old woman, who had evidently come from a distance to purchase some trifling culinary articles, and who had no taste for the antique. At every successive guinea which was bid for the patera this good old lady's mouth grew wider and wider with unsophisticated astonishment, until at last I heard her mutter to herself, in a tone which I shall never forget, — ' Five-an-twenty guineas ! If the parriich- pan gangs at that, what will the kail-pan gang for ?" doctor GLYNN'S RECEIPT FOR DRESS- ING CtrCUMBEE. Dr. Glynn, whose name is still remem- 220 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. bered in Cambridge, being one day in at- tendance on a lady, in the quality of her physician, took the liberty of lecturing her on the impropriety of eating cucumber, of which she was immoderately fond, and gave her the following humorous receipt for dressing them : — " Peel the cucum- ber," said the doctor, " with great care ; then cut it into very thin slices, pepper and salt it well, and then — throw it away." SEVERE REBUKE. Sir William B., being at a parish meet- ing, made some proposals which were ob- jected to by a farmer. Highly enraged, " Sir," said he to the farmer, "do you know that I have been at two universities, and at two colleges in each university?" " Well, sir," replied the farmer, " what of that? I had a calf that sucked two cows, and the observation I made was, the more he sucked the greater calf he grew." INADVEETENCE AND EPICURISM. When the Duke of Wellington was at Paris, as Commander of the Allied Ar- mies, he was invited to dine with Cam- baceres, one of the most distinguished statesmen and gourmets of the time of Na- poleon. In the course of dinner, his host having helped him to some particularly recherchi dish, expressed a hope that he found it agreeable. " Very good," said the Duke, who was probably reflecting on Waterloo ; " very good, but I really do not care what I eat." " Don't care what you eat ! " exclaimed Cambaceres, as he started back, and dropped his fork ; " what did you come here for, then ? " VERY TRUE. " All that is necessary for the enjoy- ment of sausages at breakfast is corifi- dence." A JEW'S EYE TO BUSINESS. A Jew, who was condemned to be hanged, was brought to the gallows, and just on the point of being turned off, when a reprieve arrived. When informed of this, it was expected he would instant- ly have quitted the cart, but he stayed to see a fellow-prisoner hanged ; and being asked why he did not get about his busi- ness, he said, "He waited to see if he could bargain with Mr. Ketch for the other gentleman's clothes." ST. PETER A BACHELOR. In the list of benefactors to Peter- House is Lady Mary Eamsay, who is re- ported to have offered a very large prop- erty, nearly equal to a new foundation to this college, on condition that the name should be changed to Peter and Mary's, but she was thwarted in her intention by Dr. Soame, then master. "Peter," said the crabbed humorist, " has been too long a bachelor to think of a female companion in his old days." TRUE OP BOTH. "I swear," said a gentleman to his mis- tress, " you are very handsome." " Pooh ! " said the lady, " so you would say if you did not think so." " And so would think," answered he, "though I should not say so." A POSER. A lecturer, wishing to explain to a lit- tle girl the manner in which a lobster casts his shell when he has outgrown it, said, " What do you do when you have outgrown your clothes ? You throw them aside, don't you?" "Oh, no!" replied the little one, " we let out the tucks ! " The doctor confessed she had the advan- tage of him there. VERY APPROPRIATE. A facetious old gentleman, who thought his two sons consumed too much time in hunting and shooting, styled them Nim- rod and Ramrod. A BAD JUDGE. Upon the occasion of the birth of the Princess Royal, the Duke of Wellington was in the act of leaving Buckingham Palace, when he met Lord Hill, in answer to whose inquiries about Her Majesty and her little stranger, his grace replied, "Very fine child, and very red, very red ; nearly as red as you. Hill 1 " — a jocose allusion to Lord Hill's claret com- plexion. WHITE HANDS. In a country market a lady, laying her hand upon a joint of veal, said, " Mr. Smallbone, I think this veal is not quite so white as usual." " Put on your gloves, madam," replied the butcher, "and you will think differently." The lady did so, and the veal was ordered home immedi- ately. SIR WALTER SCOTT AND CONSTABLE. Scott is known to have proiited much by Constable's bibliographical knov/ledge, MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 221 which was very extensive. The latter christened " Kenilworth," which Scott named " Cumnor Hall." John Ballen- tyne objected to the former title, and told Constable the result would be " something worthy of the kennel ; " but the result proved the reverse. Mr. Cadell relates that Constable's vanity boiled over so much at this time, on having his sugges- tions gone into, that, in his high moods, he used to stalk up and down his room, and exclaim, " By Jove, I am all but the author of the Waverley Novels ! " TEXTE PHILOSOPHY. Le Sage, the author of Gil Bias, said, to console himself for his deafness, with his usual humor, " When I go into a company where I find a great number of blockheads and babblers, I replace my trumpet in my pocket, and cry, " Now, gentlemen, / de/y you all." A DEADLY ■WEAPON. "Well, sir," asked a noisy disputant, " don't you think that I have mauled my antagonist to some purpose ? " " O yes," replied a listener, " you have, and if ever I should happen to fight with the Philis- tines, I'll borrow your jaw-bone." EQUALITY OF THE LAW. A man was convicted of bigamy, and the annexed conversation took place. Clerk of Assize : " What have you to say why judgment should not be passed upon you according to law?" Prisoner: " Well, my Lord, my wife took up with a hawker, aud run away five years ago, and Pve never seen her since, and I married this other woman last winter." Mr. Jus- tice Ivlaule : " I will tell you what you ought to have done ; and if you say you did not know, I must tell you the law conclusively presumes that you did. You ought to have instructed your attorney to bring an action against the hawker for criminal conversation with your wife. That would have cost you about £100. When you had recovered substantial dam- ages against the hawker, you would have instructed your proctor to sue in the Ec- clesiastical Courts for a divorce a mensa atgue thoro. That would have cost you £200 or £300 more. When you had ob- tained a divorce a mensa aique thoro, you would have had to appear by counsel be- fore the House of Lords for a divorce a vinculo matrimonii. The bill might have been opposed in all its stages in both houses of Parliament ; and altogether you would have had to spend about £1000 or £1200. You will probably tell me that you never had a thousand farthings of your own in the world ; but, prisoner, that makes no difierence. Sitting here as a British judge, it is my duty to tell you that this is not a country in which there is one law for the rich and another for the poor." QUITE PROFESSIONAL. A comedian, who had been almost lifted from his feet by the pressure at the funeral of a celebrated tragedian, ultimately reached the church-door. Having recovered his breath, which had been suspended in the eflFort, he ex- claimed — " And so this is the last we shall ever see of him. Poor fellow I he has drawn a full house, though, to the end." EQUITABLE LAW. A rich man made his will, leaving all he had to a company of fellow-citizens to dispose of, but reserving to his right heir " such a portion as pleased them." The heir having sued the company for his share of the property, the judge in- quired whether they wished to carry out the will of the testator, and if so, what provision they proposed making for the heir ? " He shall have a tenth part," said they, " and we will retain for our- selves the other nine." " Take, then," said the judge, " the tenth part to your- selves, and leave the rest to the heir; for by the will he is to have what part 'pleaseth you.' " IRISH AND SCOTCH LOYALTY. When George the Fourth went to Ireland, one of the "pisintry" said to the toll-keeper as the king passed through, "Och, now! an' his majesty never paid the turnpike, an' how's that? " " Oh ! kings never does ; we lets 'em go free," was the answer. " Then there's the dirty money for ye," says Pat ; " it shall never be said that the king came here, and found nobody to pay the turn- pike for him." Tom Moore told this story to Sir Walter Scott, when they were comparing notes as to the two royal visits. "Now, Moore," replied Scott, " there ye have just the advantage of us : there was no want of enthusiasm here ; the Scotch folks would have done any- thing in the world for his majesty, ex- cept ^ay the turnpike." 222 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. SCOTCHMAN AND HIGHWAYMEN. A Scotch, pedestrian, attacked by- three highwaymen, defended himself with great courage, but was at last over- powered, and his pockets rifled. The robbers expected, from the extraordinary resistance they had experienced, to find a rich booty ; but were surprised to dis- cover that the whole treasure which the sturdy Caledonian had been defending at the hazard of his life, was only a crooked sixpence. " The deuce is in him," said one of the rogues : " if he had had eigliteen-pence I suppose he would have hilled the whole of us." lEISH IMPRUDENCE. In the year 1797, when democratic notions ran high, the king's coach was attacked as his Majesty was going to the House of Peers. A gigantic Hibernian, who was conspicuously loyal in repelling the mob, attracted the attention of the king. Not long after, the Irishman re- ceived a message from Mr. Dundas to attend at his office. He went, and met with a gracious reception from the great man, who praised his loyalty and courage, and desired him to point out any way in which he would wish to be advanced, his Majesty being desirous to reward him. Pat hesitated a moment, and then smirk- ingly said, " I'll tell you what, mister, make a Scotchman of me, and, by St. Patrick, there'll be no fear of my gettin' on." The minister, dumb-founded for the moment by the mal-apropoi hit, replied, " Make a Scotchman of you, Sir, that's impossible, for I can't give yon prudence." THE SAFE SIDE. During the riots of 1780 most persons in London, in order to save their houses from being burnt or pulled down, wrote on their doors, " JVo Popery ! " Old Gri- maldi, the father of the celebrated " Joey," to avoid all mistakes, wrote on his, " No Religion I '' FAIRLY WON. The only practical joke in which Rich- ard Harris Barhnm (better known by his nom-de-plume of Thomas Ingoldsby) ever personally engaged was enacted when he was a boy at Canterbury. In com- pany with a schoolfellow, D , now a gallant major, he entered a Quaker's meeting-house; when, looking round at the grave assembly, the latter held up a penny tart, and said solemnly, " Who- ever speaks first shall have this pie." " Go thy way, boy.s," said a drab-colored gentleman, rising; "'go thy way, and ." " The pie's yours, sir ! " exclaim- ed D , placing it before the astounded speaker, and hastily effecting his escape. A FORTUNATE EXPEDIENT. A gentleman of Trinity College, travel- ing through France, was annoyed at the slowness of the pace, and wishing to urge the postilion to greater speed, tried his bad French until he was out of patience. At last it occurred to him that, if he waa not understood, he might at least frighten the fellow by using some high-sounding words, and he roared into the ear of the postilion : " Westniorela?id, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham ! " which the fellow mistaking for some tremendous threat, had the desired effect, and induced him to increase his speed. ON THE FOUR GEORGES. George the First was ahvays reckon'd Vile — but viler George the Second ; And what mortal ever heard Any good of George the Third ? When from earth the Fourth descended, God be praised, the Georges ended. WHAT EVERYBODY DOES. Hopkins once lent Simpson, his next- door neighbor, an umbrella, and having an urgent call to make on a wet day, knocked at Simpson's door. " I want my umbrella." " Can't have it," said Simp- son. "Why? I want to go to the East End, and it rains in torrents ; what am I to do for an umbrella ? " " Do ? " answered Simpson, passing through the door, " do as /did, borrow one / " NEIGHBORLY POLITENESS. Sir Godfrey Kneller and Dr. Ratcliffe lived next door to each other, and were extremely intimate. Kneller had a very fine garden, and as the doctor was fond of flowers, he permitted him to have a door into it. Ratcliffe's servants gather- ing and destroying the flov/ers, Kneller sent to inform him that he would nail up the door; to which Ratcliffe, in his rough manner, replied, "Tell him, he may do anything but paint it." " "Well," reolied Kneller, "he may say what he will, for tell him, I will take anything from him, except physic. MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 223 A SYLLABIC DIFFERENCE. Gibbon, the historian, was one day at- tending the trial of Warren Hastings in Westminster Hall, and Sheridan, having perceived him there, took occasion to mention " the luminous author of The Decline and Fall." After he had finish- ed one of his friends reproached him with flattering Gibbon. " Why, what did I say of him ? " asked Sheridan. " You called him the luminous author." " Luminous ! Oh, I meant tioluminous I " ABOVE PROOF. An East-India Governor, having died abroad, his body was put in arrack, to preserve it for interment in England. A sailor on board the ship being frequently drunk, the captain forbade the purser, and indeed all in the ship, to let him have any liquor. Shortly after the fel- low appeared very drunk. How he ob- tained the liquor no one could guess. The captain resolved to find out, promising to forgive him if he would tell from whom he got the liquor. After some hesitation he hiccupped out, " Why, please your honor, I tapped the Governor." MISS WILBEEFOECE. When Mr. Wilberforce was a candi- date for Hull, his sister, an amiable and witty young lady, offered the compliment of a new gown to each of the wives of those freemen who voted for her brother, on which she was saluted with a cry of " Miss Wilberforce forever I " when she pleasantly observed, " I thank you, gen- tlemen, but I cannot agree with you ; for really, I do not wish to be Miss Wilber- force forever ! " AN UNANSWERABLE ARGUMENT. A well-fed rector was advising a poor, starving laborer to trust to Providence, and be satisfied with his lot. " Ah ! " replied the needy man, " I should be sat- isfied with a lot if I had it, but I can't get even a little." SOMETHING TO POCKET. A diminutive lawyer appearing as witness in one of the Courts, was asked by a gigantic counselor what profession he was of; and having replied that he was an attorney — "You a lawyer! '" said Brief; "why I could put you in my pocket." " Very likely you may," re- joined the other ; " and if you do, you will have more law in your pocket than ever you had in your head." AN EASY WAY. A person deeply in debt was walking through the streets in a melancholy way, when a friend asked him the cause of his sadness. " I owe money and cannot pay it," said the man, in a tone of extreme dejection. " Can't you leave all the uneasi- ness to your creditors? " replied the other. " Is it not enough that one should be sorry for what neither of you can help f " BLESSING THE BULK. Dr. Franklin, when a child, found the long graces said by his father irksome. One day, after the winter's provisions had been salted, he said, " I think, father, if you said grace over the whole cask, once for all, it would be a vast saving of time." ERROR IN JUDGMENT. An author once praised another writer very heartily to a third person. " It is very strange," was the reply, " that you speak so well of him, for he says that you are a charlatan." "Oh," replied the other, " I think it very likely that both of tis may be mistaken." RUSTIC LOGIC. A patriotic candidate applied to a yeo- man for his vote, promising to exert his influence to turn out the Ministry and procure a new one. " Then I won't vote for you," said the farmer. " Why not? " asked the candidate. "I thought you were a friend of your country," said the farmer. " So I am," replied the patriot. " So am I," said the yeoman ; " and for that reason I don't want to change the Ministry. I know well enough when I buy hogs lean they eat like gluttons, but when they've once got a little fat they don't want half so much to keep 'em ; so for that reason I'm ibr sticking to the present set, as they won't devour half as much as a new one." SOUGHT AND FOUND. Three conceited young wits, as they thought themselves, passing along the road near Oxford, met a grave old gentle- man, with whom they had a mind to be rudely merry. " Good-morrow, father Abraham," said one ; " Good-morrow, father Isaac," said the next ; " Good- morrow, father Jacob," cried the last. " I am neither Abraham, Isaac, nor Ja- cob," replied the old gentleman, " but Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to 224 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. seek his father's oases, and lo I here I have found them." A REMARKABLE ECHO. A certain Chief Justice, on hearing an ass bray, interrupted the late Mr. Curran, in his speech to the jury, by saying, " One at a time, Mr. Curran, if you please." The speech being iinished, the judge began his charge, and during its progress the ass sent forth the full force of its lungs; whereupon the advocate said, " Does not your lordship hear a re- markable echo in the court f " A TANGIBLE IDEA. " How do you define ' black as your hat? ' " said a school-master to one of his pupils. " Darkness that may be 'felt,' " replied the youthful wit. THE AMENDE HONORABLE. Quoth Will, " On that young servant-maid My heart its life-string stakes." " Quite safe ! " cries Dick, " don't be afraid, She pays for all she breaks." ALLEGORICAL REPRESENTATION. A painter, who was well acquainted with the dire effects of law, had to repre- sent two men — one who had gained a lawsuit, and another who had lost one. He painted the former with a shirt on, and the latter naked. KNOWING HIS MAN. An attorney, not celebrated for his pro- bity, was robbed one night on his way from Wioklow to Dublin. His father meeting Baron O'Grady next day, said, " My lord, have you heard of my son's robbery?" "No," replied the Baron; " whom did he rob f " TAKE WARNING ! A man was fined 51. at the College police oflioe, Dublin, for assaulting another ; and as he paid the money into court, he shot glances at the victim of his indiscretion, and said " "Wait till I get into Limerick, where beating's cheap, and I'll take the change out of you." SCOTCH " WUT." It requires (says Sydney Smith) a sur- gical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of vrit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occa- sionally in the North, and which, under the name of Wut, is so infinitely distress- ing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals. They are so imbued with metaphysics that they even make love metaphysically. I over- heard a lady of my acquaintance, at a dance in Edinburgh, exclaim in a sudden pause of the music, "What you say, my lord, is very true of love in the aibstraet, but ." Here the fiddlers began fid- dling furiously, and the rest was lost. TIMELY FLATTERY. A gentleman was asked by Mrs. Wof- fington, what difference there was between her and her watch ; to which he instantly replied, " Your watch, madam, makes us remember the hours, and you make us forget them." AN UNCONSCIOUS INSULT. A Frenchman, who had learned Eng- lish, wished to lose no opportunity of saying something pretty. One evening he observed to Lady E., whose dress was fawn-colour, and that of her daughter pink, "Milady, your daughter is de pink of beauty." "Ah, monsieur, you Frenchmen always flatter." " No madam, I only do speak de truth, and what all de world will allow, that your daughter is de pink, and you are de drab of fashion." ONLY A NINEPIN. The Earl of Lonsdale was so exten- sive a proprietor and patron of boroughs that he returned nine members to Par- liament, who were facetiously called Lord Lonsdale's ninepins. One of the members thus designated, having made a very extravagant speech in the House of Commons, was answered by Mr. Burke in a vein of the happiest sarcasm, which elicited from the house loud and con- tinued cheers. Mr. Fox, entering the House just as Mr. Burke was sitting down, inquired of Sheridan what the House was cheering. " Oh, nothing of consequence," replied Sheridan, " only Burke has knocked down one of Lord Lonsdale's ninepins." A PROFESSIONAL AIM. In a duel between two attorneys, one of them shot away the skirt of the other's coat. His second, observing the truth of his aim, declared that had his friend been engaged with a client he would very probably have hit his pocket. MAEK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 225 AN ENTERTAINING PROPOSITION. A pompous fellow made a very inade- quate offer for a valuable property ; and calling the next day for an answer, in- quired of the gentleman if he had enter- tained his proposition. " No," replied the other, " your proposition entertained me." AN UNTAXED LUXURY. A lady having remarked in company that she thought there should be a tax on " the single state;" "Yes, madam," rejoined an obstinate old bachelor, " as on all other luxuries." LEGAL BAKEHOUSE. " Why, Latitat, your office is as hot as an oven," said a client. "So it ought to be," replied the lawyer; " I make my bread here." prime's PRESERVATIVE. Sergeant Prime had a remarkably long nose, and being one day out riding, was flung from his horse, and fell upon his face in the middle of the road. A coun- tryman, who saw the occurrence, ran hastily up, raised the sergeant from the mire, and asked him if he was much hurt. The sergeant replied in the negative. " I zee, zur," said the rustic, grinning, " yer ploughshare saved yel" HUSBANDING HIS RESOURCES. A wag, reading in one of Brigham Young's manifestoes, " that the great re- sources of Utah are her women," ex- claimed, " It is very evident that the pro- phet is disposed to husband his resources ?" CHEMICAL ODDITY. While an ignorant lecturer was de- scribing the nature of gas, a blue-stocking lady inquired of a gentleman near her, what was the difference between oxygin and hydrogin? "Very little, madam," said he : " by oxygin we mean pure gin; and by hydrogin, gin and water." AN APISH RESEMBLANCE. Charles Lamb used to say that he had a great dislike to monkeys, on the prin- ciple that "it was not pleasant to look upon one's poor relations." MAKING BOTH ENDS MEET. Bonnel Thornton was a late sitter and consequently a late riser. "Ah I Bon- nel," said a relative, when calling aid VOL. IV— W. H. finding him in bed ; " you'll shorten your days by the life you are leading." " Very true, madam," he replied, " but by the same rule you must admit that / lengthen my nights." AN ILLEGAL INDORSEMENT. Curran having one day a violent argu- ment with a country schoolmaster on some classical subject, the pedagogue, who had the worst of it, said, in a tower- ing passion, that he would lose no more time, and must go back to his scholars. " Do, my dear doctor," said Curran, " but don't indorse my sins upon their backs." PAINTED CHARMS. Of a celebrated actress, who, in her de- clining days, bought charms of carmine and pearl-powder, Jerrold said, " Egad ! she should have a hoop about her, with a notice upon it, 'Beware of the paint.' " AN OBJECTIONABLE PROCESS. General D was more distinguished for gallantry in the field than for the care he lavished upon his person. Complain- ing, on a certain occasion, to the late Chief Justice Bushe, of Ireland, of the sufferings he endured from rheumatism, that learned and humorous judge under- took to prescribe a remedy. "You must desire your servant," he said to the gen- eral, " to place every morning by your bedside a tub three parts filled with warm water. You will then get into the tub, and having previously provided yourself with a pound of yellow soap, you must ruh your whole body with it, immersing yourself occasionally in the water, and at the end of a quarter of an hour, the pro- cess concludes by wiping yourself dry with towels, and scrubbing your person with a flesh-brush." "Why," said the general, after reflecting for a minute or two, " this seems to be neither more nor less than washing one's self." " Well, I must confess," rejoined the judge, "it is open to that objection." PROFESSIONAL CANDOR. A gentleman afflicted with rheumatism consulted a physician, who immediately wrote him a prescription. As the patient was going away the doctor called him back. " By the way, sir, should my pre- scription happen to afford you any relief, please to let me know, as I am myself suf- fering from a similar affection, and have tried in vain to cure it." 15 2?6 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. A EISKFUL ADVENTURE. Mr. Reynolds, the dramatist, once met a fret and taiy actor, who told him that he had passed three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness of , without any invitation. He had gone there on the assumption that as my lord and lady were not on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had asked him, and so it turned out. GOING TO EXTREMES. When ladies wore their dresses very low and very short, a wit observed that " they began too late and ended too soon." SILENT APPRECIATION. A gentleman gave a friend some first- rate wine, which he tasted and drank, making no remark upon it. The owner, disgusted at his guest's want of apprecia- tion, next offered some strong but infer- ior wine, which the guest had no sooner tasted than he exclaimed that it was ex- cellent wine. " But you said nothing of the first," remarked his host. " Oh I " re- plied the other, " the first required noth- ing being said of it. It spoke for itself. I thought the second wanted a trum- peter." A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE. At an hotel at Brighton, Douglas Jer- rold was dining with two friends, one of whom, after dinner, ordered " a bottle of old port." " Waiter," added Jerrold, with a significant twinkle of his eye, " mind now ; a bottle of your old port, not your elder port." LAW AND PHYSIC. When Dr. H. and Sergeant A. were walking arm-in-arm, a wag said to a friend, " These two are just equal to one highwayman." "Why?" was the re- sponse. " Because it is a lawyer and a doctor — your money or your life." RESTING HERSELF. A laborer's daughter, who had been in service from her childhood, would frequently wish to be married, that, as she expressed herself, she might rest her bones. Some time afterwards she got married, and her late mistress meeting her, asked her, "Well, Mary, have you rested your bones yet? " "Yes, indeed," replied she, with a sigh, " I have rested va.j jaw-honeg" AN EVASION. A well-dressed fellow walked into t room where they were talking politics, and, stretching himself up to his full height, exclaimed, in a loud voice, "Where is a radical ? Show me a radical, gentle- men, and I'll show you a liar 1 " In an instant a man exclaimed, " I am a radi- cal, sirl" "You are?" "Yes, sir, I am I " " Well, just you step round the corner with me, and I'll show you a fellow who said I couldn't find a radical in the ward. Ain't he a liar, I should like to know?" DEFINING A CREED. A Mend of Sydney Smith inquired, "What is Puseyism?" To which the witty canon replied : " Puseyism, sir, is inflexion and genuflexion; posture and imposture ; bowing to the east, and curt- seying to the west." DRY HtTMOP.. An Irish post-boy having driven a gen- tleman a long stage during torrents of rain, was asked if he was not very wet ? " Arrah I I wouldn't care about being very wet, if I wasn't so very dry, your honor." A MAN AND A BROTHER. Harry Woodward, walking with a friend, met a most miserable object, who earnestly solicited their charity. On Woodward giving a few pence, his friend said, " I believe that fellow is an impos- tor." " He is either the most distressed man, or the best actor I ever saw in my life," replied the comedian: "and as either one or the other, he has a brotherly claim upon me." PULLING UP A POET. A poet was once walking with T in the street, reciting some of his verses. T perceiving, at a short distance, a man yawning, pointed him out to the poet, saying, " Not so loud ; he hears you." KILLED BY HIS OWN REMEDY. A surgeon of an English ship-of-war used to prescribe salt water for his pa- tients in all disorders. Having sailed one evening on a party of pleasure, he happened by some mischance to be drowned. The captain, who had not heard of the disaster, asked one of the tars next day if he had heard anything MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 227 of the doctor. " Yes," answered Jack ; " he was drowned last night in his own medicine chest." A. HUMORIST PIQUED. Theodore Hook was relating to his friend, Charles Mathews, how, on one oc- casion, when supping in the company of Peake, the latter surreptitiously removed from his plate several slices of tongue ; and, affecting to be very much annoyed by such practical joking. Hook concluded with the question, " Now, Charles, what would you do to anybody who treated you in such a manner? " " Do ? " exclaimed Mathews, " if any man meddled with my tongue, I'd lick him I " A SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION. One of the curiosities some time since shown at a public exhibition, professed to be a skull of Oliver Cromwell. A gentleman present observed that it could not be Cromwell's, as he had a very large head, and this was a small skull. " Oh, I know all that," said the exhibitor, undisturbed, " but, you see, this was his skull when he was a boy." NOT TO BE BELIEVED. The following lines were addressed to a gentleman notoriously addicted to the vice which has been euphemistically de- scribed as "the postponement of the truth for the purposes of the moment; " Whoe'er would learn a fact from you, Must take you by contraries : What you deny, perhaps is true ; But nothing that you swear is. A REASON FOR POLYGAMY. An Irishman was once brought up be- fore a magistrate, charged with marrying six wives. The magistrate asked him how he could be so hardeiied a villain ? " Please your worship," says Paddy, " I was just trying to get a good one." BYRON LIBELLOUS. The conversation at Holland House turning on first love, Thomas Moore compared it to a potato, because "it shoots from the eyes." " Or rather," ex- claimed Lord Byron, "because it be- comes less by pairing." A VAIN THREAT. " Mr. Brown, I owe you a grudge, re- member that!" "I shall not be fright- ened then, for I never knew you to pay anything that you owe." A FAIR DISTRIBUTION. When the British ships under Lord Nelson were bearing down to attack the combined fleet off Trafalgar, the first lieutenant of the " Revenge," on going round to see that all hands were at quar- ters, observed one of the men — an Irish- man — rdevoutly kneeling at the side of his gun. So very unusual an attitude excit- ing his surprise and curiosity, he asked the man if he was afraid. " Afraid ! " an- swered the tar ; " no, your honor ; I was only praying that the enemy's shot may be distributed in the same proportion as the prize-money — the greatest part among the officers." A WIDE DIFFERENCE. Rowland Hill rode a great deal, and exercise preserved him in vigorous health. On one occasion, when asked by a medical friend what physician and apothecary be employed, to be always so well, he replied, " My physician has al- ways been a horse, and my apothecary an ass !" ASPIRING POVERTY. A Roman Catholic prelate requested Pugin, the architect, to furnish designs, etc., for a new church. It was to be "very large, very handsome, and very cheap ;" the parties purposing to erect being " very poor ; in fact, having only £900." " Say thirty shillings more," re- plied the astonished architect, " and have a tower and spire at once 1" A BRIGHT REJOINDER. An Englishman paying an Irish shoe- black with rudeness, "the dirty ur- chin" said, " My honey, all the polish you have is upon your boots, and I gave you that." A QUICK LIE. A conceited coxcomb, with a very pa- tronizing air, called out to an Irish laborer, — " Here, you bog-trotter, come and tell me the greatest lie you can, and I'll treat you to a jug of whisky punch." " By my word," said Pat, " an' yer honor's a gintleman." AN IMPUDENT WIT. Hook one day walking in the Strand with a friend, had his attention directed to a very pompous gentleman, who strut- ted along as if the street were his own. Instantly leaving his companion, Hook 228 MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. went up to the stranger and said, " I beg your pardon, sir, but pray may I ask — are you anybody in particular ?" Before the astonished magnifico could collect himself so as to reply practically or otherwise to the query. Hook had passed on. A PERTINENT QUESTION. Judge Jeffreys, of notorious memory (pointing with his cane to a man who was about to be tried), said, " There is a great rogue at the end of my cane." The man pointed at, inquired, " At which end, my lord?" A 'WIDE-AWAKE MINISTER. Lord North's good humor and readi- ness were of admirable service to him when the invectives of his opponents would have discomfited a graver minis- ter. He frequently indulged in a real or seeming slumber. On one occasion, an opposition debater, supposing him to be napping, exclaimed, " Even now, in these perils, the noble lord is asleep I" " I wish I was," suddenly interposed the weary minister. A WARM MAN. A man with a scolding wife, being asked what his occupation was, replied that he kept a hot-house. A POINT NEEDING TO BE SETTLED. A Scottish minister being one day en- gaged in visiting some members of his flock, came to the door of a house where his gentle tapping could not be heard for the noise of contention within. After waiting a little he opened the door and walked in, saying, with an authoritative voice, " I should like to know who is the head of this house ?" " Weel, sir," said the husband and father, " if ye sit doon a wee, we'll maybe be able to tell ye, for we're Just trying to settle that point." AN ANTICIPATED CALAMITY. On the departure of Bishop Selwyn for his diocese. New Zealand, Sydney Smith, when taking his leave of him, said : " Good-by, my dear Selwyn ; I hope you will not disagree with the man who eats you I" DRY, BUT NOT THIRSTY. Ourran, conversing with Sir Thomas Turton, happened to remark that he could never speak in public for a quarter of an hour without moistening his lips . to which Sir Thomas replied that, in that respect, he had the advantage of him ; " I spoke," said he, " the other night in the House of Commons for five hours, on the Nabob of Oude, and never felt in the least thirsty." "It is very remarkable indeed," rejoined Curran, " for every one agrees that was the driest speech of the session." SOMETHING TO BE GRATEFUL TOR. Lord Alvanley, after his duel with young O'Connell, gave a guinea to the hackney-coachman who had driven him to and from the scene of the encounter. The man surprised at the largeness of the sum, said, "My lord, I only took you to " Alvanley interrupted him with, " My friend, the guinea is for bringing me back, not for taking me out." A NEW WAY WITH ATTORNEYS. One day a simple farmer, who had just buried a rich relation, an attorney, was complaining of the great expense of a funeral cavalcade in the country. " Why, do you bury your attorneys here? " asked Foote. " Yes, to be sure we do ; ho w else ? " " Oh, we never do that in London." " No ! " said the other, much surprised ; " how do you manage, then ? " " Why, when the patient happens to die, we lay him out in a room overnight by himself, lock the door, throw open the window, and in the morning he is gone." " In- deed ! " exclaimed the farmer, with amazement ; " what becomes of him ? " " Why, that we cannot exactly tell ; all we know is, there's a strong smell of brim- stone in the room the next morning." AN AMPLE APOLOGY. A clergyman at Cambridge preached a sermon which one of his auditors com- mended. " Yes," said the gentleman to whom it was mentioned, " it was a good sermon, but he stole it." This was re- peated to the preacher, who resented it, and called on the gentleman to retract. " I will," replied the aggressor. " I said you had stolen the sermon. I find I was wrong, for on referring to the book whence I thought it was taken, I found it there." A SUPERIOR SCRAPER. Foote, being annoyed by a poor fiddler straining harsh discord under his win- dow, sent him out a shilling, with a MARK LEMON'S JEST BOOK. 22& request that iie would play elsewhere, as oiie scraper at the door was sufficient. KIGID IMPARTIALITY. Sydney Smith, calling one day upon a fellow contributor to the Edinburgh Re- view, found him reading a book prepara- tory to writing an account of it, and ex- postulated with him. " Why, how do you manage?" asked his friend. "I never," said the wit, " read a book before reviewing it ; it prejudices one so." PEOSINESS. A prosy old gentleman meeting Jer- rold, related a long, limp account of a stupid practical joke, concluding with the information that " he really thought he should have died with laughter." "I wish to heaven you had," was Jerrold's reply. A SAUCY ANSWER. A barrister attempting to browbeat a female witness, told her she had bra^s enough to make a saucepan. The woman retorted, " And you have sauce enough to fill it." GOOD ENOUGH FOR A PIG. An Irish peasant being asked why he permitted his pig to take up its quarters with his family, made an answer, abound- ing with satirical najiveti: "Why not? ]!)oesn't the place afford every conve- nience that a pig can require f " FARCICAL. In Bannister's time, a farce was per- formed under the title of " Fire and Water." "I predict its fate," said he. "What fate?" whispered the anxious (lathor at his side. What fate ! " said Bannister ; " why, what can fire and water product but a hiss f " TOO MUCH AT ONCE. Lord Chesterfield one day, at an inn where he dined, complained very much that the plates and dishes were very dirty. The waiter, with a degree of pert- ness, observed, " It is said that every one must eat a peck of dirt before he dies." " That may be true," said Chesterfield, "but no one is obliged to eat it all at one meal, you dirty dog." POSSIBLE CENSORS. Dr. Cadogan was boasting of the emi- nence of his profession, and spoke loudly against the injustice of the world, which was so satirical against it ; " but," he added, " I have escaped, for no one com- plains of me." " That is more than you can tell, doctor," said a lady present, " unless you know what people sag in the other world." A CONNUBIAL COMPLIMENT. A lady, walking with her husband at the sea-side, inquired of him the differ- ence between exportation and transporta- tion. " Why, my dear," he replied, " if you were on board yonder vessel, leaving England, you would be exported, and / should be transported ! " DOUBLE SIGHT. A man with one eye laid a wager with another man that he (the one-eyed per- son) saw more than the other. The wager was accepted. " You have lost," says the first ; I can see the two eyes in your face, and you can see only one in mine." WITTY AT HIS OWN EXPENSE. Sheridan was once asked by a gentle- man : " How is it that your name has not an O prefixed to it? Your family is Irish, and no doubt illustrious." " No family," replied Sheridan, " has a better right to an O than our family ; for, in truth, we owe everybody." A ROYAL JEST. A captain, remarkable for his uncom- mon height, being one day at the rooms at Bath, the late Princess Amelia was struck with his appearance; and being told that he had been originally intended for the Church, "Rather for the steeple," replied the royal humorist. ALL THE DIFFERENCE. A Glasgow professor met a poor stu- dent passing along one of the courts, and remarked to him that his gown was very short. " It ivill be long enough before I get another," answered the student. The re- ply tickled the professor's fancy so much that he continued in a state of suppressed laughter after passing on. Meeting a brother professor, who .asked him what was amusing him so much, he told the story with a slightly varied reading. " I asked that fellow why he had so short a gown, and he answered, it will be a long time before I get another." " Well, there's nothing very funny in that." " Neither there is," said the professor, "I don't un- 230 THE JOBSIAD. derstand how it amused me so much. It must have been something in the way he said it." THE JOBSIAD. [Gael Arnold Kobtum, the author of this unique poem, — which may almost be Baid to form a genus by itself,— was born at Miihlheim in 1Y45, and died as Physician, at Bochum, a small town in Westphalia, in 1824, in the eightieth year of his age. If we knew the particulars of his life, we might perhaps find in him an answer to Solomon's question in regard to laughter : " What doeth it ? " namely, It prolongeth maa's days. The Job&iad enjoys a great and general popularity in its nativG country,! and is, of course, a particular favor- ite of students, several of whom the translator has heard recite passages from it— " pompously squaring the circle described by the wrinkle round the mouth," as Jean Paul says of Schoppe — with exceeding richness of comic effect. Perhaps, indeed, to be perfectly en- joyed and appreciated, such a production should be heard as read by some one who has the skill and spirit 1 In MarggrafTs House Treamry of German Humor occurs the following: "The Jobaiad first appeared anonymously in 1784, and baa now reached its Tenth Edition [of several thousand copies each], which may well be regarded as a proof of the power of this jolly book to stand the test of time. A book may attain to several editions in swift succession, and then after all be suddenly forgotten or no more read ; but when, after half a century, new editions of a book are still called for and pass out of print again, — this is certainly a proof of its having a kernel of national and lasting vitality. The Jobsiad owes the popularity which it still continues to find as well to its drastic drollery in the invention and manage- ment of characters and situations, and their ethico-his- torical interest, as to the circumstance that pedantry, with its innumerable absurdities (which, indeed forms the main object of this comic poem), has not even to this day died out in Germany, and will hardly ever die out, though it should from time to time assume differ- ent forms. The treatment betrays an original vis comic.a and a naive drollery such as are at this day seldom found ; nay, the comic rises sometimes even to humor, in so far as we may regard it as one of the peculiarities of humor that the Poet tosses about the world, which he sees at his feet, with sovereign caprice, with an ideal whimsicality, that never suffers itself to be degraded by the follies on which it exercises its persiflage, to the level of hypochondriacal moodiness or a schoolmaster- like pedantry. . . The Jobsiad owes a great part of its effect to the peculiar doggerel, since become typical, managed by him with the most riotous ex- travagance of whimsy, and yet at the same time with the sure hand of a master, which Kortiim, with happy hit, himself originally created for his epic." i to give it the proper tone and twang, or, perhaps it might advantageously be accompanied with a scale of musical and nasal intonation. By way of giving the reader all the help the case seems to admit, in the absence of the desiderata just referred to, the translator will add «, few remarks in respect to rhyme and rhythm. It will be observed, as one of the commonest require- ments in making out the measure and securing tlie comic eifect, that all sorts of liberties are taken, for in- stance, with accent. Thus for the sake of rhyme, such words as Barmi, Turkey, Father, and many others, have the stress transferred to the last syllable ; and so, too, frequently, contrary, necessary, will sometimes have the necessary emphasis thrown on the last syllable but one. Equal license is allowed in spelling. Nature is spelt Naiur to rhyme with Senator. The final g is re- peatedly cut off from participles. Thus spinning becomes spinnin' for the sake of making it rhyme with woinen. But the reader's Yankee sense will do justice to all these things as he goes along, and practice will beget smoothness, the rough quality being g^dually worn off by friction and heat of rapid movement. We make a liberal extract from the work, giving his college career and his subsequent examination, which is more than half the work.] How Hieronimus took leave of his parents and brothers and sisters, and started for the um- versity. When Hieronimus's departure was decided, Straightway he was superfluously provided With clothes, books, money and everything That is necessary to studying. The family found some consolation In the labor and care of the preparation, But when the parting hour drew near On both sides was many a bitter tear. The grave old Senator Jobs's bawling, Was just a regular caterwauling, And sobbing he gave a farewell kiss To his dear son Hieronimus. And lie added also a fatherly blessing, This counsel to the youth addressing : " Farewell and attend to thy studies, my son, That we may have joy, when all is done ! " If anything should ever ail thee (There may be times when money may fail thee,) Always write without fear to me, Whatever is wanting I'll send to thee I " Hieronimus was, as may well be suspected, By his father's words extremely affected. THE JOBSIAD. 2S1 And promised always to let him know Whenever his purse should be getting low. Still worse was it with the poor mother Who did not undertake her grief to smother. Pierced through by sorrow's bitter dart, She pressed her dear son long to her heart. At length she stepped aside a second, And to Hieronimus beckoned, And slipped into tlie hand of her sonny A little bag containing some money. This very pious motherly blessing Was to Hieronimus deeply distressing, And not without many a heavy sob. He thrust the little bag in his fob. Next came his brothers and sisters in rotation, Whom he, amidst piteous lamentation, Each by the hand successively shook, And now his departure Hieronimus took. The weeping and wailing of the parents lasted For several days ; the old man fasted To such an extent as utterly to refuse Wine, beer, tobacco and the daily news. The greatest of all was the mother's trouble, She was almost inconsolable, But with the brothers and sisters, I hear, There was very much less danger to fear. How SieroniTrms came on horseback to the post- station, and how he found at the inn a dis- tinguished gentleman, named Herr Von Mo- gier, who gave him wholesome lessons, and was a knave. And now Hieronimus has finally departed ; The old house servant who was very kind- hearted. Rode to the next village by his side, . Where he was to get into the post-wagon to ride. Altho' now the departure had affected him sadly, Nevertheless he looked forward gladly To the beloved university. Where time passes off so pleasantly. Scarcely had he began to find him- self out on the highway and Schildburg be- hind him, When the parents and brothers and sisters forgot. And was highly delighted at the thought, That now henceforth, as a free student. He need be no longer so prim and prudent, And as to the grim old Rector and his rod. He was well rid of them, thank God I It filled him with special exultation. He was richer than a king in his own estima- tion. When the money into his mind did come Which he had taken with him from home. He thought and he felt with the greatest pleasure. Of the little bag, the precious treasure. From his highly afflicted mother received When she at parting so bitterly grieved. And now, as all other pastime was wanting, He drew out the bag and fell to counting The money, and found to his happiness That the little bag contained no less Than thirty different pieces of money. All of silver, thick, heavy and shiny, Gilders and dollars manifold. Mostly of coinage rare and old. His mother had saved them one after another, And for future emergencies laid them together, For not unjustly she had the name Of being an economical dame. Then too the servant who attended him By way of pastime occasionally handed him Some of the victualia His parents had provided to eat on the way. Now, when in this kind of occupation, Hieronimus had ridden some hours in succes- sion, Faint and weary he at length got down At the tavern of the aforesaid town. Here indeed he found the post-wagon In which to the university he was to jog on But it so happened that the cart Was not at the moment ready to start. Hieronimus first of all directed That his nag to the stable should be conducted ; The servant put some oats in the rack. And took the portmanteau off his back. At the same time he began to be thinking Of refreshing himself by eating and drinking. And soon to the table he found his way. And there grew strong and fresh and gay. 232 THE JOBSIAD. Now there was in the tavern a fellow-lodger, With a great peruke, and a rich-looking cod- ger. The man from distant countries came, Herr Baron von Hogier was his name. The stranger showed our hero much honor, And inquired who he was in a friendly man- ner; Hieronimus answered without demur, " I am a student, respected sir, " At your honor's service, and right glad am I That I am going to the academy, Tliere to study diligently The science of theology." "Ah ! well, I wish you all the joy I can, sir! " Tlie gentleman in the grand peruke made answer, " But I advise you take great care That you do not get into trouble there. " I in my time have had some knowledge Of the way they carry on at college ; Many a young freshman throws away His time and money on cursed play. " And many, instead of studying with appli- cation. Run into all manner of dissipation. And waste their valuable time In many a folly, not to say crime. " My own experience can answer For this sad truth, indeed it can, sir ; I beg you therefore to attend To what I say, on the word of a friend." " Dear sir," Hieronimus responded, " I thank you for advice so candid. And the timely wisdom you have taught Shall never in all my life be forgot. " At the same time I will not disguise the truth, sir. Playing has great attractions for youth, sir, But I have the honor to assure you that I, Whenever I do play, never play high," " In moderate playing I see no danger," Politely answered the distinguished stranger, " One loses nothing, except ennui. And passes the time quite pleasantly. " We, for example, here together, For the sake of amusing one another, Might play a little game," said he, " With innocence and propriety." Hieronimus, without the least suspicion, Accepted the gentleman's proposition, And was very willing to take a game Or two, until the post-wagon came. The thing was done as soon as decided, The host a new pack of cards provided And placed before his guests, and straight- way The two sat down and began to play. They set their stakes quite low in the begin- ning, But Hieronimus, led on by his love of winning, To mark up higher and higher begun. Because at first he regularly won. But all on a sudden fortune deserted Our hero, with whom she had previously flirted, And the gentleman in the great peruke Both all the honors and profits took. And thus Hieronimus had very soon i)arted. With all the loose money he took when he started, And now as his losses came thick and fast. He drew out the little bag at last. And now Hieronimus began to grow fright- ened, For at every throw the bag was lightened, And it became very evident that luck ' Would smile on the gentleman in the great peruke. In less than three-quarters of an hour the blessing Of his poor dear mother was entirely missing. For the gentleman in the great peruke. Had robbed him of aU by hook and crook. For the good Hieronimus had not detected, In fact he never for a moment suspected. That he was cheated by him of the great peruke. For Herr von Hogier had an honest look. At last he really began to Think of unbuckling his portmanteau, > Luck must be pronounced in a certain provincial Ungliali style, to rhyme with peruke. THE JOBSIAK. 2SS To stake the little therein contained, Which would his resources have entirely drained. But at that moment so highly ominous, The gentleman in the peruke and Hiero- nimus, Both heard on a sudden the postilion blow, As a signal for Hieronimus to go. He felt a little reluctance at parting, Then suddenly and impetuously starting, He jumped up into the post- wagon and took Leave of the gentleman in the great peruke. Mow Hieronimus took the post-wagon, and Jiow he found therein a fair one with whom he fell in love, and who stole his watch. I will now proceed with a narration Of what befel Hieronimus on leaving the sta- tion. For he is not rid of his troubles yet, But further obstacles are to be met. The great peruke would still come gliding Into his thoughts as he went on riding. And he now for the first time began to see That the fellow no better than a knave could be. His conscience kept up a terrible racket About the loss of the maternal packet, He sighed and groaned and wished bad luck To the gentleman inlhe great peruke. Be murmured so that people could hear him ; But a beautiful damsel sitting near him. On whom his eyes till now scarce fell. Roused him from the melancholy spell. She seemed about twenty years — not older, Black eyes and hair and a very white shoulder, Rosy -red in mouth and cheek And, the truth in a single word to speak, Her being waa nothing but grace, appealing Irresistibly to the tenderest feeling. This fairy inquired, half in jest, What sorrow disturbed Hieronimus' breast. Wherewith she pleasantly smiled upon him, Which pleasant smile of her's quite won him. So that, as close by her side he sot, The loss of his packet he quite forgot. A glow of rapture kindled his fancies, For in her whole person and tender glances A youth like him could not fail to find Something quite dangerous to his peace «1 mind. After less than half an hour's duration He had made, in best style, a declaration As fervent as ever a hero of romance Can make to his love by his author's hands. She seemed to hear him with some predilec- tion, At all events she made no objection, Hieronimus therefore edged up more near And began to whisper in her ear. I know not what further passed on the occa- sion Improper to mention in this narration. Suffice it, with both, the time passed by In sweet, confidential familiarity. When at last they came to the post-station She bade him adieu with friendly protestation, But in what direction she went from here May by and by be made to appear. When, after several hours had transpired Since the fair one from the carriage retired Hieronimus for his watch looked round. That too had retired and was not to be found. This second trick of fatal termination Was to Hieronimus a great aggravation, For he came to the conclusion that she who left So suddenly must have committed the theft, MeanwhUe nothing was left the good student But to exercise patience and be more prudent, In short he determined , come what might, To practice in future more foresight. He therefore formed a firm determination. So soon as he should come to the place of edu- cation, A letter to his parents to send. For a new watch and some money to spend. At last without further molestation He arrived at the place of his destination. Behold therefore our Hieronimus Henceforward an Aoademicus ! 3M THE JOBSIAD. How Sieronimus at the University did dili- cently study Theology. Hieronimus on his arrival, without hesitation, Received, stante pede, his matriculation, And so became immediately A studiosus of theology. At universities, from all points of the compass, Some to get knowledge and some to raise a rumpus, Great numbers of students together are flung, Large and little and old and young. And so at this one from every nation Were many in search of an education. And many new ones came every year To prosecute various studies here. Exempli gratid, law and theology, Philosophy, medicine and cosmology, And whatsoever other fine arts Are needed to help them act well their parts. But most of them, instead of pondering Their studies, set themselves to squandering Their money, fared sumptuously every day And threw their precious time away. Hieronimus, who liked study no better than others, Soon joined himself to the merry brothers, And very shortly made it appear As if he had long been familiar here. For he daily lived in Floribus ' As well as the best academicua. And many a precious night he spent In carousing and bousing to his heart's con- tent. Wine, beer and tobacco were his inspiration, And they gave his voice a fine inflation. When he with loud and mighty clang The gaudeamus igitur'^ His fellows all who gathered round him The model of a faithful student found Mm, He lived as a bursch of higli renown And great was his fame through all the town. ks to those three detested creatures, Philistines and Beadles and night-rogue- catchers, 1 In Floribus, equivalent to our "living in clover." 2 "Let us then rejoice while our youth is blooming !' Hieronimus as a hero true Had often cudgelled them black and blue. Many a Pereat ' he against them had vented, And with ludicrous tricks their peace tor- mented, And in these and various other ways As a renownist acquired great praise. The summer he spent in racing and riding, And in winter was continually sleighing and sliding. In short, Hieronimus felt himself free To indulge in all manner of luxury. Often he went on a pleasure pillage To one or another neighboring village. And mostly where he was likely to find Some fair one sociably inclined. To breaking windows nightly he was addicted, Many tricks on young foxes * inflicted. Dice and cards and billiards played, And not much progress in learning made. In rows and riots he found great enjoyment. Sleeping in taverns was his daily employment, But twice in every month or so, To college hall for a change would go. Whenever impatient duns came after Their money, they were sent ofi' with laughter. Or else in counterfeit money were paid. And very angry and foolish made. His books and clothes he'd sell to pawn- brokers. And spend the money with drinkers and smokers. In short, there was none of his time could be. Compared with him in devilry. To be sure, he was often shut up in the Cancer,' And there to the law was made to answer, And for his crimes on one occasion He barely escaped the relegation. For three years long he had pursued this voca- tion. And often for money had made application To his parents, but his letters were worded so That they never suspected their son was such a go. 8 Pi^eat! is the opposite of Vivat.! * Foxes are freshmen. 6 The Cancer is the college prison. Bdegalion is dis missal. THE JOBSIAD. ass That no one in this could possibly be apter Than Hieronimus we shall show in the next chapter, Which gives of this queer correspondence a taste, And therefore now close the present in haste. Omtains the copy of a letter, which, among many others, the student Hieronimus did vrrite to his parents : Dear and Honored Parents, I lately Have suffered for want of money greatly ; Have the goodness, then, to send without fail, A trifle or two by return of mail. I want about twenty or thirty ducats ; For I have not at present a cent in my pockets ; Things are so tight with us this way. Send me the money at once, I pray. And everything is growing higher. Lodging and washing, and lights and fire. And incidental expenses every day — Send me the ducats without delay. You can hardly perceive the enormous ex- penses The college imposes on all pretences. For text-books and lectures so much to pay — I wish the ducats were on their way ! I devote to my studies unremitting attention — One thing I must not forget to mention : The thirty ducats, pray send them straight For my purse is in a beggarly state. Boots and shoes, and stockings and breeches, Tailoring, washing, and extra stitches. Pen, ink and paper, are all so dear, I wish the thirty ducats were here ! The money — (I trust you will speedily send itl) 1 promise faithfully to spend it ; Yes, dear parents, you never need fear, I live very strictly and frugally here. When other students revel and riot, I steal away into perfect quiet, And shut myself up with my books and light In my study-chamber till late at night. Beyond the needful supply of my table, I spare, dear parents, all I am able ; Take tea but rarely, and nothing more, For spending money afiiicts me sore. Other students, who'd faia be called mellow. Set me down for a niggardly fellow, And say : there goes the dig, just look I How like a parson he eyes his book 1 With jibes and jokes they daily beset me. But none of these things do I suffer to fret me ; I smile at all they can do or say — Don't forget the ducats, I pray 1 Ten hours each day I spend at the college, Drinking at the fount of knowledge. And when the lectures come to an end, The rest in private study I spend. The Professors express great gratification Only they hope I will use moderation, And not wear out in my studiis Philosophicis et theologicis. It would savor, dear parents, of self-laudation, To enter on an enumeration Of all my studies — in brief, there is none More exemplary than your dear son. My head seems ready to burst asunder. Sometimes, with its learned load, and I wonder Where so much knowledge is packed away : (Apropos ! don't forget the ducats, I pray !) Yes, dearest parents, my devotion to study Consumes the best strength of mind and body, And generally even the night is spent In meditation deep and intent. In the pulpit soon I shall take my station And try my hand at the preacher's vocation, Likewise I dispute in the college-hall On learned subjects with one and all. But don't forget to send me the ducats, For I long so much to replenish my pockets ; The money one day shall be returned In the shape of a son right wise and learn'd. Then my Privatissimum'^ (I've been thinKing on it For a long time— and in fact begun it) 1 In college, pursuing an extra study with some tutor ia called taking & private; of course a, privatisaimum vnuld be a very private course. See *' College Words &iiC Oa* tonis." iss THE JOBSIAD. Will cost me twenty Eix-dollars more, Please send with the ducats I mentioned before. I also, dear parents, inform you sadly, I have torn my coat of late very badly. So please enclose with the rest in your note Twelve dollars to purchase a new coat. New boots are also necessary. Likewise my night-gown is ragged, very ; My hat and pantaloons, too, alas ! And the rest of my clothes are going to grass. Now, as all these things are needed greatly, Please enclose me four Louis d'ors separately, Wliich, joined to the rest, perhaps will be Enough for the present emergency. My recent sickness you may not have heard of In fact, for some time, my life was despaired of. But I haste to assure you, on my word. That now my health is nearly restored. The Medicus, for services rendered, A bill of eigliteeu guilders has tendered, And then the apothecary's will be, In round numbers, about twenty-three. Now that physician and apothecary May get their dues, it is necessary These forty-one guilders be added to the rest, But, as to my health, don't be distressed. The nurse would also have some compensa- tion, Who attended me in my critical situation, I, therefore, think it would be best To enclose seven guilders for her with the rest. For citrons, jellies and things of that nature. To sustain and strengthen the feeble creature, The confectioner, too, has a small account. Eight guilders is about the amount. These various items of which I've made men- tion. Demand immediate attention ; For order, to me, is very dear, And I carefully from debts keep clear. I also rely on your kind attention. To forward the ducats of which 1 made men- tion So soon as it can possibly be — One more small item occurs to me : — Two weeks ago I iinluckily stumbled, And down the length of the stairway tumbled. As in at the college door I went. Whereby my right arm almost double was bent. The Chirurgus who attended on the occasion, For his balsams, plasters and preparation Of spirits, and other things needless to name. Charges twelve dollars ; please forward the same. But, that your minds may be acquiescent, I am, thank God, now convalescent ; Both shoulder and shin are in a very good way. And I go to lecture every day. My stomach is still in a feeble condition, A circumstance owing, so thinks the phy- sician, To sitting so much, when I read and write, And studying so long and so late at night. He, therefore, earnestly advises Burgundy wine, with nutmeg and spices. And every morning, instead of tea. For the stomach's sake, to drink sangaree. Please send, agreeably to these advices, Two pistoles for the wine and spices. And be sure, dear parents, I only take Such things as these for the stomach's sake Finally, a few small debts, amounting To thirty or forty guilders (loose counting), Be pleased, in your letter, without fail, Dear parents, to enclose this bagatelle. And could you, for sundries, send me twenty Or a dozen Louis d'or (that would be plenty), 'Twould be a kindness seasonably done, And very acceptable to your son. This letter, dear parents, comes hoping to find you In usual health — I beg to remind you How much I am for money perplexed, Please, therefore, to remit in your next. Herewith I close my letter, repeating To you and all my friendly greeting, THE JOBSIAD. 237 And subscribe myself, without further fuss, Your obedient son, HiERONIMUS. I add in a postscript what 1 neglected To say, beloved and highly respected Parents, I beg most filially. That you'll forward the money as soon as may be. For I had, dear father (I say it weeping), Fourteen French Crowns laid by in safe keeping (As I thought) for a day of need — but the whole An anonymous person yesterday stole ; I know you'll make good, unasked, each shil- ling, Your innocent son has lost by this villain ; For a man so considerate must be aware That I such a loss can nowise bear. Meanwhile, I'll take care that, to-day or to- morrow, Mr. Anonymous shall , to his sorrow And your satisfaction, receive the reward Of his graceless trick with the hempen cord. Sere follows a copy of the wriUen reply of old Senator Jobs to the foregoing letter : Old Senator Jobs's answer (verbatim Literatim atque punctatim) In form and manner as follows would run : Dearly beloved and hopeful son ! I am very happy to see, by thy letter. That thy health and prospects are daily better. Nevertheless it causes me pain, That thou makest mention of money again. It is scarce three months, O rarest of scholars ! Since I sent thee a hundred and fifty dollars, I wonder my son, thou considerest not Where in the world so much cash can be got. I also learn, with lively satisfaction, That thou findest in study such great attrac- tion. But it is with the highest concern I see That thou askest thirty ducats of me. Allow me, my son, the observation. That on the most liberal computation, A university residence Cannot be, with frugality, such an expense. Most truly thou art right in saying That lectures and books are not had without paying. But it must take a great many to come To such an enormous, unheard-of sum. For lodging and washing and lights and fire One cannot possibly require So much, and for paper and pens and ink A very few pence would suffice, I should think. I also perceive with gratification That thou keepest thyself from the contami- nation Of evil companions, especially by night, Thy books and chamber thy sole delight. Likewise I am greatly pleased with thy drink- ing Nothing but tea, — but I can't help thinking : To one who pores over his books and drinks tea. What use can these thirty ducats be ? That other students for a niggard abuse thee. May very properly amuse thee, For he who spends all that thou hast figured. Deserves to be called anything but a niggard. Let me advise thee to continue the attention To thy studies of which thou makest mention, That thy precious time and thy money, both. May be wisely spent and not wasted in sloth. But mind, my son, the advice of the physician. And beware of even a laudable ambition. For alas ! too often we find it a rule That the greatest scholar's the greatest fool. Thy purpose of preaching deserves commend- ation, Be diligent, therefore, in thy preparation, But from much disputation, when all is done, Precious little wisdom comes out, my son. The use of a Privatissimum I can't conjecture When one is already ten hours at lecture. And I comprehend it the less, as you say, There are twenty Rix-dollars to pay. But I waive all further commentary, For the money thou findest necessary In pursuing thy studies I gladly allow. And though it were three times as much as now. 238 THE JOBSIAD. According to thy story (no doubt a true one), Thou hast torn thy coat, and need'st a new one, Nevertheless the cloth must be superfine, To cost twelve dollars, or even nine. But he that will study to be a pastor, Should not dress so much better than his Master, Therefore a somewhat coarser stuff Would make thee a coat quite good enough. For other articles of wearing apparel About the four Louis d'or I shan't quarrel. When night-gown, hat and trowsers wear out New ones are necessary without doubt. But if I must make, for all this raiment. And so forth, special and separate payment, What shall become, Hieronimus dear, Of the thirty ducats to me is not clear. I received with much feeling the information. Of thy recent critical situation. But to tamper with physic to such an extent, I must say, my son, is money misspent. For I scarce ever knew of the rule failing, With young folks especially, that when one is ailing. Nature does better when left to herself. Than the best mixture on the apothecary's shelf. The expense of the Doctor and his prepara- tion Seems to me little less than an abomination, And I very seriously question : Can an apothecary or a Doctor be a Chris- tian? And as to the nurse's compensation Who attended you in your critical situation, 'Twould have been enough if thou hadst given A single guilder instead of seven. Unless she had previously shown thee atten- tion Of another description which thou dost not mention. For this, dear son, I am forced to infer. From thy paying seven guilders to her. And then the confectioner's bill of eight guilders — My sou ! my son ! it almost bewilders Thy father's brain ! — if thou hadst been wise, A dollar at most would now sufiice. For citrons, confits, and things of that nature, Administer no strength to the feeble creature, But oatmeal gruel and barley drinks Are better far for the sick, methinks. To fall down stairs is highly injurious. See to it next time thou art not so furious To get to thy studies, but take more care, For it costs a great deal such damage to repair. Thy surgeon has taken thee in completely. For our town-barber, who works so neatly. Will, for twelve dollars, I'm told, restore A broken leg as whole as before. But I'm happy to hear of thy restoration. For when the parson is in his peroration. His arms must be in a flexible state. That so he may pound and gesticulate. I must further lament thy stomach's weakness Occasioned by thy recent sickness ; My stomach, I'm sorry to say, is feeble From sitting so much at the Council-table. Nevertheless, my earnest advice is : Abstain from Burgundy wine and spices ; A bit of flag-root now and then Will help thy stomach as much again. Thou mentionest " some small debts, amount- ing To thirty or forty guilders (loose counting );" I've thought and thought and racked my brain To guess what debts those can be, but in vain. Thou hast given already in specification. Item by item (outside calculation) And forty guilders, thou knowest full well, Upon my soul are no " bagatelle !" And finally thou needest (for such thy pre- tense is), A dozen pistoles for thy general expenses ; No doubt it were very agreeable to thee. But to me inconvenient in the highest de- gree. For as to any unexpected urgency Those thirty ducats will meet the emergency, THE JOBSIAD. 