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238
The Green Bag.
BOOKSELLER CARLILE'S IMAGES.
[One is indictablefor nuisance in making his shop-windows so amusing as to draw a croivd, to the obstruction of the public way. Rex v. Carlile, 6 Carr. & Payne, 636.]
IN Fleet Street, London, many years ago,
A merry wight contrived a curious show.
He kept a book-shop; sceptical and cynic,
Carlile his honorable patronymic.
Three images he set in windows wide,
To draw the public from the way aside.
One was a bishop of the established church;—
With sign of "Spiritual Broker" he did smirch
The cleric figure with its shovel hat,
Its black silk apron, gaiters, and all that.
Then in a neighboring place did he expose
A dummy man in ordinary clothes,
And "Temporal Broker" he did label him.
And then, in jest satirical and grim,
He added, with the bishop arm in arm,
The figure of the author of all harm,
Upon the model orthodox contrived,
With pitchfork, horns, and hoofs and tail supplied;
But who was leading — or to church or — well,
The other way — the tradesman did not tell.
This show attracted quick a gaping crowd
Of idle, curious people, who with loud,
Profane, and silly comments stood and jeered, —
Such ones as neither God nor mortal feared;
Pickpockets, drunkards, courtesans and bruisers,
Workmen on spree, and wild, freebooting cruisers,
Made up a struggling mass, which all day long
Forced others in the carriage-way to throng.
The cops could hardly make the crowd move on;
And when they did, another had begun,
And crack of locust club and broken pate,
And shrieks and oaths were heard from morn till late.
At length complaints came in so thick and fast,
The matter could no more be overpast;
So Rex obtained for formidable surprise a
Prolix indictment for the advertiser,
A merry wight contrived a curious show.
He kept a book-shop; sceptical and cynic,
Carlile his honorable patronymic.
Three images he set in windows wide,
To draw the public from the way aside.
One was a bishop of the established church;—
With sign of "Spiritual Broker" he did smirch
The cleric figure with its shovel hat,
Its black silk apron, gaiters, and all that.
Then in a neighboring place did he expose
A dummy man in ordinary clothes,
And "Temporal Broker" he did label him.
And then, in jest satirical and grim,
He added, with the bishop arm in arm,
The figure of the author of all harm,
Upon the model orthodox contrived,
With pitchfork, horns, and hoofs and tail supplied;
But who was leading — or to church or — well,
The other way — the tradesman did not tell.
This show attracted quick a gaping crowd
Of idle, curious people, who with loud,
Profane, and silly comments stood and jeered, —
Such ones as neither God nor mortal feared;
Pickpockets, drunkards, courtesans and bruisers,
Workmen on spree, and wild, freebooting cruisers,
Made up a struggling mass, which all day long
Forced others in the carriage-way to throng.
The cops could hardly make the crowd move on;
And when they did, another had begun,
And crack of locust club and broken pate,
And shrieks and oaths were heard from morn till late.
At length complaints came in so thick and fast,
The matter could no more be overpast;
So Rex obtained for formidable surprise a
Prolix indictment for the advertiser,
