66 of day to await the opening of the newspaper offices, for our hope of sale depended much on being early in the market; the morning coaches were next to be attended to, and canvassed for purchasers; then, if I had luck, I was accustomed to indulge in a penny dog," a "crubeen," and a cropper, which, it may be proper to apprise the uninitiated, are terms translatable, respectively, by a penny roll, a boiled pig's trotter with the skin on, and a glass of raw whisky. When sales were dull, I contented myself with the "cropper" only, and thus you see how it is that poverty and drunkenness come to be so constantly associated. If I had the good fortune to take breakfast, which always depended upon the humour of the passengers by the early morning coaches-it was now nine o'clock, at which hour I was expected to deliver the morning papers with my respective customers-running from house to house to receive and re-deliver my papers, standing a little while at the hall doors until the lazy servants tumbled up, in which interval, I improved my political information by a cursory glance at the leading article, occupied me until dinner time, when a bowl of beef broth with cabbage in it, and another "dog," served me for dinner, and then I was off like a shot to be first for the evening papers. When these were issued, my rounds recommenced, broken in upon only by attendance on the exit of the evening mails, and occasional abberrations into the punch-houses in search of "a cropper;" until midnight, when I received my last Evening Post, or Evening Mail, as the case might be, from the hands of the sleepy footman or worn-out waiting-maid, and slunk home, very often wet through and through with a long winter day rain, to balance my account on my ten fingers with the publishers of the Dublin newspapers, and strike a balance in my own favour, after a hard day's work, of-fivepence halfpenny. I spare you a description of my three-pair back in Golden Lane, where I was accustomed to repose on "half a bed" (for a bed, read strawmatrass with a counterpane flung over it), at ninepence sterling per week, because there was really nothing to describe. I have seen in print, to be sure, very picturesque and elaborate descriptions of the habitations of unshaven highwaymen and juvenile pickpockets, but I have lived in places of this kind myself, and never saw any thing describable, although I can enumerate very many things that are not. The places were poor and not very clean, to be sure, but at ninepence a-week I saw no opportunity of doing better. I hope I will not be construed into having any intention to disparage the Cockney school of prose by these observations. The Newgate Calendar, and the Lives of Eminent Housebreakers and Highwaymen, I take to be historical works of a very high order, of an undoubted accuracy and research in matters of fact, great probability and truth in the deduction of inferences, manly vigour of sentiment, and elegant terseness of expression. Even as to minor literary graces, I think it impossible for any refined and feeling mind to peruse the account of Dorothy Hastie" in the Newgate Calendar, who smoked three pipes of tobacco, and imbibed two pots of half-andhalf, sitting up in her coffin, having been an hour before turned off at Tyburn, without confessing that in pathetic passages, that spirit-stirring work is no less great than in simple narrative and unexaggerated description. But I am no less bound in candour (sitting for a moment in the critical chair) to confess, that when I see murdering pedagogues, who taught Hebrew and astronomy, and cut their neighbour's throats-hunted highwaymen, whose chief recommendation to the public seems to be their great capabilities for running away-sentimental house-breakers, talking platonics, and keeping mistresses, degraded from their natural and legitimate immortality in the Newgate Calendar, and got up, for the trade, in all the trumpery namby-pambyism of fashionable novels, faded dialogue, stale jokes, and melo-dramatic tricks, borrowed from the penny theatres and inserted by way of plot, I am not a little inclined to turn to the last few pages of the last volume in the hope of finding the sentimental author and his sentimental felon " turned off" in eternal enjoyment of each other's very delectable society. Of course, as I said before, I would not by any means be understood as putting the era of Addison, Swift, and Steele, Smollet, Richardson, or Goldsmith, in competition with the exalted Cockney literature of our day, which, together with the Cockney school of architecture, inspires the awe-struck spectator, or reader, as the case may be, with mingled sentiments of exalted reverence and rapture "With my sentimentalibus pickpocket orum, And pathos and bathos delightful to seeWith my stucco and paint, â-la-mode Cockney-orum. Sing hi-diddle, ho diddle, pop diddle dee." I went on in the literary line of life for about three years and three quarters with fluctuating success. In the Parliamentary season, when trade was brisk, I eat always one, and occasionally two meals a-day, and kept my toes within their appropriate leathers. About Christmas and in the long vacation, I assure you solemnly, I was obliged occasionally to take to balladsinging, to