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 7 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 7 of 8)

“Sire,” said the gardener, “I know no other than to put books on the seats, protected from the rain, that those who walk in the garden may read when they sit down.”

“This is not far from my meaning,” said the czar, laughing, “but, books in a public garden! that will never do. Another idea has struck me. I should like to erect statues here, representing the different subjects of Æsop’s fables. For this purpose the ground must be differently laid out, that the division of the several parts may correspond with the fables I am speaking of.”

Schræder executed his orders with all possible intelligence and despatch, and much to the satisfaction of the emperor.

The garden consisted of four squares, with walks in the form of labyrinths leading to them. The angles were ornamented with figures, representing different subjects from Æsop’s fables, with a jet d’eau concealed in a little basin, under moss or ruins, and surrounded with shells brought from lake Ilmen, or that of Novogorod. Most of the animals were as large as life, and of lead, gilt. They ejected water from their mouths, according to their various attitudes. In this way the walks were ornamented with sixty fables, forming as many jets d’eau. At the entrance was a statue of Æsop, likewise of lead, and gilt.

The czar very naturally supposed that few people would be able to discover the meaning of these figures, and that fewer would comprehend the instruction they were designed to convey. His majesty therefore ordered a post to be placed near each of them, and to these posts sheets of tin were fastened, on which the fables and their morals were written in the Russian language.

This place was the czar’s favourite walk; in its shades he often passed whole hours, recreating himself among these creatures of his creation.

This garden was afterwards nearly destroyed by a terrible tempest and inundation. The trees it contained were torn up by the roots, and the green hedges and figures of animals damaged, either by the fall of the timber or by the elements. The trees were raised, put into their places again, and propped up; but as it was not possible to repair the injuries done to the figures, the czar’s “summer garden” ceased to be a “garden of instruction.”

* * * * *

LOVE OF GARDENS

IN DISTINGUISHED MEN.

Juvenal represents Lucan reposing in a garden.[370] Tasso pictures Rinaldo sitting beneath the shade in a fragrant meadow: Virgil describes Anchises seated beneath sweet-scented bay-trees; and Eneas, as reclining, remote from all society, in a deep and winding valley.[371] Gassendi, who ingrafted the doctrine of Galileo on the theory of Epicurus, took not greater pleasure in feasting his youthful imagination by gazing on the moon, than Cyrus, in the cultivation of flowers.--“I have measured, dug, and planted the large garden, which I have at the gate of Babylon,” said that prince; “and never, when my health permit, do I dine until I have laboured two hours in my garden: if there is nothing to be done, I labour in my orchard.” Cyrus is also said to have planted all the Lesser Asia. Ahasuerus was accustomed to quit the charms of the banquet to indulge the luxury of his bower:[372] and the conqueror of Mithridates enjoyed the society of his friends, and the wine of Falernium, in the splendid gardens, which were an honour to his name. Dion gave a pleasure-garden to Speucippus as a mark of peculiar regard.[373] Linnæus studied in a bower: Buffon in his summer-house; and when Demetrius Poliorcetes took the island of Rhodes, he found Protogenes at his palette, painting in his arbour. Petrarch was never happier than when indulging the innocent pleasures of his garden.--“I have made myself two,” says he, in one of his epistles; “I do not imagine they are to be equalled in all the world: I should feel myself inclined to be angry with fortune, if there were any so beautiful out of Italy.”

Many of the wisest and the best of men have signalized their love of gardens and shrubberies, by causing themselves to be buried in them; a custom once in frequent practice among the ancient Jews.[374] Plato was buried in the groves of Academus; and sir William Temple, though he expected to be interred in Westminster abbey, gave orders for his heart to be enclosed in a silver casket, and placed under a sun-dial, in that part of his garden immediately opposite the window of his library, from which he was accustomed to contemplate the beauties and wonders of the creation, in the society of a beloved sister.[375]

[370] The epithet he applies to hortis is sufficiently curious. The scholiast cites Pliny, 1. xxxvi. c. 1. 2. The style of the Roman gardens in Trajan’s time is expressively marked:

Contentus fama jaceat Lucanus in hortis Marmoreis.

JUV. Sat. vii. 1. 79.

It was very well said by one of the first women of the present age, (Mrs. Grant,) that Darwin’s Botanic Garden is an Hesperian garden, glittering all over; the fruit gold, the leaves silver, and the stems brass.

[371] Eneid, lib. vi. 1. 679. lib. viii. 609.

[372] Esther, vii. 7. Tissaphernes had a garden, much resembling an English park, which he called Alcibiades.

[373] Plutarch in Vit. Dion.

[374] In the middle of the Campo Santo, which is the most ancient burying-place at Pisa, is a garden formed of earth, brought from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem.

[375] Philosophy of Nature.

* * * * *

DUTCH ROYAL GARDEN AND SCHEVELING SCENERY.

DESCRIBED BY THE DEPUTATION OF THE CALEDONIAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

August 26, 1817. Late in the afternoon, we took a walk to the northward of the Hague, on the Amsterdam road, and entered a forest of large and ancient trees, by much the finest which we have seen on the continent, and evidently several centuries old. Many oaks, elms, and beeches were magnificent. Some of the oaks, at two feet from the ground, measured twelve feet in circumference, and had free and clean boles to the height of about forty feet. This wood, in all probability, gave rise to the name of the city; for haag (the Dutch for Hague) signifies thicket or wood. It was originally a seat of the counts of Holland, and is often to this day called Graaf’s Haag, or Earl’s Wood.[376]

Although we had no guide, we easily found the palace called the “House in the Wood,” about two miles distant from the Hague; and having inquired for the gardener, Mr. Jacobus Munts, we readily procured access to the royal garden. It is kept in good order, and is now arranged in what is here reckoned the English style, the old formal hedges, and fantastically shaped trees, having been in a great measure removed. The grounds are now traversed by serpentine walks, laid with sand: these wind among groves of forest-trees, which have never been subjected to the shears; but the flexures are much too regular. Water, as usual, is the only defence, or line of separation, from the conterminous[377] fields, or from the high road. These ditches, though broad, brimful, and kept tolerably clean, have a dull aspect. Shrubs and flowers are planted in small compartments, cut out in the grassy covering of the lawn. The figures of these compartments are different, circles, ovals, and crescents. A bed of dahlias was now in flower, but presented nothing uncommon. Indeed, we learned that the collection had been procured from Antwerp only the year before. The plants in the borders and shrubberies were in general of the more common kinds; but some rarities also appeared. Among these the passiflora cœrulea was here displaying its gorgeous flowers in the shrubbery; but we observed that it was contained in a pot sunk in the earth, and not well concealed. Rosa Pennsylvanica was very abundant, and seemed not only to be healthy, but to produce its flowers freely.

Close by the palace is a small greenhouse, erected in 1815 for the princess of Orange. It contains a few pretty good plants; but there is nothing becoming royalty either in the size of the house or the choice nature of the collection. Datura arborea was now in flower, and filled the place with its odour; and the white variety of vinca rosea was in bloom. There are here no hot-houses for the forcing of fruit; nor did there appear to be any thing remarkable among the hardy fruits cultivated in the garden.

This garden at the House in the Wood, is the only one worth visiting at the Hague, with the exception perhaps of Mr. Fagel’s. The Portland gardens, belonging to the Bentincks, though celebrated in former times, are now in a neglected and even ruinous condition.

SCHEVELING.

AVENUES OF TREES.

August 27, 1817. Early this morning we walked towards the fishing village of Scheveling, by a grand avenue lined with trees, of which all Dutchmen are justly proud. The length of this avenue is nearly a mile and a half; and it is so straight and so level, that the village church very soon appeared at the termination of the vista next the sea. The tallest and finest trees are Dutch elm, abele, oak, and beech. Many of these are of great size, and have probably seen more than two centuries.[378] Sycamore, hornbeam, birch, and different species of willow, are occasionally interspersed. There are properly three roads in this noble avenue: a central one for carriages, one for horsemen, and another for foot-passengers. The breadth of the plantation, on each side, is on an average about seventy feet. In some places, the old trees appear to have been cut down; but their places are now supplied by others. Almost all the new-planted trees are white poplars, which are of rapid growth.

FISHERY--FISHING VESSELS, &C.

We breakfasted in the Hoff van Holland inn, the windows of which look out upon the ocean. In addition to the usual repast of coffee and rolls, a countryman of our own, whom we chanced here to meet, had shrimps served to breakfast, which had been shown to him all alive a few minutes before: by our desire, we had tong-vischen, or soles, fresh from the sea. While at breakfast, we observed, that more than two dozen of small sloops, which we easily recognised to be fishing-busses, were making directly for the low sandy beach, although it was at present a lee-shore, with a considerable surf. The sails were of various hues; Isabella yellow, chocolate brown, and milk white; and this intermixture of colours, set off by the brilliancy of a clear morning sun, increased the picturesque effect. Not a little to our surprise, the crews did not shorten sail, till their barks were just involved among the waves and breakers; and in this odd situation, generally after taking the ground, we saw them deliberately cast anchor. The propriety of the shape given to the hulls of these busses, was now manifest to us; a small British-built sloop would have been in danger of breaking up, while they shoved along among the breakers in perfect security. Indeed, that Dutch vessels in general should, of design, be built strong or clumsy, and have their hulks well rounded below, can only appear surprising to those who have not witnessed the nature of the seas which they have to navigate at home, where they must often take the ground, and where they not unfrequently sail right against the shore. As soon as the anchors were cast, the boatmen, wading up to the middle in the waves, brought out the fish on their shoulders; the sands were covered with persons of both sexes and of all ages, who began to carry off the cargoes, in broad baskets, on their heads. The principal kinds of fish were plaice, turbot, sole, skate, and thornback; a very few cod and smelts made up the list. The Dutch gave the name schol to our plaice: and our sole they call tong. Their name for the smelt is spiering; which nearly approaches that by which this little fish is distinguished in the Edinburgh market, viz. spirling.

COAST--FISHWOMEN--CART DOGS.

A continuous broad and high bank of sand lines the coast as far as we could see, and forms the powerful protection of this part of Holland against the inroads of the ocean. Without this provision of nature, the country would be inundated by every extraordinary tide and gale; for it may be truly said, “the broad ocean leans against the land.” On the sand-hills, the same kind of plants prevail as in similar situations in England; sea-holly and buckthorn, asparago and Galium verum, with sea-marran, arundo arenaria, which last is encouraged here, being found very useful in binding the sand. In some places wheat-straw had been dibbled in, as at Ostend, in order to promote the same object. Considering Scheveling as a fishing-village, we were greatly pleased with it: it was extremely neat and clean, and formed a perfect contrast with our Newhaven and Fisherrow,[379] the lanes of which are generally encumbered with all sorts of filth. We must confess, too, that in tidiness of dress and urbanity of manners, the fishwomen of Scheveling are equally superior to those of the Scottish villages just mentioned.

As we returned to the Hague, numbers of the inhabitants were also on their way to the fish-market, some carrying baskets of fish on their heads, and others employing three or four dogs to convey the fish in small light carts. We had read in books, of these draught dogs being well used, and fat and sleek; but we regret to say, that those which we saw were generally poor half-starved looking animals, bearing no equivocal marks of ill usage. The diligence with which they sped their way to town, with their cargoes, in a sultry day, with tongues lolling to the ground, seemed to entitle them to better treatment.

FISH-MARKET--STORKS

We traced the steps of some of our Scheveling companions to the fish-market. As might be expected, the market proved commodious and clean, and well supplied with water. Salmon was pretty common; carp was plentiful; and a single John Dory and a single sturgeon appeared on a stall. At some seasons, we believe, sturgeons are abundant, being taken in numbers at the mouths of the Rhine, when about to ascend that river. Four tame storks were stalking up and down in the market. They were in full plumage; and did not appear to have been pinioned, so as to disable them from flying. Their food consists wholly of the garbage which they pick up about the fish-stalls. A small house, like a dog’s kennel, is appropriated to their use; for the stork seems to be held as sacred by the Dutch as by the Mahomedans.[380]

[376] Haag, hag, haigh, &c. are explained in the Every Day-Book. Art. Hagbush-lane.--ED.

[377] Conterminous: bordering.--Johnson. ED.

[378] Le Long, indeed, puts this beyond doubt; for, writing in 1630, he describes this avenue as being then “adorned with fine trees.” Kabinet van Outheden, &c. published in 1732.

[379] Two small towns on the shore of the Frith of Forth, near Edinburgh, chiefly inhabited by fishermen and their families.

[380] Caledonian Horticultural Tour.

* * * * *

~Michaelmas.~

CRABBING FOR HUSBANDS

To the Editor.

Sir,--At this season “village maidens” in the west of England go up and down the hedges gathering Crab-apples, which they carry home, putting them into a loft, and form with them the initials of their supposed suitors’ names. The initials, which are found on examination to be most perfect on old “Michaelmas Day,” are considered to represent the strongest attachments, and the best for the choice of husbands. This custom is very old, and much reliance is placed on the appearances and decomposition of the Crabs. Should this trifle be worthy of being added to your extensive notices of manners and localities, I shall be encouraged to forward you other little remembrances of like tendency. In the interim, give me leave to assure you, Sir, that I am your gratified reader,

PUCERON.

* * * * *

Mr. Brand mentions, as a popular superstition, that if a tree of any kind is split--and weak, rickety, or ruptured children drawn through it, and afterwards the tree is bound, so as to make it unite, as the tree heals and grows together, so will the child acquire strength.

Sir John Cullum, who saw this operation twice performed, thus describes it:--“For this purpose a young ash was each time selected, and split longitudinally, about five feet: the fissure was kept wide open by my gardener; whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. As soon as the operation was performed, the wounded tree was bound up with a packthread; and, as the bark healed, the child was to recover. The first of the young patients was to be cured of the rickets, the second of a rupture.” This is a very ancient and extensive piece of superstition.

In the Gentleman’s Magazine, for October, 1804, is an engraving of an ash tree, then growing by the side of Shirley-street, (the road leading from Hockley House to Birmingham,) at the edge of Shirley-heath, in the parish of Solihull, Warwickshire. It is stated that this tree is “close to the cottage of Henry Rowe, whose infant son, Thomas Rowe, was drawn through the trunk or body of it in the year 1791, to cure him of a rupture, the tree being then split open for the purpose of passing the child through it.” The writer proceeds to say, “The boy is now thirteen years and six months old: I have this day, June 10, 1804, seen the ash tree and Thomas Rowe, as well as his father, Henry Rowe, from whom I have received the above account; and he superstitiously believes that his son Thomas was cured of the rupture, by being drawn through the cleft in the said ash tree, and by nothing else.”

Another writer concerning the same tree says, “The upper part of a gap formed by the chisel has closed, but the lower remains open. [As represented in the plate, from whence the engraving at the head of this article is taken.] The tree is healthy and flourishing. Thomas Chillingworth, son of the owner of an adjoining farm, now about 34, was, when an infant of a year old, passed through a similar tree, now perfectly sound, which he preserves with so much care that he will not suffer a single branch to be touched, for it is believed the life of the patient depends on the life of the tree; and that the moment it is cut down, be the patient ever so distant, the rupture returns, and a mortification ensues, and terminates in death. Rowe’s son was passed through the present tree in 1792, at the age of one or two. It is not, however, uncommon for persons to survive for a time the felling of the tree. In one case the rupture returned suddenly, and mortification followed. These trees are left to close of themselves, or are closed with nails. The wood-cutters very frequently meet with the latter. One felled on Bunnan’s farm was found full of nails. This belief is so prevalent in this part of the country, that instances of trees that have been employed in the cure are very common. The like notions obtain credit in some parts of Essex.”

The same writer proceeds to observe a superstition “concerning the power of ash trees to repel other maladies or evils, such as Shrew-mice; the stopping one of which animals alive into a hole bored in an ash is imagined an infallible preventive of their ravages in lands.”

On this there are some particulars in point related by the Rev. Gilbert White, in his “Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne,” a parish near Alton, in Hampshire. “In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands, at this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the tree, in the suffering part, was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as usually fell out, where the feat was performed with any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but where the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it was supposed, would prove ineffectual. Having occasion to enlarge my garden not long since, I cut down two or three such trees, one of which did not grow together. We have several persons now living in the village, who, in their childhood, were supposed to be healed by this superstitious ceremony, derived down perhaps from our Saxon ancestors, who practised it before their conversion to Christianity.”

Again, as respects shrew-mice, Mr. White says, “At the south corner of the plestor, or area, near the church, there stood, about twenty years ago, a very old grotesque hollow pollard-ash, which for ages had been looked on with no small veneration as a shrew-ash. Now a shrew-ash is an ash, whose twigs or branches, when gently applied to the limbs of cattle, are immediately to relieve the pains which a beast suffers from the running of a shrew-mouse over the part affected: for it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand; which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus:--Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten. As the ceremonies necessary for such a consecration are no longer understood, all succession is at an end, and no such tree is known to subsist in the manor or hundred. As to that on the plestor, the late vicar stubbed and burnt it, when he was waywarden, regardless of the remonstrances of the by-standers, who interceded in vain for its preservation, urging its power and efficacy, and alleging that it had been

‘Religione patrum multos servata per annos.’”

Mr. Ellis, in a note on this practice of enclosing field-mice, cites a letter to Mr. Brand, dated May 9, 1806, from Robert Studley Vidal, Esq. of Cornborough, near Biddeford, a gentleman to whom Mr. Brand was much indebted for information on the local customs of Devonshire. Mr. Vidal says:--“An usage of the superstitious kind has just come under my notice, and which, as the pen is in my hand, I will shortly describe, though I rather think it is not peculiar to these parts. A neighbour of mine, on examining his sheep the other day, found that one of them had entirely lost the use of its hinder parts. On seeing it, I expressed an opinion that the animal must have received a blow across the back, or some other sort of violence which had injured the spinal marrow, and thus rendered it paralytic: but I was soon given to understand, that my remarks only served to prove how little I knew of country affairs, for that the affection of the sheep was nothing uncommon, and that the cause of it was well known; namely, a mouse having crept over its back. I could not but smile at the idea; which my instructor considering as a mark of incredulity, he proceeded very gravely to inform me, that I should be convinced of the truth of what he said by the means which he would use to restore the animal; and which were never known to fail. He accordingly despatched his people here and there in quest of a field-mouse; and having procured one, he told me that he should carry it to a particular tree at some distance, and, enclosing it within a hollow in the trunk, leave it there to perish. He further informed me, that he should bring back some of the branches of the tree with him, for the purpose of their being drawn now and then across the sheep’s back; and concluded by assuring me, with a very scientific look, that I should soon be convinced of the efficacy of this process; for that, as soon as the poor devoted mouse had yielded up his life a prey to famine, the sheep would be restored to its former strength and vigour. I can, however, state, with certainty, that the sheep was not at all benefited by this mysterious sacrifice of the mouse. The tree, I find, is of the sort called witch-elm, or witch-hazel.”

* * * * *

TREES

POETICALLY AND NATIONALLY REGARDED.

A gentleman, who, on a tour in 1790, visited the burial-place of Edmond Waller, in the church-yard of Beaconsfield, describes the poet’s splendid tomb as enclosed, or cradled, with spiked iron palisadoes, inserted into a great old ash tree, under which his head reposes. “This umbrageous tree overshadows the whole mausoleum. As the pagan deities had each their favourite tree--Jupiter, the oak; Apollo, the laurel; Venus, the myrtle; Minerva, the olive; &c.--so poets and literary men have imitated them herein; and all lovers of solitude are, like the Lady Grace of Sir John Vanbrugh, fond of a cool retreat from the noon-day’s sultry heat under a great tree.”[381]

* * * * *

A modern author, whose works are expressive of beauty and feeling, and from whom an elegant extract on “Gardens” in a former page has been derived, adverts to the important use which the poets have made of trees by way of illustration. He says--

Homer frequently embellishes his subjects with references to them; and no passage in the Iliad is more beautiful, than the one where, in imitation of Musæus, he compares the falling of leaves and shrubs to the fall and renovation of great and ancient families.--Illustrations of this sort are frequent in the sacred writings.--“I am exalted like a cedar in Libanus,” says the author of Ecclesiastes, “and as a cypress tree upon the mountain of Hermon. I was exalted like a palm tree in Engeddi, and as a rose plant in Jericho; as a fair olive in a pleasant field, and grew up as a plane tree by the water; as a turpentine tree I stretched out my branches, and my branches are the branches of honour and grace; as a vine brought I forth pleasant savour, and my flowers are the fruits of honour and victory.”--In the Psalms, in a fine vein of allegory, the vine tree is made to represent the people of Israel: “Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cut out the heathen, and planted it. Thou didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with its shadow, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars.”

In Ossian, how beautiful is the following passage of Malvina’s lamentation for Oscar:--“I was a lovely tree in thy presence, Oscar, with all my branches round me; but thy death came like a blast from the desert, and laid my green head low; the spring returned with its showers, but no green leaf of mine arose.” Again, where old and weary, blind and almost destitute of friends, he compares himself to a tree that is withered and decayed:--“But Ossian is a tree that is withered; its branches are blasted and bare; no green leaf covers its boughs:--from its trunk no young shoot is seen to spring; the breeze whistles in its grey moss; the blast shakes its head of age; the storm will soon overturn it, and strew all its dry branches with thee, Oh Dermid, and with all the rest of the mighty dead, in the green winding vale of Cona.”

That traveller esteemed himself happy, who first carried into Palestine the rose of Jericho from the plains of Arabia; and many of the Roman nobility were gratified, in a high degree, with having transplanted exotic plants and trees into the orchards of Italy. Pompey introduced the ebony on the day of his triumph over Mithridates; Vespasian transplanted the balm of Syria, and Lucullus the Pontian cherry. Auger de Busbeck brought the lilac from Constantinople; Hercules introduced the orange into Spain; Verton the mulberry into England:--and so great is the love of nations for particular trees, that a traveller never fails to celebrate those by which his native province is distinguished. Thus, the native of Hampshire prides himself upon his oaks; the Burgundian boasts of his vines, and the Herefordshire farmer of his apples. Normandy is proud of her pears; Provence of her olives; and Dauphiné of her mulberries; while the Maltese are in love with their own orange trees. Norway and Sweden celebrate their pines; Syria her palms; and since they have few other trees of which they can boast, Lincoln celebrates her alders, and Cambridge her willows! The Paphians were proud of their myrtles, the Lesbians of their vines; Rhodes loudly proclaimed the superior charms of her rose trees; Idumea of her balsams; Media of her citrons, and India of her ebony. The Druses boast of their mulberries; Gaza of her dates and pomegranates; Switzerland of her lime trees; Bairout of her figs and bananas; Damascus of her plums; Inchonnaugan of its birch, and Inchnolaig of its yews. The inhabitants of Jamaica never cease to praise the beauty of their manchenillas; while those of Tobasco are as vain of their cocoas.--The natives of Madeira, whose spring and autumn reign together, take pride in their cedars and citrons; those of Antigua of their tamarinds, while they esteem their mammee sappota to be equal to any oak in Europe, and their mangos to be superior to any tree in America. Equally partial are the inhabitants of the Plains of Tahta to their peculiar species of fan palm; and those of Kous to their odoriferous orchards. The Hispaniolans, with the highest degree of pride, challenge any one of the trees of Europe or Asia to equal the height of their cabbage trees--towering to an altitude of two hundred and seventy feet:--Even the people of the Bay of Honduras have imagination sufficient to conceive their logwood to be superior to any trees in the world; while the Huron savages inquire of Europeans, whether they have any thing to compare with their immense cedar trees.[382]

[381] Mr. T. Gosling, in the Gent. Mag. Sept. 1790.

[382] The Philosophy of Nature.

* * * * *

THE PEARL.

A PERSIAN FABLE.

Imitated from the Latin of Sir W. Jones.

Whoe’er his merit underrates, The worth which he disclaims creates.

It chanc’d a single drop of rain Fell from a cloud into the main: Abash’d, dispirited, amaz’d, At last her modest voice she rais’d: “Where, and what am I? Woe is me! What a mere drop in such a sea!”-- An oyster yawning, where she fell, Entrapp’d the vagrant in his shell; In that alembic wrought--for he Was deeply vers’d in alchemy-- This drop became a pearl; and now Adorns the crown on GEORGE’S brow.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. XI.

COMETS.

Cassini, and after him sir Isaac Newton, by their close observations and accurate calculations respecting the nature and courses of comets, have given certainty to the opinions of the old philosophers; or, to speak with more propriety, they have recalled and fixed our attention upon what had before been advanced by the ancients on these subjects. For, in treating of the nature of these stars, their definitions of them, the reasons they assign for the rarity of their appearance, and the apologies they make for not having yet formed a more exact theory, are all in the very terms that Seneca had already used. In the time of that philosopher, the observations previously made of the returns of comets, were not sufficiently collected to establish the theory of these phenomena. Their appearances were so very rare, that they had not afforded an opportunity to determine, whether their course was regular or not. The Greeks, however, before Seneca’s time, had remarked to the same effect, and were applying themselves to researches of this kind.

Seneca says, that the Chaldeans looked upon comets as planetary bodies; and Diodorus Siculus, in giving an account of the extent of knowledge among the Egyptians, praises them for the application with which they studied the stars and their courses; and remarks, that they had collected, observations very ancient and very exact, fully informing them of the several motions, orbits, stations, &c. of the planets. He adds, that they could foretell earthquakes, inundations, and “the return of comets.”

Aristotle says, that Anaxagoras apprehended comets to be an assemblage of many wandering stars; which, by their approximation, and the mutual blending of their rays, rendered themselves visible to us. This notion, though far from being philosophical, was yet far preferable to that of some great moderns, such as Kepler and Hevelius, who supposed that comets were formed out of air, as fishes are out of water.

Pythagoras, however, who approached very near to the times of Anaxagoras, held an opinion worthy of the most enlightened age. He looked upon “comets as stars, which circulated regularly, though elliptically, about the sun, and which appeared to us only in particular parts of their orbit, and at considerable distances of time.”

Seneca, more than any other, has discussed this subject like a true philosopher. He relates all the different opinions respecting comets, and seems to prefer that of Artemidorus, who imagined, “that there was an immense number of them, but that their orbits were so situated, that, so far from being always within view, they could only be seen at one of the extremities.” He reasons upon this with equal elegance and solidity. “Why should we be astonished,” says he, “that comets, which are so rare a spectacle in the world, have not yet come under certain rules; or that we have not hitherto been able to determine, where begins or ends the course of planets, as ancient as the universe, and whose returns are at such distant intervals? The time will come,” he exclaims, with enthusiasm, “when posterity will be amazed at our ignorance in things so very evident; for what now appears to us obscure, will one day or other, in the course of ages, and through the industry of our descendants, become manifestly clear; but, a small number of years, passed between study and the indulgence of passion, are not of avail for researches so important, as those which propose to themselves the comprehension of natures so remote.”

The moderns have said nothing satisfactory respecting comets, but what is to be found in the writings of the ancients; except what later observations have furnished them with, which Seneca judged to be so necessary, and which only could be collected through a long succession of ages.

THE MOON.

The ancients discovered very early, that “the moon had no light of its own, but shone with that which it reflected from the sun.” This, after Thales, was the sentiment of Anaxagoras, and that of Empedocles, who thence accounted not only for the mildness of its splendour, but the imperceptibility of its heat, which our modern experiments confirm: for with all the aid of burning glasses, we have never yet found it practicable to obtain the least warmth from any combination of its rays.

With a telescope, we easily discern in the moon parts more elevated and more bright than others, which are judged to be mountains; and means have been found to measure their elevation. We discern also other parts, lower and less bright, which must be vallies, lying between those mountains. There are other parts, which reflecting less light, and presenting one uniform smooth surface, may therefore be supposed large pieces of water. As the moon, then, has its collections of water, its atmosphere, its mountains, and its vallies; it is thence inferred, that there may also be rain there, and snow, and all the other aerial commotions which are natural to such a situation; and our idea of the wisdom and power of God suggests to us, that he may have placed creatures there to inhabit it.

The ancients, who had not the aid of the telescope, supplied the defect of that instrument by extraordinary penetration. They deduced all those consequences that are admitted by the moderns; for they discovered long before, by the mental eye, whatever has since been presented to bodily sight through the medium of telescopes. We have seen in how sublime a manner they entered into the views of the Supreme Being in his destination of the planets, and the multitude of stars placed by him in the firmament. We have already seen, that they looked upon them as so many suns, about which rolled planets of their own, such as those of our solar system; maintaining that those planets contained inhabitants, whose natures they presume not to describe, though they suppose them not to yield to those of ours, either in beauty or dignity.

Orpheus is the earliest author whose opinion on this subject hath come down to us. Proclus presents us with three verses of that eminent ancient, wherein he positively asserts, that “the moon was another earth, having in it mountains, vallies,” &c.

Pythagoras, who followed Orpheus in many of his opinions, taught likewise, that “the moon was an earth like ours, replete with animals, whose nature he presumed not to describe,” though he was persuaded they were of a more noble and elegant kind than ours, and not liable to the same infirmities.

Cicero ascribes a similar sentiment to Democritus, when, in explaining his theory, he says, that, according to it, Quintus Luctatius Catulus, for instance, might without end be multiplied into an infinity of worlds. It were easy to multiply quotations, in proof that this opinion was common among the ancient philosophers. There is a very remarkable passage of Stobæus, wherein he gives us Democritus’s opinion about the nature of the moon, and the cause of those spots which we see upon its disk. That great philosopher imagined, that “those spots were no other than shades, formed by the excessive height of the lunar mountains,” which intercepted the light from the lower parts of that planet, where the vallies formed themselves into what appeared to us as shades or spots.

Plutarch went still farther, alleging, that there were embosomed in the moon, vast seas and profound caverns. These, his conjectures, are built upon the same foundation with those of the moderns. He says, that those deep and extensive shades which appear upon the disk of that planet, must be occasioned by the “vast seas” it contains, which are incapable of reflecting so vivid a light, as the more solid and opaque parts; or “by caverns extremely wide and deep, wherein the rays of the sun are absorbed,” whence those shades and that obscurity which we call the spots of the moon. Xenophanes said, that those immense cavities were inhabited by another race of men, who lived there, as we do upon this earth.

* * * * *

MEDICAL AND LEGAL DUALITY.

TWO PHYSICIANS.

A gentleman calling on a friend, found two physicians with him: he wrote the following lines on the back of his card:--

“By one physician might your work be done, But two are like a double-barrell’d gun; From one discharge sometimes a bird has flown, A second barrel always brings it down.”

TWO LAWYERS.

An opulent farmer applied about a law-suit to an attorney, who told him he could not undertake it, being already engaged on the other side; at the same time he said, that he would give him a letter of recommendation to a professional friend, which he did. The farmer, out of curiosity, opened it, and read as follows:

“Here are two fat wethers fallen out together, If you’ll fleece one, I’ll fleece the other, And make ’em agree like brother and brother.”

The farmer carried this epistle to the person with whom he was at variance. Its perusal cured both parties, and terminated the dispute.

* * * * *

THE HAUNTED MILL.

For the Table Book.

-------------Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer’s cloud, Without our special wonder?

At the basis of the Wolds, in the north riding of Yorkshire, creeps a sluggish stream, on whose bank may be seen the ruins of a mill, which our good forefathers supposed to be haunted. I often gaze upon those ruins with great interest; not so much for its picturesque beauty, which, like a flower in the wilderness, makes solitude less lonely, as for the many endearing claims it has upon my memory, by way of association. It stands near the home of my childhood, it reminds me of the companions of my youth, and tells of pleasures long departed.

It is now nearly ten years since I listened to a story, which haunts me like the recollection of a fearful dream; perhaps, because of its locality, or rather, of its having been told me as a fact. Be it as it may, I have thought it worth the relating; and trust that the readers of the Table Book will at least be interested.

The mill, at the time referred to, had been uninhabited for some ten or twelve years. It had found an occupier in the person of Joe Davis. The inhabitants of the distant, though nearest village, endeavoured to frighten Joe, the miller, by telling him of its being haunted. He laughed at what he called their idle fears, bade them keep their superstitious nonsense for their children’s ears; and laughingly added, that if nought but ghosts visited the mill, he stood a good chance of getting what he most required after a hard day’s work--a quiet rest.

When Joe took possession of the mill, he was as jolly a fellow as ever lived, and a fine buxom wife had he, and three rosy children. His cup of happiness was filled to the brim; his song, merry as the lark’s, and his loud, hearty laugh, were alternately to be heard above the rush of the dam, and the click-clacking of the wheel. When his work was done, it was a treat to see him playing with his children at blindman’s-buff, or hide and seek, or dandling them upon his knee.

All went on well for some time; but in a few months Joe became an altered man. There was a visible difference in his face and manner. At first, a shade was seen to overcast his hitherto unclouded brow--then his cheek became robbed of its bloom, and his step lost its buoyancy. His laughter (when he did laugh, which was seldom) seemed laboured, and was followed by a sigh; and the song--that favourite song, which he had so often sung to Mary in his courtship--faltered on his lips. Instead of clinging to his home and family as usual, he deserted them; and when the straying villager kindly questioned him as to the change, he would not answer, but shake his head, and hurry onwards.

One day Mary found her husband unusually depressed. “Come, come,” said she, “I’m sure all is not right within.” She hung fondly upon his neck--kissed him, and besought him to make her the partner of his sorrow; he raised his head, gazed at her affectionately, and endeavoured to smile away her apprehensions--but it would not do. He dashed the tear from his eye, and rushed out of the room.

Joe Davis had dreamed a dream; or, as my narrator informed me, had seen a vision. Sitting one evening in his little parlour, with his wife and children before him, he, on a sudden, leaned back in his chair--his eyes became glazed, and were rivetted on the picture of his wife holding three roses in her hand, which hung over the mantelpiece--he thought that he beheld a shadow of himself bend over the picture, that the roses began to fade, and, in fading, he distinctly saw the faces of his children, while the portrait of his wife by degrees became colourless. Such was the dream which gave him so much concern--such was the prophecy which ere long was to be fulfilled.

Joe left his house, telling Mary he would return before night. The darkness set in, but he did not make his appearance. Poor Mary, as the night advanced, became mistrustful--she looked at the clock, and listened for his approaching step. It was nearly midnight; and, save the melancholy monotonous ticking of the clock, and the low breathing of her sweet children, who were sleeping near, all was silent as the grave--when, on a sudden, the eldest child cried out, “Father, how cold you are!”--Mary started, and beheld the death-pale face of her husband kissing her children--she shrieked wildly, and fell senseless on the floor.

When Mary came to herself the fire was out, and the clock had stopped. She endeavoured to calm her agitated mind, and thought she heard the noise of the dam, and her husband singing the chorus--

We’ll always be merry together, together, We’ll always be merry together.

She listened, and thought of her children, whom (by the revealment of one of the secrets of her prison-house) she knew were dead. The rest of that horrible night was a (----)

The morning came with its beautiful purple light--the lark hailed it with his matin-song--the flower bloomed at the very door-stone of the mill--the schoolboy whistled as he passed, as if in mockery of her woe. The light of reason had passed from Mary Davis. In the course of the day the body of her husband was found in the dam, but Mary knew it not.--

Say, gentle reader, did not Heaven deal kindly to her in bidding her taste the waters of oblivion?

----I shall never forget the story.

Q. T. M.

* * * * *

COUNSELS AND SAYINGS,

BY DR. A. HUNTER.

ACCUSTOM YOURSELF TO REFLECT.

Seek wisdom, and you will be sure to find her; but if you do not look for her, she will not look for you.

DO, AS YOU WOULD BE DONE BY.

Use yourself to kindness and compassion, and you may expect kindness and compassion in return.

HAVE YOU A FRIEND?

If you have a grievance on your mind you may tell it to your friend, but first be sure that he is your friend.

EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN PROPERLY.

An university implies a seminary, where all the young men go the same way. What that way is, fathers and grandfathers best know.

OBSTINACY IS WEAKNESS.

Obstinacy of temper proceeds from pride, and, in general, from ignorant pride, that refuses to be taught.

REGULATE YOUR TEMPER.

We can bear with a man who is only peevish when the wind is in the east; but it is intolerable to live with one who is peevish in every point of the compass.

TRUE GENEROSITY IS DELICATELY MINDED.

Blame no man for what he cannot help. We must not expect of the dial to tell us the hour after the sun is set.

* * * * *

GERMAN EPIGRAMS

HONOURABLE SERVICE.

If one have serv’d thee, tell the deed to many: Hast thou serv’d many--tell it not to any.--Opitz.

A MOTHER’S LOVE.

E’er yet her child has drawn its earliest breath A mother’s love begins--it glows till death-- Lives before life--with death not dies--but seems The very substance of immortal dreams.--Wernicke.

EPITAPH.

What thou art reading o’er my bones, I’ve often read on other stones; And others soon shall read of thee, What thou art reading now of me.--Fleming.

ADAM’S SLEEP.

He laid him down and slept:--and from his side, A woman in her magic beauty rose, Dazzled and charm’d he call’d that woman “Bride,” And his first sleep became his last repose.--Besser.

EPITAPH.

Here lies, thank God, a woman, who Quarrell’d and storm’d her whole life through: Tread gently o’er her mouldering form, Or else you’ll rouse another storm.--Weckherlin.

* * * * *

PRUSSIAN COURT MOURNING.

Frederick the first king of Prussia was an extremely vain man, and continually engaged in frivolous pursuits. His queen, Sophia Charlotte, the sister of our George I. was a woman of a very superior mind. In her last illness she viewed the approach of death with much calmness and serenity; and when one of her attendants observed how severely it would afflict the king, and that the misfortune of losing her would plunge his majesty into the deepest despair, the queen said, with a smile, “With respect to him, I am perfectly at ease. His mind will be completely occupied in arranging the ceremonial of my funeral, and if nothing goes wrong in the procession, he will be quite consoled for his loss.”

* * * * *

MI-EAU IN AMERICA.

A New York paper says, that a lad in that city, on delivering his milk, was asked why the milk was so warm. “I don’t know,” he replied, with much simplicity, “unless they put in warm water instead of cold.”

* * * * *

A CAPITAL EXTEMPORE

TO THE AUTHOR OF SOME BAD LINES, ON THE RIVER DEE.

Had I been U, And in the Q, As easy I might B. I’d let U C, Whilst sipping T, Far better lines on D.

* * * * *

PETITION OF THE LETTER H TO ITS DECIDED ENEMIES.

Whereas, by you I have been driven From House, from Home, from Hope, and Heaven, And placed, by your most learn’d society, In Evil, Anguish, and Anxiety; And used, without the least pretence, With Arrogance and Insolence. I hereby ask full restitution, And beg you’ll change your elocution.

ANSWER.

Whereas we’ve rescued you, ingrate, From Hell, from Horror, and from Hate-- From Horseponds--Hanging in a halter, And consecrated you in--altar. We think you need no restitution, And shall not change our elocution.

HEZEKIAH HULK, Huntsman.

Milford, June, 1827.

* * * * *

THE GLORIOUS MEMORY.

Sir Jonah Barrington lately met rather a noted corporator of Dublin in Paris, and in the course of conversation inquired why, after the king’s visit to the metropolis of Ireland, and his conciliatory admonitions, the corporation still appeared to prefer the “Boyne Water” and “King William.” The answer was characteristic. “Lord bless you, sir Jonah,” replied the corporator, “as for the Wather we don’t care a farthing about that; but if we once gave up ould King William, we’d give up all our enjoyments! Only for the Glorious Memory we would not have a toast to get drunk with--eh! sir Jonah?”

* * * * *

ERRATA.

Col. 397, line 18, for “modern Europe,” read “northern Europe.”

Col. 430. In the Will of John Keats, for “losses of the sale of books,” read “hopes of the sale of books.”

Vol. II.--43.

Among the verdant mountains of the Peak There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope Of pleasant uplands wards the north-winds bleak; Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope; Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope Of forest trees: flower, foliage, and clear rill Wave from the cliffs, or down ravines elope; It seems a place charmed from the power of ill By sainted words of old:--so lovely, lone, and still.

And many are the pilgrim feet which tread Its rocky steeps, which thither yearly go; Yet, less by love of Nature’s wonders led, Than by the memory of a mighty woe, Which smote, like blasting thunder, long ago, The peopled hills. There stands a sacred tomb, Where tears have rained, nor yet shall cease to flow; Recording days of death’s sublimest gloom; Mompesson’s power and pain,--his beauteous Catherine’s doom.

The Desolation of Eyam.

Through the seventeenth and half of the eighteenth century the village of Eyam, three miles east from Tideswell, in Derbyshire, was populous and flourishing; and all that part of the country thickly sown with little towns and hamlets, was swarming with inhabitants. Owing to the exhausted state of the lead mines the scene is altered, and Eyam is now thinly peopled. It had before endured a dreadful affliction. The year after “that awful and terrible period, when the destroying angel passed over this island, and in the cities of London and Westminster swept away three thousand victims in one night,” the visitation was revived in this distant village, and four-fifths of the inhabitants perished in the course of the summer. This calamity is the subject of the title-page to a poetical volume of eminent merit and beauty, “The Desolation of Eyam, &c. by William and Mary Howitt, Authors of the Forest Minstrel and other Poems.”

Eyam was the birthplace of the late Anna Seward, and in the “Gentleman’s Magazine”[383] there is a letter written in her youthful days, which naturally relates the devoted attachment of the village rector, during the plague, to his stricken flock; and the affectionate adherence of his noble wife. Extracts from this letter, with others from the notes to “The Desolation of Eyam,” and a few stanzas from the poem itself, as specimens of its worth, may here suffice to convey some notion of the story. The poets’ “Introduction” is briefly descriptive of “The Peak”--its romantic rocks and glens--the roar of its flying streams--the welling-up of its still waters--the silence of its beautiful dells--

Such brightness fills the arched sky; So quietly the hill-tops lie In sunshine, and the wild-bird’s glee Rings from the rock-nursed service tree; Such a delicious air is thrown, Such a reposing calm is known On these delightful hills, That, as the dreaming poet lies Drinking the splendour of the skies, The sweetness which distils From herbs and flowers--a thrilling sense Steals o’er his musing heart, intense, Passive, yet deep; the joy which dwells Where nature frames her loneliest spells. And Fancy’s whispers would persuade That peace had here her sojourn made, And love and gladness pitched their tent, When from the world, in woe, they went. That each grey hill had reared its brow In peaceful majesty, as now. That thus these streams had traced their way Through scenes as bright and pure as they; That here no sadder strain was heard Than the free note of wandering bird; And man had here, in nature’s eye, Known not a pain, except, to die.

Poets may dream--alas! that they Should dream so wildly, even by day-- Poets may dream of love and truth, Islands of bliss, and founts of youth: But, from creation’s earliest birth, The curse of blood has raged on earth. Since the first arm was raised to smite The sword has travelled like a blight, From age to age, from realm to realm, Guiding the seaman’s ready helm. Go! question well--search far and near, Bring me of earth a portion here. Look! is not that exuberant soil Fraught with the battle’s bloody spoil? Turn where thou may’st, go where thou wilt, Thy foot is on a spot of guilt.

The curse, the blight have not passed by These dales now smiling in thine eye. Of human ills an ample share, Ravage, and dearth, domestic care, They have not ’scaped. This region blest Knew not of old its pleasant rest. Grandeur there was, but all that cheers, Is the fair work of recent years. The Druid-stones are standing still On the green top of many a hill; The fruitful plough, with mining share, At times lays some old relic bare; The Danish mell; the bolt of stone, To a yet ruder people known: And oft, as on some point which lies In the deep hush of earth and skies, In twilight, silence, and alone, I’ve sate upon the Druid-stone, The visions of those distant times, Their barbarous manners, creeds and crimes, Have come, joy’s brightest thrill to raise, For life’s blest boon in happier days. But not of them--rude race--I sing; Nor yet of war, whose fiery wing, From age to age, with waste and wail, Drove from wide champaign, and low vale, Warrior and woman: child and flock, Here, to the fastness of the rock. The husbandman has ceased to hear Amidst his fields the cry of fear. Waves the green corn--green pastures rise Around,--the lark is in the skies. The song a later time must trace When faith here found a dwelling-place. The tale is tinged with grief and scath, But not in which man’s cruel wrath, Like fire of fiendish spirit shows, But where, through terrors, tears, and woes, He rises dauntless, pure, refined; Not chill’d by self, nor fired by hate, Love in his life,--and even his fate A blessing on his kind.

These latter lines allude to the poem, and it immediately commences.

“Eyam,” says Miss Seward, “is near a mile in length; it sweeps in a waving line amongst the mountains, on a kind of natural terrace about 303 yards broad; above which, yet higher mountains arise. From that dale of savage sublimity, which on the Buxton road from Matlock commences at the end of Middleton, we ascend a quarter of a mile up a narrow and steep lane on the right hand, which conducts us into Eyam. About the centre of the village the continuance of the houses is broken by a small field on the left. From its edge a deep and grassy dingle descends, not less picturesque, and much more beautiful from its softer features, than the craggy dale and its walls of barren rocks from which we had ascended to Eyam, and in which, by a winding course, this dingle terminates. Its ascent from the middle of Eyam is a steep, smooth, and verdant turf, with scattered nut-trees, alders, and the mountain ash. The bottom is scarcely five yards wide, so immediately ascend the noble rocks on the opposite side, curtained with shrubs, and crowned with pines that wave over their brows; only that a few bare parts appear in fantastic points and perforated arches. Always in winter and summer, after recent showers, a small clear rill ripples along the bottom of this dell, but after long drought the channel is dry, and its pebbles are left to bleach in the sun. Cliffs and fields stretch along the tops of the rocks, and from their heights we descend gradually to the upper part of Eyam, which, though high, is less elevated

“Than are the summits of those hilly crofts, That brow the bottom glade.”

At the time of the plague, the rector of Eyam, the Rev. William Mompesson, was in the vigour of youth; he had two children, a boy and girl of three and four years old, and his wife Catherine, a young and beautiful lady:--

There dwelt they in the summer of their love. He, the young pastor of that mountain fold, For whom, not Fancy could foretell above, Bliss more than earth had at his feet unrolled. Yet, ceased he not on that high track to hold, Upon whose bright, eternal steep is shown Faith’s starry coronal. The sad, the cold Caught from his fervent spirit its warm tone, And woke to loftier aims, and feelings long unknown.

And she,--his pride and passion,--she, all sun, All love, and mirth and beauty;--a rich form Of finished grace, where Nature had outdone Her wonted skill. Oh! well might Fancy’s swarm Of more than earthly hopes and visions, warm His ardent mind; for, joyous was her mood; There seemed a spirit of gladness to inform Her happy frame, by no light shock subdued, Which filled her home with light, and all she touched imbued.

So lived, so loved they. Their life lay enshrined Within themselves and people. They reck’d not How the world sped around them, nor divined; Heaven, and their home endearments fill’d their lot. Within the charmed boundary of their cot, Was treasured high and multifarious lore Of sage, divine, and minstrel ne’er forgot In wintry hours; and, carolled on their floor, Were childhood’s happy lays. Could Heaven award them more?

Eyam, as before mentioned, had escaped the contagion in the “Great Year of the Plague.” It was conveyed thither, however, in the ensuing spring by infected cloths. Its appearance is vigorously sketched:--

--------------- But, as in the calm Of a hot noon, a sudden gust will wake; Anon clouds throng; then fiercer squalls alarm; Then thunder, flashing gleams, and the wild break Of wind and deluge:--till the living quake, Towers rock, woods crash amid the tempest,--so In their reposing calm of gladness, spake A word of fear; first whispering--dubious--low, Then lost;--then firm and clear, a menacing of woe:

’Till out it burst, a dreadful cry of death; “The Plague! the Plague!” The withering language flew, And faintness followed on its rapid breath; And all hearts sunk, as pierced with lightning through. “The Plague! the Plague!” No groundless panic grew; But there, sublime in awful darkness, trod The Pest; and lamentation, as he slew, Proclaimed his ravage in each sad abode, Mid frenzied shrieks for aid--and vain appeals to God.

On the commencement of the contagion, Mrs. Mompesson threw herself with her babes at the feet of her husband, to supplicate his flight from that devoted place; but not even the entreaties and tears of a beloved wife could induce him to desert his flock, in those hours of danger and dismay. Equally fruitless were his solicitations that she would retire with her infants. The result of this pathetic contest was a resolve to abide together the fury of the pestilence, and to send their children away.

They went--those lovely ones, to their retreat. They went--those glorious ones, to their employ; To check the ominous speed of flying feet; To quell despair; to soothe the fierce annoy, Which, as a stormy ocean without buoy Tossing a ship distressed, twixt reef and rock, Hurried the crowd, from years of quiet joy Thus roused to fear by this terrific shock; And wild, distracted, mazed, the pastor met his flock.

It was the immediate purpose of this wise and excellent man, to stay his parishioners from flight, lest they should bear the contagion beyond their own district, and desolate the country.

They heard, and they obeyed,--for, simple-hearted, He was to them their wisdom and their tower; To theirs, his brilliant spirit had imparted All that they knew of virtue’s loftier power; Their friend, their guide, their idolized endower With daily blessings, health of mind and frame; They heard, and they obeyed;--but not the more Obeyed the plague; no skill its wrath could tame; It grew, it raged, it spread; like a devouring flame.

Oh! piteous was it then that place to tread; Where children played and mothers had looked on, They lay, like flowers plucked to adorn the dead; The bright-eyed maid no adoration won; Youth in its greenness, trembling age was gone; O’er each bright cottage hearth death’s darkness stole; Tears fell, pangs racked, where happiness had shone.

From a rational belief, that assembling in the crowded church for public worship during the summer heats, must spread and increase the contagion, he agreed with his afflicted parishioners, that he should read prayers twice a week, and deliver his two customary sermons on the sabbath, from one of the perforated arches in the rocks of the dingle. By his advice they ranged themselves on the grassy steep in a level direction to the rocky pulpit; and the dell being narrow, he was distinctly heard from that arch.

The poem describes the spot, and the manner of the worship:--

There is a dell, the merry schoolboy’s sling Whirled in the village, might discharge a stone Into its centre; yet, the shouts which ring Forth from the hamlet travel, over blown, Nor to its sheltered quietude are known. So hushed, so shrouded its deep bosom lies, It brooks no sound, but the congenial tone Of stirring leaves, loud rill, the melodies Of summer’s breezy breath, or autumn’s stormier skies.

Northward, from shadowy rocks, a wild stream pours; Then wider spreads the hollow--lofty trees Cast summer shades; it is a place of flowers, Of sun and fragrance, birds and chiming bees. Then higher shoot the hills. Acclivities Splintered and stern, each like a castle grey, Where ivy climbs, and roses woo the breeze, Narrow the pass; there, trees in close array Shut, from this woodland cove, all distant, rude survey.

But its chief ornament, a miracle Of Nature’s mirth, a wondrous temple stands, Right in the centre of this charmed dell, Which every height and bosky slope commands. Arch meeting arch, unwrought of human hands, Form dome and portals. When hark!--a sound!--it issued from the dell; A solemn voice, as though one did declaim On some high theme; it ceased--and then the swell Of a slow, psalm-like chant on his amazement fell.

* * * * *

In that fantastic temple’s porch was seen The youthful pastor; lofty was his mien, But stamped with thoughts of such appalling scope, As rarely gather on a brow serene; And who are they, on the opposing slope, To whom his solemn tones told but one awful hope?

A pallid, ghost-like, melancholy crew, Seated on scattered crags, and far-off knolls, As fearing each the other. They were few. As men whom one brief hour will from the rolls Of life cut off, and toiling for their souls’ Welcome into eternity--they seemed Lost in the heart’s last conflict, which controls All outward life--they sate as men who dreamed; No motion in their frames--no eye perception beamed.

The two following stanzas are fearfully descriptive of the awful interruptions to the solemn service in this sequestered spot.

But suddenly, a wild and piercing cry Arose amongst them; and an ancient man, Furious in mood--red frenzy in his eye, Sprang forth, and shouting, towards the hollow ran. His white locks floated round his features wan; He rushed impatient to the valley rill; To drink, to revel in the wave began, As one on fire with thirst; then, with a shrill Laugh, as of joy, he sank--he lay--and all was still.

Then from their places solemnly two more Went forth, as if to lend the sufferer aid; But in their hands, in readiness, they bore The charnel tools, the mattock and the spade. They broke the turf--they dug--they calmly laid The old man in his grave; and o’er him threw The earth, by prayer, nor requiem delayed; Then turned, and with no lingering adieu, Swifter than they approached, from the strange scene withdrew.

The church-yard soon ceased to afford room for the dead. They were afterwards buried in an heathy hill above the village.[384] Curious travellers take pleasure in visiting, to this day, the mountain tumulus, and in examining its yet distinct remains; also, in ascending, from the upper part of Eyam, those cliffs and fields which brow the dingle, and from whence the descent into the consecrated rock is easy. It is called Cucklet church by the villagers.

And now hope gleamed abroad. The plague seemed staid; And the loud winds of autumn glad uproar Made in the welkin. Health their call obeyed, And Confidence her throne resumed once more. Nay, joy itself was in the pastor’s bower; For him the plague had sought, its final prey; And Catherine pale, and shuddering at its power, Had watched, had wept, had seen it pass away,-- And joy shone through their home like a bright summer’s day.

The sudden fear woke memory in her cell; And tracing back the brightness of their being; Their love, their bliss, the fatal shafts which fell Around them--smote them--yet, even now were fleeing; Death unto numbers, but to them decreeing Safety;--rich omens for succeeding years, In that sweet gaiety of spirit seeing, Theirs was that triumph which distress endears; And gladness which breaks forth in mingling smiles and tears.

So passed that evening: but, still midnight falls, And why gleams thence that lamp’s unwonted glare? Oh! there is speechless woe within those walls: Death’s stern farewell is given in thunder there. Mompesson wrapt in dreams and fancies fair, Which took their fashion from that evening’s tone, At once sprang up in terror and despair, Roused by that voice which never yet had known To wake aught in his heart, but pure delight alone.

“My William!” faint and plaintive was the cry, And chill the hand which fell upon his breast, “My dearest William, wake thee! Oh! that I With such sad tidings should dispel thy rest. But death is here!” With agony possessed, He snatched a light--he saw--he reeled--he fell. There, in its deadliest form prevailed the pest. Too well he knew the fatal signs--too well: A moment--and to life--to happiness farewell!

The good and beautiful woman, Catherine Mompesson, expired in her husband’s arms, in the twenty-seventh year of her age. Her tomb is near an ancient cross in the church-yard of Eyam. It is represented in the vignette to the “Desolation of Eyam;” and by means of that print the present engraving is laid before the reader of this article.

Mr. Mompesson was presented to the rectory of Eakring, near Ollerton, in Nottinghamshire, and he quitted the fatal scene. On his going, however, to take possession of his living, the people, naturally impressed with the terrors of the plague, in the very cloud and whirlwind of which he had so lately walked, declined admitting him into the village. A hut therefore was erected for him in Rufford Park, where he abode till the fear subsided.

To this gift were added prebends in York and Southwell, and the offer of the deanery of Lincoln. But the good man, with an admirable disinterestedness, declined this last substantial honour, and transferred his influence to his friend, the witty and learned Dr. Fuller, author of “the Worthies of England,” &c. who accordingly obtained it. The wish, which he expressed in one of his letters, that “his children might be good rather than great,” sprang from a living sentiment of his heart. He had tasted the felicity and the bitterness of this world; he had seen its sunshine swallowed up in the shadow of death; and earth had nothing to offer him like the blessedness of a retirement, in which he might prepare himself for a more permanent state of existence.

A brass plate, with a Latin inscription, records his death in this pleasant seclusion, March 7, 1708, in the seventieth year of his age.

Bright shines the sun upon the white walls wreathed[385] With flowers and leafy branches, in that lone And sheltered quiet, where the mourner breathed His future anguish; pleasant there the tone Of bees; the shadows, o’er still waters thrown, From the broad plane-tree; in the grey church nigh, And near that altar where his faith was known, Humble as his own spirit we descry The record which denotes where sacred ashes lie.

And be it so for ever;--it is glory. Tombs, mausoleums, scrolls, whose weak intent Time laughs to scorn, as he blots out their story, Are not the mighty spirit’s monument. He builds with the world’s wonder--his cement Is the world’s love;--he lamps his beamy shrine, With fires of the soul’s essence, which, unspent, Burn on for ever;--such bright tomb is thine, Great patriot, and so rests thy peerless Catherine.

