Part 141

There is some one--I see a dark shape At that window, the hottest of all,-- My good woman, why don’t you escape? Never think of your bonnet and shawl: If your dress is’nt perfect, what is it For once in a way to your hurt? When your husband is paying a visit There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirt!

Only see how she throws out her _chancy_! Her basins, and teapots, and all The most brittle of _her_ goods--or any, But they all break in breaking their fall: Such things are not surely the best From a two-story window to throw-- She might save a good iron bound chest, For there’s plenty of people below!

O dear! what a beautiful flash! How it shone thro’ the window and door; We shall soon hear a scream and a crash, When the woman falls thro’ with the floor! There! there! what a volley of flame, And then suddenly all is obscur’d!-- Well--I’m glad in my heart that I came;-- But I hope the poor man is insur’d!

There are ballads in the “New Series” that rival “Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter” in the former volume. Of this class are “Mary’s Ghost;” the story of “Tim Turpin,” mentioned before; and another of “Jack Hall,” showing, how Jack was an undertaker’s mute--how Jack sometimes drove the hearse--how Jack was in league with resurrection-men, and stole the bodies he buried--how Death met Jack in St. Pancras burying-ground, and shook hands with him--how Death invited Jack home to supper--how Jack preferred going to the Cheshire Cheese, and Death didn’t--how Jack was brought to Death’s door, and what he saw there--how Jack was obliged to go in, and Death introduced him to his friends as “Mr. Hall the body-snatcher”--how Jack got off without bidding them good night--how Jack was indisposed--how twelve doctors came to visit Jack without taking fees--how Jack got worse, and how he confessed he had sold his own body twelve different times to the twelve doctors--how the twelve doctors did not know Jack was so bad--how the twelve doctors disputed in Jack’s room which should have his body till twelve o’clock--how Jack then departed, the twelve doctors couldn’t tell how--and how, as Jack’s body could not be found, the twelve doctors departed, and not one of them was satisfied.

In the forementioned ballads there are many “verbal misdemeanours,” at which the author cautiously hints in his preface with some tokens of deprecation:--“Let me suggest,” he says, “that a pun is somewhat like a cherry: though there may be a slight outward indication of partition--of duplicity of meaning--yet no gentleman need make two bites at it against his own pleasure. To accommodate certain readers, notwithstanding, I have refrained from putting the majority in italics.” He is equally sinful and considerate in his prose: as, for instance, in the following character, which fairly claims a place with those of bishop Earle, sir Thomas Overbury, and even Butler.

“A BALLAD SINGER

Is a town-crier for the advertising of lost tunes. Hunger hath made him a wind instrument; his want is vocal, and not he. His voice had gone a-begging before he took it up and applied it to the same trade it was too strong to hawk mackerel, but was just soft enough for Robin Adair. His business is to make popular songs unpopular,--he gives the air, like a weathercock, with many variations. As for a key, he has but one--a latch-key--for all manner of tunes; and as they are to pass current amongst the lower sorts of people, he makes his notes like a country banker’s, as thick as he can. His tones have a copper sound, for he sounds for copper; and for the musical divisions he hath no regard, but sings on, like a kettle, without taking any heed of the bars. Before beginning he clears his pipe with gin; and he is always hoarse from the thorough draft in his throat. He hath but one shake, and that is in winter. His voice sounds flat, from flatulence; and he fetches breath, like a drowning kitten, whenever he can. Notwithstanding all this his music gains ground, for it walks with him from end to end of the street.

“He is your only performer that requires not many entreaties for a song; for he will chant, without asking, to a street cur or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines; for he sings for bread, and though corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his birthright may sing whether he can or not. To conclude, he is reckoned passable in the city, but is not so good off the stones.”

