Merrie England in the Olden Time, Vol. 1

“Gentlemen,” said Uncle Timothy, and his eye glistened and his lip trembled, “the old minstrel must not depart hence without a full purse and a plentiful scrip. But first to bespeak him the best bed that this hostelrie affords, and compound a loving cup to warm his heart as he hath warmed ours. This chimney-corner shall be his harp's resting-place for the night, as perchance it hath been of many long since silent and unstrung.”

The middle-aged gentleman rose to usher in the minstrel; but paused as the harp and voice were again attuned, but to a livelier measure.

“THE PEDLAR'S PACK.=

“Needles and pins! Needles and pins!

Lads and lasses, the fair begins!

Ribbons and laces

For sweet smiling faces;

Glasses for quizzers;

Bodkins and scissors;

Baubles, my dears,

For your fingers and ears;

Sneeshing for sneezers;

Toothpicks and tweezers;

Garlands so gay

For Valentine's day;

Fans for the pretty;

Jests for the witty;

Songs for the many

Three yards a penny!

I'm a jolly gay pedlar, and bear on my back,

Like my betters, my fortune through brake and

through briar;

I shuffle, I cut, and I deal out my pack;

And when I play the knave, 'tis for you to play

higher!

In default of a scrip,

In my pocket I slip

A good fat hen, lest it die of the pip!

When my cream I have sipp'd,

And my liquor I've lipp'd,

I often have been, like my syllabub—whipp'd.

But a pedlar's back is as broad as its long,

So is his conscience, and so is his song!”

“An arrant Proteus!” said Uncle Timothy, “with the harp of Urien, and the knavery of Autolicus. But we must have him in, and see what further store of ballads he hath in his budget.”

And he rose a second time; but was anticipated by the Squire Minstrel, who entered, crying, “Largess! gentles, largess! for the poor harper of merry Stratford-upon-Avon.”

The personage making this demand was enveloped in a large, loose camlet cloak, that had evidently passed through several generations of his craft till it descended to the shortest. His complexion was of a brickdust rosiness, through which shone dirtiness visible; his upper-lip was fortified with a huge pair of sable mustachios, and his nether curled fiercely with a bushy imperial. His eyes, peering under his broad-brimmed slouched beaver, were intelligent, and twinkled with good humour. His voice, like his figure, was round and oily; and when he doffed his hat, a shock of coal-black wiry hair fell over his face, and rendered his features still more obscure.

“Well, goodman Harper,” cried Uncle Timothy, after viewing attentively this singular character, “what other Fittes, yet unsung, have you in your budget?”

“A right merry and conceited infinity!” replied the minstrel. “Nutmegs for Nightingales! a Balade of a priest that loste his nose for saying of masse, as I suppose; a most pleasant Ballad of patient Grissell; a merry new Song how a Brewer meant to make a Cooper cuckold, and how deere the Brewer paid for the bargaine; a merie newe Ballad intituled the pinnyng of the Basket; the Twenty-Five orders of Fooles; a Ditty delightful of Mother Watkin's ah; A warning well wayed, though counted a tale; and A prettie new Ballad, intytuled

'The crowe sits upon the wall,

Please one, and please all!

written and sung by Dick Tarlton! * Were it meet for you, most reverend and rich citizens, to bibo with a poor ballad-monger, I would crave your honours to pledge with me a cup to his merry memory.”

“Meet!” quoth Uncle Timothy. “Grammercy! Dick Tarlton is meat, ay, and drink too, for the best wit in Christendom, past, present, and to come!

Thy calling, vagrant though it be, shall not stand in the way of a good toast. What say you, my friends, to a loving cup with the harper, to Dick Tarlton, and Merrie England? The cup went round; and as the harper brushed his lips after the spicy draught, so did his right mustachio!

Uncle Timothy did not notice this peculiarity.

“Might I once more presume, my noble masters,” said the harper. “I would humbly——”

“Thou art Lord of Misrule for to-night,” replied Uncle Timothy. “Go on presuming.”

“The memory of the immortal Twenty-nine, and their patron, Holy Saint Thomas of Canterbury!”

And the minstrel bowed his head reverently, crossed his hands over his breast, and rising to his harp, struck a chord that made every bosom thrill again.

“Thy touch hath a finish, and thy voice a harmony that betoken cultivation and science.”

As the middle-aged gentleman made this observation, the mustachio that had taken a downward curve, fell to the ground; its companion, (some conjuror's heir-loom,) played at follow my leader; and the solitary imperial was left alone in its glory.

