Now blessed reverse! both business and burse Sick are no longer and sorry, For commerce again will be soon in her fane, We post to-day to petition and pray The Crown, with sceptre and garter, Prancing in state with the cream-color'd eight, (And the more blue-ribbon'd the smarter!) With the Beef-eating chaps in their muffin caps, And the Guards in their helmets glist'ning, 71 The Guildhall Banquet on Lord Mayor's Day, 1850, was enlivened with much official tumbling. The vast refectory resounded with cheers and laughter as the ministerial and judicial Joe Millers rang their satirical changes on Pope Pius and his Archbishop of Westminster. The following lyric, by the Laureat, (to the tune of "O, such a day,") arrived a little too late to be chanted in character (see "Tom Thumb") by the Lord * * Candlesticks with lighted wicks, Cardinal, and Crucifix, Pio Nono sends (pro bono!) with his papal BullThat this, alas! should come to pass-We're in a proper Pusey-"fix!" Of Pusey's ruses, heavy news! is England's measure full. Soon here the Pope will (give him rope!) sit in pontifi calibus, (His gouty toe John Bull, (grand sot!) devoutly ducking, shall he buss?) More shocking still! and have a grill of heretics (O fie !) again, And bring us—what ?—a powder-plot, Guy's tinder-box, and Guy again! Will drive us poor cits fairly out of our wits In pitiful plight for a feast and a sight He wants to go thro' a rehearsal or two Lord (aside). That ever I should live, ha! ha! To hear an alderman sol fa. -Citizens, the Lord's Anointed Has commanded and appointed Altar, Chancel, (gracious powers!) strewn with fair and fragrant flowers (In our noses every rose is Puseyite-perfume!) Anthems breathing (well-a-day!) horrid, monkish, melody! (I'd rather now a Flemish frow hear warble "Buy a Broom!" Rome-ridden Denison, you don't deserve that benison, Reformation's toothy rations turtle soup and venison ! Pusey too, the same to you! and all (God save Victoria!) Who say she's not (I'd have 'em shot!) the Church's upper story, ah! O, Bishop Ullathorne (in the side of Bull a thorn!) Sent to fry us! post to Pius, varlet! lead the van(), Bishop Beverley (who thought to coax us cleverly!) Brush with Brother Brummagem as quickly as you can! Scarlet Tile, quit Britain's isle, or else (tile territorial To swallow up our "loving cup," our turbot and John Dory all!) Your owner will from Tower Hill to Pius at the Vatican Have soon to go to kiss his toe, if, minus head and hat, he can. Tom Thumb 72 to try his mimic power,73 On royal ennui for an hour. Crowns, with high debate and discourse,74 King Hal made much of mimes and mummers, 72 It is a melancholy reflection that a tithe of what was lavished upon this "disgusting dwarf" (as "The Times" designated this Liliputian mountebank, in its eloquent lament on the death of Haydon) would have stood between genius and despair. Upon this sad subject we might ponder till the mind "burst with thinking." To Sir Robert Peel belongs the deep consolation of having relieved Haydon in his last extremity. The broken-hearted man applied to a certain loosely-loquacious and "liberal" (!) Lord for pecuniary assistance, but in vain. The Prime Minister, harassed by the combined hostility of factious friends and place-hunting foes, found leisure for benevolence. He sent the applicant two hundred pounds, and received his dying benediction. It was only a few weeks before the death of Haydon that Uncle Timothy saw him in Paddington Church Yard reading the inscription ("Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord!") on the tomb-stone of Siddons. To that friend he confided his many sorrows, and his mournful conviction that there was but ONE cure for them. "O God!-Horatio, what a wounded name, Things standing thus unknown, shall leave behind me?" he exclaimed.—Then, with a look and tone never to be forgotten, he added, "If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, Absent thee from felicity awhile, And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain, Queen Bess, when sorrowful and sick, But a few paces from the grave of Siddons this once sensitive and too-finely-strung organisation "sleeps well!" "Oh! let him pass, he hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world 73 Very different were the " Merriments" of our English Tom Thumb, which "in the olde time have beene the only revivers of drousy age at midnight: old and young have with his tales chim'd mattens till the cocks crow in the morning; batchelors and maides with his tales have compassed the Christmas fire-blocke till the curfew bell rings candle out; the old shepheard and the young plow-boy, after their dayes labour, have carold out a Tale of Tom Thumbe to make them merry with: and who but little Tom hath made long nights seem short, and heavy toyles easie?"—The Famous History of Tom Thumb. 74❝Strain❜d to the height, In that celestial colloquy sublime, Dazzled and spent, sunk down, and Sought repair." 75 Archie came in gold most glorious to behold, Which made the people fall into laughter; Some men they stood by, when the Foole they did Expecting many Lords to follow after." This was on the 11th of April, 1609, when King James I. accompanied by the Queen, the Prince, and a splendid retinue, gave the name of "Britain's Burse" to a rival Exchange at Durham House... Archee's annuity was Their quaint parlousness and patter Tho' judging from experience past, I, your Will humbly lay before the Queen, For Her Majesty's commission. Touching this momentous measure You shall know the Sovereign's pleasure. [Exit. two shillings per day, as we learn from a very curious Debenture written in Latin, and now lying before us, of which the following is a translation. 76 "The Dutch Dwarf, Van Tromp, had the honor of attending at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday Evening." -Court Circular, Saturday, February 24, 1849. |