Quite at home” is a comfortable phrase! A man may be in his own house, and “not at home or a hundred miles away from it, and yet “quite at home.” Quite at home” denotes absence of restraint (save that which good breeding imposes), ostentatious display, affected style, and the petty annoyances of your small gentry, who clumsily ape their betters. Good entertainment, congenial company, pleasant discourse, the whole seasoned with becoming mirth, and tempered with elegance and refinement, make a man “Quite at home”
“Not at home” is when Mister mimics Captain Grand, and Madam is in her tantrums; when our reception is freezing, and the guests are as sour as the wine; when no part or interest is taken in our pursuits and amusements; when frowns and discouragements darken our threshold; when the respect that is paid us by others is coldly received, or wilfully perverted by those whose duty it is to welcome to our hearth the grateful tribute; and when we are compelled to fly from home in order to be at home. “Quite at home” is quite the contrary! Then are affection, cheerfulness, mutual confidence, and sympathy, our household gods: every wish is anticipated, every sorrow soothed, and every pleasure shared!
Mr. Bosky, in his snug dining-parlour, entertaining a small party, was “Quite at home!” There were present, Mr. Merripall, Deputy Doublechin, Mr. Crambo the Werter-faced young gentleman, who looked (as the comical coffin-maker hinted) “in prime twig to take a journey down a pump!” Mr. Titlepage of Type Crescent; Mr. Flumgarten (who had left his “Hollyhock” to “waste her sweetness” on Pa, ilia, and Master Guy Muff!); and Borax Bumps, Esq. the crani-ologist.'Tis an easy thing to collect diners-out. High-feeding; the pleasure of criticising the taste of our host; quizzing his cuisine, and reckoning to a shade the expence of taking “the shine” out of him when we have our revenge! never fail to attract a numerous gathering. “Seeing company,” in the fashionable sense of the word, is a series of attempts to eclipse those who are civil or silly enough to entertain us. Extremes belong to man only. There are some niggards who shut out all society; fasting themselves and making their doors fast!
Plentiful cheer, good humour, and a hearty welcome enlivened Mr. Bosky's table, the shape of which was after the fashion of King Arthur s, and the beef (this Mr. Bosky called having a round with his friends!) was after the fashion of the table. The party would have been a round dozen, but for the temporary absence of Messrs. Hatband and Stiflegig, who stood sentinel at a couple of door-posts round the corner, and were not expected to be off guard until a few glasses had gone round. The conversation was various and animated. Deputy Doublechin, who had a great genius for victuals, declaimed with civic eloquence upon the on-and-off-the-river champagne, white bait, venison and turtle treats, for which Gog and Magog, and the City Chamber “stood Sam the comical coffin-maker rambled on a pleasant excursion to the cemeteries; Mr. Titlepage discoursed fluently upon waste demy; Mr. Bumps examined the craniums of the company, commencing with the “destructive” “adhesive” acquisitive,” “imaginative” and “philoprogenitive” developments of Deputy Doublechin; Mr. Flumgarten, who was “Quite at home!” proved himself a master of every subject, and was most facetious and entertaining; and the Bard of Bleeding Hart Yard, after reciting a couplet of his epitaph upon an heroic young gentleman who was hung in chains,
“My uncle's son lies here below,
And rests at peace—when the wind don't blow!”
sang, moderato con anima, his
LEGEND OF KING'S-CROSS.
Those blythe Bow bells! those blythe Bow bells! a merry
peal they ring,
And see a band of beaux and belles as jocund as the
spring;
But who is she with gipsy hat and smart pink satin
shoes?
The lily fair of Jockey s Fields, the darling of the mews.
But where is Jimmy Ostler John, whom folks call “stable
Jack”?
Alas! he cannot dance the hey, his heart is on the rack.
The Corp'ral's cut him to the core, who marries Betsy
Brown;
The winter of his discontent he spends at Somers' Town.
A pot of porter off he toss'd, then gave his head a toss,
And look'd cross-buttocks when he met nis rival at King's
Cross;
The Corp'ral held right gallantly to widows, maids, and
wives,
A bunch of roses in his fist, and Jack his bunch of fives.
