Burlesques

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BURLESQUES


By William Makepeace Thackeray




CONTENTS


NOTES BY EMINENT HANDS.


George de Barnwell. By Sir E. L. B. L., Bart.

Codlingsby. By D. Shrewsberry, Esq.

Phil Fogarty. A Tale of the Fighting Onety-Oneth. By Harry Rollicker

Barbazure. By G. P. R. Jeames, Esq., etc.

Lords and Liveries. By the Authoress of "Dukes and Dejeuners," "Hearts
and Diamonds," "Marchionesses and Milliners," etc., etc.

Crinoline. By Je-mes Pl-sh, Esq.

The Stars and Stripes. By the Author of "The Last of the Mulligans,"
"Pilot," etc.

A Plan for a Prize Novel



THE DIARY OF C. JEAMES DE LA PLUCHE, ESQ., WITH HIS LETTERS.


A Lucky Speculator

The Diary

Jeames on Time Bargings

Jeames on the Gauge Question

Mr. Jeames Again



THE TREMENDOUS ADVENTURES OF MAJOR GAHAGAN.


I. "Truth is Strange, Stranger than Fiction"

II. Allyghur and Laswaree

III. A Peep into Spain.--Account of the Origin and Services of the
Ahmednuggar Irregulars

IV. The Indian Camp--the Sortie from the Fort

V. The Issue of my Interview with my Wife

VI. Famine in the Garrison

VII. The Escape

VIII. The Captive

IX. Surprise of Futtyghur



A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.


I. Sir Ludwig of Hombourg

II. The Godesbergers

III. The Festival

IV. The Flight

V. The Traitor's Doom

VI. The Confession

VII. The Sentence

VIII. The Childe of Godesberg

IX. The Lady of Windeck

X. The Battle of the Bowmen

XI. The Martyr of Love

XII. The Champion

XIII. The Marriage



REBECCA AND ROWENA; A ROMANCE UPON ROMANCE.


CHAPTER

I. The Overture--Commencement of the Business

II. The Last Days of the Lion

III. St. George for England

IV. Ivanhoe Redivivus

V. Ivanhoe to the Rescue

VI. Ivanhoe the Widower

VII. The End of the Performance



THE HISTORY OF THE NEXT FRENCH REVOLUTION.


I. --


II. Henry V. and Napoleon III

III. The Advance of the Pretenders--Historical Review

IV. The Battle of Rheims

V. The Battle of Tours

VI. The English under Jenkins

VII. The Leaguer of Paris

VIII. The Battle of the Forts

IX. Louis XVII



COX'S DIARY.


The Announcement

First Rout

A Day with the Surrey Hounds

The Finishing Touch

A New Drop-Scene at the Opera

Striking a Balance

Down at Beulah

A Tournament

Over-Boarded and Under-Lodged

Notice to Quit

Law Life Assurance

Family Bustle




NOVELS BY EMINENT HANDS.




GEORGE DE BARNWELL

BY SIR E. L. B. L., BART.


VOL I.


In the Morning of Life the Truthful wooed the Beautiful, and their
offspring was Love. Like his Divine parents, He is eternal. He has his
Mother's ravishing smile; his Father's steadfast eyes. He rises every
day, fresh and glorious as the untired Sun-God. He is Eros, the ever
young. Dark, dark were this world of ours had either Divinity left
it--dark without the day-beams of the Latonian Charioteer, darker yet
without the daedal Smile of the God of the Other Bow! Dost know him,
reader?

Old is he, Eros, the ever young. He and Time were children together.
Chronos shall die, too; but Love is imperishable. Brightest of the
Divinities, where hast thou not been sung? Other worships pass away;
the idols for whom pyramids were raised lie in the desert crumbling
and almost nameless; the Olympians are fled, their fanes no longer rise
among the quivering olive-groves of Ilissus, or crown the emerald-islets
of the amethyst Aegean! These are gone, but thou remainest. There is
still a garland for thy temple, a heifer for thy stone. A heifer? Ah,
many a darker sacrifice. Other blood is shed at thy altars, Remorseless
One, and the Poet Priest who ministers at thy Shrine draws his auguries
from the bleeding hearts of men!

