Chapter 8

CREATION. A Renaissance man stands next to a letter G. entle woman!—Beautiful enigma!—whose magnetic glances and countless charms subdue man’s sterner nature—to you I dedicate the following pages. The subject on which I am about to treat is the gravest, the lightest, the most decided, the most undefined, the most earthly, the most spiritual, the saddest, and the gayest, the most individual, and at the same time the most universal you can imagine. To you, ladies, I address myself. You who form the keys on which the eternal and infinite gamut of love has been run from creation’s first hour till the present moment—tell me how I may best touch the chords of your hearts? Come around me, ye earthly divinities of every age, rank, and imaginable variety! Buds of blushing sixteen, full-blown roses of thirty, haughty court dames, and smiling city beauties, come like delicious phantoms, and fill my mind with images graceful as your own forms, and melting as your own hearts! Thanks, gentle spirits! ye have heard my call, and now, inspired by you, I seize my pen, and give to my paper the thoughts which crowd upon my mind.

WHAT IS LOVE? It is easier to answer this question by a thousand instances, than by one definition, which can comprehend them all. What is Love? It is anything you please. It is a prism, through which the eye beholds the same object in various colours; it is a heaven of bliss, or a hell of torture; a thirst of the heart—an appetite which we spiritualize; a pure expansion of the soul, but which sooner or later becomes metamorphosed into an animal passion—a diamond statue with feet of clay. It is a dream—a delirium, a desire for danger, and a hope of conquest; it is that which everyone abjures, and everyone covets; it is the end, the great end, and the only end of life. Love, in short, is a tyrannical influence which none can escape; and however metaphysicians may define the passion, it appears to me that it is wholly dependent on the mysterious

A pair of lovers cuddle in front of a tree. LAWS OF ATTRACTION.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT YOUNG LADIES. A young lady, I mean one who has but recently thrown aside her dolls, is a bashful blushing little puppet, who only acts, speaks, and moves as mama directs. She is a statue of flesh and blood, not yet animated by the Promethean fire—a chrysalis, which may one day become a beautiful butterfly, fluttering on silken wing amidst a crowd of adorers; but she is yet only a chrysalis, pale and cold, and wrapped up in a thousand conventional restrictions, like a mummy in its swathes.

The very young lady is usually prodigiously careful of her little self: she regards men as her natural enemies. Poor innocent!—This absurdity is the fault of her education. They have made her believe that love is the most abominable, execrable, infernal thing in existence. They have taught her to lie and to dissimulate her most innocent emotions. But the time is not far distant when the natural impulses of her heart will break down the barriers that hypocrisy has placed around her. Woman was formed to love: she must obey the imperious law of her being, and will love the moment her inspirations for the belle passion become stronger than her reason. I may add, also, that when a young lady discovers a tendency this way, it may be safely conjectured the object on which she will bestow her favour is not very distant.

THE AUTHOR’S DIVISION OF HIS SYSTEM. It has been a long-established axiom that there is but one great principle [pg 263] of love; but then it assumes various phases, according to the thousands of circumstances under which it is exhibited, and which, to speak in the language of philosophy, it would be impossible to synthetise. Time, place, age, the very season of the year, the ruling passion, peace or war, education, the instincts of the heart, the health of the body and the mind (if it be possible for the latter to be in a sane state when we fall in love), the buoyancy of youth or the decrepitude of old age,—these, and numerous other causes which I cannot at present enumerate, serve to modify to infinity the form and character of the sentiment. Thus we do not love at eighteen as we do at forty, nor in the city as we do in the country, nor in spring as we do in autumn, nor in the camp as we do in the court; nor does the ignorant man love like a learned one; the merchant does not love like the lawyer; nor does the latter love like the doctor. It is upon these different phases in the character of love that I have founded my system. Next week I shall endeavour to describe some of the traits which distinguish “The Lover.” Till then, fair readers,—I remain your devoted slave.

WITNESS MY

A man kisses a woman's hand HAND AND SEAL.

A signature of Alph. Lecourt. GRANT’S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS. We had long considered ourselves the funniest dogs in Christendee; and, in the plenitude of our vanity, imagined that we monopolised the attention and admiration of the present and the future. We expected to be deified, and thus become the founders of a new mythology. PUNCH must be immortal! But how shorn of his pristine splendour—how denuded of his fancied glories! for the John Bull has discovered—

GRANT’S LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF LONDON LIFE. Wretched as we must be at this reflection, we generously resort to—our scissors, and publish our own discomfiture.

In alluding to the author’s description of the London dining-room, the John Bull remarks:—

It will bring comfort to the savage bosoms of the late Ministry, for whose especial information we must make a few more extracts, concerning coffee-houses, or shops, as they are mostly termed.

COFFEE SHOPS. The second class of coffee-houses, and those I have particularly in my eye, are altogether different from those I have just mentioned. The prices are remarkably moderate in most of these places; the charge is no more than three-halfpence for half a pint of coffee, or threepence for a whole pint. The price of half a pint of tea is twopence, of a whole pint fourpence. If you simply ask bread to your tea or coffee, two large slices, well buttered, are brought you, for which you are charged twopence. Or should you prefer having a penny roll, or any other sort of bread, you can have it at the same price as at the baker’s.

In most coffee-houses, you may also have chops or steaks for dinner. If the party be a rigid economist(!) he may, as regards some of these establishments, purchase his steak or chop himself, and it will be prepared gratuitously for him; but if that be too much trouble for him to take, and he prefers ordering it at once, he will get, in many houses, his chop with bread and potatoes with it for sixpence, and his steak for ninepence or tenpence.

These coffee-houses have many advantages over hotels, besides the great difference in the prices charged. In the first place, there is not so much formality or affected dignity about them, and they are far better provided with means of rational amusement; and the promptitude with which a customer is served is really surprising.

Are not these passages declarations of the individual? Winding himself up with twopenny-worth of cheese! Pleading for the additional penny for the waitress, whose personal charms and obliging disposition must be considered to extort the amount! And above all, unable to conceive any motive, except aversion to trouble, for disliking to carry “his chop” upon a skewer through the streets of London. How every line revels in the recollection of having dined, and speaks how seldom! while the well- buttered bread infers the usual fare. Still it is not meanly written. There are a glorying and exultation in every word that redeem it, and show the author is more to be envied than compassionated; though a little further on we perceive the shifts to which his homeless state has reduced him.

MEDITATION IN LONDON. You can order, if you please, a cup of coffee without anything to it; and, for so doing, you may sit if you wish for five or six hours in succession.

I have said that coffee-houses are excellent places for reading; I might have added, for meditation also. For unlike public-houses, there are no noisy discussions and disputes in them. All is calm, tranquil, and comfortable. The beverage, too, which is drank as a beverage, as I before remarked in a previous chapter, cheers, but not inebriates.

The remarks are generally equally original, and the facts, no doubt in some degree truths, are all alike humorous; the more so when the aspect of the book and the names of the respectable publishers suggest the higher class of readers to whom it is addressed. Little anecdotes are interspersed, concerning Harriet, of Coventry-street, who didn’t mind her stops; and James, behind the Mansion-house, who knew everybody’s appetite, that enliven the descriptive portions of the work, which is in its very inappropriateness the more amusing, and cannot be read without reaping both information and instruction on topics which no other author would have had the temerity to discuss.

But these are only words. Let PUNCH, the rival of this Caledonian Asmodeus, do justice to the man whose “character is stamped on every page (of his own), who yet is above pity; poor, yet full of enjoyment; humble, yet glorious; ignorant, yet confident.”

A man stands among coffee pots and cups that have faces. GRANT’S MEDITATIONS AMONG THE COFFEE-CUPS.

THE MONEY MARKET. Tin is 14 per cwt. in London, and this, allowing a fraction for wear and tear, gives an exchange of 94 36-27ths in favour of Hamburgh.

The money market is much easier this week, and bills (play-bills) were to be had in large quantities. A large capitalist who holds turnpike tickets to a large amount, caused much confusion by letting some pass from his hands, when they flew about with alarming rapidity. Several persons seemed desirous of taking them up, but a rush of bulls (from Smithfield) rendered this quite impossible.

Whitechapel scrip was done at 000 premium; but in the course of the day 00000 discount was freely offered.

This was settling day, when many parties paid the scores they had been running at the cook-shop opposite. There was only one defaulter, and as it was not anticipated he would come up to the mark; for he had been chalking up rather largely of late: nothing was said about it.

[pg 264] A DICTIONARY FOR THE LADIES. PUNCH, Solicitous to maintain and enhance that reputation for gallantry towards his fair readers which it has ever been his pride to have merited, has much pleasure, not unmixed with self-congratulation, in thus announcing to the loveliest portion of the creation the immediate appearance of

A DICTIONARY ENTIRELY AND EXCLUSIVELY FOR THEIR USE; in which the signification of every word will he given in a strictly feminine sense, and the orthography, as a point of which ladies like to be properly independent, will be studiously suppressed. The whole to be compiled and edited by

MADAME PUNCH. To which will be appended a little Manual addressed confidentially by PUNCH himself to the Ladies, and entitled

TEN MINUTES’ ADVICE ON THE CARE AND USE OF A HUSBAND; or “what to ask, and how to insist upon it, so that the obstreperous bridegroom may become a meek and humble husband.”

SPECIMEN OF THE WORK. Husband.—A person who writes cheques, and dresses as his wife directs.

Duck, in ornithology.—A trussed bridegroom, with his giblets under his arm.

Brute.—A domestic endearment for a husband.

Marriage.—The only habit to which women are constant.

Lover.—Any young man but a brother-in-law.

Clergyman.—One alternative of a lover.

Brother.—The other alternative.

Honeymoon.—A wife’s opportunity.

Horrid; Hideous.—Terms of admiration elicited by the sight of a lovely face anywhere but in the looking-glass.

Nice; Dear.—Expressions of delight at anything, from a baby to a barrel- organ.

Appetite.—A monstrous abortion, which is stifled in the kitchen, that it may not exist during dinner.

Wrinkle.—The first thing one lady sees in another’s face.

Time.—What any lady remarks in a watch, but what none detect in the gross.

SOUP, A LA JULIEN. A correspondent of the Sunday Times proposes to raise ten thousand for the benefit of the labouring classes, in the following manner:—

“Upon a prima facie view, my suggestion may appear impracticable, but I am sure the above amount could be raised for the benefit of the labouring classes by one effort of royalty—an effort that would make our valued Queen invaluable, and, at the same time, afford the Ministry an opportunity of making themselves popular in the cause of their country’s good. Westminster Hall is acknowledged to be the largest room in the empire, and, with very little expense, might be fitted up with a temporary throne, &c., for promenade concerts, for one, two, or three, days. All the vocal and instrumental talent of the day would be obtained gratis, and Her Most Gracious Majesty’s presence, for only two hours on each day, with the admission tickets at one guinea, would produce more money than I have mentioned.” Would the above amiable philanthropist favour us with his likeness? We imagine it would be a splendid

A silhouette of a man with a top hat. FANCY PORTRAIT OF HOOKEY WALKER.

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE. SIR ROBERT PEEL was observed to put a penny into the hands of the man at the crossing in Downing-street. It is anticipated, from this trifling circumstance, that sweeping measures will be introduced on the assembling of Parliament.

A deputation from the marrow-bones and cleavers waited on Lord Stanley at the Treasury. His lordship listened attentively for some minutes, and then abruptly left the apartment in which he had been sitting.

We understand that Colonel Sibthorp intends proposing an economical plan of church extension, that is to cost nothing to the public; for it suggests that churches should be built of Indian rubber, by which their extension would become a matter of the greatest facility.

It is rumoured that the deficiency in the revenue is to be made up by a tax on the incomes of literary men; and a per-centage on the profits of Martinuzzi will first be levied by way of experiment. Should it succeed, a duty will be laid on the produce of The Cloak and the Bonnet.

THE LATE PROMOTIONS. The whole of the police force take one step forward, on account of the late very liberal brevet.

Sergeant Snooks, of the Royal Heavy Highlows, to be raised to the Light Wellingtons.

Policemen K 482,611, to be restored to the staff by having his staff restored to him, which had been taken from him for misconduct.

Corporal Smuggins, 16th Foot, to be Sergeant by purchase, vice Buggins, arrested for debt.

All the post captains, who were formerly Twopennies, will take the rank of Generals.

In the Thames Navy, 2d mate Simpkins, of the Bachelor, to be 1st mate, vice Phunker, fallen overboard and resigned.

