ΟΙ

CHOICE LITERATURE.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE TILL.

[Douglas Jerrold, born in London, 3d January, 1803; died at Kilburn, London, 8th June. 1857. Midshipman, printer, dramatist, journalist, novelist, essayist, humourist-and potent in all the many parts he played. His suc cess was won by dint of hard honest work; his end came in the sunshine of success. He was noted for saying "sharp things:" he should also have been noted for saying them only when falsehood of some sort or other called them forth. He was one of the earliest contributors to Punch, in which the Caudle Lectures and other popular sketches first appeared. It was as a dramatist and humourist that he was best known; but it was the productions of his more serious moods which exhibited his

pluck a heart of meaning out of it. However, be it as it may, you shall hear it, sir.

"There was a man called Isaac Pugwash, a dweller in a miserable slough of London, a squalid denizen of one of the foul nooks of that city of Plutus. He kept a shop; which, though small as a cabin, was visited as granary and store-house by half the neighbourhood. All the creature-comforts of the poor-from bread to that questionable superfluity, small-beerwere sold by Isaac. Strange it was, that with such a trade Pugwash grew not rich. He had many bad debts, and of all shopkeepers, was most unfortunate in false coin. Certain it is, best powers, whilst they showed his earnest sympathy he had neither eye nor ear for bad money.

with all who struggled and hoped, and his love of rural
life. This is most apparent in the Chronicles of Clover-
nook, which, according to his son-Mr. Blanchard
"The Chronicles are a
Jerrold-was his pet work.
fragment of what it was originally intended by the
author they should be;" says Mr. B. Jerrold in his in-

teresting preface to the admirable edition of his father's
works issued by Messrs. Bradbury, Evans and Co.;
"but the fragment, it was his belief, had a better chance
of reaching the hands of future generations, than the
rest of his works. All the qualities of his genius shine
their brightest here. The study of benignant nature is
rich and rare. The 'Legends' have purposes in them.
from which the author. being in downright earnest with
the world, could never long wean his fancy." The fol-
lowing "Tragedy of the Till" is one of the legends, told by
that most delightful of modern Friar Tucks, "The
Hermit of Bellyfulle." The book is full of quaint fancies,
and presents a world in which the wrongs of our world
are humorously set right.1]

"IT

T is a strange tale, but it hath the recommendation of brevity. Some folks may see nothing in it but the tricksiness of an extravagant spirit; and some, perchance, may

The chief dramatic works of Douglas Jerrold are: Black-eyed Susan; The Rent day; Nell Gwynne: Time Works Wonders; the Bubbles of the Day; the Prisoner of War; the Cat's Paw, &c. His miscellaneous works are: Cakes and Ale: Men of Character; Mrs. Caudle's Curtain

Lectures; Punch's Letters to his Son; The Man Made of

Money; Story of a Feather: St. Giles and St. James;
Chronicles of Clovernook, &c,

VOL. III.

Counterfeit semblances of majesty beguiled him out of bread and butter, and cheese, and red herring, just as readily as legitimate royalty struck at the Mint. Malice might impute something of this to the political principles of Pugwash, who, as he had avowed himself again and again, was no lover of a monarchy. Nevertheless, I cannot think Pugwash had so little regard for the countenance of majesty as to welcome it as readily when silvered copper as when sterling silver. No, a wild, foolish enthusiast was Pugwash, but in the household matter of good and bad money he had very wholesome prejudices. He had a reasonable wish to grow rich, yet was entirely ignorant of the by-ways and short-cuts to wealth. He would have sauntered through life with his hands in his pockets and a daisy in his mouth; and dying with just enough in his house to pay the undertaker, would have thought himMrs. Pugwash, such a careless, foolish, dreamself a fortunate fellow; he was, in the words of ing creature. He was cheated every hour by a customer of some kind; and yet to deny credit to anybody-he would as soon have denied the wife of his bosom. His customers knew the weakness, and failed not to exercise it. To be sure now and then, fresh from conjugal counsel, he would refuse to add a single 50