have produced an insipid uniformity of character, a money-
grubbing, care-worn monotony, that cry aloof to eccentricity
and whim. Men are thinking of “stratagems and wars,” the
inevitable consequence of lots of logic, lack of amusement,
and lean diet. No man is a traitor over turtle, or hatches
plots with good store of capon and claret in his stomach.
Had Cassius been a better feeder he had never conspired
against Cæsar. Three meals a day, and supper at night, are
four substantial reasons for not being disloyal, lank, or
lachrymose.
“In this world ninety-nine persons out of one hundred must toil for their bread before they eat it; ask leave to toil,—some philanthropists say, even before they hunger for it. I have therefore yet to learn how that which makes human labour a drug in the market can be called, an improvement. The stewardships of this world are vilely performed. What blessings would be conferred, what wrongs prevented, were it not for the neglect of opportunities and the prostitution of means. Is it our own merit that we have more? our neighbour's delinquency that he has less? The infant is born to luxury;—calculate his claims! Virtue draws its last sigh in a dungeon; Vice receives its tardy summons on a bed of down! The titled and the rich, the purse-proud nobodies, the noble nothings, occupy their vantage ground, not from any merit of their own; but from that lucky or unlucky chance which might have brought them into this breathing world with two heads on their shoulders instead of one! I believe in the theoretical benevolence, and practical malignity of man.”
We never knew Mr. Bosky so eloquent before; the boat became lop-sided under the fervent thump that he gave as a clencher to his oration. Barney Binnacle stared; but with no vacant expression.
His rugged features softened into a look of grateful approval, mingled with surprise.
“God bless your honour!”
“Thank you, Barney Some people's celestial blessings save their earthly breeches-pockets. But a poor mans blessing is a treasure of which Heaven keeps the register and the key.”
Barney Binnacle bent on Mr. Bosky another inquiring look, that seemed to say, “Mayhap I've got a bishop on board.”
“If every gentleman was like your honour,” replied Barney, “we should have better times; and a poor fellow wouldn't pull up and down this blessed river sometimes for days together, without yarning a copper to carry home to his hungry wife and children.” And he dropped his oar, and drew the sleeve of his threadbare blue jacket across his weather-beaten cheek.
This was a result that Mr. Bosky had not anticipated.
“How biting,” he remarked, “is the breeze! Egad, my teeth feel an inclination to be so too!” The fresh air gave him the wind in his stomach; a sufficient apology for the introduction of a cold pigeon-pie, and some piquant etceteras that he had provided as a whet to the entertainment in agreeable perspective at Battersea Rise. Opining that the undulation of the boat was likely to prevent “good digestion,” which—though everybody here helped himself—should “wait on appetite,” he ordered Barney to moor it in some convenient creek; and as Barney, not having been polished in the Chesterfield school, seemed mightily at a loss how to dispose of his hands, Mr. Bosky, who was well-bred, and eschewed idleness, found them suitable employment, by inviting their owner to fall to. And what a merry party were we! Barney Binnacle made no more bones of a pigeon than he would of a lark; swallowed the forced-meat balls as if they had been not bigger than Morrison's pills; demolished the tender rump-steak and flaky pie-crust with a relish as sweet as the satisfaction that glowed in Mr. Bosky's benevolent heart and countenance, and buzzed the pale brandy (of which he could drink any given quantity) like sugared cream! The Lauréat was magnificently jolly. He proposed the good healths of Mrs. Binnacle and the Binnacles major and minor; toasted old Father Thames and his Tributaries; and made the welkin ring with
MRS. GRADY'S SAINT MONDAY VOYAGE TO BATTERSEA.
Six-foot Timothy Glover,
Son of the brandy-nos'd bugleman,
He was a general lover,
Though he was only a fugleman;
Ogling Misses and Ma'ams,
Listing, drilling, drumming'em—
Quick they shoulder'd his arms—
Argumentum ad humming'em!
Mrs. Grady, in bonnet and scarf,
Gave Thady the slip on Saint Monday,
With Timothy tripp'd to Hore's wharf,
Which is close to the Glasgow and Dundee.
The river look'd swelling and rough,
A waterman plump did invite her;
“One heavy swell is enough;
I'm up to your craft—bring a lighter!”
They bargain'd for skipper and skiff,
Cry'd Timothy, “This is a windy go!”
It soon blew a hurricane stiff,
And blue look'd their noses as indigo!
“Lack-a-daisy! we're in for a souse!