raise a penny. I daresay you think this cursed low. and I agree with your worship-but business was slack, and times dull, and if it were not for the dreadful murders in Tipperary, which averaged in my time about five per week, and went off brisk ly at a halfpenny a-piece, may I never taste a drop of any thing stronger than my aunt's congo if I could have made the two ends meet. During all this period I made great progress in the study of leading articles and the whole mechanism of newspaper manufacture, which it will be my duty to detail to you at more length in connexion with my distinguished career as sub-editor, foreign correspondent, and city intelligencer of the "Flare-up" Metropolitan Sunday paper, of which more in its proper place. My old patron, to whose munificence I was indebted for the halfcrown with which I established myself as a "diffuser of useful knowledge," continued to be very kind to me on all occasions, and indeed I must have gone for a soldier many times if he had not now and then volunteered the loan of a sixpence. On Christmas day, New-year's day, Easter Sunday, and Whit Monday, as sure as those long-expected festi vals came round, my generous Mecænas gave me a dinner-not a dirty plateful of trimmings and potato skins, as if I had been co-equal with the pigs in a sty (the coin in which a great many pious alms-givers lend to the Lord), but the joint on which his own good-hearted family had regaled themselves, brought to a little back parlour by one of his rosy-cheeked daughters-may I never prosper in love if I have seen so fine a girl before or since with a black jack of sound beer, potatoes, and bread-as the beggarly Mounseers say, "à discretion." When I had tucked in a week's victuals, at the very least, the rosycheeked darling entered, bearing a full, hearty, honest tumbler of punch, with her father's compliments, hoping I had made a good dinner; whereupon it was my custom to drink healths a piece to you, miss, to your good father and mother, and all belonging to them, prefaced with what I observed the newspapers to call a "neat and appropriate speech." To see what honours and dignities a man may arrive at in this free country! here you see me, the little newspaper boy-now a big boy-recording his various efforts in search of bread in a production as widely dif fused as civilisation itself-admitted to the participation of MAGA, bound up in the same reverend wrapper (let me speak it exulting humbly), with the critic, the orator, philosopher, naturalist, statesman, philanthropist, POET-with, in two imperishable words, CHRISTOPHER NORTH himself! Let us have none of your Radical trash about aristocratic exclusionthe fashionable world, it is true, is exclusively aristocratic, and it oughtthree thorough-bred generations, at the least, are indispensable to the constitution of a visitor at Almack's; and sooner than let "faggot peers' or mushroom baronets quiver a metatarsal bone within those crimson cords that limit the gay confusion of the dance-strike me hideous—or, it is all the same-amputate my whiskers! " Political, legal, magisterial honours employments, civil and military— every man that can, even an oystereater, aye, or an oyster-seller, if he chooses to try, may win. Come on, then, my generous rivals in the pursuit of honourable fame-the contest is noble, and does equal honour to the vanquished and the victor. Forward, charge-pick up the pieces, and the devil take the hindmost! You have been thinking, no doubt, of Edmund Burke, who rescued, to his eternal glory be it trumpeted, Barry from obscurity and Crabbe from famine-perhaps it is your good fortune to be able to look back, in all the luxury of complacent reflection, upon the success of some friendless youth to whom you have been a friend -at any rate, you are ready to jump out of your skin, with a natural and laudable curiosity to become acquainted with my Mæcenas, and to join with me in perpetuating his name. Who could he be? Perhaps the dispensary doctor, a class of men who do more unostentatious good than bishops, and are worse treated than hand-loom Ye little nobs, hide your diminished rays. REFLECTIONS ON PUNCH-MORALS AND MANNERS. THE gravest man, if his gravity arise not from villany, must yield up the muscles of his face to the will of merry Punch. I have been amused for an hour with one of these street exhibitions of vulgar humour. I watched his regular followers and the spectators. His regulars are boys, and mostly those sent on errands, as is plain to observe, by the parcels closely pressed, a matter of preparatory caution, under their arms, and a necessary precaution too, for, when the full influence of the show is upon them, the hand would surely relax its hold in wonder, and nothing would be safe. This body-guard of boys is every moment increased, from every neighbouring street and lane; for, like soldiers off duty, they have a great alacrity and readiness to hear and obey the sound of punch's trumpet. The spectators are men of all grades; and of women, but few. And why is this? Do they think it best to set their faces against the practices of Punch, or, have they an instinctive dislike of this rehearsal of their domestic play? I could not help thinking, as I walked away when the