The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 485, April 16, 1831

“In a few minutes the servant girl made her appearance, to announce that supper was ready; and laying hold of the landlord’s arm, I went along with him down stairs; his two friends, linked together in the same manner, following close at our heels. On entering the dining-room, there was certainly a very neat repast spread out. I cannot at this moment condescend upon all the viands, but I recollect distinctly of boiled lobsters, devilled fowls, and fried codlings, staring us in the face. There was, however, an individual in the room, and in the act of seating herself at the head of the table, who struck my fancy more forcibly than even the dishes upon the table. This, as I afterwards learned, was Miss Snooks, our entertainer’s cousin. I was not exactly prepared to encounter the apparition of a female at our banquet. The landlord was a confirmed bachelor; and I expected to see nothing but myself, and three other lords of the creation, for the evening. To tell the truth, (which at the risk of my gallantry must be done,) I was a little disappointed, for I had come thither expecting to enjoy some private talk with the male part of the company, and overhaul some bits of scandal not exactly fitted for a lady’s ear. However, there was no help for it. A lady was present, and we had just to make up our minds to put a bridle upon our tongues, so long as she pleased to honour us with her company.

“I had scarcely crossed the threshold of the room, than Miss Snooks curtsied to me, honoured me with a smile, and requested me to place myself alongside of her. I did so, and had time to contemplate her physiognomy. The first thing which struck me was the immense size of her nose. It stood forward tremendously prominent; and behind it—in the shade—was her face. It did not glide gently away from the brow above, and from the cheeks at each side. On the contrary, it jutted out like a promontory, and seemed as bold and defined as Cape Wrath or the Ord of Caithness. It appeared to have sprung out all at once from her face at the touch of some magician’s wand, in the same way as Minerva sprung from the head of Jupiter. It had a hump on it, too, like a dromedary; for it was a Roman nose—such as that sported in days of old by Julius Cæsar, and, in modern times, by the Duke of Wellington—only much more magnificent in its dimensions. I feel some difficulty in describing the rest of Miss Snooks, so much was I taken up with this godlike feature. She was tall, thin, wrinkled, fiery-eyed, with a blue silk gown on; and a cap, stiff-starched, and overgrown with a mountain of frills, and indigo-coloured ribbons. Her voice was shrill, almost squeaking; and—with reverence be it spoken—she had a leetle bit of a beard—only a few odd hairs growing from her chin and upper lip. Her age, I suppose, might be about fifty.

“Now comes the peg ‘whereon hangs a tale,’ and where my feeling resembled your own. I felt I was to be miserable for the night—at least so long as Miss Snooks favoured us with her company; and that she would favour us with it long enough was evident—for I had a presentiment that she was a blue-stocking, and they always sit late. Her gown was blue, so were her ribbons, so were her little twinkling eyes, and so was her nose—at least at the point. But there was no help for it. I made up my mind to the worst, and allowed her to help me to a bit of fowl. The landlord, and the two other guests supped on fried codlings. She herself fastened upon a lobster’s claw.

“Meanwhile supper proceeded, and the clatter of knives and forks bore testimony that the process of mastication was going on swimmingly. For some time I enjoyed it as much as the rest of the company, as I was rather hungry and the fowl excellent; but my enjoyment was of short duration—for Mr. Hookey, the gentleman who sat opposite to me, on the left hand of Miss Snooks, asked me a question, and on looking up to answer it I saw—not him, but the lady’s nose. I speak advisedly: there is no exaggeration in the case. If any part of him was visible, it must have been his body. His face was utterly hid by the tremendous feature which stood between us like an ‘envious shade,’ and intercepted all vision in that direction. To get out of the influence of this ‘baleful planet’ I shifted my head aside, and so did he, and we thus got a sight of each other over its peak. From that moment, all idea of eating was gone. The nose stood at first literally between my friend and me—and now it stood metaphorically between the fowl and my stomach.

“Unfortunately, Mr. Hookey, besides being a great talker, was a native of the same part of the country as myself, and having been absent from thence several years, was anxious to hear of any event and change that had taken place since he left it. He accordingly bored me with questions which I could not but answer. I could not answer them decently without raising my head—and I could not raise my head without encountering the nose of Miss Snooks.

“But this was not the worst part of the business. Miss Snooks took it into her head to put questions to me, and thus confronted me still more with her promontory. There was no way of evading the annoyance, but by getting to the opposite side of the table—a step which it was impossible to perform with any regard to decency; and I was thus compelled to ‘kiss the rod,’ and put the best face I could upon the matter.

