Punch (16.1849)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

19

MISS BENIMBLE'S TEA-AND-TOAST.

M

a temper that could take up with one room, I give up myself to house-
keeping—that is, to minding other people's houses. At this very
minute I'm in Pimlico. Fourteen rooms, rent £150; water, hard and
soft; taxes next to nothing ; never seen a flea since I've been here; and
chimneys that don't know what smoke is.

And in this way, for this past ten jears, I've been moved about
town—like a Queen on a chess-board—though not always in a square.
The quantity ot life 1 've seen in this way is wonderful. The shades of
human feelings, like colours in a ribbin-box, that unroll 'emselves
afore me, are not to be reckoned. In this way I've been brought into
a persition with the first people as ever walked; and so a little down the
ladder—thounh 1 make it a pint, of principle never to have a house on
my hands under £70 per ann., taxes not included.

It isn't for me, Mr. Punch, to boast of what I know. I should
despise myself if I could be brought so much as to elude to the perliiical
secrets, trom Queen Anne's time upwards and downwards, as are
in my box. But this I may say ; that the dajs of spring panels is

"R. PUNCH,— This I will say. With the tea
poured ou% and smelling ot Indy—the toast
mellering afore the fire, like so much buttered
happiness—the cat upon the rug—and the news-
paper on my lap, to take it up, and, when I like,
to lay it down again—why, Mr. Punch, I don't
know—perticularly when revolu'ions are in—I
don't know that I'd change my chair with the
throne of my gracious neighbour the Queen,
that'—when ihe standard ^vith the harps and
lions in it, is flying above the door — lives
opposite.

Talking of lions, I see at last they've pitched
upon the live unicorn. Poor thing ! Well, I j not past. It is not likely that I should have had the run of so many
knew it would right itself at some time. A great ] mansions all to myself, without rummaging all the closets, and
comfort and a sweet moral to them as may be j sounding all the wamskits. And the upshot of this is, writings and
backbitten all their days, to come ou1". like the parchments enuff to make your knees knock together. You don't know
over-drifted snow at the end. what things I've brought to light! You don't know what may be

But it seems what we freeborn Britons call hidden in a crust of blue mildoo! I've come at wrifines that'll turn
a unicorn, the misbenighted savages in Kordofan I tlie History of England inside out, and make all the Kings in West-
— says Baron Von Muller — call A'nasa; ! rmnster Abbey rattle in their coughings. And these, Mr. Punch, are at

your service.

But, Sir, don't think I have nothing to perpose but mouldy writings
and dead skins of our ansistors. My principal object is the life about
us: the 111e as fresh and as bright as ilie sprats this minute crying
under me. Mr. Punch, I live on a newspaper. As the bee goes from
rose to lillie—and from lillie to mariegolde—and so on to polyantus and
Londonpride—packing up about her all the honey as she finds; so,
Mr. Punch, do 1 go about my paper.

When 1 sets myself down to my tea and toast—(strange fikleness
of human natur !—but I never could like muffins !) —and throws myself
upon the world in print, jou've no notion how 1 do expand! You can't
guess the many feelings that fight within me, like a crowd on a boxin
night! Feelings of ail sorts,—but praps, like the hop in Bass's ale,
bitterness is uppermost. And for this, the kindest of reasons—to see
what a mess (excuse strong writing)—a mess the men, the lords of the
creation, make of the world they've taken all to theirselves, leaving
such a little of it to the women to make up into anything.

It is quite time that these feelings should be poured out in ink.
And so, Mr. Punch—thinking that I've seen in a good many of your
works a heart that could feel lor a sister—1 perpose, in whatever
mansion 1 may have to keep—(tho' between ourselves, 1 like Pimlico
and the nearness to the Pallis so well that I shan't let this house in a
hurry—not if 1 know it)—in whatever mansion, to write to you upon
the world that's turning round u°,—that 1 may, though late, do credit
to the admission I was born with.

Mr. Punch, there is at this minute something serous—awful—in
this house and its round about. I' is live in ihe afternoon. There is
a fog in the street that might be cut like Wenham ice, and packed off
to our unnat'ral enemies. There is a jamming of vehikels and all the
roar of lile, and cussing of cabs, with a silver cry of sprats—like the
voice of ope above a tempest—in the street below. And here above
am I, in a drawin-room of somethin like ninety by a hundred •. witli
appear glass lhat would take in Goliar, over the chimney—and on the
sealing, garlands of roses and apples and pumgrannies in plaster. Here
I sits, like the Empress of Hobinson Crusoe, with the Emperor out.
And in my lap is the " great globe itself" made flat into a newspaper.
What though's it opens up! Now I'm in Pimlico, and—now in

Californy !•-Go'd ! Nothing but gold ! One minute the room I

sit in is a shadow—and now if it isn't luminated, lighted up with the
precious mettle like the furniss of Abkdnego !

