XI.
THE LATE DUKE OF YORK.
Frederick, _eleventh_ Duke of York, was brother of His Majesty King George IV., and second son of his late Majesty King George III., by whom he was advanced to the dignities of Duke of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and of Earl of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the titles of Duke of York and of Albany in Great Britain, and of Earl of Ulster in Ireland, and presented to the Bishopric of Osnaburgh. His Royal Highness was Commander-in-Chief of all the Land Forces of the United Kingdom, Colonel of the First Regiment of Foot Guards, Colonel-in-chief of the 60th Regiment of Infantry, Officiating Grand Master of the Order of the Bath, High Steward of New Windsor, Warden and Keeper of the New Forest Hampshire, Knight of the Garter, Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost in France, of the Black Eagle in Russia, the Red Eagle in Prussia, of St. Maria Theresa in Austria, of Charles III. in Spain, Doctor of Civil Law, and Fellow or the Royal Society.
The late duke of York was born on the 16th of August, 1763; he died on the 5th of January, 1827. A few miscellaneous memoranda are extracted from journals of the dates they refer to.
* * * * *
The duke of York was sent to Germany to finish his education. On the 1st of August, 1787, his royal highness, after having been only five days on the road from Hanover to Calais, embarked at that port, on board a common packet-boat, for England, and arrived at Dover the same afternoon. He was at St. James’s-palace the following day by half-past twelve o’clock; and, on the arrival of the prince of Wales at Carlton-house, he was visited by the duke, after an absence of four years, which, far from cooling, had increased the affection of the royal brothers.
* * * * *
On the 20th of December, in the same year, a grand masonic lodge was held at the Star and Garter in Pall-mall. The duke of Cumberland as grand-master, the prince of Wales, and the duke of York, were in the new uniform of the Britannic-lodge, and the duke of York received another degree in masonry; he had some time before been initiated in the first mysteries of the brotherhood.
* * * * *
On the 5th of February, 1788, the duke of York appeared in the Court of King’s Bench, and was sworn to give evidence before the grand jury of Middlesex, on an indictment for fraud, in sending a letter to his royal highness, purporting to be a letter from captain Morris, requesting the loan of forty pounds. The grand jury found the indictment, and the prisoner, whose name does not appear, was brought into court by the keeper of Tothill-fields Bridewell, and pleaded not guilty, whereupon he was remanded, and the indictment appointed to be tried in the sittings after the following term; but there is no account of the trial having been had.
* * * * *
In December of the same year, the duke ordered two hundred and sixty sacks of coals to be distributed among the families of the married men of his regiment, and the same to be continued during the severity of the weather.
* * * * *
In 1788, pending the great question of the regency, it was contended on that side of the House of Commons from whence extension of royal prerogative was least expected, that from the moment parliament was made acquainted with the king’s incapacity, a _right_ attached to the prince of Wales to exercise the regal functions, in the name of his father. On the 15th of December, the duke of York rose in the House of Lords, and a profound silence ensued. His royal highness said, that though perfectly unused as he was to speak in a public assembly, yet he could not refrain from offering his sentiments to their lordships on a subject in which the dearest interests of the country were involved. He said, he entirely agreed with the noble lords who had expressed their wishes to avoid any question which tended to induce a discussion on the rights of the prince. The fact was plain, that no such claim of right had been made on the part of the prince; and he was confident that his royal highness understood too well the sacred principles which seated the house of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain, ever to assume or exercise any power, _be his claim what it might_, not derived from the will of the people, expressed by their representatives and their lordships in parliament assembled. On this ground his royal highness said, that he must be permitted to hope that the wisdom and moderation of all considerate men, at a moment when temper and unanimity were so peculiarly necessary, on account of the dreadful calamity which every description of persons must in common lament, but which he more particularly felt, would make them wish to avoid pressing a decision, which certainly was not _necessary_ to the great object expected from parliament, and which must be most painful in the discussion to a family already sufficiently agitated and afflicted. His royal highness concluded with saying, that these were the sentiments of an honest heart, equally influenced by duty and affection to his royal father, and attachment to the constitutional rights of his subjects; and that he was confident, if his royal brother were to address them in his place as a peer of the realm, that these were the sentiments which he would distinctly avow.
* * * * *
His majesty in council having declared his consent, under the great seal, to a contract of matrimony between his royal highness the duke of York and her royal highness the princess Frederique Charlotte Ulrique Catherine of Prussia, eldest daughter of the king of Prussia, on the 29th of September, 1791, the marriage ceremony was performed at Berlin. About six o’clock in the afternoon, all the persons of the blood royal assembled in gala, in the apartments of the dowager queen, where the diamond crown was put on the head of princess Frederica. The generals, ministers, ambassadors, and the high nobility, assembled in the white hall. At seven o’clock, the duke of York, preceded by the gentlemen of the chamber, and the court officers of state, led the princess his spouse, whose train was carried by four ladies of the court, through all the parade apartments; after them went the king, with the queen dowager, prince Lewis of Prussia, with the reigning queen, and others of the royal family to the white hall, where a canopy was erected of crimson velvet, and also a crimson velvet sofa for the marriage ceremony. The royal couple placed themselves under the canopy, before the sofa, the royal family stood round them, and the upper counsellor of the consistory, Mr. Sack, made a speech in German. This being over, rings were exchanged; and the illustrious couple, kneeling on the sofa, were married according to the rites of the reformed church. The whole ended with a prayer. Twelve guns, placed in the garden, fired three rounds, and the benediction was given. The new-married couple then received the congratulations of the royal family, and returned in the same manner to the apartments, where the royal family, and all persons present, sat down to card-tables; after which, the whole court, the high nobility, and the ambassadors, sat down to supper, at six tables. The first was placed under a canopy of crimson velvet, and the victuals served in gold dishes and plates. The other five tables, at which sat the generals, ministers, ambassadors, all the officers of the court, and the high nobility, were served in other apartments.
During supper, music continued playing in the galleries of the first hall, which immediately began when the company entered the hall. At the dessert, the royal table was served with a beautiful set of china, made in the Berlin manufactory. Supper being over, the whole assembly repaired to the white hall, where the trumpet, timbrel, and other music were playing; and the _flambeau_ dance was begun, at which the ministers of state carried the torches. With this ended the festivity. The ceremony of the re-marriage of the duke and duchess of York took place at the Queen’s Palace, London, on the 23d of November.
The duchess of York died on the 6th of August, 1820.
THE DANCE OF TORCHES.
As a note of illustration on this dance at the Prussian nuptials of the duke and duchess of York, reference may be had to a slight mention of the same observance on the marriage of the prince royal of Prussia with the princess of Bavaria, in the _Every-Day Book_, vol. i. p. 1551. Since that article, I find more descriptive particulars of it in a letter from baron Bielfeld, giving an account of the marriage of the prince of Prussia with the princess of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, at Berlin, in 1742. The baron was present at the ceremonial.
“As soon as their majesties rose from table, the whole company returned into the white hall; from whence the altar was removed, and the room was illuminated with fresh wax lights. The musicians were placed on a stage of solid silver. Six lieutenant generals, and six ministers of state, stood, each with a white wax torch in his hand, ready to be lighted, in conformity to a ceremony used in the German courts on these occasions, which is called ‘_the dance of torches_,’ in allusion to the torch of Hymen. This dance was opened by the new married prince and princess, who made the tour of the hall, saluting the king and the company. Before them went the ministers and the generals, two and two, with their lighted torches. The princess then gave her hand to the king, and the prince to the queen; the king gave his hand to the queen mother, and the reigning queen to prince Henry; and in this manner all the princes and princesses that were present, one after the other, and according to their rank, led up the dance, making the tour of the hall, almost in the step of the Polognese. The novelty of this performance, and the sublime quality of the performers, made it in some degree agreeable. Otherwise the extreme gravity of the dance itself, with the continual round and formal pace of the dancers, the frequent going out of the torches, and the clangour of the trumpets that rent the ear, all these I say made it too much resemble the dance of the Sarmates, those ancient inhabitants of the prodigious woods of this country.”
* * * * *
On the 7th of June, 1794, about four o’clock in the morning, a fire broke out at the duke of York’s palace at Oatlands. It began in the kitchen, and was occasioned by a beam which projected into the chimney, and communicated to the roof. His royal highness’s armoury was in that wing of the building where the fire commenced, in which forty pounds of gunpowder being deposited, a number of most curious war-like instruments, which his royal highness had collected on the continent, were destroyed. Many of the guns and other weapons were presented from the king of Prussia, and German officers of distinction, and to each piece was attached its history. By the seasonable exertions of the neighbourhood, the flames were prevented from spreading to the main part of the building. The duchess was at Oatlands at the time, and beheld the conflagration from her sleeping apartment, in the centre of the mansion, from which the flames were prevented communicating by destroying a gateway, over the wing that adjoined to the house. Her royal highness gave her orders with perfect composure, directed abundant refreshment to the people who were extinguishing the flames, and then retired to the rooms of the servants at the stables, which are considerably detached from the palace. His majesty rode over from Windsor-castle to visit her royal highness, and staid with her a considerable time.
* * * * *
On the 8th of April, 1808, whilst the duke of York was riding for an airing along the King’s-road towards Fulham, a drover’s dog crossed, and barked in front of the horse. The animal, suddenly rearing, fell backwards, with the duke under him; and the horse rising, with the duke’s foot in the stirrup, dragged him along, and did him further injury. When extricated, the duke, with great cheerfulness, denied he was much hurt, yet two of his ribs were broken, the back of his head and face contused, and one of his legs and arms much bruised. A gentleman in a hack chaise immediately alighted, and the duke was conveyed in it to York-house, Piccadilly, where his royal highness was put to bed, and in due time recovered to the performance of his active duties.
* * * * *
On the 6th of August, 1815, the duke of York, on coming out of a shower-bath, at Oatlands, fell, from the slippery state of the oilcloth, and broke the large bone of his left arm, half way between the shoulder and the elbow-joint. His royal highness’s excellent constitution at that time assisted the surgeons, and in a fortnight he again attended to business.
* * * * *
On the 11th of October, in the same year, his royal highness’s library, at his office in the Horse-guards consisting of the best military authors, and a very extensive collection of maps, were removed to his new library (late her majesty’s) in the Green-park. The assemblage is the most perfect collection of works on military affairs in the kingdom.
* * * * *
It appears, from the report of the commissioners of woods, forests, and land revenues, in 1816, that the duke of York purchased of the commissioners the following estates: 1. The manor of Byfleet and Weybridge, with Byfleet or Weybridge-park, and a capital messuage and offices, and other messuages and buildings there. 2. The manor of Walton Leigh, and divers messuages and lands therein. 3. A capital messuage called Brooklands, with offices, gardens, and several parcels of land, situated at Weybridge. 4. A farm-house, and divers lands, called Brooklands-farm, at Weybridge. 5. A messuage and lands, called Childs, near Weybridge. 6. Two rabbit-warrens within the manor of Byfleet and Weybridge. To this property was to be added all lands and premises allotted to the preceding by virtue of any act of enclosure. The sale was made to his royal highness in May, 1809, at the price of £74,459. 3_s._; but the money was permitted to remain at the interest of 3½ per cent. till the 10th of June, 1815, when the principal and interest (amounting, after the deduction of property-tax, and of the rents, which, during the interval, had been paid to the crown, to £85,135. 5_s._ 9_d._) were paid into the Bank of England, to the account of the commissioners for the new street. His royal highness also purchased about twenty acres of land in Walton, at the price of £1294. 2_s._ 3_d._
* * * * *
While the duke was in his last illness, members on both sides of the House of Commons bore spontaneous testimony to his royal highness’s impartial administration of his high office as commander-in-chief; and united in one general expression, that no political distinction ever interfered to prevent the promotion of a deserving officer.
A statement in bishop Watson’s Memoirs, is a tribute to his royal highness’s reputation.
“On the marriage of my son in August, 1805, I wrote,” says the bishop, “to the duke of York, requesting his royal highness to give him his protection. I felt a consciousness of having, through life, cherished a warm attachment to the house of Brunswick, and to those principles which had placed it on the throne, and of having on all occasions acted an independent and honourable part towards the government of the country, and I therefore thought myself justified in concluding my letter in the following terms:--‘I know not in what estimation your royal highness may hold my repeated endeavours, in moments of danger, to support the religion and the constitution of the country; but if I am fortunate enough to have any merit with you on that score, I earnestly request your protection for my son. I am a bad courtier, and know little of the manner of soliciting favours through the intervention of others, but I feel that I shall never know how to forget them, when done to myself; and, under that consciousness, I beg leave to submit myself
‘Your Royal Highness’s
‘Most grateful servant,
‘R. LANDAFF.’
“I received a very obliging answer by the return of the post, and in about two months my son was promoted, without purchase, from a majority to a lieutenant-colonelcy in the Third Dragoon Guards. After having experienced, for above twenty-four years, the neglect of his majesty’s ministers, I received great satisfaction from this attention of his son, and shall carry with me to my grave a most grateful memory of his goodness. I could not at the time forbear expressing my acknowledgment in the following letter, nor can I now forbear inserting it in these anecdotes. The whole transaction will do his royal highness no discredit with posterity, and I shall ever consider it as an honourable testimony of his approbation of my public conduct.
‘_Calgarth Park, Nov. 9, 1805._’
------ ‘Do, my lord of Canterbury, But one good turn, and he’s your friend for ever.’
‘Thus Shakspeare makes Henry VIII. speak of Cranmer; and from the bottom of my heart, I humbly entreat your royal highness to believe, that the sentiment is as applicable to the bishop of Landaff as it was to Cranmer.
‘The _bis dat qui cito dat_ has been most kindly thought of in this promotion of my son; and I know not which is most dear to my feelings, the matter of the obligation, or the noble manner of its being conferred. I sincerely hope your royal highness will pardon this my intrusion, in thus expressing my most grateful acknowledgments for them both.
‘R. LANDAFF.’”
[31] Hist. of House of Austria. Rapin. Favine.
~Mr. Charles Lamb.~
_To the Editor._
DEAR SIR,
It is not unknown to you, that about sixteen years since I published “Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, who lived about the Time of Shakspeare.” For the scarcer Plays I had recourse to the Collection bequeathed to the British Museum by Mr. Garrick. But my time was but short, and my subsequent leisure has discovered in it a treasure rich and exhaustless beyond what I then imagined. In it is to be found almost every production in the shape of a Play that has appeared in print, from the time of the old Mysteries and Moralities to the days of Crown and D’Urfey. Imagine the luxury to one like me, who, above every other form of Poetry, have ever preferred the Dramatic, of sitting in the princely apartments, for such they are, of poor condemned Montagu House, which I predict will not speedily be followed by a handsomer, and culling at will the flower of some thousand Dramas. It is like having the range of a Nobleman’s Library, with the Librarian to your friend. Nothing can exceed the courteousness and attentions of the Gentleman who has the chief direction of the Reading Rooms here; and you have scarce to ask for a volume, before it is laid before you. If the occasional Extracts, which I have been tempted to bring away, may find an appropriate place in your _Table Book_, some of them are weekly at your service. By those who remember the “Specimens,” these must be considered as mere after-gleanings, supplementary to that work, only comprising a longer period. You must be content with sometimes a scene, sometimes a song; a speech, or passage, or a poetical image, as they happen to strike me. I read without order of time; I am a poor hand at dates; and for any biography of the Dramatists, I must refer to writers who are more skilful in such matters. My business is with their poetry only.
Your well-wisher,
C. LAMB.
_January, 27, 1827._
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. I.
[From “King John and Matilda,” a Tragedy by Robert Davenport, acted in 1651.]
John, not being able to bring Matilda, the chaste daughter of the old Baron Fitzwater, to compliance with his wishes, causes her to be poisoned in a nunnery.
SCENE. _John. The Barons_: they being as yet ignorant of the murder, and having just come to composition with the King after tedious wars. Matilda’s hearse is brought in by Hubert.
_John._ Hubert, interpret this apparition. _Hubert._ Behold, sir, A sad-writ Tragedy, so feelingly Languaged, and cast; with such a crafty cruelty Contrived, and acted; that wild savages Would weep to lay their ears to, and (admiring To see themselves outdone) they would conceive Their wildness mildness to this deed, and call Men more than savage, themselves rational. And thou, Fitzwater, reflect upon thy _name_,[32] And turn the _Son of Tears_. Oh, forget That Cupid ever spent a dart upon thee; That Hymen ever coupled thee; or that ever The hasty, happy, willing messenger Told thee thou had’st a daughter. Oh look here! Look here, King John, and with a trembling eye Read your sad act, Matilda’s tragedy. _Barons._ Matilda! _Fitzwater._ By the lab’ring soul of a much-injured man, It is my child Matilda! _Bruce._ Sweet niece! _Leicester._ Chaste soul! _John._ Do I stir, Chester? Good Oxford, do I move? stand I not still To watch when the griev’d friends of wrong’d Matilda Will with a thousand stabs turn me to dust, That in a thousand prayers they might be happy? Will no one do it? then give a mourner room, A man of tears. Oh immaculate Matilda, These shed but sailing heat-drops, misling showers The faint dews of a doubtful April morning; But from mine eyes ship-sinking cataracts, Whole clouds of waters, wealthy exhalations, Shall fall into the sea of my affliction, Till it amaze the mourners. _Hubert._ Unmatch’d Matilda; Celestial soldier, that kept a fort of chastity ’Gainst all temptations. _Fitzwater._ Not to be a Queen, Would she break her chaste vow. Truth crowns your reed; Un_match’d_ Matilda was her name indeed. _John._ O take into your spirit-piercing praise My scene of sorrow. I have well-clad woes, Pathetic epithets to illustrate passion, And steal true tears so sweetly from all these, Shall touch the soul, and at once pierce and please. [_Peruses the Motto and Emblems on the hearse._ “To Piety and Purity”--and “Lillies mix’d with Roses”-- How well you have apparell’d woe! this Pendant, To Piety and Purity directed, Insinuates a chaste soul in a clean body, Virtue’s white Virgin, Chastity’s red Martyr! Suffer me then with this well-suited wreath To make our griefs ingenious. Let all be dumb, Whilst the king speaks her Epicedium. _Chester._ His very soul speaks sorrow. _Oxford._ And it becomes him sweetly. _John._ Hail Maid and Martyr! lo on thy breast, Devotion’s altar, chaste Truth’s nest, I offer (as my guilt imposes) Thy merit’s laurel, Lillies and Roses; Lillies, intimating plain Thy immaculate life, stuck with no stain; Roses red and sweet, to tell How sweet red sacrifices smell. Hang round then, as you walk about this hearse, The songs of holy hearts, sweet virtuous verse. _Fitzwater._ Bring Persian silks, to deck her monument; _John._ Arabian spices, quick’ning by their scent; _Fitzwater._ Numidian marble, to preserve her praise, _John._ Corinthian ivory, her shape to praise: _Fitzwater._ And write in gold upon it, In this breast Virtue sate mistress, Passion but a guest. _John._ Virtue is sweet; and, since griefs bitter be, Strew her with roses, and give rue to me. _Bruce._ My noble brother, I’ve lost a wife and son;[33] You a sweet daughter. Look on the king’s penitence; His promise for the public peace. Prefer A public benefit.[34] When it shall please, Let Heaven question him. Let us secure And quit the land of Lewis.[35] _Fitzwater._ Do any thing; Do all things that are honorable; and the Great King Make you a good king, sir! and when your soul Shall at any time reflect upon your follies, Good King John, weep, weep very heartily; It will become you sweetly. At your eyes Your sin stole in; there pay your sacrifice. _John._ Back unto Dunmow Abbey. There we’ll pay To sweet Matilda’s memory, and her sufferings, A monthly obsequy, which (sweet’ned by The wealthy woes of a tear-troubled eye) Shall by those sharp afflictions of my face Court mercy, and make grief arrive at grace.
_Song._
Matilda, now go take thy bed In the dark dwellings of the dead; And rise in the great waking day Sweet as incence, fresh as May. Rest there, chaste soul, fix’d in thy proper sphere, Amongst Heaven’s fair ones; all are fair ones there. Rest there, chaste soul, whilst we here troubled say: Time gives us griefs, Death takes our joys away.
This scene has much passion and poetry in it, if I mistake not. The last words of Fitzwater are an instance of noble temperament; but to understand him, the character throughout of this mad, merry, feeling, insensible-seeming lord, should be read. That the venomous John could have even counterfeited repentance so well, is out of nature; but supposing the possibility, nothing is truer than the way in which it is managed. These old playwrights invested their bad characters with notions of good, which could by no possibility have coexisted with their actions. Without a soul of goodness in himself, how could Shakspeare’s Richard the Third have lit upon those sweet phrases and inducements by which he attempts to win over the dowager queen to let him wed her daughter. It is not Nature’s nature, but Imagination’s substituted nature, which does almost as well in a fiction.
(_To be continued._)
[32] Fitzwater: son of water. A striking instance of the compatibility of the _serious pun_ with the expression of the profoundest sorrows. Grief, as well as joy, finds ease in thus playing with a word. Old John of Gaunt in Shakspeare thus descants on his _name_: “Gaunt, and gaunt indeed;” to a long string of conceits, which no one has ever yet felt as ridiculous. The poet Wither thus, in a mournful review of the declining estate of his family, says with deepest nature:--
The very name of Wither shows decay.
[33] Also cruelly slain by the poisoning John.
[34] i. e. of peace; which this monstrous act of John’s in this play comes to counteract, in the same way as the discovered Death of Prince Arthur is like to break the composition of the King with his Barons in Shakspeare’s Play.
[35] The Dauphin of France, whom they had called in, as in Shakspeare’s Play.
* * * * *
~Literature.~
GLANCES AT NEW BOOKS ON MY TABLE.
“CONSTABLE’S MISCELLANY of _original and selected Publications_” is proposed to consist of various works on important and popular subjects, with the view of supplying certain chasms in the existing stock of useful knowledge; and each author or subject is to be kept separate, so as to enable purchasers to acquire all the numbers, or volumes, of each book, distinct from the others. The undertaking commenced in the first week of the new year, 1827, with the first number of Captain Basil Hall’s voyage to Loo-Choo, and the complete volume of that work was published at the same time.
* * * * *
“EARLY METRICAL TALES, _including the History of Sir Egeir, Sir Gryme, and Sir Gray-Steill_.” Edinb. 1826. sm. 8vo. 9_s._ (175 copies printed.) The most remarkable poem in this elegant volume is the rare Scottish romance, named in the title-page, which, according to its present editor, “would seem, along with the poems of sir David Lindsay, and the histories of Robert the Bruce, and of sir William Wallace, to have formed the standard productions of the vernacular literature of the country.” In proof of this he adduces several authorities; “and yet it is remarkable enough, that every ancient copy should have hitherto eluded the most active and unremitting research.” The earliest printed edition is presumed to have issued from the press of Thomas Bassandyne, “the first printer of the sacred Scriptures in Scotland.” An inventory of his goods, dated 18th October, 1577, contains an item of three hundred “Gray Steillis,” valued at the “pece VI_d._ summa £VII. x. o.” Its editor would willingly give the sum-total of these three hundred copies for “_one_ of the said _Gray-Steillis_, were he so fortunate as to meet with it.” He instances subsequent editions, but the only copy he could discover was printed at Aberdeen in 1711, by James Nicol, printer to the town and university; and respecting this, which, though of so recent date, is at present unique, “the editor’s best acknowledgments are due to his friend, Mr. Douce, for the kind manner in which he favoured him with the loan of the volume, for the purpose of republication.” On the 17th of April, 1497, when James IV. was at Stirling: there is an entry in the treasurer’s accounts, “Item, that samyn day to twa Sachelaris that _sang Gray Steil_ to the King, IX_s._” In MS. collections made at Aberdeen in 1627, called a “Booke for the Lute,” by Robert Gordon, is the _air_ of “Gray-Steel;” and a satirical poem in Scottish rhyme on the marquis of Argyle, printed in 1686, is “appointed to be sung according _to the tune_ of old Gray Steel.” These evidences that the poem was sung, manifest its popularity. There are conjectures as to who the person denominated Sir Gray Steel really was, but the point is undetermined.
In this volume there are thirteen poems. 1. _Sir Gray-Steill_ above spoken of. 2. _The Tales of the Priests of Peblis_, wherein the three priests of Peebles, having met to regale on St. Bride’s day, agree, each in turn, to relate a story. 3. _Ane Godlie Dreame_, by lady Culross. 4. _History of a Lord and his three Sons_, much resembling the story of Fortunatus. 5. _The Ring of the Roy Robert_, the printed copies of which have been modernized and corrupted. 6. _King Estmere_, an old romantic tale. 7. _The Battle of Harlaw_, considered by its present editor “as the original of rather a numerous class of Scotish historical ballads.” 8. _Lichtoun’s Dreme_, printed for the first time from the Bannatyne MS. 1568. 9. _The Murning Maiden_, a poem “written in the Augustan age of Scotish poetry.” 10. _The Epistill of the Hermeit of Alareit_, a satire on the Grey Friers, by Alexander earl of Glencairn. 11. _Roswall and Lillian_, a “pleasant history,” (chanted even of late in Edinburgh,) from the earliest edition discovered, printed in 1663, of which the only copy known is in the Advocates’ Library, from the Roxburghe sale. 12. _Poem by Glassinberry_, a name for the first time introduced into the list of early Scotish poets, and the poem itself printed from “Gray’s MS.” 13. _Sir John Barleycorn_, from a stall-copy printed in 1781, with a few corrections, concerning which piece it is remarked, that Burns’s version “cannot be said to have greatly improved it.” There is a vignette to this ballad, “designed and etched by the ingenious young artist, W. Geikie,” of Edinburgh, from whence I take the liberty to _cut_ a figure, not for the purpose of conveying an idea of this “Allan-a-Maut,” who is surrounded with like “good” company by Mr. Geikie’s meritorious pencil, but to extend the knowledge of Mr. Geikie’s name, who is perfectly unknown to me, except through the single print I refer to, which compels me to express warm admiration of his correct feeling, and assured talent.
