Some magnified them to eleven, Told Mrs. Grub she reckoned ten : Fat Mrs. Hobbs came second-then Came Mesdames Jinkins, Dump, and Spriggins, Our melting hostess said her say, As the Souchong repast proceeded, Lauk! Mrs. Dump, that toast seems dry, No doubt, Ma'am,-what a shame it is! And Cambridge too again has riz! You don't deal now with Mrs. Keats? No, she's a bad one :-Ma'am, she cheats.- Don't spare the toast, Ma'am, don't say no, I give folks plenty when I ax 'em, And there's the church and burying-place, And give you less unlucky grouts : One more-you must-the pot has stood, Do you think her shawl, Ma'am,'s real Injy ?- We do put clean things on our backs. Meat, Ma'am, is scand❜lous dear.-Perhaps Yes, meat is monstrous dear all round; O'er Prospect Row resumed its reign, MEMOIRS OF A HAUNCH OF MUTTON. "I, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you; so you may continue and laugh at nothing still."-The Tempest. THIS is the age for memoirs, particularly of royalty. Napoleon is making almost as much noise after his death as he did in his life-time; Marie Antoinette, by the assistance of Madame de Campan, has obtained a revival of her notoriety; and Louis Dix-huit has effected his escape to Coblentz only to fall into the claws of the critics, by proving that every king is not a Solomon. This epidemic is understood to be spreading among the rulers of the earth, and several of the London booksellers have already started for different capitals of Europe for the purpose, it is said, of treating with crowned authors. Fortunately there is no royal road to biography any more than to geometry; the right divine does not include all the good writing, nor has legitimacy any exclusive alliance with Priscian. Men who have brains inside may scribble as well as those who have crowns outside; beggars and thieves have given their own lives to the public; nay, even things inanimatea wonderful lamp, a splendid shilling, a guinea, have found historians; why then should the lords of the creation have all the memoirs to themselves? "All our praises why should Lords engross? "The Haunch of Mutton," which, for aught that appears to the contrary, may claim a rectilinear descent from the Royal Ram eternized by Mother Bunch, and so be entitled to rank with the best imperial or kingly records that are now issuing from the Row. Into this investigation, curious as it would be, it is not my purpose to enter; it would be irrelevant to my title, which has only reference to sheep after they are dead, and designated as mutton; but I cannot refrain from noticing that even in this point of view the subject I have chosen is poetical, for a poet, like a Merino or South Down, is annually fleeced and sheared, and at last cut up by the critical dissectors; but he is no sooner dead than he acquires a new name, we sit down to his perusal with great satisfaction, make repeated extracts which we find entirely to our taste, and talk complacently of his rich vein, ready flow, his sweetness, tenderness, and so forth. Suffice it to say, that the sheep from which our hero, i. e. our haunch was cut, drew breath in the pastures of Farmer Blewett, of Sussex, whose brother, Mr. William Blewett, (commonly called Billy,) of Great St. Helen's, in the city of London, is one of the most eminent Indigo brokers in the Metropolis. The farmer having a son fourteen years of age whom he was anxious to place in the counting-house of the said Billy, very prudently began by filling his brother's mouth before he opened his own, and had accordingly sent him an enormous turkey at Christmas, a side of fat bacon at Easter, and at Midsummer the identical haunch of South Down mutton, whose dissection and demolition we have undertaken to immortalize. Ever attentive to the main chance, the broker began to calculate that if he asked three or four friends to dine with him he could only eat mutton for one, while he would have to find wine for the whole party; whereas, if he presented it to Alderman Sir Peter Pumpkin, of Broad-street, who was a dear lover of good mutton, and had besides lately received a consignment of Indigo of which he was anxious to propitiate the brokerage, he might not only succeed in that object, but be probably asked to dinner, get his full share of the haunch, and drink that wine which he preferred to all others-videlicet, that which he tippled at other people's expense. Whether or not he succeeded in the former aim, our documents do not testify, but certain it is that he was invited to partake of the haunch in Broad-street, (not being deemed a presentable personage at the båronet's establishment in Devonshire-place); Mr. Robert Rule, Sir Peter's bookkeeper and head clerk, who presided over the city household, was asked to meet him, as well as his nephew, Mr. Henry Pumpkin, a young collegian, whose affection for his uncle induced him to run up to London whenever his purse became attenuated, and who in his progress towards qualifying himself for the church, had already learnt to tie a cravat, drive a tandem, drink claret, and make bad puns. Four persons, as the baronet observed, were quite enough for a haunch of mutton, and too many for one of venison. "I shouldn't have waited for you, Harry," exclaimed the baronet, as his nephew entered. "No occasion, Sir; I am always punctualBoileau says, that the time a man makes a company wait for him is always spent in discovering his faults."-" Does he? then he's a sensible fellow; and if he's a friend of yours you might have brought him to dinner with you.-But you needn't have made yourself such a dandy, Harry, merely to dine at the counting-house."" Why, Sir, as I expected the dinner to be well dressed for me, I thought I could not do less than return the compliment."- -"Ha, ha, ha? do you hear that Billy?--not a bad one, was it? Egad, Harry doesn't go to College for nothing. But there's the 'Change clock chiming for five, and we ought to have dinner. Ay, I remember when four was the hour, and a very good hour too."