Part 117
The scamp’ring hare outstript the wind, The creeping tortoise lagg’d behind, And scarce had pass’d a single pole, When puss had almost reach’d the goal. “Friend tortoise,” quoth the jeering hare, “Your burthen’s more than you can bear, To help your speed it were as well That I should ease you of your shell: Jog on a little faster, pr’ythee, I’ll take a nap, and then be with thee.” So said, so done, and safely sure, For say, what conquest more secure? Whene’er he walk’d (that’s all that’s in it) He could o’ertake him in a minute.
The tortoise heard his taunting jeer, But still resolv’d to persevere, Still drawl’d along, as who should say, I’ll win, like Fabius, by delay; On to the goal securely crept, While puss unknowing soundly slept.
The bets were won, the hare awoke, When thus the victor tortoise spoke: “Puss, tho’ I own thy quicker parts, Things are not always done by starts, You may deride my awkward pace, But slow and steady wins the race.”
_Lloyd._
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Indian Fleabane. _Inula Indica._ Dedicated to _St. Calixtus_.
~October 15.~
_St. Teresa_, Virgin, A. D. 1582. _St. Tecla_, Abbess. _St. Hospicius_, or _Hospis_, A. D. 580.
_Scent of Dogs, and Tobacco._
A contemporary kalendarian[351] appears to be an early smoker and a keen sportsman. He says, “From having constantly amused ourselves with our pipe early in the morning, we have discovered and are enabled to point out an almost infallible method of judging of good scent. When the tobacco smoke seems to hang lazily in the air, scarcely sinking or rising, or moving from the place where it is emitted from the pipe, producing at the same time a strong smell, which lasts some time in the same place after the smoke is apparently dispersed, we may on that day be sure that the scent will lay well. We have seldom known this rule to deceive; but it must be remembered that the state of the air will sometimes change in the course of the day, and that the scent will drop all of a sudden, and thus throw the hounds all out, and break off the chase abruptly. For as Sommerville says:--
Thus on on the air Depend the hunter’s hopes. When ruddy streaks At eve forebode a blustering stormy day, Or lowering clouds blacken the mountain’s brow, When nipping frosts, and the keen biting blasts Of the dry parching east, menace the trees With tender blossoms teeming, kindly spare Thy sleeping pack, in their warm beds of straw Low sinking at their ease; listless they shrink Into some dark recess, nor hear thy voice Thought oft invoked; or haply if thy call Rouse up the slumbering tribe, with heavy eyes Glazed, lifeless, dull, downward they drop their tails Inverted; high on their bent backs erect Their pointed bristles stare, or ’mong the tufts Of ranker weeds, each stomach-healing plant Curious they crop, sick, spiritless, forlorn. These inauspicious days, on other cares Employ thy precious hours.”
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Sweet Sultan. _Centaurea moschi._ Dedicated to _St. Teresa_.
[351] Dr. Forster.
~October 16.~
_St. Gall_, Abbot, A. D. 646. _St. Lullus_, or _Lullon_, Abp., A. D. 787. _St. Mummolin_, or _Mommolin_, Bp. A. D. 665.
CUSTOM AT ESKDALE, YORKSHIRE.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Sir,
Ascension-day, whereon there is a remarkable annual custom in maintenance of a tenure, has passed, but as it originated from a circumstance on the 16th of October, you can introduce it on that day, and it will probably be informing as well as amusing to the majority of readers. The narrative is derived from a tract formerly published at Whitby. I am, &c.
WENTANA CIVIS.
On this day in the fifth year of the reign of king Henry II. after the conquest of England, (1140,) by William, duke of Normandy, the lord of _Uglebarnby_, then called William de Bruce, the lord of Snaynton, called Ralph de Percy, and a gentleman freeholder called Allotson, did meet to hunt the wild boar, in a certain wood or desert, called Eskdale side; the wood or place did belong to the abbot of the monastery of Whitby in Yorkshire, who was then called Sedman, and abbot of the said place.
