The Petition of An Old Uninhabited House in Penzance to its Master in Town With Hints to the Author of John Bull, A Comedy. To which is added an Appendix. Embellished with a View of the Old House. Second Edition [by C. V. Le Grice] |
THE PETITION
OF AN
OLD UNINHABITED HOUSE
IN
PENZANCE. |
The Petition of An Old Uninhabited House in Penzance to its Master in Town | ||
THE PETITION OF AN OLD UNINHABITED HOUSE IN PENZANCE.
Parl. Deb.
Lowth de Poes. Heb. p. 351.
THE PETITION.
Can take their pen up in a trice,
And fill the Novel-vender's sale
With merry, or with mournful tale,
Don't be surpriz'd, my honor'd Master,
If your Old House in sad disaster
Should find a tongue to lay before ye
(Excuse the pun)
Its upper, lower, and middle Story—
Of tottering rails
These rails have fallen down, since the first edition of this epistle. Part of Stonehenge has fallen, since Dr. Stukely's last description of it; and Athens is by no means in the state in which it was when described by Wheeler and Wood. Such must be the consequences attending all “Writings on ruins.” Etiam periere ruinæ.
Cry out, “Take care,” to all below;
Nay, sparrows, with admonitory pecks,
My mould'ring walls in many a hideous chasm
Require some healing Mason's cataplasm:—
From side to side, so crack'd my ruins are,
That, if you will not grant them some repair,
Pray, on each gap inscribe, “This is no Thorough-fare.”
Peep through my broken panes of glass,
But cobwebs with a friendly veil
My inward solitudes conceal.
Alas! Arachne, tho' no sweeping broom
Brush down the labors of thy loom;
Where there's no sugar, cream, nor pie,
To lure the scent of wand'ring fly,
Thou'rt doom'd a slower death to meet,
And thine own Web's thy winding-sheet:
Thy tap'stry dark, which clouds my shatter'd panes,
Waving, like banners, o'er thy starv'd remains.
My Steps are strewn with emblematic weeds;
To thund'ring knocker, and to tinkling bell,
My moveless Door has bid a long farewell;
For who would knock, or who would ring the bell,
To hear the hollow echoes sadly tell,
“There's nobody at home:—'tis Desolation's cell!”
Against the wall my Cellar-door reclines
Unlock'd, unhing'd; while thro' the dark profound
The empty Pipe emits a mournful sound.
Of cork-less Carcases a dreary row
Moulder in catacombs, that gape below,—
Sons of the social hour, shed sorrows here!
If e'er ye wept, weep o'er the Bottled Bier.
I the Author do positively assert that “Bier” is the right word. If empty bottles are called “dead men,” surely it is not too bold a metaphor to style the shelf, which supports them, a Bottled Bier. If I had not made this positive declaration in my lifetime, it is pleasant to imagine what would have been the conjectural emendations of those learned, but yet unborn Doctors A. B. C. D. &c. if my Epistle should have been found in the corner of an old chest some centuries hence.
“Bottled Bier.” A mere mistake of the printer: for “Bier, read Beer.” Bottled Beer was a common article in the cellars of Gentlemen in the 19th century. Dr. A.
The reading proposed by Dr. A. is certainly right; Bottled Beer, or Porter, was not only a common beverage in those days, but it was an article of exportation; as appears by the Registers of the Custom-house, which by the kind permission of those patrons of Literature, the Lords of the Treasury, I have been permitted to search. It is strange how “Bier” should be found in three editions! Dr. B.
I agree with Dr. A. and Dr. B. in their happy emendation of the text. Had they attended to the Association of Ideas, they would not have been at a loss to trace the origin of the error. The words “carcases” and “catacombs” occur in the preceding lines, and the Editor's mistake of Bier for Beer was natural: it is evidently not a mistake of the printer. Dr. C.
I am at all times willing to pay every respect to the acuteness of a Dr. A. the sagacity of a Dr. B. and the profundity of a Dr. C. but as Bier is the reading of every edition, three of which were published in the Author's lifetime, I must think that it is right, and that Bier was the name of some liquor then in vogue, though now unknown. I am informed that upon digging near the spot, where the Old House stood, a bottle has lately been found with wires twisted over the neck of it: no doubt with an intention to confine the cork, and perhaps the “Bier” (for I never can consent to think it was “Beer”) was contained in such bottles. Dr. D.
