Part 17
Dr. Forster notes, that the festival of the conversion of St. Paul has always been reckoned ominous of the future weather of the year, in various countries remote from each other.
According to Schenkius, cited by Brand, it was a custom in many parts of Germany, to drag the images of St. Paul and St. Urban to the river, if there was foul weather on their festival.
APOSTLE-SPOONS.
St. Paul’s day being the first festival of an apostle in the year, it is an opportunity for alluding to the old, ancient, English custom, with sponsors, or visitors at christenings, of presenting spoons, called apostle-spoons, because the figures of the twelve apostles were chased, or carved on the tops of the handles. Brand cites several authors to testify of the practice. Persons who could afford it gave the set of twelve; others a smaller number, and a poor person offered the gift of one, with the figure of the saint after whom the child was named, or to whom the child was dedicated, or who was the patron saint of the good-natured donor.
Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, has a character, saying, “And all this for the hope of a couple of apostle-spoons, and a cup to eat caudle in.” In the Chaste Maid of Cheapside, by Middleton, “_Gossip_” inquires, “What has he given her? What is it, Gossip?” Whereto the answer of another “_Gossip_” is, “A faire high-standing cup, and two great ’postle-spoons--one of them gilt,” Beaumont and Fletcher, likewise, in the Noble Gentleman, say:
“I’ll be a Gossip. Bewford, I have an odd apostle-spoon.”
[Illustration: ~A Set of Apostle-Spoons.~]
The rarity and antiquity of apostle-spoons render them of considerable value as curiosities. A complete set of twelve is represented in the sketch on the opposite page, from a set of the spoons themselves on the writer’s table. The apostles on this set of spoons are somewhat worn, and the stems and bowls have been altered by the silversmith in conformity with the prevailing fashion of the present day; to the eye of the antiquary, therefore, they are not so interesting as they were before they underwent this partial modernization: yet in this state they are objects of regard. Their size in the print is exactly that of the spoons themselves, except that the stems are necessarily fore-shortened in the engraving to get them within the page. The stem of each spoon measures exactly three inches and a half in length from the foot of the apostle to the commencement of the bowl; the length of each bowl is two inches and nine-sixteenths of an inch; and the height of each apostle is one inch and one-sixteenth: the entire length of each spoon is seven inches and one-eighth of an inch. They are of silver; the lightest, which is St. Peter, weighs 1 oz. 5 dwts. 9 gr.; the heaviest is St. Bartholomew, and weighs 1 oz. 9 dwts. 4 gr.; their collective weight is 16 oz. 14 dwts. 16 gr. The hat, or flat covering, on the head of each figure, is usual to apostles-spoons, and was probably affixed to save the features from effacement. In a really fine state they are very rare.
It seems from “the Gossips,” a poem by Shipman, in 1666, that the usage of giving apostle-spoons at christenings, was at that time on the decline:
“Formerly, when they us’d to troul, Gilt bowls of sack, they gave the bowl; Two _spoons_ at least; an _use ill kept_; ’Tis well if now our own be left.”
An anecdote is related of Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, which bears upon the usage: Shakspeare was godfather to one of Jonson’s children, and, after the christening, being in deep study, Jonson cheeringly asked him, why he was so melancholy? “Ben,” said he, “I have been considering a great while what should be the fittest gift for me to bestow upon my godchild, and I have resolved it at last.” “I prithee, what?” said Ben, “I’ faith, Ben,” answered Shakspeare, “I’ll give him a dozen good _latten spoons_, and thou shalt translate them.” The word _latten_, intended as a play upon _latin_, is the name for thin iron tinned, of which spoons, and similar small articles of household use, are sometimes made. Without being aware of the origin, it is still a custom with many persons, to present spoons at christenings, or on visiting the “lady in the straw;” though they are not now adorned with imagery.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Winter hellebore. _Helleborus hyemalis._
~January 26.~
_St. Polycarp._ _St. Paula._ _St. Conan._
THE SEASON.
On winter comes--the cruel north Pours his furious whirlwind forth Before him--and we breathe the breath Of famish’d bears, that howl to death: Onward he comes from rocks that blanch O’er solid streams that never flow, His tears all ice, his locks all snow, Just crept from some huge avalanche.
_Incog._
BEARS AND BEES.
