Chapter 2

STATUE.--Ah! I perceive yon understand the true principles of legislation. Now, _I_ once really felt what you only feign. In my time, I attempted to carry out my ideas of amelioration, and wanted to improve the moral and physical condition of the people, but--

PEEL.--You failed. Few gave you credit for purely patriotic motives--and still fewer believed you to be sincere in your professions. Now, _my_ plan is much easier, and safer. Give the people fair promises--they don't cost much--but nothing besides promises; the moment you attempt to realise the hopes you have raised, that moment you raise a host of enemies against yourself.

STATUE.--But if you make promises, the nation will demand a fulfilment of them.

PEEL.--I have an answer ready for all comers--"Wait awhile!" 'Tis a famous soother for all impatient grumblers. It kept the Whigs in office for ten years, and I see no reason why it should not serve our turn as long. Depend upon it, "Wait awhile" is the great secret of Government.

STATUE.--Ah! I believe you are right. I now see that I was only a novice in the trade of politics. By the bye, Bob, I don't at all like my situation here; 'tis really very uncomfortable to be exposed to all weathers--scorched in summer, and frost-nipped in winter. Though I am only a statue, I feel that I ought to be protected.

PEEL.--Undoubtedly, my dear sir. What can I do for you?

STATUE.--Why, I want to get into the Abbey, St. Paul's, or Drury Lane. Anywhere out of the open air.

PEEL.--Say no more--it shall be done. I am only too happy to have it in my power to serve the statue of a man to whom his country is so deeply indebted.

STATUE.--But _when_ shall it be done, Bob? To-morrow?

PEEL.--Not precisely to-morrow; but--

STATUE.--Next week, then?

PEEL.--I can't say; but don't be impatient--rely on my promise, and _wait awhile, wait awhile_, my dear friend. Good night.

STATUE.--Oh! confound your _wait awhile_. I see I have nothing to expect.

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THE BEAUTY OF BRASS.

Tom Duncombe declares he never passes McPhail's imitative-gold mart without thinking of Ben D'Israeli's speeches, as both of them are so confoundedly full of fantastic

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PUNCH AT THE ART-UNION EXHIBITION AGAIN

Limited space in our last number prevented our noticing any other than the Sleeping Beauty; and, as there are many other humorous productions possessing equal claims to our attention in the landscape and other departments of art, we shall herein endeavour to point out their characteristics--more for the advantage of future purchasers than for the better and further edification of those whose meagre notions and tastes have already been shown. And as the Royal Academicians, par courtesy, demand our first notice, we shall, having wiped off D. M'Clise, R.A., now proceed, baton in hand, to make a few pokes at W.F. Witherington, R.A., upon his work entitled "Winchester Tower, Windsor Castle, from Romney Lock."

This is a subject which has been handled many times within our recollection, by artists of less name, less fame, and less pretensions to notice, if we except the undeniable fact of their displaying infinitely more ability in their representations of the subject, than can by any possibility be discovered in the one by W. F. Witherington, R.A. If our remarks were made with an affectionate eye to the young ladies of the satin-album-loving school, we should assuredly style this "a duck of a picture"--one after their own hearts--treated in mild and undisturbed tones of yellow, blue, and pink--and what yellows! what blues! and what pinks! Some kind, superintending genius of landscape-painting evidently prepared the scene for W.F. Witherington, R.A. It displays nothing of the vulgar every-day look of nature, as seen at Romney Lock, or any other spot; not a pebble out of its place--not a leaf deranged--here are bright amber trees, and blue metallic towers, prepared gravel-walks, and figures nicely cleaned and bleached to suit; it is, in truth, the most genteel landscape ever looked on. Nothing but absolute needlework can create more wonderment. Fie! fie! get thee hence, W.F. Witherington, R.A.