Dr. D. is certainly correct. I have seen the bottle; it has an E. upon it, the initial of the owner of the house, and is now in the British Museum. The cork was not quite destroyed, and a little liquid was still remaining in the bottle. That never to be sufficiently admired Chemist Dr. G. is engaged in analysing it, and there can be little doubt of his discovering what were the ingredients of that (now unknown) liquor called “Bier.” Dr. F.
Oh! Shakespear, Brother Bard, if thou hadst used my precaution, Thou wouldst not so have suffered by Commentators!
Why starts my Muse? why trembling turns her head?
Views she some friend amid the mighty dead?
She views thy corpse, O Port, and mourns thy spirit fled.
Chimnies yawning for a grate,
Knives and forks without a handle,
Candlesticks without a candle;
Nail'd-up doors, and hinges rusty;
Here the Dry-Rot, foul and dusty,
There the Mildew damp and musty;
Cupboards wide, in cruel mockery,
Oping doors to shew no crockery;
Corn-less Binns, and horse-less Stables,
Salt-less Salt-box, meatless Tables;
Chairs untouch'd by mortal bottom,
(If worms have not already got'em,
Time may at his leisure rot'em;)
Bats that stilly flit around,
Owls at home in dose profound,
Skeleton of famish'd cat
Vainly watching for a rat;—
All is cheerless, melancholy,
Save that now and then a Soli-
Mediis horum verborum litteris omissis, Lector, viri clarissimi nomen habes, cui domûs clavis, absente magistro, cura est—Soly Cock. Soli alias Soly vulgaris est diminutio (quid non vulgus audet?) Solomonis. Non minus audax Poeta noster, et ævo et nomine Prior, Aristotelem, philosophorum vere Gallum, obtruncat, ut infra
Tho' the renowned Grecian Aristotle, and the moderns vary.
Gives a peep, and then struts out.
I've wailed my fate for many years,
But now, how strangely chang'd the case is!
My neighbours all have wash'd their faces:
Stead of mortar, brick, and trowel,
Using soap, and brush, and towel;
And so flaunt away, and flare it,
That really, Sir, I cannot bear it.
Look'd like one great Tumble-down,
Where the buildings, “one and all,”
Bend in sympathetic fall;
In such a fellowship of grief
My sorrow might find some relief:
But now, from Back to Betty's Lane,
From Morrop stile to Ponsendane;
Where Jennies spin, or Hides are drest;
Elliott's Square, and Will Toll's Bakehouse,
Humphry's Shop,
In an attack made by the Spaniards in 1595 on the Inhabitants of Penzance, a Constable (vide Carew) was knocked down. In a second attack by some of the same nation, in 1810, a similar circumstance happened. Mr. Humphry R— Barber and Constable,
Whose Pole a double emblem shewsOf power, to the beholder,
As Barber he attacks your nose,
As Constable, your shoulder,
in defence of his pole official received several knocks on his pole natural, and, according to his own account, the blows made his “eyes strike fire.” If he had recollected the following line in Virgil he would have quoted it.—
Intonuere Poli: crebis micat ignibus.Woolcock's Back-let, Market-jew street,—
Every where, 'tis like a new street.
Which erst appear'd like den of cannibal,
Is clear'd from cobwebs, dirt and muck-O,
With lime-ash'd floors, and walls in stucco:
His mutton, hung on crooks so neat,
Would tempt an epicure to eat;
And his Cream proclaims some Rara
Avis tends his cows and dairy.
Finds in our Signs its counterpart;
And Admiration cries, Odsnooks! is
This by Appelles done, or Zeuxis?
Such are the Signs that in the Zodiac glow:
Shine on, ye Signs above; Penzance has Signs below.
In mid-street roll'd their mingled tide,
Now more politely turn aside:
Of Porticoes, that used to meet
More than midway in the street,
Forcing horsemen, gigs, and chaises,
To whirl through crincum crancum mazes;—
Of heavy Penthouses, which frown'd
A shadowy horror on the ground,
No trace remains;—but all is bare,
And smooth as cheek of lady fair.
Devolving from the Maddern hills,
The Shoot, which at its foamy spout
Wash'd all the filth of Rabble-rout,
Purely sweet, a crystal stream,
The Classical Reader will compare this with Brother Horace's description of the Blandusian fountain. Our Shoot appears the most pure: The fountain of Blandusia was “splendidior vitreo,” and it was a place of great chit-chat for the young women who filled their pitchers at it;—hence the beauty of the expression—
LoquacesLymphæ desiliunt tuæ:
but the cattle of the neighbourhood were invited to its brink
------tu frigus amabileFessis vomero tauris
Prœbes, et pecori vago.
