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228
Here follows a running mention of many
names, which, I fear, my limits will not per
mit me to add. I will,’ therefore, pass them,
and bid you good night, with the closing re
marks of the review, which I have so largely I
quoted.
“It is universally admitted that the collec
tion is one, in every way, of extraordinary j
interest; and that the Committee have execu
ted their difficult and delicate task with dis- ,
Anguished and unwonted justice and taste. — I
The Art Union, during the few years of its
existence, has achieved wonders in the im
provement of the public love of art, and in
aiding, both directly and indirectly, its many
gifted professors. While its affairs continue
to be conducted by gentlemen so high in the
confidence and esteem of the public, as are
the present distinguished officers and direc
tors, it must go on, year by year, conquering
and to conquer.”
Wishing you and all your readers a glo
rious prize in the distribution.
I am very truly yours, FLIT.
©nr Bowl of |3und).
WE TWA HA DUNE A LITTLE BILL.
Air— “ Auld iMng Syne.'"’
Should auld acceptance be forgot,
And never brought to mind I
.Should auld acceptance be forgot.
All drawn, endorsed, and signed 1
Endorsed, drawn, and signed, my friend.
Endorsed, drawn, and signed ;
And noo ’tis time to tak’ it up,
The siller we must find!
We twa ha dune a little bill,
To raise the bonnie wind ;
And, tak’ the matter hoo we will,
That document will bind.
Endorsed, &c.
And Shadrach will nae time alloo,
And therefore a'm inclined
To think that we had better do
Anithcr o’ the kind.
Endorsed, &c.
And surely ye'll be your bit stamp,
And I’ll nae be behind,
And we’ll do a right gude billie-wacht
The needful cash to find.
Endorsed, drawn, and signed, my friend<
Endorsed, drawn, and signed ;
We ’ll do anither billie yet,
Just the wherewitha’ to find!
A VISIT TO KEW GARDENS.
From “ Our Own Old Lady.”
“ You can’t think, Mr. Punch, how thank
ful I am to you for explaining to me all about
the great Oolite, and his testaceous disposi
tions, and the mysteries of Zoology, which,
indeed, it is a wonderful thing to think of the
earth having a crust, all as one as a beefsteak
pie, and society, I suppose, like the steaks,
some at the top and some at the bottom, and
1 am quite ashamed of my suspicions of the
Palce —something— graphical Society, which
I’ve no doubt, now, that they take their name
from the Rev. Mr. Paley, a highly respectable
arch-deacon of the Established Church , and
wrote a Natural Theology, and Evidences,
showing us the wonders of nature, which my
son has tfm work, and Lord Brougham wrote
an edition of it, and he wouldn’t countenance
anything that wasn’t quite correct, as is well
known.
44 However, Mr. Punch, what with your
explanations about those poor dear Chelo
nians, that live like the poor neglected brick
makers among the London clay (though how
it isn’t all made into bricks before this, with
ihe houses they’re building in ail directions,
1 ’m sure I can’t think), and my son’s talk
out of Mr. Paley about the wonders of the
vegetable world, I said to myself, says I, to
think of there being a vegetable world, and I,
fifty-five my last birth-day, and never saw it,
and accustomed to green-grocers all my life,
for the late dear deceased lie wasn't happy
without his two dishes of vegetables regular,
so I determined to pay a visit to this vegeta
ble world, anil hearing it was to be seen in
Q. Gardens, I thought I would take an op
portunity this fine weather, and took the ‘bus
accordingly, at Sloane Street, and a very civil
conductor he was, with whiskers and a gold
band round his hat. I thought we never
should have got there, and was very near get
ting out at the egg-hatching machine, but,
however, we reached the place safe at last,
myself and my niece, for 1 was determined
.she shouldn’t grow up as I had done, having
placed her at an establishment nearTurnham
Green, where I made the conductor stop and
called for her, and why that old gentleman
jj ext the door did swear so I’m sure I can’t
think, for we weren’t above ten minutes wait
ing for Jemima.