While Love hath no end, Can the Bard ever cease singing? In Kingly
and Heroic ages, 'twas of Kings and Heroes that the Poet spake. But in
these, our times, the Artisan hath his voice as well as the Monarch. The
people To-Day is King, and we chronicle his woes, as They of old did
the sacrifice of the princely Iphigenia, or the fate of the crowned
Agamemnon.

Is Odysseus less august in his rags than in his purple? Fate, Passion,
Mystery, the Victim, the Avenger, the Hate that harms, the Furies that
tear, the Love that bleeds, are not these with us Still? are not these
still the weapons of the Artist? the colors of his palette? the chords
of his lyre? Listen! I tell thee a tale--not of Kings--but of Men--not
of Thrones, but of Love, and Grief, and Crime. Listen, and but once
more. 'Tis for the last time (probably) these fingers shall sweep the
strings.

E. L. B. L.


NOONDAY IN CHEPE.


'Twas noonday in Chepe. High Tide in the mighty River City!--its banks
wellnigh overflowing with the myriad-waved Stream of Man! The toppling
wains, bearing the produce of a thousand marts; the gilded equipage
of the Millionary; the humbler, but yet larger vehicle from the green
metropolitan suburbs (the Hanging Gardens of our Babylon), in which
every traveller might, for a modest remuneration, take a republican
seat; the mercenary caroche, with its private freight; the brisk
curricle of the letter-carrier, robed in royal scarlet: these and a
thousand others were laboring and pressing onward, and locked and bound
and hustling together in the narrow channel of Chepe. The imprecations
of the charioteers were terrible. From the noble's broidered
hammer-cloth, or the driving-seat of the common coach, each driver
assailed the other with floods of ribald satire. The pavid matron within
the one vehicle (speeding to the Bank for her semestrial pittance)
shrieked and trembled; the angry Dives hastening to his office (to add
another thousand to his heap,) thrust his head over the blazoned panels,
and displayed an eloquence of objurgation which his very Menials could
not equal; the dauntless street urchins, as they gayly threaded the
Labyrinth of Life, enjoyed the perplexities and quarrels of the scene,
and exacerbated the already furious combatants by their poignant
infantile satire. And the Philosopher, as he regarded the hot strife and
struggle of these Candidates in the race for Gold, thought with a sigh
of the Truthful and the Beautiful, and walked on, melancholy and serene.

'Twas noon in Chepe. The ware-rooms were thronged. The flaunting windows
of the mercers attracted many a purchaser: the glittering panes behind
which Birmingham had glazed its simulated silver, induced rustics to
pause: although only noon, the savory odors of the Cook Shops tempted
the over hungry citizen to the bun of Bath, or to the fragrant potage
that mocks the turtle's flavor--the turtle! O dapibus suprimi grata
testudo Jovis! I am an Alderman when I think of thee! Well: it was noon
in Chepe.

But were all battling for gain there? Among the many brilliant shops
whose casements shone upon Chepe, there stood one a century back (about
which period our tale opens) devoted to the sale of Colonial produce.
A rudely carved image of a negro, with a fantastic plume and apron of
variegated feathers, decorated the lintel. The East and West had sent
their contributions to replenish the window.

The poor slave had toiled, died perhaps, to produce yon pyramid of
swarthy sugar marked "ONLY 6 1/2d."--That catty box, on which was the
epigraph "STRONG FAMILY CONGO ONLY 3s. 9d," was from the country of
Confutzee--that heap of dark produce bore the legend "TRY OUR REAL
NUT"--'Twas Cocoa--and that nut the Cocoa-nut, whose milk has refreshed
the traveller and perplexed the natural philosopher. The shop in
question was, in a word, a Grocer's.

In the midst of the shop and its gorgeous contents sat one who, to judge
from his appearance (though 'twas a difficult task, as, in sooth, his
back was turned), had just reached that happy period of life when the
Boy is expanding into the Man. O Youth, Youth! Happy and Beautiful! O
fresh and roseate dawn of life; when the dew yet lies on the flowers,
ere they have been scorched and withered by Passion's fiery Sun!
Immersed in thought or study, and indifferent to the din around him, sat
the boy. A careless guardian was he of the treasures confided to him.
The crowd passed in Chepe; he never marked it. The sun shone on Chepe;
he only asked that it should illumine the page he read. The knave might
filch his treasures; he was heedless of the knave. The customer might
enter; but his book was all in all to him.

