S T O N E   T A L K

 

( Λ Ι Θ Ο Φ Ω Ν Η Μ Α ) :

 

BEING SOME OF THE

 

MARVELLOUS SAYINGS OF A PETRAL PORTION OF

FLEET STREET, LONDON,

 

TO ONE

 

DOCTOR POLYGLOTT, PH.D.,

 

BY

 

FRANK BAKER, D.O.N.

 

                             

 

Tolle, Lege.”—St. Augustine.

                             

 

LONDON:

ROBERT HARDWICKE, 192, PICCADILLY.

       

 

1865.

 

 

 

LONDON:

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 LIFE

THESE LINES,

UNGENTLE AND UNGENTEEL,

ARE

REGRETFULLY DEDICATED,

HE BEING ONE

WHO, IN A SPIRITLESS AND CHARACTERLESS AGE,

HAS ENDEAVOURED,

HOWEVER UNSUCCESSFULLY OR SUCCESSFULLY,

TO INSTIL

SPIRIT AND CHARACTER.

 

 

 

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 India, Indians, and all that!”

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 Bordeaux good,

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 three a.m.; I’d time to spare;

 

* “With mazy error under pendant shades.”—F. B.  Paradise Lost.

 

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 Oman’s tide,*

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 Midland Sea’s voluptuous swell,

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 Persian Gulf, which produces the finest pearls.—F. B.

† 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. London: Smith and Elder. 1863.—F. B.

 

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 Mayfair

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 London blacks a copious store,

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 Isle of Wight: the learned in words derive it from Wight-gara-byrig.—F. B.

 

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 London streets!

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?”

The only answer was a scowl,

With a prolonged and angry growl,                                         230

 

* “Dahomey and the Dahomans,” by Commander Forbes, R.N. Also “Trade and Travels in the Gulf of Guinea,” by Dr. Smith.—F. B.

† 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 Mecca*—

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 Temple’s corner-stone,

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 Mecca, believed by the Arabs to be a bit of the visible heavens fallen on earth.—F. B.

† 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 Savoy lad

(Alas! poor Burk!) telling a cad,

His friend, ‘I’ve drunk a pot o’ beer

Off an Apollo Belvidere;’

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 St. George’s.”

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 Krishna frolicked o’er the plain,

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 Ganga’s holy streams,

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 Olympus—F. B.

 

§ 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 Kama drew his shaft of flame

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:

Thantiquity of family

Confers upon me high degree,—                                             500

Stone versus mud and mire and clay,

Ashes and dust, and live decay.

I teach the past—the future, too,

Tis mine to spread for human view—

For ‘old experience doth attain

To something of prophetic strain.’

Ombharbhuvaswara!*

At the long word

The head sank down as if interred;

No sight was seen, no sound was heard,

Save the Policeman on his beat,                                              510

Drowsily lounging down the street.

 

* The essence of the Vedas.—F. B.

 

So melt in morning’s bright’ning hours

The Fay Morgana’s mirage bowers;

So, as the Arab thinks to gain

The Brazen City’s magic plain,

Where towers and walls were seen to stand,

The Stone’s history phy-

sical;

 
He finds a field of burning sand.

“Some million centuries or so*—

I won’t swear to an age or two—

Have sped since, starting from my trance,                               520

I burst the ocean’s hot expanse,

And, scrutinising round me, threw

Wild looks upon the novel view.

Pray where were you at that dread time,

When, cradled in my bed of lime,

Delivered by Earth’s siesmal throes,

I to this world first showed my nose?

Why, in essentiá—a logical

Lie meaning you were not at all.

Tis true; e’en I can’t recollect                                                530

When atomies did first collect,

Compelled to general glomeration

By inorganic gravitation;

Nor was it gi’n to me to see

Those nuclei of nebulæ

Whence suns and stars and satellites

Sprang like th’ innumerable mites

Which haunt a Stilton cheese;—’tis true

These things are known to us by you.

Another epoch passed away                                                    540

Of centrifuge-attraction sway;

 

* Thus here the “Vestiges of Creation” are fully confirmed by modern revelation. But we live in an age of great discoveries.—F. B.

 

When the Frigorics did contract

Diffused mass to globe compact.

