Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864




"He wrote in the same magazine two lives of Liston and Munden, which the
public took for serious, and which exhibit an extraordinary jumble of
imaginary facts and truth of by-painting. Munden he made born at "Stoke
Pogis"; the very sound of which was like the actor speaking and digging
his words."

* * * * *

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MR. MUNDEN.

_In a Letter to the Editor of the "London Magazine."_

Hark'ee, Mr. Editor. A word in your ear. They tell me you are going to
put me in print,--in print, Sir; to publish my life. What is my life to
you, Sir? What is it to you whether I ever lived at all? My life is a
very good life, Sir. I am insured at the Pelican, Sir. I am threescore
years and six,--six; mark me, Sir: but I can play Polonius, which, I
believe, few of your corre--correspondents can do, Sir. I suspect
tricks, Sir; I smell a rat: I do, I do. You would cog the die upon us:
you would, you would, Sir. But I will forestall you, Sir. You would be
deriving me from William the Conqueror, with a murrain to you. It is no
such thing, Sir. The town shall know better, Sir. They begin to smoke
your flams, Sir. Mr. Liston may be born where he pleases, Sir; but I
will not be born at Lup--Lupton Magna for anybody's pleasure, Sir. My
son and I have looked over the great map of Kent together, and we can
find no such place as you would palm upon us, Sir,--palm upon us, I say.
Neither Magna nor Parva, as my son says; and he knows Latin,
Sir,--Latin. If you write my life true, Sir, you must set down, that I,
Joseph Munden, comedian, came into the world upon Allhallows Day, Anno
Domini 1759,--1759; no sooner nor later, Sir: and I saw the first
light--the first light, remember, Sir--at Stoke Pogis,--Stoke Pogis,
_comitatu_ Bucks, and not at Lup--Lup Magna, which I believe to be no
better than moonshine,--moonshine; do you mark me, Sir? I wonder you can
put such flim-flams upon us, Sir: I do, I do. It does not become you,
Sir: I say it,--I say it. And my father was an honest tradesman, Sir: he
dealt in malt and hops, Sir; and was a Corporation-man, Sir; and of the
Church of England, Sir; and no Presbyterian, nor Ana--Anabaptist, Sir;
however you may be disposed to make honest people believe to the
contrary, Sir. Your bams are found out, Sir. The town will be your
stale puts no longer, Sir; and you must not send us jolly fellows,
Sir,--we that are comedians, Sir,--you must not send us into groves and
Charn--Charnwoods a-moping, Sir. Neither Charns, nor charnel-houses,
Sir. It is not our constitutions, Sir: I tell it you,--I tell it you. I
was a droll dog from my cradle. I came into the world tittering, and the
midwife tittered, and the gossips spilt their caudle with tittering; and
when I was brought to the font, the parson could not christen me for
tittering. So I was never more than half baptized. And when I was little
Joey, I made 'em all titter; there was not a melancholy face to be seen
in Pogis. Pure nature, Sir. I was born a comedian. Old Screwup, the
undertaker, could tell you, Sir, if he were living. Why, I was obliged
to be locked up every time there was to be a funeral at Pogis. I was, I
was, Sir. I used to _grimace_ at the mutes, as he called it, and put 'em
out with my mops and my mows, till they couldn't stand at a door for me.
And when I was locked up, with nothing but a cat in my company, I
followed my bent with trying to make her laugh; and sometimes she would,
and sometimes she would not. And my schoolmaster could make nothing of
me: I had only to thrust my tongue in my cheek,--in my cheek, Sir,--and
the rod dropped from his fingers; and so my education was limited, Sir.
And I grew up a young fellow, and it was thought convenient to enter me
upon some course of life that should make me serious; but it wouldn't
do, Sir. And I articled to a dry-salter. My father gave forty pounds
premium with me, Sir. I can show the indent--dent--dentures, Sir. But I
was born to be a comedian, Sir: so I ran away, and listed with the
players, Sir; and I topt my parts at Amersham and Gerrard's Cross, and
played my own father to his face, in his own town of Pogis, in the part
of Gripe, when I was not full seventeen years of age; and he did not
know me again, but he knew me afterwards; and then he laughed, and I
laughed, and, what is better, the dry-salter laughed, and gave me up my
articles for the joke's sake: so that I came into court afterwards with
clean hands,--with clean hands; do you see, Sir?