All the men who are above the age of 100, and are in the actual discharge of duty as policemen, are to be immediately superannuated on half-pay—a liberal arrangement, prompted, it is believed, by the birth of the Prince of Wales.

PUNCH’S THEATRE. NORMA, OSSIAN, AND PAUL BEDFORD. A vestal virgin with a husband and two children, a Roman Lothario, with an Irish friend, a Druidical temple, a gong, and an auto-da-fé, mix up charmingly with Bellini’s quadrille-like music to form a pathetic opera; and sympathetic dilettanti weep over the woes of “Norma,” because they are so exquisitely portrayed by Miss Kemble, in spite of the subject and the music. Such, indeed, is the power of this lady’s genius—which is shed like a halo over the whole opera—that nobody laughs at the broad Irish in which Flavius delivers himself and his recitative; few are risibly affected by the apathetic, and often out-of-tune, roarings of Pollio:—than which stronger testimony could not be cited of the triumph of Miss Kemble; for solely by her influence do those who go to Covent- Garden to grin, return delighted.

But Apollo himself could not charm away the rich fun that pervades the English adaptation; nor the modest humour of its preface. It has been, hitherto, one characteristic of the lyric drama to consist of verse; rhyme has been thought not wholly dispensable. Those, however, who are “familiar with the writings of Ossian,” (and the works of the Covent- Garden adapter), will, according to the preface, at once see the fallacy of this. Rhyme is mere “jingle,”—rhythm, rhodomontade,—metre, monstrous,—versification, villanous,—in short, Ossian did not write poetry, neither does this learned prefacier—so it’s all nonsense!

To burlesque such a work as “Norma,” then, is to paint the lily, to gild refined gold, to caricature Lord Morpeth, or to attempt to improve PUNCH. Yet the opportunity was too tempting to be wholly overlooked, and a hint having been dropped in one of our “Pencillings,” an Adelphi scribe has acted upon it. An enlarged edition of the work may, therefore, now be had at half-price. A heroine of six foot two or three in her sandals, with a bass voice, covers the stage with tremendous strides, and warbles out “her wood-notes” (being a Druidess she worships the oak) “wild,” with a volume of voice which silences the trombone, and makes the ophecleide sound asthmatic. In short, the great feature is Mr. Paul Bedford. The children he brings forward are worthy of their parentage. Pollio is made a most killing Roman roué by Mrs. Grattan; but Norma’s attendant does not speak Irish half so richly as the Covent- Garden Flavius.

But, above all, commend we Mr. Wright’s Adelgeisa. It is a masterpiece; all the airs and graces of the prima donna he imitates with a true spirit of burlesque. As to his singing, it astonished everybody, and so did the introduction of “All round my Hat,”—a most unnecessary interpolation, for the original music is quite as droll.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1. DECEMBER 18, 1841. [pg 265] THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE LONDON MEDICAL STUDENT. 12.—OF THE COLLEGE, AND THE CONCLUSION. A dog jumps through a hoop (Letter O). ur hero once more undergoes the process of grinding before he presents himself in Lincoln’s-inn Fields for examination at the College of Surgeons. Almost the last affair which our hero troubles himself about is the Examination at the College of Surgeons; and as his anatomical knowledge requires a little polishing before he presents himself in Lincoln’s-inn Fields, he once more undergoes the process of grinding.

The grinder for the College conducts his tuition in the same style as the grinder for the Hall—often they are united in the same individual, who perpetually has a vacancy for a resident pupil, although his house is already quite full; somewhat resembling a carpet-bag, which was never yet known to be so crammed with articles, but you might put something in besides. The class is carried on similar to the one we have already quoted; but the knowledge required does not embrace the same multiformity of subjects; anatomy and surgery being the principal points.

Our old friends are assembled to prepare for their last examination, in a room fragrant with the amalgamated odours of stale tobacco-smoke, varnished bones, leaky preparations, and gin-and-water. Large anatomical prints depend from the walls, and a few vertebræ, a lower jaw, and a sphenoid bone, are scattered upon the table.

“To return to the eye, gentlemen,” says the grinder; “recollect the Petitian Canal surrounds the Cornea. Mr. Rapp, what am I talking about?”

Mr. Rapp, who is drawing a little man out of dots and lines upon the margin of his “Quain’s Anatomy,” starts up, and observes—“Something about the Paddington Canal running round a corner, sir.”

“Now, Mr. Rapp, you must pay me a little more attention,” expostulates the teacher. “What does the operation for cataract resemble in a familiar point of view?”

“Pushing a boat-hook through the wall of a house to pull back the drawing-room blinds,” answers Mr. Rapp.

“You are incorrigible,” says the teacher, smiling at the simile, which altogether is an apt one. “Did you ever see a case of bad cataract?”

“Yes, sir, ever-so-long ago—the Cataract of the Ganges at Astley’s. I went to the gallery, and had a mill with—”

“There, we don’t want particulars,” interrupts the grinder; “but I would recommend you to mind your eyes, especially if you get under Guthrie. Mr. Muff, how do you define an ulcer?”

“The establishment of a raw,” replies Mr. Muff.

“Tit! tit! tit!” continues the teacher, with an expression of pity. “Mr. Simpson, perhaps you can tell Mr. Muff what an ulcer is?”

“An abrasion of the cuticle produced by its own absorption,” answers Mr. Simpson, all in a breath.

“Well. I maintain it’s easier to say a raw than all that,” observes Mr. Muff.

“Pray, silence. Mr. Manhug, have you ever been sent for to a bad incised wound?”

“Yes, sir, when I was an apprentice: a man using a chopper cut off his hand.”

“And what did you do?”

“Cut off myself for the governor, like a two-year old.”

“But now you have no governor, what plan would you pursue in a similar case?”

“Send for the nearest doctor—call him in.”

“Yes, yes, but suppose he wouldn’t come?”

“Call him out, sir.”

“Pshaw! you are all quite children,” exclaims the teacher. “Mr. Simpson, of what is bone chemically composed?”

“Of earthy matter, or phosphate of lime, and animal matter, or gelatine.”

“Very good, Mr. Simpson. I suppose you don’t know a great deal a bout bones, Mr. Rapp?”

“Not much, sir. I haven’t been a great deal in that line. They give a penny for three pounds in Clare Market. That’s what I call popular osteology.”

“Gelatine enters largely into the animal fibres,” says the leader, gravely. “Parchment, or skin, contains an important quantity, and is used by cheap pastry-cooks to make jellies.”

“Well, I’ve heard of eating your words,” says Mr. Rapp, “but never your deeds.”

“Oh! oh! oh!” groan the pupils at this gross appropriation, and the class getting very unruly is broken up.

The examination at the College is altogether a more respectable ordeal than the jalap and rhubarb botheration at Apothecaries’ Hall, and par conséquence, Mr. Muff goes up one evening with little misgivings as to his success. After undergoing four different sets of examiners, he is told he may retire, and is conducted by Mr Belfour into “Paradise,” the room appropriated to the fortunate ones, which the curious stranger may see lighted up every Friday evening as he passes through Lincoln’s-inn Fields. The inquisitors are altogether a gentlemanly set of men, who are willing to help a student out of a scrape, rather than “catch question” him into one: nay, more than once the candidate has attributed his success to a whisper prompted by the kind heart of the venerable and highly-gifted individual—now, alas! no more—who until last year assisted at the examinations.

Of course, the same kind of scene takes place that was enacted after going up to the Hall, and with the same results, except the police- office, which they manage to avoid. The next day, as usual, they are again at the school, standing innumerable pots, telling incalculable lies, and singing uncounted choruses, until the Scotch pupil who is still grinding in the museum, is forced to give over study, after having been squirted at through the keyhole five distinct times, with a reversed stomach-pump full of beer, and finally unkennelled. The lecturer upon chemistry, who has a private pupil in his laboratory learning how to discover arsenic in poisoned people’s stomachs, where there is none, and make red, blue, and green fires, finds himself locked in, and is obliged to get out at the window; whilst the professor of medicine, who is holding forth, as usual, to a select very few, has his lecture upon intermittent fever so strangely interrupted by distant harmony and convivial hullaballoo, that he finishes abruptly in a pet, to the great joy of his class. But Mr. Muff and his friends care not. They have passed all their troubles—they are regular medical men, and for aught they care the whole establishment may blow up, tumble down, go to blazes, or anything else in a small way that may completely obliterate it. In another twelve hours they have departed to their homes, and are only spoken of in the reverence with which we regard the ruins of a by-gone edifice, as bricks who were.

Our task is finished. We have traced Mr. Muff from the new man through the almost entomological stages of his being to his perfect state; and we take our farewell of him as the “general practitioner.” In our Physiology we have endeavoured to show the medical student as he actually exists—his reckless gaiety, his wild frolics, his open disposition. That he is careless and dissipated we admit, but these attributes end with his pupilage; did they not do so spontaneously, the up-hill struggles and hardly-earned income of his laborious future career would, to use his own terms, “soon knock it all out of him;” although, in the after-waste of years, he looks back upon his student’s revelries with an occasional return of old feelings, not unmixed, however, with a passing reflection upon the lamentable inefficacy of the present course of medical education pursued at our schools and hospitals, to fit a man for future practice.

We have endeavoured in our sketches so to frame them, that the general reader might not be perplexed by technical or local allusions, whilst the students of London saw they were the work of one who had lived amongst them. And if in some places we have strayed from the strict boundaries of perfect refinement, yet we trust the delicacy of our most sensitive reader has received no wound. We have discarded our joke rather than lose our propriety; and we have been pleased at knowing that in more than one family circle our Physiology has, now and then, raised a smile on the lips of the fair girls, whose brothers were following the same path we have travelled over at the hospitals.

We hope with the new year to have once more the gratification of meeting our friends. Until then, with a hand offered in warm fellowship,—not only to those composing the class he once belonged to, but to all who have been pleased to bestow a few minutes weekly upon his chapters,—the Medical Student takes his leave.

A CON. THAT OUGHT TO HAVE BEEN THE COLONEL’S. When does a school-boy’s writing-book resemble the Hero of Waterloo?—When it’s a Well ink’d’un (Wellington).

[pg 266] THE “PUFF PAPERS.” CHAPTER III. On my next visit I found Mr. Bayles in full force, and loud in praise of some eleemosynary entertainment to which he had been invited. Having exhausted his subject and a tumbler of toddy at the same time, Mr. Arden “availed himself of the opportunity to call attention to the next tale,” which was found to be

A FATAL REMEMBRANCE. I was subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, and manager of the amateur theatre of the station.

Gahagan was a rattling, care-for-nothing Irishman, whose chief characteristic was a strong propensity for theatricals and practical jokes, but withal a generous, warm-hearted fellow, and as gallant a soldier as ever buckled sword-belt. In his capacity of manager, he was at present in a state of considerable perplexity, the occasion whereof was this.

There chanced then to be on a visit at Bangalore a particular ally of Fred’s, who was leading tragedian of the Chowringhee theatre in Calcutta; and it was in contemplation to get up Macbeth, in order that the aforesaid star might exhibit in his crack part as the hero of that great tragedy. Fred was to play Macduff; and the “blood-boltered Banquo” was consigned to my charge. The other parts were tolerably well cast, with the exception of that of Lady Macbeth, which indeed was not cast at all, seeing that no representative could be found for it. It must be stated that, as we had no actresses amongst us, all our female characters, as in the times of the primitive drama, were necessarily performed by gentlemen. Now in general it was not difficult to command a supply of smooth-faced young ensigns to personate the heroines, waiting- maids, and old women, of the comedies and farces to which our performances had been hitherto restricted. But Lady Macbeth was a very different sort of person to Caroline Dormer and Mrs. Hardcastle; and our ladies accordingly, one and all, struck work, refusing point blank to have anything to say to her.

The unfortunate manager, who had set his heart upon getting up the piece, was at his wits’ end, and had bent his footsteps towards the main guard, to advise with me as to what should be done in this untoward emergency. I endeavoured to console him as well as I could, and suggested, that if the worst came to the worst, the part might be read. But, lugubriously shaking his caput, Fred declared that would never do; so, after discussing half-a-dozen Trichinopoly cheroots, with a proportionate quantum of brandy pani, he departed for his quarters. “disgusted,” as he said, “with the ingratitude of mankind,” whilst I set forth to go my grand rounds.