[Illustration]
Besides Mr. Geikie’s beautiful etching, there is a frontispiece by W. H. Lizars from a design by Mr. C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe, and a portrait of Alexander earl of Eglintoune 1670, also by Mr. Lizars, from a curiously illuminated parchment in the possession of the present earl.
SAYING NOT MEANING.
BY WILLIAM BASIL WAKE.
_For the Table Book._
Two gentlemen their appetite had fed, When, opening his toothpick-case, one said, “It was not until lately that I knew That _anchovies_ on terrâ firmâ grew.” “Grew!” cried the other, “yes, they _grow_, indeed, Like other fish, but not upon the land; You might as well say grapes grow on a reed, Or in the Strand!”
“Why, sir,” return’d the irritated other, “My brother, When at Calcutta, Beheld them bonâ fide growing; He wouldn’t utter A lie for love or money, sir; so in This matter you are thoroughly mistaken.” “Nonsense, sir! nonsense! I can give no credit To the assertion--none e’er saw or read it; Your brother, like his evidence, should be shaken.”
“Be shaken, sir! let me observe, you are Perverse--in short--” “Sir,” said the other, sucking his cigar, And then his port-- “If you _will_ say impossibles are true, You may affirm just any thing you please-- That swans are quadrupeds, and lions blue, And elephants inhabit Stilton cheese! Only you must not _force_ me to believe What’s propagated merely to deceive.”
“Then you force me to say, sir, you’re a fool,” Return’d the bragger. Language like this no man can suffer cool; It made the listener stagger; So, thunder-stricken, he at once replied, “The traveller _lied_ Who had the impudence to tell it you.” “Zounds! then d’ye mean to swear before my face That anchovies don’t grow like cloves and mace?” “I do!”
Disputants often after hot debates Leave the contention as they found it--bone, And take to duelling, or thumping _têtes_; Thinking, by strength of artery, to atone For strength of argument; and he who winces From force of words, with force of arms convinces!
With pistols, powder, bullets, surgeons, lint, Seconds, and smelling-bottles, and foreboding, Our friends advanced; and now portentous loading (Their hearts already loaded) serv’d to show It might be better they shook hands--but no; When each opines himself, though frighten’d, right, Each is, in courtesy, oblig’d to fight! And they _did_ fight: from six full measured paces The unbeliever pull’d his trigger first; And fearing, from the braggart’s ugly faces, The whizzing lead had whizz’d its very worst, Ran up, and with a _duelistic_ tear, (His ire evanishing like morning vapours,) Found _him_ possess’d of one remaining ear, Who, in a manner sudden and uncouth, Had given, not lent, the other ear to truth: For, while the surgeon was applying lint, He, wriggling, cried--“The deuce is in’t-- Sir! I meant--_capers_!”
* * * * *
~Characters.~
THE OLD GENTLEMAN.
Our old gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must be either a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former. We do not mention his precise age, which would be invidious;--nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig; which would be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is a compromise between the more modern scratch and the departed glory of the toupee. If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favourite grandson, who used to get on the chair behind him, and pull the silver hairs out, ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hair-dresser, hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes care to give the bald place as much powder as the covered; in order that he may convey, to the sensorium within, a pleasing indistinctness of idea respecting the exact limits of skin and hair. He is very clean and neat; and in warm weather is proud of opening his waistcoat half way down, and letting so much of his frill be seen; in order to show his hardiness as well as taste. His watch and shirt-buttons are of the best; and he does not care if he has two rings on a finger. If his watch ever failed him at the club or coffee-house, he would take a walk every day to the nearest clock of good character, purely to keep it right. He has a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it out of fashion with his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for gala days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one, when made a bow to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs, (one for the neck at night-time,) his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The pocket-book, among other things, contains a receipt for a cough, and some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on the lovely duchess of A., beginning--
When beauteous Mira walks the plain.
He intends this for a common-place book which he keeps, consisting of passages in verse and prose cut out of newspapers and magazines, and pasted in columns; some of them rather gay. His principal other books are Shakspeare’s Plays and Milton’s Paradise Lost; the Spectator, the History of England; the works of Lady M. W. Montague, Pope, and Churchill; Middleton’s Geography, the Gentleman’s Magazine; Sir John Sinclair on Longevity; several plays with portraits in character; Account of Elizabeth Canning, Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy, Poetical Amusements at Bath-Easton, Blair’s Works, Elegant Extracts; Junius as originally published; a few pamphlets on the American War and Lord George Gordon, &c. and one on the French Revolution. In his sitting rooms are some engravings from Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an engraved portrait of the Marquis of Granby; ditto of M. le Comte de Grasse surrendering to Admiral Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny; and a portrait of himself, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife’s portrait is in his chamber, looking upon his bed. She is a little girl, stepping forward with a smile and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her when she was sixty.
The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to live at least twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for breakfast, in spite of what is said against its nervous effects; having been satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. Johnson’s criticism on Hanway, and a great liking for tea previously. His china cups and saucers have been broken since his wife’s death, all but one, which is religiously kept for his use. He passes his morning in walking or riding, looking in at auctions, looking after his India bonds or some such money securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by his excellent friend sir John, or cheapening a new old print for his portfolio. He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see them till after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or so; the fishmonger soliciting his doubting eye as he passes, with a profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner.
His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the accustomed hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accustomed waiter. If William did not bring it, the fish would be sure to be stale, and the flesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures on a little, takes cheese with it. You might as soon attempt to persuade him out of his senses, as that cheese is not good for digestion. He takes port; and if he has drank more than usual, and in a more private place, may be induced by some respectful inquiries respecting the old style of music, to sing a song composed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as--
Chloe, by that borrowed kiss,
or
Come, gentle god of soft repose;
or his wife’s favourite ballad, beginning--
At Upton on the Hill There lived a happy pair.
Of course, no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room; but he will canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or discuss the weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits of “my lord North” or “my lord Rockingham;” for he rarely says simply, lord; it is generally “my lord,” trippingly and genteelly off the tongue. If alone after dinner, his great delight is the newspaper; which he prepares to read by wiping his spectacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, and drawing the candle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm’s length, and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, takes cognizance of the day’s information. If he leaves off, it is only when the door is opened by a new comer, or when he suspects somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On these occasions, he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes.
In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the theatre, or of having a game of cards. If he enjoy the latter at his own house or lodgings, he likes to play with some friends whom he has known for many years; but an elderly stranger may be introduced, if quiet and scientific; and the privilege is extended to younger men of letters; who, if ill players, are good losers. Not that he is a miser; but to win money at cards is like proving his victory by getting the baggage; and to win of a younger man is a substitute for his not being able to beat him at rackets. He breaks up early, whether at home or abroad.
At the theatre, he likes a front row in the pit. He comes early, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits patiently waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands placidly lying one over the other on the top of his stick. He generously admires some of the best performers, but thinks them far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, and Clive. During splendid scenes, he is anxious that the little boy should see.
He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes it still less than he did years back, and cannot bear it in comparison with Ranelagh. He thinks every thing looks poor, flaring, and jaded. “Ah!” says he, with a sort of triumphant sigh, “Ranelagh was a noble place! Such taste, such elegance, such beauty! There was the duchess of A. the finest woman in England, sir; and Mrs. L., a mighty fine creature; and lady Susan what’s her name, that had that unfortunate affair with sir Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans.”
The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers ready for him at the fire, when he comes home. He is also extremely choice in his snuff, and delights to get a fresh box-full at Gliddon’s, in King-street, in his way to the theatre. His box is a curiosity from India. He calls favourite young ladies by their Christian names, however slightly acquainted with them; and has a privilege also of saluting all brides, mothers, and indeed every species of lady on the least holiday occasion. If the husband for instance has met with a piece of luck, he instantly moves forward, and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The wife then says, “My niece, sir, from the country;” and he kisses the niece. The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says, “My cousin Harriet, sir;” and he kisses the cousin. He never recollects such weather, except during the great frost, or when he rode down with Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket. He grows young again in his little grand-children, especially the one which he thinks most like himself; which is the handsomest. Yet he likes best perhaps the one most resembling his wife; and will sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence, for a quarter of an hour together. He plays most tricks with the former, and makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in general who was the father of Zebedee’s children. If his grandsons are at school, he often goes to see them; and makes them blush by telling the master or the upper-scholars, that they are fine boys, and of a precocious genius. He is much struck when an old acquaintance dies, but adds that he lived too fast; and that poor Bob was a sad dog in his youth; “a very sad dog, sir, mightily set upon a short life and a merry one.”
When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings, and say little or nothing; but informs you, that there is Mrs. Jones (the housekeeper),--“_She’ll_ talk.”--_Indicator._
* * * * *
A HAPPY MEETING.
And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I’ve been wand’ring away? To see thus around me my youth’s early friends, As smiling and kind as in that happy day! Though haply o’er some of your brows, as o’er mine, The snow-fall of time may be stealing--what then Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine, We’ll wear the gay tinge of youth’s roses again.
What soften’d remembrances come o’er the heart, In gazing on those we’ve been lost to so long! The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng, As letters some hand hath invisibly traced, When held to the flame will steal out on the sight, So many a feeling, that long seem’d effaced, The warmth of a meeting like this brings to light.
And thus, as in memory’s bark, we shall glide To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew, Tho’ oft we may see, looking down on the tide, The wreck of full many a hope shining through-- Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers That once made a garden of all the gay shore, Deceiv’d for a moment, we’ll think them still ours, And breath the fresh air of life’s morning once more
So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most, Is all we can have of the few we hold dear; And oft even joy is unheeded and lost, For want of some heart that could echo it near. Ah! well may we hope, when this short life is gone, To meet in some world of more permanent bliss, For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hast’ning on, Is all we enjoy of each other in this.
But come--the more rare such delights to the heart, The more we should welcome, and bless them the more-- They’re ours when we meet--they’re lost when we part, Like birds that bring summer, and fly when ’tis o’er, Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink, Let Sympathy pledge us, thro’ pleasure thro’ pain, That fast as a feeling but touches one link, Her magic shall send it direct through the chain.
* * * * *
LINES TO HIS COUSIN
ON THE NEW YEAR,
BY A WESTMINSTER BOY.
Time rolls away! another year Has rolled off with him; hence ’tis clear His lordship keeps his carriage A single man, no doubt;--and thus Enjoys himself without the fuss And great expense of marriage.
His wheel still rolls (and like the river Which Horace mentions) still for ever _Volvitur et volvetur_. In vain you _run against him_; place your fleetest filly in the race,-- Here’s ten to one he’ll beat her.
Of all he sees, he takes a tithe, With that tremendous sweeping scythe, Which he keeps always going; While every step he takes, alas! Too plainly proves that _flesh is grass_, When he sets out a _mowing_.
And though his hungry ravenous maw Is crammed with food, both dress’d and raw, I’ll wager any betting, His appetite has ever been Just like his scythe, sharp-set and keen, Which never wanted _whetting_.
Could you but see the mighty treat Prepared, when he sits down to eat His breakfast or his dinner,--ah, Not vegetable--flesh,--alone, But timber, houses, iron, stone, He eats the very china.
When maidens pray that he will spare Their teeth, complexion, or their hair, Alas! he’ll never hear ’em; Grey locks and wrinkles hourly show, What Ovid told us years ago, _Ut Tempus edax rerum!_
In vain, my dearest girl, you choose (Your face to wash) Olympic dews; In vain you paint or rouge it; He’ll play such havoc with your youth, That ten years hence you’ll say with truth Ah Edward!--_Tempus fugit!_
The glass he carries in his hand Has ruin in each grain of sand; But what I most deplore is, He breaks the links of friendship’s chain, And barters youthful love for gain: _Oh, Tempora! oh, Mores!_
One sole exception you shall find, (_Unius generis_ of its kind,) Wherever fate may steer us; Tho’ wide his universal range, Time has no power the heart to change Of your AMICUS VERUS.
_Bath Herald._
* * * * *
GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.
Germany, which embraces a population of thirty-six millions of people, has twenty-two universities. The following table contains their names according to the order of their foundation, and the number of professors and students:
+-------------+--------+-----------+---------+ | | When | Number of | Number | |Universities.|founded.|Professors.| of | | | | |Students.| +-------------+--------+-----------+---------+ |Prague | 1348 | 55 | 1449 | |Vienna | 1365 | 77 | 1688 | |Heidelberg | 1368 | 55 | 626 | |Warsbourg | 1403 | 31 | 660 | |Leipsig | 1409 | 81 | 1384 | |Rostock | 1419 | 34 | 201 | |Fribourg | 1450 | 35 | 556 | |Griefswald | 1456 | 30 | 227 | |Bâle | 1460 | 24 | 214 | |Tubingen | 1477 | 44 | 827 | |Marbourg | 1527 | 38 | 304 | |Kœnisberg | 1544 | 23 | 303 | |Jena | 1558 | 51 | 432 | |Giessen | 1607 | 39 | 371 | |Kiel | 1665 | 26 | 238 | |Halle | 1694 | 64 | 1119 | |Breslau | 1702 | 49 | 710 | |Gœttengen | 1734 | 89 | 1545 | |Erlangen | 1743 | 34 | 498 | |Landshut | 1803 | 48 | 623 | |Berlin | 1810 | 86 | 1245 | |Bonn | 1818 | 42 | 526 | +-------------+--------+-----------+---------+
Of this number six belong to Prussia, three to Bavaria, two to the Austrian States, two to the Grand Duchy of Baden, two to the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, and one to each of the following states--Saxony, Wurtemberg, Denmark, Hanover, the Grand Duchies of Mecklenbergh-Schweren and of Saxe-Weimar, and Switzerland. The total number of professors is 1055, embracing not only the ordinary and extraordinary professors, but also the private lecturers, whose courses of reading are announced in the half-yearly programmes. Catholic Germany, which reckons nineteen millions of inhabitants, has only six universities; while Protestant Germany, for seventeen millions of inhabitants, has seventeen. Of the students there are 149 for every 250,000 in the Protestant states, while there are only 68 for the same number in the Catholic states. It must, however, be mentioned, that this estimate does not take in those Catholic ecclesiastics who do not pursue their studies in the universities, but in private seminaries.--The universities of Paderborn and Munster, both belonging to Prussia, and which had only two faculties, those of theology and philosophy, were suppressed; the first in 1818, and the second in 1819; but that of Munster has been reestablished, with the three faculties of theology, philosophy, and medicine.
Vol. I.--5.
[Illustration: ~Colley Cibber’s youngest Daughter.~]
Last of her sire in dotage--she was used By him, as children use a fav’rite toy; Indulg’d, neglected, fondled, and abus’d, As quick affection of capricious joy, Or sudden humour of dislike dictated: Thoughtlessly rear’d, she led a thoughtless life; And she so well beloved became most hated: A helpless mother, and a wife unblest, She pass’d precocious womanhood in strife; Or, in strange hiding-places, without rest; Or, wand’ring in disquietude for bread: Her father’s curse--himself first cause of all That caused his ban--sunk her in deeper thrall, Stifling her heart, till sorrow and herself were dead.
*
“THE LIFE OF MRS. CHARLOTTE CHARKE, _youngest daughter of Colley Cibber, Esq. written by herself_,” is a curious narrative of remarkable vicissitudes. She dedicates it to herself, and aptly concludes her dedication by saying, “Permit me, madam, to subscribe myself, for the future, what I ought to have been some years ago, your real friend, and humble servant, CHARLOTTE CHARKE.”
In the “Introduction” to the recent reprint of this singular work, it is well observed, that “her Life will serve to show what very strange creatures _may_ exist, and the endless diversity of habits, tastes, and inclinations, which may spring up spontaneously, like weeds, in the hot-bed of corrupt civilization.” She was born when Mrs. Cibber was forty-five years old, and when both her father and mother had ceased to expect an addition to their family: the result was that Charlotte Cibber was a spoiled child. She married Mr. Richard Charke, an eminent violin player, of dissolute habits; and, after a course of levities, consequent upon the early recklessness of her parents, she was repudiated by her father. When she wrote her life, she was in great penury: it was published in eight numbers, at three-pence each. In the last, which appeared on the 19th of April, 1755, she feelingly deplores the failure of her attempts to obtain forgiveness of her father, and says, “I cannot recollect any crime I have been guilty of that is unpardonable.” After intimating a design to open an oratorical academy, for the instruction of persons going on the stage, she mentions her intention to publish “Mr. Dumont’s history, the first number of which will shortly make its appearance.” This was a novel she was then writing, which a bookseller treated with her for, in company with Mr. Samuel Whyte of Dublin, who thus describes her distressed situation:--
“Cibber the elder had a daughter named Charlotte, who also took to the stage; her subsequent life was one continued series of misfortune, afflictions, and distress, which she sometimes contrived a little to alleviate by the productions of her pen. About the year 1755, she had worked up a novel for the press, which the writer accompanied his friend the bookseller to hear read; she was at this time a widow, having been married to one Charke a musician, long since dead. Her habitation was a wretched thatched hovel, situated on the way to Islington in the purlieus of Clerkenwell Bridewell, not very distant from the New River Head, where at that time it was usual for the scavengers to leave the cleansings of the streets, &c. The night preceding a heavy rain had fallen, which rendered this extraordinary seat of the muses almost inaccessible, so that in our approach we got our white stockings enveloped with mud up to the very calves, which furnished an appearance much in the present fashionable style of half-boots. We knocked at the door, (not attempting to pull the latch string,) which was opened by a tall, meagre, ragged figure, with a blue apron, indicating, what else we might have doubted, the feminine gender,--a perfect model for the copper captain’s tattered landlady; that deplorable exhibition of the fair sex, in the comedy of Rule-a-Wife. She with a torpid voice and hungry smile desired us to walk in. The first object that presented itself was a dresser, clean, it must be confessed, and furnished with three or four coarse delf plates, two brown platters, and underneath an earthen pipkin and a black pitcher with a snip out of it. To the right we perceived and bowed to the mistress of the mansion sitting on a maimed chair under the mantle-piece, by a fire, merely sufficient to put us in mind of starving. On one hob sat a monkey, which by way of welcome chattered at our going in; on the other a tabby cat, of melancholy aspect! and at our author’s feet on the flounce of her dingy petticoat reclined a dog, almost a skeleton! he raised his shagged head, and, eagerly staring with his bleared eyes, saluted us with a snarl. ‘Have done, Fidele! these are friends.’ The tone of her voice was not harsh; it had something in it humbled and disconsolate; a mingled effort of authority and pleasure.--Poor soul! few were her visitors of that description--no wonder the creature barked!.--A magpie perched on the top ring of her chair, not an uncomely ornament! and on her lap was placed a mutilated pair of bellows, the pipe was gone, an advantage in their present office, they served as a succedaneum for a writing-desk, on which lay displayed her hopes and treasure, the manuscript of her novel. Her ink-stand was a broken tea-cup, the pen worn to a stump; she had but one! a rough deal board with three hobbling supporters was brought for our convenience, on which, without farther ceremony, we contrived to sit down and entered upon business:--the work was read, remarks made, alterations agreed to, and thirty guineas demanded for the copy. The squalid handmaiden, who had been an attentive listener, stretched forward her tawny length of neck with an eye of anxious expectation!--The bookseller offered five!--Our authoress did not appear hurt; disappointments had rendered her mind callous; however, some altercation ensued. This was the writer’s first initiation into the mysteries of bibliopolism and the state of authorcraft. He, seeing both sides pertinacious, at length interposed, and at his instance the wary haberdasher of literature doubled his first proposal, with this saving proviso, that his friend present would pay a moiety and run one half the risk; which was agreed to. Thus matters were accommodated, seemingly to the satisfaction of all parties; the lady’s original stipulation of fifty copies for herself being previously acceded to. Such is the story of the once-admired daughter of Colley Cibber, Poet Laureate and patentee of Drury-lane, who was born in affluence and educated with care and tenderness, her servants in livery, and a splendid equipage at her command, with swarms of time-serving sycophants officiously buzzing in her train; yet, unmindful of her advantages and improvident in her pursuits, she finished the career of her miserable existence on a dunghill.”[36]
Mr. Whyte’s account of the “reading the manuscript,” a subject worthy of Wilkie’s pencil, is designed to be illustrated by the engraving at the head of this article. Of Mrs. Charke, after that interview, nothing further is known, except that she kept a public-house, at Islington, and is said to have died on the 6th of April, 1760.[37] Her brother Theophilus was wrecked, and perished on his way to Dublin, in October, 1758; her father died on the 12th of December, in the year preceding. Her singular “Narrative” is printed verbatim in the seventh volume of “Autobiography,” with the life of the late “Mary Robinson,” who was also an actress, and also wrote her own “Memoirs.”
[36] Whyte’s Collection of Poems, second edition. Dublin, 1792.
[37] Biog. Dram.
* * * * *
AN INEDITED BALLAD.
_To the Editor._
Dear Sir,--A friend of mine, who resided for some years on the borders, used to amuse himself by collecting old ballads, printed on halfpenny sheets, and hawked up and down by itinerant minstrels. In his common-place book I found one, entitled “The Outlandish Knight,” evidently, from the style, of considerable antiquity, which appears to have escaped the notice of Percy, and other collectors. Since then I have met with a printed one, from the popular press of Mr. Pitts, the six-yards-for-a-penny song-publisher, who informs me that he has printed it “ever since he was a printer, and that Mr. Marshall, his predecessor, printed it before him.” The ballad has not improved by circulating amongst Mr. Pitts’s friends; for the heroine, who has no name given her in my friend’s copy, is in Mr. Pitts’s called “Polly;” and there are expressions _contra bonos mores_. These I have expunged; and, to render the ballad more complete, added a few stanzas, wherein I have endeavoured to preserve the simplicity of the original, of which I doubt if a correct copy could now be obtained. As it is, it is at the service of your _Table Book_.
The hero of the ballad appears to be of somewhat the same class as the hero of the German ballad, the “Water King,” and in some particulars resembles the ballad of the “Overcourteous Knight,” in Percy’s Reliques.
I am, dear sir, &c.
-- -- --
_Grange-road, Bermondsey, Jan. 8, 1827._
THE OUTLANDISH KNIGHT.
---------------“Six go true, The _seventh_ askew.”
_Der Freischutz Travestie._
An outlandish knight from the north lands came, And he came a wooing to me; He told me he’d take me unto the north lands, And I should his fair bride be.
A broad, broad shield did this strange knight wield, Whereon did the red-cross shine, Yet never, I ween, had that strange knight been In the fields of Palestine.
And out and spake this strange knight, This knight of the north countrie, O, maiden fair, with the raven hair, Thou shalt at my bidding be.
Thy sire he is from home, ladye, For he hath a journey gone, And his shaggy blood-hound is sleeping sound, Beside the postern stone.
Go, bring me some of thy father’s gold, And some of thy mother’s fee, And steeds twain of the best, in the stalls that rest Where they stand thirty and three.
* * * * *
She mounted her on her milk-white steed, And he on a dapple grey, And they forward did ride, till they reach’d the sea-side, Three hours before it was day.
Then out and spake this strange knight, This knight of the north countrie, O, maiden fair, with the raven hair, Do thou at my bidding be.
Alight thee, maid, from thy milk-white steed, And deliver it unto me; Six maids have I drown’d, where the billows sound, And the seventh one thou shalt be.
But first pull off thy kirtle fine, And deliver it unto me; Thy kirtle of green is too rich, I ween, To rot in the salt, salt sea.
Pull off, pull off thy silken shoon, And deliver them unto me; Methinks that they are too fine and gay To rot in the salt, salt sea.
Pull off, pull off thy bonnie green plaid, That floats in the breeze so free; It is woven fine with the silver twine, And comely it is to see.
If I must pull off my bonnie green plaid, O turn thy back to me; And gaze on the sun which has just begun To peer o’er the salt, salt sea.
He turn’d his back on the dameselle And gaz’d on the bright sunbeam-- She grasp’d him tight with her arms so white, And plung’d him into the stream.
Lie there, sir knight, thou false-hearted wight, Lie there instead of me; Six damsels fair thou hast drown’d there, But the seventh has drowned thee.
That ocean wave was the false one’s grave, For he sunk right hastily; Though with dying voice faint, he pray’d to his saint, And utter’d an Ave Marie.
No mass was said for that false knight dead, No convent bell did toll; But he went to his rest, unshriv’d and unblest-- Heaven’s mercy on his soul!
* * * * *
She mounted her on her dapple-grey steed, And led the steed milk-white; She rode till she reach’d her father’s hall, Three hours before the night.
The parrot, hung in the lattice so high, To the lady then did say, Some ruffian, I fear, has led thee from home, For thou hast been long away.
Do not prattle, my pretty bird, Do not tell tales of me; And thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, Instead of the greenwood tree.
The earl as he sat in his turret high, On hearing the parrot did say, What ails thee, what ails thee, my pretty bird? Thou hast prattled the live-long day.
Well may I prattle, the parrot replied, And call, brave earl, on thee; For the cat has well nigh reach’d the lattice so high, And her eyes are fix’d on me.
