Part 42

1794. Died Charles Pratt, earl Camden, born in 1713. As chief justice of the common pleas, he was distinguished for having discharged the celebrated John Wilkes from the tower. By that decision, general warrants were pronounced illegal; and for so great a service to his country, lord Camden received the approbation of his fellow citizens; they conferred on him the freedom of their cities, and placed his picture in their corporation-halls. He was equally distinguished for opposing the opinion of prerogative lawyers in matters of libel. At his death he was lord president of the council. Firm of purpose, and mild in manners, he was a wise and amiable man. It is pleasantly related of him, that while chief justice, being upon a visit to lord Dacre, at Alveley, in Essex, he walked out with a gentleman, a very absent man, to a hill, at no great distance from the house, upon the top of which stood the stocks of the village. The chief justice sat down upon them; and after a while, having a mind to know what the punishment was, he asked his companion to open them and put him in. This being done, his friend took a book from his pocket, sauntered on, and so completely forgot the judge and his situation, that he returned to lord Dacre’s. In the mean time, the chief justice being tired of the stocks, tried in vain to release himself. Seeing a countryman pass by, he endeavoured to move him to let him out, but obtained nothing by his motion. “No, no, old gentleman,” said the countryman, “you was not set there for nothing;” and left him, until he was released by a servant of the house despatched in quest of him. Some time after he presided at a trial in which a charge was brought against a magistrate for false imprisonment, and for setting in the stocks. The counsel for the magistrate, in his reply, made light of the whole charge, and more especially setting in the stocks, which he said every body knew was no punishment at all. The chief justice rose, and leaning over the bench, said, in a half-whisper, “Brother, have you ever been in the stocks?” “Really, my lord, never.”--“Then I have,” said the judge, “and I assure you, brother, it is no such trifle as you represent.”

1802. Dr. Erasmus Darwin died. He was born at Newark in Nottinghamshire, in 1732, and attained to eminence as a physician and a botanist. His decease was sudden. Riding in his carriage, he found himself mortally seized, pulled the check-string, and desired his servant to help him to a cottage by the road-side. On entering, they found a woman within, whom the doctor addressed thus, “Did you ever see a man die?”--“No, sir.”--“Then now you may.” The terrified woman ran out at the door, and in a few minutes Darwin was no more. He strenuously opposed the use of ardent spirits, from conviction that they induced dreadful maladies, especially gout, dropsy, and insanity; hence his patients were never freed from his importunities, and the few who had courage to persevere benefited by his advice.

THE MAID SERVANT.

Holidays being looked forward to with unmixed delight by all whose opportunities of enjoying them are dependent upon others, a sketch of character at such a season may amuse those whose inclination is not sufficiently strong to study the original, and just enough to feel pleasure in looking at the picture. The outline and finishing of that which is here exhibited prove it the production of a master hand.

