The Wofle New Ballad Of Jane Roney And Mary Brown / William Makepeace Thackeray

An igstrawnary tail I vill tell you this veek--

I stood in the Court of A'Beckett the Beak,

Vere Mrs. Jane Roney, a vidow, I see,

Who charged Mary Brown with a robbin' of she.

This Mary was pore and in misery once,

And she came to Mrs. Roney it's more than twelve monce

She adn't got no bed, nor no dinner, nor no tea,

And kind Mrs. Roney gave Mary all three.

The Speculators / William Makepeace Thackeray

The night was stormy and dark, The town was shut up in

sleep: Only those were abroad who were out on a lark, Or

those who'd no beds to keep.

I pass'd through the lonely street, The wind did sing and

blow; I could hear the policeman's feet Clapping to and fro.

The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman / William Makepeace Thackeray

Warning to the Public

CONCERNING

THE LOVING BALLAD OF LORD BATEMAN.

In some collection of old English Ballads there is an ancient ditty which I am told bears some remote and distant resemblance to the following Epic Poem. I beg to quote the emphatic language of my estimable friend (if he will allow me to call him so), the Black Bear in Piccadilly, and to assure all to whom these presents may come, that "I am the original."

The Lamentable Ballad Of The Foundling Of Shoreditch / William Makepeace Thackeray

Come, all ye Christian people, and listen to my tail,

It is all about a Doctor was traveling by the rail,

By the Heastern Counties Railway (vich the shares don't desire),

From Ixworth town in Suffolk, vich his name did not transpire.

A traveling from Bury this Doctor was employed

With a gentleman, a friend of his, vich his name was Captain Loyd;

And on reaching Marks Tey Station, that is next beyond Colchester,

a lady entered into them most elegantly dressed.

The Crystal Palace / William Makepeace Thackeray

With ganial foire

Thransfuse me loyre,

Ye sacred nymphths of Pindus,

The whoile I sing

That wondthrous thing

The Palace made o' windows!

The Ballad Of Eliza Davis / William Makepeace Thackeray

Galliant gents and lovely ladies,

List a tail vich late befel,

Vich I heard it, bein on duty,

At the Pleace Hoffice, Clerkenwell.

Praps you know the Fondling Chapel,

Vere the little children sings:

(Lord I likes to hear on Sundies

Them there pooty little things!)

Lines On A Late Hospicious Ewent / William Makepeace Thackeray

I paced upon my beat

With steady step and slow,

All huppandownd of Ranelagh-street;

Ran'lagh, St. Pimlico.

While marching huppandownd

Upon that fair May morn,

Beold the booming cannings sound,

A royal child is born!

Jacob Omnium's Hoss / William Makepeace Thackeray

A NEW PALLICE COURT CHANT.

One sees in Viteall Yard,

Vere pleacemen do resort.

A wenerable hinstitute,

'Tis called the Pallis Court

A gent as got his i on it,

I think will make some sport

Little Travels and Roadside Sketches / William Makepeace Thackeray

I.

FROM RICHMOND IN SURREY TO BRUSSELS IN BELGIUM

. . . I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" at Richmond, one of the comfortablest, quietest, cheapest, neatest little inns in England, and a thousand times preferable, in my opinion, to the "Star and Garter," whither, if you go alone, a sneering waiter, with his hair curled, frightens you off the premises; and where, if you are bold enough to brave the sneering waiter, you have to pay ten shillings for a bottle of claret; and whence, if you look out of the window, you gaze on a view which is so rich that it seems to knock you down with its splendor--a view that has its hair curled like the swaggering waiter: I say, I quitted the "Rose Cottage Hotel" with deep regret,

The Second Funeral of Napoleon / William Makepeace Thackeray

I.

ON THE DISINTERMENT OF NAPOLEON AT ST. HELENA.

MY DEAR ----,

It is no en the Voyage from St. Helena asy task in this world to distinguish between what is great in it, and what is mean; and many and many is the puzzle that I have had in reading History (or the works of fiction which go by that name), to know whether I should laud up to the skies, and endeavor, to the best of my small capabilities, to imitate the remarkable character about whom I was reading, or whether I should fling aside the book and the hero of it, as things altogether base, unworthy, laughable, and get a novel, or

A Little Dinner at Timmins's /

I.

