The Mudfog Papers

by Charles Dickens

  We take it that the commencement of a session of Parliament is neither more nor less than the drawing-up of the curtain for a grand comic pantomime, and that His Majesty’s most gracious speech on the opening thereof may be not inaptly compared to the Clown’s opening speech of “Here we are!” “My lords and gentlemen, here we are!” appears, to our mind at least, to be a very good abstract of the point and meaning of the propitiatory address of the ministry. When we remember how frequently this speech is made, immediately after the change too, the parallel is quite perfect,* and still more singular.

  Perhaps the cast of our political pantomime never was richer than at this day. We are particularly strong in clowns. At no former time, we should say, have we had such astonishing tumblers, or performers so ready to go through the whole of their feats for the amusement of an admiring throng. Their extreme readiness to exhibit, indeed, has given rise to some ill-natured reflections; it having been objected that by exhibiting gratuitously through the country when the theatre is closed, they reduce themselves to the level of mountebanks, and thereby tend to degrade the respectability of the profession. Certainly Grimaldi never did this sort of thing; and though Brown, King and Gibson have gone to the Surrey in vacation time, and Mr C.J. Smith has ruralized at Sadler’s Wells, we find no theatrical precedent for a general tumbling through the country, except in the gentleman, name unknown, who threw summersets* on behalf of the late Mr Richardson,* and who is no authority either, because he had never been on the regular boards.

  But, laying aside this question, which after all is a mere matter of taste, we may reflect with pride and gratification of heart on the proficiency of our clowns as exhibited in the season. Night after night will they twist and tumble about, till two, three and four o’clock in the morning; playing the strangest antics, and giving each other the funniest slaps on the face that can possibly be imagined, without evincing the smallest tokens of fatigue. The strange noises, the confusion, the shouting and roaring, amid which all this is done, too, would put to shame the most turbulent sixpenny gallery that ever yelled through a boxing night.

  It is especially curious to behold one of these clowns compelled to go through the most surprising contortions by the irresistible influence of the wand of office, which his leader or Harlequin holds above his head. Acted upon by this wonderful charm he will become perfectly motionless, moving neither hand, foot nor finger, and will even lose the faculty of speech at an instant’s notice; or on the other hand he will become all life and animation if required, pouring forth a torrent of words without sense or meaning, throwing himself into the wildest and most fantastic contortions, and even grovelling on the earth and licking up the dust. These exhibitions are more curious than pleasing; indeed, they are rather disgusting than otherwise, except to the admirers of such things, with whom we confess we have no fellow feeling.

  Strange tricks – very strange tricks – are also performed by the Harlequin who holds for the time being the magic wand which we have just mentioned. The mere waving it before a man’s eyes will dispossess his brains of all the notions previously stored there, and fill it with an entirely new set of ideas; one gentle tap on the back will alter the colour of a man’s coat completely; and there are some expert performers who, having this wand held first on one side and then on the other, will change from side to side, turning their coats at every evolution, with so much rapidity and dexterity that the quickest eye can scarcely detect their motions. Occasionally, the genius who confers the wand wrests it from the hand of the temporary possessor, and consigns it to some new performer; on which occasions all the characters change sides, and then the race and the hard knocks begin anew.

  We might have extended this chapter to a much greater length – we might have carried the comparison into the liberal professions – we might have shown, as was in fact our original purpose, that each is in itself a little pantomime with scenes and characters of its own, complete; but, as we fear we have been quite lengthy enough already, we shall leave this chapter just where it is. A gentleman, not altogether unknown as a dramatic poet, wrote thus a year or two ago:

  All the world’s a stage,

  And all the men and women merely players,*

  and we, tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely worth mentioning little distance of a few millions of leagues behind, venture to add, by way of new reading, that he meant a pantomime, and that we are all actors in the Pantomime of Life.