I am too young to call to mind

When primal crust began to bind

Earth’s cooling surface, when the sea

Put forth zoophytic progeny,

When land appeared in sandstone steeps

And fishes swam the shrinking deeps,

When giant forests strove to rise                                             550

And sweet lymph fell from milder skies.

Nor knew I even what was meant

By organic law ‘Development’—

How, from the Monad’s starting point,

Began a chain whose latest joint

Ever put forth another link,

Till matter learned to speak and think;

How, ’scaped from the primeval sea,

Grass became herb, herb shrub, shrub tree;

How fishes crawled to birds, and these                                  560

To beasts (like you) by slow degrees.

My infant intellect began

T’ act when the archetypes of man,

Dawn of a still advancing day,

wherein he abuses man-

kind,

 
Apes, sported o’er the marl and clay.

“’Tis very little that we owe

To th’ Indian Archipelago,

Where I am told sprang you men, a

Branch breed of the Quadrumana.

Ah, what a sight were you when first                                      570

By freak of matter Adam* burst

Through Simian womb! Scant then man’s prate

Of human nature’s high estate.

 

* Meaning not the Genesetic Adam, but the first human “produce of aggregation and fit apposition of matter.”—F. B.

 

Yet, though his limbs with pile were

rough,

And though his tail was long enough

(You smile, reformed orang-utang!

Have I not seen th’ appendage hang

About your ends, till wear and tear

Curtailed the terminating hair?

Type of the subtype Simiadæ!                                                 580

King of the genus Chimpanzee!

There! feel the place! ’tis even now

In loco if not in statu quo),

Thapesses treated with disdain—

Half-handed thing with double brain,

With brow protruding all before,

Trachea formed to squeak and roar,

With shortened arms and thumbless feet,

Circular paunch, and rounded seat;

That chattered with such couthless sound,                               590

And walked, not crawled, upon the ground.

deriving man from monads and monkeys.

 
Such your forefather. Yet, when he

Was grown to lusty puberty,

Superior ingenuity

Taught him with score of apes to mate,

And thus his kind to propagate.

Nor ever dreamed the creature in

Polygamy to spy a sin.

Certes, in those days, abnormal cause

Affected propagation’s laws;                                                  600

For even he, your sire, amazed,

On his distorted offspring gazed,

Self-asking when the things would cease

To stalk like cranes and gab like geese.

Now you have tales enough to hide

Your origin and salve your pride

(E’en as the bastard Romans say

Their founders’ mother was not ‘gay’)—

How man hath soul, and brute instinct,

Making thidentical distinct;                                                   610

How human gab was heavenly gift,

And not at first a clumsy shift

T’ express by varying sounds the vain

Ideas that haunt idiotic brain;

How language dropped right from the skies,

Pali or Hebrew (each tribe tries

To prove its own the primal speech);

How deigned the Lord himself to teach

The proper names of things to man:

Wonderful wisdom! precious plan!”                                       620

Seeing his wrath, I thought it best

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., at-

tempts to soothe him by a show of learning,

 
To yield, and in mild tone suggest,

“True, Petrus! true; ’tis evident

Socrates knew development.*

So Moses, if I read him right,

Made his first man hermaphrodite,†

And learned Moslem scribes indite

Long list of kings pre-Adamite;

And note we not in Hebrew tongue

Ramash is an old snake or a long-                                           630

tailed ape?‡ and so the Hanuman§

Of Ind may equal any man——”

 

* Supposed to be foreshadowed in the Platonic doctrine of the “archetypes existing previous to the world.”—F. B.

† Amply commented upon by the pious Mme. de Bourignon, by Mirabeau (Erot. Bib.), and by Lawrence, Lectures on Physiology, p. 168.—F. B.

‡ This is the opinion of the learned Dr. Adam Clarke, the Methodist, in his Polyglottal Commentary, which wants nothing but an elementary knowledge of language.—F. B.

§ The Hindu Monkey-god.—F. B.

and is grossly insulted in the matters of Ana-

logy, Etymo-

logy, and Hebrew.

 
 


“Thanks for your etymologies,

Which, garnished with analogies,

Are mines of error. Pray don’t quote

Hebrew to me; of old I know’t

To be a lingo you admire,

Because it claims origin higher,

More mystic, than its Arab sire;

Yet ’tis a pauper dialect,                                                         640

Scant, clumsy, rude, such as select

Nations once civilized to speak

As modern Maniotes maim old Greek.*

 

“Enough of this! How times are changed

Since all the tribes of Tellus ranged

Their own domains, so joyful when

Our mother Earth was clear of men!”