An incurable joker subjects himself to the inconvenience of not being believed, though he speak the truth; and therefore the following declaration of the author of “Whims and Oddities” is questionable. He says:--

“A MAD DOG

Is none of my bugbears. Of the bite of dogs, large ones especially, I have a reasonable dread; but as to any participation in the canine frenzy, I am somewhat sceptical. The notion savours of the same fanciful superstition that invested the subjects of Dr. Jenner with a pair of horns. Such was affirmed to be the effect of the vaccine matter--and I shall believe what I have heard of the canine virus, when I see a rabid gentleman, or gentlewoman, with flap ears, dew-claws, and a brushtail!----

“I put no faith in the vulgar stories of human beings betaking themselves, through a dog-bite, to dog-habits: and consider the smotherings and drownings, that have originated in that fancy, as cruel as the murders for witchcraft. Are we, for a few yelpings, to stifle all the disciples of Loyola--Jesuits’ bark--or plunge unto death all the convalescents who may take to bark and wine?

“As for the hydrophobia, or loathing of water, I have it mildly myself. My head turns invariably at thin washy potations. With a dog, indeed, the case is different--he is a water-drinker; and when he takes to grape-juice, or the stronger cordials, may be dangerous. But I have never seen one with a bottle--except at his tail.

“There are other dogs who are born to haunt the liquid element, to dive and swim--and for such to shun the lake or the pond would look suspicious. A Newfoundlander, standing up from a shower at a door-way, or a spaniel with a parapluie, might be innocently destroyed. But when does such a cur occur?”

Mr. Hood answers the question himself by “hydrophobia” of his own creation, namely, an engraving of a dog, on whom he makes “each particular hair to stand an end;” and whom he represents walking biped-fashion; he hath for his shield, as Randle Holme would say, an umbrella _vert_, charged with the stick thereof, as a bend _or_.

“The career of this animal,” says Mr. Hood, “is but a type of his victim’s--suppose some bank clerk. He was not bitten, but only splashed on the hand by the mad foam or dog-spray: a recent flea-bite gives entrance to the virus, and in less than three years it gets possession. Then the tragedy begins. The unhappy gentleman first evinces uneasiness at being called on for his New River rates. He answers the collector snappishly, and when summoned to pay for his supply of water, tells the commissioners, doggedly, that they may cut it off. From that time he gets worse. He refuses slops--turns up a pug nose at pump water--and at last, on a washing-day, after flying at the laundress, rushes out, ripe for hunting, to the street. A twilight remembrance leads him to the house of his intended. He fastens on her hand--next worries his mother--takes a bit apiece out of his brothers and sisters--runs a-muck, ‘giving tongue,’ all through the suburbs--and finally, is smothered by a pair of bed-beaters in Moorfields.

“According to popular theory the mischief ends not here. The dog’s master--the trainer, the friends, human and canine--the bank clerks--the laundresses--sweet-heart--mother and sisters--the-two bed-beaters--all inherit the rabies, and run about to bite others.”

But, is not this drollery on hydrophobia feigned? Is it not true that a certain bootmaker receives orders every July from the author of “Whims and Oddities,” for boots to reach above the calf, of calf so inordinately stout as to be capable of resisting the teeth of a dog, however viciously rabid, and with underleathers of winter thickness, for the purpose of kicking all dogs withal, in the canicular days? These queries are not urged upon Mr. H. with the tongue of scandal; of that, indeed, he has no fear, for he dreads no tongue, but (to use his quotation from Lord Duberly) the “vermicular tongue.” This little exposure of his prevailing weakness he has provoked, by affecting to discredit what his sole shakes at every summer.

The “New Series of Whims and Oddities” abounds with drolleries. Its author’s “Forty Designs” are all ludicrous; and, that they have been engraven with fidelity there can be little doubt, from his compliment to the engraver. “My hope persuades me,” he says, “that my illustrations cannot have degenerated, so ably have I been seconded by Mr. Edward Willis; who, like the humane Walter, has befriended my offspring in the wood.”[478] Though the engravings are indescribably expressive, yet a few may be hinted at, viz.

