History of English Humour Volume II Part 21

"For John he had a footman's place, To wait on Lady Wye, She was a dumpy woman, tho'

Her family was high.

"Now when two years had pa.s.sed away Her lord took very ill, And left her to her widowhood, Of course, more dumpy still.

"Said John, I am a proper man, And very tall to see, Who knows, but now her lord is low She may look up to me?

"'A cunning woman told me once Such fortune would turn up, She was a kind of sorceress, But studied in a cup.'

"So he walked up to Lady Wye, And took her quite amazed, She thought though John was tall enough He wanted to be raised.

"But John--for why? she was a dame Of such a dwarfish sort-- Had only come to bid her make Her mourning very short.

"Said he, 'your lord is dead and cold, You only cry in vain, Not all the cries of London now, Could call him back again.

"'You'll soon have many a n.o.ble beau, To dry your n.o.ble tears, But just consider this that I Have followed you for years.

"'And tho' you are above me far, What matters high degree, When you are only four foot nine, And I am six foot three?

"'For though you are of lofty race, And I'm a low-born elf, Yet none among your friends could say, You matched beneath yourself.'

"Said she, 'such insolence as this Can be no common case; Though you are in my service, Sir, Your love is out of place.'

"'O Lady Wye! O Lady Wye!

Consider what you do; How can you be so short with me, I am not so with you!'

"Then ringing for her serving-men, They show'd him to the door; Said they, 'you turn out better now, Why didn't you before?'

"They stripp'd his coat, and gave him kicks For all his wages due, And off instead of green and gold He went in black and blue.

"No family would take him in Because of this discharge, So he made up his mind to serve The country all at large.

"'Huzza!' the serjeant cried, and put The money in his hand, And with a shilling cut him off From his paternal land.

"For when his regiment went to fight At Saragossa town, A Frenchman thought he look'd too tall, And so he cut him down."

Barham's humour, as seen in his "Ingoldsby Legends," is of a lower character, but shows that the author possessed a great natural facility.

He had keen observation, but his taste did not prevent his employing it on what was coa.r.s.e and puerile. Common slang abounds, as in "The Vulgar Little Boy;" he talks of "the devil's cow's tail," and is little afraid of extravagances. His metre often a.s.sists him, and we have often comic rhyming as where "Mephistopheles" answers to "Coffee lees," and he says:--

"To gain your sweet smiles, were I Sardanapalus, I'd descend from my throne, and be boots at an alehouse,"

But in raising a laugh and affording a pleasant distraction by fantastic humour on common subjects, the "Ingoldsby Legends" have been highly successful, and they are recommended by an occasional historical allusion, especially at the expense of the old monks. Being written by a man of knowledge and cultivation, they rise considerably above the standard of the contributions to lower cla.s.s comic papers, which in some respects they resemble.

CHAPTER XVI.

Douglas Jerrold--Liberal Politics--Advantages of Ugliness--b.u.t.ton Conspiracy--Advocacy of Dirt--The "Genteel Pigeons."

There is an earnestness and a political complexion in the humour of Douglas Jerrold, such as might be expected from a man who had been educated in the school of adversity. He was born in a garret at Sheerness, where his father was manager of the theatre; and as he grew up in the seaport among ships, sailors and naval preparations, his ambition was fired, and he entered the service as a midshipman. On his return, after a short period, he found his father immersed in difficulties, due probably to the inactivity at the seaport in time of peace. Many a man has owed his success in life partly to his following his father's profession, and here fortune favoured Jerrold, as his maritime experiences a.s.sisted him as a writer for the stage. We can easily understand how "Black-eyed Susan" would move the hearts of sailors returning after a long voyage. Meanwhile the inner power and energy of the man developed itself in many directions; he perfected himself in Latin, French and Italian literature, wrote "leaders" for the "Morning Herald," and articles for Magazines. All his works were short, and those which were most approved never a.s.sumed an important character.

The most successful enterprise in his career was his starting "Punch,"

in conjunction with Gilbert' A-Beckett and Mark Lemon.

Jerrold was a staunch and st.u.r.dy liberal, and his original idea was that of a periodical to expose every kind of hypocrisy, and fraud, and especially to attack the strongholds of Toryism. "Punch" owed much at its commencement to the pen of Jerrold, and has well retained its character for fun, although it scarcely now represents its projector's political ardour.

His conversation overflowed with pleasantry, and in conversation he sometimes hazarded a pun, as when he asked Talfourd whether he had any more "Ions" in the fire. But the critic, who says that "every jest of his was a gross incivility made palatable by a pun," is singularly infelicitous, for as a humorous writer he is almost unique in his freedom from verbal humour. His style is often adagial or exaggerated, and we are constantly meeting such sentences as;

"Music was only invented to gammon human nature, and that is the reason that women are so fond of it."

"A fellow from a horsepond will know anybody who's a supper and a bed to give him."

