DOI issue:
September 19, 1885
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17759#0151
144
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 19, 1885,
FITZDOTTEREL: OR, T'OTHER AND WHICH?
(By the Earl oj L-tt-n.)
" Supposing I was you,
Supposing you was me,
And supposing we both was somebody else,
I wonder who we should be ? "
Canto IY.—Muddlement.
There is a legend—and a legend, told
In verse, at length, fills up a lot of space.—
'Tis of a Little Woman who, though old,
Was active, and assiduous in the chase
Of that great Magnet of Humanity—Gold.
One Market Day she to the Market Place
Set forth, at the best speed of her old legs,
To sell,—and her commodity was eggs.
But age, though active, is at times inclined
To somnolence inopportune. Our Dame,
Half way to Market, felt she had a mind
For forty winks. She was indeed to blame ;
The King's Highway was really not designed
For ancient " Happy Dossers." All the same,
Stretching herself upon the sloping sward,
She slept; some scholiasts even say she snored!
A passing Pedlar spied her prostrate form,
As, covered by her long grey Jinsey gown,
Beneath the hedge she slumbered snug and warm.
The Pedlar's name was Stout. An angry frown
Showed his strict soul was stirred as with a storm
Of indignation. Then he tat him down,
Drew forth his scissors (Here we do the same,
And snip out twenty stanzas trite and tame.)
" He cut her petticoats all round about
Up to her knees." So says the naive old story.
'Tis probable the Dame and Pedlar Stout
A Sun Myth and a Mystic allegory
Adumbrate. I can trace therein (No doubt
But—snip !) A ballet-nymph in all her glory
Shows skirts less brief than did. our poor Dame Burden
As home that Pedlar plodded with his burden.
Knee-nipt by a North-Easter, she awoke,
Knowing herself no whit. " It is not I! "
She shrieked. This strikes me as a subtle stroke
Of poignant tragedy. Identity _
Must not be trifled with ; it is no joke
To lose one's self. That poor old Burdens cry
Sky-cleaving from beneath her cloak of camlet,
Is awfuller than the wail of inky Hamlet.
So found Fitzdotterel. He got mixed and jumbled,
Like our old dame, beyond self-recognition,
And, to mend matters, he and Hermann tumbled
Down a crevasse together. Their position, _
When found, was puzzling. Doom's dark voice had rumbled
About them bodingly ; weird premonition
Had dogged them close. And now the thing was ended,
They found poor Hermann by a rope suspended.
Beevor had thrown it to his aid,—it coiled,
Serpent-like, round his throat. The hand of Fate
May not be dodged, nor Doom's decrees be foiled !
Down, down they flew; Fitzdotterel's very weight
His friend's last slender chance of safety spoiled.
Slung o'er a peak thev found them, all too late,
Suspended, Beevor by his waist, and Hermann
By his snapt neck. Poor rash, rough-tempered German !
This for the local press was food most dear,
And thus 'twas summed :—" We hear, with deep regret,
The dreadful death of a young English Peer,
One Lord Fitzdotterel." (Full details, you bet,
Here follow.) " His companion, mere small beer
Of Teuton tap, it seems, is living yet:
Though—having interviewed his lady-nurse—
We fear no case of smash could well be worse"
Ah! poor Polonius-Edelweiss! He read
This "par." some three months later. "HeaveDs!" he
shouted,
" Wondrous is Fate— and Science ! Beevor dead,
And by a sus. per col.! And I half doubted
Heredity, my life-long hobby, led
By love, which theory and experience flouted!
Awful! Delightful!! " Here he tore his hair.
A Savant's triumph, and a Sire's despair,
Mixed, make a queer emotional salad. Mixed ?.
All Life, like Teas, is mixed, the black the green
In varying proportions, which betwixt
Kong-fu-tzee's—(Scissors sharp through seventeen
Stanzas on Souchong.') Edelweiss soon fixed
To hunt up Hermann ; but Evangeline
Had fewer rambles after her strayed lover
Than Edelweiss in striving to recover
Traces of Pumpernickel. Souls are harried—
In fiction—by Fatality's machination.
Lost clues, long illnesses, missives miscarried,
All sorts of cob-web fashioned complications,
(Until of oourse they once get safely married)
So few were else Romance's " situations "
'Twould puzzle e'en a poet, and a Tory,
To fill two vols, octavo with this story.
Those who have some experience in such things,
Would be exceedingly surprised to hear,
That the fortuitous angel without wings.
Who nursed " the comrade of the fated peer,"
Was other than " Lone Gretchen." Fate that brings
Such miracles about, to our dull sphere,
Would lend a charm beyond all contradiction,
If it would not confine them all to fiction.
Lone Gretchen nursed him back—of course—to life.
This—well the Little Woman, when she woke
From wayside slumber, felt less mental strife
As to her own identity. 'Tis no joke,
Especially when one would woo a wife,
To halt, like Buridam's oft-mentioned " Moke,"
Between two selves, as fogged as Lord Dundreary
O'er finger-counting. Beevor grew quite weary
Of asking " Is it If " and envied much
The Little Woman her unerring dog,
Whose bark could put the question to the touch.
