Poems ... With a memoir by ... Arabella Shore and an appreciation by Frederic Harrison

Front matter

THE WORKS OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. THE WORKS OF WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. IN TWENTY-FOUR VOLUMES. VOLUME XXIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TO "PUNCH" (NOT PREVIOUSLY REPRINTED). LONDON: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 1 886. CONTRIBUTIONS TO "PUNCH" (NOT PREVIOUSLY REPRINTED). By W. M. THACKERAY. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR. LONDON : SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE. 1886.

ADVERTISEMENT.

. This volume contains such of Mr. Thackeray's contributions to Punch as have not hitherto been included in his collected works. In the Advertisement to Volume XXIII. of this edition the Publishers stated the reasons which have induced them to add this and the preceding volume to the Author's collected works. CONTENTS. MISS TICKLE TOBY'S LECTURES ON ENGLISH HISTORY. PAGE A Character (to introduce Another Character) .... 3 Lecture I. 8 n 14 ,, III. The Sea-Kings in England 21 ,, IV. Edward the Confessor — Harold — William the Conqueror 27 „ V. William Rufus 32 „ VI. Henry I.— Maude— Stephen — Henry II. . . . 37 „ VII. Richard the First 42 „ VIII 49 ,, IX. Edward I.— The Scots and their Claims . -.55 ,, X. Edward III 63 PAPERS BY THE FAT CONTRIBUTOR. Wanderings of Our Fat Contributor 71 Punch in the East .... 99 Brighton i21 xxiv. a CONTENTS. x PAGE A. Brighton Night Entertainment I25 Meditations over Brighton :3° Brighton in 1847 ■ .. • • ■ '33 MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS TO "■PUNCH" Mr. Spec's Remonstrance . . . 145 Singular Letter from the Regent of Spain 149 The Georges . . . 152 Titmarsh v. Tait 155 Royal Academy 158 A Plea for Plush 162 Professor Byles's Opinion of the Westminster Hall Exhibition 164 "Punch" and the Influenza 170 The Persecution of British Footmen 174 Irish Gems 185 Mr. Snob's Remonstrance with Mr. Smith 189 Yesterday : a Tale of the Polish Ball 193 Science at Cambridge 197 The Great Squattleborough Soiree 201 Paris Revisited 206 Two or Three Theatres at Paris 211 On some Dinners at Paris 2I6 Hobson's Choice ; or, the Tribulations of a Gentleman in search of a Man-Servant 22I Thoughts on a New Comedy 2„ The Sights of London 242 The Lion Huntress of Belgravia 246 Why can't They leave Us alone in the Holidays ? . . . .

Chapter II. On The Prospects Of Punch In The East

To the Editor of Punch (confidential). My dear Sir,— In my last letter (which was intended for the public eye), I was too much affected by the recollection of what I may be permitted to call the ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS, to allow me for the moment to commit to paper that useful information, in the imparting of which your Journal — our Journal — the world's Journal — yields to none, and which the British public will naturally expect from all who contribute to your columns. I address myself therefore privately to you, so that you may deal with the facts I may communicate as you shall think best for the general welfare. What I wish to point out especially to your notice is, the aston ishing progress of Punch in the East. Moving according to your orders in strict incognito, it has been a source of wonder and delight to me to hear how often the name of the noble Miscellany was in the mouths of British men.

At Gibraltar its jokes passed among the midshipmen, merchants, Jews, &c, assembled at the hotel table (and quite unconscious how sweetly their words sounded on the ear of a silent guest at the board) as current, ay, much more current, than the coin of the realm. At Malta, the first greeting between Captain Tagus and some other Captain in anchorbuttons, who came to hail him when we entered harbour, related to Punch. " What's the news?" exclaimed the other Captain. "Here's Punch," was the immediate reply of Tagus, handing it out — and the other Captain's face was suffused with instant smiles as his enraptured eye glanced over some of the beauteous designs of Leech. At Athens, Mr. Smith, second-cousin of the respected vice-consul, who came to our inn, said to me mysteriously, " I'm told we've got Punch on board."

