Part 96

On the 19th of August, 1823, Robert Bloomfield died at Shefford, in Bedfordshire, aged 57. He was born at Honington, near Bury, in Suffolk, where he received instruction in reading and writing at a common school, and became a “Farmer’s boy;” which occupation he has related with simplicity and beauty in a poem under that title. He wrote that production when a journeyman shoemaker: under the auspices of the late Mr. Capel Llofft it was ushered into the world; and Bloomfield, unhappily for himself, subsequently experienced the insufficient and withering patronage of ostentatious greatness. His first poem was succeeded by “Rural Tales,” “Good Tidings, or News from the Farm,” “Wild Flowers,” “Banks of the Wye,” and “May-Day with the Muses.” In his retirement at Shefford, he was afflicted with the melancholy consequent upon want of object, and died a victim to hypochondria, with his mind in ruins, leaving his widow and orphans destitute. His few books, poor fellow, instead of being sent to London, where they would have produced their full value, were dissipated by an auctioneer unacquainted with their worth, by order of his creditors, and the family must have perished if a good Samaritan had not interposed to their temporary relief. Mr. Joseph Weston published the “Remains of Robert Bloomfield,” for their benefit, and set on foot a subscription, with the hope of securing something to Mrs. Bloomfield for the exclusive and permanent advantage of herself and her fatherless children. It has been inadequately contributed to, and is not yet closed.

ON THE DEATH OF BLOOMFIELD.

Thou shouldst not to the grave descend Unmourned, unhonoured, or unsung;-- Could harp of mine record thy end, For thee that rude harp should be strung; And plaintive sounds as ever rung Should all its simple notes employ, Lamenting unto old and young The Bard who sang THE FARMER’S BOY.

Could Eastern Anglia boast a lyre Like that which gave thee modest fame, How justly might its every wire Thy minstrel honours loud proclaim: And many a stream of humble name, And village-green, and common wild, Should witness tears that knew not shame, By Nature won for Nature’s child.

It is not quaint and local terms Besprinkled o’er thy rustic lay, Though well such dialect confirms Its power unlettered minds to sway, It is not these that most display Thy sweetest charms, thy gentlest thrall,-- Words, phrases, fashions pass away, But TRUTH and NATURE live through all.

These, these have given thy rustic lyre Its truest and its tenderest spell; These amid Britain’s tuneful choir Shall give thy honoured name to dwell: And when Death’s shadowy curtain fell Upon thy toilsome earthly lot, With grateful joy thy heart might swell To feel that these reproached thee not.

How wise, how noble was thy choice To be the Bard of simple swains,-- In all their pleasures to rejoice, And sooth with sympathy their pains; To paint with feelings in thy strains The themes their thoughts and tongues discuss, And be, though free from classic chains, Our own more chaste Theocritus.

For this should Suffolk proudly own Her grateful and her lasting debt;-- How much more proudly--had she known That pining care, and keen regret,-- Thoughts which the fevered spirits fret, And slow disease,--’twas thine to bear;-- And, ere thy sun of life was set, Had won her Poet’s grateful prayer.--

_Bernard Barton._

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Branched Herb Timothy. _Phleum panniculatum._ Dedicated to _St. Timothy_.

~August 20.~

_St. Bernard_, Abbot, A. D. 1153. _St. Oswin_, King, 6th Cent.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Autumnal Dandelion. _Apargia Autumnalis._ Dedicated to _St. Bernard_.

~August 21.~

_Sts. Bonosus_ and _Maxmilian_, A. D. 363. _St. Jane Frances de Chantal_, A. D. 1641. _St. Richard_, Bp. 12th Cent. _St. Bernard Ptolemy_, Founder of the Olivetans, A. D. 1348.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

French Marigold. _Tagetes patula._ Dedicated to _St. Jane Francis_.

~August 22.~

_St. Hippolytus_, Bp. 3d Cent. _St. Symphorian_, A. D. 178. _St. Timothy_, A. D. 311. _St. Andrew_, Deacon, A. D. 880. _St. Philibert_, Abbot, A. D. 684.

CHRONOLOGY.

