(copy.)
to dr. darby socratis hous school establismint, rumfud essex.
docter darby sur.
if so be a farther and a parrint may tak so grate a libberty, its my wish to rite about my sun. not bein a skollard, oing to neglected genus in yuth, i am uncompitent to be a gudge and war indust to sho the skull letter to my bruther benjamin, of the late rial navy who had moor buck larning for his sheers,
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besids seein forren parts and he do say wot give grate concern to all as is concarned, namely my suns edication is fur from a thurro nollige of evvery thing, and partickly his hostifografy or summat to that effect. as such is hily blammabil to yureself or tooters whos provins war to propergit wot they had in their hone heds into them under them, insted of witch his unkel say he hav bin teecht moor ignorans then anny think else. witch is verry ard considring mints of munny lad out, and hevin nose i have not bin sparring with him, but pade away at a grate rat, ever sins he war britchd. hunderds cant kiver him from fust to last and nothin but blited hops arter all. cirkimstancis purvented my having moor nor one acomplishment and that war my farthers bisness, but tho brort up hill miself i no the valley of edicashun. warefor if it be no offens i wish to no candiddle from your hone mouth wether you hav so unedicatted him as his unkil suspex. at sam tim will esteam a faver to no if he continny in gud helth witch ware always a littel dellicat and pecking, but i trust as how rumfud hare and gud beaf and muttin and holesum wit bred and milk hav made him quit fat. his pore late muther lickwise made a pint of gud unturnd tabel bear, as all assiduities is injurus to yuth. as she used to say, pore sole, fud and flanning saves fisick. allso i hop and trust you disalow the boys of advanst years tirenizing over the weekly wons, or savedge tooters as is apt to sho lickings and dislickings. the tooters morrils in course is a car not overluckd, but sweetharting demand constant vigilings to gard agin its cumming in clandestiny where it ort not. mrs. rumsey also begs to apollogiz for naming damp beds, but in coarse misses doctor darby have a muther’s feelings about damp lining for boys boddis. all witch will give grate sattisfaxun to here, as in case of the revers parrintel duty will feal hobbligated to remov afore the mischief go to fur. i shall luck eggerly for your anser and trust you will embrace all the queerys. i ashore it will giv grate pleshure not
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to hav to remove my custom, with witch and respective compliments,
i remane dr. darby sur
your verry humbel servant
john carnaby.
“we don’t know what we can do till we try.”
“there’s a right way and a wrong for every thing.”
no. iv.—to mister benjamin carnaby, brigantine row, deptford.
deer benjamin,
inclosd is dr. darby’s explainative not, witch for anny thing i no to the contrairy is evvery thing as we cud luck for, without going into the retales. he apear to hav no douts of a
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misscomprehenshun on our parts, witch prove us to be boath in the rong as will be a grate comfit to you and deer benjamin.
yure luving bruther
john carnaby.
(the enclosure.)—to john carnaby, esquire.
dear sir,
in ancient greece and rome, so celebrated for their classical attainments, it would have been considered derogatory to the academical dignity, for scholastic discipline to be subject to animadversion from a civic character, professedly unconversant with polite literature in all its branches. as the principal of a pedagogical establishment, i might, therefore, objurgate with propriety any irrelevant discussion to be deprecated from such a superfluous source. conscious, however, of standing on the basis of an undeniable prospectus, which professes to embrace universal knowledge, throughout the circle of the arts and sciences, i am prepared to assert that a more comprehensive system of education could not be devised than that which is ascribed to the establishment of socrates house. if further testimonials were necessary, i might triumphantly appeal to the mental cultivation of flourishing members of society, evinced in the successful pursuit of affluence, in the eastern and western hemispheres, so advantageous to the commerce, wealth, and power, of the united kingdom. such testimonies, it is presumed, are sufficiently obvious to the most unprejudiced mind, to demand those unerring principles of fostering talent, inviting emulation, and stimulating enquiry, combined with moral, intellectual, and dietetical qualities, such as to command the unreserved approbation and confidence of all parties engaged in the important task of juvenile tuition. trusting that the prolixity of this explanatory statement will propitiate the
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most paternal solicitude, with sentiments in accordance with the rapid progress of human civilization, permit me to subscribe myself, with every feeling of respect,
dear sir,
your most obedient, faithful, humble servant,
simon darby, ll.d.