The fish won't to-day see a rummer set;
Land us at Somerset House,
Or else we shall both have a summerset!”
They through the bridge Waterloo whirl'd
To Lambeth, a finer and fatter see!
Their shoulder-of-mutton sail furl'd,
For a shoulder of mutton at Battersea.
Tim then rang for coffee and tea,
Two Sally Luns and a crumpet.
“I don't like brown sugar,” said he.
“If you don't,” thought the lad, “you may lump it.”
To crown this delightful regale,
Waiter! your stumps, jolly boy, stir;
A crown's worth of oysters and ale,
Ere we give the sail homeward a hoister!”
“Of ale in a boiling-hot vat,
My dear daddy dropp'd, and was, Ah! boil'd.”
“A drop I can't relish of that
In which your papa, boy, was parboil'd.”
Fresh was the breeze, so was Tim:
How pleasant the life of a Midge is;
King Neptune, my service to him!
But I'll shoot Father Thames and his bridges!
His levee's a frosty-faced fair,
When Jack freezes him and his flounders;
His river-horse is but a may'r,
And his Tritons are cockney ten-pounders!
“Tim Glover, my tale is a trite'un;
I owe you a very small matter, see;
The shot I'll discharge, my polite'un,
You paid for the wherry to Battersea.
“With powder I've just fill'd my horn;
See this pocket-pistol! enough is it?
You'll twig, if a gentleman born,
And say, f Mr. Grady, quant. sujfficit.'”
Mrs. Grady, as other wives do,
Before my Lord May'r in his glory,
Brought Thady and Timothy too.
Cry'd Hobler, “O what a lame story!
“You cruel Teague, lest there accrue ill,
We'll just bind you over, Sir Thady,
To keep the peace.”—“Keep the peace, jewel
Not that piece of work, Mrs. Grady!”
His Lordship he gaped with surprise,
And gave the go-by to his gravity;
His cheeks swallow'd up his two eyes,
And lost in a laugh their concavity.
Then Grady gave Glover his fist,
With, f 1{ Truce to the shindy between us I”
Each lad, when the ladies had kiss'd,
Cut off with his hatchet-faced Venus!
Ogling misses and ma'ams,
Listing, drilling, drumming'em—
Quick they shoulder'd his arms—
Argumentum ad humming 'em.
The concluding chorus found us at the end of our excursion. Barney Binnacle was liberally rewarded by Mr. Bosky; to each of his children he was made the bearer of some little friendly token; and with a heart lighter than it had been for many a weary day, he plied his oars homeward, contented and grateful.
“Talk of brimming measure,” cried the Lauréat exultingly, “I go to a better market. The overflowings of an honest heart for my money!”
In former days undertakers would hire sundry pairs of skulls, and row to Death's Door * for a day's pleasure.
4to. 1691, names the principal London Taverns and their
Signs, as they then existed. But the most curious account is
contained in an old ballad called “London's Ordinary: or
every Man in his Humour” printed before 1600. There is not
only a humorous list of the taverns but of the persons who
frequented them. In those days the gentry patronised the
King's Head (in July 1664, Pepys dined at the “Ordinary”
there, when he went to Hyde Park to see the cavaliers of
Charles
II. in grand review); the nobles, the Crown: the knights,
the Golden Fleece; the clergy, the Mitre; the vintners, the
Three Tuns; the usurers, the Devil; the friars, the Nuns;
the ladies, the Feathers; the huntsmen, the Greyhound; the
citizens, the Horn; the cooks, the Holy Lamb; the drunkards,
the Man in the Moon; the cuckolds, the Ram; the watermen,
the Old Swan; the mariners, the Ship; the beggars, the Egg-
Shell and Whip; the butchers, the Bull; the fishmongers, the
Dolphin; the bakers, the Cheat Loaf; the tailors, the
Shears; the shoemakers, the Boot; the hosiers, the Leg; the
fletchers, the Robin Hood; the spendthrift, the Beggar's
Bush; the Goldsmiths, the Three Cups; the papists, the
Cross; the porters, the Labour in vain; the horse-coursers,
the White Nag. He that had no money might dine at the sign
of the Mouth; while
“The cheater will dine at the Checquer;
The pickpocket at the Blind Alehouse;
'Till taken and try'd, up Holborn they ride,
And make their end at the gallows.”
Then it was not thought infra dig. (in for a dig?) to invite the grave-digger: the mutes were the noisiest of the party; nothing palled on the senses; and to rehearse the good things that were said and sung would add some pungent pages to the variorum editions of Joe Miller. But undertakers are grown gentlemanlike and unjolly, and Death's Door exhibits but a skeleton of what it was in the merry old times.
