that rubbed away the bitter tears at night after parting as the
coach sped on the journey to school and London; that looked out
with beating heart as the milestones flew by, for the welcome
corner where began home and holidays.
It is night now: and here is home. Gathered under the quiet
roof elders and children lie alike at rest. In the midst of a
great peace and calm, the stars look out from the heavens. The
silence is peopled with the past; sorrowful remorses for sins
and shortcomings -- memories of passionate joys and griefs rise
out of their graves, both now alike calm and sad. Eyes, as I
shut mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. The town
and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathed in the
autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses a light keeps watch
here and there, in what may be a sick chamber or two. The clock
tolls sweetly in the silent air. Here is night and rest. An
awful sense of thanks makes the heart swell, and the head bow, as
I pass to my room through the sleeping house, and feel as though
a hushed blessing were upon it.
ROUND ABOUT THE CHRISTMAS TREE
The kindly Christmas tree, from which I trust every gentle reader
has pulled out a bonbon or two, is yet all aflame whilst I am
writing, and sparkles with the sweet fruits of its season. You
young ladies, may you have plucked pretty giftlings from it; and
out of the cracker sugar-plum which you have split with the
captain or the sweet young curate may you have read one of those
delicious conundrums which the confectioners introduce into the
sweetmeats, and which apply to the cunning passion of love.
Those riddles are to be read at your age, when I daresay they are
amusing. As for Dolly, Merry, and Bell, who are standing at the
tree, they don't care about the love-riddle part, but understand
the sweet-almoned portion very well. They are four, five, six
years old. Patience, little people! A dozen merry Christmases
more, and you will be reading those wonderful love-conundrums,
too. As for us elderly folks, we watch the babies at their
sport, and the young people pulling at the branches: and instead
of finding bonbons or sweeties in the packets which we pluck off
the boughs, we find enclosed Mr Carnifex's review of the
quarter's meat; Mr Sartor's compliments, and little statement
for self and the young gentlemen; and Madame de Sainte-
Crinoline's respects to the young ladies, who encloses her
account, and will sent on Saturday, please; or we stretch our
hand out to the educational branch of the Christmas tree, and
there find a lively and amusing article from the Rev. Henry
Holyshade, containing our dear Tommy's exceedingly moderate
account for the last term's school expenses.
The tree yet sparkles, I say. I am writing on the day before
Twelfth Day, if you must know; but already ever so many of the
fruits have been pulled, and the Christmas lights have gone out.
Bobby Miseltow, who has been staying with us for a week (and who
has been sleeping mysteriously in the bath-room), comes to say he
is going away to spend the rest of the holidays with his
grandmother -- and I brush away the manly tear of regret as I
part with the dear child. "Well, Bob, good-bye, since you will
go. Compliments to grandmamma. Thank her for the turkey.
Here's ----" (A slight pecuniary transaction takes place at this
juncture, and Bob nods and winks, and puts his hand in his
waistcoat pocket.) "You have had a pleasant week?"
Bob. -- "Haven't I!" (And exit, anxious to know the amount of the
coin which has just changed hands.)