Well turn’d, well turn’d, my pretty bird, Well turn’d, well turn’d for me; Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold, Instead of the greenwood tree.
* * * * *
PRIDE AND GOOD-WILL.
It is related of a certain class of French nobility, who, in their winter residence at Aix, were objects of dislike from their arrogance and self-importance, that they were beloved and esteemed for their kindness and benevolence by the dependants around their _chateaus_ in the country. Many instances might be cited to show that the respect paid them was no more than they deserved; and one is particularly striking:--
A seigneur, when he resided in the country, used to distribute among the women and children, and the old men who were unable to work in the field, raw wool, and flax, which they spun and wove into cloth or stuff at their pleasure: every week they were paid wages according to the quantity of work done, and had a fresh supply of raw materials whenever it was wanted. At the end of the year, a general feast was given by the seigneur to the whole village, when all who had been occupied in spinning and weaving brought in their work, and a prize of a hundred livres was given to each person who had spun the best skein, and woven the best web. They had a dinner in a field adjoining to the chateau, at which the seigneur himself presided, and on each side of him sat those who had gained the prizes. The evening was concluded with a dance. The victors, besides the hundred livres, had their work given them: the rest were allowed to purchase theirs at a very moderate price, and the money resulting from it was laid by to distribute among any persons of the village who wanted relief on account of sickness, or who had suffered from unavoidable accident, either in their persons or property. At the death of this excellent man, who unfortunately left no immediate heirs to follow his good example, the village presented a scene of the bitterest lamentation and distress: the peasants assembled round the body, and it was almost forced away from them for interment. They brought their shuttles, their distaffs, their skeins of thread and worsted, their pieces of linen and stuff, and strewed them upon his grave, saying that now they had lost their patron and benefactor, they could no longer be of use to them. If this man felt the pride of conscious superiority, it was scarcely to be condemned when accompanied with such laudable exertions to render himself, through that superiority, a benefactor to society.[38]
[38] Miss Plumptre.
~Garrick Plays.~
No. II.
[From the “Parliament of Bees,” a Masque, by John Day, printed 1607. Whether this singular production, in which the Characters are all _Bees_, was ever acted, I have no information to determine. It is at least as capable of representation, as we can conceive the “Birds” of Aristophanes to have been.]
Ulania, a female Bee, confesses her passion for Meletus, who loves Arethusa.
------- not a village Fly, nor meadow Bee, That trafficks daily on the neighbour plain, But will report, how all the Winged Train Have sued to me for Love; when we have flown In swarms out to discover fields new blown. Happy was he could find the forward’st tree, And cull the choicest blossoms out for me; Of all their labours they allow’d me some And (like my champions) mann’d me out, and home: Yet loved I none of them. Philon, a Bee Well-skill’d in verse and amorous poetry, As we have sate at work, both of one Rose,[39] Has humm’d sweet Canzons, both in verse and prose, Which I ne’er minded. Astrophel, a Bee (Although not so poetical as he) Yet in his full invention quick and ripe, In summer evenings, on his well-tuned pipe, Upon a woodbine blossom in the sun, (Our hive being clean-swept, and our day’s work done), Would play me twenty several tunes; yet I Nor minded Astrophel, nor his melody. Then there’s Amniter, for whose love fair Leade (That pretty Bee) flies up and down the mead With rivers in her eyes; without deserving Sent me trim Acorn bowls of his own carving, To drink May dews and mead in. Yet none of these, My hive-born Playfellows and fellow Bees, Could I affect, until this strange Bee came; And him I love with such an ardent flame, Discretion cannot quench.-- He labours and toils, Extracts more honey out of barren soils Than twenty lazy Drones. I have heard my Father, Steward of the Hive, profess that he had rather Lose half the Swarm than him. If a Bee, poor or weak, Grows faint on his way, or by misfortune break A wing or leg against a twig; alive, Or dead, he’ll bring into the Master’s Hive Him and his burthen. But the other day, On the next plain there grew a fatal fray Betwixt the Wasps and us; the wind grew high, And a rough storm raged so impetuously, Our Bees could scarce keep wing; then fell such rain, It made our Colony forsake the plain, And fly to garrison: yet still He stood, And ’gainst the whole swarm made his party good; And at each blow he gave, cried out _His Vow, His Vow, and Arethusa_!--On each bough And tender blossom he engraves her name With his sharp sting. To Arethusa’s fame He consecrates his actions; all his worth Is only spent to character her forth. On damask roses, and the leaves of pines, I have seen him write such amorous moving lines In Arethusa’s praise, as my poor heart Has, when I read them, envied her desert; And wept and sigh’d to think that he should be To her so constant, yet not pity me.
* * * * *
Porrex, Vice Roy of Bees under King Oberon, describes his large prerogative.
To Us (who, warranted by Oberon’s love. Write Ourself _Master Bee_), both field and grove, Garden and orchard, lawns and flowery meads, (Where the amorous wind plays with the golden heads Of wanton cowslips, daisies in their prime, Sun-loving marigolds; the blossom’d thyme, The blue-vein’d violets and the damask rose; The stately lily, Mistress of all those); Are allow’d and giv’n, by Oberon’s free areed, Pasture for me, and all my swarms to feed.
* * * * *
------------the doings, The births, the wars, the wooings,
of these pretty little winged creatures are with continued liveliness portrayed throughout the whole of this curious old Drama, in words which Bees would talk with, could they talk; the very air seems replete with humming and buzzing melodies, while we read them. Surely Bees were never so be-rhymed before.
C. L.
[39] Prettily pilfered from the sweet passage in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Helena recounts to Hermia their school-days’ friendship:
We, Hermia, like two artificial Gods, Created with our needles both one flower, Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion.
* * * * *
~Biographical Memoranda.~
JOHN SCOT, A FASTING FANATIC.
In the year 1539, there lived in Scotland one John Scot, no way commended for his learning, for he had none, nor for his good qualities, which were as few. This man, being overthrown in a suit of law, and knowing himself unable to pay that wherein he was adjudged, took sanctuary in the abbey of Holyrood-house; where, out of discontent, he abstained from all meat and drink, by the space of thirty or forty days together.
Fame having spread this abroad, the king would have it put to trial, and to that effect shut him up in a private room within the castle of Edinburgh, whereunto no man had access. He caused a little water and bread to be set by him, which he was found not to have diminished in the end of thirty days and two. Upon this he was dismissed, and, after a short time, he went to Rome, where he gave the like proof of his fasting to pope Clement VII.; from whence he went to Venice, carrying with him a testimony of his long fasting under the pope’s seal: and there also he gave the like proof thereof. After long time, returning into England, he went up into the pulpit in St. Paul’s Church-yard, where he gave forth many speeches against the divorce of king Henry VIII. from his queen Katherine, inveighing bitterly against him for his defection from the see of Rome; whereupon he was thrust into prison, where he continued fasting for the space of fifty days: what his end was I read not.--_Spotswood, &c._
* * * * *
HART THE ASTROLOGER.
There lived in Houndsditch, about the year 1632, one Alexander Hart, who had been a soldier formerly, a comely old man, of good aspect, he professed questionary astrology and a little of physic; his greatest skill was to elect young gentlemen fit times to play at dice, that they might win or get money. Lilly relates that “he went unto him for resolutions for three questions at several times, and he erred in every one.” He says, that to speak soberly of him he was but a cheat, as appeared suddenly after; for a rustical fellow of the city, desirous of knowledge, contracted with Hart, to assist for a conference with a spirit, and paid him twenty pounds of thirty pounds the contract. At last, after many delays, and no spirit appearing, nor money returned, the young man indicted him for a cheat at the Old Bailey in London. The jury found the bill, and at the hearing of the cause this jest happened: some of the bench inquired what Hart did? “He sat like an alderman in his gown,” quoth the fellow; at which the court fell into a laughter, most of the court being aldermen. He was to have been set upon the pillory for this cheat; but John Taylor the water poet being his great friend, got the lord chief justice Richardson to bail him, ere he stood upon the pillory, and so Hart fled presently into Holland, where he ended his days.[40]
[40] Autobiography, vol. ii, Lilly’s Life.
REV. THOMAS COOKE.
The verses at the end of the following letter may excuse the insertion of a query, which would otherwise be out of place in a publication not designed to be a channel of inquiry.
_To the Editor._
Sir,--I should feel much obliged, if the _Table Book_ can supply some account of a clergyman of the name of Thomas Cooke, who, it is supposed, resided in Shropshire, and was the author of a very beautiful poem, in folio, (published by subscription, about ninety years since,) entitled “The Immortality of the Soul.” I have a very imperfect copy of this work, and am desirous of ascertaining, from any of your multifarious readers, whether or not the poem ever became public, and where it is probable I could obtain a glimpse of a perfect impression. Mine has no title-page, and about one moiety of the work has been destroyed by the sacrilegious hands of some worthless animal on two legs!
The list of subscribers plainly proves that Mr. Cooke must have been a man of good family, and exalted connections. On one of the blank leaves in my copy, the following lines appear, written by Mr. Cooke himself; and, considering the trammels by which he was confined, I think the verses are not without merit; at any rate, the subject of them appears to have been a beautiful creature.
By giving this article a place in the _Table Book_, you will much oblige
Your subscriber and admirer,
G. J. D.
_Islington-green._
AN ACROSTIC
On a most beautiful and accomplished young Lady. London, 1748.
M eekness--good-humour--each transcendent grace, I s seen conspicuous on thy joyous face; S weet’s the carnation to the rambling bee, S o art thou, CHARLOTTE! always sweet to me!
C an aught compare successfully with those H igh beauties which thy countenance compose, A ll doubly heighten’d by that gentle mind, R enown’d on earth, and prais’d by ev’ry wind? L ov’d object! no--then let it be thy care O f fawning friends, at all times, to beware-- T o shun this world’s delusions and disguise, T he knave’s soft speeches, and the flatt’rer’s lies, E steeming virtue, and discarding vice!
G o where I may, howe’er remote the clime, W here’er my feet may stray, thy charms sublime, I llustrious maid! approv’d and prais’d by all, L ike some enchantment shall my soul enthrall-- L ight ev’ry path--illuminate my mind-- I nspire my pen with sentiments refin’d-- A nd teach my tongue on this fond pray’r to dwell, “M ay Heav’n preserve the maid it loves so well!”
THOMAS COOKE.
* * * * *
~Varieties.~
CURIOUS PLAY BILL.
The following remarkable theatrical announcement is a mixed appeal of vanity and poverty to the taste and feelings of the inhabitants of a town in Sussex.
(_Copy._)
At the old theatre in East Grinstead, on Saturday, May, 1758, will be represented (by particular desire, and for the benefit of Mrs. P.) the deep and affecting Tragedy of Theodosius, or the Force of Love, with magnificent scenes, dresses, &c.
Varanes, by Mr. P., who will strive, as far as possible, to support the character of this fiery Persian Prince, in which he was so much admired and applauded at Hastings, Arundel, Petworth, Midworth, Lewes, &c.
Theodosius, by a young gentleman from the University of Oxford, who never appeared on any stage.
Athenais, by Mrs. P. Though her present condition will not permit her to wait on gentlemen and ladies out of the town with tickets, she hopes, as on former occasions, for their liberality and support.
Nothing in Italy can exceed the altar, in the first scene of the play. Nevertheless, should any of the Nobility or Gentry wish to see it ornamented with flowers, the bearer will bring away as many as they choose to favour him with.
As the coronation of Athenais, to be introduced in the fifth act, contains a number of personages, more than sufficient to fill all the dressing-rooms, &c., it is hoped no gentlemen and ladies will be offended at being refused admission behind the scenes.
N. B. The great yard dog, that made so much noise on Thursday night, during the last act of King Richard the Third, will be sent to a neighbour’s over the way; and on account of the prodigious demand for places, part of the stable will be laid into the boxes on one side, and the granary be open for the same purpose on the other.
_Vivat Rex._[41]
* * * * *
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND.
At Chester, in the beginning of the year 1790, a reputable farmer, on the evening of a market-day, called at the shop of Mr. Poole, bookseller, and, desiring to speak with him at the door, put a shilling into his hand, telling him, “he had owed it to him many years.” The latter asked, for what? To which the farmer replied, that “When a boy, in buying a book-almanac at his shop, he had stolen another--the reflection of which had frequently given him much uneasiness.” If any one who sees this ever wronged his neighbour, let him be encouraged by the courage of the farmer of Chester, to make reparation in like manner, and so make clean his conscience.
* * * * *
CONSCIENCE.
----------There is no power in holy men, Nor charm in prayer--nor purifying form Of penitence--nor outward look--nor fast-- Nor agony--nor, greater than all these, The innate tortures of that deep despair, Which is remorse without the fear of hell. But all in all sufficient to itself Would make a hell of heaven--can exorcise From out the unbounded spirit, the quick sense Of its own sins, wrongs, sufferance, and revenge Upon itself; there is no future pang Can deal that justice on the self-condemn’d He deals on his own soul.
_Byron._
* * * * *
EPITAPH BY DR. LOWTH, late bishop of London, on a monument in the church of Cudesden, Oxfordshire, to the memory of his daughter, translated from the Latin:--
Dear as thou didst in modest worth excel, More dear than in a daughter’s name--farewell! Farewell, dear Mary--but the hour is nigh When, if I’m worthy, we shall meet on high: Then shall I say, triumphant from the tomb, “Come, to thy father’s arms, dear Mary, come!”
* * * * *
INSCRIPTION
From the book at Rigi, in Switzerland.
Nine weary up-hill miles we sped The setting sun to see; Sulky and grim he went to bed. Sulky and grim went we.
Seven sleepless hours we past, and then, The rising sun to see, Sulky and grim we rose again. Sulky and grim rose he.
[41] Boaden’s Life of Mrs. Siddons.
[Illustration: ~Antiquarian Hall,~ ALIAS ~Will. Will-be-so, of Lynn,~]
A goose-herd in the fen-lands; next, he Be-doctor’d Norfolk cows; much vext, he Turn’d bookseller, and poetaster, And was a tolerable master Of title-pages, but his rhymes Were shocking, at the best of times. However, he was very honest, And now, poor fellow, he is--“_non est_.”
*
_For the Table Book._
WILLIAM HALL, or as he used to style himself, “Antiquarian Hall,” “Will. Will-be-so,” and “Low-Fen-Bill-Hall,” or, as he was more generally termed by the public, “Old Hall,” died at Lynn, in Norfolk, on the 24th of January, 1825. From some curious autobiographical sketches in rhyme, published by himself, in the decline of life, it appears that he was born on June 1, O.S. 1748, at Willow Booth, a small island in the fens of Lincolnshire, near Heckington Ease, in the parish of South Kyme.
“Kyme, God knows. Where no corn grows, Nothing but a little hay; And the water comes, And takes it all away.”
His ancestors on the father’s side were all “fen slodgers,” having lived there for many generations; his mother was
----------“a half Yorkshire The other half was Heckington, Vulgar a place as and one.”
When about four years old, he narrowly escaped drowning; for, in his own words, he
------“overstretching took a slip, And popp’d beneath a merchant’s ship;[42] No soul at hand but me and mother; Nor could I call for one or other.”
She, however, at the hazard of her own life, succeeded in saving her son’s. At eleven years old, he went to school, in Brothertoft chapel, for about six months, in which time he derived all the education he ever received. His love of reading was so great, that as soon as he could manage a gunning-boat, he used to employ his Sundays either in seeking for water-birds’ eggs, or to
---------“_shouve_ the boat A catching fish, to make a groat, And sometimes with a snare or hook; Well, what was’t for?--to buy a book, Propensity so in him lay.”
Before he arrived at man’s estate, he lost his mother, and soon afterwards his father married again. Will. himself, on arriving at man’s estate, married “Suke Holmes,” and became a “gozzard,” or gooseherd; that is, a keeper and breeder of geese, for which the fens were, at that time, famous throughout the kingdom, supplying the London markets with fowls, and the warehouses with feathers and quills. In these parts, the small feathers are plucked from the live geese five times a year, at Lady-tide, Midsummer, Lammas, Michaelmas, and Martinmas, and the larger feathers and quills are pulled twice. Goslings even are not spared, for it is thought that early plucking tends to increase the succeeding feathers. It is said that the mere plucking hurts the fowl very little, as the owners are careful not to pull until the feathers are ripe: those plucked after the geese are dead, are affirmed not to be so good. The number of geese kept by Will. must have been very great, for his “brood geese,” alone, required five coombs of corn for daily consumption.
The inundations to which the fens were then liable, from breaches, or overflowing of the banks, overwhelmed him with difficulties, and ruined his prospects.
“The poor old geese away were floated, Till some high lands got lit’rally coated; Nor did most peasants think it duty Them to preserve, but made their booty; And those who were ‘not worth a goose,’ On other people’s liv’d profuse.”
After many vicissitudes and changes of residence, he settled at Marshland, in Norfolk, where his wife practised phlebotomy and midwifery, while he officiated as an auctioneeer, cowleech, &c. &c. Indeed he appeared to have been almost bred to the doctoring profession, for his own mother was
--------“a good cow-doctor, And always doctor’d all her own, Being cowleech both in flesh and bone.”
His mother-in-law was no less skilful, for in Will.’s words
“She in live stock had took her care, And of recipes had ample share, Which I retain unto this day.”
His father-in-law was an equally eminent practitioner; when, says Will.,
“I married Sukey Holmes, her father Did more than them put altogether; Imparted all his skill to me, Farrier, cowleech, and surgery, All which he practised with success.”
Will. tells of a remarkable and surprising accident, which closed his career as a cowleech.
“The rheumatism, (dreadful charm,) Had fix’d so close in my left arm, So violent throbb’d, that without stroke To touch--it absolutely broke! Went with a spring, made a report, And hence in cowleech spoil’d my sport; Remain’d so tender, weak, and sore, I never dare attempt it more.”
Thus disqualified, he removed to Lynn, and opening a shop in Ferry-street, commenced his operations as a purchaser and vender of old books, odds and ends, and old articles of various descriptions; from whence he obtained the popular appellation of “Old Hall.” On a board over the door, he designated this shop the
~“Antiquarian Library,”~
and thus quaintly announced his establishment to the public:
---------“In Lynn, Ferry-street, Where, should a stranger set his feet, Just cast an eye, read ‘Antiquary!’ Turn in, and but one hour tarry, Depend upon’t, to his surprise, sir, He would turn out somewhat the wiser.”
He had great opportunity to indulge in “Bibliomania,” for he acquired an extensive collection of scarce, curious, and valuable books, and became, in fact, the only dealer in “old literature” at Lynn. He versified on almost every occasion that seemed opportune for giving himself and his verses publicity; and, in one of his rhyming advertisements, he alphabetised the names of ancient and modern authors, by way of catalogue. In addition to his bookselling business, he continued to practise as an auctioneer. He regularly kept a book-stall, &c. in Lynn Tuesday-market, from whence he occasionally knocked down his articles to the best bidder; and he announced his sales in his usual whimsical style. His hand-bill, on one of these occasions, runs thus:
“LYNN, 19th SEPTEMBER, 1810.
“First Tuesday in the next October, Now do not doubt but we’ll be sober! If Providence permits us action, You may depend upon AN AUCTION, At the stall That’s occupied by WILLIAM HALL. To enumerate a task would be, So best way is to come and see; But not to come too vague an errant, We’ll give a sketch which we will warrant. “About _one hundred books_, in due lots, And pretty near the same in _shoe-lasts_; _Coats_, _waistcoats_, _breeches_, shining _buttons_, Perhaps ten thousand _leather cuttings_. Sold at per pound, your lot but ask it, Shall be weigh’d to you in a basket; Some lots of _tools_, to make a try on. About one hundred weight of _iron_; _Scales_, _earthenware_, _arm-chairs_, a _tea-urn_, _Tea-chests_, a _herring-tub_, and so on; With various more, that’s our intention, Which are too tedious here to mention. “N. B. To undeceive, ’fore you come nigher, The duty charg’d upon the buyer; And, should we find we’re not perplext, We’ll keep it up the Tuesday next.”
During repeated visits to his surviving relatives in his native fens, he observed the altered appearance of the scene from the improved method of drainage. It had become like “another world,” and he resolved
------------------ “to try His talent for posterity;”
and “make a book,” under the title of “The Low Fen Journal,” to comprise “a chain of Incidents relating to the State of the Fens, from the earliest Account to the present Time.” As a specimen of the work he published, in the summer of 1812, an octavo pamphlet of twenty-four pages, called a “Sketch of Local History,” by “_Will. Will-be-so_,” announcing
“If two hundred subscribers will give in their aid, The whole of this journal is meant to be laid Under public view.”
This curious pamphlet of odds and ends in prose and rhyme, without order or arrangement, contained a “caution to the buyer.”
“Let any read that will not soil or rend it, But should they ask to borrow, _pray don’t lend it_! Advise them, ‘_Go and buy_;’ ’twill better suit My purpose; and with you prevent dispute. With me a maxim ’tis, he that won’t buy Does seldom well regard his neighbour’s property; And did you chew the bit, so much as I do From lending books, I think ’twould make you shy too.”
In the course of the tract, he presented to “the critics” the following admonitory address.
“Pray, sirs, consider, had you been Bred where whole winters nothing’s seen But naked flood for miles and miles, Except a boat the eye beguiles; Or coots, in clouds, by buzzards teaz’d, Your ear with seeming thunder seiz’d From rais’d decoy,--there ducks on flight, By tens of thousands darken light; None to assist in greatest need, Parents but very badly read, No conversation strike the mind, But of the lowest, vulgar kind; Five miles from either church or school, No coming there, but cross a pool; Kept twenty years upon that station, With only six months’ education; Traverse the scene, then weigh it well, Say, _could you better write or spell_?”
One extract, in prose, is an example of the disposition and powers of his almost untutored mind, viz.
“_No animation without generation_ seems a standing axiom in philosophy: but upon tasting the berry of a plant greatly resembling brooklime, but with a narrower leaf, I found it attended with a loose fulsomeness, very different from any thing I had ever tasted; and on splitting one of them with my nail, out sprang a fluttering maggot, which put me upon minute examination. The result of which was, that every berry, according to its degree of maturity, contained a proportionate maggot, up to the full ripe shell, where a door was plainly discerned, and the insect had taken its flight. I have ever since carefully inspected the herb, and the result is always the same, viz. if you split ten thousand of the berries, you discover nothing but an animated germ. It grows in shallow water, and is frequently accompanied with the water plantain. Its berry is about the size of a red currant, and comes on progressively, after the manner of juniper in the berry: the germ is first discoverable about the middle of July, and continues till the frost subdues it. And my conjectures lead me to say, that one luxurious plant shall be the mother of many scores of flies. I call it the _fly berry plant_.”
Thus far the “Sketch.” He seems to have caught the notion of his “Low Fen Journal” from a former fen genius, whose works are become of great price, though it must be acknowledged, more for their quaintness and rarity, than their intrinsic merit. Will. refers to him in the following apologetical lines.
“Well, on the earth he knows of none, With a full turn just like his mind; Nor only one that’s dead and gone, Whose genius stood as his inclin’d: No doubt the public wish to know it, _John Taylor_, call’d the _water poet_, Who near two centuries ago Wrote much such nonsense as I do.”
The sale of the “Sketch” not answering his expectations, no further symptoms of the “Journal” made their appearance at that time.
In the summer of 1815, after forty-three years’ practice as an auctioneer, he announced his retirement by the following laconic farewell.
“RAP SENIOR’s given it up at last, With thanks for ev’ry favour past; Alias ‘ANTIQUARIAN HALL’ Will never more be heard to brawl; As auctioneer no more will lie, But’s thrown his wicked hammer by. Should you prefer him to appraise, He’s licensed for future days; Or still employ him on commission, He’ll always treat on fair condition, For goods brought to him at his stand. Or at your home, to sell by hand; Or should you want his _pen’s_ assistance, He’ll wait on you at any distance, To lot, collect, in place of clerk, Or prevent moving goods i’ th’ dark; In short, for help or counsel’s aid, You need not of him be afraid.”
The harvest of 1816 proved wet and unfavourable, and he thought “it almost exceeded any thing in his memory;” wherefore the world was favoured with “Reflections upon Times, and Times and Times! or a more than Sixty Years’ Tour of the Mind,” by “_Low-Fen-Bill-Hall_.” This was an octavo pamphlet of sixteen pages, in prose, quite as confused as his other productions, “transmitting to posterity,” as the results of sixty years’ experience, that “the frequency of thunderstorms in the spring,”--“the repeated appearance of water-spouts,”--“an innumerable quantity of black snails,”--“an unusual number of field mice,”--and “the great many snakes to be seen about,” are _certain_ “indications of a wet harvest.” To these observations, intermingled with digression upon digression, he prefixed as one of the mottoes, an extremely appropriate quotation from _Deut._ c. 32. v. 29, “O that they were wise, that they _understood_ this!”
In the spring of 1818, when in his seventieth year, or, as he says, “David’s gage being near complete,” he determined on an attempt to publish his “Low Fen Journal,” in numbers; the first of which he thus announced:
“_A Lincolnshire rais’d medley pie_, An original miscellany, Not meant as canting, _puzzling mystery_, But for a general true FEN HISTORY, Such as design’d some time ago, By him ’yclept _Will_. _Will-be-so_; Here’s Number ONE for publication, If meet the public’s approbation, _Low-Fen-Bill-Hall_ his word engages To send about two hundred pages, Collected by his gleaning pains, Mix’d with the fruit of his own brains.”