“The maid servant must be considered as young, or else she has married the butcher, the butler, or her cousin, or has otherwise settled into a character distinct from her original one, so as to become what is properly called the domestic. The maid servant, in her apparel, is either slovenly or fine by turns, and dirty always; or she is at all times snug and neat, and dressed according to her station. In the latter case, her ordinary dress is black stockings, a stuff gown, a cap, and neck-handkerchief pinned corner-wise behind. If you want a pin, she just feels about her, and has always one to give you. On Sundays and holidays, and perhaps of afternoons, she changes her black stockings for white, puts on a gown of a better texture and fine pattern, sets her cap and her curls jauntily, and lays aside the neck-handkerchief for a high body, which, by the way, is not half so pretty. There is something very warm and latent in the handkerchief,--something easy, vital, and genial. A woman in a high-bodied gown, made to fit her like a case, is by no means more modest, and is much less tempting. She looks like a figure at the head of a ship. We could almost see her chucked out of doors into a cart with as little remorse as a couple of sugar-loaves. The tucker is much better, as well as the handkerchief; and is to the other, what the young lady is to the servant. The one always reminds us of the Sparkler in the ‘Guardian;’ the other of Fanny in ‘Joseph Andrews.’ But to return:--The general furniture of her ordinary room, the kitchen, is not so much her own as her master’s and mistress’s, and need not be described; but in a drawer of the dresser of the table, in company with a duster and a pair of snuffers, may be found some of her property, such as a brass thimble, a pair of scissars, a thread-case, a piece of wax candle much wrinkled with the thread, an odd volume of ‘Pamela,’ and perhaps a sixpenny play, such as ‘George Barnwell,’ or Mrs. Behn’s ‘Oroonoko.’ There is a piece of looking-glass also in the window. The rest of her furniture is in the garret, where you may find a good looking-glass on the table; and in the window a Bible, a comb, and a piece of soap. Here stands also, under stout lock and key, the mighty mystery--the box,--containing among other things her clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the penny; sundry tragedies at a half-penny the sheet: the ‘Whole Nature of Dreams laid open,’ together with the ‘Fortune-teller,’ and the ‘Account of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;’ ‘the story of the beautiful Zoa who was cast away on a desert island, showing how,’ &c.: some half-crowns in a purse, including pieces of country money, with the good countess of Coventry on one of them riding naked on the horse; a silver penny wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten her or been forgotten by her, she is not sure which; two little enamel boxes, with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other ‘a trifle from Margate;’ and lastly, various letters, square and ragged, and directed in all sorts of spelling, chiefly with little letters for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day school with her, is directed ‘miss.’--In her manners, the maid servant sometimes imitates her young mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and condition overcome all sophistications of this sort; her shape, fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is over saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty shoes--or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door-steps of a morning; and sometimes she catches herself saying, ‘drat that butcher,’ but immediately adds, ‘God forgive me.’ The tradesmen indeed, with their compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The milkman bespeaks her good humour for the day with--‘Come, pretty maids.’ Then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, &c. all with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from its roller with more than ordinary whirl, and tosses, as it were, his parcel into a tie,--for her, the cheesemonger weighs his butter with half a glance, cherishes it round about with his patties, and dabs the little piece on it to make up, with a graceful jerk. Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and grumbling, and being flattered. If she takes any pleasure unconnected with her office before the afternoon, it is when she runs up the area-steps, or to the door to hear and purchase a new song, or to see a troop of soldiers go by; or when she happens to thrust her head out of a chamber window at the same time with a servant at the next house, when a dialogue infallibly ensues, stimulated by the imaginary obstacles between. If the maid-servant is wise, the best part of her work is done by dinner time; and nothing else is necessary to give perfect zest to the meal. She tells us what she thinks of it, when she calls it ‘a bit o’ dinner.’ There is the same sort of eloquence in her other phrase, ‘a cup o’ tea;’ but the old ones, and the washerwomen, beat her at that. After tea in great houses, she goes with the other servants to hot cockles, or What-are-my-thoughts like, and tells Mr. John to ‘have done then;’ or if there is a ball given that night, they throw open all the doors, and make use of the music up stairs to dance by. In smaller houses, she receives the visit of her aforesaid cousin; and sits down alone, or with a fellow maid servant, to work; talks of her young master, or mistress, Mr. Ivins (Evans): or else she calls to mind her own friends in the country, where she thinks the cows and ‘all _that_’ beautiful, now she is away. Meanwhile, if she is lazy, she snuffs the candle with her scissars; or if she has eaten more heartily than usual, she sighs double the usual number of times, and thinks that tender hearts were born to be unhappy. Such being the maid-servant’s life in doors, she scorns, when abroad, to be any thing but a creature of sheer enjoyment. The maid-servant, the sailor, and the school-boy, are the three beings that enjoy a holiday beyond all the rest of the world: and all for the same reason,--because their inexperience, peculiarity of life, and habit of being with persons or circumstances or thoughts above them, give them all, in their way, a cast of the romantic. The most active of money-getters is a vegetable compared with them. The maid-servant when she first goes to Vauxhall, thinks she is in heaven. A theatre is all pleasure to her, whatever is going forward, whether the play, or the music, or the waiting which makes others impatient, or the munching of apples and gingerbread nuts, which she and her party commence almost as soon as they have seated themselves. She prefers tragedy to comedy, because it is grander, and less like what she meets with in general; and because she thinks it more in earnest also, especially in the love scenes. Her favourite play is ‘Alexander the Great, or the Rival Queens,’ Another great delight is in going a shopping. She loves to look at the patterns in the window, and the fine things labelled with those corpulent numerals of ‘only 7s.’--‘only 6s. 6d.’ She has also, unless born and bred in London, been to see my lord mayor, the fine people coming out of court, and the ‘beasties’ in the tower; and at all events she has been to Astley’s and the Circus, from which she comes away equally smitten with the rider, and sore with laughing at the clown. But it is difficult to say what pleasure she enjoys most. One of the completest of all is the fair, where she walks through an endless round of noise, and toys, and gallant apprentices, and wonders. Here she is invited in by courteous, well dressed people as if she were the mistress. Here also is the conjuror’s booth, where the operator himself, a most stately and genteel person all in white, calls her ‘ma’am;’ and says to John by her side, in spite of his laced hat, ‘Be good enough, sir, to hand the card to the lady.’ Ah! may her cousin turn out as true as he says he is; or may she get home soon enough, and smiling enough, to be as happy again next time.”

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Musk Narcisse. _Narcissus moschatus._ Dedicated to _St. Apollonius_.

~April 19.~

_St. Leo_ IX. Pope, A. D. 1054. _St. Elphege_, A. D. 1012. _St. Ursmar_, Bp. A. D. 713.

