Chapter 2

"We have lordlings in dozens," the Tories exclaim, "To fill every place from the throng; Although the cursed Whigs, be it told to our shame, Kept us _poor lords in waiting_ too long."

* * * * *

LOOKING ON THE BLACK SIDE OF THINGS.

The Honourable Sambo Sutton begs us to state, that he is not the Honourable ---- Sutton who is announced as the Secretary for the Home Department. He might have been induced to have stepped into Lord Cottenham's shoes, on his

* * * * *

AWFUL CASE OF SMASHING!--FRIGHTFUL NEGLIGENCE OF THE POLICE

Feargus O'Connor _passed his word_ last week at the London Tavern.

* * * * *

NEW SWIMMING APPARATUS.

At the late collision between the _Beacon_ brig and the _Topaz_ steamer, one of the passengers, anticipating the sinking of both vessels, and being strongly embued with the great principle of self-preservation, immediately secured himself the assistance of _the anchor_! Did he conceive "Hope" to have been unsexed, or that that attribute originally existed as a "floating boy?"

* * * * *

SYNCRETIC LITERATURE.

"The Loves of Giles Scroggins and Molly Brown:" an Epic Poem. London: CATNACH.

The great essentials necessary for the true conformation of the sublimest effort of poetic genius, the construction of an "Epic Poem," are numerically three; viz., a beginning, a middle, and an end. The incipient characters necessary to the beginning, ripening in the middle, and, like the drinkers of small beer and October leaves, falling in the end.

The poem being thus divided into its several stages, the judgment of the writer should emulate that of the experienced Jehu, who so proportions his work, that all and several of his required teams do their own share and no more--fifteen miles (or lengths) to a first canto, and five to a second, is as far from right as such a distribution of mile-stones would be to the overworked prads. The great fault of modern poetasters arises from their extreme love of spinning out an infinite deal of nothing. Now, as "brevity is the soul of wit," their productions can be looked upon as little else than phantasmagorial skeletons, ridiculous from their extreme extenuation, and in appearance more peculiarly empty, from the circumstance of their owing their existence to false lights. This fault does not exist with all the master spirits, and, though "many a flower is born to blush unseen," we now proceed to rescue from obscurity the brightest gem of unfamed literature.

Wisdom is said to be found in the mouths of babes and sucklings. So is the epic poem of Giles Scroggins. Is wisdom Scroggins, or is Scroggins wisdom? We can prove either position, but we are cramped for space, and therefore leave the question open. Now for our author and his first line--

"Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown."

Beautiful condensation! Is or is not _this_ rushing at once in _medias res_? It is; there's no paltry subterfuge about it--no unnecessary wearing out of "the waning moon they met by"--"the stars that gazed upon their joy"--"the whispering gales that breathed in zephyr's softest sighs"--their "lover's perjuries to the distracted trees they wouldn't allow to go to sleep." In short, "there's no nonsense"--there's a broad assertion of a thrilling fact--

"Giles Scroggins courted Molly Brown."

So might a thousand folks; therefore (the reader may say) how does this establish the individuality of Giles Scroggins, or give an insight to the character of the chosen hero of the poem? Mark the next line, and your doubts must vanish. He courted her; but why? Ay, why? for the best of all possible reasons--condensed in the smallest of all possible space, and yet establishing his perfect taste, unequalled judgment, and peculiarly-heroic self-esteem--he courted her because she was

"The fairest maid in all the town."

Magnificent climax! overwhelming reason! Could volumes written, printed, or stereotyped, say more? Certainly not; the condensation of "Aurora's blushes," "the Graces' attributes," "Venus's perfections," and "Love's sweet votaries," all, all is more than spoken in the emphatic words--

"The fairest maid in all the town."

