Delphi Complete Works of Stephen Leacock, page 418
Says he, with seaman’s roll,
“My Captain (wot’s a Tartar)
Guv Joe twelve years’ black-hole,
For lovering your darter.
“He loves Miss Lady Jane
(I own she is his betters),
But if you’ll jine them twain,
They’ll free him from his fetters.
“And if so be as how
You’ll let her come aboard ship,
I’ll take her with me now.” —
“Get out!” remarked his Lordship.
That honest tar repaired
To Joe, upon the billow,
And told him how he’d fared:
Joe only whispered, “Willow!”
And for that dreadful crime
(Young sailors, learn to shun it)
He’s working out his time:
In ten years he’ll have done it.
The most celebrated of all the nautical ballads is the one mentioned above, The Yarn of the “Nancy Bell.” It is a ballad of shipwrecked sailors, as sung by the solitary survivor. They had been driven to cannibalism and had eaten one another, one by one, till only this man is left but he, as he himself says, embodies all the others. The topic is certainly gruesome, yet it was thought roaring fun for half a century. It became a standing literary reproach against Mark Lemon, the editor of Punch, that when Gilbert wrote The Yarn of the “Nancy Bell,” he wouldn’t accept it. The joke was supposed to be that the editor of Punch, of all papers, didn’t know humour when he saw it. Looking back on it, we don’t feel so sure. Gruesome things, if they are to be humorous, must never show actual detail. We remember Lear’s comic pictures in which people are cut neatly into halves, but of course with no trace of blood, and no sign of emotion except surprise. We recall out of Alice in Wonderland how in the Jabberwocky poem:
One, two. One, two. And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
But Gilbert in the Nancy Bell not only puts in details that won’t bear actual visualization, but seems, so to speak, to “feature” them; this is especially true of the climax of the poem; only two survivors are left — the cook, naturally kept as long as possible by acclamation, and one seaman. The cook prepares the boiling pot.
... He boils the water, and takes the salt
And the pepper in portions true
(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot,
And some sage and parsley too.
That’s all right. We can stand for them because it isn’t real. It’s as harmless as Mark Twain’s Cannibalism in the Cars. But notice what follows. The surviving sailor steals a march on the cook and tips him into the pot.
And he stirred it round and round and round,
And he sniffed at the foaming froth;
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals
In the scum of the boiling broth.
And I ate that cook in a week or less,
And — as I eating be
The last of his chops, why, I almost drops,
For a vessel in sight I see.
The survivor is saved, but at the price of an internal burden that weighs him down forever.
The poem, I say, seemed great fun to a whole generation and more. I remember hearing it read aloud at a country schoolchildren’s entertainment in darkest Ontario in 1878. It called forth rounds of laughter. The more they ate one another the better we liked it. Not so now. I think the Great War killed the Nancy Bell — the new actuality of the horrors and sufferings of the sea, of the agonies of wounded men thirsting or starving in open boats — no, the topic is off.
Very different is Mark Twain’s Cannibalism in the Cars, as accomplished by a group of western congressmen, snowed in by a mountain blizzard — but done with the scrupulous regard for legislature procedure that robs it of all offence.
After the navy came the Church. Mr. Gilbert’s cruel tendency to make fun of bishops and curates had broken out long before Lewis Carroll complained of the Pale Young Curate in the Sorcerer. The “Bab” Ballads are filled with clerical characters. Nevertheless, there were clear limitations as to how far fun could go in this direction. In Gilbert’s England, even when made topsy-turvy, you must not ridicule the doctrines of the Church; funny verses about the Resurrection or the Holy Communion wouldn’t go. But you might laugh all you liked at queer clerical characters and satirize odd clerical usages.
And here a very peculiar distinction had grown up in the current humour of that day. It was not “the thing” to make fun of the Church of England or to ridicule its doctrines. But it was all right to ridicule the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. It was all right to laugh at relics and indulgences and pardons because these things were really funny, being superstitions. It was all wrong to laugh at the Holy Communion of the Church of England because this was a sacred mystery. Indeed, at a certain point, such ridicule became blasphemy and the law would deal with it. Even for people who didn’t believe much, it was “bad form” to make fun of the Church. But you could have all the jokes you liked about fat friars and drunken abbots and juggling priests and hocus-pocus. Take this for example. It comes in the description of a dinner given in a monastery by the Abbot to the Devil, who had wickedly assumed the deceptive form of a pretty lady visitor:
She pledged him once and she pledged him twice
And she drank as lady ought not to drink;
And he pressed her hand neath the table thrice
And he winked as Abbot ought not to wink.
And Peter the Prior and Francis the Friar
Sat each with a napkin under his chin;
But Roger the monk got excessively drunk
So they put him to bed and they tucked him in.
