History of English Humour Volume II Part 12

Had he the sinful part expressed They might with safety eat the rest; But for one piece they thought it hard From the whole hog to be debarred, And set their wit at work to find What joint the prophet had in mind.

Much controversy straight arose These choose the back, the belly those; By some 'tis confidently said He meant not to forbid the head; While others at that doctrine rail, And piously prefer the tail.

Thus conscience freed from every clog, Mahometans eat up the hog."

The moral follows, pointing out that each one makes an exception in favour of his own besetting sin.

These touches of humour which had hitherto appeared timidly in his writings were encouraged by Lady Austen. "A new scene is opening," he writes, "which will add fresh plumes to the wings of time." She was his bright and better genius. Trying in every way to cheer his spirits, she told him one day an old nursery story she had heard in her childhood--the "History of John Gilpin." Cowper was much taken with it, and next morning he came down to breakfast with a ballad composed upon it, which made them laugh till they cried. He sent it to Mr. Unwin, who had it inserted in a newspaper. But little was thought of it, until Henderson, a well-known actor introduced it into his readings.[13] From that moment Cowper's fame was secured, and his next work "The Task,"

also suggested by Lady Austen, had a wide circulation.

After this success, Lady Austen set Cowper a "Task," which he performed excellently and secured his fame. He was at first at a loss how to begin it--"Write on anything," she said, "on this sofa." He took her at her word, and proceeded--

"The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick, Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he Who quits the coachbox at the midnight hour To sleep within the carriage more secure, His legs depending at the open door.

Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk, The tedious rector drawling o'er his head, And sweet the clerk below: but neither sleep Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead, Nor his, who quits the box at midnight hour To slumber in the carriage more secure, Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk, Nor yet the dozings of the clerk are sweet Compared with the repose the sofa yields."

Cowper lived in the country, and wrote many poems on birds and flowers.

In his first volume there are "The Doves," "The Raven's Nest," "The Lily and the Rose," "The Nightingale and the Glowworm," "The Pine-Apple and the Bee," "The Goldfinch starved to death in a Cage," and some others. They are pretty conceits, but at the present day remind us a little of the nursery.

Goldsmith's humour deserves equal praise for affording amus.e.m.e.nt without animosity or indelicacy. With regard to the former, his satire is so general that it cannot inflict any wound; and although he may have slightly erred in one or two pa.s.sages on the latter score, he condemns all such seasoning of humour, which is used, as he says, to compensate for want of invention. In his plays, there is much good broad-humoured fun without anything offensive. Simple devices such as Tony Lumpkin's causing a manor-house to be mistaken for an inn, produces much harmless amus.e.m.e.nt. It is noteworthy that the first successful work of Goldsmith was his "Citizen of the World." Here the correspondence of a Chinaman in England with one of his friends in his own country, affords great scope for humour, the manners and customs of each nation being regarded according to the views of the other. The intention is to show absurdities on the same plan which led afterwards to the popularity of "Hadji Baba in England." Sometimes the faults pointed out seem real, sometimes the criticism is meant to be oriental and ridiculous. Thus going to an English theatre he observes--

"The richest, in general, were placed in the lowest seats, and the poor rose above them in degrees proportionate to their poverty. The order of precedence seemed here inverted; those who were undermost all the day, enjoyed a temporary eminence and became masters of the ceremonies. It was they who called for the music, indulging every noisy freedom, and testifying all the insolence of beggary in exaltation."

Real censure is intended in the following, which shows the change in ladies dress within the last few years--

"What chiefly distinguishes the s.e.x at present is the train. As a lady's quality or fashion was once determined here by the circ.u.mference of her hoop, both are now measured by the length of her tail. Women of moderate fortunes are contented with tails moderately long, but ladies of tone, taste, and distinction set no bounds to their ambition in this particular. I am told the Lady Mayoress on days of ceremony carries one longer than a bell-wether of Bantam, whose tail, you know, is trundled along in a wheelbarrow."

A "little beau" discoursing with the Chinaman, observes--

"I am told your Asiatic beauties are the most convenient women alive, for they have no souls; positively there is nothing in nature I should like so much as women without souls; soul here is the utter ruin of half the s.e.x. A girl of eighteen shall have soul enough to spend a hundred pounds in the turning of a tramp. Her mother shall have soul enough to ride a sweepstake s.n.a.t.c.h at a horse-race; her maiden aunt shall have soul enough to purchase the furniture of a whole toy-shop, and others shall have soul enough to behave as if they had no souls at all."