Next morning, having been relieved from guard, I had returned home, and was taking my ease in my camp chair, luxuriously whiffing away at my after-breakfast cheroot, when who should step gingerly into the room but Manager Fred Gahagan. The clouds of the previous evening had entirely disappeared from his ingenuous countenance, which was puckered up in the most insinuating manner, with what I was wont to call his ‘borrowing smile;’ for Fred was oftentimes afflicted with impecuniosity—a complaint common enough amongst us subs;—and when the fit was on him, in the spirit of true friendship, he generally contrived to disburthen me of the few remaining rupees that constituted the balance of my last month’s pay.

Fred brought himself to an anchor upon a bullock trunk, and, after my boy had handed him a cheroot, and he had disgorged a few puffs of smoke, thus delivered himself—

“This is a capital weed, Wilmot. I don’t know how it is, but you always manage to have the best tobacco in the cantonment.”

“Hem,” said I, drily. “Glad you like it.”

“I say, Peter, my dear fellow,” quoth he, “Fitzgerald, Grimes, and I, have just been talking over what we were discussing last night, about Lady Macbeth you know.”

“Yes,” said I, somewhat relieved to find the conversation was not taking the turn I dreaded.

“Well, sir,” continued Fred, plunging at once “in medias res,”and speaking very fast, “and we have come to the conclusion that you are the only person to relieve us from all difficulty on the subject; Fitzgerald will take your part of Banquo; and you shall have Lady Macbeth, a character for which every one agrees you are admirably fitted.”

“I play Lady Macbeth!” cried I, “with my scrubbing-brush of a beard, and whiskers like a prickly-pear hedge; why, you mast be all mad to think of such a thing.”

“My dear friend,” remarked Gahagan mildly, “you know I have always said that you had the Kemble eye and nose, and I’m sure you won’t hesitate about cutting off your whiskers when so much depends upon it; they’ll soon grow again you know, Peter; as for your dark chin that don’t matter a rush, as Lady Macbeth is a dark woman.”

The reader will agree with me in thinking that friendship can sometimes be as blind as love, when I say with respect to my “Kemble eye and nose,” that the former has been from childhood affected with a decided tendency to strabismus, and the latter bears a considerably stronger resemblance to a pump-handle than it does to the classic profile of John Kemble or any of his family.

“Lieutenant Gahagan,” said I, solemnly, “do you remember how, some six years ago at Hydrabad, when yet beardless and whiskerless, the only hair upon my face being eyebrows and eyelashes, at your instigation and ‘suadente diabolo,’ I attempted to perform Lydia Languish in ‘The Rivals?’ and hast thou yet forgotten, O son of an unsainted father, how my grenadier stride, the fixed tea-pot position of my arms, to say nothing of the numerous other solecisms in the code of female manners which I perpetrated on that occasion, made me a laughing-stock and a by- word for many a long day afterwards! All this, I say, must be fresh in your recollection, and yet you have the audacity to ask me to expose myself again in a similar manner.”

“Pooh, pooh!” laughed Gahagan, “you were only a boy then, now you have more experience in these matters; besides, Lydia Languish was a part quite unworthy of your powers; Lady Macbeth is a horse of another colour.”

“Why, man, with what face could I aver that

‘I have given suck, and know

How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.’

That would certainly draw tears from the audience, but they would be tears of laughter, not sympathy, I warrant you. No, no, good master Fred, it won’t do, I tell you; and in the words of Lady Macbeth herself, I say—

‘What beast was’t, then,

That made you break this enterprise to me?’

And now oblige me by walking your body off, for I have got my yesterday’s guard report to fill up and send in, in default of which I shall be sure to catch an ‘official’ from the Brigade-Major.”

But Fred not only did not walk his body off, but harping on the same string, pertinaciously continued to ply me with alternate arguments and intreaties, until at last fairly wearied out, and more, I believe, with the hope of getting rid of the “importunate chink” of the fellow’s discourse, than anything else, in an evil moment I consented! hear it not, shade of Mrs. Siddons! to denude myself of the bushy honours of my cheeks, and tread the boards of the Bangalore stage as the wife of that atrocious usurper “King Cawdor Glamis!”

Fred marched himself away, elated at having carried his point; and I, after sundry dubious misgivings anent the rash promise I had made, ended by casting all compunctious visitings to the winds, and doughtily resolved, as I was in for the business, to “screw my courage to the sticking-place,’ and go through with it as boldly as I might.

By dint of continually studying my rôle, my dislike to it gradually diminished, nay, at length was converted into positive enthusiasm. I became convinced that I should make a decided hit, and cover my temples with unfading laurel. I rehearsed at all times, seasons, and places, until I was a perfect nuisance to everybody, and my acquaintance, I am sure, to a man, wished both me and her bloodthirsty ladyship, deeper than plummet ever sounded, at the bottom of the sea. Even the brute creation did not escape the annoyance. One morning my English pointer “Spot” ran yelping out of the room, panic-stricken by the vehement manner with which I exclaimed, “Out damned spot, out, I say!” and with the full conviction, which the animal probably entertained to the day of his death, that the said anathema had personal reference to himself.

The evening big with my fate at last arrived. The house was crammed, expectation on tiptoe, and the play commenced. The first four acts went off swimmingly, my performance especially was applauded to the echo, and there only wanted the celebrated sleeping scene, in which I flattered myself to be particularly strong, to complete my triumph. Triumph, did I say!

[pg 267] I must here explain, for the benefit of those who have never rounded the Cape, that the extreme heat of an Indian climate is so favourable to the growth of hair as to put those wights who are afflicted with dark chevelures, which was my case, to the inconvenient necessity of chin-scraping twice on the game day, when they wish to appear particularly spruce of an evening. Now I intended to have shaved before the play began, but in the hurry of dressing had forgotten all about it; and upon inspecting my visage in a glass, after I had donned Lady Macbeth’s night-gear, the lower part of it appeared so swart in contrast with the white dress, that I found it would be absolutely necessary to pass a razor over it before going on with my part.

The night was excessively warm, even for India; and as the place allotted to us for dressing was very small and confined, the bright thought struck me that I should have more air and room on the stage, whither I accordingly directed my servant to follow me with the shaving apparatus.

I ensconced myself behind the drop-scene, which was down, and was in the act of commencing the tonsorial operation, when, horresco referens, the prompter’s bell rang sharply, whether by accident or design I was never able to ascertain, but have grievous suspicions that Fred Gahagan knew something about it—up flew the drop-scene like a shot, and discovered the following tableau vivant to the astounded audience:—

Myself Lady Macbeth, with legs nearly a yard asunder—face and throat outstretched, and covered with a plentiful white lather—right arm brandishing aloft one of Paget’s best razors, and left thumb and forefinger grasping my nose. In front of me stood my faithful Hindoo valet, Verasawmy by name, with a soap-box in one hand, while his other held up to his master’s gaze a small looking-glass, over the top of which his black face, surmounted by a red turban, was peering at me with grave and earnest attention.

A wondering pause of a few seconds prevailed, and then one loud, rending, and continuous peal of laughter and screams shook the universal house.

As if smitten with sudden catalepsy, I was without power to move a single muscle of my body, and for the space of two minutes remained in a stupor in the same attitude—immovable, rooted, frozen to the spot where I stood. At length recovering at once my senses and power of motion, I bounded like a maniac from the stage, pursued by the convulsive roars of the spectators, and upsetting in my retreat the unlucky Verasawmy, who rolled down to the footlights, doubled up, and in a paroxysm of terror and dismay.

Lieutenant Frederick Gahagan had good reason to bless his stars that in that moment of frenzy I did not encounter him, the detestable origin of the abomination that had just been heaped upon my head. I am no two- legged creature if I should not have sacrificed him on the spot with my razor, and so merited the gratitude of his regimental juniors by giving them a step.

I have never since, either in public or private life, appeared in petticoats again.

SONGS FOR THE SENTIMENTAL.—No. 14. Oft have I fondly heard thee pour

Love’s incense in mine ear!

Oft bade thy lips repeat once more

The words I deemed sincere!

But—though the truth this heart may break—

I know thee false “and no mistake!”

My fancy pictured to my heart

Thy boasted passion, pure;

Dreamed thy affection, void of art,

For ever would endure.

Alas! in vain my woe I smother!

I find thee very much “more t’other!”

’Twas sweet to hear you sing of love,

But, when you talk of gold,

Your sordid, base design you prove,

And—for it must be told—

Since from my soul the truth you drag—

“You let the cat out of the bag!”

STARVATION STATISTICS FOR SIR ROBERT PEEL That the people of this country are grossly pampered there can be no doubt, for the following facts have been ascertained from which it will be seen that there have been instances of persons living on much coarser fare than the working classes in England.

In 1804, a shipwrecked mariner, who was thrown on to the celebrated mud- island of Coromandel, lived for three weeks upon his own wearing apparel. He first sucked all the goodness out of his jacket, and the following day dashed his buttons violently against the rock in order to soften them. He next cut pieces from his trousers, as tailors do when they want cabbage, and found them an excellent substitute for that salubrious vegetable. He was in the act of munching his boots for breakfast one morning, when he was fortunately picked up by his Majesty’s schooner Cutaway.

In the year ’95, the crew of the brig Terrible lost all their provisions, except a quantity of candles. After these were gone, they took a plank out of the side of the vessel and sliced it, which was their board for a whole fortnight.

After these startling and particularly well-authenticated facts, it would be absurd to deny that there is no reason for taking into consideration the comparatively trifling distress that is now prevalent.

THE FASTEST MAN. “A person named Meara,” says the Galway Advertiser, “confined for debt some time since in our town jail, fasted sixteen days!”

Sibthorp says this is an excellent illustration of hard and fast, and entitles the gentleman to be placed at

A man sits on a high stool with a feathered pen in his hand. THE SUMMIT OF HIS PROFESSION.

SIBTHORPS CON. CORNER. Dear PUNCH,—Have you seen the con. I made the other day? I transcribe it for you:—

“Though Wealth’s neglect and Folly’s taunt

Conspire to distress the poor,

Pray can you tell me why sharp want

Can ne’er approach the pauper’s door”

D’Orsay has rhymed the following answer:—

“The merest child might wonder how

The pauper e’er sharp wants can know,

When, spite of cruel Fortune’s taunts,

Blunt is the sharpest of his wants.”

Yours sincerely and comically, SIBTHORP.

P.S.—Let BRYANT call for his Christmas-box.

THE COPPER CAPTAIN. At the public meeting at Hammersmith for the purpose of taking into consideration the propriety of lighting the roads, in the midst of a most animated discussion, Captain Atcherly proposed an adjournment of the said meeting; which proposition being strongly negatived by a small individual, Captain Atcherly quietly pointed to an open window, made a slight allusion to the hardness of the pavement, and finally achieved the exit of the dissentient by whistling

A dog looks on as a heron puts its beak into a pitcher. MY FRIEND AND PITCHER.

[pg 268] “TAKE CARE OF HIM.” “Take care of him!” That sentence has been my ruin; from my cradle upwards it has dogged my steps and proved my bane! Fatal injunction! Little did my parents think of the miseries those four small monosyllables have entailed upon their hapless son!

My first assertion of infantine existence, that innocent and feeble wail that claimed the name of life, was met by the command, “Take care of him! take care of him!” said my mother to the doctor; “Take care of him!” said the doctor to the nurse; and “Take care of him!” added my delighted father to every individual of the rejoicing household.

The doctor’s care manifested itself in an over-dose of castor oil; the nurse, in the plenitude of her bounty, nearly parboiled me in an over- heated bath; my mother drugged me with a villanous decoction of soothing syrup, which brought on a slumber so sound that the first had very nearly proved my last; and the entire household dandled me with such uncommon vigour that I was literally tossed and “Catchee-catchee’d” into a fit of most violent convulsions. As I persisted in surviving, so did I become the heir to fresh torments from the ceaseless care of those by whom I was surrounded. My future symmetry was superinduced by bandaging my infant limbs until I looked like a miniature mummy. The summer’s sun was too hot and the winter’s blast too cold; wet was death, and dry weather was attended with easterly winds. I was “taken care of.” I never breathed the fresh air of Heaven, but lived in an artificial nursery atmosphere of sea-coal and logs.

Young limbs are soon broken, and young children will fall, if not taken care of; consequently upon any instinctive attempt at a pedestrian performance I was tied round the middle with a broad ribbon, my unhappy little feet see-sawing in the air, and barely brushing the ruffled surface of the Persian carpet, while I appeared like a tempting bait, with which my nurse, after the manner of an experienced angler, was bobbing for some of the strange monsters worked into the gorgeous pattern.