So stumbled he in doubt's Serbonian bog.
Nosce teipsum ? Nay, how could he clutch
Comfort in that, as, lying like a log,
He passed long weeks in a perpetual pother,
Revolving Who is Which, and Which is T 'other ?
" Oh, for some sweet, all-solving Strawberry mark! "
He murmured, memories of Box and Cox
Glimmering through his spirit's mental dark.
But no, the nigritude of Ancient Nox
Environed still his spirit's storm-tost bark.
Meanwhile Lone Gretchen, of the ochre locks,
Watched, listened, and amidst his broken blether—
'Cute Teuton maid!—" put this and that together."
Lone Gretchen was—well, lump all Shakspeare's ladies
With Becky Sharp and a Mesmeric Medium,
And you will have her. Proserpine in Hades,
Or Psyche in Boeotia. (There is tedium
In leagues of Lempriere, so—snip .') A maid is
An oasis in Life's flat, seedy, greedy hum,
When she's as fair, and what the cad calls " fetchin',"
As that shrewd piece of saintliness, Lone Gretchen.
At last her fever-phrenzied patient rallied,
His wits still wandering, but his bones all whole ;
Forth for a solitary stroll he sallied,
And spied a huge pipe with a china bowl,
Behind which loomed some features vague, which tallied
With some vague memories of his muddied soul.
A rush—a cry—and on the sward lay scattered
The smoker and his pipe to fragments shattered!
" Donner und blitzen 1 I am choked! Let go!"
Sputtered a German voice as through a fog.
" Fitzdotterel, Keep your Pecker up ! ! !" " Oh! Oh! "
Shrieked the Much Mazed One, falling like a log
On Edelweiss's shirt. " At last I know
Myself! Tou 're better than the Old Dame's dog
You dear old Sausage ! Let me have a cry!
Heaven hath mercy on me ! It is 11!! "
A Proverr for Playgoers (with Mr. Punch's congratulations to
Mr. Harris).—A vast amount of Human Nature can always be found
both before and behind the Curtain—at Drury Lane !
Motto fort Greenwich. — " The early Boord picks up De
Worms."
gjf- TO CORRESPONDENTS,—In no case can Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, or Drawings, be returned, unless accompanied
by 6 Stamped and Directed Envelope or Cover. Copies of MS. should be kept by the Senders,
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[September 19, 1885,
FITZDOTTEREL: OR, T'OTHER AND WHICH?
(By the Earl oj L-tt-n.)
" Supposing I was you,
Supposing you was me,
And supposing we both was somebody else,
I wonder who we should be ? "
Canto IY.—Muddlement.
There is a legend—and a legend, told
In verse, at length, fills up a lot of space.—
'Tis of a Little Woman who, though old,
Was active, and assiduous in the chase
Of that great Magnet of Humanity—Gold.
One Market Day she to the Market Place
Set forth, at the best speed of her old legs,
To sell,—and her commodity was eggs.
But age, though active, is at times inclined
To somnolence inopportune. Our Dame,
Half way to Market, felt she had a mind
For forty winks. She was indeed to blame ;
The King's Highway was really not designed
For ancient " Happy Dossers." All the same,
Stretching herself upon the sloping sward,
She slept; some scholiasts even say she snored!
A passing Pedlar spied her prostrate form,
As, covered by her long grey Jinsey gown,
Beneath the hedge she slumbered snug and warm.
The Pedlar's name was Stout. An angry frown
Showed his strict soul was stirred as with a storm
Of indignation. Then he tat him down,
Drew forth his scissors (Here we do the same,
And snip out twenty stanzas trite and tame.)
" He cut her petticoats all round about
Up to her knees." So says the naive old story.
'Tis probable the Dame and Pedlar Stout
A Sun Myth and a Mystic allegory
Adumbrate. I can trace therein (No doubt
But—snip !) A ballet-nymph in all her glory
Shows skirts less brief than did. our poor Dame Burden
As home that Pedlar plodded with his burden.
Knee-nipt by a North-Easter, she awoke,
Knowing herself no whit. " It is not I! "
She shrieked. This strikes me as a subtle stroke
Of poignant tragedy. Identity _
Must not be trifled with ; it is no joke
To lose one's self. That poor old Burdens cry
Sky-cleaving from beneath her cloak of camlet,
Is awfuller than the wail of inky Hamlet.
So found Fitzdotterel. He got mixed and jumbled,
Like our old dame, beyond self-recognition,
And, to mend matters, he and Hermann tumbled
Down a crevasse together. Their position, _
When found, was puzzling. Doom's dark voice had rumbled
About them bodingly ; weird premonition
Had dogged them close. And now the thing was ended,
They found poor Hermann by a rope suspended.