show was over, that if I were a woman of the lower grade, in which alone men are privileged to beat their wives, I would raise a female mob, and draw the merry ruffian from the streets. There must have been many a one present, who, when the mirth was out of him, and illhumour in him, would see, in the general applause, an excuse for beating his wife. And if they are, thought I, brought up from boyhood to look upon this brutality as a good joke, and all the abominable doings of the licentious rascal Punch as pardonable means of exhibiting his vulgar graces, what is to be expected of them when men? What vices are not covered, countenanced, and engrafted into the hearts of the young, by this accustomed levity! Punch is a scoundrel, a villain, and can have no kinship to any of human society. There is not one of woman born to do his deeds, and be humorous. If so, then it may be said, what harm can the example of the fictitious personage do? Much, because it may possibly bring, or help to bring men into a condition to do his deeds, and not to laugh, like him. Consider what he is-at best, an unfeeling wretch; in his extremes, a thief a murderer. And yet, whether it be to the credit of a more virtuous neighbourhood, in which the exhibition may take place, or to the proprietor of the show, may be doubtful, he is not always represented in his worst colours. But, at best, he is bad enough. Now, the question arises, does he represent the standard of our age's vulgar mo rals, or are they so far above his, that they can afford to laugh and be uncontaminated? I really fear we can afford to do no such thing with impunity. Good-humour and joviality are the masks the devil wears every day, and in which he is most successful, up to a certain point. There is a degree of villany, where the power of assuming those characters is impossible; and that is an awful state. But here the resources of the devil do not fail him he makes in fiction what cannot be in reality, sets up his wooden idol, unites the incompatibilities, mirth and utmost villany, and deteriorates human nature by an example beyond human nature. Such had been my reflections when I reached home; I threw myself into a chair, hoping that things were not quite so bad, and was willing to give up all my conclusion, when, without troubling my head further about the matter, I took up the newspaper of the day. I was first led to notice the Police Reports. I was struck with the coincidence in certain respects between them and the exhibition I had seen. The reporters had been each severally acting the peculiar parts of their proprietorship, and dressed up and pulled the strings of their puppets as they pleased, and put what words they liked into their mouths; or, verily, the manners of Punch and his proprietors had infected the whole community, and set off justices and culprits to enact buffooneries, before the scarcely sober world. I came to this case-and such are to be seen in every day's report: After many had been fined and punished for drunkenness and general disorderly conduct some first offences, dull dogs who had nothing to say for themselves -a notorious offender is brought up; he has the gift, and in his peculiar way uses it; by a few quaint answers, gets the laugh on his side, and is let off, and with a burlesque virtuous admonition, that reads as if it were shortened to save magistracy from the downright indecency of a horse-laugh. We shall have HB. caricaturing Virtue "holding both her sides," and Justice dropping the scales, no longer able to stand upright, from indulging in risibility at seeing the broad farce of Humour enacted by Vice. Quit the reports, turn to the politics-there too is the stage set up, the puppets worked, their trickeries exhibited, and with buffoonery for argument, sober truth is hissed off the stage; mumping mummery and braggadocio impudence are the favourite characters, allowed to do any thing, or do nothing, as long as they can amuse the people by pocketing their money with a jerk and a trick. I have been gravely told, that a good, lying, filthy, successful newspaper joke against the Tories, is as good to an editor as a treasury warrant for a thousand pounds. "What serious is we turn to farce." We are become the most humorous people, excepting in our caricatures-there our humour is very small, indeed, and our wit may run in a curricle with our humour, well matched ponies. Punch had a language of his own-it is said to be partly obsolete, and that some of our most ingenious and clever writers have been employed in enriching his vocabulary. For this, they have sought expressions suited to his practices; they have therefore dived into those dens of iniquity where they would be most likely to meet with them, and, it must be confessed, they have brought back an ample store: They have entered, too, into the very mystery and power of the jovial villain, and as they have learnt from him the value of covering ill deeds with odd gestures and funny names, it is very hard to know things by what they are called; and slang words, and, if the expression may be allowed, slang apparel, so pass off meretricious morality, that half the world take her for real virtue. Some, in other respects elegant writers, seeing the thing