Punch (37.1859)

August 6, 1859.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

59

THE VISION OF VAUXHALL.

Comrades, you may leave me sitting in the mouldy arbour here,

W ith the chicken-bones before me and the empty punch-bowl near.

“ Hack ” they called the Punch that in it fiercely fumed, and freely
flowed:

By the pains that rack my temples, sure the name was well bestowed.

Leave me, comrades, to my musings, ’mid the mildewed timber-damps,
While from sooty branches round me splutter out the stinking lamps.

While through rent and rotten canvas sighs the bone-mill laden breeze;
And the drip-damp statues glimmer through the gaunt and ghastly trees.

And the seedy stucco crumbles from the orchestra hard by;

And the firework-frames like gibbets rear their arms athwart the sky.

And the monster platform stretches blank and bare beneath the moon;
And the night-wind through the boxes wanders with an eery croon.

Let me sit and sadly ponder o’er the glories of Yauxhall;

Sink this mouldy mildewed Present; from its grave the Past recal.

I§,’t the Punch that stirs my fancy—or the gooseberry Champagne,
Sets phantasmal shapes careering through the chambers of my brain P

Dimly, as through clouds a-steaming from a thousand fragrant bowls,
Periwigged, pulvilio-scented, Charles tiie Second’s revel rolls.

In gay doublet, trimmed and broidered, ribboned shoulder, ribboned
knee,

Brouncker rants, and Newport roysters, while Sam Pepys stands
by to see—

Sounds the nightingale’s sweet twitter from the green trees overhead;
Shrieks below the City Madam with Court gallants sore bestead.

Hark, ’tis pretty Mrs. Mercer, trolling out Tom D’TJreey’s song:
Hark, to Castlemaine’s loud laughter—brazen’st of the brazen throng.

Saucy Jennings with Count Grammont bandying the mot pour rire;
Nell Gwynne fondling handsome Sidney, spite of Buckhurst
frowning near.

Charles himself, his black face hidden in a vizor blacker still.
Laughing, ogling, and oddsfishing, light of wit, and loose of will.

See the cheesecake blithely broken, and the syllabubs afoam;

Hark at Thames, alive with boat-loads, for Spring Gardens, or forborne.

Drugget-aproned drawers bearing Claret and Canary-pottles,

Por wild wits and bona-robas to refresh their thirsty throttles:

And through all, sly, smug Sam Pepys, with a twinkle in his eye,
Taking careful note for entry in his Diary, by-and-by.

Thicker rise the fumes, and faster, but less furious streams the rout,

As Queen Anne’s decorous following bows the Merry Monarch’s out.

See the long, thin-faced Spectator, elbowing his silent way
For Sir Roger, close behind him, open-mouthed, and eyes astray;

Rapt in wonder at the music, and the movement, and the sights;
Elbowed by the vizored Madams, dazzled by the thousand lights.

This way swaggers Steel, half tipsy, but still kindly in his drink ;
There good-humoured little Gay, to loose Mat Prior tips the wink.

Swiet stalks, rolling indignation in his blazing deep blue eye;

St. John laughs off state blue-devils with Lord Oxford smooth and sly.

They have passed and now the Georges usher in a duller race.

Blank the scene, till sudden lighted by the look of Walpole’s face.

There he sits—the wizened watcher—cynical and calm and cool,

Ready to note others’ follies, or himself to play the fool.

There the Petersham sits blazing with her rouge and saucy stare ;
There the crowd applauds the Gunnings—fairest sisters of the fair.

Here trots Bozzy all in triumph with the Doctor on his arm;

While, not less triumphant, Goldy guards “the Jessamy bride” from
harm.

Pass, familiar shadows, trooping to the Land of Long-ago;

Let the Regency’s hot orgies set more brimming bowls allow.

Room for rampant Colonel Hanger. ! Bloods and bucks of Carlton
House,

Box the watch, and smash the tables, shiver glass, and wax-lights douse.

Room for Prince Hal redivivus—petticoats and pimps and all—
Down before that wig so curly and that coat so creaseless, fall!

Room for Almack’s maccaronis—room for Brooks’s playmen true,
March and Selwyn, Pox and Carlisle,—set the nunch-bowls blazing
blue !

Masquerade and gay Ridotto blend the cream and scum of town;
Statesman’s toils, and senate’s glories, with Soho’s endearments crown.

While o’erhead the ghost of Simpson lifts the ceremonial hat,

In deportment but inferior unto George the Great (by fat).

With such phantoms for evoking, shall I summon sorrier shades ?
Ghosts of gentish generations,—stray of shops and waif of trades P

Shadows of cheap shilling galas, flickerings of a dying flame ;

Straws by desperate speculation clutched at, in its drowning game P

No—amid these wretched ruins, trees all black and walks all green—
Be the ghosts of my evoking such as graced the ancient scene.

Be they ghosts girt with a glory, somewhat sulphurous though it be;
Ghosts of the Yauxhall that hath been—not of the Yauxhall we see.

NOTES ON THE RIYER.

It is truly said that fresh-water sailors do not know what sea-sick-
ness is. The effects of a trip on the Thames are no exception to this
rule, for the passengers on the silent highway of London, improperly
so called because it smells aloud, are certainly not fresh-water sailors.

The Thames should never be mentioned at meal-times in decent
Society. If anybody _ makes it the subject of remark at table the
probability is, that he is a medical student.

A TERRIBLE STATE OF THINGS.

We have it on the assurance of Mr. Maguire (a distinguished
brazen player ip the Pope’s Brass Brigade), that the name of the
lion. Member for the City of London is “detested” amongst all
Italians, whilst that of the Noble Lord the Member for Tiverton is
“ utterly abhorred.” W^e wonder how Lords John and Pam. have so
long survived this horrible affliction. Isn’t it a marvel how Palmers-
ton can, under the painful circumstances, be as jolly and jaunty as he
is ? How can he have lived to the fine old age, and have retained his
senses, in the happy way that he has done? Can he possibly be
indifferent to the feeling of Italian hatred? And does Lord John,
sublimated also by a like indifference, sleep as soundly _ as though
Rome existed no more than Carthage? We should advise them, if
they have any respect left for the Pope, to offer up candles, and have
masses said for their souls, at that pretty fancy bazaar of a chapel that j
has lately been opened, with such pomp and Popery, in Margaret
Street, Cavendish Square; and which, in our eyes, is nothing more
than “ a House of Call for Romans.”