DOI Heft:
September 7, 1878
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17733#0102
98
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 7, 1878.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE JACK SPRATTS.
A Tale of Modem Art and Fashion.
Part I.
In a beautiful old suburb of London, undesecrated, as yet, by
steam or telegraph-wires, and surrounded by low-lying flowery
meads, through which the Thames would still meander occasionally,
as it had been wont to do in days long gone by, dwelt Jack Spratt,
a handsome, genial, and simple-minded young painter. He had a
girl-wife of lofty stature, and truly transcending loveliness, a gift
of which she seemed as yet unconscious.
They were unknown to fame, and not of exalted birth ; but they
had refined tastes, pretty manners, and affectionate dispositions, and
were unto each other even as the apple of the eve. Their united
ages amounted to thirty-nine brief summers. They had twins (a
boy and a girl), as beautiful as the day, whom they loved with
an exceeding love, and who loved them back again with all the
singleness of their two little child hearts, that beat as one.
' Oh, really quite too fortunate ! . had they but known " (as Virgil
would no doubt have exclaimed, had he but been an Englishman,
and lived to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. J. Spratt) !
Their house was of red brick, smothered in ivy, and had been built
about Queen Anne's time, or before, and never repaired since, nor
meddled^ with in any way whatever. It stood by itself in a small
old-fashioned garden, surrounded by once peach-laden walls that
crumbled to the touch, and overrun with nettles, thistles, marigolds,
sunflowers, and poppies ; a trellised arbour of sweet pea half buried a
sun-dial in its fragrant gloom; and there was a nice little green pond.
Apple-trees and pear-trees, leafless and long past fruit-bearing, but
beautifully gnarled, grew rank as in an orchard, and on to a luxu-
riant lawn that had never known the scythe, opened the pretty
studio, which was full of blue china, round mirrors, faded tapestry,
carved oak-chests, high-backed chairs, brazen sconces, medheval
arms and armour, an organ with beautifully painted pipes but no
bellows, and other musical instruments, such as sackbuts and
psalteries, a harpsichord without any strings, and a dulcimer that
had been turned into an eight-day clock, but could never be got to
go. The dust lay thick on all these pretty things, and toned them
into harmony. Studio, house, and garden were pervaded with a
subtle fragrance, significant of old associations, which arose in the
soft summer twilight from time-honoured, ruined, and all but for-
gotten drains.
Jack Spratt also gloried in the possession of two beautiful and
costly lay figures, representing a mother and a child, the only modern
objects in the house, whose open countenances and curiously-wrought
limbs, duly draped, he would never tire of painting, while his lovely
wife sat by, darning his socks, may be, or embroidering some quaint
device, as she read to him aloud old tales of chivalry, to which he
was extremely partial, while the twins frolicked at her pretty feet.
This work done, after a frugal meal of bread and honey in the
parlour, they would hie them to the flowery mead; and there,_ in
the golden sunset, she would ply her spinning-wheel, and softly sing
some ancient ballad in a foreign tongue, while the twins gambolled
in lamb-like innocence around.
They made a pretty picture, these happy children, and their beau-
tiful young mother, and the trees, and the grass, and the winding
river, bathed in the glories of eventide; and in the midst of it all,
Jack Spratt would be inspired to close his eyes, and reverently,
regretfully, recall to mind the grand old sunsets, by the grand Old
Masters, in the National Gallery, and the quaint old children and
mothers by Bogofogo, Antima Cassaro, Vecchio Coccoloro, Fra
Stoggiato di Vermicelli, Sarsaparillo dello Strando, and other
painters of that ante-pra3-Raphaelite school; and, in the depths of
his bliss, a feeling of discouragement would steal over him as he
thought of those immortal works, showing thereby that he was a
true artist, ever striving after the fight. He little dreamt in his
modesty, that, young and inexperienced though he might be, his
pictures were even quainter than theirs; for not only could he
already draw, colour, compose, and put into perspective quite as
badly as they did, but he had over them the advantage of a real lay
figure to copy, whereas they had to content themselves with the
living model.
The amusements of this happy pair were of the simplest, healthiest,
and most delightful kind ; they never went to the play, nor to balls
or dances, which they thought immodest—(indeed they were not even
asked)—nor read such things as novels, magazines, or the newspaper ;
nor visited exhibitions of modern art, which they held in contempt, as
they did all things modern ; but they skipped, with single and double
rope, and played battledore and shuttlecock, and hunt the slipper,
and puss in the corner, and hide-and-seek, and such like little inno-
cent old games; and they were devoted to music, not that of the
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 7, 1878.
