p298-014 CHARCOAL SKETCHES; OR, SCENES IN A METROPOLIS. OLYMPUS PUMP; OR, THE POETIC TEMPERAMENT.

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It is said that poetry is on the decline, and that as man
surrounds himself with artificial comforts, and devotes
his energies to purposes of practical utility, the sphere of
imagination becomes circumscribed, and the worship of
the Muses is neglected. We are somewhat disposed to
assent to this conclusion; the more from having remarked
the fact that the true poetic temperament is not so frequently
met with as it was a few years since, and that
the outward marks of genius daily become more rare.
Where the indications no longer exist, or where they
gradually disappear, it is but fair to conclude that the
thing itself is perishing. There are, it is true, many delightful
versifiers at the present moment, but we fear that
though they display partial evidences of inspiration upon
paper, the scintillations are deceptive. Their conduct
seldom exhibits sufficient proof that they are touched
with the celestial fire, to justify the public in regarding
them as the genuine article. Judging from the rules
formerly considered absolute upon this point, it is altogether
preposterous for your happy, well-behaved, well-dressed,
smoothly-shaved gentleman, who pays his debts,

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and submits quietly to the laws framed for the government
of the uninspired part of society, to arrogate to
himself a place in the first rank of the sons of genius,
whatever may be his merits with the gray goose quill.
There is something defective about him. The divine
afflatus has been denied, and though he may flap his
wings, and soar as high as the house-tops, no one can
think him capable of cleaving the clouds, and of playing
hide and seek among the stars. Even if he were to do
so, the spectator would either believe that his eyes deceived
him, or that the successful flight was accidental,
and owing rather to a temporary density of the atmosphere
than to a strength of pinion.

The true poetic temperament of the old school is a gift
as fatal, as that of being able to sing a good song is to a
youth with whom the exercise of the vocal organ is not
a profession. It was—and to a certain extent is—an
axiom, that an analogy almost perfect exists between the
poet and the dolphin. To exhibit their beautiful hues they
must both be on the broad road to destruction. We are
fully aware that it has been supposed by sceptical spirits
that there is some confusion of cause and effect in arriving
at this conclusion,—that there is no sufficient reason
that genius should be a bad citizen. The existence of
an irresistible impulse to break the shackles of conventionalism
has been doubted by the heterodox. They declare
that a disposition to do so is felt by most men, and
that aberrations are indulged in, partly from a principle
of imitation, because certain shining lights have thought
proper to render themselves as conspicuous for their eccentricities
as for their genius, and chiefly from a belief
that society expects such wanderings, and regards them
with lenity. But analysis is not our forte, even if we
were disposed to cavil at such convenient things as

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lumping generalities. Your inquiring philosophers are
troublesome fellows, and while we content ourselves
with the bare fact, let them seek rerum cognoscere
causas.

It is, however, a satisfaction to know that the full-blooded
merino is not yet quite extinct. Olympus Pump
is the personification of the temperament of which we
speak. Had there been a little less of the divine essence
of poesy mingled with the clay of which he is composed,
it would have been better for him. The crockery of his
moral constitution would have been the more adapted to
the household uses of this kitchen world. But Pump
delights in being the pure porcelain, and would scorn the
admixture of that base alloy, which, while it might render
him more useful, would diminish his ornamental qualities.
He proudly feels that he was intended to be a
mantel embellishment to bear bouquets, not a mere
utensil for the scullery; and that he is not now fulfilling
his destiny, arises solely from the envy and uncharitableness
of those gross and malignant spirits with which the
world abounds. Occupied continually in his mental
laboratory, fabricating articles which he finds unsaleable,
and sometimes stimulating his faculties with draughts
of Scheidam, the “true Hippocrene,” he slips from
station to station, like a child tumbling down stairs; and
now, having arrived at the lowest round of fortune's ladder,
he believes it was envy that tugged at his coat tails,
and caused his descent, and that the human race are a
vast band of conspirators. There are no Mæcenases in
these modern times to help those who will not help themselves;
no, not even a Capel Lofft, to cheer the Pumps
of the nineteenth century. No kindly arm toils at the
handle: and if he flows, each Pump must pump for
himself. Such, at least, is the conclusion at which

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Olympus has arrived, and he has melancholy reasons for believing
that in his instance he is correct. Thus, while
his mind is clothing its varied fancies in rich attire, and
his exulting spirit is gambolling and luxuriating in the
clover and timothy of imagination's wide domain, or
drinking fairy Champagne and eating canvass-back ducks
in air-drawn palaces, his outward man is too frequently
enduring the sad reverse of these unreal delights. He
may often be seen, when the weather is cold, leaning his
back against a post on the sunny side of the street; his
hands, for lack of coin, filling his roomy pockets; his
curious toes peeping out at crannies to see the world;
an indulgence extended to them by few but the Pump
family; and his elbows and knees following the example
of his lower extremities. Distress, deep thought, or
some other potent cause has transplanted the roses from
the garden of his cheek to that no longer sterile promontory
his nose, while his chin shows just such a stubble
as would be invaluable for the polishing brush of a boot-black.

But luckily the poetic temperament has its compensations.
When not too much depressed, Olympus Pump has
a world of his own within his cranium; a world which
should be a model for that without,—a world in which
there is nothing to do, and every thing to get for the asking.
If in his periods of intellectual abstraction, the
external atmosphere should nip his frame, the high price
of coal affects him not. In the palace of the mind, fuel
costs nothing, and he can there toast himself brown free
of expense. Does he desire a tea-party?—the guests
are in his noddle at his call, willing to stay, or ready to
depart, at his command, without “standing on the order
of their going;” and the imagined tables groan with
viands which wealth might exhaust itself to procure.

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Does he require sweet music?—the poetic fancy can
perform an opera, or manufacture hosts of Frank Johnsons
in the twinkling of an eye; and the celestial creatures,
who waltz and galope in the spacious salons of his
brain-pan, are endowed with loveliness which reality
can never parallel.

With such advantages, Pump, much as he grumbles,
would not exchange the coruscations of his genius, which
flicker and flare like the aurora borealis, for a “whole
wilderness” of comfort, if it were necessary that he should
entertain dull, plodding thoughts, and make himself
“generally useful.” Can he not, while he warms his
fingers at the fire of imagination, darm his stockings and
patch his clothes with the needle of his wit; wash his
linen and his countenance in the waters of Helicon; and,
sitting on the peak of Parnassus, devour imaginary fried
oysters with Apollo and the Muses?

But either “wool gathering” is not very profitable, or
else the envy of which Pump complains is stronger
than ever; for not long since, after much poetic idleness,
and a protracted frolic, he was seen, in the witching time
of night, sitting on a stall in the new market house, for
the very sufficient reason that he did not exactly know
where else lodging proportioned to the state of his fiscal
department could be found. He spoke:

“How blue! how darkly, deeply, beautifully blue!—
not me myself, but the expanse of ether. The stars
wink through the curtain of the air, like a fond mother
to her drowsy child, as much as to say hush-a-by-baby
to a wearied world. In the moon's mild rays even the
crags of care like sweet rock-candy shine. Night is a
Carthagenian Hannibal to sorrow, melting its Alpine
steeps, whilst buried hope pops up revived and cracks
its rosy shins. Day may serve to light sordid man to

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his labours; it may be serviceable to let calabashes and
squashes see how to grow; but the poetic soul sparkles
beneath the stars. Genius never feels its oats until
after sunset; twilight applies the spanner to the fireplug
of fancy to give its bubbling fountains way; and mid-night
lifts the sluices for the cataracts of the heart, and
cries, `Pass on the water!' Yes, and economically considered,
night is this world's Spanish cloak; for no matter
how dilapidated or festooned one's apparel may be,
the loops and windows cannot be discovered, and we
look as elegant and as beautiful as get out. Ah!” continued
Pump, as he gracefully reclined upon the stall,
“it's really astonishing how rich I am in the idea line
to-night. But it's no use. I've got no pencil—not even
a piece of chalk to write 'em on my hat for my next
poem. It's a great pity ideas are so much of the soap-bubble
order, that you can't tie 'em up in a pocket handkerchief,
like a half peck of potatoes, or string 'em on a
stick like catfish. I often have the most beautiful notions
scampering through my head with the grace, but alas!
the swiftness too, of kittens—especially just before I get
asleep—but they're all lost for the want of a trap; an
intellectual figgery four. I wish we could find out the
way of sprinkling salt on their tails, and make 'em wait
till we want to use 'em. Why can't some of the meaner
souls invent an idea catcher for the use of genius? I'm
sure they'd find it profitable, for I wouldn't mind owing
a man twenty dollars for one myself. Oh, for an idea
catcher!”

