Part 4

He was evidently a foreigner, and poor. As I sat at the opposite corner of the Southgate stage, I took a mental inventory of his wardrobe. A military cloak much the worse for wear,--a blue coat, the worse for tear,--a napless hat--a shirt neither white nor brown--a pair of mud-colour gloves, open at each thumb--gray trousers too short for his legs--and brown boots too long for his feet.

From some words he dropt, I found that he had come direct from Paris, to undertake the duties of French teacher, at an English academy; and his companion, the English classical usher, had been sent to London, to meet and conduct him to his suburban destination.

Poor devil, thought I, thou art going into a bitter bad line of business; and the hundredth share which I had taken in the boyish persecutions of my own French master--an emigré of the old noblesse--smote violently on my conscience. At Edmonton the coach stopped. The coachman alighted, pulled the bell of a mansion inscribed in large letters, Vespasian House; and deposited the foreigner’s trunks and boxes on the footpath. The English classical usher stepped briskly out, and deposited a shilling in the coachman’s anticipatory hand. Monsieur followed the example, and with some precipitation prepared to enter the gate of the fore-garden, but the driver stood in the way.

“I want another shilling,” said the coachman.

“You agreed to take a shilling a-head,” said the English master.

“You said you would take one shilling for my head,” said the French master.

“It’s for the luggage,” said the coachman.

The Frenchman seemed thunderstruck; but there was no help for it. He pulled out a small weasel-bellied, brown silk purse, but there was nothing in it save a medal of Napoleon. Then he felt his breast-pockets, then his side-pockets, and then his waistcoat-pockets; but they were all empty, excepting a metal snuff-box, and that was empty too. Lastly he felt the pockets in the flaps of his coat, taking out a meagre would-be white handkerchief, and shaking it; but not a dump. I rather suspect he anticipated the result--but he went thro’ the operations _seriatim_, with the true French gravity. At last he turned to his companion, with a “Mistare Barbiere, be as good to lend me one shilling.”

Mr. Barber, thus appealed to, went through something of the same ceremony. Like a blue-bottle cleaning itself, he passed his hands over his breast--round his hips, and down the outside of his thighs,--but the sense of feeling could detect nothing like a coin.

“You agreed for a shilling, and you shall have no more,” said the man with empty pockets.

“No--no--no--you shall have no more,” said the moneyless Frenchman.

By this time the housemaid of Vespasian House, tired of standing with the door in her hand, had come down to the garden-gate, and, willing to make herself generally useful, laid her hand on one of the Foreigner’s trunks.

“It shan’t go till I’m paid my shilling,” said the coachman, taking hold of the handle at the other end.

The good-natured housemaid instantly let go of the trunk, and seemed suddenly to be bent double by a violent cramp, or stitch, in her right side,--while her hand groped busily under her gown. But it was in vain. There was nothing in that pocket but some curl-papers, and a brass thimble.

The stitch or cramp then seemed to attack her other side; again she stooped and fumbled, while Hope and Doubt struggled together on her rosy face. At last Hope triumphed,--from the extremest corner of the huge dimity pouch she fished up a solitary coin, and thrust it exultingly into the obdurate palm.

“It won’t do,” said the coachman, casting a wary eye on the metal, and holding out for the inspection of the trio a silver-washed coronation medal, which had been purchased of a Jew for twopence the year before.

The poor girl quietly set down the trunk which she had again taken up, and restored the deceitful medal to her pocket. In the meantime the arithmetical usher had arrived at the gate in his way out, but was stopped by the embargo on the luggage. “What’s the matter now?” asked the man of figures.

“If you please, Sir,” said the housemaid, dropping a low courtesy, “it’s this impudent fellow of a coachman will stand here for his rights.”

“He wants a shilling more than his fare,” said Mr. Barber.

“He does want more than his fare shilling,” reiterated the Frenchman.

“Coachman! what the devil are we waiting here for?” shouted a stentorian voice from the rear of the stage.