Mr. and Mrs. Fitzroy Timmins live in Lilliput Street, that neat little street which runs at right angles with the Park and Brobdingnag Gardens. It is a very genteel neighborhood, and I need not say they are of a good family.

Especially Mrs. Timmins, as her mamma is always telling Mr. T. They are Suffolk people, and distantly related to the Right honorable the Earl of Bungay.

John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character / William Makepeace Thackeray

We, who can recall the consulship of Plancus, and quite respectable, old-fogyfied times, remember amongst other amusements which we had as children the pictures at which we were permitted to look. There was Boydell's Shakspeare, black and ghastly gallery of murky Opies, glum Northcotes, straddling Fuselis! there were Lear, Oberon, Hamlet, with starting muscles, rolling eyeballs, and long pointing quivering fingers; there was little Prince Arthur (Northcote) crying, in white satin, and bidding good Hubert not put out his eyes; there was Hubert crying; there was little Rutland being run through the poor little body by bloody Clifford; there was Cardinal Beaufort (Reynolds) gnashing his teeth, and grinning and howling demoniacally on his death-bed (a picture frightful to the present day); there was Lady Hamilton (Romney) waving a torch, and dancing before a black background,--a melancholy museum indeed. Smirke's delightful "Seven Ages" only fitfully relieved its general gloom.

The Fitz-Boodle Papers / William Makepeace Thackeray

Preface

GEORGE FITZ-BOODLE, ESQUIRE, TO OLIVER YORKE, ESQUIRE.

OMNIUM CLUB, May 20, 1842.

Dear Sir,

I have always been considered the third-best whist-player in Europe, and (though never betting more than five pounds) have for many years past added considerably to my yearly income by my skill in the game, until the commencement of the present season, when a French gentleman, Monsieur Lalouette, was admitted to the club where I usually play.

The Fatal Boots / William Makepeace Thackeray

JANUARY.

THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR.

Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has really happened to him in this mortal life, he would be sure to make a good book, though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to his burial. How much more, then, must I, who HAVE had adventures, most singular, pathetic, and unparalleled, be able to compile an instructive and entertaining volume for the use of the public.

George Cruikshank / William Makepeace Thackeray

Accusations of ingratitude, and just accusations no doubt, are made against every inhabitant of this wicked world, and the fact is, that a man who is ceaselessly engaged in its trouble and turmoil, borne hither and thither upon the fierce waves of the crowd, bustling, shifting, struggling to keep himself somewhat above water--fighting for reputation, or more likely for bread, and ceaselessly occupied to-day with plans for appeasing the eternal appetite of inevitable hunger to-morrow--a man in such straits has hardly time to think of anything but himself, and, as in a sinking ship, must make his own rush for the boats, and fight, struggle, and trample for safety.

The Bedford-Row Conspiracy / William Makepeace Thackeray

CHAPTER I.

OF THE LOVES OF MR. PERKINS AND MISS GORGON, AND OF THE TWO GREAT FACTIONS IN THE TOWN OF OLDBOROUGH.

"My dear John," cried Lucy, with a very wise look indeed, "it must and shall be so. As for Doughty Street, with our means, a house is out of the question. We must keep three servants, and Aunt Biggs says the taxes are one-and-twenty pounds a year."

On Being Found Out / William Makepeace Thackeray

At the close (let us say) of Queen Anne's reign, when I was a boy

at a private and preparatory school for young gentlemen, I remember

the wiseacre of a master ordering us all, one night, to march into

a little garden at the back of the house, and thence to proceed one

by one into a tool or hen house (I was but a tender little thing

just put into short clothes, and can't exactly say whether the

house was for tools or hens), and in that house to put our hands

into a sack which stood on a bench, a candle burning beside it. I

put my hand into the sack. My hand came out quite black. I went

and joined the other boys in the schoolroom; and all their hands

were black too.

The Notch On The Ax / William Makepeace Thackeray

I

Every one remembers in the Fourth Book of the immortal poem of your

Blind Bard (to whose sightless orbs no doubt Glorious Shapes were

apparent, and Visions Celestial), how Adam discourses to Eve of the

Bright Visitors who hovered round their Eden--

'Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth,

Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.'