Various

“ Formerly the knocker was devoted entirely to the menial occupation of announcing, by a single dab, or a variation of raps, the desire of persons on the door-step to communicate with the occupants of the interior of a mansion. Modern genius has elevated it into a source of refined pleasure and practical humour, affording at the same time employment to the artisan, excitement to the gentleman, and broken heads and dislocations of every variety to the police! ”

“ If our musical composers would attend more closely than they have been in the habit of doing, to the minutiæ of the scene which is intrusted to them to illustrate, and study the delicate lights and shades of human nature, as we behold it nightly on the Surrey stage, we might confidently hope, at no very distant period, to see melo-drama take the lofty position it deserves in the histrionic literature of this country. ”

“ John Smith—our own John Smith—your John Smith—everybody’s John Smith—again entered the arm-chair of our affections, the fire of our love stirred, like a self-acting poker, the embers of cooling good fellowship, and the strong blaze of resuscitated friendship burst forth with all its pristine warmth. John Smith wore Bluchers but he wore them like an honest man ”

“ On Thursday, July 8, 1841, the celebrated pack of Knocker Boys met at the Cavendish, in Jermyn Street. These animals, which have acquired for themselves a celebrity as undying as that of Tom and Jerry, are of a fine powerful breed, and in excellent condition. The success which invariably attends them must be highly gratifying to the distinguished nobleman who, if he did not introduce this particular species into the metropolis, has at least done much to bring it to its present extraordinary state of perfection. ”

“ This is real acting that one pays one’s money to see, and not such an unblushing imposition as Miss Tree practises upon us. Do we go to the play to see nature? of course not: we only desire to see the actors playing at being natural, like Mr. Gallot, Mr. Howe, Mr. Worral, or Mr. Kean, and other actors. This system of being too natural will, in the end, be the ruin of the drama. ”

“ The struggle for the independence of Ballinafad has commenced! Griggles, the opposition candidate, is in the field, backed by a vile faction. The rank, wealth, and independence of Ballinafad are all ranged under the banner of Figsby and freedom. A party of Griggles’ voters have just marched into the town, preceded by a piper and a blind fiddler, playing the most obnoxious tunes. ”

“ When a new farce begins with duck and green peas, it promises well; the sympathies of the audience are secured, especially as the curtain rises but a short time before every sober play-goer is ready for his supper. Mr. Gabriel Snoxall is seated before the comsstibles above mentioned—he is just established in a new lodging. It is snug—the furniture is neat—being his own property, for he is an unfurnished lodger. A bachelor so situated must be a happy fellow. Mr. Snoxall is happy—a smile radiates his face—he takes wine with himself ”

“ See how gently he leans over the filly’s neck; while the chesnut’s rider turns his eyes, like a boiled lobster, almost to the back of his head! Oh, he’s awake! he still keeps the lead: but the grey filly is nothing but a good ‘un. Now, the Top-boots riding her have become excited, and commence tickling her sides with their flashing silver spurs, putting an extra foot into every bound. She gains upon the chesnut! This is something like a race! The distance-post is reached! The Top-boots on the grey are at work again. Bravo! the tip of the white nose is beyond the level of the opposing boots! ”

“ Large black clouds, like chimney-sweepers’ feather-beds, scudded over our heads, and the rain came pouring down like—like winking. Tom had been promoted, and was sent up aloft to reef a sail, when one of the horses giving way, down came Tom Johnson, and snap went a leg and an arm. ”

“ It has often struck us forcibly that the science of melo-dramatic music has been hitherto very imperfectly understood amongst us. The art of making “the sound an echo of the sense”—of expressing, by orchestral effects, the business of the drama, and of forming a chromatic commentary to the emotions of the soul and the motions of the body, has been shamefully neglected on the English stage. Ignorant composers and ignoble fiddlers have attempted to develop the dark mysteries and intricate horrors of the melo-drama ”