“Speak up, sir!” a youth on his knees, vehemently declaring his love, yet in a tone not sufficiently loud, to a female on a sofa, who doth “incline her ear” with a trumpet, to assist the auricle.

“In and out Pensioners,” exemplifying the “Suaviter in modo,” and “Fortiter in re.”

“The spare bed,” uncommonly spare.

“Why don’t you get up behind?” addressed by a donkey-rider--who does not sit before--to a boy on the ground.

“Banditti,” street minstrels.

“Dust O!” Death collecting his dust--_critically_ speaking, this might be objected to.

“Crane-iology;” a crane, with its bill calliper-wise, speculating on a scull, and ascertaining its developements.

“A Retrospective Review;” very literal.

“She is all heart;” a very hearty body.

“The last visit;” quacks.

“The Angel of Death;” one of them--very fine.

“Joiners;” Vicar and Moses.

“Drill and Broadcast;” nature and art.

“High-born and Low-born;” odd differences.

“Lawk! I’ve forgot the brandy!” abominably provoking--only look!

“Comparative Physiology” is “a wandering camel-driver and exhibitor, parading, for a few pence, the creature’s outlandlish hump, yet burthened himself with a bunch of flesh between the shoulders.”--

“Oh would some power the giftie gi’ us To see oursel’s as others see us!”

Mr. Hood’s talents are as versatile as his imagination is excursive: and it would be difficult to decide, whether he excels in the ludicrous or the grave. He depicts a pathetic scene with infinitely delicate and discriminative touches, and his powers are evidently equal to a high order of poetical grandeur. His “Sally Holt and the Death of John Hayloft,” is an exquisite specimen of natural feeling.

“Nature, unkind to _Sally Holt_ as to Dogberry, denied to her that knowledge of reading and writing, which comes to some by instinct. A strong principle of religion made it a darling point with her to learn to read, that she might study in her Bible: but in spite of all the help of my cousin, and as ardent a desire for learning as ever dwelt in scholar, poor Sally never mastered beyond A-B-ab. Her mind, simple as her heart, was unequal to any more difficult combinations. Writing was worse to her than conjuring. My cousin was her amanuensis: and from the vague, unaccountable mistrust of ignorance, the inditer took the pains always to compare the verbal message with the transcript, by counting the number of the words.

“I would give up all the tender epistles of Mrs. Arthur Brooke, to have read one of Sally’s epistles; but they were amatory, and therefore kept sacred: for plain as she was, Sally Holt had a lover.

“There is an unpretending plainness in some faces that has its charm--an unaffected ugliness, a thousand times more bewitching than those would-be pretty looks that neither satisfy the critical sense, nor leave the matter of beauty at once to the imagination. We like better to make a new face than to mend an old one. Sally had not one good feature, except those which John Hayloft made for her in his dreams; and to judge from one token, her partial fancy was equally answerable for his charms. One precious lock--no, not a lock, but rather a remnant of very short, very coarse, very yellow hair, the clippings of a military crop, for John was a corporal--stood the foremost item amongst her treasures. To her they were curls, golden, Hyperian, and cherished long after the parent-head was laid low, with many more, on the bloody plain of Salamanca.

“I remember vividly at this moment the ecstasy of her grief at the receipt of the fatal news. She was standing near the dresser with a dish, just cleaned, in her dexter hand. Ninety-nine women in a hundred would have dropped the dish. Many would have flung themselves after it on the floor; but Sally put it up, orderly, on the shelf. The fall of John Hayloft could not induce the fall of the crockery. She felt the blow notwithstanding; and as soon as she had emptied her hands, began to give way to her emotions in her own manner. Affliction vents itself in various modes, with different temperaments: some rage, others compose themselves like monuments. Some weep, some sleep, some prose about death, and others poetize on it. Many take to a bottle, or to a rope. Some go to Margate, or Bath.

“Sally did nothing of these kinds. She neither snivelled, travelled, sickened, maddened, nor ranted, nor canted, nor hung, nor fuddled herself--she only rocked herself upon the kitchen chair!

