THOMAS INGOLDSBY.

"POISON IN JEST."

AT the conclusion of the majority of the "Ingoldsby Legends," there are verses entitled "Moral;" and this may have been considered by some as a very advantageous addition to productions which have had so extensive a sale, and consequently so extensive an influence upon the minds of particular classes of readers. At the end of the "Legend of a Shirt" there occurs the following,

MORAL.

"And now for some practical hints from the story

Of Aunt Fan's mishap, which I've thus laid before ye;
For, if rather too gay

I can venture to say

A fine vein of morality is, in each lay

Of my primitive Muse the distinguishing trait!"

2nd Series.

Now, either this is meant to be the fact; or it is not. If meant as a fact, it will be the business of this paper to display what sort of morality these popular legends contain. But it is not seriously meant !-the author is "only in fun!" Very well; then the sort of fun in which he abounds shall be displayed, together with the "fine vein of morality" which it is to be presumed his Muse does not contemplate.

The story of "Nell Cook," (second series,) is very clearly and graphically told in rhyme. Nelly is the cookmaid of a portly Canon, a learned man with "a merry eye." Nelly, besides being an excellent cook, is also a very comely lass, and the twofold position she holds in the private establishment of the Canon is sufficiently apparent. In this merry condition of gastronomical affairs, there arrives " a lady gay" in a coach and four, whom the Canon presses to his breast as his Niece, gives her his blessing, and kisses her ruby lip. Nelly, the mistress cook, looks askew at this,

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suspecting they were a little less than 'kin, and rather more than kind." The gay Lady remains feasting with the Canon in his house, quaffing wine, and singing Bobbing Joan! The cook becomes jealous of the clergyman, hates the assumed Niece, and hits upon a plan for discovering the real truth of the relationship. She hides the poker and tongs in the Lady's bed! The said utensils remain there unheeded during six weeks-and the primitive Muse with a fine vein of morality" says she does not know where the Lady took her rest all that time! To be brief: Nelly puts poison into her cookery-the bell rings for prayers—the Canon does not come-cannot be found. They search, however, and eventually breaking open the door of a bed-chamber, they find the Canon lying dead upon the bed, and his "Niece" upon the floor, dead also. The black, swollen, livid forms, are described; and the Prior then says, "Well! here's a pretty Go!" When the assumed relationship of the parties is mentioned in the "sacred fane," the Sacristan "puts his thumb unto his nose, and spreads his fingers out!" It may now be fairly assumed-with submission-that the Ingoldsby Muse is not serious, but only in fun-in fact that she is "rather too gay." To proceed, therefore, with the sequel of this extremely droll story.

The monks, or somebody employed by them, as it seems, seize upon Nelly, and taking up a heavy paving stone near the Canon's door, bury her alive under it. And,

"I've been told, that moan and groan, and fearful wail and shriek
Came from beneath that paving stone for nearly half a week-

For three long days, and three long nights came forth those sounds of fear;
Then all was o'er-they never more fell on the listening ear!"

Excellent fun !-buried alive!-moans and shrieks for three days and nights !—really this fine vein of morality will be the death of us!

But these things are not meant to be pleasant. This is meant to be serious. It certainly looks very like that. In process of years three masons take up the heavy stone, and underneath it, in a sort of dry well, they discover a fleshless skeleton. This also looks very serious. But presently we

shall find that horror and levity are exquisitely blendedthe "smiles and the tears," as it is beautifully said by some admirers, in extenuation. For "near this fleshless skeleton" there lies a small pitcher, and a "mouldy piece of

kissing-crust!" Here it may truly be said that Life and Death meet in horrible consummation. It is awfully funny, indeed!

Under the head of "Moral," at the end, all morality is evaded by silly common-place exhortations, intended to pass for humour, such as cautioning "learned Clerks" not to "keep a pretty serving-maid;" and "don't let your Niece sing Bobbing Joan," and "don't eat too much pie!"-poisoned pie.

Here is another of these fine veins of a Muse who "poisons in jest." A learned Clerk-the clergy are 'specially favoured with prominently licentious positions in these horrible pleasantries-a learned Clerk comes to visit the wife of Gengulphus in his absence.* They eat, and drink, hold revels; the " spruce young Clerk " finds himself very much at home with "that frolicksome lady ;" and thenhaving placed every thing quite beyond doubt,-the primitive Muse leaves a blank with asterisks, as if she were too delicate to say more. During one of their festivities the husband, Gengulphus, returns from a pilgrimage. The learned Clerk, the spruce young divine, is concealed by the wife in a closet, and she then bestows all manner of fond attentions upon her weary husband, whose "weakened body" is soon overcome by strong drink, and he falls into a sound sleep. The young divine then comes out of the closet, and assists the wife in murdering Gengulphus, by smothering and suffocation, all of which is related with the utmost levity. After this, they deliberately cut up the corpse.