Then, the aforesaid gentlemen did meet with their hounds and boar-staves in the place aforesaid, and there found a great wild boar; and the hounds did run him very hard, near the chapel and hermitage of Eskdale side, where there was a monk of Whitby, who was an hermit; and the boar being so hard pursued, took in at the chapel door, and there laid him down, and died immediately, and the hermit shut the hounds out of the chapel, and kept himself at his meditation and prayers; the hounds standing at bay without, the gentlemen in the thick of the wood, put behind their game, in following the cry of the hounds, came to the hermitage and found the hounds round the chapel; then came the gentlemen to the door of the chapel, and called on the hermit, who did open the door, and then they got forth, and within lay the boar dead, for which the gentlemen, in a fury, because their hounds were put out of their game, run at the hermit with their boar-staves, whereof he died; then the gentlemen knowing, and perceiving that he was in peril of death, took sanctuary at Scarborough; but at that time, the abbot, being in great favour with the king, did remove them out of the sanctuary, whereby they became in danger of the law, and not privileged, but like to have the severity of the law, which was death. But the hermit being a holy man, and being very sick and at the point of death, sent for the abbot, and desired him to send for the gentlemen, who had wounded him to death; so doing, the gentlemen came, and the hermit being sick, said, “I am sure to die of these wounds:” but the abbot answered, “They shall die for it,” but the hermit said, “Not so, for I will freely forgive them my death, if they are content to be enjoined this penalty (penance) for the safeguard of their souls;” the gentlemen being there present, bid him enjoin what he would, so he saved their lives: then said the hermit, “you and yours shall hold your land of the abbot of Whitby, and his successors in this manner: that upon _Ascension-day Even_, you or some of you shall come to the wood of _Strayheads_, which is in Eskdale side, and the same (Ascension-day) at sun rising, and there shall the officer of the abbot blow his horn, to the intent that you may know how to find him, and deliver unto you William de Bruce, ten stakes, eleven street stowers, and eleven yadders, to be cut with a knife of a penny price; and you Ralph de Percy, shall take one and twenty of each sort, to be cut in the same manner; and you Allotson, shall take nine of each sort to be cut as aforesaid, and to be taken on your backs, and carried to the town of Whitby, and to be there before nine o’clock of the same day before mentioned; and at the hour of nine o’clock, if it be full sea, to cease their service, as long as till it be low water, and at nine o’clock of the same day, each of you shall set your stakes at the brim of the water, each stake a yard from another, and so yadder them with your yadders, and to stake them on each side, with street stowers, that they stand three tides, without removing by the force of the water; each of you shall make at that hour in every year, except it be full sea at that hour, which when it shall happen to come to pass, the service shall cease: you shall do this to remember that you did slay me; and that you may the better call to God for mercy, repent yourselves, and do good works. The officer of Eskdale side, shall blow, _Out on you! out on you! out on you!_ for this heinous crime of yours. If you or your successors refuse this service, so long as it shall not be a full sea, at the hour aforesaid, you or your’s shall forfeit all your land to the abbot or his successors; this I do entreat, that you may have your lives, and goods for this service, and you to promise by your parts in heaven, that it shall be done by you and your successors, as it is aforesaid:” and then the abbot said, “I grant all that you have said, and will confirm it by the faith of an honest man.” Then the hermit said, “My soul longeth for the Lord, and I as freely forgive these gentlemen my death, as Christ forgave the thief upon the cross;” and in the presence of the abbot and the rest, he said moreover these words, “_In manus tuas, Domine commendo spiritum meum, à vinculis enim mortis redimisti me, Domine veritatis_,” (Into thy hands O Lord I recommend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me from the bonds of death O Lord of Truth,) and the abbot and the rest said “_Amen_,” and so yielded up the ghost the eighth day of December, upon whose soul God have mercy. Anno Domini, 1160.[352]
N. B. This service is still annually performed.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Yarrow. _Achillæ multifolium._ Dedicated to _St. Gall_.
[352] Blount by Beckwith.
~October 17.~
_St. Hedwiges_, or _Avoice_, duchess of Poland, A. D. 1243, _St. Anstrudis_, or _Anstru_, A. D. 688. _St. Andrew_ of Crete, A. D. 761.
