Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II.
composition you chiefly derive your subsistence?”
“From puffing--writing rhyming advertisements for certain speculative
and successful candidates for public favour, in various avocations;
for instance, eulogizing the resplendent brilliancy of Jet or Japan
Blacking--the wonderful effects of Tyrian-Dye and Macassar Oil in
producing a luxuriant growth and changing the colour of the hair,
transforming the thinly scattered and hoary fragments of age to the
redundant and auburn tresses of youth--shewing forth that the “Riding
Master to his late Majesty upwards of thirty years, and Professor of the
Royal Menage of Hanover, sets competition at defiance, and that all who
dare presume to rival the late Professor of the Royal Menage of Hanover,
are vile unskilful pretenders, ci-devant stable-boys, and totally
undeserving the notice of an enlightened and discerning public! In fact,
Sir, I am reduced to this occasional humiliating employment, derogatory
certainly to the dignity of literature, as averting the approach of
famine. I write, for various adventurers, poetical panegyric, and
illustrate each subject by incontrovertible facts, with appropriate
incident and interesting anecdote.”
“And these facts,” observed Bob Tallyho, “respectably authenticated?”
“By no means,” answered the Poet; “nor is it necessary, nobody takes the
trouble of inquiry, and all is left to the discretion of the writer and
the fertility of his invention.”
“On the same theme, does not there exist,” asked Dashall, “a difficulty
in giving it the appearance of variety?”
“Certainly; and that difficulty would seem quite insurmountable when
I assure you, that I have written for a certain Blacking Manufacturer
above two hundred different productions on the subject of his
unparalleled Jet, each containing fresh incident, and very probably
fresh incident must yet be found for two hundred productions more! But
the misfortune is, that every thing is left to my invention, and the
remuneration is of a very trifling nature for such mental labour:
besides, it has frequently happened that the toil has proved
unavailing--the production is rejected--the anticipated half-crown
remains in the accumulating coffers of the Blacking-manufacturer, and
the Author returns, pennyless and despondingly, to his attic, where, if
fortune at last befriends him, he probably may breakfast dine and
sup, tria juncta in uno, at a late hour in the evening!” ~331~~ “And,”
exclaimed the feeling Dashall, “this is real Life in London!”
“With me actually so,” answered the Poet.
The Blacking-maker's Laureat now offered to the perusal of his
sympathising friends the following specimen of his ability in this mode
of composition:--
PUG IN ARMOUR;
OR,
THE GARRISON ALARMED.
“Whoe'er on the rock of Gibraltar has been,
A frequent assemblage of monkeys has seen
Assailing each stranger with volleys of stones,
As if pre-determin'd to fracture his bones!
A Monkey one day took his turn as a scout,
And gazing his secret position about,
A boot caught his eye, near the spot that was plac'd,
By w * * * *n's jet; Blacking transcendently grac'd;
And, viewing his shade in its brilliant reflection,
He cautiously ventured on closer inspection.
The gloss on its surface return'd grin for grin,
Thence seeking his new-found acquaintance within,
He pok'd in the boot his inquisitive snout,
Head and shoulders so far, that he could not get out;
And thus he seem'd cas'd--from his head to his tail,
In suit of high-burnish'd impregnable mail!
Erect on two legs then, with retrograde motion,
It stalk'd; on the Sentry impressing a notion
That this hostile figure, of non-descript form,
The fortress might take by manoeuvre or storm!
Now fixing his piece, in wild terror he bawls--
“A legion of devils are scaling the walls!”
The guards sallied forth 'mid portentous alarms,
Signal-guns were discharged, and the drums beat to arms;
And Governor then, and whole garrison, ran
To meet the dread foe in this minikin man!
“A man--'tis a monkey!” Mirth loudly exclaim'd,
And peace o'er the garrison then was proclaim'd;
And Pug was released, the strange incident backing
The merits, so various, of W* * * *n's Jet Blacking.”
~332~~ This trifle, well enough for the purpose, was honoured with
approbation.
The two friends, unwilling to offend the delicacy of the Poet by a
premature pecuniary compliment at this early stage of acquaintance, took
his address and departed, professing an intention of calling upon him at
his lodgings in the evening.
“I would not, were I a bricklayer's labourer,” exclaimed Bob, “exchange
situations with this unfortunate literary hack--this poor devil of
mental toil and precarious result, who depends for scanty subsistence on
the caprice of his more fortunate inferiors, whose minds, unexpanded
by liberal feeling, and absorbed in the love of self, and the
sordid consideration of interest, are callous to the impression of
benevolence!--But let us hope that few such cases of genius in
adversity occur, even in this widely extended and varied scene of human
vicissitude.”
“That hope,” replied his Cousin, “is founded on
“The baseless fabric of a vision!”
There are, at this moment, thousands in London of literary merit, of
whom we may truly say,
“Chill penury repress their noble rage,
And freeze the genial current of the soul!”
Men unsustained by the hand of friendship, who pine in unheeded
obscurity, suffering the daily privations of life's indispensable
requisites, or obtaining a scanty pittance at the will of opulent
ignorance, and under the humiliating contumely, as we have just been
informed, even of Blacking Manufacturers!