This specimen of the work was as unintelligible as the before-mentioned introductory “Sketch,” partaking of the same autobiographical, historical, and religious character, with acrostic, elegiac, obituarian, and other extraneous pieces in prose and rhyme. His life had been passed in vicissitude and hardship, “oft’ pining for a bit of bread;” and from experience, he was well adapted to
------------------------- “tell, To whom most extra lots befell; Who liv’d for months on stage of planks, ’Midst captain Flood’s most swelling pranks, Five miles from any food to have, Yea often risk’d a wat’ry grave;”
yet his facts and style were so incongruous that speaking of the “Sketch,” he says, when he
-------------“sent it out, Good lack! to know what ’twas about? He might as well have sent it muzzled, For half the folks seem’d really puzzled. Soliciting for patronage, He might have spent near half an age; From all endeavours undertook, He could not get it to a book.”
Though the only “historical” part of the first number of his “Fen Journal,” in twenty-four pages, consisted of prosaic fragments of his grandfather’s “poaching,” his mother’s “groaning,” his father’s “fishing,” and his own “conjectures;” yet he tells the public, that
“Protected by kind Providence, I mean in less than twelve months hence, Push’d by no very common sense, To give six times as much as here is, And hope there’s none will think it dear is, Consid’ring th’ matter rather queer is.”
In prosecution of his intentions, No. 2 shortly followed; and, as it was alike heterogeneous and unintelligible, he says he had “caught the Swiftiania, in running digression on digression,” with as many whimseys as “Peter, Martin, and John had in twisting their father’s will.” He expected that this “gallimaufry” and himself would be consecrated to posterity, for he says,
“’Tis not for lucre that I write, But something lasting,--to indite What may redound to purpose good, (If hap’ly can be understood;) And, as time passes o’er his stages Transmit my mind to future ages.”
On concluding his second number, he “gratefully acknowledges the liberality of his subscribers, and is apprehensive the _Interlope_ will find a very partial acceptance; but it being so congenial an interlude to the improvement of _Low Fen_ and _Billinghay Dale_ manners, to be hereafter shown, he hopes it will not be considered detrimental, should his work continue.” Such, however, was not the case, for his literary project terminated: unforeseen events reduced his finances, and he had not
-----------------------“Pecune Enough, to keep his harp in tune.”
The care of a large family of orphan grandchildren, in indigent circumstances, having devolved upon him, he became perplexed with extreme difficulties, and again experienced the truth of his own observation, that
“If two steps forward, oft’ three back, Through life had been his constant track.”
Attracted by the “bodies of divinity,” and other theological works, which his “antiquarian library” contained, his attention was particularly directed to the fundamental truths of religion, and the doctrines of “the various denominations of the Christian world.” The result was, that without joining any, he imbibed such portions of the tenets of each sect, that his opinions on this subject were as singular as on every other. Above all sectaries, yet not entirely agreeing even with them, he “loved and venerated” the “Moravians or United Brethren,” for their meek, unassuming demeanour, their ceaseless perseverance in propagating the gospel, and their boundless love towards the whole human race. Of his own particular notions, he thus says,
“If I on doctrines have right view, Here’s this for me, and that for you; Another gives my neighbour comfort, A stranger comes with one of some sort. When after candid scrutinizing, We find them equally worth prizing; ’Cause all in gospel love imparted, Nor is there any one perverted; Only as they may seem unlike, Nor can on other’s fancy strike: Whereas from due conformity, O! what a spread of harmony, Each with each, bearing and forbearing. All wishing for a better hearing, Would in due time, then full improve Into _one family of love_: Instead of shyness on each other, My fellow-christian, sister, brother, And each in candour thus impart, You have my fellowship and heart; Let this but be the _root_ o’ th’ sense, _Jesus the Christ_, my confidence, As given in the Father’s love, No other system I approve.”
After a short illness, towards the conclusion of his seventy-eighth year, death closed his mortal career. Notwithstanding his eccentricity, he was “devoid of guile,” plain and sincere in all transactions, and his memory is universally respected.--“Peace to his ashes”--(to use his own expressions,)
“Let all the world say worst they can, He was an upright, honest man.”
K.
[42] A coal-lighter.
* * * * *
~Winter.~
_For the Table Book._
WINTER! I love thee, for thou com’st to me Laden with joys congenial to my mind, Books that with bards and solitude agree, And all those virtues which adorn mankind. What though the meadows, and the neighb’ring hills, That rear their cloudy summits in the skies-- What though the woodland brooks, and lowland rills, That charm’d our ears, and gratified our eyes. In thy forlorn habiliments appear? What though the zephyrs of the summer tide, And all the softer beauties of the year Are fled and gone, kind Heav’n has not denied Our books and studies, music, conversation, And ev’ning parties for our recreation; And these suffice, for seasons snatch’d away, Till SPRING leads forth the slowly-length’ning day.
B. W. R.
* * * * *
A WINTER’S DAY.
_For the Table Book._
The horizontal sun, like an orb of molten gold, casts “a dim religious light” upon the surpliced world: the beams, reflected from the dazzling snow, fall upon the purple mists, which extend round the earth like a zone, and in the midst the planet appears a fixed stud, surpassing the ruby in brilliancy.
Now trees and shrubs are borne down with sparkling congelations, and the coral clusters of the hawthorn and holly are more splendid, and offer a cold conserve to the wandering schoolboy. The huntsman is seen riding to covert in his scarlet livery, the gunner is heard at intervals in the uplands, and the courser comes galloping down the hill side, with his hounds in full chase before him. The farmer’s boy, who is forced from his warm bed, to milk cows in a cold meadow, complains it’s a “burning” shame that he should be obliged to go starving by himself, while “their wench” has nothing else to do but make a fire, and boil the tea-kettle. Now, Mrs. Jeremy Bellclack, properly so called, inasmuch as the unmentionables are amongst her peculiar attributes, waked by the mail-coach horn, sounding an Introit to the day, orders her husband, poor fellow, to “just get up and look what sort of a morning it is;” and he, shivering at the _bare_ idea, affects to be fast asleep, till a second summons, accompanied by the contact of his wife’s heavy hand, obliges him to paddle across the ice-cold plaster floor; and the trees and church-steeples, stars, spears, and saws, which form an elegant tapestry over the windows, seem to authorize the excuse that he “can’t see,” while, shivering over the dressing-table, he pours a stream of visible breath on the frozen pane.
After breakfast, Dicky, “with shining morning face,” appears in the street, on his way to school, with his Latin grammar in one hand, and a slice of bread and butter in the other, to either of which he pays his devoirs, and “slides and looks, and slides and looks,” all the way till he arrives at “the house of bondage,” when his fingers are so benumbed, that he is obliged to warm his slate, and even then they refuse to cast up figures, “of their own accord.” In another part of the school, Joe Lazy finds it “so ’nation cold,” that he is quite unable to learn the two first lines of his lesson,--and he plays at “cocks and dollars” with Jem Slack in a corner. The master stands before the fire, like the Colossus of Rhodes, all the morning, to the utter discomfiture of the boys, who grumble at the monopoly, and secretly tell one another, that they pay for the fire, and ought to have the benefit of it. At length he says, “You may go, boys;” whereupon ensues such a pattering of feet, shutting of boxes, and scrambling for hats, as beats Milton’s “busy hum of men” all to nothing, till they reach their wonted slide in the yard, where they suddenly stop on discovering that “that _skinny_ old creature, Bet Fifty, the cook,” has bestrewed it from end to end with sand and cinders. Frost-stricken as it were, they stare at one another, and look unutterable things at the aforesaid “skinny old creature;” till Jack Turbulent, ring-leader-general of all their riots and rebellions, execrates “old Betty, cook,” with the fluency of a parlour boarder, and hurls a well-wrought snowball at the Gorgon, who turns round in a passion to discover the delinquent, when her pattens, unused to such quick rotatory motion, slip from under her feet, and “down topples she,” to the delight of the urchins around her, who drown her cries and threats in reiterated bursts of laughter.
Now, the Comet stage-coach, bowling along the russet-coloured road, with a long train of vapour from the horses’ nostrils, looks really like a comet. At the same time, Lubin, who has been sent to town by his mistress with a letter for the post-office, and a strict injunction to return speedily, finds it impossible to pass the blacksmith’s shop, where the bright sparks fly from the forge; and he determines “just” to stop and look at the blaze “a bit,” which, as he says, “raly does one’s eyes good of a winter’s morning;” and then, he just blows the bellows a bit, and finds it so pleasant to listen to the strokes of Vulcan’s wit, and his sledge-hammer, alternately, that he continues blowing up the fire, till, at length, he recollects what a “blowing up” he shall have from his “Missis” when he gets home, and forswears the clang of horse-shoes and plough-irons, and leaves the temple of the Cyclops, but not without a “longing, ling’ring look behind” at Messrs. Blaze and _Company_.
From the frozen surface of the pond or lake, men with besoms busily clear away the drift, for which they are amply remunerated by voluntary contributions from every fresh-arriving skater; and black ice is discovered between banks of snow, and ramified into numerous transverse, oblique, semicircular, or elliptical branches. Here and there, the snow appears in large heaps, like rocks or islands, and round these the proficients in the art
“Come and trip it as they go On the light, fantastic toe,”
winding and sailing, one amongst another, like the smooth-winged swallows, which so lately occupied the same surface. While these are describing innumerable _circles_, the sliding fraternity in another part form _parallel lines_; each, of each class, vies with the other in feats of activity, all enjoy the exhilarating pastime, and every face is illumined with cheerfulness. The philosophic skater, big with theory, convinced, as he tells every one he meets, that the whole art consists “_merely_ in transferring the centre of gravity from _one_ foot to the _other_,” boldly essays a demonstration, and instantly transfers it from _both_, so as to honour the frozen element with a sudden salute from that part of the body which usually gravitates on a chair; and the wits compliment him on the superior knowledge by which he has “broken the ice,” and the little lads run to see “what a big star the gentleman has made!” and think it must have hurt him “above a bit!”
It is now that the different canals are frozen up, and goods are conveyed by the stage-waggon, and “it’s a capital time for the turnpikes;” and those who can get brandy, drink it; and those who can’t, drink ale; and those who are unable to procure either, do much better without them. And now, ladies have red noses, and the robin, with his little head turned knowingly on one side, presents his burning breast at the parlour window, and seems to crave a dinner from the noontide breakfast. In such a day, the “son and heir” of the “gentleman retired from business” bedizens the drawing-room with heavy loads of prickly evergreen; and bronze candlebearers, porcelain figures, and elegant chimney ornaments, look like prince Malcolm’s soldiers at “Birnam wood,” or chorister boys on a holy Thursday; and his “Ma” nearly falls into hysterics on discovering the mischief; and his “Pa” begins to scold him for being so naughty; and the budding wit asks, as he runs out of the room, “Why, don’t you know that these are the _holly days_?” and his father relates the astonishing instance of early genius at every club, card-party, or vestry-meeting for a month to come. Now, all the pumps are frozen, old men tumble down on the flags, and ladies “look blue” at their lovers. Now, the merry-growing bacchanal begins to thaw himself with frequent potations of wine; bottle after bottle is sacrificed to the health of his various friends, though his own health is sacrificed in the ceremony; and the glass that quaffs “the prosperity of the British constitution,” ruins his own.
And now, dandies, in rough great coats and fur collars, look like Esquimaux Indians; and the fashionables of the _fair_ sex, in white veils and swans-down muffs and tippets, have (begging their pardons) very much the appearance of polar bears. Now, Miss Enigmaria Conundrina Riddle, poring over her new pocket-book, lisps out, “Why are ladies in winter like tea-kettles?” to which old Mr. Riddle, pouring forth a dense ringlet of tobacco-smoke, replies, “Because they dance and sing;” but master Augustus Adolphus Riddle, who has heard it before, corrects him by saying, “No, Pa, that’s not it--it’s because they are furred up.” Now, unless their horses are turned up, the riders are very likely to be turned down; and deep wells are dry, and poor old women, with a “well-a-day!” are obliged to boil down snow and icicles to make their tea with. Now, an old oak-tree, with only one branch, looks like a man with a rifle to his shoulder, and the night-lorn traveller trembles at the prospect of having his head and his pockets _rifled_ together. Now, sedan-chairs, and servants with lanterns, are “flitting across the night,” to fetch home their masters and mistresses from oyster-eatings, and quadrille parties. And now, a young lady, who had retreated from the heat of the ballroom, to take the benefit of the north wind, and caught a severe cold, calls in the doctor, who is quite convinced of the correctness of the old adage, “It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.”
Now, the sultana of the night reigns on her throne of stars, in the blue zenith, and young ladies and gentlemen, who had shivered all day by the parlour fire, and found themselves in danger of annihilation when the door by chance had been left a little way open, are quite warm enough to walk together by moonlight, though every thing around them is actually petrified by the frost.
Now, in my chamber, the last ember falls, and seems to warn us as it descends, that though we, like it, may shine among the brilliant, and be cherished by the great (grate,) we must mingle our ashes. The wasted candle, too, is going the way of all flesh, and the writer of these “night thoughts,” duly impressed with the importance of his own mortality, takes his farewell of his anti-critical readers in the language of the old song,--
“Gude night, an’ joy be wi’ you all!”
_Lichfield._
J. H.
* * * * *
TAKE NOTICE.
A correspondent who has seen the original of the following notice, written at Bath, says, it would have been placed on a board in a garden there, had not a friend advised its author to the contrary:
“ANY PERSON TRESPACE HERE SHALL BE PROSTICUTED ACCORDING TO LAW.”
* * * * *
THE BAZAAR.
_For the Table Book._
The Bazaar in Soho Is completely the go.--
(_Song._)
Put it down in the bill Is the fountain of ill,-- This has every shopkeeper undone-- Bazaars never trust, so down with your dust, And help us to diddle all London.
(_Song._)
* * * * *
Oh how I’ve wish’d for some time back To ride to the Bazaar, And I declare the day looks fair Now won’t you go, mamma? For there our friends we’re sure to meet, So let us haste away, My cousins, too, last night told you, They’d all be there to-day.
With a “How do you do, Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
Some look at this thing, then at that, But vow they’re all too high; “How much is this?”--“Two guineas, miss!” “Oh, I don’t want to _buy_!” Look at these pretty books, my love, I think it soon will rain; There’s Mrs. Howe, I saw her bow, Why don’t you bow again?
With a “How do you do. Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
Just see that picture on the box, How beautifully done! “It isn’t high, ma’am, won’t you buy? It’s only one pound one.” How pretty all these bonnets look With red and yellow strings; Some here, my dear, don’t go too near, You mustn’t touch the things.
With a “How do you do, Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
Miss Muggins, have you seen enough? I’m sorry I can’t stay; There’s Mrs. Snooks, how fat she looks She’s coming on this way: Dear madam, give me leave to ask You,--how your husband is?-- Why, Mr. Snooks has lost his looks, He’s got the _rheumatiz_!
With a “How do you do. Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
“Tom! see that girl, how well she walks But faith, I must confess, I never saw a girl before In such a style of dress.” “Why, really, Jack, I think you’re right, Just let me look a while; (_looking through his glass_) I like her _gait_ at any rate, But don’t quite like her _style_.”
With a “How do you do, Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
“That vulgar lady’s standing there That every one may view her;”-- “Sir, that’s my daughter;”--“No, not her; I mean the next one to her:” “Oh, that’s my niece,”--“Oh no, not her,”-- “You seem, sir, quite amused;” “Dear ma’am,--heyday!--what shall I say? I’m really quite confused.”
With a “How do you do, Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
Thus beaux and belles together meet, And thus they spend the day; And walk and talk, and talk and walk. And then they _walk_ away. If you have half an hour to spare, The better way by far Is here to lounge it, with a friend, In the Soho Bazaar.
With a “How do you do, Ma’am?” “How are you? How dear the things all are!” Throughout the day You hear them say, At fam’d Soho Bazaar.
* * * * *
~Omniana.~
THE SEASON OUT OF TOWN.
_For the Table Book._
The banks are partly green; hedges and trees Are black and shrouded, and the keen wind roars, Like dismal music wand’ring over seas, And wailing to the agitated shores.
The fields are dotted with manure--the sheep In unshorn wool, streak’d with the shepherd’s red, Their undivided peace and friendship keep, Shaking their bells, like children to their bed.
The roads are white and miry--waters run With violence through their tracks--and sheds, that flowers In summer graced, are open to the sun, Which shines in noonday’s horizontal hours.
Frost claims the night; and morning, like a bride, Forth from her chamber glides; mist spreads her vest; The sunbeams ride the clouds till eventide, And the wind rolls them to ethereal rest.
Sleet, shine, cold, fog, in portions fill the time; Like hope, the prospect cheers; like breath it fades; Life grows in seasons to returning prime, And beauty rises from departing shades.
_January, 1827._
P.
* * * * *
THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE.
_Addressed to the Admirers of Alliteration, and the Advocates of Noisy Numbers._
Ardentem aspicio atque arrectis auribis asto.--_Virgil._
An Austrian army awfully arrayed, Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade: Cossack commanders cannonading come, Dealing destruction’s devastating doom; Every endeavour engineers essay, For fame, for fortune fighting--furious fray! Generals ’gainst generals grapple, gracious G--d! How honours heaven heroic hardihood! Infuriate--indiscriminate in ill-- Kinsmen kill kindred--kindred kinsmen kill: Labour low levels loftiest, longest lines, Men march ’mid mounds, ’mid moles, ’mid murderous mines: Now noisy noxious numbers notice nought Of outward obstacles, opposing ought,-- Poor patriots!--partly purchased--partly press’d, Quite quaking, quickly, “Quarter! quarter!” quest; Reason returns, religious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. Truce to thee, Turkey, triumph to thy train Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine! Vanish, vain victory! vanish, victory vain! Why wish we warfare? Wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xaviere Yield, yield, ye youths! ye yeomen, yield your yell! Zeno’s, Zampatee’s, Zoroaster’s zeal, Attracting all, arms against acts appeal!
* * * * *
NAMES OF PLACES.
_For the Table Book._
The names of towns, cities, or villages, which terminate in _ter_, such as Ches_ter_, Cas_ter_, Ces_ter_, show that the Romans, in their stay among us, made fortifications about the places where they are now situated. In the Latin tongue _Castra_ is the name of these fortifications--such are Castor, Chester, Doncaster, Leicester: _Don_ signifies a mountain, and _Ley_, or _Lei_, ground widely overgrown.
In our ancient tongue _wich_, or _wick_, means a place of refuge, and is the termination of Warwick, Sandwich, Greenwich, Woolwich, &c.
_Thorp_, before the word village was borrowed from the French, was used in its stead, and is found at the end of many towns’ names.
_Bury_, _Burgh_, or _Berry_, signifies, metaphorically, a town having a wall about it, sometimes a high, or chief place.
_Wold_ means a plain open country.
_Combe_, a valley between two hills.
_Knock_, a hill.
_Hurst_, a woody place.
_Magh_, a field.
_Innes_, an island.
_Worth_, a place situated between two rivers.
_Ing_, a tract of meadows.
_Minster_ is a contraction of monastery.
SAM SAM’S SON.
* * * * *
SONNET
_For the Table Book._
The snowdrop, rising to its infant height, Looks like a sickly child upon the spot Of young nativity, regarding not The air’s caress of melody and light Beam’d from the east, and soften’d by the bright Effusive flash of gold:--the willow stoops And muses, like a bride without her love, On her own shade, which lies on waves, and droops Beside the natal trunk, nor looks above:-- The precipice, that torrents cannot move, Leans o’er the sea, and steadfast as a rock, Of dash and cloud unconscious, bears the rude Continuous surge, the sounds and echoes mock: Thus Mental Thought enduring, wears in solitude.
1827.
*, *, P.
Vol. I.--6.
[Illustration: ~The Font of Harrow Church.~]
---------------------- thus saved From guardian-hands which else had more depraved.
Some years ago, the fine old font of the ancient parish church of Harrow-on-the-Hill was torn from that edifice, by the “gentlemen of the parish,” and given out to mend the roads with. The feelings of _one_ parishioner (to the honour of the sex, a female) were outraged by this act of parochial Vandalism; and she was allowed to preserve it from destruction, and place it in a walled nook, at the garden front of her house, where it still remains. By her obliging permission, a drawing of it was made the summer before last, and is engraved above.
On the exclusion of Harrow font from the church, the parish officers put up the marble wash-hand-basin-stand-looking-thing, which now occupies its place, inscribed with the names of the churchwardens during whose reign venality or stupidity effected the removal of its precessor. If there be any persons in that parish who either venerate antiquity, or desire to see “right things in right places,” it is possible that, by a spirited representation, they may arouse the indifferent, and shame the ignorant to an interchange: and force an expression of public thanks to the lady whose good taste and care enabled it to be effected. The relative situation and misappropriation of each font is a stain on the parish, easily removable, by employing a few men and a few pounds to clap the paltry usurper under the spout of the good lady’s house, and restore the noble original from that degrading destination, to its rightful dignity in the church.
*
~Garrick Plays.~
No. III.
[From the “Rewards of Virtue,” a Comedy, by John Fountain, printed 1661.]
_Success in Battle not always attributable to the General._
----------Generals oftimes famous grow By valiant friends, or cowardly enemies; Or, what is worse, by some mean piece of chance. Truth is, ’tis pretty to observe How little Princes and great Generals Contribute oftentimes to the fame they win. How oft hath it been found, that noblest minds With two short arms, have fought with fatal stars; And have endeavour’d with their dearest blood To mollify those diamonds, where dwell The fate of kingdoms; and at last have faln By vulgar hands, unable now to do More for their cause than die; and have been lost Among the sacrifices of their swords; No more remember’d than poor villagers, Whose ashes sleep among the common flowers, That every meadow wears: whilst other men With trembling hands have caught a victory, And on pale foreheads wear triumphant bays. Besides, I have thought A thousand times; in times of war, when we Lift up our hands to heaven for victory; Suppose some virgin Shepherdess, whose soul Is chaste and clean as the cold spring, where she Quenches all thirsts, being told of enemies, That seek to fright the long-enjoyed Peace Of our Arcadia hence with sound of drums, And with hoarse trumpets’ warlike airs to drown The harmless music of her oaten reeds, Should in the passion of her troubled sprite Repair to some small fane (such as the Gods Hear poor folks from), and there on humble knees Lift up her trembling hands to holy Pan, And beg his helps: ’tis possible to think, That Heav’n, which holds the purest vows most rich, May not permit her still to weep in vain, But grant her wish, (for, would the Gods not hear The prayers of poor folks, they’d ne’er bid them pray); And so, in the next action, happeneth out (The Gods still using means) the Enemy May be defeated. The glory of all this Is attributed to the General, And none but he’s spoke loud of for the act; While she, from whose so unaffected tears His laurel sprung, for ever dwells unknown.[43]
* * * * *
_Unlawful Solicitings._
When I first Mention’d the business to her all alone, Poor Soul, she blush’d, as if already she Had done some harm by hearing of me speak, Whilst from her pretty eyes two fountains ran So true, so native, down her fairest cheeks; As if she thought herself obliged to cry, ’Cause all the world was not so good as she.
* * * * *
_Proportion in Pity._
There must be some proportion still to pity Between ourselves and what we moan: ’tis hard For Men to be ought sensible, how Moats Press Flies to death. Should the Lion, in His midnight walks for prey, hear some poor worms Complain for want of little drops of dew, What pity could that generous creature have (Who never wanted small things) for those poor Ambitions? yet these are their concernments, And but for want of these they pine and die.
* * * * *
_Modesty a bar to preferment._
Sure ’twas his modesty. He might have thriven Much better possibly, had his ambition Been greater much. They oftimes take more pains Who look for Pins, than those who find out Stars.
* * * * *
_Innocence vindicated at last._
Heav’n may awhile correct the virtuous; Yet it will wipe their eyes again, and make Their faces whiter with their tears. Innocence Conceal’d is the Stoln Pleasure of the Gods, Which never ends in shame, as that of Men Doth oftimes do; but like the Sun breaks forth, When it hath gratified another world; And to our unexpecting eyes appears More glorious thro’ its late obscurity.
* * * * *
_Dying for a Beloved Person._
There is a gust in Death, when ’tis for Love, That’s more than all that’s taste in all the world. For the true measure of true Love is Death; And what falls short of this, was never Love: And therefore when those tides do meet and strive And both swell high, but Love is higher still, This is the truest satisfaction of The perfectest Love: for here it sees itself Indure the highest test; and then it feels The sum of delectation, since it now Attains its perfect end; and shows its object, By one intense act, all its verity: Which by a thousand and ten thousand words It would have took a poor dilated pleasure To have imperfectly express’d.
_Urania makes a mock assignation with the King, and substitutes the Queen in her place. The King describes the supposed meeting to the Confident, whom he had employed to solicit for his guilty passion._
Pyrrhus, I’ll tell thee all. When now the night Grew black enough to hide a sculking action; And Heav’n had ne’er an eye unshut to see Her Representative on Earth creep ’mongst Those poor defenceless worms, whom Nature left An humble prey to every thing, and no Asylum but the dark; I softly stole To yonder grotto thro’ the upper walks, And there found my Urania. But I found her, I found her, Pyrrhus, not a Mistress, but A Goddess rather; which made me now to be No more her Lover, but Idolater. She only whisper’d to me, as she promised, Yet never heard I any voice so loud; And, tho’ her words were gentler far than those That holy priests do speak to dying Saints, Yet never thunder signified so much. And (what did more impress whate’er she said) Methought her whispers were my injured Queen’s, Her manner just like her’s! and when she urged, Among a thousand things, the injury I did the faithful’st Princess in the world; Who now supposed me sick, and was perchance Upon her knees offering up holy vows For him who mock’d both Heav’n and her, and was Now breaking of that vow he made her, when With sacrifice he call’d the Gods to witness: When she urged this, and wept, and spake so like My poor deluded Queen, Pyrrhus, I trembled; Almost persuaded that it was her angel Spake thro’ Urania’s lips, who for her sake Took care of me, as something she much loved. It would be long to tell thee all she said, How oft she sigh’d, how bitterly she wept: But the effect--Urania still is chaste; And with her chaster lips hath promised to Invoke blest Heav’n for my intended sin.