With a portentous Burleigh shake

Of head, he paused awhile to take

A breathing time, and thus pursued                                          650

The Stone ex-

ults over the coming dis-

appearance of man from earth,

 
The subject in his bitterest mood:

“Now, man! suppose the glove once

more

Had some convulsion as of yore—

Enough to exterminate the pest

Of nature and to spare the rest—

What a glad scene my mental eye

Through the dark future doth espy!

“See granite, mica, gneiss, and talc

In spiritual voices talk:

 

* Les Juifs firent donc, de l’histoire et de la fable moderne, ce que leurs fripiers font de leurs vieux habits: ils les retournent et les vendent comme neufs le plus chèrement qu’ils peuvent.”—Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, Art. “Abraham,” Section II.—F. B.

 

‘By the Tamim!* friend Adamantus,                                        660

Those wretched worms no longer want us.

Can’t you, oh! can’t you recollect

How oft your brilliancy hath deckt

The mummied breast of ancient maid,

Whom every stout Hibernian blade

Compared with you? So hard! so pure!

So bright!—what is she now? Manure!’

“See oaks and elms, and thorns, and trees,

All chattering in the evening breeze:

‘We’re rid of men, the spiteful brutes,—                                670

Who now dare cut our harmless throats?

Friend Quercus, recollect how oft

You said the things were very soft

To boast their hearts of oak! O Lud!

The little vermin spawned of mud!

The flimsy, frail, unlasting wretches,

Hollow as canes, short-lived as vetches!’

“See, horses, asses, elephants,

All hurry to their ancient haunts,

Whilst each unto his neighbour says,                                       680

‘Four-footed dear! what jolly days

Compared with those when wicked man

Claimed as his right our hides to tan.

With all their airs and graces, pray,

By great Borak!† say what were they?

Asses with curtailed ears—a sign

Most manifest of wrath Divine!’

“Thus general nature, blessing, raises

Its myriad voice in grateful praises.”

 

* Urim and Thummim vulgarly called, the Jewish stone oracle.—F. B.

† The miraculous quadruped that carried Mahomet to heaven.—F. B.

 

He groaned and looked most lachry-

mose                                                                            690

As he ran o’er earth’s present woes,

Then, hemming twice or thrice with

might,

These words threw out to darksome night:

 

ODE.

 

and mourns the day when he was an in-

nocent child-

stone.

 
“Alas that life should come to this!

O for those days—those days of bliss

Amid the happy stones that fill

The precincts of my natal hill!

Delightful spot

Of shadowy glen and silvery rill,

Where soft wind blows, sweet birdies

thrill                                                                            700

The senses with unartly trill.

Ah, ne’er forgot

That place where ’twas my joy of old

To watch bright Morn her charms unfold

And evening suns rain showers of gold;

And still I lay

Whilst deepening shadows closed around,

To silence hushing harsher sound,

Till, rising o’er the tufted mound,

Poured the moon’s ray.                                                710

Far from the haunts of hateful men,

Not shackled in this iron den,

Ever, shall ever come again

That happy day?

Ah, no! my soul is callous, cold,

Recast in the rough world’s hard mould:

Vice and sin’s bitter streams have rolled

O’er my dark heart,

Whose innocency’s charm is gone

Fled for ever, for aye undone:                                                 720

Gone——”

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., fires up at this general denunciation of his kind.

 
“By the stones! the lyre sublime

Of Orpheus sang to walls sans lime!

What sentiments! Ungodly thief,

Wouldst steal away all man’s belief

In man? Wouldst impiously destroy

Rational hope of heavenly joy?

Wouldst, like the wicked boy at play,

With every throw some poor thing slay?

Pause, O profane! Draw thou not near!——”

“Prate to your purl, bepreach your

beer;                                                                               730

I have had enough, thou human mole!

The Stone

replies by a vile insinuation,

 
Of Jeremiad and Carmagnole:

I, fellow, am a mineral,

And not a lying animal.”

“Hem!” quoth I; “quit the theme

awhile

Since it appears to stir your bile:

Tis very evident you yield

No willing ear to Chesterfield.

But, touching falsehood, tell me, pray,

And “Pol.” asks if men never lie.

