George Daniel

“ At Lee and Harper's grand booth are the celebrated Wooden Horse of Troy, the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and Punch's Opera. A fire-eater is devouring his red-hot element, and his periwigged Jack-Pud-ding is distributing his quack nostrums. A tragedy hero has a brace of bailiffs in his train; and a prize-fighter, with his hare sconce dotted with sable patches, and a nose that might successfully bob for black-beetles against a brick wall, mounted on a blind bone-setter, perambulates the fair, challenging the wide world to mortal combat! ”

“ We have lost our friend rather than our joke, when the joke has been the better of the two; and have been free of discourse where it has been courteously received, preferring (in the cant of pompous ignorance, which is dear at any price!) to make ourselves “cheap” rather than be set down as exclusive and unkind. Disappointments we have had, and sorrows, with ample experience of the world's ingratitude. But life is too short to harbour enmities; and to be resentful is to be unhappy. This may have cast a transient shade over our lucubrations, which let thy happier humour shine upon and dispel! ”

“ Never can I forget your high-toned enthusiasm when you stood in the solemn chancel of Stratford-upon-Avon, pale, breathless, and fixed like marble, before the mausoleum of Shakspeare!”
“An honest and blithesome spirit was the Father of English Poetry! happy in hope, healthful in morals, lofty in imagination, and racy in humour,—a bright earnest of that transcendent genius who, in an after age, shed his mighty lustre over the literature of Europe. The Tabard!—how the heart leaps at the sound! What would Uncle Timothy say if he were here?” ”

“ The little sweep, in process of time, may become a master “chum-mie,” and have (without being obliged to sweep it,) a chimney of his own: but the factory lad sees no prospect of ever emerging from his heart-sickening toil and hopeless dependance; he feels the curse of Cain press heavily upon him. The little sweep has his merry May-day, with its jigs, rough music, gingling money-box, gilt-paper cocked-hat, and gay patchwork paraphernalia. All days are alike to the factory lad,—“E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to him.” His rest will be the Sabbath of the tomb! ”

“ MERRIE ENGLAND IN THE OLDEN TIME.
INTRODUCTION. Youth is the season of ingenuousness and enjoyment, when we desire to please, and blush not to own ourselves pleased. At that happy period there is no affectation of wisdom; we look only to the bright and beautiful: we inquire not whether it be an illusion; it is sufficient that fairy land, with its flowers of every hue, is the path on which we tread. To youth succeeds manhood, with its worldly prudence: then we are taught to take nothing, not even happiness, upon trust; to investigate until we are lost in the intricacies of detail ”

“ To chronicle the “Painful Peregrinations” of Uncle Timothy through this livelong day, would exhibit him, like “Patience,” not sitting “on a monument, smiling at grief,” but lolling in Mr. Bosky's britschka, laughing (in his sleeve!) at the strange peculiarities of the Muffs, and listening with mild endurance to the unaccountable antipathies of Mrs. Flumgarten. Now the Fubsys might be called, par excellence, a prudent family.
And Prudence is a nymph we much admire,
She loves to aid the hypocrite and liar,
Helping poor rascals through the mire,
Whom filth and infamy begrime ”

“ But gratitude, the most dignified return we can lavish on our benefactor, is the silent aspiration of the heart, and must not, good Benjamin, be placarded on every wall, like a play-bill, a lottery puff, or thy rigmarole ballads, three yards for a penny! There is not a being, however humble his station, but may find some deserving object to awake his friendship and share his benevolence. And be assured, dear Benjamin, that a judicious and timely distribution of fortune's good gifts is the best preparation for that final moment when we must resign them altogether. ”

“ Cast our nabs and cares away,— This is Beggars' Holiday; In the world look out and see Who's so happy a king as he? At the crowning of our king, Thus we ever dance and sing. Where's the nation lives so free And so merry as do we? Be it peace, or be it war, Here at liberty we are. Hang all Harmanbccks! we cry, And the Cuffinquiers, too, by. We enjoy our ease and rest, To the fields we are not press'd; When the subsidy's increas'd, We are not a penny cost; Nor are we called into town To be troubled with a gown; Nor will any go to law With a beggar for a straw. ”

