Burlesques William Makepeace Thackeray

11
me, that whether for good or ill, I am the thing of an
immortality and the creature of a God. . . . I have
destroyed a man noxious to the world! with the wealth by
which he afflicted society, I have been the means of
blessing many."
CODLINGSBY.
BY D. SHREWSBERRY, ESQ.
I.
"The whole world is bound by one chain. In every city in the globe there is one quarter that
certain travellers know and recognize from its likeness to its brother district in all other
places where are congregated the habitations of men. In Tehran, or Pekin, or Stamboul, or
New York, or Timbuctoo, or London, there is a certain district where a certain man is not a
stranger. Where the idols are fed with incense by the streams of Ching-wang-foo; where the
minarets soar sparkling above the cypresses, their reflections quivering in the lucid waters
of the Golden Horn; where the yellow Tiber flows under broken bridges and over imperial
glories; where the huts are squatted by the Niger, under the palm-trees; where the Northern
Babel lies, with its warehouses, and its bridges, its graceful factory-chimneys, and its
clumsy fanes—hidden in fog and smoke by the dirtiest river in the world—in all the cities
of mankind there is One Home whither men of one family may resort. Over the entire
world spreads a vast brotherhood, suffering, silent, scattered, sympathizing, WAITING—an
immense Free-Masonry. Once this world-spread band was an Arabian clan—a little nation
alone and outlying amongst the mighty monarchies of ancient time, the Megatheria of
history. The sails of their rare ships might be seen in the Egyptian waters; the camels of
their caravans might thread the sands of Baalbec, or wind through the date-groves of
Damascus; their flag was raised, not ingloriously, in many wars, against mighty odds; but
'twas a small people, and on one dark night the Lion of Judah went down before
Vespasian's Eagles, and in flame, and death, and struggle, Jerusalem agonized and died. . . .
Yes, the Jewish city is lost to Jewish men; but have they not taken the world in exchange?"
Mused thus Godfrey de Bouillon, Marquis of Codlingsby, as he debouched from Wych
Street into the Strand. He had been to take a box for Armida at Madame Vestris's theatre.