233 These last dozen Louis d'or seem tome, In that view, a mere superfluity. And as to' the stolen crowns, thy suggestion, In point of delicacy, admits of a qjestion ; For truly the reparation were sorer to me Than the alleged robbery is to thee. But, from this disagreeable subject to pass on, rhy proposal to string the thief up sans facon Is by no means a Christian sentiment ; Mr. Anonymous may one day repent. Besides, ' tis a matter of congratulation In these our days of illumination, I say it confidently in thy ear. Holy justice has grown less severe. No one who chances a drawer to rifle Need mount the double ladder for such a trifle, At least, in our wise Schilburg they say. Far greater rogues go clear every day. When thou in future hast money in keeping I advise thee to guard it with vigilance un- sleeping For nothing is so universal a subject of speculation As money deposited for preservation. I and thy mother understand the thing better, Learn wisdom, therefore, from this present letter, We always lock our cash up tight And anxiously watch it by day and night. But to appease thy present desire. And supply what immediate wants require, Be pleased hereby the moneys to find In a sealed linen bag, each separate kind. Nevertheless, I must hint to thee, Hieroni- mus. That the times we live in are rather ominous. And it costs me many an anxious thought Where so much money can ever be got. There's a very small trifle of business doing. Folks are so poor — scarce anything brewing In the honorable Council, and so My incomes, you see, are very low. I shall, therefore, await with pleased expec- tation The day Of the final graduation, Especially as, by this time, without doubt, Thou hast in every branch learned out. For if thou should' st longer stay and study As diligently and dearly as thou hast already, I shall grow as poor as Job was once, Utterly unable to raise any more funds. We all desire to welcome, greatly. Our learned son in a style right stately, Especially thy mother with joy Looks forward to the return of her boy. I wish I had some news to write you. But things are mostly in quo sM ; I go as usual, early and late, To the Council-room to deliberate. There we have had in consideration, In plena, many an alteration, Whereby our police afiairs may be Administered judiciously. Thy mother's teeth have troubled her greatly, But a distinguished surgeon, lately. From foreign parts, came along one day. And took the troublesome teeth away. A person is paying attention to your sister Gertrude ; his name and title is Mister Procurator Geier ; 'tis well under way, And Trudy grows taller every day. Our old parson is always ailing, They think his health is decidedly failing ; If this excellent man should be taken away, Thou mightest be our parson one day. Our wealthy neighbor's daughter Betty Sends hearty greetings — the girl is pretty. And neat and tidy, and would be A nice little parson's wife for thee. Thy brothers and sisters all send their greet- ing. In the joyful hope of a speedy meeting, They are glad to hear of thy health and success. And, with wishes for thy happiness, I remain. Thy father (in course of natur), Hans Jobs, pro tempore Senator. p. s. — Write again at an early day. But spare thy allusions to money, I pray. 240 THE JOBSIAD. How ITieronimus finished hi? studies, and how he journeyed home, and how it stood with his learning; neatly represented in the present engraving : Since now, one cannot forever tarry At universities, it became necessary Tliat after a space of three years had flown Hieronimus should prepare to go home. A," his time of study had now fully expired And his presence at home was very much desired. Immediately he set about Doing all that was needed to fit himself out. His luggage required but a short time to pack it, i'or, saving boots, sword, waistcoatandjacket, And whatever else on bis body was seen, There was no other article, dirty or clean. For books there was no need of asking about them, He could get along very well without them, And except a single sermon alone, Not the least Scripture did he own. A friend had given him this as a present, And taught him to repeat it by labor inces- sant. That so, whenever an occasion transpired. He might preach easily at home if desired. He thought, with no little trepidation, Of presenting himself to his parents in this situation. For if in this manner he should appear, The state of the case would at once be clear. At last he concluded, that when they began to Inquire about his purse and portmanteau. He would mnke believe that somebody stole, On his journey home, the whole. Also some sighs would start, quite ominous How will it fare with thee, poor Hieronimus 1 When thou an examination shalt undergo, And show how much thou dost not know ? Verily, he was filled with remorse and vexation So that he almost shed tears on the occasion, To think that for so much time and cost, He had so little learning to boast. But all this manoeuvering, contriving and in- venting. Wishing and sighing and groaning and grunt- ing, Brought him no sort of peace at all. For the time was gone beyond recall. Therefore, by way of alleviation, He sent out formaliter an invitation To his friends at the university. And gave them a valedictory spree. Here then, once more, was a regular rollicking, Drinking and smoking and singing and frolick- ing. Till at last the dismal morning breaks. And Hieronimus his farewell takes. Right heavily now his heart was shaken And bitter grief did the parting awaken, Yes, he really boo-hoo'd right out In the arms of the friends that crowded about. Before, however, his final clearance At the Professor's he made his appearance, Who gave him for the ready money An academic testimony. It was not indeed quite creditable. But Hieronimus, who to read it was unable, (For it was written in Latin and Greek), Into his bag the paper did stick. We leave him, therefore, his journey pursuing Homeward ; the reader meanwhile may be viewing. Prefixed to this chapter, a copper-plate That shows, as to learning, his real state. flow Hieronimus, booted and spurred, returns to his friends. One day when old Senator Jobs, after dinner (For such was his accustomed manner), With pipe in mouth, leaned back his head In the easy chair and his newspaper read: ir PC h 2 THE JOBSIAD. 241 And meanwhile, Mrs. Jobs was making a pother In the kitchen about something or other, And nobody dreaming of any harm, All on a sudden there rose an alarm ; For a stately rider, booted and spurry, Came riding up the street in a hurry. And straight at the house they heard, slam- bang. Somebody dismount with a terrible clang. Likeaknellin thefamily's ears it sounded. Old Jobs let fall his paper astounded, And the pipe itself came near to break ; And Mrs. Jobs was too frightened to speak. But soon from this panic in which they were taken, The rider did their senses ' waken, As, in full traveling costume. He came at once right into the room. The old folks apparently neither of them knew him, But he kept quiet and let them view him, Till at last the old man jumped from his chair To see his dear Hieronimus there. I have not the qualifications in any measure. To sing the exceeding and mighty pleasure Of the good old Senator at seeing his boy. He almost went out of his head for joy. The mother, too, could hardly contain herself, Nor from kissing his hands and feet restrain herself. As soon as she saw that it must needs be Hieronimus, and none but he. They almost cried, in the overmeasure Of their very great and distressing pleasure. And the Welcome home ! and the God be praised ! Held on till a stranger had been half-crazed . And Senator Jobs' s remaining children Were also at hand, till it became quite bewil- derin' , They all of them seemed in a perfect bother, For not a soul of them knew their brother. 'Twas really exceeding curious To hear what the children made of Hieroni- mus ; VOL. IV. — W. H. One held him to be a distinguished guest Who had just arrived from the East or West ; Another, on account of his sword and danger- ous dress and equipment, considered the stran- ger As one who bags up children small ; This thought did the youngest particularly appall. But very funny was it with Esther, Our Hieronimus' s youngest sister, For she kept up a continual clack About her strange uncle from Gengenbach. In the three years he had spent at college. His person had quite outgrown their knowl- edge, His belly had waxed exceedingly thick And there was a deal of hair on chin and cheek. It was not, therefore, a matter of wonder That they at first should make such a blunder, Especially as his student-dress Made it difficult, who he was, to guess. A very tall hat with a very tall feather. Breeches and waistcoat of yellow buck's leather. With a short cravat of some gray stuff. Disguised Hieronimus well enough. Add to this a mighty great sword, suspended From his left side, with which he defended His person from any sudden attack, Fit alike for a thrust or a thwack. And then his look, so martial and bloody. That seemed to threaten death to everybody; His hair hanging down in great masses too, And behind, a great pig-tail of a queue. These and other arrangements I might men- tion Soon attracted his father's attention, For a simple, decorous black dress Would better have suited his parents, I guess. Nor did Hieronimus' s general behavior Recommend him to old father Jobs's favor. Especially when he Hieronimus heard Venting curses at every word. He gave him, therefore, to understand clearly That he must alter all this entirely, 16 242 THE JOBSIAD. For surely a young Theologus Must never be heard to swear or cuss. When a few moments after he asked for the coffer, Hieronimus did the information proffer, And swore to it most lustily : It was stolen from the post-wagon, said he. This disagreeable information Threw the father into great agitation, And he would immediately have begun To scold, but the mother excused her son ; She stepped between Hieronimus and his fa- ther, Saying, 'tis surely the misfortune rather Than any fault of our dear son ; So the old man submitted and was mum. Meanwhile the neighbors were rapidly learn- ing The news of Hieronimus's returning, From house to house the rumor flew Till it was known the whole town through. It seemed a weighty public matter. It kept the streets in a constant clatter, And at every casual neighborly meeting " Hieronimus is here," was the very first greeting. In universal congratulation. At Senator Jobs's habitation. The rest of the remaining day did wag And nothing more was thought of the bag. Hieronimus feasted away quite cheery, For his journey had made him faint and weary. And he smoked till he emptied, as I can vouch, His daddy's great tobacco pouch. Sow Mieronimua now began to ie clerical, and ■ how he got a black Areas and a peruke, and how he preached for the first time in the pul- pit, &c. The day after that to which we've been refer- ring. When all in the house were up and stirring. And round the breakfast table they sat. Sipping their coffee in social chat. The father began to call attention As follows : Dear Son, it is proper to mention, That thy style of raiment hitherto Will for the future hardly do. And first and foremost must thou hasten That terrible sword from thy side to unfasten. Because a servant of the Lord Don't never fight except with the word. Likewise the gray collar and waistcoat of lea- ther And breeches and boots must be laid aside altogether. As also the mighty feather hat. For no clergyman is allowed to wear that. For if this rig should be seen by anybody. They would certainly cry out, " Luddy ! We've surely got a cuirassier Instead of our future parson, here." Know also that a round peruke is fitter For a clerical head and looks much better, And a great deal more respectable, too. Than ropy hair and pig-tail queue ! It is therefore thy father's pleasure That the tailor should come and take thy mei^ sure, That he may make thee this very day A suit of black without delay. The peruke-maker has also had warning. To come, if you please, this very morning, To make thee a wig that thou mayst wear Over thy frowzy i head of hair. It will make thee look respectable, very , But it is also necessary That thou shouldst leave off swearing to« day And endeavor to live in a clerical way. Hieronimus listened, reluctantly rather, To the rational counsel of his father. But concluded to fulfil the desire Of his grave and venerable sire. Behold him, therefore, ere the day had ex- pired. In full black dress and peruke attired. He was also in a white cravat arrayed By his mother's manu proprid made. iThiswordisnot frouzij, which haa a different mean- ing. Our word is found only in an old Dictionary in the Jobs family. THE JOBSIAD. 243 Thus clerically fitted out, he communicated To hig parents that he meditated, God willing, in this livery To preach next Sunday publicly. On the Sunday following Hieron'mus Did really preach in pursuance of his promise, And without special obstacle Got through his sermon very well. For as we have previously made mention, A friend had politely shown him the attention Of writing for him a sermon, which he Could now deliver conveniently. 'Twas an excellent piece of composition, Choke full of wisdom and erudition. And smelt so of the study shelf That Hieronimus didn't understand it him- self. His external appearance was likewise splendid, His arms and hands he mightily extended. And his tenor voice so strong and clear Went stately into the public ear. His sermon was heard by many hundred, Who all at his talent greatly wondered. They nodded their heads and the whisper ran Through all the house : " What a wonderful man ! " Who on earth would have ever suspected That anything like this could have been con- cocted Out of Jobs' s dull Hieronimus? 'Tis a perfect miracle to us ! " Likewise there was not a single relation Absent from the congregation, And every one thought : " Our cousin Jobs Looks remarkably well in his clerical robes ! " But 'tis vain to attempt to describe the elation Of the two good parents on this occasion. There cannot be a doubt, thought they, He's the greatest orator of the day. When divine service had come to a termina- tion, They adjourned to partake of a great collation, Given in Senator Jobs' s house. Where all the relations went to carouse. And while the dinner they were eating, Hieronimus' praise they were constantly re- peating, And many a great glass of wine Was drunk to the health of our young divine. The whole assembly was also unanimous That, under existing circumstances, Hiero- nimus, Who to-day had preached so brilliantly Before the present company, Must certainly next make bold to venture His name as candidate to enter, That so, in optima forma he Should Candidatus Ministerii be. 'Tis true, as a preliminary. An Examen would be necessary. But the recent specimen showed that he Would find therein no difficulty. Especially as the present incumbent was weakly. Old and infirm and somewhat sickly, Hieronimus might without any offence Enter the vacant parish at once. That is, in case, by the blessing of heaven. The parson should go the way of all living, For his feeble constitution gave place For suspicion that this would be shortly the case. Hieronimus, overpowered by the solicitations And weighty reasons of his friends and rela- tions, Gave, anxiously enough, God knows, His consent to what they did propose. For the rest, he emptied with great pleasure Of liquor many a brimming measure. But when that Examen came into his head It struck his heart with a sort of dread. At last his anxiety sought consolation In a regular fit of intoxication. Although old Jobs his displeasure made known. By repeatedly shaking his head at his son. Bow Hierommus was examined for a Candi- date, and how he made out. However he stuck to his determination, And the olerisy held a convocation, 244 THE JOBSIAD. And every one came in Ms wig and robea To the examination of Hieronimus Jobs. But how he felt in view of his danger, Being to learning an utter stranger, And what an anxious face he made, The reader will not comprehend, I'm afraid. The scene is beyond my power of painting : Tf he ever in his life saw the hour for fainting, That hour at last was approaching now, Alas ! thou poor Hieronimus, thou 1 Begin now. Miss Muse, an enumeration Of the clerical gentlemen whom the examin- ation Brought hither on the appointed day From every quarter of Swabia. The first, that was the Herr Inspector, Iq doctrine strong as a second Hector, A stately, pot-bellied man was he. Whom you saw at a glance an Inspector to be. This post was accorded to his singular merit. Its burdens he bore with a patient spirit. And, to say the truth, with a cheerful mood. And daily ate and drank what was good. And after him came the ghostly Assessor, A man whose breadth was somewhat lesser. But height much greater : he was spare of limb. And his disposition exceedingly grim. He not only the spiritual interests defended, But to matters of economy also attended. And drank only bad wine and beer, For his income was small and his habit severe. Then came Herr Krager, an oldish man rather, Who was very well versed in many a church father. And to prove a point could readily quote Whatever any one of 'em wrote. Next Herr Krisch ; polite as a Castilian, Who was, in Postils, a perfect postilion ; Posted up in them as well as the best Parson the Swabian land possessed. Next Herr Beff, a Linguist of great reputation, And a tolerable Christian in walk and con- versation. In lecturing a terrible bore. But always Orthodox to the core. Next Herr Sehrei, a man of great notoriety Alike in the pulpit and in general society, Free and easy — had no wife, And led with his cook an exemplary life. Next Herr Plotz, an angelic creature, In his youth of a somewhat genial nature, But when to preach he once began He became a very pious man. He kept his beloved congregation. From vice and evil communication. Faithful in season and out was he To admonish, when he had opportunity. Next Herr Keffer, who never could tire In following his sheep through mud and mire, But alas ! in his flock, beside the lambs. Were likewise many stiif-neeked old rams. Sometimes, to get them to follow his leadings, He instituted legal proceedings. For he understood the jura of the state As well as the very best advocate. Besides those named in the above enumera- tion, Other clerical gentlemen attended the exam- ination, Whom I neither need nor can Particularly designate man by man. Now when the reverend and ghostly faces Had all come together in their places, Prcemissis prsemittendis they Round a great table sate straightway. With trembling and quaking came Hieronimus Before this assembly of white bands so omi- nous. And scraped a greeting submissively, Oh, woe, Hieronimus ! woe on thee! First and foremost inquired the Examinatorei About his previous manners and mores. And presently asked him whether he Had a certificate from the university ? Hieronimus, without hesitation. Handed the inspector the attestation. Who read the same immediately : Alas, Hieronimus, woe on thee 1 THE JOBSIAD. 246 'Tis true, the document was worded. iu Liitiii aud Greek, as above recorded, And consequently not easy to read. But unfortunately, as ill luck decreed, The Inspector made out, in a free translation To give a substantial interpretation. For no otlier clergyman in the hall Dared undertake the task at all. To leave no breach in this narration, 1 win now give the reader full information. What Hieronimus' certificate, Word for word, did properly state. First the name and title of the Professors, And then in larger hand, the letters L. B. S., and the meaning of them Was Lectori Benevolo Salutem ! " Forasmuch as Herr Hieronimus Jobsius As Theologise Studiosus, During three years' and some weeks' space Had his residence in this place, — " And the same now has it in contemplation To take his leave, aud has made application For a written certificate to me, A step of great propriety, — " I could not refuse his reasonable desires, But give hereby the attest he requires, That the same did every quarter of a year Once at my lecture-room appear. " Whether the rest was devoted to study Himself knows better than anybody, For I in this ofBcial report Assert and testify nothing of the sort. "Aud as to general behaviour, There is not much to be said in his favor, Entire silence on that point would be The part of Christian charity. " For the rest I have only to say, God speed him On his journey home, and may heaven lead him, When all these earthly troubles are past. To the place where he belongs at last ! " How the eyes of the learned body distended When the reading of this document ended ! And that Herr Hieronimus did not laugh The reader can imagine readily enough. However, on all hands it seenicd better, For this once to overlook the matter, And for charity's sake to find all the good In the testimonial that they could. For the gentlemen wisely recollected How many of their tricks had not been de- tected. And how if they had, it had fared with them. And so they proceeded at once ad rem. The Herr Inspector he led off, Clearing the way with a mighty cough, Repeated thrice, thrice did he stroke His portly paunch and then he spoke : " I, for the time ^ro tempore Inspector And of the clergy present Director, Ask you : ' Quid fit Episcopus ? " Straightway replied Hieronimus : " A Bishop is, as I conjecture. An altogether agreeable mixture Of sugar, pomegranate juice and red wine, And for warming and strengthening very fine." The Candidate Jobs this answer making. There followed of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem I Then the others secundum ordinem. And now the Assessor began to inquire: " Eerr Hieronimus ! tell me, I desire. Who the Apostles may have been ? " Hieronimus quick made answer again : "Apostles they call great jugs, I'm thinking, In which wine and beer are kept for drink- ing, In the villages, and from them oft By thirsty Bursches liquor is quaffed." The Candidate Jobs this answer making. There followed of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem 1 Then the others secundum ordinem. Herr Krager now in his turn stood ready : And " if you please, Herr Candidate," said he, " Inform me who was St. Augustin ? " Hieronimus answered with open mien : " The only Augustine of whom I've anj knowledge Is the one I used to know at college, 246 THE JOBSIAD. Augustine, tlie beadle of the University, Who often before the Prorector cited me.'' The Candidate Jobs this answer making. There followed of heads a general shaking. And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem 1 Then the others secundum ordinem. Now followed Herr Krisch at once and re- quested To know "of how many parts a sermon con- sisted ? In other words, how many divisions may there be, When it is written ruleably ? " said he. Hieronimus, having taken a moment to de- termine, Replied: "There are two parts to every sermon : The one of these two parts no man Can understand, but the other he can." The Candidate Jobs this answer making. There followed of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem I Then the others secundum ordinem. Herr Beff, the Linguist, continued the ex- amination. And desired of Herr Hieronimus information : " What the Hebrew Kibbutz i might be ? " Hieronimus' s answer was somewhat free : "I find in a book to which I've paid atten- tion, Sophia's tour from Memel to Saxony, men- tion. That she to the surly Kibbutz ^ fell Because she refused the rich old swell." The Candidate Jobs this answer making, There followed of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem ! Then the others secundum ordinem. Next in turn it came to Herr Schreier, Who did of Hieronimus inquire, " How many classes of angels he Considered there might properly be?^' Hieronimus answered, " He never pretended With all the angels to be acquainted, ^Eibbtitz is a corruption for the Hebrew letter Kopb. 'Kibbutz is also a uame for the Owl, But there was one of them he knew On the Angel-Tavern sign, painted blue." The Candidate Jobs this answer making, There followed of heads a general shaking. And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem ! And the others secundum ordinem. Herr Plotz proceeded with the interrogation ; " Can you give, Herr Candidate, an enumeration Of the concilia secumenica ? " And Hieronimus answered: "Sir, "When I at the university did study I was often cited before a body Called a council, but it never seemed to me To have anything to do with economy." The Candidate Jobs this answer making, There followed of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem 1 Then the others secundum ordinem. Then followed his spiritual lordship, Herr Kefi'er, The question he started seemed somewhat tougher. It related "to the Manichean^ heresy And what their faith was originally." Answer: "Yes, these simple devils Did really think that without any cavils, Before my departure, I should pay them off And in fact I did cudgel them soundly enough." The Candidate Jobs this answer making. There followed of heads a general shaking. And first the Inspector said, hem ! hem ! Then the others secundum ordinem. The remaining questions that received atten- tion For want of room I omit to mention ; For otherwise the protocol Would exceed seven sheets, if given in full. For there were many questions, dogmatical, Polemical and hermeneutical. To which Hieronimus made reply In the manner above, successively. 3 The German students mckname their creditors Manir chieans. THE BELLE OF THE BALL-EOOM. 247 And likewise many questions in philology And other sciences ending in ology, And whatever else to a clergyman may Be put on examination day. When the Candidate Jobs his answer was making, There would follow of heads a general shaking, And first the Inspector would say hem I hem ! Then the others secundum ordinem. Now when the examination had expired, Hieronimus by permission retired, That the case might be viewed on every side. And the council carefully decide : If conscience would advise the admission Of Hieronimus to the position And class of candidates for the Holy Gospel ministry. Immediately they proceeded to voting, But very soon, without much disputing. The meeting was unanimous That, under the circumstances, Hieronimus Would not persist in his application As a candidate for ordination, But for special reasons they thought it best, To let the matter quietly rest. In fact, for years it was kept so private. No stranger ever heard anything of it, But everybody early and late Held Hieronimus for a candidate. 0. A. KOETUM. Translated }yij Chas. T. Beooks. THE BELLE OF THE BALL-ROOM. Yeaes — years ago — ere yet my dreams Had been of being wise or witty — Ere I had done with writing themes. Or yawned o' er this infernal Chitty ; — Years — years ago— while all my joy Was in my fowling-piece and filly, — In short, while I was yet a boy, , I fell in love with Laura Lilly. I saw her at the County Ball : There, where the sounds of flute and fiddle Gave signal sweet, in that old hall, Of hands across and down the middle, Hers was the subtlest spell by far Of all that set young hearts romancing ; She was our queen, our rose, our star ; And then she danced — Oh Heaven, her dancing ! Dark was her hair, her hand was white ; Her voice was exquisitely tender ; Her eyes were full of liquid light ; I never saw a waist so slender I Her every look, her every smile, Shot right and left a score of arrows ; I thought 'twas Venus from her isle, And wondered where she'd left her spar- rows. She talked, — of politics or prayers, — Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's son- nets, — Of danglers — or of dancing bears, Of battles — or the last new bonnets ; By candlelight, at twelve o' clock. To me it mattered not a tittle ; If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal ; I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the " Sunday Journal." My mother laughed ; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling ; My father frowned ; but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling? She was the daughter of a Dean — Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic ; She had one brother, just thirteen. Whose color was extremely hectic ; Her grandmother for many a year Had fed the parish with her bounty ; Her second cousin was a peer. And Lord-Lieutenant of the county. But titles, and the three per cents, And mortgages, and great relations. And India bonds, and tithes, and rents — Oh ! what are they to love's sensations f Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks — Such wealth, such houors Cupid chooses ; He cares as little for the Stocks As Baron Rothschild for the Muses. She sketched ; the vale, the wood, the beaoli GrewloveUer from her pencil's shading. 248 THE FAITHFUL LOVEES. She botanized j I envied each Young blossom in her boudoir fading : She warbled Handel ; it was grand ; She made the Catalina j ealous : She touched the organ ; I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows. She kept an album, too, at home, Well filled with all an album's glories: Paintings of butterflies, and Rome, Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories ; Soft songs to Julia' s cockatoo, Fierce odes to Famine and to Slaughter, And autographs of Prince Leboo, And recipes for elder-water. And she was flattered, worshiped, bored ; Her steps were watched, her dress was noted ; Her poodle dog was quite adored. Her sayings were extremely quoted. She laughed, and every heart was glad, As if the taxes were abolished ; J'he frowned, and every look was sad, As if the Opera were demolished. She smiled on many, just for fun — I knew that there was nothing in it ; I was the first — the only one — Her heart had thought of for a minute. \i knew it, for she told me so, In phrase which was divinely molded ; She wrote a charming hand — and oh, How sweetly all her notes were folded I ( )ur love was like most other loves — A little glow, a little shiver, A rose-bud, and a pair of gloves. And " Fly not yet" — upon the river ; Some jealousy of some one's heir. Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, A miniature, a lock of hair, The usual vows — and then we parted. We parted ; months and years rolled by ; We met again four summers after. Our parting was all sob and sigh, Our meeting was all mirth and laughter : For in my heart's most secret cell There had been many other lodgers ; And she was not the ball-room's Belle, But only — Mrs. Something Rogers I WlHTHEOP M. FbAED. THE FAITHFUL LOVEES. A STOBY OF EVEBY-DAY LIFE. I'd been away from her three years, — about that. And I returned to find my Mary true ; And though I questioned her, I did not doubt that It was unnecessary so to do. 'T was by the chimney corner we were sitting : " Mary, " said I, "have you been always true?" •• Frankly," says she, just pausing in her knitting, " I don't think I've unfaithful been to you : But for three years past I'll tell you what I've done ; then say if I've been true or not. " When first you left my grief was uncon- trollable ; Alone I mourned my miserable lot ; And all who saw me thought me inconsolable, Till Captain Clifford came from Aldershott, To flirt with him amused me while 'twas new: I don't count that unfaithfulness — do you? "The next — ! let me see — was Frankie Phipps ; I met him at my uncle's, Christmas-tide, And 'neath the mistletoe, where lips meet lips, He gave his first kiss — " And here she sighed. " We stayed six weeks at uncle's — how time flew I I don't count that unfaithfulness — do you? " Lord Cecil Fossmore — only twenty-one — Lent me his horse. 0, how we rode and raced ! We scoured the downs — we rode to hounds- such fun 1 And often was his arm about my waist,— That was to lift me up and down. But who Would call just that unfaithfulness? Would you? "Do you know Eeggy Vere? Ah, how he sings ! We met, — 'twas at a picnic. 0, such weather I He gave me, look, the first of these two rings A LOVER'S CHRONICLE. 248 When we were lost in Cliefden wooda together. Ah, what a happy time we spent, — we two ! I don't count that unfaithfulness to you. " I've yet another ring from him ; d' ye see The plain gold circlet that is shining here ? ' ' I took her hand : "0 Mary ! can it be That you — " Quoth she, " that I am Mrs. Vere. I don't call that unfaithfulness — do you ? " " No," I replied, "fori am married too." Anonymous. A LOVER'S CHRONICLE. [Readers will note that more than two hundred years ago *' trifles light as air " — vers de aocidi^— were cleverly written by the poets of the period.] Margarita first possessed. If I remember well, my breast, Margarita first of all ; But awhile the wanton maid With my restless heart had play'd, Martha took the flying ball. Martha soon did it resign To the beauteous Catharine. Beauteous Catharine gave place (Though loth and angry she to part With the possession of my heart) To Eliza's conquering face. Eliza till this hour might reign. Had she not evil counsels ta'en. Fundamental laws she broke, And still new favorites she chose, Till up in arms my passions rose. And cast away her yoke. Mary then, and gentle Anne, Both to reign at once began ; Alternately they sway'd ; And sometimes Mary was the fair. And sometimes Anne the crown did wear. And sometimes both I obey'd. Another Mary then arose, An.l did rigorous laws impose ; A mighty tyrant she ! Long, alas ! should I have been Under that iron-sceptred queen. Had not Rebecca set me free. When fair Rebecca set me free, 'Twas then a golden time with me : But soon those pleasures fled ; For the gracious princess died, In her youth and beauty's pride, And Judith reigned in her stead. One month, three days, and half an hour, Judith held the sovereign power : Wondrous beautiful her face 1 But so weak and small her wit, That she to govern was unfit. And so Susanna took her place. But when Isabella came, Arm'd with a resistless flame. And th' artillery of her eye ; Whilst she proudly march' d about, Greater conquests to find out, She beat out Susan by the bye. But in her place I then obey' d Black-eyed Bess, her viceroy-maid ; To whom ensued a vacancy : Thousand worse passions then possess'd The interregnum of my breast ; Save me from such an anarchy I Gentle Henrietta then. And a third Mary, next began ; Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria ; And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Catharine, And then a long et csstera. But should I now to you relate The strength and riches of their state ; The powder, patches, and the pins. The ribbons, jewels, and the rings. The lace, the paint, and warlike things, That make up all their magazines ; If I should tell the politic arts To take and keep men's hearts ; The letters, embassies, and spies. The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries. The quarrels, tears, and perjuries, (Numberless, nameless mysteries I) And all the little lime-twigs laid. By Maohiavel, the waiting-maid; I more voluminous should grow (Chiefly if I like them should tell All change of weathers that befeU) Than Holinshed or Stow. 250 HE STOLE HIS THUNDER. But I will briefer with them be, Since few of them were long with me. An higher and a nobler strain My present Empress doth claim, Heleonora, first o' th' name ; Whom G-cd grant her long to reign ! Abbaham Cowley, 1618-1667. HE STOLE HIS THUNDEE. Those who have only heard Lord Brougham speak must understand that they have scarcely an idea of the oratory of Harry Brougham. From the first day he entered the House of Peers as Lord Chancellor he seemed to be trammeled by a sense of his position. He would have compromised its dignity, as well as the character of a minister of the Crown, if he addressed his new audience, cold and aristocratic as it was, with the fierce and powerful declamation in which he had formerly excelled. There is a well- known story that when his mother heard that he had accepted the Chancellorship she said : " Then Harry Brougham is ruined ; " and ruined he most certainly was, as an orator. He had made himself great, but he was destroyed by being made great by others. Harry Brougham's speeches produced much the same kind of sensation as would bo experienced on witnessing the acting of the elder Kean. Brougham unconsciously acted his speeches. His action, too, was anything but graceful. The want of finish, how- ever, was always lost in the sense of the rugged earnestness of the speaker, and of the terrific power with which he hurled his invectives at his opponents — a power which had once the effect of causing an old stager like Canning to spring from his seat, half frantic, and exclaim, while striicing the table in front of him with extraordinary force, " It is a falsehood." While Brougham spoke, the impression would be on the hearer that any attempt to reply would be a hopeless undertaking. And hopeless it would have been to anyone but Canning. Brougham had a great fund of humor at his command, but Canning, with an amount of humor still more redundant, had a command of wit and anecdote which carried everything before it. The House has more than once been absolutely electrified by some fierce denunciation on the part of Brougham, and in less than five minutes afterward that same house has been indulging in peal after peal of immoderate laughter at the inimitable dexterity with which Can- ning warded ofi' the attack and flung ridi- cule on his opponent. On one occasion, on the first night of a session, Brougham attacked the Government for having, ac- cording to the announcements in the speech from the throne, stolen many of the measures advocated by his side of the House and made them their own. The speech was a telling one, and the more telling because it was true. It was ap- plauded to the very echo, and doubtless many of those who heard him wondered how Canning would rebut the fierce at- tack. When he rose the House welcomed him with tremendous cheering, as if an- ticipating the success which usually at- tended his efibrts. In this instance, too, it was not doomed to be disappointed. In a spirit of the utmost good humor he said that the honorable and learned gen- tleman had reminded him of an anecdote which he would relate to the house. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth an author named Denis had written a play, which was produced at the Theatre Royal of the day. In this play was introduced a scene in which for the first time on any stage there was an imitation of a thunder- storm. Denis attended the performance, and had the mortification to witness his piece, notwithstanding the thunderstorm, unequivocally damned. Time passed on, and with it the memory of his play and its unlucky fate, when, one night, he went to see a new play from the pen of another author. The piece was in every respect superior to that of poor Denis, who watched each successive scene with feelings of envy. It happened, however, that the author had also introduced a thunderstorm. As soon as Denis, who was in the pit, heard the rolling of the •thunder, followed by the plaudits of the audience, he jumped upon one of the seats and raising himself to his fullest . height, shouted out with the voice of a stentor, " That's my thunder ! That's my thunder ! " The roars of laughter which followed, and in which Brougham him- self, the Denis of the moment, was com- pelled to join, baffles all description. His speech was no longer to be thought of, except in so far as it had elicited the ready wit of Canning. TtmpU Bar. MR. STIVER'S HORSE. 251 MR. STIVER'S HOESE. By James M. Bailey. The other morning at breakfast, Mrs. Perkins observed that Mr. Stiver, in whose house we live, had been called away, and wanted to know if I would see to his horse through the day. I knew that Mr. Stiver owned a horse, because I occasionally saw him drive out of the yard, and I saw the stable every day ; but what kind of a horse I didn't know. I never went into the stable for two reasons : in the first place, I had no desire to ; and, secondly, I didn't know as the horse particularly cared for company. I never took care of a horse in my life, and had I been of a less hopeful nature, the charge Mr. Stiver had left with me might have had a very depressing effect; but I told Mrs. Perkins I would do it. "You know how to take care of a horse, don't you ? " said she. I gave her a reassuring wink. In fact I knew so little about it that I didn't think it safe to converse more fluently than by winks. After breakfast I seized a toothpick and walked out toward the stable. There was nothing particular to do, as Stiver had given him his breakfast, and I found him eating it ; so I looked around. The horse looked around, too, and stared pretty hard at me. There was but little said on either side. I hunted up the location of the feed, and then sat down on a peck measure, and fell to studying the beast. There is a wide difference in horses. Some of them will kick you over and never look around to see what becomes of you. I don't like a disposition like that, and I wondered if Stiver's horse was one of them. When I came home at noon I went straight to the stable. The animal was there all right. Stiver hadn't told me what to give him for dinner, and I had not given the subject any thought ; but I went to the oat box and filled the peck measure, and sallied up to the manger. When he saw the oats he almost smiled ; this pleased and amused him. I emptied them into the trough, and left him above me to admire the way I parted my hair behind. I just got my head up in time to save the whole of it- He had his ears back, his mouth open, and looked as if he were on the point of committing' murder. I went out and filled the meas- ure again, and climbed up the side of the stall and emptied it on top of him. He brought his head up so suddenly at this that I immediately got down, letting go of everything to do it. I struck on the sharp edge of a barrel, rolled over a couple of times, and then disappeared under a hay-cutter. The peck measure went down on the other side, and got mysteriously tangled up in that animal's heels, and he went to work at it, and then ensued the most dreadful noise I ever heard in all my life, and I have been married eighteen years. It did seem as if I never would get out from under that hay-cutter ; and all the while I was struggling and wrenching myself and the cutter apart, that awful beast was kicking around in the stall, and making the most appalling sound imaginable. When I got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the door. She had heard the racket, and had sped out to the stable, her only thought being of me and three stove lids which she had under her arm, and one of which she was about to fire at the beast. This made me mad. "Go away, you unfortunate idiot," I shouted; "do you want to knock my brains out?" For I remembered seeing Mrs. Perkins sling a missile once before, and that I nearly lost an eye by the operation, although standing on the other side of the house at the time. She retired at once. And at the same time the animal quieted down, but there was nothing left of that peck measure, not even the maker's name. I followed Mrs. Perkins into the house, and had her do me up, and then I sat down in a chair, and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After a while I felt better, and went out to the stable again. The horse was leaning against the stable stall, with eyes half closed, and appeared to be very much engrossed in thought. "Step off" to the left," I said, rubbing his back. He didn't step. I got the pitchfork and punched him in the leg with the handle. He immediately raised up both hind legs at once, and that fork flew out of my hands, and went rattling up against the timbers above, and came down again in an instant, the end of the handle rap- ping me with such force on the top of the 862 ME. STIVER'S HORSE. head that I sat right down on the floor under the impression that I was standing in front of a drug store in tlie evening. I went back to the house and got some more stuif on me. But I couldn't keep away from that stable. I went out there again. The thought struck me that what the horse wanted was exercise. Ii that thought had been an empty glyce- rine can, it would have saved a windfall of luck for me. But exercise would tone him down, and exercise him I should. I laughed to myself to think how I would trounce him around the yard. I didn't laugh again that afternoon. I got him unhitched, and then wondered how I was to get him out of the stall without carrying him out. I pushed, but he wouldn't budge. I stood looking at him in the face, thinking of something to say, when he suddenly solved the difficulty by veering about and plunging for the door. I followed, as a matter of course, because I had a tight hold on the rope, and hit about every partition stud worth speaking of on that side of the barn. Mrs. Perkins was at the window and saw us come out of the door. She subsequently remarked that we came out skipping like two inno- cent children. The skipping was entirely unintentional on my part. I felt as if I stood on the verge of eternity. My legs may have skipped, but my mind was filled with awe. I took that animal out to exercise him. He exercised me before I got through with it. He went around a few times in a circle; then he stopped suddenly, spread out his fore legs and looked at me. Then he leaned forward a little, and hoisted both hind legs, and threw about two coal hods of mud over a line full of clothes Mrs. Perkins had just hung out. That excellent lady had taken a posi- tion at the window, and whenever the evolutions of the awfiil beast permitted I caught a glance at her features. She ap- peared to be very much interested in the proceedings ; but the instant that the mud flew, she disappeared from the win- dow, and a moment later she appeared on the stoop with a long poker in her hand, and fire enough in her eye to heat it red hot. Just then Stiver's horse stood up on his hind legs and tried to hug me with the others. This scared me. A horse never shows his strength to such advant- age as when he is coming down on you like a frantic pile driver. I instantly dodged, and the cold sweat fairly boiled out of me. It suddenly came over me that I had once figured in a similar position years ago. My grandfather owned a little white horse that would get up from a meal at Delmonico's to kick the President of the United States. He sent me to the lot one day, and unhappily suggested that I often went after that horse, and suffered all kinds of defeat in getting him out of the pasture, but I had never tried to ride him. Heaven knows I never thought of it. I had my usual trouble with him that day. He tried to jump over me, and push me down in a mud hole, and finally got up on his hind legs and came waltzing after me with facilities enough to convert me into hash, but I turned and just made for that fence with all the agony a prospect of instant death could crowd into me. If our candidate for the Presidency had run one-half as well, there would be seventy-five post- masters in Danbury to-day, instead of one. I got him out finally, and then he was quiet enough, and took him up alongside the fence and got on him. He stopped an instant, one brief instant, and then tore off down the road at a frightful speed. I laid down on him and clasped my hands tightly around his neck, and thought of my home. When we got to the stable I was confident he would stop, but he didn't. He drove straight at the door. It was a low door, just high enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room for me. I saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be a brief one. I thought this all over in an instant, and then spreading out my arms and legs, emitted a scream, and the next moment I was bounding about in the filth of that stable yard. All this passed through my mind as Stiver's horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs. Perkins dreadfully. "Why, you old fool ! " she said; "why don't you get rid of him ? " "How can I?" said I, in desperation. " Why, there are a thousand ways," said she. This is just like a woman. How dif- ferent a statesman would have answered. But I could think of only two ways to dispose of the beast : I could either swal- DANIEL O'CONNELL AND BIDDY MORIAETY. 253 low him where he stood and then sit down on him, or I could crawl inside of him and kick him to death. But I was saved either of these expe- dients by his coming toward me so abruptly that I dropped the rope in terror, and then he turned about, and, kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping the clothes line in two, and went on down the street at a horrible gallop, with two of Mrs. Perkins's garments, which he hastily snatched from the line, floating over his neck in a very pic- turesque manner. So I was afterwards told. I was too full of mud myself to see the way into the house. Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at home to take care of him. Mrs. Per- kins has gone to her mother's to recuper- ate, and I am healing as fast as possible. Danbury News Man. DANIEL O'CONNELL AND BIDDY MORIAETY. Mr. Madden tells the following : — When Daniel O'Connell was yet a very young man his talent for vituperative language was so great that he was deemed match- less as a scold. There lived in Dublin a certain woman, Biddy Moriarty by name, who kept a huckster's stall on one of the quays nearly opposite the Four Courts. She was a first-class virago — formidable with both fist and tongue — so that her voluble imputation had become almost proverbial in the country roundabout. Some of O'Connell's friends thought that he could defeat her with her own weapons, while others ridiculed the idea. The Kerry barrister could not stand this, so he backed himself for a match. Bets were ofiered, and taken, and it was de- cided that the matter should be settled at once. So proceeding to the huckster's stall with a few friends, O'Connell com- menced the attack on the old lady : "What is the price of this walking- stick, Mrs. What's-your-name?" " Moriarty, sir, is my name, and a good one it is ; and what have you to say agin it? and one-and-sixpence's the price of the stick. Troth it's cheap as dirt, so it is." " One-and-sixpence for a walking-stick ; whew 1 Why, you are no better than an impostor to ask eighteen pence for what cost you two pence." " T'wo pence, your grandmother," re- plied Mrs. Biddy. " Do you mane to say that's chating the people I am? Impostor, indeed ! " " Ay, impostor ; and it's that I call you to your teeth," rejoined O'Connell. " Come, cut your stick, you cantanker- ous jackanapes." " Keep a civil tongue in your head, you old diagonal," cries O'Connell, calmly. " Stop your jaw, you pug-nosed badger, or by this and that," cried Mrs. Moriarty, "I'll make you go quicker nor you came." " Don't be in a passion, my old radium — anger will only wrinkle your beauty." " By the hokey, if you say anothfjr word of impudence, I'll tan your dirty hide, you bastely common scrub ; arid sorry I'd be to soil my fists upon your carcase." " Whew ! boys, what a passion oM Biddy is in ; I protest as I am a gentle- man " — " Jintleman ! jintleman I the likes of you a jintleman ! Wisha, by gor, that bangs Banager. Why, you potato-faced pippin- sneezer, when did a Madagascar monkey like you pick enough of common Chris- tian decency to hide your Kerry brogue?" " Easy now — easy now," cried O'Con- nell, with imperturbable good humor ; " don't choke yourself with fine language, you old Yi][mk.j-AxiDkmg parallelogram." " What's that you call me, you mur- derin' villain?" roared Mrs. Moriarty, stung into fury. " I call you," answered O'Connell, " a parallelogram ; and a Dublin Judge and jurv will say that it's no libel to call you so." " Oh, tare-an-ouns I oh, holy Biddy 1 that an honest woman like me should be called a parrybellygrum to her face. I'm none of your parrybellygrums, you ras- cally gallows bird ; you cowardly, sneak- ing, platelickin' bliggard I " Oh, not you, indeed ! " retorted O'Connell ; " why I suppose you'll deny that you keep a hypothenuse in your house." " It's a lie for you, you b y robber ; I never had such a thing in my house, you swindling thief." " Why, sure all of your neighbors know very well that you keep not only a hypothenuse, but that you have two 254 WHEN EVAETS UNBENDS. diameters looked up in your garret, and that you go out to walk with them every Sunday, you heartless old heptagon." " Oh, hear that, ye saints in glory ! Oh, there's had language from a fellow that wants to pass for a jintleman. May the divil fly away with you, you wicher from Munster, and make celery-sauce of your rotten limbs, you mealy-mouthed tub of guts." " Ah, you can't deny the charge, you mis- erable sub-muUvple of a duplicate ratio." " Go rinse your mouth in the Liflfey, you nasty ticklepitcher ; after all the bad words you speak it ought to be filthier than your face, you dirty chicken of Beelzebub.'' " Rinse your own mouth, you wicked- minded polygon — to the deuce I pitch you, you blustering intersection of a st — ng superficies ! " " You saucy tinker's apprentice, if you don't cease your jaw I'll " — But here she gasped for breath, unable to hawk up any more words, for the last volley of O'Connell had nearly knocked the wind out of her. " While I have a tongue I'll abuse you, you most iahnita.h\e periphery. Look at her, boys ! there she stands — a convicted perpendicular in petticoats ! There's con- tamination in her circumference and she trembles with guilt down to the extrem- ities of her corollaries. Ah I you're found out, you rectilinear-antecedent and equi- angular old hag ! 'Tis with you the devil will fly away, you porter-swiping simili- tude of the bisection of a vorter ! " Overwhelmed with this torrent of lan- guage, Mrs. Moriarty was silenced. Catching up a saucepan, she was aiming at O'Connell's head when he very prud- ently made a timely retreat. " You have won the wager, O'Connell, here's your bet," cried the gentleman who had proposed the contest. From Madden^ s Revelatuma of Ireland. OETHODOX POEGIVENESS. A New England deacon called upon a brother deacon with whom he was at va- ria,noe, and with an air of great solemni- ty said : " Brother Jones, it is a shame that this quarrel of ours should bring scandal upon the church. I have prayed earnestly for guidance in the matter, and I have come to the conclusion that you must give in, for I cannot." WHEN EVAETS UNBENDS. WIT AND HUMOK OF THE NEW TOBK SENATOB. The election of William M. Evarts to the United States Senate has been fol- lowed by many tributes to him based upon different phases of his long and distin- guished career. His leadership of the American bar has been dwelt upon. The number of celebrated cases in which he has figured has been recounted. Atten- tion has been called to his services to the country as Attorney-General and Secre- tary of State. The full measure of his devotion to the Republican party has been portrayed. But there remains another and most agreeable point of view from which to observe the new Senator. The biographer of Thaddeus Stevens tells us that his hero possessed in a remarkable degree that fond gaillard — that basis of gayety — which Carlyle attributed to Mi- rabeau. The remark is singularly appli- cable to Mr. Evarts. The gleaming thread of gayety runs through the warp and woof of his life. No one enjoys a good story more than he, even as no one tells a better one. One of his professional brothers of the metropolis who thoroughly appreciates Mr. Evarts' gifts of wit and humor, says : " I am not sure but his choicest mot was uttered at a dinner which was given sev- eral years ago in this city to Thomas Bayley Potter, a member of the English House of Commons. The Rev. Henry Potter was the host, while among the guests were a number of other well-known members of the Potter family. When it came Mr. Evarts' turn formally to speak he began about in this way : ' When I re- member that we are being entertained by the Rev. Henry — Potter; that we were invited to meet Sir Thomas Bayley — Pot- ter ; when I observe at my right Clarkson N. — Potter, and at my left the Rev. Eli- phalet Nott— Potter, I am reminded oi the young country clergyman who was unexpectedly summoned to supply a city pulpit. The church was so imposing and the congregation so fashionable that when he arose to make the opening invocation he found himself a good deal flustrated. The result was that to the consternation of his hearers he led off with the petition : Lord, help us never to forget that Thou art the clay and that we are the potters.' " THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S EXPERIMENT. 255' One morning the elevator which car- ried him up to his office in the State De- partment contained an unusual number of strangers, presumably applicants for Ministerships or Consulships. Turning to a friend who accompanied him, Mr. Evarts whispered : " This is the largest collection for for- eign missions that I've seen taken up for some time." A gentleman who listened to Mr. Ev- arts argue a case before the Court of Ap- peals a few j'cars ago, in recalling the circumstance, observed : " It takes a good deal to make that dignified Court of last resort indulge in a smile, but Mr. Evarts did it. He was pitted against some great corporation, and in order to illustrate the quality of its magnanimity he said : ' Why, if the Court please, when I think of the attitude taken by this road I am reminded of the anecdote of the Irish bailiff who wrote to the proprietor of the estate, who was traveling on the Continent : " The tenantry are behaving very badly, and have gone so far as to threaten to shoot me in case the rents are not reduced." And in answer to the bailiff the landlord promptly wrote : " Tell the tenants that the rents will not be reduced, and im- press it upon them that no threats which they may make to shoot you will have the slightest influence upon me." ' I believe the story is an old one, but it became new in Mr. Evarts' hands. He told it with irresistible effect." Another story illustrating the great lawyer's quickness is a favorite in circles of " applied finance." Not long since he stood with a party of friends on the soil of Virginia near the famous Natural Bridge. There was a legend that once on a time George Washington threw a silver dollar from the stream to the surface of the Bridge. It is a big throw, so big in fact that some of the tourists were inclined to disbelieve the legend. Mr. Evarts be- ing appealed to for his opinion, instantly replied, as he measured the distance with a twinkling eye: "Well, we must not forget that a dollar went a good deal further in Washington's day than it does now." In 1882 Mr. Evarts was a guest of Brooklyn's sons of New England at their annual dinner, and made a brilliant speech. In the course of his remarks he sij'ly complimented the Mayor of that city by commending the Mayor's fellow- citizens for their obedience to Milton's admonition : What is low raise and support. At another New England dinner, re- ferring to the assertion that in the cabin of the Mayflower was composed the first written Constitution of a political State, Mr. Evarts set the table in a roar by this comment : " Now it is my duty to say in the truth of history that that first meeting had something at least of the notion of a packed convention, for nobody was al- lowed to go ashore until he had signed the Constitution." THE DUKE OP WELLINGTON'S EXPERIMENT. In a ground-floor room in one of the large public buildings in London, a man sat writing at a table covered with papers. He was a short, strongly-built figure with a prominent nose, and a face hard and massive as a granite statue, wearing the set look peculiar to men who have sur- mounted great difiiculties and confronted great perils. Few, indeed, had had more practice in both than this man, for he was no other than the Duke of Wellington, and his crowning victory at Waterloo was still but a few years old. There was the tinkle of a bell outside, and then a murmur of voices in the ante- room ; but the Duke never raised his head from his writing, even when his secretary entered and said : " If it please your Grace, the man with the bullet-proof breast-plate has called again, and wishes very much to see your Grace for a moment." The Duke's face darkened, as well it might, for the man in question was the most pertinacious bore whom he had ever encountered. The bullet-proof cuirass was his own invention, and he never lost a chance of declaring that the safety of the whole British army depended upon the instant adoption of this unparalleled dis- covery," which he carried about with him, and exhibited at all times and in all places. Had this been all, he would soon have been disposed of; but, unluckily, he had contrived to interest in his inven- tion one or two of the Duke's personal t,i 256 ' PIE.' friends, and to get from them letters of recommendation which even Wellington could not easily disregard. Something must clearly be done, however ; for al- though the fellow had hitherto been kept at bay, he was evidently determined to give the Duke no peace till the matter had been fully gone into. For a moment Wellington looked so grim that the secretary began to hope for the order which he would gladly have obeyed, viz., to kick the inventor into the street forthwith. But the next instant the iron face cleared again, and over it played the very ghost of a smile, like a gleam of winter sunshine upon a preci- pice. " Show him in," said he, briefly. The observant secretary noted both the tone and the smile that accompanied it ; and he inwardly decided that it would have been better for that inventor if he had 7iot insisted on seeing the Duke. In came the great discoverer — a tall, slouching, shabby, slightly red-nosed man, with a would-be jaunty air, which gave way a little, however, before the "Iron Duke's " penetrating glance. " I am glad to think that your Grace appreciates the merits of my invention," said he, in a patronizing tone. " They are, indeed, too important to be undervalued by any great commander. Your gallant troops at Waterloo among the French cuirassiers, whose breast-plates were not bullet-proof; whereas, if — " Have you got the thing with you ? " interrupted Wellington. The inventor unwrapped a very showy looking cuirass of polished steel, and was just beginning a long lecture upon its merits, when the Duke cut him short by asking, "Are you quite sure it is bullet- proof? " "Quite sure, your grace." "Put it on, then, and go and stand in that corner." The other wonderingly obeyed. " Mr. Temple," shouted Wellington to his secretary, " tell the sentry outside to load with ball-cartridge, and come in here to test this cuirass." But quick though the secretary was, the inventor was quicker still. The mo- ment he realized that he had been set up there on purpose to be fired at, and to be shot dead on the spot if his cuirass turned out to be not bullet-proof after all, he leaped headlong through the open window, and darting like a rocket across the couit-yard, vanished through the outer gateway ; nor did the Duke of Welling- ton, from that day forth, ever see or heai of him again. " PIE." ' The real social curse of the Atlantic States is pie. In the West it is pro- nounced " poy," and the backwoodsmen are fond of it; but a man who lives in a log-hut, and is felling trees or toiling in the prairies all day long, can eat pie with impunity. It is in the North and in the East, in cities, and townships, and manu- facturing districts, where dense popula- tions congregate, and where the occupar tions of men, women, and children are se- dentary, that an unholy appetite for pie works untold woes. There the pie fiend reigns supreme ; there he sits heavy on the diaphragms and on the souls of its votaries. The sallow faces, the shrunken forms, the sunken eyes, the morose looks, the tetchy temperament of the Northern- ers are attributable not half so much to iced water, candies, tough beefsteaks, tight-lacing, and tobacco-chewing, as to unbridled indulgence in pie. New Eng- land can count the greatest number of votaries to this most deleterious fetish ; but pie-worship is prevalent all over the North. In the State of Massachusetts, for instance, you have pork and beans every Sunday, but you have pie morning, noon, and night, every day, and all the year round. I dare say you have often observed what gross feeders the professed teetotallers are, and how unwholesome they look for all their abstinence from fermented liquors. Set this down in Eng- land to a ghoul-like craving for heavy meat, teas, greasy muffins, Sally Lunns, and hot suppers, and in the United States to an overweening addictedness to pie. . I have heard of young la- dies who took pie to bed with them. I told you many months ago how angry the Americans were with Mr. Anthony Trol- lope for saying that the little children in the States are fed on pickles. He erred, but in degree. There will sometimes in- tervene a short period when there are no fresh berries to be had, and when the pre- served ones have " gin out." Then the 1 By kind permiBsion of Messrs. Tinsley Brothers. A CURE. 257 juveniles are raised on pickles. At other times their pabulum is pie. The " Con- fessions of a Pie-Eater" have just been published. They are heart-rending. Through an unconquerable hunger for pie, the wretched man who is their sub- ject often incurred in infancy the penal visitation of hickory, and brought the hairs of an aged grandmother with sorrow to the grave. He wasted in gormandiz- ing pie those precious hours which should have been devoted to study, and in the end not only failed to graduate at West Point, but even to marry a niece of the late Daniel Webster. Pie darkened his mind, stupefied his faculties, paralyzed his energy. Pie forced him to abandon a lucrative and honorable career for an unsuccessful whaling voyage from Cape Cod. Pie drove him into exile. Dead- ened to all the fine moral feelings by this ungovernable lust for pie, he obtained, under false and fraudulent pretences, a through ticket for California by the Van- derbilt line; but, detected in "smouch- ing-a-tom-cod " from the altar of the Chi- nese temple in San Francisco, he was dis- gracefully expelled from the Golden State. It was for purloining pie — a digger's noontide lunch — that he was subsequently ridden on a rail out of the territory of Arizona. Beggared, broken in health, he deserted his wife and family, drew cheques upon wild-cat banks, and voted the Bell and Everett ticket — all in consequence of pie. At length, after a course of " shin- ning round the free lunches " in quest of tileemosynary pie, and wolfing the hideous meal with Dead Rabbits, Plug-uglies, and other unscrupulous politicians, in the Fourth Ward, he was arrested in Phila- delphia — being then located on Pine, two blocks from Cedar — for passing bogus notes on the Hide and Leather Bank, and was sent to States Prison for ten years. All owing to pie. I tell the tale as it was told me. It may read very like a bur- lesque ; but there is a substratum of sad truth in it. The late illustrious Abernethy had a presentiment of the ravages which pie was making in the American consti- tution, when he rebuked his dyspeptic patient irom beyond the sea with the gorging propensities of his countrymen. Xlexico is said to owe her ruin to the game of monte; and if Columbia does not abate her fearful craving for pie, the very direst ftiture may be augured for her. LINCOLN AS A MERCANTILE AGENCY. A New York firm applied to Abraham Lincoln some years before he became President as to the financial condition of a neighbor. Mr. Lincoln replied as fol- lows : " Yours of the 10th instant received. I am well acquainted with Mr. and know his circumstances. First of all, he has a wife and baby ; together Ihey ought to be worth $50,000 to any man. Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say $1. Last of all there is in one corner a large rat-hole which will bear looking into. Respectfully yours, A. Lincoln." PRACTICE BEFORE MARRIAGE. A Brooklyn paper recently suggested that it would be wise for mothers, instead of allowing their daughters to do such work as pleases them, to accustom them, when at home, to such work as they will have to do when married. This is a mighty good idea. The mother can have a heap of fun by making the daughter sit up till 12:45 A. M., and then come in, dis- guised in some of the old man's clothes, and hiccough and swear at the girl, and fall over her feet, and see how the girl likes it. And the girl can get square with her mother for past scoldings by calling her " a beast," and threatening to leave her. And what a jolly time the Brook- lyn boys will have after they're married. — Puck. Geobqe AvQVSTtrs Sala. TIT FOR TAT — woman's WIT AGAINST man's. A lady was discussing the relative merits and failings of the two sexes with a gentleman of her acquaintance, when he said to her, with an air of triumph, " Well, say what you please, I never heard of seven devils being cast out of a man." "No," was the quick retort; " they've got 'em yet I " A CURE. A man out West who married a widow has invented a device to cure her of " eternally" praising her former husband. Whenever she begins to descant on his noble qualities, this ingenious No. 2 merely says : " Poor, dear man 1 How I wish he had not died 1 " VOL. IV— W. H. 868 CULEX IN CARMINE. CULEX IN CAEMINE. [The following poem is from " Jacob Brown and other Foems,^^ published at Cincinnati in 1875, and written by Major Henry T. Stanton, a young Kentuckian of fine rhythmic faculty and keen sense of humor.] When some migratory clouds Broke upon the leafy shrouds, Where the insects lay in crowds, And a melancholy rain, On the sounding window pane, Beats its funeral refrain, Through a crevice in tlie sash. Where the splatter and the dash, Made his purpose very rash, A mosquito, lean and thin, From the drowning and the din, Undertook to flutter in ; And a crazy shutter's swing Made the hanging blossoms fling, Such a flood upon his wing. That he rather fell than flew. And was fairly driven through, By the gusty wind that blew — Thus succeeding in his flight. From the unrelenting height. In a wet and wretched plight. 'Twas the chamber of a maid, Who, her perfectness displayed — In a measure — disarrayed ; For a taper in the gloom. Of the curtained, quiet room, Showed a woman in her bloom — And the mellow light was shed, On her bosom and her head, In the splendor of her bed. In a golden current there, Ran her undulating hair, From the polished shoulder bare. As the whitest foam that flees, Up the beaches from the seas, Lay the lace of her chemise,~- And the billows of her breast, In the pillows there imprest, Kept an oc«(au-like unrest. Ah ! 