George Daniel

“ His distempered vision conjures up a dwarf or a giant; hence Time is too short, or Time is too long! Now Time hangs heavy on his hands; yet for most things he cannot find Time! Though fame-serving, he makes a lackey of Time; asking Time to pay his debts; Time to eat his dinner; Time for all things! He abuses those, that never gave him a hard word; and, in a fit of ennui, to get rid of himself he kills Time; which is never recovered, but lost in Eternity!” And Uncle Timothy, keeping time and the tune, sang his retrospective song of
OLD TIME. From boyhood to manhood, in fair and rough weather. ”

“ Old Time brought me friendship, and swift flew the
hours;
Life seem'd an Elysium of sunshine and flowers!
The flowers, but in memory, bear odour and bloom;
And the sun set on friendship, laid low in the tomb!
Yet, Time, shall I blame thee, tho' youth's happy glow
Is fled from my cheeks, that my locks are grey?—No!
What more can I wish (not abusing my prime)
To pilot me home, than a friend like Old Time?
CHAPTER IX. 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.” ”

“ Place us above the sordid vulgar; light us on that enviable medium between competency and riches, and there we shall find the domestic virtues flourishing in full vigour and grace. In the rank hotbed of artificial life spring up those noxious weeds that choke and destroy them.
We now arrived at Uncle Timothy's cottage, reared in the midst of a flower garden. In a summer-house fragrant with roses, woodbine, and jessamine sat our host and the good pastor. ”

“ But his empty quart bottles, with “their necks downwards,” produced him not the price of a full one; his glass globe Louis Ragout valued not the straw that stood erect upon it; and his nose, sustaining on its tip a sharp-pointed sword, put not a morsel into his mouth; so that, finding his wire and trade equally slack, and that he could balance everything but his accounts, he took his French boots and French leave; left his board for his lodging, and his chair for his cheer, hoping to experience better luck at Bartholomew Fair! ”

“ Arthur Griffinhoof has joined the jocund spirits of Garrick, Hoadly, and the elder George. Rejoice, ye witlings! for the lamp that dimmed your little farthing rushlights, Death, the universal extinguisher, has eclipsed for ever! Retailers of small talk, who fattened on the unctuous crumbs of conceit that fell from the merry man's table, make the most of your legacy: your master hath carried his Broad Grins to Elysium. Ye select few, who admired the wit and loved the man, mourn! ”

“ Mine host of the Ram now entered with a curiously compounded mug of mum, in which the great Tragedian (who was not particular from Clos Vougeot to Old Tom) drank the Stage that goes with and without wheels. Mr. Bosky, who had got scent of our “Whereabouts,” arrived in time to propose the memory of Shakspere, and Mr. Bubangrub's longevity; Uncle Timothy gave Bonassus Bigstick and Bartlemy Fair; and Pegasus toasted the Tragic Muse and Teresa Tumbletuzzy. The Tragedian unbent by degrees; his adust countenance warmed into flesh and blood, and he grew facetious and festive. ”

“ The forsaken of Lady Fortune snuff the candles,—Folly makes the concert,—and Time drops the curtain!
In a half sportive, half melancholy mood, we record this description of the tragi-comedy of human life. To weep, like Heraclitus, might exalt us to philanthropists; to make the distresses of mankind a theme of derision would brand us as buffoons. Though inclining to the example of Democritus,—for life is too short seriously to grapple with the thousand absurdities that daily demand refutation,—we take the middle course. ”

“ Believing that thou art merry and wise; sightly, sprightly; learned, yet nothing loth to laugh; as we first met in a mutual spirit of communication and kindness, so we part. And when good fortune shall again throw us into thy company, not forgetting Mr. Bosky and the middle-aged gentleman with the satirical nose! we shall be happy to shake thy hand, ay, and thy sides to boot, with some merry tale or ballad, * (“Mirth, in seasonable time taken, is not forbidden by the austerest sapients,”) if haply time spare us one to tell or sing. ”