I took him aside, and pointed him out (in confidence) Mr. Waddilove, the stupidest man of all our party, as the author in question. Somewhat to my annoyance (for I was compelled to maintain my privacy), Mr. W. was asked to a splendid dinner in consequence — a dinner which ought by rights to have fallen to my share. It was a consolation to me, however, to think, as I ate my solitary repast at one of the dearest and worst inns I ever entered, that though /might be overlooked, Punch was respected in the land of Socrates and Pericles. At the Piræus we took on board four young gentlemen from Oxford, who had been visiting the scenes consecrated to them by the delightful associations of the Little Go ; and as they paced the deck and looked at the lambent stars that twinkled on the bay once thronged with the galleys of Themistocles — what, Sir, do you think was the song they chanted in chorus?

Was it a lay of burning Sappho ? Was it a thrilling ode of Alcæus ? No ; it was — " Had I an ass averse to speed, Deem ye I'd strike him? no, indeed," &c. which you had immortalised, I recollect, in your sixth volume. (Donkeys, it must be premised, are most numerous and flourishing in Attica, commonly bestridden by the modern Greeks, and no doubt extensively popular among the ancients — unless human nature has very much changed since their time.) Thus we find that Punch is respected at Oxford as well as in Athens, and I trustat Cambridge likewise. As we sailed through the blue Bosphorus at midnight, the Health of Punch was enthusiastically drunk in the delicious beverage which shares his respectable name ; and the ghosts of Hero and Leander must have been startled at hearing songs appropriate to the toast, and very different from those with which I have no doubt they amused each other in times so affectingly described in Lempriere's delightful Dictionary.

I did not see the Golden Horn at Constantinople, nor hear it blown, probably on account of the fog ; but this I can declare, that Punch was on the table at Misseri's Hotel, Pera, the spirited pro prietor of which little knew that one of its humblest contributors ate his pilaff. Pilaff by the way, is very good ; kabobs are also excellent ; my friend Mehemet Effendi, who keeps the kabob shop, close by the Rope-bazaar in Constantinople, sells as good as any in town. At the Armenian shops, too, you get a sort of raisin wine at two piastres a bottle, over which a man can spend an agreeable half-hour. I did not hear what the Sultan Abdul Medjid thinks of Punch, but of wine he is said to be uncommonly fond. At Alexandria there lay the picture of the dear and venerable old face, on the table of the British hotel ; and the 140 passengers from Burrumtollah, Chowringhee, &c. (now on their way to England per " Burrumpooter ") rushed upon it — it was the July number, with my paper, which you may remember made such a sensation— even more eagerly than on pale ale.

I made cautious inquiries amongst them (never breaking the incognito) regarding the influence of Punch in our vast Indian territories. They say that from Cape Comorin to the Sutlej, and from the Sutlej to the borders of Thibet, nothing is talked of but Punch. Dost Mahommed never misses a single number ; and the Tharawaddie knows the figure of Lord Brougham and his Scotch trousers as well as that of his favourite vizier. Punch, my informant states, has rendered his lordship so popular throughout our Eastern possessions, that were he to be sent out to India as Governor, the whole army and people would shout with joyful recog nition. I throw out this for the consideration of Government at home. I asked Bucksheesh Pasha (with whom I had the honour of dining at Cairo) what his august Master thought of Punch.

And at the pyramids — but of these in another letter. You have here enough to show you how kingly the diadem, boundless the sway, of Punch is in the East. By it we are enabled to counterbalance the influence of the French in Egypt ; by it we are enabled to spread civilisation over the vast Indian Continent, to soothe the irritated feelings of the Sikhs, and keep the Burmese in good-humour. By means of Punch, it has been our privilege to expose the designs of Russia more effectually than Urquhart ever did, and to this Sir Stratford Canning can testify. A proud and noble post is that which you, Sir, hold over the Intellect of the World ; a tremendous power you exercise ! May you ever wield it wisely and gently as now ! " Subjectis parcere, superbos debellare," be your motto ! I forget whether I mentioned in my last that I was without funds in quar antine at Fort Manuel, Malta, and shall anxiously expect the favour of a communication from you — posse restante — at that town.