We were cordially received by their president, the comical coffin-maker, who, attired in his “Entertaining Gown” (a mourning cloak), introduced us to Mr. Crape, of Blackwall; Mr. Sable, of Blackman-street; Mr. Furnish of Blackfriars; and Mr. Blue-mould, of Blackheath: four truant teetotallers, who had obtained a furlough from their head-quarters, the Tea-Kettle and Toast-Rack at Aldgate pump. Messrs. Hatband and Stiflegig, and Mr. Shovelton, hailed us with a friendly grin, as if desirous of burying in oblivion the recent émeute at the Pig and Tinder-Box. The club were dressed in black (from Blackwell Hall), with white neckcloths and high shirt-collars; their clothes, from a peculiar and professional cut, seemed all to have been turned out by the same tailor; they marched with a measured step, and looked exceedingly grave and venerable. Dinner being announced, we were placed in the vicinity of the chair. On the table were black game and black currant-jelly; the blackstrap was brought up in the black bottle; the knives and forks had black handles; and Mr. Rasp, the shroud-raaker, who acted as vice, recommended, from his end of the festive board, some black pudding, or polony in mourning. The desert included black grapes and blackberries; the rules of the club were printed in black-letter; the toasts were written in black and white; the pictures that hung round the room were in black frames; a well-thummed Sir Richard Blackmore and Blackwood's Magazine lay on the mantel; the stove was radiant with black-lead; the old clock-case was ebony; and among the after-dinner chants “Black-ey'd Susan” was not forgotten. The host, Mr. Robert Death, had black whiskers, and the hostess some pretty black ringlets; the surly cook looked black because the dinner had been kept waiting; the waiter was a nigger; and the barmaid had given boots (a ci-devant blackleg at a billiard-table) a black eye. A black cat purred before the fire; a black-thorn grew opposite the door; the creaking old sign was blackened by the weather; and to complete the sable picture, three little blackguards spent their half-holiday in pelting at it! The banquet came off pleasantly. Mr. Merripall, whose humour was rich as crusted port, and lively as champagne, did the honours with his usual suaviter in modo, and was admirably supported by his two mutes from Turnagain-lane; by Mr. Catchpenny Crambo, the bard of Bleeding-Hart-Yard, who supplied “the trade” with epitaphs at the shortest notice; Mr. Sexton Shovelton, and Professor Nogo, F.R.S., F.S.A., M.R.S.L., LL.B., a learned lecturer on Egyptian mummies.
“Our duty,” whispered Mr. Bosky, “is to
Hear, see, and say nothing.
Eat, drink, and pay nothing!”
After the usual round of loyal and patriotic toasts, Mr. Merripall called the attention of the brethren to the standing toast of the day.
“High Cockolorums and gentlemen! 'Tis easy to say 'live and let live;' but if everybody were to live we must die. Life is short. I wish—present company always excepted—it was as short as my speech!——The grim tyrant!”
Verbum sat.; and there rose a cheer loud enough to have made Death demand what meant those noisy doings at his door.
“Silence, gentlemen, for a duet from brothers Hatband and Stiflegig.”
Had toast-master Toole * bespoke the attention of the Guildhall grandees for the like musical treat from Gog and Magog, we should hardly have been more surprised. Mr. Bosky looked the incarnation of incredulity.
to shout the health of “the three present Consuls,” at my
Lord Mayor's feast, proclaimed the health of the “Three per
Cent. Consols,”
After a few preliminary openings and shuttings of the eyes and mouth, similar to those of a wooden Scaramouch when we pull the wires, Brothers Hatband and Stiflegig began (chromatique),
Hatband. When poor mutes and sextons have nothing
to do,
What should we do, brother?
Stiflegig. Look very blue I
Hatband. Gravediggers too?
Stiflegig. Sigh “malheureux!”
Hatband. Funerals few?
Stiflegig. Put on the screw!
Hatband. But when fevers flourish of bright scarlet
hue,
What should we do, brother?
Stiflegig. Dance fillalloo!=——
Both. Winter to us is a jolly trump card, fine hot May makes a fat churchyard!
Stiflegig. Should all the world die, what the deuce
should we do?
Hatband. I'll bury you, brother!
Stiflegig. I'll bury you!
Hatband. I'll lay you out.
Stiflegig. No doubt! no doubt!
Hatband. I'll make your shroud.
Stiflegig. You do me proud!