Owen Glendower failed in calling up spirits, but the
eloquence of Pump was more efficacious. In the heavy
shadow of a neighbouring pile of goods a dark mass appeared
to detach itself, as if a portion of the gloom had
suddenly become animated. It stepped forth in the

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likeness of a man, mysteriously wrapped up, whose eyes
glared fiercely, and with a sinister aspect, as he advanced
towards the poet. Pump stared in silence—he felt like
an idea, and as if the catcher were close at hand, ready to
pounce upon it. “Catching the idea” for once seemed a
disagreeable operation. The parties confronted each other
for a time without saying a word. A cloud hurrying
across the moon lent additional terror to the scene, and
the unknown, to Pump's astonished vision, appeared to
swell to a supernatural size. The stranger, at last,
waved his arm, hemmed thrice, and in the deep, decisive
tones of one used to command, said:

“It's not a new case—it's been decided frequent.
It's clearly agin the ordination made and provided, and
it's likewise agin the act”—

“Ah me! what act?” ejaculated the astonished
Pump.

“To fetch yourself to anchor on the stalls. It isn't
what the law considers pooty behaviour, and no gemman
would be cotched at it. To put the case, now,
would it be genteel for a man to set on the table at
dinner-time? Loafing on the stalls is jist as bad as
rolling among the dishes.”

“Oh, is that all? I'm immersed in poetic conceptions;
I'm holding sweet communion with my own desolate
affections. Leave me, leave me to the luxuriance of
imagination; suffer me, as it were, to stray through the
glittering realms of fancy.”

“What! on a mutton butcher's shambles? Bless you,
I can't think of it for a moment. My notions is rigid,
and if I was to find my own daddy here, I'd rouse him
out. You must tortle off, as fast as you kin. If your
tongue wasn't so thick, I'd say you must mosey; but
moseying is only to be done when a gemman's half shot;

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when they're gone cases, we don't expect 'em to do
more nor tortle.”

“Excuse me—I don't see that it makes much difference
to you whether I am qualified to mosey, or am
only capable of the more dignified method of locomotion,
which you call to tortle. But don't disturb me. The
moon has resuscitated my fancy, and I feel as if I would
shortly compose an ode to Nox and Erebus.”

“Compose what's owed to Messrs. Nox and Erebus!
Yes, I thought you were one of that sort what makes
compositions when they owe any thing. Precious little
Nox and Erebus will get out of you. But come, hop
the twig!” So saying, the relentless guardian of the
night seized the hapless Pump by the collar, and began to
remove him.

“Now, don't—don't be gross and muscular. I'm an
oppressed man, with no friend but my coat, and both
my coat and myself are remarkable for fragility of constitution.
We are free souls, vibrating on the breath of
the circumambient atmosphere, and by long companionship,
our sympathies are so perfect, that if you pull hard
you'll produce a pair of catastrophes; while you tear the
one, you'll discombobberate the nerves of the other.”

“Well, I'm be blamed!” said the watch, recoiling,
“did you ever hear the likes of that? Why, aunty, ain't
you a noncompusser?”

“I'm a poet, and it's my fate not to be understood
either by the world in general, or by Charleys in particular.
The one knocks us down, and the others
take us up. Between the two, we are knocked about
like a ball, until we become unravelled, and perish.”

“I don't want to play shinney with you, no how—
why don't you go home?”

“The bottle is empty; the bill unpaid; landlords are

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vulgar realities—mere matters of fact—and very apt to
vituperate.”

“Well, it's easy enough to work, get money, fill the
bottle, and pay the gemman what you owes him.”

“I tell you again you can't understand the poetic soul.
It cannot endure the scorn and contumelies of the earthly.
It cannot submit to toil under a taskmaster, and when
weaving silver tissues of romance, be told to jump about
spry and 'tend the shop. Nor, when it meets congenial
spirits, can it leave the festive board, because the door is
to be locked at ten o'clock, and there isn't any dead latch
to it. The delicate excesses into which it leads us, to
repair the exhaustion of hard thought, compel us to
sojourn long in bed, and even that is registered by fip-and-levy
boobies as a sin. At the present moment, I am
falling a victim to these manifold oppressions of the unintellectual.”

“Under the circumstances, then, what do you say to
being tuck up?”

“Is it optional?”

“I don't know; but it's fineable, and that's as good.”

“Then I decline the honour.”

“No, you don't. I only axed out of manners. You
must rise up, William Riley, and come along with me,
as the song says.”

“I suppose I must, whether I like the figure or not.
Alack, and alas for the poetic temperament! Must the
æolian harp of genius be so rudely swept by a Charley—
must that harp, as I may say, play mere banjo jigs, when
it should only respond in Lydian measures to the southern
breezes of palpitating imagination? To what base
uses”—

“Hurrah! Keep a toddling—pull foot and away!”

Olympus obeyed; for who can control his fate?

p298-023 'TIS ONLY MY HUSBAND.

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“Goodness, Mrs. Pumpilion, it's a gentleman's voice,
and me such a figure!” exclaimed Miss Amanda Corntop,
who had just arrived in town to visit her friend,
Mrs. Pumpilion, whom she had not seen since her marriage.

“Don't disturb yourself, dear,” said Mrs. Pumpilion,
quietly, “it's nobody—'tis only my husband. He'll
not come in; but if he does, 'tis only my husband.”

So Miss Amanda Corntop was comforted, and her
agitated arrangements before the glass being more coolly
completed, she resumed her seat and the interrupted conversation.
Although, as a spinster, she had a laudable
and natural unwillingness to be seen by any of the masculine
gender in that condition so graphically described
as “such a figure,” yet there are degrees in this unwillingness.
It is by no means so painful to be caught a
figure by a married man as it is to be surprised by a
youthful bachelor; and, if the former be of that peculiar
class known as “only my husband,” his unexpected
arrival is of very little consequence. He can never
more, “like an eagle in a dove cote, flutter the Volsces.”

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It is, therefore, evident that there exists a material difference
between “my husband” and “only my husband;”
a difference not easily expressed, though perfectly understood;
and it was that understanding which restored
Miss Amanda Corntop to her pristine tranquillity.

“Oh!” said Miss Corntop, when she heard that the
voice in question was that of Mr. Pumpilion. “Ah!”
added Miss Corntop, intelligently and composedly, when
she understood that Pumpilion was “only my husband.”
She had not paid much attention to philology,
but she was perfectly aware of the value of that diminutive
prefix “only.”

“I told you he would not come in, for he knew there
was some one here,” continued Mrs. Pumpilion, as the
spiritless footsteps of “only my husband” passed the
door, and slowly plodded up stairs. He neither came
in, nor did he hum, whistle, or bound three steps at a
time; “only my husband” never does. He is simply a
transportation line; he conveys himself from place to
place according to order, and indulges not in episodes
and embellishments.

Poor Pedrigo Pumpilion! Have all thy glories shrunk
to this little measure? Only my husband! Does that
appellation circumscribe him who once found three
chairs barely sufficient to accommodate his frame, and
who, in promenading, never skulked to the curb or
hugged the wall, but, like a man who justly appreciated
himself, took the very middle of the trottoir, and kept it?

The amiable, but now defunct, Mrs. Anguish was
never sure that she was perfectly well, until she had
shaken her pretty head to ascertain if some disorder were
not lying in ambush, and to discover whether a headache
were not latent there, which, if not nipped in the
bud, might be suddenly and inconveniently brought into

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action. It is not too much to infer that the same reasoning,
which applies to headaches and to the physical constitution,
may be of equal force in reference to the moral
organization. Headaches being latent, it is natural to
suppose that the disposition to be “only my husband”
may likewise be latent, even in him who is now as fierce
and as uncontrollable as a volcano; while the desire to be
“head of the bureau” may slumber in the mildest of the
fair. It is by circumstance alone that talent is developed;
the razor itself requires extraneous aid to bring it to an
edge; and the tact to give direction, as well as the facility
to obey, wait to be elicited by events. Both grey-mareism
and Jerry-Sneakery are sometimes latent, and
like the derangements of Mrs. Anguish's caput, only
want shaking to manifest themselves. If some are born
to command, others must certainly have a genius for submission—
we term it a genius, submission being in many
cases rather a difficult thing.