With assurances of the highest consideration, Believe me to be, Sir, Your most faithful Servant and Correspondent, The F — Contributor. P.S. — We touched at Smyrna, where I purchased a real Smyrna sponge, which trifle I hope your lady will accept for her toilette ; some real Turkey rhubarb for your dear children ; and a friend going to Syria has promised to procure for me some real Jerusalem artichokes, which I hope to see flourishing in your garden at . [This letter was addressed " strictly private and confidential " to us ; but at a moment when all men's minds are turned towards the East, and every information regarding " the cradle of civilisation " is anxiously looked for, we have deemed it our duty to submit our Correspondent's letter to the public. The news which it contains is so important and 'startling — our Correspondent's views of Eastern affairs so novel and remarkable — that they must make an impression in Europe.

We beg the Observer, the Times, &c. , to have the goodness to acknow ledge their authority, if they avail themselves of our facts. And for us, it can not but be a matter of pride and gratification to think — on the testimony of a Correspondent who has never deceived us yet — that our efforts for the good of mankind are appreciated by such vast and various portions of the human race, and that our sphere of usefulness is so prodigiously on the increase. Were it not that dinner has been announced (and consequently is getting cold), we would add more. For the present, let us content ourselves by stating that the intelligence conveyed to us is most welcome as it is most surprising, the occasion of heartfelt joy, and we hope of deep future meditation. — Editor.]

Chapter III. Athens

The above is a picture of some beautiful windmills near Athens, not, I believe, depicted by any other artist, and which I dare say some people will admire because they are Athenian windmills. The world is made so. I was not a brilliant boy at school — the only prize I ever re member to have got was in a kind of lottery in which I was obliged to subscribe with seventeen other competitors — and of which the prize was a flogging, That I won. But I don't think I carried off any other. Possibly from laziness, or if you please from incapacity, but I certainly was rather inclined to be of the side of the dunces — Sir Walter Scott, it will be recollected, was of the same species. Many young plants sprouted up round about both of us, I dare say, with astonishing rapidity — but they have gone to seed ere this, or were never worth the cultivation.

Great genius is of slower growth. I always had my doubts about the classics. When I saw a brute of a schoolmaster, whose mind was as cross-grained as any plough boy's in Christendom ; whose manners were those of the most in sufferable of Heaven's creatures, the English snob trying to turn gentleman ; whose lips, when they were not mouthing Greek or grammar, were yelling out the most brutal abuse of poor little cower ing gentlemen standing before him : when I saw this kind of man (and the instructors of our youth are selected very frequently indeed out of this favoured class) and heard him roar out praises of, and pump himself up into enthusiasm for, certain Greek poetry, — I say I had my doubts about the genuineness of the article. A man may well thump you or call you names because you won't learn — but I never could take to the proffered delicacy ; the fingers that offered it were so dirty.

Fancy the brutality of a man who began a Greek grammar with "rvirra, I thrash" ! We were all made to begin it in that way. When, then, I came to Athens, and saw that it was a humbug, I hailed the fact with a sort of gloomy joy. I stood in the Royal Square and cursed the country which has made thousands of little boys miserable. They have blue stripes on the new Greek flag; I thought bitterly of my own. I wished that my schoolmaster had been in the place, that we might have fought there for the right ; and that I might have immolated him as a sacrifice to the manes of little boys flogged into premature Hades, or pining away and sickening under the destiny of that infernal Greek grammar. I have often thought that those little cherubs who are carved on tombstones and are represented as possessing a head and wings only, are designed to console little children — usherand beadle-belaboured — and say "there is no flogging where we are."

From their conformation, it is impossible. Woe to the man who has harshly treated one of them ! Of the ancient buildings in this beggarly town it is not my busi ness to speak. Between ourselves it must be acknowledged that there was some merit in the Heathens who constructed them. But of the Temple of Jupiter, of which some columns still remain, I declare with confidence that not one of them is taller than our own glorious Monument on Fish-Street Hill, which I heartily wish to see again, whereas upon the columns of Jupiter I never more desire to set eyes. On the Acropolis and its temples and towers I shall also touch briefly. The frieze of the Parthenon is well known in England, the famous chevaux de frieze being carried off by Lord Elgin, and now in the British Museum, Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury.

