Punch (45.1863)

72

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[August 15. 1863.

THE CHIMNEY POT, OH, EASE BEFORE ELEGANCE.

Courageous Party (to shocked acquaintance.) “ But they carried ’em so in the
Middle Ages, my dear fellow.—See Cotton MSS., Titus, W. 25. And the comfort—
I assure you I shouldn't knoiv I’d got it about me !"

SHADOWS OP THE WEEK.

Many have told of the Monks of Old all sorts of things
more or less true according to the bias of the narrator.
If they did send a few heretics to the stake, they were at
least impartial in their prosecutions; for it is an acknow-
ledged fact, that, in the Refectory Festivities, with which
they invariably celebrated these Triumphs of Religion,
they toasted one another, and often roasted a brother on
his weak points. The above information may be gathered
from M. Montalembert’s Monks of the West.

In a Rare old codex may be found the information that
there are tot libri Africani, probably full of black letter,
in the now almost inaccessible Libraries of Abyssinia. We
recommend Mr. Hotten to look after these as quickly as
possible, and bring them out among his other Antiquarian
productions as the Hotten-tot libri.

The London Traffic Managers have ordered that when
the Fulham Omnibus has its compliment of passengers, it
shall be invariably known as the Quite-Fulham Omnibus.
Nobody has made any objection to this.

The other morning the celebrated Mr. Smith received
the amount of a debt from a well-known talented individual.
We are authorised to say that the name of the gentleman
who paid Smith was not Owen.

Dr. Nathan Davis, F.R.G.S., the celebrated Traveller
for the Ruined Houses of Carthage, has lately returned
from somewhere or other in Africa: he has not only found
out the Source of the Nile, but has made another discovery
beside this. He has discovered that Messrs. Speke and
Grant have discovered it before him.

There is to be a new Company started with the object
of assisting the poor to as much money as possible. Their
name is excellent security ; they call themselves. The Men-
dacity Society, Limited Liarbility.

The Russian Innocent.

Poor Gortsciiakoff ! How hard to be,
Misconstrued by the Great Powers Three,
His plain-spoken diplomacy
To have set down for irony,

His straightforward simplicity
For tortuous, crawling trickery !

A humbug much miscalled is he :

Prince Gortschakoff homme incmpris

UNREVEALED MYSTERIES.

CHAPTER II. AND LAST.

Miss Naylor—The Second Unrevealed Mystery.

Miss Naylor—Her Birth—Absence of Specific Data—Her Theological Views—Philo-
sophical—Joan of Arc—Omission by Historians—Her Opinion of Charles the
First—James the Second—Probable acquaintance with Homer—No Infor-
mation regarding the Pre-Adamite Jaw at Abbeville—Discussion regarding her
Hair—Awful Disappearance of a Lady’s Maid—Curious Question as to her final
Departure — Testimony of credible Witnesses—Who was She? — Mystery —
Conclusion.

To give the date of Miss Naylor’s birth would be, at the very com-
mencement, to set at rest for ever the much vexed question as to this
lady’s Rge. If the fact of Being is any certain proof of Birth, then we
might adopt the formula, that, “ Because Miss Naylor existed, there-
fore she was born.” Than this we can go no further; nor can any
number of mathematicians, even by the nicest of nice approximations,
arrive at anything like a guess as to the probable, we do not require
the exact, year of'this mysterious lady’s first appearance on the mundane
stage. Our parents and the parents of our contemporaries had seen her
in their childhood, and they testified that she had always been the
same as we had known her. Everybody agreed that she was a superior
woman. She subscribed to many libraries, mastered the daily news-
papers, read every modern book of note as it came out, and took a
warm interest in the Theological controversies of the day, inclining to
the High Church side for the sake of elegance, at the same time pro-
fessing Broad tenets, so as to give her natural feminine reverence a
tinge of masculine philosophy. She always spoke in terms of the
highest praise of Joan of Arc, and from occasional hints not a few
of her more intimate friends were of opinion, that La Pucelle and
Miss Naylor were at school together, and that the former picked

up some of her very original notions from her English companion.
That all historians mention Joan and none Miss Naylor, in no way
militates against the above-mentioned h) pot.hesis. She expressed her
opinion of that “ poor dear Chables the First,” or that “ unhappy
vacillating James,” alluding, to the second monarch of that name,
with all the confident familiarity of personal knowledge. Everyone
was agog to catch the slightest clue to the antiquity of this extraor-
dinary woman. There, are those who have heard her say that she
“ knew Homer pretty well: ” at another time, “ that her acquaintance
with him was slight.” She appeared pained if the question was pressed.
Could it be that, in days of yore, Miss N. had kindled a Greek fire in
the Poet’s breast ? Her outline when we knew her, was not strictly
classical, but Homer, like Love himself, was blind. Of her ears we
can say nothing positively, never having seen them. Perhaps these
respected organs had loved to listen to the thunder-murmurs of the
Pre-adamite swain, whose jaw was so lately found at Abbeville; and,
on the other hand, perhaps not. The greatest mystery about Miss
Naylor was her hair. Were those bandolined and daintily-plastered-
down raven locks, the gift of nature or the marvellous work of art P
It was reported that a waiting-woman had somehow or another become
possessed of the secret. Whether this was so or not, the maid vanished;
and her strangely sudden disappearance warned all others against any
intrusion beyond the veil. Whether she ultimately departed this life,
or not, is still a controverted point; her friends can only speak to one
certain fact; namely, that they buried her. It is a curious thing that
though the so-called Miss Naylor was evidently a person of great con-
sequence, and though it was clearly a matter of the deepest importance
to keep her age a secret from the world, yet there was not a single
person of high birtb, no Queen, Princess, or Duchess, missing, from
her place in the entire Noble lists of the four quarters of the habitable
Globe. The wife of the Great Ciiam of Tartary did, it is true, die
somewhere about this time; but we do not attribute much to the
coincidence. The individuality and age of Miss Naylor must remain,
as far as we are concerned, a profound mystery until the end of
time.