And indeed a customer WAS there; a little hand was tapping on the
counter with a pretty impatience; a pair of arch eyes were gazing at
the boy, admiring, perhaps, his manly proportions through the homely and
tightened garments he wore.

"Ahem! sir! I say, young man!" the customer exclaimed.

"Ton d'apameibomenos prosephe," read on the student, his voice choked
with emotion. "What language!" he said; "how rich, how noble, how
sonorous! prosephe podas--"

The customer burst out into a fit of laughter so shrill and cheery, that
the young Student could not but turn round, and blushing, for the first
time remarked her. "A pretty grocer's boy you are," she cried, "with
your applepiebomenos and your French and lingo. Am I to be kept waiting
for hever?"

"Pardon, fair Maiden," said he, with high-bred courtesy: "'twas not
French I read, 'twas the Godlike language of the blind old bard. In
what can I be serviceable to ye, lady?" and to spring from his desk, to
smooth his apron, to stand before her the obedient Shop Boy, the Poet no
more, was the work of a moment.

"I might have prigged this box of figs," the damsel said good-naturedly,
"and you'd never have turned round."

"They came from the country of Hector," the boy said. "Would you have
currants, lady? These once bloomed in the island gardens of the blue
Aegean. They are uncommon fine ones, and the figure is low; they're
fourpence-halfpenny a pound. Would ye mayhap make trial of our teas? We
do not advertise, as some folks do: but sell as low as any other house."

"You're precious young to have all these good things," the girl
exclaimed, not unwilling, seemingly, to prolong the conversation. "If I
was you, and stood behind the counter, I should be eating figs the whole
day long."

"Time was," answered the lad, "and not long since I thought so too. I
thought I never should be tired of figs. But my old uncle bade me take
my fill, and now in sooth I am aweary of them."

"I think you gentlemen are always so," the coquette said.

"Nay, say not so, fair stranger!" the youth replied, his face kindling
as he spoke, and his eagle eyes flashing fire. "Figs pall; but oh! the
Beautiful never does. Figs rot; but oh! the Truthful is eternal. I was
born, lady, to grapple with the Lofty and the Ideal. My soul yearns for
the Visionary. I stand behind the counter, it is true; but I ponder here
upon the deeds of heroes, and muse over the thoughts of sages. What is
grocery for one who has ambition? What sweetness hath Muscovada to him
who hath tasted of Poesy? The Ideal, lady, I often think, is the true
Real, and the Actual, but a visionary hallucination. But pardon me; with
what may I serve thee?"

"I came only for sixpenn'orth of tea-dust," the girl said, with a
faltering voice; "but oh, I should like to hear you speak on for ever!"

Only for sixpenn'orth of tea-dust? Girl, thou camest for other things!
Thou lovedst his voice? Siren! what was the witchery of thine own? He
deftly made up the packet, and placed it in the little hand. She paid
for her small purchase, and with a farewell glance of her lustrous eyes,
she left him. She passed slowly through the portal, and in a moment
was lost in the crowd. It was noon in Chepe. And George de Barnwell was
alone.


Vol. II.


We have selected the following episodical chapter in preference to
anything relating to the mere story of George Barnwell, with which most
readers are familiar.

Up to this passage (extracted from the beginning of Vol. II.) the tale
is briefly thus:

The rogue of a Millwood has come back every day to the grocer's shop in
Chepe, wanting some sugar, or some nutmeg, or some figs, half a dozen
times in the week.

She and George de Barnwell have vowed to each other an eternal
attachment.

This flame acts violently upon George. His bosom swells with ambition.
His genius breaks out prodigiously. He talks about the Good, the
Beautiful, the Ideal, &c., in and out of all season, and is virtuous and
eloquent almost beyond belief--in fact like Devereux, or P. Clifford, or
E. Aram, Esquires.