“But here is a man, who, during a period of eight years, held a public
situation, the duties of which he performed satisfactorily to the last;
and yet, on the abolition of the establishment, while the Principal
retires in the full enjoyment of his ample salary, this senior Clerk
and his fellows in calamity are cast adrift upon the world, to live or
starve, and in the dearth of employment suitable to their habits and
education, the unfortunate outcasts are left to perish, perhaps by the
hand of famine in the streets, or that of despondency in a garret;
or, what is worse than either, consigned to linger out their remaining
wretched ~333~~ days under the “cold reluctant charity” of a parish
workhouse.{1}
“When the principal of a Public-office has battened for many years on
his liberal salary, and the sole duties required of him have been those
of occasionally signing a few official papers, why not discontinue his
salary on the abolition of the establishment, and partition it out in
pensions to those disbanded Clerks by whose indefatigable exertions
the business of the public has been satisfactorily conducted? These
allowances, however inadequate to the purpose of substantiating all
the comforts, might yet realise the necessaries of life, and, at least,
would avert the dread of absolute destitution.”
A pause ensued--Dashall continued in silent rumination--a few moments
brought our Heroes to the Horse Guards; and as the acquirement “devoutly
to be wished” was a general knowledge of metropolitan manners, they
proceeded to the observance of Real Life in a Suttling House.
Child's Suttling House at the Horse Guards is the almost exclusive
resort of military men, who, availing themselves of the intervals
between duty, drop in to enjoy a pipe and pint.
“To fight their battles o'er again,
Thrice to conquer all their foes,
And thrice to slay the slain.”
In the entrance on the left is a small apartment, bearing the dignified
inscription, in legible characters on the door, of “The Non-Commissioned
Officers' Room.” In front of the bar is a larger space, boxed off,
and appropriated to the use of the more humble heroical aspirants, the
private men; and passing through the bar, looking into Whitehall, is
the _Sanctum Sanctorum_, for the reception of the more exalted rank, the
golden-laced, three-striped, subordinate commandants, Serjeant-Majors
and Serjeants, with the colour-clothed regimental appendants of
Paymasters and Adjutants' Clerks, _et cetera_. Into this latter
apartment our accomplished friends were ushered with becoming
1 “Swells then thy feeling heart, and streams thine eye
O'er the deserted being, poor and old,
Whom cold reluctant parish-charity
Consigns to mingle with his kindred mold.”
--Charlotte Smith.
~334~~ respect to their superior appearance, at the moment when a warm
debate was carrying on as to the respective merits of the deceased
Napoleon and the hero of Waterloo.
The advocate of the former seemed unconnected with the army: the
adherent to the latter appeared in the gaudy array of a Colour-Serjeant
of the Foot Guards, and was decorated with a Waterloo medal,
conspicuously suspended by a blue ribbon to the upper button of his
jacket; and of this honourable badge the possessor seemed not less vain
than if he had been adorned with the insignia of the most noble order of
the Garter.
“I contend, and I defy the universe to prove the contrary,” exclaimed
the pertinacious Serjeant in a tone of authoritative assertion,
“that the Duke of Wellington is a greater man than ever did, does, or
hereafter may exist!”
“By no means,” answered the Civilian. “I admit, so far as a thorough
knowledge of military tactics, and a brilliant career of victory
constitutes greatness, his grace of Wellington to be a great hero, but
certainly not the greatest 'inan that ever did, does, or hereafter may
exist!” “Is there a greater man? Did there ever exist a greater?--when
and where?” the Serjeant impatiently demanded.
“Buonaparte was a greater,” answered the opposing disputant; “because to
military renown unparalleled in the annals of ancient or modern history,
he added the most consummate knowledge of government; and although his
actions might frequently partake of arbitrary sway, (and who is the
human being exempted from human frailty) yet he certainly created and
sustained, in her most elevated zenith, the splendour of France, till
crushed by the union of nations in arms; and if power is the criterion
of greatness, who was, is, or ever can be greater than the man, who,
emerging from obscurity, raised himself solely by his mental energies
to the highest elevation of human glory; and who, this Island excepted,
commanded the destinies of all Europe! The most determined of his
enemies will not deny, calmly and duly appreciating his merits, that he
possessed unrivalled talent; and this fact the hero, whose cause you
so vehemently espouse, would, I have no doubt, be the foremost in
acknowledging.”
In deficiency of argument, the Serjeant resorted to invective; the
vociferous disputation reached the next ~335~~ room, and was taken up by
the rank and file in a manner not less tumultuous; when an honest native
of the “Emerald Isle” good-humouredly terminated the war of words,
calling for half a quartern of gin, with which to qualify a pint of
Whitbread's entire.
“To the immortal memory of St. Patrick, and long life to him!” exclaimed
Patrick O'Shaughnessy. “If there did not exist but them two selves, bad
luck to the spalpeen who will say that the Duke and my Lord Londondery
would not be the greatest men in the universe!”
This sally led to a cessation of hostilities, which might have been