Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 469, January 1, 1831», страница 3

HOOD'S COMIC ANNUAL

We have taken a slice, or rather, four cuts, from Mr. Hood's facetious volume. Their fun needs not introduction, for the effect of wit is instantaneous. To talk about them would be like saying "see how droll they are." We omitted the Conditions drawn up by the Provisional Government, (the baker, butcher, publican, &c.) in our account of the revolutionary stir, or as the march-of-mind people call a riot, "the ebullition of popular feeling," at Stoke Pogis. Here they are, worthy of any Vestry in the kingdom, Select or otherwise.

"Conditions.

"1. That for the future, widows in Stoke Pogis shall be allowed their thirds, and Novembers their fifths.

"2. That the property of Guys shall be held inviolable, and their persons respected.

"3. That no arson be allowed, but all bon-fires shall be burnt by the common hangman.

"4. That every rocket shall be allowed an hour to leave the place.

"5. That the freedom of Stoke Pogis be presented to Madame Hengler, in a cartridge-box.

"6. That the military shall not be called out, uncalled for.

"7. That the parish beadle, for the time being, be authorized to stand no nonsense.

"8. That his Majesty's mail be permitted to pass on the night in question.

"9. That all animosities be buried in oblivion, at the Parish expense.

"10. That the ashes of old bon-fires be never raked up.

"           (Signed)

{WAGSTAFF, High Constable. {WIGSBY."

Our next quotations are two comico-serio Ballads:—

FRENCH AND ENGLISH

"Good Heaven! why even the little children in France speak French!" ADDISON.

I

 
Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo,
If you do, like me,
You will repent by jingo,
Staring like a fool
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy.
 

II

 
Chaises stand for chairs,
They christen letters Billies,
They call their mothers mares,
And all their daughters fillies;
Strange it was to hear,
I'll tell you what's a good 'un,
They call their leather queer,
And half their shoes are wooden.
 

III

 
Signs I had to make
For every little notion,
Limbs all going like
A telegraph in motion.
For wine I reel'd about,
To show my meaning fully,
And made a pair of horns.
To ask for "beef and bully."
 

IV

 
Moo! I cried for milk;
I got my sweet things snugger,
When I kissed Jeannette,
'Twas understood for sugar.
If I wanted bread.
My jaws I set a-going,
And asked for new-laid eggs
By clapping hands and crowing.
 

V

 
If I wished a ride,
I'll tell you how I got it:
On my stick astride,
I made believe to trot it;
Then their cash was strange,
It bored me every minute,
Now here's a hog to change,
How many sows are in it.
 

VI

 
Never go to France
Unless you know the lingo;
If you do, like me,
You will repent, by jingo;
Staring like a fool,
And silent as a mummy,
There I stood alone,
A nation with a dummy.
 

THE DUEL

A SERIOUS BALLAD

"Like the two Kings of Brentford smelling at one nosegay."

 
In Brentford town, of old renown,
There lived a Mister Bray.
Who fell in love with Lucy Bell,
And so did Mr. Clay.
 
 
To see her ride from Hammersmith,
By all it was allowed,
Such fair outsides are seldom seen,
Such Angels on a Cloud.
 
 
Said Mr. Bray to Mr. Clay,
You choose to rival me,
And court Miss Bell, but there your court
No thoroughfare shall be.
 
 
Unless you now give up your suit,
You may repent your love
I who have shot a pigeon match,
Can shoot a turtle dove.
 
 
So pray before you woo her more,
Consider what you do;
If you pop aught to Lucy Bell—
I'll pop it into you.
 
 
Said Mr. Clay to Mr. Bray.
Your threats I quite explode;
One who has been a volunteer
Knows how to prime and load.
 
 
And so I say to you unless
Your passion quiet keeps,
I who have shot and hit bulls' eyes
May chance to hit a sheep's.
 
 
Now gold is oft for silver changed,
And that for copper red;
But these two went away to give
Each other change for lead.
 
