Punch (68.1875)

February ’2,0, i^75.1

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

75

“ON 'CHANGE.”

Brown. “Mornin’. Fresh Hornin’, ain’t it?”

Smith. “ ’Course it is. Every Morning’s a fresh Morning ! By-bye ! ”

[Brown’s temper all day is quite unbearable.

CHARLES LAMB’S CENTENARY.

“February 10, is the centenary of the birthday of Charles
Lamb. It is thought that this offers a fit opportunity to establish
some memorial of him in his old school, where, I am ashamed to
say, no visible trace of him exists.”—Letter of Gr. C. Bell (Head
Master of Christ’s Hospital) in the Times.

Dear Elia, born a hundred years ago.

How through and through your quiet life we know:
How we delight in those quaint essays, made
Out of soul-sunlight conquering life-shade :

How we enjoy your happy style, sore sated
Of large words with but little meaning weighted :
How every one who reads your prose or rhymes,

Feels to you as a comrade of those times,

That heard you pun and stammer out your joke,

And breathed the fragrance of your curling smoke:
For never reader could your Essays end,

Without the thought, “Dear Elia is my friend ! ”

Now the Head-Master of that famous school,

Where once you writhed ’neath flagellating rule,

And, when birch-rod produced accordant hymn,
Envied unpunishable cherubim,

Writes to the Times— says briefly, “ Let us do
Something for that dear ancient brilliant Blue.”
Punch says the same, for through the world who knows
So exquisite a master of sweet prose,

So beautiful a dreamer, though the sky
To which you soared was not immensely high;

So subtle an observer of all things

Kindly and quaint, with old-world colourings.

What though the playful fancies of your pen
Be your memorial in the hearts of Men,

’Tis sad to know, where a boy-blue you played,
Within the churchyard where your bones are laid,
Your grave neglected,* and your schoo-lroom wall,
Without a stone your memory to recall!

* See letter of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald in the Daily News,
Saturday, Feb. 13.

Leyden Literati.

Punch is glad the proceedings at the Leyden Ter-
centenary went off smoothly. A Leyden-jar or two was
no more than might have been expected.

“ TOO EEW COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH.”

The Hermitage, Cosy Nook.

My Vf.ry Dear Mr. Pdnch, Feast of St. Pancakes.

The other evening, as I was sitting dozing over the Times
after supper, I came across a most interesting letter. It was
entitled ‘ Cookery for the Working Classes,” and contained several
very excellent suggestions. I suppose I must have fallen asleep as
I was reading it, for I certainly found that I had been carried out
of my comfortable study to be placed in a small, half-furnished room.

My new abode was a very wretched place. There was a little
window in one of the corners which had lost a third of its proper
complement of glass panes. The deficiency had been made good
with brown paper and. dirty dusters. In the centre of the room
was a slovenly woman, hard at work preparing the household
dinner. Her hair was rolled up in a heap anyhow, her cotton gown
was amply spotted with grease and gravy, and her hands and arms,
to say the least, could scarcely have been compared honestly with the
driven snow. Rolling about the floor, and generally getting into
the way of their mother, were two ragged children. I now turned
my attention to the cookery. 0, my dear Mr. Punch, such waste,
such cruel waste ! Meat hacked and tossed about as if it had been
so much grass! Bones thrown away to the dogs in the court out-
side, fat given over to the tender mercies of the cats on the tiles !
And such cooking—such barbarous cooking! The woman’s one idea
seemed to be that she ought to burn the meat before her to a cinder.
So long as it was “brown all over,” she was perfectly satisfied.
She laid the cloth (such a cloth!), and put out the plates (such
plates!); and, after hustling a lot of newspapers, old coats, and
older stockings, on to a side table, she was ready for dinner. Such
a dinner ! It consisted of very improbable meat, garnished with nearly
impossible potatoes! As I looked at this banquet, laid out in what
I may call a temple of mess and misrule, the husband of the woman
entered the room. He looked at his home, his wife, and his dinner,
and sat down on a chair, and in a bad temper. Before I could hear

him breathe the beautiful sentiments I knew he must be burning to
utter, I was whirled away into quite a different sort of apartment.

The new room in which I found myself was neat and cheery.
Pleasant pictures were hanging on the walls, the floor had been fresh
sanded, and flowers were blooming in the window-seat. Every-
thing was in its proper place, from the big clock down to the tiniest
little egg-cup. A bright young woman, in a spotless cap and a
large brown holland apron, was busy at work cooking. She had
a couple of excellent assistants in the persons of two neat-handed,
bright-eyed, merry-voiced children. Ah! here was something like
cookery! No waste, no dirt, and no stupidity. Every morsel of
meat and bone not required for the dish upon which the woman
was engaged, was quietly popped by the children into a steaming
pot au feu. A beautiful white cloth was laid upon the table, and
then the w-ife, as a finishing stroke, concocted such an omelette!
This done, she took off her apron, carefully folded it up, and was
ready for dinner. She looked as clean and as neat and as bright
(let ine say for want of a better simile) as a brand new darning-
needle ! As the omelette smoked on the table, in came the husband

fresh from his toil. He sat down with a smile, and then-1 found

myself somewhere else.

I was back again in England. I saw Schools of Cookery, attended
by flocks of farm-children and presided over by young ladies. I
knew intuitively that these young ladies had given up their croquet
parties and had snubbed their curate admirers to go in for a course
of training at the School of Cookery at South Kensington. I noticed
that the wives were neat and the husbands happy, that the cottages
were tidy and pretty, and the children cheery and useful. In fact
I found that England could compare with France. And when I
saw all this, my very dear Mr. Punch, I knew that I must be what,
as a matter of fact, I actually was,

Your obedient Servant,

Only a Dreamer.

Broad Church Vestment.—A Fre-mantle.