Inspired by Millwood and love, George robs the till, and mingles in the
world which he is destined to ornament. He outdoes all the dandies,
all the wits, all the scholars, and all the voluptuaries of the age--an
indefinite period of time between Queen Anne and George II.--dines
with Curll at St. John's Gate, pinks Colonel Charteris in a duel behind
Montague House, is initiated into the intrigues of the Chevalier St.
George, whom he entertains at his sumptuous pavilion at Hampstead, and
likewise in disguise at the shop in Cheapside.

His uncle, the owner of the shop, a surly curmudgeon with very little
taste for the True and Beautiful, has retired from business to the
pastoral village in Cambridgeshire from which the noble Barnwells came.
George's cousin Annabel is, of course, consumed with a secret passion
for him.

Some trifling inaccuracies may be remarked in the ensuing brilliant
little chapter; but it must be remembered that the author wished to
present an age at a glance: and the dialogue is quite as fine and
correct as that in the "Last of the Barons," or in "Eugene Aram," or
other works of our author, in which Sentiment and History, or the True
and Beautiful, are united.


CHAPTER XXIV.

BUTTON'S IN PALL MALL.


Those who frequent the dismal and enormous Mansions of Silence which
society has raised to Ennui in that Omphalos of town, Pall Mall, and
which, because they knock you down with their dulness, are called Clubs
no doubt; those who yawn from a bay-window in St. James's Street, at a
half-score of other dandies gaping from another bay-window over the way;
those who consult a dreary evening paper for news, or satisfy themselves
with the jokes of the miserable Punch by way of wit; the men about town
of the present day, in a word, can have but little idea of London some
six or eight score years back. Thou pudding-sided old dandy of St.
James's Street, with thy lacquered boots, thy dyed whiskers, and thy
suffocating waistband, what art thou to thy brilliant predecessor in the
same quarter? The Brougham from which thou descendest at the portal of
the "Carlton" or the "Travellers'," is like everybody else's; thy
black coat has no more plaits, nor buttons, nor fancy in it than thy
neighbor's; thy hat was made on the very block on which Lord Addlepate's
was cast, who has just entered the Club before thee. You and he yawn
together out of the same omnibus-box every night; you fancy yourselves
men of pleasure; you fancy yourselves men of fashion; you fancy
yourselves men of taste; in fancy, in taste, in opinion, in philosophy,
the newspaper legislates for you; it is there you get your jokes and
your thoughts, and your facts and your wisdom--poor Pall Mall dullards.
Stupid slaves of the press, on that ground which you at present occupy,
there were men of wit and pleasure and fashion, some five-and-twenty
lustres ago.

We are at Button's--the well-known sign of the "Turk's Head." The crowd
of periwigged heads at the windows--the swearing chairmen round the
steps (the blazoned and coronalled panels of whose vehicles denote the
lofty rank of their owners),--the throng of embroidered beaux entering
or departing, and rendering the air fragrant with the odors of pulvillio
and pomander, proclaim the celebrated resort of London's Wit and
Fashion. It is the corner of Regent Street. Carlton House has not yet
been taken down.

A stately gentleman in crimson velvet and gold is sipping chocolate
at one of the tables, in earnest converse with a friend whose suit is
likewise embroidered, but stained by time, or wine mayhap, or wear. A
little deformed gentleman in iron-gray is reading the Morning Chronicle
newspaper by the fire, while a divine, with a broad brogue and a shovel
hat and cassock, is talking freely with a gentleman, whose star and
ribbon, as well as the unmistakable beauty of his Phidian countenance,
proclaims him to be a member of Britain's aristocracy.

Two ragged youths, the one tall, gaunt, clumsy and scrofulous, the other
with a wild, careless, beautiful look, evidently indicating Race, are
gazing in at the window, not merely at the crowd in the celebrated Club,
but at Timothy the waiter, who is removing a plate of that exquisite
dish, the muffin (then newly invented), at the desire of some of the
revellers within.

"I would, Sam," said the wild youth to his companion, "that I had some
of my mother Macclesfield's gold, to enable us to eat of those cates and
mingle with yon springalds and beaux."