“ How much more needful, sons of repletion! is reform to you, than the showman, who seldom sees any punch but his own; the Jack-Pudding, who grins wofully for a slice of his namesake; and the “strong man,” who gets little else between his teeth but his table! Why not be merry your own way, and let mountebanks be merry theirs? ”

“ When the maidens died “they gave those pleasant fields unto the London citizens, “Where lovingly both man and wife May take the evening air; And London dames to dry their cloaths May hither still repair!”
Then was Osier Lane (the Smithfield end of which is immortalised in Bartholomew Fair annals) a long narrow slip of greensward, watered on both sides by a tributary streamlet from the river Fleet, on the margin of which grew a line of osiers, that hung gracefully over its banks. ”

“ But, knowing that there are as many kinds of minds as moss, he opened his inquisitorial battery upon the waterman. At first Barney Binnacle, though a pundit among the wet wags of Wapping Old Stairs, fought shy; but there is a freemasonry in fun; and by degrees he ran through all the changes from the simple leer to the broad grin and horse-laugh, as Mr. Bosky “poked” his droll sayings into him. ”

“ Now our song and dance are done,
Home we hasten every one.
Messrs. Crape, Crambo, Sable, Shovelton, Hatband, and Stiflegig, joined a pleasant party outside of a hearse that had been doing duty in the neighbourhood; and an empty mourning-coach accommodated Mr. Rasp, Mr. Bluemould, Dr. Dose, and Professor Nogo. Mr. Furnish, and a few, heated with wine, took water; but as the moon had just emerged from behind a black cloud, and shone with mild lustre, we preferred walking, particularly with the jocular companionship of Mr. Bosky and Mr. Merripall. And Death's door was closed for the night. ”

“ Bosky. Is to want a shilling, to want every virtue? Men think highly of those who rapidly rise in the world; whereas nothing rises quicker than dust, straw, and feathers! Would you provide no asylum for adversity, sickness, and old age? ”

“ When the friends of our youth are fast dying away; when the scenes that once delighted us are fading from our view, and new connections and objects ill repay the loss of the old, how welcome the summons that closes our disappointments and calls us to rest! ”

“ As a dramatist, he excelled all his contemporaries in originality, character, and humour. As long as a true taste for literature shall prevail, Goldsmith will rank as one of its brightest ornaments: for while he delighted the imagination, and alternately moved the heart to joy or sorrow, he “gave ardour to virtue and confidence to truth.” A tale of woe was a certain passport to his compassion; and he has given his last guinea to an indigent suppliant. To Goldsmith has been imputed a vain ambition to shine in company ”

“ A day of mirth will it be on Styx, when the ferryman rows over Mr. Merryman. Faith, Mr. Colman, you're a very droll man! What a coil attends the new comer! Churchill, Lloyd, Thornton, Garrick, all inquiring about the modern Dram. Pers.—“Ye jovial goblins,” quoth George, “a Dram, per se!” Whereupon Sam—not the lexicographer—marching forth his wooden leg, accepts, with an approving chuckle, the pun as Foote-ing, or garnish; they are hail spirit well met, and become as merry as ghosts. Life's a Jest; and a merrier one than thine, facetious George, Time shall not crack till the crack of doom. ”

“ It was his blithesome note that first made us acquainted with Uncle Timothy!
The remembrance of boyhood is ever pleasing to the reflective mind. The duties that await us in after-life; the cares and disappointments that obstruct our future progress cast a shade over those impressions that were once interwoven with our existence. ”

“ The fair was lighted up, and the fun grew “fast and furious” beginning with a loud chorus of acclamation, and so running on through the whole Sol fa of St. Bartlemy delight. There was a blended incarnation of kettle-drums, fifes, fiddles, French horns, rattles, trumpets, and gongs! ”

“ The enthusiasm of the audience did not end here. They called for the Call-boy, and the Candle-snuffer, whose bliss would have felt no cc aching void” had a “bit of bacon” accompanied, by way of a relish, this kitchen garden of cabbage.
The bells of St. Bartholomew chimed the hour when churchyards and “Charlies” yawn; upon which the illuminations and mob went out, and away, and Momus looked as down in the mouth as a convolvulus. ”

