Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackeraytoasted Mrs. Boz, and the Chairman, and Vice, and theTraditional Priest sang the ‘Deep deep sea,’ in his deepdeep voice; and then we drank to Procter, who wrotethe said song; also Sir J. Wilson’s good health, andCruikshank’s, and Ainsworth’s: and a Manchester friendof the latter sang a Manchester ditty, so full of tradingstuff, that it really seemed to have been not composed,but manufactured. Jerdan, as Jerdanish as usual on suchoccasions—you know how paradoxically he is quite athome in dining out. As to myself, I had to make mysecond maiden speech, for Mr. Monckton Milnes proposedmy health in terms my modesty might allow me to repeatto you, but my memory won’t. However, I ascribedthe toast to my notoriously bad health, and assuredthem that their wishes had already improved it—that Ifelt a brisker circulation—a more genial warmth aboutthe heart, and explained that a certain trembling of myhand was not from palsy, or my old ague, but an inclinationin my hand to shake itself with every one present.Whereupon I had to go through the friendly ceremonywith as many of the company as were within reach,besides a few more who came express from the otherend of the table. Very gratifying, wasn’t it? Though Icannot go quite so far as Jane, who wants me to havethat hand chopped off, bottled, and preserved in spirits.She was sitting up for me, very anxiously, as usualwhen I go out, because I am so domestic and steady,and was down at the door before I could ring at thegate, to which Boz kindly sent me in his own carriage.Poor girl! what would she do if she had a wild husbandinstead of a tame one?”And the poor anxious wife is sitting up, and fondlesthe hand which has been shaken by so many illustriousmen! The little feast dates back only eighteen years,and yet somehow it seems as distant as a dinner at Mr.Thrale’s, or a meeting at Will’s.Poor little gleam of sunshine! very little good cheerenlivens that sad simple life. We have the triumph ofthe Magazine: then a new Magazine projected and produced:then illness and the last scene, and the kindPeel by the dying man’s bedside speaking noble words85