 
But first they sought a friend a-piece,
This pleasant thought to give—
When they were dead, they thus should have
Two seconds still to live.
 
 
To measure out the ground not long
The seconds then forbore,
And having taken one rash step,
They took a dozen more.
 
 
They next prepared each pistol-pan
Against the deadly strife,
By putting in the prime of death
Against the prime of life.
 
 
Now all was ready for the foes,
But when they took their stands.
Fear made them tremble so they found
They both were shaking hands.
 
 
Said Mr. C. to Mr. B.,
Here one of us may fall,
And like St. Paul's Cathedral now,
Be doom'd to have a ball.
 
 
I do confess I did attach
Misconduct to your name;
If I withdraw the charge, will then
Your ramrod do the same?
 
 
Said Mr. B. I do agree—
But think of Honour's Courts!
If We go off without a shot,
There will be strange reports
 
 
But look, the morning now is bright,
Though cloudy it begun;
Why can't we aim above, as if
We had call'd out the sun?
 
 
So up into the harmless air
Their bullets they did send;
And may all other duels have
That upshot in the end.
 

CUTS FROM HOOD'S COMIC ANNUAL

We next quote brief illustrations of the Cuts on the opposite page. It may be observed that the articles themselves have but little esprit, and that, unlike most occasions, the wit lies in the wood.

First is a Sonnet accompanying the cut "Infantry at Mess."

 
"Sweets to the sweet—farewell."—Hamlet.
 

 
Time was I liked a cheesecake well enough;
All human children have a sweetish tooth—
I used to revel in a pie or puff,
Or tart—we all are tarters in our youth;
To meet with jam or jelly was good luck,
All candies most complacently I cramped.
A stick of liquorice was good to suck,
And sugar was as often liked as lumped;
On treacle's "linked sweetness long drawn out,"
Or honey, I could feast like any fly,
I thrilled when lollipops were hawk'd about,
How pleased to compass hardbake or bull's eye,
How charmed if fortune in my power cast,
Elecampane—but that campaign is past.
 

"Picking his way," belongs to a day (April 17) in a "Scrape Book," with the motto of "Luck's all:"

"17th. Had my eye pick'd out by a pavior, who was axing his way, he didn't care where. Sent home in a hackney-chariot that upset. Paid Jarvis a sovereign for a shilling. My luck all over!"

The Schoolmaster's Motto, accompanying "Palmam qui meruit ferat!" is too long for extract.

The chief fun of the countryman and his Pigs lies in the cut.

Spirit Of The Public Journals

BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.⁵

Of the first appearance of this celebrated parable, Mr. Southey's diligence has preserved the following notices:—

"'It is not known in what year the Pilgrim's Progress was first published, no copy of the first edition having as yet been discovered; the second is in the British Museum; it is "with additions," and its date is 1678; but as the book is known to have been written during Bunyan's imprisonment, which terminated in 1672, it was probably published before his release, or at latest immediately after it. The earliest with which Mr. Major has been able to supply me, either by means of his own diligent inquiries, or the kindness of his friends, is that "eighth e-di-ti-on" so humorously introduced by Gay, and printed—not for Ni-cho-las Bod-ding-ton, but for Nathanael Ponder, at the Peacock in the Poultrey, near the Church, 1682; for whom also the ninth was published in 1684, and the tenth in 1685. All these no doubt were large impressions.'

"When the astonishing success of the Pilgrim's Progress had raised a swarm of imitators, the author himself, according to the frequent fashion of the world, was accused of plagiarism, to which he made an indignant reply, in what he considered as verses, prefixed to his 'Holy War.'

 
'Some say the Pilgrim's Progress is not mine,
Insinuating as if I would shine
In name and fame by the worth of another,
Like some made rich by robbing of their brother;
Or that so fond I am of being Sire,
I'll father bastards; or if need require,
I'll tell a lye in print, to get applause.
I scorn it; John such dirt-heap never was
Since God converted him. Let this suffice
To shew why I my Pilgrim patronize.
 
