The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac (part 5 of 8)

The Every-day Book and Table Book. v. 3 (of 3) Everlasting Calerdar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastimes, Ceremonies, Manners, Customs and Events, Incident to Each of the Three Hundred and Sixty-five Days, in past and Present Times; Forming a Complete History of the Year, Month, and Seasons, and a Perpetual Key to the Almanac (part 5 of 8)

Zelidaura, star divine, That do’st in highest orb of beauty shine; Pardon’d Murd’ress, by that heart Itself, which thou dost kill, and coveted smart Though my walk so distant lies From the sunshine of thine eyes; Into sullen shadows hurl’d, To lie here buried from the world ’Tis the least reason of my moan, That so much earth is ’twixt us thrown. ’Tis absence of another kind, Grieves me; for where you are present too, Love’s Geometry does find, I have ten thousand miles to you. ’Tis not absence to be far, But to abhor is to absent; To those who in disfavour are, Sight itself is banishment.[230]

To a Warrioress.

Heav’n, that created thee thus warlike, stole Into a woman’s body a man’s soul. But nature’s law in vain dost thou gainsay; The woman’s valour lies another way. The dress, the tear, the blush, the witching eye. More witching tongue, are beauty’s armoury: To railly; to discourse in companies, Who’s fine, who courtly, who a wit, who wise; And with the awing sweetness of a Dame, As conscious of a face can tigers tame, By tasks and circumstances to discover, Amongst the best of Princes, the best Lover; (The fruit of all those flowers) who serves with most Self diffidence, who with the greatest boast; Who twists an eye of Hope in braids of Fear; Who silent (made for nothing but to bear Sweet scorn and injuries of love) envies Unto his tongue the treasure of his eyes: Who, without vaunting shape, hath only wit; Nor knows to hope reward, tho’ merit it: Then, out of all, to make a choice so rare, So lucky-wise, as if thou wert not fair.[231]

All mischiefs reparable but a lost Love.

1.

A second Argo, freighted With fear and avarice, Between the sea and skies Hath penetrated To the new world, unworn With the red footsteps of the snowy morn.

2.

Thirsty of mines; She comes rich back; and (the curl’d rampire past Of watry mountains, cast Up by the winds) Ungrateful shelf near home Gives her usurped gold a silver home.

3.

A devout Pilgrim, who To foreign temple bare Good pattern, fervent prayer, Spurr’d by a pious vow; Measuring so large a space, That earth lack’d regions for his plants[232] to trace.

4.

Joyful returns, tho’ poor: And, just by his abode, Falling into a road Which laws did ill secure, Sees plunder’d by a thief (O happier man than I! for ’tis) his life.

5.

Conspicuous grows a Tree, Which wanton did appear, First fondling of the year. With smiling bravery, And in his blooming pride The Lower House of Flowers did deride:

6.

When his silk robes and fair (His youth’s embroidery, The crownet of a spring, Narcissus of the air) Rough Boreas doth confound, And with his trophies strews the scorned ground.

7.

Trusted to tedious hope So many months the Corn; Which now begins to turn Into a golden crop: The lusty grapes, (which plump Are the last farewell of the summer’s pomp)

8.

How spacious spreads the vine!-- Nursed up with how much care, She lives, she thrives, grows fair; ’Bout her loved Elm doth twine:-- Comes a cold cloud; and lays, In one, the fabric of so many days.

9.

A silver River small In sweet accents His music vents, (The warbling virginal, To which the merry birds do sing-- Timed with stops of gold[233] the silver string);

10.

He steals by a greenwood With fugitive feet; Gay, jolly, sweet: Comes me a troubled flood; And scarcely one sand stays, To be a witness of his golden days.--

11.

The Ship’s upweigh’d; The Pilgrim made a Saint; Next spring re-crowns the Plant; Winds raise the Corn, was laid; The Vine is pruned; The Rivulet new tuned:-- But in the Ill I have I’m left alive only to dig my grave.

12.

Lost Beauty, I will die, But I will thee recover; And that I die not instantly, Shews me more perfect Lover: For (my Soul gone before) I live not now to live, but to deplore.

C. L.

[229] Claridiana, the Enchanted Queen, speaks this, and the following speech.

[230] Claridoro, rival to Felisbravo, speaks this.

[231] Addressed to Zelidaura.

[232] Soles of his feet.

[233] Allusion to the Tagus, and golden sands.

* * * * *

WELSH WEDDINGS.

From a Lady--To the Editor.

Sir,--If a brief account of the manner of celebrating marriage in some parts of Wales should afford entertainment to your readers, I shall feel gratified.

The early part of my life was spent at a village in the mountainous part of Glamorganshire, called Myrther Tidvel. Since then it has become a considerable place for the manufactory of iron, and I expect both the manners and inhabitants are much changed: the remembrance of its rural and lovely situation, and of the simplicity of its humble villagers, when I lived amongst them, often produces in my mind the most pleasing sensations.

Some weeks previous to a wedding taking place, a person, well-known in the parish, went round and invited all, without limitation or distinction, to attend. As the ceremonies were similar I shall select one, as an illustration, in which I took part as bride’s-maid to a much valued servant.

On the evening previous to the marriage, a considerable company assembled at the bride’s father’s, and in a short time the sound of music proclaimed the approach of the bridegroom. The bride and her company were then shut up in a room, and the house-doors locked; great and loud was the cry for admittance from without, till I was directed, as bride’s-maid, by an elderly matron, to open the window, and assist the bridegroom to enter, which being done the doors were set open, and his party admitted. A room was set apart for the young people to dance in, which continued for about an hour, and having partaken of a common kind of cake and warm ale, spiced and sweetened with sugar, the company dispersed.

At eight, next morning, I repaired to the house of the bridegroom, where there had assembled in the course of an hour about one hundred and fifty persons: he was a relation to the dissenting minister, a man highly esteemed; and he was much respected on that as well as his own account. The procession set out, preceded by a celebrated harper playing “Come, haste to the wedding;” the bridegroom and I came next, and were followed by the large company. At the door of the bride’s father we were met by the bride, led by her brother, who took their station behind the bridegroom and me; her company joining, and adding nearly as many again to the procession: we then proceeded to the church, the music playing as before. After the ceremony the great door of the church was opened, and the bride and her maid having changed their partners were met at it by the harper, who struck up “Joy to the bridegroom,” and led the way to a part of the church-yard never used as a burial-ground; there placing himself under a large yew-tree the dancers immediately formed, the bride and bridegroom leading off the two first dances,--“The beginning of the world,” and “My wife shall have her way:” these are never danced but on like occasions, and then invariably.

By this time it was twelve o’clock, and the bride and bridegroom, followed by a certain number, went into the house, where a long table was tastefully set out with bread of two kinds, one plain and the other with currants and seeds in it; plates of ornamented butter; cold and toasted cheese; with ale, some warmed and sweetened. The bride and her maid were placed at the head of the table, and the bridegroom and her brother at the bottom. After the company had taken what they liked, a plate was set down, which went round, each person giving what they chose, from two to five shillings; this being done, the money was given to the bride, and the company resigned their places to others; and so on in succession till all had partaken and given what they pleased. Dancing was kept up till seven, and then all dispersed. At this wedding upwards of thirty pounds was collected.

In an adjoining parish it was the custom for the older people to go the evening before, and take presents of wheat, meal, cheese, tea, sugar, &c., and the young people attended next day, when the wedding was conducted much in the way I have described, but smaller sums of money were given.

This method of forwarding young people has always appeared to me a pleasing trait in the Welsh character; but it only prevails amongst the labouring classes.

When a farmer’s daughter, or some young woman, with a fortune of from one hundred to two hundred pounds, marries, it is generally very privately, and she returns to her father’s house for a few weeks, where her friends and neighbours go to see her, but none go empty-handed. When the appointed time arrives for the young man to take home his wife, the elderly women are invited to attend the starald, that is, the furniture which the young woman provides; in general it is rather considerable. It is conveyed in great order, there being fixed rules as to the articles to be moved off first, and those which are to follow. I have thought this a pleasing sight, the company being all on horseback, and each matron in her appointed station, the nearest relations going first; all have their allotted basket or piece of small furniture, a horse and car following afterwards with the heavier articles. The next day the young couple are attended by the younger part of their friends, and this is called a turmant, and is frequently preceded by music. The derivation of starald and turmant I never could learn, though I have frequently made the inquiry.

I am, sir, &c. &c.

A. B.

* * * * *

CUMBERLAND WEDDINGS.

In Cumberland, and some other parts of the north of England, they have a custom called a “bridewain,” or the public celebration of a wedding. A short time after a match is entered into, the parties give notice of it; in consequence of which the whole neighbourhood, for several miles round, assemble at the bridegroom’s house, and join in various pastimes of the county. This meeting resembles the wakes or revels celebrated in other places; and a plate or bowl is fixed in a convenient place, where each of the company contributes in proportion to his inclination and ability, and according to the degree of respect the parties are held in; by which laudable custom a worthy couple have frequently been benefited with a supply of money, from fifty to a hundred pounds. The following advertisements are from Cumberland newspapers:--

INVITATION.

Suspend for one day your cares and your labours, And come to this wedding, kind friends and good neighbours.

NOTICE is hereby given, that the marriage of Isaac Pearson with Frances Atkinson, will be solemnized in due form in the parish church of Lamplugh, in Cumberland, on Tuesday next, the 30th of May inst. (1786); immediately after which the bride and bridegroom, with their attendants, will proceed to Lonefoot, in the said parish, where the nuptials will be celebrated by a variety of rural entertainments.

Then come one and all At Hymen’s soft call, From Whitehaven, Workington, Harington, Dean, Hail, Ponsonby, Blaing, and all places between; From Egremont, Cockermouth, Barton, St. Bee’s, Cint, Kinnyside, Calder, and parts such as these; And the country at large may flock in if they please. Such sports there will be as have seldom been seen, Such wrestling and fencing, and dancing between, And races for prizes, for frolic and fun, By horses and asses, and dogs, will be run, That you’ll go home happy--as sure as a gun. In a word, such a wedding can ne’er fail to please; For the sports of Olympus were trifles to these.

Nota Bene--You’ll please to observe that the day Of this grand bridal pomp is the thirtieth of May, When ’tis hop’d that the sun, to enliven the sight, Like the flambeau of Hymen, will deign to burn bright.

Another Advertisement.

BRIDEWAIN.

There let Hymen oft appear, In saffron robe and taper clear, And pomp and feast and revelry, With mask and antic pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer eves by haunted stream.

George Hayto, who married Anne, the daughter of Joseph and Dinah Colin, of Crosby mill, purposes having a Bridewain at his house at Crosby, near Maryport, on Thursday, the 7th day of May next, (1789), where he will be happy to see his friends and well-wishers; for whose amusement there will be a variety of races, wrestling-matches, &c. &c. The prizes will be--a saddle, two bridles, a pair of gands d’amour, gloves, which, whoever wins, is sure to be married within the twelvemonths; a girdle (ceinture de Venus) possessing qualities not to be described; and many other articles, sports, and pastimes, too numerous to mention, but which can never prove tedious in the exhibition.

From fashion’s laws and customs free, We welcome sweet variety; By turns we laugh, and dance, and sing; Time’s for ever on the wing; And nymphs and swains on Cumbria’s plain, Present the golden age again.

* * * * *

A GOOD EXCUSE.

In the Court of Session in Scotland, the judges who do not attend, or give a proper excuse for their absence, are, by law, liable to a fine; but it is common, on the first day of the session, for the absentee to send an excuse to the lord president. Lord Stonefield having sent such an excuse, on the president mentioning it, the late lord justice clerk Braxfield said, in his broad dialect, “What excuse can a stout fallow like him hae?” “My lord,” said the president, “he has lost his wife.” The justice, who was fitted with a Xanthippe, replied, “Has he? that is a gude excuse indeed; I wish we had a’ the same.”

* * * * *

EARLY RISING.

Buffon rose always with the sun, and he used often to tell by what means he had accustomed himself to get out of bed so early. “In my youth,” said he, “I was very fond of sleep; it robbed me of a great deal of my time; but my poor Joseph (his domestic) was of great service in enabling me to overcome it. I promised to give Joseph a crown every time that he could make me get up at six. The next morning he did not fail to awake and torment me, but he received only abuse. The day after he did the same, with no better success, and I was obliged at noon to confess that I had lost my time. I told him, that he did not know how to manage his business; that he ought to think of my promise, and not to mind my threats. The day following he employed force; I begged for indulgence, I bid him begone, I stormed, but Joseph persisted. I was therefore obliged to comply, and he was rewarded every day for the abuse which he suffered at the moment when I awoke, by thanks accompanied with a crown, which he received about an hour after. Yes, I am indebted to poor Joseph for ten or a dozen of the volumes of my work.”

* * * * *

PUNCTUALITY.

“A QUARTER BEFORE.”

Industry is of little avail, without a habit of very easy acquirement--punctuality: on this jewel the whole machinery of successful industry may be said to turn.

When lord Nelson was leaving London on his last, but glorious, expedition against the enemy, a quantity of cabin furniture was ordered to be sent on board his ship. He had a farewell dinner party at his house; and the upholsterer having waited upon his lordship, with an account of the completion of the goods, he was brought into the dining-room, in a corner of which his lordship spoke with him. The upholsterer stated to his noble employer, that every thing was finished, and packed, and would go in the waggon, from a certain inn, at six o’clock. “And you go to the inn, Mr. A., and see them off.” “I shall, my lord; I shall be there punctually at six.” “A quarter before six, Mr. A.,” returned lord Nelson; “be there a quarter before: to that quarter of an hour I owe every thing in life.”

Vol. I.--26.

The folio of four pages, happy work! Which not even critics criticize.--Cowper.

A venerable old man is, as the reader of a newspaper, still more venerable; for his employment implies that nature yet lives in him;--that he is anxious to learn how much better the world is on his leaving it, than it was when he came into it. When he reads of the meddlings of overlegislation, he thinks of “good old times,” and feels with the poet--

But times are alter’d; trade’s unfeeling train Usurp the land and dispossess the swain; Along the lawn where scatter’d hamlets rose, Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose; And ev’ry want to luxury ally’d, And ev’ry pang that folly pays to pride. Those gentle hours that plenty bade to bloom, Those calm desires that ask’d but little room; Those healthful sports that grac’d the peaceful scene Liv’d in each look, and brighten’d all the green; These, far departing, seek a kinder shore, And rural mirth and manners are no more.

He reads of proposals for extending the poor-laws to one part of the United Kingdom not yet cursed with that sure and certain means of increasing the growth of poverty--he reads of schemes of emigration for an alleged surplus of human beings from all parts of the empire--he reads of the abundance of public wealth, and of the increase of private distress--and he remembers, that

A time there was, ere England’s griefs began, When ev’ry rood of ground maintain’d its man: For him light labour spread her wholesome store. Just gave what life requir’d, but gave no more: His best companions, innocence and health; And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.

The old man, who thus reads and recollects, has seen too much of factions to be a partisan. His only earthly interest is the good of his country. A change in the administration is to him of no import, if it bring not blessings to the present generation that entail a debt of gratitude upon posterity. Alterations in public affairs, if violently effected, he scarcely expects will be lasting, and loves human nature too well to desire them; yet he does not despair of private undertakings on account of their novelty or vastness; and therefore he was among the earliest promoters of vaccination, and of Winsor’s plan for lighting the streets with gas. He was a proprietor of the first vessel navigated by steam, and would rather fail with Brunel than succeed at court.

The old man’s days are few. He has discovered that the essential requisites of human existence are small in number; and that in strength itself there is weakness. He speculates upon ruling mankind by the law of kindness; and, as a specimen of the possibility, he kindles good-will with the materials of strife.

*

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXIII.

[From the “Downfall of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon,” an Historical Play, by T. Heywood, 1601.]

Chorus; Skelton, the Poet.

Skelton, (to the Audience). The Youth that leads yon virgin by the hand As doth the Sun the Morning richly clad, Is our Earl Robert--or your Robin Hood-- That in those days was Earl of Huntingdon.

Robin recounts to Marian the pleasures of a forest life.

Robin. Marian, thou see’st, tho’ courtly pleasures want, Yet country sport in Sherwood is not scant: For the soul-ravishing delicious sound Of instrumental music, we have found The winged quiristers, with divers notes Sent from their quaint recording pretty throats, On every branch that compasseth our bower, Without command contenting us each hour. For arras hangings and rich tapestry, We have sweet Nature’s best embroidery. For thy steel glass, wherein thou wont’st to look, Thy chrystal eyes gaze in a chrystal brook. At Court a flower or two did deck thy head; Now with whole garlands it is circled: For what we want in wealth, we have in flowers; And what we lose in halls, we find in bowers. Marian. Marian hath all, sweet Robert having thee; And guesses thee as rich in having me.

Scarlet recounts to Scathlock the pleasures of an Outlaw’s life.

Scarlet. It’s full seven years since we were outlaw’ first, And wealthy Sherwood was our heritage. For all those years we reigned uncontroll’d, From Barnsdale shrogs to Nottingham’s red cliffs. At Blithe and Tickhill were we welcome guests; Good George-a-green at Bradford was our friend, And wanton Wakefield’s Pinner loved us well. At Barnsley dwells a Potter tough and strong, That never brook’d we brethren should have wrong. The Nuns of Farnsfield, pretty Nuns they be, Gave napkins, shirts, and bands, to him and me. Bateman of Kendal gave us Kendal green, And Sharpe of Leeds sharp arrows for us made. At Rotherham dwelt our Bowyer, God him bliss; Jackson he hight his bows did never miss.

Fitzwater, banished, seeking his daughter Matilda (Robin’s Marian) in the forest of Sherwood, makes his complaint.

Fitz. Well did he write, and mickle did he know, That said “This world’s felicity was woe, Which greatest states can hardly undergo.” Whilem Fitzwater in fair England’s Court Possest felicity and happy state, And in his hall blithe Fortune kept her sport; Which glee one hour of woe did ruinate. Fitzwater once had castles, towns, and towers; Fair gardens, orchards, and delightful bowers; But now nor garden, orchard, town, nor tower Hath poor Fitzwater left within his power. Only wide walks are left me in the world, Which these stiff limbs will hardly let me tread: And when I sleep, heavn’s glorious canopy Me and my mossy couch doth overspread.

He discovers Robin Hood sleeping; Marian strewing flowers over him.

Fitz.--in good time see where my comfort stands, And by her lies dejected Huntingdon. Look how my Flower holds flowers in her hands, And flings those sweets upon my sleeping son.

Feigns himself blind, to try if she will know him.

Marian. What aged man art thou? or by what chance Camest thou thus far into the wayless wood? Fitz. Widow, or wife, or maiden, if thou be; Lend me thy hand: thou see’st I cannot see. Blessing betide thee! little feel’st thou want; With me, good child, food is both hard and scant. These smooth even veins assure me, He is kind, Whate’er he be, my girl, that thee doth find. I poor and old am reft of all earth’s good; And desperately am crept into this wood, To seek the poor man’s patron, Robin Hood. Marian. And thou art welcome, welcome, aged man, Aye ten times welcome to Maid Marian. Here’s wine to cheer thy heart; drink, aged man. There’s venison, and a knife; here’s manchet fine.-- My Robin stirs: I must sing him asleep.

A Judgment.

A Wicked Prior. Servingman.

Prior. What news with you, Sir? Serv. Ev’n heavy news, my Lord; for the light fire, Falling in manner of a fire-drake Upon a barn of yours, hath burnt six barns, And not a strike of corn reserv’d from dust. No hand could save it; yet ten thousand hands Labour’d their best, though none for love of you: For every tongue with bitter cursing bann’d Your Lordship, as the viper of the land. Prior. What meant the villains? Serv. Thus and thus they cried: “Upon this churl, this hoarder up of corn, This spoiler of the Earl of Huntingdon, This lust-defiled, merciless, false Prior, Heav’n raineth judgment down in shape of fire.” Old wives that scarce could with their crutches creep, And little babes that newly learn’d to speak, Men masterless that thorough want did weep, All in one voice with a confused cry In execrations bann’d you bitterly. “Plague follow plague,” they cried; “he hath undone The good Lord Robert, Earl of Huntingdon.”

* * * * *

[From “Phillis of Scyros,” a Dramatic Pastoral, Author Unknown, 1655.]

True Love irremovable by Death.

Serpilla. Phillis.

Serpilla. Thyrsis believes thee dead, and justly may Within his youthful breast then entertain New flames of love, and yet therein be free From the least show of doing injury To that rich beauty which he thinks extinct, And happily hath mourn’d for long ago: But when he shall perceive thee here alive, His old lost love will then with thee revive. Phillis. That love, Serpilla, which can be removed With the light breath of an imagined death, Is but a faint weak love; nor care I much Whether it live within, or still lie dead. Ev’n I myself believ’d him long ago Dead, and enclosed within an earthen urn; And yet, abhorring any other love, I only loved that pale-faced beauty still; And those dry bones, dissolved into dust: And underneath their ashes kept alive The lively flames of my still-burning fire.

Celia, being put to sleep by an ineffectual poison, waking believes herself to be among the dead. The old Shepherd Narete finds her, and re-assures her of her still being alive.

Shepherd. Celia, thou talkest idly; call again Thy wandering senses; thou art yet alive. And, if thou wilt not credit what I say, Look up, and see the heavens turning round; The sun descending down into the west, Which not long since thou saw’st rise in the east: Observe, that with the motion of the air These fading leaves do fall:-- In the infernal region of the deep The sun doth never rise, nor ever set; Nor doth a falling leaf there e’er adorn Those black eternal plants. Thou still art on the earth ’mongst mortal men, And still thou livest. I am Narete. These Are the sweet fields of Scyros. Know’st thou not The meadow where the fountain springs? this wood? Enro’s great mountain, and Ormino’s hill; The hill where thou wert born?

Thyrsis, upbraided by Phillis for loving another, while he supposed her dead, replies--

Thirsis. O do not turn thy face another way. Perhaps thou thinkest, by denying thus That lovely visage to these eyes of mine, To punish my misdeeds; but think not so. Look on me still, and mark me what I say, (For, if thou know’st it not, I’ll tell thee then), A more severe revenger of thy wrongs Thou canst not have than those fair eyes of thine, Which by those shining beams that wound my heart Punish me more than all the world can do. What greater pain canst thou inflict on me, Than still to keep as fire before my face That lovely beauty, which I have betray’d; That beauty, I have lost?

NIGHT breaks off her speech.[234]

NIGHT.--But stay! for there methinks I see the Sun, Eternal Painter, now begin to rise, And limn the heavens in vermilion dye; And having dipt his pencil, aptly framed, Already in the colour of the morn, With various temper he doth mix in one Darkness and Light: and drawing curiously Strait golden lines quite thro’ the dusky sky, A rough draught of the day he seems to yield, With red and tawny in an azure field.-- Already, by the clattering of their bits, Their gingling harness, and their neighing sounds. I hear Eous and fierce Pirous Come panting on my back; and therefore I Must fly away. And yet I do not fly, But follow on my regulated course, And those eternal Orders I received From the First Mover of the Universe.

C. L.

[234] In the Prologue.

* * * * *

~The Drama.~

The following communication from “a-matter-of-fact” correspondent, controverts an old dramatist’s authority on an historical point. It should be recollected, however, that poets have large license, and that few playwrights strictly adhere to facts without injury to poetical character and feeling. The letter is curious, and might suggest an amusing parallel in the manner of Plutarch, between the straightforward character and the poetical one.

KING JOHN AND MATILDA.

To the Editor.

Sir,--Having been in the country during the publication of the first parts of the Table Book, I have but now just bought them; and on perusing them, I find in part 1, col. 112 et infrâ, Mr. C. Lamb’s first specimen of the Garrick Plays, called “King John and Matilda;” wherein the said Matilda, the daughter of the old baron Fitzwater[235] is supposed to be poisoned by King John’s order, in a nunnery. She is especially entitled therein as “immaculate”--“Virtue’s white virgin,”--and “maid and martyr.” Now, sir, I presume it to be well known, that in the best legends extant of the times of Richard I. and John, this identical Matilda, or Maud Fitzwater, is chronicled as the chère amie and companion of the outlawed Robert Fitzooth, earl of Huntingdon, whom, as “Robin Hood,” she followed as “Maid Marian;” and with whom, on his restoration to his honours by king Richard, (to his earldom and estates,) she intermarried, and became countess of Huntingdon, and was in every respect a wife, though we have no records whether she ever became a mother; and that when by king John the earl was again outlawed, and driven to the wilds of Sherwood forest, his countess also again shared his misfortunes, and a second time took the name of “Maid Marian,” (then rather a misnomer,) as he did that of “Robin Hood.”

During the first outlawry of Robin Hood, and while Marian, or more properly Matilda, was yet a maid, John (then prince John, Richard being in Palestine) made overtures to the old baron Fitzwalter for his daughter as a mistress, and being refused, and finding she was in the society of Robin Hood and his merry men, attacked them, and a bloody fray ensued; during which, John and Matilda (in the male costume of forest green) met, and fought: John required her to yield, and she as resolutely desired him, in a reproachful taunt, to win her first; and so stoutly did she belabour him, as the rest of the foresters did his party also, that he was constrained to yield, and to withdraw from a contest in which nothing was to be got but blows.

We hear nothing more of any attempts of John’s to molest her or her party till after the death of Richard, and his own accession to the throne, when he spitefully ousted the earl and countess from their honours and possessions, and confiscated all to his own use; and thus this unfortunate pair, as I have above stated, were again constrained to quit the castle for the forest.

But it is certain, that long before John became king, Matilda, alias Maud, alias Marian, had ceased to be a maid; and we have no account of any attempts whatsoever made by king John upon or against the quondam Matilda Fitzwalter, afterwards alternately Maid Marian and countess of Huntingdon. Indeed all the legends of Robin Hood’s life present “Maid Marian” as having lived with him unmolested by any such attempts during the whole of his second outlawry, and as having survived Robin’s tragical end; though of her subsequent fate they are all silent, expressing themselves indeed ignorant of what was her destiny. Certainly she may then have retired into a nunnery, but at all events not as Matilda Fitzwalter; for she had been legally married and formally acknowledged by Richard I. as countess of Huntingdon; and as she spent the last part of her fellowship with her husband in Sherwood forest under her romantic forest appellation, it is scarcely probable that she would resume her title on entering into a nunnery. I would presume, therefore, that however and wherever she ended her days, it must have been under the cognomen of “Maid Marian.” And as her husband lived for some years in the forest after the accession of John, I should think it scarcely likely that after such a great lapse of time, and after the change which had taken place in Matilda both as regards her worldly station and age, and I should presume person, (from such a continued exposure to the air and weather,) John should renew any attempt upon her. I should therefore feel exceedingly gratified if either yourself or Mr. C. Lamb could adduce any historical facts to reconcile all these discrepancies, and to show how the facts, as supposed in the play of “King John and Matilda,” could, in the natural course of events, and in the very teeth of the declarations made in the history of Robin Hood and his consort, have taken place.

Mark this also;--the historians of Robin Hood and Maid Marian (and their history was written, if not by contemporaries, yet in the next generation; nor is it likely that such a renowned personage should be unnoticed in chronicles for any space of time) all declare that they could not ascertain the fate of Marian after the death of Robin. His death and burial are well known, and the inscription to his memory is still extant; but she was lost sight of from the time of his decease. How comes it then that Robert Davenport, in the 17th century, should be so well informed, as to know that Matilda ended her days in a nunnery by poison administered by order of king John, when there is no tradition extant of the time or manner of her decease? We have no other authority than this of Davenport’s tragedy on the subject; and I should therefore be inclined to think that he was misinformed, and that the event recorded by him never happened. As to its being another Matilda Fitzwalter, it is highly preposterous to imagine. Is it likely that at the same time there should be two barons of that name and title, each having a daughter named Matilda or Maud? Davenport calls his baron the old baron Fitzwater; and the father of Maid Marian is described as the old baron: both must therefore have lived in the reign of Richard I., and also in that of John till their death. Indeed we have proof that the baron was alive in John’s reign, because Richard I. having restored him at the same time that he pardoned Fitzooth, John dispossessed them both on his accession.

I think it therefore highly improbable that there should have been so remarkable a coincidence as two barons Fitzwalter, and two Matildas at the same time, and both the latter subject to the unwelcome addresses of John: consequently I cannot give credence, without proofs, to the incident in Davenport’s play.

I am, Sir,

respectfully yours,

“THE VEILED SPIRIT.”

May 17, 1827.

P.S.--Since writing the above, my friend F. C. N. suggests to me, that there was a baron Fitzwalter in John’s reign, proprietor of Castle Baynard, whose daughter Matilda John saw at a tourney, and being smitten with her charms, proposed to her father for her as his mistress, (precisely the events connected with Maid Marian;) and being refused, he attacked Castle Baynard, and ultimately destroyed it. However, for the reasons I have before stated, I am decidedly of opinion, that if such a baron was proprietor of Castle Baynard, it must have been the father of Maid Marian, as I cannot suppose that there were two. I cannot precisely remember, nor have I any thing at hand to refer to, but I believe it was at a tourney somewhere that prince John first saw Maud.

[235] This is an error of the poet’s. His real name was Fitz-Wa_l_ter, i. e. the son of Walter.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE PHANTOM LIGHT

What phantom light from yonder lonely tower, Glimmers yet paler than the pale moon beam;-- Breaking the darkness of the midnight hour,-- What bodes its dismal, melancholy gleam?

’Tis not the brightness of that glorious light, That bursts in splendour from the hoary north; ’Tis not the pharos of the dangerous night, Mid storms and winds benignly shining forth.

Still are the waves that wash this desert shore, No breath is there to fill the fisher’s sail; Yet round yon isle is heard the distant roar Of billows writhing in a tempest’s gale.

Doomed are the mariners that rashly seek To land in safety on that dreadful shore; For once engulfed in the forbidden creek, Their fate is sealed--they’re never heard of more.

For spirits there exert unholy sway-- When favoured by the night’s portentous gloom-- Seduce the sailor from his trackless way, And lure the wretch to an untimely doom.

A demon tenant’s yonder lonely tower, A dreadful compound of hell, earth, and air; To-night he visits not his favourite bower, So pale the light that faintly glimmers there.

In storms he seeks that solitary haunt, And, with their lord, a grim unearthly crew; Who, while they join in wild discordant chant, The mystic revels of their race pursue.

But when the fiends have gained their horrid lair, The light then bursts forth with a blood-red glare; And phantom forms will flit along the wave Whose corses long had tenanted the grave.

* * * * *

A GROVE

THE FORMATION OF ONE WITH A VIEW TO THE PICTURESQUE.

The prevailing character of a grove is beauty; fine trees are lovely objects; a grove is an assemblage of them; in which every individual retains much of its own peculiar elegance; and whatever it loses is transferred to the superior beauty of the whole. To a grove, therefore, which admits of endless variety in the disposition of the trees, differences in their shapes and their greens are seldom very important, and sometimes they are detrimental. Strong contrasts scatter trees which are thinly planted, and which have not the connection of underwood; they no longer form one plantation; they are a number of single trees. A thick grove is not indeed exposed to this mischief, and certain situations may recommend different shapes and different greens for their effects upon the surface; but in the outline they are seldom much regarded. The eye attracted into the depth of the grove passes by little circumstances at the entrance; even varieties in the form of the line do not always engage the attention: they are not so apparent as in a continued thicket, and are scarcely seen, if they are not considerable.

But the surface and the outline are not the only circumstances to be attended to. Though a grove be beautiful as an object, it is besides delightful as a spot to walk or to sit in; and the choice and the disposition of the trees for effects within are therefore a principal consideration. Mere irregularity alone will not please: strict order is there more agreeable than absolute confusion; and some meaning better than none. A regular plantation has a degree of beauty; but it gives no satisfaction, because we know that the same number of trees might be more beautifully arranged. A disposition, however, in which the lines only are broken, without varying the distances, is less natural than any; for though we cannot find straight lines in a forest, we are habituated to them in the hedge-rows of fields; but neither in wild nor in cultivated nature do we ever see trees equidistant from each other: that regularity belongs to art alone. The distances therefore should be strikingly different; the trees should gather into groups, or stand in various irregular lines, and describe several figures: the intervals between them should be contrasted both in shape and in dimensions: a large space should in some places be quite open; in others the trees should be so close together, as hardly to leave a passage between them; and in others as far apart as the connection will allow. In the forms and the varieties of these groups, these lines, and these openings, principally consists the interior beauty of a grove.

The consequence of variety in the disposition, is variety in the light and shade of the grove; which may be improved by the choice of the trees. Some are impenetrable to the fiercest sunbeam; others let in here and there a ray between the large masses of their foliage; and others, thin both of boughs and of leaves, only checker the ground. Every degree of light and shade, from a glare to obscurity, may be managed, partly by the number, and partly by the texture of the trees. Differences only in the manner of their growths have also corresponding effects; there is a closeness under those whose branches descend low and spread wide, a space and liberty where the arch above is high, and frequent transitions from the one to the other are very pleasing. These still are not all the varieties of which the interior of a grove is capable; trees, indeed, whose branches nearly reach the ground, being each a sort of thicket, are inconsistent with an open plantation; but though some of the characteristic distinctions are thereby excluded, other varieties more minute succeed in their place; for the freedom of passage throughout brings every tree in its turn near to the eye, and subjects even differences in foliage to observation. These, slight as they may seem, are agreeable when they occur; it is true they are not regretted when wanting, but a defect of ornament is not necessarily a blemish.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

GROVES AND HIGH PLACES.

The heathens considered it unlawful to build temples, because they thought no temple spacious enough for the sun. Hence the saying, Mundus universus est templum solis, “The whole world is a temple of the sun.” Thus their god Terminus, and others, were worshipped in temples open-roofed. Hills and mountains became the fittest places for their idolatry; and these consecrated hills are the “high places” so often forbidden in the sacred writings. As the number of their gods increased, so the number of their consecrated hills multiplied; and from them their gods and goddesses took names, as Mercurius Cyllenius, Venus Erycina, Jupiter Capitolinus. To beautify these holy hills, the places of their idolatrous worship, they beset them with trees; and thence arose the consecration of groves and woods, from whence also their idols were often named. At length certain choice and select trees began to be consecrated. The French magi, termed Dryadæ, worshipped the oak; the Etrurians worshipped an elm-tree; and amongst the Celtæ, a tall oak was the very idol of Jupiter.

Amongst the Israelites, idolatry began under the judges Othniel and Ehud, and became so common, that they had peculiar priests, whom they termed the prophets of the grove and idols of the grove.

Christians, in the consecration of their churches, make special choice of peculiar saints, by whose name they are called. The heathens consecrated their groves to peculiar idols; whence in profane authors we read of Diana Nemorensis, Diana Arduenna, Albunea Dea, &c., all receiving their names from the groves in which they were worshipped. The idol itself is sometimes called a grove--“Josiah brought out the grove from the house of the Lord.” It is probable, that in this idol was portraited the form and similitude of a grove, and that from thence it was called a grove, as those similitudes of Diana’s temple, made by Demetrius, were termed temples of Diana.

These customs appear exemplified by inscriptions on coins, medals, in church-yards, and the various buildings commemorated by marble, flowers, and durable and perishing substances.

J. R. P.

⁂ The groves round London within a few years have been nearly destroyed by the speculating builders.

* * * * *

J. R. P.’s note may be an excuse for observing, that the “grove” best known, perhaps, to the inhabitants of London is that at Camberwell--a spacious roadway and fine walks, above half a mile in length, between rows of stately trees, from the beginning of the village and ascending the hill to its summit, from whence there is, or rather was, the finest burst of scenery the eye can look upon within the same distance from London. The view is partially obstructed by new buildings, and the character of the “grove” itself has been gradually injured by the breaking up of the adjacent grounds and meadows into brick-fields, and the flanking of its sides with town-like houses. This grove has been the theme of frequent song. Dr. Lettsom first gave celebrity to it by his writings, and pleasant residence on its eastern extremity; and it was further famed by Mr. Maurice in an elegant poem, with delightful engravings on wood. After the death of the benevolent physician, and before the decease of the illustrator of “Indian Antiquities,” much of the earth, consecrated by their love and praise, “passed through the fire” in sacrifice to the Moloch of improvement. In a year or two “Grove Hill” may be properly named “Grove Street.”

Hampstead, however, is the “place of groves;”--how long it may remain so is a secret in the bosom of speculators and builders. Its first grove, townward, is the noble private avenue from the Hampstead-road to Belsize-house, in the valley between Primrose hill and the hill whereon the church stands, with Mr. Memory-Corner Thompson’s remarkable house and lodge at the corner of the pleasant highway to the little village of West-end. In the neighbourhood of Hampstead church, and between that edifice and the heath, there are several old groves. Winding southwardly from the heath, there is a charming little grove in Well Walk, with a bench at the end; whereon I last saw poor Keats, the poet of the “Pot of Basil,” sitting and sobbing his dying breath into a handkerchief,--gleaning parting looks towards the quiet landscape he had delighted in--musing, as in his Ode to a Nightingale.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm south, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow

----From Beckenham church we walked about two miles along a nearly straight road, fenced off from the adjoining lands, till we reached West Wickham. It was from a painted window in this church that I made the tracing of St. Catherine engraved in the Every-Day Book, where some mention is made of the retired situation of this village.

“Wickham Court,” the ancient manor-house adjacent to the church, was formerly the residence of Gilbert West, the translator of Pindar, and author of the “Observations on the Resurrection of Christ.” for which the university of Oxford conferred on him the degree of doctor of laws. “He was very often visited by Lyttelton and Pitt, who, when they were weary of faction and debates, used, at Wickham, to find books and quiet, a decent table, and literary conversation.”[236] It was in West’s society, at Wickham, that lord Lyttelton was convinced of the truth of Christianity. Under that conviction he wrote his celebrated “Dissertation on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul,” which, until the appearance of Paley’s “Horæ Paulina,” was an unrivalled treatise. Mr. Pitt, (the great earl of Chatham,) during his intimacy with West, formed a walk at Wickham Court. In a summer-house of the grounds, Mr. West inscribed the following lines, in imitation of Ausonius, a Latin poet of the fourth century, “Ad Villam:”--

Not wrapt in smoky London’s sulphurous clouds, And not far distant stands my rural cot; Neither obnoxious to intruding crowds, Nor for the good and friendly too remote.

And when too much repose brings on the spleen, Or the gay city’s idle pleasures cloy; Swift as my changing wish I change the scene, And row the country, now the town enjoy.

The ancient manor of West Wickham was vested in sir Samuel Lennard, bart., from whom it passed to his daughter Mary, the present dowager lady Farnaby, who resides in the manor-house, and with whose permission we were permitted a look at the hall of the mansion, which contains in the windows some painted remains of armorial bearings on glass, removed from the windows of the church. A view in Hasted’s “History of Kent” represents the towers of this mansion to have been surmounted by sextagon cones, terminated at the top with the fleur de lis, a bearing in the family arms; these pinnacles have been taken down, the roofs of the towers flattened, and the walls castellated. By a charter of free warren, in the eleventh year of Edward II., a weekly market was granted to West Wickham, but it is no longer held, and Wickham, as a town, has lost its importance.

The manor-house and church are distant from the village about half a mile, with an intervening valley beautifully pleasant, in which is a road from Hayes Common to Addington and Croydon. The church is on a hill, with an old lich-gate, like that at Beckenham, though not so large. At this spot W. sat down, and made the sketch here represented by his graver. Although I had been in the edifice before, I could not avoid another visit to it. At the north-east corner, near the communion table, are many ancient figured tiles sadly neglected, loose in the pavement; some displaced and lying one upon the other. Worst of all,--and I mean offence to no one, but surely there is blame somewhere,--the ancient stone font, which is in all respects perfect, has been removed from its original situation, and is thrown into a corner. In its place, at the west end, from a nick (not a niche) between the seats, a little trivet-like iron bracket swings in and out, and upon it is a wooden hand-bowl, such as scullions use in a kitchen sink; and in this hand-bowl, of about twelve inches diameter, called a font, I found a common blue-and-white Staffordshire-ware halfpint basin. It might be there still; but, while inveighing to my friend W. against the depravation of the fine old font, and the substitution of such a paltry modicum, in my vehemence I fractured the crockery. I felt that I was angry, and, perhaps, I sinned; but I made restitution beyond the extent that would replace the baptismal slop-basin.

The fragments of old painted glass in the windows of this church are really fine. The best are, St. Anne teaching the virgin to read; whole lengths of St. Christopher wading, with the infant Saviour beating the globe in his hand; an elderly female saint, very good; and a skeleton with armour before him. Some years ago, collectors of curiosities paid their attentions to these windows, and carried off specimens: since then wires have been put up on the outside. On the walls are hung pennons, with an iron helmet, sword, spurs, gloves, and other remains of a funereal pageant. A small organ stands on the floor: the partitions of some of the pewings are very ancient.

*

[236] Dr. Johnson.

* * * * *

~Topography.~

GODSTOW NUNNERY,

NEAR OXFORD.

The wild-flower waves, in lonely bloom, On Godstow’s desolated wall: There thin shades flit through twilight gloom, And murmured accents feebly fall. The aged hazel nurtures there Its hollow fruit, so seeming fair, And lightly throws its humble shade, Where Rosamonda’s form is laid,

The rose of earth, the sweetest flower That ever graced a monarch’s breast, In vernal beauty’s loveliest hour, Beneath that sod was laid to rest. In vain the bower of love around The Dædalëan path was wound: Alas! that jealous hate should find The clue for love alone designed!

The venomed bowl,--the mandate dire,-- The menaced steel’s uplifted glare,-- The tear, that quenched the blue eye’s fire,-- The humble, ineffectual prayer:-- All these shall live, recorded long In tragic and romantic song, And long a moral charm impart, To melt and purify the heart. A nation’s gem, a monarch’s pride. In youth, in loveliness, she died: The morning sun’s ascending ray Saw none so fair, so blest, so gay: Ere evening came, her funeral knell Was tolled by Godstow’s convent bell.

The marble tomb, the illumined shrine, Their ineffectual splendour gave: Where slept in earth the maid divine. The votive silk was seen to wave. To her, as to a martyred saint. His vows the weeping pilgrim poured The drooping traveller, sad and faint, Knelt there, and found his strength restored: To that fair shrine, in solemn hour, Fond youths and blushing maidens came. And gathered from its mystic power A brighter, purer, holier flame: The lightest heart with awe could feel The charm her hovering spirit shed But superstition’s impious zeal Distilled its venom on the dead!

The illumined shrine has passed away; The sculptured stone in dust is laid: But when the midnight breezes play Amid the barren hazel’s shade, The lone enthusiast, lingering near, The youth, whom slighted passion grieves, Through fancy’s magic spell may hear A spirit in the whispering leaves; And dimly see, while mortals sleep, Sad forms of cloistered maidens move, The transient dreams of life to weep, The fading flowers of youth and love!

NOTE.

A small chapel, and a wall, enclosing an ample space, are all now remaining of the Benedictine nunnery at Godstow. A hazel grows near the chapel, the fruit of which is always apparently perfect, but is invariably found to be hollow.

This nunnery derives its chief interest from having been the burial-place of Rosamond. The principal circumstances of her story are thus related by Stowe: “Rosamond, the fair daughter of Walter lord Clifford, concubine to Henry II., (poisoned by queen Eleanor, as some thought,) died at Woodstock, (A. D. 1177,) where king Henry had made for her a house of wonderful working; so that no man or woman might come to her, but he that was instructed by the king, or such as were right secret with him touching the matter. This house, after some, was named Labyrinthus, or Dædalus work, which was wrought like unto a knot in a garden, called a maze: but it was commonly said, that lastly the queen came to her by a clue of thread, or silk, and so dealt with her, that she lived not long after: but when she was dead, she was buried at Godstow, in a house of nuns, beside Oxford, with these verses upon her tomb:

“Hic jacet in tumbâ, Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda: Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.”

After her death, she appears to have been considered as a saint, from the following inscription on a stone cross, which, Leland says, was erected near the nunnery:

Qui meat huc, oret, signumque salutis adoret, Utque sibi detur veniam, Rosamunda precetur.

A fanatical priest, Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, visiting the nunnery at Godstow, and observing a tomb covered with silk, and splendidly illuminated, which he found, on inquiry, to be the tomb of Rosamond, commanded her to be taken up, and buried without the church, lest the Christian religion should grow into contempt. This brutal order was instantly obeyed: but “the chaste sisters,” says Speed, “gathered her bones, and put them in a perfumed bag, enclosing them so in lead, and laid them again in the church, under a fair large grave-stone, about whose edges a fillet of brass was inlaid, and thereon written her name and praise: these bones were at the suppression of the nunnery so found.”[237]

* * * * *

ST. MARY MAGDALEN, BERMONDSEY, SURREY.

In the parish register of this church is the following very singular entry:

“The forme of a solemn vowe made betwixt a man and his wife, having been long absent, through which occasion the woman being married to another man, took her again as followeth:

THE MAN’S SPEECH.

“Elizabeth, my beloved wife, I am right sorie that I have so long absented myself from thee, whereby thou shouldst be occasioned to take another man to be thy husband. Therefore I do now vowe and promise, in the sight of God and this company, to take thee again as mine owne; and will not onlie forgive thee, but also dwell with thee, and do all other duties unto thee, as I promised at our marriage.”

THE WOMAN’S SPEECH.

“Raphe, my beloved husband, I am righte sorie that I have in thy absence taken another man to be my husband; but here, before God and this companie, I do renounce and forsake him, and do promise to keep mysealfe only to thee duringe life, and to performe all the duties which I first promised to thee in our marriage.”

Then follows a short occasional prayer, and the entry concludes thus:--

“The first day of August, 1601, Raphe Goodchilde, of the parish of Barking, in Thames-street, and Elizabeth, his wife, were agreed to live together, and thereupon gave their hands one to another, making either of them a solemn vow so to do in the presence of us,

“WILLIAM STERE,--Parson.

“EDWARD COKER; and

“RICHARD EYERS,--Clerk.”

* * * * *

There is also in the same register the following entry:--

“James Herriot, Esq. and Elizabeth Josey, gent. were married June 4th, 1624-5.--N. B. This James Herriott was one of the forty children of his father, a Scotchman.”

Query.--Was this James Herriot related to George Heriot, the munificent founder of the hospital at Edinburgh, who died at London in January of the same year?

* * * * *

BROUGH, WESTMORELAND.

The church at Brough is a pretty large handsome building. The steeple is not so old; having been built about the year 1513, under the direction of Thomas Blenkinsop, of Helbeck, Esq. There are in it four excellent bells, by much the largest in the county, except the great bell at Kirkby Thore. Concerning these bells at Brough, there is a tradition that they were given by one Brunskill, who lived upon Stanemore, in the remotest part of the parish, and had a great many cattle. One time it happened that his bull fell a bellowing, which, in the dialect of the country, is called cruning, (this being the Saxon word to denote that vociferation.) Whereupon he said to one of his neighbours, “Hearest thou how loud this bull crunes? If these cattle should all crune together, might they not be heard from Brough hither?” He answered, “Yea.” “Well, then,” says Brunskill, “I’ll make them all crune together.” And he sold them all; and with the price thereof he bought the said bells, (or perhaps he might get the old bells new cast and made larger.)--There is a monument in the church, in the south wall, between the highest and second windows, under which, it is said, the said Brunskill was the last that was interred.

The pulpit is of stone. There was heretofore a handsome reading desk, given by sir Cuthbert Buckle, knight, vintner in London, who was born upon Stanemore in this parish, and was lord mayor of London in the year 1593. His name was upon the desk thus:--“By Cuthbert Buckle, Anno Domini 1576.” He built also a bridge upon Stanemore, which still bears the name of Buckle’s Bridge; and gave eight pounds a year to a school upon Stanemore.

[237] From the “Genius of the Thames, a Lyrical Poem, with Notes, by Thomas Love Peacock,” 1810.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

TO MY PSEUDO-MUSE.

Hence, thou tormenting wayward Being! For ever courting, trifling, spreeing. Thou Erysipelas of thrall: For ever, with thine addled hatch, I’ll shun thee as an arrant Scratch, Unworthy to be scratched at all.

Thy Sonnets, staves, and stanzas rhyming To every key, to every chiming, St. Vitus’ Dance is ease to Thee: Thou shalt no more provoke my Quill To deeds of labour, or of skill, Thou cacoëthes mise-re.

Promethean fire--Parnassus smiling, Helicon’s spirituous drops beguiling,-- Where’er thou com’st--whate’er thou be: The Vagrant Act may take thee in; I’ll drive thee out as Satan’s sin Thou worse than fire of Anthony.

Hence Jade! tormentress of the feelings;-- Thou Witch of End-or like revealings:-- Go--haunt the brains, not frenzy past: I’ll haste to Monmouth Street and buy A suit of Prose--then joyful cry Ecce Stultus! grown wise at last.

If thou shou’d’st to my brain-door, knocking, Come with thy wheedling-pamby, mocking; I’ll catch thee vi et armis:--then By Habeas Corpus to the Pleas-- --Sure I will rob thee of degrees, And scare thee from my Smithfield Pen.

If I’m asleep--then thou art waiting, Angler-like, with thy couplets baiting, To drag my crazy thought to light: Awake! thy float, with stanza-hook, Is ever dipping in Mal-Brook-- I’ll brook no more--if sense is right.

*, *, P.

* * * * *

BATHING.

I do not know any author who has reckoned man among the amphibious race of animals; neither do I know any animal that better deserves it. Man is lord of the little ball on which he treads, one half of which, at least, is water. If we do not allow him to be amphibious, we deprive him of half his sovereignty. He justly bears that name, who can live in the water. Many of the disorders incident to the human frame are prevented, and others cured, both by fresh and salt bathing; so that we may properly remark, “He lives in the water who can find life, nay, even health in that friendly element.”

The greatest treasure on earth is health; but a treasure, of all others, the least valued by the owner. Other property is best rated when in possession, but this can only be rated when lost. We sometimes observe a man, who, having lost this inestimable jewel, seeks it with an ardour equal to its worth; but when every research by land is eluded, he fortunately finds it in the water. Like the fish, he pines away upon shore, but, like that, recovers again in the deep.

The cure of disease among the Romans, by bathing, is supported by many authorities; among others, by the number of baths frequently discovered, in which pleasure, in that warm climate, bore a part. But this practice seemed to decline with Roman freedom, and never after held the eminence it deserved. Can we suppose the physician slept between the disease and the bath to hinder their junction; or, that he lawfully holds by prescription the tenure of sickness in fee?[238]

[238] W. Hutton.

* * * * *

~Rural Sports.~

ANGLING.

When genial spring a living warmth bestows, And o’er the year her verdant mantle throws, No swelling inundation hides the grounds, But crystal currents glide within their bounds; The finny brood their wonted haunts forsake, Float in the sun, and skim along the lake, With frequent leap they range the shallow streams, Their silver coats reflect the dazzling beams. Now let the fisherman his toils prepare, And arm himself with every wat’ry snare; His hooks, his lines peruse with careful eye, Increase his tackle, and his rode retie.

When floating clouds their spongy fleeces drain Troubling the streams with swift-descending rain, And waters tumbling down the mountain’s side, Bear the loose soil into the swelling tide; Then, soon as vernal gales begin to rise, And drive the liquid burthen thro’ the skies, The fisher to the neighbouring current speeds, Whose rapid surface purls, unknown to weeds; Upon a rising border of the brook He sits him down, and ties the treach’rous hook; Now expectation cheers his eager thought, His bosom glows with treasures yet uncaught; Before his eyes a banquet seems to stand, Where every guest applauds his skilful hand.

Far up the stream the twisted hair he throws, Which down the murm’ring current gently flows; When if or chance, or hunger’s pow’rful sway, Directs the roving trout this fatal way, He greedily sucks in the twining bait, And tugs and nibbles the fallacious meat: Now, happy fisherman, now twitch the line! How thy rod bends! behold, the prize is thine Cast on the bank, he dies with gasping pains, And trickling blood his silver mail distains.

You must not ev’ry worm promiscuous use, Judgment will tell thee proper bait to choose; The worm that draws a long immod’rate size The trout abhors, and the rank morsel flies; And if too small, the naked fraud’s in sight, And fear forbids, while hunger does invite. Those baits will best reward the fisher’s pains, Whose polish’d tails a shining yellow stains: Cleanse them from filth, to give a tempting gloss, Cherish the sully’d reptile race with moss; Amid the verdant bed they twine, they toil, And from their bodies wipe their native soil.

But when the sun displays his glorious beams, And shallow rivers flow with silver streams, Then the deceit the scaly breed survey, Bask in the sun, and look into the day. You now a more delusive art must try, And tempt their hunger with the curious fly.

To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire The shining bellies of the fly require; The peacock’s plumes thy tackle must not fail, Nor the dear purchase of the sable’s tail. Each gaudy bird some slender tribute brings, And lends the growing insect proper wings: Silks of all colours must their aid impart, And ev’ry fur promote the fisher’s art. So the gay lady, with expensive care, Borrows the pride of land, of sea, and air; Furs, pearls, and plumes, the glittering thing displays, Dazzles our eyes, and easy hearts betrays.

Mark well the various seasons of the year, How the succeeding insect race appear; In this revolving moon one colour reigns, Which in the next the fickle trout disdains Oft have I seen a skilful angler try The various colours of the treach’rous fly; When he with fruitless pain hath skimm’d the brook, And the coy fish rejects the skipping hook, He shakes the boughs that on the margin grow, Which o’er the stream a waving forest throw; When if an insect fall, (his certain guide) He gently takes him from the whirling tide; Examines well his form with curious eyes, His gaudy vest, his wings, his horns, and size. Then round his hook the chosen fur he winds, And on the back a speckled feather binds; So just the colours shine thro’ every part, That Nature seems to live again in art, Let not thy wary steps advance too near, While all thy hope hangs on a single hair: The new-form’d insect on the water moves, The speckled trout the curious snare approves; Upon the curling surface let it glide, With nat’ral motion from thy hand supply’d. Against the stream now gently let it play, Now in the rapid eddy roll away. The scaly shoals float by, and seiz’d with fear, Behold their fellows toss’d in thinner air; But soon they leap, and catch the swimming bait, Plunge on the hook, and share an equal fate.

When a brisk gale against the current blows, And all the wat’ry plain in wrinkles flows, Then let the fisherman his art repeat, Where bubbling eddies favour the deceit. If an enormous salmon chance to spy The wanton errors of the floating fly, He lifts his silver gills above the flood, And greedily sucks in th’ unfaithful food; Then downward plunges with the fraudful prey, And bears with joy the little spoil away. Soon in smart pain he feels the dire mistake, Lashes the wave, and beats the foamy lake: With sudden rage he now aloft appears, And in his eye convulsive anguish bears; And now again, impatient of the wound, He rolls and wreaths his shining body round; Then headlong shoots beneath the dashing tide, The trembling fins the boiling wave divide; Now hope exalts the fisher’s beating heart, Now he turns pale, and fears his dubious art; He views the tumbling fish with longing eyes; While the line stretches with th’ unwieldy prize; Each motion humours with his steady hands, And one slight hair the mighty bulk commands: Till tir’d at last, despoil’d of all his strength, The game athwart the stream unfolds his length. He now, with pleasure, views the gasping prize Gnash his sharp teeth, and roll his blood-shot eyes, Then draws him to the shore, with artful care, And lifts his nostrils in the sick’ning air: Upon the burthen’d stream he floating lies, Stretching his quivering fins, and gasping dies.

Would you preserve a num’rous finny race? Let your fierce dogs the rav’nous otter chase; Th’ amphibious monster ranges all the shores, Darts through the waves, and ev’ry haunt explores; Or let the gin his roving steps betray, And save from hostile jaws the scaly prey.

I never wander where the bordering reeds O’erlook the muddy stream, whose tangling weeds Perplex the fisher; I, nor choose to bear The thievish nightly net, nor barbed spear; Nor drain I ponds the golden carp to take, Nor troll for pikes, dispeoplers of the lake. Around the steel no tortur’d worm shall twine, No blood of living insect stain my line; Let me, less cruel, cast the feather’d hook, With pliant rod athwart the pebbled brook, Silent along the mazy margin stray, And with the fur-wrought fly delude the prey.

Gay.

* * * * *

GOOD-LIVING.

A DOMESTIC SCENE.

Gent. I wish, my dear, you would not keep the carriage an hour always at the door, when we go to a party.

Lady. Surely, my dear, it could not have waited half so long; and that was owing to the unusual length of our rubber.

Gent. I feel exceedingly unwell this evening, my head aches confoundedly, and my stomach is very uneasy.

Lady. You know, my dear, Mr. Abernethy told you, that after such a severe fit you ought to be very careful and moderate in your living.

Gent. Mr. Abernethy is a fool. Can any body be more moderate than I am? you would have me live upon water-gruel, I suppose. The rich pudding, indeed, that Mrs. Belcour made me eat, might possibly not have sat quite easy on the soup, and the salmon, and the chicken and ham, and the harrico, and the turkey and sausages; or, it is possible, the patties I eat before dinner might not perfectly agree with me, for I had by no means a good appetite when I sat down to dinner.

Lady. And then, you know, you eat so many cakes, and such a quantity of almonds and raisins, and oranges after dinner.

Gent. How could I have got down Belcour’s insufferable wine, that tasted of the cork, like the fag bottle at a tavern dinner, without eating something?

Lady. And I am sure you drank a glass of Madeira with every mouthful almost at dinner; for I observed you.

Gent. Why how could one swallow such ill-dressed things, half cold too, without drinking? I can’t conceive what makes me feel so unwell this evening; these flatulencies will certainly kill me. It must be the easterly wind we have had for these three days that affects me: indeed, most of my acquaintance are complaining, and the doctors say, disorders are very prevalent now.----What can I have? John, make me a tumbler of brandy and water--make it strong, and put ginger enough in it. I have not the least appetite--what can I have?

Lady. There is ham, and, I believe, some chicken--

Gent. Why, do you think I have the stomach of a ploughman, that I can eat such insipid things! Is there nothing else?

Lady. There is a loin of pork--perhaps you could relish a chop, nicely done?

