the window one of the prints of Milton, More, and Cowley; and turning suddenly round upon crispin, who was slyly reading his features, "Heigh, what is this? Did Pope write these lines ?" "I should be ashamed to utter falsehood to you," said the bookseller. "And why to me?" said the dean, with quickness, suspecting he was known. "Because of your sacred cloth," replied the sagacious crispin, bowing respectfully. "No, sir, Pope did not write them." "Then who did?" demanded the dean. "That I am not bound to confess," answered crispin, smiling. "I could mark the man,' said the dean, looking steadfastly in his face, "Are you not he?" "Mark yourself with the sign of the cross," replied the collected bookseller, "and I perchance may answer." "That is not my custom," said the dean. "Oh ! then I must wait another cargo of confessors from over the water," said said crispin Tucker, "God mend me! you take me, sir." 66 Yes," said the dean, "I'll take you; and I take you for a wicked rogue to boot, to play these tricks with your betters." "Why, reverend sir," said crispin, gaily, "Mister Pope, I'm sure, would laugh at such a frolic." 66 Humph! I'm not sure of that," said the dean. "The devil," said crispin, why so great a man has more wit, sure. Nobody that cares for him would take my scribbling for his: ha, ha, ha! These things do for the chuckle-heads within the walls there ha, ha, ha!" "But I have heard it whispered," said the dean, assuming a severe air, "that Mister Pope talks of setting a lawyer upon your shoulders, and that seriously too." "Does he," said crispin. "Oh then, if he's for that, he shall have a Roland for his Oliver. I'll whip him into my dunciad; yes, he shall have a drive down in the mud with the rest of the pharisees. I'll dub him the water-wag-tail, the dish-washer of Twickenham." 66 66 "Ha, ha, ha, haugh!" laughed Dr. Swift-this was too much to his taste" ha, ha, haugh! I wished to know you, master crispin, and I have found you answer the picture I had drawn ; ha, ha, ha ! I shall tell Pope of this, and he will go hang himself." No, no, he need not fear," said crispin, "I'll not hurt a feather of him; he is too fine a bird to be made dabble in a ditch." "What, then, you admire him, master crispin?" "Admire him! who does not, sir?" Why, he has his enemies," said the dean. "Alas!" replied the bookseller, shaking his head," we writers, the best of us, are subject to envy; us poets are cruelly under-rated in this iron age." Very true," added the dean, in the same dry humour, assuming equal gravity, "but posterity is always just, master crispin." "That is my hope, reverend sir; doubtless I shall be effigied, at full length, in the conventual church, over there (pointing to St. Saviour's), by the side of old John Gower, and then, there our neighbours may behold the first and last of English rhymesters." "Yes," said the dean," he with his confessio amantis, and you with your's-And so you admire 66 Pope?" Aye, sir; and I am happy to hear he is so well paid for his Homer; I am told-you understand me, sir, we always talk of what a man gets by his trade here in the east-I'm told he has made a matter of fifteen or twenty thousand pounds, one way and t'other; God help us! more than any ten of your inspired ones ever made before, from the time of Homer to Colley Cibber. To be sure, his versification is not sent into the world in slouch hat, and slipshod; but I think, God help my poor judgment! that master Dryden knew his business quite as well. Pope, no doubt, is the neatest lapidary, as a body may say-has cut his diamond like a skilful workman; but I like Dryden for all that, his angles are bolder, but he is not so good a jeweller, 'tis not so clean setyou take me. Little Alek sends his work home nicely wrapped in cotton; Dryden, though as good an artist, did his job in a hurry, and sent it home in an old song. Master Johnny, like most other clever fellows, could not wait for his money-worked from hand to mouth-you take me. Ah! so it is in this comical ball; I question but crispin Tucker has made as much on't, the more shame for Apollo, as poor John Dryden; but, as you say, reverend sir, posterity is just, and the good duke* has not only tucked him in, in his marble bed, but set himself to sleep on the foot on't, among the rest of the worthies in Poet's-corner." "Oh! you are a critic, too! better and better! Well, and what iron have