“The action was not adequate to her relief. She got up--took a fresh chair--then another--and another--and another,--till she had rocked on all the chairs in the kitchen.

“The thing was tickling to both sympathies. It was pathetical to behold her grief, but ludicrous that she knew no better how to grieve.

“An American might have thought that she was in the act of enjoyment, but for an intermitting O dear! O dear! Passion could not wring more from her in the way of exclamation than the tooth-ache. Her lamentations were always the same, even in tone. By and by she pulled out the hair--the cropped, yellow, stunted, scrubby hair; then she fell to rocking--then O dear! O dear!--and then Da Capo.

“It was an odd sort of elegy; and yet, simple as it was, I thought it worth a thousand of lord Littelton’s!

“‘Heyday, Sally! what is the matter?’ was a very natural inquiry from my aunt, when she came down into the kitchen; and if she did not make it with her tongue, at least it was asked very intelligibly by her eyes. Now Sally had but one way of addressing her mistress, and she used it here. It was the same with which she would have asked for a holiday, except that the waters stood in her eyes.

“‘If you please, ma’am,’ said she, rising up from her chair, and dropping her old curtsey, ‘if you please, ma’am, it’s John Hayloft is dead;’ and then she began rocking again, as if grief was a baby that wanted jogging to sleep.”----

The many “stories of storm-ships and haunted vessels, of spectre shallops, and supernatural Dutch-doggers--the adventures of Solway sailors, with Mahound in his bottomless barges, and the careerings of the phantom-ship up and down the Hudson,” suggest to Mr. Hood a story entitled “The Demon-Ship.” This he illustrates by an engraving called “The Flying-Dutchman,” representing the aerial ascent of a native of the Low Countries, by virtue of a reversal of the personal gravity, which, particularly in a Hollander, has been commonly understood to have a tendency downwards. Be this as it may, Mr. Hood’s tale is illustrated by the tail-piece referred to. The story itself commences with a highly wrought description of a sea-storm, of uncommon merit, which will be the last extract from his interesting volume that can be ventured, viz.:--

’Twas off the Wash--the sun went down--the sea look’d black and grim, For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim; Titanic shades! enormous gloom!--as if the solid night Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light! It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!

Down went my helm--close reef’d--the tack held freely in my hand-- With ballast snug--I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee--my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail! What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind! Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, But where it sank another rose and gallop’d in its place; As black as night--they turn to white, and cast against the cloud A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn’d a sailor’s shroud:-- Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run! Behold yon fatal billow rise--ten billows heap’d in one! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast, As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last! Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave; It seem’d as though some cloud had turn’d its hugeness to a wave! Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face-- I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base! I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine! Another pulse--and down it rush’d--an avalanche of brine. Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home; The waters clos’d--and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d below the foam!

[477] A “History of the Art of Caricaturing, by J. P. Malcolm, F.S.A., 1813,” 4to., is by no means what its title purports. Mr. Malcolm was a very worthy man, and a diligent compiler of facts on other subjects; but, in the work alluded to, he utterly failed, from want of knowledge and discrimination. He confounds character with caricature, and was otherwise inadequate to the task he undertook.

[478] This passage is quoted here from kind feeling, and friendly wishes, towards the worthy person mentioned in it.

Vol. II.--49.