_St. Elphege._

This saint’s name in the church of England calendar is _Alphege_. He was brought up at the monastery of Deerhurst, in Gloucestershire; afterwards he built himself a lonely cell in the abbey of Bath, where he became abbot, and corrected the “little junketings” and other irregularities of the monks. St. Dunstan being warned in a vision, drew him from thence, and gave him episcopal ordination. In 1006, he became bishop of Winchester, and was afterwards translated to the see of Canterbury. On the storming of that city by the Danes, he endeavoured to allay their fury, but they burnt his cathedral, decimated his monks, and carrying Alphege prisoner to Canterbury, there slew him on this day in 1012.[96]

It is storied, that when St. Alphege was imprisoned at Greenwich, the devil appeared to him in likeness of an angel, and tempted him to follow him into a dark valley, over which he wearily walked through hedges and ditches, till at last being in a most foul mire the devil vanished, and a real angel appeared and told St. Alphege to go back to prison and be a martyr, which he did. Then after his death, an old rotten stake was driven into his body, and those who drave it said, that if on the morrow the stake was green and bore leaves they would believe; whereupon the stake flourished and the drivers thereof repented as they said they would, and the body being buried at St. Paul’s church, in London, worked miracles.[97]

In commemoration of this saint was put up in Greenwich church the following inscription: “This church was erected and dedicated to the glory of God, and the memory of Saint Alphege, archbishop of Canterbury, here slain by the Danes.”

CHRONOLOGY.

1739. Died, Dr. Nicholas Saunderson, Lucasian professor of mathematics. He was born in 1659, at Thurlston, in Yorkshire, lost his sight from the small pox when twelve months old, and became so proficient in the science of certainties, that his eminence has rarely been equalled.

1775. The American war commenced at Lexington.

1791. Dr. Richard Price died. He was born in Glamorganshire in 1732. Revered for the purity of his private character, he is celebrated for his religious, moral, mathematical, and political works throughout Europe.

1824. Lord Byron died. A letter taken from a newspaper several years ago,[98] relative to the residence of this distinguished character in the island of Mitylene, seems to have escaped editorial inquiry, and is therefore subjoined. If authentic, it is, in some degree, an interesting memorial.

Mr. Editor,

In sailing through the Grecian Archipelago, on board one of his majesty’s vessels, in the year 1812, we put into the harbour of Mitylene, in the island of that name. The beauty of this place, and the certain supply of cattle and vegetables always to be had there, induce many British vessels to visit it, both men of war and merchantmen; and though it lies rather out of the track for ships bound to Smyrna, its bounties amply repay for the deviation of a voyage. We landed, as usual, at the bottom of the bay, and whilst the men were employed in watering, and the purser bargaining for cattle with the natives, the clergyman and myself took a ramble to a cave, called Homer’s School, and other places, where we had been before. On the brow of Mount Ida (a small monticole so named) we met with and engaged a young Greek as our guide, who told us he had come from Scio with an English lord, who left the island four days previous to our arrival, in his felucca. “He engaged me as a pilot,” said the Greek, “and would have taken me with him, but I did not choose to quit Mitylene, where I am likely to get married. He was an odd, but a very good man. The cottage over the hill, facing the river, belongs to him, and he has left an old man in charge of it; he gave Dominick, the wine trader, six hundred zechines for it, (about 250_l._ English currency,) and has resided there about fourteen months, though not constantly; for he sails in his felucca very often to the different islands.”

This account excited our curiosity very much, and we lost no time in hastening to the house where our countryman had resided. We were kindly received by an old man, who conducted us over the mansion. It consisted of four apartments on the ground floor: an entrance hall, a drawing-room, a sitting parlour, and a bed room, with a spacious closet annexed. They were all simply decorated: plain green-stained walls, marble tables on either side, a large myrtle in the centre, and a small fountain beneath, which could be made to play through the branches by moving a spring fixed in the side of a small bronze Venus in a leaning posture; a large couch or sopha completed the furniture. In the hall stood half a dozen English cane chairs, and an empty bookcase: there were no mirrors, nor a single painting. The bed-chamber had merely a large mattrass spread on the floor, with two stuffed cotton quilts and a pillow--the common bed throughout Greece. In the sitting room we observed a marble recess, formerly, the old man told us, filled with books and papers, which were then in a large seaman’s chest in the closet: it was open, but we did not think ourselves justified in examining the contents. On the tablet of the recess lay Voltaire’s, Shakspeare’s, Boileau’s, and Rousseau’s works, complete; Volney’s “Ruins of Empires;” Zimmerman, in the German language; Klopstock’s “Messiah;” Kotzebue’s novels; Schiller’s play of the “Robbers;” Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” an Italian edition, printed at Parma in 1810; several small pamphlets from the Greek press at Constantinople, much torn. Most of these books were filled with marginal notes, written with a pencil, in Italian and Latin. The “Messiah” was literally scribbled all over, and marked with slips of paper, on which also were remarks.