Roaringly funny, isn’t it? I am sure that Lewis Carroll, who found it very wicked of Mr. Gilbert to make fun of bishops and curates of the real Church, would have doubled up with laughter over Roger the monk getting excessively drunk. But how would it be if the Archbishop of Canterbury gave the dinner and the Bishop of Ripon was as full as a pippin and the Bishop of Bath was more than half? No, that wouldn’t be amusing at all because it would be making fun of men whose sacred calling removes them from all humour. Such was the peculiar way in which the Anglican pot laughed at the Catholic kettle. Indeed, the author of the above verses was himself a clergyman, the Reverend Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845), a man much respected for his piety, his kindly life and his antiquarian knowledge. But when he picked up the pen as Thomas Ingoldsby and wrote the Ingoldsby Legends, a book of mingled humorous verse and droll legend, that was very different. He, it was, who wrote the still surviving Jackdaw of Rheims, the story of the unhappy bird which stole the cardinal’s rye and so encountered the full explosive blast of a curse of the Church of Rome, which knocked all its feathers sideways.
This queer attitude toward “Romanism” was, like the other things, a survival. The days had gone when people died in the flames at Smithfield for Protestantism; or when Roman Catholic priests were hunted down as criminals, and witches burned with universal approval. But the smouldering ashes were there still, deep down, still are. Hence, even with active persecution gone and practical rights granted by the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, it was quite in order to make jokes on Roman Catholic idolatry. It was like kicking a dead dog that might not be quite dead.
With which we can open our “Bab” Ballads again and see where we are in regard to the Church of England itself. Here is the Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo, a very merry character, hailing evidently from what were, in Gilbert’s day, the Cannibal Isles, but, in ours, sunk far below that. The Bishop amuses his curé of dark souls with conjuring tricks. That was all right and very funny, being only in the Colonies. The Bishop had left his flock and made a visit to London. On his return he was horrified to find that during his absence rough sailors had landed on Rum-ti-Foo and taught the natives all sorts of dreadful profanity such as “bother!” and “blow!” They had reverted to their native Pacific Island dress, or lack of dress:
Except a shell — a bangle rare —
A feather here — a feather there —
The Bishop, of course, is greatly concerned and devotes himself with true missionary zeal and self-sacrifice to the redemption of his flock.
The Bishop’s eyes with water fill,
Quite overjoyed to find them still
Obedient to his sovereign will,
And said, “Good Rum-ti-Foo!
Half-way I’ll meet you, I declare:
I’ll dress myself in cowries rare,
And fasten feathers in my hair,
And dance the ‘Cutch-chi-boo!’”
And to conciliate his see
He married Piccadillillee,
The youngest of his twenty-three,
Tall — neither fat nor thin.
(And though the dress he made her don
Looks awkwardly a girl upon,
It was a great improvement on
The one he found her in.)
The Bishop in his gay canoe
(His wife, of course, went with him too)
To some adjacent island flew,
To spend his honeymoon.
Some day in sunny Rum-ti-Foo
A little Peter’ll be on view;
And that (if people tell me true)
Is like to happen soon.
So much for the labours of the Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo. One doubts if it was calculated to advance the cause of missionary enterprise. One may compare it with Dickens’ Mrs. Jellyby (in Bleak House) and her labours for the natives of Borrio-boola-Gha. One may compare it, too, with the grim picture of Somerset Maugham’s Rain that has gone around the world as story, play, and picture. I rather think I prefer the Bishop of Rum-ti-Foo to anything we have now.
Equally merry on the surface but deeply satirical below is another church picture The Reverend Simon Magus. Here the satire is directed only against the usages, not against the doctrines, of the Established Church. It begins:
A rich advowson, highly prized,
For private sale was advertised;
And many a parson made a bid;
The Reverend Simon Magus did.
We must pause a moment to explain what an advowson is, or rather was, in Gilbert’s time, for the right it carries has been greatly modified by later statutes. It meant the right of “Presentation to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice”; that is, the right, in plainer language, to name (practically to appoint) a clergyman to a particular position fallen vacant. This was a form of property. It originated centuries ago out of various gifts given to the Church which carried a quid pro quo or, shall we say, a string on them. The right could be bought or sold, even at auction, and in the case of a rich benefice it carried a high price. It is only fair to admit that the right could not be exercised by a lunatic or a Roman Catholic; still less by a Roman Catholic lunatic. Here the universities of Oxford and Cambridge stepped in and took the place of the lunatic. It is fair, also, to admit that the bishop of the diocese might object to the person presented as not fit to be a clerk in holy orders. In which case the owner of the advowson could come back at him with a writ of quare impedit (why is he stopping me?) and the proposed clerk could join in with a duplex querela — that means a side kick — and the whole matter drift slowly sideways toward the Court of Chancery. We don’t have fun like that in newer countries.
So now one can understand Gilbert’s delight in Simon Magus’ dickering with an agent for the advowson ...