wigwam.
no. v.—to mr. john carnaby, 49, polyanthus place, mile end road, london.
dear brother,
if i was to write what comes uppermost, i should stand a chance of a place i won’t name. but you always was a you-know-what, and as the proverb says, there’s never a one like you now you are old. as for the school, it’s the nest of a land pirate; and for any good to his mind, dear bob might as well be in the hulks. however it won’t do to let you go and make a so-and-so of yourself all over the country—whereby, luckily for you, there’s an old shipmate of mine laid up at rumford,
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and so i can kill him and my nevy with the same stone. so let mister doctor darby look out for squalls, and that’s all from
your loving brother,
ben carnaby.
“bless me, how bald you are!”
“yes—i was plucked at college.”
no. vi.—(from the same to the same.)
dear brother,
this is to say i made this place, namely rumford, yesterday morning about 10 a.m., and immediately bore away to socrates house, and asked for my nevy,—but you shall have it logged down all fair and square.
“in for a penny—in for a pound.”
well, after a haul at the bell, and so forth, i was piloted into
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a room, on the ground tier, by the footman, and a pastryfaced son of a land cook he looked sure enough. where, as soon as may be, mrs. doctor darby joins company, a tight little body enough, all bobbing up and down with courtesys like the buoy at the nore, and as oily tongued as any rat in the greenland docks. by her own account, she rated a step above mother to six score of boys, big and little, and every man jack of them more made of, and set store by, than if they had been parts of her own live stock. all which flummery would go down with you, and the marines, mayhap, but not with old sailors like me. as for dear bob, she buttered him of both sides, thick and threefold, as the best, sweetest, darlingest, and what not young gentleman of the whole kit, besides finding out a family likeness between him and his uncle, which if it’s any feature at all, is all my eye. next she enquired after you, the worthiest parent she ever knew, not excepting her own father, whereby i blest my stars you were not within hail; or you would have been flabbergasted in no time, with your eyes running like scuppers, and your common senses on their beam ends. at long and last in comes my nevy himself, as smooth and shining as a new copper; whereby says she, “i hope you will excuse untidiness, and so forth, because of sending for him just as he stood.” that’s how he came no doubt in his sunday’s breeches; besides twigging the wet soap-suds in his ears. “here my sweet love,” she sings out, “here’s your dear kind uncle so good as to come to enquire after your welfare.” so dear bob, heaves ahead, and gets a kiss, not from me tho, and a liquorish lozenge for what she called his nasty hack. nothing however but a colic with parched peas, as he owned to afterwards. “now, then, nevy,” says i, “what cheer—how do you like your berth?” when up jumps madam like a scalded cat; and no or yes, i must drink the favour of a glass of sherry rank cape, john, as ever was shipped. then master robert,
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bless him, must have a leetle glass too, but provided i approve, and a ration of sweet cake. whereby says she, “now i will leave you to your mutual confidences”—as looked all fair and above board enough, if i had not made out a foot near the door. and in the twinkling of a handspike in sails dr. darby himself, with as many scrapes to me as if i was port admiral; and as anxious about my old gout,—for i’ve got an easy shoe for a bunion—as if he’d been intimate with it in my great-grandfather’s time. well, we palavered a bit about the french news, and the weather, and the crops, whatever you like, let alone book learning; but that was not my course, and impatient to see tom pike, besides, so i ran slap aboard him at once with an ask to see the school. as i looked for, he was took all aback; however madam wasn’t thrown so dead in the wind, but jumped up to the bell tackle, and after a bit of a whisper with the servant, we got under way for the school; but contrived to land somehow in the kitchen, with a long row of quartern loaves drawn up on a dresser to receive us, like a file of marines. then madam begins to spin a long yarn about plain food, but plenty of it, for growing youths—dear bob’s very lathy, john, for all that—and then comes the doctor’s turn to open with a preachment on animal foods, and what will digest, and what won’t; tho’ for my own part, i never met with any meat but would do it in time, more or less. so by way of clapping a stopper i made bold to remind that time is short tho’ life is long, and thereby luffing slap up to my nevy, “bob,” says i, “what’s the variation of the compass?” so master bob turns it about a bit, and then says he, “why, it’s one leg shorter than t’other.” which is about as nigh it, brother, as you are to table bay! and how it gave the doctor a bad fit of coughing, which his wife caught of him as natural as if it had been the hooping sort—at last says she, “maybe master robert has not progressed yet into navigation.”