“Supper being removed, wine was introduced; and I had the honour of pouring out a glass of port to Miss Snooks. She thanked me with an inclination of her head—or rather of her nose—and drank to my health, and to that of the rest of the company. While performing the process of drinking, I could not help gazing upon her, to see how so very remarkable a person would go to work. The peak of her nose actually dipped down over the farthest rim of the glass—spanning it as a rainbow spans the Vale of Glengarry, while the ‘limpid ruby’ rolled in currents within the embrace of her delighted lips. The more I gazed upon her, the greater did my surprise at this extraordinary feature become.

“It is unnecessary to detail at length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes—for he was a great humourist—and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I was in love, and good-naturedly fix upon two or three girls as the objects of my affections. Worthy man! little did he imagine that I was in love with his cousin’s nose.

“In love, yes! I bore the same love towards it, that the squirrel bears to the rattlesnake—when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe. Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish it to be inferred that that nose, humped like a dromedary—prominent as Cape Wrath—nobler than Cæsar’s, or the great captain’s—had precisely the same influence on me as the envenomed Python of the American woods has upon the squirrel. It fascinated me—threw a spell over me—enchanted my faculties—made me love to gaze upon what I abhorred, and think of nothing but one feature—one nose, which nevertheless held a more prominent place in the temple of my imagination, than Atlas, Andes, or Teneriffe, or even the unscalable ridges of Himalaya, where Indra, the god of the elements, is said to have placed his throne. Having meditated for some time in this way, I found that it would never do. There was something inexpressibly absurd in the mood which my mind was getting into, and I resolved to throw off the incubus which oppressed me, and be like other people. Full of this idea, I filled a bumper, and bolted it off—then another—then another. I was getting on admirably, and rapidly recovering my equanimity, when chancing to turn my eyes towards Mr. Hookey, he was nowhere to be seen. He had not gone out; that was impossible; no—he was concealed from me by the mighty nose.

“This event had nearly capsized me, and brought me back into my old way, when I poured out another glass of wine, and hastily swallowed it, which in some measure restored the equilibrium of my faculties. I looked again at Hookey, and saw him distinctly—the shade was gone, for Miss Snooks had leaned back, in a languishing mood, upon her chair, and taken her nose along with her. At this moment I fancied I saw her ogling me with both eyes, and resolved to be upon my guard. I remembered the solemn vows already made to my dear Cecilia; and on this account determined to stand out against Miss Snooks and her nose.

“But this was only a temporary relief. Again did she lean forward, and again was the nose protruded between Hookey and myself. It acted as an eclipse—it annihilated him—made him a mere nonentity—rendered him despicable in my eyes. It was impossible to respect any man who lived in the shade of a nose, who hid his light under such a bushel. Hang the ninny, he must be a sneaking fellow!

“The wine now began to circulate more freely round the table, and the tongues of the company to get looser in their heads. Miss Snooks also commenced talking at a greater stretch than she had hitherto done. I soon found out that she was a poetess, and had written a couple of novels, besides two or three tragedies. In fact, her whole conversation was about books and authors, and she did us the favour of reciting some of her own compositions. She was also prodigiously sentimental, talked much about love, and was fond of romantic scenery. I know not how it was, but although her conversation was far from indifferent, it excited ridiculous emotions in my mind, rather than any thing else. If she talked of mountains, I could think of nothing but the hump upon her nose, which was, in my estimation, a nobler mountain than Helvellyn or Cairngorm. If she got among promontories, this majestic feature struck me as being sublimer than any I had ever heard of—not excepting the Cape of Good Hope, first doubled by Vasco de Gama.—When she conversed about the blue loch and the cerulean sky, I saw in the tip of her nose a complexion as blue or cerulean as any of these. It was at once a nose—a mountain—a cape—a loch—a sky. In short it was every thing. She was armed with it, as the Paladins of old with their armour. Nay, it possessed the miraculous property of rendering a human being invisible, of concealing Mr. Hookey from my eyes; thus rivalling the ring of Gyges, and casting the invisible coat of Jack the Giant-killer into the shade.