~St. Etheldreda.~
She was daughter of Annas, king of the East Angles, and born about 630, at Ixning, formerly a town of note on the western border of Suffolk, next Cambridgeshire. At Coldingham Abbey, Yorkshire, she took the veil under Ebba, daughter of king Ethelfrida, an abbess, afterwards celebrated for having saved herself and her nuns from the outrage of the Danes by mutilating their faces; the brutal invaders enclosed them in their convent and destroyed them by fire.
Notwithstanding Etheldreda’s vow to remain a nun, she was twice forced by her parents to marry, and yet maintained her vow; hence she is styled, in the Romish breviaries, “twice a widow and always a virgin.” On the death of her first husband Tonbert, a nobleman of the East Angles, the isle of Ely became her sole property by jointure, and she founded a convent, and the convent church there; and for their maintenance endowed them with the whole island. She married her second husband Egfrid, king of Northumberland, on the death of Tonbert, in 671, but persisted in her vow, and died abbess of her convent on the 23d of June, 679. On the 17th of October, sixteen years afterwards, her relics were translated, and therefore on this day her festival is commemorated. In 870, the Danes made a descent on the isle of Ely, destroyed the convent and slaughtered the inhabitants. By abbreviation her name became corrupted to Auldrey and Audrey.[353]
_Tawdry--St. Audrey._
As at the annual fair in the isle of Ely, called St. Audrey’s fair, “much ordinary but showy lace was usually sold to the country lasses, St. Audrey’s lace soon became proverbial, and from that cause _Taudry_, a corruption of St. Audrey, was established as a common expression to denote not only lace, but any other part of female dress, which was much more gaudy in appearance than warranted by its real quality and value.” This is the assertion of Mr. Brady, in his “Clavis Calendaria,” who, for aught that appears to the contrary, gives the derivation of the word as his own conjecture, but Mr. Archdeacon Nares, in his admirable “Glossary,” shows the meaning to have been derived from Harpsfield, “an old English historian,” who refers to the appellation, and “makes St. Audrey die of a swelling in her throat, which she considered as a particular judgment, for having been in her youth much addicted to wearing fine necklaces.” There is not now any grounds to doubt that _tawdry_ comes from St. Audrey. It was so derived in Dr. Johnson’s “Dictionary” before Mr. Todd’s edition. Dr. Ash deemed the word of “uncertain etymology.”
HARES AND SQUIRRELS.
The pleasant correspondent of Mr. Urban, whose account of his squirrels is introduced on the seventh day of the present month, was induced, by Mr. Cowper’s experience in the management of his hares, to procure a _hare_ about three weeks old. “The little creature,” he says, “at first pined for his dam, and his liberty, and refused food. In a few days I prevailed with him to take some milk from my lips, and this is still his favourite method of drinking. Soon after, observing that he greedily lapped sweet things, I dipped a cabbage-leaf in honey, and thus tempted him to eat the first solid food he ever tasted. I beg leave to add to Mr Cowper’s bill of fare, nuts, walnuts, pears, sweet cakes of all kinds, sea biscuits, sugar, and, above all, apple-pie. Every thing which is hard and crisp seems to be particularly relished.--The iris of the hare is very beautiful; it has the appearance of the gills of a young mushroom, seeming to consist of very delicate fibres, disposed like radii issuing from a common centre. I shall be glad to be informed by any person, skilled in anatomy, whether this structure of the iris be not of use to enable the eye to bear the constant action of the light; as it is a common opinion that this animal sleeps, even in the day-time, with its eyes open. I have observed, likewise, that the fur of the hare is more strongly electrical than the hair of any other animal. If you apply the point of a finger to his side in frosty weather, the hairs are immediately strongly attracted towards it from all points, and closely embrace the finger on every side.”
