Part 5

Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung; The gas up-blazes with its bright white light, And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl, About the streets and take up Pall-Mal Sal, Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash. Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep creep, But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, And while they’re going, whisper low, “No go!”

Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads, And sleepers waking, grumble--“Drat that cat!” Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.

Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise In childish dreams and with a roar gore poor Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly;-- But Nursemaid in a nightmare rest, chest-press’d, Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, And that she hears--what faith is man’s--Ann’s bans And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice: White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out, That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows’ woes!

A LETTER FROM A MARKET GARDENER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

SIR,

The Satiety having Bean pleasd to Complement Me before I beg Leaf to Lie before Them agin as follow in particullers witch I hop They will luck upon with a Sowth Aspic.

Sir--last year I paid my Atentions to a Tater, & the Satiety was pleasd to be gratifid at the Innlargement of my Kidnis. This ear I have turnd my Eyes to Gozberris.--I am happy to Say I have allmost sucksidid in Making them too Big for Bottlin. I beg to Present sum of itch kind--Pleas obsarve a Green Goose is larger in Siz then a Red Goosebry. Sir as to Cherris my atention has Bean cheafly occupid by the Black Arts. Sum of them are as big as Crickt Balls as will be seen I send a Sample tyed on a Wauking-stick. I send lickwise a Potle of strayberris witch I hop will reach. They air so large as to object to lay more nor too in a Bed. Also a Potle of Hobbies and one of my new Pins, of a remarkably sharp flaviour. I hop they will cum to Hand in Time to be at your Feat. Respective Black red & White Currency I have growd equely Large, so as one Bunch is not to be Put into a Galley Pot without jamming. My Pitches has not ben Strong, and their is no Show on My Walls of the Plumb line. Damsins will Be moor Plentifle & their is no Want of common Bullies about Lunnon. Please inform if propper to classify the Slow with the creepers.

Concerning Graps I have bin recommanded by mixing Wines with Warter Mellons, the later is improved in its juice--but have douts of the fack. Of the Patgonian Pickleing Coucumber, I hav maid Trial of, and have hops of Growing one up to Markit by sitting one End agin my front dore. On account of its Proggressiveness I propos calling it Pickleus Perriginatus if Approved of.

Sir, about Improving the common Stocks.--Of Haws I have some hops but am disponding about my Hyps. I have quite faled in cultuvating them into Cramberris. I have allso atempted to Mull Blackberis, but am satisfid them & the Mulberris is of diferent Genius. Pleas observe of Aples I have found a Grafft of the common Crab from its Straglin sideways of use to Hispalliers. I should lick to be infourmd weather Scotch Granite is a variety of the Pom Granite & weather as sum say so pore a frute, and nothing but Stone Sir,--My Engine Corn has been all eat up by the Burds namely Rocks and Ravines. In like manner I had a full Shew of Pees but was distroyd by the Sparers. There as bean grate Mischef dun beside by Entymollogy--in some parts a complet Patch of Blight. Their has bean a grate Deal too of Robin by boys and men picking and stealing but their has bean so many axidents by Steel Traps I don’t like setting on ’em.

Sir I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to considder the Case what follows, as I think mite be maid Transaxtionable in the next Reports:--

My Wif had a Tomb cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell and as Grate feverit, we had Him berrid in the Guardian, and for the sake of inrichment of the Mould I had the carks deposeted under the roots of a Gosberry Bush. The Frute being up till then of the Smooth kind. But the next Seson’s Frute after the Cat was berrid, the Gozberris was all hairy,--& moor Remarkable the Catpilers of the same bush, was All of the same hairy Discription. I am Sir Your humble servant,

THOMAS FROST.

DOMESTIC ASIDES; OR, TRUTH IN PARENTHESES

“I really take it very kind, This visit, Mrs. Skinner! I have not seen you such an age-- (The wretch has come to dinner!)

“Your daughters, too, what loves of girls-- What heads for painters’ easels! Come here and kiss the infant, dears,-- (And give it p’rhaps the measles!)

“Your charming boys I see are home From Reverend Mr. Russel’s; ’Twas very kind to bring them both,-- (What boots for my new Brussels!)

“What! little Clara left at home? Well, now, I call that shabby: I should have loved to kiss her so,-- (A flabby, dabby babby!)