'twas well indeed for her. That the only viewer near Was the poor mosquito here ; And 'twas better still for him. That his vision should be dim, In the halo of the glim. For the splendid creature thera, With the gilding on her hair, Lay magniflcently fair, And the smallest insect's eyes, Seeing such a paradise. Might be blinded with surprise. On the inner window case, With his humid wing and face, He had anything but grace ; Whilst the mad, reminding rain, To the vibratory pane. Brought its horrible refrain. There, upon the window-sill, He was sitting dreary, still. In the terror of a chill ; But within his little soul. He was grateful for the hole That allowed him such a goal. So he brushed his little eye. Saying " May be, by-and-by, I'll be comfortably dry." And, exactly as he planned, With his stoicism grand, Both his dripping wings were fanned, For a breeze appeared to flout In the chamber all about, And the taper then went out. Then his eyes began to mark. By their tiny inner spark, What there was within the dark. It was very plain that he, With a candle burning free. Found it diflicult to see. But his eyes, denied their sight In the waxen taper light. Were exceeding good at nlgbt. By-and-by, at last he tried. With a flutter at his side, And his little wings were dried, THE SUICIDAL CAT. 259 And the still existing breeze Brought a very pleasant ease To the bending of his knees. Then he fervently exclaimed ! " Now I wish I may be blamed If I'm either wet or lamed." And he tried a tune of his'n, Quite a striking kind of buzzin', " I'm your cousin, cousin, cousin 1 " And as joyously he sings, All around about he flings, " Cousin, cousin," with his wings. Then he went upon a raid. Through the heavy-curtained shade, Till he came upon the maid. And it's meet and proper here, That a reason should appear Why he tarried there with her. So, the fact is simply this. When he came upon the Miss, He was famished for a kiss. Now, the coldest man we know, Coming on the Houri so. For the very same would " go.'' And it isn't fair to think, A mosquito on the brink Of a nectar-cup, — won't drink. Splendid type of angel sleep ! Fairer than the pillows' heap, Lying there in silence deep — Who will blame him while he dips From the vintage of her lips, Redder wine than Bacchus sips 1 Less impassioned things of earth, Seeing such, would know their worth, Feel it in a fever birth. Any statue, wanting life, Nearing lips so passion-rife, Soon would wake to pulsing strife. So the glad mosquito sank Joyous on the fruity tank, And to utter fulness drank. Better far the cruel rain, Thumping on the wlndow-p»ne, Fell upon his wing again — Better far the shutter's swing. Caught his cousin-crying wing, Never more to let it sing. Better he had known a drouth In the marshes of the South, Than the nectar of her mouth. Early morning, fair and sweet. Found him helpless on a sheet — Glassy eye and icy feet. Butterfly and humble bee, For the coroner's decree. Early came the corpse to see, — Laid him out upon the floor, Scanned his body o'er and o'er. As it never was before. After consultation slow. Pro and cou, and so and so, There they let the insects know ; " This mosquito, lying dead, By the female in that bed. Poisoned was with carmine red." THE SUICIDAL CAT. There was a "man named Ferguson, He lived on Market street, He had a speckled Thomas cat That couldn't well be beat ; He'd catch more rats and mice, and sieh, Than forty cats could eat. This cat would come into the room And climb upon a cheer, And there he' d set and lick hisself, And purr so awful queer. That Ferguson would yell at him— But still he'd purr — severe. And then he' d climb the moon-lit fenot And loaf around and yowl. And spit and claw another cat Alongside of the jowl ; And then they both would shake their tftUs And jump around and howl. Oh, this here cat of Ferguson's Was fearful then to see ; He'd yell precisely like he was In awful agony ; 260 THE HAT. You'd think a first-class stomach-ache Had struck some small baby. And all the mothers in the street, Waked by the horrid din, Would rise right up and search their babes To find some worrying pin ; And still this Tiperous cat would keep A hoUerin' like sin. And as for Mr. Ferguson, 'Twas more than he could bear, And so he hurled his boot-jack out Bight through the midnight air ; But this Tociferous Thomas cat. Not one cent did he care. For still he yowled and kept his fur A standin' up on end, And his old spine a doublin' up As far as it would bend, As if his hopes of happiness Did on his lungs depend. But while a curvin' of his spine, And waitin' to attack A cat upon the other fence, There come an awful crack ; — ,\.ni this here speckled Thomas cat Was busted in the back ! When Ferguson came home next day, There lay his old feline, And not a life was left in him, Although he had had nine. "'AH this here comes," said Ferguson, "Of curvin' of his spine." Now all you men whose tender hearts This painful tale does rack, Just take this moral to yourselves, All of you, white and black ; Don't ever go like this here cat. To gettin' up your back. ANONYMOUa Heee is a sliort Kansas poem : He found a rope, and picked it up. And with it walked away, it happened that to t'other end A horse was hitehed, they say. They found a tree, and tied the rope Unto a swinging limb. It happened that the other end Was somehow hitched to him. THE HAT. Recited by M. Ooguelin, of the Comfdie Fran^aise. [In Paris, monologues are the fashion. Some are in verse ; some are in prose. At every matinee, dinner- party, or miree the mistress of the entertainment makes it her duty to provide some little scenic recitation^ to be gone through by Saint Germain or Coquelin. One which recently eujoyed great success, entitled " The Hat," we here offer in an English version.] Mine en Scene: A gentleman holding his tiat. Well, yes ! On Tuesday last the knot was tied— Tied hard and fast ; that can not be denied. I'm caught, I'm caged, from the law's paint of view. Before two witnesses, good men and true. I'm licensed, stamped : undo the deed who can ; Three hundred francs made me a married man. Who would have thought it 1 Married 1 How? What for? I who was ranked a strict old bachelor ; I who through halls with married people crammed Infused a kind of odor of the damned ; I who declined — and gave lame reasons why- Five, six, good comfortable matches ; I Who every morning when I came to dress Found I had one day more, and some hairs less ; I whom all mothers slander and despise, Because girls find no favor in my eyes — Married I A married man 1 Beyond — a — doubt 1 How, do you ask, came such a thing about ? What prompted me to dare connubial bliss ? What worked the wondrous metamorphosis ? What made so great a change — a change like that! Imagine. Guess. You give it up? A hat! A hat, in short like all the hats you see — A plain silk stove-pipe hat. This did for me. A plain black hat, just like the one that'a here. A hat? Why, yes. But how? Well, lend an ear. THE EtAT. 261 One day tliis winter I went out to dine. All was first-rate — the style, the food, the wine. A concert afterward — en rigle — just so. The hour arrived. I entered, bowing low, My heels together. Then I placed my hat On something near, and joined the general chat. At half-past eight we dined. All went off well. Trust me for being competent to tell ! I sat between two ladies — mute as fishes — With nothing else to do but count the dishes. I learned each item in each course by heart. 1 hate tobacco, but as smoke might part Me from those ladies, with a sober face I took a strong cigar, and kept my place. The concert was announced for half-past ten, And at that hour I joined a crowd of men. The ladies, arm to arm, sweet, white, we found, Like rows of sugared almonds, seated round. I leaned against the door — there was no chair. A stout, fierce gentleman, got up with care (A cuirassier I set him down to be). Leaned on the other door-post, hard by me. Whilst far off in the distance some poor girl Sang, with her love-lorn ringlets out of curl. Some trashy stuff of love and love's distress. I could see nothing, and could hear still less. Still I applauded, for politeness' sake. Next a dress-coat of fashionable make Came forward and began. It clad a poet. That's the last mode in Paris. Did you know it? Your host or hostess, after dinner, chooses To serve you up some effort of the Muses Kecited with vim, gestures, and by-play By some one borrowed from the great Fran- pais. I blush to write it — poems, you must know. All make me sleepy ; and it was so now. For as I listened to the distant drone Of the smooth lines, I felt my lids droop down, And a strange torpor I could not ignore Came creeping o'er me. " Heavens! suppose I snore ! Let me out," I cried, " or else — " With that I oast my eyes around to find my hat. The console where I laid it doWn, alas ! Was now surrounded (not a mouse could pass) By triple rows of ladies gayly dressed. Who fanned and listened calmly, undistressed. No man through that fair crowd could work his way, Bank behind rank rose heads in bright array. Diamonds were there, and flowers, and, lower still. Such lovely shoulders ! Not the smallest thrill They raised in me. My thoughts were of my hat. It lay beyond where all those ladies sat. Under a candelabrum, shiny, bright, Smooth as when last I brushed it, full in sight. Whilst 1, far off, with yearning glances tried Whether I could not lure it to my side. "Why may my hand not put thee on my head, And quit this stifling room?" I fondly said. " Respond, dear hat, to a magnetic throb. Come, little darling ; cleave this female mob. Fly over heads ; creep under. Come, oh, come ! Escape. We'll find no poetry at home." And all the while did that dull poem creep Drearily on, till sick at last with sleep, My eyes fixed straightbefore me with a stare, I groaned within me : " Come, my hat — fresh air 1 My darling, let us both get out together. Here all is hot and close ; outside, the weather Is simply perfect, and the pavement's dry. Come, come, my hat — one effort I Do but try. Sweet thoughts the silence and soft moon will still Beneath thy shelter.'' Here a voice cried : " Sir, Have you done staring at my daughter yet 7 By Jove ! sir." My astonished glance here met The angry red face of my cuirassier. I did not quail before his look severe, But said, politely, '' Pardon, sir, but I Do not so much as know her." " What sir ! Why, My daughter's yonder, sir, beside that tabla 262 THE HAT. Pink ribbons, sir. Don't tell me you're un- able To understand.'' "But, sir—" "I don't suppose You mean to tell me — " "Really—" "Who but knows Vour way of dealing with young ladies, sir? I'll ha¥e no trifling, if you please with her.' ' "Trifling?" " Yes, sir. You know you've jilted five. Every one knows it — every man alive." "Allow me—" "No, sir. Every father knows Your reputation, damaging to those Who—" "Sir, indeed — " " How dare you in this place Stare half an hour in my daughter's face?" " Sapnsti, Monsieur ! I protest — I swear — I never looked at her.'' "Indeed! What were You looking at, then ?" " Sir, I'll tell you that— My hat, sir." '' Morbleu ! looking at your hat I" " Yes, sir, it was my hat." My color rose : He angered me, this man who would suppose I thought of nothing but his girl. Meantime The black coat maundered on in dreary rhyme. Papa and I, getting more angry ever. Exchanged fierce glances, speaking both to- gether. While no one round us knew what we were at. " It was my daughter, sir." " No, sir — my hat." '' Speak lower, gentlemen,'' said some one near. " You'll give account for this, sir. Do you hear ?" " Of course, sir." " Then before the world's astir. You'll get my card, sir." '' I'll be ready, sir." A pretty quarrel ! Don't you think it so ? A moment after, all exclaimed, " Bravo 1 " Black coat had finished. All the audience made A general move toward ice and lemonade. The coast was clear ; my way was open now; My hat was mine. I made my foe a bow, And hastened, fast as lover could have moved, Through trailing trains, toward the dear thing I loved. I tried to reach it. " Here's the hat, I think, You are in search of." Shapely, soft, and pink, A lovely arm, a perfect arm, held out My precious hat. Impelled by sudden doubt, I raised my eyes. Pink ribbons trimmed her dress. " Here, monsieur, take it. 'Twas not hard to guess What made you look this way. You longed to go. You were so sleepy, nodding — see ! — just so. Ah, how I wished to help you, if I could I I might have passed it possibly. I would Have tried by ladies' chain, from hand to hand. To send it to you, but, you understand, I felt a little timid — don't you see ? — For fear they might suppose — Ah ! pardon me; I am too prone to talk. I'm keeping you. Take it. Good-night." Sweet angel, pure and true I My looks to their real cause she could refer. And never thought one glance was meant for her. Oh, simple trust, pure from debasing wiles ! I took my hat from her fair hand with smiles, And hurrying back, sought out my whilom foe. Exclaiming : ' ' Hear me, sir. Before I go. Let me explain. You, sir, were in the right. 'Twas not my hat attracted me to-night. Forgive me, pardon me, I entreat, dear sir. I love your daughter, and I gazed at her." "You sir?" He turned his big round eyee on me, Then held his hand out. '' Well, weU, we will see." Next day we talked. That's how it c»mt about. And the result you see. My secret's out. It was last Tuesday, as I said, and even HOPELESS. 2«3 Add, she's an angel, and my home is — heaven. Her father, mild in spite of mien severe, Holds a high office — is no cuirassier. Besides — a boon few bridegrooms can com- mand — ■ He is a widower — so — you understand. Now all this happiness, beyond a doubt, By this silk hat I hold was brought about, Or by its brother. Poor old English tile 1 Many have sneered at thy ungainly style ; Many, with ridicule and gibe — why not ? — Have dubbed thee "stovepipe," called thee " chimney pot." They, as aesthetes, are not far wrong, maybe ; But I, for all that thou hast done for me. Raise thee, in spite of nonsense sung or said, With deep respect, and place thee on my head. Translation of Mrs. E. W. Latimer. From " Sarper''8 Magazine,^^ by permission. A LITTLE DOMESTIC STORY. There is a young gentleman of the age of fourteen years and named Samuel, who resides in the state of Michigan, and to whom the compound word " fly-poi- son " is exceedingly unpleasant. This Samuel being some time ago called upon by his judicious mother to help with the churning, felt that that exercise could not compete with the charms of fishing, and that, in short, he'd rather not. He announced this candid decision, which, so far from being appreciated by his mo- ther, was received with an affectionate but reformatory slipper — which is a pat- ent argument almost without rival. The churn accordingly claimed him for its own, until during a brief absence of the good woman he happened to perceive a casual plate of fly-poison and an idea. As she entered the room she saw Samuel putting the dreadful dish from his lips and heard his tragic cry, " There, mother, I guess you won't whip me no more I " There were no shrieks, no tears, no faint- ings on the part of that noble woman. She promptly swept Samuel into the pan- try, and with the aid of the domestic, and in spite of his prayers and vain con- fessions, administered to him (1.) the whites of six eggs, (2.) a mustard emetic, (3.) a dose of pain-killer, (4.) seven Ayer's pills, (5.) two spoonfuls of castor oil, (6.) a tea spoonful of salts, and (7.) a blue pill. Samuel is an altered boy. HEE EEASONS. An old lady walked into a lawyer's office the other day, when the following conversation took place : " Squire, I called to see if you would like to take this boy and make a lawyer of him." " The boy appears rather young, madam. How old is he?" " Seven years, sir." "He is too young — decidedly too young. Have you no boys older?" "Oh yes, sir, I have several ; but we have concluded to make farmers of the others. I told my man I thought this little fellow would make a good lawyer, so I called to see if you would take him." "No, madam, he is too young yet to commence the study of the profession. But why do you think this boy so much better calculated for a lawyer than any of your other sons ? " " Why, do you see, sir, he is just seven years old to-day ; when he was only flve he'd lie like all nature ; when he got to be six he was sassy and impudent as any critter could be, and now he will steal anything he can lay his hands on." HOPELESS. Mr. Arthur Matthison relates that on one occasion when Sydney Smith waa taking a walk around the purlieus of Lambeth, he saw two little girls amusing themselves with a tortoise. Among other methods of amusing that hard- shelled democrat, they adopted that of gently scraping the shell. The natural common-sense, or intelligence, of the pulpit humorist was aroused, and he said, "My children, what are you tickling the shell of that tortoise for?" The little idiots looked up and said, "To please it, sir." Sydney Smith heaved a sigh at the simplicity of innocence, and then said, " My dears, you might as well hope to please the conclave of cardinals by scratching the dome of St. Peter's, as to please the soul of that tortoise by scratching its shell." A DANGEROUS PUPPY. In a recent dog show in San Francisco there was exhibited a small skye-terrier to whose cage was attached a card on which was written : " Ladies and gentle- men will please not handle this puppy .• he leaks." 264 THE TRUE HISTOEY. THE TRUE HISTOEY. (Translated by W. Tooke.) [Ltjcian, a classic satirist and humorist of the first merit, was born at Samosata, in Syria, in the early period of the second century, though the exact year is matter of coiyecture. He himself tells us, in a piece called Tke Dream, that his parents were poor, and could not afford him a learned education. He was, in conse- quence, apprenticed to an uncle, who was a statuary, in order that he might learn that trade ; but he soon abandoned it, and betook himself to the study of letters, For a long time he led a somewhat vagrant and unsettled life, visiting the most of Greece, Italy and Gaul, in the last of which countries he practiced with great success as a teacher of rhetoric. He is thought to have returned to his native country when about forty years of age, after which time all his masterpieces were composed. The last thing we know about him is that he was made a procurator of part of Egypt by the Emperor Commodus. He died probably about the end of the second century. Lucian was one of that class of men who do not readily embrace any form of religion — men whose sharp critical eyes see too many flaws to make it easy for them to ac- quire a pious or reverential spirit. In philosophy, as well as in religion, be called no man master. Philo- sophers are, indeed, the constant subjects of his humorous ridicule and pungent wit, aided by all the resources of a richly inventive fancy. His writings have been classiiied under seven heads ; 1. The Khetorical ; 2. The Critical ; 3. The Biographical ; 4. Romances ; 6. Dialogues ; G. Miscellaneous ; 7. Poems. Of these, the most celebrated are bis Dialogues, the principal of which are: *' The Sale of Lives ;^^ *^ Dialogues of the Gods;^' " Tlie Fisherman, or the Revivified;^' *• The Banquet, or the LapithEe;" '^ Timor the Misanthrope ;" "Dialogues of the Dead;" and " Jcaro-Menippuii, or above the Olouds." The best of his romances, and a work of Rabelaisian humor, is his " True JSislorif." Lucian baa always been a great favorite with scholars, and has been translated into most of the European languages.] TEANSLATOK'S PKBFACB. [The author himself having so definitely ex- plained in his preface the nature and aim of this little romance, the prototype of all the ''Voyat^es imaginaires," — the Bergeracs, the Gullivers, the Munehiiusens, &c., I have nothing to add. I am not of opinion that the luxuriant play of the imagination and humor of Lucian has lost much by our knowing either not at all, or but very imperfectly the authors to whom he here and there alludes, for the purpose of rendering them ridiculous for their rhodomontades and lies. The satire in this tract has no need of a particular key, but is everywhere intelligible, because it is every- where applicable. It was probably Lucian's ' design to divert himself with the inclination of most men to believe miraculous stories, aa well as with the cap and bells of those travel- lers who are fond of relating wonderful adven- tures. Thus much is certain, that he has left no hope remaining for even the most fertile and exuberant imagination to reach, not to say surpass him in the sublime of this department, that is, in the witty absurdity of the combina- tions.] BOOK I. As those who make profession of the athletic art, and in general all such as study as much as possible to give health and vigor to the body, are careful, together with the gymnastic exercises, that it have the requisite hours of recre- ation-; deeming this rest after exertion a main point in the due ordering of their lives : so I think it is proper for the stu- dious to allow their mind to rest, after having busily employed it for a length of time in serious and fatiguing studies, and by a seasonable relaxation to render it more vigorous and alert for future ap- plication. In this view nothing is more convenient than a lecture, which, under the sem- blance of merely amusing the mind with free effusions of wit and humor, conveys some useful instruction, and, as it were, joins the Muses in play with the Graces. Something of this sort will, I hope, be found in the present Essays. The charms they will have, as I flatter myself, for the reader lie not only in the mar- vellousness of the subject, or in the droll conceits, or in that familiar style of ver- acity with which I produce such a variety of lies, but also in this, that each of the incredible events, which I relate as mat- ter of fact, contains a comic allusion to one or other of our ancient poets, histo- riographers and philosophers, who have fabricated similar tales and miracles; and whose names I omit to mention, only be- cause they will naturally occur to the reader. To name, however, at least a pair of them. Ctesias ' the son of Ctesiochus, wrote an account of India, in which he records matters which he neither saw himself nor heard from the mouth of any creature in the world. So, likewise, a cer- tain Jambulus wrote many incredible wonders of the Great Sea, that' are too 1 He wrote also thirty books of the Pei-sian History "Suidae." He lived in the time of Artaxerxea. THE TRUE HISTORY. 266 palpably untrue for any one to suppose aught but that they are his own inven- tion, though they are very entertaining to read. Many others have, in the same spirit, wrote pretended voyages and occa- sional peregrinations in unknown regions, wherein they give us incredible accounts of prodigiously huge animals, wild men, and strange and uncouth manners and habits of life. Their great leader and master in this fantastical way of impos- ing upon people was the famous Homeri- can Ulysses, who tells a long tale to Al- cinous and his silly Phseacians' about King ^olus and the winds, who are his slaves, and about one-eyed men-eaters and other the like savages ; talks of many- headed beasts, of the transformation of his companions into swine and a number of other fooleries of a like nature. For my part, I was the less displeased at all the falsehoods, great and numerous as they were, of these honest folks, when I saw that even men who pretend that they only philosophise act not a hair better ; but this has always excited my wonder, how they could imagine their readers could fail of perceiving that there was not a word of truth in all their narratives. Now, as I cannot resist the vanity of transmitting to posterity a little work of my own composing, and though I have nothing true to relate (for nothing memorable has happened to me in all my life), I see not why I have not as good a right to deal in fiction as another. I re- solved, however, to adopt an honester mode of lying than the generality of my compeers ; for I tell at least one truth, by saying that I lie; and the more confi- dently hope therefore to escape the gen- eral censure, since my own voluntary confession is a sufficient proof, that I de- sire to impose upon no one. Accordingly, I hereby declare that I sit down to relate what never befel me, what I neither saw myself, nor heard by report from others ; aye, what is more, about matters that not only are not, but never will be, because, in one word, they are absolutely impos- sible, and to which, therefore, I warn my readers (if by-the-by I should have any), not to give even the smallest degree of credit. Once on a time, then, I set sail from Cadiz, and steered my course with a fair 1 Tarn Tacui capites populum Fhseaca putayit. " Juve- nal.' wind to the Hesperian Ocean. The occa- sion and the object of my voyage were, to speak honestly, that I had nothing more convenient to think of or do, and had a certain restless curiosity to see novelties of whatever kind, and a desire to ascertain where the Western Ocean terminated, and what sort of men dwelt beyond it. In this view, my first care was to get on board the necessary stock of provision for so long a voyage and plenty of fresh water, taking along with me fifty companions of the same mind as myself, and, moreover, I provided myself with a good store of arms, and one of the most experienced pilots, whom I took into my service on an allowance of considerable wages. My vessel was a sort of j'acht, but built as large and stout as was necessary for a long and dangerous voyage. We sailed a day and a night with fa- vorable gales, and while still within sigh^- of land were not violently carried on ; on the following day, however, at sunrise, the wind blew fresher, the sea ran high,, the sky lowered, and it was even impos.' sible to take in the sails. We wero therefore forced to resign ourselves to the wind, and were nine and seventy days driven about by the storm. On thi| ' eightieth, however, at daybreak, we des- cried a high and woody island, not far off, against which, the gale having greatly abated, the breakers were not uncom-. monly furious. We landed therefore, go(i out, and happy, after sustaining so many troubles, to feel the solid earth under us, we stretched ourselves at ease upon the ground. At length, after having rested for some time, we arose, and selected thirty of our company to stay by the ship, while the remaining thirty accompanied me in penetrating further inland, to ex- amine into the quality of the island. When we had proceeded about two thousand paces from the shore through the forest, we came up to a pi liar of brass, on which in Greek letters, half effaced and consumed by rust, this inscription was legible ; " Thus far came Bacchus and Her- cules." We also discovered, at no great distance from it, two footmarks in the rock, one of which measured a whole acre, but the other apparently was somewhat smaller. I conjectured the lesser one to be that of Bacchus, and the other that of Hercules. We bowed the knee and went, on, but had not proceeded far when we came to a river, that instead of water ran 266 THE TRUE HISTORY. with wine, which both in color and flavor appeared to us like our Chian wine. The river was so broad and deep that in many- places it was even navigable. Buch an evident sign that Bacchus had once been here served not a little to confirm our faith in the inscription on the pillar. But, being curious to learn whence this stream derived its origin, we went up to its head, but found no spring, and only a quantity of large vines hung full of clusters, and at the bottom of every stem the wine trickled down in bright trans- parent drops, from the confluence where- of the stream arose. We saw, likewise, a vast quantity of fishes therein, the flesh of which had both the color and flavor of the wine in which they lived. We caught some, and so greedily swallowed them down, that aa many as ate of them were completely drunk ; and on cutting up the fishes we found them to be full of lees. It occurred to us afterwards to mix these wine-fishes with water-fishes, whereby they lost their strong vinous taste, and yielded an excellent dish. We then crossed the river at a part where we found it fordable, and came among a wonderful species of vines, which toward the earth, had firm stocks, green and knotty ; but, upwards, they were women, having down to the waist their several proportions perfect and com- plete, as Daphne is depicted, when she was turned into a tree in Apollo's em- brace. Their fingers terminated in shoots full of bunches of grapes, and instead of hair their heads were grown over with tendrils, leaves and clusters. These women came up to us, amicably gave us their hands, and greeted us, some in the Lydian, others in the Indian language, but most of them in Greek ; they saluted us also on the lips ; but those whom they kissed immedi ately became drunk and reel- ed. Their fruit, however, they would not permit us to pluck and screamed out with pain when we broke oif a bunch. Some of them even showed an inclination to consort with us, but a couple of my com- panions in consenting to it paid dearly for their complaisance, for they got so entangled in their embraces that they could never after be loosed, but every limb coalesced and grew together with theirs, in such sort as to become one stock with roots in common. Their fin- gers changed into vine-twigs, and began to bud, giving promise of fruit. Leaving them to their fate, we made what haste we could to our ship, where we related all that we had seen to our comrades whom we had left behind, par- ticularly the adventure of the two whose embraces with the vine-women had turn- ed out so badly. Hereupon, we filled our empty casks, partly with common water, and partly from the wine stream ; and having passed the night not far Irom the latter, weighed anchor in the morning with a moderate breeze. But about noon, when we lost sight of the island, we were suddenly caught by a whirlwind, which turned our vessel several times round in a circle with tremendous velocity, and lifted it above three thousand stadia aloft in the air, not setting it down again on the sea, but keeping it suspended above the water at that height, and carrying us on, with swelled sails, above the clouds. Having thus continued our course through the sky for the space of seven days and as many nights, on the eighth day we descried a sort of earth m the air, resembling a large, shining, circular island, spreading a remarkably brilliant light around it. We made up to it, an- chored our ship and went on shore, and on examination found it inhabited and cultivated. Indeed, by day, we could distinguish nothing : but, as soon as the night came on, we discerned other islands in the vicinity, some bigger, some less, and all of a fiery color. There was also, very deep below these, another earth, having on it cities, and rivers, and lakes, and forests, and mountains, whence we concluded that it might probably be ours. Having resolved on prosecuting our jour- ney, we came up with a number of Horse- Vultures or Hippogypes, as they are called in this country, who immediately seized our persons. These Hippogypes are men who ride upon huge vultures, and are as well skilled in managing them as we are in the use of horses. But the vultures are of a prodigious bulk, and for the most part have three heads, and how large they must be may be judged of by this, that each of the feathers in their wings is larger and thicker than the mast of a great corn-ship. The Hippo- gypes are commissioned to fly around the whole island; and, whenever they meet a stranger, to carry him before the king, with which order we were therefore obliged to comply. The king no sooner spied us than he understood, I suppose THE TRUE HISTOEY. 267 from our dreas, what countrymen we were; for the first worda he said to us were: — the gentlemen then are Greeks? On our not scrupling to own it, he con- tinued : How got you through such a vast tract of air as that lying between your earth and this ? We then told him all that had happened to us. Upon this he was pleased to communicate to us some particulars of his history. He told us he was likewise a man, and the same Endymion, long since, while he lay asleep, rapt up from our earth and conveyed hither, where he was appointed king, and is the same that appears to us below as the moon. Moreover he bade us to be of good cheer, and apprehend no danger ; assuring us at the same time that we should be provided with all necessaries : and, added he, when I shall have success- fully put a period to the war in which I am at present engaged with the inhabi- tants of the Sun, you shall pass with me the happiest lives you can possibly conceive. On our asking him, what enemies he had, and how the misunder- standing began, he replied : It is now a long time, that Phaeton, the king of the Solar inhabitants (for the Sun is no less peopled than the moon) has been at war with us, for no other reason than this. I had taken the resolution to send out the poorest people of my dominion as a colony into the morning-star, which at that time was waste, and void of inhabi- tants. To this now. Phaeton, out of envy, would not consent, and opposed my col- onists with a troop of Horsepismires in midway. Being unprepared for the en- counter, and therefore not provided with arms, we were for that time forced to retreat. I have now, however, resolved to have another contest with them, and to settle my colony there, cost what it will. If you therefore have a mind to take part in this enterprise, I will furnish you with Vultures out of my own means, and provide you with the necessary arms and accoutrements; and to-morrow we will begin our march. With all my heart, I replied, whenever you please. The king that evening made us sit down to an entertainment; and on the following morning early we made the necessary preparations, and drew up in battle array, our scouts having apprised us that the enemy was approaching. Our army consisted of, besides the light infan- try, the foreign auxiliaries, the engineers and sutlers, of a hundred thousand men ; that is to say, eighty thousand horse-vul- tures, and twenty thousand mounted on cabbage-fowl. These are an exceedingly numerous species of birds, that instead of feathers are thickly grown over with cab- bages, and have a bi'oad kind of lettuce- leaves for wings. Our flanks vi ere com- posed of bean-shooters and garlic-throw- ers. In addition to these, thirty thousand flea-guards and fifty thousand wind- coursers were sent to our aid from the bear-star. The former are archers mounted on a kind of fleas, which are twelve times as big as an elephant; but the wind- coursere, though they fight on foot, yet run without wings in the air. This is per- formed in the following manner: they wear wide, long gowns, reaching down to the ankles : these they tuck up so as to hold the wind like a sail, and thus they are wafted through the air after the man- ner of ships. In battle they are generally used like our peltastes.^ It was currently reported that seventy thousand sparrow- acorns and five thousand horse-cranes were to be sent us from the stars over Cappadocia : but I must own that I did not see them, and for this plain reason, that they never came. I therefore shall not take upon me to describe them ; for all sorts of amazing and incredible things were propagated about them. Such were the forces of Endymion. Their arms and accoutrements were all alike. Their helmets were of beanshells, the beans with them being excessively large and thick shelled. Their scaly coats of mail were made of the husks of their lupines sewed together; for, in that country, the shell of the lupine is as hard and impenetrable as horn. Their shields and swords differ not from those of the Greeks. Everything now being ready the troops disposed themselves in the following or- der of battle : The horse-vultures com- posed the right wing, and were led on by the king in person, surrounded by a num- ber of picked men, amongst whom we also were ranged ; the left wing consisted of the cabbage-fowl, and in the centre were placed the auxiliaries, severally classed. The foot-soldiery amounted to about sixty millions.^ There is a species of 1 A sort of light-armed foot soldiery, who principally harassed the enemy hy their agility. 2 A very handsome, round number I and yet Massie^ adds another nullo to it, making it 600,000,000. 288 THE TRUE HISTORY. spiders in the moon, the smallest of which is bigger than one of the islands of the Cyclades. These received orders to fill up the whole tract of air between the moon and morning-star with a web. This was done in a few instants, and served as a floor for the foot-soldiers to form them- selves in order of battle upon, who were commanded by Nightbird, Fairweather's son,' and two other generals. On the left wing of the enemy stood the lesser pismires, headed by Phaeton. These animals are a species of winged ants, difiering from ours only in bulk ; the largest of them covering no less than two acres. They have besides one pecu- liarity, that they assist their riders in fighting, principally with their horns. Their number was given in at about fifty thousand. On the right wing in the first engagement, somewhere about fifty thousand gnat-riders were posted, all archers, mounted on monstrous huge gnats. Behind these stood the radish- darters, a sort of light infantry but who greatly annoyed the enemy; being armed with slings, from which they threw hor- rid large radishes to a very great dis- tance; whoever was struck with them died on the spot, and the wound instant- ly gave out an intolerable stench, for it is said they dipped the radishes in mallow poison. Behind them stood the stalky mushrooms, heavy armed infantry, ten thousand in number, having their name from their bearing a kind of fungus for their shield, and using stalks of large asparagus for spears. Not far from these were placed the dog-acorns, who were sent to succour Phaeton from the inhabi- tants of Sirius, in number five thousand. They were men with dogs' heads, who fought on winged acorns, which served them as chariots. Besides, there went a report that several other reinforcements were to have come, on which Phaeton had reckoned, particularly the slingers that were expected from the Milky-way, to- gether with the Cloud-centaurs. The latter, however, did not arrive until after the affair was decided, and it had been as well for US if they had stayed away ; the slingers, however, came not at all, at which Phaeton was so enraged, that he after- wards laid waste their country by flre. These, then, were all the forces that Phaeton brought into the field. 1 In the Greek : Nykterion and Eudiauax. ' The signal for the onset was now given on both sides by asses, which in this country are employed instead of trum- peters ; and the engagement had no sooner begun than the left wing of the Heliotans,' without waiting for the attack of the horse- vultures, turned their backs immediately, and we pursued them with great slaugh- ter. On the other hand, their right wing at first gained the advantage over our left, and the gnat-riders overthrew our Cabbage-fowl with such force, and pur- sued them with so much fury, that they advanced even to our footmen; who, however, stood their ground so bravely that the enemy were, in their turn, thrown into disorder and obliged to fly, especially when they saw that their left wing was routed. Their defeat was now decisive ; we made a great many prisoners, and the slain were so numer- ous, that the clouds were tinged with the blood that was spilt, as they sometimes appear to us at the going down of the sun ; aye, it even trickled down from them upon the earth, so that I was led to suppose, a similar event in former times, in the upper regions, might, perhaps, have caused those showers of blood which Homer makes his Jupiter rain for Sarpedo's death.' Eeturning from the pursuit of the ene- my, we erected two trophies, one for the infantry on the cobweb, the other on the clouds, for those who had fought in the air. While we were thus employed, in- telligence was brought to us from our foreposts, that the cloud-centaurs were now coming up, who ought to have joined Phaeton before the battle. I must own, that the march toward us of an army of cavalry that were half men and half winged horses, and of whom the hu- man half was as big as the upper moiety of the Colossus at Rhodes, and the equine half, resembling a great ship of burden, formed a spectacle altogether extraordi- nary. Their number I rather decline to state, for it was so prodigious that I am fearful I should not be believed. They were led on by Sagittarius, from the Zodiac. As soon as they learned that their friends had been defeated, they sent immediately a dispatch to Phaeton to call him back to the fight, whilst they marched up in good array to the terrified 2 Inhabitants of the aun. ' Iliad X7i. 468-69. THE TRUE HISTOEY. 269 Selenites, wio had fallen into great dis- order in pursuing the enemy and divid- ing the spoil, put them all to flight, pur- sued the king himself to the very walls of the capital, killed the greater part of his birds, threw down the trophies, over- ran the whole field of cobweb, and to- gether with the rest made me and my two companions prisoners of war. Phaeton at length came up, and after they had erected other trophies, that same day we were carried prisoners into the sun, our hands tied behind our backs with a cord of the cobweb. The enemy did not think fit to besiege Endymion's capital, but sufficed himself by carrying up a double rampart of clouds between the moon and the sun, whereby all communication between the two was effectually cut ofi', and the moon deprived of all sunlight. The poor moon, therefore, from that instant, suf- fered a total eclipse, and was shrouded in complete uninterrupted darkness. In this distress, Endymion had no other resource, than to send a deputation to the sun, humbly to entreat him to demolish the wall, and that he would not be so un- merciful as to doom him to utter dark- ness ; binding himself to pay a tribute to the sun, to assist him with auxiliaries whenever he should be at war, never more to act with hostility against him, and to give hostages as surety for the due performance of the contract. Phaeton held two councils to deliberate on these proposals : In the first, the minds were as yet too soured to admit of a favorable re- ception, but, in the second, their anger had somewhat subsided, and the peace was concluded by a treaty which ran thus: " The Heliotans, with their allies, on the one part, and the Selenites' with their confederates on the other part have entered into a league, in which it is stipulated, as follows : The Heliotans engage to de- molish the wall, never more to make hos- tile attacks upon the moon, and that the prisoners taken on both sides shall be set at liberty on the payment of an equitable ransom. The Selenites on their part pro- mise not to infringe the rights and privi- leges of the other stars, nor ever again to make war upon the Heliotans, but, on the contrary, the two powers shall mutually aid and assist one another with their 1 The iuhabitante of the moon. forces, in case of any invasion. The king of the Selenites also binds himself to pay to the king of the Heliotans a yearly tri- bute often thousand casks of dew, and give ten thousand hostages by way of security. With reference to the colony in the morn- ing-star, both the contracting parties shall jointly assist in establishing it, and liberty is given to any that will, to share in the peopling of it. This treaty shall be engraved on a pillar of amber, to be set up between the confines of the two kingdoms. To the due performance of this treaty are solemnly sworn * on the part of the Heliotans. Selenites. Fireman, Night-love, Summerheat, Moonius, Flamington. Changelight. This treaty of peace being signed, the wall was pulled down, and prisoners were exchanged. On our return to the moon, our comrades and Endymion himself came forth to meet us, and embraced us with weeping eyes. The Prince would fain have retained us with him; mak- ing us the proposal at the same time, to form part of the new colony, as we liked best. He even offered me his own son for a mate (for they have no women there). This I could by no means be persuaded to, but earnestly begged that he would set us down upon the sea. Find- ing that I could not be prevailed on to stay, he consented to dismiss us, after he had feasted us most nobly during a whole week. When a Selenite is grown old, he does not die as we do, but vanishes like smoke in the air. The whole nation eats the same sort of food. They roast frogs(which with them fly about in the air in vast numbers) on coals, then, when they are done enough, seat- ing themselves round the hearth, as we do at a table, snufi"up the efiluvia that rises from them, and in this consists their whole meal. When thirsty, they squeeze the air into a goblet, which is filled in this manner with a dew-like moisture. Whoever would pass for a beauty among them must be bald and without hair ; curly and bushy heads are an 2 Since Lucian has thought proper to give the honor- able plenipotentiaries solar and lunar names, it seema necessary to English them. In the original the former are Pyronides, Therites, PhlogiuB ; the latter, Nyctoi; MeniuB, Polylampiu. 270 THE TEUE HISTORY. abomination to them. But in the comets it is juat the reverse ; for there, only curly hair is esteemed beautiful, as some travelers, who were well received in those stars, informed us. On their feet they have neither nails nor toes ; for the whole foot is entirely of one piece. Every one of them, on his back, has a large cabbage growing, always green and flourishing. They sneeze a very sour kind of honey, and when they are at work, or at gymnastic exercises, or use any exertion, milk oozes from all the pores of the body in such quantities that they make cheese of it,' only mixing with it a little of the said honey. They have the art of extracting an oil from onions, which is very white, and of so'fragrant an odor that they use it for perfumery. Moreover, their soil pro- duces a great abundance of vines, which, instead of wine, yield water-grapes, and the grape-stones are the size of our hail. I know not how to explain the hail with us, than by saying that it hails on the earth, whenever the vines in the moon are violently agitated by a high wind, so as to burst the water-grapes. The Selen- ites wear no pockets, but put all they would carry with them in their stomachs, which they can open and shut at pleasure. For, by nature, they are quite empty, having no intestines ; only they are rough and hairy within, so that even their new-born children, when they are cold, creep into them.^ As to their clothing, the rich wear garments of glass, but those of the poorer sort are wove of brass ; for these regions are very prolific in ores, and they work it as we do wool, by pouring water upon it. But what sort of eyes they have, I doubt my veracity would be suspected were I to say, it is so incredible. Yet having already related so much of the marvelous, this may as well go along with the rest. They have eyes then that they can take out whenever they choose; whoever, therefore, would save his eyes, takes them out, and lays them by ; if anything that he would fain see presents ^ Only for exportation ; the Selenites feed on no such coarse diet. 2 Lucian, vhen this singular idea came into his head, iittle dreamt that nature had already been beforehand with him, and that there was a pouch-rat, or kangaroo, that is provided with this convenience for lodging its young in the belly. itself, he puts his eyes in again, and looks at it. Some who have carelessly lost their own borrow of others, for rich people are always provided with a good stock. Their ears are made of plantain leaves, and only the Dendrites have wooden ones. I saw also another strange object in the king's palace, which was a looking-glass of enormous dimensions, lying over a well not very deep. Whoever goes down into this well, hears everything that is said upon our earth ; and, who- ever looks in the mirror, sees in it all the cities and nations of the world, exactly as if they were standing before him. I saw, on this occasion, my family and my whole country ; whether, however, they likewise saw me, I cannot positively say. He who does not believe what I have mentioned touching the virtues of his look- ing-glass, if he ever goes thither, may con- vince himself by his own eyes that I have said nothing but what is true. We now took our leaves of the king and his court, repaired on board our ship, and departed. Endymion, at part- ing, made me a present of two glass and five brazen robes, together with a complete suit of armor, made of bean shells, all of which I was afterwards forced to leave behind in the whale's belly. He likewise sent with us a thousand hippo- gypea, to escort ua five hundred stadia on our way. After having, in our course, coasted along several countries, we landed on the morning-star, which had lately been cul- tivated, to take in fresh water. Thence, we steered into the zodiac, sailing close by the sun, on the left hand ; but, here, we did not go ashore, though my com- panions were very desirous to do so, be- cause the wind was against us. We got near enough, however, to see that the landscape was covered with the most beautiful verdure, well watered, and richly endowed with all sorts of natural pro- ductions. The nephelo-oentaurs, who are mercenaries in the service of Phaeton, on seeing us, fled on board our pinnace; but, on being informed that we were included in the treaty of peace, soon departed. The hippogypes now likewise took leave of us, and all the next night and day, continuing our course, always bear- ing downwards, towards evening we ar- THE TKUE HISTORY. 271 rived at a place called Lampton.' This city is situated between the Pleiades and Hyades, and a little below the zodiac. Here we landed, but saw no men ; instead of them, however, we beheld a vast con- course of lamps, running to and fro along the streets, and busily employed in the market and harbor. They were, in general, little, and had a poor appearance. Some few, we could perceive by their fine show and brightness, were the great and pow- erful among them. Every one had its own lantern to live in, with their proper names, as men have. We likewise heard them articulate a sort of speech. They oflfered us no injury, but rather seemed to receive us hospitably after their man- ner; notwithstanding which, we could not get the better of our fear, and none of us would venture to eat or sleep with them. In the middle of the city, they have a kind of a court-house, where their chief magistrate sits all the night long, and calls every one by name to him ; and, whoever does not answer is treated as a deserter, and punished by death — that is, he is extinguished. We likewise heard, while standing by to see what passed, some of them make their several excuses, and the reasons they alleged for coming so late. On this occasion I recognized our own house-lamp, upon which I in- quired of it how affairs went off at home, and it told me all that it knew. Having resolved to stay there but one night, we weighed anchor the next morn- ing, and sailed off from Lychnopolis, passing near the clouds, where we, among others, saw to our great astonishment, the famous city of Nephelococcuguia,^ but by reason of adverse winds could not enter the port. We learned, however, that Coronos, Cottyphion's son, was reigning there ; and, I, for my own part, was con- firmed in the opinion that I have ever entertained of the wisdom and veracity of the poet Aristophanes, whose account of that city has been unjustly discredited. Three days afterwards we came again in sight of the great ocean, but the earth showed itself nowhere, that floating in the air excepted, which appeared exceed- ingly fiery and sparkling. On the fourth day, about noon, the wind gently sub- i Lychnopolis. 2'Whiclithe learned readdr la acquaioted witb from the bv:6s of Aiistophaaes. siding, settled us fair and leisurely upon the sea. It is impossible to describe the ravish- ment that seized us on feeling ourselves once more on the water. We gave the whole ship's crew a feast on the re- mainder of our provisions, and after- wards leaped into the water, and bathed to our hearts' content ; for it was now a perfect calm, and the sea as smooth as a looking-glass. Soon, however, we experienced that a, sudden change for the better is not always the beginning of greater good fortune. For scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when, about sunrise, a great many whales, and other monsters of the deep, appeared. Among the former, one was of a most enormous size, being not less than fifteen hundred stadia long.' This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beat- ing the sea before him into a foam, and showing teeth much larger than our co- lossal phalli, sharp-pointed as needles, and white as ivory. We, therefore, took our last leave of one another, and while we were thus in mutual embrace, expect- ing him every moment, he came on, and swallowed us up, ship and all, at one gulp ; for he found it unnecessary to crush us first with his teeth, but the vessel, at one squeeze, slipped between the inter- stices, and went down into his maw. ******* [The history continueB of their doings in the whale's belly, which we do not think would be of much in- terest to our readers ; we, therefore, omit this part of the story and proceed with the narrative after their release from the whale.] ******* The next morning the whale showed no longer any symptoms of life. We therefore hauled up our vessel, shoved it through the interstices of his teeth, and, fastening cables about them, lowered her gently from thence upon the water. This done, we mounted the back of the monster, sacrificed to Neptune, and after having stayed there, on account of a dead calm, three days, we at length set sail on the fourth. We presently fell in with a great number of floating carcases, being those of the men that were slain in the naval engagement.^ We measured som* B About three hundred milea. * Beferred to in the Wiiale. 272 THE TRUE HISTOEY. of them and were astonished at their bulk. We had now, for some days, very tem- perate and favorable weather; but after- wards the wind blew a strong gale from the north, and brought with it such a severe frost that the sea was suddenly frozen up, and that not only on the sur- face, but to the depth of four hundred fathoms,' so that we could walk about upon the ice as on dry land. But the frost continuing became at last so intense that we could not bear it, and our old pilot, Skintharus, hit upon the following expedient. He advised us to dig a large cavern in the congealed water, and there abide till the wind should come about. This was forthwith carried into effect. In this icy cavern we sheltered ourselves thirty days, keeping up a good fire all the while, and feeding on the fishes which we found in digging. At length, however, our provisions falling short, we returned to our ship, and hauling it by main force out of the ice, we set her upright and slid full sail with a soft and easy motion over the smooth ice. On the fifth day a thaw came on, the ice melted and all was water again. After sailing about three hundred stadia we fell in with a small, uninhabited island, where, as our water was nearly all fipent, we had an opportunity of laying in a fresh supply. Previous to our departure we shot a couple of wild oxen, which have their horns, not like ours, proceed- ing from the forehead, but under the (iyes, as Momus judged more convenient. Shortly after we got into a new and strange sea, not of water but of milk. Upon this milky sea we had sight of a white island that abounded in vines, which proved to be nothing else but a large cheese (as we afterwards found, when we came to eat of it), not less than five and twenty stadia in circumference. The vines were full of clusters, but when we pressed them they yielded not wine, but milk. In the middle of the island stood a temple, dedicated, as by the in- scription it appeared, to the nereid, Galatea. All the while, therefore, that we remained on this island the earth afforded us victuals both for the noontide repast and that of the evening, and the grape-milk supplied us with beverage. By J The brjyviH of the Greelte, acrording to Dr. Arbuth- QOt, was equal to six feet and .525 of an inch. what we could understand, Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus, after leaving the world, was appointed by Neptune queen of this island. After sojourning here five days, on the sixth we put to sea again with a moder- ately fresh breeze. On the eighth day we sailed onward, no longer on milk, but again on a briny azure water, and saw a great number of men running about upon the sea, completely resembling us both in figure and size, excepting that their feet were of cork, whence it is, as I suppose, that they got the name of "cork-feet," which they bear. We, for our part, could not help making big eyes at seeing them skimming along upon the wavas, as if on level ground, without any apprehen- sion of sinking. They made directly up to us, greeted us in the Greek tongue, and told us they were bound towards the island of Phello (Corkland), their own country. They ran for a length of time close by the side of our ship, and then, wi.shing us a prosperous voyage, they took a different course. A little after we des- cried several islands, the first of which on the left hand was Phello, whither these men were going, a city built on a large round cork. At a distance more to the right we saw five very spacious and lofty islands, with many fires burning on them. Directly over against us lay a very broad and flat one, at least five hundred stadia distant. As we approached near to it a wonderful fragrant air breathed upon us, impregnated with the most odoriferous perfumes, such as that which, as we are told by Herodotus, is wafted to travelers from the happy Arabia. It was exactly as if we inhaled the odors of the rose and narcissus, the hyacinth, lily and violet, the myrtle, the laurel and the vine-blossom all at once. In the ravish- ment occasioned by these delicious sweets, and in the gladdening presages of reap- ing in this island the reward of our long sufferings, we were now come so nigh that we could discern around it a number of safe and spacious inlets and several crystal streams, which gently lost them- selves in the sea, with meadows and trees and singing-birds chanting melodiously on^ the shore or among the boughs. A soft and sweet air fanned the whole sur- face of this beautiful country; enchanting zephyrs seemed to flutter all around and seemed to whisper through the grove. THE TRUE HISTORY. 273 while from the gently agitated branches incessantly resounded harmonious strains, like the tones that issue from a suspended flute in a solitary place.^ At the same time we heard a shriller sound of mingled voices, not alarming, hut resembling that which proceeds from a distant banquet, where some are singing and others are playing on wind instruments and striking the cithera, and the rest, either by words or by clapping of hands, applauding the performers. Captivated by what we saw and heard, we cast anchor on the coast and went on shore, leaving the old Skintharus and two others of our number to look after the ship. We had not proceeded far along a flowery meadow when we came up to the sentinels stationed to guard the coast, who took us, and binding our hands with wreaths of roses (the strong- est manacles in use with them) conducted us to their governor. From them we heard, as we were on the way, that where we were was called the Island of the Blessed, and that Ehadamanthus, the Cretan, was their sovereign.^ We were brought before him, the fourth party, in order of succession, of the causes he was sitting to try that day. The first trial that came on was concerning Ajax, Tela- mon's son, whether he belonged to the class of heroes' or not. The principal objection brought against him was that, being mad, he had laid violent hands on himself After much had been urged on both sides, for and against him, Ehada- manthus pronounced this sentence : Let the culprit, in the first place, be con- signed to the care of the physician Hip- pocrates, to be properly purged with helle- 1 It appears to have been a common practice with the shepherds, who had won some prize on the eeven-holed flute, to hang it up in honor of Pan in some solitary open place in the purlieus of their pastures, in such a manner that the wind (somewhat as with the eeolian harp) produced from it a melodious murmuring strain. s See, in Pindar's second Olympic ode, the picture of the Island of the Blessed, to which our author appears to have alluded. 3 The inhabitants of Elysium, or the Island of the Blessed (which the ancients generally confounded to- gether), consist of two clafises, the heroes or demigods (Hesiod, Op. and Die, 156 to 173, who, however, makes Saturn their king in the Island of the Blessed), and the wise and good men, who lived subsequent to the heroic age. See the description of the state of the blessed in AxiochiiB, in a dialogue concerning death, and the state after death, attributed to the Socratic .^chines. VOL. IV. — W. H. bore, and then, when he has recovered his wits, be admitted to the festivities of the heroes. The second trial was a question of love. Theseus and Mene- laus disputed which of the two had the better right to the fair Helena, which Ehadamanthus decided in favor of Men e- laus, as having sustained so much toil and danger for the sake of his consort, alleging that Theseus had other wives, the Amazon Hippolyta and the daughter of Minos, with whom he might be con- tent. The third cause related to a point of precedency, controverted between Alex- ander, Philip's son, and Hannibal the Carthaginian. The court determined the priority to be due to Alexander, and, in consequence, a throne was placed for him next to the elder Cyrus. Now it was our turn. Ehadamanthus asked us by what accident we, with living bodies, had landed on that holy ground. We fairly gave him an account of all that had happened, from first to last. He bade us stand aside, and consulted a long time with the assessors, amongst whom was Aristides, what course to take with us. At last judgment was pronounced to this effect : that the punishment due for our presumptuous voyage should ensue upon our deaths; but, for the present, we might abide seven months at the longest upon the island, consort with the heroes, and at the expiration of that time be bound to depart. As soon as this sentence was delivered our rose bands fell oS of themselves, and we were conducted into the city and intro- duced to the table of the heroes. The whole city is of native gold, and its sur- rounding ramparts of emeralds. Each of its seven gates is cut out of one trunk of the cinnamon tree ; the entire ground of the city and the pavement of all the streets and squares in it is of ivory; the temples of the gods are built of cubic blocks of beryl, and the high altars, on which the hecatombs are sacrificed, of one sole amethyst. Eound the city flows a stream of the most fragrant oil of roses, a hundred royal ells across, * and deep * The royal ell, according to the statement of Herodo- tus, was three inches longer than the common ell. As this latter contained six palms or palsestes, the pal* fieste being four inches, the royal ell therefore must have been twenty-seven inches. Arbuthnot makes it twenty-one inches. IS 274 THE TRUE HISTORY. enough for a man to swim in it with ease. For their baths they have magnificent buildings of crystal glass; they are heated with cinnamon wood, and instead of common water, the baths are filled with warm dew. Their customary habiliments are very fine purple cobwebs. They have, how- ever, properly no body (for they are im- palpable and without flesh and bone), but have only the figure and idea of it ; and notwithstanding this, they walk and sit, have all their senses, and converse like other men. In short, their soul appears to walk about quite naked, having merely the semblance of a body wrapped about them,' they might be compared to up- right shadows, which, instead of being black, have the natural color of their bodies ; and a man must attempt to touch them in order to be convinced that what he sees is not corporeal. No one here grows old, but remains always of the same age as when he first arrived. Neither is there anything of what we term night, nor what we properly call day; but it is never brighter nor darker than our twilight before sunrise. They know only one season ; for with them it is perpetual spring, and zephyr the only wind that blows here. The country, therefore, is uniformly verdant and abounds in all kinds of sweet-scented flowers, no less than in shrubs and shady trees. Their vines bear fruit twelve times a year ; and as for their pomegranate-trees and apple-trees and all sorts of fruit-trees, they are said even to bear thirteen times in the year, bearing twice in the month which they name after Minos. Their wheat, instead of ears, shoots out little leaves from the tops, resembling mushrooms. In the en- virons of the city are three hundred threescore and five fountains of water, as many of honey, five hundred somewhat smaller, running with fragrant essences and oils, and, besides these, seven rivers flowing with milk and eight with wine. The place where they assemble to eat lies without the city, in what are styled the Elysian Fields, — it is a wonderfiilly fine meadow, encompassed by a thick 1 He who went so slightly clad as to need only the throwing off of a single garment for presenting himself in puris naturalibuB went, according to the vulgar phrase- ology of the Greeks, naked. This must be presupposed in order to make any sense of this sentence. forest of various lofty trees, which cast their shade upon the table. They sit reclining on beds of flowers, and are served by zephyrs, who bring them what- ever they desire, except it be to have the wine filled out. The reason of this is because close to the spot where they eat stand large trees of clear, transparent glass, the fruit of which are cups of var- ious shapes and sizes. Now, every one, on coming to the table, breaks off one or two drinking-glasses and sets them before him, — they directly fill themselves with wine and he drinks at pleasure. They wear no chaplets, but whole flocks of nightingales and other singing-birds fetch flowers from the adjacent meads, and let them fall upon them while they fly about singing over their heads. They have likewise a quite peculiar method of per- fuming themselves, — sundry clouds of a spongy nature suck up the fragrant es- sences from the rivers; when they are saturated, a gentle breeze wafts them to the open place of eating, and, on squeez- ing them gently, they shed their balmy contents like a soft dew or a gentle shower. While at table they entertain themselves with music and singing. They most delight in chanting Homer's poetry, who himself is there present, and takes his seat next above Ulysses. They have choirs of boys and girls, led by Eunomus of Locri,^ Arson of Lesbos, Anacreon and Stesiehorus, for the last I found also here because he is reconciled to Helena. When these gave over singing a second choir succeeds, of swans, swallows and nightingales, and when these have ended the whole grove begins to resound with melodious airs as the trees are breathed upon by the evening gales. But what most contribute to the mirth that reigns at these convivial meetings are the two fountains of pleasure and laughter ad- joining. Every one drinks at the com- mencement of the repast from one of them, and thus they spend the whole of its duration in mirth and laughter. I will now recount to you the eminent men I met with here. In the first place, there were all the demigods, and the whole band of heroes that fought before Troy, the Locrian Ajax alone excepted, who, they told me, was expiating his offenses (against Cassandra) in the habi- tations of the wicked. Of the barbarians, 2 A famous citharcedus of antiquity. THE TRUE HISTORY. 275 the elder and the younger Cyrus the Scythian, Anacharsis the Thracian, Zamolxis, and the Italian, Numa. There were also Lycurgus of Sparta, and Phocion and Tellus, the Athenians, and the seven sages, excepting Periander.^ I likewise saw Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus engaged just then in conversation with Nestor and Palamedes. He had with him Hyacinthus, Narcissus and Hylas, together with several other youths, re- nowned for their personal beauty. I was, however, from several circumstances con- vinced that the first was his particular favorite. It was even said that Rhadam- anthus was not very well pleased with him, and had frequently threatened to turn him out of the island if he did not leave ofl" his idle manner of jesting and his habit of irony. Of the other philos- ophers, Plato alone was not there ; he resides, I w.as told, in a republic of his own contrivance, and lives under a con- stitution and laws which he himself has given it. Those of them held in the highest estimation here were Aristippus and Epicurus, a couple of pleasant and spirited characters, and the most con- vivial men in the world. Likewise ^sop the Phrygian is there, and plays the merry-andrew among them. But Diogenes of Sinope has so conspicuously changed his manners that he has taken the hetsere Lais to wife. He is not unfre- quently overtaken by liquor, and, at such times, begins to dance about the room, and plays a thousand unbecoming pranks, and nothing comes amiss to him in his intoxication. Of the Stoics, there are none; it is said they still continue to climb their steep ascent of virtue. Of Chrysippus we heard say, that he would not be permitted to enter the island till he had undergone a fourth course of hellebore. The Academics, I was in- formed, were very desirous of coming in, but they stood hesitating and demurring about the matter ; for they could not yet convince themselves that there was any- where such an island as this in the world. I suppose they were fearful to come under the judgment of Ehadamanthus, who would scarcely take it well that they want to wrench out of his hand the very 1 1 suppose, because having ruled the Corinthians (as they required) with tolerable severity, they reported su much evil of him after his death that he fell under the imputation with posterity of having been a cruel tyrant. instrument without which no judgment is possible.* However, it is pretended that many of their adherents made an effort to follow those who were coming into the island, but had not courage and resolution to persevere, and turned about at half-way. These are all the men of note that I came in sight of there. Achilles is held in the greatest honor among them, and next to him Theseus. With regard to the mysteries of Venus I will say nothing more of them,' than that on this island they are as public as possible, and transacted with the most unbounded licentiousness. In fact, Soc- rates was the only one who swore that between him and the lovely pupils with whom he lived on so familiar a footing nothing particular passed ; but all the rest believed that he swore falsely. Hya- cinthus and Narcissus were more frank ; but he pertinaciously denied it all. The women there are all in common, and no man takes exception at it ; and in this respect they are arrant platonists. When I had spent here two or three days I accosted the poet Homer, and pro- posed to him, as neither of us had any- thing else to do, the usual questions that are thrown out concerning him ; among the others, what countryman he was. He answered : All those worthy persons who have given themselves so much trouble to make him a Chian, or a Smyrnsean, or Colophonian were ill informed ; for he was a Babylonian,* and amongst his own countrymen not called Homer, but Ty- ranes ; the name Homer he first got with the Grecians, with whom he lived as a hostage. I questioned him then concerning the verses which by the critics are pro- nounced spurious, whether they were of 2 The Academics denied that there is any certain criterion whereby we may be convinced whether we judge right or wrong. It is obvious that this must b» iryurious to Khadamanthue' profession and render hla office entirely useless ; he, therefore, could not well be in- different to it. 3 Lucian, in reality, says more of it, or expresses him- self, at least, after his custom, with a plainness which* in matters of this sort, is no merit. * It is obvious that Lucian merely designs to banter the micrologists, who make the controversy concerning the unknown oirth-place of the great bard the subject of entire treatises. A certain Alexander of Paphos haa even made him an Egyptian. Lucian pushes him still more distant from Greece, and places him as far off as Babylon. 