Читать книгу The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 282, November 10, 1827 - Various - Страница 3
Architectural Illustrations
ANTICIPATED FRENCH MILLENNIUM, OR THE PARISIAN "TRIVIA."
Оглавление(For the Mirror.)
"Travellers of that rare tribe, Who've seen the countries they describe."
HANNAH MORE.
When daudling diligences drag
Their lumbering length along2 no more—
That odd anomaly!—or wag
Gon call'd, or coach—a misnomer3—
That Cerberus three-bodied! and
That Cerberus of music!
Such rattle with their nine-in-hand!
O, Cerbere, an tu sic?
When this, (and of Long Acre wits
To rival this would floor some!)
When this at last the Frenchman quits.
Then! then is the age d'or come!
When coxcomb waiters know their trade,
Nor mix their sauces4 with cookey's;
When John's no longer chamber maid,
And printed well a book is.
When sorrel, garlic, dirty knife,
Et cetera, spoil no dinners—
(The punishment is after life,
Are cooks to punish sinners?)
When bucks are safe, nor streets display
A sea Mediterranean;5
When Cloacina wends her way
In streamlet sub-terranean.
When houses, inside well as out,
Are clean,6 and servants civil;7
When dice (if e'er 'twill be I doubt)
Send fewer—to the devil.
When riot ends, and comfort reigns,
Right English comfort8—players
Are fetter'd with no rhythmic9 chains—
French priests repeat French prayers.10
When Palais Royal vice subsides,11
(Who plays there's a complete ass—)
When footpaths grow on highway sides12—
Then! then's the Aurea-Ætas!
There, France, I leave thee.—Jean Taureau!13
What think'st thou of thy neighbours?
Or (what I own I'd rather know)
What—think'st thou of MY LABOURS?
A TRAVELLER OF 1827, (W. P.)
Carshalton.
2
"Which, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along"—POPE.
3
It is, indeed, difficult to avoid one, call it what you will, and quite as difficult to find a more absurd name than that adopted, unless, indeed, (why the machine goes but five miles an hour,) it is called a diligence from not being diligent, as the speaker of our House of Commons may be so designated from not speaking. It consists of three bodies, carries eighteen inside, and is not unfrequently drawn by nine horses. A cavalry charge, therefore, could scarcely make more noise. Hence, and from the other circumstance, its association in the second stanza with the triune sonorous Cerberus. A diligence indeed!
4
The intrusive garrulity of French waiters at dinner is notorious.
5
This "sea Mediterranean" is a most filthy, fetid, uncovered gutter, running down the middle of the most, even of the best streets, and with which every merciless Jehu most liberally bespatters the unhappy pedestrian. Truly la belle nation has little idea of decency, or there would be subterranean sewers like ours.
6
French houses are cleaner even than ours externally, being all neatly whitewashed! mais le dedans! le dedans!
7
The servants are as notorious for their incivility as for their intrusive loquacity.
8
As Scott well observes in the introduction to Waverley, "the word comfortable is peculiar to the English language." The thing is certainly peculiar to us, if the word is not.
9
All the tragedies are in rhyme, and that of the very worst description for elocutionary effect. It is the anapestic, like, as Hannah More remarks, "A cobbler there was, and he lived in a stall!"
10
It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the absurdity (exploded in England at the Reformation) of a Latin liturgy still obtains in France.
11
The Palais Royal! that pandemonium of profligacy! whose gaming tables have eternally ruined so many of our countrymen! So many, that he who, unwarned by their sad experience, plays at them, is—is he not?—"complete ass."
12
There are none, even in the leading streets; our ambassador's, for instance.
13
As the Etoile lately translated John Bull. "When John's no longer chamber-maid." Of the propria quæ maribus of French domestic economy, this is not the least amusing feature. At my hotel (in Rue St. Honoré) there was a he bed-maker; and I do believe the anomalous animal is not uncommon.
"When printed well a book is."
Both paper and types are very inferior to ours. But that I respect the editor's modesty, I would say it were not easy to find a periodical in Paris, at once so handsomely and economically got up as—this MIRROR.
