POOR MR. JOB CAUDLE was one of the few men whom Nature, in her casual bounty to women, sends into the world as patient listeners. He was, perhaps, in more respects than one, all ears. And these ears, MRS. CAUDLE- his lawful, wedded wife, as she would ever and anon impress upon him, for she was not a woman to wear chains without shaking them-took whole and sole possession of. They were her entire property; as expressly made to convey to CAUDLE's brain the stream of wisdom that continually flowed from the lips of his wife, as was the tin funnel through which MRS. CAUDLE in vintage time bottled her elder wine. There was, however, this difference between the wisdom and the wine. The wine was always sugared: the wisdom, never. It was expressed crude from the heart of MRS. CAUDLE; who, doubtless, trusted to the sweetness of her husband's disposition to make it agree with him. Philosophers have debated whether morning or night is most conducive to the strongest and clearest moral impressions. The Grecian sage confessed that his labours smelt of the lamp. In like manner, did MRS. CAUDLE's wisdom smell of the rushlight. She knew that her husband was too much distracted by his business as toy-man and doll-merchant to digest her lessons in the broad day. Besides, she could never make sure of him he was always liable to be summoned to the shop. Now from eleven at night until seven in the morning, there was no retreat for him. He was compelled to lie and listen. Perhaps there was little magnanimity in this on the part of MRS. CAUDLE; but in marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. Besides, MRS. CAUDLE copied very ancient and classic authority. Minerva's bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is silent all the day. So was MRS. CAUDLE. Like the owl, she hooted only at night. MR. CAUDLE was blessed with an indomitable constitution. One fact will prove the truth of this. He lived thirty years with MRS. CAUDLE, surviving her. Yes, it took thirty years for MRS. CAUDLE to lecture text-such text for the most part arising out of his own daily and dilate upon the joys, griefs, duties, and vicissitudes comprised conduct-to the lecture of the night. He had also, with an within that seemingly small circle-the wedding ring. We say, instinctive knowledge of the dignity of literature, left a bank-note seemingly small; for the thing, as viewed by the vulgar, naked of very fair amount with the manuscript. Following our duty as eye, is a tiny hoop made for the third feminine finger. Alack! like editor, we trust to do justice to both documents. the ring of Saturn, for good or evil it circles a whole world. Or to take a less gigantic figure, it compasses a vast region: it may be Arabia Felix, and it may be Arabia Petrea. A lemon-hearted cynic might liken the wedding-ring to an ancient Circus, in which wild animals clawed one another for the sport of lookers-on. Perish the hyperbole ! We would rather compare it to an elfin ring, in which dancing fairies made the sweetest music for infirm humanity. Here Manifold are the uses of rings. Even swine are tamed by them. You will see a vagrant, hilarious, devastating porker-a full-blooded fellow that would bleed into many, many fathoms of black pudding -you will see him, escaped from his proper home, straying in a neighbour's garden. How he tramples upon the heart's-ease: how, with quivering snout, he roots up lilies-odoriferous bulbs ! he gives a reckless snatch at thyme and marjoram-and here he munches violets and gilliflowers. At length the marauder is detected, seized by his owner, and driven, beaten home. To make the porker less dangerous, it is determined that he shall be ringed. The sentence is pronounced-execution ordered. Listen to his screams! "Would you not think the knife was in his throat? And yet they're only boring through his nose!" Hence, for all future time, the porker behaves himself with a sort of forced propriety-for in either nostril he carries a ring. It is, for the greatness of humanity, a saddening thought, that sometimes men must be treated no better than pigs. But MR. JOB CAUDLE was not of these men. Marriage to him was not made a necessity. No; for him call it if you will a happy chance a golden accident. It is, however, enough for us to know that he was married; and was therefore made the recipient of a wife's wisdom. MRS. CAUDLE, like MAHOMET'S dove, continually pecked at the good man's ears; and it is a happiness to learn from what he left behind that he had hived all her sayings in his brain; and further, that he employed the mellow evening of his life to put such sayings down, that, in due season, they might be enshrined in imperishable type. upo When MR. JOB CAUDLE was left in this briary world without his daily guide and nocturnal monitress, he was in the ripe fulness of fifty-seven. For three hours at least after he went to bed-such slaves are we to habit he could not close an eye. His wife still talked at his side. True it was, she was dead and decently interred. His mind-it was a comfort to know it-could not wander on this point; this he knew. Nevertheless, his wife was with him. The Ghost of her Tongue still talked as in the life; and again and again did JOB CAUDLE hear the monitions of by-gone years. At times, so loud, so lively, so real were the sounds, that JOB, with a cold chill, doubted if he were really widowed. And then, with the movement of an arm, a foot, he would assure himself that he was alone in his holland. Nevertheless, the talk continued. It was terrible to be thus haunted by a voice: to have advice, commands, remonstrance, all sorts of saws and adages still poured upon him, and no visible wife. Now did the voice speak from the curtains; now from the tester; and now did it whisper to JoB from the very pillow that he pressed; "It's a dreadful thing that her tongue should walk in this manner," said JOB, and then he thought confusedly of exorcism, or at least of counsel from the parish priest. Whether JOB followed his own brain, or the wise direction of