The harper, to hide his confusion, hummed Lo-doiska.

Uncle Timothy, espying the phenomenon, fixed his wondering eyes full in the strange man's face, and exclaimed, “Who, and what art thou?”

“I'm a palmer come from the Holy Land.” (Singing.)

“Doubtless!” replied Uncle Timothy. “A palmer of traveller's tales upon such ignoramuses as will believe them. Why, that mysterious budget of thine contains every black-letter rarity that Captain Cox * of Coventry rejoiced in, and bibliomaniacs sigh for. Who, and what art thou?”

“Suppose, signors, I should be some eccentric nobleman in disguise,—or odd fish of an amateur collecting musical tribute to win a wager,—or suppose-”

“Have done with thy supposes!” cried the impatient and satirical-nosed gentleman.

“Or, suppose—Uncle Timothy!” Here, with the adroitness of a practised mimic, the voice was changed in an instant, the coal-black wiry wig thrown off, the bushy imperial sent to look after the stray mustachios, the thread-bare camlet cloak and rusty beaver cast aside, and the chaffing quaffing, loud-laughing Lauréat of Little Britain stood confessed under a stucco of red ochre!

“Was there ever such a mountebank varlet!” shouted the middle-aged gentleman, holding fast his two sides.

“I followed close upon your skirts, and dogged you hither.”

“Dogged me, puppy!”

“Mr. Moses, the old clothesman, provided my mendicant wardrobe, and mine host lent the harp, which belongs to an itinerant musician, who charms his parlour company with sweet sounds. I intended, dear Uncle Timothy, to surprise and please you.”

“And in truth, Benjamin, thou hast done both. I am surprised and pleased!” And drawing nearer, with a suppressed voice, he added, “When sick and sorrowful, sing me that old harper's song. When thou only art left to smooth my pillow, and close my eyes sing me that old harper's song!

''Twill make me pass the cup of anguish by,

Mix with the blest, nor know that I had died.

“And you, Jacob Jollyboy,to plot against me with that Israelitish retailer of cast-off duds, Mr. Moses!” continued the satirical-nosed gentleman, labouring hard to conceal his emotion under a taking-to-task frown exceedingly imposing and ludicrous.

Mr. Jollyboy looked all confusion and cutlets.. “Where do you expect to go when you die?”

“Where Uncle Timothy goes, and 'je suis content, 'as the Frenchman said to not half so dainty a dish of smoking-hot Scotch collops as I have the honour to set before you.” And Mr. Jollyboy breathed, or rather puffed again.

The Lauréat,

“Neat, trimly drest,

Fresh as a bridegroom,” and his face new wash'd,

re-entered, and with his usual urbanity did the honours of the supper-table.

The Scotch collops having been despatched with hearty good will, Uncle Timothy restricted our future libations to one single bowl. “And mind, Benjamin, only one!” This was delivered with peculiar emphasis. Mr. Bosky bowed obedience to the behest; and, as a nod is as good as a wink, he nodded to Mr. Jollyboy.

The bowl was brought in, brimming and beautiful; and it was five good acts of a comedy to watch the features of Uncle Timothy. He first gazed at the bowl, then at the landlord, then at the lauréat, then at us, and then at the bowl again!

“Pray, Mr. Jollyboy,” he inquired, “call you this a bowl, or a caldron?”

Mr. Jollyboy solemnly deposed as to its being a real bowl; the identical bowl in which six little Jollyboys had been christened.

“Is it your intention, Mr. Jollyboy, to christen us too? Let it be tipplers, then, mine host of the Tabard!”

“As to the christening, Uncle Timothy, that would be nothing very much out of order—seeing

That some great poet says, I'll take my oath,

Man is an infant, but of larger growth.

“Besides,” argued Mr. Bosky, Socratically, the dimensions of the bowl were not in the record; and as I thought we should be too many for a halfcrown sneaker of punch-”

“You thought you would be too many for me! And so you have been. Sit down, Mr. Jollyboy, and help us out of this dilemma. Take a drop of your own physic.”

Mr. Jollyboy respectfully intimated he would rather do that than break his arm; and took his seat at the board accordingly.

“But,” said Uncle Timothy, “let us have the entire dramatis personæ of the harper's interlude. We are minus his groom of the stole. Send our compliments over the way for Mr. Moses.”