On the 22d of August, 1818, Warren Hastings, late governor-general of India, died; he was born in 1733. His government in India, the subject of parliamentary impeachment, which cost the nation above a hundred thousand pounds, and himself more than sixty thousand, is generally admitted to have been conducted with advantage to the interests of the native powers, and the East India company. His translation of Horace’s celebrated ode, beginning, “Otium divos rogat,” &c., is admitted to be superior to all others:--

IMITATION OF HORACE, Book xvi., Ode 2

_On the Passage from Bengal to England._

For ease the harassed seaman prays, When equinoctial tempests raise The Cape’s surrounding wave; When hanging o’er the reef he hears The cracking mast, and sees or fears, Beneath, his watery grave.

For ease the slow _Mahratta_ spoils And hardier _Sic_ erratic toils, While both their ease forego; For ease, which neither gold can buy, Nor robes, nor gems, which oft belie The covered heart, bestow;

For neither gold nor gems combined Can heal the soul, or suffering mind: Lo! where their owner lies; Perched on his couch distemper breathes And care, like smoke, in turbid wreathes Round the gay ceiling flies.

He who enjoys, nor covets more, The lands his father held before, Is of true bliss possessed; Let but his mind unfettered tread, Far as the paths of knowledge lead, And wise as well as blest.

No fears his peace of mind annoy, Lest printed lies his fame destroy, Which laboured years have won; Nor packed committees break his rest, Nor av’rice sends him forth in quest Of climes beneath the sun.

Short is our span; then why engage In schemes, for which man’s transient age Was ne’er by fate designed? Why slight the gifts of nature’s hand? What wanderer from his native land E’er left himself behind?

The restless thought and wayward will, And discontent, attend him still, Nor quit him while he lives; At sea, care follows in the wind; At land, it mounts the pad behind, Or with the postboy drives.

He who would happy live to-day, Must laugh the present ills away, Nor think of woes to come; For come they will, or soon or late, Since mixed at best is man’s estate, By heaven’s eternal doom.

In allusion to his own situation, he wrote the following lines in Mickle’s translation of Camoën’s “Lusiad,” at the end of the speech of Pacheo:--

Yet shrink not, gallant Lusiad, nor repine That man’s eternal destiny is thine; Whene’er success the advent’rous chief befriends, Fell malice on his parting steps attends; On Britain’s candidates for fame await, As now on thee, the hard decrees of fate; Thus are ambition’s fondest hopes o’erreach’d, One dies imprison’d, and one lives impeach’d.

Mr. Seward, who published these lines with a portrait of Mr. Hastings, from a bust by the late Mr. Banks, observes, that his head resembles the head of Aratus, the founder of the Achæan league, in the Ludovísi gardens at Rome.

ANOTHER LIVING SKELETON.

The “Dramatist” of the present day, “stop him who can,” ever on the alert for novelty, has seized on the “Living Skeleton.” Poor Seurat is “as well as can be expected;” but it appears, from a “Notice” handed about the streets, that he has a rival in a _British_ “Living Skeleton.” This “Notice,” printed by W. Glindon, Newport-street, Haymarket, and signed “Thomas Feelwell, 104, High Holborn,” states, that a “humane individual, in justice to his own feelings and those of a sensitive public,” considers it necessary to “expose the _resources_” by which the proprietors of the “Coburg Theatre” have produced “a rival to the Pall-Mall object.” One part of his undertaking, the “resources,” honest “Thomas Feelwell” leaves untouched, but he tells the following curious story:--

“A young man of extraordinary leanness, was, for some days, observed shuffling about the Waterloo-road, reclining against the posts and walls, apparently from excessive weakness, and earnestly gazing through the windows of the eating houses in the neighbourhood, for hours together. One of the managers of the Coburg theatre, accidentally meeting him, and being struck with his attenuated appearance, instantly seized him by the bone of his arm, and, leading him into the saloon of the theatre, made proposals that he should be produced on the stage as a source of attraction and delight for a British audience; at the same time stipulating that he should contrive to exist upon but half a meal a day--that he should be constantly attended by a constable, to prevent his purchasing any other sustenance, and be allowed no pocket-money, till the expiration of his engagement--that he should be nightly buried between a dozen heavy blankets, to prevent his growing lusty, and to reduce him to the lightness of a gossamer, in order that the gasping breath of the astonished audience might so _agitate_ his frame, that he might be _tremblingly_ alive to their admiration.”