Just placed over the last-mentioned picture, and, doubtlessly so arranged that the gentle R.A. should find that, although his bright specimen of mild murder may be adjudged the worst in the collection, still there are others worthy of being classed in the same order of oddities. Behold No. 19, entitled, "Landscape--Evening--J.F. Gilbert," and selected by Mr. John Bullock from the Royal Academy. "What's in a name?" In the charitable hope that there is a chance of this purchaser being toned down in the course of time, after the same manner that pictures are, and, by that process, display more sobriety, we most humbly offer to Mr. B. our modest judgment upon his selection (not upon his choice, but upon the thing chosen). That it is a landscape we gloomily admit; but that it represents "Evening" we steadily deny. The exact period of the day, after much puzzling and deliberation, we cannot arrive at; one thing yet we are assured of--that it has been painted in company with a clock that was either too fast or too slow. The composition, which has very much the appearance of the by-gone century, is a prime selection from the finest parts of those very serene views to be found adorning the lowest interiors of wash-hand basins, with a dash from the works of Smith of Chichester, whose mental elevation in his profession was only surpassed by the high finish of his apple-trees, and the elaborate nothingness of his general choice of subject. In the foreground of the picture, the artist has, however, most aptly introduced the two vagabonds invariably to be seen idling in the foregrounds of landscapes of this class--two rascally scouts who have put in appearance from time immemorial; they are here just as in the works alluded to, the one sitting, the other of course standing, and courteously bending to receive the remarks of his friend. By the side of the stream, which flows through (or rather takes up) the middle of the picture, and immediately opposite to the two everlastings, is a little plain-looking agriculturist, who appears to be watching them. He is in the careless and ever-admitted picturesque position of leaning over a garden fence; but whether the invariables are aware of the little gentleman, and are consequently conversing in an undertone, we leave every beholder to speculate and settle for himself. Behind the worthy small farmer, and coming from the door of his residence, most cleverly introduced, is his wife (we know it to represent the wife, from the clear fact of the lady's appearance being typical of the gentleman's), who is in the act of observing that the children are waiting his presence at table, and adding, no doubt, that he had better come in and assist her in the cabbage-and-bacon duties of the repast, than lose his time and annoy the family.

We must now draw the spectator from the above-mentioned objects to a little piscatorial sportsman, who, apart from them, and in the retirement of his own thoughts upon worms, ground-bait, and catgut, lends his aid, together with a lively little amateur waterman, paddling about in a little boat, selfishly built to hold none other than himself--a hill rising in the middle ground, and two or three minor editions of the same towards the distance, carefully dotted with trees, after the fashion of a ready-made portable park from the toy _depot_ in the Lowther Arcade--two bee-hives, a water-mill, some majestic smoke, something that looks like a skein of thread thrown over a mountain, and the memorable chiaro-scuro, form the interesting episodes of this glorious essay in the epic pastoral.

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SYNCRETIC LITERATURE

_Observations on the Epic Poem of Giles Scroggins and Molly Brown--resumed._

The fatal operation of the unavoidable, ever-impending, ruthless shears of the stern controller of human destiny, and curtailer of human life--the action by which

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

or rather the thread of Giles Scroggins' life, at once and most completely establishes the wholesome moral as to the fearful uncertainty of all sublunary anticipations, and stands forth a beautiful beacon to warn the over-weaning "worldly wisemen" from their often too-fondly-cherished dreams of realising, by their own means and appliances, the darling projects of their ambitious hopes!

The immediate effect of the operation performed by Fate's scissors, or rather by Fate herself--as she was the great and absolute disposer--to whom the implement employed was but a matter of fancy; for had Fate so chosen, a bucket, a bowie-knife, a brick-bat, a black cap, or a box of patent pills, might, as well as her destructive shears, have made a tenant for a yawning grave of doomed Giles Scroggins. We say, the immediate effect arising from this cutting cause was one in which both parties--the living bride and defunct bridegroom--were equally concerned, their lover's co-partnership rendering each liable for the acts or accidents of the other; therefore as may be (and we think is) clearly established, under these circumstances,

"They could _not_ be _mar-ri_-ed!"

There is something deliciously affecting in the beautiful drawing out of the last syllable!--it seems like the lingering of the heart's best feelings upon the blighted prospects of its purest joys!--the ceremony that would have completed the union of the loving maiden and admiring swain, blending, as it were, like the twin prongs of a brass-bound toasting-fork, their interests in one common cause. The ceremony of love's concentration can never be performed! but the heart-feeling poet extends each tiny syllable even to its utmost stretch, that the tear-dropping reader may, while gulping down his sympathies, make at least a handsome mouthful of the word.

