Chapter 2

Alfred the Great is supposed to have been originally a baker, from his having undertaken the task of watching the cakes in the neat-herd's oven; and Edward the Black Prince was probably a West Indian, who found his way to our hospitable shores at an early period.

We now come to King John, who ascended the throne after putting out his nephew's eyes with a pair of curling-irons, and who is the first English Sovereign who attempted to write his own name; for the scrawl is evidently something more than his mark, which is attached to Magna Charta.

We need say nothing of Richard the Third, with whom all our play-going friends are familiar, and who made the disgraceful offer, if Shakspeare is to be believed, of parting with the whole kingdom for a horse, though it does not appear that the disreputable bargain was ever completed.

The wars of York and Lancaster, which, though not exactly _couleur de rose_, were on the subject of white and red roses (that is to say, China and cabbage), united the crown in the person of Henry the Seventh, known to the play-going public as the Duke of Richmond, and remarkable for having entered the country by the Lincolnshire fens; for he talks of having got into "the bowels of the land" immediately on his arrival.

Henry the Eighth, as everybody knows, was the husband of seven wives, and gave to Mr. Almar (the Sadler's Wells Stephens) the idea of his beautiful dramatic poem of the Wife of Seven Husbands.

Elizabeth's reign is remarkable for having produced a mantle which is worn at the present day, it having been originally made for one Shakspeare; but it is now worn by Mr. George Stephens, for whom, however, it is a palpable misfit, and it sits upon him most awkwardly.

Charles the First had his head cut off, and Mr. Cathcart acted him so naturally in Miss Mitford's play that one would have thought the monarch was entirely without a head all through the tragedy.

Cromwell next obtained the chief authority. This man was a brewer, who did not think "small beer" of himself, and inundated his country with "heavy wet," in the shape of tears, for a long period.

Charles the Second, well known as the merry monarch, is remarkable only for his profligacy, and for the number of very bad farces in which he has been the principal character. His brother James had a short reign, but not a merry one. He is the only English sovereign who may be said to have _amputated his bludgeon_; which, if we were speaking of an ordinary man and not a monarch, we should have rendered by the familiar phrase of "cut his stick," a process which was soon performed by his majesty.

The crown now devolved upon William and Mary, upon whom half-a crown a-piece was thus settled by the liberality of Parliament. William was _Prince of Orange_, a descendant probably of the great King _Pippin_.

Anne of Denmark comes next on our list, but of her we shall say nothing; and as the Georges who followed her are so near own time, we shall observe, with regard to them, an equally impenetrable mystery.

* * * * *

WAR TO THE NAIL.

The _British Critic_, the high church, in fact, steeple Tory journal, tells its readers, "if we strike out the first person of Robert's speeches, ay, out of his whole career, they become a rope untwisted," &c. &c. &c. This excited old lady is evidently anxious to disfigure the head of the government, by scratching Sir Robert Peel's I's out.

* * * * *

MOLAR AND INCISOR.

Muntz, in rigging Wakley upon the late article in the _Examiner_, likening the member for Finsbury, in his connexion with Sir Robert Peel, "to the bird which exists by picking the crocodile's teeth," jocularly remarked, "Well, I never had any body to pick my teeth." "I should think not, or they would have chosen a much better set."

* * * * *

TWENTY POUNDS.

READER, did you ever want twenty pounds? You have--you have!--I see it--I know it! Nay, never blush! Your hand--your hand!

READER.--Sir, I--

Silence!--nonsense--stuff; don't, don't prevaricate--own it as I do,--own it and rejoice.

READER.--Really, sir, this conduct--

Is strange. Granted; don't draw back; come, a cordial gripe. We are friends; we have both suffered from the same cause. There, that's right--honest palm to palm. Now, how say you--have you ever wanted twenty pounds?

READER.--Frankly, then, I have.

Mind to mind, as hand to hand. Have you felt as I did? Did its want cloud the sun, wither the grass, and blight the bud?

