Punch (12.1847)

34

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

PIRATICAL EXPEDITIONS.

WE understand, that, since
the flooring of the If lores
affair, several contem-
plated piratical expedi-
tions have been disco-
vered. One of them was
a plan of invasion, to be
carried into execution

perhaps whom you don't know—but she's known at Munich, Wagglb,
my boy,—everybody knows the Countess Ottilia di Ecjlenschreck-
enstein. Gad, sir, what a beautiful creature she was when I danced
with her on the birthday of Prince Attila of Bavaria, in '44!
Prince Carloman was our vis-a-vis, and Prince Pepin danced the
same contre danse. She had a polyanthus in her bouquet. Waggle, /
hare it now." His countenance assumes an agonised and mysterious
expression, and he buries his head in the sofa cushions, as if plunging
into a whirlpool of passionate recollections.

Last year he made a considerable sensation, by having on his table

with regard to the Isle of ■ a morocco miniature-case locked by a gold key, which he always

Dogs, which was described
in a placard as " a fertile
district overflowing with

wore round his neck, and on which was stamped a serpent—emblem of
eternity—with the letter M in the circle. Sometimes he laid this upon
his little morocco writing-table, as if it were on an altar—generally
all the bounties of Na- | he had flowers upon it—in the middle of a conversation he would
ture ;" though the occa- start Up aD(j jjjss jje would call out from his bed-room to his
sibiiai overflowing of the va]et_ u hicks, bring me my casket!"

^™ ^^^t^ " 1 knfW wh0 ifc i8>" Waggle would say. " Who does know

that fellow's intrigues 1 Desborotjgh Wiggle, sir, is the slave of
passion. I suppose you have beard the story of the Italian princess
locked up in the Convent of Saint Barbara, at Eimini—he hasn't told
you ? then I'm not at liberty to speak—or the Countess, about whom
he nearly had the duel with Prince Witikjnd of Bavaria ? Perhaps
you havVt even heard about that beautiful girl at Pentonville,
daughter of a most respectable dissenting clergyman. She broke her
heart when she found he was engaged (to a most lovely creature of
high family, who afterwards proved false to him) and she's now in

bounty of which it gets the benefit. A well-known captain in the
Thames steamboat service was to have been the leader in this scheme,
and every volunteer had been promised a native dog, worth a pound,
on his arrival at the island.

Another scheme, of more pretension still, was a contemplated
descent on the Eel Pies. A scheme had been laid by which all the
natives would have been spitch cooked at a given signal, and the leader
of the project would have been invested at once with the dictatorship.
The whole of his followers would have received an eel-pie, "free and
for ever," on setting their feet on shore ; and it was intended that the
eels should have been treated a la Tartare by these ignoble imitators of Hanwell.'
the pirates of Tartary. The whole plan was discovered by a rumour Waggle's belief in his friend amounts to frantic adoration,
having gone abroad that there were some snakes in the grass, which „ Wh iug h . ^ he w b j himself !" he whispers to

caused the chief to relinquish the enterprise. On further inquiry, it |__ „rr u w .u- • v. v.- ■ rr-

turned out that the « snakes in the grass1" were nothing but some poor j me- He c™ld ^ anything, sir, but for his passions. His poems
harmless eels, who had escaped from the cook, and were rolling about cn | ^ the most beautiful things you ever saw. He s written a con-
the turf, with a delicious consciousness of freedom. tmuation of Don Juan, from his own adventures. Did you ever read

his lines to Mart ? They 're superior to Byron, sir—superior to
Byron."

I was glad to hear this from so accomplished a critic as Waggle ;
for the fact is, I had composed the verses myself for honest Wigglb
one day, whom I found at his chambers plunged in thought over a
very dirty old-fashioned album, in which he had not as yet written a
single word.

" I can't," says be. " Some days I can write whole cantos, and to-
day not a line. 0, Snob ! such an opportunity ! Such a divine
creature ! She's asked me to write verses for her album, and I

can't."

" Is she rich ? " said L " I thought you would never marry any
but an heiress."

" 0, Snob ! she's the most accomplished, highly-connected creature !
—and I can't get out a line."

" How will you have it," says I : " hot with sugar ? "
" Don't, don't ! You trample on the most sacred feelings, Snob.
I want something wild and tender,—like Byron. I want to tell her
that amongst the festive halls, and that sort of thing, you know,—I
only think about her, you know—that I scorn the world, and am weary
of it, you know, and—something about a gazelle, and a bulbui, you
know."

" And a yataghan to finish off with," the present writer observed,

and we began :—

TO MARY.

THE SNOBS OF ENGLAND.

by one of them8elve8.

CHAPTER XLVII.—CLUB SNOBS.

Both sorts of young men, mentioned in my last under the flippant
names of Wiggle and Waggle, may be found in tolerable plenty, I
think, in Clubs. Wiggle and Waggle are both idle. They come of
the middle classes. One of them very likely makes believe to be a
barrister, and the other has smart apartments about Piccadilly. They
are a sort of second-chop dandies ; they cannot imitate that superb
listlessness of demeanour, and that admirable vacuous folly which
distinguishes the noble and high-born chiefs of the race ; but they
lead lives almost as bad (were it but for the example), and are per-
sonally quite as useless. I am not going to arm a thunderbolt, and
launch it at the heads of these little Pall Mall butterflies. They don't
commit much public harm, or private extravagance. They don't spend
a thousand pounds for diamond ear-rings for an Opera-dancer, as Lord
Tarqtjin can : neither of them ever set up a public-house or broke
the bank of a gambling-club, like the young Earl of Martingale.
They have good points, kind feelings, and deal honourably in money-
transactions—only in their characters of men of second-rate pleasure
about town, they and their like are so utterly mean, self-contented,
and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work treating on
Snobs.

Wiggle has been abroad, where he gives you to understand that
his success among the German countesses and Italian princesses,
whom he met at the tables d'hote, was perfectly terrific. His rooms are
hung round with pictures of actresses and ballet-dancers. He passes
his mornings in a fine dressing-gown, burning pastilles, and reading
Don Juan and French novels (by the way, the life of the author of
Don Juan, as described by himself, was the model of the life of a Snob).
He has twopenny-halfpenny French prints of women with languishing
eyes, dressed in dominoes—guitars, gondolas, and so forth—and tells
you stories about them.

"It's a bad print," says he, "I know, but I've a reason for liking it
It reminds me of somebody,—somebody I knew in other climes. You
have heard of the Princiessa di Monte Poxciano ? I met her at
Rimini. Dear, dear Francesca ! That fair-haired, bright-eyed thing
in the Bird of Paradise and the Turkish Simar with the love-bird on
hor finger, I'm sure must have been taken from—from somebody

I seem, in the midst of the crowd,

The lightest of all ;
My laughter rings cheery and loud,

In banquet and ball.
My lip hath its smiles and its sneers,

For all men to see ;
But my soul, and my truth, and my tea*s,

Are for thee, are for thee !

"Do you call that neat, Wiggle ?" says L "I declare it almost
makes me cry, myself."

" Now suppose," says Wiggle, " we say that all the world is at my
feet—make her jealous, you know, and that sort of thing—and that
—that I'm going to travel, you know. That perhaps may work upon
her feelings."

So We (as this wretched prig said) began again—

Around me they flatter and fawn—

The young and the old,
The fairest are ready to pawn

Their hearts for my gold.