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The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels cover

The Ingoldsby Legends; or, Mirth and Marvels

Chapter 62: UNSOPHISTICATED WISHES.
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About This Book

The work assembles comic and macabre tales and poems that blend folk legend, ecclesiastical hagiography, and satirical pastiche. Entries range from ghost stories and ballads to dramatic sketches and playful parodies, shifting fluidly between eerie atmosphere and buoyant humor. Recurring features include witty wordplay, mock-serious moralizing, and imaginative transformations of traditional material; the arrangement alternates narrative episodes and lyrical lays, producing varied pacing and tone. Illustrations traditionally accompany the pieces, reinforcing their comic grotesque and enhancing scenes of the supernatural and the absurd.

BY MISS JEMIMA INGOLDSBY, AGED 15.

(Communicated by her Cousin Tom.)

Oh! how I should like in a Coach to ride, Like the Sheriffs I saw upon Lord Mayor's day, With a Coachman and little Postilion astride On the back of the leader, a prancing bay.
And then behind it, oh! I should glory To see the tall serving men standing upright, Like the two who attend Mister Montefiore, (Sir Moses I should say) for now he's a Knight.
And then the liveries, I know it is rude to Find fault—but I'll hint as he can't see me blush, That I'd not have the things I can only allude to Either orange in hue or constructed of plush;
But their coats and their waistcoats and hats are delightful, Their charming silk stockings—I vow and declare Our John's ginger gaiters so wrinkled and frightful, I never again shall be able to bear.
Oh! how I should like to have diamonds and rubies, And large plume of feathers and flowers in my hair, My gracious! to think how our Tom and those boobies, Jack Smith and his friend Mister Thompson, would stare.
Then how I should like to drive to Guildhall, And to see the nobility flocking in shoals, With their two guinea tickets to dance at the ball Which the Lord Mayor gives for relief of the Poles.
And to look at the gas so uncommonly pretty, And the stars and the armour all just as they were, The day that the Queen came in state to the city To dine with the whole Corporation and Mayor.
Oh! how I should like to see Jane and Letitia, Miss Jones and the two Misses Frump sitting still, While dear Ensign Brown, of the West Kent Militia, Solicits my hand for the "Supper" Quadrille.
With his fine white teeth and his cheek like a rose, And his black cravat and his diamond pin, And the nice little mustache under his nose, And the dear little tuft on the tip of his chin.
And how I should like some fine morning to ride In my coach, and my white satin shoes and gown, To St. James's Church, with a Beau by my side, And I shouldn't much care if his name was Brown.