276 THE TRUE HISTORY. his making ; and he assured me they were all hia own. I perceived, accordingly, that the grammarians Zenodotus and Ar- istarchus, with their frosty criticisms, might as well have let them alone. After having completely satisfied me on these points, I again inquired how he came to begin his poem precisely with the word anger, /irjviv. His answer was, it just then came into his head, without pre- meditation or choice. I desired likewise to know whether he wrote the Odyssey prior to the Iliad, as some affirm. He said no. That he was not blind, as is likewise reported, I was convinced at first sight, for he saw as well as anybody, and I had, therefore, no occasion to put the question. I took the liberty of going up to him frequently, whenever I found him disengaged, and interrogated hi-m con- cerning one particular or another and he always answered me with the utmost complacency, especially after having gained his process, for Thersites had pre- ferred an action of libel against him, for having scandalously made such a ludicrous figure of him in his poem ; but Homer, who was befriended in his de- fense by Ulysses, came off victorious, and the plain tiff was condemned to silence. About this time, likewise, Pythagoras arrived in the island, his soul having at last accomplished its transfigurations ; for it had seven times returned to life always In the form of a different animal. On the right side he was entirely of gold. To his idmission no objection whatever was jnade ; only it could not be decided whether he should be called Pythagoras or Euphorbus. Presently after Empedo- cles also appeared, with his body com- pletely roasted and covered all over with blisters ; he was, however, notwithstand- ing his importunate entreaties, refused admittance. Not long after the public games came on, which by them are styled Thanatusia. The judges were Achilles and Theseus, for the seventh time. To describe mi- nutely all that passed here would be tedious ; I shall therefore only touch upon the principal points. The prize in wrest- ling was won by Oarus, a descendant of Hercules. His antagonist was Ulysses, of whom the greatest expectations had been formed. In boxing, the victory re- mained undecided between the Egyptian Areius, who lies buried at Corinth, and Epeius, they were so equally matched. For the Pancratists no prize was here proposed. Who it was that got the best in running I cannot now recollect. Among the poets, Homer, without ques- tion, had the advantage by far, and yet Hesiod obtained the prize. This, for all the conquerors, was a crown, artificially woven, of the plumes of peacocks. The games were hardly over when news came that the damned crew, who were suffering punishment in hell, had broke loose, had overpowered their jail- ors, and, headed by Phalaris of Agrigen- tum. King Busiris, Diomedes from Thrace and those notorious robbers, Sciron and Pityocamptes, were in full march against the island. On receiving this intelli- gence, Ehadamanthus despatched imme- diately the heroes, under the orders of Theseus, Achilles and Ajax Telamonius, who, in the meantime, had recovered his senses, to the coast. Here they came to an engagement, in which the heroes ob- tained a complete victory, for which they were mostly indebted to the glorious ex- ploits of Achilles. Socrates also, who fought in the right wing, behaved much better on this occasion than during his lifetime at the battle near Delium ; for, at this time, he did not show his back to the enemy. Wherefore, as a reward for his bravery, a fine and spacious pleasure garden was set out for him in the suburbs. Here it was that he afterwards used to hold learned conferences with his friends, and he named this garden the Necra- cademy.' The vanquished were all taken prisoners, and sent back to their places, bound, to be punished still more severely. This fight was also sung by Homer, who, at my departure, gave me a copy of his verses for the people in our world ; but it was my misfortune to lose it, as I did many other things that I intended to bring away with me. The poem began, as I remember, with this line, — " Sing, muse, the battle the dead heroes fought.'* Peace being happily restored, arrange- ments were made for a general feast in celebration of the victory, at which, by immemorial custom, nothing but boiled beans were served up. It was a grand entertainment, in which every one took part, Pythagoras alone excepted, who, from abhorrence to beans, retired as far as he could from the rest, sat aloof, and chose rather to fast. 1 Academy of the dead. THE TRUE HISTOEY. 277 Six months had now elapsed of the sojourn conceded to us on this island, when, about the middle of the seventh, somewhat of a novel event ensued. A certain Cinyrus, Skintharus' son, a tall, handsome young fellow, had long been in love with Helena, and it might plainly be perceived that she no less tbndly doted upon him ; for they would be winking and nodding and drinking to one another across the table, and while the rest of the company kept their seats, frequently rose up and walked together, arm-in-arm, in the neighboring wood. At length the violence of passion in Cinyrus increased to such a pitch that, not knowing v/hat course to take, he formed the resolution of running away with his fair one to one of the adjacent islands, either to Phello or Tyroessa. The lady was as complying as he could wish, and they had some time since drawn three of my companions, men of resolution and secrecy, into the plot. Cinyrus, you may believe, intimated no- thing of it to his father, well knowing that he would have dissuaded him from his attempt. At last, thinking they had found the favorable moment for the exe- cution of their project, one fine night when I was out of the way (for I had fallen asleep, as usual, after supper), they privately moved off and conveyed Helena on ship-board as fast as they could. Menelaus, waking about midnight and finding his wife's place in the bed empty, set up a vehement outcry, and calling up his brother, Agamemnon, ran furiously to the palace of Bhadamanthus. As soon as day appeared, the scouts brought word that they had descried a ship which, by that time, was got a great way out to sea. Bhadamanthus, without more delay, manned a bark made entirely of one piece of timber, of asphodel wood, with fi% heroes, to go in pursuit of the fugi- tives, and rowed so hard that they overtook them about noon, just when they were entering the milky sea and making for the cheese island, so nearly had they effected their escape. The pursuers then fastened a rosy-chain to the vessel of the fugitives and brought it back again into Eort. Poor Helena wept bitterly and lushed and hid her face with her veil, but Cinyrus and his accomplices, after being interrogated by Bhadamanthus whether there were any more in the con- spiracy, and, being answered in the nega- tive, werefirst scourged with mallows and then tied by the waist and sent to the place of the wicktd. It was now decreed that we should im- mediately quit the island, although the time prefixed was not yet run out, and we were allowed only till the next day to make the necessary preparations for our departure. This grieved me not a little, and I could not refrain from weeping bitterly on thinking of the pleasant life I had led here and on the dangers and disasters to which I must now again be exposed. They, however, comforted me all they could by assuring me that before many years were passed I should be with them again. They even showed me the couch and the place at the table pre- pared for me hereafter, near the best of them. Hereupon I addressed myself to Bhadamanthus, humbly beseeching him to inform me of my future fortunes and how I should steer my course. His an- swer was that after wandering about a long time, and suffering many toils and dangers, I should at last revisit my native country ; the time, however, of my reach- ing home he would not reveal to me ; but showing me the adjacent islands, which were five in number and a sixth a little farther off, he said : " These five in which you see the greatest masses of fire burn- ing are the abode of the wicked. The sixth is the land of dreams, and next to that lies the island of Calypso, which, however, you cannot see from hence. When you shall have passed these islands you will meet with an extensive continent over against your own, and after you have undergone in it many hardships, traversed several nations and dwelt with barbarous men, you will at length attain to the other continent." Having said this, he plucked a root of mallows out of the ground and put it into my hand, bidding me in my greatest perils to make my prayers to it, and ad- monishing me at the same time, when ] should be arrived in that country, never to stir the fire with a sword nor to have anything to do with people turned of eighteen. By keeping these rules con- stantly in mind, I might cherish the hope of returning hereafter to that island. The remainder of the day I employed in making arrangements for my intended voyage and feasted once, at the usual time, with the heroes. The next morning I begged Homer to compose one distich at parting, for me to carve as the inscription 278 THE TRUE HISTOEY. on a little pillar I purposed to erect as a memorial near the harbor. The couplet ran thus : " Dear to the Gods, Lucian did once attain To view tbe^e scenes and then go home again." I stayed this day and the next took my departure, accompanied by all the heroes, from their island. At taking my leave Ulysses drew me aside, and slipped into my hand a letter, which Penelope was to know nothing of, to Calypso, which I should deliver on my arrival at Oxygia. Rhadamanthus had taken the precaution to send with me the ferryman Nauplius ; that, in case we should be driven on the neighboring islands, he might prevent our being taken into custody, by testify- ing that we were sailing that way on dif- ferent affairs. No sooner had we proceeded beyond the odoriferous air of the happy island, than we came into a stinking fog, as if arising from a horrid compound of burn- ing asphaltus, brimstone and pitch, and a still worse, absolutely intolerable smell, as if men were broiling ; the atmosphere was dark and murky, continually letting fall a bituminous kind of dew. With this we heard the strokes of whips, and the frightful yells of men in torment. We went ashore on but one of these islands ; I can therefore only give you some account of that. The whole island is surrounded by one continued, steep, sharp, craggy, parched rock, on which neither tree nor water was to be seen. With extreme difficulty we crawled up the precipitous cliff, and after scrambling our way along a narrow footpath over- grown with brambles, thorns and prickly briars, through a dreary country, grow- ing more horrible at every step, we came at last to the dungeons and place where the damned are tormented. Here we were first struck with wonder at the nature and soil of the district ; for on all sides, instead of flowers, we beheld swords and daggers springing up from the ground. It is encompassed by three rivers ; the outer one of mire, the second of blood, and the third of fire. This last is very broad, streaming like water, and rolling and heaving its waves like a sea. It like- wise abounds with fishes, some of which look like large firebrands, others smaller and resembling glowing coals. There is but one pass across all these rivers, and that a very narrow one, at the entrance whereof Timon stands door- keeper. Having Nauplius for our guide, however, we succeeded in getting in, and beheld a great number both of kings and private persons undergoing punishment, several of whom we knew. Among others we saw poor Cinyrus, hanging up by the waist over a fire, smoke-dried. Those who conducted us round the place ac- quainted us with the history of these un- happy wretches, and the crimes for which they were punished. The severest chas- tisements are inflicted on liars, particu- larly historians who have written untruly, among whom I observed Otesias and Herodotus, and many more. The sight of these inspired me with good hopes of my own fate hereafter, as. Heaven be praised ! I am not conscious of having told one lie.' Unable longer to endure so lamentable a spectacle, I hastened back to my ship, having first taken leave of Nauplius. We had not long proceeded on our course before we espied the island of dreams ; but so obscurely, as scarcely to be dis- tinguished, notwithstanding we had got up so close to it. This island possesses one property, whereby it is almost itself a dream : it continually receded from us and seemed still farther off the nearer we approached it. At last, however, we were so fortunate as to gain our point, and ran into the harbor called Hypnos. It was now about the last gleam of the evening twilight, when we landed at a short dis- tance from the temple of Alectryo. On entering the gate we saw a swarm of dreams of sundry descriptions fluttering about the streets. But I must first of all say somewhat of the city, as it has been described by no other. Homer being the only one who has touched upon it, and that very superficially.^ A thick forest runs round the whole island, the trees whereof are poppies and mandragoras of extraordinary height, haunted by an infinite number of bats, the only birds to be seen. Near the city flows a river denominated by them Nycti poros,^ and not far from the gates are two wells, the one named Negretos * and the 1 In fact, those only are cnlpable lies which are in- tended to be imposed on simple-minded people for truth; and of that sin, a liar can scarcely be more clear thttm the author of this True History. 2 Odys. xix. 560, and soq. 3 Nightwalker. ^The unawakable. THE TRUE HISTORY. 279 other Pannychia.' The city is environed by a high wall, displaying all the colurs of the rainbow. It has not, as Homer says, two, but four gates, two fronting the fields of Insensibility, one made of iron and the other of potter's clay. Through these are said to pass all frightful, san- guinary and cruel dreams. The other two look towards the haven and the sea, one being of horn and the other, by which we entered, constructed of ivory. To the right of that which leads into the city stands the temple of Night ; for of all the deities, the greatest honors are paid to Night and to Alectryo. The latter has his temple contiguous to the haven. On the left hand is the palace of Sleep, for he is their king, having two satraps or viceroys under him, — Taraxio, the son of Matseogenes, and Plutocles, Phantasio's son. In the centre of the market-place is a well, by them called Sleepdrench, and hard by two temples, — one dedicated to Deceit and the other to Truth. They have also here an Oracle, the manager and prophet whereof, named Antipho, is employed in interpreting dreams, an office to which he was preferred imme- diately by Sleep." As touching the dreams themselves, they are of very difierent natures and modifications : some shew themselves large, gay and lovely ; others little and ugly ; some, to all appearances, pure gold ; others of inferior or even of no value. Several of them had wings and a variety of grotesque shapes ; others were dressed and decorated as for holiday procession, personating gods or kings and such like. Many of them reminded me of having seen them formerly at home. These came up to us, greeted us as old acquaint- ances, entertained us, after lulling us to sleep in the most sumptuous manner, and even promised to make us kings and great lords. Some of them conveyed us sever- ally to our own country, shewed us our relatives and friends and brought us back again the same day. Thus thirty days and as many nights slid away in luxurious dreams on this island. At last, suddenly roused by a loud clap of thunder, we sprang up, provisioned' our ship, and.took to sea again. iThe whole night through. 3 This perhaps was leveled at some dream-expounder of that time, to us no longer known. 3 From the Island of Dreams. On the third day we landed on the is- land Ogygia. But ere I deliverL-d the letter I had with me for Calypso, I re- solved to know what it contained, and broke it open. It ran as follows : " Ulysses to Calypso : greeting. I avail myself of this favorable opportunity to inform you, that soon after my departure from your coasts in the little vessel I put together myself, I had the ill fortune to be wrecked, and owe the preservation of my life entirely to Leucothea, who con- veyed me to the shore of Phseacia, from whence I got home, where I found my wife besieged by a crew of suitors, who were revelling luxuriously at my expense. I killed them all ; but was afterwards put to death myself by Telegonus, a son whom I had by Circe, and now reside in the Is- land of the Blessed, where I have leisure enough to repent of leaving the pleasant life I led with you, and rejecting the im- mortality you offered me. As soon, there- fore, as I can find opportunity, I will endeavor to escape hence, and return to you." Such were the contents of the letter. In a postscript, he begged her to give us a kind reception. I had not far to go from the point where I landed to the grotto, which I found exactly to answer the description given of it by Homer, and in it the goddess busily employed at her loom. She took the letter, put it into her bosom, and gave full scope to her tears. But, recomposing herself, she in- vited us to table, where she entertained us magnificently, and talked much con- cerning Ulysses, and put several questions to us with regard to Penelope, — how she looked, and whether she was actually such a picture of virtue as Ulysses had boasted of her ; to which we gave such answers as we supposed would be most agreeable to her; and then returned to our ship, where we passed the night close in with the strand. The next morning we hoisted sail with a pretty brisk gale, and were, during a couple of days, tossed about by a storm, which, on the third, drove us among the Colocyntho pirates, a sort of savages, who, issuing from the neighboring islands, commit depredations on all that fall in their way. Their ships are huge hollowed gourds, about six ells in length; their masts are reed^, and their sails made of the gourd-leaves. These pirates bore down directly upon us with two cruisers 280 THE TRUE HISTORY. well manned, and overwhelmed us with a shower of gourd-grains, instead of stones, by which many of us were wounded. After fighting, however, a good while, with equal fortune on both sides, about noon we perceived some Caryonautes ' coming up in the rear of the Colocyntho pirates, who, as it pre- sently appeared, were their enemies ; for, no sooner were the latter aware of their approach, than they forsook us, turned about and bore up to the Caryonautes, and a furious battle commenced. In the mean time we hoisted sail and sheered off, leaving them to decide the quarrel be- tween themselves. We had no doubt, however, that the Caryonautes, who were superior to them in the number of ships, would have the better of the day, es- pecially as their vessels were more strongly built than those of the enemy, theirs being only halves of nutshells, each of them fifteen paces in length. When we were got out of sight, our first care was to look after our wounded men, and from that time forward went no more unarmed, for fear of being surprised by a sudden attack from one quarter or an- other ; and good cause we had so to do, as it shortly after appeared ; for the sun was not yet quite gone down, when, from a desert island, by which we were sailing, some twenty men came riding towards us upon monstrous huge dolphins. These also were pirates. Their dolphins carried them as safely as they could desire, and neighed and pranced like spirited horses. When these savages were come up to us, they ranged themselves on both sides of our ship, and threw at us dried cuttle- fishes and crab's eyes. But we attacking them with arrows and darts, returned the compliment with such effect that they did not tarry long, but fled, most of them wounded, to their island. About midnight, the sea being very calm, we unawares fell foul of a prodigious large halcyon's nest, which might be in compass about sixty stadia. The halcyon happened then to be sitting on her eggs, and was not much less in bulk than her nest. As she took flight she was very near oversetting our ship by the wind of her wings. As she flew away she made a most doleful cry. As soon as it was day we got out for the purpose of inspec- ting the nest, which we found to be built 1 Nut-aailorfl. entirely of trees wattled, and resembling a huge float. In it were fifty eggs, each larger than a ton of Chios measure, and the young birds were already visible, and could be distinctly heard chirping with- in. We cut open one of these eggs with the carpenter's axe, and drew out the unfledged young one, which was stronger than twenty vultures. We had not sailed more than two hun- dred stadia from the nest when we were surprised with several strange and ex- ceedingly amazing prodigies. Thegoose^ which ornamented the prow of our ship suddenly began flapping its wings, and cackled aloud. Our steersman Skin- tharus, whose pate was as bald as the palm of the hand, instantaneously recovered his fine head of hair ; and, what was more wonderful than all the rest, our mast began to sprout, put out branches, and at the main-top bore figs and clusters of grapes, though not yet quite ripe. You may imagine how greatly we were astonished at this sight and how fervently we prayed the gods to avert the calamity from us, of which that might be the omen. Proceeding on, be- fore we had gone five hundred stadia farther we descried a vast and thick forest of pines and cypresses. At first, we took it for firm land ; but, it was a deep sea, planted with trees that had no roots ; notwithstanding which, the trees stood upright and immovable, or seemed rather floating towards us. On making up to it, in order to survey it accurately, and, finding how matters stood, we were at a loss to know what measures to take. To succeed in getting through the trees was altogether impossible, they stood so thick and grew so close together ; and to turn about seemed not advisable. I therefore climbed up the tallest of these trees in order to look about me on all sides to discover, if I could, what was beyond ; and perceived that the wood ex- tended fifty stadia and more, and then appeared another ocean to receive us. Wherefore it occurred all at once to me to hoist our ship on the tops of the trees, which were uncommonly thick, and drag it, if possible, over them into the sea be- yond. No sooner thought of than done. We fastened to our ship a strong rope, got up the trees, and drew it, though with immense labor, up to us ; then settling it > Meaning the oarred head. THE TRUE HISTORY. 281 on the topmost boughs, we spread all sails, and sailed with a fair brisk gale behind us, as commodiously as if we were still on the water. When we had at length got over the wood, we came again upon the sea, let fall our ship, and proceeded through crystalline pellucid water till we were forced to stop by a vast gulf, formed by a fissure of the water, which was somewhat of a similar kind with what on land is called a chasm, or great cleft made by an earthquake or other means. We came so suddenly upon the brim that the vessel narrowly escaped tumbling into this abyss, which would infallibly have been the case, if we had not struck sail at that in- stant. On stooping down to look into it, we beheld a depth of a thousand stadia at least, at which we were all lost in amazement. Casting our eyes to the right, however, we perceived at a distance an aquatic bridge, thrown over this abyss, which joined the sea on this side and on the other together. Plying our oars therefore, with all our might, we brought up our vessel to this bridge, and, what we could not have ventured to hope, hap- pily, though with unspeakable labor, got her over. We now found ourselves in a smooth sea, and came to a small, very accessible and inhabited island ; but its inhabitants were savages, having the head and horns of oxen, as the minotaur is usually seen in pictures ; whence I suppose they have obtained the name of Oxheads.^ As soon as we could get on shore we went to fill our water casks, and, if possible, get some- thing to eat, for our provisions were all spent. Water we found soon enough, but could see nothing to encourage our hopes of finding victuals, only we heard not far ofi" a lowing that seemed to pro- ceed from a numerous drove of horned cattle. As, however, in that expectation we went a little farther, we saw before us a species of men. They no sooner espied us than they fell upon us and seized three of our men ; the rest of us fled toward the sea. But not being dis- posed to leave our comrades in the lurch unrevenged, in a body we armed our- selves, and made a fierce outset on the Bucephalians, whom we found in the act of dividing the flesh of our slaugh- tered companions. We, however, struck 1 Bucephalians. such a terror into them, that they all scampered away. We pursued them, killed about fifty of their number, took two alive, and so we returned with our prisoners. But food we could find none. Some earnestly recommended the slaying of our captives ; I, however, did not ap- prove of it, but resolved to keep them in safe custody till the elders of the Bu- cephalians should be inclined to ransom them. It presently appeared that I was in the right ; for they came to us, and we quickly understood by the nodding of their heads, and the melancholy, suppli- cating tone of their lowing, what their business was. We entered, therefore, into a sort of treaty with them ; they stipu- lating to give us, by way of ransom, a quantity of cheese, onions and dried fish, together with four three-legged stags ; that is, having the hind-legs like others, but the two fore-legs grown together in one. Upon these conditions we gave back the prisoners; and after staying there one day more, we took our depar- ture, and proceeded on our voyage. We now observed fish of various de- scriptions swimming about us, and birds flying over our heads; in short, all the other tokens appeared to us, whence it is customary to infer that land is nigh. In a very little time after we saw men navigating after a new fashion ; for they were themselves, at once, both ship and sailor. Their contrivance is this : the man lays himself flat on his back upon the water, then erects his middle mast, fastens a sail to it, holding the rope on lower end of it in his hand, and thus sails before the wind. After them came others, sitting on a large piece of cork, and drawn by a pair of harnessed dol- phins, which they managed by the bit and bridle. These people never ofiered us any injury, nor fled from us, but pass- ed along quietly, without fear, wonder- ing at the shape of our vessel, as they examined it on all sides. In the evening we landed on a small island, inhabited only by women, who, I think, spoke Greek. These too came to us, took us by the hand and kindly bade us welcome. They were all handsome, young, attired in the hetjerean fashion, and wore long robes trailing on the ground. We understood from them that their island is named Cabalusa, and their city Hydamardia. These ladies were presently so familiar with us that each 282 ICAEOMENIPPUS, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. took one of us home with her, desiring him to be her guest. I, for my part, kept a little upon the reserve, because, with all these flattering appearances, I apprehen- ded that no good would come of it; and, on looking more carefully about, I dis- covered a quantity of human bones and skulls lying scattered here and there. On the discovery, to raise a cry, call my com- panions together and take to our arms, I judged not prudent, but, drawing out my mallow, I made my earnest prayeis there- to to be delivered out of all impending perils. Within a while after, when my kind hostess came to wait upon me, I found out that she had not the feet of a woman but the hoofs of an ass. I im- mediately rushed upon her with my drawn sword, overpowered her, bound her, and insisted upon her answering the several questions I should propose to her, Upon which she confessed, though reluc- tantly enough, that they were a sort of merwomen denominated Asslegs, and fed upon the strangers who fell into their hands. "For," said she, ''when we have once made them drunk and lulled therd asleep in our arms, it is all over with them." I, hearing this, left her bound upon the place where she was, ran up to the roof of the house, where I made an outcry, called all my companions to- gether, acquainted them with everything, shewed them the human bones and con- ducted them to my prisoner. But, before we could be aware, she dissolved into water and vanished out of sight. How- ever, to try what would come of it, I thrust my sword into the water and it was instantly turned into blood. Nothing now was left for us but to make what haste we could to our ship, and sail away directly. When the day again began to appear we got sight of the main land, and immediately guessed it to be that directly opposite to our continent. The first thing we did was to fall on our knees and say our prayers. We next consulted what course to take. Some judged it expedient to make a short land- ing and then turn back again, others judged it best to quit the ship, venture up the country, and try what the inhabi- tants would do. While we were thus de- bating, some advising one thing and some another, a tremendous storm arose, which drove our vessel with such violence agiinst the coast that it went to pieces, and it was with much ado we all swam to land with our arms, every man catching whatever he could lay hands on. These, then, are all the occurrences that befell me till my arrival in that other part of the world, on the ocean, and, during my passage through the islands and in the air, then in the whale's belly, and after we got out of it, with the heroes, and among the dreams, and lastly among the Oxheads and Asslegs. What next ensued upon the firm land, I shall give a circumstantial account of in the following books.' "Wm. Tooki." ICAEOMENIPPUS, OE THE AEEIAL JAUNT. [Of all Lucian'B compositions, the spirit of AriatophaneB appears to me to be the most abundantly poured out upon this. It is in my judgment (a few passages sub- tracted) a masterpiece of the most urbane vivacity and the wittiest persiflage, and is distinguished from most of the others chiefly by this, that in it are employed scarcely any but popular notions, for bantering the philosophers and deities, and the latter, while he seems to avenge them on the former. So little is known of Menippus, that even the circumstance of his having been a disci- ple of Diogenes of Sinope is merely conjectural ; this, however, we do know, that his disposition to view in a ridiculous light whatthe generality of mankind pursua with the greatest ardor and avidity, drew upon him the surname of uTriiSoyeKalo^. Various wTitings were circu- lated under his name, which Terentius Varro, the most erudite and easy writer of all the Eomans, in his Mo- nipic satires (as he styles them) took for his model. AU these, however, being lost, the use which Lucian makes of this philosophical harlequin has alone been the means of transmitting his character and his memory down to posterity. Wm. Tooke.1 MENIPPUS AND HIS FRIEND. Menippus [talking to himself]. Three thousand stadia from the earth to the moon, — the first station. From thence to the sun about five hundred parasangs.^ . From the sun to Jupitersburg in the sky, ' It is highly proper that a history, made up entirely of lies, should conclude with a promise which the author intends never to keep. 2 Persian miles [farsang] ; five and twenty whereoi amount by computation to a degree. Or, supposing the Persian parasang equal to thirty stadia, the dis- tance will be eighteen hundred and Beventy-fiv* miles. ICAROMENIPPUS, OE THE AEKIAL JAUNT. 283 jflougli there is no higli road, yet a stout eagle perhaps might reach it in a day. Friend. What in the name of all the graces are you astronomizing and calcula- ting there between your teeth, Menip- pus ? I have been listening to you a good while as you were talking over to your- self a journal of some strange journey, and about suns and moons and stations and parasangs. Menippiis. Marvel not, my comrade, if I appear talking to you on superterres- trial and aerial topics ; the short of the matter is, that I was just recounting the journal of a voyage I have lately made. Friend. How? Did you then, like the Phoenician mariners, take the stars for your guides ? Menippus. Not so, but I have travelled in the stars. Friend. By Hercules ! you have had a long dream of it, if you have slept away whole parasangs, Menippus. You think I speak of a dream., my good sir ! but there you are mistaken ; I come direct from Jupiter. Friend. How say you ? Menippus. Verily so. Immediately from that far-famed Jupiter, after having both seen and heard what exceeds all imagination. If you do not believe me, so much the better, as what has happened to me surpasses all belief. That is pre- cisely what in the affair most delights me. Friend. How should I, O glorious and Olympic Menippus, I, poor son of earth, presume to refuse my belief to a man who comes immediately from the clouds ! But tell me, then, if you will be so condescend- ing, how you contrived to climb so high, and whence you procured such a mon- strous ladder ? Because, to imagine that you were caught up by an eagle, in order to relieve Ganymede in hia high oifice of cup-bearer ; for that, you are not hand- some enough. Menippus. You are still jocular, I per- ceive ; and it is no wonder if you believe my strange reports to be all a fable. But in my ascent I had no need of a ladder nor of an admiring eagle ; I had my own wings. Friend. Well, this outdoes even Dseda- lus ! So, while the rest of us knew no- thing of the matter, you were metamor- phosed into a hawk or a kite. Menippus. You come somewhat nearer the mark, neighbor I In fact, I tried the same device that Dasdalua hit upon ; I made myself wings. Friend. Most daring of all mortals 1 You were not afraid of encountering the fate of his son, and designating some Menippio sea by your name, as the Ica- rian was called after his I Menippus. No fear of that. Icarus, who cemented his feathers with wax, might have foreseen that the sun would melt it. I used no wax in the fabrication of my wings. Friend. How did you manage it, then ? For by insensible degrees you have screwed me up, I cannot tell how, to be- lieve there may be some reality in this aerial journey. Menippus. Thus I did. Having caught a huge eagle and a powerful vulture, I cut off their wings, at the first joint, and — if you have time, however, I would rather relate to you my whole plan, from the very beginning. Friend. My time cannot be better em- ployed. For really, at your narration, it is with me just as if I was wafted among the clouds ; or rather, as though by your keeping me thus in suspense, I were hanging by the ears. Menippus. Be all attention, then. From the time when I began to take a nearer survey of human life and observed the emptiness of those things on which mankind set the highest value, in which they seek to satisfy their avarice, their ambition, their lust of domination, — how ridiculous, petty and insecure they are, — since that time all such things are to me become utterly contemptible. I consider all endeavors after their attainment just so much lost time for that which is truly deserving the trouble, and therefore es- sayed to give my mind a nobler aim, and apply my attention to the contempla- tion of the whole. Here I found myself thrown into no small perplexity at the very outset; what conception was I to form of what in the language of the wise is termed the universe or the all ? For I could not possibly make out how this said all originated, or who was the artifi- cer of it, or what the beginning of it was, or what may be the end of it. But on attempting to examine it in detail, my perplexity was continually increased; since the more I pondered, for example, the stars which seemed scattered at ran- dom about the sky, and the sun itself, the less possibility I saw of fathoming what 284 1CAR0MENIPPU8, OR THE AERIAL JATJNT. these really are. But what puzzled me most was the moon, whose properties were to me altogether strange and unac- countable, and its alternate aspects I thought must involve some mysterious and inexplicable cause. The ■ all-perva- ding lightning and the sudden bursts of thunder, the rain, the snow and the hail, — all these things were so singular and sur- prising to me that I could not tell what to make of them. Unable by my own reflections to extricate myself from these difficulties, I thought my best way would be to consult our philosophers, and be instructed by them touching these mat- ters, article by article. For I doubted not that it depended solely on their incli- nation to tell me the simple truth upon these points. I accordingly looked about for the principal among them, — that is, for such as were distinguished by the gloomiest countenance, the sallowest complexion and the dirtiest beard; it cannot otherwise be, thought I,' than that men who in speech and appearance differ so much from the common dwellers upon earth, must understand more than other people of the aflfaira of heaven. So, then, to them I went for instruction, paid hard money beforehand, bound myself to pay the like sum afterwards, when I should have ascended the ■ summit of sa- pience, hoping to learn the theory of superterrestrial matters and the whole order and construction of the universe to the very bottom. But so far were these gentlemen from helping me out of my former ignorance that, by their causalities and finalities, their atoms and empty spaces, and matters and forms and ideas and the rest of their terms in their jargon with which I was daily overwhelmed, they plunged me into greater doubts and difficulties than I had to encounter be- fore. But what appeared to me least of all to be endured was that, notwithstand- ing they could not agree in any one point, and were perpetually thwarting and over- thwarting one another, each wanted to persuade me that he was in the right, and to lead me to the obedience of his system. Friend. Absurd enough ! that people who pretend to be masters of science should contradict one another, and not have the same conceptions of the same things. 1 Namely, mth the great bulk of man'kind to whom this covert stroke of satire may be properly applied. Menippus. How ridiculous would it appear to you, my friend, if you had heard their arrogance and vaunting ser- mocinations ! if you had heard how these people, who, after all,walk upon the earth like the rest of us, and, instead of being more sharpsighted than ourselves, — nay some of them, either through age or lazi- ness are decrepit and purblind, — neverthe- less profess to see beyond the boundaries of heaven, to measure the sun, to expa- tiate upon objects above the moon, and, precisely as if they had dropped fi-om the stars, compose a dissertation on their bulk and fashion, state exactly the height of the atmosphere, the depth of the ocean and the circumference of the earth ; in short, by means of " God knows what " circles, triangles,quadrangles and spheres, parcel out the sky as they would lots of land, and presume to say how many yards the moon is distant from the sun, though they frequently do not know how many stadia you have to go from Megara to Athens. Then, how preposterously and unaupportably insolent it is to dis- course of such uncertain and inaccessible objects not as upon likelihood or proba- bility, but leave to others no possibility to outspeak them, but are almost ready to make oath that the sun is a glowing mass of fire, that the moon is inhabited," that the stars drink water, while the sun draws up the vapor as with a bucket,^ and then regularly measures out its portion to each! But how very opposite these gentlemen are in their assertions I will give a few instances to show you. In the first place, they cannot agree in their opinion re- specting the world; for one maintains that it never began and will never cease ; another, on the contrary, presumes so far as even to name its architect and accu- rately to state how he went to work.* These latter I find particularly admirable, inasmuch as while they make at least a god to have been the artificer of the whole, it had never occurred to them to be prepared with an answer, if they were asked whence he came, and where he stood while he was about his work ; since 2 A Pythagorico pinion. ^ A piece of Menippic buffoonery on a perhaps misun- derstood doctrine of Heraclitus. See Plutarch, de Plac Pliilos. a. 17. 4 This is applicable to the divine Plato, and particu- larly to Timieug. ICAROMENIPP0S, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. 285 prior to the existence of the whole neither time nor place is conceivable. Friend. The people of whom you speak must be arrant braggadocios, pos- ture-masters and tumblers 1 Menippus. If you had but heard them dispute about ideas and incorporalities and finites and infinites! For on these topics they scold, one another like black- guards ; some hedging in the whole with a ring fence, others being of opinion that it is without end. A third party give out that there are a great many worlds, and take it very ill of those who speak of the world in the singular number. Another, again, not the most peaceable man upon earth, I presume, takes it into his head to make war upon the author of all things.' As to their opinions respecting the deities, nothing can positively be affirmed ; since with one a specific number is god,^ an- other swears by dogs, geese and plane trees,' others, again, make a riddance of the rest of the gods, and ascribe the gov- ernment to one sole* : so that it frequently appeared to me truly pitiable for the poor world to be left with such a scarcity of gods, whereas others are so lavish as to set up an infinite multitude, and then sort them, so that one is the first, while the rest must be content with the second and third rank." Moreover, some main- tain that the deity is without body and without shape f others, on the contrary, conceive it as somewhat corporeal.' Again, all do not make it appear that the deities do not charge themselves with providing for our affairs, but there were some who subtract from all such concerns, and, as we commonly act by old servants, exempt them from work, and set them, as it ware, at rest ;' so that in the mun- dane comedy of these gentlemen the dei- ties, so to speak, play the mutes. To conclude, there were some who surpassed all the rest, and point blank affirmed there were no gods at all,' but that the 1 Again a mauvaue plaisanieiHe upon a very true posi- tion of HeracIltuB, so often misunderstood by his country- men. s Pythagoras. 8 Socrates. * The Pythagoreans and Anaxagoras. 6 The Platonists and Stoics. 6 Plato, Aristotle and others. 7 Parmenides, the Stoics, etc. 8 Democritus and Epicurus. • TheodoruB, Diagoras, Melius and others. world was left without governors and without government, to go on as well as it could. Now upon hearing all this, though I could not attempt to urge any- thing against these high-bawling and well-bearded personages, yet I could not, after turning and twisting it every way, find one of their affirmations against which I had not many things to object, and which had not been overset by one or other of themselves. I was directly in the same predicament with the Homer- ican Ulysses : the thought struck me to throw myself blindfolded into the faith of some of them. "But still a difl'erent thought drew back my mind." Now, not knowing how to help myself in these critical conjunc- tures, and having lost all hope of dis- covering the truth of such matters upon earth, there seemed but one method left for extricating myself out of these diffi- culties ; and that was, to procure wings of some kind or other, and by their as- sistance to ascend in my own person to heaven.'" The hope of being able to eflfect this was principally excited by the vehemency of my desire, and next by the encouragement of -32sop, the fable-maker, who tells us of eagles and chafers ; aye, even of camels that have gone up to heaven. That even feathers and wings would grow out of my back I thought pure impossibility ; if, however, I should find out the art of grafting eagle-wings or vulture-wings, which appear to be of proportionate magnitude, to the human body, I had no doubt that I should suc- ceed in the attempt. Whereupon I caught those two birds, and dextrously cutting off the right wing of the eagle and the left wing of the vulture, I next fastened them with proper thongs about my shoulders, and fixed to the extremities of the long feathers a sort of handle, by which I designed to regulate the wings. This done, I made a trial of what I could do by leaping upwards and began with my winged arms to steer, and by degrees, as is usual with geese, raised myself above the ground, endeavoring by constantly striving upwards to bring all the muscles lOThis certainly would be the shortest way of getting out of all our metaphysical and hyperphysical perplexi' ties. 11 An invention in the taste of Aristophanes, not un worthy of the physical and mathematical science of our Menippus. 286 ICAEOMENIPPUS, OR THE AEKIAL JAUNT. into exertion for aiding the flight. Per ceiving now that the project succeeded, I grew bolder after every experiment, and getting up to the extreme pinnacle of the citadel, I threw myself headlong down and alighted in the theatre. Having at this time escaped without danger, I began now to conceive loftier and superterres- trial imaginations. I elevated myself from Hymetus and flew to Geronea, from thence to the top of the castle at Corinth, then over Mount Pholoe and Erymanthus all the way to Taygetus. And as my courage increased with my dexterity, and I now might pass for a perfect master in the art of flying, I determined no longer to con- fine myself to essays only fit for the cawing brood, but ascended Olympus,' and having first, as lightly as possible, provisioned myself, steered my course direct for heaven. At first I became a little dizzy when I looked down on the abyss below ; however, I soon was accus- tomed to it. Having already made my way through an infinite number of clouds, and being now quite close to the moon, I felt myself by long exertion, particularly in the left wing of the vulture, somewhat faint. I, therefore, landed on it, and sit- ting down to rest awhile, I amused myself with contemplating the subjacent earth from that elevated station, and like the Homeric Jupiter, turning my eyes now to "Where the brave Myciana prove their mar- tial force, And hardy Thraoians tame the savage horse ; " ^ then upon Greece, Persia, India and wherever I pleased, — a survey which yielded me great and manifold delight. Friend. You would oblige me much, dear Menippus, by omitting nothing of what you observed upon your travels, how- ever trivial ; for I expect to learn from you many curious particulars touching the figure of the earth, and how everything upon it must have appeared to you from BO lofty a situation. Menippus. Nor will you be entirely disappointed. Transport yourself, then, as well as you can in thought, with me up to the moon, and travel after me and observe how the objects upon the earth ^i\\ look from thence. In the first place. 1 SugLpoBed to be the loftiest mountain in Greece. > lUad XII. 4. imagine you see the earth as an extremely diminutive orb, — I mean still less than the moon, — so that, stooping down I could not at first discern where all the lofty mountains and the vast ocean were ; and I assure you, had I not descried the Colos- sus at Rhodes and the lighthouse of Pharos, I should not have found out the earth at all ; ' at last, however, that high towering work of art and the glittering of the ocean by the reflection of the sun- beams playing upon it enabled me to conclude that what I beheld was the earth. Then, after fixing my eyes more steadfastly upon it, everything was so plain that I could not only see distinctly nations and cities, but even the individ- uals in them, some sailing upon the sea, others engaged in war, others tilling the ground, and others again trying causes; I discerned even men, women and beasts, and, in general, all " That lives and moves upon the fruitftJ earth." Friend. What you tell me now,* Menip- pus, with your permission, is incredible, since it does not properly chime with what you said before. For how is it pos- sible that you, who found the earth so small that you were obliged to look nar- rowly for it, and if the Colossus at Rhodes had not served you as a pointer, you would have mistaken it for something else ! how, I now say, could you now be suddenly metamorphosed into such a lynx-eyed creature as to spy out every- thing upon the earth, — men, beasts and almost distinguish the little flies in the atmosphere ? 3 After the proofs that Menippus has already given of his strength in the higher sciences it was to he hoped that we should not be shocked by any new assurance of his ignorance. As to our author, to whose account all the absurdities of his Arlequin philoBophe might be brought, I think his Grecian readers or hearers would freely grant him the liberty to regulate them according to his good liking, and as appeared most suited to his purpose, in a burlesque fiction constructed purely upon popular prejudices and idle conceits throughout. Be- sides the ludicrous incident that, unless he had descried the Colossus of Khodes, he should not have even per ceived the earth from its very littleness, is perfectly in the same taste with the assurance of Sancho in Don Quixote, in his famous aerial jaunt on the palfrey of the fair Magellone, that the earth appeared only like a mustard seed, and the men upon it hardly as big at hazel-nuts. * Again an Homeric parody. ICAROMENIPPUS, OK THE AERIAL JAUNT. 287 Afenippus. Well remembered ! For, what is the best of all, and what I should tave mentioned first, had well-nigh slipt out of my memory. When I first began to discern the earth, by reason of the vast depth, and because my sight would not reach so far, I could distinguish nothing, I found myself in no small perplexity, and was so vexed that I began to weep. All at once I perceived standing at my back, a figure as black as a coal, heavily covered with ashes, and in his whole ap- pearance as if he had been broiled. I cannot deny that at this sight I was aghast, thinking I beheld some lunar demon, but the figure bade me take cour- age. "Compose thyself, Menippus," said it, " I am no god, nor to th' immortals like." ' " I am the renowned naturalist Empedo- cles, who, having leaped into the crater of .aStna,^ was carried up with the ascend- ing smoke and conducted hither. Being aware how sadly you were grieved at being unable to discern clearly the objects of the earth, I come to your relief." " That is very kind of you, dearest Em- pedocles,'"' returned I ; "as soon as I have flown back to the earth I will not forget to present you with a libation up the flue of my chimney, and thrice every new moon, in honor of you, devoutly gaze upon that planet." " No, by Endymion " ' replied he ; "I did not come with any mercenary views, but purely because it pained me to the soul to see you so de- jected. Do you know what you must do to amend your sight and make it shar- per ?" "No by Jupiter!" answered I, "unless 'thou from these films canst purge my visual orbs,'* for at present,methink8, 1 am not much better than blind." " You will have no need of my assistance," he re- joined, "for you have brought the best eye-salve with you from the earth." As I could not conceive what he meant, he continued : " Have not you strapped an 1 Odyas, xyi. 187. 3 According to vulgar report. The truth of the mat- ter waa, without all doubt, that Empedocles, by ventur- ing for observation's sake too far into the crater, tum- bled down against his intention. s A comic asseveration by the famous favorite of XiUna. * Allusion to the 127th veno of the Fifth Book of the Ulad. eagle's wing about your right shoulder?" " And what, then, has that to do with my eyes ? " says I. " This ; that of all living beings the eagle is by far the most sharp- sighted, so that he alone can look direct against the sun ; and an eagle that can behold the sun without winking is legiti- mated as a true-born eagle and king of birds." " So it is said," I replied ; " and now I am sorry that when I was prepar- ing for my journey I did not pluck out both my eyes and insert a pair of eagle- eyes, instead of coming hither so badly equipped, and resembling those ejected bastards." " It depends entirely upon yourself to procure this other royal eye in its place. For if you will but rise a little, and without moving the vulture's wing flap the other wing alone, you will see as clear with the right eye as an eagle ; whereas the left, do what you can, will remain dim because it is on the defective side." " I shall be perfectly satisfied with only one eagle-eye," I said. " I shall lose nothing by it. For I have frequently observed that carpenters by means of one eye work by the level as true as if they used both eyes." With these words I set about the business in pursuance of the advice I had received. In the mean time Emped- ocles gradually vanished from my sight, and was dissolved in smoke. I had scarcely begun to flap my right wing when I was suddenly surrounded by a great light, and all that till now was con- cealed from me immediately became visible. Looking down upon the earth I plainly discerned cities and men, and everything that was donej not only in the open air, but even what was transacting in private houses, where all seemed safe from observation. I saw King Ptolemy* committing incest with his sister, the son of Lysimachus plotting against his father,' and Antiochus, the son of Seleucus, cast- ing stolen glances at his mother-in-law, Stratonice. I saw how Alexander, of Thessaly,' was murdered by his own wife. 6 Ptolemffius Philopator openly espoused hia sister, Arsinoe. * Lysimachus, successor to Alexander the Great, in Macedonia, at the instigation of his second wife, Araino^, had poison administered to him by his eldest son, Agathocles. 7 Possibly the tyrant of Pheraa, of that name, whom we read of in Diodorus. lib. xv., cap. 80, and in Plu. larch's Pelopidas. There is indeed a half-century want- ing for rendering this Alexander and the three fore- 288 ICAROMENIPPUS. OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. Antigonus seducing his daughter-in-law, and Attains' drinking a cup of poison presented him by his son. On another side I beheld how Arsaces, raging with jealousy, fell upon his concubine with a drawn sword, and how Arbaces, her chamberlain, coming to her assistance, attacked Arsaces with a naked sabre, while the handsome Mede, Spartinus, being wounded on the forehead with a golden cup, was dragged out by the heels by some of the satellites. The like was to be seen in Africa, and among the Scythians and Thracians, in the palaces of kings ; everywhere nothing but princes living in perpetual terror, surrounded by robbery and perjury, and betrayed by their most confidential favorites. In this manner I entertained myself awhile with the affairs of kings. But the acts of private persons were still more comical. There I saw the epicurean, Hermodicus, forswearing himself for a thousand drachmas ; the stoic, Agathooles, suing his scholars for payment of tuition ; the rhetor, Clinias, stealing a silver patera from the temple of ^sculapius ; and Herophilus, the cynic, passing the night in a brothel. To sum up all the various scenes I beheld, of house-breakers, petti- foggers, cheats of all descriptions, un- conscious of such an attentive spectator, afforded me a most variable and diverting comedy. Friend. It would not be amiss to hear all the particulars of it ; at least it seems to have yielded you much pleasure. Menippus. To go articulated through the whole of it, my friend, would be im- practicable. It was as much as ever I could do to stand the sight of it, however, to cut the matter short, imagine you were viewing the scenes described on Homer's named princes contemporaries ; yet it is not more difficult to conceive how Menippus could know what had passed fifty years backwards, as present, than how he could see from the moon into the bed-chamber of King Ptolemy. In a dream all is extremely possible, and more may not perhaps be required of a journey in the moon and to Jupiteraburg. ^ Of what Antigonus and Attains mention is here made is just as uncertain and unknown as who the Arsaces is whom Menippus sees with a drawn sword, perhaps from jealousy of the handsome Spartinus, attacking his con- cubine. It has all the appearance aa if some picture, to which a Persian anecdote had furnished the subject, was the foundation of it, as is often the case with Luciau's sketches. shield : in one compartment feastings and weddings, in another courts of jus- tice and popular assemblies ; here is one offering up a sacrifice on account of his good fortune, while not far off is another rending the air with his lamentations. Looking towards the country of the Getes, I beheld them with arms in their hands ; proceeding to the Scythians, I saw them traveling about, with bag and baggage, in caravans ; turning my eye a little to the other side, I found the Egyp- tians engaged in tilling their lands, the Phoenicians merchandizing, the Cilicians plundering, the Spartans being flogged,^ and the Athenians were litigating.' All these being in action in one instant, you may imagine what a mishmash it made. Figure to yourself a great choir of singers brought together upon the stage, and commanded not to sing in unison, but each one his peculiar tune, without car- ing about the rest ; and now let them begin all at once, every one to sing his own song with all his might, and striving, as if it were for a wager, who should vo- ciferate the loudest ; y/hat think you of the harmony this concert would produce ? And yet all the dwellers upon earth are such choristers ; and of such inharmo- nious and discordant notes is human life composed; and not only of unmusical tones but of dissonant and incongruous move- ments — a drama wherein the persons har- monize neither externally nor internally, but in language, figure, complexion, man- ners, and habits of life, are infinitely vari- able and incoherent ; ever thwarting and counteracting one another, and by thought or inclination never agreeing in one point ; till at length the master of the band, being wearied out, drives them one after another off the stage. They are then all at once struck dumb; and the harsh and jarring discord is at an end. To conclude, the actors in this motley and inconsistent farce of human life appeared to me extremely ridiculous. Yet I thought I had reason to laugh at none more than at those honest men who 2 A humorous allusion to a custom of the Sp^-rtans of scourging their sons on the festival of Diana Orchia, round the altar of the goddess even to blood. 8 Menippus here characterizes five celebrated nations ludicrously, each by a single expression. That the Athenians were extremely litigious sufficiently appears from the Birds and the Wasps of Aristophanos. ICAROMENIPPUS, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. 289 take so much upon them because they possess lands extending into the territory of Sicyon,' or every field lying between Marathon, Oinoe,'' or a thousand acres at AcharnEe. For at the elevation at whence I looked down, all Greece appeared not to exceed four fingers in breadth; how little, then, must such a small part ofit as Attica be ! and what a minimum, therefore, the spots about which the opulent make so much ado ! In truth, the wealthiest of these haughty land-owners seemed to possess scarcely the quantity of an epicu- rean atom. What a pity, thought I to myself, on looking down on Peloponne- sus and the little territory of Cynuria,' that so many brave Argives and Spartans should have fallen in one day for a plot of ground not bigger than an Egyptian len- til ! But likewise the noblemen that think so much of themselves because of their pieces of gold, their eight rings and four goblets, made me laugh heartily ; for the whole Pangseus,^ with all its mines and quarries, was hardly bigger than a grain of millet. Friend. Oh, what an enviable man you are, Menippus, in having been favored with this extraordinary spectacle ! But pray, the city and the folks in it — ^how did they appear at so vast a height ? Menippus. You have often seen an anthill with the swarm of it — what a bustle they are in, some running around in a circle, others passing out, others again returning home, these carrying out theordure, those dragging in a bitof bean- shell, or scudding along with half a barley corn in the mouth; and who knows whether there may not be architects, demagogues, councilors, musicians,* and philosophers after their manner among them ? However that be, I found a great similarity between these anthills and 1 Which waa uncommonly beautiful and fertile. 2 Marathon, Oinoe and Acharnse were Athenian ham- lets and commons. 3 A pretty district on the bay of Argos, bordering on Sparta, comprising the small towns of Thyrea and Athene, the possession of which was long contested, till at last the Spartans remained masters of it. The bloody day that Menippus here adverts to is described by Hero- dotus in the 82d chapter of his Clio. 4 A mountain in Thrace, famed for its rich copper and gold-mines, and was the source of the gold whereby Philip of Macedon subdued the Grecian Bepublics. s That is, to speak after the Grecian manner, poets, singers, flute-playeis, harpers, comedians, etc. VOL. IV. — W. H. the cities with their inhabitants. Or, if you think it a poor comparison to liken men to ants, recollect the Thcssalian mythology, which will inform you that the Myrmidons, one of their most warlike tribes, from ants became men.'' After having sufiiciently contemplated and laughed at everything, I fluttered my pinions and flew to the palace, " Where Jove in sacred senate sits en- throned."— Iliad, i. 222. I had scarcely flown a bow-shot, when Luna, in a delicate feminine voice, called after me: "Speed you well, Menippus ! may this ascension of yours have a happy issue! Be so good as to take a small com- mission with you to Jupiter." " With all my heart," answered I, "provided it be not too heavy." " Nothing more," she replied, " than to convey for me a petition to Ju- piter." " I lose all patience, dear Menippus, and can no longer bear to be so ill treated by the philosophers. One would think they had nothing else to do but to meddle with my affairs, by asking who I am, and how big, broad and long I am, and why at particular times I look like half a plate, or get horns. Some of them say I am inhabited, others that I hang like a looking-glass over the sea ; in short, every one says of me what he pleases. The worst of it is, they spread a report among the common people that my light is not genuine, and I steal it from the sun ; so that no thanks to them, if my brother is not suspicious of me, and mischief be created between us. As if it were not enough to cast obloquies upon the sun, by pretending that he is a stone or a glowing, hot mass.' Yet in good sooth they have no reason to treat me so scurvily ! For what shameful doings in 6 Ovid and other mythologists make the Isle of iEgina the scene of this miracle. 'Anaxagoras, for maintaining this, fell under the damnatory sentence of the priesthood at Athens, in the same manner as the great Galileo fell into the fangs of the holy inquisition at Rome, when he proved — and T suppose had better reasons to urge in behalf of his opinion than the former — that the planets moved round the sun. Besides, we have not data sufficient for form- ing an adequate idea of the opinions of Auaxagoras. He seems to have been a man of great sagacity, and to have had many just intimations of the true system of the universe. See Bailly, RUi. de VAsiron, tom. i. p. a02-5. 19 290 ICAEOMENIPPUS, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. the night-time could I relate of them, though by day they look so serious and severe, march along so gravely, and art- fully win such profound respect from the ignorant ! And yet I am content to be a silent spectator of all these matters, be- cause 1 think it not decent to disclose and divulge the contrast of their nocturnal deeds with their public demeanor ; on the contrary, when I spy them employed in acts of adultery, robbery, or any such like works of darkness, I immediately veil myself in a thick cloud, that it may not be manifest to the world how much these aged folks disgrace their long beards and that virtue which they have ever at their tongues' ends ; they notwithstanding never cease speaking disparagingly of me, and abusing me in all manner of ways. So that I swear by old Night ! I have some- times had it in my mind to retire as far as possible from hence, in order to avoid their impertinent remarks. Forget not, therefore, to acquaint Jupiter with all this ; and to tell him, farther, that it is impossible for me to remain longer at my post, unless he shatters the heads of these naturalists, stops the mouths of these logicians, blows up the stoa, sets fire to the academy, and puts an end to the disputations in the peripatus ; in a word grants me some respite from the daily insults of the geometrical rea- soners." I promised her to do all she desired, and shaped my course directly for heaven, where " No tracks of beasts or plowmen are dis- cerned." 1 In a little time even the moon appeared very small, and the earth was quite hid behind it. Leaving the sun on my right and flying through the midst of the stars, on the third day I reached the roadstead of heaven. Because on account of my vulture's wing, I dared not hope to be taken for Jupiter's eagle; I would not venture to fly directly into the empyreal castle, and therefore knocked at the door. Mercury presently came out ; and having asked my name, went back with all speed, and delivered it to Jupiter. After not long waiting, I was called in. Trembling and quaking, I entered the hall of au- dience, where I found all the deities as- sembled,_not much less alarmed than my- self, talking of my extraordinary journey, probably suspecting that shortly the 'OayBs.x. 98. whole human race might in the same manner come flying to them. Jupiter then, looking at me with a stern, terrific and titanic countenance, asked: " Tell, who '' Art thou? thy country where ? thy parents who ? " 2 I thought I should have died upon the spot with affright. I stood abashed and stupefied, as if thunderstruck at his voice. After a little pause, however, coming to myself, I related the whole story from the beginning: how desirous I was to pry into super-terrestrial affairs, how I had applied to the philosophers and what contradictions I found among them, the distraction of my mind in consequence, my curious device thereupon ; how I had fastened wings to my arms, and the whole history of my journey. In con- clusion, I delivered the message I had received from. Luna. At this Jupiter smoothed his brow a little and, smiling, said: "What shall we henceforth object against Otus and Ephialtes,' since even Menippus has had the presumption to ascend to heaven? For this day, how- ever," continued his majesty, " you are our guest. The business you are come upon we will take into consideration to- morrow and grant you a gracious dis- missal." At these words, rising up, he repaired to that part of Heavensburg, where he customarily listens to the prayers of mortals. On the way he asked me how matters stood at present upon the earth? What was the price of wheat? Whether the last had been a hard winter, and whether the grass wanted more rain? Then, whether any one of the posterity of Phidias was still in being, and why the Athenians, who were wont annually to celebrate the Diasia,* had of late yeara given up that custom ? Again, whether they did not intend to construct their Olympic temple,' and whether the thieves 2 Odyss. xi. 170. 3 Two giants, sons of Tartarus and the Earth, whos* juvenile enterprise against the gods is related by Ap- ollodorus in his mythological Biblioth, lib. i. cap. 6. *A feast in honor of Jupiter, as is indicated by the appellation. Three festivals were celebrated in honor of him at Athens, Fandla, Diasia and Deipolia, afl we learn from Aristophanes. 6 A report of long standing niakes Deucalion Ui» founder of this temple. The first actual builder was Pisistratus, but neither he nor his sons were able t%i ICAEOMENIPPUS, OE THE AEPJAL JAUNT. 231 that robbed the temple at Dodona were taken ? After I had answered these in- terrogatories he proceeded : " Very well, Menippus, now tell me honestly what do mankind think of me ? " " How should they think of you, gracious sovereign," answered I, " but the most religiously that can possibly be conceived : that you are the king of all the gods." " That you will never persuade me to believe," re- plied Jupiter. " I know very well, how- ever you may wish to conceal it, how inclined they are in all things to innova- tions. There was indeed a time when I was their soothsayer, their physician, their all in all ; ' when streets and fairs and all was full of Jove ; ' ' when Dodona and Pisa shone resplendent above all the temples in the world; the eyes of all men were turned upon them, and burnt offerings were presented to me in such numbers that I could scarcely open my eyes for the smoke of them. But since Apollo has set up his office of intelli- gence at Delphi, and ^sculapius has opened his apothecary shop at Pergamus, since there has been a temple of Bendis in Thrace, of Anubis in Egypt and of Diana at Ephesus, since all flock thither, the feasts celebrated in honor of them, and the hecatombs slaughtered are end- less, I am considered as old and super- annuated and sufficiently honored if a yoke of bulls are sacrificed to me once in five years. Hence you see that even Plato's laws and the syllogisms of Chry- sippus are not colder than my altars." ' While this conversation lasted we ar- rived at the place where he was to sit down and give audience to mankind. There were apertures, resembling the mouths of wells, at regular intervals, provided with covers, and by every one of them stood a golden chair of state. On finish the edifice. The work Btood still for several cen- turies, or at leaat met with continual interruptions till at length it was resumed by the Emperor Hadrian and brought to effect. As Menippus lived in the era of Alexander the Great, this question of Jupiter was as natural as the interest he takes in the posterity of Phidias, who had deserved so well of his godship by producing the famous statue of him. 1 An allusion to the first verse of an astronomical poem of Aratus. 