C. L.
[43] Is it possible that Cowper might have remembered this sentiment in his description of the advantages which the world, that scorns him, may derive from the noiseless hours of the contemplative man?
Perhaps she owes Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes, When, Isaac-like, the solitary saint Walks forth to meditate at eventide, And think on her, who thinks not on herself.
_Task._
* * * * *
THE CUSHION DANCE.
_For the Table Book._
The concluding dance at a country wake, or other general meeting, is the “Cushion Dance;” and if it be not called for when the company are tired with dancing, the fiddler, who has an interest in it which will be seen hereafter, frequently plays the tune to remind them of it. A young man of the company leaves the room; the poor young women, uninformed of the plot against them, suspecting nothing; but he no sooner returns, bearing a cushion in one hand and a pewter pot in the other, than they are aware of the mischief intended, and would certainly make their escape, had not the bearer of cushion and pot, aware of the invincible aversion which young women have to be saluted by young men, prevented their flight by locking the door, and putting the key in his pocket. The dance then begins.
The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to one of his companions; cushion then dances round the room, followed by pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion says in a sort of recitative, accompanied by the music, “This dance it will no farther go.”
The fiddler, in return, sings or says, for it partakes of both, “I pray, kind sir, why say you so?”
The answer is, “Because Joan Sanderson won’t come to.”
“But,” replies the fiddler, “she must come to, and she shall come to, whether she will or no.”
The young man, thus armed with the authority of the village musician, recommences his dance round the room, but stops when he comes to the girl he likes best, and drops the cushion at her feet; she puts her penny in the pewter pot, and kneels down with the young man on the cushion, and he salutes her.
When they rise, the woman takes up the cushion, and leads the dance, the man following, and holding the skirt of her gown; and having made the circuit of the room, they stop near the fiddler, and the same dialogue is repeated, except, as it is now the woman who speaks, it is _John_ Sanderson who won’t come to, and the fiddler’s mandate is issued to _him_, not her.
The woman drops the cushion at the feet of her favourite man; the same ceremony and the same dance are repeated, till every man and woman, the pot bearer last, has been taken out, and all have danced round the room in a file.
The pence are the perquisite of the fiddler.
H. N.
P.S. There is a description of this dance in Miss Hutton’s “Oakwood Hall.”
* * * * *
THE CUSHION DANCE.
_For the Table Book._
“Saltabamus.”
The village-green is clear and dight Under the starlight sky; Joy in the cottage reigns to night, And brightens every eye: The peasants of the valley meet Their labours to advance, And many a lip invites a treat To celebrate the “Cushion Dance.”
A pillow in the room they hide, The door they slily lock; The bold the bashful damsels chide, Whose heart’s-pulse seem to rock: “Escape?”--“Not yet!--no key is found!”-- “Of course, ’tis lost by chance;”-- And flutt’ring whispers breathe around “The Cushion Dance!--The Cushion Dance!”
The fiddler in a corner stands, He gives, he rules the game; A rustic takes a maiden’s hands Whose cheek is red with shame: At custom’s shrine they seal their truth, Love fails not here to glance;-- Happy the heart that beats in youth, And dances in the “Cushion Dance!”
The pillow’s carried round and round, The fiddler speaks and plays; The choice is made,--the charm is wound, And parleys conquer nays:-- “For shame! I will not thus be kiss’d, Your beard cuts like a lance; Leave off--I’m sure you’ve sprained my wrist By kneeling in this ‘Cushion Dance!’”
“’Tis aunt’s turn,--what in tears?--I thought You dearly loved a joke; Kisses are sweeter stol’n than bought, And vows are sometimes broke. Play up!--play up!--aunt chooses Ben; Ben loves so sweet a trance! Robin to Nelly kneels again, --Is Love not in the ‘Cushion dance?’”
Laughter is busy at the heart, Cupid looks through the eye, Feeling is dear when sorrows part And plaintive comfort’s nigh, “Hide not in corners, Betsy, pray,” “Do not so colt-like prance; One kiss, for memory’s future day, --Is Life not like a ‘Cushion Dance?’”
“This Dance it will no further go!” “Why say you thus, good man?” “Joan Sanderson will not come to!” “She must,--’tis ‘Custom’s’ plan:” “Whether she will or no, must she The proper course advance; Blushes, like blossoms on a tree, Are lovely in the ‘Cushion Dance.’”
“This Dance it will no further go!” “Why say you thus, good lady?” “John Sanderson will not come to!” “Fie, John! the Cushion’s ready:” “He must come to, he shall come to, ’Tis Mirth’s right throne pleasance; How dear the scene, in Nature’s view To Lovers in a ‘Cushion Dance!’”
“Ho! princum prancum!”--Love is blest, Both Joan and John submit; Friends smiling gather round and rest. And sweethearts closely sit;-- Their feet and spirits languid grown, Eyes, bright in silence, glance Like suns on seeds of beauty sown, And nourish’d in the “Cushion Dance.”
In times to come, when older we Have children round our knees; How will our hearts rejoice to see Their lips and eyes at ease. Talk ye of Swiss in valley-streams, Of joyous pairs in France; None of their hopes-delighting dreams Are equal to the “Cushion Dance.”
’Twas here my Maiden’s love I drew By the hushing of her bosom; She knelt, her mouth and press were true, And sweet as rose’s blossom:-- E’er since, though onward we to glory, And cares our lives enhance, Reflection dearly tells the “story”-- Hail!--hail!--thou “happy Cushion Dance.”
J. R. PRIOR.
_Islington._
* * * * *
ST. SEPULCHRE’S BELL.
_For the Table Book._
On the right-hand side of the altar of St. Sepulchre’s church is a board, with a list of charitable donations and gifts, containing the following item:--
£. _s._ _d._ 1605. Mr. Robert Dowe gave 50 0 0 for ringing the greatest bell in this church on the day the condemned prisoners are executed, and for other services, _for ever_, concerning such condemned prisoners, for which services _the sexton_ is paid £1. 6_s._ 8_d._
Looking over an old volume of the Newgate Calendar, I found some elucidation of this inscription. In a narrative of the case of Stephen Gardner, (who was executed at Tyburn, February 3, 1724,) it is related that a person said to Gardner, when he was set at liberty on a former occasion, “Beware how you come here again, or the _bellman_ will certainly say his verses over you.” On this saying there is the following remark:--
“It has been a very ancient practice, on the night preceding the execution of condemned criminals, for the _bellman_ of the parish of St. Sepulchre, to go under Newgate, and, ringing his bell, to repeat the following verses, as a piece of friendly advice to the unhappy wretches under sentence of death:--
All you that in the condemn’d hold do lie, Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die; Watch all, and pray, the hour is drawing near, That you before the Almighty must appear: Examine well yourselves, in time repent, That you may not to eternal flames be sent. And when St. Sepulchre’s bell to-morrow tolls, The Lord above have mercy on your souls! Past twelve o’clock!”
In the following extract from Stowe’s London,[44] it will be shown that the above verses ought to be repeated by a clergyman, instead of a bellman:--
“Robert Doue, citizen and merchant taylor, of London, gave to the parish church of St. Sepulchres, the somme of £50. That after the several sessions of London, when the prisoners remain in the gaole, as condemned men to death, expecting execution on the morrow following: the _clarke_ (that is the _parson_) of the church shoold come in the night time, and likewise early in the morning, to the window of the prison where they lye, and there ringing certain toles with a hand-bell appointed for the purpose, he doth afterwards (in most Christian manner) put them in mind of their present condition, and ensuing execution, desiring them to be prepared therefore as they ought to be. When they are in the cart, and brought before the wall of the church, there he standeth ready with the same bell, and, after certain toles, rehearseth an appointed praier, desiring all the people there present to pray for them. The beadle also of Merchant Taylors’ Hall hath an honest stipend allowed to see that this is duely done.”
Probably the discontinuance of this practice commenced when malefactors were first executed at Newgate, in lieu of Tyburn. The donation most certainly refers to the verses. What the “_other services_” are which the donor intended to be done, and for which the sexton is paid £1. 6_s._ 8_d._, and which are to be “_for ever_,” I do not know, but I presume those services (or some other) are now continued, as the board which contains the donation seems to me to have been newly painted.
EDWIN S----.
_Carthusian-street, Jan. 1827._
[44] Page 25 of the quarto edition, 1618.
* * * * *
THE DEATH OF THE RED KING
“Come, listen to a tale of times of old; Come, for ye know me.”
SOUTHEY.
Who is it that rides thro’ the forest so green, And gazes with joy on the beautiful scene, With the gay prancing war-horse, and helmeted head? ’Tis the monarch of England, stern William the Red.
Why starts the proud courser? what vision is there? The trees are scarce mov’d by the still breathing air-- All is hush’d, save the wild bird that carols on high, The forest bee’s hum, and the rivulet’s sigh.
But, lo! a dark form o’er the pathway hath lean’d ’Tis the druid of Malwood, the wild forest-fiend The terror of youth, of the aged the fear-- The prophet of Cadenham, the death-boding seer!
His garments were black as the night-raven’s plume. His features were veil’d in mysterious gloom, His lean arm was awfully rais’d while he said, “Well met, England’s monarch, stern William the Red!
“Desolation, death, ruin, the mighty shall fall-- Lamentation and woe reign in Malwood’s wide hall! Those leaves shall all fade in the winter’s rude blast, And thou shalt lie low ere the winter be past.”
“Thou liest, vile caitiff, ’tis false, by the rood, For know that the contract is seal’d with my blood, ’Tis written, I never shall sleep in the tomb Till Cadenham’s oak in the winter shall bloom!
“But say what art thou, strange, unsearchable thing, That dares to speak treason, and waylay a king?”-- “Know, monarch, I dwell in the beautiful bowers Of Eden, and poison I shed o’er the flowers.
“In darkness and storm o’er the ocean I sail, I ride on the breath of the night-rolling gale-- I dwell in Vesuvius, ’mid torrents of flame, Unriddle my riddle, and tell me my name!”
O pale grew the monarch, and smote on his breast, For who was the prophet he wittingly guess’d: “_O, Jesu-Maria!_” he tremblingly said, “_Bona Virgo!_”--he gazed--but the vision had fled.
’Tis winter--the trees of the forest are bare, How keenly is blowing the chilly night air! The moonbeams shine brightly on hard-frozen flood, And William is riding thro’ Cadenham’s wood.
Why looks he with dread on the blasted oak tree? Saint Swithin! what is it the monarch can see? Prophetical sight! ’mid the desolate scene, The oak is array’d in the freshest of green!
He thought of the contract, “Thou’rt safe from the tomb, Till Cadenham’s oak in the winter shall bloom;” He thought of the druid--“The mighty shall fall, Lamentation and woe reign in Malwood’s wide hall.”
As he stood near the tree, lo! a swift flying dart Hath struck the proud monarch, and pierc’d thro’ his heart; ’Twas the deed of a friend, not the deed of a foe, For the arrow was aim’d at the breast of a roe.
In Malwood is silent the light-hearted glee, The dance and the wassail, and wild revelrie; Its chambers are dreary, deserted, and lone, And the day of its greatness for ever hath flown.
A weeping is heard in Saint Swithin’s huge pile-- “_Dies Iræ_” resounds thro’ the sable-dight aisle-- ’Tis a dirge for the mighty, the mass for the dead-- The funeral anthem for William the Red!
AQUILA.
* * * * *
~London.~
DESCRIBED BY A WRITER IN 1634.
I will first take a survey of the long-continued deformity in the shape of your city, which is of your buildings.
Sure your ancestors contrived your narrow streets in the days of wheel-barrows, before those greater engines, carts, were invented. Is your climate so hot, that as you walk you need umbrellas of tiles to intercept the sun? or are your shambles so empty, that you are afraid to take in fresh air, lest it should sharpen your stomachs? Oh, the goodly landscape of Old Fish-street! which, if it had not the ill luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to have been your founder’s perspective; and where the garrets, perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity, are so narrow, that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home. Is unanimity of inhabitants in wide cities better exprest than by their coherence and uniformity of building, where streets begin, continue, and end, in a like stature and shape?[45] But yours, as if they were raised in a general resurrection, where every man hath a several design, differ in all things that can make a distinction. Here stands one that aims to be a palace, and next it, one that professes to be a hovel; here a giant, there a dwarf; here slender, there broad; and all most admirably different in faces, as well as in their height and bulk. I was about to defy any Londoner, who dares to pretend there is so much ingenious correspondence in this city, as that he can show me one house like another; yet your houses seem to be reversed and formal, being compared to the fantastical looks of the moderns, which have more ovals, niches, and angles, than in your custards, and are enclosed with pasteboard walls, like those of malicious Turks, who, because themselves are not immortal, and cannot dwell for ever where they build, therefore wish not to be at charge to provide such lastingness as may entertain their children out of the rain; so slight and prettily gaudy, that if they could move, they would pass for pageants. It is your custom, where men vary often the mode of their habits, to term the nation fantastical; but where streets continually change fashion, you should make haste to chain up your city, for it is certainly mad.
You would think me a malicious traveller, if I should still gaze on your mis-shapen streets, and take no notice of the beauty of your river, therefore I will pass the importunate noise of your watermen, (who snatch at fares, as if they were to catch prisoners, plying the gentry so uncivilly, as if they had never rowed any other passengers than bear-wards,) and now step into one of your peascod-boats, whose tilts are not so sumptuous as the roofs of gondolas; nor, when you are within, are you at the ease of a _chaise-à-bras_.
The commodity and trade of your river belong to yourselves; but give a stranger leave to share in the pleasure of it, which will hardly be in the prospect and freedom of air; unless prospect, consisting of variety, be made up with here a palace, there a wood-yard; here a garden, there a brewhouse; here dwells a lord, there a dyer; and between both, _duomo commune_.
If freedom of air be inferred in the liberty of the subject, where every private man hath authority, for his own profit, to smoke up a magistrate, then the air of your Thames is open enough, because it is equally free. I will forbear to visit your courtly neighbours at Wapping, not that it will make me giddy to shoot your bridge, but that I am loath to describe the civil silence at Billingsgate, which is so great, as if the mariners were always landing to storm the harbour; therefore, for brevity’s sake, I will put to shore again, though I should be so constrained, even without my galoshes, to land at Puddle-dock.
I am now returned to visit your houses where the roofs are so low, that I presumed your ancestors were very mannerly, and stood bare to their wives; for I cannot discern how they could wear their high-crowned hats: yet I will enter, and therein oblige you much, when you know my aversion to a certain weed that governs amongst your coarser acquaintance, as much as lavender among your coarser linen; to which, in my apprehension, your sea-coal smoke seems a very Portugal perfume. I should here hasten to a period, for fear of suffocation, if I thought you so ungracious as to use it in public assemblies; and yet I see it grow so much in fashion, that methinks your children begin to play with broken pipes instead of corals, to make way for their teeth. You will find my visit short; I cannot stay to eat with you, because your bread is too heavy, and you distrain the light substance of herbs. Your drink is too thick, and yet you are seldom over curious in washing your glasses. Nor will I lodge with you, because your beds seem no bigger than coffins; and your curtains so short, as they will hardly serve to enclose your carriers in summer, and may be held, if taffata, to have lined your grandsire’s skirts.
I have now left your houses, and am passing through your streets, but not in a coach, for they are uneasily hung, and so narrow, that I took them for sedans upon wheels. Nor is it safe for a stranger to use them till the quarrel be decided, whether six of your nobles, sitting together, shall stop and give way to as many barrels of beer. Your city is the only metropolis in Europe, where there is wonderful dignity belonging to carts.
I would now make a safe retreat, but that methinks I am stopped by one of your heroic games called foot-ball; which I conceive (under your favour) not very conveniently civil in the streets, especially in such irregular and narrow roads as Crooked-lane. Yet it argues your courage, much like your military pastime of throwing at cocks; but your metal would be much magnified (since you have long allowed those two valiant exercises in the streets) were you to draw your archers from Finsbury, and, during high market, let them shoot at butts in Cheapside. I have now no more to say, but what refers to a few private notes, which I shall give you in a whisper, when we meet in Moorfields, from whence (because the place was meant for public pleasure, and to show the munificence of your city) I shall desire you to banish your laundresses and bleachers, whose acres of old linen make a show like the fields of Carthagena, when the five months’ shifts of the whole fleet are washed and spread.[46]
[45] If a disagreement of neighbours were to be inferred from such a circumstance, what but an unfavourable inference would be drawn from our modern style of architecture, as exemplified in Regent-street, where the houses are, as the leopard’s spots are described to be, “no two alike, and every one different.”
[46] Sir W. Davenant.
* * * * *
A FATHER’S HOME.
_For the Table Book._
When oppress’d by the world, or fatigu’d with its charms, My weary steps homeward I tread-- ’Tis there, midst the prattlers that fly to my arms, I enjoy purer pleasures instead.
Hark! the rap at the door is known as their dad’s, And rushing at once to the lock, Wide open it flies, while the lasses and lads Bid me welcome as chief of the flock.
Little _baby_ himself leaves the breast for a gaze Glad to join in th’ general joy, While with outstretched arms and looks of amaze He seizes the new purchas’d toy.
Then _Harry_, the next, climbs the knee to engage His father’s attention again; But _Bob_, springing forward almost in a rage, Resolves his own rights to maintain.
Oh, ye vot’ries of pleasure and folly’s sad crew, From your midnight carousals depart! Look here for true joys, ever blooming and new, When I press _both_ these boys to my heart.
Poor grimalkin purs softly--the tea-kettle sings, Midst glad faces and innocent hearts, Encircling my table as happy as kings, Right merrily playing their parts.
And _Bill_ (the sly rogue) takes a lump, when he’s able, Of sugar, so temptingly sweet, And, archly observing, hides under the table The spoil, till he’s ready to eat.
While _George_, the big boy, talks of terrible “sums” He perform’d so correctly at school; _Bill_ leeringly tells, with his chin on his thumbs, “He was whipt there for playing the fool!”
This raises a strife, till in choleric mood Each ventures a threat to his brother, But their hearts are so good, let a stranger intrude, They’d fight to the last for each other.
There _Nan_, the sweet girl, she that fags for the whole, And keeps the young urchins in order, Exhibits, with innocence charming the soul, Her sister’s fine sampler and border.
_Kitty_ sings to me gaily, then chatting apace Helps her mother to darn or to stitch, Reminding me most of that gay laughing face Which once did my fond heart bewitch.
While _she!_ the dear partner of all my delight, Contrives them some innocent play; Till, tired of all, in the silence of night, They dream the glad moments away.
Oh, long may such fire-side scenes be my lot! Ye children, be virtuous and true! And think when I’m aged, alone in my cot, How I minister’d comfort to you.
When my vigour is gone, and to manhood’s estate Ye all shall be happily grown, Live near me, and, anxious for poor father’s fate Show the world that you’re truly my own.
[Illustration: ~Stanmore Toll-House.~]
Its ornamental look, and public use, Combine to render it worth observation.
Our new toll-houses are deservedly the subject of frequent remark, on account of their beauty. The preceding engraving is intended to convey an idea of Stanmore-gate, which is one of the handsomest near London. The top is formed into a large lantern; when illuminated, it is an important mark to drivers in dark nights.
It may be necessary to add, that the present representation was not destined to appear in this place; but the indisposition of a gentleman engaged to assist in illustrating this work, has occasioned a sudden disappointment.
* * * * *
“STATUTES” AND “MOPS.”
_To the Editor._
Sir,--Although your unique and curious work, the _Every-Day Book_, abounds with very interesting accounts of festivals, fairs, wassails, wakes, and other particulars concerning our country manners, and will be prized by future generations as a rare and valuable collection of the pastimes and customs of their forefathers, still much of the same nature remains to be related; and as I am anxious that the _Country Statute_, or _Mop_, (according to the version of the country people generally,) should be snatched from oblivion, I send you a description of this custom, which, I hope, will be deemed worthy a place in the _Table Book_. I had waited to see if some one more competent to a better account than myself would achieve the task, when that short but significant word FINIS, attached to the _Every-Day Book_, arouses me from further delay, and I delineate, as well as I am able, scenes which, but for that work, I possibly should have never noticed.
Some months ago I solicited the assistance of a friend, a respectable farmer, residing at Wootton, in Warwickshire, who not only very readily promised to give me every information he possessed on the subject, but proposed that I should pass a week at his farm at the time these Statutes were holding. So valuable an opportunity of visiting them and making my own observations, I, of course, readily embraced. Before I proceed to lay before you the results, it may be as well, perhaps, to give something like a definition of the name applied to this peculiar custom, as also when and for what purpose the usage was established. “Statutes,” or “Statute Sessions,” otherwise called “Petit Sessions,” are meetings, in every hundred of each shire in England where they are held, to which the constables and others, both householders and servants, repair for the determining of differences between masters and servants; the rating, by the sheriff or magistrates, of wages for the ensuing year; and the bestowing of such people in service as are able to serve, and refuse to seek, or cannot get masters.
The first act of parliament for regulating servants’ wages passed in the year 1351, 25th Edward III. At an early period labourers were serfs, or slaves, and consequently there was no law upon the subject. The immediate cause of the act of Edward III. was that plague which wasted Europe from 1347 to 1349, and destroyed a great proportion of its inhabitants. The consequent scarcity of labourers, and the high price demanded for labour, caused those who employed them to obtain legislative enactments, imposing fines on all who gave or accepted more than a stipulated sum. Since that period there have been various regulations of a similar nature. By the 13th of Richard II. the justices of every county were to meet once a year, between Easter and Michaelmas, to regulate, according to circumstances, the rates of wages of agricultural servants for the year ensuing, and cause the same to be proclaimed. But though this power was confirmed to the justices by the 5th of Elizabeth, this part of the custom of Statute Sessions is almost, if not quite, fallen into disuse. It is probable that in the years immediately succeeding the first enactment the population was so restored as to cause the laws to be relaxed, though they still remain as an example of the wisdom of past ages. However this may be, it is certain, that all that is at present understood by “Statutes,” or, as the vulgar call them, “Mops,” is the assembling of masters and servants, the former to seek the latter, and the latter to obtain employment of the former. It is undoubtedly a mutual accommodation; for although the servants now rate and ask what wages they think fit, still they have an opportunity of knowing how wages are usually going, and the masters have hundreds, and, in some cases, thousands of servants to choose from.
The “Statute” I first attended was held at Studley, in Warwickshire, at the latter end of September. On arriving, between twelve and one o’clock, at the part of the Alcester road where the assembly was held, the place was filling very fast by groups of persons of almost all descriptions from every quarter. Towards three o’clock there must have been many thousands present. The appearance of the whole may be pretty accurately portrayed to the mind of those who have witnessed a country fair; the sides of the roads were occupied with stalls for gingerbread, cakes, &c., general assortments of hardware, japanned goods, waggoner’s frocks, and an endless variety of wearing apparel, suitable to every class, from the farm bailiff, or dapper footman, to the unassuming ploughboy, or day-labourer.
The public-houses were thoroughly full, not excepting even the private chambers. The scene out of doors was enlivened, here and there, by some wandering minstrel, or fiddler, round whom stood a crowd of men and boys, who, at intervals, eagerly joined to swell the chorus of the song. Although there was as large an assemblage as could be well remembered, both of masters and servants, I was given to understand that there was very little hiring. This might happen from a twofold cause; first, on account of its being one of the early Statutes, and, secondly, from the circumstance of the servants asking what was deemed (considering the pressure of the times) exorbitant wages. The servants were, for the most part, bedecked in their best church-going clothes. The men also wore clean white frocks, and carried in their hats some emblem or insignia of the situation they had been accustomed to or were desirous to fill: for instance, a waggoner, or ploughboy, had a piece of whipcord in his hat, some of it ingeniously plaited in a variety of ways and entwined round the hatband; a cow-man, after the same manner, had some cow-hair; and to those already mentioned there was occasionally added a piece of sponge; a shepherd had wool; a gardener had flowers, &c. &c.
The girls wishing to be hired were in a spot apart from the men and boys, and all stood not unlike cattle at a fair waiting for dealers. Some of them held their hands before them, with one knee protruding, (like soldiers standing at ease,) and never spoke, save when catechised and examined by a master or mistress as to the work they had been accustomed to; and then you would scarce suppose they had learned to say anything but “Ees, sur,” or “No, sur,” for these were almost the only expressions that fell from their lips. Others, on the contrary, exercised no small degree of self-sufficient loquacity concerning their abilities, which not unusually consisted of a good proportion of main strength, or being able to drive or follow a variety of kinds of plough. Where a master or mistress was engaged in conversation with a servant they were usually surrounded by a group, with their mouths extended to an angle of near forty-five degrees, as if to catch the sounds at the aperture; this in some, perhaps, was mere idle curiosity, in others, from desire to know the wages asked and given, as a guide for themselves. I observed a seeming indifference about the servants in securing situations. They appeared to require a certain sum for wages, without reference to any combination of circumstances or the state of the times; and however exorbitant, they rarely seemed disposed to meet the master by proposing something lower; they would stand for some time and hear reasons why wages should be more moderate, and at the conclusion, when you would suppose they were either willing, in some measure, to accede to the terms, or to offer reasons why they should not, you were mortified to know, that the usual answer was, “Yo’ll find me yarn it, sur,” or “I conna gue for less.”