Mr. Moses was summoned, and he sidled in with a very high stock, with broad pink stripes, and a very low bow—hoping “de gentlemensh vash quite veil.”

“Still,” cried Mr. Bosky, “we are not all mustered. The harp!” And instantly the lauréat “with flying fingers touched the” wires.

“A song from Uncle Timothy, for which the musical bells of St. Saviour's tell us there is just time.” He then struck the instrument to a lively tune, and the middle-aged gentleman sang with appropriate feeling,

“THE TABARD.

“Old Tabard! those time-honour'd timbers of thine.

Saw the pilgrims ride forth to St. Thomas's shrine;

When the good wife of Bath

Shed a light on their path.

And the squire told his tale of Cambuscan divine.

From his harem th' alarum shrill chanticleer crew,

And uprose thy host and his company too;

The knight rein'd his steed,

And a f Gentles, God speed!'

The pipes of the miller right merrily blew.

There shone on that morning a halo, a ray,

Old Tabard I round thee, that shall ne'er pass away;

When the fam'd Twenty-Nine

At the glorified shrine

Of their martyr went forth to repent and to pray.

Though ages have roll'd since that bright April morn,

And the steps of the shrine holy palmers have worn,

As, weary and faint,

They kneel'd to their saint—

It still for all time shall in memory be borne.

Old Tabard! old Tabard! thy pilgrims are we!

What a beautiful shrine has the Bard made of thee I

When a ruin's thy roof,

And thy walls, massy proof—

The ground they adorn'd ever hallow'd shall be.”

CHAPTER VII.

Methinks, Benjamin,” said Uncle Timothy to the lauréat of Little Britain, as they sat tête-à-tête at breakfast on the morning after the adventure of the old harper,—“methinks I have conceded quite enough by consenting to play Esquire Bedel to the Fubsys, Muffs, and Flumgartens. A couple of lean barn-door fowls and a loin—or, as Mrs. Flumgarten classically spells it, a lion of fat country pork at Christmas, even were I a more farinaceous feeder than I am, are hardly equivalent to my approaching purgatory. You bargained, among other sights, for Westminster Abbey. Now what possible charm can the Poet's Corner have for the Fubsy family, who detest poets and poetry quite as much as ever did the second George 'boedry and bainding!' Then came the British Museum. I will now take leave to have my own way. Your eloquence, persuasive though it be, shall never talk me into a new blue coat and brass buttons.”

“Depend upon it, Uncle Timothy, Mrs Flurngarten will—”

“I know it, Benjamin. That full-blown hollyhock of the aristocracy of Mammon, who has a happy knack of picking a hole in everybody's coat, will not spare mine. Let her then, for economy's sake, pick a hole in an old coat rather than a new one.”

“The honour of our family is at stake,” urged the lauréat. “Respect, too, for Mrs. Flumgar-ten.”

Uncle Timothy whistled

“Sic a wife as Willie had,

I would na gie a button for her.

“But suppose, Benjamin, I should be so insane so stark, staring, ridiculously mad.” Here

Uncle Timothy paused to see what effect his budget of suppositions had upon Mr Bosky's nerves.

But Mr. Bosky kept his nerves well strung and his countenance steady, and let Uncle Timothy go on supposing.

“Suppose I should all at once depart from the sober gravity that belongs to my years, and exhibit myself in a blue coat and brass buttons—” Uncle Timothy again paused; but he might as well have whistled jigs to a milestone. The lauréat continued immoveable and mute.

“Benjamin—Benjamin Bosky!” cried Uncle Timothy, nettled at his provoking imperturbability, “if, out of a mistaken civility to your country cousins, and to rid myself of these annoying importunities, I should invite the caricaturist to pillory me in the print-shops—a blue coat and brass buttons are not the journey-work of twenty minutes—for by that time I must be equipped to start: And, to swaddle myself in a ready-made fit, too long at the top, and too short at the bottom—like the Irishman's blanket! No, Benjamin Bosky! For, though of figure I have nothing to boast—” here Uncle Timothy unconsciously (?) glanced at his comely person in a mirror—“I do not intend to qualify myself for a chair on the fifth of November.”

Mr Bosky still maintained a respectful silence.

“Therefore, Benjamin, were I inclined to forego my scruples, and oblige you for this once”—as Uncle Timothy saw the apparent impossibility of obliging, he spoke more freely of his possible compliance—“the thing, you see, is absolutely impracticable.”

