O'Grady was, according to her account, as cross as two sticks;" and she protested, furthermore," that her heart was grey with him." Mrs. O'Grady was near the bed of the sick man as the nurse-tender entered. "Here's the things for your honour now," said she in her most soothing tone. "I wish the d-1 had you and them!" said O'Grady. 66 Gusty, dear!" said his wife. She might have said stormy instead of gusty. "Oh! they'll do you good, your honour," said the nurse-tender, curtsying, and uncorking bottles, and opening a pill-box. "Curse them all!" said the squire. "A pretty thing to have a gentleman's body made a perfect sink for these blackguard doctors and apothecaries to pour their dirty stuff into-faugh!" "Now, sir, dear, there's a little blisther just to go on your chestif you plaze "A what!" "A warm plasther, dear." "A blister you said, you old divil!" "Well, sure, it's something to relieve you." The squire gave a deep growl, and his wife put in the usual appeal of" Gusty, dear!" "Hold your tongue, will you? how would you like it? I wish you had it on your "'Deed-an-deed, dear," said the nurse-tender. By the 'ternal war! if you say another word, I'll throw the jug at you!" "And there's a nice dhrop o' gruel I have on the fire for you," said the nurse, pretending not to mind the rising anger of the squire, as she stirred the gruel with one hand, while with the other she marked herself with the sign of the cross, and said in a mumbling manner, "God presarve us! he's the most cantankerous Christian I ever kem across!" "Show me that infernal thing!" said the squire. "What thing, dear?" "You know well enough, you old hag!—that blackguard blister!" "Here it is, dear. Now, just open the brust o' your shirt, and let me put it an you.” "Give it into my hand here, and let me see it." "Sartinly, sir;-but I think, if you'd let me just" "Give it to me, I tell you!" said the squire, in a tone so fierce that the nurse paused in her unfolding of the packet, and handed it with fear and trembling to the already indignant O'Grady. But it is only imagination can figure the outrageous fury of the squire, when, on opening the envelope with his own hand, he beheld the law process before him. There, in the heart of his castle, with his bars, and bolts, and bull-dogs, and blunderbusses around him, he was served-absolutely served, and he had no doubt the nurse-tender was bribed to betray him. A roar and a jump up in bed, first startled his wife into terror, and put the nurse on the defensive. "You infernal old strap!" shouted he, as he clutched up a handful of bottles on the table near him and flung them at the nurse, who was near the fire at the time; and she whipped the pot of gruel from the grate, and converted it into a means of defence against the phialpelting storm. Mrs. O'Grady rolled herself up in the bed-curtains, while the nurse screeched "murther!" and at last, when O'Grady saw that bottles were of no avail, he scrambled out of bed, shouting, "Where's my blunderbuss!" and the nurse-tender, while he endeavoured to get it down from the rack, where it was suspended over the mantelpiece, bolted out of the door, which she locked on the outside, and ran to the most remote corner of the house for shelter. In the mean time, how fared it at Merryvale? Andy returned with his parcel for the squire, and his note from Murtough Murphy, which ran thus: "MY DEAR SQUIRE.-I send you the blister for O'Grady, as you insist on it; but I think you won't find it easy to serve him with it. "Your obedient and obliged, "MURTOUGH MURPHY." "To Edward Egan, Esq. Merryvale." The squire opened the cover, and when he saw a real instead of a figurative blister, grew crimson with rage. He could not speak for some minutes, his indignation was so excessive. "So!" said he, at last, "Mr. Murtough Murphy-you think to cut your jokes with me, do you? By all that 's sacred! I'll cut such a joke on you with the biggest horsewhip I can find, that you'll remember it. Dear squire, I send you the blister.' Bad luck to your impidence! Wait till awhile ago that's all. By this and that, you'll get such a blistering from me that all the spermaceti in M'Grane's shop won't cure you." TO A LYRIC AND ARTIST. (Which we received from a Correspondent, and could not possibly insert in a more appropriate place than this.) No wonder that Painters are "drawing long faces," How truly the Muses, how fondly the Graces, Receive the addresses of one little LOVER. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF RICHARDSON THE SHOWMAN. With a Peep at Bartholomew Fair. BY THE AUTHOR OF FISHER'S NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY. Seventeenth Edition, 4to. IN a periodical like the present, a contributor, if he really have anything in him, ought to set off at score. Such is my determination. Works of the sort can only be produced by the exhibition of three rare qualities, namely, Wit, Humour, and entertaining Fiction. The first has been compared to a razor, which "cuts the most when exquisitely keen;" the second I will venture to liken to a table-knife, which slashes away at all on the board, and the best when broadly shining and tolerably sharp in the edge; and the last is familiar enough to everybody, under the term of " throwing the hatchet." But whatever the instrument, be it razor, or knife, or axe, it is quite essential that it should never lose its temper. Mais l'audace est commune, et le bon sens est rare; which, being freely translated, means, In life there's so much impudence, And very little common sense, Are only foolish: more's the pity! 1 "The showman," for so was this eminent individual designated by the world at large, and so upon memorable occasions he called himself, was, it will be felt, a title of high distinction. When we look around us, and see how many men are playing showmen, and how miserably they succeed, we shall at once be convinced that nothing but very superior merit could have won for Richardson the glory of the definite "the." He was not showing off himself, but others: he was not showing off his own follies, but the follies of society. Thus, instead of being a laughing-stock, he laughed in his own sleeve; and by keeping a fool, instead of making a fool of himself, he eschewed poverty, and ultimately died in the odour and sanctity of wealth. Richardson originated at Great Marlow, in the county of Bucks; the very name of the place seeming to intimate that he was born to achieve greatness. Whether he was lineally descended from the author of Clarissa Harlowe is, and will long continue to be, a disputed fact. There was a family resemblance between them; both were country gentlemen, and both wore top-boots. For breeding, Mr. Richardson was indebted to the parish workhouse, fair promise of his future industry. In those days the poor laws had not been amended; and children, being victualled satisfactorily, generally throve accordingly. Under correction be it spoken, workhouses in country towns were then far from being houses of correction. So our hero grew up. When big enough, he acquitted himself with reputation in the employment of out o' door activity; for he never resembled the lazy fel low reduced by idleness to want, who said in excuse, " When they bid me go to the ant to learn wisdom, I am almost always going to my uncle's." From Marlow, after due probation, young Richardson, it is stated, sought his fortunes in the metropolis, and entered into the service of Mr. Rhodes, a huge cow-keeper-a colossus in the milky way. Here it is probable he acquired a taste for pastorals, and that extraordinary proficiency in the Welsh language which rendered his dialogue in after-times so strikingly rich and Celto-Doric. Some etymologists thence infer that it was Pick't; but we don't believe it. We never read the life of an actor or actress without being told, about the period of Richardson's career at which we have now arrived, that the "ruling passion" took such strong possession of them, that they must break all bounds, run away, and join some strolling company, to "imp their wings," or some flight of that sort. So it happened with our hero: he cut the cows, and hastened to adhere to Mrs. Penley, then performing with unprecedented success in a club-room at Shadwell, a small town in the vicinity of Wapping. The houses were crowded; receipts to the full amount of five shillings nightly crowned their efforts, and the corps, consisting of two gentlemen and two ladies, divided the five among four, playing as it were all fours in a fives court. Encouraged by this success, Richardson resolved to extend his fame, and accordingly visited many parts of the provinces, starring it from the Shadwell boards. Mighty as must have been his deserts, he met with no Bath manager, no Tate Wilkinson, no Macready or Kemble, to appreciate his histrionic talents. One night, having accidentally witnessed a representation of the School for Scandal, he fancied he could play the little broker; so he returned to London, and took a small shop in that line of business. About the year ninety-six, he was enabled to rent the Harlequin, a public-house near the stage-door of old Drury, and much frequented by dramatic wights. It was of one of these that Richardson used to tell his most elaborate pun. Being asked if he did anything in the dramatic line, he answered, "I do more or less in it in every way: I do what I can in the first syllable, dram, and in the first two syllables, drama; in the last two syllables, attic, I am to be seen every night; and in the last, tick-m' eye! I wish you knew my exertions." It was not to be expected that the Harlequin could last long without a change; for not only was the sign contrariwise thereto, but the place itself was a change-house. Our landlord therefore let it; and crying "Damned be he that lets me!" bought a caravan, engaged a company from among his customers, and opened his first booth at Bartholomew Fair. But the name of this famed annual assemblagenow, alas! in a deep decline-is enough to tempt a scribbler for hire to branch off into an episode. And here it is. Proclaimed on the 3rd of September, to last during three lawful days, exclusive of the day of proclamation," Bartholomew Faire," as appears from a pamphlet under that title, printed for Richard Harper, at the Bible and Harpe, in Smithfield, A. D. 1641, began on the 24th of August, old style. About the year 1102, in the reign of Henry the First, Rahere, a minstrel of the king, founded the priory, hospital, and church of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, as requested by the saint himself in a dream, and, it is presumed, upon a bed where the dreamer could guess what it was to be flea'd alive. Rahere was the first prior, and in his time there was a grand row with Boniface, Archbishop of Canterbury, on a visitation, when sundry skulls of canons, monks, and friars were cracked, which probably suggested that the site would be very eligible for an annual fair. Henry the Second accordingly granted that privilege to the clothiers of England and the drapers of London; and his charter to the mayor and aldermen is extant to this day. Theretofore called "The Elms," from the noble trees which adorned it, Smithfield became in turn a place for splendid jousts, tournaments, pageants, and feats of chivalry; a market for cattle and hay; a scene of cruel executions; and one where, as old Stow acquaints us, loose serving-men and quarrelsome persons resorted and made uproars, thus becoming the rendezvous of bullies and bravoes, till it earned the appropriate name of "Ruffians' Hall." King Solomon, alias Jacobus Primus, caused it to be paved two hundred and twenty years agone, which we have on the authority of Master Arthur Strange-ways, whose statement leads us to infer that the Lord Mayor of 1614 had never opened a railroad, like Lord Mayor Kelly in 1836. Then and there our ancient civic magnates were wont to disport themselves with witnessing "wrastlings," shooting the broad arrow and flights for games, and hunting real wild rabbits by the city boys, with great noise and laughter. : Posterior to the priors, and superior to the sub-priors of St. Bartholomew, the canons have been succeeded by common guns; and the friars by fried pigs, the most renowned viand of the festival;* the monks have given place to monkeys, and the recluses to showmen. Such are the mute abilities of Father Time. "The severall enormityes and misdemeanours, which are there seene and acted," are they not upon record? "Hither resort (says Master Harper, 1641) people of all sorts, high and low, rich and poore, from cities, townes, and countrys of all sects, Papists, Atheists, Anabaptists, and Brownists; and of all conditions, knaves and fooles, cuckolds and cuckoldmakers, pimpes and panders, rogues and rascalls, the little loud-one and the witty wanton. The faire is full of gold and silver drawers: just as Lent is to the fishmonger, so is Bartholomew Faire to the pick-pocket. It is his high harvest, which is never bad but when his cart goes up Holborne. Some of your cut-purses are in fee with cheating costermongers. They have many dainty baits to draw a bit; fine fowlers they are, for every finger of theirs is a lime-twigge with which they catch dotterels. They are excellently well read in physiognomy, for they will know how strong you are in the purse by looking in your face; and, for the more certainty thereof, they will follow you close, and never leave you till you draw your purse, or they for you, though they kisse Newgate for it." Hone, in his Every-day Book (Part X.), furnished an excellent view of this fair, full of curious dramatic and other matter. He describes the shows of 1825, among which, apropos, Richardson's theatre figures prominently. The outside, he tells us, was above thirty feet in height, and occupied one platform one hundred feet in width. The platform was very elevated, the back of it lined with green baize, and festooned * Besides the fried pigs were other most famous delicacies, which to this day are not quite obsolete. They were called sasserges.—ED. |