We now approach, with considerable awe, a portion of our task to which we beg to call the undivided attention of our erudite readers. Upon referring to the original black-letter quarto, we find, after each particular sentence, the author introduces, with consummate tact, a line, meant, as we presume, as a kind of literary resting-place, upon which the delighted mind might, in the sweet indulgence of repose, reflect with greater pleasure on the thrilling parts, made doubly thrilling by the poet's fire. The diversity of these, if we may so express them, "camp stools" of imagination, is worthy of remark, both as to their application and amplitude. For instance, after _one_ line, and that if perused with attention, comparatively less abstruse than its fellows, the gifted poet satisfies himself with the insertion of three sonorous, but really simple syllables, they are invariably at follows--

"Too-ral-loo!"

But when _two_ lines of the poem--burning with thought, bursting with action--entrance by their sublimity the enraptured reader, greater time is given, and more extended accommodation for a mental sit-down is afforded in the elaborate and elongated composition of

"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day!"

These introductions are of a high classic origin. Many professors of eminence have quarrelled as to whether they were not the original of the "Greek chorus;" while others, of equal erudition, have as stoutly maintained, though closely approximating in character and purpose, they are not the "originals," but imitations, and decidedly admirable ones, from those celebrated poets.

A Mr. William Waters, a gentleman of immense travel, one who had left the burning zone of the far East to visit the more chilling gales of a European climate, a philosopher of the sect known as the "Peripatetic," a devoted follower of the heathen Nine, whose fostering care has ever been devoted to the tutelage of the professors of sweet sounds; and therefore Waters was a high authority, declared in the peculiar _patois_ attendant upon the pronunciation of a foreign mode of speech--that

"Too-ral-loo"

was to catch him wind! And

"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day,"

to let "um rosin up him fuddlestick!" These deductions are practical, if not poetical; but these are but the emanations from the brain of one--hundreds of other commentators differ from his view.

The most erudite linguists are excessively puzzled as to the nation whose peculiar language has been resorted to for these singular and unequalled introductions. The

"Too-ral-loo"

has been given up in despair. The nearest solution was that of an eminent arithmetician, who conjectured from the word too (Anglice, _two_)--and the use of the four cyphers--those immediately following the T and L--that they were intended to convey some notion of the personal property of Giles Scroggins or Molly Brown (he never made up his mind which of the two); and merely wanted the following marks to render them plain:--

T--oo (_two_)--either shillings or pence--and L--oo: no pounds!

This may or may not be right, but the research and ingenuity deserve the immortality we now confer upon it. The other line, the

"Whack! fol-de-riddle lol-de-day!"

has, perhaps, given rise to far more controversy, with certainly less tangible and satisfactory results.

The scene of the poem not being expressly stated in the original or early black-letter translation, many persons--whose love of country prompted their wishes--have endeavoured to attach a nationality to these gordian knots of erudition. An Hibernian gentleman of immense research--the celebrated "Darby Kelly"--has openly asserted the whole affair to be decidedly of Milesian origin: and, amid a vast number of corroborative circumstances, strenuously insists upon the solidity of his premises and deductions by triumphantly exclaiming, "What, or who but an _Irish_ poet and an Irish hero, would commence a matter of so much consequence with the soul-stirring "whack!" adopted by the great author, and put into the mouth of his chosen hero?" Others again have supposed--which is also far more improbable--that much of the obscurity of the above passage has its origin from simple mis-spelling on the part of the poet's amanuensis--he taking the literal dictation, forgetting the sublime author was suffering from a cold in the head, which rendered the words in sound--

"Riddle _lol_ the lay;"

whereas they would otherwise have been pronounced--

"Riddle--_all the day_"--

that being an absolute and positive allusion to the agricultural pursuits of Giles Scroggins, he being generally employed by his more wealthy master--a great agrarian of those times--in the manly though somewhat fatiguing occupation of "riddling all the day:" an occupation which--like this article--was to be frequently resumed.

