Merrie England in the Olden Time, Vol. 2Daniel, George
History
Merrie England in the Olden Time, Vol. 2
Daniel, George
England -- Social life and customs
Opening the bundle, and selecting at random, he bespoke the company's
attention to a fragment of
“THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BONASSUS, OR THE BIGSTICK MEMOIRS.”
“All the world's a caravan! and all the gentlemen and ladies Lions
and Tigresses! For if a man be neither dwarf nor giant, but an unhappy
medium between the two--if he be not upon boxing terms with a whole
menagerie, and will not fisty-cuff-it and roar for an engagement,
dam'me! he may whistle for one!”
Mr. Bigstick paused, glared ghastly terrible and ghostly grim.
“Yes, I'm too tall for a wonderful monkey, and too good-natured for an
intelligent bull-dog. I can't drink sangaree out of my father's skull,
nor beat the big drum with the bones of my grandmother!”
He then, after taking a deep draught at the mum, resumed his narrative.
“I was articled to the law, and Pump Court was the pabulum where I began
to qualify myself for Lord Chancellor. But fearful is the dramatic furor
of attorney's clerks. My passion was not for bills of costs, but for
bills of the play; I longed to draw, not leases, but audiences; as for
pleas, my ambition was to please the town; and I cared nothing for Coke,
while Shakspere's muse of fire warmed my imagination! Counsellor Cumming
soon found his clerk going. I quitted the Court, leaving my solitary
competitor the Pump to spout alone.”
A personable fellow * (for whom any lady might be proud to jump into the
Serpentine, the jury finding a verdict of manslaughter against my good
looks, with a deodand of five shillings on my whiskers! ) 'I left
my father's house, and took with me'--as much wardrobe as I could
conveniently carry ow, and behind my back.
* A very different looking personage to Mr. Bigstick must
have been the unhappy young gentleman, aged twenty-two, (see
the “Times” 21st March, 1835,) who killed himself by poison,
and left this letter upon his table:--
“I die a Catholic--I leave my mortal remains to my father
and mother, regretting that they should have allowed the
growth and development of a creature of so disagreeable a
conformation as their son. Endowed with the most exquisite
feelings, my face has always frightened the fair sex. I go
to seek in Heaven a society which my aspect will not annoy;
for I imagine that, freed from its carnal covering, my
spirit will not dismay the inhabitants of the other world.”
My first professional bow was in the Poor Gentleman, * and Raising the
Wind, in a barn at Leighton Buzzard, where the Gods clambered up to the
gallery by a ladder, through which many of the tippling deities could
hardly see a hole!
* Another link in the dramatic chain is broken. Arthur
Griffinhoof has joined the jocund spirits of Garrick,
Hoadly, and the elder George.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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