Broad Grins Part 6

Here is another Picture, reader mine!

I gave you one in the first Canto;[13]-- This is more solemn, mystical, and fine,-- Like something in the Castle of Otranto.

[13] _Vide_ Part 1st, page 61, lines 4-7.

Bring, bring me, now, a Painter, for the work, Who on the subject will, with furor, rush!

Some Artist who can sup upon raw pork, To make him dream of horrors, for his brush!

Come, Limners, come! who choke your house's entry With dear, unmeaning lumber, from your easels; Dull heads of the n.o.bility and Gentry; Full length of fubsey Belles, or Beaux like weasels!

Come, Limners, hither come! and draw A finer incident than e'er ye saw!

Here is a John, by moon-light, (a fat monk) Lying stone _dead_; and, here, a Roger, _quick_!

And over John stands Roger, in a funk, Supposing he has kill'd him with a brick!

There, Painters! there!

Now, by Apelles's gamboge, I swear!

Such a dead subject never comes, Among those _lifeless living_ ye display; Then, thro' your palettes thrust your graphick thumbs,-- And work away!

Seeing John dead as a door nail, Roger began to wring his hands, and wail; Calling himself, Beast, Butcher, cruel Turk!

Thrice "_Benedicite!_" he mutter'd; Thrice, in the eloquence of grief he utter'd; "I've done a pretty job of journey-work!"

Some people will shew symptoms of repentance When Conscience, like a chastening Angel, smites 'em; Some from mere dread of the Law's sentence, When Newgate, like the very Devil, frights 'em;--

_That_ Virtue's struggles, in the heart, denotes, _This_ Vice's hints, to men's left ears, and throats.

Now Roger's conscience, it appears, Was not, by half, so lively as his fears.

His breast, soon after he was born, Grew like an Hostler's lantern, at an Inn; All the circ.u.mference was dirty horn, And feebly blink'd the ray of warmth within.

In short, for one of his religious function, His Conscience was both cowardly and callous; No melting Cherub whisper'd to't "Compunction!"

But grim Jack Ketch disturb'd it, crying "Gallows!"

And all his sorrow, for this deed abhorr'd, Was nothing but antipathy to _cord_.

A padlock'd door stood in the garden wall, Where John, by Roger's brick-bat, chance'd to fall, And Roger had a key that could undo it; Thro' this same door, at any time of day, They brought, into the Convent, corn, and hay;---- Sometimes, at dusk, a pretty girl came thro' it: Just to confess herself, to some grave codger; Perhaps, she came to John,--perhaps, to Roger.

Out at this portal Roger made a shift To lug his worst of foes: For, seizing (as the gout was wont) his toes, He dragg'd the load he couldn't lift.

Achilles, thus, drew round the Trojan plain, The ten years' Adversary he had slain.--

Yet,--for I scorn a Grecian to disparage,-- Achilles in more style, and splendour, did it; _He_ sported Murder strapp'd behind his carriage,-- But _bourgeois_ Roger sneak'd on foot, and hid it.

Roger, however, labour'd on,-- Puffing and tugging;-- And hauling John, As fishermen, on sh.o.r.e, haul up a boat; Till, after a great deal of lugging, He lugg'd him to the edge of the Knight's moat; And stuck him up so straight upon his rear, Touching, almost, the water, with his heels, That the defunct might pa.s.s, not seen too near, For some fat gentleman who bobb'd for eels.

Swiftly did Roger, then, retrace his ground, Lighter than he came out, by many a pound.

So have I seen, on Marlb'rough downs, a hack, Ease'd of a great man's chaise, and coming back, From Bladud's springs, upon the western road; No bloated n.o.ble's luggage at his rump, Whose doom's, that dread of pick-pockets, the pump, He canters home, from Bath, without his load.

Sir Thomas being scrupulous, and queasy, Couldn't, in all this interval, be easy.

He went to bed;--and, there, began to burn; Nine times he turn'd, in wondrous perturbation;-- He woke her Ladyship, at every turn, And gave her, full nine times, complete vexation.