“And Mr. S., I hope he’s well; Ah! though he lives so handy, He never now drops in to sup,-- (The better for our brandy!)

“Come, take a seat--I long to hear About Matilda’s marriage; You’re come of course to spend the day!-- (Thank Heav’n I hear the carriage!)

“What, must you go? next time I hope You’ll give me longer measure; Nay--I shall see you down the stairs-- (With most uncommon pleasure!)

“Good-bye! good-bye! remember all, Next time you’ll take your dinners! (Now, David, mind, I’m not at home In future to the Skinners!”)

BLACK, WHITE, AND BROWN.

All at once Miss Morbid left off sugar.

She did not resign it as some persons lay down their carriage, the full-bodied family-coach dwindling into a chariot, next into a fly, and then into a sedan-chair. She did not shade it off artistically, like certain household economists, from white to white-brown, brown, dark brown, and so on, to none at all.--She left it off, as one might leave off walking on the top of a house, or on a slide, or on a plank with a further end to it, that is to say, slapdash, all at once, without a moment’s warning. She gave it up, to speak appropriately, in the lump. She dropped it--as Corporal Trim let fall his hat,--dab. It vanished, as the French say, _toot sweet_. From the 30th of November, 1830, not an ounce of sugar, to use Miss Morbid’s own expression, ever “darkened her doors.”

The truth was she had been present the day before at an Anti-Slavery Meeting; and had listened to a lecturing Abolitionist, who had drawn her sweet tooth, root and branch, out of her head. Thenceforth sugar, or as she called it “shugger,” was no longer white, or brown, in her eyes, but red, blood-red--an abomination, to indulge in which would convert a professing Christian into a practical Cannibal. Accordingly she made a vow, under the influence of moist eyes and refined feelings, that the sanguinary article should never more enter her lips or her house; and this petty parody of the famous Berlin Decree against our Colonial produce was rigidly enforced. However others might countenance the practice of the Slave Owners by consuming “shugger,” she was resolved, for her own part, that “no suffering sable son of Africa should ever rise up against her out of a cup of Tea!”

In the mean time, the cook and housemaid grumbled in concert at the prohibition: they naturally thought it very hard to be deprived of a luxury which they enjoyed at their own proper cost; and at last only consented to remain in the service, on condition that the privation should be handsomely considered in their wages.

With a hope of being similarly remembered in her will, the poor relations of Miss Morbid continued to drink the “warm without,” which she administered to them every Sunday, under the name of Tea: and Hogarth would have desired no better subject for a picture than was presented by their physiognomies. Some pursed up their lips, as if resolved that the nauseous beverage should never enter them; others compressed their mouths, as if to prevent it from rushing out again. One took it mincingly, in sips,--another gulped it down in desperation,--a third, in a fit of absence, continued to stir very superfluously with his spoon; and there was one shrewd old gentleman, who by a little dexterous by-play, used to bestow the favour of his small souchong on a sick geranium. Now and then an astonished Stranger would retain a half cupful of the black dose in his mouth, and stare round at his fellow guests, as if tacitly putting to them the very question of Mathews’s Yorkshireman in the mail coach--“Coompany!--oop or doon?”

The greatest sufferers, however, were Miss Morbid’s two nephews, still in the morning of their youth, and boy-like, far more inclined to “sip the sweets” than to “hail the dawn.” They had formerly looked on their Aunt’s house as peculiarly a Dulce Domum. Prior to her sudden conversion she had been famous for the manufacture of a sort of hard bake, commonly called Toffy or Taffy,--but now, alas! “Taffy was not at home,” and there was nothing else to invite a call. Currant tart is tart indeed without sugar; and as for the green gooseberries, they always tasted, as the young gentlemen affirmed, “like a quart of berries sharpened to a pint.” In short it always required six pennyworth of lollipops and bullseyes, a lick of honey, a dip of treacle, and a pick at a grocer’s hogshead, to sweeten a visit at Aunt Morbid’s.

