" PAY HERE."
CARICATURISTS never rise to reality. George Cruikshank, years ago, drew the freeborn Englishman undergoing all the compulsions to which that creature was subjected in 1819. Both George and Punch have represented John Bull labouring under all the bur- dens that a Chancellor of the Exchequer could heap upon him, undergoing all the abstractions that the official self-made creditor could exact; but it would need a larger frame than the caricaturist can command to assemble all the claimants who find means of thrusting their hands into the generous Briton's pocket.
Besides the Sir George Cornwall Lewis for the time being, reaching the pocket with devices as various and ingenious as those of Barrington—Who picked the pocket of the mechanist that made his instrument—we should have great bankers, like Strahan, Paul, and Bates, concentrating their attention upon his purse and carry- ing off three-quarters of a million. We should have distinguished persons from a distance, graceful foreigners like Cortazar, approaching with false bills of credit, and reckoning upon the credulity which the appearance of wealth commands and the mere aspect of regularities can secure.
Next comes "Alice Grey," that gentle and artless creature, whose countenance exhibits the untainted simplicity of nature. This is an immortal claimant : she is to be met in all routes and in all capitals. Now it is on board a steamer, where the inflictions of a sea voyage do but add to the charms of her pnsiveness; for there is so much art about her that even the painful endurances of a steam-boat only lend new graces to her dejection. Or she is in a factory town, a widow, whose youth and adversity extract a liberal subvention from tender-hearted. charity. Alice Grey has put on many metamorphoses and many names, but she must be more than human, and independent of time ; for some twenty-five years qv, a lusty youth used to haunt the streets of London roaring, with stentorian lungs, that " his heart, his heart was breaking, for the love of Alice Grey "—and she is still a tender-hearted young thing! She was then, a quarter of a century ago, all that the young gentleman's fancy painted her; and she is still, wherever she appears, all that the spectator's fancy paints her. Only when she is called to balance her accounts, she turns round, and her lovely lips inform yen that you may "-Go to bell !" These individual Ohanoellors of the Exchequer, -whose bills are always accepted so -readily, are remarkable chiefly for one charac- teristic—that they are usually picturesque in their aspect, always dramatioal. If a Dutch Jew.desires a very short •out to the in- come-tax which is the revenue of the •class, he lets his m. riding-whip, grow, puts on golden spurs, carries a gold handled . has a card printed in which he is called " His Royal Highness Prince Leon Jacques, Prince of Armenia, Prince..of Korioosz, Prince of Georgia, Prince of Lusignan Rupignie, Prince ofJ. apan, and heir-presumptive to the throne of Armenia "; and he is fur- nished for his flight—capable of living at taverns without paying his bills—qualified to be an habitue at any -embassy which he may honour with his visits, entitled •to levy contributions from the wealthy, who feel that they are lending to States when they aid a disinherited Prince. It mightalmosthave been thought •that in these days of general communication, people having the entree at the Foreign Office and its information could have detected the spurious Armenian Prince, and stamped him as "forged" as easily as an ill-contrived five-pound note. Some forty years ago, there ap- peared in England a young lady who called herself a Princess : she professed to be an amphibious beauty, the native of an undis- covered island in the Atlantic, or of some submarine kingdom ; and for a time she too levied her contributions from the curious. But in those days we had neither periodical mails to all parts of the world, nor submarine telegraphs, nor count-guides for every country. A German needs not be a Jew, nor needs he come to this coun- try, to come to John Bull's pocket. There is Baron Bruck dab- bling in Hypothels Banks—Societes de Great Fonder, abstracting from the capital of Europe, aiding the drain of bullion from this country, and drawing off the sovereigns that John Bull sees sliding away from beneath his eyes while he wonders where they go to.
Sometimes the German Lewis circumvents the suffering tax- payer by a long detour. In the guise of Strobel, for instance, he appears in America, accepts a commission to raise recruits, takes general pay as agent, fails in his business, turns informer for
American , has already perhaps a Russian retainer in his pocket, anAnigu°s8esmukits John Bull by a triple process—in his own salary, in the enhancement of the American expenses, and in so much that goes towards the Russian war. Another of the innumerable claimants is the one descendant of Daniel Defoe, James of that ilk—"a Crusoe without a Friday"— who appears by proxy in the venerated person of Walter Savage Landor. We are about to give a statue to the deceased Defoe : give, instead, an independence to the living Defoe—not acs to Daniel, but ease to James. " It was in the power of Johnson to relieve the granddaughter of Milton " ; the Times, says Lander, can prop nip the last scion of Defoe. It appears to us that the Chan- cellor of the Defoe Exchequer has made out his budget better than Most of his tribe.
Only there is such a number of the tribe t They are thick as gipsies near a race-town. On the very heel of Landor come inneteen of them, sturdily begging in the powerful accents of Thomas Carlyle on behalf of the two daughters of Mauritius Lowe, painter. What are their merits ? The merits of one, the purger, lie in her being the sister of the elder; and the elder's merits are these : Dr. Samuel Johnson mentions her in his will for a bequest of 1001., for that she was his goddaughter ; and she dimly remembers being taken to him that he might lay his hands on her bead-and bless her. Moreover, they have numerous memo- rials of Johnson in their possession, ineludinga fir desk ; a desk on Which Johnson writ his dictionary ; a dictionary " the best ever written, say some," (!) having " an architectonic quality, massive solidity of plan, manful correctness and fidelity.of execution, lumi- nous intelligence, rugged honesty and greatness of mind" ; where- fore, Henry Hallam and Co. appeal to the Prime Minister for a "literarypension,"—for they opine that the case can be brought under the head " literary " " in a reflex way." Thus, Johnson is, as it were, canonized : his imposition of hands consecrates, and quell- Res for imposition of funds; his relics make the possessor "lite- rary," and as he has no children, luckily we have the Misses.Lowe to receive the outpourings of our feelings and funds. Palmerston Premier cannot accept the new theory of reflex action ; bat he gives 1001. out of the Royal bounty ; and, wanting 100/. more, " Thomas Carlyle, Charles Dickens, and John Forster" apply to the grand paymaster, the public. Really there is something in this case to make us pause. It reminds us, that with all our readiness to pay anybody that holds out his hand like a waiter and "expects it,' we have left one fund unfounded. We are ready enough with our benevolence for an artless Alice Grey, our delicate assistance for a Leon Prince of Armenia, our pay for a Captain Strobel, our trust for a Sir John Dean Paul; we have no bowels for two blameless old ladies, no compunction for their troubles. If they are in distress, they may go to the workhouse. Or if they are to be saved, it takes nine- teen eminent literary persons to propose relief for them in a reflex way, because they have a fir desk and other Johnson reminiscences. Why, surely, the claim of the two ladies is, that they are women, are old, helpless, and likely to lose the scanty comforts and the scanty consideration that their declining means may have pre- served to them thus far. They merit help because they are help- less and estimable; and if it does not exist for them on that direct and simple appeal, the disgrace is to us and to our rude callous- hearted civilization, with its workhouse "tests."
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