2Lucian seems to have purposely committed an anachronism, and substituted the era of Menippus for the spirit of his own. Plato'f laws were only written, never enforced. the first chair Jupiter nov/ seated him- self, lifted up the cover and gave ear to the supplicants. Many and diverse were the prayers that came up to him from every region upon earth, some of them impossible to be granted at the same time ; I also, stooping down on the side contiguous to the opening, could dis- tinctly hear : " Oh, Jupiter, let me be a king ! Oh, Jupiter, send my onions and garlic to thrive this year ! Oh, Jupiter, let my father speedily depart hence ! '' Another cried out ; " Oh that I could soon be rid of my wife I " Another again ! "Oh that I might succeed in my plot against my brother 1" A third prayed for a happy issue to his law-suit ; a fourth wanted to be crowned at Olympia. One seaman prayed for a north wind, another for a south wind, a husbandman for rain, a fuller for sunshine. Father Jupiter hearkened to them all, and after having accurately examined every man's petition, to some "He nodded aye, to .others answered no."' The equitable requests were admitted through the aperture, and deposited on the right hand ; the iniquitous and futile he puffed back ere they had reached the skies. With respect to one alone I per- ceived him very much puzzled. Two parties preferred petitions for favors in direct opposition to one another, at the same time both promising equal sacri- fices. For want, therefore, of a decisive reason why he should favor either the one or the other, he was in the predica- ment of the Academics, not knowing to which he should say aye, but was forced with honest Pyrrho to suspend his judg- ment, and dismissed the matter by saying : we shall see. Having done with hearing prayers, he rose up, and seated himself in the second chair adjoining to the sec- ond aperture, to lend his attention to oaths, protestations and vows. When this was over, and after having on this occasion smashed the Epicurean Her- modorus's head with a thunderbolt, he went on to the third chair, where he gave audience to presages, prognostications, divinations and auguries. This done, he proceeded to the fourth, through which the fiimes of the victims ascended, waft- ing to him severally the names of the sacrificers. This business being de- spatched, the winds and storms were ad- a Iliad, xvi. 380, 292 ICAROMENIPPUS, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. mitted, and orders given to each what it was to do, as to-day let it rain in Scythia, thunder and lightning in Africa and snow in Greece ! You, Boreas, blow towards Lydia ! You, south wind, shall have a day of rest ! the west wind will raise a tempest in the Adriatic ! Let a thousand bushels of hail, or thereabouts, be scat- tered on Cappadocia ! — and the like. All these affairs being now settled, it was just the time for going to table. Mercury, I who officiated as grand marshal at the court of heaven, assigned me my place with Pan and the Corybantes, ^ between Atys ^ and Sabazius,' as new-made gods of rather equivocal origin. I was regaled by Ceres with bread, by Bacchus with wine, by Hercules with meat, by Venus with myrtle-berries, and by Neptune with anchovies. I had a taste also by chance of nectar and ambrosia ; for the beautiful Ganymede, from pure philanthropy, con- veyed to me, at two several times, a cup of nectar, while Jupiter was looking the other way. But the gods, as Homer says, who probably had seen how they live as well as I, " Neither eat bread nor drink the purple wine,"* but feed upon ambrosia, and get fuddled with nectar ; their most palatable diet, however, is the relishing savor of a sacri- fice and the warm steam arising from the blood of the victims shed upon the altars. During the repast Apollo played upon the harp, Silenus danced a cordax,^ and the 1 These Corybantes are not the priests of Cybele of that name, but the Curetes, a sort of demigods who, while boys, Icept company with Jupiter in his childhood, and of whom, in that respect, all sorts of stories have been invented. 2 Atys, or Attys, the favorite of Cybele (see the 12th of the little confabulations of the gods). . He was only worshipped in Phrygia as a sort of demigod. 3 Sabazins is generally taken to be a surname com- monly given in Thrace to Bacchus. It is, however, evident from this passage that Lucian designates by this foreign. Orientally-sounding name another of exotic parentage and doubtful rank. < Iliad, V. 341. 6 The cordax wag a comic dance derived from the earliest epochs of comedy and represented the licentious jollity of drunken persons of the lowest class. Theo- phrastus, in his characters, finishes the picture of a shameless man by this feature, — that he is capable, oven when sober, of dancing the cordax. Aristophanes more than once condemns the lascivious postures i luc- ticed in the licentious dances called cordaces, and intro- muses stood up and sang to us the Theog- ony of Hesiod and the first hymn of Pindar. At last, having fared sumptu- ously, we stretched ourselves on the couches, well drenched, "And calmly slept, both gods and earthly men, The wbole night through ; my wakeful eyes alone Found no repose,'' * so full of thought was I on the wonderful adventures that had happened to me. What principally ran in my head was how Apollo could live to that age and have no beard, and how it could be night in heaven,' since the sun was present and had been carousing with us. At last, however, I fell into a gentle doze. Ju- piter, getting up early in the morning, ordered the herald to summon a coun- cil of the gods ; and as soon as it was assembled he began in the following manner : " I have long intended to consult you on the subject of the philosophers ; but now being particularly incited to it by the complaints transmitted to us from Luna, I have resolved no longer to defer the discu^ion of that affair. Know, then, there has lately sprung up a set of people floating like scum upon human society, who arrogate to themselves that title, though, in fact, they are no better than a lazy, quarrelsome, vainglorious, splenetic, gluttonous, haughty, conceited and ill- bred crew ; and, to use an Homerical ex- pression, a useless burden on the earth. These people, who, having nothing else to do, contrive labyrinths of argumentation wherein they mutually endeavor to en- tangle one another, have split themselves into sundry gangs, known under the appellations of Stoics, Academics, Epicu- reans, Peripatetics and other still more ridiculous titles.* Involving themselves in the venerable name of virtue, they strut about the world with elevated brows and pendulous beards, and hide the most de- spicable manners under a varnished out- duces a drunken dance, a Scythian running hither and thither after his prisoner, and other ingenious novelties, by way of affording variety to the spectators and to resist the torrent of custom as far as he was able. 'J The first lines of Iliad ii. parodied. 7 Namely, the Homeric heaven, where there is day and night, as with us. 8 Fur example, ErislKs, the controvelBialists ; OynicM, the dogged. ICAEOMENIPPUS, OR THE AERIAL JAUNT. 293 side, like tragic actors, of whom, when stripped of tlieir visors and embroidered robes, nothing remains but a miserable fellow who for seven drachmas ' is hired to play the hero. "Now, these are the men who look down upon others with contempt, babble in- sipid stuff respecting the gods and cant about their far-famed virtue in a tone of tragical declamation to a crowd of simple, credulous youths, and teach them the vile art of confounding the common sense of mankind by captious sophistries. To their scholars, indeed, they preach up patience and temperance, and paint them in glowing colors, and speak of riches and pleasure with the utmost contempt and abhorrence ; but who would not be ashamed to reveal in words what is done to them in secret ? But the most insuf- ferable of all is that these people, who neither in public nor in private life are of any use, but are in every respect the most supernumerary and unprofitable of all men, and, to speak with Homer, are " Useless in council, as unfit for arms," ^ that such people, I say, should be the bitterest revilers of their fellow-beings, and, under the assumed character of moral censors, take the liberty to deal out their abuse upon all mankind ; so that he is not a little proud of his superiority who can scold the loudest and calumniate the most unblushingly. If you should ask one of these declaimers. What then, I beseech you, are you good for yourself? What in all the world do you contribute to the general emolument? If he would speak the truth, he must an- awer : Although I think it not necessary either to till the ground, or to carry on trade, or to perform military service, or to make profession of any other art, yet I roar out upon all men, live in dirtiness, bathe in cold water, go barefoot in winter and carp like Momus at all that other men do. Has any rich man given 1 Alluding to the salaries allotted by the emperor, Marcus Aurelius, to the philosophers of those sects which he patronized in an especial manner. These people were accordingly paid for playing the parts of Pytha- goreans, SocraticB, Platonists, as an actor, for seven drachmas [SI. 15], performed that of the hero. Nothing could be more humiliating to those grave personages than this comparison. » Iliad ii. 246. a splendid entertainment, or does he keep a mistress, I blab it abroad and raise a terrible outcry upon it; whereas, if a friend is sick, and wants my assistance, I take no notice of him. Now, I should be glad to know, ye gods, why we should continue to fodder such cattle ? And the set of them who call themselves Epicure- ans are unquestionably the most insolent of all ; for they touch us to the quick by aflirming that we are careless of human affairs, and have nothing to do in the events of the world. It is, therefore, high time to shew them the contrary, for if they should succeed in bringing over the public to their side, you must soon accommodate yourselves to a meagre diet. Who will be inclined to sacrifice if he has nothing to expect of you ? What heavy complaints are brought against them by Luna you have heard from our guest that came yesterday. Consult, therefore, and take such order as best may tend to the benefit of mankind and to the safety of ourselves." Jupiter had no sooner ended his speech when the whole assembly, with one voice, cried out : " Blast them ! Burn them ! Ex- terminate them ! Dash them to pieces ! Hurl them down to Tartarus as you did the giants ! " " Silence ! " cried Jupiter, "your will shall be done, ye gods ! They shall all be gored to death — by the horns of their own dilemmas ! I must, however, defer the execution of the sentence ; for you know we keep the holidays which last the four months next ensuing,' and I have already proclaimed the vacation to the courts of judicature. They have, therefore, a respite for this winter. At the beginning of next spring my holy thunderstorm * shall strike the caitifis to the earth." " He spoke, and awful bends his sable brow, 8As the gods proceed in all things so much like ua men, they likewise hold the courts of justice as in the com- mon practice here below. It is probable that Lucian here alludes to some extraordinary suspension of the criminal laws at the time, with the particular circum- stances whereof we are unacquainted. 4Every Greek scholar will perceive the burlesque style in which Lucian makes Jupiter to say KaKol kokm"? aTToXovTo TO) (T/xepSaKet^ Kepavvoil It lies principally in the Homerical epithet of lightning and must necessarily be rendered burlesque. By the dismiX dint of my terrv Ue thunder-dart. Dr. Mayne has it. 294 JOHN GILPIN. Shakes hia ambrosial curls and gives the nod; The stamp of fate, and sanction of the God." i "As for the Menippus," he added, "I think it beat to clip his wings, that he may not come hither again, and let Mercury this day convey him back to earth." With these words he broke up the celestial council. Cylleniua then, taking me up by the right ear, carried me dangling, and yes- terday evening set me down in the Ceram- icus. And thus, my dear neighbor, I have told you all the news that I brought with me from heaven. I am now going to proclaim the glad tidings to the phil- osophers yonder promenading in the Poazile. JOHN GILPIN. [William Cowper, an English poet, waa bom on the 26th of November, 1731, in the parsonage house of Great Berkhamstead. His father, \vTio was chaplain to George II., married Ann, daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., of Ludham Hall, in Norfolk. This lady expired in child- birth in 1737, leaving two eons, William, the poet, and John. This event made a deep impression on Cowper's mind ; and the lines addressed to his mother's portrait have drawn more tears than any other poem in the Eng- lish language. In 1781, Cowper made the acquaintance of Lady Aus- ten, who suggested to him The T'isk, urged him to trans- late Homer, and— what the world is perhaps more grate- ful for — she related to him the history of John Gilpin. The story so seized Cowper'e fancy, that in the course of a single night he produced the poem which has tickled the midriffs of four generations. The Task was begun in the winter of 1783, and published in 1785. Its success was great and Cowper began to be considered the great- est poet of his day. In 1784 he began the translation of Homer, which appeared in 1791. It was received with great applause. He had labored hard, and had now to pay the penalty. The pen was the only weapon with which he could keep his constitutional malady at i)ay ; but now, when seated at his desk, his genius would not answer the call. He began to hear again the voices and whisperings which had afflicted him in earlier days. Mrs. Unwin's feculties also became affected, and the two friends were groping in the same twilight, deepening for both into the darkness of death. They left Olney, and were received into the house of Mr. Johnson, in Lud- denham, in Norfolk. Here Mrs. Unwin died on the 17th day of December, 1796. Cowper now fell into a state of 1 Hiad 1. 528, where in the three preceding verses we are likewise informed of the importance and infallible efiect of this nod. utter dejection ; in 1799 he was attacked by dropay. He died on the 27th of April, 1800. Cowper was a great innovator in English literature ; he destroyed the sentimentalists led by Hayley, and the image hunters led by Darwin, His poetry is eminently healthy, natural and unaffected. Cowper and Robert Burns we have to thank for bringing back nature to English poetry. Besides being a poet, Cowper was per- haps the most delightful letter-writer in the English lan- guage. Nothing can surpass the charm of his epistles — full of fun, gentle sarcasm, anecdote, acute remark, ana a tender shadow of melancholy thrown over and toning down the whole. The best edition of Cowper's works {accompanied by an admirable biography) is that of Southey, 15 vols., 12mo., London, 1837-38.] John Gilpin was a citizen Of credit and renown, A. train-band captain eke was he Of famous London town. John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, " Though wedded we have been These twice ten tedious years, yet we No holiday have seen. *' To-morrow is our wedding-day, And we will then repair Unto the Bell at Edmonton, All in a chaise and pair. " My sister and my sister's child. Myself and children three, Will fill the chaise, so you must ride On horseback after we." He soon replied, "I do admii'e Of womankind but one ; And you are she, my dearest dear ; Therefore it shall be done. " I am a linen-draper bold, As all the world doth know, And my good friend the calender Will lend his horse to go." Quoth Mistress Gilpin, " That's well said ; And, for that wine is dear, We will be furnished with our own, Which is both bright and clear." John Gilpin kissed his loving wife ; O'erjoyed was he to find That, though on pleasure she was bent, She had a frugal mind. The morning came, the chaise was brought^ But yet was not allowed To drive up to the door, lest all Should say that she was proud. JOHN GILPIN. 29S So three doors off the chaise was stayed. Where they did all get in, Six precious souls, and all agog To dash through thick and thin. Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, Were never folk so glad ; The stones did rattle underneath. As if Cheapside were mad. John Gilpin at his horse's side Seized fast the flowing mane ; And up he got in haste to ride, But soon came down again : For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, His journey tohegin, When, turning round his head, he saw Three customers come in. So down he came ; for loss of time, Although it grieved him sore, Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, Would trouble him much more. 'Twas long before the customers Were suited to their mind ; When Betty screaming came down-stairs, " The wine is left behind 1 " " Good lack ! " quoth he, " yet bring it me. My leathern belt likewise. In which I bear my trusty sword When I do exercise." Now Mistress Gilpin, careful soul ! Had two stone bottles found, To hold the liquor that she loved, And keep it safe and sound. Each bottle had a curling ear, Through which the belt he drew. And hung a bottle on each side. To make his balance true ; Then over all, that he might be Equipped from top to toe. His long red cloak, well brushed and neat, He manfully did throw. Now see him mounted once again Upon his nimble steed, Full slowly pacing o'er the stones With caution and good heed. But finding soon a smoother road Beneath his well-shod feet. The snorting beast begaji to trot. Which galled him in his seat. So, fair and softly, John he cried, But John he cried in vain ; That trot became a gallop soon. In spite of curb and rein. So stooping down, as needs he must Who cannot sit upright, He grasped the mane with both his hands, And eke with all his might. His horse, who never in that sort Had handled been before, What thing upon his back had got Did wonder more and more. Away went Gilpin, neck or nought. Away went hat and wig ; He little dreamt, when he sat out. Of running such a rig. The wind did blow, the cloak did fly. Like streamer long and gay, Till, loop and button failing both. At last it flew away. Then might all people well discern The bottles he had flung ; A bottle swinging at each side. As hath been said or sung. The dogs did bark, the children screamed, Up flew the windows all ; And every soul cried out, " Well donel" As loud as he could bawl. Away went Gilpin — ^who but he ; His fame soon spread around — " He carries weight ! he rides a race ; 'Tis for a thousand pound." And still as fast as he drew near, 'Twas wonderful to view How in a trice the turnpike men Their gates wide open threw. And now as he went bowing down His reeking head full low, The bottles twain behind his back Were shattered at a blow. Down ran the wine into the road. Most piteous to be seen, Which made his horse's flanks to smoke As they had basted been. 296 JOHN GILPIN. But still he seemed to carry weight, With leathern girdle braced ; For all might see the bottle-necks Still dangling at his waist. Thus all through merry Islington These gambols he did play, And till he came up to the Wash Of Edmonton so gay. And here he threw the wash about On both sides of the way, Just like unto a trundling mop, Or a wild goose at play. At Edmonton his loving wife From balcony espied Her tender husband, wondering much To see how he did ride. " Stop, stop, John Gilpin ! here's the house 1 " They all at once did cry ; ' The dinner waits, and we are tired :" Said Gilpin, " So am I." 2ut yet his horse was not a whit Inclined to tarry there ; ii'or why ? his owner had a house Full ten miles off, at Ware. Ko like an arrow swift he flew, Shot by an archer strong ; fe/O did he fly — which brings me to The middle of my song. Away went Gilpin, out of breath. And sore against his will, T'ill at his friend's, the calender's, His horse at last stood still. The calender amazed to see His neighbour in such trim. Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, And thus accosted him : " What news ! what news ! your tidings tell, Tell me, you must and sliall — Say why bare-headed you are come Or why you come at all ? " Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit And loved a timely joke ; And thus unto the calender In merry guise he spoke : " I came because your horse would come ; And if I well forebode, My hat and wig will soon be here They are upon the road." The calender, right glad to find His friend in merry pin. Returned him not a single word, But to the house went in ; Whence straight he came with hat and wig, A wig that flowed behind, A hat not much the worse for wear, Each comely in its kind. He held them up, and in his turn Thu.s showed his ready wit : " My head is twice as big as yours, They therefore needs must fit. " But let me scrape the dirt away That hangs upon your face ; And stop and eat, for well you may Be in a hungry case." Said John, " It is my wedding-day ; And all the world would stare, If wife should dine at Edmonton, And I should dine at Ware." So turning to his horse he said, " I am in haste to dine ; 'Twas for your pleasure you came here, You shall go back for mine." Ah, luckless speech, and bootless boast I For which he paid full dear ; For while he spake a braying ass Did sing most loud and clear. Whereat his horse did snort, as he Had heard a lion roar ; And galloped ofi' with all his might, As he had done before. Away went Gilpin, and away Went Gilpin's hat and wig ; He lost them sooner than at first, For why ? they were too big. Now Mistress Gilpin, when she saw Her husband posting down Into the country far away. She pulled out half-a-crown ; And thus unto the youth she said That drove tliem to the Bell, " This shall be yours when you bring back My husband safe and well." THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. 297 The youth did ride, and soon did meet John coming back amain, Whom in a trice he tried to stop By catching at his rein ; But not performing what he meant, And gladly would have done. The frighted steed he frighted more. And made him faster run. Away went Gilpin, and away Went post-boy at his heels, The post-boy's horse right glad to miss The lumbering of the wheels. Six gentlemen upon the road Thus seeing Gilpin fly, With post-boy scamp'ring in the rear, They raised the hue and cry : " Stop thief I stop thief! — a highwayman 1" Not one of them was mute ; And all and each that passed that way Did join in the pursuit. And now the turnpike gates again Flew open in short space ; The tollmen thinking as before, That Gilpin rode a race. Ani so he did, and won it too, For he got first to town, Kor stopped till where he first got up He did again get down. Now let us sing, " Long live the king ! " And Gilpin long live he ; ,>tnd when he next doth ride abroad, May I be there to see ! " William Oowpee. THE TEEADMILL SONG. The stars are rolling in the sky. The earth rolls on below, And we can feel the rattling wheel Revolving as we go. Then tread away, my gallant boys. And make the axle fly ; Why should not wheels go round about Like planets in the sky ? Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man, And stir your solid pegs ; Arou.<:e, arouse, my gawky friend. And shake your spider legs ; What though you're awkward at the trade. There's time enough to learn ; So lean upon the rail, my lad, And take another turn. They've built us up a noble wall, To keep the vulgar out ; We've nothing in the world to do But just to walk about; So faster, now, you middle men, And try to beat the ends ; It's pleasant work to ramble round Among one's honest friends. Here, tread upon the long man's toes, He shan't be lazy here; And punch the little fellow's ribs. And tweak that lubber's ear : He's lost them both ; don't pull his hair, Because he wears a scratch. But poke him in the farther eye. That isn't in the patch. Hark, fellows ! there's the supper bell. And so our work is done ; It's pretty sport, suppose we take A round or two for fun ! If ever they should turn me out. When I have better grown. Now, hang me, but I mean to have A treadmill of my own ! Oliver W. Holues. THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. The Emperor Nap he would set ofi' On a summer excursion to Moscow ; The fields were green and the sky was blue, Morbleu I Parbleu ! What a splendid excursion to Moscow I Four hundred thousand men and more Must go with him to Moscow : There were Marshals by the dozen, And Dukes by the score ; Princes a few, and Kings one or two ; While the fields are so green, and the sky se blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! What a pleasant excursion to Moscow I i!)8 THE MA.KCH TO MOSCOW. TLere was Junot and Augereau, Heigh-lio for Moscow 1 DomDrowaky and Poniatowsky, Marshal Ney, lack-a-day 1 General Rapp, and the Emperor Nap ; Nothing would do, While the fields were so green, and the sky so blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu I Nothing would do For the whole of his crew. But they must be marching to Moscow. The Emperor Nap he talk'd so big That he frighten'd Mr. Eoscoe. John Bull, he cries, if you'll be wise, Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please To grant you peace upon your knees, Because he is going to Moscow ! He'll make all the Poles come out of their holes. And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians ; For the fields are green, and the sky is blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! And he'll certainly march to Moscow I And Counsellor Brougham was all in a fume At the thought of the march to Moscow : The Russians, he said, they were undone, And the great Fee-FaW-Fum Would presently come. With a hop, step, and jump, unto London, For, as for his conquering Russia, However some persons might scoff it, Do it he could, do it he would, And from doing it nothing would come but And nothing could call him off it. Mr. Jeffrey said so, who must certainly know, For he was the Edinburgh Prophet. They all of them knew Mr. Jeffrey's Review, Which with Holy Writ ought to be reckon'd : [t was, through thick and thin, to its party true. Its back was buff, and its sides were blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu ! It served them for law and for gospel too. But the Russians stoutly they turned to Ijpon the road to Moscow. Nap had to fight his way all through ; fhey could fight, though they could not parlez- vous; But the fields were green, and the sky was blue, Morbleu 1 Parbleu 1 And so he got to Moscow. He found the place too warm for bim, For they set fire to Moscow. To get there had cost him much ado. And then no better course he knew While the fields were green, and the sky was blue, Morbleu ! Parbleu I But to march back again from Moscow. The Russians they stuck close to him All on the road from Moscow. There was Tormazow and Jemalow, And all the others that end in ow ; Milarodovitch and Jaladovitch, And Karatschkowitch, And all the others that end in itch ; Sohamscheif, Souchosanefi", And Schepaleff, And all the others that end in eff: Wasiltschikoff, Kotsomarofi", And Tchoglokoff, And all the others that end in ofif ; Rajefisky, and Novereffsky, And Rieffsky, And all the others that end in effsky ; Oscharoflsky and RostofFsky, And all the others that end in offsky ; And Platoff he play'd them ofi', And Shouvaloflf he shovell'd them off. And Markoff he mark'd them off. And Krosuoff he cross'd them off, And Touchkoff he touch'd them off. And Boroskoff he bored them off, And Kutousoff he cut them off. And Parenzoff he pared them off, And Worronzoff he worried them off. And Dootoroff.he dootor'd them off, And Rodinoff he flogg'd them off. And, last of all, an Admiral came, A terrible man with a terrible name, A name which you all know by sight very well, But which no one can speak, and no one can spell. They stuck close to Nap with all their might; They were on the left and on the right Behind and before, and by day and by night; He would rather parlez-vous than fight ; THE MAGPIE, OB BAD COMPANY. 299 But he look'd white, and he look'd blue. Morbleu! Parbleu! When parlez-vous no more would do, For they remember'd Moscow. And then came on the frost and snow All on the road from Moscow. The wind and the weather he found, in that hour, Cared nothing for him, nor for all his power ; For him who, while Europe crouch'd under his rod. Put his trust in his Fortune, and not in his God. Worse and worse every day the elements grew, The fields were so white and the sky was so blue, Sacrebleul Veutrebleu! What a horrible journey from Moscow ! What then thought the Emperor Nap Upon the road from Moscow ? Why, I ween he thought it small delight To fight all day, and to freeze all night ; And he was besides in a very great fright, For a whole skin he liked to be in ; And so not knowing what else to do, When the fields were so white, and the sky so blue, Morbleu! Parbleu]! He stole away, — I tell you true, — Upon the road from Moscow. • 'Tis myself, quoth he, I must mind most ; So the devil may take the hindmost. Too cold upon the road was he ; Too hot had he been at Moscow ; But colder and hotter he may be. For the grave is colder than Moscovy ; And a place there is to be kept in view, Where the fire is red, and the brimstone blue, Morbleu! Parbleu! Which he must go to, If the Pope say true. If he does not in time look about him ; Where his namesake almost He may have for his Host ; He has reckon'd too long without him ; If that Host get him in Purgatory, He won't leave him there alone with his glory ; But there he must stay for a very long day. For from thence there is no stealing away, As there was on the road from Moscow. Semiick, 1813. Sodihey. THE MAGPIE, OR BAD COMPANY Let others, with poetic fire. In raptures praise the tuneful choir. The linnet, chaffinch, goldfinch, thrush, And every warbler of the bush ; I sing the mimic magpie's fame. In wicker cage, well fed and tame. In Fleet-street dwelt, in days of yore, A jolly tradesman named Tom More ; Generous and op9n as the day, But passionately fond of play ; No sounds to him such sweets afibrd As dice-box rattling o'er the board ; Bewitching hazard is the game For which he forfeits health and fame. In basket-prison hung on high, With dappled coat and watchful eye, A favorite magpie sees the play, And mimics every word they say ; "Oh, how he nicks us ! " Tom More cries. " Oh, how he nicks us ! " Mag replies. Tom throws, and eyes the glittering store. And as he throws, exclaims, " Tom More 1 " " Tom More ! " the mimic bird replies ; The astonished gamesters lift their eyes. And wondering, stare and look around. As doubtful whence proceeds the sound. This dissipated life, of course. Soon brought poor Tom from bad to worse ; Nor prayers nor promises prevail, To keep him from a dreary jail. And now between each heartfelt sigh, Tom oft exclaims, " Bad company I " Poor Mag, who shares his master's fate. Exclaims from out his wicker grate, " Bad company ! Bad company ! " Then views poor Tom with curious eye, — And cheers his master's wretched hours By this display of mimic powers ; The imprisoned bird, though much caressed Is still by anxious cares oppressed ; In silence mourns its cruel fate, And oft explores his prison gate. Observe through life you'll always find A fellow-feeling makes us kind ; So Tom resolves immediately To give poor Mag his liberty ; 300 THE RABBINICAL ORIGIN OF WOMEN. Then opes his cage, and, with a sigh, Takes one foud look, and lets him fly. Now Mag, once more with freedom blest. Looks round to find a place of rest ; To Temple Gardens wings Ms way, There perches on a neighboring spray. The gardener now, with busy cares, A curious seed for grass prepares : Yet spite of all his toil and pain, The hungry birds devour the grain. A curious net he does prepare, And lightly spreads the wily snare ; The feathered plunderers come in view. And Mag soon joins the thievish crew. The watchful gardener now stands by With nimble hand and wary eye ; The birds begin their stolen repast. The flying net secures them fast. The vengeful clown, now filled with ire, Does to a neighboring shed retire, A nd, having fast secured the doors A ud windows, next the net explores. l?'ow, in revenge for plundered seed, B ach felon he resolves shall bleed ; Then twists their little necks around, And casts them breathless on the ground. Mag, who with man was used to herd. Knew something more than common bird ; He therefore watched with anxious care, ind slipped himself from out the snare. Then, perched on nail remote from ground. Observes how deaths are dealt around. " Oh, how he nicks us ! " Maggy cries ; The astonished gardener lifts his eyes ; With faltering voice and panting breath, Exclaims, " Who's there ? " —All still as death. His murderous work he does resume. And casts his eyes around the room With caution, and, at length does spy The Magpie, perched on nail so high ! The wondering clown, from what he heard. Believes him something more than bird ; With fear impressed, does now retreat Towards the door with trembling feet ; Then says—" Thy name I do implore ? " The ready bird replies — " Tom More." " Oh dear ! " the frighted clown replies, With hair erect and staring eyes ! Half opening then the hovel door, He asks the bird one question more : " What brought you here ? " — with quick reply Sly Mag rejoins — " Bad company ! " Out jumps the gardener in a fright. And runs away with all his might; And as he runs, impressed with dread Exclaims, " Sure Satan's in the shed ! " The wond'rous tale a bencher hears. And soothes the man, and quells his fears, Gets Mag secured in wicker cage, Once more to spend his little rage : In Temple Hall, now hung on high, Mag oft exclaims — " Bad company ! " Anonthovs. THE EABBINICAL OKIGIN OF WOMEN. They tell us that Woman was made of a rib, Just picked from a corner, so snug, in the side, But the Rabbins swear to you that this is a fib. And 'twas not so at all that the sex was supplied. For old Adam was fashion' d, the first of his kind. With a tail like a monkey, fuU a yard and a span ; And when Nature cut off this appendage be- hind. Why then woman was made of the tail of the man. If such is the tie between women and men. The ninny who weds is a pitiful elf , For he takes to his tail, like an idiot, again, And makes a most horrible ape of himself. Yet, if we may judge, as the fashions prevail, Every husband remembers th' original plan ; And, knowing his wife is no more than his tail. Why — he leaves her behind him as much as he can. Thouas Mookx. AN IDYL OF THE PEBIOD. 301 I WISH HE WOULD DECIDE. 1 wish he would decide, mamma, I wish he would decide ; I've been a bridesmaid twenty times — When shall I be a bride ? My cousin Anne, my sister Fan, The nuptial-knot have tied ; Yet come what will, I'm single still — I wish he would decide. He takes me to the play, mamma, He brings me pretty books ; He woos me with his eyes, mamma, Such speechless things he looks 1 Where'er I roam — abroad, at home — He lingers by my side ; Yet come what will, I'm single still — I wish he would decide. I throw out many hints, mamma, I speak of other beaux, I talk about domestic life. And sing " They don't propose" ; But ah ! how vain each piteous strain His wavering heart to guide ! Do what I will, I'm single still — I Trish he would decide. AKomrMODS. AN IDYL OF THE PERIOD. I. "Come right in — how are you, Fred? Find a chair and have a light." " Well, old boy, recovered yet From the Mathers' jam last night? "' " Didn't dance ; the german's old." " Didn't you? I had to lead — Awful bore — but where were you ? " " Sat it out with MoUie Meade ; Jolly little girl she is — Said she didn't care to dance, 'D rather have a quiet chat ; Then she gave me such a glance 1 Gave me her bouquet to hold. Asked me to draw off her glove ; Then, of course, I squeezed her hand, Talked about ray wasted life, Said ray sole salvation must Be a true and gentle wife. Then, you know, I used my eyes ; She believed me, every word, Almost said she loved me — Jove 1 Such a voice I never heard ! — Gave me some symbolic flower, Had a meaning. Oh, so sweet ! Don't know where it is, I'm sure, Must have dropped it in the street. How I spooned ! and she — ha ! ha ! Well, I know it wasn't right ; But she did believe me so. That I — kissed her. Pass a light." n. " MoUie Mead — well, I declare ! Who'd have thought of seeing you, After what occurred last night Out here on the avenue ? Oh, you awful, awful girl. There, don't blush — I saw it all." " Saw all what?" "Ahem! last night- » At the Mathers', in the hall." " Oh, you horrid ! where were you ? Wasn't he an awful goose ? Most men must be caught ; but he Ran his neck right in the noose. I was almost dead to dance ; I'd have done it if I could ; But old Gray said I must stop. And I promised ma I would ; So I looked up sweet and said I had rather talk with him — Hope he didn't see my face ; Luckily the lights were dim. Then, Oh, how he squeezed my hand I And he looked up in my face With his great, big lovely eyes — . Really it's a dreadful case I He was all in earnest, too ; But I really thought I'd laugh — When he kissed a flower I gave, Looking, Oh, like such a calf 1 I suppose he has it now In a wine-glass on his shelves ; It's a mystery to me Why men will deceive themselves. ' Saw him kiss me ! ' Oh, you wretch 1 Well, he begged so hard for one. And I thought there' d no one know — So I let him, just for fun I I know it wasn't really right To trifle with his feelings, dear ; But men are such conceited things, They need a lesson once a year." AjfONTUOCS. S02 FLIGHT. FLIGHT. Memory ! that which I gave thee To guard in thy garner yestreen — Little deeming thou e'er oouldst behave thee Thus basely — hath gone from thee clean ! Gone, fled, as ere autumn is ended The yellow leaves flee from the oak — 1 have lost it forever, my splendid Original joke. What was it? I know I was brushing My hair when the notion occurred : I know that I felt myself blushing As I thought, " How supremely absurd 1 How they'll hammer on floor and on table As its drollery dawns on them — how They will quote it !" — I wish I were able To quote it just now. I had thought to lead up conversation To the subject — it's easily done — Then let off, as an airy creation Of the moment, that masterly pun, — Let it off with a flash like a rocket's. In the midst of a dazzled conclave. While I sat, with my hands in my pockets, The only one grave. I had fancied young Titterton's chuckles. And old Bottleby's hearty guffaws As he drove at my ribs with his knuckles His mode of expressing applause : While Jean Bottleby— queenly Miss Janet — Drew her handkerchief hastily out. In fits at my slyness — what can it Have all been about? I know 'twas the happiest, quaintest Combination of pathos and fun ; But I've got no idea — the faintest — Of what was the actual pun. I think it was somehow connected With something I'd recently read — Or heard — or perhaps recollected On going to bed. What had I been reading? the " Standard; " "Double Bigamy;" "Speech of the mayor," And later-eh ? yes ! I meandered Through some chapters of" Vanity Fair." How it fuses the grave with the festive 1 Yet e'en there, there is nothing so fine — So playfully, subtly suggestive — As that j oke of mine. Did it hinge upon " parting asunder ? " No I don't part my hair with my brush. Was the point of it " hair ? ' ' Now I wonder 1 Stop a bit — I shall think of it — hush I There's hare, a wild animal. — Stuff'! It was something a deal more recondite : Of that I am certain enough ; And of nothing beyond it. Hair — locks ! There are probably many Good things to be said about those. Give me time — that's the best guess of any — " Lock" has several meanings, one knows. Iron locks — iron-gray locks — a " deadlock That would set up an every-day wit : Then of course there's the obvious " wed- lock ; " But that wasn't it. No ! mine was a joke for the ages : Full of intricate meaning and pith ; A feast for your scholars and sages — How it would have rejoiced Sydney Smith ! 'Tis such thoughts that ennoble a mortal ; And, singling him out from the herd. Fling wide immortality's portal — But what was the word ? Ah me ! 'tis a bootless endeavor. As the flight of a bird of the air Is the flight of a joke — ^you will never See the same one again, you may swear. 'Twas my first-born, and oh ! how I prized it I My darling, my treasure, my own ! This brain and none other devised it — And now it has flown. C. S. Calveblbt. cabby's reply to mackintosh. Perhaps the best specimen of open wit now in circulation is that of the London cabby's retort to the head of the Highland clan, Mackintosh. " Do you know who I am ? " asked the haughty Highlander of a cabman attempting, as Mackintosh thought, to overcharge him, "I'm the Mackintosh." "I don't care,'' said the cabby, " if you were the umbrella, I mean to have my fare," PUNGENT AND WITTY SENTENCES FROM FRENCH HUMORISTS. 303 PUNGENT AND WITTY SENTENCES. PROM FKBNCH HUMORISTS. Women give themselves to God when the Devil wants nothing more to do with them. — Sophie Amould, Women, deceived by men, want to marry them : it is a kind of revenge as good as any other. — Beaumanoir. It is necessary to be almost a genius to make a good husband. — Balzac. As yet, no navigator has traced lines of latitude and longitude on the conjugal sea. — Balzac. Flow, wine ! smile, woman ! and the universe is consoled I — Beranger. " Eespect my independence I Lisette alone has the right to smile when I say : I am independent I " ^Beranger. All skulls seem to laugh. Perhaps it is at the epitaph engraved on their tomb. — Alfred Bovgert. Society is composed of two great classes : those who have more dinners than appe- tite, and those who have more appetite than dinners. — Ghamfort. The public! the public! How many fools does it take to make up a public ? — Chamfort. We censure the inconstancy of women when we are the victim ; we find it charm- ing when the other fellow suffers. — L. Besnoyers. The only thing that has been taught successfully to women is to wear becorn- ingly the fig-leaf they received from their first mother. Everything that is said and repeated for the first eighteen or twenty 5'^ears of a woman's life is reduced to this : " My daughter take care of your fig-leaf; " " your fig-leaf becomes you ; " " your fig- l«af does not bpeotoB yoTi." ^JHdtroi. Don Quixote is, after all, the defender of the oppressed, the champion of lost causes, and the man of noble aberrations. Woe to the centuries without Don Quix- ote ! Nothing remains to them but Sancho Panzas. — A. de Gaspann. God took his softest clay and his purest colors, and made a fragile jewel, mysteri- ous and caressing — the finger of a woman ; then he fell asleep. The devil awoke, and at the end of that rosy finger put — a nail. —Victor ffugo, God created the coquette as soon as he had made the fool. — Victor Hugo. At eighteen, one adores at once ; at twenty-one, one loves; at thirty, one desires ; at forty, one reflects. —p. de Koch. Nature, when she amused herself by giving stiff manners to old maids, put virtue in a very bad light. A woman must have been a mother to preserve under the chilling influences of time that grace of manner and sweetness of temper which prompt us to say, " One sees that love has dwelt there." — Lemontey. Gravity is a stratagem invented to con- ceal the poverty of the mind. — La Rochefoucauld. Since Cupid is represented with a torch in his hand, why did they place virtue on a barrel of gunpowder ? — LiviM. A jest that makes a virtuous woman only smile often frightens away a prude ; but, when real danger forces the former to flee, the latter does not hesitate to advance. — Latena. We like to know the weakness of eminent persons : it consoles us for our inferiority. — Mme. de Lambert. The world is a masked ball. —Miry. A woman forgives everything but the fact that you do not covet her. — A. de MuBBet. S04 PUNGENT AND WITTY SENTENCES FROM FRENCH HUMORISTS. Wine colors the face, to prevent the appearance of modesty. — A. de Musset. Partake of love as a temperate man partakes of wine : do not become intoxi- cated. — A. de Musset. If Cleopatra's nose had been shorter, the face of the whole world would have been changed. — Pascal. A litigant at law should have three bags : one of papers, one of money and one of patience. — Jh-overh. Of all men, Adam was the happiest — he had no mother-in-law. —p. ParfaU. To laugh is the characteristic of man. — Rabelais. It is easier for a woman to defend her virtue against men, than her reputation against women. — JiQcliehrune. Pleasures are like liqueurs : they must be drunk but in small glasses. — Bomainville. There are no pleasures where women are not : and, with the French, champagne itself has no flavor unless served by the hand of beauty. — Bomitu, A woman who pretends to laugh at love is like the child who sings at night when he is afraid. — /. J. EousBeau. At the age of sixty, to marry a beauti- ful girl of sixteen is to imitate those ignorant people who buy books to be read by their friends. — A. Bicard. The stomach is a slave that must accept everything that is given to it, but which avenges wrongs as slyly as the slave does. . — E. Souvestre. The hell for women who are only hand- some is old age. — Saint Evremond. The virtue of widows is a laborious virtue : they have to combat constantly with the remembrance of past bliss. — Bl. Jerome. Society is divided into two classes : the fleecers and the fleeced. — TaUeyrand. Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts. '—Talleyrand. Fools never understand people of wit. In love, as in war, a fortress that par- leys is half taken. — MarguerUe de Talois. He who knows his incapacity, knows something. — Marguerite de Vahm. We shall all be perfectly virtuous when there is no longer any flesh on our bones. — Marguerite de Valoia. Jest with life, for that only is it good. — Voltaire. If as much care were taken to perpetu- ate a race of fine men as is done to prevent the mixture of ignoble blood in horses and dogs, the genealogy of every one would be written on his face and dis- played in his manners. — VoUaire. A HOESE LAUGH. A coachman, extolling the sagacity of one of his horses, observed, that " jf any- body was to go for to use him ill, he would bear malice\^& a, Christian." FOE THE HEATHEN. A correspondent of the Boston Traveller records the following : A bright little boy about four years of age, son of a clergyman, was at your correspondent's house one evening with his parents, and I gave him a couple of five cent pieces. He laid them on the table, and putting his finger on one said, " This one I am going to give to the heathen, and the other one I am going to keep myself." He played with them awhile, till finally one of them rolled away and he could not find it. " Well," said I, " my lad, which one have you lost? " "Oh," said he, " I have lost the one I was going to give to the heathen," OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. 305 OUK NEW LIVEEY, AND OTHER THINGS. A. LETTER FEOM MRS. POTIPHAR TO MISS CAROLINE PETTITOES. [Geokge William Curtis, LL.D., waa born in Rhode Island in 1824. In early life he was clerk with a mer- chant of New York. In 1842 he and a brother joined the Brook Farm AeBociation, near Roxbuiy, Maes., and from there both went out as farmers. In 1846 he visited the old world, and, on returning, published '^ Nile Notes of a Howacfji," comprising his observations in Egypt. Two yeare later came " The Howadji in Srjria.^^ About this period he undertook the editorship of a new monthly magazine (Putnam's), and was a frequent contributor to the New Ymk Tribune. After the suspensioa of the magazine (in which Curtis was a heavy loser), he lec- tured, and wrote for the Harpers, particularly "The Editor's Easy Chair" in the New Monthly Magazine, a. series of papers regularly continued to the present date (1885). He has, for a long period, been the chief editor of Harper's Weekly, a very widely circulated illustrated journal. Among his separate works, not already men- tioned, are "Lotus Eating;'' " Prae and /;" "Trumps;" and the '*Potiphar Papers." He is one of the Regents of the University of New York. He is popular as a lecturer, and eminent as a political orator, and is master of a clear and finished literary style. From his " Poliphar Papers," published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, of New York, the following is an «xtract :] New York, April My dear Caroline, — Lent came so frightfully early this year, that I was very much afraid my new bonnet, d, I'lmpira- irjce, would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite vexed. But, whenever she turned away, I ran my eyes over the whole congrega- tion, and would you believe that, almost without exception, people had their old things ? However, I suppose they forgot how soon Lent was coming. As I was passing out of church, Mrs. Croesus brushed by me. "Ah!" said she, "good morning. Why bless me ! you've got that pretty hat I saw at Lawson's. Well, now, it's really quite pretty ; Lawson has some taste left yet; what a lovely sermon the Doctor VOL. IV — yf, H. fave us. By-the-by, did you know that Irs. Gnu has actually bought the blue velvet? It's too bad, because I wanted to cover my prayer-book with blue, and she sits so near, the eifect of my book will be quite spoiled. Dear me! there she is beckoning to me: good-by, do come and see us ; Tuesdays, you know. Well, Lawson really does very well." I was so mad with the old thing, that I could not help catching her by her mantle and holding on while I whispered, loud enough for everybody to hear: " Mrs. Croesus, you see I have just got my bonnet from Paris. It's made alter the Empress's. If you would like to have yours made over in the fashion, dear Mrs. Croesus, I shall be so glad to lend you mine." "No, thankyou, dear," said she, "Law- son won't do for me. By-by." And so she slipped out, and, I've no doubt, told Mrs. Gnu, that she had seen my bonnet at Lawson's. Isn't it too bad ? Then she is so abominably cool. Some- how, when I am talking with Mrs. Croesus, who has all her own things made at home, I don't feel as if mine came from Paris at all. She has such a way of looking at you, that it's quite dreadful. She seems to be saying in her mind, " La ! now, well done, little dear." And I think, that kind of mental reservation (I think that's what they call it) is an insupportable imperti- nence. However, I don't care, do you? I've so many things to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. The great thing is the livery, but I want to come regularly up to that, and forget nothing by the way. I was uncertain for a long time how to have my prayer-book bound. Finally, after thinking about it a great deal, I concluded to have it done in pale blue velvet, with gold clasps, and a gold cross upon its side. To be sure, it's nothing very new. But what is new now- a-days? Sally Shrimp has had hers done in emerald, and I know Mrs. CroBsus will have crimson for her's, and those people who sit next to us in church (I wonder who they are ; it's very unpleasant to sit next to people you don't know; and, positively, that girl, the dark-haired one with large eyes, carries the same muflF she did last year ; it's big enough for a fam- ily) have a kind of brown morocco binding. I must tell you one reason why I fixed upon the pale blue. You know 20 306 OUE NEW LIVEEY, AND OTHER THINGS. that aristocratic-looking young man, in white cravat, and black pantaloons and waistcoat, whom we saw at Saratoga a year ago, and who always had such a beautiful, sanctimonious look, and such small white hands ; well, he is a minister, as we supposed "an unworthy candidate, an unprofitable husbandman," as he calls himself in that delicious voice of his. He has been quite taken up among us. He has been asked a good deal to dinner, and there was hope of his being settled as colleague to the Doctor, only Mr. Potiphar (who can be stubborn, you know) insisted that the Eev. Cream Cheese, though a very good young man, he didn't doubt, was addicted to candlesticks. I suppose that's something awful. But, could you believe anything awful of him? I asked Mr. Potiphar what he meant by saying such things. "I mean," said he, "that he is a Pu- seyite, and I've no idea of being tied to the apron-strings of the Scarlet Woman." Dear Caroline, who is the Scarlet Woman ! Dearest, tell me, upon your honor, if you have ever heard of any scandal of Mr. Potiphar. " What is it about candlesticks ? " said I to Mr. Potiphar. " Perhaps Mr. Cheese finds gas too bright for his eyes; and that's his misfortune, not his fault." "Polly," said Mr. Potiphar — who will call me Polly, although it sounds so very vulgar — "please not to meddle with things you don't understand. You may have Cream Cheese to dinner as much as you choose, but I will not have him in the pulpit of my church." The same day, Mr. Cheese happened in about lunch-time, and I asked him if his eyes were really weak. " Not at all," said he ; " why do you ask?" Then I told him that I had heard he was so fond of candlesticks. Ah ! Caroline, you should have seen him then. He stopped in the midst of pouring out a glass of Mr. P.'s best old port, and holding the decanter in one hand, and the glass in the other, he looked so beautifully sad, and said in that sweet, low voice : " Dear Mrs. Potiphar, the blood of the mnrtyrs is the seed of the church." Then he filled up his glass, and drank the wine oiF with such a mournful, resigned air, and wiped his lips so gently with his cam- bric handkerchief (I saw that it was a hem-stitch), that I had no voice to asK him to take a bit of the cold chicken, which he did, however, without my ask- ing him. But when he said in the same low voice, " A little more breast, dear Mrs. Potiphar," I v/as obliged to run into the drawing-room for a moment to re- cover myself Well, after he had lunched, I told him that I wished to take his advice upon something connected with the church (for a prayer-book is you know, dear), and he looked so sweetly at me, that, would you believe it, I almost wished to be a Cath- olic, and to confess three or four times a week, and to have him for my confessor. But it's very wicked to wish to be a Cath- olic, and it wasn't real much, you know : but somehow I thought so. When I asked him in what velvet he would advise me to have my prayer-book bound, he talked beautifully for about twenty minutes. I wish you could have heard him. I'm not sure that I understood much of what he said — how should I ? — but it was very beautiful. Don't laugh, Carrie, but there was one thing I did understand, and which, as it came pretty often, quite helped me through: it was, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar ;" you can't tell how nicely he says it. He began by telling me that it was very important to consider all the de- tails and little things about the church. He said they were all timbales or cymbals — or something of that kind ; and then he talked very prettily about the stole, and the violet and scarlet capes of the cardinals, and purple chasubles, and the lace edge of the Pope's little short gown ; and— do you know it was very funny — but it seemed to me, somehow, as if I was talking with Portier or Florine Lefevre, except that he used such beautiful words. Well, by and by, he said : "Therefore, dear Mrs. Potiphar, as your faith is so pure and childlike, and as I observe that the light from the yel- low panes usually falls across your pew, I would advise that you cymbalize your faith (wouldn't that be noisy in church ?) by binding your prayer-book in pale blue, the color of skim-milk, dear Mrs Poti- phar, which is so full of pastoral associa- tions." Why did he emphasize the word " pas- tor.al ?" Do you wonder that I like Cream Cheese, dear Caroline, when he is so gen- tle and religious — and such a pretty re- ligion, too! For he is not only well- OUE NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. 307 dressed, and has such aristocratic hands and feet, in the parlor, but he is so per- fectly gentlemanly in the pulpit. He never raises his voice too loud, and he has such wavy gestures. Mr. Potiphar says that may be all very true, but he knows perfectly well that he has a hank- ering for artificial flowers, and that, for his part, he prefers the Doctor to any preacher he ever heard ; " because," he says, " I can go quietly to sleep, confident that he will say nothing that might not be preached from every well-regulated pulpit ; whereas, if we should let Cream Cheese into the desk, I should have to keep awake to be on the lookout for some of these new-fangled idolatries : and, Polly Potiphar, I, for one, am determined to have nothing to do with the Scarlet Woman." Darling Caroline — I don't care much — ^but did he ever have anything to do with a Scarlet Woman ? After he said that about artificial flowers, I ordered from Martelle the sweet- est sprig of immortelle he had in his shop, and sent it anonymously on St. Valen- tine's day. Of course I didn't wish to do anything secret from my husband, that might make people talk, so I wrote, — " Reverend Cream' Cheese ; from his grate- ful Skim-milk." I marked the last words, and hope he understood that I meant to express my thanks for his advice about the pale-blue cover. You don't think it was too romantic, do you, dear ? You can imagine how pleasantly Lent is passing since I see so much of him, and then it is so appropriate to Lent to be in- timate with a minister. He goes with me to church a great deal ; for Mr. Poti- phar, of course, has no time for that, ex- cept on Sundays ; and it is really delight- ftil to see such piety. He makes the re- sponses in the most musical manner, and when he kneels upon entering the pew, he is the admiration of the whole church. He buries his face entirely in a cloud of cambric pocket-handkerchief, with his initial embroidered at the corner; and his hair is beautifully parted down behind, which is very fortunate, as otherwise it would look so badly when only half his head showed. I feel so good when I sit by his side ; and when the Doctor (as Mr. P. says) " blows up " those terrible sinners in Babylon and other Bible towns, I always find the Rev. Cream's eyes fixed upon me, with so much sweet sadness. that I am very, very sorry for the naughty people the Doctor talks about. Why did they do so, do you suppose, dear Caro- line? How thankful we ought to be that we live now with so many churches, and such fine ones, and with such gentlemanly ministers as Mr. Cheese ! And how nicely it's arranged that, after dancing and din- ing for two or three months constantly, during which, of course, we can only go to church Sundays, there comes a time for stopping, when we're tired out, and for going to church every day, and (as Mr. P. says) " striking a balance," and thinking about being good, and all those things ! We don't lose a great deal, you know. It makes a variety, and we all see each other, just the same, only we don't dance. I do think it would be better if we took our lorgnettes with us, however, for it was only last Wednesday, at nine o'clock prayers, that I saw Sheena Silke across the church, in their little pew at the corner, and I am sure that she had a new bonnet on ; and yet, though I looked at it all the time, trying to find out, prayers were fairly over before I discov- ered whether it was really new or only that old white one made over with a few new flowers. Now, if I had had my glass I could have told in a moment, and shouldn't have been obliged to lose all the prayers. But, as I was saying, those poor old people in Babylon and Nineveh ! only think, if they had had the privilege of prayers for six or seven weeks in Lent, and regular preaching the rest of the year except, of course, in the summer — (by-the- by, I wonder if they all had some kind of Saratoga or Newport to go to ? — I mean to ask Mr. Cheese) — they might have been good, and all have been happy. It's quite awful to hear how eloquent and earnest the Doctor is when he preaches against Babylon. Mr. P. says he likes to have him " pitch into those old sinners ; it does 'em so much good ;" and then he looks quite fierce. Mr. Cheese is going to read me a sermon he has written upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife. He says that he quotas a great deal of poetry in it, and that I must dam up the fount of my tears when he reads it. It was an odd ex- pression for a minister, wasn't it? and I was obliged to say, " Mr. Cheese, you for- got yourself." He replied, " Dear Mrs. Potiphar, I will explain;" and he did sO; so that I admired him more than ever. 308 OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. Dearest Caroline — if you should only like him 1 He asked one day about you ; and when I told him what a dear, good girl you are, he said: "And her father has worldly possessions, has he not?" I answered, yes ; that your father was very rich. Then he sighed, and said that he could never marry an heiress unless he clearly saw it to be his duty. Isn't it a beautiful resignation ? I had no idea of saying so much about him, but you know it's proper, when writing a letter in Lent, to talk about re- ligious matters. And I must confess, there is something comfortable in having to do with such things. Don't you feel better, when you've been dancing all the week, and dining, and going to the opera and flirting and ilying around, to go to church on Sundays ? I do. It seems, somehow, as if we ought to go. But I do wish that Mrs. Croesus would sit some- where else than just in front of us; for her new bonnets and her sple'ndid col- lars and capes make me quite miser- able and then she puts me out of conceit of my things by talking about Lawson, or somebody, as I told you in the begin- ning. Mr. Potiphar has sent out for the new carpets. I had only two spoiled at my ball, you know, and that was very little. One always expects to sacrifice at least two carpets upon occasion of seeing one's friends. The handsome one in the supper room was entirely ruined. Would you believe that Mr. P., when he went down- stairs the next morning found our Fred, and his cousin hoeing it with their little hoes ? It was entirely matted with pre- serves and things, and the boys said they were scraping it clean for breakfast. The other spoiled carpet was in the gentle- men's dressing-room, where the punch- bowl was. Young Gauche Boosey, a very gentlemanly fellow, you know, ran up after polkaing, and was so confused with the light and heat that he went quite un- steadily, and as he was trying to fill a glass with the silver ladle (which is rather heavy), he somehow leaned too hard upon the table, and down went the whole thing, table, bowl, punch and Boosey, and ended my poor carpet. I was sorry for that, and also for the bowl, which was a very handsome one, imported from China by my father's partner — a wedding- gift to me — and for the table, a delicate rosewood stand, which was a work-table of my sister Lucy's — whom you never knew, and who died long and long ago. However, I was amply repaid by Boosey's drollery afterwards. He is a very witty young man, and when he got up from the floor, saturated with punch (his clothes I mean), he looked down at the carpet and said: " Well, I've given that such a punch it will want some kmon-aid to recover." I suppose he had some idea about lemon acid taking out spots. But the best thing was what he had said to me. He is so droll that he insisted upon coming down, and finish- ing the dance just as he was. The funny fellow brushed against all the dresses in his way, and finally said to me, as he pointed to a lemon seed upon his coat: " I feel so very lemon-choly for what I have done." I laughed very much (you were in the other room), but Mr. P. stepped up and ordered him to leave the house. Boosey said he would do no such thing; and I have no doubt we should have had a scene, if Mr. P. had not marched him straight to the door, and put him into a carriage, and told the driver where to take him. Mr. P. was red enough when he came back. " No man shall insult me or my guests by getting drunk in my house," said he ; and he has since asked me not to invite Boosey, nor " any of his kind," as he calls them, to our house. However, I think it will pass over. I tell him that all young men of spirit get a little excited with wine sometimes and he mustn't be too hard upon them. " Madame," said he to me the first time I ventured to say that, " no man with gen- uine self-respect ever gets drunk twice ; and if you had the faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant intoxica- tion has produced in scores of families that you know, you would never insin- uate again that a little excitement from wine is an agreeable thing. There's your friend Mrs. Crresus (he thinks she's my friend, because we call each other 'dear '); she is delighted to be a fashionable wo- man, and to be described as the ' peerless and accomplished Mrs. C-ce-s,' in letters from the watering-places to the Herald ; but I tell you, if anything of the woman or the mother is left in the fashionable Mrs. Croesus, I could wring her heart aa OUE NEW LIVEEY, AND OTHER THINGS. 309 it never was wrung — and never shall be by me — by showing her the places that young Timon Crcesus haunts, the people with whom he associates, and the drunk- enness, gambling, and worse dissipations of which he is guilty. " Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen or, perhaps, twenty years old ; and, Polly, I tell you, he is actually blasi, worn out with dissipation, the companion of black- legs, the chevalier of Cyprians, tipsy every night, and haggard every morning. Ti- mon CrcBsus is the puny caricature of a man, mentally, morally, physically. He gets ' elegantly intoxicated ' at your par- ties ; he goes oif to sup with Gauche Boosey ; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young men of spirit — it is an exhilarat- ing case of sowing wild-oats, you fancy — and when, at twenty-five, Timon Croesus stands ruined in the world, without aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single man or his own self-respect — youth, health, hope, and energy, all gone for ever — ^then you and your dear Mrs. Croe- sus will probably wonder at the horrible harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream Cheese to omit his sermon upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife, and preach from this text : ' They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heavens ! Polly, fancy our Fred growing up to such a life ! I'd rather bury him to-morrow 1" I never saw Mr. P. so much excited. He fairly put his handkerchief to his eyes and I really believe he cried ! But I think he exaggerates these things: and as he had a very dear friend who went worse and worse, until he died frightfully a drunkard, it is not strange he should speak so warmly about it. But as Mrs. Croesus says : " What can you do ? You can't curb these boys ; you don't want to break their spirits; you don't want to make them milk-sops." When I repeated this speech to Mr. P., he said to me with a kind of solem- nity : " Tell Mrs. Croesus that I am not here to judge nor dictate : but she may be well assured that every parent is responsible for every child of his to the utmost of the influence he can exert, whether he chooses to consider himself so or not : and if not now in this world, yet somewhere and somehow, he must hear and heed the voice that called to Cain in the garden, 'Where is Abel, thy brother?' " I can't bear to he.nr Mr. P. talk in that way ; it sounds so like preaching. Not precisely like what I hear at church, but like what we mean when we say " preach- ing," without referring to any particular sermon. However, he grants that young Timou is an extreme case : but he says, it is the result that proves the principle, and a state of feeling which not only al- lows, but indirectly fosters, that result, is frightful to think of. " Don't think of it, then, Mr. P.," said I. He looked at me for a moment with the sternest scowl I ever saw upon a man's face, then he suddenly ran up to me, and kissed me on the forehead (although my hair was all dressed for Mrs. Gnu's din- ner), and went out of the house. He hasn't said much to me since, but he speaks very gently when he does speak, and sometimes I catch him looking at me in such a singular way, so half mournful, that Mr. Cheese's eyes don't seem so very sad, after all. However, to return to the party, I be- lieve nothing else was injured except the curtains in the front drawing-room, which were so smeared with ice cream and oys- ter gravy, that we must get new ones ; and the cover of my porcelain tureen was broken by the servant, though the man said he really didn't mean to do it, and I could say nothing: and a party of young men, after the German Cotillion, did let fall that superb cut-glass Claret, and shivered it, with a dozen of the deli- cately-engraved straw-stems that stood upon the waiter. That was all I believe — oh ! exceptthat iine " Dresden Gallery," the most splendid book I ever saw, full of engravings of the great pictures in Dres- den, Vienna, and the other Italian towns, and which was sent to Mr. P. by an old friend, an artist, whom he had helped along when he was very poor. Somebody unfortunately tipped over a bottle of claret that stood upon the table (I am sure, I don't know how it got there, though Mr.P. says Gauche Boosey knows), and it lay soaking into the book, so that almost every picture has a claret stain, which looks so funny. I am very sorry, I am sure, but, as I tell Mr. P., it's no use crying for spilt milk. I was telling Mr. Boosey of it at the Gnus' dinner. He laughed very much, and when I said that a good many of the faces were sadly stained, he said in his droll way, " You ought to call it L' opera di Bordeaux ; Le 310 OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. Domino rouge." I supposed it was some- thing ftinuy, so I laughed a good deal. He said to me later : " Shall I pour a little claret into your book — I mean into your glass?" Wasn't it a pretty bon-moi f Don't you think we are getting very spirituel in this country ? I believe there was nothing else in- jured except the bed hangings in the back-room, which were somehow badly burnt and very much torn in pulling down, and a few of our handsomest shades that were cracked by the heat, and a few plates, which it was hardly fair to expect wouldn't be broken, and the colored glass door in my escritoire, against which Flat- tie Podge fell as she was dancing with Gauche Boosey ; but he may have been a little excited, and she, poor girl, couldn't help tumbling, and as her head hit the glass, of course it broke, and cut her head badly, so that the blood ran down and naturally spoiled her dress; and what lit- tle escritoire could stand against Flattie Podge ? So that went, and was a good deal smashed in falling. That's all, I think, except that the next day Mrs. Croe- sus sent a note, saying that she had lost her largest diamond from her necklace, and she was sure that it was not in the carriage, nor in her own house, nor upon the sidewalk, for she had carefully looked everywhere, a7id she would be very glad if I would return it by the bearer. Think of that? Well, we hunted everywhere, and found no diamond. I took particular pains to ask the servants if they had found it; for if they had, they might as well give it up at once, without expecting any reward from Mrs. Crcesus, who wasn't very generous. But they all said they hadn't found any diamond and our man John, who you know is so guileless — although it was a little mysterious about that emerald pin of mine — ^brought me a bit of glass that had been nicked out of my large custard dish, and asked me if that was not Mrs. CroBsus' diamond. I told him no, and gave him a gold dollar for his honesty. John is an invaluable servant ; he is so guileless. Do you know I am not so sure about Mrs. Croesus' diamond! Mr. P. made a great growling about the ball. But it was very foolish ; for he got safely to bed by six o'clock, and he need have no trouble about replacing the cur- tains, and glass, etc. I shall do all that, and the sum-total will be sent to him in a lump, so that he can pay it. Men are so unreasonable. Fancy us at seven o'clock that morning, when I re- tired. He wasn't asleep. But whose fault was that ? " Polly," said he, " that's the last." "Last what?" said I. "Last ball at my house,'' said he. "Fiddle-dee-dee," said L " I tell you, Mrs. Potiphar, I am not going to open my house for a crowd of people who don't go away till daylight ; who spoil my books and furniture ; who involve me in a foolish expense ; for a gang of rowdy boys, who drink my Mar- gaux, and Lafitte, and Marcobrunner, (what kind of drinks are those, dear Caro- line ?) and who don't know Chambertin from liquorice-water — for a swarm of per- sons, few of whom know me, fewer still care for me, and to whom I am only 'Old Potiphar,' the husband of you, a fashion- able woman. I am simply resolved to have no more such tomfoolery in my house." " Dear Mr. P.," said I, " You'll feel much better when you have slept. Besides, why do you say such things? Mustn't we see our friends, I should like to know, and, if we do, are you going to let your wife receive them in a manner inferior to old Mrs. Podge or Mrs. Croesus ? People will accuse you of meanness, and of treat- ing me ill ; and if some persons hear that you have reduced your style of living they will begin to suspect the state of your affairs. Don't make any rash vows, Mr. P." said I, " but go to sleep." (Do you know that speech was just what Mrs. Crcesus told me she had said to her husband under similar circum- stances ?) Mr. P. fairly groaned, and I heard that short, strong little word that sometimes inadvertently drops out of the best regu- lated mouths, as young Gooseberry Downe says when he swears before his mother. Do you know Mrs. Settem Downe? Charming woman, but satirical. Mr. P. groaned, and said some more ill-natured things, until the clock struck nine, and he was obliged to get up. I should be sorry to say to anybody but you, dearest, that I was rather glad of it; for I could then fall asleep at my ease ; and these little connubial felicities (I think they call them) are so tiresoma OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. 