He is gone, and as the dear boy vanishes through the door (behind
which I see him perfectly), I too cast up a little account of our
past Christmas week. When Bob's holidays are over, and the
printer has sent me back this manuscript, I know Christmas will
be an old story. All the fruit will be off the Christmas tree
then; the crackers will have cracked off; the almonds will have
been crunched; and the sweet-bitter riddles will have been read;
the lights will have perished off the dark green boughs; the
toys growing on them will have been distributed, fought for,
cherished, neglected, broken. Ferdinand and Fidelia will each
keep out of it (be still, my gushing heart!) the remembrance of a
riddle read together, of a double almond munched together, and of
the moiety of an exploded cracker.... The maids, I say, will have
taken down all that holly stuff and nonsense about the clocks,
lamps, and looking-glasses, the dear boys will be back at school,
fondly thinking of the pantomime fairies whom they have seen;
whose gaudy gossamer wings are battered by this time; and whose
pink cotton (or silk is it?) lower extremities are all dingy and
dusty. Yet but a few days, Bob, and flakes of paint will have
cracked off the fairy flower-bowers, and the revolving temples of
adamantine lustre will be as shabby as the city of Pekin. When
you read this, will Clown still be going on lolling his tongue
out of his mouth, and saying, "How are you to-morrow?" To-
morrow, indeed! He must be almost ashamed of himself (if that
cheek is still capable of the blush of shame) for asking the
absurd question. To-morrow, indeed! To-morrow the diffugient
snows will give place to spring; the snowdrops will lift their
heads; Ladyday may be expected, and the pecuniary duties
peculiar to that feast; in place of bonbons, trees will have an
eruption of light green knobs; the whitebait season will
bloom ... as if one need go on describing these vernal phenomena,
when Christmas is still here, though ending, and the subject of
my discourse!
We have all admired the illustrated papers, and noted how
boisterously jolly they become at Christmas time. What wassail-
bowls, robin-redbreasts, waits, snow landscapes, bursts of
Christmas song! And then to think that these festivities are
prepared months before -- that these Christmas pieces are
prophetic! How kind of artists and poets to devise the
festivities beforehand, and serve them pat at the proper time!
We ought to be grateful to them, as to the cook who gets up at
midnight and sets the pudding a-boiling, which is to feast us at
six o'clock. I often think with gratitude of the famous Mr
Nelson Lee -- the author of I don't know how many hundred
glorious pantomimes -- walking by the summer wave at Margate, or
Brighton perhaps, revolving in his mind the idea of some new
gorgeous spectacle of faery, which the winter shall see complete.
He is like cook at midnight (si parva licet). He watches and
thinks. He pounds the sparkling sugar of benevolence, the plums
of fancy, the sweetmeats of fun, the figs of -- well, the figs of
fairy fiction, let us say, and pops the whole in the seething
cauldron of imagination, and at due season serves up the
Pantomime.
Very few men in the course of nature can expect to see all the
shall never forego reading about them in that delicious sheet of
The Times which appears on the morning after Boxing-day. Perhaps
reading is even better than seeing. The best way, I think, is to
say you are ill, lie in bed, and have the paper for two hours,
reading all the way down from Drury Lane to the Britannia at
Hoxton. Bob and I went to two pantomimes. One was at the
Theatre of Fancy, and the other at the Fairy Opera, and I don't
know which we liked the best.
At the Fancy, we saw "Harlequin Hamlet, or Daddy's Ghost and
Nunky's Pison," which is all very well -- but, gentlemen, if you
don't respect Shakspeare, to whom will you be civil? The palace
and ramparts of Elsinore by moon and snowlight is one of
Loutherbourg's finest efforts. The banqueting hall of the palace
is illuminated: the peaks and gables glitter with the snow: the
sentinels march blowing their fingers with the cold -- the
freezing of the nose of one of them is very neatly and
dexterously arranged: the snow storm rises: the winds howl
awfully along the battlements: the waves come curling, leaping,
foaming to shore. Hamlet's umbrella is whirled away in the
storm. He and his two friends stamp on each other's toes to keep
them warm. The storm-spirits rise in the air, and are whirled
howling round the palace and the rocks. My eyes! what tiles and
chimney-pots fly hurtling through the air! As the storm reaches
its height (here the wind instruments come in with prodigious
effect, and I compliment Mr Brumby and the violoncellos) -- as
the snow storm rises (queek, queek, queek, go the fiddles, and
then thrumpty thrump comes a pizzicato movement in Bob Major,
which sends a shiver into your very boot-soles), the thunder-
clouds deepen (bong, bong, bong, from the violoncellos). The
forked lightning quivers through the clouds in a zig-zag scream
of violins -- and look, look, look! as the frothing, roaring
waves come rushing up the battlements, and over the reeling
parapet, each hissing wave becomes a ghost, sends the gun-
carriages rolling over the platform, and plunges into the water
again.