 
It came from mine own heart, so to my head,
And thence into my fingers trickled:
Then to my pen, from whence immediately
On paper I did dribble it daintily.'—p. lxxxix."
 

Mr. Southey has carefully examined this charge of supposed imitation, in which so much rests upon the very simplicity of the conception of the story, and has successfully shown that the tinker of Elstow could not have profited by one or two allegories in the French and Flemish languages—works which he could have had hardly a chance to meet with; which, if thrown in his way, he could not have read; and, finally, which, if he had read them, could scarcely have supplied him with a single hint. Mr. Southey, however, has not mentioned a work in English, of Bunyan's own time, and from which, certainly, the general notion of his allegory might have been taken. The work we allude to is now before us, entitled, 'The Parable of the Pilgrim, written to a friend by Symon Patrick, D.D., Dean of Peterborough;' the same learned person, well known by his theological writings, and successively Bishop of Chichester and Ely. This worthy man's inscription is dated the 14th of December, 1672; and Mr. Southey's widest conjecture will hardly allow an earlier date for Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 1672 being the very year in which he was enlarged from prison. The language of Dr. Patrick, in addressing his friend, excludes the possibility of his having borrowed from John Bunyan's celebrated work. He apologizes for sending to his acquaintance one in the old fashioned dress of a pilgrim; and says he found among the works of a late writer, Baker's Sancta Sophia, a short discourse, under the name of a Parable of a Pilgrim; 'which was so agreeable to the portion of fancy he was endowed with, that he presently thought that a work of this nature would be very grateful to his friends also. It appears that the Parable of a Pilgrim, so sketched by Dr. Patrick, remained for some years in the possession of the private friend for whom it was drawn up, until, it being supposed by others that the work might be of general utility, it was at length published in 1678.—Before that year the first edition of the Pilgrim's Progress had unquestionably made its appearance; but we equally acquit the Dean of Peterborough and the tinker of Elstow from copying a thought or idea from each other. If Dr. Patrick had seen the Pilgrim's Progress he would, probably, in the pride of academic learning, have scorned to adopt it as a model; but, at all events, as a man of worth, he would never have denied the obligation if he had incurred one. John Bunyan, on his part, would in all likelihood have scorned, 'with his very heels,' to borrow anything from a dean; and we are satisfied that he would have cut his hand off rather than written the introductory verses we have quoted, had not his Pilgrim been entirely his own.