Nothing can go beyond this; it proves her beauty and her disinterestedness. The _fairest_ maid might have chosen, nay, commanded, even a city dignitary. Does the so? No; Giles Scroggins, famous only in name, loves her, and--beautiful poetic contrivance!--we are left to imagine he does "not love unloved." Why should she reciprocate? inquires the reader. Are not truth and generosity the princely paragons of manly virtue, greater, because unostentatious? and these perfect attributes are part and parcel of great Giles. He makes no speeches--soils no satin paper--vows no vows--no, he is above such humbug. His motto is evidently deeds, not words. And what does he do? Send a flimsy epistle, which his fair reader pays the vile postage for? Not he; he

"_Gave_ a ring with _posy_ true!"

Think of this. Not only does he "give a ring," but he annihilates the suppositionary fiction in which poets are supposed to revel, and the ring's accompaniment, though the child of a creative brain--the burning emanation from some Apollo-stricken votary of "the lying nine," imbued with all his stern morality, is strictly "true." This startling fact is not left wrapped in mystery. The veriest sceptic cannot, in imagination, grave a fancied double meaning on that richest gift. No--the motto follows, and seems to say--Now, as the champion of Giles Scroggins, hurl I this gauntlet down; let him that dare, uplift it! Here I am--

"If you _loves_ I, as I _loves_ you!"

Pray mark the syncretic force of the above line. Giles, in expressing his affection, felt the singular too small, and the vast plural quick supplied the void--_Loves_ must be more than love.

"If you loves I, as I loves you, No knife shall cut our loves in two!"

This is really sublime! "No knife!" Can anything exceed the assertion? Nothing but the rejoinder--a rejoinder in which the talented author not only stands proudly forward as a poet, but patriotically proves the _amor propriæ_, which has induced him to study the staple manufactures of his beloved country! What but a diligent investigation of the _cut_lerian process could have prompted the illustration of practical knowledge of the Birmingham and Sheffield artificers contained in the following exquisitely explanatory line. But--pray mark the _but_--

"But _scissors_ cut as well as knives!"

Sublime announcement! startling information! leading us, by degrees, to the highest of all earthly contemplations, exalting us to fate and her peculiar shears, and preparing us for the exquisitely poetical sequel contained in the following line:--

"And so un_sart_ain's all our lives."

Can anything exceed this? The uncertainty of life evidently superinduced the conviction of all other uncertainties, and the sublime poet bears out the intenseness of his impressions by the uncertainty of his spelling! Now, reader, mark the next line, and its context:--

"The very night they were to wed!"

Fancy this: the full blossoming of all their budding joys, anticipations, death, and hope's accomplishment, the crowning hour of their youth's great bliss, "_the very night they were to wed_," is, with _extra syncretic_ skill, chosen as the awful one in which

"Fate's scissors cut Giles Scroggins' thread!"

Now, reader, do you see the subtle use of practical knowledge? Are you convinced of the impotent prescription from _knives_ only? Can you not perceive in "_Fate's scissors_" a parallel for the unthought-of host "that bore the mighty wood of Dunsinane against the blood-stained murderer of the pious Duncan?" Does not the fatal truth rush, like an unseen draught into rheumatic crannies, slick through your soul's perception? Are you not prepared for this--_to be resumed in our next_?

* * * * *

THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.

FROM OUR OWN COURT CIRCULAR.

Lord Lyndhurst is to have the seals; but it is not yet decided who is to be entrusted with the wafer-stamps. Gold-stick has not been appointed, and there are so many of the Conservatives whose qualities peculiarly fit them for the office of _stick_, that the choice will be exceedingly embarrassing.

Though the Duke of Wellington does not take office, an extra chair has been ordered, to allow of his having a seat in the Cabinet. And though Lord Melbourne is no longer minister, he is still to be indulged with a lounge on the sofa.

If the Duke of Beaufort is to be Master of the Horse, it is probable that a new office will be made, to allow Colonel Sibthorp to take office as Comptroller of the Donkeys: and it is said that Horace Twiss is to join the administration as Clerk of the Kitchen.

It was remarked, that after Sir Robert Peel had kissed hands, the Queen called for soap and water, for the purpose of washing them.

The Duchess of Buccleugh having refused the office of Mistress of the Robes, it will not be necessary to make the contemplated new appointment of Keeper of the Flannel Petticoats.