Cry'd Betsy Brown, “All Troy I'll to a tizzy bet, 'tis
he!
I never thought to see you more, methought you went
to sea:
That you, the crew, and all your togs, (a mouthful for a
shark!)
Good for nothing, graceless dogs! had perish'd in a bark.”
“I'm him as was your lover true, O perjur'd Betsy
Brown!
Your spark from Dublin up, I'll soon be doubling up in
town!
If, Pat, you would divine the cause, behold this nymph
divine;
You 've won the hand of Betsy Brown, now try a taste
of mine!”
The Corp'ral laid a bet he'd beat, but Betsy held her rib—
“Be aisy, daisy I—Lying lout! we'll see which best can
fib!
A trick worth two I'll shew you, by St. Patrick, merry
saint!”
Poor Betsy fainted in his arms—the Corp'ral made a
feint.
Jack ey'd the pump, and thither hied, and filled a bucket
quick,
And chuck'd it o'er his chuck, for fear she should the
bucket kick;
Then gave a tender look, and join'd a tender in the
river—
What afterwards became of him we never could diskiver.
“The City of London and the trade thereof,” and other standing toasts, having been drunk with the accustomed honours, Uncle Timothy addressed Mr. Bosky,
“Thy Epilogue, Benjamin. Drop we the curtain on this mountebank drama, and cry quittance to conjurors.”
Mr. Bosky. But what is an Epilogue without a dress coat, a chapeau bras, black velvets and paste buckles? Nous verrons!
And the LaurÉat rose, put on a stage face, stood tea-pot fashion, and poured out his soul.
Mr. Bosky. Knights of the Table Round! in verse
sublime,
I fain would tell how once upon a time,
When George the Second, royally interr'd,
Resign'd his sceptre to King George the
Third-
Uncle Tim. Bosky, dismounting Pegasus, suppose
You sit, and speak your epilogue in prose,
Not in falsetto flat, and thro' the nose,
Like those
Who warble “knives to grind,” and cry
“old clothes!”
Mr. Bosky (resuming his seat and natural voice). The monarch, glorying in the name of Briton, assumed the imperial diadem amidst the acclamations of his loyal subjects; the mime, though not Briton born, but naturalized, had done nothing to alienate his right comical peers, or diminish his authority in the High Court and Kingdom of Queerummania. But Punch had fallen on evil times and tongues. A few sticks of the rotten edifice of utilitarianism had been thrown together; men began to prefer the dry, prickly husks of disagreeable truths, to the whipt-syllabubs of pleasant fiction; all recreations were resolving themselves in “Irishman's Holiday (change of work!) the vivacity of small beer, and the strength of workhouse gruel! an unjolly spirit had again come over the nation; and people thought that by making this world a hell upon earth, they were nearer on their road to heaven! The contemporaries of Punch, too, had declined in respectability. A race of inferior conjurors succeeded to the cups and balls of Mr. Fawkes; the equilibrists and vaulters * danced more like a pea on a tobacco-pipe, than artists on the wire; and a troop of barn-door fowls profaned the classic boards on which Dogget, Pinkethman, and Spiller, once crowed so triumphantly.
* “Mr. Maddox balances on his chin seven pipes in one
another; a chair, topsy-turvy, and a coach-wheel. Also a
sword on the edge of a wine-glass; several glasses brim full
of liquor; two pipes, cross-ways, on a hoop; a hat on his
nose; and stands on his head while the wire is in full
swing, without touching it with his hands.” These
performances he exhibited at Sadler's Wells, the Haymarket
Theatre, &c. from 1753 to 1770.
“At the New Theatre Royal in the Haymarket this day, the
24th October, 1747, will be performed by a native Turk,
Mahommed Caratha, the most surprising ÉquilibrÉs on the
slack-rope, without a balance.
“Perhaps where Lear has rav'd, and Hamlet died,
On flying cars new sorcerers may ride;
Perhaps (for who can guess th' effects of chance?)
Here Hunt may box, or Mahomet may dance.”