811 But everybody agreed it was a beautiful ball ; and I had the great gratification of hearing young Lord Mount Ague (you know you danced with him, love) say that it was quite the same thing as a ball at Buckingham Palace, except, of course, in size, and the number of persons, and dresses, and jewels, and the plate, and glass, and supper, and wines, and furn- ishing of the rooms, and lights, and some of those things, which are naturally upon a larger scale at a palace than in a private house. But, he said, excepting such things, it was quite as fine, I am afraid Lord Mount Ague flatters ; just a little bit, you know. Yes ; and there was young Major Stag- gers, who said that " Decidedly it was the party of the season." " How odd," said Mrs. Croesus, to whom I told it, and, I confess, with a little pride. " What a sympathetic man : that is for a military man, I mean. Would you believe, dear Mrs. Potiphar, that he said precisely the same thing to me, two days after my ball?" Now, Caroline, dearest, perhaps he did! With all these pleasant things said about one's party, I cannot see that it is such a dismal thing as Mr. P. tries to make out. After one of his solemn talks, I asked Mr. Cheese what he thought of balls, whether it was so very wicked to dance, and go to parties, if one only went to church twice a day on Sundays. He patted his lips a moment with his hand- kerchief, and then he said — and, Caro- line, you can always quote theEev. Cream Cheese as authority — "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, it is recorded in Holy Scripture that the King danced before the Lord." Darling, if anything should happen, I don't believe he would object much to your dancing. What gossips we women are, to be sure! I meant to write you about our new livery and I am afraid I have tired you out al- ready. You remember when you were here, I said that I meant to have a livery, for my sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park, with the old Marquis of Mammon it was always so delightful to hear him say, " Ah ! there is Lady Lobster's livery." It was so aristocratic. And in coun- tries where certain colors distinguish cer- tain families, and are hereditary, so to say, it is convenient and pleasant to re- cognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and to know that the representative of a great and famous family is passing by. " That's a Howard, that's a Russell, that's a Dorset, that's de Colique, that's Mount Ague," old Lord Mammon used to say as the carriages whirled by. He knew none of them personally, I believe, except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was so agreeable to be able to know their liveries. Now, why shouldn't we have the same arrangement ? Why not have the Smith colors, and the Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the Potiphar colors, etc., so that the people might say, " Ah ! there go the Potiphar arms." There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is that he found five hundred and sixty-seven Smiths in the Directory, which might lead to some confusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, because everybody would know which of the Smiths was able to keep a carriage, so that the livery would be recognized di- rectly the moment that any of the family were seen in the carriage. Upon which he said, in his provoking way, " Why have any livery at all, then ? " and he per- sisted in saying that no Smith was ever the Smith for three generations, and that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was able to set up his carriage and stand by his colors. " But, then, a livery is so elegant and aristocratic," said I," and it shows that a servant is a servant." That last was a strong argument, and I thought Mr. P. would have nothing to say against it ; but he rattled on for some time, asking me what right I had to be aristocratic, or, in fact, anybody else; went over his eternal old talk about aping foreign habits, as if we hadn't a right to adopt the good usages of all nations, and finally said that the use of liveries among us was not only a " pure peacock absurdi- ty," as he called it, but that no genuine American would ever ask another to as- sume a menial badge. "Why?" said I, "is not an American servant a servant still? " "Most undoubtedly," he said ; "and when a man is a servant, let him serve faithfiilly; and in this country especially, where to-morrow he may be the served, and not the servant, let him not be ashamed of serving. But, Mrs. Potiphar 312 QUE NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. I beg you to observe that a servant's livery is not, like a general's uniform, the badge of honorable service, but of menial service. Of course, a servant may be as honorable as a general, and his work quite as necessary and well done. But, for all that, it is not so respected nor coveted a situation, I believe; and, in social esti- mation, a man suffers by wearing a livery, as he never would if he wore none. And while in countries in which a man is proud of being a servant (as every man may well be of being a good one), and never looks to anything else, nor desires any change, a livery may be very proper to the state of society, and very agreeable to his own feelings; it is quite another thing in a society constituted upon alto- gether different principles, where the ser- vant of to-day is the senator of to-morrow. Besides that, which I suppose is too fine- spun for you, livery is a remnant of a feudal state, of which we abolish every trace as fast as we can. That which is represented by livery is not consonant with our principles." How the man runs on, when he gets going this way I I said, in answer to all this flourish, that I considered a livery very much the thing; that European families had liveries, and American fami- lies might have liveries ; that there was an end of it, and I meant to have one. Besides, if it is a matter of family, I should like to know who has a better right? There was Mr. Potiphar's grand- father, to be sure, was only a skillful blacksmith and a good citizen, as Mr. P. says, who brought up a family in the fear of the Lord. How oddly he puts those things ! But my ancestors, as you know, are a different matter. Starr Mole, who inter- ests himself in genealogies, and knows the family name and crest of all the English nobility, has " climbed our family tree," as Staggers says, and finds that I am lineally descended from one of those two brothers who came over in some of those old times, in some of those old ships, and settled in some of those old places some- where. So you see, dear Caroline, if birth gives any one a right to coats of arms and liveries, and all those things, I feel myself suflBciently entitled to have them. But I don't care anything about that. The Gnus, and Croesuses, and Silkes, and Settum Downes have their coats of arms, and crests and liveries, and I am not going to be behind, I tell you. Mr. P. ought to remember that a great many of these families were famous before they came to this country, and there is a kind of interest in having on your ring, for in- stance, the same crest that your ancestor two or three centuries ago had upon her ring. One day I was quite wrought up about the matter, and I said as much to him. " Certainly," said he, " certainly ; you are quite right. If I had Sir Philip Sidney to my ancestor, I should wear his crest upon my ring, and glory in my re- lationship, and I hope I should be a better man for it. I wouldn't put his arms upon my carriage, however, because that would mean nothing but ostentation. It would be merely a flourish of trumpets to say that I was his descendant, and nobody would know that, either, if my name chanced to be Boggs. In my library I might hang a copy of the family escut- cheon as a matter of interest and curiosity to myself, for I'm sure I shouldn't under- stand it. Do you suppose Mrs. Gnu knows what gules argent are? A man might be as proud of his family as he chooses, and, if he have noble ancestors, with good reason. But there is no sense in parading that pride. It is an affecta- tion, the more foolish that it achieves nothing — -no more credit at Stewart's — no more real respect in society. Besides, Polly, who were Mrs. Gnu's ancestors, or Mrs. Croesus's, or Mrs. Settum Downe's ? Good, quiet, honest, and humble people, who did their work and rest from their labor. Centuries ago, in England, some drops of blood from ' noble ' veins may have mingled with the blood of their forefathers; or even the founder of the family name may be historically famous. What then? Is Mrs. Gnu's family osten- tation less absurd ? Do you understand the meaning of her crest, and coats of arms, and liveries? Do you suppose she does herself? But in forty-nine cases out of fifty there is nothing but a similarity of name upon which to found all this flourish of aristocracy." My dear old Pot is getting rather prosy, Carrie. So, when he had finished that long speech, during which I was looking at the lovely fashion-plates in Harper, I said: " What colors do you think I'd better have?" He looked at me with that singular OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. 313 expression, and went out suddenly, as if he were afraid he might say something. He had scarcely gone before I heard : " My dear Mrs. Potiphar, the sight of you is refreshing as Hermon's dew." I colored a little; Mr. Cheese says such things so softly. But I said good- morning, and then asked him about liveries, etc. He raised his hand to his cravat (it was the most snowy lawn, Carrie, and tied in a splendid bow). " Is not this a livery, dear Mrs. Poti- phar?" And then he went off into one of those pretty talks, in what Mr. P. calls "the language of artiiicial flowers," and wound up by quoting Sfripture — "Servants, obey your masters." That was enough for me. So I told Mr. Cheese that, as he had already as- sisted me in colors once, I should be most glad to have him do so again. What a time we had, to be sure, talking of colors, and cloths, and gaiters, and buttons, and knee-breeches, and waistcoats, and plush, and coats, and lace, and hatbands, and gloves, and cravats, and cords, and tas- sels, and hats. Oh! it was delightful. You can't fancy how heartily the Eev. Cream entered into the matter. He was quite enthusiastic, and at last he said, with so much expression, "Dear Mrs. Potiphar, why not have a chasseur f " I thought it was some kind of a French dish for lunch, so I said : " I am so sorry, but we haven't any in the house." " Oh," said he, " but you could hire one, you know." Then I thought it must be a musical instrument — a panharmonicon, or some- thing of that kind — so I said in a general way— " I'm not very, very fond of it.'' " But it would be so fine to have him standing on the back of the carriage, his plumes waving in the wind, and his lace and polished belts flashing in the sun, as you whirled down Broadway." Of course I knew then that he was speaking of those military gentlemen who ride behind carriages, especially upon the continent, as Margaret tells me, and who, in Paris, are very useful to keep the sav- ages and wild-beasts at bay in the Champs Elys6es, for you know they are intended as a guard. But I knew Mr. P, would be firm about that, so I asked Mr. Cheese not to kindle my imagination with the chasseur. We concluded finally to have only one full-sized footman, and a fat driver. " The corpulence is essential, dear Mrs. Potiphar," said Mr. Cheese. "I have been much abroad; I have mingled, I trust, in good, which is to say, in Christian society : and I must say, that few things struck me more upon my return than that the ladies, who drive very handsome car- riages, with footmen, etc., in livery, should permit such thin coachmen upon the box. I really believe that Mrs. Settum Downe's coachman doesn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, which is ridiculous. A lady might as well hire a footman with insufficient calves, as a coachman who weighs less than two hun- dred and ten. That is the minimum. Besides, I don't observe any wigs upon the coachmen. Now, if a lady set up her carriage with the family crest and fine liveries, why, I should like to know, is the wig of the coachman omitted, and his cocked hat also ? It is a kind of shabby, half-ashamed way of doing things — a garbled glory. The cock-hatted, knee- breeched, paste-buckled, horse-hair-wig- ged coachman is one of the institutions of the aristocracy. If we don't have him complete, we somehow make ourselves ridiculous. If we do have him complete, why, then?"— Here Mr. Cheese coughed a little, and patted his mouth with his cambric. But what he said was very true. I should like to come out with the wig, I mean upon the coachman ; it would so put down the Settum Downes. But, I'm sure old Pot wouldn't have it. He lets me do a great deal. But there is a line which I feel he won't let me pass. I mentioned my fears to Mr. Cheese. " Well," he said, " Mr. Potiphar may be right. I remember an expression of my carnal days about 'coming it too strong,' which seems to me to be appli- cable just here." After a little more talk, I determined to have red plush breeches, with a black cord at the side — white stockings — low shoes, with large buckles — a yellow waistcoat, with large buttons — lappels to the pockets — and a purple coat, very full and fine, bound with gold lace — and the hat banded with a full gold rosette. Don't you think that would look well in Hyde Park ? And, darling Carrie, why shouldn't 314 OUR NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. we have iii Broadway what they have in Hyde Park? When Mr. P. came in, I told him all about it. He laughed a good deal and said, "What next?" So I am not sure he would be so very hard upon the wig. The next morning I had appointed to see the new footman, and, as Mr. P. went out he turned and said to me, " Is your foot- man coming to-day ? " "Yes," I answered. "Well," said he, "don't forget the calves. You know that everything in the matter of livery depends upon the calves." And he went out laughing silently to himself, with — actually, Carrie — a tear in his eye. But it was true, wasn't it? I remember in all the books and pictures, how much is said about the calves. In advertise- ments, etc., it is stated, that none but well-developed calves need apply ; at least it is so in England, and, if I have a livery, I am not going to stop half-way. My duty was very clear. When Mr. Cheese came in, I said I felt awkward in asking a servant about his calves, it sounded so queerly. But I confessed that it was necessary. " Yes, the path of duty is not always smooth, dear Mrs. Potiphar. It is often thickly strewn with thorns," said he, as he sank back in the faideidl, and put down his petit verre of Marasquin. Just after he had gone, the new foot- man was announced. I assure you, al- though it is ridiculous, I felt quite nervous. But when he came in, I said calmly : " Well, James, I am glad you have come." "Please ma'am, my name is Henry," said he. I was astonished at his taking me up so, and said decidedly : " James, the name of my footman is always James. You may call yourselves what you please, I shall always call you James." The idea of the man's undertaking to arrange my servants' names for me ! Well, he showed me his references, which were very good, and I was quite satisfied. But there was the terrible calf business that must be attended to. I put it off a great while, but I had to begin. " Well, James ! " and there I stopped. " Yes, ma'am," said he. "I wish — yes — ah!" and there I stop- ped again. " Yes, ma'am,'' said he. " James, I wish you had come in knee- breeches." " Ma'am ? " said he, in great surprise. "In knee-breeches, James," repeated I. "What be they, ma'am? What for ma'am?" said he, a little frightened, as I thought. "Oh! nothing, nothing ; but — but — " " Yes, ma'am," said James. " But — but I want to see — to see — " "What, ma'am?" said James. "Your legs," gasped I; and the path was thorny enough, Carrie, I can teU you. I had a terrible time explaining to him what I meant, and all about the liveries, etc. Dear me ! what a pity, these things are not understood ; and then we should never have this trouble about explana- tions. However, I couldn't make him agree to wear the livery. He said : " I'll try to be a good servant, ma'am, but I cannot put on those things and make a fool of myself. I hope you won't insist, for I am very anxious to get a place." Think of his dictating to me ! I told him that I did not permit my servants to impose conditions upon me (that's one of Mrs. Croesus's sayings), that I was willing to pay him good wages and treat him well, but that my James must wear my livery. He looked very sorry, said that he should like the place very much — that he was satisfied with the wages, and was sure he should please me, but he could not put on those things. We were both determined, and so parted. I think we were both sorry ; for I should have to go all through the calf business again, and he lost a good place. However, Caroline, dear, I have my livery and my footman, and am as good as anybody. It's very splendid when I go to Stewart's to have the red plush, and the purple, and the white calves springing down to open the door, and to see people i look, and say, " I wonder who that is ? " And everybody bows so nicely, and the clerks are so polite, and Mrs. Gnu is melting with envy on the other side, and Mrs. Croesus goes about, saying : " Dear little woman, that Mrs. Potiphar, but so weak ! Pity, pity ! " And Mrs. Settum Downe says: "Is that the Potiphar livery ? Ah, yes ! Mr. Potiphar's grand- father used to shoe my grandfather's OUE NEW LIVERY, AND OTHER THINGS. 315 horses I " (as if to be useful in the world were a disgrace — as Mr. P. says), and young Downe, and Boosey, and Timon Croesus come up and stand about so gentlemanly, and say: "Well, Mrs. Poti- phar, are we to have no more charming parties this season?" and Boosey says, in his droll way : " Let's keep the ball a rolling ! " That young man is always ready with a witticism. Then I step out, and James throws open the door, and the young men raise their hats, and the new crowd says: "I wonder who that isl" and the plush, and purple, and calves spring up behind, and I drive home to dinner. Now, Carrie, dear, isn't that nice ? Well, I don't know how it is — but things are so queer. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, in my room, which I have had tapestried with fluted rose silk, and lie thinking, under the lace curtains; although I may have been at one of Mrs. Gnu's splendid parties the night before, and am going to Mrs. Silke's to dinner, and to the opera and Mrs. Settum Downe's in the evening, and have nothing to do all day but go to Stewart's, or Martelle's, or Lefevre's, and shop and pay morning calls — do you know, as I say, that sometimes I hear an old familiar tune played upon a hand-organ far away in some street, and it seems to me in that half drowsy state under the laces, that I hear the girls and boys singing it in the fields where we used to play. It is a kind of dream, I suppose, but often, as I listen, I am sure that I hear Henry's voice again that used to ring so gaily among the old trees, and I walk witihi him in the sunlight to the bank of the river, and he throws in the flower — as he really did — and says with a laugh, " If it goes this side of the stump I am saved; if the other, I am lost ; " and then he looks at me as if I had anything to do with it, and the flower drifts slowly oflf and off, and goes the other side of the old stump, and we walk homeward silently, until Henry laughs out and says, " Thank heaven, my fate is not a flower; " and I swear to love him for ever and ever, and marry him, and live in a dingy little old room in some of the dark and dirty streets in the city. Then I doze again : but presently the music steals into my sleep and I see him as I saw him last, standing in his pulpit, so calm and noble, and drawing the strong men as well as the weak women by his earnest persuasion ; and alter ser- vice he smiles upon me kindly, and says, " This is my wife," and the wife, who looks like the Madonna in that picture of Andrea Del Sarto's, which you liked so at the gallery, leads us to a little house buried in roses, looking upon a broad and lovely landscape, and Henry whispers to me as a beautiflil boy bounds into the room, "Mrs. Potiphar, I am very happy." I doze again until Adele comes in and opens the shutters. I do not hear the music any more ; but those days I do somehow seem to hear it all the time. Of course Mr. P. is gone long before I wake, so he knows nothing about all this. I generally come in at night after he is asleep, and he is up and has his break- fast, and goes down town before I wake in the morning. He comes home to dinner, but he is apt to be silent; and after dinner he takes his nap in the par- lor over his newspaper, while I go up and let Adele dress my hair for the evening. Sometimes Mr. P. groans into a clean shirt and goes with me to the ball ; but not often. When I come home, as I said, he is asleep, so I don't see a great deal of him, except in the summer, when I am at Saratoga or Newport ; and then, not so much, after all, for he usually only comes to pass Sunday, and I must be a good Christian, you know, and go to church. On the whole, we have not a very inti- mate acquaintance; but I have a great respect for him. He told me the other day that he should make at least thirty thousand dollars this year. My darling Carrie — I am very sorry I can't write you a longer letter. I want to consult you about wearing gold pow- der, like the new Empress. It would kill Mrs. Croesus if you and I should be the first to come out in it; and don't you think the effect would be fine, when we were dancing to shower the gold mist around us ! How it would sparkle on the gentlemen's black coats ! (" Yes," says Mr. P., " and how finely Gauche Boosey, and Timon Croesus, and young Downe willlook in silk tights and small-clothes ! ") They say it's genuine gold ground up. I have already sent for a white velvet and lace — the Empress's bridal dress, you know. That foolish old P. asked me if I had sent for the Emperor and the Bank of France too. 316 ACCOMPANIED ON THE FLUTE. "Men ask such absurd questions," said I. "Mrs. Potiphar, I never asked but one utterly absurd question in my life," said he, and marched out of the house. Au revoir, chlre Caroline. I have a thousand things to say, but I know you must be tired to death. Fondly yours, Polly Potiphae. P. S. — Our little Fred, is quite down with the scarlet fever. Potiphar says I mustn't expose myself, so I don't go into the room; but Mrs. Jollup, the nurse, tells me through the keyhole how he is. Mr. P. sleeps in the room next the nursery, so as not to carry the infection to me. He looks very solemn as he walks down town. I hope it won't spoil Fred.'s com- plexion. I should be so sorry to have him a little fright ! Poor little thing ! P. S. 2d. — Isn't it funny about the ACCOMPANIED ON THE FLUTE. A TALE OF ANCIENT ROME. The Consul Duilius was entering Home in triumph after his celebrated defeat of the Carthaginian fleet at Mylae. He had won a great naval victory for his country with the first fleet that it had ever pos- sessed — which was naturally a gratifying reflection, and he would have been per- fectly happy now if he had only been a little more comfortable. But he was standing in an extremely rickety chariot, which was crammed with his nearer relations and a few old friends, to whom he had been obliged to send tickets. At his back stood a slave who held a heavy Etruscan crown on the Consul's head, and whenever he thought his master was growing conceited, threw in the reminder that he was only a man after all — a liberty which at any other time he might have had good reason to regret. Then the large Delphic wreath, which Duilius wore, as well as the crown, had slipped down over one eye and was tick- ling his nose, while — as both his hands were occupied, one with a sceptre, the other with a laurel bough, and he had to hold on tightly to the rail of the chariot whenever it jolted — there was nothing to do but sufier in silence. They had insisted, too, upon painting him a beautiful bright red all over, and though it made him look quite new, and very shining and splendid, he had his doubts at times whether it was altogether becoming, and particularly, whether he would ever be able to get it off again. But these were but trifles after all, and nothing compared with the honour and glory ot it ! Was not everybody straining to catch a glimpse of him ? Did not even the spotted and skittish horses which drew the chariot repeatedly turn round to gaze upon his vermilioned features? As Duilius remarked this, he felt that he was, indeed, the central personage in all this magnificence, and that, on the whole, he liked it. He could see the beaks of the ships he had captured, bobbing up and down in the middle distance; he could see the white bulls destined for sacrifice entering completely into the spirit of the thing, and redeeming the procession from any monotony by occasionally bolting down a back street, or tossing on their gilded horns some of the flamens who were walking solemnly in front of them. He could hear, too, above five distinct brass bands, the remarks of his friends as they predicted rain, or expressed a pained surprise at the smallneas of the crowd and the absence of any genuine enthusiasm ; and he caught the general purport of the very offensive ribaldry circulated at his own expense among the brave legions that brought up the rear. This was merely the usual course of things on such occasions, and a great compliment when properly understood, and Duilius felt it to be so. In spite of his friends, and the red paint, and the familiar slave, in spite of the extreme heat of the weather and his itching nose, he told himself that this — and this alone — was worth living for. And it was a painful reflection to him that, after all, it would only last a day : he could not go on triumphing like this for the remainder of his natural life — he would not be able to afford it on his moderate income ; and yet — and yet — ex- istence would fall woefully flat after so much excitement. It may be supposed that Duilius was naturally fond of ostentation and noto- riety, but this was far from being the ACCOMPANIED ON THE FLUTE. 317 case ; on the contrary, at ordinary times his disposition was retiring and almost shy ; but his sudden success had worked a temporary change in him, and in the very flush of triumph he found himself sighing to think that in all human prob- ability, he would never go about with trumpeters and trophies, with flute- players and white oxen, any more in his whole life. And then he reached the Porta Trium- phalis, where the chief magistrates and the Senate awaited them, all seated upon spirited Roman-nosed chargers, which showed a lively emotion at the approach of the procession, and caused some ol their riders to dismount, with as much affectation of method and design as their dignity enjoyed and the nature of the occasion permitted. There Duilius was presented with the freedom of the city and an address, which last he put in his pocket, as he explained, to read at home. And then an ^dile informed him in a speech, during which he twice lost his notes and had to be prompted by a liotor, that the grateful Republic, taking into consideration the Consul's distinguished services, had resolved to disregard ex- pense, and on that auspicious day to give him whatever reward he might choose to demand — " in reason, " the ^dile added cautiously, as he quitted his saddle with unexpectedness which scarcely seemed intentional. Duilius was naturally a little over- whelmed by such liberality, and, like every one else favored suddenly with such an opportunity, was quite incapable of taking complete advantage of it. For a time he could not remember in his confusion anything he would care for at all, and he thought it might look mean to ask for money. At last he recalled his yearning for a Perpetual Triumph, but his natural mod- esty made him moderate, and he could not ask for more than a fraction of the glory that now attended him. So, not without some hesitation, he re- plied that they were exceedingly kind, and since they left it entirely to his dis- cretion, he would like — if they had no objection — he would like a flute- player to attend him whenever he went out. Duilius very nearly asked for a white bull as well ; but, on second thoughts, he felt it might lead to inconvenience, and there were many diflSculties connected with the proper management of such an animal ; the Consul, from what he had seen that day, felt that it would be im- prudent to trust himself in front of the bull — while, if he walked behind, he might be mistaken for a cattle-driver, which would be odious. And so he gave up that idea, and contented himself with a simple flute-player. The Senate, visibly relieved by so very unassuming a request, granted it with positive efiusion ; Duilius was invited to select his musician, and chose the biggest, after which the procession moved on through the Arch and up the Capitoline Hill, while the Consul had time to re- member things he would have liked even better than a flute-player, and to suspect dimly that he might have made rather an ass of himself. That night Duilius was entertained at a supper given at the public expense ; he went out with the proud resolve to show his sense of the compliment paid him by scaling the giddiest heights of intoxica- tion. The Romans of that day only drank wine and water at their festivals, but it is astonishing how inebriated a person of powerful will can become — even on wine and water— if he only gives his mind to it. And Duilius, being a man of remarkable determination, returned from that hospitable board particularly drunk ; the flute-player saw him home, however, helped him to bed, though he could not induce him to take ofi' his sandals, and lulled him to a heavy slumber by a selec- tion from the popular airs of the time. So that the Consul, although he awoke late next day with a bad headache and a perception of the vanity of most things, still found reason to congratulate himself upon his forethought in securing so in- valuable an attendant, and planned, rather hopefully, sundry little ways of making him useful about the house. As the subsequent history of this great naval commander is examined with the impartiality that becomes the historian, it is impossible to be blind to the melan- choly fact that, in the first flush of his elation, Duilius behaved with an utter want of tact and taste that must have gone far to undermine his popularity and proved a source of much gratification to his friends. He would use that flute-player every- 318 ACCOMPANIED ON THE FLUTE. where — he overdid the thing altogether : for example, he used to go out to pay formal calls, and leave the ilute-player in the hall, tooting to such an extent that at last his acquaintances were forced in self-defense to deny themselves to him. When he attended worship at the tem- ples, too, he would bring the flute-player with him, on the flimsy pretext that he could assist the choir during service ; and it was the same at the theatres, where Duilius — such was his arrogance — act- ually would not take a box unless the manager admitted his flute-player to the orchestra and guaranteed him at least one solo between the acts. And it was the Consul's constant habit to strut about the Forum with his musi- cian executing marches behind him, until the spectacle became so utterly ridicu- lous that even the Eomans of that age, who were as free from the slightest taint of humor as a self-respecting nation can possibly be, began to notice something peculiar. But the day of retribution dawned at last. Duilius worked the flute so incess- antly that the musician's stock of airs was very soon exhausted, and then he was naturally obliged to blow them all through once more. The excellent consul had not a flue ear, but even he began to hail the fiftieth repetition of ' Pugnare nolumus,' for in- stance — the great national peace anthem of the period — with the feeling that he had heard the same tune at least twice before, and preferred something slightly fresher, while others had taken a much shorter time in arriving at the same con- clusion. The elder Duilius, the Consul's father, was perhaps the most annoyed by it ; he was a nice old man in his way — the glass and china way — but he was a typical old Roman, with a manly contempt for pomp, vanity, music, and the fine arts generally. So that his son's flute-player, perform- ing all day in the courtyard, drove the old gentleman nearly mad, until he would rush to the windows and hurl the lighter articles of furniture at the head of the persistent musician, who, however, after dodging them with dexterity, affected to treat them as a, recognition of his efforts, and carried them away gratefully to sell. Duilius senior would have smashed the flute, only it was never laid aside for a single instant, even at meals; he would have made the player drunk and inca- pable, but he was a member of the Manus Spei, and he would with cheerfulness have given him a heavy bribe to go away, if the honest fellow had not proved ab- solutely incorruptible. So he could only sit down and swear, and then relieve his feelings by giving his son a severe thrashing, with threats to sell him for whatever he might fetch: for, in the curious conditions of ancient Roman society, a father possessed both these rights, however his offspring might have distinguished himself in public life. Naturally, Duilius did not like the idea of being put up at auction, and he began to feel that it was slightly undignified for a Roman general, who had won a naval victory and been awarded a first-class Triumph, to be undergoing corporal pun- ishment daily at the hands of an un- flinching parent, and accordingly he determined to go and expostulate with his flute-player. He was beginning to find him a nuis- ance himself, for all his old shy reserve and unwillingness to attract attention had returned to him ; he was fond of solitude, and yet he could never be alone; he was weary of doing everything to slow music, like the bold, bad man in a melodrama. He could not even go across the street to purchase a postage-stamp without the flute-player coming stalking out after him, playing away like a public foun- tain ; while, owing to the well-known susceptibility of a rabble to the charm of music, the disgusted Consul had to take his walks abroad at the head of Rome's choicest scum. Duilius, with a lively recollection of these inconveniences, would have spoken very seriously indeed to his musician, but he shrank from hurting his feelings by the plain truth. He simply explained that he had not intended th« other to ac- company him always, but only on special occasions ; and, while professing the sin- cerest admiration for his musical profici- ency, he felt, as he said, unwilling to mo- nopolize it, and unable to enjoy it at the expense of a fellow-creature's rest and comfort. Perhaps he put the thing a little too delicately to secure the object he had in view, for the musician, although he was obviously deeply touched by such un- wonted consideration, waived it aside ACCOMPANIED ON THE FLUTE. 319 witli a graceful fervour that was quite ir- resistible. He assured the Consul that he was only too happy to have been selected to render his humble tribute to the naval genius of so eminent a commander; he would not admit that his own rest and comfort were in the least affected by his exertions, for, being naturally fond of the flute, he could, he protested, perform upon it continuously for whole days without fatigue. And he concluded by pointing out very respectfully that for the Consul to dispense, even to a small extent, with an honor decreed (at his own particular request) by the Republic, would have the appearance of ingratitude, and expose him to the gravest suspicions. After which he rendered the ancient love chant " Ludus idem, Indus vetus," with singular sweetness and expression. Duilius felt the force of his arguments : Republics are proverbially forgetful, and he was aware that it might not be safe, even for him, to risk offending the Sen- ate. So he had nothing to do but just go on and be followed about by the flute- player, and castigated by his parent in the old familiar way, until he had very little self-respect left. At last he found a distraction in his care-laden existence — he fell deeply in love. But even here a musical Nemesis attended him, to his infinite embarrass- ment, in the person of his devoted fol- lower. Sometimes Duilius would man- age to elude him and slip out unseen to some sylvan retreat, where he had reason to hope for a meeting with the object of his adoration. He generally found that in this expectation he had not deceived himself; but always, just as he found courage to speak of the passion that con- sumed him, a faint tune would strike his ear from afar, and, turning his head in a fury, he would see his faithful flute- player striding over the fields in pursuit of him with unquenchable ardour. He gave in at last, and submitted to the necessity of speaking all his tender speeches " through music." Claudia did not seem to mind it, perhaps finding an additional romance in being wooed thus, and Duilius himself, who was not elo- quent, found that the flute came in very well at awkward pauses in the conversa- tion. Then they were married, and, as Claudia played very nicely herself upon the tibice, she got up musical evenings, when she played duets with the flute- player, which Duilius, if he had only had a little more taste for music, might have enjoyed immensely. As it was, beginning to observe for the first time that the musician was far from uncomely, he forbade the duets. Claudia wept and sulked, and Claudia's mother said that Duilius was behaving like a brute, and she was not to mind him ; but the harmony of their domestic life was broken, until the poor Consul was driven to take long country walks in sheer de- spair, not because he was fond of walk- ing, for he hated it, but simply to keep the flute-player out of mischief. He was now debarred from all other society, for his old friends had long since cut him dead whenever he chanced to meet them. "How could he expect people to stop and talk," they asked in- dignantly, " when there was that con- founded fellow blowing tunes down the backs of their necks all the time ? " Duilius had had enough of it himself, and felt this so strongly that one day he took his flute-player a long walk through a lonely wood, and, choosing a moment when his companion had played "Id omnes faciunt" till he was somewhat out of breath, he turned on him suddenly. When he left the lonely wood he was alone, and somewhere in the undergrowth lay a broken flute, and near it something which looked as if it might once have been a musician. The Consul went home and sat there waiting for the deed to become generally known. He waited with a certain un- easiness, because it was impossible to tell how the Senate might take the thing, or the means by which their vengeance would declare itself. And yet his uneasiness was counter- balanced by a delicious relief: the State might disgrace, banish, put him to death even, but he had got rid of slow music for ever ; and as he thought of this, the stately Duilius would snap his fingers and dance with secret delight. All disposition to dance, however, was forgotten upon the arrival of lictors bear- ing an ofiicial missive. He looked at it for a long time before he dared to break the big seal and cut the cord which bound the tablets which might contain his doom. S20 PAPER : A POEM. He did it at last, and smiled with relief as he began to read; for the decree was courteously, almost affectionately, worded. The Senate, considering (or affecting to consider) the disappearance of the flute- player a mere accident, expressed their formal regret at the failure of the pro- vision made in his honour. Then as he read on, Duilius dashed the tablets into small fragments, and rolled on the ground, and tore his hair, and howled : for the Senatorial decree con- cluded by a declaration that, in consid- eration of his brilliant exploits, the State thereby placed at his disposal two more flute-players, who, it was confidently hoped, would survive the wear and tear of their ministrations longer than the first. Duilius retired to his room and made his will, taking care to have it properly signed and attested. Then he fastened himself in, and when they broke down the door next day, they found a lifeless corpse, with a strange, sickly smile upon its pale lips. No one in Rome quite made out the reason of this smile, but it was generally thought to denote the gratification ol the deceased at the idea of leaving his beloved ones in comfort, if not luxury ; for, though the bulk of his fortune was left to Cartha- ginian charities, he had the forethought to bequeath a flute-player apiece to his wife and mother-in-law. J. B. Anstey, AiUhor of Vice Versa. PAPER-: A POEM. Some wit of old, — such wits of old there were, — Whose hinta sliow'd meaning, whose allusions care, By one brave stroke to mark all human kind, Call' d clear blank paper every infant mind; Then still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, fair virtue put a seal or vice a blot. The thought was happy, pertinent, and true ; Methinks a genius might the plan pursue. I (can you pardon my presumption), I No wit, no genius — yet for once will try. Various the papers various wants produce The wants of fashion, elegance and use. Men are as various ; and if right I scan. Each sort of paper represents some man. Pray note the fop, — half powder and half lace, — Nice as a bandbox were his dwelling-place ; He's the gilt paper, which apart you store. And lock from vulgar hands in th' escritoire. Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth, Are copy paper of inferior worth : Less priz'd, more useful, for your desk de- creed. Free to all pens, and prompt at every need. The wretch whom avarice bids to pinch and spare. Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir. Is coarse brown paper, such as pedlars choose To wrap up wares, which better men will use. Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys Health, fame, and fortune in a round of joys. Will any paper match him? Yes, through. out. He's a true sinking paper, past all doubt. The retail politician's thought Deems this side always right, and that stark naught ; He foams with censure; with applause he raves, — A dupe to rumors, and a tool of knaves ; He'll want no type his weakness to proclaim, While such a thing as foolscap has a name. The hasty gentleman, whose blood runs high, Who picks a quarrel if you step awry. Who can't a jest, or hint, or look endure, — What 's he ? What ? Touch-paper, to be sure. What are our poets, take them as they fall. Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all ? Them and their works in the same class you'll find; They are the mere waste paper of mankind. Observe the maiden, innocently sweet; She's fair white paper, an unsullied sheet, On which the happy man, whom fate ordains, May write his name, and take her for his pains. THE FEIAES OF DIJON. 321 One infltanee more, aud only one I'll bring ; 'Tis the great man who scorns a little thing, Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are bis own, Form'd on the feelings of his heart alone ; True, genuine royal paper is his breast ; Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best. Benjamin Fbankun. KISSES IN MARKET. " Tell me, dear husband," Kitty said, " Before you go, I pray. How shall I get the meat aud bread. For our noon meal to-day? " " Buy them with smiles," the husband cried. " But that won't pay," cried she. " Then take this kiss," her lord replied. And to his shop went he. The noon-time came and he came too, And dinner was prepared, A tender steak was fall in view, " Quite splendid," he declared. He said he wished to have such meat, Three times a day in future, " But tell me love for this great treat What did you pay the butcher ? " " What did I pay ?— I paid the kiss ; 'T was aU you left you know." " A-a-11 right," said he, " but after this, Take money when you go." Anonymous. THE FEIAES OF DIJON. When honest men oonfess'd their sins, And paid the church genteelly — In Burgundy two Capuchins Lived jovially and freely. They march' d about from place to place, With shrift and dispensation ; And mended broken consciences, Soul-tinkers by vocation. VOL. IV. — W. H. One friar was Father Boniface, And he ne'er knew disquiet. Save when condemn' d to saying grace O'er mortifying diet. The other was lean Dominiok, Whose slender form, and sallow, Would scarce have made a caudlewick For Boniface's tallow. Albeit, he tippled like a fish. Though not the same potation ; And mortal man ne'er clear' d a dish With nimbler mastication. Those saints without the shirts arrived. One evening late, to pigeon A country pair for alms, that lived About a league from Dijon. Whose supper-pot was set to boil. On faggots briskly crackling; The friars enter' d, with a smile To Jacquez and to Jacqueline. They bow'd and bless' d the dame, and then In pious terms besought her. To give two holy-minded men A meal of bread and water. For water and a crust they crave. Those mouths that even on Lent days Scarce knew the taste of water, save When watering for dainties. Quoth Jacquez, " That were sorry cheer For men fatigued and dusty ; And if ye supp' d on crusts, I fear, You'd go to bed but crusty." So forth he brought a flask of rich Wine, fit to feast Silenus, And viands, at the sight of which They laugh' d like two hyenas. Alternately, the host and spouse Regaled each pardon-ganger. Who told them tales right marvellous, And lied as for a wager — 'Bout churches like balloons convey'd With aeronautic martyrs ; And wells made warm, where holy maid Had only dipp'd her garters. 822 THE FEIARS OF DIJON. And if their hearers gaped, I gness, With jaws three inch asunder, 'T was partly out of weariness, And partly out of wonder. Then striking up duets, the frerea Went on to sing in matches. From psalms to sentimental airs. From these to glees and catches. At last, they would have danced outright, Like a baboon and tame bear, If Jacquez had not drunk, Good night. And shown them to their chamber. The room was high, the host was nigh — Had wife or he suspicion, That monks would make a raree-show Of chinks in the partition? — Or that two confessors would come, Their holy ears out-reaching To conversations as hum-drum Almost as their own preaching 1 Shame on you. Friars of orders gray, That peeping knelt, and wriggling. And when ye should have gone to pray, Betook yourselves to giggling 1 But every deed will have its meed : And hark ! what information Has made the sinners, in a trice, Look black with consternation. The farmer on a hone prepares His knife, a long and keen one ; And talks of killing both the freres, The fat one, and the lean one. To-morrow by the break of day ; He orders, too, saltpetre. And pickling-tubs ; but, reader, stay. Our host was no man-eater. The priests knew not that country-folk Give pigs the name of friars ; But startled, witless of the joke. As if they trod on briers. Meanwhile, as they perspired with dread, The hair of either craven Had stood erect upon his head. But that their hfeads wiere shaven. What, pickle and smoke us limb by limb 1 God curse him and his lardners 1 St. Peter will bedevil him. If he saltpetres pardoners. Yet, Domiuick, to die ! — the bare Idea shakes one oddly ; — Yes, Boniface, 'tis time we were Beginning to be godly. Would that, for absolution's sake Of all our sins and cogging. We had a whip, to give and take A last kind mutual flogging. Dominick, thy nether end Should bleed for expiation. And thou shouldst have, my dear fat fnend, A glorious flagellation. But having ne'er a switch, poor souls, They bow'd like weeping willows, And told the Saints long rigmaroles Of all their peccadillos. Yet, 'midst this penitential plight A thought their fencies tickled, 'T were better brave the window's heigh* Than be at morning pickled. And so they girt themselves to leap. Both under breath imploring A regiment of Saints to keep Their host and hostess snoring. The lean one lighted like a cat, Then scampered oflF like Jehu, Nor stopp'd to help the man of fat. Whose cheek was of a clay hue — Who, being by nature more design'd For resting than for jumping. Fell heavy on his parts behind. That broaden' d with the plumping. There long beneath the window's scono«. His bruises he sat pawing. Squat as the figure of a bronze Upon a Chinese drawing. At length he waddled to a sty ; The pigs, you'd thought for game sake^ Came round and nosed him lovingly, As if they'd known their namesake, THE MILKMAID AND THE- BANKER. 323 Meamrhile the other flew to town, And with short respirution Bray'd like a donkey up and down Ass-ass-ass-assination 1 Men left their beds, and night-capp'd heads Popp'd out from every casement ; The cats ran frighten' d on the leads ; Dijon was all amazement. Doors baug'd, dogs bay'd, and boys hurra'ed, Throats gap'd aghast in bare rows, TUl soundest sleeping watchmen woke, And even at last the mayor rose — Who charging him before police, Demands of Dominick surly. What earthquake, fire, or breach of peace Made all this hurly-burly ? Ass — quoth the priest — ass-assins. Sir, Are hence a league, or nigher, About to salt, scrape, massacre. And barrel up a friar. Soon, at the magistrate's command, A troop from the gens-d' arms' house, Of twenty men, rode sword in hand. To storm the bloody farm's house. As they were cantering towards the place. Comes Jacquez to the swineyard. But started when a great round face Cried, " Rascal, hold thy whinyard." T was Boniface, as mad's King Lear, Playing antics in the piggery : — "And what the devil brought you here. You mountain of a friar, eh ?" Ah, once how jolly, now how wan I And blubber' d with the vapors. That frantic Capuchin began To cut fantastic capers — Crying, " Help, halloo, the bellows blow, The pot is on to stew me; I am a pretty pig, but no ! They shall not barbecue me." Nor was this raving fit a sham ; In truth, he was hysterical, Pntil they brought him out a dram, And that wrought like a nJifacle. Just as the horsemen halted near, Crying, Murderer, stop, ohoy, oh 1 Jacquez was comforting the frere With a good glass of noyeau — Who beckon'd to them not to kick up A row ; but, waxing mellow, Squeez'd Jacquez' hand, and with a hiccup Said, You're a d d good fellow. Explaining lost but little breath :^ Here ended all the matter ; So God save Queen Elizabeth, And long live Henry Quatre 1 The gens-d' arms at the story broke Into horse-fits of laughter, And, as if they had known the joke, Their horses neigh' d thereafter. Lean Dominick, methinks, his chaps Yawn'd weary, worn, and moody; So may my readers too, perhaps. And thus I wish 'em Good day. Thomas Caupbell. THE MILKMAID AND THE BANKEE. A Milkmaid, with a pretty face, Who lived at Acton, Had a black cow, the ugliest in the place, A crooked-backed one, A beast as dangerous, too, as she was frightful, Vicious and spiteful ; And 90 confirmed a truant that she bounded Over the hedges daily and got pounded : T was in vain to tie her with a tether, For then both cow and cord eloped together. Armed with an oaken bough — (what folly I It should have been of thorn, or prickly holly), Patty one day was driving home the beast, Which had as usual slipped its anchor, When on the road she met a certain Banker, Who stopped to give his eyes a feast. By gazing on her features crimsoned high By a long cow-chase in July. " Are you fi-om Acton, pretty lass ? '' he dried ; "Yes " — with a courtesy she replied. " Why, then, you know th« laundress, Sally Wrench ? " S24 THE YANKEE EECEUIT. " Yes, she's my cousin, sir, and next-door neighbor." " That's lucky — I've a message for the wench Which needs despatch, and you may save my labor. Give her this kiss, my dear, and say I sent it : But mind, you owe me one - I've only lent it." ''She shall know,'' cried the girl, as she brandished her bough, " Of the loving intentions you bore me ; But since you're in haste for the kiss, you'll allow. That you'd better run forward and give it my cow, For she, at the rate she is scampering now. Will reach Acton some minutes beibre me." Horace Smith.' THE YANKEE EECEUIT. [Mb. Buckinum, the foUerin' billet was writ hum by a fuDg feller of our town tbat woe cussed fool enough to goo atrottio' inter Miss Chiff arter a drum and fife. It ain't Natur for a feller to let on that he's sick o' any biznesa that he went into off hie own free will and a Cord, but I rather calc'late he's middlin' tired o' Tolun- t^arin' By this time. I beleeve u may put dependunte on his statemeDce. For I never heerd DOthin' bad on tiim let Alone his havin' what Parson Wilbur cals a jpongskong for cocktales, and says it was a soshiaahun of idees Bot him agoin* arter the Crootin Sargient cos he ^rore a cocktale onto his hat. His Folks gin the letter to me and I shew it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter Bee printed. Send it to ttr. Buckinum, ses he, I don't oilers agree with him, ses he, but by Time, eea he, I du like a feller that ain't a Feared. I have interspuseed a few refieckshuns here and thair. We're kind o' prest with Hayin. Ewers respecfly, HoSEA BlOLOW.] This kind o' sogerin' ain't a mite like our October trainin', A chap could clear right out from there eft only looked like rainin'. An' th' Curnles, tu, could kiver up their shap- pocs with bandanners. An' send the insines skootin' to the bar-room with their banners, (Fear o' gettin' on 'em spotted) , an' a feller could cry quarter, Ef he fired away his ramrod artur tu much rum an' water. Recollect what fun we hed, you 'n I an' Ezry Hollis, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, ahavin the Cornwallis ; This sort o' thing ain't jest like thet — I wish thet I was furder, — Ninepunce a day fer killin' folks, comes kind o' low for murder, (Wy, I've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, An' in the hardest times there wuz, I oilers teched ten shillins). There's suthin' gits into my throat thet makes it hard to swaller. It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar ; It's glory, — but in spite o' all my tryin' to git caUoua, I feel kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus. But when it comes to bein' killed, — I tell ye I felt streaked The fust time ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked ; Here's how it wuz : I started out to go to a fandango, The sentinul he ups an' sez, " That's furder 'an you can go." " None n' your sarse," ses I ; ses he, " Stan back!" " Ain't you a buster ? " Sez I, " I'm up to all that air, I guess I've ben to muster ; I know wy sentinuls air sot ; you ain't agoin to eat us ; Caleb ain't no monopoly to court the sceno- reetaa; My folks to hum hir full ez good ez hisn be, by golly ! " An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me An' made a hole right through my close ez et I was an in 'my. Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in old Funnel Wen Mister BoUes he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle. (It's Mister Secondary BoUes, thet writ the prize peace essay ; Thet's wy he didn't list himself along o' us, I dessay). An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't put hin foot in it, tHE YANKEE EECEUIT. 325 Coz human life's so sacred that he's principled agin it, — Though I myself can't rightly see it's any was achokin' on 'em Than puttin' bullets through their lights, or ■with a bagnet pokin' on 'em ; How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like Blitz at our lyceum A-haulin' ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely see 'em), About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' Saxons would be handy To du the buryin' down here upon the Eio Grandy), About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner, Our country's bird alookin' on an' singin' out hosanner. An' how he (Mr. B. himself ) wuz happy fer Ameriky, — I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite his- tericky. I felt, I swan, ez though it wuz a drefie kind o' privilege Atrampiu' around thru Boston streets among the gutter's drivUage ; I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummiu'. An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz a comin' ; Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the state prison), An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico was hisn. This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver, (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, for wut we call salt river). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat does beat all natur, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tatur ; Che country here thet Mister BoUes declared to be charmin', Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarm- in' kind o' varmin'. He talked about delishes froots, but then it was a wopper all, The hull on't 's mud and prickly pears, with here and there a chapparal ; you see a feller peekin' out, an' fust yon know, a lariat [ Is round your throat an' you a corpse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye at?" You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I've seen a acarabceiis pilularius big ez a year old elephant) ; The regiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug From runnin' off with Curnel Wright — 't wuz jest a common cimex lectularius. One night I started up on eend and thought I wuz to hum agin, I heern a horn ; thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin, His bellowses is sound enough, — ez I'm a liv- iu' creeter, I felt a thing go thru my leg — 't wuz nothing more 'n a skeeter ! Then there's the yellow fever tu ; they call it here el vomito, — (Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le' go my toe I My gracious ! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with 't, I dars'n't skeer the tamal thing fer fear he'd run away with 't). Afore I came away from hum I bed a strong persuasion Thet Mexicans worn't human beans, — an ourang outang nation, A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on 't arter. No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet he had hed to slaughter; I'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkle fashion all. An' kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' national ; But when I jined I wau't so wise ez that air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they ain't much diff'rent from wut we be, An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out of thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses ; Wal, it does seem a curus way, but then hoo- raw fer Jackson I 326 THE OLD CLOCK. It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar An- glo-Saxon. The Mex'caus don't fight fair, they say ; they piz'n all the water, An' du amazin' lots o' things thet is n't wut they ough' ter ; Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bul- lets out of copper, An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez ain't proper ; He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly, (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly), Thet our nation's bigger'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger, An' thet it 's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger, Thet Anglo-Saxondom's idee's abreakin' 'em to pieces, An' that idee 's thet every man doos just wut he damn pleases ; Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet " every man " don't mean a nig- ger or a Mexican ; An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeturs Thet stick an Anglo-Saxon mask onto State prison feeturs. Should come to Salem Centre fer to argify an' spout on 't. The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on 't. This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur. And ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home again short meter ; Oh 1 would n't I be off, quick time, ef 't worn't thet I wuz sartin They'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartiu 1 I don't approve o' telliu' tales, but jest to you I may state Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Bay state ; Then it wuz " Mister Sawin, sir, you're mid- dlin' well now, be ye ? Step up an' take a nipper, sir ; I'm drefBe glad to see ye;'' But now it's ' ' Ware's my eppylet ? here, Sa- win, step an' fetch it I An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, er damn ye, you ketch it!" Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, Ef I bed some on 'm to hum, I'd give 'em lin- kum vity, I'd play the rogue's march on their hide an' other music foUerin' But I must close my letter here for one on 'em 's a hoUerin', These Anglo-Saxon ossifers — wal, taint no use ajawin', I'm safe enlisted fer the war, Yourn, BlBDOFFEEDOM SaWIN. Jaues Bubsell Lowell. THE OLD CLOCK. Two Yankee wags, one summer day, Stopped at a tavern on their way ; Supped, frolicked, late retired to rest, And woke to breakfast on the best. The breakfast over, Tom and Will, Sent for the landlord and the bill ; Will looked it over; " "Very right — But hold 1 what wonder meets my sight I Tom ! the surprise is quite a shock ! " — "What? wonder where 1" "The clock! th» clock!" Tom and the landlord in amaze Stared at the clock with stupid gaze, And for a moment neither spoke; At last the landlord silence broke : " You mean the clock that's ticking there ? I see no wonder, I declare ; Though may be, if the truth were told, 'T is rather ugly — somewhat old ; Yet time it keeps to half a minute. But, if you please, what wonder 's in it?" " Tom, don't you recollect," said Will, " The clock at Jersey near the mill. The very image of this present, With which I won the wager pleasant?" Will ended with a knowing wink. Tom scratched his head, and tried to think. "Sir, begging pardon for inquiring," The landlord said, with grin admiring, " What wager was it ? " THE OLD CLOCK. 327 " You remember It happened, Tom, in last December, In sport I bet a Jersey Blue That it was more than he could do To make his fingers go and come In keeping with the pendulum, Repeating, till one hour should close, Still ' here she goes — and there she goes' — He lost the bet in half a minute." " Well, if I would, the deuce is in it 1 " Exclaimed the landlord ; " try me yet, And fifty dollars be the bet." " Agreed, but we will play some trick To make you of the bargain sick! " " I 'm up to that ! " " Don't make us wait ; Begin, the clock is striking eight." He seats himself, and left and right. His finger wags with all his might. And hoarse his voice, and hoarser grows, With " here she goes — and there she goes!" '' Hold ! " said the Yankee, " plank the ready ! " The landlord wagged his finger steady. While his left hand, as well as able. Conveyed a purse upon the table. " Tom, with the money let's be off! " This made the landlord only scoff; He heard them running down the stair. But was not tempted from his chair ; Thought he, "the fools! I'll bite them yet I So poor a trick shan't win the bet." And loud and loud the chorus rose Of " here she goes— and there she goes ! " While right and left his finger swung, In keeping to his clock and tongue. His mother happened in to see Her daughter; "Where is Mrs. B ? When will she come, as you suppose? Son!" " Sere she goes— and there she goes .'" " Here !— where ? "—the lady in surprise His fingers followed with her eyes ; " Son, why that steady gaze and sad ? Those words— that motion— are you mad ? But here's your wife— perhaps she knows And"— " Jlere she goes— and there she goes 1 " His wife surveyed him with alarm. And rushed to him and seized his arm ; He shook her off, and to and fro His fingers persevered to go. While curled his very nose with ire, That she against him should conspire, And with more furious tone arose The " Here she goes — and there she goes I " " Lawks ! " screamed the wife, " I'm in 6 whirl I Run down and bring the little girl ; She is his darling, and who knows But "— " Here she goes — and there she goes ! " " Lawks ! he is mad ! what made him thus ? Good Lord I what will become of us I Run for a doctor — run — run — run For Doctor Brown, and Doctor Dun, And Doctor Black, and Doctor White, And Doctor Grey, with all your might." The doctors came, and looked and wondered, And shook their heads, and paused and pon- dered. Till one proposed he should be bled, " No — leeched you mean " — the other said. '' Clap on a blister " roared another, '' No — cup him " — " No, trepan him, brother!" A sixth would recommend a purge, The next would an emetic urge, The eighth, just come from a dissection, His verdict gave for an injection ; The last produced a box of pills, A certain cure for earthly ills ; " I had a patient yesternight," Quoth he, " and wretched was her plight," And as the only means to save her. Three dozen patent pills I gave her, And by to-morrow, I suppose That" " Here she goes — and there she goes J" "You are all fools," the lady said, "The way is, just to shave his head. Run, bid the barber come anon " — " Thanks, mother," thought her clever son, " You help the knaves that would have bit me, But all creation shan't outwit me ! " Thus to himself, while to and fro His fingers persevere to go. And from his lips no accent flows But '' here she goes — and there she goes I " 328 THE TALL GENTLEMAN TO HIS LADY LOVE. The barber came—" Lord help him ! what A queerish customer I've got ; But we must do our best to save him — So hold him, geramen, while I shave him ! " But here the doctors interpose — " A woman never," — " There she goes !" '• A woman is no judge of physio, Not even when her baby is sick. He must be bled," " no — no— a blister " — " A purge you mean " — " I say a clyster " — " No— cup him " — " leech him " — " pills I pills !— pills ! " And all the house the uproar fills. What means that smile ? what means that shiver ? The landlord's limbs with rapture quiver, And triumph brightens up his face — His finger yet shall win the race I The clock is on the stroke of nine — And up he starts — " 'Tis mine I 'Tis mine I " " What do you mean ? " " I mean the fifty 1 I never spent an hour so thrifty ; But you who tried to make me lose. Go, burst with envy, if you choose I But how is this ! where are they ? " " Who ? " " The gentlemen — I mean the two Came yesterday — are they below ? " " They galloped otf an hour ago.'' " Oh, purge me ! blister! shave and bleed ! For, hang the knaves, I'm mad, indeed ! " By James Nack. 1826. LADIES' BOOTS. A little glove stirs up my heart, as tides stir up the ocean, And snow-white muslin when it fits wakes many a curious notion ; All sorts of lady-fixins thrill my feelings, as they'd orter, fiut little female gaiter-boots are death, and nothin' shorter! And just to put you on your guard, I'll give you, short and brief, A small hotel experience. Which filled my heart with grief. Last summer, at the Clarendon, I stopped a week or more. And marked two "boot — ies" every moTB Before my neighbor's door ; Two boots with patent leather tips- Two boots which seemed to say: "An Angel trots around in us" — They stole my heart away. I saw the servant take 'em off, With those of other brutes : His soul was all in sixpences, But mine was in the boots. And often in my nightly dreams They swept before my face, A lady growing out of them, As flowers from a vase. But ah ! one morn I saw a sight Which struck me like a stone; Some other name was on the book: Those boots were not alone ! A great tall pair of other boots Were standing by their side, And off they walked that afternoon, And with them walked — a bride I Enough, enough — my song is sung, Love's tree bears bitter fruits ; Beware of beauty, reader mine ! But oh 1 beware of boots I ChaBLES GoDFEET liSLAin). THE TALL GENTLEMAN TO HIS LADY LOVE. Upbraid me not ! I never swore Eternal love to thee ; For thou art only four feet high, And I am six feet three : I wonder, dear, how you supposed That I could look so low ; There's many a one can tie a knot, Who cannot tie a beau I THE IBISHMAN. '62» Besides, you must confess, my love, The bargain's scarcely fair: For never could we make a match, Although we made a pair ; Marriage, I know, makes one of two, But there's the horrid bore. My friends declare if you are one, That I at least Sbrnfour! "£ is true, the moralists have said, That Love has got no eyes ; But why should all my sighs be heaved For one who has no size ? And on our wedding-day, I'm sure I'd leave you in the lurch. For you never saw a steeple, dear. In the inside of a church ! 'T is usual for a wife to take Her husband by the arm — But pray excuse me, if I hint A sort of fond alarm. That when I offered you my arm, That happiness to beg, Your highest efforts, dear, would be. To take me by the leg ! I do admit I wear a glass, Because my sight's not good, But were I always quizzing you, It might be counted rude. And though I use a convex lens, I still cannot but hope My wife will e'er "look up to me" Through Herschel's telescope! Then fare thee well, my gentle one, I ask no parting kiss ; I must not break my back, to gain So exquisite a bliss : Nor will I weep; lest I should hurt So delicate a flower : The tears that fall from such a height Would be a thunder shower 1 Farewell I and pray don't throw yourself In a basin or a tub ; For that would be a sore disgrace To all the Six-Feet Club ! But if you ever love again. Love on a smaller plan, For why extend to six feet three The life that's but a span 7 Anonymous. THE IRISHMAN. There was a lady lived at Leith, A lady very stylish, man — And yet in spite of all her teeth, She fell in love with an Irishman— A nasty, ugly Irishman — A wild, tremendous Irishman — A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, rant- ing, roaring Irishman. His face was no ways beautiful. For with small- pox 'twas scarred across ; And the shoulders of the ugly dog Were almost double a yard across. 0, the lump of an Irishman — The whiskey-devouring Irishman — The great he-rogue with his wonderful brogue — the fighting, rioting Irishman I One of his eyes was bottle green. And the other eye was out, my dear: And the calves of his wicked-looking legs Were more than two feet about, my dear I 0, the great big Irishman — The rattling, battling Irishman — The stamping, ramping, swaggering, stagger- ing, leathering swash of an Irishman. He took so much of Lundy-foot That he used to snort and snuffle-0 ; And in shape and size the fellow's neck Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo. 0, the horrible Irishman — The thundering, blundering Irishman — The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing Irishman. His name was a terrible name, indeed. Being Timothy Thady Mulligan ; And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch. He'd not rest till he filled it full again ; The boozing, bruising Irishman — The ' toxical ed Irishman — The whiskey, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy, no dandy Irishman. This was the lad the lady loved, Like all the girls of quality. And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith, Just by the way of jollity ; THE NEW GENESIS. 0, the leathering Irishman — The barbarous, savage Irishman — The hearts of the maids and the gentlemen's heads were bother' d, I'm sure, by this Irishman. William Masinn. TRUE TO POLL. I'll sing you a song, not very long, But the story somewhat new, Of William Kidd, who, whatever he did. To his Poll was always true. He sailed away in a gallant ship From the port of old Briatol, And the last words he uttered, As his haukercher he fluttered, Were, " My heart is true to Poll." His heart was true to Poll, His heart was true to Poll. It's no matter what you do, If your heart be only true ; And his heart was true to PoU. 