The Comic Almanack, Volume 1 / An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humerous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities

12. Mr. Muntz complains of the ventilation of "the House," and advocates "more hair."

29. Restoration day. Hearts of oak cut their sticks.

"Our life is twofold," Byron says; and it's very certain that we pass an equal part before and behind the curtain;—from the chandler, whose trade's his prop, and contrives, all the week, to stop behind the counter of his shop, in the midst of red-herrings and split peas, French eggs, Prussian blue, Irish butter, and Dutch cheese, with many other articles similar to these—but Sunday he gives up to ease; and, "cutting the cheese" for the day, with his shay, makes a little display, and off for a trip drives away, with his wife in a toilet most gay, to 'bide by his side, with the pride of a bride, for a ride where their own wishes guide.

Then there's the gentleman some folks call a fop, who lodges very near the house-top, and dines off a solitary chop, in a coat too worn even to pop, and which no old clothesman would swop—that's the shop!—Then he turns out a dandy complete, to swell up and down Regent Street, with neat polished boots on his feet, not in dread of the friends he may meet, nor anxious to shuffle away—that's the shay!

And next, Mrs. Brown, in a fright, that her seventeen daughters, in spite of their figures so slight, and eyes bright, do not marry as fast as they might, determines her friends to unite, and sends out to each an invite; and all the day's in a sad plight, herself putting up each wax light, in order that all may go right, as she trusts the blanc mange will be white, and not spoilt by her own oversight; and, by evening, is ready to drop—that's the shop!—And when night comes, rewarding their pains, her daughters, in mousselain-de-laines, with flushed cheeks and quick-throbbing veins, to the cornet-à-piston's shrill strains, are flying about with their swains, whom they hope to entrap in their chains, as fast as a set of mail trains; and all is as gay as a bright summer day—that's the shay!

And the young opera danseuse, who goes to learn how to walk on her toes, or study each elegant pose, to an audience of empty pit rows, in her toilet of everyday clothes, with her cheeks pale as death, and her nose, from the cold, almost couleur de rose, the which she incessantly blows, as she goes through each posture and hop—that's the shop!—And, at night, from her place at the wing, she comes on the stage with a spring, and plaudits throughout the house ring, at the sight of so sylph-like a thing, and her lover's the son of a king, round whose neck her white arms fondly cling, until pulled aloft by a string, she floats on a bright canvas sunbeam away—that's the shay!

And the poor scribbling author, whose will is a few brilliant thoughts to distil, that may flow with his ink from his quill: who grinds his brains just like a mill, in his garret deserted and chill, and thinks till he makes himself ill, in the hopes that his pockets may fill, when the publisher praises his skill, and who trusts, from his efforts, to reap a good crop—that's the shop!—And when his said work proves a hit, and the sharpest reviewers admit, that it shows many traces of wit, and he's thought for their coteries fit, and soon of his debts can get quit, no longer obscurely to flit, but soar in the day—that's the shay!

To find it a rapid thaw when you have purchased a new pair of skates, and have invited a party of ladies to see your performance.

Getting soaked through, on your way to the Epping Hunt, and being told that you have only taken your share of the Easter-dews.

Driving your feet hastily into a pair of new Wellingtons, in order not to miss the train (time and boots a tight fit), and finding, by the feel, that the straps are at their bottoms;—boot-jack not to be found.

Being asked to dine, on a New-year's day, with a family, in which the children always expect presents.

Taking a box at a theatre for the express purpose of hearing the wonderful new vocalist, and finding, when you get there, only "indisposition" and a stale comedy.

Being "not at home" to an old friend, and coming downstairs, in a forgetful fit, before he has had time to leave the house.

Bowing, in your usual bland and affable manner, to a gentleman in the street, whom you recollect, as soon as he has passed, that you ought to have kicked.

"Popping the question" in a pair of tight boots; the lady seeming in no hurry, and to enjoy your agony.

Going out to be godfather, and remembering, at the proper crisis for presentation, that you must have left "the" silver cup in some omnibus.