Dame Nature, whose freaks in former times had contributed much to the amusement of the fair, turned spiteful—for children were born perversely well-proportioned; so that a dwarf (“Homunculi quanti sunt cum recogito!”) became a great rarity in the monster market; giants, like ground in the city, fetched three guineas a foot; humps rose, and the woods and forests were hunted for wild men. The same contradictory spirit ruled the animal creation. Cows had heretofore been born with a plurality of heads; and calves without tails were frequently retailed in the market. The pig, whose aptitude for polite learning had long been proverbial, sulked over his ABC, and determined to be a dunce; the dog * refused to be—
* In the year 1753, “Mrs. Midnight's company” played at the
Little Theatre in the Haymarket. A monkey acted the part of
a waiter; and three dogs, as Harlequin, Pierrot, and
Columbine, rivalled their two-legged competitors; a town was
besieged by dogs, and defended by monkeys, the latter
tumbling their assailants over the battlements. The dogs and
monkeys performed a grand ballet; and a couple of dogs,
booted and spurred, mounted a brace of monkeys, and gal-
lopped off in Newmarket style. We are not quite certain
whether Mrs. Midnight and her comedians travelled so far
east as Smithfield Rounds.
—taught to dance; and the monkey, * at all times a trump-card, forswore spades and diamonds. There was a mortality among the old dwarfs and Merry Andrews and the glory of Bar-tlemy Fair, Roast Pig, had departed!
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* Spinacuta's monkey amused the French King and Court by
dancing and tumbling on the slack and tight rope; balancing
a chandelier, a hoop, and a tobacco-pipe, on the tip of his
nose and chin, and making a melodramatic exit in a shower of
fireworks. He afterwards exhibited at Sadler's Wells and
Bartholomew Fair.
** “August 31, 1768. Died Jonathan Gray, aged nearly one
hundred years, the famous Merry Andrew, who formerly
exhibited at the fairs about London, and gained great
applause by his acting at Covent Garden Theatre, in the
entertainment called Bartholomew Fair”
“October 3, 1777. Yesterday, died in St. Bartholomew's
Hospital, Thomas Carter, the dwarf who was exhibited at last
Bartholomew Fair. He was about 25 years of age, measuring
only three feet four inches high. It is supposed that over
drinking at the fair caused his death.”
That crackling dainty, which would make a man manger son propre pÈre! gave place to horrible fried sausages, from which even the mongrels and tabbies of Smithfield instinctively turned aside with anti-cannibal misgivings! Unsavoury links! fizzing, fuming, bubbling, and squeaking in their own abominable black broth! “An ounce of civet, good apothecary, to sweeten mine imagination!” Your Bartlemy Fair kitchen is not the spice islands.
In 1661, one of Dame Ursula's particular orders to Mooncalf was to froth the cans well. In 1655,
“For a penny you may see a fine puppet play,
And for two-pence a rare piece of art;
And a penny a can, I dare swear a man
May put six (!) of 'em into a quart?
Only six! Mark to what immeasurable enormity these subdivisions of cans had risen fifty years after. Well might Roger in Amaze * exclaim,—
* “Roger in Amaze; or the Countryman's Ramble through
Bartholomew Fair. To the tune of the Dutch Woman's Jigg.
1701.”
“They brought me cans which cost a penny a piece,
adsheart,
I'm zure twelve (!!) ne'er could fill our country quart”
“Remember twelve!” Yet these were days of comparative honesty—“a ragged virtue,” which, as better clothes came in fashion, was cast off by the drawers, and an indescribable liquid succeeded, not in a great measure, but “small by degrees and beautifully less,” to the transcendant tipple of Michael Roots. From the wry faces and twinges of modern drinkers (it seems impossible to stand upright in the presence of a Bar-tlemy Fair brewing!) we guess the tap has not materially improved. The advance of prices on the “fine puppet play” * and the two-penny “rare piece of art” were not resisted; the O.P.'s were made to mind their P's and Q's by the terrors of the Pied Poudre.