Crooked legs were “taken care of” by a brace of symmetrical iron shackles, and Brobdignag walnut-shells, decorated with flaming bows of crimson ribbon, were attached to each side of my small face, to prevent me from squinting. When old enough to mount a pony, I was “taken such care of,” by being secured to the saddle, that the restive little brute, feeling inclined for a tumble, deliberately rolled over me some half- dozen times before the astonished stable-boy could effect my deliverance! while the corks with which I was provided to learn to swim in some three feet square of water, slipped accidentally down to my toes, and left me submerged so long that the total consumption of all the salt, and wetting in boiling water of all the blankets, in the house was found absolutely necessary to effect my resuscitation.

At school I was once more to be “taken care of;” consequently I pined to death in a wretched single-bedded room, shuddering with inconceivable horror at the slightest sound, and conjuring up legions of imaginary sprites to haunt my couch during my waking hours of dread and misery. O how I envied the reckless laughter of the gleeful urchins whose unmindful parents left them to the happy utterance of their own and participation in their young companions’ thoughts!

As a parlour boarder, which I was of course, “to be taken care of,” I was not looked upon as one of the “fellows,” but merely as a little upstart—one who most likely was pumped by the master and mistress, and peached upon the healthy rebels of the little world.

Christmas brought me no joys. “Taking care of my health” prevented me from skating and snow-balling; while perspective surfeits deprived me of the enjoyments of the turkeys, beef, and glorious pudding.

At eighteen I entered as a gentleman commoner at —— College, Cambridge; and at nineteen a suit of solemn black, and the possession of five thousand a year, bespoke me heir to all my father left; and from that hour have I had cause to curse the title of this paper. Young and inexperienced, I entered wildly into all the follies wealth can purchase or fashion justify; but I was still to be the victim of the phrase. “We’ll take care of him,” said a knot of the most determined play-men upon town; and they did. Two years saw my five thousand per annum reduced to one, but left me with somewhat more knowledge of the world. Even that was turned against me; and prudent fathers shook their heads, and sagely cautioned their own young scapegraces “to take care of me.”

All was not yet complete. A walk down Bond Street was interrupted by a sudden cry, “That’s him—take care of him!” I turned by instinct, and was arrested at the suit of a scoundrel whose fortune I had made, and who in gratitude had thus pointed me out to the myrmidon of the Middlesex sheriff. I was located in a lock-up house, and thence conveyed to jail. In both instances the last words I heard in reference to myself were “Take care of him.” I sacrificed almost my all, and once more regained my liberty. Fate seemed to turn! A friend lent me fifty pounds. I pledged my honour for its repayment. He promised to use his interest for my future welfare. I kept my word gratefully; returned the money on the day appointed. I did so before one who knew me by report only, and looked upon me as a ruined, dissipated, worthless Extravagant. I returned to an adjoining room to wait my friend’s coming. While there, I could not avoid hearing the following colloquy—

“Good Heaven! has that fellow actually returned your fifty?”

“Yes. Didn’t you see him?”

“Of course I did; but I can scarcely believe my eyes. Oh! he’s a deep one.”

“He’s a most honourable young man.”

“How can you be so green? He has a motive in it.”

“What motive?”

“I don’t know that. But, old fellow, listen to me. I’m a man of the world, and have seen something of life; and I’ll stake my honour and experience that that fellow means to do you; so be advised, and—‘Take care of him!’”

This was too much. I rushed out almost mad, and demanded an apology, or satisfaction—the latter alternative was chosen. Oh, how my blood boiled! I should either fall, or, at length, by thus chastising the impertinent, put an end to the many meaning and hateful words.

We met; the ground was measured. I thought for a moment of the sin of shedding human blood, and compressed my lips. A moment I wavered; but the voice of my opponent’s second whispering, “Take care of him,” once more nerved my heart and arm. My adversary’s bullet whistled past my ear: he fell—hit through the shoulder. He was carried to his carriage. I left the ground, glad that I had chastised him, but released to find the wound was not mortal. I felt as if in Heaven this act would free me from the worldly ban. A week after, I met one of my old friends; he introduced me by name to his father. The old gentleman started for a moment, then exclaimed—“You know my feeling, Sir—you are a duellist! Tom, ‘Take care of him!’”

PUNCHLIED. SONG FOR PUNCH DRINKERS. (VON SCHILLER.)

(FROM SCHILLER.)

Vier Elemente

Innig gesellt,

Bilden das Leben

Bauen die Welt.

Presst der Citrone

Saftigen Stern!

Herb ist des Lebens

Innerster Kern.

Jetzt mit des Zuckers

Linderndem Saft

Zæhmet die herbe

Brennende Kraft!

Gieszet des Wassers

Sprudelnden Schwall!

Wasser umfænget

Ruhig das All!

Tropfen des Geistes

Gieszet hinein!

Leben dem Leben

Gibt er allein.

Eh’ es verdueftet

Schoepfet es schnell!

Nur wann er gluehet

Labet der Quell.

Four be the elements,

Here we assemble ’em,

Each of man’s world

And existence an emblem.

Press from the lemon

The slow flowing juices.

Bitter is life

In its lessons and uses.

Bruise the fair sugar lumps,—

Nature intended

Her sweet and severe

To be everywhere blended.

Pour the still water—

Unwarning by sound,

Eternity’s ocean

Is hemming us round!

Mingle the spirit,

The life of the bowl;

Man is an earth-clod

Unwarmed by a soul!

Drink of the stream

Ere its potency goes!

No bath is refreshing

Except while it glows!

[pg 269] THE SCHOOL OF DESIGN AT HOOKAM-CUM-SNIVERY. Wednesday last was the day fixed for the distribution of the prizes at this institution, and every arrangement had been made to receive the numerous visitors. The boards had undergone their annual scrubbing, and some beautiful devices in chalk added life to the floor, which was enriched with a scroll-work of whiting, while the arms of Hookham-cum-Snivery (a nose, rampant, with a hand, couchant, extending a thumb, gules, to the nostril, argent) formed an appropriate centre-piece.

Seven o’clock was fixed upon for the opening of the doors, at which hour the committee went in procession, headed by their chairman, to withdraw the bolts, that the public might be admitted, when a rush took place of the most frightful and disastrous character. A drove of bullocks that were being alternately enticed and marling-spiked into a butcher’s exactly opposite, took advantage of the courtesy of the committee, and poured in with great rapidity to the building, carrying everything—including the committee—most triumphantly before them. In spite of their unceremonious entry, some of the animals evinced a disposition to stand upon forms, by leaping on to the benches, while the committee, who had expected a deputation of savans from the Hampton- super-Horsepond Institution, for the enlightenment of ignorant octagenarians, and who being prepared to see a party of donkeys, were not inclined to take the bull by the horns, made a precipitate retreat into the anteroom.

Order having been at length restored, the intruders ejected, and their places supplied by a select circle of subscribers, the following prizes were distributed:—

To Horatio Smith Smith, the large copper medal, bearing on one side the portrait of George the Third, on the reverse a figure of Britannia, sitting on a beer barrel, and holding in her hand a toasting fork. This medal was given for the best drawing of the cork of a ginger-beer bottle.

To Ferdinand Fitz-Figgins, the smaller copper medal, with the head of William the Fourth, and a reverse similar to that of the superior prize. This was awarded for the best drawing of a decayed tooth after Teniers.

To Sigismond Septimus Snobb, the large willow pattern plate, for the best model of a national water-butt, to be erected in the Teetotalers’ Hall of Temperance in the Water-loo Road.

To Lucius Junius Brutus Brown, the Marsh-gate turnpike ticket for Christmas-day—of which an early copy has been most handsomely presented by the contractor. This useful and interesting document has been given for the best design—upon the river Thames, with the view to igniting it.

The proceedings having been terminated, so far as the distribution was concerned, the following speeches were delivered:—

The first orator was Mr. Julius Jones, who spoke nearly as follows:—

Mither Prethident and thubtheriberth of the Hookam-cum-Sthnivey Sthchool of Dethign, in rithing to addreth thuch an afthembly ath thith—

Here the confusion became so general that our reporter could catch nothing further, and as the partisans of Mr. Jones became very much excited, while the opposition was equally violent, our reporter fearing that, though he could not catch the speeches, he might possibly catch something else, effected his retreat as speedily as possible.

QUEER QUERIES. NOT THE BEST IN THE WORLD. Why is a man with his eyes shut like an illiterate schoolmaster?—Because he keeps his pupils in darkness.

BETTER NEXT TIME. Why is the present Lord Chancellor wickeder than the last?—Because he’s got two more Vices.

FORGIVE US THIS ONCE. Why are abbots the greatest dunces in the world?—Because they never get further than their Abbacy (A, B, C.)

WE’LL NEVER DO SO ANY MORE. Why is an auctioneer like a man with an ugly countenance?—Because he is always for-bidding.

WE REALLY COULD NOT HELP IT. Why is Mrs. Lilly showing the young Princes like an affected ladies’-maid?—Because she exhibits her mistress’s heirs (airs).

IMPORTANT INTELLIGENCE. A dispatch, bearing a foreign post-mark, was handed very generally about in the city this morning, but its contents did not transpire. Considerable speculation is afloat on the subject, but we are unable to give any particulars.

Downing-street was in a state of great activity all yesterday, and people were passing to and fro repeatedly. This excitement is generally believed to be connected with nothing particular. We have our own impression on the subject, but as disclosures would be premature, we purposely forbear making any. We can only say, at present, that Sir Robert Peel continues to hold the office of Prime Minister.

THE BROTH OF A BOY. AN IRISH LYRIC. AIR,—I’m the boy for bewitching them

Whisht, ye divils, now can’t you be aisy,

Like a cat whin she’s licking the crame.

And I’ll sing ye a song just to plase you,

About myself, Dermot Macshane.

You’ll own, whin I’ve tould ye my story.

And the janius adorning my race,

Although I’ve no brass in my pocket,

Mushagra! I’ve got lots in my face.

For in rainy or sunshiny weather,

I’m full of good whiskey and joy;

And take me in parts altogether,

By the pow’rs I’m a broth of a boy.

I was sint on the mighty world one day,

Like a squeaking pig out of a sack;

And, och, murder! although it was Sunday,

Without a clane shirt to my back.

But my mother died while I was sucking,

And larning for whiskey to squall,

Leaving me a dead cow, and a stocking

Brimful of—just nothing at all.

But in rainy, &c.

My ancistors, who were all famous

At Donnybrook, got a great name:

My aunt she sould famous good whiskey—

I’m famous for drinking that same.

And I’m famous, like Master Adonis,

With his head full of nothing but curls,

For breaking the heads of the boys, sirs,

And breaking the hearts of the girls.

For in rainy, &c.

Och! I trace my discint up to Adam,

Who was once parish priest in Kildare;

And uncle, I think, to King David,

That peopled the county of Clare.

Sure his heart was as light as a feather,

Till his wife threw small beer on his joy

By falling in love with a pippin,

Which intirely murder’d the boy.

For in rainy, &c.

A fine architict was my father,

As ever walk’d over the sea;

He built Teddy Murphy’s mud cabin—

And didn’t he likewise build me?

Sure, he built him an illigant pigstye,

That made all the Munster boys stare.

Besides a great many fine castles—

But, bad luck,—they were all in the air.

For in rainy, &c.

Though I’d scorn to be rude to a lady,

Miss Fortune and I can’t agree;

So I flew without wings from green Erin—

Is there anything green about me?

While blest with this stock of fine spirits,

At care, faith, my fingers I’ll snap;

I’m as rich as a Jew without money,

And free as a mouse in a trap.

For in rainy, &c.

[pg 270] THE “WEIGHT” OF ROYALTY.—THE SOCIAL “SCALE.” The Prince of Wales it is allowed upon all hands is the finest baby ever sent into this naughty world since the firstborn of Eve. At a day old he would make three of any of the new-born babes that a month since blessed the Union bf Sevenoaks. There is, however, a remarkable providence in this. The Prince of Wales is born to the vastness of a palace; the little Princes of Pauperdom being doomed to lie at the rate of fifteen in “two beds tied together,” are happily formed of corresponding dimensions, manufactured of more “squeezeable materials.” There is, be sure of it, a providence watching over parish unions as well as palaces. How, for instance, would boards of guardians pack their new-born charges, if every babe of a union had the brawn and bone of a Prince of Wales?