The Grooms of the Bedchamber are, for the future, to be styled Postilions of the Dressing-room; because, as the Sovereign is a lady, instead of a gentleman, it is thought that the latter title, for the officers alluded to, will be more in accordance with propriety. For the same excellent reason, it is expected that the Knights of the Bath will henceforth be designated the Chevaliers of the Foot-pan.

Prince Albert's household is to be entirely re-modelled, and one or two new offices are to be added, the want of which has hitherto occasioned his Royal Highness much inconvenience. Of these, we are only authorised in alluding, at present, to Tooth-brush in Ordinary, and Shaving-pot in Waiting. There is no foundation for the report that there is to be a Lord High Clothes-brush, or Privy Boot-jack.

* * * * *

A VOICE FROM THE AREA.

The following letter has been addressed to us by a certain party, who, as our readers will perceive, has been one of the sufferers by the late _clearance_ made in a fashionable establishment at the West-end:--

DEAR PUNCH.--As you may not be awair of the mallancoly change wich as okkurred to the pore sarvunts here, I hassen to let you no--that every sole on us as lost our plaices, and are turnd owt--wich is a dredful klamity, seeing as we was all very comfittible and appy as we was. I must say, in gustis to our Missus, that she was very fond of us, and wouldn't have parted with one of us if she had her will: but she's only a O in her own howse, and is never aloud to do as she licks. We got warning reglar enuff, but we still thort that somethink might turn up in our fever. However, when the day cum that we was to go, it fell upon us like a thunderboat. You can't imagine the kunfewshion we was all threw into--every body packing up their little afares, and rummidging about for any trifele that wasn't worth leaving behind. The sarvunts as is cum in upon us is a nice sett; they have been a long wile trying after our places, and at last they have suckseeded in underminding us; but it's my oppinion they'll never be able to get through the work of the house;--all they cares for is the vails and purkussites. I forgot to menshun that they hadn't the decency to wait till we was off the peremasses, wich I bleave is the _etticat_ in sich cases, but rushed in on last Friday, and tuck possession of all our plaices before we had left the concirn. I leave you to judge by this what a hurry they was to get in. There's one comfurt, however, that is--we've left things in sich a mess in the howse, that I don't think they'll ever be able to set them to rites again. This is all at present from your afflickted friend,

JOHN THE FOOTMAN.

* * * * *

"I declare I never knew a _flatter_ companion than yourself," said Tom of Finsbury, the other evening, to the lion of Lambeth. "Thank you, Tom," replied the latter; "but all the world knows that you're a _flatter-er_." Tom, in nautical phrase, swore, if he ever came athwart his _Hawes_, that he would return the compliment with interest.

* * * * *

MY FRIEND TOM.

--"Here, methinks, Truth wants no ornament."--ROGERS.

We have the happiness to know a gentleman of the name of Tom, who officiates in the capacity of ostler. We have enjoyed a long acquaintance with him--we mean an acquaintance a long way off--i.e. from the window of our dormitory, which overlooks A--s--n's stables. We believe we are the first of our family, for some years, who has not kept a horse; and we derive a melancholy gratification in gazing for hours, from our lonely height, at the zoological possessions of more favoured mortals.

"The horse is a noble animal," as a gentleman once wittily observed, when he found himself, for the first time in his life, in a position to make love; and we beg leave to repeat the remark--"the horse is a noble animal," whether we consider him in his usefulness or in his beauty; whether caparisoned in the _chamfrein_ and _demi-peake_ of the chivalry of olden times, or scarcely fettered and surmounted by the snaffle and hog-skin of the present; whether he excites our envy when bounding over the sandy deserts of Arabia, or awakens our sympathies when drawing sand from Hampstead and the parts adjacent; whether we see him as romance pictures him, foaming in the lists, or bearing, "through flood and field," the brave, the beautiful, and the benighted; or, as we know him in reality, the companion of our pleasures, the slave of our necessities, the dislocator of our necks, or one of the performers at our funeral; whether--but we are not drawing a "bill in Chancery."

With such impressions in favour of the horse, we have ever felt a deep anxiety about those to whom his conduct and comfort are confided.