READER.--It did.

But how, marry, how? What! you decline confession--so you may--I'll be more explicit. I was abroad, far from my "father-land"--there's a magic in the word!--the turf we've played on, the hearts we love, the graves we venerate--all, all combine to concentrate its charm.

READER.--You are digressing.

Thank you, I am; but I'll resume. While I could buy them, friends indeed were plenty. Alas! prudence is seldom co-mate with youth and inexperience. The golden dream was soon to end--end even with the yellow dross that gave it birth. Fallacious hopes of coming "posts," averted for a time my coming wretchedness--three weeks, and not a line! The landlord suffered from an intermitting affection, characteristic of the "stiff-necked generation;"--he bowed to others--galvanism could not have procured the tithe of a salaam for me. His till was afflicted with a sort of sinking-fundishness. I was the contractor of "the small bill," whose exact amount would enable him to meet a "heavy payment;" my very garments were "tabooed" from all earth's decencies; splashes seemed to have taken a lease of the bottoms of my trousers. My boots, once objects of the tenderest care of their unworthy namesake, seemed conscious of the change, and drooped in untreed wretchedness, desponding at the wretched wrinkles now ruffling the once smooth calf! My coat no more appeared to catch the dust; as if under the influence of some invisible charm, its white-washed elbows never struck upon the sight of the else all-seeing boots; spider never rushed from his cell with the post-haste speed with which he issued from his dark recess, to pick the slightest cobweb that ever harnessed Queen Mab's team, from _other_ coats; a gnat, a wandering hair left its location, swept by the angry brush from the broad-cloth of those who paid their bills--as far as I was concerned--all were inoculated with this strange blindness. It was an overwhelming ophthalmia! The chambermaid, through its fatality, never discovered that my jugs were empty, my bottle clothed with slimy green, my soap-dish left untenanted. A day before this time had been sufficient service for my hand-towel; now a week seemed to render it less fit to taste the rubs of hands and soap. Dust lost its vice, and lay unheeded in the crammed corner of my luckless room.

READER.--I feel for you.

Silence! the worst is yet to come. At dinner all things changed--soup, before too hot to drink, came to my lips cool as if the north wind had caressed it; number was at an end; I ranked no longer like a human being; I was a huge _ought_--a walking cypher--a vile round O. I had neither beginning nor end. Go where I would--top, bottom, sides, 'twas all the same. Bouilli avoided me--vegetables declined growing under my eyes--fowls fled from me. I might as well have longed for ice-cream in Iceland--dessert in a desert. I had no turn--I was the _last man_. Nevertheless, dinner was a necessary evil.

READER.--And tea?

Was excluded from the calendar. Night came, but no rest--all things had forgotten their office. The sheets huddled in undisturbed selfishness, like knotted cables, in one corner of the bed; the blankets, doubtless disgusted at their conduct, sought refuge at the foot; and the flock, like most other flocks, without a directing hand, was scattered in disjointed heaps.

READER.--Did not you complain?

I did--_imprimis_--to boots--boots scratched his head; ditto waiter--waiter shook his; the chambermaid, strange to say, was suddenly deaf.

READER.--And the landlord?

Did nothing all day; but when I spoke, was in a hurry, "going to his ledger," Had I had as many months as hydra, that would have stopped them all.

READER.--You were to be _pitied_.

I was. I rose one morning with the sun--it scorched my face, but shone not. Nature was in her spring-time to all others, though winter to me. I wandered beside the banks of the rapid Rhine, I saw nothing but the thick slime that clogged them, and wondered how I could have thought them beautiful; the pebbles seemed crushed upon the beach, the stream but added to their lifelessness by heaping on them its dull green slime; the lark, indeed, was singing--Juliet was right--its notes were nothing but "harsh discords and unpleasing sharps"--a rainbow threw its varied arch across the heavens--sadness had robbed it of its charm--it seemed a visionary cheat--a beautiful delusion.

