Part 69
Besides Jenyns’s suppositions, allow me to notice the crimping of fish, the skinning of eels alive, the whipping of pigs to death, to make them tender, the boiling of live crabs, having first put them in cold water to make them lively; together with the preference given to hunted hares, on account of their delicacy of muscles, softened by worry and exertion. These are but too common instances of a barbarous taste.
At this season of enjoyment and leisure, when we derive pleasure from contemplating the beautiful forms and appearances of nature, and are grateful for annual abundance, let us reflect on the criminal heedlessness wherewith we allow our appetites and pleasures to be indulged, by needless sufferings in the animals we subdue to our wants and whims. While we endeavour to inculcate kindness in our children towards one another, let us teach them kindness to the meanest of created beings. I know that the _Every-Day Book_ widely circulates in families; the humane sentiments that pervade it, must therefore have considerable influence, and for this reason I select it as a channel for conveying a humane suggestion.
I am, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
J. B.
THE SEASON.
_To the Editor of the Every-Day Book._
Sir,
The perusal of your remarks on the season and the winds, in the _Every-Day Book_, page 707, reminded me of some lines I wrote at Ramsgate. If you know Wellington-crescent, where they were composed, you know a very pretty place, for either summer or winter residence.
I am, Sir, &c.
_June_ 6, 1825.
J. S.
THE EAST WIND.
A summer sun in brightness glows, But, ah! the blighting east wind blows, And weighs the spirit down! All smiling is th’ enlivening ray, That tips with silvery tinge the spray, O’er ocean’s bosom thrown!
Yet, all inviting though it seems, And tempts one forth to court its beams I tremblingly retire: For I am one who hate and dread That eastern blast, and oft have fled Its pestilences dire!
But the young shoots that round me rise And make me old,--(though still unwise) Feel no such fear as I Brimful of joy they venture forth Wind blowing west, south, east, or north, If cloudless be the sky!
They tripping lightly o’er the path, To them yet free from grief or scath, Press on--and onward still, With brow unwrinkled yet by care, With spirit buoyant as the air-- They breathe at freedom’s will.
Where shipwreck’d seamen oft deplore The loss of all their scanty store, They rove at ebb of tide In quest of shells, or various weed, That, from the bed of ocean freed, Their anxious search abide.
Proud and elated with their prize, (All eagerness with sparkling eyes,) The treasures home are brought To me, who plunged in gloom the while. At home have watch’d the sea bird’s guile:-- Or, in a sea of thought,
Have sent _my spirit_ forth to find Fit food for an immortal mind, Else of itself the prey! And in th’ abstraction of that mood. Full oft I’ve realized the good, We boast not every day.
Sometimes tho’, with a courage bold, As ever faced the arctic’s cold, I pace the Colonnade;[173] And then am soon compelled to beat, And seek a cowardly retreat, Within the parlour’s shade!
Sometimes the place,[174] warm shelter’d close, Where Sharwood’s decorated house, From roof to step all flowers, Shines forth as Flora’s temple, where Dominion falls to sea and air;-- _Napoleonic powers_!
There, snugly shelter’d from the blast, My eyes right pensively I cast Where famed sir Williams’s bark Lies moor’d, awaiting the time when That Noah of citizens again Shall venture on such ark!
But, ah! still round the corner creeps, That treach’rous wind! and still it sweeps Too clean the path I tread: Arm’d as with numerous needle points, Its painful searchings pierce my joints, And then capsize my head!
So home again full trot I speed, As, after wound, the warrior’s steed; And sit me down, and sigh O’er the hard-hearted fate of those Who feel like me these east-wind woes That brain and marrow try!
Again upon the sea I look, Of nature that exhaustless book With endless wonder fraught:-- How oft upon that sea I’ve gazed, Whose world of waters has amazed Man--social or untaught.
And, spite of all that some may say, _It is_ the place from day to day, Whereon the soul can dwell! _My_ soul enkindles at the sight Of such accumulated might; And loves such grandeur well!
J. S.
[173] Wellington-crescent.
[174] Albion-place.
~June 17.~
_Sts. Nicandeo_ and _Marcian_, about A. D. 303. _St. Botulph_, Abbot, A. D. 655. _St. Avitus_, or _Avy_, A. D. 530. _St. Molingus_, or _Dairchilla_, Bp. A. D. 697. _St. Prior_, Hermit, 4th Cent.
_St. Alban._
This saint, the proto-martyr of Britain, is in the church of England calendar and almanacs on this day, but he stands in the Romish calendar, on the 22d of the month.
