The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 9

The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures 9

MISS LAVINIA RAMSBOTTOM.

 

April 27, 1823.

 

The following is from no less a personage than our fair favourite,

Miss Lavinia Ramsbottom:--

 

"Ma' desires me to write to you, to say that you are quite out in

your reckoning as to dry-salters and citizens going to the Opera in

hackney-coaches, and she hopes you will correct your calumny about

our being in the straw. A friend of Pa's, who lives in the Minories,

who is a great friend of Mr. Broom's, the Queen's lawyer, says that

you are very malicious, and that, after all your pretended kindness

last year, in putting in Ma's account of our party _gratis_ for

nothing, you only did it to quiz us; and Ma' says she shall continue

to go to the Opera as long as she pleases, and she does not care

whether the people have any clothes on, or none, so long as her

betters countenances it.

 

"P.S.--Pa's young men play at Cardinal Puff, with table-beer, after

supper every night,--so you see we have got _that_ from the West End."

 

 

III.

 

MISS LAVINIA'S LETTER FROM PARIS, FORWARDING HER MOTHER'S JOURNAL IN

ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

 

TO JOHN BULL.

 

Paris, Dec. 10, 1823.

 

MY DEAR MR. B.,--The kindness with which you put in the account of

our party last year, induces my Mamma to desire me to write to you

again, to know if you would like to insert a journal of her travels.

 

My Papa has retired from business; he has left the shop in the

Minories, and has taken a house in Montague Place--a beautiful street

very far west, and near the British Museum--and my two younger

sisters have been sent over here, to improve their education and

their morals, and Mamma and I came over last week to see them, and

if they had got polish enough, to take them home again. Papa would

not come with us, because, when he was quite a youth, he got a very

great alarm in Chelsea Reach, because the waterman would put up a

sail, and from that time to this he never can be prevailed upon to go

to sea; so we came over under the care of Mr. Fulmer, the banker's

son, who was coming to his family.

 

Mamma has not devoted much of her time to the study of English, and

does not understand French at all, and therefore perhaps her journal

will here and there appear incorrect, but she is a great etymologist,

and so fond of you, that although I believe Mr. Murray, the great

bookseller in Albemarle Street, would give her, I do not know how

many thousand pounds for her book, if she published it "all in the

lump," as Papa says, she prefers sending it to you piecemeal, and so

you will have it every now and then, as a portion of it is done. I

have seen Mr. Fulmer laugh sometimes when she has been reading it;

but I see nothing to laugh at, except the hard words she uses, and

the pains she takes to find out meanings for things. She says if you

do not like to print it, you may let Murray have it--but that, of

course, she would prefer your doing it.

 

I enclose a portion--more shall come soon. Papa, I believe, means

to ask you to dinner when we get back to town; he says you are

a terrible body, and as he has two or three weak points in his

character, he thinks it better to be friends with you than foes. I

know of but one fault he has--yes, perhaps two--but I will not tell

you what they are till I see whether you publish Mamma's journal.

 

Adieu! I was very angry with you for praising little Miss M. at the

Lord Mayor's Dinner; I know her only by sight: we are not quite in

those circles yet, but I think when we get into Montague Place we may

see something of life. She is a very pretty girl, and very amiable,

and that is the truth of it, but you had no business to say so, you

fickle monster.

 

Yours truly,

 

LAVINIA HIGGINBOTTOM.

 

We proceeded, after reading this letter, to open the enclosure,

and found what follows. We do not presume to alter one word, but

when any trifling difficulty occurs, arising from the depth of Mrs.

Higginbottom's research, we have ventured to insert a note. The title

of the manuscript is

 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE,

 

BY DOROTHEA JULIA HIGGINBOTTOM.

 

And thus, gentle reader, it ran:--

 

"Having often heard travellers lament not having put down what they

call the memorybillious of their journies, I was determined while

I was on my tower, to keep a dairy (so called from containing the

cream of one's information), and record everything which recurred to

me--therefore I begin with my departure from London.

 

"Resolving to take time by the firelock, we left Mountague Place at

seven o'clock by Mr. Fulmer's pocket thermometer, and proceeded over

Westminster-bridge to explode the European continent.