That this division of qualities is full of wisdom, none
can deny. It requires both flint and steel to produce a
spark; both powder and ball to do execution; and,
though the Chinese contrive to gobble an infinity of rice
with chopsticks, yet the twofold operation of knife and
fork conduces much more to the comfort of a dinner.
Authority and obedience are the knife and fork of this
extensive banquet, the world; they are the true divide
et impera; that which is sliced off by the one is harpooned
by the other.

In this distribution, however, nature, when the “latents”
are made apparent, very frequently seems to act
with caprice. It is by no means rare to find in the form
of a man, a timid, retiring, feminine disposition, which,
in the rough encounters of existence, gives way at once,
as if, like woman, “born to be controlled.” The

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proportions of a Hercules, valenced with the whiskers of a tiger,
often cover a heart with no more of energy and boldness
in its pulsations than the little palpitating affair which
throbs in the bosom of a maiden of bashful fifteen;
while many a lady fair, before marriage—the latent
condition—all softness and graceful humility, bears
within her breast the fiery resolution and the indomitable
will of an Alexander, a Hannibal, or a Doctor
Francia. The temperament which, had she been a
man, would, in an extended field, have made her a conqueror
of nations, or, in a more contracted one, a distinguished
thief-catching police officer, by being lodged
in a female frame renders her a Xantippe—a Napoleon
of the fireside, and pens her hapless mate, like a conquered
king, a spiritless captive in his own chimney
corner.

But it is plain to be seen that this apparent confusion
lies only in the distribution. There are souls enough of
all kinds in the world, but they do not always seem properly
fitted with bodies; and thus a corporal construction
may run the course of life actuated by a spirit in
every respect opposed to its capabilities; as at the
breaking up of a crowded soirée, a little head waggles
home with an immense castor, while a pumpkin pate
sallies forth surmounted by a thimble; which, we take
it, is the only philosophical theory which at all accounts
for the frequent acting out of character with which
society is replete.

Hence arises the situation of affairs with the Pumpilions.
Pedrigo Pumpilion has the soul which legitimately
appertains to his beloved Seraphina Serena, while
Seraphina Serena Pumpilion has that which should
animate her Pedrigo. But, not being profound in their
researches, they are probably not aware of the fact, and

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perhaps would not know their own souls if they were to
meet them in the street; although, in all likelihood, it
was a mysterious sympathy—a yearning of each physical
individuality to be near so important a part of itself,
which brought this worthy pair together.

Be that, however, as it may, it is an incontrovertible
fact that, before they did come together, Pedrigo Pumpilion
thought himself quite a model of humanity; and
piqued himself upon possessing much more of the
fortiter in re than of the suaviter in modo—a mistake,
the latter quality being latent, but abundant. He dreamed
that he was brimming with valour, and fit, not only to
lead squadrons to the field, but likewise to remain with
them when they were there. At the sound of drums and
trumpets, he perked up his chin, stuck out his breast,
straightened his vertebral column, and believed that he,
Pedrigo, was precisely the individual to storm a fortress
at the head of a forlorn hope—a greater mistake. But
the greatest error of the whole troop of blunders was his
making a Pumpilion of Miss Seraphina Serena Dolce,
with the decided impression that he was, while sharing
his kingdom, to remain supreme in authority. Knowing
nothing of the theory already broached, he took her for
a feminine feminality, and yielded himself a victim to
sympathy and the general welfare. Now, in this, strictly
considered, Pedrigo had none but himself to blame;
he had seen manifestations of her spirit; the latent energy
had peeped out more than once; he had entered unexpectedly,
before being installed as “only my husband,” and
found Miss Seraphina dancing the grand rigadoon on a
luckless bonnet which did not suit her fancy,—a species
of exercise whereat he marvelled; and he had likewise
witnessed her performance of the remarkable feat of
whirling a cat, which had scratched her hand, across the

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room by the tail, whereby the mirror was infinitesimally
divided into homœopathic doses, and whereby pussy, the
patient, was most allopathically phlebotomised and scarified.
He likewise knew that her musical education terminated
in an operatic crash, the lady having in a fit of
impatience demolished the guitar over the head of her
teacher; but, in this instance, the mitigating plea must
be allowed that it was done because the instrument
“wouldn't play good,” a perversity to which instruments,
like lessons “which won't learn,” are lamentably
liable.

These little escapades, however, did not deter Pumpilion.
Confiding in his own talent for governing, he
liked his Seraphina none the less for her accidental displays
of energy, and smiled to think how, under his
administration, his reproving frown would cast oil upon
the waves, and how, as he repressed her irritability, he
would develope her affections, results which would both
save the crockery and increase his comforts.

Of the Pumpilion tactique in courtship some idea may
be formed from the following conversation. Pedrigo
had an intimate associate, some years his senior,—Mr.
Michael Mitts, a spare and emaciated bachelor, whose
hawk nose, crookedly set on, well represented the eccentricity
of his conclusions, while the whistling pucker in
which he generally wore his mouth betokened acidity
of mind rendered sourer by indecision. Mitts was addicted
to observation, and, engaged in the drawing of
inferences and in generalizing from individual instances,
he had, like many others, while trimming the safety
lamp of experience, suffered the time of action to pass
by unimproved. His cautiousness was so great as to
trammel up his “motive power,” and, though long intending
to marry, the best part of his life had evaporated

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in the unproductive employment of “looking about.”
His experience, therefore, had stored him with that
species of wisdom which one meets with in theoretical
wooers, and he had many learned saws at the service
of those who were bolder than himself, and
were determined to enter the pale through which he
peeped.

As every one in love must have a confidant, Pedrigo
had selected Mitts for that office, knowing his peculiar
talent for giving advice, and laying down rules for others
to act upon.

“Pedrigo,” said Mitts, as he flexed his nose still further
from the right line of conformity to the usages of the
world, and slacked the drawing strings of his mouth to
get it out of pucker; “Pedrigo, if you are resolved upon
marrying this identical individual—I don't see the use, for
my part, of being in a hurry—better look about a while;
plenty more of 'em—but if you are resolved, the first
thing to be done is to make sure of her. That's undeniable.
The only difference of opinion, if you won't
wait and study character—character's a noble study—
is as to the modus operandi. Now, the lady's not sure
because she's committed; just the contrary,—that's the
very reason she's not sure. My experience shows me
that when it's not so easy to retract, the attention,
especially that of young women, is drawn to retraction.
Somebody tells of a bird in a cage that grumbled
about being cooped up. It's clear to me that the bird
did not complain so much because it was in the cage, as
it did because it couldn't get out—that's bird nature, and
it's human nature too.”

“Ah, indeed!” responded Pumpilion, with a smile of
confidence in his own attractions, mingled, however,
with a look which spoke that the philosophy of Mitts,

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having for its object to render “assurance double sure,”
did not pass altogether unheeded.

“It's a fact,” added Mitts; “don't be too secure.
Be as assiduous and as mellifluous as you please before
your divinity owns the soft impeachment; but afterwards
comes the second stage, and policy commands that it
should be one rather of anxiety to her. You must
every now and then play Captain Grand, or else she
may perform the part herself. Take offence frequently;
vary your Romeo scenes with an occasional touch of the
snow storm, and afterwards excuse yourself on the score
of jealous affection; that excuse always answers. Nothing
sharpens love like a smart tiff by way of embellishment.
The sun itself would not look so bright if it were
not for the intervention of night; and these little agitations
keep her mind tremulous, but intent upon yourself.
Don't mothers always love the naughtiest boys best?
haven't the worst men always the best wives? That
exemplifies the principle; there's nothing like a little
judicious bother. Miss Seraphina Serena will never
change her mind if bothered scientifically.”

“Perhaps so; but may it not be rather dangerous?”

“Dangerous! not at all; it's regular practice, I tell
you. A few cases may terminate unluckily; but that must
be charged to a bungle in the doctor. Why, properly
managed, a courtship may be continued, like a nervous
disease, or a suit at law, for twenty years, and be as
good at the close as it was at the beginning. In nine
cases out of ten, you must either perplex or be perplexed;
so you had better take the sure course, and play the
game yourself. Them's my sentiments, Mr. Speaker,”
and Michael Mitts caused his lithe proboscis to oscillate
like a rudder, as he concluded his oracular speech, and
puckered his mouth to the whistling place to show that

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

he had “shut up” for the present. He then walked
slowly away, leaving Pumpilion with a “new wrinkle.”