“After conversing with her for some time upon indifferent matters, she asked me if I was fond of caricatures, and spoke particularly of the designs of George Cruikshank. Scarcely had she mentioned the name of this artist, than I was seized with a strange shuddering. In one moment I called to mind his illustrations of Punch and Judy, at which we had been looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what occasion I found it impossible to tell. Her squeaking voice, her blue twinkling eyes, her huge frilled cap, and above all, her mighty nose, all seemed familiar to me. They floated within my spirit as a half-forgotten dream; and without daring to whisper such a thing to myself, I still felt the impression that all was not new—that the novelty was not so great as I imagined.

“But Punch and Judy set all to rights. I had seen Miss Snooks in George Cruikshank, and at once all my perplexing feelings were accounted for. She was Judy—she was Punch’s wife. Yes, Miss Snooks, the old maid, was the wife of Mr. Punch. There was no denying the fact. The same small weazel eyes, the same sharp voice and hooked chin, and the same nose—at once mountain, cape, &c. &c. belonged alike to Judy and Miss Snooks. They were two persons; the same, yet, different—different, yet the same—the one residing in the pages of Cruikshank, or chattering and fighting in the booths of mountebanks at Donnybrook or St. Bartholomew’s Fair—the other seated bolt upright, at the head of her cousin’s table, beside a small coterie of littérateurs.

“I know not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity, but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert, termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress—a writer of tragedies and novels—in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between them, in other respects, was so striking as to constitute identity. Eyes, chin, voice, nose, were all precisely alike, and stamped them as one and the same individual.

“But this strange illusion soon wore away, and I again saw Miss Snooks in her true character. It would perhaps be better if I said that I saw her nose—for somehow I never could look upon herself save as subordinate to this feature. It were an insult to so majestic a promontory to suppose it the mere appendage of a human face. No—the face was an appendage of it, and kept at a viewless distance behind, while the nose stood forward in vast relief, intercepting the view of all collateral objects—casting a noble shadow upon the wall—and impressing an air of inconceivable dignity upon its fair proprietor.

“The first impression which I experienced on beholding the lady was one of fear. I have stated how completely she—or, to speak more properly, her nose—stood between me and Mr. Hookey, and felt appalled in no small degree at so extraordinary a circumstance. There is something inexpressibly awful in a lunar eclipse, and a solar one is still more overpowering, but neither the one nor the other could be compared to the nasal eclipse effected by Miss Snooks. So much for my first impressions: now for the second. They were those of boundless admiration, and—.”

Most unfortunately, just as the gentleman had got to this part of his story, the coach stopped at the principal inn of Hamilton, and he there left it, after bowing politely to me, and wishing me a pleasant ride for the rest of the journey.—Fraser’s Magazine.

SANDY HARG

The night-star shines clearly,The tide’s in the bay,My boat, like the sea-mew,Takes wing and away.Though the pellock rolls freeThrough the moon-lighted brine,The silver-finn’d salmonAnd herling are mine—My fair one shall taste them,May Morley of Larg,I’ve said and I’ve sworn it,Quoth young Sandy Harg.He spread his broad netWhere, ’tis said, in the brine,The mermaidens sportMid the merry moonshine:He drew it and laugh’d,For he found ’mongst the meshesA fish and a maiden,With silken eyelashes—And she sang with a voiceLike May Morley’s of Larg,“A maid and a salmonFor young Sandy Harg!”Oh, white were her arms,And far whiter her neck—Her long locks in armfulsOverflow’d all the deck:One hand on the rudderShe pleasantly laid,Another on Sandy,And merrily said—“Thy halve-net has wrought theeA gallant day’s darg—Thou’rt monarch of Solway,My young Sandy Harg.”Oh, loud laugh’d young Sandy,And swore by the mass,“I’ll never reign king,But mid gowans and grass:”Oh, loud laugh’d young Sandy,And swore, “By thy hand,My May Morley, I’m thine,Both by water and land!’Twere marvel if mer-woman,Slimy and slarg,Could rival the true loveOf young Sandy Harg.”She knotted one ringlet.Syne knotted she twain,And sang—lo! thick darknessDropp’d down on the main—She knotted three ringlets,Syne knotted she nine,A tempest stoop’d suddenAnd sharp on the brine,And away flew the boat—There’s a damsel in LargWill wonder what’s come of theeYoung Sandy Harg.“The sky’s spitting fire,”Cried Sandy—“and see!Green Criffel reels round,And will choke up the sea;From their bottles of tempestThe fiends draw the corks,Wide Solway is barmy,Like ale when it works;There sits Satan’s daughter,Who works this dread darg,To mar my blythe bridal”Quoth young Sandy Harg.From his bosom a spellTo work wonders he took,Thrice kiss’d it and smiled,Then triumphantly shookThe boat by the rudder,The maid by the hair,With wailings and shrieksShe bewilder’d the air;He flung her far seaward,Then sailed off to Larg—There was mirth at the bridalOf young Sandy Harg.New Monthly Magazine.