The Erechtheum is another building, which I suppose has taken its name from the genteel club in London at a corner of Saint James's Square. It is likewise called the Temple of Minerva Polias — a capital name for a club in London certainly ; fancy gentlemen writing on their cards "Mr. Jones, Temple-of-Minerva-Polias Club." — Our country is surely the most classical of islands. As for the architecture of that temple, if it be not entirely stolen from Saint Pancras Church, New Road, or vice versa, I am a Dutch man. " The Tower of the Winds " may be seen any day at Edin burgh — and the Lantern of Demosthenes is at this very minute perched on the top of the chnrch in Regent Street, within a hundred yards of the lantern of Mr. Drummond. Only in London you have them all in much better preservation — the noses of the New Road caryatides are not broken as those of their sisters here.

The Temple of the Scotch Winds I am pleased to say I have never seen, but I have no doubt it is worthy of the Modern Athens — and as for the choragic temple of Lysicrates, erroneously called Demosthenes's Lantern — from Waterloo Place you can see it well : whereas here it is a ruin in the midst of a huddle of dirty huts, whence you try in vain to get a good view of it. When I say of the Temple of Theseus (quoting Murray's Guide book) that " it is a peripteral hexastyle with a pronaos, a posticum, and two columns between the antæ," the commonest capacity may perfectly imagine the place. Fancy it upon an irregular ground of copper-coloured herbage, with black goats feeding on it, and the sound of perpetual donkeys braying round about. Fancy to the south-east the purple rocks and towers of the Acropolis meeting the eye — to the south-east the hilly islands and the blue Ægean.

Fancy the cobalt sky above, and the temple itself (built of Pentelic marble) of the exact colour and mouldiness of a ripe Stilton cheese, and you have the view before you as well as if you had been there. As for the modern buildings — here is a beautiful design of the Royal Palace, built in the style of High-Dutch-Greek, and resembling Newgate whitewashed and standing on a sort of mangy desert. The King's German Guards ($atit£Pov3.oi) have left him perforce; he is now attended by petticoated Albanians, and I saw one of the palace sentries, as the sun was shining on his sentry-box, wisely couched behind it. The Chambers were about to sit when we arrived. The Deputies were thronging to the capital. One of them had come as a third class passenger of an English steamer, took a first-class place, and threatened to blow out the brains of the steward who remonstrated with him on the irregularity.

It is quite needless to say that he kept his place — and as the honourable deputy could not read, of course he could not be expected to understand the regulations imposed by the avaricious proprietors of the boat in question. Happy is the country to have such makers of laws, and to enjoy the liberty conse quent upon the representative system ! Besides Otto's palace in the great square, there is another house and an hotel ; a fountain is going to be erected, and roads even are to be made. At present the King drives up and down over the mangy plain before mentioned, and the grand officers of state go up to the palace on donkeys. As for the Hotel Royal— the Folkestone Hotel might take a lesson from it — they charge five shillings sterling (the coin of the country is the gamma, lambda, and delta, which I never could calculate) for a bed in a double-bedded room ; and our poor young friend Scratchley, with whom I was travelling, was compelled to leave his and sit for safety on a chair, on a table in the middle of the room.

As for me— but I will not relate my own paltry sufferings. The post goes out in half-an-hour, and I had thought ere its departure to have described to you Constantinople and my interview with the Sultan there — his splendid offers — the Princess Badroulbadour, the order of the Nisham, the Pashalic with three tails — and my firm but indignant rejection. I had thought to describe Cairo — interview with Mehemet Ali— proposals of that Prince — splendid feast at the house of my dear friend Bucksheesh Pasha, dancing-girls and magi cians after dinner, and their extraordinary disclosures ! But I should fill volumes at this rate ; and I can't, like Mr. James, write a volume between breakfast and luncheon. I have only time rapidly to jot down my great adventure at the Pyramids — and Punch's enthronisation there. I -4