Indeed, whosoever will take the trouble of comparing the two works which, turning upon nearly the same allegory, and bearing very similar titles, came into existence at or about the very same time, will plainly see their total dissimilarity. Bunyan's is a close and continued allegory, in which the metaphorical fiction is sustained with all the minuteness of a real story. In Dr. Patrick's the same plan is generally announced as arising from the earnest longing of a traveller, whom he calls Philotheus or Theophilus, whose desires are fixed on journeying to Jerusalem as a pilgrim. After much distressing uncertainty, caused by the contentions of pretended guides, who recommend different routes, he is at length recommended to a safe and intelligent one. Theophilus hastens to put himself under his pilotage, and the good man gives forth his instructions for the way, and in abundant detail, so that all the dangers of error and indifferent company may be securely avoided; but in all this, very little care is taken even to preserve the appearance of the allegory: in a word, you have, almost in plain terms, the moral and religious precepts necessary to be observed in the actual course of a moral and religious life. The pilgrim, indeed, sets out upon his journey, but it is only in order again to meet with his guide, who launches further into whole chapters of instructions, with scarcely a reply from the passive pupil. It is needless to point out the extreme difference between this strain of continued didactics, rather encumbered than enlivened by a starting metaphor, which, generally quite lost sight of, the author recollects every now and then, as if by accident—and the thoroughly life-like manner in which John Bunyan puts the adventures of his pilgrim before us. Two circumstances alone strike us as trenching somewhat on the manner of him of Elstow: the one is where the guide awakens some sluggish pilgrims, whom he finds sleeping by the way;⁶ the other is where their way is crossed by two horsemen, who insist upon assuming the office of guide. 'The one is a pleasing talker, excellent company by reason of his pleasant humour, and of a carriage very pleasant and inviting; but they observed he had a sword by his side, and a pair of pistols before him, together with another instrument hanging at his belt, which was formed for pulling out of eyes.'⁷ The pilgrims suspected this well-armed cavalier to be one of that brood who will force others into their own path, and then put out their eyes in case they should forsake it. They have not got rid of their dangerous companion, by whom the Romish church is indicated, when they are accosted by a man of a quite different shape and humour, 'more sad and melancholy, more rude, and of a heavier wit also, who crossed their way on the right-hand.' He also (representing, doubtless, the Presbyterians or Sectaries) pressed them with eagerness to accept his guidance, and did little less than menace them with total destruction if they should reject it. A dagger and a pocket-pistol, though less openly and ostentatiously disposed than the arms of the first cavalier, seem ready for the same purposes; and he, therefore, is repulsed, as well as his neighbour. These are the only passages in which the church dignitary might be thought to have caught for a moment the spirit of the tinker of Bedford. Through the rest of his parable, which fills a well-sized quarto volume, the dean no doubt evinces considerable learning, but, compared to Bunyan, may rank with the dullest of all possible doctors; 'a worthy neighbour, indeed, and a marvellous good bowler—but for Alexander, you see how 'tis.' Yet Dr. Patrick had the applause of his own time. The first edition of his Parable appeared, as has been mentioned, in 1678; and the sixth, which now lies before us, is dated 1687.⁸

Mr. Southey introduces the following just eulogium on our classic of the common people:

"Bunyan was confident in his own powers of expression; he says—

 
—thine only way
Before them all, is to say out thy say
In thine own native language, which no man
Now useth, nor with ease dissemble can.
 

And he might well be confident in it. His is a homespun style, not a manufactured one; and what a difference is there between its homeliness, and the flippant vulgarity of the Roger L'Estrange and Tom Brown school! If it is not a well of English undefiled to which the poet as well as the philologist must repair, if they would drink of the living waters, it is a clear stream of current English—the vernacular speech of his age, sometimes indeed in its rusticity and coarseness, but always in its plainness and its strength. To this natural style Bunyan is in some degree beholden for his general popularity;—his language is every where level to the must ignorant reader, and to the meanest capacity: there is a homely reality about it; a nursery tale is not more intelligible, in its manner of narration, to a child. Another cause of his popularity is, that he taxes the imagination as little as the understanding. The vividness of his own, which, as his history shows, sometimes could not distinguish ideal impressions from actual ones, occasioned this. He saw the things of which he was writing as distinctly with his mind's eye as if they were indeed passing before him in a dream. And the reader perhaps sees them more satisfactorily to himself, because the outline only of the picture is presented to him; and the author having made no attempt to fill up the details, every reader supplies them according to the measure and scope of his own intellectual and imaginative powers."

Mr. Southey, observing with what general accuracy this apostle of the people writes the English language, notwithstanding all the disadvantages under which his youth must have been passed, pauses to notice one gross and repeated error. 'The vulgarism alluded to,' says the laureate, 'consists in the almost uniform use of a for have—never marked as a contraction, e.g. might a made me take heed—like to a been smothered.' Under favour, however, this is a sin against orthography rather than grammar: the tinker of Elstow only spelt according to the pronunciation of the verb to have, then common in his class; and the same form appears a hundred times in Shakspeare. We must not here omit to mention the skill with which Mr. Southey has restored much of Bunyan's masculine and idiomatic English, which had been gradually dropped out of successive impressions by careless, or unfaithful, or what is as bad, conceited correctors of the press.