M. M. M. a traveller in Russia, communicates, through the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1785, a remarkable method of cultivating bees, and preserving them from their housebreakers, the bears. The Russians of Borodskoe, on the banks of the river Ufa, deposit the hives within excavations that they form in the hardest, strongest, and loftiest trees of the forest, at about five-and-twenty or thirty feet high from the ground, and even higher, if the height of the trunk allows it. They hollow out the holes lengthways, with small narrow hatchets, and with chisels and gouges complete their work. The longitudinal aperture of the hive is stopped by a cover of two or more pieces exactly fitted to it, and pierced with small holes, to give ingress and egress to the bees. No means can be devised more ingenious or more convenient for climbing the highest and the smoothest trees than those practised by this people, for the construction and visitation of these hives. For this purpose they use nothing but a very sharp axe, a leathern strap, or a common rope. The man places himself against the trunk of the tree, and passes the cord round his body and round the tree, just leaving it sufficient play for casting it higher and higher, by jerks, towards the elevation he desires to attain, and there to place his body, bent as in a swing, his feet resting against the tree, and preserving the free use of his hands. This done, he takes his axe, and at about the height of his body makes the first notch or step in the tree; then he takes his rope, the two ends whereof he takes care to have tied very fast, and throws it towards the top of the trunk. Placed thus in his rope by the middle of his body, and resting his feet against the tree, he ascends by two steps, and easily enables himself to put one of his feet in the notch. He now makes a new step, and continues to mount in this manner till he has reached the intended height. He performs all this with incredible speed and agility. Being mounted to the place where he is to make the hive, he cuts more convenient steps, and, by the help of the rope, which his body keeps in distension, he performs his necessary work with the above-mentioned tools, which are stuck in his girdle. He also carefully cuts away all boughs and protuberances beneath the hive, to render access as difficult as possible to the bears, which abound in vast numbers throughout the forests, and in spite of all imaginable precautions, do considerable damage to the hives. On this account the natives put in practice every kind of means, not only for defending themselves from these voracious animals, but for their destruction. The method most in use consists in sticking into the trunk of the tree old blades of knives, standing upwards, scythes, and pieces of pointed iron, disposed circularly round it, when the tree is straight, or at the place of bending, when the trunk is crooked. The bear has commonly dexterity enough to avoid these points in climbing up the tree; but when he descends, as he always does, backwards, he gets on these sharp hooks, and receives such deep wounds, that he usually dies. Old bears frequently take the precaution to bend down these blades with their fore-paws as they mount, and thereby render all this offensive armour useless.
[Illustration: ~Russian Tree-Climbing and Bear Trap.~]
Another destructive apparatus has some similitude to the catapulta of the ancients. It is fixed in such a manner that, at the instant the bear prepares to climb the tree, he pulls a string that lets go the machine, whose elasticity strikes a dart into the animal’s breast. A further mode is to suspend a platform by long ropes to the farthest extremity of a branch of the tree. The platform is disposed horizontally before the hive, and there tied fast to the trunk of the tree with a cord made of bark. The bear, who finds the seat very convenient for proceeding to the opening of the hive, begins by tearing the cord of bark which holds the platform to the trunk, and hinders him from executing his purpose. Upon this the platform immediately quits the tree, and swings in the air with the animal seated upon it. If, on the first shock, the bear is not tumbled out, he must either take a very dangerous leap, or remain patiently in his suspended seat. If he take the leap, either involuntarily, or by his own good will, he falls on sharp points, placed all about the bottom of the tree; if he resolve to remain where he is, he is shot by arrows or musket balls.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
White butterbur. _Tressilago alba._
~January 27.~
_St. John Chrysostom._ _St. Julian of Mans._ _St. Marius._
THE SEASON
It is observed in Dr. Forster’s “Perennial Calendar,” that “Buds and embryo blossoms in their silky, downy coats, often finely varnished to protect them from the wet and cold, are the principal botanical subjects for observation in January, and their structure is particularly worthy of notice; to the practical gardener an attention to their appearance is indispensable, as by them alone can he prune with safety. Buds are always formed in the spring preceding that in which they open, and are of two kinds, leaf buds and flower buds, distinguished by a difference of shape and figure, easily discernible by the observing eye; the fruit buds being thicker, rounder, and shorter, than the others--hence the gardener can judge of the probable quantity of blossom that will appear:”--
_Lines on Buds, by Cowper._
When all this uniform uncoloured scene Shall be dismantled of its fleecy load, And flush into variety again. From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is Nature’s progress, when she lectures man In heavenly truth; evincing, as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. He sets the bright procession on its way, And marshals all the order of the year; He marks the bounds which winter may not pass, And blunts his pointed fury; in its case, Russet and rude, folds up the tender germ, Uninjured, with inimitable art; And ere one flowery season fades and dies, Designs the blooming wonders of the next.
“Buds possess a power analogous to that of seeds, and have been called the viviparous offspring of vegetables, inasmuch as they admit of a removal from their original connection, and, its action being suspended for an indefinite time, can be renewed at pleasure.”