* “Let me never live to look so high as the two-penny room
again,” says Ben Jonson, in his prologue to Every Man out of
his Humour, acted at the Globe, in 1599. The price of the
“best rooms” or boxes, was one shilling; of the lower places
two-pence, and of some places only a penny. The two-penny
room was the gallery. Thus Decker, “Pay your two-pence to a
player, and you may sit in the gallery—Bellman's Night
Walk. And Middleton, “One of them is a nip, I took him once
into the two-penny gallery at the Fortune.” In Every Man out
of his Humour there is also mention of “the lords' room over
the stage.” The “lords' room” answered to the present stage-
boxes. The price of them was originally one shilling. Thus
Decker, in his Gull's Hornbook, 1609, “At a new play you
take up the twelve-penny room next the stage, because the
lords and you may seem to be hail fellow, well met.”
For many dismal seasons the fair dragged on from hand to mouth, hardly allowing its exhibitors (in the way of refection) to put the one to the other. And though my Lord Mayor * and the keeper of Newgate might take it cool, (in a tankard!) it was no laughing matter to the hungry mountebank, who could grin nobody into his booth; to the thirsty musician (who had swallowed many a butt!) grinding on his barrel; and the starved balladmonger (corn has ears, but not for music!) singing for his bread. We hasten to more prosperous times. “Another glass, and then.” Yet, ere the sand of the present shall have run out, good night to St. Bartholomew! We cannot say with Mr. Mawworm, “We likes to be despised!” nor are we emulous of “crackers,” unless they appertain unto wine and walnuts.
* On the morning the fair is proclaimed, according to
ancient custom, his Magnificence the Mayor drinks “a cool
tankard” (not of aqua pura,) with that retentive knight, the
keeper of Newgate.
But, sooner than our grotesque friends shall want a chronicler, we will apostrophise the learned pig, the pig-faced lady, and the most delicate monster that smokes his link for a cigar, picks his teeth with a hay-fork, and takes his snuff with a fire-shovel. Not that we love Sir Andrew less, but that we love St. Bartle-my more.
Higman Palatine * in 1763 delighted the court at Richmond Palace, and the commonalty at the “Rounds,” with his “surprising deceptions;” and, gibing his heel, followed the toe of Mr. Breslaw. **
* “Mr. Palatine exhibits with pigeons, wigs, oranges,
cards, handkerchiefs, and pocket-pieces; and swallows
knives, forks, punch-ladles, and candle-snuffers.”
** In 1775, Breslaw performed at Cockspur Street, Hay-
market, and in after years at Hughes's Riding School and
Bartholomew Fair. Being at Canterbury with his troop, he met
with such bad success that they were almost starved. He
repaired to the churchwardens, and promised to give the
profits of a night's conjuration to the poor, if the parish
would pay for hiring a room, &c. The charitable bait took,
the benefit proved a bumper, and next morning the
churchwardens waited upon the wizard to touch the receipts.
“I have already disposed of dem,” said Breslaw,—“de profits
were for de poor.
I have kept my promise, and given de money to my own people,
who are de poorest in dis parish “Sir!” exclaimed the
churchwardens, “this is a trick!”—“I know it,” replied
Hocus Pocus,—“I live by my tricks!”
In after years there fell on Mr. Lane * ('tis a long lane that has never a turning!) a remnant of Fawkes's mantle. But was not our conjuror (“you must borrow me the mouth of Gargantua!”) and his “Enchanted Sciatoricon,” little too much in advance of the age? The march of intellect ** had not set in with a very strong current. The three R's (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic!) comprehended the classical attainments of a “City Solon and a Tooley Street Socrates.”
* “Grand Exhibition by Mr. Lane, first' performer to the
King, opposite the Hospital Gate. His Enchanted Sciatoricon
will discover to the company the exact time of the day by
any watch, though the watch may be in the pocket of a person
five miles off. The Operation Palingenesia: any spectator
sending for a couple of eggs, may take the choice of them,
and the egg, being broke, produces a living bird of the
species desired, which in half a minute receives its full
plumage, and flies away. The other egg will, at the request
of the company, leap from one hat to another, to the number
of twenty.” Then follow “His Unparalleled Sympathetic
Figures,”
“Magical Tea Caddie” and above one hundred other astonishing
tricks for the same money.