“Bless me, John, are we to stay here all day?” cried a shrill voice from the stage’s interior.

“If you don’t get up shortly I shall get down,” bellowed a voice from the box.

At this crisis the English usher drew his fellow-tutor aside, and whispered something in his ear that made him go through the old manual exercise. He slapped his pantaloons--flapped his coat tails--and felt about his bosom--“I haven’t got one,” said he, and with a shake of the head and a hurried bow, he set off at the pace of a twopenny postman.

“I a’n’t going to stand here all day,” said the coachman, getting out of all reasonable patience.

“You’re an infernal scoundrelly villain,” said Mr. Barber, getting out of all classical English.

“You are a--what Mr. Barber says,” said the Foreigner.

“Thank God and his goodness,” ejaculated the housemaid, “here comes the Doctor;” and the portly figure of the pedagogue himself came striding pompously down the gravel-walk. He had two thick lips and a double chin, which all began wagging together.

“Well, well; what’s all this argumentative elocution? I command taciturnity!”

“I’m a shilling short,” said the coachman.

“He says he has got one short shilling,” said the Foreigner.

“Poo--poo--poo,” said the thick-lips and double-chin. “Pay the fellow his superfluous claim, and appeal to magisterial authority.”

“It’s what we mean to do, Sir,” said the English usher, “but”--and he laid his lips mysteriously to the Doctor’s ear.

“A pecuniary bagatelle,” said the Doctor. “It’s palpable extortion,--but I’ll disburse it,--and you have a legislatorial remedy for his avaricious demands.” As the man of pomp said this, he thrust his fore finger into an empty waistcoat-pocket--then into its fellow--and then into every pocket he had--but without any other product than a bunch of keys, two ginger lozenges, and the French mark.

“It’s very peculiar,” said the Doctor. “I had a prepossession of having currency to that amount. The coachman must call to-morrow for it at Vespasian House--or stay--I perceive my housekeeper. Mrs. Plummer! pray just step hither and liquidate this little commercial obligation.”

Now, whether Mrs. Plummer had or had not a shilling, Mrs. Plummer only knows; for she did not condescend to make any search for it,--and if she had none, she was right not to take the trouble. However, she attempted to carry the point by a _coup de main_. Snatching up one of the boxes, she motioned the housemaid to do the like, exclaiming in a shrill treble key,--“Here’s a pretty work indeed, about a paltry shilling! If it’s worth having, it’s worth calling again for,--and I suppose Vespasian House is not going to run away!”

“But may be I am,” said the inflexible coachman, seizing a trunk with each hand.

“John, I insist on being let out,” screamed the lady in the coach. “I shall be too late for dinner,” roared the Thunderer in the dickey. As for the passenger on the box, he had made off during the latter part of the altercation.

“What shall we do?” said the English Classical Usher.

“God and his goodness only knows!” said the housemaid.

“I am a stranger in this country,” said the Frenchman.

“You must pay the money,” said the coachman.

“And here it is, you brute,” said Mrs. Plummer, who had made a trip to the house in the meantime; but whether she had coined it, or raised it by a subscription among the pupils, I know no more than

ODE TO M. BRUNEL.

“Well said, old Mole! canst work i’ the dark so fast? a worthy pioneer!”--HAMLET.