Seraphina Serena, being both fiery and coquettish
withal, Pumpilion, under the direction of his preceptor,
tried the “Mitts system of wooing,” and although it
gave rise to frequent explosions, yet the quarrels, whether
owing to the correctness of the system or not, were productive
of no lasting evil. Michael Mitts twirled his
nose and twisted his mouth in triumph at the wedding;
and set it down as an axiom that there is nothing like a
little insecurity for rendering parties firm in completing
a bargain; that, had it not been for practising the system,
Pumpilion might have become alarmed at the indications
of the “latent spirit;” and that, had it not been for the
practice of the system, Seraphina's fancy might have
strayed.

“I'm an experimenter in mental operations, and there's
no lack of subjects,” said Mitts to himself; “one fact
being established, the Pumpilions now present a new
aspect.”

There is, however, all the difference in the world
between carrying on warfare where you may advance
and retire at pleasure, and in prosecuting it in situations
which admit of no retreat. Partisan hostilities are one
thing, and regular warfare is another. Pumpilion was
very well as a guerilla, but his genius in that respect
was unavailing when the nature of the campaign did not
admit of his making an occasional demonstration, and of
evading the immediate consequences by a retreat. In a
very few weeks, he was reduced to the ranks as “only
my husband,” and, although no direct order of the day
was read to that effect, he was “respected accordingly.”
Before that retrograde promotion took place, Pedrigo

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

Pumpilion cultivated his hair, and encouraged its sneaking
inclination to curl until it woollied up quite fiercely; but
afterwards his locks became broken-heartedly pendent,
and straight with the weight of care, while his whiskers
hung back as if asking counsel and comfort from his
ears. He twiddled his thumbs with a slow rotary motion
as he sat, and he carried his hands clasped behind him
as he walked, thus intimating that he couldn't help it,
and that he didn't mean to try. For the same reason,
he never buttoned his coat, and wore no straps to the
feet of his trousers; both of which seemed too energetically
resolute for “only my husband.' Even his hat,
as it sat on the back part of his head, looked as if Mrs.
Pumpilion had put it on for him, (no one but the wearer
can put on a hat so that it will sit naturally,) and as if he
had not nerve enough even to shake it down to its characteristic
place and physiognomical expression. His personnel
loudly proclaimed that the Mitts method in matrimony
had been a failure, and that the Queen had given
the King a check-mate. Mrs. Pumpilion had been
triumphant in acting upon the advice of her friend, the
widow, who, having the advantage of Mitts in combining
experience with theory, understood the art of breaking
husbands à merveille.

“My dear madam,” said Mrs. Margery Daw, “you
have plenty of spirit; but spirit is nothing without steadiness
and perseverance. In the establishment of authority
and in the assertion of one's rights, any intermission
before success is complete requires us to begin again.
If your talent leads you to the weeping method of softening
your husband's heart, you will find that if you give
him a shower now and a shower then, he will harden in
the intervals between the rain; while a good sullen cry
of twenty-four hours' length may prevent any necessity

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

for another. If, on the contrary, you have genius for
the tempestuous, continued thunder and lightning for the
same length of time is irresistible. Gentlemen are great
swaggerers, if not impressively dealt with and early
taught to know their places. They are much like
Frisk,” continued the widow, addressing her lap-dog.
“If they bark, and you draw back frightened, they are
sure to bite; stamp your foot, and they soon learn to run
into a corner. Don't they, Frisky dear?”

“Ya-p!” responded the dog: and Mrs. Pumpilion,
tired of control, took the concurrent advice.

“To-morrow,” said Pumpilion, carelessly and with
an of-course-ish air, as he returned to tea from a stroll
with his friend Michael Mitts, who had just been urging
upon him the propriety of continuing the Mitts method
after marriage, “to-morrow, my love, I leave town for
a week to try a little trout fishing in the mountains.”

“Mr. Pumpilion!” ejaculated the lady, in an awful
tone, as she suddenly faced him. “Fishing?”

“Y-e-e-yes,” replied Pumpilion, somewhat discomposed.

“Then I shall go with you, Mr. Pumpilion,” said
the lady, as she emphatically split a muffin.

“Quite onpossible,” returned Pumpilion, with decisive
stress upon the first syllable; “it's a buck party, if
I may use the expression—a back party entirely;—
there's Mike Mitts, funny Joe Mungoozle—son of old
Mungoozle's,—Tommy Titcomb, and myself. We intend
having a rough and tumble among the hills to beneficialise
our wholesomes, as funny Joe Mungoozle has it.”

“Funny Joe Mungoozle is not a fit companion for any
married man, Mr. Pumpilion; and it's easy to see, by
your sliding back among the dissolute friends and

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

dissolute practices of your bachelorship, Mr. Pumpilion—by
your wish to associate with sneering and depraved Mungoozles,
Mitts's, and Titcombs, Mr. Pumpilion, that the
society of your poor wife is losing its attractions,” and
Mrs. Pumpilion sobbed convulsively at the thought.

“I have given my word to go a fishing,” replied
Pedrigo, rather ruefully, “and a fishing I must go.
What would Mungoozle say?—why, he would have a
song about it, and sing it at the `free and easies.”'

“What matter? let him say—let him sing. But it's
not my observations—it's those of funny Joe Mungoozle
that you care for—the affections of the `free and easy'
carousers that you are afraid of losing.”

“Mungoozle is a very particular friend of mine, Seraphina,”
replied Pedrigo, rather nettled. “We're going
a fishing—that's flat!”

“Without me?”

“Without you,—it being a buck party, without exception.”

Mrs. Pumpilion gave a shriek, and falling back, threw
out her arms fitfully—the tea-pot went by the board, as
she made the tragic movement.

“Wretched, unhappy woman!” gasped Mrs. Pumpilion,
speaking of herself.

Pedrigo did not respond to the declaration, but alternately
eyed the fragments of the tea-pot and the untouched
muffin which remained on his plate. The coup
had not been without its effect; but still he faintly whispered,
“Funny Joe Mungoozle, and going a fishing.”

“It's clear you wish to kill me—to break my heart,”
muttered the lady in a spasmodic manner.

“'Pon my soul, I don't—I'm only going a fishing.”

“I shall go distracted!” screamed Mrs. Pumpilion,
suiting the action to the word, and springing to her feet

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

in such a way as to upset the table, and roll its contents
into Pedrigo's lap, who scrambled from the debris, as
his wife, with the air of the Pythoness, swept rapidly
round the room, whirling the ornaments to the floor, and
indulging in the grand rigadoon upon their sad remains.

“You no longer love me, Pedrigo; and without your
love what is life? What is this, or this, or this,” continued
she, a crash following every word, “without mutual
affection?—Going a fishing!”

“I don't know that I am,” whined Pumpilion. “Perhaps
it will rain to-morrow.”

Now it so happened that there were no clouds visible
on the occasion, except in the domestic atmosphere; but,
the rain was adroitly thrown in as a white flag, indicative
of a wish to open a negotiation and come to terms.
Mrs. Pumpilion, however, understood the art of war better
than to treat with rebels with arms in their hands.
Her military genius, no longer “latent,” whispered her
to persevere until she obtained a surrender at discretion.

“Ah, Pedrigo, you only say that to deceive your
heart-broken wife. You intend to slip away—you and
your Mungoozles—to pass your hours in roaring iniquity,
instead of enjoying the calm sunshine of domestic
peace, and the gentle delights of fireside felicity. They
are too tame, too flat, too insipid for a depraved taste.
That I should ever live to see the day!” and she relapsed
into the intense style by way of a specimen of calm delight.

Mr. and Mrs. Pumpilion retired for the night at an
early hour; but until the dawn of day, the words of reproach,
now passionate, now pathetic, ceased not; and
in the very gray of the morning, Mrs. P. marched down
stairs en dishabille, still repeating ejaculations about the
Mungoozle fishing party. What happened below is not

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

precisely ascertained; but there was a terrible turmoil in
the kitchen, it being perfectly clear a whole “kettle of
fish” was in preparation, that Pedrigo might not have the
trouble of going to the mountains on a piscatorial expedition.

He remained seated on the side of the bed, like Marius
upon the ruins of Carthage, meditating upon the
situation of affairs, and balancing between a surrender to
petticoat government and his dread of Mongoozle's song
at the “free and easies.” At length he slipped down.
Mrs. Pumpilion sat glooming at the parlour window.
Pedrigo tried to read the “Saturday News” upside
down.

