PORTRAITS ("Shakspeare," 'Cervantes," and "Rabelais") CAUDLE'S RETURN. FATHER TOM TRIAL SCENE FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE (Ingoldsby Legends) MRS. CRAWFORD AND MISS HARPER AS MRS. FORD AND MRS. PAGE IN THE " 289 321 "353 DICK SPARROW'S RECEPTION THE LIBRARY OF WIT AND HUMOR. MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LEC TURES. [DOUGLAS JERROLD, the author of these inimitable Lectures, was born in London, Jan. 3, 1803. His father being manager of Sheerness theatre, his earliest impressions received a dramatic coloring. Smitten in boyhood with a passion for the sea, a midshipman's appointment was procured for him; but in a short time he quitted that service, and was presently articled to a printer. He studied diligently between the hours of labor and thus acquired a good education. While still a compositor, he made his literary début with an anonymous essay on the opera of "Der Freischütz," which he dropped into the letter-box of the editor of the paper on which he was working. The article was handed to him to put in type, and accompanying it was a cordial editorial invitation to the unknown correspondent to contribute other articles. Mr. Jerrold's first dramatic composition, Black-Eyed Susan-the most popular of dramas-was written before he was twenty-one years old. It was followed by Nell Gwynne, The Prisoner of War, Time Works Wonders, and other plays, which sustained and widened the author's fame. But his labors were by no means restricted to dramatic composition. Stories, essays, and editorials, claimed a large share of his busy life. Among the best known of his narrative pieces, are The Story of a Feather, Clovernook, St. Giles and St. James. From the second number of that famous journal, Punch, Mr. Jerrold contributed regularly to its pages until his death, which occurred June 8, 1857. The strongest impulse of popularity that Punch ever received, came from the immortal Caudle Lectures; and this is saying much when it is remembered what a brilliant galaxy of writers and draughtsmen were em How could such a thing have entered any man's mind ?" There are subjects that seem like raindrops to fall upon a man's head, the head itself having nothing to do with the matter. The result of no train of thought, there is the picture, the statue, the book, wafted, like the smallest seed, into the brain, to feed upon the soil, such as it may be, and grow there; and this was, no doubt, the accidental cause of the literary sowing and expansion funfolding like a night-flower of MRS. CAUDLE. But let a jury of gentlewomen decide. ployed upon that paper in Jerrold's time. The Curtain VOL. I.-W. H. And the writer, looking dreamily into that play-ground, still mused on the robust jol 1 There was, however, this difference between the wisdom and the wine. The wine was always sugared; the wisdom, never. It was expressed crude from the heart of Mrs. Caudle, who, doubtless, trusted to the sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it agree with him. lity of those little fellows, to whom the tax- | wine. gatherer was as yet a rarer animal than the baby hippopotamus. Heroic boyhood, so ignorant of the future in the knowing enjoyment of the present! And the writer, still dreaming and musing, and still following no distinct line of thought, there struck upon him, like notes of sudden household music, these words-CURTAIN LECTURES. One moment there was no living object save those racing, shouting boys; and the next, as though a white dove had alighted on the pen-hand of the writer, there wasMRS. CAUDLE. cause? Ladies of the jury, are there not then some subjects of letters that mysteriously assert an effect without any discoverable Otherwise, wherefore should the thought of CURTAIN LECTURES grow from a school-ground-wherefore, among a crowd of holiday school-boys should appear MRS. CAUDLE? For the LECTURES themselves, it is feared they must be given up as a farcical desecration of that solemn time-honored privilege; it may be, exercised once in a lifetime, and that once having the effect of a hundred repetitions as JOB lectured his wife. And Job's wife, a certain Mohammedan writer delivers, having committed a fault in her love to her husband, he swore that on his recovery he would deal her a hundred stripes. Job got well, and his heart was touched and taught by the tenderness to keep his vow, and still to chastise his helpmate; for he smote her once with a palmbranch having a hundred leaves. THE INTRODUCTION. D. J. POOR Job Caudle was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was, perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, Mrs. Caudle-his lawful wedded wife, as she would ever and anon impress upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking them-took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire property; as expressly made to convey to Caudle's brain the stream of wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the tin funnel through which Mrs. Caudle in vintage time bottled her elder Philosophers