But, Mr. Punch, with your kind permission—and with your gen'ral
allowance—I'll give you, next week, my notions of Californy, as it
appears (with other things) in ihe newspaper. Meanwhile,

Yours to cumand,
Pimlico. Matilda Benimble.

which, no doubt on it, is Arabbv for a Neddy
For, says the Baron—and I write it from my paper—for "It is the
size of a donkey, has a thick body and thin bones, coarse hair, and tail
like a boar. It has a long horn on its forehead, and le's it hang
when alone, but erects it immedUly on seeing an enemy." 1
should like to know what this is but our own precious unicorn in a
wild condition, unaccustomed to public braying. It is the size of a
donkey, says the Baron. Very good; but isn't it nat'ral t hat a donkey
would grow any size that 's been so long taken care ot in the
Royal Arms. It has coarse hair, says the Baron. Hair coarse or
fine'8 all a matter of feed, and the British unicorn has had no end
of beans. Very true, our unicorn always has his horn erect, because
he's always supposed to be in state—whereas the wild unicorn, as
the Baron says, has his horn out of curl when a'one, and gets it up
in full fig only when he sees company. Howsomever, 1 spose they '11
not be long afore they send an A'nasa to the Theological Society, when
an enlightened public will be able to judge atwixr. the wild and the
tame—atwixt the unicorn when in polished society, and the unicorn in
the rough.

But, Mr. Punch, the unicorn has carried me off of my Bubject. What
I was going to say, was this. I've long thought it; but I got up this
bl ssed morning wi h the notion rivetted in me that I was born to do
something. I know I come into this world with an admission ! But,
Sir, to begin wi'h last, night. It 1 didn't dream I was turned into a
porkip ne, I am one this very minute. A porkipine, with every quill
dipped in ink. And then, I thought 1 did no more than wak over a
white sheet of paper as big as any table-cloth, and if it warn't all
printed with wideh-circ'lated columns—murders and acciden's and all
—my name is not Matilda. And though I was a porkipine, I thought
I was still myself, and had the perfect use of my quills, and while
writing, was sensible to the last drop of ink. And this brings me to
my letter.

I do think, Mr. Punch, lhat my habi's and feelings—to say nothing
o'my dream—pint me out to myself as a public wri'er. Yes; that's
the admission 1 was born with. But, Sir, to give jou my story with
not a bit of varnish.

Iam the only daughter of parints that was once repitab'e, but are
now, unfortunately, no more. Bles>ed by Providence with a compe-
tent muffin-walk which, as you may know, lasts only four momhs in the
year, they were always enabled to take themselves and me abroad six
months at leas*, to beguile ourselves with the artful foreigner. The
Courts we peeped into—but this by-and-by. Still, I may say, if the
younger branches of the Emperor Nicholas was the first of the
Imperial Rushes to know what was crumpets, they owe that blessing of
civilisation—as my dear father would call it—to a freeborn BrUon.

You are not the man, Mr. Punch, to ask a lady's age. I am not
the woman to name it. Still, this I will say. I am old enough to
remember the feelings that fought in my bosom on the trial of Queen
Caroline. How I wished I was a man, to take a spear and shield, and
go afore Buckingham Palace (over the way) and fling a glove down
under the marble arch. But 1 was young then. You can't think how
) oung.

I might Save married many times, and therefore never have.
" Matilda's mind was too strong to bend about a wedding ring." This
is what my father said, and he was a man that never told an untruth.
Never. Though you'd put him behind his own counter, he couldn't do it.

Well, Mr. Punch, being, in the course of things, left an orphan, with
a small Chancery pioperty, and being of a roving mind, and not having

From Bad to Worse.

The Erench must have some novelty. They have no sooner got
their Napoleon than they want to change him. Not pleased wi'h him
as a President, they want to have him as an Emperor. They had better
be content with their bad bargain; tor we can kindly caution France—
and if it only looks in the Dictionary, it will see our word is perfectly
good—that the very next thing that lollows an Empire, is—Empirer.

new work.

Just out.—Staite's Electric Light.