fIafIITBiBAIBY BABBIF If IB ♦
“ Well, Sir, we got to the Gardens where
the vegetable world is; and it’s well I ex
pected to see vegetables, for there isn’t no
flowers to signify ; but hot-houses upon hot
houses. How the coals are paid for isn't my
business. And such a Conservatory; all made
of glass, and covering I don’t know how much
ground; all under the care of Sir William
Hookey. First, we went into the Conserva
tory, where they’ve the poor plants transport
ed from Botany Bay—what for I’m sure I
don’t know, but no good , I'll be bound —and
very ugly they looked, set in bush-ranges,
which you may have read of, and put in sol
itary confinement in tubs, on short allowance
of earth.
“ But oh, Sir! that Palm-house ! The heat
was awful, and the company suffered a deal;
and it’s little watering them plants want, I'll
be bound. And all the fanning in the world
isn’t any use ; for the more you fan, the hot
ter you get, tor it ’s heated up to the topical
regions—that is, the parts about the line,
which must be the no-clothes line, where the
benighted blacks go stark naked. This was
the vegetable world I wanted to see, where
you’ve trees that grow umbrellas and chair
bottoms, and trees that grow bread equal to
hot rolls, and custards, and cocoa-nuts, and
chocolate, and tea, and coffee, and other gro
ceries, and one that makes lace, and another
that grows sugar and nutmeg and all sorts of
spices, and one that you milk for all the world
like a cow, and another that makes butter,
and another that makes pots to put it in : and
the Cabbage Palm, equal to the best savoys,
and the Guinea Palm, which grows the Oil of
Palm, which guineas is well known to be;
and there’s some, no doubt the Aristocracy,
that spend their time catching flies; and some
that carry water; and there’s dwarfs among
’em, and ‘an Oldest Inhabitant,’ into the bar
gain, Sir W. Hookey says in his book, which
his name is Baobab, and my niece, who draws
sweetly, took the portraits of some of them,
ain’t they pretty ? There was one little plant
I was tempted to put into my reticule—the
Pawpaw —that makes tough meat tender, a
great comfort it would be to one. as none but
a housekeeper can know.
“ But of all the vegetable world I saw that
day, and dear knows I saw plenty, and al
most fainted among the Palms, there xvasone
dreadful house in particular, where the Hugh
Forbeses live, and awful plants they are, like
melons, with spikes a sticking out in everv
direction, and tickets written up— 4 Visitors
are requested not to touch the plants,’ and
they'd better not , for 1 came on one of the
Hugh Forbeses promiscuously, and my shrieks
brought in three gardeners, very civil young
men, and how they got me off I hardly know,
but grateful I was I’d put on my stout bom
bazine that morning. And in the same house
there’s a heap of little old plants, called the
Cercus Senilis in Sir W. Hookey’s catalogue;
and when I asked a gentleman who was civil
to me and Jemima what ‘Serious Senelis’
meant, he said it was the Latin for ‘ a heavy
father,’ or serious old man ; and serious old
men they may well be called, for this is what
they ’re like in Jemima’s drawing, which is
the very moral of them, all covered over with
white hair, and little skin-partings on the
tops of their green heads, and bowing and
winking at you as you walk through, like so
many rows of wicked old gentlemen that nev
er had their hair cut.
“ I shall never get over them old Seriouses
as long as 1 live, never. Indeed, what with
the turn they gave me, and me coming upon
that pumpkin with the spikes in it, I was obli
ged to leave the Gardens and take the first
’bus back to town, and very glad I was to
get out of the vegetable world, you may be
sure; for w'hat with the hot rooms those
plants live in, and those dreadful old Serious
es, with their white heads, and the ugly things
curling about in the air in baskets, with long
legs and open mouths, which they call the
audacious plants, and most audacious they
looked. It may suit Sir W. Hookey to live
there, but I’d rather be among Christians, if
you please.
“So no more at present, from
“ Yours, respectfullv,
“The Old Lady.”