However, we could wish that the little Prince was thrice his size—an aspiration in which our readers will heartily join, when they learn the goodly tidings we are about to tell them.

We believe it is not generally known that Sir PETER LAURIE is as profound an orientalist as perhaps any Rabbi dwelling in Whitechapel. Sir PETER, whilst recently searching the Mansion House library,—which has been greatly enriched by eastern manuscripts, the presents of the late Sir WILLIAM CURTIS, Sir CLAUDIUS HUNTER, and the venerable Turk who is Wont to sell rhubarb in Cheapside, and supplied dinner-pills to the Court of Aldermen,—Sir PETER, be it understood, lighted upon a rare work on the Mogul Country, in which it is stated that on every birth-day of the Great Mogul, his Magnificence is duly weighed in scales against so much gold and silver—his precise weight in the precious metals being expended on provisions for the poor.

Was there ever a happier device to make a nation interested in the greatness of their sovereign? The fatter the king, the fuller his people! With this custom naturalised among us, what a blessing would have been the corpulency of GEORGE THE FOURTH! How the royal haunches, the royal abdomen, would have had the loyal aspirations of the poor and hungry! The national anthem would have had an additional verse in thanksgiving for royal flesh; and in our orisons said in churches, we should not only have prayed for the increasing years of our “most religious King,” but for his increasing fat!

It is however useless to regret forgotten advantages; let us, on the contrary, with new alacrity, avail ourselves of a present good.

Our illumination on the christening of the Prince of Wales—we at once, and in the most liberal manner, give the child his title—has been generally scouted, save and except by a few public-spirited oil and tallow-merchants. It has been thought better to give away legs of mutton on the occasion, than to waste any of the sheep in candles. This proposition—it is known—has our heartiest concurrence. Here, however, comes in the wisdom of our dear Sir Peter. He, taking the hint from the Mogul Country, proposes that the Prince of Wales should be weighed in scales—weighed, naked as he was born, without the purple velvet and ermine robe in which his Highness is ordinarily shown in, not that Sir PETER would sink that “as offal”—against his royal weight in beef and pudding; the said beef and pudding to be distributed to every poor family (if the family count a certain number of mouths, his Royal Highness to be weighed twice or thrice, as it may be) to celebrate the day on which his Royal Highness shall enter the pale of the Christian Church.

We have all heard what a remarkably fine child his Royal Babyhood is; but would not this distribution of beef and pudding convince the country of the fact? How folks would rejoice at the chubbiness of the Prince, when they saw a evidence of his bare dimensions smoking on their table! How their hearts would leap up at his fat, when they beheld it typified upon their platters! How they would be gladdened by prize royalty, while their mouths watered at prize beef! And how, with all their admiration of the exceeding lustihood of the Prince of Wales,—how, from the very depths of their stomachs, would they wish His Royal Highness twice as big!

Is not this a way to disarm Chartism of its sword and pike, making even O’CONNOR, VINCENT, and PINKETHLIE, throw away their weapons for a knife and fork? Is not this the way to make the weight of royalty easy—oh, most easy!—to a burthened people? The beef-and-pudding representatives of His Royal Highness, preaching upon every poor man’s table, would carry the consolations of loyalty to every poor man’s stomach. When the children of the needy lisped “plum pudding,” would they not think of the Prince?

(Now, then, our readers know the obligation of the country to Sir PETER LAURIE—an obligation which we are happy to state will be duly acknowledged by the Common Council, that grateful body having already petitioned the Government for the waste leaden pipes preserved from the fire at the Tower, that a statue of Sir Peter may be cast from the metal, and placed in some convenient nook of the Mansion-House, where the Lord Mayor for the time being may, it is hoped, behold it at least once a-day.)

This happy suggestion of Sir PETER’S may, however, be followed up with the best national effect. Christmas is fast Approaching: let the fashion set by the Prince of Wales be followed by all public bodies—by all individuals “blessed with aught to give.” Let the physical weight of all corporations—all private benefactors of the poor, be distributed in eatables to the indigent and famishing. When the Alderman, with “three fingers on the ribs” gives his weight in geese or turkeys to the poor of his ward, he returns the most pertinent thanks-giving to providence, that has put money in his pocket and flesh upon his bones. The poor may have an unexpected cause to bless the venison and turtle that have fattened his bowels, seeing that they are made the depositories of their weight.

This standard of Christmas benefactions may admit of very curious illustration. For instance, we would not tie the noble and the aristocratic to any particular kind of viands, but would allow them to illustrate their self-value of the “porcelain of all human clay” by the richness and rarity of their subscriptions. Whilst a SIBTHORP, with a fine sense of humility, might be permitted to give his weight in calves’ or sheeps’ heads (be it understood we must have the whole weight of the Colonel, for if we were to sink his offal, what in the name of veal would remain?), a Duke of WELLINGTON should be allowed to weight against nothing less than the fattest venison and the finest turtle. As the Duke, too, is rather a light weight, we should be glad if he would condescend to take a Paisley weaver or two in the scale with him, to make his subscription of eatables the more worthy of acceptance. All the members of the present Cabinet would of course be weighed against loaves and fishes (on the present occasion we would accept nothing under the very finest wheaten bread and the very best of turbot), whilst a LAURIE, who has worked such a reform in cut-throats, should be weighed out to his ward in the most select stickings of beef.

All we propose to ourselves in these our weekly essays is, to give brief suggestions for the better government of the world, and for the bringing about the millennium, which—when we are given away gratis in the streets—may be considered to have arrived. Hence, we cannot follow put through all its natural ramifications the benevolent proposition here laid down. We trust, however, we have done enough. It is not necessary that we should particularise all public men, tying them to be weighed against specific viands: no, our readers will at once recognise the existence of the parties, and at once acknowledge their fittest offerings. It may happen that a peer might very properly be weighed against shin of beef, and a Christian bishop be popped in the scale against a sack of perriwinkles; it remains, however, with LONDONDERRY or EXETER to be weighed if they will against golden pheasants and birds of paradise.

We are perfectly aware that if many of the elect of the land were to weigh themselves against merely the things they are worth, that a great deal of the food subscribed would be unfit to be eaten even by the poor. We should have rats, dogs, snakes, bats, and all other unclean animals; but in levying the parties to weigh themselves at their own valuation, the poor may be certain to “sup in the Apollo.” On this principle we should have the weight of a LYNDHURST served to this neighbourhood in the tenderest house-lamb, and a STANLEY kicking the beam against so many “sucking doves.”

Q.

FASHIONS FOR THE MONTH. Coats are very much worn, particularly at the elbows, and are trimmed with a shining substance, which gives them a very glossy appearance. A rim of white runs down the seams, and the covering of the buttons is slightly opened, so as to show the wooden material under it.

Hats are now slightly indented at the top, and we have seen several in which part of the brim is sloped off without any particular regard to the quantity abstracted.

Walking-dresses are very much dotted just now with brown spots of a mud colour, thrown on quite irregularly, and the heels of the stockings may sometimes be seen trimmed with the same material. A sort of basket-work is now a great deal seen as a head-dress, and in these cases it is strewed over with little silver fish, something like common sprat, which gives it a light and graceful character.

[pg 271] PUNCH’S PENCILLINGS.—No. XXIII. A man sits looking at a piece of paper. THE POLITICIAN PUZZLED;

OR,

PEEL ON THE RE-PEAL OF THE CORN-LAWS.

[pg 273] THE CHEROOT. An excellent thing it is, when you get it genuine—none of your coarse Whitechapel abominations, but a veritable satin-skinned, brown Indian beauty; smooth and firm to the touch, and full-flavoured to the taste; such a one as would be worth a Jewess’ eye, with a glass of tawny Port. But the gratification that we have been wont to derive from our real Manilla has been sadly disturbed of late by a circumstance which has caused a dreadful schism in the smoking world, and has agitated every divan in the metropolis to its very centre. The question is, “Whether should a cheroot be smoked by the great or the small end?” On this apparently trivial subject the great body of cheroot smokers have taken different sides, and divided themselves, as the Lilliputians did in the famous egg controversy, into the Big-endians and Little-endians. The dispute has been carried on with great vigour on both sides, and several ingenious volumes have been already written, proving satisfactorily the superiority of each system, without however convincing a single individual of the opposite party. The Tories, we have observed, have as usual seized on the big end of the argument, while the Whigs have grappled as resolutely by the little end, and are puffing away furiously in each other’s eyes. Heaven knows where the contest will end! For ourselves, we are content to watch the struggle from our quiet corner, convinced, whichever end gains the victory, that John Bull will be made to smoke for it; and when curious people ask us if we be big-endians or little-endians, we answer, that, to oblige all our friends, we smoke our Manillas at both ends.

BALLADS OF THE BRIEFLESS. No. 1.—THE RULE TO COMPUTE. Oh, tell me not of empires grand,

Of proud dominion wide and far,

Of those who sway the fertile land

Where melons three for twopence are.

To rule like this I ne’er aspire,

In fact my book it would not suit!

The only rule that I desire,

Is a rule nisi to compute.

Oh speak not of the calm delights,

That in the fields or lanes we win;

The field and lane that me invites

Is Chancery or Lincoln’s Inn.

Yes, there in some remote recess,

At eve, I practise on my flute,

Till some attorney comes to bless

With a rule nisi to compute.

No. 2.—SIGNING A PLEA. Oh, how oft when alone at the close of the day

I’ve sat in that Court where the fig-tree don’t grow

And wonder’d how I, without money, should pay

The little account to my laundress below!

And when I have heard a quick step on the stair,

I’ve thought which of twenty rich duns it could be,

I have rush’d to the door in a fit of despair,

And—received ten and sixpence for signing a plea.

CHORUS.—Signing a plea, signing a plea!

Received ten and sixpence for signing a plea.

They may talk as they will of the pleasure that’s found.

When venting in verse our despondence and grief;

But the pen of the poet was ne’er, I’ll be bound,

Half so pleasantly used as in signing a brief.

In soft declarations, though rapture may lie,

If the maid to appear to your suit willing be,

But ah I could write till my inkstand was dry,

And die in the act—yes—of signing a plea.

CHORUS.—Signing a plea, signing a plea!

Die in the act—yes—of signing a plea.

A CUT BY SIR PETER. A man looks in a mirror with a surprised look. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ANACREON, PETRONIUS, CERVANTES, HUDIBRAS, AND “PUNCH.” A CASE IN POINT, FROM ANACREON. ???S ???????. ?????s? a? ???a??e?

??a????? ????? e?

?aß?? ?s?pt??? ???e?

??µa? µ?? ????t? ??sa?

????? d? se? µ?t?p??.

A FREE TRANSLATION BY “PUNCH”—THE CUTTEE. Oft by the women I am told

“Tomkins, my boy, you’re growing o!d.

Look in the glass, and see how bare

Your poll appears reflected there.

No ringlets play around your brow;

’Tis all Sir Peter Laurie-ish11. This is a graceful as well as a literal rendering of the bard of Teos. The word ????? signifying nudus, inanis, ‘envis, fatuus; Anglice,—Sir Peter Laurie-ish ED. OF “PUNCH.” now.”

A TRIBUTE BY PETRONIUS. Quod summum formæ decus est, cecidere capilli,

Vernantesque comas tristis abegit hyems

Nunc umbra nudata sua jam tempora mœrent,

Areaque attritis nidet adusta pilis.

O fallax natura Deum! quæ prima dedisti

Ætati nostræ gaudia, prima rapis.

Infelix modo crinibus nitebas,

Phœbo pulchrior, et sorore Phœbi:

At nunc lævior aëre, vel rotundo

Horti tubere, quod creavit unda,

Ridentes fugis et times puellas.

Ut mortem citius venire credas,

Scito jam capitis perisse partem.

A FREE TRANSLATION BY “PUNCH.” Tomkins, you’re dish’d! thy light luxuriant hair,

Like “a distress,” hath left thy caput bare;

Thy temples mourn th’ umbrageous locks, and yield

A crop as stunted as a stubble field.

Rowland and Ross! your greasy gifts are vain,

You give the hair you’re sure to cut again.

Unhappy Tomkins! late thy ringlets rare,

E’en Wombwell’s self to rival might despair.

Now with thy smooth crown, nor the fledgling’s chops,

Nor East-born Mechi’s magic razor strops,

Can vie! And laughing maids you fly in dread,

Lest they should see the horrors of your head!

Laurie, like death, hath clouded o’er your morn.

Tomkins, you’re dish’d! Your Jeune France locks are shorn.