When a bargain is concluded on at a “Statute,” it is the custom to ratify it immediately, and on the spot, by the master presenting to the servant what is termed “earnest money,” which is usually one shilling, but it varies according to circumstances; for instance, if a servant agrees to come for less than he at first asked, it is, perhaps, on the condition that his earnest is augmented, probably doubled or trebled, as may be agreed on.
The contract arises upon the hiring: if the hiring be general, without any particular time limited, the law construes it to be hiring for one year; but the contract may be made for any longer or shorter period. Many farmers are wary enough to hire their servants for fifty-one weeks only, which prevents them having any claim upon that particular parish in case of distress, &c. We frequently find disputes between two parishes arising out of Statute-hirings brought to the assizes or sessions for settlement.
When the hiring is over, the emblems in the hats are exchanged for ribbons of almost every hue. Some retire to the neighbouring grounds to have games at bowls, skittles, or pitching, &c. &c., whilst the more unwary are fleeced of their money by the itinerant Greeks and black legs with E. O. tables, pricking in the garter, the three thimbles &c. &c. These tricksters seldom fail to reap abundant harvests at the Statutes. Towards evening each lad seeks his lass, and they hurry off to spend the night at the public-houses, or, as is the case in some small villages, at private houses, which, on these occasions, are licensed for the time being.
To attempt to delineate the scenes that now present themselves, would on my part be presumption indeed. It rather requires the pencil of Hogarth to do justice to this varied picture. Here go round the
“Song and dance, and mirth and glee;”
but I cannot add, with the poet,
“In one _continued_ round of harmony:”
for, among such a mingled mass, it is rare but that in some part discord breaks in upon the rustic amusements of the peaceably inclined. The rooms of the several houses are literally crammed, and usually remain so throughout the night, unless they happen to be under restrictions from the magistrates, in which case the houses are shut at a stated hour, or the license risked. Clearances, however, are not easily effected. At a village not far from hence, it has, ere now, been found necessary to disturb the reverend magistrate from his peaceful slumbers, and require his presence to quell disturbances that almost, as a natural consequence, ensue, from the landlords and proprietors of the houses attempting to turn out guests, who, under the influence of liquor, pay little regard to either landlord or magistrate. The most peaceable way of dealing, is to allow them to remain till the morning dawn breaks in and warns them home.
The time for Statute-hiring commences about the beginning of September, and usually closes before old Michaelmas-day, that being the day on which servants enter on their new services, or, at least, quit their old ones. Yet there are some few Statutes held after this time, which are significantly styled “Runaway Mops;” one of this kind is held at Henley-in-Arden, on the 29th of October, being also St. Luke’s fair. Three others are held at Southam, in Warwickshire, on the three successive Mondays after old Michaelmas-day. To these Statutes all repair, who, from one cause or other, decline to go to their new places, together with others who had not been fortunate enough to obtain situations. Masters, however, consider it rather hazardous to hire at these Statutes, as they are in danger of engaging with servants already hired, who capriciously refuse to go to their employment; and if any person hire or retain a servant so engaged, the first hirer has his action for damages against the master and servant; yet, if the new master did not know his servant had been hired before, no action will lie against him, except he refuse to give him up on information and demand. Characters are sometimes required by the master hiring; and these, to the great detriment of society, are given in such a loose and unreserved manner, that (to use the language of the author of the Rambler) you may almost as soon depend on the circumstance of an acquittal at the Old Bailey by way of recommendation to a servant’s honesty, as upon one of these characters.
If a master discovers that a servant is not capable of performing the stipulated work, or is of bad character, he may send the servant to drink the “earnest money;” and custom has rendered this sufficient to dissolve the contract. On the other hand, if a servant has been deceived by the master in any particular, a release is obtained by returning the “earnest.” If, however, there is no just ground of complaint, it is at the master’s option to accept it, and _vice versâ_. The Statutes I have visited for the purpose of gaining these particulars are Studley, Shipston-on-Stour, and Aston-Cantlow, all in Warwickshire. I observed no particular difference either in the business or the diversions of the day, but Studley was by far the largest. At Stratford-on-Avon, and some other places, there is bull-roasting, &c., which, of course, adds to the amusement and frolic of the visitors.
I believe I have now pretty well exhausted my notes, and I should not have been thus particular, but that I believe Statute-hiring is a custom peculiar to England. I shall conclude by making an extract from Isaac Bickerstaffe’s “Love in a Village.” In scenes the 10th and 11th there is a green, with the prospect of a village, and the representation of a Statute, and the following conversation, &c. takes place:--
_Hodge._ This way, your worship, this way. Why don’t you stand aside there? Here’s his worship a-coming.
_Countrymen._ His worship!
_Justice Woodcock._ Fy! fy! what a crowd’s this! Odds, I’ll put some of them in the stocks. (_Striking a fellow._) Stand out of the way, sirrah.
_Hodge._ Now, your honour, now the sport will come. The gut-scrapers are here, and some among them are going to sing and dance. Why, there’s not the like of our Statute, mun, in five counties; others are but fools to it.
_Servant Man._ Come, good people, make a ring; and stand out, fellow-servants, as many of you as are willing and able to bear a-bob. We’ll let my masters and mistresses see we can do something at least; if they won’t hire us it sha’n’t be our fault. Strike up the Servants’ Medley.
AIR.
_Housemaid._
I pray, gentles, list to me, I’m young and strong, and clean, you see; I’ll not turn tail to any she, For work that’s in the country. Of all your house the charge I take, I wash, I scrub, I brew, I bake; And more can do than here I’ll speak, Depending on your bounty.
_Footman._
Behold a blade, who knows his trade. In chamber, hall, and entry: And what though here I now appear, I’ve served the best of gentry. A footman would you have, I can dress, and comb, and shave; For I a handy lad am: On a message I can go, And slip a billet-doux, With your humble servant, madam.
_Cookmaid._
Who wants a good cook my hand they must cross; For plain wholesome dishes I’m ne’er at a loss; And what are your soups, your ragouts, and your sauce, Compared to old English roast beef?
_Carter._
If you want a young man with a true honest heart, Who knows how to manage a plough and a cart, Here’s one to your purpose, come take me and try; You’ll say you ne’er met with a better than I, Geho, dobin, &c.
_Chorus._
My masters and mistresses hither repair, What servants you want you’ll find in our fair; Men and maids fit for all sorts of stations there be, And as for the wages we sha’n’t disagree.
Presuming that these memoranda may amuse a number of persons who, chiefly living in large towns and cities, have no opportunity of being otherwise acquainted with “Statutes,” or “Mops,” in country-places,
I am, &c.
_Birmingham._
W. PARE
* * * * *
HAM AND STILTON.
_For the Table Book._
THE POET’S EPISTLE OF THANKS TO A FRIEND AT BIRMINGHAM.
“Perlege Mæonio cantatas carmine ranas, Et frontem nugi, solvere disce meis.”
MARY.
Dear Friend,--I feel constrain’d to say, The present sent the other day Claims my best thanks, and while design’d To please the taste, it warm’d my mind. Nor, wonder not it should inspire Within my breast poetic fire!
The Cheese seem’d like some growing state, Compos’d of little folks and great; Though we denominate them _mites_, They call each other Stiltonites. And ’tis most fit, where’er we live, The land our epithet should give: Romans derive their name from Rome, And Turks, you know, from Turkey come.
Gazing with “microscopic eye” O’er Stilton land, I did espy Such wonders, as would make those stare Who never peep’d or travell’d there. The country where this race reside Abounds with crags on ev’ry side: Its geographic situation Is under constant variation; Now hurried up, then down again-- No fix’d abode can it maintain: And, like the Lilliputian clime, We read about in olden time, Huge giants compass it about, Who dig within, and cut without, And at a mouthful--direful fate! A city oft depopulate!
And, then, in Stilton, you must know There is a spot, call’d _Rotten-row_; A soil more marshy than the rest, Therefore by some esteem’d the best. The natives here, whene’er they dine, Drink nothing but the choicest wine; Which through each street comes flowing down, Like water in New Sarum’s town. In such a quarter, you may guess, The leading vice is drunkenness. Come hither any hour of day, And you shall see whole clusters lay Reeling and floundering about, As though it were a madman’s rout. Those who dwell nearer the land’s end, Where rarely the _red show’rs_ descend, Are in their turns corporeal More sober and gymnastical Meandering in kindred dust, They gauge, and with the _dry-rot_ burst, For we may naturally think, They live not long who cannot drink. Alas! poor Stilton! where’s the muse To sing thy downfall will refuse? Melpomene, in mournful verse, Thy dire destruction will rehearse: Comus himself shall grieve and weep, As notes of woe his gay lyre sweep; For who among thy countless band The fierce invaders can withstand? Nor only _foreign_ foes are thine-- Children thou hast, who undermine Thy massive walls that ’girt thee round. And ev’ry corner seems unsound. A few more weeks, and we shall see Stilton, the fam’d-will cease to be!
Before, however, I conclude, I wish to add, that gratitude Incites me to another theme Beside coagulated cream. ’Tis not about the _village_ Ham, Nor yet the _place_ call’d Petersham-- Nor more renowned Birmingham: Nor is it _fried_ or _Friar Bacon_, The Muse commands me verse to make on. Nor _pig_mies, (as the poet feigns,) A people once devour’d by cranes, Of these I speak not--my intention Is something nearer home to mention; Therefore, at once, for pig’s hind leg Accept my warmest thanks, I beg. The meat was of the finest sort, And worthy of a dish at court.
Lastly, I gladly would express The grateful feelings I possess For such a boon--th’ attempt is vain, And hence in wisdom I refrain From saying more than what you see-- Farewell! sincerely yours,
B.C.
To E. T. Esq.
_Jan. 1827._
* * * * *
LOVES OF THE NEGROES.
AT NEW PALTZ, UNITED STATES.
_Phillis Schoonmaker_ v. _Cuff Hogeboon_.
This was an action for a breach of the marriage promise, tried before ’squire De Witt, justice of the peace and quorum. The parties, as their names indicate, were black, or, as philanthropists would say, _coloured folk_. Counsellor Van Shaick appealed on behalf of the lady. He recapitulated the many verdicts which had been given of late in favour of injured innocence, much to the honour and gallantry of an American jury. It was time to put an end to these faithless professions, to these cold-hearted delusions; it was time to put a curb upon the false tongues and false hearts of pretended lovers, who, with honied accents, only woo’d to ruin, and only professed to deceive. The worthy counsellor trusted that no injurious impressions would be made on the minds of the jury by the colour of his client--
“’Tis not a set of features, This _tincture of the skin_, that we admire.”
She was black, it was true; so was the honoured wife of Moses, the most illustrious and inspired of prophets. Othello, the celebrated Moor of Venice, and the victorious general of her armies, was black, yet the lovely Desdemona saw “Othello’s visage in his mind.” In modern times, we might quote his sable majesty of Hayti, or, since that country had become a republic, the gallant Boyer.--He could also refer to Rhio Rhio, king of the Sandwich Islands, his copper-coloured queen, and madame Poki, so hospitably received, and fed to death by their colleague the king of England--nay, the counsellor was well advised that the brave general Sucre, the hero of Ayacucho, was a dark mulatto. What, then, is colour in estimating the griefs of a forsaken and ill-treated female? She was poor, it was true, and in a humble sphere of life; but love levels all distinctions; the blind god was no judge, and no respecter of colours; his darts penetrated deep, not skin deep; his client, though black, was flesh and blood, and possessed affections, passions, resentments, and sensibilities; and in this case she confidently threw herself upon the generosity of a jury of freemen--of men of the north, as the friends of the northern president would say, of men who did not live in Missouri, and on sugar plantations; and from such his client expected just and liberal damages.
Phillis then advanced to the bar, to give her testimony. She was, as her counsel represented, truly made up of flesh and blood, being what is called a strapping wench, as black as the ace of spades. She was dressed in the low Dutch fashion, which has not varied for a century, linsey-woolsey petticoats, very short, blue worsted stockings, leather shoes, with a massive pair of silver buckles, bead ear-rings, her woolly hair combed, and face sleek and greasy. There was no “dejected ’haviour of visage”--no broken heart visible in her face--she looked fat and comfortable, as if she had sustained no damage by the perfidy of her swain. Before she was sworn, the court called the defendant, who came from among the crowd, and stood respectfully before the bench. Cuff was a good-looking young fellow, with a tolerably smartish dress, and appeared as if he had been in the metropolis taking lessons of perfidious lovers--he cast one or two cutting looks at Phillis, accompanied by a significant turn up of the nose, and now and then a contemptuous ejaculation of Eh!--Umph!--Ough!--which did not disconcert the _fair_ one in the least, she returning the compliment by placing her arms a-kimbo, and surveying her lover from head to foot. The court inquired of Cuff whether he had counsel? “No, massa, (he replied) I tell my own ’tory--you see massa ’Squire, I know de gentlemen of de jury berry vell--dere is massa Teerpenning, of Little ’Sophus, know him berry vell--I plough for him;--den dere is massa Traphagan, of our town--how he do massa?--ah, dere massa Topper, vat prints de paper at Big ’Sophus--know him too;--dere is massa Peet Steenberg--know him too--he owe me little money:--I know ’em all massa ’Squire;--I did go to get massa Lucas to plead for me, but he gone to the Court of Error, at Albany;--Massa Sam Freer and massa Cockburn said they come to gib me good character, but I no see ’em here.”
Cuff was ordered to stand aside, and Phillis was sworn.
Plaintiff said she did not know how old she was; believed she was sixteen; she looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with Hons Schoonmaker; was brought up in the family. She told her case as pathetically as possible:--
“Massa ’Squire,” said she, “I was gone up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on Shaungum mountain, to pile brush; den Cuff, he vat stands dare, cum by vid de teem, he top his horses and say, ‘How de do, Phillis?’ or, as she gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘How gaud it mit you’ ‘Hail goot,’ said I; den massa he look at me berry hard, and say, Phillis, pose you meet me in the nite, ven de moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to say--den I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill--he vent up de mountain, and I vent home; ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I say to myself, Phillis, pose you go down to de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. Well, massa ’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff sure enough, he told heaps of tings all about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, and other tings vat he got out of de playhouse ven he vent down in the slope to New York, and he ax’d me if I’d marry him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat preached in Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say no, ‘By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis;’ den he gib me dis here as earnest.”--Phillis here drew from her huge pocket an immense pair of scissars, a jack knife, and a wooden pipe curiously carved, which she offered as a testimony of the promise, and which was sworn to as the property of Cuff, who subsequently had refused to fulfil the contract.
Cuff admitted that he had made her a kind of promise, but it was conditional. “I told her, massa ’Squire, that she was a slave and a nigger, and she must wait till the year 27, then all would be free, cording to the new constitution; den she said, berry vell, I bill wait.”
Phillis utterly denied the period of probation; it was, she said, to take place “ben he got de new corduroy breeches from Cripplely Coon, de tailor; he owe three and sixpence, and massa Coon won’t let him hab ’em vidout de money: den Cuff he run away to Varsing; I send Coon Crook, de constable, and he find um at Shaudakin, and he bring him before you, massa.”
The testimony here closed.
The court charged the jury, that although the testimony was not conclusive, nor the injury very apparent, yet the court was not warranted in taking the case out of the hands of the jury. A promise had evidently been made, and had been broken; some differences existed as to the period when the matrimonial contract was to have been fulfilled, and it was equally true and honourable, as the court observed, that in 1827 slavery was to cease in the state, and that fact might have warranted the defendant in the postponement; but of this there was no positive proof, and as the parties could neither read nor write, the presents might be construed into a marriage promise. The court could see no reason why these humble Africans should not, in imitation of their betters, in such cases, appeal to a jury for damages; but it was advisable not to make those damages more enormous than circumstances warranted, yet sufficient to act as a lesson to those coloured gentry, in their attempts to imitate fashionable infidelity.
The jury brought in a verdict of “Ten dollars, and costs, for the plaintiff.”
The defendant not being able to pay, was committed to Kingston jail, a martyr to his own folly, and an example to all others in like cases offending.
* * * * *
THE RETROSPECT.
I have not heard thy name for years; Thy memory ere thyself is dead; And even I forget the tears That once for thy lov’d sake were shed.
There was a time when thou didst seem The light and breath of life to me-- When, e’en in thought, I could not dream That less than mine thou e’er could be:--
Yet now it is a chance that brought Thy image to my heart again; A single flower recall’d the thought-- Why is it still so full of pain?
The jasmine, round the casement twin’d, Caught mine eye in the pale moonlight. It broke my dream, and brought to mind Another dream--another night.
As then, I by the casement leant, As then, the silver moonlight shone But not, as then, another bent Beside me--I am now alone.
The sea is now between us twain As wide a gulf between each heart; Never can either have again An influence on the other’s part.
Our paths are different; perchance mine May seem the sunniest of the two: The lute, which once was only thine, Has other aim, and higher view.
My song has now a wider scope Than when its first tones breath’d thy name; My heart has done with Love--and hope Turn’d to another idol--Fame.
’Tis but one destiny; one dream Succeeds another--like a wave Following its bubbles--till their gleam Is lost, and ended in the grave.
Why am I sorrowful? ’Tis not One thought of thee has brought the tear In sooth, thou art so much forgot, I do not even wish thee here.
Both are so chang’d, that did we meet We might but marvel we had lov’d: What made our earliest dream so sweet?-- Illusions--long, long since remov’d.
I sorrow--but it is to know How still some fair deceit unweaves-- To think how all of joy below Is only joy while it deceives.
I sorrow--but it is to feel Changes which my own mind hath told:-- What, though time polishes the steel, Alas! it is less bright than cold.
Have more smiles, and fewer tears; But tears are now restrain’d for shame: Task-work the smiles my lip now wears, That once like rain and sunshine came.
Where is the sweet credulity, Happy in that fond trust it bore, Which never dream’d the time would be When it could hope and trust no more?
Affection, springing warmly forth-- Light word, light laugh, and lighter care Life’s afternoon is little worth-- The dew and warmth of morning air.
I would not live again love’s hour; But fain I would again recall The feelings which upheld its power-- The truth, the hope, that made it thrall.
I would renounce the worldliness, Now too much with my heart and me; In one trust more, in one doubt less, How much of happiness would be!--
Vainer than vain! Why should I ask Life’s sweet but most deceiving part? Alas! the bloom upon the cheek Long, long outlives that of the heart.
L. E. L.--_Monthly Magazine._
* * * * *
TIMBER IN BOGS.
It is stated in the second report of the commissioners on the bogs of Ireland, that _three_ distinct growths of timber, covered by three distinct masses of bog, are discovered on examination. But whether these morasses were at first formed by the destruction of whole forests, or merely by the stagnation of water in places where its current was choked by the fall of a few trees, and by accumulations of branches and leaves, carried down from the surrounding hills, is a question.
Professor Davy is of opinion, that in many places where forests had grown undisturbed, the trees on the outside of the woods grew stronger than the rest, from their exposure to the air and sun; and that, when mankind attempted to establish themselves near these forests, they cut down the large trees on their borders, which opened the internal part, where the trees were weak and slender, to the influence of the wind, which, as is commonly to be seen in such circumstances, had immediate power to sweep down the whole of the internal parts of the forest. The large timber obstructed the passage of vegetable recrement, and of earth falling towards the rivers; the weak timber, in the internal part of the forest after it had fallen, soon decayed, and became the food of future vegetation.
Mr. Kirwan observes, that whatever trees are found in bogs, though the wood may be perfectly sound, the bark of the timber has uniformly disappeared, and the decomposition of this bark forms a considerable part of the nutritive substance of morasses. Notwithstanding this circumstance, tanning is not to be obtained in analysing bogs; their antiseptic quality is however indisputable, for animal and vegetable substances are frequently found at a great depth in bogs, without their seeming to have suffered any decay; these substances cannot have been deposited in them at a very remote period, because their form and texture is such as were common a few centuries ago. In 1786 there were found, seventeen feet below the surface of a bog in Mr. Kirwan’s district, a woollen coat of coarse, but even, network, exactly in the form of what is now called a spencer; a razor, with a wooden handle, some iron heads of arrows, and large wooden bowls, some only half made, were also found, with the remains of turning tools: these were obviously the wreck of a workshop, which was probably situated on the borders of a forest. The coat was presented by him to the Antiquarian Society. These circumstances countenance the supposition, that the encroachments of men upon forests destroyed the first barriers against the force of the wind, and that afterwards, according to sir H. Davy’s suggestion, the trees of weaker growth, which had not room to expand, or air and sunshine to promote their increase, soon gave way to the elements.
* * * * *
MODES OF SALUTATION.
Greenlanders have none, and laugh at the idea of one person being inferior to another.
Islanders near the Philippines take a person’s hand or foot, and rub it over their face.
Laplanders apply their noses strongly against the person they salute.
In New Guinea, they place leaves upon the head of those they salute.
In the Straits of the Sound they raise the left foot of the person saluted, pass it gently over the right leg, and thence over the face.
The inhabitants of the Philippines bend very low, placing their hands on their cheeks, and raise one foot in the air, with the knee bent.
An Ethiopian takes the robe of another and ties it about him, so as to leave his friend almost naked.
The Japanese take off a slipper, and the people of Arracan their sandals, in the street, and their stockings in the house, when they salute.
Two Negro kings on the coast of Africa, salute by snapping the middle finger three times.
The inhabitants of Carmene, when they would show a particular attachment, breathe a vein, and present the blood to their friend as a beverage.
If the Chinese meet, after a long separation, they fall on their knees, bend their face to the earth two or three times, and use many other affected modes. They have also a kind of ritual, or “academy of compliments,” by which they regulate the number of bows, genuflections, and words to be spoken upon any occasion. Ambassadors practise these ceremonies forty days before they appear at court.
In Otaheite, they rub their noses together.
The Dutch, who are considered as great eaters, have a morning salutation, common amongst all ranks, “Smaakelyk eeten?”--“May you eat a hearty dinner.” Another is, “Hoe vaart awe.”--“How do you sail?” adopted, no doubt, in the early periods of the republic, when they were all navigators and fishermen.
The usual salutation at Cairo is, “How do you sweat?” a dry hot skin being a sure indication of a destructive ephemeral fever. Some author has observed, in contrasting the haughty Spaniard with the frivolous Frenchman, that the proud, steady gait and inflexible solemnity of the former, were expressed in his mode of salutation, “Come esta?”--“How do you stand?” whilst the “Comment vous portez-vous?” “How do you carry yourself?” was equally expressive of the gay motion and incessant action of the latter.
The common salutation in the southern provinces of China, amongst the lower orders, is, “Ya fan?”--“Have you eaten your rice?”
In Africa, a young woman, an intended bride, brought a little water in a calabash, and kneeling down before her lover, desired him to wash his hands; when he had done this, the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eyes, drank the water; this was considered as the greatest proof she could give of her fidelity and attachment.
* * * * *
~Omniana.~
POETRY.
_For the Table Book._
The poesy of the earth, sea, air, and sky, Though death is powerful in course of time With wars and battlements, will never die. But triumph in the silence of sublime Survival. Frost, like tyranny, might climb The nurseling germs of favourite haunts; the roots Will grow hereafter. Terror on the deep Is by the calm subdu’d, that Beauty e’en might creep On moonlight waves to coral rest. The fruits Blush in the winds, and from the branches leap To mossy beds existing in the ground. Stars swim unseen, through solar hemispheres, Yet in the floods of night, how brightly round The zone of poesy, they reflect the rolling years.
P.
* * * * *
A BAD SIGN.
During a late calling out of the North Somerset yeomanry, at Bath, the service of one of them, a “Batcome boy,” was enlivened by a visit from his sweetheart; after escorting her over the city, and being fatigued with showing her what she had “ne’er zeed in all her life,” he knocked loudly at the door of a house in the Crescent, against which a hatchment was placed, and on the appearance of the powdered butler, boldly ordered “two glasses of scalded wine, as hot as thee canst make it.” The man, staring, informed him he could have no scalded wine there--’twas no public-house. “Then dose thee head,” replied Somerset, “what’st hang out thik there zign var.”
* * * * *
INSCRIPTION
FOR A TOMB TO THE MEMORY OF CAPTAIN HEWITSON, OF THE SHIP, TOWN OF ULVERSTON.
_By James Montgomery, Esq._
Weep for a seaman, honest and sincere, Not cast away, but brought to anchor here; Storms had o’erwhelm’d him, but the conscious wave Repented, and resign’d him to the grave: In harbour, safe from shipwreck, now he lies, Till Time’s last signal blazes through the skies: Refitted in a moment, then shall he Sail from this port on an eternal sea.
Vol. I.--7.
[Illustration: ~My Snuff-box.~]
He only who is “noseless himself” will deem this a trifling article. My prime minister of pleasure is my snuff-box. The office grew out of my “liking a pinch, now and then,” and carrying a bit of snuff, screwed up in paper, wherewith, some two or three times a day, I delighted to treat myself to a sensation, and a sneeze. Had I kept a journal of my snuff-taking business from that time, it would have been as instructive as “the life of that learned antiquary, Elias Ashmole, Esq., drawn up by himself by way of diary;” in submitting which to the world, its pains-taking editor says, that such works “let us into the secret history of the affairs of their several times, discover the springs of motion, and display many valuable, though minute circumstances, overlooked or unknown to our general historians; and, to conclude all, satiate our largest curiosity.” A comparative view of the important annals of Mr. Ashmole, and some reminiscent incidents of my snuff-taking, I reserve for my autobiography.