THE VEGETARIAN MOVEMENT. I
When we noticed, a week or two ago, a
banquet of vegetables, we were not aware
that a great Vegetarian Movement was going j
on, with a vegetarian press, a vegetarian so- |
ciety, a vegetarian boarding-house, a vegeta- i
rian school, two or three vegetarian hotels, a ;
vegetarian Life Insurance Office, vegetarian ;
letter-paper, vegetarian pens, vegetarian wa
fers, and vegetarian envelopes.
The Vegetarian Advocate has replied to our i
article on the late vegetarian banquet, and we ;
must confess that, notwithstanding the very
cholera-inducing diet on which the members |
of the sect exist, the answer is by no means
of a choleric character. The Vegetarian Ad
vocate has a delicious vegetable leader, with
two or three columns of provincial intelli
gence, showing the spread of vegetarian prin
ciples. There are vegetarian missionaries
going about the country, inculcating the doc
trine of peas and potatoes; and there is a
talk of a vegetarian dining-room, where there
is to be nothing to eat but potatoes, plain and
mashed, with puddings and pies in all their
tempting variety.
We understand a prize is to be given for
the quickest demolition of the largest quanti
ty of turnips; and a silver medal will be
awarded to the vegetarian who will dispose
of one hundred heads of celery with the ut
most celerity. We sincerely hope the pud
dings will not get into the heads of our vege
tarian friends, and render them pudding-head
ed ; but they are evidently in earnest; and, if
we are disposed to laugh at them for their
excessive indulgence in rice, we suspect that,
Risum teneati?, amici,
will be the only reply they will make to us.
————————M————————^
(Eckftic of ill it.
THE DREAM OF THE PRINTER.
“ ’Twas in the prime of winter time,
An evening calm and cold,
When in his room the printer sat,
A care-worn man and old;
With look so meek that he did seem
A sheep without a fold
A melanchoty man was he,
As ever trod the soil;
Small pleasures had he in his life,
For it was one of toil;
And dimly burnt the printer’s lamp;
For why 1 It wanted oil !
He leaned his head upon his hand,
Ilis mind was ill at ease,
And while through many a broken pane
In rushed the horrid breeze ;
With eager look, he read a book
That laid upon his knees.
Aud still he read, nor turned his head,
To hear the shutter flap,
But like some marble statue seemed,
So motionless he sat;
Much fasting made him very pale,
And anything but fat!
At last he shut the dusky hook,
Close, with a sudden fling,
With fevered grasp he closed it fast,
And then upright did spring;
Oh, God ! could 1 so shut my mind,
And tie it with a string !
Then up the room and down the room
Ten hasty strides he took,
And then he gazed about, him, with
A sad and doleful look,
And lo ! he saw theofiice boy
Writing upon a book.
“ Whrt do you write, my little chap,
While sitting there so still 1
Now, is it some sad accident,
A marriage, or a will V*
The boy he gave a mournful look—
“ ’Tis nothing but a bill!”
The printer sunk down in his chair,
As smit with sudden pain,
Down in his clmir he sank with force
And then —got up again ;
And as he talked with the young lad,
His tears gushed out amain. <
He told him how some men will owe
And never pay a cent,
And of those wretched, wretched men,
Who never, never lent;
But how their life and fortunes all
In foolishness is spent.
“ And well I know what pangs they feel,
Who would collect a bill,
Wo, wo, unutterable wo,
Their wretched souls must fill,
So it did seem, once in a dream
That I remember still.”
“ One who had owed me very long,
Though wealthy as a Jew —
I stood before his house one eve
When cold the night wind blew.
And now, said I, this man must try
To pav me what is due.
j
“ Two heavy blows with a walking stick,
And one with my knuckles bare,
Then 1 went through the open door,
But alas ! he was not there ;
There was nothing now within the room
But an old aud empty chair !
“ Nothing there but an empty chair
That stood against the wall,
For he went out the other door
The moment. 1 did, call!
A dozen times I groanod aloud—
lie never groaned at all!
“ Then quickly I turned myself about,
And swiftly home I fled,”
Despair was the grim servant girl
That li jilted me to bed!”
The fearful boy look’d up and saw
His face pale as the dead.