Gent. Why, if it was nicely done, very nicely, perhaps I could; I’ll try--but remember it must be done to a moment, or I shan’t be able to touch it--and made hot--and some nice gravy. Confound these parties!--could any thing be more stupid. While Martin was sleeping on one side of me, there was Bernard on the other did nothing but bore me about his horses, and his wines, and his pictures, till I wished them all at old Harry--I think I shall have done with parties.

Lady. I am sure, my dear, they are no pleasure to me; and, if they were, I pay dear enough for it: for you generally come home in an ill humour--and your health and your pocket too suffer for it. Your last bill came to more than ninety pounds, besides your expenses at Cheltenham--and the next thing, I suppose, will be a voyage to Madeira, or Lisbon--and then what will become of us?

Gent. What, do you grudge me the necessaries of life? It is I that am the sufferer--

Lady. Not entirely so: I am sure I feel the effects of it, and so do the servants. Your temper is so entirely changed, that the poor children are afraid to go near you--you make every body about you miserable, and you know Smith lost his cause from your not being able to attend at the last assizes, which will be nearly the ruin of him and his family. Two days before you were tolerably well, but after you had dined at ----’s, you were laid up.

Gent. Nay, I was as much concerned at it as any body could be; and I think I had reason to be so, for I lost three hundred pounds myself--but who can help illness? Is it not a visitation of Providence? I am sure nobody can live more temperately than I do--do you ever see me drunk? A’n’t I as regular as clockwork? Indeed, my dear, if you cannot talk more rationally, you had better go to bed. John! why don’t you bring the brandy and water! and see if the chop is ready; if I am not better in the morning, I am sure I shall not be able to attend my appointment in the city----

* * * * *

There will always be a few ready to receive the hints of experience, and to them only can this scene be useful.

* * * * *

DRINKING.

Lime applied to trees makes them put forth leaves and flourish, and produce fruit early, but then it kills them. Wine cheers and stimulates men, and makes them thrust forth flowers of wit; but, then, there is no doubt it shortens life.[239]

[239] Perron.

* * * * *

KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD

BY ST. EVREMOND.

The first thing by which we know men, is the physiognomy, the colour, and the lineaments of the face; the briskness, the air, the motion of the body, the action, the sound of the voice, the aspect, &c.: and there is no man, but at first sight we are either well or ill affected towards him. Every man makes some impressions upon us of what he is; but these impressions, being sudden, are not always certain, a little frequent conversation with him perfects our knowledge of him.

Hear the man with whom you keep company; endeavour to draw him in to make a long discourse, and then you will easily perceive the greatness or meanness of his wit, his civility, his inclination to vice or virtue, and to what kind of vice or virtue he is most inclined; whether he be sincere in his speech or a man of artifice; whether he aggravates matters, if he be a liar, or a proud man, and to what degree he carries his good or bad qualities.

Study well the persons with whom you converse familiarly, and with least circumspection. Examine them when they are sedate, in an obliging humour; and when they are in anger, in a disdainful and morose humour. When something vexes or pleases them, observe them in their sorrow and disgrace, in their pleasures, in their advancement, and in their humiliation. Be attentive to their discourse in all these several states, consider their behaviour, their sentiments, their projects, and the different motions which their passions, their ranks, and their affairs, produce in them.

Moreover, endeavour also to know yourself very well; consider in all the different states, wherein good or bad fortune has placed you, the designs which you pursue, and the resolutions for doing good or evil, you are capable of making. These several observations upon yourself and others will infallibly make you know mankind. And the reason of it is this:--all men, and even philosophers themselves, are, more or less, subject to the same passions, and all of them think very nearly after the same manner.

Of the most excellent qualities, that of knowing the world is most necessary for our behaviour, and for our fortune:--for our behaviour, because otherwise our life is liable to continual crosses, and is nothing else but one continued series of extravagancies, which will bring upon us a thousand bad businesses:--for our fortune, because if we do not know men, we cannot make use of them in that way which is most convenient with respect to our interest. It is necessary therefore to know them, and to behave ourselves with each of them after such a manner as is most agreeable to their character. A prudent man, with respect to others, is like a master who knows all the springs of an engine, and makes them play as he pleases, either for his pleasure or advantage.

It seems to me, that our first motion should be to distrust the world in general, and even to have a bad opinion of it. The world, such as it should be, is full of virtue; out as we see it, it is full of wickedness and malice; and this latter world is that we should endeavour to know well, because we live in it, and it concerns us very much to avoid its deceits.

But why should we have so bad an opinion of the world? Why, because men are born with a bad disposition, and they carry in their heart at their birth the source of all vices, and an aversion to all virtues, which would hinder their singularity; and which they cannot acquire but by such pains as they are not willing to take. Yet I do not say that we must therefore think ill of all particular persons, but it is good to know them.

* * * * *

THE TONGA ISLANDS.

Wild and straggling as the flowers Is human nature there; Uncultivated all its powers In that secluded air: The passions fiery, bold, and strong, Impetuous urge their course along, Like mountain torrent rolling, More rapid as the more confined, Far leaving Reason’s rules behind, No curb of law controlling! The spectre Superstition there Sits trembling on her gloomy throne! Pale child of Ignorance and Fear, Embodying shapes of things unknown: When, when shall rise the glorious morn Of heavenly radiance unconfined? When shall the mental veil be torn, And GOD be known by all mankind?

Full many a ray must pierce the soul, Ere darkness quits the southern pole: Yet here are maidens kind and true As ever northern pencil drew; And here are warriors brave and young As ever northern minstrel sung! And see, upon the valley’s side With fairy footstep lightly glide A train of virgins soft and fair, With sparkling eyes and shining hair, As beauteous as the flowers they bear-- Fresh flowers of every scent and hue, Besprinkled with the morning dew, Which they have risen before the sun To gather for some favourite one.

It is a custom at Tonga for the young women to gather flowers in the earlier part of the morning, and twine them on their return into various ornaments, for themselves, and their relations and friends. They gather them at sunrise while the dew of the morning is still fresh on them; because, when plucked at that time, their fragrance is of longer continuance.[240]

[240] From the “Ocean Cavern, a Tale of the Tonga Islands,” 1819.

* * * * *

SENSIBILITY IN A RAVEN.

In 1785 there was living at the Red Lion inn, Hungerford, Wiltshire, a raven, respecting which a correspondent communicated to “Mr. Urban” the following anecdote:--

His name, I think, is “Rafe:” and you must know, that going into that inn, my chaise ran over, or bruised, the leg of my Newfoundland dog. While we were examining the injury done to the dog’s foot, Rafe was evidently a concerned spectator; for, the minute the dog was tied up under the manger with my horses, Rafe not only visited, but fetched him bones, and attended upon him with particular and repeated marks of kindness. The bird’s notice of the dog was so marked, that I observed it to the hostler. John then told me, that the raven had been bred from his pin-feather in intimacy with a dog; that the affection between them was mutual; and that all the neighbourhood had often been witnesses of the innumerable acts of kindness they had conferred upon each other. Rafe’s poor dog, after a while, unfortunately broke his leg; and during the long time he was confined, Rafe waited upon him constantly, carried him his provisions daily, and never scarce left him alone. One night, by accident, the hostler had shut the stable door, and Rafe was deprived of the company of his friend the whole night; but the hostler found in the morning the bottom of the door so pecked away, that, had it not been opened, Rafe would, in another hour, have made his own entrance-port. I then inquired of my landlady, (a sensible woman,) and heard what I have related confirmed by her, with several other singular traits of the kindnesses this bird showed to all dogs in general, but particularly to maimed or wounded ones.

* * * * *

DIAMONDS.

And the sparkling stars began to shine, Like scatter’d gems in the diamond mine.

The diamond is chiefly found in the provinces of Golconda and Visiapour, and also in that of Bengal. Raolconda, in Visiapour, and Gandicotta, are famed for their mines, as is Coulour in Golconda. The diamond is generally found in the narrow crevices of the rocks, loose, and never adherent to the fixed stratum. The miners, with long iron rods, which have hooks at the ends, pick out the contents of the fissures, and wash them in tubs, in order to extricate the diamonds. In Coulour they dig on a large plain, to the depth of ten or fourteen feet; forty thousand persons are employed; the men to dig, and the women and children to carry the earth to the places where it is deposited till the search is made.[241]

[241] A note to the “Ocean Cavern.”

* * * * *

STOICAL WIT.

Zeno detected his slave in a theft, and ordered him to be flogged. The slave having in mind the dogmas of his master, and thinking to compliment him, in order to save himself from punishment, exclaimed--“It was fated that I should commit this theft.”--“And also that you should be flogged for it,” replied Zeno.

* * * * *

CAMBRIDGE WIT.

When Dr. Jeggon, afterwards bishop of Norwich, was master of Bennet College, Cambridge, he punished all the under graduates for some general offence; and because he disdained to convert the penalty-money into private use, it was expended on new whitening the hall of the college. A scholar hung the following verses on the screen:--

“Dr. Jeggon, Bennet College master, Broke the scholars’ heads, and gave the walls a plaster.”

The doctor, perusing the paper, wrote underneath, extempore:--

“Knew I but the wag that writ these verses in bravery, I’d commend him for his wit, but whip him for his knavery.”

* * * * *

SENTENCES

WORTHY TO BE GOT BY HEART.

As you cannot overtake time, the best way is to be always a few minutes before him.

Whatever your situation in life may be, lay down your plan of conduct for the day. The half hours will glide smoothly on, without crossing or jostling each other.

When you set about a good work, do not rest till you have completed it.

In the morning, think on what you are to do in the day, and at night, think on what you have done.

Religion is the best armour, but the worst cloak.

If you make an intentional concealment of any thing in a court of judicature, it will lie like lead upon your conscience all the days of your life.

Do as you wish to be done by. Follow this rule, and you will need no force to keep you honest.

Vol. I.--27.

INDEXES.

I. GENERAL INDEX.

II. CORRESPONDENTS’ INDEX.

III. INDEX TO THE POETRY.

IV. INDEX TO THE ENGRAVINGS.

I. THE GENERAL INDEX.

Abingdon, old parish accompts of, 481. Abridgement of a library by Pilpay, 247. Accommodation extraordinary, 562. Acquaintance table, 377. Admiral, lord high; office and seal of, 573. Adoption of children, in France, 220. “Adrasta,” old play, 321. Advertisement; at Ghent, 59; letter in consequence of one, 60. Advice, danger of giving, 330. Affectation, less prevalent among women than formerly, 358. African young woman’s compliment to her lover, 187. Agriculture, British, derived from the Romans, 393. “Ahab,” by S. R. Jackson, 498. Air and exercise for ladies, 209. Airay, Thomas, Grassington manager, notice of, 69. Albany and York, duke of, 93; the dukedom of Albany, 409. Albemarle, duke of, creditable patronage by, 763. Alcock, Rev. Mr., the waggish clergyman, 634. Alderson, Hut., of Durham, 365. Ale, Prynne “put into the road of writing” by, 726. “All Fools,” old play, 192. Allan-a-Maut, engraving, 116. Allen, Rev. Mr., fatal duel fought by, 722. Alleyn, the actor, “master of the bears and dogs,” 497. Alliteration, clever specimen of, 155. Ally, a good one, 632. Almanacs; Liege, 274; curious notices in French almanacs, 540. Alms-houses, [workhouses;] none before the Reformation, 392. Ambassadors, former custom of, 663. Amurath, sultan, effect of music on, 229. Ancient Britons. See Wales. Andalusia, deadly irritation of winds in, 273. Angel help, 751. Angling, notices concerning, 659. Angoulême, duchess of; anecdote of, 9. Animals; a common effect of attempting to domesticate wild ones, 617; connection between muscular power and speed, 618; experiment of music upon, 691. “Antipodes, (The)” old play, 704. Antiquarian Hall, engraving and memoir of, 139. Antique bronze found in the Thames, 267. Aphorisms; by Lavater, 279; by other persons, 828. Apparitions, curious narrative of, 710. Apprentices, former maxims for, 562, 564. Architecture, brought in by the Normans, 393. “Arden of Feversham,” old play, 221. Aremburg, duke of, his love of the arts, 10. Arithmetical notices, 759. Armorial bearings; of ambassadors, 663; having emblems of the devil, 699. Armories, formerly possessed by private lords and gentlemen, 391. Arms [of the human body,] one stated to be broken by the throbbings of rheumatism, 142. “Arraignment of Paris,” old play, 511. Arran, earl of, his letter on duke of Buckingham’s death, 526. Arrens, near Marseilles, interring the carnival at, 271. Artist’s (Young) letter from Switzerland, 427. Arts, benevolent application of profits from, 510. Ash, (mountain) an antidote to witchcraft, 674. Astrologers, account of Hart, 135. Aubrey, John, curious collection by, 389. Auld Robin Gray, ballad of; history of, 200, 201. Authors; Mrs. Charke reading her manuscript to a bookseller, engraving of, 125; suggestions to authors, 248; their two wishes, 279; peculiarities of in composing, 681; prolific authors, 726. Autograph of Charles Lord Howard of Effingham, 573.

Bacchus, bronze head of, found in the Thames, 267. Bacon, gammon of, at Easter, 39. ----, lord; his judgment on books, 218; his method of condensing thought, 682. ---- (Friar) and his servant, 633. Badajos, (the dean of) 323. Bag, duel with, 20. Bagdad, effect of music after capture of, 229. Baker, Miss Polly, fiction of, 89. Baldwin, Samuel, singular burial of, 412. Ballads, licenses for printing, 586. Bank, (country) capital for, 59. ----side bear garden, 489. Banquet given by Whitelock to queen of Sweden, 552. “---- of the dead,” 515. Barbers; description of a barber, 241; Dudley, barber, at Portsmouth, 405. Barley-break, an old pastime, 37. Barnard, lady Ann, poetess, 200. Barre, (Du) madame, and the Liege almanac, 274. Bate, Rev. Mr., three duels fought by, 722. Bath chairman, mock funeral of, 41. Bathing, utility of, 819. Battalia, Francis, a stone-eater, 355. Battle; prize-fighting formerly sometimes with swords, 495; “Battle of the Poets,” 407; “Battle of Alcazar,” old play, 486; field of battle, 661. Battle-bridge, remains of an elephant found near, 80. Bayswater, projected improvement at, 215. Bazaar, (Soho) 153. Bear garden, (old) Southwark, 489; of elector of Saxony, 490. Beauty, compliment to, 344. Beaux not always mere coxcombs, 666. Beckenham, Kent, 765; bridge in road to, 701. Bees; “Parliament of Bees,” old play, 133; a boy bee-eater, curious account of, 746. Beeston, clerk of, 420. “Begin again,” 421. Behnes, Mr., his bust of duke of York, 93. Belfast, Easter custom at, 506. Belgrave, siege of, 155. Bell, (diving) origin and notices of, 763. ----, (Tommy) engraving of, 651. Berne, description of, 427. Berners, dame Julia, treatise on field sports by, 392. Best of a bad matter, 762. Bibliomaniac ridiculed, 218. Bibo’s (General) tale, 515. Bibury, rector of, 501. Bielfeld, baron, his account of the dance of torches, 107. Bigotry punished, 558. “Billet, (Crooked)” on Penge Common, 669. Billingsgate, old satire on, 168. Billy Boots, notice and engraving of, 302. Bilsington Priory, tenure of, 616. Bird-catcher, engraving of, 589. ---- seller, engraving of, 509. Birds; a play in which all the characters are birds, 133; particulars respecting birds, 588, 591. See Parrots, Starlings. Birmingham old conjurors, 234. Bishops; one misled by a saint, 415; “bishop of Butterby,” 365. Black jacks and warming pans, 15. ---- -letter books, curious criticism on, 425. Blacksmiths; their endurance of fire, 315; Gretna-green blacksmith, 431. Bleeding; for one’s country, 90; practised by a woman, 141; former frequency of, 479; in silence and psalmody, ib. Blind Hannah, engraving of, 221. ---- Willie, of Newcastle, 461. Bloody hand, (the) 258. “Blythe Cockpen,” and the merry monarch, 411. Boar’s head, custom concerning, 85, 390. Bodmin, royal joke on, 348. Bogs, remarks on timber in, 185. Bonaparte; his grand procession to Notre Dame, 503; his system of over-governing, 734. Bones, curious account of breaking of one, 142; embalming of, 576. Bon-fire, singular one, 762. Books; pleasures and consolation of, 16, 217; old, with new titles, 68; one dedicated to the author, 125; proper standard of, 248; (black letter) naif criticism on, 425; when first made of paper, 507. See Doomsday book. Booksellers, an author reading a manuscript to one; engraving, 125. Boots, Billy, engraving of, 302. Bowring, Mr., his “Popular Servian Poetry,” 529. Boys; at school, 149; on errands, 150; account of a boy bee-eater, 746. Bradenstoke Priory, 232. “Brazen Age, (The)” old play, 447. Bread seals, used by ladies, 90. Breach of promise, curious case of, 180. Breakfast, singular dishes at, 618. Breaking of an arm bone by rheumatism, 142. Brecon, minstrelsy society at, 338. Breeds, (mixed) curious complaint of, 626. Brentford Hannah, [Blind Hannah,] engraving of, 221. Brewer’s drayman, character of, 374. Brewing, private, 772. “Bridal of Caölchairn,” 784. Bride, description of one, 295. Bridesman, 294, 296. Bridlington, irregular stream near, 230. Bristol, Lent custom at, 625. Britannia’s sup-porter, 412. British Museum, pleasures and facilities of, 111. ---- poetesses, by Mr. Dyce, 195. ---- portraits, sale catalogue of, 236. Britons, (ancient.) See Wales. Bromholm, former pilgrimage to, 392. Bronze, antique, found in the Thames, 267. Brookes, Mr. J., dissection of king’s ostrich by, 617. “Brose and Butter,” a favourite royal air, 411. Brothers, younger not allowed formerly to pursue trades, 393. Brough, in Westmoreland; twelfth-night customs at, 26; March fair at, 317; church, 817. Brougham, Mr., his speech on the founding of the London university, 596. Brouwer, a painter, notice of, 10. Brummelliana, 666. Bryan, Daniel, a brave old seaman, 631.

Cabbage and tailors, 471. Cairo, characteristic salutation at, 197. Camberwell Grove, 809. Campbell, Mr. T., speech of at Glasgow, 758. Campbells, the, 778. Canons, near Edgeware, former celebrity of, 621. Capital for banking, 59. ---- punishments, 455, 460. Caps and hats, fashionable days for new ones, 478. Captain and lieutenant, mortal duel between, 724. Cards, fortune-telling, 74. Carew, lady Elizabeth, 196. Carnival, ceremony of interring, 271, 273. Carthago, Nova, its present to Scipio, 265. Carts, dignity of, 169. Castle-building, 464. ---- Coombe, tickling trout at, 662. Catherine de Medicis, vow of, 475. Catherinot, a French pamphleteer, 727. Catholic German universities, 124. Cawston church, poor’s-box in, 747. Ceremonies, a true paper currency, 219. Chafin, Rev. Mr., his anecdotes about Cranbourne Chase, 32. Chairman, (Bath) mock funeral of, 41. Chairs, (arm,) 786. Challenges, a poetical solicitor’s answer to one, 724. See Duels. Chambers, James, the poor poet, 436. Chancellor, (lord) office of, 729. Chancery, 540; despatch in, 730. Chandler, Mary, a poetess, 199. “Changes, (The)” old play, 417. Characters; of servants at hirings, 177; national, in compliment, 186, &c.; tendency of former lessons to meanness of character, 564; character of the old gentleman, 118; of Kimberley, a Birmingham conjuror, 235; of the barber, 241; of Mrs. Aurelia Sparr, 340; of Agrestilla, 358; of the drayman, 371; a literary character, 410; of “the good clerk,” 562; of the Durham pitmen, 651. Charke, Mrs., her autobiography, 125; farther notices, 258. Charlemagne, privilege granted by, 554. Charles I., curious anecdote concerning, 701. ---- II., character of, 547; anecdotes of, 701, 732. Charlestown, ugly club at, 468; duelling society at, 720. Charybdis and Scylla, conflicting descriptions of, 642, 705. “Chaste Maid in Cheapside,” old play, 255. Chastity of Scipio, 265. Chatham, earl of, 812. Chaworth, Mr., duel with lord Byron, 722. Cheapside Turk, inquiry for, 194. Cheese and stones, comparative digestibility of, 355. “Cherry woman” of long since, engraving of, 685. Chest, a wonderfully capacious one, 706. Chester, mysteries of, treated by Mr. Sharp, 14. Chesterfield, lord, bleeding for his country, 90. Children, lost, proper means for recovering, 18; adoption of, in France, 220; former austere treatment of, 394. Chiltern Hundreds, account of, 649. Chimneys, rare before the Reformation, 389; smoky, how cured, 572. Chinese ceremonies of salutation, 197; idol, 627. Christina queen of Sweden, curious collation given to, 552. Christmas customs, 390, 391. Christ’s sepulchre and resurrection, 484. Churches; church processions, 392; church-houses before the Reformation described, 392; few built in the correct line, 393; throughout Europe, pope’s grant to Italian architects for building, 393; organs first used in, 473; (see Organs;) visiting the churches, 478; curious old church accompts, 481. See Fonts. Cibber, (Colley) life of his daughter, 125. “City nightcap,” old play, 559. Clare, Elizabeth, her intense attachment, 458. Clarence, duke of, lord high admiral, 577; dukedom of Clarence, 409. Classes of mankind, how many, 455. Clemency, policy of, 401. Clergyman, a waggish clergyman, 633; duels fought by, 722; office of lord chancellor formerly held by, 729. “Clerk, (the good)” 562. Clerkenwell, ancient river Fleet at, 75. Clerks and parsons, anecdotes about, 662. Clothes, economical allowance for, 668. Clubs, the ugly, 264, 468; parliament, 280; the silent, 467; the duellists’ in Charlestown, 721. Coaches, in 1684, 169; coach and steam travelling compared, 262. Coin, (old silver) how to read inscriptions of, 452. Coke, sir Edward, immense fan used by, 394. Colas, a celebrated diver, 647. Cole, Mr. J., his “Antiquarian Trio,” 525, 530. Colliers of Durham, account of, 651. Colours, the Isabella colour, 558. Columns, engraving of a curious British one, 349. Companies, certain uses of, 229. Compliments, 196; a natural compliment, 344. Condemnation, criminal, stupefaction attending, 457. Conjurors, (Birmingham) 234. Conscience, force of, 138, 401. Constable’s “Miscellany,” 114. Convents, ambition of the nuns in, 478. Cooke, Rev. T., inquiry about, 136; notice of, 406. Cookesley, Mr., patron of Mr. W. Gifford, 52. Cooks for the royal table, 377. Copper mines, valuable, in Cornwall, 658. Cordeliers, their lists of candidates how arranged, 698. Cornwall, valuable mines in, 658; suffered little in recent pressure, 659; parsons and clerks in, 662. Corporations, anatomy of, 524. Cortusius Lodovick, a lawyer, funeral of, 699. Coulour, in Golconda, celebrated for diamonds, 827. Counter, tradesman’s duty behind, 565. Country, bleeding for, 90; parties and pleasures, 358; little known, 708; former manners of country gentlemen, 391. Court banquet, innocent gaiety at, 551. Courtier, shrewd, 405. Courts of justice, contrast of feelings in, 457. Covent Garden, gambling-houses formerly in, 86. Coventry, pageant vehicle and play at, 11. Cowper, the poet, two letters of, 752. Crabbe, poet, criticism on, 683. Cranbourne Chase, notice and engraving of emigration of deer from, 29; town and parish of Cranbourne, ib.; bloody affray in the chase, 32; origin and history of the chase, 36. Craven, (Skipton in) theatrical company in, 69; legend of, 515. Creditors, unblushing impudence of one, 667. Cresses, green-grocers’ devices with, 607. Cries, London; engraving of the “young lambs” seller, 395; of the bird-seller, 509; of the cherry-woman, 685; of the old water-carrier, 733. Criminals, capital, feelings of before and after hanging, 455. Cromwell, Oliver, anecdote of, 14. Crown lands, under Elizabeth, 580, 581. Cruelty relenting at music, 229. Crusades, effects of, 392. Cumberland weddings, 794. Cups, gold and maple, exchange of at coronations, 616. Cushion dance described, 161. Customers, how to be considered, 566; a spruce mercer and a lady customer, 567; invitation of customers, 627.

Dabshelim, king of India, library of, 247. Damages for breach of promise by a negro, 180. Dancing; goose-dancing described, 81; the dance of torches, 107; cushion dance, 161; May-day dance of milk-maids, 557; particular wedding dances, 793. Davenant, Sir W., his description of London, 167. “David and Bethsabe,” old play, 609. “David’s Sow, (As drunk as)” explained, 379. Death; “Death’s Doings,” 240; horror at mention of, 423; description of a death-bed, 425; banquet of the dead, 515; custom of laying salt on the dead, 523; singular disposal of a royal corpse, 576; singular phantasms or figures of the dead, 710. Decimals, 741. Decker, the dramatist, excellence of, 358. Dedication, curious, 125. Deer, emigration of from Cranbourne Chase, notice and engraving of, 29; driven from the Highlands, 754; their abhorrence of sheep, ib., 755. Defoeana, 564, 626. Delaval (Sir) and the monk, 599. Denton castle, seat of Fairfax, 687. “Devil,” often assumed as a surname, with corresponding arms, 698. Devonshire, butterfly hunting in, 678. ----, duchess of, compliment to, 344. Diamond cut diamond, 649. Diamonds, where and how found, 827. Diligence and delight, 730. Dinner, mysterious privacy of, 424. Directions; pious direction posts, 539; a particular direction, 675. Discount for cash, 283. Disease, philosophical observation under, 711. Dishes for the royal table marked, 377. Ditton, (Thames) great resort of anglers, 659. Diver of Charybdis, account of, 705. Diving-bell, origin and notices of, 763. Doctors, dilemma against, 81. Doge of Venice, marriage of, 452. Dolcoath, valuable mine in Cornwall, 658. Doomsday-book, dissertations on, 610. Dormer, judge, 406. Dover Cliffs, humane warning against, 450. “Downfall of May-games,” 545. “---- of Robert, earl of Huntingdon,” old play, 799. Draining the fens, effect of, 143. Drama. See Plays. Drayman, brewer’s, description of, 374. Drayton, his sarcasm on trade, 564. Dresden, elector’s bear-garden at, 490. “Drunk as David’s sow,” 379. Drunkards, the place they go to, 540; warning to, 824. “Duchess of Suffolk,” old play, 583. Dudley [a barber] of Portsmouth, 405. Duels; singular mode of duelling with a bag, 20; interesting account of duels, 720; poetical answer to a challenge, 724. Dulwich college, and the founder, 495, 497, 670. Dumplings, Norfolk, by whom to be eaten, 355. Dungeons for prisoners formerly in castles and monasteries, 391. Durham, engraving of Tommy Sly of, 331; Hut. Alderson bellman of, engraving, 365; Elvet bridge in, engraving, 413; ecclesiastical survey of see of, 415; account of the pitmen in county of Durham, 651; visit of James I. to the city, 679. Dustman, happy compliment by, 344. Dutch compliments of salutation, 197. Dyce, Alexander, his specimens of British poetesses, 198.

Early rising, 796. East Grinstead old play-bill, 137. Easter, antipathy to the Jews at, 390; Easter ceremonies, 477, &c. 502, 554. Eating, advice against excess of, 81; fire-eaters, 314; stone-eaters, 353. Eclipse, [race-horse] engraving and account of, 617, &c. Economy equally necessary with industry, 346. Education, how conducted before the Reformation, 389; lamented by a mulatto, ib. Effingham, lord Howard of, his autograph, 573. Egyptians in France, description of, 478. El Dorado of literature, 741. Elephant, remains of, found near Battle-bridge, 80. Elizabeth, queen, simile used by, 220; washing poor’s feet by, 479. Elvet bridge, Durham, 413. Emblems and mottos, 90; emblems used by servants at hirings, 174, 203. Epitaphs; by Dr. Lowth on his daughter, 138; extempore one on a French general, 633. Errors, clerical, 634. Ethiopians, mode of salutation by, 196. Etiquette, cut down by civilization, 219; nearly fatal excess of, 737. Etymology; of various English words, 473; of words of necessity from the German, and of those of luxury from the French, ib. “Every Man in his Humour,” original scene of changed, 302. Ewart’s old port, 343. Excuse, a good one, 796. Execution, case of revival after apparent execution, 455. Excursions of tradesmen, limits of, 567. Exercise and air recommended to ladies, 209.

Fairs, former importance of, 205. Falcon tavern, site of, 497. Families, former discipline in, 394; singular abandonment of family, 424; picture of desolation in, 656. Fanatic, (fasting) 134. Fans, former size and application of, 394. Fares of ticket porters, 19. Farmers in 1782, and in 1822, 463. Faro Straits, 643, 646. Farthings, 378. Fasting, extraordinary, 134; fast-pudding and Friar Bacon, 633. Fate, plea and answer respecting, 828. “Father’s Home, (A),” 170. Feast, a fearful one, 520. Feathers, 141. February, advice for, 252. Fees, the best of, 540. Feet, washing of, at Vienna, 477; and at Greenwich by queen Elizabeth, 479. Felons, sensations of, before and after hanging, 455. Female friendship, 363. Fens, goose-herds in, 140; effect of draining in, 143. Figures and numbers, 759. ---- of the dead, singular narrative of, 710. Filial custom, 625. Fingers, numbering by, 761. Fire-damp, explosions of, 656. Fire-eaters, 314. Fish-street, (Old), 167. Fishermen, sarcasms upon, 570. Fitzgerald, Col., and Col. King, duel between, 723. Fleet river at Clerkenwell, 75. Flogging, formerly, at Oxford, 394. Flora, games of, 541; indictment and trial of Flora, 545. Flowers, singular attention to, by the pitmen, 653. Fly-berry plant, 144. Font, of Harrow church, 157; of Beckenham church, 765; of West Wickham church, 813. Foot-ball, formerly played in London streets, 169. Fop and wit, union of, 666. Fortune; cards for telling fortunes, 74; how to be commanded, 347; fortune favours the brave, or butterfly hunting, 678. “Fortune by Land and Sea,” old play, 299. Fownes, Thomas, and his fox-hounds, 33. Fox, the quaker, 762. Franklin, Dr., anecdote of, 89. Fraock Elan, isle of, 777. Fraser, Simon, brother of lord Lovat, 633. French; nobility, 132; valentines, 206; adoption of children by, 220; transmigration of French noblesse, 242; ceremonies in France, 271, 272, 502; present jumble of ranks among, 362; former hospitality to travellers, 396; nationality of, 504, 505; decorum of in crowds, ib.; almanacs, statements of, 540. Friar Bacon and his servant, 633. Friendship; destroyed by advice, 330; on the nail, supposed meaning of, 764. Fritters in France and England, 271. Funerals; mock, of a Bath chairman, 41; of a French general by a British sailor, 631; a cheerful one, 699. Futurity, peep into, 74.

“Game at Chess,” old play, 321. Gaming, curious notice about gambling houses, 86; gaming for funeral expenses, 763. Gammon of bacon, Easter custom of, 390. Garlands, May-day, 541, 543, 550. Garrick Plays, selections from, contributed by Mr. C. Lamb, 111, 133, 159, 192, 223, 255, 299, 324, 356, 384, 417, 447, 486, 511, 559, 581, 608, 640, 676, 703, 735, 788, 799. Geese, in the fens, management of, 141; goose-dancing in Scilly islands, 81. Geikie, Mr., a meritorious artist, 116. Gems of the twelve months, 321. Genius; unrewarded, 316; chance a great patron of, 421. Gentleman, (The Old) character of, 118. Gentry; heralds formerly kept by, 390; former manners and oppressions of, 391, 392; austere treatment of their children, 394. George I., anecdote of, 406. ---- II. and his cooks, 377. Germain, lord George, anecdote of, 410. Germany, universities in, 123. Gibbs, alias Huck’n, Dr., 554. Gilford, William, death and memoir of, 43. Gifts; new-year, 7; wedding, 793, 794. Ginger beer, receipt for, 471. Gipsies, health and happiness of, 210. Gipsy [a stream] in Yorkshire, 230. Gladiators in England, 495. Glass windows, rare before the Reformation, 392. Glenstrae, laird of, 465. Glisseg, in Wales, the happy valley, 352. “God keep you,” old salutation, 390. “God save the King,” author of, 225. Goethe, his philosophy of life, 398. Gold found in Scotland and Cornwall, 658. “Golden Age, (The)” old play, 677. ---- tooth, learned disputes about, 453. Gone or going, 773. Good-eating pernicious, 277; domestic dialogue on good-living, 822. Good-Friday, 478, 482. Goodrick, St., a bishop misled by, 415. Granger, Rev. Mr., the Linnæus of British portraits, 510. Grassington manager, [T. Airay] 69. Gratitude, in birds, 592. Gravity mistaken for wisdom, 393. Great Unknown discovered, 306, &c. Green-grocers’ devices, 607. Greenland, English sailors in, 629. Greenock Adam and Eve, antiquity of, 538. Gregory, (Old) selfishness of defeated, 240. Gresham committee, notice by, about lost children, 18. Gretna Green blacksmith and marriages, 431, 436. Grey, lady Jane, table book of, 3. Grief, expressive silence of, 459. Grinstead, (East) old play-bill, 137. Grosvenor, earl, and Mr. Gifford, 57. Groves; on a picturesque one, 807; groves and high places, 808. “Guardian, (The)” old play, 418. Guards, Swiss, monument of, engraving, 253. Guilty, stupefaction on verdict of, 457. Gwennap, in Cornwall, productive mine in, 658.

Hagman Heigh, new year’s eve custom, 7. Hairdresser. See Barber. Halfpennies, 378. Hall, (Antiquarian) of Lynn, engraving and notice of, 139. ----, Thomas, his “Funebria Floræ,” 545. Ham and stilton, 179. Hampstead, Shepherd’s Well at, 381; the place of groves, 810. Hands; peculiarity of the barber’s hand, 245; the bloody hand, 258; reason for preferring the right hand, 280. Hanged and unhanged, mankind divided into, 455. Hannah, (Blind) notice and engraving of, 221. Hard fare, 353. ---- labour, varied by different tread-mills, 755. Hare’s foot an antidote to witchcraft, 674. Harp, notices of, 335. Harris, Renatus, organist, 260. Harrow church, engraving of its old font, 157. Hart, the astrologer, 135. Hatred, to be insured by advice, 330. Hawking, ladies formerly devoted to, 392. Health, importance and means of, 209, 277. Hedgehog, celestial, 627. Henley, in Arden, custom in, 176. Henry IV., anecdotes of, 401, 402. ---- IX., notice of, 739. Heralds formerly in the train of nobility and gentry, 390. Herefordshire, new-moon custom in, 393. Heriot, curious register concerning, 817. Hero, singular one of an old play, 385. Heroism and humanity, 632. Herrings, curing and virtues of, 569. Heywood, Thomas, his excellence as a dramatist, 301, 358. Hide park, or a tanner’s villa, 764. “Hierarchie of Angels,” old play, 385. High admiral, (lord) office and seal of, 573. Highlands; legend of, 290; weddings, 292; tartans nearly obsolete in, 293; customs in, 465, 543; deer and sheep in, 754; contempt for table luxuries in, 755; Highland scenery, 775. Hill, Rev. Mr., killed in a duel, 722. Hindoo husbandmen, 696. Hiring of servants at statutes, 171, 203. Hobby horses, obsolete toys, engraving of, 686. Hobday, Mr., artist, exhibition of, 687. Hobson, (old) pleasant conceits of, 419. Hoby, sir Edward, 578. Hogarth, and engraving from his picture of lord Lovat, 237. Holidays; how spent in Ireland, 692; their utility, 694; the benevolent Greek philosopher, 695. Holly tree, carrying of, at Brough, 26. Home, a father’s, 170; spells of home, 216. Hornchurch, 84. Horses; engraving and account of the race-horse Eclipse, 618, &c.; their swiftness connected with great muscular power, ib.; difference between theoretic standards and occasional excellence, 620; insurance of, 621; great weight of the heart of Eclipse, ib.; singular examination of horses, 660. Hot meals, 314. Hounds; first fox-hounds in the west, 35. Hour-glasses for pulpits, 485, 501. Howard of Effingham, lord, [lord high admiral] autograph of, 573, &c. Human life, 398. Humanity and heroism, 632; humanity sometimes nearly lost in forms, 737. Hunter, John, the anatomist, 618. Hunting; description of buck-hunting in Cranbourne Chase, 33. Husbandmen in India, 696. Hut. Alderson, of Durham, 365. Hy-jinks, a Scotch amusement, 467. Hyatt, Sophia, her poetical enthusiasm, 718. Hygrometer, new, 25.

I, the pronoun, danger of wearing it out, 341. Idols, (Chinese) 627. Imagination; its transforming power, 9, 16. Immersion instead of interment, 412. Imperial drink, receipt for, 471. Improvisatore, extraordinary, 421. Inch, derivation of, 378. India, library of the king of, 247; husbandmen of, 696. “Indictment of Flora,” a dialogue, 545. Indulgences, (popish) not always ill applied, 413. Industry vain without thrift, 346. Inishail, isle of, 775. Innocent (Pope) III., 747. Inns, rare before the Reformation, 391; poor’s boxes formerly at, 392, 747. Inscriptions on old silver coin, how to read, 452. Intellect, march of, 60, 681. Interlaken, beauties of, 428. Interment superseded by immersion, 412. Ireland, bogs in, 185; customs in, 506, 523; custom of lord-lieutenants of, 663; Irishmen on a holiday, 692. Italian architects, pope’s grant to, for building churches, 393.

“Jack Drum’s Entertainment,” old play, 416. Jack-o’-Lent, 270. Jamaica, speculation for warming-pans in, 15. James I., rudeness of his court to women, 390; at Durham, 679. ---- II., notices of the Stuart papers, 738. January, general prescriptions for, 81. Japanese mode of salutation, 197. Jeffries, Judge, a judge of music, 261. Jeggon, Dr., anecdote of, 828. Jerningham, Mr., notice of, 201. Jests; great merit of suppressing offensive ones, 280; effect of wealth on their success, 348. Jews, Easter custom against, 554. “John (King) and Matilda,” old play, 111, 803. John Bull, specimen of, 376; indecorum and rudeness of in crowds, 505. Joy, madness from excess of, 511. Judges, hunting their own venison on circuit, 34; immense fans formerly carried by, on circuit, 394. Justice, (impartial) 406. Justices of peace, former furniture of their halls, 391; arithmetical estimate of, 738.

Keats, the poet, 810. Kimberley, Francis, Birmingham conjuror, 235. King, (The) and the private gentleman, 732. King, Col., and Col. Fitzgerald, duel between, 723. ---- Dr., his pun, 252. Kirby Malhamdale church-yard legend, 515. ---- Moorside, death of duke of Buckingham at, 525. Kircher, his account of a marvellous diver, 705. Kissing, in Ireland, on Easter Monday, 506. Knowledge, defends from the juggle of forms, 219; even a little of it useful, 758; importance of a knowledge of the world, 824.

Labour, hard, greatly varied by different tread-mills, 755. Ladies, in winter like tea-kettles, 151; air and exercise for, 209; lady of the hill, 291; character of Mrs. Aurelia Sparr, a maiden lady, 340; the lady and troubadour, 453; the white lady, 717. See Women. Laing, David, the Gretna-green blacksmith, 131. Lamb, Mr. C., lively letter to, 194. Lambert, [parliamentary] monument to, 522. “Lambs (Young) to sell,” a London cry, 395. Lamond of Cowel, tradition of, 465. Lancaster, dukes of, 100; and York, houses of, ib. Language without words, 467; English, distinct derivations of, 473. Lansberg, Matthew, Liege almanac by, 274. Lanterns, court order for, in the streets, 414. Laplander’s mode of salutation, 186. Lapstone, beating the, 85. Lark, the evening, 622. Last tree, 88; last deer of Beann Doran, 754. “Late Lancashire Witches, (The)” old play, 193. Lauron, Marcellus, artist, 509. Lavater, aphorisms by, 274. Lawsuit, effect of, 134. Learning, and large libraries, 218; formerly united with pedantry, 394; a mulatto deploring his education, 626; a little learning not dangerous, 757. Leathart, Mr., “Welsh Penillion of,” 335. “Legends, Scottish,” 775. Leicestershire, custom of, 523. Lendi, M. B., new hygrometer by, 25. Lent, customs in, 625. ---- Jack-o’, puppet formerly thrown at, 270. Lettered stones, curious ancient one, 351. Letters, address on one, 675. Lewis, St., disposal of his body, 576. Leybourne, W. de, first Englishman styled admiral, 576. Libels, actions for, formerly rare, 389; dramatic libel, 402. Libraries, cautions about forming, 218; that of the king of India, 247. Licenses, for enacting plays, 67, 68; for printing play-bills, 584, 586. Liege almanac, 274. Lieutenant and captain, dreadful duel between, 724. Life, 398; recovered after hanging, 455. Lilly, his account of the astrologer Hart, 135. Linnet fancy, 587. Liston, William, crier of “young lambs,” 395. Literature, a great bargain of, 740; a literary character, 410. Lloyd, T., Esq., curious pillar restored by, 352. Loaf-stealing, an old Christmas game, 391. Loddon church, poor’s box in, 747. London, described in 1634, 167; modern improvements in, 214; musicians incorporated in, 228; cries, see Cries; university, founding of, 593; notice of London watermen, 627; London merchants a hundred years since, 649; London holidays, 694. See Bankside, Battle-bridge, Clerkenwell, Covent Garden. “London Chanticleers,” old play, 256. Long, sir Walter, of Draycot, his style of travelling, 393. “Looking Glass for England and London,” old play, 641. Longevity, clerical, striking case of, 24. Lord chancellor, office of, 729. ---- high admiral, powers and seal of, 573. Lost children, notice about, 18. Lottery, madness from success in, 511. Lovat, lord, engraving of, 237; claimant to the title, 633. Love; loves of the negroes, 180; music requested for a love dialogue, 514; refinements of Spanish love, 737. “Love for Love’s sake,” old play, 735, 788. Lowth, bishop, his epitaph on his daughter, 138. Lucerne, monument of the Swiss guards at, 253. Lying; why Thames Ditton called lying Ditton, 659; how to be reformed, 731. Lynn, Antiquarian Hall of, 139; Billy Boots of, 302; May-day at, 541.

Mac Colda, Alaister, 778. ---- Donalds and Campbells, 778. ---- Gregor of Glenstrae, 465. ---- Phadian, captain, 782. Macham, discoverer of Madeira, 276. Macrae, captain, and sir George Ramsay, fatal duel between, 723. Madeira, discoverer of, 276. Madness, raving, from a lottery prize, 511. Madrid, carnival in, 273. Magpies, superstition relating to, 382. Malacca, salutation in, 196. Malmsbury abbey school, tradition about, 232. Mankind, only two classes of, 455. Manners, in Oliver Cromwell’s time, 19; before the Reformation, 389. Manuscripts, an author reading one to a bookseller, engraving, 125; curious account of Stuart manuscripts, 738. Maps, a curious old one, 506. March, first of, 283; fair, at Brough, 317. ---- of intellect, 60. Marden (Milton and) hundred of, 577. Marriages, a new plan for, 21; account of late duke of York’s, 105; breach of promise of marriage, 180; in Highlands, 292; at Gretna-green, 431; of the doges of Venice, 452; perplexing ones in relationship, 475; vulgarity of a court lady’s consenting to marriage, 737; Welsh, 742; Cumberland, 794; curious case of re-marriage, 817. Marseilles, custom at, 271; interesting history of, 539. “Master of the bears and dogs,” 497. Master of the revels, license by, 60, 68. Masters, an amiable one, 410. Matrimony. See Marriages. Maturin, conversations of, 681. Maundy Thursday, 477, &c. Maxims of meanness, 562, 564. May-day, customs on, 541, &c., 557, 628, 629. Mazarine, cardinal, easy patronage by, 405. Meals; hot meals, 314; taken with mysterious privacy, 424. Meanness formerly taught for morals, 562, &c. Memorandum books, 1. Mercer of London, old picture of, 569. Merchandise, unfavourable tendencies of, 564. Merchants, (London) a hundred years since, 649. Metastasio, memoir of, 421. Milton, hundred of, 575, 579. Mines; workers in coal-mines described, 653; fatal explosion in, 656; in Great Britain, 658. Ministers, cheap patronage by, 405. Minstrels, curious regulations for, 336. Mint, test of old silver coin at, 452. Miron, Francis, boldness and impunity of, 401. Miseries of travelling, 262. Monasteries, frequent and pious bleedings in, 479. Monks. See Monasteries. Monson, William, alias Billy Boots, 302. Month’s mind, a mass for the dead, 483. Months, twelve gems of the, 320. Moon, new, customs on, 393. Moore, T., the poet, remarks on, 681, 684. Moorfields and laundresses, 169. Mops or statutes for hiring servants, 171, 203. Morals, former system of, for tradesmen, 564, &c. More, sir T., notice of, 730. Mortality through duels, stated, 720. Mother-wit better than learning, 572. “Mothering Sunday,” 625. Mottos and emblems, 90. Mount Vernon, why so called, 617. Mountain ash, an antidote to witchcraft, 674. Mug-houses, described by a foreigner, 378. Mulattos, curious lamentation of one, 626. Mulgrave family, founder of, 763. Mullally, Jack, an Irish landlord, 693. Music; anecdotes of, 225; comparison of some much-admired, 228; musicians incorporated, 228; some effects of music, 229; in churches, 261; notice of the harp, 336; mischievous musical crash, 348; effects of, on rudeness and ignorance, 461; changes in church music, 485; requested for a beautiful love-dialogue, 514; of birds particularized, 589; experiment of, on animals, 691. Muskerry, lord, his receipt to cure lying, 731. Mustard and cress seeds, devices with, 607. Mysteries, dramatic, performed at Coventry, engraving of, 11.

Nail, to be a friend upon the, 764. Names, of places, explained, 156; curtailment of baptismal names, 385; substitution of classical for baptismal ones, 698; the name of “devil” often assumed, ib. Nash, T., on herrings, in 1599, 569. Necromancy, 323. Negroes, loves of, 180; salutation of two negro kings, 197. Nelson, lord, punctuality of, 796. Nettleton, custom at, 85. New-moon, customs on, 393. New-year, ode to, set to music, 5; customs on, 7. Newcastle, Blind Willie of, 461. ----, duchess of, notices of, 197, 278. Newsman, description and engraving of, 61. Newspapers, varieties and interest of, 61, 65; reading the newspaper, engraving, 797. Newstead abbey, female enthusiast at, 718. Nicolai, M., bookseller, morbid phantasms of, 710. Nightingale, poets’ mistake about, 588. Nimeguen, two ravens at, 87. Nobility, French, remarks on, 132. Nominative case, 282. Norfolk dumplings, digested by a stone-eater, 355. Normans, what derived from, 393. Northumberland, custom in, 657. Notre Dame, grand Easter ceremony in, 502. Nottingham, earl of, 575. Numbers and figures, 759. Nunneries, girls formerly educated in, 389.

Oddities of genius, 424. Offices and trades specified in Doomsday-book, 616. O’Kelly, Col., his celebrated race-horse and parrot, 621. Old age, a fair price for burning it out at the stake, 686. ---- gentleman, (the) character of, 118. ---- women, ridicule of, De Foe’s censure of, 20. Oran-outang, extraordinary one, 756. Orde, Mr., an amateur artist, 510. Organs; celebrated ones, 260; address to a barrel organ, 403; notices of, 474. Osnaburgh, bishopric of, 97. Ostend, siege of, 558. Ostrich, (the king’s) dissection of, 617. Otho, earl of York, 97. “Ough,” (the syllable) many ways of pronouncing, 688. Ounce, derivation of, 378. “Outlandish knight,” 130. Oxford, mayor of, 617.

Padua, cheerful funeral at, 699. Pageant vehicle and play, representation of, 11. Painters, scene for, 655. Pamphleteers, a singular one, 727. Paper books not before the tenth century, 507. Papers, (Stuart) curious account of, 738. Parenthesis, explanation of, 571. Parents. See Children. Paris garden, Southwark, 489. Parish accompts, (old,) 481. Parliament, clubs, 280; anecdote of royal aversion to, 700. “Parliament of Bees,” old play, 608. Parrots, Col. O’Kelly’s most remarkable one, 622. Parsons and clerks, anecdotes about, 662. See Clergymen. Parsons, Joe, the samphire-gatherer, 451. Parties of pleasure, a successful one, 552. Passion-week, 477, &c. Patients, philosophical observation of their diseases by, 711. Patriotism, fervour and judgment of, 401. Patronage, (cheap) 405. Paulian, (Father) his account of a stone-eater, 353. Pearce, Dr. Zachary, H. Walpole’s ridicule of, 9. Pedantry formerly the associate of learning, 394. “Peep into futurity,” 74. Penge Common, “Crooked Billet” on, 670. Pens, how carried anciently, 507; their introduction, ib. “Perhaps,” its importance in the sciences, 247. Pesce, Nicolo, the diver, and the royal gold cups, 705. Phantasms, singular case of, 710. Philippine Islands, salutations in, 196. “Phillis of Segros,” old play, 799. Phipps, William, founder of the Mulgrave family, 763. Phlebotomy. See Bleeding. Phrenology, 329. Physicians, curious jealousy of some, 274. Picture dealer, trade catalogue of, 236. Pilgrimages, intense interest of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” 217; pilgrimages formerly in England, 392; a curious one, 475. Pilpay’s abridgement of a library, 247. Pipe sludge, or prejudice against new water-conveyance, 733. Places, names of some explained, 156; high places and groves, 808. Planets, illustration of, 745. Platina, the historian, anecdote of, 698. Plays, representation of a pageant vehicle and play at Coventry, 11; license for enacting plays, 67; curious play-bills, 137, 257, 584, 636; origin and progress of theatrical representation, 306; not a third of old dramatic treasure exhausted, 358; supposed libels in, 401, 403; an author’s correct estimate of one, 572; one of nine days representation, 737; a straightforward critic upon, 803; Garrick’s collection of. See Garrick plays. Plough-Monday, 81. “Poetesses, (British)” by Mr. Dyce, 195. Poetry, Bowring’s popular Servian poetry, 529; poetry and fact, 646. Poets; advice to one from one younger, 248; estimate of various poets, 682; minor poets not useless, 683. Poland, custom in, 320. Poor’s boxes, notices and engravings of, 747. ---- rates, none before the Reformation, 392. Port wine, Ewart’s excellent, 343. Portaferry, Easter custom at, 506. Porter recommended, 412. Porters, (ticket) regulations and fares of, 19. Portraits, British, Rodd’s sale catalogue of, 236. Posts, (road) scripture texts on, 539. Potatoes, proper treatment of in frost, 17. Potter, Dr., university flogger, 394. Pound, derivation of, 378. Powell the fire-eater, 314. ----, Mr., a notorious duellist, 721. Presents, new-year’s, 7; wedding, 793, 794. Pretender, curious paternal notices of, 744. Priests in France, former hospitality of, 390. Printing, licenses for, 584, 586. Prison walls, 727. Private and public, 732. Prize-fighting with swords formerly, 495. Professors in German universities, 123. Prognostications, effect of a few successful ones, 275. Promise, breach of, curious case of, 180. Pronoun, first personal, not to be worn out, 341. Pronunciation, at the old Grassington theatre, 72; extreme irregularity of the English, 688. Property, fixed and movable, remarks on, 345. Protestant German Universities, 124. Prynne, William, notice of, 726. Public and private, 732. Publishers, how dispensed with, 727. Pudsey, bishop, notice of, 415. Pulpits furnished with hour-glasses and clocks, 485, 501. Punctuality recommended, 796. Punishments, capital, solemnity and terror of, 455, &c. Puns, not unnatural in grief as well as joy, 112. Purvis, William, or “Blind Willie” the minstrel, 461. Pye, Mr., curious anecdote from, of Charles I., 700. Pye-stealer detected, 419.

“Quarter of an hour before,” 796. Queen’s college, Oxford, custom at, 85, 390. Questions, danger of asking, 342. Quin, his apology for a dancer’s absence, 16; his unfeeling jokes, ib., 17.

Race-horses. See Horses. Radnor, lord, anecdote of, 90. Ramsay, sir George, killed in a duel, 723. Randwick near Stroud, custom at, 553. Ratting, 281. Ravens, at Nimeguen, 87; tradition respecting two at home, ib.; anecdote of one at Hungerford, 826. Raynal, Abbé, anecdote of, 89. Reading aloud, remarks on, 278. Realities resembling dreams, 457. Red-herring on horseback, an old dish, 390; eulogium of red-herrings, 569. Reformation, manners and customs before, 389; progress of, 483. Regent’s-street and park, 214, 215. Relationship, involvement of by marriage, 475. Religion, 828. Restitution, better late than never, 138; for ease of conscience, 401. Retrospect, 184. Return made to a parish circular, 378. Revels, master of, license by for enacting plays, 68. Revenant, (Le), 455. Revenge, wishes of, 195. Reverie, 464. Revival, after hanging at the gallows, 455. “Rewards of Virtue,” old play, 159. Rheumatism, asserted effect of, 142. Rhone, river, Scipio’s shield found in, 264. Rhubarb, and the Turk in Cheapside, 194. Rich man defined, 346. Richardson, the first public fire-eater, 315. Riches, good and bad effects of, 347. Riddle and explanation, 410. Right hand, reason for preferring, 280. Rigi, in Switzerland, inscription on book at, 138. Rising, (early), 796. Road-posts inscribed with texts, 539. “Robin Gray, (Auld)” curious account of, 200. Robin Hood’s bower, 485. Rodd, Mr. H., picture-dealer, 236. Rollan, Madame, a celebrated dancer, 16. Roman antiquities, 79. Rooms, former lowness of, 168. Rosamond, (Fair), 315. Rouen, Easter custom at, 484. Round robin, ancient custom of, 698. Royal Society, 552. Rubens, liberality and kindness of, 10. Runaway mops or statutes, 176. Rural delights, 708.

Sailors, custom of when in Greenland, 629; generous feeling of one for a dead enemy, 631; their remonstrance by a round robin, 689; anecdote of an Irish one, 699. St. Bride’s church, admirable organ in, 261. St. David’s day, 334. St. Giles Hill, near Winchester, fair at, 204. St. Goodrick misleading a bishop, 415. St. Jerome’s description of an organ, 474; conjecture about his dragon, 538. St. Lawrence church, capital organ in, 261. St. Margaret’s, at Cliff, 450. St. Mary church, admired organ in, 261. St. Sepulchre’s bell, at executions, 164. Saints, a poor female one, 751. Salt, the terror of spectres, 521, 523; custom of putting salt on the dead, 523. Salutation, different modes and forms of, 186, 390; curious one by lord Lovat, 239; lively lecture on the English mode, 555. Samphire, gathering, 450, 451. “Satiromastix,” old play, 704. Scaffold, the criminal’s view from, 460. Scandal, a grand receptacle of, 246. Scarborough, custom at, 403. Schmidt, celebrated organ-builder, 260. Schoolboys, 149; at Malmsbury, tradition about, 232. Schools, rare before the Reformation, 389. Scilly islands, custom in, 81. Scipio, anecdote and shield of, 264. Scot, John, a fasting fanatic, 134. Scotland, story of the Scotch soldier, 285; utility of the Scottish hospital, 286; customs on the new moon in, 393; amusement called hy-jinks in, 467; an old and corrected map of, 506; Scotch Adam and Eve, 538; some gold found in, 658; Scottish legends, 775. See Highlands. Scripture texts, how hung up formerly in houses, 389; inscribed on road-posts, 539. Scylla and Charybdis, ancient and modern descriptions of, 642. Sea bull, 699. ---- weed, address to, 452. Seals; bread seals, 90; seal of lord high admiral, 573. Second-sight, 781. Secrets worth keeping, 741. Seigneurs, the benevolent one, 132. Seignories in England, dreadful abuses and oppressions formerly in, 391. Sepulchral remains, 82, 83. Servants, appropriate addresses of different ones, 178; description of statutes or mops for hiring, 171, 203. Servian popular poetry, 529. “Seven Champions of Christendom,” old play, 487. Shakspeare, a fault in, 302; contemporary dramatists of, 358; a giant among giants, 358. Sharp, Mr., his dissertation on Coventry pageants, 11. Sheep, aversion of deer to, 754, 755. Shepherd’s well, Hampstead, 381. Shepherds, how paid formerly, 393. Sherbet, receipt for making, 471. Sheriff’s trumpets explained, 393. Shield of Scipio found in the Rhone, 264. “Ship, (The)” order of, 57. Shrove Tuesday, 271. Shute, bishop of Durham, pun on, 283. Sight, (second), 781. Signs, explanation of a modern one, 672; one near Skipton, 636; odd signs, 412. Silent club, (the), 467. Silver, how silver coin tested, 452; found in Cornwall, 658. “Silver Age, (The)” old play, 676. Singing birds. See Birds. “Single hair,” for angling, an enthusiast on, 660. Skating, 150. Skipton in Craven, theatrical company at, 69; custom in, 628. Smith, sir Sidney, and old Dan Bryan, 631. Smoking, much used in 1634, 169. Smoky chimnies, how cured, 572. Smyth, Capt. W. H., his account of Scylla and Charybdis, 646. Snuff and tobacco, proposed history of, 387. Snuffbox, (My) engraving and description of, 189. Snuffers, (curious old) account and engraving of, 639. Snuffing candles, curious process of, 348. Society simplified by civilization, 219. Soho bazaar, 153. Soldier, (Scotch) story of, engraving, 285. Southam, custom in, 176. Sparr, Mrs. A., a maiden lady, 340. Sparrow, address to, 364. Spectrology, 710. Spells of home, 216. Sporting, 283. Spring, the voice of, 624. Spring Gardens, a former Vauxhall, 720. Stag-hunting, near Beann Doran, 754. Stage-coach adventures, 263. Standing mannerly before parents, 394. Stanmore toll-house, engraving of, 171. Starlings, battle of, 661. Statistics, curious, 540. Statutes, for hiring servants, account of, 171, 203. Stealing to restore, 234. Stephens, his mode of writing, 682. “Steps retraced,” 475. Stilton, (ham and), 179. Stocking, throwing of, 298. Stoke Lyne, lord of manor of, 556. Stones, sepulchral accumulations of stones, 83; account of a stone-eater, 353; autobiography of one, 354. Storm in 1790, 767. Stourbridge fair, 205. Stratford-upon-Avon Church, engraving of, 445. Streams, irregularity of some, 230. Street circulars, 476. Stuart papers, interesting account of, 738. Students in German universities, 123. Studley statute for hiring servants, 174. Style, error respecting, 60. Styles, for writing on table-books, 1. Suicide never occurring among gipsies, 210. Sumatra, oran-outang of, 756. Summer drinks, receipts for, 471. Sunrise and sunset, 138. Sunday, diversions on, 489, 494. Suppers, a light and early one, 668. Sup-porter, a sign motto, 412. Surnames, various cases of that of the “devil” in families, and arms correspondent, 698. Surveys, of see of Durham, 415; in Doomsday-book, 610. Swimming, Kircher’s account of a man web-handed and web-footed, 705. Swiss guards, monument of, 253. Switzerland, an artist’s letter from, 427. Sword-dancing in Northumberland, 657. “Sybil’s Leaves,” 74. System for shopkeepers, 562, 564.

