The night was stormy and dark, The town was shut up in sleep: Only those were abroad who were out on a lark, Or those who’d no beds to keep. I pass’d through the lonely street, The wind did sing and blow; I could hear the policeman’s feet Clapping to and fro. There stood a […]

With ganial foireThransfuse me loyre,Ye sacred nymphths of Pindus,The whoile I singThat wondthrous thingThe Palace made o’ windows! Say, Paxton, truth,Thou wondthrous youth,What sthroke of art celistialWhat power was lintYou to invintThis combineetion cristial O would beforeThat Thomas MooreLikewoise the late Lord Boyron,Thim aigles sthrongOf Godlike song,Cast oi on that cast oiron! And saw thim […]

Come, all ye Christian people, and listen to my tail,It is all about a Doctor was traveling by the rail,By the Heastern Counties Railway (vich the shares don’t desire),From Ixworth town in Suffolk, vich his name did not transpire. A traveling from Bury this Doctor was employedWith a gentleman, a friend of his, vich his […]

[Footnote: The Birth of Prince Arthur]BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE FOOT-GUARDS (BLUE).W. MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. I paced upon my beatWith steady step and slow,All huppandownd of Ranelagh-street;Ran’lagh, St. Pimlico. While marching huppandowndUpon that fair May morn,Beold the booming cannings sound,A royal child is born! The Ministers of StateThen presnly I sor,They gallops to the Pallis gate,In […]

Galliant gents and lovely ladies,List a tail vich late befel,Vich I heard it, bein on duty,At the Pleace Hoffice, Clerkenwell. Praps you know the Fondling Chapel,Vere the little children sings:(Lord I likes to hear on SundiesThem there pooty little things!) In this street there lived a housemaid,If you particklarly ask me where–Vy, it was at […]

An igstrawnary tail I vill tell you this veek–I stood in the Court of A’Beckett the Beak,Vere Mrs. Jane Roney, a vidow, I see,Who charged Mary Brown with a robbin’ of she. This Mary was pore and in misery once,And she came to Mrs. Roney it’s more than twelve monceShe adn’t got no bed, nor […]

A NEW PALLICE COURT CHANT. One sees in Viteall Yard,Vere pleacemen do resort.A wenerable hinstitute,‘Tis called the Pallis CourtA gent as got his i on it,I think will make some sport The natur of this CourtMy hindignation riles:A few fat legal spidersHere set & spin their viles;To rob the town theyr privlege is,In a hayrea […]

OF THE LOVES OF MR. PERKINS AND MISS GORGON, AND OF THE TWO GREAT FACTIONS IN THE TOWN OF OLDBOROUGH. “My dear John,” cried Lucy, with a very wise look indeed, “it must and shall be so. As for Doughty Street, with our means, a house is out of the question. We must keep three […]

JANUARY.–THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR. Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has really happened to him in this mortal life, he would be sure to make a good book, though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to his burial. How much more, then, must […]

I.–ON THE DISINTERMENT OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA. MY DEAR —-,–It is no en the Voyage from St. Helena asy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction […]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE. MR. HORACE MILLIKEN, a Widower, a wealthy City Merchant. GEORGE MILLIKEN, a Child, his Son. CAPTAIN TOUCHIT, his Friend. CLARENCE KICKLEBURY, brother to Milliken’s late Wife. JOHN HOWELL, M’s Butler and confidential Servant. CHARLES PAGE, Foot-boy. BULKELEY, Lady Kicklebury’s Servant. MR. BONNINGTON. Coachman, Cabman; a Bluecoat Boy, another Boy (Mrs. Prior’s Sons). LADY […]

BY MR. M. A. TITMARSH PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION: BEING AN ESSAY ON THUNDER AND SMALL BEER. Any reader who may have a fancy to purchase a copy of this present edition of the “History of the Kickleburys Abroad,” had best be warned in time, that the Times newspaper does not approve of the […]

At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne’s reign, when I was a boy at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one by one […]

I Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of your Blind Bard (to whose sightless orbs no doubt Glorious Shapes were apparent, and Visions Celestial), how Adam discourses to Eve of the Bright Visitors who hovered round their Eden– ‘Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth, Unseen, both when we wake […]

Christmas is here: Winds whistle shrill, Icy and chill, Little care we: Little we fear Weather without Sheltered about The Mahogany-Tree. Once on the boughs Birds of rare plume Sang, in its bloom; Night-birds are we: Here we carouse, Singing like them, Perched round the stem Of the jolly old tree. Here let us sport, […]

The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling to the prompter’s bell; A moment yet the actor stops And looks around to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And, when he’s laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that’s anything but gay. One word […]

THE MULLIGAN (OF BALLYMULLIGAN), AND HOW WE WENT TO MRS. PERKINS’S BALL. I do not know where Ballymulligan is, and never knew anybody who did. Once I asked the Mulligan the question, when that chieftain assumed a look of dignity so ferocious, and spoke of “Saxon curiawsitee” in a tone of such evident displeasure, that, […]

Our street, from the little nook which I occupy in it, and whence I and a fellow-lodger and friend of mine cynically observe it, presents a strange motley scene. We are in a state of transition. We are not as yet in the town, and we have left the country, where we were when I […]

THE DOCTOR AND HIS STAFF. There is no need to say why I became assistant-master and professor of the English and French languages, flower-painting, and the German flute, in Doctor Birch’s Academy, at Rodwell Regis. Good folks may depend on this, that it was not for CHOICE that I left lodgings near London, and a […]

Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself somewhat above water–fighting for reputation, […]