If this narrative be true, the situation of the “young man of extraordinary leanness” is to be pitied. The _new_ living skeleton may have acceded to the manager’s terms of “half a meal” a day on the truth of the old saying, that “half a loaf is better than no bread,” and it is clearly the manager’s interest to keep him alive as long as he will “run;” yet, if the “poor creature” is nightly buried between a dozen heavy blankets “to reduce him to the lightness of a gossamer,” he may outdo the manager’s hopes, and “run” out of the world. Seriously, if this be so, it ought not so to be. The “dozen heavy blankets to prevent his growing lusty” might have been spared; for a man with “half a meal a day” can hardly be expected to arrive at that obesity which destroyed a performer formerly, who played the starved apothecary in Romeo and Juliet till he got fat, and was only reduced to the wonted “extraordinary leanness” which qualified him for the character, by being struck off the pay-list. The condition of the poor man should be an object of public inquiry as well as public curiosity.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Herb Timothy. _Phleum pratense._ Dedicated to _St. Timothy_.

~August 23.~

_St. Philip Beniti_, A. D. 1285. _Sts. Claudius_, _Asterius_, _Neon_, _Domnina_, and _Theonilla_, A. D. 285. _St. Apollinaris Sidonius_, Bp. of Clermont, A. D. 482. _St. Theonas_, Abp. of Alexandria, A. D. 300. _St. Eugenius_, Bp. in Ireland, A. D. 618. _St. Justinian_, Hermit, A. D. 529.

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Tanzey. _Tanacetum vulgare._ Dedicated to _St. Philip Beniti_.

~August 24.~

_St. Bartholomew_, Apostle. _The Martyrs of Utica_, A. D. 258. _St. Ouen_, or _Audoen_, Abp. A. D. 683. _St. Irchard_, or _Erthad_, Bp.

_St. Bartholomew the Apostle._

Mr. Audley says, “There is no scriptural account of his birth, labour, or death. It is commonly said, he preached in the Indies, and was flayed alive by order of Astyages, brother to Palemon, king of Armenia. I have heard this day called black Bartholomew. The reason, I suppose, for this appellation is, on account of the two thousand ministers who were ejected on this day, by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662. As it respects France, there is a shocking propriety in the epithet, for the horrid Massacre of the Protestants commenced on this day, in the reign of Charles IX. In Paris only, ten thousand were butchered in a fortnight, and ninety thousand in the provinces, making, together, one hundred thousand. This, at least, is the calculation of Perefixe, tutor to Louis XIV. and archbishop of Paris: others reduce the number much lower.”[264]

The “Perennial Calendar” quotes, that--“In that savage scene, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, planned with all the coolness of deliberation, five hundred gentlemen, protestants, and ten thousand persons of inferior rank were massacred in one night at Paris alone, and great numbers in the provinces. The Roman pontiff, on hearing of it, expressed great joy, announcing that the cardinals should return thanks to the Almighty for so signal an advantage obtained for the holy see, and that a jubilee should be observed all over Christendom.” Dr. Forster adds, that “nothing like this scene occurred till the bloody and terrible times of the French Revolution. It is shocking to reflect that persons professing a religion which says, ‘Love your enemies, do good to them that despitefully use you,’ should persecute and slay those whose only offence is difference of opinion. ‘The Quakers and Moravians seem to be almost the only Christian sects of any note and character whose annals are unstained by the blood of their fellow-creatures, and who have not resorted to persecution in defence and promulgation of their particular doctrines. Must we, therefore, not judge a good tree from this distinguished good fruit?’”

* * * * *

It was an ancient custom at Croyland Abbey, until the time of Edward IV. to give little knives to all comers on St. Bartholomew’s day, in allusion to the knife wherewith Bartholomew was flead. Many of these knives of various sizes have been found in the ruins of the abbey, and the river. A coat borne by the religious fraternity of the abbey, quarters three of them, with three whips of St. Guthlac, a scourge celebrated for the virtue of its flagellations. These are engraved by Mr. Gough in his history of Croyland Abbey, from drawings in the minute books of the Spalding Society, in whose drawers, he says, one was preserved, and these form a device in a town piece called the “Poore’s Halfepeny of Croyland, 1670.”