So ends the poem of “The Desolation of Eyam.” Its authors, in one of the notes, relate as follows:--

There are extant three letters written by W. Mompesson, from the nearly depopulated place, at a time when his wife had been snatched from him by the plague, and he considered his own fate inevitable. In the whole range of literature, we know of nothing more pathetic than these letters. Our limits do not allow us to give them entire, but we cannot forbear making a few extracts. In one, he says,

“The condition of this place has been so sad, that I persuade myself it did exceed all history and example. I may truly say that our town has become a Golgotha--the place of a skull; and, had there not been a small remnant of us left, we had been as Sodom and Gomorrah. My ears never heard such doleful lamentations, and my eyes never beheld such ghastly spectacles. Here have been seventy-six families visited in my parish, out of which two hundred and fifty-nine persons died! Now, blessed be God--all our fears are over: for none have died of the infection since the eleventh of October; and all the pest-houses have been long empty. I intend (God willing) to spend most of this week in seeing all the woollen clothes fumed and purified, as well for the satisfaction, as for the safety of the country.”

Thus it is he announces to his children, the death of their mother.

“To my dear children, GEORGE and ELIZABETH MOMPESSON, these present with my blessing.

“Eyam, August, 1666.

“Dear Hearts,--This brings you the doleful news of your dear mother’s death--the greatest loss which ever yet befell you! I am not only deprived of a kind and loving consort, but you also are bereaved of the most indulgent mother that ever dear children had. We must comfort ourselves in God with this consideration, that the loss is only ours, and that what is our sorrow is her gain. The consideration of her joys, which I do assure myself are unutterable, should refresh our drooping spirits.

“I do believe, my dear hearts, upon sufficient ground, that she was the kindest wife in the world; and I do think from my soul that she loved me ten times more than herself. Further, I can assure you, my sweet babes, that her love to you was little inferior to hers for me. For why should she be so desirous of my living in this world of sorrows, but that you might have the comfort of my life. You little imagine with what delight she was wont to talk of you both; and the pains that she took when you sucked on her breasts is almost incredible. She gave a large testimony of her love to you on her death-bed. For, some hours before she died, I brought her some cordials, which she plainly told me she was not able to take. I desired her to take them for your dear sakes. Upon the mention of your dear names, she lifted up herself and took them; which was to let me understand, that whilst she had strength left, she would embrace any opportunity she had of testifying her affection to you.”

So wrote this most affectionate spirit to comfort his children: but, in a letter to a relative, the bitterness of his grief burst forth in an inconsolable agony. “I find this maxim verified by too sad experience; Bonum magis carendo quam fruendo cernitur. Had I been so thankful as my condition did deserve, I might yet have had my dearest dear in my bosom. But now, farewell all happy days, and God grant I may repent my sad ingratitude.”

The following letter was written to sir George Saville, afterwards lord Hallifax, his friend and patron, soon after this melancholy event, and while the plague was in his house, and he looked upon his own death as certain, and speedily approaching.

“To SIR GEORGE SAVILLE, Baronet.

“Eyam, Sept. 1, 1666.

“Honoured and dear sir,--This is the saddest news that ever my pen could write! The destroying angel having taken up his quarters within my habitation, my dearest dear is gone to her eternal rest; and is invested with a crown of righteousness, having made a happy end.

“Indeed had she loved herself as well as me, she had fled from the pit of destruction with her sweet babes, and might have prolonged her days, but that she was resolved to die a martyr to my interest. My drooping spirits are much refreshed with her joys, which I think are unutterable.

“Sir, this paper is to bid you a hearty farewell for ever--and to bring my humble thanks for all your noble favours; and I hope that you will believe a dying man. I have as much love as honour for you; and I will bend my feeble knees to the God of Heaven that you, my dear lady and your children, and their children, may be blest with external and eternal happiness; and that the same blessing may fall upon my lady Sunderland and her relations.

“Dear sir, let your dying chaplain recommend this truth to you and your family--that no happiness nor solid comfort may be found in this vale of tears like living a pious life;--and pray remember ever to retain this rule--never to do any thing upon which you dare not first ask the blessing of God for the success thereof.

“Sir, I have made bold in my will with your name as an executor, and I hope that you will not take it ill. I have joined two others with you that will take from you the trouble. Your favourable aspect will, I know, be a great comfort to my distressed orphans. I am not desirous that they may be great, but good; and my next request is that they may be brought up in the fear and admonition of the Lord.

“I desire, sir, that you will be pleased to make choice of an humble, pious man to succeed me in my parsonage; and, could I see your face before my departure from hence, I would inform you which way I think he may live comfortably amongst his people, which would be some satisfaction to me before I die. And with tears I beg, that, when you are praying for fatherless infants, you would then remember my two pretty babes. Sir, pardon the rude style of this paper, and if my head be discomposed, you cannot wonder at me. However, be pleased to believe that I am

Dear sir,

Your most obliged, most affectionate,

and grateful servant,

“WILLIAM MOMPESSON.”

When first the plague broke out in Eyam, Mr. Mompesson wrote to the then earl of Devonshire, residing at Chatworth, some five miles from Eyam; stating, that he thought he could prevail upon his parishioners to confine themselves within the limits of the village, if the surrounding country would supply them with necessaries, leaving such provisions as should be requested in appointed places, and at appointed hours, upon the encircling hills. The proposal was punctually complied with; and it is most remarkable, that when the pestilence became, beyond all conception, terrible, not a single inhabitant attempted to pass the deathful boundaries of the village, though a regiment of soldiers could not, in that rocky and open country, have detained them against their will: much less could any watch, which might have been set by the neighbourhood, have effected that infinitely important purpose.

By the influence of this exemplary man, obtained by his pious and affectionate virtues, the rest of the county of Derby escaped the plague; not one of the very nearly neighbouring hamlets, or even a single house, being infected beyond the limits of Eyam village, though the distemper raged there near seven months.

Further details will hardly be required respecting a story, which is as true as it is sad. The manner wherein it is poetically related is sufficiently exemplified, and therefore, without comment; and for beauties, various as the scenery of nature, expressed in charmed lines, the reader of feeling is referred to the exquisite little volume mentioned before, under the title of “The Desolation of Eyam, and other Poems; by William and Mary Howitt, authors of the Forest Minstrel, &c.”

A little piece, however, is ventured from the volume, as a seasonable conclusion at parting.

SUMMER AND THE POET.

POET.

Oh! golden, golden summer, What is it thou hast done? Thou hast chased each vernal roamer With thy fiercely burning sun.

Glad was the cuckoo’s hail; Where may we hear it now? Thou hast driven the nightingale From the waving hawthorn bough.

Thou hast shrunk the mighty river; Thou hast made the small brook flee; And the light gales faintly quiver In the dark and shadowy tree.

Spring waked her tribes to bloom, And on the green sward dance. Thou hast smitten them to the tomb With thy consuming glance.

And now Autumn cometh on, Singing ’midst shocks of corn, Thou hastenest to be gone, As if joy might not be borne.

SUMMER.

And dost thou of me complain, Thou, who, with dreamy eyes, In the forest’s moss hast lain, Praising my silvery skies?

Thou, who didst deem divine The shrill cicada’s tune, When the odours of the pine Gushed through the woods at noon?

I have run my fervid race; I have wrought my task once more; I have filled each fruitful place With a plenty that runs o’er.

There is treasure for the garner; There is honey with the bee; And, oh! thou thankless scorner, There’s a parting boon for thee.

Soon as, in misty sadness, Sere Autumn yields his reign, Winter, with stormy madness, Shall chase thee from the plain.

Then shall these scenes Elysian Bright in thy spirit burn; And each summer-thought and vision Be thine till I return.

It may be remembered that from this volume the poem of “Penn and the Indians,” in a former sheet, was extracted.

-----------Bursting through that woody screen What vision of strange aspect met his eyes! In that fantastic temple’s porch was seen The youthful pastor ---------------- ------------------ No sabbath sound Came from the village;--no rejoicing bells Were heard; no groups of strolling youth were found, Nor lovers loitering on the distant fells, No laugh, no shout of infancy, which tells Where radiant health and happiness repair; But silence, such as with the lifeless dwells.

The Desolation of Eyam.

A plate in the “Gentleman’s Magazine” of September, 1801, presents the above view, taken about three years before, accompanied by a remark from Mr. Urban’s correspondent, that it was “at that time an exact resemblance of the perforated rock near the village of Eyam, in which the pious and worthy Mr. Mompesson, the rector, punctually performed the duties of his office to the distressed inhabitants during the time of the plague in that village.”

Here it may be well to observe, in the expressive language of “William and Mary Howitt,” that “what a cordon of soldiers could not have accomplished was effected by the wisdom and love of one man. This measure was the salvation of the country. The plague, which would most probably have spread from place to place, may be said to have been hemmed in, and, in a dreadful and desolating struggle, destroyed and buried with its victims.”

William Mompesson exercised a power greater than legislators have yet attained. He had found the great secret of government. He ruled his flock by the Law of Kindness.

*

* * * * *

In the summer, 1757, five cottagers were digging on the heathy mountain above Eyam, which was the place of graves after the church-yard became a too narrow repository. Those men came to something which had the appearance of having once been linen. Conscious of their situation, they instantly buried it again. In a few days they all sickened of a putrid fever, and three of the five died. The disorder was contagious, and proved mortal to numbers of the inhabitants.

[383] Vol. lxxi. p. 300.

[384] The great and good Howard visited Eyam the year before he last left England, to examine in that village the records of the pestilential calamity which it had endured, and of those virtues which resembled his own.

[385] Eakring rectory.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXXVII.

[From “Ram Alley,” a Comedy, by Lodowick Barry, 1611.]

In the Prologue the Poet protests the innocence of his Play, and gives a promise of better things.

Home bred mirth our Muse doth sing; The Satyr’s tooth, and waspish sting. Which most do hurt when least suspected, By this Play are not affected. But if conceit, with quick-turn’d scenes, Observing all those ancient streams Which from the Horse-foot fount do flow-- As time, place, person--and to show Things never done, with that true life, That thoughts and wits shall stand at strife, Whether the things now shewn be true; Or whether we ourselves now do The things we but present: if these, Free from the loathsome Stage-disease, So over-worn, so tired and stale; Not satyrising, but to rail;-- May win your favors, and inherit But calm acceptance of his merit,-- He vows by paper, pen, and ink, And by the Learned Sisters’ drink, To spend his time, his lamps, his oil, And never cease his brain to toil, Till from the silent hours of night He doth produce, for your delight, Conceits so new, so harmless free, That Puritans themselves may see A Play; yet not in public preach, That Players such lewd doctrine teach, That their pure joints do quake and tremble, When they do see a man resemble The picture of a villain.--This, As he a friend to Muses is, To you by me he gives his word, Is all his Play does now afford.

* * * * *

[From the “Royal King and Loyal Subject,” a Tragi-comedy, by T. Heywood, 1627.]

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywood descants upon the variety of topics, which had been introduced upon the English stage in that age,--the rich Shakspearian epoch.

To give content to this most curious age, The Gods themselves we’ve brought down to the stage, And figured them in Planets; made ev’n Hell Deliver up the Furies, by no spell Saving the Muses’ raptures: further we Have traffickt by their help; no History We’ve left unrifled; our pens have been dipt As well in opening each hid manuscript, As tracts more vulgar, whether read or sung, In our domestic or more foreign tongue. Of Fairy elves, Nymphs of the Sea and Land, The Lawns and Groves, no number can be scann’d, Which we’ve not given feet to. Nay, ’tis known, That when our Chronicles have barren grown Of story, we have all Invention stretcht; Dived low as to the center, and then reacht Unto the Primum Mobile above, (Nor ’scaped Things Intermediate), for your love These have been acted often; all have past Censure: of which some live, and some are cast. For this[386] in agitation, stay the end; Tho’ nothing please, yet nothing can offend.

* * * * *

[From the “Challenge to Beauty,” a Tragi-comedy, by T. Heywood, 1636.]

In the Prologue to this Play, Heywood commends the English Plays; not without a censure of some writers, who in his time had begun to degenerate.

The Roman and Athenian Dramas far Differ from us: and those that frequent are In Italy and France, ev’n in these days, Compared with ours, are rather Jiggs than Plays. Like of the Spanish may be said, and Dutch; None, versed in language, but confess them such. They do not build their projects on that ground; Nor have their phrases half the weight and sound, Our labour’d Scenes have had. And yet our nation (Already too much tax’d for imitation, In seeking to ape others) cannot ’quit Some of our Poets, who have sinn’d in it. For where, before, great Patriots, Dukes, and Kings, Presented for some high facinorous things[387] Were the stage subject; now we strive to fly In their low pitch, who never could soar high: For now the common argument entreats Of puling Lovers, crafty Bawds, or Cheats. Nor blame I their quick fancies, who can fit These queasy times with humours flash’d in wit, Whose art I both encourage and commend; I only wish that they would sometimes bend To memorise the valours of such men, Whose very names might dignify the pen; And that our once-applauded Rosscian strain In acting such might be revived again; Which you to count’nance might the Stage make proud, And poets strive to key their strings more loud.

C. L.

[386] His own Play.

[387] The foundations of the English Drama were laid deep in tragedy by Marlow, and others--Marlow especially--while our comedy was yet in its lisping state. To this tragic preponderance (forgetting his own sweet Comedies, and Shakspeare’s), Heywood seems to refer with regret; as in the “Rosscian Strain” he evidently alludes to Alleyn, who was great in the “Jew of Malta,” as Heywood elsewhere testifies, and in the principal tragic parts both of Marlow and Shakspeare.

* * * * *

~Wrestling~

IN CORNWALL AND DEVONSHIRE.

To the Editor.

Sir,--The ready insertion given to my letter on the above subject, in the second volume of the Every-Day Book, (p. 1009,) encourages me to hope that you will as readily insert the present, which enters more fully into the merits of this ancient sport, as practised in both counties, than any other communication you have as yet lain before your numerous readers.

Having been the first person to call your attention to the merits of Polkinhorne, Parkins, and Warren, of Cornwall, (to which I could easily have added the names of some dozen or two more, equally deserving of notice,) I was much amused at the article you extracted from the London Magazine, (into the Every-Day Book, vol. ii. p. 1337,) because I was present at the sport there spoken of; and being well acquainted with the play, and an eye-witness, I found the picture much too highly coloured.

I am neither a Cornwall nor a Devon man myself, but have resided in both counties for the last ten years, and am really an admirer of Abraham Cann, of Devon, whose behaviour in the ring no one can at all complain of: he is a fine fellow, but so is Polkinhorne, and, beyond doubt, the latter is “much the better man;” he threw Cann an acknowledged fair fall, and I regret he left the ring on the bad advice of those whom he thought then his friends. Had he not, I am certain he would have thrown Cann “over and over again.”

In a late number of the Table Book (p. 416) is given an extract from Homer, to show that Ulysses’ mode of wrestling was similar to that of Abraham Cann; it may be so; but what does Achilles say upon the subject:--

“Your nobler vigour, oh, my friends, restrain: Nor weary out your gen’rous strength in vain. Ye both have won: let others who excel Now prove that prowess you have prov’d so well.”

Now Abraham Cann, with his monstrous shoe, and most horrible mode of kicking, has never yet been able to throw Polkinhorne, nor do I think he has the power or skill to enable him to do so. His defeat of Gaffney has added no laurel to his brow, for the Irishman had not a shadow of chance; nor is there an Irishman or a Cornishman, now in London, that would stand any chance with Cann; but he would find several awkward opponents if he would meet those from Westmoreland, Carlisle, and Cumberland, and play in their mode. In the match, however, between Polkinhorne and Cann the latter very properly received the stakes, on account of the former having quitted the ring on conceiving he had won the day, by throwing two falls. The second throw, on reference to the umpires, was after some time deemed not a fair back fall.--This, however, is foreign to my purpose; which is to systematically explain the methods of wrestling in Cornwall and Devon.

I have seen in Cornwall more persons present at these games, when the prize has only been a gold-laced hat, a waistcoat, or a pair of gloves, than ever attend the sports of Devon, (where the prizes are very liberal--for they don’t like to be kicked severely for a trifle,) or even at the famed meetings of later days in London, at the Eagle in the City Road, or the Golden Eagle in Mile End. How is this? Why, in the latter places, six, eight, and, at farthest, twelve standards are as much as a day’s play will admit of; while in Cornwall I have seen forty made in one day. At Penzance, on Monday, 24th ult.,[388] thirty standards were made, and the match concluded the day following. In Devon, what with the heavy shoes and thick padding, and time lost in equipment and kicking, half that number cannot be made in a day: I have frequently seen men obliged to leave the ring, and abandon the chance of a prize, owing solely to the hurt they have received by kicks from the knee downwards; and let me here add, that I have been present when even Cann’s brothers, or relations, have been obliged to do so. So much for kicking.--To the eye of a beholder unacquainted with wrestling, the Cornish mode must appear as play, and that of Devon barbarous.--It is an indisputable fact, that no Cornish wrestler of any note ever frequents the games in Devon; and that whenever those from Devon have played in Cornwall; they have been thrown: Jordan by Parkins, and so on.

At a Cornish wrestling, a man’s favourite play can be seen by the hitch or holdfast he takes; as right or left, which is sure to be crossed by left and right, and the struggle immediately commences. The off-hand play is that in which the men have each a gripe on his adversary’s collar, or on the collar and opposite elbow, or wrist; when by a sudden blow against the outside of the foot, by the striker’s inside, (if strong enough,) or by a corresponding twist of the collar, one lays the other flat on his back. This is called playing with the toe; but they never wear any shoes, and are generally bare-legged from the knee downwards.

When the hitch is collar and elbow, one mode of play is to lift with the heel placed in the fork, with the back twisted round towards the other’s front, and pulling him strongly by the elbow and collar, carry him forward; but a back fall is then uncertain. Another way is to heave forward or backward with the crook, or inlock, or with the hip.

But the struggle is on what is termed the closing play, which is by hitching over and under. If righthanded, the over player has his right hand on the loins, or over the right shoulder of his adversary, with his right side towards him, and his left hand on the right arm, at the wrist or elbow; he then throws forward with the hip, or backward and forward with the crook, as before.

The under player has his right hand on the left side of the collar, his left crossing the loins on the back, or crossing the belly in front, and facing his opponent’s left side. His defensive play is to stop the hip by the clamp and the crook; by pushing forward with his left hand on the nape of the neck, and then heaving; which in the ring is considered the best play. A good and sure heaver is a perfect player. It must be done backward, if the arm crosses the back; but if it crosses the belly, either backward or forward will do. Cann was thrown by Polkinhorne backwards, which is dangerous to the heaver to attempt; for, if he does not lift with sufficient strength, and keep himself clear of his antagonist’s legs, he will not go far enough round, and instead of throwing his adversary a fair fall, he may fall on his own back, which is termed throwing himself; or his adversary may crook his leg within, and overbalance the heaver and by a quick movement throw him. Thus was Warren thrown by Cann. (See the Every-Day Book, vol. ii. p. 1337.)

The forward heave, if done quickly, is certain. Both arms must cross the belly, and your adversary be lifted across your chest; then, plunging forward, you fall on him crosswise; he has thus no chance, and the fall is complete; but the in-turn, if adopted before the lift from the ground takes place, baffles the heaver.

The Cornish hug is a tremendous struggle for victory. Both grasp alike, and not much science is required. It only takes place where each conceives himself to be the stronger of the two. It is either right or left. If right, each man has his right hand on the other’s loins on the left side, and his left hand on the right shoulder; they stand face to face, and each strives to draw his adversary towards him, and grasps him round the waist, till the hug becomes close, and the weakest man is forced backward--the other falling heavily upon him. This is a very sure and hard fall. So much for Cornish play. Now for that of Devonshire; which resembles in every respect (the toe and heel excepted) the off-hand play of Cornwall, but goes no farther.

The Devonshire men have no under-play, nor have they one heaver; and they do not understand or practise the hug. Visit a Devon ring, and you’ll wait a tedious time after a man is thrown ere another appears. After undergoing the necessary preparations for a good kicking, &c. he enters, and shakes his adversary by the hand, and kicks and lays hold when he can get a fit opportunity. If he is conscious of superior strength he “goes to work,” and by strength of arms wrests him off his legs, and lays him flat; or, if too heavy for this, he carries him round by the hip. But when the men find they are “much of a muchness” it is really tiresome: “caution” is the word; the shoe, only, goes to work; and after dreadful hacking, cutting, and kicking, one is at last thrown. The hardest shoe and the best kicker carries the day. Cann is a very hard kicker and a cautious wrestler. The Irishman’s legs bore ample testimony of the effects of Cann’s shoe. He left him knee-deep in a stream of gore.

The Devon men never close with a Cornish adversary, if they find he possesses any science; because they have no underplay, and cannot prevent the risk of being heaved: they therefore stand off, with only one hand in the collar, and kick; the Cornishman then attempts to get in, and the Devonman tries to confine one of his opponent’s arms by holding him at the wrist, and keeping him from coming in either over or under, and at every move of his leg kicking it. Here ends the description; by which it will be plainly seen that a Cornishman cannot enter a Devon ring on any thing like an equality.

Wishing well to both counties, and disclaiming undue partiality to either, I remain a true lover of wrestling as a rustic sport, and your obedient servant,

SAM SAM’S SON.

October 8, 1827.

[388] See the West Briton paper of the 5th October.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. XII.

ETHER--WEIGHT AND ELASTICITY OF THE AIR--AIR-GUNS.

By ether the moderns understand a rare fluid, or species of matter, beyond the atmosphere, and penetrating it, infinitely more subtile than the air we respire, of an immense extent, filling all the spaces where the celestial bodies roll, yet making no sensible resistance to their motions. Some suppose it to be a sort of air, much purer than that which invests our globe; others, that its nature approaches to that of the celestial fire, which emanates from the sun and other stars; others, again, suppose it to be generically different from all other matter, sui generis, and its parts finer than those of light; alleging that the exceeding tenuity of its parts renders it capable of that vast expansive force, which is the source of all that pressure and dilatation whence most of the phenomena in nature arise; for that by the extreme subtilty of its parts it intimately penetrates all bodies, and exerts its energy everywhere. This last is the opinion of Newton and Locke. But whatever be the sentiments now entertained on the subject, we find the origin of all of them in the ancients.

The stoics taught, that there was a subtile and active fire which pervaded the whole universe, that by the energy of this ethereal substance, to which they gave the name of ether, all the parts of nature were produced, preserved, and linked together; that it embraced every thing; and that in it the celestial bodies performed their revolutions.

According to Diogenes Laertius and Hierocles, Pythagoras affirmed, that the air which invests our earth is impure and mixed; but that the air above it is essentially pure and healthful. He calls it “free ether, emancipated from all gross matter, a celestial substance that fills all space, and penetrates at will the pores of all bodies.”

Aristotle, explaining Pythagoras’s opinion of ether, ascribes the same also to Anaxagoras. Aristotle himself, in another place, understands by ether, a fifth element pure and unalterable, of an active and vital nature, but entirely different from air and fire.

Empedocles, one of the most celebrated disciples of Pythagoras, is quoted by Plutarch, and St. Clemens Alexandrinus, as admitting an ethereal substance, which filled all space, and contained in it all the bodies of the universe, and which he calls by the names of Titan and Jupiter.

Plato distinguishes air into two kinds, the one gross and filled with vapours, which is what we breathe; the other “more refined, called ether, in which the celestial bodies are immerged, and where they roll.”

The nature of air was not less known to the ancients than that of ether. They regarded it as a general “menstruum,” containing all the volatile parts of every thing in nature, which being variously agitated, and differently combined, produced meteors, tempests, and all the other changes we experience. They also were acquainted with its weight, though the experiments transmitted to us, relative to this, are but few. Aristotle speaks of “a vessel filled with air as weighing more than one quite empty.” Treating of respiration, he reports the opinion of Empedocles, who ascribes the cause of it “to the weight of the air, which by its pressure insinuates itself with force” into the lungs. Plutarch, in the same terms, expresses the sentiments of Asclepiades. He represents him, among other things, as saying, that “the external air by its weight opens its way with force into the breast.” Heron of Alexandria ascribes effects to the elasticity of the air, which show that he perfectly understood that property of it.

Seneca also knew its weight, spring, and elasticity. He describes “the constant effort it makes to expand itself when it is compressed;” and he affirms, that “it has the property of condensing itself, and forcing its way through all obstacles that oppose its passage.”

It is still more surprising, however, that Ctesibius, “upon the principle of the air’s elasticity,” invented Wind-guns, which we look upon as a modern contrivance. Philo of Byzantium gives a very full and exact description of that curious machine, planned upon the property of the air’s being capable of condensation, and so constructed as to manage and direct the force of that element, in such a manner as to carry stones with rapidity to the greatest distance.

* * * * *

INSCRIBED ON A SIGN

AT CASTLE CARY, SOMERSET.

FOOT,

Maker of pattens, clogs, rakes, and mouse-traps too, Grinds razors, makes old umbrellas good as new: Knives bladed, spurs and lanterns mended; other jobs done; Teakettles clean’d, repaired, and carried home.

J. T. H.

* * * * *

~Manners and Customs.~

For the Table Book.

PROVINCIAL SAYINGS, &C.

1. As the days grow longer, The storms grow stronger.

2. As the days lengthen, So the storms strengthen.

3. Blessed is the corpse, that the rain falls on.

4. Blessed is the bride, that the sun shines on.

5. He that goes to see his wheat in May, Comes weeping away.

HARVEST-HOME CALL,

IN THE COUNTY OF DURHAM.

Blest be the day that Christ was born, We’ve getten mell of Mr. ----’s corn, Well won, and better shorn. Hip, hip, hip!--Huzza! huzza! huzza!

AN OLD YORKSHIRE MAY-GAME.

“An account of a May-Game, performed at Richmond, Yorkshire, on the 29th of May, 1660, by the inhabitants of that town; whereby they demonstrated their universal joy for the happy return of Charles II., whom God was pleased to make the instrument of freeing this nation from tyranny, usurpation, and the dismal effects of a civil war.

“They came into the town, in solemn equipage, as follows:--

“1. Three antics before them with bagpipes.

“2. The representative of a lord, attended by trumpets, falconers, four pages, as many footmen, and fifty attendants, all suited as became persons of their quality.

“3. The representative of a sheriff, with forty attendants, in their liveries.

“4. The bishop of Hereford, with four pages and footmen, his chaplain, and twenty other household officers, besides their attendants.

“5. Two companies of morris-dancers, who acted their parts to the satisfaction of the spectators.

“6. Sixty nymphs, with music before them, following Diana, all richly adorned in white and gorgeous apparel, with pages and footmen attending them.

“7. Three companies of foot soldiers, with a captain and other officers, in great magnificence.

“8. Robin Hood, in scarlet, with forty bowmen, all clad in Lincoln green.

“Thus they marched into the town. Now follows their performance.

“They marched decently, in good order, round the market-cross, and came to the church, where they offered their cordial prayers for our most gracious sovereign; a sermon preached at that time.

“From thence my lord invited all his attendants to his house to dinner.

“The reverend bishop did the same to all his attendants, inviting the minister and other persons to his own house, where they were sumptuously entertained.

“The soldiers marched up to the cross, where they gave many vollies of shot, with push of pike, and other martial feats.

“There was erected a scaffold and arbours, where the morris-dancers and nymphs acted their parts; many thousands of spectators having come out of the country and villages adjacent.

“Two days were spent in acting ‘Robin Hood.’ The sheriff and reverend bishop sent bottles of sack to several officers acting in the play, who all performed their parts to the general satisfaction of the spectators, with acclamations of joy for the safe arrival of his sacred majesty.

“Something more might have been expected from the civil magistrate of the town, who permitted the conduit to run water all the time.

“The preceding rejoicings were performed by the commonalty of the borough of Richmond.”

CHRISTMAS PIE.

The following appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle, 6th Jan. 1770:--“Monday last was brought from Howick to Berwick, to be shipp’d for London, for sir Hen. Grey, bart., a pie, the contents whereof are as follows: viz. 2 bushels of flour, 20 lbs. of butter, 4 geese, 2 turkies, 2 rabbits, 4 wild ducks, 2 woodcocks, 6 snipes, and 4 partridges; 2 neats’ tongues, 2 curlews, 7 blackbirds, and 6 pigeons: it is supposed a very great curiosity, was made by Mrs. Dorothy Patterson, housekeeper at Howick. It was near nine feet in circumference at bottom, weighs about twelve stones, will take two men to present it to table; it is neatly fitted with a case, and four small wheels to facilitate its use to every guest that inclines to partake of its contents at table.”

OLIVER CROMWELL’S WEDDINGS.

The singular mode of solemnizing marriages that took place during Cromwell’s usurpation, was pretty strictly observed for the space of four years; during which time sixty-six couple were joined together before the civil magistrate (at Knaresbrough.) The gentlemen who were applied to in this case, for the most part, appear to be Thomas Stockdale, of Bilton Park, Esq.; sir Thomas Mouleverer, bart. of Allerton Park; or the mayor of Ripon. The bans were published on three separate days before marriage, sometimes at the market-cross, and sometimes in the church. The following is a copy of one of the certificates:--

“30 Mar. 1651. Marmaduke Inman and Prudence Lowcock, both of the parish of Knaresbrough, were this day married together at Ripon, having first been published three several market-days in the market-place at Knaresbrough, according to the act of parliament, and no exceptions made.

“In the presence of

“Thomas Davie,

“Anthony Simpson.”

ELECTIONEERING.

In sir Henry Slingsby’s Diary is the following note, respecting the election at Knaresbrough in the year 1640. “There is an evil custom at such elections, to bestow wine on all the town, which cost me sixteen pounds at least.”

D. A. M.

* * * * *

A RARE BROAD FARTHING!

To the Editor.

Sir,--In your last very pleasing number, p. 242, you give an account of a “Farthing Lord.” As addenda to that article I state, that in the west of England I knew a penurious old gentleman, who, by way of generous reward, used to give the person who performed little services for him a farthing!, with this grateful apostrophe, “Here, my friend; here is a rare broad farthing for thee!--go thy way--call to-morrow; and, if thou earn it, thou shalt have another rare broad farthing!” By the exercise of this liberality, he gained the appellation of “Broad Farthing!” and retained it to the day of his death, when he left immense wealth.

I am, sir, yours, &c.

*, *, *.

Islington, August 25, 1827.

* * * * *

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

The following good-tempered and agreeable letter has been published in illustration of an excellent engraving of Wilkie’s interesting picture of Sir Walter Scott and his family:--

LETTER FROM SIR WALTER SCOTT TO SIR ADAM FERGUSON, DESCRIPTIVE OF A PICTURE PAINTED BY DAVID WILKIE, ESQ., R.A., EXHIBITED AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY, 1818.

My dear Adam,--I have duly received your letter, with that enclosed from the gentleman whom you have patronised, by suffering the sketch from the pencil of our friend Wilkie to be engraved for his work.

The picture has something in it rather of a domestic character, as the personages are represented in a sort of masquerade, such being the pleasure of the accomplished painter. Nevertheless, if it is to be engraved, I do not see that I can offer any objection, since it is the wish of the distinguished artist, and the friendly proprietor of the sketch in question.

But Mr. Balmanno [Secretary to the Incorporated Artists’ Fund] mentions, besides, a desire to have anecdotes of my private and domestic life, or, as he expresses himself, a portrait of the author in his night-gown and slippers; and this from you, who, I dare say, could furnish some anecdotes of our younger days, which might now seem ludicrous enough.

Even as to my night-gown and slippers, I believe the time has been, when the articles of my wardrobe were as familiar to your memory as Poins’s to Prince Henry; but that time has been for some years past, and I cannot think it would be interesting to the public to learn that I had changed my old robe-de-chambre for a handsome douillette when I was last at Paris. The truth is, that a man of ordinary sense cannot be supposed delighted with the species of gossip which, in the dearth of other news, recurs to such a quiet individual as myself; and though, like a well-behaved lion of twenty years’ standing, I am not inclined to vex myself about what I cannot help, I will not in any case, in which I can prevent it, be accessory to these follies. There is no man known at all in literature, who may not have more to tell of his private life than I have: I have surmounted no difficulties either of birth or education, nor have I been favoured by any particular advantages, and my life has been as void of incidents of importance, as that of the “weary knife-grinder,”--

“Story! God bless you. I have none to tell, sir.”

The follies of youth ought long since to have passed away; and if the prejudices and absurdities of age have come in their place, I will keep them, as Beau Tibbs did his prospect, for the amusement of my domestic friends. A mere enumeration of the persons in the sketch is all I can possibly permit to be published respecting myself and my family; and as must be the lot of humanity, when we look back seven or eight years, even what follows cannot be drawn up without some very painful recollections.

The idea which our inimitable Wilkie adopted was to represent our family group in the garb of south country peasants, supposed to be concerting a merry-making, for which some of the preparations are seen. The place is the terrace near Kayside, commanding an extensive view towards the Eildon hills. 1. The sitting figure, in the dress of a miller, I believe, represents Sir Walter Scott, author of a few scores of volumes, and proprietor of Abbotsford, in the county of Roxburgh. 2. In front, and presenting, we may suppose, a country wag somewhat addicted to poaching, stands sir Adam Ferguson, Knight-Keeper of the Regalia of Scotland. 3. In the background is a very handsome old man, upwards of eighty-four years old at the time, painted in his own character of a shepherd. He also belonged to the numerous clan of Scott. He used to claim credit for three things unusual among the Southland shepherds: first, that he had never been fou in the course of his life; secondly, he never had struck a man in anger; thirdly, that though intrusted with the management of large sales of stock, he had never lost a penny for his master by a bad debt. He died soon afterwards at Abbotsford. 4, 5, 6. Of the three female figures, the elder is the late regretted mother of the family represented. 5. The young person most forward in the group is Miss Sophia Charlotte Scott, now Mrs. J. G. Lockhart; and 6, her younger sister, Miss Ann Scott. Both are represented as ewe-milkers, with their leglins, or milk-pails. 7. On the left hand of the shepherd, the young man holding a fowling-piece is the eldest son of sir Walter, now captain in the king’s hussars. 8. The boy is the youngest of the family, Charles Scott, now of Brazenose College, Oxford. The two dogs were distinguished favourites of the family; the large one was a stag-hound of the old Highland breed, called Maida, and one of the handsomest dogs that could be found; it was a present from the chief of Glengary to sir Walter, and was highly valued, both on account of his beauty, his fidelity, and the great rarity of the breed. The other is a little Highland terrier, called Ourisk, (goblin,) of a particular kind, bred in Kintail. It was a present from the honourable Mr. Stewart Mackenzie, and is a valuable specimen of a race which is now also scarce.

Maida, like Bran, Luath, and other dogs of distinction, slumbers “beneath his stone,” distinguished by an epitaph, which, to the honour of Scottish scholarship be it spoken, has only one false quality in two lines.

“Maidæ marmorea dormis sub imagine Maida, “Ad januam domini sit tibi terra levis.”

Ourisk still survives, but, like some other personages in the picture, with talents and temper rather the worse for wear. She has become what Dr. Rutty, the quaker, records himself in his journal as having sometimes been--sinfully dogged and snappish.

If it should suit Mr. Balmanno’s purpose to adopt the above illustrations, he is heartily welcome to them; but I make it my especial bargain, that nothing more is said upon such a meagre subject.

It strikes me, however, that there is a story about old Thomas Scott, the shepherd, which is characteristic, and which I will make your friend welcome to. Tom was, both as a trusted servant and as a rich fellow in his line, a person of considerable importance among the class in the neighbourhood, and used to stickle a good deal to keep his place in public opinion. Now, he suffered, in his own idea at least, from the consequence assumed by a country neighbour, who, though neither so well reputed for wealth or sagacity as Thomas Scott, had yet an advantage over him, from having seen the late king, and used to take precedence upon all occasions when they chanced to meet. Thomas suffered under this superiority. But after this sketch was finished and exhibited in London, the newspapers made it known that his present majesty had condescended to take some notice of it. Delighted with the circumstance, Thomas Scott set out, on a most oppressively hot day, to walk five miles to Bowden, where his rival resided. He had no sooner entered the cottage, than he called out in his broad forest dialect--“Andro’, man, de ye anes sey (see) the king?” “In troth did I, Tam,” answered Andro’, “sit down, and I’ll tell ye a’ about it: ye sey, I was at Lonon, in a place they ca’ the park, that is no like a hained hog-fence, or like the four-nooked parks in this country----.” “Hout awa,” said Thomas, “I have heard a’ that before: I only came ower the Know to tell you, that, if you have seen the king, the king has seen mey,” (me.) And so he returned with a jocund heart, assuring his friends “it had done him much muckle gude to settle accounts wi’ Andro’.”

Another favour I must request is, that Mr. Balmanno will be so good as to send me a proof of these illustrations, as my hand is very bad, and there be errors both of the pen and of the press.

Jocose hœc, as the old Laird of Restalrig writes to the Earl of Gowrie.--Farewell, my old tried and dear friend of forty long years. Our enjoyments must now be of a character less vivid than we have shared together.

“But still at our lot it were vain to repine. “Youth cannot return, or the days of Lang Syne.”

Yours affectionately,

WALTER SCOTT.[389]

Abbotsford, August 2.

[389] From The Times, October 16, 1827.

* * * * *

ADVICE

TO “LOOK AT HOME!”

The advice given by a girl to Thales, the Milesian philosopher, was strong and practical. Seeing him gazing at the heavens, as he walked along, and perhaps piqued by his not casting an eye on her attractions, she put a stool in his path, over which he tumbled and broke his shins. The excuse she made was, that she meant to teach him, before he indulged himself in star-gazing, to “look at home.”

ADVICE FOR A BROKEN LIMB.

In a late translation of Hippocrates, we read the following piece of grave advice, which, notwithstanding the great name of the counsellor, will hardly have many followers.

In a fracture of the thigh, “the extension ought to be particularly great, the muscles being so strong that, notwithstanding the effect of the bandages, their contraction is apt to shorten the limb. This is a deformity so deplorable, that when there is reason to apprehend it, I would advise the patient to suffer the other thigh to be broken also, in order to have them both of one length.”

The founder of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius Loyola, who, to preserve the shape of his boot, had a considerable part of his leg-bone cut off, would have been a docile patient to the sage Hippocrates. The story is in the Every-Day Book, vol. i. p. 1050.

SINCERE ADVICE.

While Louis XIV. was besieging Lisle, the Spanish governor very handsomely sent him, from the town, every day, fresh ice for the use of his table. M. de Charost, a favourite of the king, happening to be near him when one of these presents arrived, said to the messenger, with a loud voice, “Do you be sure to tell M. de Brouai, your governor, that I advise him not to give up his town like a coward, as the commandant of Douai has done.” “Are you mad, Charost?” said the king, turning to him angrily. “No, sir,” said Charost, “but you must excuse me. The comte de Brouai is my near relation.”

ADVICE FOR JUDGING OF POETRY.

Cardinal de Retz desired Menage to favour him with a few lectures on poetry; “for,” said he, “such quantities of verses are brought to me every day, that I ought to seem, at least, to be somewhat of a judge.”--“It would,” replied Menage, “be difficult to give your eminence many rudiments of criticism, without taking up too much of your time. But I would advise you, in general, to look over the first page or two, and then to exclaim, Sad stuff! wretched poetaster! miserable verses! Ninety-nine times in a hundred you will be sure you are right.”

* * * * *

A NOMINAL ACCIDENT.

To the Editor.

It is rather extraordinary that of the two pork-butchers in Clare-market, one of their names should be “HUM,” the other’s “SHUM.”--Fact! upon honour!--See for yourself; one is at the corner of Blackmore-street, the other in the street adjoining Clement’s Inn.

F. C. N.

August 9, 1827.

Vol. II.--44.

To eternize the delegated band, That seal’d their great forefathers’ fields their own, Rais’d ev’ry art that decks a smiling land, And laws that guard the cottage as the throne.

Rev. P. Cunningham

This edifice obtained its name from the meeting of Thomas Osborne earl of Danby, and William Cavendish earl of Devonshire, with Mr. John D’Arcy, privately one morning, in 1688, upon Whittington Moor, as a middle place between Chatsworth, Kniveton, and Aston, their respective residences, to consult about the revolution, then in agitation.[390] A shower of rain happening to fall, they removed to the village for shelter, and finished their conversation at a public-house there, the sign of “The Cock and Pynot.”[391]

The part assigned to the earl of Danby was, to surprise York; in which he succeeded. After which, the earl of Devonshire was to take measures at Nottingham, where the declaration for a free parliament, which he, at the head of a number of gentlemen of Derbyshire, had signed Nov. 28, 1688,[392] was adopted by the nobility, gentry, and commonalty of the northern counties, there assembled.[393] To the concurrence of these patriots with the proceedings in favour of the prince of Orange in the west, the nation is indebted for the establishment of its rights and liberties.

The cottage here represented stands at the point where the road from Chesterfield divides into two branches, to Sheffield and Rotherham. The room where the noblemen sat is fifteen feet by twelve feet ten, and is to this day called “The Plotting Parlour.” The old armed-chair, still remaining in it, is shown by the landlord with particular satisfaction, as that in which it is said the earl of Devonshire sat; and he tells with equal pleasure, how it was visited by his descendants, and the descendants of his associates, in the year 1788. Some new rooms, for the better accommodation of customers, were added several years ago.

The duke of Leeds’ own account of his meeting the earl of Devonshire and Mr. John D’Arcy[394] at Whittington, in the county of Derby, A. D. 1688.

The earl of Danby, afterwards duke of Leeds, was impeached, A. D. 1678, of high treason by the house of commons, on a charge of being in the French interest, and, in particular, of being popishly affected: many, both peers and commoners, were misled, and had conceived an erroneous opinion concerning him and his political conduct. This he has stated himself, in the introduction to his letters, printed in 1710, where he says, “The malice of my accusation did so manifestly appear in that article wherein I was charged to be popishly affected, that I dare swear there was not one of my accusers that did then believe that article against me.”

The duke then proceeds, for the further clearing of himself, in these memorable words, relative to the meeting at Whittington:--

“The duke of Devonshire also, when we were partners in the secret trust about the revolution, and who did meet me and Mr. John D’Arcy, for that purpose, at a town called Whittington, in Derbyshire, did, in the presence of the said Mr. D’Arcy, make a voluntary acknowledgment of the great mistakes he had been led into about me; and said, that both he, and most others, were entirely convinced of their error. And he came to sir Henry Goodrick’s house in Yorkshire purposely to meet me there again, in order to concert the times and methods by which he should act at Nottingham, (which was to be his post,) and one at York, (which was to be mine;) and we agreed, that I should first attempt to surprise York, because there was a small garrison with a governor there; whereas Nottingham was but an open town, and might give an alarm to York, if he should appear in arms before I had made my attempt upon York; which was done accordingly;[395] but is mistaken in divers relations of it. And I am confident that the duke (had he been now alive) would have thanked nobody for putting his prosecution of me amongst the glorious actions of his life.”

* * * * *

On the 4th and 5th of November 1788, the centenary of the landing of king William, the Revolution Jubilee was celebrated at Whittington and Chesterfield, as appears by the following letter from the venerable rector of the parish:--

To Mr. Gough.

Whittington, Oct. 11, 1788.

Dear sir,--We are to have most grand doings at this place, 5th of November next, at the Revolution-house, which I believe you saw when you was here. The resolutions of the committee were ordered to be inserted in the London prints, so I presume you may have seen them. I am desired to preach the sermon.

I remain, your much obliged, &c.

S. PEGGE.

Resolutions.

The committee appointed by the lords and gentlemen at the last Chesterfield races, to conduct and manage the celebration of the intended jubilee, on the hundredth anniversary of the glorious revolution, at the Revolution-house in Whittington, in the county of Derby, where measures were first concerted for the promotion of that grand constitutional event, in these midland parts, have this day met, and upon consideration come to the following resolutions:--

That general Gladwin do take the chair at this meeting. That the Rev. Samuel Pegge be requested to preach a sermon on the occasion at Whittington church, on the 5th day of November next. That the gentlemen who intend to honour the meeting with their company do assemble at Whittington church, exactly at eleven o’clock in the forenoon of that day, to attend divine service. That immediately after service they meet at the Revolution-house, where a cold collation will be provided. That they go in procession from thence to Chesterfield, where ordinaries will be provided at the Angel, Castle, and Falcon inns. That the meeting be open to all friends of the revolution. That letters be written to the dukes of Devonshire and Leeds, and the earl of Stamford, to request the honour of their attendance at that meeting. That there be a ball for the ladies in the evening at the assembly-room in Chesterfield. That a subscription of one guinea each be entered into for defraying the extraordinary expenses on the occasion, and that the same be paid into the hands of Messrs. Wilkinson’s, in Chesterfield. That the committee do meet again on Wednesday, the 8th of October next, at the Angel inn, in Chesterfield, at one o’clock. That these resolutions be published in the Derby and Nottingham newspapers, and in the St. James’s, Whitehall, and Lloyd’s Evening Posts, and the London and English Chronicles.

HENRY GLADWIN, Chairman.

Chesterfield, Sept. 27, 1788.

According to these resolutions, on Tuesday the 4th of November, the committee appointed to conduct the jubilee had a previous meeting, and dined together at the “Revolution-house” in Whittington. The duke of Devonshire, lord Stamford, lord George and lord John Cavendish, with several neighbouring gentlemen, were present. After dinner a subscription was opened for the erecting of a monumental column, in commemoration of the glorious revolution, on that spot where the earls of Devonshire and Danby, lord Delamere, and Mr. John D’Arcy, met to concert measures which were eminently instrumental in rescuing the liberties of their country from perdition. As this monument was intended to be not less a mark of public gratitude, than the memorial of an important event, it was requested, that the representatives of the above-mentioned families would excuse their not being permitted to join in the expense.

On the 5th, at eleven in the morning, the commemoration commenced with divine service at Whittington church. The Rev. Mr. Pegge, the rector of the parish, delivered an excellent sermon from the words “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” Though of a great age, having that very morning entered his eighty-fifth year, he spoke with a spirit which seemed to have been derived from the occasion; his sentiments were pertinent, well arranged, and his expression animated.

The descendants of the illustrious houses of Cavendish, Osborne, Boothe, and D’Arcy, (for the venerable duke of Leeds, whose age would not allow him to attend, had sent his two grandsons, in whom the blood of Osborne and D’Arcy united;) a numerous and powerful gentry; a wealthy and respectable yeomanry; a hardy, yet decent and attentive peasantry; whose intelligent countenances showed that they understood, and would be firm to preserve, that blessing, for which they were assembled to return thanks to Almighty God, presented a truly solemn spectacle, and, to the eye of a philosopher, the most interesting that can be imagined.

After service the company went in succession to view the “Revolution-house,” and the room called “The Plotting Parlour,” with the old armed-chair in which the earl of Devonshire is said to have sitten; and every one partook of an elegant cold collation, which was prepared in the new rooms annexed to the cottage. Some time being spent in this, then began

The Procession.

Constables with long staves, two and two.

The eight clubs, four and four, with flags inscribed “The Protestant Religion, and the Liberties of England, we will maintain,”--“Libertas; quæ sera, tamen respexit inertem.” “Liberty secured.”--“The Glorious Revolution 1688.”--“Liberty, Property, Trade, Manufactures.”--“In Memory of the Glorious Assertors of British Freedom 1688.”--“Revolted from Tyranny at WHITTINGTON 1688.”--“Bill of Rights.” “Willielmus Dux Devon. Bonorum Principum Fidelis Subditus; Immicus et Invisus Tyrannis.”

[The members of the eight clubs were estimated at two thousand persons, each having a white wand in his hand, with blue and orange tops and favours, with the word “Revolution” stamped upon them.]

The Derbyshire militia’s band of music.

The corporation of Chesterfield in their formalities, who joined the procession on entering the town.

The duke of Devonshire in his coach and six.

Attendants on horseback with four led horses.

The earl of Stamford in his post-chaise and four.

Attendants on horseback.

The earl of Danby and lord Francis Osborne in their post-chaise and four.

Attendants on horseback.

Lord George Cavendish in his post-chaise and four.

Attendants on horseback. Lord John Cavendish in his post-chaise and four.

Attendants on horseback.

Sir Francis Molyneux and sir Henry Hunloke, barts. in sir Henry’s coach and six.

Attendants on horseback.

And upwards of forty other carriages of the neighbouring gentry, with their attendants. Gentlemen on horseback, three and three.

Servants on horseback, ditto.

The procession paraded different parts of the town of Chesterfield to the Castle, where the Derbyshire band of music formed in the centre, and played “Rule Britannia,” “God save the King,” &c. The clubs and corporation still proceeded in the same order to the mayor’s, and then dispersed.

The whole was conducted with order and regularity. Notwithstanding there were fifty carriages, four hundred gentlemen on horseback, two thousand on foot, and an astonishing throng of spectators, not an accident happened. All was joy and gladness, without a single burst of unruly tumult and uproar. The sun shed auspicious beams, and blessed the happy day with unusual splendour.

The company was so numerous as scarcely to be accommodated at the three principal inns. The dinner at the Castle was served in a style of unusual elegance. The first five toasts after the repast were:--

1. The king.

2. The glorious and immortal memory of king William III.

3. The memory of the Glorious Revolution.

4. The memory of those Friends to their Country, who, at the risk of their lives and fortunes, were instrumental in effecting the Glorious Revolution in 1688.

5. The Law of the Land.

In the evening a brilliant exhibition of fireworks was played off, under the direction of signior Pietro; during which the populace were regaled with a proper distribution of liquor. The day concluded with a ball, at which were present near three hundred gentlemen and ladies. The late duchess of Devonshire, surrounded by the bloom of the Derbyshire hills, presented a picture scarcely to be portrayed. Nearly two hundred and fifty ball-tickets were received at the door.

The warm expression of gratitude and affection sparkling in every eye must have excited in the breasts of those noble personages, whose ancestors were the source of this felicity, a sensation which monarchs in all their glory might envy. The utmost harmony and felicity prevailed throughout the whole meeting. A hogshead of ale was distributed to the populace at Whittington, and three hogsheads at Chesterfield; where the duke of Devonshire gave also three guineas to each of the eight clubs.

At this meeting party distinctions were forgotten. Persons of all ranks and denominations wore orange and blue in memory of the great event; and the most respectable Roman Catholic families vied in their endeavours to show how just a sense they had of the value of civil liberty.[396]

The Rev. P. Cunningham, of Eyam, a place which readers of the last sheet can scarcely have forgotten, addressed some stanzas to the Rev. Samuel Pegge, the rector of Whittington, on occasion of the festivity, together with the following

ODE

For the Revolution Jubilee, 1788.

When lawless power his iron hand, When blinded zeal her flaming brand O’er Albion’s island wav’d; Indignant freedom veil’d the sight; Eclips’d her son of glory’s light; Her fav’rite realm enslav’d.

Distrest she wander’d:--when afar She saw her Nassau’s friendly star Stream through the stormy air: She call’d around a patriot band; She bade them save a sinking land; And deathless glory share.

Her cause their dauntless hearts inspir’d, With ancient Roman virtue fir’d, They plough’d the surging main; With fav’ring gales from Belgia’s shore Her heaven-directed hero bore, And freedom crown’d his reign.

With equal warmth her spirit glows, Though hoary Time’s centennial snows New silver o’er her fame. For hark, what songs of triumph tell, Still grateful Britons love to dwell On William’s glorious name.

[390] Kennett.

[391] A provincial name for a Magpie.

[392] Rapin, xv. 199.

[393] Deering’s Nottingham, p. 258.

[394] Son and heir of Conyers earl of Holderness.

[395] For the earl of Devonshire’s proceedings at Derby and Whittington, see Mr. Deering’s History of Nottingham, p. 260. Mr. Drake, p. 177 of his Eboracum, just mentions the earl of Danby’s appearance at York.

[396] Pegge’s Anecdotes of Old Times, p. lxiii, &c.

* * * * *

VIRTUOUS DESPOTISM.

CHARACTER OF ALIA BHYE.

One of the purest and most exemplary monarchs that ever existed, a female without vanity, a bigot without intolerance, possessed of a mind imbued with the deepest superstition, yet receiving no impressions except what promoted the happiness of those under its influence; a being exercising in the most active and able manner despotic power, not merely with sincere humility, but under the severest moral restraint that a strict conscience can impose upon human action. And all this combined with the greatest indulgence for the weakness and faults of others.[397]

[397] Sir John Malcolm’s Central India.

* * * * *

UXBRIDGE

AND

THE TREATY HOUSE.

REMARKABLE COOKING FOUNTAIN, &c.

For the Table Book.

Uxbridge, the most considerable market town in the county of Middlesex, is distant from London about fifteen miles on the north-west. It consists of one long street, which is neatly paved, and its situation on the road to Oxford, Gloucester, and Milford Haven, is productive of much benefit to the inhabitants, while it imparts a constant air of bustle and vivacity to the main thoroughfare.[398] The name of this place was anciently spelt Oxebruge; and in more modern records Woxebrugge, or Woxebruge.[399] The derivation seems easily discovered:--the place was noted in distant ages for the passage of oxen from the adjacent fields in Buckinghamshire, and a bridge was constructed over the river Colne, which flows near the town.

Speed asserts that a monastery was founded here, dedicated to St. Mary; but it is neither mentioned by any other writer, nor is any trace of it now to be met with.

Uxbridge has been celebrated in history, for the treaty which took place there between commissioners appointed respectively by the king and the parliament, during the disturbances of the seventeenth century.

The commissioners met in January 1645; the numbers were sixteen on the part of the king, and twelve on behalf of the parliament, together with the Scottish commissioners. It was agreed, that the Scottish and parliamentary commissioners should give in their demands with regard to three important articles, viz. religion, the militia, and Ireland; and that these should be successively discussed in conference with the king’s commissioners.[400]

It was soon discovered that no rational discussion could be expected. The demands made by the parliament were so great, that, had they been granted, the crown would have been divested of its due weight and dignity in the state; and been rendered unable to protect those who had so faithfully adhered to the royal cause during its troubles.

The mansion in which the commissioners met is thus described by lord Clarendon:--“There was a good house at the end of the town, which was provided for the treaty, where was a fair room in the middle of the house, handsomely dressed up for the commissioners to sit in; a large square table being placed in the middle with seats for the commissioners, one side being sufficient for those of either party; and a rail for others who should be thought necessary to be present, which went round. There were many other rooms on either side of this great room, for the commissioners on either side to retire to, when they thought fit to consult by themselves, and to return again to the public debate; and there being good stairs at either end of the house, they never went through each other’s quarters, nor met but in the great room.”

This mansion, which is situated at the western extremity of the town of Uxbridge, (was formerly a seat of the Bennet family, and at the time of the treaty, the residence of Mr. Carr,) is still standing, and was a few years since converted into an inn, bearing the sign of the Crown, and has since undergone considerable repairs. The part towards the high road has been newly fronted, but one entire end, and some inferior portions of the outside, still retain their original appearance. Two principal rooms likewise remain untouched by modern innovations; one of these is the room in which Charles I. slept; the other in which he signed the treaty with the parliament, and in which the commissioners afterwards met. The treaty room, as it is called, is a spacious apartment, and is lined with panelled oak wainscotting: it contains an original portrait of Mary queen of Scots, taken a short time previous to her execution, which is greatly admired; a copy from Vandyke of Charles I.; and some excellent portraits engraved by Bartolozzi from paintings in Windsor castle, among whom are sir Thomas More, his father, (judge More,) and his son; and two females who I believe were governesses to part of the family of Charles I. The room in which the king slept is more handsomely wainscotted than the former, being in many parts curiously and laboriously carved, and has a circular oak pillar on each side of the fire-place, which is ornamented with tasteful and elaborate workmanship.

Another curiosity at this house, though not of so ancient a date, or possessing equal charms for the antiquarian, deserves a slight notice. In the garden is a fountain supplied with water, which has been obtained by boring, and which falls into a reservoir containing perch, tench, and a considerable quantity of eels;[401] at the top of the fountain is an appropriate weathercock--an angler, with his landing-net resting against his shoulder, his rod in his hand, and his line and float moving on the surface of the water, according as the figure is turned by the wind. On the water attaining a certain height it is carried off by a pipe, and falls on an overshot wheel about three feet in circumference; the use to which this is applied is very remarkable--that of turning four spits at once before the kitchen fire! I am informed that a similar plan to this is adopted in Cheshire, but I am unable to ascertain the place.