“ Centuries have brought no improvement to it. The modern jockeys and chaunters are not a whit less rogues than the ancient “horse-coursers,” and the many odd traits of character that marked its former heroes, the swash-bucklers, * are deplorably wanting in the present race of irregulars, who are monotonous bullies, without one redeeming dash of eccentricity or humour. The stream of time, that is continually washing away the impurities of other murky neighbourhoods, passes, without irrigating, Smithfield's blind alleys and the squalid faces of their inhabitants. ”

“ And moreover it was the Archbishop's command to his servants, that all strangers should be receive and treated with all manner of civility and respect.” The poor and hungry fed and treated with “civility and respect!” What a poser and pill for Geordie M'Sneeshing and Professor M'Grab!
Mr. Bosky. I would see that they were fed first, and then, if I reproved, my reproof should be no pharisaical diatribes. The bitterest reproaches fall short of that pain which a wounded spirit suffers in reflecting on its own errors; a lash given to the soul will provoke more than the body's most cruel torture. ”

“ Bosky, thinking that at some former period of our lives we might have beheld the masts and sails of a ship, the steeple of a church, the smoke of a patent shot manufactory, the coal-whippers weighing out their black diamonds, a palace, and a penitentiary, forbore to expatiate on the picturesque objects that presented themselves to our passing view ”

“ What have we done? the wretched bailiffs cry, That th' only man by whom we liv'd, should die! Enrag'd, they gnaw their wax, and tear their writs, While butchers' wives fall in hysteric fits; For sure as they're alive, poor Spiller's dead; But, thanks to Jack Legar! we've got his head. He was an inoffensive, merry fellow, When sober, hipp'd; blythe as a bird, when mellow.” For Spiller's benefit ticket, engraved by Hogarth, twelve guineas have been given! There is another, of more dramatic interest, with portraits of himself and his wife in the Cobbler of Preston. ”

“ His voice, too, has Avaxed more fat and unctuous; and broader (like his figure) has grown his fun. The stage became possessed of a new character, such as humourist had never before conceived, or player played—Mr. Liston!—The town roared with laughter; actors split their sides at his deepening gravity; caricaturists, in despair, cast off invention, and trusted solely to his unique lineaments; our signs bore aloft his physiognomical wonders; and walking- sticks, tobacco-stoppers, snuff-boxes, owned the queer impeachment. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The feverish bliss, my friend, that dreamers feign, Binds him a prisoner faster to his chain. The miser to his treasure, and the proud To pride and its dominion;—to his gorge The glutton;—and the low promiscuous crowd To sordid sensualities, that forge The unseen fetters, which so firmly bind, Are all ignobly bound in body;—mind. He only is a free man, who, like thee, Does stand aloof, and mark the wild uproar That shakes the depths of life's tempestuous sea; And steers his fragile bark along the shore. The swelling canvass and the prosperous gale Herald the shipwreck's melancholy tale! ”

“ But a poor mans blessing is a treasure of which Heaven keeps the register and the key.”
Barney Binnacle bent on Mr. Bosky another inquiring look, that seemed to say, “Mayhap I've got a bishop on board.”
“If every gentleman was like your honour,” replied Barney, “we should have better times; and a poor fellow wouldn't pull up and down this blessed river sometimes for days together, without yarning a copper to carry home to his hungry wife and children.” And he dropped his oar, and drew the sleeve of his threadbare blue jacket across his weather-beaten cheek. ”

“ Chorus.
The blossoms fall, and the leaves are sear,
And merry merry Christmas will soon be here;
I wish you, gentles, a happy new year,
A pocket full of money, and a barrel full of beer!
A messenger arrived with a despatch for Mr. Merripall, announcing the demise of Alderman Callipash. There was an immediate movement on the part of the mutes.
“Gentlemen,” said the president, “no such violent hurry; the alderman will wait for us. Our parting toast first—The Dance of Death! Come, brother Crape, strike up the tune, and lead the carant.” ”