have debated whether morning or night is most conducive to the strongest and clearest moral impressions. The Grecian sage confessed that his labors smelt of the lamp. In like manner did Mrs. Caudle's wisdom smell of the rushlight. She knew that her husband was too much distracted by his business as toy-man and doll-merchant to digest her lessons in the broad day. Besides, she could never make sure of him; he was always liable to be summoned to the shop. Now from eleven at night until seven in the morning, there was no retreat for him. He was compelled to lie and listen. Perhaps there was little magnanimity in this on the part of Mrs. Caudle; but in marriage as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. Besides, Mrs. Caudle copied very ancient and classic authority. Minerva's bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is silent all the day. So was Mrs. Caudle. Like the owl, she hooted only at night. Mr. Caudle was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One fact will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with Mrs. Caudle, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for Mrs. Caudle to lecture and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties and vicissitudes comprised within that seemingly small circle--the wedding-ring. We say, seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked eye, is a tiny hoop, made for the third feminine finger. Alack ! like the ring of Saturn, for good or evil, it circles a whole world. Or, to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region; it may be Arabia Felix, and it may be Arabia Petrea. A lemon-hearted cynic might liken the wedding-ring to an ancient circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole ! We would rather compare it to an elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music for infirm humanity. Even Manifold are the uses of rings. swine are tamed by them. You will see a vagrant, hilarious, devastating porker-a full-blooded fellow that would bleed into many, many fathoms of black-pudding you will see him, escaped from his proper | he was alone in his holland. Nevertheless home, straying in a neighbor's garden. the talk continued. It was terrible to be How he tramples upon the heart's-ease: thus haunted by a voice; to have advice, how, with quivering snout, he roots up commands, remonstrance, all sorts of saws lilies-oderiferous bulbs! Here he gives a and adages still poured upon him, and no reckless snatch at thyme and marjoram visible wife. Now did the voice speak from and here he munches violets and gilly- the curtains; now from the tester; and now flowers. At length the marauder is de- did it whisper to Job from the very pillow tected, seized by his owner, and driven, that he pressed. "It's a dreadful thing beaten home. To make the porker less that her tongue should walk in this mandangerous, it is determined that he shall be ner," said Job, and then he thought conringed. The sentence is pronounced- -exe-fusedly of exorcism, or at least of counsel cution ordered. Listen to his screams! Hence, for all future time, the porker behaves himself with a sort of forced propriety-for in either nostril he carries a ring. It is, for the greatness of humanity, a saddening thought, that sometimes men must be treated no better than pigs. But Mr. Job Caudle was not of these men. Marriage to him was not made a necessity. No; for him call it if you will a happy chance-a golden accident. It is, however, enough for us to know that he was married; and was therefore made the recipient of a wife's wisdom. Mrs. Caudle, like Mahomet's dove, continually pecked at the good man's ears; and it is a happiness to learn from what he left behind that he had hived all her sayings in his brain; and further, that he employed the mellow evening of his life to put such sayings down, that, in due season, they might be enshrined in imperishable type. When Mr. Job Caudle was left in this briery world without his daily guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness of fifty-two. For three hours at least after he went to bed-such slaves are we to habithe could not close an eye. His wife still talked at his side. True it was, she was dead and decently interred. His mind-it was a comfort to know it-could not wander on this point; this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was with him. The Ghost of her Tongue still talked as in the life; and again and again did Job Caudle hear the monitions of by-gone years. At times, so loud, so lively, so real were the sounds, that Job, with a cold chill, doubted if he were really widowed. And then, with the movement of an arm, a foot, he would assure himself that from the parish priest. Whether Job followed his own brain, or the wise direction of another, we know not. But he resolved every night to commit to paper one curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment would, possibly, lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear tongue that cried for justice, and when thus