 
Do stones ne’er lie—is’t this you say?                                    740

Take Pharaoh’s case: we know that he

Died sputt’ring in the Suez sea;

And yet some fibbing Pyramid stones

Venture t’ assert his flesh and bones

Were pickled, dried, and laid in salt

In all the Pharaohs’ family vault;

Not to quote certain bits of brick

And plaster, with the which a wick-

ed ‘Resident’* hath tried to show a

Grave error in the flood of Noah,                                            750

And Daniel’s beasts hath dared to call,

Like all his book, apochryphal

By means of certain funny form

Of Scripture known as ‘cuneiform.’”

“Your wits, man, are again at fault;

The Stone argues that stones are more truthful than men.

 
Or, rather, seem disguised in malt:

We tell the lie involuntary—

That is, what you put in we carry.

Who ever saw epitaph true?

But epitaphs are writ by you.                                                  760

E’en so Empedocles’ pet birds

Twittered in lies their master’s words;

And, as for Pharaoh, I was not

In Egypt at the time to note

Facts as they were, not as you wrote;

Yet would I rather, by your leave,

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., quotes the proverb, “Facts are stubborn things.”

 
In stones than in your books believe.”

“Facts, Stone, are stubborn things, ’tis said!”

“‘Facts stubborn things?’ thou leather-head!

Facts are chameleons, whose tint                                            770

Varies with every accident:

Each, prism-like, hath three obvious sides,†

which the Stone dis-

proves.

 
And facets ten or more besides.

Events are like the sunny light

On mirrors falling clear and bright

Through windows of a varied hue,

Now yellow seen, now red, now blue.

 

* This, I presume, alludes to a learned and gallant knight long resident at Bagdad.—F. B.

† Meaning, I suppose, the right, the wrong, and the mixed.—F. B.

 

Those mirrors are the minds no vice

Obscures and dyes no prejudice;

And yet, however lucid, they                                                   780

Must, in some measure, stain the ray,

And, in transmitting, must refract—

I mean distort—the beam and fact,

Because its pure effulgence pours

Thro’ Matter’s dark or darkened doors.

All other minds your common sense

(If to such rarity you’ve pretence)

Tells t’ you that, intentionally

Or not, they err most commonly.

Facts, figures, and statistics claim                                           790

Pol.” at-

tempts to prove fact after the fashion of a modern divine, and is rebuked.

 
For hardest lying highest fame.”

I laughed, and, forthwith raising thick-

Soled boot, administered a kick,

Asking if he considerèd

That kick a fact. His brow waxed red

(M sometimes salon-savan has

The grace to do when proved an ass),

And thus he cried, “Thou hast a style

Of argument that stirs the bile:

The venerable ad captandum                                                  800

Quibbles and quirks thrown out at random

Against the high intelligent mind

Of unbreech’d boy or small-girl-kind.*

Sir, you confound the physical

and moral worlds,—the actual

And known with the unknown,—the tried

With the untried: this I deride

 

* So the Rev. Sydney Smith proved at dinner to a sceptical Frenchman the existence of a deity by asking if the pie made itself—a style of argument much admired by Lady Holland.—Minor.  F. B.

 

As merest folly. You deduce

From this a formula to use

In that creation: there’s your wrong,                                        810

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., ex-

citedly asks concerning “Truth,” and is answered.

 
Wherein you stand so stiff and strong.”

“What, then, you mean to say, you ruth-

less wretch, there’s no such thing as truth?”

“Truth, sir, ’s a lady strangely made,

As centaur, Pan, merman or maid;

In general, a Protean dame

Never for two brief hours the same—

Now throned in heaven, first of all

Spirits hyper-angelical;

Now driven by sheer destitution                                             820

To lend herself to prostitution;

And mainly, though good soul at heart,

A ‘heathen in the carnal part’*—

That is to say, she can’t resist,

Temptation when lewd men insist.”

“This I deny!——”

“Well, well, the proof

Of pudding is its eating—oaf!

Your mind is like the oyster-shells

They use, as old Tavernier tells,

For windows in the East. But these                                         830

Remarks are but par parenthèse.

Another illustration take:

If, at this hour, an aged rake

Should pass, he’d swear you’re sitting here

Waiting till friendly wife appear.

Such is his fact: the doctors, mind,

In sickness an excuse would find,

 

* Even as the great Pope says:—

“A sad, good Christian she at heart,

A very heathen in the carnal part.”—F. B.