_St. Ouen._

He was in great credit with king Clotaire II. and his successor Dagobert I. of France, who made him keeper of his seal and chancellor, and he became archbishop of Rouen, in Normandy. Butler refers to a long history of miracles performed by the intercession and relics of St. Ouen. The shrine of this saint, at Rouen, had a privilege which was very enviable; it could once in a year procure the pardon of one criminal condemned to death in the prisons of that city: the criminal touched it, and pardon was immediate.

In all civilized countries justice has been tempered with mercy; and, where the life could not be spared, the pain of the punishment has been mitigated. Wine mingled with myrrh was known amongst the Jews for this purpose, and was offered to the Saviour of mankind by the very persons who hurried him on to his painful and ignominious death. In many cities of Italy a condemned criminal is visited by the first nobility the night before his execution, and supplied with every dainty in meat and in drink that he can desire; and some years ago, in the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, wine mixed with spices was presented to the poor condemned wretches in that part of their progress from Newgate to Tyburn.[265]

* * * * *

FLORAL DIRECTORY.

Sunflower. _Helianthus Annuus._ Dedicated to _St. Bartholomew_.

[264] Companion to the Almanac.

[265] European Magazine, 1798.

~August 25.~

_St. Lewis_, king of France, A. D. 1270, _St. Gregory_, Administrator of the diocese of Utrecht, A. D. 776. _St. Ebba_, in English, _St. Tabbs_, A. D. 683.

PRINTERS.

An exact old writer[266] says of printers at this season of the year, that “It is customary for all journeymen to make every year, new paper windows about _Bartholomew-tide_, at which time the master printer makes them a feast called a _way-goose_, to which is invited the corrector, founder, smith, ink-maker, &c. who all open their purses and give to the workmen to spend in the tavern or ale-house after the feast. From which time they begin to work by candle light.”

_Paper windows_ are no more: a well regulated printing-office is as well glazed and as light as a dwelling-house. It is curious however to note, that it appears the windows of an office were formerly papered; probably in the same way that we see them in some carpenters’ workshops with oiled paper. The _way-goose_, however, is still maintained, and these feasts of London printing-houses are usually held at some tavern in the environs.

In “The Doome warning all men to the Judgment, by Stephen Batman, 1581,” a ~black letter~ quarto volume, it is set down among “the straunge prodigies hapned in the worlde, with divers figures of revelations tending to mannes stayed conversion towardes God,” whereof the work is composed, that in 1450, “The noble science of printing was aboute thys time founde in Germany at Magunce, (a famous citie in Germanie called Ments,) by Cuthembergers, a knight, or rather John Faustus, as sayeth doctor Cooper, in his Chronicle; one Conradus, an Almaine broughte it into Rome, William Caxton of London, mercer, broughte it into England, about 1471; in Henrie the sixth, the seaven and thirtieth of his raign, in Westminster was the first printing.” John Guttemberg, sen. is affirmed to have produced the first printed book, in 1442, although John Guttemberg, jun. is the commonly reputed inventor of the art. John Faust, or Fust, was its promoter, and Peter Schoeffer its improver. It started to perfection almost with its invention; yet, although the labours of the old printer have never been outrivalled, their presses have; for the information and amusement of some readers, a sketch is subjoined of one from a wood-cut in Batman’s book.

In this old print we see the compositor _seated_ at his work, the reader engaged with his copy or proof, and the pressmen at their labours. It exhibits the form of the early press better, perhaps, than any other engraving that has been produced for that purpose; and it is to be noted, as a “custom of the _chapel_,” that papers are stuck on it, as we still see practised by modern pressmen. Note, too, the ample flagon, a vessel doubtless in use _ad libitum_, by that beer-drinking people with whom printing originated, and therefore not forgotten in their printing-houses; it is wisely restricted here, by the interest of employers, and the growing sense of propriety in press-men, who are becoming as respectable and intelligent a class of “operatives” as they were, within recollection, degraded and sottish.

