The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook. Theodore Edward Hook

now in France, my son-in-law (Number too, as I calls him) told me yesterday—They say, "il a reprit ses Culottes"—Culottes are things which the Popish Priests wear upon their heads; and the joke turns upon the difference between the culottes and soufflets, which are amulets of eggs, of which I once before wrote to you, from the other side of Old Ossian.

      I should tell you that my Bowfeeze (as he calls himself) Delcroy, is learning English very fast, but he will not do it the wriggler way, but gets his Dicks and Harries, and so puzzells out every word. We had a great laugh against him the other day—

      He was a coming home through St. Giles's (which is the only way to this), and there was two women a fighting in the street, and Delcroy he stood listening to hear what it was all about; but doose a word could he make out, till at last one of the women gave the other, what the fighters call a Flora, and she tumbled down, and then the friends of her agonist called out "Well done Peg," which Delcroy got into his head, and come home all the way, a saying to himself, "Well—done—Peg;" quite dissolved to find out what it meant, in he comes—up stairs he goes—down comes his Dicks and Harries, and out he finds the words—

      First, he finds "Well"—an evacuation made in the earth to find water;

      Next he finds "Dun"—a colour betwixt black and brown;

      And last he finds "Peg"—a wooden nail.

      Oh! then to hear him rave and swear about our Lang Anglay—it was quite orrible—for he knew well enough, with all his poking and groping, that that could not be the meaning; so now, whenever he begins to try his fine scheme, my girls (little toads) run after him and cry out "Well done Peg!"

      I wish you would drop in and see us—we are all in the family way here; but my two youngest daughters play very pretty—one they say has as much execution as Muscles on the piano-forte, or Key-sweater on the fiddle; they play the late Mr. Weaver's overture to Obrien uncommon well as a do-it; the Roundo is very difficult they tell me—indeed I know it must be a beautiful piece of music, because they have printed FINE in large letters at the end of it.

      But I waist too much of your time—do come and take your tea with us—we live a good deal out of the way, but when you get down to the bottom of Oxford-street, ask anybody, and they will tell you which road to take—it is all lighted at night here, and watched just like London—do come.

      Adoo, yours, truly,

      Lavinia D. Ramsbottom.

XIV.

       MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON THE CANNING ADMINISTRATION.

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      To John Bull.

      Montague Place, Bedford Square,

       May 18, 1827.

      Dear B.,—I am quite in a consternation—you are no longer a supporter of Government, and I am—indeed several ladies of my standing down in these parts have determined to stick to the Canine Administration, which you oppose. Mr. Fulmer takes in the Currier, and the Currier supports them—besides, he knows the Duke of Deafonshire, and so we cannot help being on their side.

      You did not, perhaps, expect so soon to see Lord Doodley in place, nor fancy Mr. Turney would be Master of the Mint, or else you would not have been again Mr. Canine—for I know you like Lord Doodley, and you always praise Mr. Turney.

      Between you and me, I do not quite understand why they should have so much Mint in the Cabinet as to want a man to look after it, when they have no Sage there, nor do I see how our Statesmen can get into a Cabinet to sit—to be sure, the French Minister sits in a bureau, and one is quite as easy to get into as the other. I see by Mr. Canine's speeches, that the King (God bless him!) sits in a closet, which is much more comfortable, I think.

      Fulmer tells me that Mr. Broom's brother is the Devil, and gets six or seven hundred a year by it—I always understood he was related to the family, but never knew how, till Mr. Canine's people got him a place at Court, which I think very wrong, only I must not say so.

      I was very near in a scrape on Monday. I went down to Common Garden to buy some buckets for my Popery jars, out of which I empty the Popery in summer, and put in fresh nosegays, being a great votery of Floorar—when who should be there but Mr. Hunt, and Mr. Cobbett, and Mr. Pitt, the last of which gentlemen I thought had been dead many years; indeed I should not have believed it was him, still alive, only I heard Mr. Hunt call for his Old Van, which I knew meant the President of our Anti-Comfortable Society in Tattenham-court-road, who is a Lord now, and was a friend of Mr. Pitt's before he retired from public life into the Haddlefy.

      Mr. Hunt told us a thing which I never knew before, which is, that the pavement of Common-garden is made of blood and prespiration, which is so curious that my two little girls and I are going down Toosday to look at it—after hearing him say that, I got away, but had my pocket picked of some nice young inions, which I had just before bought.

      Mr. Fulmer does not know I am riting to you, but I do rite because I think it rite to do so, to warn you not to say that Mr. Canine has gone away from what he was formerly—for I know as a fact that it was he which christened his present friends "all the talons," and rote a pome in praise of them, which he would not have done had he not thought eyely of them.

      It is not true that he is going to make any new Pears, although his anymes says so. Mr. Russell, of Branspan, I have known all my life—he smokes more than his coles, and don't want to be a Lord at all; and as for Mr. Bearing, he is a transit land take man, and cannot be a Lord here—at least so F. tells me. However, I think Sir George Warrener will be a Barren something, let what will happen elsewhere. I see, however, Mr. Canine has made both Plunkett and Carlile Lords, and given all the woods and forests to the latter.

      You see I begin to pick up the noose—awnter noo, as the French say, have you seen our village clock in St. Giles's—it is lited up by itself every heavening, at hate o'clock; and on account of its bright colour, may be red at any hour of the nite: it is, indeed, a striking object; if you should be able to get out of town, do drive down this way and look at it.

      Only think of these Mr. Wakefields being put into gaol for three years for marrying a young woman—I suppose there is no chance of her being confined in consequence of her going with them. Have you heard Madame Toeso? is she any relation to Miss Foote? My papa is full, and so'il hold no more, so adeu.

      Yours truly,

      Dorothea L. Ramsbottom.

      P.S.—Have you read Sir Ruffian Donkey's Pumpflet about Lord Somersetshire?

XV.

       MRS. RAMSBOTTOM ON SMOKING.

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      To John Bull.

      August, 1827.

      Dear B.,—I wish you would please to say something about them nasty men what smokes about. I took my daughter to Market last week in the Columbine packet, and there not only did the ship smoke, but almost every man had either a pipe or a seagar in his mouth.

      I made a little fox pos on board, for I was so sick of the smoking that one of the men said I had better go and sit with the engineers, for let it be ever so hot they were used to it and never smoked. Now when we was living on Blackheath, poor Mr. Ram used to ask several of the engineers to dine with us, which always come in a pretty uniform of scarlet, with blue velvet facings, and which I knowed to be a genteel corpse, because there were not no men in it, but all officers. So I asked the gentlemen who talked of the engineers to show me the way to them, thinking perhaps I might see some of my old friends down there, but when I got into the place, which was like a firnest, what should I see but two or three men without their coats, with airy caps on their heads and dirty faces, a shovelling in coles like anything—and when