To manifest the necessity of my present brief undertaking, I beg to state, that I still remain under the disappointment of drawings, complained of in the former sheet. I resorted on this, as on all difficult occasions, to a pinch of snuff; and, having previously resolved on taking “the first thing that came uppermost,” for an engraving and a topic, my hand first fell on the top of my snuff-box. If the reader be angry because I have told the truth, it is no more than I expect; for, in nine cases out of ten, a preference is given to a pretence, though privily known to be a falsehood by those to whom it is offered.
As soon as I wear out one snuff-box I get another--a silver one, and I, parted company long ago. My customary boxes have been _papier-maché_, plain black: for if I had any figure on the lid it was suspected to be some hidden device; an answer of direct negation was a ground of doubt, offensively expressed by an insinuating smile, or the more open rudeness of varied questions. This I could only resist by patience; but the _parlement_ excise on that virtue was more than I could afford, and therefore my choice of a black box. The last of that colour I had worn out, at a season when I was unlikely to have more than three or four visitors worth a pinch of snuff, and I then bought _this_ box, because it was two-thirds cheaper than the former, and because I approved the pictured ornament. While the tobacconist was securing my shilling, he informed me that the figure had utterly excluded it from the choice of every one who had noticed it. My selection was agreeable to him in a monied view, yet, both he, and his man, eyed the box so unkindly, that I fancied they extended their dislike to me; and I believe they did. Of the few who have seen it since, it has been favourably received by only one--my little Alice--who, at a year old, prefers it before all others for a plaything, and even accepts it as a substitute for myself, when I wish to slip away from her caresses. The elder young ones call it the “ugly old man,” but _she_ admires it, as the innocent infant, in the story-book, did the harmless snake, with whom he daily shared his bread-and-milk breakfast. I regard it as the likeness of an infirm human being, who, especially requiring comfort and protection, is doomed to neglect and insult from childhood to the grave; and all this from no self-default, but the accident of birth--as if the unpurposed cruelty of nature were a warrant for man’s perversion and wickedness. Of the individual I know nothing, save what the representation seems to tell--that he lives in the world, and is not of it. His basket, with a few pamphlets for sale, returns good, in the shape of knowledge, to evil doers, who, as regards himself, are not to be instructed. His upward look is a sign--common to these afflicted ones--of inward hope of eternal mercy, in requital for temporal injustice: besides that, and his walking-staff, he appears to have no other support on earth. The intelligence of his patient features would raise desire, were he alive and before me, to learn by what process he gained the understanding they express: his face is not more painful, and I think scarcely less wise than Locke’s, if we may trust the portrait of that philosopher. In the summer, after a leisure view of the Dulwich gallery for the first time, I found myself in the quiet parlour of a little-frequented road-side house, enjoying the recollections of a few glorious pictures in that munificent exhibition; while pondering with my box in my hand, the print on its lid diverted me into a long reverie on what he, whom represented, might have been under other circumstances, and I felt not alone on the earth while there was another as lonely. Since then, this “garner for my grain” has been worn out by constant use; with every care, it cannot possibly keep its service a month longer. I shall regret the loss: for its little Deformity has been my frequent and pleasant companion in many a solitary hour;--the box itself is the only one I ever had, wherein simulated or cooling friendship has not dipped.
*
* * * * *
~Garrick Plays.~
No. IV.
[From “All Fools” a Comedy by George Chapman: 1605.]
_Love’s Panegyric._
-------------’tis Nature’s second Sun, Causing a spring of Virtues where he shines; And as without the Sun, the world’s Great Eye, All colours, beauties, both of art and nature, Are given in vain to man; so without Love All beauties bred in women are in vain, All virtues born in men lie buried; For Love _informs_ them as the Sun doth colours And as the Sun, reflecting his warm beams Against the earth, begets all fruits and flowers So Love, fair shining in the inward man, Brings forth in him the honourable fruits Of valour, wit, virtue, and haughty thoughts. Brave resolution, and divine discourse.
_Love with Jealousy._
--------such Love is like a smoky fire In a cold morning. Though the fire be chearful, Yet is the smoke so foul and cumbersome, ’Twere better lose the fire than find the smoke.
_Bailiffs routed._
I walking in the place where men’s Law Suits Are heard and pleaded, not so much as dreaming Of any such encounter; steps me forth Their valiant Foreman with the word “I ’rest you.” I made no more ado but laid these paws Close on his shoulders, tumbling him to earth; And there sat he on his posteriors Like a baboon: and turning me about, I strait espied the whole troop issuing on me. I step me back, and drawing my old friend here. Made to the midst of ’em, and all unable To endure the shock, all rudely fell in rout. And down the stairs they ran in such a fury, As meeting with a troop of Lawyers there, Mann’d by their Clients (some with ten, some with twenty, Some five, some three; he that had least had one), Upon the stairs, they bore them down afore them. But such a rattling then there was amongst them. Of ravish’d Declarations, Replications, Rejoinders, and Petitions, all their books And writings torn, and trod on, and some lost, That the poor Lawyers coming to the Bar Could say nought to the matter, but instead Were fain to rail, and talk beside their books, Without all order.
* * * * *
[From the “Late Lancashire Witches,” a Comedy, by Thomas Heywood.]
_A Household Bewitched._
My Uncle has of late become the sole Discourse of all the country; for of a man respected As master of a govern’d family, The House (as if the ridge were fix’d below, And groundsils lifted up to make the roof) All now’s turn’d topsy-turvy, In such a retrograde and preposterous way As seldom hath been heard of, I think never. The Good Man In all obedience kneels unto his Son; He with an austere brow commands his Father. The Wife presumes not in the Daughter’s sight Without a prepared curtsy; the Girl she Expects it as a duty; chides her Mother, Who quakes and trembles at each word she speaks. And what’s as strange, the Maid--she domineers O’er her young Mistress, who is awed by her. The Son, to whom the Father creeps and bends, Stands in as much fear of the groom his Man! All in such rare disorder, that in some As it breeds pity, and in others wonder, So in the most part laughter. It is thought, This comes by WITCHCRAFT.
* * * * *
[From “Wit in a Constable,” a Comedy, by Henry Glapthorn.]
_Books._
_Collegian._ Did you, ere we departed from the College, O’erlook my Library? _Servant._ Yes, Sir; and I find, Altho’ you tell me Learning is immortal, The paper and the parchment ’tis contain’d in Savours of much mortality. The moths have eaten more Authentic Learning, than would richly furnish A hundred country pedants; yet the worms Are not one letter wiser.
C. L.
* * * * *
THE TURK IN CHEAPSIDE
_For the Table Book._
TO MR. CHARLES LAMB.
I have a favour to ask of you. My desire is this: I would fain see a stream from thy Hippocrene flowing through the pages of the _Table Book_. A short article on the old Turk, who used to vend rhubarb in the City, I greatly desiderate. Methinks you would handle the subject delightfully. They tell us he is gone----
We have not seen him for some time past--Is he really dead? Must we hereafter speak of him only in the past tense? You are said to have divers strange items in your brain about him--Vent them I beseech you.
Poor Mummy!--How many hours hath he dreamt away on the sunny side of Cheap, with an opium cud in his cheek, mutely proffering his drug to the way-farers! That deep-toned bell above him, doubtless, hath often brought to his recollection the loud Allah-il-Allahs to which he listened heretofore in his fatherland--the city of minaret and mosque, old Constantinople. Will he never again be greeted by the nodding steeple of Bow?--Perhaps that ancient beldame, with her threatening head and loud tongue, at length effrayed the sallow being out of existence.
Hath his soul, in truth, echapped from that swarthy cutaneous case of which it was so long a tenant? Hath he glode over that gossamer bridge which leads to the paradise of the prophet of Mecca? Doth he pursue his old calling among the faithful? Are the blue-eyed beauties (those living diamonds) who hang about the neck of Mahomet ever qualmish? Did the immortal Houris lack rhubarb?
Prithee teach us to know more than we do of this Eastern mystery! Have some of the ministers of the old Magi eloped with him? Was he in truth a Turk? We have heard suspicions cast upon the authenticity of his complexion--was its tawniness a forgery? Oh! for a _quo warranto_ to show by what authority he wore a turban! Was there any hypocrisy in his sad brow?--Poor Mummy!
The editor of the _Table Book_ ought to perpetuate his features. He was part of the living furniture of the city--Have not our grandfathers seen him?
The tithe of a page from thy pen on this subject, surmounted by “a true portraicture & effigies,” would be a treat to me and many more. If thou art stil ELIA--if thou art yet that gentle creature who has immortalized his predilection for the sow’s baby--roasted without sage--this boon wilt thou not deny me. Take the matter upon thee speedily.--Wilt thou not endorse thy Pegasus with this pleasant fardel?
An’ thou wilt not I shall be malicious and wish thee some trifling evil: to wit--by way of revenge for the appetite which thou hast created among the reading public for the infant progeny--the rising generation of swine--I will wish that some of the old demoniac leaven may rise up against thee in the modern pigs:--that thy sleep may be vexed with swinish visions; that a hog in armour, or a bashaw of a boar of three tails, may be thy midnight familiar--thy incubus;--that matronly sows may howl after thee in thy walks for their immolated offspring;--that Mab may tickle thee into fits “with a tithe-pig’s tail;”--that wheresoever thou goest to finger cash for copyright, instead of being paid in coin current, thou mayst be enforced to receive thy _per-sheetage_ in guinea-pigs;--that thou mayst frequently dream thou art sitting on a hedge-hog;--that even as Oberon’s Queen doated on the translated Bottom, so may thy batchelorly brain doat upon an ideal image of the swine-faced lady----
Finally, I will wish, that when next G. D. visits thee, he may, by mistake, take away thy hat, and leave thee his own----
“Think of that Master Brook.”--
Yours ever,
E. C. _M. D._
_January 31, 1827._
* * * * *
~Literature.~
GLANCES AT NEW BOOKS ON MY TABLE.
SPECIMENS OF BRITISH POETESSES; selected, and chronologically arranged, by the Rev. _Alexander Dyce_, 1827, cr. 8vo. pp. 462.
Mr. Dyce remarks that, “from the great Collections of the English Poets, where so many worthless compositions find a place, the productions of women have been carefully excluded.” This utter neglect of female talent produces a counteracting effort: “the object of the present volume is to exhibit the growth and progress of the genius of our countrywomen in the department of poetry.” The collection of “Poems by eminent Ladies,” edited by the elder Colman and Bonnel Thornton, contained specimens of only eighteen female writers; Mr. Dyce offers specimens of the poetry of eighty-eight, ten of whom are still living. He commences with the dame Juliana Berners, Prioress of the Nunnery of Sopwell, “who resembled an abbot in respect of exercising an extensive manorial jurisdiction, and who hawked and hunted in common with other ladies of distinction,” and wrote in rhyme on field sports. The volume concludes with Miss Landon, whose initials, L. E. L., are attached to a profusion of talented poetry, in different journals.
The following are not to be regarded as examples of the charming variety selected by Mr. Dyce, in illustration of his purpose, but rather as “specimens” of peculiar thinking, or for their suitableness to the present time of the year.
Our language does not afford a more truly noble specimen of verse, dignified by high feeling, than the following chorus from “The Tragedy of Mariam, 1613,” ascribed to lady Elizabeth Carew.
_Revenge of Injuries._
The fairest action of our human life Is scorning to revenge an injury; For who forgives without a further strife. His adversary’s heart to him doth tie. And ’tis a firmer conquest truly said, To win the heart, than overthrow the head.
If we a worthy enemy do find, To yield to worth it must be nobly done; But if of baser metal be his mind, In base revenge there is no honour won. Who would a worthy courage overthrow, And who would wrestle with a worthless foe?
We say our hearts are great and cannot yield; Because they cannot yield, it proves them poor: Great hearts are task’d beyond their power, but seld The weakest lion will the loudest roar. Truth’s school for certain doth this same allow, High-heartedness doth sometimes teach to bow.
A noble heart doth teach a virtuous scorn, To scorn to owe a duty overlong; To scorn to be for benefits forborne, To scorn to lie, to scorn to do a wrong. To scorn to bear an injury in mind, To scorn a free-born heart slave-like to bind.
But if for wrongs we needs revenge must have, Then be our vengeance of the noblest kind; Do we his body from our fury save, And let our hate prevail against our mind? What can, ’gainst him a greater vengeance be, Than make his foe more worthy far than he?
Had Mariam scorn’d to leave a due unpaid, She would to Herod then have paid her love, And not have been by sullen passion sway’d. To fix her thoughts all injury above Is virtuous pride. Had Mariam thus been proud. Long famous life to her had been allow’d.
Margaret duchess of Newcastle, who died in 1673, “filled nearly twelve volumes folio with plays, poems, orations, philosophical discourses,” and miscellaneous pieces. Her lord also amused himself with his pen. This noble pair were honoured by the ridicule of Horace Walpole, who had more taste than feeling; and, notwithstanding the great qualities of the duke, who sacrificed three quarters of a million in thankless devotion to the royal cause, and, though the virtues of his duchess are unquestionable, the author of “The Dormant and Extinct Baronage of England” joins Walpole in contempt of their affection, and the means they employed to render each other happy during retirement. This is an extract from one of the duchess’s poems:--
_Melancholy._
I dwell in groves that gilt are with the sun, Sit on the banks by which clear waters run; In summers hot down in a shade I lie. My music is the buzzing of a fly; I walk in meadows, where grows fresh green grass, In fields, where corn is high, I often pass; Walk up the hills, where round I prospects see, Some brushy woods, and some all champains be; Returning back, I in fresh pastures go, To hear how sheep do bleat, and cows do low; In winter cold, when nipping frosts come on, Then I do live in a small house alone; Altho’ tis plain, yet cleanly ’tis within, Like to a soul that’s pure and clear from sin; And there I dwell in quiet and still peace, Not fill’d with cares how riches to increase; I wish nor seek for vain and fruitless pleasures, No riches are, but what the mind intreasures. Thus am I solitary, live alone. Yet better lov’d, the more that I am known; And tho’ my face ill-favour’d at first sight, After acquaintance it will give delight. Refuse me not, for I shall constant be, Maintain your credit and your dignity.
Elizabeth Thomas, (born 1675, died 1730,) in the fifteenth year of her age, was disturbed in her mind, by the sermons she heard in attending her grandmother at meetings, and by the reading of high predestinarian works. She “languished for some time,” in expectation of the publication of bishop Burnet’s work on the Thirty-nine Articles. When she read it, the bishop seemed to her more candid in stating the doctrines of the sects, than explicit in his own opinion; and, in this perplexity, retiring to her closet, she entered on a self-discussion, and wrote the following poem:--
_Predestination, or, the Resolution._
Ah! strive no more to know what fate Is preordain’d for thee: ’Tis vain in this my mortal state, For Heaven’s inscrutable decree Will only be reveal’d in vast Eternity. Then, O my soul! Remember thy celestial birth, And live to Heaven, while here on earth: Thy God is infinitely true. All Justice, yet all Mercy too: To Him, then, thro’ thy Saviour, pray For Grace, to guide thee on thy way, And give thee Will to do. But humbly, for the rest, my soul! Let Hope, and Faith, the limits be Of thy presumptuous curiosity!
Mary Chandler, born in 1687, the daughter of a dissenting minister at Bath, commended by Pope for her poetry, died in 1745. The specimen of her verse, selected by Mr. Dyce, is
_Temperance._
Fatal effects of luxury and ease! We drink our poison, and we eat disease, Indulge our senses at our reason’s cost, Till sense is pain, and reason hurt, or lost. Not so, O Temperance bland! when rul’d by thee, The brute’s obedient, and the man is free. Soft are his slumbers, balmy is his rest, His veins not boiling from the midnight feast. Touch’d by Aurora’s rosy hand, he wakes Peaceful and calm, and with the world partakes The joyful dawnings of returning day, For which their grateful thanks the whole creation pay, All but the human brute: ’tis he alone, Whose works of darkness fly the rising sun. ’Tis to thy rules, O Temperance! that we owe All pleasures, which from health and strength can flow; Vigour of body, purity of mind, Unclouded reason, sentiments refin’d, Unmixt, untainted joys, without remorse, Th’ intemperate sinner’s never-failing curse.
Elizabeth Tollet (born 1694, died 1754) was authoress of Susanna, a sacred drama, and poems, from whence this is a seasonable extract:--
_Winter Song._
Ask me no more, my truth to prove, What I would suffer for my love: With thee I would in exile go, To regions of eternal snow; O’er floods by solid ice confin’d; Thro’ forest bare with northern wind; While all around my eyes I cast, Where all is wild and all is waste. If there the timorous stag you chase, Or rouse to fight a fiercer race, Undaunted I thy arms would bear, And give thy hand the hunter’s spear. When the low sun withdraws his light, And menaces an half year’s night. The conscious moon and stars above Shall guide me with my wandering love. Beneath the mountain’s hollow brow. Or in its rocky cells below, Thy rural feast I would provide; Nor envy palaces their pride; The softest moss should dress thy bed, With savage spoils about thee spread; While faithful love the watch should keep. To banish danger from thy sleep.
Mrs. Tighe died in 1810. Mr. Dyce says, “Of this highly-gifted Irishwoman, I have not met with any poetical account; but I learn, from the notes to her poems, that she was the daughter of the Rev. William Blachford, and that she died in her thirty-seventh year. In the _Psyche_ of Mrs. Tighe are several pictures, conceived in the true spirit of poetry; while over the whole composition is spread the richest glow of purified passion.” Besides specimens from that delightful poem, Mr. Dyce extracts
_The Lily_.
How wither’d, perish’d seems the form Of yon obscure unsightly root! Yet from the blight of wintry storm, It hides secure the precious fruit.
The careless eye can find no grace, No beauty in the scaly folds, Nor see within the dark embrace What latent loveliness it holds.
Yet in that bulb, those sapless scales, The lily wraps her silver vest, Till vernal suns and vernal gales Shall kiss once more her fragrant breast.
Yes, hide beneath the mouldering heap The undelighting slighted thing; There in the cold earth buried deep, In silence let it wait the Spring.
Oh! many a stormy night shall close In gloom upon the barren earth, While still, in undisturb’d repose, Uninjur’d lies the future birth;
And Ignorance, with sceptic eye, Hope’s patient smile shall wondering view; Or mock her fond credulity, As her soft tears the spot bedew.
Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear! The sun, the shower indeed shall come; The promis’d verdant shoot appear. And nature bid her blossoms bloom.
And thou, O virgin Queen of Spring! Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed, Bursting thy green sheath’d silken string, Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;
Unfold thy robes of purest white, Unsullied from their darksome grave, And thy soft petals’ silvery light In the mild breeze unfetter’d wave.
So Faith shall seek the lowly dust Where humble Sorrow loves to lie, And bid her thus her hopes intrust, And watch with patient, cheerful eye;
And bear the long, cold wintry night, And bear her own degraded doom, And wait till Heaven’s reviving light, Eternal Spring! shall burst the gloom.
Every one is acquainted with the beautiful ballad which is the subject of the following notice; yet the succinct history, and the present accurate text, may justify the insertion of both.
_Lady Anne Barnard._
Born ---- died 1825.
Sister of the late Earl of Balcarras, and wife of Sir Andrew Barnard, wrote the charming song of _Auld Robin Gray_.
A quarto tract, edited by “the Ariosto of the North,” and circulated among the members of the Bannatyne Club, contains the original ballad, as corrected by Lady Anne, and two Continuations by the same authoress; while the Introduction consists almost entirely of a very interesting letter from her to the Editor, dated July 1823, part of which I take the liberty of inserting here:--
“‘Robin Gray,’ so called from its being the name of the old herd at Balcarras, was born soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister Margaret had married, and accompanied her husband to London; I was melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse myself by attempting a few poetical trifles. There was an ancient Scotch melody, of which I was passionately fond; ---- ----, who lived before your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarras. She did not object to its having improper words, though I did. I longed to sing old Sophy’s air to different words, and give to its plaintive tones some little history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might suit it. While attempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me, ‘I have been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea--and broken her father’s arm--and made her mother fall sick--and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help me to one.’--‘Steal the cow, sister Anne,’ said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately _lifted_ by me, and the song completed. At our fireside, and amongst our neighbours, ‘Auld Robin Gray’ was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was _my dread_ of being suspected of writing _anything_, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write _nothing_, that I carefully kept my own secret. * * * *
“Meantime, little as this matter seems to have been worthy of a dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. ‘Robin Gray’ was either a very very ancient ballad, composed perhaps by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a very very modern matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had written it or not,--where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador from the Antiquaries, was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of the ‘Ballat of Auld Robin Gray’s Courtship,’ as performed by dancing-cogs under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and gave me pleasure while I hugged myself in obscurity.”
The two versions of the second part were written many years after the first; in them, Auld Robin Gray falls sick,--confesses that he himself stole the cow, in order to force Jenny to marry him,--leaves to Jamie all his possessions,--dies,--and the young couple, of course, are united. Neither of the Continuations is given here, because, though both are beautiful, they are very inferior to the original tale, and greatly injure its effect.
_Auld Robin Gray_.[47]
When the sheep are in the fauld, when the cows come hame, When a’ the weary world to quiet rest are gane, The woes of my heart fa’ in showers frae my ee, Unken’d by my gudeman, who soundly sleeps by me.
Young Jamie loo’d me weel, and sought me for his bride; But saving ae crown-piece, he’d naething else beside. To make the crown a pound,[48] my Jamie gaed to sea; And the crown and the pound, O they were baith for me!
Before he had been gane a twelvemonth and a day. My father brak his arm, our cow was stown away; My mother she fell sick--my Jamie was at sea-- And auld Robin Gray, oh! he came a-courting me,
My father cou’dna work--my mother cou’dna spin; I toil’d day and night, but their bread I cou’dna win; Auld Rob maintained them baith, and, wi’ tears in his ee, Said, “Jenny, oh! for their sakes, will you marry me?”
My heart it said na, and I look’d for Jamie back; But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack: His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jamie dee? Or, wherefore am I spar’d to cry out, Woe is me!
My father argued sair--my mother didna speak, But she look’d in my face till my heart was like to break; They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea; And so auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.
I hadna been his wife a week but only four, When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at my door, I saw my Jamie’s ghaist--I cou’dna think it he, Till he said, “I’m come hame, my love, to marry thee!”
O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle say of a’; Ae kiss we took, nae mair--I bad him gang awa. I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee; For O, I am but young to cry out, Woe is me!
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin; I darena think o’ Jamie, for that wad be a sin. But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be, For auld Robin Gray, oh! he is sae kind to me.
The great and remarkable merit of Mr. Dyce is, that in this beautifully printed volume, he has reared imperishable columns to the honour of the sex, without a questionable trophy. His “specimens” are an assemblage so individually charming, that the mind is delighted by every part whereon the eye rests, and scrupulosity itself cannot make a single rejection on pretence of inadequate merit. He comes as a rightful herald, marshalling the perfections of each poetess, and discriminating with so much delicacy, that each of his pages is a page of honour to a high-born grace, or dignified beauty. His book is an elegant tribute to departed and living female genius; and while it claims respect from every lady in the land for its gallantry to the fair, its intrinsic worth is sure to force it into every well-appointed library.
[47] The text of the corrected copy is followed.
[48] “I must also mention” (says lady Anne, in the letter already quoted) “the laird of Dalziel’s advice, who, in a _tête-à-tête_, afterwards said, ‘My dear, the next time you sing that song, try to change the words a wee bit, and instead of singing, ‘To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea,’ say, to make it twenty merks, for a Scottish pund is but twenty pence, and Jamie was na such a gowk as to leave Jenny and gang to sea to lessen his gear. It is that line [whisper’d he] that tells me that sang was written by some bonnie lassie that didna ken the value of the Scots money quite so well as an auld writer in the town of Edinburgh would have kent it.’”
[Illustration: ~Hiring Servants at a Statute Fair.~]
This engraving may illustrate Mr. Pare’s account of the Warwickshire “statute” or “mop,”[49] and the general appearance of similar fairs for hiring servants. Even in London, bricklayers, and other house-labourers, still carry their respective implements to the places where they stand for hire: for which purpose they assemble in great numbers in Cheapside and at Charing-cross, every morning, at five or six o’clock. It is further worthy of observation, that, in old Rome, there were particular spots in which servants applied for hire.
Dr. Plott, speaking of the Statutes for hiring servants, says, that at Bloxham the carters stood with their whips in one place, and the shepherds with their crooks in another; but the maids, as far as he could observe, stood promiscuously. He adds, that this custom seems as old as our Saviour; and refers to _Matt._ xx. 3, “And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market-place.”
In the statistical account of Scotland, it is said that, at the parish of Wamphray, “_Hiring fairs_ are much frequented: _those who are to hire wear a green sprig in their hat_: and it is very seldom that servants will hire in any other place.”
