The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 48

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 48

No. V.

 

"FROM SIR PHILIP FRANCIS TO MR. PERKINS.

 

"MY DEAR SIR,--The weather is so hot, and town so dull, that I

intend flying from all its ills and inconveniences to-morrow; I

shall be happy, therefore, to join your pleasant party.--Yours,

 

"P. F."

 

This very curious letter is not more valuable on account of the

matter it contains, than as conducing to throw additional light upon

the mystery of Junius--it would occupy too much space in a note to

enter into a disquisition concerning the various conflicting opinions

upon this subject, but as far as a comparison of hand-writing

with some portions of the MS. of Junius's Letters, which I had an

opportunity of seeing, and a strong similarity of style in the

writing, go, I have no hesitation in settling the authorship upon

Sir Philip--there is such vigorous imagination displayed in the

description, in nine words, of the state of the weather and the

metropolis, and such a masculine resolution evinced in the declared

determination to "fly from all its ills and inconveniences" the

very next day, that one cannot but pause to admire the firmness

which could plan such a measure, and the taste which could give

such a determination in such language. The cautious concealment of

the place to which the supposed party of pleasure was to go, is

another evidence of the force of habit--I have reason to believe

it to have been Twickenham, or as Pope spells it, Twitnam, but I

have no particular datum whereon to found this suspicion, except,

indeed, that I think it quite as probable to have been Twickenham, or

Twitnam, as any other of the agreeable villages round London.--ED.

 

 

No. VI.

 

"FROM SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS TO CALEB WHITEFOORD, ESQ.

 

"Leicester Fields, Saturday.

 

"MY DEAR SIR,--I have received your witty note, and am extremely

obliged to you for your present of venison. I trust you will

favour me with your company on Tuesday, to meet some of your

friends, to join them in discussing it.--Yours, very truly,

 

"J. REYNOLDS."

 

There can be little doubt that the note referred to by Sir Joshua

was full of those quibbles and quaintnesses for which Whitefoord was

so well known. Whitefoord was a man of considerable attainments, and

was distinguished by the peculiarity of his dress; a French grey

coat with black frogs, a small cocked hat and an umbrella--he was

the constant frequenter of auctions, and has the credit of being the

inventor of the now hacknied concit called "Cross readings." It is

certain, that in his note sent with the venison, he called Sir Joshua

his deer friend, hoped it would suit his pallate, recommended him

to take some cuts from it and transfer them to plates, spoke of the

current sauce being jelly, and perhaps signed himself his Buck friend

(for at that period the words Buck and Maccaroni were the distinctive

appellations of two classes of persons in London). I surmise this,

because he was a confirmed punster, a character somewhat prized in

those days. Goldsmith said it was impossible to keep company with him

without being infected with the itch of punning. He is celebrated in

the postscript to "Retaliation:"--

 

"Merry Whitefoord, farewell! for thy sake I admit

That a Scot may have humour, I'd almost said, wit.

This debt to thy memory I cannot refuse,

Thou best-temper'd man, with the worst-temper'd muse."--ED.

 

It is impossible for us to spare more room to-day, but we think we

have offered a specimen of a work which will be found at least equal

to many others whose pretensions are much more formidable, and which,

after all, do not exhibit so faithfully the peculiar characteristics

of the private lives of public men.

 

 

THE COCKNEY'S LETTER.

 

The following letter has been transmitted to us, as written by a

Cockney gentleman late in the train of Lord Byron,[50] but now

discarded--we are not sufficiently acquainted with the style of

the writer to vouch for its genuineness, but we give it as we have

received it:--

 

My dear ----, --I am astonished at what you write me. So then,

notwithstanding all the strong articles in our last Liberal

Magazine, neither Government nor people has made a stir; England

is still a monarchy, England is still a monarchy, and not even

a single change in the ministry has been effected! Jeffrey,

(Byron's new friend,) who is always sanguine, thinks the next

Number must do it, but I begin to despair; and the worry-one's

soul-out, as it were, effect of the disappointment on my health

is very visible. I pine, and grow thinner and paler every day. My

appearance, by the way, is very interesting and Tasso-like, and

I think an engraving of me would sell well in England, where a

"how-does-he-look" sort of inquiry must be in everybody's mouth

just now. But let that pass for the present, I have matter of

still greater moment for you.

