From Tinsley's Magazine.

MY FELLOW-CREATURES.

BY CHARLES MATHEWS.

I'VE lived sixty-four years

In this valley of tears,

And seen all sorts of men, that's a fact; And I've made up my mind

As to poor human kind,

That we're all of us more or less cracked.
It's all very fine

For your pompous divine
To give out from his pulpit of oak,
That we're all fellow-creatures;'
Like minds and like features;'
O, lawk! I call that a good joke.
For in what we resemble,—
How Kean was like Kemble,
Or Byron was like Dr. Watts,
I could never conceive;
No, nor do I believe

That teetotallers can be like sots.
Only take for comparison
Voltaire and Harrison,
Hannibal, Swift, and Fitzball;

And then say, if you dare,
In what they compare,

When they won't bear comparing at all.
Why, there's not been a man
Since the world first began,
Who resembled another in fact;
And, as far as I see,

They in nothing agree,

Except that they're more or less cracked.
There's your friend Julius Caesar,
Who, 'twixt you and me, sir,
Was not a bad chap at a fight;
Now just say, if you can,

In what way such a man

Can be said to resemble John Bright?

1

Each is cracked in his way

And 'tain't easy to say

If the one or the other be right;

But it would be a teaser

To say Julius Cæsar

Was just such a man as John Bright.
There was Cardinal Wolsey;
Who lived down at Moulsey,
Was he, with his clerical mug,
Like Jack Shepherd the sinner,
Who hung out at Pinner,
And lived in a jollystone jug "?
Would you venture to state
That old Frederick the great'
Was Pierce Egan himself to a dot?
Or that Lion-king Carter'
Was like Charles the Martyr,'
'Judge Nicholson' like Walter Scott?
You may argue forever

No matter how clever,

You cannot establish the fact,

That an eagle's a mouse,

Ora pill-box a house,

And give them the same cup of pap; And bring both up in Surrey, Teach both Lindley Murray, And buy them the same leather cap. Dress up both little boys In the same corduroys,

cracked.

Now take any two gabies,

And start them as babies,

And whip both with the very same rod; You'll find all of no use,

One will turn out a goose,—

One a scholar, and t'other a clod.
Teach 'em two tens are twenty,'
And, 'As in presenti,'

And put down Quæ genus' before 'em;
One quickly will holloa,

Mars, Bacchus, Apollo !'
Ere t'other can get out 'viorum.'
You may work like a nigger,
But when they get bigger
They'll grow more unlike ev'ry day;
Though they've felt the same birch,
One will take to the church,

T'other pay his half-price to the play.
One will idolise Homer,

And t'other Bob Romer;

And when they are free from the school,
One will live up in attics

And love mathematics,

T'other doat on Paul Bedford and Toole.
One man's born ferocious,
Another precocious,

One lamb-like, another defiant;
One's born for a writer,
And one for a fighter-

One's a pigmy, and t'other a giant.
We all have our breeds,

And our various seeds,

Just like animals, fishes, and flowers;
You can't make a dog

From a sheep or a hog;

They've their classes distinct, and we've ours Who'd compare a bear's hug

To the bite of a pug?

Who'd have felt the least pity for Daniel,

If, 'stead of a cage

With wild-beasts to engage,

He'd been put in a den with a spaniel?

You might just as well try

To make elephants fly,

Or convert pickled pork into venison,
As compel a born coward

To fight like a Howard

A beadle to rhyme like a Tennyson.
All our different races

Have stamped on their faces

The marks that distinguish them—rather!
You may tell the born glutton,
Who lives upon mutton,

From the savage who eats his own father.
Why, just look at the Yankees !
I'd not give two thankye's

For all the fine things that they teach
About men being 'equal'-
They've found in the sequel
They can't carry out what they preach.
While the North stuck to figures,
South larrup'd its niggers,
And each called its mission divine;

Till the wrong and the right
Had a jolly good fight,

All to try and change nature's design.
After lots of hard thwacks,

The Whites found that the Blacks
Were considered as equal by no man;
A black woolly pate

Can't compete with hair straight —

A snub-nose can't compete with a Roman. Both Sambo's detractors

And best benefactors,

Who glory in setting him free,

While they crown him with roses

Will still hold their noses,

And shrink from the same cup of tea.
Since to prove black is white

Is as difficult quite

As to prove London Bridge is at Brighton, The notion dismiss

And depend upon this

That a Black man is not like a white un.
Now I'll tell you what do-
Take a boot and a shoe,
They are articles ev'ryone wears,
And compare them together,
Though both made of leather,
A cobbler will say they're not pairs.
So, though all made of clay,
We're not shaped the same way,

And our clay's mixed in various gradations;
At the time of our birth

We're all sent upon earth

Ready-made for our sundry vocations.
We all were 'created'

That's true as it's stated

But were not created for fellows;'
One's destined to play

On the organ all day,

T'other's destined to just blow the bellows.
Were it otherwise, why
Shouldn't good Mrs. Fry

Have been rival to Jonathan Wild?

Or Humanity Howard'

Been whipped, the old coward! For grossly maltreating a child? Twist us which way you will, Nature will come out still;

You may fight her decrees till you're sick :

Nature meant Edmund Kean

Should illumine the scene

What by some men is wanted,

To others is granted

Brown's too short, and Thompson's too tall There's Commodore Rose

With the gout in his toes,

Eats his three meals a-day, and is ill;
While the poor starving peasant,
Who knocks down a pheasant,

In his life never swallowed a pill.
Then let all be content

Just to follow our bent,

And not bother our heads about others;
Let Nature alone,

Envy no man his own,

And jog on altogether like brothers.
Now, to sum up the whole

Of this long rigmarole,

It is wise to give each man his station;
It's really absurd

To treat all as one herd,

And drive all by the same education.
Try and humour the bent

With which each man is sent,
Duly stamped at the hour of his birth;
And assist the poor creature

To better his nature,

And act well his part upon earth.

If Tom Hood had been put

In a regiment of foot

He would never have let off a gun;

For in spite of hard drilling

I'd bet you a shilling
He'd only have let off a pun.

Do you think that Molière

When he polished a chair,

And worked hard as a pillow and bolsterer, Didn't sicken to do it?