J. R. J.

[In the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for August, 1789, there is an engraving, described as “a view of the house where the unfortunate Charles I. signed the treaty of Uxbridge, Jan. 30, 1644.” The writer of the account annexed to that print says, “The house has been pulled down within these few years: it stood at the end of Uxbridge town, in the road to Beaconsfield.” ED.]

[398] Beauties of England and Wales.

[399] I believe I am right in stating (I do it from memory) that on the town measures it is spelt “Wexbrige.”

J. R. J.

[400] Whitelock, p. 121. Dugdale, p. 755.

[401] At the time of my visit I was informed there were nearly two hundred weight.

J. R. J.

* * * * *

LONDON WATCHMEN.

Had a council of thieves been consulted, the regulations of the Watch could not have been better contrived for their accommodation. The coats of the Watchmen are made as large and of as white cloth as possible, to enable the thieves to discern their approach at the greatest distance; and that there may be no mistake, the lantern is added. They are fixed at stations, that thieves, by knowing where they are, may infer where they are not, and do their best; the intervals of half an hour in going the rounds are just such as to give expert thieves a fair opportunity of getting a moderate booty from a house. That they may not be taken by surprise, they have the same accommodation in the cry of the time that was prayed for by the rats, when they asked that bells might be hung about the necks of the cats; and lastly, that the burglars may have all possible chance, even, if surprised, the watchmen mostly chosen are old, infirm, and impotent.[402]

[402] The Times, October, 1827.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXXVIII.

[From the “Fawn,” a Comedy, by John Marston, 1606.]

In the Preface to this Play, the Poet glances at some of the Play-wrights of his time; with a handsome acknowledgment, notwithstanding, of their excellencies.

“for my own interest let this once be printed, that, of men of my own addition, I love most, pity some, hate none: for let me truly say it, I once only loved myself for loving them; and surely I shall ever rest so constant to my first affection, that, let their ungentle combinings, discurteous whisperings, never so treacherously labour to undermine my unfenced reputation, I shall (as long as I have being) love the least of their graces, and only pity the greatest of their vices.

Ipse semi-paganus Ad sacra vatûm carmen affero nostrum.”

* * * * *

[Commendatory Verses before three Plays of Sir William Killigrew, by T. L.]

1.

That thy wise and modest Muse Flies the Stage’s looser use; Not bawdry Wit does falsely name, And to move laughter puts off shame:

2.

That thy theatre’s loud noise May be virgin’s chaste applause; And the stoled matron, grave divine, Their lectures done, may tend to thine:

3.

That no actor’s made profane, To debase Gods, to raise thy strain; And people forced, that hear thy Play, Their money and their souls to pay:

4.

That thou leav’st affected phrase To the shops to use and praise; And breath’st a noble Courtly vein,-- Such as may Cæsar entertain,

5.

When he wearied would lay down The burdens that attend a crown; Disband his soul’s severer powers; In mirth and ease dissolve two hours:

6.

These are thy inferior arts, These I call thy second parts. But when thou earnest on the plot, And all are lost in th’ subtle knot;

7.

When the scene sticks to every thought, And can to no event be brought; When (thus of old the scene betraid) Poets call’d Gods unto their aid,

8.

Who by power might do the thing, Art could to no issue bring; As the Pellean prince, that broke With a rude and down-right stroke

9.

The perplext and fatal noose, Which his skill could not unloose:-- Thou dost a nobler art profess; And the coyl’d serpent can’st no less

10.

Stretch out from every twisted fold, In which he lay inwove and roll’d, Induce a night, and then a day, Wrap all in clouds, and then display.

11.

Th’ easy and the even design: A plot, without a God, divine!-- Let others’ bold pretending pens Write acts of Gods, that know not men’s; In this to thee all must resign: Th’ Surprise of th’ Scene is wholly thine.

* * * * *

[Commendatory Verses before the “Faithful Shepherd” of Fletcher.]

There are no sureties, good friend, will be taken For works that vulgar good-name hath forsaken. A Poem and a Play too! Why, ’tis like A Scholar that’s a Poet; their names strike, And kill out-right: one cannot both fates bear.-- But as a Poet, that’s no Scholar, makes Vulgarity his whiffler, and so takes Passage with ease and state thro’ both sides ’press Of pageant-seers: or, as Scholars please, That are no Poets, more than Poets learn’d, Since their art solely is by souls discern’d, (The others’ falls within the common sense, And sheds, like common light, her influence): So, were your Play no Poem, but a thing That every cobbler to his patch might sing; A rout of nifles, like the multitude, With no one limb of any art endued, Like would to like, and praise you: but because Your poem only hath by us applause; Renews the Golden Age, and holds through all The holy laws of homely Pastoral, Where flowers, and founts, and nymphs, and semi-gods, And all the Graces, find their old abodes; Where poets flourish but in endless verse, And meadows nothing-fit for purchasers: This Iron Age, that eats itself, will never Bite at your Golden World, that others ever Loved as itself. Then, like your Book, do you Live in old peace: and that far praise allow.

G. Chapman.

* * * * *

[Commendatory Verses before the “Rebellion,” a Tragedy, by T. Rawlins, 1640.]

To see a Springot of thy tender age With such a lofty strain to word a Stage; To see a Tragedy from thee in print, With such a world of fine meanders in’t; Puzzles my wond’ring soul: for there appears Such disproportion ’twixt thy lines and years, That, when I read thy lines, methinks I see The sweet-tongued Ovid fall upon his knee With “Parce Precor.” Every line and word Runs in sweet numbers of its own accord. But I am thunderstruck, that all this while Thy unfeather’d quill should write a tragic style. This, above all, my admiration draws, That one so young should know dramatic laws: Tis rare, and therefore is not for the span Or greasy thumbs of every common man. The damask rose that sprouts before the Spring, Is fit for none to smell at but a king. Go on, sweet friend: I hope in time to see Thy temples rounded with the Daphnean tree; And if men ask “Who nursed thee?” I’ll say thus, “It was the Ambrosian Spring of Pegasus.”

Robert Chamberlain.

C. L.

* * * * *

THE ACTING OF CHILDREN.

The acting of children in adult characters is of very ancient date. Labathiel Pavy, a boy who died in his thirteenth year, was so admirable an actor of old men, that Ben Jonson, in his elegant epitaph on him, says, the fates thought him one, and therefore cut the thread of life. This boy acted in “Cynthia’s Revels” and “The Poetaster,” in 1600 and 1601, in which year he probably died. The poet speaks of him with interest and affection.

Weep with me all you that read This little story; And know for whom a tear you shed Death’s self is sorry.

’Twas a child that did so thrive In grace and feature, That heaven and nature seem’d to strive Which own’d the creature.

Years he number’d, scarce thirteen When fates turn’d cruel, Yet three fill’d Zodiacs had he been The stage’s jewel.

And did act, what now we moan, Old men so duly, As sooth, the Parcæ thought him one, He played so truly.

Jonson.

* * * * *

~A Dumb Peal of Grandsire Triples.~

In the just departed summer, (1827,) on my way from Keston, I stept into “The Sun--R. Tape,” at Bromley, to make inquiry of the landlord respecting a stage to London; and, over the parlour mantelpiece, carefully glazed, in a gilt frame, beneath the flourishing surmounting scroll, there appeared the following inscription “in letters of gold:”--

On the 15th of January 1817, by the Society of BROMLEY YOUTHS, A complete Peal of Grandsire Triples, which is 5040 changes with the Bells Muffled, in commemoration of WM. CHAPMAN deceased, being a Ringer in the Parish of Bromley 43 years, and rang upwards of 60 peals. This Dumb Peal was completed in 3 Hours and 6 minutes.

THOS. GILES 1st. RD. CHAPMAN 2nd. WM. SANGER 3rd. GE. STONE 4th. WM. KING 5th. JNO. ALLEN 6th. WM. FULLER 7th. JNO. GREEN 8th.

BEING the first Dumb Peal of this kind ever rang in this Kingdom, and conducted by

J. ALLEN.

If “Wm. Chapman deceased” deserved to be commemorated by such a singular feat, should not the commemoration of the feat itself be commemorated? Is R. Tape--(stay-Tape, though he now be)--everlasting Tape? Will he not “fall as the leaves do?” Shall “The Sun” itself move to and fro in the High Street of Bromley, as a sign, for ever? Can the golden inscription--in honour of “the first Dumb Peal of Grandsire Triples ever rang in this kingdom”--endure longer than corporation freedoms presented “in letters of gold,” which are scarcely seen while the enfranchised worthies live; nor survive them, except with their names, in the engulfing drawers of the lovers and collectors of hand-writings? The time must come when the eloquence of the auctioneer shall hardly obtain for the golden record of the “Bromley Youths” the value of the glass before it--when it shall increase a broker’s litter, and be of as little worth to him as Chatterton’s manuscript was to the cheesemonger, from whose rending fangs it was saved, the other day, by the “Emperor of Autographs.”

“A Dumb Peal of Grandsire Triples!”--I am no ringer, but I write the venerable appellation--as I read it--with reverence. There is a solemn and expressive euphony in the phrase, like that of a well-known sentence in Homer, descriptive of the billowings and lashings of the sea; which, the first time I heard it, seemed to me an essay by the father of Greek poesy towards universal language.

There is a harmony in the pealing of bells which cannot be violated, without discovery of the infraction by the merest tyro; and in virtue of the truth in bells, good ringers should be true men. There is, also, evidence of plainness and sincerity in the very terms of their art: a poem, “In praise of Ringing,” duly dignifies the practice, and sets forth some of them--

First, the YOUTHS try One Single Bell to sound; For, to perfection who can hope to rise, Or climb the steep of science, but the man Who builds on steady principles alone, And method regular. Not he who aims To plunge at once into the midst of art, Self-confident and vain:--amazed he stands Confounded and perplex’d, to find he knows Least, when he thinks himself the most expert.

* * * * *

In order due to Rounds they next proceed, And each attunes numerical in turn. Adepts in this, on Three Bells they essay Their infant skill. Complete in this, they try Their strength on Four, and, musically bold, Full four-and-twenty Changes they repeat. Next, as in practice, gradual they advance Ascending unto Five, they ring a peal Of Grandsires,--pleasing to a tuneful soul! On they proceed to Six. What various peals Join’d with plain Bobs loud echo thro’ the air, While ev’ry ear drinks in th’ harmonic sound. With Grandsire Triples then the steeple shakes--&c.

Next come the musical Bob-majors, on eight bells,--Caters, on nine,--

On ten, Bobs-royal;--from eleven, Cinques Accompanied with tenor, forth they pour;-- And the Bob-maximus results from twelve!

“Grandsire Triples!” My author says, “Ever since Grandsire Triples have been discovered or practised, 5040 changes manifestly appeared to view; but”--mark ye his ardent feeling under this--“but--to reach the lofty summit of this grand climax was a difficulty that many had encountered, though none succeeded; and those great names, Hardham, Condell, Anable, &c., who are now recorded on the ancient rolls of fame, had each exhausted both skill and patience in this grand pursuit to no other purpose than being convinced, that either the task itself was an utter impossibility, or, otherwise, that all their united efforts were unequal to it; and it is possible that this valuable piece of treasure would at this day have been fast locked up in the barren womb of sterile obscurity, had not a poor unlettered youth appeared, who no sooner approached this grand pile, but, as if by magic power, he varied it into whatever form he pleased, and made it at once subservient to his will!” It appears that this surprising person was Mr. John Holt “whose extraordinary abilities must forever excite the astonishment and admiration of all professors in this art, whether novices or adepts!” The first perfect peal of “Grandsire Triples” was John Holt’s; “it was rung at St. Margaret’s, Westminster, on Sunday, the 7th of July, 1751.” Be it remembered, that it is to commemorate the ringing of the first “complete peal of Grandsire Triples with the bells muffled,” by the “Bromley youths,” that they have placed their golden lines in the “Sun.”

The “Bromley Youths!” Why are ringers of all ages called “youths?” Is it from their continued service in an art, which by reason of multitudinous “changes” can never be wholly learned?--such, for instance, as in “the profession,” barristers whereof, are, in legal phraseology, “apprentices of the Law?”

By the by, I have somewhere read, or heard, that one of the ancient judges, a lover of tintinnabulary pastime, got into a county town incog. the day before he was expected thither to hold the assizes, and the next morning made one among the “youths” in the belfry, and lustily assisted in “ringing-in” his own clerk. Certain it is that doctors in divinity have stripped off their coats to the exercise. “And moreover,” says the author of the treatise before quoted, “at this time, to our knowledge, there are several learned and eminent persons, both clergy and laymen of good estates, that are members of several societies of ringers, and think themselves very highly favoured that they can arrive at so great an happiness and honour.”

In the advice to a “youth,” on the management of his bell, he is recommended to “avoid all ungraceful gestures, and unseemly grimaces, which, to the judicious eye, are both disagreeable and highly censurable.”[403] Ringing, then, is a comely exercise; and a lover of the “music of bells” may, genteelly, do more than “bid them discourse.” Before the close of all gentlemanly recreation, and other less innocent vanities, he may assure himself of final commemoration, by a muffled peal of “Grandsire Triples.” As a loyal subject he dare not aspire to that which is clearly for kings alone,--dumb “Bobs Royal.” I take it that the emperor of Austria is the only sovereign in Europe, except his Holiness, who can rightfully claim a muffled “Bob Maximus.”

*

[403] Clavis Campanalogia.

* * * * *

THE CONDEMNED SHIP

AND

THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.

Various announcements in the American papers of a large vessel, constructed for the purpose of passing the Falls of Niagara, have terminated in very unsatisfactory accounts of the manner wherein the ship descended. All descriptions, hitherto, are deficient in exactness; nor do we know for what purpose the experiment was devised, nor why certain animals were put aboard the condemned ship. The latest particulars are in the following letter to the printers of the “Albany Daily Advertiser:”--

“Buffalo, Sept. 9, 1827.

“I would have written yesterday some few lines on the subject of the ‘Condemned Ship,’ but it was utterly impossible. The public-houses at the falls were so thronged, that almost every inch of the floor was occupied as comfortable sleeping apartments. My companions and myself slept upon three straws for a bed, and had a feather turned edgeways for a pillow. At about two o’clock p.m. the word was given ‘she comes, she comes,’ and in about half an hour she struck the first rapid, keeled very much, and lost her masts and spars, which caused her again to right. Imagine to yourself a human being on board, and the awful sensations he must have experienced on her striking the rapid, which appeared for a moment to the beholders to be her last; but, as I observed before, on her masts giving way, she again righted, and was turned sideways, in which course she proceeded to the second rapid, where she struck and stuck about a minute, and it seemed as though the elements made their last and desperate effort to drive her over this rapid. She was thrown completely on her side, filled, and again righted, and proceeded on her course. Here let me remark, there were two bears, a buffalo, a dog, and several other animals on board. The bears now left the wreck and laid their course for shore, where they were caught, and brought up to Mr. Brown’s hotel, and sold for five dollars a piece. The buffalo likewise left the schooner, but laid his course down the falls, and was precipitated over them and was killed, as was said, by a spar falling across his back; as for the other animals, it is not known what became of them. The vessel after going over the second rapid was turned stern foremost, in which way she was precipitated over the mighty falls, and when about half way over her keel broke, and in a few seconds she was torn to fragments. There were probably from thirty to fifty thousand spectators who witnessed this novel and imposing spectacle.”

It appears from the same paper that “the perpendicular height of the falls, was then taken by actual measurement, from the new bridge recently erected from the west end of Goat Island, extending to the Terrapin rocks, eight hundred feet from the shore. The mode adopted in ascertaining the depth, from the brink of the fall to the surface of the water below, leaves no room to question its correctness. A piece of scantling was used, projecting from the railing of the bridge over the edge of the precipice, from which was suspended a cord with a weight attached, reaching fairly to the water in a perpendicular line. The length of the cord to the surface of the water at the brink was thirteen feet one inch--from this to the water below, on accurate measurement, the distance was found to be a hundred and fifty-three feet four inches. These facts are duly certified to us by several gentlemen, natives and foreigners, and by Mr. Hooker, the superintendent of Goat Island. We are told, this is the first successful attempt that was ever made to ascertain the perpendicular descent by actual measurement. Heretofore it has been done by observation.”

Kalm, the Swedish traveller and naturalist, who was born in 1715, and died about 1779, visited the Falls of Niagara in August 1750, and he being, perhaps, the first distinguished writer who seems to have written concerning them with accuracy, his account is subjoined, divested of a few details, which on this occasion would not be interesting.

When Kalm saw these astonishing waters the country was in the possession of the French. By the civility of the commandant of the neighbouring fort, he was attended by two officers of the garrison, with instructions to M. Joncaire, who had lived ten years at the “carrying place,” to go with him and show and tell him whatever he knew. He writes to this effect in a letter to one of his friends at Philadelphia:--“A little before we came to the carrying-place the water of Niagara river grew so rapid, that four men in a light birch canoe had much work to get up thither. Canoes can go yet half a league above the beginning of the carrying-place, though they must work against a water extremely rapid; but higher up it is quite impossible, the whole course of the water, for two leagues and a half up to the great fall, being a series of smaller falls, one under another, in which the greatest canoe or bateau would in a moment be turned upside down. We went ashore therefore, and walked over the carrying-place, having, besides the high and steep side of the river, two great hills to ascend one above the other. At half an hour past ten in the morning we came to the great fall, which I found as follows:--

“The river (or rather strait) runs here from S.S.E. to N.N.W. and the rock of the great fall crosses it, not in a right line, but forming almost the figure of a semicircle, or horse-shoe. Above the fall, in the middle of the river, is an island, lying also S.S.E. and N.N.W. or parallel with the sides of the river; its length is about seven or eight French arpents, (an arpent being a hundred and twenty feet.) The lower end of this island is just at the perpendicular edge of the fall. On both sides of this island runs all the water that comes from the Lakes of Canada, viz. Lake Superior, Lake Misohigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie, which are rather small seas than lakes, and have besides a great many large rivers that empty their water into them, whereof the greatest part comes down this Niagara fall. Before the water comes to this island it runs but slowly, compared with its motion when it approaches the island, where it grows the most rapid water in the world, running with a surprising swiftness before it comes to the fall; it is quite white, and in many places is thrown high up into the air! The greatest and strongest bateaux would here in a moment be turned over and over. The water that goes down on the west side of the island is more rapid, in greater abundance, whiter, and seems almost to outdo an arrow in swiftness. When you are at the fall, and look up the river, you may see that the river above the fall is everywhere exceeding steep, almost as the side of a hill. When all this water comes to the very fall, there it throws itself down perpendicular. The hair will rise and stand upright on your head when you see this! I cannot with words express how amazing this is! You cannot see it without being quite terrified; to behold so vast a quantity of water falling abrupt from so surprising a height!

“Father Hennepin calls this fall six hundred feet perpendicular; but he has gained little credit in Canada; the name of honour they give him there is un grand menteur, or “the great liar.” Since Hennepin’s time this fall, in all the accounts that have been given of it, has grown less and less; and those who have measured it with mathematical instruments find the perpendicular fall of the water to be exactly one hundred and thirty-seven feet. M. Morandrier, the king’s engineer in Canada, told me, and gave it me also under his hand, that one hundred and thirty-seven feet was precisely the height of it; and all the French gentlemen that were present with me at the fall did agree with him without the least contradiction. It is true, those who have tried to measure it with a line find it sometimes one hundred and forty, sometimes one hundred and fifty feet, and sometimes more; but the reason is, it cannot that way be measured with any certainty, the water carrying away the line.

“When the water is come down to the bottom of the rock of the fall, it jumps back to a very great height in the air; in other places it is as white as milk or snow; and all in motion like a boiling caldron. When the air is quite calm you can hear it to Niagara fort, six leagues; but seldom at other times, because when the wind blows the waves of Lake Ontario make too much noise there against the shore. The gentlemen who were with me said it could be heard at the distance of fifteen leagues, but that was very seldom. When they hear, at the fort, the noise of the fall louder than ordinary, they are sure a north-east wind will follow, which never fails: this seems wonderful, as the fall is south-west from the fort; and one would imagine it to be rather a sign of a contrary wind. Sometimes it is said, that the fall makes a much greater noise than at other times; and this is looked on as a certain mark of approaching bad weather or rain; the Indians here hold it always for a sure sign.

“From the place where the water falls there rises abundance of vapours, like the greatest and thickest smoke, though sometimes more, sometimes less: these vapours rise high in the air when it is calm, but are dispersed by the wind when it blows hard. If you go nigh to this vapour or fog, or if the wind blows it on you, it is so penetrating, that in a few minutes you will be as wet as if you had been under water. I got two young Frenchmen to go down, to bring me from the side of the fall, at the bottom, some of each of the several kinds of herbs, stones, and shells, they should find there; they returned in a few minutes, and I really thought they had fallen into the water: they were obliged to strip themselves, and hang their clothes in the sun to dry.

“When you are on the other or east side of Lake Ontario, a great many leagues from the fall, you may every clear and calm morning see the vapours of the fall rising in the air; you would think all the woods thereabouts were set on fire by the Indians, so great is the apparent smoke. In the same manner you may see it on the west side of Lake Erie a great many leagues off. Several of the French gentlemen told me, that when birds come flying into this fog or smoke of the fall, they fall down and perish in the water; either because their wings are become wet, or that the noise of the fall astonishes them; and they know not where to go in the darkness: but others were of opinion, that seldom or never any bird perishes there in that manner, because, as they all agreed, among the abundance of birds found dead below the fall, there are no other sorts than such as live and swim frequently in the water, as swans, geese, ducks, waterhens, teal, and the like; and very often great flocks of them are seen going to destruction in this manner. As water-fowl commonly take great delight in being carried with the stream, so here they indulge themselves in enjoying this pleasure so long, till the swiftness of the water becomes so great that it is no longer possible for them to rise, but they are driven down the precipice and perish. They are observed when they are drawing nigh to endeavour with all their might to take wing and leave the water, but they cannot. In the months of September and October such abundant quantities of dead water-fowl are found every morning below the fall, on the shore, that the garrison of the fort for a long time live chiefly upon them. Besides the fowl they find several sorts of dead fish, also deer, bears, and other animals, which have tried to cross the water above the fall; the larger animals are generally found broken to pieces. Just below, a little way from the fall, the water is not rapid, but goes all in circles and whirls, like a boiling pot, which, however, does not hinder the Indians going upon it in small canoes a fishing; but a little further, and lower, begin the other smaller falls. When you are above the fall, and look down, your head begins to turn. The French, who have been here a hundred times, will seldom venture to look down, without, at the same time, keeping fast hold of some tree with one hand.

“It was formerly thought impossible for any body living to come at the island that is in the middle of the fall: but an accident that happened twelve years ago, or thereabouts, made it appear otherwise. Two Indians of the Six Nations went out from Niagara fort to hunt upon an island in the middle of the river, above the great fall, on which there used to be abundance of deer. They took some French brandy with them from the fort, which they tasted several times as they were going over the carrying-place, and when they were in their canoe they took now and then a dram, and so went along up the strait towards the island where they proposed to hunt; but growing sleepy they laid themselves down in the canoe, which getting loose drove back with the stream farther and farther down, till it came nigh that island that is in the middle of the fall. Here one of them, awakened by the noise of the fall, cried out to the other that they were gone! They tried if possible to save their lives. This island was nighest, and with much working they got on shore there. At first they were glad; but when they considered, they thought themselves hardly in a better state than if they had gone down the fall, since they had now no other choice than either to throw themselves down the same, or to perish with hunger. But hard necessity put them on invention. At the lower end of the island the rock is perpendicular, and no water is running there. The island has plenty of wood; they went to work then, and made a ladder or shrouds of the bark of lindtree, (which is very tough and strong,) so long, till they could with it reach the water below; one end of this bark ladder they tied fast to a great tree that grew at the side of the rock above the fall, and let the other end down to the water. By this they descended. When they came to the bottom in the middle of the fall they rested a little, and as the water next below the fall is not rapid, they threw themselves out into it, thinking to swim on shore. I have said before, that one part of the fall is on one side of the island, the other on the other side. Hence it is, that the waters of the two cataracts running against each other, turn back against the rock that is just under the island. Therefore hardly had the Indians begun to swim, before the waves of the eddy threw them with violence against the rock from whence they came. They tried it several times, but at last grew weary, for they were much bruised and lacerated. Obliged to climb up their stairs again to the island, and not knowing what to do, after some time they perceived Indians on the shore, to whom they cried out. These hastened down to the fort, and told the commandant where two of their brothers were. He persuaded them to try all possible means of relief, and it was done in this manner:--The water that runs on the east side of this island being shallow, especially a little above the island towards the eastern shore, the commandant caused poles to be made and pointed with iron, and two Indians undertook to walk to the island by the help of these poles, to save the other poor creatures or perish themselves. They took leave of all their friends as if they were going to death. Each had two poles in his hands, to set to the bottom of the stream to keep them steady. So they went and got to the island, and having given poles to the two poor Indians there, they all returned safely to the main.

“The breadth of the fall, as it runs in a semicircle, is reckoned to be about six arpents, or seven hundred feet. The island is in the middle of the fall, and from it to each side is almost the same breadth. The breadth of the island at its lower end is two thirds of an arpent, eighty feet, or thereabouts.

“Every day, when the sun shines, you see here from ten o’clock in the morning to two in the afternoon, below the fall, and under you, where you stand at the side of the fall, a glorious rainbow, and sometimes two, one within the other. I was so happy as to be at the fall on a fine clear day, and it was with great delight I viewed this rainbow, which had almost all the colours you see in a rainbow in the air. The more vapours, the brighter and clearer is the rainbow. I saw it on the east side of the fall in the bottom under the place where I stood, but above the water. When the wind carries the vapours from that place, the rainbow is gone, but appears again as soon as new vapours come. From the fall to the landing above it, where the canoes from Lake Erie put ashore, (or from the fall to the upper end of the carrying place,) is half a mile. Lower the canoes dare not come, lest they should be obliged to try the fate of the two Indians, and perhaps with less success.

“The French told me, they had often thrown whole great trees into the water above, to see them tumble down the fall. They went down with surprising swiftness, but could never be seen afterwards; whence it was thought there was a bottomless deep or abyss just under the fall. I am of opinion that there must be a vast deep here; for I think if they had watched very well, they might have found the trees at some distance below the fall. The rock of the fall consists of a grey limestone.”

So far is Kalm’s account; to which may be added, that the body of water precipitated from the fall has been estimated to be nearly seven hundred thousand tons per minute!

* * * * *

A recent traveller, Miss Wright, departing from the falls of the Gennesse river, for the purpose of seeing the Falls of Niagara, alighted in the evening at a little tavern in the village of Lewiston, about seven miles short of the place she was proceeding to. She heard the roar of the waters at that distance. Her description of the romantic scene is surprisingly interesting; viz:--

----In the night, when all was still, I heard the first rumbling of the cataract. Wakeful from over fatigue, rather than from any discomfort in the lodging, I rose more than once to listen to a sound which the dullest ears could not catch for the first time without emotion. Opening the window, the low, hoarse thunder distinctly broke the silence of the night; when, at intervals, it swelled more full and deep, you will believe, that I held my breath to listen; they were solemn moments.

This mighty cataract is no longer one of nature’s secret mysteries; thousands now make their pilgrimage to it, not through

“Lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and caves of death,”

but over a broad highway; none of the smoothest, it is true, but quite bereft of all difficulty or danger. This in time may somewhat lessen the awe with which this scene of grandeur is approached; and even now we were not sorry to have opened upon it by a road rather more savage and less frequented than that usually chosen.

Next morning we set off in a little waggon, under a glorious sun, and a refreshing breeze. Seven miles of a pleasant road which ran up the ridge we had observed the preceding night, brought us to the cataract. In the way we alighted to look down from a broad platform of rock, on the edge of the precipice, at a fine bend of the river. From hence the blue expanse of Ontario bounded a third of the horizon; fort Niagara on the American shore; fort George on the Canadian, guarding the mouth of the river, where it opens into the lake; the banks, rising as they approached us, finely wooded, and winding now hiding and now revealing the majestic waters of the channel. Never shall I forget the moment when, throwing down my eyes, I first beheld the deep, slow, solemn tide, clear as crystal, and green as the ocean, sweeping through its channel of rocks with a sullen dignity of motion and sound, far beyond all that I had heard, or could ever have conceived. You saw and felt immediately that it was no river you beheld, but an imprisoned sea; for such indeed are the lakes of these regions. The velocity of the waters, after the leap, until they issue from the chasm at Queenston, flowing over a rough and shelving bed, must actually be great; but, from their vast depth they move with an apparent majesty, that seems to temper their vehemence, rolling onwards in heavy volumes, and with a hollow sound, as if labouring and groaning with their own weight. I can convey to you no idea of the solemnity of this moving ocean. Our eyes followed its waves until they ached with gazing.

A mile farther, we caught a first and partial glimpse of the cataract, on which the opposing sun flashed for a moment, as on a silvery screen that hung suspended in the sky. It disappeared again behind the forest, all save the white cloud that rose far up into the air, and marked the spot from whence the thunder came.

Two foot-bridges have latterly been thrown, by daring and dexterous hands, from island to island, across the American side of the channel, some hundred feet above the brink of the fall; gaining in this manner the great island which divides the cataract into two unequal parts, we made its circuit at our leisure. From its lower point, we obtained partial and imperfect views of the falling river; from the higher, we commanded a fine prospect of the upper channel. Nothing here denotes the dreadful commotion so soon about to take place; the thunder, indeed, is behind you, and the rapids are rolling and dashing on either hand; but before, the vast river comes sweeping down its broad and smooth waters between banks low and gentle as those of the Thames. Returning, we again stood long on the bridges, gazing on the rapids that rolled above and beneath us; the waters of the deepest sea-green, crested with silver, shooting under our feet with the velocity of lightning, till, reaching the brink, the vast waves seemed to pause, as if gathering their strength for the tremendous plunge. Formerly it was not unusual for the more adventurous traveller to drop down to the island in a well-manned and well-guided boat. This was done by keeping between the currents, as they rush on either side of the island, thus leaving a narrow stream, which flows gently to its point, and has to the eye, contrasted with the rapidity of the tide, where to right and left the water is sucked to the falls, the appearance of a strong back current.

It is but an inconsiderable portion of this imprisoned sea which flows on the American side; but even this were sufficient to fix the eye in admiration. Descending the ladder, (now easy steps,) and approaching to the foot of this lesser fall, we were driven away blinded, breathless, and smarting, the wind being high and blowing right against us. A young gentleman, who incautiously ventured a few steps farther, was thrown upon his back, and I had some apprehension, from the nature of the ground upon which he fell, was seriously hurt; he escaped, however, from the blast, upon hands and knees, with a few slight bruises. Turning a corner of the rock (where, descending less precipitously, it is wooded to the bottom) to recover our breath, and wring the water from our hair and clothes, we saw, on lifting our eyes, a corner of the summit of this graceful division of the cataract hanging above the projecting mass of trees, as it were in mid air, like the snowy top of a mountain. Above, the dazzling white of the shivered water was thrown into contrast with the deep blue of the unspotted heavens; below, with the living green of the summer foliage, fresh and sparkling in the eternal shower of the rising and falling spray. The wind, which, for the space of an hour, blew with some fury, rushing down with the river, flung showers of spray from the crest of the fall. The sun’s rays glancing on these big drops, and sometimes on feathery streams thrown fantastically from the main body of the water, transformed them into silvery stars, or beams of light; while the graceful rainbow, now arching over our heads, and now circling in the vapour at our feet, still flew before us as we moved. The greater division of the cataract was here concealed from our sight by the dense volumes of vapour which the wind drove with fury across the immense basin directly towards us; sometimes indeed a veering gust parted for a moment the thick clouds, and partially revealed the heavy columns, that seemed more like fixed pillars of moving emerald than living sheets of water. Here, seating ourselves at the brink of this troubled ocean, beneath the gaze of the sun, we had the full advantage of a vapour bath; the fervid rays drying our garments one moment, and a blast from the basin drenching them the next. The wind at length having somewhat abated, and the ferryman being willing to attempt the passage, we here crossed in a little boat to the Canada side. The nervous arm of a single rower stemmed this heavy current, just below the basin of the falls, and yet in the whirl occasioned by them; the stormy north-west at this moment chafing the waters yet more. Blinded as we were by the columns of vapour which were driven upon us, we lost the panoramic view of the cataract, which, in calmer hours, or with other winds, may be seen in this passage. The angry waters, and the angry winds together, drove us farther down the channel than was quite agreeable, seeing that a few roods more, and our shallop must have been whirled into breakers, from which ten such arms as those of its skilful conductor could not have redeemed it.

Being landed two-thirds of a mile below the cataract, a scramble, at first very intricate, through, and over, and under huge masses of rock, which occasionally seemed to deny all passage, and among which our guide often disappeared from our wandering eyes, placed us at the foot of the ladder by which the traveller descends on the Canada side. From hence a rough walk, along a shelving ledge of loose stones, brought us to the cavern formed by the projection of the ledge over which the water rolls, and which is known by the name of the Table Rock.

The gloom of this vast cavern, the whirlwind that ever plays in it, the deafening roar, the vast abyss of convulsed waters beneath you, the falling columns that hang over your head, all strike, not upon the ears and eyes only, but upon the heart. For the first few moments, the sublime is wrought to the terrible. This position, indisputably the finest, is no longer one of safety. A part of the Table Rock fell last year, and in that still remaining, the eye traces an alarming fissure, from the very summit of the projecting ledge over which the water rolls; so that the ceiling of this dark cavern seems rent from the precipice, and whatever be its hold, it is evidently fast yielding to the pressure of the water. You cannot look up to this crevice, and down upon the enormous masses which lately fell, with a shock mistaken by the neighbouring inhabitants for that of an earthquake, without shrinking at the dreadful possibility which might crush you beneath ruins, yet more enormous than those which lie at your feet.

The cavern formed by the projection of this rock, extends some feet behind the water, and, could you breathe, to stand behind the edge of the sheet were perfectly easy. I have seen those who have told me they have done so; for myself, when I descended within a few paces of this dark recess, I was obliged to hurry back some yards to draw breath. Mine to be sure are not the best of lungs, but theirs must be little short of miraculous, that can play in the wind, and foam, that gush from the hidden depths of this watery cave. It is probable, however, that the late fracture of the rock has considerably narrowed this recess, and thus increased the force of the blast that meets the intruder.

From this spot, (beneath the Table Rock,) you feel, more than from any other, the height of the cataract, and the weight of its waters. It seems a tumbling ocean; and that you yourself are a helpless atom amid these vast and eternal workings of gigantic nature! The wind had now abated, and what was better, we were now under the lee, and could admire its sport with the vapour, instead of being blinded by it. From the enormous basin into which the waters precipitate themselves in a clear leap of one hundred and forty feet, the clouds of smoke rose in white volumes, like the round-headed clouds you have sometimes seen in the evening horizon of a summer sky, and then shot up in pointed pinnacles, like the ice of mountain glacières. Caught by the wind, it was now whirled in spiral columns far up into the air, then, re-collecting its strength, the tremulous vapour again sought the upper air, till, broken and dispersed in the blue serene, it spread against it the only silvery veil which spotted the pure azure. In the centre of the fall, where the water is the heaviest, it takes the leap in an unbroken mass of the deepest green, and in many places reaches the bottom in crystal columns of the same hue, till they meet the snow-white foam that heaves and rolls convulsedly in the enormous basin. But for the deafening roar, the darkness and the stormy whirlwind in which we stood, I could have fancied these massy volumes the walls of some fairy palace--living emeralds chased in silver. Never surely did nature throw together so fantastically so much beauty, with such terrific grandeur. Nor let me pass without notice the lovely rainbow that, at this moment, hung over the opposing division of the cataract as parted by the island, embracing the whole breadth in its span. Midway of this silvery screen of shivered water, stretched a broad belt of blazing gold and crimson, into which the rainbow dropped its hues, and seemed to have based its arch. Different from all other scenes of nature that have come under my observation, the cataract of Niagara is seen to most advantage under a powerful and opposing sun; the hues assumed by the vapour are then by far the most varied and brilliant; and of the beauty of these hues, I can give you no idea. The gloom of the cavern (for I speak always as if under the Table Rock) needs no assistance from the shade of evening; and the terrible grandeur of the whole is not felt the less for being distinctly seen.

We again visited this wonder of nature in our return from Lake Erie; and have now gazed upon it in all lights, and at all hours,--under the rising, meridian, and setting sun, and under the pale moon when

“riding in her highest noon.”

The edge of the Table Rock is not approached without terror at the latter hour. The fairy hues are now all gone; excepting indeed, the rainbow, which, the ghost of what it was, now spans a dark impervious abyss. The rays of the sweet planet but feebly pierce the chill dense vapour that clogs the atmosphere; they only kiss, and coldly kiss, the waters at the brink, and faintly show the upper half of the columns, now black as ebony, plunging into a storm-tossed sea of murky clouds, whose depth and boundaries are alike unseen. It is the storm of the elements in chaos. The shivering mortal stands on the brink, like the startled fiend

“on the bare outside of this world, Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.”[404]

[404] Views of Society and Manners in America; by an Englishwoman, 1821, 8vo.

* * * * *

NAVARINO.

This is a strong town on the west coast of the Morea on the Gulf of Zoncheo, with an excellent harbour, recently distinguished by the fleet of the pacha of Egypt being blockaded there by admiral sir E. Codrington.

It is affirmed that this was the ancient Pylus, where the eloquent and venerable Nestor reigned. At the siege of Troy, according to Homer, he moderated the wrath of Achilles, the pride of Agamemnon, the impetuosity of Ajax, and the rash courage of Diomedes. In the first book of the Iliad he is represented as interposing between the two first-mentioned chiefs:

To calm their passions with the words of age Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sage, Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill’d. Words sweet as honey from his lips distill’d.[405]

It appears to have been also called Coryphasion, from the promontory on which it was erected. It was built by Pylus, at the head of a colony from Megara. The founder was dispossessed of it by Neleus, and fled into Elis, where he dwelt in a small town, also called Pylos. There was likewise a third town of the same name, and they respectively claimed the honour of having given birth to Nestor. The Pylos at Elis seems, in the opinion of the learned, to have won the palm. Pindar, however, assigns it to the town now called Navarino.

[405] Bourn’s Gazetteer.

* * * * *

COUNSELS AND SAYINGS.

BY DR. A. HUNTER.

UP, AND BE DOING.

The folly of delaying what we wish to be done is a great and punishing weakness.

BE ORDERLY.

Uniformity of conduct is the best rule of life that a man can possibly observe.

MAN IS ORDERLY BY NATURE.

Is it not a matter of astonishment that the heart should beat, on the average, about four thousand strokes every hour during a period of “threescore years and ten,” and without ever taking a moment’s rest?

IN TRAVELLING BE CONTENTED.

When we complain of bad inns in poor and unfrequented countries, we do not consider that it is numerous passengers that make good inns.

ARE YOU AN ORATOR?

Chew a bit of anchovy, and it will instantly restore the tone of voice when lost by public speaking.

DO NOT FORGET.

When your memory begins to leave you, learn to make memorandums.

SHUN WILL-MONGERING.

If you induce a person to make an improper will, your conscience will smite you from the rising to the setting sun.

MARRIAGE IS A VOYAGE FOR LIFE.

One who marries an ill-tempered person attempts to lick honey from off a thorn.

AN ODD REMARK.

Women who love their husbands generally lie upon their right side.

NOTE.--I can only speak, from experience, of one; and, as regards her, the observation is true.

Vol. II.--45.

To the Editor.

The preceding sketch was made on the 17th instant. The well stands by the roadside. The covering stones, though heavy, were at that time laid as above represented, having just before been knocked over by some waggon. Although but a poor subject for the pencil, it is an object of interest from its connection with St. John of Beverley.

“St. John of Beverley may be challenged by this county (York) on a threefold title; because therein he had his

“1. Birth; at Harpham, in this county, in the East Riding.

“2. Life; being three and thirty years, and upwards, archbishop of York.

“3. Death; at Beverley, in this county, in a college of his own foundation.

“He was educated under Theodorus the Grecian, and archbishop of Canterbury. Yet was he not so famous for his teacher as for his scholar, Venerable Bede, who wrote this John’s life; which he hath so spiced with miracles, that it is of the hottest for a discreet man to digest into his belief.”

See “Fuller’s Worthies,” in which a lengthened account of St. John may be found.

T. C.

Bridlington, July 30, 1827.

* * * * *

Respecting the subject of the engraving, T. C. subsequently writes: “The stones over St. John’s Well were replaced when I passed it on the 9th of October, 1827.”

Concerning St. John of Beverley, not having “Fuller’s Worthies” at hand to refer to, a few brief particulars are collected from other sources. If the curious reader desires more, he may consult my authorities, and “old Fuller,” as recommended by T. C.

ST. JOHN OF BEVERLEY.

On his return from pupilage under St. Theodorus, in Kent, St. John of Beverley settled at Whitby, in the monastery of St. Hilda, till, in the reign of Alfred, he was made bishop of Hexham, which see he vacated in favour of St. Wilfrid, and sometime afterwards was seated in the archi-episcopal chair of York. He occasionally retreated to a monastery he had built at Beverley, which was then a forest, called Endeirwood, or Wood of the Deiri. In 717 he resigned the see of York to his chaplain, St. Wilfrid the younger, and finally retired to Beverley, where he died on the 7th of May, 721.[406]

According to Bede, St. John of Beverley being at a village near Hexham, there was brought to him a youth wholly dumb, and with a disorder in the head, “which entirely hindred the grouth of haires, except a few which, like bristles, stood in a thinn circle about the lower part of his head.” He desired the child “to putt forth his tongue, which the holy man took hold of, and made the sign of the crosse upon it. And having done this, he bid him speak: Pronounce, said he to him, gea, gea, (that is, yea, yea.) This the child pronounced distinctly, and presently after other words of more syllables; and, in conclusion, whole sentences: so that, before night, by frequent practice, he was able to expresse his thoughts freely.” Then St. John “commanded a surgeon to use his skill; and in a short time, by such care, but principally by the prayers and benedictions of the good prelat, he became of a lovely and chearfull countenance, adorned with beautifully curled haire, and ready in speech. This miracle was wrought in his first diocese.”[407] Notwithstanding the author of the “Church History of Brittany” calls this a “miracle,” the story rather proves that John of Beverley used a judicious method to remove impediments of speech, and obtained the growth of the boy’s hair by surgical aid.

The same writer adds, on the same authority, that the wife of “a count, named Puch,” was cured of a forty days’ sickness, by John of Beverley giving her holy water, which he had used in dedicating the count’s church. Also, according to him, when the lusty men of Beverley drag wild bulls into the church-yard (to bait them) in honour of the saint, they “immediately loose all their fury and fiercenes, and become gentle as lambes, so that they are left to their freedom to sport themselves.” William of Malmsbury relates this “as a thing usually performed, and generally acknowledged by the inhabitants of Beverley, in testimony of the sanctity of their glorious patron.”

Again, it is related in the Breviary of the church of Sarum, concerning St. John of Beverley, that while he governed in the see of York, “he was praying one day in the porch of St. Michael, and a certain deacon peeping in saw the Holy Ghost sitting upon the altar, excelling in whiteness a ray of the sun:” and the face of this deacon, whose name was Sigga, “was burnt by the heat of the Holy Spirit,” so that the skin of his cheek was shrivelled up; and his face was healed by the touch of the saint’s hand: and “the saint adjured him, that whilst he lived he would discover this vision to no man.”[408]

The more eminent fame of the patron of Beverley is posthumous. In 937, when England was invaded by the Norwegians, Danes, Picts, and certain chiefs of the Scottish isles, under Analaf the Dane, king Athelstan, marching with his army through Yorkshire to oppose them, met certain pilgrims returning from Beverley, who “informed him of the great miracles frequently done there, by the intercession of St. John.” Whereupon the king, with his army, went to Beverley, and entering into the church there performed his devotions before St. John’s tomb; and, earnestly begging his intercession, rose up before the clergy, and vowed, that if victory were vouched to him by the saint’s intercession, he would enrich that church with many privileges and plentiful revenues. “In token of which,” said he, “I leave this my knife upon the altar, which at my return I will redeem with an ample discharge of my vow.” Then he caused an ensign, duly blessed, to be taken out of the church, and carried before him. And at the sea-coast “he received a certain hope of victory by a vision, in which St. John of Beverley, appearing to him, commanded him to passe over the water, and fight the enemy, promising him the upper hand.” Athelstan was suddenly surprised by Analaf; but a sword fell “as from heaven” into the king’s scabbard, and he “not only drove Analafe out of his camp, but courageously sett upon the enemy, with whose blood he made his sword drunk, which he had received from heaven.” This battle, which was fought at Dunbar, was the bloodiest since the coming of the Saxons. The victory was entirely for the English: five kings were slain, and among them the Scottish king Constantine. Athelstan, returning in triumph, passed by the church of St. John at Beverley, where he redeemed his knife. He bestowed large possessions on the church, with privilege of sanctuary a mile round; ordaining that whoever should infringe it should forfeit eight pounds to the church; if within the three crosses, at the entrance of the town, twenty-four pounds; if within the church-yard, seventy-two pounds; but, if in sight of the relics, the penalty was the same that was due to the most enormous capital crime. A testimony of this privilege of sanctuary at Beverley was a chair of stone, thus inscribed:--“This stone chair is called Freed-stoole, or the Chaire of Peace: to which any offender flying shall enjoy entire security.” In the charter of the privilege, “King Athelstan,” saith mine author, “expressed it elegantly, in this distich:--

As free make I thee, As heart may think or eye may see.”[409]

Moreover, respecting the great victory of Athelstan, an ancient biographer of the saints[410] relates, that the king prayed that through the intercession of St. John of Beverley he might show some evident sign, whereby both future and present ages might know, that the Scots ought, of right, to be subject to the English. And thereupon, saith this writer, “the king with his sword smote upon a hard rock by Dunbar, and to this day it is hollowed an ell deep by that stroke.”[411] This, saith another author, was near Dunbar castle; and “king Edward the first, when there was question before pope Boniface of his right and prerogative over Scotland, brought this historie for the maintenance and strength of his cause.”[412]

The monastery of St. John at Beverley having been destroyed by the Danes, king Athelstan founded in that place a church and college of canons, of which church St. Thomas à Becket was some time provost.[413] In 1037, the bones of St. John were “translated” into the church by Alfric, archbishop of York, and the feast of his translation ordained to be kept at York on the 25th of October.[414] “On the 24th of September, 1664, upon opening a grave in the church of Beverley a vault was discovered of free-stone, fifteen feet long and two broad; in which there was a sheet of lead, with an inscription, signifying that the church of Beverley having been burnt in the year 1188, search had been made for the relics of St. John, anno 1197, and that his bones were found in the east part of the sepulchre and there replaced. Upon this sheet lay a box of lead, in which were several pieces of bones, mixed with a little dust, and yielding a sweet smell: all these were reinterred in the middle alley of the church.”[415] Another writer[416] states the exhumation to have taken place “on the thirteenth of September, not the twenty-fourth;” and he adds, “that these relics had been hid in the beginning of the reign of king Edward VI.”

It must not be omitted, that the alleged successful intercession of St. John of Beverley in behalf of the English against the Scotch, is said to have been paralleled by patronage as fatal to the French. The memorable battle of Agincourt was fought in the year 1415, on the anniversary of the translation of St. John of Beverley, and Henry V. ascribed the decisive victory to the saint’s intercession. In a provincial synod, under Henry Chicheley, archbishop of Canterbury, is a decree, at the instance of that king, “whereby it appeares, that this most holy bishop, St. John of Beverley, hath been an ayde to the kings of England in the necessitie of their warres, not only in auncient, but allsoe in these later ages.”[417] In consequence of this ascription, his festivals were ordained to be celebrated annually through the whole kingdom of England. The anniversary of his death has ceased to be remembered from the time of the Reformation; but that of his translation is accidentally kept as a holiday by the shoemakers, in honour of their patron, St. Crispin, whose feast falls on the same day.

*

[406] Alban Butler.

[407] Father Cressy.

[408] Capgrave: in bishop Patrick’s Devotions of the Roman Church.

[409] Father Cressy.

[410] Capgrave.

[411] Bishop Patrick’s Devotions of the Roman Church.

[412] Father Porter’s Lives.

[413] Britannia Sancta.

[414] Alban Butler.

[415] Britannia Sancta.

[416] Alban Butler.

[417] Father Porter.

* * * * *

BEVERLEY THE STRONG MAN.

In March 1784, a porter of amazing strength, named Beverley, was detected in stealing pimento on board a ship in the river Thames. A number of men were scarcely able to secure him; and when they did, they were under the necessity of tying him down in a cart, to convey him to prison. The keeper of the Poultry Counter would not take him in; they were therefore obliged to apply for an order to carry him to Newgate. Beverley was supposed to have been the strongest man of his time in England.[418]

[418] Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1784.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XXXIX.

[From the “Ambitious Statesman,” a Tragedy, by John Crowne, 1679.]

Vendome, returning from the wars, hears news, that Louize is false to him.

Ven. (solus.) Wherere I go, I meet a wandering rumour, Louize is the Dauphin’s secret mistress. I heard it in the army, but the sound Was then as feeble as the distant murmurs Of a great river mingling with the sea; But now I am come near this river’s fall, Tis louder than the cataracts of Nile. If this be true, Doomsday is near, and all the heavens are falling.-- I know not what to think of it, for every where I meet a choking dust, such as is made After removing all a palace furniture: If she be gone, the world in my esteem Is all bare walls; nothing remains in it But dust and feathers, like a Turkish inn, And the foul steps where plunderers have been.--

Valediction.

Vendome (to his faithless Mistress.) Madam, I’m well assur’d, you will not send One poor thought after me, much less a messenger, To know the truth; but if you do, he’ll find, In some unfinish’d part of the creation, Where Night and Chaos never were disturb’d, But bed-rid lie in some dark rocky desart, There will he find a thing--whether a man, Or the collected shadows of the desart Condens’d into a shade, he’ll hardly know; This figure he will find walking alone, Poring one while on some sad book at noon By taper-light, for never day shone there: Sometimes laid grovelling on the barren earth, Moist with his tears, for never dew fell there: And when night comes, not known from day by darkness, But by some faithful messenger of time, He’ll find him stretcht upon a bed of stone, Cut from the bowels of some rocky cave, Offering himself either to Sleep or Death; And neither will accept the dismal wretch: At length a Slumber, in its infant arms, Takes up his heavy soul, but wanting strength To bear it, quickly lets it fall again; At which the wretch starts up, and walks about All night, and all the time it should be day; Till quite forgetting, quite forgot of every thing But Sorrow, pines away, and in small time Of the only man that durst inhabit there, Becomes the only Ghost that dares walk there.

Incredulity to Virtue.

Vendome. Perhaps there never were such things as Virtues, But only in men’s fancies, like the Phœnix; Or if they once have been, they’re now but names Of natures lost, which came into the world, But could not live, nor propagate their kind.

Faithless Beauty.

Louize. Dare you approach? Vendome. Yes, but with fear, for sure you’re not Woman. A Comet glitter’d in the air o’ late, And kept some weeks the frighted kingdom waking. Long hair it had, like you; a shining aspect; Its beauty smiled, at the same time it frighten’d; And every horror in it had a grace.

* * * * *

[From “Belphegor,” a Comedy, by John Wilson, 1690.]

Doria Palace described.

That thou’d’st been with us at Duke Doria’s garden! The pretty contest between art and nature; To see the wilderness, grots, arbours, ponds; And in the midst, over a stately fountain, The Neptune of the Ligurian sea-- Andrew Doria--the man who first Taught Genoa not to serve: then to behold The curious waterworks and wanton streams Wind here and there, as if they had forgot Their errand to the sea. And then again, within That vast prodigious cage, in which the groves Of myrtle, orange, jessamine, beguile The winged quire with a native warble, And pride of their restraint. Then, up and down, An antiquated marble, or broken statue, Majestic ev’n in ruin. And such a glorious palace: Such pictures, carving, furniture! my words Cannot reach half the splendour. And, after all, To see the sea, fond of the goodly sight, One while glide amorous, and lick her walls, As who would say Come Follow; but, repuls’d, Rally its whole artillery of waves, And crowd into a storm!

* * * * *

[From the “Floating Island,” a Comedy, by the Rev. W. Strode, acted by the Students of Christ-Church, Oxford, 1639.]

Song.

Once Venus’ cheeks, that shamed the morn, Their hue let fall; Her lips, that winter had out-born, In June look’d pale: Her heat grew cold, her nectar dry; No juice she had but in her eye, The wonted fire and flames to mortify. When was this so dismal sight?-- When Adonis bade good night.

C. L.

* * * * *

PLAYERS--GHOST LAYERS.

For the Table Book.

CHRISTIAN MALFORD, WILTS.

It required a large portion of courage to venture abroad after sunset at Christian Malford, for somebody’s apparition presented itself to the walker’s imagination. Spritely gossips met near their wells with their crooked sticks and buckets, to devise means for laying the disturbed returners and their once native associates; but a party of strolling players did more towards sending the spectres to the “tomb of all the Capulets,” than the divinations of feminine power.

Application being made to the magistrate, who was not exempt from the superstitious and revered infection, that plays might be performed in the malthouse, said to be so daringly haunted, a timely caution was given as to “Beelzebub and his imps,” and permission was granted, and bills were circulated by the magnanimous manager himself. He was a polite man, a famous anecdote retailer, retainer, and detailer, an excellent spouter, and a passable singer. His dress and address were eccentric. The hessians he wore, by fit necessity, were of the buskin order; and, as bread was then dear, a sixpenny loaf might have supplied the absence of calves. His pigtail-wig, hat, and all his apparel indeed, served, when on the dramatic floor, most aptly the variations required in his wardrobe.

I remember, when the “Miller of Mansfield” was played, the bell rang, the baize was drawn up by a stable-halter, the fiddler began to scrape a ditty by way of overture; but, before the miller could appear, a smockfrock was called for, from one of the frocked rustics in the gallery, (the back seats of the scaffolding.) This call was generously obeyed. A youth pulled off his upper-all, proudly observing, that “the player should have it, because his was a sacred persuasion.” The miller appeared, and the play proceeded, with often repeated praises of the frock. On another night, “Richard” was personated by a red-haired woman, an active stroller of the company. Her manner of enacting the deformed and ambitious Glo’ster so charmed the village censors, that for three weeks successively nothing else would please but “Richard.” Nor was the effect less operative in the field, (not of Bosworth)--Virgil’s “Bucolics and Georgics” were travestied. Reaphooks, sithes, pitchforks, and spades were set in contact in the daytime, to the great amusement and terror of quiet people.--The funds of the company being exhausted, the Thespians tramped off rather suddenly, leaving other bills than playbills behind them. Ever after this the ghosts of the malthouse disappeared, the rustics of the valley crying, as they triumphantly passed, “Off with his head!” and others, replying in the words of Hamlet, “Oh! what a falling off is here!”

ΠΡΙ.

Oct. 1827.

* * * * *

EX-THESPIANISM.

For the Table Book.

I am the son of a respectable attorney, who sent me, when very young, to an excellent school, at which I conducted myself much to the satisfaction of my superiors. It was customary for the scholars to enact a play at Christmas, to which the friends of the master were invited. On one of these occasions, when I was now nearly head-boy, I was called upon to perform the part of Charles Surface, in the admirable comedy of the School for Scandal. I studied the character, and played it with great applause, and shortly afterwards left the school, and was sent by my father to Boulogne to finish my education.

There were then at that place a number of English gentlemen, who were endeavouring to establish a company of amateurs. On their request I joined them, and made my first appearance upon a regular stage in the character of Shylock. It was a decided hit! I was received throughout with “unbounded applause,” and the next day was highly gratified by reading “honourable mention” of my performance in the newspapers. I repeated this and other characters several times with undiminished success; but, in the very zenith of my popularity, I was recalled to England by my father, who, having heard of my operations, began to fear (what afterwards proved to be the case) that I should be induced to adopt that as a profession, which I had hitherto considered merely as an amusement.