_On Icicles, by Cowper._
The mill-dam dashes on the restless wheel, And wantons in the pebbly gulf below No frost can bind it there; its utmost force Can but arrest the light and smoky mist, That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide. And see where it has hung th’ embroidered banks With forms so various, that no powers of art, The pencil, or the pen, may trace the scene! Here glittering turrets rise, upbearing high (Fantastic misarrangement!) on the roof Large growth of what may seem the sparkling trees And shrubs of fairy land. The crystal drops That trickle down the branches, fast congealed, Shoot into pillars of pellucid length, And prop the pile they but adorned before.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Earth Moss. _Phascum cuspidatum._ Dedicated to _St. Chrysostom._
~January 28.~
_St. Agnes._--Second Commemoration.
_St. Cyril_, A. D. 444. _Sts. Thyrsus, Leucius, and Callinicus._ _St. John of Reomay_, A. D. 540. Blessed _Margaret_, Princess of Hungary, A. D. 1271. _St. Paulinus_, A. D. 804. Blessed _Charlemagne_, Emperor, A. D. 814. _St. Glastian_, of Fife, A. D. 830.
_St. Thyrsus._
Several churches in Spain are dedicated to him. In 777, the queen of Oviedo and Asturia presented one of them with a silver chalice and paten, a wash-hand basin and a pipe, which, according to Butler, is “a silver pipe, or quill to suck up the blood of Christ at the communion, such as the pope sometimes uses--it sucks up as a nose draws up air.”
CHRONOLOGY.
John Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, a celebrated printer, letter-founder, and bookseller of Leipsic, died on this day, in the year 1794: he was born there November 23, 1719. After the perusal of a work by Albert Durer, in which the shape of the letters is deduced from mathematical principles, he endeavoured to fashion them according to the most beautiful models in matrices cut for the purpose. His printing-office and letter-foundery acquired very high reputation. It contained punches and matrices for 400 alphabets, and he employed the types of Baskerville and Didot. Finding that engraving on wood had given birth to printing, and that the latter had contributed to the improvement of engraving, he transferred some particulars, in the province of the engraver, to that of the printer; and represented, by typography, all the marks and lines which occur in the modern music, with all the accuracy of engraving, and even printed maps and mathematical figures with movable types; though the latter he considered as a matter of mere curiosity: such was also another attempt, that of copying portraits by movable types. He likewise printed, with movable types, the Chinese characters, which are, in general, cut in pieces of wood, so that a whole house is often necessary to contain the blocks employed for a single book. He improved type-metal, by giving it that degree of hardness, which has been a desideratum in founderies of this kind; and discovered a new method of facilitating the process of melting and casting. From his foundery he sent types to Russia, Sweden, Poland, and even America. He also improved the printing-press.
Besides this, his inquiries into the origin and progress of the art of printing, furnished the materials of a history, which he left behind in manuscript. He published in 1784, the first part of “An Attempt to illustrate the origin of playing-cards, the introduction of paper made from linen, and the invention of engraving on wood in Europe;” the latter part was finished, but not published, before his death. His last publication was a small “Treatise on Bibliography,” &c. published in 1793, with his reasons for retaining the present German characters. With the interruption of only five or six hours in the twenty-four, which he allowed for sleep, his whole life was devoted to study and useful employment.
FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Double Daisy. _Bellis perennis plenus._ Dedicated to _St. Margaret of Hungary_.
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~January 29.~
St. _Francis_ of Sales, A. D. 1622. _St. Sulpicius Severus_, A. D. 420. _St. Gildas_ the Abbot, A. D. 570. _St. Gildas_, the Scot, A. D. 512.
This being the anniversary of the king’s accession to the throne, in 1820, is a _Holiday at all the public offices_, except the Excise, Stamps, and Customs.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Flowering Fern. _Osmunda regalis._ Dedicated to _St. Francis of Sales_.
~January 30.~
KING CHARLES’S MARTYRDOM.
Holiday at the Public Offices; except the Stamps, Customs, and Excise.
_St. Bathildes_, Queen of Navarre, A. D. 680. _St. Martina._ _St. Aldegondes_, A. D. 660. _St. Barsimæus_, A. D. 114.
_St. Martina._
The Jesuit Ribadeneira relates that the emperor Alexander IV., having decreed that all christians should sacrifice to the Roman gods, or die, insinuated to St. Martina, that if she would conform to the edict, he would make her his empress but on her being taken to the temple, “by a sudden earthquake the blockish idol of Apollo was broken in pieces, a fourth part of his temple thrown down, and, with his ruins, were crushed to death; his priests and many others, and the emperor himself, began to fly.” Whereupon St. Martina taunted the emperor; and the devil, in the idol, rolling himself in the dust, made a speech to her, and another to the emperor, and “fled through the air in a dark cloud; but the emperor would not understand it.” Then the emperor commanded her to be tortured. The jesuit’s stories of these operations and her escapes, are wonderfully particular. According to him, hooks and stakes did her no mischief; she had a faculty of shining, which the pouring of hot lard upon her would not quench; when in gaol, men in dazzling white surrounded her; she could not feel a hundred and eighteen wounds; a fierce lion, who had fasted three days, would not eat her, and fire would not burn her; but a sword cut her head off in 228, and at the end of two days two eagles were found watching her body. “That which above all confirmeth the truth of this relation,” says Ribadeneira, “is, that there is nothing herein related but what is in brief in the lessons of the Roman Breviary, commanded by public authority to be read on her feast by the whole church.”