The old man said, “the lord had been reading these books the evening before he sailed, and forgot to place them with the others; but,” said he, “there they must lie until his return; for he is so particular, that were I to move one thing without orders, he would frown upon me for a week together: he is otherwise very good. I once did him a service, and I have the produce of this farm for the trouble of taking care of it, except twenty zechines, which I pay to an aged Armenian, who resides in a small cottage in the wood, and whom the lord brought here from Adrianople; I don’t know for what reason.”

The appearance of the house externally was pleasing. The portico in front was fifty paces long and fourteen broad, and the fluted marble pillars with black plinths and fret-work cornices, (as it is now customary in Grecian architecture,) were considerably higher than the roof. The roof, surrounded by a light stone balustrade, was covered by a fine Turkey carpet, beneath an awning of strong coarse linen. Most of the house-tops are thus furnished, as upon them the Greeks pass their evenings in smoking, drinking light wines, such as “lachryma Christi,” eating fruit, and enjoying the evening breeze.

On the left hand, as we entered the house, a small streamlet glided away; grapes, oranges, and limes were clustering together on its borders, and under the shade of two large myrtle bushes, a marble seat, with an ornamental wooden back, was placed, on which, we were told, the lord passed many of his evenings and nights, till twelve o’clock, reading, writing, and talking to himself. “I suppose,” said the old man, “praying; for he was very devout, and always attended our church twice a week, besides Sundays.”

The view from this seat was what may be termed “a bird’s eye view.” A line of rich vineyards led the eye to Mount Calcla, covered with olive and myrtle-trees in bloom, and on the summit of which an ancient Greek temple appeared in majestic decay. A small stream issuing from the ruins, descended in broken cascades, until it was lost in the woods near the mountain’s base. The sea, smooth as glass, and an horizon unshaded by a single cloud, terminates the view in front; and a little on the left, through a vista of lofty chesnut and palm-trees, several small islands were distinctly observed, studding the light blue wave with spots of emerald green. I seldom enjoyed a view more than I did this; but our inquiries were fruitless as to the name of the person who had resided in this romantic solitude; none knew his name but Dominick, his banker, who had gone to Candia. “The Armenian,” said our conductor, “could tell, but I am sure he will not.”--“And cannot you tell, old friend?” said I.--“If I can,” said he, “I dare not.” We had not time to visit the Armenian, but on our return to the town we learnt several particulars of the isolated lord. He had portioned eight young girls when he was last upon the island, and even danced with them at the nuptial feast. He gave a cow to one man, horses to others, and cotton and silk to the girls who live by weaving these articles. He also bought a new boat for a fisherman who had lost his own in a gale, and he often gave Greek Testaments to the poor children. In short, he appeared to us, from all we collected, to have been a very eccentric and benevolent character. One circumstance we learnt which our old friend at the cottage thought proper not to disclose. He had a most beautiful daughter, with whom the lord was often seen walking on the sea-shore, and he had bought her a pianoforte, and taught her himself the use of it.

Such was the information with which we departed from the peaceful isle of Mitylene; our imaginations all on the rack, guessing who this rambler in Greece could be. He had money, it was evident: he had philanthropy of disposition, and all those eccentricities which mark peculiar genius. Arrived at Palermo, all our doubts were dispelled. Falling in with Mr. Foster, the architect, a pupil of Wyatt’s, who had been travelling in Egypt and Greece, “The individual,” said he, “about whom you are so anxious, is lord Byron; I met him in my travels on the island of Tenedos, and I also visited him at Mitylene.”--We had never then heard of his lordship’s fame, as we had been some years from home; but “Childe Harold” being put into our hands, we recognised the recluse of Calcla in every page. Deeply did we regret not having been more curious in our researches at the cottage, but we consoled ourselves with the idea of returning to Mitylene on some future day; but to me that day will never return.

* * * * JOHN MITFORD.

* * * * *

The names of Byron and Moore are associated for their attainments; they were kindred in their friendship. The last lines, written by lord Byron, on his native soil, were addressed to Mr. Moore:

My boat is on the shore, And my bark is on the sea; But ere I go, TOM MOORE, Here’s a double health to thee.

Here’s a sigh for those I love, And a smile for those I hate, And, whatever sky’s above, Here’s a heart for any fate.

Though the ocean roars around me, It still shall bear me on; Though a desert should surround me It hath springs that may be won.

Were it the last drop in the well, As I gasped on the brink, Ere my fainting spirits fell, ’Tis to thee that I would drink.

In that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour Should be--Peace to thee and thine, And a health to thee, TOM MOORE.

Forbearing to estimate him whom the low and the lofty alike assume to measure, a passage from his own pen may fitly conclude this notice:--