[Here the manuscript becomes illegible for two or three sheets onwards,
which we presume to be occasioned by the absence of Mr. Munden, jun.,
who clearly transcribed it for the press thus far. The rest (with the
exception of the concluding paragraph, which seemingly is resumed in the
first handwriting) appears to contain a confused account of some lawsuit
in which the elder Munden was engaged; with a circumstantial history of
the proceedings on a case of breach of promise of marriage, made to or
by (we cannot pick out which) Jemima Munden, spinster, probably the
comedian's cousin, for it does not appear he had any sister; with a few
dates, rather better preserved, of this great actor's engagements,--as
"Cheltenham, [spelt Cheltnam,] 1776," "Bath, 1779," "London,
1789,"--together with stage-anecdotes of Messrs. Edwin, Wilson, Lee,
Lewis, etc.; over which we have strained our eyes to no purpose, in the
hope of presenting something amusing to the public. Towards the end, the
manuscript brightens up a little, as we have said, and concludes in the
following manner.]

---- stood before them for six-and-thirty years, [we suspect that Mr.
Munden is here speaking of his final leave-taking of the stage,] and to
be dismissed at last. But I was heart-whole,--heart-whole to the last,
Sir. What though a few drops did course themselves down the old
veteran's cheeks? who could help it, Sir? I was a giant that night, Sir,
and could have played fifty parts, each as arduous as Dozey. My
faculties were never better, Sir. But I was to be laid upon the shelf.
It did not suit the public to laugh with their old servant any longer,
Sir. [Here some moisture has blotted a sentence or two.] But I can play
Polonius still, Sir: I can, I can.

Your servant, Sir,
JOSEPH MUNDEN.

* * * * *

In the "Reflector," a short-lived periodical set up by Leigh Hunt, and
in which Lamb's quaint and beautiful poem, "A Farewell to Tobacco," and
his masterly critical essays on "The Tragedies of Shakspeare," and on
"The Genius of Hogarth," and other of his early writings, appeared, I
find the following characteristic article from Elia's pen.

The reader will observe (and smile as he observes) that there is a great
difference between the "good clerk" of fifty years ago and the "good
clerk" of to-day. He of yesterday is a wonderfully simple, humble,
automaton-like person, in comparison with the brisk, dashing,
independent "votaries of the desk" of the year eighteen hundred and
sixty-four.

* * * * *

THE GOOD CLERK: A CHARACTER.

THE GOOD CLERK.--He writeth a fair and swift hand, and is
competently versed in the four first rules of arithmetic, in the Rule of
Three, (which is sometimes called the Golden Rule,) and in Practice. We
mention these things that we may leave no room for cavillers to say that
anything essential hath been omitted in our definition; else, to speak
the truth, these are but ordinary accomplishments, and such as every
understrapper at a desk is commonly furnished with. The character we
treat of soareth higher.

He is clean and neat in his person, not from a vainglorious desire of
setting himself forth to advantage in the eyes of the other sex,--with
which vanity too many of our young sparks nowadays are infected,--but to
do credit, as we say, to the office. For this reason, he evermore taketh
care that his desk or his books receive no soil; the which things he is
commonly as solicitous to have fair and unblemished as the owner of a
fine horse is to have him appear in good keep.

He riseth early in the morning,--not because early rising conduceth to
health, (though he doth not altogether despise that consideration,) but
chiefly to the intent that he may be first at the desk. There is his
post, there he delighteth to be, unless when his meals or necessity
calleth him away; which time he alway esteemeth as lost, and maketh as
short as possible.

He is temperate in eating and drinking, that he may preserve a clear
head and steady hand for his master's service. He is also partly induced
to this observation of the rules of temperance by his respect for
religion and the laws of his country; which things, it may once for all
be noted, do add especial assistances to his actions, but do not and
cannot furnish the main spring or motive thereto. His first ambition, as
appeareth all along, is to be a good clerk; his next, a good Christian,
a good patriot, etc.

Correspondent to this, he keepeth himself honest, not for fear of the
laws, but because he hath observed how unseemly an article it maketh in
the day-book or ledger when a sum is set down lost or missing; it being
his pride to make these books to agree and to tally, the one side with
the other, with a sort of architectural symmetry and correspondence.

He marrieth, or marrieth not, as best suiteth with his employer's views.
Some merchants do the rather desire to have married men in their
counting-houses, because they think the married state a pledge for their
servants' integrity, and an incitement to them to be industrious; and it
was an observation of a late Lord-Mayor of London, that the sons of
clerks do generally prove clerks themselves, and that merchants
encouraging persons in their employ to marry, and to have families, was
the best method of securing a breed of sober, industrious young men
attached to the mercantile interest. Be this as it may, such a character
as we have been describing will wait till the pleasure of his employer
is known on this point, and regulateth his desires by the custom of the
house or firm to which he belongeth.

