THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT.

1850.

THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT.

PART I.

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS

HOUSE AND HIS

WIFE MOVED INTO IT.

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott,
From business snug withdrawn,
Was much contented with a lot
That would contain a Tudor cot
"Twixt twelve feet square of garden-plot,
And twelve feet more of lawn.

He had laid business on the shelf
To give his taste expansion,
And, since no man, retired with pelf,
The building mania can shun,
Knott, being middle-aged himself,
Resolved to build (unhappy elf!)
A mediæval mansion.

He called an architect in counsel;
"I want," said he, "a-you know what,
(You are a builder, I am Knott,)
À thing complete from chimney-pot
Down to the very grounsel;

Here's a half-acre of good land;

Just have it nicely mapped and planned And make your workmen drive on ; Meadow there is, and upland too,

And I should like a water-view, D' you think

you could contrive one?

(Perhaps the pump and trough would do, If painted a judicious blue ?)

The woodland I've attended to;'

(He meant three pines stuck up askew,
Two dead ones and a live one.)
"A pocket-full of rocks 'twould take
To build a house of free-stone,

But then it is not hard to make
What now-a-days is the stone;
The cunning painter in a trice
Your house's outside petrifies,
And people think it very gneiss
Without inquiring deeper;

My money never shall be thrown
Away on such a deal of stone,
When stone of deal is cheaper."

And so the greenest of antiques
Was reared for Knott to dwell in ;
The architect worked hard for weeks
In venting all his private peaks
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks
Had satisfied Fluellen ;
Whatever any body had

Out of the common, good or bad,

Knott had it all worked well in,

A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry,
A porter's lodge that was a sty,

A campanile slim and high,

Too small to hang a bell in;

All up and down and here and there,

With Lord-knows-whats of round and square