you on the anvil now, master crispin? I suppose yours are all ready-money jobs." Pretty well for that, sir; your poets, though they write for credit, should never give it. I've written many a lover's sonnet for a dying swain before marriage, where, if I had not touched the cash on the nail, I might have whistled for it after the honeymoon. So with an epitaph for some sad widower, with broken heart, who would have broken my head six months after, had I dunned for the money. Now look, your reverence, here is a specimen of my employ :-A burley-faced West Indian captain, a crazy, generous, swearing, kind-hearted old reprobate as any that ever lay along-side Bear-key, has slipped his mortal cable, and left his nephew a roaring sum. 'We must have an epithet upon his tomb-stone,' said the topping fish-salesman's wife, hard by, scratch out something praiseworthy-like, for old uncle, as how he was good to poor folks, and so forth. Here is one that is not unlike him in one shape or another, which we've had copied from an old sampler of a monument by the clerk of Cripplegate; but you know best, master crispin; your head is wiser than ours, ten to one; never mind price; we can well afford to * The monument in Westminster Abbey was erected to the memory of this great poet by the duke of Buckingham, who thought so highly of his writings, that no epitaph was necessary to proclaim his fame. Hence the inscription is simply "J. DRYDEN, born 1632, died May 1, 1700. John Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire, erected this monument." The wits of the time used to say it was Dryden and Buckingham's-tomb. There is a bust of the poet on the top of the monument. 2 H pay. These are your patrons, reverend sir; perhaps you'll like to read it?" "Why, I am a bit of a collector of these memorials," said the dean. • If Langley's* life you list to know, Who, whilst he liv'd, with counsell grave, And when he dyed he gave his mite, For ever, once a year, to cloath Saint Giles his poor withal. All-saints he 'pointed for the day, Gowns twenty, ready made, With twenty shirts, and twenty smocks, As they may best be had. that wherry of fellowship-porterst a month to measure," (pointing through the window at a boat-load of those licensed labourers crossing the Thames with their Winchester pecks and shovels). The dean laughed at the comical aptitude of the comparison." You are a merry in all styles then?" "Yes, your wag, master crispin; so you write reverence, all come in their turn -heroic, satiric, didactic, elegiac, pastoral, and lyric; I manufacture from the epic down to the doggerel." "What, then, you hire occasionally? You can hold a poor devil of an author, out of case, now and then to be a job? How much do you screw out by the sheet? What, are you liberal, master crispin ?” "I have no objection to try my luck with you, reverend sir, you shall see if I am a city hunx. Do you never court the muses ?" Sign yourself with the cross," said the dean. "'Tis not my custom," replied the bookseller. 66 "Nor mine to confess," said the dean, so, master crispin, now we are quits." "You may think me bold, your reverence," said crispin, "but I was never more mistaken if you be not a poet—and no mean one neither; you have all the lines in your face," eyeing the dean very archly. The * From an old monument in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, set up in memory of Charles Langley, an ale-brewer, in 1601. He was great, great uncle of the old captain, on the mother's side. + Of the few objects that remind one of old times, is a wherry-load of fellowshipporters, crossing to and from their work, about this spot. "I'd be sworn," said Caleb Whiteford, "either that these men live to the age of the patriarchs, or else hat, coat, waistcoat, breeches, buckles, shoes, shovel, and measure, were heirlooms with the quaker-looking fraternity." dean laughed, "O crispin! crispin!"