Well!----Monsieur Brunel, How prospers now thy mighty undertaking, To join by a hollow way the Bankside friends Of Rotherhithe, and Wapping,-- Never be stopping, But poking, groping, in the dark deep making An archway, underneath the Dabs and Gudgeons, For Collier men and pitchy old Curmudgeons, To cross the water in inverse proportion, Walk under steam-boats under the keel’s ridge, To keep down all extortion, And without sculls to diddle London Bridge! In a fresh hunt, a new Great Bore to worry, Thou didst to earth thy human terriers follow, Hopeful at last, from Middlesex to Surrey, To give us the “View hollow.” In short it was thy aim, right north and south, To put a pipe into old Thames’s mouth; Alas! half-way thou hadst proceeded, when Old Thames, through roof, not water-proof, Came, like “a tide in the affairs of men;” And with a mighty stormy kind of roar, Reproachful of thy wrong, Burst out in that old song Of Incledon’s, beginning “Cease, rude Bore”-- Sad is it, worthy of one’s tears, Just when one seems the most successful, To find one’s self o’er head and ears In difficulties most distressful! Other great speculations have been nursed, Till want of proceeds laid them on a shelf; But thy concern was at the worst, When it began to liquidate itself! But now Dame Fortune has her false face hidden, And languishes Thy Tunnel,--so to paint, Under a slow incurable complaint, Bed-ridden! Why, when thus Thames--bed-bother’d--why repine! Do try a spare bed at the Serpentine! Yet let none think thee daz’d, or craz’d, or stupid; And sunk beneath thy own and Thames’s craft; Let them not style thee some Mechanic Cupid Pining and pouting o’er a broken shaft! I’ll tell thee with thy tunnel what to do; Light up thy boxes, build a bin or two, The wine does better than such water trades; Stick up a sign--the sign of the Bore’s Head; I’ve drawn it ready for thee in black lead, And make thy cellar subterrane,--Thy Shades!

THE DEATH OF THE DOMINIE.

“Take him up, says the master.”--OLD SPELLING BOOK.

My old Schoolmaster is dead. He “died of a stroke;” and I wonder none of his pupils have ever done the same. I have been flogged by many masters, but his rod, like Aaron’s, swallowed up all the rest. We have often wished that he whipped on the principle of Italian penmanship,--up strokes heavy and down strokes light; but he did it in English round hand, and we used to think with a very hard pen. Such was his love of flogging, that for some failure in English composition, after having been well corrected I have been ordered to be revised. I have heard of a road to learning, and he did justice to it; we certainly never went a stage in education without being well horsed. The mantle of Dr. Busby descended on his shoulders, and on ours. There was but one tree in the play-ground--a birch, but it never had a twig or leaf upon it. Spring or summer it always looked as bare as if the weather had been cutting at the latter end of the year. Pictures they say are incentives to learning, and certainly we never got through a page without cuts; for instance, I do not recollect a Latin article without a tail-piece. All the Latin at that school might be comprised in one line--

“Arma virumque cano.”

An arm, a man, and a cane. It was Englished to me one day in school hours, when I was studying Robinson Crusoe instead of Virgil, by a storm of bamboo that really carried on the illusion, and made me think for the time that I was assaulted by a set of savages. He seemed to consider a boy as a bear’s cub, and set himself literally to lick him into shape. He was so particularly fond of striking us with a leather strap on the flats of our hands that he never allowed them a day’s rest. There was no such thing as a Palm Sunday in our calendar. In one word, he was disinterestedly cruel, and used as industriously to strike for nothing as other workmen strike for wages. Some of the elder boys, who had read Smollett, christened him Roderick, from his often hitting like Random, and being so partial to Strap.

His death was characteristic. After making his will he sent for Mr. Taddy, the head usher, and addressed him as follows: “It is all over, Mr. Taddy--I am sinking fast--I am going from the terrestrial globe--to the celestial--and have promised Tomkins a flogging--mind he has it--and don’t let him pick off the buds--I have asked Aristotle”--(here his head wandered)--“and he says I cannot live an hour--I don’t like that black horse grinning at me--cane him soundly for not knowing his verbs--Castigo te, non quod odio habeam--Oh, Mr. Taddy, it’s breaking up with me--the vacation’s coming--There is that black horse again--Dulcis moriens reminiscitur--we are short of canes--Mr. Taddy, don’t let the school get into disorder when I am gone--I’m afraid, through my illness--the boys have gone back in their flogging--I feel a strange feeling all over me--Is the new pupil come?--I trust I have done my duty--and have made my will--and left all”--(here his head wandered again)--“to Mr. Souter, the school bookseller--Mr. Taddy, I invite you to my funeral--make the boys walk in good order--and take care of the crossings.--My sight is getting dim--write to Mrs. B. at Margate--and inform her--we break up on the 21st.--The school-door is left open--- I am very cold--where is my ruler gone--I will make him feel--John, light the school lamps--I cannot see a line--Oh Mr. Taddy--venit hora--my hour is come--I am dying--thou art dying--he--is dying.--We--are--dying--you--are--dy”----The voice ceased. He made a feeble motion with his hands, as if in the act of ruling a copy-book--“the _ruling_ passion strong in death”--and expired.