“Good morning, Mr. Pumpilion! Going a fishing,
Mr. Pumpilion! Mike Mitts, funny Joe Mungoozle, and
Tommy Titcomb must be waiting for you—you know,”
continued she with a mocking smile, “you're to go this
morning to the mountains on a rough and tumble for the
benefit of your wholesomes. The elegance of the phraseology
is quite in character with the whole affair.”

Pedrigo was tired out; Mrs. Margery Daw's perseverance
prescription had been too much for the Mitts
method; the widow had overmatched the bachelor.

“No, Seraphina my dearest, I'm not going a fishing,
if you don't desire it, and I see you don't.”

Not a word about its being likely to rain—the surrender
was unconditional.

“But,” added Pedrigo, “I should like to have a little
breakfast.”

Mrs. Pumpilion was determined to clinch the nail.

“There's to be no breakfast here—I've been talking
to Sally and Tommy in the kitchen, and I verily believe
the whole world's in a plot against me. They're gone,
Mr. Pumpilion—gone a fishing, perhaps.”

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

The battle was over—the victory was won—the nail
was clinched. Tealess, sleepless, breakfastless, what
could Pedrigo do but sue for mercy, and abandon a contest
waged against such hopeless odds? The supplies
being cut off, the siege-worn garrison must surrender.
After hours of solicitation, the kiss of amity was reluctantly
accorded; on condition, however, that “funny Joe
Mungoozle” and the rest of the fishing party should be
given up, and that he, Pedrigo, for the future should
refrain from associating with bachelors and widowers,
both of whom she tabooed, and consort with none but
staid married men.

From this moment the individuality of that once free
agent, Pedrigo Pumpilion, was sunk into “only my husband”—
the humblest of all humble animals. He fetches
and carries, goes errands, and lugs band-boxes and bundles;
he walks the little Pumpilions up and down the
room when they squall o' nights, and he never comes in
when any of his wife's distinguished friends call to visit
her. In truth, Pedrigo is not always in a presentable
condition; for as Mrs. Pumpilion is de facto treasurer,
he is kept upon rather short allowance, her wants being
paramount and proportioned to the dignity of head of the
family. But, although he is now dutiful enough, he at
first ventured once or twice to be refractory. These
symptoms of insubordination, however, were soon
quelled—for Mrs. Pumpilion, with a significant glance,
inquired,—

“Are you going a fishing again, my dear?”

eaf298.n1

[1] It may not be amiss to state that the mere conclusion of the
above sketch, hastily thrown off by the same pen, appeared in one
of our periodicals a few years ago, and, much mutilated and disfigured,
has since been republished in the newspapers, with an erroneous
credit, and under a different name.

p298-038 ORSON DABBS, THE HITTITE.

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

It has been said, and truly, that it takes all sorts of
people to make a world. He who complains of the lights
and shades of character which are eternally flitting before
him, and of the diversity of opposing interests
which at times cross his path, has but an illiberal, contracted
view of the subject; and though the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, in his retirement at Estremadura, had
some reason for being a little annoyed when he could not
cause two or three score of watches to go together, yet
he was wrong in sighing over his previous ineffectual
efforts to make men think alike. It is, to speak figuratively,
the clashing which constitutes the music. The
harmony of the whole movement is produced by the
fusion into each other of an infinite variety of petty discords;
as a glass of punch depends for its excellence upon
the skilful commingling of opposing flavours and antagonising
materials. Were the passengers in a wherry to
be of one mind, they would probably all sit upon the
same side, and hence, naturally, pay a visit to the Davy
Jones of the river; and if all the men of a nation thought
alike, it is perfectly evident that the ship of state must
lose her trim. The system of checks and balances pervades
both the moral and the physical world, and without
it, affairs would soon hasten to their end. It is, therefore,
clear that we must have all sorts of people,—some to prevent
stagnation, and others to act as ballast to an excess

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

of animation. The steam engines of humanity must have
their breaks and their safety valves, and the dead weights
of society require the whip and the spur.

Orson Dabbs certainly is entitled to a place among the
stimulants of the world, and it is probable that in exercising
his impulses, he produces beneficial effects. But it
would puzzle a philosopher to designate the wholesome
results which follow from his turbulent movements, or
to show, either by synthesis or analysis, wherein he is
a good. At all events, Orson Dabbs has the reputation
of being a troublesome fellow in the circles upon which
he inflicts himself; and, judging from the evidence elicited
upon the subject, there is little reason to doubt the
fact. He is dogmatical, and to a certain extent fond of
argument; but when a few sharp words will not make
converts, he abandons those windy weapons with contempt,
and has recourse to more forcible persuaders—a
pair of fists, each of which looks like a shoulder of
mutton.

“If people are so obstinate that they won't, or so
stupid that they can't understand you,” observed Dabbs,
in one of his confidential moments—for Orson Dabbs
will sometimes unbend, and suffer those abstruse maxims
which govern his conduct to escape—“if either for one
reason or the other,” continued he, with that impressive
iteration which at once gives time to collect and marshal
one's thoughts, and lets the listener know that something
of moment is coming—“if they won't be convinced—
easily and genteelly convinced—you must knock it into
'em short hand; if they can't comprehend, neither by
due course of mail, nor yet by express, you must make
'em understand by telegraph. That's the way I learnt
ciphering at school, and manners and genteel behaviour
at home. All I know was walloped into me. I took

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

larnin' through the skin, and sometimes they made a good
many holes to get it in.”

“And,” timidly interjected an humble admirer of this
great man, hazarding a joke, with an insinuating smile;
“and I s'pose you're so wise now because the hide
growed over it, and the larnin' couldn't get out, like Ingey
ink in a sailor's arm.”

“Jeames,” replied Orson Dabbs, relaxing into a grim
smile, like that of the griffin face of a knocker, and
shaking his “bunch of fives” sportively, as one snaps an
unloaded gun—Napoleon tweaked the ears of his courtiers—
why should not Dabbs shake his fist at his satellites?—
“Jeames, if you don't bequit poking fun at me,
I'll break your mouth, Jeames, as sure as you sit there.
But, to talk sensible, walloping is the only way—it's a
panacea for differences of opinion. You'll find it in history
books, that one nation teaches another what it didn't
know before by walloping it; that's the method of civilizing
savages—the Romans put the whole world to rights
that way; and what's right on the big figger must be
right on the small scale. In short, there's nothing like
walloping for taking the conceit out of fellows who think
they know more than their betters. Put it to 'em strong,
and make 'em see out of their eyes.”

Orson Dabbs acts up to these golden maxims. Seeing
that, from disputes between dogs up to quarrels between
nations, fighting is the grand umpire and regulator, he
resolves all power into that of the fist,—treating bribery,
reason, and persuasion as the means only of those
unfortunate individuals to whom nature has denied the
stronger attributes of humanity. Nay, he even turns up
his nose at betting as a means of discovering truth.
Instead of stumping an antagonist by launching out his
cash, Dabbs shakes a portentous fist under his nose, and

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

the affair is settled; the recusant must either knock under
or be knocked down, which, according to our hero, is all
the same in Dutch. In this way, when politics ran
high, he used to decide who was to be elected to any
specified office; and he has often boasted that he once, in
less than five minutes too, scared a man into giving the
Dabbs candidate a large majority, when the unfortunate
stranger did not at first believe that the said candidate
would be elected at all.

Some people believe that the fist is the poorest of
arguments, and that it, therefore, should be the last.
Here they are completely at issue with Dabbs, and it is
well that they do not fall in his way, or he would soon
show them the difference. With him it is what action
was to the ancient orator, the first, the middle, and the
last. Being himself, in a great measure, fist proof, he
is very successful in the good work of proselytism, and
has quite a reputation as a straightforward reasoner and
a forcible dialectitian.

Misfortunes, however, will sometimes happen to the
most successful. The loftiest nose may be brought to
the grindstone, and the most scornful dog may be obliged
to lunch upon dirty pudding. Who can control his fate?
One night Mr. Dabbs came home from his “loafing”
place—for he “loafs” of an evening, like the generality
of people—that being the most popular and the cheapest
amusement extant; and, from the way he blurted open
the door of the Goose and Gridiron, where he resides,
and from the more unequivocal manner in which he slammed
it after him, no doubt existed in the minds of his
fellow boarders that the well of his good spirits had been
“riled;” or, in more familiar phrase, that he was
“spotty on the back.” His hat was pitched forward,
with a bloodthirsty, piratical rakishness, and almost

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

covered his eyes, which gleamed like ignited charcoal
under a jeweller's blowpipe. His cheeks were flushed
with an angry spot, and his nose—always a quarrelsome
pug—curled more fiercely upward, as if the demon wrath
had turned archer, and was using it for a bow to draw
an arrow to its head. His mouth had set in opposition
to his nasal promontory, and savagely curved downward,
like a half-moon battery. Dabbs was decidedly out of
sorts—perhaps beery, as well as wolfy; in short, in that
unenviable state in which a man feels disposed to divide
himself, and go to buffets—to kick himself with his own
foot—to beat himself with his own fist, and to throw his
own dinner out of the window.