“ Of all the mad rascals that belong to this fraternity, the Abraham-Man is the most fantastic. He calls himself by the name of Poor Tom, and, coming near to any one, cries out “Poor Tom's a-cold!” Some are exceedingly merry, and do nothing but sing songs, fashioned out of their own brains; some will dance; others will do nothing but laugh or weep; others are dogged, and so sullen, both in look and speech, that, spying but small company in a house, they boldly enter, compelling the servants, through fear, to give them what they demand, which is commonly something that will yield ready money. ”

“ Steal if thou canst into our good graces; redeem thy turpitude by emulating at least one part of the beggars' calling, ballad-singing. Manifest thy deep contrition by a song.”
“A bargain, Uncle Timothy. If thou wilt rake from a sly corner of that old curiosity shop, thy brain, some pageant of the ancient brethren of Bull-Feathers-Hall. What place more fitting for such pleasant chronicle, than the Horns at Highgate?”
This proposal being assented to by the middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Bosky “rosined,” (swallowed a bumper) and sounded a musical flourish as a preludio. ”

“ He listened with becoming seriousness to the musician's expostulation, slyly reserving in the corner of his jaw a nut that he deferred to crack till opportunity should offer. But at the threat of losing his red waistcoat, he gibbered, chattered, and by every species of pantomimical begging and bowing, promised future amendment.
Had not the mind of Uncle Timothy been too much occupied with recent events, he would have scraped acquaintance with monkey and man, who were evidently eccentrics, and Uncle Tim was a lover of eccentricity. ”

“ Uncle Timothy was the last person in the world to flout a threadbare coat, because it is threadbare, or take a man for a sharper because he happens to be sharp-witted or sharp-set. Your full-fed fool he thought quite as likely to have nefarious designs on his purse, as the hungry humorist who at once lets you into the secret of his starvation. ”

“ But we tell such pretenders, that they are alike ignorant of nature and philosophy. Men of the most exalted genius have been remarkable for their urbanity, and even child-like simplicity of manners: and it was one of the many interesting traits in the author of Waverley, that, in the “sear and yellow leaf,” he had nothing of age but the name; but retained all the spirit, the romance, the gaiety of his youthful days.
The world would have called Uncle Timothy idle—but
“How various his employments, whom the world
Calls idle, and who justly in return
Esteems the busy world an idler too!” ”

“ Just as Brutus was fetching breath for another ebullition, with his hand on the decanter for another bumper, he found himself half throttled in the Cornish hug of his affectionate and blubbering first-born! When a chimney caught fire, it was a custom in Merrie England to drop down it a live goose, in the quality of extinguisher! And no goose ever performed its office better than the living Guy. ”

“ We lose all sympathy for the past; the future is the subject of our anxious speculation; caution and re serve are our guardian angels; and if the heart still throb with a fond emotion, we stifle it with what speed we may, as detrimental to our interests, and unworthy our new-born intelligence and philosophy. A short acquaintance with the world will convince the most sanguine that this stage is not the happiest; that ambition and mercenary cares make up the tumultuous scene ”

“ Bartholomew, let us halt at the Tabard, and snatch a brief association with Chaucer and his Pilgrims. The localities that were once hallowed by the presence of genius we ardently seek after, and fondly trace through all their obscurities, and regard them with as true a devotion as does the pilgrim the sacred shrine to which, after his patiently-endured perils by sea and land, he offers his adoration. The humblest roof gathers glory from the bright spirit that once irradiated it; the simplest relic becomes a precious gem, when connected with the gifted and the good. ”

“ Off bolted Betty,—she was speedily recalled: “Betty, make it half a quartern loaf and a quartern of gin.” But Betty had never got fairly across the threshold, ere the voice was again heard:—“Betty, on second thoughts, you may as well make it all gin!”
he dug his grave with his bottle, and gave up the ghost amidst a troop of spirits. Peace to his manes! Cold is the cheerful hearth, where he familiarly stirred the embers and silent the walls that echoed to “Old Wigs!” chanted by Jeffery Dunstan when he danced hop-scotch on a table spread out with tumblers and tobacco-pipes! ”