Mr. Bosky looked anxiously at the clock, and Uncle Tim quite exulted that, while starting an insurmountable obstacle, he had dexterously—handsomely slipped out of a scrape.

At this moment a tap was heard at the door, and the old-fashioned housekeeper—a sort of animated dumb-waiter—brought in a blue bag for Uncle Timothy.

A carpet-bag is generally significant of its contents. Though now and then things not legitimately belonging to it will creep into a carpet-bag. But in a blue bag there is more room for conjecture. A very equivocal thing is a blue bag.

Uncle Timothy, after reading the direction thrice over, untied the blue bag, dived his hand in for its contents, and the first thing he fished up was a bran new blue coat, with brilliant brass buttons.

After turning the garment round and round and examining it attentively, he laid it aside, dived again and captured a rich black satin waistcoat.

The waistcoat underwent a similar scrutiny, and then took its station beside the blue coat.

A third dive brought to the surface a claret-coloured pair of continuations of a very quiet and becoming cut, to which was pinned a respectful note from Mr. Rufus Rumfit of Red Lion Square, stating that the suit had been made exactly to measure, and hoping that it would meet with Uncle Timothy's approbation.

“Pray, Benjamin,” inquired the satirical-nosed gentleman, “is this Rufus Rumfit at all given to drink? He talks of having taken my measure: he had surely taken more than his own when he hazarded such an assertion. Some would-be old beau—for the habiliments, I see, are of a mature fashion—is burning to disguise his person in this harlequin suit. My life on't, Mr. Rumfit will soon discover his mistake and be back again.” And' Uncle Timothy began to tumble the blue coat, black satin waistcoat, and claret-coloured continuations into the blue bag with all speed.

“The clock strikes. I have no time to lose.”

During this exhumation of Mr. Rumfit's handiwork, the Lauréat of Little Britain had been coaxing a favourite parrot, with whom he generally held converse at breakfast time, to talk: but the unusual sight of so much finery had completely absorbed Poll's attention, and he remained obstinately silent, leaving Mr. Bosky to tax his ingenuity how to prevent laughing outright in Uncle Timothy's face. But the affair admitting of no longer delay, he threw himself into a theatrical posture, and exclaimed,

“'Thou wert not wont to be so dull, good Tyrrel.'”

In an instant the scales fell from the middle-aged gentleman's eyes, and he exclaimed seriously, and trying to look reproachfully, “This, Benjamin, is another of your Tomfooleries.”

Mr. Bosky pleaded guilty; but urged, in mitigation, the rusty old black, and the brilliant bright blue: concluding with a glowing panegyric on the tout ensemble, which he declared to be the masterpiece of Mr. Rumfit's thimble and shears.

Uncle Timothy was in no humour to put himself out of one: and when, after a few minutes trying on the suit in his tiring-room, just to see—out of mere curiosity—if it did fit, he returned in full pontificalibus, a middle-aged Adonis! he seemed moderately reconciled to his new metamorphosis, and rang for the old-fashioned housekeeper.

Norah Noclack was a woman of few words. On her entrance she started, stared amazedly, and uttered the interjection, “Ah!” with the further additions of “Well, I'm sure!”

“—That with a cap and bells, a dark lantern, a pasteboard red nose, a chair, and half a score of ragged urchins to shout me an ovation, I should make an undeniable old Guy! Eh, Norah?”

The ancient housekeeper shook her antediluvian high-crowned cap and streamers in token of dissent, and Mr. Bosky was unutterably shocked at the impossible idea.

“Well,” added Uncle Timothy, strutting to and fro with mock dignity,

“'Since I am crept in favour with myself,

I will maintain it with some little cost!'

“Here, Norah, run and buy me sixpenny-worth of flowers to stick in my button-hole. No dahlias, or hollyhocks.”

Mr. Bosky suggested a sunflower.

The satirical-nosed gentleman looked a trifle serious, and the lauréat stood self-reproved.

Norah Noclack soon returned with a modest little bouquet, consisting of a last rose of summer, a violet or two, and, what was peculiarly appropriate, heartease.