Hatband. I'll turn the screw.
Stiflegig. The same to you!
Hatband. When you're past ailing,
I'll knock a nail in!
Last of the quorum,
Ultimus Cockolorum!
When you're all dead and buried, zooks! what
shall I do?
Cockolorums in full chorus.
Sing High Cockolorum, and dance fillalloo!
“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Merripall, again rising, “all charged? Mulligrum's Pill!”
Doctor Dose, a disciple of that art which is founded in conjecture and improved by murder, returned thanks on the part of Messrs. Mulligrum, Thorogonimble and Co. It was a proud day for the pill; which through good report and evil report had worked its way, and fulfilled his predictions that it would take and be taken. He would not ask the Cockolorums to swallow one.—Here the mutes made horribly wry faces, and shook their heads, as much as to say it would be of very little use if he did.—It was sufficient that the pill bore the stamp of their approbation, and the government three-halfpenny one; and he begged to add, that all pills without the latter, and the initials of Mulligrum, Thorogonimble, and Dose, were counterfeits.
The table sparkled with wit. Mr. Merripall cracked his walnuts and jokes, and was furiously facetious on Mr. Rasp, a rough diamond, who stood, or rather sat his horse-play raillery with dignified composure. But Lumber Troopers * are men, and Ralph Rasp was a past Colonel of that ancient and honourable corps. He grew more rosy about the gills, and discharged sundry short coughs and hysterical chuckles, that betokened a speedy ebullition. His preliminary remark merely hinted that no gentleman would think of firing off Joe Millers at the Lumber Troop:—Ergo, Mr. Merripall was no gentleman. The comical coffin-maker quietly responded that the troop was a nut which everybody was at liberty to crack for the sake of the kernel!
New-street Square, and the Eagle and Child, Shoe Lane. The
members were an awkward squad to the redoubtable City
Trained Bands. It being found double hazardous to trust any
one of them with a pinch of powder in his cartouch-box, and
the points of their bayonets not unfrequently coming in
sanguinary contact with each other's noses and eyes, their
muskets were prudently changed for tobacco pipes, and their
cartouches for papers of right Virginia. The privileges of
the Lumber Trooper are great and manifold. He may sleep on
any bulk not already occupied; he may knock down any
watchman, provided the watchman does not knock him down
first; and he is not obliged to walk home straight, if he be
tipsy. The troop are supported by Bacchus and Ceres; their
crest is an Owl; the shield is charged with a Punch Bowl
between a moon, a star, and a lantern. The punch is to
drink, and the moon and star are to light them home, or for
lack of either, the lantern. Their motto is, In Node
Lcetamur.
A quip that induced on the part of Mr. Hatband a loud laugh, while the more sombre features of brother Stiflegig volunteered convulsions, as if they had been acted upon by a galvanic battery. Mr. Rasp coolly reminded Mr. Merripall that the grapes were sour, Brother Pledge having black-balled him. This drew forth a retort courteous, delivered with provoking serenity, that the fiction of the ball came most opportunely from a gentleman who had always three blue ones at everybody's service! The furnace that glowed in Mr. Rasp's two eyes, and the hearings of his bosom discovered the volcano that burned beneath his black velvet vest. His waistband seemed ready to burst. Never before did he look so belicose! Now, Mr. Bosky, who loved fun much, but harmony more, thinking the joke had been carried quite far enough, threw in a conciliatory word by way of soothing angry feelings, which so won the Lumber Trooper's naturally kind heart, that he rose from his seat.
“Brother Merripall, you are a chartered libertine, and enjoy the privilege of saying what you will. But—you were a little too hard upon the troop—indeed you were! My grandfather was a Lumber Trooper—my father, too—you knew my father, Marmaduke Merripall.”
“And I knew a right honourable man! And I know another right honourable man, my very good friend, his son! And—but———”
'Tis an old saying and a true one, that adversity tries friends. So does a momentary quarrel, or what is more germane to our present purpose, a mischievous badinage, in which great wits and small ones too, will occasionally indulge. Mr. Merripall had been wront—good naturedly!—to make Mr. Rasp his butt; who, though he was quite big enough for one, sometimes felt the sharp arrows of the comical coffin-maker's wit a thorn in his “too—too solid flesh.” The troop was his tender point.
“And who has not his tender point?” said Mr. Bosky, “except the man that caught cold of his own heart, and died of it!”
The hand of Mr. Rasp was instantly stretched forth, and met more than half way by that of Mr. Merripall.