 

"I never pass Whitehall without dropping a tear to the memory of

Charles the Second, who was decimated after the rebellion of 1745

opposite the Horse-Guards--his memorable speech to Archbishop Caxon

rings in my ears whenever I pass the spot--I reverted my head, and

affected to look to see what o'clock it was by the dial, on the

opposite side of the way.

 

"It is quite impossible not to notice the improvements in this part

of the town; the beautiful view which one gets of Westminster Hall,

and its curious roof, after which, as everybody knows, its builder

was called William Roofus.

 

"Amongst the lighter specimens of modern architecture, is Ashley's

Ampletheatre, on your right, as you cross the bridge, (which was

built, Mr. Fulmer told me, by the Court of Arches and the House of

Peers). In this ampletheatre there are equestrian performances, so

called because they are exhibeted nightly--during the season.

 

"It is quite impossible to quit this 'mighty maze,' as Lady Hopkins

emphatically calls London, in her erudite 'Essay upon Granite,'

without feeling a thousand powerful sensations--so much wealth, so

much virtue, so much vice, such business as is carried on, within its

precincts, such influence as its inhabitants possess in every part of

the civilized world--it really exalts the mind from meaner things,

and casts all minor considerations far behind one.

 

"The toll at the Marsh-gate is ris since we last come through--it was

here we were to have taken up Lavinia's friend, Mr. Smith, who had

promised to go with us to Dover, but we found his servant instead of

himself, with a billy, to say he was sorry he could not come, because

his friend, Sir John somebody, wished him to stay and go down to Poll

at Lincoln. I have no doubt this Poll, whoever she may be, is a very

respectable young woman, but mentioning her, by her Christian name

only, in so abrupt a manner, had a very unpleasant appearance at any

rate.

 

"Nothing remarkable occurred till we reached the Obstacle in

St. George's Fields, where our attention was arrested by those

great institutions, the 'School for the Indignant Blind,' and the

'Misanthropic Society' for making shoes, both of which claim the

gratitude of the nation.

 

"At the corner of the lane leading to Peckham, I saw that they had

removed the Dollygraph which used to stand up on the declivity to

the right of the road--the dollygraphs are all to be superseded by

Serampores.

 

"When we came to the Green Man at Blackheath we had an opportunity

of noticing the errors of former travellers, for the heath is green,

and the man is black; Mr. Fulmer endeavoured to account for this, by

saying that Mr. Colman has discovered that Moors being black, and

Heaths being a kind of Moor, he looks upon the confusion of words as

the cause of the mistake.

 

"N.B. Colman is the eminent Itinerary Surgeon, who constantly resides

at St. Pancras.

 

"As we went near Woolwich we saw at a distance the artillery officers

on a common, a firing away with their bombs in mortars like any thing.

 

"At Dartford they make gunpowder; here we changed horses, at the

inn we saw a most beautiful Rhoderick Random in a pot, covered with

flowers, it is the finest I ever saw, except those at Dropmore. [Note

(Rhododendron).]

 

"When we got to Rochester we went to the Crown Inn and had a cold

collection: the charge was absorbent--I had often heard my poor dear

husband talk of the influence of the Crown, and a Bill of Wrights,

but I had no idea what it really meant till we had to pay one.

 

"As we passed near Chatham I saw several Pitts, and Mr. Fulmer

showed me a great many buildings--I believe he said they were

fortyfications, but I think there must have been near fifty of

them--he also shewed us the Lines at Chatham, which I saw quite

distinctly, with the clothes drying on them. Rochester was remarkable

in King Charles's time, for being a very witty and dissolute place,

as I have read in books.

 

"At Canterbury we stopped ten minutes to visit all the remarkable

buildings and curiosities in it, and about its neighbourhood;

the church is beautiful: when Oliver Cromwell conquered William

the Third, he perverted it into a stable--the stalls are still

standing--the old Virgin who shewed us the church, wore buckskin

breeches and powder--he said it was an archypiscopal sea, but I saw

no sea, nor do I think it possible he could see it either, for it is

at least seventeen miles off--we saw Mr. Thomas à Beckett's tomb--my

poor husband was extremely intimate with the old gentleman, and one

of his nephews, a very nice man, who lives near Golden-square, dined

with us twice, I think, in London--in Trinity Chapel is the monument

of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrea in the Regent's Park.