satisfied, it might possibly rest in quiet. And so it happened. Job faithfully chronicled all his late wife's lectures; the ghost of her tongue was thenceforth silent, and Job slept all his after-nights in peace. When Job died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed as follows: "CURTAIN LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE COURSE OF THIRTY YEARS and suffered BY JOB, HER HUSBAND." That Mr. Caudle had his eye upon the future printer, is made pretty probable by the fact that in most places he had affixed the text-such text for the most part arising out of his own daily conduct-to the lecture of the night. He had, also, with an instinctive knowledge of the dignity of literature, left a bank-note of very fair amount with the manuscript. Following our duty as editor, we trust we have done justice to both documents. THE FIRST LECTURE. MR. CAUDLE HAS LENT FIVE POUNDS TO A "You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that five pounds would have entirely bought it But it's no matter how I go, not at all. Everybody says I don't dress as becomes your wife, and I don't; but what's that to you, Mr. Caudle? Nothing. Oh, no! you can have fine feelings for everybody but those belonging to you. I wish people knew you as I do that's all. You like to be called liberaland your family pays for it. "All the girls want bonnets, and where they're to come from I can't tell. Half five pounds would have bought 'em-but now they must go without. Of course, they belong to you; and anybody but your own flesh and blood, Mr. Caudle. "The man called for the water-rate today; but I should like to know how people are to pay taxes, who throw away five pounds to every fellow that asks them? "Perhaps you don't know that Jack, this morning, knocked his shuttlecock through his bedroom window. I was going to send for the glazier to mend it; but after you lent that five pounds I was sure we couldn't afford it. Oh, no! the window must go as it is; and pretty weather for a dear child to sleep with a broken window. He's got a cold already on his lungs, and I shouldn't at all wonder if that broken window settled him. If the dear boy dies, his death will be upon his father's head; for I'm sure we can't now pay to mend windows. We might though, and do a great many more things, too, if people didn't throw away their five pounds. "Next Tuesday the fire-insurance is due. I should like to know how it's to be paid? Why, it can't be paid at all! That five pounds would have more than done if-and now, insurance is out of the question. And there never were so many fires as there are now. I shall never close my eyes all night -but what's that to you, so people can call you liberal, Mr. Caudle? Your wife and children may all be burnt alive in their beds -as all of us to a certainty shall be, for the insurance must drop. And after we've insured for so many years! But how, I should like to know, are people to insure who make ducks and drakes of their five pounds? "I did think we might go to Margate this summer. There's poor little Caroline, I'm sure she wants the sea. But no, dear creature! she must stop at home-all of us must stop at home-she'll go into a con sumption, there's no doubt of that; yessweet little angel!-I've made up my mind to lose her, now. The child might have been saved; but people can't save their children and throw away their five pounds too. "I wonder where poor little Mopsy is? While you were lending that five pounds, the dog ran out of the shop. You know, I never let it go into the street, for fear it should be bit by some mad dog, and come home and bite all the children. It wouldn't now astonish me if the animal was to come back with the hydrophobia, and give it to all the family. However, what's your family to you, so you can play the liberal creature with five pounds? "Do you hear that shutter, how it's banging to and fro? Yes, I know what it wants as well as you; it wants a new fastening. I was going to send for the blacksmith to-day, but now it's out of the question: now it must bang of nights, since you've thrown away five pounds. "Ha! there's the soot falling down the chimney. If I hate the smell of anything, it's the smell of soot. And you know it; but what are my feelings to you? Sweep the chimney! Yes, it's all very fine to say, sweep the chimney-but how are the chimneys to be swept-how are they to be paid for by people who don't take care of their five pounds? "Do you hear the mice running about the room? I hear them. If they were to drag only you out of bed, it would be no matter. Set a trap for them! Yes, it's easy enough to say-set a trap for 'em. But how are people to afford mouse-traps, when every day they lose five pounds? "Hark! I'm sure there's a noise downstairs. It would'nt at all surprise me if there were thieves in the house. Well, it may be the cat, but thieves are pretty sure to come in some night. There's a wretched fastening to the back door; but these are not times to afford bolts and bars, when people won't take care of their five pounds. |