Table Book, explanation of, 1; design of the present, 3; editor’s disclaimer of various publications in his name, 764. Tadloe’s tread like paviers’ rammers, 375. Tailors and cabbage, 471. “Tales, (Early metrical)” notice of, 114. Talker, the selfish, 341; talking, at times, how difficult, 362. “Tancred and Gismund,” old play, 322. Tanner, appropriate name for his villa, 764. Tartans, now little used in the Highlands, 293. Taste, its power and value, 86. Tempers of birds, how ascertained, 592. Temple church, organ in, 260. “Tethys’ Festival,” old play, 641. Test of talent, 572. Texts of scripture; formerly written in apartments, 389; on road-posts, 539. Thames, river, shut out state of, 168; bronze antique found in, 267. Thames Ditton, the resort of anglers, 659. Theatres, one projected at Edinburgh, 313; advice respecting formation of, ib.; curious circumstances of a fire at one, 737. See Plays. “The thing to a T,” explanation of, 15. Thomas, Elizabeth, poetess, 198. Thorwaldsen, monument by, 253. Thoulouse, cruel custom at, 554. Throwing the stocking, 298. Thucydides, testimonial to, 647. Ticket porters, regulations and fares of, 19. Tickling trout, 662. Tighe, Mrs., poetess, 199. Timber in bogs, remarks on, 185. Tin mines, in Cornwall, 658. Titles, new, to old books, 68. Tobacco, much used in 1634, 169; and snuff, proposed history of, 387; anecdotes of dealers in, ib. Toll-house at Stanmore, engraving, 171. Tollard, (royal) formerly a royal seat, 36. Tollet, Elizabeth, poetess, 198. Tomarton, former dungeon in, 391. Tomkins, an unrelenting creditor, 667. Tommy Bell, engraving of, 651. ---- Sly, engraving of, 331. Tonga Islands, custom in, 826. Tooth, (the golden) learned dispute on, 453. Torches, dance of, 107. “Tottenham Court,” old play, 581. Toupees, how formerly stiffened, 394. Trades, younger brothers formerly not bred to, 393; and offices specified in Doomsday-book, 616. Tradesmen, deviation from ancient rule of, 240; competition between, 387; “The Tradesman,” by Defoe, 564. Travellers, former hospitality to, in France, 390; before the Reformation were entertained at religious houses, 391. Travelling by coach and steam compared, 262. Tread-mills, different standards of labour in, 755. Trees, tasteful disposal of, 807. Trials, of Flora, 545; of a negro for breach of promise, 180; for life, impressions under, 457. Trout, tickling, 662. Trumpets formerly sounded before lords and gentlemen, 393. Tuilleries, massacre of Swiss guards at, 253. Tumuli, 82, 83. Turk in Cheapside, inquiry for, 194. Turks, consolation under persecution by, 453; a terror to Christendom, 485, 575. Tutor for tradesmen, 562, 564. Twelfth-night custom at Brough, 26. “Two angry Women of Abingdon,” old play, 356. “Two Tragedies in one,” old play, 488.

Ugly club, 264, 468. Unhanged and hanged, two only classes, 455. Universities, in Germany, 123; flogging in, 394; founding the London, 593. Unknown, (the great) discovered, 306, &c.

Valediction, 399. Valentines, 206. Valle Crucis abbey, pillar near, 349. Vanithee, [wife] Jack Mullally’s, 694. Vauxhall, a dramatic sketch, 438. Vehicle, (pageant) and play, notice and engraving of, 11. Venice, the doge’s marriage, 452. Venison, hunted better than shot, 34. Vernon, admiral, patron of general Washington, 617. ----, mount, why so called, 617. ----, a musician, anecdote of, 17. Vienna, customs in, 17. Views, of a felon on the scaffold, 460. Village new-year described, 91. “Virgin Widow,” old play, 321. Virginia, deliberate duel in, 721. “Visiting the churches,” 478.

W, (the letter), 410. Waggery, ancient, 419. Wales, character of the ancient Britons, 335; notices of the Welsh harp, ib.; minstrelsy society in, 338; ancient British pillar, engraving of, 349. Wallis, lady, her correct estimate of her comedy, 572. Walpole, Horace, letter of, about extortion in Westminster abbey, 9. Walsh, Mr. H., his satire on corporations, 524. Wamphray, in Scotland, great hiring fair at, 204. Warming-pans for Jamaica, 15. Warwickshire, statutes or mops in, 172, &c. “Washing of the feet” at Vienna, 477; and at Greenwich by queen Elizabeth, 479. Washington, general, notice of, 607. Water, prejudice against pipe-conveyance of, 733. Water-carrier, (old) engraving of, 733. Waterloo-bridge, intended opening to, 214. Watermen, ancient misconduct of, 168; watermen hundred years ago, 627. Watson, bishop, letters of to duke of York, 109, 110. Watson, Tom, an eminent dramatist, 385. Waverley, more than ten years unpublished, 427; Waverley novels acknowledged by sir Walter Scott, 306. Wax-work and extortion in Westminster abbey, 9. Way to grow rich, 347. Way-posts with texts on them, 539. Wealth, good and bad effects of, 347. Weather, a new hygrometer, 25. Webster, the dramatist, excellence of, 358. ----, Dr., of St. Alban’s, 239. Weddings, Highland, 292; Welsh, 792; Cumberland, 794. See Marriages. Welsh. See Wales. Wesley, John, his return of plate, 40. West, Gilbert, notice of, 811. Westminster abbey, curious letter of H. Walpole about, 9; burial fees of, 333. Westmoreland, belief of witchcraft in, 674. Weston, the royal cook, 377. Whitelock, collation by, to queen of Sweden, 552. Whyte, Mr. S., his account of Mrs. Charke, 125. Wickham (West) church, 811. Wiggen [ash] tree; its virtues against witchcraft, 674. Wigs, 243. Wild man of the woods, an extraordinary one, 756. ----, Jonathan, first victim to a law, 235. Wildman, Mr., first purchaser of Eclipse, 621. ---- ----, Colonel, benevolent conduct of, 718. Will, Will-be-so, memoir of, 139. Willie, (Blind) of Newcastle, 461. Willy-Howe, in Yorkshire, legends about, 82. Wilson, comedian, anecdote of, 571. Wiltshire abroad and at home, 231. Windows, rarely of glass before the Reformation, 392. Winds, irritating effect of some, 273. Wine, effect of, 824. Winter’s day, description of, 148. “Wit in a Constable,” old play, 193. Witchcraft, how to recognise a witch, 674; preventives of, ib. Wives, last resource of one, 451; use of a wife and children, 566. Wolfe, general, how his death wound received, 251. Wolverhampton church, valuable organ in, 262. Women; ungallant ridicule of the “old woman,” 20; poniards worn by, in Spain, 273; improvement of, 358; former education of, 389; former court rudeness to, 390; former amusements of, 392; prodigious fans used by, 394; a lady customer and a spruce mercer, 567; situation of a woman in India, 697; former refinement of court ladies in Spain, 737. Worfield, longevity of vicars of, 23. Wragg, Mary, 768. Writers, correct estimate by one of her own work, 572. See Authors. Writing tables, 2.

Yard, derivation of the term, 378. Yarmouth, long famed for herrings, 569. York, cardinal de, notice of, 738. ----, duke of, engraving and notices of, 93; list of dukes of York, 99. Yorkshire, new year’s eve custom in, 7; fairies in, 82; Yorkshire Gipsy, [stream] 230. “Young lambs to sell,” a London cry, 395. “Your humble servant,” when first used in salutation, 390. Youth, illiberal teachers of, 561.

II. CORRESPONDENTS’ INDEX.

A. B., 792. Alpha, 549. Blackmore, M., 267. Carle, 674. Dewhurst, H. W., 629. Edwin, S., 164. E. C. M. D., 194. E. J. H., 659. E. M. S., 320. Ex Dunelmensis, 331. F. W., 636. G. B., 569. Gaston, 242. J. H., 148, 217. J. J. K., 285. J. K., 5. J. R., 607. J. R. P., 374. J. W., 636. Juvenis, 625. K., 139, 541. L., 425. Lamb, C., 111. Lander, H. M., 538. M., 84. M. H., 786. N., 340, 358. P., 473, 662. P. N., 468. Pare, William, 161. Pegge, Samuel, 668. A Reader, 231, 233. R. J. P., 365. R. P., 91. S. R. J., 622. S. S. S., 467. Sam Sam’s Son, 156, 658. Ψ., 657. *, *, P., 635. **** ********, 408. T. C., 82, 230. T. Q. M., 69, 420, 515, 628. Tomlinson, C., 553. Veiled Spirit, (The), 803. W. H. H., 26, 317. W. P., 95, 387. Will o’ the Wisp, 67, 584. X., 556.

III. INDEX TO THE POETRY.

Contributed by Correspondents under the following Signatures.

Amicus, 426. Aquila, 166. B. C., 179. B. W. R., 148, 281. C., 806. E., 343. Elia, 773. F. P. H., 248. Gaston, 403. H., 399. H. L., 212. J. B. O., 398. J. G., 508. J. J. K., 453, 732. J. R. P., 476. Jackson, S. R., 500. Jehoiada, 405. O. N. Y., 388. P., 155. Prior, J. R., 162. R., 170. Sam Sam’s Son, 443, 444, 728. S. R. J., 571. *, *, P., 220, 236, 318. T. T., 689. W. T. M., 664.

By the Editor, on

The emigration of deer from Cranbourne Chase, 30. River Fleet at Clerkenwell, 75. Duke of York, 93. Mrs. Charke, 125. Antiquarian Hall, 139. Valentine’s day, 205. Porch of Beckenham church-yard, 715.

AUTHORS QUOTED.

Allan, J. H., 775, 785. Antiquarian Hall, 139. Byron, lord, 138. Chatham, earl of, 812. Cooke, Rev. T., 136, 406. Cowper, 65, 66, 217, 752, 753. Crabbe, 683. Crowley, 489. Fletcher, 16. Gay, 819. Gifford, W., 59. Goldsmith, 797, 798. Hemans, Mrs., 281, 624. Herrick, 524. Hogg, 684. Huddesford, 653. Hyatt, Sophia, 719. Jones, sir William, 344. Keats, 810. Lamb, C., 751. Leathart, W., 334, 338. Lowth, Dr., 138. Moffat, Mr., 233. Montgomery, J., 199. Peacock, T. L., 314. Pitt, 643. Pope, 525. Shakspeare, 252, 450. Sidney, sir P., 37, 38. Sotheby, 339. Trefusis, Elizabeth, 209. Wake, W. Basil, 117. Webb, Mr. J., 437.

WORKS CITED.

Annals of Sporting, 81. Bath Herald, 122. Dunton’s Athenian Sports, 421. Dyce’s Specimens of British Poetesses, 196. Examiner, 364. Garrick Plays, selections from, contributed by Mr. C. Lamb, 111, 133, 159, 192, 223, 255, 299, 324, 356, 384, 417, 447, 486, 511, 559, 581, 608, 640, 676, 703, 735, 788, 799. Indicator, 291. “Love in a Village,” 178. Monthly Magazine, 184, 206, 216. Newsman’s Verses, 61. New Monthly Magazine, 88, 207, 764.

ANONYMOUS.

8, 24, 25, 26, 40, 85, 122, 129, 138, 153, 155, 205, 277, 305, 370, 377, 411, 420, 435, 452, 471, 540, 585, 599, 622, 624, 648, 654, 657, 672, 687, 724, 725, 730, 826.

IV. INDEX TO THE ENGRAVINGS.

Alderson, Hut., of Durham, 365. Antiquarian Hall, 139. Antique bronze found in the Thames, 267. ----------------------------------, another view, 269. Armorial bearing, 555. Barleycorn, sir John, 116. Bath chairman, mock funeral of, 41. Bear garden, in Southwark, in 1574, 491. -------------------------, in 1648, 493. Beckenham church-yard, porch of, 765. --------- church, font of, 771. Beckenham Church, Kent, 765. --------- road, bridge over, 701. Berne, arcades in, 428. Billy Boots, 303. Bird-catcher, (London) in 1827, 589. Blind Hannah, 221. ----- Willie, of Newcastle, 461. Buckingham, duke of, house in which he died, 525. Charke, Mrs., Colley Cibber’s daughter, 125. Chatham-hill, Star inn on, 605. Collecting-box, 769. Cranbourne Chase, emigration of deer from, 29. “Crooked Billet,” on Penge Common, 669. Eclipse, the race-horse, 619. Elvet bridge, Durham, 413. Fleet river, (ancient) at Clerkenwell, 75. Harrow church, font of, 157. Hobby-horses for children, crier of, 686. Holly-tree, carrying of at Brough, 27. Howard, of Effingham, lord, autograph of, 573. Interlaken, houses in, 428. London cries, 509. ------ cherry-woman, 685. Lovat, lord, 237. March Fair, at Brough, Westmoreland, 317. May-day, at Lynn, 541. ------- dance, 557. Monument at Lucerne, 253. Newsman, 61. Newspaper, reading the, 797. Pageant vehicle and play, 11. Pedestrian costume, 428. Petrarch’s Inkstand, frontispiece. Pillar, ancient British, 349. Poor’s-box in Cawston church, 747. ---------- in Loddon church, 749. Seal of the lord high admiral, 573. Servants, hiring of, at a statute fair, 203. Shepherd’s well, Hampstead, 581. Snuff-box, (My) 189. Snuffers, pair of old, 637. Soldier, (Scotch) story of, 285. Stanmore toll-house, 171. Stratford-upon-Avon church, 445. Swiss costume, 428. -------------, 429. Tommy Bell, 651. ----- Sly, of Durham, 334. York, duke of, 93. “Young lambs to sell,” 395. Water-carriers, (old) 733. West Wickham church, 811.

Vol. II.--28.

THE TABLE BOOK.

This is an ancient form of the “tool of matrimony,” from one found at Horsleydown, and exhibited in 1800 to the Society of Antiquaries. Mr. Robert Smith, the possessor of this curious ring, transmitted with it some remarks and descriptions of a nature very interesting to the lovers of archæology, and the “happy estate;” and from thence is derived the following account of this particular ring, with illustrations of the form and use of the gimmal-ring generally.--

This ring is constructed, as the name imports, of twin or double hoops, which play one within another, like the links of a chain. Each hoop has one of its sides flat, the other convex; each is twisted once round, and each surmounted by a hand, issuing from an embossed fancy-work wrist or sleeve; the hand rising somewhat above the circle, and extending in the same direction. The course of the twist, in each hoop, is made to correspond with that of its counterpart, so that on bringing together the flat surfaces of the hoops, the latter immediately unite in one ring. On the lower hand, or that of which the palm is uppermost, is represented a heart; and, as the hoops close, the hands slide into contact, forming, with their ornamented wrists, a head to the whole. The device thus presents a triple emblem of love, fidelity, and union. Upon the flat side of the hoops are engraven “Usé de Vertu,” in Roman capitals; and, on the inside of the lower wrist, the figures “990.” The whole is of fine gold, and weighs two pennyweights four grains.

It is of foreign workmanship, probably French, and appears to be of no great antiquity; perhaps about the reign of our queen Elizabeth: for though the time of the introduction into Europe of the Arabic numerals be referred by some to an æra nearly corresponding with the figures on the ring, the better opinion seems to be, that the Arabian method of notation was unknown to the Europeans until about the middle of the 13th century. It is conjecture, therefore, that the figures were meant to express, not a date, but the artist’s number; such as we see still engraven on watches. The workmanship is not incurious; and the ring furnishes a genuine specimen of the gimmal, (a term now almost forgotten.)

Rings, it is well known, are of great antiquity; and, in the early ages of the world, denoted authority and government. These were communicated, symbolically, by the delivery of a ring to the person on whom they were meant to be conferred. Thus Pharaoh, when he committed the government of Egypt to Joseph, took the ring from his finger and gave it to Joseph, as a token of the authority with which he invested him. So also did Ahasuerus to his favourite Haman, and to Mordecai, who succeeded him in his dignity.

In conformity to this ancient usage, recorded in the Bible, the Christian church afterwards adopted the ceremony of the ring in marriage, as a symbol of the authority which the husband gave the wife over his household, and over the “earthly goods” with which he endowed her.

But the gimmal ring is comparatively of modern date. It should seem, that we are indebted for the design to the ingenious fancies of our Gallic neighbours, whose skill in diversifying the symbols of the tender passion has continued unrivalled, and in the language of whose country the mottoes employed on almost all the amorous trifles are still to be found. It must be allowed, that the double hoop, each apparently free yet inseparable, both formed for uniting, and complete only in their union, affords a not unapt representation of the married state.

Among the numerous “love-tokens” which lovers have presented to their mistresses, in all ages, the ring bears a conspicuous part; nor is any more likely than the gimmal to “steal the impression of a mistress’s fantasy,” as none so clearly expresses its errand. In the “Midsummer-Night’s Dream” of Shakspeare, where Egeus accuses Lysander, before the duke, of having inveigled his daughter’s affections, or, as the old man expresses it, “witch’d the bosom” of his child, he exclaims,

“Thou hast given her rhimes, And interchang’d love-tokens with my child: Thou hast, by moon-light, at her window sung, With feigning voice, verses of feigning love; And stol’n the impression of her fantasie, With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits.”

From a simple love-token, the gimmal was at length converted into the more serious “sponsalium annulus,” or ring of affiance. The lover putting his finger through one of the hoops, and his mistress hers through the other, were thus, symbolically, yoked together; a yoke which neither could be said wholly to wear, one half being allotted to the other. In this use of the gimmal may be seen typified, “a community of interests, mutual forbearance, and a participation of authority.”

The French term for it is foi, or alliance; which latter word, in the “Dictionnaire de Trévoux,” is defined, “bague ou jonc que l’accordé donne à son accordée, où il y a un fil d’or, et un fil d’argent.” This definition not only shows the occasion of its use, but supposes the two hoops to be composed, one of gold, the other of silver; a distinction evidently meant to characterise the bridegroom and bride. Thus Columella calls those vines which produce two different sorts of grapes, “gemellæ vites.”

Our English glossaries afford but little information on the subject. Minshew refers the reader from gimmal to gemow; the former he derives from “gemellus,” the latter from the French “jumeau:” and he explains the gemow ring to signify “double or twinnes, because they be rings with two or more links.” Neither of the words is in Junius. Skinner and Ainsworth deduce gimmal from the same Latin origin, and suppose it to be used only of something consisting of correspondent parts, or double. Dr. Johnson gives it a more extensive signification; he explains gimmal to mean, “some little quaint devices, or pieces of machinery,” and refers to Hanmer: but he inclines to think the name gradually corrupted from geometry or geometrical, because, says he, “any thing done by occult means is vulgarly said to be done by geometry.”

The word is not in Chaucer, nor in Spenser; yet both Blount in his “Glossography,” and Philips in his “World of Words,” have geminals; which they interpret twins.

Shakspeare has gimmal in two or three places; though none of the commentators seem thoroughly to understand the term.

Gimmal occurs in “King Henry the Fifth,” Act IV. Scene II., where the French lords are proudly scoffing at the condition of the English army. Grandpree says,

“The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, With torch-staves in their hands; and their poor jades Lob down their heads, dropping the hide and hips: The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes; And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit Lies foul with chaw’d grass, still and motionless.”

We may understand the gimmal bit, therefore, to mean either a double bit, in the ordinary sense of the word (duplex,) or, which is more appropriate, a bit composed of links, playing one within another, (gemellus.)

In the “First Part of King Henry the Sixth,” after the French had been beaten back with great loss, Charles and his lords are concerting together the farther measures to be pursued, and the king says,

“Let’s leave this town, for they are hare brain’d slaves, And hunger will enforce them to be more eager: Of old I know them; rather with their teeth The walls they’ll tear down, than forsake the siege.”

To which Reignier subjoins,

“I think, by some odd gimmals or device, Their arms are set, like clocks, still to strike on; Else they could ne’er hold out so, as they do, By my consent we’ll e’en let them alone.”

Some of the commentators have the following note upon this passage: “A gimmal is a piece of jointed work, where one piece moves within another; whence it is taken at large for an engine. It is now vulgarly called ‘gimcrack.’”

* * * * *

Mr. Archdeacon Nares instances a stage direction in “Lingua,” an old play--“Enter Anamnestes (a page to Memory) in a grave sattin sute, purple buskins, &c. a gimmal ring with one link hanging.” He adds, that gimmal rings, though originally double, were by a further refinement made triple, or even more complicated; yet the name remained unchanged. Herrick, in his “Hesperides,” has the following verses.

The Jimmal Ring, or True-love-knot.

Thou sent’st to me a true-love-knot; but I Return’d a ring of jimmals, to imply Thy love had one knot, mine a triple-tye.

According to Randle Holme, who, under the term “annulet,” figures the gimmal ring,[242] Morgan, in his “Sphere of Gentry,” speaks of “three triple gimbal rings borne by the name of Hawberke:” which Mr. Nares says was “evidently because the hawberk was formed of rings linked into each other.”

* * * * *

A further illustration of the gimmal ring may be gathered from the following passage. “It is related in Davis’s Rites of the Cathedral of Durham, (8vo. 1672, p. 51,) that over our lady of Bolton’s altar there was a marvellous, lively, and beautiful image of the picture of our lady, called the lady of Bolton, which picture was made to open with gimmes (or linked fastenings) from the breast downward; and within the said image was wrought and pictured the image of our Saviour marvellously finely gilt.”[243]

I find that the brass rings within which the seaman’s compass swings, are by the seamen called gimbals. This is the only instance I can discover of the term being still used.

*

* * * * *

The gimmal ring appears in common language to have been called a joint-ring. There is a passage relating to it in Dryden’s “Don Sebastian.”

“A curious artist wrought ’em, With joynts so close as not to be perceiv’d; Yet are they both each other’s counterpart, (Her part had Juan inscrib’d, and his had Zayda. You know those names were theirs:) and, in the midst, A heart divided in two halves was plac’d. Now if the rivets of those rings, inclos’d, Fit not each other, I have forg’d this lye: But if they join, you must for ever part.”

According to other passages in this play one of these rings was worn by Sebastian’s father: the other by Almeyda’s mother, as pledges of love. Sebastian pulls off his, which had been put on his finger by his dying father: Almeyda does the same with hers, which had been given her by her mother at parting: and Alvarez unscrews both the rings, and fits one half to the other.

* * * * *

There is a beautiful allusion to the emblematical properties of the wedding ring in the following poem:--

TO S---- D----, WITH A RING.

Emblem of happiness, not bought, nor sold, Accept this modest ring of virgin gold. Love in the small, but perfect, circle, trace, And duty, in its soft, though strict embrace. Plain, precious, pure, as best becomes the wife; Yet firm to bear the frequent rubs of life. Connubial love disdains a fragile toy, Which rust can tarnish, or a touch destroy; Nor much admires what courts the gen’ral gaze, The dazzling diamond’s meretricious blaze, That hides, with glare, the anguish of a heart By nature hard, tho’ polish’d bright by art. More to thy taste the ornament that shows Domestic bliss, and, without glaring, glows. Whose gentle pressure serves to keep the mind To all correct, to one discreetly kind. Of simple elegance th’ unconscious charm, The holy amulet to keep from harm; To guard at once and consecrate the shrine, Take this dear pledge--It makes and keeps thee mine.[244]

[242] Academy of Armory, b. iii. c. 2. p. 20.

[243] Hone on Ancient Mysteries, p. 222.

[244] Collection of Poems, Dublin, 1801, 8vo.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXIV.

[From “Chabot, Admiral of France,” a Tragedy, by G. Chapman and J. Shirley, 1639.]

No Advice to Self Advice.

------- another’s knowledge, Applied to my instruction, cannot equal My own soul’s knowledge how to inform acts. The sun’s rich radiance shot thro’ waves most fair, Is but a shadow to his beams i’ th’ air; His beams that in the air we so admire, Is but a darkness to his flame in fire; In fire his fervour but in vapour flies, To what his own pure bosom rarifies: And the Almighty Wisdom having given Each man within himself an apter light To guide his acts than any light without him, (Creating nothing, not in all things equal), It seems a fault in any that depend On others’ knowledge, and exile their own.

Virtue under Calumny.

---- as in cloudy days we see the Sun Glide over turrets, temples, richest fields, (All those left dark and slighted in his way); And on the wretched plight of some poor shed Pours all the glories of his golden head: So heavenly Virtue on this envied Lord Points all his graces.

* * * * *

[From “Cæsar and Pompey,” a Tragedy, by G. Chapman, 1631.]

Cato’s Speech at Utica to a Senator, who had exprest fears on his account.

Away, Statilius; how long shall thy love Exceed thy knowledge of me, and the Gods, Whose rights thou wrong’st for my right? have not I Their powers to guard me in a cause of theirs, Their justice and integrity to guard me In what I stand for? he that fears the Gods, For guard of any goodness, all things fears; Earth, seas, and air; heav’n; darkness; broad daylight; Rumour, and silence, and his very shade: And what an aspen soul has such a creature! How dangerous to his soul is such a fear!-- In whose cold fits, is all Heavn’s justice shaken To his faint thoughts; and all the goodness there, Due to all good men by the Gods’ own vows; Nay, by the firmness of their endless being; All which shall fail as soon as any one Good to a good man in them: for his goodness Proceeds from them, and is a beam of theirs. O never more, Statilius, may this fear Faint thy bold bosom, for thyself or friend, More than the Gods are fearful to defend.

His thoughts of Death.

Poor Slaves, how terrible this Death is to them!-- If men would sleep, they would be wrath with all That interrupt them; physic take, to take The golden rest it brings; both pay and pray For good and soundest naps: all friends consenting In those invocations; praying all “Good rest the Gods vouchsafe you.” But when Death, Sleep’s natural brother, comes; that’s nothing worse, But better (being more rich--and keeps the store-- Sleep ever fickle, wayward still, and poor); O how men grudge, and shake, and fear, and fly His stern approaches! all their comforts, taken In faith, and knowledge of the bliss and beauties That watch their wakings in an endless life, Drown’d in the pains and horrors of their sense Sustain’d but for an hour.

His Discourse with Athenodorus on an After Life.

Cato. As Nature works in all things to an end, So, in the appropriate honour of that end, All things precedent have their natural frame; And therefore is there a proportion Betwixt the ends of those things and their primes: For else there could not be in their creation Always, or for the most part, that firm form In their still like existence, that we see In each full creature. What proportion then Hath an immortal with a mortal substance? And therefore the mortality, to which A man is subject, rather is a sleep Than bestial death; since sleep and death are called The twins of nature. For, if absolute death, And bestial, seize the body of a man, Then there is no proportion in his parts, (His soul being free from death) which otherwise Retain divine proportion. For, as sleep No disproportion holds with human souls, But aptly quickens the proportion Twixt them and bodies, making bodies fitter To give up forms to souls, which is their end: So death, twin-born of sleep, resolving all Man’s body’s heavy parts, in lighter nature Makes a re-union with the sprightly soul; When in a second life their Beings given! Hold their proportions firm in highest heaven. Athenodorus. Hold you, our bodies shall revive resuming Our souls again to heaven? Cato. Past doubt; though others Think heav’n a world too high for our low reaches. Not knowing the sacred sense of Him that sings. “Jove can let down a golden chain from heaven. Which, tied to earth, shall fetch up earth and seas”-- And what’s that golden chain but our pure souls That, govern’d with his grace and drawn by him, Can hoist the earthy body up to him?-- The sea, the air, and all the elements, Comprest in it; not while ’tis thus concrete, But ’fined by death, and then giv’n heav’nly heat. We shall, past death, Retain those forms of knowledge, learn’d in life: Since if what here we learn we there shall lose, Our immortality were not life, but time: And that our souls in reason are immortal, Their natural and proper objects prove; Which Immortality and Knowledge are: For to that object ever is referr’d The nature of the soul, in which the acts Of her high faculties are still employ’d; And that true object must her powers obtain, To which they are in nature’s aim directed; Since ’twere absurd to have her set an object Which possibly she never can aspire.

His last words.

---- now I am safe; Come, Cæsar, quickly now, or lose your vassal. Now wing thee, dear Soul, and receive her heaven. The earth, the air, and seas I know, and all The joys and horrors of their peace and wars; And now will see the Gods’ state and the stars.

Greatness in Adversity.

Vulcan from heav’n fell, yet on ’s feet did light, And stood no less a God than at his height.

* * * * *

[From “Bussy D’Ambois,” a Tragedy, by G. Chapman, 1613.]

Invocation for Secrecy at a Love-meeting.

Tamyra. Now all the peaceful Regents of the Night, Silently-gliding Exhalations, Languishing Winds, and murmuring Falls of Waters, Sadness of Heart, and Ominous Secureness, Enchantment’s dead Sleeps; all the Friends of Rest, That ever wrought upon the life of man; Extend your utmost strengths, and this charm’d hour Fix like the center; make the violent wheels Of Time and Fortune stand; and great Existence. The Maker’s Treasury, now not seem to be To all but my approaching friend[245] and me.

At the Meeting.

Here’s nought but whispering with us: like a calm Before a tempest, when the silent air Lays her soft ear close to the earth, to hearken For that, she fears is coming to afflict her.

Invocation for a Spirit of Intelligence.

D’Ambois. I long to know How my dear Mistress fares, and be inform’d What hand she now holds on the troubled blood Of her incensed Lord. Methought the Spirit When he had utter’d his perplext presage, Threw his chang’d countenance headlong into clouds; His forehead bent, as he would hide his face: He knock’d his chin against his darken’d breast, And struck a churlish silence thro’ his powers.-- Terror of Darkness: O thou King of Flames, That with thy music-footed horse dost strike The clear light out, of chrystal, on dark earth; And hurl’st instructive fire about the world: Wake, wake the drowsy and enchanted night, That sleeps with dead eyes in this heavy riddle.[246] Or thou, Great Prince of Shades, where never sun Sticks his far-darted beams; whose eyes are made To see in darkness, and see ever best Where sense is blindest: open now the heart Of thy abashed oracle, that, for fear Of some ill it includes, would fain lie hid; And rise Thou with it in thy greater light.[247]

The Friar dissuades the Husband of Tamyra from revenge.

Your wife’s offence serves not, were it the worst You can imagine, without greater proofs, To sever your eternal bonds and hearts; Much less to touch her with a bloody hand: Nor is it manly, much less husbandly, To expiate any frailty in your wife With churlish strokes or beastly odds of strength.-- The stony birth of clouds[248] will touch no laurel, Nor any sleeper. Your wife is your laurel, And sweetest sleeper; do not touch her then: Be not more rude than the wild seed of vapour To her that is more gentle than it rude.

C. L.

[245] D’Ambois: with whom she has an appointment.

[246] He wants to know the fate of Tamyra, whose intrigue with him has been discovered by her Husband.

[247] This calling upon Light and Darkness for information, but, above all, the description of the Spirit--“Threw his chang’d countenance headlong into clouds”--is tremendous, to the curdling of the blood.--I know nothing in Poetry like it.

[248] The thunderbolt.

* * * * *

MAID MARIAN.

To the Editor.

Sir,--A correspondent in your last Number[249] rather hastily asserts, that there is no other authority than Davenport’s Tragedy for the poisoning of Matilda by King John. It oddly enough happens, that in the same Number[250] appears an Extract from a Play of Heywood’s, of an older date, in two parts; in which Play, the fact of such poisoning, as well as her identity with Maid Marian, are equally established. Michael Drayton also hath a Legend, confirmatory (as far as poetical authority can go) of the violent manner of her death. But neither he, nor Davenport, confound her with Robin’s Mistress. Besides the named authorities, old Fuller (I think) somewhere relates, as matter of Chronicle History, that old Fitzwalter (he is called Fitzwater both in Heywood and in Davenport) being banished after his daughter’s murder,--some years subsequently--King John at a Tournament in France being delighted with the valiant bearing of a combatant in the lists, and enquiring his name, was told that it was his old faithful servant, the banished Fitzwalter, who desired nothing more heartily than to be reconciled to his Liege,--and an affecting reconciliation followed. In the common collection, called Robin Hood’s Garland (I have not seen Ritson’s), no mention is made, if I remember, of the nobility of Marian. Is she not the daughter of plain Squire Gamwell, of old Gamwell Hall?--Sorry that I cannot gratify the curiosity of your “disembodied spirit,” (who, as such, is methinks sufficiently “veiled” from our notice) with more authentic testimonies, I rest,

Your humble Abstracter,

C. L.

[249] Vol. i. p. 803.

[250] Ibid. p. 799.

* * * * *

RIVAL ITALIAN DRAMATISTS.

The Venetian stage had long been in possession of Goldoni, a dramatic poet, who, by introducing bustle and show into his pieces, and writing principally to the level of the gondoliers, arrived to the first degree of popularity in Venice. He had a rival in Pietro Chiari, whom the best critics thought even inferior to Goldoni; but such an epidemic frenzy seized the Venetians in favour of these two authors, that it quickly spread to almost all parts of Italy, to the detriment of better authors, and the derangement of the public taste. This dramatic mania was arrested by Carlo Gozzi, a younger brother of a noble family, who attacked Goldoni and Chiari, and others soon followed him. On this occasion the two bards suspended their mutual animosity, and joined to oppose their adversaries. Chiari was a great prose scribbler, as well as a comedy-monger, so that a warm paper war was soon commenced, which grew hotter and hotter rapidly.

It happened one day that Gozzi met with Goldoni in a bookseller’s shop. They exchanged sharp words, and in the heat of altercation Goldoni told Gozzi, “that though it was an easy task to find fault with a play, it was very difficult to write one.” Gozzi acknowledged “that to find fault with a play was really very easy, but that it was still easier to write such plays as would please so thoughtless a nation as the Venetians;” adding, with a tone of contempt, “that he had a good mind to make all Venice run to see the tale of the Three Oranges formed into a comedy.” Goldoni, with some of his partisans in the shop, challenged Gozzi to do it; and the critic, thus piqued, engaged to produce such a comedy within a few weeks.

To this trifling and casual dispute Italy owed the greatest dramatic writer it ever had. Gozzi quickly wrote a comedy in five acts, entitled “I Tre Aranci,” or “The Three Oranges;” formed out of an old woman’s story with which the Venetian children are entertained by their nurses. The comedy was acted, and three beautiful princesses, born of three enchanted oranges, made all Venice crowd to the theatre of St. Angelo.

In this play Goldoni and Chiari were not spared. Gozzi introduced in it many of their theatrical absurdities. The Venetian audiences, like the rest of the world, do not much relish the labour of finding out the truth; but once point it out, and they will instantly seize it. This was remarkable on the first night that the comedy of the “Three Oranges” was acted. The fickle Venetians, forgetting the loud acclamations with which they had received Goldoni’s and Chiari’s plays, laughed obstreperously at them and their comedies, and bestowed frantic applause on Gozzi and the “Three Oranges.”

This success encouraged Gozzi to write more; and in a little time his plays so entirely changed the Venetian taste, that in about two seasons Goldoni was stripped of his theatrical honours, and poor Chiari annihilated. Goldoni quitted Italy, and went to France, where Voltaire’s interest procured him the place of Italian master to one of the princesses at Versailles; and Chiari retired to a country house in the neighbourhood of Brescia.

* * * * *

NATURAL CURIOSITIES OF DERBYSHIRE.

EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TOURIST.

For the Table Book.

Buxton, May 27, 1827.

* * * I was so fortunate as to meet at the inn (the Shakspeare) at Buxton with two very agreeable companions, with whom I dined. The elder was a native of the place, and seemed well acquainted with all the natural curiosities at Buxton, and in the county of Derby. The name of the other was H----, of a highly respectable firm in London, sojourning at the Wells for the benefit of a sprained leg. He accompanied me on the following morning to visit an immense natural cavern, called Pool’s Hole, from a freebooter of that name having once made it his place of abode. It is situated at the foot of a steep hill, the entrance low and narrow: it is 696 feet in length, penetrating into the bosom of the mountain, and varying in height from six to fifty or sixty feet. Our guides were two old women, who furnished us with lights. There is in it an incessant dripping of water, crystallizing as it falls, forming a great variety of grotesque and fanciful figures, more resembling inverted gothic pinnacles than any thing else I could imagine: it was with great difficulty that we could break some fragments off; they are termed by naturalists stalactites. A scene so novel and imposing as the interior of this gloomy cave presented, with its huge blocks of rocks irregularly piled upon each other, their shapes but indistinctly visible from the glare of the torches, was of that kind as to leave an indelible impression on my mind. It has many very large and curious recesses within; one of which is called Pool’s chamber, another his closet, and a third his shelf. The continual falling of the water from the insterstices in the roof upon the rocks beneath, causes holes on them, which are not formed by the friction of the water itself, but by its gradual crystallization immediately around the spots whereon it drips. The utmost extent that can be reached by a human foot is called Mary Queen of Scot’s Pillar; from that point it becomes dangerous and impassable.

After dinner we made a short excursion along the banks of the river Wye, called Wye-dale; a walk, which from the grandeur of the scenery, and its novelty, (for I had never before seen any of the Peak scenery,) will be long imprinted in vivid colours on my recollection. In some parts the river flowed smoothly along, but in others its motion was rapid, impetuous, and turbulent: huge fragments of rock, disunited from the impending crags, divided the stream into innumerable eddies; the water bubbled and foamed around, forming miniature cataracts, and bestowing life and animation to the otherwise quiet scene. On either side, the rocks rose to a great height in every diversity of shape; some spiral, or like the shattered walls or decayed bastions of ruined or demolished fortresses; others bluff, or like the towers of citadels; all covered with a variety of coarse vegetation, among which the stunted yew was the most conspicuous; its dark foliage hanging over the projecting eminences, gave an expressive character to surrounding objects. A few water-mills, built of rough unhewn limestone, presented themselves as we followed the windings of the stream, having a deserted and silent appearance.

It appeared to me probable, that the now insignificant little stream was, in by-gone distant ages, a mighty river; the great depth of the valley, excavated through the rocks, could scarcely have been caused but by the irresistible force of water. The lesser vales diverging from it in some parts, favour the conjecture that they had been formerly some of its tributary streams: in one of these, which we had the curiosity to ascend, we observed a small rill. After a slippery ascent on the rough stones of which its bed was formed, we reached a mineral spring, issuing from a fissure in the rock, and depositing a greenish copperas-like sediment at the bottom; we found some beautiful specimens of mosses and lichens.

I inquired of a passing peasant what fish the Wye could boast of. “Wee (Wye) fish to be sure,” said he: by which I understood him to mean, that there was in it only one species of the finny race of any consequence, and that trout.

It was late before we gained our inn; we had walked upwards of six miles in that deep and romantic dale.

28th. This morning I enjoyed a beautiful ride to Tideswell, along the banks of the Wye, about seven miles. The road wound up the sides of lofty hills, in some parts commanding views of the river flowing in the vale beneath; not so high however, but that the murmur of its waters, mellowed by the distance, might be heard by the traveller. Tideswell possesses a handsome church; from the steeple arise four gothic spires.

29th. Went forward to Castleton, down the hills called the Wynyats, by the Sparrow Pit mountain; the ride took me over some of the wild and barren hills which surround Buxton on every side. The immediate descent to Castleton is from a steep mountain more than a mile in length, and is only to be effected by a road formed in a zigzag direction. A fine view of the rich vale beneath presents itself from this road, having the appearance of a vast amphitheatre, for nothing is to be seen on any side but mountains; it is of great fertility. The most remarkable mountain is Mam-Tor; its height is 1301 feet. One of them I learnt was called the “Shivering” Mountain; the reason for which being, that after severe frosts, or in heavy gales, large quantities of earth separate from one side of it, which is nearly perpendicular. At the foot of Mam-Tor there is a lead mine, called Odin; from whence is procured the famous fluor spar, of which so many articles of utility and ornament are made. Castleton is by no means a handsome town; it has narrow dirty streets, and a deplorably rough pavement. The objects worthy of notice near it are, a celebrated cavern, called Peak’s Hole, and a venerable ruined castle, situated on the rock immediately above it. It was built by William Peveril, to whom the manor of Castleton was granted by William the Conqueror.

On the path leading to the cavern, a streamlet is followed, which issues from that extraordinary wonder of nature; the approach is grand and striking; the perpendicular cliffs above are solemnly majestic--their height is about 250 feet. The arch of the first and largest chamber in this cavern is stupendously broad in its span. The top of the mountain along the edges is fringed with a number of fine elms, wherein there is perched a rookery, a singular situation of the noisy tribe: lower down are innumerable jackdaws, which build in the ledges of the rocks.

The span of the grand arch is 180 feet; the length of the first cave 220 feet. A number of labourers in it are employed at rope walks, making twine, &c. From the roof hang immense spiral masses of petrified water, or stalactites. The entrance to the interior is through a small door at the further end: the visiter is there directed to stop and gaze at the arch of the first cavern; this is a most striking object; the very livid colour of the light admitted, with the bluish-white reflection upon the surrounding rocks, reminded me forcibly of the descriptions of the infernal regions by Virgil, Milton, and other poets. Torches are here put into your hands: the passage is narrow and low, and you reach an immense hollow above you in the roof, called the Bell House, from its resemblance to that form; the same stream is then seen which was followed on your approach; on it is a small shallop. I was directed to extend myself along its bottom with the guide, on account of the rock being in this place but fourteen inches from the surface of the water, which in depth is only four feet. I was then landed in a cavern more stupendous than the first; the whole of it was surrounded with a number of rugged rocks of limestone, which seemed to have been tossed and heaped together by some violent convulsion of nature, or by the impetuosity of the water that swells to a great height after heavy and continued rains. This is called Pluto’s Hall; and when a distant gallery, formed by a ledge of rocks, was illumined by the light of some dozen of candles, the effect was the most imposing of the kind I ever witnessed. There is a continual dropping of water; and after passing a ford, I reached what is called “Roger Rain’s” House, from its always dripping there. A little further on is a place called the Devil’s Wine Cellar, from which is a descent of 150 feet; it becomes terrific in the extreme: immense arches throw their gloomy and gigantic spans above; and the abyss on one side, which it is impossible for the vision to penetrate to the bottom, adds to the intensity of the horror. This wonderful subterraneous mansion is 2250 feet in length.

30th. At Bakewell, one of the pleasantest of the small towns in England, there is an excellent hotel, called the Rutland Arms, belonging to the Rutland family, and under its patronage. The church is situated on a rising ground. There is a neat stone bridge over the river Wye, and the silvery stream winds the adjoining vale. The view from the church-yard is enchanting. The two rivers, the Wye and Derwent, form a junction at some little distance, and beyond are wood-tufted hills sloping their gentle elevations. Haddon Hall, one of the finest and most perfect of the ancient baronial residences in the kingdom, is seen embosomed in the deep woods.

Bakewell is celebrated as a fishing station. The fine estates of the Devonshire and Rutland families join near it.

In the church-yard I copied, from the tomb of one who had been rather a licentious personage, the following curious

Epitaph.

“Know posterity, that on the 8th of April, 1737, the rambling remains of John Dale were, in the 86th year of his age, laid upon his two wives.

“This thing in life might raise some jealousy, Here all three lie together lovingly; But from embraces here no pleasure flows, Alike are here all human joys and woes. Here Sarah’s chiding John no longer hears, And old John’s rambling, Sarah no more fears; A period’s come to all their toilsome lives, The good man’s quiet--still are both his wives.”

Another.

“The vocal powers here let us mark Of Philip, our late parish clerk; In church none ever heard a layman With a clearer voice say Amen: Who now with hallelujah’s sound Like him can make the roofs rebound? --The choir lament his choral tones The town so soon--here lie his bones.”

E. J. H.

June, 1827.

* * * * *

BRIBERY.

Charles V. sent over 400,000 crowns, to be distributed among the members of parliament, in bribes and pensions, to induce them to confirm a marriage between Mary and his son Philip. This was the first instance in which public bribery was exercised in England by a foreign power.

* * * * *

This is a sketch from nature--“a repose”--an aged man enjoying the good that remains to him, yet ready for his last summons: his thoughts, at this moment, are upon the little girl that fondles on him--one of his grandaughters. The annals of his life are short and simple. “Born to labour as the sparks fly upward,” he discharged the obligation of his existence, and by the work of his hands endowed himself with independence. He is contented and grateful; and filled with hope and desire, that, after he shall be gathered to his fathers, there may be many long years of happiness in store for his children and their offspring. His days have passed in innocence and peace, and he prays for peace to the innocent. His final inclination is towards the place of his rest.

*

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN VIRTUE AND DEATH,

ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES PEMBERTON, KNIGHT, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 8TH OF SEPTEMBER, 1613.

He was lord mayor of London in the reign of James I., and was a great benefactor to several charities.

Vertue. What Vertue challengeth, is but her right. Death. What Death layes claime to who can contradict? Ver. Vertue, whose power exceeds all other might. Dea. Wher’s Vertue’s power when Death makes all submit? Ver. I gave him life and therefore he is mine. Dea. That life he held no longer than I list. Ver. I made him more than mortall, neere diuine; Dea. How hapt he could not then Death’s stroke resist? Ver. Because (by nature) all are born to dye. Dea. Then thyne own tongue yeelds Death the victory. Ver. No, Death, thou art deceiued, thy enuious stroke Hath giuen him life immortal ’gainst thy will: Dea. What life can be, but vanished as smoake? Ver. A life that all thy darts can never kill. Dea. Haue I not locked his body in my graue? Ver. That was but dust, and that I pray thee keepe. Dea. That is as much as I desire to haue, His comely shape in my eternal sleepe. Ver. But wher’s his honorable life, renowne, and fame? Dea. They are but breath, them I resign to thee. Ver. Them I most couet. Dea. ------------ I prefer my claim, His body mine. Ver. ------------ mine his eternity.

“And so they ceast, Death triumphs o’er his graue, Virtue o’er that which death can never haue.”

H****t.

London, June 12, 1827.

* * * * *

ANCIENT DIAL.

For the Table Book.

The dial in use among the ancient Jews differed from that in use among us. Theirs was a kind of stairs; the time of the day was distinguished, not by lines, but by steps or degrees; the shade of the sun every hour moved forward to a new degree. On the dial of Ahaz, the sun went back (magnoloth) degrees or steps, not lines.--Isai. xxxviii. 8.

P.

* * * * *

PETER HERVE.

To the Editor.

Sir,--Having had the happiness and honour of holding correspondence with that most benevolent man, Mr. Peter Hervé, whose death I deeply deplore, I shall feel myself relieved from a debt due to his memory, if you will allow me, through the medium of your valuable publication, to express my hope that he was not, in the time of need, forgotten by that society of which he was the honoured founder. His last letter told me he was ill and in distress; and had been advised to try the air of the south of France, with scarcely any means of pursuing his journey but by the sale of his drawings. My own inability to serve him made me hesitate; and I am shocked to say, his letter was not answered. I am sorry, but repentance will not come too late, if this hint will have any weight towards procuring for his amiable widow, from that admirable institution, a genteel, if not an ample independence: for certain I am, that he could not have made choice of any one who had not a heart generous as his own.

I am, &c.

F. S. Jun.

Stamford, June 24, 1827.

* * * * *

CABALISTIC ERUDITION.

Nothing can exceed the followers of cabalistical mysteries, in point of fantastical conceits. The learned Godwin recounts some of them. “Abraham,” they say, “wept but little for Sarah, probably because she was old.” They prove this by producing the letter “Caph,” which being a remarkably small letter, and being made use of in the Hebrew word which describes Abraham’s tears, evinces, they affirm, that his grief also was small.

The Cabalists discovered likewise, that in the two Hebrew words, signifying “man” and “woman,” are contained two letters, which, together, form one of the names of “God;” but if these letters be taken away, there remain letters which signify “fire.” “Hence,” argue the Cabalists, “we may find that when man and wife agree together, and live in union, God is with them, but when they separate themselves from God, fire attends their footsteps.” Such are the whimsical dogmas of the Jewish Cabala.

* * * * *

OFFERINGS TO INFANTS.

To the Editor.

Edgeley, near Stockport.

Sir,--I am anxious to notice a custom I have observed in Yorkshire, relative to very young infants, which I think it would be desirable to keep alive. I know that it is partially practised now, in that county, in the neighbourhood of Wakefield. The custom I allude to is, the making an offering to new-born infants on the occasion of their making their first visit abroad, by the person who is honoured with it, of a cake of bread, an egg, and a small quantity of salt. Special care is taken that the young pilgrim in life makes its first visit to the house of a near relative, or an esteemed friend, who will in nowise omit a ceremony so necessary to its future welfare. For it is believed if this be not done, that in its progress through life it will be exposed to the miseries of want; and by parity of reason, the due observance of it will insure a continual supply of those necessaries, of which the offering at setting out in life presents so happy an omen. I know not whence or where this custom originated, nor how extensively it may be still practised; but if its origin be utterly unknown, we are, according to the usage of the world in all such cases, bound the more to observe and reverence it. There are many ancient customs, upon which the hand of Time has set his seal, “more honoured in the breach than the observance;” but, I think, you will agree with me, that this, from its air of social humanity, is not of that class. Perhaps you can give it further elucidation. I believe it to be of the most remote antiquity, and to have been amongst the oldest nations.

I am, &c.

MILO.

* * * * *

The only immediate illustration of the preceding custom that occurs, is Hutchinson’s mention of it in his History of Northumberland; in which county, also, infants, when first sent abroad in the arms of the nurse to visit a neighbour, are presented with an egg, salt, and bread. He observes, that “the egg was a sacred emblem, and seems a gift well adapted to infancy.” Mr. Bryant says, “An egg, containing in it the elements of life, was thought no improper emblem of the ark, in which were preserved the rudiments of the future world: hence, in the Dionusiaca, and in other mysteries one part of the nocturnal ceremony consisted in the consecration of an egg. By this, as we are informed by Porphyry, was signified the world. It seems to have been a favourite symbol, and very ancient, and we find it adopted among many nations. It was said by the Persians of Orosmasdes, that he formed mankind and enclosed them in an egg. Cakes and salt were used in religious rites by the ancients. The Jews probably adopted their appropriation from the Egyptians:--‘And if thou bring an oblation of a meat-offering baken in the oven, it shall be unleavened cakes of fine flour,’ &c. (Levit. ii. 4.) ‘With all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt.’” (Ibid, ii. 13.)

It is also customary in Northumberland for the midwife, &c. to provide two slices, one of bread and the other of cheese, which are presented to the first person they meet in the procession to church at the christening. The person who receives this homely present must give the child in return “three” different things, wishing it at the same time health and beauty. A gentleman happening once to fall in the way of such a party, and to receive the above present, was at a loss how to make the triple return, till he bethought himself of laying upon the child which was held out to him, a shilling, a halfpenny, and a pinch of snuff. When they meet more than one person together, it is usual to single out the nearest to the woman that carries the child.

Cowel says, it was a good old custom for God-fathers and God-mothers, every time their God-children asked them blessing, to give them a cake, which was a God’s-kichell: it is still a proverbial saying in some countries, “Ask me a blessing, and I will give you some plum-cake.”

* * * * *

Among superstitions relating to children, the following is related by Bingham, on St. Austin: “If when two friends are talking together, a stone, or a dog, or a child, happens to come between them, they tread the stone to pieces as the divider of their friendship; and this is tolerable in comparison of beating an innocent child that comes between them. But it is more pleasant that sometimes the children’s quarrel is revenged by the dogs: for many times they are so superstitious as to dare to beat the dog that comes between them, who, turning again upon him that smites him, sends him from seeking a vain remedy, to seek a real physician.” Brand, who cites these passages, adduces the following

CHRISTENING CUSTOMS.

Dr. Moresin was an eye-witness to the following usages in Scotland. They take, on their return from church, the newly-baptized infant, and vibrate it three or four times gently over a flame, saying, and repeating it thrice, “Let the flame consume thee now or never.”

Martin relates, that in the Western Islands, the same lustration, by carrying of fire, is performed round about lying-in women, and round about children before they are christened, as an effectual means to preserve both the mother and infant from the power of evil spirits. This practice is similar to an ancient feast at Athens, kept by private families, called Amphidromia, on the fifth day after the birth of the child, when it was the custom for the gossips to run round the fire with the infant in their arms, and then, having delivered it to the nurse, they were entertained with feasting and dancing.

There is a superstition that a child who does not cry when sprinkled in baptism will not live.

Among the ancient Irish, the mother, at the birth of a man child, put the first meat into her infant’s mouth upon the point of her husband’s sword, with wishes that it might die no otherwise than in war, or by sword. Pennant says, that in the Highlands, midwives give new-born babes a small spoonful of earth and whisky, as the first food they take.

Giraldus Cambrensis relates, that “at the baptizing of the infants of the wild Irish, their manner was not to dip their right arms into the water, that so as they thought they might give a more deep and incurable blow.” Mr. Brand deems this a proof that the whole body of the child was anciently commonly immersed in the baptismal font.

In 1795 the minister of the parishes of South Ronaldsay and Burray, two of the Orkney islands, describing the manners of the inhabitants, says: “Within these last seven years, the minister has been twice interrupted in administering baptism to a female child, before the male child, who was baptized immediately after. When the service was over, he was gravely told he had done very wrong; for, as the female child was first baptized, she would, on her coming to the years of discretion, most certainly have a strong beard, and the boy would have none.”

The minister of Logierait, in Perthshire, describing the superstitious opinions and practices in that parish, says: “When a child was baptized privately, it was, not long since, customary to put the child upon a clean basket, having a cloth previously spread over it, with bread and cheese put into the cloth; and thus to move the basket three times successively round the iron crook, which hangs over the fire, from the roof of the house, for the purpose of supporting the pots when water is boiled, or victuals are prepared. This” he imagines, “might be anciently intended to counteract the malignant arts which witches and evil spirits were imagined to practise against new-born infants.”

It is a vulgar notion, that children, prematurely wise, are not long-lived, and rarely reach maturity. Shakspeare puts this superstition into the mouth of Richard the Third.

Bulwer mentions a tradition concerning children born open-handed, that they will prove of a bountiful disposition and frank-handed. A character in one of Dekker’s plays says, “I am the most wretched fellow: sure some left-handed priest christened me, I am so unlucky.”

The following charms for infancy are derived from Herrick:

“Bring the holy crust of bread, Lay it underneath the head; ’Tis a certain charm to keep Hags away while children sleep.”

* * * * *

“Let the superstitious wife Neer the child’s heart lay a knife; Point be up, and haft be down, (While she gossips in the towne;) This, ’mongst other mystick charms, Keeps the sleeping child from harmes.”

* * * * *

BUNYAN’S HOLY WAR DRAMATISED.

A very beautiful manuscript was once put into the hands of one of Dr. Aikin’s correspondents by a provincial bookseller, to whom it had been offered for publication. It consisted of two tragedies upon the subject of John Bunyan’s Holy War: they were the composition of a lady, who had fitted together scraps from Shakspeare, Milton, Young’s Night Thoughts, and Erskine’s Gospel Sonnets, into the dramatic form, with no other liberty than that of occasionally altering a name. The lady Constance, for instance, was converted into lady Conscience: the whole speeches and scenes were thus introduced in a wholesale sort of cento. The ghost in Hamlet also did for a Conscience.[251]

[251] Athenæum.

* * * * *

GENTLEMEN OF THE PARISH.

Look up at the inscription on that venerable church defaced with plaster; what does it record? “Beautified by Samuel Smear and Daniel Daub, churchwardens.” And so these honest gentlemen call disguising that fine, old, stone building, with a thick coat of lime and hair, or whitewash, beautifying it!

What is the history of all this? Why the plain matter-of-fact is, that every parish officer thinks he has a right to make a round bill on the hamlet, during his year of power. An apothecary in office physics the poor. A glazier, first in cleaning, breaks the church-windows, and afterwards brings in a long bill for mending them. A painter repairs the commandments, puts new coats on Moses and Aaron, gilds the organ pipes, and dresses the little cherubim about the loft, as fine as vermilion, Prussian blue, and Dutch gold can make them. The late churchwardens chanced to be a silversmith and a woollen-draper; the silversmith new fashioned the communion plate, and the draper new clothed the pulpit, and put fresh curtains to the windows. All this might be done with some shadow of modesty, but to insult the good sense of every beholder with their beautified! Shame on them!

Dr. Burney tells of some parish officers, that they applied to Snetzler (a celebrated organ-builder) to examine their organ, and to make improvements on it--“Gentlemen,” said the honest Swiss, “your organ be wort von hondred pound, just now--well--I will spend von hondred pound upon it, and it shall then be wort fifty.”

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE ANGLER.

FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.

Das Wasser rauscht’, das Wasser schwoll, &c.

There was a gentle angler who was angling in the sea, With heart as cool as only heart untaught of love can be; When suddenly the water rush’d, and swell’d, and up there sprung A humid maid of beauty’s mould--and thus to him she sung:

“Why dost thou strive so artfully to lure my brood away, And leave them then to die beneath the sun’s all-scorching ray? Couldst thou but tell how happy are the fish that swim below, Thou wouldst with me, and taste of joy which earth can never know.