To be interrupted while writing a Bill-et-doux, by the recollection of a bill over due.

Being asked to carve, if you are a musician or literary man.

Being compelled, in a party, to sit down to whist; and hearing your favourite part in an Italian quartet, which you had studied for a week before, sung by a murderous wretch whom you long to strangle.

Writing an appointment to a lady, and a disappointment to a tailor, and cross-directing them.

Paying your rent punctually, on quarter-day, to your landlord, and being distrained on the next day by his landlord.

Having ascertained, by a peep down your friend's area, that there is a turkey on the spit, and calling, accidentally, of course, about dinner-time, you feel rather sheepish when the cold mutton is brought up, and learn, in the course of the evening, that the kitchen fire had been lent for the dinner party of the next-door neighbour.

Abusing a person whom you have never seen, to a respectable-looking stranger, who, after apparently nodding assent, with the patience of a martyr, quietly observes that he is the man. The unpleasant anticipation of loose teeth, as you see him making up his bunch of fives.

Starting Post.

Winning Post.

Neck and Neck.

Racers.

The celebrated Primrose Hill, which is estimated to be nearly one hundred feet above the level of the Regent's Canal, forms one end of the great chain of the Metropolitan Alps, which comprises the respective hills of Highgate, Ludgate, Snow, Saffron, Mutton, Addle, Tower, Corn, Constitution, and many other peaks. Whilst the enterprises of Sherwill, Clarke, De Saussure, Auldjo, and others, had carried them to the summit of Mont Blanc, and M. Agassiz had overcome the hitherto impracticable Jungfrau, and given their published accounts to the world, it is somewhat strange that no narrative has hitherto been published of the ascent of Primrose Hill. To supply this void in our literature, as well as to furnish an account to Peter Parley, which, in the event of his refusing, I should have sent to the "Penny Magazine," I was induced to undertake the excursion. Although the time of year was somewhat against me, yet, from the noble offer of Mr. Vult, whom I met casually in the diving-bell at the bottom of the tank in the Polytechnic Institution, I determined, at all risks, to make the attempt.

On inquiry, we found that the charity boys of the district schools were best acquainted with the localities, and we therefore engaged four of them as guides. Their parents did not seem to comprehend our intentions, but possibly this arose from reluctance to allow their children to join our venture: but we overcame their scruples by offers of liberal payment, and named the eldest ("Plucky Simmuns" as he was familiarly termed by his fellows) as our chief guide. We also contracted with a broom merchant in Kentish Town for our ice-poles.

The next morning at nine o'clock, and in a deep snow, we left the Albany Tavern, amidst a crowd collected to see us start; and crossing some palings and a piece of broken ground, prepared to ascend. Our progress soon became one of extreme peril, as the snow had been collected from Park Village, and shot out on this waste, forming vast hills, which required great labour to surmount. Once I completely stuck fast, and before I was extricated nearly left one of my cloth boots behind me. Our respiration also became very difficult, evidently from the rarefaction of the air at so great a height, although Mr. Vult persisted in attributing it to the hot rolls we had eaten at breakfast. We crossed this large confusion of snow, which we presumed to be part of the Chalk Farm Glacier, and were astonished, on arriving at the opposite side, to see a man in these wild solitudes. He was evidently a child of the mountain, and proffered for sale an article he termed "ginger cocktail," which he assured us would prove most palatable. We bought some, and went on.

The conduct of our guides was most remarkable: in circumstances of the utmost peril they betrayed a levity almost unnatural, and more than once took to snowballing each other, as if they had been on level ground. We continued to ascend until the dreary waste of the Hill opened on us in all its awful grandeur. No living thing was visible, and the earth below was fading in the misty distance, leaving no trace of its existence but the tops of the tall chimneys on the Birmingham Railway. Once, and once only, Mr. Vult fancied he heard the squeak of a train coming in: this might or might not have been the case. The cold was most intense, but we had made up our minds to succeed or die, and we pushed bravely up the last slope.