  Some Particulars Concerning a Lion

  We have a great respect for lions in the abstract. In common with most other people, we have heard and read of many instances of their bravery and generosity. We have duly admired that heroic self-denial and charming philanthropy which prompts them never to eat people except when they are hungry, and we have been deeply impressed with a becoming sense of the politeness they are said to display towards unmarried ladies of a certain state. All natural histories teem with anecdotes illustrative of their excellent qualities, and one old spelling book in particular recounts a touching instance of an old lion, of high moral dignity and stern principle, who felt it his imperative duty to devour a young man who had contracted a habit of swearing, as a striking example to the rising generation.

  All this is extremely pleasant to reflect upon and, indeed, says a very great deal in favour of lions as a mass. We are bound to state, however, that such individual lions as we have happened to fall in with have not put forth any very striking characteristics, and have not acted up to the chivalrous character assigned them by their chroniclers. We never saw a lion in what is called his natural state, certainly; that is to say, we have never met a lion out walking in a forest, or crouching in his lair under a tropical sun, waiting till his dinner should happen to come by, hot from the baker’s. But we have seen some under the influence of captivity and the pressure of misfortune, and we must say that they appeared to us very apathetic, heavy-headed fellows.

  The lion at the Zoological Gardens,* for instance. He is all very well; he has an undeniable mane, and looks very fierce; but – Lord bless us! – what of that? The lions of the fashionable world look just as ferocious, and are the most harmless creatures breathing. A box-lobby* lion or a Regent Street animal will put on a most terrible aspect and roar fearfully, if you affront him; but he will never bite and, if you offer to attack him manfully, will fairly turn tail and sneak off. Doubtless these creatures roam about sometimes in herds and, if they meet any especially meek-looking and peaceably disposed fellow, will endeavour to frighten him; but the faintest show of a vigorous resistance is sufficient to scare them even then. These are pleasant characteristics, whereas we make it matter of distinct charge against the zoological lion and his brethren at the fairs that they are sleepy, dreamy, sluggish quadrupeds.

  We do not remember to have ever seen one of them perfectly awake, except at feeding time. In every respect we uphold the biped lions against their four-footed namesakes, and we boldly challenge controversy upon the subject.

  With these opinions it may be easily imagined that our curiosity and interest were very much excited the other day, when a lady of our acquaintance called on us and resolutely declined to accept our refusal of her invitation to an evening party. “For,” said she, “I have got a lion coming.” We at once retracted our plea of a prior engagement, and became as anxious to go as we had previously been to stay away.

  We went early, and posted ourselves in an eligible part of the drawing room, from whence we could hope to obtain a full view of the interesting animal. Two or three hours passed, the quadrilles began, the room filled; but no lion appeared. The lady of the house became inconsolable – for it is one of the peculiar privileges of these lions to make solemn appointments and never keep them – when all of a sudden there came a tremendous double rap at the street door, and the master of the house, after gliding out (unobserved as he flattered himself) to peep over the banisters, came into the room, rubbing his hands together with great glee, and crie
d out in a very important voice, “My dear, Mr —— (naming the lion) has this moment arrived.”

  Upon this, all eyes were turned towards the door, and we observed several young ladies, who had been laughing and conversing previously with great gaiety and good humour, grow extremely quiet and sentimental; while some young gentlemen, who had been cutting great figures in the facetious and small-talk way, suddenly sank very obviously in the estimation of the company, and were looked upon with great coldness and indifference. Even the young man who had been ordered from the music shop to play the pianoforte was visibly affected, and struck several false notes in the excess of his excitement.

  All this time there was a great talking outside, more than once accompanied by a loud laugh and a cry of “Oh! Capital! Excellent!” from which we inferred that the lion was jocose, and that these exclamations were occasioned by the transports of his keeper and our host. Nor were we deceived; for when the lion at last appeared, we overheard his keeper, who was a little prim man, whisper to several gentlemen of his acquaintance, with uplifted hands, and every expression of half-suppressed admiration, that —— (naming the lion again) was in such cue tonight!

  The lion was a literary one. Of course, there were a vast number of people present who had admired his roarings, and were anxious to be introduced to him; and very pleasant it was to see them brought up for the purpose, and to observe the patient dignity with which he received all their patting and caressing. This brought forcibly to our mind what we had so often witnessed at country fairs, where the other lions are compelled to go through as many forms of courtesy as they chance to be acquainted with, just as often as admiring parties happen to drop in upon them.