“Do not Sol and Diana both more lovely far appear When they have dipp’d in Ocean’s wave their golden, silvery hair? And is there no attraction in this heaven-expanse of blue, Nor in thine image mirror’d in this everlasting dew?”

The water rush’d, the water swell’d, and touch’d his naked feet, And fancy whisper’d to his heart it was a love-pledge sweet; She sung another siren lay more ’witching than before, Half pull’d--half plunging--down he sunk, and ne’er was heard of more.

R. W. D.

* * * * *

CLOSING THE EYES.

For the Table Book.

A GIPSY’S FUNERAL.

EPPING FOREST.

It was considered a mark of the strongest affection by the ancients, that a son, when his father was dying, should lean over him and receive his last gasp,

“and kiss his spirit into happy rest.”

The Jews, Greeks, and Romans, esteemed it a high privilege for the nearest relative to close the eyes of the deceased body; as in Genesis, when Jacob’s sun was setting, “Joseph shall put his hands upon thine eyes.” And in another place,--“The memory of the father is preserved in the son.” Again, (contra) “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.” And in Homer, “Let not the glory of his eyes depart, without the tender hand to move it silently to peace.” Ovid says, “Ille meos oculos comprimat, ille tuos.” The performing this ceremony was so valued, that to die without friends to the due observance of this affectionate and last testimony, was thought an irreparable affliction.

The sudden death of a man was attributed to Apollo; of a woman, to Diana. If any relation were present, a vessel of brass was procured, and beaten loudly in the ears of the deceased to determine the point. The ringing of bells by the Romans, and others to this day is practised. The Irish wake partakes also of this usage. When the moon was in eclipse, she was thought asleep, and bells were rung to wake her: the eclipse having past, and the moon recovered her light, faith in this noisy custom became strengthened. Euripides says, when Hyppolitus was dying, he called on his father to close his eyes, cover his face with a cloth, and put a shroud over the corpse. Cassandra, desirous of proving the Trojan cause better than that of the Greeks, eulogizes their happy condition in dying at home, where the obsequies might be performed for them by their nearest relatives. Medea tells her children she once hoped they would have performed the duty for her, but she must do it for them. If a father, or the mother died a widow, the children attended to it: if the husband died, the wife performed it; which the Greeks lamented could not be done if they died at Troy. The duty devolved on the sister if her brother died; which caused Orestes to exclaim, when he was to suffer death so far from his home--“Alas! how shall my sister shroud me now?”

Last month I was gratified by observing the funereal attentions of the gipsy tribes to Cooper, then lying in state on a common, near Epping forest. The corpse lay in a tent clothed with white linen; candles were lighted over the body, on which forest flowers and blossoms of the season were strewn and hung in posies. Cooper’s wife, dressed in black, perceiving I did not wish to see the face of her husband, said in perfect naïveté, “Oh, sir, don’t fear to look at him, I never saw his countenance so pleasant in all my life.” A wit might have construed this sentence otherwise; but too much kindness emanated from this scene of rustic association to admit of levity. Her partner was cold, and her heart beat the pulsations of widowhood. The picture would have caught an artist’s eye. The gipsy-friends and relations sat mutely in the adjoining tents; and, like Job and his comforters, absorbed their grief in the silence of the summer air and their breasts. When Cooper was put in his coffin, the same feeling of attachment pervaded the scene. A train of several pairs, suitably clothed, followed their friend to the grave, and he was buried at the neighbouring church in quiet solemnity.

In addition to this, I transcribe a notice from a MS. journal, kept by a member of my family, 1769, which confirms the custom above alluded to. “Here was just buried in the church, (Tring,) the sister of the queen of the gipsies, to whom it is designed by her husband, to erect a monument to her memory of 20_l._ price. He is going to be married to the queen (sister to the deceased.) He offered 20_l._ to the clergyman to marry him directly; but he had not been in the town a month, so could not be married till that time. When this takes place, an entertainment will be made, and 20_l._ or 30_l._ spent. Just above esquire Gore’s park these destiny readers have a camp, at which place the woman died; immediately after which, the survivors took all her wearing apparel and burnt them, including silk gowns, rich laces, silver buckles, gold earrings, trinkets, &c.,--for such is their custom.”

J. R. P.

June, 1827.

* * * * *

LITERARY INGENUITY.

Odo tenet mulum, madidam mappam tenet anna.

The above line is said, in an old book, to have “cost the inventor much foolish labour, for it is a perfect verse, and every word is the very same both backward and forward.”

* * * * *

ST. JAMES’S PARK.

’Twas June, and many a gossip wench, Child-freighted, trod the central Mall; I gain’d a white unpeopled bench, And gazed upon the long canal. Beside me soon, in motley talk, Boys, nursemaids sat, a varying race; At length two females cross’d the walk, And occupied the vacant space.

In years they seem’d some forty-four, Of dwarfish stature, vulgar mien; A bonnet of black silk each wore, And each a gown of bombasin; And, while in loud and careless tones They dwelt upon their own concerns, Ere long I learn’d that Mrs. Jones Was one, and one was Mrs. Burns.

They talk’d of little Jane and John, And hoped they’d come before ’twas dark; Then wonder’d why with pattens on One might not walk across the park: They call’d it far to Camden-town, Yet hoped to reach it by and by; And thought it strange, since flour was down, That bread should still continue high.

They said last Monday’s heavy gales Had done a monstrous deal of ill; Then tried to count the iron rails That wound up Constitution-hill; This larum sedulous to shun, I don’d my gloves, to march away, When, as I gazed upon the one, “Good heavens!” I cried, “’tis Nancy Gray.”

’Twas Nancy, whom I led along The whiten’d and elastic floor, Amid mirth’s merry dancing throng, Just two and twenty years before. Though sadly alter’d, I knew her, While she, ’twas obvious, knew me not; But mildly said, “Good evening, sir,” And with her comrade left the spot.

“Is this,” I cried, in grief profound, “The fair with whom, eclipsing all, I traversed Ranelagh’s bright round, Or trod the mazes of Vauxhall? And is this all that Time can do? Has Nature nothing else in store; Is this of lovely twenty-two, All that remains at forty-four?

“Could I to such a helpmate cling? Were such a wedded dowdy mine, On yonder lamp-post would I swing, Or plunge in yonder Serpentine!” I left the park with eyes askance, But, ere I enter’d Cleveland-row, Rude Reason thus threw in her lance, And dealt self-love a mortal blow.

“Time, at whose touch all mortals bow, From either sex his prey secures, His scythe, while wounding Nancy’s brow, Can scarce have smoothly swept o’er yours; By her you plainly were not known; Then, while you mourn the alter’d hue Of Nancy’s face, suspect your own May be a little alter’d too.”

New Monthly Magazine.

* * * * *

ON CHANGE.

To the Editor.

Sir,--We know that every thing in this world changes in the course of a few years; but what I am about to communicate to you is a change indeed.--“I’ve been roaming;” and in my city rounds I find the present residence and profession of the undernamed parties to be as follows:

ADAM is now an orange-merchant in Lower Thames-street; and a counseller in Old-square, Lincoln’s-inn.

EVE is a stove-grate manufacturer in Ludgate-hill; and a sheep-salesman at 41, West Smithfield.

CAIN is a builder at 22, Prince’s-row, Pimlico; and a surgeon, 154, Whitechapel-road.

ABEL is a dealer in china at 4, Crown-street, Soho; and a glover at 153, St. John-street-road.

MOSES is a slopseller at 4, James-place, Aldgate; and a clothes-salesman in Sparrow-corner, Minories.

AARON is a pawnbroker in Houndsditch, No. 129; and an oilman at Aldgate.

ABRAHAM keeps a childbed-linen-warehouse at 53, Houndsditch; and is a special pleader in Pump-court, in the Temple.

BENJAMIN is a fishmonger at 5, Duke’s-place.

MORDECAI keeps a clothes-shop near Shoreditch church.

ABSALOM is a tailor at No. 9, Bridge-road, Lambeth.

PETER is a cotton-dyer in Brick-lane.

I am, &c.,

SAM SAM’S SON.

* * * * *

~Anonymiana.~

THE JEWS-HARP.

The Jews-trump, or, as it is more generally pronounced, the Jew-trump, seems to take its name from the nation of the Jews, and is vulgarly believed to be one of their instruments of music. Dr. Littleton renders Jews-trump by sistrum Judaicum. But there is not any such musical instrument as this described by the authors that treat of the Jewish music. In short, this instrument is a mere boy’s plaything, and incapable of itself of being joined either with a voice or any other instrument. The present orthography seems to be a corruption of the French, jeu-trump, a trump to play with: and in the Belgick, or Low-Dutch, from whence come many of our toys, a tromp is a rattle for children. Sometimes they will call it a Jews-harp; and another etymon given of it is Jaws-harp, because the place where it is played upon is between the jaws. It is an instrument used in St. Kilda. (Martin, p. 73.)

QUID PRO QUO.

“Give you a Rowland for an Oliver.” This is reckoned a proverb of late standing, being commonly referred to Oliver Cromwell, as if he were the Oliver here intended: but it is of greater antiquity than the protector; for it is met with in Hall’s Chronicle, in the reign of Edward IV. In short, Rolland and Oliver were two of Charlemagne’s peers. (See Ames’s Hist. of Printing, p. 47, and Ariosto.) Rolando and Orlando are the same name; Turpin calling him Roland, and Ariosto Rolando.

FATHER AND SON.

“Happy is the son whose father is gone to the devil,” is an old saying. It is not grounded on the supposition, that such a father by his iniquitous dealings must have accumulated wealth; but is a satirical hint on the times when popery prevailed here so much, that the priests and monks had engrossed the three professions of law, physic, and divinity; when, therefore, by the procurement either of the confessor, the physician, or the lawyer, a good part of the father’s effects were pretty sure to go to the church; and when, if nothing of that kind happened, these agents were certain to defame him, and adjudge that such a man must undoubtedly be damned.

LIVING WELL.

“If you would live well for a week, kill a hog; if you would live well for a month, marry; if you would live well all your life, turn priest.” This is an old proverb; but by turning priest is not barely meant becoming an ecclesiastic, but it alludes to the celibacy of the Romish clergy, and is as much as to say, do not marry at all.

COUNTRY DANCES.

The term “country dance” is a corruption of the French contre danse, by which they mean that which we call a country-dance, or a dance by many persons placed opposite one to another: it is not from contrée, but contre.

THE VINE.

The Romans had so much concern with the vine and its fruit, that there are more terms belonging to it, and its parts, its culture, products, and other appurtenances, than to any other tree:--

Vitis, the tree; palmes, the branch; pampinus, the leaf; racemus, a bunch of grapes; uva, the grape; capreolus, a tendril; vindemia, the vintage; vinum, wine acinus, the grape-stone.

POSTHUMOUS HONOUR.

Joshua Barnes, the famous Greek professor of Cambridge, was remarkable for a very extensive memory; but his judgment was not exact: and when he died, one wrote for him this

Epitaph.

Hic jacet Joshua Barnes, felicissimæ memoriæ, expectans judicium.

* * * * *

THE KING’S ARMS.

When Charles II. was going home one night drunk, and leaning upon the shoulders of Sedley and Rochester, one of them asked him what he imagined his subjects would think if they could behold him in that pickle.--“Think!” said the king, “that I am my arms, supported by two beasts.”

Vol. II.--29.

When I designed with my friend W. a visit to the Dulwich gallery, which we did not effect, we did not foresee the consequence of diversion from our intent; and having been put out of our way, we strolled without considering “the end thereof.” Hence, our peradventure at the “Crooked Billet,” on Penge Common;[252] our loitering to sketch the “Bridge on the Road to Beckenham;”[253] the same, for the same purpose, at “the Porch of Beckenham Church-yard;”[254] the survey of “Beckenham Church;”[255] the view of its old Font in the public-house garden;[256] and the look at the hall of “Wickham Court,” and West Wickham church.[257] New and beautiful prospects opened to us from the latter village; and to the just enumerated six articles, and their engravings, respecting that part of the country, in the former volume of the Table Book, it is intended to add like abstracts of our further proceedings. In short, to be respectful and orderly, as one moiety of a walking committee, self-constituted and appointed, I take permission to “report progress, and ask leave to go again.”

The “Crooked Billet” at Penge, and mine host of the “Swan” at West Wickham, have had visitors curious to trace the pleasant route, and remark the particulars previously described. While indulging the sight, there is another sense that craves to be satisfied; and premising that we are now penetrating further “into the bowels of the land,” it becomes a duty to acquaint followers with head-quarters. For the present, it is neither necessary nor expedient to nicely mark the road to “Keston Cross”--go which way you will it is an agreeable one. A Tunbridge or Seven-Oaks coach passes within a short half mile, and the Westerham coach within the same distance. If a delightful two hours’ lounging walk from Bromley be desired, take the turning from the Swan at Bromley to Beckenham church; go through the church-yard over a stile, keep the meadow foot-path, cross the Wickham road, and wander by hedge-row elms, as your will and the country-folk direct you, till you arrive at Hayes Common; then make for the lower or left-hand side of the common, and leaving the mill on the right, get into the cottaged lane. At a few hundred yards past the sheep-wash, formed in a little dell by the Ravensbourne, at the end of the open rise, stands “Keston Cross.”

Before reaching this place on my first visit to it, the country people had indiscriminately called it “Keston Cross” and “Keston mark;” and lacking all intelligible information from them respecting the reason for its being so named, I puzzled myself with conjectures, as to whether it was the site of a cross of memorial, a market cross, a preaching cross, or what other kind of cross. It was somewhat of disappointment to me, when, in an angle of a cross-road, instead of some ancient vestige, there appeared a commodious, respectable, and comfortable-looking house of accommodation for man and horse; and, swinging high in air, its sign, the red-cross, heraldically, a cross gules; its form being, on reference to old Randle Holme, “a cross molyne, invertant;” to describe which, on the same authority, it may be said, that “this cross much resembles the molyne, or pomette; saving in this, the cut, or sawed ends, so turn themselves inward that they appear to be escrowles rolled up. Some term it molyne, the ends rolled up.”[258] So much for the sign, which I take to be a forgotten memorial of some old boundary stone, or land-mark, in the form of a cross, long since removed from the spot, and perhaps after it had become a “stump-cross;” which crosses were of so ancient date, that the Christians, ignorantly supposing them to have been dedicated to idolatrous purposes, religiously destroyed them, and their ancient names were soon forgotten: “this may be the reason why so many broken crosses were called stump-crosses.”[259] The observation is scarcely a digression; for the house and sign, commonly called “Keston Cross,” or “Keston mark,” stand on a site, which, for reasons that will appear by and by, the antiquary deems sacred. The annexed representation shows the direction of the roads, and the star * in the corner the angular situation of the house, cut out of Holwood, the estate of the late Mr. Pitt, which is bounded by the Farnborough and Westerham roads, and commands from the grounds of the enclosure the finest view towards the weald of Kent in this part of the county.

| | | | Westerham | | * | | ---------------+ +--------------- Farnboro and 7 Wickham and Oakes Croydon ---------------+ +--------------- | | | | Bromley and | | Lewisham | |

“Keston Cross” I call “head-quarters,” because in this house you will find yourself “at home.” You may sparkle forth to many remarkable spots in the vicinage, and then return and take your “corporal refection,” and go in and out at will; or you may sit at your ease, and do nothing but contemplate in quiet; or, in short, you may do just as you like. Of course this is said to “gentle” readers; and I presume the Table Book has no others: certain it is, that ungentle persons are unwelcome visitors, and not likely to visit again at “Keston Cross.” Its occupant, Mr. S. Young--his name is beneath his sign--will not be regarded by any one, who does himself the pleasure to call at his house, as a common landlord. If you see him seated beside the door, you estimate him at least of that order one of whom, on his travels, the chamberlain at the inn at Rochester describes to Gadshill as worthy his particular notice--“a franklin in the weald of Kent, that hath three hundred marks with him in gold--one that hath abundance of charge too.”[260] You take Mr. Young for a country gentleman; and, if you company with him, may perhaps hear him tell, as many a country gentleman would--bating obsolete phrase and versification--

I lerned never rhetorike certain; Thing that I speke it mote be bare and plain: I slept never on the mount of Pernaso, Ne lerned Marcus Tullius Cicero. Colours ne know I non, withouten drede, But swiche colours as growen in the mede, Or elles swiche as men die with, or peint; Colours of rhetorike ben to me queinte; My spirit feleth not of swiche matere: But if you lust my tale shul ye here.[261]

In brief, if you “put up” at the “Red Cross,” and invite Mr. Young’s society, you will find him

---------------a franklin faire und free, That entertaines with comely courteous glee.[262]

The house itself is not one of your bold looking inns, that if you enter you assure yourself of paying toll at, in regard of its roystering appearance, in addition to every item in your bill; but one in which you have no objection to be “at charges,” in virtue of its cheerful, promising air. You will find these more reasonable perhaps than you expect, and you will not find any article presented to you of an inferior quality. In respect therefore of its self-commendations and locality, the “Cross” at Keston is suggested as a point d’appui to any who essay from town for a few hours of fresh air and comfort, and with a desire of leisurely observing scenery altogether new to most London residents.

* * * * *

The classical ancients had inns and public-houses. Nothing is a stronger proof of the size and populousness of the city of Herculaneum, which was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius on the 24th of August, A. D. 79, than its nine hundred public-houses. A placard or inscription, discovered on the wall of a house in that ruined city, was a bill for letting one of its public-houses on lease; and hence, it appears that they had galleries at the top, and balconies, or green arbours, and baths. The dining-rooms were in the upper story. Although it was the custom of the Romans to recline at their meals, yet when they refreshed themselves at these places they sat. The landlord had a particular dress, and landladies wore a succinct, or tucked up dress, and brought the wine in vases for the visitors to taste. They had common drinking vessels as with us, and sometimes the flaggons were chained to posts. In the inns on the roads there were both hot and cold meats. Until the time of Nero, inns provided every kind of delicacy: that emperor restricted them to boiled vegetables. Tiberius prohibited their selling any baker’s goods.

The company frequenting the ancient public-houses were usually artificers, sailors, drunken galli, thieves, &c. Chess was played, and the abacus, or chess-board, was made oblong. Hence came the common painted post still at the doors of our own public-houses, the sign of the chequer or chequers.[263] Sir William Hamilton presented to the Antiquarian Society a view of a street in Pompeii, another Italian city destroyed by Vesuvius, which contains the sign of the chequers, from whence there can be no doubt that it was a common one among the Romans.

* * * * *

Our Saxon ancestors had public-houses where they drank very hard out of vessels of earthenware, as the country people do still.

The Anglo-Saxons had the eala-hus, ale-house, win-hus, wine-house, and cumen-hus, or inn. Inns, however, were by no means common houses for travellers. In the time of Edward I. lord Berkeley’s farm-houses were used for that purpose. Travellers were accustomed to inquire for hospitable persons, and even go to the king’s palaces for refreshment. John Rous, an old traveller, who mentions a celebrated inn on the Warwick road, was yet obliged to go another way for want of accommodation.[264]

* * * * *

Mr. Brand supposes, that the chequers, at this time a common sign of a public-house, was originally intended for a kind of draught-board, called “tables,” and that it showed that there that game might be played. From their colour, which was red, and the similarity to a lattice, it was corruptly called the red lettuce, a word frequently used by ancient writers to signify an alehouse. He observes, that this designation of an alehouse is not altogether lost, though the original meaning of the word is, the sign being converted into a green lettuce; of which an instance occurs in Brownlow-street, Holborn.

* * * * *

In “A Fine Companion,” one of Shackerly Marmion’s plays, we read of “A waterman’s widow at the sign of the Red Lattice in Southwark.” Again, in “Arden of Faversham,” 1592, we have

--“his sign pulled down, and his lattice born away.”

Again, in “The Miseries of Inforc’d Marriage,” 1607:

--“’tis treason to the Red Lattice, enemy to the signpost.”

It were needless to multiply examples of this sign beyond one in Shakspeare. Falstaff’s page, speaking of Bardolph, says, “He called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice, and I could see no part of his face from the window.”

A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for June 1793, says, “It has been related to me by a very noble personage, that in the reign of Philip and Mary the then earl of Arundel had a grant to license public-houses, and part of the armorial bearings of that noble family is a chequered board: wherefore the publican, to show that he had a license, put out that mark as part of his sign.” On this, Mr. Brand inquires why the publicans take but a part of the Arundel arms, and why this part rather than any other? Another writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for September 1794, says, “I think it was the great earl Warrenne, if not, some descendant or heir near him, not beyond the time of Rufus, had an exclusive power of granting licenses to sell beer: that his agent might collect the tax more readily, the door-posts were painted in chequers; the arms of Warren then, and to this day.” We may, however, reasonably refer all these “modern instances” to ancient times; and derive the publican’s sign of the chequers from the great authors of many of our present usages, the old Romans.

* * * * *

Mons. Jorevin, a French traveller, who journeyed through England in the reign of Charles II., stopped at the Stag inn, at Worcester, in the High-street, and he describes the entertainment of himself and a friend with whom he supped, so as to acquaint us somewhat with the entertainments in inns at that time. “During supper he (his friend) sent for a band of music, consisting of all sorts of instruments: among these the harp is the most esteemed by the English. According to the custom of the country the landladies sup with the strangers and passengers, and if they have daughters they are also of the company, to entertain the guests at table with pleasant conceits, where they drink as much as the men. But what is to me the most disgusting in all this is, that when one drinks the health of any person in company, the custom of the country does not permit you to drink more than half the cup, which is filled up, and presented to him or her whose health you have drank. Moreover, the supper being finished, they set on the table half a dozen pipes and a packet of tobacco for smoking, which is a general custom, as well among women as men, who think that without tobacco one cannot live in England, because, say they, “it dissipates the evil humours of the brain.” It appears from a “Character of England,” printed in 1659, “that the ladies of greatest quality suffered themselves to be treated in these taverns, and that they drank their crowned cups roundly, danced after the fiddle, and exceeded the bounds of propriety in their carousals.”

* * * * *

If a description of Scottish manners, printed about fifty years ago, may be relied on, it was then a fashion with females at Edinburgh to frequent a sort of public-house in that city. The writer says: “January 15, 1775.--A few evenings ago I had the pleasure of being asked to one of these entertainments by a lady. At that time I was not acquainted with this scene of ‘high life below stairs;’ and therefore, when she mentioned the word ‘oyster-cellar,’ I imagined I must have mistaken the place of invitation: she repeated it, however, and I found it was not my business to make objections; so agreed immediately. I waited with great impatience till the hour arrived, and when the clock struck away I went, and inquired if the lady was there.--‘O yes,’ cried the woman, she has been here an hour, or more.’ The door opened, and I had the pleasure of being ushered in, not to one lady, as I expected, but to a large and brilliant company of both sexes, most of whom I had the honour of being acquainted with. The large table, round which they were seated, was covered with dishes full of oysters and pots of porter. For a long time I could not suppose that this was the only entertainment we were to have, and I sat waiting in expectation of a repast that was never to make its appearance. The table was cleared, and glasses introduced. The ladies were now asked whether they would choose brandy or rum punch? I thought this question an odd one, but I was soon informed by the gentleman who sat next me, that no wine was sold here, but that punch was quite ‘the thing;’ and a large bowl was immediately introduced. The conversation hitherto had been insipid, and at intervals: it now became general and lively. The women, who, to do them justice, are much more entertaining than their neighbours in England, discovered a great deal of vivacity and fondness for repartee. A thousand things were hazarded, and met with applause; to which the oddity of the scene gave propriety, and which could have been produced in no other place. The general ease with which they conducted themselves, the innocent freedom of their manners, and their unaffected good-nature, all conspired to make us forget that we were regaling in a cellar, and was a convincing proof that, let local customs operate as they may, a truly polite woman is every where the same. When the company were tired of conversation they began to dance reels, their favourite dance, which they performed with great agility and perseverance. One of the gentlemen, however, fell down in the most active part of it, and lamed himself; so the dance was at an end for that evening. On looking at their watches, the ladies now found it time to retire; the coaches were therefore called, and away they went, and with them all our mirth. The company were now reduced to a party of gentlemen; pipes and politics were introduced: I took my hat and wished them good night. The bill for entertaining half a dozen very fashionable women, amounted only to two shillings apiece. If you will not allow the entertainment an elegant one, you must at least confess that it was cheap.”[265]

* * * * *

It may be amusing to wander for a moment to another place of public entertainment, for the sake of a character of it two centuries ago, by bishop Earle.

THE TAVERN, 1628,

Is a degree, or (if you will) a pair of stairs above an ale-house, where men are drunk with more credit and apology. If the vintner’s nose be at the door, it is a sign sufficient, but the absence of this is supplied by the ivy-bush: the rooms are ill breathed like the drinkers that have been washed well over night, and are smelt-to fasting next morning. It is a broacher of more news than hogsheads, and more jests than news, which are sucked up here by some spungy brain, and from thence squeezed into a comedy. Men come here to make merry, but indeed make a noise; and this musick above is answered with the clinking below. The drawers are the civilest people in it, men of good bringing up; and howsoever we esteem of them, none can boast more justly of their high calling. ’Tis the best theater of natures, where they are truly acted, not played; and the business, as in the rest of the world, up and down, to wit, from the bottom of the cellar to the great chamber. A melancholy man would find here matter to work upon, to see heads as brittle as glasses, and often broken; men come hither to quarrel, and come hither to be made friends: and if, Plutarch will lend me his simile, it is even Telephus’s sword that makes wounds and cures them. It is the common consumption of the afternoon, and the murderer or maker-away of a rainy day. It is the torrid zone that scorches the face, and tobacco the gunpowder that blows it up. Much harm would be done, if the charitable vintner had not water ready for these flames. A house of sin you may call it, but not a house of darkness, for the candles are never out; and it is like those countries far in the north, where it is as clear at mid-night as at mid-day. To give you the total reckoning of it; it is the busy man’s recreation, the idle man’s business, the melancholy man’s sanctuary, the stranger’s welcome, the inns-of-court man’s entertainment, the scholar’s kindness, and the citizen’s courtesy. It is the study of sparkling wits, and a cup of canary their book, whence we leave them.

* * * * *

Bishop Earle, in his character of a “Poor Fiddler,” describes him as “in league with the tapsters for the worshipful of the inn, whom he torments next morning with his art, and has their names more perfect than their men.” Sir John Hawkins, who cites this in his History of Music, also abstracts a curious view of the customs at inns, from Fyne Moryson’s “Itinerary,” rather later in the same age:--

“As soone as a passenger comes to an inne, the seruants run to him, and one takes his horse and walkes him till he be cold, then rubs him, and giues him meate, yet I must say that they are not much to be trusted in this last point, without the eye of the master or his seruant to ouersee them. Another seruant giues the passenger his priuate chamber, and kindles his fier, the third puls of his bootes, and makes them cleane. Then the host or hostesse visits him, and if he will eate with the host, or at a common table with others, his meale will cost him sixepence, or in some places but foure pence, (yet this course is lesse honourable, and not vsed by gentlemen): but if he will eate in his chamber, he commands what meate he will according to his appetite, and as much as he thinkes fit for him and his company, yea, the kitchen is open to him, to command the meat to be dressed as he best likes; and when he sits at table, the host or hostesse will accompany him, or if they haue many guests, will at least visit him, taking it for curtesie to be bid sit downe: while he eates, if he haue company especially, he shall be offred musicke, which he may freely take or refuse, and if he be solitary, the musitians will giue him the good day with musicke in the morning. It is the custome, and no way disgracefull, to set vp part of supper for his breakefast: in the euening or in the morning after breakefast, (for the common sort vse not to dine, but ride from breakefast to supper time, yet comming early to the inne for better resting of their horses) he shall haue a reckoning in writing, and if it seeme vnreasonable, the host will satisfie him, either for the due price, or by abating part, especially if the seruant deceive him any way, which one of experience will soone find. I will now onely adde, that a gentleman and his man shall spend as much, as if he were accompanied with another gentleman and his man; and if gentlemen will in such sort ioyne together, to eate at one table, the expences will be much deminished. Lastly, a man cannot more freely command at home in his owne house, than hee may doe in his inne; and at parting, if he giue some few pence to the chamberlin and ostler, they wish him a happy iourney.”

* * * * *

Through a most diligent collector of archæological authorities, we find in the time of Elizabeth only eight-pence paid at an inn for a physician all night; and in the time of Charles II. only two-pence for a man and horse at Bristol.[266]

* * * * *

Bristol has now attained to so great wealth and prosperity, as to provide inns of importance equal perhaps to any in the kingdom. A friend, who sojourned there at the undermentioned date, hands me a printed document, which he received from his landlord, Mr. John Weeks; it is so great a curiosity, as bespeaking the opulence of that ancient city, and the spirit of its great innkeeper, that I cannot refrain from recording it.

BUSH TAVERN.

BILL OF FARE FOR CHRISTMAS, 1800

1 Bustard Red game Black game 1 Turtle, 120lb. 1 Land tortoise 72 Pots turtle, different prices Vermicelli soup British turtle Giblet soup Pease soup Gravy soup Soup Santé Soup and bouillé Mutton broth Barley broth 3 Turbots 4 Cods 2 Brills 2 Pipers 12 Dories 2 Haddocks 14 Rock fish 18 Carp 12 Perch 4 Salmon 12 Plaice 17 Herrings Sprats 122 Eels Salt fish 78 Roach 98 Gudgeons 1 Dried salmon Venison,--1 Haunch hevior 5 Haunches doe 5 Necks 10 Breasts 10 Shoulders 42 Hares 17 Pheasants 41 Partridges 87 Wild ducks 17 Wild geese 37 Teal 31 Widgeon 16 Bald coots 2 Sea pheasants 3 Mews 11 Veal burrs 1 Roasting pig Oysters, stew’d & collop’d Eggs Hogs’ puddings Ragoo’d feet and ears Scotch’d collops Veal cutlets Harricoed mutton Maintenon chops Pork chops Mutton chops Rump steaks Joint steaks Pinbone steaks Sausages Hambro’ sausages Tripe, cow heels, and knotlings 5 House lambs Veal--3 Legs & loins 2 Breasts & shoulders 2 Heads Beef--5 Rumps 3 Sirloins 5 Rounds 2 Pieces of 5 ribs each 7 Pinbones Dutch & Hambro’d beef Mutton--8 Haunches 8 Legs 8 Necks 11 Loins 6 Saddles 6 Chines 5 Shoulders Pork--4 Legs 4 Loins 4 Chines Sparibs Half a porker

[COLD]

1 Boar’s head 1 Baron beef 2 Hams 4 Tongues 6 Chicken 4 Moor hens 2 Water drabs 7 Curlews 2 Bitterns 81 Woodcocks 149 Snipes 17 Wild Turkies 18 Golden plovers 1 Swan 5 Quists 2 Land rails 13 Galenas 4 Peahens 1 Peacock 1 Cuckoo 116 Pigeons 121 Larks 1 Sea magpye 127 Stares 208 Small birds 44 Turkies 8 Capons 19 Ducks 10 Geese 2 Owls 61 Chickens 4 Ducklings 11 Rabbits 3 Pork griskins Hogs’ feet and ears 7 Collars brawn 2 Rounds beef Collared veal Collared beef Collared mutton Collared eels Collared pig’s head Dutch tongues Bologna sausages Paraguay pies French pies Mutton pies Pigeon pies Venison pasty Sulks 430 Mince pies 13 Tarts Jellies Craw fish Pickled salmon Sturgeon Pickled oysters Potted partridges Lobsters 52 Barrels Pyfleet & Colchester oysters Milford & Tenby oysters 4 Pine apples

Could our ancestors take a peep from their graves at this bill of fare, we may conceive what would be their astonishment at so great a variety and abundance of provision for travellers at a single inn of our times; in earlier days, wayfarers were, in many places, compelled to seek accommodation from hospitable housekeepers, and knights were lodged in barns.

* * * * *

A history of inns would be curious. It is not out of the way to observe, that the old inns of the metropolis are daily undergoing alterations that will soon destroy their original character. “Courts with bedchambers, below and around the old inns, occur in the middle age, and are probably of Roman fashion; for they resemble the barracks at Tivoli.”[267] There are specimens of this inn-architecture still remaining to be observed at the Bell Savage, Ludgate-hill; the Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill; the George, and the Ram, in Smithfield; the Bull and Mouth; the Swan and two necks;[268] the Green Dragon, Bishopsgate-street, and a few others; not forgetting the Talbot inn, in the Borough, from whence Chaucer’s pilgrims set out to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket, at Canterbury; of which there is a modern painting placed in front of one of its galleries facing the street entrance. Stow, in his time, calls it, under the name of the “Tabard,” “the most ancient” of the inns on the Surrey side of London. In Southwark, he says, “bee many faire innes for receit of travellers--amongst the which, the most ancient is the Tabard, so called of the signe, which as wee now terme it, is of a jacket, or sleevelesse coate, whole before, open on both sides, with a square collar, winged at the shoulders; a stately garment, of old time commonly worne of noblemen and others, both at home and abroad in the wars; but then (to wit, in the warres,) their armes embroidered, or otherwise depict upon them, that every man by his coat of armes might bee knowne from others: but now these tabards are onely worne by the heralds, and bee called their coats of armes in service.” Stowe then quotes Chaucer in commendation of the “Inne of the Tabard:”--

It befelle in that season, on a day In Southwerk, at the Tabard as I lay Ready to wend on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devout courage; That night was come into that hostelrie Well nine and twenty in a compagnie Of sundry folke, by aventure yfalle In felawsship, and pilgrimes were they alle, That toward Canterbury wolden ride. The chambers and stables weren wide, &c.

Chaucer, whom it pleases to Stowe to call “the most famous poet of England,” relates

------------ shortly in a clause Th’ estat, th’ araie, the nombre, and eke the cause, Why that assembled was this compagnie In Southwerk, at this gentil hostelrie, That hight the Tabard, faste by the Bell.

In course of time the original name of the sign seems to have been lost, and its meaning forgotten. The “Tabard” is corrupted or perverted into the “Talbot” inn; and as already, through Stowe, I have shown the meaning of the Tabard, some readers perhaps may excuse me for adding, that the Talbot, which is now only a term for an armorial bearing, is figured in heraldry as a dog, a blood-hound, or hunting hound.[269]

* * * * *

After thus beating up inns and public-houses generally, we will return for a moment to “Keston Cross.” To this pleasant house there is attached a delightful little flower and fruit-garden, with paddocks, poultry-yard, outhouses, and every requisite for private or public use; all well-stocked, and, by the order wherein all are kept, bespeaking the well-ordered economy of the occupant’s mind. The stabling for his own and visitors’ horses is under the management of an ostler of long service: and it must not be forgotten, that the rooms in the house are marked by its owner’s attachment to horses and field-sports. In the common parlour, opposite the door, is a coloured print of the burial of a huntsman--the attendants in “full cry” over the grave--with verses descriptive of the ceremony. A parlour for the accommodation of private parties has an oil painting of the old duke of Bolton, capitally mounted, in the yard of his own mansion, going out, attended by his huntsman and dogs. There are other pictures in the same taste, particularly a portrait of one of Mr. Young’s horses.

The ostler at “Keston Cross” is the most remarkable of its obliging, humble servants. The poor fellow has lost an eye, and is like the “high-mettled racer” in his decline--except that he is well used. While looking about me I missed W., and found he had deemed him a picturesque subject, and that he was in the act of sketching him from behind the door of the stable-yard, while he leaned against the stable-door with his corn-sieve in his hand. I know not why the portrait should not come into a new edition of Bromley’s Catalogue, or an appendix to Granger: sure I am that many far less estimable persons figure in the Biographical History of England. As an honest man, (and if he were not he would not be in Mr. Young’s service,) I craved my friend W. to engrave him on a wood-block; I have no other excuse to offer for presenting an impression of it, than the intrinsic worth of the industrious original, and the merit of the likeness; and that apology it is hoped very few will decline.

* * * * *

Dr. Johnson derives “ostler” from the French word “hostelier,” but “hostelier” in French, now spelt “hotelier,” signifies an innkeeper, or host, not an ostler; to express the meaning of which term the French word is wholly different in spelling and pronunciation. It seems to me that “ostler” is derived from the word “hostel,” which was formerly obtained from the French, and was in common use here to signify an inn; and the innkeeper was from thence called the “hosteller.” This was at a period when the innkeeper or “hosteller” would be required by his guests to take and tend their horses, which, before the use of carriages, and when most goods were conveyed over the country on the backs of horses, would be a chief part of his employment; and hence, the “hosteller” actually became the “hostler,” or “ostler,” that is, the horse-keeper.

* * * * *

We will just glean, for two or three minutes, from as many living writers who have gone pleasantly into inns, and so conclude.

* * * * *

Washington Irving, travelling under the name of “Geoffrey Crayon, gent.” and reposing himself within a comfortable hostel at Shakspeare’s birth-place, says:--“To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world which he can truly call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence, when, after a weary day’s travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, the very monarch of all he surveys. The arm chair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlour, of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day; and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding even morsels and moments of enjoyment. ‘Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?’ thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow chair, and cast a complacent look about the little parlour of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on-Avon.”----

* * * * *

ELIA, to illustrate the “astonishing composure” of some of the society of “friends,” tells a pleasant anecdote, which regards a custom at certain inns, and is therefore almost as fairly relatable in this place, as it is delightfully related in his volume of “Essays:”--“I was travelling,” says ELIA, “in a stage-coach with three male quakers, buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments were used on the part of the quakers, for which the heated mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient. The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The quakers pulled out their money, and formally tendered it--so much for tea--I, in humble imitation, tendering mine--for the supper which I had taken. She would not relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room, the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the example of such grave and warrantable personages. We got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off. The murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambiguously pronounced, became after a time inaudible--and now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a while suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited, in the hope that some justification would be offered by these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped on the subject. They sate as mute as at a meeting. At length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his next neighbour, ‘Hast thee heard how indigos go at the India House?’ and the question operated as a soporific on my moral feeling as far as Exeter.”

* * * * *

Finally, from the “Indicator” we learn, that to Mr. Leigh Hunt “a tavern and coffee-house is a pleasant sight, from its sociality; not to mention the illustrious club memories of the times of Shakspeare and the Tatlers. The rural transparencies, however, which they have in their windows, with all our liking of the subject, would perhaps be better in any others; for tavern sociality is a town-thing, and should be content with town ideas. A landscape in the window makes us long to change it at once for a rural inn; to have a rosy-faced damsel attending us, instead of a sharp and serious waiter; and to catch, in the intervals of chat, the sound of a rookery instead of cookery. We confess that the commonest public-house in town is not such an eyesore to us as it is with some. It may not be very genteel, but neither is every thing that is rich. There may be a little too much drinking and roaring going on in the middle of the week; but what, in the mean time, are pride and avarice, and all the unsocial vices about? Before we object to public-houses, and above all to their Saturday evening recreations, we must alter the systems that make them a necessary comfort to the poor and laborious. Till then, in spite of the vulgar part of the polite, we shall have an esteem for the Devil and the Bag o’ Nails; and like to hear, as we go along on Saturday night, the applauding knocks on the table that follow the song of ‘Lovely Nan,’ or ‘Brave Captain Death,’ or ‘Tobacco is an Indian Weed,’ or ‘Why, Soldiers, why,’ or ‘Says Plato why should man be vain,’ or that judicious and unanswerable ditty, commencing

Now what can man more desire Nor sitting by a sea-coal fire; And on his knees, &c.”

[252] Vol. i. p. 670.

[253] p. 702.

[254] p. 715.

[255] p. 766.

[256] p. 771.

[257] p. 811.

[258] Academy of Armory.

[259] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[260] Henry IV. act ii. sc. 1.

[261] The Frankelein’s prologue. Chaucer.

[262] Spenser.

[263] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[264] Ibid.

[265] Letters from Edinburgh, written in the years 1774 and 1775.

[266] Fosbroke.

[267] Ibid.

[268] See the derivation of this sign in the Every-Day Book.

[269] Academy of Armory, b. ii. c. 9.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXV.

[From “Edward the Third,” an Historical Play, Author Unknown, 1597.]

The King, having relieved the Castle of the heroic Countess of Salisbury, besieged by the Scots, and being entertained by her, loves her.

Edward (solus.) She is grown more fairer far since I came hither: Her voice more silver every word than other, Her wit more fluent. What a strange discourse Unfolded she of David, and his Scots! Even thus, quoth she, he spake, and then spake broad With epithets and accents of the Scot; But somewhat better than the Scot could speak: And thus, quoth she, and answer’d then herself; For who could speak like her? but she herself Breathes from the wall an angel note from heaven Of sweet defiance to her barbarous foes.-- When she would talk of peace, methinks her tongue Commanded war to prison: when of war, It waken’d Cæsar from his Roman grave, To hear war beautified by her discourse. Wisdom is foolishness, but in her tongue; Beauty a slander, but in her fair face; There is no summer, but in her chearful looks; Nor frosty winter, but in her disdain. I cannot blame the Scots that did besiege her, For she is all the treasure of our land: But call them cowards, that they ran away; Having so rich and fair a cause to stay.

The Countess repells the King’s unlawful suit.

Countess. Sorry I am to see my liege so sad: What may thy subject do to drive from thee This gloomy consort, sullome Melancholy? King. Ah Lady! I am blunt, and cannot strew The flowers of solace in a ground of shame. Since I came hither, Countess, I am wrong’d. Coun. Now God forbid that any in my house Should think my sovereign wrong! thrice-gentle king Acquaint me with your cause of discontent. King. How near then shall I be to remedy? Coun. As near, my liege, as all my woman’s power, Can pawn itself to buy thy remedy. King. If thou speak’st true, then have I my redress. Engage thy power to redeem my joys, And I am joyful, Countess; else I die. Coun. I will, my liege. King. Swear, Countess, that thou wilt. Coun. By heaven I will. King. Then take thyself a little way aside, And tell thyself, a king doth dote on thee. Say that within thy power it doth lie To make him happy, and that thou hast sworn To give him all the joy within thy power. Do this; and tell him, when I shall be happy. Coun. All this is done, my thrice-dread sovereign. That power of love, that I have power to give, Thou hast, with all devout obedience. Employ me how thou wilt in proof thereof. King. Thou hear’st me say that I do dote on thee. Coun. If on my beauty, take it if thou can’st; Though little, I do prize it ten times less: If on my virtue, take it if thou can’st; For virtue’s store by giving doth augment. Be it on what it will, that I can give, And thou can’st take away, inherit it. King. It is thy beauty that I would enjoy. Coun. O were it painted, I would wipe it off, And dispossess myself to give it thee; But, sovereign, it is soulder’d to my life: Take one, and both; for, like an humble shadow, It haunts the sunshine of my summer’s life. King. But thou may’st lend it me to sport withal. Coun. As easy may my intellectual soul Be lent away, and yet my body live, As lend my body (palace to my soul) Away from her, and yet retain my soul. My body is her bower, her court, her abbey. And she an angel pure, divine, unspotted; If I should lend her house, my Lord, to thee, I kill my poor soul, and my poor soul me. King. Didst thou not swear to give me what I would? Count. I did, my liege, so what you would, I could. King. I wish no more of thee, than thou may’st give: Nor beg I do not, but I rather buy; That is thy love; and for that love of thine In rich exchange, I tender to thee mine. Coun. But that your lips were sacred, my Lord, You would profane the holy name of love. That love, you offer me, you cannot give; For Cæsar owes that tribute to his Queen. That love, you beg of me, I cannot give; For Sara owes that duty to her Lord. He, that doth clip or counterfeit your stamp, Shall die, my Lord: and shall your sacred self Commit high treason ’gainst the King of Heaven, To stamp his image in forbidden metal, Forgetting your allegiance and your oath? In violating marriage’ sacred law, You break a greater Honour than yourself. To be a King, is of a younger house Than To be married; your progenitor, Sole-reigning Adam on the universe, By God was honour’d for a married Man But not by him anointed for a King. It is a penalty to break your statutes. Tho’ not enacted with your Highness’ hand; How much more to infringe the holy act, Made by the mouth of God, seal’d with his hand I know my Sovereign, in my Husband’s love, Doth but to try the Wife of Salisbury, Whether she will hear a wanton’s tale or no: Lest being guilty therein by my stay, From that, not from my liege, I turn away.

* * * * *

King. Whether is her beauty by her words divine Or are her words sweet chaplains to her beauty? Like as the wind doth beautify a sail, And as a sail becomes the unseen wind, So do her words her beauties, beauty words.

* * * * *

Coun. He hath sworn me by the name of God To break a vow made in the name of God. What if I swear by this right hand of mine To cut this right hand off? the better way Were to profane the idol, than confound it.

Flattery.

---- O thou World, great nurse of flattery, Why dost thou tip men’s tongues with golden words And poise their deeds with weight of heavy lead, That fair performance cannot follow promise? O that a man might hold the heart’s close book And choke the lavish tongue, when it doth utter The breath of falsehood, not character’d there!

Sin, worst in High Place.

An honourable grave is more esteemed, Than the polluted closet of a king; The greater man, the greater is the thing, Be it good or bad, that he shall undertake. An unreputed mote, flying in the sun, Presents a greater substance than it is; The freshest summer’s day doth soonest taint The loathed carrion, that it seems to kiss; Deep are the blows made with a mighty axe; That sin does ten times aggravate itself, That is committed in a holy place; An evil deed done by authority Is sin, and subornation; deck an ape In tissue, and the beauty of the robe Adds but the greater scorn unto the beast; The poison shews worst in a golden cup; Dark night seems darker by the light’ning flash; Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds. And every Glory, that inclines to Sin, The shame is treble by the opposite.

C. L.

* * * * *

~Poetry.~

For the Table Book.

SONNET TO MISS KELLY,

ON HER EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE OF BLINDNESS, IN THE REVIVED OPERA OF ARTHUR AND EMMELINE.

Rare artist, who with half thy tools, or none, Canst execute with ease thy curious art, And press thy powerful’st meanings on the heart Unaided by the eye, expression’s throne! While each blind sense, intelligential grown Beyond its sphere, performs the effect of sight, Those orbs alone, wanting their proper might, All motionless and silent seem to moan The unseemly negligence of nature’s hand, That left them so forlorn. What praise is thine, O mistress of the passions!--artist fine!-- Who dost our souls against our sense command; Plucking the horror from a sightless face, Lending to blank deformity a grace.

C. LAMB.

* * * * *

VOLUNTEER REMINISCENCES.

To the Editor.

SHAM-FIGHTS AND INVASION.

Dear Sir,--Some agreeable recollections induce me to pen a few circumstances for the Table Book, which may kindle associations in the many who were formerly engaged in representing the “raw recruit,” and who are now playing the “old soldier” in the conflict of years. I do not travel out of the road to take the “Eleven city regiments” into my battalion, nor do I call for the aid of the “Gray’s-inn sharpshooters,” (as lawyers are,) and other gents of the “sword and sash,” who then emulated their brethren in “scarlet and blue.”--Erecting my canteen at Moorgate, I hint to other quilldrivers to extend their forces when and where their memories serve. Inkshed, not bloodshed, is my only danger--my greatest failing is a propensity (I fear) to digress and enlarge, till I may not bring the numbers of my muster-roll within proper discipline. Being on my guard, however, I take the succeeding specimens from a spot filled with chapels of several persuasions, the “London Institution,” and well-built houses, with a pleasant relief of verdure in the centre for nursery maids and romping children.

Moorfields, alas! has no fields! Where the “Beth’lem hospital” raised its magnificent but gloomy front, with old Cibber’s statues of “Raving and Melancholy Madness” siding the centre entrance, no vestiges remain, except the church and parts of London Wall, leading from Broker-row to the Albion chapel, commonly called the Plum-cake. Who that knew the crossing from Finsbury-square to Broad-street remembers not the open-barred window at which “Mad Molly” daily appeared, singing, and talking inconsistencies of love, confinement, and starvation? Who that stood before the massive building heard not the tones of agony, and felt not deep pity for the poor reasonless creatures?

----In Moorfields, when Buonaparte threatened this country with invasion, the beat of drum and the shrillings of the fife brought corps of gentlemen volunteers into rank and file, to show how much a “nation of shopkeepers” could do. Ladies in clusters assembled here to witness the feats of their soldier-like heroes--sanctioning with their presence, and applauding with their smiles, the defenders of their domiciles.

The “Bank gentlemen,” distinguished by their long gaiters, and therefore called black-legs, went farther off and exercised before bank-hours, in the Tenter-ground beyond the Vinegar-yard.

The East India Company’s three regiments (the best soldiers next to the foot-guards) drilled in a field which lay in the way on the one side to the Rosemary Branch, (noted for a water-party or fives’ match,) and the White Lead Mills, whose windsails are removed by the steam Quixotes of the day. On the other side, skirted the once pleasant path, leading from the Shepherd and Shepherdess across the meadow either to Queen’s Head-lane, the Britannia, or the Almshouses, near the Barley Mow, Islington. The East India field is now divided into gardens and snug arbours, let to the admirers of flowers and retreats.

Lackington’s “Temple of Fame” was a temple of knowledge. This splendid place and its winding shelves of books caught the passing eye with astonishment at the success and skill of the once humble owner of a bookstall in Chiswell-street. Here Finsbury’s “child of lore and catalogue-maker” wrote a “book,” abounding with quotations from authors, and refuted his own words in after-life by publishing his “Confessions.” Lackington was, however, a man of deep judgment in his business, and no every-day observer of the manners and variations of his contemporaries.

Then, the “Artillery Company” attracted well-dressed people on Wednesday evenings, and from Finsbury-side to Bunhill-row there was a promenade of fashionables from Duke’s-place and Bevis Marks, listening to a band of music and the roar of cannon till dusk.

Moorfields gathered more regiments than any other spot excepting the Park, in which reviews and sham-fights concentrated the corporate forces on field-days. Wimbledon Common became also an occasional scene of busy parade and preparation; baggage long drawn out, multitudes of friends, sweethearts and wives, and nondescripts. In the roads were collected the living beings of half of the metropolis. It seemed a stir in earnest of great achievements. Many a white handkerchief dried the parting tear. There were the adieu and the farewell; salutes given behind the counter, or snatched in the passage, affected the sensibilities like last meetings. Sir W. Curtis and other colonels reminded the “gentlemen” they had “the honour” to command, that they were in “good quarters.” Sermons were preached in and out of the establishment to “soldiers.” Representations were given at the theatres to “soldiers.” The shop-windows presented tokens of courage and love to “soldiers.” Not a concert was held, not a “free and easy” passed, without songs and melodies to “soldiers.” It was a fine time for publicans and poets. Abraham Newland’s promises kept army-clothiers, gun-makers, Hounslow powder-mills, and Mr. Pitt’s affairs in action. No man might creditably present himself if he were void of the tone of military distinction; and Charles Dibdin and Grimaldi--“wicked wags!”--satirized the fashion of “playing at soldiers.”

In process of time, Maidstone, Colchester, and Rochester were select places for trying the shopkeeping volunteers: they were on duty for weeks, and returned with the honours of the barracks. Things taking a more peaceful aspect, or rather the alarm of invasion having subsided, the regimentals were put by, and scarcely a relic is now seen to remind the rising generation of the deeds of their fathers.

I could travel further, and tell more of these and similar doings, but I refrain, lest I tire your patience and your readers’ courtesy.

Dear sir,

Truly yours,

A CITY VOLUNTEER.

June, 1827.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. I.

It has been ascertained by the researches of a curious investigator,[270] that many celebrated philosophers of recent times have, for the most part, taken what they advance from the works of the ancients. These modern acquisitions are numerous and important; and as it is presumed that many may be instructed, and more be surprised by their enumeration, a succinct account of them is proposed.

It appears as unjust to praise and admire nothing but what savours of antiquity, as to despise whatever comes from thence, and to approve of nothing but what is recent. The moderns certainly have much merit, and have laboured not a little in the advancement of science; but the ancients paved the way, wherein at present is made so rapid a progress: and we may in that respect join Quintilian, who declared, seventeen hundred years ago, “that antiquity had so instructed us by its example, and the doctrines of its great masters, that we could not have been born in a more happy age, than that which had been so illuminated by their care.” While it would be ingratitude to deny such masters the encomiums due to them, envy alone would refuse the moderns the praise they so amply deserve. Justice ought to be rendered to both. In comparing the merits of the moderns and ancients, a distinction ought to be made between the arts and sciences, which require long experience and practice to bring them to perfection, and those which depend solely on talent and genius. Without doubt the former, in so long a series of ages, have been extended more and more; and, with the assistance of printing and other discoveries, have been brought to a very high degree of perfection by the moderns. Our astronomers understand much better the nature of the stars, and the whole planetary system, than Hipparchus, Ptolemy, and others of the ancients; but it may be doubted, whether they had gone so far, unaided by telescopes. The moderns have nearly perfected the art of navigation, and discovered new worlds; yet without the compass, America had probably remained unknown. Likewise, by long observation, and experiments often repeated, we have brought botany, anatomy, and chirurgery, to their present excellence. Many secrets of nature, which one age was insufficient to penetrate, have been laid open in a succession of many. Philosophy has assumed a new air; and the trifling and vain cavils of the schools, have at length been put to flight by the reiterated efforts of Ramus, Bacon, Gassendi, Descartes, Newton, Gravesand, Leibnitz, and Wolf. While, therefore, willingly conceding to the moderns every advantage they are fairly entitled to, the share which the ancients had in beating out for us the pathways to knowledge is an interesting subject of inquiry.

* * * * *

For two thousand years the ancient philosophers were so fully in possession of the general esteem, that they often led men blindfold. They were listened to as oracles, and their very obscurities regarded as too sacred to be pried into by common eyes. An ipse dixit of Pythagoras, Aristotle, or any other ancient sage, was enough to decide the most difficult case: the learned bowed in a body, and expressed their satisfaction, while they surrendered their judgment. These habits of submission were ill adapted to advance knowledge. A few noble spirits, who, in recompense of their labours, have been honoured with the glorious title of restorers of learning, quickly felt the hardship of the bondage, and threw off the yoke of Aristotle. But instead of following the example of those great men, whose incessant studies, and profound researches, had so enriched the sciences, some of their successors were content to make them the basis of their own slight works; and a victory, which might have tended to the perfecting of the human mind, dwindled into a petty triumph. Bruno, Cardan, Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz, the heroes of the literary commonwealth, had too much merit, not to own that of the ancients. They did them justice, and avowed themselves their disciples; but the half-learned and feeble, whose little stock and strength were insufficient to raise to themselves a name, rail at those from whom they stole the riches with which they are bedecked, and ungratefully conceal their obligations to their benefactors.

The method made use of by the moderns, in the new philosophy, recommends itself by its own excellence; for the spirit of analysis and geometry that pervades their manner of treating subjects, has contributed so much to the advancement of science, that it were to be wished they had never swerved from it. It is not, however, to be denied, that the noblest parts of that system of philosophy, received with so much applause in the three last centuries, were known and inculcated by Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch. Of these great men, it may be believed that they well knew how to demonstrate what they communicated; although the arguments, upon which some portions of their demonstrations were founded, have not come down to us. Yet, if in those works which have escaped destruction from the fanaticism of ignorance, and the injuries of time, we meet with numberless instances of penetration and exact reasoning in their manner of relating their discoveries, it is reasonable to presume that they exerted the same care and logical accuracy in support of these truths, which are but barely mentioned in the writings preserved to us. Among the titles of their lost books are many respecting subjects mentioned only in general in their other writings. We may conclude, therefore, that we should have met with the proofs we now want, had they not thought it unnecessary to repeat them, after having published them in so many other works, to which they often refer, and of which the titles are handed down to us by Diogenes Laertius, Suidas, and other ancients, with exactness sufficient to give us an idea of the greatness of our loss. From numerous examples of this kind, which might be quoted, one may be selected respecting Democritus. That great man was the author of two books, from the titles of which it evidently appears, that he was one of the principal inventors of the elementary doctrine which treats of those lines and solids that are termed irrational, and of the contact of circles and spheres.

It is remarkable, that the illustrious ancients, by the mere force of their own natural talents, attained to all those acquisitions of knowledge which our experiments, aided by instruments thrown in our way by chance, serve only to confirm. Without the assistance of a telescope Democritus knew and taught, that the milky way was an assemblage of innumerable stars that escape our sight, and whose united splendour produces in the heavens the whiteness, which we denominate by that name; and he ascribed the spots in the moon to the exceeding height of its mountains and depth of its vallies. True it is, that the moderns have gone farther, and found means to measure the height of those same mountains; yet Democritus’s researches were those of a great genius; whereas the operations of the moderns are merely organical and mechanic. Besides which, we have this advantage,--that we work upon their canvass.

Finally, it may be repeated, that there is scarcely any discovery ascribed to the moderns, but what was not only known to the ancients, but supported by them with the most solid arguments. The demonstration of this position will at least have this good effect; it will abate our prejudices against the ancients, occasioned by a blind admiration of some moderns, who had never shone at all but for the light they borrowed of their masters. Their opinions fairly stated from their own works, and often in their words, must render the decision easy; and the result may restore to the early philosophers some part at least of their disputed glory.

[270] The Rev. L. Dutens, in his “Inquiry into the Origin of the Discoveries attributed to the Moderns.”

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE GOSSIP AND STARE.

------ A creature of so frightful mien, As to be hated needs but to be seen.

It is feminine; a lower animal of the tribe Inquisitoria; and with all others of its species indescribably restless. It is commonly found with the bosom slatternly arrayed, leaning with folded arms out of a “two-pair front,” looking cunningly and maliciously over the side of a garden-pot--like a starling through the water-hole of its cage over the water-pot--with its head always on the bob, like that of the Chinese figure in grocers’ shops. Its features are lean and sharp as the bows of a Folkstone cutter, or the face of a Port Royal pig; its nose, like a racoon’s, is continually on the twist; the ears are ever pricking up for vague rumours and calumnious reports, and the eyes roll from side to side, like those of the image in the wooden clock at Kaltenbach’s in the Borough; the tongue is snake-like, is perpetually in motion--pretty yet pert--and venomous. Its habit is bilious, its temper splenetic. It is a sure extractor of all secrets, a thorough heart-wormer, a living diving-bell, a walking corkscrew. It generally “appears as well as its neighbours,” but it is fastidious, and loves to be different. Upon its legs, which are of the sparrow order, it looks a merry, light-hearted, artless, and good-natured little thing; but it is the green-bag-bearer of the parish, and its food is scandal. Hear it talk on a first meeting with a regular listener! Its voice is at first soft as the low piping of the nightingale, but gradually becomes like the loud hissing of an adder, and ends hoarse, and ominous of evil as that of the raven. It is an untiring spreader of idle and false reports, to the injury of many a good character. It is only innoxious to reasonable beings, for they never listen to it, or when obliged to do so, are no more amused by its sayings than by the singing of a tea-kettle; but these being few in number, compared with the lovers of small talk, to whom its company is always acceptable, it is a dangerous animal,

---- mother of deceit and lies.

