The Ingoldsby Lyrics :: :: University of Virginia Library

Colburn, I'm ill—my nerves are all unstrung—
These atmospheric changes, no doubt, hurt me;
I've got a bilious coating on my tongue,
And I want something comic to divert me.

275

What can you send me, Harry?—surely you
And Bentley, from your Burlington depository,
Can manage to despatch me something new
And Liberal—you know I never was a Tory.

And Whiggery's now the order of the day,
“With all my heart! I won't be out of fashion;”
Don't send me Mother Morgan though, I pray—
Her bottled small-beer puts me in a passion,

At once so pert and vapid—then those bits
Of dreadful patois!—'Twere enough, my Harry,
To throw a nervous body into fits
To hunt them out in Boyer's dictio-nary.

I thought, dear Colburn, you had been too wise
To puff such things—you saw John Murray shy 'em;
He offers now the old ones at half-price—
I wonder who the deuce he thinks will buy 'em?

Don't send me Mister Lytton Bulwer's poem,
The ‘Siamese Twins,’ which the Reviews so quiz—
All Satire is a bore—besides, I know him,
And do not covet anything that's his.

Your Dandy-Radical's a strange anomaly,
It really almost makes one sick to see 'em;
And I shall read the Gentleman a homily
Next time I meet him at the ‘Athenæum.’

276

‘Pelham’ one might endure upon one's table,
And even ‘Devereux,’ though not worth a button;
But then ‘Paul Clifford's’ quite abominable,
Though much admired by Mister Sambo Sutton.

Let's see!—you've puffed and printed thirty-seven,
So Fraser says—surely they're not all rubbish!
You might, methinks, pick out ten or eleven,
Which a sick friend may fancy ‘pretty Bobbish.’

‘Heiress of Bruges?’—No, that will never do—
That's a bad copy of Sir Walter's worst;
No, ‘Walter Colyton,’ no more will you;
You're a far greater nuisance than the first.

‘English at Home.’—I would they were abroad—
‘Denounced?’—No, Banim, 'tis the worst thing you did—
‘Separation?’—That's a literary fraud—
‘Foreign Exclusives?’—everywhere excluded!

O dear! O dear! I never can go on!
Here, Harry Colburn, take the list yourself!
And out of your abundance, choose the one
You think the most facetious on your shelf;

277

One not ‘replete’ with anything tho', nor stated
As ‘full of spirit, incident, and variety;’
Not ‘powerfully written,’ nor ‘calculated
To please the higher classes of society!’

Don't let it have ‘much interesting matter,’
‘Wit,’ or ‘original grouping,’—when a body
Is ill, one can't away with ‘humorous satire,’
‘Peculiarly adapted’ unto any body.

‘Pictures of the human heart’ one vilipends,
‘Accomplished auth'resses’ are not more dear,
Works ‘full of character’——

(Enter Burlingtonian Devil, with a parcel of volumes in boards.)
(The Fiend)—

Please, sir, Master sends
His comp's, and hopes, as how, you'll like these here!

(Invalid)

Bravo! young Beelzebub!—stay, here's a shilling!
I hope, though, there's no ‘raciness of style,’
No ‘elegance of—’ —Z—ds! you little villain,
What is't you've got in this confounded pile?

278

‘Perdition catch thy arm, the chance is thine!’
It is—I'm dying—Oh!—I can no more!—
For worlds I could not read another line!
Adieu!—I lay my death at Colburn's door!

(Invalid sinks exhausted, faints, groans a tragedy groan, and expires. The imp clasps his hands, and bends over him in the most approved Macready attitude—Enters Coroner's Jury, and sit upon the body. Books produced in evidence; several of the gentlemen impannelled taken ill at their appearance; Mr. Baker's Clerk carried out in a swoon.—Corpse examined; viscera much inflamed, and brain altogether evaporated. Verdict—“Accidental death from suffocation by mephitic gas, administered in puffs by some person or persons unknown.”—A deodand of one farthing on the volumes.)

A noted black prize-fighter.