The company were assembled round the fire to discuss
politics, literature, men, and things. Dabbs looked
not at them, but, slinging Tommy Timid's bull terrier
Oseola out of the arm-chair in the corner, by the small
stump of a tail which fashion and the hatchet had left the
animal, he sat himself moodily down, with a force that
made the timbers creak. The conversation was turning
upon a recent brilliant display of the aurora borealis,
which the more philosophical of the party supposed to
arise from the north pole having become red-hot for
want of grease; while they all joined in deriding the popular
fallacy that it was caused by the high price of flour.

“Humph!” said Dabbs, with a grunt, “any fool
might know that it was a sign of war.”

“War!” ejaculated the party; “oh, your granny!”

“Yes, war!” roared Dabbs, kicking the bull terrier
Oseola in the ribs, and striking the table a tremendous
blow with his fist, as, with clenched teeth and out-poked
head, he repeated, “War! war! war!”

Now the Goose and Gridiron fraternity set up for
knowing geniuses, and will not publicly acknowledge

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

faith in the doctrines on meterology broached by their
grandmothers, whatever they may think in private. So
they quietly remarked, confiding in their numbers against
the Orson Dabbs method of conversion, that the aurora
was not a sign of war, but an evidence of friction and
of no grease on the axle of the world.

“That's a lie!” shouted Dabbs; “my story's the true
one, for I read it in an almanac; and to prove it true,
I'll lick anybody here that don't believe it, in two cracks
of a cow's thumb. Yes,” added he, in reply to the looks
bent upon him; “I'll not only wallop them that don't
believe it, but I'll wallop you all, whether you do or
not!”

This, however, was a stretch of benevolence to which
the company were not prepared to submit. As Dabbs
squared off to proceed secundum artem, according to the
approved method of the schools, the watchful astrologer
might have seen his star grow pale. He had reached
his Waterloo—that winter night was his 18th of June.
He fell, as many have fallen before him, by that implicit
reliance on his own powers which made him forgetful
of the risk of encountering the long odds. The threat
was too comprehensive, and the attempt at execution
was a failure. The company cuffed him heartily, and
in the fray the bull terrier Oseola vented its cherished
wrath by biting a piece out of the fleshiest portion of his
frame. Dabbs was ousted by a summary process, but
his heart did not fail him. He thundered at the door,
sometimes with his fists, and again with whatever missiles
were within reach. The barking of the dog and the
laughter from within, as was once remarked of certain
military heroes, did not “intimate him in the least,
it only estimated him.”

The noise at last became so great that a watchman

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

finally summoned up resolution enough to come near,
and to take Dabbs by the arm.

“Let go, watchy!—let go, my cauliflower! Your
cocoa is very near a sledge-hammer. If it isn't hard, it
may get cracked.”

“Pooh! pooh! don't be onasy, my darlint—my
cocoa is a corporation cocoa—it belongs to the city, and
they'll get me a new one. Besides, my jewel, there's
two cocoas standing here, you know. Don't be onasy—
it mayn't be mine that will get cracked.”

“I ain't onasy,” said Dabbs, bitterly, as he turned
fiercely round. “I ain't onasy. I only want to caution
you, or I'll upset your apple cart, and spill your peaches.”

“I'm not in the wegetable way, my own-self, Mr.
Horse-radish. You must make less noise.”

“Now, look here—look at me well,” said Dabbs, striking
his fist hard upon his own bosom; “I'm a real nine
foot breast of a fellow—stub twisted and made of horse-shoe
nails—the rest of me is cast iron with steel springs.
I'll stave my fist right through you, and carry you on
my elbow, as easily as if you were an empty market
basket—I will—bile me up for soap if I don't!”

“Ah, indeed! why, you must be a real Calcutta-from-Canting,
warranted not to cut in the eye. Snakes is no
touch to you; but I'm sorry to say you must knuckle
down close. You must surrender; there's no help for
it—none in the world.”

“Square yourself then, for I'm coming! Don't you
hear the clockvorks!” exclaimed Dabbs, as he shook
off the grip of the officer, and struck an attitude.

He stood beautifully; feet well set; guard well up;
admirable science, yet fearful to look upon. Like the
Adriatic, Dabbs was “lovelily dreadful” on this exciting
occasion. But when “Greek meets Greek,” fierce looks

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

and appalling circumstances amount to nothing. The
opponent of our hero, after regarding him coolly for a
moment, whistled with great contempt, and with provoking
composure, beat down his guard with a smart blow
from a heavy mace, saying,—

“'Taint no use, no how—you're all used up for bait.”

“Ouch!” shrieked Dabbs; “my eye, how it hurts!
Don't hit me again. Ah, good man, but you're a bruiser.
One, two, three, from you would make a person believe
any thing, even if he was sure it wasn't true.”

“Very well,” remarked the macerator, “all I want
of you is to behave nice and genteel, and believe you're
going to the watch'us, for it's true; and if you don't
believe it yet, why (shaking his mace) I shall feel
obligated to conwince you again.”

As this was arguing with him after his own method,
and as Dabbs had distinct impressions of the force of
the reasoning, he shrugged his shoulders, and then
rubbing his arms, muttered, “Enough said.”

He trotted off quietly for the first time in his life.
Since the affair and its consequences have passed away,
he has been somewhat chary of entering into the field of
argument, and particularly careful not to drink too much
cold water, for fear the bull terrier before referred to was
mad, and dreading hydrophobic convulsions.

p298-046 ROCKY SMALT; OR, THE DANGERS OF IMITATION.

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

Man is an imitative animal, and so strong is the
instinctive feeling to follow in the footsteps of others,
that he who is so fortunate as to strike out a new path
must travel rapidly, if he would avoid being run down by
imitators, and preserve the merit of originality. If his
discovery be a good one, the “servum pecus” will sweep
toward it like an avalanche; and so quick will be their
motion, that the daring spirit who first had the self-reliance
to turn from the beaten track, is in danger of
being lost among the crowd, and of having his claim to
the honours of a discoverer doubted and derided. Turn
where you will, the imitative propensity is to be
found busily at work; its votaries clustering round the
falcon to obtain a portion of the quarry which the nobler
bird has stricken; and perhaps, like Sir John Falstaff,
to deal the prize a “new wound in the thigh,” and
falsely claim the wreath of victory. In the useful arts,
there are thousands of instances in which the real discoverer
has been thrust aside to give place to the imitator;
and in every other branch in which human ingenuity
has been exercised, if the flock of copyists do not
obtain the patent right of fame, they soon, where it is
practicable, wear out the novelty, and measurably deprive

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

the inventor of the consideration to which he is entitled.
In the apportionment of applause, the praise too often
depends upon which is first seen, the statue or the cast—
although the one be marble, and the other plaster.

In business, no one can hope to recommend his wares
to patronage in a new and taking way, no matter what
outlay of thought has been required for its invention,
without finding multitudes prompt in the adoption of
the same device. He who travels by a fresh and verdant
path in literature, and is successful, soon hears the
murmurs of a pursuing troop, and has his by-way converted
into a dusty turnpike, macadamized on the principle
of “writing made easy;” while, on the stage, the
drama groans with great ones at second-hand. The
illustrious in tragedy can designate an army of those,
who, unable to retail their beauties, strive for renown by
exaggerating their defects; and Thalia has even seen her
female aids cut off their flowing locks, and teach themselves
to wriggle, because she who was in fashion wore
a crop, and had adopted a gait after her own fancy.

It is to this principle that a professional look is attributable.
In striving to emulate the excellence of another,
the student thinks he has made an important step if he
can catch the air, manner, and tone of his model; and
believes that he is in a fair way to acquire equal wisdom,
if he can assume the same expression of the face, and
compass the same “hang of the nether lip.” We have
seen a pupil endeavouring to help himself onward in
the race for distinction by wearing a coat similar in cut
and colour to that wherewith his preceptor indued
himself; and we remember the time when whole classes
at a certain eastern university became a regiment of
ugly Dromios, lengthening their visages, and smoothing
their hair down to their eyes, for no other reason than

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

that an eminent and popular professor chose to display
his frontispiece after that fashion—and that, as they
emulated his literary abilities, they, therefore, thought it
advantageous to imitate his personal defects. When
Byron's fame was in the zenith, poetic scribblers dealt
liberally in shirt collar, and sported an expanse of neck;
and when Waterloo heroes were the wonders of the
hour, every town in England could show its limpers and
hobblers, who, innocent of war, would fain have passed
for men damaged by the French. On similar grounds,
humps, squints, impediments of speech, mouths awry,
and limbs distorted, have been the rage.

