STANZAS SUGGESTED BY A VIEW OF
ROSHERVILLE.
BY A BANK CLERK.
1. Nathan, Lord Rosherville, and Baron of Kennington, has been immortalized in Punch. His Terpsichorean ingenuity is remarkable. Perhaps his "Polka Hornpipe, in chain armour and handcuffs," is his most remarkable dance.
2. "The Albert Tell of straw."—This work of art is an appropriate mark for the archers to shoot at. It is a species of cross-breed between Guy Fawkes and a bee-hive.
3. "Signor Gellini, amidst," &c.—This accomplished foreigner, amongst other acquirements, speaks English equal to any native.
4. "When Chiarini Cocoa-nuts," &c.—The Chiarini family are a race of animated castanets; and their evident self-satisfaction at this cocoa dance has originated the saying of being "nuts" on anything.
5. Flirtations of all kinds thrive at Rosherville and Gravesend, "which it is well beknown," as Mrs. Gamp would say.
6. "Tea with cresses," or "Tea with shrimps," each at ninepence, forms the staple meal of Gravesend. The tea is usually the "strong rough congou," at three-and-four. One trial will prove the fact.
THINGS TO BE BORNE IN MIND IN NOVEMBER.
When you come back to town do not say to what precise part of the Continent you have been, or you may be found out; "A Walking Tour in Norway" is, however, tolerably safe; and the principal objects may be read up from Murray's "Handbook." If you were seen at the aforesaid Margate, or Gravesend (as the case may be), say you were obliged to go one day to the horrid place, to see a fellow who had sold you a horse.
That if you are in debt, the heavy fogs will allow you to walk past the doors of your principal creditors, which will open several new promenades to you.
If you wish to pass for a fox-hunter, take a day ticket on the Birmingham rail, in the second-class carriages, in pink and leathers. Everybody will then suppose you have a horse in a box behind—an impression of which you are not bound to disabuse them. This is what in melodramas is called "joining the hunting train."
That scarlet-runners may now be planted in ditches, and trained along ploughed fields in their stirrups.
THE TRAFALGAR FOUNTAINS.
These popular ornaments, whose capabilities for jokes have nearly been exhausted, are about to receive a new interest from the application of an old philosophical fact. It is well known that a jet of water will support any hollow conical body as long as it plays: it is therefore in contemplation to place an Albert hat on the top of each fountain, which will be kept at a certain elevation, and form an appropriate accompanying trophy to the Nelson column; the two portraying the United Service.
HISTORICAL MEMORANDA.
DRURY LANE THEATRE.
Drury Lane Theatre was built in 1667, one year after the great fire of London, by Mr. William Shakspeare, assisted by Mr. Bunn, a great dramatist, from the designs of Mr. Planché, an eminent architect. Shakspeare was an extraordinary musician; and his solos on the ophicleide, whilst in the orchestra of the Globe Theatre, were much admired. He composed several musical dramas, amongst which "Hamlet, Prince of Tyre," "As You Like It, or So I hope you'll recommend it," "The Two Gentlemen of Windsor," "Antony and Juliet," have gained a transient popularity. He was originally in trade at Stratford-upon-Avon, but being convicted of "stagging" on the Charlecote Line, he fled to London, and assumed the name of Fitzball, under which cognomen he published his best pieces. He was buried, at his own request, in the rotunda of the theatre, under the fireplace, where his monument may be seen for nothing on going to take places.
Should the Premier make any unusual stir with respect to the present vegetable epidemic, it is probable that he will be known to future ages as "Potato Peel."
In the event of Boz's "Cricket on the Hearth" proving successful, a talented Lord will bring out his "Trap, Bat, and Ball on the Mantel-piece."
HINTS TO NOVELISTS, FOR 1846.
The increasing demand for this species of literature, whether with or without a purpose—the latter style being, perhaps, the most popular—has called forth a number of new pens to meet it. Some of these being rather new at their work, stand in need of a little assistance; and we are most happy in being able to give it, in the shape of those methods of commencing a tale which experience has shown to be the most successful, and hence the most universally followed:—
THE READ-UP, OR JAMESONIAN.