The "Citizen of the World" cannot understand why there are so many old maids and bachelors in England. He regards the latter as most contemptible, and says the mob should be permitted to halloo after them; boys might play tricks on them with impunity; every well-bred company should laugh at them, and if one of them, when turned sixty, offered to make love, his mistress might spit in his face, or what would be a greater punishment should fairly accept him. Old maids he would not treat with such severity, because he supposes they are not so by their own fault; but he hears that many have received offers, and refused them. Miss Squeeze, the p.a.w.nbroker's daughter, had heard so much about money, that she resolved never to marry a man whose fortune was not equal to her own, without ever considering that some abatement should be made as her face was pale and marked with the small-pox. Sophronia loved Greek, and hated men. She rejected fine gentlemen because they were not pedants, and pedants because they were not fine gentlemen. She found a fault in every lover, until the wrinkles of old age overtook her, and now she talks incessantly of the beauties of the mind.

The character of the information contained in the daily newspapers is thus described--

"The universal pa.s.sion for politics is gratified with daily papers, as with us in China. But, as in ours, the Emperor endeavours to instruct his people; in theirs the people endeavour to instruct the Administration. You must not, however, imagine that they who compile these papers have any actual knowledge of politics or the government of a state; they only collect their materials from the oracle of some coffee-house, which oracle has himself gathered them the night before from a beau at a gaming-table, who has pillaged his knowledge from the great man's porter, who has had his information from the great man's gentleman, who has invented the whole story for his own amus.e.m.e.nt the night preceding."

He gives the following specimens of contradictory newspaper intelligence from abroad.

"_Vienna._--We have received certain advices that a party of twenty-thousand Austrians, having attacked a much superior body of Prussians, put them all to flight, and took the rest prisoners of war.

"_Berlin._--We have received certain advices that a party of twenty-thousand Prussians, having attacked a much superior body of Austrians, put them to flight, and took a great number of prisoners with their military chest, cannon, and baggage."

The Chinaman observing the laudatory character of epitaphs, suggests a plan by which flattery might be indulged, without sacrificing truth. The device is that anciently called "contrary to expectation," but apparently borrowed by Goldsmith from some French poem. Here is a specimen.

"Ye Muses, pour the pitying tear, For Pollio s.n.a.t.c.hed away; O, had he lived another year He had not died to-day."...

He gives another on Madam Blaize--

"Good people all with one accord Lament for Madam Blaize, Who never wanted a good word From those who spoke her praise."

The Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog terminates in a stroke taken from the old epigram of Demodocus--

"Good people all, of everysort, Give ear unto my song, And if you find it wondrous short, It cannot hold you long.

"In Islington there was a man, Of whom the world might say, That still a G.o.dly race he ran, Whene'er he went to pray.

"A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes, The naked every day he clad, When he put on his clothes.

"And in this town a dog was found, As many dogs there be, Both mongrel, puppy, whelps, and hound, And curs of low degree.

"This dog and man at first were friends, But when a pique began, The dog to gain some private ends, Went mad, and bit the man.

"Around from all the neighbouring streets The wondering neighbours ran, And swore the dog had lost his wits, To bite so good a man.

"The wound, it seemed both sore and sad To every Christian eye; And, while they swore the dog was mad, They swore the man would die.

"But soon a wonder came to light That showed the rogues they lied, The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died."

The fine and elegant humour in "The Vicar of Wakefield" and "The Deserted Village," has greatly contributed to give those works a lasting place in the literature of this country. Goldsmith attacked, among other imposters, the quacks of his day, who promised to cure every disease.

Reading their advertis.e.m.e.nts, he is astonished that the English patient should be so obstinate as to refuse health on such easy terms. We find from Swift that astrologers and fortune-tellers were very plentiful in these times. The following lament was written towards the end of the last century upon the death of one of them--Dr. Safford, a quack and fortune-teller.

"Lament, ye damsels of our London City, Poor unprovided girls, though fair and witty, Who masked would to his house in couples come, To understand your matrimonial doom; To know what kind of man you were to marry, And how long time, poor things, you were to tarry; Your oracle is silent; none can tell On whom his astrologic mantle fell; For he, when sick, refused the doctor's aid, And only to his pills devotion paid, Yet it was surely a most sad disaster, The saucy pills at last should kill their master."

