Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Dickens Fellowship
"Yonghy-bonghy-bo" (Edward Lear)
Esther loved children, and the limericks and
cartoon-drawings of Edward Lear ("The Owl and the
Pussycat") remained a delightful aspect of her
childhood. Esther's delight in "fun" also appeared
in her love of the story of Noah's Ark (parodied
in cartoons and retold in "Noyes Fludd").
Esther — who referred to herself as
"Old Sobersides" — could be very playful too.
Wilkie Collins (who often wrote in Dickens'
"Household Words", and became a writer
himself) was a friend of Edward Lear, Oscar
Wilde, George Meredith, Thomas Hardy, and
of course Charles Dickens: Dickens knew of
Edward Lear.
.
Edward Lear was nicknamed "Yonghy-bonghy-bo"
after a limerick he wrote, "The Courtship of
Yonghy-bonghy-bo". Lear also created a variant
of a limerick titled "The Sick Man of
Tobago":1
.
Variant 1 (Marshall)
.
There was a sick man of Tobago
.
Liv'd long on rice-gruel and sago;
.
But at last, to his bliss,
.
The physician said this -
.
"To a roast leg of mutton you may go.
.
Variant 2 (Lear)
.
There was an old man of Tobago
.
Long lived on rice, gruel and sago;
.
Till one day, to his bliss,
.
His physician said this,
.
"To a leg of roast mutton you may go.
.
Charles Dickens references "The Sick Man of Tobago" in
"Our Mutual Friend", Chapter II,
"The Man from somewhere", Penguin, 1995, p. 22:
.
"Now, Mortimer," says Lady Tippins, rapping
the sticks of her closed green fan upon the
knuckles of her left hand – which is
particularly rich in knucles, "I insist
upon your telling all that is to be told
about the man from Jamaica."
.
"Give you my honor I never heard of any man
from Jamaica, except the man who was a
brother," 2
replies Mortimer.
.
"Tobago, then."
.
"Nor yet from Tobago."
.
"Except," Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly
that the mature young lady, who has forgotten
all about him, with a start takes the
epaulette out of his way: "except our friend
who long lived on rice-pudding and isinglass
3,
till at length to his something or other, his
physician said something else, and a leg of
mutton somehow ended in daygo."
4
.
:
1
John Marshall, "Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen", 1822
.
2
"Am I not a man and a brother?" was the motto
of the Anti-Slavery society, deriving from a
cameo of a black man in chains, which bore this
inscription.
.
3
Gelatin obtained from sturgeon.
.
4
Confusing the ending "may go" (of Edward
Lear's second variant of the limerick),
with "daygo" (the end of the day). See Penguin edition note 14,
p. 804, and "A Dickens Glossary", by Fred Levit, Garland
Publishing, New Yok, 1990, p. 195
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