Of ancient _chartered_ fairs may be instanced as an example, the fair of St. Giles’s Hill or Down, near Winchester, which William the Conqueror instituted and gave as a kind of revenue to the bishop of Winchester. It was at first for three days, but afterwards by Henry III., prolonged to sixteen days. Its jurisdiction extended seven miles round, and comprehended even Southampton, then a capital and trading town. Merchants who sold wares at that time within that circuit forfeited them to the bishop. Officers were placed at a considerable distance, at bridges and other avenues of access to the fair, to exact toll of all merchandise passing that way. In the mean time, all shops in the city of Winchester were shut. A court, called the pavilion, composed of the bishop’s justiciaries and other officers, had power to try causes of various sorts for seven miles round. The bishop had a toll of every load or parcel of goods passing through the gates of the city. On St. Giles’s eve the mayor, bailiffs, and citizens of Winchester delivered the keys of the four gates to the bishop’s officers. Many and extraordinary were the privileges granted to the bishop on this occasion, all tending to obstruct trade and to oppress the people. Numerous foreign merchants frequented this fair; and several streets were formed in it, assigned to the sale of different commodities. The surrounding monasteries had shops or houses in these streets, used only at the fair; which they held under the bishop, and often let by lease for a term of years. Different counties had their different stations.
According to a curious record of the establishment and expenses of the household of Henry Percy, the fifth earl of Northumberland, A.D. 1512, the stores of his lordship’s house at Wresille, for the whole year, were laid in from fairs. The articles were “wine, wax, beiffes, muttons, wheite, and malt.” This proves that fairs were then the principal marts for purchasing necessaries in large quantities, which are now supplied by frequent trading towns: and the mention of “beiffes and muttons,” (which are salted oxen and sheep,) shows that at so late a period they knew little of breeding cattle.
The monks of the priories of Maxtoke in Warwickshire, and of Bicester in Oxfordshire, in the time of Henry VI., appear to have laid in yearly stores of various, yet common necessaries, at the fair of Stourbridge, in Cambridgeshire, at least one hundred miles distant from either monastery.
[49] At p. 171.
* * * * *
~February 14.~
VALENTINE’S DAY.
Now each fond youth who ere essay’d An effort in the tinkling trade, Resumes to day; and writes and blots About true-love and true-love’s-knots; And opens veins in ladies’ hearts; (Or _steels_ ’em) with two cris-cross darts,-- (There must be two) Stuck through (and through) His own: and then to s’cure ’em better He doubles up his single letter-- Type of his state, (Perchance a hostage To double fate) For single postage Emblem of his and my _Cupidity_; With p’rhaps like happy end--stupidity.
* * * * *
FRENCH VALENTINES.
Menage, in his Etymological Dictionary, has accounted for the term “Valentine,” by stating that Madame Royale, daughter of Henry the Fourth of France, having built a palace near Turin, which, in honour of the saint, then in high esteem, she called the Valentine, at the first entertainment which she gave in it, was pleased to order that the ladies should receive their lovers for the year by lots, reserving to herself the privilege of being independent of chance, and of choosing her own partner. At the various balls which this gallant princess gave during the year, it was directed that each lady should receive a nosegay from her lover, and that, at every tournament, the knight’s trappings for his horse should be furnished by his allotted mistress, with this proviso, that the prize obtained should be hers. This custom, says Menage, occasioned the parties to be called “Valentines.”[50]
* * * * *
An elegant writer, in a journal of the present month, prepares for the annual festival with the following
LEGEND OF ST. VALENTINE.
From Britain’s realm, in olden time, By the strong power of truths sublime. The pagan rites were banish’d; And, spite of Greek and Roman lore, Each god and goddess, fam’d of yore, From grove and altar vanish’d.
And they (as sure became them best) To Austin and Paulinius’ hest Obediently submitted, And left the land without delay-- Save Cupid, who still held a sway Too strong to passively obey, Or be by saints outwitted.
For well the boy-god knew that he Was far too potent, e’er to be Depos’d and exil’d quietly From his belov’d dominion; And sturdily the urchin swore He ne’er, to leave the British shore, Would move a single pinion.
The saints at this were sadly vex’d, And much their holy brains perplex’d, To bring the boy to reason; And, when they found him bent to stay, They built up convent-walls straightway, And put poor Love in prison.
But Cupid, though a captive made, Soon met, within a convent shade, New subjects in profusion: Albeit he found his pagan name Was heard by pious maid and dame With horror and confusion.
For all were there demure and coy, And deem’d a rebel heathen boy A most unsaintly creature; But Cupid found a way with ease His slyest vot’ries tastes to please, And yet not change a feature.
For, by his brightest dart, the elf Affirm’d he’d turn a saint himself, To make their scruples lighter; So gravely hid his dimpled smiles, His wreathed locks, and playful wiles, Beneath a bishop’s mitre.
Then Christians rear’d the boy a shrine. And youths invok’d Saint Valentine To bless their annual passion; And maidens still his name revere, And, smiling, hail his day each year-- A day to village lovers dear, Though saints are out of fashion.
A. S.
Monthly Magazine.
* * * * *
Another is pleased to treat the prevailing topic of the day as one of those “whims and oddities,” which exceedingly amuse the reading world, and make e’en sighing lovers smile.
SONG
FOR THE 14TH OF FEBRUARY.
_By a General Lover._
“Mille gravem telis exhaustâ pene pharetrâ.”
Apollo has peep’d through the shutter, And waken’d the witty and fair; The boarding-school belle’s in a flutter, The twopenny post’s in despair: The breath of the morning is flinging A magic on blossom, on spray; And cockneys and sparrows are singing In chorus on Valentine’s Day.
Away with ye, dreams of disaster, Away with ye, visions of law, Of cases I never shall master, Of pleadings I never shall draw: Away with ye, parchments and papers. Red tapes, unread volumes, away; It gives a fond lover the vapours To see you on Valentine’s Day.
I’ll sit in my nightcap, like Hayley, I’ll sit with my arms crost, like Spain, Till joys, which are vanishing daily, Come back in their lustre again: Oh, shall I look over the waters, Or shall I look over the way, For the brightest and best of Earth’s daughters, To rhyme to on Valentine’s Day?
Shall I crown with my worship, for fame’s sake, Some goddess whom Fashion has starr’d, Make puns on Miss Love and her namesake. Or pray for a _pas_ with Brocard? Shall I flirt, in romantic idea, With Chester’s adorable clay, Or whisper in transport, “Si mea[51] Cum Vestris----” on Valentine’s Day?
Shall I kneel to a Sylvia or Celia, Whom no one e’er saw or may see, A fancy-drawn Laura Amelia, An _ad libit._ Anna Marie? Shall I court an initial with stars to it, Go mad for a G. or a J. Get Bishop to put a few bars to it, And print it on Valentine’s Day?
Alas! ere I’m properly frantic With some such pure figment as this. Some visions, not quite so romantic, Start up to demolish the bliss; Some Will o’ the Wisp in a bonnet Still leads my lost wit quite astray, Till up to my ears in a sonnet I sink upon Valentine’s Day.
The Dian I half bought a ring for, On seeing her thrown in the ring; The Naiad I took such a spring for, From Waterloo Bridge, in the spring; The trembler I saved from a robber, on My walk to the Champs Elysée!-- The warbler that fainted at Oberon, Three months before Valentine’s Day.
The gipsy I once had a spill with, Bad lack to the Paddington team! The countess I chanced to be ill with From Dover to Calais by steam; The lass that makes tea for Sir Stephen, The lassie that brings in the tray; It’s odd--but the betting is even Between them on Valentine’s Day.
The white hands I help’d in their nutting; The fair neck I cloak’d in the rain; The bright eyes that thank’d me for cutting My friend in Emmanuel-lane; The Blue that admires Mr. Barrow; The Saint that adores Lewis Way; The Nameless that dated from Harrow Three couplets last Valentine’s Day.
I think not of Laura the witty, For, oh! she is married at York! I sigh not for Rose of the City, For, ah! she is buried at Cork! Adèle has a braver and better To say what I never could say; Louise cannot construe a letter Of English on Valentine’s Day.
So perish the leaves in the arbour, The tree is all bare in the blast! Like a wreck that is drifting to harbour, I come to thee, Lady, at last. Where art thou so lovely and lonely? Though idle the lute and the lay, The lute and the lay are thine only, My fairest, on Valentine’s Day.
For thee I have open’d my Blackstone, For thee I have shut up myself; Exchanged my long curls for a Caxton, And laid my short whist on the shelf; For thee I have sold my old Sherry, For thee I have burn’d my new play; And I grow philosophical--very! Except upon Valentine’s Day.
Φ
New Monthly Magazine.
* * * * *
In the poems of Elizabeth Trefusis there is a “Valentine” with an expression of feeling which may well conclude the extracts already produced.
When to Love’s influence woman yields, She loves for life! and daily feels Progressive tenderness!--each hour Confirms, extends, the tyrant’s power! Her lover is her god! her fate!-- Vain pleasures, riches, worldly state, Are trifles all!--each sacrifice Becomes a dear and valued prize, If made for him, e’en tho’ he proves Forgetful of their former loves.
[50] Dr. Drake’s Shakspeare and his Times. See also the _Every-Day Book_ for large particulars of the day.
[51] “Si mea cum Vestris valuissent vota!”--Ovid, _Met._
* * * * *
AIR AND EXERCISE
FOR LADIES.
There is a notion, that air spoils the complexion. It is possible, that an exposure to all weathers might do so; though if a gipsy beauty is to be said to have a bad complexion, it is one we are very much inclined to be in love with. A russeton apple has its beauty as well as a peach. At all events, a spoilt complexion of this sort is accompanied with none of the melancholy attending the bad complexions that arise from late hours, and spleen, and plodding, and indolence, and indigestion. Fresh air puts a wine in the blood that lasts from morning to night, and not merely for an hour or two after dinner. If ladies would not carry buttered toast in their cheeks, instead of roses, they must shake the blood in their veins, till it spins clear. Cheerfulness itself helps to make good blood; and air and exercise make cheerfulness. When it is said, that air spoils the complexion, it is not meant that breathing it does so, but exposure to it. We are convinced it is altogether a fallacy, and that nothing but a constant exposure to the extremes of heat and cold has any such effect. The not breathing the fresh air is confessedly injurious; and this might be done much oftener than is supposed. People might oftener throw up their windows, or admit the air partially, and with an effect sensible only to the general feelings. We find, by repeated experiments, that we can write better and longer with the admission of air into our study. We have learnt also, by the same experience, to prefer a large study to a small one; and here the rich, it must be confessed, have another advantage over us. They pass their days in large airy rooms--in apartments that are field and champain, compared to the closets that we dignify with the name of parlours and drawing-rooms. A gipsy and they are in this respect, and in many others, more on a footing; and the gipsy beauty and the park beauty enjoy themselves accordingly. Can we look at that extraordinary race of persons--we mean the gipsies--and not recognise the wonderful physical perfection to which they are brought, solely by their exemption from some of our most inveterate notions, and by dint of living constantly in the fresh air? Read any of the accounts that are given of them, even by writers the most opposed to their way of life, and you will find these very writers refuting themselves and their proposed ameliorations by confessing that no human beings can be better formed, or healthier, or happier than the gipsies, so long as they are kept out of the way of towns and their sophistications. A suicide is not known among them. They are as merry as the larks with which they rise; have the use of their limbs to a degree unknown among us, except by our new friends the gymnasts; and are as sharp in their faculties as the perfection of their frames can render them. A glass of brandy puts them into a state of unbearable transport. It is a superfluous bliss; wine added to wine: and the old learn to do themselves mischief with it, and level their condition with stockbrokers and politicians. Yet these are the people whom some wiseacres are for turning into bigots and manufacturers. They had much better take them for what they are, and for what Providence seems to have intended them--a memorandum to keep alive among us the belief in nature, and a proof to what a physical state of perfection the human being can be brought, solely by inhaling her glorious breath, and being exempt from our laborious mistakes. If the intelligent and the gipsy life could ever be brought more together, by any rational compromise, (and we do not despair of it, when we see that calculators begin to philosophize,) men might attain the greatest perfection of which they are capable. Meanwhile the gipsies have the advantage of it, if faces are any index of health and comfort. A gipsy with an eye fit for a genius, it is not difficult to meet with; but where shall we find a genius, or even a fundholder, with the cheek and health of a gipsy?
There is a fact well known to physicians, which settles at once the importance of fresh air to beauty, as well as health. It is, that in proportion as people stay at home, and do not set their lungs playing as they ought, the blood becomes dark, and lags in its current; whereas the habit of inhaling the air out of doors reddens it like a ruby, and makes it clear and brisk. Now the darker the blood, the more melancholy the sensations, and the worse the complexion.
It is common with persons who inherit a good stock of health from their ancestors, to argue that they take no particular pains to preserve it, and yet are well. This may be true; and it is also true, that there is a painstaking to that effect, which is superfluous and morbid, and helps to do more harm than good. But it does not follow from either of these truths, that a neglect of the rational means of retaining health will ultimately be good for any body. Healthy people may live a good while upon their stock. Children are in the habit of doing it. But healthy children, especially those who are foolishly treated upon an assumption that health consists in being highly fed, and having great beef-eating cheeks, very often turn out sickly at last; and grown-up people, for the most part, at least in great towns, have as little really good health, as children in general are given credit for the reverse. Nature does indeed provide liberally for abuses; but the abuse will be felt at last. It is generally felt a long while before it is acknowledged. Then comes age, with all its train of regrets and superstitions; and the beauty and the man, besides a world perhaps of idle remorse, which they would not feel but for their perverted blood, could eat their hearts out for having been such fools as not to secure a continuance of good looks and manly feelings, for want of a little handsome energy.
The ill taste of existence that is so apt to come upon people in middle life, is too often attributed to moral causes. Moral they are, but very often not in the sense imagined. Whatever causes be mixed up with them, the greatest of all is, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, no better or grander than a non-performance of the common duties of health. Many a fine lady takes a surfeit for a tender distress; and many a real sufferer, who is haunted by a regret, or takes himself for the most ill-used of bilious old gentlemen, might trace the loftiest of his woes to no better origin than a series of ham-pies, or a want of proper use of his boots and umbrella.[52]
[52] New Monthly Magazine.
* * * * *
A SONG.
Young Joe, he was a carman gay, As any town could show; His team was good, and, like his pence, Was always on the go; A thing, as every jackass knows, Which often leads to _wo_!
It fell out that he fell in love, By some odd chance or whim, With Alice Payne--beside whose eyes All other eyes were dim: The painful tale must out--indeed, She was _A Pain_ to him.
For, when he ask’d her civilly To make one of _they_ two, She whipp’d her tongue across her teeth, And said, “D’ye think it true, I’d trust my _load_ of life with _sich_ A waggoner as you?
“No, no--to be a carman’s wife Will ne’er suit Alice Payne; I’d better far a lone woman For evermore remain, Than have it said, while in my youth, My life is on the _wain_!”
“Oh, Alice Payne! Oh, Alice Payne! Why won’t you meet with me?” Then up she curl’d her nose, and said, “Go axe your axletree; I tell you, Joe, this--once for all-- My _joe_ you shall not be.”
She spoke the fatal “no,” which put A spoke into his wheel-- And stopp’d his happiness, as though She’d cry _wo!_ to his _weal_:-- These women ever steal our hearts, And then their own they _steel_.
So round his melancholy neck Poor Joe his drag-chain tied, And hook’d it on a hook--“Oh! what A weight is life!” he cried; Then off he cast himself--and thus The cast-off carman died!
Howbeit, as his son was set, (Poor Joe!) at set of sun, They laid him in his lowly grave, And gravely that was done; And she stood by, and laugh’d outright-- How wrong--the guilty one!
But the day of retribution comes Alike to prince and hind, As surely as the summer’s sun Must yield to wintry wind: Alas! she did not mind his peace-- So she’d no peace of mind.
For when she sought her bed of rest, Her rest was all on thorns; And there another lover stood, Who wore a pair of horns: His little tiny feet were cleft, And cloven, like a fawn’s;
His face and garb were dark and black, As daylight to the blind; And a something undefinable Around his skirt was twin’d-- As if he wore, like other pigs, His pigtail out behind.
His arms, though less than other men’s, By no means _harm-less_ were: Dark elfin locks en lock’d his brow-- You might not call them hair; And, oh! it was a _gas-tly_ sight To see his eye-balls glare.
And ever, as the midnight bell Twelve awful strokes had toll’d, That dark man by her bedside stood, Whilst all her blood run cold; And ever and anon he cried, “I could a _tail_ unfold!”
And so her strength of heart grew less, For heart-less she had been; And on her pallid cheek a small Red hectic spot was seen: You could not say her life was spent Without a spot, I wean.
And they who mark’d that crimson light Well knew the treach’rous bloom-- A light that shines, alas! alas! To light us to our tomb: They said ’twas like thy cross, St. Paul’s, The _signal_ of her _doom_.
And so it prov’d--she lost her health, When breath she needed most-- Just as the winning horse gets blown Close by the winning-post. The ghost, he gave up plaguing her-- So she gave up the ghost.
H. L.
* * * * *
~London.~
MODERN IMPROVEMENTS.
In the annals of the world there have never been such rapid changes and such vast improvements as have occurred in this metropolis during the last seven years. We have no occasion now to refer to Pennant to produce exclamations of surprise at the wonderful changes in London; our own recollections are sufficient. Oxford-street seems half a mile nearer to Charing Cross than in the days of our youth. Swallow-street, with all the dirty courts in its vicinity, have been swallowed up, and replaced by one of the most magnificent streets in Europe; a street, which may vie with the Calle d’Alcala in Madrid, with the Quartier du Chapeau Rouge at Bourdeaux, or the Place de Louis Quinze at Paris. We must, for the present, overlook the defects of the architectural detail of this street, in the contemplation of the great and general improvement which its construction has produced in the metropolis.
Other streets are proposed by the same active genius under which Regent-street has been accomplished; the vile houses which surrounded and hid the finest portico in London--that of St. Martin’s church--are already taken down; a square is to be formed round this building, with two large openings into the Strand, and plans are already in agitation to lay open other churches in the same manner. Even the economical citizens have given us a peep at St. Bride’s--being ashamed again to hide beauties which accident had given them an opportunity of displaying to greater advantage. One street is projected from Charing Cross to the British Museum, terminating in a square, of which the church in Hart-street is to form the centre; another is intended to lead to the same point from Waterloo-bridge, by which this structure, which is at present almost useless, will become the great connecting thoroughfare between the north and south sides of the Thames: this street is, indeed, a desideratum to the proprietors of the bridge, as well as to the public at large. Carlton-house is already being taken down--by which means Regent-street will terminate at the south end, with a view of St. James’s Park, in the same manner as it does at the north end, by an opening into the Regent’s Park.
Such is the general outline of the late and the projected improvements in the heart of the metropolis; but they have not stopped here. The king has been decorating Hyde Park with lodges, designed by Mr. Decimus Burton, which are really gems in architecture, and stand unrivalled for proportion, chasteness, and simplicity, amidst the architectural productions of the age.
Squares are already covering the extensive property of lord Grosvenor in the fields of Chelsea and Pimlico; and crescents and colonnades are planned, by the architect to the bishop of London, on the ground belonging to the diocese at Bayswater.
But all suburban improvements sink into insignificance, when compared with what has been projected and attained within the last seven years in the Regent’s Park. This new city of palaces has appeared to have started into existence like the event of a fairy tale. Every week showed traces of an Aladdin hand in its progress, till, to our astonishment, we ride through streets, squares, crescents, and terraces, where we the other day saw nothing but pasture land and Lord’s-cricket-ground;--a barn is replaced by a palace--and buildings are constructed, one or two of which may vie with the proudest efforts of Greece and Rome.
The projector, with true taste, has called the beauties of landscape to the aid of architectural embellishment; and we accordingly find groves, and lawns, and streams intersecting the numerous ranges of terraces and villas; while nature, as though pleased at the efforts of art, seems to have exerted herself with extraordinary vigour to emulate and second the efforts of the artist.
In so many buildings, and amidst so much variety, there must, consequently, be many different degrees of architectural excellence, and many defects in architectural composition; but, taken as a whole, and the short time occupied in its accomplishment, the Regent’s Park may be considered as one of the most extraordinary creations of architecture that has ever been witnessed. It is the only speculation of the sort where elegance seems to have been considered equally with profit in the disposition of the ground. The buildings are not crowded together with an avaricious determination to create as much frontage as possible; and we cannot bestow too much praise on the liberality with which the projector has given up so much space to the squares, roads, and plantations, by which he has certainly relinquished many sources of profit for the pleasure and convenience of the public.
It is in the contemplation of these additions and improvements to our metropolis, that we doubly feel the blessings and effects of that peace which has enabled the government, as well as private individuals, to attempt to make London worthy of the character it bears in the scale of cities; and we are happy now to feel proud of the architectural beauty, as we always have of the commercial influence, of our metropolis.[53]
[53] Monthly Magazine.
* * * * *
THE SPELLS OF HOME.
There blend the ties that strengthen Our hearts in hours of grief, The silver links that lengthen Joys visits when most brief! Then, dost thou sigh for pleasure? O! do not widely roam! But seek that hidden treasure At home, dear home!
BERNARD BARTON.
* * * * *
By the soft green light in the woody glade, On the banks of moss where thy childhood play’d; By the waving tree thro’ which thine eye First look’d in love to the summer sky; By the dewy gleam, by the very breath Of the primrose-tufts in the grass beneath, Upon thy heart there is laid a spell-- Holy and precious--oh! guard it well!
By the sleepy ripple of the stream, Which hath lull’d thee into many a dream; By the shiver of the ivy-leaves, To the wind of morn at thy casement-eaves; By the bees’ deep murmur in the limes, By the music of the Sabbath-chimes; By every sound of thy native shade, Stronger and dearer the spell is made.
By the gathering round the winter hearth, When twilight call’d unto household mirth, By the fairy tale or the legend old In that ring of happy faces told; By the quiet hours when hearts unite In the parting prayer, and the kind “good-night;” By the smiling eye and the loving tone, Over thy life has the spell been thrown.
And bless that gift!--it hath gentle might, A guardian power and a guiding light! It hath led the freeman forth to stand In the mountain-battles of his land; It hath brought the wanderer o’er the seas, To die on the hills of his own fresh breeze; And back to the gates of his father’s hall, It hath won the weeping prodigal.
Yes! when thy heart in its pride would stray, From the loves of its guileless youth away; When the sullying breath of the world would come, O’er the flowers it brought from its childhood’s home; Think thou again of the woody glade, And the sound by the rustling ivy made; Think of the tree at thy parent’s door, And the kindly spell shall have power once more!
F. H.
Monthly Magazine.
* * * * *
BOOKS.
’Twere well with most, if books, that could engage Their childhood, pleased them at a riper age; The man approving what had charmed the boy, Would die at last in comfort, peace, and joy; And not with curses on his art, who stole The gem of truth from his unguarded soul.
COWPER.
If there be one word in our language, beyond all others teeming with delightful associations, _Books_ is that word. At that magic name what vivid retrospections of by-gone times, what summer days of unalloyed happiness “when life was new,” rush on the memory! even now the spell retains its power to charm: the beloved of my youth is the solace of my declining years: such is the enduring nature of an early attachment to literature.
The first book that inspired me with a taste for reading, was _Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress_; never shall I forget the intense emotion with which I perused this pious and interesting fiction: the picturesque descriptions and quaint moralities blended with this fine allegory, heightened the enchantment, which to a youthful and fervid imagination, “unsated yet with garbage,” was complete. From henceforward my bias was determined; the passion grew with my growth, and strengthened with my strength; and I _devoured_ all the books that fell in my way, as if “appetite increased by what it fed on.” My next step was,--I commenced _collector_. Smile, if you will, reader, but admire the benevolence of creative wisdom, by which the means of happiness are so nicely adjusted to the capacity for enjoyment: for, slender, as in those days were my finances, I much doubt if the noble possessor of the _unique edition_ of BOCCACCIO, marched off with his envied prize at the cost of _two thousand four hundred pounds_, more triumphantly, than I did with my sixpenny pamphlet, or dog’s eared volume, destined to form the nucleus of my future library.
The moral advantages arising out of a love of books are so obvious, that to enlarge upon such a topic might be deemed a gratuitous parade of truisms; I shall therefore proceed to offer a few observations, as to the best modes of deriving both pleasure and improvement from the cultivation of this most fascinating and intellectual of all pursuits. Lord Bacon says, with his usual discrimination, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested;” this short sentence comprises the whole practical wisdom of the subject, and in like manner by an extension of the principle, the choice of a library must be regulated. “Few books, well selected, are best,” is a maxim useful to all, but more especially to young collectors: for let it be remembered, that economy in our pleasures invariably tends to enlarge the sphere of our enjoyments. Fuller remarks, “that it is a vanity to persuade the world one hath much learning by getting a great library;” and the supposition is equally erroneous, that a _large_ collection necessarily implies a _good_ one. The truth is, were we to discard all the works of a mere temporary interest, and of solemn trifling, that incumber the fields of literature, the magnitude of numerous vast libraries would suddenly shrink into most diminutive dimensions, for the number of good original authors is comparatively few; study therefore _quality_ rather than _quantity_ in the selection of your books. As regards the _luxuries_ of the library, keep a rigid watch upon your inclinations; for though it must not be denied that there is a rational pleasure in seeing a favourite author _elegantly attired_, nothing is more ridiculous than this taste pushed to the extreme; for then this refined pursuit degenerates into a mere hobbyhorse, and once fairly mounted, good-by to prudence and common sense! The Bibliomaniac is thus pleasantly satirized by an old poet in the “Shyp of Fooles.”
Styll am I besy _bok assemblynge_, For to have plenty it is a pleasaunt thynge In my conceit, and to have them ay in hand, _But what they mene do I not understande_!
When we survey our well-furnished bookshelves, the first thought that suggests