Soon after my return home my father articled me to himself, but it was impossible for me to forget my success at Boulogne, and my inclination for the stage ripened into a determination to become an actor. I secretly applied to Mr. Sims, of the Harp, who procured me an engagement in a sharing company in the west of England, where I was to do the “low comic business” and “second tragedy.” I spent some of the money that I had saved in buying wigs and a few other stage-requisites, and left my paternal roof with three pounds in my pocket.

My exchequer not being in a state to afford me the luxury of riding, I was compelled to walk the last thirty miles of my journey. Upon my arrival at ----, my first care was to inquire for the theatre, when I was directed to a barn, which had been dignified by that appellation. I was received with all possible civility by the company, which consisted of the manager, his wife, and three gentlemen. I was informed by the manager that Jane Shore was the play for that evening, and that he should expect me to perform the part of Belmont, and also that of Bombastes Furioso in the afterpiece. The wardrobe of the theatre was unable to afford me a dress superior to my own for the part of Belmont, I therefore played that character “accoutred as I was,” viz. in a blue coat, buff waistcoat, striped trowsers, and Wellington’s. The audience was very select, consisting only of ten persons, who seemed totally indifferent to the performance, for they never once, in the course of the evening, gave any indication of pleasure, or the reverse, but witnessed our efforts to amuse with the most provoking apathy. Between the pieces I was much surprised by one of the gentlemen requesting the loan of my hat for a few minutes, as he was about to sing a song, and he assured me that there was no hat in the company, save mine, which was worthy to appear before the audience. At the conclusion of the performance we shared the receipts, which, after deducting the expenses of the house, amounted to one shilling and sixpence each. We continued to act for some time, sharing (three nights a week) from about one shilling and sixpence to two shillings each, which sum did not at all equal my sanguine expectations. Frequently have I performed kings and princes after having breakfasted upon a turnip.

I soon found that this mode of living did not suit me, for I was becoming exceedingly spare. I therefore resolved to quit the company, and return to London. Having informed the manager of my intention, I departed, and arrived in the metropolis with twopence in my pocket. I proceeded to my father’s house, where I was received with kindness, and where I still continue. I have relinquished all my pretensions to the sock, having learned from experience that which it was not in the power of reason to convince me of.

GILBERTUS.

* * * * *

SILCHESTER, HANTS.

For the Table Book.

Every thing in this world is subject to change, and the strongest buildings to decay. The ancient Vindonum of the Romans, from whence Constantius issued several of his edicts, does not form an exception to this rule. From being a principal Roman station, it is now a heap of ruins.

Silchester is situated about eleven miles from Reading, on the side of a hill, or rather on a level spot between two, and commands most beautiful views: from its being surrounded by woodland, a stranger would be unaware of his approach to it, until he arrived at the spot. The circumference of the walls is about two miles; they possess four gates, east, north, west, and south, and are in some places twelve or fourteen feet high, and four or five feet in width; there are many fine trees (as was observed by Leland in his time) growing out of them: the wall was surrounded by a deep and broad ditch, which is now in some places nearly filled up by the ruins of the wall, and beyond which is “the external vallum, very perfect and easily to be traced out round the whole city; its highest parts, even in the present state, are at least fifteen feet perpendicular from the bottom of the ditch. A straight line, drawn from the top of this bank to the wall on the north-east side, measured thirty-four yards, its full breadth.”[419]

Between the outside of the walls and the furthest vallum was the Pomœrium, which is defined by Livy to be that space of ground both within and without the walls, which the augurs, at the first building of cities, solemnly consecrated, and on which no edifices were suffered to be raised.[420] Plutarch is of a different opinion, and ascribes the derivation of Pomœrium to pone mœnia, and states that it signifies the line marked out for the wall at the first foundation of a city.[421]

About a hundred and fifty yards from the north-east angle of the wall is a Roman amphitheatre, the form of which is similar to that near Dorchester, with high and steep banks, now covered with a grove of trees, and has two entrances. The elevation of the amphitheatre consists of a mixture of clay and gravel: the seats were ranged in five rows one above the other; the slope between each measuring about six feet: each bank progressively rises, (and increases proportionably in width,) to a considerable height in the centre. The area of the amphitheatre is about twenty-five yards in diameter, as near as I could guess; it is commonly covered with water, and is become a complete marsh, having a drain across the centre, and is filled up with rushes. I was informed by the woman who showed it, that some gentlemen a short time since procured a shovel, and found a fine gravel bottom at about a foot deep.

The only buildings within the walls are the farm-house and the parish church, which is an ancient structure, built of brick and flint, in the form of the letter T. The interior of the church is plain and neat; the font is of an octagonal form, of plain stone; the pulpit is also octagonal, made of oak, and is remarkably neat; over it is a handsome carved oak sounding-board, surmounted by a dove, with an olive-branch in its mouth, and round the board, at the lower part, in seven compartments, is the following inscription:--“The Gyift of James Hore, Gent. 1639.” The ascent to the pulpit is from the minister’s reading-desk, which also serves for a seat for his family. The chancel is separated from the body of the church by a handsome carved screen, in excellent preservation. In the south wall of the church, under a low pointed arch, is the recumbent figure of a female, carved in stone, of a very remote date, with the feet resting against an animal, (probably a dog,) the head of which is much damaged: there is also an angel’s head, which has been broken off from some part of the monument, and is of course loose; from what part it came I was unable to discover.

In the chancel affixed to the north wall is the following inscription on a handsome white marble monument; it is surmounted by a crown of glory, and at the bottom is a death’s head:--

Vive ut Vivas. Hic juxta situs est JOHANNIS PARIS, D.D. Collegii Trinitatis apud Cantabrigiensis Socius Senior & hujus Ecclesiæ Rector: de quo nisi opera loquantur Siletur. O I[422]

There are also monuments of the Baynards, the Cusanzes, and the Blewets, which families were owners of the manor from the time of the conquest for some generations.

On the south side of the city is a small postern under the wall, called by the common people “Onion’s hole,” and is so designated from a traditional account of a giant of that name; the coins which have been discovered are called from the cause “Onion’s pennies.”

A fair field is here open for the researches of the antiquarian; and it is much to be regretted that a good account of the place is not yet published. “The History and Antiquities of Silchester,” whence I have cited, is a pamphlet of thirty-two pages, and affords but little information. Hoping to see justice done to the place, I beg to subscribe myself, &c.

J. R. J.

[419] The History and Antiquities of Silchester, p. 12.

Silchester, a parish bordering on Berkshire, about 7 miles N. from Basingstoke, and 45 from London, contains, according to the last census, 85 houses and 407 inhabitants. It is supposed to have been once a populous city, called by the Romans “Segontiaci,” by the Britons “Caer-Segont,” and by the Saxons “Silcester,” or the great city. Capper.--ED.

[420] Livy, b. i.

[421] Plutarch in Romul. See Kennet’s Antiquities of Rome, p. 29.

[422] I should like to be informed the meaning of these letters--there is no date to the monument. J. R. J.

* * * * *

TO THE NIGHTSHADE.

For the Table Book.

Lovely but fearful, Thy stem clings round a stronger power, Like a fond child that trusts and grows More beautiful in feeling’s hour.

Rich is thy blossom, Shaped like a turban, with a spire Of orange in a purple crest, And humid eye of sunny fire.

When the day wakens, Thou hearest not the happy airs Breathed into zephyr’s faery dreams, By insects’ wings, like leaves, in pairs.

Summer--when over-- Quits thee, with clust’ring berries red. Hanging like grapes, and autumn’s cold Chills what the noon-day’s sunbeams fed.

Thou art like beauty, Gentle to touch and quickly faded; ’Tis death to taste thee void of skill, And thou, like death, art nightly shaded.

*, *, P.

Sept. 1827.

To the Editor.

A carriage bearing this name, of which the above is a sketch, forms a neat, safe, pleasant, and commodious conveyance from Malton, by way of Driffield, to Hull every other day, and from Hull to Malton on the intermediate days, during the summer months. The vehicle is, in fact, a boat on wheels, driven like a stage-coach, and furnished on each side of the body with a seat, extending the whole length, on which the passengers are ranged. The top is covered with a permanent awning, to which a curtain appended may be drawn up or let down at pleasure, so as to enjoy a view of the country, or shut out the sun and weather.

T. C.

Bridlington, Oct. 1827.

* * * * *

SHEEPSHEARING IN CUMBERLAND.

To the Editor.

Sir,--The letters of W. C., in a recent number of the Table Book, recalled to my mind four of the happiest years of my life, spent in Cumberland, amongst the beautiful lakes and mountains in the neighbourhood of Keswick, where I became acquainted with a custom which I shall attempt to describe.

A few days previous to the “clipping,” or shearing of the sheep, they are washed at a “beck,” or small river, not far from the mountain on which they are kept. The clippings that I have witnessed have generally been in St. John’s vale. Several farmers wash their sheep at the same place; and, by that means, greatly assist each other. The scene is most amusing. Imagine to yourself several hundred sheep scattered about in various directions; some of them enclosed in pens by the water-side; four or five men in the water rolling those about that are thrown in to them; the dames and the pretty maidens supplying the “mountain dew” very plentifully to the people assembled, particularly those that have got themselves well ducked; the boys pushing each other into the river, splashing the men, and raising tremendous shouts. Add to these a fine day in the beginning of June, and a beautiful landscape, composed of mountains, woods, cultivated lands, and a small meandering stream; the farmers and their wives, children, and servants, with hearty faces, and as merry as summer and good cheer can make them: and I am sure, sir, that you, who are a lover of nature in all her forms, could not wish a more delightful scene.

I will now proceed to the “clipping” itself. Early in the forenoon of the appointed day, the friends and relatives of the farmer assemble at his house, for they always assist each other, and after having regaled themselves with hung-beef, curds, and home-brewed ale, they proceed briskly to business. The men seat themselves on their stools, with shears in their hands, and the younger part of the company supply them with sheep from the fold; which, after having been sheared, have the private mark of the farmer stamped upon them with pitch. In the mean time the lasses are fluttering about, playing numerous tricks; for which, by the by, they get paid with interest by kisses; and the housewife may be seen busy in preparing the supper, which generally comprises all that the season affords. After the “clipping” is over, and the sheep driven on to the fells, (mountains,) they adjourn in a body to the house; and then begins a scene of rustic merriment, which those who have not witnessed it, can have no conception of. The evening is spent in drinking home-brewed ale, and singing. Their songs generally bear some allusion to the subject in question, and are always rural. But what heightens the pleasure is, that there is no quarrelling, and the night passes on in the utmost harmony. I have attended many of them, and never saw the slightest symptoms of anger in any of the party. They seldom break up till daylight makes its appearance next morning.

I am, sir,

Your constant reader,

A. W. R.

* * * * *

DR. GRAHAM.

For the Table Book.

In the year 1782, that extraordinary empiric of modern times, Dr. Graham, appeared in London. He was a graduate of Edinburgh, wrote in a bombastic style, and possessed a great fluency of elocution. He opened a mansion in Pall Mall, called “The Temple of Health;” the front was ornamented with an enormous gilt sun, a statue of Hygeia, and other attractive emblems. The rooms were superbly furnished, and the walls decorated with mirrors, so as to confer on the place an effect like that of an enchanted palace. Here he delivered “Lectures on Health, &c.” at the extravagant rate of two guineas each. As a further attraction, he entertained a female of beautiful figure, whom he called the “goddess of health.” He hired two men of extraordinary stature, provided with enormous cocked hats and showy liveries, to distribute bills from house to house about town.

These unusual means to excite curiosity were successful; but his two guinea auditors were soon exhausted; he then dropped to one guinea; afterwards to half a guinea; then to five shillings; and, subsequently, as he said, “for the benefit of all,” to two shillings and sixpence. When he could not “draw” at that price, he finally exhibited the “Temple of Health” at one shilling a head to daily crowds for several months.

Among the furniture of Dr. Graham’s temple was a celestial bed, which he pretended wrought miraculous effects on those who reposed on it: he demanded for its use during one night one hundred pounds; and such is the folly of wealth, that several personages of high rank acceded to his terms. He also pretended to have discovered “The Elixir of Life,” by taking of which a person might live as long as he pleased. When this was worn out, he recommended “earth bathing,” and sanctioned it by his own practice. During one hour every day, he admitted spectators to view him and the goddess of health immersed naked in the ground to their chins. The doctor’s head was dressed and powdered, and the goddess’s was arranged in the highest fashion of the times. He carried this exhibition to every provincial town wherein he could obtain permission of the magistrates. The goddess nearly fell a victim to the practice, and the doctor, in spite of his enormous charges and his “Elixir of life,” died in poor circumstances at the age of fifty-two.

Dr. Graham’s brother married the celebrated Mrs. Macaulay, the historian, and Dr. Arnold, of Leicester, the respectable author of an able treatise on insanity, married his sister. It is generally understood that the lady who performed the singular part of the “Goddess of Health” was Emma, afterwards the wife of sir William Hamilton, and the personal favourite of the celebrated lord Nelson. She died in misery--

Deserted in her utmost need By those her former bounty fed.

SAM SAM’S SON.

Sept. 1, 1827.

* * * * *

STORKS.

The storks of the Low Countries are mentioned more than once in the journal of the gentlemen deputed by the “Caledonian Horticultural Society” to visit the gardens of our continental neighbours. Their route from Antwerp to Rotterdam is marked by the following entry:--

August 22, 1817. “In the course of our progress into this land of meadows and waters, we had been making inquiries about the storks (Ardea Ciconia, L.) which every year visit Holland in the breeding season; and we learned that the great flock had taken its departure about ten days before. We observed several of their nests, set like wicker-baskets on the roofs of the dwelling-houses; and we had the good fortune to see one solitary dam still covering her brood, on account probably of the young one not having been sufficiently fledged to enable it to accompany the main body. We persuaded the conductor to allow us to get out of the carriage, and examine this rarity: the bird showed no sort of alarm, the ooyevaar (as our Dutch friends called it) being privileged in Holland. In many places where a new house is built a nest-box is erected on the gable, or on the ridge of the roof, partly to invite the bird to make a settlement, and partly perhaps to save the thatch of the roof, in case it should come without invitation.” It is remarked by way of note, that “previous to the great migration the storks assemble in large groups, and make an unusual noise. It is known that they winter chiefly in Egypt. Pope has finely alluded to their remarkable instinct:--

Who calls the council, states the certain day? Who forms the phalanx, and who points the way?

In the beginning of May they return, like swallows, to their former haunts, the old birds carefully seeking out their accustomed nests. Sometimes, though rarely, a stray stork crosses the channel, and is seen on the English coast. It is there incessantly persecuted; it commonly perches on the roof of some thatched farm-house, where its experience leads it to hope for protection,--but it is not the dwelling of a quiet Dutch boor;[423] some pseudo-sportsman of a farmer shoots the poor bird while at roost.”

* * * * *

Of the numerous families which frequent the sides of rivers and the sea-beach, that of the stork is the best known and the most celebrated. It contains two species, the white and the black. They are exactly of the same form, and have no external difference but that of colour.

The black stork prefers desert tracts, perches on trees, haunts unfrequented marshes, and breeds in the heart of forests.

The white stork, on the contrary, settles beside dwellings; inhabits towers, chimnies, and ruins. The friend of man, it shares his habitations, and even his domain. It fishes in his rivers, pursues its prey into his gardens, and takes up its abode in the midst of cities, without being disturbed by the noise and bustle. On the Temple of Concord, in the capitol of Rome, were many storks’ nests. The fact is memorialized on the medals of the emperor Adrian, and alluded to by Juvenal in his first satire.

* * * * *

The stork flies steadily and with vigour; holds its head straight forward, and stretches back its legs, to direct its motion; soars to a vast height, and performs distant journies even in tempestuous seasons. It arrives in Germany about the eighth or tenth of May, and is seen before that time in the provinces of France. Gesner says, it precedes the swallow, and enters Switzerland in the month of April, and sometimes earlier. It arrives in Alsace in March, or even in the end of February. The return of the storks is ever auspicious, as it announces the spring. They instantly indulge those tender emotions which that season inspires: Aldrovandus paints with warmth their mutual signs of felicity, the eager congratulations, and the fondling endearments of the male and female, on their coming home from their distant journey. “When they have arrived at their nest--good God! what sweet salutation; what gratulation for their prosperous return! what embraces! what honied kisses! what gentle murmurs they breathe!” It is to be observed, that they always settle in the same spots, and, if their nest has been destroyed, they rebuild it with twigs and aquatic plants, usually on lofty ruins, or the battlements of towers; sometimes on large trees beside water, or on the point of bold cliffs. In France it was formerly customary to place wheels on the house-tops, to entice the stork to nestle. The practice still subsists in Germany and Alsace: and in Holland square boxes are planted on the ridge, with the same view.

When the stork is in a still posture it rests on one foot, folds back its neck, and reclines its head on its shoulder. It watches the motions of reptiles with a keen eye, and commonly preys on frogs, lizards, serpents, and small fish, which it finds in marshes by the sides of the streams, and in wet vales.

It walks like the crane with long measured strides. When irritated or discomposed, or influenced by affection to its mate, it makes with its bill a repeated clattering, which the ancients express by the significant words crepitat and glotterat,[424] and which Petronius accurately marks by the epithet crotalistria,[425] formed from crotalum, the castanet or rattle. In this state of agitation it bends its head back, so that the lower mandible appears uppermost, the bill lies almost parallel on the back, and the two mandibles strike violently against each other; but in proportion as it raises up its neck the clattering abates, and ceases when the bird has resumed its ordinary posture. This is the only noise the stork ever makes, and, as it seems dumb, the ancients supposed it had no tongue.

The stork does not lay more than four eggs, oftener not more than two; they are of a dirty and yellowish white, rather smaller, but longer than those of a goose. The male sits when the female goes in quest of food; the incubation lasts a month; both parents are exceedingly attentive in bringing provisions to the young, which rise up to receive it, and make a sort of whistling noise. The male and female never leave the nest at once; but, while the one is employed in searching for prey, the other stands near the spot on one leg, and keeps an eye constantly on the brood. When first hatched the young are covered with a brown down, and their long slender legs not having yet strength enough to support them, they creep upon their knees. When their wings begin to grow, they essay their force in fluttering about the nest; though it often happens that in this exercise some of them fall, and are unable to regain their lodgment. After they venture to commit themselves to the air, the mother leads and exercises them in small circumvolutions around the nest, and conducts them back. About the latter end of August, when the young storks have attained strength, they join the adults, and prepare for migration.

The Greeks have placed the rendezvous of the storks in a plain of Asia, called the “Serpent’s District,” where they congregated, as they do now in some parts of the Levant, and even in Europe, as in Brandenburg and elsewhere. Shaw says, in his Travels, “It is remarked that the storks before they pass from one country into another, assemble a fortnight beforehand, from all the neighbouring parts, in a plain; holding once a day a divan, as they say in that country, as if their object was to fix the precise time of their departure and the place of their retreat.”

When they convene previous to their departure, they make a frequent clattering with their bill, and the whole flock is in tumultuary commotion; all seem eager to form acquaintance, and to consult on the projected route, of which the signal in our climate is the north wind. Then the vast body rises at once, and in a few seconds is lost in the air. Klein relates, that having been called to witness this sight he was a moment too late, and the whole flock had already disappeared. Indeed this departure is the more difficult to observe, as it is conducted in silence, and often during the night. Belon says, that their departure is not remarked, because they fly without noise or cries, while the cranes and wild-geese, on the contrary, scream much on the wing. It is asserted, that in their passage, before they venture to cross the Mediterranean, they alight in great numbers in the neighbourhood of Aix in Provence. Their departure appears to be later in warm countries; for Pliny says, that “after the retreat of the stork it is improper to sow.”

It was remarked by the Jewish prophet, that “the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time,” (Jeremiah viii. 7.;) but though the ancients observed the migrations of these birds, they do not seem to have been certain as to the countries of their retirement. Modern travellers acquaint us more accurately. “It is perfectly ascertained,” says Belon, “that the storks winter in Egypt and in Africa; for we have seen the plains of Egypt whitened by them in the months of September and October. At that season, when the waters of the Nile have subsided, they obtain abundance of food; but the excessive heats of summer drive them to more temperate climates; and they return again in winter, to avoid the severity of the cold: the contrary is the case with the cranes, which visit us with the geese in winter, when the storks leave us.” This remarkable difference is owing to that of the climates which these birds inhabit; the geese and ducks come from the north, to escape the rigours of the winter; the storks leave the south, to avoid the scorching heats of summer. It was a common opinion in the time of Albertus Magnus that the storks do not retire in winter, but lurk in caverns, or even at the bottom of lakes. Klein relates, that two storks were dragged out of the water in the pools near Elbing. Gervais of Tillebury speaks of other storks that were found clustered in a lake near Arles; Merula, in Aldrovandus, speaks of some which fishermen drew out of the lake of Como; and Fulgosus, of others that were fished near Metz. Martin Schoockius, who wrote a treatise on the stork in 1648, supports these testimonies. But the history of the migrations of the storks is too well known, not to attribute to accidents the facts just mentioned, if they indeed may be relied on.

Belon says, that he saw storks wintering round Mount Amanus, near Antioch; and passing about the end of August towards Abydus, in flocks of three or four thousand, from Russia and Tartary. They cross the Hellespont; and on the summits of Tenedos divide into squadrons, and disperse themselves northwards.

Dr. Shaw says, that about the middle of May, 1722, “Our vessel, being anchored under Mount Carmel, I saw three flocks of storks, each of which was more than three hours in passing, and extended a half mile in breadth.” Maillet relates, that he saw the storks descend, towards the end of April, from Upper Egypt, and halt on the grounds of the Delta, which the inundation of the Nile soon obliges them to leave.

Crows sometimes intermingle with the storks in their passage, which has given rise to the opinion of St. Basil and Isidorus, that the crows serve to direct and escort the storks. The ancients also speak much of the combats between the storks and ravens, jays, and other species of birds, when their flocks, returning from Lybia and Egypt, met about Lycia and the river Xanthus.

Storks, by thus removing from climate to climate, never experience the severities of winter; their year consists of two summers, and twice they taste the pleasures natural to the season. This is a remarkable peculiarity of their history; and Belon positively assures us, that the stork has its second brood in Egypt.

It is said, that storks are never seen in England, unless they are driven upon the island by some storm. Albin remarks, as a singular circumstance, that there were two of these birds at Edgeware, in Middlesex; and Willoughby declares, that a figure which he gives was designed from one sent from the coast of Norfolk, where it had accidentally dropped. Nor does the stork occur in Scotland, if we judge from the silence of Sibbald. Yet it often penetrates the northern countries of Europe; into Sweden, over the whole of Scania, into Denmark, Siberia, Mangasea on the river Jenisca, and as far as the territories of the Jakutes. Great numbers are seen also in Hungary, Poland, and Lithuania. They are also met with in Turkey, and in Persia, where Bruyn observed their nest carved on the ruins of Persepolis; and according to that author, they are dispersed through the whole of Asia, except the desert parts, which they seem to shun, and the arid tracts, where they cannot subsist.

Aldrovandus assures us, that storks are never found in the territory of Bologna; they are rare even through the whole of Italy, where Willoughby, during a residence of twenty-eight years, saw them only once. Yet it appears, from Pliny and Varro, that anciently they were there common; and we can hardly doubt but that, in their route from Germany to Africa, or in their return, they must pass over Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean. Kœmpfer affirms, that they reside the whole year in Japan; which therefore, if he is correct, is the only country where they are stationary; in all others, they retire a few months after their arrival. In France, Lorraine and Alsace are the provinces where these birds are the most numerous; there they breed; and few towns or villages in Lower Alsace are without storks’ nests on their belfries.

The stork is of a mild disposition, neither shy nor savage; it is easily tamed; and may be trained to reside in our gardens, which it will clear of insects and reptiles. It has almost always a grave air, and a mournful visage; yet, when roused by example, it shews a certain degree of gaiety; for it joins the frolics of children, hopping and playing with them. Dr. Hermann, of Strasburg, says, “I saw in a garden, where the children were playing at hide and seek, a tame stork join the party, run its turn when touched, and distinguish the child, whose turn it was to pursue the rest, so well as to be on its guard.” In the domestic condition the stork lives to a great age, and endures the severities of our winters. Heerkens, of Groningen, author of a Latin poem on the stork, says that he kept one fifteen years; and speaks of another which lived twenty-one years in the fish-market of Amsterdam, and was interred with solemnity by the people. Olaus Borrichius mentions a stork aged more than twenty-two years, which became gouty.

To the stork are ascribed the virtues of temperance, conjugal fidelity, and filial and paternal piety. There is a history, famous in Holland, of “the Delft stork;” which, in the conflagration of that city, after having in vain attempted to rescue her young, perished with them in the flames. It is certain, that the stork bestows much time on the education of its young, and does not leave them till they have strength sufficient for their defence and support; when they begin to flutter out of the nest, the mother bears them on her wings, protects them from danger, and sometimes perishes with them rather than she will forsake them. The stork shows tokens of attachment to its old haunts, and even gratitude to the persons who have treated it with kindness. It has been heard to rap at the door in passing, as if to tell its arrival, and give a like sign of adieu on its departure. But these moral qualities are nothing in comparison of the affection and tender offices which these birds lavish on their aged and infirm parents. The young and vigorous storks frequently carry food to others, which, resting on the brink of the nest, seem languid and exhausted, either from accidental injuries or the infirmities of years.

The ancients assert, that nature has implanted in brutes this venerable piety, as an example to man, in whose breast the delicious sentiment is often obliterated. The law which compelled the maintenance of parents was enacted in honour of the stork, and inscribed by its name. Aristophanes draws from its conduct a bitter satire on the human race.

Ælian alleges, that the moral qualities of the stork were the chief cause of the respect and veneration which it enjoyed among the Egyptians; and the notion which the common people among whom it resorts still entertain, that its settling on a house betokens prosperity, is perhaps a vestige of the ancient opinion.

An ancient writer affirms, that the storks, worn out with old age, repair to certain islands in the ocean, where, in reward for their piety, they are changed into men. In auguries, the appearance of the stork denoted union and concord. Its departure in the time of public calamity was regarded as a dismal presage; Paul, the deacon, says, that Attila, having purposed to raise the siege of Aquileia, was determined to renew his operations, upon seeing storks retiring from the city and leading away their young. In hieroglyphics it signified piety and beneficence, virtues which its name expressed in the most ancient languages; and we often see the emblem, as on the two beautiful medals of L. Antonius, given in Fulvius Ursinus, and in two others of Q. Metellus, surnamed “the Pious,” as reported by Paterculus. Dr. Shaw says, that the Mahometans have a great esteem and veneration for it. It is almost as sacred among them as the ibis was among the Egyptians; and they would look upon a person as profane, who should kill or even harm it. So precious were storks held in Thessaly, which country they cleared of serpents, that the slayer of one of these birds was punished with death. They were not eaten among the Romans; and a person who, from a strange sort of luxury, ordered one to be brought to his table, drew upon himself the direful obloquy of the whole people. Nor is the flesh of this bird recommended by its quality--formed by nature for our friend, and almost our domestic, it was never destined to be our victim.[426]

[423] Boer in the low countries, and Bauer in Germany, signifies a farmer.

[424] Quæque salutato crepitat concordia nido. Juvenal, Sat. I.

Glotterat immenso de turre ciconia rostro. Aut. Philomel.

[425] Publius Syrus had made the same application of his word.

[426] Buffon.

* * * * *

VARIA.

For the Table Book.

NEWSPAPER READERS.

Shenstone, the poet, divides the readers of a newspaper into seven classes. He says--

1. The illnatured look at the list of bankrupts.

2. The poor to the price of bread.

3. The stockjobber to the lies of the day.

4. The old maid to marriages.

5. The prodigal to the deaths.

6. The monopolizers to the hopes of a wet and bad harvest.

7. The boarding-school and all other young misses, to all matters relative to Gretna Green.

FIRES IN LONDON.

From the registry of fires for one year, commencing Michaelmas 1805, it appears, that there were 366 alarms of fire, attended with little damage; 31 serious fires, and 155 alarms occasioned by chimneys being on fire, amounting in all to 552 accidents of this nature. The offices calculate on an alarm of fire every day, and about eight serious fires in every quarter of the year.

HENRY VIII. AND HIS PEERS.

When we advert to early parts of the history of this country, we cannot but be thankful to heaven for the progress of just principles, and the security we derive from the laws. In the reign of Henry VIII. that monarch wanted to carry some measure through the house of lords, contrary to its wishes. The peers hesitated in the morning, but consented in the afternoon. Some of their body waited on him to inform him thereof, when the tyrant made reply, “It is well you did it, or by this time half your heads would have been upon Temple Bar.”

FEMALE SHERIFFS AND JUSTICES.

Nicholas, earl of Thanet, was succeeded by his next brother John, the fourth earl, born 7th August, 1638. He also succeeded his mother Margaret, countess of Thanet, as baron Clifford, Westmoreland, and Vescey, who by her last will, dated June 19, 1676, gave the Yorkshire and Westmoreland estates to this John for life; she died the 14th August following, and he then succeeded her in the sheriffdoms of Westmoreland and Cumberland, where it frequently happened that female heiresses became possessed of them.

There are several instances of women bearing that office, as may be seen in most of the treatises in which that duty is mentioned. Those things required by it, not proper to be undertaken by a female, were intrusted to a deputy, or shire clerk.

Not only the office of sheriff, but even justice of peace, has been in the hands of the fair sex. Among the Harleian manuscripts is a very remarkable note, taken from Mr. Attorney-general Noy’s readings in Lincoln’s-inn, in 1632, in which, upon the point whether the office of a justice of a forest might be executed by a woman, it was said, that Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother to Henry VII., was a justice of peace; that the lady Bartlet was made a justice of peace by queen Mary in Gloucestershire; and that in Sussex, one Rouse, a woman, did usually sit upon the bench at assizes and sessions among the other justices, gladio-cincta, girded with a sword. It is equally certain, that Anne, countess of Pembroke, exercised the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmoreland, and at the assizes of Appleby sat with the judges on the bench, which puts this point beyond a question.

SAM SAM’S SON

* * * * *

WOMEN.

It is the opinion of Mr. J. P. Andrews, that antiquarians are by no means apt to pay great attention to the fair sex. He says,

“Their Venus must be old, and want a nose.”

He instances, as among those who have “set themselves most warmly” against females, old Antony à Wood, whose diary affords some specimens of grotesque dislike.

Page 167. “He” (sir Thomas Clayton) “and his family, most of them womankind, (which before were looked upon, if resident in the college, a scandal and abomination thereunto,) being no sooner settled,” &c. than “the warden’s garden must be altered, new trees planted, &c. All which, though unnecessary, yet the poor college must pay for them, and all this to please a woman!”

P. 168. “Frivolous expenses to pleasure his proud lady.”

P. 173. “Yet the warden, by the motion of his lady, did put the college to unnecessary charges and very frivolous expenses. Among which were a very large looking-glass, for her to see her ugly face and body to the middle, and perhaps lower.”

P. 252. “Cold entertainment, cold reception, cold, clownish woman.”

P. 257. “Dr. Bathurst took his place of vice-chancellor, a man of good parts, and able to do good things, but he has a wife that scorns that he should be in print. A scornful woman! Scorns that he was dean of Wells! No need of marrying such a woman, who is so conceited that she thinks herself fit to govern a college or a university.”

P. 270. “Charles lord Herbert, eldest son of Henry, marquis of Worcester, was matriculated as a member of Ch. Ch. Ætat 16. natus Lond. I set this down here, because the father and ancestors were all catholics, but because the mother is a presbyterian, a Capel, she (against the father’s will, as it is said) will have him bred a protestant; so that by this change the catholics will lose the considerablest family in England, and the richest subject the king has.”

Selden, too, is cited as an antiquarian inattentive to gallantry.

“It is reason,” says he, “a man that will have a wife should be at the charge of her trinkets, and pay all the scores she sets on him. He that will keep a monkey it is fit he should pay for the glasses he breaks.”

But ladies can, if they please, retaliate severely. A gentleman who had married a second wife, indulged himself in recurring too often in conversation to the beauty and virtues of his first consort. He had, however, barely discernment enough to discover that the subject was not an agreeable one to his present lady. “Excuse me, madam,” said he, “I cannot help expressing my regrets for the dear deceased.” “Upon my honour,” said the lady, “I can most heartily affirm that I am as sincere a mourner for her as you can be.”

* * * * *

DOWER.

There was an absolute necessity for providing a dower for the widow in the thirteenth century, because women at that period had no personal fortune to entitle them to a jointure by way of marriage. Shiernhook, and all the writers upon the ancient laws of the northern nations, dwell much upon the morgengavium; i. e. the present made by the husband to his wife the morning after consummation. It is singular, therefore, that we have no traces of such a custom. In the Philippine islands, a certain proportion of the dower is paid to the intended wife after liberty of conversing with her; a greater share for the permission of eating with her; and the balance upon consummation.[427]

[427] Gemelli, vol. v. Napoli, 1708.

* * * * *

SANS CHANGER.

For the Table Book.

The maiden, with a vivid eye, Whose breath is measured by her sigh; The maiden, with a lovely cheek, Whose blushes in their virtue break; Whose pulse and breath would die unblest If not by changeless Love carest;-- ’Tis she that gives her partner’s life The perfect and the happy wife Sans changer.

If choice be true, she proves a friend Whose friendship fails not to the end; She sweetens dear affection’s power That lasteth to life’s parting hour: Her heart beats that her love might go Through every pang her Love’s could know, And yields its latest throb, to give Truth to that heart she loves, to live Sans changer.

----.

* * * * *

CASUALTIES OF THE ANCIENTS.

To the Editor.

Your having, sir, inserted certain “Antipathies” which I communicated to your work, encourages me to hope you will find some “Casualties” not unacceptable.

Anacreon, according to Pliny and Valerius Maximus, was choked with the kernel of a raisin, and Tarquinius Priscus with a fishbone; the senator Fabius with a hair; and the very sight of a physician in a dream, frighted Andragorus out of his life. Homer, Rutilius, Rusciacus, and Pomperanus were overwhelmed with grief. Zeuxis and Philemon died with laughing; the one at the picture of an old woman which himself had drawn, the other at an ass eating of figs. Polycryta,[428] Philippides, and Diagorus were carried away with a sudden joy; and the tyrant Dionysius and Sophocles by excessive triumph at the news of a victory. The bald head of Æschylus cost him dearly; for an eagle hovering over it mistook it for a stone, and thinking to break an oyster upon it, gave him a mortal wound.[429] Archimedes was killed by a soldier, as he was making diagrams in the sand; and Pindar, in the theatre, by his repose as he lay on the knees of his dear Theoxenus.[430]

Like the people in Pliny, we pay tribute for a shadow. Every age, condition, and family has its peculiar evils. Cares and sorrows intermingle with our possessions and gratifications. We taste myrrh in our wine; and while we crop rosebuds to crown our heads, we prick our fingers. We do not so properly enjoy our pleasures, as suffer them.

“The portion of man is like that of a rose, which at first is fair as the morning, when it newly springs from the clefts of its hood, and full with the dew of heaven as the fleece of a lamb; but when a ruder breath has forced open its virgin modesty, and dismantled its retirements, it begins to decline to the symptoms of a sickly age; it bows the head and breaks the stalk, and at night having lost some of its leaves, and all its beauty, falls into the lap of noisome weeds.”[431]

ΠΡΙ

[428] Agellius, lib. iii. cap. 15.

[429] Suidas, Aristoph. in Ranis, lib. x. cap. 3. et Max. ibid.

[430] Θεοξενου γονατα, Suidas.

[431] Bishop Taylor

* * * * *

THE HOUR OF PRIME.

* * * * *

Mira d’intorno, Silvio, Quanto il mondo ha di vago, e di gentile, Opra e d’amore: * * * * * * Amante e il cielo, Amante La terra, Amante il mare. Al fine, Ama ogni cosa.

Pastor Fido.

* * * * *

Ask why the violet perfume throws O’er all the ambient air; Ask why so sweet the summer rose, Ask why the lily’s fair.

If these, in words, could answer frame, Or characters could trace, They’d say, the frolic zephyrs came And courted our embrace.

And we (unskill’d in that false lore That teaches how to feign, While days and years fly swiftly o’er, And ne’er return again,)

A prompt obedience ready paid To Nature’s kind command, And meeting Zephyr in the glade, We took his proffer’d hand.

And loving thus, we led along In jocund mirth the hours; The bee bestow’d her ceaseless song, The clouds refreshing show’rs.

From out the Iris’ radiant bow In gayest hues we drest, And all our joy is, that we know We have been truly blest.

Believe not in the sombre lay Of one[432] who lov’d grief’s theme, That “have been blest” is “title gay” “Of misery’s extreme.”

Discard so woe-begone a muse In melancholy drown’d, And list’ a mightier bard[433] who strews His laughing truths around.

“The rose distill’d is happier far Than that which, with’ring on the thorn, Lives, grows, and dies a prey to care In single blessedness forlorn.”

Mark then the lesson, O ye fair! The pretty flow’rets teach, The truths they tell more precious are Than coquetry can reach.

Or all cold prudence e’er design’d To cloud affection’s beams, To cross with doubts the youthful mind, Or cheat it with fond dreams.

Leave then at once all fond delay, Nor lose the hour of prime, For nought can call back yesterda Nor stop the hand of time.

And youth and beauty both have wings, No art can make them stay, While wisdom soft, but ceaseless sings, “Enjoy them while you may.”

E. E.

[432] Dr. Young.

[433] Shakspeare.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE SOLDIER’S RETURN.

A FRAGMENT.

The sound of trumpet, drum and fife Are fit for younger men, He seeks the calm retreat of life, His Mary and his glen.

----Many days and nights the wounded soldier travelled with his knapsack and stick to reach his native place, and find solace in the bosom of his relatives. The season merged into the solstice of winter, the roads were bad, his feet were tender, and his means were scanty. Few persons in years could have borne the fatigue and hardships he endured; but if he could find his wished-for Mary, he trusted all would be well--his spirit could not break while the hope of his earliest attachment survived. He had fought hard in the conflict of the battle-field--the conflict of love had not smoothed his “wrinkled front.” He trudged onward, and persevered till he reached the cottage of his nativity. It was humble but neat. He drew the latch, crossed the threshhold, and entered the domicile. An elderly female was lying on a bed. Her niece sat by the bedside reading to her. The maiden rose, and, putting the book aside, questioned his name and business. He threw down his knapsack; he caught the countenance, though faded from its youth, like his, of his dear, bedridden Mary, and, clasping his hands with hers, sat many hours reciting his history, and listening in tears to her afflictions, occasioned by his roving disposition. He now, to make reparation, seasoned her hopes by promises of final rest with her till their suns should set together in the sphere of earthly repose; for Mary was the only person living of all his once numerous companions in the Glen--

----.

Vol. II.--46.

This singular being, who in every thing, but his extraordinary powers of memory and calculation, is almost idiotic, was born at Buxted, in Sussex, in 1785, and has followed the occupation of a labourer. He is ignorant in the extreme, and uneducated, not being able to read or write; and yet he can, with facility, perform some of the most difficult calculations in arithmetic. The most extraordinary circumstance, however, is the power he possesses of recollecting the events of every day, from an early period of his life. Upon being asked, what day of the week a given day of the month occurred? he immediately names it, and also mentions where he was, and what was the state of the weather. A gentleman who had kept a diary, put many questions of this kind to him, and his replies were invariably correct. Watson has made two or three tours into Hampshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Somersetshire, and has exhibited his singular powers in the principal towns in those counties; is familiar with every town, village, and hamlet in Sussex, can tell the number of churches, public-houses, &c. in each. The accompanying portrait, drawn by Mr. S. W. Lee, of Lewes, will give a correct idea of this singular individual. Phrenologists, who have examined George’s skull, state the organ of numbers to be very strongly developed.

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XL.

[From “Fatal Jealousy,” a Tragedy, Author unknown, 1673.]

No Truth Absolute: after seeing a Masque of Gipseys.

1st Spectator. By this we see that all the world’s a cheat, Whose truths and falsehoods lie so intermixt, And are so like each other, that ’tis hard To find the difference. Who would not think these people A real pack of such as we call Gipseys? 2d Spect. Things perfectly alike are but the same; And these were Gipseys, if we did not know How to consider them the contrary: So in terrestrial things there is not one But takes its form and nature from our fancy, Not its own being, and is but what we think it. 1st Spect. But Truth is still itself? 2d Spect. No, not at all, as Truth appears to us; For oftentimes That is a truth to me, that’s false to you; So ’twould not be, if it was truly true.

* * * * *

How clouded Man Doubts first, and from one doubt doth soon proceed A thousand more, in solving of the first! Like ’nighted travellers we lose our way, Then every ignis fatuus makes us stray, By the false lights of reason led about, Till we arrive where we at first set out: Nor shall we e’er truth’s perfect highway see, Till dawns the day-break of eternity.

Apprehension

O Apprehension!-- So terrible the consequence appears. It makes my brain turn round, and night seem darker The moon begins to drown herself in clouds, Leaving a duskish horror everywhere. My sickly fancy makes the garden seem Like those benighted groves in Pluto’s kingdoms.

Injured Husband.

Wife (dying.) Oh, oh, I fain would live a little longer, If but to ask forgiveness of Gerardo! My soul will scarce reach heav’n without his pardon. Gerardo (entering). Who’s that would go to heav’n, Take it, whate’er thou art; and may’st thou be Happy in death, whate’er thou didst design.

Gerardo; his wife murdered.

Ger. It is in vain to look ’em,[434] if they hide; The garden’s large; besides, perhaps they’re gone. We’ll to the body. Servant. You are by it now, my Lord. Ger. This accident amazes me so much, I go I know not where.

Doubt.

Doubt is the effect of fear or jealousy, Two passions which to reason give the lye; For fear torments, and never doth assist; And jealousy is love lost in a mist. Both hood-wink truth, and go to blind-man’s-buff, Cry here, then there, seem to direct enough, But all the while shift place; making the mind, As it goes out of breath, despair to find; And, if at last something it stumbles on, Perhaps it calls it false, and then ’tis gone. If true, what’s gain’d? only just time to see A breachless[435] play, a game at liberty; That has no other end than this, that men Run to be tired, just to set down again.

Owl.

------ hark how the owl Summons their souls to take a flight with her, Where they shall be eternally benighted.--

* * * * *

[From the “Traitor,” a Tragedy, by J Shirley: by some said to have been written by one Rivers, a Jesuit: 1635.]

Sciarrah, whose life is forfeited, has offer of pardon, conditionally, that he bring his sister Amidea to consent to the Prince’s unlawful suit. He jestingly tries her affection.

Sci.--if thou could’st redeem me With anything but death, I think I should Consent to live. Amid. Nothing can be too precious To save a brother, such a loving brother As you have been. Sci. Death’s a devouring gamester, And sweeps up all;--what think’st thou of an eye? Could’st thou spare one, and think the blemish recompenced To see me safe with the other? or a hand-- This white hand, that has so often With admiration trembled on the lute, Till we have pray’d thee leave the strings awhile, And laid our ears close to thy ivory fingers, Suspecting all the harmony proceeded From their own motions without the need Of any dull or passive instrument.-- No, Amidea; thou shalt not bear one scar, To buy my life; the sickle shall not touch A flower, that grows so fair upon his stalk: I would live, and owe my life to thee, So ’twere not bought too dear. Amid. Do you believe, I should not find The way to heav’n, were both mine eyes thy ransom I shall climb up those high and ragged cliffs Without a hand.[436]

* * * * *

[From the “Huntingdon Divertisement,” an Interlude, “for the general entertainment at the County Feast, held at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, June 20th, 1678, by W. M.”]

Humour of a retired Knight.

Sir Jeoffry Doe-right. Master Generous Goodman.

Gen. Sir Jeoffry, good morrow. Sir J. The same to you, Sir. Gen. Your early zeal condemns the rising sun Of too much sloth; as if you did intend To catch the Muses napping. Sir J. Did you know The pleasures of an early contemplation, You’d never let Aurora blush to find You drowsy on your bed; but rouse, and spend Some short ejaculations,--how the night Disbands her sparkling troops at the approach Of the ensuing day, when th’ grey-eyed sky Ushers the golden signals of the morn; Whilst the magnanimous cock with joy proclaims The sun’s illustrious cavalcade. Your thoughts Would ruminate on all the works of Heaven, And th’ various dispensations of its power. Our predecessors better did improve The precious minutes of the morn than we Their lazy successors. Their practice taught And left us th’ good Proverbial, that “To rise Early makes all men healthy, wealthy, wise.” Gen. Your practice. Sir, merits our imitation; Where the least particle of night and day’s Improv’d to th’ best advantage, whilst your soul (Unclogg’d from th’ dross of melancholic cares) Makes every place a paradise. Sir J. ’Tis true, I bless my lucky stars, whose kind aspects Have fix’d me in this solitude. My youth Past thro’ the tropics of each fortune, I Was made her perfect tennis-ball; her smiles Now made me rich and honour’d; then her frowns Dash’d all my joys, and blasted all my hopes: Till, wearied by such interchange of weather, In court and city, I at length confined All my ambition to the Golden Mean, The Equinoctial of my fats; to amend The errors of my life by a good end.

C.L.

[434] The murderers.

[435] Breathless?

[436] My transcript breaks off here. Perhaps what follows was of less value; or perhaps I broke off, as I own I have sometimes done, to leave in my readers a relish, and an inclination to explore for themselves the genuine fountains of these old dramatic delicacies.

* * * * *

“BURNING THE WITCH”

AT BRIDLINGTON, &c.

For the Table Book.

A custom was very prevalent in this part of Yorkshire about fifty years ago, and earlier, which has since been gradually discontinuing, until it has become nearly extinct--called “burning the witch” in the harvest-field. On the evening of the day in which the last corn was cut belonging to a farmer, the reapers had a merrimaking, which consisted of an extra allowance of drink, and burning of peas in the straw. The peas when cut from the ground are left to dry in small heaps, named pea-reaps. Eight or ten of these reaps were collected into one, and set fire to in the field, whilst the labourers ran and danced about, ate the “brustled peas,” blacked each other’s faces with the burned straw, and played other tricks; the lads generally aiming for the lasses, and the lasses for the lads. Such of them as could add a little grease to the grime seldom failed to do it. Even the good dame herself has sometimes joined in the general sport, and consequently fallen in for her share of the face-blacking. The evening’s entertainment consisted also of the cream-pot, which was a supper of cream and cakes, provided and eaten in the house prior to the commencement of the sport in the field. Cream-pot cakes were made rather thick, and sweet with currants and caraway-seeds. They were crossed on the top by small squares, owing to the dough being slightly cut transversely immediately before baking. The practice of “burning the witch” probably had its origin in those days of superstition, when the belief in witchery so generally and, indeed, almost universally prevailed, and was considered necessary under an idea of its being available in preventing the overthrowing of the wains, the laming of the horses, and the injuring of the servants, and of securing general success in the removing, housing, or stacking of the produce of the farm.

T. C.

Bridlington, July, 1827.

* * * * *

P.S. October, 1827.--One evening in the harvest of this year I was at North Burton, near Bridlington, and three distinct fires were then seen in the fields.

T C.

WITCHCRAFT

For the Table Book.

RECOLLECTIONS OF PRACTICES FORMERLY USED TO AVERT AND AVOID THE POWER OF WITCHERY.

Having a small, smooth limestone, picked up on the beach, with its edges rubbed down by friction and the continual action of the sea, and with a natural hole through it, tied to the key of a house, warehouse, barn, stable, or other building, prevented the influence of witches over whatever the house, &c. contained.

Sailors nailed a horse-shoe on the foremast, and jockeys one on the stable-door, but to be effective the shoe ought necessarily to be found by accident.

On meeting a suspected witch the thumb of each hand was turned inward, and the fingers firmly closed upon it; care was also taken to let her have the wall-side or best path.

Caution was used that gloves, or any portion of apparel worn next to the skin, came not into the possession of a witch, as it was strongly believed she had an highly ascendant power over the rightful owner.

A bit of witch-wood, or a hare’s foot, was carried in the pocket, under an impression that the possessor was free from any harm that otherwise might accrue from the old hag’s malignant practices.

One thing of importance was not to go out of the house in a morning without taking a bite of bread, cake, or other eatable to break the fast.

A thick white curtain was hung inside the window, to prevent an “evil eye” being cast into the room.

If a few drops of the old creature’s blood could be obtained, they were considered sufficiently efficacious in preventing her “secret, black, and baneful workings.”

Although the practices abovementioned are spoken of in the past tense, they are not, at the present time, altogether done away; not a few, who are now living, are credulous enough to believe in their potency. The following may be mentioned as a fact, which occurred a short time ago in the neighbourhood where the writer of this article resides:--A person bought a pig, which after keeping for some time “grew very badly,” and witchery was suspected to be the cause; to ascertain the certainty of the fact nine buds of the elder-tree (here commonly called buttery) were laid in a straight line, and all pointing one way; a dish made of ash wood was inverted and placed carefully over them, and left to the next morning. This was done under an idea that if the pig was bewitched the buds would be found in disorder, but if not, in the state in which they were originally left.

T. C.

Bridlington, July 30, 1827.

* * * * *

OLD HOUSES AND FURNITURE.

To the Editor.

Sir,--A rare and valuable copy of “Holinshed’s Chronicles of Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande,” a black letter folio volume, with curious wood-cuts, “imprinted at London” in 1577, has lately fallen in my way, and afforded me considerable amusement. One chapter especially, in “The Seconde Booke of the Description of Britaine,” namely, “Cap. 10. Of the Maner of Buylding, and furniture of our Houses,” cannot fail, I think, to interest your readers.

After a very entertaining account of the construction of our ancient cottages and country houses before glass came into general use, this historian of the age of queen Elizabeth proceeds as follows:--

“The auncient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the most part of strong tymber. Howbeit such as be lately buylded are commonly either of bricke, or harde stone, their rowmes large and stately, and houses of office farder distaunt fro their lodginges. Those of the nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde stone, as provision may best be made; but so magnificent and stately, as the basest house of a barren doth often match with some honours of princes in olde tyme; so that if ever curious buylding did flourish in Englande it is in these our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in skill with old Vitrunius and Serlo. The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is growne in maner even to passing delicacie; and herein I do not speake of the nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the lowest sorte that have any thing ‘to take to.’[437] Certes, in noble men’s houses it is not rare to see abundance of arras, riche hangings of tapestry, silver vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sūdrie cupbordes, to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousande pounde at the least; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise, in the houses of knightes, gentlemē, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not geson to beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie, Turkye worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and therto costly cupbords of plate woorth five or sixe hundred pounde, to be demed by estimation. But as herein all these sortes doe farre exceede their elders and predecessours, so in tyme past the costly furniture STAYED THERE, whereas now it is descended yet lower, even unto the inferiour artificers and most fermers, who have learned to garnish also their cupbordes with plate, their beddes with tapestrie and silke hanginges, and their table with fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie doth infinitely appeare. Neither do I speake this in reproch of any man, God is my judge, but to shew that I doe rejoyce rather to see how God hath blessed us with hys good giftes, and to behold how that in a time, wherein all thinges are growen to most excessive prices, we doe yet finde the meanes to obtayne and atchieve such furniture as hath heretofore been impossible.

“There are olde men yet dwelling in the village where I remayne, which have noted three things to be marveylously altered in Englande within their sound remembraunce. One is, the multitude of chimnies lately erected, wheras, in their young dayes there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme, (the religious houses and mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and peradventure some great personages,) but eache one made his fire against a reredosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meate.

“The second is the great amendment of lodginge; for, sayde they, our fathers, and we ourselves, have lyen full oft upon straw pallettes, covered onely with a sheete under coverlettes, made of dagswain or hop-harlots, (I use their own termes,) and a good round logge under their heades in steade of a boulster. If it were so that our fathers, or the good man of the house, had a matteress or flockbed, and therto a sacke of chafe to rest hys head upon, he thought himself as well lodged as the lorde of the towne; so well were they contented. Pillowes, sayde they, were thoughte meete onely for women in childbed. As for servants if they had any sheete above them it was well; for seldom had they any under their bodies to keepe them from the pricking strawes that ran oft thorow the canvass, and raced their hardened hides.[438]

“The thirde thinge they tell of is the exchange of treene platters into pewter, and woode spoones into silver or tin. For so cōmon were al sortes of treene vesselles in old time, that a man should hardly find four peces of pewter, of which one was, peradventure, a salte in a good farmer’s house; and yet for al this frugalitie, (if it may so be justly called,) they were scarse able to lyve and paye their rentes at their dayes without selling of a cow or a horse, or more, although they payde but foure poundes at the uttermost by the yeare. Such also was their poverty, that if a fermour or husbandman had been at the ale-house, a thing greatly used in those dayes, or amongst sixe or seaven of hys neyghbours, and there in a bravery to shewe what store he had did cast down his purse, and therein a noble, or sixe shillings in silver, unto them, it was very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it: wheras, in my tyme, although peradventure foure pounde of olde rent be improved to fourty or fiftye pound, yet will the farmer think his gaines very small toward the middest of his terme, if he have not sixe or seaven yeres rent lying by him, therewith to purchase a newe lease, besides a faire garnish of pewter in his cowborde, three or foure feather beddes, so many coverlettes, and carpettes of tapestry, a silver salte, a bowle for wine, (if not an whole[439] neast,) and a dussen of spoones to furnishe up the sute. Thys also he taketh to be his owne cleare; for what stocke of money soever he gathereth in all his yeares, it is often seene that the landlorde will take such order with him for the same when he renueth his lease, which is commōly eight or ten yeares before it be expyred, sith it is nowe growen almost to a custome, that if he come not to his lorde so long before, another shall step in for a reversion, and so defeat him outright, that it shall never trouble him more, then the heare of his bearde when the barber hath washed and shaven it from his chinne.”

Submitting the above to the especial consideration of our “beaux” and “belles,” doctors and patients, landlords and farmers, and informing these last, that in the two reigns preceding land was let for one shilling per acre,

I remain, Mr. Editor,

yours respectfully,

N. S.

Morley, near Leeds,

October 15, 1827.

[437] “To tack to,” a very common expression among the lower classes hereabouts.

[438] It may be useful to note, that as the body is often called hereabouts the “carcass,” so the skin is the “hide.”

[439] I presume a “peg tankerd,” a “wassail cup,” a “porringer” or two, and a dozen “apostles’ spoons,” would seem a pretty “neast” in these days. As to the silver salte “thereby hangs a tale,” and a curious one too, as I have discovered since writing the above. See Drake’s “Illustrations of Shakspeare, &c.” vol. i. p. 74.

* * * * *

LONDINIANA.

For the Table Book.

Mr. Editor,--Since most of your readers will readily admit the propriety of the adage, “Time and quarter-day wait for no man,” allow me the favour of insertion for the following rhyming couplets, by John Heywood the elder, distinctively known as “the epigrammatist.” They are an extract from his “Workes, newlie imprinted, with six hundrede very pleasant, pithie, and ingenious Epigrammes, 1598, 4to.;” and are thus entitled:--

SEEKING FOR A DWELLING-PLACE.

Still thou seekest for a quiet dwelling place-- What place for quietnes hast thou now in chase: London bridge--that’s ill for thee, for the water. Queene hyth--that’s more ill for an other matter. Smart’s key--that’s most ill for feare of smarting smart. Carter lane--nay, nay, that sounded all on the cart. Pawl’s cheyne--nay, in no wise dwell not nere the chaine. Wood street--why wilt thou be wood yet once againe. Bread street--that’s too drie, by drought thou shalt be dead. Philpot lane--that breedeth moist humours in the head. Silver street--coppersmiths in Silver street; fie. Newgate street--’ware that, man, Newgate is hard bie. Foster lane--thou wilt as soone be tide fast, as fast. Crooked lane--nay crooke no more, be streight at last. Creed lane--they fall out there, brother against brother. Ave mary lane--that’s as ill as the tother. Pater noster row--aye, Pater noster row-- Agreed--that’s the quietest place that I know.

Sign. B b 3.

London-bridge had then houses upon it--a circumstance more fully treated of in the Chronicles of London-bridge, recently published--and half Foster-lane is becoming extinct by the erection of the new general-post-office. The other places still retain their old appellations.