It should be added from this agreeable writer, as regards the _squirrel_, that he was much surprised at the great advantage the little animal derives from his extended tail, which brings his body so nearly to an equipoise with the air, as to render a leap or fall from the greatest height perfectly safe to him. “My squirrel has more than once leaped from the window of the second story, and alighted on stone steps, or on hard gravel, without suffering any inconvenience. But I should be glad to have confirmation, from an eye-witness, of what Mr. Pennant relates on the credit of Linnæus, Klein, Rzaczinski, and Scheffer, viz. that a squirrel sometimes crosses a river on a piece of bark by way of boat, using his tail as a sail. Not less astonishing is the undaunted courage of these little brutes: they seem sometimes resolved to conquer as it were, by reflection and fortitude, their natural instinctive fears. I have often known a squirrel tremble and scream at the first sight of a dog or cat, and yet, within a few minutes, after several abortive attempts, summon resolution enough to march up and smell at the very nose of his gigantic enemy. These approaches he always makes by short abrupt leaps, stamping the ground with his feet as loud as he can; his whole mien and countenance most ridiculously expressive of ancient Pistol’s affected valour and intrepidity.”
IN RE SQUIRRELS.
_Be it remembered_, that C. L. comes here and represents his relations; that is to say, on behalf of the recollections, being the next of kin, of him, the said C. L., and of sundry persons who are “aye treading” in the manner of squirrels aforesaid; and thus he saith:--
_For the Every-Day Book._
What is gone with the Cages with the climbing Squirrel and bells to them, which were formerly the indispensable appendage to the outside of a Tinman’s shop, and were in fact the only Live Signs? One, we believe, still hangs out on Holborn; but they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our ancestors. They seem to have been superseded by that still more ingenious refinement of modern humanity--the Tread-mill; in which _human_ Squirrels still perform a similar round of ceaseless, improgressive clambering; which must be nuts to them.
We almost doubt the fact of the teeth of this creature being so purely orange-coloured, as Mr. Urban’s correspondent gives out. One of our old poets--and they were pretty sharp observers of nature--describes them as brown. But perhaps the naturalist referred to meant “of the colour of a Maltese orange,”[354] which is rather more obfuscated than your fruit of Seville, or Saint Michael’s; and may help to reconcile the difference. We cannot speak from observation, but we remember at school getting our fingers into the orangery of one of these little gentry (not having a due caution of the traps set there), and the result proved sourer than lemons. The Author of the Task somewhere speaks of their anger as being “insignificantly fierce,” but we found the demonstration of it on this occasion quite as significant as we desired; and have not been disposed since to look any of these “gift horses” in the mouth. Maiden aunts keep these “small deer” as they do parrots, to bite people’s fingers, on purpose to give them good advice “not to venture so near the cage another time.” As for their “six quavers divided into three quavers and a dotted crotchet,” I suppose, they may go into Jeremy Bentham’s next budget of Fallacies, along with the “melodious and proportionable kinde of musicke,” recorded in your last number of another highly gifted animal.[355]
C. L.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Tenleaved Sunflower. _Helianthus decapetalus._ Dedicated to _St. Anstrudis_.
[353] Audley. Brady.
[354] Fletcher in the “Faithful Shepherdess.”--The Satyr offers to Clorin,
--grapes whose lusty blood Is the learned Poet’s good, Sweeter yet did never crown The head of Bacchus; nuts more brown Than the _squirrels’ teeth_ that crack them.----
[355] Page 1360.
~October 18.~
_St. Luke the Evangelist_, A. D. 63. _St. Julian Sabus_, 4th Cent. _St. Justin._ _St. Monon_, 7th Cent.
~St. Luke.~
The name of this evangelist is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day, which was appointed his festival by the Romish church in the twelfth century. As a more convenient occasion will occur for a suitable notice of his history and character, it is deferred till then. It is presumed that he died about the year 70, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, having written his gospel about seven or eight years before.
CHARLTON FAIR. _Commonly called_ HORN FAIR.