To tell the truth, her own temper soured a little under the prohibition. She could not persuade the sugar-eaters that they were Vampyres;--instead of practising, or even admiring her self-denial, they laughed at it; and one wicked wag even compared her, in allusion to her acerbity and her privation, to a crab without _the nippers_. She persevered notwithstanding in her system; and to the constancy of a martyr added something of the wilfulness of a bigot:--indeed, it was hinted by patrons and patronesses of white charities, that European objects had not their _fair_ share in her benevolence. She was pre-eminently the friend of the blacks. Howbeit, for all her sacrifices, not a lash was averted from their sable backs. She had raised discontent in the kitchen, she had disgusted her acquaintance, sickened her friends, and given her own dear little nephews the stomach-ache, without saving Quashy from one cut of the driver’s whip, or diverting a single kick from the shins of Sambo. Her grocer complained loudly of being called a dealer in human gore, yet not one hogshead the less was imported from the Plantations. By an error common to all her class she mistook a negative for a positive principle; and persuaded herself that by _not_ preserving damsons, she preserved the Niggers; that by _not_ sweetening her own cup, she was dulcifying the lot of all her sable brethren in bondage. She persevered accordingly in setting her face against sugar instead of slavery; against the plant instead of the planter; and had actually abstained for six months from the forbidden article, when a circumstance occurred that roused her sympathies into more active exertions. It pleased an American lady to import with her a black female servant, whom she rather abruptly dismissed, on her arrival in England. The case was considered by the Hampshire Telegraph of that day, as one of GREAT HARDSHIP; the paragraph went the round of the papers and in due time attracted the notice of Miss Morbid. It was precisely addressed to her sensibilities, and there was a “Try Warren” tone about it that proved irresistible. She read--and wrote--and in the course of one little week, her domestic establishment was maliciously but truly described as consisting of “two white Slaves and a black Companion.”

The adopted protégé was, in reality, a strapping clumsy Negress, as ugly as sin, and with no other merit than that of being of the same colour as the crow. She was artful, sullen, gluttonous, and above all so intolerably indolent, that if she had been literally “carved in ebony,” as old Fuller says, she could scarcely have been of less service to her protectress. Her notion of Free Labour seemed to translate it into laziness, and taking liberties; and, as she seriously added to the work of her fellow-servants, without at all contributing to their comfort, they soon looked upon her as a complete nuisance. The housemaid dubbed her “a Divil,”--the cook roundly compared her to “a mischivus beast, as runs out on a herd o’ black cattle;”--and both concurred in the policy of laying all household sins upon the sooty shoulders--just as slatterns select a colour that hides the dirt. It is certain that shortly after the instalment of the negress in the family a moral disease broke out with considerable violence, and justly or not, the odium was attributed to the new comer. Its name was theft. First, there was a shilling short in some loose change--next, a missing half-crown from the mantelpiece--then there was a stir with a tea-spoon--anon, a piece of work about a thimble. Things went, nobody knew how--the “Divil” of course excepted. The Cook _could_, the Housemaid _would_, and Dinah _should_, and _ought_ to take an oath, declaratory of innocence, before the mayor; but as Dinah did not volunteer an affidavit like the others, there was no doubt of her guilt in the kitchen.

Miss Morbid, however, came to a very different conclusion. She thought that whites who could eat sugar, were capable of any atrocity, and had not forgotten the stand which had been made by the “pale faces,” in favour of the obnoxious article. The cook especially incurred suspicion; for she had been notorious aforetime for a lavish hand in sweetening, and was accordingly quite equal to the double turpitude of stealing and bearing false witness. In fact the mistress had arrived at the determination of giving both her white hussies their month’s warning, when unexpectedly the thief was taken, as the lawyers say, “in the manner,” and with the goods upon the person. In a word the ungrateful black was detected, in the very act of levying what might be called her “Black Mail.”

The horror of Emilia, on discovering that the Moor had murdered her mistress, was scarcely greater than that of Miss Morbid! She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked her down with a feather! She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels. She was rooted to the spot; and her hair, if it had been her own, would have stood upright upon her head! There was no doubt in the case. She saw the transfer of a portion of her own bank stock, from her escritoire into the right-hand pocket of her protégé--she heard it chink as it dropped downwards--she was petrified!--dumbfounded!--thunderbolted!--“annilliated!” She was as white as a sheet, but she felt as if all the blacks in the world had just blown in her face.