READER.--I feel with you.

I thank you. I went next day.

READER.--What then?

The glorious sun shed life and joy around--the clear water rushed bounding on in glad delight to the sweet music of the scented wind--the pebbly beach welcomed its chaste cool kiss, and smiled in freshness as it rolled again back to its pristine bed. The buds on which I stepped, elastic with high hope, sprung from the ground my foot had pressed them to--the lark--

READER.--You can say nothing new about that.

You are right. I'll pass it, and come at once to an end. My boots stood upright, conscious of their glare; a new spring rushed into my bottles; Flora's sweets were witnessed in my dress; a mite, a tiny mite, might have made progress round my room, nor found a substance larger than itself to stop its way. My lips at dinner were scalded with the steaming soup; the eager waiters, rushing with the choicest sauce, in dread collision met, and soused my well-brushed coat. I was once more number one!--all things had changed again.

READER--Except the rainbow.

Ay, even that.

READER,--Indeed! how so?

If still impalpable to the gross foot of earth, it seemed to the charmed mind a glowing passage for the freed spirit to mount to bliss!

READER.--May I ask what caused this difference?

You may, and shall be answered. I had received--

READER.--What?

TWENTY POUNDS!

FUSBOS.

* * * * *

CURIOSITY HUNTERS

There is a large class of people in the world--the business of whose lives is to hunt after and collect trifling curiosities; who go about like the Parisian _chiffonniers_, grubbing and poking in the highways and byeways of society, for those dearly-prized objects which the generality of mankind would turn up their noses at as worthless rubbish. But though the tribe of curiosity-hunters be extremely numerous, Nature, by a wise provision, has bestowed on them various appetites, so that, in the pursuit of their prey, they are led by different instincts, and what one seizes with avidity, another rejects as altogether unworthy of notice.

The varieties of the species are interminable; some of them are well known, and need no description--such as the book-worm, the bird-stuffer, the coin-taster, the picture-scrubber, &c.; but there are others whose tastes are singularly eccentric: of these I may mention the snuff-box collector, the cane-fancier, the ring-taker, the play-bill gatherer, to say nothing of one illustrious personage, whose passion for collecting a library of Bibles is generally known. But there is another individual of the species that I have not yet mentioned, whose morbid pleasure in collecting relics and memorials of the most revolting deeds of blood and crime is too well authenticated to be discredited. I believe that this variety, which I term "The Criminal Curiosity Hunter," is unknown to every country in the world, except England.

How such a horrible taste should have been engendered here, is a question not easily solved. Physiologists are inclined to attribute it to our heavy atmosphere, which induces gloomy thoughts and fancies; while moralists assign as its cause, the sanguinary spirit of our laws, our brutal exhibitions of hanging, drawing and quartering, of gibbettings, whippings, brandings, and torturings, which degrade men's natures, and give them a relish for scenes of blood and cruelty.

It happened that I had occasion to call on one of those "Criminal Curiosity Hunters" lately. He received me with extreme urbanity, and pointing to an old-fashioned-looking arm-chair, requested me to be seated.--I did so.

"I suppose, sir," said he, with an air of suppressed triumph, "that you have no idea that you are now sitting in a remarkable chair?"

I assured him I was totally unconscious of the fact.

"I can tell you, then," he replied, "that it was in that chair Fauntleroy, the banker, who was hanged for forgery, was sitting when he was arrested."

"Indeed!"

"Fact, sir! I gave ten guineas for it. I thought also to have obtained the night-cap in which he slept the night before his execution, but another collector was beforehand with me, and bribed the turnkey to steal it for him."

"I had no idea there could be any competition for such an article," I observed.

"Ah! sir," said he, with a deep sigh, "you don't know the value of these interesting relics. I have been for upwards of thirty years a collector of them, and I have now as pretty a museum of Criminal Curiosities as you could desire to see."

"It seems you have been indefatigable in your pursuit," said I.

