Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

125

LOVE SONGS BY THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR,

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times ..
As we sit in a fog made of iich Latakie
This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

THE DOMESTIC LOVE SONG. But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,

„ * There's one that I love and I cherish the best ;

eticles of furniture are de- For the finest of coucheg that >B padded with hair

servedly favourite subjects • j never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair,
with domestic poets ; witness

those celebrated verses. " My 1 'Tis a bandy-legged, high-shouldered, worm-eaten seat,

uncle's old hat," " My grand- With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet ;

mother's muff " " My ances- But since the fair morning when Fanny sate there,

tor's coal-scuttle," &c, by , 1 bless thee and love thee' old cane-bottomed chair.

Miss Bunion and other poet- If chairs have but feeling in holding such charms,

esses, which have taken such A thrill must have passed through your withered old arms !

a strong hold on the affections I looked, and I longed, and I wished in despair ;

of the public. Our stout friend 1 wished myself turned to a cane-bottomed chair,

evidently knew the value of It was but a moment ghe sate in this place,

furniture when he composed ghe'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face !

the following lyric. It is A smile on her face, and a rose iu her hair,

crammed full of goods, like a And she sate there, and bloomed in my cane-bottomed chair.

broker's shop, and has a , ' , ,, , .

„„a j„m„„r„ „„n,„„ And so I have valued my chair ever since,
touching and domestic pathos, ... , . „ .J. ,, ',

, ° . . 1 ,, Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince ;

m ^ Tv ■ a§reeabIy Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,

with the May *air swagger The queen of my heart and my cane-bottomed chair.

of the poem we printed a
fortnight since.

The circumstances of the

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of ni^ht as I sit here alone—

borough Street, Burton Cres-
cent, had received a present
of shrimps from a kind friend at Gravesend, and asked his landlady,
Mrs. Runt, and her daughter to breakfast, when the young lady not only
sate in the " cane-bottomed chair," but broke it. The little affair of the
chair happened many rears ago, and our friend has long quitted
Mbs. Bunt's apartments : he sirs it was despair in love that tore him
thence, for he entertained a violent passion for Miss B., as usual ; but
her excellent mother persists that it was irregularity of rent-payments
which caused the serious difference with her lodger.

Nor could a young man in impoverished circumstances, as the C.
then was, expect much better treatment at the hands of Miss R.
That young lady was virtuously attached to the first-floor, Lieutenant
Bong of the Bombay Artillery, whom she married, and, as Mrs.
Captain Bong, is the happy mother of a very large family.

As for her spirit revisiting the Contributor's arm-chair, that is all
bosh. People don't sit on it, but for the reason of breakage above
stated ; and poems of later dates, "To Ianthe •" "To Zuleika ;"
" To Aueelia," &c, show that the rogue was not more inconsolable
about other disappointments than about this one. Of course he
makes the most of his feelings ; every poet does ; a true poet howls
if he is pricked with a pin, as much as an ordinary man who got
three dozen :—that is the beauty of poetic sensibility.

In tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I've a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,

But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure ;

And the view I behold on a sunshiny day

Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is crammed in all nooks,

With worthless old krdeknacks and silly old books,

And fooiish old odds and foolish old ends,

Cracked bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china, (all cracked,)

Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed ;

A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see ;

What matter ? 'tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire ;
And 'tis wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman's camp •.
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp ;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn :
'Tis a murderous kaife to toast muffins upon.

poem are these —The Con- | I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair—

tributor, then lodging in Bid- j M^ Fannt 1 see in m-v cane-bottomed chair.

She comes from the past and revisits my room ;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom ;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair.

PHYSIC FOrv IRELAND.

The case of Ireland reminds us of one which frequently occurs m
medical practice. A patient is labouring under a state of constitution
which can only be remedied by perseverance with ?ome unpalatable
remedy—say, a very bitter pill. The sufferer does not like the treat-
ment necessary for him ; accordingly he resorts to vegetable medicines
—elixirs of life—and runs the whole round of the specifics of advertisit-j
quacks.

At last, an attack of illness, threatening instant dissolution, throws
him on his bed. A regular practitioner is then sent for, and prescribes
the physic that should have been administered in the first instance,
shaking his head, observing that he should have been applied to before,
and hoping that his assistance may not have been sought too late.
Thus has Lokd John Russell, at the eleventh hour, been called in by
the friends of Ireland, and with these misgivings he prescribes the
Poor-Law Pill