'Twas a wreck. William, on shore he swam, And looked about for an inn, When a noble savage lady, of a colour rather shady. Came up with a kind of grin : — " Oh, marry me, and a king you'll be. And in a palace loll ; Or we'll eat you, willy-nilly." So he gave his hand, did Billy, But his heart was true to Poll. His heart was true to Poll, His heart was true to Poll, It's no matter what you do, If your heart be only true ; And his heart was true to Poll. Away a twelvemonth sped, and a happy life he led As the King of the Kickeryboos ; His paint was red and yellar, and he used a big umbrella. And he wore a pair of oversAoe« ; He'd corals and knives, and twenty-six wives. Whose beauties I cannot here extol : One day they all revolted. So he back to Bristol bolted, For his heart was true to Poll. His heart was true to Poll, His heart was true to PoU. It's no matter what you do, If your heart be only true. And his heart was true to Poll. F. 0. BUBHAND. THE NEW GENESIS. August, year unknown ; time. Six o'clock ia the morning ; Sate in a tree an Ape ; irrational ; eating an apple, Raw ; no cook as yet, no house, no shred of a garment; Soul, a blank ; taste, nil ; a thumb but slowly beginning ; Warranted wholly an Ape, a great Jack-ape o' the forest. Jabbering, hairy, grim, arboreal wholly in habits. So he sate on till Noon, when, hushed in slum- ber around him. Everything lay dead ; all save the murmuring insect. Whose small voice still spake, proclaiming silence. Awaking Suddenly then he rose, and thinking scorn of his fellows Longed to be quit of them all, his Apess spec- ially. She, dear, Knew no dream, no vision ; her apelet playing about her All her thought, her care ! At Four, he finally left her. Went to live by himself, but felt a pang — 'twaa a conscience Budding, in germ ! yet went ; then stopped to bathe in a fountain ; Wow I What an ugly phiz ! He saw and shuddered ; a Euskln Stirred in his breast. Taste bom ! - the seed of a mighty Ideal, Eafaelesque, Titanic ! Erect he strode through the jungle, Cleaving his way with a stick ; — Art's rise ! An implement-maker. Parent of Armstrong guns, ateam-rams, et csetera I SUSPECTED HER HUSBANP. 331 A MIXED DECISION. At some of the bush races in Northern Queensland, a capital fellow was, by com- mon consent, appointed to the responsible position of judge. He mixed his liquors pretty freely, and towards afternoon he was the enemy of no man. The last race of the day was a match between a black horse and a gray. They changed posi- tions several times in the run in, and the finish looked like a " dead heat." There was a general rush to hear the decision of the judge, who stood calmly steadying himself by a friendly post. " Well," cried the excited crowd, " which was it ? Was it the black ? Was it the gray?" "You're all wrong!" said the judge, in his most judicial manner. " 'Twas neither one nor t'other ; the winner was a blessed smart piebald." A MATTER OP CONSCIENCE. Col. Bob IngersoU, in a recent lecture, told the following story to illustrate his proposition that superstition may restrain men from the commission of artificial, but not of natural sins. An Irishman had committed a murder and confessed that it had been done for the purpose of robbery. " How much did you find on him ?" was asked. " Only fifteen cents." "What did you do with it?" " Spent it for rum." "Had the man nothing else about him?" " Nothing but his lunch." " What did you do with that ? " " Ate the bread, but threw the meat away." " Why did you throw the meat away ?" " Because, it was Friday." ious services, asking the clergymen to de- cide among themselves which one would preach. Mr. Herford at once excused himself on the ground that he had been preaching steadily through his vacation and wanted rest. Dr. Brooks thereupon suggested that, as Dr. Ellis was the old- est, he ought to speak. " Oh, no," Dr. Ellis responded, " it would be nonsense for me to preach when everybody wants to hear you." And so with disclaimers and compliments the matter was turned over and discussed until it ended in there being no service whatever. " Well," sighed the captain to a sym- pathetic passenger, " I did what I could. But isn't it confoundedly singular," he continued confidentially, "three fire-es- capes on board and nobody saved from the burning." CI/ERQYMEN AS FIRE-ESCAPES. On the steamer Cephalonia the Eev. Brooke Herford, the Eev. Dr. Ellis and the Kev. Dr. Phillips Brooks were com- ing home together from Europe. On the first Sunday out from Queenstown the captain, with pious thoughts intent, en- deavored to make arrangements for relig- DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE FORM OF PRAYERS. An old darkey who was asked if, in his experience, prayer was ever answered, re- plied: "WelljSah! some pra'rs is ansud, an' some isn't — 'pends on w'at you axes fo'. Jest arter de wah, w'en it was mighty hard scratchin' fo' de cullud breddern, I 'bsarved dat w'eneber I pway de Lord to sen' one o' Marse Peyton's fat turkeys fo' de old man, dere was no notis took ob de partition ; but w'en I pway dat He would sen' de ole man fo' de turkey, de matter was 'tended to befo' sun-up nex^ mornin', dead sartin." SUSPECTED HER HUSBAND. An Irish woman applied to a lawyer to procure a divorce for her. " Well," said the lawyer, " and on what ground do you claim a divorce? Has your husband ever beaten you ? " " Divil a bit, sor ; it's not the loikes of him that can bate me." " Or has he deserted and failed to sup- port you?" " Indade, sor, I only wisht he wad de- sert me. Shure, sor, I've supported him ever since we came to Ameriky." " Then have you any reason" to believ6 that he has been guilty of infidelity ?" "An' phwat's that, ye> honer?" 332 SOW JIM TOOK IN HIS FATHER. " Adultery, I mean.'' " Shure, sor, I suspicion him of that." " Why ? What proof have you ?" " Indade, sor, and it's meself that's con- vinced he'i not the father of my last bye, at all, at all." HAMLET WITH A NAVY PISTOL. George Ninaman, a St. Louis drummer, who arrived at Little Rock, stopped one night at a small cross-roads hotel in Grant County, Southern Arkansas. The house contained four rooms and a kitchen. Af- ter supper Ninaman was told he must spend part of the night alone, as the family would attend a protracted meeting in the neighborhood. The host, with his wife and daughter, left the house, and Ninaman sat in one of the rooms alone. His loneliness was added to by an owl in the yard which hooted dismally, and an old red clock on the shelf which ticked solemnly. The drummer, not having been assigned to a room, could not go to bed, and he tried to keep awake by read- ing the " Life of St. Paul," the only book he could find. The hog-grease lamp was sputtering in unison with the ticking of the clock, when the door of an inner room opened, and a tall, wild-eyed, bushy- haired man entered. Without speaking, he seated himself and stared at Ninaman, who naturally showed surprise. Presently a conversation was begun, and the man exhibited such intelligence that Nina- man's fears were allayed, especially as the man claimed to be the landlord's brother. The conversation turned on lit- erary subjects, and the man remarked: " Did you ever hear Hamlet's soliloquy recited properly? " " I think so," said Ninaman. " I have heard Booth." " Booth does not catch the spirit," said the strange-looking man. "He fails to engraft the twig of despair into the tree of Hamlet's nature. Would you like to hear it recited properly ? " "Yes." " You shall hear it. I hope nothing tragic will occur, but, by Moses, you shall have it." Arising, the wild-eyed man darted into an adjoining room and returned with a navy pistol. Placing the pistol on a ta- ble, he began to recite in a voice so deep and with an air so wild that Ninaman was startled. When he came to "take up arms against a sea of troubles and by op- posing end them," he seized the pistol, cocked it, and placed the muzzle against his head. "Shall I end them?" he yelled, flourishing the pistol. "Shall I end them with you? " Ninaman suggested that his troubles were not greater than he could bear, and asked the man to lay aside his pistol. "Ah, I see you do not like tragedy. You no doubt like comedy. Pull off your coat and dance, or I'll end your life ! " The pistol was levelled, and Ninaman pulled off his coat and began to dance. " Whoop it up," yelled the man, " or I'll end them I Pull off your trousers ! " The trousers came off and the dancing continued. " Pull off your drawers." The drawers dropped to the ground. "Off with your shirt." The shirt flew into the air. A noise was heard outside, and the landlord, his wife and daughter were on the porch. " Let me go, for God's sake!" pleaded Ninaman. " No, sir. I'll kill you if you attempt to leave. You are a comedian." The door-knob turned. Ninaman sprang toward a door and rushed up- stairs as the pistol snapped. In a few minutes the landlord came up and handed Ninaman his clothes. "I forgot to tell you," he said, "that my brother is deranged. He has an old pis- tol, but you couldn't hurt anything with it. He is harmless, but likes his little joke." The next morning the wild man was in such good humor that he offered to beat Ninaman throwing rocks at an oys- ter-can. HOW JIM TOOK IN HIS FATHEK. " I've come all the way in from Canaan to git a leetle law," said a man with a horsewhip under his arm, blue overalls in his boots, and a gray, stubby beard on his face, as he entered the Allen House read- ing-room, yesterday, where a number of the boys were talking politics. " Mebbe some o' you fellers kin give me the cor- rect thing without me dickerin' with a lawyer." The speaker was a well-known farmer of the southern part of the county. He HOW JIM TOOK IN HIS FATHER. 333 and his son Jim are noted for their sharp- ness at a bargain and a readiness to trade horses, cows, wagons, farms or anything that belongs to them, at any and all times a customer may present himself. Jim lives on a farm a mile from the old man's. " Ye see, boys," continued the speaker, " my boy Jim had a bay mare that he traded a yearlin' bull and a cross-tooth harrow fur. She was a good critter an' no mistake. I wanted that mare the wust kind, an' made Jim a heap o' good oifers fur her, but he wouldn't bite. Last Wednesday he come to my house kind o' careless like, and sot down on the front stoop. I was a choppin' kindlin' wood for mornin'. Jim sot there a lookin' up an' down the road whistlin' the ' Sweet By an' By ' kind o' to hisself. When I carried in my kindlin' I sot down on the stoop by him. " ' Jim,' I sez, ' you better let your old father have that bay mare o' yourn,' sez I. " Jim had jest started the second verse of the ' Sweet By an' By,' but he whistled her all the way through afore he answered me. " ' I ben a thinkin' o' lettin' you have the mare, pap,' sez he, ' seein's you got yer heart sot on her so,' sez he, 'pervidin' we kin git up a dicker,' sez he. " Jim had been goin' to camp-meetin' pooty steady for a week back, an' I heerd ne was gittin' serious. He hadn't been whistlin' nothin' but hymn tunes for two or three days, an' when he come around so nice on the mare question, I made up my mind that me an' the old woman would see him jinin' the mourners 'fore long. " ' Jim,' I sez, ' I kin stand eighty dol- lars for the mare,' sez I. " Jim looked up the road, and hummed a verse of 'Come ye sinners, poor an' needy.' Then he sez : " ' Pap,' sez he, ' I know I orto let you have that mare fur them figures,' sez he, ' but you know I've refused double that fur her,' sez he. An' so he had, boys. sure. it ( Jim,' sez I again, ' I think I could raise the eighty about twenty more, makin' a hundred,' sez I ; ' but that's all I kin do. Remember, Jim,' sez I, ' that I am yer father, and I'm gittin' old, an' my heart's sot on that mare,' sez I. " ' Plunged in a gulf of dark despair,' hummed Jim, lookin' plumb up to the •ky. I guess he got away with two verses afore he said anything to me, an' I didn't interrupt his singin'. Then he sez : " ' Pap,' sez he, ' I'll tell you what I'll do. Give me a hundred dollars,' sez he, ' an' throw in them two Berkshire pigs, an' the mare is yours,' sez he, 'jest as she is.' " 'A bargain ! ' sez I. ' The pigs is yours, an' I'll be down after the mare to- morrow,' sez I. " I counted out the hundred, an' give it to him. He druv the pigs home with him. They was worth fifteen dollars apiece, easy. I could hear Jim whistlin' ' Hold the Fort ' till he got half a mile away. " ' Jemima,' I sez to the old woman, ' Jemima,' sez I, ' I never thought Jim 'd git pious, did you ? But I've got the bay mare,' sez I ; ' an' what the old boy Jim was thinkin' of I can't see. She's worth two hundred and fifty any day in the week,' I sez. ' Religion is makin' a fool o' Jim,' sez I. " Well, next morning early I went down to Jim's to git the mare. Jim had gone to town. I saw his wife. " ' I've bought the bay mare, Nancy,' sez I. " ' Yes, I know ye have,' sez Nancy, grinnin' all over her face. " ' Where is she ? ' I sez. " ' She's down in the stone lot,' sez Nancy, grinnin' more'n ever. " I thought it was funny that the mare should be down in the stone lot, but I went down to find her. Boys, I found her. She was layin' behind a big stone heap, deader'n a door-nail. I went back to the house. " ' Why, Nancy,' sez I, ' the bay mare's dead ! ' " ' yes,' sez Nancy, laughing as if she'd split ; ' she died yesterday mornin' with the colic,' sez she. " Boys, for a minute I was mad. Then I come to, and sez to myself, ' I'll be glued if I don't git the mare's shoes, any- how,' sez I. So I went back to the stone lot to draw her shoes off. Boys, I'll di- vide my farm up between ye if Jim hadn't drawed them shoes hisself, and the mare's feet was as bare as when she was born. "Now, I ain't no ways mad at Jim, boys, for it was a fair and square dicker, and it shows there's stuff in him ; only he mought a left the shoes on the mare. What I want to know is, can't I get back at the camp meetin' folks some way fot 334 THE CAE-CONDUCTOR'S MISTAKE. damages ? If it hadn't a ben for them hymn tunes Jim larnt at the meetin's I'd a ben a lookin' out fur him. But they throwed me off my guard. The way I look at it is that the camp meetin' society is responsible for me losin' my hundred dollars and two fifteen-dollar pigs. Can't I git back at 'em for trespass, or false pre- tences, or excessary afore the fact, or suthin' ? Can't I do it, boys ? " NOT THE dog's FAULT. A very indignant man leading a dog stalked into Uncle Eph's house yesterday and said : " Eph, you black rascal, here's your dog ; give me back the $3 I paid you for it." "What's de mattah wid de dawg?" asked Eph, calm and unruflled. " You warranted it to hunt chickens, didn't you?" "An' don't 'e ? " asked Eph. " No ; he isn't worth a cent at it." "Did you try de dawg?" said Eph, taking his pipe from ms mouth and knocking the ashes from it. " Certainly I did, and he's a first-class firaud." "How war de chickens cooked?" "Cooked?" "Yes; was dey biled?" " Of course not." " Did you roaa' dem ? " " Why, you old idiot, they were alive — prairie chickens." "Dat 'splains it," said Eph. "I tought dar was suffin' wrong. You jest cook de chickens and gib de dawg half a chance, an' see how he'll hunt for dem. Folks 'spect too much," he added, as the gentleman kicked the dog into a corner and rushed out ; " dey 'spects 'tirely too much from de cullud people. Ef dat man was fool 'nuff to 'spect dat he war gwine to git a dawg for free dollars dat would hunt live chickens, he was fool 'nuff to bleeb dat we's squar in de middle of de milleenyum, and ebberybody knows how big a fool dat am." A WARNING TO PINCHBES. A dignitary of the Church was dining out. Of the two ladies between whom he was seated, the one on his right-hand side was an intimate acquaintance, and noticing that her distinguished neighbor was silent and preoccupied, said to him, aotto voce, " I am afraid you are not very well this evening ; you do not seem in your usual spirits." " Well," said the dignitary, "lam in rather a nervous state of mind about my health, and have a sort of presentiment that a serious illness ia hanging over me. I am conscious of a peculiar numbness all down my right side, which seems to forebode an attack of paralysis." His fair companion ex- pressed her hope that such fears were ill- founded. " Ah, no," he replied, " I'm afraid there's no doubt of it, for I have been pinching my right leg all dinner- time, and can elicit no responsive feeling whatever. The limb seems quite dead to all feeling." " Oh," exclaimed the lady briskly, and with an expression of intense relief on her face, " if that is all which troubles you, I think I can at once re- lieve your mind from anxiety, for the leg which you have been pinching all the evening is mine." Court Circular. THE CAE-CONDUCTOR'S MISTAKE. It happened the other day on the Le- high Valley Railroad. The train had just left Easton, and the conductor was making his first round, when he observed a small white dog with a bushy tail and bright black eyes, sitting cosily on the seat beside a young lady so handsome that it made his heart roll over like a lop-sided pumpkin. But duty was duty, and he remarked, in his most deprecatory man- ner, — "I'm very sorry, madam, but it's against the rules to have dogs in the passenger cars." " Oh, my ! is that so? " and she turned up two lovely brown eyes at him beseech- ingly. " What in the world will I do ? I can't throw him away. He is a Christ- mas present for my aunt." " By no means, miss. We'll put him in a baggage-car, and he'll be just as happy as a robin in spring." What 1 put my nice white dog in a, nasty, stuffy, dusty baggage-car ? " "I'm awfully sorry, miss, I do assure you, but the rules of this company are as in- flexible as the laws of the Medes and them other fellows, yon know. He shall CAUGHT. 335 have my overcoat to lie on, and the brakeman shall give him grub and water every time he opens his mouth." " 1 just think it's awful mean, so I do, and I know somebody will steal it, so they will 1 " and she showed a half notion to cry that nearly broke the conductor's heart ; but he was firm, and sang out to the brakeman, who was playing a solo on the stove. " Here, Andy, take this dog over into the baggage-car, and tell' em to take just the best kind of care of him." The young lady pouted, but the brake- man reached over and picked the canine up as tenderly as though it was a two weeks' old baby ; but as he did so a strange expression came over his face, like a wave of cramp-colic, and he said hastily to the conductor : " Here, you just hold him a minute till I put this poker away," and he trotted out at the car door and held on to the brake-wheel, shaking like a man in the ague. The conductor no sooner had his hands on the dog than he looked around for a hole to fall through. " Why, wh — why, this is a worsted dog." " Yes, sir," said the little miss, demure- ly. " Didn't you know that ? " "No, I'm most awful sorry to say I didn't know that." And he laid the Christmas dog down in the owner's lap and walked out on the platform, where he stood half an hour in the cold, trying to think a hymn tune to suit the worst sold man on the Lehigh Valley. Anon. AWKWARD. A Yale profensor was going to experi- ment with laughing gas, when he over- heard a student say that under its influ- ence no one wag responsible for what he said, and he would take advantage of this and tell the professor what he thought of him. When the class met, the professor quietly said he would like, for purposes of illustration, to administer the gas to some member, and this student volun- teered. The leather bag was connected with his mouth. He pretended to be very much excited, and began to abuse and emeax at the professor, who let him go an for awbflej btrt the (tk*s roared when the professor said he needn't be so irresponsible, the gas hadn't been turned on yet. AUDACITY. The following incident is said to have occurred in a restaurant : A man entered the place and ordered a very elaborate dinner. He lingered long at the table, and finally wound up with a bottle of wine. Then lighting a cigar he had or- dered, he leisurely sauntered up to the counter and said to the proprietor, — " Very fine dinner, landlord. Just charge it to me ; I haven't got a sou." " But I don't know you," said the pro- prietor indignantly. " Of course you don't. If you had you wouldn't have let me had the dinner." " Pay me for the dinner, I say." "And I say 1 can't." " I'll see about that," said the propri- etor, who snatched a pistol out of a drawer, leaped over the counter and col- lared the man, exclaiming as he took aim at his head, " Now see if you'll get away with that dinner without paying for it, you scoundrel." ",What is that you hold in your hand ? " said the impecunious customer, drawing back. " That, sir, is a pistol, sir." "Oh, that's a pistol, is it? I don't care a fig for a pistol. I thought it was a stomach-pump. CAUGHT. A country merchant visited the city a few days ago and purchased from a dollar store a table castor, which he took home with him, and after putting a tag on it marked $14, made a present of it to a Methodist preacher, whose church his family attended. The reverend gentle- man took the package home, opened it and examined the contents. The next day he took the castor with the tag attached back to the groceryman and said to him : "I am too poor in this world's goods to afford to display so valuable a castor on my table, and if you have no objection I should like to return it and take $14 worth of groceries in its stead." The merchant could do nothing but acquiesce. SS6 THE MAGIC LAY OF THE ONE-HOESE SHAY. 'Tis three weeks at least to next boiling- THE MAGIC LAY OF THE ONE- HOESE SHAY, Mr. Bubl) was a Whig orator, also a soap laborator ; (For everything's new-christened in the present day) ; He was followed and adored by the common council board, And lived quite genteel with a one-horse shay. II. Mrs. Bubb was gay and free, fair, fat and forty-three. And blooming as a peony in buxom May ; The toast she long had been of Farringdon- within, And filled the better half of the one-horse Mrs. Bubb said to her lord : " You can well, Bubb, afford Whate'er a common council man in pru- dence may ; We've no brats to plague our lives, and the soap coucern it thrives. So let's have a trip to Brighton in the one- horse shay. IV. " We'll view the pier and shipping, and enjoy many a dipping, And walk for a stomach in our best array ; 1 longs more nor I can utter for shrimps and bread and butter, And an airing on the Steyne in the one-horse "We've a right to spare for nought that for money can be bought, So to get matters ready, Bubb, do yon trudge away; To my dear Lord Mayor I'll walk, just to get a bit of talk And an imitation shawl for the one-horse shay." VI. Mr. Bubb said to his wife : " Now I think upon't my life. The dog days are set in, and London's growing thin, So I'll order out old Nobbs and the one- horse shay." VII. Now Nobbe, it must be told, was rather fat and old. His color it was white, and it had been gray; He was round as a pot, and when soundly whipped would trot Full five miles an hour in the onu-horse shay. VIII. When at Brighton they were housed, and had stufied and caroused O'er a bowl of rack punch, Mr. Bubb did say, " I've ascertained, my dear, the mode of dip- ping here. From the 'ostler who is cleaning up my one- horse shay. IX. " You're shut up in a box, ill convenient as the stocks. And eighteen pence a time are obliged for to pay; Court corruption here, say I, makes everything so high, And I wish I had come without my one- horse shay." X. ''As I hope," says she, " to thrive, 'tis flaying folks alive. The King and them extortioners are leagued, I say; 'Tis encouraging of such for to go to pay so much. So we'll set them at defiance with our one- horse shay. XI. " Old Nobbs, I am sartain, may be trusted gig or cart in, He takes every matter in an easy way ; He'll stand like a post while we dabble on the coast, And return back to dress in our one-horse ahay," THE MAGIC LAY OF THE ONE-HORSE SHAY. 337 Ho out they drove, all drest, so gaily in their best, And finding in their ramblea a snug little bay, They uncased at their leisure, paddled out to take their pleasure, And left everything behind in the one-horse shay. But while, so snugly sure that all things were secure. They flounced about like porpoises or whales at play. Some young, unlucky imps, who prowled about for shrimps, Stole up to reconnoitre the one-horse shay. Old Nobbs, in quiet mood, was sleeping as he stood (He might possibly be dreaming of his corn or hay) ; Not a foot did he wag, so they whipt out every rag, And gutted the contents of the one-horse When our pair were soused enough and re- turned in their buff, Oh, there was the vengeance and Old Nick to pay ! Madam shrieked in consternation, Mr. Bubb he swore 1 To find the empty state of the one-horse XVI. " If I live,'' said she, " I swear I'll consult my dear Lord Mayor, And a fine on this vagabond town he shall lay; But the gallows thieves, so tricky, haven't left me e'en a dicky, And I shall catch my death in the one-horse XVII. " Come, bundle in with me ; we must squeeze for once," says he, " And manage this here business as best we may; VOJj. IV.— W. H. We've no other step to choose, nor a moment must we lose. Or the tide will float us off in our one-horse xvm. So noses, sides and knees all together did they squeeze. And packed in little compass they trotted it away, As dismal as two dummies, head and hands stuck out like mummies From beneath the little apron of the one- horse shay. XIX. The Steyne was in a throng, as they jogged it Madam hadn't been so " put to it " for many a day; Her pleasure it was damped, and her psrson somewhat cramped. Doubled up beneath the apron of the one- horse shay. 'Oh, would that I were laid," Mr. Bubb in sorrow said, "In a broad-wheeled wagon, well covered with hay I I'm sick of sporting smart, and would take a tilted cart In exchange for this bauble of a one-horae " I'd give half my riches for my worst pair of breeches. Or the apron that I wore last boiling-day ; They would wrap my arms and shoulders from these impudent beholders. And allow me to whip on in my one-horse shay." Mr. Bubb " gee-hupped " in vain, and strove to jerk the rein ; Nobbs felt he had his option to work or play, So he wouldn't mend his pace, though they'd fain have run a race. To escape the merry gazers at the one-horse n <»38 THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE. XXIII. iJTow good people, laugh your fill, and fancy if you will, (For I'm fairly out of breath and have had my say) The trouble and the rout to wrap and get them out, When they drove to their lodgings in their one-horse shay. XXIV. The day was swelt'ring warm, so they took no cold or harm, And o'er a smoking lunch soon forgot their dismay ; But, fearing Brighton mobs, started oflf at night with Nobbs, To a snugger watering-place, in the one- horse shay. By the late John Hughes, A. M., From BlachwoQ(Va MagaziTK, 1824. THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE; OR, THE WONDEEFtTL " ONE-HOSS SHAY." A LOGICAL STORY. Have you never heard of the wonderful one- hoss shay. That was built in such a logical way, It ran a hundred years to a day. And then, of a sudden, it — ah, but stay, I'll tell you what happened without delay, — Scaring the parson into fits. Frightening people out of their wits — Have you ever heard of that, I say ? Seventeen hundred and fifty-five, Georgius Secundus yias then alive — Stuffy old drone from the German hive. That was the year when Lisbon-town Saw the earth open and gulp her down, And Braddock's army was done so brown. Left without a scalp to its crown. It was on the terrible earthquake-day That the Deacon finished his one-hoss shay. Now in building of chaises, I will tell you what, There is always somewhere a weakest spot — In hub. tire, or felloe, in spring or thill. In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill. In screw, bolt, thorough brace — lurking still, Find it somewhere you must and will — Above or below, or within or without— And that's the reason, beyond a doubt, A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear end. But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do With an " I dew vam " or an " I tell yeou"), He would build one shay to beat the taown 'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; It should be so built that it couldna' break daown : — " Fur," said the Deacon, '' 't's mighty plain That the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain. Is only jest T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." So the Deacon inquired of the village folk Where he could find the strongest oak. That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke — That was for spokes and floor and sills ; He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; The cross-bars were ash, from the straightest trees ; The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese, But lasts like iron for things like these ; The hubs of logs from the " Settler's ellum " — ■ Last of its timber — they couldn't sell 'em. Never an axe had seen their chips. And the wedges fiew from between their lips ; Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips ; Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw. Spring, tire, axle, and linoh-pin too. Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; Thorough-broke bison-skin, thick and wide ; Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide Found in the pit when the tanner died. That was the way he " put her through " — " There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she'll dew ! " Do ! I tell you, I rather guess She was a wonder, and nothing less. Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, Deacon and deaconess dropped away. Children and grandchildren — where were they? But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay As fresh as on Lisbon earthquake-day I Eighteen hukdked ;- -it came and found The deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. THE SOUP STORY. 339 Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — " Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — Running as usual ; much the same. Thirty and forty at last arrive, And then came fifty and fipty-fivb. Little of all we value here Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Without both feeling and looking queer. In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth, So far as I know but a tree and truth. (This is a moral that runs at large ; Take it — ^you're welcome. — No extra charge.) First OF November— The Earthquake-day— There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, A general flavor of mild decay, But nothing local, as one may say. There couldn't be — for the deacon's art Had made it so like in every part That there wasn't a chance for one to start. For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, And the floor was just as strong as the sUls, And the panels just as strong as the floor. And the whippletree neither less nor more, And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore. And spring and axle and hub encore. And yet, as a whole it is past a doubt In another hour it will be worn out ! First of November, 'Fifty -five ! This morning the parson takes a drive. Now, small boys, get out of the way ! Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay, " Huddup ! " said the parson. — Off went they. The parson was working his Sunday's text — Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed At what the— Moses — was coming next. All at once the horse stood still, Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. — First a shiver, and then a thrill. Then something decidedly like a spill — And the parson was sitting upon a rock At half-past nine by the meet'n' house clock — Just the hour of the earthquake shock ! — What do you think the parson found, When he got up and stared around ? The poor old chaise in a heap or mound. As if it had been to the mUl and ground I You see, of course, if you're not a dunce, How it went to pieces all at once, — All at once and nothing first — Just as bubbles do when they burst. End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. Logic is logic. That's all I say. Oliver Wendell Holmes. DID NOT KNOW A NAME MORE ILLUS- TEIOUS. During the French Campaign in Italy, in which Napoleon I. first began to win the laurels which, subsequently, so abund- antly crowned his career, in one of the early battles, a young Italian cavalry offi- cer was taken prisoner. Having serious doubts about his safety, it occurred to him to pretend he was a great personage. So he promised rewards to his captors, if they would ensure his good treatment, adding confidentially that he was the Duke of Modena. He was accordingly exceedingly well cared for, and early next morning was called before Napoleon, who was somewhat puzzled at finding two Dukes of Modena amongst his prisoners, for the real Duke was also a prisoner ; which one was the Simon pure was very soon determined; because the Duke wrathfuUy asked his counterfeit by what authority he had assumed the title of Duke of Modena. The young officer answered, "Your Grace, the peril of my situation yesterday was such that had I known a more illustrious title, I would not have assumed yours," a reply which so pleased both the Duke and General Napoleon that he was forgiven his ingenious deceit. THE SOUP STORY. " he'd better have swallowed it." He had " struck it rich,'' and deter- mined on a visit to the East, and in ac- cordance with this intent, had reached Chicago. It was just before noon, when, having fixed himself a little in room 347, of the Palmer House, he sauntered down in search of the dining-room. He had not yet had time to adorn himself with 340 SHERIDAN COMPROMISING A DIFFICULTY. store clothes, but wanted dinner, and his " biled " shirt and his coarse useful Wes- tern attire to correspond, gave him rather the appearance of a frontier greenhorn. He found the dining-room door partially open, and, walking in, seated himself at the first table he came to. The waiters eyed him curiously, because he was a lit- tle ahead of time, but not so far ahead that they thought it worth while to ex- plain. The young man after making a wondering inspection of the frescoes on the ceiling and walls, and a general sur- vey of the elegant surroundings, thought it time to commence dinner, so he hailed one of the waiters, who came, carte in hand, and asked, " What soup, sir, will you have ? " Our friend replied, " Don't want soup." Now, dinner being hardly ready, soup was a device to gain time ; consequently, this abrupt, ungracious re- ply, and its tone, discouraged the waiter, who left him without saying a word. Another waiter, seeing him unattended, handed him a carte, and asked him " What soup, sir, will you have ? " to which he received reply, " I just told that other fel- ler I didn't want soup ; bring me a nice, solid dinner, and be quick about it." Away sauntered the waiter, and, by this time, a few early lunchers, accustomed to take soup, began to drop in. The head waiter, seeing the young man sitting there still with nothing before him, stepped forward, tendering him a carte, and asked, " What soup will you have, sir ? " This startled our friend, and he concluded they were " guying " him ; so, looking sternly at the waiter, he said, " Look ye here, my friend, I'm perhaps a little rough to look at, but I guess I could buy your tarnation ranch ; I came here for dinner, and don't want slops ; I want a solid, square dinner ; you're the third or fourth feller that's tried to crowd your swill on to me ; what I want is a good square meal ; if I can't get it here, I'll try to get it elsewhere." T'he waiter endeavored to explain to him exactly how the whole thing occurred, but did not succeed very well, and, although he sent him as square a meal as a man could wish, yet, when he went abroad in the afternoon to see the boys, the remembrance of the soup imposition was so uppermost in his mind that he bored his companions with it the whole time. Although our hero was averse to soup, the same objection did not extend to other liquid refreshments; and, by the time for retiring to rest he was so " hap- py " that we believe he would have for- given the three waiters though they had said " soup " to him in chorus. By the aid of his companions he reached his bed- room, and they, having partially un- dressed him, bid him good-night, leaving his door slightly ajar. He was "too far gone " even to shut it; so throwing him- self on the bed he was soon fast asleep. It happened that a poor fellow in the next room. No. 349, was extremely sick, and was attended by a professional nurse, who had instructions from his doctor to administer a clyster to his patient at mid- night. This nurse had gone down to the bar-room to chat with some friends ; and, on looking at the clock, discovered he was half an hour beyond his time ; so, hur- rying back to his patient, syringe in hand (having had the injection prepared in the drug-store below), he made all speed into the room and administered his mission. It happened, however, that he had struck No. 347 instead of 349, and our hero, who lay dreaming of soup, was sufficiently awakened from his drunken stupor to partially take in the situation : as he clapped his hand behind him, he roused long enough to mutter, " Great Scott ! they've done it at last ; I guess I'd better have swallowed it," and fell sound asleep again. Bebeoi. SHERIDAN COMPEOMISING A DIFFI- CULTY. One night, when leaving the House of Commons, as Sheridan was passing along Parliament street, having visited several " wine shades" in the course of the day, and feeling particularly " happy " and hilarious, he was hailed by a voice from the side-walk, " I say, sir ! won't ye help a fellow up." Sheridan glanced at where the voice came from, saw what ailed the man in a moment, and, in a sympathetic mood, essayed to give the help asked for, but the experiment proving to him that he was in no condition to give the aid desired, he explained to his companion in difficulty : " See here, I can't help you up, but I'll tell you what I'll do, if you don't mind, I'll lie down beside you." HOW TO MAKE LOVE FOR A FRIEND. 341 HOW TO MAKE LOVE FOR A FEIEND. From Sarry Lorrequer. [Charles Lever, Trieh novelist, was born in Dublin, August 31, 1806. He was educated for the medical pro- fession, studying first at Trinity College, and afterwards on the Continent. After taking his degree at Gottingen, he was attached (as physician) to the legation at Brus- sels, and, on his resignation of that post, became editor of the Dublin Univereity Magazine. He opened his bril- liant literary career by Kai-ry Lorregucr ; after which, he published a whole library of fiction, the larger por- tion of which was issued in the serial form, with illustra- tions. Among Lever's best novels may be speciiied C*ar(e» O'MaUey; Tom Burke; Uuland Cashel; The Knighta of Gwynne; The Dodd Family Abroad; Daven- port Dunn. When he undertook the editorship of the famous Irish magazine, Lever fixed his residence in the neighborhood of Dublin ; but when, after a few years' trial, bis work became distasteful, he removed to Flo- rence. He was appointed Vice-Consul at Spezzia in 1858, and was transferred in 1867 to Trieste, where he died in 1872. The earlier novels of Lever are remarkable for a certain boisterous mirth and whirl of incident. His ladles and gentlemen seem under the influence of champagne, his peasants and servantmen of "potheen." Latterly the current of his genius became broader and clearer, and several of his latter works have a higher interest] It was a cold, raw evening in February, as I sat in the coffee-room of the old Plough in Cheltenham, Lucullus c. Lu- cullo — no companion save my half-fin- ished decanter of port. I had drawn my chair to the corner of the ample fire- place, and in a half-dreamy state was reviewing the incidents of my early life, and like most men who, however young, have still to lament talents misapplied, opportunities neglected, profitless labor and disastrous idleness. The dreary as- pect of the large and ill-lighted room — the close-curtained boxes — the unsocial look of every thing and body about, suited the habit of my soul, and I was on the verge of becoming excessively senti- mental. The unbroken silence, where several people were present, had also its effect upon me, and I felt oppressed and dejected. So sat I for an hour; the clock over the mantel ticked sharply on — ^the old man in the brown surtout had turned in his chair, and now snored louder — the gentleman who read the Times had got the Chronicle, and I thought I saw him nodding over the advertise- ments. The father, who with a raw son of about nineteen, had dined at six, sat still and motionless opposithich he and his manager were involved, when the latter evinced some disappoint- ment at the former declaring himself to- tally unable to play the part of Henry VIII. " Why you can play almost any- thing and everything, and yet won't un- dertake the one part of King Henry VIII?" "No, indeed," replied the actor, "I can't ; but I'll tell you what I'll do for you — I'll play the two parts of Henry IV. and that will be aiqual." When it was proposed to adopt the English measure of miles in Ireland, it was humorously objected that it would so increase the distance between the towns that travelers must rise earlier in the morning to perform their journeys. HE GOT IT WRONG. An anecdote of Daniel Webster comes from a correspondent at Galveston, Tex- as, who writes as follows : While John Branch, of North Carolina, was General Jackson's Secretary of the Navy, he, Tazewell, and Daniel Webster, were walking on the north bank, of the Poto- mac, at Washington. Tazewell, wishing to amuse himself with Branch's simplic- ity, said, " Branch, I'll bet you a ten- dollar hat that I can prove that you are on the other side of the river." " Done," said Branch. " Well," said Tazewell, pointing to the opposite shore, " isn't that one side of the river?" " Yes.'' " Weil, isn't this the oiAerside?" 1^ Yes." " Then as you are here, are you not on the other side ?" " Why, I declare," said poor Branch, " so it is. But here comes Webster. I'll win back the hat from him." Webster had lagged behind, but now came up, and Branch accosted him : " Webster, I'll THE EIGHT PLACE, BUT THE WRONG MAN. 375 bet you a ten-dollar hat that I can prove that you are on the other side ol' the river." "Done." " Well, isn't this one side?'' " Yes." '■ Well, isn't that the other side f" " Yes, but I am not on that side 1 " Branch hung his head and submitted to the loss of the two hats as quietly as he could. THE RIGHT PLACE, BUT THE WRONG MAN. Many an amusing adventure occurs at our fashionable watering-places, where so many people are congregated every season, that never gets " noised about " — - at least, not outside of the narrow circle of the actors themselves and their im- mediate friends. But this one, somehow — just how you may be able to guess later on — did " leak out." One summer, not long ago, the most admired of all the beauties of the season, at the House, at , was a dainty young bride, a leader of fashiona- ble society in the city of , whose husband had brought her to spend the last quarter of their honeymoon by the sea. She was daintiness itself — from the crown of her beautifully shaped and poised head down to the tips of the tiny slippers, which might almost have trodden upon rose leaves without so much as bending them, and which constantly re- minded us " old boys " of our favorite. Sir John Suckling's, lines — " Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out. As if they feared the light." Everything that she wore was of the daintiest of the dainty ; hats, gloves (oh, how tiny they were !), parasols ; the be- witching little breakfast-caps that she affected, without any seeming affectation ; the bathing-dress that was a very delight to look upon, and that made her so en- trancing that we wondered that the highly-favored sea didn't have sense, or sensibility, enough to devour her, not out of cruelty, but for her very sweetness ; and those wonderful filmy, gauzy, airy robes that made her look like a veritable fairy — or even like a real angel, as many of her bald-headed admirers thought — as she moved about through the ball-room at night, moving many hearts, young and old, to envy that big, hearty, handsome, happy lover-husband — himself hardly more than a boy in years — whom all the " dancing-men " praised for having " too much sense to be a bit jealous, you know ! " Wherever she went and what- ever she did, from her first appearance in the morning until her last merry " good- night," she was surrounded by young fellows, ready to say and do any number of foolish things, in the hope of winning a smile from those merry, laughing, rosy, red-ripe lips, that it would have been worth a king's ransom to kiss once — even in a cousinly or paternal way, you know ! But though she had a smile for every one — for her life, just then, was all smiles, and the tears that we knew must come in after-years were not even dreamed of — every one saw that her whole heart belonged to that lucky, big, boyish lover-husband, who followed her every- where, like a huge, faithful, petted New- foundland dog — her " Ned," as she called him, in a voice that told whole volumes full of tenderness and trust. And when her eyes rested upon him — well, there wasn't one of us '' old boys " who wouldn't have marched straight up to a loaded cannon's mouth with a light heart for a fair, fighting chance of win- ning one such look from such eyes. One night after one of those balls, that brought so much of happiness to the young and so much of memory and re- gret to those of us whose dancing-days were over years and years ago ; when dancers and musicians were silent and only the sea sang its low nightly serenade to the unsentimental stars ; when the last footstep of the very last habitue of the bar-room had ceased to echo in the now silent and deserted corridors of the hotel, it so happened that " Ned " lay doubled up in his bed with a terrible attack of cramps, and suffering that mortal agony from which even a happy young bride- groom is not always exempt. What was to be done? There were bells, of course, as there always are in " first-class " seaside hotels ; but with that habitual contrariness that is the marked characteristic of such bells just when they are most wanted, they refused to ring or to be rung. She tried them again and again, in the hope of summon- 376 THE EIGHT PLACE, BUT THE WRONG MAN. ing some one to summon a physician, or to bring sometliing or to do something to relieve tlie sufterer, but all in vain. There he lay, her beloved, dying, perhaps — suffering, certainly — and she was power- less to relieve him. No ! not powerless, if she could only get so simple a thing as a mustard plaster — one of those travel- ing indispensables which no well-regu- lated bride ever yet considered a part of her trousseau, or ever thought of packing up when embarking on her wedding-trip. What would she not have given now for a single mustard plaster? Then a thought occurred — an inspira- tion — that there was mustard in the din- ing-room (if it were only open), and that hut a few steps from her room was the back stairway leading down to the side- doot of that room. To seize one of her own dainty handkerchiefs, slip out of the room and down-stairs and back again would only take a minute, and that minute — why it might save the life that was worth to her whole hecatombs of lives." Where is the bride of a month who would hesitate at any sacrifice in such a cause ? As quickly almost as the thought had been conceived it was being carried into execution and she was speed- ing on her errand of love (and mustard) — a vision of dainty pink and white love- liness that must have made the very door- knobs, which she passed in her swift flight, blush and thrill with pleasure. In an instant the dining-room door was gained and, oh, joy ! it was unlocked ; in another, the longed-for, much-needed mustard plaster — the daintiest ever pre- pared by such dainty fingers — was ready, and the swift, white feet were noiselessly but rapidly mounting the stairway that led up to the heaven of her love. Now, every one knows that all the rooms along the long corridors of such a hotel are so exactly alike that the wonder is that, even in broad daylight, there are not more accidents and strange encoun- ters and startling sights and novel dis- coveries than one gets to hear of But at night, when lights are turned low and the numbers on the doors are almost indis- iinguishable — well, how one can ever leave his own room and regain it in safety is one of those inexplicable mys- teries that can only be accounted for on the assumption that Providence does watch over us. Her room was No. 201, — that she knew perfectly well, — and there lay the sufferer still moaning in pain and waiting for the hands that should bring him healing. Next door to that was No. 203, and there, also, lay another who appeared to be suffering, judging from the ominous and mournful sounds that seemed to be trying to keep time with and to drown the meanings of the restless, tossing sea outside — a stalwart _ Irish railroad con- tractor, with a voice like that of the "moighty dape," and a temper as easily excited and as difficult to appease. Exactly what happened, or how it did happen, no one has ever yet told. But, suddenly and without warning, the un- offending occupant of No. 203 was rudlply awakened from his sound and peaceful slumbers by a startling sense of icy cold- ness on the pit of his stomach, followed by a sharp, burning pain, as if he were on fire, and springing bolt upright in bed, with a " Howly Moses ! " that sounded, in the stillness of the night, like an explo- sion of artillery, he caught a glimpse of a retreating figure in white disappearing through his door, which was slammed to with a bang that shook the house. To snatch his revolver, follow in hot pursuit, and blaze away in the corridor — one, two, three shots in quick succession — was the work of an instant, but the corridor was empty. Not long deserted, however, for instantly every door (that is to say every door except No. 201, as was afterwards remembered) was opened and white- robed, terrified figures of all ages and sexes were inquiring of each other, with white lips, what deed of blood was being enacted. But they disappeared as rapidly as they appeared, at the sight of a tall apparition, clad only in a short — all too short — shirt, chasing up and down the corridor, brandishing a revolver and swearing in a voice of thunder that, " By all the powhers, he'd have the life blud of the murderin' thafe that played him fiir a sucker ! " The general conclusion among the guests was that the apparition " had 'em bad," and that unless the offender was promptly ejected in the morning there could be no safety for their lives. Ex- planations then were impossible, owing to his excited condition ; but, finally, the landlord, two clerks, the porter, the de- tective, several hall-boys and two or three guests, more courageous than the rest, succeeded in getting him into his own EARLY TIMES IN INDIANA. 377 room and secured his promise to remain there until morning, upon the assurance that his complaint as to the trick that had been played on him, whatever it was, should then be thoroughly investigated. Just what happened in No. 201 will never be known to any one but the occu- pants themselves. Certain it is that, dur- ing all this unwonted excitement, which was not wholly abated until morning, not a sound was heard in that room ; and some people afterwards commented upon the remarkably sound sleep of the newly- married couple, whom even such disturb- ances could not arouse. It was also con- sidered singular that, notwithstanding the fact that they did not appear to have been in any way disturbed by the occur- rences of the night before, they left the hotel in the first departing train, without any farewell to their many friends, except a message that they had been suddenly called home by sickness. Stranger still, in the morning the oc- cupant of No. 203 apj)eared, " clothed in his right mind," and indisposed to in- vestigate the mystery of the night before, or even to talk about it. His conduct would, probably, have for- ever remained an impenetrable mystery had not some of us, who had heard him speak that night of a " dom'd musthard phlaster," observed him frequently pull- ing out of his pocket and kissing a delicate little cambric and lace handker- chief, in one corner of which one of us noticed a monogram, which was unmis- takably that of the dainty, but now de- parted, bride, and which told the whole story of her accidentally placing that fatal mustard plaster in the right place but — on the wrong man. Paul Llynd. THE UNMENTIONABLES. " You remember Dr. Potts, don't you ?" said Jones to me yesterday over our toddy. " To be sure I do ; he sued me for a doctor's bill. Do you think I ever forget that?" "No, certainly not," said Jones. " Well, did you ever hear why he was separated from his wife?" " Yes ; he beat her once." " But do you know what for?" " No ; I suppose he was jealous." "Not a bit of it. It was all about hia breeches," " What — she wore them ?" said I. " No ; she sent them to him one day at a lecture. It happened thus : You know old Potts was dismally eccentric. He was the most absent man in all New York, especially when called upon to pay any- thing. Well, he thought nothing of going without his dinner or his gloves. He was a very stingy man, and never had but one suit of clothes at the same time. However, meeting his tailor one day, he gave him an order for a new pair of breeches, which were sent home unknown to the doctor's wife. Having to lecture that morning, he put his new ones on, and left the old ones on his library chair. Soon after he had gone out, Mrs. Potts entered the library ; she saw the breeches, and at once concluded the doctor had gone to lecture ' Bans culottes' Putting the breeches up in a parcel, she, to pre- vent the possibility of a mistake, took it herself to the lecture-room ; giving the parcel to the porter, she told the man to give it to the doctor immediately. She herself then went home. The doctor was lecturing to a fashionable assembly on the wonders of chemistry, when the parcel was put into his hand. As his wife was often in the habit of sending him dia- grams, &c., which he left behind him, the doctor concluded this was something connected with his lecture, which he had forgotten. He therefore opened it before the audience, and to his astonishment and indignation, displayed to them all his cast-off inexpressibles. The roar of laughter which followed compelled him to conclude his lecture immediately. Rushing out, he went home and beat his wife. Never interfere with your husband, say I." EARLY TIMES IN INDIANA. Said Major Oudesley, as he casually dropped in on us yesterday morning and commenced talking away in his usual quiet, chatty and peculiar manner — " I'm sick and tired of this artificial way of doing things in these latter days." "Why so, Major?" "There is an eternal sight too much parade about everything that is going on- 378 EARLY TIMES IN INDIANA. I was at a wedding last night ; the daugh- ter of an old and much esteemed friend was to be married, and I was so urgently invited that I couldn't help going. " There was so much fuss and parade that I was perfectly disgusted. I could not help comparing the proceedings where a couple was married in Lawrence- burgh many years ago, when Indiana formed a part of the great northwestern territory. At the time the settlements of the emigrants were mostly confined to the rich bottom lands of the water-courses. " Lawrenceburgh was a small village, of a few log cabins. My father was act- ing magistrate for the district, and very promptly attended to all the various du- ties of that olBce, in addition to which he was in the habit of doing a great deal cf manual labor on his own hook." " That was when you wasn't big enough to do much, Major." " Exactly ; I was a tow-headed brat of some eight or ten years old when the in- cident I am about to relate took place, but I remember all the particulars as well as if it had occurred yesterday. You see it was about dinner-time one day, in the fall of the year, when, the old man being engaged in laying in a supply of wood for the winter, drove up his ox-team, with a pretty solid load of fuel. " Just then a young and unsophistica- ted couple entered the village, hand in hand, inquired for the squire, and were duly directed to the house. The youth was barefooted, and wore a coarse but clean tow linen shirt and pants, and rough straw hat of home manufacture. His fair companion was dressed in a blue cotton frock, pink cotton apron, coarse bonnet, and brogan shoes, with stockings. " These were their wedding dresses, and their severe simplicity, and the thorough independence they manifested, made an impression upon my mind that will never be effaced. " ' We have come to get married,' said the young man to the old lady, my mother, who was properly busy among the pots and kettles. " 'That's very good business,' said she, smiling graciously, ' though you appear to look very young ; but there's the squire, just drove up ; he'll splice you in less than no time.' "So out she bolted to give the fortu- nate functionary due notice of the impor- tant business in hand. " ' I can't stop till I unload this wood,' said the old man ; ' tell them to come out here.' " Out they went. " The old man was on the top of the cart, and every time he threw off a stick he asked a question. Before he was fairly unloaded, he had the youth's whole story, having ascertained the names, ages and residence of the parties, how long he had known the young woman, if he really loved her, and was willing to labor hon- estly to promote her happiness, etc. "The youngster gave simple and satis- factory answers to all the questions pro- pounded. " In the mean time the old lady, per- fectly understanding dad's way of doing things, had sent out to say to the people that a wedding party was coming off at the house, and by the time the wood was unloaded quite a crowd had collected to witness the ceremony. "The old fellow, having pitched out the last stick, and picked up his long goad, stood up in the cart, and commenced the performance. " ' Jest jine hands,' said he, to the young couple. " It was done accordingly. " ' I'm satisfied with both of ye,' he continued : ' you've a perfect right to get married,' and he united 'em in short order. " 'As the rafters on this house are joined together, so I jine you — you are man and wife — salute your bride. I don't charge you anything for the operation. Whoa haw. Buck — get along. Bright ! ' " With an elegant flourish of his long stick, he started for another load of wood, leaving the newly-wedded pair amid the villagers, kissing each other with a very distinct and particular evidence of satis- faction. " That was a wedding worth having," continued Major Oudesley ; " I knew the couple afterwards and know them yet, for they are both living in a high state of i prosperity. And I know their children after them, too, and mighty fine children they are, for one of them is at this very time Governor of Indiana." There is nothing like a good defini- tion, as the teacher thought when he explained the meaning of " old maid," as a woman who had been made a very long time. A PROFESSOR OF NATURAL HISTORY. 37P A PKOFESSOR OF NATURAL HIS- TORY. One of the beat lectures upon natural history I have ever heard was given during a visit I made to England, in 1843. It was at Croydon fair, a place about ten miles from London. Great was the wonder of the chawbacons as they saw the mysteri- ous booth, which had sprung up like a mushroom in the night. The leader of the band, a sort of Max Maretzek, was an orchestra in himself, for he performed on four instruments, all at once. He had a peal of bells fastened to his hat, which jingled whenever he nodded ; a row of reeds was fastened to his chin, which he played on as he rolled his head from side to side ; with his hands he scraped a fiddle ; while to one knee and a foot he had two drumsticks tied, with which he beat the drum before him. After enjoying the overture, which was made up of the fag ends of various tunes, finishing off with the beginnings of others, I paid a penny, and entered the inner temple. What was in it will be best described by the lecturer, who said : " Ladies and gents — this here is a me- nagerie, so called, because it takes a man of intellect like me to manage the critters. That ere hanimal is a halegory ; it grows on the banks of the Nile, and is amphibilions, which is the French for saying, ' it can't live on land, and dies in the water' — a painful proof of the deli- cacy of its constitution, and the unsar- tainty of human life. The next hanimal is a cammylion. It's a regular box of colors. The ancients took their idea of the rainbow and a woman's dress from it ; when it's black it's green, and when it's yellow it's blue, and wise warsa : thus affording a salutary example of the fal- lowbiliousness of the human senses, for there has been more hard swearing in the courts of law about the exact color of this here animal than has ever been heard, except in New York, the capital of the Chocktaw Americans. The next critter is a hyena. It imitates all the vartues of man ; for instance, it has the agree- able smile of a young woman, and can imitate the crying of a child so naturally, that it inweigles unsuspectous people into the woods, and then dewours them — a shocking proof of human ingratitude. " That 'ere animal in the corner is a hape, of the monkish kind. Some of its habits are so werry disgusting that it haa been considered as belonging to the human species itself. " The critter with a long nose is a hele- phant. It is a native of a land whose name is so long and outlandish that it takes a man a month to pronunce it, three weeks to hear it, and eight years to under- stand it. If you ladies and gentlemen 'd like to hear me say it I'm agreeable, though p'r'aps you'd not like to wait here all that time. Ah, you don't want to wait a month, then please pay a penny all around, children half-price. Barney, collect the money, and point out the gemman what won't pay to the bull-dog; he's very hungry, not having been fed for a week, he'd relish a mean fellow now amazingly. (Money is easily collected). That ere animal, ladies and gents, is, as I said before, the helephant. It's so big in its natural state, that it takes two ships to bring one whole to this Island, and then its truni is obliged to be sent by post. It's an animal of great sagacity, being addicted to squirt upon tailors, who are sure enough, ladies and gents, the most obstropulous of mankind. I give you my sacred honor, that only last night I ordered a snip of this place to send me a new pair of pantaloons home, and he would not leave them without the money. A dreadful proof of the depravity of tailors ! And if the ninth part of a man be so great a waggabond, what must not an entire human critter be I It's so aw- ful a question, that a man had better look at himself in the glass before he answers it. "The next animal, ladies and gentle- men, isn't a hannibal, it's a — hallo, Barney 1 where's the boa constructor? Oh, my eyes, ladies and gents, I'm sorry to tell you, that the boa constructor has escaped! It's a hawful brute ! Swallows whole families — whole chairs and tables, too. Has been known to digest a four- post bed. Ladies and gentlemen, Barney says he'll guarantee your safety for a shilling a head ; if not, there's not one of you but what will be dewoured in the night I Only a shilling a head, to save your waluable lives! Barney, collect the money. If any gemman don't think himself worth a shilling, Barney, hand him over to the police as a waggabond." (Barney collects the -money, crowd di»' perses.) 380 BEAU BEUMMEL. A NEW JERSEY JUDGE. There is a scriptural simplicity about the following which is quite refreshing, and carries one back to antediluvian times: A distinguished member of the New York bar was retained on one occasion by a friend, also a New Yorker, to attend to a complaint made against him before a New Jersey justice, for an alleged assault and battery upon one of the resi- dents of the " Old Jersey State." " I appear for the prisoner," said the counsellor to the modern Dogberry. " You abbers for the bris'ner, do you? And who den be you?" interrupted the justice, eyeing him from head to foot, with marked curiosity. " I ton't knows you ; vair he's you come from, and vot's yer name ? " The counsellor modestly gave his name, and said, — " I am a member of the New York bar." " Veil, den," replied the justice, " you gan't bractis in dis here gort." " I am a counsellor of the Supreme Court of the State of New York," reiter- ated the attorney. " Dat makes not'ing tifferent," said the inveterate justice. " Well, then," said the baffled lawyer, "suppose I show to your honor that I am a counsellor of the Supreme Court of the United States ? " " It ton't make a pit petter," replied he of the ermine, " you ain't a counsellor von de State of New Jersey, and you gan't bractis in dish gort." This decision accounts for the fact that New Jersey is not in the United States I BEAU BEUMMEL. In the palmy days of George, Prince of Wales, there was a club, celebrated for its fashion and exclusiveness, numbering among its members the prince, Brummel, Sheridan, etc.; indeed, all were men of the first water in fashion, politics or litera- ture. A vacancy occurring. Lord Deloraine, the famous duellist, applied for admission. Suspecting that his quarrelsome propen- sities might militate against him, he called upon every member the morning before the ballot, and very plainly intimated that he should consider his rejection as a personal affront, and demand satisfaction from every one severally, except the Prince of Wales, whose position as heir to the throne protected him. On the night in question, Lord Delo- raine went to the club, sent up his card, and requested to know if the balloting was over. As he had been blackballed, an answer was sent by the waiter that he had not been, there being unfortunately a black ball in the box. He sent the waiter up again to say that as it must be a mistake, he wished to see the chairman of the club. The prince was about rising to comply with this outrageous request, when Brummel volunteered to satisfy the incensed duellist. Telling the waiter to show Lord Deloraine to a private room, he followed in a few minutes afterwards. Upon entering the room, he advanced in his blandest manner and said, " My dear Deloraine, it's truly unfortunate, but you are blackballed." The other replied, "Quite a mistake. You had better try again." " No use,'' returned the fop, " for there was not a white ball in the ballot ; but pray wait. Allow me to ring." When the waiter appeared, Brummel said, " Charles, bring me pistols and coffee for two." Lord Deloraine stared in silence. When the waiter brought the articles. Beau Brummel said, " I beg your pardon, Charles, but I have forgotten a dice- box." During the interval Brummel talked about the weather, the crops, and the most frivolous things, Lord Deloraine gazing at him with a severe expression of countenance. When the waiter brought the dice and the box, Brummel smiled at him, saying, " You can go. One of us will ring if we want you. I don't know which of us it will be ; but one of us will ring." The waiter bowed and retired. Brummel then said, " I know you like coffee — so do I. When we have finished it, we will proceed to business." "So I am blackballed," hissed the duellist between his teeth. " Most certainly. Now, my dear Lord, as I am the challenged party, I claim the THE WONDEEFU' WEAN. 381 right of dictating the terms. Here is a pistol — here are dice. We will throw for the chance. In other respects we are quite equal. If you fall, you will leave a widow to mourn your death. If I perish, I will leave a disconsolate tailor to mourn my fate." The baffled bravo put down his cup and left the room. Brummel rejoined his friends, and when the story got around in the clubs, Lord Ueloraine was so much annoyed that he went suddenly out of town. LOVE IS LIKE A DIZZINESS. I lately lived in quiet case, An' ne'er wish'd to marry, O ! But when I saw ray Peggy's face, I felt a sad quandary, O ! Though wild as ony Athol deer, She has trepann'd me fairly, 1 Her cherry cheeks an' een sae clear Torment me late an' early O ! O, love, love, love ! Love Is like a dizziness ; It winua let a poor body Gang about his biziness ! To tell my feats this single week Wad mak a daft- like diary, O ! I drave my cart out ow'r a dike, My horses in a miry, O ! I wear my stockings white an' blue, My love's sae fierce an' fiery, O ! I drill the land that I should pleugh. Ad' pleugh the drills entirely, ! O, love, love, love ! etc. Ae morning, by the dawn o' day, I rase to theek the stable, ! I keust my coat, and plied away As fast as I was able, O ! I wrought that morning out an' out, As I'd been redding fire, O ! When I had done an look'd about, Gudefaith, it was the byre, O ! O, love, love, love ! etc. Her wily glance I'll ne'er forget, The dear, the lovely blinkin o't Has pierced me through an' through the heart, An' plagues me wi' the prinkling o't. I tried to sing, I tried to pray, I tried to drown't wi' drinkin' o't, I tried witli sport to drive't away. But ne'er can sleep for thinkin' o't. 0, love, love, love ! etc. Nae man can tell what pains I prove, Or how severe my pliskie, O I I swear I'm sairer drunk wi' love Than ever I was wi' whiskey, O I For love has raked me fore an' aft, I scarce can lift a leggie, O I I first grew dizzy, then gaed daft, An' soon I'll dee for Peggy, O I O, love, love, love ! Love is like a dizziness; It winna let a poor body Gang about his biziness ! James Hoaa. THE WONDERFU' WEAN. Our wean's the most wonderfu' wean e'er I saw, It would tak' me a lang summer day to tell a' His pranks, frae the mornin' till night shuts his e'e, When he sleeps like a peerie, 'tween father an' me. For in his quiet turns, siocan questions he'll speir : How the moon can stick up in the sky that's sae clear ? What gars the win' blaw ? an' whar frae comes the rain ? He's a perfect divert — he's a wonderfu' wean. Or wha was the first bodie's, father? an' wha Made the very first snaw-show'r that ever did fa'? An' wha made the first bird that sang on a tree? An' the water that sooms a' the ships in the sea! — But after I've tanld as weel as I ken. Again he begins wi' his wha ? an' his when ? An' he looks aye sae watchfu', the while I ex- plain ; He's as auld as the hills — he's an auld-farrant wean. 382 GUESSING THE AUTHORS AS HE PEOCEEDS. And folk wha ha'e skill o' the lumps on the head, Hint there's mae ways than toilin' o' winnin' ane's bread ; — How he'll be a rich man, an' ha'e men to work for him, Wi' a kyte like a bailie's, shug shagging afore him ; Wi' a face like the moon, sober, sonsy, and douce, An' 1 back, for its breadth, like the side o' a house. 