At half-past eleven we reached the summit—and never shall I forget the eventful moment. My companions partook of my excitement, with the exception of Mr. Vult, who having had the care of the brandy flask in the ascent, and not being a teetotaller, had indulged in so many tastes, that his conduct was most unscientific. He insisted on trying to waltz with Simmons, and threw his new hat at a bird that flew over our heads. A passing breeze carried it down the Hill with as much ease as if it had been its namesake production of the fields—the work of the Aranea Sylvestris, or Gossamer Spider of Linnæus.

With respect to the view, so dense was the fog reigning around, that we saw nothing beyond twenty yards from us. What lay within that radius was, however, very magnificent, consisting of a deep layer of snow, broken only by our footsteps. In answer to my inquiry of Simmons, if avalanches were common in the winter, he replied, with much candour, "That he didn't disactly know, but he believed there was lots of nuts and brandy-balls, now and then." Having satisfied our eyes, we prepared to act similarly towards our stomachs: and we were glad to find our elevated situation had no other effect upon our animal economy than wonderfully increasing our appetites. The guides feasted at a small distance from us; their provision consisted principally of cold bacon, which they had tied up in their neckcloths, where it acted as a stiffener. We allowed a bottle of Guinness amongst them, fearing, if we gave them more, they would get confused, and unable to find their way down again. After dinner I proposed "Prosperity to Science," which Mr. Vult insisted upon giving with three times six, and finished by falling down on the snow, quite overcome. The sentiment given by Plucky was simple, and indicative of pastoral feeling. He merely exclaimed, as he slapped his hand against his yellow-leather indispensables, "Here's luck!" and drank up nearly all the bottle at a draught, to show how much in earnest he was.

I wrote some notes in pencil for our friends to keep as souvenirs, and made several scientific observations. On endeavouring to ascertain, from the fall of the mercury in my barometer, at what height we stood, I was surprised to see no traces at all of the mercury on the index plate. I subsequently found Mr. Vult had tumbled on it, and all the quicksilver had run out.

As afternoon advanced we prepared to descend, dreading lest night should overtake us in these wild solitudes. Our guides showed us a method of coming down the declivities, at which they seemed very expert. They sat on the snow, and glided down with the rapidity of a railroad. Not liking to trust myself alone, Plucky took me behind him, and we got down safely. Mr. Vult, however, over valiant, would go by himself, and consequently, after sliding at a fearful rate, he suddenly disappeared, having, as we imagined, slipped into some tremendous crevice of the glacier. We found that he had fallen into a hole where the railway navigators had been digging for clay, the water in which had got slightly frozen over, and then covered with snow. This accident somewhat checked our ardour, but we congratulated ourselves upon its fortunate result. At length we reached the level ground, and returned to our inn, highly gratified with our excursion, although we would recommend no one to undertake so perilous a task from mere motives of curiosity.

Champagne.

Real Pain.

Ice-Cream.

Dominoes.

Tongue and Chicken.

Census return. All the madmen included.

August, 1841.—At the Annual Meeting of the British Fill-us-off-ical and Feeding Association, at Ply-mouth, the following ingenious plan was promulgated—for a Company for the Confusion of Useless Knowledge. It is needless to say that so praiseworthy a project met with the unbounded sympathy and concurrence of all the members present.

It is intended by the Company to supply the present enormous mental appetite of the public with a full feed of science and literature in a series of sixpenny bits, or bites. To prevent the appetite from becoming cloyed by too continuous a fare of any one kind, the bits will be so intermingled and diversified as to keep the biters always expecting and never satisfied. Thus, the biography of Bacon will be relieved by a bit of the history of Greece; a bit of Astronomy, by a bit of Brewing; a bit of Roman History, by a bit of Algebra; a bit of Chemistry, by a bit of Commerce; a bit of the History of the Church, by a bit of Sir Christopher Wren. Vegetable Physiology, bit I., will be probably followed by a Treatise on Probability; from the study of which the reader may, if he please, try to find out when he is likely to see Vegetable Physiology, bit II. The whole will thus form, in the mind of the student, a most desirable complication of the Novum Organon, Athens, Malting and Mash-tubs, the Cæsars, Logarithms, Oxygen, Tariffs, Telescopes, the Arian Controversy, the building of St. Paul's, Cellular Tissues, and Reversionary Interests.