Her first impulse was to rush upon the robber, and insist on restitution--her second was to sit down and weep,--and her third was to talk. The opening as usual was a mere torrent of ejaculations intermixed with vituperation--but she gradually fell into a lecture with many heads. First, she described all that she had done for the Blacks, and then, alas! all that the Blacks had done for her. Next she insisted on the enormity of the crime, and, anon, she enlarged on the nature of its punishment. It was here that she was most eloquent. She traced the course of human justice, from detection to conviction, and thence to execution, liberally throwing dissection into the bargain: and then descending with Dante into the unmentionable regions, she painted its terrors and tortures with all the circumstantial fidelity that certain very Old Masters have displayed on the same subject.

“And now, you black wretch,” she concluded, having just given the finishing touch to a portrait of Satan himself; “and now, you black wretch, I insist on knowing what I was robbed for. Come, tell me what tempted you! I’m determined to hear it! I insist, I say, on knowing what was to be done with the wages of iniquity!”

She insisted, however, in vain. The black wretch had seriously inclined her ear to the whole lecture, grinning and blubbering by turns. The Judge with his black cap, the Counsel and their wigs, the twelve men in a box, and Jack Ketch himself--whom she associated with that pleasant West Indian personage, John Canoe--had amused, nay, tickled her fancy; the press-room, the irons, the rope, and the Ordinary, whom she mistook for an overseer, had raised her curiosity, and excited her fears; but the spiritualities, without any reference to Obeah, had simply mystified and disgusted her, and she was now in a fit of the sulks. Her mistress, however, persisted in her question; and not the less pertinaciously, perhaps, from expecting a new peg whereon to hang a fresh lecture. She was determined to learn the destination of the stolen money; and by dint of insisting, cajoling, and, above all, threatening--for instance, with the whole Posse Comitatis--she finally carried her point.

“Cuss him money! Here’s a fuss!” exclaimed the culprit, quite worn out at last by the persecution. “Cuss him money! here’s a fuss! What me ’teal him for? What me do wid him? What anybody ’teal him for? Why, for sure, _to buy sugar_!”

EPIGRAMS.

COMPOSED ON READING A DIARY LATELY PUBLISHED.

That flesh is grass is now as clear as day, To any but the merest purblind pup; Death cuts it down, and then, to make her hay, My Lady B---- comes and rakes it up.

THE LAST WISH.

When I resign this world so briary, To have across the Styx my ferrying, Oh, may I die without a DIARY! And be interr’d without a BURY-ing!

* * * * *

The poor dear dead have been laid out in vain, Turn’d into cash, they are laid out again!

THE DEVIL’S ALBUM.

It will seem an odd whim For a Spirit so grim As the Devil to take a delight in; But by common renown He has come up to town, With an Album for people to write in!

On a handsomer book Mortal never did look; Of a flame-colour silk is the binding! With a border superb, Where through flow’ret and herb, The old serpent goes brilliantly winding!

By gilded grotesques, And emboss’d arabesques, The whole cover, in fact, is pervaded; But, alas! in a taste That betrays they were traced At the will of a Spirit degraded!

As for paper--the best, But extremely hot-pressed, Courts the pen to luxuriate upon it, And against ev’ry blank There’s a note on the Bank, As a bribe for a sketch or a sonnet.

Who will care to appear In the Fiend’s Souvenir, Is a question to mortals most vital; But the very first leaf, It’s the public belief, Will be fill’d by a Lady of Title!

THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD.

I once, for a very short time indeed, had the honour of being a schoolmaster, and was invested with the important office of “rearing the tender thought,” and “teaching the young idea how to shoot;” of educating in the principles of the Established Church, and bestowing the strictest attention to morals. The case was this; my young friend G----, a graduate of Oxford, and an ingenious and worthy man, thought proper, some months back, to establish, or endeavour to establish, an academy for young gentlemen, in my immediate vicinity. He had already procured nine day-pupils to begin with, whom he himself taught,--prudence as yet prohibiting the employment of ushers,--when he was summoned hastily to attend upon a dying relative in Hampshire, from whom he had some expectations. This was a dilemma to poor G----, who had no one to leave in charge of his three classes; and he could not bear the idea of playing truant himself so soon after commencing business. In his extremity he applied to me as his forlorn hope, and one forlorn enough; for it is well-known among my friends that I have little Latin, and less Greek, and am, on every account, a worse accountant. I urged these objections to G----, but in vain, for he had no “friend in need,” learned or unlearned, within any reasonable distance, and, as he said to comfort me, “in three or four days merely the boys could not _unlearn_ much of anything.”