* said he, "that name savours of the craft; † are you a cordwainer, ‡ man?" "Yes, by birth, not by servitude, your reverence-and now I perceive you are skilled in the calling, and want to make a pump of me. 66 Good," said the dean, (caught in the punning snare), "but what boots it that you and I stand idling here." "Your most humble and respectful servant to command," said the lively bookseller, lowly bowing, "I perceive, you can endure a pun for all your sacred cloth. There's the parson of St. Saviour's, I've lost his favour, by committing that peccadillo one day when he walked into my shop." "More fool he," said the dean, "what, he waxed wrath, did he, master crispin cordwainer." "Yes, sir," answered the bookseller, "if he had half the learning of the dean of St. Patrick, or a quarter of his tolerance, or a tythe of his wit, he would not excommunicate for such a small sin." Dr. Swift, smiled-" Why, what do know of him, man?" you Enough to know his reverence again, if he should ever be pleased to honour my humble "Oh! dwelling another time." Oh! what you have found me out, then, master crispin. Well, my honest cordwainer, the fates have decreed, I suppose, being both of the same craft, that we should know each other; you are a merry sole, and perchance I may call and chat with you another day. But you must not talk of this; mind, silence is the word!" "This is a favour I could never expect," said the delighted crispin, "O'ds my life, I'd have gone barefooted all the way to the Holy-land for such a meetings: I hope, reverend sir, you'll pardon my boldness, but am amazing proud of such a guest." I "Well, well! as one of the craft, I'll be bound you can keep a secret, crispin." The bookseller bowed. "So can I, said the dean, Iso mind, our motto is silence, and I have an affair that you can assist me in. Did you ever hear of the learned wights at Button's?" "Yes, your reverence," "Well, then, let's to business, now the lodge is tiled in. You are a free mason, I suppose, bro"No, ther crispin." sir." "What! a gormagon ?"§ 66 No, sir." Why what the deuce art then? aye, man! are you one of *St. Crispin is the tutelar saint of the shoemakers, who usually make merry on his anniversary, the 25th of October. Hence the old adage, "The twenty-fifth of October, More snobs drunk than sober." The ancient company of cobblers, (now termed shoemakers,) were called members of the craft. Shoemakers'-hall, or cordwainers'-hall, from cordonnier. § A famous bucks' lodge, the Gormagons, in the beginning of the last century. Vide.-Hogarth's scarce and highly humourous etching of making a Gormagon. morn. Oh! the fun and frolic of that memorable night beats all upon record. I can give you, besides us residents, a list of the warm ones from the neighbouring wards, who desired to be invited. It will be something for our ancestors in future times to talk about,' said old Joe Wilson, f the wine-cooper of Pudding lane, and a devilish deal pleasanter thing for our great grandchildren to read, than that unchristian stone stuck against my house. Yes!' said he, 'I warrant me it will come out in some history of England, that a million of money drank their punch in the middle of old London-bridge.' "§ the hums?" No, sir." "No! day "And what is the stone the old wine-cooper alludes to," said the dean. Oh; I dare say mister Pope can inform you, sir,' said crispin, "for he is mortal angry about the inscription, which is not half so severe, on the base of the monument, hard by.” || “I never heard of this stone," said the dean. "It is * The society of the hums, established about the same period; both in ridicule of free masonry. See Loitard's long print of the procession of the miserable scald masons. + The society of Free Sawyers, a society of bucks, who pretended to high an tiquity. Their symbol was a silver trowel, and the motto, “ Let it work.” Joseph Wilson, wine-cooper, resided many years in this house, on the site of which, commenced the fire of 1666. The site is measured (on the east side of Pudding-lane) 202 feet due east of the Monument, that, too, being the height of the column. On the belly of the carved figure of a naked boy, near Smithfield, is an inscription which records, "This city was burnt through the dreadful sin of gluttony." I could never discover why. Did our fore-fathers set this up as a pun since the fire began at Pudding-lane, and ended at Pie-corner, where the specimen of city sculpture is placed? The inscription has been newly painted, of late. § This convivial meeting was held on London-bridge, in the month of April, 1722. || “ Where London's column, pointing at the skies; Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies."-POPE'S SIR BALAAM. This inscription, so offensive to Pope, had been obliterated during the reign of James II. After the revolution, it was restored, and cut very deep in the Monument, as it now remains. |