** This is the age of progression. Intellect and steam are
on the quick march and full gallop. Butchers' boys, puffing
cigars, and lapping well-diluted caldrons of “Hunt's
Roasted,” illuminate with penny lore the hitherto unclassic
shambles of Whitechapel and Leadenhall. The mechanic, far
advanced in intelligence and gin, roars “animal parliaments,
universal suffering, and vote by bullet.” And the Sunday
School Solomon, on being asked by meo magister, “Who was
Jesse?” lisps “the Flower of Dumblain!”—“When was Rome
built, my little intelligence?”—“In the night, sir.”—“Eh!
How?”—
“Because I've heerd grandmother say, Rome warn't built in a
day!”—“Avez vous du mal, monsieur?” was the question put to
a young Englishman, after a turn over in the French
diligence.—“Non” replied the six-lessons linguist, “Je riai
qu'un portmanteau!”
But we have since advanced to the learning of Mr. Lane; like the lady, who complained to the limner that her portrait looked too ancient for her, and received from Mr. Brush this pertinent reply, “Madam, you will grow more and more like it every day!” Ingleby, * “emperor of conjurors,” (who let his magic cat out of the bag in a printed book of legerdemain,) and Gyngell played, only with new variations, the same old sleight-of-hand tricks over again. The wizard's art is down among the dead men.
* “Theurgicomination! or New Magical Wonders, by Sieur
Ingleby. He plays all sorts of tricks upon cards; exhibits
his Pixidees Metallurgy, or tricks upon medals; and
Operation in
Popysomance, being the art of discovering people's thoughts.
Any gentleman may cut off a cock's head, and at the Sieur's
bidding it shall leap back to its old quarters, chanticleer
giving three crows for its recovery!”
As “dead men” died on the Laureat's lips, the joyous presence was announced of Mr. Hercules Hatband and Mr. Stanislaus Stiflegig. Uncle Timothy proposed a glass round; and to make up for lost time (in a libation to mountebanks), tumblers for the mutes.
“Our nephew is fat, and scant of breath we will give him a few minutes to recruit. Marma-duke Merripall, I call upon you for a song.”
“An excellent call! Uncle Timothy,” shouted Deputy Doublechin.
Up jumped Borax Bumps, Esq. and running his shoulder of mutton palms with scientific velocity over the curly-wigged cranium of the comical coffin-maker, he emphatically pronounced the “organ of tune” to exhibit a musical Pelion among its intellectual nodosities.
“I should take your father, sir, to have been a parish clerk, from this mountainous developement of Sternhold and Hopkins.”
“My song shall be a toast” said the comical coffin-maker:
“TOASTED CHEESE!”
Taffy ap-Tudor he couldn't be worse—
The Leech having bled him in person and purse.
His cane at his nose, and his fee in his fob,
Bow'd off, winking Crape to look out for a job.
“Hur Taffy will never awake from his nap!
Ap-Tudor! ap-Jones! oh!” cried nurse Jenny-ap-
Shenkin ap-Jenkin ap-Morgan ap-Rice—
But Taffy turn'd round, and call'd out in a trice,
“Jenny ap-Rice, hur could eat something nice,
A dainty Welch rabbit—go toast hur a slice
Of cheese, if you please, which better agrees
With the tooth of poor Taffy than physic and fees.”
A pound Jenny got, and brought to his cot
The prime double Glo'ster, all hot! piping hot!
Which being a bunny without any bones,
Was custard with mustard to Taffy ap-Jones.
“Buy some leeks, Jenny, and brew hur some caudle—
No more black doses from Doctor McDawdle!”
Jenny stew'd down a bunch into porridge, (Welch
punch!)
And Taffy, Cot pless him! he wash'd down his lunch.
On the back of his hack next mom Doctor Mac
Came to see Jenny preparing her black!
Ap answer'd his rap in a white cotton cap,
With another Welch rabbit just caught in his trap!
“A gobbling? you ghost Δ the Leech bellow'd loud,
“Does your mother know, Taffy, you're out of your
shroud?”
“Hur physic'd a week—at hur very last squeak,
Hur try'd toasted cheese and decoction of leek.”
“I'm pocketting fees for the self-same disease
From the dustman next door—I'll prescribe toasted
cheese
And leek punch for lunch!” But the remedy fails—
What kills Pat from Kilmore, cures Taffy from Wales.