 

While No. o of letter E

Deems you as great a prig as he;

And I, e’en I, who see you’re drunk                                        840

As new-made cornet or old punk,

Can’t, for the life of me, divine

If you’re disguised in beer or wine.”

“Now you impugn physical fact!”

“No, sir! I merely show how act

Men’s inner men. I but object

To views of ‘facts’ which e’er affect

Fact to the viewer, not the thing

Itself. This is the source whence spring

Those doubts and blunderings that show                                 850

Now little humans truly know.

Why need I prove that each man’s thought

Is each man’s fact, to others nought?

Yet, mark me, no one dubitates

Himself, or owns he errs. He rates

Against his fellows’ folly, they

At his; and both are right, I say.

How many a noted fact of old

Was a known lie when first ’twas

told?”

Basta!” cried I, “thou minor prophet,                              860

Thy tenets yield nor joy nor profit.

A better faith you cannot give;

So leave me in my own to live!”

“Just as you like, ’tis you that

proses

Of truth and Adam, facts and Moses;

And, as for metaphysics, Lord

Help the old fool that coined the

word!

Back to my tale:

The Stone’s history (poli-

tical).

 
When ancient Brut*

(The grandson of that pious put

Who, with his sire and wife and boy,                                      870

So bravely ran from burning Troy,

Doomed to toil, travel, and intrigue

By Juno and the Fates in league)

Had ploughed the seas in devious path,

A toy to adverse Neptune’s wrath,

He landed in this isle, deposed

His household gods, and, somewhat posed

To give his huts appropriate name,

Selected ‘Troynovant,’ which same                                        [880

Means, in old French, New Troy.† He died

(As most men do), and gratified

His heirs with an inheritance

Of wold and waste in wide expanse.

Some forty generations went

Ere great king Lud matured th’ intent

To fence about his timber town

(Now ‘august chamber of the crown’)

With a stone wall. By ’s high command

We all appeared—a goodly band,

Not by the power of fiddle drawn,                                          890

But borne on Britons’ arms of brawn.

Commenced my political

Education (as it you call)

When barbarous Cassibelan

Before the conquering Roman ran,

 

* So the French are descended from Hector, and the Bretons from Tubal.—F. B.

† It is truly gratifying to find out all our old legends so historically valuable: the text should effectually gag all those “shallow infidels” whose notion of History is a mixture of Doubt and Denial.—F. B.

 

And ended with fat George—when Fate,

In pity of my lowly state,

To this my place promoted me—

My present standing, sir, you see.

The Stone’s history (moral and political) in the days of Boadicea;

 
“Now mark me when I tell where I                                   900

First heard the thing men call a lie—

An arrant lie. Didst ever see a

Trustworthy account of Boadicea?”

“Why, not precisely; but, as far

As Markham* goes, I’ve read the war

That noble woman waged (in car

With scythes) against the pack of boast-

ful dogs that seized our cliff-bound coast,

Dared slay our Druids, slaver, spit on

The freckled face of freeborn Briton,                                      910

Nor feared audacious tricks to try on

That noble beast the British Lion.”

“What! are ye paid to do jaw-work,

Like Sheridan or wordy Burke?

No? Then do give the Deuce his dues

When there’s no object to refuse

Justice. Plautinus, as I live,

Was not one half the bandit Clive,

Hastings, Dalhousie, or Napier

Were, each within his proper sphere.                                      920

preferring the policy of Pagan Rome to Great Britain;

 
Rome had no high philanthropic

Maxims forbidding her to pick

Quarrels or pretexts when her cash

Ran low: she dealt no high-flown trash

Nent ‘principles,’ which, in your creed,

Gipsying life appears to lead:

Sent for when wanted, and, when not,

Sans ceremony told to trot.

 

* Mrs. Markham’s “History of England.”—F. B.

 

Rome had no faith that inculcates

Philanthropy to foreign states,                                                 930

Making her fraternize (don’t snigger!)

With red-skin, tawny, fair, and nigger.

Philanthropy, so pure and bright,

Makes pagan Hindu Christian knight.

(Kneel down, Sir Jung Bahadoor; vow,

By the five products of the cow,*

To do thy knight’s devoir, and be

Flower of Christian chivalry:

Sing, Dies iræ, dies illa

Solbet Balneum in fabillâ.’                                                940

That day of philanthropic wrath

To dust and ashes turned the Bath!)