He avoideth profane oaths and jesting, as so much time lost from his
employ. What spare time he hath for conversation, which in a
counting-house such as we have been supposing can be but small, he
spendeth in putting seasonable questions to such of his fellows (and
sometimes _respectfully_ to the master himself) who can give him
information respecting the price and quality of goods, the state of
exchange, or the latest improvements in book-keeping; thus making the
motion of his lips, as well as of his fingers, subservient to his
master's interest. Not that be refuseth a brisk saying, or a cheerful
sally of wit, when it comes unforced, is free of offence, and hath a
convenient brevity. For this reason, he hath commonly some such phrase
as this in his mouth,--

"It's a slovenly look
To blot your book."

Or,

"Red ink for ornament, black for use:
The best of things are open to abuse."

So upon the eve of any great holiday, of which he keepeth one or two at
least every year, he will merrily say, in the hearing of a confidential
friend, but to none other,--

"All work and no play'
Makes Jack a dull boy."

Or,

"A bow always bent must crack at last."

But then this must always be understood to be spoken confidentially,
and, as we say, _under the rose_.

Lastly, his dress is plain, without singularity,--with no other ornament
than the quill, which is the badge of his function, stuck behind the
dexter ear, and this rather for convenience of having it at hand, when
he hath been called away from his desk, and expecteth to resume his seat
there again shortly, than from any delight which he taketh in foppery or
ostentation. The color of his clothes is generally noted to be black
rather than brown, brown rather than blue or green. His whole deportment
is staid, modest, and civil. His motto is "Regularity."

* * * * *

This character was sketched in an interval of business, to divert some
of the melancholy hours of a counting-house. It is so little a creature
of fancy, that it is scarce anything more than a recollection of some of
those frugal and economical maxims which about the beginning of the last
century (England's meanest period) were endeavored to be inculcated and
instilled into the breasts of the London apprentices[E] by a class of
instructors who might not inaptly be termed "The Masters of Mean
Morals." The astonishing narrowness and illiberality of the lessons
contained in some of those books is inconceivable by those whose studies
have not led them that way, and would almost induce one to subscribe to
the hard censure which Drayton has passed upon the mercantile spirit,--

"The gripple merchant, born to be the curse
Of this brave isle."

In the laudable endeavor to eke out "a something contracted income,"
Lamb, in his younger days, essayed to write lottery-puffs,--(Byron, we
know, was accused of writing lottery-puffs,)--but he did not succeed
very well in the task. His samples were returned on his hands, as "done
in too severe and terse a style." Some Grub-Street hack--a
nineteenth-century Tom Brown or Mr. Dash--succeeded in composing these
popular and ingenious productions; but the man who wrote the Essays of
Elia could not write a successful lottery-puff. At this exult, O
mediocrity! and take courage, man of genius!

Although Elia was an unsuccessful lottery-puffer, he always took special
interest in lotteries, and was present at the drawing of many of them.

Mr. Bickerstaff, we remember,--though I fear that in these days the
pleasant and profitable pages of "The Father" are hardly more known to
the generality of readers than the lost books of Livy or the missing
cantos of the "Faerie Queene,"--possibly we may remember, I say, that
the wise, witty, learned, eloquent, delightful Mr. Bickerstaff, in order
to raise the requisite sum to purchase a ticket in the (then) newly
erected lottery, sold off a couple of globes and a telescope (the
venerable Isaac was a Professor of Palmistry and Astrology, as well as
Censor of Great Britain); and finding by a learned calculation that it
was but a hundred and fifty thousand to one against his being worth one
thousand pounds for thirty-two years, he spent many days and nights in
preparing his mind for this change of fortune.

And albeit I do not believe that Lamb, in his poorest and most needy
days, was ever tempted by any Alnaschar-dreams of wealth to exchange the
raggedest and least valuable of his "midnight darlings" for the
wherewithal to purchase lottery-tickets, I dare say the money which Elia
had saved for the purchase of some choice and long-coveted old folio or
other went into the coffers of the lottery-dealers. Though Lamb drew
nothing but blanks, "or those more vexatious tantalizers of the spirit,
denominated small prizes," yet he held himself largely indebted to the
Lottery, and, upon its abolition in England in 1825, he wrote a long,
eloquent, pathetic discourse on the great departed. It appeared in
Colburn's "New Monthly Magazine," and is, I think, a very pleasant,
entertaining paper, worthy of its subject, and not unworthy of the pen
of Charles Lamb. I take great pleasure in introducing the article to the
readers of the "Atlantic."