St. Alban was born at Verulam, in Hertfordshire, in the third century, and went to Rome, where he served seven years as a soldier under Dioclesian. He afterwards returned to England, became a Christian, and suffered martyrdom in 303, during the dreadful persecution raised by Dioclesian. Several miracles are said by Bede to have been wrought at his martyrdom.[175]
The fame of Alban, recorded as it was by Bede, made a deep impression on the minds of the superstitious. “The Ecclesiastical History” of that author, was published in 731; and in the year 795, Offa, king of the Mercians, built a monastery to the honour of Alban, on the place where he had suffered, then called by the Anglo-Saxons, Holmhurst, but since, in honour of the martyr, named St. Alban’s. The town built near the abbey still retains the latter appellation; and the abbey-church is even yet in existence, having, at the suppression of the monasteries by Henry the Eighth, been purchased by a rich clothier of the name of Stump, for 400_l._, and converted by him into a parochial church, for the use of the inhabitants. In the year 1257, some workmen repairing this ancient church, found the remains of some sheets of lead, containing relics, with a thick plate of lead over them, upon which was cut the following inscription:--
“In hoc Mausoleo inventum est Venerabile corpus SANCTI ALBANI, _Proto_ _Martyris Anglorum_.”[176]
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Monkey Flower. _Mimulus luteus._ Dedicated to _St. Nicandeo_.
[175] Audley.
[176] Brady’s Clavis.
~June 18.~
_Sts. Marcus_ and _Marcellianus_, A. D. 286. _St. Marina_, 8th. Cent. _St. Elizabeth_ of Sconage, Abbess, A. D. 1165. _St. Amand_, Bp. of Bourdeaux.
CHRONOLOGY.
1815. The battle of Waterloo, which terminated the personal power of Napoleon, was fought on this day.
BATTLE OF WATERLOO
There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men. A thousand hearts beat happily; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again, And all went merry as a marriage-bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it?--No; ’twas but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street; On with the dance! let joy be unconfined; No sleep till morn, when youth and pleasure meet To chase the glowing hours with flying fleet-- But, hark!--that heavy sound breaks in once more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; And nearer, nearer, deadlier than before. Arm! arm! it is!--it is--the cannon’s opening roar!
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro, And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress, And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness; And there were sudden partings, such as press The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs Which ne’er might be repeated: who could guess If ever more should meet those mutual eyes, Since upon nights so sweet such awful morn could rise?
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed, The mustering squadron, and the clattering car, Went pouring forward with impetuous speed, And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused by the soldier ere the morning star; While thronged the citizens with terror dumb, Or whispering, with white lips--“The foe! they come! they come!”
And wild, and high, the “Cameron’s gathering rose!” The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes: How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills, Savage and shrill! but with the breath which fills Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers With the fierce native daring which instils The stirring memory of a thousand years, And Evan’s, Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears.
And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves, Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass, Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves, Over the unreturning brave,--alas! Ere evening to be trodden like the grass Which now beneath them, but above shall grow In its next verdure, when this fiery mass Of living valour, rolling on the foe And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay; The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, The morn the marshalling in arms,--the day Battle’s magnificently-stern array! The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, Rider and horse,--friend,--foe,--in one red burial blent!
_Byron._
On the 18th of June, 1817, the Strand-bridge, a noble structure, erected at the expense of private individuals, was opened for the public accommodation, under the denomination of Waterloo-bridge, with military and other ceremonies.
These poor “Buy-a-Broom” girls exactly dress now, As Hollar etch’d such girls two cent’ries ago; All formal and stiff, with legs, only, at ease-- Yet, pray, judge for yourself; and don’t, if you please, Like Matthews’s “Chyle,” in his Monolo-Play, Cry “_The Ev’ry-Day Book_ is quite _right_, I dare say;” But ask for the print, at old print shops, (they’ll show it,) And look at it, “with your own eyes,” and you’ll “_know_ it.”
*
These girls are Flemings. They come to England from the Netherlands in the spring, and take their departure with the summer. They have only one low, shrill, twittering note, “Buy a broom?” sometimes varying into the singular plural, “Buy a broom_s_?” It is a domestic cry; two or three go together, and utter it in company with each other; not in concert, nor to a neighbourhood, and scarcely louder than will attract the notice of an inmate seen at a parlour window, or an open street-door, or a lady or two passing in the street. Their hair is tightened up in front, and at the sides, and behind, and the ends brought together, and so secured, or skewered, at the top of the head, as if it were constricted by a tourniquet: the little close cap, not larger than an infant’s, seems to be put on and tied down by strings fastened beneath the chin, merely as a concealment of the machinery. Without a single inflexion of the body, and for any thing that appears to the contrary, it may be incased in tin. From the waist, the form abruptly and boldly bows out like a large beehive, or an arch of carpentry, built downward from above the hips, for the purpose of opening and distending the enormous petticoat into numerous plaits and folds, and thereby allowing the legs to walk without incumbrance. Their figures are exactly miniatured in an unpainted penny doll of turnery ware, made all round, before and behind, and sold in the toyshops for the amusement of infancy.