Our readers, whom, between ourselves, and without flattery, we take to be as social a set of persons as can be, people of an impartial humanity, and able to relish whatever concerneth a common good, whether a child’s story or a man’s pinch of snuff, (for snuff comes after knowledge,) doubtless recollect the famous tale of the Barmecide and his imaginary dinner in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. We hereby invite them to an imaginary cigar and cup of coffee with us in a spot scarcely less oriental--to wit, our friend Gliddon’s Divan in King-street. Not that our fictitious enjoyment is to serve them instead of the real one. Quite the contrary; our object being to advance the good of all parties,--of our readers, inasmuch as they are good fellows in their snuffs,--of our friend, who can supply them in a manner different from any body else,--and of ourselves, because the subject is a pleasant one, and brings us all together agreeably. Those who have the greatest relish for things real, have also the best taste of them in imagination. We confess, that for our private eating (for a cigar, with coffee, may truly be said to be meat and drink to us) we prefer a bower with a single friend; but for public smoking, that is to say, for smoking with a greater number of persons, or in a coffee-room, especially now that the winter is coming on, and people cannot sit in bowers without boots, commend us to the warmth, and luxury, and conspiracy of comforts, in the Cigar Divan.

In general, the room is occupied by individuals, or groups of individuals, sitting apart at their respective little mahogany tables, and smoking, reading, or talking with one another in a considerate undertone, in order that nobody may be disturbed. But on the present occasion we will have the room to ourselves, and talk as we please. In the East it is common to see dirty streets and poor looking houses, and on being admitted into the interior of one of them, to find yourself in a beautiful room, noble with drapery, and splendid with fountains and gilded trellices. We do not mean to compare King-street with a street in Bagdad or Constantinople. We have too much respect for that eminent thoroughfare, clean in general, and classical always; where you cannot turn, but you meet recollections of the Drydens and Hogarths. The hotel next door to the Divan is still the same as in Hogarth’s picture of the Frosty Morning; and looking the other way, you see Dryden coming out of Rose Alley to spend his evening at the club in Russell-street. But there is mud and fog enough this weather to render the contrast between any thoroughfare and a carpeted interior considerable; and making due allowance for the palace of an effendi and the premises of a tradesman, a person’s surprise would hardly be greater, certainly his comfort not so great, in passing from the squalidness of a Turkish street into the gorgeous but suspicious wealth of the apartment of a pasha, as in slipping out of the mud, and dirt, and mist, and cold, and shudder, and blinking misery of an out-of-door November evening in London, into the oriental and carpeted warmth of Mr. Gliddon’s Divan. It is pleasant to think, what a number of elegant and cheerful places lurk behind shops, and in places where nobody would expect them. Mr. Gliddon’s shop is a very respectable one; but nobody would look for the saloon beyond it; and it seems in good oriental keeping, and a proper _sesame_, when on touching a door in the wall, you find yourself in a room like an eastern tent, the drapery festooned up around you, and views exhibited on all sides of mosques, and minarets, and palaces rising out of the water.

But here we are inside ourselves. What do you think of it?

_B._ This is a tent indeed, exactly as you have described it. It seems pitched in the middle of the Ganges or Tigris; for most of the views are in the midst of water.

_J._ Yes; we might fancy ourselves a party of British merchants, who had purchased a little island in an Eastern gulf, and built themselves a tent on it to smoke in. The scenes, though they have a panoramic effect, are really not panoramic daubs. This noble edifice on the left, touched in that delicate manner with silver, (or is it rather not gold?) unites the reality of architecture built by mortal hands, with the fairy lustre of a palace raised by enchantment. One has a mind to sail to it, and get an adventure.

_E._ And this on the left. What a fine sombre effect that mountain with a building on it has in the background;--how dark yet aerial! You would have a very solemn adventure there,--nothing under a speaking stone-gentleman, or the loss of your right eye.

_O._ Well, this snug little corner for me, under the bamboos; two gigantic walking-sticks in leaf! A cup of coffee served by a pretty Hindoo would do very well here; and there is a temple to be religious in, when convenient. ’Tis pleasant to have all one’s luxuries together.

_T._ If there is any fault, it is in the scene at the bottom of the room, which is perhaps too full of scattered objects. But all is remarkably well done; and as the newspapers have observed, as oriental as any thing in the paintings of Daniel or Hodges.

_C._ Are you sure we are not all Mussulmen? I begin to think I am a Turk under the influence of opium, who take my turban for a hat, and fancy I’m speaking English. We shall have the sultan upon us presently.