Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 422 | Page 4

The style in which they
turned frocks, put a new appearance upon hoods, and cloaks, and
bonnets, and came forth in what seemed the very lustre of novelty--the
whole got up by a skilful mutual adaptation of garments and parts of
garments--was wonderful to all lady beholders. In cookery, they beat
the famous chef who sent up five courses and a dessert, made out of a
greasy pair of jack-boots and the grass from the ramparts of the
besieged town. Their wonderful little made-dishes were mere scraps
and fragments, which in any other house would have been flung away,
but which were so artistically and scientifically handled by the young
ladies, and so tossed up, and titivated, and eked out with gravies, and
sauces, and strange devices of nondescript pasty, that Happy Jack,
feasting upon these wonderful creations of ingenuity, used to vow that
he never dined so well as when there was nothing in the house for
dinner. To their wandering, predatory life the whole family were
perfectly accustomed. A sudden turn out of quarters they cared no more
for than hardened old dragoons. They never lost pluck. One speculation
down, another came on. Sometimes the little household was united. A
bit of luck in the City or the West had been achieved, and Happy Jack
issued cards for 'At Homes,' and behaved, and looked, and spoke like
an alderman, or the member of a house of fifty years' standing. When
strangers saw his white waistcoat, and blue coat with brass buttons, and
heard him talk of a glut of gold, and money being a mere drug, they
speculated as to whether he was the governor or the vice-governor of
the Bank of England, or only the man who signs the five-pound notes.
That day six weeks, Jack had probably 'come through the court;' a
process which he always used somehow to achieve with flying colours,
behaving in such a plausible and fascinating way to the commissioner,
that that functionary regularly made a speech, in which he
congratulated Happy Jack on his candour, and evident desire to deal
fairly with his creditors, and told him he left that court without the
shadow of a stain upon his character. In the Bench, in dreary suburban
lodgings, or in the comfortable houses which they sometimes occupied,
the Happy Jacks were always the Happy Jacks. Their constitution
triumphed over everything. If anything could ruffle their serenity, it
was the refusal of a tradesman to give credit. But uno avulso non deficit
alter, as Jack was accustomed, on such occasions, classically to say to

his wife--presently deviating into the corresponding vernacular
of--'Well, my dear, if one cock fights shy, try another.'
A list of Jack's speculations would be instructive. He once took a
theatre without a penny to carry it on; and having announced Hamlet
without anybody to play, boldly studied and performed the part himself,
to the unextinguishable delight of the audience. Soon after this, he
formed a company for supplying the metropolis with Punches of a
better class, and enacting a more moral drama than the old legitimate
one--making Punch, in fact, a virtuous and domestic character; and he
drew the attention of government to the moral benefits likely to be
derived to society from this dramatic reform. Soon after, he departed
for Spain in the gallant Legion; but not finding the speculation
profitable, turned newspaper correspondent, and was thrice in imminent
danger of being shot as a spy. Flung back somehow to England, he
suddenly turned up as a lecturer on chemistry, and then established a
dancing institution and Terpsichorean Athenæum. Of late, Jack has
found a good friend in animal magnetism, and his _séances_ have been
reasonably successful. When performing in the country districts, Jack
varied the entertainments by a lecture on the properties of guano, which
he threw in for nothing, and which was highly appreciated by the
agricultural interest. Jack's books were principally works of travel. His
Journey to the Fountains of the Niger is generally esteemed highly
amusing, if not instructive: it was knocked off at Highbury; and his
Wanderings in the Mountains of the Moon, written in Little Chelsea,
has been favourably reviewed by many well-informed and
discriminating organs of literary intelligence, as the work of a man
evidently well acquainted with the regions he professes to describe.
Where the Happy Jacks are at this moment no one can tell. They have
become invisible since the last clean out. A deprecatory legend has
indeed been in circulation, which professed that Jack was dead, and that
this was the manner in which, on his deathbed, he provided for his
family:--
'Mrs Happy Jack,' said the departing man, 'I'm not afraid of you. You
have got on some way or other for nearly forty years, and I don't