The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 322, July 12, 1828

Our traveller being now settled at a splendid hotel in Hubbabub, Skindeep, his "gentleman in black," drives him about the city in an elegant equipage. The western migrations of fashion are humorously sketched, and the architecture of our metropolis comes in for a share of the author's banter. "In general, the massy Egyptian appropriately graced the attic stories; while the finer and more elaborate architecture of Corinth was placed on a level with the eye, so that its beauties might be more easily discovered. Spacious colonnades were flanked by porticoes, surmounted by domes; nor was the number of columns at all limited, for you occasionally met with porticoes of two tiers, the lower one of which consisted of three, the higher one of thirty columns. Pedestals of the purest Ionic Gothic, were ingeniously mixed with Palladian pediments; and the surging spire exquisitely harmonized with the horizontal architecture of the ancients. But, perhaps, after all, the most charming effect was produced by the pyramids, surmounted by weathercocks."

A lively sketch of "the aboriginal inhabitant" introduces some smart satire on the agriculturists, and proves that, "between force, and fear, and flattery, the Vraibleusians paid for their corn nearly its weight in gold; but what did it signify to a nation with so many pink shells." Popanilla is next introduced to an eminent bookseller, who craves the honour of publishing a narrative of his voyage: he informs the "mercantile Mecaenas" that he does not know how to write; who replies that "he never had for a moment supposed that so sublime a savage could possess such a vulgar accomplishment, and that it was by no means difficult for a man to publish his travels without writing a line." This is a stale affair; but Popanilla's drinking a dozen of the bookseller's wine smacks more of novelty. His voyage is published, and contains a detailed account of every thing which took place during the whole of the three days, forming a quarto volume! Then we have a shower of squibs on converzazioni—as dukes imbibing a new theory of gas, a prime-minister studying pinmaking, a bishop the escapements of watches, a field-marshal intent on essence of hellebore. "But what most delighted Popanilla was hearing a lecture from the most eminent lawyer and statesman in Vraibleusia, on his first and favourite study of hydrostatics. His associations quite overcame him; all Fantaisie rushed upon his memory, and he was obliged to retire to a less frequented part of the room, to relieve his too excited feelings." The hostess too declares it "impossible for mankind ever to be happy and great, until, like herself and her friends," her company are "all soul!"

Popanilla is now constituted ambassador from Fantaisie, and goes through all the courtly scenes of diplomacy, for which we have not room; but their gist will be readily understood among the stars of St. James's, especially the authors allusions to Navarino and the late ministry, which are in good set terms. The "Aboriginal," too, tells Popanilla "some long stories about a person who was chief manager, about five hundred years ago, to whom he said he was indebted for all his political principles."

During Popanilla's sight-seeing career, he, of course, visits our theatres, and a tolerably broad caricature he gives of them. "To sit in a huge room hotter than a glass-house, in a posture emulating the most sanctified Faquir, with a throbbing head-ache, a breaking back, and twisted legs, with a heavy tube held over one eye, and the other covered with the unemployed hand, is, in Vraibleusia, called a public amusement." In one morning's lionizing, too, he acquires "a general knowledge of the chief arts and sciences, eats three hundred sandwiches, and tastes as many bottles of sherry."

The frauds and fooleries of the joint stock company mania are, perhaps, among the least successful portion of the volume. The "literature" is somewhat better, as the establishment of a "Society for the Diffusion of Fashionable Knowledge"—its first treatise, Nonchalance—dissertations "on leaving cards," "cutting friends," "on bores," &c.—and a new novel called "Burlington"—the last a scratch at Popanilla's publisher. The "Clubs" are next recommended for those fond of solitude, and their satin luxuries humorously quizzed; but "the Colonial System," which follows, has more causticity. Popanilla, like all other great foreigners who visit England, falls ill; his disorder is "unquestionably nervous;" he is to count five between each word he utters, never ask questions, and avoid society, and only dine out once a day. This regimen brings on a slow fever; but his disorder is neither "liver," nor "nervous," but "mind." He next falls in with an Essay on Fruit, from which he learns that thousands of the Vraibleusians are dying with dyspepsia from eating pine-apples, which are denounced as "stupid, sour, and vulgar."