If we examine closely the records of the past, we shall find that the principal source of the public morality, or vice, springs in most cases from the acts or institutions of the government; and this was especially remarkable at the commencement of the seventeenth century, in France. The youth of Louis XIII.; the feebleness of his character, even in advanced age; his incapacity, and that of his regent mother, gave rise to all kinds of imperfections, and opened the career to excesses of feudality, and all sorts of lawless ambitions. Evil, departing from this centre, spread amongst all classes of people: the organization of the clergy affected the position of the laity; and the intrigues of the Count de Soissons, Condé, and others, favoured the general corruption.
Things stood thus when, one fine spring morning, two horsemen in military attire were slowly traversing one of the large tracts of forest land which then stretched between Compiègne and Beauvais.
[At this point search the British Museum, and get up the costumes from pictures. The "low countries" is effective.]
THE PSEUDO-GRAPHIC, OR WEAK BOZ-AND-WATER.
Any one whom business or pleasure has taken across Hungerford Bridge may have observed, on the right hand, as he reached the Lambeth side of the river, a curious tumbledown-looking counting-house, something between a travelling caravan and the city barge, elevated on some rickety piles, with a rusty balcony projecting from its river front, and without any visible means of access or egress, except down the chimney, or along a rotten row of spouts, barely fastened to its decaying woodwork. It is a dismal, melancholy place. The glass has been untouched for years, and is coated with dirt, although through it may be seen files of old dust-covered papers, hanging amidst festooned cobwebs and corroded inkstands, with stumps of pens still sticking in the holes. Everything tells of broken hearts and ruined fortunes; of homes made desolate by misplaced confidence, and long, long lawsuits, which outlived those who started them, and were left—with nothing else, to the poor and struggling heirs!
It was a miserable November evening: the passengers were glooming through the haze of the feeble lights, choked by the river fog, like dim spectres; and a melancholy drip fell, in measured plashings, from every penthouse and coping, as two figures slowly pursued their way towards this dreary place, through some of the old and tortuous streets that lie between the York Road and the river side.
[The heroes (as the case may be) being thus introduced, the author can go ahead with his plot, if he has one.]
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL, OR TRANSATLANTIC.
The long chain of rocky mountains which, reaching from the Oregon to New York, forms a natural boundary to the prairies on the Canada side of the Mississippi, is more than once crossed by rugged tracks, left by the early emigrants to the far west shores of the continent. These are here and there dotted with villages, whose buildings bear traces of their Dutch origin, and watered by streams flowing through the hunting grounds of the Pawnee and Webfooted Indians, until they mingle with the roar of Niagara, above Buffalo.
[Having settled your scene in this locality, you go on about the Indians as follows:—]
"That's the crack of a tarnal rifle from them Mingoes," said the Scamp, as he listened to the report; "why on 'arth they're not shot off like nat'ral animals is just above my comprension."
His Indian companion looked to the ground with a low expressive "Hugh!" and picked up a shell.
"The Huron is a coward," he said: "his squaw is idle in his wigwam; and his mocassins are weak. The Ojibbeway will have his scalp."
"The creetur is right," replied the Scamp: "I'd back the downey cove's rifle against any blazer them infarnal Mingoes ever struck fire into."
[The Indians should always speak in the third person: "fire-water," "great spirit," "pale-faces," "wampum," &c., will add to the effect; and the general habits may be ground up from recollections of the Egyptian Hall.]
THE ECLOGIC, OR GOREAN.
"Then you will be sure and come?" said Lillie Effingham, as the party of handsome girls and young men, with whom she was riding, turned through the opening, on to the turf, at the side of the Serpentine.
"Can you mistrust me?" replied her cavalier, in a low, impressive tone, that conveyed a far deeper meaning than the four words. "Shall not you be there?"
"Oh, that is all very well, I know," answered Lillie, patting, with her small hand, the glossy neck of her Arabian; "but Blanche Heathcote will be there as well, and Lady Helen, and the bewitching Mrs. Howard; you will be at no loss for attractive partners."