An epitaph, composed by himself, was discovered in his desk,--with an unpublished pamphlet against Tom Paine. The Epitaph was so stuffed with quotations from Homer and Virgil, and almost every Greek or Latin author beside, that the mason who was consulted by the Widow declined to lithograph it under a Hundred Pounds. The Dominie consequently reposes under no more Latin than HIC JACET;--and without a single particle of Greek, though he is himself a Long Homer.

OVER THE WAY.

“I sat over against a window where there stood a pot with very pretty flowers; and I had my eyes fixed on it, when on a sudden the window opened and a young lady appeared whose beauty struck me.”--ARABIAN NIGHTS.

Alas! the flames of an unhappy lover About my heart and on my vitals prey; I’ve caught a fever that I can’t get over, Over the way!

Oh! why are eyes of hazel? noses Grecian! I’ve lost my rest by night, my peace by day, For want of some brown Holland or Venetian Over the way!

I’ve gazed too often, till my heart’s as lost As any needle in a stack of hay: Crosses belong to love, and mine is crossed Over the way!

I cannot read or write, or thoughts relax-- Of what avail Lord Althorp or Earl Grey? They cannot ease me of _my_ window-tax Over the way!

Even on Sunday my devotions vary, And from St. Bennet Fink they go astray To dear St. Mary Overy--the Mary Over the way!

Oh! if my godmother were but a fairy, With magic wand, how I would beg and pray That she would change me into that canary Over the way!

I envy everything that’s near Miss Lindo, A pug, a poll, a squirrel or a jay-- Blest blue-bottles! that buzz about the window Over the way!

Even at even, for there be no shutters, I see her reading on from grave to gay, Some tale or poem, till the candle gutters Over the way!

And then--oh! then--while the clear waxen taper Emits, two stories high, a starlike ray, I see twelve auburn curls put into paper Over the way!

But how breathe unto her my deep regards, Or ask her for a whispered ay or nay,-- Or offer her my hand, some thirty yards Over the way!

Cold as the pole she is to my adoring;-- Like Captain Lyon, at Repulse’s Bay, I meet an icy end to my exploring Over the way!

Each dirty little Savoyard that dances She looks on--Punch--chimney sweeps in May. Zounds! wherefore cannot I attract her glances Over the way?

Half out she leans to watch a tumbling brat, Or yelping cur, run over by a dray; But I’m in love--she never pities that! Over the way!

I go to the same church--a love-lost labour; Haunt all her walks, and dodge her at the play; She does not seem to know she has a neighbour Over the way!

At private theatres she never acts; No Crown-and-Anchor balls her fancy sway; She never visits gentlemen with tracts Over the way!

To billets-doux by post she shows no favour-- In short, there is no plot that I can lay To break my window-pains to my enslaver Over the way!

I play the flute--she heeds not my chromatics-- No friend an introduction can purvey; I wish a fire would break out in the attics Over the way!

My wasted form ought of itself to touch her; My baker feels my appetite decay; And as for butchers’ meat--oh! she’s my butcher Over the way!

At beef I turn; at lamb or veal I pout; I never ring now to bring up the tray; My stomach grumbles at my dining out Over the way!

I’m weary of my life; without regret I could resign this miserable clay To lie within that box of mignonette Over the way!

I’ve fitted bullets to my pistol-bore; I’ve vowed at times to rush where trumpets bray, Quite sick of number one--and number four Over the way!

Sometimes my fancy builds up castles airy, Sometimes it only paints a ferme orneé, A horse--a cow--six fowls--a pig--and Mary Over the way!