I am, &c.

WILL O’ TH’ WISP.

Oct. 12, 1827.

* * * * *

~Thomsoniana.~

To the Editor.

Sir,--I shall be greatly obliged, and there can be no doubt your readers will be considerably interested, by your insertion of the subjoined article in your valuable Table Book. It was copied from the “Weekly Entertainer,” published at Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, in the year 1800.

I am, sir,

Yours, very respectfully,

G. H. I.

Memoranda of Mr. Thomson, the poet, collected from Mr. William Taylor, formerly a barber and peruke-maker, at Richmond, Surrey, now blind. September, 1791.

(Communicated by the Earl of Buchan.)

Q. Mr. Taylor, do you remember any thing of Thomson, who lived in Kew-lane some years ago?

A. Thomson?--

Q. Thomson, the poet.

A. Ay, very well. I have taken him by the nose many hundred times. I shaved him, I believe, seven or eight years, or more; he had a face as long as a horse; and he sweated so much, that I remember, after walking one day in summer, I shaved his head without lather by his own desire. His hair was as soft as a camel’s; I hardly ever felt such; and yet it grew so remarkably, that if it was but an inch long, it stood upright an end from his head like a brush. (Mr. Robertson[440] confirmed this remark.)

Q. His person, I am told, was large and clumsy?

A. Yes; he was pretty corpulent, and stooped forward rather when he walked, as though he was full of thought; he was very careless and negligent about his dress, and wore his clothes remarkably plain. (Mr. Robertson, when I read this to him, said, “He was clean, and yet slovenly; he stooped a good deal.”)

Q. Did he always wear a wig?

A. Always, in my memory, and very extravagant he was with them. I have seen a dozen at a time hanging up in my master’s shop, and all of them so big that nobody else could wear them. I suppose his sweating to such a degree made him have so many; for I have known him spoil a new one only in walking from London.

Q. He was a great walker, I believe?

A. Yes, he used to walk from Malloch’s, at Strand on the Green, near Kew Bridge, and from London, at all hours in the night; he seldom liked to go in a carriage, and I never saw him on horseback; I believe he was too fearful to ride. (Mr. Robertson said he could not bear to get upon a horse.)

Q. Had he a Scotch accent?

A. Very broad; he always called me Wull.

Q. Did you know any of his relations?

A. Yes; he had two nephews, (cousins,) Andrew and Gilbert Thomson, both gardeners, who were much with him. Andrew used to work in his garden, and keep it in order, at over hours; he died at Richmond, about eleven years ago, of a cancer in his face. Gilbert, his brother, lived at East Sheen, with one esquire Taylor, till he fell out of a mulberry-tree and was killed.

Q. Did Thomson keep much company?

A. Yes; a good deal of the writing sort. I remember Pope, and Paterson, and Malloch, and Lyttleton, and Dr. Armstrong, and Andrew Millar, the bookseller, who had a house near Thomson’s, in Kew-lane. Mr. Robertson could tell you more about them.

Q. Did Pope often visit him?

A. Very often; he used to wear a light-coloured great coat, and commonly kept it on in the house; he was a strange, ill-formed, little figure of a man; but I have heard him and Quin, and Paterson, talk together so at Thomson’s, that I could have listened to them for ever.

Q. Quin was frequently there, I suppose?

A. Yes; Mrs. Hobart, his housekeeper, often wished Quin dead, he made her master drink so. I have seen him and Quin coming from the Castle together at four o’clock in a morning, and not over sober you may be sure. When he was writing in his own house, he frequently sat with a bowl of punch before him, and that a good large one too.

Q. Did he sit much in his garden?

A. Yes, he had an arbour at the end of it, where he used to write in summer time. I have known him lie along by himself upon the grass near it, and talk away as though three or four people were along with him. (This might probably be when he was reciting his own compositions.)

Q. Did you ever see any of his writing?

A. I was once tempted, I remember, to take a peep; his papers used to lie in a loose pile upon the table in his study, and I had longed for a look at them a good while: so one morning while I was waiting in the room to shave him, and he was longer than usual before he came down, I slipped off the top sheet of paper, and expected to find something very curious, but I could make nothing of it. I could not even read it, for the letters looked like all in one.

Q. He was very affable in his manner?

A. O yes! he had no pride; he was very free in his conversation and very cheerful, and one of the best natured men that ever lived.

Q. He was seldom much burthened with cash?

A. No; to be sure he was deuced long-winded; but when he had money, he would send for his creditors, and pay them all round; he has paid my master between twenty and thirty pounds at a time.

Q. You did not keep a shop yourself then at that time?

A. No, sir; I lived with one Lander here for twenty years; and it was while I was apprentice and journeyman with him that I used to wait on Mr. Thomson. Lander made his majors and bobs, and a person of the name of Taylor, in Craven-street, in the Strand, made his tie-wigs. An excellent customer he was to both.

Q. Did you dress any of his visitors?

A. Yes; Quin and Lyttleton, sir George, I think he was called. He was so tender-faced I remember, and so devilish difficult to shave, that none of the men in the shop dared to venture on him except myself. I have often taken Quin by the nose too, which required some courage, let me tell you. One day he asked particularly if the razor was in good order; and protested he had as many barbers’ ears in his parlour at home, as any boy had of birds’ eggs on a string; and swore, if I did not shave him smoothly, he would add mine to the number. “Ah,” said Thomson, “Wull shaves very well, I assure you.”

Q. You have seen the “Seasons,” I suppose?

A. Yes, sir; and once had a great deal of them by heart. (He here quoted a passage from “Spring.”) Shepherd, who formerly kept the Castle inn, showed me a book of Thomson’s writing, which was about the rebellion in 1745, and set to music, but I think he told me not published. (I mentioned this to Mr. Robertson, but he thought Taylor had made small mistake; perhaps it might be some of the patriotic songs in the masque of Alfred.)

Q. The cause of his death is said to have been by taking a boat from Kew to Richmond, when he was much heated by walking?

A. No; I believe he got the better of that; but having had a batch of drinking with Quin, he took a quantity of cream of tartar, as he frequently did on such occasions, which, with a fever before, carried him off. (Mr. Robertson did not assent to this.)

Q. He lived, I think, in Kew Foot-lane?

A. Yes, and died there; at the furthest house next Richmond Gardens, now Mr. Boscawen’s. He lived sometime before at a smaller one higher up, inhabited by Mrs. Davis.

Q. Did you attend on him to the last?

A. Sir, I shaved him the very day before his death; he was very weak, but made a shift to sit up in bed. I asked him how he found himself that morning. “Ah, Wull,” he replied, “I am very bad indeed.” (Mr. Robertson told me, he ordered this operation himself as a refreshment to his friend.)

Taylor concluded by giving a hearty encomium on his character.

This conversation took place at one of the alcoves on Richmond-green, where I accidentally dropped in. I afterwards found it was a rural rendezvous for a set of old invalids on nature’s infirm list; who met there every afternoon, in fine weather, to recount and comment on the “tale of other times.”

I inquired after Lander, and Mrs. Hobart, and Taylor, of Craven-street, but found that none of them were surviving. Mrs. Hobart was thought to have a daughter married in the town, called Egerton; but it was not likely, from the distance of time, that she could impart any thing new.

Taylor told me, the late Dr. Dodd had applied to him several years ago for anecdotes and information relative to Thomson.

Park Egerton, the bookseller, near Whitehall, tells me, that when Thomson first came to London, he took up his abode with his predecessor, Millan, and finished his poem of “Winter” in the apartment over the shop; that Millan printed it for him, and it remained on his shelves a long time unnoticed; but after Thomson began to gain some reputation as a poet, he either went himself, or was taken by Mallet, to Millar in the Strand, with whom he entered into new engagements for printing his works; which so much incensed Millan, his first patron, and his countryman also, that they never afterwards were cordially reconciled, although lord Lyttleton took uncommon pains to mediate between them.

[440] It appears that this gentleman was very intimate with the author of the “Seasons,” but we know nothing farther respecting him.

* * * * *

AN OLD SONG RESTORED

“BUSY, CURIOUS, THIRSTY FLY.”

To the Editor.

Sir,--In Ritson’s “Collection of Old Songs” are but two verses of this, in my estimation, very beautiful song. Going from this place, Liverpool, to Chester, it was my good fortune to hear a blind fiddler on board the packet both play and sing the whole of the following, which I procured from him at his domicile about two years ago. He was lost in the same boat with the captain and others, during a gale of wind off Elesmere port. If you think them worthy a place in your amusing Table Book, be pleased to accept from

Sir, Your most obedient servant,

J. F. PHŒNIX.

Bold-street, Liverpool,

Oct. 15, 1827.

Busy, curious, thirsty fly Drink with me and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sup it up. Make the most of life you may, Life is short and wears away. Life is short, &c.

Both alike are thine and mine, Hastening quick to their decline; Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more, Though repeated to threescore; Threescore summers, when they’re gone, Then will appear as short as one. Then will appear, &c.

Time seems little to look back, And moves on like clock or jack; As the moments of the fly Fortune swiftly passes by, And, when life’s short thread is spun, The larum strikes, and we are gone. The larum, &c.

What is life men so prefer? It is but sorrow, toil, and care: He that is endow’d with wealth Oftentimes may want his health, And a man of healthful state Poverty may be his fate. Poverty may, &c.

Some are so inclined to pride, That the poor they can’t abide, Tho’ themselves are not secure, He that’s rich may soon be poor; Fortune is at no man’s call, Some shall rise whilst others fall. Some shall, &c.

Some ambitious men do soar For to get themselves in power, And those mirk and airy fools Strive to advance their master’s rule; But a sudden turn of fate Shall humble him who once was great. Shall humble, &c.

He that will live happy must Be to his king and country just; Be content, and that is more Than all the miser’s golden store; And whenever life shall cease, He may lay him down in peace. He may lay, &c.

* * * * *

HERMITS.

Mr. J. Pettit Andrews has two anecdotes concerning hermits, which exemplify the strength of the “ruling” passion, when the individual is “dead to the world:” viz.

ST. ROMUALD.

Born at Ravenna, of noble parentage; he embraced, towards the middle of the tenth century, the state of a hermit, under the direction of a solitary, whose severity at least equalled his piety. Romuald bore for a long time, without a murmur, the repeated thumps which he received from his holy teacher; but observing that they were continually directed to his left side, “Honour my right ear, my dear master,” said he, meekly, “with some of your attention, for I have nearly lost the use of my left ear, through your partiality to that side.” Romuald, when he became master of his own conduct, showed that he could on occasion copy the rigour of his preceptor; for, hearing that his own father, who had embraced a monastic life, entertained thoughts of re-entering the world again, he hurried to the monastery, and, by the rhetoric of a very hearty drubbing, brought his unsteady parent over to a more settled way of thinking.

AMADEUS, DUKE OF SAVOY.

This prince, in the fifteenth century, took upon him to become a hermit; with how much abstinence and moderation he demeaned himself, may be judged from this circumstance, that the French make use of the expression “faire ripailles,” when they would speak of giving way to every indulgence and enjoyment; and they take the term from “Ripailles,” the name of this pious recluse’s hermitage.

Besides his attachment to every possible luxury, this holy anchoret had a peculiar pride in his beard, which was singularly fine and picturesque. Political motives made the cardinals seek him in his retreat, to confer on him the dignity of pope; but no persuasions nor representations would make him consent to part with that favourite beard, until the ridicule which its preposterous appearance under the tiara occasioned, brought him to agree to its removal. Even the pomp of the papal chair could not long detain him from Ripailles. He soon quitted the triple crown, that he might repossess his beloved retreat.

A HERMIT’S MEDITATION.

In lonesome cave Of noise and interruption void, His thoughtful solitude A hermit thus enjoy’d:

His choicest book The remnant of a human head The volume was, whence he This solemn lecture read:--

“Whoe’er thou wert, Partner of my retirement now, My nearest intimate, My best companion thou!

On thee to muse The busy living world I left; Of converse all but thine, And silent that, bereft.

Wert thou the rich, The idol of a gazing crowd? Wert thou the great, To whom obsequious thousands bow’d?

Was learning’s store E’er treasur’d up within this shell? Did wisdom e’er within This empty hollow dwell?

Did youthful charms E’er redden on this ghastful face? Did beauty’s bloom these cheeks, This forehead ever grace?

If on this brow E’er sat the scornful, haughty frown, Deceitful pride! where now Is that disdain?----’tis gone.

If cheerful mirth A gayness o’er this baldness cast, Delusive, fleeting joy! Where is it now?----’tis past.

To deck this scalp If tedious long-liv’d hours it cost. Vain, fruitless toil! where’s now That labour seen?----’tis lost.

But painful sweat, The dear-earn’d price of daily bread, Was all, perhaps, that thee With hungry sorrows fed.

Perhaps but tears, Surest relief of heart-sick woe, Thine only drink, from down These sockets us’d to flow.

Oppress’d perhaps With aches and with aged cares, Down to the grave thou brought’st A few, and hoary, hairs:

’Tis all perhaps! No marks, no token can I trace What, on this stage of life Thy rank or station was.

Nameless, unknown! Of all distinction stript and bare, In nakedness conceal’d, Oh! who shall thee declare?

Nameless, unknown! Yet fit companion thou for me, Who hear no human voice No human visage see.

From me, from thee, The glories of the world are gone; Nor yet have either lost What we could call our own.

What we are now, The great, the wise, the fair, the brave, Shall all hereafter be, All Hermits--in the grave.”

* * * * *

CURIOUS ANECDOTES OF BIRMINGHAM MANUFACTURERS AND MANUFACTURES.

Birmingham, says the late Mr. William Hutton, (the historian of this large and populous town,) Birmingham began with the productions of the anvil, and probably will end with them. The sons of the hammer were once her chief inhabitants; but that great crowd of artists is now lost in a greater. Genius seems to increase with multitude. Part of the riches, extension, and improvement of Birmingham, are owing to the late John Taylor, Esq. who possessed the singular power of perceiving things as they really were. The spring and consequence of action were open to his view. He rose from minute beginnings to shine in the commercial, as Shakspeare did in the poetical, and Newton in the philosophical, hemisphere.

To this uncommon genius we owe the gilt button, the japanned and gilt snuff-boxes, with the numerous race of enamels. From the same fountain issued the painted snuff-box, at which one servant earned three pounds ten shillings per week, by painting them at a farthing each. In his shops were weekly manufactured, buttons to the amount of 800_l._, exclusive of other valuable productions. One of the present nobility, of distinguished taste, examining the works with the master, purchased some of the articles, among others, a toy of eighty guineas value; and while paying for them, observed with a smile, “he plainly saw he could not reside in Birmingham for less than two hundred pounds a day.” Mr. Taylor died in 1775, at the age of sixty-four, after acquiring a fortune of 200,000_l._

The active powers of genius, the instigation of profit, and the affinity of one calling to another, often induce the artist to change his occupation. There is nothing more common among us; even the divine and the lawyer are prone to this change. Thus the church throws her dead weight into the scale of commerce, and the law gives up the cause of contention: but there is nothing more disgraceful, except thieving, in other places. “I am told,” says an elderly gentleman, as he amused himself in a pitiful bookseller’s shop in a wretched market town, “that you are a stocking-maker by trade!” The humble bookseller, half confused, and wholly ashamed, could not deny the charge. “Ah,” cried the senior, whose features were modelled between the sneer and the smile, “there is neither honour nor profit in changing the trade you were bred to. Do not attempt to sell books, but stay at home, and pursue your own business.” The dejected bookseller, scarcely one step higher than a “walking stationer,” lived to acquire a large fortune. Had he followed the senior’s advice, he might, like a common foot soldier, have starved upon eight-pence a day. This humble and dejected bookseller was Mr. Hutton himself. He says, toy trades first made their appearance in Birmingham in the beginning of Charles the Second’s reign, in an endless variety, attended with all their beauties and their graces. When he wrote, he ranked, as first in preeminence, the

BUTTON.

This beautiful ornament, says Mr. Hutton, appears with infinite variation; and though the original date is rather uncertain, yet we well remember the long coats of our grandfathers covered with half a gross of high tops, and the cloaks of our grandmothers ornamented with a horn button nearly the size of a crown piece, a watch, or a John-apple, curiously wrought, as having passed through the Birmingham press.

Though, continues Mr. Hutton, the common round button keeps on with the steady pace of the day, yet we sometimes see the oval, the square, the pea, the concave, and the pyramid, flash into existence. In some branches of traffic the wearer calls loudly for new fashions; but in this, the fashions tread upon each other, and crowd upon the wearer. The consumption of this article is astonishing: the value in 1781 was from three-pence a gross to one hundred and forty guineas.

In 1818, the art of gilding buttons was arrived at such a degree of refinement in Birmingham, that three pennyworth of gold was made to cover a gross of buttons: these were sold at a price proportionably low. The experiment has been tried to produce gilt buttons without any gold; but it was found not to answer, the manufacturer losing more in the consumption than he saved in the material. There seems, says Mr. Hutton, to be hidden treasures couched within this magic circle, known only to a few, who extract prodigious fortunes out of this useful toy, whilst a far greater number submit to a statute of bankruptcy. Trade, like a restive horse, can rarely be managed; for, where one is carried to the end of a successful journey, many are thrown off by the way.

The next to which Mr. Hutton calls our attention, is the

BUCKLE.

Perhaps the shoe, in one form or other, is nearly as ancient as the foot. It originally appeared under the name of sandal; this was no other than a sole without an upper-leather. That fashion has since been inverted, and we have sometimes seen an upper-leather nearly without a sole. But whatever was the cut of the shoe, it always demanded a fastening. Under the house of Plantagenet, the shoe shot horizontally from the foot, like a Dutch skate, to an enormous length; so that the extremity was fastened to the knee, sometimes with a silver chain, a silk lace, or even a packthread string, rather than avoid genteel taste.

This thriving beak drew the attention of the legislature, which determined to prune the exorbitant shoot; for, in 1465, we find an order of council, prohibiting the growth of the shoe toe beyond two inches, under the penalty of a dreadful curse from the priest--and, what was worse, the payment of twenty shillings to the king.

This fashion, like every other, gave way to time; and, in its stead, the rose began to bud upon the foot, which, under the house of Tudor, opened in great perfection. No shoe was fashionable without being fastened with a full blown rose. Ribbons of every colour, except white, the emblem of the depressed house of York, were had in esteem; but the red, like the house of Lancaster, held the preeminence. Under the house of Stuart the rose withered, which gave rise to the shoestring. The beaux of that age ornamented their lower tier with double laces of silk, tagged with silver, and the extremities were beautified with a small fringe of the same metal. The inferior class wore laces of plain silk, linen, or even a thong of leather; which last is yet to be met with in the humble plains of rural life.

The revolution was remarkable for the introduction of William, of liberty, and the minute buckle, not differing much in size and shape from the horse bean.

This offspring of fancy, like the clouds, is ever changing. The fashion of to-day is thrown into the casting-pot to-morrow.

The buckle seems to have undergone every figure, size, and shape of geometrical invention. It has passed through every form in Euclid. The large square buckle, plated with silver, was the ton of 1781. The ladies also adopted the reigning taste; it was difficult to discover their beautiful little feet, covered with an enormous shield of buckle; and we wondered to see the active motion under the massive load.

In 1812, the whole generation of fashions, in the buckle line, was extinct; a buckle was not to be found on a female foot, nor upon any foot except that of old age.

GUNS.

King William was once lamenting, “that guns were not manufactured in his dominions, but that he was obliged to procure them from Holland, at a great expense, and with greater difficulty.” Sir Richard Newdigate, one of the members for the county, being present, told the king, “that genius resided in Warwickshire, and that he thought his constituents would answer his majesty’s wishes.” The king was pleased with the remark, and the member posted to Birmingham. Upon application to a person in Digbeth, the pattern was executed with precision, and, when presented to the royal board, gave entire satisfaction. Orders were immediately issued for large numbers, which have been so frequently repeated, that they never lost their road; and the ingenious artists were so amply rewarded, that they have rolled in their carriages to this day.

It seems that the word “London” marked upon guns is a better passport than the word “Birmingham;” and the Birmingham gun-makers had long been in the habit of marking their goods as being made in London.

In 1813 some of the principal gun-makers of London brought a bill into the House of Commons to oblige every manufacturer of firearms to mark them with his real name and place of abode. The Birmingham gun-makers took the alarm; petitioned the house against the bill, and thirty-two gun-makers instantly subscribed six hundred and fifty pounds to defray the expense of opposing it. They represented that they made the component parts of the London guns, which differed from theirs only in being put together, and marked in the metropolis.

Government authorized the gun-makers of Birmingham to erect a proof-house of their own, with wardens and a proof master; and allowed them to decorate their guns with the ensigns of royalty. All firearms manufactured in Birmingham and its vicinity are subjected to the proof required by the Board of Ordnance: the expense is not to exceed one shilling each piece; and the neglect of proving is attended with a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds.

LEATHER.

Though there is little appearance of that necessary article in Birmingham, yet it was once a famous market for leather. Digbeth not only abounded with tanners, but large numbers of hides arrived weekly for sale, and here the whole country found a supply. When the weather would allow, they were ranged in columns in the High-street, and at other times deposited in the leather-hall, at the east end of New-street, appropriated for their reception. This market was of great antiquity, perhaps not less than seven hundred years, and continued till the beginning of the eighteenth century. Two officers are still annually chosen, who are named leather sealers, from a power given them by ancient charter to mark the vendible hides; but now the leather sealers have no duty, but that of taking an elegant dinner. Shops are erected on tan-vats, the leather-hall is gone to destruction, and in 1781 there was only one solitary tanner in Birmingham.

STEEL.

The manufacture of iron, in Birmingham, is ancient beyond research; that of steel is of modern date.

Pride is inseparable from the human character; the man without it, is the man without breath. We trace it in various forms, through every degree of people; but like those objects about us, it is best discovered in our own sphere; those above and those below us rather escape our notice; envy attacks an equal. Pride induced the pope to look with contempt on the European princes, and it now induces them to return the compliment; it taught insolence to the Spaniard, selfishness to the Dutch; it teaches the rival nations of France and England to contend for power. Pride induced a late high bailiff of Birmingham, at the proclamation of the Michaelmas fair, to hold his wand two feet higher than the usual rest, that he might dazzle the crowd with a beautiful glove hanging pendant, a ruffle curiously wrought, a ring set with brilliants, and a hand delicately white. Pride preserves a man from mean actions; it throws him upon meaner. It whets the sword for destruction; it urges the laudable acts of humanity. It is the universal hinge on which we move; it glides with the gentle stream of usefulness; it overflows the mounds of reason, and swells into a destructive flood. Like the sun, in his milder rays, it animates and draws us towards perfection; but like him, in his fiercer beams, it scorches and destroys.

Money is not the necessary attendant of pride, for it abounds nowhere more than in the lowest ranks. It adds a sprucer air to a Sunday dress, casts a look of disdain upon a bundle of rags; it boasts the honour of a family, while poverty unites a sole and upper leather with a bandage of shop-thread. There are people who even pride themselves upon humility.

This dangerous good, this necessary evil, supports the female character; without it, the brightest part of the creation would degenerate. It will be asked, “What portion may be allowed?” Prudence will answer, “As much as you please, but not to disgust.” It is equally found in the senate-house and the button-shop. The scene of action is the scene of pride. He who makes steel prides himself in carrying the art one step higher than he who makes iron.

This art appeared at Birmingham in the seventeenth century, and was introduced by the family of Kettle. The name of Steelhouse-lane will convey to posterity the situation of the works; the commercial spirit of Birmingham will convey the produce to the antipodes.

From the warm but dismal climate of this town issues the button which shines on the breast, and the bayonet intended to pierce it; the lancet which bleeds the man, and the rowel the horse; the lock which preserves the beloved bottle, and the screw to uncork it; the needle, equally obedient to the thimble and the pole.

BRASS WORKS.

The manufacture of brass was introduced into Birmingham by the family of Turner about 1740. They erected those works at the south end of Coleshill-street; then near two hundred yards beyond the buildings, but now the buildings extend half a mile beyond them.

Under the black clouds which arose from this corpulent tunnel, some of the trades collected their daily supply of brass, but the major part was drawn from the Macclesfield, Cheadle, and Bristol companies.

“Causes are known by their effects;” the fine feelings of the heart are easily read in the features of the face; the still operations of the mind are discovered by the rougher operations of the hand. Every creature is fond of power, from that noble head of the creation man, who devours man, down to that insignificant mite who devours his cheese: every man strives to be free himself, and to shackle another. Where there is power of any kind, whether in the hands of a prince, a people, a body of men, or a private person, there is a propensity to abuse it: abuse of power will everlastingly seek itself a remedy, and frequently find it; nay, even this remedy may in time degenerate into abuse, and call loudly for another.

Brass is an object of some magnitude in the trades of Birmingham, the consumption is said to be a thousand tons per annum. The manufacture of this useful article had long been in the hands of few and opulent men, who, instead of making the humble bow for favours received, acted with despotic sovereignty, established their own laws, chose their customers, directed the price, and governed the market. In 1780 the article rose, either through caprice or necessity, perhaps the former, from seventy-two pounds a ton to eighty-four pounds. The result was, an advance upon the goods manufactured, followed by a number of counter-orders, and a stagnation of business.

In 1781, a person, from affection to the user or resentment to the maker, perhaps the latter, harangued the public in the weekly papers, censured the arbitrary measures of the brazen sovereigns, showed their dangerous influence over the trades of the town, and the easy manner in which works of our own might be constructed. Good often arises out of evil; this fiery match quickly kindled another furnace in Birmingham. Public meetings were advertised, a committee appointed, and subscriptions opened to fill two hundred shares, of one hundred pounds each, which was deemed a sufficient capital; each proprietor of a share to purchase one ton of brass annually. Works were immediately erected upon the banks of the canal, for the advantage of water carriage, and the whole was conducted with the true spirit of Birmingham freedom.

The old companies, which we may justly consider the directors of a South Sea bubble in miniature, sunk the price from eighty-four pounds to fifty-six pounds. Two inferences arise from this measure; that their profits were once very high, or were now very low; and, that like some former monarchs in the abuse of power, they repented one day too late.

NAILS.

The art of nail-making is one of the most ancient in Birmingham. It is not, however, so much a trade in, as of Birmingham, for there are but few nail-makers left in the town; the nailors are chiefly masters, and rather opulent. The manufacturers are so scattered round the country, that we cannot travel far in any direction out of the sound of the nail-hammer. Birmingham, like a powerful magnet, draws the produce of the anvil to herself.

When I first approached Birmingham, says Mr. Hutton, from Walsall in 1741, I was surprised at the prodigious number of blacksmiths’ shops upon the road; and could not conceive how a country, though populous, could support so many people of the same occupation. In some of these shops I observed one or more females stript of their upper garment, and not overcharged with their lower, wielding the hammer with all the grace of the sex. The beauties of their face were rather eclipsed by the smut of the anvil. Struck with the novelty, I inquired “Whether the ladies in this country shod horses?” but was answered, with a smile, “They are nailers.”

A fire without heat, a nailer of a fair complexion, or one who despises the tankard, are equally rare among them. His whole system of faith may be comprised in one article--That the slender mug, used in a public-house, “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

While the master reaps harvest of plenty, the workman submits to the scanty gleanings of penury, a thin habit, an early old age, and a figure bending towards the earth. Plenty comes not near his dwelling, except of rags and of children. His hammer is worn into deep hollows, fitting the fingers of a dark hand, hard as the timber it wears. His face, like the moon, is often seen through a cloud.

BELLOWS.

Man first catches the profession; the profession afterwards moulds the man. In whatever profession we engage we assume its character, become a part of it, vindicate its honour, its eminence, its antiquity, or feel a wound through its sides. Though there may be no more pride in a minister of state who opens a budget, than in a tinker who carries one, yet they equally contend for the honour of their trade.

The bellows-maker proclaims the honour of his art by observing, he alone produces that instrument which commands the winds; his soft breeze, like that of the south, counteracts the chill blasts of winter; by his efforts, like those of the sun, the world receives light; he creates when he pleases, and gives breath when he creates. In his caverns the winds sleep at pleasure, and by his “orders” they set Europe in flames. He farther pretends, that the antiquity of his occupation will appear from the plenty of elm, once in the neighbourhood, but long cut up for his use; that the leather-market in Birmingham, for many ages, furnished him with sides; and though the manufacture of iron is allowed to be extremely ancient, yet the smith could not procure his heat without a blast, nor could that blast be raised without the bellows. One inference will arise from these remarks, that bellows-making is one of the oldest trades in Birmingham.

THREAD.

We who reside in the interior parts of the kingdom may observe the first traces of a river when it issues from its fountain, the current so extremely small, that if a bottle of liquor, distilled through the urinary vessels, were discharged into its course, it would manifestly augment the water and quicken the stream: the reviving bottle, having added spirits to the man, would seem to add spirits to the river. If we pursue this river, winding through one hundred and thirty miles, we shall observe it collect strength as it runs, expand its borders, swell into consequence, employ multitudes of people, carry wealth in its bosom, and exactly resemble thread-making in Birmingham. If we represent to our ideas a man able to employ three or four people, himself in an apron one of the number, but who being unable to write his name, shows his attachment to the Christian religion by signing the cross to receipts; whose method of book-keeping, like that of the publican, is a door and a lump of chalk; producing a book which none can peruse but himself; who having manufactured forty pounds weight of thread, of divers colours, and rammed it into a pair of leathern bags, something larger than a pair of boots, which we might deem the arms of his trade empaled; slung them on a horse, and placed himself on the top by way of a crest; visits an adjacent market, to starve with his goods at a stall, or retail them to the mercer, nor return without the money--we shall see a thread-maker of 1652. If we pursue this occupation, winding through the mazes of one hundred and thirty years, we shall see it enlarge its boundaries, multiply its people, increase its consequence and wealth, till in 1782 we behold the master in possession of correct accounts, the apron thrown aside, the stall kicked over, the bags tossed into the garret, and the mercer overlooked in the grand prospect of exportation. We farther behold him take the lead in provincial concerns, step into his own carriage, and hold the king’s commission as a magistrate.[441]

[441] Hutton’s History of Birmingham.

* * * * *

PRESERVATION OF FLOWERS.

A few grains of salt dropped into the water in which flowers are kept, tends greatly to preserve them from fading, and will keep them fresh and in bloom, double the period that pure water will.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

LETTER FROM A VILLAGE.

TO MR. CHARLES PICKWORTH.

Lincolnshire, -- June, 1815.

Dear Charles,--You remember our meeting the other day--I shall.--It’s a long time since we ran riot, and got into mischief together--trundled our hoops, gathered flowers in summer, and rolled in the snow in winter. There is a dim pleasure in the remembrance of our late interview, and that of these isolated scenes of our childhood: they are as faint gleams of sunshine in a gloomy day. I don’t like, however, to reflect upon being handwhipped, and put into the corner: the fears of that age are dreadful--I see my aunt’s frown now, and hear her snap at me. But then again, it was over her grounds that we chased the hours away as heedlessly as the butterflies. The homeclose-yard and kitchen garden--how pleasant to remember them! The buzzard, you know, guarded the fruit-garden, and kept us from the gooseberry-trees and strawberry-beds; but in the others what a thousand frolics have we sported in, and in what a thousand contrivances exercised our infant minds. Every joy comes to my mind--I forget every hardship. The coachman!--what would he not do for us! Bethink yourself--he had been in the family a quarter of a century. How proud he was of it; how fussy and fond of his favourite horses; how he used to pat them when out with the carriage. You don’t forget that the old people continued the fashion of postilions very long--but there is no end to remembrance.--I’ll stop----

You say in my behaviour the other day you saw the traces of my boyhood. You compliment me. Children are selfish; they perhaps may have but little to call their young feelings forth; for feelings must be met half-way. I remember some young feelings with delight still. I fancy I have not that ecstasy now that the mind was tuned to then. Children have but few friendships: the reason may be, that they have few objects to engage them. This observation is vain--elder people have but few friendships, and for the same reason. I had been more correct if I had said, they are but little capable of a friendly disposition. The former is a fact--this a speculation. You saw at the party wherein we last met, how eager all the youngsters were to have their gallop in what they considered their proper turn round the large close. This is a fair sample of mankind in all their pursuits--of every age, old or young. I waved my turn for you; and though I had a joyous idea of flying round the course, I had more pleasure in seeing you gratified. It is well I hit upon my old friend in my politeness; the others would have laughed at me. The upper part of society profess more politeness than the lower; the human heart is the same in both. The upper classes have more forms, and the lower may say they are fools for their pains:--the upper bow slavishly to each other; the lower do not. With the former it is of service, but of none among the latter. For if among the ambitious and supercilious of mankind it were not a matter of pride to know and do this homage, one half of them would be turning up their noses, and tossing their heads at the other. When I see a great man bow, I always think he wants to creep into a greater man’s esteem.----

Excuse this wandering. I like to generalize mankind, and cast up the proper value of every thing around me--the use is immense: hence flows philosophy. I decide between grovelling and glorious ambition; and, clearing myself of the former, am eased of impediment in the pursuit of the latter. The consequence is, that I care nothing for wealth, provided I have competence; that I can take up my abode with pleasure among poor people, and not turn squeamish at sight of a fustian jacket; that I like the humour of farm-houses, and would dine with a couple of vagabonds, without fear of infection, amply compensated by the observation of their vein; and looking upon the beauty of nature as the source of all pleasure, far and wide as she extends, in this hole and cabin, my own appropriate spot, my aim is to keep my health as the furtherance of a superior object.

My maxim is--necessaries; that is, outward comfort and health. Observe it.

Your affectionate friend,

C. O.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

GRASSINGTON FEAST.

CLOCK DRESSINGS.

During the continuance of “Grassington Feast,” it is customary for the inhabitants to have convivial parties at one another’s houses: these are called clock dressings; for the guests are invited to come and “dress the clock.” Grassington feast was once one of the largest and most celebrated one in Craven, but it is fast dwindling away. This year the amusements were of a paltry description; and the sack racers, bell racers, hasty-pudding eaters, and soaped-pig catchers, who used to afford in former times such an unceasing fund of merriment, seem all fled. Nothing told of olden time, except the presence of Frank King, the Skipton minstrel, who seems determined to be in at the death.

T. Q. M.

* * * * *

A FRAGMENT

FOUND IN A SKELETON CASE AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY,

Supposed to have been written by one of the Students, and deposited there by him.

SCELETOS.

Behold this Ruin! ’twas a skull, Once of ethereal spirit full, This narrow cell was life’s retreat, This space was thought’s mysterious seat. What beauteous pictures fill’d this spot! What dreams of pleasure long forgot! Nor Love, nor Joy, nor Hope, nor Fear, Has left one trace or record here.

Beneath this mouldering canopy Once shone the bright and busy eye! But start not at the dismal void, If social love that eye employ’d; If with no lawless fire it gleam’d, But thro’ the dew of kindness beam’d, The eye shall be for ever bright, When stars and suns have lost their light.

Here in this silent cavern hung The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue, If falsehood’s honey it disdain’d, And where it could not praise, was chain’d; If bold in virtue’s cause--it spoke, Yet gentle concord never broke, That tuneful tongue shall plead for thee, When Death unveils eternity.

Say, did these fingers delve the mine, Or with its envied rubies shine? To hew the rock, or wear the gem, Can nothing now avail to them: But if the page of truth they sought, Or comfort to the mourner brought, These hands a richer mead shall claim Than all that waits on wealth and fame.

Avails it whether bare or shod, These feet the path of duty trod? If from the bowers of joy they fled To seek affliction’s humble bed, If grandeur’s guilty bribe they spurn’d, And home to virtue’s hope return’d, These feet with angel wings shall fly, And tread the palace of the sky.[442]

[442] From the Morning Chronicle, Sept. 14, 1821.

* * * * *

ANECDOTE OF A MAGPIE.

For the Table Book.

A cobbler, who lived on indifferent terms with his wife in Kingsmead-street, Bath, somewhat like Nell and Jobson, kept a magpie, that learned his favourite ejaculatory exclamation--“What the plague art (h)at?” Whoever came to his shop, where the bulk of his business was carried on, the magpie was sure to use this exclamation; but the bird was matched by the ghostly, bodily, and tall person of “Hats to dress!” a well-known street perambulator and hat improver, who, with that cry, daily passed the temple of Crispin. The magpie aspirating at with h, the crier of “Hats to dress!” considered it a personal insult, and after long endurance, one morning put the bird into his bag, and walked away with his living plague. When he reached home, “poor mag!” was daintily fed, and became a favourite with the dresser’s wife. It chanced, however, that the cobbler, who supplied the sole understanding of “Hats to dress!” waited on him to be rebeavered for his own understanding. The magpie, hearing his old master’s voice, cried out, “What the plague art (h)at?” “Ha, ha, ha,” said the astonished and delighted cobbler, “come to fetch thee home, thou ’scapegrace.” The hatter and the cobbler drank their explanation over a quart of ale; and with a new, old, hat on his head, the latter trudged through Stall-street, with his magpie in his apron, crying, “What the plague art (h)at?”

----.

* * * * *

THE ARTIST.

For the Table Book.

He is a being of deep reflection,--one That studies nature with intensest eye; Watching the works of air, earth, sea, and sun, Their motion, altitude, their form, their dye, Cause and effect. The elements which run, Or stagnant are, he traces to their source With vivid study, till his pencil makes A perfect likeness; or, by fancy’s force A new creation in his art he takes, And matches nature’s progress in his course Towards glory. In th’ abstractions of the mind, Harmony, passion, and identity, His genius, like the summer sun, is shrined, Till beauty and perfection he can see.

----.

* * * * *

Vol. II.--47.

~The Giants~

IN THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW,

AND IN GUILDHALL.

In the Lord Mayor’s Show on the 9th of November, 1827, there was a remarkable variation from the customary route. Instead of the new chief magistrate and corporation embarking at Blackfriars, as of late years has been usual, the procession took a direction eastward, passed through the Poultry, Cornhill, Leadenhall-street, Billiter-lane, Mincing-lane, and from thence by Tower-street to the Tower Stairs, where they embarked. This deviation is presumed to have been in compliment to the Tower ward, in which the lord mayor presides as alderman. The ancient lord mayors of London were accustomed to “ride and go” on horseback, attended in like manner by the aldermen, and others of the corporation, to the bottom of Queen-street, and there embark on board the barges for Westminster. The present is the first instance of the lord mayor’s show by water having proceeded from a more distant spot down the river.

In addition to the “men in armour,” and the length of the route by land, in the lord mayor’s show of this year, there was “the far more attractive novelty of two colossal figures representing the well-known statues, Gog and Magog, (as they are called,) of Guildhall. They were extremely well contrived, and appeared to call forth more admiration and applause, than fell to the share of any of the other personages who formed part of the procession. Whatever some fastidious critics may say as to the taste of reviving in the present day some of the long-neglected civic pageants, we think the appearance of these figures augurs well for the future conduct of the new lord mayor: some of his brother magistrates would, we make no doubt, be well content if in the whole course, or at the close, of their official career, they could come in for a little of the plaudits which were yesterday bestowed on the two representatives of Gog and Magog.” (The Times, Nov. 10.) From the report of a spectator, it appears that the giants were constructed of wicker-work, gaily apparelled in the costume of their prototypes, and similarly armed: each walked along by means of a man withinside, who ever and anon turned the faces towards the thrones of company in the houses; and, as the figures were fourteen feet high, their features were on a level with the first-floor windows throughout the whole of their progress.

In a work, which contains much information respecting the “London Triumphs” of the lord mayors, and the “pageants” of those processions in the olden time, there is a chapter devoted to a History of the Carvings called the “Giants in Guildhall.” As the book is my own, and seems to be little known “within the walls,” I presume to render the account in a compressed form, as follows--

THE GIANTS IN GUILDHALL

From the time when I was astonished by the information, that “every day, when the giants hear the clock strike twelve they come down to dinner,” I have had something of curiosity towards them. How came they there, and what are they for? In vain were my examinations of Stow, Howell, Strype, Noorthouck, Maitland, Seymour, Pennant, and numberless other authors of books and tracts regarding London. They scarcely deign to mention them, and no one relates a syllable from whence we can possibly affirm that the giants of their day were the giants that now exist.

To this remark there is a solitary exception. Hatton, whose “New View of London” bears the date of 1708, says in that work, “This stately hall being much damnify’d by the unhappy conflagration of the city in 1666, was rebuilt anno 1669, and extremely well beautified and repaired both in and outside, which cost about two thousand five hundred pounds, and two new figures of gigantick magnitude will be as before.”[443] Presuming on the ephemeral information of his readers at the time he published, Hatton obscured his information by a brevity, which leaves us to suppose that the giants were destroyed when Guildhall was “much damnify’d” by the fire of London in 1666; and that from that period they had not been replaced. It is certain, however, that there were giants in the year 1699, when Ned Ward published his London Spy: for, describing a visit to Guildhall, he says, “We turned down King-street, and came to the place intended, which we entered with as great astonishment to see the giants, as the Morocco ambassador did London when he saw the snow fall. I asked my friend the meaning and design of setting up those two lubberly preposterous figures; for I suppose they had some peculiar end in it. Truly, says my friend, I am wholly ignorant of what they intended by them, unless they were set up to show the city what huge loobies their forefathers were, or else to fright stubborn apprentices into obedience; for the dread of appearing before two such monstrous loggerheads, will sooner reform their manners, or mould them into a compliance with their masters’ will, than carrying them before my lord mayor or the chamberlain of London; for some of them are as much frighted at the names of Gog and Magog, as little children are at the terrible sound of Raw-head and Bloody-bones.” There is no doubt that at that time the city giants were far more popular than now; for, in the same work, two passengers through Bartholomew fair, who had slyly alighted from a coach without discharging it, are addressed by the coachman with “Pay me my fare, or by Gog and Magog you shall feel the smart of my whipcord;” an oath which in our time is obsolete, though in all probability it was common then, or it would not have been used by Ward in preference to his usual indecency.

Again; as to giants being in Guildhall before Hatton wrote, and whether they were the present statues. On the 24th of April, 1685, there were “wonderful and stupendous fireworks in honour of their majesties’ coronation, (James II. and his queen,) and for the high entertainment of their majesties, the nobility, and City of London, made on the Thames.”[444] Among the devices of this exhibition, erected on a raft in the middle of the river, were two pyramids; between them was a figure of the sun in polished brass, below it a great cross, and beneath that a crown, all stored with fireworks; and a little before the pyramids “were placed the statues of the two giants of Guildhall, in lively colours and proportions facing Whitehall, the backs of which were all filled with fiery materials; and, from the first deluge of fire till the end of the sport, which lasted near an hour, the two giants, the cross, and the sun, grew all in a light flame in the figures described, and burned without abatement of matter.” From this mention of “statues of the two giants of Guildhall,” it is to be inferred, that giants were in Guildhall fourteen years before Ward’s book was published, and that, probably, the firework-maker took them for his models, because their forms being familiar to the “City of London,” their appearance would be an attraction as well as a compliment to his civic audience.

Just before 1708, the date of Hatton’s book, Guildhall had been repaired; and Hatton says, “In the middle of this front are depenciled in gold these words, Reparata et Ornata Thoma Rawlinson, Milit. Majore, An. Dom. M. DCC. VI.” From whence, and his observation, in the extract first quoted, that “two new figures of gigantick magnitude will be as before,” he intends his reader to understand that, as before that reparation there had been two giants, so, with the new adornment of the hall there would be two new giants. The proof of Hatton’s meaning is to be found in “The Gigantick History of the two famous Giants in Guildhall, London, third edition, corrected. London, printed for Tho. Boreman, bookseller, near the Giants in Guildhall, and at the Boot and Crown, on Ludgate-hill, 1741.”--2 vols. 64mo. This very rare book states, that “before the present giants inhabited Guildhall, there were two giants, made only of wicker-work and pasteboard, put together with great art and ingenuity: and those two terrible original giants had the honour yearly to grace my lord mayor’s show, being carried in great triumph in the time of the pageants; and when that eminent annual service was over, remounted their old stations in Guildhall--till, by reason of their very great age, old Time, with the help of a number of city rats and mice, had eaten up all their entrails. The dissolution of the two old, weak, and feeble giants, gave birth to the two present substantial and majestic giants; who, by order, and at the city charge, were formed and fashioned. Captain Richard Saunders,[445] an eminent carver in King-street, Cheapside, was their father; who, after he had completely finished, clothed, and armed these his two sons, they were immediately advanced to those lofty stations in Guildhall, which they have peaceably enjoyed ever since the year 1708.” The title-page of the “Gigantick History” shows that the work was published within the Guildhall itself, when shops were permitted there; so that Boreman, the publisher, had the best means that time and place could afford of obtaining true information, and for obvious reasons he was unlikely to state what was not correct. It is further related in this work, that “the first honour which the two ancient wicker-work giants were promoted to in the city, was at the restoration of king Charles II., when with great pomp and majesty they graced a triumphal arch, which was erected on that happy occasion at the end of King-street, in Cheapside.” This was before the fire of London, by which the hall was “much damnify’d,” but not burned down; for the conflagration was principally confined to the wooden roof; and, according to this account, the wicker-giants escaped, till their infirmities, and the labours of the “city rats,” rendered it necessary to supersede them.

That wicker was used in constructing figures for the London pageants is certain. Haywood, in his description of the pageants in the show of the lord mayor Raynton, in 1632, says, “The moddellor and composer of these seuerall pieces, Maister Gerard Christmas, found these pageants and showes of wicker and paper, and reduc’t them to sollidity and substance.”

To prove, however, the statement in the “Gigantick History,” that the present giants were put up upon the reparation of the hall in 1706, an examination of the city archives became necessary; and as the history fortunately mentions captain Richard Saunders as the carver, the name became a clue to successful inquiry. Accordingly, on examination of the city accounts at the chamberlain’s office, under the head of “Extraordinary Works,” for 1707, I discovered among the sums “paid for repairing of the Guildhall and chappell,” an entry in the following words:--

To Richard Saunders, carver, seaventy pounds, by order of the co’mittee for repairing Guildhall, dated y^{e} x^{th}. of April, 1707, for work by him done 70_l._

This entry of the payment confirms the relation of the gigantic historian; but Saunders’s bill, which doubtless contained the charges for the two giants, and all the city vouchers before 1786, deposited in the chamberlain’s office, were destroyed by a fire there in that year.

Giants were part of the pageantry used in different cities of the kingdom. By an ordinance of the mayor, aldermen, and common-council of Chester,[446] for the setting of the watch on the eve of the festival of St. John the Baptist, in 1564, it was directed that there should be annually, according to ancient custom, a pageant, consisting of four giants, with animals, hobby-horses, and other figures, therein specified.[447] In 1599, Henry Hardman, Esq. the mayor of Chester in that year, from religious motives, caused the giants in the Midsummer show “to be broken, and not to goe the devil in his feathers,” and he provided a man in complete armour to go in their stead; but in 1601, John Ratclyffe, a beer-brewer, being mayor, set out the giants and the Midsummer show as usual. On the restoration of Charles II. new ones were ordered to be made, and the estimate for finding the materials and workmanship of the four great giants, as they were before, was at five pounds a giant; and four men to carry them at two shillings and sixpence each. The materials for making these Chester giants were deal-boards, nails, pasteboard, scaleboard, paper of various sorts, buckram, size cloth, and old sheets for their bodies, sleeves, and shirts, which were to be coloured; also tinsel, tinfoil, gold and silver leaf, and colours of different kinds. A pair of old sheets were to cover the father and mother giants, and three yards of buckram were provided for the mother’s and daughter’s hoods. There is an entry in the Chester charges of one shilling and fourpence “for arsenic to put into the paste to save the giants from being eaten by the rats;”[448] a precaution which, if adopted in the formation of the old wicker-giants of London, was not effectual, though how long they had ceased to exist before the reparation of the hall, and the carving of their successors, does not appear. One conjecture may perhaps be hazarded, that, as after the mayor of Chester had ordered the giants there to be destroyed, he provided a man in armour as a substitute; so perhaps the dissolution of the old London wicker-giants, and the lumbering incapacity of the new wooden ones for the duty of lord mayor’s show, occasioned the appearance of the men in armour in that procession.

Until the last reparation of Guildhall, in 1815, the present giants stood with the old clock and a balcony of iron-work between them, over the stairs leading from the hall to the courts of law and the council chamber. When they were taken down in that year, and placed on the floor of the hall, I thoroughly examined them as they lay in that situation. They are made of wood,[449] and hollow within, and from the method of joining and gluing the interior, are evidently of late construction, and every way too substantially built for the purpose of being either carried or drawn, or any way exhibited in a pageant. On inspecting them at that period, I made minute inquiry of an old and respectable officer of Guildhall, with whom they were favourites, as to what particulars existed in the city archives concerning them; he assured me that he had himself anxiously desired information on the same subject, and that after an investigation through the different offices, there was not a trace of the period when they commenced to be, nor the least record concerning them. This was subsequently confirmed to me by gentlemen belonging to other departments.

However stationary the present ponderous figures were destined to remain, there can scarcely be a question as to the frequent use of their wicker predecessors in the corporation shows. The giants were great favourites in the pageants.[450] Stow, in describing the ancient setting of the nightly watch in London on St John’s eve, relates that “the mayor was surrounded by his footmen and torch-bearers, and followed by two henchmen on large horses: the mayor had, besides his giant, three pageants; whereas the sheriffs had only two, besides their giants, each with their morris dance and one henchman.”[451] It is related, that, to make the people wonder, these giants were armed, and marched as if they were alive, to the great diversion of the boys, who, peering under, found them stuffed with brown paper.[452] A character in Marston’s “Dutch Courtezan,” a comedy acted in 1605, says, “Yet all will scarce make me so high as one of the gyant’s stilts that stalks before my lord mayor’s pageants.”[453]

During queen Elizabeth’s progress to her coronation, Gogmagog and Corinæus, two giants, were stationed at Temple-bar. It is not certain, yet it is probable, that these were the wicker-giants brought from Guildhall for the occasion. In the reign before, when queen Mary and Philip II. of Spain made their public entry, there was at London bridge a grand spectacle, with two images representing two giants, the one named Corinæus, and the other Gogmagog, holding between them certain Latin verses.[454] There is scarcely a likelihood that these were any other than the Guildhall giants, which on the occasion of a corporation rejoicing could be removed with the utmost ease.

Orator Henley, on the 21st of October, 1730, availed himself of the anticipated civic festival for that year to deliver a lecture upon it, mentioning the giants, which he announced by newspaper advertisement as follows:--

At the Oratory, the corner of Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, near Clare-market, this Day, being Wednesday, at Six o’Clock in the Evening, will be a new Riding upon an old Cavalcade, entituled THE CITY IN ITS GLORY; OR, MY LORD MAYOR’S SHEW: Explaining to all Capacities that wonderful Procession, so much envy’d in Foreign Parts, and nois’d at Paris: on my Lord Mayor’s Day; the fine Appearance and Splendor of the Companies of Trade; Bear and Chain; the Trumpets, Drums, and Cries, intermix’d; the qualifications of my L--’s Horse, the whole Art and History of the City Ladies and Beaux at Gape-stare in the Balconies; the Airs, Dress, and Motions; THE TWO GIANTS walking out to keep Holiday; like Snails o’er a Cabbage, says an old Author, they all crept along; admir’d by their Wives, and huzza’d by the Throng.

There is no stronger evidence of the indifference to playfulness and wit at city elections, than the almost total silence on those occasions respecting such ample subjects for allusion and parallel as the giants in the hall. Almost the only instance of their application in this way is to be found in a handbill on occasion of a mayoralty election, dated Oct. 4th, 1816, addressed “To the London Tavern Livery and their Spouses.” It states, that “the day after Mr. Alderman ---- is elected lord mayor for the year ensuing, the following entertainments will be provided for your amusement gratis, viz. 1. The two giants, at the bottom of the hall, will dance a minuet by steam, attended by Mr. Alderman ---- in a new wig upon an elastic principle, gentleman having bought half of his old one for the purpose of making a new peruke for the aforesaid giants.” This is the first humorous allusion to the giants after their removal to their present station.

It is imagined by the author of the “Gigantick History,” that the Guildhall giants represent Corinæus a Trojan, and Gogmagog a Cornish giant, whose story is related at large in that work; the author of which supposes, that as “Corinæus and Gogmagog were two brave giants, who nicely valued their honour, and exerted their whole strength and force in defence of their liberty and country; so the city of London, by placing these their representatives in their Guildhall, emblematically declare, that they will, like mighty giants, defend the honour of their country and liberties of this their city, which excels all others, as much as those huge giants exceed in stature the common bulk of mankind.” Each of these giants, as they now stand, measures upwards of fourteen feet in height: the young one is believed to be Corinæus, and the old one Gogmagog.

Such being the chief particulars respecting these enormous carvings, the terror of the children, the wonder of the ’prentices, and the talk of the multitude, in former days, I close the subject, satisfied with having authenticated their origin. Trifling as this affair may seem, I pursued the inquiry for upwards of sixteen years; and though much of the time I spent in the search might have been better employed, I can assure those who are unacquainted with the nature of such investigations, that I had much pleasure in the pursuit, and when I had achieved my purpose I felt more highly gratified, than I think I should had I attained to the dignity of being “proud London’s proud lord mayor.”

There are other memoranda respecting the giants and lord mayors’ shows in my volume on “Ancient Mysteries,” from whence the present particulars are extracted.

*

[443] Hatton’s New View of London, 1708, 8vo. p. 607.

[444] See the “Narrative,” by R. Lowman, 1685, folio, half sheet, 1685.

[445]

“-------------- a citizen Of credit and renown, A trainband captain----.”--Cowper.

[446] Harl. MSS. 1368.

[447] Ibid. 2125.

[448] Strutt’s Sports, Pref. p. xxvi.

[449] Noorthouck writing in 1773, (Hist. of London, 4to. p. 590,) erroneously affirms that the giants are made of pasteboard.

[450] Strutt, p. xxiii.

Giants were introduced into the May-games. “On the 26th of May, 1555, was a gay May-game at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, with giants and hobby-horses, drums and guns, morris-dancers, and other minstrels.”--(Strype’s Memorials.) Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” includes giants among the ordinary domestic recreations of winter.

[451] Strutt, p. 319.

[452] Brand, i. p. 257.

[453] Stilts to increase the stature of the giants, and the introduction of the morris-dance, are instances of the desire to gratify the fondness of our ancestors for strange sights and festive amusements. A cock dancing on stilts to the music of a pipe and tabor is in Strutt’s Sports, from a book of prayers written towards the close of the thirteenth century. Harl. MSS. 6563.

[454] Strutt’s Sports, Pref. p. xxvii.

* * * * *

NORWICH GUILD.

MAYOR’S FEAST, TEMP. ELIZABETH.

The earls of Northumberland and Huntingdon, the lords Thomas Howard and Willoughby, with many other noblemen and knights, paid a visit to the duke of Norfolk, and were entertained, with their retinue, at the duke’s palace, in Norwich, in 1561. The guild happening at this time, William Mingay, Esq., then mayor, invited them and their ladies to the feast, which they accepted, and expressed the greatest satisfaction at their generous and hospitable reception. At the entertainment the duke and duchess of Norfolk sat first; then the three earls of Northumberland, Huntingdon, and Surrey, lord Thomas Howard, lord Scroop and his lady, lord and lady Bartlet, lord Abergavenny, with so many other peers, knights, and ladies, that the hall could scarcely contain them and their retinue.[455] The mayor’s share of the expense was one pound, twelve shillings, and ninepence. The feast makers, four in number, paying the rest. The mayor’s bill of fare was as follows:--

£. s. d.