* * * * *

THE ILLUSTRIOUS DEFUNCT.[F]

"Nought but a blank remains, a dead void space,
A step of life that promised such a race."

--Dryden.

Napoleon has now sent us back from the grave sufficient echoes of his
living renown: the twilight of posthumous fame has lingered long enough
over the spot where the sun of his glory set; and his name must at
length repose in the silence, if not in the darkness of night. In this
busy and evanescent scene, other spirits of the age are rapidly snatched
away, claiming our undivided sympathies and regrets, until in turn they
yield to some newer and more absorbing grief. Another name is now added
to the list of the mighty departed,--a name whose influence upon the
hopes and fears, the fates and fortunes of our countrymen, has rivalled,
and perhaps eclipsed, that of the defunct "child and champion of
Jacobinism," while it is associated with all the sanctions of legitimate
government, all the sacred authorities of social order and our most holy
religion. We speak of one, indeed, under whose warrant heavy and
incessant contributions were imposed upon our fellow-citizens, but who
exacted nothing without the signet and the sign-manual of most devout
Chancellors of the Exchequer. Not to dally longer with the sympathies of
our readers, we think it right to premonish them that we are composing
an epicedium upon no less distinguished a personage than the Lottery,
whose last breath, after many penultimate puffs, has been sobbed forth
by sorrowing contractors, as if the world itself were about to be
converted into a blank. There is a fashion of eulogy, as well as of
vituperation, and, though the Lottery stood for some time in the latter
predicament, we hesitate not to assert that "_multis ille bonis flebilis
occidit_." Never have we joined in the senseless clamor which condemned
the only tax whereto we became voluntary contributors, the only
resource which gave the stimulus without the danger or infatuation of
gambling, the only alembic which in these plodding days sublimized our
imaginations, and filled them with more delicious dreams than ever
flitted athwart the sensorium of Alnaschar.

Never can the writer forget, when, as a child, he was hoisted upon a
servant's shoulder in Guildhall, and looked down upon the installed and
solemn pomp of the then drawing Lottery. The two awful cabinets of iron,
upon whose massy and mysterious portals the royal initials were
gorgeously emblazoned, as if, after having deposited the unfulfilled
prophecies within, the King himself had turned the lock, and still
retained the key in his pocket,--the blue-coat boy, with his naked arm,
first converting the invisible wheel, and then diving into the dark
recess for a ticket,--the grave and reverend faces of the commissioners
eying the announced number,--the scribes below calmly committing it to
their huge books,--the anxious countenances of the surrounding
populace,--while the giant figures of Gog and Magog, like presiding
deities, looked down with a grim silence upon the whole
proceeding,--constituted altogether a scene which, combined with the
sudden wealth supposed to be lavished from those inscrutable wheels, was
well calculated to impress the imagination of a boy with reverence and
amazement. Jupiter, seated between the two fatal urns of good and evil,
the blind goddess with her cornucopia, the Parcae wielding the distaff,
the thread of life, and the abhorred shears, seemed but dim and shadowy
abstractions of mythology, when I had gazed upon an assemblage
exercising, as I dreamt, a not less eventful power, and all presented to
me in palpable and living operation. Reason and experience, ever at
their old spiteful work of catching and destroying the bubbles which
youth delighted to follow, have indeed dissipated much of this illusion;
but my mind so far retained the influence of that early impression, that
I have ever since continued to deposit my humble offerings at its
shrine, whenever the ministers of the Lottery went forth with type and
trumpet to announce its periodical dispensations; and though nothing has
been doled out to me from its uudiscerning coffers but blanks, or those
more vexatious tantalizers of the spirit denominated small prizes, yet
do I hold myself largely indebted to this most generous diffuser of
universal happiness. Ingrates that we are, are we to be thankful for no
benefits that are not palpable to sense, to recognize no favors that are
not of marketable value, to acknowledge no wealth unless it can be
counted with the five fingers? If we admit the mind to be the sole
depositary of genuine joy, where is the bosom that has not been elevated
into a temporary Elysium by the magic of the Lottery? Which of us has
not converted his ticket, or even his sixteenth share of one, into a
nest-egg of Hope, upon which he has sat brooding in the secret
roosting-places of his heart, and hatched it into a thousand fantastical
apparitions?