Chapter IV. Punch At The Pyramids

The 19th day of October, 1844 (the seventh day of the month Hudjmudj, and the 1229th year of the Mohammedan Hejira, corre sponding with the 16,769th anniversary of the 48th incarnation of Veeshnoo), is a day that ought hereafter to be considered eternally famous in the climes of the East and West. I forget what was the day of General Bonaparte's battle of the Pyramids ; I think it was in the month Quintidi of the year Nivose of the French Republic, and he told his soldiers that forty centuries looked down upon them from the summit of those buildings — a statement which I very much doubt. But I say the 19TH day of October, 1844, is the most important era in the modern world's history. It unites the modern with the ancient civilisation ; it couples the brethren of Watt and Cobden with the dusky family of Pharaoh and Sesostris ; it fuses Herodotus with Thomas Babington Macaulay ; it intertwines the piston of the blond Anglo-Saxon steam-engine with the needle of the Abyssinian Cleopatra ; it weds the tunnel of the subaqueous Brunei with the mystic edifice of Cheops.

Strange play of wayward fancy ! Ascending the Pyramid, I could not but think of Waterloo Bridge in my dear native London — a building as vast and as magnificent, as beautiful, as useless, and as lonely. Forty centuries have not as yet passed over the latter structure 'tis true ; scarcely an equal number of hackney-coaches have crossed it. But I doubt whether the indi viduals who contributed to raise it are likely to receive a better divi dend for their capital than the swarthy shareholders in the Pyramid speculation, whose dust has long since been trampled over by count less generations of their sons. If I use in the above sentence the longest words I can find, it is because the occasion is great and demands the finest phrases the dic tionary can supply ; it because I have not read Tom Macaulay in vain ; it is because I wish to show I am a dab in history, as the above dates will testify ; it is because I have seen the Reverend Mr. Milman preach in a black gown at Saint Margaret's, whereas at the Coronation he wore a gold cope.

The 19th of October was Punch's Coronation ; I officiated at the august ceremony. To be brief — as illiterate readers may not understand a syllable of the above piece of ornamental eloquence — on the 19TH of October, 1844, I pasted the great placard of Punch on the Pyramid of Cheops. I did it. The Fat Contributor did it. If I die, it could not be undone. If I perish, I have not lived in vain. If the forty centuries are on the summit of the Pyramids, as Bonaparte remarks, all I can say is, / did not see them. But Punch has really been there ; this I swear. One placard I pasted on the first landing-place (who knows how long Arab rapacity will respect the sacred hieroglyphic?). One I placed under a great stone on the summit ; one I waved in the air, as my Arabs raised a mighty cheer round the peaceful victorious banner ; and I flung it towards the sky, which the Pyramid almost touches, and left it to its fate, to mount into the azure vault and take its place among the con stellations ; to light on the eternal Desert, and mingle with its golden sands ; or to flutter and drop into the purple waters of the neigh bouring Nile, to swell its fructifying inundations, and mingle with the rich vivifying influence which shoots into the tall palm-trees on its banks, and generates the waving corn.

I wonder were there any signs or omens in London when that event occurred ? Did an earthquake take place ? Did Stocks or the Barometer preternaturally rise or fall ? It matters little. Let it suffice that the thing has been done, and forms an event in History by the side of those other facts to which these prodigious monuments bear testimony. Now to narrate briefly the circumstances of the day. On Thursday, October 17, I caused my dragoman to purchase in the Frank Bazaar at Grand Cairo the following articles, which will be placed in the Museum on my return : — 1 A is a tin pot holding about a pint, and to contain B, a packet of flour (which of course is not visible, as it is tied up in brown paper), and C, a pigskin brush of the sort commonly used in Europe— the whole costing about five piastres, or one shilling sterling.

They were all the implements needful for this tremendous undertaking. Horses of the Mosaic Arab breed— I mean those animals called Jerusalem ponies by some in England, by others denominated donkeys — are the common means of transport employed by the subjects of Mehemet Ali. My excellent friend Bucksheesh Pasha would have mounted me either on his favourite horse, or his best drome dary. But I declined those proffers — if I fall, I like better to fall from a short distance than a high one. — I have tried tumbling in both ways, and recommend the former as by far the pleasantest and safest. I chose the Mosaic Arab then — one for the dragoman, one for the requisites of refreshment, and two for myself — not that I proposed to ride two at once, but a person of a certain dimension had best have a couple of animals in case of accident.