A SCRAP FROM CERVANTES. “Deliver me from the devil,” cried the Squire, “is it possible that a magistrate, or what d’ye call him, green as a fig, should appear no better than an ass in your worship’s eyes? By the Lord, I’ll give you leave to pluck off every hair of my beard if that be the case.”

“Then I tell thee,” said the master, “he is as certainly a he ass as I am Don Quixote and thou Sancho Panza, at least so he seems to me.”—Don Quixote.

A COINCIDENCE FROM BUTLER. Shall hair that on a crown has place

Become the subject of a case?

[pg 274] The fundamental law of nature

Be over-ruled by those made after?

’Tis we that can dispose alone

Whether your heirs (hairs) shall be your own.

Hudibras.

A CLIMAX BY “PUNCH.” Sir Peter Laurie passes so quickly from hyper- loyalty to downright treason, that he is an insolvable problem. As wigs were once worn out of compliment to a monarch, so when the Queen expects a little heir, Sir Peter causes a gentleman, over whom he has an accidental influence, to have a little hair too. But oh the hypocrite! the traitor! he at the same time gives a shilling to have the ha(e)ir cut off from the crown. It is quite time to look to the

A boy runs off with the cane of a man seated with his bandaged foot on a stool. HEIR PRESUMPTIVE.

ANNOUNCEMENT EXTRAORDINARY. PUNCH begs to state that, owing to the immense press of matter on hand, the following contributions only can expect insertion in the body of PUNCH during the whole of next week. Contributors are requested to send early—carriage paid.

N.B.—PUNCH does not pledge himself for the return of any article.

Turkeys—for which PUNCH undertakes to find cuts, and plates—unlimited.

Sausages, to match the above. Mem.—no undue preference, or Bill Monopoly. Epping and Norfolk equally welcome.

Mince Pies, per dozen—thirteen as twelve. No returns.

“Oh, the Roast Beef of Old England,” with additional verses, capable of various encores.

Puddings received from ten till four. PUNCH makes his own sauce; the chief ingredient is brandy, which he is open to receive per bottle or dozen.

Large Hampers containing small turkeys, &c., may be pleasantly filled with lemons, candied citron, and lump sugar.

To the Ladies Exclusively. (Private and confidential, quite unknown to Judy.)

BRYANT has had orders to suspend a superb Mistletoe bough in the publishing-office. PUNCH will be in attendance from daylight till dusk. To prevent confusion, the salutes will he distributed according to the order of arrival.

TO PUNSTERS AND OTHERS. PUNCH begs to state he is open to receive tenders for letter-press matter, to be illustrated by the

A man chases after another with a stick. FOLLOWING CUT.

N.B. They must be sent in sealed, and will be submitted to a select committee, consisting of Peter Laurie, and Borthwick, and Deaf Burke.

N.B. No Cutting-his-Stick need apply.

PEN AND PALETTE PORTRAITS. (TAKEN FROM THE FRENCH.) BY ALPHONSE LECOURT. (Continued.)

PORTRAIT OF THE LOVER. CHAPTER II. IN WHICH THE AUTHOR TREATS OF LOVERS IN GENERAL. A gentleman leans against a letter A. ll lovers are absurd and ridiculous. The passion which spiritualises woman makes man a fool. Nothing can be more amusing than to observe a bashful lover in company where the object of his affections is present. He is the very picture of confusion and distress, looking like a man who has lost something, and knows not where to seek for it. His eyes wander from the carpet to the ceiling; at one moment he is engaged in counting the panes in the window, and the next in watching the discursive flights of a blue-bottle round the apartment. But while he appears anxiously seeking for some object on which to fix his attention, he carefully avoids looking towards his innamorata; and should their eyes meet by chance, his cheeks assume the tint of the beet-root or the turnip, and his manifest embarrassment betrays his secret to the most inexperienced persons. In order to recover his confidence, he shifts his seat, which seems suddenly to have shot forth as many pins as the back of a hedgehog; but in doing so he places the leg of his chair on the toe of a gouty, cross old uncle, or on the tail of a favourite lap-dog, and, besides creating an awful fracas, succeeds in making inveterate enemies of the two brutes for the remainder of their lives.

There are some lovers, who show their love by their affected indifference, and appear smitten by any woman except the one whom they are devoted to. This is an ingenious stratagem; but in general it is so badly managed, that it is more easily seen through than a cobweb. Lastly, there are a select few, who evince their tender regard by perpetual bickerings and quarrels. This method will frequently mislead inquisitive aunts and guardians; but it should only be attempted by a man who has full confidence in his own powers.

Lovers, as I have observed, are invariably objects of ridicule; timid, jealous, and nervous, a frown throws them into a state of agony it would be difficult to describe, and a smile bestowed upon a rival breaks their rest for a week. Only observe one of them engaged in a quiet, interesting tête-à-tête with the lady of his choice. He has exerted all his powers of fascination, and he fancies he is beginning to make a favourable impression on his companion, when—bang!—a tall, whiskered fellow, who, rumour has whispered, is the lady’s intended, drops in upon them like a bomb-shell! The detected lover sits confounded and abashed, wishing in the depths of his soul that he could transform himself into a gnat, and make his exit through the keyhole. Meantime the new-comer seats himself in solemn silence, and for five minutes the conversation is only kept up by monosyllables, in spite of the incredible efforts of all parties to appear unconcerned. The young man in his confusion plunges deeper into the mire;—he twists and writhes in secret agony—remarks on the sultriness of the weather, though the thermometer is below the freezing point; and commits a thousand gaucheries—too happy if he can escape from a situation than which nothing can possibly be conceived more painful.

THE LOVER AT DIFFERENT AGES. It would not be easy to determine at what age love first manifests itself in the human heart; but if the reader have a good memory (I now speak to my own sex), he may remember when its tender light dawned upon his soul,—he may recall the moment when the harmonious voice of woman first tingled in his ears, and filled his bosom with unknown rapture,—he may recollect how he used to forsake trap-ball and peg-top to follow the idol he had created in her walks,—how he hoarded up the ripest oranges and gathered the choicest flowers to present to her, and felt more than recompensed by a word of thanks kindly spoken. Oh, youth—youth! pure and happy age, when a smile, a look, a touch of the hand, makes all sunshine and happiness in thy breast.

But the season of boyhood passes—the youth of sixteen becomes a young man of twenty, and smiles at the innocent emotions of his uneducated heart. He is no longer the mute adorer who worshipped in secrecy and in silence. Each season produces its own flowers. At [pg 275]twenty, the time for mute sympathy has passed away: it is one of the most eventful periods in the life of a lover; for should he then chance to meet a heart free to respond to his ardent passion, and that no cruel father, relentless guardian, or richer lover interposes to overthrow his hopes, he may with the aid of a licence, a parson, and a plain gold ring, be suddenly launched into the calm felicity of married life.

I know not what mysterious chain unites the heart of a young lover to that of the woman whom he loves. In the simplicity of their hearts they often imagine it is but friendship that draws them towards each other, until some unexpected circumstance removes the veil from their eyes, and they discover the dangerous precipice upon whose brink they have been walking. A journey, absence, or sickness, inevitably produce a discovery. If a temporary separation be about to occur, the unconscious lovers feel, they scarce know wherefore, a deep shade of sadness steal over them; their adieux are mingled with a thousand protestations of regret, which sink into the heart and bear a rich harvest by the time they meet again. Days and months glide by, and the pains of separation still endure; for they feel how necessary they have become to the happiness of each other, and how cold and joyless existence seems when far from those we love.

That which may be anticipated, at length comes to pass; the lover returns—he flies to his mistress—she receives him with blushing cheek and palpitating heart. I shall not attempt to describe the scene, but throughout the day and night that succeeds that interview the lover seems like one distracted. In the city, in the fields—alone, or in company—he hears nothing but the magic words, “I LOVE YOU!” ringing in his ears, and feels that ecstatic delight which it is permitted mortals to taste but once in their lives.

But what are the sensations which enter the heart of a young and innocent girl when she first confesses the passion that fills her heart? A tender sadness pervades her being—her soul, touched by the hand of Love, delivers itself to the influence of all the nobler emotions of her nature; and borne heavenward on the organ’s solemn peal, pours forth its rich treasures in silent and grateful adoration.

A woman kneels on a prayer stool. At thirty, a man takes a more decided—I wish I could add a more amiable—character than at twenty. At twenty he loves sincerely and devotedly; he respects the woman who has inspired him with the noblest sentiment of which his soul is capable. At thirty his heart, hardened by deceit and ill-requited affection, and pre-occupied by projects of worldly ambition, regards love only as an agreeable pastime, and woman’s heart as a toy, which he may fling aside the moment it ceases to amuse him. At twenty he is ready to abandon everything for her whom he idolises—rank, wealth, the future!—they weigh as nothing in the balance against the fancied strength and constancy of his passion. At thirty he coldly immolates the repose and happiness of the woman who loves him to the slightest necessity. I must admit, however—in justice to our sex—provided his love does not interfere with his interest, nor his freedom, nor his club, nor his dogs and horses, nor his petites liaisons des coulisses, nor his hour of dinner—the lover is always willing to make the greatest sacrifices for her whom he has honoured with his regards. The man of thirty is, moreover, a man of many loves; he carries on half-a-dozen affairs of the heart at the same time—he has his writing-desk filled with billets-doux, folded into a thousand fanciful shapes, and smelling villanously of violets, roses, bergamot, and other sentimental odours. He has a pocket-book full of little locks of hair, of all colours, from the light golden to the raven black. In short, the man of thirty is the most dangerous of lovers. Let my fair readers watch his approaches with distrust, and place at every avenue of their innocent hearts

A toddler in Napoleonic hat and sash. A WATCHFUL SENTINEL.

A signature of Alph. Lecourt. A DEER BARGAIN. In consequence of an advertisement in the Sporting Magazine for SEVERAL OLD BUCKS, some daring villains actually secured the following venerable gentlemen:—Sir Francis Burdett, Lord Palmerston, Sir Lumley Skeffington, Jack Reynolds, and Mr. Widdicombe. The venison dealer, however, declined to purchase such very old stock, and the aged captives upon being set at liberty heartily congratulated each other on their

A man runs through a fence as a bull chases him. NARROW ESCAPE.

OUT OF SCHOOL. An attenuated disciple of the ill-paid art which has been described as one embracing the “delightful task which teaches the young idea how to shoot,” in a fit of despair, being but little skilled in the above sporting accomplishment, endeavoured to cheat nature of its right of killing by trying the efficacy of a small hanging match, in which he suicidically “doubled” the character of criminal and Jack Ketch. Upon being asked by the redoubtable Civic Peter what he meant by such conduct, he attempted to urge the propriety of the proceeding according to the scholastic rules of the ancients. “It may,” replied Sir Peter, “be very well for those chaps to hang themselves, as they are out of my jurisdiction; but I’ll let you see you are wrong, as

A man hangs from the neck. A GRAMMARIAN DECLINING TO BE.

[pg 276] PUNCH’S LITERARY INTELLIGENCE. We understand that the Author of “Jack Sheppard,” &c., is about to publish a new Romance, in three volumes, post octavo, to be called “James Greenacre; or, the Hero of Paddington.”

We are requested by Mr. Catnach, of Seven Dials, to state that he has a few remaining copies of “All round my Hat” on sale. Early application must be made, to prevent disappointment. Mr. C. has also to inform the public that an entirely new collection of the most popular songs is now in the press, and will shortly be published, price One Halfpenny.

Mr. Grant, the author of “Random Recollections,” is, it is said, engaged in writing a new work, entitled “Quacks as they are,” and containing copious extracts from all his former publications, with a portrait of himself.

“An Essay on False Wigs,” written by Lord John Russell, and dedicated to Mr. Wakley, M.P., may shortly be expected.

PUNCH’S THEATRE. THE UNITED SERVICE. The man who wishes to study an epitome of human character—who wants to behold choice samples of “all sorts and conditions of men”—to read out of a small, a duodecimo edition of the great book of life—must take a season’s lodgings at a Cheltenham, a Harrowgate, or a Brighton boarding-house. There he will find representatives of all kinds of eccentricities,—members of every possible lodge of “odd fellows” that Folly has admitted of her crew—mixed up with everyday sort of people, sharpers, schemers, adventurers, fortune-hunters, male and female—widows, wags, and Irishmen. Hence, as the “proper study of mankind is man,” a boarding- house is the place to take lessons;—even on the score of economy, as it is possible to live decently at one of these refuges for the destitute for three guineas a-week, exclusive, however, of wine, servants, flirtation, and other extras.