  While the lion was exhibiting in this way, his keeper was not idle, for he mingled among the crowd, and spread his praises most industriously. To one gentleman he whispered some very choice thing that the noble animal had said in the very act of coming upstairs, which, of course, rendered the mental effort still more astonishing; to another he murmured a hasty account of a grand dinner that had taken place the day before, where twenty-seven gentlemen had got up all at once to demand an extra cheer for the lion; and to the ladies he made sundry promises of interceding to procure the majestic brute’s sign manual* for their albums. Then there were little private consultations in different corners, relative to the personal appearance and stature of the lion; whether he was shorter than they had expected to see him, or taller, or thinner, or fatter, or younger, or older; whether he was like his portrait, or unlike it; and whether the particular shade of his eyes was black, or blue, or hazel, or green, or yellow, or mixture. At all these consultations the keeper assisted – and, in short, the lion was the sole and single subject of discussion till they sat him down to whist, and then the people relapsed into their old topics of conversation – themselves and each other.

  We must confess that we looked forward with no slight impatience to the announcement of supper; for if you wish to see a tame lion under particularly favourable circumstances, feeding time is the period of all others to pitch upon. We were therefore very much delighted to observe a sensation among the guests, which we well knew how to interpret, and immediately afterwards to behold the lion escorting the lady of the house downstairs. We offered our arm to an elderly female of our acquaintance, who – dear old soul! – is the very best person that ever lived, to lead down to any meal; for, be the room ever so small, or the party ever so large, she is sure, by some intuitive perception of the eligible, to push and pull herself and conductor close to the best dishes on the table; we say we offered our arm to this elderly female and, descending the stairs shortly after the lion, were fortunate enough to obtain a seat nearly opposite him.

  Of course the keeper was there already. He had planted himself at precisely that distance from his charge which afforded him a decent pretext for raising his voice, when he addressed him, to so loud a key as could not fail to attract the attention of the whole company, and immediately began to apply himself seriously to the task of bringing the lion out, and putting him through the whole of his manoeuvres. Such flashes of wit as he elicited from the lion! First of all, they began to make puns upon a salt cellar, and then upon the breast of a fowl, and then upon the trifle; but the best jokes of all were decidedly on the lobster salad, upon which latter subject the lion came out most vigorously and, in the opinion of the most competent authorities, quite outshone himself. This is a very excellent mode of shining in society, and is founded, we humbly conceive, upon the classic model of the dialogues between Mr Punch and his friend the proprietor, wherein the latter takes all the uphill work and is content to pioneer to the jokes and repartees of Mr P. himself, who never fails to gain great credit and excite much laughter thereby. Whatever it be founded on, however, we recommend it to all lions, present and to come; for in this instance it succeeded to admiration, and perfectly dazzled the whole body of hearers.

  When the salt cellar, and the fowl’s breast, and the trifle, and the lobster salad were all exhausted, and could not afford standing room for another solitary witticism, the keeper performed that very dangerous feat which is still done with some of the caravan lions, although in one instance it terminated fatally, of putting his head in the animal’s mouth and placing himself entirely at its mercy. Boswell* frequently presents a melancholy instance of the lamentable results of this achievement, and other keepers and jackals have been terribly lacerated for their daring. It is due to our lion to state that he condescended to be trifled with, in the most gentle manner, and finally went home with the showman in a hack cab:* perfectly peaceable, but slightly fuddled.

  Being in a contemplative mood, we were led to make some reflections upon the character and conduct of this genus of lions as we walked homewards, and we were not long in arriving at the conclusion that our former impression in their favour was very much strengthened and confirmed by what we had recently seen. While the other lions receive company and compliments in a sullen, moody, not to say snarling manner, these appear flattered by the attentions that are paid them; while those conceal themselves to the utmost of their power from the vulgar gaze, these court the popular eye and, unlike their brethren, whom nothing short of compulsion will move to exertion, are ever ready to display their acquirements to the wondering throng. We have known bears of undoubted ability who, when the expectations of a large audience have been wound up to the utmost pitch, have peremptorily refused to dance; well-taught monkeys who have unaccountably objected to exhibit on the slack wire; and elephants of unquestioned genius who have suddenly declined to turn the barrel organ; but we never once knew or heard of a biped lion, literary or otherwise – and we state it as a fact which is highly creditable to the whole species – who, occasion offering, did not seize with avidity on any opportunity which was afforded him of performing to his heart’s content on the first violin.