Old Rome, sir, had no Exeter Hall,

Where ye, loved shepherds, meet to bawl

Politico-religion

To long-eared flocks that urge ye on:

Rome’s crown and staff were helm and sword,

Armed with which tools her robber horde

Went forth, unrecking right and wrong,

To spare the weak, debel the strong.†

It ever was Rome’s general rule

To rob the rich, to strip the fool.

And so do you. But she forgot

To plunder subjects; you do not.

Lastly, she robbed her fellow-men

Like warrior—you like highwaymen.

She scorned to harm a fallen foe;

You sit upon his breast and show

 

* Milk, curds, butter, and the two egesta, which are holy things.—F. B.

Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.”—F. B.

 

Your teeth, till, faint with fear and pain,

He lets his bag and baggage be ta’en.                                      960

accusing Eng-

land of land-

stealing.

 
The end, of course, was all the same;

But she won fame and you win shame.

Thieves of the world, that spoil wholesale

And plunder on the largest scale!

Who so unblushed ye that you dare

To all the globe your crime declare?

Boast of your drum-beat circling earth

With—sorry sound!—its martial mirth?

Boast that your bit of bunting brands

So many scores of stolen strands—                                         970

Stains with its blood the Orient seas,

And taints the Occidental breeze—

Like some ill-omened goblin haunts

Creation’s Edens? Such your vaunts?

Your ‘brave kind of expressions’?* Most

Christian country, this your boast?”

“Have you no proofs?” cried I——

“Yes! clear,”

Said he, “as e’er met eye or ear.

Look at th’ unfortunate Chinese,

Who lost their Sycee and their teas                                         980

Because they showed some odium

To Fanqui’s† filthy opium;

See India, once so happy, now

In scale of nations sunk so low—

That lovely land to which were given

The choicest blessings under heaven,

Till ravening Saxon, like simoom,

With fire and sword brought death and doom,

 

* Bacon.F. B.

† Foreign devil, as the Celestials appropriately term the outer barbarians. —F. B.

 

And, lo! a wretched starv’ling brood

From horse-dung picks disgusting food;*                                990

Whilst, in the Commons, India’s name

Clears every bench to England’s shame.

Of old, the Red Man in the West,

How different his lot, how blest,

How happy in his wigwam home!

By Saxon’s poisonous pox and rum

Now what a vile and ruined race!

A few years more its every trace

Will vanish clear from Earth’s fair face,

Except in books and by-gone tales                                          1000

Of squaws, scalps, tomahawks, and trails.

Witness th’ old Turk, Mahomet Ali,

Whom Malcolm† stuffed with many a lie,

Striving in vain to make him deem

You links ’twixt men and seraphim;

Yet scarce ten years had ’lapsed before

You tried to seize his little store

Of piastres, that the East might ’count

You plunderers Lord Paramount,

And kiss the hand outstretched to burk                                    1010

Incipient feud ’twixt Turk and Turk.

Had the Hawaiian known his fate,

A hundred Cooks had slaked his hate,‡

Each child had murd’rous hand imbrued

In circumnavigating blood.

O’er far Tasmania’s sounding shore

Of aborigines a score

 

* Which, if we may believe travellers, is often the case—F. B.

† Sir John Malcolm, Governor of Bombay.F. B.

‡ Capt. Cook, the circumnavigator, was murdered for pulling down a hut that was under “taboo.”F. B.

 

Now wanders (where, some years ago,

A hundred thousand souls could show),

Australian-like, exterminate                                                    1020

By your corrosive sublimate.

And now again your tricks you try

On Japanese and Maori:

Because they choose to live in peace,

Nor lend a ready back to fleece,

You arm yourselves with fire and steel

Their towns to burn, their lands to steal,

High raising the ennobling cry

Of Cotton and Christianity;

And, armed with these, each man of sense                              1030

Ascribes his course to Providence,

Favouring your pre-eminence,

And purposing to occupy

The globe with Anglo-Saxon fry

One marvels how! one wonders why!

Man, Rome might come to Britain’s school

And own herself a bungling fool!

“Return we to this theme anon:

I’ll now enlighten you upon

The subject of my lie; you’ll call                                            1040

It, perhaps, unintentional.