“Brother,” said the president, “let me make amends to the troop by requesting you will propose me as a member. Only,” and he shot a sly glance from his eye, “save me from the balls, black and blue, of that Presbyterian pawnbroker, Posthumus Pledge of Pye-corner.”
Mr. Rasp promised to comply, and moreover to set forth his friend's military prowess to the best advantage.
“I think,” said he, “your division stormed the Press-yard, and captured the whipping-post, during the Aldersgate Street Volunteer campaigning in 1805.”
“Right, brother Ralph, and when the Finsbury awkward squad routed your left wing in the City Road, and you all ran helter-skelter into the boiled buttock of beef shop in the Old Bailey, we valiant sharp-shooters protected your flank, and covered your inglorious retreat!” And he entertained the company with this appropriate recitation:—
When all were in alarms,
(Boney threat'ning to invade us,)
And (“See the Conquering Hero comes!”)
General Wheeler, general dealer
In coffee, treacle, tea, tobacco, plums,
Snuff, sugar, spices, at wholesale prices,
And figs—(which, 's life!
At Fife
He sold in drums!)—
Would up and down parade us,
And cry, “Present!” and “Shoulder arms!”
When pert apprentices, God bless us!
And tailors did address and dress us,
With “Stand at ease!” (up to your knees
In mud and mire) “Make ready! Fire!”
Singeing the curls of Moses Muggs, Esquire—
A Briton, hot for fight and fame,
Burning to give the foes of Bull
Their belly-full,
Limp'd forth—but no admission!—he was lame.
“Lame!” cried the Briton; “zounds! I say,
I came to fight, and not to run away!”
“The red-coat,” continued Mr. Merripall, “has no vision beyond 'eyes right' He would march till doomsday, unless commanded to halt, and everlastingly maintain the same poker-like position, if the word were not given him to stand at ease. He goes forth to kill at a great rate,” ( Dr. Dose pricked up his ears,) “and be killed at a small one per diem (the mutes looked glum,) “carrying into battle a heart of oak, and out of it a timber toe!”
“Our visitors,” was the next toast.
“Gentlemen,” said the president, “we cannot afford the expensive luxury of drinking your healths; but we sincerely join in 'my service to you.'”
Here Dr. Dose passed over to us his box—not for a pinch, but a pill! which pill, though we might drink, we declined to swallow. Mr. Rasp was in high feather, and plied the four teetotallers very liberally with wine. Seeing the comical coffin-maker in committee with his two mutes, he chirruped joyously,
Mr. Chairman, I'll thank you not
Thus to keep the wine in the pound;
Better by half a cannon shot
Stop than the bottle!—so push it round.
Summer is past, and the chilling blast
Of winter fades the red red rose;
But wine sheds perfume, and its purple bloom
All the year round like the ruby glows!
Fill what you like, but drink what you fill,
Though it must be a bumper, a bumper, or nil.
Water congeals in frost and snows,
But summer and winter the red wine flows!
Now, my Cockolorums, for a volley in platoons!
Chorus.
The blossoms fall, and the leaves are sear,
And merry merry Christmas will soon be here;
I wish you, gentles, a happy new year,
A pocket full of money, and a barrel full of beer!
A messenger arrived with a despatch for Mr. Merripall, announcing the demise of Alderman Callipash. There was an immediate movement on the part of the mutes.
“Gentlemen,” said the president, “no such violent hurry; the alderman will wait for us. Our parting toast first—The Dance of Death! Come, brother Crape, strike up the tune, and lead the carant.”
Original
Mr. Crape practised an introductory caper, in the process of which he kicked the shins of one Cockolorum, trod upon the gouty toe of another, and then led off, the club keeping the figure with becoming gravity, and chanting in full chorus:
Undertakers, hand in hand,
Are a jovial merry band;
Tho' their looks are lamentable,
And their outward man is sable,
Who on this side Charon's ferry
Are so blythe as those that bury?
Hark! hark! the Parish Clerk
Tunes his pitch-pipe for a lark!
As we gaily trip along
Booms the bell's deep, dull ding-dong!
Freaking, screaking, out of breath,
Thus we dance the Dance of Death!
The cricket cries, the owl it hoots,
Music meet for dancing mutes!
When burns brightly blue the taper,
Sextons, 'tis your time to caper.
Now our song and dance are done,
Home we hasten every one.