become a sort of fashion, have been bolder still, and not only brought back the language from those dens of iniquity, but have actually brought the characters themselves, and made them speak and act pretty much as they do, perhaps, in real life, occasionally for the purpose of making them more interesting, engrafting upon them the manners of what is called a higher society, and, that there may be a fair reciprocity, occasionally engrafting upon more polished characters the manners, the slang included, of scoundrels and pickpockets. Punch himself, therefore, to keep pace with the fashionable world who have taken to his walk, is obliged to undergo changes. It is to be hoped they will be for the better, but, it is to be feared, the examples set him lead to the worse. From this adoption in our modern novels and fashionable writings of every descrip tion of this lowest London slang, as it may be called in their own style "the London particular," we may be considered at present in a transition state from one great class of ideas to another, of which the bounds and limits are yet undefined. Real morality is a sort of neutral ground, for the present tacitly abandoned, until the new sets of names shall be properly located by our new high commissioners. Until then, there is great confusion of things and of words. It cannot be expected, therefore, that we should be so shocked as we used to be at either. Our goodnature is sadly suffering from our good-humour. We prefer laughing with the facetious rogue, and fall into his view of cases that ought to excite our better sympathies. And thus we adopt a sort of scorn of virtue; we excuse our lack of charities, by turning into ridicule those that should be the objects of them. You will see one scrutinize with his glass his father's friend, now old and poor, and not see ing under the shabby coat the heart of worth and perhaps of extreme suffering, shall coldly pronounce, as he thinks wittily, the slang, that the old gentleman is a little "seedy." It would be better for him if he could construe the lines of the Roman Satirist. had to entertain a youth just returned from Eton. He asked him if he had any brothers or sisters. What was his reply? He "believed there was a chap at home." Now, is it possible that this affectation, even if for the present it be affectation only, should not engender cold-blooded selfishness? A youth, such as I have described, has been evidently under a deteriorating system of artificial educationI speak of education as not of books only-every thing is education that is said or done by or before the young. He will read slang, and think himself sufficiently learned; he will talk slang, and think himself a wit; he will grimace it, and pronounce himself a gentleman; he will look it, and fancy himself independent. He will put it on him with his very clothes, will eat it, drink and smoke it, sleep upon it, and wake upon it, till he is little better than an ape, with worse feelings than an ape-and an ape will he be to the end of his life, for even his walking upright is artificial, and not as nature intended he should. I said, that were I a woman in the lower ranks of life I would make a mob, and drive Punch out of the streets-were I a woman at all I would move my whole sex against the heartless gay, the jovial profligate. Their "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius existence in society is a dishonour to in se. their own sex, and an insult to the other. The age of chivalry was the golden age of virtuous sentiment, in comparison with the cold calculating age that is coming, or well-nigh come upon us. Time was when our youth at least were generous, and by an innate virtue, the remains of a better instinct, felt respect for woman as woman, and acknowledged without shame the chain that bound them to do her service. They owed allegiance to the sex as champions of virtue; and the more tender were their sentiments, they were the more manly. The general casts of their minds was, as happily the poet of a romantic age describes his own : Quam quod ridiculos homines facit." There is an assumption of heartlessness in this "humour" that, it is to be hoped, for the honour of human nature, has not a corresponding reality within. But kind feelings grow kinder by cultivation, and cold feelings become quite benumbed, and benumbing all that comes in contact with them, by being ever kept in this brilliant ice. Brilliant, indeed!-it is paying it a compliment it little deserves. Those who, early in life, are ashamed to show feelings, are soon ashamed to have them, take the lesson they are taught, and first talk themselves and soon act themselves out of them. I have been quite astonished at the tone and language in which I have of late years heard young persons speak of their parents. Reverence is gone. The spendthrift son, and the cheated old father of the Roman stage, are coming up again, emerging stronger than ever into real life. Brothers and sisters are "bores." A gentle- I, whether lately through her beauty man not long since told me that he "Naught is there under Heaven's wide hollowness That moves more dear compassion of mind, Than Beauty brought t'unworthy wretch edness By Envy's frowns, or Fortune's freaks unkind blind, |