What a startling revelation of the passions, if all the aspirations
engendered by the Lottery could be made manifest! Many an impecuniary
epicure has gloated over his locked-up warrant for future wealth, as a
means of realizing the dream of his namesake in the "Alchemist":--

"My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,--
Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded
With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies;
The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels' heels,
Boiled i' the spirit of Sol, and dissolved in pearl
(Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy);
And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber
Headed with diamant and carbuncle.
My footboy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons,
Knots, goodwits, lampreys. I myself will have
The beards of barbels served; instead of salads,
Oiled mushrooms, and the swelling unctuous paps
Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,
Dressed with an exquisite and poignant sauce,
For which I'll say unto my cook, 'There's gold:
Go forth, and he a knight.'"

Many a doting lover has kissed the scrap of paper whose promissory
shower of gold was to give up to him his otherwise unattainable Danae;
Nimrods have transformed the same narrow symbol into a saddle by which
they have been enabled to bestride the backs of peerless hunters; while
nymphs have metamorphosed its Protean form into

"Rings, gauds, conceits,
Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats,"

and all the braveries of dress, to say nothing of the obsequious
husband, the two-footmaned carriage, and the opera-box. By the simple
charm of this numbered and printed rag, gamesters have, for a time at
least, recovered their losses, spendthrifts have cleared off mortgages
from their estates, the imprisoned debtor has leaped over his lofty
boundary of circumscription and restraint and revelled in all the joys
of liberty and fortune, the cottage-walls have swelled out into more
goodly proportion than those of Baucis and Philemon, poverty has tasted
the luxuries of competence, labor has lolled at ease in a perpetual
armchair of idleness, sickness has been bribed into banishment, life has
been invested with new charms, and death deprived of its former terrors.
Nor have the affections been less gratified than the wants, appetites,
and ambitions of mankind. By the conjurations of the same potent spell,
kindred have lavished anticipated benefits upon one another, and charity
upon all. Let it be termed a delusion,--a fool's Paradise is better than
the wise man's Tartarus; be it branded as an _ignis-fatuus_,--it was at
least a benevolent one, which, instead of beguiling its followers into
swamps, caverns, and pitfalls, allured them on with all the
blandishments of enchantment to a garden of Eden, an ever-blooming
Elysium of delight. True, the pleasures it bestowed were evanescent: but
which of our joys are permanent? and who so inexperienced as not to know
that anticipation is always of higher relish than reality, which strikes
a balance both in our sufferings and enjoyments? "The fear of ill
exceeds the ill we fear"; and fruition, in the same proportion,
invariably falls short of hope. "Men are but children of a larger
growth," who may amuse themselves for a long time in gazing at the
reflection of the moon in the water; but, if they jump in to grasp it,
they may grope forever, and only get the farther from their object. He
is the wisest who keeps feeding upon the future, and refrains as long as
possible from undeceiving himself by converting his pleasant
speculations into disagreeable certainties.

The true mental epicure always purchased his ticket early, and postponed
inquiry into its fate to the last possible moment, during the whole of
which intervening period he had an imaginary twenty thousand locked up
in his desk: and was not this well worth all the money? Who would
scruple to give twenty pounds interest for even the ideal enjoyment of
as many thousands during two or three months? "_Crede quod habes, et
habes_"; and the usufruct of such a capital is sorely not dear at such a
price. Some years ago, a gentleman, in passing along Cheapside, saw the
figures 1,069, of which number he was the sole proprietor, flaming on
the window of a lottery-office as a capital prize. Somewhat flurried by
this discovery, not less welcome than unexpected, he resolved to walk
round St. Paul's that he might consider in what way to communicate the
happy tidings to his wife and family; but, upon repassing the shop, he
observed that the number was altered to 10,069, and, upon inquiry, had
the mortification to learn that his ticket was a blank, and had only
been stuck up in the window by a mistake of the clerk. This effectually
calmed his agitation; but he always speaks of himself as having once
possessed twenty thousand pounds, and maintains that his ten-minutes'
walk round St. Paul's was worth ten times the purchase-money of the
ticket. A prize thus obtained has, moreover, this special advantage: it
is beyond the reach of fate; it cannot be squandered; bankruptcy cannot
lay siege to it; friends cannot pull it down, nor enemies blow it up; it
bears a charmed life, and none of woman born can break its integrity,
even by the dissipation of a single fraction. Show me the property in
these perilous times that is equally compact and impregnable. We can no
longer become enriched for a quarter of an hour; we can no longer
succeed in such splendid failures: all our chances of making such a miss
have vanished with the last of the Lotteries.

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