The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 485, April 16, 1831

“Supper being removed, wine was introduced; and I had the honour of pouring out a glass of port to Miss Snooks. She thanked me with an inclination of her head—or rather of her nose—and drank to my health, and to that of the rest of the company. While performing the process of drinking, I could not help gazing upon her, to see how so very remarkable a person would go to work. The peak of her nose actually dipped down over the farthest rim of the glass—spanning it as a rainbow spans the Vale of Glengarry, while the ‘limpid ruby’ rolled in currents within the embrace of her delighted lips. The more I gazed upon her, the greater did my surprise at this extraordinary feature become.

“It is unnecessary to detail at length, the conversation which ensued. It was tolerably connected, as might be looked for in so small a company, seldom, branching out into miscellaneous details, and turning chiefly upon literary matters. But I found it impossible to join in it with any degree of relish. In vain did my opposite neighbour call up before my imagination the scenes of my birthplace; in vain did our landlord crack his jokes—for he was a great humourist—and rally me upon my dulness; in vain did he allege that I was in love, and good-naturedly fix upon two or three girls as the objects of my affections. Worthy man! little did he imagine that I was in love with his cousin’s nose.

“In love, yes! I bore the same love towards it, that the squirrel bears to the rattlesnake—when it gets fascinated by the burning eyeballs, horrid fangs, and forked tongue of its crawling, slimy, and execrable foe. Mistake me not, sir, or suppose that I mean to insinuate that Miss Snooks was a rattlesnake. No; the reasoning is purely analogical; and I only wish it to be inferred that that nose, humped like a dromedary—prominent as Cape Wrath—nobler than Cæsar’s, or the great captain’s—had precisely the same influence on me as the envenomed Python of the American woods has upon the squirrel. It fascinated me—threw a spell over me—enchanted my faculties—made me love to gaze upon what I abhorred, and think of nothing but one feature—one nose, which nevertheless held a more prominent place in the temple of my imagination, than Atlas, Andes, or Teneriffe, or even the unscalable ridges of Himalaya, where Indra, the god of the elements, is said to have placed his throne. Having meditated for some time in this way, I found that it would never do. There was something inexpressibly absurd in the mood which my mind was getting into, and I resolved to throw off the incubus which oppressed me, and be like other people. Full of this idea, I filled a bumper, and bolted it off—then another—then another. I was getting on admirably, and rapidly recovering my equanimity, when chancing to turn my eyes towards Mr. Hookey, he was nowhere to be seen. He had not gone out; that was impossible; no—he was concealed from me by the mighty nose.

“This event had nearly capsized me, and brought me back into my old way, when I poured out another glass of wine, and hastily swallowed it, which in some measure restored the equilibrium of my faculties. I looked again at Hookey, and saw him distinctly—the shade was gone, for Miss Snooks had leaned back, in a languishing mood, upon her chair, and taken her nose along with her. At this moment I fancied I saw her ogling me with both eyes, and resolved to be upon my guard. I remembered the solemn vows already made to my dear Cecilia; and on this account determined to stand out against Miss Snooks and her nose.

“But this was only a temporary relief. Again did she lean forward, and again was the nose protruded between Hookey and myself. It acted as an eclipse—it annihilated him—made him a mere nonentity—rendered him despicable in my eyes. It was impossible to respect any man who lived in the shade of a nose, who hid his light under such a bushel. Hang the ninny, he must be a sneaking fellow!

“The wine now began to circulate more freely round the table, and the tongues of the company to get looser in their heads. Miss Snooks also commenced talking at a greater stretch than she had hitherto done. I soon found out that she was a poetess, and had written a couple of novels, besides two or three tragedies. In fact, her whole conversation was about books and authors, and she did us the favour of reciting some of her own compositions. She was also prodigiously sentimental, talked much about love, and was fond of romantic scenery. I know not how it was, but although her conversation was far from indifferent, it excited ridiculous emotions in my mind, rather than any thing else. If she talked of mountains, I could think of nothing but the hump upon her nose, which was, in my estimation, a nobler mountain than Helvellyn or Cairngorm. If she got among promontories, this majestic feature struck me as being sublimer than any I had ever heard of—not excepting the Cape of Good Hope, first doubled by Vasco de Gama.—When she conversed about the blue loch and the cerulean sky, I saw in the tip of her nose a complexion as blue or cerulean as any of these. It was at once a nose—a mountain—a cape—a loch—a sky. In short it was every thing. She was armed with it, as the Paladins of old with their armour. Nay, it possessed the miraculous property of rendering a human being invisible, of concealing Mr. Hookey from my eyes; thus rivalling the ring of Gyges, and casting the invisible coat of Jack the Giant-killer into the shade.