The breeder--we envy. The breaker--we pity. The owner--we esteem. The groom--we respect. AND The ostler--we pay.

Do not suppose that we wish to cast a slur upon the latter personage, but it is too much to require that he who keeps a caravansera should look upon every wayfarer as a brother. It is thus with the ostler: _his_ feelings are never allowed to twine

"Around one object, till he feels his heart Of its sweet being form a deathless part."

No--to rub them down, give them a quartern and three pen'orth, and not too much water, are all that he has to connect him with the offspring of Childers, Eclipse, or Pot-8-o's; ergo, we pay him.

My friend Tom is a fine specimen of the genus. He is about fifteen hands high, rising thirty, herring-bowelled, small head, large ears, close mane, broad chest, and legs à la parentheses ( ). His dress is a long brown-holland jacket, covering the protuberance known in Bavaria by the name of _pudo_, and in England by that of _bustle_. His breeches are of cord about an inch in width, and of such capacious dimensions, that a truss of hay, or a quarter of oats, might be stowed away in them with perfect convenience: not that we mean to insinuate they are ever thus employed, for when we have seen them, they have been in a collapsed state, hanging (like the skin of an elephant) in graceful festoons about the mid-person of the wearer. These necessaries are confined at the knee by a transverse row of pearl buttons crossing the _genu patella_. The _pars pendula_ is about twelve inches wide, and supplies, during conversation or rumination, a resting-place for the thumbs or little fingers. His legs are encased either in white ribbed cotton stockings, or that peculiar kind of gaiter 'yclept _kicksies_. His feet know only one pattern shoe, the _ancle-jack_ (or _highlow_ as it is sometimes called), resplendent with "Day and Martin," or the no less brilliant "Warren." Genius of propriety, we have described his tail before that index of the mind, that idol of phrenologists, his pimple!--we beg pardon, we mean his head. Round, and rosy as a pippin, it stands alone in its native loveliness, on the heap of clothes beneath.

Tom is not a low man; he has not a particle of costermongerism in his composition, though his discourse savours of that peculiar slang that might be considered rather objectionable in the _salons_ of the _élite_.

The bell which he has the honour to answer hangs at the gate of a west-end livery-stables, and his consequence is proportionate. To none under the degree of a groom does he condescend a nod of recognition--with a second coachman he drinks porter--and purl (a compound of beer and blue ruin) with the more respectable individual who occupies the hammer-cloth on court-days. Tom estimates a man according to his horse, and his civility is regulated according to his estimation. He pockets a gratuity with as much ease as a state pensioner; but if some unhappy wight should, in the plenitude of his ignorance, proffer a sixpence, Tom buttons his pockets with a smile, and politely "begs to leave it till it becomes more."

With an old meerschaum and a pint of tolerable sherry, we seat ourselves at our window, and hold many an imaginative conversation with our friend Tom. Sometimes we are blest with more than ideality; but that is only when he unbends and becomes jocular and noisy, or chooses a snug corner opposite our window to enjoy his _otium_--confound that phrase!--we would say his indolence and swagger--

"A pound to a hay-seed agin' the bay."

Hallo! that's Tom! Yes--there he comes laughing out of "Box 4," with three others--all _first_ coachmen. One is making some very significant motions to the potboy at the "Ram and Radish," and, lo! Ganymede appears with a foaming tankard of ale. Tom has taken his seat on an inverted pail, and the others are grouped easily, if not classically, around him.

One is resting his head between the prongs of a stable-fork; another is spread out like the Colossus of Rhodes; whilst a gentleman in a blue uniform has thrown himself into an attitude à la Cribb, with the facetious intention of "letting daylight into the _wittling_ department" of the pot-boy of the "Ram and Radish."

Tom has blown the froth from the tankard, and (as he elegantly designates it) "bit his name in the pot." A second has "looked at the maker's name;" and another has taken one of those positive draughts which evince a settled conviction that it is a last chance.

Our friend has thrust his hands into the deepest depths of his breeches-pocket, and cocking one eye at the afore-named blue uniform, asks--

"_Will_ you back the bay?"

