網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

and into the best bedroom, that positively there is no enduring it. I think another six months of this house would fairly make an end of me. It's not a house for tender folk. You might sometimes as well sit in the open street as by the fireside. You burn your shins, and all the time your back is freezing. Upon my word, I think we should save all the difference between this and a front door in doctors' bills!!

A front door is then determined upon; and you think you have at length, by a little stretch of your purse, reached the very perfection of comfort. But, alas! "fronti nulla fides," which is as much as to say, there is no reliance to be placed on a front door. It is true, you escape all the evils of your former habitation, and that nothing can match your back kitchen as a convenience to the servants. But then the family living above you has twice your number of children; and these imps seem to do nothing whatever the whole day long, from six in the morning till seven at night, but run pat, pat, pat, along the floors overhead, till they almost drive you mad. Even the charms of a back-green, or a superior scullery, will not stand against this; and so you determine at last to go to an upper flat in the same neighbourhood, where you may have the pleasure of tormenting some person below with your children, without the risk of being at the same time tormented yourself. The last selection is made upon moderate and prudent principles; but yet hope is also even here upon the wing. The house has no pretensions to style or external gentility, but the stair is remarkably spacious and well lighted. It is what I would call a genteel stair. The kitchen door has a nice hole at the lower corner for the cat; and what a delightful place there is by the side of the fire for the lamp, or where we could keep our salt dry in a box! As in the case of leaving a house every fault is exaggerated, and made the subject of congratulatory disgust, so in this, every fault is extenuated. "The ceilings are a little contracted, I see, by the roof." "Oh yes-a very small matter; these rooms are only intended for the children. We have some capital public rooms at the back, looking into the public gardens, and have a little peep of the sea in the distance." Upper flats," observes your Malagrowther friend, are very apt to

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

smoke." "Oh! not at all, I assure you. But I have been assured that Dr Bonnyman cured this house entirely some years ago, and since then there has never been a single puff of smoke." "Your nursery is in the garret; don't you think the children will feel it rather cold?" "Oh! the most comfortable nursery in the world; and see, only see, what a nice door there is at the top of the garret stair, to prevent the children from tumbling down!" I am sorry, however, to see a dealer in greens established so close beneath the door, at the bottom of your common stair.” Oh, sir, but consider the convenience of the greens." In fact, there is no peculiarity about the house, however trifling, but, in the eyes of a new tenant, it will seem a beauty, as in those of a departing one it will constitute a disgrace. And this is just the philosophy of the question, and the real cause why there is so much useless tossing and tumbling of old furniture on each 25th of May.

66

THE BABY'S DEBUT.-From Rejected Addresses.

[Supposed to be spoken at the re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre after its destruction by fire. The speaker is in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter. The piece is a harmless burlesque on the style in which some of the familiar poems of Wordsworth are written.]

My brother Jack was nine in May,
And I was eight on New-year's day;
So in Kate Wilson's shop
Papa (he's my papa and Jack's)
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,
And brother Jack a top.

Jack's in the pouts, and this it is—
He thinks mine came to more than his;

So to my

drawer he

goes,

Takes out the doll, and, O, my stars!
He pokes her head between the bars,
And melts off half her nose!

Quite cross, a bit of string. I beg,
And tie it to his peg-top's peg,

And bang, with might and main,

Its head against the parlour-door;
Off flies the head, and hits the floor,
And breaks a window-pane.

This made him cry with rage and spite:
Well, let him cry, it serves him right.
A pretty thing, forsooth!

If he's to melt, all scalding hot,
Half my doll's nose, and I am not
To draw his peg-top's tooth!

Aunt Hannah heard the window break,
And cried, "O naughty Nancy Lake,
Thus to distress your aunt:
No Drury-Lane for you to-day!"
And while papa said, "Pooh, she may!"
Mamma said, "No, she sha'n't!"

Well, after many a sad reproach,
They got into a hackney coach,

And trotted down the street.

I saw them go: one horse was blind,
The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet.
The chaise in which poor brother Bill
Used to be drawn to Pentonville,
Stood in the lumber-room:

I wiped the dust from off the top,
While Molly mopp'd it with a mop,
And brush'd it with a broom.
My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes,
Came in at six to black the shoes,
(I always talk to Sam:)
So what does he, but takes, and drags
Me in the chaise along the flags,
And leaves me where I am.

My father's walls are made of brick,
But not so tall and not so thick

As these; and, goodness me!
My father's beams are made of wood,
But never, never half so good
As those that now I see.

1

What a large floor! 'tis like a town!
The carpet, when they lay it down,
Won't hide it, I'll be bound;
And there's a row of lamps !-my eye!
How they do blaze! I wonder why

They keep them on the ground.
At first I caught hold of the wing,
And kept away; but Mr Thing-
umbob, the prompter man,
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove,
And said, "Go on, my pretty love;
Speak to 'em, little Nan.

"You've only got to curtsy, whisp-
er, hold your chin up, laugh, and lisp,
And then you're sure to take:
I've known the day when brats, not quite
Thirteen, got fifty pounds a-night;
Then why not Nancy Lake?"

But while I'm speaking, where's papa?
And where's my aunt? and where's mamma?
Where's Jack? O, there they sit!
They smile, they nod; I'll go my ways,
And order round poor Billy's chaise,
To join them in the pit.

And now, good gentlefolks, I go
To join mamma, and see the show;
So, bidding you adieu,

I curtsy, like a pretty miss,
And if you'll blow to me a kiss,

I'll blow a kiss to you. [Blows a kiss, and exit.

A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT.-H. G. Bell.

They're stepping off, the friends I knew,
They're going one by one:

They're taking wives to tame their lives-
Their jovial days are done ;-

I can't get one old crony now
To join me in a spree;

They've all grown grave domestic men;
They look askance on me.

I hate to see them sober'd down-
The merry boys and true;
I hate to hear them sneering now
At pictures fancy drew;

I care not for their married cheer,
Their puddings and their soups,
And middle-aged relations round
In formidable groups.

And though their wife perchance may have
A comely sort of face,
And at the table's upper end

Conduct herself with grace

I hate the prim reserve that reigns,
The caution and the state;
I hate to see my friend grow vain
Of furniture and plate.

How strange! they go to bed at ten,
And rise at half-past nine;
And seldom do they now exceed
A pint or so of wine :-
They play at whist for sixpences,
They very rarely dance,
They never read a word of rhyme,

Nor open a romance.

They talk, indeed, of politics,
Of taxes, and of crops,

And very quietly, with their wives,
They go about to shops;-
They get quite skilled in groceries,
And learned in butcher meat,
And know exactly what they pay
For every thing they eat.

And then they all have children too,
To squall through thick and thin,
And seem right proud to multiply
Small images of sin;

« 上一頁繼續 »