Hamlet's mother comes on to the battlements to look for her son.
The storm whips her umbrella out of her hands, and she retires
screaming in pattens.
The cabs on the stand in the great market-place at Elsinore are
seen to drive off, and several people are drowned. The gas-lamps
along the street are wrenched from their foundations, and shoot
through the troubled air. Whist, rush, hish! how the rain roars
and pours! The darkness becomes awful, always deepened by the
power of the music -- and see -- in the midst of a rush, and
whirl, and scream of spirits of air and wave -- what is that
ghastly figure moving hither? It becomes bigger, bigger, as it
advances down the platform -- more ghastly, more horrible,
enormous! It is as tall as the whole stage. It seems to be
advancing on the stalls and pit, and the whole house screams with
terror, as the Ghost of the Late Hamlet comes in, and begins to
speak. Several people faint, and the light-fingered gentry pick
pockets furiously in the darkness.
In the pitchy darkness, this awful figure throwing his eyes
about, the gas in the boxes shuddering out of sight, and the
wind-instruments bugling the most horrible wails, the boldest
spectator must have felt frightened. But hark! what is that
silver shimmer of the fiddles? Is it -- can it be -- the grey
dawn peeping in the stormy east? The ghost's eyes look blankly
towards it, and roll a ghastly agony. Quicker, quicker ply the
violins of Phoebus Apollo. Redder, redder grow the orient
clouds. Cockadoodledoo! crows that great cock which has just
come out on the roof of the palace. And now the round sun
himself pops up from behind the waves of night. Where is the
ghost? He is gone! Purple shadows of morn "slant o'er the snowy
sward," the city wakes up in life and sunshine, and we confess we
are very much relieved at the disappearance of the ghost. We
don't like those dark scenes in pantomimes.
After the usual business, that Ophelia should be turned into
Columbine was to be expected; but I confess I was a little
shocked when Hamlet's mother became Pantaloon, and was instantly
knocked down by Clown Claudius. Grimaldi is getting a little old
now, but for real humour there are few clowns like him. Mr
Shuter, as the gravedigger, was chaste and comic, as he always
is, and the scene-painters surpassed themselves.
"Harlequin Conqueror and the Field of Hastings," at the other
house, is very pleasant too. The irascible William is acted with
great vigour by Snoxall, and the battle of Hastings is a good
piece of burlesque. Some trifling liberties are taken with
history, but what liberties will not the merry genius of
pantomime permit himself? At the battle of Hastings, William is
on the point of being defeated by the Sussex volunteers, very
elegantly led by the always pretty Miss Waddy (as Haco
Sharpshooter), when a shot from the Normans kills Harold. The
Fairy Edith hereupon comes forward, and finds his body, which
straightway leaps up a live harlequin, whilst the Conqueror makes
an excellent clown, and the Archbishop of Bayeux a diverting
pantaloon, &c. &c. &c.
Perhaps these are not the pantomimes we really saw; but one
description will do as well as another. The plots, you see, are
a little intricate and difficult to understand in pantomimes;
and I may have mixed up one with another. That I was at the
theatre on Boxing-night is certain -- but the pit was so full
that I could only see fairy legs glittering in the distance, as I
stood at the door. And if I was badly off, I think there was a
young gentleman behind me worse off still. I own that he has
good reason (though others have not) to speak ill of me behind my
back, and hereby beg his pardon.
Likewise to the gentleman who picked up a party in Piccadilly,
who had slipped and fallen in the snow, and was there on his
back, uttering energetic expressions: that party begs to offer
thanks, and compliments of the season.
Bob's behaviour on New Year's day, I can assure Dr Holyshade, was
highly creditable to the boy. He had expressed a determination
to partake of every dish which was put on the table; but after
soup, fish, roast-beef, and roast-goose, he retired from active
business until the pudding and mince-pies made their appearance,
of which he partook liberally, but not too freely. And he
greatly advanced in my good opinion by praising the punch, which
was of my own manufacture, and which some gentlemen present (Mr
O'M--g--n, amongst others) pronounced to be too weak. Too weak!