The inquiry has been made in such a do-if-you-dare tone, that to hesitate would evince a cowardice unworthy of the first coachman to the first peer in Belgrave-square, and a leg of mutton and trimmings are duly entered in a greasy pocket-book, as dependent upon the result of the Derby.

"The son of Tros, fair Ganymede," is again called into requisition, and the party are getting, as Tom says, "As happy as Harry Stockracy."

"I've often heerd that chap mentioned," remarks the blue uniform, "but I never seed no one as know'd him."

"No more did I," replies Tom, "though he must be a fellow such as us, up to everything."

All the coachmen cough, strike an attitude, and look wise.

"Now here comes a sort of chap I despises," remarks Tom, pointing to a steady-looking man, without encumbrance, who had just entered the yard, evidently a coachman to a pious family; "see him handle a _hoss_. Smear--smear--like bees-waxing a table. Nothing varminty about him--nothing of this sort of thing (spreading himself out to the gaze of his admiring auditory), but I suppose he's useful with slow cattle, and that's a consolation to us as can't abear them." And with this negative compliment Tom has broken up his _conversazione_.

I once knew a country ostler--by name Peter Staggs--he was a lower species of the same genus--a sort of compound of my friend Tom and a waggoner--the _delf_ of the profession. He was a character in his way; he knew the exact moment of every coach's transit on his line of road, and the birth, parentage, and education of every cab, hack, and draught-horse in the neighbourhood. He had heard of a mane-comb, but had never seen one; he considered a shilling for a "feed" perfectly apocryphal, as he had never received one. He kept a rough terrier-dog, that would kill anything in the country, and exhibited three rows of putrified rats, nailed at the back of the stable, as evidences of the prowess of his dog. He swore long country oaths, for which he will be unaccountable, as not even an angel could transcribe them. In short, he was a little "varminty," but very little.

We will conclude this "lytle historie" with the epitaph of poor Peter Staggs, which we copied from a rail in Swaffham churchyard.

"EPITAPH ON PETER STAGGS.

Poor Peter Staggs now rests beneath this rail, Who loved his joke, his pipe, and mug of ale; For twenty years he did the duties well, Of ostler, boots, and waiter at the 'Bell.' But Death stepp'd in, and order'd Peter Staggs To feed his worms, and leave the farmers' nags. The church clock struck one--alas! 'twas Peter's knell, Who sigh'd, 'I'm coming--that's the ostler's bell!'"

Peace to his manes!

* * * * *

A HINT FOR POLITICIANS.

"If you won't turn, _I_ will," as the mill-wheel said to the stream.

* * * * *

"Why did not Wellington take a post in the new Cabinet?" asked Dicky Sheil of O'Connell.--"_Bathershin!_" replied the _head_ of the _tail_, "the Duke is too old a soldier to lean on a rotten _stick_."

* * * * *

Lord Morpeth intends proceeding to Canada immediately. The object of his journey is purely scientific; he wishes to ascertain if the _Fall of Niagara_ be really greater than the _fall of the Whigs_.

* * * * *

A PRO AND CON.

"When is Peel not Peel?"--"When he's _candi(e)d_."

* * * * *

GALVANISM OUTDONE.

We have heard of the very dead being endowed, by galvanic action, with the temporary powers of life, and on such occasions the extreme force of the apparatus has ever received the highest praise. The Syncretic march of mind rectifies the above error--with them, weakness is strength. Fancy the alliterative littleness of a "Stephens" and a "Selby," as the tools from which the drama must receive its glorious resuscitation!

* * * * *

NEWS FOR THE SYNCRETICS.

_(Extracted from the "Stranger's Guide to London.")_

Bedlam, the celebrated receptacle for lunatics, is situated in St. George's-fields, _within five minutes' walk of the King's Bench_. There is also another noble establishment in the neighbourhood of Finsbury-square, where the unhappy victims of extraordinary delusions are treated with the care and consideration their several hallucinations require.

* * * * *

PEEL "REGULARLY CALLED IN."