Messrs. Crape, Crambo, Sable, Shovelton, Hatband, and Stiflegig, joined a pleasant party outside of a hearse that had been doing duty in the neighbourhood; and an empty mourning-coach accommodated Mr. Rasp, Mr. Bluemould, Dr. Dose, and Professor Nogo. Mr. Furnish, and a few, heated with wine, took water; but as the moon had just emerged from behind a black cloud, and shone with mild lustre, we preferred walking, particularly with the jocular companionship of Mr. Bosky and Mr. Merripall. And Death's door was closed for the night.
CHAPTER IV.
Had we been inclined to superstition, what a supernatural treat had been the discourse of Mr. Merripall! His tales of “goblins damned” were terrible enough to have bristled up our hair till it lifted our very hats off our very heads. His reminiscences of resurrection men * were extensive and curious; he knew their “whereabouts” for ten miles round London.
the kennel, bagged, and bore him away to a certain
anatomist. The private bell gave a low tinkle, the side-door
down a dark court opened noiselessly, the sack was emptied
of its contents into the cellar, and the fee paid down. In
an hour or two after, the same ceremony (the subject being
really defunct) was repeated. The bell sounded a third time,
and the anatomical charnel-house received another inmate.
The tippler, having now slept off his liquor, began to grope
about, and finding all dark, and himself he knew not where,
bellowed lustily. This was just as the door was closing on
the resurrection men, who being asked what should be done
with the noisy fellow, answered coolly, “Keep him till you
want him!”
We mean not to insinuate that Mr. Merripall had any share in bringing his departed customers to light again. He was a virtuoso, and his cabinet comprised a choice collection of the veritable cords on which the most notorious criminals had made their transit from this world to the next. He was rich in mendacious caligraphy. Malefactors of liberal education obligingly favoured him with autograph confessions, and affectionate epistles full of penitence and piety; while the less learned condescendingly affixed their contrite crosses to any document that autographmania might suggest. The lion of his library was an illustrated copy of the Newgate Calendar, or New Drop Miscellany, and round his study its principal heroes hung—in frames! He boasted of having shaken by the hand—an honour of which Old Bailey amateurs are proudly emulous—all the successful candidates for the Debtors' Door for these last twenty years; and when Mr. Bosky declared that he had never saluted a dying felon with “My dear sir!” coveted his acquaintance, and craved his autograph, he sighed deeply for the Laureat's want of taste, grew pensive for about a second, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, exclaimed,
“Gentlemen, we are but a stone's throw from the Owl and Ivy Bush, where a society called 'The Blinkers' hold their nightly revels: it will well repay your curiosity to step in and take a peep at them. Their president has one eye permanently shut, and the other partially open; the vice has two open eyes, blinking 'like winkin' all the members are more or less somniferous; and though none of them are allowed to fall fast asleep at the club, it is contrary to etiquette to be wide awake. Their conversation is confined to monosyllables, their talk, like their tobacco, being short-cut. Their three cheers are three yawns; they sit round the table with their eyes shut, and their mouths open, the gape, or gap, being filled up with their pipes, from which rise clouds of smoke that make their red noses look like lighted lamps in a fog. To the Reverend Nehemiah Nosebags, their chaplain, I owe the honour of becoming a member; for happening to sit under his proboscis and pulpit, my jaws went through such a gaping exercise at his soporific word of command, that he proposed me as a highly promising probationer, and my election was carried amidst an unanimous chorus of yawns.”
“Here” exclaimed Mr. Bosky, “is the Owl and Ivy Bush.”
“No,” rejoined Mr. Merripall, “'tis the Three Jolly Trumpeters. On the opposite side of the way is the Owl and Ivy Bush.”
Mr. Bosky gazed at the sign, and then, with no small degree of wonderment, at Mr. Merripall. The Lauréat of Little Britain looked signs and wonders!
“I'll take my affidavit to the Owl!” raising his eye-glass to the solemn bird that winked wickedly beneath a newly-varnished cauliflower-wig of white paint; “and though the Ivy Bush looks much more like a birch broom, it looks still less like a Jolly Trumpeter.”
“Egad, you're right!” said the comical coffin-maker; “though, to my vision, it seems as if both houses had changed places since I last saw them.”
The contents of a brace of black bottles flowing under Mr. Merripall's satin waistcoat, and their fumes ascending to what lay within the circumference of his best beaver, might possibly account for this phenomenon.
“Hollo!”' cried the comical coffin-maker, as an uproarious cheer and the knocking of knuckles upon the tables proclaimed merry doings at the Owl and Ivy Bush, “the Blinkers were not wont to be so boisterous. What a riotsome rattle!—hark!”