Charles Trevor—for such was his name—smiled with a peculiar expression; then, raising his hat to Lillie, pranced off to speak to some men in the Guards, with whom he was to dine that day at the Palace mess.
[The reader is now to be let into the secret of who these two individuals are.]
MOTTOES FOR CRACKER BONBONS.
Everybody knows those kisses, burnt almonds and sugar-plums, in their envelopes of fringed and gaudy paper, with the concealed Waterloo cracker inside, which it is so delightful to explode during supper-time at an evening party; and everybody also knows that the motto which this discharge of enlivening artillery sets free is generally the most stupid, unmeaning thing it is possible to conceive. From a quantity we select the following as a fair specimen of the prevailing style:—
Or,—
Or,—
Now, in place of these silly ideas, we suggest the following, which will have the merit of inducing thinking, and, by their matter-of-fact truth, do away with a great deal of the false atmosphere with which society is invested:—
We wish to see the hints here given followed out generally; and we are sure their good effect on social life will be soon evident.
CAPRICORNUS—A Caper o'-corns.
CORN CAPERS.
THE PAS DES MOISSONNEURS.
THINGS TO BE BORNE IN MIND IN DECEMBER.
That you should this month keep "in the house," by which, unlike the Andover paupers, you will escape dripping.
That managers rely upon boxing night for making a hit; and that orders are always to be procured for the dress-circle in any quantity on that evening; "Christmas boxes" being seldom given, and as seldom taken in the theatres.
That Christmas comes but once a year, which, looking to the bills that generally accompany it, must be a great comfort to fathers of families.
That the Christmas log is now disused, but the wood of it is found in large quantities in the wine used in negus at Christmas parties.
Hares will now stand on end with terror at the approach of the shooter, and may be knocked on the head without expense of ammunition.
That if you go out to a party, and, to save cab-hire, walk in shiny boots, you will probably bring your "light catarrh" with you, as you will find out if asked to sing.
JUDICIUM ASTROLOGICUM.
THE PRIZE PROPHECY FOR 1846.
Courteous Reader,
The expense of keeping a prophet having increased with the diminution of the species, towards which those mundane authorities, termed police, are in deadly opposition, my prognostics have lately fallen in arrear. But the prize prophecy, which was thrown open to competition last year, has come to hand; and, fully convinced that everything put down in it will happen, sooner or later—or, if it does not, that it ought to have done so; and would, but for some unforeseen zodiacal altercation which threw the signs into confusion—I now offer it to you. And I beg to inform you that if you want cabalistic information upon any subject: to know the railway likeliest to pay, the definite intentions of the Prime Minister, the duration of the Income-tax, the fortune or expectations of any young lady you may meet at a party, or the winner of the next Derby—the fee of five sovereigns, enclosed to our Prophet at the publisher's, will ensure an answer by the return of post; containing, in addition to all he knows upon the subject, a great deal more that he does not. My limits forbid further observations; but keep these remarks in mind, and look out for the fulfilment of what is to happen in
JANUARY.
A frost of some duration will cover the twelfth-cakes of the metropolis at the commencement of the month, which will begin to be broken up about Twelfth Night. About the middle of the month the Humane Society will give a grand dinner, on their retirement from public life, to the Wood Pavement Company, in gratitude to the latter for offering superior attraction to skaters, and taking all accidents off their hands. The Serpentine Receiving-house will be moved to the Strand in consequence; and the Mile End Omnibuses will furnish the drags. Several diverting little surprises will happen in families, by the delivery of bills, which they are either "certain they paid at the time," or "don't believe they ever owed;" but, unfortunately, being unable to produce the receipts, will be brutally compelled to pay them again.