The success of various topographical works, which, in their periodical production, illustrate perhaps a description of Northumberland, with views in Norfolk or Middlesex; and of the Encyclopædias, which accompany the article Entomology, with probably the plates of Clockwork, or Geometry, justify the Company in adopting a similar mode of arrangement.

The Company propose, in order to insure the greatest possible degree of ultimate perfection, to commence some of the subjects with bits, developing the present notions of the scientific world, and to keep them incomplete till they can conclude them with the discoveries of the next generation on the same topics; so that the statements in bit No. 1 will probably be corrected by the subsequent discoveries in bit No. 2 of the same subject, to be produced ten years hence; but, considering the philanthropic views of the Company, they will consider themselves quite at liberty to abandon, incomplete, any of the subjects which it may not be very easy for them to finish; considering it to be fully in accordance with their general object to leave to their followers that glorious desideratum of the aspiring and energetic mind—

Mr. Green is, with all deference to the gentleman of another colour who generally assumes that title, the real Prince of the Air. He rides upon the whirlwind where he lists: the atmosphere welcomes him with hail! and the bridled tempest offers him its rains. If the perfection of the science of aërostation be so perfectly within his grasp, it is plain the elements must long since have yielded: he knows all their economies, and regards the zephyrs as familiar airs. The mischievous wind, so often presuming on its intangibility, by committing all sorts of depredations, and then scudding off, is compelled to confess its inability to cope with him, and to own the presence of "Green in its eye." Hecate is, compared to him, a dull, powerless agent; for his spirits do not wait for him on the rather uncertain tenement of a foggy cloud—which, from its surchargement with aqueous vapour in suspension, stands a chance of converting them into weak grog—but lie neck and heels at the bottom of his car, assimilating, in their nature, to bottle imps. When other people call a coach he unconcernedly takes a fly, and floats up like down. Other blessings attend his aërial wanderings. His champagne and stout are sure to be up; his cold pheasant is palatably high; and his other refreshments range far above all imitations. He takes leave of the world, not as an anchorite, but to enter a livelier grade of superior society, moving in an elevated position; and bears with philosophical indifference the wide reverses of his existence, from the most rapid rise to a subsequent decline and fall; although, at the same time, no man has more uniformly good prospects. We only wonder how he can tolerate our dull earth, and wager he never feels so secure with the flags of the pavement as he does with those of his own balloon. His very nature must have been reduced to what it works in—the atmosphere: and those who may eventually succeed to his possessions can be no other than the Airshire legatees. The rise and fall of the stocks affect him not—his own keep pace with his situation; and the glance of his eye sweeps the whole range beneath him with a bird's-eye wipe. There are but few difficulties on earth that he cannot grapple with. His balloon is his substantial and impregnable castle in the air, which he has built himself: and he always has his wits about him cool and collected, though, like a wool-gathering ruminator, he is constantly in the clouds. Although Mr. Green was long connected with the Polytechnic Institution, where his aëronautic whirligigs used to demonstrate the power he had acquired in guiding balloons, we are convinced he never went down in a diving-bell, for he would have been literally out of his element; unless the galvanic experiments at the same time could have chemically decomposed the water around it into its constituent gases, and he would then have gone aloft with his darling hydrogen. We once saw him contemplating the diving-bell; but it was with the air of an eagle of the sun gazing at a dabchick, apparently lost in wonder, not at the machine, but at the eagerness of the visitors to descend in it, to the chilly depths of the tank. It was evident that he no more regarded them as of his own species than the brilliant libellula, rising in the sunshine, owns the immature chrysalis lying at the bottom of the pool.