another, we know not. But he resolved every night to commit to paper one curtain lecture of his late wife. The employment would, possibly, lay the ghost that haunted him. It was her dear tongue that cried for justice, and when thus satisfied, it might possibly rest in quiet. And so it happened. Joв faithfully chronicled all his late wife's lectures; the ghost of her tongue was thenceforth silent, and JOB slept all his after nights in peace. BIOGRAPHY OF PRINCE ALBERT'S OX. NOT UNMINDFUL of the little romance which has hung itself -in place of the cattle-show ticket-round the neck of this extraordinary animal, and rendered him, to a certain degree, a public character, we feel justified in giving a biographical sketch of him. Our hero- we mean our Ox-was born of respectable Home Park at Windsor, and at a very early age began to exhibit a talent parents in a paddock in the for eating which marked him out as a fit subject to be stuffed for some future cattle-show. On one of the visits of PRINCE ALBERT to the farm, the brute was engaged in discussing a bunch of turnips with such extraordinary gusto, that his Royal Highness was attracted by the circumstance, and made inquiries of the principal bailiff, who was told to keep his eye on the subject of our present biography. Our hero's heiferhood passed in one continued round of munching; and it was remarked by those who had charge of him, that tares or turnips, grass or grain, beans or beet-root, came all alike to his rapacious appetite. In the course of a few months his hide began to expand, and he evinced all the usual characteristics of a prize ox-such as losing the power of walking at a greater rate than half a mile an hour, while shortness of breath, and other concomitants of fatness, became extremely evident. The success with which these qualities were cultivated is well known, and we find our ox ultimately installed at the Baker Street Bazaar, where he behaved himself with the dignity becoming a prize, and thus set an example to the surrounding cattle. It was in this honourable situation Threadneedle Street, who, having mentally divided him into sirloins, that our hero attracted the attention of MR. BANNISTER, the butcher, of estimated his ribs, made a rough calculation of his aitch-bones, and cast off his steaks, consented, with much spirit, to give sixty guineas for him. Our hero's fate now appeared to be sealed, and nothing was apparently capable of saving him from being gibbeted at MR. BANNISTER'S, with a placard, announcing his having gained a prize, stuck with a wooden skewer into his back, as an invitation to customers. Fortunately for the sagacious creature, PRINCE ALBERT paid a visit to the cattle-show, when our hero, panting with fatness, chanced to put out his tongue just as his Royal Highness passed, and the tongue coming into contact with the Prince's hand, the incident was attributed to a burst of affection, though it really was nothing more than a lapsus lingua, circumstance was noticed by the QUEEN, and the result is known. The or slipping out of the tongue, from sheer want of breathing-room. The ox, that was standing on the very brink of untimely shambles, has been restored to his paddock at Windsor. Handsome Turn Out. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHANDOS, the Labourer's Friend, and Pleasant Farm-servant's Father, has lately been exercising a little wholesome fatherly severity upon his Irish tenants in Westmeath, where eighteen families have been turned adrift by the Duke's steward. weather this for the wet bog, or the ditch-side! It appears that no rent was due from them. Doubtless, on the occasion of the next agricultural jubilee at Stowe, these eighteen families will form part of the pageant. The conduct of the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM proves the truth of what has been often said of him, that "no landlord can turn out a finer set of tenants." CONSCIENCE MONEY. MR. PUNCH begs to acknowledge several sums of money from the different concoctors of the London pantomimes and burlesques, for the very When Jos died, a small packet of papers was found inscribed as The list will be published, and the amount forwarded to a magistrate liberal use they have made of his jokes and subjects of the past year. for the relief of the Fountains in Trafalgar Square, in a day or two. follows: CURTAIN LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE COURSE OF THIRTY YEARS That MR. CAUDLE had his eye upon the future printer, is made pretty probable by the fact that in most places he had affixed the THE DETENTIONS AT THE POST-OFFICE. A GENTLEMAN, living in Camden Town, would feel particularly obliged to COLONEL MABERLY to return to him, as soon as he has done with them, the goose and Epping sausages, which were sent to him through the post last week by a friend in the country. ACTORS IN HIGH LIFE. easily be imagined by all who are acquainted with his Lordship's delightful requisites for the private social circle,-his exhaustless humour and flashes of merriment, that are wont to set the table in a roar.''' VERYBODY has heard that in the good old times, players were ranked as The after-piece was The Thimble-Rig; chosen, we fear, for some rogues and va-party application. In this gabonds; and then, as if to scandalise the respectable, actors-we mean actors, and Besides this, MRS. MONTGOMERY threw a nameless grace about Nancy Spigot, and MR. M. acted the Landlord "with much quiet humour." To crown all, " MR. CROMMELIN supported the character of the gallant Major with great spirit and very good taste." "LORD SEAHAM, as John Ginger, seemed to anticipate the jollity of merry old Christmas, by the repeated bursts of laughter which he elicited at the extravagance of his fear lest his wife should hear of his borrowing the ten pounds, which, contrasted with the absolute despotism of his imperious spouse (the MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY), created great amusement. His Lordship seems to be possessed of a very high degree of histrionic