Charles Stuart Calverley

“ (Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.
The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these. ”

“ Fond hands caress me oftentimes, yet would that I might die!
Why was I born to be abhorr’d of man and bird and beast?
The bulfinch marks me stealing by, and straight his song hath ceased;
p. 40The shrewmouse eyes me shudderingly, then flees; and, worse than that,
The housedog he flees after me—why was I born a cat?
Men prize the heartless hound who quits dry-eyed his native land;
Who wags a mercenary tail and licks a tyrant hand.
The leal true cat they prize not, that if e’er compell’d to roam
Still flies, when let out of the bag, precipitately home. ”

“ Life is with such all beer and skittles;
They are not difficult to please
About their victuals:
p. ”

“ And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet;
When the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavour
To discover—but whatever were the hour, it would be sweet.
“To their feet,” I say, for Leech’s sketch indisputably teaches
That the mermaids of our beaches do not end in ugly tails,
p. 9Nor have homes among the corals; but are shod with neat balmorals,
An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many might with scales.
Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course with some young lady,
Lalage, Neæra, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary Ann:
Love, you dear delusive dream, you! ”

“ Or if learned, on nodes and the moon’s apogees,
Or, if serious, on something of AKHB’s,
Or the latest attempt to convert the Chaldees;
Or in short about all things, from earthquakes to fleas.
Some sit in twos or (less frequently) threes,
With their innocent lambswool or book on their knees,
And talk, and enact, any nonsense you please,
As they gaze into eyes that are blue as the seas ”

“ Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star:
And thou hintest withal that thou fain would’st shine,
p. 21As I con them, these bulgy old boots of mine.
But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eat’st eel-pie,
Thou evermore hast at least one black eye;
There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues
Are due not to nature but handling shoes;
And the hit in thy mouth, I regret to see,
Is a bit of tobacco-pipe—Flee, child, flee! ”

“ Lads and “fair shes” (that is Byron, and he’s
An authority) lie very much at their ease;
Taking their teas, or their duck and green peas,
Or, if they prefer it, their plain bread and cheese:
Not objecting at all though it’s rather a squeeze
And the glass is, I daresay, at 80 degrees.
Some get up glees, and are mad about Ries
And Sainton, and Tamberlik’s thrilling high Cs;
p. 90Or if painters, hold forth upon Hunt and Maclise,
And the tone and the breadth of that landscape of Lee’s ”

“ And (in spite of the pleas of her lorn vis-a-vis)
Goes to wrap up her uncle—a patient of Skey’s,
Who is prone to catch chills, like all old Bengalese:—
But at bedtime I trust he’ll remember to grease
The bridge of his nose, and preserve his rupees
From the premature clutch of his fond legatees ”

“ O my own, my beautiful, my blue eyed!
To be young once more, and bite my thumb
At the world and all its cares with you, I’d
Give no inconsiderable sum. ”

“ When, heard only by the seamew, they talk all the stuff one can.
Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinkerton the glover,
Having managed to discover what is dear Neæra’s “size”:
p. 10P’raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your tiny gift you tender,
And to read you’re no offender, in those laughing hazel eyes.
Then to hear her call you “Harry,” when she makes you fetch and carry—
O young men about to marry, what a blessed thing it is!
To be photograph’d—together—cased in pretty Russia leather—
Hear her gravely doubting whether they have spoilt your honest phiz! ”

“ Two of Jingle’s speeches are here quoted, the first being in Chapter III., and the second in Chapter II. For “Spanish traveller” see Chapter III., and for “narcotic bedstead” see Chapter XLI. “Go on, Jemmy,” is Mr. Jingle’s adjuration to the actor whom he has previously designated “Dismal Jemmy,” urging the commencement of the ‘Stroller’s Tale.’ “Like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs” has the double application to the stroller’s melancholy and the first line of Gay’s song of ‘Black-eyed Susan’—“All in the Downs the fleet was moored.” ”