Great excitement in the literary world, and especially in the magazines; which, to give an air of novelty to the new year, will contain twenty continuous stories each. Fearful vision of the individual who reads them all; in which he will see the Robertses on their Travels, stopped by St. Giles; whilst St. James is gone, with Cæsar Borgia, to pay a visit to the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, and condole with her on the death of Marston, who has been shot by Rowcroft's Bushranger, now under the care of the Gaol Chaplain, whose "Revelations of London" have no effect upon him. And the weekly press aiding this complexity, by representing Mrs. Caudle quarrelling with Joe Miller for Rodwell's Umbrella which the Wandering Jew gave to his Stepmother—the nightmare of the unhappy magazine reader will be terrible indeed!
Much discord will prevail in town by reason of nocturnal bands of disturbers of the public peace, called the Waits, who will play "Then you'll remember me" for one hour continuously under your window; and call a few days afterwards, to prove the truth of their musical assertion. The juries for putting down "false weights," have no power over the measures of these ruthless marauders.
A Bad Railway Accident will happen, from a collision of two trains.
FEBRUARY.
Parliament will meet at the usual time, when the Refuge for the Destitute in Playhouse Yard will be turned into an asylum for the houseless peers; the unroofed rooms and heavy rains and floods turning the intended House of Lords into a Peerless Pool. The enclosure of the Commons will be at the same time a great question of doubt.
The following events will be found this month, without fail, in the papers:—A dreadful fire in America, and another at Smyrna; a steam-boat explosion on the Mississippi; an abortive poor-law inquiry in a Midland county; a terrible inundation somewhere abroad; and the discovery of a railway swindle in London; which will give rise to a grand battue of "stags," directed by the Siva, or destroying engine of the "Times."
A new line of railway, direct to Windsor, will be sanctioned the earliest in the Session; in consequence, those who make a pilgrim's progress to the old station will find it literally the Slough of Despond.
A bold member, moving that the statues for the new Senate of the sovereigns of England shall go up by order of merit rather than succession, will secure a tolerably good perch for Oliver Cromwell; and it is not unlikely that Byron's statue will take its place in Poet's Corner at the same time.
Two new steamers, the Emmet and the Earwig, will run between London Bridge and Chelsea six times for a penny. They will be greatly crowded in consequence.
Serious Railway Accident.—A train will get off the line and run down an embankment into a farm-yard.
MARCH.
Several legal gentlemen will be expelled from one mess to get into another, for reporting cases; a plain statement of facts of any kind being against all professional morality. The press will, in consequence, turn round upon the bar; and the bar will get pretty considerably the worst of it. The inscription, "Tongues sold here," will be transferred from ham and beef shops to the chambers of honourable barristers. Such reform will be worked that a leading advocate will, perhaps, hang himself upon finding he has undertaken a wrong cause. The "Andover Commission" will be revived as the "Underhand Inquiry."
Von Lumley will arrive from the Continent with a variety of singing birds, who will pipe Norma, Puritani, Don Giovanni, duets, arias, &c.
Terrible Railway Accident.—A train going too fast will run over another going too slow, from neglect of signals.
APRIL.
The Shakspeare Jubilee Festival will be celebrated at the "only national theatre" on the 23rd, with the following performances:—
"The Grand Opera of 'Hamlet:' the Music by Mr. Balfe; the libretto by Messrs. Shakspeare and Bunn.
"After which, a Divertissement; in which Mr. Delferier and Madame Giubelei will, as Romeo and Juliet, dance the Capulet Polka. Grotesque Pas de Caliban, from the 'Tempest,' by Mr. Wieland; and the celebrated Desperate Combat from 'Richard the Third,' by Messrs. T. Matthews and W. H. Payne.
"The whole to conclude with a New Grand Pantomime of 'Harlequin Macbeth; or, the Magic Caldron and Walking Wood.'"
From the Opera, the following song may be predicted to be sung by the first tenor, Hamlet:—
Arrangements will be made for the characters to promenade in the day, time full dressed, upon the top of the portico, to the music of the orchestra—in beef-eater's dresses. The pageant will be very splendid.
A Terrible Railway Accident will happen, from the engine running up a cutting, and then falling back on the train.
MAY.