"Yes," he replied, "when a man devotes himself to a great object, he must go to it heart and soul. I have spared neither time nor money in _my_ pursuit; and since I became a collector, I have attended the execution of every noted malefactor throughout the kingdom."

Perceiving that my attention was drawn to a common rope, which served as a bell-pull, he said--

"I see you are remarking my bell-cord--that is the identical rope, sir, which hanged Bellingham, who shot Mr. Perceval in the House of Commons. I offered any sum for the one in which Thistlewood ended his life to match it--but I was unfortunately disappointed; and the laws have now become so disgracefully lenient, that I fear I shall never have an opportunity of procuring a respectable companion rope for the other side of my mantel-piece. And 'tis all owing to the rascally Whigs, sir--they have swept away all our good old English customs, and deprived us of our national recreations. I remember, sir, when Monday was called 'hanging day' at the Old Bailey; on that morning a man might he certain of seeing three or four criminals swung off before his breakfast. 'Tis a curious study, sir, that of hanging--I have seen a great many people suffer in my time: some go off as quiet as lambs, while others die very reluctantly. I have remarked, sir, that 'tis very difficult to hang a Jew pedlar, or a hackney-coachman--there's something obstinate in their nature that won't let them die like other men. But, as I said before, the Whigs and reformers have knocked up the hanging profession; and if it was not for the suicides, which, I am happy to say, are as abundant as ever, I don't know what we should do."

After my friend's indignation against the anti-hanging principles of Reform had subsided a little, he invited me to examine his curiosities, which he had arranged in an adjoining room.

"I have not," said he, as we were proceeding thither, "confined my collection to objects connected with capital offenders only; it comprehends relics of every grade of crime, from murder to petty larceny. In that respect I am liberal, sir."

We had now reached the door of the apartment, when my conductor, seizing my arm suddenly, pointed to the door-mat upon which I had just set my foot, and said, "Observe that mat, sir; it is composed of oakum picked by the fair fingers of the late Lady Barrymore, while confined in the Penitentiary."

I cast a glance at this humble memorial of her late ladyship's industry, and passed into the museum. In doing so, I happened to stumble over a stable-bucket, which my friend affirmed was the one from which Thurtell watered his horse on his way to Probert's cottage. Opening a drawer, he produced a pair of dirty-looking slippers, the authentic property of the celebrated Ikey Solomons; and along with them a pair of cotton hose, which he assured me he had mangled with his own hands in Sarah Gale's mangle. In another drawer he directed my attention to a short clay pipe, once in the possession of Burke; and a tobacco-stopper belonging to Hare, the notorious murderer. He had also preserved with great care Corder's advertisement for a wife, written in his own hand, as it appeared in the weekly papers, and a small fragment of a tile from the Red Barn, where Maria Martin was murdered by the same Corder. He also possessed the fork belonging to the knife with which some German, whose name I forget, cut his wife's and children's throats; and a pewter half-quartern measure, used at the Black Lion, in Wych-street, by Sixteen-string Jack.

There were, likewise, in the collection several interesting relics of humorous felony; such as the snuff-box of the Cock-lane ghost--the stone thrown by Collins at William the Fourth's head--a copy of Sir Francis Burden's speech, for which he was committed to the Tower--an odd black silk glove, worn by Mr. Cotton, the late ordinary of Newgate--Barrington's silver tooth-pick--and a stay-lace of Miss Julia Newman.

These were but a small portion of the contents of the museum; but I had seen enough to make me sick of the exhibition, and I withdrew with the firm resolution never again, during my life, to enter the house of a _Criminal Curiosity Hunter_.

X.

* * * * *

ECCENTRICITIES OF THE MINOR DRAMA.