Popanilla is ordered by his physician to Blunderland, where the women are "angelic," and the men "the most light-hearted, merry, obliging, entertaining fellows;" and where "instead of knives and forks being laid for the guests at dinner, the plates are flanked by daggers and pistols." A "row" springs up; "all the guests lay lifeless about the room;" "Popanilla rang the bell, and the waiters swept away the dead bodies, and brought him a roasted potato for supper." He next enjoys the pleasures of the chase, and in revenge for a sharp fire, "burns two villages, slays 2 or 300 head of women, and bags children without number;" and in the evening Popanilla's powers of digestion are improved. He now returns to Vraibleusia, where all are panic-struck, and his friend, the banker, unlike his "perpetual ticket," has stopped payment, and all our traveller's resources. Popanilla consoles him with the joke that "things were not quite so bad as they appeared," till they get worse, by two gentlemen in blue, with red waistcoats, arresting the ambassador for high treason. This completes his "amusements." He fears "confined cells, overwhelming fetters, black bread, and green water, in the principal gaol in Hubbabub;" but becomes ensconced in Leigh Hunt's "elegantly furnished apartment, with French sash-windows and a piano. Its lofty walls were entirely hung with a fanciful paper, representing a Tuscan vineyard; the ceiling was covered with sky and clouds; roses were in abundance; and the windows, though well secured, excited no jarring associations in the mind of the individual they illumined, protected as they were by polished bars of cut-steel."

"Next to being a plenipotentiary, Popanilla preferred being a prisoner. His daily meals consisted of every delicacy in season; a marble bath was ever at his service; a billiard-room and dumb-bells always ready; and his old friends, the most eminent physician, and the most celebrated practitioner in Hubbabub, called upon him daily to feel his pulse and look at his tongue. These attentions authorized a hope that he might yet again be an ambassador; that his native land might still be discovered, and its resources still be developed; but when his gaoler told him that the rest of the prisoners were treated in a manner equally indulgent, because the Vraibleusians are the most humane people in the world, Popanilla's spirits became somewhat depressed."

"He was greatly consoled, however, by a daily visit from a body of the most beautiful, the most accomplished, and the most virtuous females in Hubbabub, who tasted his food to see that his cook did his duty, recommended him a plentiful use of pine-apple well peppered, and made him a present of a very handsome shirt, with worked frills and ruffles, to be hanged in. This enchanting committee generally confined their attentions to murderers, and other victims of the passions, who were deserted in their hour of need by the rest of the society they had outraged; but Popanilla being a foreigner, a prince, and a plenipotentiary, and not ill-looking, naturally attracted a great deal of notice from those who desire the amelioration of their species."

"Popanilla was so pleased with his mode of life, and had acquired such a taste for poetry, pine-apples, and pepper, since he had ceased to be an active member of society, that he applied to have his trial postponed, on the ground of the prejudice which had been excited against him by the public press. As his trial was at present inconvenient to the government, the postponement was allowed on these grounds."

In the meantime, up jumps a public instructor, Flummery Flam, who ascribes all the debt and distress to "a slight over-trading," chatters about demand, supply, rent, wages, profit, and, as a temporary relief, suggests "emigration." "Flummery-Flammism triumphs, and every person, from the managers down to the chalk-chewing mechanics, attend lectures on that enlightening science."

At length Popanilla's trial comes on; the indictment is read; he is accused of stealing 219 camelopards; perceives that he has all the time been mistaken for another person: he is, however, detained, on the judge of Fort Jobation informing him, that in order to be tried in his court for a modern offence of high treason, he must first be introduced by fiction of law as a stealer of camelopards, and then being in praesenti regio, in a manner, the business proceeds by a special power for an absolute offence. This flummery is too much; but every body with whom Popanilla had conversed while in Vraibleusia is subpoenaed against him: the judge is about to sum up, when a trumpet sounds, and a government messenger presents a scroll, and informs him, that a remarkably clever young man, recently appointed one of the managers, had last night consolidated all the edicts into a single act. The judge then compliments the young consolidator, compared to whom, he said, Justinian was a country attorney. Popanilla is found "not guilty, and kicked out of court, amidst the hootings of the mob, without a stain upon his reputation." He then falls senseless on the steps of the Asiatic club-house, is recovered by the smell of mulligatawney soup, and moralizes till he perceives "it is possible for a nation to exist in too artificial a state." He then sees the opposite house lit up, and the words "Emigration Committee" written on a transparent blind. He enters, finds the last Emigration squadron is about to sail in a few minutes; is presented with a spade, blanket, and hard biscuit, and quits the port of Hubbabub: what became of him will "probably be discovered, if ever we obtain 'Popanilla's' second voyage"—and thus shuts to the scene.

Here, gentle reader, you have the Captain's fun and badinage on all the wonderful wonders of Hubbabub—videlicet this wonderful town. They may serve to while away some of the ennui of this season of roast, bake, and broil, or be read aloud during the halt of the "march of intellect" men. There are the principal incidents of his voyage; if you wish to see them expanded, consult the book itself—that is if you are gratified with our abstract—if the reverse, let well alone, lest you find it, like ceremony, "a penny-worth of spirit in a glass of water." But recollect, Popanilla's adventures have already been published in quarto.