A bottle of rum, a bottle of Madeira, half a bottle of brandy,
and two bottles and a half of water -- can this mixture be said
to be too weak for any mortal? Our
young friend amused the
company during the evening, by exhibiting a two-shilling magic-
lantern, which he had purchased, and likewise by singing "Sally,
come up!" a quaint, but rather monotonous melody, which I am told
is sung by the poor negro on the banks of the broad Mississippi.
What other enjoyments did we proffer for the child's amusement
during the Christmas week? A great philosopher was giving a
lecture to young folks at the British Institution. But when this
diversion was proposed to our young friend Bob, he said,
"Lecture? No, thank you. Not as I knows on," and made sarcastic
signals on his nose. Perhaps he is of Dr Johnson's opinion about
lectures: "Lectures, sir! what man would go to hear that
imperfectly at a lecture, which he can read at leisure in a
book?" I never went, of my own choice, to a lecture; that I can
vow. As for sermons, they are different; I delight in them, and
they cannot, of course, be too long.
Well, we partook of yet other Christmas delights besides
pantomime, pudding, and pie. One glorious, one delightful, one
most unlucky and pleasant day, we drove in a brougham, with a
famous horse, which carried us more quickly and briskly than any
of your vulgar railways, over Battersea Bridge, on which the
horse's hoofs rung as if it had been iron; through suburban
villages, plum-caked with snow; under a leaden sky, in which the
sun hung like a red-hot warming-pan; by pond after pond, where
not only men and boys, but scores after scores of women and
girls, were sliding, and roaring, and clapping their lean old
sides with laughter, as they tumbled down, and their hobnailed
shoes flew up in the air; the air frosty with a lilac haze,
through which villas, and commons, and churches, and plantations
glimmered. We drive up the hill, Bob and I; we make the last
two miles in eleven minutes; we pass that poor, armless man who
sits there in the cold, following you with his eyes. I don't
give anything, and Bob looks disappointed. We are set down
neatly at the gate, and a horse-holder opens the brougham door.
I don't give anything; again disappointment on Bob's part. I
pay a shilling apiece, and we enter into the glorious building,
which is decorated for Christmas, and straightway forgetfulness
on Bob's part of everything but that magnificent scene. The
enormous edifice is all decorated for Bob and Christmas. The
stalls, the columns, the fountains, courts, statues, splendours,
are all crowned for Christmas. The delicious negro is singing
his Alabama choruses for Christmas and Bob. He has scarcely
done, when, Tootarootatoo! Mr Punch is performing his surprising
actions, and hanging the beadle. The stalls are decorated. The
refreshment-tables are piled with good things; at many fountains
"Mulled Claret" is written up in appetizing capitals. "Mulled
Claret -- oh, jolly! How cold it is!" says Bob; I pass on.
"It's only three o'clock," says Bob. "No, only three," I say
meekly. "We dine at seven," sighs Bob, "and it's so-o-o coo-
old." I still would take no hints. No claret, no refreshment,
no sandwiches, no sausage-rolls for Bob. At last I am obliged to
tell him all. Just before we left home, a little Christmas bill
popped in at the door and emptied my purse at the threshold. I
forgot all about the transaction, and had to borrow half-a-crown
from John Coachman to pay for our entrance into the palace of
delight. Now you see, Bob, why I could not treat you on that
second of January when we drove to the palace together; when the
girls and boys were sliding on the ponds at Dulwich; when the
darkling river was full of floating ice, and the sun was like a
warming-pan in the leaden sky.
One more Christmas sight we had, of course; and that sight I
think I like as well as Bob himself at Christmas, and at all
seasons. We went to a certain garden of delight, where, whatever
your cares are, I think you can manage to forget some of them,
and muse, and be not unhappy; to a garden beginning with a Z,
which is as lively as Noah's ark; where the fox has brought his
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