At the pleasant village of Charlton, on the north side of Blackheath, about eight miles from London, a fair is held annually on St. Luke’s day. It is called “Horn Fair,” from the custom of carrying horns at it formerly, and the frequenters still wearing them. A foreigner travelling in England in the year 1598, mentions horns to have been conspicuously displayed in its neighbourhood at that early period. “Upon taking the air down the river (from London), on the left hand lies Ratcliffe, a considerable suburb. On the opposite shore is fixed a long pole with rams-horns upon it, the intention of which was vulgarly said to be a reflection upon wilful and contented cuckolds.”[356] An old newspaper states, that it was formerly a custom for a procession to go from some of the inns in Bishopsgate-street, in which were, a king, a queen, a miller, a counsellor, &c., and a great number of others, with horns in their hats, to Charlton, where they went round the church three times. This was accompanied by so many indecencies on Blackheath, such as the whipping of females with furze, &c., that it gave rise to the proverb of “all is fair at Horn Fair.”[357] A curious biographical memoir relates the custom of going to Horn Fair in womens’ clothes. “I remember being there upon Horn-Fair day, I was dressed in my land-ladie’s best gown and other women’s attire, and to Horn Fair we went, and as we were coming back by water, all the cloathes were spoiled by dirty water, &c., that was flung on us in an inundation, for which I was obliged to present her with two guineas to make atonement for the damages sustained.”[358] Mr. Brand, who cites these notices, and observes that Grose mentions this fair, adds, that “It consists of a riotous mob, who, after a printed summons dispersed through the adjacent towns, meet at Cuckold’s Point, near Deptford, and march from thence in procession through that town and Greenwich to Charlton, with horns of different kinds upon their heads; and at the fair there are sold rams’ horns, and every sort of toy made of horn: even the gingerbread figures have horns.” The same recorder of customs mentions an absurd tradition assigning the origin of this fair to a grant from king John, which, he very properly remarks, is “too ridiculous to merit the smallest attention.”
“A sermon,” says Mr. Brand, “is preached at Charlton church on the fair-day.” This sermon is now discontinued on the festival-day: the practice was created by a bequest of twenty shillings a year to the minister of the parish for preaching it.
The horn-bearing at this fair may be conjectured to have originated from the symbol, accompanying the figure of St. Luke: when he is represented by sculpture or painting, he is usually in the act of writing, with an ox or cow by his side, whose horns are conspicuous. These seem to have been seized by the former inhabitants of Charlton on the day of the saint’s festival, as a lively mode of sounding forth their rude pleasure for the holiday. Though most of the painted glass in the windows of the church was destroyed during the troubles in the time of Charles I., yet many fragments remain of St. Luke’s ox with wings on his back, and goodly horns upon his head: indeed, with the exception of two or three armorial bearings, and a few cherubs’ heads, these figures of St. Luke’s horned symbol, which escaped destruction, and are carefully placed in the upper part of the windows, are the only painted glass remaining; save also, however, that in the east window, there are the head and shoulders of the saint himself, and the same parts of the figure of Aaron.
The procession of horns, customary at Charlton fair, has ceased; but horns still continue to be sold from the lowest to “the best booth in the fair.” They are chiefly those of sheep, goats, and smaller animals, and are usually gilt and decorated for their less innocent successors to these ornaments. The fair is still a kind of carnival or masquerade. On St. Luke’s-day, 1825, though the weather was unfavourable to the customary humours, most of the visitors wore masks; several were disguised in women’s clothes, and some assumed whimsical characters. The spacious and celebrated Crown and Anchor booth was the principal scene of their amusements. The fair is now held in a private field: formerly it was on the green opposite the church, and facing the mansion of sir Thomas Wilson. The late lady Wilson was a great admirer and patroness of the fair; the old lady was accustomed to come down with her attendants every morning during the fair, “and in long order go,” from the steps of her ancient hall, to without the gates of her court-yard, when the bands of the different shows hailed her appearance, as a signal to strike up their melody of discords: Richardson, always pitched his great booth in front of the house. Latterly, however, the fair has diminished; Richardson was not there in 1825, nor were there any shows of consequence. “Horns! horns!” were the customary and chief cry, and the most conspicuous source of frolic: they were in the hat and bonnet of almost every person in the rout. A few years ago, it was usual for neighbouring gentry to proceed thither in their carriages during the morning to see the sports. The fair lasts three days.
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