A contest had very nearly arisen about Doctor Johnson's club, as Mr. Bosky irreverently called it, which was Uncle Timothy's constant companion. This valued relic had been accidentally mislaid, and there being no time to look for it, a handsome black cane, with a gold top and silk tassel, was its substitute. Mr. Bosky then dutifully tendered him a smart new beaver, intimating that the old one had that morning been converted into a nursery by his favourite pepper-and-salt puss. At this crowning specimen of the laureates ingenuity, Uncle Timothy smiled graciously, and being now gaily equipped, prepared to sally forth, when a knock of some pretension announced the presence of the august brotherin-law of Mrs. Flumgarten, one of the pleasure-taking tormentors of Uncle Timothy!

“The devil!” muttered the middle-aged gentleman. “The deuce,” “the dickens,” “rabbit it,” “drabbit it,” “boddikins,” or when anything intolerably queer excited him, “od's boddikins!” were the only expletives that escaped from the lips of Uncle Timothy. But “the devil!” Even Mr. Bosky looked momentarily aghast, and the old-fashioned housekeeper, shaking her head and shrugging up her shoulders, attributed the appalling words to the supernatural influence of the blue coat and brass buttons.

“Charmin' vether this is! Fine hautum mornin's these are!” grinned Mr. Muff (his tongue too big for his mouth, and his teeth too many for his tongue,) with a consequential, self-satisfied air, that seemed to say, “Beat that if you can.”

Uncle Timothy coolly remarked that the sun was just out; and Mr. Bosky, that the post was just in.

“Ven I began to dress me the vind was nor'-nor'-east, but it soon changed to sow-sow-west,” was the next profound remark volunteered by Mr. Muff.

“Then,” said the lauréat, “you and the wind shifted at much about the same time.”

The Muffs, Fubsys, and Flumgartens, could not understand a joke, which they always took the wrong way. The intelligent master mason, nothing moved, inquired, Anything new in Lit-tie Britain?”

“The barber's freshly painted pole * over the way,” replied Mr. Bosky.

“Or in Great Britain?” continued Mr. Muff.

“The moon,” rejoined Uncle Timothy.

The brother-in-law of Mrs. Flumgarten was at a dead lock.

Sounding the depths of his capacious intellect, his cogitative faculties were “in cogibundity of cogitation.” He soon rallied with, “How's the generality of things in general?”

It was now Uncle Timothy's and Mr. Bosky's turn to be posed! But the interrogator relieved them by suddenly recollecting the object of his mission—“I'm come, Mister Timviddy-”

“If, sir, you mean to address me,” said the satirical-nosed gentleman, “my name is not Timwiddy, but-”

“Timkins,” interrupted Mr. Muff.

“Anything you please,” rejoined Uncle Timothy, with the most contemptuous acquiescence. “Call me Alexander, Wat Tyler, Abelard, Joe Grimaldi, Scipio Africanus, Martin Van Butchell.”

“Ve vont quarrel about Christun names, Mister Timtiffin. Plain Timvig vill do for me. The Muffs and all that's a-skin to'em is not over-purtickler about names.”

Here the poll parrot, that had been listening to and scrutinizing the intruder from head to foot, struck up the old song,

“Don't you know the muffin man!

Don't you know his name?”

“A comical sort of a bird that is!” remarked the master mason. “I'm come, I say, Mister Tumvhim to fetch you to Mrs. Flumgarten; for she says it's werry mystified, but you gay-looking, dandyfied, middle-aged gentlemen, (Mrs. Flumgarten hates gay-looking, dandified, middle-aged gentlemen,) are awful loiterers by the vay. You can't see a smart bonnet or a pretty turn'd ankle, but you old galhant gay Lotharios must stop and look after'em; and that, she says, is werry low—and the Muffs, Fubsys, and Flumgartens hates vhat's low.”

Uncle Timothy made a low bow.

“Mrs. Flumgarten von't go to the Museum: she could abide the stuffed birds and monkeys; but she can't a-bear old war-ses, and old bronze-eyes. She hates, too, them Algerine (Elgin?) marbles.”

The middle-aged gentleman inwardly rejoiced at Mrs. Flumgarten's antipathies.

“And she von't go to the play, for Mrs. Flumgarten hates your acting nonsensical mock stuff; and she don't think she'll go to the Fancy Fair, for Mrs. Flumgarten—it's wery funny that—hates fun.”

At this moment, Mr. Bosky's Louis Quatorze clock struck a musical quarter, and the parrot responded with two lines from one of the laureat's lyrics;

“Quick! quick! be off in a crack;

Cut your stick, or'twill be on your back!”

and a tag (the schoolmaster had been abroad in Little Britain!) for which my Lord Mayor—the conservator of city morals and the Thames—would have fined him five shillings.