“Came Boadicea in her chariot

(With scythes), between Susan and Harriet

(Who had been kissed), tastily decked

In woad with theatrical effect,

T’ harangue her blustering ruffian

Tricoloured crew barbarian.

 

BOADICEA’S SPEECH.

The Stone then recites Boa-

dicea’s speech,

 
 


“‘Britons! there stands the impious band

That came from far Italian land,

From rich Rome’s palaces and domes,                                   1050

To lord it o’er our hide-made homes:

Their skins are dark, while yours are fair;

They wear the toga, you go bare.

Are these the reasons why they dare

Doom us to slavery—to despair?

Cursed by the Druids’ God be he

That toils the free-born man t’ unfree!

And, oh! may that foul nation claim

Eternal heritage of shame

That comes, in strength of arms, to seek                                  1060

Dominion o’er the weak! O speak!

Ye Britons, can you bear to see

The first-fruits of their works in me,—

The once proud mother, happy wife,

Now widowed, tainted, sick of life?

Shall woman’s jewel and man’s boast

Fall to yon vile invading host?

In Britons’ veins, while life-drops flow,

Shall Britons stoop to slavery? No!

Now bare the brand and stretch the spear,                              1070

To fight for all to mortal dear;

And every blow shall show the charm

That nerves, that guides, the freeman’s arm!’

*          *          *          *

A sullen murmur, low at first,

Into the deafening slogan burst,

And rose on high the stormy cry

Of ‘On to death or victory!’

*          *          *          *

and tells how he heard his first lie;

 
I learnt the goodly lesson there

That patriot prate ’s worth weight of air;

They eat their words as if nutrition                                         1080

Resulted from the deglutition.

Lord, how they swore to smash and slay

The foe, then turned and ran away

Helter-skelter, all quicker than

Your Sepoys in Afghanistan.

Now patriots wisely bare no swords,

But draw with might the vocal chords,

And in heroic tantrums e’er rage

For pay and pension and peerage.

lashing out at modern patriotism,

 
Wouldst see thy patriots cut and run? —                                 1090

Cut but their pence, the work is done!

Soldiers and sailors have one case:

Only for Dative care an ace;

The Ablative of their declension

Is fighting sine pay and pension.

“But honour? ——”

honour,

 
“Honour, fool! ne’er shut

The gaping mouth of sabre-cut;

Nor will e’en eighteenpence a-day

The loss of arm or leg defray.

A score of Smiths at Waterloo                                                1100

All proved themselves good men and true:

Some fought and ’scaped, some fought and fell;

Yet who the difference now can tell

glory,

 
’Twixt glorious Jack and glorious Bill?

Few heads in this day glory addles

With empty praise—five-shilling medals,

Of which you’ve grown so liberal

(Though once so stingy*) that they’re all

But worthless, since each private owns

and medals.

 
A bag of browns or silver crowns                                          1110

Whose very weight ’s enough to try

The mettle of your chivalry.

 

* Witness the Peninsula and Burmah.F. B.

 

Who cares to bear the thorax rib on

Two inches of a rainbow ribbon,

Unless they be the tapes that dub

Captain C.B., not meant for cub

Officer, vulgò called a sub?

And even these are now grown cheap

Since gained by squatting ’hind a heap

Of stuff where commissariat cattle                                          1120

Dr. Polyglott, Ph.D., much admires the Stone’s learn-

ing.

 
Are sheltered from the rage of battle.”*

Again I marvelled at his store

Of politic and national lore——

“Man, you forget my age, my sense,

My memory, my experience,

My study of the crowd that meets

The Stone explains his education;

 
Eternally in London streets,

The herd of male and female talkers,

M.P.’s, directors, priests, street-walkers,

Mercators, students, politicians,                                             1130

Men mid-wives, actors, peers, physicians,

Judges, preachers, soldiers, literary

Bards and bas-bleus, loquacious very;

To be brief, every specimen

Of microcosm, women and men

Talking, laughing, roaring, ranting,

Prosing, rhyming, praying, canting,

Proving, arguing, recanting,

Lying, cheating, blessing, damning,

Flatt’ring, quizzing, showing, shamming,                                1140

Conning, learning, pumping, cramming

One another (what else God knows!)

Over my triturated nose.

 

* This practice probably dates from Sir Charles Napier’s battle of Meeanee.—F. B.