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A NEW THEORY OF POCKETS.

DEFINITION _Pocket_, s. the small bag inserted into clothes.--WALKER (_a new edition, by Hookey_).

We are great on the subject of pockets--we acknowledge it--we avow it. From our youth upwards, and we are venerable now, we have made them the object of untiring research, analysis, and speculation; and if our exertions have occasionally involved us in contingent predicaments, or our zeal laid us open to conventional misconstructions, we console ourselves with Galileo and Tycho Brahe, who having, like us, discovered and arranged systems too large for the scope of the popular intellect, like us, became the martyrs of those great principles of science which they have immortalized themselves by teaching.

The result of a course of active and careful (s)peculations on the philosophy and economy of pockets, has led us to the conviction that their intention and use are but very imperfectly understood, even by the intelligent and reflective section of the community. It is, we fear, a very common error to regard them as conventional recesses, adapted for the reception and deposit of such luxurious additaments to the attire as are detached, yet accessory and indispensable ministers to our comfort. Now this delusive supposition is diametrically opposed to the truth. Pockets (we must be plain)--pockets are not made _to put into_, but to _take out of_; and, although it is of course necessary that, in order to produce the result of withdrawal, they be previously furnished with the wherewithal to withdraw, yet the process of insertion and supply is only carried on for the purpose of assisting the operation of the system.

And having, we trust, logically established this point, we shall hazard no incautious position in asserting that the man who empties a pocket, fulfils the object for which it was founded and established. And although, unhappily, a prejudice still exists in the minds of the uneducated, in favour of emptying their own pockets themselves, it must be evident that none but a narrow mind can take umbrage at the trifling acceleration of an event which must inevitably occur; or would desire to appropriate the credit of the distribution, as well as to deserve the merit of the supply.

We perceive with concern and apprehension, that pockets are gradually falling into disuse. To use the flippant idiom of the day, they are going out! This is an alarming, as well as a lamentable fact; and one, too, strikingly illustrative of the degeneracy of modern fashions. Whether we ascribe the change to a contemptuous neglect of ancestral institutions, or to an increasing difficulty in furnishing the indispensable attributes of the pocket, it is alike indicative of a crisis; and we confess that it is matter of astonishment to us, that in these days of theory and hypothesis, no man has ventured to trace the distress and the ruin now impending over the country, to the increasing disrespect and disuse of--pockets.

By way of approving our conjecture, let us contrast the garments of the hour with those of England in the olden time--long ago, when boards smoked and groaned under a load of good things in every man's house; when the rich took care of the poor, and the poor took care of themselves; when husband and wife married for love, and lived happily (though that must have been very long ago indeed); the athletic yeoman proceeded to his daily toil, enveloped in garments instinct with pockets. The ponderous watch--the plethoric purse--the massive snuff-box--the dainty tooth-pick--the grotesque handkerchief; all were accommodated and cherished in the more ample recesses of his coat; while supplementary fobs were endeared to him by their more seductive contents: _as_ ginger lozenges, love-letters, and turnpike-tickets. Such were the days on which we should reflect with regret; such were the men whom we should imitate and revere. Had such a character as we have endeavoured feebly to sketch, met an individual enveloped in a shapeless cylindrical tube of pale Macintosh--impossible for taste--incapable of pockets--indefinite and indefinable--we question whether he would have regarded him in the light of a maniac, an incendiary, or a foreign spy--whether he would not have handed him immediately over to the exterminators of the law, as a being too depraved, too degraded for human sympathy. And yet--for our prolixity warns us to conclude--and yet the festering contagion of this baneful example is now-a-days hidden under the mask of fashion. FASHION! and has it indeed come to this? Is fashion to trample on the best and finest feelings of our nature? Is fashion to be permitted to invade us in our green lanes, and our high roads, under our vines and our fig-trees, without hindrance, and without pockets? For the sake of human nature, we hope not--for the sake of our bleeding country, we hope not. No! "Take care of your pockets!" is one of the earliest maxims instilled into the youthful mind; and emphatically do we repeat to our fellow-countrymen--Englishmen, take care of your pockets!

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PUNCH'S THEATRE.