The travels of Baron Munchausen were first published in 1786, and the esteem in which they were held, and we may conclude their merit, was shown by the numbers of editions rapidly succeeding each other, and by the translations which were made into foreign languages. It is somewhat strange that there should be a doubt with regard to the authorship of so popular a work, but it is generally attributed to one Raspi, a German who fled from the officers of justice to England. As, however, there is little originality in the stories, we feel the less concerned at being unable satisfactorily to trace their authorship--they were probably a collection of the tales with which some old German baron was wont to amuse his guests. A satire was evidently intended upon the marvellous tales in which travellers and sportsmen indulged, and the first edition is humbly dedicated to Mr. Bruce, whose accounts of Abyssinia were then generally discredited. With the exception of this attack upon travellers' tales there is nothing severe in the work--there is no indelicacy or profanity--considerable falsity was, of course, necessary, otherwise the accounts would have been merely fanciful. We have nothing here to mar our amus.e.m.e.nt, except infinite extravagance. The author does not claim much originality, and he admits an imitation of Gulliver's Travels. But, no doubt, something is due to his insight in selection, and to his ingenuity in telling the stories well and circ.u.mstantially; otherwise this book would never have become historical, when so many similar productions have perished. The stories in the first six chapters, which formed the original book, are superior to those in the continuation; there is always something specious, some ground work for the gross improbabilities, which gives force to them. Thus, for instance, travelling in Poland over the deep snow he fastens his horse to something he takes to be a post, and which turns out to be the top of a steeple. By the morning the snow has disappeared--he sees his mistake, and his horse is hanging on the top of the church by its bridle. When on his road to St. Petersburgh, a wolf made after him and overtook him.

Escape was impossible.

"I laid myself down flat in the sledge, and let my horse run for safety. The wolf did not mind me, but took a leap over me, and falling on the horse began to tear and devour the hinder part of the poor animal, which ran all the faster for its pain and terror.

I lifted up my head slily, and beheld with horror that the wolf had ate his way into the horse's body. It was not long before he had fairly forced himself into it, when I took my advantage and fell upon him with the end of my whip. This unexpected attack frightened him so much that he leaped forward, the horse's carcase dropped to the ground, but in his place the wolf was in harness, and I on my part whipping him continually, arrived in full career at St.

Petersburgh much to the astonishment of the spectators."

Speaking of stags, he mentions St. Hubert's stag, which appeared with a cross between its horns. "They always have been," he observes, "and still are famous for plantations and antlers." This furnishes him with the ground-work of his story.

"Having one day spent all my shot, I found myself unexpectedly in presence of a stately stag looking at me as unconcernedly as if it had really known of my empty pouches. I charged immediately with powder and upon it a good handful of cherry stones. Thus I let fly and hit him just in the middle of the forehead between the antlers; he staggered, but made off. A year or two afterwards, being with a party in the same forest, I beheld a n.o.ble stag with a fine full-grown cherry tree above ten feet high between its antlers. I brought him down at one shot, and he gave me haunch and cherry sauce, for the tree was covered with fruit."

In his ride across to Holland from Harwich under the sea, he finds great mountains "and upon their sides a variety of tall n.o.ble trees loaded with marine fruit, such as lobsters, crabs, oysters, scollops, mussels, c.o.c.kles, &c.," the periwinkle, he observes, is a kind of shrub, it grows at the foot of the oyster tree, and twines round it as the ivy does round the oak.

In the following, we have a manifest imitation of Lucian--Having pa.s.sed down Mount Etna through the earth, and come out at the other side, he finds himself in the Southern Seas, and soon comes to land. They sail up a river flowing with rich milk, and find that they are in an island consisting of one large cheese--

"We discovered this by one of the company fainting away as soon as he landed; this man always had an aversion to cheese--when he recovered he desired the cheese to be taken from under his feet.

Upon examination we found him to be perfectly right--the whole island was nothing but a cheese of immense magnitude. Here were plenty of vines with bunches of grapes, which yielded nothing but milk."

In all these cases he has contrived where there was an opening to introduce some probable details. But as he proceeds further in his work, his talent becoming duller--his extravagancies are worse sustained and scarcely ever original. Sometimes he writes mere mawkish nonsense, and at others he simply copies Lucian, as in the case of his making a voyage to the moon, and then sailing into a sea-monster's stomach.

CHAPTER IX.

The Anti-Jacobin--Its Objects and Violence--"The Friends of Freedom"--Imitation of Latin Lyrics--The "Knife Grinder"--The "Progress of Man."