I left Cairo on the afternoon of October 18, never hinting to a single person the mighty purpose of my journey. The waters were out, and we had to cross them thrice — twice in track-boats, once on the shoulders of abominable Arabs, who take a pleasure in slipping and in making believe to plunge you in the stream. When in the midst of it, the brutes stop and demand money of you — you are alarmed, the savages may drop you if you do not give — you promise that you will do so. The half-naked ruffians who conduct you up the Pyramid, when they have got you panting to the most steep, dangerous, and lonely stone, make the same demand, pointing down wards while they beg, as if they would fling you in that direction on refusal. As soon as you have breath, you promise more money — it is the best way — you are a fool if you give it when you come down.

The journey I find briefly set down in my pocket-book as thus : — Cairo Gardens — Mosquitoes — Women dressed in blue — Children dressed in nothing — Old Cairo — Nile, dirty water, ferry-boat — Town — Palm-trees, ferry-boat, canal, palm-trees, town — Rice fields — Maize fields — Fellows on dromedaries — Donkey down — Over his head — Pick up pieces — More palm-trees — More rice fields — Water courses — Howling Arabs — Donkey tumbles down again — Inunda tions — Herons or cranes — Broken bridges— Sands — Pyramids. If a man cannot make a landscape out of that he has no imagination. Let him paint the skies very blue — the sands very yellow— the plains very flat and green — the dromedaries and palm-trees very tall — the women very brown, some with veils, some with nose-rings, some tattooed, and none with stays — and the picture is complete. You may shut your eyes and fancy yourself there. It is the pleasant est way, entre nous.

Chapter V. Punch At The Pyramids

(concluded). It is all very well to talk of sleeping in the tombs : that question has been settled in a former paper, where I have stated my belief that people do not sleep at all in Egypt I thought to have had some tremendous visions under the shadow of those enormous Pyramids reposing under the stars. Pharaoh or Cleopatra, I thought, might appear to me in a dream. But how could they, as I didn't go to sleep ? I hoped for high thoughts, and secret communings with the Spirit of Poesy — I hoped to have let off a sonnet at least, as gentle men do on visiting the spot — but how could I hunt for rhymes, being occupied all night in hunting for something else ? If this remonstrance will deter a single person from going to the Pyramids, my purpose is fully answered. But my case was different. I had a duty to perform — I had to introduce Punch to Cheops — I had vowed to leave his card at the gates of History — I had a mission, in a word.

I roused at sunrise the snoring dragoman from his lair. I summoned the four Arabs who had engaged to assist me in the ascent, and in the undertaking. We lighted a fire of camels' dung at the north-east corner of the Pyramid, just as the god of day rose over Cairo. The embers began to glow, — water was put into the tin pot before mentioned,— the pot was put on the fire — 'twas a glorious — a thrilling moment ! At 46 minutes past 6 a.m. (by one of Dollond's chronometers) the water began to boil. At 47 minutes the flour was put gradually into the water — it was stirred with the butt-end of the brush brought for the purpose, and Schmaklek Beg, an Arab, peeping over the pot too curiously, I poked the brush into his mouth at n minutes before 7 a.m. At 7, the paste was made — doubting whether it was thick enough, Schmaklek tried it with his finger.

It was pronounced to be satisfactory. At 1 1 minutes past 7, I turned round in a majestic attitude to the four Arabs, and said, "Let us mount." I suggest this scene, this moment, this attitude, to the Committee of the Fine Arts as a proper subject for the Houses of Parliament — Punch pointing to the Pyra mids, and introducing civilisation to Egypt — I merely throw it out as a suggestion. What a grand thing the Messieurs Foggo would make of it ! Having given the signal — the Sheikh of the Arabs seized my right arm, and his brother the left. Two volunteer Arabs pushed me (quite unnecessarily) behind. The other two preceded— one with a water-bottle for refreshment ; the other with the posters — the pot — the paint-brush and the paste. Away we went— away ! I was blown at the third step. They are exceedingly lofty ; about five feet high each, I should think — but the ardent spirit will break his heart to win the goal — besides, I could not go back if I would.