"To vaunt a knowledge of the stoical philosophy," said the youth
addressed as Sam, "might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek
of the parasite of pleasure; but there are moments in life when History
fortifies endurance: and past study renders present deprivation more
bearable. If our pecuniary resources be exiguous, let our resolution,
Dick, supply the deficiencies of Fortune. The muffin we desire to-day
would little benefit us to-morrow. Poor and hungry as we are, are we
less happy, Dick, than yon listless voluptuary who banquets on the food
which you covet?"

And the two lads turned away up Waterloo Place, and past the "Parthenon"
Club-house, and disappeared to take a meal of cow-heel at a neighboring
cook's shop. Their names were Samuel Johnson and Richard Savage.

Meanwhile the conversation at Button's was fast and brilliant. "By
Wood's thirteens, and the divvle go wid 'em," cried the Church dignitary
in the cassock, "is it in blue and goold ye are this morning, Sir
Richard, when you ought to be in seebles?"

"Who's dead, Dean?" said the nobleman, the dean's companion.

"Faix, mee Lard Bolingbroke, as sure as mee name's Jonathan
Swift--and I'm not so sure of that neither, for who knows his father's
name?--there's been a mighty cruel murther committed entirely. A child
of Dick Steele's has been barbarously slain, dthrawn, and quarthered,
and it's Joe Addison yondther has done it. Ye should have killed one of
your own, Joe, ye thief of the world."

"I!" said the amazed and Right Honorable Joseph Addison; "I kill Dick's
child! I was godfather to the last."

"And promised a cup and never sent it," Dick ejaculated. Joseph looked
grave.

"The child I mean is Sir Roger de Coverley, Knight and Baronet. What
made ye kill him, ye savage Mohock? The whole town is in tears about the
good knight; all the ladies at Church this afternoon were in mourning;
all the booksellers are wild; and Lintot says not a third of the copies
of the Spectator are sold since the death of the brave old gentleman."
And the Dean of St. Patrick's pulled out the Spectator newspaper,
containing the well-known passage regarding Sir Roger's death. "I bought
it but now in 'Wellington Street,'" he said; "the newsboys were howling
all down the Strand."

"What a miracle is Genius--Genius, the Divine and Beautiful," said a
gentleman leaning against the same fireplace with the deformed cavalier
in iron-gray, and addressing that individual, who was in fact Mr.
Alexander Pope. "What a marvellous gift is this, and royal privilege
of Art! To make the Ideal more credible than the Actual: to enchain
our hearts, to command our hopes, our regrets, our tears, for a mere
brain-born Emanation: to invest with life the Incorporeal, and to
glamour the cloudy into substance,--these are the lofty privileges of
the Poet, if I have read poesy aright; and I am as familiar with the
sounds that rang from Homer's lyre, as with the strains which celebrate
the loss of Belinda's lovely locks"--(Mr. Pope blushed and bowed, highly
delighted)--"these, I say, sir, are the privileges of the Poet--the
Poietes--the Maker--he moves the world, and asks no lever; if he cannot
charm death into life, as Orpheus feigned to do, he can create Beauty
out of Nought, and defy Death by rendering Thought Eternal. Ho! Jemmy,
another flask of Nantz."

And the boy--for he who addressed the most brilliant company of wits in
Europe was little more--emptied the contents of the brandy-flask into
a silver flagon, and quaffed it gayly to the health of the company
assembled. 'Twas the third he had taken during the sitting. Presently,
and with a graceful salute to the Society, he quitted the coffee-house,
and was seen cantering on a magnificent Arab past the National Gallery.

"Who is yon spark in blue and silver? He beats Joe Addison himself, in
drinking, and pious Joe is the greatest toper in the three kingdoms,"
Dick Steele said, good-naturedly.

"His paper in the Spectator beats thy best, Dick, thou sluggard," the
Right Honorable Mr. Addison exclaimed. "He is the author of that famous
No. 996, for which you have all been giving me the credit."

"The rascal foiled me at capping verses," Dean Swift said, "and won a
tenpenny piece of me, plague take him!"