W hen gentle sleep o’er the young lad
Had thrown her silent veil,
1 wo stout, tall men set out from town
Through the cold and heavy hail;
And the printer he did walk between,
On his mournful road to jail!
DRAWN FOR A SOLDIER,
BT THOMAS HOOD.
I was once—for a few hours only—in the
militia. I suspect I was in part answerable for
my own mishap. There is a story in Joe
Miller, of a man, who, being pressed to serve
his Majesty on another element, pleaded his
polite breeding, to the as a good ground
of exemption; but was told that Ihe crew be
ing a set of sad unmanerly dogs, a Chester
field was the very character they wanted.
The militia-men acted, 1 presume, on the
same principle. Their customary schedule
was forwarded to me, at Brighton, to fill up,
and in a moment of incautious hilarity in
duced, perhaps, by the absence of all business
or employment, except pleasure—l wrote
myself down in the descriptive column as
“ Quite a Gentleman .”
The consequence followed immediately.
A precept, addressed by the High Constable
of Westminster to the Low ditto of the parish
of St. M*****, and endorsed with my name,
informed me that it had turned up in that in
voluntary lottery, the Ballot.
At sight of the Orderly, who thought pro
per to deliver the document into no other
hands than mine, my mother-in-law cried, and
my wife fainted on the spot. They had no
notion of any distinctions in military sendee
—a soldier was a soldier—and they imagined
that, on the very morrow, I might be ordered
abroad to a fresh Waterloo. They were un
fortunately ignorant of that benevolent pro
vision which absolved the militia from going
out of the kingdom, “ except in case of an
invasion.” In vain I represented that we
were “locals”; they had heard of local dis
eases, and thought there might be wounds of
the same description. In vain I explained
that we were not troops of the line ; they
could see nothing to choose between shot in
a line, or in any other figure. I told them
next, that I was not obliged to “serve my
self;” but they answered, “’twas so much
the harder I should be obliged to serve any
one else.” My being sent abroad, they said,
would be the death of them; for they had
witnessed, at Ramsgate, the embarkation of
the Walcheren expedition, and too well re
membered “ the misery of the soldiers’ wive*
at seeing their husbands in transports /”
I told them that, at the very worst, if I
should be sent abroad, there was no reason
why I should not return again; but they both
declared, they never did, and never would,
believe in those “Returns of the Killed and
Wounded.”
The discussion was in this stage when it
was interrupted by another loud single knock
at the door, a report equal in its effects on us
to that of the memorable cannon-shot at
Brussels ; and before we could recover our
selves, a strapping Serjeant entered the par
lor, with a huge bow, or rather rain-bow, of
party-colored ribbons in his cap. He came,
he said, to offer a substitute for me, but I was
prevented from reply by the indignant females
asking him in the same breath, “ Who and
what did he think could be a substitute for a
son and a husband ?”
The poor Serjeant looked foolish enough
at this turn ; but he was still more abashed
when the two anxious ladies began to cross
examine him on the length of his services
abroad, and the number of his wounds —the
campaigns of the militia-man having been
confined, doubtless, to Hounslow, and his
bodily marks militant to the three stripes on
his sleeve. Parrying these awkward ques
tions, he endeavored to prevail upon me to
see the proposed proxy, a fine young fellow,
he assured me, of unusual stature ; but I told
him it was quite an indifferent point with me
whether he was 6-feet-2 or 2-feet-6, in short,
whether he was as tall as the flag, or “under
the standard.”
The truth is, I reflected that it was a time
of profound peace ; that a civil war, or an in
vasion, was very unlikely; and as for an oc
casional drill, that 1 could make shift, life*
Lavater, to right-about-face.
Accordingly I declined seeing the substi
tute, and dismissed the Serjeant with a note
to the War-Secretary to this purport: “That
I considered myself drawn; and expected,
therefore, to be well quartered. That, under
the circumstances of the country, it would
probably he unnecessary for militia-men ‘to
be mustarded’ : but that if his Majesty did
‘ call me out,' 1 I hoped I should 1 give htm sat
isfaction.''”
The females were far from being pleased