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE JACK SPRATTS.
A Tale of Modem Art and Fashion.
Part I.
In a beautiful old suburb of London, undesecrated, as yet, by
steam or telegraph-wires, and surrounded by low-lying flowery
meads, through which the Thames would still meander occasionally,
as it had been wont to do in days long gone by, dwelt Jack Spratt,
a handsome, genial, and simple-minded young painter. He had a
girl-wife of lofty stature, and truly transcending loveliness, a gift
of which she seemed as yet unconscious.
They were unknown to fame, and not of exalted birth ; but they
had refined tastes, pretty manners, and affectionate dispositions, and
were unto each other even as the apple of the eve. Their united
ages amounted to thirty-nine brief summers. They had twins (a
boy and a girl), as beautiful as the day, whom they loved with
an exceeding love, and who loved them back again with all the
singleness of their two little child hearts, that beat as one.
' Oh, really quite too fortunate ! . had they but known " (as Virgil
would no doubt have exclaimed, had he but been an Englishman,
and lived to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. J. Spratt) !
Their house was of red brick, smothered in ivy, and had been built
about Queen Anne's time, or before, and never repaired since, nor
meddled^ with in any way whatever. It stood by itself in a small
old-fashioned garden, surrounded by once peach-laden walls that
crumbled to the touch, and overrun with nettles, thistles, marigolds,
sunflowers, and poppies ; a trellised arbour of sweet pea half buried a
sun-dial in its fragrant gloom; and there was a nice little green pond.
Apple-trees and pear-trees, leafless and long past fruit-bearing, but
beautifully gnarled, grew rank as in an orchard, and on to a luxu-
riant lawn that had never known the scythe, opened the pretty
studio, which was full of blue china, round mirrors, faded tapestry,
carved oak-chests, high-backed chairs, brazen sconces, medheval
arms and armour, an organ with beautifully painted pipes but no
bellows, and other musical instruments, such as sackbuts and
psalteries, a harpsichord without any strings, and a dulcimer that
had been turned into an eight-day clock, but could never be got to
go. The dust lay thick on all these pretty things, and toned them
into harmony. Studio, house, and garden were pervaded with a
subtle fragrance, significant of old associations, which arose in the
soft summer twilight from time-honoured, ruined, and all but for-
gotten drains.
Jack Spratt also gloried in the possession of two beautiful and
costly lay figures, representing a mother and a child, the only modern
objects in the house, whose open countenances and curiously-wrought
limbs, duly draped, he would never tire of painting, while his lovely
wife sat by, darning his socks, may be, or embroidering some quaint
device, as she read to him aloud old tales of chivalry, to which he
was extremely partial, while the twins frolicked at her pretty feet.
This work done, after a frugal meal of bread and honey in the
parlour, they would hie them to the flowery mead; and there,_ in
the golden sunset, she would ply her spinning-wheel, and softly sing
some ancient ballad in a foreign tongue, while the twins gambolled
in lamb-like innocence around.
They made a pretty picture, these happy children, and their beau-
tiful young mother, and the trees, and the grass, and the winding
river, bathed in the glories of eventide; and in the midst of it all,
Jack Spratt would be inspired to close his eyes, and reverently,
regretfully, recall to mind the grand old sunsets, by the grand Old
Masters, in the National Gallery, and the quaint old children and
mothers by Bogofogo, Antima Cassaro, Vecchio Coccoloro, Fra
Stoggiato di Vermicelli, Sarsaparillo dello Strando, and other
painters of that ante-pra3-Raphaelite school; and, in the depths of
his bliss, a feeling of discouragement would steal over him as he
thought of those immortal works, showing thereby that he was a
true artist, ever striving after the fight. He little dreamt in his
modesty, that, young and inexperienced though he might be, his
pictures were even quainter than theirs; for not only could he
already draw, colour, compose, and put into perspective quite as
badly as they did, but he had over them the advantage of a real lay
figure to copy, whereas they had to content themselves with the
living model.
The amusements of this happy pair were of the simplest, healthiest,
and most delightful kind ; they never went to the play, nor to balls
or dances, which they thought immodest—(indeed they were not even
asked)—nor read such things as novels, magazines, or the newspaper ;
nor visited exhibitions of modern art, which they held in contempt, as
they did all things modern ; but they skipped, with single and double
rope, and played battledore and shuttlecock, and hunt the slipper,
and puss in the corner, and hide-and-seek, and such like little inno-
cent old games; and they were devoted to music, not that of the