And the following chorus resounded through the Owl and Ivy Bush:—
We're jovial, happy, and gay, boys!
We rise with the moon, which is surely full soon,
Sing with the owl, our tutelar fowl,
Laugh and joke at your go-to-bed folk,
Never think—but what we shall drink,
Never care—but on what we shall fare,—
Turning the night into day, boys!
“What think you of that, Mr. Merripall?” said the Lauréat of Little Britain.
We entered the room, and a company more completely wide awake it was never our good fortune to behold.
“Surely,” whispered Mr. Bosky, “that vociferous gentleman in the chair can never be your one-eye-shut-and-the-other-half-open president; nor he at the bottom of the table, with his organs of vision fixed, like the wooden Highlander's that stands entry over 'Snuff and Tobacco,' your blinking vice.”
Mr. Merripall looked incredulus odi, and would have made a capital study for Tam O'Shanter.
“Have the kindness to introduce me to the Rev. Nehemiah Nosebags,” said Mr. Bosky, again addressing his mute and mystified companion.
“Why not ask me to trot out the Pope?” replied the somewhat crotchety and comical coffin-maker.
A peal of laughter and huzzas echoed from the twin tavern over the way, and at the same moment mine host, who was very like a China joss, puffed up stairs, looking as wild as “a wilderness of monkeys,” with the astounding news that a trick had been played upon himself and brother publican by Lord Larkinton, Sir Frederick Fitz-fun, and the Honourable Colonel Frolick, who had taken the liberty of transposing their respective signs. Hence a straggling party of the Peep o' day Boys, whose proper location was the Three Jolly Trumpeters, had intruded into the taciturnity and tobacco of the Owl and Ivy Bush. This unravelled the cross purposes that at one time seemed to call in question the “mens sana in corpore sano” of Mr. Merripall.
“Many men,” addressing Mr. Bosky, as they jogged out of the Three Jolly Trumpeters, “like to enjoy a reputation which they do not deserve; but”—here Mr. Merripall looked serious, and in right earnest—“to be thought tipsy, my good friend, without having had the gratification of getting so, is,
'Say what men will, a pill
Bitter to swallow, and hard of digestion.'”
And the Lauréat of Little Britain fully agreed with the axiom so pertinaciously and poetically laid down by the comical coffin-maker.
The three practical jokers now emerged from their ambush to take a more active part in the sports. With the Peep of day Boys they would have stood no chance, for each member carried in his hand an executive fist, to which the noble tricksters were loth to cotton, for fear of being worsted. Lord Larkinton led the van up the stairs of the Owl and Ivy Bush, and dashing among the Blinkers, selected their president for his partner; Colonel Frolick patronized the vice; and Sir Frederick Fitzfun made choice of the Rev. Nehemiah Nosebags. The rest of the club were arranged to dance in pairs,—a very stout member with a very lean one, and a very short one with a very tall one,—so that there was variety, without being charming. Each danced with his pipe in his mouth. It was no pipe no dance.
They led off in full puff, dancing about, upon, and on all-fours under the tables. The fire-irons were confided to a musical brother, with instructions to imitate the triangles; and as the company danced round the room,—the room, returning the compliment, danced round them.
The club having been capered within an inch of their lives, Lord Larkinton begged Mr. Bo-peep to favour them with Jim Crow, consenting to waive the jump obligato, in consideration of his previous exertions. But he must sing it in character; and in the absence of lamp-black and charcoal, the corks were burnt, to enable Sir Frederick Fitzfun and Colonel Fro lick (my Lord holding his partner's physiognomy between his palms like a vice—the vice and Mr. Nosebags looking ruefully on) to transform Mr. Bopeep into a negro chorister. His sable toilet being completed, the president opened with “Jim Crow;” but his memory failing, he got into “Sich a gittin' up stairs.” At fault again, he introduced the “Last rose of summer,” then “The boaty rows” “Four-and-twenty fiddlers all of a row” “Old Rose and burn the bellows” “Blow high, blow low” “Three Tooley Street Tailors” “By the deep nine”
“I know a bank” and “You must not sham Abraham Newland”—all of which he sang to the same tune, “Jim Crow” being the musical bed of torture to which he elongated or curtailed them. As an accompaniment to this odd medley, the decanters and tumblers flew about in all directions, some escaping out at window, others irradiating the floor with their glittering particles. Colonel Frolick, brandishing a poker, stood before the last half inch of a once resplendent mirror contemplating his handiwork and mustaches, and ready to begin upon the gold frame. Every square of crown glass having been beaten out, and every hat's crown beaten in, Lord Larkinton politely asked the Rev. Nehemiah Nosebags to crown all with a song. The chaplain, looking as melancholy as the last bumper in a bottle before it's buzzed, snuffled, in a Tabernacle twang,
“The-e bir-ird that si-ings in yo-on-der ca-age.”
