Part 6 (1/2)

Here is another Picture, reader mine!

I gave you one in the first Canto;[13]-- This is more solemn, mystical, and fine,-- Like something in the Castle of Otranto.

[13] _Vide_ Part 1st, page 61, lines 4-7.

Bring, bring me, now, a Painter, for the work, Who on the subject will, with furor, rus.h.!.+

Some Artist who can sup upon raw pork, To make him dream of horrors, for his brus.h.!.+

Come, Limners, come! who choke your house's entry With dear, unmeaning lumber, from your easels; Dull heads of the n.o.bility and Gentry; Full length of fubsey Belles, or Beaux like weasels!

Come, Limners, hither come! and draw A finer incident than e'er ye saw!

Here is a John, by moon-light, (a fat monk) Lying stone _dead_; and, here, a Roger, _quick_!

And over John stands Roger, in a funk, Supposing he has kill'd him with a brick!

There, Painters! there!

Now, by Apelles's gamboge, I swear!

Such a dead subject never comes, Among those _lifeless living_ ye display; Then, thro' your palettes thrust your graphick thumbs,-- And work away!

Seeing John dead as a door nail, Roger began to wring his hands, and wail; Calling himself, Beast, Butcher, cruel Turk!

Thrice ”_Benedicite!_” he mutter'd; Thrice, in the eloquence of grief he utter'd; ”I've done a pretty job of journey-work!”

Some people will shew symptoms of repentance When Conscience, like a chastening Angel, smites 'em; Some from mere dread of the Law's sentence, When Newgate, like the very Devil, frights 'em;--

_That_ Virtue's struggles, in the heart, denotes, _This_ Vice's hints, to men's left ears, and throats.

Now Roger's conscience, it appears, Was not, by half, so lively as his fears.

His breast, soon after he was born, Grew like an Hostler's lantern, at an Inn; All the circ.u.mference was dirty horn, And feebly blink'd the ray of warmth within.

In short, for one of his religious function, His Conscience was both cowardly and callous; No melting Cherub whisper'd to't ”Compunction!”

But grim Jack Ketch disturb'd it, crying ”Gallows!”

And all his sorrow, for this deed abhorr'd, Was nothing but antipathy to _cord_.

A padlock'd door stood in the garden wall, Where John, by Roger's brick-bat, chance'd to fall, And Roger had a key that could undo it; Thro' this same door, at any time of day, They brought, into the Convent, corn, and hay;---- Sometimes, at dusk, a pretty girl came thro' it: Just to confess herself, to some grave codger; Perhaps, she came to John,--perhaps, to Roger.

Out at this portal Roger made a s.h.i.+ft To lug his worst of foes: For, seizing (as the gout was wont) his toes, He dragg'd the load he couldn't lift.

Achilles, thus, drew round the Trojan plain, The ten years' Adversary he had slain.--

Yet,--for I scorn a Grecian to disparage,-- Achilles in more style, and splendour, did it; _He_ sported Murder strapp'd behind his carriage,-- But _bourgeois_ Roger sneak'd on foot, and hid it.

Roger, however, labour'd on,-- Puffing and tugging;-- And hauling John, As fishermen, on sh.o.r.e, haul up a boat; Till, after a great deal of lugging, He lugg'd him to the edge of the Knight's moat; And stuck him up so straight upon his rear, Touching, almost, the water, with his heels, That the defunct might pa.s.s, not seen too near, For some fat gentleman who bobb'd for eels.

Swiftly did Roger, then, retrace his ground, Lighter than he came out, by many a pound.

So have I seen, on Marlb'rough downs, a hack, Ease'd of a great man's chaise, and coming back, From Bladud's springs, upon the western road; No bloated n.o.ble's luggage at his rump, Whose doom's, that dread of pick-pockets, the pump, He canters home, from Bath, without his load.

Sir Thomas being scrupulous, and queasy, Couldn't, in all this interval, be easy.