Several young ladies will now receive bouquets on the mornings of parties, without having the "slightest idea" from whom they come. Human glow-worms will appear hovering at night, with lanterns, round door-steps and scrapers, until the Polkas commence; when the street-doors in the newly-built houses will take to knocking themselves. A new musical court of justice will condemn offending professors to eight hours at the quadrille piano, instead of so many days at the treadmill. A hapless pianiste will be found dead at the instrument, at a réunion in Eaton Square, after the "after-supper cotillion."
Several grand morning concerts will take place at the Opera Concert Room, in which every artiste in London will sing or play twice. They will commence at two P.M., and always conclude in time for breakfast the next morning. An elegant little article will be invented, called "The Nutritive Lozenge; or, Concert Portable Larder," to support the existence of those who will wait the programme out. Arrangements will be made with some machinery from the stage for hauling those who faint or die through the windows on to the top of the colonnade, without disturbing the rest of the audience.
Dreadful Railway Accident, from the bursting of a boiler, which will blow everybody and everything into an impalpable powder. The steam will cook a number of greens in an adjacent field, and boil a number of pigs; providing a choice meal for a number of residents in an adjacent union, who will be turned out to feed for the day.
JUNE.
Ascot and Epsom races will take place. Several pigeons will be let off after each race; but other pigeons will not be let off so easily on the Tuesday following. Gentlemen, on their way home, who have ventured to back unruly horses, will find themselves either "hedging," or "taking the field" the other side of it. The confusion on the road will be a literal case of wheels-within-wheels, and jibbers will convert all the carriages into breaks. The road home, covered with ruined poles; and the police cannot order them to move on. The rain at Ascot will become the first defaulter, and refuse to "down with the dust;" so that the "Heath's Beauties" will all look as if prepared for a bal poudré. All the vehicles will get inextricably locked together at Sutton; and the passengers, not knowing what to do, will all play different tunes upon their cornets and post-horns, illustrating the horns of a dilemma.
At the end of the month a thunderstorm will, by its electric fluid, create the greatest disturbance on the telegraph wires of the Southampton Railway, catching and distorting some messages as they pass, during a telegraphic game of chess, and other proceedings. The clerk at the Gosport end will be utterly bewildered thereat, being ordered to "checkmate the Kingston station with the Queen's luggage-bishop."
Shocking Railway Accident.—A man, lying across the rails asleep, a favourite position, will be cut in half, and his superior portion carried down to Bristol—the inferior remaining at Slough. Parochial quarrel, as to the inquest, in consequence.
JULY.
Opening of Vauxhall Gardens once more, positively for the last time, upon temperance principles. Festivals of St. Swithin and Father Mathew held on the grounds, with appropriate devices in real rain-water. Patent taken out for the "Vauxhall Illumination Lamp," consisting of the addition of a small parasol to each lamp. Vauxhall weather-houses sold at the toy-shops.—N.B. When Widdicombe comes out it will be wet. Mr. Green, finding balloons cease to attract, having successively tried a night ascent, a lady with her leopard, a gentleman with his tiger, &c., volunteers to go up on a skyrocket, and come down with an umbrella, instead of a parachute. He will be taken before the Lord Mayor, on his descent, for attempting self-destruction.
The night before the close of the Midsummer holidays an immense number of little boys and girls will be attacked with alarming signs of indisposition, but on being kept at home will rapidly recover.
The blocks of Wenham ice in the Strand shop-window will melt very quickly—the only American affair that looks at all clear, or is liquidated spontaneously, or (as sherry cobbler) worth a straw.
Very Alarming Railway Accident.—An engine getting off the line, will carry the train through a gentleman's country house, where he is entertaining some friends.
AUGUST.
The Queen, en voyage, accompanied by Prince Albert, will pay a visit to Calcutta, by the overland route, and come home by St. Petersburgh; starting, immediately on her return, for Ireland, and thence to New York: the whole being accomplished within the month. Great confusion in the houses of the nobility she unexpectedly looks in upon—begging of extra servants, borrowing of plate, and stealing of evergreens. The illustrated papers for the week contain their thirty engravings as usual, and they are all triumphal arches.