“That Poll parrot swears like a Chrishtun!” Mr. Muff then took hold of Uncle Timothy's arm, adding, “If ye don't make haste, Mrs. Flumgarten vill look as bitter as a duck biled vith camomile-flowers.”

Within my solitary bow'r

I saw a quarter of an hour

Fly heavily along!

Mr. Bosky's quarter flew by the “fast flying waggon that flies on broad wheels!”

“Ha! ha! 'no creature smarts so little as a fool.' Well said, Alexander the Little! Poll—pretty Poll!

Pretty Poll! let's you and I

Something merry and musical try,

Is my voice too high? too low?

Answer, Polly, yes or no!

Not a word, undutiful bird,

For barley-sugar and sugar-plums—fie!”

But Poll's eyes still goggled at the door through which Uncle Tim and his finery had vanished. An almond or two from that magazin de comfitures, Mr. Bosky's waistcoat pocket, soon revived in the abstracted bird a relish for the good things of this world. He wetted his whistle cordially with a spoonful of maraschino, and sharpening his beak against the wires of his cage, presented it for a salute. He then gave token of a song, and the lauréat led, to the tune of the “Dandy O!”

THE QUAKER DUET.=

O Tabitha, in truth, I'm a sober Quaker youth;

Then Hymen's knot, the pretty girls, to spite'em, tye.

My heart is in your trap; you've crimp'd it, like your

cap;

And much the spurrit moves me—hum!—to—

Poll.......Tye turn tye!

And when the knot is tyed, and you're my blushing

bride,

The damsels will (for leading apes must fright'em,)

tye

The rosy bands with speed. O yes, they will, indeed!

And the chorus at our meeting will be—

Poll.......Tye tum tye!

I cannot hear you sigh, ah! I will not see you cry, ah!

My constant Obadi-ah I to unite'em; tye

Our hands and hearts in one, before to-morrow's sun—

Then take thy tender Tabitha to—

Poll.......Tye turn tye!

CHAPTER VIII.

The Lauréat of Little Britain was now left at liberty to follow his daily avocations; but that liberty was no guarantee that he would follow them; except, as some folks follow the fashions, at a considerable distance. He read the morning papers, went upon 'Change, inquired the price of stocks, set his watch by the dial of Bow Church, returned home, turned over the leaves of his ledger, hummed, whistled, poked the fire, scribbled on the blotting-paper, and cracked a joke with his solemn clerk. Still, with all these manifestations of being mightily busy about doing nothing, it was obvious that his wits were running a wild goose chase after Uncle Timothy's new blue coat and brass buttons. But the oddest is behind. Mrs. Norah Noclack suddenly betrayed unwonted symptoms of vocality. Her first notes fell on the astonished ear of the solemn clerk, and served him as the ghost of Banquo did Macbeth—pushed him from his stool. He hurried to the stair-head, marvelling what musical coil could be going on in the still-room. He next applied his oblique eye to the key-hole, and,—seeing is believing,—beheld the locomotive old lass rehearsing a minuet before the mirror, to the chromatic accompaniment of her wiry falsetto. Big with the portentous discovery, he bustled to Mr. Bosky, to whom, after unpacking his budget of strange news, he proposed the instant holding of a commission of lunacy, for the due and proper administration of her few hundreds in long annuities, two large boxes, and a chest of drawers, full of old-fashioned finery, besides sundry trinkets, the spoils of three courtships.

A few days after, the carolling of Mrs. Norah surprised Uncle Timothy, who recognising the real culprit in the eccentric muse of Mr. Benjamin Bosky, he took the lauréat to task for putting his wardrobe into metre, hitching his Christian name into ludicrous rhyme, and turning the head and untuning the voice of the hitherto anti-musical Norah Noclack. Mr. Bosky exhibited deep contrition, but as Mr. Bosky's contrition bore considerable resemblance to Mr. Liston's tragedy, Uncle Timothy always dreaded to encounter it when anything serious was in the case. And so completely did the old chantress inoculate the solemn clerk with her musical mania, that one evening, when called upon for a toast and a song at the club * of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, held in an ancient trophied chamber over the venerable gateway of the Priory, he startled his brother knights with his unwonted enthusiasm. “Uncle Timothy! Sound trumpets! wave banners! shout voices!” This was the longest public oration that Mr. Fixture had made in his life. Certainly the only song that he was ever known to have sung was the old-fashioned housekeeper's——