These Flemish girls are of low stature, with features as formal and old fashioned as their dress. Their gait and manner answer to both. They carry their brooms, not under the left arm, but upon it, as they would children, upright between the arm and the side, with the heads in front of the shoulder. One, and one only, of the brooms is invariably held in the right hand, and this is elevated with the sharp cry “Buy a broom?” or “Buy a brooms?” to any one likely to become a purchaser, till it is either bought or wholly declined. The sale of their brooms is the sole purpose for which they cross the seas to us; and they suffer nothing to divert them from their avocation. A broom girl’s countenance, so wearisomely indicates unwearied attention to the “main chance,” and is so inflexibly solemn, that you doubt whether she ever did or can smile; yet when she does, you are astonished that she does not always: her face does not relax by degrees, but breaks suddenly into an arch laugh. This appearance may be extorted by a joke, while driving a bargain, but not afterwards: she assumes it, perhaps, as a sort of “turn” to hasten the “business transaction;” for when that is concluded, the intercourse ends immediately. Neither lingering nor loitering, they keep constantly walking on, and looking out for customers. They seldom speak to each other; nor when their brooms are disposed of, do they stop and rejoice upon it as an end to their labours; but go homewards reflectively, with the hand every now and then dipping into the pocket of the huge petticoat, and remaining there for a while, as if counting the receipts of the day while they walk, and reckoning what the before accumulated riches will total to, with the new addition. They seem influenced by this admonition, “get all you can, and keep all you get.”
Rather late in an autumn afternoon, in Battersea-fields, I saw one of these girls by herself; she was seated, with her brooms on her lap, in a bit of scenery, which, from Weirotter’s etchings and other prints, I have always fancied resembled a view in the Low Countries: it is an old windmill, near the “Red-house,” with some low buildings among willows, on the bank of the Thames, thrown up to keep the river from overflowing a marshy flat. To my imagination, she was fixed to that spot in a reverie on her “vader-land.[177]” She gazed on the strait line of stunted trees, as if it were the line of beauty; and from the motion of her lips, and the enthusiasm of her look, I deemed she was reciting a passage from a poet of her native country. Elevation of feeling, in one of these poor girls, was hardly to be looked for; and yet I know not why I should have excluded it, as not appertaining to their character, except from their seeming intentness on thrift alone. They are cleanly, frugal, and no wasters of time; and that they are capable of sentiment, I state on the authority of my imagining concerning this poor girl; whereon, too, I pledge myself not to have been mistaken, for the language of the heart is universal--and hers discoursed to mine; though from the situation wherein I stood, she saw me not. I was not, nor could I be, in love with _her_--I was in love with human nature.
The “brooms” are one entire piece of wood; the sweeping part being slivered from the handle, and the shavings neatly turned over and bound round into the form of a besom. They are bought to dust curtains and hangings with; but good housewives have another use for them; one of them dipt in fair water, sprinkles the dried clothes in the laundry, for the process of ironing, infinitely better than the hand; it distributes the water more equally and more quickly.
“_Buy a Broom?!!_”
There is a print with this inscription. It is a caricature representation of Mr. Brougham, with his barrister’s wig, in the dress of a broom girl, and for its likeness of that gentleman, and the play on his name, it is amazingly popular; especially since he contended for a man’s right to his own personal appearance, in the case of _Abernethy_ v. _The Lancet_, before the chancellor. Mr. Brougham’s good-humoured allusion to his own countenance, was taken by the auditors in court, to relate particularly to his portrait in this print, called “_Buy a Broom?_” It is certainly as good as “The _Great Bell_ of Lincoln’s-inn,” and two or three other prints of gentlemen eminent at the chancery-bar, sketched and etched, apparently, by the same happy hand at a thorough likeness.
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
Horned Poppy. _Chelidonium glaucum._ Dedicated to _St. Marina_.
[177] _Vader-land_, a word signifying country, but infinitely more expressive; it was first adopted by Lord Byron into our language; he englishes it “Fatherland.”
~June 19.~
_Sts. Gervasius_ and _Protasius_. _St. Boniface_, Abp., Apostle of Russia, A. D. 1009. _St. Juliana Falconieri_, A. D. 1340. _St. Die_, or _Deodatus_, Bp. A. D. 679 or 680.
CHRONOLOGY.
1215. Magna Charta was signed, on compulsion, by king John, at Runnymead, near Windsor.
1820. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the royal society, died, aged 77.
_The Summer Midnight._
The breeze of night has sunk to rest, Upon the river’s tranquil breast, And every bird has sought her nest, Where silent is her minstrelsy; The queen of heaven is sailing high, A pale bark on the azure sky, Where not a breath is heard to sigh-- So deep the soft tranquillity.