Eight stone of beef, at 8d. a stone, and a sirloin 0 5 8 Two collars of brawn 0 1 0 Four cheeses, at 4d. a cheese 0 1 4 Eight pints of batter 0 1 6 A hinder quarter of veal 0 0 10 A leg of mutton 0 0 5 A fore quarter of veal 0 0 5 Loin of mutton and shoulder of veal 0 0 9 Breast and coat of mutton 0 0 7 Six pullets 0 1 0 Four couple of rabbits 0 1 8 Four brace of partridges 0 2 0 Two Guinea cocks 0 1 6 Two couple of mallard 0 1 0 Thirty-four eggs 0 0 6 Bushel of flour 0 0 6 Peck of oatmeal 0 0 2 Sixteen white bread-loaves 0 0 4 Eighteen loaves of white wheat-bread 0 0 9 Three loaves of meslin bread 0 0 3 Nutmegs, mace, cinnamon, and cloves 0 0 3 Four pounds of Barbary sugar 0 1 0 Sixteen oranges 0 0 2 A barrel of double strong beer 0 2 6 A barrel of table beer 0 1 0 A quarter of wood 0 2 2 Two gallons of white wine and Canary 0 2 0 Fruit, almonds, sweet water, perfumes 0 0 4 The cook’s wages 0 1 2 ----------- Total £1 12 9 ===========

After dinner, Mr. John Martyn, a wealthy and honest man of Norwich, made the following speech:--“Maister Mayor of Norwich, and it please your worship, you have feasted us like a king. God bless the queen’s grace. We have fed plentifully and now, whilom I can speak plain English, I heartily thank you, maister Mayor, and so do we all. Answer, boys, answer. Your beer is pleasant and potent, and will soon catch us by the caput and stop our manners: and so huzza for the queen’s majesty’s grace, and all her bonny-brow’d dames of honour.[456] Huzza for maister Mayor, and our good dame Mayoress. His noble grace,[457] there he is, God bless him, and all this jolly company. To all our friends round county, who have a penny in their purse and an English heart in their bodies, to keep out Spanish dons, and papists with their faggots to burn our whiskers. Shove it about, twirl your cap-cases, handle your jugs, and huzza for maister Mayor, and his bretheren their worships.”

The honesty, freedom, loyalty, and good-humour of this speech would, at any time, entitle the orator to a patient hearing and an approving smile.

The above is from Beatniffe’s Norfolk Tour.

G. B.

Norwich,

September, 1827.

[455] Five hundred can conveniently dine in this hall. I have seen seven hundred entertained on the guild day.

[456] This is familiar enough, and looks as if the fumes of the potent beverage had begun to attack the honest orator’s caput.

[457] The duke of Norfolk.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XLI.

[Dedications to Fletcher’s “Faithful Shepherdess;” without date; presumed to be the First Edition.]

1ST.

To that noble and true lover of learning, Sir Walton Aston.

Sir, I must ask your patience, and be true. This Play was never liked, except by few That brought their judgments with them; for of late First the infection,[458] then the common prate Of common people, have such customs got Either to silence Plays, or like them not: Under the last of which this Interlude Had fal’n, for ever press’d down by the rude That, like a torrent which the moist South feeds, Drowns both before him the ripe corn and weeds; Had not the saving sense of better men Redeem’d it from corruption. Dear Sir, then Among the better souls be you the best, In whom as in a center I take rest, And proper being; from whose equal eye And judgement nothing grows but purity. Nor do I flatter; for, by all those dead Great in the Muses, by Apollo’s head, He that adds any thing to you, ’tis done Like his that lights a candle to the sun. Then be as you were ever, yourself still Moved by your judgement, not by love or will. And when I sing again (as who can tell My next devotion to that holy Well?) Your goodness to the Muses shall be all Able to make a work Heroical.

2ND.

To the Inheritor of all Worthiness, Sir William Scipwith.

ODE.

1.

If from servile hope or love I may prove But so happy to be thought for Such a one, whose greatest ease Is to please, Worthy Sir, I have all I sought for.

2.

For no itch of greater name, Which some claim By their verses, do I show it To the world; nor to protest, ’Tis the best; These are lean faults in a poet.

3.

Nor to make it serve to feed At my need; Nor to gain acquaintance by it; Nor to ravish kind Atturneys In their journies; Nor to read it after diet.

4.

Far from me are all these aims; Frantic claims, To build weakness on and pity; Only to yourself, and such Whose true touch Makes all good, let me seem witty.

3RD.

To the perfect gentleman, Sir Robert Townesend.

If the greatest faults may crave Pardon, where contrition is, Noble Sir, I needs must have A long one for a long amiss. If you ask me how is this, Upon my faith I’ll tell you frankly; You love above my means to thank ye. Yet according to my talent, As sour fortune loves to use me, A poor Shepherd I have sent In home-spun gray, for to excuse me: And may all my hopes refuse me But, when better comes ashore, You shall have better, never more; ’Till when, like our desperate debtors, Or our three-piled sweet “protesters,” I must please you in bare letters; And so pay my debts, like jesters. Yet I oft have seen good feasters, Only for to please the pallet, Leave great meat, and chuse a sallet.

Apologetical Preface, following these:

To the Reader.

If you be not reasonably assured of your knowledge in this kind of Poem, lay down the Book; or read this, which I would wish had been the Prologue. It is a Pastoral Tragic-Comedy; which the people seeing when it was played, having ever had a singular gift in defining, concluded to be a play of Country hired Shepherds, in gray cloaks, with cur-tailed dogs in strings, sometimes laughing together, sometimes killing one another; and, missing Whitsun Ales, cream, wassail, and Morris dances, began to be angry. In their error I would not have you fall, lest you incur their censure.[459] Understand, therefore, a Pastoral to be--a Representation of Shepherds and Shepherdesses, with their Actions and Passions, which must be such as agree with their natures; at least, not exceeding former fictions and vulgar traditions. They are not to be adorn’d with any art, but such improper ones as nature is said to bestow, as Singing and Poetry; or such as experience may teach them, as the virtues of herbs and fountains; the ordinary course of the sun, moon, and stars; and such like. But you are ever to remember Shepherds to be such, as all the ancient poets (and modern of understanding) have received them; that is, the Owners of Flocks, and not Hirelings.--A Tragic-comedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants deaths (which is enough to make it no Tragedy); yet brings some near to it (which is enough to make it no Comedy): which must be a Representation of Familiar People, with such kind of trouble as no life can be without; so that a God is as lawful in this, as in a Tragedy; and mean People, as in a Comedy.--Thus much I hope will serve to justify my Poem, and make you understand it; to teach you more for nothing, I do not know that I am in conscience bound.

JOHN FLETCHER.

* * * * *

[From the “Wars of Cyrus;” a Tragedy Author unknown, 1594.]

Dumb Show exploded.

Chorus (to the Audience). ------- Xenophon Warrants what we record of Panthea. It is writ in sad and tragic terms, May move you tears; then you content our Muse, That scorns to trouble you again with toys Or needless antics, imitations, Or shows, or new devises sprung o’ late; We have exiled them from our tragic stage, As trash of their tradition, that can bring Nor instance nor excuse: for what they do,[460] Instead of mournful plaints our Chorus sings; Although it be against the upstart guise, Yet, warranted by grave antiquity, We will revive the which hath long been done.

* * * * *

[From the “Married Beau,” a Comedy, by John Crowne, 1694.]

Wife tempted: she pleads religion.

Lover. Our happy love may have a secret Church Under the Church, as Faith’s was under Paul’s, Where we may carry on our sweet devotion; And the Cathedral marriage keep its state, And all its decency and ceremonies.

* * * * *

[From the “Challenge for Beauty,” Tragi-Comedy, by T. Heywood, 1636.]

Appeal for Innocence against a false accusation.

Helena. Both have sworn: And, Princes, as you hope to crown your heads With that perpetual wreath which shall last ever, Cast on a poor dejected innocent virgin Your eyes of grace and pity. What sin is it, Or who can be the patron to such evil?-- That a poor innocent maid, spotless in deed, And pure in thought, both without spleen and gall, That never injured creature, never had heart To think of wrong, or ponder injury; That such a one in her white innocence, Striving to live peculiar in the compass Of her own virtues; notwithstanding these, Should be sought out by strangers, persecuted, Made infamous ev’n there where she was made For imitation; hiss’d at in her country; Abandon’d of her mother, kindred, friends; Depraved in foreign climes, scorn’d every where, And ev’n in princes’ courts reputed vile: O pity, pity this!

C. L.

[458] The Plague: in which times, the acting of Plays appears to have been discountenanced.

[459] He damns the Town: the Town before damn’d him.--ED.

We can almost be not sorry for the ill dramatic success of this Play, which brought out such spirited apologies; in particular, the masterly definitions of Pastoral and Tragi-Comedy in this Preface.

[460] So I point it; instead of the line, as it stands in this unique copy--

Nor instance nor excuse for what they do.

The sense I take to be, what the common playwrights do (or shew by action--the “inexplicable dumb show” of Shakspeare--), our Chorus relates. The following lines have else no coherence.

* * * * *

Mr. S. Young’s comfortable little inn, the Cross at Keston, or Keston Mark, is mentioned before as being at the north-east corner of the grounds belonging to Holwood. My friend W---- and I, on a second visit to Mr. Young’s house, went from thence, for the purpose of seeing the church and village of Keston, through which the main road runs to Westerham. We kept along to the entrance gate of Holwood, which we passed, having the park palings on our left, till we came to a well in the road, which derives its water from springs within Holwood, and stands on a swell of meadow land, called “the War Bank.” Further on, and out of the road to the right, lies the village of Keston, a few houses embowered in a dell of trees; with a stone church, which did not seem to have been built more than a couple of centuries. A peep through the windows satisfied us that there was nothing worth looking at within. We had heard of stone coffins having been found at the bottom of the War Bank, and we returned to that spot; where, though the ground had been ploughed and was in pasture, we met with much stone rubbish in the soil, and some large pieces loose on the surface and in the ditches of the hedge. These appearances indicated a former structure there; and an old labourer, whom we fell in with, told us that when he was a boy, his grandfather used to talk of “Keston old church” having stood in that spot, but becoming decayed, it was pulled down, and the church rebuilt in its present situation, with the materials of the ancient edifice. If this information was correct, the coffins which were discovered in that spot were more likely to have been deposited there in ordinary burial, than to have contained, as most of the country people suppose, the bodies of persons slain in battle on the War Bank. Besides, if that mound derives its name, as tradition reports, from a conflict there between the Romans and the ancient Britons, it must be remembered that our rude aboriginal ancestors were unaccustomed to that mode of sepulture, and that Cæsar had work of more consequence to employ his soldiers on than such laborious constructions for the interment of his officers. One of these coffins is at Mr. Smith’s, near the well-head on the War Bank, and another is at lady Farnaby’s, at Wickham Court.

The little village of Keston is, of itself, nothing; but, looking over it from the road towards the weald of Kent, and particularly Surrey, there is a sweeping view of hill and dale, arable and pasture, intersected with woodlands. Its name is said to have been derived from Cæsar’s (pronounced Kæsar’s) town; but it is quite as likely to have been a corruption of “castrum,” a fortress or citadel. There is little doubt that the Romans maintained a military position on the heights adjoining Keston for a considerable time. The site they held was afterwards occupied by the late right honourable William Pitt; and respecting it, there was published in the year 1792 the following

ACCOUNT OF HOLWOOD.

Holwood-hill, at present the seat of the right hon. William Pitt, is a most beautiful eminence, commanding (without the view of water) one of the most agreeable prospects in this country, or perhaps in this kingdom.

The house is a very small, old, plastered brick building; but being on the edge of a celebrated fox-hunting country, it was formerly the residence of various gentlemen who hunted with the old duke of Grafton. It afterwards came into the hands of the late Mr. Calcraft, the agent; and, small as it is, was used as a house of rendezvous by the heads of the great party at that time, where they privately formed their schemes of parliamentary manœuvre, and partook of Mr. Calcraft and Mrs. Bellamy’s elegant entertainment.

From Mr. Calcraft it came into the hands of the Burrell family: by them it was sold to captain Ross, and was purchased of him by ---- Burrow, Esq., (nephew of the late sir James Burrow,) who stuccoed the house, added greatly to the grounds by various purchases, grubbed and converted considerable woods into beautiful pasture and pieces of water, and planted those ornamental shrubberies, which have rendered it so delightful and so justly admired a spot.

---- Randall, Esq., an eminent shipbuilder, purchased it of Mr. Burrow, and he has since sold it to the right hon. William Pitt, a native of (Hayes) the adjoining parish.

Holwood is fourteen miles distant from London, in the parish of Keston, Kent; which parish evidently, either by Latin or Saxon derivation, takes its name from the camp, commonly called Julius Cæsar’s Camp; on the south entrenchment of which Mr. Pitt’s house stands, and some part of the pleasure-ground is within the same.

This celebrated camp, till within these twenty years, was tolerably perfect: it consisted of a circular double, and in some places treble entrenchment, enclosing about twenty-nine acres of land; into which there appeared to have been no original entrance but by the opening to the north-west, which descends to the spring called “Cæsar’s Spring.” This spring has long been converted into a most useful public cold bath; a dressing-house is built on the brink of it; it is ornamented with beautiful trees, and from its romantic situation, forms a most pleasing scene.

However antiquarians (from the variety of fragments, coins, &c. discovered ploughed up in the neighbourhood) may have been induced to differ in conjecture as to the person who framed it, they all agree that this camp was originally a strong and considerable Roman station, though not of the larger sort; but rather from its commanding situation, and short distance from the Thames, a camp of observation, or castra æstiva. At the same time, there is great reason to suppose it to have been since possessed by other invaders.

The beautiful common of Keston to the south-west of the camp, from its charming turf, shade, and views, has long been the promenade of the neighbouring company; and parties of gentry from even so far as Greenwich, have long been accustomed to retire with music and provision to spend in this delightful spot the sultry summer’s day, drinking at Cæsar’s Fountain, and making the stupendous Roman bulwarks resound with the strains of instruments and the voice of social glee.

The above is some account of the country-seat of Mr. Pitt; but as an inhabitant of the capital may be desirous of knowing what works of taste, or of neighbouring utility, may have engaged the retirement of our illustrious prime minister, the following are the few improvements Holwood has yet undergone.

Whether from a natural antipathy to the animal, or from too much of “Fox” in other places, certain it is, the first order that was issued, was for the utter destruction of the “fox earth,” being a lodgement in one side of the bulwarks, which the sagacious Reynards are supposed to have been in quiet possession of ever since the Roman abdication.

The house standing on a high hill, the gentlemen who have hitherto lived in it, judging “not much good was to be had from the North,” had defended it on that quarter by large plantations of evergreens; but the present possessor has cut down these plantations, and seems determined “to be open to every thing that comes from that delightful region.”

The house itself has undergone no other alteration than the addition of a small eating-room covered with pantiles, and a curious new-invented variegated stucco, with which the whole has been done over: this stucco has now stood several winters, and only requires to be a little more known to be universally adopted.[461]

* * * * *

While Holwood was in the occupation of Mr. Pitt he there seemed to enjoy the short cessations he could obtain from official duty. His chief delight in these spare hours was planting; which, as he pursued it only as opportunity enabled him, was without system of purchase or order of arrangement, and consequently very expensive. After his death Holwood successively devolved into different hands, and the residence and grounds were variously altered. At length the estate was purchased by John Ward, Esq. a merchant of London, who pulled down the house, and erected the present edifice from a design by Mr. Burton, under whose direction the work was completed in the spring of 1827. Its exterior is chaste, and the interior commodious and elegantly laid out. It stands on the summit of a noble ascent, well defended from adverse winds by full-grown trees and young plantations. From the back front, a fine sweep of lawn descends into a wide spreading valley; and the high and distant woodlands of Knole, Seven Oaks, Tunbridge, and the hills of Sussex, form an extensive amphitheatre of forest scenery and downs, as far as the eye can reach. The home grounds are so disposed, that the domain seems to include the whole of the rich and beautiful country around.

In the rear of Holwood Mr. Ward is forming a vineyard, which, if conducted with the judgment and circumspection that mark the commencement, may prove that the climate of England is suited to the open culture of the grape. Mr. Ward has imported ten sorts of vines, five black and five white, from different parts of the Rhine and Burgundy. They are planted on a slope towards the S.S.E. Difficulties and partial failures are to be expected in the outset of the experiment, and are to be overcome, in its progress, by enlarged experience and information respecting the treatment of the plants in foreign countries. That the vine flourished here several centuries ago can be proved historically. There is likewise evidence of it in the old names of places still existing. For instance, in London, there is “Vineyard-gardens,” Clerkenwell; and in Kent, there is a field near Rochester cathedral, which has been immemorially called “the Vines.” Many examples of this nature might be adduced. But far stronger than presumptive testimony is the fact, that, in some parts of the weald of Kent, the vine grows wild in the hedges; a friend assures me of this from his own knowledge, he having often assisted when a boy in rooting up the wild vine on his father’s land.

Mr. Ward’s alterations at Holwood are decisive and extensive. Besides the erection of a new and spacious residence, instead of the old one, which was small and inconvenient, and ill suited to the commanding character and extent of the grounds, he has greatly improved them; and perfected a stately approach to the mansion. Immediately within the great entrance gates, from Keston Common, is the elegant lodge represented by the engraving. For the purpose of making the drawing, we obtained seats just within the gates. While W. sketched it the silence was unbroken, save by the gentle rustle of the leaves in the warm afternoon air of summer, and the notes of the small birds preparing for their vesper song; the rabbits were scudding from their burrows across the avenue, and the sun poured glowing beams from between the branches of the magnificent trees, and dressed the varied foliage in a thousand beauteous liveries----

* * * * *

Circumstances prevent this article from concluding, as had been purposed, with notices of Holwood-hill as a Roman encampment, and of “Cæsar’s Spring,” in the declivity, beneath the gates of Holwood on Keston Common. An engraving of that ancient bourne, which Julius Cæsar is said to have himself discovered nearly two thousand years ago, and thither directed his legions to slake their thirst, will precede the remaining particulars in another sheet.

*

[461] European Magazine, Dec. 1792.

* * * * *

THE PLAGUE AT EYAM, AND THE REV. THOMAS STANLEY.

To the Editor.

Sir,--The publication of the paper, entitled “Catherine Mompesson’s Tomb,” on “The Desolation of Eyam, and other Poems, by William and Mary Howitt,” at p. 482 of the Table Book, gives me an opportunity, with your good offices, of rescuing from a degree of oblivion the name and merits of an individual, who has unaccountably been almost generally overlooked, but who ought, at least, to be equally identified in any notice of the “Plague at Eyam” with Mr. Mompesson himself.

The Rev. Thomas Stanley was instituted to the rectory of Eyam by the ruling powers in 1644, which he held till the “Act of Uniformity,” in 1662, threw him out.

It appears that he continued to reside at Eyam after his ejectment, and the tradition of the place at this day is, that he was supported by the voluntary contributions of two-thirds of the inhabitants; this may have been the cause of some jealousy in those who might have been satisfied with his removal from the living.

His comparative disinterestedness, with other circumstances worthy of notice, are recorded by his friend and fellow-sufferer Bagshaw, usually called “the Apostle of the Peak;” he concludes a most interesting account of Mr. Stanley in these words:--“When he could not serve his people publickly, some (yet alive) will testifie, how helpful he was to ’em in private; especially when the sickness (by way of eminency so called, I mean the Pestilence) prevailed in that town, he continuing with ’em, when, as it is written, 259 persons of ripe age, and 58 children were cut off thereby. When some, who might have been better employed, moved the then noble earl of Devonshire, lord lieutenant, to remove him out of the town; I am told by the credible, that he said, ‘It was more reasonable that the whole country should, in more than words, testify their thankfulness to him, who, together with his care of the town, had taken such care as no one else did, to prevent the infection of the towns adjacent.’”

Mr. Stanley died at Eyam 24th August, and was buried there on the 26th following, 1670.

I have thus extracted what, as an act of justice, ought to have been published long since, and which, indeed, ought to accompany every memorial of the plague at Eyam: though I scarcely regret that it has waited for the extensive circulation the Table Book must give to it--if it is so fortunate as to be considered a communication to your purpose. My authority is, “De Spiritualibus Pecci. Notes (or Notices) concerning the Work of God, and some of those who have been workers together with God in the High Peak of Derbyshire,” &c. 12mo. 1702. (Sheffield.)

Some farther account of Stanley may be seen in Calamy’s “Nonconformist’s Memorial,” and Hunter’s “History of Hallamshire,” but both follow Bagshaw.

I exceedingly regret that “William and Mary Howitt” were unacquainted with Mr. Stanley’s services at Eyam.

I am, sir,

Your obedient and humble servant,

M. N.

Nov. 9, 1827.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE REIGN OF DEATH.

And I saw, and beheld a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.

Revelations, vi. 2.

In nightly vision, on my bed, I saw A form unearthly, on a pale horse sat, Riding triumphant o’er a prostrate world. Around his brows he wore a crown of gold, And in his bony hand he grasp’d a bow, Which scatter’d arrows of destruction round. His form was meagre--shadowy--indistinct-- Clothed with the faint lineaments of man. He pass’d me swifter than the winged wind-- Or lightning from the cloud--or ghostly vision. From his eye he shot devouring lightnings, And his dilated nostril pour’d a stream Of noisome, pestilential vapour. Where’er he trod all vegetation ceas’d, And the spring flow’rs hung, with’ring, on their stalks. He passed by a city, whose huge walls, And towers, and battlements, and palaces, Cover’d the plain, aspiring to the skies: As he pass’d, he smil’d--and straight it fell-- Wall, tower, and battlement, and glittering spire, Palace, and prison, crumbling into dust; And nought of this fair city did remain, But one large heap of wild, confused ruin. The rivers ceas’d to flow, and stood congeal’d. The sea did cease its roaring, and its waves Lay still upon the shore---- No tide did ebb or flow, but all was bound In a calm, leaden slumber. The proud ships, Which hitherto had travers’d o’er the deep, Were now becalmed with this dead’ning stillness:-- The sails hung motionless--straight sunk the mast O’er the huge bulwarks, and the yielding planks Dropt silently into the noiseless deep:-- No ripple on the wave was left to show Where, erst, the ship had stood, but all was blank And motionless. Birds in the air, upon the joyous wing, Fell, lifeless, as the shadowy monster pass’d And hostile armies, drawn in warlike lines, Ceas’d their tumultuous conflict in his sight-- Conqueror and conquer’d yielding ’neath the power Of the unknown destroyer! Nations fell; And thrones, and principalities and powers.-- Kings with their glitt’ring crowns, lay on the earth, And at their sides, their menials.---- Beauty and beggary together lay; Youth, innocence, and age, and crime, together. I saw a murderer, in a darksome wood, Wielding a dagger o’er a beauteous bosom, Threat’ning quick destruction to his victim:-- The shadow pass’d--the leaves grew sere and dropp’d-- The forest crumbled into ashes, and The steel dissolv’d within th’ assassin’s hand-- His face grew wan and bloodless--his eyes stood Fix’d, and glazed--he stiffen’d, and he fell-- And o’er his prostrate body sunk his victim! I still pursued the conqueror with my eye-- The earth grew desart as he rode along-- The sun turn’d bloody in the stagnant air-- The universe itself was one vast ruin---- Then, stopp’d the Fiend. By him all mortal things Had been destroyed; yet was he unsated; And his vengeful eyes still flash’d destruction.-- Thus, alone, he stood; and reign’d--sole monarch-- All supreme--THE KING OF DESOLATION!

O. N. Y.

Oct. 14, 1827.

* * * * *

~Discoveries~

OF THE

ANCIENTS AND MODERNS.

No. XIII.

THUNDER--LIGHTNING--AURORA BOREALIS--EARTHQUAKES--EBBING AND FLOWING OF THE SEA--THE LOADSTONE AND AMBER--ELECTRICITY--RIVERS.

Some of the moderns have assigned the cause of Thunder to inflamed exhalations, rending the clouds wherein they are confined; others, to the shock between two or more clouds, when those that are higher and more condensed fall upon those that are lower, with so much force as suddenly to expel the intermediate air, which vigorously expanding itself, in order to occupy its former space, puts all the exterior air in commotion, producing those reiterated claps which we call thunder. This is the explanation of Descartes, and had but few followers; the former had more, being that of the Newtonians. For a third theory, which makes the matter productive of thunder the same with that of electricity, its author, Dr. Franklin, is in no part indebted to the ancients.

The notion of Descartes entirely belongs to Aristotle, who says, that “thunder is caused by a dry exhalation, which, falling upon a humid cloud, and violently endeavouring to force a passage for itself, produces the peals which we hear.” Anaxagoras refers it to the same cause.

All the other passages, which occur in such abundance among the ancients, respecting thunder, contain in them the reasonings of the Newtonians, sometimes combining the notions of Descartes.

Leucippus, and the Eleatic sect, held that “thunder proceeded from a fiery exhalation, which, enclosed in a cloud, burst it asunder, and forced its way through.” Democritus asserts, that it is the effect of a mingled collection of various volatile particles, which impel downwards the cloud which contains them, till, by the rapidity of their motion, they set themselves and it on fire.

Seneca ascribes it to a dry sulphureous exhalation arising out of the earth, which he calls the aliment of lightning; and which, becoming more and more subtilized in its ascent, at last takes fire in the air, and produces a violent eruption.

According to the stoics, thunder was occasioned by the shock of clouds; and lightning was the combustion of the volatile parts of the cloud, set on fire by the shock. Chrysippus taught, that lightning was the result of clouds being set on fire by winds, which dashed them one against another; and that thunder was the noise produced by that rencontre: he added, that these effects were coincident; our perception of the lightning before the thunder-clap being entirely owing to our sight’s being quicker than our hearing.

In short, Aristophanes, in his comedy of the “Clouds,” introducing Socrates as satisfying the curiosity of one of his disciples as to the cause of thunder, makes him assign it to the action of the compressed air in a cloud, which dilating itself bursts it, and, violently agitating the exterior air, sets itself on fire, and by the rapidity of its progress occasions all that noise.

The Aurora Borealis was also observed by the ancients, as may be seen in Aristotle, Pliny, Seneca, and other writers, who conjectured differently its cause.

The Cartesians, Newtonians, and other able moderns, ascribe Earthquakes to the earth’s being filled with cavities of a vast extent, containing in them an immense quantity of thick exhalations, resembling the smoke of an extinguished candle, which being easily inflammable, and by their agitation catching fire, rarefy and heat the central and condensed air of the cavern to such a degree, that finding no vent, it bursts its enclosements; and, in doing this, shakes the surrounding earth all around with dreadful percussions, producing all the other effects which naturally follow.

Aristotle and Seneca assigned these dreadful events to the same cause. The former says, that they were occasioned by the efforts of the internal air in dislodging itself from the bowels of the earth; and he observes, that on the approach of an earthquake the weather is generally serene, because that sort of air which occasions commotions in the atmosphere, is at that time pent up in the entrails of the earth.

Seneca is so precise, we might take him for a naturalist of the present times. He supposes that the earth hides in its bosom many subterraneous fires, which uniting their flames, necessarily put into fervid motion the congregated vapours of its cells, which finding no immediate outlet, exert their utmost powers, till they force a way through whatever opposes them. He says also, that if the vapours be too weak to burst the barriers which retain them, all their efforts end in weak shocks, and hollow murmurs, without any fatal consequence.

Of all the solutions of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea, the most simple and ingenious, though afterwards found by observation to be inadequate, is that of Descartes, who supposes a vortex of subtile matter, of an elliptic form, to invest our globe, and compress it on all sides. The moon, according to this philosopher, is immerged in this elliptic vortex, and when at its greatest elongation from the earth, it makes less impression upon the circumambient ethereal matter; but when it comes to the narrowest part of the ellipse, gives such an impulse to the atmosphere, as puts the whole ocean in agitation. He supports his system by this remark, that the ebbing and flowing of the sea generally coincides with the irregularity of the moon’s course.

The opinion of Kepler and Newton is more conformable to observation, and is founded on this hypothesis--that the moon attracts the waters of the sea, diminishing the weight of those parts of it over whose zenith it comes, and increasing the weight of the collateral parts, so that the parts directly opposite to the moon, and under it in the same hemisphere, must become more elevated than the rest. According to this system, the action of the sun concurs with that of the moon, in occasioning the tides; which are higher or lower respectively, according to the situation of those two luminaries, which, when in conjunction, act in concert, raising the tides to the greatest height; and when in opposition, produce nearly the same effect, in swelling the waters of the opposite hemispheres; but when in quadrature, suspend each other’s force, so as to act only by the difference of their powers; and thus the tides vary, according to the different positions of the sun and moon.

The Cartesian method of solution has been indicated by Pytheas Massiliensis, who observes, that the tides, in their increase and decrease, follow the irregular course of the moon; and by Seleucus of Erythrea, the mathematician, who ascribing to the earth a rotation about its axis, imputes the cause of tides to the activity of the earth’s vortex, in conjunction with that of the moon.

Pliny’s account has more affinity to that of sir Isaac Newton. The great naturalist of the ancients maintained, that “the sun and moon had a reciprocal share in causing the tides:” and after a course of observations for many years, he remarked, that “the moon acted most forcibly upon the waters when it was nearest to the earth; but that the effect was not immediately perceived by us, but at such an interval as may well take place between the action of celestial causes, and the discernible result of them on earth.” He remarked also, that the waters, which are naturally inert, do not swell up immediately upon the conjunction of the sun and moon; but having gradually admitted the impulse, and begun to raise themselves, continue in that elevation, even after the conjunction is over.

There are few things which have more engaged the attention of naturalists, and with less success, than the wonderful properties of the Loadstone. Almost all have agreed in affirming that there are corpuscles of a peculiar form and energy that continually circulate around and through the loadstone, and that a vortex of the same matter circulates around and through the earth. Upon these suppositions Descartes and others have advanced, that the loadstone has two poles similar to those of the earth; and that the magnetic matter which issues at one of the poles, and circulates around to enter at the other, occasions that impulse which brings iron to the loadstone, whose small corpuscles have an analogy to the pores of iron, fitting them to lay hold of it, but not of other bodies.

All this the ancients had said before. The impulsive force which joins iron to the loadstone, and other things to Amber, was known to Plato; though he would not call it attraction, as allowing no such cause in nature. This philosopher called the magnet the stone of Hercules, because it subdued iron, which conquers every thing.

Descartes’s idea of his explanation was doubtless derived from Lucretius, who admitted, that there was a “vortex of corpuscles, or magnetic matter, which, continually circulating around the loadstone, repelled the intervening air betwixt itself and the iron. The air thus repelled, the intervening space became a vacuum; and the iron, finding no resistance, approached with an impulsive force, pushed on by the air behind it.”

Plutarch likewise is of the same opinion. He says, that “amber attracts none of those things that are brought to it, any more than the loadstone, but emits a matter, which reflects the circumambient air, and thereby forms a void. The expelled air puts in motion the air before it, which making a circle, returns to the void space, driving before it, towards the loadstone, the iron which it meets in its way.” He then proposes a difficulty, to wit, “why the vortex which circulates around the loadstone does not make its way to wood or stone, as well as iron?” He answers, like Descartes, that “the pores of iron have an analogy to the particles of the vortex circulating about the loadstone, which yields them such access as they can find in no other bodies, whose pores are differently formed.”

Certain authors report, that the properties of the loadstone, particularly its tendency towards the north pole, enabled the ancients to undertake long voyages; and they pretend, that the Egyptians, Phœnicians, and Carthaginians, employed the compass to guide them in their naval excursions; though afterwards they lost the use of it, just as they did of dying purple,[462] and of embroidering, and of composing bricks, and a cement able to resist the force of all weathers; arts, without all doubt, formerly well known to them. Pineda and Kircher affirm likewise, that Solomon knew the use of the compass, and that his subjects steered their course by it in sailing to the land of Ophir. There is also a passage of Plautus[463] produced, wherein it is alleged he speaks of the compass. There is not however a single passage in the ancients that directly supports these pretensions.[464]

It is scarcely credible, that the real cause of Electricity was known to the ancients, and yet there are indications of it in the work of Timæus Locrensis, concerning the soul of the world.

The moderns are also divided in their sentiments, as to how it happens that Rivers, continually flowing into the sea, do not swell the mass of waters, so as to make it overflow its banks. One of the solutions of this difficulty is, that rivers return again to their source by subterraneous passages or canals; and that there is, between the sea and the springs of rivers, a circulation analogous to that of blood in the human body. This solution, however, is the same as Seneca’s, who accounts for their not overflowing the bed of the ocean, by imagining secret passages, which reconduct them to their springs; and because, at their springs, they retain nothing of that brackishness which they carried with them from the sea, he supposes they are filtrated in their circuit through winding paths, and layers of every soil, so that they must needs return to their source as pure and sweet as they departed thence.

[462] We may with exactness determine what the true colour was of the purple of the ancients, by attending to two passages of Pliny, wherein he says, that the whole aim of the Tyrians and Phœnicians, in bringing their purple to the utmost perfection, was to render it in colour as like as possible to the oriental amethyst. Plin. Hist. Natur. lib. ix. c. 38 & 41, et lib. xxxvii. c. 9.

[463]

Hùc secundus ventus nunc est; cape modò Vorsoriam, Stasime; cape Vorsoriam, recipe te ad Herum.

[464] With respect to what was known to the ancients, and of which we still are ignorant, recourse may be had to Pancirolus de rebus Deperditis, particularly to his first book, chap. i. 35, 36, 39, respecting the colour of purple, the ductility of glass and the effects of the ancient music. See especially Dion. Cassius’s History, in Tiber. lib. lvii. p. 617. E. Plin. lib. xxxvi. c. 26, &c. Isidor. de Originib. lib. xvi. c. 15, respecting the ductility of glass.

* * * * *

FILEY, YORKSHIRE.

HADDOCK LEGEND, AND HERRING FISHERY.

For the Table Book.

At Filey a singular range of rock, said to resemble the celebrated mole of Tangiers, extends from the cliff a considerable way into the sea, and is called Filey bridge. It is covered by the sea at high tide, but may be traversed for upwards of a quarter of a mile at low water. From the farther end a distant, but, in fine weather, a distinct view may be had of Scarborough and the Castle on the one hand, and of Flamborough-head and the Lighthouse, with an extensive stretch of lofty chalk-stone cliff, on the other. When the wind is from the north-east the waves break over it majestically, and may be seen rising up in foamy spray to a great distance, producing an imposing and awful appearance. From its singularity there is no wonder that the credulous, the superstitious, and the vulgar, who have always had a propensity to attach something of the marvellous to whatever is extraordinary, should have made this ridge an object from which to form a story.

Perhaps, Mr. Editor, you, as well as many of the readers of the Table Book, may have seen the haddock at different times, and observed the black marks on its sides. But do you know, sir, how the haddock came by these said marks? The legendary tale of Filey says, that the devil in one of his mischievous pranks determined to build Filey bridge for the destruction of ships and sailors, and the annoyance of fishermen, but that in the progress of his work he accidentally let fall his hammer into the sea, and being in haste to snatch it back caught a haddock, and thereby made the imprint, which the whole species retains to this day.

The village of Filey is seated in a small and beautiful bay. The settled inhabitants depend chiefly on the fishery, which is carried on with success to a considerable extent, although of late years a few good houses have been built, and several respectable families have resorted thither during the season, for the purpose of sea-bathing, for which the beach is well adapted. The church is in the form of a cross, with a steeple in the middle, and bears some resemblance to an ancient cathedral in miniature; it stands at a distance from the village, being divided by a deep ravine, which forms the boundary of partition between the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire; the church consequently stands in the former, and the village in the latter of the two Ridings.

T. C.

Bridlington, Sept. 27, 1827.

Since the foregoing was written I have been at Filey, and was there informed that in the month of September, yearly, about ninety men, sometimes accompanied by their wives and children, leave this village for the herring fishery at Yarmouth. Previously to their setting out for the fishing station they send a piece of sea-beef on shore from each boat to such of their friends at the public-houses as they wish “weel teea;” this occasions “a bit of a supper,” at which those who are going away and those who stay meet to enjoy good cheer, heightened with mutual good-will.

October 11, 1827.

T. C.

* * * * *

PISCATORIA.

Lucan, the Roman poet, makes a beautiful digression to paint the happy life of a fisherman. In plain prose it will read in this manner:--

News (says he) was brought to Cæsar, at a late hour, that Pompey was up in arms in Calabria, ready to dispute with him the sovereignty of the world; perplexed in mind, he knew not for a while what steps best to pursue, when, stealing from the arms of his Calphornia, he cast his mantle about him, and through the gloom of midnight hastened alone to the mouth of the Tiber, and coming to the cabin of Amilcas the fisherman, struck thrice with his arm upon the door of the slumberer. “Arise, Amilcas,” said Cæsar, in a subdued tone. The fisherman and his family, without care, were reposing on their beds of sheepskins. Amilcas knew the voice of Cæsar, and threw open his wicket to receive his master. “Come away, Amilcas,” cried the emperor, “launch your boat with all speed, and bear me to Calabria; Pompey is there in arms against me while I am absent; hasten then, and ask what thou wilt of Cæsar.” The night was dark, and the elements were at war with each other; but by the strength, courage, and judgment of the boatman, Cæsar was soon landed on the shore of Calabria.--“And now, Amilcas,” rejoined the mighty chief, “make thy demand.” “Grant me then,” replied the fisherman, “that I may return the way I came to my peaceful family; for at daybreak should they not see me spreading my nets upon the beach, as they are wont, their faithful bosoms will be rent with sorrow.”--“Go,” replied the Roman chief, “thou humble, modest man, and never let it be forgotten that Cæsar is thy friend.”

* * * * *

INCREDIBLE LIARS

The French papers in the autumn of 1821 mention, that a man named Desjardins was tried, on his own confession, as an accomplice with Louvel, the assassin of the duke de Berri. But, on his defence, Desjardins contended that his confession ought not to be believed, because he was so notorious for falsehood, that nobody in the world would give credit to a word he said. In support of this, he produced a host of witnesses, his friends and relatives, who all swore that the excessive bad character he had given of himself was true, and he was declared “not guilty.”

This case parallels with a similar instance some years before in Ireland. A man was charged with highway robbery. In the course of the trial the prisoner roared out from the dock that he was guilty; but the jury pronounced him by their verdict “not guilty.” The astonished judge exclaimed, “Good God, gentlemen, did you not hear the man himself declare that he was guilty?” The foreman said, “We did, my lord, and that was the very reason we acquitted him, for we knew the fellow to be so notorious a liar that he never told a word of truth in his life.”

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

HEBREW MELODY,

A PORTUGUESE HYMN.

How blest is the mortal who never reposes In seat of the scorner, nor roams o’er the ground, Where Pleasure is strewing her thorn-covered roses. And waving her gay silken banners around.

Who worships his Maker when evening is throwing Her somberest shadows o’er mountain and lea; And kneels in devotion when daylight is glowing, And gilding the waves of the dark rolling sea.

He shall be like a tree on the calm river waving, That riseth all glorious all lovely to view, Whose deeply fix’d root the pure waters are laving, Whose boughs are enriched with the kindliest dew.

Not so the ungodly! his fate shall resemble The chaff by autumnal winds wafted away; And when life’s fading lamp in its socket shall tremble Shall look to the judgment with fear and dismay!

T. Q. M.

Ivy Cottage, Grassington in Craven,

October 21, 1827.

* * * * *

FACTITIA.

For the Table Book.

“WHERE IS MY THERMOMETER?”

In a certain town a certain military gentleman regulates his dress by a thermometer, which is constantly suspended at the back door of his house. Some wicked wag once stole the instrument, and left in its place the following lines:--

When ----n to Tartarus got, That huge and warm gasometer! “Good lord!” quoth he, “how wondrous hot! O, where is my thermometer!”

DEGRADATION OF A DEGREE.

“Why,” said our friend T. Q. M. to Sally Listen, an old inhabitant of Wensleydale, “why do you call Mr. ----, doctor, when he has no title to such an appellation? he is only a quack!”--“Why,” said Sally, “I’ll call him naught else. What mun a body mister sic chaps as him for? Doctor’s good enough for sic blacks!”

Vol. II.--48.

On Keston Heath wells up the Ravensbourne, A crystal rillet, scarce a palm in width, Till creeping to a bed, outspread by art, It sheets itself across, reposing there: Thence, through a thicket, sinuous it flows, And crossing meads, and footpaths, gath’ring tribute. Due to its elder birth, from younger branches, Wanders, in Hayes and Bromley, Beckenham vale, And straggling Lewisham, to where Deptford Bridge Uprises in obeisance to its flood, Whence, with large increase it rolls on, to swell The master current of the “mighty heart” Of England.

*

Before I had seen Keston I heard, at West Wickham, that it had been the site of a Roman camp, and that a Roman bath was still there. It was from curiosity towards this piece of antiquity that I first visited the spot, in company with my friend W----. The country people, whom we met on our way, spoke of it as the “Old Bath,” and the “Cold Bath,” and as a water of great virtue, formerly bathed in, and still resorted to, by persons afflicted with weak or sprained limbs, which by dipping in this bath became cured.

Our walk from Wickham was remarkably pleasant; we passed noble oaks of many centuries’ growth, and descended from the broad open highway into an old road on our left, a ravine, or intrenchment perchance, clothed with tendril plants and blossoming briars, festooning and arching over wild flowers growing amid the verdure of its high banks. Here we paced up hill, till we reached an open, lofty tract of heathland, in a rude, uncultivated, picturesque state, with a few houses in distant parts, surrounded by thriving plantations. On our left were the woodlands of the pleasant village of Hayes, remarkable for having been the seat of the great earl of Chatham, and the birthplace of his well-remembered son. On our right were the heights of Holwood, and fine forest scenery. Near a cluster of cottages immediately before us there was a mill, with its sails going; these we scarcely glanced at, but made our way to an old alehouse, the sign of the Fox, where an ancient labourer, sitting at the door, directed us to “the Bath.” We found it in a romantic little bottom, immediately under the gates of Holwood.

The delightful landscape, from the opening of this dell towards London and beyond it, so much engaged our attention, that for a while we forgot the “Bath,” on the brink of which we were standing. There is no appearance of its having been a bathing-place, and certainly it has not the least character of a Roman bath. It is simply a well of fine pellucid water, which gently overflowing threads a small winding channel in the herbage, and suddenly expands, till it seems bounded by an embankment and line of trees. This is the road to the pleasant inn “Keston Cross.” In the distance are the Kentish and Essex hills, with the dome of the metropolitan cathedral. Presuming that information respecting the spring might be obtained at Holwood we reascended, and inquired of several labourers employed in levelling and gravelling the avenue; but we derived nothing satisfactory till a Keston man, working at a distance, came up, and told us that it was the source of the Ravensbourne.

I had formerly heard and read of a tradition respecting this spring, and now that I unexpectedly found myself upon its margin, recollection of the story heightened the interest of the scene. The legend runs, that when Cæsar was encamped here his troops were in great need of water, and none could be found in the vicinity. Observing, however, that a raven frequently alighted near the camp, and conjecturing that it was for the purpose of quenching its thirst, he ordered the coming of the bird to be watched for, and the spot to be particularly noted; this was done, and the result was as he anticipated. The object of the raven’s resort was this little spring; from thence Cæsar derived a supply of water for the Roman legions, and from the circumstance of its discovery the spring was called the Raven’s bourne, or the Raven’s brook. From the lodge at Holwood, W. obtained the loan of a chair, and taking his seat on the brink of the well, sketched the view represented in his engraving of it above.

If the account of Holwood[465] in 1792 be correct, this spring, there called “Cæsar’s Spring,” was then a public cold bath, ornamented with trees, and a dressing-house on the brink. Hasted, in 1778,[466] gives a view of the Roman intrenchments on Holwood Hill, and figures the ancient road to the spring of the Ravensbourne, as running down to it from where Holwood gates now stand: he also figures the spring with twelve trees planted round it. Now, however, there is not a vestige of tree or building, but there are in the ground the stumps of a poled fencing, which was standing within recollection. On further examination I found the well bricked round, but the bricks at the top edge had decayed, or been thrown in; and the interior brickwork is lined with hair moss and other water-weeds. On the side opposite to that whereon a man is represented in the engraving. I traced the remains of steps for descending into the well as a bath. Its circle is about nine feet in diameter. At what time it commenced, or ceased, to be used as a bath, is uncertain.

Here, then, about twelve miles from London, in a delightful country, is a spring, rendered venerable by immemorial tradition and our ancient annals; and which, during eighteen centuries, from the time of its alleged discovery by Cæsar, has remained open to general use. Sorry therefore am I to add, that there are rumours of a wish to enclose this public relic of bygone ages. I invite public attention to the place and to the report. Even at this season the lover of natural scenery will find charms at the source of the Ravensbourne, and be able to imagine the beauty of the surrounding country in summer. Had I a right of common on Keston Heath, rather than assist in a base “homage,” to colourably admit the enclosure of “Cæsar’s Spring,” I would surrender my own right, and renounce community and neighbourhood with the heartless hirelings, who would defraud themselves and the public of the chief attraction to Keston Common. At so small a distance from London I know of nothing so remarkable in history as this spring. On no pretence ought the public to be deprived of it. There are rights of nature as well as of property: when the claims of the latter are urged too pertinaciously against the former, it is time to cry out; and if middle men do not interfere to prevent the oppression, they will, in their turn, cry aloud when there will be none to help them.

[465] In col. 626.

[466] History of Kent, folio, vol. i. 129.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XLII.

[From “Thyestes,” a Tragedy, by John Crowne, 1681.]

Atreus, having recovered his Wife, and Kingdom, from his brother Thyestes, who had usurped both, and sent him into banishment, describes his offending Queen.

Atreus (solus). ------ still she lives; ’Tis true, in heavy sorrow: so she ought, If she offended as I fear she has. Her hardships, though, she owes to her own choice. I have often offer’d her my useless couch; For what is it to me? I never sleep: But for her bed she uses the hard floor. My table is spread for her; I never eat: And she’ll take nothing but what feeds her grief.

Philisthenes, the Son of Thyestes, at a stolen interview with Antigone, the daughter of Atreus, is surprised by the King’s Spies: upon which misfortune Antigone swooning, is found by Peneus.

Antigone. Peneus, an ancient retainer to the Court of Mycenæ.

Peneus. Ha! what is she that sleeps in open air? Indeed the place is far from any path, But what conducts to melancholy thoughts; But those are beaten roads about this Court. Her habit calls her, Noble Grecian Maid; But her sleep says, she is a stranger here. All birds of night build in this Court, but Sleep; And Sleep is here made wild with loud complaints, And flies away from all. I wonder how This maid has brought it to her lure so tame. Antigone, (waking from her swoon). Oh my Philisthenes! Peneus. She wakes to moan; Aye, that’s the proper language of this place! Antigone. My dear, my poor Philisthenes! I know ’tis so! oh horror! death! hell! oh-- Peneus. I know her now; ’tis fair Antigone, The daughter and the darling of the King. This is the lot of all this family.[467] Beauteous Antigone, thou know’st me well; I am old Peneus, one who threescore years Has loved and serv’d thy wretched family. Impart thy sorrows to me; I perhaps In my wide circle of experience May find some counsel that may do thee good. Antigone. O good old man! how long have you been here? Peneus. I came but now. Antigone. O did you see this way Poor young Philisthenes? you know him well. Peneus. Thy uncle’s son, Thyestes’ eldest son-- Antigone. The same, the same-- Peneus. No; all the Gods forbid I should meet him so near thy father’s Court. Antigone. O he was here one cursed minute past. Peneus. What brought him hither? Antigone. Love to wretched me. Our warring fathers never ventured more For bitter hate than we for innocent love. Here but a minute past the dear youth lay, Here in this brambly cave lay in my arms; And now he is seized! O miserable me--(tears her hair.) Peneus. Why dost thou rend that beauteous ornament? In what has it offended? hold thy hands. Antigone. O father, go and plead for the poor youth; No one dares speak to the fierce King but you-- Peneus. And no one near speaks more in vain than I; He spurns me from his presence like a dog. Antigone. Oh, then-- Peneus. She faints, she swoons, I frighten’d her, Oh I spake indiscretely. Daughter, child, Antigone, I’ll go, indeed I’ll go. Antigone. There is no help for me in heav’n or earth. Peneus. There is, there is; despair not, sorrowful maid. All will be well. I’m going to the King, And will with pow’rful reasons bind his hands; And something in me says I shall prevail. But to whose care shall I leave thee the while?-- For oh! I dare not trust thee to thy grief. Antigone. I’ll be disposed of, father, as you please, Till I receive the blest or dreadful doom. Peneus. Then come, dear daughter, lean upon my arm, Which old and weak is stronger yet than thine; Thy youth hath known more sorrow than my age. I never hear of grief, but when I’m here; But one day’s diet here of sighs and tears Returns me elder home by many years.

Atreus, to entrap his brother Thyestes; who has lived a concealed life, lurking in woods, to elude his vengeance; sends Philisthenes and old Peneus to him with offers of reconciliation, and an invitation to Court, to be present at the nuptials of Antigone with Philisthenes.

Thyestes. Philisthenes. Peneus.

Thy. Welcome to my arms, My hope, my comfort! Time has roll’d about Several months since I have seen thy face, And in its progress has done wond’rous things. Phil. Strange things indeed to chase you to this sad Dismal abode; nay, and to age, I think: I see that winter thrusting itself forth Long, long before its time, in silver hairs. Thy. My fault, my son; I would be great and high, Snow lies in summer on some mountain tops. Ah, Son! I’m sorry for thy noble youth, Thou hast so bad a father; I’m afraid, Fortune will quarrel with thee for my sake. Thou wilt derive unhappiness from me, Like an hereditary ill disease. Phil. Sir, I was born, when you were innocent; And all the ill you have contracted since, You have wrought out by painful penitence; For healthy joy returns to us again; Nay, a more vigorous joy than e’er we had. Like one recover’d from a sad disease, Nature for damage pays him double cost, And gives him fairer flesh than e’er he had.

Thyestes is won from his retirement by the joint representations of Philisthenes and Peneus, of the apparent good faith, and returning kindness of his brother; and visits Mycenæ:--his confidence; his returning misgivings.

Thyestes. Philisthenes. Peneus.

Thy. O wondrous pleasure to a banish’d man, I feel my loved long look’d-for native soil! And oh! my weary eyes, that all the day Had from some mountain travell’d toward this place, Now rest themselves upon the royal towers Of that great palace where I had my birth. O sacred towers, sacred in your height, Mingling with clouds, the villas of the Gods Whither for sacred pleasures they retire; Sacred because you are the work of Gods; Your lofty looks boast your divine descent: And the proud city which lies at your feet, And would give place to nothing but to you, Owns her original is short of yours. And now a thousand objects more ride fast On morning beams, and meet my eyes in throngs; And see, all Argos meets me with loud shouts! Phil. O joyful sound! Thy. But with them Atreus too-- Phil. What ails my father, that he stops, and shakes, And now retires? Thy. Return with me, my son, And old friend Peneus, to the honest beasts, And faithful desart, and well-seated caves; Trees shelter man, by whom they often die, And never seek revenge: no villainy Lies in the prospect of an humble cave. Pen. Talk you of villainy, of foes, and fraud. Thy. I talk of Atreus. Pen. What are these to him? Thy. Nearer than I am, for they are himself. Pen. Gods drive these impious thoughts out of your mind. Thy. The Gods for all our safety put them there.-- Return, return with me. Pen. Against our oaths? I cannot stem the vengeance of the Gods. Thy. Here are no Gods: they’ve left this dire abode. Pen. True race of Tantalus! who parent-like Are doom’d in midst of plenty to be starved. His hell and yours differ alone in this: When he would catch at joys, they fly from him; When glories catch at you, you fly from them. Thy. A fit comparison; our joys and his Are lying shadows, which to trust is hell.

The day of the pretended Nuptials.--Atreus feigns a returning love for his Queen.

Ærope. O this is too much joy for me to bear: You build new palaces on broken walls. Atreus. Come, let our new-born pleasures breathe sweet air; This room’s too vile a cabinet for gold. Then leave for ever, Love, this doleful place, And leave behind thee all thy sorrows here; And dress thyself as this great day requires. ’Twill be thy daughter’s nuptials; and I dream’d, The Sun himself would be asham’d to come, And be a guest in his old tarnish’d robe; But leave my Court,[468] to enlighten all the globe.--

Peneus to Atreus, dissuading him from his horrid purpose.

Pen. Fear you not men or Gods? Atr. The fear of Gods ne’er came in Pelops’ House. Pen. Think you there are no Gods? Atr. I find all things So false, I am sure of nothing but of wrongs.--

Atreus. Thyestes.

A TABLE, AND A BANQUET.

Atr. Come, brother, sit. Thy. May not Philisthenes Sit with us, Sir? Atr. He waits upon the Bride. A deeper bowl. This to the Bridegroom’s health. Thy. This to the Gods for this most joyful day.-- Now to the Bridegroom’s health. Atr. This day shall be To Argos an eternal festival. Thy. Fortune and I to day both try our strengths. I have quite tired her left hand Misery; She now relieves it with her right-hand Joy, Which she lays on me with her utmost force; But both shall be too weak for my strong spirit. Atr. (aside). So, now my engines of delight have screw’d The monster to the top of arrogance; And now he’s ready for his deadly fall. Thy. O these extremes of misery and joy Measure the vast extent of a man’s soul. My spirit reaches Fortune’s East and West. She has oft set and ris’n here; yet cannot get Out of the vast dominion of my mind.-- Ho! my proud vaunting has a sudden check; See, from my head my crown of roses falls; My hair, tho’ almost drown’d beneath sweet oils, With strange and sudden horrors starts upright: Something I know not what bids me not eat; And what I have devour’d[469] within me groans; I fain would tear my breast to set it free;-- And I have catch’d the eager thirst of tears, Which all weak spirits have in misery. I, who in banishment ne’er wept, weep now. Atr. Brother, regard it not; ’tis fancy all. Misery, like night, is haunted with ill spirits, And spirits leave not easily their haunts; ’Tis said, sometimes they’ll impudently stand A flight of beams from the forlorn of day, And scorn the crowing of the sprightly cocks:-- Brother, ’tis morning with our pleasure yet. Nor has the sprightly wine crow’d oft enough. See in great flagons at full length it sleeps, And lets these melancholy thoughts break in Upon our weaker pleasures. Rouse the wine, And bid him chase these fancies hence for shame. Fill up that reverend unvanquish’d Bowl, Who many a giant in his time has fallen, And many a monster; Hercules not more. Thy. If he descends into my groaning breast, Like Hercules, he will descend to hell-- Atr. And he will vanquish all the monsters there. Brother, your courage with this Hero try; He o’er our House has reign’d two hundred years, And he’s the only king shall rule you here. Thy. What ails me, I cannot heave it to my lips? Atr. What, is the bowl too heavy? Thy. No; my heart. Atr. The wine will lighten it. Thy. The wine will not Come near my lips. Atr. Why should they be so strange? They are near a-kin. Thy. A-kin? Atr. As possible; father and son not nearer. Thy. What do you mean? Atr. Does not good wine beget good blood? Thy. ’Tis true. Atr. Your lips then and the wine may be a-kin. Off with your kindred wine; leave not a drop To die alone, bewilder’d in that bowl. Help him to heave it to his head; that’s well.

(Thyestes drinks. A clap of thunder. The lights go out.)

Thy. What pond’rous crimes pull heav’n upon our heads? Nature is choak’d with some vast villainy, And all her face is black. Atr. Some lights, some lights. Thy. The sky is stunn’d, and reels ’twixt night and day; Old Chaos is return’d. Atr. It is to see A young One born, more dreadful than herself; That promises great comfort to her age, And to restore her empire. Thy. What do you mean? Atr. Confusion I have in thy bowels made. Thy. Dire thoughts, like Furies, break into my mind With flaming brands, and shew me what he means. Where is Philisthenes? Atr. Ask thy own bowels: Thou heard’st them groan; perhaps they now will speak. Thy. Thou hast not, Tyrant--what I dare not ask? Atr. I kill’d thy Son, and thou hast drunk his blood.

C. L.

[467] The descendants of Tantalus.

[468] A hint of the dreadful banquet which he meditates, at which the Sun is said to have turned away his horses.

[469] The mangled limbs of his son Philisthenes, which Atreus has set before him.

* * * * *

For the Table Book

THEATRALIA.

TOM DURFEY

Once got fifty guineas (according to tradition) for singing a single song to queen Anne in ridicule of “the princess Sophia, electress and duchess dowager of Hanover,” (as she is called in the oath of allegiance,) naturally no great favourite with the then reigning monarch. The only lines of this satirical production that have come down to us are the following; and, until now, only the two first of the stanza have been preserved by Durfey’s biographers:--

“The crown’s far too weighty For shoulders of eighty; She could not sustain such a trophy; Her hand, too, already Has grown so unsteady She can’t hold a sceptre; So Providence kept her Away.--Poor old Dowager Sophy.”