'Tweel I'm unco ta'en up wi't, they mak' a' sae plain : He's just a town's-talk — he's a bye-ord'nar wean. I ne'er can forget sic a laugh as I gat To see him put on father's waistcoat and hat ! Then the lang-leggit boots gaed sae far ower his knees. The tap loops wi' his fingers he grippit wi' ease, Then he maroht thro' the house, he marcht but, he marolit ben, Sae like mony mae o' our great-little men, That I laugh clean outright, for I couldna con- tain. He was sic a conceit —sic an ancient-like wean. But mid a' his daffin sic kindness he shows. That he's dear to my heart as the dew to the rose; An' the unclouded hinuie-beam aye in his e'e, Mak's him every day dearer an' dearer to me. Though fortune be saucy, an' dorty, an' dour. An' glooms thro' her fingers, like hills thro' a show'r. When bodies ha'e got ae bit bairn o' their ain. He can cheer up their hearts, — he's the wou- derfu' wean. William Millee. COCKIE-LEEEIE-LA. Jhere is a country gentleman, who leads a thrifty life, [Ik morning scrapin' orra things thegither for his wife — His coat o' glowin' ruddy brown, and wavelet wi' gold — A. crimson crown upon his head, well fitting one so bold. If ithers pick where he did scrape, he brings them to disgrace, For, like a man o' mettle, he — siclike meets face to face ; He gi'es the loons a letherin', a craokit croon to claw — There is nae gaun about the buss wi' Cockie- leerie-la ! His step is firm and evenly, his look both grave and sage — To bear his rich and stately tail should have a pretty page ; An' tho' he hands his head fu' hie, he glinteth to the grun, Nor fyles his silver spurs in dubs wi' glow'rin' at the sun : And whyles I've thocht had he a haun wharwi' to grip a stickle, A pair o' specks across his neb, an' round his neck a dickie. That weans wad laughin' baud their sides, an' cry — " Preserve us a' ! Ye're some frien' to Doctor Drawblood, douce Cockie-leerie-la ! " William Milleb. GUESSING THE ATJTHOES AS HE PRO- CEEDS. The Rev. Dr. B was what was com- monly called a " popular preacher ; " not, however, by drawing on his own stores, but by the knack which he possessed of appropriating the thoughts and language of the great divines who had gone before him to his own use, and by a skilful splicing and dovetailing of passages, so as to make a whole. Fortunately for him, those who composed his audience were not very deeply skilled in pulpit lore, and with such he passed for a wonder of erudition. It happened, however, that the doctor was detected in his literary larcenies. One Sunday, a grave old gen- tleman seated himself close to the pulpit, and listened with profound attention. The doctor had scarcely finished his third sentence before the old gentleman said, loud enough to be heard by those near him, "that's Sherlock." The doctor frowned, but went on. He had not pro- ceeded much further, when his grave auditor broke out with, "that's Tillot- COUKT SCENE IN SAN FBANCISCO. 383 son." The doctor bit his lips and paused, but went on. At a third exclamation of "that's Blair," the doctor lost all pa- tience, and leaning over the side of the pulpit, he exclaimed, " Fellow, if you do not hold your tongue you shall be turned out!" Without altering a muscle, the old gentleman, looking the doctor lull in the face, said, " that's his own." AN EXACTING- HUSBAND. Wycherly, the comedian, married a girl of eighteen when he was verging on eighty. Shortly after. Providence was pleased, in its mercy to the young woman, to call the old man to another and a better world. But ere he took his final departure from this, he summoned his young wife to his bedside and announced to her that he was dying ; whereupon she wept bitterly. Wycherly lifted him- self up in the bed, and gazing with tender emotion on his weeping wife, said: — "My dearest love, I have a sol- emn promise to exact from you before I quit your side forever here below. Will you assure me my wishes will be attended to by you, however great the sacrifice you will be called on to make?" Horrid ideas of suttees, of poor Indian widows being called on to expire on funeral pyres, with the bodies of their de- ceased lords and masters, flashed across the brain of the poor woman. With a convulsive efibrt and desperate resolu- tion, she gasped out an assurance that his commands, however dreadful they might be, should be obeyed. Then Wycherly, with a ghastly smile, said, in a low and solemn voice: "My beloved wife, the parting request I have to make of you is — that when I am gone — (here the poor woman sobbed and cried most vehemently) when I am in my cold grave — (Mrs. Wycherly tore her hair) — when I am laid low — (the disconsolate wife roared with grief) — when I am no longer a heavy burden and a tie on you — (' Oh, for Heaven's sake ! ' howled Mrs. W., ' what am I to do ? ' ) — I com- mand you, my dear young wife — ('yes, y-e-s, love,' sobbed Mrs. W.) — on pain of incurring my malediction — ('y-e-s, dear,' groaned the horror-stricken wife) — never to marry an old man again ! " Mrs. Wycherly dried her eyes, and, in the most fervent manner, promised that she never would — and she kept her word. HOW IT GOES. Mr. Dickson, a colored barber in a large New England town, was shaving one of his customers, a respectable citizen, one morning, when a conversation occur- red between them respecting Mr. Dick- son's former connection with a colored church in that place : — " I believe you are connected with the church in Elm Street, are you not, Mr. Dickson?" said his customer. " No, sah, not at all." " What 1 are you not a member of the African Church ?" " Not this year, sah." " Why did you leave their communion, Mr. Dickson, if I may be permitted to ask ?" "Well, I'll tell you sah," said Mr. Dickson, stropping a concave razor on the palm of his hand, " it war just like dis. Ijined the church in good fait; I give ten dollars toward de stated gospill de fiis' year, and de church people call me 'Brudder Dickson' ; the second year my business not so good, and I gib only five dollars. Dat year the people call me 'Mr. Dickson'. Dis razor hurt you, sah?" " No, the razor goes tolerably well." " Well, sah, the third year I feel berry poor; had sickness in my family; and I didn't gib nqffln' for preachin'. Well, sah, arter dat dey call me, 'dat old nigger Dickson' — and I left 'em." COURT SCENE IN SAN FEANCISCO. The captain of a vessel lying in port is brought into court in custody of a mar- shal. Judge. — Captain, these are very grave charges against you. Spitting in a man's face — pulling his nose — and kicking him. Are they true ? Captain. — (Hesitating, not liking to say no, as it might be telling an untruth ; and not liking to say yes, thinking of a heavy fine.) Will your honor allow me to ask your marshal a question ? Judge. — Certainly. Captain. — Mr. Marshal, will you please state to the court whether the complain- ant was armed or not when he came on 384 PATENT ALARM BEDS. board my ship, accompanied by your- self? Marshal. — He was armed, for I handed him a revolver myself, which he placed in his pocket. Captain. — (Turning to the Judge.) Does your honor think it probable that a man with a six-barrel revolver in his pocket would allow another to spit in his face, pull his nose, and kick him ? Judge. — (Fired with indignation.) No, sir ! and if he did he deserved it. Cap- tain, you are honorably acquitted of the charges. Good-bye, sir. (Shaking hands.) I wish you a pleasant and prosperous voy- age. GOING TO BUY NEW YORK. We heard a friend relate the accom- panying incident the other day with not a little zest, and to the amusement of a good many bystanders. " Jumping into an old-fashioned stage- coach last month, in company with nine others, to jostle over ten miles of un- finished road between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, I was very much amused with the following characteristic dialogue between a regular question-asking ' Down- Easter' and a high-heeled Southerner. We were scarcely seated, before our Yan- kee began : " ' Travelling East, I expect ? ' " ' Yes, sir.' " ' Goin' to Philadelphia, I reckon ? ' " ' No, sir.' " ' Oh, ah : to New York, maybe ? ' " ' Yes, sir.' " ' Calc'latin' to buy goods, I presume ? ' " ' No, sir.' " ' Never ben there before, I wouldn't wonder ? ' " ' No, sir : never.' " ' New York is a wonderfal place.' " ' Such is my impression, sir.' " ' Got letters, I expect ? ' " ' Yes, sir ; I am provided with letters of introduction.' " ' Wouldn't mind showin' you round myself a spell, if you wanted.' " ' I thank you, sir ; but I shall not re- quire your assistance.' " This last remark of the polite but re- served stranger was a poser; and the ' inquisitor ' fell back a moment to take breath, and change his tactics. The half- suppressed smile upon the faces of the other passengers soon aroused the Yankee to still further exertions ; and summoning up more resolution, he began again : " ' Stranger, perhaps you are not aware how almighty hard it is for a Yankee to control his curiosity. You'll please ex- cuse me, but I really would like to know your name and residence, and the busi- ness you follow. I expect you ain't ashamed of either of 'em ; so now won't you just oblige me ? ' "This last appeal brought out our Southern friend, who, rising up to the extremest height allowed by the coach, and throwing back his shoulders, replied : " My name is General Andrew Wash- ington. I reside in the State of Missis- sippi. I am a gentleman of leisure, and, I am glad to be able to say, of extensive means. I have heard much of New York, and I am now on my way to see it ; and if I like it as well as I am led to expect, I intend to — buy it I ' " Then was heard a shout of stentorian laughter throughout the stage-coach ; and this was the last of that conversation I " PATENT ALARM BEDS. Those who have visited the fair at the Crystal Palace of 1851 must have noticed the Patent Alarm Bed — a down-east in- vention. The purpose of these beds is to prevent a person from oversleeping him- self, or, if he does not awake at the time the alarm is sounded, the machinery operates in such a manner as to chuck him out upon the floor, much to his as- tonishment. For instance, when a person wishes to retire to bed, he winds up an alarm clock attached to the bed, and sets it at the hour he wishes to get up. At the appointed hour the alarm sounds, and, if the sleeper is awakened, he may arise ; but, if he does not awake, the machinery of the clock, operating on a lever, upsets the bed-frame, and the occupant is tilted out upon the floor. This bed is worthy the inspection of heads of families, who have the care of slug- gards and sleepy-heads. We have a good story to tell in con- nection with one of those beds (says the Uncle Sam, a " Bosting" paper). A friend of ours recently got married to a lovely and interesting young woman. In the house of the bride's father, where the MY SHIRT-BUTTONS. 385 wedding took place, one of the " alarm beds" had just previously been intro- duced. The wedding party was very large and fashionable, and everything went ofl' with the utmost merriment, the entertainment being of the most generous kind. At length, the feasting over, and the hour of midnight past, the guests be- gan to retire, and the lights to grow dim in the house. The " old folks " hinted gently about sleep, and the bride and her lord grew weary and impatient. It was easily seen that they wished to be alone, and the lady was accordingly escorted to her chamber, to which blissful haven the bridegroom soon followed her. AVe will not attempt to tell of what ensued, but suiSce it to say, that a click, click was heard, and the astonished couple, the next instant, found themselves launched upon the floor in the middle of the room, fast locked in each other's arms, holding on like good fellows, in momentary expectation of an earthquake. They survived the shock, however. MY 8HIET-BUTT0NS. Flesh and blood can stand it no longer ! Driven to the verge of insanity, I will confide my case to the public ; as from the public feeling alone I can now hope for redress of my long-continued griev- ance. Tailored man, seedy, and out at elbows, can get his outer integuments brushed up or fine-drawn, until fortune presents him with a new suit ; but seam- stressed man cannot get a button put on his shirt these days. No ! not if he were to crack his heart-strings in the asking, and were to give his " womankind" work- boxes of California gold, in guerdon. Driven, as I before remarked, to the verge of distraction by my wife's negli- gence in this particular, I feel compelled to turn social reformer, and prove the truth of the poet's aphorism, " All partial ill is universal good." May my particu- lar misfortune be the little seed from which shall spring a birch-tree, big enough to whip all feminine creation into the path of duty. Like most other reformers, my mind has been led to a consideration of the magnitude of the general evil, by having had a pretty bitter taste of it in my individual lot. VOL. IV — w, H. Now, understand me, good reader. I do not say that my wife is not a good wife in most respects. She is an excel- lent little woman — a woman of superior sense and judgment ; and as such, is very much attached to me, and thoroughly ap- preciates my character. She is a very at- tentive listener whenever I talk upon un- common subjects, or read aloud any remarkable leader from the newspapers. As I am a great politician, she takes an interest in politics, and enters into all my views ; and it is charming to see the passion she will get into whenever my speeches in the vestry are badly reported. Besides this, she manages the house very well, and does not look as black as a thundercloud if I happen to bring in half a dozen friends unexpectedly to dinner, when there is nothing but a leg of mutton. Then she deserves great credit for her method of bringing up the chil- dren, who are decidedly the best behaved I ever saw in my life. Yes, I do not deny that, in many respects, my wife does her duty thoroughly ; but— -she does not sew on my shirt-buttons. I can neither coax nor scold her into remembering the matter at the right time. She always says, " Oh, I am very sorry, I quite forgot it;" or, "Well, I never heard of a man who pulls his buttons off" at the rate you do : it must be done on purpose ! " It was only last month I really lost a capital stroke of business by the want of one of those confounded, beggarly buttons. I went down upon an important affair to Liverpool, to meet a man at nine o'clock the next morning, and was to decide upon a purchase that, if made in time, would secure me a neat hundred. I was called at eight. Everything I wanted was ready to my hand, for my wife had packed my carpet-bag with her usual care — razors, brushes, my own peculiar soap, clean linen, and all odd minutife were there. " Good creature she is ! " thought I. " She really is worth her weight in gold ; '' and I was far gone in a meditation on the economy and convenience of matrimony, when I came to a halt suddenly — " a change came o'er the spirit of my dream." My right hand held between its thumb and forefinger the buttonless wristband of the left sleeve. Dismayed, I seized the other wristband ; there was a button, in- deed, but in the last stage of anatomy — one that would not survive a thrust through its destined hole. I made a 25 386 MY SHIRT-BUTTONS. desperate dash at my throat, and (crown- ing point of miaery !) my fingers grasped a wretched button that hung by a thread, which they actually lost the power to snap. You might have knocked me down with that button. As I threw my- self on a chair, my eye fell on the watch. Five minutes to nine ! Shades of Croesua ! Great Plutas, hear! I rang the bell furiously. I demanded a chambermaid, with needle, cotton, and buttons, im- mediately. " Yes, sir ; did I not want breakfast?" "No! no! no. Buttons, and a being that can sew them on." Whole centuries did it seem to me, while that young woman kept me waiting. She came at last ; and whole decades did it seem while she was operating upon my luckless shirt with her clumsy fingers. I sat like a martyr. Solemnly do I protest that I do not know whether that young woman was pretty or not ; though, in sew- ing the final button on the collar, her face was close enough for me to see (near- sighted as I am) that there was a lurking devil of fun in her eye. Once she gave me a slight prick with her needle, and when I started she begged my pardon, adding, that it was " ill-conweniency to have the button sewed after a gentleman had put on his shirt." I groaned ; it was ten minutes past nine. In vain I hurried through the rest of my toilet ; in vain I rushed like the north wind to my rendez- vous ; I was too late, and a more punctual fellow got my bargain. Since then my wife has never been allowed to forget that hundred pounds lost ; and she does seem a little ashamed. I told the story to a young friend of mine who has lately married, and whom I warned at the be- ginning of his matrimonial career as to the importance of buttons to his shirts. Our friend laughed outright, and said that he and his Fanny had come to a split on that subject already, as I should see, if I would give them the pleasure of my company to an early supper that evening. It was to be a gentleman's party, and to consist entirely of married men. My wife did not approve of mj going, but I went nevertheless. Never shall I forget what I saw and heard that evening. X found my friend surrounded by half a dozen other friends, all in the act of sewing buttons on shirts, while his wife sat, in high glee, laughing at them. " Here comes another ! " they all cried out, as I entered. "Now D , my good fellow,'' said my host, addressing me, and taking up another shirt out of a basket beside him, "sit you down here, and sew the button on that collar." "What's the joke?" asked I, very much amazed. " It is no joke at all," said he ; " but a very serious matter. We are to have no supper until every missing button is sewed on my shirts." Here Mrs. — ■ — 's merry laugh attracted my attention, and looking minutely at her, I thought she did not look quite so pleased as she pretended to be. " What does all this absurd scene mean ? " I inquired of her. " Why, Mr. D.," she replied with an arch smile, "I think it origina^tes with you." " With me, my dear madam ! " "Yes. You must know that Harry has complained that his buttons are not sewed on properly, and has teased me most unmercifully about woman's duties. This morning he told me that you were always 'great' on the subject of shirt- buttons, and that he had no doubt your wife was a pattern of precision in that matter. Now, he called on you this morning, and you told him to play me this trick ; did you not ? " " I ! my dear madam ! Why, I only told him a story of my wife's unpardon- able negligence about my buttons, and what I lost by it." She looked rather relieved, and glanc- ing at her husband with a smile, in which there was as much affection as fun, she said, " VV"ell, he came home and said you had told him how he could shame me into sewing on his buttons. You had ad- vised him to invite a party of gentlemen (persons with whom I wished to stand well), and that, on their arrival, he was to be discovered with a pile of clean shirts before him, diligently sewing on the buttons ; and when asked why he was employed in that extraordinary manner, he was to tell them that / never would do it, and, therefore, he was obliged to do it himself after business. He vowed he would do this on your recommendation, and you see he has done it." " My recommendation 1 My dear Mrs. , I beg you to believe" — Here Fanny and her husband laughed heart- ily ; and at last the latter explained that he was the inventor of the joke, which he had intended as a ptiniefani^it to his wife. THE ROMANCE OF BROADWAY. 387 "Come, my dear Harry," said Fanny, " you had better all of you lay aside your unaccustomed tools, and come to supper. You have no idea how supremely awk- ward you all look," and she led the way into the supper-room. As we went down stairs I heard Harry say to one of his friends, "That stroke will tell double. My Fanny will take the hint, and use her needle in future; and D will learn not to make such a tremendous fiiss as he does about a button more or less." Harry is mistaken : I have not learned yet to take the want of a button quietly. As the only source of discord between my wife and myself is this one of shirt-but- tons, I am determined to try and remove it. Private remonstrance is unavailing ; the thing occurred again this morning, and now I am resolved to effect a radical reform all over the country. My present object is to form an Anti-Buttonless Shirt League and to agitate the question in every legal way. We will have monster husband meetings at Exeter Hall, that stronghold of female benevolence, where the wives of England will be addressed by Mrs. Ellis on the subject. It shall be proved to them that it is a just demand we make. We merely ask at first, a fair amount of buttons for a " day-shirt." Afterwards, we will assert our rights to a due number for our " nightly wearing." In fact, dear reader, this is a question that ought to become national, since it comes home to every man's bosom. I am so convinced of the great prevalence of this evil, and of the strong feeling of discontent which it has produced, that I entertain no doubt that these few words, feeble as they are to " reach the height of this great argument," will be like the little match which fires a train of gunpowder. Eliza Cook. THE ROMANCE OP BROADWAY. "I have earned three shillings, York, this blessed afternoon ! " I exclaimed with ill-suppressed exultation, as I threw down my pen, which I had been diligently using for four hours — (I was penning " an article " for a certain " monthly, " dear reader) — pushed my closely written man- uscripts irom me, and complacently took a yellow cigar from my hat, which I have made my chief pocket since my fifth year, the time, I believe, since my dis- criminating parents exchanged my in- fant cap for the manly castor. Three York shillings have I made this blessed day, heaven be thanked ! and now I can conscientiously take a little " ease in mine inn ! " Whereupon, I ignited my cigar with a self-enkindling apparatus, a gift from my considerate landlady — pray heaven she charges it not in her bill ! — to save her candles, and ascending the three steps to my window, I seated myself in my accustomed chair, and forthwith be- gan to speculate on things external. It was that calm, lovely time, which is wont to usher in the twilight of a summer eve- ning. The roll of wheels on Broadway beneath me was ceaseless. Bright forms flashed by in gay carriages. The happy, the gallant, the beautiful, were all forth to take the air on the fashionable eve- ning drive. Why was I not with the cavalcade? Where was my Rosinante? Where was my "establishment?" Echo answered "where?" I puffed away si- lently and vigorously for a few seconds, as these mental queries assailed me ; and, blessed soother of the troubled, oh, in- comparable cigar I my philosophy re- turned. Diagonally opposite to my window stands one of the proudest structures on Broadway. It is costly with stone and marble, lofty porticoes and colonnades. This edifice first attracted my attention by its architectural beauty, and eventu- ally fixed it by a mystery, that seemed, to my curious eye, surrounding one of its inmates. But I will throw into the story vein what I have to relate, for it is a nouvellette in itself. I can unveil you the mystery, lady. A lady of dazzling beauty was an in- mate of that mansion, and, for aught I know to the contrary, its only inmate. Every afternoon, arrayed in simple white, with a flower or two in her hair, she was seated at the drawing-room win- dow, gazing out upon the gay spectacle Broadway exhibits on a pleasant after- noon. I saw her the first moment I took possession of my dormant nook, and was struck with her surprising loveliness. Every evening I paid distant homage to her beauty. Dare a poor scribbler, a mere penny-a-liner, aspire to a nearer approach to such a divinity, enshrined in dollars and cents? No! I worshipped like the publican, "afaroflT." " 'Tis distance lend* 388 THE EOMANCE OF BROADWAY. enchantment to the view." But she was not de.stined to be so worshipped by all. One afternoon she was at her window, with a gilt-leaved volume in her hand, when a gentleman of the most graceful bearing rode past my window. He was well mounted, and sat his horse like an Arabian. He was what the boarding- school misses would call an elegant fel- low ; a well-bred woman of the world, a remarkably handsome man. Tall, with a fine oval face, a black penetrating eye, and a moustache upon his lip, together with a fine figure, and the most perfect address, he was what I should term a cap- tivating and dangerous man. His air, and a certain indescribable comme il faut, be- spoke him a gentleman. As he came op- posite her window, his eye, as he turned it thither, became fascinated with her beauty. How much lovelier a really lovely creature appears seen through " plate glass ! " Involuntarily he drew in his spirited horse, and raised his hat. The action, the manner and the grace were inimitable. At this unguarded mo- ment the hind wheel of a rumbling omnibus struck his horse in the chest. The animal reared high, and would have fallen backward upon his rider, had he not, with remarkable presence of mind, stepped quietly and gracefully fi-om the iStirrup to the pavement, as the horse, losing his balance, fell violently upon bis side. The lady, who had witnessed with surprise the involuntary homage of the stranger, for such, from her manner of veceiving it, he evidently was to her, started from her chair and screamed con- vulsively. The next moment he had secured and remounted his horse, which was only slightly stunned by the fall, acknowledged the interest taken in his mischance by the fair being who had been its innocent cause (unless beauty were a crime) by another bow, and rode slowly and composedly onward, as if nothing unusual had occurred. The next even- ing the carriage was at the door of the mansion. The liveried footman was stand- ing with the steps down, and the handle of the dqor in his hand. The coachman was seated upon his box. I was, as usual, at my window. The street door opened, and, with a light step, the graceful form of my heroine came forth and descended to the carriage. At that moment — (some men surely are born under the auspices of more indulgent stars than others) — ^the stranger rode up, bowed with ineffable grace and — (blessed encounter that, with the omnibus wheel !) — his bow was ac- knowledged by an inclination of her su- perb head, and a smile that would make a man of any soul seek accidents even in the " cannon's mouth." He rode slowly forward, and, in a few seconds, the car- riage took the same direction. There are no inferences to be drawn from this, reader. All the other carriages passed the same route. It was the customary one. At the melting of twilight into night, the throng of riders and drivers repassed. The " lady's " carriage — (it was a landau, and the top was thrown back) — came last of all. The cavalier was riding beside it. He dismounted as it drew up before the door, assisted her to ihepavi, and took his leave. For several after- noons, successively, the gentleman's ap- pearance, mounted on his noble animal, was simultaneous with that of the lady at her carriage. One evening they were unusually late on their return. Finally, the landau drew up before the door. It was too late to see faces, but I could have sworn the equestrian was not the stranger ! No ; he dismounted, opened the door of the carriage, and the gentleman and lady descended. The footman had rode his horse, while he, happy man, occupied a seat by the side of the fair one. I watched the progress of this amour ior sev- eral days, and still the stranger had never entered the house. One day, however, about three o'clock P. M., I saw him lounging past, with that ease and self-pos- session which characterized him. He passed and repassed the house two or three times, and then rather hastily ascending the steps of the portico — pulled at the bell. The next moment he was admitted, and disappeared out of my sight, but only for a moment, reader. An attic hath its advantages. The blinds of the drawing-room were drawn, and impervious to any glance from the street ; but the leaves were turned so as to admit the light of heaven and my own gaze. I could see through the spaces, directly down into the room, as distinctly as if there was no obstruction. This I give as a hint to all concerned, who have revolving leaves to their Venetian blinds. Attic gentlemen are much edified there- by. The next moment he was in the room, his hand upon his heart — another, and I saw him at her feet. Sir — would DON'T DO IT AGAIN. 389 that I had language to paint you the scene I Lady — I then learned the " art of love ! " I shall have confidence, I have so good a pattern, when I go to make my declaration. The declaration, the confession, the acceptation, all passed heneath me most edifyingly. Then came the labial seal that made his bliss secure. By hia animated gestures, I could see he waa urging her to some sudden step. She, at first, appeared reluctant, but gradu- ally becoming more placable, yielded. In ten minutes the landau was at the door. They came out arm in arm, and entered it. I could hear the order to the coachman, " Drive to St. John's Church." " An elopement ! " thought I. " Having been in at breaking cover, I will be in at the death I " and taking my hat and gloves, I descended, as if I carried a pol- icy of insurance upon my life in my pocket, the long flights of stairs to the street, bolted out of the front door, and followed the landau, which I discerned just turning the corner of Canal street. I followed full fast on foot. I eschew omnibuses. They are vulgar ! When I arrived at the church, the carriage was before it, and the "happy pair" already joined together, were just crossing the troitoir to re-enter it. The grinning foot- man, who had legally witnessed the cere- mony, followed them. The next day, about noon, a capacious family carriage rolled up to the door of the mansion, followed by a barouche with servants and baggage. First de- scended an elderly gentleman, who cast his eyes over the building, to see if it stood where it did when he left it for the Springs. Then came, one aiter another, two beautiful girls, then a handsome young man. " How glad I am that I have got home again !" exclaimed one of the young ladies, running up the steps to the door. "I wonder where Jane is, that she does not meet us ? " The sylph rang the bell as she spoke. I could see down through the blinds into the drawing-room. There was a scene ! The gentleman was for going to the door, and the lady, his bride, was striving topreventhim! "You shan't!" "Iwilll" "I sa,y you shan't!" "I say I will ! " were interchanged as certainly between the parties, as if I had heard the words. The gentleman, or rather husband, pre- vailed. I saw him leave the room, and the next moment open the street door. The young ladies started back at the pre- sence of the new footman. The old gentleman, who was now at the door, in- quired as he saw him, loud enough for me to hear, " Who in the devil's name are you, sir?" " I have the honor to be your son-in- law ! " " The devil you have I and who may you have the honor to be ? " "The Count L y!" with a bow of ineffable condescension. " You are an impostor, sir I " '■ Here is your eldest daughter, my wife," replied the newly-made husband, taking by the hand his lovely bride, who had come imploringly forward as the dis- turbance reached her ears. " Here is my wife, your daughter." " You are mistaken, sir, she is my housekeeper." A scene followed that cannot be de- scribed. The nobleman had married the gentleman's housekeeper. She had spread the snare, and, like many a wiser fool, he had fallen into it. Half an hour afterward a hack drove to the servants' hall door, and my heroine came forth, closely veiled, with bag and baggage, and drove away. The Count, for such he was, I saw no more ! I saw his name gazetted as a passenger in a packet ship that sailed a day or two after for Havre. How he escaped from the man- sion remaineth yet a mystery. Hence- forth, dear reader, I most conscientiously eschew matrimony. By J. p. Inqeaham, 1839. DON'T DO IT AGAIN. St. Gregory the Great aflirms that a little monk got into such a habit of work- ing miracles, that at length the prior for- bade him to exercise his supernatural talent. The monk conformed to the order ; but one day seeing an honest bricklayer falling from the roof of a house, he hesi- tated between the monastic obedience and charity in saving the poor man's life ; and only ordering him to remain in the air till he got orders, he ran to acquaint the prior with the case. The prior gave him absolution for the sin of beginning _ a miracle without leave, and allowed him to go through with it, hut never todothe like again. 390 THE SUNDAY QUESTION. THE SUNDAY QUESTION. [Thomas Hood was born in London, in 1798, and after leaving school waa placed in the counting-bouse of a Russian merchant ; but hia health failing, he was sent to Dundee. At the age of 17 he returned to London, and engaged himself to learn the art of engraving with his uncle. In 1821 he was offered the post of sub-editor of the London Magazine^ which be accepted, and at once entered upon its duties and an extensive Uterary acquaintance. His first separate publication was en- titled, — Odes and Addresses to Great People. He pub- lished Whime and Oddities in 1826, of which a second and third series appeared during the two following years. In 1829 he commenced The Comic Annual, and continued it for nine years. He edited The Gun for one year, contributing to its pages his strik- ing poem entitled, — Eiujene Aram^s Bream. In 1839 he published Up the Rhine, the idea of which waa taken from Humphry Clinker. On his return to Eng- land he became the editor of The New Monthly Magazine, and on hia withdrawal fnim ita management, in 1843, he published Wliimsicalities, consisting chiefly of his contributions to that serial. In 1844 he started Hood^s Magazine, and contributed to its pages till within a month of his death. During hia last illness Sir Robert Peel conferred on him a pension of £100 a year, which was transferred to his wife. He died May 3, 1845, and waa buried in Kensall Green cemetery.] " It is the king's highway that we are in, and in this way it ia that thou hast placed the lions." — Buntan. What I shut the Gardens I look the latticed gate! Refuse the shilling and the fellow's ticket I And hang a wooden notice up to state, On Sundays no admittance at this wicket I The Birds, the Beasts, and all the Reptile race, Denied to friends and visitors till Monday I Now, really, this appears the common case Of putting too much Sabbath into Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? The Gardens — so unlike the ones we dub Of Tea, wherein the artisan carouses — Mere shrubberies without one drop of shrub — Wherefore should they be closed like pubUo- houses ? No ale is vended at the wild Deer's Head — No rum — nor gin — not even of a Monday — The Lion is not carved — or gilt— or red, And does not send out porter of a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? The Bear denied ! the Leopard under locks I As if his spots would give contagious fevers ! The Beaver close as hat within its box ; So different from other Sunday beavers ! The Birds invisible — the Gnaw-way Rats — The seal hermetically sealed till Monday — The Monkey tribe — the Family of Oats — We visit other families on Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? What is the brute profanity that shocks The super-sensitively serious feeling? The Kangaroo — is he not orthodox To bend his legs, the way he does, in kneel- ing? Was strict Sir Andrew, in his Sabbath coat, Struck all a-heap to see a Coati mundi f Or did the Kentish Plumtree faint to note The Pelicans presenting bills on Sunday ? — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? What feature has repulsed the serious set ? What error in the bestial birth or breeding. To put their tender fancies on the fret? One thing is plain — it is not in the feeding I Some stiffish people think that smoking joints Are carnal sins 'twixt Saturday and Mon- day — But then the beasts are pious on these points, For they all eat cold dinners on a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? What change comes o'er the spirit of the place. As if transmuted by some spell organic ? Turns fell Hyena of the Ghoulish race ? The Snake, pro tempore, the true Satanic ? Do Irish minds (whose theory allows That now and then Good Friday falls on Monday — Do Irish minds suppose that Indian Cows Are wicked Bulls of Bashan on a Sunday ? — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? There are some moody Fellows, not a few. Who, turned by nature with a gloomy bias, Renounce black devils to adopt the blue. And think when they are dismal they are pious : Is't possible that Pug's untimely fun Has sent the brutes to Coventry till Mon- day?— Or perhaps some animal, no serious one, Was overheard in laughter on a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? What dire offense have serious Fellows found To raise their spleen against the Regeut'i spinney ? Were charitable boxes handed round, THE SUNDAY QUESTION. 891 And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea? Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to molt The feathers in her head — at least till Mon- day ; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday ? But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? At whom did Leo struggle to get loose ? Who mourns through Monkey-tricks his damaged clothing ? Who has been hissed by the Canadian Goose ? On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing ? Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, Because he preyed ex tempore as well As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? To me it seems that in the oddest way (Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious — As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk About the grounds from Saturday till Mon- day, As any harmless man to take a walk. If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sun- day — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, As surely as I am a Christian scion, I cannot think it is a mortal sin — (Unless he's loose) — to look upon a lion. I really think that one may go, perchance. To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday — (That is, provided that he did not dance) — Bruin's no worse than bakin' on a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? In spite of all the fanatic compiles, I cannot think the day a bit diviner Because no children, with forestalling smiles, Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor — It is not plain, to my poor faith, at least, That what we christen " Natural " on Mon- day, The wondrous history of Bird and Beast, Can be unnatural because it's Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? Whereon is sinful fantasy to work ? The Dove, the winged Columbus of man's haven? The tender Love-Bird — or the filial Stork ? The punctual Crane — the providential Ea- ven? The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young ? Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday That feathered marvel with a human tongue, Becauseshe does notpreacli upon a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy? The busy Beaver— that sagacious beast I The Sheep that owned an Oriental Shep- herd — That Desert-ship, the Camel of the East, The horned Ehinoceros — the spotted Leop- ard— The Creatures of the Great Creator's hand Are surely sights for better days than Mon- day — The Elephant, although he wears no band. Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sun- day? But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? What harm if men who burn the midnight oil. Weary of frame, and worn and waa of fea- ture, Seek once a week their spirits to assoil, And snatch a glimpse of "'Animated Na- ture ? " Better it were if, in his best of suits. The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, Should spend a leisure hour among the brutes, Than make a beast of his own self on Sun- day^ But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? Why, zounds ! what raised so Protestant a fuss (Omit the zounds ! for which I make apolo- gy) But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus Had somehow mixed up Dens with their Theology ? Is Brahma's Bull — a Hindoo god at home — A Papal Bull to be tied up till Monday ? Or Leo, like his namesake, Pope of Borne, That there is such a dread of them on Sun- day — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? Spirit of Kant 1 have we not had enough To make religion sad, and sour, and snub- bish. But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast — rattling rub- bish 1 392 THE BACUELOR'S DREAM. Ouoe let the sect, triumpliant to their text, Shut Nero up from Saturday till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday — But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy ? Thomas Hood. THE BACHELOR'S DREAM. My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, My curtains drawn and all is snug ; Old Puss is in her elbow chair, And Tray is sitting on the rug. Last night I had a curious dream, Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg — What d'ye think of that, my cat ? AVhat d'ye think of that, my dog ? She look'd so fair, she sang so well, I could but woo and she was won ; Myself in blue, the bride in white, The ring was placed, the deed was done I Away we went in chaise-and-four, As fast as grinning boys could flog — Wliat d'ye think of that, my cat ? What d'ye think of that, my dog ? What loving tUes-d-titts to come ! What tUes-d,-tetes must still defer I When Susan came to live with me, Her mother came to live with her I With sister Belle she couldn't part, But all my ties had leave to jog — What d'ye think of that, my cat ? What d'ye think of that, my dog 1 The mother brought a pretty Poll — A monkey, too, what work he made ! The sister introduced a beau — My Susan brought a favorite maid. She had a tabby of her own, — A snappish mongrel christened Gog, — What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dog ? The monkey bit — the parrot screamed, All day the sister strummed and sung ; The petted maid was such a scold 1 My Susan learned to use her tongue ; Her mother had such wretched health. She sat and croaked like any frog — What d'ye think of that, my cat ? ffliat d'ye think of that, my dog ? No longer Deary, Duck, and Love, I soon came down to simple "Ml" The very servants crossed my wish, My Susan let me down to them. The poker hardly seemed my own, I might as well have been a log — What d'ye think of that, my cat 1 What d'ye think of that, my dog ? My clothes they were the queerest shape I Such coats and hats she never met ! My ways they were the oddest ways I My friends were such a vulgar set ! Poor Tompkinson was snubbed and huffed. She could not bear that Mister Blogg — What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dog ? At times we had a spar, and then Mamma must mingle in the song — The sister took a sister's part — The maid declared her master wrong — The parrot learned to call me " Fool I " My life was like a London fog — What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dog ? My Susan's taste was superfine, As proved by bills that had no end ; I never had a decent coat — I never had a coin to spend ! She forced me to resign my club. Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dog ? Each Sunday night we gave a rout To fops and flirts, a pretty list ; And when I tried to steal away I found my study full of whist ! Then, first to come, and last to go, There always was a Captain Hogg— What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dogf Now, was not that an awful dream For one who single is and snug — With Pussy in the elbow-chair, And Tray reposing on the rug 1 — If I must totter down the hill 'Tis safest done without a clog — What d'ye think of that, my cat? What d'ye think of that, my dog? Teouai Hood, DOMESTIC POEMS. 393 DOMESTIC POEMS. GOOD-NIGHT. The sun was slumbering in the west, my daily labors past ; On Anna's soft and gentle breast my head re- clined at last; The darkness closed around, so dear to fond congenial souls ; And thus she murmured in my ear, " My love, we 're out of coals ! " That Mister Bond has called again, insisting on his rent ; And all the Todds are coming up to see us out of Kent; I quite forgot to tell you, John has had a tipsy fall;— I 'm sure there 's something going on, with that vile Mary Hall ! " Miss Bell has bought the sweetest silk, and I have bought the rest — Of course, if we go out of town, Southend will be the best. I really think the Jones's house would be the thing for us ; I think I told you, Mrs. Pope had parted with her nils — • " Cook, by the way, came up to-day, to bid me suit myself — Ajid, what d' you think ? the rats have gnawed the victuals on the shelf. And, Lord ! there 's such a letter come, inviting you to the fight I Of course you don't intend to go — God bless you, dear, good-night ! " Thomas Hood. II. A PAKENTAL ODE TO MY SON, AGED THEBB YEARS AND FIVE MONTHS. Thou happy, happy elf I (But stop— first let me kiss away that tear) — Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he 's poking peas into his earl) Thou merry, laughing sprite I With spirits feather-light. Untouched by sorrow, and unsoiled by sin — (Good heavens ! the child is swallowing a pin !) Thou little tricksy Puck ! With antic toys so funnily bestuck. Light as the singing bird that wings the air — (The door ! the door ! he '11 tumble down the stair !) Thou darling of thy sire ! (Why, Jane, he '11 set his pinafore afire I) Thou imp of mirth and joy! In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link. Thou idol of thy parents— (Drat the boy ! There goes my ink I) Thou cherub— but of earth ; Fit playfellow for Fays, by moonlight pale. In harmless sport and mirth, (That dog will bite him if he pulls its tail !) Thou human humming-bee, extracting honey From every blossom in the world that blows. Singing in youth's elysium ever sunny, (Another tumble I— that's his precious nose I) Thy father's pride and hope ! (He '11 break the mirror with that skipping- rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from Nature's mint — (Where did he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove ! (He '11 have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the Hymeneal nest I (Are those torn clothes his best ?) Little epitome of man ! (He '11 climb upon the table, that 's his plan !) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life— (He's got a knife I) Thou enviable being I No storms, no clouds, in thy blue sky fore- seeing, Play on, play on. My elfin John ! Toss the light ball — bestride the stick — (I knew so many cakes would make him sick I) With fancies, buoyant as the thistle-down. Prompting the face grotesque, and antic brisk. With many a lamb-like frisk, (He 's got the acissora, snipping at your gown !) 394 FAITHLESS NELLY GEAY. Thou pretty opening rose ! (Go to your mother, child, and wipe your nose!) Balmy and breathing music like the South, (He really brings my heart into my mouth !) Fresh a^ tke morn, and brilliant as its star — (I wish that window had an iron bar !) Bold as the hawk, yet gentle as the dove — (I '11 tell you what, my love, I can not write, unless he 's sent above !) Thomas Hood. III. A BBEENADE. "Lullaby, O, lullaby!" Thus I heard a father cry, " Lullaby, O, lullaby I The brat will never shut an eye ; Hither come, some power divine 1 Close his lids, or open mine ! " " Lullaby, O, lullaby I What the devil makes him cry ? Lullaby, O, lullaby ! Still he stares — I wonder why, Why are not the sons of earth Blind, like puppies, from their birth?' ' " Lullaby, O, lullaby ! " Thus I heard the father cry ; " Lullaby, O, lullaby ! Mary, you must come and try ! — flush, O, hush, for mercy's sake — The more I sing, the more you wake I " "Lullaby, O, lullaby I Fie, you little creature, fie I Lullaby, O, lullaby ! Is no poppy-syrup nigh ? Give him some, or give Mm all, I am nodding to his fall ! " "Lullaby, 0, lullaby! Two such nights and I shall die ! Lullaby, O, lullaby ! He '11 be bruised, and so shall I — How can I from bed-posts keep. When I 'm walking in my sleep I " "Lullaby, O, lullaby ! Sleep his very looks denv — Lullaby, 0, lullaby i Nature soon will stupefy — My nerves relax — my eyes grow dim — Who 's that taUeu — me or him ? " Thomas Hoc* FAITHLESS NELLY GEAY. A PATHETIC BALLAD. Ben Battle was a soldier bold. And used to war's alarms ; But a cannon-ball took ofi' his legs, So he laid down his arms ! Now, as they bore him oflF the field, Said he, " Let others shoot, For here I leave my second leg, And the Forty-Second Foot ! " The army-surgeons made him limbs ; Said he, they're only pegs : But there's as wooden Members quite As represent my legs ! '' Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, Her name was Nelly Gray ; So he went to pay her his devours. When he devoured his pay ! But when he called on Nelly Gray, She made him quite a scoff; And when she saw his wooden legs. Began to take them off! " O, Nelly Gray ! O, Nelly Gray ! Is this your love so warm ? The love that loves a scarlet coat Should be more uniform ! " Said she, " I loved a soldier once. For he was blithe and brave; But I will never have a man With both legs in the grave ! " Before you had those timber toea. Your love I did allow ; But then, you know, you stand upon Another footing now ! " "O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray I For all your jeering speeches At duty's call I left my legs. In Badajos's breeches!" THE EGGS. 395 " Why then,'' said she, " you've lost the feet Of legs in war's alarms, And now you cannot wear your shoes Upon your feats of arms 1 " "O, false and fickle Nelly Gray I I know why you refuse : — Though I've no feet — some other man Is standing in my shoes ! " I wish I ne'er had seen your face ; But now, a long farewell ! For you will be my death ; — alas ! You will not be my Nell 1 " Now when he went from Nelly Gray, His heart so heavy got, And life was such a burden grown, It made him take a knot I So round his melancholy neck A rope he did entwine, And, for his second time in life. Enlisted in the Line. One end he tied around a beam, And then removed his pegs. And, as his legs were off— of course He soon was off his legs ! And there he hung, till he was dead As any nail in town — For though distress had cut him up. It could not cut him down I A dozen men sat on his corpse. To find out why he died— And they buried Ben in four cross-roads. With a stake in his inside I Thomas Hood. STANZAS TO AN EGG. [bt a spoon.] Pledge of a feathered pair's affection, Ednapped in thy downy nest, Soon for my breakfast — sad reflection ! — Must thou in yon pot be drest. What are the feelings of thy mother? Poor bereaved, unhappy hen ! Though she may lay, perchance, another, Thee she ne'er will see again. Yet do not mourn. Although above thee Never more shall parent brood. Know, dainty darling ! that I love thee Dearly as thy mother could. Punch. THE EGGS. FROM THE SPANISH OP YRIABTB. Beyond the sunny Philippines An island lies, whose name I do not know ; But that's of little consequence, if so You understand that there they had no hens; Till, by a happy chance, a traveler. After a while, carried some poultry there. Fast they increased as any one could wish ; Until fresh eggs became the common dish. But all the natives ate them boiled — they say— Because the stranger taught no other way. At last the experiment by one was tried — Sagacious man !— of having his eggs fried. And, ' what boundless honors for his pains. His fruitful and inventive fancy gains ! Another, now, to have them baked devised — Most happy thought ! — and still another, spiced. Who ever thought eggs were so delicate ! Next, some one gave his friends an omelette : "Ah I" all exclaimed, "what an ingenious feat!" But scarce a year went by, an artiste shouts, " I have it now — ye 're all a pack of louts ! — With nice tomatoes all my eggs are stewed." And the whole island thought the mode so good, That they would so have cooked them to this day, But that a stranger wandered out that way. Another dish the gaping natives taught, And showed them eggs cooked 6, la Suguenot. Successive cooks thus proved their skill di- verse ; But how shall I be able to rehearse All of the new, delicious condiments That luxury, from time to time, invents ? Soft, hard, and dropped, and now with sugar sweet. And now boiled up with milk, the eggs they eat; In sherbet, in preserves ; at last they tickle 39S THE EEAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. Their palates fanciful with eggs in pickle. All had their day — the last was still the best. But a grave senior thus, one day, addressed The epicures: "Boast, ninnies, if you will. These countless prodigies of gastric skill — But blessings on the man who brought the hens ! ' ' ppyond the sunny Philippines .)uv crowd of modern authors need not go New-fangled modes of cooking eggs to show. Translated by 8. H. Devereux. THE EEAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. [Alfred Henry Forrester, comic and miscellaneous writer and artist, (born 1S05, died 18Y2,) published Leaves from My Memnrandwm Booh, Eccentric Tales, lite Wan- derings of a Pen and Pencil, The Comic ArWmietic, The Phantasmagoria of Fun, A Btmdle of Oi'muqivUls, Mai/ic and Meaning It, Railway Raillery, Absurdities, and many other works. He wrote under the nom de plume of Crowquill.] OHAPTEE I. Of the Birth and Parentage of our Hero. Anno Mundi 2530, or, by Christian cal- culation, 3307 years ago, there appeared in the fashionable morning papers of Arabia — according to the beat authority. Rumor — the following notice : " Births — Yesterday morning her Royal Highness Myrrha, only daughter of His Most Gra- cious Oynaras, King of Cyprus, of a son." It is our melancholy task to, record that her royal highness was not "so well as could be expected " after her accouche- ment ; in fact, as the nurse declared, with tears in her eyes, " the poor dear moped and moped, and died at last like a lamb ! " There was certainly some secret sorrow preying upon her mind; but her pro- found silence threw a veil of mystery over her misfortunes, which it is not in the power of our historic pen to raise. There is only one little circumstance which may tend to cast a glimmering ray upon the dense obscurity which envel- iped this singular affair — no certificate of her marriage could be discovered 1 Had she lived, the gossips would have had a fine field for the exercise of their peculiar talents ; but de mortuis nil nisi honum was a maxim which the heathens of those distant days considered it a particular virtue to observe. The gods (who of course were " let into the secret ") were touched with her misfortunes, and transformed her into a tree. But, as our story has nothing further to relate touch- ing Myrrha, we will proceed with the nar- ration of the adventures of Adonis, who was the fruit and only branch of the said tree. Some nymphs in the neighborhood (young ladies more celebrated for the purity of their minds than the extent of their wardrobe) took compassion upon the lovely orphan, and brought him up " by hand " in the caves of Arabia. They all declared he was a darling, and took a pride in rearing and instructing their curly-headed pet ; and as he grew up and flourished under their care, they felt a peculiar delight in teaching him many little tricks, which, it must be admitted, he never afterwards forgot. Any other child would have been neglected or lost sight of; but Nature had been so lavish in her gifts of grace and beauty towards him, that he was an unceasing topic of conversation in the neighborhood. There were, of course, sundry conjec- tures touching his paternity. Some went so far as to say that he was a son of Ju- piter ; others of Apollo ; while the crab- bed old crones, who disliked his prattle and playfulness, declared he was the son of somebody of a very different character, utrum horum — but stay, most elegant goose-quill ! nor condescend to chronicle these hypotheses, a nobler task is before thee. Yes I thou shalt indite a tale more welcome to the taste of the reader than the stuffed and roasted goose from whose wing thou wert untimely plucked I CHAPTER II. Of his going forth into the World, Young gentlemen till a certain age may conduct themselves very peaceably in a "ladies' preparatory establishment; " but no sooner do they feel themselves springing into hobbledyhoyism, than they become restive as colts, and break from the silken tethers to which they have been previously bound ! Never was this simple truism more positively exem- plified than in the conduct of Master Adonis. Beautiful in person, and wonderfully precocious, he fled from the protectresses of his tender years and presented himself THE REAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. 397 «t the court of Byblos in Phoenicia, where his personal qualifications and eloquent address immediately won the favor and attention of the reigning monarch. Un- der such august patronage he speedily be- came a profacient in all the accomplish- ments of the age; and his excellence in all attainments was such that he even outstripped the shafts of envy. All the young men imitated him — all the women adored him ; in fine, he was the leading dandy of his day — minus the tailor-part of the modern beau. CHAPTEE III. Of his Hunting, and the extraordinary Game lie started. Like many other gallants of his time, Adonis could draw the long-bow — throw the javelin — or the hatchet I and took great delight in the pleasures of the chase. Pursuing his recreations amidst the shades of Libanus, he one day, after having slain and transformed a dappled denizen of the forest into venison, threw himself upon a bank of thyme to seek repose after his ex- ertions (and what time could be better suited to the purpose?) — his antlered prize lying at his feet. After whistling awhile for want of thought, his ideas grad- ually congregated in his cranium, and burst forth in the following animated STRAIN : When I hear at morn Chanticleer a-crowing, The merry hunter's horn. And all the kine a-lowing, I hear the boys are out. And for Adonis craving ; So quickly turn about. And then — begin a-shaving. Toora-loora-loo — Toora-loora-lido I OflF I cast my cap. And put on all my habits, Then pray where is the chap Like me to hunt the rabbits ? Both right and left I dart My well-directed arrows. And pierce right through the heart At least a score of sparrows. Toora-loora-loo — Toora-loora-lido I Of all the sports I know. The chase to me the best is ; The rooks my clever bow Knocks clean out of their nestea I I strike the buck in dell. Or 'cross the green lawn skippimg, As sure as Billy Tell Will hit the golden pippin. Toora-loora- loo — Toora-loora-lido I Enamored Echo took up the plaintive burden of this simple song, and "toora- loora-loo " rang through the leafy forest, till, at last, after many cadences and varia- tions, it gave up the ghost in the cave of Silence. He had, however, other audi- ence than the twittering birds, for, look- ing around him, he beheld a pair of the loveliest eyes that ever reflected the blue sky looking wistfully upon him. Zephy- rus parted the envious leaves, and hia ravished sight was fixed by two blooming cheeks pertaining to ditto. He rose like a mist drawn up by the rays of the meridian sun from some stag- nant pool. He was enchanted ; he was a complete bankrupt in speech and locomo- tion ; and like many another bankrupt, would most probably have been lost had not certain advances been made. The goddess Venus approached the enamored hunter. The titles of god and goddess at that period were as plentiful, by the bye, as those of Baron and Baroness are now-a-days in Eussia or Germany. " O, gentle youth 1 " cried she, " sing me that sweet song again ; and let my ears drink in the intoxicating melody of your voice." Adonis, however, was too much absorb- ed in the contemplation of his new ac- quaintance to attend to her flattering encore ; " and so, instead of a song, treated her with an " overture " of love, which was most favorably received. Leave we the lovers amidst the leaves to their pleasant conversation, while we give our readers some particulars of this lovely and interesting female. CHAPTER IV. The story of Venus. At the period of this, our true and au- thentic history, there was a remarkably popular watering-place at the foot of Mount Cythera, frequented by all the ton and fashion of the day. Attending upon one of the " machines " was one of those red-faced, blue-garbed mer-women, whose peculiar province it was to " dip " nervous ladies and squalling bantlings in the 398 THE REAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. briny wave : some fine specimens of the genus are still extant at Margate and other places, where smoke-dried citizens an- nually migrate for ablution. Well, this worthy woman happened to have a daugh- ter, who proved as unlike her mother as the sweet rose is to the prickly tree on which it blooms. Now, the bathing-wo- man having no ostensible partner, the ladies of her craft waggishly declared that Venus (the name of the infant) was born of the sea,— a poetical conceit of which both ancient and modern writers have not only taken advantage, but " worked up " with astonishing effect. Years elapsed, and Venus grew more beautiful every succeeding day ; her edu- cation was, unfortunately, not the "gen- teelest," as she diurnally consorted with boatmen and bathing-women; and her mother, fearing her daughter might get into some untoward scrape, accepted the offer of a certain blacksmith in the neigh- borhood, named Vulcan, who was well-to- do in the world, and bestowed her off- spring upon him in marriage. In point of personal beauty, it is impos- sible to imagine a more unequal union, for he was not only the most ordinary man in the town, but extra-OTdinnry, and extremely low and vulgar in his speech and manners. In a worldly view, how- ever, it was an excellent match, for he carried on a " roaring trade ; " and for some time the couple lived as most mar- ried couples do. But it happened in the following sea- son that a regiment was quartered in the town ; and the young and handsome Colonel Mars, who was very partial to his horses, went to the " smithy " to see his favorite charger shod. Venus came into the smithy during the operation with a pot of porter for her husband's morning draught, — Vulcan was hammer- ing away at a red-hot horsehoe,— a ran- dom spark struck Mrs. V.'s hand, and she let fall the potation. With wrathful glare, and awful denunciations, the black- smith approached his trembling " rib." Colonel Mars, with that ready gallantry for which the " cloth " has always been famed, promptly interceded, and parried the impending blow. The pearly tears rolled down the blushing cheeks of Mrs. v., like dew-drops upon a rose leaf, while sobbing, she exclaimed, — " You cruel brute, to — to — use — me so 1 " and falling into hysterics fit for the occasion, the enchanted Colonel sup- ported her in his protecting arms. Vulcan growled, and finished the job. The next morning Mars, disgusted with the place, had marched, bearing witlj him V.'s ill-used wife, who, at his earn- est solicitation, had consented to put herself under his care and protection; and she was now living in genteel re- tirement in a small cottage orn^ on thfe borders of the forest of Libanus. CHAPTEE V. Which treats of our Hero's acquaintance viith Venus. Asparagus springs up in a single night , equally sudden is the growth of love; yea, even as the cowslip and convolvu lus expand beneath the noon-day sun, so do the affections unfold themselves before the smiles of beauty. Adonis, armed with his bow and quiver^ and his boar-spear in his hand, now daily betook himself to the leafy coverti/ of the forest. It was, however, a remark- able circumstance that he, who was the keenest sportsman of the court of Byblos now rarely returned with any ferine spoil. He was laughed at by his companions for his want of success ; but he only re- turned their jocular sallies with a smile. The fact is, Venus was the only " dear " he sought ; and urged by love, he had signed an amnesty with all the bucks and fawns that he once pursued so zealously. The bow of Adonis was never bent ; fof the beau of Byblos was always at the feet of the enchanting daughter of the old bathing- woman of Cythera. It is an old maxim that " love and a cough cannot be hid ; " and consequently his absorb- ing amour was soon discovered by the gallant Colonel M., who would have called out his formidable rival on the instant, had he not apprehended that, should any fatal consequence result to the reigning favorite of the court oi Byblos, he might run a narrow chance of losing his commission. With the intui- tive caution, therefore, of an old soldier, he determined secretly to undermine the fortress he could not venture openly to assail. With this resolution he cunningly de- vised the plot which we shall lay before the eyes of our sagacious reader in the following chapter. THE REAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. 399 CHAPTER VI. Colonel Mars consults with, Diana. Diana held the ostensible situation of keeper of the forest of Libanus, a sine- cure which, from the oldest times, has been conferred upon spinsters of the no- blest families. To her the engaging sol- dier addressed himself on the subject of his complaint, relating to her, with a sigh, and in the most delicate phrase of his vocabulary, the naughty "goings on" which he pretended accidentally to have discovered during his perambulations in her wide domain. The Goddess of Chastity blushed so deeply at the recital of the indignity which had been offered to her by the in- cautious lovers, that a bystander would really have imagined the virgin's face to have been a mirror in which the red coat of the warlike informer was reflected. The fair huntress stamped with rage, and summoned her train to her presence in an instant, that she might have the ad- vantage of their collective wisdom in discussing this perilous affair. "Dear lady!" inquired one of the foremost, bow in hand, " what game is started?" " Game, indeed ! " said Diana; " here's a pretty kettle of fish ! That fellow Ado- nis—" " What, that pretty man ? " " Pretty man ! " repeated Diana. " I desire, Miss, that you never talk of pretty men to me. If I thought for a moment that you, or any of you, had dared to look upon a man and think of him, I would discharge you immediately with- out a character." The whole bevy of damsels made a unanimous declaration that they would not for the world have been so wicked. " Listen to me," continued she, with the authoritative tone of the mistress of a ladies' boarding-school ; " this Adonis has dared to make assignations with a female in our territory." " O, shocking ! " issued from the lips of the awe-struck group in one voice. " This worthy gentleman," pointing to Mars, who humbly bent to her, while, with the tail of his eyes, he leered at her train. " This worthy gentleman, with feelings which do honor to his strict morality (the Colonel drew his breath and looted rather sheepish at thisun- "aaerited compliment), has made a state- ment to me of the whole disgraceful proceedings. Now, I know that to seek for his condign punishment at the court is a hopeless task ; for mine own honor, I must therefore be the judge and the executioner in this flagrant business." Diana pondered for a moment, and then resumed, — " It has just flashed across my mind that we can settle this business in a twink- ling." She uttered this sentence so volu- bly that all the nymphs were sensibly excited by her animation. " You know," continued their leader, "that we have a huge he-pig in the sty, — an untamable brute, with a corkscrew tail and a pretty considerable pair of tusks." '' The Duke of Tuscany ? " said one of the nymphs. "The same," replied Diana: "and it is my intention to give the ferocious beast his freedom ; and, by my bow and quiver I I think if he encounters this spruce gal- lant, he'll spoil his sport." "Admirable!" exclaimed the delighted Colonel M. ; " consummate wisdom ! and if Adonis escape, it will certainly be in spite of his teeth!" Diana and her nymphs laughed heartily at this sally, and the thing was deter- mined upon. The cunning and revenge- ful Mars made his obeisance to the fair huntress and her train, and departed with the firm assurance of their active co-operation in his well-concerted plans. CHAPTER VII. 77ie Last. The sun arose and the son of the ar- borified Myrrha departed from the court to the accustomed rendezvous. His elastic step and his beating heart were as light as the luxuriant curls that clustered upon his ivory brow. The little birds were warb- ling their matutinal songs to a running accompaniment of the rippling rivulets, when Adonis was suddenly startled from his amorous reverie by a rustling among the leaves, accompanied by a most un- musical grunt. He had scarcely time to poise his spear when the tremendous tusks of the " well-acorned boar" protruded from the thicket. " What a boar I " exclaimed the elegant and accomplished swain, in a mingled tone of admiration and dismay. He eyed his bristly hide for a moment, and then hurled his death-dealing aha 400 THE REAL FACTS ABOUT VENUS AND ADONIS. unerring dart at the porcine monster. It struck him, but recoiled again like a feather shuttlecock from a parchment battledore. The boar now bore down upon him with redoubled fiiry, and ere he could recover his legs or his surprise, pierced the unfortunate Adonis in the thigh. In vain he cried for help or struggled with his fate; he was unable to stay the boar or save his bacon ! ***** When the unsuspecting Venus came trippingly forward to meet her beloved Adonis — "Here I am, at length!" she cried, laughing, and Adonis, could he have spoken, would have appropriately echoed her very words, without the laugh, how- ever ; for there he lay upon his favorite bank of thyme, like a child's diaper pina- fore on a Sunday morning, with all the marks of the mangling upon him ! The beautiful daughter of the old bathing- woman uttered a shriek that would have pierced the ears of a rhinoceros. But the remorseless hand of death had slackened the drum of his, and he heard not. When she became aware of the full extent of her misfortune, she wildly expressed every demonstration of sorrow and de- spair — " Pariterque sinus, pariterque capillos Rupit, et indignis percussit pectora palmis ! " Vide Ovidii metamor. lib x. Alfred Ceowqotll. The subjoined incident is sent to us by a Southern correspondent, as related by a Virginia negro. If it is true, the parrot was certainly a remarkable bird : " You see," said he, " dis parrot be- longed to a baker in Richmond. Now, each baker is 'lowed to make a certain number of loaves ebery day, and no more, 'cordin' to how many customers he got; 'cause if dey bake too much, dey will be serviu' out stale bread to de customers. Well, dis baker had baked more'n his share one day, and hid de rest ob 'um under de counter. De parrot was hangin' in his cage, and see it all. Bime-by, in comes de inspector, and finds de bread all right, and is goin' out agin satisfied, when de parrot cocks his eye at him, and sings out, ' Dere's more bread under the counter ! ' So de inspector grabs it. 'cordin' to law, and carries it oft'. Wei!, den de baker goes to de parrot, werry mad, and takes him by the de head and fotches him a twitch or two, and flings him into de gutter for dead, 'longside of a pig just dead of the measles. Bime-by. de parrot begins to crawl about, his feathers a stickin' out, and his head lopped on one side, and den he stops and looks at de pig, werry pitiful, and says he, ' did you say any ting about de bread f ' " An Ohio correspondent becomes sponsor for the following, which, as a matter of fact, he wishes to put on record. Whit- taker is one of the richest men in those parts, and has made his money by driving sharp bargains. His hired man was one day going along with aloadof hay, which he overturned upon a cow. The poor thing was smothered to death before they could get her out. Her owner, Jones, called upon Mr. Whittaker the next day, and demanded payment for the loss of his cow. "Certainly," said Mr. Whittaker, " what do you suppose she was worth?" "Well, about ten dollars," said Jones. " And how much did you get for the hide and tallow?" " Ten dollars and a half, sir." " Oh, well, then you owe me just fifty centa." Jones was mystified, and Whittaker very fierce in his demand, and before Jones could get the thing straight in his mind, he forked over the money. BND OF VOLTJME IV.