“ Piscator is a cowardly rogue to sit upon a fair bank, the sun shining above, and the pure stream rippling beneath, with his instruments of death, playing pang against pang, and life against life, for his contemplative recreation. ”

“ He longs to see the world; and having with due ceremony arranged his wardrobe, put money in his purse, and procured his passport to strange lands, he sets forward, buttoned up in his native consequence, to the capital of the grand monarque, to rattle dice, and drink champagne. His expectations are not the most reasonable. Without considering the different manners and customs of foreign parts, he bends to nobody, yet takes it as an affront if everybody bend not to him! ”

“ Some time since there was brought to Miles's Music-house at Islington, a strange sort of a monster, that does everything like a monkey, but is not a monkey; mimics man, like a jackanapes, but is not a jackanapes; jumps upon tables, and into windows upon all-fours, like a cat, but is not a cat; does all things like a beast, but is not a beast; does nothing like a man, but is a man! He has given such wonderful content to the Butchers of Clare Market, that the house is every day as full as the Bear Gardens ”

“ CHAPTER X. Give me a woman as old as Hecuba, or as ugly as Caifacaratadaddera, rather than Mrs. Flumgarten! Were the annoyance confined to herself, I should cry, 'Content,'—for she who sows nettles and thorns is entitled to reap a stinging and prickly harvest. Ill temper should ride quarantine, and have a billet de santé, before it is let loose upon society.”
These were among the ruminations of Uncle Timothy as he sauntered homeward through the green fields. ”

“ He exhibits the terrible passions, and their consequences, with almost superhuman power. Every stroke of his pencil points a moral; every object, however insignificant, has its meaning. His detail is marvellous, and bespeaks a mind pregnant with illustration, an eye that nothing could escape. Bysshe's Art of Poetry, the well-chalked tally, the map of the gold mines, and the starved cur making off with the day's lean provision, are in perfect keeping with the distressed poet's ragged finery, his half-mended breeches, and all the exquisite minutiae of his garret. ”

“ The Frape being thus assembled in the lower room, and the better sort being climbed into the gallery, a little creature, who before walked erect, and bore the image of a man, transformed himself into a monkey, and began to entertain the company with such a parcel of pretty pug's tricks, and mimical actions, that they were all as intent upon the baboon's vagaries as if a mandrake had been tumbling through a hoop, or a hobgoblin dancing an antick! ”

“ What its cure?
“'Tis health, 'tis air, 'tis exercise—
Fling but a stone, the giant dies!”
The money-grub, pent up in a close city, eating the bread of carefulness, and with the fear of the shop always before his eyes, is not industrious. He is the droning, horse-in-a-mill creature of habit,—like a certain old lady of our acquaintance, who every morning was the first up in the house, and good-for-nothing afterwards. A century ago the advantages of early rising to the citizen were far more numerous than at present. ”

“ We are of the hopeful order of beings, and think this world a very beautiful world, if man would not mar it with his pride, selfishness, and gloom.
It has been a maxim among all great and wise nations to encourage public sports and diversions. The advantages that arise from them to a state; the benefit they are to all degrees of the people; the right purposes they may be made to serve in troublesome times, have generally been so well understood by the ruling powers, that they have seldom permitted them to suffer from the assaults of narrow-minded and ignorant reformers. ”

“ At Chalk Farm there was a regular fair,— with swings, roundabouts, ups-and-downs, gingerbread-stalls, theatres, donkey-races, penny chaises, and puppet-shows, representing the Islington murder, the Queen's marriage, the arrival of Prince Albert, and the departure of the Chartist rioters! Hampstead Heath, and the surrounding villages, turned out their studs of Jerusalem ponies. Copenhagen House, Hornsey Wood House and the White Conduit, echoed with jollity; the holiday-makers amusing themselves with cricket, fives, and archery. ”