_The Chapel._

“Every printing-house,” says Randle Holme, “is termed a chappel.” Mr. John M‘Creery in one of the notes to “The Press,” an elegant poem, of which he is the author, and which he beautifully printed, with elaborate engravings on wood, as a specimen of his typography, says, that “The title of _chapel_ to the internal regulations of a printing-house originated in Caxton’s exercising the profession in one of the chapels in Westminster Abbey; and may be considered as an additional proof, from the antiquity of the custom, of his being the first English printer. In extensive houses, where many workmen are employed, the _calling a chapel_ is a business of great importance, and generally takes place when a member of the office has a complaint to allege against any of his fellow workmen; the first intimation of which he makes to the _father of the chapel_, usually the oldest printer in the house: who, should he conceive that the charge can be substantiated, and the injury, supposed to have been received, is of such magnitude as to call for the interference of the law, summonses the members of _the chapel_ before him at the _imposing stone_, and there receives the allegation and the defence, in solemn assembly, and dispenses justice with typographical rigour and impartiality. These trials, though they are sources of neglect of business and other irregularities, often afford scenes of genuine humour. The punishment generally consists in the criminal providing a libation by, which the offending workmen may wash away the stain that his misconduct has laid upon the body at large. Should the plaintiff not be able to substantiate his charge, the fine then falls upon himself for having maliciously arraigned his companion; a mode of practice which is marked with the features of sound policy, as it never loses sight of _the good of the chapel_.”

Returning to Randle Holme once more, we find the “_good of the chappel_” consists of “forfeitures and other chappel dues, collected for the good of the chappel, viz. to be spent as the chappel approves.” This indefatigable and accurate collector and describer of every thing he could lay his hands on and press into heraldry, has happily preserved the ancient rules of government instituted by the worshipful fraternity of printers. This book is very rare, and this perhaps may have been the reason that the following document essentially connected with the history of printing, has never appeared in one of the many works so entitled.

_Customs of the Chappel._

Every printing-house is called a _chappel_, in which there are these laws and customs, for the well and good government of the chappel, and for the orderly deportment of all its members while in the chappel.

Every workman belonging to it are _members of the chappel_, and the eldest freeman is _father of the chappel_; and the penalty for the breach of any law or custom is in printers’ language called a _solace_.

1. Swearing in the chappel, a solace.

2. Fighting in the chappel, a solace.

3. Abusive language, or giving the lie in the chappel, a solace.

4. To be drunk in the chappel, a solace.

5. For any of the workmen to leave his candle burning at night, a solace.

6. If a compositor fall his composing stick and another take it up, a solace.

7. For three letters and a space to lie under the compositor’s case, a solace.

8. If a pressman let fall his ball or balls, and another take them up, a solace.

9. If a pressman leave his blankets in the timpan at noon or night, a solace.

10. For any workman to mention joyning their penny or more a piece to send for drink, a solace.

11. To mention spending chappel money till Saturday night, or any other before agreed time, a solace.

12. To play at quadrats, or excite others in the chappel to play for money or drink, a solace.

13. A stranger to come to the king’s printing-house, and ask for a ballad, a solace.

14. For a stranger to come to a compositor and inquire if he had news of such a galley at sea, a solace.

15. For any to bring a wisp of hay directed to a pressman, is a solace.

16. To call mettle lead in a founding-house, is a forfeiture.

17. A workman to let fall his mould, a forfeiture.

18. A workman to leave his ladle in the mettle at noon, or at night, a forfeiture.

And the judges of these solaces, or forfeitures, and other controversies in the chappel, or any of its members, was by plurality of votes in the chappel; it being asserted as a maxime, that the chappel cannot err. Now these solaces, or fines, were to be bought off for the good of the chappel, which never exceeded 1_s._, 6_d._, 4_d._, 2_d._, 1_d._, ob., according to the nature and quality thereof.

But if the delinquent proved obstinate and will not pay, the workmen takes him by force, and lays him on his belly, over the correcting stone, and holds him there whilest another with a paper board gives him 10_l._ in a purse, viz., eleven blows on his buttocks, which he lays on according to his own mercy.

_Customs for Payments of Money._