The Ingoldsby Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Compline hour is past and gone,
Evening service is over and done;
The monks repair
To their frugal fare,
A sung little supper of something light
And digestible, ere they retire for the night.
For, in Saxon times, in respect to their cheer,
St. Austin's Rule was by no means severe,
But allow'd, from the Beverley Roll 'twould appear,
Bread and cheese, and spring onions, and sound table-beer,
And even green peas, when they were not too dear;
Not like the rule of La Trappe, whose chief merit is
Said to consist in its greater austerities;
And whose monks, if I rightly remember their laws,
Ne'er are suffer'd to speak,
Think only in Greek,
And subsist as the Bears do, by sucking their paws.
Astonish'd I am
The gay Baron Geramb,
With his head sav'ring more of the Lion than Lamb,
Could e'er be persuaded to join such a set—I
Extend the remark to Signor Ambrogetti.—
For a monk of La Trappe is as thin as a rat,
While an Austin Friar was jolly and fat;
Though, of course, the fare to which I allude.
With as good table-beer as ever was brew'd,
Was all “caviare to the multitude,”

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Extending alone to the clergy, together in
Hall assembled, and not to Lay-brethren.

St. Dunstan himself sits there at his post,
On what they say is
Called a Dais,
O'erlooking the whole of his clerical host,
And eating poach'd eggs with spinach and toast;
Five Lay-brothers stand behind his chair,
But where is the sixth? Where's Peter? — Ay, WHERE?

'Tis an evening in June,
And a little half moon,
A brighter no fond lover ever set eyes on,
Gleaming, and beaming,
And dancing the stream in,
Has made her appearance above the horizon;
Just such a half moon as you see, in a play,
On the turban of Mustapha Muley Bey,
Or the fair Turk who weds with the “Noble Lord Bateman;”
—Vide plate in George Cruikshank's memoirs of that great man.

She shines on a turret remote and lone,
A turret with ivy and moss overgrown,
And lichens that thrive on the cold dank stone;
Such a tower as a Poet of no mean calibre
I once knew and loved, poor, dear Reginald Heber,
Assigns to Oblivion —a den for a She bear;

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Within it are found,
Strew'd above and around,
On the hearth, on the table, the shelves and the ground,
All sorts of instruments, all sorts of tools,
To name which and their uses would puzzle the Schools,
And make very wise people look very like fools;
Pincers, and hooks,
And black-letter books,
All sorts of pokers, and all sorts of tongs,
And all sorts of hammers, and all that belongs
To Goldsmiths' work, chemistry, alchymy, all,
In short, that a Sage
In that erudite age
Could require, was at hand, or at least within call.
In the midst of the room lies a Broomstick!—and there
A Lay-brother sits in a rush-bottom'd chair!

Abracadabra, that fearful word,
And the two which, I said, I have never yet heard,
Are utter'd.—'Tis done!
Peter, full of his fun,
Cries “Broomstick! you lubberly son of a gun!
Bring ale! bring a flagon—a hogshead—a tun!
'Tis the same thing to you;
I have nothing to do;
And, 'fore George, I'll sit here, and I'll drink till all's blue!”

No doubt you've remark'd how uncommonly quick
A Newfoundland puppy runs after a stick,
Brings it back to his master, and gives it him—Well,
So potent the spell,
The Broomstick perceived it was vain to rebel,
So ran off like that puppy;—some cellar was near,
For in less than ten seconds 'twas back with the beer.

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Peter seizes the flagon; but ere he can suck
Its contents, or enjoy what he thinks his good luck,
The Broomstick comes in with a tub in a truck;
Continues to run
At the rate it begun,
And, au pied de lettre, next brings in a tun!
A fresh one succeeds, then a third, then another,
Discomfiting much the astounded Lay-brother;
Who, had he possess'd fifty pitchers or stoups,
They had all been too few; for, arranging in groups
The barrels, the Broomstick next started the hoops;
The ale deluged the floor,
But, still, through the door,
Said Broomstick kept bolting, and bringing in more.
E'en Macbeth to Macduff
Would have cried “Hold! enough!”
If half as well drench'd with such “perilous stuff,”
And Peter, who did not expect such a rough visit,
Cried lustily, “Stop! That will do, Broomstick!—Sufficit!”