“After conversing with her for some time upon indifferent matters, she asked me if I was fond of caricatures, and spoke particularly of the designs of George Cruikshank. Scarcely had she mentioned the name of this artist, than I was seized with a strange shuddering. In one moment I called to mind his illustrations of Punch and Judy, at which we had been looking, before coming down to supper. A clue was now given to the otherwise unaccountable train of feelings, which had possessed me ever since I saw Miss Snooks. From the moment when I first set my eyes upon her, I fancied I had seen her before; but where, when, and upon what occasion I found it impossible to tell. Her squeaking voice, her blue twinkling eyes, her huge frilled cap, and above all, her mighty nose, all seemed familiar to me. They floated within my spirit as a half-forgotten dream; and without daring to whisper such a thing to myself, I still felt the impression that all was not new—that the novelty was not so great as I imagined.

“But Punch and Judy set all to rights. I had seen Miss Snooks in George Cruikshank, and at once all my perplexing feelings were accounted for. She was Judy—she was Punch’s wife. Yes, Miss Snooks, the old maid, was the wife of Mr. Punch. There was no denying the fact. The same small weazel eyes, the same sharp voice and hooked chin, and the same nose—at once mountain, cape, &c. &c. belonged alike to Judy and Miss Snooks. They were two persons; the same, yet, different—different, yet the same—the one residing in the pages of Cruikshank, or chattering and fighting in the booths of mountebanks at Donnybrook or St. Bartholomew’s Fair—the other seated bolt upright, at the head of her cousin’s table, beside a small coterie of littérateurs.

“I know not whether it was the effect of the old port, but, strange to say, I could not for some time view Miss Snooks in her former capacity, but simply as Judy. She was magnified in size, it is true, from the pert, termagant puppet of the fairs, and was an authoress—a writer of tragedies and novels—in which character, to the best of my knowledge, the spouse of Punchinello had never made her appearance, but then the similitude between them, in other respects, was so striking as to constitute identity. Eyes, chin, voice, nose, were all precisely alike, and stamped them as one and the same individual.

“But this strange illusion soon wore away, and I again saw Miss Snooks in her true character. It would perhaps be better if I said that I saw her nose—for somehow I never could look upon herself save as subordinate to this feature. It were an insult to so majestic a promontory to suppose it the mere appendage of a human face. No—the face was an appendage of it, and kept at a viewless distance behind, while the nose stood forward in vast relief, intercepting the view of all collateral objects—casting a noble shadow upon the wall—and impressing an air of inconceivable dignity upon its fair proprietor.

“The first impression which I experienced on beholding the lady was one of fear. I have stated how completely she—or, to speak more properly, her nose—stood between me and Mr. Hookey, and felt appalled in no small degree at so extraordinary a circumstance. There is something inexpressibly awful in a lunar eclipse, and a solar one is still more overpowering, but neither the one nor the other could be compared to the nasal eclipse effected by Miss Snooks. So much for my first impressions: now for the second. They were those of boundless admiration, and—.”

Most unfortunately, just as the gentleman had got to this part of his story, the coach stopped at the principal inn of Hamilton, and he there left it, after bowing politely to me, and wishing me a pleasant ride for the rest of the journey.—Fraser’s Magazine.

SANDY HARG

The night-star shines clearly,
The tide’s in the bay,
My boat, like the sea-mew,
Takes wing and away.
Though the pellock rolls free
Through the moon-lighted brine,
The silver-finn’d salmon
And herling are mine—
My fair one shall taste them,
May Morley of Larg,
I’ve said and I’ve sworn it,
Quoth young Sandy Harg.

He spread his broad net
Where, ’tis said, in the brine,
The mermaidens sport
Mid the merry moonshine:
He drew it and laugh’d,
For he found ’mongst the meshes
A fish and a maiden,
With silken eyelashes—
And she sang with a voice
Like May Morley’s of Larg,
“A maid and a salmon
For young Sandy Harg!”

Oh, white were her arms,
And far whiter her neck—
Her long locks in armfuls
Overflow’d all the deck:
One hand on the rudder
She pleasantly laid,
Another on Sandy,
And merrily said—
“Thy halve-net has wrought thee
A gallant day’s darg—
Thou’rt monarch of Solway,
My young Sandy Harg.”

Oh, loud laugh’d young Sandy,
And swore by the mass,
“I’ll never reign king,
But mid gowans and grass:”
Oh, loud laugh’d young Sandy,
And swore, “By thy hand,
My May Morley, I’m thine,
Both by water and land!
’Twere marvel if mer-woman,
Slimy and slarg,
Could rival the true love
Of young Sandy Harg.”

She knotted one ringlet.
Syne knotted she twain,
And sang—lo! thick darkness
Dropp’d down on the main—
She knotted three ringlets,
Syne knotted she nine,
A tempest stoop’d sudden
And sharp on the brine,
And away flew the boat—
There’s a damsel in Larg
Will wonder what’s come of thee
Young Sandy Harg.

“The sky’s spitting fire,”
Cried Sandy—“and see!
Green Criffel reels round,
And will choke up the sea;
From their bottles of tempest
The fiends draw the corks,
Wide Solway is barmy,
Like ale when it works;