"To whip a rascal for his rags is to pay flattering homage to cloth of gold."

"A suspicious man would search a pincushion for treason, and see daggers in a needle case."

"Wits, like drunken men with swords, are apt to draw their steel upon their best acquaintance."

"What was talked of as the golden chain of love, was nothing but a succession of laughs, a chromatic scale of merriment reaching from earth to Olympus."

St. Giles' and St. James' is written to show that "St. James in his brocade may probably learn of St. Giles in his tatters." It abounds in quaint and humorous moralizing. Here is a specimen--

"We cannot say if there really be not a comfort in substantial ugliness: ugliness that unchanged will last a man his life, a good granite face in which there shall be no wear or tear. A man so appointed is saved many alarms, many spasms of pride. Time cannot wound his vanity through his features; he eats, drinks, and is merry in spite of mirrors. No acquaintance starts at sudden alteration, hinting in such surprise, decay and the final tomb. He grows old with no former intimates--churchyard voices--crying 'How you're altered.' How many a man might have been a truer husband, a better father, firmer friend, more valuable citizen, had he, when arrived at legal maturity, cut off, say--an inch of his nose. This inch--only an inch!--would have destroyed the vanity of the very handsomest face, and so driven the thought of a man from a vulgar looking-gla.s.s, a piece of shop crystal--and more, from the fatal mirrors carried in the heads of women, to reflect heaven knows how many c.o.xcombs who choose to stare into them--driven the man to the gla.s.s of his own mind. With such small sacrifice he might have been a philosopher. Thus considered, how many a c.o.xcomb may be within an inch of a sage!"

In another pa.s.sage of the same book we read--

"Was there not Whitlow, beadle of the parish of St. Scraggs? What a man-beast was Whitlow! how would he, like an avenging ogre, scatter apple-women! how would he foot little boys guilty of peg-tops and marbles! how would he puff at a beggar--puff like the picture of the north wind in a spelling book! What a huge heavy purple face he had, as though all the blood of his body were stagnant in his cheeks! and then when he spoke, would he not growl and snuffle like a dog? How the parish would have hated him, but that the parish heard there was a Mrs. Whitlow; a small fragile woman, with a face sharp as a penknife, and lips that cut her words like scissors! and what a forlorn wretch was Whitlow with his head brought once a night to the pillow! poor creature! helpless, confused; a huge imbecility, a stranded whale! Mrs. Whitlow talked and talked; and there was not an apple-woman that in Whitlow's sufferings was not avenged: not a beggar that, thinking of the beadle at midnight, might not in his compa.s.sion have forgiven the beadle of the day.

And in this punishment we acknowledge a grand, a beautiful retribution. A Judge Jeffreys in his wig is an abominable tyrant; yet may his victims sometimes smile to think what Judge Jeffreys suffers in his night cap!"

It is almost unnecessary to observe that the writer of Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures was somewhat severe upon the fair s.e.x. His idea of a perfect woman is that of one who is beautiful, "and can do everything but speak." In the "Chronicles of Clovernook"--_i.e._ of his little retreat near Herne Bay--he gives an account of the Hermit of Bellyfulle, who lives in "the cell of the corkscrew," and among many amusing paradoxes, maintains the following,

"Ay, Sir, the old story--the old grievance, Sir, twixt man and woman," said the hermit.

"And what is that, Sir?" we asked.

The hermit shaking his head, and groaning cried, "b.u.t.tons."

"b.u.t.tons!" said we.

Our hermit drew himself closer to the table, and spreading his arms upon it, leaned forward with the serious air of a man prepared to discuss a grave thing. "b.u.t.tons," he repeated. Then clearing his throat he began, "In the course of your long and, I hope, well spent life, has it never come with thunderbolt conviction on you that all washerwomen, clear-starchers, getters up of fine linen, or under whatever name Eve's daughters--for as Eve brought upon us the stern necessity of a shirt, it is but just that her girls should wash it--under whatever name they cleanse and beautify flax and cotton, that they are all under some compact, implied or solemnly entered upon amongst themselves and their non-washing, non-starching, non-getting up sisterhood, that by means subtle and more mortally certain, they shall worry, coax, and drive all bachelors and widowers soever into the pound of irredeemable wedlock? Has this tremendous truth, sir, never struck you?'

"'How?--by what means?' we asked.

"'Simply by b.u.t.tons.' answered the hermit, bringing down his clenched fist upon the table.

"We knew it--we looked incredulous.

"'See here, sir,' said the Hermit, leaning still farther across the table, 'I will take a man, who on his outstart in life, set his hat a-c.o.c.k at matrimony--a man who defies Hymen and all his wicked wiles. Nevertheless, sir, the man must have a shirt, the man must have a washerwoman, Think you that that shirt returning from the tub, never wants one, two--three b.u.t.tons? Always, sir, always. Sir, though I am now an anchorite I have lived in your bustling world, and seen--ay, quite as much as anyone of its manifold wickedness.