  Mr Robert Bolton, the “Gentleman

  Connected with the Press”

  In the parlour of the Green Dragon, a public house in the immediate neighbourhood of Westminster Bridge, everybody talks politics, every evening, the great political authority being Mr Robert Bolton, an individual who defines himself as “a gentleman connected with the press”, which is a definition of peculiar indefiniteness. Mr Robert Bolton’s regular circle of admirers and listeners are an undertaker, a greengrocer, a hairdresser, a baker, a large stomach surmounted by a man’s head, and placed on the top of two particularly short legs, and a thin man in black, name, profession and pursuit unknown, who always sits in the same position, always displays the same long, vacant face, and never opens his lips, surrounded as he is by most enthusiastic conversation, except to puff forth a volume of tobacco smoke or give vent to a very snappy, loud and shrill hem! The conversation sometimes turns upon literature, Mr Bolton being a literary character, and always upon such news of the day as is exclusively possessed by that talented individual. I found myself (of course, accidentally) in the Green Dragon the other eveni
ng and, being somewhat amused by the following conversation, preserved it.

  “Can you lend me a ten-pound note till Christmas?” enquired the hairdresser of the stomach.

  “Where’s your security, Mr Clip?”

  “My stock-in-trade – there’s enough of it, I’m thinking, Mr Thicknesse. Some fifty wigs, two poles, half a dozen head blocks and a dead bruin.”

  “No, I won’t, then,” growled out Thicknesse. “I lends nothing on the security of the Whigs* or the Poles either. As for Whigs, they’re cheats; as for the Poles, they’ve got no cash. I never have nothing to do with blockheads, unless I can’t awoid it (ironically), and a dead bear’s about as much use to me as I could be to a dead bear.”

  “Well, then,” urged the other, “there’s a book as belonged to Pope, Byron’s Poems,* valued at forty pounds, because it’s got Pope’s identical scratch on the back; what do you think of that for security?”

  “Well, to be sure!” cried the baker. “But how d’ye mean, Mr Clip?”

  “Mean! Why, that it’s got the hottergruff of Pope.

  “Steal not this book, for fear of hangman’s rope;

  For it belongs to Alexander Pope.

  “All that’s written on the inside of the binding of the book; so, as my son says, we’re bound to believe it.”

  “Well, sir,” observed the undertaker, deferentially, and in a half-whisper, leaning over the table, and knocking over the hairdresser’s grog as he spoke, “that argument’s very easy upset.”

  “Perhaps, sir,” said Clip, a little flurried, “you’ll pay for the first upset afore you thinks of another.”

  “Now,” said the undertaker, bowing amicably to the hairdresser, “I think, I says I think – you’ll excuse me, Mr Clip, I think, you see, that won’t go down with the present company – unfortunately, my master had the honour of making the coffin of that ’ere Lord’s housemaid, not no more nor twenty year ago. Don’t think I’m proud on it, gentlemen; others might be; but I hate rank of any sort. I’ve no more respect for a lord’s footman than I have for any respectable tradesman in this room. I may say no more nor I have for Mr Clip! (Bowing.) Therefore, that ’ere lord must have been born long after Pope died. And it’s a logical interference to defer, that they neither of them lived at the same time. So what I mean is this here, that Pope never had no book, never seed, felt, never smelt no book (triumphantly) as belonged to that ’ere Lord. And, gentlemen, when I consider how patiently you have ’eared the ideas what I have expressed, I feel bound, as the best way to reward you for the kindness you have exhibited, to sit down without saying anything more – partickler as I perceive a worthier visitor nor myself is just entered. I am not in the habit of paying compliments, gentlemen; when I do, therefore, I hope I strikes with double force.”