"So the Clerk and the Wife, they each took a knife,
And the nippers that nipped the loaf-sugar for tea;
With the edges and points they severed the joints
At the clavicle, elbow, hip, ankle, and knee."

Having dismembered him "limb from limb," cutting off his hands at the wrists, by means of the great sugar-nippers, they determine upon throwing his head down the well. Before doing this, however, they cut off his long beard, and stuff it into the cushion of an arm-chair, all of which is laughably told. Then, the Muse does not mean to be serious?this is not intended as an account of a murder done, or any thing beyond a joke. Read the next stanza.

*See "Gengulphus," 1st Series.

"They contrived to pack up the trunk in a sack,
Which they hid in an osier-bed outside the town,
The Clerk bearing arms, legs, and all on his back,
As the late Mr. Greenacre served Mrs. Brown."

Exactly this is the point at issue-here is the direct, clearly-pronounced comparison with an actual horror, made palpable beyond all dispute. As did Greenacre, in like manner did this spruce young Clerk! No pantomime murders, no Christmas gambol burlesques-but the real thing is meant to be presented to the imagination. Here is, indeed, a specimen of a Muse being "rather too gay," and upon a very unusual occasion for merriment. Subsequently the story becomes preternatural, after the manner of a monkish legend, variegated with modern vulgarisms, and finally the wife seats herself upon the cushion which contains her murdered husband's beard, and the cushion sticks to her ·! What follows cannot be ventured in prose. The "Moral" at the end, is not very symphonious; but in the usual twaddling style affecting to be humorous-" married pilgrims don't stay away so long," and "when you are coming home, just write and say so;" learned Clerks" stick to your books""don't visit a house when the master 's from home". drinking;" and "gay ladies allow not your patience to fail." A fair average specimen of the beautiful concentrated essence of that "fine vein of morality" which runs, or rather, gutters, through these legends.

"shun

In the Legend of Palestine (second series) which is called "The Ingoldsby Penance," (?) the knight, who has gone to the holy wars, leaving his wife at Ingoldsby Hall, intercepts a letter, carried by a little page, from his wife to a paramour with whom she has " perhaps been a little too gay," as the holy Father remarks-whereby we discover what meaning is attached to those words. Sir Ingoldsby gives the little page a kick, which sends him somewhere, and the child is apparently killed on the spot. The paramour turns out to be the revered Prior of Abingdon ! Sir Ingoldsby forthwith cuts off the reverend man's head. His account of the style in which he murdered his wife, the lady Alice, must be told in his own words :

"And away to Ingoldsby Hall I flew!
Dame Alice I found-

She sank on the ground

I twisted her neck till I twisted it round!
With jibe, and jeer, and mock, and scoff
I twisted it on-till I twisted it off!

Serious or comic? Surely this cannot be meant as a laughable thing, but as a dreadful actual revenge? At any rate, however, it is laughed at, and the very next couplet institutes a paraphrastic comparison with Humpty Dumpty who sat on a wall! "All the king's doctors, and all the king's men," sings the primitive Muse-who is sometimes "rather too gay -"can't put fair Alice's head on agen!" It must by this time have become perfectly apparent that the only possible attempt at justification of such writings must be on the score of some assumed merit in the unexampled mixture of the ludicrous and the revolting-the exquisite turns"-" the playfulness" of these bloody fingers.

The legitimate aim of Art is to produce a pleasurable emotion; and through this medium, in its higher walks, to refine and elevate humanity. The art which has a mere temporary excitement and gratification of the external senses as its sole object, however innocent the means it employs, is of the lowest kind, except one. That one is the excitement of vicious emotions, unredeemed by any sincere passion or purpose, whether justified or self-deluding; and there are no emotions so vicious and so injurious as those which tend to bring the most serious feelings and conditions of human nature into ridicule and contempt; to turn the very body of humanity, "so fearfully and wonderfully made," inside out, by way of a jest, and to represent "battle, murder, and sudden death," not as dreadful things from which we would pray that all mankind might be " delivered," but as the richest sources of drollery and amusement.

There is perhaps no instance of extensive popularity without ability of some kind or other, even when the popularity is of the most temporary description: and that the "Ingoldsby Legends" possess very great talent, of its kind, should never be denied. It will be treated in due course. Their merit is certainly not wit, in its usual acceptation; and their humour can scarcely be regarded as legitimate, being continually founded upon trifling with sacred, serious, hideous, or otherwise forbidden subjects, beyond the natural region of the comic muse, and often beyond nature herself.

It will be acknowledged on all sides that the cheapest kind of wit or humour, or whatever passes current for either, is that which a man finds ready made. Whoever is the first