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“maybe not, ma’am,” says i, “and so we’ll try on another tack—nevy, what’s metaphysics?” “brimstone and treacle,” says bob, as ready as gunpowder, and the lady looked as satisfied as bob did—but the doctor had another bad fit, and good reason why, for there’s no more physic in metaphysics than a baby might take in its pap. by this time we were going up stairs, but lay-to awhile alongside a garden pump on the landing, to have a yarn about dowsing glims, and fire guards, and going the rounds at night; and as dear bob hung astarn, i yawed, and let fly at him again with “what’s religion?” “the colic on sundays,” says he, as smart as you like; tho’ what he meant by colic the old gentleman knows. however both the doctor and madam pulled a pleasant face at him, and looked as pleased as if he had found out the longitude; but that was too fine weather to last, for thinks i, in course he can carry on a little further on that board, so says i, “what’s the main-top-gallant rule of christianity?” “six weeks at christmas,” says he, as bold as brass from getting encouraged before. so you see, john, he don’t know his own persuasion. in course we were all at wry faces again; but the doctor had the gumption to shove his out of a window, and sing out an order to nobody in the back yard. as for madam, she shot ahead into the sleeping rooms, where i saw half a hundred of white dimity cots, two warming-pans, and nine clothes baskets—master robert’s berth among the rest. next we bore away by a long passage to the kitchen again, where two rounds of boiled beef had been put to officer the quartern loaves, and so through the washery and pot-and-pannery into the garden ground, where i came in for as long a yarn about the wholesomeness of fresh vegetables and salads, as if the whole crew of youngsters had been on the books with the scurvy. from the cabbages we got to the flowerbeds; and says the doctor,
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“i don’t circumscribe, or circumvent, one or t’other; i don’t circumvent my pupils to scholastical works, but encourage perusing the book of nature.”—“that’s very correct, then, doctor,” said i, “and my own sentiment exactly. nevy, what’s natural philosophy?”—“keeping rabbits,” says bob; which sounds likely enough, but it’s not the thing by sixty degrees. i can’t say but i felt the cats’-paws coming over my temper; but i kept it under till we fetched the paddock, to look at the cows; and that brought up another yarn about milk-dieting; and says madam, “when summer comes, our doctor is so good as to permit the young gentlemen to make his hay.”—“no doubt alive, ma’am,” says i; “saves hands, and good fun too, eh, nevy?—what’s agriculture?” however this time dear bob chose to play sulky, and wouldn’t answer good or bad; whereby the doctor crowds up, with a fresh question. “now then, master robert,” says he pretty sharp, “i will ask you something you do know. what is algebra,—al—gebra?”—“please sir,” says bob, “it’s a wild donkey all over stripes.”—“there’s a dear boy!” cries madam, the more fool she; but old darby looked as black as thunder at midnight. “i’m afraid,” says he, letting go the toplifts, as one may say, of his eyebrows; “i’m afraid there has been a little slackness here with the cat; but, by your leave, sir, and so forth, i will investigate a little into it myself. now master robert, take a pull at your mental tackle, for i’m going to overhaul your mathematics:—how do you describe a triangle?”—“please sir,” says bob, “it’s the thing that tingle-tangles to the big drum.” well, there was the devil to pay again, and no pitch hot! old darby looked as if he meant either to drop down dead on the spot of apoplexy, or to murder dear bob; he swelled and reddened up so about the wattles without hoisting out a word. for my own part, nevy as he was, i couldn’t help serving him out a back-handed slap of the head, and then i turned-to at the schoolmaster. “so, mister doctor,” says i,