Look at it sitting in its habitation!--every sound from the street draws it to the light-hole[271]--every thing from a bonnet to a patten furnishes it with matter for gossip--every opening of a neighbour’s door brings its long neck into the street. Every misfortune that assails others is to it a pleasure--every death a new life to itself--and the failings of the departed are eternal themes for its envenomed slander. It is at the heels of every thing that stirs, and the sooner it is trodden upon the better. But people tolerate and like it, because it is “so amusing,” and “so clever;” and yet each of its listeners is traduced in turn. There is no dealing with it, but by giving it rope enough; it will then hang itself, which, by the by, will be such an end as the creature merits.

S. R. J.

[271] Window.

* * * * *

NAVAL MANNERS.

When the old duke of York (brother to George III.) went on board lord Howe’s ship, as a midshipman, the different captains in the fleet attended, to pay him their respects, on the quarter-deck. He seemed not to know what it was to be subordinate, nor to feel the necessity of moderation in the display of superiority resulting from his high rank, and he received the officers with some hauteur. This a sailor on the forecastle observed; and after expressing astonishment at the duke’s keeping his hat on, he told one of his messmates, that “the thing was not in its sphere;” adding, “it is no wonder he does not know manners, as he was never at sea before.”

* * * * *

LEGAL RECREATION.

It is alleged in a memoir of the Life of Lord Eldon, that, when plain John Scott, his zeal for knowledge of the law was so great, that he abandoned the pursuit of almost every other species of information, and never sacrificed a moment from his legal studies, beyond what was absolutely necessary to his health. His brother William, (afterwards lord Stowell,) with a view of engaging him to meet Dr. Johnson and other men of distinguished literary talent, would sometimes say, “Where do you dine to-day?” To this question John’s uniform answer was, “I dine on Coke to-day.” William would then demur, with a “Nay, but come to my chambers--you’ll see the doctor;” whereupon John argued, concerning the doctor, “He can’t draw a bill;” and so the friendly suit concluded.

It is further affirmed, on the best authority, that it was an amusement in the early legal life of John Scott to turn pieces of poetry into the form of legal instruments; and that he actually converted the ballad of “Chevy Chace” into the shape and style of a bill in chancery.

* * * * *

A professional gentleman, who, during his pupilage, was recommended by a distinguished barrister to commit the following verses to memory, duly availed himself of that advantage, and obligingly communicates them.

For the Table Book.

CANONS OF DESCENT.

BY AN APPRENTICE OF THE LAW.

Canon I.

Estates go to the issue (item) Of him last seized in infinitum; like cow-tails, downward, straight they tend, But never, lineally, ascend:

Cannon II.

This gives that preference to males, At which a lady justly rails.

Canon III.

Of two males, in the same degree, The eldest, only, heir shall be: With females we this order break, And let them all together take.

Canon IV.

When one his worldly strife hath ended, Those who are lineally descended From him, as to his claims and riches, Shall stand, precisely, in his breeches.

Canon V.

When lineal descendants fail, Collaterals the land may nail: So that they be (and that a bore is) De sanguine progenitores.

Canon VI.

The heir collateral, d’ye see, Next kinsman of whole blood must be:

Canon VII.

And, of collaterals, the male Stocks are preferred to the female; Unless the land come from a woman, And then her heirs shall yield to no man.

* * * * *

FRENCH JUDICIAL AUTHORITY.

In the “Thuana” we read of a whimsical, passionate, old judge, who was sent into Gascony with power to examine into the abuses which had crept into the administration of justice in that part of France. Arriving late at Port St. Mary, he asked “how near he was to the city of Agen?” He was answered, “two leagues.” He then decided to proceed that evening, although he was informed that the leagues were long, and the roads very bad. In consequence of his obstinacy the judge was bemired, benighted, and almost shaken to pieces. He reached Agen, however, by midnight, with tired horses and harassed spirits, and went to bed in an ill humour. The next morn he summoned the court of justice to meet, and after having opened his commission in due form, his first decree was, “That for the future the distance from Agen to Port St. Mary should be reckoned six leagues.” This decree he ordered to be registered in the records of the province, before he would proceed to any other business.

* * * * *

A LONG MINUET.

Hogarth, in his “Analysis of Beauty,” mentions the circumstance of a dancing-master’s observing, that though the “minuet” had been the study of his whole life, he could only say with Socrates, that he “knew nothing.” Hogarth added of himself, that he was happy in being a painter, because some bounds might be set to the study of his art.

Vol. II.--30.

There is a way from Bromley market-place across meadow grounds to the palace of the bishop of Rochester. This edifice, about a quarter of a mile from the town, is a plain, homely mansion, erected in 1783 by bishop Thomas, on the site of the ancient palace built there by bishop Gilbert Glanville, lord chief justice of England, after he succeeded to the see in 1185, instead of a still more ancient palace, founded by the prelate Gundalph, an eminent architect, bishop of Rochester in the reign of William the Conqueror. At a few hundred yards eastward of the palace is the “Bishop’s Well;” which, while I minutely examined it, Mr. Williams sketched; and he has since engraved it, as the reader sees.

The water of the “Bishop’s Well” is a chalybeate, honoured by local reputation with surprising properties; but, in reality, it is of the same nature as the mineral water of Tunbridge Wells. It rises so slowly, as to yield scarcely a gallon in a quarter of an hour, and is retained in a small well about sixteen inches in diameter. To the stone work of this little well a wooden cover is attached by a chain. When the fluid attains a certain height, its surplus trickles through an orifice at the side to increase the water of a moat, or small lake, which borders the grounds of the palace, and is overhung on each side with the branches of luxuriant shrubs and trees. Above the well there is a roof of thatch, supported by six pillars, in the manner of a rustic temple, heightening the picturesque appearance of the scene, so as to justify its representation by the pencil. On visiting it, with Mr. W., this pleasant seclusion, consecrated by former episcopal care, and the fond recollections of ancient adjacent residents, was passing to ruin: we disturbed some boys in their work of pulling reeds from the thatched roof. A recent vacancy of the see seemed to have extended to the superintendence of the well; the seeds of neglect had germinated, and were springing up. I have revisited the spot, and seen

---------------- the wild-briar, The thorn, and the thistle, grown broader and higher.

The “Bishop’s Well” is said to have been confounded with a spring of more ancient note, called St. Blase’s Well. Of this latter well topographers[272] say, “It anciently had an oratory annexed to it, dedicated to St. Blasius, which was much frequented at Whitsuntide, because Lucas, who was legate for Sixtus the Fourth, here in England, granted an indulgent remission of forty days; enjoined penance to all those who should visit this chapel, and offer up their orizons there in the three holidays of Pentecost. This oratory falling to ruin at the Reformation, the well too became disused, and the site of both in process of time was forgotten, and continued so till the well was discovered again in the year 1754, by means of a yellow ochrey sediment remaining in the tract of a small current leading from the spring to the corner of the moat, with the waters of which it used to mix. In digging round the well there were found the remains of the old steps leading down to it, made of oak plank, which appeared to have lain under ground many years. The water of this spring is chalybeate, and rises at the foot of a declivity, at a small distance eastward from the bishop’s palace. The soil through which it passes is gravel, and it issues immediately from a bed of pure white sand. The course of the spring seems to be about north-north-east and south-south-west from its aperture; its opening is towards the latter; and as Shooter’s Hill bears about north-north-east from its aperture, it probably comes from thence. The water being thus found to be a good chalybeate, was, by the bishop’s orders, immediately secured from the intermixture of other waters, and enclosed.”

Wilson, a recent writer, affirms, that “the old well, dedicated to St. Blase, is about two hundred yards north-west of the mineral spring, in a field near the road, with eight oaks in a cluster, on an elevated spot of ground adjoining.” This, however, seems wholly conjectural, and wholly nugatory; for, if “the old steps made of oak-plank, which appeared to have lain under ground many years,” led to the “Bishop’s Well,” it may reasonably be presumed that they were the “old steps” to St. Blase’s Well, and that the water of the ancient oratory now flows within the humble edifice represented by the engraving.

*

[272] Philipot, and Hasted.

* * * * *

MISS KELLY.

To the Editor.

Dear Sir,--Somebody has fairly play’d a hoax on you (I suspect that pleasant rogue M--x--n[273]) in sending you the Sonnet in my name, inserted in your last Number. True it is, that I must own to the Verses being mine, but not written on the occasion there pretended, for I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing the Lady in the part of Emmeline; and I have understood, that the force of her acting in it is rather in the expression of new-born sight, than of the previous want of it.--The lines were really written upon her performance in the “Blind Boy,” and appeared in the Morning Chronicle some years back. I suppose, our facetious friend thought that they would serve again, like an old coat new turned.

Yours (and his nevertheless)

C. LAMB.

[273] It was.--ED.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXVI.

[From “Doctor Dodypol,” a Comedy, Author unknown, 1600.]

Earl Lassenburgh, as a Painter, painting his Mistress al grotesco.

Lass. Welcome bright Morn, that with thy golden rays Reveal’st the radiant colours of the world; Look here, and see if thou can’st find dispers’d The glorious parts of fair Lucilia! Take them, and join them in the heavenly spheres; And fix them there as an eternal light, For lovers to adore and wonder at. Luc. You paint your flattering words, Lord Lassenburgh, Making a curious pencil of your tongue; And that fair artificial hand of yours Were fitter to have painted Heaven’s fine story, Than here to work on antics, and on me: Thus for my sake you of a noble Earl Are glad to be a mercenary Painter. Lass. A Painter, fair Lucilia: why, the world With all her beauty was by PAINTING made. Look on the heavens, colour’d with golden stars, The firmamental part of it all blue. Look on the air, where with an hundred changes The watery rainbow doth embrace the earth. Look on the summer fields, adorn’d with flowers, How much is Nature’s painting honour’d there. Look in the mines, and on the eastern shore, Where all our metals and dear gems are drawn; Though fair themselves, made better by their foils. Look on that little world, the Two-fold Man, Whose fairer parcel is the weaker still; And see what azure veins in stream-like form Divide the rosy beauty of the skin. I speak not of the sundry shapes of beasts; The several colours of the elements, Whose mixture shapes the world’s variety, In making all things by their colours known. And, to conclude--Nature herself divine In all things she has made is a mere Painter. Luc. Now by this kiss, the admirer of thy skill, Thou art well worthy th’ honour thou hast given With thy so sweet words to thy eye-ravishing Art; Of which my beauties can deserve no part. Lass. From these base antics, where my hand hath ’spersed Thy several parts, if I, uniting all, Had figured there the true Lucilia, Then might thou justly wonder at my art; And devout people would from far repair, Like pilgrims, with their duteous sacrifice, Adorning thee as Regent of their loves. Here in the center of this Marigold Like a bright diamond I enchased thine eye. Here underneath this little rosy bush Thy crimson cheeks peer forth, more fair than it. Here Cupid hanging down his wings doth sit, Comparing cherries to thy rosy lips. Here is thy brow, thy hair, thy neck, thy hand, Of purpose in all several shrouds dispersed! Lest ravish’d I should dote on mine own work. Or envy-burning eyes should malice it.

A Cameo described.

--- see this Agate, that contains The image of the Goddess and her Son, Whom ancients held the Sovereigns of Love. See naturally wrought out of the stone, Besides the perfect shape of every limb, Besides the wondrous life of her bright hair, A waving mantle of celestial blue, Embroidering itself with flaming stars; Most excellent! and see besides,-- How Cupid’s wings do spring out of the stone, As if they needed not the help of Art.

Earl Lassenburgh, for some distaste, flees Lucilia, who follows him.

Lass. Wilt thou not cease then to pursue me still? Should I entreat thee to attend me thus, Then thou would’st pant and rest; then your soft feet Would be repining at these niggard stones: Now I forbid thee, thou pursuest like wind; Ne tedious space of time, nor storm can tire thee. But I will seek out some high slippery close, Where every step shall reach the gate of death, That fear may make thee cease to follow me. Luc. There will I bodiless be, when you are there; For love despiseth death, and scorneth fear. Lass. I’ll wander where some desperate river parts The solid continent, and swim from thee. Luc. And there I’ll follow, though I drown for thee. Lass. O weary of the way, and of my life, Where shall I rest my sorrow’d, tired limbs? Luc. Rest in my bosom, rest you here, my Lord; A place securer you can no way find-- Lass. Nor more unfit for my unpleased mind. A heavy slumber calls me to the earth; Here will I sleep, if sleep will harbour here. Luc. Unhealthful is the melancholy earth; O let my Lord rest on Lucilia’s lap. I’ll help to shield you from the searching air, And keep the cold damps from your gentle blood. Lass. Pray thee away; for, whilst thou art so near, No sleep will seize on my suspicious eyes. Luc. Sleep then; and I am pleased far off to sit, Like to a poor and forlorn centinel, Watching the unthankful sleep, that severs me From my due part of rest, dear Love, with thee.

An Enchanter, who is enamoured of Lucilia, charms the Earl to a dead sleep, and Lucilia to a forgetfulness of her past love.

Enchanter (to Lassenburgh.) Lie there; and lose the memory of her, Who likewise hath forgot the love of thee By my enchantments:--come sit down, fair Nymph, And taste the sweetness of these heav’nly cates, Whilst from the hollow crannies of this rock Music shall sound to recreate my Love. But tell me, had you ever Lover yet? Lucilia. I had a Lover, I think; but who it was, Or where, or how long since, aye me! I know not: Yet beat my timerous thoughts on such a thing. I feel a passionate heat, yet find no flame; Think what I know not, nor know what I think. Ench. Hast thou forgot me then? I am thy Love,-- Whom sweetly thou wert wont to entertain With looks, with vows of love, with amorous kisses. Look’st thou so strange? dost thou not know me yet? Luc. Sure I should know you. Ench. Why, Love, doubt you that? Twas I that led you[274] thro’ the painted meads, Where the light fairies danced upon the flowers, Hanging on every leaf an orient pearl, Which, struck together with the silken wind Of their loose mantles, made a silver chime. Twas I that, winding my shrill bugle horn, Made a gilt palace break out of the hill, Fill’d suddenly with troops of knights and dames, Who danced and revel’d; whilst we sweetly slept Upon a bed of roses, wrapt all in gold. Dost thou not know me now? Luc. Yes, now I know thee. Ench. Come then, confirm this knowledge with a kiss. Luc. Nay, stay; you are not he: how strange is this! Ench. Thou art grown passing strange, my Love, To him that made thee so long since his Bride. Luc. O was it you? come then. O stay awhile. I know not where I am, nor what I am; Nor you, nor these I know, nor any thing.

C. L.

[274] In charmed visions.

* * * * *

~Life of an Usurer.~

HUGH AUDLEY.

There are memoirs of this remarkable man in a rare quarto tract, entitled “The Way to be Rich, according to the practice of the great Audley, who began with two hundred pounds in the year 1605, and died worth four hundred thousand.” He died on the 15th of November, 1662, the year wherein the tract was printed.

Hugh Audley was a lawyer, and a great practical philosopher, who concentrated his vigorous faculties in the science of the relative value of money. He flourished through the reigns of James I., Charles I., and held a lucrative office in the “court of wards,” till that singular court was abolished at the time of the restoration. In his own times he was called “The great Audley,” an epithet so often abused, and here applied to the creation of enormous wealth. But there are minds of great capacity, concealed by the nature of their pursuits; and the wealth of Audley may be considered as the cloudy medium through which a bright genius shone, of which, had it been thrown into a nobler sphere of action, the “greatness” would have been less ambiguous.

Audley, as mentioned in the title of his memoir, began with two hundred pounds, and lived to view his mortgages, his statutes, and his judgments so numerous, that it was observed, his papers would have made a good map of England. A contemporary dramatist, who copied from life, has opened the chamber of such an usurer,--perhaps of our Audley--

------“Here lay A manor bound fast in a skin of parchment, The wax continuing hard, the acres melting, Here a sure deed of gift for a market-town, If not redeem’d this day, which is not in The unthrift’s power; there being scarce one shire In Wales or England, where my monies are not Lent out at usury, the certain hook To draw in more.--”

Massinger’s City Madam.

This genius of thirty per cent. first had proved the decided vigour of his mind, by his enthusiastic devotion to his law-studies: deprived of the leisure for study through his busy day, he stole the hours from his late nights and his early mornings; and without the means to procure a law-library, he invented a method to possess one without the cost; as fast as he learned, he taught; and by publishing some useful tracts on temporary occasions, he was enabled to purchase a library. He appears never to have read a book without its furnishing him with some new practical design, and he probably studied too much for his own particular advantage. Such devoted studies was the way to become a lord-chancellor; but the science of the law was here subordinate to that of a money-trader.

When yet but a clerk to the clerk in the Counter, frequent opportunities occurred which Audley knew how to improve. He became a money-trader as he had become a law-writer, and the fears and follies of mankind were to furnish him with a trading-capital. The fertility of his genius appeared in expedients and in quick contrivances. He was sure to be the friend of all men falling out. He took a deep concern in the affairs of his master’s clients, and often much more than they were aware of. No man so ready at procuring bail or compounding debts. This was a considerable traffic then, as now. They hired themselves out for bail, swore what was required, and contrived to give false addresses. It seems they dressed themselves out for the occasion: a great seal-ring flamed on the finger, which, however, was pure copper gilt, and they often assumed the name of some person of good credit. Savings, and small presents for gratuitous opinions, often afterwards discovered to be very fallacious ones, enabled him to purchase annuities of easy landholders, with their treble amount secured on their estates. The improvident owners, or the careless heirs, were soon entangled in the usurer’s nets; and, after the receipt of a few years, the annuity, by some latent quibble, or some irregularity in the payments, usually ended in Audley’s obtaining the treble forfeiture. He could at all times out-knave a knave. One of these incidents has been preserved. A draper, of no honest reputation, being arrested by a merchant for a debt of 200_l._ Audley bought the debt at 40_l._, for which the draper immediately offered him 50_l._ But Audley would not consent, unless the draper indulged a sudden whim of his own: this was a formal contract, that the draper should pay within twenty years, upon twenty certain days, a penny doubled. A knave, in haste to sign, is no calculator; and, as the contemporary dramatist describes one of the arts of those citizens, one part of whose business was

“To swear and break--they all grow rich by breaking--”

the draper eagerly compounded. He afterwards “grew rich.” Audley, silently watching his victim, within two years, claims his doubled pennies, every month during twenty months. The pennies had now grown up to pounds. The knave perceived the trick, and preferred paying the forfeiture of his bond for 500_l._, rather than to receive the visitation of all the little generation of compound interest in the last descendant of 2000_l._, which would have closed with the draper’s shop. The inventive genius of Audley might have illustrated that popular tract of his own times, Peacham’s “Worth of a Penny;” a gentleman who, having scarcely one left, consoled himself by detailing the numerous comforts of life it might procure in the days of Charles II.

Such petty enterprises at length assumed a deeper cast of interest. He formed temporary partnerships with the stewards of country gentlemen. They underlet estates which they had to manage; and, anticipating the owner’s necessities, the estates in due time became cheap purchases for Audley and the stewards. He usually contrived to make the wood pay for the land, which he called “making the feathers pay for the goose.” He had, however, such a tenderness of conscience for his victim, that, having plucked the live feathers before he sent the unfledged goose on the common, he would bestow a gratuitous lecture in his own science--teaching the art of making them grow again, by showing how to raise the remaining rents. Audley thus made the tenant furnish at once the means to satisfy his own rapacity, and his employer’s necessities. His avarice was not working by a blind, but on an enlightened principle; for he was only enabling the landlord to obtain what the tenant, with due industry, could afford to give. Adam Smith might have delivered himself in the language of old Audley, so just was his standard of the value of rents. “Under an easy landlord,” said Audley, “a tenant seldom thrives; contenting himself to make the just measure of his rents, and not labouring for any surplusage of estate. Under a hard one, the tenant revenges himself upon the land, and runs away with the rent. I would raise my rents to the present price of all commodities: for if we should let our lands, as other men have done before us, now other wares daily go on in price, we should fall backward in our estates.” These axioms of political economy were discoveries in his day.

Audley knew mankind practically, and struck into their humours with the versatility of genius: oracularly deep with the grave, he only stung the lighter mind. When a lord, borrowing money, complained to Audley of his exactions, his lordship exclaimed, “What, do you not intend to use a conscience?” “Yes, I intend hereafter to use it. We monied people must balance accounts: if you do not pay me, you cheat me; but, if you do, then I cheat your lordship.” Audley’s monied conscience balanced the risk of his lordship’s honour, against the probability of his own rapacious profits. When he resided in the Temple among those “pullets without feathers,” as an old writer describes the brood, the good man would pule out paternal homilies on improvident youth, grieving that they, under pretence of “learning the law, only learnt to be lawless;” and “never knew by their own studies the process of an execution, till it was served on themselves.” Nor could he fail in his prophecy; for at the moment that the stoic was enduring their ridicule, his agents were supplying them with the certain means of verifying it; for, as it is quaintly said, he had his decoying as well as his decaying gentlemen.

Audley was a philosophical usurer: he never pressed hard for his debts; like the fowler, he never shook his nets lest he might startle, satisfied to have them, without appearing to hold them. With great fondness he compared his “bonds to infants, which battle best by sleeping.” To battle is to be nourished, a term still retained at the university of Oxford. His familiar companions were all subordinate actors in the great piece he was performing; he too had his part in the scene. When not taken by surprise, on his table usually lay opened a great Bible, with bishop Andrews’s folio sermons, which often gave him an opportunity of railing at the covetousness of the clergy! declaring their religion was “a mere preach;” and that “the time would never be well till we had queen Elizabeth’s Protestants again in fashion.” He was aware of all the evils arising out of a population beyond the means of subsistence. He dreaded an inundation of men, and considered marriage, with a modern political economist, as very dangerous; bitterly censuring the clergy, whose children, he said, never thrived, and whose widows were left destitute. An apostolical life, according to Audley, required only books, meat, and drink, to be had for fifty pounds a year! Celibacy, voluntary poverty, and all the mortifications of a primitive Christian, were the virtues practised by this puritan among his money bags.

Yet Audley’s was that worldly wisdom which derives all its strength from the weaknesses of mankind. Every thing was to be obtained by stratagem, and it was his maxim, that to grasp our object the faster, we must go a little round about it. His life is said to have been one of intricacies and mysteries, using indirect means in all things; but if he walked in a labyrinth, it was to bewilder others; for the clue was still in his own hand; all he sought was that his designs should not be discovered by his actions. His word, we are told, was his bond; his hour was punctual; and his opinions were compressed and weighty: but if he was true to his bond-word, it was only a part of the system to give facility to the carrying on of his trade, for he was not strict to his honour; the pride of victory, as well as the passion for acquisition, combined in the character of Audley, as in more tremendous conquerors. His partners dreaded the effects of his law-library, and usually relinquished a claim rather than stand a suit against a latent quibble. When one menaced him by showing some money-bags, which he had resolved to empty in law against him, Audley, then in office in the court of wards, with a sarcastic grin, asked, “Whether the bags had any bottom?” “Ay!” replied the exulting possessor, striking them. “In that case I care not,” retorted the cynical officer of the court of wards; “for in this court I have a constant spring; and I cannot spend in other courts more than I gain in this.” He had at once the meanness which would evade the law, and the spirit which could resist it.

The genius of Audley had crept out of the purlieus of Guildhall, and entered the Temple; and having often sauntered at “Powles” down the great promenade which was reserved for “Duke Humphrey and his guests,” he would turn into that part called “The Usurer’s Alley,” to talk with “Thirty in the hundred,” and at length was enabled to purchase his office at that remarkable institution, the court of wards. The entire fortunes of those whom we now call wards in chancery were in the hands, and often submitted to the arts or the tyranny of the officers of this court.

When Audley was asked the value of this new office, he replied, that “It might be worth some thousands of pounds to him who after his death would instantly go to heaven; twice as much to him who would go to purgatory; and nobody knows what to him who would adventure to go to hell.” Such was the pious casuistry of a witty usurer. Whether he undertook this last adventure, for his four hundred thousand pounds, how can a sceptical biographer decide! Audley seems ever to have been weak, when temptation was strong.

Some saving qualities, however, were mixed with the vicious ones he liked best. Another passion divided dominion with the sovereign one: Audley’s strongest impressions of character were cast in the old law-library of his youth, and the pride of legal reputation was not inferior in strength to the rage for money. If in the “court of wards” he pounced on incumbrances which lay on estates, and prowled about to discover the craving wants of their owners, it appears that he also received liberal fees from the relatives of young heirs, to protect them from the rapacity of some great persons, but who could not certainly exceed Audley in subtilty. He was an admirable lawyer, for he was not satisfied with hearing, but examining his clients; which he called “pinching the cause where he perceived it was foundered.” He made two observations on clients and lawyers, which have not lost their poignancy. “Many clients, in telling their case, rather plead than relate it, so that the advocate heareth not the true state of it, till opened by the adverse party. Some lawyers seem to keep an assurance-office in their chambers, and will warrant any cause brought unto them, knowing that if they fail, they lose nothing but what was lost long since, their credit.”

The career of Audley’s ambition closed with the extinction of the “court of wards,” by which he incurred the loss of above 100,000_l._ On that occasion he observed, that “his ordinary losses were as the shavings of his beard, which only grew the faster by them; but the loss of this place was like the cutting off of a member, which was irrecoverable.” The hoary usurer pined at the decline of his genius, discoursed on the vanity of the world, and hinted at retreat. A facetious friend told him a story of an old rat, who having acquainted the young rats that he would at length retire to his hole, desiring none to come near him: their curiosity, after some days, led them to venture to look into the hole; and there they discovered the old rat sitting in the midst of a rich parmesan cheese. It is probable that the loss of the last 100,000_l._ disturbed his digestion, for he did not long survive his court of wards.

Such was this man, converting wisdom into cunning, invention into trickery, and wit into cynicism. Engaged in no honourable cause, he however showed a mind resolved, making plain the crooked and involved path he trod. Sustine et abstine, to bear and to forbear, was the great principle of Epictetus, and our monied stoic bore all the contempt and hatred of the living smilingly, while he forbore all the consolations of our common nature to obtain his end. He died in unblest celibacy.--And thus he received the curses of the living for his rapine, while the stranger who grasped the million he had raked together, owed him no gratitude at his death.--D’Israeli.

* * * * *

AVARICE.

There are two sorts of avarice. One consists in a solicitude to acquire wealth for the sake of those advantages which wealth bestows, and the dread of poverty and its attendant evils; the other, in an anxiety for wealth on its own account only, and which sacrifices to the attainment of it every advantage that wealth can give. The first is the exaggeration of a quality, which when not carried to excess is praiseworthy, and is called economy. The other, when indulged in the extreme, produces the effect of a species of prodigality. Where is the great difference between the man who reduces himself to the want of the common necessaries of life, by completing a collection of books, pictures, or medals, and the man who brings himself in effect to the same situation, for the sole end of leaving a precise sum of money to his executors? What signifies whether I starve myself and my family, because I will possess a copper farthing of Otho, or will not part with a golden guinea of king George?

But if there is more folly in one, the other is more likely to be productive of vice. A man who considers wealth as the object of his passion, will hardly refrain from acts of dishonesty when strongly tempted; and yet some of these jackdaw hoarders are men of inviolable integrity.

There are remarkable instances of improvident expenditure by misers on particular occasions. The money-loving Elwes, at his first election for Berkshire, besides opening houses, giving ribbons, and incurring every expense common on those occasions, dispersed guineas and half-guineas among the populace, with a profusion as useless as unprecedented.

Perhaps there is no character so seldom to be met with, as that of a man who is strictly reasonable in the value he sets on property--who can be liberal without profusion, and economical without avarice.

* * * * *

ECONOMY.

A rich and parsimonious person, remarkable for having by his will preferred public charities to his relations, was fond of going to the theatre, and taking his great coat with him. But where should he leave this useful appendage during the performance? The box-keepers would expect at least sixpence; and, should he leave it at a coffee-house, he must spend threepence to obtain house-room for it. His invention supplied him with a method cheaper and equally secure. He pledged his garment every evening that he attended the play, at a pawnbrokers, near the door, for a shilling. This sum he carried back at the close of the play, added one penny to it for interest, and received his great coat again safe and sound, as it had literally been laid up in lavender.

* * * * *

Then Mrs. Gilpin sweetly said Unto her children three, “I’ll clamber o’er this style so high, And you climb after me.”

But having climb’d unto the top, She could no further go, But sate, to every passer by A spectacle and show:

Who said “Your spouse and you this day Both show your horsemanship, And if you stay till he comes back, Your horse will need no whip.”

The sketch, here engraved, (probably from the poet’s friend Romney,) was found with the above three stanzas in the handwriting of Cowper, among the papers of the late Mrs. Unwin. It is to be regretted that no more was found of this little Episode, as it evidently was intended to be, to the “Diverting History of Johnny Gilpin.” It is to be supposed that Mrs. Gilpin, in the interval between dinner and tea, finding the time to hang upon her hands, during her husband’s involuntary excursion, rambled out with the children into the fields at the back of the Bell, (as what could be more natural?) and at one of those high aukward styles, for which Edmonton is so proverbially famed, the embarrassment represented, so mortifying to a substantial City Madam, might have happened; a predicament, which leaves her in a state, which is the very Antipodes to that of her too loco-motive husband; in fact she rides a restive horse.--Now I talk of Edmonton styles, I must speak a little about those of Enfield, its next neighbour, which are so ingeniously contrived--every rising bar to the top becoming more protuberant than the one under it--that it is impossible for any Christian climber to get over, without bruising his (or her) shins as many times as there are bars. These inhospitable invitations to a flayed skin, are planted so thickly too, and are so troublesomely importunate at every little paddock here, that this, with more propriety than Thebes of old, might be entitled Hecatompolis: the Town of the Hundred Gates, or styles.

A SOJOURNER AT ENFIELD.

July 16, 1827.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

SAWSTON CROSS.

In the summer of the year 1815, I fulfilled my long standing promise of spending a day with an old schoolfellow at Sawston, a pleasant little village, delightfully situated in a fertile valley about seven miles south of Cambridge, the north of which is encompassed by the Gogmagog hills, which appear Apennines in miniature; the south, east, and west, are beautifully diversified with trees and foliage, truly picturesque and romantic. After partaking of the good things at the hospitable board of my friend, we set out for a ramble among the quiet rural scenery, and suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a group of people, near the road leading to the church. They were holding a conversation on a grass-plot; from the centre of which rose a cross, enclosed in a small covered building, like an amphitheatre, that added not a little to the romantic appearance of the village; towards the bottom of the southern slope of the grass-plot, propped with uncommon care, and guarded by a holy zeal from the ravages of time, stood an ancient sycamore-tree; and on the east side, to the terror of evil-doers, stood the stocks. Alas! unsparing ignorance has, since then, destroyed this fine tree; “the place that knew it knows it no more,” and the stocks are fallen never to rise again.

My friend, taking me aside, informed me the persons assembled were residents of the place, and that the meeting was convened to sell the cross. “This cross,” continued my friend, “is the ornament of the village. It escaped the phrenetic rage of the puritans in the civil wars, and is of such antiquity, that when it was built is not to be traced with certainty in the records of history. It may be supposed, however, to have been erected by the Knights Templars, as the living belonged to them; for, I believe, it was usual for them to erect crosses on their property. Upon the abolition of the Templars, the living came into the hands of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, afterwards called the Knights of Rhodes, and lastly, of Malta. So early as the thirteenth century public officers sat on this cross to administer justice; at other times, the bishop’s house, near the Campion-field, was used for that purpose: this house is now in ruins, but the cross,” continued my friend, “we possessed as an inheritance from our forefathers, and at this moment the cupidity and folly of the covetous and ignorant are conspiring to destroy the venerable relic.”

Wishing to preserve a memoranda of the old cross, I took a hasty sketch of it, (too hastily perhaps to be sufficiently accurate for an engraving,) and having reached my home, recorded the adventures of the day in my pocket-book, from whence the above extract is taken. Passing through the village in the following autumn, I found that the inhabitants had sacrilegiously levelled the cross and sold the remnants.

The Jews of old, as we’ve been told-- And Scriptures pure disclose-- With harden’d hearts drew lots for parts Of our Salvator’s clothes.

The modern Jews--the Sawstonites-- As harden’d as the Israelites-- In ignorance still more gross-- Thinking they could no longer thrive By Christian means, did means contrive-- Drew lots, and sold the cross!

Cambridge.

T. N.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. II.

THE METHOD AND LOGIC OF DESCARTES AND LOCKE DERIVED FROM THE ANCIENTS.

Within the last two centuries some notions were advanced in logic and metaphysics, which were taken to be new; and Descartes, Leibnitz, Mallebranche, and Locke, were regarded as innovators, although nothing be put forth in their works, but what is clearly laid down in those of the ancients.

Descartes sets forth, as a first principle, that whoever searches for truth, ought once in his lifetime at least to doubt of every thing. He then lays down the four following rules, wherein consists the whole of his logic.--1. Never to admit any thing as true, but what we evidently discern to be so; that is, we should carefully avoid rashness and prejudice, and assent to nothing, till it present itself so clearly to the mind, that there be no occasion to hesitate about it.--2. To reduce every difficulty into as many separate parts, as may be necessary to come at its solution.--3. So to arrange our thoughts, that we may gradually arise from the more simple and obvious, to the more complex and remote, adhering to the order wherein they naturally precede one another.--4. To take so extensive a view of our subject, and be so exact in the enumeration of its parts, that nothing may escape our observation.

The first of these principles of doubt and circumspection, so boasted of in Descartes, is clearly laid down by Aristotle, and forcibly recommended by the very arguments that Descartes assumes. “Whoever seeks after instruction,” says Aristotle, “ought first of all to learn to doubt; for that simplicity of mind, which accompanies hesitation, contributes to the discovery of truth:” and, “whoever searches for truth, without beginning his investigation by doubting of every thing, is like one who wanders he knows not whither, and having no fixed scope, cannot determine where he is; whilst, on the contrary, he who hath learned to doubt, so as to inquire, will find, in the end, the place where he ought to rest.” So, also, speaking of the method to be observed in our investigations, Aristotle bids us begin always with what is most evident and best known; and carefully trace to its first elements and principles whatever is obscure, by properly severing and defining them.

Descartes imagined he had been the first discoverer of one of the most proper engines for sapping and demolishing the great bulwark of scepticism, when he reared even upon doubt itself a basis for truth; for he looked upon himself as the original advancer of the Enthymem,[275] “I doubt (or think) therefore I am.” To Descartes has been assigned the whole honour of this argument, though in reality it is to be found in St. Augustine. “I do not see,” says that great man, “what mighty force there is in the scepticism of the academics. For my part, I look upon it as a very just observation of theirs, that we may deceive ourselves. But if I deceive myself, may I not thence conclude that I am? For he who has no existence, cannot deceive himself; wherefore, by that very circumstance, that I deceive myself, I find that I am.”

Locke, in his “Essay on the Human Understanding,” merely advances the fruits of an exact attention to the principles of Aristotle, who taught that all our ideas originally spring from the senses, insomuch that a blind man can never conceive the idea of colours, nor a deaf man of sounds; and who makes the senses to convey truth, so far as the imagination can discern it; and the understanding, so far as truth regards the conduct of life and morals. It was Aristotle who laid the foundation of that principle, so celebrated among the Peripatetics, that “there is nothing in the understanding but what came into it by the senses.” This principle diffuses itself through his works in a thousand places, and Locke was singularly indebted for the very foundation of his system to the Stoics. The basis of his work is, that our sensations are the materials which reflection makes use of to come at mental notions; and that our sensations are simple ideas. It is true, that he has thrown great light upon our manner of acquiring and associating ideas; but the Stoics reasoned in the very same manner; and if all that they advanced on this subject, in those works of which we have nothing now remaining but the titles, had reached our times, we had not needed the labours of a Locke. There is a most remarkable passage to this point in Plutarch. He says, “The foundation of the doctrine of Zeno and his school, as to logic, was, that all our ideas come from sensation. The mind of man at his birth, say they, is like white paper, adapted to receive whatever may be written on it. The first impressions that it receives come to it from the senses: if the objects are at a distance, memory retains those types of them; and the repetition of these impressions constitutes experience. Ideas or notions are of two kinds, natural and artificial. The natural have their source in sensation, or are derived from the senses; whence they also gave them the name of anticipations: the artificial are produced by reflection, in beings endowed with reason.” This passage, and others in Origen, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, and St. Augustine, may serve to trace the true origin of the principle, “That there is nothing in the understanding, but what entered into it by the senses.” It may be observed, that this axiom, so clearly expressed by the ancient Stoics and Epicureans, and by Locke among the moderns, has been erroneously attributed by several learned men, especially Gassendi and Harvey, to Aristotle.

[275] Enthymem: an argument consisting only of an antecedent and consequential proposition; a syllogism, where the major proposition is suppressed, and only the minor and consequence produced in words.

Johnson.

* * * * *

MECHANICAL POWER.

Mr. Robert Owen calculates that two hundred arms, with machines, now manufacture as much cotton as twenty millions of arms were able to manufacture without machines forty years ago; and that the cotton now manufactured in the course of one year, in Great Britain, would require, without machines, sixteen millions of workmen with simple wheels. He calculates further, that the quantity of manufactures of all sorts produced by British workmen with the aid of machines is so great, that it would require, without the assistance of machinery, the labour of four hundred millions of workmen.

In the wool manufacture, machines possess an eminent advantage over common wheels. The yarn on thirty or thirty-six spindles is all equally twisted and drawn to the same degree of fineness. The most dexterous spinners cannot twist so equally and so gently twenty slips of yarn from wool of the same quality, as a machine can do twenty thousand.

At one of the cotton mills in Manchester yarn has been spun so fine, as to require 350 hanks to weigh one pound avoirdupois. The perimeter of the common reel being one yard and a half, 80 threads or revolutions would measure 120 yards; and one hank seven times as much, or 840 yards, which multiplied by 350, gives 294,000 yards, or 167 miles and a fraction.

A steam-engine of the ordinary pressure and construction, with a cylinder of thirty inches in diameter, will perform the work of forty horses; and, as it may be made to act without intermission, while horses will not work more than eight hours in the day, it will do the work of one hundred and twenty horses; and as the work of a horse is equal to that of five men, it will perform as much as six hundred men can; while its whole expense is only equal to about half the number of horses for which it is substituted.

The only purpose to which steam-engines were first applied was the raising of water from coal-pits, mines, &c.; but they are now used for many different purposes in which great power is required. Mr. Bolton applied the steam-engine to his apparatus for coining; and, by the help of four boys only, it was capable of striking thirty thousand pieces of money in an hour; the machine itself was made to keep an accurate account of the number struck off.

* * * * *

MANUFACTURING CELERITY.

In 1811 a gentleman made a bet of one thousand guineas, that he would have a coat made in the course of a single day, from the first process of shearing the sheep till its completion by the tailor. The wager was decided at Newbury, on the 25th of June in that year, by Mr. John Coxeter, of Greenham Mills, near that town. At five o’clock that morning, sir John Throckmorton, bart. presented two Southdown wedder sheep to Mr. Coxeter, and the sheep were shorn, the wool spun, the yarn spooled, warped, loomed, and wove; and the cloth burred, milled, rowed, dried, sheared, and pressed, and put into the hands of the tailors by four o’clock that afternoon: and at twenty minutes past six the coat, entirely finished, was presented by Mr. Coxeter to sir John Throckmorton, who appeared with it before upwards of five thousand spectators, who rent the air with acclamations at this remarkable instance of despatch.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

BALLAD.

SUGGESTED ON READING THE NOVEL OF “CASTLE BAYNARD.”

“And must thou go, and must thou go, So very, very soon? There is not time to say farewell Before the morrow’s noon.”

“O let me kiss away those tears That dim thine eyes of blue, The king’s behest must be obeyed, And I must sigh, adieu.”

“Yet stay! oh stay! my Eustace, stay! A little, little while; I fear me that in Gallia’s court Thou’lt woo another’s smile.”

“Nay, nay, Matilda, say not so, Thy knight will aye be true, True to his own betrothed maid, So now, sweet love, adieu.”

“Yet tarry--canst thou tarry not One other, other day? Then guard this pledge of plighted faith When thou art far away.”

“This precious gift, this flaxen lock, How fondly shall I view, And cherish next my heart--but now, One last, last kiss, adieu.”

* * *

July 3, 1827.

* * * * *

HELL BRIDGE.

There is a narrow pass between the mountains in the neighbourhood of Bendearg, in the Highlands of Scotland, which, at a little distance, has the appearance of an immense artificial bridge thrown over a tremendous chasm: but on nearer approach it is seen to be a wall of nature’s own masonry, formed of vast and rugged bodies of solid rock, piled on each other as if in giant sport of architecture. Its sides are in some places covered with trees of a considerable size; and the passenger who has a head steady enough to look down, may see the eyrie of birds of prey beneath his feet. The path across is so narrow, that it cannot admit of persons passing, and indeed none but natives attempt the dangerous route, though it saves a circuit of three miles; yet it sometimes happens that two travellers meet, owing to the curve formed by the pass preventing a view over it from either side, and, in that case, one person lies down while the other creeps over his body. One day, a highlander walking along the pass, when he had gained the highest part of the arch, observed another coming leisurely up, and being himself one of the patrician order, called to him to lie down; the person addressed disregarded the command, and the highlanders met on the summit. They were Cairn and Bendearg, of two families in enmity to each other. “I was first at the top,” said Bendearg, “and called out first; lie down, that I may pass over in peace.” “When the Grant prostrates himself before the M‘Pherson,” answered the other, “it must be with a sword through his body.” “Turn back then,” said Bendearg, “and repass as you came.” “Go back yourself, if you like it,” replied Grant; “I will not be the first of my name to turn before the M‘Phersons.” They then threw their bonnets over the precipice, and advanced with a slow and cautious pace closer to each other--both were unarmed. Preparing for a desperate struggle, they planted their feet firmly on the ground, compressed their lips, knit their brows, and fixing fierce and watchful eyes on each other, stood prepared for an onset. They both grappled at the same moment; but, being of equal strength, were unable to shift each other’s position, and stood fixed on the rock with suppressed breath, and muscles strained to the “top of their bent,” like statues carved out of the solid stone. At length M‘Pherson, suddenly removing his right foot so as to give him greater purchase, stooped his body, and bent his enemy down with him by main strength, till they both leaned over the precipice, looking into the terrible abyss. The contest was doubtful, for Grant had placed his foot firmly on an elevation at the brink, and had equal command of his enemy, but at this moment M‘Pherson sunk slowly and firmly on his knee, and, while Grant suddenly started back, stooping to take the supposed advantage, whirled him over his head into the gulf. M‘Pherson himself fell backwards, his body partly hanging over the rock, a fragment gave way beneath him, and he sunk further, till, catching with a desperate effort at the solid stone above, he regained his footing. There was a pause of death-like stillness, and the bold heart of M‘Pherson felt sick and faint. At length, as if compelled by some mysterious feeling, he looked down over the precipice. Grant had caught with a death-like gripe by the rugged point of a rock--his enemy was almost within his reach. His face was turned upward, and there was in it horror and despair--but he uttered no word or cry. The next moment he loosed his hold, his brains were dashed out before the eyes of his hereditary foe: the mangled body disappeared among the trees, and his last heavy and hollow sound arose from the bottom. M‘Pherson returned home an altered man. He purchased a commission in the army, and fell fighting in the wars of the Peninsula. The Gaelic name of the place where this tragedy was acted signifies “Hell Bridge.”

* * * * *

~Clubs~

AT BIRMINGHAM.

The whole British empire may be justly considered as one grand alliance, united for public and private interest; and this vast body of people is subdivided into an infinity of smaller fraternities, for individual benefit.

Perhaps there are hundreds of these societies in Birmingham, under the name of “clubs;” some of them boast the antiquity of a century, and by prudent direction have acquired a capital, at accumulating interest. Thousands of the inhabitants are connected; nay, to be otherwise is rather unfashionable, and some are people of sentiment and property.

Among a variety of purposes intended by these laudable institutions, the principal one is that of supporting the sick. Each society is governed by a code of laws of its own making, which have at least the honour of resembling those of the legislature; for words without sense are found in both, and we sometimes stumble upon contradiction.

The poor-rates, enormous as they appear, are softened by these brotherly aids; they tend also to keep the mind at rest, for a man will enjoy the day of health, with double relish, when he considers he has a treasure laid up for that of sickness. If a member only of a poor family be sick, the head still remains to procure necessaries; but if that head be disordered, the whole source of supply is dried up.

The general custom is to meet at a public house every fortnight, spend a trifle, and each contribute sixpence, or any stated sum, to the common stock. The landlord is always treasurer, or father, and is assisted by two stewards, annually or monthly chosen.

As honour and low life are not always found together, we sometimes see a man, who is idle, wish the society may suppose him sick, that he may rob them with more security; or, if a member hang long “upon the box,” his brethren seek a pretence to expel him. On the other hand, we frequently observe a man silently retreat from the club, if another falls upon the box, and fondly suppose himself no longer a member; or if the box be loaded with sickness, the whole club has been known to dissolve, that the members might rid themselves of the burden. The Court of Requests finds an easy remedy for these evils, at a trifling expense.

The charity of the club is often extended beyond the grave, and terminates with a present to the widow.

Philosophers tell us, “There is no good without its kindred evil.” This amiable body of men, marshalled to relieve disease, has one small alloy, and perhaps but one. As liquor and labour are inseparable, the imprudent member is apt to forget to quit the club-room when he has spent his necessary two-pence, but continues there, to the injury of his family.

One of these institutions is the “Rent Club,” where, from the weekly sums deposited by the members, a sop is regularly served up twice a year, to prevent the growlings of a landlord.

In the “Breeches Club” every member ballots for a pair, value a guinea, promised of more value by the maker. This club dissolves when all the members are served.

The intentions of the “Book Club” are well known to catch the productions of the press as they rise.

The “Watch Club” has generally a watchmaker for its president, is composed of young men, and is always temporary.

If a tailor be short of employment, he has only to consult a landlord over a bottle, and by their joint powers, they give birth to a “Clothes Club,” where every member is supplied with a suit to his taste, of a stipulated price. These are chiefly composed of bachelors, who wish to shine in the eyes of the fair.

A bricklayer stands at the head of the “Building Club,” where every member perhaps subscribes two guineas per month, and each house, value about one hundred pounds, is balloted for as soon as erected. As a house is a weighty concern, every member is obliged to produce two bondsmen for the performance of covenants.

I will venture to pronounce another, the “Capital Club;” for when the contributions amount to fifty pounds, the members ballot for this capital, to bring into business, here also securities are necessary. It is easy to conceive the two last clubs are extremely beneficial to building and to commerce.

The last I shall enumerate is the “Clock Club.” When the weekly deposits of the members amount to about four pounds, they cast lots who shall be first served with a clock of that value, and continue the same method till the whole club is supplied; after which, the clock-maker and landlord cast about for another set, who are chiefly young housekeepers. Hence the beginner ornaments his premises with furniture, the artist finds employment with profit, and the publican empties his barrel.[276]

[276] Hutton’s History of Birmingham.

* * * * *

HYPOCHONDRIA.

A person at Taunton often kept at home for several weeks, under an idea of danger in going abroad. Sometimes he imagined that he was a cat, and seated himself on his hind quarters; at other times he would fancy himself a tea-pot, and stand with one arm a-kimbo like the handle, and the other stretched out like the spout. At last he conceived himself to have died, and would not move or be moved till the coffin came. His wife, in serious alarm, sent for a surgeon, who addressed him with the usual salutation, “How do you do this morning?”

“Do!” replied he in a low voice, “a pretty question to a dead man!”

“Dead, sir! what do you mean?”

“Yes, I died last Wednesday; the coffin will be here presently, and I shall be buried to-morrow.”

The surgeon, a man of sense and skill, immediately felt the patient’s pulse, and shaking his head, said, “I find it is indeed too true; you are certainly defunct; the blood is in a state of stagnation, putrefaction is about to take place, and the sooner you are buried the better.”

The coffin arrived, he was carefully placed in it, and carried towards the church. The surgeon had previously given instructions to several neighbours how to proceed. The procession had scarcely moved a dozen yards, when a person stopped to inquire who they were carrying to the grave? “Mr. ----, our late worthy overseer.”

“What! is the old rogue gone at last? a good release, for a greater villain never lived.”

The imaginary deceased no sooner heard this attack on his character, than he jumped up, and in a threatening posture said, “You lying scoundrel, if I was not dead I’d make you suffer for what you say; but as it is, I am forced to submit.” He then quietly laid down again; but ere they had proceeded half way to church, another party stopped the procession with the same inquiry, and added invective and abuse. This was more than the supposed corpse could bear; and jumping from the coffin, was in the act of following his defamers, when the whole party burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, the public exposure awakened him to a sense of his folly, and he fought against the weakness, and, in the end, conquered it.

* * * * *

~Prisons,~

ANCIENT AND MODERN.

The prisons of the classical ancients consisted of “souterains,” or, sometimes, of only simple vestibules, where the prisoners saw their friends, &c.: it was in this latter kind of confinement that Socrates was placed. Their “latomiæ” and “lapidicinæ” were caves or vast quarries, guarded at the entrance: in the “latomiæ” prisoners could move about; but in the “lapidicinæ” they were chained and fettered. The famous “latomiæ” at Syracuse made a capital prison. The prisoners bribed the lictor or executioner to introduce food, and allow them to visit friends, &c. Some prisoners had merely chains upon the legs, others were set fast in stocks. There were also free prisons; as committal to the house of a magistrate, or custody of the accused in his own house.[277] Felix, at Cesarea, commanded a centurion to keep Paul, and to let him have liberty, and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come to him. At Rome, Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him; and while in that custody the chief of the Jews came and heard him expound. He spoke to them of being “bound with this chain.” He dwelt two whole years in his own hired house preaching and teaching with all confidence, no man forbidding him.[278]

In the middle age there were prisons provided with collars, handcuffs, and other fetters, without doors or windows, and descended into only by ladders. Other prisons were made like a cage, with portcullised doors, as now; and there was a kind of prison, called “pediculus,” because in it the feet were bound with chains, and prisons were made dark on purpose.

Anglo-Saxon prisons were annexed to palaces, with a work-place in them; the prisoners were chained and had guards. In castles there were dungeons, consisting of four dark apartments, three below, and one above, up a long staircase, all well secured; in the uppermost, a ring to which criminals were chained. Prisons were sometimes guarded by dogs, and prisoners bound in chains, brought in carts, and discharged upon a new reign.[279]

* * * * *

AN ENGLISH PRISON A. D. 1827.

In the Table Book, which notes the manners and customs, and sketches the features of ancient and modern times, whenever they are conveniently presented, it seems appropriate to notice a petition printed by order of the House of Commons, on the 12th of February, 1827, respecting

HORSHAM GAOL, SUSSEX.

The petition alluded to is from debtors in the above prison, and the Votes of the House state the following particulars, as set forth in the petition:--

The said gaol is ill constructed, confined, and inconvenient, having only twenty cells on the debtors’ side, half of which are appropriated to the debtors, and the other half chiefly to smugglers and others for notorious offences against the revenue laws, and to deserters from the army.

The said cells for debtors are constructed of the same dimensions, and in the same manner, as the cells for the felons, having no glazed sash-windows, but merely iron-gratings, with the addition at night of an ill-constructed wooden shutter, having a small square hole in the same of about six inches diameter, in some instances glazed and in others not, and by no means calculated to keep out the rain or cold during the inclement season.

The cells are small, being only twelve feet by eight feet, and having no fire-place or other means of being warmed.

The said cells are merely brick arches lime-whitened, with rough stone pavement, and so exceedingly damp at times that the water condenses on the walls, and runs down the sides thereof, and on to the floor, and from thence into the common passage, which is so narrow, that when any of the doors of the cells are open there is not room for one person safely to walk, particularly as the passage is dark.

When the weather is wet, or otherwise inconvenient, the shutters of the cells must necessarily be put up to exclude the same, thereby rendering the cells so dark that the prisoners cannot conveniently see either to read or write; and, therefore, when the prisoners wish to retire to read or write they cannot do so, and are compelled to sit in the common kitchen, which is small, and consequently crowded, and is the only place for the cooking for all the prisoners and at the same time to accommodate them for a sleeping ward and other purposes.

The fire-place is small and inconvenient, and very scantily supplied with fuel, and when the prison is crowded, as it has lately been, it is totally impossible for all the prisoners to have access to the fire, for the required purposes of cooking or otherwise particularly when most required, as in wet and inclement weather.

It sometimes happens that thirteen or more prisoners are obliged to sleep in the said kitchen, and three in each bed in many of the cells.

To each cell is affixed an iron-grating door, and also a door made of timber; and the debtors are locked up within their respective cells at nine o’clock in the evening, having no access to them till seven o’clock the next morning, so that any one being taken ill in the night might lay and perish before his situation could be discovered or made known, or any assistance rendered.

The prisoners are unlocked at seven o’clock in the morning, and are allowed to go into the yard of the prison till eight, when they are called in by means of a whistle until nine o’clock, and allowed to remain in the yard again until twelve o’clock at noon, again locked into the wards till one o’clock, and again in the same manner at five o’clock in the afternoon for the night.

Respectable females are confined in the same ward with the smugglers and others, and no female is appointed or employed to attend on them in any case.

The state of the prison is in general filthy.

There is no sink or water-course, nor any water laid on to either of the wards, nor any means of obtaining water after five o’clock in the evening.

If any part or the whole of the prison is at any time cleaned, it is done by some of the debtors.

There is no proper place for the reception of the dirty water or filth from the wards, but the same is indiscriminately thrown out at the iron-grating doors at the end of the passage to each ward, thereby occasioning a great stench highly disagreeable and unwholesome to the prisoners.

The prisoners are not allowed to see their respective friends or solicitors within the walls of the prison, but are compelled to come into a room in the gaoler’s house, and there meet their friends or solicitors, subject to the continual interruption or presence of the gaoler, his wife, or others, to the great annoyance of the prisoners and their friends, and on the sabbath-day even this privilege is not allowed.

No debtor is allowed to have any trunk, portmanteau, dressing-case, or even a clothes-bag, with lock and key, within the prison, so that the prisoners are obliged, whensoever they require any change of clothing, to obtain leave to come into the room in the gaoler’s house before mentioned, and there take them from their portmanteau, or otherwise; no respectable prisoner can therefore have any article of convenience or value with him, without being obliged either to carry it about his person, or leave it exposed in his cell, or in an ill-constructed small cupboard, where he is also obliged to keep his provisions, &c.; and so great is the injustice in the prison, that smugglers not only receive fourpence-halfpenny per day, but are also allowed a quart of strong beer or ale each man, while the debtors are not permitted to have strong beer or ale even by paying for it.

When a debtor is removed by a writ of habeas corpus to London, a distance of thirty-six miles, and for which one shilling per mile is allowed by law to the gaoler, the sum of two pounds five shillings has been demanded and taken by the gaoler.

A marked inattention to the complaints or remonstrances repeatedly made by various prisoners, together with the general bad state of the prison, and the excessive and unnecessary harshness of the regulations, rendered it imperative on the petitioners to attempt to lay their grievances before the house, in the fervent hope that the house would be pleased to cause inquiry to be made into the truth of the several allegations contained in the petition, which the petitioners pledge themselves to prove, if permitted, by affidavit or otherwise, as the house should direct.

The petitioners humbly prayed, that a speedy remedy might be applied to their complaints as to the house in its wisdom should seem meet.

[277] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[278] Acts xxviii. 16, 20, 23, 30, 31.

[279] Fosbroke.

* * * * *

ODE

TO A SPARROW ALIGHTING BEFORE THE JUDGES’ CHAMBERS IN SERJEANT’S INN, FLEET-STREET.

Written in half an hour, while attending a Summons.

Art thou solicitor for all thy tribe, That thus I now behold thee?--one that comes Down amid bail-above, an under-scribe, To sue for crumbs?-- Away! ’tis vain to ogle round the square,-- I fear thou hast no head-- To think to get thy bread Where lawyers are!

Say--hast thou pull’d some sparrow o’er the coals And flitted here a summons to indite? I only hope no curs’d judicial kite Has struck thee off the rolls! I scarce should deem thee of the law--and yet Thine eye is keen and quick enough--and still Thou bear’st thyself with perk and tiny fret:-- But then how desperately short thy bill! How quickly might’st thou be of that bereft? A sixth “tax’d off”--how little would be left!

Art thou on summons come, or order bent? Tell me--for I am sick at heart to know! Say,--in the sky is there “distress for rent,” That thou hast flitted to the courts below? If thou wouldst haul some sparrow o’er the coals, And wouldst his spirit hamper and perplex-- Go to John Body--he’s available-- Sign--swear--and get a bill of Middlesex Returnable (mind,--bailable!) On Wednesday after th’ morrow of All Souls.

Or dost thou come a sufferer? I see-- I see thee “cast thy bail-ful eyes around;” Oh, call James White, and he will set thee free, He and John Baines will speedily be bound,-- In double the sum That thou wilt come And meet the plaintiff Bird on legal ground. But stand, oh, stand aside,--for look, Judge Best, on no fantastic toe, Through dingy arch,--by dirty nook,-- Across the yard into his room doth go-- And wisely there doth read Summons for time to plead.-- And frame Order for same.