A rich advowson, highly prized,
For private sale was advertised;
And many a parson made a bid;
The Reverend Simon Magus did.
He sought the agent’s: “Agent, I
Have come prepared at once to buy
(If your demand is not too big)
The Curé of Otium-cum-Digge.”
“Ah!” said the agent, “there’s a berth —
The snuggest vicarage on earth;
No sort of duty (so I hear),
And fifteen hundred pounds a year!
“If on the price we should agree,
The living soon will vacant be;
The good incumbent’s ninety-five,
And cannot very long survive.
“See — here’s his photograph — you see,
He’s in his dotage.” “Ah, dear me!
Poor soul!” said Simon. “His decease
Would be a merciful release!”
The agent laughed — the agent blinked —
The agent blew his nose and winked —
And poked the parson’s ribs in play —
It was that agent’s vulgar way.
The Reverend Simon frowned: “I grieve
This light demeanour to perceive;
It’s scarcely comme il faut, I think:
Now — pray oblige me — do not wink.
“Don’t dig my waistcoat into holes —
Your mission is to sell the souls
Of human sheep and human kids
To that divine who highest bids.
“Do well in this, and on your head
Unnumbered honours will be shed.”
The agent said, “Well, truth to tell,
I have been doing very well.”
“You should,” said Simon, “at your age;
But now about the parsonage.
How many rooms does it contain?
Show me the photograph again.
A poor apostle’s humble house
Must not be too luxurious;
No stately halls with oaken floor —
It should be decent and no more.
“No billiard-rooms — no stately trees —
No croquet-grounds or pineries.”
“Ah!” sighed the agent, “very true:
This property won’t do for you.
“All these about the house you’ll find” —
“Well,” said the parson, “never mind;
I’ll manage to submit to these
Luxurious superfluities.
“A clergyman who does not shirk
The various calls of Christian work
Will have no leisure to employ
These ‘common forms’ of worldly joy.
“To preach three times on Sabbath days —
To wean the lost from wicked ways —
The sick to soothe — the sane to wed —
The poor to feed with meat and bread;
“These are the various wholesome ways
In which I’ll spend my nights and days:
My zeal will have no time to cool
At croquet, archery, or pool.”
The agent said, “From what I hear,
This living will not suit, I fear —
There are no poor, no sick at all;
For services there is no call.”
The reverend gent looked grave. “Dear me!
Then there is no ‘society’? —
I mean, of course, no sinners there
Whose souls will be my special care?”
The cunning agent shook his head,
“No, none — except” — (the agent said) —
“The Duke of A., the Earl of B.,
The Marquis C., and Viscount D.
“But you will not be quite alone,
For, though they’ve chaplains of their own,
Of course this noble well-bred clan
Receive the parish clergyman.”
“Oh, silence, sir!” said Simon M.,
“Dukes — earls! What should I care for them?
These worldly ranks I scorn and flout,
Of course.” The agent said, “No doubt.”
“Yet I might show these men of birth
The hollowness of rank on earth.”
The agent answered, “Very true —
But I should not, if I were you.”
“Who sells this rich advowson, pray?”
The agent winked — it was his way —
“His name is Hart; twixt me and you,
He is, I’m grieved to say, a Jew!”
“A Jew?” said Simon, “happy find!
I purchase this advowson, mind.
My life shall be devoted to
Converting that unhappy Jew.”
But observe how different is the treatment of the Roman Catholic Church. All of its doctrines, except where they are identical with those of the Established Church of England, are a fair mark for ridicule. Nothing is too sacred, not even the confessional and the forgiveness of sins. Take as evidence the Ballad of Gentle Alice Brown, in which Gentle Alice confesses her sins to Father Paul and receives an easy absolution.
It was a robber’s daughter, and her name was Alice Brown,
Her father was the terror of a small Italian town;
Her mother was a foolish, weak, but amiable old thing;
But it isn’t of her parents that I’m going for to sing.
As Alice was a-sitting at her window-sill one day,
A beautiful young gentleman he chanced to pass that way;
She cast her eyes upon him, and he looked so good and true,
That she thought, “I could be happy with a gentleman like you!”
And every morning passed her house that cream of gentlemen,
She knew she might expect him at a quarter unto ten;
A sorter in the Custom-house, it was his daily road
(The Custom-house was fifteen minutes’ walk from her abode).
But Alice was a pious girl, who knew it wasn’t wise
To look at strange young sorters with expressive purple eyes;
So she sought the village priest to whom her family confessed,
The priest by whom their little sins were carefully assessed.
“Oh, holy father,” Alice said, “’twould grieve you, would it not,
To discover that I was a most disreputable lot?
Of all unhappy sinners I’m the most unhappy one!”
The padre said, “Whatever have you been and gone and done?”
“I have helped mama to steal a little kiddy from its dad,
I’ve assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,
I’ve planned a little burglary and forged a little cheque,
And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!”
The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear,
