DOMESTIC DIDACTICS.
BY AN OLD SERVANT.
IT is not often when the Nine descend that they go so low as into
areas; it is certain, nevertheless, that they were in the habit of
visiting John Humphreys, in the kitchen of No. 189, Portland Place,
disguised, no doubt, from mortal eye, as seamstresses or charwomen—at
all events, as Winifred Jenkins says, “they were never ketch’d in the
fact.” Perhaps it was the rule of the house to allow no followers, and
they were obliged to come by stealth, and to go in the same manner;
indeed, from the fragmental nature of John’s verses, they appear
to have often left him very abruptly. Other pieces bear witness of
the severe distraction he suffered between his domestic duty to the
Umphravilles, twelve in family, with their guests, and his own secret
visitors from Helicon. It must have been provoking, when seeking for
a simile, to be sent in search of a salt-cellar; or when hunting
for a rhyme, to have to look for a missing teaspoon. By a whimsical
peculiarity, the causes of these lets and hindrances are recorded in
his verses, by way of parenthesis: and though John’s poetry was of a
decidedly serious and moralising turn, these little insertions give
it so whimsical a character, as to make it an appropriate offering
in the present work. Poor John! the grave has put a period to his
didactics, and the publication of his lays in “Hood’s Own,” therefore,
cannot give him pain, as it certainly would have done otherwise, for
the MSS. were left by last will and testament “to his very worthy
master, Joshua Umphraville, Esq., to be printed in Elegant Extracts,
or Flowers of English Poetry.” The Editor is indebted to the kindness
of that gentleman for a selection from the papers; which he has been
unable to arrange chronologically, as John always wrote in too great a
hurry to put dates. Whether he ever sent any pieces to the periodicals
is unknown, for he kept his authorship as secret as Junius’s, till
his death discovered his propensity for poetry, and happily cleared
up some points in John’s character, which had appeared to his
disadvantage. Thus when his eye was “in fine frenzy rolling,” bemused
only with Castalian water, he had been suspected of being “bemused with
beer;” and when he was supposed to indulge in a morning sluggishness,
he was really rising with the sun, at least with Apollo. He was accused
occasionally of shamming deafness, whereas it was doubtless nothing but
the natural difficulty of hearing more than Nine at once. Above all,
he was reckoned almost wilfully unfortunate in his breakage; but it
appears that when deductions for damage were made from his wages, the
poetry ought to have been stopped, and not the money. The truth is,
John’s master was a classical scholar, and so accustomed to read of
Pegasus, and to associate a Poet with a Horseman, that he never dreamt
of one as a Footman.
The Editor is too diffident to volunteer an elaborate criticism of the
merits of Humphreys as a Bard—but he presumes to say thus much, that
there are several Authors, of the present day, whom John ought not to
walk behind.
THE BROKEN DISH.
WHAT’S life but full of care and doubt,
With all its fine humanities,
With parasols we walk about,
Long pigtails and such vanities.
We plant pomegranite trees and things,
And go in gardens sporting,
With toys and fans of peacocks’ wings,
To painted ladies courting.
We gather flowers of every hue,
And fish in boats for fishes,
Build summer-houses painted blue,—
But life’s as frail as dishes.
Walking about their groves of trees,
Blue bridges and blue rivers,
How little thought them two Chinese
They’d both be smash’d to shivers.
ODE TO PEACE.
WRITTEN ON THE NIGHT OF MY MISTRESS’S GRAND ROUT.
OH Peace! oh come with me and dwell—
But stop, for there’s the bell.
Oh Peace! for thee I go and sit in churches,
On Wednesday, when there’s very few
In loft or pew—
Another ring, the tarts are come from Birch’s.
Oh Peace! for thee I have avoided marriage—
Hush! there’s a carriage.
Oh Peace! thou art the best of earthly goods—
The five Miss Woods.
Oh Peace! thou art the Goddess I adore—
There come some more.
Oh Peace! thou child of solitude and quiet—
That’s Lord Drum’s footman, for he loves a riot.
Oh Peace!
Knocks will not cease.
Oh Peace! thou wert for human comfort plann’d—
That’s Weippert’s band.
Oh Peace! how glad I welcome thy approaches—
I hear the sound of coaches.
Oh Peace! oh Peace!—another carriage stops—
It’s early for the Blenkinsops.
Oh Peace! with thee I love to wander,
But wait till I have show’d up Lady Squander,
And now I’ve seen her up the stair,
Oh Peace!—but here comes Captain Hare.
Oh Peace! thou art the slumber of the mind,
Untroubled, calm and quiet, and unbroken,—
If that is Alderman Guzzle from Portsoken,
Alderman Gobble won’t be far behind;
Oh Peace! serene in worldly shyness,—
Make way there for his Serene Highness!
Oh Peace! if you do not disdain
To dwell amongst the menial train,
I have a silent place, and lone,
That you and I may call our own;
Where tumult never makes an entry—
Susan, what business have you in my pantry?
Oh Peace! but there is Major Monk,
At variance with his wife—Oh Peace!
And that great German, Vander Trunk,
And that great talker, Miss Apreece;
Oh Peace! so dear to poets’ quills—
They’re just beginning their quadrilles—
Oh Peace! our greatest renovator;—
I wonder where I put my waiter—
Oh Peace!—but here my Ode I’ll cease;
I have no peace to write of Peace.
A FEW LINES ON COMPLETING FORTY-SEVEN.
When I reflect with serious sense,
While years and years run on,
How soon I may be summoned hence—
There’s cook a-calling John.
Our lives are built so frail and poor,
On sand and not on rocks,
We’re hourly standing at Death’s door—
There’s some one double-knocks.
All human days have settled terms,
Our fates we cannot force;
This flesh of mine will feed the worms—
They’re come to lunch of course.
And when my body’s turn’d to clay,
And dear friends hear my knell,
O let them give a sigh and say—
I hear the upstairs bell.
TO MARY HOUSEMAID,
ON VALENTINE’S DAY.
Mary, you know I’ve no love-nonsense,
And, though I pen on such a day,
I don’t mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.
Though Beauty hasn’t form’d your feature,
It saves you, p’rhaps, from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.
Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.
You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But, doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.
Let Susan flourish her fair arms
And at your odd legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.