Not so at the Shoot of Penzance; as may be seen by perusing “impositam ilicem” i.e. the Board which is fixed against the Wall.
Nothing, that can pollute, shall touch our pure stream! How different the Blandusian fountain, which was often stained with cabbage tops and goat's blood.
------Non sine floribus,Cras donaberis hœdo.
------nam gelidos inficiet tibi
Rubro sanguine rivos
Lascivi soboles gregis.
For this and many other improvements in the town thanks to Dr. Borlase, the present Mayor, A.D.1811.
Sparkles in the solar beam:
And as the Muses erst were seen
Circling the fount of Hippocrene,
Thy Damsels, Buriton, here bend in turns
To fill their morning and their evening urns.
Our Dames of old defied the torrent's dash;
And as no Lamps upon the night
Then pour'd a galaxy of light,
Maid Betty's lantern, trim with scollop'd paper,
Shed the tame twinkling of a tallow taper,
To guide the cautious toe, in patten neat,
Through the wet horrors of the muddy street:
But now, then Phaeton much madder,
Cracks his loud whip the Jehu Dadder;
—His glowing axle burns:
From eastern to the western Green
Dashing in the Kitareen:
To Dinner, Supper, Tea, and Dancing
The Horses of the Storm
Poetically so called, as they are chiefly on the gallop in bad weather. The Horses of the Sun, “Equi Solis,” were Æthon, Pyroeis, Eous, and Phlegon. The Horses of the Storm are denominated Doctor and Smiler. I had their names from their Driver's own mouth, who stopped at a moment, and very readily informed me. Not so Phaeton (vide Ovid),
Nec retinere valet, nec nomina novit equorum.In quick successive turns.—
Some Wives and Matrons more sedately go,
In stately ease, majestically slow,
Pois'd on the balanc'd Poles of Kitty Ben
Vocabulum “and” hoc loco non negligenter omissum est. Sicut apud Ægyptiacos Leo et Virgo unum animal formant, quod Sphinx nominatur, sic apud Penzantienses Kitty et Ben, uxor et maritus, uno nomine designantur, et unico splendore nitent.
While Hacks are handy, and while Soap can clean,
Penzance thy praise shall sing;
Of Grooms—Thy Spouse the King;
Of Starchers—Thou the Queen.
If immortality my verse could give,
Thy little Dog should aye for ages live;
Sweet quadruped! whose flea-less flaxen hairs
Proclaim the combings of thy cleanly cares.
Of wildly devious Episode,
Out of his way, like Jack o'lantern,
And to proceed—
Old Market-house, that look'd so grim,
Is now a Beau, quite spruce and trim:
The Baptist's head
The arms of the town, sculptured over the market-house door by Mr. Isabel, of Truro. Penzance means Holy Head, i.e. Holy Headland, and it was so called because on the projecting point near the present quay there was a Chapel dedicated to St. Anthony. When it was necessary to adopt Arms for the Town, the real meaning was forgotten, and the Holy Head of St.John adopted.
Spreads o'er the margin of the Charger,
Et marmore ostendit duro,
How great a Phidias lives at Truro.
And greenly splendid blinds Venetian,
A Clock—far truer than the sun—
Tells market-folks how minutes run.
The Vane above with glittering glare
“Streams like a meteor to the troubled air.”
See, see, those blazing Chandeliers!
What Music! ravishing the spheres!
Whose charms are more than ample dowries,
Lightly thread the mazy dance!
—Say, say, ye Gods, is this Penzance?
Yes, Master, yes, and more my Muse could tell
Of Justice Dinners at the Grand Hotel;
Of crouded News-rooms, where in stern debate
Some stir the nation up, and some the grate;
The spirit of reform is never more troublesome, than when it has a pyrotechnical turn. Furor arma ministrat. The fire-reformer seizes the poker, and chokes those, who were previously comfortable, (tho' in a news-room, as in the world, all cannot have front seats near the fire,) with dust, and smoke, and ashes.
Of Gents' and Ladies' Book-clubs, Promenades,
Of Concerts, Picnics, Hum-drums, Routs, and Cards:
But what have I with them to do?
Houses warm, they're made for you.
Once on a time I had my heyday;
But now from Michaelmas to May-day
I hear no Music, see no Lady,
Nor know what 'tis to have a gay day.
Oh! then, my ever honor'd Master,
Have pity on my sad disaster,
And call for mortar, brick, and plaister.
No more I'll moan, no more I'll fret,
Your House in Alvern Street “To Let.”
The Petition of An Old Uninhabited House in Penzance to its Master in Town | ||