The Ingoldsby Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

I sing of a Shirt that never was new!!
In the course of the year Eighteen hundred and two,
Aunt Fanny began, Upon Grandmamma's plan,
To make one for me, then her “dear little man.”
—At the epoch I speak about, I was between
A man and a boy, A hobble-de-hoy,
A fat, little, punchy concern of sixteen,—
Just beginning to flirt, And ogle,—so pert,
I'd been whipt every day had I had my desert,
—And Aunt Fan volunteer'd to make me a shirt!

I've said she began it,— Some unlucky planet
No doubt interfered,—for, before she, and Janet
Completed the “cutting-out,” “hemming,” and “stitching,”
A tall Irish footman appear'd in the kitchen;—
—This took off the maid, And, I'm sadly afraid,
My respected Aunt Fanny's attention, too, stray'd;
For, about the same period, a gay son of Mars,
Cornet Jones of the Tenth (then the Prince's) Hussars,
With his fine dark eyelashes, And finer moustaches,
And the ostrich plume work'd on the corps' sabre-taches,
(I say nought of the gold-and-red cord of the sashes,
Or the boots far above the Guards' vile spatterdashes,)—
So eyed, and so sigh'd, and so lovingly tried

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To engage her whole ear as he lounged by her side,
Looking down on the rest with such dignified pride,
That she made up her mind She should certainly find
Cornet Jones at her feet, whisp'ring “Fan, be my bride!”—
—She had even resolved to say “Yes,” should he ask it,
—And I—and my Shirt—were both left in the basket.

To her grief and dismay She discovered one day
Cornet Jones of the Tenth was a little too gay;
For, besides that she saw him—he could not say nay—
Wink at one of the actresses capering away
In a Spanish bolero, one night at the play,
She found he'd already a wife at Cambray;—
One at Paris,—a nymph of the corps de ballet;—
And a third down in Kent, at a place call'd Foot's Cray.—
He was “viler than dirt!”— Fanny vowed to exert
All her powers to forget him,—and finish my Shirt.
But, oh! lack-a-day! How time slips away!—
Who'd have thought that while Cupid was playing these tricks
Ten years had elaps'd, and—I'd turn'd twenty-six?”

“I care not a whit, —He's not grown a bit,”
Says my Aunt, “it will still be a very good fit,”
So Janet and She, Now about thirty-three,
(The maid had been jilted by Mr. Magee,)
Each taking one end of “the Shirt” on her knee,
Again began working with hearty good-will,
“Felling the Seams,” and “whipping the Frill,”—
For, twenty years since, though the Ruffle had vanish'd,
A Frill like a Fan had by no means been banish'd;
People wore them at playhouses, parties, and churches,
Like overgrown fins of overgrown perches.—

Now, then, by these two thus laying their caps
Together, my “Shirt” had been finish'd, perhaps,
But for one of those queer little three-corner'd straps,
Which the ladies call “Side-bits,” that sever the “Flaps;”

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—Here unlucky Janet Took her needle, and ran it
Right into her thumb, and cried loudly, “Ads cuss it!
I've spoiled myself now by that 'ere nasty Gusset!”

For a month to come Poor dear Janet's thumb
Was in that sort of state vulgar people call “Rum.”
At the end of that time, A youth, still in his prime,
The Doctor's fat Errand-boy,—just such a dolt as is
Kept to mix draughts, and spread plaisters and poultices,
Who a bread-cataplasm each morning had carried her,
Sigh'd,—ogled,—proposed,—was accepted,—and married her!

Much did Aunt Fan Disapprove of the plan;
She turn'd up her dear little snub at “the Man.”
She “could not believe it,”— “Could scarcely conceive it
Was possible—What! such a place!—and then leave it!—
And all for a ‘Shrimp’ not as high as my hat—
A little contemptible ‘Shaver’ like that!!
With a broad pancake face, and eyes buried in fat!”
For her part, “She was sure She could never endure
A lad with a lisp, and a leg like a skewer!—
Such a name too!—('twas Potts!)—and so nasty a trade—
No, no,—she would much rather die an old maid!—
He a husband, indeed!—Well, mine, come what may come,
Shan't look like a blister, or smell of Guaiacum!”
But there! She'd “declare, It was Janet's affair—
—Chacun à son goût, As she baked she might brew—
She could not prevent her—'twas no use in trying it—
Oh, no—she had made her own bed, and might lie in it.
They ‘repent at leisure who marry at random.’
No matter—De gustibus non disputandum!”

Consoling herself with this choice bit of Latin,
Aunt Fanny resignedly bought some white satin,
And, as the Soubrette Was a very great pet
After all,—she resolved to forgive and forget,
And sat down to make her a bridal rosette,

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With magnificent bits of some white-looking metal
Stuck in, here and there, each forming a petal.—
—On such an occasion one couldn't feel hurt,
Of course, that she ceased to remember—my Shirt!

Ten years,—or nigh,— Had again gone by,
When Fan accidentally casting her eye
On a dirty old work-basket, hung up on high
In the store-closet where herbs were put by to dry,
Took it down to explore it—she didn't know why.—

Within, a pea-soup colour'd fragment she spied,
Of the hue of a November fog in Cheapside,
Or a bad piece of ginger-bread spoilt in the baking.
—I still hear her cry,— “I wish I may die
If here isn't Tom's Shirt, that's been so long a-making!
My gracious me! Well,—only to see!
I declare it's as yellow as yellow can be!
Why it looks just as though't had been soak'd in green tea!
Dear me! Did you ever?— But come—'twill be clever
To bring matters round; so I'll do my endeavour
‘Better Late,’ says an excellent proverb, ‘than Never!’—
It is stain'd, to be sure; but ‘grass-bleaching’ will bring it
To rights ‘in a jiffy.’—We'll wash it, and wring it;
Or, stay,—‘Hudson's Liquor’ Will do it still quicker,
And—” Here the new maid chimed in, “Ma'am, Salt of Lemon
Will make it, in no time, quite fit for the Gemman!”
So they “set in the gathers,”—the large round the collar,
While those at the wristbands of course were much smaller,—
The button-holes now were at length “overcast;”
Then a button itself was sewn on—'twas the last!
All's done! All's won!
Never under the sun
Was Shirt so late finish'd—so early begun!—
—The work would defy The most critical eye.
It was “bleach'd,”—it was wash'd,—it was hung out to dry,—
It was mark'd on the tail with a T, and an I!

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On the back of a chair it Was placed,—just to air it,
In front of the fire.—“Tom to-morrow shall wear it!”

—O cæca mens hominum!—Fanny, good soul,
Left her charge for one moment—but one—a vile coal
Bounced out from the grate, and set fire to the whole!