“Merry Tom” had sung before the king in the former reign, and Charles II., as is well known, was very fond of his company.

LISTON’S MARRIAGE.

The following got into circulation just after Mr. Liston was united to Miss Tyrer but never was published:--

Liston has married Fanny Tyrer: He must, like all the town, admire her, A pretty actress, charming voice! But some, astonish’d at his choice Of one, compar’d with him, so small She scarcely seem’d a wife at all, Express’d their wonder: his reply Show’d that he had “good reason why.”-- “We needs must when the devil drives; And since all married men say, wives Are of created things the worst, I was resolv’d I would be curst With one as small as I could get her. The smaller, as I thought, the better. I need not fear to lay my fist on, Whene’er ’tis needed, Mrs. Liston: And since, ’like heathen Jew or Carib, I like a rib, but not a spare-rib, I got one broad as she is long-- Go and do better, if I’m wrong.”

CHARLES JENNENS, ESQ.

One of the most singular characters of his day was Charles Jennens, Esq., a sort of literary Bubb Doddington. Being born to a good estate, from his boyhood he was ridiculously fond of show and pomp, and his style of writing was of a piece with his style of living. It has been said, that he put together the words of Handel’s “Messiah:” that he had something to do with them is true; but he had a secretary of the name of Pooley, a poor clergyman, who executed the principal part of the work, and, till now, has obtained no part of the credit. Charles Jennens, Esq. took it into his head, (perhaps the most rational notion he had ever indulged,) that the majority of Shakspeare’s commentators were mere twaddling antiquaries, without taste or talent; but he adopted an unfortunate way of proving it: he himself published an edition of Hamlet, Lear, Othello, and one or two more tragedies. He was of course laughed at for his attempt, and George Steevens tried to show a little of the wit, for which his friends gave him credit, and of the ill-nature for which he deserved it. Jennens published a pamphlet in reply, the greater part his own writing, which for years was his delight and solace: his poor secretary used to have the task of reading it from beginning to end, whenever his patron called for it, on giving an entertainment to his friends. Jennens commented, explained, and enforced, as he proceeded. In some of the biographical accounts of this personage it is asserted gravely, that for some time after the appearance of this tract he carefully looked over the newspapers every day, to learn if the success and severity of his attack had not compelled Dr. Johnson, Malone, Steevens, or Warburton, to hang themselves. This depends upon the following epigram, written at the time, and now only existing in MS., but which obtained a wide circulation, and is attributed, perhaps correctly, to Steevens. The only objection to this supposition is, that if it had been Steevens’s it is strange how his vanity could keep it out of the public prints, though after all it possesses but little merit:--

“After Mister Charles Jennens produc’d his Defence, He saw all the papers at Martyr’s, To learn if the critics had had the good sense To hang themselves in their own garters. He thought they could never out-live it. The sot Is ready to hang himself, ’cause they have not.”

When we called Jennens a literary Bubb Doddington, we ought to have remembered that Doddington had talents, but Jennens had none.

ELLISTON’S EPIGRAM.

The following has been handed about as from the pen of Mr. Elliston, now of the Surrey theatre. It may be his or it may not, but whichever way the fact be, it can do him no harm to publish it. The point is in the Greek Anthology, though we do not suppose that Mr. E. went there for it.

The best Wine.

“What wine do you esteem the first, And like above the rest?” Ask’d Tom--said Dick--“My own is worst, My friend’s is always best.”

SIR JOHN HILL

Was a Polish knight and an English physician, more celebrated by Garrick’s epigrams than by his own dramatic compositions, consisting of two farces, The Maiden’s Whim and The Rout. He wrote books enough on all subjects “to build his own papyral monument,” if the grocers and trunk-makers had not committed such havoc among them, even before his death. That event was produced by taking his own remedy for the gout, and it is thus commemorated.

On the Death of Doctor Hill.

“Poor Doctor Hill is dead!”--“Good lack! Of what disorder?”--“An attack Of gout.”--“Indeed! I thought that he Had found a wondrous remedy.”-- “Why so he had, and when he tried He found it true--the Doctor died!”

* * * * *

GOUT.

The contest among medical men for the most proper mode of curing this complaint cannot but produce a smile, when we recollect that the afflicted have recourse to various and opposite remedies with success.

We have heard of a man who would find his pains alleviated by drinking a wineglass full of verjuice, while a table-spoonful of wine would torture him almost to distraction.

There were two counsellors, some years ago, who generally cured themselves in a very pleasant manner; one, who was accustomed to drink water constantly, would cure himself by drinking wine; and the other, who invariably took his bottle or more of wine a day, was constantly cured by the use of water.

Others, by living on a milk diet only, have entirely cured themselves.

Some years ago there was a man in Italy who was particularly successful in the cure of the gout: his mode was to make his patients sweat profusely, by obliging them to go up and down stairs, though with much pain to themselves.

A quack in France acquired great reputation for the cure of this malady, by the use of a medicine he called “Tincture of the Moon,” of which he administered some drops every morning in a basin of broth. It was never used by any but the richest persons; for the price of a bottle full, not larger than a common sized smelling bottle, was eighty louis d’ors. Furetière mentions this quack, and says he possessed many valuable secrets. He adds, that the surprising cures, to which he was witness, by the “Tincture of the Moon,” astonished all the faculty at Paris. The operation of this medicine was insensible.

* * * * *

~Stories~

OF THE

~Craven Dales.~

No. II.[470]

He had been in Yorkshire dales, Amid the winding scars; Where deep and low the hamlets lie Beneath a little patch of sky, And little patch of stars.--WORDSWORTH.

THE LEGEND OF THE TROLLER’S GILL.

On the steep fell’s height shone the fair moonlight, And its beams illum’d the dale, And a silvery sheen cloth’d the forest green, Which sigh’d to the moaning gale.

From Burnsal’s tower the midnight hour Had toll’d, and its echo was still, And the elfin band, from faërie land, Was upon Elboton hill.

’Twas silent all, save the waters’ fall, That with never ceasing din, Roar and rush, and foam and gush, In Loupscar’s troubled linn.

From his cot he stept, while the household slept, And he carroll’d with boist’rous glee, But he ne hied to the green hill’s side, The faerie train to see.

He went not to roam with his own dear maid Along by a pine-clad scar, Nor sing a lay to his ladye love, ’Neath the light of the polar star.

The Troller, I ween, was a fearless wight, And, as legends tell, could hear The night winds rave, in the Knave Knoll cave,[471] Withouten a sign of fear.

And whither now are his footsteps bent? And where is the Troller bound? To the horrid gill of the limestone hill, To call on the Spectre Hound!

And on did he pass, o’er the dew-bent grass, While the sweetest perfumes fell, From the blossoming of the trees which spring In the depth of that lonely dell.

Now before his eyes did the dark gill rise, No moon-ray pierced its gloom, And his steps around did the waters sound Like a voice from a haunted tomb.

And there as he stept, a shuddering crept O’er his frame, scarce known to fear, For he once did dream, that the sprite of the stream Had loudly called--FORBEAR!

An aged yew in the rough cliffs grew, And under its sombre shade Did the Troller rest, and with charms unblest, He a magic circle made.

Then thrice did he turn where the streamers burn,[472] And thrice did he kiss the ground, And with solemn tone, in that gill so lone, He call’d on the Spectre Hound!

And a burning brand he clasp’d in his hand, And he nam’d a potent spell, That, for Christian ear it were sin to hear, And a sin for a bard to tell.[473]

And a whirlwind swept by, and stormy grew the sky, And the torrent louder roar’d, While a hellish flame, o’er the Troller’s stalwart frame From each cleft of the gill was pour’d.

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring, And its wild bark thrill’d around-- Its eyes had the glow of the fires below-- ’Twas the form of the Spectre Hound!

* * * * *

When on Rylstonne’s height glow’d the morning light, And, borne on the mountain air, The Priorie[474] bell did the peasants tell ’Twas the chanting of matin prayer,

By peasant men, where the horrid glen Doth its rugged jaws expand, A corse was found, where a dark yew frown’d, And marks were imprest on the dead man’s breast-- But they seem’d not by mortal hand.

* * * * *

In the evening calm a funeral psalm Slowly stole o’er the woodland scene-- The harebells wave on a new-made grave In “Burnsall’s church-yard green.”

That funeral psalm in the evening calm, Which echo’d the dell around, Was his, o’er whose grave blue harebells wave, Who call’d on the Spectre Hound!

* * * * *

The above ballad is founded on a tradition, very common amongst the mountains of Craven. The spectre hound is Bargest. Of this mysterious personage I am able to give a very particular account, having only a few days ago seen Billy B----y, who had once a full view of it. I give the narrative in his own words; it would detract from its merit to alter the language.

BILLY B----’S ADVENTURE.

“You see, sir, as how I’d been a clock-dressing at Gurston [Grassington], and I’d staid rather lat, and may be gitten a lile sup o’ spirit, but I war far from being drunk, and knowed every thing that passed. It war about 11 o’clock when I left, and it war at back end o’t’ year, and a most admīrable [beautiful] neet it war. The moon war varra breet, and I nivvr seed Rylstone-fell plainer in a’ my life. Now, you see, sir, I war passin down t’ mill loine, and I heerd summut come past me--brush, brush, brush, wi’ chains rattling a’ the while; but I seed nothing; and thowt I to mysel, now this is a most mortal queer thing. And I then stuid still, and luik’d about me, but I seed nothing at aw, nobbut the two stane wa’s on each side o’t’ mill loine. Then I heerd again this brush, brush, brush, wi’ the chains; for you see, sir, when I stuid still it stopped; and then, thowt I, this mun be a Bargest, that sae much is said about: and I hurried on towards t’ wood brig, for they say as how this Bargest cannot cross a watter; but lord, sir, when I gat o’er t’ brig, I heerd this same thing again; so it mud either hev crossed t’ watter, or gone round by t’ spring heed! [About thirty miles!] And then I becam a valliant man, for I war a bit freeten’d afore; and thinks I, I’ll turn and hev a peep at this thing; so I went up Greet Bank towards Linton, and heerd this brush, brush, brush, wi’ the chains a’ the way, but I seed nothing; then it ceased all of a sudden. So I turned back to go hame, but I’d hardly reach’d t’ door, when I heerd again this brush, brush, brush, and the chains going down towards t’ Holin House, and I followed it, and the moon there shone varra breet, and I seed its tail! Then, thowt I, thou owd thing! I can say Ise seen thee now, so I’ll away hame. When I gat to t’ door, there war a girt thing like a sheep, but it war larger, ligging across t’ threshold of t’ door, and it war woolly like; and says I, ‘git up,’ and it wouldn’t git up--then says I, ‘stir thysel,’ and it wouldn’t stir itsel! And I grew valliant, and I rais’d t’ stick to baste it wi’, and then it luik’d at me, and sich oies! [eyes] they did glower, and war as big as saucers, and like a cruelled ball; first there war a red ring, then a blue one, then a white one; and these rings grew less and less till they cam to a dot! Now I war nane feer’d on it, tho’ it girn’d at me fearfully, and I kept on saying ‘git up,’ and ‘stir thysel,’ and t’ wife heerd as how I war at t’ door, and she cam to oppen it; and then this thing gat up and walked off, for it war mare feer’d o’ t’ wife than it war o’ me! and I told t’ wife, and she said it war Bargest; but I nivver seed it since, and that’s a true story!”

In the glossary to the Rev. Mr. Carr’s “Horæ Momenta Cravenæ,” I find the following--“Bargest, a sprite that haunts towns and populous places. Belg. birg, and geest, a ghost.” I really am not a little amused at Mr. Carr’s derivation, which is most erroneous. Bargest is not a town ghost, nor is it a haunter “of towns and populous places;” for, on the contrary, it is said in general to frequent small villages and hills. Hence the derivation may be berg, Germ., a hill, and geist, a ghost; i.e. a hill ghost: but the real derivation appears to me to be bär, Germ., a bear, and geist, a ghost; i.e. a bear ghost, from its appearing in the form of a bear or large dog, as Billy B----’s narrative shows.[475]

The appearance of the spectre hound is said to precede a death; which tradition will be more fully illustrated in my next legend, “The Wise Woman of Littondale.” Like most other spirits Bargest is supposed to be unable to cross a water; and in case any of my Craven readers should ever chance to meet with his ghostship, it may be as well to say, that unless they give him the wall he will tear them to pieces, or otherwise illtreat them, as he did one John Lambert, who, refusing to let him have the wall, was so punished for his want of manners, that he died in a few days.

This superstition has in one instance been productive of good. A few years ago an inhabitant of Threshfield kept a huge he-goat, which the wags of the village would sometimes turn into the lanes, in the night-time, with a chain about his neck, to frighten the farmers on their return from Kettlewell market. They once determined to terrify a badger, or miller, as he returned from the market, by driving the animal with the chains, &c. into the lane through which the man of meal was to pass. About ten o’clock the miller, on entering Threshfield with his cart, espies the goat; and hearing the chains, overwhelmed with terror, he conjectures it to be Bargest, that was sent to take him away for his dishonest dealings; the miller stops his cart, and kneeling down in it, thus prayed, to the great amusement of the young rogues behind the wall:--“Good Lord, don’t let the devil take me this time, and I’ll never cheat any more; do let me get safe home, and I’ll never raise my meal again so extravagantly as I have done of late.” He did get safe home, and was as good as his word till he discovered the trick, when he returned to his old malpractices; exemplifying the old epigram--

“The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be, The devil got well, the devil a monk was he.”

In the second verse of the legend of “The Troller’s Gill,” it is said,

And the elfin band from faërie land Was upon Elbōton hill.

Elboton is the largest of five or six very romantic green hills, that seem to have been formed by some tremendous convulsion of nature, at the foot of that fine chain of fells, which extends from Rylstone to Burnsall, and is said to have been, from “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” the haunt of faëries; numbers of these pretty little creatures having been seen there by several men of honour and veracity in this neighbourhood, one of whom has had a faëry in his hand! The elfin train has been visible in many parts of our district, but I know of no place they frequent more than Elboton. One of these diminutive beings, called Hob, is reputed to be a watchful preserver of the farmer’s property, and a most industrious workman. At Close-house, near Skipton in Craven, Hob used to do as much work in one night as twenty human workmen could in the same time; and, as I have been informed by an individual, who resided there about twenty years ago, Hob was accustomed to house the hay, stack the corn, and churn the butter, as well as perform several other offices, which tended materially to lessen the labour of the husbandman and the dairy maid. The occupier of Close-house at that time, thinking to make Hob some return for his kindness and assiduity, laid out a new red cloak for him, which so offended the good faëry, that he ceased his labours, and left the place. On the spot where the cloak was left, the following stanza was found,

Hob red coat, Hob red hood, Hob do you no harm, but no more good.[476]

Loupscar, alluded to in the third verse, is a place in the Wharfe near Burnsall, where the river is pent in with rocks, and boils along in a confined channel, and then discharges itself into a pool of tremendous depth, forming, as Dr. Whitaker says in his history, “a scene more dreadful than pleasing.” The channel of the Wharfe is in general craggy, and the river abounds with similar vortices to Loupscar; the two most celebrated of which are the Gastrills above Grassington, and the Strid, in Bolton woods. The latter will be recognised by the poetical reader, as the fatal gulf where the Boy of Egremond was drowned, whose story Rogers has versified with such exquisite pathos.

“The Troller’s Gill” is in Skyram pastures, beyond Appletreewick. I visited it a few days ago, when the torrent was considerably swollen by the recent heavy rains amongst the mountains. The roar of the water, the terrific grandeur of the overhanging crags, and its loneliness, united to heighten the terrors of the place. To an inhabitant of London, the scene of the wolf’s glen, in the Drury version of “Der Freischütz,” may give some faint idea of it. Dr. Whitaker thought Troller’s Gill “wanted the deep horror of Gordale,” near Malham. There is certainly more sublimity and grandeur about Gordale; but as to horror, I think it nothing to “the Troller’s Gill.” This, however, is a matter of taste.

The last verses allude to the beautiful and ancient custom, still universally prevalent throughout our district, of chanting a solemn dirge at funerals, till the corpse reaches the church-yard gateway. I know of nothing more affecting to a stranger than to meet, at evening, a funeral train proceeding along one of our romantic vallies, while the neighbouring rocks are resonant with the loud dirge sung by the friends of the departed. Long may this custom continue! Too many of our old customs fall into misuse by the ridicule thrown on them by dissenters, as being popish, &c.; but I am happy to say, that in Craven the dissenters are great encouragers of funeral dirges. In Mrs. Heman’s sacred melody, “Last Rites,” this stanza alludes to the practice:--

By the chanted psalm that fills Reverently the ancient hills, Learn, that from his harvests done, Peasants bear a brother on To his last repose!

T. Q. M.

Grassington in Craven,

Nov. 6, 1827.

[470] For No. I., see the “Banquet of the Dead.”

[471] A cave near Thorp.

[472] The Northern Lights. These beautiful meteors have been very vivid and frequent of late.

[473] These two lines are from a German ballad.

[474] Bolton Priorie.

[475] That bears were common in Craven in ancient times is evident from one of our villages being called Barden, i.e. the bear’s den. I consider this circumstance in favour of my derivation.--T. Q. M.

[476] Mr. Story, of Gargrave, has written a beautiful Craven faëry tale, called Fitz Harold.

* * * * *

THE SECOND SERIES OF

WHIMS AND ODDITIES,

WITH FORTY ORIGINAL DESIGNS,

BY THOMAS HOOD.

“What demon hath possessed thee, that thou wilt never forsake that impertinent custom of punning?”

Scriblerus.

If I might be allowed to answer the question instead of Mr. Hood, I should say, that it is the same demon which provokes me to rush directly through his new volume in preference to half a dozen works, which order of time and propriety entitle to previous notice. This book detains me from my purposes, as a new print in a shop-window does a boy on his way to school; and, like him, at the risk of being found fault with for not minding my task, I would talk of the attractive novelty to wights of the same humour. It comes like good news, which nobody is ignorant of, and every body tells to every body, and sets business at a stand-still. It puts clean out of my head all thought of another engraving for the present sheet, though I know, good reader, that already “I owe you one”--perhaps two:--never mind! you shall have “all in good time;” if you don’t, I’ll give you leave to eat me. With such a tender, the most untender will, or ought to be, as content as “the blacks of Niger at its infant rill,” seated at their “white-bait,” the thirty-eighth cut--in Mr. Hood’s book, very near “the end,”--a very inviting one to Shylock-kind of people, who have not

“------seen, perchance, unhappy white folks cook’d, And then made free of negro corporations.”--p. 149.

Mr. Hood begins--to be modest--with pleading guilty to what he calls “some verbal misdemeanours,” and then, leaving “his defence to Dean Swift, and the other great European and oriental _pun_dits,” puts himself upon his country. But by whom is he arraigned, save a few highwaymen in the “march of intellect,” who sagely affirm, that “a man who would make a pun would pick a pocket!”--a saying devised by some wag, to the use and behoof of these doldrums, who never hear a good thing, but they button up their pockets and features, and walk off with nothing about them of likeness to humanity but the biforked form. For capital likenesses of such persons, turn to the story of “Tim Turpin,” and look first, to pay due honour, at the engravings of “the Judges of a-size,” and then at “Jurors--not con-jurors.” Portraits of this order could not have been drawn by any other than a close and accurate observer of character. Indeed, that Mr. Hood is eminently qualified in this respect, he has before abundantly testified; especially by “The Progress of Cant,” a print that must occupy a distinguished place in a history of Character and Caricature, whenever such a work shall be written.[477] In this new series of “Whims and Oddities,” he presents a sketch, called “Infant Genius;”--a little boy delighted with having rudely traced an uncouth figure; such a “drawing” as excites a good mistaken mother to declare, “the little fellow has quite a genius, and will be very clever if he only has encouragement:”--and thus many a child’s talent for fine-drawing--which, at the tailoring trade, might have secured the means of living--has been misencouraged to the making up of fifth-rate artists with a starvation income. The engraving of the “Infant Genius” illustrates the following poem.

THE PROGRESS OF ART.

O happy time!--Art’s early days! When o’er each deed, with sweet self-praise, Narcissus-like I hung! When great Rembrandt but little seem’d, And such old masters all were deem’d As nothing to the young!

Some scratchy strokes--abrupt and few So easily and swift I drew, Suffic’d for my design; My sketchy, superficial hand, Drew solids at a dash--and spann’d A surface with a line.

Not long my eye was thus content. But grew more critical--my bent Essay’d a higher walk; I copied leaden eyes in lead-- Rheumatic hands in white and red, And gouty feet--in chalk.

Anon my studious art for days Kept making faces--happy phrase, For faces such as mine! Accomplish’d in the details then I left the minor parts of men, And drew the form divine.

Old gods and heroes--Trojan--Greek, Figures--long after the antique, Great Ajax justly fear’d; Hectors of whom at night I dreamt, And Nestor, fringed enough to tempt Bird-nesters to his beard.

A Bacchus, leering on a bowl, A Pallas, that outstar’d her owl, A Vulcan--very lame; A Dian stuck about with stars, With my right hand I murder’d Mars-- (One Williams did the same.)

But tir’d of this dry work at last, Crayon and chalk aside I cast, And gave my brush a drink! Dipping--“as when a painter dips In gloom of earthquake and eclipse”-- That is--in Indian ink.

Oh then, what black Mont Blancs arose. Crested with soot, and not with snows; What clouds of dingy hue! In spite of what the bard has penn’d, I fear the distance did not “lend Enchantment to the view.”

Not Radcliffe’s brush did e’er design Black Forests, half so black as mine, Or lakes so like a pall; The Chinese cake dispers’d a ray Of darkness, like the light of Day And Martin over all.

Yet urchin pride sustain’d me still, I gaz’d on all with right good-will, And spread the dingy tint; “No holy Luke helped me to paint. The Devil surely, not a saint. Had any finger in’t”.

But colours came!--like morning light, With gorgeous hues displacing night, Or spring’s enliven’d scene: At once the sable shades withdrew; My skies got very, very blue; My trees extremely green.

And wash’d by my cosmetic brush, How beauty’s cheek began to blush; With locks of auburn stain-- (Not Goldsmith’s Auburn)--nut-brown hair, That made her loveliest of the fair; Not “loveliest of the plain!”

Her lips were of vermilion hue; Love in her eyes, and Prussian blue, Set all my heart in flame!-- A young Pygmalion, I adored The maids I made--but time was stor’d With evil--and it came!

Perspective dawn’d--and soon I saw My houses stand against its law; And “keeping” all unkept! My beauties were no longer things For love and fond imaginings; But horrors to be wept!

Ah! why did knowledge ope my eyes? Why did I get more artist-wise? It only serves to hint, What grave defects and wants are mine; That I’m no Hilton in design-- In nature no Dewint!

Thrice happy time!--Art’s early days! When o’er each deed with sweet self-praise, Narcissus-like I hung! When great Rembrandt but little seem’d, And such old masters all were deem’d As nothing to the young!

In verification of the old saying, “Once a man, twice a child,” Mr. Hood tells of “A School for Adults,”--and gives a picture of aged men, baldheaded and wigged, whose education had been neglected, studying their A, B, C. A letter from one of them at a preparatory school is exceedingly amusing. The article is preceded by a dramatic scene.

Servant. How well you saw Your father to school to-day, knowing how apt He is to play the truant. Son. But is he not yet gone to school? Servant. Stand by, and you shall see.

Enter three old men, with satchels, singing.

All three. Domine, domine, duster, Three knaves in a cluster. Son. O this is gallant pastime. Nay, come on Is this your school? was that your lesson, ha? 1st Old Man. Pray, now, good son, indeed, indeed-- Son. Indeed You shall to school. Away with him; and take Their wagships with him, the whole cluster of them. 2d Old Man. You shan’t send us, now, so you shan’t-- 3d Old Man. We be none of your father, so we be’nt.-- Son. Away with ’em, I say; and tell their school-mistress What truants they are, and bid her pay ’em soundly. All three. Oh! oh! oh! Lady. Alas! will nobody beg pardon for The poor old boys? Traveller. Do men of such fair years here go to school? Native. They would die dunces else These were great scholars in their youth; but when Age grows upon men here, their learning wastes, And so decays, that, if they live until Threescore, their sons send ’em to school again; They’d die as speechless else as new-born children. Traveller. ’Tis a wise nation, and the piety Of the young men most rare and commendable: Yet give me, as a stranger, leave to beg Their liberty this day. Son. ’Tis granted. Hold up your heads; and thank the gentleman, Like scholars, with your heels now. All three. Gratias! gratias! gratias!

[Exit, singing.]

“THE ANTIPODES,” by R. Brome.

No reader of the first series of the “Whims and Oddities” can have forgotten “The Spoiled Child” of “My Aunt Shakerly,” or the unhappy lady herself; and now we are informed that “towards the close of her life, my aunt Shakerly increased rapidly in bulk: she kept adding growth unto her growth,

“Giving a sum of more to that which had too much,”

till the result was worthy of a Smithfield premium. It was not the triumph, however, of any systematic diet for the promotion of fat,--(except oyster-eating there is no human system of stall-feeding,)--on the contrary, she lived abstemiously, diluting her food with pickle-acids, and keeping frequent fasts in order to reduce her compass; but they failed of this desirable effect. Nature had planned an original tendency in her organization that was not to be overcome:--she would have fattened on sour krout.

“My uncle, on the other hand, decreased daily; originally a little man, he became lean, shrunken, wizened. There was a predisposition in his constitution that made him spare, and kept him so:--he would have fallen off even on brewer’s grains.

“It was the common joke of the neighbourhood to designate my aunt, my uncle, and the infant Shakerly, as ‘WHOLESALE, RETAIL, and FOR EXPORTATION;’ and, in truth, they were not inapt impersonations of that popular inscription,--my aunt a giantess, my uncle a pigmy, and the child being ‘carried abroad.’”--This is the commencement of an article entitled “The Decline of Mrs. Shakerly.”

A story of “the Absentee,” and of the “absent tea,” on a friend’s visit to him, is painfully whimsical. Akin to it is an engraving of a person who had retired to rest coming down stairs in his shirt, and shorts, and great alarm, with a chamber-light in his hand, and the top of his nightcap in a smothering blaze, exclaiming

“Don’t you smell Fire?”

Run!--run for St. Clement’s engine! For the pawnbroker’s all in a blaze, And the pledges are frying and singing-- Oh! how the poor pawners will craze! Now where can the turncock be drinking? Was there ever so thirsty an elf?-- But he still may tope on, for I’m thinking That the plugs are as dry as himself.

The engines!--I hear them come rumbling: There’s the Phœnix! the Globe! and the Sun! What a row there will be, and a grumbling, When the water don’t start for a run! See! there they come racing and tearing, All the street with loud voices is fill’d; Oh! it’s only the firemen a-swearing At a man they’ve run over and kill’d!

How sweetly the sparks fly away now, And twinkle like stars in the sky; It’s a wonder the engines don’t play now But I never saw water so shy! Why there isn’t enough for a snipe, And the fire it is fiercer, alas! Oh! instead of the New River pipe, They have gone--that they have--to the gas!

Only look at the poor little P----’s On the roof--is there any thing sadder? My dears, keep fast hold, if you please, And they won’t be an hour with the ladder! But if any one’s hot in their feet, And in very great haste to be sav’d, Here’s a nice easy bit in the street, That M‘Adam has lately unpav’d!

There is some one--I see a dark shape At that window, the hottest of all,-- My good woman, why don’t you escape? Never think of your bonnet and shawl: If your dress is’nt perfect, what is it For once in a way to your hurt? When your husband is paying a visit There, at Number Fourteen, in his shirt!

Only see how she throws out her chancy! Her basins, and teapots, and all The most brittle of her goods--or any, But they all break in breaking their fall: Such things are not surely the best From a two-story window to throw-- She might save a good iron bound chest, For there’s plenty of people below!

O dear! what a beautiful flash! How it shone thro’ the window and door; We shall soon hear a scream and a crash, When the woman falls thro’ with the floor! There! there! what a volley of flame, And then suddenly all is obscur’d!-- Well--I’m glad in my heart that I came;-- But I hope the poor man is insur’d!

There are ballads in the “New Series” that rival “Sally Brown and Ben the Carpenter” in the former volume. Of this class are “Mary’s Ghost;” the story of “Tim Turpin,” mentioned before; and another of “Jack Hall,” showing, how Jack was an undertaker’s mute--how Jack sometimes drove the hearse--how Jack was in league with resurrection-men, and stole the bodies he buried--how Death met Jack in St. Pancras burying-ground, and shook hands with him--how Death invited Jack home to supper--how Jack preferred going to the Cheshire Cheese, and Death didn’t--how Jack was brought to Death’s door, and what he saw there--how Jack was obliged to go in, and Death introduced him to his friends as “Mr. Hall the body-snatcher”--how Jack got off without bidding them good night--how Jack was indisposed--how twelve doctors came to visit Jack without taking fees--how Jack got worse, and how he confessed he had sold his own body twelve different times to the twelve doctors--how the twelve doctors did not know Jack was so bad--how the twelve doctors disputed in Jack’s room which should have his body till twelve o’clock--how Jack then departed, the twelve doctors couldn’t tell how--and how, as Jack’s body could not be found, the twelve doctors departed, and not one of them was satisfied.

In the forementioned ballads there are many “verbal misdemeanours,” at which the author cautiously hints in his preface with some tokens of deprecation:--“Let me suggest,” he says, “that a pun is somewhat like a cherry: though there may be a slight outward indication of partition--of duplicity of meaning--yet no gentleman need make two bites at it against his own pleasure. To accommodate certain readers, notwithstanding, I have refrained from putting the majority in italics.” He is equally sinful and considerate in his prose: as, for instance, in the following character, which fairly claims a place with those of bishop Earle, sir Thomas Overbury, and even Butler.

“A BALLAD SINGER

Is a town-crier for the advertising of lost tunes. Hunger hath made him a wind instrument; his want is vocal, and not he. His voice had gone a-begging before he took it up and applied it to the same trade it was too strong to hawk mackerel, but was just soft enough for Robin Adair. His business is to make popular songs unpopular,--he gives the air, like a weathercock, with many variations. As for a key, he has but one--a latch-key--for all manner of tunes; and as they are to pass current amongst the lower sorts of people, he makes his notes like a country banker’s, as thick as he can. His tones have a copper sound, for he sounds for copper; and for the musical divisions he hath no regard, but sings on, like a kettle, without taking any heed of the bars. Before beginning he clears his pipe with gin; and he is always hoarse from the thorough draft in his throat. He hath but one shake, and that is in winter. His voice sounds flat, from flatulence; and he fetches breath, like a drowning kitten, whenever he can. Notwithstanding all this his music gains ground, for it walks with him from end to end of the street.

“He is your only performer that requires not many entreaties for a song; for he will chant, without asking, to a street cur or a parish post. His only backwardness is to a stave after dinner, seeing that he never dines; for he sings for bread, and though corn has ears, sings very commonly in vain. As for his country, he is an Englishman, that by his birthright may sing whether he can or not. To conclude, he is reckoned passable in the city, but is not so good off the stones.”

An incurable joker subjects himself to the inconvenience of not being believed, though he speak the truth; and therefore the following declaration of the author of “Whims and Oddities” is questionable. He says:--

“A MAD DOG

Is none of my bugbears. Of the bite of dogs, large ones especially, I have a reasonable dread; but as to any participation in the canine frenzy, I am somewhat sceptical. The notion savours of the same fanciful superstition that invested the subjects of Dr. Jenner with a pair of horns. Such was affirmed to be the effect of the vaccine matter--and I shall believe what I have heard of the canine virus, when I see a rabid gentleman, or gentlewoman, with flap ears, dew-claws, and a brushtail!----

“I put no faith in the vulgar stories of human beings betaking themselves, through a dog-bite, to dog-habits: and consider the smotherings and drownings, that have originated in that fancy, as cruel as the murders for witchcraft. Are we, for a few yelpings, to stifle all the disciples of Loyola--Jesuits’ bark--or plunge unto death all the convalescents who may take to bark and wine?

“As for the hydrophobia, or loathing of water, I have it mildly myself. My head turns invariably at thin washy potations. With a dog, indeed, the case is different--he is a water-drinker; and when he takes to grape-juice, or the stronger cordials, may be dangerous. But I have never seen one with a bottle--except at his tail.

“There are other dogs who are born to haunt the liquid element, to dive and swim--and for such to shun the lake or the pond would look suspicious. A Newfoundlander, standing up from a shower at a door-way, or a spaniel with a parapluie, might be innocently destroyed. But when does such a cur occur?”

Mr. Hood answers the question himself by “hydrophobia” of his own creation, namely, an engraving of a dog, on whom he makes “each particular hair to stand an end;” and whom he represents walking biped-fashion; he hath for his shield, as Randle Holme would say, an umbrella vert, charged with the stick thereof, as a bend or.

“The career of this animal,” says Mr. Hood, “is but a type of his victim’s--suppose some bank clerk. He was not bitten, but only splashed on the hand by the mad foam or dog-spray: a recent flea-bite gives entrance to the virus, and in less than three years it gets possession. Then the tragedy begins. The unhappy gentleman first evinces uneasiness at being called on for his New River rates. He answers the collector snappishly, and when summoned to pay for his supply of water, tells the commissioners, doggedly, that they may cut it off. From that time he gets worse. He refuses slops--turns up a pug nose at pump water--and at last, on a washing-day, after flying at the laundress, rushes out, ripe for hunting, to the street. A twilight remembrance leads him to the house of his intended. He fastens on her hand--next worries his mother--takes a bit apiece out of his brothers and sisters--runs a-muck, ‘giving tongue,’ all through the suburbs--and finally, is smothered by a pair of bed-beaters in Moorfields.

“According to popular theory the mischief ends not here. The dog’s master--the trainer, the friends, human and canine--the bank clerks--the laundresses--sweet-heart--mother and sisters--the-two bed-beaters--all inherit the rabies, and run about to bite others.”

But, is not this drollery on hydrophobia feigned? Is it not true that a certain bootmaker receives orders every July from the author of “Whims and Oddities,” for boots to reach above the calf, of calf so inordinately stout as to be capable of resisting the teeth of a dog, however viciously rabid, and with underleathers of winter thickness, for the purpose of kicking all dogs withal, in the canicular days? These queries are not urged upon Mr. H. with the tongue of scandal; of that, indeed, he has no fear, for he dreads no tongue, but (to use his quotation from Lord Duberly) the “vermicular tongue.” This little exposure of his prevailing weakness he has provoked, by affecting to discredit what his sole shakes at every summer.

The “New Series of Whims and Oddities” abounds with drolleries. Its author’s “Forty Designs” are all ludicrous; and, that they have been engraven with fidelity there can be little doubt, from his compliment to the engraver. “My hope persuades me,” he says, “that my illustrations cannot have degenerated, so ably have I been seconded by Mr. Edward Willis; who, like the humane Walter, has befriended my offspring in the wood.”[478] Though the engravings are indescribably expressive, yet a few may be hinted at, viz.

“Speak up, sir!” a youth on his knees, vehemently declaring his love, yet in a tone not sufficiently loud, to a female on a sofa, who doth “incline her ear” with a trumpet, to assist the auricle.

“In and out Pensioners,” exemplifying the “Suaviter in modo,” and “Fortiter in re.”

“The spare bed,” uncommonly spare.

“Why don’t you get up behind?” addressed by a donkey-rider--who does not sit before--to a boy on the ground.

“Banditti,” street minstrels.

“Dust O!” Death collecting his dust--critically speaking, this might be objected to.

“Crane-iology;” a crane, with its bill calliper-wise, speculating on a scull, and ascertaining its developements.

“A Retrospective Review;” very literal.

“She is all heart;” a very hearty body.

“The last visit;” quacks.

“The Angel of Death;” one of them--very fine.

“Joiners;” Vicar and Moses.

“Drill and Broadcast;” nature and art.

“High-born and Low-born;” odd differences.

“Lawk! I’ve forgot the brandy!” abominably provoking--only look!

“Comparative Physiology” is “a wandering camel-driver and exhibitor, parading, for a few pence, the creature’s outlandlish hump, yet burthened himself with a bunch of flesh between the shoulders.”--

“Oh would some power the giftie gi’ us To see oursel’s as others see us!”

Mr. Hood’s talents are as versatile as his imagination is excursive: and it would be difficult to decide, whether he excels in the ludicrous or the grave. He depicts a pathetic scene with infinitely delicate and discriminative touches, and his powers are evidently equal to a high order of poetical grandeur. His “Sally Holt and the Death of John Hayloft,” is an exquisite specimen of natural feeling.

“Nature, unkind to Sally Holt as to Dogberry, denied to her that knowledge of reading and writing, which comes to some by instinct. A strong principle of religion made it a darling point with her to learn to read, that she might study in her Bible: but in spite of all the help of my cousin, and as ardent a desire for learning as ever dwelt in scholar, poor Sally never mastered beyond A-B-ab. Her mind, simple as her heart, was unequal to any more difficult combinations. Writing was worse to her than conjuring. My cousin was her amanuensis: and from the vague, unaccountable mistrust of ignorance, the inditer took the pains always to compare the verbal message with the transcript, by counting the number of the words.

“I would give up all the tender epistles of Mrs. Arthur Brooke, to have read one of Sally’s epistles; but they were amatory, and therefore kept sacred: for plain as she was, Sally Holt had a lover.

“There is an unpretending plainness in some faces that has its charm--an unaffected ugliness, a thousand times more bewitching than those would-be pretty looks that neither satisfy the critical sense, nor leave the matter of beauty at once to the imagination. We like better to make a new face than to mend an old one. Sally had not one good feature, except those which John Hayloft made for her in his dreams; and to judge from one token, her partial fancy was equally answerable for his charms. One precious lock--no, not a lock, but rather a remnant of very short, very coarse, very yellow hair, the clippings of a military crop, for John was a corporal--stood the foremost item amongst her treasures. To her they were curls, golden, Hyperian, and cherished long after the parent-head was laid low, with many more, on the bloody plain of Salamanca.

“I remember vividly at this moment the ecstasy of her grief at the receipt of the fatal news. She was standing near the dresser with a dish, just cleaned, in her dexter hand. Ninety-nine women in a hundred would have dropped the dish. Many would have flung themselves after it on the floor; but Sally put it up, orderly, on the shelf. The fall of John Hayloft could not induce the fall of the crockery. She felt the blow notwithstanding; and as soon as she had emptied her hands, began to give way to her emotions in her own manner. Affliction vents itself in various modes, with different temperaments: some rage, others compose themselves like monuments. Some weep, some sleep, some prose about death, and others poetize on it. Many take to a bottle, or to a rope. Some go to Margate, or Bath.

“Sally did nothing of these kinds. She neither snivelled, travelled, sickened, maddened, nor ranted, nor canted, nor hung, nor fuddled herself--she only rocked herself upon the kitchen chair!

“The action was not adequate to her relief. She got up--took a fresh chair--then another--and another--and another,--till she had rocked on all the chairs in the kitchen.

“The thing was tickling to both sympathies. It was pathetical to behold her grief, but ludicrous that she knew no better how to grieve.

“An American might have thought that she was in the act of enjoyment, but for an intermitting O dear! O dear! Passion could not wring more from her in the way of exclamation than the tooth-ache. Her lamentations were always the same, even in tone. By and by she pulled out the hair--the cropped, yellow, stunted, scrubby hair; then she fell to rocking--then O dear! O dear!--and then Da Capo.

“It was an odd sort of elegy; and yet, simple as it was, I thought it worth a thousand of lord Littelton’s!

“‘Heyday, Sally! what is the matter?’ was a very natural inquiry from my aunt, when she came down into the kitchen; and if she did not make it with her tongue, at least it was asked very intelligibly by her eyes. Now Sally had but one way of addressing her mistress, and she used it here. It was the same with which she would have asked for a holiday, except that the waters stood in her eyes.

“‘If you please, ma’am,’ said she, rising up from her chair, and dropping her old curtsey, ‘if you please, ma’am, it’s John Hayloft is dead;’ and then she began rocking again, as if grief was a baby that wanted jogging to sleep.”----

The many “stories of storm-ships and haunted vessels, of spectre shallops, and supernatural Dutch-doggers--the adventures of Solway sailors, with Mahound in his bottomless barges, and the careerings of the phantom-ship up and down the Hudson,” suggest to Mr. Hood a story entitled “The Demon-Ship.” This he illustrates by an engraving called “The Flying-Dutchman,” representing the aerial ascent of a native of the Low Countries, by virtue of a reversal of the personal gravity, which, particularly in a Hollander, has been commonly understood to have a tendency downwards. Be this as it may, Mr. Hood’s tale is illustrated by the tail-piece referred to. The story itself commences with a highly wrought description of a sea-storm, of uncommon merit, which will be the last extract from his interesting volume that can be ventured, viz.:--

’Twas off the Wash--the sun went down--the sea look’d black and grim, For stormy clouds, with murky fleece, were mustering at the brim; Titanic shades! enormous gloom!--as if the solid night Of Erebus rose suddenly to seize upon the light! It was a time for mariners to bear a wary eye, With such a dark conspiracy between the sea and sky!

Down went my helm--close reef’d--the tack held freely in my hand-- With ballast snug--I put about, and scudded for the land. Loud hiss’d the sea beneath her lee--my little boat flew fast, But faster still the rushing storm came borne upon the blast. Lord! what a roaring hurricane beset the straining sail! What furious sleet, with level drift, and fierce assaults of hail! What darksome caverns yawn’d before! what jagged steeps behind! Like battle-steeds, with foamy manes, wild tossing in the wind. Each after each sank down astern, exhausted in the chase, But where it sank another rose and gallop’d in its place; As black as night--they turn to white, and cast against the cloud A snowy sheet, as if each surge upturn’d a sailor’s shroud:-- Still flew my boat; alas! alas! her course was nearly run! Behold yon fatal billow rise--ten billows heap’d in one! With fearful speed the dreary mass came rolling, rolling, fast, As if the scooping sea contain’d one only wave at last! Still on it came, with horrid roar, a swift pursuing grave; It seem’d as though some cloud had turn’d its hugeness to a wave! Its briny sleet began to beat beforehand in my face-- I felt the rearward keel begin to climb its swelling base! I saw its alpine hoary head impending over mine! Another pulse--and down it rush’d--an avalanche of brine. Brief pause had I, on God to cry, or think of wife and home; The waters clos’d--and when I shriek’d, I shriek’d below the foam!

[477] A “History of the Art of Caricaturing, by J. P. Malcolm, F.S.A., 1813,” 4to., is by no means what its title purports. Mr. Malcolm was a very worthy man, and a diligent compiler of facts on other subjects; but, in the work alluded to, he utterly failed, from want of knowledge and discrimination. He confounds character with caricature, and was otherwise inadequate to the task he undertook.

[478] This passage is quoted here from kind feeling, and friendly wishes, towards the worthy person mentioned in it.

Vol. II.--49.

Our readers, whom, between ourselves, and without flattery, we take to be as social a set of persons as can be, people of an impartial humanity, and able to relish whatever concerneth a common good, whether a child’s story or a man’s pinch of snuff, (for snuff comes after knowledge,) doubtless recollect the famous tale of the Barmecide and his imaginary dinner in the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments. We hereby invite them to an imaginary cigar and cup of coffee with us in a spot scarcely less oriental--to wit, our friend Gliddon’s Divan in King-street. Not that our fictitious enjoyment is to serve them instead of the real one. Quite the contrary; our object being to advance the good of all parties,--of our readers, inasmuch as they are good fellows in their snuffs,--of our friend, who can supply them in a manner different from any body else,--and of ourselves, because the subject is a pleasant one, and brings us all together agreeably. Those who have the greatest relish for things real, have also the best taste of them in imagination. We confess, that for our private eating (for a cigar, with coffee, may truly be said to be meat and drink to us) we prefer a bower with a single friend; but for public smoking, that is to say, for smoking with a greater number of persons, or in a coffee-room, especially now that the winter is coming on, and people cannot sit in bowers without boots, commend us to the warmth, and luxury, and conspiracy of comforts, in the Cigar Divan.

In general, the room is occupied by individuals, or groups of individuals, sitting apart at their respective little mahogany tables, and smoking, reading, or talking with one another in a considerate undertone, in order that nobody may be disturbed. But on the present occasion we will have the room to ourselves, and talk as we please. In the East it is common to see dirty streets and poor looking houses, and on being admitted into the interior of one of them, to find yourself in a beautiful room, noble with drapery, and splendid with fountains and gilded trellices. We do not mean to compare King-street with a street in Bagdad or Constantinople. We have too much respect for that eminent thoroughfare, clean in general, and classical always; where you cannot turn, but you meet recollections of the Drydens and Hogarths. The hotel next door to the Divan is still the same as in Hogarth’s picture of the Frosty Morning; and looking the other way, you see Dryden coming out of Rose Alley to spend his evening at the club in Russell-street. But there is mud and fog enough this weather to render the contrast between any thoroughfare and a carpeted interior considerable; and making due allowance for the palace of an effendi and the premises of a tradesman, a person’s surprise would hardly be greater, certainly his comfort not so great, in passing from the squalidness of a Turkish street into the gorgeous but suspicious wealth of the apartment of a pasha, as in slipping out of the mud, and dirt, and mist, and cold, and shudder, and blinking misery of an out-of-door November evening in London, into the oriental and carpeted warmth of Mr. Gliddon’s Divan. It is pleasant to think, what a number of elegant and cheerful places lurk behind shops, and in places where nobody would expect them. Mr. Gliddon’s shop is a very respectable one; but nobody would look for the saloon beyond it; and it seems in good oriental keeping, and a proper sesame, when on touching a door in the wall, you find yourself in a room like an eastern tent, the drapery festooned up around you, and views exhibited on all sides of mosques, and minarets, and palaces rising out of the water.

But here we are inside ourselves. What do you think of it?

B. This is a tent indeed, exactly as you have described it. It seems pitched in the middle of the Ganges or Tigris; for most of the views are in the midst of water.

J. Yes; we might fancy ourselves a party of British merchants, who had purchased a little island in an Eastern gulf, and built themselves a tent on it to smoke in. The scenes, though they have a panoramic effect, are really not panoramic daubs. This noble edifice on the left, touched in that delicate manner with silver, (or is it rather not gold?) unites the reality of architecture built by mortal hands, with the fairy lustre of a palace raised by enchantment. One has a mind to sail to it, and get an adventure.

E. And this on the left. What a fine sombre effect that mountain with a building on it has in the background;--how dark yet aerial! You would have a very solemn adventure there,--nothing under a speaking stone-gentleman, or the loss of your right eye.

O. Well, this snug little corner for me, under the bamboos; two gigantic walking-sticks in leaf! A cup of coffee served by a pretty Hindoo would do very well here; and there is a temple to be religious in, when convenient. ’Tis pleasant to have all one’s luxuries together.

T. If there is any fault, it is in the scene at the bottom of the room, which is perhaps too full of scattered objects. But all is remarkably well done; and as the newspapers have observed, as oriental as any thing in the paintings of Daniel or Hodges.

C. Are you sure we are not all Mussulmen? I begin to think I am a Turk under the influence of opium, who take my turban for a hat, and fancy I’m speaking English. We shall have the sultan upon us presently.

L. With old Ibrahim to give us the bastinado. I have no fair Persian at hand to offer him; and, if I had, wouldn’t do it. But here’s ----; he shall have him.

O. (grinding with laughter.) What, in woman’s clothes, to beguile him, and play the lute?

L. No; as a fair dealer; no less a prodigy, especially for a bookseller. You should save your head every day by a new joke; and we would have another new Arabian Nights, or the Adventures of Sultan Mahmoud and the Fair Dealer. You should be Scheherezade turned into a man. Every morning, the prince’s jester should say to you, “Brother Scratch-his-head, if you are awake, favour his Majesty with a handsome come-off.”

E. I cannot help thinking we are the Calenders, got into the house full of ladies; and that we shall have to repent, and rub our faces with ashes, crying out, “This is the reward of our debauchery: This is the reward of taking too many cups of coffee: This is the reward of excessive girl and tobacco.”

L. But, alas! in that case we should have the repentance without the lady, which is unfair. No ladies, I believe, are admitted here, Mr. Gliddon?

Mr. G. No, sir; it has been often observed to me, by way of hint, that it was a pity ladies were not admitted into English coffee-houses, as they are on the continent; but this is a smoking as well as a coffee-room. Ladies do not smoke in England, as they do in the East; and then, as extremes meet, and the most respectable creatures in the world render a place, it seems, not respectable, I was to take care how I risked my character, and made my Divan too comfortable.

O. And we call ourselves a gallant nation! We also go to the theatres to sit and hear ourselves complimented on our liberal treatment of women, and suffer them all the while to enjoy the standing-room!

C. Women are best away, after all. We should be making love, while they ought to be making the coffee.

L. Women and smoking would not do together, unless we smoked perfumes, and saw their eyes through a cloud of fragrance, like Venus in her ambrosial mist. This room, I confess, being full of oriental scenes, reminds one of other things oriental--of love and a lute. I could very well fancy myself Noureddin, sitting here with my fair Persian, eating peaches, and sending forth one of the songs of Hafiz over those listening waters.

J. The next time Mr. Gliddon indulges us with a new specimen of his magnificence, he must give us animate instead of inanimate scenes, and treat us with a series of subjects out of the Arabian Nights--lovers, genii, and elegant festivities.

Mr. G. Gentlemen, here is a little festivity at hand, not, I hope, altogether inelegant. Your coffee and cigars are ready.

C. Ah, this is the substantial picturesque. I was beginning to long for something oriental to eat, elegant or not; an East-dumpling for instance.

H. I wonder whether they have any puns in the East.

J. To be sure they have. The elegancies of some of their writers consist of a sort of serious punning, like the conceits of our old prosers; such as, a man was “deserted for his deserts;” or “graceless, though full of gracefulness, was his grace, and in great disgrace.”

C. But I mean proper puns; puns worthy of a Pundit.

L. You have it. It is part of their daily expunditure. How can there be men and not puns?

To pun is human; to forgive it, fine.

H. There’s an instance in Blue Beard; in a pun set to music by Kelly;

_Fat_ima, _Fat_ima, See-limbs here!

C. Good. I think I see Kelly, who used to stick his arms out, as if he were requesting you to see his limbs; and Mrs. Bland, whom he used to sing it to--a proper little Fatima. Come; I feel all the beauty of the room, now that one is “having something.” This is really very Grand, Signior; though to complete us, I think we ought to have some Sublime Port.

Mr. G. Excuse me: whining is not allowed to a true Mussulman.

C. Some snuff, however.

Mr. G. The best to be had.

W. Take some of mine; I have cropped the flower of the shop.

J. You sneeze, C. I thought you too old a snuff-taker for that.

C. The air of the water always makes me sneeze. It’s the Persian gulf here.

W. This is a right pinch, friend C. I’ll help you at another, as you’ve helped me.

C. Snuff’s a capital thing. I cannot help thinking there is something providential in snuff. If you observe, different refreshments come up among nations at different eras of the world. In the Elizabethan age, it was beef-steaks. Then tea and coffee came up; and people being irritable sometimes, perhaps with the new light let in upon them by the growth of the press, snuff was sent us to “support uneasy thoughts.” During the Assyrian monarchy, cherry-brandy may have been the thing. I have no doubt Semiramis took it; unless we suppose it too matronly a drink for So-Mere-a-Miss.

(Here the whole Assyrian monarchy is run down in a series of puns.)

H. Gentlemen, we shall make the Tour of Babel before we have done.

L. Talking of the refreshments of different ages, it is curious to see how we identify smoking with the Eastern nations; whereas it is a very modern thing among them, and was taught them from the west. One wonders what the Turks and Persians did before they took to smoking; just as the ladies and gentlemen of these nervous times wonder how their ancestors existed without tea for breakfast.

J. Coffee is a modern thing too in the East, though the usual accompaniment of their tobacco. “Coffee without Tobacco,” quoth the Persian, as our friend’s learned placard informs us, “is like meat without salt.”[479] But coffee is of Eastern growth. It is a species of jasmin. I remember, in a novel I read once, the heroine was described in grand terms, as “presiding at the hysonian altar;” that is to say, making tea. This lady might have asked her lover, whether before his hysonian recreation, he would not “orientalize in a cup of jessamine.”

W. I met with a little story in a book yesterday, which I must tell you, not because it is quite new or very applicable, but because it is Eastern, and made me laugh. I don’t know whether it is in the jest-books; but I never saw it before. A fellow was going home through one of the streets of Bagdad with a forbidden bottle of wine under his cloak, when the cadi stopped him. “What have you got there, fellow?” The fellow, who had contrived to plant himself against a wall, said, “Nothing, sir.” “Put out your hand, sir.” The right hand was put out; there was nothing in it. “Your left, sir.” The left was put out, equally innocent. “You see, sir,” said the fellow, “I have nothing.” “Come away from the wall,” said the cadi. “No, sir,” returned he, “it will break.”

H. Good. That is really dramatic. It reminds me that I must be off to the play.

J. And I.

C. And I.

O. And I. We’ll make a party of it, and finish our evening worthily with Shakspeare; one of the greatest of men, and most good-natured of punsters.

L. By the by, Mr. Gliddon, your room is not so large as in the lithographic print they have made of it; but it is more Eastern and picturesque.

W. We’ll have a more faithful print to accompany this conversation, for I am resolved to be treacherous for this night only, and publish it. It is not a proper specimen of what my friends could say; but it is not unlike something of what they do; and sociality, on all sides, will make the best of it.

☞

[479] A quotation from a prospectus published by Mr. Gliddon. As this prospectus is written in the “style social,” and contains some particulars of his establishment, which our article has not noticed, we lay a few passages from it before our readers:--

“The recreation of smoking, which was introduced into this country in an age of great men, by one of the greatest and most accomplished men of that or any other age, was for a long time considered an elegance, and a mark of good-breeding. Its very success gradually got it an ill name by rendering it too common and popular; and something became necessary to give it a new turn in its favour,--to alter the association of ideas connected with it, and awaken its natural friends to a due sense of its merits. Two circumstances combined to effect this desirable change. One was the discovery of a new mode of smoking by means of rolling up the fragrant leaf itself, and making it perform the office of its own pipe; the other was the long military experience in our late wars, which have rendered us so renowned; and which, by throwing the most gallant of our gentry upon the hasty and humble recreations eagerly snatched at by all campaigners, opened their eyes to the difference between real and imaginary good-breeding, and made them see that what comforted the heart of man under such grave circumstances, must have qualities in it that deserved to be rescued from an ill name. Thus arose the cigar, and with it a reputation that has been continually increasing. There is no rank in society into which it has not made its way, not excepting the very highest. If James the First, an uncouth prince, unworthy of his clever, though mistaken race, and who hated the gallant introducer of tobacco, did not think it beneath his princely indignation to write in abuse of it, George the Fourth, who has unquestionably a better taste for some of the best things in the world, has not thought it beneath his princely refinement to give the cigar his countenance.

“The art of smoking is a contemplative art; and being naturally allied to other arts meditative, hath an attachment to a book and a newspaper. Books and newspapers are accordingly found at the Cigar Divan; the latter consisting of the principal daily papers, and the former of a PROFUSE COLLECTION OF THE MOST ENTERTAINING PERIODICALS. The situation of the house is unexceptionable, being at an equal distance from the city and the west end, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the great theatres. Writers of the most opposite parties have conspired to speak in the highest terms of the establishment, on their own personal knowledge; and should any authority be wanting to induce a reader of this paper to taste all the piquant advantages of fragrance, and fine drinks, and warmth, and quiet, and literature, which they have done the proprietor the honour to expatiate on, he may find it, if a man of wit and the town, in the person of Fielding; if a philosopher, in that of Hobbes; if a divine, in that of Aldrich; and if a soldier, seaman, patriot, statesman, or cavalier, in the all-accomplished person of sir Walter Raleigh.”--See also an article in the New Monthly Magazine, for January, 1826.

* * * * *

LAURENCE-KIRK SNUFF-BOXES.