A result of this branch of study, and an example of such a mode of studying it, is the farce with the above title, which has been brought out at Covent Garden. Mrs. Walker (Mrs. Orger) keeps a boarding-house, which also keeps her; for it is well frequented: so well that we find her making a choice of inmates by choosing to turn out Mr. Woodpecker (Mr. Walter Lacy)—a mere “sleeping-apartment” boarder—to make room for Mrs. Coo (Mrs. Glover), a widow, whose demands entitle her to the dignity of a “private sitting and bedroom” lodger. Mr. Woodpecker is very comfortable, and does not want to go; but the hostess is obstinate: he appeals to her feelings as an orphan, without home or domesticity; but the lady, having been in business for a dozen years, has lost all sympathy for orphans of six-and-twenty. In short, Mrs. Walker determines he shall walk, and so shall his luggage (a plethoric trunk and an obese carpet-bag are on the stage); for she has dreamt even that has legs—such dreams being, we suppose, very frequent to persons of her name.

You are not quite satisfied that the mere preference for a better inmate furnishes the only reasons why the lady wants Mr. Woodpecker’s room rather than his company. Perhaps he is in arrear; but no, he pays his bill: so it is not on that score that he is so ruthlessly sent away. You are, however, not kept long on the tiptoe of conjecture, but soon learn that Mrs. W. has a niece, and you already know that the banished is young, good-looking, and gay. Indeed, Mrs. Walker having perambulated, Miss Fanny Merrivale (Miss Lee) appears, and listens very composedly to the plan of an elopement from Woodpecker, but speedily makes her exit to avoid suspicion, and the enemy who has dislodged her lover; before whom the latter also retreats, together with his bag and baggage.

There are no classes so well represented at boarding-houses as those who sigh for fame, and those that are dying to be married. Accordingly, we find in Mrs. Walker’s establishment Captain Whistleborough (Mr. W. Farren), who is doing the extreme possible to get into Parliament, and Captain Pacific, R.N., (Mr. Bartley,) who is crowding all sail to the port of matrimony. Well knowing how boarding-houses teem with such persons, two men who come under the “scheming” category are also inmates. One of these, Mr. Enfield Bam (Mr. Harley), is a sort of parliamentary agent, who goes about to dig up aspirants that are buried in obscurity, and to introduce them to boroughs, by which means he makes a very good living. His present victim is, of course, Captain Whistleborough, upon whom he is not slow in commencing operations.

Captain Whistleborough has almost every requisite for an orator. He is an army officer; so his manners are good and his self-possession complete. His voice is commanding, for it has been long his duty to give the word of command. Above all, he has a mania to become a member. Yet, alas! one trifling deficiency ruins his prospects; he has an impediment in his speech, which debars him from the use of the W’s. Like the French alphabet, that letter is denied to him. When he comes to a syllable it begins, he is spell-bound; though he longs to go on, he pulls up quite short, and sticks fast. The first W he meets with in the flowery paths of rhetoric causes him to be as dumb as an oyster, or as O. Smith in “Frankenstein.” In vain does he try the Demosthenes’ plan by sucking pebbles on the Brighton shore and haranguing the waves, though he is unable to address them by name. All is useless, and he has resigned himself to despair and a Brighton boarding-house, when Mr. Enfield Bam gives him fresh hopes. He informs him that the proprietress of a pocket borough resides under the same roof, and that he will (for the usual consideration) get the Captain such an introduction to her as shall ensure him a seat in her good graces, and another in St. Stephen’s. Mr. Bam, therefore, goes off to negotiate with Miss Polecon (Mrs. Tayleure), and makes way for the intrigues of another sort of an agent, who lives in the house.

This is Rivet (Mr. C. Mathews), a gentleman who undertakes to procure for an employer anything upon earth he may want, at so much per cent. commission. There is nothing that this very general agent cannot get hold of, from a hack to a husband—from a boat to a baronetcy—from a tortoise-shell tom-cat to a rich wife. Matrimonial agency is, however, his passion, and he has plenty of indulgence for it in a Brighton boarding-house. Captain Pacific wants a wife, Mrs. Coo is a widow, and all widows want husbands. Thus Rivet makes sure of a swingeing commission from both parties; for, in imagination, and in his own memorandum-book, he has already married them.

Here are the ingredients of the farce; and in the course of it they are compounded in such wise as to make Woodpecker jealous, merely because he happens to find Fanny in the dark, and in Whistleborough’s arms; to cause the latter to negotiate with Mrs. Coo for a seat in Parliament, instead of a wedding-ring; and Pacific to talk of the probable prospects of the nuptial state to Miss Polecon, who is an inveterate spinster and a political economist, professing the Malthusian creed. Rivet finding Fanny and her friend are taking business out of his hands by planning an elopement en amateur, gets himself “regularly called in,” and manages to save Woodpecker all the trouble, by contriving that Whistleborough shall run away with the young lady by mistake, so that Woodpecker might marry her, and no mistake. Bam bams Whistleborough, who ends the piece by threatening his deceiver with an action for breach of promise of borough, all the other breaches having been duly made up; together with the match between Mrs. Coo and Pacific.

If our readers want to be told what we think of this farce, they will be disappointed; if they wish to know whether it is good or bad, witty or dull, lively or stupid—whether it ought to have been damned outright, or to supersede the Christmas pantomime—whether the actors played well or played the deuce—whether the scenery is splendid and the appointments appropriate or otherwise, they must judge for themselves by going to see it; because if we gave them our opinion they would not believe us, seeing that the author is one of our most esteemed (especially over a boiled chicken and sherry), most merry, most jolly, most clever colleagues; one, in fine, of PUNCH’S “United Service.”

“I have been running ever since I was born and am not tired now”—as the brook said to Captain Barclay.

“Hookey”—as the carp said, when he saw a worm at the end of a line.

“Nothing is certain”—as the fisherman said, when he always found it in his nets.

“Brief let it be”—as the barrister said in his conference with the attorney.

“He is the greatest liar on (H) earth”—as the cockney said of the lapdog he often saw lying before the fire.

When is a hen most likely to hatch? When she is in earnest (her nest).

Why are cowardly soldiers like butter? When exposed to a fire they run.

Do you sing?—says the teapot to the kettle—Yes, I can manage to get over a few bars.—Bah, exclaimed the teapot.

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. VOL. 1. DECEMBER 25, 1841. [pg 277] HOW MR. CHOKEPEAR KEEPS A MERRY CHRISTMAS. Mr. CHOKEPEAR is, to the finger- nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the established church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor MANNAMOUTH with a superb silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for Sir PETER LAURIE, since the alderman’s judgments upon “the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker;” and, having a very comfortable balance at his banker’s, considers all despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is Newgate; and more—there is Sir PETER LAURIE.

Mr. CHOKEPEAR loves Christmas! Yes, he is an Englishman, and he will tell you that he loves to keep Christmas-day in the true old English fashion. How does he keep it?

It is eight o’clock, and Mr. CHOKEPEAR rises from his goose-down. He dresses himself, says his short morning thanksgiving, and being an economist of time, unconsciously polishes his gold watch-chain the while. He descends to the breakfast parlour, and receives from lips of ice, the wishes of a happy Christmas, pronounced by sons and daughters, to whom, as he himself declares, he is “the best of fathers”—the most indulgent of men.

The church-bell tolls, and the CHOKEPEARS, prepare for worship. What meekness, what self-abasement sits on the Christian face of TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR as he walks up the aisle to his cosey pew; where the woman, with turned key and hopes of Christmas half-crown lighting her withered face, sinks a curtsey as she lets “the miserable sinner” in; having carefully pre-arranged the soft cushions and hassocks for the said sinner, his wife, his sons, and daughters. The female CHOKEPEARS with half the produce of a Canadian winter’s hunting in their tippets, muffs, and dresses, and with their noses, like pens stained with red ink,—prepare themselves to receive the religious blessings of the day. They then venture to look around the church, and recognising CHOKEPEARS of kindred nature, though not of name, in pews—(none of course among the most “miserable sinners” on the bare benches)—they smile a bland salutation, and—but hush! the service is about to begin.

And now will TOBIAS CHOKEPEAR perform the religious duties of a Christian! Look at him, how he feeds upon every syllable of the minister. He turns the Prayer-book familiarly, as if it were his bank account, and, in a moment, lights upon the prayers set apart for the day. With what a composed, assured face he listens to the decalogue—how firm his voice in the responses—and though the effrontery of scandal avows that he shifts somewhat from Mrs. CHOKEPEAR’S eye at the mention of “the maid-servant”—we do not believe it.

It is thus CHOKEPEAR begins his Christmas-day. He comes to celebrate the event of the Incarnation of all goodness; to return “his most humble and hearty thanks” for the glory that Providence has vouchsafed to him in making him a Christian. He—Tobias CHOKEPEAR—might have been born a Gentoo! Gracious powers! he might have been doomed to trim the lamps in the Temple of Juggernaut—he might have come into this world to sweep the marble of the Mosque at Mecca—he might have been a faquir, with iron and wooden pins “stuck in his mortified bare flesh”—he might, we shudder to think upon the probability, have brandished his club as a New Zealander; and his stomach, in a state of heathen darkness to the humanising beauties of goose and apple-sauce, might, with unblessed appetite, have fed upon the flesh of his enemies. He might, as a Laplander, have driven a sledge, and fed upon walrus-blubber; and now is he an Englishman—a Christian—a carriage holder, and an eater of venison!

It is plain that all these thoughts—called up by the eloquence of Doctor MANNAMOUTH, who preaches on the occasion—are busy in the bosom of CHOKEPEAR; and he sits on his soft cushion, with his eyelids declined, swelling and melting with gratitude for his blissful condition. Yes; he feels the glorious prerogative of his birth—the exquisite beauty of his religion. He ought to feel himself a happy man; and, glancing round his handsomely-appointed pew—he does.

“A sweet discourse—a very sweet discourse,” says CHOKEPEAR to several respectable acquaintance, as the organ plays the congregation out; and CHOKEPEAR looks round about him airily, contentedly; as though his conscience was as unseared as the green holly that decorates the pews; as though his heart was fresh, and red, and spotless as its berries.

Well, the religious ceremonies of the day being duly observed, CHOKEPEAR resolves to enjoy Christmas in the true old English fashion. Oh! ye gods, that bless the larders of the respectable,—what a dinner! The board is enough to give Plenty a plethora, and the whole house is odoriferous as the airs of Araby. And then, what delightful evidences of old observing friendship on the table! There is a turkey—“only a little lower” than an ostrich—despatched all the way from an acquaintance in Norfolk, to smoke a Christmas salutation to good Mr. CHOKEPEAR. Another county sends a goose—another pheasants—another brawn; and CHOKEPEAR, with his eye half slumbering in delight upon the gifts, inwardly avows that the friendship of friends really well to do is a fine, a noble thing.

The dinner passes off most admirably. Not one single culinary accident has marred a single dish. The pudding is delicious; the custards are something better than manna—the mince pies a conglomeration of ambrosial sweets. And then the Port! Mr. CHOKEPEAR smacks his lips like a whip, and gazes on the bee’s wing, as HERSCHELL would gaze upon a new-found star, “swimming in the blue profound.” Mr. CHOKEPEAR wishes all a merry Christmas, and tosses off the wine, its flavour by no means injured by the declared conviction of the drinker, that “there isn’t such another glass in the parish!”

The evening comes on. Cards, snap-dragons, quadrilles, country-dances, with a hundred devices to make people eat and drink, send night into morning; and it may be at six or seven on the twenty-sixth of December, our friend CHOKEPEAR, a little mellow, but not at all too mellow for the season, returns to his sheets, and when he rises declares that he has passed a very merry Christmas. If the human animal were all stomach—all one large paunch—we should agree with CHOKEPEAR that he had passed a merry Christmas: but was it the Christmas of a good man or a Christian? Let us see.

We have said all CHOKEPEAR’S daughters dined with him. We forgot: one was absent. Some seven years ago she married a poorer husband, and poverty was his only, but certainly his sufficient fault; and her father vowed that she should never again cross his threshold. The Christian keeps his word. He has been to church to celebrate the event which preached to all men mutual love and mutual forgiveness, and he comes home, and with rancour in his heart—keeps a merry Christmas!