We ourselves, who are not a prey to such flights of ambition, hold the Polytechnic Institution, and its million wonders, in especial reverence from beginning to end, and think it fortunate that its professors live in enlightened times, or they would be assuredly burnt for necromancers, and form their own fire-clouds; producing photographic shadows of themselves, by the glare of their own faggots. Not being inclined to soar aloft, we rather approve of the diving-bell, and often pay it a visit. It affords matter of gratification to everybody. The scientific man goes down to measure the pressure of the atmosphere upon the drums of his ears, and see the displacement of water by air; the sightseer and curiosity-hunter, to experience a novel sensation; the hair-brained lounger, fresh from Regent-street, with his little stick and blotting-paper-coloured Chesterfield, to "put up a lark," although the bottom of a tank of water is certainly rather an unlikely place to find such a creation; and the lover of display, to gratify a trifle of ambition in becoming the pro-tempore lion of the place, as he emerges from the bell on its emersion from the water, in the bright eyes of the pretty girls who are looking down on his sub-aqueous venture from the galleries above.

The diving-bell, in the present era of compound-progressive science, is only in its infancy—its tinkle will, ere long, be changed to a toll: we speak metaphorically, and do not allude to the shilling paid for entrance. We have passed the adventures in the picture which illustrate the article "Bell-Diving," in the Encyclopædias, representing two gentlemen, who have secured places inside, holding air-tubes, and one, more venturesome, who has strolled to take a cold without, carrying a small bell on his head, and a boat-hook in his hand, amidst rocks and sea-weeds. Bolder schemes are in progress. The bell will open a new line for travellers to the Antipodes, by going right through the sea at once, and thus curtailing the journey by the geometrical relation which the diameter bears to half the circumference. Neither should we be surprised if people, addicted to go down to watering-places, go down at once to the very bottom, and choose waterproof summer villas on the beds of our lakes and rivers, exempt from land-tax and ground-rent; when, stationed in the water, they fling defiance at the law of the land. Such a position would be a fitting site whereon Father Mathew and his proselytes could erect a temple to the Genius of Teetotalism.

We need not add, it will take some time to bring the public mind to an idea of the security of these abodes. The shilling'sworth of flurry and ear-ache which the adventurers purchase so readily, still, however, finds a rapid sale. We descended the other day with a lady who had a great deal of the former commodity for her money. Her fright was extreme, when the huge monster that contained us first swung off its perch; and, when its mouth touched the water, she gave way to the wildest despair, even to attempt breaking the windows with her parasol. The only moment of security she experienced was when she reached the bottom. Here she fairly jumped down off her seat, on which it had required great exertion to retain her, and begged to be left where she was, now she had once reached the ground again, observing, we might go back in the bell if we chose, but, for her part, she preferred substantial footing to again trusting herself in such a crack-me-crazy vehicle.

1. Why is the back of a hare like a narrow escape?

29. Rent Day—Landlords' levée.

Star-gazing in season.

The indefatigable Mr. Swallow has obligingly forwarded to us the following list of valuable relics, which were rescued from the "devouring element," during the late conflagration at the Tower:—

Half of the lid of a pot, inscribed—"Fox's Circassian Cream," and supposed to have belonged to Renard, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of Queen Mary.

The handle of the warming-pan which was used for the bed of the young princes the night previous to their being smothered.

The bowl of the identical pipe with which the executioner of Guy Fawkes composed himself, after he had accomplished his unpleasant duty.

A portion of a bottle, which contained the liquid used to polish the Bluchers of Edward the Black Prince; part of the label, with the letters WAR——still in high preservation, and clearly indicating the determined resolution of that undaunted hero.

A tile, with the initials "W.R.," and which, it is judged from the caligraphy, belonged to the time of William Roof-us.

A massive trowel, the state of its edge proving that there must have been a "strike" of Masons in former days.

A spice-box, supposed to have contained the mace of the ancient Lord Mayors of London.

A fragment of a Cigar, very probably a portion of the Regalia.

A five-shilling piece, in an imperfect state; doubtless the crown that Richard the Second resigned to Henry of Lancaster.

A constable's truncheon, with a certificate of its having formed the Duke of Wellington's staff at Waterloo.

The feet of the gridiron that cooked the last chop, but one, for the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham.

A pitch-er, used by the tars to drink grog out of, after the dispersion of the Spanish Armada.