“ Give Weller’s Theories for the extraction of Mr. Pickwick from the Fleet. Where was his wife’s will found?
18. How did the old lady make a memorandum, and of what, at whist? Show that there were at least three times as many fiddles as harps in Muggleton at the time of the ball at Manor Farm.
19. What is a red-faced Nixon?
20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. S. Weller’s song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man’s excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that he (Sam) had more brothers than one? ”

“ For I’ve read in many a novel that, unless they’ve souls that grovel,
Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls:
To sit, happy married lovers; ”

“ disasters have their use;
And life might e’en be too sunshiny:
Nor would I make myself a goose,
If some big dog should swallow Tiny. ”

“ Ives!
p. 44Had I, as some cats have, nine tails, how gladly I would lick
The hand, and person generally, of him who heaved that brick!
For me they fill the milkbowl up, and cull the choice sardine:
But ah! I nevermore shall be the cat I once have been!
The memories of that fatal night they haunt me even now:
In dreams I see that rampant He, and tremble at that Miaow. ”

“ Mention any occasions on which it is specified that the Fat Boy was not asleep; and that (1) Mr. Pickwick and (2) Mr. Weller, senr., ran. Deduce from expressions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick’s maximum of speed.
2. Translate into coherent English, adding a note wherever a word, a construction, or an allusion, requires it:
“Go on, Jemmy—like black-eyed Susan—all in the Downs”—“Smart chap that cabman—handled his fives well—but if I’d been your friend in the green jemmy—punch his head—pig’s whisper—pieman, too.” ”

“ Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal.
(Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You’re in Euclid now.)
So, having the shilling—having i’ fact a lot—
And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them,
I purchased, as I think I said before,
The pebble (lapis, lapidis, -di, -dem, -de—
What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?)
O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun,
For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d;
Investigates and re-investigates.
Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. ”

“ I cannot sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem them low;
’Tis that I can’t remember how
They go. ”

“ Weller, senior, define the Funds, and what view did he take of Reduced Consols? in what terms is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins at the meeting? Write down the name of the meeting?
25. “Πςοβατογνώμων: a good judge of cattle; hence, a good judge of character.” Note on Æsch. Ag.—Illustrate the theory involved by a remark of the parent Weller.
26. Give some account of the word “fanteeg,” and hazard any conjecture explanatory of the expression “My Prooshan Blue,” applied by Mr. Samuel to Mr. Tony Weller. ”

“ Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween; ”

“ Pickwick. “Friend in the green jemmy” refers to Mr. Winkle, who, we are told in Chapter I., “wore a new green shooting-coat,” &c. “Pig’s whisper” is slang for a very brief space of time. Bartlett says the Americans have “pig’s whistle” the same signification. ”

“ Concordat—ay, “agrees,” old Fatchaps—cum
Nominativo, with its nominative,
Genere, i’ point o’ gender, numero,
O’ number, et persona, and person. Ut,
Instance: Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and,
Montes umbrantur, out flounce mountains. Pah!
Excuse me, sir, I think I’m going mad.
You see the trick on’t though, and can yourself
Continue the discourse ad libitum.
It takes up about eighty thousand lines,
A thing imagination boggles at:
And might, odds-bobs, sir! in judicious hands,
Extend from here to Mesopotamy. ”

“ As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun. ”

“ To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover’s
Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn,
p. 12Or dissects the lucky pheasant—that, I think, were passing pleasant;
As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun. ”

“ Also, ill-humour.—Various Dialects.”—Halliwell. “Prooshan blue” probably refers to the colour of dress-coats. “Which gentleman of your party wears a bright blue dress-coat?” enquires The Boots, in ‘Pickwick,’ Chapter II. Thus Sam Weller’s “Prooshan Blue” is a finely-dressed fellow of the Pickwick-Weller period. ”

“ Weller and the town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter was ultimately eliminated, and state the number of rounds in the square which is not described.
12. “Any think for air and exercise; as the wery old donkey observed ven they yoke him up from his deathbed to carry ten gen’lmen to Greenwich in a tax-cart.” ”

“ ’tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem’d it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view? ”