-"I lately tumbled upon a letter of Addison's to Swift," interrupted Henry, "dated 29th Feb. 1707, inviting him to meet Steele and Frowde at the George in Pall-mall, at two o'clock, which was then the fashionable hour. And apropos of haunches, I remember reading, that in 1720, the year of the South Sea bubble, owing to the fancied riches suddenly flowing in upon the citizens, a haunch of venison rose to the then unexampled value of five guineas, so that deer were dear indeed for one season."-"A fine thing to have been owner of a herd that year," said Mr. Blewett.-" Capital!" observed Mr. Rule, with an emphatic jerk of the head." In the mean time where is our haunch of mutton?" inquired the Alderman :-" do, pray, Mr. Rule, see about it-the cook used to be punctual, and it is now two minutes and a half past five." Mr. Rule bowed and disappeared, but presently returned, announcing that dinner was served. Sir Peter sat at the head of the table, and as Philip the servant was about to remove the cover, laid his hand upon his arm to stop him, until he was provided with a hot plate, vegetables, and sweet sauce, so as to be all ready for the attack when the trenches were opened. "Beautiful!" he exclaimed, as the joint was revealed to him; "done to a turn-admirably frothed up!" so exclaiming, he helped himself plenteously to the best part, and pushing away the dish said " he had no doubt the others would rather help themselves." Mr. Rule, who had not yet achieved independence enough to be clownish, volunteered to supply his neighbours, which he did so clumsily, that Harry declared he should never be his joint executor; and Mr. Blewett applied his more experienced hand to the task. For the first ten minutes so much went into the baronet's mouth that there was no room for a single word to come out; but, as his voracity became gratified, he found leisure to ask his guests to drink wine, and to cackle at intervals what he termed some of his good stories." Clever fellow, King Charles: they called him the mutton-eating King, didn't they?--cut off his head though for all that-stopped his mutton-eating, egad!-I say, Billy, did I tell you what I said t'other day to Tommy Daw, the bill-broker. Tommy's a Bristol man, you know: well, I went down to Bristol about our ship the Fanny that got ashore there."--"The Fanny, Capt. Tyson, was in Dock at the time," interrupted Rule; "it was the Adventure, Capt. Hacklestone, that got ashore."-" Well, well, never mind— where was I?-O, ay;-so says Tommy to me when I came back, Is Betsy Bayley as handsome as ever?-who bears the bell now at Bristol? Why, says I-the bellman, to be sure! Ha! ha! ha! ha!Egad, I thought Tommy would have burst his sides with laughing— Who bears the bell at Bristol? says he.--Why, the bellman, says I. Capital, wasn't it?"-" Capital," ejaculated Mr. Rule, with a most decisive energy. "It's a pity this stewed beefsteak at the bottom should be wasted," said Blewett," nobody tastes it."-" It won't be wasted," replied Harry, "it economizes our dinner."-" How so?"-" Because it serves to make both ends meet."-" Aha! Billy," roared the Baronet," he had you there. I told you Harry didn't go to college for nothing."-"By the by, sir," continued the nephew, "did you ever hear of Shakspeare's receipt for dressing a beefsteak ?"-"Shakspeare's!-no-the best I ever eat were at Dolly's;-but what is it?"-" Why, sir, he puts it into the mouth of Macbeth, where he makes him exclaim-' If it were done when 'tis done, then it were well 'twere done quickly.'"-" Good, good," cackled the Baronet, "but I said a better thing than Shakspeare last week. You know Jack Foster the common council-man, ugly as Buckhorse-gives famous wine though ;--well, we were talking about the best tavern, (I'll thank you for some sweet sauce, Mr. Rule); and so says I-(and a little of the brown fat if you please)—and so says I-Jack, I never see your face without thinking of a good dinner. 'Why so?' says Jack. Because it's ordinary every day at two o'clock, says I." Here the Baronet was seized with such a violent fit of laughter that it brought on an alarming attack of coughing and expectoration; but he no sooner recovered breath enough than he valiantly repeated Why, so, Jack?-Because it's ordinary every day at two o'clock, says I:"which he followed up with a new cackle, while Mr. Rule delivered himself most dogmatically of another "Capital!" and relapsed into his usual solemnity. 66 "The greatest compliment ever offered to this joint," resumed the nephew," proceeded from a popular actor now living, who deemed it the ne plus ultra of epicurism. Having been a long time in London without seeing Richmond Hill, he was taken by some friends to enjoy that noble view, then in the perfection of its summer beauty. The day was fine-every thing propitious :-they led him up the hill and along the dead wall till he reached the Terrace, where the whole glorious vision burst upon him with such an overpowering effect, that he could only exclaim, in the intensity of his ecstasy,- A perfect Haunch, by Heaven!"" "You will be at Kemble's sale to-morrow, Sir Peter?" inquired Blewett.--"What!" replied the nephew, " are poor John Philip's books to be sold? I shall attend certainly. I understand he possessed the first edition of Piers Plowman-The Maid's Tragedy-Gammer Gurton's Needle, and-" "Hoity toity!" interrupted Sir Peter; "what the deuce is the lad chattering about?"-" Bless me, Mr. Henry," cried Rule, 66 you have surely seen the catalogue of the great sale in Mincing Lane-1714 bales of Pernambuco cotton, 419 of Maranham, 96 hogsheads and 14 tierces of Jamaica sugar, 311 bags of coffee, and 66 casks of Demerara cocoa. I believe I can favour you with a perusal of the catalogue with all the best lots marked."-"Infinitely obliged to you," replied Harry, "but I had rather undergo the lot of being knocked down myself." "Aha!" exclaimed the Baronet, with a look of gloating delight; now we shall get on again. Here comes the Argyle with some hot gravy;—that was a famous invention."-" Nothing like it," replied |