 

The only subject of conversation now in England, and indeed

in all those parts of Europe where tyrants are not as _yet_

allowed to send in fellows with bayonets to stop people's mouths

whenever they mention my name, must be the coolness between me

and Byron, and it is proper the rights of it should be known,

which is better than folks going about with a he-said-this--and

then-he-said-t'other sort of report of it. The fact is, that

Byron is the aggressor, for he began first, as the children

say, and all about a piece of patrician pride, very unbecoming

among us radicals. Some time ago, seeing him in conversation

with the Earl of----, at the end of the Strada di----, I hopped

down the street, and, just to shew the intimacy which subsisted

between us, slapped him on the back with a "Ha! Byron, my boy!"

He darted at me one of his look-you-through sort of glances, and

turned from me without speaking; and it was not till after a

decided cut of eight or ten days that, wanting something done,

he sent for me. I went; he began by a tread-you to-dirtish, as

it were taking of me to task, said something about the "coarse

familiarity of your radicals;" and then told me that I might stop

and dine with him that day, which I did. You will gather from

this that these lords are not to be depended upon, they are but

a half and half sort of radicals--the cloven foot of nobility is

perpetually peeping out, they won't give altogether into that

hail-fellow-well-metishness, which we expect from them. Again: at

dinner that day, happening to say to him, "I and you, Byron, who

are called the Satanic School:" he cut me short unceremoniously,

and said, "Who the h--ll ever called _you_ Satanic?--Cockney, if

you please and reminded me of the fable of the apples swimming.

Now, putting radicalism out of the question, this was very

ungenteel from one great poet to another--then he is jealous of

me. We have had a disagreement about which of us should have

the most room to write in the Liberal Magazine. He wanted all;

which (though I never contradict him, or he'd have cut me long

ago.) I almost remonstrated against, so he allowed me a corner

here and there, as it were. Thus he flatly attributes our slow

sale to my poetry--then to my prose--and in short, he was lately

so insulting that I had "ever such a mind" (as we used to say

at school) to tell him the fault was all his own; for between

ourselves he has grown as stupid and as vulgar as the best of

us. But worst of all, I find he has been making a mere tool of

me, and he quizzes me to my very face. Some weeks ago I told

him I had thoughts of writing his life, to which he replied

with a smile, "Do;" but when I added that he ought in return to

write mine, he exclaimed with a sneer "Pooh!" and went away in a

turn-on-the-heel sort of fashion. But this is of a piece with

his refusing to call me Tasso and Ariosto in exchange for my

calling him Dante in our next poems.

 

Doubtless you have heard of the verses I addressed to him; I

suppose there is an I-wish-I-could-get-'em sort of anxiety about

them in England, so I send you a copy:--

 

"LINES TO MY FRIEND BYRON.

 

"Dear Byron, while you're out walking, I'll just say

Something about ourselves in my off-hand way,

Easy and Chaucer-like; in that free rhyme

They used to warble in the olden time,

And which you so chucklingly listen to when I

Pour out a strain of it, as 'twere, chirpingly;

Full of all sorts of lovely, graceful things,

Smacking of fancy, pretty imaginings,

Which I trick out with a Titian-like sort of air,

And a touch of Michael Angelo here and there;

For though the graceful's wherein I excel,

I dash off the sublime, too, pretty well.

 

"Now, let me see--I have it--I'll suppose,

(Though you're there in the garden plucking a rose,)

That, after travelling many and many a day,

You are wandering in some country far away,

When, being tired, you stretch beneath a tree,

And take from your pocket my Rimini,

And read it through and through, and think of me;

And then you take some other work of mine,

And con it daintily, tasting it line by line,

Pausing 'tween whiles, as one does drinking port,

And smack your lips, saying, 'This is your right sort.'

And when it has grown too dark for you to see,

You close the book and wish for your dear Leigh:

Then comes a little bird, fluttering near,

And perches, fairy like, on the tip of your ear;

Then up you jump and would hunch it away;

But, spite of all, the little bird will stay,

And then----(But what I'm writing all this while

Is a fancy in my wild Ariosto style)--

And thus this little bird turns into me,

And you rush forward to me in ecstasy,

And grasp my hand, as it were, clutchingly,

And call me your 'dear Leigh;' while I, e'en bolder,

Cry, 'Ah, my dear Byron!' clapping you on the shoulder,

E'en just as I might be supposed to do,

If this were not a Poet's dream, but true."