But ah, well-a-day!
The devil, they say,
'Tis easier at all times to raise than to lay.
Again and again
Peter roar'd out in vain
His Abracadabra, and t' other words twain:
As well might one try
A pack in full cry
To check, and call off from their headlong career,
By bawling out “Yoicks!” with one's hand at one's ear.
The longer he roar'd, and the louder and quicker,
The faster the Broomstick was bringing in liquor.

The poor Lay-brother knew
Not on earth what to do—

233

He caught hold of the Broomstick and snapt it in two.—
Worse and worse!—Like a dart
Each part made a start,
And he found he'd been adding more fuel to fire,
For both now came loaded with Meux's entire;
Combe's, Delafield's, Hanbury's, Truman's—no stopping—
Goding's, Charenton's, Whitbread's continued to drop in,
With Hodson's pale ale, from the Sun Brewhouse, Wapping.
The firms differ'd then, but I can't put a tax on
My memory to say what their names were in Saxon.
To be sure the best beer
Of all did not appear;
For I've said 'twas in June, and so late in the year
The “Trinity Audit Ale” is not come-at-able,
As I've found to my great grief when dining at that table.

Now extremely alarm'd, Peter scream'd without ceasing,
For a flood of Brown-stout he was up to his knees in,
Which, thanks to the Broomstick, continued increasing;
He fear'd he'd be drown'd,
And he yell'd till the sound
Of his voice, wing'd by terror, at last reach'd the ear
Of St. Dunstan himself, who had finish'd his beer,
And had put off his mitre, dalmatic, and shoes,
And was just stepping into his bed for a snooze.

His Holiness paused when he heard such a clatter;
He could not conceive what on earth was the matter.
Slipping on a few things, for the sake of decorum,
He issued forthwith from his sanctum sanctorum,
And calling a few of the lay-brothers near him,
Who were not yet in bed, and who happen'd to hear him,

234

At once led the way,
Without farther delay,
To the tower where he'd been in the course of the day.
Poor Peter!—alas! though St.Dunstan was quick,
There were two there before him—Grim Death and Old Nick!—
When they open'd the door out the malt-liquor flow'd,
Just as when the great Vat burst in Tot'nam Court Road;
The Lay-brothers nearest were up to their necks
In an instant, and swimming in strong double X;
While Peter, who, spite of himself, now had drank hard,
After floating awhile, like a toast in a tankard,
To the bottom had sunk,
And was spied by a monk,
Stone-dead, like poor Clarence, half drown'd and half drunk.

In vain did St. Dunstan exclaim, “Vade retro
Strongbeerum! discede a Lay-frate Petro!”—
Queer Latin, you'll say
That præfix of “Lay,”
And Strongbeerum! — I own they'd have call'd me a blockhead if
At school I had ventured to use such a Vocative,
'Tis a barbarous word, and to me it's a query
If you'll find it in Patrick, Morell, or Moreri;
But, the fact is, the Saint was uncommonly flurried,
And apt to be loose in his Latin when hurried;
The Brown-stout, however, obeys to the letter,
Quite as well as if talk'd to, in Latin much better,
By a grave Cambridge Johnian,
Or graver Oxonian,
Whose language, we all know, is quite Ciceronian.
It retires from the corpse, which is left high and dry;
But, in vain do they snuff and hot towels apply,

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And other means used by the faculty try.
When once a man's dead
There's no more to be said:
Peter's “Beer with an e” was his “Bier with an i!!”

And cold oblivion, midst the ruin laid, Folds her dank wing beneath the ivy shade. Palestine.