“ As for the debates in parliament, they have no more to do with the real affairs of the country than the gossip of the apple-women in Palace-yard. They’re made, like the maccaroni in Naples, for the poor to swallow; and so that they gulp down length, they think, poor fellows, they get strength. But for the real affairs of the country! Who shall tell what correspondence can be conveyed in a warming-pan, what intelligence—for
“There may be wisdom in a papillote” ”

“ Ay, worse than nothing—a chancery suit without money—an Old Bailey culprit without an alibi—a debtor without an excuse—a new play without a titled author—a manager without impudence—a thief without a character—a lawyer without a wig—or a Guy Faux without matches! ”

“ The world is treated with a very small proportion of very small jockeys; they never increase beyond a certain number, which proves they are not born in the regular way: as the old ones drop off, the young ones just fill their places, and not one to spare. Whoever heard of a “mob of jockeys,” a glut of “light-weights,” or even a handful of “feathers?”—no one!
It’s like Freemasonry—it’s an awful mystery! Bill Scott knows all about the one, and the Duke of Sussex knows all about the other, but the uninitiated know nothing of either! Jockeys are wonders—so are their boots! ”

“ Don’t trust ‘em, reader; they are sure to do you! there’s deceit in their straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. ”

“ Dunne Brown, a captain by courtesy, and Snoxall’s neighbour by misfortune. Here business begins.
The ancient natural historian has divided the genus homo into the two grand divisions of victimiser and victim. Behold one of each class before you—the yeast and sweat-wort, as it were, which brew the plot! Brown invites himself to dinner, and does the invitation ample justice; for he finds the peas as green as the host; who he determines shall be done no less brown than the duck. ”

“ He is an actor! What a deep voice—what an interesting lisp—what a charming whine—what a vigorous stamp, he hath! How hard he strikes his forehead when he is going into a rage—how flat he falls upon the ground when he is going to die! ”

“ Snoxall is angry, for he is hungry; but, good easy man, allows himself to be mollified to a degree of softness that allows Mr. Brown to borrow, not only his tables and chairs, but his coat, hat, and watch; just, too, in the very nick of time, for the bailiffs are announced. What is the hunted creditor to do? Exit by the window to be sure.
A character invented by farce-writers, and retained exclusively for their use—for such folks are seldom met with out of a farce—lives in the next street. ”

“ PUNCH.—David Hume was one of the wonders of the earth—he was a lazy Scotchman; but had he searched the State Paper Office, he would have found the documents there—yes, the very Acts of Parliament—the very printed rollers. To those rollers Queen Elizabeth owed her knowledge of the English Constitution.
READER.—Explain—I can’t see how.
PUNCH.—Then you are very dull. Is not Parliament the assembled wisdom of the country?
READER.—By a fiction, Mr. PUNCH.
PUNCH—Very well, Mr. Reader; what’s all the world but a fiction? I say, the assembled wisdom ”

“ At length the real Selbourne enters, and all supposition ends, as does the farce, poetical justice being administered upon the captain by courtesy, by the bailiffs who arrest him. Thus he, at last, becomes really Mr. Dunne Brown.
The farce was successful, for the actors were perfect, and the audience good-humoured. We need hardly say who played the hero; and having named Wrench, as the nephew, who was much as usual, everybody will know how. Mr. David Rees is well adapted for Snoxall, being a good figure for the part, especially in the duck-and-green-peas season. ”

“ As there may be some of our readers who are ignorant of the purposes for which this invaluable pack has been organised, it may be as well to state a few particulars, before proceeding to the detail of one of the most splendid nights upon record in the annals of disorderism.
The knocker is a thing which is generally composed of brass or iron. It has frequently a violent resemblance to the “human face divine,” or the ravenous expressiveness of a beast of prey. ”

“ A barrel of beer has been broached at Griggles’ committee-rooms. We are all in a state of the greatest excitement.
Half-past Eight.—Mr. Figsby is this moment proceeding from his hotel to the hustings, surrounded by his friends and a large body of the independent teetotal electors. A wheelbarrow full of rotten eggs has been sent up to the hustings, to be used, as occasion requires, by the Figsby voters, who are bent upon
“GOING THE WHOLE HOG.”
A serious riot has occurred at the town pump, where two of the independent teetotalers have been ducked by the opposite party. ”

