Punch: Punch (38.1860)

24

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[January 21, 1860.

THE ADVANTAGES OF HAVING WET WEATHER IN THE

COUNTRY.

BY ONE WHO “ LOOKS TOON THE SUNNY SIDE,” EVEN WHEN IT RAINS.

of dogs or horses, unless they fall asleep, or else slink fur-
tively to bed. Now, wet weather prevents such selfish want
of gallantry, and makes gentlemen who visit her attentive to
their hostess, if only for the cause that they have nothing
else to do.

here is no doubt that it
• is unpleasant when one
goes into the country for
sake of out-door exercise,
to be shut up in the
house by a succession of
wet days; and if one hap-
pens to be somewhat of
a sporting turn of mind,
the moisture of the
weather is most trying
to one’s temper. One is
blue-devilishly apt to
come to breakfast with
black looks, when the
rain has all night long
been beating hard against
one’s window, and there
seems to be no hope of
its holding up ere dinner
time. With foxes waiting
to be hunted and phea-
sants to be shot, one can’t
help feeling savage when
one dailv finds the glass
midway between “Much
rain,” and “Stormy,” and
inclining, if one knocks
it, to fall rather than to
rise. To the people one
is staying with the bore
is not so great, inasmuch

as they, one thinks, can take their sport at any time.

country visits are like angels’, few and far between, it is no joke for a week

hunting grounds.

But to an uncaged Cockney,

whose

to be swamped out of one’s shooting, and to find the happy
of which one has been dreaming, are of no earthly use to one, from being under
water.

Nevertheless, sweet are the uses of adversity; and rightly balanced minds, when
shut up in the country, may find something more than billiards to console them.
It is surprising how a week’s wet freshens up the memory, and how reviving it is
found to friendly correspondence. As one has gone out for a holiday, of course
one cannot stoop to doing literary work; however much one sighs for one’s regular
employment. But one flies to pen and paper as a means of killing time, that being
the sole thing that the wet weather lets one kill; and for want of something better
to occupy one’s thoughts, one thinks about responding to one’s long unanswered
letters. One’s most distant correspondents are startled by next post at receiving
the replies to their forgotten notes and queries; and friends one has done favours
for, and by whom one has in consequence been subsequently cut, are surprised by
the receipt of a long letter of inquiry, begging them to furnish the most minute
particulars about their worldly welfare and spiritual health. Nay, to such a
pitch sometimes in this letter-writing mania promoted by wet weather, that faute
de mieux one finds oneself writing to one’s wife, and inquiring if baby has yet
learnt to say “ Melchisedek,” and whether things in general have gone on smoothly
since one left.

Again,_too, being shut up by wet weather in the country, one has leisure to
hold skeins of worsted for young ladies, and to assist in other feminine pursuits.
One learns to feed the parrot, and the bullfinch, and the lap-dog, and is entrusted
with the keep of the vivarium and fern-case, which none but female bands before
have been allowed to touch. One becomes, in fact, a sort of male maid-of-ail-
work, and wins thereby, as wages, marks of feminine approval which, had one
been out hunting, one would, of course, have missed. Moreover, when one passes
a few days in a drawing-room, one obtains a clearer insight into feminine employ-
ments than a twelvemonth spent in shooting would ever have induced; and one
feels by one’s experience enabled for the future to speak with some authority
upon the often mooted point, as to “ what on earth those women contrive to find
to do, when—aw—fellahs are away, you know ; and so, by Jove! they—aw—
can’t flirt.”

As to exercise, of course if there be children in the ho-xse there will be no lack
of chances for the stretching of one’s limbs. When a brace of bouncing boys, of
three and five years old, mount upon one’s back and say they mean one to be
“ horse,” one.may surely make one’s mind up to as stiff a bit of work as stalking
old French birds in November on clay fallows, or taking half a score of “ bull-
finchers ” and clearing six or seven brooks.

Add to this, that, besides one’s exertions in the billiard-room, there are other
occupations to which one may betake oneself, and which have both a bodily and
mental good effect. For instance, when confined by stress of weather to the
house, one has time to make oneself not unpleasant to its mistress, and to pay her
that attention which is properly her due. It happens not infrequently that, when
they have fine weather, male visitors go out directly after breakfast, and do not
reappear until the summons of the dinner-bell; and* that all the evening they talk

MACAULAY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY,

January 9, 1860.

Among the men whose words and deeds
He best has taught our time to prize ;
Macaulay’s honoured coffin lies,

Mid hush of jarring cliques and creeds.

A shadow falls upon his grave
When morning lights the eastern pane ;

And one, when sunset splendours rain
Through the west window of the nave :

That by his recent marble thrown,

Who sang of Nelson and the North,

And “England’s mariners” rang forth
In music like a trumpet-tone.

This, by his earlier statue flung,

Who in the lettered reign of Anne
Stands out, serenest type of man.

Best wielder of our English tongue—

Addison, Campbell—such the guards
At our Macaulay’s head and feet:

And what companionship more meet—

Of Essayists and Lyric bards—

For him, whose almost boyish breath
The battle-ballad’s clarion blew,

And thence heroic war-notes drew,

To breathe a soul through ribs of death—

When the Armada’s march he sang,

Along the guarded English steep.

While leaping watch-fires lit the deep,

And village-bells defiance rang ?

Eor him, whose later essays taught
To narrative fresh arts of grace :

Gave to old truths a novel face,

And new to crystal clearness wrought ?

If with the genial English life
That in Sir Roger charms the mind.

Drawing us closer to our kind,

His brilliant pages were not rife,

Yet let us own the Art that threw
Concentred light on giant men :

Made Clive and Hastings breathe again.

And Laud and Strafford strive anew.

Fitly his resting-place is given
With these great dead he loved so well.

Stand on his grave, and you may tell
The chief stars of our English heaven.

From Chaucer’s glad May-morning beam.

To Spenser’s planet rays that warm
Cold Allegory with a charm
Of life, seld given to Fancy’s dream—

And Camden’s steady light, that falls
In each dim nook of England’s past.

Now on some worn inscription cast,

Now on grey tower or minster walls—

And Johnson’s, Beaumont’s, changing stars.

One moment glad as Hesper’s glow
With light of mirthto tragic woe.

Shifting, the next, like blood-red Mars—

And all the galaxy that fused
Their lesser splendours into one,

When William ceased, and Anne begun,

And state-craft writer-craft abused.

Who knew and treasured of all these

What was worth treasuring, more than he
Who to their silent company
Has last gone down, from life and ease ?