We had intended to have arranged, for the use of future syncretics, a system of coincidences, compiled from the plots of those magnificent soul-stirring extravaganzas produced and acted at the modern temples of the drama--the chaste Victoria--the didactic Sadler's Wells--and the tramontane Pavilion: but we have found the subject too vast for comprehension, and must content ourselves with noting some of the more exorbitant and refined instances of genius and hallucination displayed in those mighty works. Among these the following are pre-eminent:--

It is a remarkable thing that mothers are always buried on the tops of inaccessible mountains, and that, when it occurs to their afflicted daughters to go and pray at their tombs, they generally choose a particularly inclement night as best adapted for that purpose. It is convenient, too, if any murder took place exactly on the spot, exactly twenty years before, because in that case it is something agreeable to reflect upon and allude to.

It is remarkable that people never lie down but to dream, and that they always dream quite to the purpose, and immediately on having done dreaming, they wake and act upon it.

It is remarkable that young men never know definitely whose sons they are, and generally turn out to belong to the wrong father, and find that they have been falling in love with their sisters, and all that sort of thing.

N.B. Wanted, a new catastrophe for these incidents, as suicide is going out of fashion.

It is remarkable that whenever people are in a particular hurry to be off, they make a point of singing a song to put themselves in spirits, and as an effectual method of concealing their presence from their enemies, who are always close at hand with knives.

It is remarkable that things always go wrong until the last scene, and then there is such hurry and bustle to get them right again, that no one would ever believe it could be done in the time; only they know it must be, and make up their minds to it accordingly.

One word more. Like St. Dunstan's feet, which possessed the sacred virtue of self-multiplication, and of which there existed three at one time, it appears to be a prerogative of epithets of the superlative degree to attach themselves to any number of substantives. Thus the most popular comedian of the day is five different men--the most beautiful drama ever produced is two farces--an opera and a tragedy--and the most decided hit in the memory of man is the "Grecian Statues"--"The Wizard of the Moon"--"The Devil's Daughter"--"Martinuzzi"--and "The Refuge for the Destitute."

* * * * *

THE "WELL-DRESSED" AND THE "WELL-TO-DO."

"There has for the last few days been a smile on the face _of every well-dressed gentleman_, and _of every well-to-do artisan_, who wend their way along the streets of this vast metropolis. It is caused by the opposition exhibition of Friday night in the House of Commons."

Such is the comfortable announcement of a Tory morning paper,--the very incarnation of spiteful imbecility. Such is the self-complacency of the old Tory hag, that in her wildest moments would bite excessively,--if she only had teeth. She has, however, in the very simplicity of her smirking, let out the whole secret--has, in the sweet serenity of her satisfaction, revealed the selfishness, the wickedness of her creed. _Toryism believes only in the well-dressed and the well-to-do_. Purple and fine linen are the instrumental parts of her religion. She subscribes, in fact, to forty-three points; four meals a day being added to her Christian Thirty-nine Articles. Her faith is in glossy raiment and a full belly. She has such a reverence for the loaves and fishes, that in the fulness of her devotion, she would eat them--as the author of the _Almanach des Gourmands_ advises the epicure to eat a certain exquisite dainty--"on her knees." She would die a martyr at the fire;--but then it must be lighted in the kitchen.

The parliamentary exhibition which, according to the _Sycorax_ of Toryism--a _Sycorax_ with double malice, but no potency--has set all the well-dressed and well-to-do part of "this vast metropolis" off in one simultaneous simper, took place on the following motion made by Mr. FIELDEN:--

"Resolved,--That the distress of the working people at the present time is so great through the country, but particularly in the manufacturing districts, that it is the duty of this House to make instant inquiry into the cause and extent of such distress, and devise means to remedy it; and, at all events, to vote no supply of money until such inquiry be made."--(Hear, hear.)

This motion was negatived by 149 to 41; and it is to this negative that, according to the avowal of our veracious contemporary, we owe the radiant looks that have lighted up the streets of London for the past few days. In the same sense of the writer, but in the better words of the chorus of _Tom Thumb_--

"Nature seemed to wear a universal grin!"