“ It is reported that Figsby has resigned! I am able to contradict the gross falsehood. Mr. F. is now addressing the electors from his committee-room window, and has this instant received a plumper—in the eye—in the shape of a rotten potato. I have ascertained that the casualties amount to no more than six men, two pigs, and two policemen, killed; thirteen men, women, and children, wounded.
Four o’clock—State of the poll up to this time:—
The poll-clerks on both sides are drunk, the assessor has closed the booths, and I am grieved to inform you that Griggles has just been duly elected. ”

“ The example of many of our most successful literary chiffonniers, who have not thought it disgraceful to publish scraps of private history and unedited scandal, picked up by them in the houses to which they happened to be admitted, will, it is presumed, sufficiently justify my daughter in communicating, for the amusement of an enlightened public, and the benefit of an affectionate parent, a few circumstances connected with Briggs’ family, with such observations and reflections of her own as would naturally suggest themselves to a refined and intelligent mind. ”

“ I’m only thinking what sport I shall have with the bedchamber women. But out they must go. The constitution gives a minister the selection of his own petticoats; and therefore there sha’n’t be a yard of Welsh flannel about her Majesty that isn’t of my choice.
READER.—Do you really think that the royal bedchamber is in fact a third house of Parliament—that the affairs of the state are always to be put in the feminine gender? ”

“ They will no more accommodate a decent foot than the old general would have turned his back in a charge, or cut off his grizzled mustachios. If it wasn’t for the look of the thing, one might as well shove one’s foot into a box-iron. ”

“ Notice of a meet having been despatched to all the members of the “Knocker Hunt,” a splendid field—no street—met at the Cavendish—the hotel of the hospitable Marquess. The white damask which covered the mahogany was dotted here and there with rich and invigorating viands; whilst decanters of port and sherry—jugs of Chateau Margaux—bottles of exhilarating spirits, and boxes of cigars, agreeably diversified the scene. After a plentiful but orderly discussion of the “creature comforts,” (for all ebullitions at home are strictly prohibited by the Marquess) it was proposed to draw St. ”

“ The train starts every Saturday morning, under the guidance of an experienced punster. The departure of the train is always attended with immense laughter, and a tremendous rush to the booking-office. ”

“ The examples we have given above will sufficiently explain our views; but there are a vast number of dramatic situations that we have not noticed, which might be expressed by harmonious sounds, such as music for the appearance of a dun or a devil—music for paying a tailor—music for serving a writ—music for an affectionate embrace—music for ditto, very warm—music for fainting—music for coming-to—music for the death of a villain, with a confession of bigamy ”

“ Goulburn, many years since, being then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, like brother Baring, in a financial hobble, proposed that on the payment, three years in advance, of the dog and hair-powder tax, all parties so handsomely coming down with the “tin,” should henceforth and for ever rejoice in duty-free dog, and enjoy untaxed cranium. Now, why not a proposition to this effect—that on the payment of a good round sum (let it be pretty large, for the ready is required) , a man shall be exempt from the present legal consequences of any crime or crimes he may hereafter commit ”

“ A correspondent of one of the morning papers exultingly observes, that the wood-blocks which are about being removed from Whitehall are in excellent condition. If this is an allusion to the present ministry, we should say, emphatically, NOT.
REVENGE IS SWEET.
The Tories in Beverley have been wreaking their vengeance on their opponents at the late election, by ordering their tradesmen who voted against the Conservative candidate to send in their bills. Mr. Duncombe declares that this is a mode of revenge he never would condescend to adopt. ”

“ COUNT D’ORSAY declares that no gentleman having the slightest pretensions to fashionable consideration can be seen out of doors except on a Sunday, as on that day bailiffs and other low people keep at home. ”