Thou twittering, legal, foolish, feather’d thing, A tiny boy, with salt for latitat, Is sneaking, bailiff-like, to touch thy wing;-- Canst thou not see the trick he would be at? Away! away! and let him not prevail. I do rejoice thou’rt off! and yet I groan To read in that boy’s silly fate my own I am at fault! For from my attic though I brought my salt, I’ve fail’d to put a little on thy tale!

Vol. II.--31.

On our visit to Bromley church, as soon as the modern outer gates of the porch were unlocked, we were struck by the venerable appearance of the old inner oak door; and, instead of taking a view of the church, of which there are several prints, Mr. Williams made a drawing of the decayed portal, from whence he executed the present engraving. On the hinge-side of the engraving, there is a representation of the outer edge of the door.

This door formerly hung on the western stone jamb; but, for warmth, and greater convenience, the churchwardens, under whose management the edifice was last repaired, put up a pair of folding-doors covered with crimson cloth; yet, with respectful regard, worthy of imitation in other places, they preserved this vestige of antiquity, and were even careful to display its time-worn front. For this purpose the door has been attached to the eastern jamb, so that if it were shut its ornamented side would be hidden; instead whereof, it is kept open by a slight fastening against the eastern form, or settle, within the porch.

* * * * *

It may be remembered by readers of the Every Day Book,[280] that, on St. Mark’s eve, our ancestors “watched the church-porch,” as they do to the present day in some parts of Yorkshire and the north of England, from eleven o’clock at night till one in the morning. This done thrice, on the third year they were supposed to have seen the ghosts of those who were to die the next year pass by into the church. When any one sickens that is thought to have been seen in this manner, it is presently whispered about that he will not recover, for that such or such an one, who watched on St. Mark’s eve, says so. This idle superstition is in such force, that if the patients themselves hear of it, they almost despair of recovery: many are said to have actually died by their imaginary fears. The like irrational belief and fond practice prevail on St. John’s eve. “I am sure,” says a writer in the “Connoisseur,” “that my own sister Hetty, who died just before Christmas, stood in the church-porch last Midsummer eve, to see all that were to die that year in our parish; and she saw her own apparition.” It is told of a company of these “watchers,” that one of them fell into a sound sleep, so that he could not be waked, and while in this state his ghost or spirit was seen by the rest of his companions knocking at the church-door.

In relation to this church-watching on St. Mark’s and St. John’s eve, there is a narrative in the “Athenian Oracle,” published by John Dunton:--“Nine others besides myself went into a church-porch, with an expectation of seeing those who should die that year; but about eleven o’clock I was so afraid that I left them, and all the nine did positively affirm to me, that about an hour after, the church-doors flying open, the minister, (who it seems was very much troubled that night in his sleep,) with such as should die that year, did appear in order: which persons they named to me, and they appeared then all very healthful; but six of them died in six weeks after, in the very same order that they appeared.”[281]

* * * * *

Before mention of the “church-porch,” it might have been more orderly to have noticed the “church-yard-porch.” There is one at Bromley, though more modern than the fine “lich-gate” at Beckenham already engraved and described.[282] Sir John Sinclair records of some parishioners in the county of Argyll, that “though by no means superstitious, (an observation which in the sequel seems very odd,) they still retain some opinions handed down by their ancestors, perhaps from the time of the Druids. It is believed by them, that the spirit of the last person that was buried watches round the church-yard till another is buried, to whom he delivers his charge.” Further on, in the same work,[283] is related, that “in one division of this county, where it was believed that the ghost of the person last buried kept the gate of the church-yard till relieved by the next victim of death, a singular scene occurred, when two burials were to take place in one church-yard on the same day. Both parties staggered forward as fast as possible to consign their respective friend in the first place to the dust: if they met at the gate, the dead were thrown down till the living decided, by blows, whose ghost should be condemned to porter it.”

* * * * *

Bromley church-door is a vestige; for on examination it will be found not perfect. It is seven feet four inches in height, and in width four feet eight inches: the width of the door-way, between the stone jambs, is two inches more; the width of the door itself, therefore, has been reduced these two inches; and hence the centre of the ornaments in relief is not in the centre of the door in its present state. It is a good specimen of the fast-decaying, and often prematurely removed, fine doors of our old churches. The lock, probably of like age with the door, and also of wood, is a massive effectual contrivance, two feet six inches long, seven inches and a half deep, and five inches thick; with a bolt an inch in height, and an inch and a half in thickness, that shoots out two inches on the application of the rude heavy key, which as to form and size is exactly depictured in the following page. It seemed good to introduce the engraving, both in respect to the antiquity of the original, and to the information it conveys of the devices of our ancestors for locking-up.

Keys varied in their form according to the age wherein they were made, and the purposes for which they were used. Anciently, the figure of the key of the west door of the church was put in the register. This was mostly done on the delivery of the church keys to the “ostiarii,” who were officers, created with much ceremony, to whom the keys were intrusted: the bishops themselves delivered the keys, and the deacons the doors of the respective churches.[284]

* * * * *

While W. drew the door of Bromley church I had ample opportunity to make measurements and look about; and I particularly noticed a capital large umbrella of old construction, which I brought out and set up in the church-yard: with its wooden handle, fixed into a movable shaft, shod with an iron point at the bottom, and struck into the ground, it stood seven feet high; the awning is of a green oiled-canvass, such as common umbrellas were made of forty years ago, and is stretched on ribs of cane. It opens to a diameter of five feet, and forms a decent and capacious covering for the minister while engaged in the burial-service at the grave. It is in every respect a more fitting exhibition than the watchbox sort of vehicle devised for the same purpose, and in some church-yards trundled from grave to grave, wherein the minister and clerk stand, like the ordinary of Newgate and a dying malefactor at the new drop in the Old Bailey. An unseemly thing of this description is used at St. George’s in the Borough.

* * * * *

The church of Bromley, an ancient spacious edifice with a square tower, has been much modernised, yet to the credit of the inhabitants it retains its old Norman font. It is remarkable, that it is uncertain to what saint it was dedicated: some ascribe it to St. Peter and St. Paul; others to St. Blaise; but it is certain that Browne Willis, with all his industry and erudite research, was unable to determine the point. This I affirm from a MS. memorandum before me in his hand-writing. It abounds with monuments, though none are of very old standing. There was formerly a tomb to Water de Henche, “persone de Bromleghe, 1360.”[285] Among the mural tablets are the names of Elizabeth, wife to “the great moralist” Dr. Johnson; Dr. Hawkesworth, a resident in Bromley, popular by his “Adventurer;” and Dr. Zachary Pearce. The latter was successively rector of St. Bartholomew’s by the Royal Exchange, vicar of St. Martin’s in the Fields, dean of Winchester, bishop of Bangor, dean of Westminster, and bishop of Rochester. His principal literary labours were editorial--“Longinus de Sublimitate,” “Cicero de Officiis,” and “Cicero de Oratore.” He wrote in the “Spectator,” No. 572, upon “Quacks,” and No. 633 upon “Eloquence;” and No. 121 in the “Guardian,” signed “Ned Mum.” The chief of this prelate’s other works were Sermons. There is a cenotaph to him in Westminster Abbey; a distinction he was entitled to by his learning and virtues.

Dr. Zachary Pearce is remarkable for having desired to resign his deanery and bishopric. In 1763, being then seventy-three years old, he told his majesty in his closet that he found the business of his stations too much for him; that he was afraid it would grow more so as he advanced in years, and desired to retire, that he might spend more time in his devotions and studies. Afterwards, one of the law lords doubted the practicability of resigning a bishopric, but on further consideration the difficulty disappeared. The king then gave his consent, and the bishop kissed hands upon it; but lord Bath requesting the bishopric and deanery of the king for Dr. Newton, then bishop of Bristol, the ministry thought that no church dignities should pass from the crown but through their hands, and opposed the resignation, as the shortest way of keeping the bishopric from being disposed of otherwise than they liked. On this occasion the law lord, earl Mansfield, who had been doubtful, and who soon after had seen clear, doubted again, and Dr. Pearce was told by the king he must think no more about resigning the bishopric. In 1768 he resigned the deanery of Westminster, and wrote

THE WISH.

From all Decanal cares at last set free, (O could that freedom still more perfect be) My sun’s meridian hour, long past and gone; Dim night, unfit for work, comes hast’ning on; In life’s late ev’ning, thro’ a length of day, I find me gently tending to decay: How shall I then my fated exit make? How best secure my great eternal stake? This my prime wish, to see thy glorious face, O gracious God, in some more happy place; Till then to spend my short remains of time In thoughts, which raise the soul to truths sublime; To live with innocence, with peace and love, As do those saints who dwell in bliss above: By prayers, the wings which faith to reason lends, O now my soul to Heav’n’s high throne ascends: While here on earth, thus on my bended knee, O Power divine, I supplicate to thee; May I meet Death, when his approach is made, Not fend of life, nor of his dart afraid; Feel that my gain, which I esteem’d a loss: Heav’n is the gold refin’d, earth but the dross.

Bishop Pearce lived and laboured till June 29, 1774, when he died in the eighty-fourth year of his age.

* * * * *

There is a neat monument by Nollekens over the north gallery of the church, with a remarkable inscription:--“Sacred to the memory of Thomas Chase, Esq. formerly of this parish, born in the city of Lisbon the 1st of November, 1729; and buried under the ruins of the same house where he first saw the light in the ever-memorable and terrible earthquake which befell that city the 1st of November, 1755: when after a most wonderful escape, he by degrees recovered from a very deplorable condition, and lived till the 20th of Nov 1788, aged 59 years.”

* * * * *

On the outside of the church a monumental stone, fixed in the wall, records a memorable and affecting instance of gratitude in noble terms:--

Near this Place lies the Body of ELIZABETH MONK, Who departed this Life On the 27th Day of August, 1753, Aged 101: She was the Widow of JOHN MONK, late of this Parish, Blacksmith, Her second Husband, To whom she had been a wife near fifty Years, By whom she had no Children; And of the Issue of the first Marriage none lived to the second; But VIRTUE Would not suffer her to be Childless: An Infant, to whom, and to whose Father and Mother she had been Nurse (Such is the Uncertainty of temporal Prosperity) Became dependent upon Strangers for the Necessaries of Life: To him she afforded the Protection of a Mother. This parental Charity Was returned with filial Affection; And she was supported, in the Feebleness of Age, by him whom she had cherished in the Helplessness of Infancy. LET IT BE REMEMBERED, That there is no Station in which Industry will not obtain Power to be liberal, Nor any Character on which Liberality will not confer Honor She had been long prepared, by a simple and unaffected Piety, For that awful moment, which, however delayed, Is universally sure. How few are allowed an equal Time of Probation! How many, by their Lives, appear to presume upon more!

To preserve the memory of this person; and yet more, to perpetuate the lesson of her life, this stone was erected by voluntary contribution.

* * * * *

An intelligent inhabitant of Bromley, in the year 1747, mentions a discovery, with some accompanying remarks, appropriate to the present notice:--

“In the year 1733, the present clerk of the parish church of Bromley in Kent, by his digging a grave in that church-yard, close to the east end of the chancel wall, dug up a funeral crown, or garland, which is most artificially wrought in fillagree work with gold and silver wire, in resemblance of myrtle, (with which plant the funebrial garlands of the ancients were composed,[286]) whose leaves are fastened to hoops of larger wire of iron, now something corroded with rust, but both the gold and silver remain to this time very little different from their original splendour. It was also lined with cloth of silver, a piece of which, together with part of this curious garland, I keep as a choice relic of antiquity.

“Besides these crowns, (which were buried with deceased virgins,) the ancients had also their depository garlands, the use of which was continued even till of late years (and perhaps are still retained in many parts of this nation, for my own knowledge of these matters extends not above twenty or thirty miles round London,) which garlands, at the funerals of the deceased, were carried solemnly before the corpse by two maids, and afterwards hung up in some conspicuous place within the church, in memorial of the departed person, and were (at least all that I have seen) made after the following manner, viz. the lower rim or circlet was a broad hoop of wood, whereunto was fixed, at the sides thereof, part of two other hoops crossing each other at the top, at right angles, which formed the upper part, being about one-third longer than the width; these hoops were wholly covered with artificial flowers of paper, dyed horn, or silk, and more or less beauteous, according to the skill or ingenuity of the performer. In the vacancy of the inside, from the top, hung white paper, cut in form of gloves, whereon was wrote the deceased’s name, age, &c. together with long slips of various coloured paper or ribbons. These were many times intermixed with gilded or painted empty shells of blown eggs, as farther ornaments; or, it may be, as emblems of the bubbles or bitterness of this life; whilst other garlands had only a solitary hour-glass hanging therein, as a more significant symbol of mortality.

“About forty years ago these garlands grew much out of repute, and were thought by many as very unbecoming decorations for so sacred a place as the church; and at the reparation or new beautifying several churches where I have been concerned, I was obliged, by order of the minister and churchwardens, to take the garlands down, and the inhabitants were strictly forbidden to hang up any more for the future. Yet notwithstanding, several people, unwilling to forsake their ancient and delightful custom, continued still the making of them, and they were carried at the funerals, as before, to the grave, and put therein upon the coffin over the face of the dead; this I have seen done in many places.”[287]

[280] See the Every Day-Book, on St. John’s eve, &c.

[281] Brand.

[282] In vol. i. p. 715.

[283] Statistical Account of Scotland.

[284] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.

[285] Weever.

[286] Sir Thomas Brown’s Misc. Tracts, p. 29.

[287] Gentleman’s Magazine.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXVII.

[From the “Gentleman of Venice,” a Tragi-Comedy by James Shirley, 1655.]

Giovanni, of noble extraction, but brought up a Gardener, and ignorant of any greater birth, loves Bellaura, a Princess; and is beloved again.

Bellaura. Giovanni.

Bell. How now, Giovanni; What, with a sword! You were not used to appear Thus arm’d. Your weapon is a spade, I take it. Gio. It did become my late profession, Madam: But I am changed-- Bell. Not to a soldier? Gio. It is a title, Madam, will much grace me; And with the best collection of my thoughts I have ambition to the wars. Bell. You have? Gio. O ’tis a brave profession and rewards All loss we meet, with double weight in glory; A calling, Princes still are proud to own; And some do willingly forget their crowns, To be commanded. ’Tis the spring of all We here entitle fame to; Emperors, And all degrees of honours, owing all Their names to this employment; in her vast And circular embraces holding Kings, And making them; and yet so kind as not To exclude such private things as I, who may Learn and commence in her great arts.--My life Hath been too useless to my self and country; ’Tis time I should employ it, to deserve A name within their registry, that bring The wealth, the harvest, home of well-bought honour. Bell. Yet I can see Through all this revolution, Giovanni, ’Tis something else has wrought this violent change. Pray let me be of counsel with your thoughts, And know the serious motive; come, be clear. I am no enemy, and can assist Where I allow the cause. Gio. You may be angry, Madam, and chide it as a saucy pride In me to name or look at honour; nor Can I but know what small addition Is my unskilful arm to aid a country. Bell. I may therefore justly suspect there is Something of other force, that moves you to The wars. Enlarge my knowledge with the secret. Gio. At this command I open my heart. Madam, I must confess there is another cause, Which I dare not in my obedience Obscure, since you will call it forth; and yet I know you will laugh at me-- Bell. It would ill Become my breeding, Giovanni-- Gio. Then, Know, Madam, I am in love. Bell. In love with whom? Gio. With one I dare not name, she is so much Above my birth and fortunes. Bell. I commend Your flight. But does she know it? Gio. I durst never Appear with so much boldness to discover My heart’s so great ambition; it is here still A strange and busy guest. Bell. And you think absence May cure this wound-- Gio. Or death-- Bell. I may presume You think she’s fair-- Gio. I dare as soon question your beauty, Madam, The only ornament and star of Venice, Pardon the bold comparison; yet there is Something in you, resembles my great Mistress. She blushes--(aside). Such very beams disperseth her bright eye, Powerful to restore decrepit nature; But when she frowns, and changes from her sweet Aspect, (as in my fears I see you now, Offended at my boldness), she does blast Poor Giovanni thus, and thus I wither At heart, and wish myself a thing lost in My own forgotten dust.

C. L.

* * * * *

JAMES THOMSON.

A volume, entitled the “English Gentleman’s Library Manual,” contains the following remarkable anecdotes respecting the author of “The Seasons.”

MEMORANDA COMMUNICATED BY JAMES ROBERTSON, ESQ. OF RICHMOND, IN SURREY, LATE SURGEON TO THE HOUSEHOLD AT KEW, OCTOBER 17, 1791, TO THOMAS PARKE, ESQ. THE POET, AND BY HIM TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.

Parke. Have you any objection, sir, to my taking down memorandums to a conversation?

Robertson. Not in the least, I will procure you pen, ink, and paper immediately.

I understand, sir, you knew Thomson long?

I became acquainted with him in the year 1726, when he published his poem of Winter. He lived opposite to me, in Lancaster-court, in the Strand. I went to the East Indies soon after, which caused a chasm in our acquaintance; but, on my return, our intimacy was strengthened, and continued to the hour of his death. I do not know any man, living or dead, I ever esteemed more highly, and he was attached to me. I had once a complaint of a consumptive nature, which confined me much at home, and he was so good as to come often from Kew-lane to sit with me.

Did you know Amanda?

Know her? Yes, sir, I married her sister. Amanda was a Miss Young, daughter to captain Gilbert Young, of the Gulyhill family, in Dumfriesshire, and was married afterwards to admiral Campbell. She was a fine sensible woman, and poor Thomson was desperately in love with her. Mr. Gilbert Young, her nephew, left my house this very morning. Thomson, indeed, was never wealthy enough to marry.

Mr. Collins, the brewer, has told me, that he was so heedless in his money concerns, that in paying him a bill for beer, he gave him two bank notes rolled together instead of one. Collins did not perceive the mistake till he got home, and when he returned the note Thomson appeared perfectly indifferent about the matter, and said he had enough to go on without it! Mr. Robertson smiled at this anecdote, and said it was like him.

He was not, I believe, one of the weeping philosophers. He was no Heraclitus?

No, he was not, indeed. I remember his being stopped once between London and Richmond, and robbed of his watch, and when I expressed my regret for his loss, “Pshaw, damn it,” said he, “I am glad they took it from me, ’twas never good for any thing.”

Was he national in his affections?

He had no prejudices whatever; he was the most liberal of men in all his sentiments.

I have been told that he used to associate with parson Cromer, and some other convivials, at the Old Orange Tree, in Kew-lane?

Relaxation of any kind was to him frequently desirable, and he could conform to any company. He was benevolent and social, both in his writings and in his life; as his friend, Dr. Armstrong, said on another occasion, he practised what he preached. Lord L.’s character of him as an author was perfectly just, that in his last moments he had no cause to wish any thing blotted he had ever written.

I hear he kept very late hours?

No, sir, very early; he was always up at sunrise, but then he had never been in bed.

Did you ever correspond with him?

Very seldom. We were so much together there was little opportunity or occasion for it.

You do not happen to have any reliques of his hand-writing?

I don’t think I have; but when I get my breath a little better I will look among my papers to try if I can find any.

The kind old gentleman was warmed with the subject, and even set forward to his escritoire in the pursuit, but returned only with a letter from the late Dr. Armstrong, which he flattered himself contained something relative to Thomson. In this he was mistaken. It was a rhapsody of thanks in return for being presented with a large bottle of spirits; but it was well worth an airing. This, said Mr. R., will show you the intimate terms I was upon with Johnny Armstrong, who wrote that beautiful poem, the “Art of Preserving the Health.” He was a very ingenious and excellent man.

Did you know Dr. Patrick Murdoch, who wrote Thomson’s Life?

Ay, very well, and esteemed him. Pattie, as I always called him, had a good heart.

Pope, as I have heard, used often to visit Thomson?

Yes, frequently. Pope has sometimes said, Thomson, I’ll walk to the end of your garden, and then set off to the bottom of Kew-foot-lane and back. Pope, sir, courted Thomson, and Thomson was always admitted to Pope whether he had company or not; but Pope had a jealousy of every eminent writer; he was a viper that gnawed the file.

Was Pope a great talker?

Pope, when he liked his company, was a very agreeable man. He was fond of adulation, and when he had any dislike was a most bitter satirist.

Thomson, I think, was very intimate with David Mallet, the editor of Bolingbroke?

Sir, that person’s name was properly “Malloch;” but I used to call him “Moloch” in our festive moments, and Thomson enjoyed the jest. Sir, he had not Thomson’s heart; he was not sound at the core; he made a cat’s-paw of Thomson, and I did not like the man on that account.

Thomson had two cousins or nephews, who were gardeners, did they live with him?

No, they did not live with him, they lived upon him. He was so generous a man, that if he had but two eggs he would have given them both away.

Were you acquainted with Mr. Gray, who lived at Richmond Hill?

Yes, I knew a John Gray, who was a victualler. He purchased Thomson’s collection of prints and drawings after his decease, but I believe purely out of ostentation.

You must have had great influence over him, sir, from several circumstances you have mentioned, but wish to be suppressed?

Without ostentation or vanity, sir, I really very often have wondered how I came to have so much, and the rest of his friends wondered too; for I do say it most sincerely, that I never could find out what made Thomson and many of these geniuses so partial to me as they appeared.

Then, sir, I suspect you are the only one who could not make the discovery?

Sir, I was not fishing for a compliment, I do assure you.

If you had, sir, I should not have snatched so eagerly at your bait.

I suppose you attended Thomson in a medical as well as in a social capacity?

Yes, Armstrong and myself were with him till his last moments. I was in the room with him when he died. A putrid fever carried him off in less than a week. He seemed to me to be desirous not to live, and I had reason to think that my sister-in-law was the occasion of this. He could not bear the thoughts of her being married to another.

Pray did you attend his funeral?

Indeed I did, and a real funeral it was to me, as Quin said when he spoke the prologue to “Coriolanus”--“I was in truth no actor there.”

Did you hear Quin speak that prologue, sir?

Yes, I could not have been absent.

Were you the only intimate friend who paid the last tribute of respect to Thomson’s remains?

No, sir, Quin attended, and Mallet, and another friend, whose name I do not recollect. He was interred in the north-west corner of Richmond church, just where the christening pew now stands. I pointed out the place to the sexton’s widow, that she might show it to strangers.

Did you know Andrew Millar, the bookseller?

I knew him well. He took a box near Thomson’s, in Kew-lane, to keep in with him as an author who might be profitable to him. Andrew was a good-natured man, and not an unpleasant companion, but he was a little contracted in mind by his business, and had the dross of a bookseller about him.

Did you know Paterson?

Yes. Paterson had been clerk to a counting-house in the city, went for some time abroad, and on his return was amanuensis to Thomson, was his deputy as surveyor-general to the Leeward Islands, and succeeded him in that office, but he did not live long to enjoy it, I believe not more than two years.

Collins, the poet, and Hammond, author of the “Love Elegies,” visited Thomson?

Yes. Ah! poor Collins, he had much genius, but half mad. Hammond was a gentleman, and a very pleasant man. Yet Thomson, I remember, one day called him a burnished butterfly. Quin, the comedian, was a sincere friend of Thomson; he was naturally a most humane and friendly man, and only put on the brute when he thought it was expected from him by those who gave him credit for the character.

Was the anecdote of Quin and Thomson true?

Yes, I believe it was.

Boswell surmised that Thomson was a much coarser man than is commonly allowed?

Sir, Thomson was neither a petit-maître nor a boor; he had simplicity without rudeness, and a cultivated manner without being courtly. He had a great aversion to letter-writing, and did not attempt much of prose composition of any kind. His time for composition was generally at the dead of night, and was much in his summer-house, which, together with every memorial of his residence, is carefully preserved by the honourable Mrs. Boscawen.

Did you know, sir, of any other attachments of Thomson’s, except that to his Amanda?

No, I believe he was more truly attached to my little wife and her sister than to any one else, next to Amanda. Mr. H., of Bangor, said he was once asked to dinner by Thomson, but could not attend. One of his friends, who was there, told him that there was a general stipulation agreed on by the whole company, that there should be no hard drinking. Thomson acquiesced, only requiring that each man should drink his bottle. The terms were accepted unconditionally, and when the cloth was removed, a three-quart bottle was set before each of his guests. Thomson had much of this kind of agreeable humour. Mr. Aikman, the painter, and Dr. De la Cour, a physician and ingenious writer, were intimate and beloved friends of Thomson. Mr. Aikman was a gentleman of competent estate, and was always friendly to Thomson.

Sir, I cordially thank you for this kindness, in suffering yourself to be teased with interrogations; and when lord Buchan’s tablet on the grave of the poet shall be imposed in Richmond church, I shall hope to see you tripping across the green to take a peep at it.

Sir, if I can crawl across for such a gratification, I shall certainly do it.

We then twice shook hands and parted. Intelligent old gentleman! Little was I aware that his lengthened eve of life was so very near its close! He was taken seriously ill a few hours after I left him, Monday, October 24, and on the Friday following he died, and was buried on Saturday, the 4th of November, by the south side of Richmond church.

Mors ultima linea rerum est.

(Signed) T. P.

* * * * *

QUIPOES.

The Peruvians had a method of expressing their meaning by narrow knotted ribands of various colours, which they called “Quipoes:” a certain number of knots of one colour, divided by so many of another, expressed particular meanings; and served these simple and innocent people in place of the art of writing.

P.

* * * * *

SPANISH MYSTERIES.

Of all the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, the Lives of the Saints are in every respect the most irregular. Allegorical characters, buffoons, saints, peasants, students, kings, God, the infant Jesus, the devil, and the most heterogeneous beings that the wildest imagination could bring together, are introduced. Music seems always to have been an indispensable accessary. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedy, entitled the Life of Saint Nicolas de Tolentino,[288] commences with a conversation maintained by a party of students, who make a display of their wit and scholastic learning. Among them is the future saint, whose piety shines with the brighter lustre when contrasted with the disorderly gaiety of those by whom he is surrounded. The devil disguised by a mask joins the party. A skeleton appears in the air; the sky opens, and the Almighty is discovered sitting in judgment, attended by Justice and Mercy, who alternately influence his decisions. Next succeeds a love intrigue between a lady named Rosalia, and a gentleman named Feniso. The future saint then reenters attired in canonicals, and delivers a sermon in redondillas. The parents of the saint congratulate themselves on possessing such a son; and this scene forms the conclusion of the first act. At the opening of the second a party of soldiers are discovered; the saint enters accompanied by several monks, and offers up a prayer in the form of a sonnet. Brother Peregrino relates the romantic history of his conversion. Subtle theological quiddities ensue, and numerous anecdotes of the lives of the saints are related. St. Nicolas prays again through the medium of a sonnet. He then rises in the air, either by the power of faith, or the help of the theatrical machinery; and the Holy Virgin and St. Augustin descend from heaven to meet him. The sonnet by which St. Nicolas performs this miracle is the most beautiful in this sacred farce. In the third act the scene is transferred to Rome, where two cardinals exhibit the holy sere-cloth to the people by torch-light. Music performed on clarinets adds to the solemnity of this ceremony, during which pious discourses are delivered. St. Nicolas is next discovered embroidering the habit of his order; and the pious observations which he makes, while engaged in this occupation, are accompanied by the chanting of invisible angels. The music attracts the devil, who endeavours to tempt St. Nicolas. The next scene exhibits souls in the torments of purgatory. The devil again appears attended by a retinue of lions, serpents, and other hideous animals; but in a scene, which is intended for burlesque, (graciosamente,) a monk armed with a great broom drives off the devil and his suite. At the conclusion of the piece the saint, whose beatification is how complete, descends from heaven in a garment bespangled with stars. As soon as he touches the earth, the souls of his father and mother are released from purgatory, and rise through a rock; the saint then returns hand-in-hand with his parents to heaven, music playing as they ascend.[289]

[288] St. Nicolas de Tolentino is a saint of modern creation.

[289] Bouterwek.

* * * * *

PORTUGUESE MYSTERIES.

One of the spiritual dramas of Gil Vicente, performed at Lisbon, commences with shepherds, who discourse and enter a chapel, which is decorated with all the apparatus necessary for the celebration of the festival of Christmas. The shepherds cannot sufficiently express their rustic admiration of the pomp exhibited in the chapel. Faith (La Fé) enters as an allegorical character. She speaks Portuguese, and after announcing herself to the shepherds as True Faith, she explains to them the nature of faith, and enters into an historical relation of the mysteries of the incarnation. This is the whole subject of the piece.

Another of these dramas, wherein the poet’s fancy has taken a wider range, presents scenes of a more varied nature. Mercury enters as an allegorical character, and as the representative of the planet which bears his name. He explains the theory of the planetary system and the zodiac, and cites astronomical facts from Regiomontanus, in a long series of stanzas in the old national style. A seraph then appears, who is sent down from heaven by God, in compliance with the prayers of Time. The seraph, in the quality of a herald, proclaims a large yearly fair in honour of the Holy Virgin, and invites customers to it. A devil next makes his appearance with a little stall which he carries before him. He gets into a dispute with Time and the seraph, and asserts, that among men such as they are, he shall be sure to find purchasers for his wares. He therefore leaves to every customer his free choice. Mercury then summons eternal Rome as the representative of the church. She appears, and offers for sale Peace of Mind, as the most precious of her merchandise. The devil remonstrates, and Rome retires. Two Portuguese peasants now appear in the market: one is very anxious to sell his wife, and observes, that if he cannot sell her, he will give her away for nothing, as she is a wicked spendthrift. Amidst this kind of conversation a party of peasant women enter, one of whom, with considerable comic warmth, vents bitter complaints against her husband. She tells, with a humorous simplicity, that her ungrateful husband has robbed her garden of its fruits before they were ripe; that he never does any thing, but leads a sottish life, eating and drinking all day, &c. The man who has already been inveighing against his wife immediately recognises her, and says,--“That is my slippery helpmate.” During this succession of comic scenes the action does not advance. The devil at last opens his little stall and displays his stock of goods to the female peasants; but one of them, who is the most pious of the party, seems to suspect that all is not quite right with regard to the merchandise, and she exclaims--“Jesus! Jesus! true God and man!” The devil immediately takes to flight, and does not reappear; but the seraph again comes forward and mingles with the rustic groups. The throng continues to increase; other countrywomen with baskets on their heads arrive; and the market is stored with vegetables, poultry, and other articles of rural produce. The seraph offers Virtues for sale; but they find no purchasers. The peasant girls observe, that in their village money is more sought after than virtue, when a young man wants a wife. One of the party, however, says, that she wished to come to the market because it happened to fall on the festival of the mother of God; and because the Virgin does not sell her gifts of grace, but distributes them gratis. This observation crowns the theological morality of the piece, which terminates with a hymn of praise, in the popular style, in honour of the Holy Virgin.[290]

[290] Bouterwek.

* * * * *

POACHING.

A poor itinerant player, caught performing the part of a poacher, and being taken before the magistrates assembled at a quarter sessions for examination, one of them asked him what right he had to kill a hare? when he replied in the following ludicrous parody on Brutus’s speech to the Romans, in defence of the death of Cæsar:--

“Britons, hungry-men, and epicures! hear me for my cause; and be silent--that you may hear; believe me for mine honour, and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe: censure me in your wisdom; and awake your senses that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of this hare, to him I say, that a player’s love for hare is no less than his. If, then, that friend demand why a player rose against a hare, this is my answer,--not that I loved hare less, but that I loved eating more. Had you rather this hare were living, and I had died starving--than that this hare were dead, that I might live a jolly fellow? As this hare was pretty, I weep for him; as he was nimble, I rejoice at it; as he was plump, I honour him; but, as he was eatable, I slew him. There are tears, for his beauty; joy, for his condition; honour, for his speed; and death, for his toothsomeness. Who is here so cruel, would see a starved man? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so silly, that would not take a tit bit? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so sleek, that does not love his belly? If any, speak, for him have I offended.”

“You have offended justice, sirrah,” cried one of the magistrates, out of all patience at this long and strange harangue.

“Then,” cried the culprit, guessing at the hungry feelings of the bench, “since justice is dissatisfied, it must needs have something to devour--Heaven forbid I should keep any gentleman from his dinner--so, if you please, I’ll wish your worships a good day, and a good appetite.”

* * * * *

HAPPY UNION.

Quin used to say, that of all the bans of marriage he ever heard, none gave him such pleasure as the union of delicate Ann Chovy with good John Dory. This sentiment was worthy of such a disciple of Apicius.

S. S. S.

* * * * *

~Fine View.~

LEITH HILL, NEAR DORKING.

Extracted from a letter from MR. DENNIS to MR. SERJEANT, near seventy years ago.

In a late journey which I took into the wild of Sussex, I passed over a hill, which showed me more transporting sights than ever I had seen before, either in England or Italy. The prospects which in Italy pleased me most were the Valdarno from the Apennines of Rome, and the Mediterranean from the mountain of Viterbo; of Rome at forty, and the Mediterranean at fifty miles distant from it; and that of the famous Campagna of Rome from Tivoli and Frescati, to the very foot of the mountain Viterbo, without any thing to intercept your sight.

But from an hill which I passed in my late journey into Sussex, I had a prospect more extensive than any of these, and which surpassed them at once in rural charms, in pomp, and magnificence. The hill which I speak of is called Leith-hill, and is about five miles southward from Dorking, about six miles from Box-hill, and near twelve from Epsom. It juts itself out about two miles beyond that range of hills, which terminate the north downs to the south. After conquering the hill itself the sight is enchantingly beautiful. Beneath lie open to our view all the wilds of Surrey and Sussex, and a great part of that of Kent, admirably diversified in every part of them with woods, and fields of corn and pasture, and everywhere adorned with stately rows of trees. This beautiful vale is thirty miles in breadth, and sixty in length, terminating on the south by the majestic range of hills and the sea. About noon on a serene day you may, at thirty miles distance, see the waters of the sea through a chasm of the mountains. And that which, above all, makes it a noble and wonderful prospect is, that at the same time you behold this noble sight, by a little turn of your head towards the north, you look full over Box-hill, and see the country beyond it, between that and London, and St. Paul’s, at twenty-five miles distance, with Highgate and Hampstead beyond it all. It may perhaps appear incredible to some, that a place which affords so great and so surprising a prospect should have remained so long in obscurity, and that it is unknown to the very visitors of Epsom and Box-hill. But, alas! we live in a country more fertile of great things, than of men to admire them.

Whoever talked of Cooper’s-hill, till sir John Denham made it illustrious?--How long did Milton remain in obscurity, while twenty paltry authors, little and vile compared to him, were talked of and admired? But in England, nineteen in twenty like by other people’s opinions, and not by their own.

* * * * *

PARSIMONY.

Augustine Pentheny, Esq. who died on the 23d of November, 1810, in the eighty-third year of his age, at an obscure lodging in Leeson-street, Dublin, was a miser of the most perfect drawing that nature ever gave to the world. He was born in the village of Longwood, county of Meath, and became a journeyman-cooper. Very early in life he was encouraged to make a voyage to the West Indies, to follow his trade, under the patronage of his maternal uncle, another adventurer of the name of Gaynor, better known among his neighbours by the name of “Peter Big Brogues,” from the enormous shoes he was mounted in on the day he set out on his travels. Peter acquired an immense fortune, and lived to see his only child married to sir G. Colebrook, chairman to the East India Company, and a banker in London, to whom Peter gave with his daughter two hundred thousand pounds. His nephew, Anthony, acquired the enormous sum of three hundred thousand pounds in the islands of Antigua and Santa Cruz.

Anthony Pentheny saw mankind only through one medium--money. His vital powers were so diverted from generous or social objects by the prevailing passion of gold, that he could discover no trait in any character, however venerable or respectable, that was not seconded by riches; in fact, any one that was not rich he considered as an inferior animal, neither worthy of notice, nor safe to be admitted into society. This feeling he extended to female society, and, if possible, with a greater degree of disgust. A woman he considered only as an incumbrance on a man of property, and therefore he could never be prevailed upon to admit one into his confidence. Wedlock he utterly and uniformly rejected. His wife was the public funds, and his children dividends; and no parent or husband ever paid more deference or care to the objects of his affection. He was never known to diminish his immense hoard, by rewarding a generous action; or to alleviate distress, or accidental misfortune, by the application of a single shilling. It could scarcely be expected that a man would give gifts or bestow gratuities, who was a niggard of comforts to himself. The evening before he died, some busy friend sent a respectable physician to him. The old miser evinced no dislike, until he recollected the doctor might expect a fee; this alarmed him, and immediately raising himself in the bed, he addressed his “medical friend” in the following words: “Doctor, I am a strong man, and know my disorder, and could cure myself, but as Mr. Nangle has sent you to my assistance, I shall not exchange you for any other person, if we can come to an understanding; in fact, I wish to know what you will charge for your attendance until I am recovered.” The doctor answered “eight guineas.” “Ah! sir,” said the old man, “if you knew my disorder you would not be exorbitant; but to put an end to this discussion, I will give you six guineas and a half.” The doctor assented, and the patient held out his arm with the fee, to have his pulse considered, and laid himself down again.

Old Pentheny’s relations were numerous, but, in his opinion, wholly unqualified, by want of experience in the management of money, to nurse his wealth, and therefore he bequeathed the entire of it to a rich family in the West Indies, with the generous exception of four pounds annually to a faithful servant, who had lived with him twenty-four years. In his will he expresses great kindness for “poor John,” and says he bequeaths the four pounds for his kind services, that his latter days might be spent in comfortable independence! He appointed Waller Nangle, Esq. and major O’Farrell, his executors, and the right hon. David La Touche and lord Fingal, trustees. Like Thellusson, he would not allow his fortune to pass to his heirs immediately, as he directed that the entire should be funded for fourteen years, and then, “in its improved state,” be at the disposal of the heirs he had chosen.

* * * * *

ON A LADY,

A GREAT CARDPLAYER, WHO MARRIED A GARDENER.

Trumps ever ruled the charming maid, Sure all the world must pardon her, The Destinies turn’d up a spade-- She married John the gardener.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. III.

THE INNATE IDEAS OF DESCARTES AND LEIBNITZ, DERIVED FROM PLATO, HERACLITUS, PYTHAGORAS, AND THE CHALDEANS--THE SYSTEM OF MALLEBRANCHE FROM THE SAME SOURCE, AND ST. AUGUSTINE.

The innate perception of first truths, maintained by Descartes and Leibnitz, which raised such warm and subtle disputes among metaphysicians, is a doctrine derived from Plato. That great philosopher, who acquired the surname of divine, by having written best on the subject of Deity, entertained a very peculiar sentiment respecting the origin of the soul. He calls it “an emanation of the divine essence, from whom it imbibed all its ideas; but that having sinned, it was degraded from its first estate, and condemned to a union with body, wherein it is confined as in a prison; that its forgetfulness of its former ideas was the necessary consequence of this penalty.” He adds, that “the benefit of philosophy consists in repairing this loss, by gradually leading back the soul to its first conceptions, accustoming it by degrees to recognise its own ideas, and by a full recollection of them to comprehend its own essence, and the true nature of things.” From that Platonic principle of the soul’s “divine emanation,” it naturally followed, that, having formerly had within itself the knowledge of every thing, it still retained the faculty of recalling to mind its immortal origin and primeval ideas. Descartes and Leibnitz reasoned in the very same manner, in admitting eternal and first truths to be imprinted on the soul:--they substitute indeed the creation and preexistence of souls, in place of the “divine emanation” of them taught by Plato; but they defend their system by the same sort of arguments.

Mallebranche entered the lists in defence of Descartes’s principles, and took upon him to support an opinion respecting the nature of ideas, which caused universal astonishment by its apparent singularity, and was treated as almost extravagant; although he advanced nothing but what might be defended by the authority of the finest geniuses of antiquity. After having defined ideas to be “the immediate, or nearest objects of the mind when it perceives any thing.” Mallebranche demonstrates the reality of their existence, by displaying their qualities, which never can belong to nothing, that have no properties. He then distinguishes between sentiments and ideas; considers the five different ways, whereby the mind comes at the view of external objects; shows the fallacy of four of them, and establishes the preeminence of the fifth, as being that alone which is conformable to reason, by saying, that it is absolutely necessary God should have in himself the ideas of all essences, otherwise he never could have given them existence. He undertakes to prove, that God, by his presence, is nearly united to our souls; insomuch, that he may be called the place of spirits, as space is of bodies; and thence he concludes, that the soul may discern in God whatever is representative of created things, if it be the will of God to communicate himself in that manner to it. He remarks, that God, or the universal intelligence, contains in himself those ideas which illuminate us; and that his works having been formed on the model of his ideas, we cannot better employ ourselves than in contemplating them, in order to discover the nature and properties of created things.

Mallebranche was treated as a visionary for having advanced these sentiments, although he accompanied them with the most solid and judicious proofs that metaphysics could afford; but he was never charged with plagiarism, though his system and manner of proof exist literally in ancient authors. After reciting passages from the “Oracula Chaldæorum,” which he reveres as a divine oracle, he says, “The gods here declare where the existence of ideas is to be found, even in God himself, who is their only source; they being the model according to which the world was formed, and the spring from which every thing arose. Others, by applying immediately to the divine ideas themselves, are enabled to discover sublime truths; but as for our part, we are content to be satisfied with what the gods themselves have declared in favour of Plato, in assigning the name of ideas to causes purely intellectual; and affirming, that they are the archetypes of the world, and the thoughts of the supreme father; that, in effect, they reside in the paternal intellect, and emanate from him to concur in the formation of the world.”

Pythagoras and his disciples understood almost the same thing by their numbers, that Plato did by his ideas. The Pythagorists expressed themselves with regard to numbers in the same terms as Plato uses, calling them “τα ὁντως ὁντα, real existences, the only things truly endowed with essence, eternally invariable.” They give them also the appellation of incorporeal entities, by means of which all other beings participate of existence.

Heraclitus adopted those first principles of the Pythagoreans, and expounded them in a very clear and systematic manner. “Nature,” says he, “being in a perpetual flow, there must belong to it some permanent entities, on the knowledge of which all science is founded, and which may serve as the rule of our judgment in fleeting and sensible objects.”

Democritus also taught, that the images of objects are emanations of the Deity, and are themselves divine; and that our very mental ideas are so too. Whether the doctrine be true or erroneous is not here a subject of inquiry: the present purpose being merely to show the analogy between the principles of Mallebranche and those of the ancients.

Plato, who, of all the ancient philosophers, deservedly ranks the highest, for the clearness and accuracy wherewith he hath explained and laid open this system, gives the appellation of “ideas” to those eternal intellectual substances, which were, with regard to God, the exemplary forms or types of all that he created; and are, with regard to men, the object of all science, and of their contemplation when they would attain to the knowledge of sensible things. “The world,” according to Plato, “always existed in God’s ideas; and when at length he determined to produce it into being, such as it is at present, he created it according to those eternal models, forming the sensible into the likeness of the intellectual world.” Admitting, with Heraclitus, the perpetual fluctuation of all sensible things, Plato perceived that there could be no foundation for science, unless there were things real and permanent to build it upon, which might be the fixed object of knowledge, to which the mind might have recourse, whenever it wanted to inform itself of sensible things. We clearly see that this was Plato’s apprehension of things; and we need only look at the passages quoted from him to be convinced, that whatever Mallebranche said on the subject, he derived from Plato.

Mallebranche would not have been railed against as impious, had his antagonists known to whom he was indebted for his opinions and reasonings; and that St. Augustine himself had said, “Ideas are eternal and immutable; the exemplars, or archetypes of all created things; and, in short, exist in God.” In this respect he differs somewhat from Plato, who separated them from the divine essence: but we may easily discern a perfect conformity between the father of the church and the modern philosopher.

Leibnitz was in some measure of the opinion of father Mallebranche; and it was natural that he should be, for he derived his principles from the same ancient sources. His “monads” were “entities truly existing; simple substances; the eternal images of universal nature.”

* * * * *

In this inquiry, concerning the discoveries and thoughts of the ancients attributed to the moderns, it has appeared advisable that their views of the mind, or intellectual system, should precede their consideration of sensible qualities, and the system of the universe. To persons unaccustomed to such investigations, the succeeding papers will be more interesting.

* * * * *

DISTRESSES OF MEN OF GENIUS.

Pope Urban VIII. erected an hospital for the benefit of decayed authors, and called it “The Retreat of the Incurables,” intimating that it was equally impossible to reclaim the patients from poverty or poetry.

Homer is the first poet and beggar of note among the ancients: he was blind, sung his ballads about the streets, and his mouth was oftener filled with verses than with bread.

Plautus, the comic poet, was better off; for he had two trades: he was a poet for his diversion, and helped to turn a mill in order to gain a living.

Terence was a slave, and Boethius died in a jail.

Among the Italians, Paulo Burghese, almost as good a poet as Tasso, knew fourteen different trades, and yet died because he could get no employment in either of them.

Tasso was often obliged to borrow a crown from a friend, to pay for a month’s subsistence. He has left us a pretty sonnet to his cat, in which he begs the light of her eyes to write by, being too poor to buy a candle.

Bentivoglio, whose comedies will last with the Italian language, dissipated a noble fortune in acts of benevolence, fell into poverty in his old age, and was refused admittance into an hospital which, in his better days, he had himself paid for building.

In Spain, the great Cervantes died of hunger; and Camoens, equally celebrated in Portugal, ended his days in an hospital.

In France, Vaugelas was surnamed “the Owl,” from having been obliged to keep within all day, and only venturing out by night, through fear of his creditors. In his last will, he bequeathed every thing towards the discharge of his debts, and desired his body to be sold, to that end.

Cassander was one of the greatest geniuses of his time, but barely able to procure his livelihood.

In England, the last days of Spenser, Otway, Butler, and Dryden are our national reproach.

S. S. S.

* * * * *

ON CHANGE.

No. II.

For the Table Book.

NOAH is now a tailor, No. 63, Pall-mall.

HAM, a watchmaker, No. 47, Skinner-street, Snow-hill.

ISAAC, a fishmonger, No. 8, Cullum-street.

JACOB, an umbrella and parasol maker, No. 42, Burlington Arcade.

ISRAEL is a surgeon in Keppell-street, Russel-square.

JOSEPH is a pencil manufacturer, No. 7, Oxford-street.

JOSHUA, a grocer, No. 155, Regent-street.

SIMON, a ship broker, No. 123, Fenchurch-street.

JOEL, an auctioneer, No. 44, Clifton-street, Finsbury.

PAUL, a manufacturer of mineral waters, No. 5, Bow-street, Covent-garden.

MATTHEW, a brush maker, No. 106, Upper Thames-street.

MARK, a malt factor, No. 74, Mark-lane.

LUKE, a boot maker, No. 142, Cheapside; and

JOHN, a solicitor, No. 6, Palsgrave-place, Temple-bar.

July, 1827

SAM SAM’S SON.

* * * * *

THE GRETNA GREEN PARSONS.

The first person that twined the bands of Hymen this way is supposed to have been a man named Scott, who resided at the Rigg, a few miles from the village of Gretna, about 1750 or 1760. He was accounted a shrewd, crafty fellow, and little more is known of him.

George Gordon, an old soldier, started up as his successor. He always appeared on marriage occasions in an antiquated full military costume, wearing a large cocked hat, red coat, jack boots, and a ponderous sword dangling at his side. If at any time he was interrogated “by what authority he joined persons in wedlock?” he boldly answered, “I have a special license from government, for which I pay fifty pounds per annum.” He was never closely examined on the subject, and a delusion prevailed during his life, that a privilege of the kind really existed.

Several persons afterwards attempted to establish themselves in the same line, but none were so successful as Joseph Paisley, who secured by far the greatest run of business, in defiance of every opposition. It was this person who obtained the appellation of the “Old blacksmith,” probably on account of the mythological conceit of Vulcan being employed in rivetting the hymeneal chains. Paisley was first a smuggler, then a tobacconist, but never, at any time, a blacksmith. He commenced his mock pontifical career about 1789. For many years he was careful not to be publicly seen on such occasions, but stole through by-paths to the house where he was called to officiate, and he there gave a certificate miserably written, and the orthography almost unintelligible, with a feigned signature. An important trial arose out of one of his marriages; and on being summoned to London in consequence, to undergo an examination, he was so much alarmed that he was induced to consult a gentleman of the Scotch bar on the occasion. His legal adviser stated as his opinion, that using a feigned name was decidedly a misdemeanour, and recommended the mock parson to effect, if possible, the destruction of the original certificate, and substitute another in which he should appear by his own name, and merely as a witness to the parties’ declaration that they were married persons. Afterwards, he invariably adopted the plan of merely subscribing his own name as a witness in future; and this has been the usual course of his successors. From that period he made no secret of his profession, but openly walked the street when called upon to officiate, dressed in his canonicals, with the dignity of a bishop! He was long an object of curiosity to travellers. He was tall, and had been well proportioned, but at his death he was literally an overgrown mass of fat, weighing twenty-five stone. He was grossly ignorant, and insufferably coarse in his manners, and possessed a constitution almost proof against the ravages of spirituous liquors; for though an habitual drinker, he was rarely ever seen drunk: for the last forty years of his life he daily discussed a Scotch pint, equal to two English quarts, of brandy. On one occasion, a bottle companion, named “Ned the turner,” sat down with him on a Monday morning to an anker of strong cogniac, and before the evening of the succeeding Saturday they kicked the empty cask out at the door; neither of them were at any of the time drunk, nor had they had the assistance of any one in drinking.

After the decease of Paisley, the field lay more open for competition in the trade, and the different candidates resorted to different means to acquire the best share. Ultimately the post-boys were taken into partnership, who had the power of driving to whichever house they pleased: each mock-parson had his stated rendezvous; and so strong did this description of opposition run, that at last the post-boys obtained one entire half of the fees, and the business altogether got worse. The rates were lowered to a trifle, and the occupation may now be said, in common with others, to have shared the effects of bad times and starvation prices.

There are two principal practitioners at present, one of whom was originally a chaise-driver; the other, David Laing, an old soldier, who figured as a witness on the trial of the Wakefields. At home they exhibit no parade of office; they may be seen in shabby clothes at the kitchen firesides of the pot-houses of the village, the companions of the sots of the country, and disrespected by every class.

* * * * *

A BLACK DREAM.

A number of years bygone, a black man, named Peter Cooper, happened to marry one of the fair towns-women of Greenock, who did not use him with that tenderness that he conceived himself entitled to. Having tried all other arts to retrieve her lost affections in vain, Peter at last resolved to work upon her fears of punishment in another world for her conduct in this. Pretending, therefore, to awake one morning extravagantly alarmed, his helpmate was full of anxiety to know what was the matter; and having sufficiently, as he thought, whetted her curiosity, by mysteriously hinting that “he could a tale unfold,” at length Peter proceeded as follows:--“H--ll ob a dream last night. I dream I go to Hebben and rap at de doa, and a gent’man com to de doa wid black coat and powda hair. Whoa dere?--Peeta Coopa.--Whoa Peeta Coopa? Am not know you.--Not knowa Peeta Coopa! Look de book, sa.--He take de book, and he look de book, and he could’na find Peeta Coopa.--Den I say, Oh! lad, oh! look again, finda Peeta Coopa in a corna.--He take de book, an he look de book, an at last he finda Peeta Coopa in lilly, lilly (little) corna.--‘Peeta Coopa,--cook ob de Royal Charlotte ob Greenock.’ Walk in, sa.--Den I walk in, and dere was every ting--all kind of vittal--collyflower too--an I eat, an I drink, an I dant, an I ting, an I neva be done; segar too, by Gum.--Den I say, Oh! lad, oh! look for Peeta Coopa wife. He take de book, an he look all oba de book, many, many, many a time, corna an all; an he couldna finda Peeta Coopa wife. Den I say, Oh! lad, oh! look de black book; he take de black book, an he look de black book, and he finda Peeta Coopa wife fust page,--‘Peeta-Coopa-wife, buckra-woman, bad-to-her-husband.’”[291]

[291] Times, July 7, 1827, from Greenock Advertiser.

* * * * *

A MUCH-INJURED MAN.

George Talkington, once a celebrated horse-dealer at Uttoxeter, who died on the 8th of April, 1826, at Cheadle, Cheshire, in his eighty-third year, met with more accidents than probably ever befell any other human being. Up to the year 1793 they were as follows:--Right shoulder broken; skull fractured, and trepanned; left arm broken in two places; three ribs on the left side broken; a cut on the forehead; lancet case, flue case, and knife forced into the thigh; three ribs broken on the right side; and the right shoulder, elbow, and wrist dislocated; back seriously injured; cap of the right knee kicked off; left ancle dislocated; cut for a fistula; right ancle dislocated and hip knocked down; seven ribs broken on the right and left sides; kicked in the face, and the left eye nearly knocked out; the back again seriously injured; two ribs and breast-bone broken; got down and kicked by a horse, until he had five holes in his left leg; the sinew just below the right knee cut through, and two holes in that leg, also two shocking cuts above the knee; taken apparently dead seven times out of different rivers.

Since 1793, (when a reference to these accidents was given to Mr. Madely, surgeon, of Uttoxeter,) right shoulder dislocated and collar-bone broken; seven ribs broken; breast-bone laid open, and right shoulder dislocated; left shoulder dislocated, and left arm broken; two ribs broken; and right thigh much bruised near the pope’s eye. In 1819, then in his seventy-sixth year, a lacerated wound in the calf of the leg, which extended to the foot, mortification of the wound took place, which exposed all the flexor tendons of the foot, also the capsular ligaments of the ancle joint; became delirious, and so continued upwards of three weeks: his wonderful recovery from this accident was attributed chiefly to the circumstance of a friend having supplied him with a quantity of old Madeira, a glass of which he took every two hours for eight weeks, and afterwards occasionally. Since then, in 1823, in his eightieth year he had a mortification of the second toe of the right foot, with exfoliation of the bone, from which he recovered, and at last died from gradually declining old age. He was the father of eighteen children, by one wife, in fifteen years, all of whom he survived, and married again at the age of seventy-four.[292]

[292] Oxford and University Herald, April 29, 1896. Communicated by J. J. A. F.

* * * * *

GRAMMATICAL CONSTRUCTION.

A farmer’s son, just returned from a boarding school, was asked “if he knew grammar?”--“Oh yes, father!” said the pupil, “I know her very well;--Grammer sits in the chair fast asleep.”

P.

Vol. II.--32.

Man loves knowledge, and the beams of Truth More welcome touch his understanding’s eye. Than all the blandishments of sound his ear, Than all of taste his tongue.

Akenside.

* * * * *

A LOVER OF ART TO HIS SON.

MY DEAR ALFRED,

Could you see my heart you would know my anxious feelings for your progress in study. If I could express myself in words of fire I would burn in lessons upon your mind, that would inflame it to ardent desire, and thorough conviction, of attaining success.

Our talented friend, who permits you the use of his collection of models and casts, and does you the honour to instruct you by his judgment, assures me that your outlines evince an excellent conception of form. To be able to make a true outline of a natural form, is to achieve the first great step in drawing.

You remember my dissatisfaction towards some engravings of hands and feet that were given you by the person who would have continued to instruct you, if I had not been dissatisfied. The hands in these prints were beautifully finished, but their form was incorrect; the feet were not representations of any thing in nature; and yet these deformities were placed before you to begin with. If I had not taught you from your infancy the value and use of sincerity, and the folly and mischief of falsehood, you might have been at this time a liar, and become a depraved and vicious character; instead of being, as you are, an upright and honest youth, and becoming, as I hope you will, a virtuous and honourable man. Had you continued the copying of engraved lies of the limbs, your drawings would have been misrepresentations of the human figure. You will discover my meaning if you consider an old precept, “Never begin any thing without considering the end thereof.”

Your affectionate father,

*

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXVIII.

[From the “Devil’s Law Case,” a Tragi-Comedy, by John Webster, 1623.]

Clergy-comfort.

I must talk to you, like a Divine, of patience.--

I have heard some talk of it very much, and many Times to their auditors’ impatience; but I pray, What practice do they make on’t in their lives? They are too full of choler with living honest,-- And some of them not only impatient Of their own slightest injuries, but stark mad At one another’s preferment.

Sepulture.

Two Bellmen, a Capuchin; Romelio, and others.

Cap. For pity’s sake, you that have tears to shed, Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead, For two unfortunate Nobles,[293] whose sad fate Leaves them both dead and excommunicate. No churchman’s pray’r to comfort their last groans No sacred seed of earth to hide their bones; But as their fury wrought them out of breath, The Canon speaks them guilty of their own death. Rom. Denied Christian burial! I pray, what does that? Or the dead lazy march in the funeral? Or the flattery in the epitaph?--which shows More sluttish far than all the spiders’ webs, Shall ever grow upon it: what do these Add to our well-being after death? Cap. Not a scruple. Rom. Very well then-- I have a certain meditation, (If I can think of,) somewhat to this purpose;-- I’ll say it to you, while my mother there Numbers her beads.-- “You that dwell near these graves and vaults, Which oft do hide physicians’ faults, Note what a small room does suffice To express men’s goods: their vanities Would fill more volume in small hand, Than all the evidence of Church Land. Funerals hide men in civil wearing, And are to the Drapers a good hearing; Make th’ Heralds laugh in their black rayment; And all die Worthies, die with payment To th’ Altar offerings: tho’ their fame, And all the charity of their name, ’Tween heav’n and this, yield no more light Than rotten trees, which shine in th’ night. O look the last Act be best in th’ Play, And then rest gentle bones! yet pray, That when by the Precise you’re view’d, A supersedeas be not sued; To remove you to a place more airy, That in your stead they may keep chary Stockfish, or seacoal; for the abuses Of sacrilege have turn’d graves to vilder uses. How then can any monument say, Here rest these bones to the Last Day; When Time, swift both of foot and feather, May bear them the Sexton knows not whither?-- What care I then, tho’ my last sleep Be in the desart, or in the deep; No lamp, nor taper, day and night, To give my charnel chargeable light? I have there like quantity of ground; And at the last day I shall be found.”[294]

Immature Death.

Contarino’s dead.

O that he should die so soon!

Why, I pray, tell me: Is not the shortest fever best? and are not Bad plays the worse for their length?

Guilty preferment.

I have a plot, shall breed, Out of the death of these two noblemen; Th’ advancement of our house--

Oh take heed A grave is a rotten foundation.

Mischiefs

----- are like the visits of Franciscan friars, They never come to prey upon us single.