James Sandy, the inventor of these pocket-utensils, lived a few years ago at Alyth, a town on the river Isla, in Perthshire, North Britain. The genius and eccentricity of character which distinguished him have been rarely surpassed. Deprived at an early age of the use of his legs, he contrived, by dint of ingenuity, not only to pass his time agreeably, but to render himself an useful member of society.

Sandy soon displayed a taste for mechanical pursuits; and contrived, as a workshop for his operations, a sort of circular bed, the sides of which being raised about eighteen inches above the clothes, were employed as a platform for turning-lathes, table-vices, and cases for tools of all kinds. His talent for practical mechanics was universal. He was skilled in all sorts of turning, and constructed several very curious lathes, as well as clocks and musical instruments of every description, which were no less admired for the sweetness of their tone than the elegance of their workmanship. He excelled, too, in the construction of optical instruments, and made some reflecting telescopes, the specula of which were not inferior to those finished by the most eminent London artists. He likewise suggested some important improvements in the machinery for spinning flax; and, as before stated, he was the first who made the wooden-jointed snuff-boxes, generally called Laurence-Kirk boxes, some of which, fabricated by this self-taught artist, were purchased and sent as presents to the royal family.

To his other endowments he added an accurate knowledge of drawing and engraving, and in both these arts produced specimens of great merit.

For upwards of fifty years Sandy quitted his bed only three times, and on these occasions his house was either inundated with water, or threatened with danger from fire. His unbounded curiosity prompted him to hatch different kinds of birds’ eggs by the natural warmth of his body, and he reared his various broods with all the tenderness of a parent. On visiting him it was no unusual thing to see singing birds of different species, to which he may be said to have given birth, perched on his head, and warbling the artificial notes he had taught them.

Naturally possessed of a good constitution, and an active, cheerful turn of mind, his house was the general coffee-room of the village, where the affairs of church and state were freely discussed. In consequence of long confinement his countenance had rather a sickly cast, but it was remarkably expressive, particularly when he was surrounded by his country friends. This singular man had acquired by his ingenuity and industry an honourable independence, and died possessed of considerable property. About three weeks before his death he married.

* * * * *

INN-YARDS.

For the Table Book.

It was a November morning--sullen and lowering. A dense fog left the houses but half distinguishable on either side the way, as I passed through Holborn to the Saracen’s Head, Snow-hill, where I had taken my place the preceding evening in the ---- coach, in order to pay a long-promised visit to my friend and schoolfellow T----. My feelings were any thing but enviable. They were in a state of seasonable and almost intolerable irritation, resulting from all successive evils of a shivering and early resignation of enveloping bed-clothes, a hurried dressing, (productive of an utter failure in the arrangement of the bow of my neckcloth,) a trembling hand that caused a gash in my chin with a blunt razor, (all my others had been officiously packed up by Mrs. Sally,) a breakfast swallowed standing, (which I abominate, as it stands to reason it must be unwholesome,) tea that seemed “as if it never would grow cool,” though poured out in the saucer, and sundry admonitory twitchings of the bit of court-plaster on my sliced chin, threatening the total discomfiture of my habilimentary economy. All these things tended but little towards rendering my frame of mind peculiarly equable, while hurrying forward towards the point of destination, gulping down fresh (no not fresh) mouthfuls of the thick yellow atmosphere, at each extorted exclamation of disgust and impatience.

At last I arrived in the inn-yard, fully prepared for an expected look of surprise, and accompanying exclamation of--“The ---- coach, sir! why, Lord bless you, sir, it’s off long ago; it leaves here at seven precisely, and it’s now nearly half past.” Conceive then what was my agreeable astonishment when I learned that the real time was only half past six! I found that, owing to my anxious fears lest I should be too late, I had neglected to perceive that my watch had gained half an hour in the course of the night; and the shame I now felt at having thus suffered my irritability to get the better of me, led me to reflect upon the patient gentleness of the mild and amiable Fanny, (my friend’s wife,) who is indeed a perfect specimen of a delightful woman. In her are joined those two qualities so rarely united (yet, which, when they are so, form a gem)--a truly feminine and gentle heart, and a strong and well-informed mind. It is truly delightful to see her blend the domestic duties of a housewife, (the fulfilment of which is ever graceful in a female,) and the affectionate attentions of a mother and wife, with literary information and attainments.

I was called off from this pleasing subject of reflection by a view of the scene before me. The coach, a handsome, well-built vehicle, stood on one side of the yard in all the brilliancy of a highly-varnished claret ground, and burnishe The four beautiful, spirited animals belonging to it, with their glossy bright skins covered with cloths till the moment of “putting to,” were then led forth by a fellow in corduroy breeches, laying in massive rolls on his large muscular limbs, and terminating in a pair of dull and never-shining top-boots--a waistcoat which had been of red plush, spotted with black; but the glories of its gules and sable were well nigh effaced by the long line of successive cross-quarterings of grease and mud--a face hard and liny, that looked impenetrable, and certainly conveyed no idea to my mind of a “Robin Ostler,” who “never joy’d since the price of oats rose,” much less could it have ever been “the death of him.” He came forward with that slouching gait and hoarse rasping voice, so well personified by the admirable and all-observing Matthews.

Then the coachman appeared--well buttoned up to the throat in an enormous box-coat of a whitish drab colour, fastened with immense mother-o’-pearl buttons--a yellow silk handkerchief round his neck, reaching just under the nether lip, and covering the tips of his ears--a hat with brims, like the walls of Babylon--and an air of affected nonchalance, which tells you, that you are expected to look upon him in a very different light from the attentive “coachee” of some few years back. He is now a complete fine gentleman; for as the gentleman affects the coachman, why should not the coachman affect the gentleman? They are now not to be known apart.

The “luggage” is then brought forth and “loaded”--and all the passengers installed in their different places. The last directions are given. “More last words,” and a paper of biscuits is handed in at the coach-window to the little boy who is going to ----, under the special care of the coachman, and, as his mamma delightedly observes, is already become a favourite with the “kind-looking lady” opposite to him. The small parcel “to be left at Mr. K----’s at the small white cottage” is snugly slipt into the coach-pocket--and the final “all right” is given from the impatient passengers “behind.” How different is the quiet and orderly manner in which a vehicle is thus despatched to go hundreds of miles, from the dire bustle and utter “confusion of tongues” attendant upon the departure of a French diligence.----

Imagine a spacious yard, paved with stones shaped like enormous “sugared almonds,” jutting out in all directions to the utter annoyance of the five poor animals, or rather skeletons, in rope harness, which are about to be yoked to an uncouth machine, looking the complete antipodes of rapidity of motion--of a colour perfectly indescribable, but something approaching to a dingy red, intermixed with a rusty, dusty black--straw peeping out in every direction; whether from roof, or sides, or entangled among the broken, rickety steps, which project in awful forewarning of grazed shins and sprained ancles. The Conducteur in his dark blue jacket turned up with scarlet--leather breeches shining with the perpetual friction of the saddle--boots, like brewing vats--a hat, very nearly a “perfect cone,” with a rim, set in the middle of a regular copse-wood of coal black hair, surmounting a face whose dark complexion, fiercely sparkling eyes, and stiff mustachios, help to give force to the excessive tension of muscle in his countenance, which is actually convulsed with ire, as he sends forth volleys of sacrés and morbleus at the maudit entêté on the roof, who persists in loading the different articles in exact opposition to all the passionate remonstrances and directions of poor Monsieur le Conducteur. Femmes de chambres shrieking at the very top of their voices--“Garçons of fifty” equally vociferous in bawling “On vient! on vient!” though no one calls--Commissionaires insisting upon the necessity of passports to incredulous Englishmen, with an incessant “Mais que diable donc, Monsieur!”--Hordes of beggars shouting forth their humble petitions of “Pour l’amour du bon Dieu un petit liard, Monsieur.” “Ah! Seigneur, qu’est-ce que j’ai fait de mes clefs!” screams the landlady. “Sacré nom de tonnerre! tais-toi, donc,” growls the landlord, in a voice like the thunder he invokes.

At last the ponderous vehicle is set in motion amid the deafening clamour of the surrounding group, and the hideous, unrelentingly, eternal cracking of the Conducteur’s detested fouet!

M. H.

* * * * *

For the Table Book.

THE TURNPIKE MAN.

“Good and bad of all sorts.”

As the “Commissioners” rely on the trust reposed in the “Pikeman,” I imagine him to be worthy of being shown in the most favourable colours. Like a good sexton, he must attend to his toll--like a salesman, know his head of cattle--like a lottery prize-seeker, be acquainted with his number--like Fielding’s Minos, in his “Journey from this world to the next,” shut his gate against those who are brought up improperly to the bar. A modern Gilpin should scarcely risk a ride unwittingly through his demesne.

In the “dead waste and middle of the night,” when sleep steals over him wearily, how many calls of the coachman, the chaise driver, the stanhope gentleman, the important bagman, and the drover, is he obliged to obey! The imperative “Pike!”--“Gate!”--“Hallo!”--are like so many knells rung in his ear. The clock is a friend to most men in the various occupations of life; the shadow on the grass warns the shepherd and hind to retire to rest; the dial gives the gardener leave to quit his vegetable and floral world in safety till the succeeding morning; but the pikeman finds no solace in the instructive progress of his Dutch-clock, or in the more highly favoured one with a window before its pulselike-pendulum, (as the person with a window in his breast,) or in the weather betokening “man and woman,” who, like an unhappy couple, never go out together.

Who that has looked upon the pikeman’s contracted span--his little white-painted hut, like a showman’s figured canvass--but shrewdly guesses that the best portions of his sunside of comforts are on the outside? What a Jack in the Box![480] He seems in his room like a singing-bird in a cage. His cat and dog are his companions, save when the newsman, postman, or any man, in short, arrives. Munden’s “Crack” is not to be seen at every turnpike gate. A magpie, or blackbird, often hangs and whistles, like himself, in stationary captivity. Yet he is a man of some information. The waggoner, the duellist, the huckster, and the Gretna folks, in pursuit of romantic happiness, sometimes make him useful. The horse patrol consults him in the way of business; few fights occur without his knowledge; and even the political express gives him broad hints as to the secret operations of his majesty’s ministers. He is completely au fait in all common concerns in his vicinity--a local “finger-post.”

Occasionally, I have seen a chubfaced, curly-headed child playing near his “box” on the roadside, like idleness in ease, with rushes and flags round its brow, enjoying the luxuries of fancied greatness, and twisting leaves and weeds together--emblems of our varied and united virtues. And I have beheld a pikeman’s housewife (if her dwelling may be called a house) busily employed within her narrow sphere to “keep things straight,” and “make both ends meet,” with an understanding, that “all’s well that ends well.”[481] And I have observed her lovely child, kneeling before its mother on a stool, with its palms pressed together, in the grateful attitude of an acknowledged beneficent Providence.

I once knew an upright and a civil pikeman. He had seen better days.--One of the beauties of education is, that it distinguishes a man, however he is placed.--He was planed down, as a carpenter might say, from the knots of pride, to smooth humanity. To use a beautiful, though much quoted, apostrophe by Avon’s bard, “I shall not look upon his like again!” All good characters give useful example:--they teach as they live, and win inferiors in virtue by the brightness and placidity of their decline and fall.

There is a difference between a Tyburn-gate official, and a promiscuous sojourner, who guards the pass of a new, lone road, through which scarcely a roadster trots. The cockney keeper of cockney riders, is rarely without “short cut” and the “ready” in word and deed. In his short-pocketed white apron he stands defiance, and seems to say, “Who cares?” His knowing wink to the elastic arm of the coachee, which indicates the “all right!” has much meaning in it. His twirl of the sixpence on his thumb nail, and rattle of “coppers” for “small change,” prove his knowledge of exchange and the world.

The pikeman out of town is allowed a scrap of garden-ground, which he sedulously cultivates. In town, he has not the liberty of a back door--to be acquainted with his boundaries, you need only look at the “Farthing pie gate” for an example. He may be sometimes seen in a chair, in front of his domicile, making remarks on “men and manners.” His name hangs on a thread over his door: if he is an honest man, equestrians will appreciate his merits, and do well if they imitate his philosophy.

J. R. P.

[480] The original “Jack in the Box,” with the nutmeg-grater at the bottom, has disappeared with its contemporary, the “Horn Alphabet,” to the no small loss of all good young people.

[481]

Contented in my little house, On every call I wait To take the toll: to ope and shut The five-barr’d turnpike gate.

RUSTIC FRIEND.

This portrait, copied from a picture at Scarborough by Mr. Baynes, jun. and not before engraven, is of a very worthy person, whose eccentricities in well doing rendered him in some degree remarkable. Mr. Robert North, whom it represents, was born at that place, of which his father was vicar, on the second of November, 1702. His education was liberal. After completing his studies at one of the universities he visited the continent, and was distinguished for refinement of manners and exemplary benevolence and piety. In the latter part of his life he sought retirement, and seldom went abroad except to the church, which he regularly attended on every occasion when service was performed. He generally appeared absorbed in meditation, and was accustomed to make ejaculatory prayers, or fervent aspirations, as he walked. Once in every year he had a sort of gala-day for the entertainment of his female friends, whom he charmed by his polite attention and pleasing conversation. With the next morning he resumed his usual seclusion for the ensuing twelvemonth. He lived many years in full expectation of the commencement of the millennium.

But that which has given celebrity to the name of the late “Robert North, Esq.” at Scarborough is the founding, in the year 1728, of a very useful institution, called “The Amicable Society,” for clothing and educating the children of the poor; which under the government of a president, four trustees, and four wardens, annually elected, with a fund for its support, arising from the weekly subscriptions of the members, collections made in the church, and other voluntary donations, continues to flourish. The number of children thus clothed and educated, now in the school, is sixty, and the number of members two hundred and sixty-five.

This institution has preserved many children from the contagion of evil example, and enabled them to follow useful occupations in life with credit and advantage. Several, who, by their early education at this seminary, attained a competent knowledge of navigation, became mates and commanders of vessels, and eventually benefactors and patrons of the institution.

The exact day of Mr. North’s death does not appear; but his interment is dated in the parish-register of Scarborough, 14th October, 1760.

Mr. North, by a singular codicil to his will, gives one pair of his silver candlesticks to the celebrated Dr. Young, author of the poem on the Last Day, &c.; and the other pair to the Rev. James Hervey, author of the Meditations among the Tombs, &c. “I call these,” he says, “in some measure legacies to the public, having given them to persons so well able to employ them for the benefit of mankind.”

The other legacies by this codicil are usually in themselves remarkable, and all the bequests are accompanied by remarks, which denote the peculiar character of the donor’s disposition: for example--“To the lady Lowther, of Swillington, a curious basket made of beads, the product of the virgin amusements of my grandmother--and her two sisters--it seeming highly proper to present a thing, which has gained the applause of most people, to a person who I hope has gained the applause of all. To Mrs. Philadelphia Boycott, my Kerry seal set in gold, with Mr. Addison’s head engraven on it--which will be very fitly deposited in the hands of a lady, whose letters are much celebrated for their wit and humour. In pursuance of an old promise, to Mrs. Barbara Tatton a picture in needlework, which was likewise made at the leisure hours of my aforesaid grandmother and her sisters, and which I suppose to have been designed for king Charles II.--the subject of which may perhaps sometimes engage her to reflect on this great truth, that the finest wit, if it deviate from the paths of virtue, is but a more elegant sort of folly. To Mrs. Christiana Hargrave, spinster, my silver coffee-pot, silver tea-pot, the silver stands for them, and my silver tea-canisters, milk-pot, and tea-spoons--being all of them baubles of some dignity and importance, even to women of sense, when in complaisance to the customs of an inconsiderate age they condescend to trifle. To the Rev. Thomas Adam,[482] rector of Wintringham in Lincolnshire, my mahogany bureau and bookcase--which may serve as a cabinet in which to reposit his manuscripts, till he may think it proper to make a cabinet of the world. In pursuance of an old promise to Mrs. Susannah Adam, his wife, my gold snuff-box--but if the contents of it prejudice her constitution, I hope she will upon this occasion follow the example of many fine ladies, who have many fine things which they never use. My silver cup and best silver tankard to Barnabas Legard, of Brompton, county of York, Esq., a person qualified by experience to teach our fine gentlemen a truth, which perhaps many of them will be surprised to hear--that temperance is the most delicious and refined luxury. To ensign William Massey, (my godson,) son of the late Capt. John Massey, of Hull, my sword; and hope he will, if ever occasion require it, convince a rash world that he has learned to obey his God as well as his general, and that he entertains too true a sense of honour ever to admit any thing into the character of a good soldier, which is inconsistent with the duty of a good Christian.[483] I give the sum of forty pounds, to be paid into the king’s exchequer.--I give thirty pounds to be added to the common stock of our East India company--which two last legacies I leave, as the best method I know, though not an exact one, of making restitution for the injustice I may have done, in buying (inadvertently) any uncustomed goods; and which I hope will be accepted by the great Judge of all men, in case I do not meet with a better before I die.--I give the sum of one hundred pounds to the person who shall within four years after my decease make and publish the best tragedy, entitled Virtue Triumphant--wherein among such others, as the poet shall think proper to introduce, shall be drawn the character of a virtuous man unconquered by misfortunes, &c. I give the sum of one hundred pounds to the person who shall, within four years after my decease, make and publish the best comedy; wherein--among such others as the poet shall think proper to introduce--shall be drawn the four following characters, viz. of a fine gentleman, a fine lady, a beau, and a coquet; the two first to be drawn with a thorough taste for religion and virtue, accompanied with fine sense and humour, and to be crowned with success; the two last with the fopperies and follies common to persons of these denominations, and to be made objects of contempt and ridicule,” &c.[484]

MR. NORTH’S PRIZES FOR THE POETS.

Nothing further appears to be known respecting Mr. North, except that, through the “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July, 1734, he proposed, and was the anonymous donor of fifty pounds, “as a prize for the poets,” to encourage them “to make the best poem, Latin or English, on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell, viz. all the said subjects jointly, and not any single one independent of the rest:” and, that the poets might not be discouraged “upon suspicion of incapacity in their judges,” he entirely resigned the decision of the best poem to “universal suffrage” and election by “vote;” or, as he is pleased to call it, in the Magazine for August, “the public vote of kingdoms.” He presumes that this scheme “will probably be most agreeable to the poets themselves, because they will be tried by such a number as is not capable of being bribed, and because this method of determination will, as he conceives, tend most to the honour of that poet who shall succeed.” In October he prescribes that the voters shall sign a declaration, disclaiming undue influence; and he suggests, that if the majority of candidates prefer a determinate number of judges to the public at large, he will accord to that arrangement, provided they express their desires with their poems. Accordingly, the Gentleman’s Magazine of May, 1735, “informs the candidates, that as the majority of them are for a decision by a select number of judges, the donor is desirous that Mr. Urban should apply to three particular gentlemen of unexceptionable merit, to undertake this office;” and it is announced, that the poems will be published in “an entire Magazine Extraordinary,” to render which “acceptable, to those who have no great taste for poetry,” there will be added “something of general use.” In the following July the poems appeared in the promised “Gentleman’s Magazine Extraordinary, printed by E. Cave, at St. John’s Gate, for the benefit of the poets;” whereto was added, as of “general use,” agreeably to the above promise, and for those “who have no great taste in poetry,” the Debates in the first session of parliament for 1735.

What gratification Mr. North derived from his encouragement of “the poets,” is to be inferred from this--that, in the supplement to the Gentleman’s Magazine of the same year, 1735, he announced, that other prizes thereafter mentioned would be given to persons who should “make and send” to Mr. Urban, before the 11th of June, 1736, the four best poems, entitled “The Christian Hero”--viz.

“1. To the person who shall make the best will be given a gold medal, (intrinsic value about ten pounds,) which shall have the head of the right hon. the lady Elizabeth Hastings on one side, and that of James Oglethorpe, Esq. on the other, with this motto--‘England may challenge the world, 1736.’

“2. To the author of the second, a complete set of Archbishop Tillotson’s Sermons.

“3. To the author of the third, a complete set of Archbishop Sharpe’s Sermons. And,

“4. To the author of the fourth, a set of Cooke’s Sermons.”

In the Magazine of February, 1736, Mr. North begs pardon of the lady Elizabeth Hastings, (a female of distinguished piety,) for the uneasiness he had occasioned her by proposing to engrave her portrait on his prize medal: being, “however, desirous that the poets should exercise their pens,” he proposes to substitute the head of archbishop Tillotson, and “hopes that Mr. Oglethorpe will be prevailed upon to consent that the medal shall bear his effigies.” Several of the poems made by “the poets” for this second prize appear in the Magazine of the same year, to which readers, desirous of perusing the effusions elicited by Mr. North’s liberality, are referred.

* * * * *

The “James Oglethorpe, Esq.” whose head Mr. North coveted for his prize medal, was the late general Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, at the advanced age of ninety-seven, the oldest general in the service. Besides his military employments, first as secretary and aide-de-camp to prince Eugene, and afterwards in America, and at home during the rebellion in 1745, he was distinguished as a useful member of the House of Commons, by proposing several regulations for the benefit of trade and the reform of prisons. In 1732 he settled the colony of Georgia, and erected the town of Savannah, and arrived in England in June, 1734, with several Indian chiefs. This gentleman’s public services at that time, and his eminent philanthropy, were inducements to Mr. North to do him honour. The following is an interesting account of the presentation of the Indians at court.

On the 1st of August, 1734, Tomo Chachi, the king, Senauki his wife, with Tooanakowki, their son, Hillispilli, the war captain, and the other Cherokee Indians, brought over by Mr. Oglethorpe from Georgia, were introduced to his majesty at Kensington, who received them seated on his throne; when Tomo Chachi, micho, or king, made the following speech, at the same time presenting several eagles’ feathers, trophies of their country.

“This day I see the majesty of your face, the greatness of your house, and the number of your people. I am come for the good of the whole nation, called the Creeks, to renew the peace which was long ago had with the English. I am come over in my old days, though I cannot live to see any advantage to myself; I am come for the good of the children of all the nations of the Upper and of the Lower Creeks, that they may be instructed in the knowledge of the English.

“These are the feathers of the eagle, which is the swiftest of birds, and who flieth all round our nations. These feathers are a sign of peace in our land, and have been carried from town to town there; and we have brought them over to leave with you, O great king, as a sign of everlasting peace.

“O great king, whatsoever words you shall say unto me, I will tell them faithfully to all the kings of the Creek nations.”

To which his majesty graciously answered,

“I am glad of this opportunity of assuring you of my regard for the people from whom you come, and am extremely well pleased with the assurances you have brought me from them, and accept very gratefully this present, as an indication of their good disposition to me and my people. I shall always be ready to cultivate a good correspondence between them and my own subjects, and shall be glad of any occasion to show you a mark of my particular friendship and esteem.”

Tomo Chachi afterwards made the following speech to the queen.

“I am glad to see this day, and to have the opportunity of seeing, the mother of this great people.

“As our people are joined with your majesty’s, we do humbly hope to find you the common mother and protectress of us and all our children.”

Her majesty returned a suitably gracious answer.

The war captain, and other attendants of Tomo Chachi, were very importunate to appear at court in the costume of their own country, merely a covering round the waist, the rest of the body being naked, but were dissuaded from it by Mr. Oglethorpe. But their faces were variously painted after their country manner, some half black, others triangular, and others with bearded arrows instead of whiskers, Tomo Chachi, and Senauki, his wife, were dressed in scarlet, trimmed with gold.

On the 17th of the same month Tomo Chachi, and the rest of the Indians, dined with the lady Dutry at Putney; and then waited on the archbishop of Canterbury, (Potter,) who received them with the utmost kindness and tenderness, and expressed his fatherly concern for their ignorance with respect to Christianity, and his strong desire for their instruction. His grace, though very weak, would not sit down, the micho therefore omitted speaking to him what he intended, and only desired his blessing; adding, that what he had further to say he would speak to Dr. Lynch, his grace’s son-in-law, and then withdrew. He was afterwards entertained at a noble collation, and had a conference with Dr. Lynch, expressing his joy, as believing some good persons would be sent amongst them to instruct their youth.

On the 30th of October the Indian king, queen, prince, &c. set out from the Georgia office, in the king’s coaches, for Gravesend, to embark on their return home. During their stay in England, which had been about four months, his majesty allowed them 20_l._ a week for their subsistence. Whatever was curious and worthy observation in and about London and Westminster had been carefully shown them; and nothing had been wanting to contribute to their diversion and amusement, and to give them a just idea of English politeness and respect. In return, they expressed themselves heartily attached to the British nation. They had about the value of 400_l._ in presents. Prince William presented the young micho, John Towanohowi, with a gold watch, with an admonition to call upon Jesus Christ every morning when he looked on it, which he promised. They appeared particularly delighted with seeing his highness perform his exercise of riding the managed horse, the Horse Guards pass in review, and the agreeable appearance of the barges, &c. on the Thames on lord mayor’s day. In the same ship embarked several relations of the English settled in Georgia, with sir Francis Bathurst, his son, three daughters, and servants; together with fifty-six Saltzburghers, newly arrived from Rotterdam. These people had been at the German church in Trinity-lane, where 47_l._ was collected for them.[485]

[482] The Whole Works of the Rev. Thomas Adam have been lately first collected in three vols. by the Rev. W. Smith.

[483] A brave man thinks no one his superior who does him an injury, for he has it then in his power to make himself superior to the other by forgiving it.

Testator.

[484] Besides these bequests, Mr. North desired that two manuscript-books, consisting of miscellaneous pieces, and particularly a discourse, the first and last parts whereof were composed with a view of their being preached instead of a sermon at his funeral, should be printed in one volume after his decease, at an expense of one hundred pounds, and directed the profits of the books sold to be expended in causing an impression to be made of four sermons by archbishop Sharp and bishop Beveridge, containing a description of the Joys of Heaven and the Torments of the Damned; together with some directions how men may obtain the one, and escape the other; the said four sermons to be printed on good paper, and in a fair character, bound or stitched in strong covers, and given gratis among soldiers, sailors, poor persons, and common labourers. He further gave to the archbishop of York two hundred pounds, in trust, to be applied towards the building or other uses and services of another church, or a chapel of ease in Scarborough aforesaid, provided any such church or chapel should be erected within ten years after his decease. He also gave fifty pounds to the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge; and fifty pounds to the Society for propagating the Gospel in foreign parts. “I desire the lord archbishop of York (Hutton) will do me the honour to accept the picture of Pope Gregory I., which has been commended, and was a legacy to me from the painter, Mr. John Settrington. I desire the lord bishop of Carlisle (Osbaldeston) will do me the honour to accept my own picture, drawn by the same hand.”

These particulars, and those preceding, are contained in “A Biographical Sketch” of Mr. North, printed at Scarborough by and for John Cole, 1823. 8vo. pp. 16.

[485] Gentleman’s Magazine, 1734.

* * * * *

MENDIP MINES.

To the Editor.

Sir,--The very great entertainment I have derived from your Every-Day Book induces me to contribute to your present publication, if you consider the accompanying copy from an old record merits a place in the Table Book. It formed part of a brief held by counsel in a cause, “Hembury and Day,” tried at Taunton assizes in 1820. On referring to the papers I find that the present Mr. justice Gaselee was the counsel employed. Some of these old Mendip laws are recognised in “Collinson’s History of Somersetshire.”

I am,

Your very obedient servant,

JOHN PINCHARD.

Taunton, August 24, 1827.

LAWS AND ORDERS OF THE MENDIP MINERS.

Be it known that this is a true Copy of the Enrollment in the King’s Exchequer in the time of King Edward the Fourth, of a dispute that was in the County of Somerset, Between the Lord Bonfield and the tenants of Chewton and the prior of Green Oare; the said prior complaining unto the King of great injuries and wrongs that he had upon Mendip, being the King’s Forrest. The said King Edward, commanded the lord Chock the lord Chief Justice of England to go down into the County of Somerset, to Mendipp, and sit in concord and Peace in the said County concerning Mendipp upon pain of high displeasure. The said Lord Chock sate upon Mendipp on a place of my Lord’s of Bath, called the Forge, Whereas he commanded all the Commoners to appear, and especially the four Lords Royal of Mendipp (that is to say) the Bishop of Bath, my Lord of Glaston, my Lord of Bonfield, the Lord of Chewton, and my Lord of Richmond, with all the appearance to the Number of ten Thousand people. A Proclamation was made to enquire of all the company how they would be ordered. Then they with one consent made answer, That they would be Ordered and tryed by the four Lords of the Royalties. And then the four Lords Royal were agreed, that the Commoners of Mendipp should hem out their outlets as much the Summer as they be able to Winter, without hounding or pounding upon whose ground soever they went to take their course and recourse, to which the four Lords Royal did put their Seals, and were also agreed that whosoever should break the said Bonds should forfeit to the King 1000 Marks, and all the Commoners their Bodies and goods to be at the King’s pleasure or command that doeth either hound or pound.------

THE OLD ANCIENT OCCUPATION OF MINERS UPON MENDIPP, being the King’s Forrest within the County of Somerset one of the four Staples of England which have been Exercised, used and continued through the said Forrest of Mendipp from the time whereof no Man living hath no memory; as hereafter doth particularly ensue the Order;

FIRST. That, if any man whatsoever he be that doeth intend to venture his Life to be a Workman in the said Occupation, he must first of all crave licence of the Lords of the Soyle where he doth purpose to work, and in his absence of his said Officers, as the lead-reave or Bailiff, and the lord, neither his Bailiffs can deny him.

2D ITEM. That, after the first Licence had, the Workman shall never need to ask leave again, but to be at his free will to pitch within the Forrest, and to break the ground where and in what place it shall please him, to his behalf and profit, using himself justly and truly.

3D ITEM. If any doth begin to pitch or groof he shall heave his hacks through two ways after the Rate.--Note, that he that throw the hack must stand to the Girdle or Waste in the same Groof, and then no Man shall or may work within his hack’s throwe: provided always, that no man shall or can keep but his wet, and dry Groof, and his Mark--

4TH ITEM. That, when a Workman have landed his Oare, he may carry the same, to cleansing or blowing, to what Minery it shall please him, for the speedy making out of the same, so that he doth truly pay the lord of the Soyle, where it was landed, his due, which is the Tenth part thereof--

5TH ITEM. That if any Lord or Officer hath once given licence to any Man to build, or set up an hearth, or Washing-house, to wash, cleanse or blow the Oare, He that once hath leave shall keep it for ever, or give it to whom he will, so that he doth justly pay his Lot-lead, which is the Tenth pound which shall be blown at the Hearth or hearths, and also that he doth keep it Tenantable, as the Custom doth require--

6TH ITEM. That, if any of that Occupation doth pick or steal any lead or Oare to the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny[486] the lord or his Officer may Arrest all his Lead-works, house and hearth, with all his Groofs and Works, and keep them as safely for his own Use; and shall take the person that hath so offended, and bring him where his house is, or his work, and all his Tools or Instruments which to the Occupation belongs, as he useth, and put him into the said house, and set Fire on all together about him, and banish him from that Occupation before the Miners for ever--

7TH ITEM. That, if ever that person do pick or Steal there any more, he shall be tryed by the Common Law, for this Custom and Law hath noe more to do with him--

8TH ITEM. That every Lord of Soyle or Soyles ought to keep two Mynedrie Courts by the year, and to swear twelve Men or more of the same occupation, for the orders of all Misdemeanours and wrongs touching the Mynedries.

9TH ITEM. The Lord, or Lords, may make three manner of Arrests, (that is to say) ye first is for strife between man and man, for their workes under the Earth, &c.; the second is for his own duty, for Lead or Oare, wheresoever he find it within the said Forrest; the third is upon felon’s goods of the same occupation, wheresoever he find it within the same Hill, &c.--

10TH ITEM. That, if any Man, by means of Misfortune take his Death, as by falling of the Earth upon him, by drawing or Stifling, or otherwise, as in time past many have been, the Workmen of the same Occupation are bound to fetch him out of the Earth, and to bring him to Christian burial, at their own Costs and Charges, although he be Forty Fathoms under the Earth, as heretofore hath been done; and the Coroner, or any Officer at large, shall not have to do with him in any respect.

[486] Thirteen-pence halfpenny. This particular sum is the subject of an article immediately ensuing the present.

* * * * *

THIRTEEN-PENCE HALFPENNY.

HANGMAN’S WAGES.

JACK KETCH A GENTLEMAN.

Dr. Samuel Pegge, who is likely to be remembered by readers of the article on the Revolution-house at Whittington, he having, on the day he entered his eighty-fifth year, preached the centenary sermon to commemorate the Revolution, was an eminent antiquary. He addressed a paper to the Society of Antiquaries, on “the vulgar notion, though it will not appear to be a vulgar error, that thirteen-pence halfpenny is the fee of the executioner in the common line of business at Tyburn,[487] and that, therefore, it is called hangman’s wages.” It is proposed from this paper to give an account of the origin of the saying.

According to Dr. Pegge, the office of hangman was, in some parts of the kingdom, annexed to other posts; for the porter of the city of Canterbury was the executioner for the county of Kent, temporibus Hen. II. and Hen. III.; for which he had an allowance from the sheriff, who was reimbursed from the exchequer, of twenty shillings per annum.[488] From the great and general disesteem wherein the office is held, the sheriffs are much obliged to those who will undertake it, as otherwise its unpleasant and painful duty must fall upon themselves. For, to them the law looks for its completion, as they give a receipt to the gaoler for the bodies of condemned criminals whom they are to punish, or cause to be punished, according to their respective sentences. Sometimes in the country, sheriffs have had much difficulty to procure an executioner. In short, although, in the eyes of the people generally, a stigma attaches to the hangman, yet, in fact, the hangman is the sheriff’s immediate deputy in criminal matters, as his under-sheriff is for civil purposes. The nature and dignity of the office in some particulars, and the rank of the officer, called Squire Ketch, will be found to be supportable, as well as the fee of office.

And first, as regards the sheriff himself. The sheriff is, by being so styled in the king’s patent under the great seal, an esquire, which raises him to that rank, unless he has previously had the title adventitiously. None were anciently chosen sheriffs, but such gentlemen whose fortunes and stations would warrant it; so, on the other hand, merchants, and other liberal branches of the lower order, were admitted first into the rank of gentlemen, by a grant of arms, on proper qualifications, from the earl marshal, and the kings of arms, respectively, according to their provinces. After a negotiant has become a gentleman, courtesy will very soon advance that rank, and give the party the title of esquire; and so it happened with a worthy gentleman, for so a hangman will be proved to have been. This remarkable case happened in the year 1616, in the manner following.

Ralph Brooke, whose real name was Brokesmouth, at that time “York herald,” put a trick upon sir William Segar, “garter king of arms,” which had very nearly cost both of them their places. Brooke employed a person to carry a coat of arms ready drawn to garter, and to pretend it belonged to one Gregory Brandon, a gentleman who had formerly lived in London, but was then residing in Spain. The messenger was instructed to desire garter to set his hand to this coat of arms: and to prevent deliberation, he was further to pretend that the vessel, which was to carry this confirmation into Spain, when it had received the seal of the office and garter’s hand, was just ready to sail.[489] This being done, and the fees paid, Brooke carried it to Thomas earl of Arundel, then one of the commissioners for executing the office of earl marshal; and, in order to vilify garter, and to represent him as a rapacious, negligent officer, assured his lordship that those were the arms of Arragon, with a canton for Brabant, and that Gregory Brandon was a mean and inconsiderable person. This was true enough; for he was the common hangman for London and Middlesex. Ralph Brooke afterwards confessed all these circumstances to the commissioners who represented the earl marshal; the consequence of which was, that, by order of the king, when he heard the case, garter was committed to prison for negligence, and the herald for treachery. There was this previous result, however, that Gregory Brandon, the hangman, had become a gentleman; and, as the Bastard says in King John, “could make any Joan a gentlewoman.”

Thus was this Gregory Brandon advanced, perhaps from the state of a convict, to the rank of a gentleman; and though it was a personal honour to himself, notwithstanding it was surreptitiously obtained by the herald, of which Gregory Brandon, gentleman, was perhaps ignorant, yet did it operate so much on his successors in office, that afterwards it became transferred from the family to the officer for the time being; and from Mr. Brandon’s popularity, though not of the most desirable kind, the mobility soon improved his rank, and, with a jocular complaisance, gave him the title of esquire, which remains to this day.

It seems too as if this office had once, like many other important offices of state, been hereditary. Shakspeare has this passage in Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 1.--

“Menenius.--Marcius, in a cheap estimation, is worth all your predecessors, since Deucalion; though, peradventure, some of the best of them were hereditary hangmen.”

This looks as if the office of executioner had run in some family for a generation or two, at the time when Shakspeare wrote; and that it was a circumstance well understood, and would be well relished, at least by the galleries. This might, indeed, with regard to time, point at the ancestors of Mr. Brandon himself; for it was in the reign of king James I. that this person was brought within the pale of gentility. Nay, more, we are told by Dr. Grey, in his Notes on Shakspeare,[490] that from this gentleman, the hangmen, his successors, bore for a considerable time his Christian name of Gregory, though not his arms, they being a personal honour, till a greater man arose, viz. Jack Ketch, who entailed the present official name on all who have hitherto followed him.[491]

Whether the name of Ketch be not the provincial pronunciation of Catch among the cockneys, may be doubted, notwithstanding that learned and laborious compiler, B. E., gent., the editor of the “Canting Dictionary,” says that Jack Kitch, for so he spells it, was the real name of a hangman, which has become that of all his successors.

So much for the office. It now remains to consider the emoluments which appertain to it, and assign a reason why thirteen-pence halfpenny should be esteemed its standard fee for inflicting the last stroke of the law.

Before proceeding to matters of a pecuniary nature, it may be allowed, perhaps, to illustrate a Yorkshire saying. It was occasioned by a truly unfortunate man, whose guilt was doubtful, and yet suffered the sentence of the law at York. This person was a saddler at Bawtry, and hence the saying among the lower people to a man who quits his friends too early, and will not stay to finish his bottle:--“He will be hanged for leaving his liquor, like the saddler of Bawtry.” The case was this:--There was formerly an ale-house, which house to this day is called “The Gallows House,” situate between the city of York and their Tyburn; at this house the cart used always to stop, and there the convict and the other parties were refreshed with liquors; but the rash and precipitate saddler of Bawtry, on his road to the fatal tree, refused this little regale, and hastened on to the place of execution; where, but not until after he had been turned off, and it was too late, a reprieve arrived. Had he stopped, as was usual, at the gallows house, the time consumed there would have been the means of saving his life. He was hanged, as truly as unhappily, for leaving his liquor.

Similar means of refreshment were anciently allowed to convicts, on their passage to Tyburn, at St. Giles’s hospital; for we are told by Stowe, that they were there presented with a bowl of ale, called “St. Giles’s bowl; thereof to drink at their pleasure, as their last refreshing in this life.” Tyburn was the established scene of executions in common cases so long ago as the first year of king Henry IV.; Smithfield and St. Giles’s Field being reserved for persons of higher rank, and for crimes of uncommon magnitude, such as treason and heresy. In the last of these, sir John Oldcastle, lord Cobham, was burnt, or rather roasted, alive; having been hanged up over the fire by a chain which went round his waist.[492]

The executioner of the duke of Monmouth (in July, 1685) was peculiarly unsuccessful in the operation. The duke said to him, “Here are six guineas for you: pray do your business well; do not serve me as you did my lord Russell: I have heard you struck him three or four times. Here, (to his servant,) take these remaining guineas, and give them to him if he does his work well.”

Executioner.--“I hope I shall.”

Monmouth.--“If you strike me twice, I cannot promise you not to stir. Pr’ythee let me feel the axe.” He felt the edge, and said, “I fear it is not sharp enough.”

Executioner.--“It is sharp enough, and heavy enough.”

The executioner proceeded to do his office; but the note says, “it was under such distraction of mind, that he fell into the very error which the duke had so earnestly cautioned him to avoid; wounding him so slightly, that he lifted up his head, and looked him in the face, as if to upbraid him for making his death painful; but said nothing. He then prostrated himself again, and received two other ineffectual blows; upon which the executioner threw down his axe in a fit of horror; crying out, ‘he could not finish his work:’ but, on being brought to himself by the threats of the sheriffs, took up the fatal weapon again, and at two other strokes made a shift to separate the head from the body.”[493]

As to the fee itself, “thirteen-pence half-penny--hangman’s wages,” it appears to have been of Scottish extraction. The Scottish mark (not ideal or nominal money, like our mark) was a silver coin, in value thirteen-pence halfpenny and two placks, or two-thirds of a penny; which plack is likewise a coin. This, their mark, bears the same proportion to their pound, which is twenty-pence, as our mark does to our pound, or twenty shillings, being two-thirds of it. By these divisions and sub-divisions of their penny (for they have a still smaller piece, called a bodel or half a plack) they can reckon with the greatest minuteness, and buy much less quantities of any article than we can.[494] This Scottish mark was, upon the union of the two crowns in the person of king James I., made current in England at the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny, (without regarding the fraction,) by proclamation, in the first year of that king; where it is said, that “the coin of silver, called the mark piece, shall be from henceforth current within the said kingdom of England, at the value of thirteen-pence halfpenny.”[495] This, probably, was a revolution in the current money in favour of the hangman, whose fee before was perhaps no more than a shilling. There is, however, very good reason to conclude, from the singularity of the sum, that the odious title of “hangman’s wages” became at this time, or soon after, applicable to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny. Though it was contingent, yet it was then very considerable pay; when one shilling per day was a standing annual stipend to many respectable officers of various kinds.

Nothing can well vary more than the perquisites of this office; for it is well known that Jack Ketch has a post-obit interest in the convict, being entitled to his clothes, or to a composition for them; though, on the other hand, they must very frequently be such garments that, as Shakspeare says, “a hangman would bury with those who wore them.”[496]

This emolument is of no modern date, and has an affinity to other droits on very dissimilar occasions, which will be mentioned presently. The executioner’s perquisite is at least as old as Henry VIII.; for sir Thomas More, on the morning of his execution, put on his best gown, which was of silk camlet, sent him as a present while he was in the Tower by a citizen of Lucca, with whom he had been in correspondence; but the lieutenant of the Tower was of opinion that a worse gown would be good enough for the person who was to have it, meaning the executioner, and prevailed upon sir Thomas to change it, which he did for one made of frize.[497] Thus the antiquity of this obitual emolument, so well known in Shakspeare’s time, seems well established; and, as to its nature, has a strong resemblance to a fee of a much longer standing, and formerly received by officers of very great respectability. For anciently “garter king of arms” had specifically the gown of the party on the creation of a peer; and again, when archbishops, bishops, abbots, and priors, did homage to the king, their upper garment was the perquisite even of the lord chamberlain of the household. The fee in the latter case was always compounded for, though garter’s was often formerly received in kind, inasmuch as the statute which gives this fee to the lord chamberlain directs the composition, because, as the words are, “it is more convenient that religious men should fine for their upper garment, than to be stripped.”[498] The same delicate necessity does not operate in the hangman’s case, and his fee extends much farther than either of them, he being entitled to all the sufferer’s garments, having first rendered them useless to the party. Besides this perquisite, there has always been a pecuniary compliment, where it could possibly be afforded, given by the sufferer to the executioner, to induce him to be speedy and dexterous in the operation. These outward gifts may likewise be understood as tokens of inward forgiveness.

“Upon the whole,” says Dr. Pegge, “I conceive that what I have offered above, though with much enlargement, is the meaning of the ignominious term affixed to the sum of thirteen-pence halfpenny, and I cannot but commiserate those for whom it is to be paid.”[499]

[487] “The executions, on ordinary occasions, were removed from this memorable place, and were performed in the street of the Old Bailey, at the door of Newgate. This was first practised on the 9th of December, 1783. See the printed account. Every of these executions I was told by Mr. Reed, 1785, is attended with an expense of upwards of nine pounds. Twenty persons were hanged at once in February, 1785.”--Dr. Pegge.

[488] Madox’s History of the Exchequer, ii. p. 373.

[489] These arms actually appear in Edmondson’s Body of Heraldry, annexed to the name of Brandon, viz. the arms of Arragon with a difference, and the arms of Brabant in a canton.

[490] Vol. ii, p. 163.

[491] The hangman was known by the name of Gregory in the year 1642, as we learn from the Mercurius Aulicus, p. 553.

[492] Rapin. See also Bale’s Life and Trial of Sir John Oldcastle. St. Giles’s was then an independent village, and is still called St. Giles’s in the Fields, to distinguish it from St. Giles’s, Cripplegate; being both in the same diocese.

[493] Lord Somers’s Tracts, vol. i. pp. 219, 220; the note taken from the Review of the reigns of Charles and James, p. 885.

[494] Mr. Ray, in his Itinerary, gives the fractional parts of the Scottish penny.

[495] The proclamation may be seen in Strype’s Annals, vol. iv. p. 384, where the mark-piece is valued exactly at thirteen-pence halfpenny.

[496] Coriolanus, act. i. sc. 8.

[497] More’s Life of sir Thomas More, p. 271.

[498] Stat. 13 Edward I.

[499] Pegge’s Curialia Miscellanea.

Vol. II.--50.

The first point of peculiarity that strikes the traveller on approaching the “Running Horse” is the pictorial anomaly on the front of the house--the sign represents a race-horse with a rider on its back; but the painter has given us a horse standing as still as most horses would be glad to do after having been running horses for more than half a century. Our “Running Horse” then, stands hard by the church in the village of Merrow, (olim Merewe,) about two miles from Guildford, in Surrey, on the road leading from the latter place to London by way of Epsom. It is at the intersection of the high roads leading to Epsom, to Guildford, to Stoke, and to Albury, Shere, and Dorking. The latter road passes over Merrow Downs, upon which, at the distance of a quarter of a mile from our hostel, is the course whereon Guildford races are annually held.

Guildford races formerly attracted a very numerous assemblage of spectators. The elderly inhabitants of the above-named ancient borough relate that, such was the influx of company, not a bed was to be had in Guildford unless secured some weeks before the sports commenced. From some cause, the nature of which the good people of Guildford have never been able satisfactorily to ascertain, the races have, for several years, gradually declined in celebrity and importance, and at present they are too often but thinly attended. The programme of the sports, which annually issues from the Guildford press, is embellished with a wood-cut, an impression I believe of the same block that has been used for the last century. The course is not considered by sportsmen a good one, but its situation, and the views it commands, are delightful.

When king George the First was at lord Onslow’s at Clandon, (the adjoining parish,) he gave a plate of one hundred guineas to be run for; and this is now the principal attraction to the proprietors of horses. The members for the borough of Guildford also give a plate of fifty pounds, and there is generally a subscription plate besides.

Our hostel, the “Running Horse” at Merrow, is the place of rendezvous for all the “running horses.” Its stable doors bear highly characteristic and interesting trophies of the honours obtained by their former temporary inmates. The best formed pumps that ever trod the floors of Almack’s or the saloons of Carlton palace, are not more delicately turned than the shoes, (albeit they are of iron,) which, having done their duty on the course, and brought their high-mettled wearers first to the winning-post, are now securely nailed against the honoured portals, as memorials of his success. They are placed heel to heel, and within the oval is carved, in rude characters, the name of the horse, with the day on which he won for his master the purse of gold. What an association of ideas does the simple record convey! Here, on a fine warm evening in June, the evening preceding

-----------“the great, th’ important day, Big with the fate of jockey and of horse,”

arrived the majestic “Cydnus.” His fine proportions were hid from vulgar gaze, by cloths of purest white. As he walked slowly up the village street ridden by his jockey, a stripling of sixteen, his approach was hailed by the acclamations of the village boys, and the calmer admiration of the men, all looking forward to their holiday on the succeeding day. “Here, I say; here, here;--here comes one of the racers!--There’s a purty creatur! law--look at his long legs--law, Jem, I say, look what long steps he do take--fancy how he must gallop, if he walks so--purty fellur!--I’m sure he’ll win--mind if he don’t now!” Meanwhile the noble animal arrives at the inn door--high breeding, whether in biped or quadruped, is not to be kept waiting--out comes the host in an important bustle, with the bright key of the stable door swinging upon his finger. He shows the way to the best stall, and then takes his station at the door to keep out the inquisitive gazers, while the jockey and trainer commence their tender offices of cleaning and refreshing the horse after his unusual exercise of walking the public road. This done, he is fed, clothed, and left to his repose upon as soft a bed as clean straw will make, while the jockey and trainer adjourn to the house, the admiration of the knot of idlers who are there assembled to hear the pedigree, birth, parentage, education, and merits of “the favourite.” Other horses soon arrive, and the conversation takes a more scientific turn, while the jockies make their own bets, and descant learnedly upon those of their masters, till they betake themselves to rest, “perchance to dream” of the important event of the succeeding day.

Long before the dew has left the short herbage on the neighbouring downs, the jockies are busily engaged in the stables; and before the sun’s heat has exceeded that of an April noon, they are mounted, and gently cantering over the turf, with the double object of airing their horses and showing them the course over which, in a few hours, they are urged, at their utmost speed, in the presence of admiring thousands. What an elating thought for the youthful rider of “the favourite;” with what delight does he look forward to the hour when the horse and his rider will be the objects of attraction to hundreds of fair one’s eyes glancing upon him with looks of admiration and interest; while, in his dapper silk jacket and cap of sky-blue and white, he rides slowly to the weighing-place, surrounded by lords and gentlemen “of high degree.” Within a short space the vision is realized--more than realized--for he has won the first heat “by a length.” In the next heat he comes in second, but only “half a neck” behind, and his horse is still fresh. The bell rings again for saddling; and the good steed is snuffing the air, and preparing for renewed exertions, while his rider “hails in his heart the triumph yet to come.” The bell rings for starting--“They are off,” cry a hundred voices at once. Blue and white soon takes the lead. “Three to one”--“five to one”--“seven to one”--are the odds in his favour; while at the first rise in the ground he gives ample proof to the admiring “cognoscenti” that he “must win.” A few minutes more, and a general hum of anxious voices announces that the horses are again in sight. “Which is first?”--“Oh, blue and white still.”--“I knew it; I was sure of it.” Here comes the clerk of the course flogging out the intruders within the rails, and here comes the gallant bay--full two lengths before the only horse that, during the whole circuit of four miles, has been once within speaking distance of him. He keeps the lead, and wins the race without once feeling the whip. Here is a moment of triumph for his rider! he is weighed again, and receives from his master’s hand the well-earned reward of his “excellent riding.” The horse is carefully reclothed, and led back to his stable, where his feet are relieved from the shoes which are destined to assist in recording, to successive generations of jockies, the gallant feats, performed by

“Hearts that then beat high for praise, But feel that pulse no more.”

Our hostel, however, must not be thus quitted.--The date inscribed within the circle above the centre window is, I think, 1617. (I have a memorandum of it somewhere, but have mislaid it.) The house is plastered and washed with yellow; but its gables, Elizabethan chimnies, and projecting bay window, (a very proper kind of window for a “running horse,”) render it a much more picturesque building than I have been able to represent it on the small scale of my drawing. In front of it, at about the distance of thirty yards, there was formerly a well of more than a hundred feet in depth; the landlord used to repair this well, receiving a contribution from all who made use of it; but other wells have of late years been dug in the neighbourhood, and the use of this has subsequently been confined to the inmates of the public-house.

The church of Merrow, of which there is a glimpse in the background, is worthy of further notice than I have the means of affording in the present communication.

PHILIPPOS.

November, 1827.

* * * * *

WILLIAM CAPON,

THE SCENE PAINTER.

To the Editor.

Sir,--Presuming you may not have been acquainted with the late Mr. William Capon, whose excellence as a gothic architectural scene-painter has not been equalled by any of his compeers, I venture a few particulars respecting him.

My acquaintance with Mr. Capon commenced within only the last five or six years, but his frank intimacy and hearty good-will were the same as if our intercourse had been of longer date. A memoir of him, in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,” seems to me somewhat deficient in its representation of those qualities.

The memoir just noticed assigns the date of his birth at Norwich to have been October 6, 1757; and truly represents, that though wanting but ten days of arriving at the seventieth year of his age when he died, his hale appearance gave little indication of such a protracted existence. He laboured under an asthmatic affection, of which he was accustomed to complain, while his fund of anecdote, and his jocular naïveté in recitation, were highly amusing. His manner of relating many of the follies of theatrical monarchs, now defunct, was wont to set the table in a roar; and could his reminiscences be remembered, they would present a detail quite as amusing as some that have recently diverted the town. Kemble he deified; he confessed that he could not get rid of old prejudices in favour of his old friend; and, to use his own phrase, “there never was an actor like him.” I have often seen him in ecstasy unlock the glazed front of the frame over his drawing-room chimney-piece, that enclosed a singularly beautiful enamel portrait of that distinguished actor, which will shortly be competed for under the auctioneer’s hammer. Some of his finest drawings of the Painted Chamber at Westminster, framed with the richness of olden times, also decorated this room, which adjoined his study on the same floor. His larger drawings had green silk curtains before them; and these he would not care to draw, unless he thought his visitors’ ideas corresponded with his own respecting the scenes he had thus depicted. The most valuable portion of his collection was a series of drawings of those portions of the ancient city of Westminster, which modern improvements have wholly annihilated. During the course of demolition, he often rose at daybreak, to work undisturbed in his darling object; and hence, some of the tones of morning twilight are so strictly represented, as to yield a hard and unartist-like appearance.

It was a source of disquiet to Mr. Capon that the liberality of publishers did not extend to such enlargements of Smith’s Westminster, as his own knowledge would have supplied. In fact, such a work could not be accomplished without a numerous list of subscribers; and as he never issued a prospectus, the whole of his abundant antiquarian knowledge has died with him, and the pictorial details alone remain.

Mr. Capon was, greatly to his inconvenience, a creditor of the late Richard Brinsley Sheridan, of whom he was accustomed to speak with evident vexation. He had been induced to enter into the compromise offered him by the committee of management of Drury-lane theatre, and give a receipt barring all future claims. This galled him exceedingly; and more than once he hinted suspicions respecting the conflagration of the theatre, which evinced that he had brooded over his losses till his judgment had become morbid.

But he is gone, and in him society has lost an amiable and respected individual. To the regret of numerous friends he expired on the 26th of September at his residence, No. 4, North-street, Westminster.

I am, &c.

A. W.

November 3, 1827.

* * * * *

~Garrick Plays.~

No. XLIII.

[From “Brutus of Alba,” a Tragedy, by Nahum Tate, 1678.]

Ragusa, and four more Witches, about to raise a storm.

Rag. ’Tis time we were preparing for the storm. Heed me, ye daughters of the mystic art; Look that it be no common hurricane, But such as rend the Caspian cliffs, and from Th’ Hyrcanian hills sweep cedars, roots and all. Speak; goes all right? All. Uh! Uh! Uh! Uh! 1st W. The cricket leaves our cave, and chirps no more. 2d W. I stuck a ram, but could not stain my steel. 3d W. His fat consumed in th’ fire, and never smok’d. 4th W. I found this morn upon our furnace wall Mysterious words wrought by a slimy snail, Whose night-walk fate had guided in that form. 2d W. Thou’rt queen of mysteries, great Ragusa. How hast thou stemm’d the abyss of our black science, Traced dodging nature thro’ her blind ’scape-roads, And brought her naked and trembling to the light! Rag. Now to our task-- Stand off; and, crouching, mystic postures make, Gnawing your rivel’d knuckles till they bleed, Whilst I fall prostrate to consult my art, And mutter sounds too secret for your ear.

(storm rises.)

Rag. The storm’s on wing, comes powdering from the Nore; Tis past the Alps already, and whirls forward To th’ Appenine, whose rifted snow is swept To th’ vales beneath, while cots and folds lie buried. Thou Myrza tak’st to-night an airy march To th’ Pontic shore for drugs; and for more speed On my own maple crutch thou shalt be mounted, Which bridled turns to a steed so manageable, That thou may’st rein him with a spider’s thread. 4th W. And how if I o’ertake a bark in the way? Rag. Then, if aloft thou goest, to tinder scorch The fauns; but if thou tak’st a lower cut, Then snatch the whips off from the steersman’s hand, And sowce him in the foam. 4th W. He shall be drench’d.

(storm thickens.)

Rag. Aye, this is music! now methinks I hear The shrieks of sinking sailors, tackle rent, Rudders unhing’d, while the sea-raveners swift Scour thro’ the dark flood for the diving corpses.

(the owl cries.)

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