talent." not parrots did most abound. MUNDENS acted upon threshing-floors, and JORDANS made musical the largest room of some Red Lion or Silver Stag. In the good old times, theatrical genius, like pullets, was a thing of barn-door growth. Actors flourished in despite of stocks, and magis- There is no doubt that histrionic talent has been filtered by trates, and public odium. By degrees, the ascension, and that it is now only to be found in its purest state in calling "profession," say green-room pre- the very highest life. Wherefore, then, should it not be made cisians became respectable; and with available for social advancement! Sure we are that MR. BARRY respectability of purpose, came mediocrity of could spare a bit of the new Houses of Parliament for a theatre, in talent. All our present actors-or very which with pieces written for a direct purpose-the aristocracy nearly all-are dreadfully respectable. They might once amuse and instruct the people. We have only for a have ceased to be vagabonds according to the moment to think of certain public men, to see before us a company statute; they have lost the picturesqueness of actors that would speedily defeat all other competitors. There of their calling, and-with one or two very would, too, be a singular fitness, a happy application of means to an bright exceptions-are cultivators of the dull end, in having the theatre and the senate-house under the same roof, proprieties of existence. They are very If a Peer or Member had a particular motion for a certain night, he decent people, but no actors. might act either in the first or second piece to suit the time. With LORD BROUGHAM, or any other noble actor quick at a change, he might almost play the part of law-maker and low-comedy-man the same night. We think SIR ROBERT PEEL would play Silky admirably; LORD STANLEY would shine in the mysterious and passionate; and LORD LONDONDERRY (we are happy to say he has been recently rehearsing the part) would ensure himself a reputation in the kindhearted landlords. What a host of talent rises before us! There is Young England, too, with SIDONIA to write the pieces and SMYTHE to do the songs! We can imagine the first piece, the Benevolent Bowler; or, the Count and the Cricket Ball. That, supported by "a phalanx of talent," would create a moral revolution. And then what a practical condescension - what a fine illustration of the wise humility and true humanity of the school, if a few of Young England's ladies would attend with baskets, serving pine-apples and Seltzer water to the million! We forget the name of the moralist who, looking at the happy boys in Westminster play-ground, sadly observed-"Alas! that any of these fine fellows should ever be turned into Members of Parliament!" We have precisely the same feeling towards LORD SEAHAM. Why cannot he always play the John Gingers, ornamenting that station of life to which it seems nature has pleased to call him? Why should he ever bury himself in the House of Lords? "Where can be the actors?" we have often despondingly asked ourselves, when we have seen a man by the force of a painted nose, a riotous wig, and an incessant cackle, pass for a comedian, obtaining higher pay than a general officer for the imposition. When we have beheld a light comedian who had hardly grace enough to receive an order for "Welsh-rabbits for two," when we have heard him, a Cider Cellar waiter, munching wit and airy sentiment as he would munch a biscuit, we have asked-and asked in bitterness of spirit-where be the actors? And when we have seen and heard a mincing gentlewoman cutting her words as though her lips were scissors, and looking round about the house for some particular camellia in some particular gentleman's particular button-hole, and all the while thinking herself the heroine of comedy,-we have gnashed our teeth, torn handfuls of hair from our head (the hair is left with the publisher for the satisfaction of the curious), and groaned, and sobbed,-where, oh! where be the actresses ? We have at length-and our heart sits all the lighter for it-made the discovery. The divine faculty of acting has gradually ascended in the social scale; and the very best players-LORD BROUGHAM and others must have half prepared the world for this truth-are now to be found among the aristocracy. Genius loves extremes. The true player was once to be found in the barn-he is now only to be met with in the palace of the lord. Our excellent contemporary the Northern Whig affords a recent instance of this profound truth. During the holidays, plays have been acted at Mount Stewart, the seat of the MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY. The Double-Bedded Room, says the Northern Whig, was first acted; and now, listen to the critic : "The MARCHIONESS OF LONDONDERRY, as Mrs. Deputy Lomaz, acted with much grace and delicacy of manner, and seemed, by her excellent perception of the humorous, to catch the very spirit of the author. Her ladyship's acting, in the part in which she depicts the finesse and nervous apprehension of the gentle widow, when locked up in the double-bedded room with Pipes, was a genuine comic reality." What is this but the manifestation of true genius, that acts wholly unconscious of the source of its inspiration? "While the manner in which LORD CASTLEREAGH, as Pipes, supported his part, can Neither would we have the actors labour without the hope of tangible reward. Certainly not. Fine acting should be the test of fine statesmanship, and recompensed accordingly. And whereas it is now customary to bestow the Blue Riband upon a consummate general or diplomatist, we would award the like distinction to the best First Robber, or the cleverest Jeremy Diddler. Dum, dum, dum, tittledy, iddlety, tiddlety— SECOND VERSE.-More quickly. Tum, tum, tum, tootlety, ootlety, ootlety- THIRD VERSE.-Very quick. Bang, bang, bang-fiddle-de diddle-de, diddle-dy- A GOOD BEGINNING. A PENSION of £600 has just fallen into the Civil List. We wish the Civil List "a happy new year, and many of 'em." |