The English Spy Part 59

"Where Thompson's supreme and immaculate taste Has a paradise form'd from a wilderness waste; With his walks rectilineous, all shelter'd with trees, That shut out the suns.h.i.+ne and baffle the breeze, And a field, where the daughters of Erin{12}may roam In a fence of sweet-brier, and think they're at home."

The Sherborne Spa, but recently erected, is indeed a very splendid building, and forms a very beautiful object from the High-street, from which it is plainly seen through a grove of trees, forming a vista of nearly half a mile in length, standing on a gentle eminence, presenting on both sides gravelled walks, with gardens and elegant buildings, that display great taste in architecture. The Pump-room is a good specimen of the Grecian Ionic, said to be correctly modelled from the temple on the river Ilissus at Athens, and certainly is altogether a work worthy of admiration. The grotesque colossal piece of sculpture which crowns the central dome, as well as the building, has been wittily described by the author of the "Cheltenham Mail."

12 The great number of Irish families who reside and congregate at Cheltenham fully justifies the poet's particular allusion to the fair daughters of Erin.

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"And then lower down, in fine Leckampton stone, We've the fane of _Ilissus_ in miniature shown; And crown'd with Hygeia--a bouncer, my lud!

And as plump, ay, as any princess of the blood, Carved in stone, but a good imitation of wood: With her vest all in plaits, like some ancient costume, But or Roman or Grecian, I'm loth to presume, So I cannot be _poz_ yet I blush to confess, That her limbs are shown off in a little undress; Whilst the G.o.ddess herself, _en bon point_ as she is, With her curls _a la Grecque_, and but little _chemise_, Is so plump and so round, my dear sir, it is plain, She must bring _the robust_ into fas.h.i.+on again."

Coming back through the churchyard from Alstone Spa, we discovered the following humorous epitaph.

"Here lies John Ball; An unfortunate fall, By crossing a wall, Brought him to his end."

Peace to his manes! But, with such a notice above him to excite attention, it is well he hears not, or ten times a clay his sleep might be sadly disturbed. Once more we are in the High Street, where I shall just sketch two or three singularities, without which my notice of the eccentrics of Cheltenham might be deemed imperfect.

The das.h.i.+ng knight coming this way on horseback, with his double-pommelled saddle, is a well-known Cheltenham resident, whose love of the good things of this world induced him to look into the kitchen for a helpmate, and he found one, who not only supplies his table with excellent dishes, but also furnishes the banquet with a liberal quant.i.ty of sauce. The group of _roues_ to the right, standing under the portico (I suppose I must call it) to the rooms, is composed of that good-humoured fellow Ormsby, who sometimes figures here as an amateur actor, and, whether on or off the stage, is generally respected for the amiable qualities of his heart. The ~247~~gentleman with the _blue bauble_ round his neck is, or was, a lieutenant-colonel, and still loves to fire a great gun now and then, when he gets into the trenches before Seringapatam; but I must leave others to unriddle the character, while I pay my respects to another military hero, who is no less famous among the Chelts for his attachment to the stage--Lieutenant-colonel B*****ll, of whom it would be difficult for any one who knew him to speak disrespectfully. Sir John N****tt and his son, who are here called the inseparables, finish the picture upon this spot, with the exception of my old friend the jack of trumps, R*l*y, whose arch-looking visage I perceive peeping out like the first glance of a court card in the rear of a bad hand; but let him pa.s.s: the mirror of the English Spy reflects good qualities as well as bad ones, and I should not do him justice if I denied him a fair proportion of both. Descending to observe the eccentrics in a more humble sphere, who can pa.s.s by the dandy candy man with his box of sweetmeats, clean in person as a new penny, and his st.u.r.dy figure most religiously decorated with lawn sleeves, and a churchman's _tablier_ in front; while his ruddy weather-beaten countenance, and hairy foraging cap, give him the appearance of a Scotch presbyterian militant in the days of the covenanters. Then, too, his wares cure all diseases, from a ravaging consumption to a frame-shaking hooping cough; and not unlikely are as efficacious as the nostrums of the less Mundivagant professors of patent empiricism. Of all men in the world your coach _cad_ has the quickest eye for detecting a stranger; and who but Sam Spring, the box-book keeper of Drury Lane, whose eternal bow has grown proverbial, could ask an impudent question with more politeness than Mr. Court, the _charge de affaires_ in the High Street, for the conflicting interests of half a hundred coach proprietors 1 "Do you travel to-day, sir?--Very happy to send for your luggage--Go by the early coach, sir?--Our porter ~248~~shall call you up, only let me put you down at our office." Thus actually bowing you into his book a week before you had any serious intention of travelling, by the very circ.u.mstance of reminding you of the mode by which you intend to reach home. I could add to these sketches a few singularities among the trading brotherhood of the Chelts; but we may meet again: and after all it would, perhaps, be considered invidious to point out the honest tradesman to public notice, merely because he has caught something of the eccentricities of his betters, or, like them, is led away by the force of example.

ERRATA.

In Chapter I, page 223, Contents, dele hi, and for Penn, read pun. The Man in the Cloak, n.o.ble Anecdote of, instead of the Fox* hunting Parson,--Printer.

TRAVELLER'S HALL.

~249~~

Sketches in the Commercial Room at the Bell Inn, Cheltenltam--The Traveller's Ordinary--Trade Puns--Bolton Trotters and Trottees--Song, All the Booksellers--Curious Sporting Anecdote of a Commercial Man--Song, The Knight of the Saddle Bags--Private Theatricals in Public--Visit to the Oakland Cottages, a Night Scene.

An invitation to dine with the traveller to a London house in the paper and print line, yclept booksellers, introduced the English Spy and his friend, the artist, to the scene here presented (see plate).

[Ill.u.s.tration: page249]

Reader, if you wish to make a figure among the Chelts and be thought any thing of, you will, of course, domicile at the Plough; but if your object is a knowledge of life, social conversation, a great variety of character, and a never-failing fund of mirth and anecdote, join the gentleman travellers who congregate at the Bell or the Fleece, where you will meet with merry fellows, choice viands, good wine, excellent beds, and a pretty chambermaid into the bargain. Your commercial man is often a fellow of infinite jest, a travelling vocabulary of provincial knowledge, and a faithful narrator of the pa.s.sing events of the time.

Who can speak of the increasing prosperity, or calculate upon the falling interests of a town, so well as your flying man of business 1 The moment he enters a new place he expects the landlord to be ready, cap in hand, to welcome him; he first sees his horse into a stall, and lectures the ostler upon the art of rubbing him down--orders boots to ~250~~bring in his travelling bags or his driving box, and bids the waiter send the chambermaid to show him his bed-room--grumbles that it is too high up, has no chimney in the apartment, or is situate over the kitchen or the tap-room--swears a tremendous oath that he will order his baggage to be taken to the next house, and frightens the poor girl into the giving him one of the best bed-apartments, usually reserved for the coffee-room company. Returning below, he abuses the waiter for not giving him his letters, that have been waiting his arrival a week, before he went up stairs--directs boots to be ready to make the circuit of the town with him after dinner, carrying his pattern-books, perhaps half a hundred-weight of Birmingham wares, bra.s.s articles, or patterns of coffin furniture; and having thus succeeded in putting the whole house into confusion, only to let them know that the Brummagem gentleman has arrived on his annual visit to the Chelts, with a new stock of every thing astonis.h.i.+ng in the bra.s.s line, he places himself down at a side table, to answer to his princ.i.p.als for being some days later on his march than they had concluded--remits a good sum in bills and acceptances, and adds thereunto a sheet of orders, that will suffice to keep the firm in good temper for a week to come: sometimes, indeed, the postscript contains a hint of an expected "whereas," or strong suspicions of an act of insolvency, but always couched in the most consolatory terms, hoping the dividend will turn out to be better than present circ.u.mstances might lead them to expect. In his visits to his customers he is the most courteous, obliging fellow imaginable; there is no trouble he thinks too much if he is likely to obtain his last account and a fresh order; then, too, his generosity is unbounded: he invites the tradesman to take wine with him at his inn, inquires kindly after all the family, hopes business is thriving, makes an offer of ~251~~doing any thing for him along the road, and bows himself and his pattern-cards out of the shop, with as much humility and apparent sense of obligation as the most expert courtier could put on when his sovereign deigns to confer upon him some special mark of his royal favour. It is at his inn alone that his independence breaks forth, and here he often a.s.sumes as much consequence as if he was the head of the firm he represents, and always carried about him a _plum_ at least in his breeches pocket. This is a general character, and one, too, formed upon no slight knowledge of commercial men; but with all this, the man of the world will admire them and seek their company; first, that his accommodations are generally better, and the charges not subject to the caprice of the landlord; and, secondly, for the sake of society; for what on earth can be more horrible than to be shut up in a lone room, a stranger in a provincial town, to eat, drink, and pa.s.s the cheerless hour, a prey to solitude and _ennui_?

But there is sometimes a little fastidiousness about these _knights of the saddle-bag_, in admitting a stranger to hob and n.o.b with them; to prevent a knowledge, therefore, of our pursuits, my friend Bob was instructed, before entering the room, to sink the arts, and if any inquisitive fellow should inquire what line he travelled in, to reply, in the print line; while your humble servant, it was agreed, should represent some firm in the spring trade; and thus armed against suspicion, we boldly marched into the commercial-room just as the a.s.sembled group of men of business were sitting down to dinner, hung our hats upon a peg, drew our chairs, uninvited, to the table, fully prepared to feel ourselves at home, and do ample justice to the "bagmen's banquet."

The important preliminary point settled, of whom the duty of chairman devolved on, a situation, as I understood, always filled in a commercial room by ~252~~the last gentleman traveller who makes it his residence, we proceeded to business. The privilege of finding fault with the dinner, which, by the by, was excellent, is always conceded to the ancients of the fraternity of traders; these gentlemen who, having been half a century upon the road, remember all the previous proprietors of the hotel to the fifteenth or twentieth generation removed, make a point of enumerating their gracious qualities upon such occasions, to keep the living host and representative _up to the mark_, as they phrase it. For instance--the old buck in the chair, who was a city tea broker, found fault with the fish: "There vas nothing of that ere sort to be had good but at Billingsgate, where all the best fish from all the vorld vas, as he contended, to be bought cheaper as butcher's meat." The result of which remark induced the young wags at the table to finish a very fine brill, without leaving him a taste, while he was abusing it. "This soup is not like friend Birch's," said Mr. Obadiah Pure, a gentleman in the drug line; "it hath a watery and unchristianlike taste with it." "Ay,"

replied a youngster at the bottom of the table, with whom it appeared to be in request, "I quake for fear while I am eating it, only I know there can be no drugs in it, or you would not find fault with a customer."

"Thou art one of the newly imported, friend," replied Mr. Pure, "and art yet like a young bear, with all thy troubles to come." "True," said the wag, "thou may be right, friend; but I shall not be found a _bruin_ with thy materials for all that." This sally put down the drug merchant for the rest of the dinner-time. "You had better take a little fish or soup before they are cold," said the chairman, to a bluff-looking beef-eater at his back, who was arranging his papers and samples. "Sir, I never eat warm wittals, drink hot liquors, wear a great coat, or have my bed warmed." "The natural heat of your ~253~~const.i.tution, I suppose, excuses you," said I, venturing upon a joke. "Sir, you had better heat your natural meal, while it is hot, without attempting to heat other people's tempers," was the reply; to which Bob retorted, by saying, "It was quite clear the gentleman was not mealy-mouthed." "This beef smells a little of Hounslow Heath," said a jeweller's gentleman, on my right.

"Why so, sir?" was inquired by one who knew him. "Because it has hung rather too long to be sightly." "You should not have left out the chains in that joke, Sam," said his friend; "they would have linked it well together, and sealed the subject." "Who takes port?" inquired the chairman. "I must sherry directly after dinner, gentlemen," said one.

"What," retorted the company, "boxing the wine bin! committing treason, by making a sovereign go farther than he is required by law. Fine him, Mr. Chairman." "Gentlemen, it is not in my power; he is a bottle conjuror, I a.s.sure you, 'a good man and true;' he only retires to bleed a patient, and will return instanter." "Happy to take a gla.s.s of wine with you, sir." "What do you think of that port, sir?" "Excellent." "Ay, I knew you would say so; the house of Barnaby Blackstrap, Brothers, and Company, of Upper Thames Street, have always been famous for selling wines of the choicest vintage. Do me the honour, sir, of putting a card of ours in your pocket: I sent this wine into this house in Jennings's time, for the grand dinner, when the first stone of the new rooms over the way was laid, and John Kelly, the proprietor, took the chair. You are lucky, sir, in meeting me here; they always pull out an odd bottle from the family bin, marked A--1, when I visit them." "Yes, and some _odd sort_ of wine at any other time," grumbled out a queer-looking character at a side table opposite. "That's nothing but spleen, Mr.

Sable," said the knight of the ruby countenance: "you and I have met occasionally at this house together now for three and twenty years; and although I never ~254~~come a journey without taking an order from them, I thank heaven, I never knew you to receive one yet: many a dead man have we seen in this room, but none of them requiring a coffin plate to tell their age, and very few of them that were like to receive the benefit of resurrection." "I shall book you inside, Mr. Blackstrap,''

replied Sable, "for joking on my articles of trade, which is contrary to the established usage of a commercial room." "Do any thing you like but bury me," said the _bon vivant_." Gentlemen, as chairman, it is my duty to put an end to all grave subjects. Will you be kind enough to dissect that turkey?" "I don't see the bee's wing in this port, Mr.

Blackstrap, that you are bouncing about," said a London traveller to a timber-merchant. "No, sir," said the humorist, "it is not to be seen until you are a deal higher in spirits; the film of the wing is seldom discernible in such mahogany-coloured wine as this." "Sir, I blush like rose wood at your impertinence." "Ay, sir, and you'll soon be as red as logwood, or as black as ebony, if you will but do justice to the bottle," was the reply. "There is no being cross-grained with you," said the timber-merchant. "Not unless you cut me," retorted Blackstrap, "and you are not sap enough for that." "Gentlemen," continued the facetious wine-merchant, "if we do not get a little fruit, I shall think we have not met with our dessert; and although there may be some among us whose princ.i.p.als are worth a plum, there are very few of their representatives, I suspect, who will offer any objections to my reasons." Thus pleasantly apostrophised, the fruit made its appearance, and with it a fresh supply of the genuine Oporto, which our merry companion, Blackstrap, called "his _old particular_." One of his stories, relative to a joke played off upon the Bolton trotters, by his friend Sable, the travelling undertaker, is too good to be lost. In Lancas.h.i.+re the custom of hoaxing is called ~255~~_trotting_, and in many instances, particularly at Bolton, is still continued, and has frequently been played off upon strangers with a ruinous success. Sable had, it would appear, taken up his quarters at a commercial inn, and, as is usual with travellers, joined the tradesmen in the smoking room at night to enjoy his pipe, and profit, perhaps, by introduction in the way of business. The pursuit of the undertaker and dealer in coffin furniture was no sooner made generally known, than it was unanimously agreed to trot him, by giving him various orders for articles in his line, which none of the parties had any serious intention of paying for or receiving. With this view, one ordered a splendid coffin for himself, and another one for his wife; a third gave instructions for an engraved plate and gilt ornaments; and a fourth chose to order an elegant suite of silver ornaments to decorate the last abode of frail mortality: in this way the company were much amused with the apparent unsuspecting manner of Sable, who carefully noted down all their orders, and pledged himself to execute them faithfully. The Bolton people did not fail to circulate this good joke, as they then thought it, among their neighbours, and having given fict.i.tious names, expected to have had additional cause for exultation when the articles arrived; but how great was their surprise and dismay, when in a short time every order came, directed properly to the person who had given it! Coffins and coffin-plates, silk shrouds and velvet palls, and all the expensive paraphernalia of the charnel-house were to be seen carried about from the waggon-office in Bolton, to be delivered at the residences of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants. Many refused to receive these mementoes of their terrestrial life, and others denied having ever ordered the same. Sable, however, proved himself too _fast a trotter_ for the Bolton people; for having, by the a.s.sistance of the waiter, obtained the true description of his ~256~~customers on the night of the joke, and finding they were most of them wealthy tradesmen, he very wisely determined to humour the whim, and execute the orders given, and in due course of time insisted upon payment for the same. Thus ended the story of the Bolton trotters, which our merry companion concluded, by observing, that it put an end to sporting, in that way, for some time; and by the chagrin it caused to many of the trottees, distanced them in this life, and sent them off the course in a galloping consumption.{1} "There's honour for you," said Sable, "civilized a

1 _A Bolton definition_.--When the Bolton Ca.n.a.l was first pro-posed, the Athenians (for that Bolton is the Athens of Lancas.h.i.+re no one can doubt) could not well understand how boats were to be raised above the level of the sea. A lock to them was as incom-prehensible as Locke on the Human Understanding. A celebrated member of a celebrated trotting club was amongst the number of those who could not comprehend the mystery. Unwilling to appear ignorant upon a question which formed the common topic of conversation, he applied to a scientific gentleman in the neighbourhood for an accurate description of a lock. It happened that the man of science had on one occasion been a _trottee_, and was glad to have an opportunity of retaliation. "A lock," said he, "is a quant.i.ty of sawdust congealed into boards, which, being let down into the water in a perpendicular slope- level, raises it to the declivity of the sea above!"--" Eh?"

said the Athenian, "what dun yo' say?" The gentleman repeated his description, and the worthy Boltonian recorded every word in the tablet of his memory. Sometime afterwards he had the honour of dining with some wors.h.i.+pful brothers of the quorum, men as profoundly ignorant of the law as any of the unpaid magistracy need to be, but who, having seen ca.n.a.ls, knew well enough what locks were. Our Athenian took an early opportunity of adverting to the proposed "cut," and introduced his newly-acquired learning in the following terms: "Ah! Measter Fletcher, it's a foine thing a lock; yo' know'n I loike to look into them theere things; a lock is a perpendicular slop level, which, being let into the sea, is revealed into boards, that raises it to the declivity of the sea above!"--As it is the province and privilege of the ignorant to laugh at a greater degree of ignorance than their own, it may be supposed that their wors.h.i.+ps enjoyed a hearty laugh at the expense of their Attic brother.

~257~~whole district of English barbarians by one action, and, what is more, they have never ventured to trot with any one of our fraternity since."

The conversation now took a turn relative to the affairs of trade; and if any one had been desirous of knowing the exact degree of solvency in which the whole population of the county of Gloucester was held by these flying merchants and factors, they might easily have summed up the estimate from the remarks of the company. They were, however, a jovial party; and my friend Bob and myself had rarely found ourselves more pleasantly circ.u.mstanced, either as regarded our social comforts, or the continued variety of new character with which the successive speakers presented us. As the evening approached our numbers gradually diminished, some to pursue their journeys, and others to facilitate the purposes of trade. The representative of the house of Blackstrap and Co., his friend Sable, the timber merchant, our inviter the bookseller, and the two interlopers, remained fixed as fate to the festive board, until the chairman, and scarce any one of the company, could clearly define, divide, and arrange the exact arithmetical proportions of the dinner bill. After a short cessation of hostilities, during which our commercial friends despatched their London letters, and Bob and the English Spy, to escape the suspicion of not having any definable pursuit, emigrated to the High Street; we returned to our quarters, and found the whole party debating upon a proposition of the bon vivants, to have another bottle, and make a night of it by going to the theatre at half price; a question that was immediately carried, _nemine contradicente_. Mr. Margin, our esteemed companion, who represented the old established house of Sherwood and Co., was known to sing a good stave, and what was still more attractive, was himself a child of song--one of the inspired of the nine, who, at the Anacreontic Club, held in Ivy Lane, would often amuse ~258~~the society with an original chant; "whose fame," as Blackstrap expressed it, "had extended itself to the four corners of the island, wherever the sporting works of Sherwood and Co., or the travelled histories of the Messrs. Longmans, have found readers and admirers." "Gentlemen," said Mr. Margin, "my songs are all of a local nature; whims written to amuse a meeting of the trade for a dinner at the Albion or the London, when the booksellers congregate together to buy copyrights, or sell at a reduced price the refuse of their stock. But, such as it is, you shall have it instanter."

ALL THE BOOKSELLERS;

A NEW SONG, BY A LONDON TRAVELLER.

Tune--Family Pride--Irish air.

First, Longmans are famous for travels, Will Sherwood for sporting and fun, Old Ridgway the science unravels How politic matters are done.

The ponderous tomes of deep learning, The heavy, profound, and the flat, By Baldwin and Cradock's discerning, Are cheaper by half to come at.

Baines deals out to methodist readers Cant, piously strung into rhyme; While Rivingtons, 'gainst the seceders, With church and king Hatchard will chime.

John Murray's the lords' own anointed, I mean not indeed to blaspheme, But the peers have him solely appointed To sell what their highnesses scheme.

~259~~

Colburn defies Day and Martin To beat him with " Real j.a.pan;"

If puffing will sell books, 'tis certain, He'll rival the bookselling clan.

Catechisms for miss and for master, For ladies who're fond oft, romance, Sheriff Whittaker publishes faster Than booksellers' porters can dance.

Operatives, mechanics, combiners, Knight and Lacey will publish for you; They'll tickle ye out of your s.h.i.+ners, By teaching the power o' the screw.

An Architect looks out for Taylor, A General Egerton seeks; Tommy Tegg at the trade is a railer, But yet for a slice of it sneaks.

Richardson furnishes India With all books from Europe she buys; Near St. Paul's, in Old Harris's window, The juveniles look for a prize.

Cadell is Scotch Ebony's factor, Collecting the news for Blackwood; John Miller 's the man for an actor, America 's done him some good.

The Newmans of fam'd Leadenhall In very old novels abound; While Kelly, respected by all, As Sheriff of London is found.

Will Simpkin supplieth the trade From his office in Stationers' Court; And Stockdale too much cash has made By publis.h.i.+ng Harriette 's report.

~260~~THE ENGLISH SPY

Antiquarians seek Arch of Cornhill; Joe b.u.t.terworth furnishes law; And Major his pockets will fill By giving to Walton _eclat_.

Where, with old Parson Ambrose, the legs Once in Gothic Hall pigeons could fleece, There, Hurst and Co. now hang on pegs The fine arts of Rome and of Greece.

John Ebers with Opera dancers Is too much engaged for to look How the bookselling business answers, And publishes only "Ude's Cook."

Hookham and Carpenter both are As cautious as caution can be; While Andrews, nor Chapple, a sloth are In trade, both as lib'ral as free.