THE GATHERER

A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

SHAKSPEARE

LEGEND CONCERNING THE PRESERVATION OF THE WELSH PEDIGREES PREVIOUS TO THE FLOOD

(For the Mirror.)

A figure was seen, standing on a precipice as the waters of the flood were rising, which waved its hand repeatedly—the waters rose and the figure disappeared. Noah, looking from the deck, was shortly afterwards hailed by the same person amidst the roar of the elements, “Quite full!” exclaimed the patriarch, as the ark lurched deeply. “Full!” exclaimed the voice, which was now close alongside, “Ah! Morgan Jones, is that you?” “We are quite full.”—“Then take care of this packet; as for myself never mind, but take care of the packet.” The packet was carefully handed aboard, the eyes of Morgan Jones saw the patriarch receive it into his own hands, when the huge ark gave a most terrific lurch, and hitting poor Morgan, he sunk under her counter, was thumped by the keel, and was seen no more; but the packet was received, and proved to be his pedigree from Adam!

W. PULLEN.

LUDICROUS BLUNDERS

(From “After Dinner Chat,” in the New Monthly Magazine.)

H.—How completely a fine poetical thought may be destroyed by the alteration of a single word! I recollect a ludicrous instance of this. I was quoting to M—d—y, who is rather deaf, a line of Campbell’s, as being, in my opinion, equal to any that ever was produced:

“And Freedom shriek’d—as Kosciusko fell.”

“I dare say you are right,” replied M—d—y; “but it does not quite please me: I must think of it.” And he repeated—

“And Freedom squeak’d—as Kosciusko fell.”

F.—L—ml—y, of the —th Dragoons, was, as you may remember, a great admirer of the “Hohenlinden” of the same poet, and used frequently to recite it; but instead of

“Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave!And charge with all thy chivalry,”—

fancying, no doubt, that the poet, from ignorance of military terms, had committed a blunder, he used invariably to say—

“And charge with all thy cavalry.”

K.—I once heard two whimsical blunders made in the course of a performance of Macbeth, at a poor little country theatre. The Lady Macbeth—who, not unlikely, had been a laundress—instead of saying merely

“A little water clears us of this deed,”

chose to “make assurance double sure,” and said—“A little soap and water.” And, presently after, for

“We have scotch’d the snake, not killed it,”

the Thane, looking with an air of profound mystery at his tender mate, whispered her,

“We have cotch a snake, and killed it.”

PARLIAMENT OF BATTS

Gurdon, in his History of Parliament, says—“This parliament was summoned in the reign of Henry the Sixth, to meet at Leicester; and orders were sent to the members that they should not wear swords; so they came to parliament (like modern butchers) with long staves, from whence the parliament got the name of The Parliament of Batts; and when the batts were prohibited, the members had recourse to stones and leaden bullets. This parliament was opened with the Confirmation of Liberties.”

P.T.W.

WITENAGEMOTES

“Alfred, with the advice and consent of his Witas, in Witenagemote, made his code of law that was common to the whole nation, and enacted that a Witenagemote should be held twice a year, and oftener if need were.”—See Gurdon on Parliament.

P.T.W.

ANNUAL OF SCIENCE

This Day is published, price 5s.

ARCANA of SCIENCE, and ANNUAL REGISTER of the USEFUL ARTS for 1831.

Comprising POPULAR INVENTIONS, IMPROVEMENTS, and DISCOVERIES

Abridged from the Transactions of Public Societies and Scientific Journals of the past year. With several Engravings.

“One of the best and cheapest books of the day.”—Mag. Nat. Hist.

“An annual register of new inventions and improvements in a popular form like this, cannot fail to be useful.”—Lit. Gaz.

Printed for JOHN LIMBIRD, 143, Strand;—of whom may be had the Volumes for the three preceding years.

1

From whose work the Engraving is copied.

2

From 90 to 95 deg. Fahr in July.

3

“Legis habet vigorem, quicquid de consilio et consensu magnatum et reipublicæ communi sponsione, authoritate regis, juste fuerit definitum.”—Bracton.