How then could Orson Dabbs, the Hittite, admired
and peculiar as he was, both for his ways and for his
opinions, hope to escape imitation? If he entertained
such a belief, it was folly; and if he dreamed that he
could so thump the world as to preserve his originality,
it was a mere delusion. Among the many who frequented
the Goose and Gridiron, where Orson resided,
was one Rocky Smalt, whose early admiration
for the great one it is beyond the power of words to
utter, though subsequent events converted that admiration
into hostility. Rocky Smalt had long listened with
delight to Orson's lectures upon the best method of
removing difficulties, which, according to him, is by
thumping them down, as a paviour smooths the streets;
and as Orson descanted, and shook his fists in exemplification
of the text, the soul of Rocky, like a bean in a
bottle, swelled within him to put these sublime doctrines
in practice.

Now, it unluckily happens that Rocky Smalt is a
very little man—one of the feather weights—which
militates somewhat against the gratification of his pugilistic
desires, insomuch that if he “squares off” at a big

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fellow, he is obliged, in dealing a facer, to hit his antagonist
on the knee; and a blow given there, everybody
knows, neither “bungs a peeper” nor “taps a smeller.”
But Rocky, being to a certain degree aware of his gladiatorial
deficiencies, is rather theoretical than practical;
that is, he talks much more than he battles. His narratives,
differing from himself, are colossal; and as Colossus
stood with one foot on one side, and with the other
foot on the other side, so do Rocky's speeches refer to
the past and to the future—to what he has done, and to
what he means to do. He is now retrospective, and
again prospective, in talking of personal contention, his
combats never being present, which is by far the most
agreeable method of obtaining reputation, as we thereby
avoid the inconvenience of pricking our fingers in gathering
glory.

Rocky, in copying Dabbs as to his belligerent principles,
is likewise careful to do the same, as far as it is
possible, in relation to personal appearance. He is,
therefore, a pocket Dabbs—a miniature Orson. He
cultivates whiskers to the apex of the chin; and although
they are not very luxuriant, they make up in length
what they want in thickness. He cocks his hat fiercely,
rolls in his gait, and, with doubled fists, carries his arms
in the muscular curve, elbows pointing outward, and
each arm forming the segment of a circle. He slams
doors after him, kicks little dogs, and swears at little
boys, as Orson does. If any one runs against him, he
waits until the offender is out of hearing, and then
denounces him in the most energetic expletives belonging
to the language, and is altogether a vinaigrette of
wrath. It is the combat only that bothers Smalt; if it
were not for that link in the chain of progression from
defiance to victory, he would indeed be a most truculent

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hero, and deserve a salary from all the nose menders
about town, whether natural bone-setters or gristle-tinkers
by commission—were it not for that, Larrey's Military
Surgery would be in continual demand, as a guide to the
cure of contusions, and so great would be the application
of oysters to the eye, that there would be a scarcity of
shell-fish.

Sometimes, however, Smalt's flaming ardour precipitates
him into a quarrel; but, even then, he manages
matters very adroitly, by selecting the largest individual
of the opposite faction for his antagonist.

“Come on!” shrieks Smalt, in such an emergency;
“come on! I'll lick any thing near my own weight. I'll
chaw up any indewidooal that's fairly my match—yes,
and give him ten pounds. I ain't petickelar, when it's
a matter of accommodation. Whe-e-w! fire away!”

But, as Rocky's weight is just ninety-four pounds,
counting boots, hat, dead-latch key, pennies, fips, clothes,
and a little bit of cavendish, he is certain to escape; for
even the most valiant may be excused from encountering
the long odds in a pitched battle, although he may sometimes
run against them in a crowded chance-medley.
Rocky, therefore, puts on his coat again, puffing and
blowing like a porpoise, as he walks vapouring about, and
repeating with an occasional attitude a la Orson Dabbs,
“Any thing in reason—and a little chucked in to accommodate—
when I'm wound up, it 'most takes a stone wall to
stop me, for I go right through the timber—that's me!”

Yet these happy days of theoretical championship at
length were clouded. Science avails nothing against
love: Dan Cupid laughs at sparring, and beats down the
most perfect guard. It so fell out that Orson Dabbs and
Rocky Smalt both were smitten with the tender passion
at the same time, the complaint perhaps being epidemic

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at the season. This, however, though individually
troublesome, as the disorder is understood to be a sharp
one, would not have been productive of discord between
them, had it not unluckily happened that they became
enamoured of the same “fair damosel.” Two warriors
and but one lady!—not one lady per piece, to speak
commercially, but one lady per pair. This was embarrassing—
this was dangerous. Miss Araminta Stycke—
or Miss Mint Stycke, as she was sometimes more sweetly
termed—could not, according to legal enactments, marry
both the gentlemen in question; and as each was determined
to have her entire, the situation was decidely perplexing,
essentially bothering, and effectively dramatic,
which, however amusing to the looker-on, is the ne plus
ultra of discomfort to those who form the tableau. Miss
Araminta could doubtless have been very “happy with
either, were t'other dear charmer away;” but this was
out of the question; for, when Dabbs on one side stuck
to Stycke, Smalt on the other side just as assiduously
stuck to Stycke, and both stickled stoutly for her
smiles.

“My dear Mint Stycke,” said Rocky Smalt, at a tea
party, taking hold of a dish of plums nicely done in molasses—
“my dear Mint Stycke, allow me to help you to
a small few of the goodies.”

“Minty, my darling!” observed Dabbs, who sat on
her left hand, Rocky being on the right—“Minty my
darling,” repeated Dabbs, with that dashing familiarity
so becoming in a majestic personage, as he stretched
forth his hand, and likewise grasped the dish of plums,
“I insist upon helping you myself.”

The consequence was an illustration of the embarras
of having two lovers on the ground at the same time.
The plums were spilt in such a way as to render Miss

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

Stycke sweeter that ever, by giving “sweets to the
sweet;” but the young lady was by no means so pretty
to look at as she had been before the ceremony.

“Of the twain, she most affected” Dabbs, of which
Rocky was not a little jealous.

“Minty, I don't care for Dabbs,” said Rocky, in heroic
tones; “big as he is, if he comes here too often a crossing
me, he'll ketch it. I'll thump him, Minty, I will—feed
me on hay, if I don't.”

Minty laughed, and well she might, for just then Orson
arrived, and, walking into the room, scowled fiercely at
Smalt, who suddenly remembered “he had to go somewheres,
and promised to be there early—he must go, as
it was a'most late now.”

“He thump me!” said Dabbs, with a supercilious
smile, when Minty repeated the threat. “The next time
I meet that chap, I'll take my stick and kill it—I'll sqush
it with my foot.”

Unhappily for the serenity of his mind, Rocky Smalt
had his ear at the key hole when this awful threat was
made, and he quaked to hear it, not doubting that Dabbs
would be as good as his word. He, therefore, fled instanter,
and roamed about like a perturbed spirit; now travelling
quickly—anon pausing to remember the frightful
words, and, as they rushed vividly to mind, he would
hop-scotch convulsively and dart off like an arrow, the
whole being done in a style similar to that of a fish which
has indulged in a frolic upon cocculus indicus. In the
course of his eccentric rambles, he stopped in at various
places, and, either from that cause, or some other which
has not been ascertained, he waxed valiant a little after
midnight. But, as his spirits rose, his locomotive propensity
appeared to decrease, and he, at length, sat down
on a step.

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

“So!” soliloquized our hero: “he intends to belt me,
does he? Take a stick—sqush with his foot—and calls
me `it'—`it' right before Minty! Powers of wengeance,
settle on my fist, take aim with my knuckles, and shoot
him in the eye! If I wasn't so tired, and if I hadn't a
little touch of my family disorder, I'd start after him. I'd
go and dun him for the hiding; and if he'd only squat, or
let me stand on a chair, I'd give him a receipt in full,
right in the face, under my own hand and seal. I'd
knock him this-er way, and I'd whack him that-er way,
till you couldn't tell which end of his head his face
was on.”