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“this is what you call a liberal education in your manifest?”—“sir,” says he, looking as stiff as a corporal just made, “whatever your, some cursed long hard word may be, i cannot consider myself liable for the lagging astern of, i must say, the dullest sailor in my whole convoy.”—“why, blood and thunder!” said i, for old nick could not have helped it—“you told me that bob, my nevy there, was the handiest and smartest of the whole kit!”—“that was me, sir,” says the lady hauling in between us—“and then i only spoke as to temper, as greek and latin are beyond a female’s provinces”—which was true enough; so i felt bound to beg her pardon, which was granted: and we had smooth water again till we neared the school-room. now then, thought i, look out for squalls, for my mind was made up to stand no nonsense from the petty officers, that is to say, gentlemen ushers. so i ranged
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up alongside the most mathematical looking one i could pick out, by way of having a bout with him at trigonometry; but he chose to be as shy, and deaf and dumb, as a gibraltar monkey just grabbed. “with submission, my good sir,” says the doctor, putting in his oar, “mr. huckin may consider it a work of supereror-something, and a going beyond ourselves, to re-examine him after the very satisfactory certificates that satisfied me myself.”—“that’s to say,” says i, “in plain english, that i’m to get nothing but what i can screw out of my nevy?”—“my dear sir,” says the doctor, “you misconstruct me entirely—the whole of the juvenile pupils are open to candid scrutiny. suppose we begin with the classics. master bush, sir, you will english me hic, hac, hoc.”—“this, that, and t’other,” says master bush; no great shakes of an answer, i guess, but it seemed to serve for a come-off. then came my turn, so i asked who was the discoverer of america? and may i never break biscuit again, if he didn’t say “yankee doodle!” well, to cut off the end of a long yarn, this was as good as there was to be got out of the best of them. one told me that guy fox found out gunpowder; and another that a solar eclipse was along of the sun’s standing in its own light. what else i might have learned, that i never knew before, must be left over for a guess; for in the middle of the next ask, it was all hats aloft! and three cheers for a half holiday; but if i had any hand in begging it, may i die ashore in a dry ditch! however that was too much of a dog’s trick to be took quietly, so i prepared a broadside, with a volley of oaths to it, by way of small arms; but before i could well bring it to bear, the doctor hauls out his watch, and says he, “it’s extremely bad luck, but there’s a voting this morning for a parish beadle, and i make a point not to let my private duties get to windward of my public ones.” so saying, with a half-and-half sort of a bow, to me, he cut and run; madam getting athwart hawse so as to cover
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his getting off. in course it was no use to waste speech upon her; but i made bold to d—n the whole covey of undermasters, in the lump, as a set of the sharkingest, loggerheaded, flute-playing, skulking, lubberly sons of grinning weavers and tailors that ever broke bread. so the finish over all is, that i took my nevy away, traps and all; and not an hour too soon; and with bob in tow i made tom pike’s, who was as glad to see his old messmate as i was to see him; and what’s more, when he heard the bit of a brush i had enjoyed, he informed me that doctor darby, ll.d., and what not, was all one and the same with darby the shipchandler, that went to pieces down at wapping. you see then, as the chaplain says, that all’s for the best either here or hereafter; and so no more, till monday, when i shall bring my nevy bob to you, to make what you will of him, which i hope will be as like a man as possible. if otherwise, i won’t promise not to change my name by act of parliament, and so be no relation to dear bob, nor to you neither; and that’s the real mind of
your loving brother,
ben carnaby.
