Punch (12.1847)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

147

London's Wit and Fashion. It is the corner of Regent Street. Carlton
House has not yet been taken down.

A stately gentleman in crimson velvet and gold is sipping chocolate
at one of the tables in earnest converse with a friend -whose suit is
likewise embroidered, but stained by time, or wine mayhap, or wear.
A little deformed gentleman in iron-grey is reading the Morning
Chronicle newspaper by the fire, while a divine, with a broad brogue
and a shovel hat and cassock is talking freely with a gentleman, whose
star and riband, as well as the unmistakeable beauty of his Phidian
countenance, proclaims him to be a member of Britain's aristocracy.

Two ragged youths, the one tall, gaunt, clumsy, and scrofulous ;
the other with a wild, careless, beautiful look, evidently indicating
Race, are gazing in at the window, not merely at the crowd in the
celebrated Club, but at Timothy, the waiter, who is removing a plate
of that exquisite dish, the muffin, (then newly invented,) at the desire
of some of the revellers' within.

" I would, Sam. said the wild youth to his companion, " that I had
some of my Mother Macclesfield's gold, to enable us to eat of those
cates and mingle with yon springalds and beaux."

" To vaunt a knowledge of the stoical philosophy," said the youth
addressed as Sam, " might elicit a smile of incredulity upon the cheek
of the parasite of pleasure ; but there are moments in life when His-
tory fortifies endurance : and past study renders present deprivation
more bearable. If our pecuniary resources be exiguous, let our reso-
lution, Dick, supply the deficiencies of Fortune. The muffin we desire
to-day would little benefit us to-morrow. Poor and hungry, as we
are, are we less happy, Dick, than yon listless voluptuary who ban-
quets on the food which you covet?"

And the two lads turned away up Waterloo Place, and past the
Parthenon Club-house, and disappeared to take a meal of cow-heel at
a neighbouring cook's shop. Their names were Samuel Johnson and
Richard Savage.

Meanwhile the conversation at Button's was fast and brilliant.
" By Wood's thirteens, and the divvle go wid 'em," cried the Church
dignitary in the cassock, " is it in blue and goold ye are this morn-
ing, Sir Richard, when you ought to be in seebles ?"

" Who's dead. Dean ?" said the nobleman, the dean's companion.
" Faix, mee 1
Swift—and Fn
name ?—there's
child of Dick S:
thered, and it's
killed one of y
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" I kill Dick's

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the Strand."

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cavalier in iroi
Mr. Alexand
privilege of At
to enchain our
for a mere bra
and to glamc
privileges of
familiar with
the strains
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Presently, and with a graceful salute to the Society, he quitted the
coffee-house, and was seen cantering on a magnificent Arab past the
National Gallery.

"Who is yon spark in blue and silver ? He beats Joe Addison,
himself, in drinking, and pious Joe is the greatest toper in the three
kingdoms," Dick Steele said good-naturedly.

" His paper in the Spectator beats thy best, Dick, thou sluggard,"
the Right Honourable Mr. Addison exclaimed. He is the author
of that famous No. 996, for which you have all been giving me the
credit."

"The rascal foiled me at capping verses," Dean Swift said ; "and
won a teupenny piece of me, plague take him !"

"He has suggested an emendation in my ' Homer,'which proves
him a delicate scholar," Mr. Pope exclaimed.

" He knows more of the French king than any man I have met
with ; and we must have an eye upon him," said Lord Bolingbroke,
then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and beckoniDg a suspi-
cious-looking person who was drinking at a side-table, whispered to
him something.

Meantime who was he ? where was he, this youth who had struck
all the wits of London with admiration ? His galloping charger had
returned to the City ; his spendid court-suit was doffed for the
citizen's gabardine and grocer's humble apron.

ask of
iny of

(3 randy-

of the
sitting.

George de Barnwell was in Chepe—in Chepe, at the knees of
Martha Millwood.

A MILLINER'S PROPHECY.

Her Majesty's Milliner is a woman of great fancy >, which, hi Her
Majestt's late Drawing-Room dress, was delightfully evident : for we
learn from the Court-Newsman, who had it from the Milliner herself,
that " Her Majesty's train was of green poplin, figured with gold
shamrocks" On Wednesday Royalty fasted for the famine in Ireland ;
and on Saturday it came out with a glorious prophecy iu its train,
that henceforth thj green Ireland would grow gold shamrocks. We
marvel that some of the Irish papers have not turned this graceful,
hopeful compliment, into another insult from the Saxon.