Sometimes I dream of her in bridal white, Standing before the altar, like a fay; Sometimes of balls, and neighbourly invite Over the way!

I’ve coo’d with her in dreams, like any turtle, I’ve snatch’d her from the Clyde, the Tweed, and Tay; Thrice I have made a grove of that one myrtle Over the way!

Thrice I have rowed her in a fairy shallop, Thrice raced to Gretna in a neat “poshay,” And showered crowns to make the horses gallop Over the way!

And thrice I’ve started up from dreams appalling Of killing rivals in a bloody fray-- There is a young man very fond of calling Over the way!

Oh! happy man--above all kings in glory, Whoever in her ear may say his say, And add a tale of love to that one story Over the way!

Nabob of Arcot--Despot of Japan-- Sultan of Persia--Emperor of Cathay-- Much rather would I be the happy man Over the way!

With such a lot my heart would be in clover-- But what--oh horror!--what do I survey! Postillions and white favours!--all is over Over the way!

A PLAN FOR

WRITING BLANK VERSE IN RHYME,

IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR.

RESPECTED SIR,

In a morning paper justly celebrated for the acuteness of its reporters, and their almost prophetic insight into character and motives--the Rhodian length of their leaps towards results, and the magnitude of their inferences, beyond the drawing of Moux’s dray horses,--there appeared, a few days since, the following paragraph.

“Mansion House. Yesterday, a tall emaciated being, in a brown coat, indicating his age to be about forty-five, and the raggedness of which gave a great air of mental ingenuity and intelligence to his countenance, was introduced by the officers to the Lord Mayor. It was evident from his preliminary bow that he had made some discoveries in the art of poetry, which he wished to lay before his Lordship, but the Lord Mayor perceiving by his accent that he had already submitted his project to several of the leading Publishers, referred him back to the same jurisdiction, and the unfortunate Votary of the Muses withdrew, declaring by another bow, that he should offer his plan to the Editor of the Comic Annual.”

The unfortunate above referred to, Sir, is myself, and with regard to the Muses, indeed a votary, though not a £10 one, if the qualification depends on my pocket--but for the idea of addressing myself to the Editor of the Comic Annual, I am indebted solely to the assumption of the gentlemen of the Press. That I have made a discovery is true, in common with Hervey, and Herschell, and Galileo, and Roger Bacon, or rather, I should say, with Columbus,--my invention concerning a whole hemisphere, as it were, in the world of poetry--in short, the whole continent of blank verse. To an immense number of readers this literary land has been hitherto a complete terra incognita, and from one sole reason,--the want of that harmony which makes the close of one line chime with the end of another. They have no relish for numbers that turn up blank, and wonder accordingly at the epithet of “Prize,” prefixed to Poems of the kind which emanate in--I was going to say from--the University of Oxford. Thus many very worthy members of society are unable to appreciate the Paradise Lost, the Task, the Chase, or the Seasons,--the Winter especially,--without rhyme. Others, again, can read the Poems in question, but with a limited enjoyment; as certain persons can admire the architectural beauties of Salisbury steeple, but would like it better with a ring of bells. For either of these tastes my discovery will provide, without affronting the palate of any other; for although the lover of rhyme will find in it a prodigality hitherto unknown, the heroic character of blank verse will not suffer in the least, but each line will “do as it likes with its own,” and sound as independently of the next as “milkmaid,” and “water-carrier.” I have the honour to subjoin a specimen--and if, through your publicity, Mr. Murray should be induced to make me an offer for an Edition of Paradise Lost on this principle, for the Family Library, it will be an eternal obligation on,

Respected Sir, your most obliged, and humble servant, * * * * * * *

A NOCTURNAL SKETCH.

Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark, The signal of the setting sun--one gun! And six is sounding from the chime, prime time To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain,-- Or hear Othello’s jealous doubt spout out,-- Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, Denying to his frantic clutch much touch;-- Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride Four horses as no other man can span; Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz.