(
Λ Ι Θ Ο Φ Ω Ν Η
Μ Α ) :
BEING SOME OF THE
MARVELLOUS SAYINGS OF A PETRAL PORTION OF
FLEET STREET,
TO
DOCTOR POLYGLOTT, PH.D.,
BY
FRANK BAKER, D.O.N.
“Tolle,
Lege.”—
ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY.
1865.
WILLIAM STEVENS, PRINTER,
37, BELL YARD,
TEMPLE BAR.
D E D I C A T I O N.
TO MY OLD FRIEND
THE AUTHOR OF “THE GENTLE
THESE LINES,
UNGENTLE
REGRETFULLY DEDICATED,
HE BEING
WHO, IN A SPIRITLESS
HOWEVER UNSUCCESSFULLY OR
SUCCESSFULLY,
TO INSTIL
SPIRIT
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., drinks
with a certain No-shire squire,
QUOTH Charley Wode, “Friend Polyglott,
Come, canny mon, and take your pot-
Luck at my house; we’ll have a chat
’Bout
Done! not that I enjoy his tales,
Like M‘Quhae’s snakes with ’ternal tales
(Though better than old John-Bull stories
Of Whigs defunct and buried Tories),
Yet there’s a charm within his wine
That masters stronger minds than mine, 10
And at his den you sometimes meet
With curry fit for man to eat—
With Tokay neat and
And Port unknowing of log-wood.
Reader, would’st read how much we ate
Of entrées, entremets, et cæt.?
No? Pass we on then. I’ll but state,
For four good hours en tête-à-tête,
Like old sheep and young bull, we sat,
Striving in wine, smoking cheroots, 20
Talking of Lowrys, Reids, and Chutes,
And other sun-baked Indian croûtes,
Bummelows, Bungalows, and Banchoots.
Eight was the zero of stagnation;
At nine began some conversation,
At twelve a dash of disputation,
Peppered with slight inebriation;
At two I rose, about to wend
My ways, when, lo! my No-shire friend
Sank slowly down in
sight of Port. 30
I ’gan to whistle Il s’endort:
Mon oiseau jaune est endormi—
Charley’s as fou’ as fou’ can be.
I feared to see the creature led
Or carried to the nuptial bed:
And, Heavens! might SHE not be near,
In cap, curl-papers, and night-gear?
I rang the bell—all slept—’twas late—
whom he leaves in liquor;
Took hat, and softly ganged my gait.
Now, let me tell
you, reader, ’tisn’t 40
Corporeal exercise most pleasant,
When raw night-air, than pea-soup thicker,
Adds fuel to the flames of liquor,
Without a guide to steer your feet
Through “mazy error” of square and street,
And in the morning find you’ve strayed
Into the station’s “pendant shade.”*
wanders about,
Still roamed on I till reached a door
Whence streamed the light in ruddy shower,
And band proclaiming ball was
there. 50
’Twas
* “With
mazy error under pendant shades.”—F. B.
So, standing ’mid the vulgar crowd,
I watched the fair, the great, the proud
That hustled in, when glad surprise
Awaited these my languid eyes.
and beholds a beauty.
The pink silk hood Her head was on
Did make a sweet comparison
With brow as pure, as clear, as bright
As Boreal dawn on Polar night,
With lips whose crimson strove to hide 60
Gems all unknown to
With eyes as myosotis blue,
With cheeks of peachy down and hue,
And locks whose semi-liquid gold
Over the ivory shoulders rolled.
Not “low” her dress, yet cunning eye
’Neath gauzy texture could descry
Two silvery orbs, that rose and fell
With
Intoxicating to the brain 70
As flowers that breathe from Persian plain,†
Whereon to rest one moment brief
Were worth a life of pain and grief;
And, though fast closed in iron cage—
Venetian padlock of the age—
The poetry of motion told
Of all by envious flounce and fold
Concealed: each step of nameless grace
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., incon- tinently
falls in love,
Taught glowing Fancy’s glance to trace
A falling waist, on whose soft round 80
No lacing wrinkle might be found
* The
† The wild Narcissus, whose scent
is believed to be highly aphrodisiac.—F. B.
(Nor waspish elegance affright
Thorwaldsen’s or Canova’s sight),
And rising hips and migniard feet—
Ankle for Dian’s
buskin meet—
Gastrocunemius——
Cease, Muse! to tell
The things my mem’ry holds too well.
I bowed before the Thing Divine
As pilgrim sighting holy shrine,
And straight my ’chanted spirit soared 90
To dizzy regions late explored
By Mister Hume—A.B.—C.D.*—all
The rout yclept spiritual.
A church of emeralds I see!
An altar-tower lit brilliantly;
A steeple, too, the pave inlaid
With richest tints of light and shade;
A “deal of purple,” arched pews;
And all the “blacks” methinks are
“blues.”
Now throngs the murex-robèd crowd, 100
A-chanting anthems long and loud,
And children, garbed in purest white,
Kneel with wreathed heads before the
light.
I, too, am there, with “Thing Divine,”
Bending before the marble shrine,
While spirit-parson’s sleepy drone
Maketh me hers and her my own.
When sudden on my raptured sight
Falls deadly and discharming blight—
* “From
Matter to Spirit.” By C. D. With
a Preface by A. B. London: Longmans. 1863.—F. B.
Such
blight as Eurus loves to fling 110
O’er gladsome crop in genial spring.
Fast by
the side of “Thing Divine,”
when he sees a mother-in-law,
By spirit-parson fresh made mine,
In
apparition grim—I saw
The
middle-aged British mother-in-law!!!
* * * * *
The pink silk hood her head was on
Did make
a triste comparison
With
blossomed brow and green-grey eyes,
And
cheeks bespread with vinous dyes,
And mouth
and nose—all, all, in fine, 120
Caricature of ‘Thing Divine.’
Full low the Doppelgänger’s
dress*
Of moire and tulle, in last distress
To
decorate the massive charms
Displayed
to manhood’s shrinking arms;
Large loom’d her waist ’spite pinching stays,
As
man-o’-war in by-gone days;
And, ah! her feet were broader far
Than beauty’s heel in Mullingar.
Circular
all from toe to head, 130
Pond’rous of
framework, as if bred
On
streaky loin and juicy steak;
And, when
she walked, she seemed to shake
With
elephantine tread the ground.†
Sternly, grimly,
she gazed around,
Terribly
calm, in much flesh strong,
Upon the
junior, lighter throng,
* A person’s “double,”
not inappropriately applied to one’s wife’s mother.—F. B.
† I have read something
like this in “Our Old Home,” by Nat. Hawthorne.
And loudly whispered, “Who’s that feller?”
“Come! none of this, Louise, I tell yer!”
And “Thing Divine” averted head, 140
And I, heart-broken, turned and fled.
He then be- holds a Vision of Judgment,
And, flying, ’scaped my soul once
more;
But not this time, as erst, to soar
Into Tranceland: deep down it fell,
Like pebble dropped in Car’sbrooke* well,
Till reached a place whose fit compare
Was furnished lodgings ’bout
In dire September’s atmosphere,
When Town is desert, dismal, drear—
With box-like hall, a ladder stair,
150
Small windows cheating rooms of
air,
With comforts comfortless that find
Such favour in the island mind
Bestuffed, and nicknack babery o’er,
Of
Whilst legibly on the tight-fit
“Respectability” was writ.
And last appeared on that dread stage
That mother-in-law of middle age,
Whose stony glare had strength to say, 160
“Here lord am I! who dare me nay?”
While voices dread rang in mine ear,
“Wretch! thy eternal home is here:
Though dread the doom, ’tis e’en too
good
For one that dines and drinks with Wode!”
and faints.
My heart was ice, my head swam round,
I sank aniented on the ground.
* In the
Stunned by the fall, awhile I lay
Awaiting th’ advent of the day,
Or pervent of a cab; but, no, 170
Nor day would come nor cab would go
By; so, with m’ elbows on my knees,
I, blessing, sat, and groaned in glees,
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., is ad- dressed by a stone,
When sudden from the stony earth
Gruff accents checked my dreary mirth:
“Man! I’m a stone in
What clod of clay be you that sits
O’ top o’ me with that broad base
Of yours offending nose and face?”
I felt as if a
corking-pin 180
Were thrust my os
coccygis in;
But, being, when in wineity,
Addicted to divinity,
Thus, musing, sat: “And so the
stones
Vocabulate in human tones!
and moralizes,
Sermons in stones—sermo, sermonis—
I see the drift! some speech in stone is,
A power occult and hidden deep,
As spark within the flint asleep.”
Another bellow made me bound 190
Giddily from the angry ground.
I rubbed my eyes, as well I might,
when a won- drous
spectacle is seen.
For mortal orbs ne’er saw such light
Up and adown the lengthy street,
For tardy progress called the Fleet,
The pave was quick with human heads
And faces, whites, blacks, browns, and reds,
All, all alive—all packed and stowed
Like th’ umbrellas of rain-wet crowd.
So travellers tell at Afric court, 200
Where scores of men are slain for sport,
On clean-cut necks pates ranged in
row
Out of the earth appear to grow,*
“Pol,” having sat upon a live
stone,
Or as Cabrera loved to place
His captives buried to the face,
And cracked their
skulls with sportive bowls.
Amid that mob of
checks and jowls
In infinite variety
But only one attracted me.
A very Hindu face was his 210
I rose from off; a tawny phiz,
Eyes almond-shaped and opaline,
Parrot-beaked nose, brow high and lean,
Clearly the high-caste Aryan,
thus describes him;
Maxillaries Turanian;
A lipless mouth and lanky hair,
Vanishing chin en Robespierre,
Mustachio thin and beard as spare,
With careless scrutinizing leer,
And phantom of a vicious sneer: 220
Mixture of Duresse
and Finesse
Was his physiognomy I guess.
Vexed by my
stare, the thing uncouth
Wriggled its nose, puckered its
mouth.
asks him who he is,
Cried I, “Are ye a stone or man?
Who buried ye alive like Pan-
dit, or the Jogees that expose
To canine insult
reverend nose?Ӡ
The only answer was a scowl,
With a prolonged and angry growl, 230
* “
† Major Moor’s “Hindoo Pantheon”
will explain the meaning of these vivo-sepultures.—F. B.
Which seemed, methought, at length to take
The form of
words. “For Brahma’s sake!”
Cried I, “if you must speak, speak out!
Pray what are you,
and what about?”
and receives a dark reply.
He groaned and muttered, “B’r sire
at
Headstone of Yakub
bin Rebecca†—
Too bad! too
bad!—ah! ah!—some day
Pay off old scores. Stare?—well you may!”
I quaked, the
wretch, ’twas very clear,
If called in witness to appear 240
Against me, probably would try
To work me some foul injury;
And thus, to soothe his vicious
rage,
I tried the Hebrew’s counsel sage,
Called him the
Sphinx, Memnon, and Serapion;
Diana of th’ Ephesians’ joy,
And so forth.
Still, cold,
careless, coy,
He held his peace and sometimes
grumbled,
And, in strange tongues, some hard
words
mumbled; 250
But, by soft speech, the world-wise say,
At length, by flattery, the Stone is molli- fied,
From hearts of stone wrath melts away.
At length the face began to smile,
And laughed outright to see a tile
Hurled down upon the trottoir way
By some tom-cat
in am’rous play.
The ghastly cachinnation o’er,
I found him milder than before;
* The Black Stone at
† The Rabbins
assign high rank in the petral kingdom to Jacob’s
pillow-stone on the night of vision.—F. B.
And, though his words were somewhat coarse,
As there was sense in his discourse
260
I’ve ventured, Reader, hat to fling
High up in book-craft’s bruising ring,
Peel me,
shake hands, set to my task,
And in fair field no favour ask.
and speaks out his grievances
modern day.
(Lapis loquitur.)
“Alas and oh! oh and alas!
How times
and manners come and pass!
Time was (before the Jew Peter,
Quixote-like,
rode down Jupiter
And
Company on keen and canty
Apocalypsean Rosinante, 270
With back
well hunched and lance at rest
In search
of fame and eke of grist,
Which
saintly sinner e’er deems best
Himself
to grind, himself digest,
Not leave
to stones) mankind has gone
Many a
mile to buss a stone;
But now
you are so clever grown,
You know
so much before unknown,
There’s
not a boy would kiss the Pope’s
Petrals* for all
his key-bunch opes, 280
Or burn
one tallow
to as good a
Pebble as
e’er satin Pagoda:
You look
on holy Salagram
As if it were a silly sham;
You stick
cigars in god Buddh’s fists;
You hang
your hats on Venus’ wrists;
You dare
to say of serpent stone
‘’Tis but a bit of rotten bone;’
* Alluding, I suppose, to the petrous
portion of the human bone.—F. B.
You
scribble Brown on Odin’s breast,
You break
Egeria’s nose in jest. 290
Oh you
Saxon Iconoclasts!
Enjoy
your sport whilst th’ epoch
lasts;
Those
stones (like damns) have had their
day,
You deem:
we’ll have one more I say.
This eve
I heard a
(Alas! poor Burk!) telling a cad,
His
friend, ‘I’ve drunk a pot o’ beer
Off an
Apollo
The other
scalpel-meat forgot
Not to
remark as off he shot 300
How great
a thing had ‘gone to pot;’—
I only
hope next time he gorges
Dinner, it may be at
Here I broke in. “How comes it th’ art
So manly
a stone in brain and heart,
With
mortal language, human passions,
Knowledge
of manners, customs, fashions?
How
comes——”
I stopped: an ugly sneer
Made him
far uglier appear;
He held
me with that angry frown, 310
The Stone becomes very Spinoza-like and Pantheis- tical,
and
And looked me up and stared me down;
Then
thus:
“Doth darkling bat’s eye scan
The Pyramid’s stupendous plan?
And may
your molish ken extend
To Nature’s far, mysterious end?
You
breathe and move, you see and hear,
Smile,
touch, and feel, lose hope and fear,
From
which you’re pleased to predicate
A
category animate
Anent
yourselves, and this you lend 320
To things that with your nature
blend.
But pray,
what sage hath yet been able
To separate brute from vegetable?
And who
the difference hath shown
’Twixt lowest plant and highest stone?
Your
kingdoms trine* make matters worse:
Such mappings-out
are wisdom’s curse.
Vainly
division may diverse:
All are
but One—One Universe.
The
essence of existing things, 330
The germ
from which world-matter springs,
All links
in that
eternal chain
That
girds the sky, the earth, the main,
Whose nicest
consequence between
Nor joint
nor gap was ever seen;
And
Life—’tis but a ray of one
Creation’s
vivifying
sun,
The Ens that is, was, and shall be,
Through time untimed—eternity!”
“Indeed,” gaped I; “how very strange! 340
Nought new they say
’neath sun’s wide range!”†
“No quoting, sir,” cried he, “old
saws,
Of
blundering th’ effectual cause,
Drowning
Stupidity’s own straws;
‘Nought new beneath the sun!’ a fact
Of th’ order fairly termed Abstract.
While
things be new to me and thee,
What need
care we how old they be?”
ends with the tale of his me- tamorphosis.
He asked, and then, in accent
strong,
Trolled
in mine ear the following song:— 350
* Viz., animal, vegetable, mineral.—F. B.
† “No, nor under the
grandson!” quoth George Selwyn.—F. B.
SONG.
(1)
“When last I was a Brahman man
My ardent fancy ever ran
From earth’s dull scene, Time’s
weary round,
To realms eternal—heavenly ground;
(2)
“And where by day my footstep trod
I felt the presence of a god:
Blue
Varuna* skimmed the purple main,
(3)
“Gay Indra†
spanned the crystal air,
And Shiva braided Durga’s hair 360
Where golden Meru‡
rises high
His front to fan the sapphire sky;
(4)
“And nightly in my blissful dreams
I sat by
Where Swarga’s§
gate wide open lay
And Narga
decked with lurid day.
(5)
“But, ah! one
thought escaped my mind:
I had no reck of kith or kind!
This drew upon me from above
The wrath of Kama, God of Love. 370
* Оυρανος,
originally nightly heaven, and presently,
by analogy of the aqueous and the atmospheric, God of the Ocean.—F. B.
†
Iris, the rainbow.—F. B.
‡
The Hindu
§ Swarga is one of the Hindu heavens, Narga
one of the hells.—F. B.
(6)
“I loved—yes, I! Ah, let me tell
The fatal charms by which I fell!
Her form the tam’risk’s waving shoot,
Her breast the cocoa’s youngling fruit;
(7)
“Her eyes were jetty, jet her hair,
O’ershading face like lotus fair;
Her lips were rubies, guarding
flowers
Of jasmine dewed with vernal
showers.
(8)
“And yet this goddess drew her birth
From vilest region of the earth. 380
A Pariah’s widow!—better die
Than ’dure such shame! at first thought I.
(9)
“But
Up to the head with fatal aim;
The deadly weapon through me flew,
Diffusing venom dire and new.
(10)
“It boots not more; you see me now
The victim of a broken vow:
Pass’d from the funeral pile, I found
Myself a stone
beneath the ground. 390
(11)
Dread change! sad fate! to line the street—
A thing for tramp of boorish feet!
How can I cease to grunt and groan,
A Brahman once,
and now a stone?
(12)
“But ever and anon my tongue
With more than mortal strength is strung;
Then must I tell, however coy,
All that befel Ram Mohun Roy.”*
He stopped.
I listened to him, sore posed
To see the
Ram thus metamorphosed. 400
At length it
took effect that song,
Though many a trill made ’t deadly long,
And yet,
despite that length, it stole
Into my heart; a tear would roll
Adown my cheek in bitterness.
I, too, my bygones must confess.
DIRGE.
Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., “reci- procates.”
“I also swore to love a face
And form where beauty strove with grace,
And raven hair, black varnished blue,
A brow that robbed the cygnet’s
hue, 410
Orbs that beshamed the fawnlet’s eyne,
And lips like rose-buds damp with rain.
Ah! where is she? ah! where are they—
The charms that stole my heart away?
“She’s fatten’d like a
feather bed,
Her cheeks with beefy hue are red,
Her eyes are tarnished, and her nose
Affection
for high diet shows;
* N.B.—Must not be confounded with the modern Bengali philosopher of that name.—F. B.
The voice like music wont to flow
Is now a kind of vaccine low. 420
Cupid, and all ye gods above,
Is this the thing I used to love?”
The Stone re- sumes
the sub- ject,
with his future hopes,
“Pass on,” cried he, in angry tone,
“And leave we womankind alone.
’Twas my own fault. But, man, you see,
I’ve not thrown off humanity
When mem’ry pangs me on to hate
Reminders of my human state.
Yet so
wills Fate. This era o’er,
I shall become a grass or flower 430
(The state which every noodle knows is
Classic’ly termed Metempsychosis,
Which sticklers for Latinization
Prefer to call Soul-transmigration),
And, rising through each gradual term,
Reanimate me in the worm,
And, passing him, ascend again
Into the beast that roams the plain,
Till, from the cow, that high’st degree,
I claim once more Brahminity, 440
When, haply ’scaping all temptation,
meanwhile supporting the
superiority of stone to clay (or man),
I win the crown—Annihilation.
Meanwhile, I cannot see why we
Of you and yours despised should be.
The pride of princes hoists them high,
Paupers like poets* smite the sky!
We both are sons of mother Earth;
But I’m a scion of antique birth,
* As Horace says, “Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.”—F.
B.
Whilst you, as all your sages say,
Are little clods of red-brown clay,* 450
Mere Pleistocene accumulations
That never learned your proper stations.
At least two thousand years ago
They cut me for a stone, I know,
By slow degrees and weary; an
Operation Cæsarian
Tore me from old Dame Portland’s flank,
Here to be ranged with lengthy rank
Of brotherhood, upon whose head
You things of mud are meant to tread. 460
But man hath taught himself to deem
Cream of creation—happy dream!
An ancient people said that we
Stones once renewed humanity,
Prayed by Deucalion and his wife
From mineral to mammalian life.
Anatomists, they say, have shown
Petrosity in human bone;
And well
I know we still are part
Of human head and manly heart. 470
But, though, methinks, the metal lead
Have cut us out of human head
(Phenomenon which came to pass
When human sconce got ‘front of brass’),
Your hearts remain ours ever; still
They do us nought but work our ill.
By Pyrrha! but you are unwise
To treat apologies
as lies,
And not attempt to recognise
The moral which the tale implies.” 480
* Adamical theory.—F. B.
“Two thousand years, you say, are gone
Since first you found yourself a stone.
I wish you kindly would relate
Th’ adventures of your petral state.
and, yielding to “Pol.’s” re- quest, speaks, not as the Ram, but as a stone.
I long to know the career all
Of such intelligent mineral.”
“One talks,” said he, in softer tone,
“Willingly self not I alone;
And, could we stones confabulate,
The Fleet
would be in blockade state. 490
But, since you wish to hear my tale,
List till the marvel waxeth stale.
As old Ram Mohun Roy from me
Man hears not for a century.
No syllable of by-gone deed
From these my lips may now proceed;
A stone of stones am I, and all
My talk must be petrifical:
Th’ antiquity of family
Confers upon me high degree,— 500
Stone versus mud and mire and clay,
Ashes and dust, and live decay.