Last Love strongest.

-- as we love our youngest children best, So the last fruit of our affection, Wherever we bestow it, is most strong, Most violent, most irresistible; Since ’tis indeed our latest harvest home, Last merryment ’fore winter; and we Widows, As men report of our best picture-makers, We love the Piece we are in hand with better. Than all the excellent work we have done before.

Mother’s anger.

Leonora. Ha, my Son! I’ll be a fury to him; like an Amazon lady, I’d cut off this right pap that gave him suck, To shoot him dead. I’ll no more tender him, Than had a wolf stol’n to my teat in th’ night, And robb’d me of my milk.

Distraction from guilt.

Leonora (sola). Ha, ha! What say you? I do talk to somewhat methinks; it may be. My Evil Genius.--Do not the bells ring? I’ve a strange noise in my head. Oh, fly in Come, age, and wither me into the malice Of those that have been happy; let me have One property for more than the devil of hell; Let me envy the pleasure of youth heartily; Let me in this life fear no kind of ill, That have no good to hope for. Let me sink, Where neither man nor memory may find me. (falls to the ground). Confessor (entering). You are well employ’d, I hope; the best pillow in th’ world For this your contemplation is the earth And the best object, Heaven. Leonora. I am whispering To a dead friend----

Obstacles.

Let those, that would oppose this union, Grow ne’er so subtle, and entangle themselves In their own work, like spiders; while we two Haste to our noble wishes; and presume, The hindrance of it will breed more delight,-- As black copartaments shews gold more bright.

Falling out.

To draw the Picture of Unkindness truly Is, to express two that have dearly loved And fal’n at variance.

* * * * *

[From the “Bride,” a Comedy, by Thomas Nabbs, 1640.]

Antiquities.

Horten, a Collector. His friend.

Friend. You are learned in Antiquities? Horten. A little, Sir. I should affect them more, were not tradition One of the best assurances to show They are the things we think them. What more proofs, Except perhaps a little circumstance, Have we for this or that to be a piece Of Delphos’ ruins? or the marble statues, Made Athens glorious when she was supposed To have more images of men than men? A weather-beaten stone, with an inscription That is not legible but thro’ an optic, Tells us its age; that in some Sibyl’s cave Three thousand years ago it was an altar, Tis satisfaction to our curiosity, But ought not to necessitate belief.-- For Antiquity, I do not store up any under Grecian; Your Roman antiques are but modern toys Compared to them. Besides they are so counterfeit With mouldings, tis scarce possible to find Any but copies. Friend. Yet you are confident Of yours, that are of more doubt. Horten. Others from their easiness May credit what they please. My trial’s such Of any thing I doubt, all the impostors, That ever made Antiquity ridiculous, Cannot deceive me. If I light upon Ought that’s above my skill, I have recourse To those, whose judgment at the second view (If not the first) will tell me what Philosopher’s That eye-less; nose-less, mouth-less Statue is, And who the workman was; tho’ since his death Thousands of years have been revolved.

Accidents to frustrate Purpose.

How various are the events that may depend Upon one action, yet the end proposed Not follow the intention! accidents Will interpose themselves; like those rash men, That thrust into a throng, occasioned By some tumultuous difference, where perhaps Their busy curiosity begets New quarrels with new issues.

C. L.

[293] Slain in a duel.

[294] Webster was parish-clerk at St. Andrew’s, Holborn. The anxious recurrence to church-matters; sacrilege; tomb-stones; with the frequent introduction of dirges; in this, and his other tragedies, may be traced to his professional sympathies.

* * * * *

NATURAL CURIOSITIES OF DERBYSHIRE.

FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF A TOURIST.[295]

For the Table Book.

June 1, 1827.

Visited Chatsworth, the princely residence of the duke of Devonshire, three miles to the north-east of Bakewell. As soon as the summit of the neighbouring hill is attained, the house and park lie immediately in front in a beautiful valley, watered by the Derwent. An addition is making to the main building, which is large, but not very handsome in its architectural design; on approaching it, I passed over an elegant stone bridge, close to which is an island whereon a fictitious fortress is built. The views on all sides are strikingly fine, and of great variety; hills and dales, mountains and woods, water and verdant pasture lands. It requires “a poet’s lip, or a painter’s eye,” to adequately depict the beauties of this enchanting place. Perhaps no estate in the kingdom furnishes choicer objects for the pencil. I do not think, however, that the grounds in the immediate vicinity of the mansion are so well disposed, or the scenery so rich, nor does the interior offer such magnificent works of art, as at Blenheim. There is much sculpture, of various degrees of merit, distributed about the apartments; but the collection is in its infancy, and a splendid gallery is in progress for its reception. The finest production of the chisel is Canova’s statue of Napoleon’s mother; its natural grace and ease, with the fine flowings of the drapery, and the grave placidity of the countenance, are solemnly majestic--she looks the mother of Napoleon. Among the other great attractions here, are a bust of Petrarch’s Laura, another of his present majesty, by Chantrey; and a portrait of his majesty by sir Thomas Lawrence.

The next day I continued my route towards Matlock Bath--as beautiful a ride as I ever took. The road follows the Wye for six miles in a vale, past the aged towers of Haddon Hall, and the scenery presents every interesting feature that can be coveted by the most enthusiastic lover of nature;--rugged and beetling crags, gently sloping hills, extensive woods, rich meadows and fertile vallies, form the composition of the views. Handsome villas, farm-houses, and neat cottages--living pictures of scarcely minor interest--embellish and diversify the natural beauties of the delightful scene.

At the end of the six miles, the road turns over a bridge across the Wye, leading through the dale (Matlock) to the Bath. The river here rolls darkly along, its progress swifter and its depth greater; the same rocky barrier that encloses all the dales in this county uplifting its huge masses of rocks on either side. The margin of the river is thickly studded with large trees, close copse-woods clothe the slopes at the bottom, and ascend part of the cliffs’ sides--wild shrubs branch from the clefts above, whence innumerable jackdaws whirl their flights, and make incessant monotonous noise. About a mile before reaching Matlock Bath is a mountain called the High-Tor, its bare and jagged head rising far above the adjoining rocks. I was informed that it contains a fine natural grotto, but the river was too deep to wade, and I missed the sight.

On rounding a point, the shining white buildings of the Bath appear along the foot and some distance up the side of a steep lofty hill, called the “Heights of Abraham.” The greater part of the village is situated in the valley, but a second may be said to be beneath it, through which the river flows: its banks are thickly planted with groves of trees, and winding paths have been made throughout these delightful haunts, for the pleasure of the visitors. The cliffs rise opposite majestically perpendicular, and as finely picturesque as any I saw in Derbyshire. The “Heights of Abraham” are at least a quarter of a mile above the highest of the houses. A zigzag road through a shrubbery leads to the celebrated natural cavern near the summit--an immense recess, as grand as Peak’s Hole, but far more beautiful; for its sides are formed of a variety of spars of surprising brilliancy. To mineralogists it is the most interesting resort in England; and here collectors, prosecuting their discoveries, think themselves happy, although deprived of the light of heaven for whole days together. The whole of this immense mountain is one sparkling mass of various spars and ores.

Ascending this steep road on horseback, I found the views, through the shrubs, of the village and valley beneath, the river, and the surrounding mountains, inconceivably grand. High-Tor was on the left, and Wild-Cat-Tor on the right--beyond which the Wye, gleaming in the sun’s rays, wound sinuously along the verdant vale, till it was so diminished by the distance as to seem like a bent wire of shining silver, and was lost to sight by the intervention of a far-off mountain.

Of all places this seems to present the greatest inducements to the temporary visitant; and to anglers it is the ne plus ultra of piscatorial recreation.

After a day’s enjoyment of this charming spot, I went forward, but the threatening appearance of the weather induced me to sojourn at a small public-house in one of the smaller dales. Heavy clouds arose, and the rain obscured the distant hills; running along their summits, having the appearance of thick fog. The weather clearing, I walked out, and surveyed the curious old limestone built “hostel,” with the sign of “A Trout,” scarcely decipherable from age. Some anglers, whom the heavy shower had driven for shelter under the cliffs, again appeared, and threw their artificial temptations on the surface of a stream flowing from the mountain at the back of the little inn. Its water turned singularly constructed machinery for crushing the lead ore, washed down from a neighbouring large mine. Immense fragments of rock, by falling betwixt two iron wheels, with teeth fitted closely together, are pounded to atoms. A number of men, women, and children, were busy shovelling it into sieves set in motion by the machine, and it separated itself by its own weight from the stone or spar that contained it.

Determined by my curiosity to descend into the mine, I procured a miner to accompany me; and following the stream for a short distance, reached a small hut near the entrance, where I clothed myself completely in miner’s apparel, consisting of a stout woollen cap, under a large, slouched, coarse beaver hat, thick trowsers, and a fustian jacket, with “clods,” or miner’s shoes. At the mouth of the mine we seated ourselves opposite to each other in a narrow mining cart, shaped from the bottom like a wedge, attached to a train of others of similar make, used for conveying the ore from the interior. Having been first furnished with a light each, we proceeded, drawn by two horses, at a rapid pace, along a very narrow passage or level, cut through the limestone rock, keeping our arms within the sledge, to prevent their being jammed against the sides, which in many places struck the cars very forcibly. In this manner, with frequent alarming jolts, we arrived at a shaft, or descent, into the mine. We got out of our vehicles and descended by means of ladders, of five fathoms in length, having landing places at the bottom of each. The vein of the lead ore was two hundred fathoms deep. We therefore descended forty ladders, till we found ourselves at the commencement of another passage similar to the first. All the way down there was a tremendous and deafening noise of the rushing of water through pipes close to the ear, caused by the action of a large steam-engine. The ladders and sides of the rock were covered with a dark slimy mud. We walked the whole length, several hundred yards, along the second level, knee deep in water, till we reached the spot, or vein, that the workmen were engaged on. They were labouring in a very deep pit; their lights discovered them to us at the bottom. Into this chasm I was lowered by a wheel, with a rope round my body; and having broken off a piece of lead ore with a pickaxe, I was withdrawn by the same means. Another set of labourers were procuring ore by the process of blasting the rock with gunpowder--I fired one of the fusees, and retiring to a distant shelter, awaited the explosion in anxious alarm; its reverberating shock was awfully grand and loud. My ascent was dreadfully fatiguing from the confined atmosphere; and I was not a little rejoiced when I could inhale the refreshing air, and hail the cheering light of day.

E. J. H.

[295] See p. 12.

* * * * *

~August.~

THE FRUIT MARKETS OF LONDON AND PARIS IN THIS MONTH.

A gentleman, one of a deputation for inquiring into the state of foreign horticulture, visited the Paris fruit and vegetable market in the month of August, 1821, and having seen Covent Garden market nearly a fortnight earlier, under peculiar circumstances, was enabled to form an estimate of their comparative excellencies.

The coronation of George IV. on the 19th of July had caused a glut of fruit in the London market, such as had never been remembered, and large quantities of the fruit, which had not met with the expected demand, remained on hand.

In regard to Pine-apples, Mr. Isaac Andrews of Lambeth alone cut sixty ripe fruit on the occasion, and many hundreds, remarkable for size and flavour, came from distant parts of the country. One from lord Cawdor’s weighed 10 lbs.; and, after being exhibited at a meeting of the London Horticultural Society, was sent to the Royal Banquet. Pine-apples are not to be got at Paris. When they are wanted at grand entertainments, they are generally procured from Covent Garden market by means of the government messengers who are constantly passing between the two capitals. From our possessing coals, and from our gardeners being well versed in the modes of raising fruit under glass, it is probable that we shall always maintain a superiority in the production of this delicious article for the dessert.

The quantity of ripe Grapes exhibited for sale in Covent Garden market from the middle to the end of July, in the year alluded to, would, if told, surpass the belief of Parisian cultivators; more especially when it is added, that the kinds were chiefly the Black Hamburgh, the white muscat of Alexandria, and the Frontignacs. Andrews also took the lead in the grape department; insomuch that while very good Black Hamburgh grapes, from different parts of the country, were selling, during the crowded state of the capital, at 4_s._ per lb., his bunches currently obtained 6_s._ 6_d._ per lb. Their excellence consisted chiefly in the berries having been well thinned and thoroughly ripened. On the 29th of July great quantities of grapes, remarkable for size and excellence, still remained in the market, and were selling at 3_s._ and 3_s._ 6_d._ a pound. At Paris ripe grapes are not to be procured, at this season of the year, for any sum. On the 14th of August, prince Leopold, then on his way to Italy, dined with the English ambassador, when a splendid dessert was desirable; but ripe grapes could not be found at Paris. A price equal to 12_s._ sterling per lb. was paid for some unripe bunches, merely to make a show, for they were wholly unfit for table use. On the 21st of the same month the duke of Wellington being expected to arrive to dinner, another search for ripe grapes was instituted throughout Paris, but in vain. In short, the English market is well supplied with fine grapes from the middle of June till the middle of November; but, from being raised under glass, they are necessarily high priced; while the Paris market offers a copious supply of the table Chasselas, from the middle of September to the middle of March, at very cheap rates,--from 12 to 20 sous, or 6_d._ to 8_d._ per pound; the coarse vineyard grapes being only 1_d._ a pound.

The Bigarreau or graffion Cherry was still very abundant in Covent Garden market, and also the black or Dutch guigne: at Paris, however, even the late cherries had almost ceased to appear in the market.

In the London market the only good Pear was the large English Jargonelle (or épargne.) The Windsor pear was on the stalls, but not ripe. The Green chisel, (hâtiveau,) and the skinless, (poire sans peau,) were almost the only others I could see. The Paris market excelled, being well supplied with fine summer pears. The Ognolet or summer archduke, was pretty common: it is named ognolet, from growing in clusters on the tree like bunches of onions. The large Blanquet, and the long-stalked blanquet, (the latter a very small fruit,) were also common. The Epargne, or Grosse cuisse Madame, was plentiful. A fruit resembling it, called Poire des deux têtes, was likewise abundant: it was large, sweet, and juicy, quite ripe, but without much flavour. The Epine-rose, (Caillot or Cayeout,) a very flat pear; the Musk-orange, which is of a yellow colour only; the Red orange, which has the true orange hue; and the Robine, or Royal d’été, were all plentiful. The small early Rousselet was exceedingly common and cheap, being produced abundantly on old standards in all country-places. Towards the end of August, the Cassolette, a small pear of good flavour, and the Rousselet de Rheims, made their appearance; and the Poiré d’Angleterre (à beurré) began to be called through the streets in every quarter of the city.

Apples were more plentiful at London than at Paris. The Dutch Codlin and the Carlisle Codlin were abundant; and the Jenneting, the Summer Pearmain, and the Hawthorndean, were not wanting. At Paris very few apples appeared. The Summer Calville, a small conical dark-red fruit, and the Pigeonnet, were the only kinds I remember to have seen.

Plums were more plentiful and in greater variety at the Marché des Innocens than at Covent Garden. At Paris, the Reine Claude, of excellent quality and quite ripe, was sold at the rate of two sous, or one penny, a dozen; while the same plum (green-gage) cost a penny each in London, though in an unripe state. The next in excellence at Paris was the Prune royale, of good size, and covered with the richest bloom. The Jaune-hâtive, the drap d’or, the Mirabelle, the Musk-damson or Malta plum, were common; likewise the Précoce de Tours, remarkable for its peculiar dark hue; and a deep violet-coloured plum, called Prune noire de Montreuil. The Blue Perdrigon was just coming in. At Covent Garden the Primordian, or jaune-hâtive, and the morocco or early damask, were the only ripe plums to be seen.

Apricots were much more plentiful at the Innocens than at Covent Garden. The common apricot, the Portugal and the Angoumois, which much resemble each other, were frequent; these were small, of brisk flavour. The Abricot-pêche, however, not only excelled the others in size, but in quality, holding that superiority among the Parisian apricots which the Moorpark does among the English; and it appeared in considerable abundance. At London only the Roman and Moorpark were to be found, and the latter was not yet ripe.

In Peaches the French market most decidedly surpassed the English. The quantity of this fruit presented for sale toward the middle of August appeared surprisingly great. It was chiefly from Montreuil, and in general in the most perfect state. Although ripe, scarcely a single fruit had suffered the slightest injury from the attacks of insects. This fact affords satisfactory proof that the plastered walls, being smooth and easily cleaned, are unfavourable to the breeding and lodging of such insects as often infest our rougher fruit-walls. The fine state of the fruit also shows the uncommon care which must be bestowed by the industrious inhabitants of Montreuil to prevent its receiving bruises in the gathering or carriage. The principal kinds in the market were the small Mignonne; the large Mignonne, with some of the excellent subvariety called Belle Bauce; the yellow Alberge; the Bellegarde or Gallande; the Malta or Italian peach; the red Madeleine or De Courson; and the Early Purple.

Melons appeared in great profusion at Paris. In the Marché des Innocens and Marché St. Honoré the kinds were rather select, chiefly different varieties of Canteloup. These were not sold at so cheap a rate as might have been expected; ripe and well-flavoured canteloups costing 2, 3, or 4 francs each. But in almost every street the marchands de melons presented themselves; some occupying stalls, some moving about with brouettes or long wheel-barrows, and others with hampers on their backs, supported on crochets. In general those sold in the streets were much cheaper, (perhaps not more than half the price of the others,) but of coarse quality, such as would scarcely be thought fit for use in England. The fruit is frequently long kept; and in the heats of August the odour exhaled from the melon-stalls was sickening and offensive. The kinds were chiefly the following: the Maraicher, a large netted melon, so called from being cultivated in the marais or sale-gardens; the Melon de Honfleur, of great size, often weighing from 20 to 30 lbs.; and the Coulombier, a coarse fruit, raised chiefly at the village of that name. These were almost the only sorts of melon sold in Paris, till our countryman Blaikie, about forty-five years ago, introduced the Rock Canteloup and Early Romana. It may be noticed, that melons of all kinds, even the best canteloups, are here raised in the open ground, with the aid of hand-glasses only, to protect the young plants in the early part of the season. In Covent Garden market a great many small melons, chiefly of the green-fleshed and white-fleshed varieties, appeared; but they were uniformly high-priced, though not proportionally dearer than the Parisian canteloups, considering that they had all been raised on hot-beds under glass-frames.

Mulberries were much more plentiful at Paris than at London.

At Paris, fresh or recent Figs were, at this time, very common and very cheap; it was indeed the height of the fig-season, and they daily arrived in great quantities from Argenteuil. The round white fig seems to be the only kind cultivated; at least it was the only kind that came to market. No fresh figs can be expected in Covent Garden till the end of August, and then only small parcels. To make amends the London market was supplied with fine Gooseberries in profusion, while not one of good quality was to be seen at Paris. The same thing may be said of Raspberries and Currants, which are in a great measure neglected in France, or used only by confectioners. The Parisians have never seen these fruits in perfection; and it is therefore no wonder that, in the midst of a profuse supply of peaches, reine claudes, figs, and pears, they should be overlooked. There exists a strong prejudice against the gooseberry, which prevents the Parisians from giving the improved kinds a fair trial: they have no idea that it is possible that gooseberries should form an excellent article of the dessert; they think of them only as fit for making tarts, or sauce for mackerel![296]

[296] Mr. Pat. Neill, Sec. Cal. Hort. Soc. in Horticultural Tour.

* * * * *

This curious piece of antiquity is a stone of a dark red colour and triangular shape, in size about half an inch each side, set in a piece of silver coin; which, though much defaced, by some letters still remaining, is supposed to be a shilling of Edward I., the cross being very plain, as it is on his shillings. It is affirmed, by tradition, to have been in the Lee family since the year 1320 odd; that is, a little after the death of king Robert Bruce, who having ordered his heart to be carried to the Holy Land for burial, one of the noble family of Douglass was sent with it, and is said to have got the crowned heart in his arms from that circumstance. On the other hand, it is alleged that the person who carried the heart was Simon Locard, of Lee, who about that time borrowed a large sum of money from sir William de Lendsay, prior of Air, for which he granted a bond of annuity of ten pounds of silver, during the life of the said sir William de Lendsay, out of his lands of Lee and Cartland. The original bond, dated 1323, and witnessed by the principal nobility of the country, is among the family papers. The sum, which was a great one in those days, is thought to have been borrowed for that expedition; and, on the authority of the story, of his being the person who carried the royal heart, it is affirmed, that he changed his name to “Lockheart;” or, as it is sometimes spelled, “Lockhart,” and obtained a heart within a lock for part of his arms, with the motto, “corda serata pando.”

It is said that this Simon Lockhart having taken a Saracen prince, or chief, prisoner, his wife came to ransom him; and, on counting out the money or jewels, the stone in question fell out of her purse, and she hastily snatched it up, which Simon Lockhart observing, insisted on having it, or retaining his prisoner. Upon this the Saracen lady gave it him, and told him of its many virtues, namely, that it cured all diseases in cattle, and the bite of a mad dog both in man and beast.

To effect these wonders the stone is dipped in water, which is given to diseased cattle to drink, and to a person who has been bitten; and the wound, or part infected, is washed with the water. There are no words used in the dipping of the stone, nor any money taken by the servants without incurring the owner’s displeasure. People come from all parts of Scotland, and even from Yorkshire, to get the water in which the stone is dipped, to give their cattle, especially when ill of the murrain and black-leg.

Many years ago, a complaint was made to the ecclesiastical courts against the laird of Lee, then sir James Lockhart, for using witchcraft: a copy of their act is hereto annexed. There is no date; but from the orthography, and James being the name of the laird of Lee, it must at least have been in the seventeenth century.

COPY OF AN ACT OF THE SYNOD AND ASSEMBLY.

“Apud Glasgow, the 25 Octobr.

“Synod. Sess. 2.

“Quhilk dye, amongest the referries of the brethren of the ministrie of Lanerk, it was propondit to the Synode, that Gawen Hammiltonne of Raplocke had preferit an complaint before them against Sir James Lockart of Lie, anent the superstitious vsing of an stene set in selver for the curing of diseased cattell, qlk, the said Gawen affirmit, coud not be lawfully vsed, and that they had differit to give ony decisionne therein, till the advice of the Assemblie might be had concerning the same. The Assemblie having inquirit of the maner of vsing thereof, and particularlie vnderstoode, by examinationne of the said Laird of Lie, and otherwise, that the custome is onlie to cast the stene in sume water, and give the diseasit cattil thereof to drink, and qt the sam is dene wtout vsing onie words, such as charmers and sorcerers vse in their unlawfull practisess; and considering that in nature they are mony thinges seen to work strange effects, q^{r}of no humane witt can give a reason, it having pleasit God to give vnto stones and herbes special virtues for the healing of mony infirmities in man and beast,--advises the brethren to surcease thir proces, as q’rin they perceive no ground of offence; and admonishes the said Laird of Lie, in the vsing of the said stone, to tak heed that it be vsit heirafter wt the least scandal that possiblie maye bie.

“Extract out of the books of the Assemblie helden at Glasgow, and subscribed be thair clerk, at thair comand.

“M. ROBERT YOUNG,

“Clerk to the Assemblie at Glasgow.”

When the plague was last at Newcastle, the inhabitants are said to have sent for the Lee Penny, and given a bond for a large sum in trust for the loan; and that they thought it did so much good, that they offered to pay the money, and keep the Lee Penny, but the owner would not part with it. A copy of this bond is alleged to have been among the family papers, but supposed to have been spoiled, with many more, by rain getting into the charter-room, during a long minority, and no family residing at Lee.

A remarkable cure is alleged to have been performed about a century ago, on a lady Baird, of Sauchtonhall, near Edinburgh, “who, having been bit by a mad dog, was come the length of a hydrophobia; upon which, having sent to beg the Lee Penny might be sent to her house, she used it for some weeks, drinking and bathing in the water it was dipped in, and was quite recovered.”[297]

Good reasons are assigned for rejecting the story of Locard having been the bearer of the heart of Robert Bruce; and there are some ludicrous instances of wonderful cures performed in the north of England on credulous people, by virtue of water wherein the Lee Penny was reputed to have been dipped, and yet neither the water nor the Lee Penny had crossed the Tweed.

[297] Gentleman’s Magazine, Dec. 1787, from whence these particulars, and the engraving of the Lee Penny, are derived. Further accounts of it from correspondents will be acceptable.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE DEVIL’S PUNCH-BOWL.[298]

You,--Mr. Editor,--Have journeyed from London to Portsmouth, and must recollect Hindhead--you will, therefore, sympathize with me:--the luxury of riding round the rim of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl is over! Some few years back the road, on one side, was totally undefended against casualties of any description--overturning the coach into the bowl (some three or four hundred yards deep)--the bolting of a horse--or any other delightful mishap which could hurl you to the bottom--all is over! They--(the improvers of roads, but destroyers of an awful yet pleasing picture,)--have cut a new road about fifty or sixty feet below the former, and raised a bank, four feet high, round the edge, so that an accident is almost impossible, and no such chance as a roll to the bottom will again occur! The new road is somewhat shorter than the old--the effect completely spoiled--the stone to perpetuate the murder of the sailor unheeded[299]--the gibbet unseen--and nothing left to balance the loss of these pleasing memorials, but less labour to the horses, and a few minutes of time saved in the distance! Eighteen years since, the usual stoppage, and “Now, gentlemen, if you’ll have the goodness to alight, and walk up, you’ll oblige,” took place. At the present time you are galloped round, and have scarcely time to admire the much-spoken-of spot.

The last time I passed the place, on the Independent, when conversing on the subject, our coachee, Robert (or Bob, as he delights to be called) Nicholas, related an anecdote of an occurrence to himself, and which tells much of the fear in which passing the Devil’s Punch-Bowl was once held. You shall have it, as nearly as I can recollect it:--

An elderly lady, with two or three younger ones, and servants, engaged the coach to London, but with a special agreement, that the party should walk round the said bowl,--“As we understand, it is next to a miracle to go along that horrid place in safety.” On the journey, each change of horses was accompanied by an inquiry, how far was the dreaded place? a satisfactory answer was, of course, generally given. When, at length, the coach arrived at the stone-memorial, one-third round the place, the coachman alighted, and pretended to be making some trifling alterations to the harness: his lady-passenger, looking complacently into the vast dell beneath her, inquired its name. “Higgin-bottom, ma’am.”--“What a delightful but singular looking spot!” was the rejoinder. The coach then drove on. On its arrival at the next stage, Road-lane, the anxious inquiry, “How far off, sir?” was again repeated. “We’re passed, ma’am.”--“Passed it!--in safety!--bless me!--where was it?”--“Where I stopped, and you asked the name of that deep dell-that was the Devil’s Punch-Bowl--Higgin-bottom’s the right name.” The delighted passenger rewarded the coachman for his innocent deception, and promised always, on that road, to travel under his guardianship.

---- I have spoken of a stone erected on the Bowl, and if, in this “airy nothing,” I do not occupy too much space that, undoubtedly, could be better filled, a brief recollection of the fact may close this notice of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl:--

An unfortunate sailor, with a trifle in his pocket, on the way to Portsmouth, fell in, at Esher, with three others, then strangers, and, with characteristic generosity, treated them on their mutual way. The party were seen at the Red Lion, Road-lane, together, which they left, and journeyed forward. On Hindhead they murdered their companion--stripped the body, and rolled it down the Devil’s Punch-Bowl. Two men, who had observed the party at the Red Lion, and who were returning home, not long after, on arriving at the spot, observed something which appeared like a dead sheep; one descended, and was shocked to find a murdered man, and recognised the sailor: conjecturing who were his destroyers, they followed in haste. On arriving at Sheet, the villains were overtaken, when in the act of disposing of their victim’s apparel. They were apprehended, and shortly afterwards hung and gibbeted near the spot. When at the place of execution one of them observed, he only wished to commit one murder more, and that should be on Faulkner, the constable, who apprehended him!--The following is (or was) the inscription on the stone; and many a kind “Poor fellow!” has been breathed as the melancholy tale has ended.

THIS STONE Was erected in detestation of a barbarous MURDER, Committed near this Spot On an UNKNOWN SAILOR, By Edward Lonogan, Michael Casey, and James Marshall, September 24, 1786.

Gen. ix. 6.

“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”

R. N. P.

* * * * *

P. S.--Since writing as above, a mutilation of the Sailor’s stone is noticed in a Portsmouth paper by the following advertisement:--

TEN GUINEAS REWARD.

WHEREAS some evil-disposed person or persons did, in the night of Tuesday, the 17th instant, maliciously BREAK, DEFACE, and INJURE the STONE lately put up at Hindhead, by the Trustees of the Lower District of the Sheetbridge Turnpike Road, to perpetuate the memory of a murder committed there, in the place of one removed by John Hawkins, Esq.

Whoever will give information of the offender or offenders shall on his, her, or their conviction receive a Reward of TEN GUINEAS, which will be paid by Mr. James Howard, the Surveyor of the said Road.

Witley, 26th July, 1827.

* * * * *

NOTE.

“You, Mr. Editor,” says my pleasant correspondent R. N. P., “you, Mr. Editor, have journeyed from London to Portsmouth, and must recollect Hindhead--the luxury of riding round the rim of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl--the stone to perpetuate the memory of the sailor--the gibbet, &c.” Ah me! I travel little beyond books and imagination; my personal journeys are only gyration-like portions of a circle, scarcely of larger circumference than that allowed to a tethered dumb animal. If now and then, in either of the four seasons, I exceed this boundary, it is only for a few miles into one of the four counties--to a woodland height, a green dell, or beside a still flowing water--to enjoy the features of nature in loneliness and quiet--the sight of “every green thing” in a glorious noontide, the twilight, and the coming and going of the stars:--on a sunless day, the vapours of the sky dissolving into thin air, the flitting and sailing of the clouds, the ingatherings of night, and the thick darkness.

No, Mr. R. N. P., no sir, I am very little of a traveller, I have not seen any of the things you pleasure me by telling of in your vividly written letter. I know no gibbet of the murderer of a sailor, except one of the “men in chains” below Greenwich--whom I saw last Whitsuntide two-years through the pensioners’ telescopes from the Observatory[300]--was a slayer of his messmate; nor though I have heard and read of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl, have I been much nearer its “rim” than the gibbet of Jerry Abershaw at Wimbledon Common.

Abershaw was the last of the great highwaymen who, when people carried money about them, robbed every night, and sometimes in the open day, on Bagshot, Wimbledon, Finchley, and other commons, and high roads, in the neighbourhood of London. Some of these highwaymen of the “old school” lived in the wretched purlieus of Saffron-hill, and would mount and “take the road” in the afternoon from the end of Field-lane, at Holborn-bridge, as openly as travellers setting out from an inn. On the order in council, in 1797, which prohibited the Bank from paying in specie, gold went out, and bank-notes came in; and as these were easily concealed, and when stolen were difficult to pass, the business of “the highway” fell off, and highwaymen gradually became extinct. Jerry Abershaw was the most noted, because he was the most desperate, and most feared of these marauders. He was a reckless desperado who, pistol in hand, would literally have “your money, or your life;” and perhaps both. He was as famous in his day as Sixteen-string-Jack, or the Flying Highwayman. He shot several persons; his trial excited as much interest as Thurtell’s; and the concourse of people at his execution was innumerable. It was in the height of summer; and the following Sunday being fine, London seemed a deserted city; for hundreds of thousands went to see Abershaw hanging in chains. His fame will outlast his gibbet, which I suppose has been down years ago. The papers tell us, that the duke of Clarence, as Lord High Admiral, ordered down the pirates’ gibbets from the river-side. These were the last “men in chains” in the vicinage of the metropolis.

*

July, 1827.

[298] A deep valley in Surrey, so called from its circular form. It is about forty-one miles from London.

[299] The old stone was destroyed at the alteration of the road; but a new one has very recently been erected on the new road.

[300] Told of in the Every-Day Book.

* * * * *

JERRY ABERSHAW

AND

THE MEN IN CHAINS.

Townsend, the Bow-street officer’s interesting examination before the police committee of the House of Commons in June, 1816, contains some curious particulars respecting Abershaw, the pirates, “the dangers of the road” and “hanging matters,” toward the close of the last century.

Q. The activity of the officers of Bow-street has infinitely increased of late years?

A. No doubt about it; and there is one thing which appears to me most extraordinary, when I remember, in very likely a week, there should be from ten to fifteen highway robberies. We have not had a man committed for a highway robbery lately; I speak of persons on horseback. Formerly there were two, three, or four highwaymen, some on Hounslow Heath, some on Wimbledon Common, some on Finchley Common, some on the Romford Road. I have actually come to Bow-street in the morning, and while I have been leaning over the desk, had three or four people come in and say, ‘I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place;’ ‘I was robbed by a single highwayman in such a place.’ People travel now safely, by means of the horse-patrol that sir Richard Ford planned. Where are there highway robberies now? As I was observing to the chancellor, as I was up at his house on the Corn Bill: he said, ‘Townsend, I knew you very well so many years ago.’ I said, ‘Yes, my lord; I remember your coming first to the bar, first in your plain gown, and then as king’s counsel, and now chancellor. Now your lordship sits as chancellor, and directs the executions on the recorder’s report; but where are the highway robberies now?’ and his lordship said, ‘Yes, I am astonished.’ There are no footpad robberies or road robberies now but merely jostling you in the streets. They used to be ready to pop at a man as soon as he let down his glass.

Q. You remember the case of Abershaw?

A. Yes; I had him tucked up where he was; it was through me. I never left a court of justice without having discharged my own feeling as much in favour of the unhappy criminal as I did on the part of the prosecution; and I once applied to Mr. Justice Buller to save two men out of three who were convicted; and on my application we argued a good deal about it. I said, ‘My lord, I have no motive but my duty; the jury have pronounced them guilty. I have heard your lordship pronounce sentence of death, and I have now informed you of the different dispositions of the three men. If you choose to execute them all I have nothing to say about it; but was I you, in the room of being the officer, and you were to tell me what Townsend has told you, I should think it would be a justification of you to respite those two unhappy men, and hang that one who has been convicted three times before.’ The other men never had been convicted before, and the other had been three times convicted; and he very properly did. And how are judges or justices to know how many times a man has been convicted but by the information of the officer in whose duty and department it is to keep a register of old offenders. The magistrate sits up there, he knows nothing of it till the party is brought before him; he cannot.

Q. Do you think any advantages arise from a man being put on a gibbet after his execution?

A. Yes, I was always of that opinion; and I recommended sir William Scott to hang the two men that are hanging down the river. I will state my reason. We will take for granted, that those men were hanged as this morning, for the murder of those revenue officers--they are by law dissected; the sentence is, that afterwards, the body is to go to the surgeons for dissection; there is an end of it--it dies. But look at this: there are a couple of men now hanging near the Thames, where all the sailors must come up; and one says to the other, ‘Pray what are those two poor fellows there for?’--‘Why,’ says another, ‘I will go and ask.’ They ask. ‘Why, those two men are hung and gibbeted for murdering his majesty’s revenue officers.’ And so the thing is kept alive. If it was not for this, people would die, and nobody would know any thing of it. In Abershaw’s case I said to the sheriff, ‘The only difficulty in hanging this fellow, upon this place, is its being so near lord Spencer’s house.’ But we went down, and pointed out a particular place; he was hung at the particular pitch of the hill where he used to do the work. If there was a person ever went to see that man hanging, I am sure there was a hundred thousand. I received information that they meant to cut him down. I said to sir Richard Ford, ‘I will counteract this; in order to have it done right, I will go and sit up all night, and have eight or ten officers at a distance, for I shall nail these fellows;’ for I talked cant language to him. However, we had the officers there, but nobody ever came, or else, being so close to Kent-street, they would have come down and sawed the gibbet, and taken it all away, for Kent-street was a very desperate place, though it is not so now. Lord chief justice Eyre once went the Home Circuit; he began at Hertford, and finished at Kingston. Crimes were so desperate, that in his charge to the grand jury at Hertford, he finished--‘Now, gentlemen of the jury, you have heard my opinion as to the enormity of the offences committed; be careful what bills you find, for whatever bills you find, if the parties are convicted before me, if they are convicted for capital offences, I have made up my mind, as I go through the circuit, to execute every one.’ He did so--he never saved man or woman--and a singular circumstance occurred, that stands upon record fresh in my mind. There were seven people convicted for a robbery in Kent-street; for calling in a pedlar, and after robbing the man, he jumped out of window. There were four men and three women concerned; they were all convicted, and all hanged in Kent-street, opposite the door; and, I think, on Kennington Common eight more, making fifteen:--all that were convicted were hung.

Q. Do you think, from your long observation, that the morals and manners of the lower people in the metropolis are better or worse than formerly?

A. I am decidedly of opinion, that, with respect to the present time, and the early part of my time, such as 1781, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, where there is one person convicted now--I may say, I am positively convinced--there were five then. We never had an execution wherein we did not grace that unfortunate gibbet (at the Old Bailey) with ten, twelve, to thirteen, sixteen, and twenty; and forty I once saw, at twice; I have them all down at home. I remember in 1783, when sergeant Adair was recorder, there were forty hung at two executions. The unfortunate people themselves laugh at it now; they call it ‘a bagatelle.’ I was conversing with an old offender some years ago, who has now quite changed his life; and he said, ‘Why, sir, where there is one hung now, there were five when I was young;’ and I said, ‘Yes, you are right in your calculation, and you are very lucky that you were spared so long, and have lived to be a better man.’ I agree with George Barrington--whom I brought from Newcastle--and however great lord chief baron Eyre’s speech was to him, after he had answered him, it came to this climax: ‘Now,’ says he, ‘Townsend, you heard what the chief baron said to me; a fine flowery speech, was it not?’ ‘Yes:’ ‘But he did not answer the question I put to him.’ Now how could he? After all that the chief baron said to him after he was acquitted--giving him advice--this word was every thing: says he, ‘My lord, I have paid great attention to what you have been stating to me, after my acquittal: I return my sincere thanks to the jury for their goodness: but your lordship says, you lament very much that a man of my abilities should not turn my abilities to a better use. Now, my lord, I have only this reply to make: I am ready to go into any service, to work for my labour, if your lordship will but find me a master.’ Why, what was the reply to that? ‘Gaoler, take the prisoner away.’ Why who would employ him? It is really farcical. I have heard magistrates say, ‘Young man, really I am very sorry for you; you are much to be pitied; you should turn your talents to a better account; and you should really leave off this bad course of life.’ Yes, that is better said than done; for where is there any body to take these wretches? They have said to me; ‘Sir, we do not thieve from disposition; but we thieve because we cannot get employment: our character is damned, and nobody will have us:’ and so it is; there is no question about it.

* * * * *

REMARKABLE EPITAPHS.

AT PENRYN.

Here lies William Smith: and what is somewhat rarish, He was born, bred, and hang’d in this here parish.

* * * * *

AT STAVERTON.

Here lieth the body of Betty Bowden, Who would live longer but she couden; Sorrow and grief made her decay, Till her bad leg carr’d her away.

* * * * *

AT LOCH RAUSA.

Here lies Donald and his wife, Janet Mac Fee: Aged 40 hee, And 30 shee.

* * * * *

ON MR. BYWATER.

Here lie the remains of his relative’s pride, Bywater he lived, and by water he died; Though by water he fell, yet by water he’ll rise, By water baptismal attaining the skies.

* * * * *

ON A MISER.

Here lies one who for med’cine would not give A little gold, and so his life he lost; I fancy now he’d wish again to live, Could he but guess how much his fun’ral cost.

S. S. S.

* * * * *

KING HENRY II.

DESCRIBED BY GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS,

Who accompanied him (as he afterwards did King John) into Ireland, A. D. 1172.

Henry II., king of England, was of a very good colour, but somewhat red; his head great and round, his eyes were fiery, red, and grim, and his face very high coloured; his voice or speech was shaking, quivering, or trembling; his neck short, his breast broad and big; strong armed; his body was gross, and his belly somewhat big, which came to him rather by nature than by any gross feeding or surfeiting; for his diet was very temperate, and to say the truth, thought to be more spare than comely, or for the state of a prince; and yet to abate his grossness, and to remedy this fault of nature, he did, as it were, punish his body with continual exercise, and keep a continual war with himself. For in the times of his wars, which were for the most part continual to him, he had little or no rest at all; and in times of peace he would not grant unto himself any peace at all, nor take any rest: for then did he give himself wholly unto hunting; and to follow the same, he would very early every morning be on horseback, and then go into the woods, sometimes into the forests, and sometimes into the hills and fields, and so would he spend the whole day until night. In the evening when he came home, he would never, or very seldom, sit either before or after supper; for though he were never so weary, yet still would he be walking and going. And, forasmuch as it is very profitable for every man in his lifetime that he do not take too much of any one thing, for medicine itself, which is appointed for man’s help and remedy, is not absolutely perfect and good to be always used, even so it befell and happened to this prince; for, partly by his excessive travels, and partly by divers bruises in his body, his legs and feet were swollen and sore. And, though he had no disease at all, yet age itself was a breaking sufficient unto him. He was of a reasonable stature, which happened to none of his sons; for his two eldest sons were somewhat higher, and his two younger were somewhat lower and less than he was. If he were in a good mood, and not angry, then would he be very pleasant and eloquent: he was also (which was a thing very rare in those days) very well learned; he was also very affable, gentle, and courteous; and besides, so pitiful, that when he had overcome his enemy, yet would he be overcome with pity towards him. In war he was most valiant, and in peace he was as provident and circumspect. And in the wars, mistrusting and doubting of the end and event thereof, he would (as Terence writeth) try all the ways and means he could devise, rather than wage the battle. If he lost any of his men in the fight, he would marvellously lament his death, and seem to pity him more being dead, than he did regard or account of him being alive; more bewailing the dead, than favouring the living.

In times of distress no man was more courteous; and when all things were safe, no man more cruel. Against the stubborn and unruly, no man more sharp, yet to the humble no man more gentle; hard towards his own men and household, but liberal to strangers; bountiful abroad, but sparing at home; whom he once hated, he would never or very hardly love; and whom he once loved, he would not lightly be out with him, or forsake him. He had great pleasure and delight in hawking and hunting:--would to God he had been as well bent and disposed unto good devotion![301]

It was said, that after the displeasure grown between the king and his sons, by the means and through the enticing of the queen their mother, he never was accounted to keep his word and promise, but, without any regard or care, was a common breaker thereof. And true it is, that, of a certain natural disposition, he was light and inconstant of his word; and if the matter were brought to a narrow strait or pinch, he would not stick rather to cover his word, than to deny his deed. And for this cause, in all his doings, he was very provident and circumspect, and a very upright and severe minister of justice, although he did therein grieve and make his friends to smart. His answers, for the most part, were perverse and froward. And, albeit, for profit and lucre all things are set to sale, and do bring great gains, as well to the clergy as the laity, yet they are no better to a man’s heirs and executors, than were the riches of Gehasi, whose greedy doings turned himself to utter ruin and destruction.

He was a great peace-maker, and careful keeper thereof himself; a liberal alms-giver, and a special benefactor to the Holy Land; he loved humility, abhorred pride, and much oppressed his nobility. The hungry he refreshed, the rich he regarded not. The humble he would exalt, but the mighty he disdained. He usurped much upon the holy church; and of a certain kind of zeal, but not according to knowledge, he did intermingle and conjoin profane with holy things; for why? He would be all in all himself. He was the child of the holy mother church, and by her advanced to the sceptre of his kingdom; and yet he either dissembled or utterly forgot the same; for he was slack always in coming to the church unto the divine service, and at the time thereof he would be busied and occupied rather with councils and in conference about the affairs of his commonwealth, than in devotion and prayer. The livelihoods belonging to any spiritual promotion, he would, in time of their vacation, confiscate to his own treasury, and assume that to himself which was due unto Christ. When any new troubles or wars did grow, or come upon him, then would he lavish and pour out all that ever he had in store or treasury, and liberally bestow that upon a soldier, which ought to have been given unto the priest. He had a very prudent and forecasting wit, and thereby foreseeing what things might or were like to ensue, he would accordingly order or dispose either for the performance or for the prevention thereof; notwithstanding which, many times the event happened to the contrary, and he was disappointed of his expectation: and commonly there happened no ill unto him, but he would foretell thereof to his friends and familiars.

He was a marvellous natural father to his children, and loved them tenderly in their childhood and young years; but they being grown to some age and ripeness, he was as a father-in-law, and could scarcely brook any of them. And, notwithstanding they were very handsome, comely, and noble gentlemen, yet, whether it were that he would not have them prosper too fast, or whether they had evil deserved of him, he hated them; and it was full much against his will that they should be his successors, or heirs to any part of his inheritance. And such is the prosperity of man, that as it cannot be perpetual, no more can it be perfect and assured: for why?--such was the secret malice of fortune against this king, that where he should have received much comfort, there had he most sorrow; where quietness and safety--there unquietness and peril; where peace--there enmity; where courtesy--there ingratitude; where rest--there trouble. And whether this happened by the means of their marriages, or for the punishment of the father’s sins, certain it is, there was no good agreement, neither between the father and the sons, nor yet among the sons themselves.

But at length, when all his enemies and the disturbers of the common peace were suppressed, and his brethren, his sons, and all others his adversaries, as well at home as abroad, were reconciled; then all things happened and befell unto him (though it were long first) after and according to his own will and mind. And would to God he had likewise reconciled himself unto God, and by amendment of his life, had in the end also procured his favour and mercy! Besides this, which I had almost forgotten, he was of such a memory, that if he had seen and known a man, he would not forget him: neither yet whatsoever he had heard, would he be unmindful thereof. And hereof was it, that he had so ready a memory of histories which he had read, and a knowledge and a manner of experience in all things. To conclude, if he had been chosen of God, and been obsequious and careful to live in his fear and after his laws, he had excelled all the princes of the world; for in the gifts of nature, no one man was to be compared unto him.[302]

[301] Giraldus here alludes to his quarrel with Thomas à Becket.

[302] Extracted (from lord Mountmorris’s History of the Irish Parliament, vol. i. page 33, et infra) by “THE VEILED SPIRIT.”

* * * * *

AMSTERDAM--WITHOUT WATER.

An amusing and lively account of this capital, its public institutions, society, painters, &c. may be found in a small volume, entitled “Voyage par la Hollande,” published by a French visitant in 1806. This is probably the most recent sketch of Amsterdam. With the exception of the conversion of the stadt-house into a king’s palace, and the establishment of certain societies, its general aspect and character have undergone little change for a century past; insomuch that “Le Guide d’Amsterdam,” published by Paul Blad in 1720, may be regarded as forming a correct and useful pocket-companion at the present day. The descriptions given of the Dutch towns by Mr. Ray in 1663, Dr. Brown in 1668, Mr. Misson in 1687, and Dr. Northleigh in 1702, are applicable in almost every particular to the same towns at the present day; so comparatively stationary has Holland been, or so averse are the people to changes.

That fuel should be scarce and dear in Amsterdam, the capital of a country destitute of coal-mines, and growing very little wood, might be expected; but, surrounded and intersected by canals as the city is, it is surprising that another of the necessaries of life, pure water, should be a still scarcer commodity: yet such is the case. There is no water fit for culinary purposes in Amsterdam but what is brought by boats from the Vecht, a distance of fifteen miles; and limpid water is brought from Utrecht, more than twice that distance, and sold in the streets by gallon measures, for table use, and for making of tea and coffee.[303]

[303] Horticultural Tour.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

REASON,

IF NOT RHYME.

Dame Prudence whispers marry not ’Till you have pence enough to pay For chattels, and to keep a cot, And leave a mite for quarter-day.

Beside chair, table, and a bed, Those need, who cannot live on air, Two plates, a basket for the bread, And knives and forks at least two pair.

When winter rattles in the sky Drear is the bed that wants a rug, And hapless he whose purse is dry When sickness calls for pill and drug.

So, Bess, we’ll e’en put off the day For parson C---- to tie us fast-- Who knows but luck, so long away, May come and bide with us at last?

Hope shall be ours the tedious while; We’ll mingle hearts, our lips shall join I’ll only claim thy sweetest smile, Only thy softest tress be mine.

VERITE.

For the Table Book.

SONG,

IMITATED FROM THE GERMAN OF HÖLTY.

Wer wollte sich mit Grillen plagen, &c.

Who--who would think of sorrowing In hours of youth and blooming spring, When bright cerulean skies are o’er us, And sun-lit paths before us-- Who--who would suffer shade to steal Over the forehead’s vernal light, Whilst young Hope in her heav’n-ward flight Oft turns her face round to reveal Her bright eye to the raptur’d sight-- Whilst Joy, with many smiles and becks, Bids us pursue the road he takes.

----Still, as erst, the fountain plays, The arbour’s green and cool, And the fair queen of night doth gaze On earth, as chastely beautiful As when she op’d her wond’ring eyes First--on the flowers of Paradise.

Still doth, as erst, the grape-juice brighten The heart in fortune’s wayward hour-- And still do kindred hearts delight in Affection’s kiss in evening-bower. Still Philomela’s passionate strain Bids long-fled feelings come again.

The world, to me, is wond’rous fair-- So fair, that should I cease to hold Communion with its scenes so dear, I’d think my days were nearly told.

R. W. D.

* * * * *

SWEETHEART SEEING.

ST. MARK’S EVE.--IN CHANCERY, August 2, 1827. In a cause, “Barker v. Ray,” a deponent swore, that a woman, named Ann Johnson, and also called “Nanny Nunks,” went to the deponent, and said to her, “I’ll tell you what I did to know if I could have Mr. Barker. On St. Mark’s night I ran round a haystack nine times, with a ring in my hand, calling out, ‘Here’s the sheath, but where’s the knife?’ and, when I was running round the ninth time, I thought I saw Mr. Barker coming home; but he did not come home that night, but was brought from the Blue Bell, at Beverley, the next day.”

* * * * *

THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING.

CONTROVERSY.

A man who is fond of disputing, will, in time, have few friends to dispute with.

SPEECH.

Truth is clothed in white. But a lie comes forth with all the colours of the rainbow.

ADVERSITY, A GOOD TEACHER.

Those bear disappointments the best, who have been the most used to them.

EXAMPLE.

When a misfortune happens to a friend, look forward and endeavour to prevent the same thing from happening to yourself.

STANDARD OF VALUE.

The worth of every thing is determined by the demand for it. In the deserts of Arabia, a pitcher of cold water is of more value than a mountain of gold.

LUCK AND LABOUR.

A guinea found in the street, will not do a poor man so much good as half a guinea earned by industry.

EARNING THE BEST GETTING.

Give a man work, and he will find money.

EARLY HOURS.

Since the introduction of candles, luxury has increased. Our forefathers rose with the lark, and went to bed with the sun.

INDICATIONS OF THE STATE-PULSE.

A jolly farmer returning home in his own waggon, after delivering a load of corn, is a more certain sign of national prosperity, than a nobleman riding in his chariot to the opera or the playhouse.

OVERWISE AND OTHERWISE.

A man of bright parts has generally more indiscretions to answer for than a blockhead.

Vol. II.--33.

------------------------ some monitor unseen, Calls for the song.--the call shall be obey’d; For ’tis that silent monitor, I ween, Which led my youth, to many a green-wood shade; Show’d me the spring, in thousand blooms array’d, And bade me look towards Heaven’s immensity: This is a power that schoolmen never made, That comes all unsolicited and free, To fire the youthful bard--lo! this is Poesy!

The Song of the Patriot.

~Robert Millhouse~

----The talented author of the poem from whence the motto is extracted is scarcely known to fame, and not at all to fortune. His unostentatious little volume, entitled “The Song of the Patriot, Sonnets, and Songs,” was thrown accidentally in my way; and its perusal occasions me to acquaint the readers of the Table Book with its uncommon merit. I do not know any thing concerning the poet beyond what I have derived from printed particulars, which I now endeavour to diffuse. That he is highly esteemed by a discriminating brother bard in his native county, is apparent by the following beautiful address to him in the Nottingham Mercury:--

STANZAS.

My thoughts are of a solitary place, Where twilight dwells, where sunbeams rarely fall; And there a wild-rose hangs in pensive grace, Reflected in a fountain clear and small; Above them rise dark shadowy trees and tall, Whilst round them grow rank night-shades in the gloom, Which seem with noxious influence to pall The fountain’s light, and taint the flower’s perfume; As fainly they would mar what they might not out-bloom.

These, mind me, Millhouse! of thy spirit’s light, That twilight makes in life so dark as thine! And though I do not fear the rose may blight, Or that the fountain’s flow may soon decline; Hope, is there none, the boughs which frown malign, High over-head, should let in heaven’s sweet face; Yet shall not these their life unknown resign, For nature’s votaries, wandering in each place, Shall find their secret shade, and marvel at their grace.

It appears from a small volume, published in 1823, entitled “Blossoms--by Robert Millhouse--being a Selection of Sonnets from his various Manuscripts,” that the Rev. Luke Booker, LL. D. vicar of Dudley, deemed its author “a man whose genius and character seemed to merit the patronage of his country, while his pressing wants, in an equal degree, claimed its compassion.” The doctor “presumed to advocate his case and his cause” before the “Literary Fund,” and a donation honourable to the society afforded the poet temporary relief. This, says Millhouse, was “at a time when darkness surrounded me on every side.” In a letter to Dr. Booker, lamenting the failure of a subscription to indemnify him for publishing his poems, when sickness had reduced a wife and infant child to the borders of the grave, he says, “I am now labouring under indisposition both of body and mind; which, with the united evils of poverty and a bad trade, have brought on me a species of melancholy that requires the utmost exertions of my philosophy to encounter.” About this period he wrote the following:--

TO A LEAFLESS HAWTHORN.

Hail, rustic tree! for, though November’s wind Has thrown thy verdant mantle to the ground: Yet Nature, to thy vocal inmates kind, With berries red thy matron-boughs has crown’d Thee do I envy: for, bright April show’rs Will bid again thy fresh green leaves expand; And May, light floating in a cloud of flow’rs, Will cause thee to re-bloom with magic hand. But, on my spring, when genial dew drops fell, Soon did life’s north-wind curdle them with frost; And, when my summer-blossom op’d its bell, In blight and mildew was its beauty lost.

Before adducing other specimens of his talents, it seems proper to give some account of the poet; and it can scarcely be better related than in the following

MEMOIR OF ROBERT MILLHOUSE, BY HIS ELDER BROTHER, JOHN MILLHOUSE.

Robert Millhouse was born at Nottingham the 14th of October, 1783, and was the second of ten children. The poverty of his parents compelled them to put him to work at the age of six years, and when ten he was sent to work in a stocking-loom. He had been constantly sent to a Sunday school, (the one which was under the particular patronage of that truly philanthropic ornament of human nature, the late Mr. Francis Wakefield,) till about the last-mentioned age, when a requisition having been sent by the rector of St. Peter’s parish, Dr. Staunton, to the master of the school, for six of his boys to become singers at the church, Robert was one that was selected; and thus terminated his education, which merely consisted of reading, and the first rudiments of writing.

When sixteen years old he first evinced an inclination for the study of poetry, which originated in the following manner.--Being one day at the house of an acquaintance, he observed on the chimney-piece two small statues of Shakspeare and Milton, which attracting his curiosity, he read on a tablet in front of the former, that celebrated inscription--

“The cloud-capt towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve; And like the baseless fabric of a vision, Leave not a wreck behind!”

Its beauty and solemnity excited in his mind the highest degree of admiration At the first opportunity he related the occurrence to me with apparent astonishment, and concluded by saying, “Is it not Scripture?” In reply, I told him it was a passage from Shakspeare’s play of the “Tempest,” a copy of which I had in my possession, and that he had better read it. For, although he had from his infancy been accustomed to survey with delight the beautiful scenery which surrounds Nottingham, had heard with rapture the singing of birds, and been charmed with the varied beauties of the changing seasons; and though his feelings were not unfrequently awakened by hearing read pathetic narratives, or accounts of the actions and sufferings of great and virtuous men, yet he was totally ignorant that such things were in any wise connected with poetry.

He now began to read with eagerness such books as I had previously collected, the principal of which were some of the plays of Shakspeare, Paradise Lost, Pope’s Essay on Man, the select poems of Gray, Collins, Goldsmith, Prior, and Parnell, two volumes of the Tatler, and Goldsmith’s Essays, all of the cheapest editions. But, ere long, by uniting our exertions, we were enabled to purchase Suttaby’s miniature edition of Pope’s Homer, Dryden’s Virgil, Hawkesworth’s translation of Telemachus, Mickle’s version of the Lusiad, Thomson’s Seasons, Beattie’s Minstrel, &c. These were considered as being a most valuable acquisition; and the more so, because we had feared we should never be able to obtain a sight of some of them, through their being too voluminous and expensive.

In 1810 he became a soldier in the Nottinghamshire militia, joined the regiment at Plymouth, and shortly afterwards made an attempt at composition.

It will readily be expected that now, being separated, we should begin to correspond with each other; and one day, on opening a letter which I had just received from him, I was agreeably surprised at the sight of his first poetical attempt, the “Stanzas addressed to a Swallow;” which was soon after followed by the small piece written “On finding a Nest of Robins.” Shortly after this the regiment embarked at Plymouth, and proceeded to Dublin; from which place, in the spring of 1812, I received in succession several other efforts of his muse.

Being now desirous of knowing for certain whether any thing he had hitherto produced was worthy to appear in print, he requested me to transmit some of them to the editor of the Nottingham Review, with a desire that, if they met with his approbation, he would insert them in his paper; with which request that gentleman very promptly complied. Having now a greater confidence in himself, he attempted something of a larger kind, and produced, in the summer of 1812, the poem of “Nottingham Park.”

In 1814 the regiment was disembodied, when he again returned to the stocking-loom, and for several years entirely neglected composition. In 1817 he was placed on the staff of his old regiment, now the Royal Sherwood Foresters; and in the following year became a married man. The cares of providing for a family now increased his necessities; he began seriously to reflect on his future prospects in life; and perceiving he had no other chance of bettering his condition than by a publication, and not having sufficient already written to form a volume, he resolved to attempt something of greater magnitude and importance than he had hitherto done; and in February, 1819, began the poem of “Vicissitude.” The reader will easily conceive that such a theme required some knowledge of natural and moral philosophy, of history, and of the vital principles of religion. How far he has succeeded in this poem is not for me to say; but certain it is, as may be expected from the narrowness of his education, and his confined access to books, his knowledge is very superficial: however, with unceasing exertions, sometimes composing while at work under the pressure of poverty and ill-health, and at other times, when released from his daily labour, encroaching upon the hours which ought to have been allotted to sleep, by the end of October, 1820, the work was brought to a conclusion.