Several shooting stars will be visible in the northern district about the twelfth. Sultry weather: and the Wenham Lake ice has all melted. Ne sutor ultra crepidam—no more sherry cobbler after the last.
M. Jullien will give a Concert Monstre, and introduce his Leviathan Ophicleide, prepared for the country festivals, and containing living, cooking, and sleeping conveniences for his entire orchestra.
Horrible Railway Accident.—An express train will leap over the wall of a viaduct, when those who expected to "go down" by it will not be disappointed.
SEPTEMBER
The Annual Blockade, or Great Plague of London, by the Commissioners of Sewers and Improvements, will take place this month. The nearest way from St. Paul's to Temple Bar will be through Farringdon Street, Smithfield, across Gray's Inn Lane, Theobald's Road (Holborn is also closed), Red Lion Square, Queen Street, and Drury Lane. Endless rows with cabmen in consequence, who object to eightpence for the distance. General emigration of the British, who will be found everywhere, in the language of the month, in large coveys, strong on the wing, and offering excellent sport to foreigners. It is probable that the last man about town will commit suicide in the centre of Leicester Square; to explore which hitherto unknown locality an expedition will be fitted out, now that the new street has opened a facility of communication with the interior.
The stars portend the ultimate death of Bartholomew Fair, Esquire, after several years of wasting decline, the result of injuries received some time ago from the corporation of London. He will lie in state in Smithfield for three days, on a handsome bier of gilt gingerbread, and under a canopy of show-canvas, with incense burning round him from altars of sausage-stoves. The Black Wild Indian, the Fair Circassian, the Yorkshire Giant, the Welsh Dwarf, the Fat Boy, the Living Skeleton, and the Ghost from Richardson's, will in turn act as mourners.
Annoying Railway Accident.—The train will break down in the middle of a two-mile tunnel, and will not be discovered until pushed out by the next.
OCTOBER.
Several fires will break out in and about London, but, as they will be principally confined to their proper places, no ill-effects will happen, except in the cases where the servants will neglect to open the chimney-boards, and emancipate the blacks. About this period we may look for the reappearance of several muffs and boas from their summer hiding-places.
Rain may be expected about the 4th, 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 30th of this month. I say it may be expected, but this does not follow that it will come. If it does not, it will fall at some other time, or probably not at all; but the reader may rely upon one or the other of these meteorological phenomena taking place.
A Singular Railway Accident will happen from using two engines, one before and the other behind; which, not acting together, will crumple the train up between them, like the back of an insulted cat. The tender will vindicate its claim to its title by being crushed to pieces.
NOVEMBER.
A dense fog—an English festival of "St. Cloud"—will visit the metropolis; during the continuance of which several blunders will be made by the Londoners which would not otherwise have occurred. A celebrated literary hydropathist will be mistaken for a pump of hard water, until he is run against and found to be soft. The Penitentiary will be taken for a poor-law union; the National Gallery for a railway station; and St Paul's and Westminster Abbey for two religious peep-shows: but Covent Garden Theatre will not be taken for anything by anybody.
Ludicrous Railway Accident.—The fastenings of a carriage will come undone and the train will speed on to the terminus, whilst the travellers behind are left half-way in the midst of a flooded cutting.
DECEMBER.
The Young England party will be decidedly in the ascendant at the commencement of the holidays; and materially affect "the social condition of the people" in the house.
Popular lectures on "cold," at the Polytechnic Institution, when the Professor will have the subject at his fingers' ends. Dr. Ryan, having frozen water in a red-hot crucible, will next make a piece of ice red-hot without melting it, by reversing the process.
The march of intellect will be found to have altered all the old Christmas objects of revelry. The yule log will be supplanted by an Arnott's stove; the homely carol, by an Italian scena, which the singer does not understand; the wassail bowl, by British brandy, or perhaps something better; and the mummers, by the far more dangerous false masks and manners of society, as at present constituted.
Tremendous Railway Accident.—Four trains will meet at a cross junction line exactly at the same time. Every precaution will be taken to avoid danger, as soon as the accident has occurred.