We have briefly touched upon the banquet spread before CHOKEPEAR. There is a poor debtor of his in Horsemonger-lane prison—a debtor to the amount of at least a hundred shillings. Does he dine on Christmas-day? Oh! yes; Mr. CHOKEPEAR will read in The Times of Monday how the under- marshal served to each prisoner a pound of beef, a slice of pudding, and a pint of porter! The man might have spent the day in freedom with his wife and children; but Mr. CHOKEPEAR in his pew thought not of his debtor, and the creditor at least—kept a merry Christmas!

How many shivering wretches pass CHOKEPEAR’S door! How many, with the wintry air biting their naked limbs, and freezing within them the very springs of human hope! In CHOKEPEAR’S house there are, it may be, a dozen coats, nay, a hundred articles of cast-off dress, flung aside for the moth—piles of stuff and flannel, that would at this season wrap the limbs of the wretched in comparative Elysium. Does Mr. CHOKEPEAR, the respectable, the Christian CHOKEPEAR, order these (to him unnecessary) things to be given to the naked? He thinks not of them; for he wears fleecy hosiery next his skin, and being in all things dressed in defiance of the season—keeps a merry Christmas.

Gentle reader, we wish you a merry Christmas; but to be truly, wisely merry, it must not be the Christmas of the CHOKEPEARS. That is the Christmas of the belly: keep you the Christmas of the heart. Give—give.

Q.

COMMERCIAL PANIC.—RUMOURED STOPPAGE IN THE CITY. There is in the city a noted place for deposits, much resorted to by certain parties, who are in the habit of giving drafts upon it very freely, when applied to for payment. We regret to state that if the severity of the weather continues, a stoppage is expected in the quarter hinted at, and as the issues are at all times exceedingly copious, the worst results may be anticipated. Our readers will at once perceive that, in attributing such an effect as total stoppage to such a cause as continued frost, we can only point to one quarter which is in the habit of answering drafts; and, as further delicacy would be useless, we avow at once that Aldgate Pump is here alluded to. We understand that, as the customers are chiefly people of straw, it is intended to see what effect straw will have in averting the calamity. We were sorry to see the other day a very large bill upon a quarter hitherto so respectable. We are aware that its exposed condition gives every one a handle against it, and we are, therefore, the more circumspect in giving currency to every idle rumour. We should be no less sorry to see Aldgate Pump stop from external causes, than to know that it had been swamped by its own excessive issues. Though as yet quite above water, it is feared that it will soon be in an-ice predicament.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE. Arrivals.—Jack Frost, from the North.

Departures.—Several members of the Swellmobocracy have, within the last few days, quitted Deptford for South Australia. The periods of their intended sojourn are various.

Changes.—Ned Morris has changed his collar, but continues his shirt for the present. Among the other changes we have to record one effected by Sam Smasher, of a counterfeit sovereign.

It is a remarkable fact that the weathercocks have recently changed their quarters, and have left the West in favour of the East: a predilection of astounding vulgarity.

Timothy Tomkins has had another splendid turn-out from his lodgings, the landlord having complained of want of punctuality in payments.

[pg 278] A LETTER FROM AN OLD FRIEND, SHOWING HOW HE IS GETTING ON. Clodpole, Dec. 23, 1841.

MY DEAR PUNCH,

Here I am, you see, keeping Christmas, and having no end of fun amongst the jolly innocent grubs that vegetate in these rural districts. All I regret is that you are not here. I would give a ten-pound note to see you, if I had it;—I would, indeed—so help me several strong men and a steam-engine!

We had a great night in London before I started, only I got rascally screwed: not exactly sewed up, you know but hit under the wing, so that I could not very well fly. I managed to break the window on the third- floor landing of my lodgings, and let my water-jug fall slap through the wash-hand basin upon a looking-glass that was lying face upwards underneath; but as I was off early in the morning it did not signify.

The people down here are a queer lot; but I have hunted up two or three jolly cocks, and we contrive to keep the place alive between us. Of course, all the knockers came off the first night I arrived, and to- morrow we are going to climb out upon the roof of my abode, and make a tour along the tops of the neighbouring houses, putting turfs on the tops of all the practicable chimneys. Jack Randall—such a jolly chick! you must be introduced to him—has promised to tie a cord across the pavement at the corner, from the lamp-post to a door-scraper; and we have made a careful estimate that, out of every half-dozen people who pass, six will fall down, four cut their faces more or less arterially, and two contuse their foreheads. I, you may imagine, shall wait at home all the evening for the crippled ones, and Jack is to go halves in what I get for plastering them up. We may be so lucky as to procure a case of concussion—who knows? Jack is a real friend: he cannot be of much use to me in the way of recommendation, because the people here think he is a little wild; but as far as seriously injuring the parishioners goes, he declares he will lose no chance. He says he knows some gipsies on the common who have got scarlet-fever in their tent; and he is going to give them half-a-crown if they can bring it into the village, to be paid upon the breaking out of the first undoubted case. This will fag the Union doctor to death, who is my chief opponent, and I shall come in for some of the private patients.

My surgery is not very well stocked at present, but I shall write to Ansell and Hawke after Christmas. I have got a pickle-bottle full of liquorice-powder, which has brought me in a good deal already, and assisted to perform several wonderful cures. I administer it in powders, two drachms in six, to be taken morning, noon, and night; and it appears to be a valuable medicine for young practitioners, as you may give a large dose, without producing any very serious effects. Somebody was insane enough to send to me the other night for a pill and draught; and if Jack Randall had not been there, I should have been regularly stumped, having nothing but Epsom salts. He cut a glorious calomel pill out of pipeclay, and then we concocted a black-draught of salts and bottled stout, with a little patent boot-polish. Next day, the patient finding himself worse, sent for me, and I am trying the exhibition of linseed-meal and rose-pink in small doses, under which treatment he is gradually recovering. It has since struck me that a minute portion of sulphuric acid enters into the composition of the polish, possibly causing the indisposition which he describes “as if he was tied all up in a double-knot, and pulled tight.”

I have had one case of fracture in the leg of Mrs. Finkey’s Italian greyhound, which Jack threw a flower-pot at in the dark the other night. I tied it up in two splints cut out of a clothes-peg in a manner which I stated to be the most popular at the Hôtel Dieu at Paris; and the old girl was so pleased that she has asked me to keep Christmas-day at her house, where she burns the Yule log, makes a bowl of wassail, and all manner of games. We are going to bore a hole in the Yule log with an old trephine, and ram it chuck-full of gunpowder; and Jack’s little brother is to catch six or seven frogs, under pain of a severe licking, which are to be put into one of the vegetable dishes. The old girl has her two nieces home for the holidays—devilish handsome, larky girls—so we have determined to take some mistletoe, and give a practical demonstration of the action of the orbicularis oris and ievatores labiæ superioris et inferioris. If either of them have got any tin, I shall try and get all right with them; but if the brads don’t flourish I shall leave it alone, for a wife is just the worst piece of furniture a fellow can bring into his house, especially if he inclines to conviviality; although to be sure a medical man ought to consider her as part of his stock in trade, to be taken at a fair valuation amidst his stopple-bottles, mortars, measures, and pill-rollers.

If business does not tumble in well, in the course of a few weeks, we have another plan in view; but I only wish to resort to it on emergency, in case we should be found out. The railway passes at the bottom of my garden, and Jack thinks, with a few pieces of board, he can contrive to run the engine and tender off the line, which is upon a tolerably high embankment. I need not tell you all this is in strict confidence; and if the plan does not jib, which is not very probable, will bring lots of grist to the mill. I have put the engineer and stoker at a sure guinea a head for the inquest; and the concussions in the second class will be of unknown value. If practicable, I mean to have an elderly gentleman “who must not be moved under any consideration;” so I shall get him into my house for the term of his indisposition, which may possibly be a very long one. I can give him up my own bedroom, and sleep myself in an old harpsichord, which I bought cheap at a sale, and disembowelled into a species of deceptive bed. I think the hint might put “people about to marry” up to a dodge in the way of spare beds. Everybody now sees through the old chiffonier and wardrobe turn-up impositions, but the grand piano would beat them; only it should be kept locked, for fear any one given to harmony might commence playing a fantasia on the bolster.

Our parishioners have very little idea of the Cider-cellars and Coal- hole, both of which places they take in their literal sense. I think that, with Jack’s assistance, we can establish something of the kind at the Swan, which is the principal inn. Should it not succeed, I shall turn my attention to getting up a literary and scientific institution, and give a lecture. I have not yet settled on what subject, but Jack votes for Astronomy, for two reasons: firstly, because the room is dark nearly all the time; and secondly, because you can smug in some pots of half-and-half behind the transparent orrery. He says the dissolving views in London put him up to the value of a dark exhibition. We also think we can manage a concert, which will he sure of a good attendance if we say it is for some parish charity. Jack has volunteered a solo on the cornet-à-piston: he has never tried the instrument, but he says he is sure he can play it, as it looks remarkably easy hanging up in the windows of the music-shops. He thinks one might drill the children and get up the Macbeth music.

It is turning very cold to-night, and I think will turn to a frost. Jack has thrown some water on the pavement before my door; and should it freeze, I have given strict orders to my old housekeeper not to strew any ashes, or sand, or sawdust, or any similar rubbish about. People’s bones are very brittle in frosty weather, and this may bring a job. I hope it will.

If, in your London rambles, as you seem to be everywhere at once, you pitch upon Manhug, Rapp, or Jones, give my love to them, and tell them to keep their powder dry, and not to think of practising in the country, which is after all a species of social suicide. And with the best compliments of the season to yourself, and “through the medium of the columns of your valuable journal” to your readers, believe me to remain,

My dear old bean, Yours very considerably, JOSEPH MUFF.

THE SECRET SORROW. Oh! let me from the festive board

To thee, my mother, flee;

And be my secret sorrow shared

By thee—by only thee!

In vain they spread the glitt’ring store,

The rich repast, in vain;

Let others seek enjoyment there,

To me ’tis only pain.

There was a word of kind advice—

A whisper, soft and low;

But oh! that one resistless smile!

Alas! why was it so?

No blame, no blame, my mother dear,

Do I impute to you.

But since I ate that currant tart

I don’t know what to do!

[pg 279] PUNCH nails a notce to a post. PUNCH’S POSTSCRIPT. MR. AUGUSTUS SWIVEL, (Professor of the Drum and Mouth-organ, and Stage-Manager to PUNCH’S Theatre,)

LOQUITUR. A man with a bass drum on his back forms a letter P. ATRONS OF “PUNCH,”—LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—

We has dropped the curtain and rowled up the baize on the first half- annivel performance of “PUNCH.” The pleasing task now dewolves upon me, on behoof of the Lessee and the whole strength off the Puppets, to come forrard and acknowledge the liberal showers of applause and ’apence what a generous and enlightened British public has powered upon the performances and pitched into our goss. Steamilated by this St. Swiffin’s of success, the Lessee fearlessly launches his bark upon the high road of public favor, and enters his Theaytre for the grand steeple-chase of general approbation.

Ourn hasn’t been a bed of roses. We’ve had our rivals and our troubles. We came out as a great hint, and everybody took us.

First and foremost, the great Juggeler in Printing-house Square, walks in like the Sheriff and takes our comic effects.

[pg 280] Then the Black Doctor, as blowed the bellows to the late ministerial organ, starts a fantoccini and collars our dialect.

Then, the unhappy wight what acts as dry-nuss to his Grandmother, finding his writing on the pavement with red and white chalk and sentiment, won’t friz,—gives over appealing to the sympathies, kidnaps our comic offspring, and (as our brother dramatist Muster Sheridan says) disfigures ’em to make ’em look like his own.

Then, the whole biling of our other hoppositioners who puts their shoulders together, to “hoist up a donkey,” tries to ornament their werry wulgar exhibitions with our vitticisms.

Now this was cruel, deceitful condick on the part of the juggeler,—a side wind blow from the organ,—didn’t show much of the milk of human kindness with the chalk; and as for the ass,—but no,—brotherly love is our weakness, and we throws a veil over the donkey.

During the recess the exterior of the Theaytre will be re-decorated by Muster Phiz; and the first artists in pen, ink, black-lead, and box- wood, has been secured to see if any improvements can be made in the interior.

I have the honor to inform you that we shall commence our next campaign on January 1, 1842, with renewed henergy, all the old-established wooden heads, and several new hands.

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of “PUNCH,” the Puppets, the Properrieters, and the Orchestra (which is myself), I most respectfully touches my hat, and wishes you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Au rewoir.

PUNCH doffs his hat and takes a bow.