* * * * *

To his brother’s narrative should be added, that Robert Millhouse’s “Vicissitude,” and other poems, struggled into the world with great difficulty, and were succeeded by the volume of “Blossoms.” The impression of both was small, their sale slow, and their price low; and nearly as soon as each work was disposed of, the produce was exhausted by the wants of the author and his family.

Fresh and urgent necessities have required fresh exertions, and the result is “The Song of the Patriot, Sonnets, and Songs,” a four-shilling volume, “printed for the Author and sold by R. Hunter, St. Paul’s Church-yard, and J. Dunn, Nottingham.” The book appeared in the autumn of last year, after poor Millhouse had suffered much privation from the bad state of the times. It was published with a slender list of subscribers--only seventy-seven!--and, though intended to improve his situation, has scarcely defrayed the bills of the stationer and printer.

The author of “The Song of the Patriot” anticipated the blight of his efforts. In the commencement of that poem, he says:--

---- ’Tis difficult for little men To raise their feeble pigmy heads so high, As to attract the glance of passing ken Where giant shoulders intercept the sky; And ah! ’tis difficult for such as I, To wake fit strains where mighty minstrels sing; Perhaps, even this, shall but be born and die: Not fated to enjoy a second spring, But like some hawk-struck bird, expire on new-fledg’d wing.

In this poem there are stanzas expressed with all a poet’s fire, and all a patriot’s heartfelt devotion to his country.

Land of my fathers! may thy rocky coast Long be the bulwark of thy free-born race; Long may thy patriots have just cause to boast That mighty Albion is their native place; Still be thy sons unequall’d in the chase Of glory, be it science, arts, or arms; And first o’erweening conquerors to disgrace; Yet happier far, when Peace in all her charms, Drives out from every land the din of war’s alarms.

Potent art thou in poesy--Yet there still Is one thing which the bard hath seldom scann’d; That national, exalting local thrill, Which makes our home a consecrated land: ’Tis not enough to stretch the Muses’ wand O’er states, where thy best blood has purchas’d fame; Nor that thy fertile genius should expand To cast o’er foreign themes the witching flame: This hath thy lyre perform’d, and won a glorious name.

Be every hill and dale, where childhood wanders, And every grove and nook, the lover knows, And every stream, and runlet that meanders, And every plain that covers freedom’s foes The dwelling-place of Song,--and where repose The great immortal worthies of our isle Be hallow’d ground--and when the pilgrim goes To hail the sacred dust, and muse awhile, Be heard the free-born strain to blanch the tyrant’s smile.

The patriotism of that people, traces of whose victories are observable in many of our customs, has been well discriminated. “In the most virtuous times of the Roman republic their country was the idol, at whose shrine her greatest patriots were at all times prepared to offer whole hecatombs of human victims: the interests of other nations were no further regarded, than as they could be rendered subservient to the gratification of her ambition; and mankind at large were considered as possessing no rights, but such as might with the utmost propriety be merged in that devouring vortex. With all their talents and their grandeur, they were unprincipled oppressors, leagued in a determined conspiracy against the liberty and independence of mankind.”[304] Every English patriot disclaims, on behalf of his country, the exclusive selfishness of Roman policy; and Millhouse is a patriot in the true sense of the word. His “Song of the Patriot” is a series of energetic stanzas, that would illustrate the remark. At the hazard of exceeding prescribed limits, two more are added to the specimens already quoted.

A beacon, lighted on a giant hill; A sea-girt watch-tower to each neighbouring state; A barrier, to control the despot’s will; An instrument of all-directing fate Is Britain; for whate’er in man is great, Full to that greatness have her sons attain’d; Dreadful in war to hurl the battle’s weight; Supreme in arts, in commerce unrestrain’d; Peerless in magic song, to hold the soul enchain’d.

In wealth and power stupendous is our isle! Obtain’d by Labour’s persevering hand: And heaven-born Liberty extends her smile To the remotest corners of our land: The meanest subject feels her potent wand; Peasant and peer are by one law controll’d; And this it is, that keeps us great and grand: This is the impulse makes our warriors bold, And knits more close the bond our fathers seal’d of old.

The prevailing feature in Robert Millhouse’s effusions is of a domestic nature. He loves his country, and deems his birthplace and the hearth of his family its brightest spots. One of his sonnets combines these feelings:--

HOME.

Scenes of my birth, and careless childhood hours. Ye smiling hills, and spacious fertile vales! Where oft I wander’d, plucking vernal flowers, And revell’d in the odour-breathing gales; Should fickle Fate, with talismanic wand, Bear me afar where either India glows, Or fix my dwelling on the Polar land, Where Nature wears her ever-during snows; Still shall your charms my fondest themes adorn, When placid evening paints the western sky, And when Hyperion wakes the blushing Morn, To rear his gorgeous sapphire throne on high. For, to the guileless heart, where’er we roam, No scenes delight us like our much-lov’d Home.

A man so humble, with such acquirements as have been here exemplified, and so unfortunate as to have derived little from their exercise but pain and disappointment, may be imagined to have penned the following address in distress and despondency:--

TO GENIUS.

O born of heaven, thou Child of magic Song! What pangs, what cutting hardships wait on thee, When thou art doom’d to cramping Poverty; The pois’nous shafts from Defamation’s tongue,-- The jeers and tauntings of the blockhead throng, Who joy to see thy bold exertions fail; While Hunger, pinching as December’s gale, Brings moody dark Despondency along. And, should’st thou strive Fame’s lofty mount to scale, The steps of its ascent are cut in sand; And half-way up,--a snake-scourge in her hand, Lurks pallid Envy, ready to assail: And last, if thou the top, expiring, gain, When Fame applauds, thou hearest not the strain.

In this sheet there is not room to further make known, or plead at greater length, the claims of Robert Millhouse to notice and protection. I should blush for any reader of poetical taste, with four shillings to spare, who, after perusing the preceding extracts, would hesitate to purchase the poet’s last little volume. I should more than blush for the more wealthy, who are reputed patrons of talent, if they decline to seek out and effectually succour him. I am, and am likely to remain, wholly unacquainted with him: my only wish is to induce attention to a talented and estimable individual, who is obscure and neglected, because he is unobtrusive and modest.

August 8, 1827.

*

[304] Robert Hall.

* * * * *

AN INFERNAL PALINDROME.

[Palindrome. A word or sentence which is the same read backward as forwards: as, madam; or this sentence Subi dura a rudibus.

Johnson.]

Whence did Geoffry Crayon derive “The Poor Devil Author,” the title to one of his “Tales of a Traveller,” but from a legendary story, according to which the devil is acquainted with versification, although his lines are constructed in a very remarkable manner; for they can be read forward and backward, and preserve the same sense. There is a specimen of this “literary ingenuity” in the present volume of the Table Book, (col. 28.) The “Lives of the Saints” afford another, viz:--

St. Martin (of whom there is an account in the Every-Day Book, vol. i. p. 1469) having given up the profession of a soldier, and being elected bishop of Tours, when prelates neither kept carriages, horses, nor servants, had occasion to go to Rome, in order to consult his holiness upon some important ecclesiastical matter. As he was walking gently along the road, he met the devil, who politely accosted him, and ventured to observe how fatiguing and indecorous it was for him to perform so long a journey on foot, like the commonest of cockle-shell-chaperoned pilgrims. The saint knew well the drift of Old Nick’s address, and commanded him immediately to become a beast of burthen, or jumentum; which the devil did in a twinkling, by assuming the shape of a mule. The saint jumped upon the fiend’s back, who, at first, trotted cheerfully along, but soon slackened his pace. The bishop, of course, had neither whip nor spurs, but was possessed of a much more powerful stimulus, for, says the legend, he made the sign of the cross, and the smarting devil instantly galloped away. Soon, however, and naturally enough, the father of sin returned to sloth and obstinacy, and Martin hurried him again with repeated signs of the cross, till twitched and stung to the quick by those crossings so hateful to him, the vexed and tired reprobate uttered the following distich in a rage:--

Signa te, Signa: temere me tangis et angis: Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.

That is--“Cross, cross thyself--thou plaguest and vexest me without necessity; for, owing to my exertions, Rome, the object of thy wishes, will soon be near.” The singularity of this distich, consists, as hinted above, in its being palindromical; or it reads backwards as well as in the common way--Angis, the last word of the first line, makes signa--et makes te--and so on to the beginning. Amor, the last of the last line, read backwards, makes Roma--ibit makes tibi--and so forth.

These lines have been quoted imperfectly and separately in “Encyclopedies” and other books, under the words “Palindromical verses;” but the reader will not easily meet with the legendary tale, which gives them historical consistence and meaning.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXIX.

[From the “Gentleman Usher,” a Comedy, by G. Chapman, 1606.]

Vincentio, a Prince (to gain him over to his interest in a love-affair) gulls Bassiolo, a formal Gentleman Usher to a Great Lord, with commendations of his wise house-ordering at a great Entertainment.

Vinc.--besides, good Sir, your Show did shew so well-- Bass. Did it indeed, my Lord? Vinc. O Sir, believe it, ’Twas the best fashion’d and well-order’d thing, That ever eye beheld: and therewithal, The fit attendance by the servants used, The gentle guise in serving every guest, In other entertainments; every thing About your house so sortfully disposed, That ev’n as in a turn-spit (call’d a Jack) One vice[305] assists another; the great wheels, Turning but softly, make the less to whirr About their business; every different part Concurring to one commendable end: So, and in such conformance, with rare grace Were all things order’d in your good Lord’s house. Bass. The most fit Simile that ever was. Vinc. But shall I tell you plainly my conceit, Touching the man that (I think) caused this order? Bass. Aye, good my Lord. Vinc. You note my Simile? Bass. Drawn from the turn-spit---- Vinc. I see, you have me. Even as in that quaint engine you have seen A little man in shreds stand at the winder, And seems to put in act all things about him, Lifting and pulling with a mighty stir,-- Yet adds no force to it, nor nothing does: So, though your Lord be a brave gentleman, And seems to do this business, he does nothing. Some man about him was the festival robe That made him shew so glorious and divine. Bass. I cannot tell, my Lord; but I should know, If any such there were. Vinc. Should know, quoth you? I warrant, you know well. Well, some there be, Shall have the fortune to have such rare men (Like brave Beasts to their arms) support their state; When others, of as high a worth and breed, Are made the wasteful food of them they feed.-- What state hath your Lord made you for your service?

* * * * *

The same Bassiolo described.

Lord’s Daughter.--his place is great; for he is not only My father’s Usher, but the world’s beside, Because he goes before it all in folly.

* * * * *

[From the “Bastard,” a Tragedy, Author Unknown, 1652.]

Lover’s Frown.

Roderiguez. Thy uncle, Love, holds still a jealous eye On all my actions; and I am advised, That his suspicious ears Are still behind the hangings; that the servants Have from him in command to watch who visits. ’Tis safest, in my judgment, in his presence That thou forbear to cast a smile upon me; And that, like old December, I should look With an unpleasant and contracted brow. Varina. What, can’st thou change thy heart, my dear, that heart Of flesh thou gav’st me, into adamant, Or rigid marble? can’st thou frown on me? Rod. You do mistake me, sweet, I mean not so To change my heart; I’ll change my countenance, But keep my heart as loyal as before. Var. In truth I cannot credit it, that thou Can’st cast a frown on me; I prithee, try. Rod. Then thus:

(he tries, and cannot; they smile on each other.)

Var. I prithee, sweet, betake thyself to school; This lesson thou must learn; in faith thou art out. Rod. Well, I must learn, and practice it, or we Shall blast our budding hopes. Var. Come, try again. Rod. But if I try, and prove a good proficient; If I do act my part discretely, you Must take it as a play, not as a truth; Think it a formal, not a real frown. Var. I shall---- Rod. Then thus: i’faith, minion, I’ll look to thee.

(she swoons.)

Rod. Why, how now, sweet!--I did mistrust thy weakness: Now I have learn’d my part, you are to seek. Var. ’Faith, ’twas my weakness; when I did perceive A cloud of rage condensed on thy brow, My heart began to melt.----

* * * * *

[From “Love Tricks,” a Comedy, by James Shirley.]

Passionate Courtship.

Infortunio. I must have other answer, for I love you. Selina. Must! but I don’t see any necessity that I must love you. I do confess you are A proper man. Inf. O do not mock, Selina; let not excellence, Which you are full of, make you proud and scornful. I am a Gentleman; though my outward part Cannot attract affection, yet some have told me, Nature hath made me what she need not shame. Yet look into my heart; there you shall see What you cannot despise, for there you are With all your graces waiting on you; there Love hath made you a throne to sit, and rule O’er Infortunio; all my thoughts obeying, And honouring you as queen. Pass by my outside, My breast I dare compare with any man. Sel. But who can see this breast you boast of so? Inf. O ’tis an easy work; for though it be Not to be pierced by the dull eye, whose beam Is spent on outward shapes, there is a way To make a search into its hidden’st passage. I know you would not love, to please your sense. A tree, that bears a ragged unleav’d top In depth of winter, may when summer comes Speak by his fruit he is not dead but youthful, Though once he shew’d no sap: my heart’s a plant Kept down by colder thoughts and doubtful fears. Your frowns like winter storms make it seem dead, But yet it is not so; make it but yours, And you shall see it spring, and shoot forth leaves Worthy your eye, and the oppressed sap Ascend to every part to make it green, And pay your love with fruit when harvest comes. Sel. Then you confess your love is cold as yet, And winter’s in your heart. Inf. Mistake me not, Selina, for I say My heart is cold, not love. Sel. And yet your love is from your heart, I’ll warrant. Inf. O you are nimble to mistake. My heart is cold in your displeasures only, And yet my love is fervent; for your eye, Casting out beams, maintains the flame it burns in. Again, sweet Love, My heart is not mine own, ’tis yours, you have it; And while it naked lies, not deign’d your bosom To keep it warm, how can it be but cold, In danger to be frozen? blame not it, You only are in fault it hath no heat. Sel. Well, Sir; I know you have rhetoric, but I Can without art give you a final answer. Inf. O stay, and think awhile; I cannot relish You should say final: sweet, deliberate; It doth concern all the estate I have; I mean not dunghill treasure, but my life Doth stand or fall to it; if your answer be That you can love me, be as swift as light’ning; But if you mean to kill me, and reject My so long love-devotions, which I’ve paid As to an altar, stay a little longer, And let me count the riches I shall lose By one poor airy word; first give me back That part of Infortunio that is lost Within your love; play not the tyrant with me.

C. L.

[305] Turn.

* * * * *

RIDICULE.

In many cases ridicule might be used in the place of severe chastisement, and sometimes with a more lasting effect, especially among young people. One scheme of this kind was tried with great success by the elder Dr. Newcome, who governed a school at Hackney about forty years ago. When a pupil mistook in the pronunciation of a Latin word, he used to make the faulty lad repeat after him, before the whole school, “Nos Germăni, non curămus, quantītătem, syllābărum.” The penalty of uttering, in false quantity, this absurd assertion, supposed to be made by a German, importing that “His countrymen minded not how they pronounced Latin,” was more dreaded by the boys than the ferula or the rod.

* * * * *

RIDICULOUS SITUATIONS.

LITERARY NURSERYMEN.

Melancthon studied the gravest points of theology, while he held his book in one hand, and in the other the edge of a cradle, which he incessantly rocked.

“M. Esprit, a celebrated author and scholar, has been caught by me,” says M. Marville, “reading Plato with great attention, considering the interruptions which he met, from the necessity of frequently sounding his little child’s whistle.”

A PRINCESS A-PICK-A-PACK.

The great constable of France, Anne de Montmorency, a man whose valour and military skill was only exceeded by his pride, his cruelty, and his bigotry, was ordered by Francis I. to carry on his shoulders, or any way that he could contrive it, his niece, the princess of Navarre, to the altar, where she was, against her will, to be married to the duc de Cleves. Brantome observes, that this was a hard task, as the little lady was so loaded with jewels, and rich brocade of gold and silver, that she could scarcely walk. The whole court were amazed at the king’s command; the queen of Navarre was pleased, as she wished her daughter to be humbled, on account of her having imbibed Lutheran principles; but the constable was much hurt, at being exposed to the ridicule of the whole world, and said, “It is henceforward over with me; my favour at court is passed away:” accordingly, he was dismissed as soon as the wedding was over.

Running at the “Quintain,” an old sport formerly common in England, unexpectedly occurs, and is sufficiently described, in the following report of a recent fashionable entertainment:--

COURT CIRCULAR.

Viscount and viscountess Gage gave a grand fête on Friday, (August 3, 1827,) at their seat at Firle-place, Sussex, to about a hundred and sixty of the nobility and gentry, at which the ancient game of quintain was revived. The sports commenced by gentlemen riding with light spiked staves at rings and apples, suspended by a string, after which they changed their weapons to stout poles, and attacked the two quintains, which consisted of logs of wood fashioned to resemble the head and body of a man, and set upright upon a high bench, on which they were kept by a chain passing through the platform, and having a weight suspended to it, so that if the log was not struck full and forcibly the figure resumed its seat. One was also divided in the middle, and the upper part being fixed on a pivot turned, if not struck in the centre, and requited its assailant by a blow with a staff, to which was suspended a small bag of flour.

The purses for unhorsing this quintain were won by John Slater and Thomas Trebeck, Esqrs. The other figure which did not turn, opposed a lance towards the assailant’s face, and the rider was to avoid the lance, and unhorse the quintain at the same time. The purses were won by Sheffield Neave, Esq. and the hon. John Pelham.

A third pair of purses were offered for unhorsing the quintain, by striking on a coloured bell, which hooped round the waist of the figure, thereby raising the weight, which was considerable, by a much shorter lever than when struck higher up. This was a feat requiring great strength of arm and firmness of seat, and though not fairly won according to the rules of the game, the purses were ultimately assigned to the very spirited exertions of Messrs. Cayley and Gardener.

Viscountess Gage distributed the prizes to the conquerors.

About six o’clock the numerous party sat down to a cold collation of upwards of three hundred dishes, consisting of every delicacy the season could possibly afford, including the choicest collection of fruits, and wines of the finest quality: after which many recontinued the game of quintain; others diverted themselves at rifling the target. The ladies amused themselves at archery. In the evening the assemblage of nobility and gentry retired to the grand hall, where fashionable quadrilles concluded the amusements of the day.[306]

* * * * *

Combating the quintain is presumed to have preceded jousts and tournaments. It was originally nothing more than the trunk of a tree, or a post, set up for the practice of tyros in chivalry. Afterwards a staff or spear was fixed in the earth, and a shield being hung upon it was the mark to strike at: the dexterity of the performer consisted in smiting the shield so as to break the ligatures, and throw it to the ground. In process of time this diversion was improved, and instead of the staff and the shield, the resemblance of a human figure carved in wood was introduced. To render its appearance formidable it was generally made in the likeness of an armed Turk or Saracen, with a shield on his left arm, and brandishing a club or sabre with his right. The quintain was placed upon a pivot, so as to move round with facility. In running at this figure the horseman directed his lance to strike the forehead, between the eyes or on the nose; for if he struck wide of those parts, especially upon the shield, the quintain turned about with much velocity, and unless he was exceedingly careful gave him a severe blow upon the back with the wooden sabre; when this occurred it was deemed disgraceful to the performer, and excited the laughter and ridicule of the spectators.

* * * * *

The quintain is more particularly described by the late Mr. Strutt in his account of “The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England,” a large quarto volume, with plates, which, from its increasing scarcity and price, is scarcely attainable by the general reader. The above representation of the armed quintain is one of a series of illustrations for a new and correct edition of Mr. Strutt’s “Sports,” which is now preparing for the press under the superintendence of the editor of the Table Book. It will be accurately printed in octavo. Each of the engravings will be fac-simile, and of the same size as the engravings in the quarto volume. The price of the new edition will not exceed one-sixth of the cost of the original, and it will be published in shilling parts.

[306] Times, August 7, 1827.

* * * * *

DAVID LOVE.

For the Table Book.

Died, on Tuesday afternoon, June 12th, 1827, David Love; of whom there is a portrait, with a memoir, in the Every-Day Book, vol. ii. p. 225, with a further notice at p. 1575. He had nearly attained his seventy-seventh year; and, till within a few weeks of his death, pursued his avocation of “walking stationer” in Nottingham. It was unnecessary for him to take out an hawker’s license, as the commodities in which he dealt were entirely of his own manufacture.

According to the memoirs of David Love’s life, (a curious specimen of “autobiography,”) which he published in twenty-four penny numbers, in 1824, and which he sold very numerously, he was born near Edinburgh in the year 1750; at three years of age he was abandoned by his father, and his mother shortly afterwards became blind; he led her about, and was an “unlucky urchin;” when older grown he worked in a coal-pit, but broke his arm, and was discharged, and commenced hawking tracts and small books. At twenty-five he was worth upwards of three pounds. Then, thinking of settling in the world, he wooed, won, and married a young woman: a small shop was established, which succeeded at first; but finding his fortune wasting, he paid his first court to the Muses, by composing two songs, of which the titles only are now extant:--“The Pride and Vanity of Young Women, with Advice to Young Men, that they may take care who they marry;” and “The Pride and Vanity of Young men, with Advice to the Maids, to beware of being ensnared by their Flatteries and enticing Words.” These versifyings he printed, and first started at a distant fair. Their sale exceeded his expectations; he discontinued his shop, paid his debts, and soon after (during the American war) enlisted into the duke of Buccleugh’s regiment of South Fencibles. His wife quickly presented him with a son, which being “the first man child born in the regiment,” the duke accepted as his name-son. After experiencing the vicissitudes of a soldier’s life, and getting out of the “black hole” two or three times by his verses, he was discharged, in consequence of a weakness in his arm. He then had his soldier’s poems printed, resumed his old trade of walking stationer, turned his face to the south, and was the more successful the farther he went from home. After travelling for some years he settled at Gosport, commenced bookseller with his old stock of old books, and printed a fourpenny volume of original poems. He then lived for three years in London, and composed many poems. Bristol was his next place of residence, and there he performed several remarkable cures out of an old receipt-book, but was too conscientious to turn quack doctor. Here, he saw his father, who died shortly after, “a repenting sinner,” aged ninety-three. Still travelling, he reached Newbury, in Berkshire, where he tells us he was “converted,” and he dates his “new birth” on the 17th of April, 1796. Many pages of his work are occupied by his religious experience, and various texts of scripture, whence he derived consolation.

In 1804 David Love buried his wife, (aged fifty-one,) after a long illness, at Rugby, in Warwickshire. He journeyed to Leicester, and thence to Nottingham, where he from that time continued to reside, except at intervals, and where he married again. In eighteen months his second wife died suddenly, also at Rugby. The following is the commencement of a long elegy on the subject:--

“In this vain world my troubles still abound, My two wives lie in Rugby burial ground; Both of one name, and both of them one age, And in one house both were called off the stage.”

These lines refer to a singular coincidence respecting his wives; both their maiden names were Mary Thompson, and both were aged fifty-one at their death. In 1810, May 21, he married his third and surviving wife at St. Mary’s church, Nottingham; and, excepting a journey to Edinburgh, and another to London, they lived in various parts of the town till his decease. David’s forte lay principally in religious acrostics and hymns, for which he had a good demand among the pious inhabitants. The following is inserted as being a short one:--

TO ANN SHORT,

Who said, “I am short of every thing.”

A m short, O Lord, of praising thee, N othing I can do right; N eedy and naked, poor I be, S hort, Lord, I am of sight: H ow short I am of love and grace! O f every thing I’m short: R enew me, then I’ll follow peace T hrough good and bad report.

In person David was below the middle stature; his features were not unhandsome for an old man; his walk was exceedingly slow, deliberately placing one foot before the other, in order perhaps to give his customers time to hear what he had got; his voice was clear, and strongly marked with the Scotch accent. He possessed a readiness of wit and repartee, which is often united with aspiring talents in lower life. A tribute to Love’s memory, written on the day of his burial, may not be unacceptable

ELEGY, WRITTEN IN ST MARY’S CHURCH YARD, NOTTINGHAM.

The sexton tolls the knell of David Love, The funeral train treads slowly thro’ the street, Old General,[307] wand in hand, with crape above, Conducts the pageant with demeanour meet.

Now stops the mournful train beside the grave, And all the air a solemn stillness holds; Save when the clerk repeats his twanging stave, And on the coffin fall the pattering moulds;

Save that from yonder grass-surrounded stone, The whining schoolboy loudly does complain Of such, as crowding round his mossy throne, Invade his tottering transitory reign.

Beneath those rugged stones, that corner’s shade, And trodden grass in rough mis-shapen heap, (Unless by Friday’s art away convey’d,[308]) In order due, what various bodies sleep.

The call of “coals,” the cry of sooty sweep, The twist machine[309] loud lumbering over head; The jacks’ shrill whirring,[310] oft disturbing sleep-- No more shall rouse them from their well-flock’d bed.

For them no more the Indian weed shall burn, Or bustling landlord fill his beverage rare; No shopmates hail their comrade’s wish’d return, Applaud his song, and in his chorus share.

Perhaps in this hard-beaten spot is laid Some head once vers’d in the mechanic powers, Hands that the bat at cricket oft have sway’d, Or won the cup for gooseberries and flowers.

Slow through the streets on tottering footsteps borne, Muttering his humble ditties he would rove, Singing “Goose Fair,” [311] or “Tread Mill” where forlorn Consign’d by Lincoln ’squires trod David Love.

One week I miss’d him from the market-place, Along the streets where he was wont to be; Strange voices came, but his I could not trace, Before the ’Change, nor by Sheep-lane was he.

And now with honour due, in sad array Slow through the church-yard paths we’ve seen him borne; Approach and hear (if thou wilt hear) the lay In which the bard’s departed worth we mourn.

EPITAPH.

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, A minstrel old in Nottingham well known, In Caledonia was his humble birth, But England makes his aged bones her own.

Long were his verses, and his life was long, Wide, as a recompense, his fame was spread; He sold for halfpence (all he had) a song, He earn’d by them (’twas all he wish’d) his bread.

No farther I his merits can disclose, His widow dwells where David late abode; Go, buy his life, wrote by himself, which shows His service to his country, and his God.

~G.~

Nottingham,

June 14, 1827.

[307] Old General. See Every-Day Book, vol. ii. col. 1570, for a memoir of this worthy.

[308] Old Friday. The nickname of the ex-deputy sexton of St. Mary’s parish, who was more than suspected of participating in resurrectioning. In Feb. 1827, a discovery was made of some bodies about to be removed to London; an examination ensued, when it was found that, for many months, the dissecting rooms of the metropolis were supplied wholesale from the various grounds of the parish; and for many days nothing was heard of but the opening of graves, which were discovered to be empty.

[309] Machines for making lace.

[310] Part of a stocking-frame, which makes a great noise in working.

[311] Goose fair. A great holiday fair at Nottingham, so called probably from its occurrence immediately after Michaelmas day, (viz. on October 2, 3, 4,) and the great quantity of geese slaughtered and eaten. One of David’s best songs is on this subject, but it is entirely local. Popular tradition, however, has assigned a far different origin to its name: a farmer who for some reason or other (whether grief for the loss of his wife, or her infidelity, or from mere curiosity, or dread of the fair sex, or some other reason equally unreasonable, according to various accounts) had brought up his three sons in total seclusion, during which they never saw woman. On their arriving at man’s estate, he brought them to the October fair, promising to buy each of them whatever he thought best. They gazed about them, asking the names of whatever they saw, when beholding some women walking, dressed in white, they demanded what they were; the farmer, somewhat alarmed at the eagerness of the question, replied, “Pho, those silly things are geese.” When, without waiting an instant, all three exclaimed, “Oh father, buy me a goose.”

* * * * *

THINGS WORTH REMEMBERING.

BE HONEST.

If you only endeavour to be honest, you are struggling with yourself.

A DEFINITION.

Truth is the conformity of expression to thought.

TAKE CARE.

Equivocation is a mean expedient to avoid the declaration of truth, without verbally telling a lie.

KEEP AN ACCOUNT.

Our debts and our sins are always greater than we think of.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS ILL LUCK.

It is true that some misfortunes are inevitable; but, in general, they proceed from our own want of judgment and foresight.

OUR ENJOYMENTS ARE CONDITIONAL.

If we had it in our power to gratify every wish, we should soon feel the effects of a surfeit.

OUR REAL WANTS ARE FEW.

The stomach tires of every thing but bread and water.

MODERATE YOUR DESIRES.

Take away your expensive follies, and you will have little occasion to complain of hard times.

MANY A LITTLE MAKES A MICKLE.

When a shopkeeper has company, he may have two candles; but when alone, one candle will be sufficient for common purposes. The saving will nearly find his wife in shoes.

AS THE TWIG IS BENT, THE TREE INCLINES.

If you give your children an improper education, their future misfortunes will lie at your door.

THERE ARE TRUE AND FALSE FACTS.

History should be read with caution. It often presents us with false and delusive pictures; and, by the gay colouring of the artist, excites our admiration of characters really odious.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. IV.

OF SENSIBLE QUALITIES.

The most eminent philosophers of antiquity, Democritus, Socrates, Aristippus the chief of the Cyrenaïc sect, Plato, Epicurus, and Lucretius, affirmed, that cold and heat, odours and colours, were no other than sensations excited in our minds, by the different operations of the bodies surrounding us, and acting on our senses; even Aristotle himself was of opinion, that “sensible qualities exist in the mind.” Yet when Descartes, and after him Mallebranche, taught the very same truths, they were ascribed to these moderns, owing to the outcry they made, as if the opposite error, which they attacked in the schoolmen, had been that of all ages; and nobody deigned to search whether, in reality, it was so or not. Were we to bring into review all that the ancients have taught on this subject, we should be surprised at the clearness with which they have explained themselves, and at a loss to account how opinions came to be taken for new, which had been illustrated in their writings with such force and precision.

Democritus was the first who disarrayed body of its sensible qualities. He affirmed, that “the first elements of things having in them naturally neither whiteness nor blackness, sweetness nor bitterness, heat nor cold, nor any other quality, it thence follows, that colour, for example, exists only in our imagination or perception of it; as also, that bitterness and sweetness, which exist only in being perceived, are the consequences of the different manner in which we ourselves are affected by the bodies surrounding us, there being nothing in its own nature yellow or white, or red, sweet or bitter.” He indicates what kind of atoms produce such and such sensations: round atoms, for example, the taste of sweetness; pointed and crooked, that of tartness; bodies composed of angular and coarse parts, introducing themselves with difficulty into the pores, cause the disagreeable sensations of bitterness and acidity, &c. The Newtonians imitate this reasoning everywhere, in explaining the different natures of bodies.

Sextus Empiricus, explaining the doctrine of Democritus, says, “that sensible qualities, according to that philosopher, have nothing of reality but in the opinion of those who are differently affected by them, according to the different dispositions of their organs; and that from this difference of disposition arise the perceptions of sweet and bitter, heat and cold; and also, that we do not deceive ourselves in affirming that we feel such impressions, but in concluding that exterior objects must have in them something analogous to our feelings.”

Protagoras, the disciple of Democritus, carried farther than ever Democritus did the consequences of his system; for admitting with his master the perpetual mutability of matter which occasioned a constant change in things, he thence concluded, that whatever we see, apprehend, or touch, is just as they appear; and that the only true rule or criterion of things, was in the perception men had of them. From Protagoras, bishop Berkeley seems to have derived his idea, “that there is nothing in external objects but what the sensible qualities existing in our minds induce us to imagine, and of course that they have no other manner of existence; there being no other substratum for them, than the minds by which they are perceived, not as modes or qualities belonging to themselves, but as objects of perception to whatever is percipient.”

We should think we were listening to the two modern philosophers, Descartes and Mallebranche, when we hear Aristippus, the disciple of Socrates, exhorting men “to be upon their guard with respect to the reports of sense, because it does not always yield just information; for we do not perceive exterior objects as they are in themselves, but only as they affect us. We know not of what colour or smell they may be, these being only affections in ourselves. It is not the objects themselves that we are enabled to comprehend, but are confined to judge of them only by the impressions they make upon us; and the wrong judgments we form of them in this respect is the cause of all our errors. Hence, when we perceive a tower which appears round, or an oar which seems crooked in the water, we may say that our senses intimate so and so, but ought not to affirm that the distant tower is really round, or the oar in the water crooked: it is enough, in such a case, to say with Aristippus and the Cyrenaïc sect, that we receive the impression of roundness from the tower, and of crookedness from the oar; but it is neither necessary nor properly in our power to affirm, that the tower is really round, or the oar broken; for a square tower may appear round at a distance, and a straight stick always seems crooked in the water.”[312]

Everybody talks of whiteness and sweetness, but they have no common faculty to which they can with certainty refer impressions of this kind. Every one judges by his own apprehensions, and nobody can affirm that the sensation which he feels when he sees a white object, is the same with what his neighbour experiences in regard to the same object. He who has large eyes will see objects in a different magnitude from him whose eyes are little, and he who hath blue eyes, discern them under different colours from him who hath grey; whence it comes, that we give common names to things, of which, however, we judge very variously.

Epicurus, admitting the principles of Democritus, thence deduces “that colour, cold, heat, and other sensible qualities are not inherent in the atoms, but the result of their assemblage; and that the difference between them flows from the diversity of their size, figure, and arrangement; insomuch, that any number of atoms in one disposition creates one sort of sensation; and in another, another: but their own primary nature remains always the same.”

The moderns have treated this matter with much penetration and sagacity, yet they have scarcely advanced any thing but what had been said before by the ancient philosophers just quoted, and by others who might be cited to the same effect.

[312] Peter Huet, the celebrated bishop of Avranches, in his “Essay on the Weakness of the Human Understanding,” argues to the same effect, and almost in the same words. ED.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

MR. EPHRAIM WAGSTAFF, HIS WIFE AND PIPE.

About the middle of Shoemaker-row, near to Broadway, Blackfriars, there resided for many years a substantial hardwareman, named Ephraim Wagstaff. He was short in stature, tolerably well favoured in countenance, and singularly neat and clean in his attire. Everybody in the neighbourhood looked upon him as a “warm” old man; and when he died, the property he left behind him did not bely the preconceived opinion. It was all personal, amounted to about nineteen thousand pounds; and, as he was childless, it went to distant relations, with the exception of a few hundred pounds bequeathed to public charities.

The family of Ephraim Wagstaff, both on the male and female sides, was respectable, though not opulent. His maternal grandfather, he used to say, formed part of the executive government in the reign of George I., whom he served as petty constable in one of the manufacturing districts during a long period. The love of office seems not to have been hereditary in the family; or perhaps the opportunities of gratifying it did not continue; for, with that single exception, none of his ancestors could boast of official honours. The origin of the name is doubtful. On a first view, it seems evidently the conjunction of two names brought together by marriage or fortune. In the “Tatler” we read about the staff in a variety of combinations, under one of which the popular author of that work chose to designate himself, and thereby conferred immortality on the name of Bickerstaff. Our friend Ephraim was no great wit, but he loved a joke, particularly if he made it himself; and he used to say, whenever he heard any one endeavouring to account for his name, that he believed it originated in the marriage of a Miss Staff to some Wag who lived near her; and who, willing to show his gallantry, and at the same time his knowledge of French customs, adopted the fashion of that sprightly people, by adding her family name to his own. The conjecture is at least probable, and so we must leave it.

At the age of fifty-two it pleased heaven to deprive Mr. Wagstaff of his beloved spouse Barbara. The bereavement formed an era in his history. Mrs. Wagstaff was an active, strong woman, about ten years older than himself, and one sure to be missed in any circle wherein she had once moved. She was indeed no cipher. Her person was tall and bony, her face, in hue, something between brown and red, had the appearance of having been scorched. Altogether her qualities were truly commanding. She loved her own way exceedingly; was continually on the alert to have it; and, in truth, generally succeeded. Yet such was her love of justice, that she has been heard to aver repeatedly, that she never (she spoke the word never emphatically) opposed her husband, but when he was decidedly in the wrong. Of these occasions, it must also be mentioned, she generously took upon herself the trouble and responsibility of being the sole judge. There was one point, however, on which it would seem that Mr. Wagstaff had contrived to please himself exclusively; although, how he had managed to resist so effectually the remonstrances and opposition which, from the structure of his wife’s mind he must necessarily have been doomed to encounter, must ever remain a secret. The fact was this: Ephraim had a peculiarly strong attachment to a pipe; his affection for his amiable partner scarcely exceeding that which he entertained for that lively emblem of so many sage contrivances and florid speeches, ending like it--in smoke. In the times of his former wives (for twice before had he been yoked in matrimony) he had indulged himself with it unmolested. Not so with Mrs. Wagstaff the third. Pipes and smoking she held in unmitigated abhorrence: but having, by whatever means, been obliged to submit to their introduction, she wisely avoided all direct attempts to abate what she called among her friends “the nuisance;” and, like a skilful general, who has failed of securing victory, she had recourse to such stratagems as might render it as little productive as possible to the enemy. Ephraim, aware how matters stood, neglected no precaution to guard against his wife’s manœuvres--meeting, of course, with various success. Many a time did her ingenuity contrive an accident, by which his pipe and peace of mind were at once demolished; and, although there never could be any difficulty in replacing the former by simply sending out for that purpose, yet he has confessed, that when he contemplated the possibility of offering too strong an excitement to the shrill tones of his beloved’s voice, (the only pipe she willingly tolerated,) he waved that proceeding, and submitted to the sacrifice as much the lesser evil. At length Mrs. Wagstaff was taken ill, an inflammation on her lungs was found to be her malady, and that crisis appeared to be fast approaching, when

The doctor leaves the house with sorrow, Despairing of his fee to-morrow.

The foreboding soon proved correct; and, every thing considered, perhaps it ought not to excite much surprise, that when Ephraim heard from the physician that there was little or no chance of her recovery, he betrayed no symptoms of excessive emotion, but mumbling something unintelligibly, in which the doctor thought he caught the sound of the words “Christian duty of resignation,” he quietly filled an additional pipe that evening. The next day Mrs. Wagstaff expired, and in due time her interment took place in the church-yard of St. Ann, Blackfriars, every thing connected therewith being conducted with the decorum becoming so melancholy an event, and which might be expected from a man of Mr. Wagstaff’s gravity and experience. The funeral was a walking one from the near vicinity to the ground; and but for an untimely slanting shower of rain, no particular inconvenience would have been felt by those who were assembled on that occasion; that casualty, however, caused them to be thoroughly drenched; and, in reference to their appearance, it was feelingly observed by some of the bystanders, that they had seldom seen so many tears on the faces of mourners.--

To be continued--(perhaps.)

NEMO.

* * * * *

AN ULTRA-MARINER.

According to father Feyjoo, in the month of June, 1674, some young men were walking by the sea-side in Bilboa, and one of them, named Francis de la Vega, of about fifteen years of age, suddenly leaped into the sea, and disappeared presently. His companions, after waiting some time, and he not returning, made the event public, and sent an account of it to De la Vega’s mother, at Lierganès, a small town in the archbishopric of Burgos. At first she discredited his death, but his absence occasioned her fond doubts to vanish, and she mourned his untimely loss.

About five years afterwards some fishermen, in the environs of Cadiz, perceived the figure of a man sometimes swimming, and sometimes plunging under the water. On the next day they saw the same, and mentioned it as a very singular circumstance to several people. They threw their nets, and baiting the swimmer with some pieces of bread, they at length caught the object of their attention, which to their astonishment they found to be a well-formed man. They put several questions to him in various languages, but he answered none. They then took him to the convent of St. Francis, where he was exorcised, thinking he might be possessed by some evil spirit. The exorcism was as useless as the questions. At length, after some days, he pronounced the word Lierganès. It happened that a person belonging to that town was present when he uttered the name, as was also the secretary of the Inquisition, who wrote to his correspondent at Lierganès, relating the particulars, and instituting inquiries relative to this very extraordinary man; and he received an account of the young man who had disappeared in the manner before related.

On this information, it was determined that the marine man should be sent to Lierganès; and a Franciscan friar, who was obliged to go there on other business, undertook to conduct him the following year. When they came within a quarter of a league of the town, the friar ordered the young man to go before and show him the way. He made no answer, but led the friar to the widow De la Vega’s house. She recollected him instantly, and embracing him, cried out, “This is my son, that I lost at Bilboa!” Two of his brothers who were present also knew him immediately, and embraced him with equal tenderness. He, however, did not evince the least sensibility, or the smallest degree of surprise. He spoke no more at Lierganès than at Cadiz, nor could any thing be obtained from him relative to his adventure. He had entirely forgotten his native language, except the words pan, vino, tabaco, “bread, wine, tobacco;” and these he uttered indiscriminately and without application. They asked him if he would have either of these articles; he could make no reply.

For several days together he would eat large quantities of bread, and for as many days following he would not take the least food of any kind. If he was directed to do any thing, he would execute the commission very properly, but without speaking a word: he would carry a letter to where it was addressed, and bring an answer back in writing. He was sent one day with a letter to St. Ander; to get there it was necessary to cross the river at Padrenna, which is more than a league wide in that spot; not finding a boat in which he could cross it, he threw himself in, swam over, and delivered the letter as directed.

At this time Francis de la Vega was nearly six feet in height, and well formed, with a fair skin, and red hair as short as a new-born infant’s. He always went bare-footed, and had scarcely any nails either on his hands or feet. He never dressed himself but when he was told to do it. The same with eating; what was offered to him he accepted, but he never asked for food.

In this way he remained at his mother’s for nine years, when he again disappeared, without any apparent cause, and no one knew how. It may be supposed, however that the motive or feeling which induced his first disappearance influenced the second. Some time afterwards it was reported that an inhabitant of Lierganès again saw Francis de la Vega in some port of Asturias; but this was never confirmed.

When this very singular man was first taken out of the sea at Cadiz, it is said that his body was entirely covered with scales, but they fell off soon after his coming out of the water. They also add, that different parts of his body were as hard as shagreen.

Father Feyjoo adds many philosophical reflections on the existence of this phenomenon, and on the means by which a man may be enabled to live at the bottom of the sea. He observes, that if Francis de la Vega had preserved his reason and the use of speech, he would have given us more instruction and information in marine affairs, than all the naturalists combined.

* * * * *

ANTIPATHIES.

Erasmus, though a native of Rotterdam, had such an aversion to fish, that the smell of it threw him into a fever.

Ambrose Paré mentions a gentleman, who never could see an eel without fainting.

There is an account of another gentleman, who would fall into convulsions at the sight of a carp.

A lady, a native of France, always fainted on seeing boiled lobsters. Other persons of the same country experienced the same inconvenience from the smell of roses, though they were particularly partial to the odour of jonquils or tuberoses.

Joseph Scaliger and Peter Abono never could drink milk.

Cardan was particularly disgusted at the sight of eggs.

Uladislaus, king of Poland, could not bear to see apples.

If an apple was shown to Chesne, secretary to Francis I., he bled at the nose.

A gentleman, in the court of the emperor Ferdinand, would bleed at the nose on hearing the mewing of a cat, however great the distance might be from him.

Henry III. of France could never sit in a room with a cat.

The duke of Schomberg had the same aversion.

M. de Lancre gives an account of a very sensible man, who was so terrified at seeing a hedgehog, that for two years he imagined his bowels were gnawed by such an animal.

The same author was intimate with a very brave officer, who was so terrified at the sight of a mouse, that he never dared to look at one unless he had his sword in his hand.

M. Vangheim, a great huntsman in Hanover, would faint, or, if he had sufficient time, would run away at the sight of a roasted pig.

John Rol, a gentleman in Alcantara, would swoon on hearing the word lana, wool, pronounced, although his cloak was woollen.

The philosophical Boyle could not conquer a strong aversion to the sound of water running through a pipe.

La Mothe le Vayer could not endure the sound of musical instruments, though he experienced a lively pleasure whenever it thundered.

The author of the Turkish Spy tells us that he would rather encounter a lion in the deserts of Arabia, provided he had but a sword in his hand, than feel a spider crawling on him in the dark. He observes, that there is no reason to be given for these secret dislikes. He humorously attributes them to the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul; and as regarded himself, he supposed he had been a fly, before he came into his body, and that having been frequently persecuted with spiders, he still retained the dread of his old enemy.

* * * * *

THE LACTEALS IN A MOLE.

A curious observer of nature will be delighted to know, that the lacteal vessels are more visible in a mole, than in any animal whatever. The view, however, is not of long duration. These vessels are rendered visible by the mode of killing the animal, which is by a wire gin that compresses the thoracic duct, thereby preventing the ascent of the chyle upwards. The time of demonstration is about half an hour after death. This curious fact was unknown to anatomists, till mentioned by Dr. A. Hunter, in his volume of maxims on men and manners.

* * * * *

LOUIS GONZAGA

TO

MARIE MANCINI.

FLORENCE, 1649.

* * * * *

Il cantar che nel anima si sente. Il pin ne sente l’alma, il men l’orecchio.

* * * * *

I worshippe thee thou silverre starre, As thron’d amid the vault of blue, Rushes thy queenlye splendoure farre, O’er mountain top and vale of dewe.

Yette more I love thy infante ray, As risinge from its easterne cave, With circlinge, fearfulle, fonde delaye, It seemes to kisse the crimsone wave.

I love the proud and solemne sweepe Of harpe and trumpette’s harmonye, Like swellinges of the midnighte deepe, Like anthemes of the opening skye.

But lovelier to my heart the tone That dies along the twilighte’s winge, Just heard, a silver sigh, and gone, As if a spiritte touch’d the stringe.

Sweete Marie! swiftlye comes the noone That gives thy beautye all its rayes, And thou shalte be the rose, alone, And heartes shall wither in its blaze.

Yette there are eyes had deeper loved That rosebudde in its matine-beam, The dew droppe on its blushe unmoved-- And shalle mye love be all a dreame?

PULCI.

* * * * *

POINTS OF CHARACTER.

A PRIME MINISTER.

The late sir Robert Walpole was from his youth fond of field sports, and retained his attachment to them until prevented by the infirmities of age from their further enjoyment. He was accustomed to hunt in Richmond Park with a pack of beagles. Upon receiving a packet of letters, he usually opened that from his gamekeeper first; and in the pictures taken of him, he preferred being drawn in his sporting dress.

A PRELATE.

Bishop Juxon, who attended Charles I. on the scaffold, retired after the king’s death to his own manor of Little Compton, in Gloucestershire, where, as Whitlocke tells us in his Memorials, “he much delighted in hunting, and kept a pack of good hounds, and had them so well ordered and hunted, chiefly by his own skill and direction, that they exceeded all other hounds in England for the pleasure and orderly hunting of them.”

A HUNTSMAN.

Mr. Woolford, a sporting gentleman, as remarkable for politeness in the field as for the goodness of his fox-hounds, was one evening thus addressed by his huntsman: “An’ please your honour, sir,” twirling his cap and quid at the same time, “I should be glad to be excused going to-morrow to Woolford-wood, as I should like to go to see my poor wife buried.” “I am sorry for thee, Tom,” said his master, “we can do one day without thee: she was an excellent wife.” On the following morning, however, Tom was the first in the field. “Heyday!” quoth Mr. W., “did not I give you leave to see the remains of your poor wife interred?” “Yes, your honour, but I thought as how we should have good sport, as it is a fine morning; so I desired our Dick, the dog-feeder, to see her earth’d.”

Vol. II.--34.

For the Table Book.

Every one will agree with me, that this is the favourite article of furniture. Every one is fond of it as of an old friend--a faithful and trustworthy one--to whom has been confided both joys and sorrows. It is most likely the gift of some cherished, perhaps departed being, reminding us by its good qualities of the beloved giver. We have no scruple in committing our dearest secrets to its faithful bosom--they are never divulged. The tenderest billet-doux, the kindest acknowledgments, the sweetest confessions of a mistress--the cruellest expressions and bitterest reproaches of a friend lost to us for ever through the false and malignant representations of an enemy--or perhaps the youthful effusions of our own brain, which we occasionally draw forth from the recesses of the most secretly contrived pigeon-hole, and read over à la dérobée, with a half blush (at our self-love) and a smile partly painful from revived recollections of days gone, never to return--all these we may unhesitatingly deposit in this personification of deskretion.

The very posture assumed at a desk bespeaks confidence and security. The head inclined over it, and the bosom leaning in gentle trustingness against this kind and patient friend.

By this description I would present to the “mind’s eye” of the reader a plain unostentatious piece of furniture, of too simple an exterior to be admitted any where than in the study--square in shape, mahogany, bound with brass at the corners, a plate of the same metal on the top, of just a sufficient size to contain one’s own initials and those of the giver. I detest those finicking machines one finds wrapped up in an oilskin case in a drawing-room; made of rosewood, inlaid with silver, or mother-of-pearl, and lined with blue velvet. It seems like an insult to the friendly character of a desk, to dress him smartly, seat him in a fine apartment, and refuse to avail yourself of the amicable services he tenders you.--The contents of these coxcombical acquaintances are seldom better than its fair owner’s private journal, (which no one thinks worthy of perusal--herself of course excepted,) her album, and scrap-book, the honourable Mr. Somebody’s poetical effusions, and the sentimental correspondence of some equally silly young lady, her dearest friend.

Then there is the clerk’s desk in a counting-house--there are no pleasant associations connected with that mercantile scaffolding, with its miniature balustrades at the top, partly intersected with accounts, bills, and papers of all sorts, (referring to business,) and surrounded by files clinging by their one hook. Above all this is seen the semicircular scalp of a brown wig, which, as it is raised to reply to your question, gradually discovers two eyes scowling at you from beneath a pair of glaring spectacles, a little querulous turned-up nose, and a mouth whose lines have become rigid with ill-humour, partly occasioned by a too sedentary life.

Again, there is the pulpit desk, with its arrogant crimson cushion--telling a tale of clerical presumption.

Lastly, there is the old bachelor’s desk. (Nay, do not curl up the corners of your pretty mouths at me, sweet ladies--it may be worth while to take a peep at it--at least, I cannot prevail upon myself to omit it in this notice of desks.) It is of the plain and quiet description formerly mentioned, and very neatly and orderly arranged, both inside and out. The latter is kept bright and shining by the indefatigable hands of Sally the housemaid; who, while she breathes upon the plate to give it a polish, at the same time breathes a wish (to herself) that her breath possessed the magic power of unfastening locks, and so enabling her to see “what the old gentleman keeps in this here box to make him so fond on it.” The interior he takes infinite care to keep in complete and exact order himself. Each particular compartment has its appropriate contents consigned to it. The fold-down nearest to him, as he sits at it, contains a small miniature within a red morocco case, of a placid and gentle-faced girl, whose original sleeps for ever in the bosom of the cold earth--a little box, containing a ring set with brilliants, and enclosing a lock of her hair--all her letters carefully tied up with green ribbon--a miniature edition of Shakspeare, and Milton, with his name written in them in her hand-writing. In the opposite fold, near the receptacle for the pens, wafers, ink, &c. are his own little writings, (for we are to suppose him fond of his pen, and as having occasionally indulged that fondness,) of all of which he preserves neat copies, some private memoranda, and an old pocket-book, given to him by his old friend and school-fellow, admiral ----, when he left England that year as a midshipman.

In the drawer are different letters from his friends; and, perhaps, at the very back of it, a little hoard of gold pieces, bright and new from the mint.

As I now lean upon my old friend and companion--my desk--I render it my grateful acknowledgments for the many pleasant hours I have spent over it; and also for its having been the means of my passing an agreeable quarter of an hour with my gentle reader, of whom I now take a courteous leave.

July, 1827.

M. H.

* * * * *

WRITING DESKS.

There is not any mention of writing-desks among the ancients. They usually wrote upon the knee in the manner wherein Angelica Kauffman represents the younger Pliny, as may be seen in a modern engraving; and yet it appears from Stolberg, quoted by Mr. Fosbroke, that desks resembling ours have been found in Herculaneum. Writing-desks in the middle ages slanted so much, as to form an angle of forty-five degrees: their slant till within the last two centuries was little less.

* * * * *

~Topographiana.~

WILTS’ LOCAL CUSTOM.

DANCING ROUND THE HARROW.

To the Editor.

Dear sir,--I hand you the following authentic particulars which happened in the pleasant village of S****n B****r, and gave rise to “dancing round the harrow:” if worthy of being chronicled in the Table Book, they are yours.

John Jones, not finding his lovesuit successful with his master’s daughter, because her father, a farmer, rebuked him, took umbrage, threw down his whip on the “harrow” in the field, left the team, and, sans cérémonie, went to sea.

The farmer and his daughter Nancy were variously affected by this circumstance.--“Comfortable letters” were hoped for, news was expected from some corner of the world, but no tidings arrived as to the fate or designs of honest John. Village gossips often talked of the poor lad. The farmer himself, who was a good sort of man, began to relent; for Nancy’s cheeks were not so rosy as formerly; she was dull at milking time. Observers at church whispered,--“How altered Nancy R* appears!” * * *

After a lapse of about six years appearances change favourably. John returns from sea auspiciously--meets his Nancy with open arms--her father finds him disposed to make her happy--John requests forgiveness, and is pardoned--his steadiness and attachment are tried and approved--and--suffice it to say--John and Nancy are married. He assists her father in the duties of the farm as his years decline, while she supplies the absence of her mother, buried in the family grave of the church-yard of her native village. * * * *

As soon as the wedding took place, a “harrow” was brought on the grass-plot in the fore-close, when the villagers invited danced round it till daybreak. * * * *

This “dancing round the harrow” was kept on several anniversaries of the wedding-day; a young family and the old projector’s decease occasioned its discontinuance; but, on each of these occasions, John does not forget to present, instead, a not less acceptable offering, a good supper to his workfolks in remembrance of his advance in life.

I am, dear sir,

Yours very truly,

JEHOIADA.

Goat and Boots,

August 3, 1827.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

BAKEWELL, DERBYSHIRE.

ANCIENT MONUMENTS AND INSCRIPTIONS IN THE CHURCH.

Upon the tablet over the mural monument in the chantry of the Holy Cross, is the following inscription:

Godfrey Foljambe, Knight, and Avena his wife, (who afterwards married Richard de Greene, Knight,) Lord and Lady of the Manors of Hassop, Okebrook, Elton, Stanton, Darley, Overhall, and Lokhawe, founded this Chantry in honor of the Holy Cross, in the 39th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3rd, 1366. Godfrey died on Thursday next after the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, in the 50th year of the reign of the same King; and Avena died on Saturday next after the Feast of the Nativity of the blessed Virgin Mary, in the 6th year of the reign of Richard 2nd, 1383.

N. B. The Dates are taken from the Escheat Rolls, which contain the Inquisitum post mortem, 50th Edward 3. No. 24.

In the Vestry, there is an effigy in alabaster, of sir Thomas Wendersley de Wendersley, who was mortally wounded at the battle of Shrewsbury, 4th Henry IV., 1403, and was buried at Bakewell, where formerly were several shields of the arms of his family carved in wood. (See Brailsford’s “Monumental Inscriptions of Derbyshire.”)

Adjoining the vestry are several handsome monuments of the Vernon and Manners’ families.

In the centre is the tomb or cenotaph of sir George Vernon, inscribed thus:

Here lyeth Sir George Vernon, Knight, deceased, y^{e} daye of An^{o} 156 and Dame Margaret his Wife, dowghter of S^{r} Gylbert Tayllboys, deceased the daye of 156 and also Dame Mawde his Wyffe, dowghter to Sir Ralphe Langfoot, deceased the daye of An^{o} 1566, whose solles God p--don--.

On the right is a monument to sir John Manners, with this inscription:

Here lyeth Sir John Manners, of Haddon, Kn^{t}. Second Sonne of Thomas Erle of Rutland, who died the 4th of June, 1611, and Dorothy his Wife, one of the Dawghters and heires of Sir George Vernon, of Haddon, Kn^{t}. who deceased the 24th day of June, in the 26th yeere of the Rayne of Queene Elizabeth, 1584.

To the right of the window, on a mural monument, is the following:

Heere lyeth buryed John Manners, Gent^{n} 3 Son̄e of Sir John Man̄ers, Knight, who dyed the 16th day of July, in the Yeere of our Lord God 1590, being of the Age of 14 yeeres.

To the left is an elegant monument to sir John Manners, with this inscription:

George Manners of Haddon, Kn^{t}. here awaits the resurrection of the just in Christ. He married Grace, second daughter of Henry Pierrepoint, Kn^{t}. who afterwards bore him 4 sons and 5 daughters, and lived with him in Holy Wedlock 30 years, she caused him to be buried with his forefathers, and then placed this monument at her own expence, as a perpetual Memorial of their conjugal faith, and she united the figure of his body with hers, having resolwed that their bones and ashes should be laid together. He died 23rd Ap^{l}. 1623, aged 54--She died - - - aged - - -.

Beneath this monument, on an alabaster grave-stone on the floor, are some figures engraved round them, with an inscription, now obliterated, and the arms of Eyre impaled with Mordaunt.

In the Chancel.

Upon an alabaster tomb, repaired, and the inscription cut, and filled up with black in 1774, (by Mr. Watson.)

Here lies John Vernon, son and heir of Henry Vernon, who died the 12th of August 1477, whose soule God pardon.

August, 1827.

E. J. H.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

ERASMUS.

Quæritur, unde tibi sit nomen Erasmus? Eras-mus.

Resp.

Si sum Mus ego, te judice Summus ero.

Joannis Audoeni, lib. vii. epig. 34.

* * * * *

That thou wast great Erasmus none dispute; Yet, by the import of thy name, wast small: For none its truth can readily refute Thou wast--a Mouse,--ERAS-MUS after all.

THE REPLY OF ERASMUS.

Hence, if a Mouse, thy wit must this confess:-- I will be SUM-MUS:--Can’st thou make me less?

J. R. P.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXX.

[From a “Woman’s a Weathercock,” a Comedy, by Nathaniel Field, 1612.]

False Mistress.

Scudmore alone; having a letter in his hand from Bellafront, assuring him of her faith.

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