CHRONOLOGY.
On this day, in the year 1649, king Charles I. was beheaded. In the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England, it is called “The Day of the Martyrdom of the Blessed King Charles I.;” and there is “A Form of Prayer, with Fasting, to be used yearly” upon its recurrence.
The sheet, which received the head of Charles I. after its decapitation, is carefully preserved along with the communion plate in the church of Ashburnham, in this county; the blood, with which it has been almost entirely covered, now appears nearly black. The watch of the unfortunate monarch is also deposited with the linen, the movements of which are still perfect. These relics came into the possession of lord Ashburnham immediately after the death of the king.--_Brighton Herald._
Lord Orford says, “one can scarce conceive a greater absurdity than retaining the three holidays dedicated to the house of Stuart. Was the preservation of James I. a greater blessing to England than the destruction of the Spanish armada, for which no festival is established? Are we more or less free for the execution of king Charles? Are we at this day still guilty of his blood? When is the stain to be washed out? What sense is there in thanking heaven for the restoration of a family, which it so soon became necessary to expel again?”
According to the “Life of William Lilly, written by himself,” Charles I. caused the old astrologer to be consulted for his judgment. This is Lilly’s account: “His majesty, Charles I., having intrusted the Scots with his person, was, for money, delivered into the hands of the English parliament, and, by several removals, was had to Hampton-court, about July or August, 1647; for he was there, and at that time when my house was visited with the plague. He was desirous to escape from the soldiery, and to obscure himself for some time near London, the citizens whereof began now to be unruly, and alienated in affection from the parliament, inclining wholly to his majesty, and very averse to the army. His majesty was well informed of all this, and thought to make good use hereof: besides, the army and parliament were at some odds, who should be masters. Upon the king’s intention to escape, and with his consent, madam Whorewood (whom you knew very well, worthy esquire) came to receive my judgment, viz. In what quarter of this nation he might be most safe, and not to be discovered until himself pleased. When she came to my door, I told her I would not let her come into my house, for I buried a maid-servant of the plague very lately: however, up we went. After erection of my figure, I told her about twenty miles (or thereabouts) from London, and in Essex, I was certain he might continue undiscovered. She liked my judgment very well; and, being herself of a sharp judgment, remembered a place in Essex about that distance, where was an excellent house, and all conveniences for his reception. Away she went, early next morning, unto Hampton-court, to acquaint his majesty; but see the misfortune: he, either guided by his own approaching hard fate, or misguided by Ashburnham, went away in the night-time westward, and surrendered himself to Hammond, in the Isle of Wight. Whilst his majesty was at Hampton-court, alderman Adams sent his majesty one thousand pounds in gold, five hundred whereof he gave to madam Whorewood. I believe I had twenty pieces of that very gold for my share.” Lilly proceeds thus: “His majesty being in Carisbrook-castle, in the Isle of Wight, the Kentish men, in great numbers, rose in arms, and joined with the lord Goring; a considerable number of the best ships revolted from the parliament; the citizens of London were forward to rise against the parliament; his majesty laid his design to escape out of prison, by sawing the iron bars of his chamber window; a small ship was provided, and anchored not far from the castle to bring him into Sussex; horses were provided ready to carry him through Sussex into Kent, that so he might be at the head of the army in Kent, and from thence to march immediately to London, where thousands then would have armed for him. The lady Whorewood came to me, acquaints me herewith. I got G. Farmer (who was a most ingenious locksmith, and dwelt in Bow-lane) to make a saw to cut the iron bars in sunder, I mean to saw them, and aqua fortis besides. His majesty in a small time did his work; the bars gave liberty for him to go out; he was out with his body till he came to his breast; but then his heart failing, he proceeded no farther: when this was discovered, as soon after it was, he was narrowly looked after, and no opportunity after that could be devised to enlarge him.”
Lilly goes on to say, “He was beheaded January 30, 1649. After the execution, his body was carried to Windsor, and buried with Henry VIIIth, in the same vault where his body was lodged. Some, who saw him embowelled, affirm, had he not come unto this untimely end, he might have lived, according unto nature, even unto the height of old age. Many have curiously inquired who it was that cut off his head: I have no permission to speak of such things; only thus much I say, he that did it is as valiant and resolute a man as lives, and one of a competent fortune. For my part, I do believe he was not the worst, but the most unfortunate of kings.”