To seek the Duke of Limbs, at length, he rose, And prowl'd with him, lamenting Fortune's stripes; Now in the rookery among the crows, Now squashing in the marsh, among the snipes:

Wishing strange wishes;--among many, He wish'd--ere he had clapp'd his eyes on any.

All Priests, and Crabsticks, thrown into the fire;-- Or, seeing Providence ordain'd it so, That Priest, and Crabstick, (to his grief) must grow, He wish'd stout Crabstick couldn't kill fat Friar.

Men's wishes will be partial, now and then;-- As, in this case, 'tis plainly seen; Wherein, Sir Thomas, full of spleen, Wish'd to burn all the Crabs, and Clergymen.

Think ye that _he_,--at wishing tho' a dab,-- To wish such harm to any _Knight_ would urge ye?

Yet he, a Knight, had taken up a Crab, And thump'd to death, with it, one of the Clergy.

As he went wishing on, With the great Duke of Limbs behind him,-- Horror on horror!--he saw John Where least of all he ever thought to find him:

Stuck up, on end, in placid grace, Like a stuff'd Kangaroo,--tho' vastly fatter,-- With the full moon upon his chubby face, Like a bra.s.s pot-lid shining on a platter.

"'Sdeath!" quoth the Knight, of half his powers bereft, "Didst thou not tell me _where_ this Friar was left?

Men rise again, _to push us from our stools_!"[14]

To which the Duke replied, with steady phiz,-- "Them as took pains to push that Friar from _his_, At such a time o'night, was cursed fools."

[14] Shakspeare certainly borrow'd this expression from Sir Thomas.--See _Macbeth_.

"Ah!" sigh'd Sir Thomas, "while I wander here, By fortune stamp'd a Homicide, alas!"

(And, as he spoke, a penitential tear Mingled with Heaven's dew-drops, on the gra.s.s;)-- "Will no one from my eyes yon Spectre pull?"

"Sir Thomas," said the Duke of Limbs, "I wool."

He would have thrown the garbage in the moat, But the Knight told him fat was p.r.o.ne to float.

The Lout, at length, having bethought him, Heave'd up the Friar on his back once more; And (Castles having armories of yore) Into the Knight's old Armory he brought him.

Among the gorgeous, shining Coats of Mail, That grace'd the walls, on high, in gallant shew,-- As pewter pots, in houses fame'd for ale, Glitter, above the Bar-maid, in a row,--

A curious, antique suit was h.o.a.rded, Cover'd with dust; Which had, for many years, afforded An iron dinner to that ostrich, Rust.

Though this was all too little,--in a minute, The Duke of Limbs ramm'd the fat Friar in it; So a good Housewife takes a narrow skin, To make black puddings, and stuffs hog's meat in.

The Knight, who saw this ceremony pa.s.s, Inquire'd the meaning; when the Duke did say,-- "I'll tie him on ould Dumpling, that's at gra.s.s, And turn him out, a top of the highway."

This Steed,--who now, it seems, was grazing,-- In the French wars had often borne the Knight;-- His symmetry beyond the power of praising, And prouder than Bucephalus, in fight!

Once, how he paw'd the ground, and snuff'd the gale!

Uncropp'd his ears, undock'd his flowing tail; No blemish was within him, nor without him; Perfect he was in every part;-- No barbarous Farrier, with infernal art, Had mutilated the least bit about him.

Of high Arabian pedigree, Father of many four-foot babes was he; And sweet hoof'd Beauties still would he be rumpling; But, counting five and twenty from his birth, At gra.s.s for life, unwieldy in the girth, He had obtain'd, alas! the name of Dumpling.

Now, at the postern stood the gay old Charger; Saddle'd, and house'd,--in full caparison!-- Now on his back,--no rider larger,-- Upright, and stiff, and tied with cords, sat John: Arm'd cap-a-pie completely, like a knight Going to fight.