Smalt suited the action to the word, and threw out his
blows, right and left, with great vigour.

Suddenly, however, he felt a heavy hand grasp his
shoulder, and give him a severe shake, while a deep gruff
voice exclaimed:

“Halloo! what the deuse are you about? You'll tear
your coat.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Smalt, with a convulsive start;
“oh, don't! I holler enough!”

“Why, little 'un, you must be cracked, if you flunk
out before we begin. Holler enough, indeed! nobody's
guv' you any yet.”

“Ah!” gasped Smalt, turning round; “I took you
for Orson Dabbs. I promised, when I cotch'd him, to
give him a licking, and I was werry much afeard I'd
have to break the peace. Breaking the peace is a werry
disagreeable thing fur to do; but I must—I'm conshensis
about it—when I ketches Orson. Somebody ought to
tell him to keep out of the way, fur fear I'll have to break
the peace.”

“It wouldn't do to kick up a row—but I'm thinking
it would be a little piece, if you could break it. I'll

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

carry home all the pieces you break off, in my waistcoat
pocket. You're only a pocket piece yourself.”

“Nobody asked your opinions—go 'way. I've got a
job of thinking to do, and I musn't be disturbed—talking
puts me out. Paddle, steamboat, or—”

“Take keer—don't persume,” was the impressive
reply; “I'm a 'fishal functionary out a ketching of dogs.
You musn't cut up because it's night. The mayor and
the 'squires have gone to bed; but the law is a thing
that never gets asleep. After ten o'clock, the law is a
watchman and a dog ketcher—we're the whole law till
breakfast's a'most ready.”

“You only want bristles to be another sort of a whole
animal,” muttered Smalt.

“Whew! confound your little kerkus, what do you
mean? I'd hit you unofficially, if there was any use in
pegging at a fly.”

Smalt began to feel uneasy; so, taking the hint conveyed
in the word fly, he made a spring as the commencement
of a retreat from one who talked so fiercely
and so disrespectfully. But he had miscalculated his
powers. After running a few steps, his apprehensions
overthrew him, and his persecutor walking up, said:

“Oh! you stumpy little peace-breaker, I knows what
you have been about—you've been drinking.”

“You nose it, hey?—much good may it do you.
Can't a man wet his whistle without your nosing it?”

“No, you can't—it's agin the law, which is very full
upon this pint.”

“Pint! Not the half of it—I haven't got the stowage
room.”

The “ketcher” laughed, for, notwithstanding their
sanguinary profession, ketchers, like Lord Norbury, are
said to love a joke, and to indulge in merriment,

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

whenever the boys are not near. He therefore picked up
Smalt, and placing him upon his knee, remarked as
follows:

“You're a clever enough kind of little feller, sonny;
but you ain't been eddicated to the law as I have; so I'll
give you a lecture. Justice vinks at vot it can't see, and
lets them off vot it can't ketch. When you want to break
it, you must dodge. You may do what you like in your
own house, and the law don't know nothing about the
matter. But never go thumping and bumping about
the streets, when you are primed and snapped. That's
intemperance, and the other is temperance. But now you
come under the muzzle of the ordinance—you're a
loafer.”

“Now, look here—I'll tell you the truth. Orson
Dabbs swears he'll belt me—yes, he calls me `it'—he
said he'd sqush me with his foot—he'd take a stick and
kill `it'—me, I mean. What am I to do?—there'll be a
fight, and Dabbs will get hurt.”

“He can't do what he says—the law declares he
musn't; and if he does, it isn't any great matter—he'll
be put in limbo, you know.”

This, however, was a species of comfort which had
very little effect upon Smalt. He cared nothing about
what might be done with Orson Dabbs after Orson had
done for him.

His new friend, however, proved, as Smalt classically
remarked, to be like a singed cat, much better than he
looked, for he conducted the Lilliputian hero home, and,
bundling him into the entry, left him there in comfort.
Rocky afterwards removed to another part of the town,
for the purpose of keeping clear of his enemy, and, with
many struggles, yielded the palm in relation to Miss
Araminta Stycke, who soon became Mrs. Orson Dabbs.

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After this event, Rocky Smalt, who is not above the
useful employment of gathering a little wisdom from
experience, changed his system, and now speaks belligerently
only in reference to the past, his gasconading
stories invariably beginning, “A few years ago, when I
was a fighting carackter.”

p298-057 UNDEVELOPED GENIUS. A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF P. PILGARLICK PIGWIGGEN, ESQ.

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The world has heard much of unwritten music, and
more of unpaid debts; a brace of unsubstantialities, in
which very little faith is reposed. The minor poets
have twangled their lyres about the one, until the sound
has grown wearisome, and until, for the sake of peace and
quietness, we heartily wish that unwritten music were
fairly written down, and published in Willig's or Blake's
best style, even at the risk of hearing it reverberate from
every piano in the city: while iron-visaged creditors—
all creditors are of course hard, both in face and in
heart, or they would not ask for their money—have
chattered of unpaid debts, ever since the flood, with a wet
finger, was uncivil enough to wipe out pre-existing scores,
and extend to each skulking debtor the “benefit of the
act.” But undeveloped genius, which is, in fact, itself
unwritten music, and is very closely allied to unpaid
debts, has, as yet, neither poet, trumpeter, nor biographer.
Gray, indeed, hinted at it in speaking of “village Hampdens,”
“mute inglorious Miltons,” and “Cromwells
guiltless,” which showed him to be man of some discernment,
and possessed of inklings of the truth. But
the general science of mental geology, and through that,
the equally important details of mental mineralogy and

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

mental metallurgy, to ascertain the unseen substratum
of intellect, and to determine its innate wealth, are as
yet unborn; or, if phrenology be admitted as a branch
of these sciences, are still in uncertain infancy. Undeveloped
genius, therefore, is still undeveloped, and is
likely to remain so, unless this treatise should awaken
some capable and intrepid spirit to prosecute an investigation
at once so momentous and so interesting. If not,
much of it will pass through the world undiscovered and
unsuspected; while the small remainder can manifest
itself in no other way than by the aid of a convulsion,
turning its possessor inside out like a glove; a method,
which the earth itself was ultimately compelled to adopt,
that stupid man might be made to see what treasures
are to be had for the digging.

There are many reasons why genius so often remains
invisible. The owner is frequently unconscious of the
jewel in his possession, and is indebted to chance for
the discovery. Of this, Patrick Henry was a striking
instance. After he had failed as a shopkeeper, and was
compelled to “hoe corn and dig potatoes,” alone on his
little farm, to obtain a meagre subsistence for his family,
he little dreamed that he had that within, which would
enable him to shake the throne of a distant tyrant, and
nerve the arm of struggling patriots. Sometimes, however,
the possessor is conscious of his gift, but it is to
him as the celebrated anchor was to the Dutchman; he
can neither use nor exhibit it. The illustrious Thomas
Erskine, in his first attempt at the bar, made so signal a
failure as to elicit the pity of the good natured, and the
scorn and contempt of the less feeling part of the auditory.
Nothing daunted, however, for he felt undeveloped
genius strong within him, he left the court; muttering,
with more profanity than was proper, but with much

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

truth, “By —! it is in me, and it shall come out!”
He was right; it was in him; he did get it out, and
rose to be Lord Chancellor of England.

But there are men less fortunate; as gifted as Erskine,
though perhaps in a different way, they swear frequently,
as he did, but they cannot get their genius out. They
feel it, like a rat in a cage, beating against their barring
ribs, in a vain struggle to escape; and thus, with the
materials for building a reputation, and standing high
among the sons of song and eloquence, they pass their
lives in obscurity, regarded by the few who are aware
of their existence, as simpletons—fellows sent upon the
stage solely to fill up the grouping, to applaud their
superiors, to eat, sleep, and die.

P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, Esq., as he loves to be
styled, is one of these unfortunate undeveloped gentlemen
about town. The arrangement of his name shows
him to be no common man. Peter P. Pigwiggen would
be nothing, except a hailing title to call him to dinner,
or to insure the safe arrival of dunning letters and tailors'
bills. There is as little character about it as about the
word Towser, the individuality of which has been lost
by indiscriminate application. To all intents and purposes,
he might just as well be addressed as “You Pete
Pigwiggen,” after the tender maternal fashion, in which,
in his youthful days, he was required to quit dabbling in
the gutter, to come home and be spanked. But

P. Pilgarlick Pigwiggen, Esq.

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