Forgotten now the heat of day That on the burning waters lay, The noon of night her mantle gray, Spreads, from the sun’s high blazonry; But glittering in that gentle night There gleams a line of silvery light, As tremulous on the shores of white It hovers sweet and playfully.
At peace the distant shallop rides; Not as when dashing o’er her sides The roaring bay’s unruly tides Were beating round her gloriously; But every sail is furl’d and still, Silent the seaman’s whistle shrill, While dreamy slumbers seem to thrill With parted hours of ecstacy.
Stars of the many spangled heaven! Faintly this night your beams are given, Tho’ proudly where your hosts are driven Ye rear your dazzling galaxy; Since far and wide a softer hue Is spread across the plains of blue, Where in bright chorus ever true For ever swells your harmony.
O! for some sadly dying note Upon this silent hour to float, Where from the bustling world remote, The lyre might wake its melody; One feeble strain is all can swell From mine almost deserted shell, In mournful accents yet to tell That slumbers not its minstrelsy.
_There is an hour_ of deep repose That yet upon my heart shall close, When all that nature dreads and knows Shall burst upon me wond’rously; O may, I then awake for ever My harp to rapture’s high endeavour, And as from earth’s vain scene I sever, Be lost in Immortality!
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FLORAL DIRECTORY.
La Julienne de Nuit. _Hesperis tristis._ Dedicated to _St. Juliana_.
~June 20.~
_St. Silverius_, Pope, A. D. 538. _St. Gobian_, Priest and Martyr, about 656. _St. Idaburga_, or _Edburge_. _St. Bain_, Bp. of Terouanne (now St. Omer,) and Abbot, about A. D. 711.
_Translation of Edward._
This day is so distinguished in the church of England calendar. Edward was the king of the West Saxons, murdered by order of Elfrida. He had not only an anniversary on the 18th of March, in commemoration of his sufferings, or rather of the silly and absurd miracles alleged to have been wrought at his tomb; but he was even honoured by our weak forefathers with another festival on the 20th of June, in each year, in remembrance of the removal, or _translation_, as it is termed, of his relics at Wareham, where they were inhumed, to the minster at Salisbury, three years after his decease.
It is observed by Mr. Brady, on the _translation_ of St. Edward, as follows:--
“At the period this solemn act of absurd pomp took place, all Europe was plunged in a state of profound ignorance and mental darkness; no marvel, therefore, that great importance should have been attached to such superstitious usage; but for what reason our reformers chose to keep up a recollection of that folly, cannot readily be ascertained.
“Of the origin of translations of this kind, much has been written; and if we are to credit the assertions of those monkish writers, whose works are yet found in catholic countries, though they have themselves long passed to the silent tomb, we must believe not only that they had their source from a principle of devotion, but that peculiar advantages accrued to those who encouraged their increase. In the year 359, the emperor Constantius, out of a presumed and, perhaps, not inconsistent respect, caused the remains of St. Andrew and St. Luke to be removed from their ancient place of interment to the temple of the twelve apostles, at Constantinople; and from that example, the practice of searching for the bodies of saints and martyrs increased so rapidly, that in the year 386, we find almost the whole of the devotees engaged in that pursuit. Relics, of course, speedily became of considerable value; and as they were all alleged to possess peculiar virtues, no expense or labour were spared to provide such treasures for every public religious foundation. Hence translations innumerable took place of the decayed members of persons reputed saints; and where the entire bodies could not be collected, the pious contented themselves with possessing such parts alone as ‘Providence chose to bless them with.’ Without these sacred relics, no establishments could expect to thrive; and so provident had the persons been who laboured in their collection, that not a single religious house but could produce one or more of those invaluable remains; though, unless we are to believe that most relics, like the holy cross itself, possessed the power of self-augmentation, we must either admit, that some of our circumspect forefathers were imposed upon, or that St. John the Baptist had more heads than that of which he was so cruelly deprived, as well as several of their favourite saints having each kindly afforded them two or three skeletons of their precious bodies; circumstances that frequently occurred, ‘because,’ says Father John Ferand, of Anecy, ‘God was pleased so to multiply and re-produce them, for the devotion of the faithful!’
“Of the number of these relics that have been preserved, it is useless to attempt a description, nor, indeed, could they be detailed in many volumes; yet it may gratify curiosity to afford some brief account of such as, in addition to the heads of St. John the Baptist, were held in the greatest repute, were it for no other reason than to show how the ignorance and credulity of the commonalty have, in former ages, been imposed upon, viz.:--
“A finger of St. Andrew;
“A finger of St. John the Baptist;
“The thumb of St. Thomas;
“A tooth of our Lord;
“A rib of our Lord, or, as it is profanely styled, of the _Verbum caro factum_, the word made flesh;
“The hem of our Lord’s garment, which cured the diseased woman;
“The seamless coat of our Lord;