Beevor had thrown it to his aid,—it coiled,
Serpent-like, round his throat. The hand of Fate
May not be dodged, nor Doom's decrees be foiled !
Down, down they flew; Fitzdotterel's very weight
His friend's last slender chance of safety spoiled.
Slung o'er a peak thev found them, all too late,
Suspended, Beevor by his waist, and Hermann
By his snapt neck. Poor rash, rough-tempered German !
This for the local press was food most dear,
And thus 'twas summed :—" We hear, with deep regret,
The dreadful death of a young English Peer,
One Lord Fitzdotterel." (Full details, you bet,
Here follow.) " His companion, mere small beer
Of Teuton tap, it seems, is living yet:
Though—having interviewed his lady-nurse—
We fear no case of smash could well be worse"
Ah! poor Polonius-Edelweiss! He read
This "par." some three months later. "HeaveDs!" he
shouted,
" Wondrous is Fate— and Science ! Beevor dead,
And by a sus. per col.! And I half doubted
Heredity, my life-long hobby, led
By love, which theory and experience flouted!
Awful! Delightful!! " Here he tore his hair.
A Savant's triumph, and a Sire's despair,
Mixed, make a queer emotional salad. Mixed ?.
All Life, like Teas, is mixed, the black the green
In varying proportions, which betwixt
Kong-fu-tzee's—(Scissors sharp through seventeen
Stanzas on Souchong.') Edelweiss soon fixed
To hunt up Hermann ; but Evangeline
Had fewer rambles after her strayed lover
Than Edelweiss in striving to recover
Traces of Pumpernickel. Souls are harried—
In fiction—by Fatality's machination.
Lost clues, long illnesses, missives miscarried,
All sorts of cob-web fashioned complications,
(Until of oourse they once get safely married)
So few were else Romance's " situations "
'Twould puzzle e'en a poet, and a Tory,
To fill two vols, octavo with this story.
Those who have some experience in such things,
Would be exceedingly surprised to hear,
That the fortuitous angel without wings.
Who nursed " the comrade of the fated peer,"
Was other than " Lone Gretchen." Fate that brings
Such miracles about, to our dull sphere,
Would lend a charm beyond all contradiction,
If it would not confine them all to fiction.
Lone Gretchen nursed him back—of course—to life.
This—well the Little Woman, when she woke
From wayside slumber, felt less mental strife
As to her own identity. 'Tis no joke,
Especially when one would woo a wife,
To halt, like Buridam's oft-mentioned " Moke,"
Between two selves, as fogged as Lord Dundreary
O'er finger-counting. Beevor grew quite weary
Of asking " Is it If " and envied much
The Little Woman her unerring dog,
Whose bark could put the question to the touch.
So stumbled he in doubt's Serbonian bog.
Nosce teipsum ? Nay, how could he clutch
Comfort in that, as, lying like a log,
He passed long weeks in a perpetual pother,
Revolving Who is Which, and Which is T 'other ?
" Oh, for some sweet, all-solving Strawberry mark! "
He murmured, memories of Box and Cox
Glimmering through his spirit's mental dark.
But no, the nigritude of Ancient Nox
Environed still his spirit's storm-tost bark.
Meanwhile Lone Gretchen, of the ochre locks,
Watched, listened, and amidst his broken blether—
'Cute Teuton maid!—" put this and that together."
Lone Gretchen was—well, lump all Shakspeare's ladies
With Becky Sharp and a Mesmeric Medium,
And you will have her. Proserpine in Hades,
Or Psyche in Boeotia. (There is tedium
In leagues of Lempriere, so—snip .') A maid is
An oasis in Life's flat, seedy, greedy hum,
When she's as fair, and what the cad calls " fetchin',"
As that shrewd piece of saintliness, Lone Gretchen.
At last her fever-phrenzied patient rallied,
His wits still wandering, but his bones all whole ;
Forth for a solitary stroll he sallied,
And spied a huge pipe with a china bowl,
Behind which loomed some features vague, which tallied
With some vague memories of his muddied soul.
A rush—a cry—and on the sward lay scattered
The smoker and his pipe to fragments shattered!
" Donner und blitzen 1 I am choked! Let go!"
Sputtered a German voice as through a fog.
" Fitzdotterel, Keep your Pecker up ! ! !" " Oh! Oh! "
Shrieked the Much Mazed One, falling like a log
On Edelweiss's shirt. " At last I know
Myself! Tou 're better than the Old Dame's dog
You dear old Sausage ! Let me have a cry!
Heaven hath mercy on me ! It is 11!! "
A Proverr for Playgoers (with Mr. Punch's congratulations to
Mr. Harris).—A vast amount of Human Nature can always be found
both before and behind the Curtain—at Drury Lane !
Motto fort Greenwich. — " The early Boord picks up De
Worms."
gjf- TO CORRESPONDENTS,—In no case can Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, or Drawings, be returned, unless accompanied
by 6 Stamped and Directed Envelope or Cover. Copies of MS. should be kept by the Senders,