The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, page 189 by Cuthbert Bede
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ots for the ~basso profondo~ of the great Lablache. He could also draw corks, saw wood, do a bee in a handkerchief,
[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 183]
and make monkeys, cats, dogs, a farm-yard, or a full band, with equal facility. He would also give you Mr. Keeley, in "Betsy Baker"; Mr. Paul Bedford, as "I believe you my bo-o-oy"; Mr. Buckstone, as Cousin Joe, and "Box and Cox"; or Mr. Wright, as Paul Pry, or Mr. Felix Fluffy. Besides the comedians, Mr. Footelights would also give you the leading tragedians, and would favour you (through his nose) with the popular burlesque imitation of Mr. Charles Kean, as ~Hablet~. He <VG183.JPG> would fling himself down on the carpet, and grovel there as Hamlet does in the play-scene, and would exclaim, with frantic vehemence, "He poisods hib i' the garded, for his estate. His dabe's Godzago: the story is extadt, ad writted id very choice Italiad. You shall see adod, how the burderer gets the love of Godzago's wife." Moreover, as his room possessed the singularity of a trap-door leading down into a wine-cellar, Mr. "Footelights" was thus enabled to leap down into the aperture, and carry on the personation of Hamlet in Ophelia's grave. As the theatrical trait in his character was productive of much amusement, and as he was also considered to be one of those hilarious fragments of masonry, popularly known as "jolly bricks," Mr. Foote's society was greatly cultivated; and Mr. Verdant Green struck up a warm friendship with him.
But the Michaelmas term was drawing to its close. Buttery and kitchen books were adding up their sums total; bursars were preparing for battels;* witless men were cramming for
--- * Battels are the accounts of the expenses of each student. It is stated in Todd's ~Johnson~ that this singular word is derived from the Saxon verb, meaning "to count or reckon." But it is stated in the ~Gentleman's Magazine~ for 1792, that the word may probably be derived from the Low-German word ~bettahlen~, "to pay," whence may come our English w