"He has suggested an emendation in my 'Homer,' which proves him a
delicate scholar," Mr. Pope exclaimed.

"He knows more of the French king than any man I have met with; and we
must have an eye upon him," said Lord Bolingbroke, then Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, and beckoning a suspicious-looking person who
was drinking at a side-table, whispered to him something.

Meantime who was he? where was he, this youth who had struck all the
wits of London with admiration? His galloping charger had returned to
the City; his splendid court-suit was doffed for the citizen's gabardine
and grocer's humble apron.

George de Barnwell was in Chepe--in Chepe, at the feet of Martha
Millwood.


VOL III.

THE CONDEMNED CELL.


"Quid me mollibus implicas lacertis, my Elinor? Nay," George added, a
faint smile illumining his wan but noble features, "why speak to thee in
the accents of the Roman poet, which thou comprehendest not? Bright One,
there be other things in Life, in Nature, in this Inscrutable Labyrinth,
this Heart on which thou leanest, which are equally unintelligible to
thee! Yes, my pretty one, what is the Unintelligible but the Ideal? what
is the Ideal but the Beautiful? what the Beautiful but the Eternal? And
the Spirit of Man that would commune with these is like Him who wanders
by the thina poluphloisboio thalasses, and shrinks awe-struck before
that Azure Mystery."

Emily's eyes filled with fresh-gushing dew. "Speak on, speak ever thus,
my George," she exclaimed. Barnwell's chains rattled as the confiding
girl clung to him. Even Snoggin, the turnkey appointed to sit with the
Prisoner, was affected by his noble and appropriate language, and also
burst into tears.

"You weep, my Snoggin," the Boy said; "and why? Hath Life been so
charming to me that I should wish to retain it? hath Pleasure no
after-Weariness? Ambition no Deception; Wealth no Care; and Glory no
Mockery? Psha! I am sick of Success, palled of Pleasure, weary of Wine
and Wit, and--nay, start not, my Adelaide--and Woman. I fling away all
these things as the Toys of Boyhood. Life is the Soul's Nursery. I am
a Man, and pine for the Illimitable! Mark you me! Has the Morrow any
terrors for me, think ye? Did Socrates falter at his poison? Did Seneca
blench in his bath? Did Brutus shirk the sword when his great stake was
lost? Did even weak Cleopatra shrink from the Serpent's fatal nip? And
why should I? My great Hazard hath been played, and I pay my forfeit.
Lie sheathed in my heart, thou flashing Blade! Welcome to my Bosom, thou
faithful Serpent; I hug thee, peace-bearing Image of the Eternal!
Ha, the hemlock cup! Fill high, boy, for my soul is thirsty for
the Infinite! Get ready the bath, friends; prepare me for the feast
To-morrow--bathe my limbs in odors, and put ointment in my hair."

"Has for a bath," Snoggin interposed, "they're not to be 'ad in this
ward of the prison; but I dussay Hemmy will git you a little hoil for
your 'air."

The Prisoned One laughed loud and merrily. "My guardian understands
me not, pretty one--and thou? what sayest thou? From those dear lips
methinks--plura sunt oscula quam sententiae--I kiss away thy tears,
dove!--they will flow apace when I am gone, then they will dry, and
presently these fair eyes will shine on another, as they have beamed on
poor George Barnwell. Yet wilt thou not all forget him, sweet one. He
was an honest fellow, and had a kindly heart for all the world said--"

"That, that he had," cried the gaoler and the girl in voices gurgling
with emotion. And you who read! you unconvicted Convict--you murderer,
though haply you have slain no one--you Felon in posse if not in
esse--deal gently with one who has used the Opportunity that has failed
thee--and believe that the Truthful and the Beautiful bloom sometimes in
the dock and the convict's tawny Gabardine!

*****

In the matter for which he suffered, George could never be brought to
acknowledge that he was at all in the wrong. "It may be an error of
judgment," he said to the Venerable Chaplain of the gaol, "but it is no
crime. Were it Crime, I should feel Remorse. Where there is no remorse,
Crime cannot exist. I am not sorry: therefore, I am innocent. Is the
proposition a fair one?"