“Make your bird sing a little more lively,” shouted my Lord, “or we shan't get out of the cage to-night!”
Many a true word spoken in jest; for mine host, thinking his Lordship's next joke might be to unroof, batter down, or set fire to the Owl and Ivy Bush, rushed into the room marshalling a posse of the police, when a battle royal ensued, and sconces and truncheons, scraping acquaintance with each other, made “a ghostly rattle.” Disappointed of Mr. Nosebags' stave, and having no relish for those of the constables, we stole away, leaving Colonel Frolick beating a tattoo on some dozen of oil-skin hats; Lord Larkinton and Sir Frederick Fitzfun pushing forward the affrighted
Bopeep and his brethren to bear the brunt of the fray; an intolerable din of screaming, shouting servants, ostlers and helpers; and the barking of a kennel of curs, as if “the dogs of three parishes” had been congregated and let loose to swell the turmoil.
“The sons of care are always sons of night.” Those to whom the world's beauteous garden is a cheerless desert hide their sorrows in its friendly obscurity. If in one quarter the shout of revelry is heard, as the sensualist reels from his bacchanalian banquet,—in another, the low moan of destitution and misery startles night's deep silence, as they retire to some bulk or doorway to seek that repose which seldom lights but “on lids unsullied with a tear.” We had parted with our merry companions, and were hastening homeward, when, passing by one of those unsightly pauper prison-houses that shame and deface our land, we beheld a solitary light flickering before a high narrow casement, the grated bars of which told a mournful tale, that the following melody, sang with heart-searching pathos, too truly confirmed:—
A wand'rer, tho' houseless and friendless I roam,
Ah! stranger, I once knew the sweets of a home;
The world promised fair, and its prospects were bright,
My pillow was peace, and I woke to delight.
Do you know what it is from loved kindred to part?
The sting of the scorpion to feel in your heart?
To hear the deep groan of an agonised sire?
To see, broken-hearted, a mother expire?
To hear bitter mockings an answer to prayer?
Scorn pointing behind, and before you despair!—
To hunger a prey, and to passion a slave,—
No home but the outcast's, no rest but the grave!
To feel your brain wander, as reason's faint beam
Illumines the dark, frenzied, sorrowful dream;
The present and past!—See! the moon she rides higher
In mild tranquil beauty, and shoots sparks of fire!
The music ceased, the pauper-prison door opened, and a gentle voice, addressing another, was heard to say, “Tend her kindly—my purse shall be yours, and, what is of far higher import, though less valued here, God's holiest blessing. Every inmate of these gloomy walls has a claim upon your sympathy; but this hapless being demands the most watchful solicitude. She is a bruised reed bowed down by the tempest,—a heart betrayed and bleeding,—a brow scathed by the lightning of heaven! I entered upon this irksome duty but to mitigate the cruel hardships that insolent authority imposes upon the desolate and oppressed. With my associates in office I wage an unequal warfare; but my humble efforts, aided by yours, may do much to alleviate sufferings that we cannot entirely remove. She has lucid intervals, when the dreadful truth flashes upon her mind. Smooth, then, the pillow for her burning brow, bind up her broken heart, and the gracious Power that inflicts this just, but awful retribution will welcome you as an angel of mercy, when mercy, and mercy only, shall be your passport to his presence! Good night.”
The door closed, and the speaker—unseeing, but not unseen—hurried away. It was Uncle Timothy!
Bulky as a walrus, and as brutal, out-frogging the frog in the fable, an over-fed, stolid, pudding-crammed libel upon humanity, sailing behind his double chin, and with difficulty preserving his equilibrium, though propped up by the brawny arm of Catspaw Crushem, Mr. Poor Law Guardian Pinch—a hiccup anticipating an oath—commanded us to “move on.”
Addressing his relieving officer, he stammered out, en passant, “Hark'e, Catspaw, don't forget to report that crazy wagrant to the Board tomorrow. We'll try whether cold water, a dark crib, and a straight jacket won't spoil her caterwauling. The cretur grows quite obstroperous upon our gruel” (!!!)
O England! merrie England!
Once nurse of thriving men;
I've learn'd to look on many things,
With other eyes since then!